Cocktales

Cocktales

 

The Bangkok Sling

2 parts Necessity

1 part Unsure Approach Tactic

1 part Jet Lag

A dash of Age Related Social Anxiety  

I go for a two-seater, somewhere near the edge, placing my bag on my lap. I scan the room with a forced nonchalance.  Everyone else is sitting with someone but that’s to be expected. I’ll have that soon enough.  

I get my book out, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It contrasts magnificently with my surroundings and also acts as a friendly reminder that some people will slit your throat for absolutely no reason. It’s nice to keep that in mind, when travelling alone.  

I take a sip of my Chang and tuck into my Pad Thai, taking in the cultural sights of Koh San Road – the ping pong shows, the beer towers, the sweaty tourists and the tuktuk drivers that will fleece you without a second thought. Just yesterday I saw a mystic man spit into a girl’s mouth. ‘Healing’ he called it, she didn’t seem to agree.  

I lay down my chopsticks and wonder if I have any bean sprouts stuck in my teeth. I light a cigarette, at a pound a pack it’d be rude not to, and let my eyes roam. Those three look alright but they look a bit German, I don’t want to embarrass myself with a language barrier, I keep looking.  

Right, there’s two there. They look nice, and they’re laughing.  And they look English, a bit Essex in fact. Nice teeth, apparent low inebriation level, high approachability, they’re a definite maybe. I finish my drink and head to the bar, skirting perilously close to them to see if they speak English.  

It’s a yes.  

Drink in hand, on the way back from my recon fly-by, I look at their shoes. Shoes are very important, they tell a lot about a person. Let’s see, flip flops and those weird fabric shoes that seem to be in fashion. It’ll do. At least they’re not wearing Crocs. 

Ok, now for the approach. If one of them smoked then I could just ask for a light, the perfect, text book ice breaker.

But no. Healthy bastards.  

I remind myself how I need to meet friends and construct a solid mental image of myself, reading alone in my hotel room. I can only carry so many books. As I mentally count down, I do a final bean sprout check and wipe the sweat off my top lip. 

Three, two, one.

Go.

Serve over ice in a highball, best garnished with a Marlboro Light.

 

 

The Vietnamese Bus Bomb 

2 parts Ridiculously Long Journey

1 part Suspected Dysentery

1 part Reduced Melanin

A splash of Ill-Advised Hareem Trousers 

I climb back into my bed, tucking my newly stamped passport into my money belt. I can’t stretch out of course, anyone over 5’8 is viewed as a giant round here.  We all have our crosses to bear. Mine is an energetic local woman who keeps flicking my face with her hair when she leans over me to adjust the curtain with her umbrella. Something she likes to do a lot. We’ve been on this bus for sixteen hours already, imodium-ed up the eyeballs and rapidly losing patience. 

We’re all pushed into a corner of course, the foreigners. The one nearest to the toilet and furthest away from the fire exits. I was woken up last night by a mouse crawling in my hair, no doubt trying to get at my curry-crab flavoured crisps. As I tried to get back to sleep I watched a large cockroach sauntering across the head rest in front, it paused to pose, silhouetted heroically in the moonlight.  

Suddenly, from the front of the bus comes a commotion. The driver is heading straight for us, ‘the white corner’, gesticulating insanely and pointing at each of us in turn. We look blankly at each other, and then at him. He gets louder. Other passengers around us begin pointing at us, then the border, then at us. It makes no sense.  

He starts pulling us from our seats. We climb down, file out of the bus and stand there in the dust. Then, with no warning, the door closes and he drives off. All of about twenty metres over the border. Then, he opens the door, pokes his head out and starts screaming back at us, motioning for us to get back on and cursing us in Vietnamese for jogging too slow. We get back on the bus and squeeze back into our seats.  

The bus drives on.

Serve in a martini glass with a slice of lemon and a selection of brand-name Loperamide.

 
 

The Skinny Dipper

3 parts Banana Leaves and Tamarind

2 parts Dutch Courage

Top off with Drunken Camaraderie 

I don’t know quite how it happened, but I remember that I was definitely naked. Definitely naked in a group of naked people, in a river, somewhere in the Thai jungle. And there was massaging going on, I remember massaging. 

There are chickens underneath the hut, I can hear them squabbling and scratching in the dirt. The morning light sticks its pudgy hands in between the slats, pawing at my eyelids and shoving its fingers up my nose. 

Oh God.  

It must’ve have been that stuff we were smoking. ‘Banana leaves and tamarind’ the villager told me. Banana leaves and tamarind, my arse. I look through the open doorway (there is no door) down to the river. I can see our guide down there, talking to the villager and his wife. They’re laughing. Probably about us. 

I try to piece it together. Everything was normal up until that point, ‘banana point’. We had completed the second day of the hike, had a refreshing swim in the river and eaten a sumptuous meal of rice and mayonnaise. We were getting to know our hike-mates – the hot French girl, the German loner, the weird Belgian doctor and his wife and the rest of them.  

It had all gone so wrong.  

I reach for my suitably ethnic, tie dyed handbag and fumble for my camera. The start-up tune slides drawing pins into my pitifully dehydrated brain. I flick through the pictures. Oh yes, here they are, nestled tumour-like after photos of elephants and waterfalls.

Skinny-dipping; I never learn.

Serve Clothed. 

 

The Vang Vienger

1 whole Cunty Gary

2 parts Alcohol Induced Lust

1 part Aphrodisia

A splash of Regret 

After walking for about an hour we eventually find the hospital, nowhere near where we were directed by the last two people we asked. There are plastic garden chairs lined up outside, full of women fanning themselves in the heat, a baby attached to a descending nipple. They stare openly as we pass.  

We mount the steps by the main entrance and kick off our flip flops, pausing to read the signs in broken-English.  

We head towards the pharmacy. 

 “Fucking cunty Gary and his cunty mate. He wasn’t even any fucking good.”

We walk through ward after ward. I’m limping from when I fell through the floor of the bar a few a days ago, the A4 sized bruise hidden under my ever-faithful hareem trousers. We find the pharmacy and approach the window, trying to keep our voices down.  

“I had unprotected sex last night,” whispers my companion, “and I need the pill.” 

We are met with puzzled faces. The nurses here are used to seeing Westerners with injuries, normally broken arms and slashed faces from tubing escapades, with the odd alcohol poisoning and drug-induced stupor thrown in for good measure. They look us up and down.  

She’s floundering. I take over. I point at her.

“No condom,” I say. 

More nurses come to join the confusion. They converse in Lao as I hold my hands under my ribs, and then push them out, imaging an air pregnancy.

More muttering. 

I cross my arms as if cradling a baby. “No baby,” I say. 

A crowd is gathering. It’s getting desperate.

Time for the big guns. 

I hold out my left hand, forming a hoop with my thumb and forefinger. With my right, I extend my index finger. Taking a side-long glance at my red-faced mate, I begin to slowly move my finger towards the hole. The audience watches in anticipation. 

It enters. 

I go in and out a couple of times, quickening in pace to build up the momentum, before signifying the shivering crescendo by jamming my finger to the knuckle and making a raspberry sound with my mouth. I point at my friend (somewhere in the ovary area) and then do the baby cradle again, “No baby”, I say. 

They converse again.   

“Ahh!” one shouts, “The after-morning pill!”
“Yes!” we reply, “The after-morning pill!”  

Embarrassed sniggering and a couple of high fives all round, to commemorate a job well done. 

The crowd disperses. They give us the pill. 

For a mellower version, serve in a low ball with a side of Over The Counter By a False Name Tramadol.

 

Slippery Crabber

2 parts Flor de Caña Rum

1 part Vegetarian Smugness

½ a measure of Peer Pressure

A dollop of Bioluminescent Algae 

“I couldn’t possibly,” I reply, “I’m a vegetarian.” I’m flooded with an image of myself on my high horse, meadow flowers braided into my hair, looking down at the smiling woodland creatures through my iridescent glow.  

I wonder if the guys I’m talking to get the same effect.  

Nevertheless, I help collect driftwood for the fire and give up my pocket knife for the good of the group. We’re already a bottle of rum in, it took longer than we thought for the tide to go out.  

As night falls, we pick up our flip flops and head over to the reef, dragging our feet through the phosphorescent algae in the shoreline. We keep looking back to see our foot prints written in starlight. Those of us on acid find this quite overwhelming.  

 We only have a few torches between us, so we stick together, drunkenly belting out a rousing rendition of ‘I Drove All Night’ by Roy Orbison. We reach the rocks and begin to scramble over, those of us with knives clamping them between our teeth. Then, we gather into a group and assign pairs. I nominate myself the official torch-holder.  

The hunt begins.  

He goes only for the big ones, stabbing them neatly in the middle of the shell and flicking them into the saucepan I’m holding. I replace the top each time to stop them crawling out. I found the first few quite upsetting. Poor little buggers. 

But as it goes on, I get more and more into it. The thrill of the chase has awoken previously repressed primal instincts. I can smell their fear. After about fifteen minutes, I turn into the ultimate hunter, scaling rocky outcrops and seaweed covered rock pools to find the biggest. 

“Here’s a massive one!” I scream, “Hurry up! Stab it! Fucking stab it!”, as the doomed crustacean tries to jam itself into a too-small hole, its spindly little legs paddling uselessly at the wet sand. Take that, you crabby bastard.  

It wasn’t until we made our way back to the fire, with our saucepans full of our pelagic bounty, did I feel any kind of remorse. As I watched them sizzle on the grate, lined up claw to claw next to their fallen comrades, I was overcome by shame. We had orchestrated and carried out a mass slaughter. They had never even seen us coming.  

I never knew I had such bloodlust in me.

Lightly dust brim of glass with some Fraudulently Obtained Pseudoephedrine. Serve on ice.

Sleeper Bus

So, here was the writing exercise:
'Write about an everyday experience from the point of view of a ‘community’ that you are a member off (national, physical, religious, class, political, industrial).'

And here's my take! 

The Laos / Vietnam Border

 
Sleeper Bus


We’re all pushed into a corner of course, the foreigners. The one nearest to the toilet and furthest away from the fire exits. I was woken up last night by a mouse crawling in my hair, no doubt trying to get at my curry-crab flavoured crisps. As I tried to get back to sleep I watched a large cockroach sauntering across the head rest in front, it paused to pose, silhouetted heroically in the moonlight.

At dawn the next morning, after the bureaucratic hoop jumps, I climbed back into my bed, tucking my newly stamped passport into my money belt. I couldn’t stretch out of course, anyone over 5’8 is viewed as a giant round here. We all had our crosses to bear. Mine was an energetic local woman who kept flicking my face with her hair when she leant over me to adjust the curtain with her umbrella. Something she liked to do a lot. We’d been on this bus for sixteen hours already, imodium-ed up the eyeballs and rapidly losing patience.

Suddenly, from the front of the bus came a commotion. The driver was heading straight for us, the white corner, gesticulating insanely and pointing at each of us in turn. We looked blankly at each other, and then at him. He got louder. Other passengers around us began pointing at us, then the border, then at us. It made no sense.

He started pulling us from our seats. We climbed down, filed out of the bus and stood there in the dust. Then, with no warning, the door closed and he drove off. All of about twenty metres over the border. After screeching to a halt, he opened the door and started screaming back at us, motioning for us to get back on, cursing us in Vietnamese for jogging too slow. We got back on the bus and squeezed back into our seats. The bus drove on.

It's Term Time Again! (Cocktales part 1)

Ahh guys, here we go again - me bombarding you with my creative writing. Feel free to peruse, or not, whatever takes your fancy:

'Pick a type of non-fiction book (atlas, recipe book, guidebook, textbook, dictionary). Use this form to structure a piece of writing about something you have experienced.'

This was inspired by Rebecca West's Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary in which the author uses dictionary definitions to frame the story of her mother dying from cancer. Such a powerful book, I would totally recommended.

Here's my (slightly more light-hearted) take on the idea:

 

The Cocktail List

The Bangkok Sling

1 part Jet Lag

1 part Faltering Self Confidence

½ serving of Alleged Experience

A dash of Age Related Social Anxiety

Ok, you’re in. You’ve ordered, it’s fine. Everyone else is sitting with someone but whatever, don’t let that bother you. And you’ve got a book. Get your book out. No wait, no one will chat to someone reading a book – you know that, it’s Backpacker 101. Just sit back and take in the sights, look approachable, friendly. Not too friendly.

Serve over ice in a highball, best garnished with a Malboro Light.

 

The Kuta Vortex

2 parts Necessity

1 part Unsure Approach Tactic

1 part juice of Ill-Advised Hareem Trousers

The chopstick part is over. Right, there’s two there. They look nice, and they’re laughing. They must be funny too. Funny and nice. And they look English, a bit Essex in fact - one of them is wearing those weird fabric shoes that are so popular nowadays. You know they at least speak English, you confirmed that on your recon fly by during your last trip to the bar.

For a more mellow version, serve with a side of Over The Counter By a False Name Tramadol.

 

The Lombok Iced Tea

3 parts Dutch Courage

1 part Desperation

A dash of Time is Ticking

If one of them smoked then I could ask for a light, the text book, perfect ice breaker. But no, healthy bastards. Just think, if you don’t do it now then you’ll have to do it all again tomorrow. You don’t want to spend another night on your own reading in your room do you? Well then. Here we go, one, two three...

Lightly dust brim of glass with some Fraudulently Obtained Pseudoephedrine. Serve on ice.

 

The Endless Winter - Review

Top professional Cornish surfers Mark ‘Igor’ Harris and Mitch Corbett are on a mission, a mission to discover the roots of surfing in the UK. Along the way they meet the iconic locals who went on to become legends and get to grips with what makes British surfing so special. The product of this journey is ‘The Endless Winter’, and what a journey it is.

“We wanted to make a film that British surfers could be proud of,” says producer Matt Crocker who, along with James Dean, is responsible for the movie.  And that they have done. The film is both interesting and informative, avoiding the Cornwall-heavy bias of many British surf films by including many spots such as the Gower, Brighton and Thurso East.

 

 

The film’s tagline is ‘A very British surf movie’, and it certainly goes to fill a gap in a market oversaturated with footage of warm water barrels in exotic locations. British surfing has evolved on its own terms and in its own time and the resulting eccentric characters and hardcore surfing community is covered well. 

Igor and Mitch come across as genuinely nice guys and connect well with those they are interviewing, such as surfing icons Pete ‘PJ’ Jones, Spencer Hargraves and Nigel Semmens. They reveal what UK surfing was like at its birth, such as the ridiculousness of surfing in a woolly jumper in January, whilst tackling more sensitive issues, such as the suicide of promising young surfer Nigel Veitch who dived off the cliffs at Tynemouth after losing his sponsor. The story is handled well and goes to show that getting British surfers on the map, not to mention the rankings, was not all plain sailing.

 Memorable scenes include when Igor and Mitch join ‘The Muddy Brothers’ by surfing the Severn Bore tidal wave in total darkness, and the section on Sennen’s legendary Skewjack Surf Camp. The film also reveals some surprising facts, such as surfing’s link to Agatha Christie, King Edward 8^th and Captain James Cook, as well as the effect of the World Wars on the surfing community.  

It’s had a positive reception, it won Best British Film at the 2012 London Surf/Film Festival and enjoyed outdoor premiers all over the UK.  The soundtrack isn’t bad either; featuring the obvious, but still good, Devonshire surfer Ben Howard as well as others, such as The Fairport Convention and the imaginatively named Hotel Flamingo (I’d never heard of them either). It also includes black and white film footage as well as animations, courtesy of Simon Ball.

But there are problems. The in-water footage leaves a lot to desired, it’s shaky and unsteady and a couple of times during the Badlands section it even gets jammed into the sand, leaving viewers with an invigorating few seconds of Cornish seaweed. The film could have also done with some more footage of women surfers and groms, of which Britain has many, and excellent ones at that.

 

However, my main bugbear is that the production team are not surfers. Let me reiterate that, these guys don’t surf. In fact, in ‘The Making Of’ section, they admit that they found it hard when filming to anticipate the surfers’ next move on the wave, their lack of knowledge being so. It seems strange to have outsiders documenting and commenting on a community which is so notoriously insular and close-knit. Those of us who were not lucky enough to grow up surfing know how intimidating it can be at the beginning– the language, rules, hierarchy, etiquette, not to mention the sometimes aggressive localism. The well-worn idiom of ‘Only a surfer knows the feeling’ seems to be tested by this DVD.  

But they do make any effort to stick to just the main spots and don’t reveal any that viewers wouldn’t know about already. I wonder how much of that decision was based on the surfers’ code rather than the risk of getting their windscreen waxed or face the backlash from revealing a secret spot. Plus, when they approached and met the featured local surfers, who are legends in the surfing world, I wonder if they had the same deep-set respect and admiration that a surfer would have.  

On the flip side, it means that even those who are not surfers can understand, appreciate and be inspired by the film. And along with the 30 minutes of extras, the film is definitely worth a watch. It really does encapsulate what makes British surfing unique, the history and evolution surfing in the UK, and the fact that the never ending search for the perfect wave has been with us from the very beginning.

The Endless Winter trailer

5 Reasons Why You Should Go Travelling

I'm now writing for gkbc Academy which is a volunteer blog. You are assigned a subject and write a piece for a company or website, adhering to the word count and and including the chosen keywords. Your work is edited and critiqued by professionals and then published online. It's pretty good.

I was asked to write two pieces, both of which discuss a certain statement, to check the standard of my writing before acceptance. Here's my first:

5 Reasons You Should Go Travelling

I try to convince everyone I meet to go travelling; shop assistants, hairdressers, random people I've sidled up to in the pub after one too many ciders. And, I really believe it.

Granted travelling, especially backpacking, is not for everyone. But if you've ever though about it but doubted you could, then I will try to convince you. Here are five of the many reasons I could list why you should go travelling:



Semana Santa in Antigua, Guatemala

1)   It helps you grow

 Yes, we've all heard it, the Gap Yah staple: "I really found myself at sunrise on a beach in Thailand." Pretentiousness aside, this is really what happens. Travelling changes you, it makes you more accepting of other people, opens your eyes to new cultures and teaches you to appreciate what you have. As twee as that sounds, it's difficult to feel hard done by when you see how some other people live.

2)   If you don't, you will always regret it

That's always a thing that people says, "I really wish I had travelled in my youth", but you never (well, hardly ever) hear anyone say, "Wow, I really wish I hadn't travelled so much and got myself a proper job earlier." Don't let not travelling be something which will hang over you. On my travels I've met fellow backpackers of all different ages, straight from school right up to those who have just retired and are getting out there. It's never too late.

Awesome sloth in the cloud forests of Panama

3)   It's easy

When I talk to people about travelling, they often says, "That sounds amazing, I wish I could do that." Well, you know what? You can. There isn't some secret handshake which you have to learn. Anyone can travel. Yes, even you. Save up, book a flight and plan. And once you've booked, you have to commit. It's that easy. Sure, it doesn't seem that way when you're stuck at  abus station where no one speaks English, or trying to sort out a visa at a border in the middle of nowhere. But remember that the hard times will be a funny story in a few months. Which brings me to my next point...

4)  Memories

Sure, my friends roll their eyes when I start an anecdote with; "This one time, in...." But, it's hard not to. Whilst travelling I've experienced things which I will remember forever, like sitting on a Mayan temple in the jungle watching the sunrise, or celebrating my 27th birthday at a snake feast in Hanoi. I'll have plenty of things to tell the Grandkids about.


An orphanage in Cambodia

5)   The people you meet along the way

Be it the locals or fellow backpackers, those you meet along the way colour your travels in a way which you will never expect or forget. Some you will know fleetingly, others you'll stay in contact with for years to come, but when you think back to a place you've travelled, the people who were with you are synonymous with your memory of that place. It is them who make up your experience.



St. Augustine once said, "The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." And if that doesn't convince or inspire you, I don't know what will. So, of you're thinking about it, ever considered it or entertained the thought for just a moment, my advice is to just do it. You won't regret it.

Trekking in Chiang Mai - Thailand

NYE 2008 - Rhythm and Vines Fesitval, Gisborne, New Zealand



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