So I'm back on the blog again, this time from the town of Rotorua... I'll start with a lovely picture of me and Matt tramping just outside Wellington... it's a bit blurry thats probably good because I look rather sweaty and unappealing... it was a good Tramp though:)
... and so, onwards and upwards, up north to Rotorua... I'm staying in Crank backpackers which is rather less exciting then the name suggests... but its quite cool and I've got on the friend trail again, which is good, seems I haven't lost the charm and magic of my Asian days... oh, and another lovely little turn up for the books, I'm back to befriending girls (thats a lovely little occurrence:)... Formed a little group with Laura (from Norwich... the home of Alan Partridge and Delia Smith), and three nice French girls (Emilie, Chloe, and Charlotte... Chloe has even come to NZ to work in a wine place and has a degree in the Business of Wine, classic French!)... so anyway, its cool to be here, befriending again, I'll need the charm back for South America, need to convince someone to hold my hand as I cross the boarders;) ... Rotorua has been cool though, did a little tour of a Maori village which also has all them hot water thingys (Geezers), and now have just come from doing some luge-ing down the local mountain like I did in Queenstown before (pictures up soon:), also been doing a fair bit of drinking and making bad jokes with the guys I've met... I've booked my bus to Auckland tomorrow morning, and then off I go to Santiago Chile on Saturday... busy times:) ... I've even bought a South American Spanish phrase book to start my studies... I leave for South America in three days... have I left it too late to learn Spanish? ... it'll be fine... (seriously Mum and Dad, don't worry, people have told me I'll get along fine even if I can't ablay (Spanish for speak... by Christ I'm a good student;) Spanish)...
The Maori village I visited was cool... we got a guide by a Maori women and for good or for worse, she has provided me with my main insight into Maori people... I got the strong impression of the culture being quite an aggressive, possessive and defensive culture... this may be because the culture has been backed into the proverbial corner and needs to aggressively defend its values in order to survive... She claimed her culture had the saying. 'What goes around comes around' (not sure thats exclusively theirs), at one point she said, "People of our culture have many descendants" but to be fair she did back up a bit on that when the ludicrous nature of the statement hit her... she also seemed quite angry when suggesting that Maori should be the first language of NZ and she was really not welcoming to people who asked obvious questions (hence I was afraid to ask any questions less I be lulled into a public humiliation)... but in other ways it was interesting to hear about their lives and beliefs and how they live... cooking using the geothermal waters natural in the area (and then selling it to you at a high price), the respect they have for nature and family etc... it was interesting to hear and see... and RE the aggressive and defensive nature she spoke about her culture as compared to Western culture, I guess this could be a response to what they see as suppression of their traditions... fair play to them for keeping them alive (I wanted to show them our culture of getting drunk and singing Wonderwall out of key but it wasn't really the time or the place!)... And then we had a classic show of traditional songs, games the worriers would play to increase skill and dexterity and of course they did the Hakka... see the picture below... they pop out their eyes and stick the tong out to scare people... ... ... I probably wouldn't mess with them...
If you don't know what the Hakka is, its a kind of war chant thought to frighten an opponent to hopefully avoid a confrontation by scaring them away... its most well known as the dance the All Blacks (the New Zealand rugby team) do before a game... check out the video below to see what its like... I love this video because the Wales team front up to the war challenge and the tension is so high the referee has to remind the players that they have a game to play... its great stuff... gets my adrenalin pumping:)
N.B. Wales lost the subsequent game 29-9... oh well, at least they tried!
... I'll just warn you now, this next section has some bits alluding to sexual activity so don't read it if your easily offended (you never know... I don't want to upset people... its not that bad really though)... I'll put the section you might wish to avoid with asterisks before and after it... anyway... here you go...
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... I met someone in Wellington (if you're reading this, look, I've been discreet... not even mentioned your gender!) you confessed to having a threesome at a wedding (with absolutely no prompting!)... the worse I've experienced was a guy I met in Chaing
The air tore with the sound of crackers in the street. Fireworks held above heads to launch into the air. Lanterns adorn the air like floating albino jelly fish. The dog in the bar had been barking with panic since I arrived. Tied to the leg of the pool table and sitting in a pool of its own fear and urine.
"... There was 13 of them, so I said, 'how much for the lot?'"
This man had sat opposite me despite the emptiness of the bar. Introductions had missed out names, the least important of information. The nameless man had come to Chiang Mai to study Thai fighting. A welder from York, I was too embarrassed to ask if that was in Yorkshire.
"A bakers dozen?" I asked.
"13 of them all lined up. Me and my mate, pissed as twats, just went for it. There's somethings you need to say you've done in life."
"All 13."
"Fuck yeah."
Travelling alone had been difficult at times, floating between loneliness and claustrophobia. I felt like I was constantly turning the shower slightly colder and then slightly hotter, feeling too lonely and then overwhelmed with company. I'd sat in the quiet corner of the hostel bar. It was 'Julies', number 1 pick by Lonely Planet. I'd sat down this evening, the lantern festival in Chaing Mai, to relax and read. The festival was crazy, fireworks exploding everywhere. I'd visited the bridge past the night market where the locals go and had quickly developed a fear of fireworks as they flew past my head into the traffic of the bridge or burrowed beneath the surface of the water to explode like depth charges. I'd paid more then five times the necessary price for a lantern to release into the sky, making the obligatory wish for love and happiness as I watched it float away into the sky into the light became faint and merged with thousands of lanterns, satellites, stars and airplanes in the sky. I dreamt that it would land in some paddie field, discovered by a couple of Thai children who'd make some strange game of hoopla with the charcoal scorched metal ring that remained of the lantern. Tonight, I wanted quiet and peace, so sat in the corner of the bar alone with a Chang beer and a book. I'd became frustrated with travel book shops, full with all the predictable shit: Shantaram, Life of Pi, Harry Potter, and a million fucking Howard Marks books. I'd settled on a book called, 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat' about weird forms of brain damage.
"We were so pissed and the guy I was with is a complete nutter, a waster, a legend. A night with him seems to always end in the gutter, in prison or in a brothel." The nameless fighter continued. "Did I tell you about the time he bought a Thai hooker back to the flat we rented when we were training down the South?" Following a pause for breath, "He bought this fucking sleaze bag home one night. I'd passed out because of the booze. The next morning she'd left and all our stuff was gone. Phones, wallets, passports, the whole fucking lot. The police didn't want none of it until my mate waved 5000 bhat in front of their noses, she'd stolen his decks and vinyl as well, a DJ you see, and he desperately needed that shit as he was making money DJing on weekends. So anyway, the police were all over it like flies on shit. They took us to loads of fucked up flats where hookers lived. They kicked in the doors and kept picking stuff up the flat saying, 'this yours?', it was fucking mental."
"Did you get your stuff back?"
"Fuck yeah, all you got to do is wave the cashieesh about and they'll do what the fuck you want. It was as sweet as."
"Fair play. So you were saying about the 13."
"Oh yeah, the fucking 13. Shit me that was crazy. Trust me I don't normally go into brothels, I don't even normally drink that much, but that mate of mine... fucking hell. So the Madam, or whoever the fuck she was, was frantically typing away on the calculator, seeing how much 13 whores would cost me and my mate. '10,000 bhat', she said, so like I said, it's one of those things you've gotta bloody tick off the list, so we had all of them. Don't get me wrong, I don't go regular like, just when I'm drunk or with that mate of mine."
"Bloody hell, thats quite a story." I replied followed by a slightly awkward pause... or maybe that was just me.
"So what kind of shit have you got up to mate?" The nameless man asked.
"Oh I'm boring, just spent some time on Koh Chang. I did like elephant trekking and swam with Dolphins and stuff, but no crazy stories like you."
"Nah man, that's cool, I've heard the Elephant trekking is awesome. I just never get time off from the fight training, I've got another fight in a couple of days, I shouldn't really be drinking tonight."
"Are you doing one of those fights between a Thai and a westerner? How much do you get paid?"
"It's like 1000 bhat a fight. They're crazy bastered those Thais. Necks like fucking steel, we're not allowed to do weights on your neck like you can here. You have to knock the fucker out too if you want the win, you'll never win on points even if you mess the guy up."
END
OK, so sorry if I got a bit carried away with that fictionalisation (I wrote it back in Hoian, Vietnam), but hopefully you get the point... with very little teasing people will tell you almost anything (not always, but quite often)... of course I used a bit of artistic-licence (or autistic-licence depending on your view of the quality of my writing) in it... for example I didn't swim with dolphins on this trip, did it like 2 years ago on Koh Chang... but just put that in because I thought it sounded better... but anyway, I think you get the point and I hope I haven't offended anyone with the lude contents of that section of this blog!
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... and we're back, maybe to less adult themes... I saw a bunny rabbit from a ski lift today as I was going to the top of the luge track (ah, nice family standard blogging content... a bit boring though;) ...
... New Zealand officially has the best anti-drink driving slogan:
If you drink then drive you're a bloody idiot
... straight to the point! ... Thinking about the Christchurch earthquake, yesterday, when someone eavesdropped my skype call to my parents, a guy suggested to me I call the authorities because I was in Christchurch on the day of the earthquake and people are still registered missing so I should let them know I'm fine... When I called up and told them which hostel I'd been in they asked if I'd left any bags in the hostel... apparently the owner has called the police saying that two backpacks have been left in the hostel from the earthquake... ... that news made me feel sad because those people might have been hurt or worse in the earthquake and were unable to get their bags... I hope they were just forgetful sods but I think that is wishful thinking... so if you're inclined, pop a bit of money to help the relief of the Christchurch earthquake, people from all over the world have been effected...
... and there we go... I should finish... this is a long post, its time to go and get some food... I hope you're all well and not sat, pale, stuttering to yourself from shock that I would even venture to write about anything connected to sex... I apologise! ... keep well people, I miss you and love you... I've been travelling over 5 months... I do miss some things... I look forward to a family dinner, steak at my Nan's, to sit with my cat, to play and watch football with the lads... I do miss these things but am also having a ball... ... I love you all people... see you in three months:))
Love from Matt:)
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