How to Escape the Central Coast (in Six Baby Steps)

If the Lake Haven epoch was ruled by the car, and my fragmented Gosford ages built upon the bus, the coming Woy Woy microlife will focus on ferries. During the two months that I hope to spend there, acclimatizing for the hop across the Hawkesbury, I must:

1 -- Cruise to Saratoga or Davistown on Central Coast Ferries (if I am too anxious for whatever reason, I can try to bail out at the first available wharf!)

2 -- Catch another catamaran to Empire Bay, the last stop on this service some 30 minutes from Woy Woy. I could then hike back to my hotel via Daleys Point and St Huberts Island, with their multimillion dollar views. 

3.-- Catch a Fantasea ferry from Ettalong to Wagstaffe Wharf, en route to Palm Beach, and explore the nearby national park.

4.-- Take the same ferry once more, this time directly to Palm Beach, before returning to Woy Woy. This will be a one-hour round trip over deep water, and my first landfall on Sydney territory in nine years.

5.-- Return to Palm Beach, and then get the bus to Newport, some 10km south, where there is a hotel that I can (barely) afford.

6 -- Stay at said Newport hotel one night, to see if I can handle it..

 

The Saratoga docking at the Central Wharf in Davistown, on Cockle Channel (Australia, 2022)

Each cruise will be a baby step in the escape from the Central Coast, and the migration to Sydney's Northern Beaches. I have a lot of mucking about in boats to do!

On the Blink (My First Night at Hotel Gosford)

Deadset in the middle of Gosford (corner of Mann and Erina Streets) rises this historic hotel, erected in 1926. The internal elevator is just as an ancient, and is said to be a museum piece. I was somewhat skeptical on my first night here on Wednesday since the hotel is a cheapie with shared bathrooms. My concerns congealed when I realized, after checking in, that there was no remote controller for my TV. It was a steamy day, and my shirt clung to my back like a cheap shower curtain. I rummaged through all the drawers, peered under the bed, even teetered on a chair to examine the top of the clothes rack. It was a trifle dusty, but there was no controller to be found there. This could be a problem.

Table and chair for lessons and a fridge, but the TV didn't seem to work (Australia, 2021)

I rode the rickety lift two floors down to reception, where I reported my predicament. A great deal hung in the balance: this was my recon mission, and if the Hotel Gosford failed this first test, I would have to upgrade into something more expensive for the coming longstay. Thankfully, the lady at reception provided me another device, which she assured me would do the trick. I took the stairs back to my chambers, traversing some office space on the first floor. Something about the lift gave me a dodgy vibe, and I didn't completely trust it.

Rickety old lift at Hotel Gosford (Australia, 2021)

Returning to my room, I aimed the remote squarely at the TV, squeezed the on button. The set refused to respond, but just hung there, impassively.  Damn it, I thought.  I am not normally a complainer, but this was important. Something had to be done.

The second cheapest hotel in Gosford (the Ibis) cost at least $100 a night, or $3600 per month, I could survive without television for one night, of course, but how about the longstay (or the even longer stays which loomed beyond?) If the TV didn't work this time, what else might not work in the future? This was a dry run of the Escape from Oz which is due to begin in just a matter of months. It was a critical battle, one worth fighting for.

I was on my way downstairs again when I met a member of housekeeping on her rounds. I briefly informed her of my predicament, and she kindly accompanied me to my guestroom. After fingering the remote controller for a while, shuffling around the batteries, shooting from different angles, she surmised that the TV was on the blink. (That might, possibly, be why the remote was removed in the first place!) She promised to move me to another room, and new keys were delivered to me promptly. Five minutes later I had been transferred to a nearby wing, facing the Imperial Centre (behind the yellowed blind).

 

My new room, with remote controller and Indian snacks, at Hotel Gosford (Australia, 2021)

I performed a rapid once-over, just for the record. Air conditioner, check. Idiot box, working, and receiving both Newcastle and Sydney channels. Chair and table, comfortable enough. I didn't need them tonight, but I would once I started teaching here. Bar fridge, plugged in and chilled. Hopefully it was cold enough to freeze beer, but that was yet to be determined. 

Catching a little telly before bed (Australia, 2021)

Checklist compiled, I went out, because I had better things to do than sit in my guestroom watching TV! I ate some cheese tteokbokki and kimchi at the local Korean restaurant, then downed a couple of Asahi Dry pints at the Bon Pavilion. Later that night, just before retiring to bed, I caught on the news that there was a big storm coming in. Luckily for me, I had Alfie's raincoat to protect me on my trip home tomorrow.

Bracing for the Jump (Take Two)

The quickening of Capricorn continues, and quite surprisingly I find myself working at a steady job, saving cash, and rolling to a 9-5 routine (but let's call it a 09-22 roulette instead). The Hard Native nightmare is coming to a close, and a Soft International morning is rousing all around me, radiant gold and fringed with birdsong. For the first time in years I feel like I am back in the saddle, finally able to spur my stallions into speed. Shangri-La is looming, and while it might seem a lonely place from this angle, it is nonetheless lightyears more agreeable than the limbo I have been locked inside for so long, that Cold Buddhist Hell of Immobility. Hell is warming up, and as the ice thaws, the contradictions of the Lake Haven Age emerge in their sordid gore, mammoths marooned in the muck, samskaras scorched into the sediment. It just goes to show that I was indeed in a Yin phase back then, a Shiva stage if you must... now Yin is yielding to Yang, Shiva shifting to Shakti, and suddenly the future is not just a futile fantasy, but a reality which must soon be lived. To quote an old song: the time to hesitate is through. But have I been mired in the mud so long that my wings refuse to fly? I know from experience that freedom is a habit, and muscles can waste from underuse...

On May 26 the Travel Fund passed the magic milestone of $4000. In former times this would have been reason enough to trigger a migration movement, a Jump into a brand new life. My original plan, fleshed out in 2011, was to fly to Cambodia, which I'd discovered was the cheapest nation in the region, and then just glide around for a while, propelled by affiliate advertising. Smoke some ganja perhaps aloft the ruins of Angkor Wat, shoot pool with beer gals and gangstas, strafe the straits of Vang Vieng. Play the Indochinese dating game. That was the plan, but then I lost my AdSense, and then my world collapsed. Even if I had the money for an airline ticket, I would not have been able to board the plane. I wouldn't have even made it to the bloody airport! Confined to a box, I decided to find freedom within that box, chasing the macrocosm in the microcosm. It worked, almost too well: I regained my sanity within that straitjacket, but in the process, alas, I misplaced my wanderlust. Since that time, I have spent every single day at my parents' house, on the shore of Budgewoi Lake, on the NSW Central Coast. Every day, and every single night, held captive... well, every single night, captive, except one. And that night is the subject of this account.

Rear shot of the Bridge View Motel, at Gorokan (Australia, 2015)

The Grand Algorithm contends: when one has been in the same place too long, inertia develops. Inertia is to vagabondism, of course, what rust is to iron, or fear is to Mind... it is the Mind Killer. Right now, inertia is the habit I need to break, the momentum I must quickly reverse. Indochina is out of the question this year, I get that; Sydney is too hard, too; but soon I will have the funds and the fortitude to conquer them both, and it is vital for me to get back into shape. For this reason on June 10 I packed my tiny rucksack with pills and a Samsung tablet and leaving my Mum and Dad watching murder mysteries at their home, walked up to the Bridge View Motel situated at the end of the street. My goal was to spend the night in that motel, monitoring my anxiety, and getting a taste for the Vagabondist voyage which will presently commence. You might call it a dress rehearsal, a trial run. I was feeling kind of weird as I made my way up Malvina Parade, suffering mild separation anxiety. Contrary to expectations, this wasn't typical agoraphobia that I was down with, just run-of-the-mill scepticism. I was doubtful, in other words, about the wisdom of this whole experiment, and worried that I had made a mistake by heading out here. The ground was soggy as I walked, and grassseeds clung to my trouser legs.  At reception I purchased a room with my credit card, and was presented the key to my door. The friendly owners had assigned me a downstairs room, right on the main road, positioned just behind the swimming pool. I was a little concerned about the location, and what isolation hid behind that door. As soon as I opened the door and inhaled that classic hotel aroma, my fears faded. All of a sudden I knew that I was on a holiday, 2km from home. And I thought to myself, rejoicingly: Why have I left it so long?

Plenty of room to stretch out in my cosy space (Australia, 2015)

There was a Bible by the bedside, little bars of soap in the bathroom, and soft pillows on the bed.

Too cold for a swim just yet, but the view looks nice (Australia, 2015)

There was a dead cockroach in the corner but, hey, that was better than a live one.

Freedom in the box: Stan Grant interviews Dr Cornel West, famous dissident, on Awaken, NITV (Australia, 2015)

After settling myself in and taking a short nap, I strolled over the road to drink a few beers at Wallarah Bay Recreation Club, our local establishment. I had some overpriced carbonara, then retreated "home", to consume a few beers more, in the freedom of my hotel room. I pumped up the aircon, and flicked through the channels on the TV. It felt refreshingly cool to be in control, setting the agenda, instead of being hostage to my Mum and Dad's viewing habits. Sadly, the cable library promised at the Bridge View did not prove to be as extensive as I had expected. It basically consisted of two sports channels featuring badminton and the like, and two lame movie channels. Free-to-air NITV turned out to be the best thing on. I watched some program about land rights in South Australia, an Aboriginal graveyard being excavated to make way for the railway. Observing this documentary, I felt distressingly aware of the size of this land, the huge continent I am fated soon to cross.

But do I have the guts to actually cross it?

Pix Me Away: Imagining a Virtual Personal Assistant for Travel

What kind of traveller are you? Have you ever wished there was a website or app which understood you so well, it could choose where you went on your next trip away... and then find some buddies to go there with? PixMeAway might be just such a device... not quite the personal assistant of sci-fi movies, but definitely a step in the direction! PixMeAway relies on parlour game psychology (what the Japanese might call kokology) to determine your personality type, and then suggest to you the type of holidays you would be interested in going on. More specifically, it uses images, rather than text, and for this reason has been described as the world's first image-based search engine. As a community, PixMeAway is obviously aimed at those who relate more to images than text, especially when they are making travel plans. Upon visiting the site, users are directed to a screen of Polaroid style photos. Some of these photos are of famous icons (such as the Sydney Opera House), others show backpackers trudging along a beach, or snowboarders. You have to pick at least three of the photos which appeal to you, without thinking about it too much; in true kokology style, your choice is supposed to reflect your feelings. I chose, in this order, a photo of a church in a northern grassland, Stonehenge, and the Pyramids of Giza. I would have included something on an Asian or Indian bent, but for some reason I didn't notice the photo of the saffron-robed monks in front of an ancient temple (maybe that was subconscious omission, or maybe the pictures are too small.) Or maybe I am just all Asianed out at the moment! Anyway, PixMeAway concluded from my picks that I was a mix of Charlotte (85 per cent), Toby (74 per cent), Olivia (68 per cent), Amelie (27 per cent), Archie (28 per cent), Max (16 per cent), and Rocky (13 per cent), these being the seven archetypes it employs. Not quite Jungian archetypes, but definitely a step in the direction. Charlotte is described as a connossieur and a "culture lover", interested in "history of ancient civilizations, art & culture, first-class hotels, dining at the best restaurants, comfortable interior." PixMeAway informs me: "The way you travel is distinguished by exclusivity formerly known as mundane. You are convincing with your peers just as with your projects. Your weak spot for art and culture doesn’t stop at foreign destinations and lead you directly to the best museums, opera houses and much more. Interested as you are, you see travelling more than just a mere change of your everyday life. You also want to be part of the history of your chosen destination. You are also willing to speak the language and experience its traditions. But comfort is nothing to be neglected as you prefer to accommodate yourself in hotels with the brightest stars..." Spot on about the culture vulture stuff, wrong about the hotels... when I finally make it to Cambodia and Laos, I intend to practically live in youth hostels. Maybe I should have picked more pictures! But whatever... I'll take it. Click acceptance of your archetypes, and you're through to something a little more interesting, and practical: some actual travel destinations. According to the website, Harari (Ethiopia), Sonora (Mexico) and Wakayama Prefecture (Japan) are amongst the top recommended destinations. Since I am planning to spend the next 15 years in Asia/Africa, I narrow my search down to those two continents, and proceed to the next stage.

The Pyramids of Giza, Egypt, seen from the ground looking up.

After this somewhat hokey introduction, PixMeAway actually does pack some decent resources, once you get into it. It is sort of like an interactive Rough guidebook, with more pictures and less words, and driven by social media. If you ever want to stay at a pension in Eritrea or Benin, the website can help you make a booking, or direct you to the nearest bowling alley. You can read recommendations made by those with the same interests as you, according to your profile. Presumably you can meet up with some of these folk and travel with them, but I suppose you have to be a member to do that.

The canals of Venice, Italy.

PixMeAway's CEO points out that 500 million would be travellers are not sure where they want to go, and his community is intended to give them inspiration and ideas. As someone who knows very clearly where he wants to go (everywhere!), I don't think PixMeAway can really help me. If I need a community to hook me up, I would rather rely on Couch Surfing. Which is exactly the last place a true Charlotte would go looking for accommodation!

An Accident Waiting to Happen, in Cairns (Part 1)

Isn't it strange how many of the great discoveries were made by accident? Penicillin was first isolated by scientist Alexander Fleming who, returning from holiday, noticed that fungus growing feral on petri dishes in his lab killed any bacteria they came into contact with. Naddoðr, legendary Viking king, was sailing home to the Faroe Islands when he lost his bearings and got barreled on to the eastern coast of Iceland, which was then uninhabited, and unexplored. Christopher Columbus found America on the way to China and in doing so, confounded the prevailing wisdom of his age. It was totally an accident that I discovered Cairns last week, fleeing as I was the triple tragedy in Japan, or more precisely my persistent panic attacks, which have pestered me like a plague for more than two years now, plagued me like a pestilence, and promise me plenty of fresh pain in the foreseeable future. Cairns is not the kind of place I would have chosen to travel to otherwise, but destiny drove me there... destiny and the deadly Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami, which dislodged me from my Japanese home of a decade, shook me from my sloth and my slumber, and sent me packing with nothing save my suitcase and the shoes on my feet. Like all Australians I knew Cairns, I understood it was a resort on the Barrier Reef, realized that it was touristy in nature, and during my many years in Japan I had also learnt that it was popular with Japanese visitors. Not surprisingly, then, the place had never really appealed to me. It didn't feel edgy enough, or so I thought, it didn't seem exotic. It sounded, basically, the kind of place bogans went for their holidays, and I would much rather embark for Bangkok, or Berlin, or even Bali, ffs!) A few days after the great quake of March 11, with relentless aftershocks rattling my apartment in eastern Tokyo, and radiation bleeding from the breached reactors up on the beach at Fukushima (福島), I saluted Japan with a sad sayonara, and then scrambled out the door. Changed the departure date on my Jetstar Airlines ticket, informed my boss it was over, and scurried out the fucking door. Of all three actions, giving notice to my boss was actually the most awkward, which speaks sagas of the sway he had hitherto held over me. For a long time, it seemed that I would be his bitch forever, a servant in the outhouse, the kouhai to his Koresh. It just shows that when the chips are down, when your life is actually at stake, self-preservation will always victor over subservience, and submissiveness (and don't fall for their piety, even the most devout religious types secretly fear their deaths!) Stockholm Syndrome be damned... I wasn't going to die from caesium contamination! Like the earthquake itself, the break with my boss was an inevitability that was long overdue, but something which neither of us had had the heart to hasten. Fittingly, it had to be forced upon us, by fate. According to my new Jetstar booking, I was supposed to stay in Cairns for a few hours on Sunday morning, just long enough to change planes, and possibly crunch on a croissant. But then destiny intervened, once again, this time more benignly. I missed my connecting flight, and was thus free to enjoy a full day strolling the streets and shores of this captivating tropical city, the capital of the cane fields, gateway to Cape York. This is the story of how that happened, and what I discovered there. In the meantime, let's wind the clock back a few days, to that crazy and chaotic aftermath of 3/11, when I honestly feared that my life was about to end, crushed by collapsing masonry, or felled by fallout. This is the story of how I became a nuclear refugee, and how the Moving House project met its indignant demise, dumped out on the pavement with the rest of the trash. Quite a few narratives met their demise on the same day, in fact, all of them indignantly. Let's give thanks to them, now, while we can, all of them one by one! They all deserve to be honored such, after what they have given me.

Soil liquefaction brings a pond of water to the surface, on the bank of the Edo River, where the baseball teams play (Japan, 2011)

On Wednesday morning last week (March 16) my boss rang me and told me not to bother reporting to work for the next week or so, as the school would be closed on account of the radiation. When I pressed him further on exactly how long this recess would last, he conceded it could indeed be more than a week... possibly two weeks, a month, who knew? Until the crisis was over, in other words (not there was a crisis of course, and not that he used so many words (typical Japanese doublespeak in action!)) Parents were too scared to send their kids to class (he didn't say that, but that's what I inferred.) Everyone was hunkering down, as if under siege (that was his unspoken gist.) "Don't go outside, ne," he added (meaning: deadly particles might be wafting down from the reactors.) "By all means, chant to the gohonzon on your own. But we don't do gongyou today." Hanging up the phone, I reclined on my futon, imagining a whole free week ahead of me... no, not a week, possibly even a month, a whole month free of work, a month cleared of chanting,  and possibly even purged of panic too! I thought to myself: Is this not yet more proof that the Third Free Month has arrived at last, in these dying days of my life in Japan? With every day, my life is becoming more free... freedom is breaking out all over the map! Maybe I could celebrate this change in fortune, I figured, by taking a nap? Because God knows, I needed one! So I sprawled out on the mattress, inserted my earplugs, and attempted to sleep. Try as I might to suppress them, however, thoughts kept arising in my mind, unsettling thoughts: what exactly was going on up there at Fukushima, and why were people so concerned? ... what if there was a powerful aftershock while I was asleep? would I have time to save myself? ... how am I going to survive without a job, especially now that I have retired from Telephone English, and am already living off my credit card? They were, in fact, much the same thoughts which had thwarted my efforts to sleep and eat a decent meal since the great quake struck, five days previously. Unlike my panic phobias, the fears that motivated these thoughts were real, and demanded respect: from time to time an actual aftershock did arrive, a seismic jolt shifting my bookcase on its foundations, and jiggling my windchime judiciously. One of the reactors up at Fukushima had indeed blown up, and I had watched it happen on CNN, and NHK (and all the other networks). I would now be completely unemployed, with no income save Google Adsense, and Chitika. That was reality, not hyperbole. My life seemed to be crumbling around me. On top of that, I couldn't even go out for a walk!


Sleep was out of the question, so I sat up, and dug out the letter I had started writing to N. earlier in the week. Sleep deprivation had rendered me emotional, and I rapidly scribbled out a page or two about how much I missed her, how this entanglement had inspired me to appreciate her love, and how much I was looking forward to living with her in Việt Nam if I ever got out of this mess, blah blah blah. Soppy, sycophantic shit it was, and I had a feeling that it might embarrass her to read it, as she is way less sentimental about these matters than myself. But what was I going to do: this could be my last transmission before the caesium cloud descended, my last will and testament if you might! Since she never replies to my emails these days, or even answers the fucking phone, launching a letter at her was the only way I could get her attention. And this made me ponder: Why does she make herself so hard to reach? It's strange behavior considering that I am giving up my life in Japan to be with her...

The windchime was jiggling before I felt the jolt. My bookcase shifted immediately after that, and began buckling on its legs, jumping like a catfish on a pole. I bolted up from the futon, and made for the back door, and my escape pod. While I was standing there on the back step, preparing to abandon ship, I noticed an announcement flash up on the TV: a magnitude 6.0 aftershock had hit off the coast of Chiba Prefecture, beneath the Pacific floor. While it rated only a 3 (out of 7) on the subjective Shindo scale here in Edogawa Ward, over at Choushi, on the headland I walked on New Years Day, the shaking measured an alarming 6. Across the Edo River, in places like Funabashi (船橋市), vibrations were recorded at Shindo 4. I know a guy who lives over that way (Jim from Telephone English (TE)), and I wondered how he was going. Shindo 4 is pretty serious, I have only suffered it a few times in my life, all of them in Japan of course, and most of them in the past week! According to Wikipedia, at Shindo 4 "hanging objects swing considerably and dishes in a cupboard rattle. Unstable ornaments fall occasionally. Very loud noises." This aftershock, prominent as it was, triggered its own family of afteraftershocks which erupted all around the east coast, each one answering the previous one, as if they were subterranean deities communicating, stocky dwarfs ringing their hammers of iron on the bedrock beneath my feet. I stood in the doorway until the commotion died down, and then some. This game was getting old. I was over it. I had to get out.

Official advice be damned, I decided to go outside for a walk. Just to be on the safe side, I switched over to the weather channel briefly, to see which way the wind was blowing. To my delight, Tokyo seemed to be enjoying a westerly breeze. What a relief, I thought, all that Fukushima fallout is being blown out to sea! I picked up N.'s letter, put on my coat, and bundled out the door. Happy to be outside, rather than cooped up inside, watching my death on TV. It was sunny out, and the wind felt kind of strong. There weren't many people around, giving the streets an eerily apocalyptic feel.

I mailed off N.'s letter at a post office nearby, and then shopped for some groceries at the Yamaichi supermarket on the old salt route (Shinozaki Highway), in Minami-Shinozaki (南篠崎). It was a place I discovered by chance, walking home from work one magic afternoon in the summer of 2007, when life seemed fresh and full of promise. The magic was all gone today, however, and the aisles of the supermarket were deserted. None of their sushi trays, or curated cuttlefish, looked particularly enticing to me. Perhaps all the good stuff had been snapped up already. I picked up some items nonetheless, and shuffled out. Out on the street, the wind blew, menacingly. It was rather a strong breeze, stronger than the weather channel had prepared me for. Possibly it was my imagination, but there seemed to be something caustic riding on that breeze too, something biting, something even luminous. It was only until I returned home, and switched on the TV, that I realized that the wind had changed direction during my walk, and was now blowing down from the north... down from the reactors... down from the fields of death in Tohoku...

I remembered that I had Jim's phone number in my address book, so I gave him a call. I hadn't spoken to him since my abrupt disappearance from Telephone English, and I figured I owed him an explanation. As it turned out, he was flat on his back, literally, across the river in Chiba Prefecture. He told me he was working at TE on Friday afternoon when the great quake struck. The temblor was so terrifying that all the edutainers rushed downstairs to take cover on the street (which, it seems, is a typical gaijin thing to do in this situation!) The phone lines went down, so they couldn't work. But the train lines were down too, so they couldn't get home either. They ended up camping out in the office, and Jim said he did his back in trying to sleep on the hard floor. Surprisingly, he didn't seem as rattled as I was by all the aftershocks. "The earthquake is over, it's finished, we had it on Friday... what you have to worry about is the meltdown," he said. "My folks have been on the phone, telling me to get out, saying you'd have to be crazy to remain here. That is, indeed, what I am planning to do... get out."

"You're going to leave?" I asked him, feeling a little jealous.

"I will only be gone for a week or so," he replied. "Long enough for things to cool down."

"I can imagine there would be a mass exodus, if things got really dire," I said. "You probably wouldn't even be able to leave... the flights would be booked out, the highways gridlocked with traffic."

"Most Japanese would stay, because they have nowhere else to go," Jim said. "We, on the other hand... we have options."

I remembered Ken-san asking me yesterday if I planned to leave Japan. Until that point, I hadn't even considered it. I mean, I was leaving on account of my panic attacks, I had a ticket booked and all, but I hadn't considered hastening my departure due to the disaster. Now, listening to Jim talk, I felt myself brimming with resentment, and envy. How come he could leave, and I had to stay behind? Why was it that I felt so burdened by commitments, and restraints (including financial restraints), that I had to quell my natural instincts to flee? If I was a true Vagabond, I thought to myself, I could leave at any time, I would just pack up my suitcase and leave. Stockholm Syndrome be damned: I never wanted to be a resident! A true Vagabond would just get a train out to the airport, and leave. And in one blinding epiphany, talking to Jim in the radioactive breeze, that is what I decided to do! I decided to pack my suitcase, and leave.

But first, I needed to call my Mum.

Fouling the Nest

During my Australian life (realUniverse#1990s) I was employed as a journalist for Cumberland Newspapers and worked at many of their titles in Sydney and on the NSW Central Coast. One of my gigs was at the North Shore Times where, as well as being general office shitkicker, I served as the resident restaurant reviewer. I didn't understand why all of my colleagues thought it was a shit job, I myself assumed it would be something of a prized position, and definitely a lurk... anyway, as soon as I lobbed up at their office in Chatswood, one of the first things I got asked was: "Can you do the restaurant reviews?" Some female reporter there had been doing it but she was more than happy to let me take over if I didn't mind, and anyway she was going to be far too busy from now on with her new brief (which was writing about real estate, or something like that). Being the new guy, I was kind of obligated to oblige, and help her out. Being the new guy, I was expected to take on the tasks that others didn't want; I had to be a shitkicker, at least temporarily. I shifted in my seat, smiled, said, "Yes, of course I can!" and then the job was mine, just like that. Possibly the other journalists there regarded it as a waste of time, not "serious" enough for them, or an impediment to their career... but while the guy I sat next might have dreamed of being a Rugby League reporter at the Sydney Morning Herald, I was after nothing more than a free feed! And nothing is better than getting free food, than being paid to eat it! Of course, nothing is really free in this world, and I had to work for those meals, I had to fawn and flatter for them, and write nice things in print. I had to spend the odd evening in a drafty restaurant somewhere with the staff photographer mopping up curry with naan and making small talk, when I could have been at home. Naturally, I wasn't allowed to write anything negative should the food disappoint because the restaurants were also advertisers, and advertising was the name of the game at Cumberland Newspapers, it was their bread and butter you might say. In any case, even if the food was good, and it usually was, the restaurant review system didn't seem like a fair way to go: as the establishment in question always knew I was coming, they naturally laid on a good spread, waiters buzzing around like moons and all the rest. Had I visited incognito, guerrilla-style, it might have been a different story, a more honest story! That's why websites like urbanspoon are so much more honest, and so much more candid... they're democratic, and tell it how it is. I wasn't allowed to do that in my reviews (or in any of my "harder" stories, to tell you the truth.) And maybe that's why, in their wisdom, my fellow journalists at The Times hated writing the reviews... they knew it was just glorified copywriting. They had places to go, and bigger fishes to fry. They were aiming for the top, which left me the bottom to colonize.

The United Colors of Crows Nest, near North Sydney (Australia, 2011)

Journalistic ethics aside, I was on a roll at the North Shore Times, and as well as scoring lunches at French and Swiss bistros that I would not ordinarily be able to afford, I scoffed Korean bulgogi, bowls of pasta, gourmet hamburgers, and plenty of good Chinese. It was mighty convenient that I was living a 10 minute walk away, across the highway from the Royal North Shore Hospital, just past St Leonard's railway station near Crows Nest. I had a Hong Kong girlfriend and a leafy backyard... what could be better than that? Okay, my Trekkie flatmates were kind of anal, and they had a psycho cat to boot (and boot it I did, from time to time, when they weren't watching!) I split up with my Hong Kong girlfriend after just a month or two together, and the sea monkeys she gave me when we started out together died, dissolving into a milky cloud. But anyway, I had Crows Nest, just a matter of blocks away! Back then, before I had moved to Japan, I used to think Crows Nest was kind of sophisticated, exotic even, but not really that edgy. There were gorgeous multicultural treats in easy walking range, Italian pizzerias run by guys with names like Vince, or Dino (or Pino), and Thai takeouts with humorous/sarcastic names. In due course, I reviewed many of these establishments for the North Shore Times. I was totally spoiled for choice: North Indian, Japanese, Korean, there was even a Mongolian place in which I lunched with the Cumberland crew (I had to pay for this one). When I was off-duty, there were two bottleshops in roaming range, and for harder fare, my mate Jimmy (of Pablo Velasquez Shoeboarding fame) lived up the road, on Ernest Street. Whatever you needed, he could supply. The majesty of Sydney Harbour was also just a short stroll away, anyway really... whichever way you headed, you were destined to run into it. The water seems to be all around you, in this part of the world.

Last month I jetted down to Australia on Vietnam Airlines, and had the opportunity to revisit some of my roots. Two days after Christmas, a somewhat overcast day, I met up with Chris Mae, my old partner in crime from Japan, and his brother Garnet, the renegade film-maker, and cruised around the lower North Shore for a while, looking for mischief. Chris had just got a new skateboard for Christmas, and he was very pleased with himself.





After a nice round of lawn bowls we went over to Cremorne to eat some Mickey D's, and then Garnet suggested we drop in to have a chat with Jimmy, who still lived in his original crib, on Ernest. Back in the day Jimmy's was the place to hang, and if you were lucky he might get out his projector and show you Bladerunner on the big screen, or something from the Star Wars saga. Unfortunately Jimmy was out, but he told us to hang tight, and wait an hour or two. We decided to go for a walk, and look for some good grub. This was Crows Nest, after all: there ought to be plenty of fine dining selections at hand! 

Mumu, a grill joint, on Alexander Street, Crows Nest (Australia, 2009)

So, we went for a walk, looking for something promising. The sun came out, birds were flapping around, and all was well with the world. We walked up the road, to Alexander Street. Church was in session, and all the faithful were dressed up for the occasion. Looking around, it seemed like every second restaurant was a grill joint. MUMU (70 Alexander Street) was a case in point, and promised "grill,  tapas and bar"... who could imagine a better combination? According to my beloved North Shore Times, this place has the largest al fresco dining space in Crows Nest. It might have been nice, but Garnet is a vegetarian, so it wasn't really appropriate. Damn!

Grill'd, another grill joint, on Willoughby Road, Crows Nest (Australia, 2009)

We moved on, to Willoughby Road, to pass another grill joint, Grill'd (49 Willoughby Road). Nobody out to eat yet; perhaps it was too early. According to Menufest: "The Grill'd concept was born when Simon Crowe, the company founder, decided to do something about the lack of a decent, healthy hamburger in the Australian market." Lamb, chicken, beef and vegie burgers are on the menu here, which should have pleased Garnet. But, for some reason, he wasn't going for it. We walked on, passing Wrapido, and a Commonwealth Bank branch. Then we stumbled upon a place which is apparently renowned in this part of town: Pino's Pizzeria. We all agreed we could do with a good pizza, so we pulled up a seat outside.

Garnet Mae prepares to dine, at Pino's Pizzeria (Australia, 2009)

Postscript: who would have thought that I would go all the way to Australia to get a dose of the runs? I have been to Vietnam six times in the last three years and even though I often dine on the streets there, I hardly ever get an upset stomach... nothing too bad anyway, maybe an overdose of fibre. I have lived in Japan for nine years and eaten raw chicken, raw horse and canned whale meat and felt none the worse for wear, accrued bad karma notwithstanding. It took returning to my native Australia to get a really intense case of diarrhea, one that lasted for nearly a week, and followed me all the way to my love nest in Ho Chi Minh City... and I believe it all started at Pino's Pizzeria. Mind you they were good pizzas that we quoffed there, me and the Mae brothers and their two halfJapanese descendents... mine were heavy on the anchovies. It was probably the anchovies that unsettled me. If I had been like Garnet and limited myself to the Vegetariana (artichokes, mushroom, onion, olives and capsicum) I would probably have been okay. Probably. Anyway, at least I have a chance to provide a really honest Sydney restaurant review, after faking it for so long. Incidentally, urbanspoon rank Pino's as one of the top restaurants in Crows Nest. Don't listen to my sad gripe; the majority can't be wrong!

Thai Girls (Welcome to the Jungle!)

Ever get the feeling that you are missing out on life, and that somewhere far away people are having the fun which should, rightfully, be yours? This was the suspicion which tormented me one steamy day last month in the vicinity of Khao San Road, Bangkok (the City of Angels, Great City of Immortals, Magnificent City of the Nine Gems), at the start of my latest Oriental adventure. I had just made it down to the Kingdom for the first time in six years, en route to episode three of tropical love in Vietnam. Tropical love with Thai girls wasn't even on my agenda for the three-day layover, I was more interested in finding a Drum'n'Bass club, and some cool places to hang out. The sky had been all torrid and theatrical as my Royal Thai Airways jetliner tore across Cambodia on the journey south, many of the clouds outside looking like elephants (some of them rearing). Underneath, rivers and rice paddies gave way to urban sprawl, then presently we were skidding into Suvarnabhumi Airport, me marveling at the futuristic terminals, the futuristic control tower, the El Al plane on the tarmac next to us a testament to the popularity of this place with Israeli tourists (French and Russians go to Vietnam, Israelis and Swedes go to Thailand -- that has been my observation these past 269 obsessive days.) I helped some English girls out in the queue for Immigration, then got hassled by a hustler as I looked for the public bus to Phra Nakhon (พระนคร) district, where I was hoping to stay. Eventually found the bus though it wasn't much cheaper than the taxi the tout was endorsing, and a lot slower. Up on board, the soundsystem was tuned into Thai radio: some kind of manic, repetitive percussive acoustic house music with a Rock edge, and the DJ's jibber-jabbering all over the top: jibber-jabber, jibber-jibber-jabber, jibber-jibber-jabber-jibber-jabber. Each song stretched for like 30 minutes. There were heaps of Australian girls convened up the back shrieking and talking loudly about their periods and other vulgar matters, dropping the "f" bomb liberally. They reminded me, poignantly, of why I fear moving home to Australia to live, despite all my recent bouts of loneliness in Japan. Aussies just have no class. Even though this was my first landing at Suvarnabhumi, cruising downtown was very much a trip down Memory Lane and I amazed myself with how much I actually knew the city, knew the landmarks -- for example the impressive Democracy Monument, the beautiful Grand Palace a vision from a dream. Elephant motifs and stupas were all over the place, this being Thailand of course! I couldn't wait to hit the pavement, find a hotel, and then dive headlong into the pub and club scene!

Elephant motifs adorn this stupa, near the MBK department store in Bangkok (Thailand, 2008) 

In my dream life I wouldn't be shackled to one place and job as I am now, but would be free to circulate the globe, circumnavigate the world endlessly, like a satellite following an eccentric orbit, forever cutting against the grain. It turns out I am not the only one with elite expat dreams (of delusion, of grandeur, or illusions of grandeur?). Global Nanpa out of Germany writes:

Think about it, I am convinced that my life is much better than that of the often cited Playboy Hugh Hefner for example. I didn't realize in the past years how important health and age is, but it does matter a lot, more even than money. US college girl blondines are not my taste anyway. Sounds arrogant but I can have more girls than him, paid AND for free. Nanpa makes it possible. I also don't have to pop any pills before the magic happens LOL. My honest ratio for paid/unpaid female companionship on my recent trips was around 75% paid, 25% for free. I plan to hold it like this for the next decade, turning now 30 years-old end of September. The freebies in retroperspective were actually often the more painful memories, that's why I try to keep a balanced ratio : I don't want to inflict too much emotional pain on others and on myself. Like regular readers know, I have the idea of finding the true girl-friend experience (GFE) during my trips.

This life is so much better than being a real celebrity, because you don't have to deal with the negative side effects like getting watched carefully by the public all the time and not being able to walk around freely in public places anymore. I would never trade my life with anyone. Once your skills, looks and budget reach a certain level, you can literally live the ultimate dream life in Asia. Trust me, it's good...

Along with Nanpa, Stickman and the guy they call Mango Sauce, I will always be beguiled by Bangkok because it hosts so many happening scenes here. As Nanpa attests, Bangkok is like a miniature version of the world with everything you might need crammed inside it. To take one example: Bangkok has to my mind become the London of the East with its own Drum'n'Bass nights, resident DJ's, bars, crazy clubs -- I dig all that and I am also into Thai music as well, all the macho Thai hard metal. That shit rocks! It is a cheap place to stay (I can find adequate lodgings for under $20 a night), the food is awesome, and there are tonnes of colorful temples to be enjoyed if that is your thing. Bangkok is centrally located -- there is easy access to Ho Chi Minh City, Yangon, Kathmandu, Guangzhou, Calcutta, Jakarta, Medan, all of these places exotic as f+ck and only an hour or two plane-ride away. On top of that it is a great place to pick up  budget tickets. While you are waiting for your visa to come through you can kick back with a cold Singha or Chang, watch some videos, and poke your fork into a plate of pad thai. And there are, of course, the girls. Millions, millions of beautiful, cute, sexy girls. All waiting for a piece of you! All waiting, perchance, for a piece of me!

Wat Chana Songkhram Rachawora Mahawiharn, near Khao San Road, Bangkok (Thailand, 2008)

Of course Bangkok has long had a reputation as a city of sin and on previous trips I have spotted plenty of frightening farang with the local lasses, sweaty overweight German dudes and tattooed British hooligans with their unlikely looking dates, eating noodles at MBK or climbing out of a tuk-tuk, or whatever. You watch these couples sauntering down the sois and think to yourself: Yeah right (to use the Australian vernacular)... as if! The Asian girlfriend experience is a big business, but it has never appealed to me, at least in its cruder forms. If you have to pay for it it is not a real conquest, in my opinion -- these girls you are purchasing are just like those hidden divers in Imperial China whose job it was to secretly latch fish on to the Emperor's hook, while the Emperor was out fishing. It is self delusional and a wank to think this is "real", and although some men might need the physical relief, I can go without it if necessary. For me, the idea that you could get it if the circumstances were more favorable is often more tantalizing than the actual getting of it, if you understand my reasoning. So, I am not interested in going to girly bars, hiring escorts, or getting a massage (even though my New Zealand bud Maniac High Dennis the Menace threatened to bitch slap me if I didn't get laid this trip.) I'm sorry Dennis -- I didn't get laid while I was in Thailand, but I wasn't in Thailand to get laid, I was more on a recon kind of mish, and in any case I am pretty well taken at the moment thank you very much, comfortably committed to my love in Vietnam! I was just biding my time this trip, and scoping the scene, more as an observer than an actual participant, to see the kind of potential this place offers me if I ever (touch wood) turn single again. And one of the first things I observed, after hitting the pavement on Khao San Road, was the number of hot young Thai girls with (wait for it)... normal young Western guys! The kind of guys who could get a girlfriend in their own country, if they so desired. I'd never noticed this phenomenon in the past, and it surprised me. What were these Western guys doing in Thailand? I wondered. Did they have a job here or something? The girls they were with were well fit, indeed... many of them looked like fashion models. It rubbed me somewhat, and it set me thinking: why do I slave my days away with a maniac landlord/boss in Tokyo, chanting to the gohonzon, singing on the telephone, saving my pennies for an occasional episode of tropical love in Vietnam? why am I doing all that when I could be here in the Land of Smiles, here in the City of Angels, living the dream on a daily basis, with a whole harem of hotties? Of course, there are plenty of model quality girls in Japan, but you don't often see the ultra-hot ones dating foreigners, and you certainly don't see them dating me. A full harem has always eluded me. Was I living in the wrong country, living the wrong life entirely? I asked myself. Envy arose in my soul like a poison, and impure thoughts clouded my mind. If I could have just talked to Nga on the phone, then my d(a)emons might have been kept at bay, for one night at least. But she never answers the phone, and she was also all quiet on the email front. Once again I was all on my own, to ride out the storm.

Khao San Road, Bangkok's original golden mile, in Banglamphu (Thailand, 2008)

Bangkok's original Golden Mile and backpacker Mecca, Khao San Road, has a happening party scene rammed with folk from all corners of the map. Whenever I stay here, I am pretty much guaranteed to have an adventure every time I step out of my hotel. The place swarms with freaks, of all colors and creeds. In recent years the street has also developed a seriously credible nightlife scene and last month, after a long absence, I had the chance to check it out in person, in the flesh. Within 10 minutes of leaving my hotel midway down the Golden Mile I was handed a flyer promising Drum'n'Bass and other pleasures at the Immortal Bar, just up the road. (The joint, located on the second floor of the Bayon Building (website: MySpace site here), apparently also does a pretty mean heavy metal show, although I never got the chance to witness that). You can play pool inside, or you can sit out on the balcony drinking Red Bull and vodka combinations, watching lightning lick the skies. Inside the bar, basslines thunder like a summer tempest. I sank my Red Bull and vodkas, and then a couple of Tiger beers. Apart from the music, there wasn't particularly much going on, so I eventually headed out for a while, ostensibly to explore the surrounding streets, or cross the river in the dark, I can't quite remember which. As it turns out, I didn't make it past the gates of Khao San Road. I stopped off down at the police station end, the site of my first landing in Bangkok in 1992, at an Israeli style falafel stand. Waiting for my turn, a black African man introduced himself to me. He said he was from The Sudan. He bought me a falafel, vegetarian as far as I recall, brimming with Middle Eastern textures and flavor. There were a couple of Israeli guys (former soldiers, no doubt) loitering nearby, enjoying the monsoon. I asked the black African guy what he was doing in Thailand. I didn't quite get his reply, but I think he said that business had forced him to stay in Bangkok a couple of weeks, and that he had spent every night of his stay at Khao San Road. Which kind of implied that he liked it here, but then he started confusing me, by denouncing the scene. "I don't agree with all this drinking," he said, nodding to the heaving, staggering masses, all the alcohol adverts hanging from the shophouse façades. "I don't agree with this materialism, this rudeness, all this sex. You see, the Prophet laid out guidelines of how to live, instructions for how to live. Since it was God who created us, it is only natural, that God should give us the instructions on how to use our physical vehicles. That is something you never got in the Bible, and that is something the Jews never understood either! The Qur'an is a user manual for the human being."

Mobile food court moves through the heaving masses (Thailand, 2008)

The scene around us was a hubbub -- a constant coming and going of backpackers, taxis and delivery trucks snaking their way through the scrum, locals looking for an international experience, ladies pushing carts stacked with fried chicken and noodles and corn on the cob. There were peddlers from the highlands hawking hammocks strung together from synthetic fibers, or stroking wooden frogs with small batons to make compellingly froglike croaks. One of the Israeli guys at the stand glared at us, having overheard the reference to the Qur'an. "People in the west are so materialistic now," the African was saying. "They have lost touch with the important things in life, such as following God's commandments."

"Have you ever drunk alcohol?" I asked him.

"Never, not once. Liquor has never so much as even passed my lips."

Sometime later the subject of September 11 came up, and the Muslim boldly proclaimed: "That was an inside job carried out by Jews and Americans." It should be remembered we were standing at an Israeli falafel stand at the time, and there were former Israeli soldiers turned backpackers loitering nearby, doubtless some of them with combat experience. I was in no mood to make enemies or get into a fight, so I decided it was time to ditch this extremist. Which was kind of good timing, because he wanted to go back to his hotel anyway. He escorted me as far as the Bayon Building, where I resumed my sinful indulgences. I never got to take my night walk along the river, past the old embankments, out of the Old City. Nonetheless, it is always nice to meet someone from a farflung corner of the world... that happens a lot when I am Khao San Road. It is one neat place to hang out.

God willing, there is always something going on at the Immortal Bar (Thailand, 2008)

The next night I was back at the Immortal Bar drinking and enjoying a chaotic set when I met this Thai girl who called herself Far 2 Juicy (her real name being Phar I believe.) She was sitting on a couch with this young, blond English guy. "It is not as if he is my boyfriend or anything," she claimed at one point, but judging by the way they went home together, he most probably was. At least until something better came along, I suspected. She seemed to have eyes for me though, and once again it made me think that if I hung out more often in Bangkok in the future, I could get plenty of action here. Just a pity that I am already taken! I consoled myself. When I woke up in the morning (which was a Sunday), I was amazed to find her email address (far2_Juicy@hotmail) in my jeans' pocket, scribbled on a used paper plate. I was so drunk, I must have totally forgot that she gave me that!

I showered, shaved, gulped a quick coffee at the restaurant downstairs, and then raced over to an Internet cafe on Soi Rambuttri, just past the Wat Chana Songkhram Rachawora Mahawiharn. Excitement gripped me, and devious fantasies played themselves out in my mind: imagine having two girlfriends in south-east Asia, a girl in every port! That's how we Immortals play it, the south-East Asian style! I seated myself at a terminal, ordered a Coke or possibly a fruit juice, and opened GMail on the browser. There was a short message from N. waiting in my inbox, promising to pick me up at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City the following day after I arrived there (my flight was scheduled for Monday.) It made me feel a little hesitant about the stunt I was about to pull off, just a wee bit guilty. But I had to have something to take home to Dennis the Menace: if not the actual booty, at least the promise of booty soon to come! There was nothing wrong with just sending Phar an email, after all (even though it was "just an email" that led to my whole long distance relationship with N.!) So, I punched out an epistle to her on the keyboard, not exactly Mystery magnitude, but as seductive as I could manage with a hangover on a hot day: 

Hello this is Rob I met you at the bar at the Bayon Center on Khao San Road last night.
Thanks for giving me your email address.
I was drunk last night and forgot that you had given me your address until this morning.
Then when I saw it I remembered what happened.
Did you have a good time last night?
I will be going to Khao San Road again tonight, probably to the same places I went to last night.
I am leaving Thailand tomorrow morning but I hope to be back many times in the future.
So, I hope to see you again someday.
Sincerely,
Rob.

I pushed send, and the mail flew off to meet its destiny. GMail defaulted back to its inbox folder, and I noticed right at the top, an item newly minted, manifested from the ether, titled: "Delivery Status Notification (Failure)". My heart skipped a beat as I absorbed this news. Failure? That didn't sound good, that didn't sound good at all! I clicked on the item to open it, just to make sure, and the message which appeared on my sceen made grim reading indeed:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
     far2_juicy@hotmail.com
Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable (state 14).

I slumped back and took a long sip of my Coke, perplexed. Had Phar given me the wrong email? I wondered. Had she written it down incorrectly? Was it all just a game? was she merely messing with my mind? (Actually, I was later to find out that Hotmail sometimes block emails from GMail for security reasons, so it was probably just a technical problem.) I studied her scrawl anew on the paper plate she had given me, which was still encrusted with pizza remains we evidently must have scoffed together at the pub. Her address sure looked like "far2_juicy" to me, and I had to concede it was a cool handle. If that wasn't her email address, then it most certainly should have been. So what else was up? Maybe it's just my connection that's bad? I reasoned. Maybe it's just a little hiccup with this decrepit computer! I cut and paste my original message, which was now scrambled with all the junk at the bottom of the delivery failure notification, and crafted a brand new email, free of clutter. And then I pressed send. GMail defaulted back to its inbox folder, and I noticed a new item sitting at the top, freshly minted, titled: "Delivery Status Notification (Failure)". Right on top of the previous rebuff that I had received, from the System.

It seemed like I was caught in a loop going round and round, with no way out. Time for a different approach, I figured. I cast another critical look at the address on my paper plate, just to make sure I had typed it in right. I've learnt that in Thai script the character which looks like an "s" (ร), for example, is actually an "r", so you have to be careful around here with false similarities. Phar's email address was written in English, of course, but it was entirely possible that the "r" in "far" was actually an "n", according to the logic of her penmanship. That meant her email address wasn't far2_Juicy@hotmail at all, it was fan2_Juicy@hotmail! Hooray! I'd read it wrong! I reloaded a new email scavenged from the detritus of the old, and fired it away, optimistically, at fan2_Juicy@hotmail. And then I defaulted back to the inbox screen, to see if the email had gone through. It hadn't, in fact, and now I had three rejection letters in a row, sitting at the top of my folder. Return to sender.

I spent the next hour at the Internet cafe, trying every variation on the email address Phar had given me, on that folded-up paper plate. I tried them all: far2juicy@hotmail.com, far2_juicy@hotmail.com, Far2-juicy@hotmail.com, Far2_juicy@hotmail.com, far2-juicy@hotmail.com, far-2-juicy@hotmail.com. Even phar2_juicy@hotmail.com, even though the address on the plate clearly started with an "f". Every single time, the email bounced back at me, leaving a failure notification in my inbox. Before too long, my folder was full of failure notifications. It began to make me feel, well, something of a failure. I just thought that this lead was so promising, that I couldn't just give it up. But there is only so long you can beat a dead horse, before the flailed, mutilated carcass starts to gross you out. At some point, I reached my gross out point. I looked at all those fail notifications, and decided that I had done enough. It was time to admit defeat, and move on. I had a fish on the line, but now that fish was gone. In any case it didn't really matter, because I already had a girlfriend. So I started walking, right out the door, and I didn't stop walking for a couple of hours at least.

I even managed to cross that bridge over the Phadung Krung Kasem (คลองผดุงกรุงเกษม), which actually has a kind of sentimental importance to me. It was on this bridge, leaving the Old City in the year 2000, that I shook off the bout of homesickness and ennui which had plagued me since I uprooted myself from my workaday life in Australia, and commenced my ceaseless wanderings. Crossing the bridge a second time, I felt like I was completing a cosmic loop. Out of nowhere my resolution rose, and I decided, defiantly: There's no way I am going back to Australia to live, no way at all. This Asian Affair has only just begun! The endless journey will go on. I kept on walking, right up to the National Library, near the banks of the Chao Phraya River. There was a computer room in there with free Internet, and I made use of it, but I refrained from sending another email to Phar. That obsession was history, I just had to let it die. I sent a message to N. instead, letting her know how much I missed her. And then went out again, one last time, to all the pubs and clubs of Khao San Road that I could find. I only got four hours sleep, before it was time to rush out to Suvarnabhumi, and board my bird for Vietnam.

The next afternoon I was lying in bed at the City Star in Ho Chi Minh City, trying to shake off a wicked hangover. There was glorious sunshine outside, and Nga was pottering round the room in some regal white number, it might even have been an áo dài. We were due to return to the airport in a few hours to pick up my parents, and she was apparently getting nervous. Lying back in bed with the cool air-con blowing, Vietnamese soap operas on TV, I felt the cares of my life starting to drop away. The entire Far 2 Juicy malarkey suddenly seemed desperate and tawdry. What could have possessed me at act that way? I wondered. How could I have contemplated cheating on my girl?

Let's blame it on Bangkok, I thought to myself, and nodded off to sleep.

Sunshine and the Gloom: Reprise

After my successful date with Tomomi last night, I awoke to a sunny and generally pleasant Sunday, this being one of the mildest winters on record. I had an appointment with my old salaryman friend Tanaka-san at 4pm; he wanted me to transcribe the lyrics of a Country&Western song his partner was planning to sing in Osaka (大阪). I met him at Breaks Cafe at Ueno Station, and transcribed his lyrics. After that we marched briskly through the settling cold and madding crowds, down the bleak concrete lanes, to the Himonoya Restaurant in Okachimachi (御徒町). Tanaka-san had spotted the place from the train on the Yamanote Line as he passed on his daily business, and he was keen to check it out. Naturally, the shout was on him.

Himonoya, specializing in sundried cuisine, at Okachimachi (Japan, 2006)

The servings started with a complementary cabbage -- you better believe it a whole cabbage, which we ate with a smearing of slightly spiced mayonnaise. I am not a green veg buff by any means but this cabbage tasted amazing -- "it is fresh," Tanaka-san succinctly remarked. There followed a series of sundried seafood dishes, in the himono tradition -- Tanaka-san sent one of them back to the kitchen for having too much akaimono (red stuff) inside. Apart from the fish, the menu boasted grilled nasu (eggplant) and fried duck (鴨つくね) served with what looked suspiciously like a duck's egg. Who said the Japanese weren't adventurous eaters! There were also plenty of onigiri rice balls, some of them of tremendous proportions. Scary! Naturally, a full spread of Japanese rice wine and beers accompanied the feast. I took a few photos, and sent one or two of them to Tomomi. I returned home feeling elated, basking in the afterglow. The gloom in my heart was lifting. It's funny how your life can turn around, so quickly.

With a new job and a new girlfriend, I have achieved the aims of July 2006. So, let's bask for a while! Breaking free from Kidea is a longterm goal, and I have already come quite far, with 2.5 free days! Since money is the key to power I should focus on repaying my credit debt. There are too many  interesting things happening in Japan to worry about the implementation of Intermediate International Vagabondancy just yet. However, I have laid the foundations of this coming phase of my life.

Himonoya: 5-19-6 Ueno, Taito Ward, Tokyo, Japan. Phone: (03) 3831 8804.

Skogar Treks (Iceland)

The village of Skógar might comprise just a few farms and a museum and some Tolkiensian Hobbit holes poking through the grass, but it has also become a gateway to one of Europe's last great wilderness areas, the huge, threatening Eyjafjallajökull ice cap in south Iceland, as well as the terminus of one of the world's top 10 treks. Not that I have ever trekked it... not yet, anyway. Later this year I will go to Iceland and if I have money and the time, I will definitely go to Skógar. From what I have read online, the name of the village means "forest", so it is probably the former site of a forest, although there don't seem to be many trees there now, they were chopped down centuries ago. I've heard the village is also close to the beautiful waterfall Skógafoss, which presumably means "forest waterfall", and is a major tourist attraction. There is another waterfall close to the ring road called Seljalandsfoss, which I would like to partake as well if I can make it. In the village itself, one can find a museum displaying the evolution of Icelandic houses and technical devices such as old aircraft and cars. The founder of the museum, Þórður Tómasson, is said to like showing guests around and has interesting stories to tell.

Seljalandsfoss, just off the ring road near Skogar in south Iceland.

Since I haven't been to Skógar yet, I have to delve into the blogosphere, to see what the fuss is about. The thing about the Internet, it is almost like travelling, as well as going back in time (if you look at the older sites.) Some of the bloggers you read come across as travellers you might share a room with, and they all are interesting characters. Take the Australian blogger Danny Yee, for example. Danny is just one of the many hikers and trekkers who have arrived in Skógar to take on the cunning walk. He trekked up to Þórsmörk ("Thor's Field"), a waystation on the trip to Landmannalaugar near the Hekla volcano.

Danny wrote of his trekking experience:

The morning was bright and clear. "Fossbuin" was closed, so we could neither shower nor pay for the campsite. We packed everything ready for our hike, but then went to check out the Skógar Folk Museum. This consists of a number of buildings: old farmhouses, many of them with turf walls, a reconstructed church and schoolhouse, a large modern building housing the folk exhibits, and a brand new Technology and Transport Museum. Þordur Tomasson, the curator who inspired the museum, is still going strong, and he performed for us on one of the little organs, singing along, and on a dulcimer.

After checking out the museum and the amazing houses with grass growing on their roofs (just like the Hobbit Holes in The Shire!), Danny and his team trekked on to Þórsmörk. This is actually a short trek by Skógar standards -- the standard walk is a whopping 70+km long, up to Landmanalaugar (although people usually follow the route in reverse, from Landmanalaugar down to Skógar, possibly because it is easier as it is mostly downhill.) If you are interested in reading the accounts of some trekkers who have taken on this trek and won, visit these following sites (eds. note: these are so old they are in the archives now!):

Nir Halman's Landmanalaugar to Skógar Trek
A good web-blog from the days when web-blogs didn't even exist. This site will give you a good introduction to travel in Iceland, especially if you of the pennypinching disposition. But first, allow me to get an anti-Semitic rant off my chest: If you have ever been to Thailand or India you will have probably come across Israeli backpackers and been shocked by their aggressive bargaining tactics. It seems that Israelis have an almost allergic reaction to spending money while they are on holiday, and they will do anything -- anything -- to avoid coughing up the cash. I have even seen them bargaining in fixed price places like Kodak film development clinics (Bangkok), provoking the wrath of both fellow customers and staff. Some restaurants and hotels in Thailand and the subcontinent now refuse to admit Israeli customers for this reason -- to spare themselves the grief of a 3-hour argument about the bill. I haven't seen any "No Israelis Allowed" signs in Iceland yet, but they could start appearing, if the frigid island attracts more visitors of the ilk of Nir Halman.

If you ever wondered what goes on in the mind of an Israeli backpacker, check out Nir's site. This is one of the older Iceland adventure blogs on the Net -- it dates from 2001, and describes a visit Nir and his girlfriend made to Iceland in 1999. I enjoyed reading about how they try to save money by eating in supermarkets or BBQing their meals outside -- I should add that there is a bit of Nir in me, the last time I went to Iceland I was so short of money I was forced to sleep at the airport and hitch a ride to Blue Lagoon. One of the cool things Nir and his girl manage to do while in Iceland, is make the Landmannalaugar to Skógar trek. As Nir writes:

This trek is considered the best (but also the most difficult) in Iceland. It starts in Landmannalaugar, the site of a rather big hot water spring at an altitude of 600m. It is a remote and exposed place in the highlands bordering a big lava field from which Hekla volcano can be seen. This place is obviously popular with the tourists who visit it during the summer time. In the winter time, when a thick layer of snow covers the surroundings, it is left alone for the locals, who come to bath naked in the hot springs. The trek to Skogar is 70km long, and usually takes a week to walk. It is considered unique in the world as it passes through lava fields, volcanoes, hot springs, geysers as well as genuine alpine scenery of eternal glaciers, a high snow-covered mountain-pass and numerous snow fields.

The other great thing about this trek is that the route is lined with well maintained and cozy huts where hikers can stay the night. Payment for accommodation at these huts is, well, optional. And you can assume that your typical Israeli, passing through this beautiful part of the world, will option out of paying if payment is only optional. The loyalty system doesn't work for every nationality, I am afraid. Nir's website is proof of that. One of the classic parts of Nir's adventure happens when they come across a group of Icelandic folks having a BBQ at a popular mushroom picking place en route:

They are eating huge amounts of BBQ meat and freshly grilled potatoes while we eat pasta and mashed potatoes made out of dried potatoes powder. We look at them with eager eyes and then with surprise when we see the amount of leftovers they throw in the garbage cans. We don't understand why they ignore us. They are so many and we are only 4 "poor" tourists. They could have offered us some of their food... Only when they see our mashed potatoes powder they start to talk with us, and offer to us the remaining 3 pieces of the cake that they have eaten. What a pity they didn't talk with us before and offered to us the meat...

I too know what it is like to be a poor tourist in Iceland, forced to subsist on packets of dry noodles from Japan and cans of Asahi Blue, and tins of sardines and old bread. Next time I go to Iceland (June this year) things will be different -- I am going to live like a King. Lamb and roast pork and hotdogs for me every day -- I can hardly wait. Bring on the adventure!

Rowan Castle's Landmanalaugar to Skogar Trek

Rowan Castle visited Iceland in 2002 because he needed to get away from work and reckoned that the Landmanalaugar to Skógar trek would be the perfect place to unburden the stresses of modern life. In the process, he traded the burdens of workaday living for the burden of a 56-pound backpack! On his website Castle wrote:

This route is rated as Iceland's premier walk, and some guidebooks even claim that it is one of the best treks in the World! It starts in the South Central Highlands, amongst the colourful rhyolitic mountains and geothermal vents of Landmanalaugar. These mountains were laid down by volcanic action, and then dramatically eroded to create undulating hills of multi-coloured mineral deposits. As the path loses altitude, it descends out of these hills and crosses a bleak lava desert of black ash, punctuated by pyramidal mountains and raging glacial rivers. At the other side is the wide valley of Thorsmork (Woods of Thor), which has stunning views of two of Icelands huge ice caps - Eyafjallajokul and Myrdalsjokul. The route then climbs out of the valley, along a sharp ridge and crosses the Fimmvorthuhals Pass between the two ice caps. From there, it descends sharply to the North Atlantic coast, finishing at the sixty metre high Skogafoss waterfall at the small settlement of Skogar.

Castle describes the long trek from Landmanalaugar to Skógar in gruelling prose, with blocks of text interspersed by links to his photo gallery. I liked some of the little incidental touches, like the discovery of some little Arctic flowers in a crevice somewhere, their fragile beauty contrasted against the massive glacier stretching for miles and miles into the distance -- the microcosm within the macrocosm. Castle described some mud he had found on his trek thus: "a stream at the bottom (of the ravine) emerged from a perfectly formed tunnel under the ice, but the stream had deposited strange bright orange mineral deposits onto the black ash. The contrasting colours of orange, white and black looked like they belonged to an alien landscape."

That's why I love Iceland -- I just can't get enough of those alien landscapes! And if you want to plunge yourself into one alien landscape after another, go read Rowan Castle's site. Even if it doesn't formally exist any longer!