tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55419325568830079702024-03-05T22:09:40.239+00:00Two TonnesTo reduce the risk of a 5ºC rise in global temperatures from 50% to 3%, the G8 nations have agreed to reduce CO2 emissions to two tonnes per person per year by 2050. - What can you do with 2 tonnes of carbon?Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.comBlogger155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-51393624253386087962011-05-17T20:49:00.005+01:002011-10-20T18:06:16.883+01:00This Blog Is MovingI've migrated the whole website and blog over to Wordpress so if you follow this blog, get yourself over to <a href="http://biotruckexpedition.org">http://biotruckexpedition.org</a><br /><br />The new RSS feed is; <a href="http://biotruckexpedition.org/?feed=rss2">http://biotruckexpedition.org/?feed=rss2</a><br /><br />The new site is live now, so go and check it out, there are lots of photos and I spent an age on it so I really hope you like it. Let me know what you think.<br /><br />The domain name is just registering this morning with the new server so for the time being you can't yet use "www." with the url, but that should sort itself out shortly. (right?)<br /><br />Thanks for following on blogger, please continue reading on WP. There are 4 new blogs on there as a special introductory offer. (and two of them are pretty good).<br /><br />AndyAndy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-12190053075331160402011-04-08T17:55:00.000+01:002011-04-08T17:56:11.905+01:00Believe in me<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> <w:dontbreakconstrainedforcedtables/> 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mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve met a few “citizens of the world” on this trip. Guys (invariably the are men) who have been backpacking for so long they either take offence at being asked where there from, or answer it with a treatise about socialisation to backpacker hostels and pancake breakfasts.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Well I’m not really <i style="">from</i> anywhere any more.” The word ‘from’ spat out with total disdain at the concept of being owned by geography.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It doesn’t take long to confirm that they are pretty lonely characters who disguise their roots in the hope that it will either make them more interesting, or at least less pigeonhole-able.<span style=""> </span>Drilling them with questions serves to both find their pigeonhole, and annoy them enough to entertain me. A fused Israeli ex-army soldier dealing pot to fund self medication, a dull Brit who bought a flat in London at a good time and pretends he survives off the crappy jewellery he makes in Nepal, an alcoholic Dutchman with questionable sexual peccadilloes living cheap in Goa... none of them were <i style="">from </i>anywhere.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I take pride in answering that I’m from ‘The London Borough of Croydon’ with a gentile cockney accent, knowing that that answer would cause eyes to roll anywhere in England, but that the full title can make it sound chic to a foreigners ears.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I always assumed that my shared love of travel with these global citizens came in part from the anonymity of being away from home. Gone is the defining insight your friend project on to you. No longer am I lazy Andy who gets really dull when he’s drunk, falls asleep at parties, and only gets comes to life when he’s talking technical about Toyota Landcruisers. Now I can be intrepid Andy, with a thought provoking blog, and a cool looking truck, rugged and mysterious; at least for the first few minutes of meeting people, before I have a drink and start winning on that the coil springs from an HJ80 can be fitted on a Pajero, usually followed by me dozing off.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But now I’ve come to another conclusion about why I like being away from home in this way, formed in part by watching the Wire, a cop show that I downloaded and got into watching over Christmas. (It’s taken a while for the penny to drop.) All the characters in the Wire, the policemen, the politicians, the drug dealers, the journalists, give their loyalty to their organisations for better or worse, and have to take compromised actions because they are bound by their allegiances. Good intentions and idealism gets sidelined for a greater good that generally doesn’t really materialise. Plans are thwarted by rival plans that dissect through the storylines. The organisations are the character’s failing. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">In London not only am I bound by my friend’s preconceptions of me, which are hard to escape, but by the organisations I belong to and that govern me. My job, my home, my social circle, the local chain supermarket, the train station, the newspapers I read, the libertarian politics I share with my friends, the capitalist system, the rule of law, my nationality. They are all organisations, identities that I subscribe to, and in return demand that I make compromises for them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Tom, my Nepali guru, told me his aim was to free himself of his belief systems, and the preconceptions they bound him to. He admitted it was impossible, but still worth striving for. Beliefs; religions, political leanings even attitudes, are also organisations and identities that support you when you join them, but demand your loyalty and compromised actions of you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Living in the truck instead of a home, and living pretty frugally makes it easier to shed a lot of belief systems and shun organisation memberships. It’s hard to be without the stability and support of these organisations in life, but it’s liberating too. And this, more than the anonymity of travel, is really what I’m enjoying about this life on the road. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">As you head inland from the SoCal coast to the desert life becomes more alternative, less regulated, more hippy. At the gates of Death Valley I’ve entered a realm of eco-statues, communal skinny dipping in at night in hot pools, and live Bluegrass echoing around the desert mountains. It’s about as far from the organisations of the London Borough of Croydon as I’ve been on this trip.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But if I’m asked what I think about something, I guess I’ll be answering, “Well, I don’t really <i style="">think </i>anything any more.”</p>Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-10793891381432491022011-04-08T17:51:00.001+01:002011-04-08T17:53:50.867+01:00The Rules<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> 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mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve always been involved in the loading and unloading of my truck at ports. In less authoritarian countries you can get proactively involved. Usually I’ve been able to see how it was lashed and what potential damage might be done.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This time, for safety reasons I wasn’t allowed into the port to unlash it, but by an accidental oversight of security I was ushered into the port for a coffee and ended up being driven out to the truck where they were struggling to get it started.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">They’d unlashed the bindings and set up a ramp, but despite various attempts couldn’t get it running. I’d disconnected the battery before it shipped and they hadn’t been able to find the battery box. Once reconnected, it started it up first time and they insisted that for security and insurance purposes they had to drive it off the ramp. The final section of the ramp was a high kerb and the driver went too fast off it, crunching the side of the skirt as it bounced down. [Had he gone slower there might have been less or even no damage, similarly had they built a better ramp or consulted with me it would have been fine] A bent support which no one could humanly bend back and a cracked glass fibre panel were the results. No one said sorry. To say sorry would be an admission of fault, and therefore imply liability. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">These guys are the professional descendants of gruff burly Longshoremen. A Google search for the words Neanderthal and Longshoremen returns 18,900 results. The care and diligence these men have done their job with over the years is one of the reasons why containerisation took off so fast, and perhaps why they chose to make containers out of rugged corrugated steel. There’s no choice when you ship a container. No matter how great your shipping company is (and mine was fantastic), your cargo ends up in the hands of someone working at a random terminal you’ll probably never see or meet. The truck survived the Tsunami at sea only to be damaged by yellow jacketed, crow-bar wielding muppets. It gets worse.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Two miles out of the port the engine stopped on a precarious hill. I opened the engine cover to see that one of the longshoremen had disassembled part of the fuel line, presumably in an attempt to start it, although if there is no electrical power to the dashboard lights, and the starter motor won’t turn it’s pretty clear the battery is not connected, and there is no reason why disassembling the fuel line would help. Anyone who knows the slightest thing about engines knows that, and anyone that doesn’t know the slightest thing about engines shouldn’t be disassembling fuel lines. Much less the return fuel line, which does nothing more than allow air into the system and cause the engine to stall. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Worse, the missing bolt was missing, nowhere to be seen. Thankfully with the help of a stranger I managed to bypass it and seal the fuel line from air leaks. It didn’t help that there was a fuel starvation problem caused by the fuel setting solid in the relative cold of the shady container port, but I was able to get the truck going and put off the drudgery of searching for a replacement bolt until we were in San Diego and had some local contacts that could help source it. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">To me breakdowns are stressful, but not because I don’t know if the truck will ever work again, they are stressful because I don’t know where to find the parts or tools that I’ll need. That’s the thing that keeps me from fixing a lot of the minor problems with the bus, like the worsening cracked windshield, and fills me with dread when I feel a problem developing. After a day of looking for this fucking $2 bolt, a mechanic I stopped at found one at the bottom of his draw and gave it to me for free along with a couple of washers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">All was now well. And then in my routine daily inspection I noticed that the brake fluid level looked a little low. In a year and a half it’s never needed topping up. The only fluid the truck has never leaked is brake fluid. I like it that way. I knew immediately where to look; the cables used to lash the truck down had been wrapped around the axles close to where the brake line meets the wheel hub, but there was no leak there. Instead the leak was in the middle of the axle, where the line splits to go to each wheel. Nudging the line, while working under there to lash or unlash the truck, someone had caused the seal at the join to break and fluid was seeping out in generous globs.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""></span>I’m convinced this happened in the US [but for legal reasons I should state that it is impossible to know for sure]. The care and patience employed by the Thai dock workers was astoundingly diligent. I worked with them to lash it, and explicitly discussed the risk of damaging the brake lines with the team that did the work. If it had happened when the truck was loaded it would have been leaking for a month while on the ship and [it could be argued that] there would have been no fluid remaining in the reservoir and more staining on the brake line. Where it was unloaded I saw the charred end of a lashing cable, implying the longshoremen used a grinder or a torch to cut the cables off, instead of unbolting them. Unbolting steel cable ties is hard physical work, but wielding either kind of cutting tool in the confined space under the bus is a lazy option that invites a greater risk of damaging it than a spanner would. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The same garage where I found the bolt lent me a flaring tool. I was secretively quite excited and nervous about using it. Before I opened the box, I didn’t even know what it looked like or how to use it. I only knew that’s what I needed to ask for because I had a brake line failure on the chocolate powered lorry in 2007 and a friend told me I’d need a flaring tool to repair it, but in the end we found a spare brake line.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I carefully cut an inch off the brake line and re-flared the end, creating the bell shape ending to the tube that deforms when you tighten the line up into its housing and creates the high pressure seal. It was really hard steel, original Mercedes parts, and the first attempt didn’t quite work. But I’m proud to say, in the end I did quite a nice job on it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The reason for ranting on about this is that I care about my truck. Since arriving in SoCal (Southern California dude) I’ve really felt the oppressive weight of rules created because there is a expectation that people won’t care.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">After the freedom of South East Asia it feels stiflingly dictatorial. You can’t park your car on the side of the road facing the wrong way. The cops tell me it’s for safety reason because they point out that I’d have to have driven on the wrong side of the road to get to the space. So assuming I don’t care about oncoming traffic and was about to hurl myself into the path of other road users, the SDPD have kindly invented a rule to supersede the need for anyone giving a shit about head on collisions in the search for parking spaces. Phew, that’s lucky. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">And it’s all pervasive. Fast food staff wear gloves, not because they care about the quality and cleanliness of the food, but because there is a rule that says they must. Minimum wage earners are dictated to by endless litany of rules to make up for the lack of enthusiasm their dull and disconnecting jobs instil.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Even amongst paragliders I noticed the mindset of rules and laws that outweigh caring. While flying in Torrey Pines, a coastal soaring site, I flew over some of the luxury houses along the cliff edge to get a closer look. Another pilot shouted over that it’s illegal to do that. Actually Air Law states it’s illegal to be within 1000ft [or 500ft depending where you are] vertically and 1km horizontally from a populated area, so under the only law that applies the whole cliff edge, the whole flying site, and indeed most paragliding sites are arguably ‘illegal’ and he was also breaking the law from where he was shouting his friendly warning to me. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">He had a valid point, but elsewhere it might have been phrased as a reminder not to intrude, or to show respect for privacy, to act as a caring person, rather than the menace of some inapplicable rule of law. Incidentally it was a Monday and the houses were all empty because they are $50m weekend getaways that only get used for a few days in the summer so I don’t think anyone was left feeling invaded by my Maveric flyby (“I’m going to buzz the tower Goose”).</p> <p class="MsoNormal">To fly at Torrey Pines I had to sign about 15 times over 6 pages of liability waivers. Maybe in that document there was a rule about flying over the houses. But I didn’t care to read the whole thing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s hard to care when you’re in an uncaring environment. But nonetheless when co-opted into our story, people do care. The mechanic gave us the bolt and the flaring tool because he liked the truck. The biodiesel producers we’ve visited gave us fuel because they cared about our trip. John the shipping agent worked a load of hours on helping me get the truck out of the port (and still hasn’t sent me an invoice), he cares. Carlos who stopped to help me when the truck was broken down just outside the port also cared. Mike and Marie cared about our trip and loaned us the keys for the shower block at the Long Beach Marina.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The mechanisms of interactions disconnect people. The burger guy in MacDonald’s is making 100 patties an hour and never sees any of the people that will eat them. The call centre operative at T-mobile needs your account number and pin code before the rules allow them to speak to you. The police officer has a law book of rules to refer to. How can any of them care?</p>Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-47069687076926149982011-03-29T19:35:00.002+01:002011-03-29T19:39:10.547+01:00That's life.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> <w:dontbreakconstrainedforcedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> 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mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">“If you’re so clever, why aren’t’ you rich?” This is a question that has troubled me since my mother read it out of the newspaper sometime in the 90s. I think it was the name of a play or a book in the review section.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s a question that resonated with me as I reached adulthood. I’ve always thought I was clever, so I was naturally disappointed when I grew up and didn’t become rich. But lately the question has become “If you are so clever, why are you so skint all the time?” (Skint, for American readers can be translated to penniless).</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This journey is amazing and I’m so grateful to be able to travel the world almost at will, but one drawback is that when I get places I feel inhibited to do anything that costs money because the more I spend, the more I shorten the life of the journey.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In my attempts at frugality I may have gone too far. Several times I have had ugly realisations that I am no longer living out an exciting adventure in which hardship is jovially endured, but I find myself drowned by the demoralising realisation that “This is my life.”<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We dragged glider bags and suitcases on the Los Angeles MRT lines because we didn’t want to pay for a cab, stayed in the grimmest part of town risking drive-bys, strolled Compton’s streets for some cheap sightseeing, and the lowest moment recently was when we caught ourselves arranging our day around the free french-fries and champagne that the hostel doled out at 7pm each evening. That’s my life.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My beard trimmer has packed up after I overcharged it with the solar panels so I have a full on unruly beard. My jeans are stained from crawling under the bus fixing a leaking brake line yesterday, and to fight off the morning cold I pulled on the closest thing I could find, Chris’ paragliding sweatshirt, a size too small and wondered into a cafe for breakfast. In the glass door I saw a homeless guy in sandals and socks and for a second I steeled myself ready to fend off the request for a quarter from him, before realising it was my own reflection. That’s my life.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Chris is in the same boat, she was offered a free breakfast by volunteers at a homeless shelter on her way through town yesterday. Aside from our own, I’ve seen a lot of homelessness here. On a small piece of cardboard pithy pitches give you a life story and a reason to care. “Need money for dog food and a bigger piece of cardboard” says one. “I’m Michael, I served in Iraq. Every dollar you give reminds me why.” says another. Even the homeless, with all their woes, know the benefit of self promotion and effective sales communication. “Since 2009 [I’ve] been driving around the world in a truck that is made from and runs trash” begins the press release I type out in the cafe.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Next to me half a dozen beautician franchisees gather round the company founder for their annual meeting. It starts of cringingly enough as they dutifully laugh at inane stories the owner tells of the funny things her children said and did this week, but briskly moves into overdrive. For an hour she rattles through sales figures and targets like a machine gun. She refers to her underlings not by their names, but by the name of their franchise. “Santa Fe Ranchero, you’re up $10,000 on last year but a proportion of that has come from retail, none the less that’s good work, you can be pleased with that.” “San Diego South, your are only 51cents away from averaging $40 a sale, that’s amazing, but total volumes are down and you need to work hard to get back into the $2million turnover club. More focus on ORTs next quarter” There’s little time for any genuine emotion in her interactions. Every phrase is calculated to motivate and direct. Individual’s personalities are de-personalised by the sales-speak. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s exhausting to hear, even from 4 tables away. I head to the toilets where a sign says “Associates must wash their hands after using the toilet” Associates? What a lovely way to refer to a low paid coffee shop Mac-jobbers. Partners, Stakeholders, Franchisees. Sure enough a uniformed barista walks from the cubicle straight past me and the sink on his way back to work. As I return to the table the beauty queen is leaving in a sports car. She is clearly very rich. And from the complicated target driven way she knows how to motivate her franchisees, I’d guess she is also clever. I’m so glad that is not my life.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The beautician mogul has left me with an answer to my mother’s question. You not only have to be clever to be rich, you also have to be driven by money. All the corn in Nebraska couldn’t motivate me to be like that. At the risk of sounding all Buddhist, my truck has everything I need (apart from running water at the moment – the pump is still playing up) and while I wish I had €2000 for a tandem paragliding wing so I could fly with Chris and other people we meet on the journey, I’m happy to make do without it. That’s my life.</p>Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-21207168211258016782011-03-14T04:37:00.003+00:002011-03-14T04:50:33.184+00:00West Century Boulevard<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> <w:dontbreakconstrainedforcedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> 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mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">“LA is a great big freeway” sang Dionne Warwick in the 1968 classic Do You Know the Way to San Jose.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The lyric has stood the test of time. Outside the motel/hostel is an 8 lane highway. It’s as long to cross as my street at home is to walk down. The planes lining up for the northern runway use West Century Boulevard to line up their approach, and from 6am there’s the regular rumble of 737 spraying the ground with atomised <span style=""></span>unburnt fuel and melting droplets of blue ice melting from the frozen leaks of their toilet plumbing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Along West Century Blvd, a series of low rise retail outlets enliven the concrete express way and the cube units<span style=""> </span>on either side with a plink of colourful signs, sized for the speeding motorist, advertising cheap motel rooms, muffler repairs and a range of food for under a dollar.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nothing ever costs what the price tag says here. If it’s not the service charge it’s the sales tax. Everywhere else in the world has sales tax and it’s included in the price. It’s not such a difficult concept to grasp. Everywhere else you tip if the service is OK, not because you know the waitress is hardly being paid.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I saw a man on the sidewalk of West Century Blvd who was holding a sign to advertise a mobile phone shop. It had a curved bottom edge and his job was to rock it around in an unpredictable way that catches driver’s attention. How much can that job be worth? He’s wearing shades on a cold but sunny day and plugged into some headphones that no doubt the music helps with his sign gyrations, but prevents me from asking him about his wages. <br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The 117 bus runs down W. Century Blvd. The driver is chirpy, chatting incessantly to the passengers, making terrible jokes that the ladies in the front seats politely honour with a smiling groan or giggle. He wears surgical gloves and tells me if I don’t have enough change he won’t be mad at me. I get off at the Mall where I can print some documents I need at Staples. It’s an open air mall with units surrounding a big car park. Not like the enclosed air conditioned marble palaces of Asia, reverently attended for special occasions and visited with guests and family. You have to work hard to pick up the waft of corn starch food here. But sure enough it’s there, just outside the In-N-Out fast food restaurant. I’m hungry but I don’t go In-or-out. I’m craving a meal but the universal rule seems to be if it is advertised with a picture and the price, then it will be inedible and leave me feeling depressed. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I get excited when I see Radio Shack. I’ve never seen one before and bound in expecting it to be full of quirky cables and nerdy gadgets, CB radios and SWR meters. It’s not. Digital cameras and mobile phones with 2 year contracts line the shelves. Bland Mallism. A mirrored bottomed American Airlines plane flies overhead. Next door is Jumla’s Juices. There are no big pictures of their freshly squeezed orange juices or bold posters showing you what you can get for a dollar (“plus tax” in small print). They have real oranges piled up behind the counter. They look dirty and inappropriate for the mall setting. A machine turns them into juice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Having taken the bus to the Mall I now realise its close enough to walk back. My sandals are not the mode of transport LA invites. The occasional other pedestrians glance over their shoulders suspiciously at each other if the separation gets too close. I accidentally creep back up behind a man that’s overtaken me earlier. He looks like he’s about to grab me and throw me over his shoulders in self defence. Another lady gives me a cheery “Well hello?” as I overtake her. Friendly as she sounds her body language is tottering sideways braced in case I’m minded to punch her and steal her bag.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The endless straightness of W. Century Blvd is disaffecting, dehumanising, grim, soulless, washed up and washed out but it’s also compelling exotic Americana at it’s best and most modern. It's ripe for romanticising. Cars turn right on a red, I almost get run over stepping out while looking the wrong way at the enormous pickups. Traffic grinds to a halt around my J-walking while neon signs invite me to cash checks or buy cheap pizza. I’m so excited about driving here I'd planned to hire a car tomorrow to use for the trip to the customs office. Except that when you add in the tax and insurance in it comes to over $90.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Today Dionne would sing “Put a hundred down and <i style="">rent</i> a car”. I’ll take the 232 bus down town to Long Beach instead. Things will be great when I’m down town.</p>Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-72818041719608046672011-03-13T17:52:00.004+00:002011-03-13T18:35:38.342+00:00Call of the WildA little out of date now but:<br /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> 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mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">Surely I wasn’t the only one that was thinking it would be fun to go for a ride on the back of one of these massive Elephants. At the Elephant Nature Park, an hours drive from Chang Mai such thoughts can never be spoken. The park differs wildly from the other Elephant Tourist attractions in the neighbourhood, of which there are many, in that it is a retirement home for Elephants that have been used in the logging trade. Here the Elephants come first, and the visitors willingly take second place.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The focus is less about entertainment and more about how elephants, an animal that features on the Thai National Emblem, are treated in Thailand. Not well it turns out. Illegal loggers dope them with amphetamine, and work them to the point of injury, blindness, and in some cases literally til their bones break. Others are used as street entertainment, under fed and separated from their families. Traditional methods of training involve trapping young elephants in a wooden cage and torturing them into submission over a period of days, with metal hooks. It’s disturbing to watch, and it’s inevitably part of the process that makes an elephant rideable. As I learn all this, the desire to jump on their backs wanes. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lek, the founder of the park, has a mouse like stature but an elephantine presence. She came from a family that worked elephants. Disturbed from an early age by the way they were treated, she embarked on a different path to provide a haven for the animals, which resulted in her being ostracised, beaten, receiving death threats, but eventually recognised, supported and now lauded. She is almost a household name in Thailand and the mention of the Elephant Nature Park brings nods of approval throughout the country. She’s developed a working relationships with loggers in Thailand and in Burma where poverty drives the dependence on animals and the problem of animal cruelty more acute and more violent. Instead of confronting she co-opted them into changing their behaviour. It’s a mammoth task but where she has been able to make inroads they have been impactful.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Just a few hours watching a herd coalesced around their youngest offspring is enough to convince that these animals are familial, affectionate and need to be in company. All the elephants introduced into the park have paired up, not as mating couples (only 3 of the 32 adults are males) but as spinster friends, promenading freely like retired sisters in their 50s majestically taking in the air. It’s hard not to anthropomorphise their outward demeanour, but their need for camaraderie is unmistakeable.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s impossible to know the exact age an elephant, often paperwork the previous owners provide is faked, or they have been rung like a second hand car after their predecessor meets an untimely end, but these trunked cut-and-shuts look like they’ve had a pretty hard life. One hobbles on an impossibly arduous broken hip, rocking up then down with each step, another’s eye is scratched out, and one limps on the stub of its leg blown off by a mine.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Their keepers (Kwan, in Thai) escort the elephants around the park, using only their body language and a bag of bananas to encourage the elephants. There are no hooked sticks here, the usual tool of the Kwan in Thailand. But there’s a hint that the Kwan are wrestling with this non-traditional approach. They aren’t the only ones. The idea of letting the elephants make the rules has to be balanced with the resources of the park, and the management of a herd of 34.<span style=""> </span>In the evening they are penned, and the males are chained when they are in Musk to prevent the old boys doing themselves and injury. These animals have lived all their lives as domesticated animals. While the intention is to give them back their freedom, the elephants aren’t fully able to deal with it. It took one elephant two weeks to get used to not carrying a chain around its foot and had to be slowly weaned off it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lek is aware of this, and her goal is to provide a totally wild environment where human visitors don’t even get the chance to come second, and aren’t allowed at all. No habituation. It’s a model pioneered by Carol Buckley who is coincidentally also visiting the park while we are there. Carol bought an enormous plot of land in Tennessee, where the climate is similar to the subtropical environments that is a home for elephants in Asia and Africa, and then set free a load of rescue elephants from zoos and circus's in it. People, however, are not welcome. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s an uncompromising attitude that hasn’t won her many friends. In fact it’s probably at the heart of a spat with the directors of the Elephant Sanctuary charity she co-founded, which have now sacked her. The dismissal is an emotionally devastating wrench and she’s coy to discuss it, in part because it’s the subject of legal proceedings and maybe in part she’s a little indignant about her removal from her own project after a lifetime spent on it, despite her outward stoicism.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">As a result of Carol’s Elephants-first approach, the charity received more donations than it could imagine spending and not allowing visitors became a position that was harder to justify. Being in such a unique position to fund an education programme through a visitors centre, it could be seen as remiss not to use those funds to create an infrastructure where visitors can learn about elephants in a “wild” environment. But the remit has always been about the elephants, and allowing people in removes the very wildness that makes the Elephant Sanctuary unique. Ironically as the pioneering site in Tennessee is being held up in Thailand as the gold standard, it may be on the verge of performing an about face.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Carol’s story is as fascinating and serpentine as Lek’s, the Elephant Nature Park and of the all the elephants that inhabit it. She bought an elephant from a tire store in California, the 1970’s when you could have an elephant in the parking lot just to get customers’ attention. For over a decade she toured with the circus and even developed an act where Tarra became the world’s only roller-skating elephant, something she is adamant Tarra loved to do.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">There might have been an epiphany or perhaps just a seven-year-itch that made Carol want to hang up Tamara’s roller skates and leave the performing life. She talks animatedly about the whole story, but that part is a little vaguer than the rest. Nonetheless she has no shame about her circus days. As long as an elephant has room to roam, compatible friends and enough live vegetation Carol says it’s happy, even if it’s performing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Her life has been tied to Tarra for over 30 years. At the start Tarra was her livelihood, but then as she looked for a suitable place to retire the elephant in 1996, she sank all her savings into a plot of land, which through her force of character and persistence with the neighbours grew to 2700 acres, big enough for the 14 elephants that now live there to roam and with a buffer big enough to keep visitors out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Carol is touring Asia, funded by donations through paypal on her personal website (<a href="http://www.carolbuckley.com/">www.carolbuckley.com</a>), visiting elephant conservation projects like the Elephant Nature Park, training the staff in elephant pedicures and the new born elephants with a positive reinforcement techniques, a rival to the savage caging method, which takes only a few minutes a day and doesn’t leave the elephant’s spirit crushed. The elephant is rewarded with treats when it lifts its leg or flaps its ears on command. The purpose is to teach elephants moves that vets will need them to perform during examinations.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Carol also wafts into new-age extremes, and hints at be able to communicate with Tarra through a kind of meditative telepathy. Yet she's so grounded in the reality of elephant care that none of this comes across as at all strange. In fact it would be odd if spending almost 40 years in the presence of an elephant didn't build bond of the senses.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">There are two new born elephants in the park, and I’m confused why they encourage breeding when the little ones take up the resources which could be used to rescue another adult. Offspring draw the herd together, and several females will adopt the role of motherhood, not just the natural parent, but the real answer is less considered. Spading an elephant is a big impractical operation and keeping the males in check when driven by six tonnes of darwinian urges is an endless battle that the Kwan don't always win. On our final day at the Elephant Nature Park, a male that is segregated while he’s on Musk breaks his chain and rampages over to the females, sticking his trunk where a gentleman never would. On this occasion the Kwan manoeuvre the giants apart with deft skills without call to sticks or hooks, and this time the ladies honour is preserved.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Every animal, including humans has to work for a living, even elephants in the wild, and in the search for a fair way to treat elephants, Carol and Lek provide a master-class in managing the compromises that we all face in search for our utopias. <span style=""><br /></span></p> <a href="http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/">www.elephantnaturepark.org</a>Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-24179904289316282172011-03-13T05:43:00.003+00:002011-03-13T21:31:07.157+00:00The Price of FishI’m once again facing financial Armageddon as the cost of untying the truck from the container involves fees beyond all recognition.<br /><br />It’s my welcome to America. A wake up call after the cheap living of Asia. $4 for a starter!? Are you nuts? I expect a 3 course meal and change from each of my dollar bills!<br /><br />The price people have asked me for doing stuff along this journey has varied wildly along the trip. Often because some countries are just cheaper, but a bigger factor is the goodwill the truck and the journey engenders. Often people have generously based the price they charge me for things or for services based on what it costs them, just cos they like what I’m doing, want to help and feel like they don’t need to make a profit on this oddball project.<br /><br />I think that in the US that feeling will be harder to engender. Having said that I’m waiting to hear back from a lovely contact at Michelin about some cost price tires.<br /><br />From Christina’s description, her community in Ashland seems to function on a income of relatively low paid jobs which brings in enough money to get by, but then use a system of endless trades to make life taste sweet. She paid for part of her paraglider by editing the flying school’s website. Her best friend Allison swaps massages for other types of “body work”. Pot Luck dinner parties are the focus of the social life.<br /><br />I’ve offered to unlash the truck myself to mitigate some of the costs. I have all the tools, all I need is a ramp, and undoubtedly they will say no for insurance reasons. Along with “security reasons”, “insurance reasons” are the most heart-breakingly stifling excuse people hide behind when disconnected from the people those reasons affect. Still I can’t complain. I can’t honestly say I wouldn’t be lining up to sue the minute things go wrong.<br /><br />Maybe I can give the warehouse workers and fork-lift drivers a Thai reflexology foot massage as a work trade? Hmmm, I’ll run it by the management.<br /><br />Ironically cheaper countries are sometimes more expensive because people don't have the luxury to be generous with the truck.<br /><br />The cost of an hour of anyone's time is nothing. Chinese factory workers might accept just a dollar or even less for that hour. But an American warehouse worker will expect a lot more. The warehouseman needs more because he lives in a country made more expensive by his compatriots all charging lots for each hour of their time. It's like a conspiracy of wealth, a catch22 or vicious circle that could collapse, along with a nation's economy if everyone decided their time probably isn't really worth that much.<br /><br />Having seen the Asian boom it's hard to believe that an American hour is still worth more than a Malaysian one. Asia is circling up. America and Europe are spiralling down. It won't be long before Americans and Europeans release their grip on the value of their time.<br /><br />I postulate this flow of global wealth as my tuna bake is cooling in front of me. It’s a cheap tuna bake from the cheap restaurant of the cheap hostel I’m staying in. I daren’t stray far from the hostel after dark. The kindly man at the airport desk that recommended this place told me this district, Inglewood, isn’t the safest part of LA by day or night. As I arrived here I was bum rushed by 6 LAPD officers charging in to the hostel to arrest one of the guests. As well as a police escort there are lots of other free things that come with the dorm bed; undrinkable coffee, vinegar flavoured cocktails, hour long bus transfers to the airport 2 miles up the road. This is the way of reducing costs that I'm familiar with. Roughing it.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-15886739799154303282011-02-18T10:28:00.000+00:002011-02-18T10:29:13.984+00:00Oh Ship!Just last week Jimmy handled a big shipment for the US troops going to Afghanistan. The blue, ochre, green and white “boxes” (containers to you and me) surrounding him contain all the stuff we consume, on their way to and from being made and being used. Banal toothbrush holders and bed linen, cool digital cameras and iPads or quirky components who’s function is known only unto the consignee and a mystery to the common man. To Jimmy they are all just numbers, corresponding paperwork with locations and routings.<br /><br />He’s the saviour of the day today. Most days the progress of the Biotruck requires a saviour. Yesterday it looked like the loading of the truck on to the container was going to cost $1500. That’s for me to drive it up a ramp onto a flat platform container (a Flatrack), and for 3 guys to strap it down with steel cable. You expect to get fleeced when you go through a port, but even by international standards of captive marketeering/racketeering, this was way high. Thanks to Jimmy from Taiwan working on the port operations team on a 4 year contract, who took a liking to the truck, and to us, I was able to get a price more commensurate with the standard level of arbitrary exorbitance associated with the phrase “port fees”. US$550.<br /><br />I spent the morning following a very important customs officer around his office while he clutched my paperwork. Occasionally he would turn to me and gruffly bark “one minute” with a melt-your-heart smile, while he surveyed and signed triplicate copies agents deferentially begged his attention for. I knew he was important by the way officer and agents fawned at his passing, bowing deeply, and laughing excruciatingly hard at his jokes, most of which I assumed were at the expense of my height or at our inability to communicate. I’d been passed slowly up the chain of command from one officer to the next as each one admitted defeat at the confusion over the paperwork I had and how to dealt with it. I smiled a poor helpless man’s smile to help deflect their annoyance and expedite my file up the ranks. From the second floor, end of corridor I was passed to the first floor by the lifts, then just passed the toilets, and finally to the big glass office behind reception to the burly boss.<br /><br />At each the of encounters, the men in charge called upon the women doing all the work around them to translate for me. I’ve been hopelessly in awe of women in Thailand. Not because of their drop-dead looks, uniform short skirts, silky legs and 6 inch stilettos. But because they are infinitely smarter than their wallflower demeanour implies to my western man’s mind. In fact they are infinitely smarter than my western man’s minds, full stop.<br /><br />I listen in the hostel lobby to an American meathead jock, attempting to impress the stunningly attractive daughter of the owner about how cool travel is, and how he loves Thai culture, and meeting Thai people. She politely listens while smiling with sweet interest, slowly turning back to revising for her final year Pharmacy exams without giving any impression she is disinterested in the conversation. Desperate to make more of a mark on her, he changes tack and decides to show some interest in her curious little books. Over a series of questions he slides into the realisation that this little hottie is on a university scholarship at one of the most prestigious universities in Bangkok.<br />“How did you get that?” asks Meathead, intimidation starting to infuse his faux-charm, as he realises she’s not the bar girl he thought.<br />“I study for exams” She beams back, seemingly shrinking him to dwarf like stature.<br /><br />Ann at Maersk is another example. Frighteningly competent, she takes on the job of co-ordinating every aspect of getting the truck, and me, on a boat to the US, and I realise how far from the day-to-day of Maersk’s business this project is. Containerisation was designed and took off in the 70s because it makes everything from doormats to paint dye to DVD players the same, standardised, and therefore easy to deal with. The Biotruck was built with the un-apologising side effect of being the complete opposite. Too wide, too tall and too long to fit in with the backstage props the movers of the world are used to. None-the-less Ann relentlessly tracks down solutions to problems before they appear on the horizon. Working in a non-native language she speaks, not just great English, but fluent office-speak too, a language that normally makes my skin crawl, but coming from her is poetry.<br /><br />Not only am I adrift with Thai, but I can’t get the international language of shipping right either. I confuse “Stuffing”, with “Lashing”; the all important “Cut off” I keep referring to as “Clearing”; and I don’t know my “Cubes” or “High Cubes” from my “Platforms”, “Flatbeds” or “Flatracks”. Even though the truck in “in gauge”, all of my linguistic hesitancy slows progress but both Ann and Jimmy don’t flinch. I give up when the acronyms start around the table. “The WCRS is fine but I’m worried about the ISF”, Ann proclaims. I don’t know what ISF stands for but if Ann’s worried about it, I know it’s important. I wish Ann could organise every aspect of my life.<br /><br />The fact that filling and emptying a container is referred to as “Stuffing” and “Unstuffing” doesn’t full me with confidence, but the confident manner with which the giant forklifts pick and stack cubes like momentous Lego blocks is reassuring. Their un-human scale requires a conscious effort to remember they are further away than you think.<br /><br />Tomorrow morning, in the wake of the night out Jimmy is planning for us around Pattaya (gulp), the truck will be stuffed onto the flatrack, in time for the Saturday midday Cut Off. On Tuesday it sets sail for Honk Kong and a 3 day lay over. Assuming we’ve got the ISF sorted, it will then be Trans-shipped on another vessel (not ship or boat!) to Long Beach, Los Angeles, USA. Sadly I won’t be on the first leg of the journey as it’s not a Maersk vessel and the owners didn’t want some beardy eco-warrior on board. We’re waiting to hear back from the captain of the trans-pacific vessel that runs the 21 day route to America to find out if I can join the crew and avoid the massive flying leg. Choosing her words carefully Ann said she is “hopeful”. In that case, so am I.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-5839422080547799832011-02-15T13:37:00.002+00:002011-02-15T13:45:46.758+00:00This is my lifeIncredibly I have managed to secure an early appointment to request a visa through the US embassy. Ironically the good news came with the bad; that it’s unlikely Maersk will be able to let me travel by container ship to the US because of “Security reasons” (my words, not theirs) surrounding US ports. A consequence of which is that I won’t need a visa after all.<br /><br />After 4 months in South East Asia the constraints of security forces petrified of not doing enough with respect to safeguarding us had become a distant memory. The only reminder is the apologetic and pathetic searches of my bag when entering the MRT underground train stations in Bangkok. The security guards are caught between a need to be seen to do their job and the engulfing embarrassment of having to intrude into a stranger’s bag, a far cry from the uniformed Neanderthals at Heathrow airport, visibly high on the power to stop and search.<br /><br />The visa issue is another up and down moment which the Biotruck expedition has provided numerous examples of so far. But I'm no longer removed from the expedition. It has become my full time experience. I’m so engrained in it that it is no longer a funny series of escapades endured on a finite tour. It’s now my reality and it feels endless. Just today as the shower ran out of water while I was all soaped up, I smiled to myself; Oh just another fun misadventure. Then the ugly realisation that this is my existence. I live in a world where the shower runs out mid wash, I shared the bus with a rat for 3 months, and I have to beg for fuel and suck it from people’s bins. This is who I am. It’s not a quirky game I’m playing as I journey around the world with my credit card loaded with get out of jail cash. It’s my life and irritatingly it’s regularly quite demeaning.<br /><br />I had such promise once. Once upon a time I knew where I was going. When I was five I was going to be a fireman, then in my teens I was going to be a racing car designer, then an engineer, then a tour operator, then life stopped being driven by ambition and became about the next adventure. And it’s getting worse. I’m not sure where the future is leading. This journey is taking so long my aspirations have become totally blurred.<br /><br />Today as we sat in the waiting room at the US Embassy trying desperately to find a way to get an appointment earlier than March the 9th, but resigned to the fact that there was nothing to do, I twigged to the distinct demographic sharing the room with us. Retirement aged American men, with a dishevelled demeanour, out of shape physique and a dress sense that belied their inability to look smart at any cost. I noticed a sense of entitlement amongst them too in the security line, indignantly made to wait with the Thais. The idea that a municipal building in your own country is somehow welcoming to members of the public is laughable, but when it’s your embassy, a home on foreign soil, there’s a sense that this is your place and inside are “your people”. Here surely you’ll be welcomed and come first. Of course embassy staff are just as dispassionate about the great unwashed, the plebs, (or members of the public as their training manual insists they be referred to) as any other front line civil servant. “Get in the line sir.”<br /><br />But it was Christina that noticed the demographic first and had already put two and two together. These are Americas sex tourists. Their garish floral Hawaiian shirts, a uniform among the 50-plus born-again-studs popping Viagra for dear life in the hostess bars, was the biggest give-away. The redish complexion of alcoholism merely an unnecessary confirmation. Their presence in the embassy was either to plead for their Thai girlfriends request to visit the US, or to denounce their Thai ex-girlfriends for having made off with their passports and money. But once again in a moment when I should have been smirking at the absurdity of the situation this journey has thrown me into, I noticed that Christina was begging for my visa appointment with pleads that were as bouncing off the bullet proof glass of the counter just as apathetically as those of the randy grandpas begging for their bar girls. I stood engulfed by the sensation of having no more dignity than a bearded Thai mail order bride.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-9736413198483375872011-02-13T08:49:00.004+00:002011-02-13T09:11:55.480+00:00Without Prejudiced EyesI’ve just bought my first pair of cheap US$2 sunglasses and I’m over the moon about it, despite the fact they’ve effectively cost me $1500.<br /><br />I’ve been recognising faint hints of bigotry in myself and some foreigners that live in South East Asia towards “the Locals”. At one of the schools I visited the English teachers talked about their diligent student with disdain, forgetting what delinquents they probably taught back in the UK.<br /><br />At the BTS metro I witness a couple of foreign girls lose their temper with the gentle Thai clerk who can only dispense change, not a ticket, and tries patiently to explain this to them in his broken English. Not too long before, I’d done the same thing in frustration at not understanding how to buy a ticket.<br /><br />I hear an American girl frustrated by staff at the internet cafe’s inability to repair an interruption with her connection mutters “I need someone white”.<br /><br />Allegedly and tourism breaks barriers by bringing people together. But the evidence suggests it frustrates and confuses people by bringing them close enough to see they don’t understand the other, and that they don't have much in common.<br /><br />But more than the language barrier, there’s a condescension from Westerners about these diminutive foreigners and their funny accents, which smacks of imperialism. And perhaps it’s mirrored in the Thai psyche, who seem to play along, affording much more respect to Western visitors that we deserve.<br /><br />The Thai economy is trouncing the West’s, the levels of professional pride and competence are doing the same and so is the quality of life. I’m struggling to see what Westerners have to feel superior about. The balance has shifted since the 1940s. The big cities of Thailand and Malaysia are far from 3rd world.<br /><br />Tom, a psychologist friend, says everyone harbours racist sentiments.<br /><br />So wrestling with my own imperialist tendencies I decided there was no reason why I shouldn’t trust my precious eyesight to Thailand’s health professionals and I signed up for LASIK corrective eye surgery. I first thought about it 5 years ago in South Africa, but spent the money on a microlight pilot license instead. Then again I wanted to do it in Iran but didn’t have enough time. I was almost thwarted this time too as the Thai-ger economy growth here means that my hard currency is worth a third of what it was last year, so cheap medical treatments are correspondingly more expensive. However, by a stroke of luck I found a hospital doing a promotion for the month of February which meant I could afford it.<br /><br />But the price was so cheap, I imagined some dingy backstreet one room clinic with a flickering neon sign over the door, and a cockroach scuttling across the reception desk.<br /><br />I’ve never been to a private hospital before, so I’ve never known a level of care and thoroughness like it. Endless nurses bowing with praying hands, every surface spotlessly clean and leisurely consultations giving me time for every question and explanation. Even biscuits in reception. Yes, when it comes to trusting someone to slice you up, a few custard creams all it really takes to win me over. I can’t even begin to compare this with the “care” the NHS dispenses along with the faint scent of urine and infection.<br /><br />Downloaded from a US medical association website, I started to ask the Doctor 50 questions to assess the clinics ability. By question five I was supposed to ask the Doctor if they were drug or alcohol dependent, how many malpractice suits they’d had filed against them, and if they were a convicted felon. I looked up from the list of questions at the impeccable professional demeanour of the Doctor, another 2 pages still to read in my hand, and smiled embarrassed “This all seems fine”. I folded the papers away.<br /><br />“The lady’s done over 800 operations using this machine” I told Chris, realising that if she’d been a man I would have said “The Doctor’s done...”. Another example of my subconscious bigotry no doubt? Her reassuring manner mixed diligence with the confidence of experience. I instantly felt comfortable. Zap me I decided. I signed the waiver.<br /><br />In Pre-op the nurse handed me a sealed envelope with the results of my compulsory HIV test. Before I could open it she told me they’d all read it assured me it was fine. Checking my heart rate and pulse on the monitor she announced with a grave smile “No Mor Blood Pressure”. It must have been the stress causing failure I assumed, I prepared to feel the life drain from my body.<br />“Is it bad?” I said weakly, with my last gasp.<br />“No.” She grinned confused “It’s Nor-mor”<br />“Normal!” I repeated a little too loud feeling my grip on life returning.<br /><br />The day before, the doctor had explained everything she would do and how it would feel, then reminded me of it again before I went into theatre, and then talked me through it again as she performed each part of the operation. Following her instructions from the previous day I’d been practising staring at a spot. In essence this is all I really had to do while the laser guided missiles melted the surface of my cornea. I hadn’t been that good at it in training but thankfully my performance on the day was drug enhanced with a weighty Vallium slipped to me before kick off, by the nurses.<br /><br />The first part of the operation involved the machine pushing down on my eye with the force of a Sherman tank in order to position the blade and slice my eye into Papaya salad strips. Next a laser from a 1970’s sci-fi movie performed a scatological light show to the smell of roasting flesh, and I just had stare back. “Excellent, you did really well” the doctor congratulated me as I slowly sat up from under the laser, surprised to discover that I’m better than the average person at staring at a spot while my shredded eye burns. The fact she undoubtedly says this to everyone did nothing to undermine the reassuring effect.<br /><br />For the rest of the day and night I slept off the Vallium, waking every now and again to the sensation of having opened my eyes face down in a golf bunker. What have I done? What if it hasn’t worked? What need was there?<br /><br />Before the operation the doctor explained the risks; 5% chance you get less than 20/20 vision and need to do it again, a 1% chance you might never grow back the nerves that stimulate tears. And 1 in 10,000 you get an infection and go blind. As I lay there listening to my anxieties wrestle with the diminishing level of tranquillisers in my body, I was more concerned that it might not work than the thought that I might go blind.<br /><br />At one point I got up and stared out of the window at a skyscraper across the way. Through the cracks in my protective eye shields and the darkness of night I could see it clearly. The rooms, the balconies, even the air conditioning vents on the roof, surprised to discover that this laser thing might have worked. I held up my specs in front of my eyes. Holy crap! The world blurred into an indecipherable fug. Is that what I’ve needed to see straight?<br /><br />I like my specs, I think I look better with them on, but I hate being totally dependent on these crappy bits of plastic. Every morning I have a full on panic attack if they aren’t exactly where I thought I’d put them. If they take a knock, a scratch or a dent I’m in a state of panic. Without them I can do nothing. I can’t even find my way to an optician to make a new pair. I resent the dependency I have on them for everything I see.<br /><br />This morning however, the nurse peeled off the protective shields and the first thing I saw in glorious Technicolor was her beaming smile, the wrinkles in her forehead, the hue of her teeth, the creases in her lipstick, streaks of blusher on her cheeks. I looked out at from the clinic 18th storey window over the skyline of Bangkok, and I could see it all. Every last detail of this enormous city. Like an eagle. In the optometry room I easily read the line of numbers next to the label “20/20 vision” and could partially make out the line below. 3, 9, something, 4, 6. “20/16 vision” it said alongside the line. I don’t know what that means but that’s better than 20/20.<br /><br />Back in the waiting room I was almost high-five-ing the cardiologist who’d gone under the knife just before me. The day before we’d both reappeared from surgery beaten and traumatised to our loved ones and hadn’t said a word. But today elated by sight we shared every nuance of the experience.<br /><br />The doctor says I’m not allowed to wash my face for a week. For a soap dodger like me it just gets better. And now I can buy all the $2 sunglasses and I'm no longer petrified I might lose or damage them.<br /><br />I’ve not been to a hospital as clean or as caring before. The professionalism of the staff goes beyond pushing the buttons on the laser. It was the reassuring psychology they used throughout, recognising my concerns before I did. On the way out they stuck a little heart-shaped badge on me to wish me good health. They’ve been calling me every day to check if I’m having any problems putting the eye drops in. I’ll be back later in the week to get my teeth done, and am trying to develop complexes about other body parts just so I can get them fixed too.<br /><br />I have grown one healthy inferiority complex in Thailand. I’ve always believed that (although everyone in the world is equal, and all that), essentially Western European is the best race to be. We had The Greeks, Romans, and the Renaissance, the Alps, the Mediterranean, the best cars, the best looking and cleverest people, the tastiest food, and the best economy. Lately I’ve been having a big rethink, and although it’s too late for me now, I wish I was a bit more Asian. They have the best manner. I can see that quite clearly now.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-53913218325030085092011-01-06T13:22:00.000+00:002011-01-06T13:22:00.179+00:00The Beauty of FunctionalityIn the bus we use a bucket for showering. It’s a tatty old bucket which is starting to split, and although it’s clean, the outside is mired in embedded black grime that stains it. It used to hold 10 litres of engine oil and the mechanics that helped me rebuild the engine in Delhi gave it to me when I was stranded in the engineless truck there.<br /><br />Christina points out that it’s ugly and unsightly and when we are showing the bus off to visitors it makes the place look dirty. She’s right of course, and a new bucket would create a much better impression. It’s one of a number of improvements to the interior of the bus that would doubtless engender a more positive response from people we meet. For people interested in the journey it presents a distraction which suffixes the thought “but I couldn’t live like that” to the verbalised encouragement of “This truck is great”. The worst of it is that it creates the association that “eco” means dirty.<br /><br />But there are a few sentimental reasons why I like this bucket. It reminds me of the hard work under the oppressive heat of a Delhi summer I had to put into it to scrub it clean of the engine oil that was in it, of the satisfaction of seeing it filled for the first time with clear oil-free water, it reminds me of the people that gave it to me, of the work we did together on the engine, of the insight into their lives they shared with me, of the showers I took after replacing the engine pistons and the dirt that flowed out of my hair into the shower tray.<br /><br />I like that it’s waste too, that it’s living out a second life after the oil it originally carried is circulating around an engine somewhere. This sentimentality would be almost reason enough to keep the bucket forever, even build a plinth for it, but the fact that it's waste is the real reason I don't want to throw it out for a pretty new one. And far from being ugly I find that it is beautiful, because of the way it does what I need.<br /><br />Firstly it coincidentally fits perfectly in the corner where we store it and it has a comfortable metal handle that doesn’t cut into your hand when fully laden. It’s made with a softer thermosetting plastic than most buckets making it less brittle and more resilient to cracking when crushed or knocked by the heavy jerrycan that lives next to it, and it’s the perfect size for one shower’s-worth of water. All of this leads me to see it as beautiful. It works so well, is so harmonised with its purpose that it is benignly beautiful.<br /><br />So it is with much of the bus interior; devoid of aesthetic, the hideous curtains stitched by my sister with material offcuts work brilliantly at maintaining privacy, keeping out the heat but maintaining a bright interior, the grotesque seat pillows are cut to shape that folds into a spare bed, the atrocious carpet that lines the ceiling was fished out of skips and bins, and provides unprecedented thermal and acoustic insulation. It’s no beauty to look at, but it’s beautiful to see it at work.<br /><br />Aesthetic and functional beauties aren’t mutually exclusive argues Chris, and suggests that I wouldn’t welcome her shaving off her beautiful long blond hair to be more functionally beautiful needing less water to wash it. I risk a scowl replying that her function is to be attractive to me so I see her hair’s aesthetic as being a functional feature and consequently beautiful on both levels. Perhaps it's the double compliment that saves me from getting so much as a frown. Aesthetic can serve a purpose, just like any other aspect of design; the choice of material, scale and dimensions.<br /><br />To my mind’s eye, the ugliest thing in the bus is not the bucket or unpainted wood panels, the fraying seat covers, the stained shower tray or double glazed window at the back. It's the fridge that doesn’t’ work efficiently enough so that it can be left on permanently. Intermittent refrigeration is worse than none at all. To me it sticks out like an irritating needle in my functional fung shui of the drab cupboards and shelves that surround it. To everyone else it looks like a charming wood effect panelled fridge set against some rickety draws.<br /><br />So with an upcoming round of presentations to give in Bangkok I was tempted to invest in new bucket. I've been faced with this compromise before. Should I do something against the principles of using waste to promote the benefits of using waste. Is there a greatergood? Or should I remember I am not an eco-disciple, responsible for teaching the world how to live, just someone who's overdue a shower.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-6983480399570013662011-01-06T12:22:00.000+00:002011-01-06T12:22:00.472+00:00Eating the WorldTaken from Chris' blog; <a href="http://www.flyinghobogirl.com/">www.flyinghobogirl.com</a><br /><br /><p><strong>Eating is a sort of love </strong>of the world. If you can’t taste the joie de vive in a fresh peach, then your heart is hard. I’ve always taken my free-roaming appetite as a reflection my open-ness to experience. I want to try it all: from oysters to skinning dipping, from tzitziki sauce to sky diving, nothing is off limits. On the occasion that I do run into a hang up—as I once did with eggplant—I don’t blame the food, but chalk it up to some limitation in myself. My approach is to keep sampling the problem food until I “get it.” After enough Baba Ganoosh, and after so many eggplant burgers, I finally understood the purple orb and now cherish it in its many forms.</p> <p>I’ve prided myself on being the Ultimate Omnivore, afraid of almost nothing. <em>It’s all just protein, arranged into different shapes, </em>I’d blithely tell myself, when confronted into a roasted guinea pig in Peru, or a boiled chicken foot in Nepal.</p> <p>(Disclosure: I do retain a moderate aversion to canned black olives and crystallized ginger. Also: I have a couple of ethical hesitations with foie gras and squid, or anything from the highly emotional cephalopod family <em>aka</em> squid)</p> <p><strong>If eating is a love</strong> of the world, then being finicky, I’ve always thought, is a sort of rejection of the world. I’ve had little compassion for fussy eaters. <em>Oh come on</em>, I mutter, when someone throws a wrench into a dinner party with some dietary idiosyncrasy, pushing away a plate of a gorgeous bruschetta because they are <em>allergic to gluten</em> or decling a stuffed bell pepper because they <em>don’t do nightshades</em>. Even if you <em>do</em> happen to derive a certain salutary benefit from avoiding this food or that, surely such inflexibility can kill you–if the inconvenienced cooks don’t kill you first.</p> <p>I’ll never forget the shock of waking up one morning in college and opening the kitchen cupboard to be greeted by a handwritten note taped up by my roommate, who’d recently turned Fundamentalist Vegan and also happened to own all the pots and pans in the house.</p> <p><em> Attention: Please refrain from cooking animal products in these skillets (btw, this includes eggs).</em></p> <p>Wasn’t at least a weeks notice was in order?</p> <p><strong>In Asia, I’m now being put to the test.</strong> I have no problem gobbling up the pad thais and the peanuty papaya salads, but also being confronted daily by such an overwhelming amount of new food that I don’t have time to “get it.” Indecipherable goo balls wrapped in banana leaves for breakfast? Cartoon panda heads floating in my soup? Torn up chunks of white bread soaked in green syrup and ice cubes for dessert? Normally a pleasure, now mealtimes are unnerving–like being blindfolded and shoved into a car and driven somewhere unfamiliar.</p> <p>Thailand, I figured would be a cinch. I’m crazy about their chilis, their lemon grass. So, I wasn’t at all mentally prepared for any disappointment. But in the south central part of the Gulf Coast, the mealtimes that I always looked forward to were starting to feel like trials. If there are different Geo-Culinary regions (I think I just made that word up) then it seems that we’d found Thailand’s Nebraska—a region of vast agricultural land punctuated by bad restaurants. There were curries all right, but they were not the coconutty numbers I loved so.Nothing, in fact, seemed to resonate with my taste buds. Again and again, I lifted pot lids only to be assaulted by a lethal smelling steam rising from the inscrutable entrees. <em>Rotten fish? Spoiled meat? </em> Every atom in my body revolted.</p> <p>Andy coaxed me into eating soups, but the bland bean sprout broths inspired no delight, adding up to about a scant 60 calories and just feeling like a lot of hard work.</p> <p>With each missed meal, I became a bigger pain-in-the-ass, even more impossible to please, and more adamant in my hunger strike. I was starting to act like my mother on our trip to Italy, with her plaintive cries for the cold chocolate milk that was her morning habit back home<em>. Chocolato Freddo?</em> I begged the confused baristas on her behalf. Exhausted and resentful of her rigidity, I sternly broke the news: <em>Mom, Nestle Quik Chocolate milk is Just Not Done in Italy.</em></p> <p>I could see that same uncompassionate wariness building in Andy, as he hopefully stopped the bus at every roadside shack only to watch me sputter out Nescafes and fold half-chewed dried shrimps into my napkin. My blood sugar fell homicidally low and I glowered at him from across the table while he alternated between silent judgment and righteously working some weird curly tentacle into his mouth. I knew what he was thinking. Worse, I knew he was right: <em>there are people starving in this world.</em></p> <p><strong>I finally broke my fast </strong>with a cozy little pad thai served from a collapsing hut in a muddy parking lot. Not long after, I found a latte at a coffee shop along the highway and soon my sour mood lifted. But in its place was a sheepish embarrassment. Posing always as the Intrepid Traveler, I’d revealed myself to be a real pansy.</p> <p>So maybe it turns out that I don’t love the world as much as I thought. Just like people who don’t do gluten or nightshades, it happens that I don’t do weird looking blobs of meat and Technicolor beverages. But if there is any redemption to be found, it’s that after dinner last night, Andy spent the night in the bathroom reconsidering his Tripe dinner, while I slept soundly, dreaming of the next boring round of pad thai.</p>Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-50693756136345828642011-01-06T11:20:00.000+00:002011-01-06T11:20:00.122+00:00TsunamiTaken from Chris' blog; <a href="http://www.flyinghobogirl.com/">www.flyinghobogirl.com</a><br /><br /><strong>When we fantasized about life </strong>in the Biotruck, we imagined parking up somewhere along the Gulf of Thailand. Andy would unload the solar disco, crank a little Banco de Gaia while I’d make fruity Mai Tais. We’d easily be the coolest travelers on the beach. <p>But in six weeks the closest we’d come to this vision was an overnight near a fishing pier where in the morning I stood and watched mudskippers lurch around in a bog. A busload of school children arrived with colanders taped to the end of long sticks and began scooping up the poor creatures.</p> <p>We posed for photos with the kids and their slimy catches. It was fine. It was cute. But it wasn’t our Beach Fantasy.</p> <p><strong>We crossed the border</strong> into Thailand highly motivated to realize our Biotruck Beach Party vision. We began a marathon drive toward Krabi, overnighting at a bleak truckstop and then continuing on in the early morning until we arrived.</p> <p>A complicated network of jungle roads thread through the region of Krabi. It’s easy to get lost, and with our vague maps and sluggish GPS, we made several wrong turns. But we finally found a bit of coastline. It was littered with old tire rims, sun-bleached shacks, and rusted lobster traps.</p> <p><em>Great</em>, Andy said, stepping out of the truck and into a scattering of broken styrofoam bits. <em>We found the ugliest beach in Thailand. </em></p> <p><em>We can rent kayaks from somewhere,</em> I said hopefully. <em>We can paddle around …</em></p> <p>He turned back toward the bus. <em>Let’s get out of here.</em></p> <p><strong>The extra effort paid off.</strong> We soon found our way to the most gorgeous stretch of beach I’d ever seen. It wasn’t our party spot—there was no one around to sip on Mai Tais with–but dramatic archipelagos rose from the water and the sandy shore went on for miles in both directions.</p> <p>I poked around in the nearby forest, finding an old road that led through an abandoned resort. It must have been a lively place at one time—there were dozens of rotting bungalows nestled between the trees. A dilapidated patio that encircled the front of an old restaurant must have seated 100. Now, it all looked like a shipwreck.</p> <p>I wondered if this former resort had been ruined by the 2004 Tsunami that destroyed so many of the beaches and towns in southern Thailand. Every few meters a Tsunami evacuation sign pointed the way toward high land. The coconut palms along the beach were all short and young—the old ones, I presumed, were victims to the salinity poisoning that affected many of the coastal forests around Krabi after the sea water rushed in.</p> <p>I headed back toward the bus along the shore, noting the debris in the line of driftwood–a plastic doll arm, noodle packets. The tsunami had always seemed an abstraction to me, a newscast sandwiched between fictional television dramas. At that moment, it seemed powerfully real.</p> <p>We took a late afternoon swim. The water was flat so that the dribble of water off our bodies resounded when it hit the surface, our voices carried. Andy wrapped himself in a sarong collected some wood and made a fire and I boiled up some pasta right there in the sand while the sun set spectacularly.</p> <p><strong>It’s been almost exactly six years</strong> since the Tsunami wrecked the beaches and claimed over 6,000 lives in southern Thailand. In some places, the rebuilding has been swift—especially in high dollar tourist destinations like the island of Ko Phi Phi—a favorite of scuba divers and beach junkies alike. Still, in other places tourism has been slow to recover.</p> <p>Protected by the island of Phuket, Krabi wasn’t the most effect deeply affected, but the memory of <em>Khluen yaak</em>—the Great Wave– is still fresh in people’s memories. The area served as a center for refugees and hundreds of bodies were taken there for cremation.</p> <p>People still talk about the Tsunami as if it happened yesterday–a common impulse, I think, for humans to live in reference to their last tragedy. Perhaps it is somehow healing to repeat these stories again and again. They remind of our tenacity—of how we were down but found our way back up again.</p> <p><strong>I don’t normally get spooked</strong> anymore. I thought I left that feeling behind at slumber parties where we freaked out to Friday the 13th movies. But that night in Krabi was eerie for me. I woke several times in the night feeling like I’d entered a sensory deprivation chamber; the darkness was so total I wasn’t sure that my eyes were really open. I couldn’t hear a sound.</p> <p>Questions kept me awake. <em>What was it like here on Boxing Day when the surf came in and didn’t stop? What’s it like not trusting that the ocean to stay in its place? </em></p> <p><strong>We drove away from that silent paradise</strong> the next morning, leaving behind the ashes from our cookfire and a few waterlogged coconuts rolling around in the surf. We passed down the rutted road, past a bog dotted with several emerging pink lotus. We didn’t realize our Big Biotruck Beach Party there, but it was hard to complain. We may have lost a fantasy, but people had lost their homes, even their lives.</p> <p>In all my rainbow-chasing I’m seeing that whatever I think <em>should</em> happen inevitably doesn’t. I nestle into the beach chair of my dreams and open a good book and then someone starts blaring bad music through a scratchy speaker. I think when I see Everest, that I will bask in glowing achievement, but instead I brace against the other tourists that are nearly elbowing me over the edge of a boulder.</p> <p>What really drives a place into our marrow is not the fantasy of what <em>will </em>happen there, but what actually <em>does</em> happen. The connection usually sets in after-the-fact, when destinations are no longer oppressed by our fantasies, but allowed to become the old storied places where you can’t but help and walk around pointing: <em> This is where I first learned to ride my bike, this was my favorite tree, this is where we met …</em></p>Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-37746647088009824492011-01-06T10:20:00.000+00:002011-01-06T10:20:00.079+00:00Yuan FenTaken from Chris' blog; <a href="http://www.flyinghobogirl.com/">www.flyinghobogirl.com</a><br /><br /><strong>This time the Biotruck broke down</strong> near Bidor–a small, dusty Malaysian settlement lined with unremarkable storefronts. As I kicked around the parking lot of the mechanic shop, I asked myself: why can’t the truck spring an oil leak at places like the Taj Mahal or Angkor Wat? <p>I surveyed the lay of the land: a fruit stand, a hardware store, a hair salon. For the next few days I’d be exiled from the truck as it filled with mechanics, oily rags, and expletives. There was really only one helpful thing I could do: keep out of the way.</p> <p>Bidor appeared to be the Middle of Nowhere. Of course, the last time I thought that—in Galang Patah– we ended up on a Dionysian jag with influential politicians uncorking champagne in our honor, celebrating our journey and the Biotruck.</p> <p>I needed to give Bidor a chance.</p> <p><strong>I am fairly useless </strong>in breakdown situations. It’s not that I lack the brainpower to figure it out, or that I’m too girly to get my hands dirty. That isn’t it. It’s just that I’m so completely uninterested. Car parts to me are so boring. Thankfully, Andy feels otherwise. <em>It’s like having a conversation with the engine</em>, he explained.</p> <p>Days passed while he carried on heated conversation with the fuel filter and the injector pump. I filled the blank hours drinking tea and submitting myself to inane things like having my hair flat-ironed just so I could wait out the brutal Malaysian heat in the air-conditioned salon.</p> <p>No doubt, it felt wrong that while poor Andy should be covered in grease, I strolled around the parking lot all day with great hair. So I went over to a fruit shop, deciding that I would bring refreshment to the oily crew. I selected a few mangos, bananas, and a watermelon. I knew the counter space in the Biotruck would be covered in wrenches, so in a clumsy mix of English and charades, I asked the owner for a knife and a cutting board. I sat and chopped the fruit on a mat near the register, balancing a plate on my knees while runnels of watermelon juice ran down my arm. Her son set a box down by my feet to catch the peels, her husband came over to watch and soon, cutting up the fruit became a family effort.</p> <p><strong>What is interesting about breakdowns </strong>isn’t what went wrong, but the question of how to get rolling again. A disintegrated fuel filter can throw you at the mercy of strangers. Who will help you? You invariably meet people you would have never met, and in some places walk away with the strong sorts of friendships that sometimes get forged under duress. In our case, the truck quit on the highway and Andy had to guide it onto a narrow stop on the shoulder. While he poked around under the hood, I laid a blanket on the grass near the highway and, setting up our laundry hamper as a backrest, resumed reading the literary megalith that is Shantharam. The day dimmed, the mosquitoes bit and it started to worry me that maybe we would have to spend the night right there on the shoulder. Thankfully two laughing Chinese mechanics from Kim Lim’s towing happened to drive by with a tow truck and stopped to give us a hitch. That’s how we got to Bidor.</p> <p><strong>Mr. and Mrs. Fatt owned the fruit shop. </strong>The morning after our collective fruit slicing session, they idled their car up to the bus and asked us to breakfast. We sat at an open-air Chinese market, poked breakfast dumplings with chopsticks, and did our best to make conversation. We must have done well enough because they took us out to dinner again that night. We got on with them well. They were fun loving– Mr. Fatt liked to tease and in return his wife delivered him regular impish punches to the arm. Over the next couple of days while the Biotruck was in surgery at Kim Lim’s shop, we started hanging out at their house, watching their TV, using their shower, and internet. They showed us a nearby waterfall where we waited out a long hot afternoon in the mist. Before long, Mr. and Mrs. Fatt begin to feel like family, and that dusty block of Bidor storefronts started to feel like home.</p> <p>On our last night, they took us out to dinner. While we sipped from our beer bottles, Mr. Fatt pulled out a pen and a napkin. He scribbled out a Chinese character and drew a big circle.</p> <p><em>Yuan Fen</em> he said, pointing to the Chinese symbol. The he retraced the circle. <em>Big world, opposite sides, but still we meet. This friendship is a special privilege.</em></p> <p><strong>Later I would look up</strong> the meaning of Yuan Fen and begin to love the word for the way it filled a gap in the English language for a phenomenon that I had experienced, but had never had the verbal tools to articulate. I think ”chemistry” might be the closest word we have.</p> <p>Simply put, Yean Fen is the “binding force” that links two people together in a relationship. The amount of Yuan Fen you share with someone determines the level of closeness you will achieve. It’s not just about proximity; you can live next door to someone all your life and never get to know them. This just means you have thin Yuan Fen. On the other hand, you can fall madly in love with someone, but just can’t stay together. “Have Fate without Desinty” is a Chinese proverb used to describe this tragic condition.</p> <p>The meaning can get more complicated. Some believe the phenomenon is tied to past lives and karma. As another Chinese proverb goes: <em>It takes hundreds of reincarnations to bring two persons to ride in the same boat; it takes a thousand to bring two persons to share the same pillow.</em></p> <p>But for me, it is enough that Yuan Fen explains how sometimes people who meet get along, or don’t get along, why friends become friends, lovers become lovers, and also why sometimes relationships break apart. It puts a word to the phenomenon of why there are people I’ve lived near for so long, yet consistently fail to maneuver the conversation passed a “hello” and yet at the same time manage to make a heart connection halfway around the world. It explains how we should find Kim Lim’s shop, and then intersect with Mr. and Mrs. Fatt, who don’t speak our language, who live thousands of miles away, and run a fruit stand in a dusty little “nowhere” town called Bidor.</p>Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-28064772344094415432011-01-06T09:17:00.003+00:002011-01-06T09:35:16.998+00:00Flying FreeTaken from Chris' blog; <a href="http://www.flyinghobogirl.com/">www.flyinghobogirl.com</a><br /><br /><strong>In certain ways</strong>, pilots are the same the world around: friendly, eager to share their local site, their passion for flying, and just generally high-on-life. <p>All this could definitely be said about Yati and Nafi, our site guides in Malaysia. The couple get out to their hill every weekend and are always eyeing the clouds. Still, one thing really sets them apart from the tribe of the semi-nomadic pilots I hang around.</p> <p>Nafi and Yati have five children. One, Two, Three, Four, Five.</p> <p>Fortunately, like most Malay families, theirs is a close knit one so they have a lot of support when it comes to getting out to fly. Grandma lives nearby and is happy to watch the kids—right along with Nafi’s brother’s five kids. Still, I had a hard time reconciling this carefree and daring couple with my ideas about parenthood. Shouldn’t they be a little more uptight and frazzled? At 31, Yati still looks like she just got off the school bus. I marveled as she loaded three ballasts in her harness to keep her tiny person in the hemisphere. I’ve honestly never met anyone like her.</p> <p>We were at Seremban<strong>,</strong> a ridge soaring hill that rises above the palm plantations of central Malaysia. The October day would turn out to be a bit of a struggle for me; it was the hottest flying I’ve ever endured and the only time I heard my vario beep was when I stood up after going to the bathroom. Still, we were in great company. The flying club from Borneo was visiting and come evening they joined us for a post-flying dinner.</p> <p><strong>Nassa, a local pilot, had the backyard grill</strong> on full flame and was churning out an endless feast of lamb chops, chicken wings, and fish fillets. We nibbled on meaty bones and gathered around a laptop to watch a slideshow of the days’ flights. Like everywhere I’ve ever flown, the pilots were welcoming and happy to speak English with us. As it got later, the party grew larger and an extended family of friends and relatives arrived. Children ran around on the lawn, babies were passed around. Soon, the Malay language filled the balmy night. My companion Andy and I sauntered away from the table and reclined out on the lawn.</p> <p><em>This is the only time of year I get homesick</em>. Andy said. <em>Today is bonfire night back in England. </em>He reminisced about his neighborhood, the cool nights, the fireworks.</p> <p>Having organized over 15 vehicle expeditions across Africa and throughout the world, he’s spent the majority of his adult life on the road. He’s had cinematic adventures, met lots of characters, and flown a ton of sites. But great as it’s been, all the vagabonding can take a toll. One Christmas he spent on an airplane between San Francisco and Sydney.<em> Birthdays can be a let down, too. People always forget, and it’s a reminder that in some ways, I’m sort of a loner.</em></p> <p>It’s a sensation I can to relate to more and more. For three years I’ve avoided the expenses of maintaining a home in order to chase paragliding, writing assignments, and whims. The adventures I’ve had are unsurpassed, yet there are moments when all the moving around feels starkly empty. And as time goes on, I return to my “home” in Ashland, Oregon less and less. My friendships adhere with the feeble glue of Facebook status updates and infrequent emails.</p> <p>To have a real home—a Place—you need to return to the places you departed from and stay for a while. You have to cultivate history, memories, and connections. But these days, my life is starting to resemble less the ancient circle of coming and going, and more a line—and a somewhat solitary one at that–disappearing into the future.</p> <p><strong>Nassa’s party turned off around 11:00 </strong>and we climbed into the car with Nafi and Yati. It was late and they needed to pick up children One, Two, Three, Four and Five from Grandma’s house. As Nafi steered the glider-stuffed car down the dark highway, Yati turned around and peered at me with curious eyes, her face framed by a red hijab:</p> <p><em>Christina. You are 35. Why not married?</em></p> <p>I wanted to give her some thought-out explanation, some philosophic explanation. But the truth is that it never really felt like a decision. For a long time, I thought I was just simply too young to be married—that I just needed to have<em> one more adventure </em>before settling down. But <em>one more adventure</em> has turned into a lifestyle and at 35 years old, that excuse has long out of steam.</p> <p>I floundered around for reasons. I explained that it wasn’t uncommon to stay single in America and that through some process of social-selection, I’m surrounded by a set of friends who live the same way. It just seems normal. I didn’t bother with the other complicated reasons–that my family had a legacy of divorces that made me wary of the whole institution. That I was deadest avoiding the suburban afflictions of Quiet Desperation and The Problem That Has No Name.</p> <p><em>Maybe they are more into Self?</em> Yati asked.</p> <p>I’m afraid she was right, but I hated to think of it that way. Most of my friends led really active meaningful lives, I explained. They had a passion for flying or for travel. And many had taken up terrific causes, working on behalf of others–restoring wetlands or assisting in disaster relief.</p> <p>But there was no denying, I suppose, that there was a selfish aspect to not settling. Like many pilots, I enjoy my freedom. I love the novelty of new places. I love how I can re-invent myself again and again. With no children, my mornings are serene; my mind is my own. If the flying is good, I just get up and go. In some ways, it seems like the ideal life.</p> <p>Yati was trying to understand, but confused. <em>But we need someone to take care of, and to take care of us, no?</em></p> <p>I knew she was right. But my friends and I did form our own family of sorts. And in the flying community, pilots form their adrenaline-bonds and have their own particular way of looking after each other. Romantically, I’ve had a few relationships. We took care of each other for the time we were together. Of course, when our paths start to diverge, we are quick to call it a day</p> <p><em>Is it ego? </em> She asked.</p> <p>Probably, I admitted. No doubt I was living out a very Western idea that it is our birthright to uncover Who We Are and express it. My destiny, I was taught, is entirely my own and I should never compromise it for anyone. As a result, there are just some things I don’t know how to do. Like stick with a job I hate, or move to Texas for love.</p> <p>Nafi and Yati dropped us off at the bus that we’d been traveling and living in for months. Andy stashed our wings away in the back and expressed his admiration for Nafi and Yati’s close-knit family. <em>If were not here for each other, we might as well not even be here.</em></p> <p>As much as I’m always espousing the benefits of the free and easy nomadic lifestyle, I couldn’t help but agree.</p> <p><strong>Nafi and Yati had us over for dinner</strong> before we left town. Grandma made a feast of boiled greens, chicken curry, and ox tail soup and the house was so crowded we had to eat in shifts: Nafi, Yati, Andy and I, then the ten grandchildren, then all the aunties and uncles.</p> <p>As usual, Nafi and Yati made sure we were well fed. Malaysian hospitality is often overwhelming. <em>This might be the last time we see you</em>, Yati explained. <em>This is our only opportunity to treat you</em>. It was true. They had firm roots here, five kids to take care of. As for us, the likelihood of ever returning was slim.</p> <p>By the time we left that night, the children were wrestling in a pile of the floor and the house was so noisy and chaotic that it was hard to have a clear thought. It was also full of a ton of love. Andy and I said goodbye and walked out the door into peaceful night, into the big open world. We’d soon discover our next friends, the next flying site. Just us and the big world, with lots of space to move around in. Lots of space ….</p>Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-16743277740654571182010-12-04T03:24:00.003+00:002010-12-04T03:34:30.922+00:00Orientation AnxietyWhen I wake up, takes me a second to remember where I am. I have to momentarily replay my story so far as my eyes and senses come into focus;<span style="font-style: italic;"> I’m in my truck, driving around the world, and yesterday I got to Kamla Beach in Thailand, and couldn’t find a nice place to park at first, and then found this monastery. </span><br /><br />It used to be a panic inducing moment. Momentarily totally lost in the world. Somehow the question ‘Where am I?’ is inherently linked to the question ‘What danger am I in?’ There’s a sense of vulnerability sleeping in a vehicle behind sheets of metal and glass, rather than behind bricks and mortar. Am I about to get washed away by a flood, is a coconut going to fall on my solar panels? If this spot is so safe, why isn’t anyone else camping here? It’s not a fear about being attacked or robbed, it's the dangers of natural phenomena that accompanied me out of my dawn slumber.<br /><br />Everywhere along the Thai coastline we’ve seen signposts to Tsunami muster stations. Here, for instance, we are only 1.6km north of safety if a Tsunami warning is issued. The white and blue signs with a benign graphic of a wave crashing innocently over a stick man running up a slope are terrorising to me because if a Tsunami warning was launched I’d have no idea how I’d hear about it. Would there be sirens? Would it be announced in English on the radio? Or most likely would a massive traffic jam develop along the 1.6km between here and safety.<br /><br />They remind me of the petrifying public information media from my childhood; radio warnings about what to do in the event of a nuclear strike, or those leaflets about Aids and Heroin. Valuable information for sure, but the calm matter-of-fact presentation serves to make it horrifying. Safety cards on planes and the carefully crafted wording of their safety demonstration are the worst. “Should we land on water...” and in the statistically impossible likelihood that the plane and our bodies aren't’t torn into fragments no bigger than a fist by the 100mph impact with a wall of water “... please remove your high heels”. I wasn’t afraid until they prompted me to really think about “the unlikely event in which we lose cabin pressure ...” and visualising how that drop down paper-cup oxygen mask will do nothing to stop my innards being sucked out of my body “... via the nearest available exit”.<br /><br />The 4th anniversary of the Christmas Tsunami is only a few days away, and the reconstruction efforts have been successful enough that to my untrained eye, it’s hard to see that this area was affected. Standing by the sea I try to visualise how a 10m wave would look. A solid wall of breaking water, or an determined torrent of rising water. I can’t really imagine the destructive mechanisms it would wreak on buildings and trees, and what and who it would select to suck out to sea as it receded. It’s the sort of phenomena I just have no references for, a moment when the things you take for granted; walls, buildings, the ground, trees, the things we think of as solid, as anchors, can no longer be relied on.<br /><br />Despite the tease of fear the Tsunami signs engender, I’m less worried about where I am these days. After 14 months of waking up in the bus and not once having been swept away by a flood, the panic that goes with remembering where I am and what I’m doing here has thankfully subsided. I’ve got used to those few seconds of unknowing. I’m actually trying to train myself to enjoy them and stave off remembering my placement in the world for as long as possible, free from the shackles of any references. I know I’m in the world, but knowing exactly where isn’t a pressing detail.<br /><br />Instead, that panic has now morphed to associate itself with remembering my orientation. There’s always been some thought, and now with Christina some discussion, that goes into deciding which way round to park the bus so that there’s some airflow, and view from the bed window. But that means that the eventual decision is often harder to recall in the morning. And it’s made harder by the fact I sometimes sleep the other way round in the bed.<br /><br />As I wake, before I open my eyes, I remember where I’m parked by calmly replaying the previous day’s events. But the thing that makes me spring my eyes open in sheer terror these days is the need to remember which way I’m facing. It takes a second to mentally orientate the bus in my memory of its surroundings while my heart rate rises. And then I need a moment to orientate myself in the bus, during which my breathing gets deeper. Finally, what takes the longest is to twist those two mental images round to line up so that I can picture which way my body is facing in relation to the world as I left it outside the bus. By this stage I’m ready for an inhaler-full of Vallium.. It’s only until I look out the window and see something that confirms my orientation analysis that I can relax. In practice it takes less than two seconds, but the fear stems from the fact it takes me so long to figure out which way is up.<br /><br />If I was Jessica Sexless-Parker, or better still Dougie Howser MD, the self congratulatory lesson I would be tapping into my computer at the end of this episode would be; “I guess these days it’s more important for me to know which way I’m facing than where I’m stood.” Fade to black. Cue music and titles as the audience reflects on this profundity and how that’s true of their life too.<br /><br />But I’m not. Instead the self-deprecatory lesson is this: I’m scared of a different type of death; senility.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-18503034938009929342010-11-22T11:33:00.002+00:002011-04-08T17:05:15.688+01:00HippyI was asked if I was a hippy again yesterday and lately I’ve been proudly answering yes, but I still draw the line at tree-hugger.<br /><br />The 60’s hippies that drove to India and that danced at Woodstock, were acting on a desire to escape the values and job-for-life destiny of their parent’s generation who, coming out of the austerity of the Second World War, were revelling in a period of prosperity and technology advances that were creating a consumptive society. Sparked by the Beat Generation’s rebellion against the norms of music and poetry, the hippies rejected the norms of lifestyle, and clumsily developed an alternative way, founded on turning to nature and community.<br /><br />When I started planning this trip, just before the credit crisis, the UK had experienced a 10 year stint of unprecedented prosperity, and developed a credit fuelled appetite for consuming. So I like to think that my escape was an attempt to reject those values, but like the 60’s hippies I have to admit that it was funded by that same economic growth spurt which has given me the savings and freedom to temporarily escape my “career for life” destiny.<br /><br />Like the hippies of the 60’s I am playing the system, earning my money with a laptop, the internet and corporate clients and spending with a hippy bus journey. It’s a mistake to think that the bus loads that drove to India were anti-capitalist. They were savvy globalising entrepreneurs, long before Thatcher or Reagan made it fashionable or acceptable to be so. Journeys were funded by trading, just like Marco Polo centuries before. Selling auto parts bought in Germany to the Turks, selling spare seats to passengers on the hippy trail, selling Afghan weed to Indian lads, and then stocking up on Indian fabrics and silver jewellery to sell on the beaches of the Adriatic during the return journey.<br /><br />In some ways I feel that this is where I’m failing my hippy badge. For 12 years I took cars across the Sahara Desert to West Africa loaded with Europe’s junk; broken fridges, auto parts, bicycles, Walkmans, and mobile phones, all to be traded and sold to fund the journeys. This trip hasn’t had that element of trade-as-you-go and I miss it because it’s a sweet insight into what the countries you visit need and what they have to offer. And if you can pull it off it’s a sweet earner too.<br /><br />The hippy movement made a kind of resurgence in the mid 90’s in the shape of “New Age Travellers”, living in old trucks, squatting on land, and largely migrating with agricultural work cycles; from hop picking in Kent to winkle picking in Scotland, and then down to Spain for the oranges. New Age Travellers sprang from the rave culture but it also grew out of a rejection of the Loadsamoney culture Thatcherism was creating, so along with copious drugs and music, was active protest about social issues, like the Battle for Twyford Down road building, the Poll Tax riots, and pretty much anything else the Tories did.<br /><br />And both movements arguably left their mark on their societies before their demise. The hippies of the 60’s settled down to merge with their Baby Boomer generation instilling it with a hint of liberalism and social consciousness as their voice blended into society’s voice. The New Age Traveller movement was largely smashed by legislation and then co-opted under Blairism into the mainstream but left an appetite for great music but moreover angry protest in the UK which still keeps the police on its toes.<br /><br />I’m not sure that the Biotruck will have much of a generational legacy, but the green movement, which like the hippy movement has an interest in bringing society closer to nature and away from consumption, better had. In the meantime I'm reclaiming the term Hippy.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-56450610874494008612010-11-21T11:31:00.000+00:002010-11-21T11:31:00.133+00:00EcoSpeak and the fall of CapitalismIn the new language created by our increased environmental consciousness there are two phrases which are particularly warm and cosy. One is “Beyond Petroleum”. How reassuring that little green sun (or is it a sunflower) emblem is. Sadly, the only significant way in which BP have moved beyond petroleum since rebranding is that they have expanded their interests in Natural Gas, which is a slightly cleaner energy source than crude oil products, but still a fossil fuel, so still involves taking carbon atoms out of the ground after they’ve comfortably rested there for millennia and adding them to our atmosphere and oceans, where they can’t fail to have an impact on our climate. In fairness BP are no worse than the other big oil companies, but they are the only ones with a green logo and windmill on their filling stations which it turns out in some cases are not even hooked up and purely cosmetic!<br /><br />The other insidious oxymoron designed to generate that warm everything-will-be-ok feeling is “Clean Coal”. A technology which turns coal into a collection of hydrocarbon gasses before burning it. It’s a cleaner, more efficient use of coal, but no measure of efficiency can escape the fact that this is the worst of the fossil fuels, the use of which is one of the best mechanism for taking carbon safely locked away underground and sticking it in the air to warm up in the sun.<br /><br />Clean coal is often cited along with the phrase Carbon Capture and Storage (CC&S). CC&S involves putting carbon filters on the chimney stacks of coal fired power station, or using bacteria to absorb the carbon. The language makes it sound like the perfect solution; you catch the carbon and then store it. Why didn’t we think of this before? Problem solved. Except capturing CO2 gas into a solid filter is very difficult and makes the powerplants less efficient, so they have to burn more coal. And even then, the capture part is a doddle compared with the storage part. The filters are volumetrically hugely inefficient so the CO2 they do catch takes up lots of space. The bacteria that absorb the carbon quickly die and then decompose releasing their carbon atoms into the atmosphere in the form of methane and CO2, so the storage needs to lock their dead bacteria bodies and filters away forever. The gigatonnes of carbon atoms extracted from the ground in coal, petroleum and natural gas each year would need to be returned to the ground in a way that couldn’t find a route back to the surface. That would take a lot of unfeasibly large holes and a load of energy to dig them. Putting it back in the holes it came from is a lovely idea but not feasible for a host of reasons; you can’t put a solid back down a gas pipe for instance, it takes up more space afterwards than it did before, and you’d have to cover quarries with a concrete cap that would last 1000’s of years without cracking. Can you imagine the builders guarantee on that patio?<br /><br />“Carbon Credits” is another cuddly positive sounding term. Companies emitting CO2 get taxed on the amount they produce in a bid to discourage them. It creates a “Carbon Market” the theory goes, where pollution can be traded like debt. The market forces (also know in Marxist circles as ‘the law of the jungle’) are left to sort out the problem. But as always the raw natural forces of the market are only as good as the rules which manipulate them. The “Cap and Trade” scheme of carbon credits introduced in the US was so unpopular with industry that it’s been watered down, some say, to the point where it has become a toothless disincentive.<br /><br />Cap and Trade systems allow you to pay off some poor third world farmers to work harder in a way that emits less CO2 while you continue to churn out your existing levels of pollution. In the meantime the poor farmers will take your money and if they have any sense at all continue to do what they were doing before, because no one is policing these offset schemes, especially in countries rife with corruption.<br /><br />So how about this term I’ve made up; “Extraction Tax”. Sadly it’s not very lovely and soft, it’s harsh with two x’s and lots of hard t’s that jar as they come out of your mouth. The problem of greenhouse gasses starts when carbon atoms are lifted out of the ground. That’s when they become a liability that someone is going to have to deal with (or ignore and vent along an exhaust pipe). It’s like pointing the blame at the person in the room that farts. In the end we all breathe it in, but it’s the farter who should apologise. I appreciate this is a crap analogy (excuse the equally crap pun) but I can’t seem to write a blog post without some toilet talk and this was the only way I could think to insert it here.<br /><br />The Oil & Gas and mining companies would carry the burden of paying it based on the number of carbon atoms they pulled out of the ground. No one likes the Oil & Gas or mining companies so it would be hugely popular with the public, and compared with the unaccountability of the capped and traded 3rd world farmer it would be easier to manage because there are only a few oil majors and OPEC countries in the cartel. In practice they’d pass the tax on to energy consumers, you and me, who would pay a more realistic price for the energy we use, reflecting its environmental impact.<br /><br />But how could you get the world to agree implement such a tax universally? Well of course you can’t. But perhaps you wouldn’t need to. It might be enough if you had just one country that turned to all the oil companies and OPEC and said if you want to sell any of your fossil fuel energy here we are going to tax you for all the carbon you’re pulling out of the ground around the world, even if it’s not mined or used in this country. Like a license to trade with a fee that’s based on the size of the business. Of course it would have to be a country with a massive consumption or the oil majors and OPEC would just boycott it. A global superpower, a world leader, a country headed by someone who cares about the environment, the planet’s policeman. Yes, that’s right, China.<br /><br />In practice the Chinese (and the US) are desperately looking for energy from wherever they can find it, and the last thing they are about to do is start taxing their own imports of the stuff. But globally, no one could afford for China to shut down its industry if OPEC called their bluff, and ironically so dependent is the rest of the world on China that we would probably have more to lose by China shutting down than the Chinese would, so this threat could be used to leverage other countries to come onboard with the Extraction Tax. Then, Western politicians could finally implement a harsh, costly effective green tax they always dreamed of, and blame it’s unpopular consequences on those bloody Chinese.<br /><br />I can’t for a minute honestly imagine this would happen, but it’s been a peculiar week on the geopolitical stage; A communist country accurately pointed out to the capitalist ‘Free (Market) World’ that its currency is worth nothing and it doesn’t know how to manage it, which is surely a moment as significant in world events as the fall of the Berlin wall. Up-Perestroika, and raise your Glasnost! Twenty one years later and it turns out Communism won after all. China now owns America, it’s got all their money, and it’s going to be using it to buy all the energy that none of us will be able to afford in the future. It’s also suffering from largely unreported flooding on a massive scale caused by freak weather patterns that have hit all over Asia from Pakistan to Thailand. So I’m going to enjoy that the fantasy for a while that its leaders will put two and two together and play a poker hand that will make us all pay for the true cost of our energy.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-3422148076039596142010-11-21T11:25:00.000+00:002010-11-21T11:25:00.148+00:00Five Star ExperienceWhen I was a tour guide I was perpetually jumping on and off planes. I fantasised that I was a travelling business man, occasionally getting an upgrade to business class and even more occasionally staying in a nice hotel. I dreamed that my company, instead of being a tight fisted tour operator, was a multinational sending me for important meetings, to be had in half whispered voices over gin and tonics in hotel lobbies.<br /><br />Just recently Vinesh of Fathopes Biodiesel invited us to stay at the five star G-Tower Hotel while we were in KL, and as the hotel director, Melissa, gave us a “room orientation” explaining all the hi-tech features that made this tailored to the business user, I started rekindling those fantasies of being business man away from home.<br /><br />The hotel is “green” she tells me, the hot tap water is warmed by the air conditioners’ waste heat, the terrace decking is made of rice husks, and it has fibre optic internet cable, saving on copper. There are lots more slightly lacklustre but well intentioned green initiatives which are enough to catapult this into the position of the greenest hotel in KL.<br /><br />Sustainability is a radically new concept in oil-rich Malaysia, and everywhere the truck goes it’s met with enthusiastic curiosity. We are invited to park in front of the lobby of the hotel, despite the vent from the compost toilet being fully engaged in blowing out an atrocious movement from a few days back. Their reverence doesn’t wane as we lollop in our flipflops through reception and the concierge asks us all about the oil conversion system without coughing as the idling exhaust engulfs him.<br /><br />I’ve never felt more like a hippy, and because I’m so out of place, I enjoy the hospitality and attention all the more. In the room I play with the telly, test the shower, fiddle with the stereo, sniff the mint shampoo and accidentally call room service when I sit on the phone.<br /><br />A toilet TV has been installed so business travellers don’t need to miss a second of CNBC, but by the time I discover it I don’t have the enthusiasm to try it out. The next day my feelings about the hotel have darkened to match the stained reclaimed hardwood interior.<br /><br />It’s not home. My home is in the parking lot downstairs. The aircon has given me a cold, and all the soft towels, mini-bar peanuts and sky-rise infinity swimming pools can’t make up for the fact that I’d prefer to be in my truck parked up in the Perdana Lake Gardens of KL, surrounded by the Orchid and Butterfly parks.<br /><br />Overnight my envy at the first class business traveller has evaporated. Their beleaguered lonely faces at breakfast say it all. No longer does fawning staff, delightfully wrapped salmon vol-au-vents, or fresh bathrobes come close to compensating them for the fact they aren’t at home either.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-2612285956191662472010-11-21T10:22:00.000+00:002010-11-21T10:23:07.802+00:00Small Town Boy.While I take all the credit for this exciting expedition’s success or failure, the truth is that it has much more to do with the people I meet who either help me or don’t.<br /><br />Once again been reminded of the good will this colourful bus generates and the importance of that for making this trip a success. It’s not the first time. In Dorset, Adrian gave up his weekends to crawl around the mud fitting parts for the engine conversion system. In Iran, Sammy took me in, acted as my cultural and language translator, and with Hamid scoured Tehran to find a solution to my oil crisis. In India, Prateek, my lawyer put up with my petulant fits, patiently helping me fight the forces of law and disorder, while Avi and the community of paraglider pilots in Kamshet adopted me and soothed my anger with their friendship.<br /><br />In Delhi, Gurjit hosted me in his home while his mechanics pimped the bus back to life and made it liveable. That’s not to mention the people that have donated fuel, and time to help fix the bus, or the countless people that have waved and cheered the bus along the road, perhaps recognising it from the newspapers or just buoyed by its lively paintjob.<br /><br />The day after we arrived in Malayasia with the bus battered from its shipping ordeal, we limped up to a garage. Big and well run I was sure this workshop could fix the bus’ problems; A growling wheel bearing, seized callipers, engine, gearbox and diff oil overdue for a change, a dead battery, and a host of electrical problems caused by a rat/mouse that continues to chew through new wires every evening. But I was also pretty sure that it would be an expensive garage bill. Gone are the days of cheap Indian roadside mechanics that can rebuild engines for a few dollars, but hopefully gone also with them are the days of repairs that last only as far as the next mechanic.<br /><br />I was resigned to bite the bullet on the repair costs, but within minutes of arriving they had the story out of me; driving around the world, living in the bus, built it myself with the help of friends, run it on vegetable oil. Soon word had gone up the management chain of command to the boss who decreed that the work on the bus would be free of charge.<br /><br />The next morning a couple of journalists woke us with the news that we were to have traditional Birds Nest Soup hosted by a local politician. We dressed and just before the big arrival, Jason the kindly owner of the workshop introduced himself and insisted on whisking us away for breakfast. It took a while to realise that as well as running the garage Jason also ran the Bird’s Nest restaurant, and the penny dropped that he was the local politician. The busy restaurant was full of journalists he’d invited for the press conference he’d arranged, and without even trying we’d kick started our Malaysian publicity campaign. On hearing about Christina and me recently getting together, he showered us with pink champagne to celebrate and offered me cigars and pledged a big meal that evening.<br /><br />Jason owns a number of business employing 2000 people in a village with a population of 10,000. As we ate piles of crab and shrimps that evening, he passed me a fold of notes, “To help you enjoy Malaysia” he explained as I looked down too bemused by the significant wad of cash to show my gratitude.<br /><br />The work on the bus continued for 4 days, any spare part I wanted was ordered, delivered and professionally fitted. The workshop guys bought us lunches and we traded T-shirts like World Cup players. As the newspapers carried our story, more interested in the round-the-world adventure than the environmental aspect, customers at the garage recognised us and they too bought us more lunches. We posed for countless camera-phone pictures while hiding any hint of indigestion.<br /><br />I thought it was a fair assumption that in the same way as Star Fruit isn’t really made of stars, Bird’s Nest soup got its name from looking a bit like a nest. On the second day we got a tour of one of Jason’s aviaries where they farm the nests, and the factory where they are picked clean with tweezers. On the final day we noticed on the menu that a bowl of the soup sells for US$20. 1kg of nest is worth two thousand dollars. Under Jason’s hospitality we’d been casually munching it down like cornflakes.<br /><br />Jason sat back after his last mouthful. “I love this village” he beamed contentedly, his mother looking on from behind the restaurant counter, his brother busily texting on his iPhone across the table. To someone passing through it would be hard to see the charm of Gelang Patah, a little industrial village on the edge of Malaysia, 15 minutes from the Singapore border. But it has a village feel with an uncannily close knit community. A friend of one mechanic heard I had a bike on the back of the bus and turned up unannounced to service it, while another took a screwdriver to my amplifier tuning the equaliser of the solar disco after hearing it distort.<br /><br />In the UK I guard my privacy jealously. But the further I get from Europe the more inappropriate it seems to try to mind my own business. People walk in and out of the truck to have a look as if it’s a bus stop, catching me in my pants or picking my nose. I’m asked personal questions about my finances, relationships, even how I shit. But I’ve grown to understand the value of sharing yourself with the strangers around you, especially in small towns. It lets me join the community albeit briefly.<br /><br />One thing that Jason and all the other people who have helped me have in common is that they love their homes, and have no yearning to travel, yet seem to have this admiration for those that do. This contradiction has been a mystery to me, but perhaps I’m getting closer to understanding it. While I’m ambitiously trying to understand how the whole world is put together, they are on a similar quest to learn the intimacies of their local world. Astutely knowing their way around their community, these amazing hosts are able and enthusiastic to show them off in its best light to strangers.<br /><br />Another trait which confused me was the disinterest in the gifts I’ve left as a thank you. And here again I’m getting even closer to understanding. Their help hasn’t been offered in exchange for gifts, business contacts, or the publicity the truck can bring them, but it’s offered for the opportunity to be part something exciting that’s come to their town, and above all for the exchange of friendship with the new exciting people that have stopped at their door. I’m lucky to have met these amazing friends and have this network dotted around the world. The only regret is that I the friendships are short lived. Our paths are unlikely to cross again once I leave their worlds. The only solution I can think of is that sooner or later I will settle into a little world of my own. Seeing Jason’s contented smile as he announced his love of Gelang Patah made me feel that perhaps I could really enjoy that same feeling too, and when I do, it will be my turn to host intriguing strangers with birds’ nests of my own.<br /><br />“Glad to be able to help you on your way” said Jason’s SMS text message as we pulled away.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-90462646021472362662010-11-02T02:49:00.001+00:002010-11-02T02:52:38.727+00:00On the Bus - by Christina Ammon<p>Until last night, I’d never given much thought to shipping containers. And if it weren’t for Andy’s Biotruck I don’t think I ever would. But yesterday the Biotruck arrived at the port of Tanjun Pelibas, Malaysia after an extended and inadvertent tour of Southeast Asia. We’d been long been awaiting this day, especially Andy, who had no idea when he loaded it on the ship in Calcutta that a series of miscommunications would result in it being lost at sea for over two months.</p> <p>We arrived at the shipping yard early, cleared security, and embarked on a series of proceedings that would keep us there until after midnight. Unloading the container from the ship, the bus from the container, and ushering the bus through customs was No Small Deal and gave me about 15 hours to soak up the ambiance of the port.</p> <p>It was hard to get comfortable there. The container yard employed a pretty much all-male force, and I was troubled that it was That Time of the Month and there was no one around to empathize with my cramps, much less bum a feminine product off of. It was really hot there and–except for the oily unloading dock–there was really no place to sit, or anything to eat, or read, or do. I’m happy to concede that the problem might be mine—that maybe I just don’t have sufficient curiosity to appreciate a container yard. But it reminded me of a sensation I had on some of my in elementary school field trips to sewage plants or recycle centers: I was learning something for sure, but only sluggishly.</p> <p>I just wish my friend Jeanine had been there. I know that the same forklifts that were freaking me out as they barreled around the corner of the warehouse would give her the hugest thrill. She’d ask a million questions and revel in all the irritating loud noises of the port: the reverse beepers and belching trucks, the screeching automated doors. I, on the other hand, just can’t relate.</p> <p>But just because I can’t relate to the shipping port, doesn’t mean it doesn’t relate to me. In fact, as I was watching the huge cranes raise and lower the containers against the skyline, it occurred to me that many, if not most, of the products I consume come through places just like this, that what I was witnessing was a behind-the-scenes look at global consumerism.</p> <p>Maersk was the container company that was sponsoring the expedition by shipping Andy’s truck between continents. One of the nice things about Maersk is that they keep scorecards that feature a CO2 dial that is based on actual volume, routes and vessels making it easier for companies to monitor their carbon emissions. According to this scorecard, Andy’s transport footprint was 1/10th of what it would be if he were driving.</p> <p>After waiting five hours for the container to be unloaded from the ship and then hauled over to the unloading dock, the real fun began. Because the Biotruck was the first private vehicle Maersk had ever delivered, there were a quiet a few snags. For one, the truck was too wide for their loading dock ramps. So the trick was this: somehow they had to get it off the container platform, which stood a few feet higher than the dock. Preventing it from toppling off the narrow ramp and crashing to the ground would take a pretty steady hand; there was only about a 4-inch margin of error. At first Andy seemed willing to give it a try. He fired up the ignition, let it idle for a few seconds, and but then turned it off again. The risk was too big.</p> <p>A team of ten stood on the loading platform scratching their heads as the sun began to go down in the Strait of Melacca. The workers hauled out wood blocks and beams and hammered together a makeshift extension to the ramp. It was a little doubtful whether wood was strong enough to support the six-ton truck, but it did widen the ramp by a few precious inches.</p> <p>Andy revved the engine and the bus lurched forward slowly. Just as the front tires sunk onto the ramp the truck bottomed out and hung like a seesaw on the edge of the container. He shifted into reverse and backed up, shredding the makeshift wood ramp.</p> <p>The workers set about rebuilding the ramp while a fork lift drove around to the back of the container and hoisted it up, tipping the platform forward so that the angle was less severe. Andy climbed back in the Biotruck and turned the key, only to find that battery was dead. They stretched a pair of jumper cables between the truck and the forklift and fired up the engine again. Andy pulled forward. The exhaust pipe peeled off the bottom with a huge ripping sound. Andy shifted back into reverse setting the front tires back onto the container.</p> <p>By now it was dark–long past dinnertime–and we puzzled together under the yellow glow of the shipyard lights. Someone had the idea to drive the forklift around to the front of the bus and hold it up by the bumper and then slowly lower it as Andy steered the bus forward</p> <p>Andy fired up he engine again and eased it forward onto the prongs of the forklift. It looked precarious, but worked, and once the forklift got out of the way, the bus came flying down the ramp. Andy floored it down the aisle of the warehouse and peeled around the corner leaving a wake of chip fat smoke. I met up with him on the other side of the building where he was pushing the bus door open with his eyes wide.</p> <p>“Let’s go save the world Christina!”</p> <p>His sarcasm had clearly returned, but I was happy to see him revitalized. His sense of mission had been flagging after the truck got lost at sea and I was discouraged when he talked about abandoning the whole idea, dismissing the entire trip a failure, and in his darkest moments, declaring the planet’s future as completely doomed. I tried my best to buoy him by making our days dynamic and busy. I scheduled a compulsory boat ride through the Melaka canals, and prodded him through the night markets to ogle all the cool trinkets–childhood toys like slinkies and sidewalk pops. While he played along, even lit up when I purchased two wire head-scatchers, somehow all the plastic-y tourist kitsch was only make him feel worse about the world. Even the man who held a crowed captive as he pierced his index finger right through a coconut was not enough to impress him.</p> <p>Andy just grew increasingly despondent and rhetorical: <em>Why bother? What’s the point?</em></p> <p>I’ll admit I was starting to have trouble myself. Reports of crisp nights and crackling woodstoves had me longing for home, longing to escape the weighty humidity of Asia and walk under the big leaf maples of the ditch trail that I was sure by now were turning yellow. Despite my ability to derive contentment from the smallest things—afternoon coffees and little walks– lounging on Facebook in cheap hotel rooms was not exactly my idea of an Expedition. My own disappointment was starting to mount.</p> <p>I climbed down from the unloading dock and stepped up into the Biotruck to join Andy. After two months at sea, it was full of mouse turds and the dank smell of neglect, but for now we were just happy to be driving it away from the shipping yard it into the long dark. Behind us the huge cranes lit the horizon, facilitating the nonstop work of importing and exporting freight containers and enabling to the massive global transactions that make the world’s economies spin.</p> <p>The next day we’d strip the sheets off, take them to the laundry, and procure cleaning supplies. We’d fire up the solar disco and get to scrubbing. There was a lot to do: We had a Biotruck to resuscitate, our idealism to reclaim.</p> <p><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/flyinghobogirl/Container?authkey=Gv1sRgCPO-ooDi95KuXA#">Click here for photos</a></p>Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-29189503520750150522010-10-17T04:54:00.002+01:002010-10-17T05:01:24.368+01:00And Another Thing IIIf you think of the “environment” or let’s take a more specific example, the atmosphere, as a space in which we can store our pollution, the by-products of our consumption, then it’s easy to imagine it as a resource. Like a resource it's finite, keep putting things into the space and one day it will be full.<br /><br />During this journey from the wealthiest countries in the world (UK, France, Switzerland), to the poorest (Nepal, India), I’ve become more convinced that the way we exploit our environment is just another facet of the global social injustice that has dogged the way this planet is governed since colonial times.<br /><br />For over a century, richer countries have exploited the earth’s resources, providing a comfortable quality of life for their citizens at a disproportionate cost to the citizens of poorer countries. The exploitation of energy, oil, coal, mineral resources, timber, food crops, cotton, and more, has on the whole benefited the wealthy foreigners exploiting the commodity more than the country whose soil yields it.<br /><br />So it is with the pollution-storing-environment resource. The beneficiaries who are fully exploiting this resource are the highly consumptive rich nations, who need a lot of rivers, sea, landfills and atmosphere to store the waste their high quality of life produces, and they are getting this globally shared resource for a knock down price. Free.<br /><br />In the case of space to put the CO2 produced by energy consumption, the US and Europe has had more than 200 years of free rein, burning first their own forests to fuel the industrial revolution, then global coal and now oil reserves. And the situation continues to be exploited unevenly. The quality of each life in the US is using up that storage space over 3 times faster than the quality of each life in India.<br /><br />And the impact of overusing this CO2 storage will be paid by developing countries. Climate change associated to manmade activities will impact the tropical countries most, where weather patterns are more susceptible to changes, and it will impact agricultural economies that rely on predictable climate to grow crops to feed themselves and earn foreign exchange with which they can give themselves a decent quality of life. Poor developing countries, not by accident, are almost always tropical and agricultural.<br /><br />“Saving the Environment” is a confusing way of phrasing the problem. Firstly it distances people from the problem. A head teacher in India while congratulating me on this expedition told me “It’s great what you are doing. I love the environment, trees and all that, it would be a shame if we lost it all.” as though the environment is a nice-to-have bonus, something pretty to look at on the drive to work. Secondly it obfuscates the fact that it is humanity that will suffer not the trees. The jet stream will still blow (though no one knows for sure where), clouds will still form at the top of thermal columns of air, wildlife, animals and plants will quietly uncomplainingly adapt, migrate, evolve or die out.<br /><br />And humans will have to adapt, migrate, evolve or die out too. The ones best suited to adapting and migrating will be the rich ones. The ones without the money or the liberty to move freely around the planet will face the choice between evolving, and where that’s not possible, dying out.<br /><br />So once again a valuable resource is being disproportionately exploited by people in wealthy nations, leaving a disproportionately high cost for people in poor nations.<br /><br />I’m becoming more convinced that the mechanism for “Saving the environment” is universally linked to creating global social justice in the world. The two things are mutually dependent. In order to responsibly manage the pollution-storage-space environment there has to be social justice, and managing the environment will prevent social injustice.<br /><br />Equal education, equal access to healthcare and equal access to global resources. But seeing as we can’t even eradicate poverty in the world I really don’t think we have any chance. Thank god I’m not a poor Indian.<br /><br />People criticise the environmental credentials of this journey, sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly. I’m bored of having the same discussions and clarifying confusions about “Biofuels: good or bad?” or “The Environmental Impact of Container Ships”. There’s a bigger point. Living in the UK and especially London, it’s impossible to escape wasteful consumption and being a “valuable member of society” (which actually means working somewhere in the industrialised cycle of turning resources into commodities and delivering them to consumers – and is presumably opposed to being a worthless member of society). By taking to the road and escaping that cycle by living in a truck, I believe, means I am contributing more towards creating a socially just world and therefore helping reduce the CO2 I’m responsible to an even greater degree than the act of running my bus on waste oils. A consumptive lifestyle, complicity with unfair resource exploitation is the root cause of a carbon intensive lifestyle and the fuel I put in my truck is only part of the picture.<br /><br />In an interview this week I was asked what people can do to help the environment and I said, “I don’t know, they have to figure it out for themselves.” I’m not a role model with easy pithy consumable answers, and if I said they have to quit their jobs, let all their hire-purchase electronics be repossessed, move out of the city and plant tomatoes, most people would understandably think I’m even more of a naive idealist idiot than they already do.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-29664297444894100542010-10-15T07:13:00.000+01:002010-10-15T05:14:27.846+01:00Writing ConspiracyI have been complicit in a conspiracy.<br /><br />This week I attended the Ubud Writers and Readers conference. Ubud is Bali’s answer to Glastonbury and Brighton. More yoga centres and organic buddhas that you can shake an Ayurvedic bush at. The writers festival was largely attended by readers, typically Australian women of a certain age, and in many cases a certain size, anxious to rub shoulders with their favourite authors. The atmosphere of divorcees on holiday with their girlfriends, enjoying their new found HRT-stoked freedom to express and be creative, infected the halls with a joyous vigour. Even the glibness of sunglassed authorrs weren't enough to quell the spirit.<br /><br />I for my part had volunteered to get a free pass, avoiding the $350 ticket price, in exchange for helping out by setting up projectors at some of the presentations. Luckily for me, none of the workshops I had been allocated to, (How to write erotic fiction, How to read erotic fiction, and How to buy erotic fiction) needed to be enhanced with the use of a PowerPoint presentation. So aside from the extra shifts I helped out with, I really had nothing to do but pick the seminars I wanted to attend.<br /><br />Along with my free pass I was also clutching a secret agenda. The idea of writing a book about my adventure is taking hold and this I figured would be a good place to figure out how to write a book and schmooze with publishers and agents.<br /><br />I can safely say that the knowledge i need to write the erotic sections of the book I now have safely covered, but as for the rest of it I’m still hugely confused. The process of getting an agent and submitting to a publisher is a little less vague, and the faces and names of potential contacts might be one degree of separation closer now, but I only realised what the big question I wanted answering was at the end of the final session.<br /><br />Daniel DeCruz, an Australian author who has written a runaway best seller about teenagers screwing and taking drugs in some party town down under (I forget where), was asked if he’d made any money from his book.<br /><br />“A little bit.” He answered meekly.<br /><br />So my question surfaced just as the moderator thanked everyone and drew the conference to a close. For a moment the burning urge to halt the ending and shout my question to the stage came close to overwhelming me, but instead I joined the conspiracy of silence that I realised all the other aspiring authors were complicit in from the start.<br /><br />My question would have been; “So how do you sit at a computer day after day, without earning a penny, for months on end, knowing that you have maybe a 5% chance of getting anything but rejections letters back from publishers, and that if your book does get published and miraculously becomes a runaway success you might make ‘a little bit’ for all your efforts?”<br /><br />I shared this with Christina who is in the throes of writing her first book, and she too realised this was also the question she’d been wanting answered all along. After the festival, she posed it to her editor on a skype call. The answer of course was obvious.<br /><br />“Don’t ask that question Christina, ever.”Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-82844870803627742102010-10-15T06:11:00.000+01:002010-10-15T06:11:00.227+01:00The Essence of YogaYou’re no one in Ubud if you don’t do Yoga. Sadly I’m a yoga-phobe, afflicted by the fear of Yoga after a traumatic experience the first time I tried it. I’m going to share this horrific moment with you on my blog for the first time ever, in the hope that it will help me overcome my fear.<br /><br />The first time I went to Yoga was with a housemate Chiara from Kentish Town. She convinced me that it was amazing and that I would see the light, so I pulled on my tracksuit and trainers and off we went to the community centre around the corner.<br /><br />The instructor was tall and thin, with a voice that seemed theatrically soft, and a 1000-yard stare that looked beyond me as he welcomed me into his class with hands clenched in prayer. I instantly recognised these characteristics as that of a heavy stoner, which reduced my anxiety about the impending effort of exercise I’d been dreading. Much later I would learn this was actually the gaze and stance of the enlightened.<br /><br />And so we took our places on the mats and started lifting our hands, bending over, lying down and various combinations of these poses; Lying down with our hands up, bending over while lying down, and lifting our hands while bent over. I looked across at Chiara to share a smirk at our inability and gracelessness, only to see a look of total concentration had taken over her face and furrowed her brow.<br /><br />Starved of an accomplice with whom to snigger I too turned my attention to breathing and bending. Plank to Cobra, Namaste Hands and Mountain Pose. But after a just few moments of these body folds and exhalations, a new preoccupation descended on me. With my buttocks raised in the air while bending, lying and lifting my hands I felt a fart wrestling its way through my bowls on its way to the surface. I clenched down firmly on my coccyx, imagining the shock and condemnation Chiara and the teacher would give me if I let one fly in the midst of this sacred workout.<br /><br />For a few moments I soldiered on, holding back the gaseous floodgates. Wincing with all my might in Warrior Two, Downward Dog and Lunge, I held on, but my grip was loosening, and I knew it was just a matter of time. Finally as I went from Cat to Cow there was nothing I could do and out it came. Like a trumpet fanfare at a jousting contest, the pitch changing musically as I arched my back, the noise filled the room, drowning out the earnest sounds of nasal inhalations. My eyes shot left and right looking for an escape, perhaps there would be enough confusion over its origins if I played it cool.<br /><br />“Good Andy” said the instructor soothingly, quelling any doubt the noises origins. “Your body is expelling negative energy.”<br /><br />‘Huh? What?’ I thought, my blush fading as Chiara confirmed the acceptability of my fart with a sweet smile that would have been just as appropriate if I had offered her a bite of my chocolate ice cream. ‘It’s Ok to fart? Well thank God for that,’ I mused, ‘cos there’s more itching to come out’.<br /><br />Over the next few moves I relaxed my sphincter into the poses and emitted the ripest of peaches into the shared atmosphere of the hall, contented and calmed by the satisfaction that I was really overcoming my western inhibitions in the pursuit of Yogic truth. To hold back, after all, was to hold on to negative energy, anti-zen, yang, or was it ying, whichever the black one was.<br /><br />The first few screamers were met with sympathetic and knowing smiles by the other students, but as the smell started to take hold, and the flow of my bad chi showed no sign of abating, resignation and then irritation took hold of the facial expressions around me. Even the instructor’s calm voice started to crack with irritation as my negative essences reached the front of the room and overpowered the essential oil burner.<br /><br />Chiara shot me a glare of disapproval, which I misread as concern, so I responded with a gaze of serene profundity, to reassure her that I was sincerely bubbling my way towards enlightenment.<br /><br />By the time I had expelled all my negative life-force the hall had a hum of natural spirit to it which was making even me wince. The instructor, unable to open the security locks on the windows, decided to end the class early and was obliged to part refund the other students. I was relieved the bending and lying down had come to an end, because as well as draining my internal chakras, I’d also worked up quite a sweat and my muscles were ready to give up.<br /><br />Chiara didn’t speak to me for the walk home and in the wake of her admonishment I’ve never been able to face Yoga again.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541932556883007970.post-55649220185592845022010-10-15T05:07:00.000+01:002010-10-15T05:11:01.165+01:00LaunchFrom the minute I put the glider bag on my back I’m tasting every one of its sensations. The coarseness of the shoulder straps, the weight pushing down on my back, the extra burn in my thighs on the steps up to launch. Under a heightened tone of quelled excitement everything slows enough to be savoured. I unfold the upside down wing onto the ground, reaching in to grab a wing-tip, feeling the crispy fabric in my fingers and the promise of flight my mind associates with its texture. Stepping backwards, the white underside reveals itself to me and the sky as it unconcertinas out, bold and proud, unashamed of the space it needs. I spread out the other side and wings full scale spikes my anticipation.<br /><br />My hand slips around the end of the lines, where they are connected to the stitched woven risers that will clip into my harness. Their reassuring strength is rough against my bare fingers. One at a time I clear the lines, untangling them with gentle pulls, or quick jerks, a tinge of pleasure coming from my familiarity with the deft task of judging how to deal with each knot in turn.<br /><br />To prepare the wing for launch I have to stretch it out fully above the ground, like a kite, and check the lines while it flies. I reach through the collection of coloured lines, grabbing the appropriate ones in each hand, sitting familiarly in between my fingers.<br /><br />During the launch my right hand will pull the glider up into the air, and I’ll fight to hold my ground against its pull. This is the hand that joins the glider and wind’s conspiracy against me. They will tug me when the wind is strong and I will have to yank them when it’s weak. My left hand is the rein with which I tame the dragon spirit of the wing’s unruly behaviour. It steers, and slows the glider’s eagerness, and when I am caught out or off balance it will save me by killing the wing back to the ground.<br /><br />The air on the back of my neck guides me to wait for the right cycle of the breeze, just a gust is all I need for now, a few seconds worth. As it comes I start the puppeteering and the openings at the front of the wing catch the breeze, rising, unevenly pulling open adjacent cells, accelerating skywards like leaping salmon vying with each other. The wing stretches out its folds as air snakes sideways in-between the double skin inflating it to form its aerofoil shape. As soon as it’s lifted just clear of the earth and fully unfolded I’m resisting its strong pull, already putting pressure into the reins to hold it and leaning back from it. I scan the fabric, brightness filling my retina, but I’m looking for the lines, each one even and spaced, ordered and un-knotted. The wing’s ready and wants to fly. I’m awed by the thought of this, and have to fight the excitement as much as the wind. I pull in with my rein fully to bring it back down to earth, conceding a step towards it’s pull as it nestles into a neat arc on the ground with the cells all evenly open ready to catch the wind when launching.<br /><br />I push my hips forwards bringing the caribiner of my harness closer to the lines and clip in with a satisfying click. “You are now the pilot in command of this aircraft”, the distant echo of a voice from my first flight still sends shivers of pride through me as I do this. I loop my hands through the brake handles that I will use after the launch when I’m in flight, and those words feel even more genuine now after a year of flying. I attach the speed bar connections checking they are free, double check my buckles and look at the wing, still in its arc wrapped around me, the leading edge raised into the breeze, the open cells quivering with readiness. <br /><br />I’m fighting the urge to go now. I’m seconds away from being in the air. The launch will take less than 5 seconds if timed and executed right, but I have to tame the eagerness and pick the right moment or it won’t lift cleanly and I’ll have to abort or risk a dangerous launch.<br />I nestle myself in the centre of the open wing, breathe, smelling the humidity in the air, and wait for the wind’s cycle to start. The breeze comes and goes and as I feel it rising again I seize the moment and pull to lift the wing, slowly at first, but quickly responding to my touch. With the reins I hold back the speed, stepping into the pull, reducing the pressure, balancing position, velocity, force. My eyes scour for clues of how the wing might chose to misbehave, but any visible signs are pre-empted by my harness’s grip on my shoulder straps telling me to sidestep under the shifting centre.<br /><br />The glow of knowing its going according to expectation flashes behind my concentration.<br /><br />The wing is open, off the ground, perfectly curved and rising. I add some pressure to the reins, fighting its urge over shoot. Only in the air can the wing adopt its natural state, smooth, un-creased, a curved shape that is only true to itself in the freedom of the sky. As its pull on my body becomes more vertical than horizontal I release both hands, and pull gently on the handles looped around my wrists, my thumb and fingers open so they can’t slip out. This is the moment when flying takes over from standing; even though I’m still on the ground my weight is now shifting from the ground to the air. I’m entering the sky.<br /><br />The wing is overhead now. My eyes are looking up, but my concentration is listening the sensations of my body, arms and legs. I spin to face the cliff edge ducking the lines as I turn, stepping towards the ground’s end at the same time, playing with the force of the lines, my speed towards the edge, and the distance before the abyss. I’m sending my weight forwards, towards the drop, committed, pushing towards it, accelerating, sure that speed is now more important to me than the ground under my boots. In two steps my heaving paces have become a smooth fast run oblivious to the discomfort of the leg straps pulling me up into the harness. Against my legs’ push the final release from the ground take the last ounces of my weight from my the soles of my feet and I swing back weightlessly into the harness as the earth’s edge glides past below me and I’m in the air, flying.Andy Paghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02530441275491678452noreply@blogger.com1