All The Dumb Things

Back in 2000 I nearly killed my wife and I.

In the northern part of South Australia there is a large dry salt lake called Lake Eyre.  Lake Eyre is 15 m (about 50ft) below sea level, and receives what little water it ever gets from the channel country, in southwest Queensland.  Since central Australia has some of the driest country in the world, Lake Eyre generally only ever fills up once a generation.  In the year 2000 there were heavy rains in the channel country and six weeks later, the water trickled its way over the thirsty land to fill Lake Eyre.  The seemingly dead salty sunbaked mud of the lake bed bursts into life as the water awakens billions of tiny brine shrimp as they hatch from their protective shells. The brine shrimp, provide food for freshwater fish that have been washed along with the floodwaters from the north east.  This sudden explosion of life attracts coastal birds from over 1000 km away.

When Lake Eyre fills with water, it is such a rare event that it is reported on national television and when my wife and I heard about it, we thought we’d go and have a look.  Because it was winter at the time, we also thought it would be a good opportunity to travel to the very centre of Australia in the cooler weather to see Uluru (Ayres Rock) and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) in the Northern Territory as well.

After 3 Days Drive, we finally reached the Oodnadatta Track that passes through the Tirari Desert and past the south end of Lake Eyre.  Unfortunately, it seemed that we had arrived too late, and all the bird life had moved on.  By the time we got to Lake Eyre.  The water was already starting to disappear, and all that was left was miles of salty mud and shallow salty water.

After spending about an hour slopping around in the mud, we headed off north to William Creek.  The track up to William Creek is surfaced to with rounded, marble sized gravel.  It’s not unlike trying to drive over ball bearings, and when our front right tyre blew out we had what could only be called a character building experience.

We were travelling at about 100 km (about 60 mph) in four-wheel-drive, when the flat tyre caused the car to start fish-tailing. As I fought for control of the car, my wife and I collectively screamed SHIIIIITTTTT!!! 

The trashed tire pulled itself off the wheel and the rim of the wheel dug into the road. As the front end of the car dug in and basically stopped, the back end of the car rose up and we flew upside down through the air, end over end, for about 10 m (about 30ft), landing on the roof, and then rolling two more times.  I’ve been in these sort of life-and-death situations a few times before, so as we were tumbling through the air I found myself thinking that the best thing to do would be to relax and try and make sure my head didn’t hit the door posts (my wife’s brother died that way).  It’s amazing how adrenaline slows things right down and gives one time to contemplate what’s going on in such situations and to take action.

When a car landed right side up, my wife and I couldn’t get out of it fast enough.  As soon as we got out of the car my wife (Engogirl) started hysterically screaming.  I felt strangely calm and told her to shut up.

A quick check of the car showed that the chassis was bent. It was a write-off.

Within 15 minutes, people who had I passed on the road, caught up to us and offered assistance.  There was nothing really to be done, other than go to the next town and get somebody to send out a tow truck.  Interestingly, the people who offered us help had to change a flat tyre as they spoke to us.

As we waited for help from the next town to come, we wandered about picking up our belongings that had been strewn all over the track and fended off offers of assistance from other passing motorists.  It’s strange how the first few offers of assistance are really appreciated, but after it happens 20 or 30 times it really starts to get irritating having to explain to people who only mean well, how you managed to roll your car three times on a dead straight road out in the middle of nowhere. 

I was starting to feel really stupid.  I also noticed I couldn’t concentrate very well and I was having trouble organising my thoughts enough to pick up our belongings on the road whereas Engogirl was in complete control of her faculties. In retrospect, I think I was going into shock, and perhaps Engogirl’s screaming had released her tension, enabling her to better deal with the aftermath.  Nowadays, we often laugh about the fact that there isn’t much of an overlap between our skill sets. I can handle drama when it happens better than Engogirl, but my wife is much better at figuring out what the next step should be after the clear and present danger has passed.

Amazingly, we had not sustained any significant injuries. Engogirl had a small cut on the back of her hand (see the photo) and I seemed to be okay.

It took a couple of hours before help from William Creek finally turned up in the form of a German fellow (the ex-owner of the William Creek Hotel), and his girlfriend in a four-wheel-drive towing a trailer with a hand winch.  It took about an hour and a half to get the car onto the trailer during which time I just stumbled around in a daze occasionally getting in the way and Engogirl made herself actually useful.

It would be very easy to call William Creek, the arsehole of the world as it is not even a cross road, it’s a T-intersection of the Oodnadatta track, and the track to Coober Pedy. William Creek has a pub (William Creek Hotel), a few buildings, a solar powered public telephone and the remains of a R3 rocket, launched from the Woomera Rocket Range back in the early 70s. 

Behind the pub is a campground with a very noisy generator that runs all night to make sure no one gets a decent sleep, and next to the campground is an aircraft landing strip.  The William Creek Hotel at the time was run by a family, who seemed to be irritated and resentful by the fact that they had to deal with the public. They sure were a surly bunch.

On arrival at William Creek, we booked into the campground, and I phoned my insurance company from the solar powered phone.  My phone call, bordered on the surreal.

Me. “I’d like to report that I have had an accident with my car”

Insurance Woman (IW)  with the NRMA in Sydney NSW. “Where did the accident happen?”

Me. “25 km south of William Creek in South Australia”

IW. “have you reported the accident to the police”

Me. “No”

IW. “Why not?

Me. ” Because the nearest police station is about 170 km away in Coober Pedy”

IW. ” Where did you say the accident happened again?”

Me. ” William Creek, its out in the middle of nowhere near Lake Eyre in South Australia”

IW. “So why didn’t you call the police?”

Me. “What would be the point when they are so far away, and they’re not going to turn up anyhow because no one was hurt and nobody else’s property was damaged?”

IW. “Oh”

Anyhow, to cut a long story short, I was told to stay put and not travel anywhere, until I received a medical check-up that gave me the all clear to travel.  Trouble was that were no doctors in William Creek, and as a matter of fact, the closest doctor was in Coober Pedy 170kms away over very rough 4WD track.  I later found out at the pub that the flying doctor would be in William Creek in three days time as a part of his regular circuit.

My wife and I thought that would be a good idea to travel through the desert country during winter when it was cooler.  What we both didn’t know is that the desert is a very cold and windy place in winter.

That night as the cold wind buffeted our little hiking tent, I lay in my sleeping bag, mulling over the events of the day, wishing that I could somehow rewind it all and do it again.  The rolling of the car during the accident kept on playing through my head, like some demented loop.  Over and over the accident replayed as I beat up on myself mentally.  I was so angry at myself, and so ashamed at the risk that I put my lovely and long-suffering wife through.  Strangely enough Engogirl wasn’t too happy with me, wrecking the car and all.

As I lay there, and mentally self-flagellated to the steady beat of the howling wind, I noticed it was starting to hurt when I was breathing in my upper chest.  As the night wore on, the pain slowly and steadily increased. I was pretty sure I hadn’t broken any bones and I thought that I’d probably done some kind of damage to the soft connecting tissue between the bones of my chest.  The area of pain coincided to where my seatbelt crossed over my chest.

By the time, morning came around, I was feeling, very sore, very miserable, very sorry and very ashamed.  We presented quite a bleak sight with our shattered car up on a trailer next to our little hiking tent that was popping in and out to the intermittent gusts of cold wind while the low grey clouds rolled over the dry flat land. It was without a doubt, the worst time of my life.  Nothing that has ever happened to me, has left me feeling so low as I did at that time. Full of remorse, embarrassed and in pain.

During our first day at the campground in William Creek we witnessed a steady stream of rally cars racing at high speed along the Oodnadatta track and in my agony, I couldn’t help but keep on thinking to myself, ” guys, guys slowdown!”

As we waited for the flying doctor to arrive, I spent most of the time laying on my back in the tent, dreading having to get up and go to the toilet, because of the pain I was experiencing every time I moved.  The only sense of relief that I experienced in my whole time as I waited for three days for the flying doctor to arrive, was when I went into the William Creek Hotel to buy some food.  A few of the patrons recognized me as the guy with the smashed up car and before long I was regaled with many stories of how most of the guys in the pub had rolled a car at some stage in their lives.  Never were there truer words said than “misery loves company”. Up until the time that the guys in the pub told me about their car accidents I was feeling so alone in my regret and shame at what had happened.  After the guy’s told me about their experiences I almost felt like I belonged to some kind of exclusive club of car rollers and what I had gone through was merely a rite of passage.

On the second morning I would have laughed if it hadn’t been so painful when I saw a long line of city slickers in their big four wheel drives (SUV) getting all agitated as one of the guys from the hotel took his sweet time fixing their flat tires. It was hilarious to watch the self-important guys from the city as they huffed and grumbled about how long things were taking and the way the tyre guy made it clear that they should leave him alone so him could get on with his work. Throwing his tools down he said “why don’t yous all just fuck off!” If yous don’t fuck off, I’m not fixin no-one’s tyres!”

The bleak painful days waiting for the flying doctor eventually passed and I was finally able to be checked out.  In a strange way, I kind of feel honoured to have visited a flying doctor, as they are such a legendary Australian icon. The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia was set up about 80 years ago to provide medical service to the isolated communities of the Australian outback and they are highly regarded.

The doctor confirmed my suspicions that I had only sustained soft tissue damage which was caused by the seatbelt.  Better sore than dead. After my examination, I contacted the insurance company and they organised our trip home.  The only problem was that the insurance company could only organise things in places that had large enough populations to support some kind of regular infrastructure.  Public transport from William Creek is a bit problematic because the only way we could get to Coober Pedy was on the 4WD mail truck that only came twice a week. The flying doctor only airlifts people in life threatening situations (fair enough!).

Luckily, the mail truck was going to Coober Pedy the same evening of the morning I had seen the flying doctor.  The road to Coober Pedy from William Creek is really just a sandy rutted track that passes through the Anna Creek Station, which is the largest working cattle station (ranch) in the world.  It’s larger than Israel.  Travelling 170kms on a four-wheel-drive track to Coober Pedy in the mail truck was torture. Each bump in the road was like a hot poker in the chest.

Once we got to Coober Pedy everything was much better.  The insurance company had booked us into one of the famous underground hotels that they have in Coober Pedy.

Coober Pedy is famous for its opal mining, and the fact that it is so hot that most people there live underground in the old disused opal mines.

After the first decent night’s sleep in three, we flew out in a small and very narrow Fairchild Metro 23 Airliner twin turboprop

to Adelaide and then onto Sydney by jet.  At Sydney airport we were met by a chauffeur driven limousine and driven home. 

I’ll never begrudge paying car insurance ever again (well done NRMA). 

It took me about two months to recover from the damage that I had done to my rib cage, and it also took about that long for an insurance adjuster to make his way to William Creek to check out our wrecked car and to confirm my opinion that it was a write-off.

Last night my wife and I went to the wedding reception of Khaled and Nalan. The reception was held in a large (there were about 260 guests) beautifully decorated room with a live R&B band. Later in the evening, since Nalan is of Turkish descent (Khaled’s parents are from Egypt) there was the tradition of pinning money to the bride and groom.

It’s a lot easier than shopping around for a wedding present!

Just before midnight the real fun and joy began as the live band packed up and Turkish music was played over the P.A. There had been a fair bit of dancing when the band played but the place (as we say here in Australia) “went off” as the dance floor was jam packed as groups of Turkish  men got up and did their dances. The dances were like a mix of Greek and Cossak dancing.

The men danced in circles with arms over each other’s shoulders like the Greeks but every now and again one of them would break loose to bust a few moves by bobbing up and down like a Cossak. Every one had a blast and it was a great wedding reception.

When all things are considered Vietnam has a pretty good train system. 

Sure, it’s nothing like Japan’s bullet train, but it’s much better than some steam-train trips I took in Thailand back in the early 1970s.

Travelling by train is my favourite mode of transportation for long distances, and it’s a pity that train travel has become so expensive here in Australia. The beauty of travelling by train is that one can get up and walk around.  Another thing that sets train travel apart is a sleeper carriages.  It really is a luxury on a long trip to be able to just stretch out and lie down to get some sleep.

In Vietnam there are basically four different classes of train travel. Hard seat and soft seat air-conditioned seating and for the sleepers there are, hard 6 berth air-conditioned and soft 4 berth air-conditioned.  For what is effectively very little difference in money, one would have to be mad or totally broke to go on a long journey in a hard seat without air-conditioning in Vietnam, when the four berth air-conditioned sleepers such a good deal.

My wife and I travelled in the hard six berth air-conditioned and soft four berth air-conditioned sleepers and to tell you the truth there isn’t that much difference in the softness of the berths.  The big difference between the two different kinds of sleepers is the four berth sleepers give one lot more room, and you can actually sit up in your bunk. 

The hard six berth air-conditioned sleepers are really cramped, and the Vietnamese, as lovely as they are, don’t seem to have the same sense of personal space as westerners.  A Vietnamese person (or two) will think nothing of sitting on your bunk with you, without asking, which can be a real drag if there are six people in a very small space. Another issue with having so many people in one room is that during the night you have that many more people climbing up and down bunks during the evening to use the toilet so it can be quite a bit noisier. A word to the wise, book top bunks for a better nights sleep.

Because of the close proximity that one is to their fellow travellers, trains can be a very social experience. 

Both my wife and I enjoyed meeting the local Vietnamese people, who we found to be generally, very friendly.  On a few occasions, we met young educated people who were incredibly well informed about Australia.  It came as quite a shock to meet somebody from overseas, who actually understood Australian politics.  I wouldn’t have thought that it would have rated as interesting for a Vietnamese person.

Vietnamese trains also provide basic meals and bottled drinking water as part of the price. 

The food is fairly ordinary,

but it wasn’t bad (especially when one considers how cheap the tickets were), and if you get tired of what is on offer for free there is other food for sale from vendors who travel up and down the train.

During my sister’s recent visit from Canada, I took her and her friend up to the Blue Mountains (110km or about 70miles west of Sydney) to see the various sights. The most photographed attraction in the Blue Mountains is a rock formation known as the Three Sisters. Although the guide books like to say that the Three Sisters are 920m (almost 3000ft) tall (as in above sea level), they only rise about 200m (about 600ft) from the surrounding bush.

Up until about 10 years ago it was possible to climb the Three Sisters (usualy up the middle sister) but that activity has been banned because too many people were doing it and causing rock to be dislodged which was a danger to walkers on the tracks below.

I climbed the Three Sisters many times back in the early 1990s when I belonged to an outdoors club called SPAN. Other outdoors clubs that I’d come across in the past were fairly staid affairs that I only ever visited but never joined. SPAN on the other hand was populated with very vibrant members full of life doing a wide range of outdoor activities. Every weekend there was at least 3 or 4 different things to do, such as, caving, climbing, bushwalking and white water kayaking. Most of the trips were quite challenging and the majority of SPAN’s members were very fit and capable. Best of all, the SPAN members loved to party and have a great time were ever they went. My years in SPAN were probably the most social of my life.

When I was showing my sister the Three Sisters I told her how I’d climbed them many times and I even did it naked once. I could see by the look on my sister’s friend’s face that she didn’t know whether to believe me or not  (my sister knows me and knows I’d do something stupid like that). 

Later that day we bumped into an old friend of mine, Colin who I used to go climbing with, in a pub. When I told him that I’d been showing my sister and her friend the Three Sisters he asked me if I’d told them about our naked climb up them together. It was priceless to see my sister’s friend’s face when my story was corroborated without any prompting by me.

Back in 1993, Colin, myself and two other friends, Mark and Peter climbed the Three Sisters naked together. We put the climb in the club programme and invited any other member to come with us. Strangely enough there were no other takers so just the four of us did the climb.

After the climb I wrote the poem below to put in the December 1993 SPAN club magazine, “Bushed”.

Of a shameless night I would like to sing,
A night where we four did a silly thing.
The members had done it all and were jaded,
So after some discussion in various bars,
I came up with the “Night of the Chocolate Stars”.
 
Those of you with minds less than keen,
Will be wondering what the heck do I mean?
Well, I’m talking of the Three Sisters West Wall,
A climb done so often it’s starting to pall,
How could we make the climb perverse and bent?
Something so wild and stupidly different?
The sort of thing to which people would probably say:
“You can’t possibly be serious - no way!”
 
How about we give the members reason to chuckle with delight,
And put in the programme a climb to be done at night,
Adding a twist to make it much more interesting,
I’ll suggest it is climbed without wearing a thing.
 
Some of you will think I am stark mad raving,
But I say it’ll be like stark naked caving!
So into the programme the climb was submitted,
Against more sensible things it was pitted.
 
At the meeting before the infamous weekend,
A concerned member my ear did bend,
For the sake of the others she took me to task,
“Isn’t it irresponsible to go at night?” she did ask.
I tried to get her climbing with us to come,
But she didn’t care for us to see her cute bare bum.
 
So, what more can I say?
Eventually it came, that infamous day.
 
At 9pm we undressed and started to climb,
And the honour of leading, it was all mine.
My trusty companion and second was Mark,
Luckily for him my pimply butt was kept in the dark.
Following us was Colin leading with nothing covering his behind,
Following was Peter, but naked? - he was not inclined.
 
It was a balmy night with a full moon rising,
The climbing was so comfortable it was surprising,
With only a head lamp for bright light,
One couldn’t see down far enough to get a fright.
Usually belaying your second is boring,
But with lamps off, the view was rewarding.
Sitting while belaying, naked and warm in the dark,
I enjoyed the starry beauty as I waited for Mark.
 
We all found the climbing to be so easy,
On such a night with the air warm and breezy.
So on we climbed without clothes to rip and tear,
Over the stone we went, bottoms in the air,
Until we came to the chimney that causes concern,
Back into his clothes Colin did return.
But it’s to nakedness Mark and I were betrothed,
Up the chimney we went, fully unclothed.
Together we vowed to the last pitch,
To keep climbing without a stitch.
 
As I reached the summit a gust of wind blew past my ear,
Of protective magpies I was in the dark and in fear.
“Oh gremlins of the air, spirits of sky,
Please don’t let a magpie peck out my eye!”
 
Sitting at the apex, a victim of my own imagination,
I guessed my fears were just a wind blown hallucination.
Eventually the others joined me at the top,
A camera was produced and the flash did pop.
We had done what we had aimed.
Just to get down was all that remained.
 
So down two pitches, 50 metres we abseiled.
Over loose rock and bushes, we were nearly impaled.
Then on to the Grade 7 tourist traverse.
We had completed our climb twisted and perverse.

I haven’t posted for the last little while, because my sister (Penny) and her friend (Jennie) came to visit me all the way from Canada.  Jennie is in the catering industry and won an all expenses paid trip to Thailand for her and a friend, through her job.  Because Jennie is associated with a large hotel chain their stay in Thailand was very luxurious.  From what I was told, their time in Thailand was a blur of company organised cultural events and feasts.

Since Penny was in the general area, she came to visit me here in Sydney.  We don’t get to see each other, very often, because we live so far apart, and the last time I saw her was about two years ago, when I was working in Vancouver, Canada.

Penny and Jennie arrived on Sunday morning a week ago, and I organised a large welcome lunch with some of my friends. 

 I cooked a Sicilian lemon chicken dish for the main course and for the desert I made a panpepato (sort of like a rich brownie made with figs and raisins that have been soaked in marsala and mixed with cinnamon, roasted walnuts and cocoa), with a tangy lime, mint and pineapple sorbet over it and topped off with a jelly of blood orange juice and Campari with a garnish of dark chocolate and mint.  

Our welcome lunch went well on into the evening, and much wine was drunk.

During their stay in Thailand penny and Jennie took some Thai cooking lessons so last Thursday they cooked my wife, her parents and I a delicious meal. 

 Since we were having Thai food, I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce my sister to the excellent sauvignon blanc’s that come from the Marlborough region in New Zealand.  So in the name of wine education we went through five different bottles of delicious Kiwi wine.

Most of the artworks that I own are way too expensive for me to actually buy and the only way that I can afford to own them is to do work for artists and receive their work as payment. Since my sister has been very generous to me in the past I wanted to return the favour by giving her a painting by Mai Long. Mai owed me two paintings as payment for some work I’d done for her a couple years ago, so on Saturday (the day before my sister was to go back home), we went around to Mai’s place and my sister and I picked out two paintings. Penny selected a work from 2000 called “Mateship” for herself and I picked out a painting called “Water sports”, from 2003 for my wife and I.

I thought it would be a good thing for my sister as a tourist to Australia to meet Mai, who was featured in the “Lonely Planet”, DVD (Lonely Planet Six Degrees Series 1: Sydney)of Sydney. Mai has been very busy producing work for her next exhibition of “Aquamutt and Dag Girl”, and her apartment was absolutely stuffed with unfinished colourful papier-mâché dogs and mutant girls.  In the photo below you can see the painting “Mateship” on the floor to the left and up on the wall behind Mai’s head is a painting by Reg Mombassa of Mambo fame.

Since Saturday night was the girls last evening in Sydney I cooked up some roast lamb on the barbecue, and we got stuck into some very nice Shiraz. As the night wore on, and more wine was drunk, the music got louder and my wife and I’s collection of silly costumes came out.  It wasn’t very long before nearly everybody was nearly wetting themselves with laughter. 

Penny and Jennie’s trip ended on a really nice high note, and the only real drag was that we had to get up at 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning so they could catch their flight back home.

As I have mentioned in several posts previously I have spent quite a bit of time in the USA.  Lived there for two years during the early 1980s, and I have been back there four times since on various holidays. 

One of the things that really gets my backup is when people automatically dismiss America as a travel destination because of its foreign policy or the fool who is currently in power over there.  Although it could be argued that American foreign policy and politics are a manifestation of the national will, most Americans I’ve met don’t support Bush’s deranged and rapacious ways.  Sure, Bush stole the election fair and square, but the majority of Americans did not vote for him. 

As a matter of fact, a majority of Americans don’t vote at all because they have no interest in the candidates. The two party political system has left a great deal of the population feeling they aren’t being represented by either the Republicans or the Democrats, so they just don’t participate in the election process. 

Americans that my wife and I met were very concerned about foreigner’s opinions of America.  So often, the people that we spoke to (without us instigating any conversation about politics) actually apologised for Bush and made a point of telling us that they did not vote for him. 

The average American that I’ve ever encountered is a very polite and friendly person who is happy to meet people from overseas.  I was treated with nothing but courtesy and decency (with a few notable exceptions), in all the times that I have visited the States.

Some other people seem to think that because America has the largest economy in the world that it must be some big industrial wasteland and there are a quite few places like New Jersey (the “Garden State”, what a joke!), that do fit the bill, but on the whole it is an incredibly beautiful country.  I particularly like the south-western states, but there is beauty to be found across the whole country.  I have been to about 45 of the states and I feel that I can say this with some authority.

My favourite place in the US is the Grand Canyon (I’ve been there three times), but my second favourite place is Yosemite.  

Because of its beauty, Yosemite is usually very crowded for most warmer months of the year.  My wife and I visited Yosemite in the late summer, early autumn of 2006 and the park was almost empty. 

Apparently, most people go to Yosemite in the late spring or early summer, because the melting snow creates numerous waterfalls, off the steep rock faces of the valley.  There were no waterfalls when we visited Yosemite but it was still amazingly spectacular.  When I was younger and I used to rock climb, I used to fantasize about climbing at Yosemite and after visiting there, I found it easy to understand why the place was such a rock climbing mecca. The whole place is just stunning.

Back in the early 70s, when I was living in Phnom Penh, Cambodia during the war I used to eat at a street side cafe, not far from the central market.  Quite a few other foreigners used to eat there as well. In Asia at that time wherever there were single foreign men there were usually local hookers as well. 

Since I was living in Phnom Penh over a period of six months, I saw the foreigners come and go, but their local playmates remained behind, to somehow scratch a living from their next dalliance.  Over time I got to know quite a few of these women, and they used to come and sit with my girlfriend and I as we ate. They would chat and pass the time with us until a foreigner would come up and whisper something in their ear and they would give us an embarrassed smile and excuse themselves so they could go and ply their trade.  Despite their uniformly sad backgrounds and desperate circumstances they were all quite nice and we enjoyed their company and saw them as friends. 

One woman that we saw nearly every day, was called Sukon (I’m not exactly sure how it is spelt). 

Usually Sukon was quite laid-back; full of life; quick to laugh and smile.  One morning Sukon turned up and seemed quite rattled and upset. When we asked her what was the matter she told us what happened to her at the Khmera restaurant (just around the corner from where we were sitting) the previous evening. 

The Khmera was a very popular place with foreigners, as it served very cheap quite tasty French style food, and you could change your money on the black-market in the toilets with the waiters.  At the time, the official rate of exchange at the banks was a few hundred riels to the dollar but in the toilets of the Khmera, one could get 3600 riels to the dollar from the waiters.  So, a meal that should cost about 10 US dollars would end up actually costing about 50 or 60 cents.

Apparently the night before, Sukon had been eating in the Khmera, with a client when a drunken American guy came in waving a pistol.  The drunk started yelling and screaming at Sukon, threatening to kill her because she was with another man.  Before anybody had a chance to get away from the maniac he shot at Sukon but fortunately missed her.

Unfortunately, the gunmen shot a dining Englishman in the butt!  As the Englishman hit the ground, the drunk was over-powered by other diners and carted off to the police.  Meanwhile other people at the restaurant took the Englishman to hospital to be operated on. 

To add insult to injury, the Englishman was transfused with blood contaminated with malaria and he nearly died, necessitating for him to be flown directly back to England for further treatment to save his life.

My wife and I’ve had a very sociable weekend that started off with a dinner at my friend Peter’s place on Saturday and finished with a birthday party at another friend, Tim’s place on Sunday.
 
Dinner at Peter’s place is always a joy as he is a good cook, an excellent conversationalist and to top it all off he collects wines and enjoys sharing them with his friends.  Normally I am not a fan of lamb, and when Peter said that he was cooking lamb shanks my heart sank a little, but needless to say, the meal due to Peter’s skill in the kitchen was fantastic.  Peter slow roasted the lamb shanks in wine, and the meat just fell off the bone, it was really excellent.  The standout wine of the evening that Peter shared with us was a bottle of 1990 Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz.  It was a beautifully smooth, full flavoured (as one expects from Australian warm climate Shiraz) wine that perfectly complemented our meal.  If you think you might want to try this wine here are some tasting notes for it (that I lifted from an on-line wine catalogue):

“Deep red in colour, 1990 has established itself as a classic Penfolds vintage. There are intense dark chocolate and sweet berry aromas, complex, revealing many characters in the glass - raspberry, prune, fruitcake, exotic spices and roasted chestnuts. Spice and demi-glace secondary notes add to the aromatic interest, flashes of liquorice, white chocolate and cinnamon arise with a swirl. Medium-bodied and mouth filling, plummy, berried fruits mesh with dark chocolate, mocha and spice notes.”

Due to Peter’s love of wine, and his generosity with it, we always find ourselves staying up late into the evening whenever we go over to his place, sampling the various delicious treasures from Peter’s cellar.  Of course, due to the amount of wine that we drink in an evening at Peter’s we always sleep over so we don’t have to drive back home.
 
After a quick breakfast at the cafe near Peter’s, we headed up to the Blue Mountains (100 km west of Sydney) to have an extended lunch with our friend Tim and his wife Em with a bunch of their other friends to celebrate his birthday.  Tim’s wife Em is a vegetarian, so instead of the normal meat fest that passes for Australian cuisine, there were quite a few delicious salads that were the perfect antidote to the previous night’s dinner.  The highlight of the afternoons repast was a delicious beer cake with a saffron mascarpone filling covered with a raspberry icing made by Tim’s cousin, Kristin.

It was really a great weekend, with fantastic company and excellent food.  When we arrived home, I checked my e-mails to find that Kent Davis who has made contact with me through this blog and I have spoken to over the telephone, had a very lucky escape on the 17th.  Thanks to a smoke alarm, Kent and his wife Pa were woken up just in time to get out of their house, with nothing but what they were wearing as their house quickly burnt down.

In his e-mail to me, Kent had this to say:
“We have lost absolutely everything but our lives. We are wearing clothes from the neighbours now. Our good friend next door has an apartment and has given us a place to stay. The other neighbours have clothes for us. Life is good! Being alive is even better! (-: The important thing to know is that we are alive, in love, and that we are very, very lucky.”

Later in his e-mail, Kent said this:
“Typing is slow because my eyes are filled with tears… Before the fire was out our neighbours gave us so many generous commitments for food, shelter and clothing that we truly never felt “homeless” for a moment. As dawn arrived more food, clothing, help and housing offers came. As the day went on, dozens and dozens more friends came to help.”
 
Epicurus said that all we really need to be happy is freedom, food, friends, shelter and a life free from pain. Although Kent and Pa lost their shelter and many things of sentimental value, I suspect that they are so rich in friends that they will be back on their feet in no time.
 
I truly feel that our lives are defined and enriched by our friends. Therefore it’s very important to cherish and maintain our friendships as they bring far more joy and strength into our lives than any material possessions.

Back in 1982, when I was in Morocco, I travelled south to Goulimine. At the time Morocco was in the middle of what its government laughingly described as a “green revolution”.  The so-called green revolution was actually a naked land grab by Morocco of what was once the Spanish Sahara..  In late 1975 as Franco was in the process of dying, (the odious) King Hassan of Morocco with tacit American and French approval, declared that he was sending in 350,000 Moroccans as mujahedin to reclaim the area for the motherland totally disregarding the local population’s desire for independence from Spain and self rule that had been sanctioned by the U.N. since the early 1960s.
 
Morocco has not been a good neighbour to the countries that surround it and has been in an undeclared state of war with Algeria for the last 30 years due to Algeria’s support of the Polisario (which had been fighting for independence from Spain since the early 1970s). Plus Morocco did not recognize the right of Mauritania to exist until 1969.
 
At the time when I was in Morocco, the furthest south that a foreigner could travel was Goulimine.
 
When I was younger, I had romantic notions of travelling through the desert with the Tuaregs to Timbuktu.  So when I was in Morocco, I tried to make it happen by going down to Goulimine. The further south that one travels in Morocco the more “African” it becomes.  The European influenced whitewashed houses of the northern coastal areas give way to pink and blue structures with touches of sub-Saharan design.  In the north of Morocco near the Mediterranean, many of the people could be mistaken for Greeks or Italians but the further south, one goes, the more African looking the people become. Still fine featured like Arabs but with much darker skin and frizzy hair
 
Just like in the rest of Morocco, one is beset by touts, offering to be your guide as soon as you step off the bus.  I’m pretty deft at losing these guys, but in small towns It’s hard to get away from the really persistent ones as they will follow you to your hotel, and then wait outside the front for when you decide to go out later.  The guy in the photograph latched on to me from the time that I’d got off the bus and followed me around for at least two days before I eventually relented and had conversation with him. 

Even I can’t be unrelentingly rude.  His persistence is a testament to how a little work there is and how desperate people are.  There was no way he was going to let a clueless, pasty, foreign, bag of money like me slip through his grasp.
 
Moroccan culture is impenetrable to people who don’t speak the language, and after a couple of days in Goulimine I was starting to realise I wasn’t going to get anywhere without some local help and that’s when I made the mistake of asking “my guide” to help me find some Tauregs who would be willing to take me to Timbuktu as part of a camel caravan.
 
By the next day, my newfound friend had arranged a meeting for me with some very hospitable and amiable Tauregs.  In retrospect, it is no wonder why they were so friendly.  After all, there I was, a totally clueless and naive sack of money from overseas, who was only too willing to part with his money for the craziest of reasons.  Why would you want to travel by camel through the desert when you had enough money to fly?
 
I was plied with mint tea and regaled with stories about the Tauregs, and their amazing skills in the desert.  “I have a friend, a very wise man, who can travel in the desert using only the stars to tell him the way to go”, I was told in awe by one of my hosts.  I guess astral navigation can seem pretty amazing to someone like him who hadn’t been in the Boy Scouts.  Some Taureg clothing was also brought out for me to try on.  They really knew which of my buttons to push as I thought it would be pretty cool to cross the desert in disguise, accompanied by people with dangerous reputations.  This would surely all lead to an experience “worthy of a song”, as the Klingons would say.

It was explained to me that there was no way that I could go into the camel market and buy a camel for myself as I would just get ripped off, and the same would happen when it came to me to buy the other supplies that I would need for the trip.  It was also explained to me that it would be nearly impossible for me as a foreigner to just walk up to some strange Tauregs, and ask them if I could just tag along on their next trip to Timbuktu.  Another aspect I had to take into consideration was that as a tourist I would stick out like dog’s balls.  I would attract the attention of the local security forces and would probably end up in jail, as what I wanted to do was considered illegal from a Moroccan point of view. The Moroccan government didn’t want foreigners going into a country that they were in the process of stealing.
 
Then came the time to talk about money.  I was told to pay $300 US to get things organised and that I should get ready to leave in about a week’s time.  Normally I don’t pay upfront for anything, but I figured I had to trust these guys at some stage.  If I didn’t pay the money upfront, and they were crooks, there was a good chance I would be taken out into the desert to be killed and robbed while I slept.  This was of particular concern, considering that I would be traveling illegally and incognito.  If I paid the money upfront, and they ripped me off I’d only be a little poorer, but I’d still be alive.  So I paid them the money and arranged to meet them in a week’s time.  I had to go back to Tarrazout, which is up near Agadir to get the rest of my stuff that I had left in storage, with Louasin.
 
Needless to say, I got ripped off.