Tuesday, November 4, 2008

#31: Gerard the Belgian





Week 31 - Chiang Mai Province, Thailand

GOING NORTH: felt great. The train ride was beautiful (if three hours late), dramatic mountains wreathed with mist, scaled with rice terraces; villages flooded by recent rains, the water level nearing the top of doorframes. (My train was the last for nearly twenty-four hours, as the track was washed out at several points). It was cold, and wet, and miserable, and perfect.

It was beautiful. It was just too bad that I ended up in Phrae. Well. That's a little harsh; Phrae was a pleasant place to walk around during the day, with a large moat around the old town and old cobblestone streets lined with teak mansions and temples. And, for a town on the highway, the residents didn't seem terribly used to Westerners - people screamed when they saw me; babies cried; dogs barked; birds swooped at my head. Which was nice. But I was travelling alone, and wanted to go out and have a beer, meet some people. There wasn't much to do in Phrae, and by 9:00pm, everything was closed. So the next day I upped stakes and headed to Chiang Mai to meet up with Adam.

Good decision. Chiang Mai is amazing. It is everything Bangkok should be, but isn't. Nestled in the mountains, it's a beach town with no beach, an alpine ski resort with no snow. It's lovely, and relaxed, and fun.

The people here are young and cool and fond of a party, so we've done a fair amount of that. But some of them... Like, I spent most of a night talking to a cool young Irish girl straight out of Dublin, doing a few months in Asia before hitting Australia. We were having a great conversation until I asked:

"So, what made you leave Dublin?"

"Oh, you know," she said, "Too many fucking Pakis. Can't stand them Muslims."

Okay then.

And Gerard the Belgian: now there's a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a question mark. What can I tell you about Gerard the Belgian without having to kill you immediately afterwards? This guy is quite something.

We met Gerard at the guesthouse, hung with him for a night. Something was definitely odd about him: he was living on a very tight budget, but made it clear over the night that he was very rich. He also made several casual, mysterious references to his "offshore accounts" and "offshore companies".

Mysterious, but no big deal. I figured that after another night out with him I'd know what he was all about - but after one more night with him, I had to run straight home and grab my notebook and pen. This is what I wrote:

16 Things We Know About Gerard the Belgian (According to Gerard the Belgian):

1. Is very rich.
2. Is good friends with the head of organized crime in Uzbekistan (!).
3. Worked for the UN in Burkina Faso, Eritrea and Iraq.
4. Has a habit of threatening the Belgian tax department.
5. Has wiretaps on his phone.
6. Used to drive a $100,000 convertible around Compton, Los Angeles.
7. Has no discernible income.
8. Owns a hotel in Nicaragua.
9. Gerard is not his real name (it's a fake one to confuse the government).
10. Will not tell us his real name.
11. Has a credit card scanner on his laptop (!).
12. Parties with the son of the Belorussian President.
13. Has a credit card with no name on it.
14. Knows how to kill a man with his bare hands (or a broken beer bottle - not kidding here: Gerard gave me a rather graphic demonstration of how he would beat a Muay Thai boxer in a fight, by, in his words, "ripping his damn throat straight out of his neck!")
15. Is possibly James Bond.
16. Or insane.

Really - do people like this truly exist? Common sense tells me no, but a lifetime of watching bad action movies (hello, True Lies!) screams 'Yes!'. I hope it's all true. That would restore my faith in humanity. And my faith in ripping the damn throat straight out of humanity's neck. I will let you know what I find out, if I am permitted to live after receiving the information I currently possess. I'm practicing my kung-fu to ward off potential assassinations attempts. I am the Man Who Knows Too Much.

Adam and I also hired some motorbikes to hit the mountain roads around Chiang Mai. Well, eventually, anyway: after a long, tortuous battle with our hangovers (involving several civilian casualties) we finally got our shit together at 3pm, which meant we were navigating most of the treacherous pot-holed downhill hairpin turns in complete darkness, while copping mouthfuls of various insects. But before that sun set behind those mountain ranges it was honestly one of the most beautiful rides I have ever embarked upon. The scenery is just stunning; a few times we just wordlessly stopped the bikes and stared. It was also bloody cold, which became more of a problem as the sun set. None of us have any tolerance to cold weather - I have no idea how we're going to get through Tibet and Nepal.

Erin finally arrives up here tomorrow morning after trooping through her final days at work like... well, like a trooper. And then: no more commitments, no more attachments. The world is our oyster sauce.

Hope everybody's well,

Lachie

#30: Rice-filled Plains, Bamboo Trains & Capsizing Automobiles






[just a quick note to let you all know: Ping Pong KaPow! has moved site, and can now be found at pingpongkapow.wordpress.com. Episodes 2 and 3 are up for your viewing pleasure (or otherwise)]

Week 30 - Bangkok, Thailand

REAL POVERTY: is something one sees fairly rarely, unless you go seeking it. Which makes Battambang all the more heartbreaking. Don't misunderstand me here; the grinding evidence of poverty in Cambodia is breathtaking in its pervasiveness, no matter which part of the country you're in. But in Battambang it hits you hardest, comes right up to your table at the run-down little food stand, dirty plastic bag in hand, begging for any scraps you may have left over, a sip of water, a cigarette. And that's just the kids.

Battambang was among the provinces hardest-hit by the Khmer Rouge, and among the current community polio is even more rampant than the land mines. This means many people between twenty and forty are amputees or cripples, and that people aged over forty are close to non-existent. We saw one older person the entire time we were there - a lady of about sixty begging for change from passersby. It can be a very depressing place, at times. Still, the people are very nice and easygoing, and the town itself is wide and pleasant. There aren't too many things in the world better than a morning stroll to the bakery for hot crusty baguettes, even if from the moment you buy them you are surrounded and assaulted by a scrum of street-children trying to get it straight out of your grubby, wealthy, suddenly-extremely-status-conscious hands.

Such grubby, guilty hands.

It rained constantly - not the usual, dreary, guy-in-the-street-pissing-on-an-old-mattress long-term rains we're used to, but a punishing, pummeling, endless tropical downpour, a sudden and infinite wipeout that killed the electricity supply and flooded the streets and made me wet myself in fear (allegedly). Wouldn't you know it - just when Captain Planet dubbed into Cambodian was going to come on TV, and the power goes. Of all the rotten luck...

During one of the brief periods of sunshine we jumped a tuk-tuk to a cave, twenty kilometres out of town, where the Khmer Rouge massacred some ten thousand of their coutrymen. We were advised against a tuk-tuk, but there were five of us (a couple of Canadians we'd met came along) and we thought it would be cheaper. Two kilometres from the town centre I finally bore witness to the roads Cambodia is infamous for, running past glorious rice fields through massive, freight-truck-swallowing mud holes, puddles that would eat you and everyone you care about, given half a chance. Those twenty kilometres took one and a half hours, each way. The tuk-tuk broke down after four kilometres, was repaired, and then came within fractions of a degree of overturning with all us in it. And then it happened again. And again. And we didn't even find the goddamn cave, after trekking up and down massive flights of stairs, having to bribe the tourist police, watching a French tourist being attacked by a monkey (to describe this I would require a word that means "scary and awesome at the same time"), coming to a mountaintop temple, and being stalked by a young Cambodian man asking for money (in appearance and speech he closely resembled Gollum from Lord of the Rings). And then we had to pile into the tuk-tuk and stave off vomiting for another one and a half hours.

Cambodia is so much fun.

The following day we headed out again, this time to the bamboo train, a small carriage made by villagers powered by a small lawnmower engine that runs up and down the (now disused) train tracks. There was a time when you could catch the contraption as far as Sisophon, near the Thai border. Now, according to the moto driver at our guesthouse, "you can only ride for to get your funnies" - it only runs for fifteen kilometres and is basically a tourist thing. But that doesn't stop it being goddamn fun. After that it was time to come back...

...to Bangkok. Yes, a mere three weeks after swearing that I would never return to this city, here I am. I should really avoid making bold pronouncements from here on out. Erin is working until next Wednesday, when she will abruptly leave her job forever (she has spent the last two weeks preparing 'fuck off and die' speeches for her boss of such length, complexity and profanity that my lower jaw has been constantly attached to the floor). Adam is gone already, and is currently living the sweet life in Chiang Mai. And I have my train booked for tomorrow, when I will shoot up to the old city of Phrae, with a moat and old cobblestone streets and a rare tribe of... [here Lachlan spends copious paragraphs making up details of a city he knows absolutely nothing about. He's basically going because he likes the name].

In the meantime, I'm trying to enjoy Bangkok, though all I seem to do is notice the massive mistakes I made last time around. For instance, here is a list of the reasons why the guesthouse Erin and I are staying at would have been a much, much better place to stay than our apartment:

*It's cheaper
*It has a free pool
*It has a free pool table
*It has a free gym
*It has a free laundry
*It has free internet
*It sells alcohol
*It has a book exchange
*It's full of cool people from around the world
*It's closer to where both Erin and I worked
*It has a good restaurant attached
*There are no group aerobics sessions next door playing retarded techno remixes of retarded Christmas songs
*Did I mention the group aerobics retards? Those guys were retards.

Ah well. What that saying the French have? Pont neuf monsieur Gerard Depardieu baguette bonjour piscine avec allez croissant. That's not actually a saying, just a bunch of French words that I know. Next week may finally see us all being cold enough to wear a jumper at night, or even use a blanket while sleeping. Or maybe it'll be much the same. For the answers to these and other essential questions of life, tune in next week. Same juicy time, same juicy channel.

Hope you're well,

Lachie