When I left Morocco in 1982 I went by ferry from Tangiers to Algerceris in Spain.  Whilst on the ferry, I met an Englishman who I hit it off with immediately, and is often the case when one is traveling; we decided to travel onwards together.
 
The Englishman wasn’t the only other fellow traveller I met, and soon there was a group of us guys who spent the evening exchanging horror stories about Morocco.  After talking with those guys it was obvious that most of them had gone to Morocco to smoke hash. I could just tell by their talk and bloodshot eyes, that some of them were carrying drugs and it wouldn’t have surprised me if some of them were thinking about smuggling dope into Spain.  I may have done a lot of dumb things in my life, but smuggling drugs is not one of them and I wanted to keep it that way. So I made sure that I checked my luggage before I got off the boat just in case somebody had decided to use me as a courier.
 
After disembarking the ferry at Algerceris, my newfound English friend and I caught the train to Madrid. When we first got on the train, there were plenty of seats and we could stretch out and get a little bit of sleep, but of course that sort of situation never lasts.  During the middle of the night, hundreds of soldiers on leave got onto the train and of course we all had to sit up and nobody was getting any comfortable sleep. To make sure that nobody fell asleep sitting up, the soldiers drank and partied all night.  It was during this uncomfortable time that my traveling companion told me that he had smuggled a condom full of hash oil into Spain by swallowing it.
 
Just before dawn, as I was starting to nod off, my new friend disappeared to the toilet to pass his contraband.  It doesn’t bear thinking about how he sorted it all out in a train lavatory (I can remember thinking at the time that his fingernails were rather dirty), but he came back to his seat with a big smile on his face.  His joy was short lived and his mood quickly turned to irritation, as there was now a sleeping soldier lying across his seat.  So he walked up to the soldiers face, turned around, and let loose a ripper fart into the guy’s sleeping face. 
 
I just couldn’t believe the sheer crazy audacity of the Pom’s action, and in a shot, the Spaniard was up and had his hands around the Englishman’s throat whilst screaming invective at him in Spanish. 

There was going to be blood!

The hullabaloo of course attracted other soldiers, and I was sure we were both about to be beaten to a pulp by a mob.  While the Spanish soldier was throttling my stupid friend, I was frantically trying to calm the situation down.  As the choking English lad’s face was turning a bright red, he struggled vainly to get free and in the meantime the soldier’s comrades, advanced shaking their fists and baying for blood. 

Amazingly, with my broken Spanish, I was able to eventually get everyone to calm down by convincing the soldiers that my friend was a complete idiot and that he was very sorry. The soldier let go of the Englishman, shoving down him into one of the seats and with a threatening gesture, left with his friends.

Whew! That was soooo close.
 
When we got to Madrid, the English guy offered to let me share his tent at a campground.  The tent was a tiny little mountaineering tent called a “Force 10″, but at least it enabled us to stay in Madrid cheaply. 

One of the first things we did after we got the tent setup was to go off to the nearest bodega and buy the cheapest wine we could get our hands on. We took some empty wine bottles and got them filled up for $.50 each. Strangely enough, I can say this without a doubt, it was absolutely the worst wine that I have ever drunk in my whole life.  It was like drinking hydrochloric acid, and in the morning I had a very bad case of gastric reflux and a killer hangover.

Also, smoking something that had come out of a guy’s backside is a very weird thing to do.

Did I hear someone say…. Good shit?
 
Ahhhh… those were the days!

When Elvis and John Lennon died, I was shocked and saddened to hear about their deaths and I can remember well the circumstances of when I first heard the news.

Whacko Jacko is another matter. I’ve always thought that Jackson was an ineffably sad person and a classical example of how talent and intelligence don’t necessarily go hand in hand. He had so much talent and so little nous.

It still mystifies me why we the public are interested in the opinions of celebrities about matters that are outside of the entertainment industry. Why aren’t the real geniuses outside of the entertainment industry as lauded and courted by the media?

That’s actually a rhetorical question, I know why.

It’s because most of the public in this fat consummerist first world society we (who have computers) live in, are dissatisfied with their lot and want to live vicariously, the lives of the rich and famous.

As John Cooper Clarke once said in his amazing poem, “Beasley Street”;

The girls are on the shelf
Their commom problem is
…that they’re not someone else

Here’s a video of the whole poem.

My wife (Engogirl) and I went to Newcastle for the long weekend holiday (Queen’s birthday). Although Newcastle is only about 150kms north of Sydney, it was until this weekend, terra incognita to both Engogirl and I, so we thought we’d make ourselves familiar with the city over the holiday period.

Newcastle is the sixth largest city in Australia with a population of just under 290,000 and it is the largest coal exporting harbour in the world. The fact that Newcastle is a mining town had put me off going there for so long and I suspect that many other people in Sydney have shared my misgivings about going there. As it turns out, Newcastle is a real gem of a city as it’s very cycle friendly, has excellent beaches that are walking distance from downtown and the people are very friendly.

The funny thing about everyone I met in Newcastle, who I told that I thought they lived in a beautiful place, is that they all said the same thing; “shhh! Don’t tell anyone”.

As the sun was going down while we were walking around the city, we came across the old Newcastle Oceans Baths Pool and this is where we met Danny and Angus.

Danny was out walking Angus, a friendly English Staffordshire terrier (not to be confused with American Stafforshire terriers also known as pitbulls). Like the rest of the people in Newcastle we met, Danny was very affable and easy to talk to and he told us about how the pool had a mosaic of the world under the sand that had filled the pool during a large storm years ago.

The light was turning that magic gold that advertisers love to use to sell cars, life insurance or superanuation plans, so I asked to take a few shots. Afterwards, Danny said that if I liked this pool, I should check the next one nearby as it was a beauty. So I did and I’ll put my shot of it in my next post.

When I used to travel, it was usually on a shoestring budget. At the time it was common for travellers like myself to meet up with other travellers and before long, share hotel rooms with them to cut costs.

When I was in Morocco in 1982, I met up with two other Australians, Bazza and Cazza (not their real names), and we travelled together for a couple of weeks sharing a room. Bazza and Cazza were primary school teachers from the same school and were on their annual leave. Now don’t get the wrong idea, there was nothing “going on” between any of us. Cazza wasn’t attracted to me, Bazza was gay, and I’m straight.

Cazza was travelling with Bazza because she wanted to go somewhere that was exotic and wanted to have a travelling companion without any complications. Cazza just didn’t get Morocco, she’d topless sunbathe on the beach and then get pissed off that she was attracting a crowd of sexually starved locals.

She would’ve been better off at the Club Med in Tahiti.

Whereas Bazza had come to Morocco because he had heard about the stereotype that most Arab men were homosexuals and because he was looking for some action, he was hoping it was true. It was true, in so far as the Moroccan men that Bazza got involved with, were into being the daddy and always wanted him to play the mummy.

If you catch my drift, that is?

One of Bazza’s pet peeves was that the Moroccan men (the ones he was intimate with at least) wouldn’t admit to themselves that they were gay. Bruce hated the idea that he was being used as a surrogate woman until the real thing came along. He told me the same thing had happened on his holidays in the Philippines. 

Ahhh men…..

all over the world, they’re all heartless and selfish bastards!

Both Bazza and Cazza were a lot of fun to be around and I enjoyed my time with them greatly.

One night in Casablanca I decided to go out and take some night shots and Bazza asked if he could come along. “Sure” I said, and I was glad of some company.

Bazza was not only a promiscuous slut, he also had a great sense of humour, plus he was a very interesting and intelligent guy. We wandered around the streets in the muggy night, effortlessly shooting the breeze, with me occasionally taking a photo of whatever caught my eye.

After a few hours of trudging around we decided to rest our feet and buy some gelato at a cafe.

As we were sitting at our table eating our gelato, Bazza, sitting opposite me, started to purse his lips and make kissing gestures my way. I knew that Bazza knew that I was straight, so I knew the kisses weren’t for me. I slowly turned around and a few tables away was a thin; well dressed; late thirty’s; Moroccan man, blowing kisses back at Bazza.

Bazza waved the Moroccan guy over and so he came and introduced himself to us, shook our hands and joined us at the table. Bazza just stared our new friend with a shocking undisguised lust and this open declaration didn’t seem to be causing any discomfort in our guest. I just didn’t know where to look. After a couple of minutes of this weird staring thing, acknowledging that I was the “third wheel” so to speak, I excused myself from the table, and bolted for home, not expecting to see Bazza for some time.

Within ten minutes of me getting back to the hotel room, Bazza stormed in, all in a fit of rage, and started throwing and kicking things around. During his tantrum, Bazza was ranting, over and over, “all he wanted was to try and sell me drugs!” After a few minutes, Bazza calmed down and explained that as soon as I left, he had asked the Moroccan to go to the Moroccan’s place, which turned out to be a room above the cafe. Once inside the room, Bazza made his move, only to be rebuffed and to have it explained to him, that the Moroccan wanted to sell cocaine to him.

I’ve thought about this incident over the years many times and a few things have occurred to me.

1.Who in their right mind would smuggle cocaine into Morocco, which is not only further away than America, but it’s population of people rich enough to buy coke would be infinitesimal? Obviously it was a scam.
2.What was going on with the blowing the kisses thing? What did the Moroccan guy think? That’s the way in which westerners communicate non-verbally when they want to buy drugs?

Ahhh… life’s rich tapestry!

This photo was taken in 1976 and it’s of a fight between the Thai Junior middle weight champion (the guy on top) and the Japanese middle weight champion “Kame” (at least that’s how I think it’s spelled). Although Kame (Japanese for turtle and it’s pronounced Kam-air) won the fight, his temples were covered with purple streaky bruises where the Thai fighter had elbowed him numerous times when he had him backed into a corner.

I met Kame in 1975 in Tokyo through a room mate of mine called Simon. Simon was in Japan studying shotokan karate and we used to teach at the same English school. Simon had been on the English karate team and while he was a great guy and like a big brother to me, he obviously wasn’t a person to mess with. He used to do 500 sit ups day, could do the splits effortlessly, didn’t have an once of fat on him and had calluses on his knuckles from punching a makiwara board for hours.

I used to hang out with Kame and Simon (I was never into martial arts) and go drinking with them. Whilst hugely entertaining, drinking with Kame was always problematic as he used to urge us to drink more than we wanted to. A sort of terrorism by hospitality. So when Kame wasn’t looking we used to toss the sake that had been pushed on us, over our shoulders or pour it out into pot plants. Kame caught me doing it once and bit through a thick ceramic bowl to freak me out. It worked. I knew that Kame would never actually harm me (I was an unworthy adversary). The same couldn’t be said for Simon, as I was sure that Kame wanted to take Simon on. It was a good thing that I was the one caught tossing the sake.

Kame grew up in Okinawa were he studied Goju Ryu Karate. In his late teens and early twenties he honed his skills in Okinawan bars frequented by U.S. servicemen stationed there.

Having said all that about Kame’s scary side, he was a great friend and could be extremely funny. Kame and Simon used to regularly trash our apartment, sparring. Great stuff to watch in a 3 tatami room. They put quite a few holes in the walls and once knocked over the refrigerator. Kame also used to get us ring side seats at his fights. Going into bars with Kame was always pretty cool as well as all the local Yakuza and Chimpera knew and respected him. We used to always get free drinks sent over to our table, with a curt nod in our direction from them across the room.

Once, on a cold night before a match, Kame cover over to our place looking for Simon. Kame wanted to warm up for the match by sparring with Simon, but Simon wasn’t home. So Kame asked me if I was interested in taking a few kickboxing pointers with him up on the roof of the apartment block. I thought, what the heck, why not? I felt quite honoured, so up the stairs we went, onto the roof and out into the cold to begin my little lesson in kickboxing, and as it turned out, in life.

Before I go on, I should digress and explain that the Japanese tend to be hierarchical in their interpersonal relationships. Kame was about 10 years older than me and a champion kickboxer to boot (oops, sorry for the pun), so by Japanese standards I was subordinate to him. He was the sempai (senior) and I was the kohai (junior) and due respect was expected. This sempai, kohai relationship is one of the basic tenets of Japanese society. Now being my sempai didn’t mean that Kame felt he had a right to be overbearing towards me, but rather that he had a sense of responsibility towards me. Sempais take care of their kohais, it’s a bit like a mentorship. Conversely, kohais are expected to appreciate what they are being given and act accordingly.

The first thing that Kame showed me was the kickboxing stance (standing on one leg with the other leg raised and bent at the knee, with both fists up against the forehead with the elbows close together and close to the mid section protecting it) and how to block in that stance and then he showed me how to take blows. This went on for about an hour and Kame was really patient with me. Finally Kame got into the stance and said that I should try and strike him anywhere as fast as I could (Simon used to get me to do the same thing).

Needless to say, I didn’t get to lay a finger on him as he was just too fast and his defence was a quantum leap better than anything a novice like me could throw at him. After five or ten minutes I’d worn myself out trying to land a punch or kick on Kame. Kame just effortlessly blocked everything I had. He could see I’d had enough so he said we should stop and he dropped his guard.

Now at this point I would like to ask you, dear reader, to think (or image if you’re too smart for such idiocies) of a time when you did something that you knew was stupid and that was going to lead to tears, but you continued. Sort of like the feeling one gets when you are trying to open an old paint tin with a chisel or a beer bottle with your teeth. Just dumb, dumb, dumb.

As soon as Kame dropped his hands, I quickly and lightly touched his left ear with my right hand with a mock punch. Before I could pull my hand away, Kame, fast as lightening, lightly snap kicked me in the head. I know that Kame didn’t kick me hard as he could have, after all, I was still conscious and standing. I’ll tell you what though, my ear was so hot that I didn’t feel the need to wear a beanie to keep my head warm for the rest of the evening.

I could still feel the effect of the “lesson” two days later.

I was born on the same day (21st May of May 1956) as very first airborne hydrogen bomb was dropped on Bikini atoll. 

Bye, bye paradise.

Amazingly, despite the odds, considering the trouble and strife the world has been through since then, plus all the dumb things that I’ve done, 53 years later I’m still here!

 Woo hoo me!

Tonight I’m having a bunch of friends over for dinner to celebrate. Because I’m getting ready for tonight, I don’t have enough time for much of a post, so for all my friends out there, here’s the Four Tops singing one of my favourite songs, “Reach out”, that I dedicate to you all.

Sometimes I feel a bit sorry for the latest crop of bright shiny things that have just left the nest to go travelling.

The great unknown they are about to leap into is actually a well sign posted, worn path complete with a multitude of guide books. Truth be known, it’s been like this for several decades. For example, when I went to Bali back in 1974 I felt that I’d come too late and had missed out on how I thought it must’ve been before. You should see it nowadays! I could hardly recognise the place when I went there about five years ago.

When I was in Thailand a few years ago, I went to the floating markets. I avoided going there on my first trip to Thailand back in 1974 because I figured that it would be too touristy. That was over 30 years ago and of course it’s an even better known tourist attraction now. The klongs (canals) were clogged with locals in their boats selling things to the captive market tourists in the group tour boats.

I passed boat after boat full of young people who wanted to see some local colour. With bored and disappointed looks on their faces, they politely declined the wares on offer . As the old Vikings would say, “it wasn’t worthy of a saga”.

Poor bastards!

I bet that’s not what they signed up for.

They had travelled so far, and all they wanted was an “authentic” experience, but instead, like slot-cars, they were racing around in a well worn rut.

I was talking to a young guy who is a co-worker of my wife the other day, and we were chatting about his recent trip to Europe. I was particularly interested in what he had to say about driving in Bosnia because it’s one of the places I’ll be going to with my wife later this year.

Him: “Oh it’s a real adventure!”

His comment set off alarm bells in my head because to me, “adventure, is discomfort remembered in comfort”. I’ve had what many people would call adventures and I can say with some authority that “adventures” are unpleasant even though, they do make for good tales over dinner with friends years later.

Me: “Adventure?” What do you mean by adventure?”

Him: “You know, going somewhere that not many people go to.”

Me: “Whew!”

Him: “Why the sense of relief?”

Me: “For a minute there I thought you got into some deep life threatening shit .” “You know, like being held at gun point for 8 hours on a small riverboat on the Mekong by boy soldiers of the Pathet Lao; or like being thrown in jail and having 3 cops trying to beat you up in Morocco.”

Him: Umm.. no… not quite… but we did get stopped a few times, up in the northern areas by the Serbian militia and they checked our papers.

Before anyone out there thinks I was indulging in some kind of pissing contest, my main concern was the word “adventure”. To me adventure is a bad thing, as I’ve had more than my fair share of them and I’m in no hurry for any more character building experiences. This goes double for when I’m with my wife. I’d never forgive myself if she ever came to any harm.

Adventure?

For me?

No thanks, I’ve had more than enough but I hope there are a few wild places and experiences left for generation Y so they can entertain their dinner guests when they get older.

Back in the early eighties, when I lived in the US, I used to work in a travelling Laser Light show that used do the carnival circuit in the summer and the car show circuit in the winter. The Laser show was called “Laser One” and it was transported in a three-wheeled trailer towed by a high cube truck with a tow ball. The trailer had a fold out façade with two revolving-door entrances at either end and it housed the control room with the actual laser in the middle.

The positioning of the entrances meant that the triple axel with the very small wheels were in the middle of the trailer, instead of the end. The mid mounting of the axels and the tow ball hitching system led to a very unpredictable and dangerous ride. The trailer was quite heavy and it used to seesaw up and down over any undulations in the road plus wheels would regularly tear off while we were driving down the highways. The wheels used to tear off because of metal fatigue caused by the forces exerted on the outside wheels as they were dragged around the middle wheels when very tight turns were made during parking. It wasn’t unusual to be travelling down the road and to see one of our wheels passing us and a shower of sparks coming off the dragging hub. I didn’t get my drivers licence until I was 35 so my job in lieu of sharing the driving was to change wheels and tyres when needed. It was needed often and, often it was in the middle of the night in freezing conditions.

Most of the driving was done by our manager, Brian “Buzz” Carlos, and sometimes my other co-worker, Jordan would help out.

Buzz was a very levelheaded and intelligent guy who was a pleasure to work with. None of us smoked and it came as a surprise to Jordan and I that Buzz started smoking when we were in Milwaukee. At first it was only one cigarette every couple of days but then of course it turned into one a day and when he starting a couple a day. I thought it would be hilarious to play a practical joke on him. I went to a magic and novelty store and bought some “spikes”.

Spikes are about 1cm (1/3 of an inch) long and about half the thickness of a matchstick. They are pushed into the end of cigarettes to make them explode. So when Buzz put his smokes down one day, I inserted a few spikes into them, while he wasn’t looking, and waited. Lo and behold, Buzz didn’t pick a “spiked” cigarette for over a week. In the meantime, winter was coming and as it was getting colder Buzz went out and bought a very nice parka with wolf fur trim because the heating in the truck wasn’t adequate.

At the end of a “spot” (the place where the show was held) we’d do the “strike” (take down the show) at the end of the last day, which would take about five hours and then we’d jump into the truck and drive through the night, straight to the next spot.

With the show in Milwaukee finished we headed south through Tennessee as it was starting to snow and by the time we reached the Smoky Mountains there was a blizzard. We’d been up all night, and Buzz had been at the wheel without a break, when we started to hear frantic messages over the CB. Things like “if you heading down the mountain at such and such, get out of my way, cause my brakes ain’t working!” or “watch out for such and such a place as there is black ice and two trucks have left the road”, etc. There were smashed cars and trucks all over the place. Buzz took it all in his stride and just drove on through the carnage. After all, we had to get to the next spot on time. The snow just kept on falling and the blizzard winds made the visibility very poor.

During one particularly long steep descent down a mountain road thickly covered with snow; almost no visibility and a bucking and weaving truck, Buzz in his nervousness decides that it would be a good time to light a cigarette. BANG!! The cigarette blew up and hot embers went into Buzz’s eyes, blinding him and also setting his brand new parker on fire! The truck was starting to fishtail because of Buzz’s flinch at the wheel when the spike went off. Jordan grabbed the wheel and helped Buzz regain control. When we got to the bottom of the hill Buzz pulled the truck over and jumped out of the cab to put out this smouldering parka.

Needless to say, I wasn’t a very popular boy that day. I won’t be putting spikes in people’s cigarettes again.

Sapa is a small town in the far north of Vietnam, close to the Chinese border. Ever since the Vietnamese government have opened up their country to the west, money and western influences have poured in. About two years before I went to Vietnam, a friend of mine (Doug) who’d been there, advised that I go there soon as possible because the country was changing at a break-neck speed.

What makes Sapa special is that there are a few hill tribes there that have clung onto their culture and distinctive dress. Of course such sights are an irresistable magnet for tourists.

From what I saw there, with the pressure of increasing tourism and the prosperity with the head long dash towards the future it brings, I’d say that it won’t be long before the only place that anyone will see the Hmong and Yao people in their traditional dress with be at performances in large hotels. I can’t blame them; after all, it sucks being dirt poor. It’s just a pity that their culture is going to be swallowed up and absorbed by western consumerism.

I think the video below is a good metaphor, for the bland homogenous world we are all heading for.

Two days ago my hot water tank developed a leak that flooded the storage area under the stairs. After getting the, “ooo that’s bad news”, from the plumber over the phone, I organised for a new hot water heater to be installed the next morning and got down to the business of mopping up and clearing out all the camping equipment and various other junk from under the stairs.

I have a general rule about accumulating junk I try to adhere to; if I’m surprised about coming across something that I haven’t seen for years and haven’t missed it, it goes in the garbage. So I threw out an old turntable with a ceramic cartridge and a Nakamichi cassette player (they used to be considered the best). All of the camping gear gets used, so there was no culling there, but then I came across an old model aeroplane made from the detritus of war in Cambodia back in the early 1970s.

All of a sudden like a pin ball machine, my mind started to light up with a flood of memories. I knew instantly that I still valued what many people would consider a pile of junk. It was all covered with dust so I cleaned it off as best I could and I’ve put in my living room where I can look at it again.  I wondered why I hadn’t had it out on display. Then I remembered that up until recently, I didn’t have any where I could put it without it getting more damaged.

I bought the model plane in a small town called Takeo, while I was doing some hitch hiking by air. The plane was made by a soldier called Kong Chuon (he wrote his name on it), and he’d called it a Dara X Supersonic.

The fuselage is mostly made of M16 stripper clips and loaders. The Bombs are made from .50 calibre bullets and rounds from AK47s (all emptied of course). Stuck on right wing of the aircraft is a little scrap of paper with a hand written anti communist slogan which says;

“The bomb can negotiate with the VC for the peace in South East Asia”

I carted this model plane around with me for over ten years in my backpack as I wandered around various countries. I always thought the plane was pretty cool and it was my intention that I’d put it on display when I finally settled down. After years of moving around, jammed into a pack the poor old model has taken a beating.

I remember the day I bought the model. I didn’t have any English teaching work on that day, I so I hitch hiked out to the airport and then walked out onto the tarmac to ask  pilots for a lift. I did this quite often, because of the war it wasn’t possible to travel by road as the government only controlled the towns and the rest of the country was in the hands of the very dangerous Khmer Rouge. It was the only way I could afford to see the country I was making so little money at the time, I was literally starving.

As I was asking around, I met a one armed American guy on vacation from his job in Saigon who was doing the same thing as me. We hit it off, so we hung out for the day cadging lifts all over Cambodia.

Apparently my new found friend (who for convenience sake I will call Sam, because I’ve long forgotten his name) lost his arm because he was kicked so hard during a football game. Sam came from Colorado and the things he missed the most, living in Asia were Coors beer and Dr Pepper. Sam just raved on about Dr Pepper (which at that time I hadn’t tried) and how good it was. As for Coors, I was informed that they made it from “pure mountain spring water” and Sam assured me that if I ever went to the States that I wouldn’t be disappointed with his favourite beer.

It was Sam who suggested that I buy the model plane. He explained that they were very popular with the G.Is stationed in Vietnam and he bought a few of them to take back home as presents. For me at the time, the $2.50 that I paid for the plane was a real extravagance. I was ashamed to tell Sam why I couldn’t buy more of them, especially when he kept urging me to because they were so cool and so cheap.

Now as I look at my beat up little plane I can’t help but wonder what ever happened to Kong Choun and all the little kids in the photos above. I suspect that that many of them either had a very hard time or came to a bad end. I always have these feelings when I look at my old photos that I took in Cambodia.

I often wonder about the fate all the Cambodian people whose images I have.

On a lighter note, several years later, I went to the US and of course I was very keen to try Dr Pepper and Coors.

The verdict; Dr Pepper tastes like stale marzipan and is just horrible. I guess it’s one of those things you have to grow up with. A bit like Vegemite which so many Aussies rave on about (disgusting, salty rubbish). As for Coors, it’s just so bland that I can’t imagine why anyone would bother with it.

As I was looking through my old negatives to illustrate this article, I came across a few other photos of people in Cambodia that I’ll post over the next couple of days.