Cabin Fever

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Tiny Tino

When my friend Iain had suggested the Trans-Siberian railway to me, it had sounded like a pretty cool idea, although in retrospect I think I vastly underestimated the journey. I’d sent out a Facebook post last year when I was in stages of planning my trip, asking for the opinions of my well-travelled friends on things like round the world plane tickets, overland travelling, what was the best, what was most cost effective, and other details like that. Iain is a Scottish friend of mine who now lives in Australia, and he travelled the Trans-Siberian railway from Russia to China and continued his travels further south from there – essentially the reverse of what I would be doing. He recommended the tour he had gone with, a company called Vodkatrain, and the enthusiasm with which he talked about it almost sold it to me straight away. But I did my own investigation, and it turned out that this train route had been exactly the answer to the questions I had been asking.

I was a little taken aback by some of the reactions I got when I told my friends of my plans.
“The Trans-Siberian Railway?” my good friend Blythe had exclaimed. “Wow! Robert, that’s like an ultimate bucket list journey for some people!” Maybe I’d sounded a little nonchalant, I don’t know, but it was almost as if she didn’t believe me.
“Umm… Okay? Is that a bad thing for me?”
“What? No, it’s incredible! I know so many people who would be so jealous of you! You’re going to have such an amazing time, it’s supposed to be an awesome experience.”
I think that was the first time that I realised this journey was going to be quite unlike any kind of holiday I’d had before.

DAY 1

When we arrived back at Irkutsk train station, Kostya handed out the tickets and made sure we all got onto the train without any problems. He wished us luck and bid us farewell, and it all felt very similar to most of our other train journeys. There were a few major differences though. Firstly, the quality of the cabins. There wasn’t anything exactly wrong with them – they were just a bit older, a little rickety. Jen, Matt and Tracy had found rubbish in our cabin – we had to wonder if this train had even been cleaned at all before we got on.The previous trains we’d been on had had carpeted floors and hallways, but this train had a dull linoleum surface that made the soles of your feet a gross black colour if you forgot to wear shoes when you walked around. The trains were adequate, and I guess we’d just had some nicer trains on our previous trips so we had harboured some expectations. “I just think its hilarious,” Tracy had said with a giggle, “that we’ve had the more cushy trains for the short trips and now it’s back to basics for the long haul! I love it, bring it on!” Tracy had worked as a tour guide on bus trips through both South America and the Middle East – no doubt she’d seen far worse living conditions, and part of me suspected that ‘roughing it’ was simply more her style.

But there was another thing that none of us had really planned on. On the previous trains, we’d all been in cabins together, save the one extra person who was on their own – which so far had been myself from Beijing and Dan from Ulaanbaatar. So we were all very confused to find that all that had changed. We had two cabins all together – I was with the same three as last time, and Tim, Don, Marti and Rach were in another. But Claire and Alyson were in a room with two other Russian passengers, as were Kaylah and Jenna, and poor Dan was stuck in a cabin on his own again. It was a puzzling set up, considering pairs that had booked together – like Alyson and Kaylah, and Dan and Claire – weren’t supposed to be split up when it came to sleeping arrangements. In any other scenario, we would have spoken to the carriage attendants and asked them what had happened. As it happens, none of us could speak Russian, so in the end we all just ended up shrugging our shoulders and concluding that the one thing we can learn from the past 10 minutes was that the Russian train system is anything but consistent.

***

After we’d gotten over the slight drama, I was sitting on my bed eating some bread and cheese with salami, carefully managing my portions so as not to eat it all in one go and be left hungry come day four of this journey. As I nibbled away, Tim stuck his head into our cabin.
“Ah, on the vodka already then?” Matt asked, noticing the cup in Tim’s hand.
“Well, they don’t call it the Vodkatrain for nothing!” he laughed. “But yeah, I know it’s still early, but we’re getting the party started in our cabin if anyone wants to join.”
I never really need an excuse to drink, but having one always helps. I grabbed my vodka, Coke, and made my way to the neighbouring cabin. The vodka was flowing freely, and we managed to cram eight people into the bottom bunk seats without too much discomfort. When there are that many people in a confided space drinking alcohol, its inevitable that the drinking games are going to start.
“We’re not playing ‘Never Have I Ever’, not when we have couples present,” Tim said adamantly. “I’ve seen too many awkward fights start over that game.” Both Dan and Claire and Rach and Marti were part of the vodka party. Marti was trying to get us to play card games, but in the end I joined voices with Alyson to champion for a game of ‘Two Truths, One Lie’. Technically not a drinking game, but always better when drinking is involved, I figured it was a happy medium – people can still make those drunken confessions with their truths, instead of drinking to their own statements in Never Have I Ever. and people can still withhold all the secrets they want.

I’m not going to explain drinking game rules, but Two Truths, One Lie was a fun way to learn a few quirky things about my fellow travellers – Alyson played the violin for 14 years, Marti was a maths champion in the 9th grade and has a near photographic memory, and Dan once poured frozen peas down a toilet at a party at Johnny Wilkinson’s house. There was plenty more, and I probably did some lame confession about coming out when I was only 15 – my lack of dinner and the amount of vodka I ended up consuming meant that a lot of the finer details were lost on me. Later reports would inform me that I shakily stood up, announced to the cabin through slurred speech “I really need to go to bed now”, and sauntered my way into the hallway and back into my room. I woke up at some point in the night, face up and back arched over a mound in the middle of my bed that turned out to be both my pillow and my blanket, and only half aware of where I actually was. I crawled out of the uncomfortable position and very quickly slipped back into my drunken slumber.

Vodka Party!

DAY 2

The following day was a complete write-off. Luckily, we didn’t exactly have anywhere to be. It wasn’t until midday that I was able to sit up in my bed and eat a few flakes of cereal, some super sweet version of honey coated corn flakes I’d picked up in Irkutsk. It was all I could really stomach, and though I felt absolutely awful, I found a silver lining in the fact that my food might last a little longer now. Kaylah eventually visited me on my top bunk, as I was strumming away clumsily on my ukulele.
“How’re you feeling?” she said with a knowing smile.
“Ugh,” was all I could manage at first, dropping the ukulele on my chest to rub the palms of my hands into my tired eyes. I then picked up the bottle of vodka – which for some reason I had been cradling in my sleep – to show that it only had about a quarter of the bottle remaining. “I shouldn’t drink vodka!”
“Aww, you poor thing,” she said as she rested a hand on my shin, sounding very genuine despite there being a giggle in her voice.
“But what happened to you last night?” I said, only now really realising that Kaylah had been absent from the vodka party.
“I don’t know!” she said. “I think I just started reading my book and… I fell asleep? I don’t know I just woke up and it was morning!” She just laughed it off, and I found myself rolling my eyes and laughing along with her infectious mirth.

I didn’t change out of my pajamas at all that day. Every time I even thought about it, part of my brain kicked in saying, Why? Who are you trying to impress? It was a fair point. Most of us had all seen each other at our various high and low points by now, and as long as I didn’t begin to smell incredibly offensive, I was more than happy to lounge around in my bed, read my book and watch the Siberian scenery pass us by. I was on he top bunk this time, which meant I wasn’t in anyone’s way if I didn’t get out of bed. On one of my toilet breaks I stuck my head in to say hello to Tim, Rach and Marti.
“Ah, he’s alive!” Marti had exclaimed as I appeared at the door. “You were so funny last night Rob, you nearly fell asleep in the corner there.” They recounted my final moments of the previous evening to me, and I asserted that it sounded exactly like something I would do, before dragging myself back up into my bunk and attempted to sleep off what was one of the worst hangovers I’d had in a while. I couldn’t seem to stick with one activity for more than half an hour, whether it was reading, sleeping, plucking at the ukulele or gazing out the window. That much restlessness after the first full day definitely couldn’t be a good sign, and I feared I might be climbing the walls sooner than I’d anticipated.

DAY 3

I woke up on my second morning on the train feeling gross again, but this time it wasn’t a hangover. Anyone who knows me or is familiar with my hygiene routine knows that I’m pretty regular when it comes to showering, usually twice a day, and I always use a fresh pair of underwear. But this wasn’t regular life – this was life on the Trans-Siberian, and showers were a luxury we didn’t have. I’d gotten lazy yesterday, and allowed myself to fester in my filth, but it couldn’t go on like that any longer. When you can’t stand your own BO, things are a stones throw away from getting very ugly, plus I hadn’t even brushed my teeth in at least 24 hours. Long story short: I was a hot mess.

So I had my first of what had been coined ‘Baby Wipe Showers’. They’re pretty self-explanatory – in the absence of a running water shower, you simply mop yourself down with baby wipes, or just a wet corner of your towel with some soap, and trick yourself into feeling just a little bit fresher. I also spritzed a little bit of cologne on my faux-fresh body, to keep the stale, unwashed scent at bay for a little longer. It was a far cry from an actual shower, but when you’re feeling the way I did, a slap of cold water to the face and even the slightest bit of a scrub down made me feel like a new man. About five minutes later, I ran into Marti out in the hallway.
“Hey Rob, were you just in the bathroom?”
I was struck with a moment of intense panic – had I done something wrong, broken the toilet, perhaps? I hadn’t even used the toilet, but I’ve had worse luck before, so who knew? A few of our group conversations on the trains had been about the lack of etiquette in some people when it comes to shared bathrooms. I’d hate to become one of the case studies.
“Ah, yeah I had a baby wipe shower just before,” I said tentatively.
“It just smells so nice in there!” she said with a laugh, and I relaxed a little. “I was expecting it to smell of like, you know, piss or whatever. But I stepped in and was like, ‘Ah, smells really nice in here!’ So thank you!”
“Ah.. Well you’re welcome, I guess?” I said as I laughed along with her. And to think, I nearly didn’t bring my two favourite colognes – out of a collection of seven – because they didn’t seem ‘essential’ enough.

A dull, dreary Siberian morning.

View of the train from the platform at one of our stops.

Train as seen from a platform bridge.

***

By now, the days had really started to drag on. We watched a movie called TransSiberian that Marti had on her hard drive. It was pretty cool to see the story begin in Beijing, recognising the very same train station hall that we’d sat in about a week ago, and we empathised with the main characters as the train attendants yelled at them in Russian. We had actually been much luckier on this train in that regard – the main train attendant was a much younger woman than the previous train, and while not exactly polite, such was much more mild mannered than the ranting woman on the train from Ulaanbaatar.

But the movie was a thriller about drug smuggling where everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and thankfully the rest of it was not quite so relatable. It killed some time though, and time was the one thing we had in complete excess. The entire Trans-Siberian route crosses 7 different time zones, with most of them occurring on this particular trip. Matt and Jen were very clued in to the changes, thanks to their Lonely Planet guide, and would give us the regular updates.
“So at about 12 o’clock it becomes 11 o’clock again”, said Matt as he studied one of the pages, while Jen consulted the timetable to check the next station we’d be passing through.
“Seriously? God, it’s like my lunch is trying to run away from me!”

While the socially dictated times for our meals kept slipping away from us, the food was well within reach, and many of us adopted a ‘Second Breakfast’ attitude. While I had previously feared for my food supplies, I managed to ration it all rather well, and soon enough these multiple meals became our own form of telling the time, creating a new meals through which to structure our day.
“They say it’s 2am somewhere, right? Well I say it’s noon somewhere in the world, so it’s time for lunch!” Tim had asserted.
“Yeah,” Rach had agreed. “We can have our Irkutsk lunch, and then our Moscow lunch later.”
“Mmm yeah, I could smash a second lunch!” added Marti, and we all laughed at what had become her own little catchphrase.
“It’s 3pm in Melbourne – this might as well just be my afternoon snack!” laughed Tim, and the banter continued as we all obsessed over our food. Soon we were laughing at pretty much anything.

Whenever Kaylah dropped by we would all end up in stitches – I can’t really put my finger on it, but her laugh was just so contagious that I can’t keep a straight face when she’s in a good mood. In the evening we tried to have another vodka party. I say tried because firstly, we didn’t have that much vodka left, and secondly, none of us seemed to really be in the mood – I personally just wanted to discard the bottle. However, alcohol goes straight to Kaylah’s head, and she was laughing like a maniac after only one drink. I, on the other hand, was definitely not in the mood for vodka, and only managed about one small drink before volunteering it up to the rest of the cabin. They were more than happy to help me finish it.
“Oh dear,” Tim had said with a sigh, after we’d settled down from a bout of hysterical laughter about something I honestly don’t even remember. “I think cabin fever has well and truly sunk in.”

DAY 4

On our final full day on the train, I woke up with the intention of changing out of my dirty clothes and freshening up like I had the day before – I had been wearing the same pair of underwear since the morning we’d left Lake Baikal, and was feeling pretty rank in general. Though the devil on my shoulder of personal hygiene argued that I only had to stick it out for one more day, and then I could actually have a shower before putting on clean underwear. I have this weird thing about putting clean clothes on a dirty body – I just hate doing it – so in the end I decided to fester in my well-worn clothes for another 24 hours and hold out until Moscow. For anyone who knew me before this train trip – I’m definitely a changed man.

***

The last day was mostly spent doing the same activities – watching episodes of TV shows on laptops, making tea, coffee and two minute noodles, chatting with each other, staring out the window and – something that had become a personal favourite – playing cards. Tim and Alyson taught us how to play a game called ‘Asshole’, where the objective is to get rid of all your cards lest you become the Asshole in the next round, suffering a relative disadvantage. It’s a fun game, but in the heat of cabin fever, when we’ve all been up in each others personal space for the last few days, our investment into the game was close to maniacal.

Though it was over one of these card games that the craziest and most brilliant idea of all was formed.
“You know what I really want?” said Marti as we took turns throwing our cards into the pile in the middle of the table. “I could totally smash a chicken right now. A big juicy chicken with some potatoes! Mmm, that would be the best!”
Having lived predominantly of bread, cheese, cold meat and two minutes noodles, you could almost hear the salivation from everyone in the cabin as soon at Marti mentioned it.
“That would be so amazing!” Tim exclaimed.
“When’s our next longer stop?” asked Rach. The train made short stops at some of the local stations along the way – sometimes they were five minutes, other times they were as long as 45 minutes.”
“There’s a 30 minute stop in about an hour,” Marti said as she checked the schedule, and looked up to grin at us. “What do you think guys – wanna see if we can get some chicken?!”
There were various rounds of agreement from Tim, Rach, Kaylah – I had rationed enough of my food to last me, but the thought of a hot roast chicken was just absolutely mouth watering, so I tagged along in the quest for poultry.

As we rolled into the stop though, our hopes sunk. Some of the stations had been quite big, with people selling all kinds of food on the platforms. However, this station was a tiny town, with a platform that wasn’t even long enough for the train. Marti and Kaylah had to jump down from the train and walk along the unsealed road to get back to the platform, but they did it in their desperate attempt to find chicken. Rach, Tim and I stayed back in the train to hold the fort, but we all agreed that we didn’t like their chances, and so had already really accepted the fact it would be one final night of noodles and bread.

So you can imagine our surprise when the girls burst back into the cabin with two roast chickens.
“Chicken run was a success!” Marti shouted gleefully as she put the birds down on the table in the middle of the cabin. Claire and Dan had also bought a third one, and Kaylah had picked up some instant mash potato that only required the hot water, and so together we all had a final train meal together, a feast for our last night on the Trans-Siberian.
“Smash that chicken!” Marti said with a laugh, and we all literally pulled the carcasses apart, ripped the meat off and sucking the bones clean, leaving no edible scrap to go to waste. We must have looked like starved savages, but the freshly cooked meat was such a welcome change that I don’t think any of us cared in the slightest.

Operation Chicken Run: Success

Kaylah, Tim and myself gorging on the hot chicken.

The aftermath.

When the feast was over and we’d eaten our fill, we all started to prepare for bed. We were due to arrive in Moscow at 4am, and most of us wanted to get some semblance of a decent sleep. As I readied myself for bed, I had a brief chat with Jen:
“I can’t believe it’s almost over – it felt like this train ride was never going to end,” I said with an exhausted laugh as I fell back onto my pillow.
“It’s been rather interesting though. I mean I’ve enjoyed it, but it’s not the kind of thing I’d ever do again. Do you know what I mean?”
“Absolutely. I guess there’s a reason why it’s described as a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience, right?”
“Exactly!” she said with a smile. “Although it would be pretty to see the scenery of Siberia in the winter… but no. I think it’s definitely more than a journey. It’s a challenge, really, isn’t it?”
I didn’t have to consider that question long. “Definitely. Well, I know I found it a little challenging at times. But hey, we did it! We travelled the Trans-Siberian railway!”

***

Despite going to bed relatively early, I didn’t get a lot of sleep that last night. I don’t know if it was the train, the tracks, or some other factor, but it was one of the roughest and bumpiest sections of any of the train journeys we’d been on so far. Loud and rickety creaks continued through the whole night, and several times I felt as though I was about to be thrown out of my bed. Another downfall about these cabins was the the windows didn’t open, and so four sleeping bodies in that tiny space had turned it into somewhat of a mild oven.

Yet I must have slept for a little bit, because I was woken up as we were approaching Moscow station, at some ungodly hour that didn’t agree with any of the multiple body clocks I had been running on for the past few days. When we arrived, we jumped off the train and were greeted by a small woman, who informed us that she wasn’t our guide, but another Vodkatrain employee who would take us to our hostel. “We should also decide on a time to meet you guide”, she had said to the group. “But it’s still quite early, and I’m guessing that most of you would like to have a shower, yes?”

I don’t think I have to tell you what our unanimous group response was.

Sunshine Slums and a Private Paradise

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Tiny Tino

After an eventful few days in Phnom Penh, I decided that I was in need of another trip to the beach. Krabi had been the perfect detox from the big city lights of Bangkok, and while Phnom Penh was no comparative concrete jungle, it had dealt me my fair share of hard knocks and cuts and bruises, and I felt it was time to move on. Some of my fellow travellers in Saigon had suggested Kampot as a fun town to visit, while a number of other people had also suggested Sihanoukville. Both were towns down on the coast of Cambodia, both seemed an equal distance from Phnom Penh, and both had been given pretty good reviews by my peers. I was having a tough time choosing where to go – I knew my time was limited, and I wanted to see one town thoroughly rather than skimming through two. In the end, while I was sitting on the couch in the hostel common room mulling over my disaster date with Sana, my mind was made up by two other travellers who had stumbled into the hostel and placed themselves next to me. I said hello, and we had a brief discussion in which they told me they were travelling to Sihanoukville the next day. “You should totally come!” the female of the pair urged me, “but I’m getting the 6am bus, I have no idea why I did that, but he’s going on the 1pm one,” she said as she pointed to her male companion. “It’ll be awesome!” And just like that, fate had stumbled into my life to point me towards me next adventure.

However, I didn’t leave the next day. I went out and rented a motorbike, fell off that motorbike, met Laura, and ended up staying for a couple more nights. And while I never met up with that duo in Sihanoukville, after agreeing to follow them there I couldn’t shake this feeling that it should definitely be my next destination. So on the Friday morning after my week in Phnom Penh, I boarded a mini bus and hit the road for the sunny shores of Sihanoukville to unwind on its sandy white beaches.

***

When I arrived in the centre of the town, I asked a tuk tuk to take me to a cheap hostel, anywhere with dorm rooms. Such a request can be quite the gamble – my hostel in Phnom Penh was reasonable for a budget price and the dorms were actually quite comfortable. The hostel I ended up in here in Sihanoukville was a third of the price, and that measly $2.50 per night placed me in the “VIP” dorm. Seven bunk beds with yoga mats for mattresses, the air conditioning was limited to late at night and the early hours of the morning, the toilet cistern leaked a consistent and steady flow onto the floor, and there was sand everywhere. But in my optimism, I wrote all that off as a relaxed, ‘beachy’ feel. I stuffed my things into the tiny locker, pulled on my board shorts and headed down to the beach.

Unlike Krabi, the beach was only a 5 minute walk from the centre of town, so I literally set out with nothing but my towel, my thongs, and my locker key secured in the pocket of my board shorts. The water was nice – not shallow or warm like the Thai beaches I’d visited. I dived into waves, washing away the afternoon sweat sheen, and wincing as the salt water washed over my wounded knee. It was definitely refreshing, but as I paddled around in the water, my eyes travelled up and down the beach, observing the scene. The long strip of sand was lined with reclining chairs, umbrellas, bars, and inevitably, the local people pedalling their wares and trinkets. The beach itself had become a strip catering for all kinds of tourist needs, and while that does sound like some sort of paradise setting, it was a little intimidating. I didn’t feel as though I could just go and sit on the beach and relax without someone trying to sell me a drink or a foot rub.

***

The hostel was the same. I sat down by the pool with a 75c beer and my iPad, to write some emails home to my family, and suddenly I had one of the Cambodian girls working at the hostel crawling all over me, trying to get my attention, complaining suggestively about how she wished someone would buy her a beer, and asking me question after question after question. I know it’s a petty thing to complain about, but I just wanted to relax. I would soon learn that I had definitely come to the wrong hostel for relaxing – Utopia was the party joint for Sihanoukville backpackers, and later that evening I would find myself surrounded by blasting music and drinking games. Which normally I would be thrilled about, but I had been slowly sinking beers all afternoon and then found myself at Happy Herb Pizzas for dinner, so by the time the party was getting started all I wanted to do was sit in the dorm and strum my ukulele while sucking on the lollipop I had brought from the corner store – don’t ask me why.

But nobody likes a party pooper, and it was a Friday night, so I threw on a singlet and headed to the bar area. I didn’t bother having a shower – I was running low on clean underwear, and I figured I might as well embrace the beach bum lifestyle that was definitely the status quo here. I chatted to a bunch of people throughout the night, rolling through the same introductions again and again and making polite small talk, but either my head was really somewhere else by that stage, or everyone I spoke to was just really boring. Probably both. I went to bed when I’d drunk so much beer that I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and I awoke the following morning with a seedy hangover and a feeling that the night I’d had hadn’t really been worth it. Disheartened, I crawled out of my bottom bunk, still in my board shorts from the day before, and went to grab some breakfast before hitting the beach for another swim.

That afternoon, as I wandered the main streets of Sihanoukville sporting nothing but my bright pink board shorts and a groggy hangover, I came across a couple of diving shops. Remembering how much I had enjoyed rediscovering SCUBA diving back in Krabi, I went into each of them and made a few enquiries. There are a few islands about two hours from mainland Cambodia that are home to dozens of beautiful diving sites, and all the places offered day tours out to the islands, as well as overnight packages where you stayed on the island overnight. Reflecting on my night at Utopia, that was definitely something that interested me.

***

When I first arrived at the Sihanoukville hostel, there had been a guy sitting on his bed using a laptop. He’d worked away as I’d unpacked some of my things, but after a while he’d slapped the lid shut, let out a noise that was a cross between a groan and a yawn, and said in a thick American accent, “Oh my god, it is so hot in here!” I think he’d just been in general, to no one in particular, but as the only other person in the room I felt almost obliged to reply. I just chuckled and smirked to myself, as I did when most people complained about the heat – we’re in South East Asia, duh! – and then said “Yeah, it is… How long have you been staying here?”

The American jumped down from his top bunk and shoved his laptop into his locker. “Too long man, too long. Five days now, I think.” He pushed his locker shut and turned to face me. “It’s just so chilled and relaxed, you know? It just sucks you in!” Then he turned back to his bed. “Aww man, and now there’s sand all over my bed!” He brushed the sheet with his hands a few times, before shrugging and walking out of the room, without speaking another word. Maybe he had been high during our encounter, or maybe I just really am too highly strung, but the mood in this hostel had descended beneath ‘chilled and relaxed’ and reached ‘filthy and decrepit’. I made a mental note to get out of that place within a few days, lest I become a zoned out zombie patting the grains of sand on my own bed sheet.

***

So I knew right away that I wanted to stay on the island, Koh Rong Samleon, and I wanted to stay there as soon as possible. I shopped around for prices and packages, booked with the one I liked best, and was told to meet at the dive shop at 7:15 the following morning. I had a quiet dinner and went to bed early. However, being a Saturday night, Utopia had other plans. The music was pumping until about 1:00AM, and after that people were stumbling in at all hours of the morning, to the point where three girls staggered into the dorm just as I was getting up and ready to check out. I met one of the staff members from the dive shop and 3 of the other customer divers like myself, and we were put into a tuk tuk and whisked away to the dock.

It was too early for me to really engage in any kind of conversation, but I listened to the exchanges between my companions. The dive shop employee was a British man named Andrew, and he was telling the others about the socio-economic situation in Sihanoukville. “You’ll see it once we get out of the main tourist street, just wait. I mean, these guys have nothing. And anything they do have, they only have because of the tourists. It’s a vicious little cycle, but you know… It’s not all paradise down here.” As the tuk tuk carried us further from the centre of town, his words echoed loud and clear in the streets around us. You didn’t have to go far to escape the idyllic façade of a tropical paradise and discover that poverty is just as rife here as it is in Phnom Penh, and I can only assume everywhere else in Cambodia. I felt a little guilty, being one of the tourists that fuel these poverty traps, but Andrew had assured us that Koh Rong Samleon would be nothing like mainland Sihanoukville. “You won’t see any motorbikes or tuk tuks, and no one is going to try and sell you anything.” I was tired and groggy from my interrupted night of sleep, but that assertion made me feel extremely confident that I had made the right decision for myself.

View from the dock at Koh Rong Samelon.

Just over two hours later, the boat pulled up to the dock on Koh Rong Samleon. We unloaded our stuff, and then before long we were ready to head out again to go diving. The other three customers were doing their dives to complete their PADI Open Water Diver Certificate, so their schedule was going to be a little different. Since I was already a certified diver, all I had to do was gear up and take the plunge off the boat. I would be accompanied by my dive master, a lovely little English woman named Justine, and Kyle, a young Kiwi guy who was in the process of training to become a dive master himself. They were both lovely, and I had a lot of fun diving with them. The water at these Cambodian dive sights was pretty similar to the water at Ao Nang when I stayed at Krabi – perfect temperature, quite good visibility and lots of marine life. We saw a couple of stingrays on the first dive, but for the most part we just saw a huge variety of fish. During the second dive I found myself swimming alongside schools of fish that swam close enough together to form a huge silver wall, shining and glittering in the sunlight. Being under the sea really allows you to appreciate its immensity – you literally just feel like a drop in the ocean, a minuscule spot on the surface of this vast, blue planet. I didn’t see anything particularly amazing or breath taking, but there’s something about SCUBA diving and being under the sea that really taps into philosophical side and sense of wonder.

***

The days activities consisted on the morning dive and the afternoon dive. After that, I was left to my own devices to explore the island. My basic accommodation was covered by the diving company – a basic dorm room in a shack over the water, suspended on stilts and connected to the dock – so I didn’t have anything else to plan or worry about. I set off into the village with nothing but the clothes on my back, just like a had in Sihanoukville, but I quickly learnt that Andrew had been right – this island was completely remote. Some of the children would scream, smile and wave at you as you passed by, but other than that you could walk down the street completely undisturbed. The main street was simply a strip of sand that was lined by the tiny local huts on either side. I wandered through the town, returning smiles and waves, and continued on past the village and through the rainforest along the coast. I’d been told by Justine that there was a nice long beach, aptly named Longbeach, were you could relax on the sand and go for a swim, and due to the tiny island population it was rarely very busy.

As I stepped out onto the sand and let the water wash over my feet, I instantly knew that I had found the perfect beach that I had been looking for all this time. It was a sheltered bay, so there were no rough waves, and the water was a clear cool blue, not shallow and warm the beaches at Krabi. The white sand was completely deserted – not a soul in sight. I strode out into the water, and kept walking until the water was up to my neck. I spun around, drinking in the sights of the ocean, the shoreline, the mountain on the smaller neighbouring island – to me, this was paradise. I could have stayed there for hours, just floating around in the water, no belongings on the beach to worry about or other swimmers to distract or disturb me. It was pure bliss.

The perfection that was Longbeach, Koh Rong Samleon.

Though I had another destination for the end of the afternoon. Kyle had told me about another beautiful spot on Koh Rong Samleon called Sunset Rocks. Basically, the western side of the island was a rocky shoreline from which you had a completely unobstructed view of the sunset over the ocean. As the end afternoon drew nearer, I made my way back through the main street to the other side of the island, acquiring some companions in the form of two of the local street dogs. There, I perched myself on a large flat rock, and waited. Growing up on the east coast of Australia, I’d always found sunsets over the ocean to be particularly exciting. I saw a few while I had been in Costa Rica a few years ago, but the novelty has yet to wear off. I sat there with my canine companions and watched the sun bleed into the ocean, the sky turning a beautiful shade of orange.

View from Sunset Rocks.

One of my two canine companions for the sunset.

***

My night on Koh Rong Samleon was a peculiar experience. After dinner I spent the evening sitting on the pier with one of the dive master interns, and Australian guy named Dean, watching lightning flashing across the bay. There was no thunder to be heard, nor any specks of rain to be felt – just a cool ocean breeze with the lightning lighting up the sky. When I leaned back, I also noticed something that I hadn’t seen in a while – the stars. Moving between city to city, with the traffic and the smog and the light pollution, I couldn’t actually remember a night during my time in South East Asia where I could clearly see the night sky. It was an unfamiliar sky, and even though I was in the Northern Hemisphere, I couldn’t help but try to find the Southern Cross in every cluster of stars. I sat there for a while, just watching the sky in all it’s natural wonder, content with my decision to leave behind the so called Utopia.

I began to yawn, feeling tired after my long day, but just as I was thinking about heading to bed, Justine invited me to come down into the village with her, Andrew, Dean, and the rest of the other divers for a few beers. Figuring I was only going to be there for one night, I decided to check out whatever nightlife this tiny remote island had to offer. The local bar felt more like a large room on the back on someone’s house. The bartender was a chatty Cambodian woman, despite her very limited English, and she knew most of the divers who lived and worked on the island. She smiled and waltzed around the table, laughing and smiling saying, “You drink beer, you no pay. You play pool, you no pay.” It seemed bizarre to me, considering we were her only customers, but I took her up on it and had myself a beer, and challenged Dean to a round of pool. Later, our hostess began pouring shots of the local liquor. “You drink whiskey, you no pay.” I could only stomach one shot before my eyes began to droop and close involuntarily. I cursed myself for being so tired, because usually I would not be one to so quickly pass up a free drink, let alone free shots. I thanked the woman for her hospitality, bid the rest of the group goodnight, and headed back to the pier and crashed in an exhausted heap under my mosquito net.

***

And was jerked awake in the morning by the sound of the world coming to an end. Or so I thought – the storm I had watched from afar last night had finally reached the island, and the thunder sounded as though the sky was being savagely ripped in two, shaking the earth while the rain bucketed down and flew through the open windows. I jumped up to close the shutters, then laid in my bed and listened to the storm rage around us. It passed soon enough, and while the others got up to continue the dives for their Open Water Diver course, while I spent the rest of the day wandering around the island, relaxing on the dock, and swimming over at Longbeach. It was incredibly peaceful, and exactly what I needed – except for a brief run-in with an anemone. When you’re SCUBA diving, you can see all the creatures around you, so you know not to touch anything that looks potentially dangerous or unfriendly. However, as I put my foot down onto what I thought was a sandy ocean floor, I felt a texture that was very unusual and unfamiliar. I pulled my foot back in shock, and a few seconds later was met with an intense stinging on the top of my foot. I splashed my way back to the shore and sat on the sand – there were a few red marks where the stinging sensation still remained, but it didn’t seem too serious. I went back to the pier to check with Justine, who said there are a couple of different types of plants that could have delivered that kind of sting, though I still thought it was a little bizarre that the stinging was on the top of my foot, and not on the underside that had initially stepped on whatever underwear creature I had stumbled across. We poured some vinegar on the marks, which relieved the pain a little, but Justine assured me it was nothing to be concerned about.

The dock as seen from the shores of Longbeach.

***

As the end of the afternoon rolled around, it was time to say goodbye to Koh Rong Samleon and head back to Sihanoukville. I had booked an overnight bus from there to Siem Reap, and rest of my Cambodian adventure awaited. As I sailed back to the mainland, I realised that my time on the coast hadn’t been anything like I was expecting. Instead of being completely relaxed, I’d found myself in a grungy den of a party hostel, and instead of feeling refreshed I had spent four days in one pair of shorts, having not had a proper shower and only brushing my teeth once. However, I felt as though I had overcome another challenge by taking on my anal retentiveness when it comes to personal hygiene. It’s not something I’d like to make a habit out of, but I now know that should I find myself in such compromising situations again, I can survive without having any kind of breakdown.

I’d also done some awesome SCUBA diving and seen a handful of sights that few people will ever see in their lifetimes. So when I made it back to the mainland and boarded my night bus to Siem Reap, I felt content in having explored another unique corner of the planet on my round the world adventure.

Culture Lesson in Review: “Normal” Love

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Tiny Tino

My first weekend in Bangkok felt like a throwback to my previous lifestyle in Sydney – you can take the boy from the party, but you can’t take the party from the boy.

Silom Soi 4 on a Saturday night.

Earlier in the week, Rathana had put me in touch with a few of his friends in Bangkok, and they had agreed to take me out and show me around while he was still in San Francisco. After dinner, and several jugs of margaritas, I found myself back at Silom Soi 4, though it was a Saturday night this time so the street was a little busier than last time I’d been there. The four guys I was with were all good friends, a couple of them having known each other for nearly as long as I’ve been alive, but they were fantastic company and welcomed me warmly into the group. Conversation was flowing fast and freely, and it usually does between such good friends, and I was privy to some hilarious, provocative, and thoughtful conversations. One in particular that I want to reflect on was a topic that was sparked when we spotted a peculiar couple on the other side of the street. One half of the couple was a young Thai boy with pretty, delicate features – I’m terrible with guessing, ages but I’d say somewhere in his mid- to late-twenties at the most. The other man was older… much, much older. I’m no stranger to age gaps in my relationships, but even I have to confess to feeling a little uncomfortable watching these two canoodle on the balcony of the bar.

Some cheeky remarks were made about the couple couple, and the discussion about such pairings being a common occurrence in the area turned to questions of why they occur in the first place. One of our group, who has only just recently moved to Bangkok himself, suggested that some of the younger local boys were almost driven to those types of relationships due to poverty, while the older Caucasian gentlemen use their wealth to effectively buy affection. In response to that suggestion, one of the guys – who we shall call ‘Anna’ – made a point that I personally had never really considered.

“The definition of love in their culture is very different from our Western ideas of what love is supposed to be. For them, love is about taking care of someone, or them taking care of you. I wouldn’t say that they’re driven to these relationships, or even that they’re being coerced, or that these men take advantage of them. It’s just how their culture defines love – they’re in love. Who are we to come in with our Western ideas about love and tell them what they have isn’t normal?”

I paraphrase, of course, but the idea really stuck with me. Even in a Western setting, I’ve had people question the integrity of my relationships with a number of previous boyfriends, whether it be due to ages or otherwise. And the more I thought about it, the more I agreed with Anna. As two consenting adults, these two men have a relationship. Are they in love? Who can say? We didn’t ask them – I know plenty of people in our own Western society who are in loveless relationships, but seeming a little more “normal” helps them avoid much scrutiny at all. The idea that love means different things in different cultures was intriguing, and while I’m sure there’s a multitude of complexities regarding love and relationships in Thai culture that I have little to no idea about, I think the discussion reaffirmed a value in me that I’d temporarily forgotten – love doesn’t play by any set rules, and there’s no such thing as a “normal” relationship. That particular age gap may have given me the heebie-jeebies, but hey, if they’d said that they were in love, then that would have been good enough for me.

Dancing in a cage in a Bangkok club – don’t ask me which one, because I can’t for the life of me remember.

My period of deep reflection on such complex emotional processes didn’t last long, though. A few more margaritas later and I was ready to hit the dancefloor. I think that’s what I like about a good gay bar – you can be millions of miles away in a foreign city, surrounded by people that you’ve never met and probably never will, but when you’re shaking your stuff on a crowded dancefloor to a Britney Spears remix, it’s always going to feel like home.

“Bangkok’s got him now”

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Tiny Tino

Sitting on the Skytrain from Suvarnabhumi Airport to the heart of Bangkok, I peered out the windows at the vaguely familiar landscape. I had spent a couple of days here in my brief South-East Asian stint a little over a year ago, and the expansive field and countryside, littered with small, modest dwellings and the occasional billboard, hadn’t changed too dramatically. I suppose there are a few more modern developments and built-up environments closer to the railway line, and that these elements of the landscape would dwindle the further you went into the countryside – but I won’t pretend I know a great deal about the geography, or even the culture, of Thailand. All I know is that the views frommy seat on the train were as paradoxical as some of the scenic juxtapositions of Singapore, but to an even further, exaggerated extent. It makes for an interesting observation, but from my vantage point it all seemed rather other-worldly in a textbook kind of fashion. But it wouldn’t be that way for long…

***

I was staying with my friend Rathana, another person whom I knew from Sydney but had since moved to live abroad. However, his work frequently takes him to all kinds of places across the globe, and as fate would have it he was to be in San Francisco when I touched down in Bangkok, though he’d generously offered for me to stay in his place without him until his return. I used my basic directional knowledge from last time I’d been in Bangkok to make the short walk from the BTS (another name of for the Skytrain – an above ground railway system just as efficient as Singapore’s MRT) station to his condo, where I met one of his co-workers to collect his keys. After spending the afternoon resting and enjoying having a private space to myself, I began to feel hungry, so I decided to take a wander through the streets of Bangkok and see what I could discover.

Within half an hour I was back in the condo, feeling more than a little shellshocked. I’m not sure what I was expecting – I was well aware that I was in a foreign country, with its own language, rules, customs and culture, but I think it was more of an overestimation of my own ability to adjust and adapt. You can read all the books and reviews in the world, and somehow I don’t think anything can totally prepare you for the real thing. I set out into the streets, taking note of my surrounds yet heading in no particular direction, making turns here or there, wherever there seemed to be something interesting happening. I found myself in what I later discovered was the tiny and localised Muslim district of Bangkok. Street vendors lined the narrow road, young children played in the streets naked, stray cats prowled the gutters and whole families were lounging around in what seemed to be one room houses, surrounded by fans and in various stages of undress, in order to combat the sweltering heat and humidity. Motorbikes weaved between the people, and even cars nudged their way through the street like they were just oversized pedestrians. Determined to not look like the nervous tourist which I so obviously was, I trudged through up the street keeping mainly to myself, occasionally stopping to contemplate some of the street food carts, but moving on when my presence was either ignored, or met with a bored indifference. Of course, I don’t blame them for probably resenting my gawking – I was the one who had wandered off the main concourses into the tiny street which had little to no obvious tourist attractions. Yet in the end the whole thing became so overwhelming that I navigated my way through an alley or two until I reached the main roads, grabbed a handful of snacks the convenience store and dragged my shaken self back home. Maybe it was the fact I had set out into Bangkok by myself for the first time in the cover of night, or maybe it was just because I’d really had no idea what I was doing – I resolved that from now on I would always have a plan of attack.

***

The next day I tried to wind it back and ease myself into the culture shock a little more gently, spending the day revisiting some of the areas I’d been to before. I had lunch in the predominantly English-speaking area of Ari, and then headed to Siam to wander through some of the biggest malls in Asia. I’d noticed my throat becoming quite sore since the morning I left Singapore, so I found a pharmacy with an English-speaking doctor, who gave me a simple three day course of antibiotics. After that, I decided to lay low the rest of the day in an attempt to recover. Another of Rathana’s friends was to be staying at his place for a few days while he was away, so I ventured down to the BTS station to collect her and introduce her to Bangkok as best I could. She was in town for a conference over the weekend, so I would end up seeing very little of her during our shared time in the condo.

The next day I was feeling a bit better, so I set myself some challenges for the day, to help me get used to traveling solo around Bangkok. After doing a bit of research, I picked one restaurant for lunch and a nearby tourist attraction, studied the maps, and head off into the city. I never found the restaurant, and trudged around the streets in the hot sun for close to 40 minutes, getting lost and confused by the mostly non-English street signs, before I eventually stumbled upon a very Western looking burger joint. At that point I was willing to trade a cultural experience for a bit of cool air-conditioning, so I stopped and ate. From there it was on to the Queen Saowaphat Memorial Institute and Snake Farm. A couple of years ago, I developed a pretty intense snake phobia through a bizarre incident that is a whole other story of its own, and have been working ever since to try and overcome my fear. The snake farm is affiliated with the Red Cross Institute in Bangkok, where a lot of research into toxicology and the creation of snake bite anti-venom takes place, but it also offered snake handling shows in the afternoon, so I’d chosen the attraction in the hopes that maybe I could overcome some fears and gain some confidence I had lost after my first shaky night in Bangkok.

The words “snake farm” bring to mind images of pits full of writhing snakes, bred en masse and used like cattle. It would have been a disturbing sight, not to mention a likely case of animal cruelty, so it was a little reliving to see that the farm was actually just a small serpentine zoo. I found a lot of the cobras intriguing, and realised I would never be able to tell I had encountered one in the wild until if was spreading out those iconic hood scales and hissing and/or spitting venom at me – though in reality I doubt I’d ever let a wild snake of any kind get quite so close. However, it wasn’t until the handling show that I came face to face with my scaly demons. I’d turned up slightly late, distracted by the exhibitions, and so missed a seat in the amphitheatre and had to watch from down the sides at the bottom, which happened to be right next to the demonstration area…

Cobra in the exhibition area.

And the King Cobra that was a little close for comfort!

Looking quite fierce, and most displeased.

So you can imagine my horror when the first thing they do is dump a King Cobra on the ground, no more than 4 or 5 metres from where I was standing. The snake itself would have been more than half that distance had it been fully extended, but instead it writhed around and coiled itself, its hood scales fully spread and hissing angrily at the handlers around it. After the initial shock, and realising there were quite a few people between the cobra and myself, I managed to calm down and watch the show without being too anxious or nervous at all – quite a feat for someone who had to watch scenes in the last Harry Potter film between slits in my fingers to avoid seeing Voldemort’s giant pet snake. Come the end of the show, they called for a volunteer, and I was standing too close to the demonstration area to not get selected. I’d seen shows like this before, and I knew what was coming – but as per the challenge to myself, I didn’t resist, and allowed for the huge python to be draped across my shoulders. It was such a thrill, and I was surprised to find that I wasn’t really scared at all – phobia smashed! I even held it long enough to ask to get my picture taken, in case nobody back home would believe actually me.

Finally squashing my snake phobia for good!

Maybe all the attention tired the poor thing out?

***

As I left the snake farm, I was accosted by a tuk tuk driver who asked if I needed a ride. I knew the way back to the station, yet I let myself be dragged into a conversation. “For just 20 baht, my friend, I will take to back to the Sala Daeng BTS station. But please, can we make one other stop along the way?” I told him that I didn’t have anywhere I needed to be, and as he explained I realised that he was trying to get me to visit a shop, presumably that of a friend, or an employer of sorts. Assuring me I only needed to have a look and not necessarily buy anything, I threw caution to the wind and gave in to what might actually be my first authentic Bangkok experience. The store turned out to be a tailor, and I soon realised it wasn’t quite so easy to browse a store that doesn’t actually have a great deal of products already made. I was quite insistent to my salesman that I didn’t need a suit, but in the end I caved, I ended up walking out of the store having been measured up and paid for two tailor made shirts. They were supposed to be delivered to Rathana’s condo the next evening, but are yet to arrive, and now I’m starting to feel I may have been swindled by an elaborate scam. Though I’ll hold my breath just a little longer, in case there was a legitimate delay.

The tuk tuk driver was delighted I’d made a purchase, and I think that was a sign to him that maybe he could pump even more upselling into me. As we continued on our way, he turned and called back to me, over the drone of the traffic, “Lady? You want a lady? Ping pong show, yes?” I politely declined, though I ended up browsing through a jewellery store before I firmly insisted that I needed to go back to the station. He was a very cheery man, though. “I like you, you’re a cool guy,” he repeated several times. He asked me if I was going out partying that night, and when I alluded to it being a possibility, he wanted to get my phone number. Given the tricky nature of my travel SIM card, I managed to squeeze my way out of that one, but in retrospect it seems he had made a pretty big squeeze out of me, in one way or another.

***

After finally returning home and showering, I was off again to catch up with a friend. Brendon was the older brother of one of my best friends from high school, and had spent the better part of the last 3 or 4 years living and studying throughout Asia. He’d gotten in touch when he realised we would both be in Bangkok at the same time, and invited me to dinner with his group friends from his time at university here. Having spent most of the past three days on my own, I jumped at the chance to hang out with some locals and people who actually knew the city. We had dinner at a nice restaurant where I was introduced to the group, but it was what happened after dinner that was the real Bangkok experience. Rich, one of the girls, was going out to help celebrate her brothers birthday, and she urged Brendon and I to join them. Brendon was only in town for two nights and wanted to make the most of it, and I literally had no where else to go, so we jumped in a cab and I let them lead the way.

Our destination was Khao San, the backpacker district of Bangkok. Part of me wishes I’d paid more attention when watching The Beach, the begin of which is famously set in this busy party street. As we made our way through the crowds, I could see that this was definitely the tourist experience of Bangkok that serves as a unanimous reference point among travellers. The wide street was lined with bars, hotels, nightclubs and tattoo parlours, and dozens of pop-up shops filled the street, selling food, drinks and a huge range of souvenirs. It felt like a combination of Kings Cross/Surfers Paradise with Paddy’s Markets in Sydney, with the addition of small children also running through the crowds peddling their wares. After my encounters with over friendly sales people earlier that day, I was quick to shoo away the small children before they had the opportunity to tempt me. We finally found the birthday boy sitting at a table outside this bar:

That’s one way to get a target market?

I chuckled to myself at the name, another of the novelty clues highlighting that we were definitely not in any regular Australian party strip. We sat down and ordered drinks – table service in clubs is another thing that I wasn’t used to, although I’m now under the impression it’s pretty common in most places in Thailand, or at least Bangkok. As we sipped on our Singapore Sling cocktail buckets (the only drink worth getting here, Rich assured us), various other street sellers would approach us from the busy road and insistently push their products upon us. Among some of my favourites were the material wrist bands that contained all kinds of messaged woven into them, from sweet to naughty to just plain strange, and what appeared to be char-grilled scorpion skewers. I didn’t buy anything though – the wrist bands because I couldn’t decide on one hilarious slogan without wanting to choose them all, and the scorpions because… Well, nothing about them looked appetising in the slightest. I usually say I’ll try anything once, but after watching a British backpacker dry wretch and nearly vomit everywhere after eating her scorpion, I decided it was an experience I could live without.

Charming.

Less charming.

Singapore Slings – where else but Thailand?

When we’d decided we’d drank enough, we retreated to the neighbouring nightclub, partly because we wanted to dance and mostly because we knew the place was air conditioned. We danced for a while before we decided to leave and head to another district. After getting some Pad Thai from a street vendor, who cooked the whole meal in under two minutes right before our very eyes, we were in a taxi bound for Silom Soi 4. It was the gay district, Brendon explained to me, which was why Rich found herself there so often. “I just feel so much safer there”, she said with a laugh, while Brendon made a remark about feeling quite the opposite. I was unsurprised that I’d managed to find a fag hag on my first night in Bangkok, and I was pretty excited to check out what kind of gay scene existed here. Unfortunately it was a Thursday night and already well past 1am. We all ordered one more drink each, but by then we were all starting to feel pretty tired. I said my goodbyes to Brendon, and exchanged numbers with Rich in case I should need any more help navigating the party scene of Bangkok, then we all found cabs and made our separate ways home.

The bustling district of Khao San.

Pad Thai as a drunk meal is a bit of a novelty for me, but there were dozens of carts serving them along Khao San.

It had taken a few days, but I felt like I was starting to get the hang of Bangkok. There were the obvious language barriers in some places, which I was expecting, but you’re usually never too far from someone who can speak English, or provide a basic translation. The night out with Brendon and his friends had been a nice change from trying to discover and navigate the city on my own, and I began to think that while free accommodation with friends was definitely a bonus, I hadn’t anticipated it to be quite so lonely without Rathana actually being here. I figured it would be easier to make friends when I’m staying in hostels, surrounded by other backpackers, than it was when I was tucked away in my own private apartment. I’d spoken to a few friends back home during my brief periods of feeling a bit lonely, and they all assured me that it would get easier, and I had to remind myself that I’d really only been out of Sydney for a week. That was nothing in the grand scheme of my planned world tour, though sometimes it already felt like I’d been gone for such a long time. I knew all that would change with time though, and so I just took it in my stride as one of the many more personal challenges I’d face this year.

Though the weekend has only just begun, so for now, Bangkok is still calling…

Tiny Tino's Travels

Just a boy trying to find his place in the world

Tag Archives: party

Cabin Fever

Sunshine Slums and a Private Paradise

Culture Lesson in Review: “Normal” Love

“Bangkok’s got him now”