Returned to Pai or "Heaven on Earth" as I have heard Nat describe it after not getting our fill on New Years eve. Pai is a really chilled mountain town with a bit of a hippy community. It combines nature and vintage shops so Nat was in her element. We just mooched around on bikes, checking the sights and getting massages before going for a night-time dip in its hot springs. Really doesn't get more chilled.
Before we left, Nat wanted to check a Cafe she had seen on our way to the bus stop to leave last time but when we got there it was empty and all the art on the walls had been ripped down.
After over a day of coach travel coming from Pnomh Penh, we arrived Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand where we were set to meet my ex-pat mates Sunny and Jimmy, now living in Australia. As well as heading up to Pai for New Year, we spent the week with them cruising around town on mopeds, checking out the waterfalls, local food and night markets.
The next pictre is me looking like a bit of a plank in a helmet that clearly isn't sufficiently large for my cranium.
There was something of the Waffen SS about Sunny and Jimmy's that made me feel less like a fool though.
Sunny and Jimmy now doing their best "serious" shopping faces. Got to get the bargains.
Below is the bar made from a converted school bus where we went a few nights. The massively camp barman loved me and the lads but barely aknowledged Nat's existance. The kind of lines we had to deal with go along the lines of "I recognise you, know I do" - "Well i've not been here before, it's my first time in Chiang Mai" - "Oh, it mst have been in my dreams then"
SMOOTH
Without a doubt though the most memorable day has to have been for our trip out to the elephant sanctuary. Nat had already had her brief encounter with baby elephants but no-one else had and spirits were high in the bus, with everyone singing garage hits of yesteryear to the bemusement of the American couple coming with us.
After feeding, riding and bathing the elephants and getting pretty saddle sore in the process we headed back to town to check a bit of Thai Kickboxing or Muay Thai. A couple of hours drinking beer and watching people fight to a soundtrack of ear peircing snake charming music had got us pretty hyped so left trying to execute pretty tame roundhouse kicks.
After the lads left we spent some more time in Chiang Mai checking out the area around the art college which was nice and chilled. One thing we left with was an urge to learn the Ukele. Nat already had an interest but they were evrywhere in Chiang Mai and seemed pretty easy to play. Below is me trying to learn some chords from the wall chart.
Unquestionably one of the most fascinating encounters on our travels has to have been with the man you see in the picture above. After taking a lesson at the school we were volunteering at in Siem Reap, Jimmy (who runs the school) said he wanted to take us to see the family of some of the kids who lived a little way out of town. With no idea what to expect, all 3 of us hopped on Jimmy's moped and crawled our way to the outskirts of town. When we got there we were met by a veritable motley crew of Cambodian characters but one in particular stood out.
The 2 nights and 1 one day we spent with him and his family was a fair while back now and I feel I wont do his spectacular story justice but let me try and paint a picture of this man from what information my brain still retains. The reason I only call the man him is because I never learnt his name. Its apparently rude to call elders by their name so I just referred to him as Kong or "Grandfather".
The fact that at 81 he was the father to 3 kids aged 7 to 11 and the husband to a 47 year old wife was remarkable enough but when more of his stories were translated through Jimmy it transpired that he had a fair amount of life experience. As he sat on his wooden platform outside the Government Officials house he watched over, chain smoking relentlessly, we learnt that he had fought with the Americans and South Vietnamese in the Vietnam war before returning to the mountains of Cambodia to study Brahmanism and Sanskrit, circling the border of Siem Reap city on his bike in his spare time, defending it against invaders from Thailand, Japan and France.
Now for some reason he took us a shine to us (Jimmy later told us he had never seen him so animated and that he had been surprised at how genuinely attentive and inquisitive we were) and wanted to help us out in some way. He explained that Brahmanism was closely linked to music and in particular with drums so was keen on what I did with music and Natalie did with her art. It was hard trying to explain that these weren't exactly jobs for us in a traditional sense and that we didn't have managers and such like but the concept was lost in translation and he was keen on concocting something for us anyway and who were we to refuse. We agreed to go back the next day but before that he had time to fit in some predictions based on the Animal signs of our time of birth. The end result of his predictions was that we had a strong relationship and that, rather worryingly, we would have kid in the next 2 years.
We arrived nice and early the next day but no-one seemed to be in any rush to get cracking until they had watched a bit of a cock fight that was going on in the back yard. After this bizarre and slightly grim interlude we went inside the Government officials house to get on with proceedings, which entailed Kong writing Sanskrit phrases on our body before rubbing over them with gold leaf and our perfumes. Apparently different phrases relate to different animals and can assist with different things. For instance, the sign of the Sa-Re-Ga or bird written on the throat can give you a beautiful singing voice and so on. He also gave us both a potion to apply on to hair and arms before meeting important people who we feel can enhance our careers. In addition to this I got some Sanskrit engraved metal for myself and members of my old band which, attached to instruments, will attract an audience to you wherever you play. Natalie got a small concoction in what looked like an acorn shell and was told that when it was running out she could top it up by dipping some fabric covered in menstrual by product into it. I thought it best not to ask any questions at this point but he moved on insisting that we send him names and addresses of people we want to influence so he can help us, saying that he wanted to see if his magic worked on foreigners and that he hoped to make us famous one day.
We spent Christmas in Pnomh Penh checking such festive treats as the S21 security prison and the Killing Fields. As you can imagine none of this was particularly conducive to a Christmassy atmosphere, and no matter how insistently I ran through Coca Cola and Marks and Spencers adverts in my head, I just couldn't shift the thought of a quarter of a countries population being wiped out in just under 4 years in the largest unrecognised Genocide in history. In fact, I mislead you. The slaughter of around 2 million people couldn't officially be declared as a Genocide in any court as it was so all encompassing and not specifically directed against one ethnic or political group. Despite the indiscriminate nature of the killing only the deaths of the Ethnic Vietnamese could be seen as Genocidal. During our stay, some of the perpetrators were up in court finally hearing their cases but to this day most of the instigators live freely, with the Khmer Rouge's leader Pol Pot dying of Natural causes in 1998.
Imagine for a moment if you will, that whilst you were at home eating your turkey and watching Home Alone or Wallace And Gromit for the tenth year on the trot, we were checking out the site of mass graves and torture chambers. Jingle ALL the way.
My other recollection of Pnomh Penh was indulging in an unashamed Potato Fest. See, after the best part of two months on a steady diet of rice and noodles we were close to breaking point so when we broke, we broke and in style, consuming every kind of potato variation you can imagine. I now think we were trying to replace the lack of a Christmas with a menu consisting of our favourite starchy comfort foods, including Bangers and Mash, Steak and Chips and a Roast Pork Dinner. Boom!
Pretty unremarkable town on the whole, with very little do to past 9pm at night. Our short time there was spent walking around aimlessly and on a one day Tuk-Tuk tour around some of the temples and sights around the town.
During the day we were taken to the Killing Caves which was our first real glimpse of the horrors that Cambodians saw during the short rule of the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot. It was here that "dissenters" and their families were taken to be killed, with children literally thrown at the walls of the cave and left to die in its dark recesses. In Siem Reap we had spoken to Jimmy about the Khmer Rouge and their affect on the people but it was different to be confronted by it in such graphic detail.
Towards the end of the day we were getting wound up by our drivers selective understanding of English and his insistence on taking us to points where we had to pay extra for things but after lengthy discussions and nearly calling it off we arrived at the Bamboo train just before sunset.
The train used to be used for traders taking goods to market and rattled its way through the Countryside at a pretty healthy pace. Whatever issues we had were soon forgotten though with a sunset that would make you forgive anything.
Forgive me if what follows of my recollections of Cambodia are a bit disjointed but it is now 2 months since we crossed the border between Aranyaprathet in Thailand and Poipet in Cambodia and alot has happened inbetween.
The bus/buses from the island of Koh Chang to Siem Reap were pretty unremarkable apart from the drivers serious love for the BeGees, which meant the first leg to the border was spent listening to what felt like the little Manc Chipmunks ENTIRE backcatalouge. I'd drift off for a fleeting moment on the backseats, only to be rudely awoken by some helium addled soft disco blaring from the vans tiny speakers. After this test was over the only other thing we had to negotiate was actually getting over the border. Simple you'd think, but after getting dropped at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, sleep deprived and confused, with only a caged monkey and menu to look at it all seemed less simple. No explanation was forthcoming, so we just made what little conversation we could with a Finnish guy called Aki from our bus (you may remember him from the Angkor post) until someone came over with our food and a demand for 1,200 baht for our Visas. This later turned out to be bordering on extortionate but at the time everyone was too baffled to argue. Not so the case when we were met at the Cambodian side of the border by our "Guide" John, who quickly explained we had to pay another fee for our medical card or yellow fever declaration or some other similar cooked up story. None of this sounded right so we looked at each other and back at him with faces flitting between confusion, disbelief and anger until the silence got too much for poor John and he buckled, making what has to be the least convincing phone call to the representative on the Thai side of the border. Honestly, I don't even think he touched a button before pressing the phone to his ear for the official conversation. We were all half waiting for it to ring and him just run away ashamed.
But enough talk about the joy of crossing borders, lets move on to Siem Reap, which was the first destination on our travels we didn't want to leave. It's not that the town itself is riveting but more the fact we felt comfortable taking it in at a leisurely pace and that the people were just so accommodating. Its not even particularly beautiful, although the legacy of the French, who acted not as Imperial powers in the Indo China region but "protectorates" was apparent, and had left the town with a distinctly European feel. Colonial buildings lined each side of the riverbank and it offered a strangely familiar feel after the more alien surroundings of Thailand, Indonesia and Japan.
However, the main reason we stayed for 9 days instead of the 3 or 4 we had planned for (enough to see the Temples of Angkor and the rest of the City) was not the European Architecture but because we ended up volunteering at a local free school for kids from the city. We had stumbled across Jimmy's Village school after visiting an artisans workshop, where we saw traditional stone carvers, painters and metal workers do their thing.
After watching the class for a while we spoke to Jimmy and arranged to come back the next day to teach the kids a song and maybe take a lesson. Upon arriving at the school, which is taken from his mothers front yard, we lingered nervously, waiting for our time alongside and American man called Rick who had been helping at the school for a while. Now, i'm not normally one to jump to conclusions or throw accusations on someones character about but Nat had been telling me to be vigilant for sex tourists as there is alot of child prostitution in Cambodia and there was something about Rick's awkward nature and eager touching of the kids that didn't sit right with me at all. Furthermore, I feel that if you think its acceptable to wear socks and sandals in public you have pretty much profiled yourself anyway.
Thankfully, the longer I spent at the school, my opinion changed, and I do think that Rick was just a socially awkward, middle aged American who was just trying to help out in his own way after becoming disillusioned with life as an accountant in the Mid-West.
Our time at the school was spent taking classes, singing songs and installing a set of speakers we had bought for them to listen to music. Natalie thought the size of them was a little excessive and that the place should be renamed Jimmy's Village Soundsystem but I thought that if they wanted to play Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber on a loop, they might as well do it LOUD. When I tried to play them some of my bands music there was a bit more bemusement than elation but they still got involved as you can see below.
As the second part of the cultural exchange I tried to learn a Cambodian pop song but that proved to be pretty difficult but I think me making a fool out of myself went down pretty well anyway.
We had a great time with Jimmy at the school and he was a pretty inspirational person, who at 24 juggled his University studies with teaching at 2 free schools for what donations he could gather.
