A Funny Old Day

It had been a funny old day. I laid there in Johor Baru, Malaysia, recovering from the three hour drive from Kuala Lumpur. A friend had, very kindly, put us up for the night. We, my Chinese saviour and I, brought down the Khmer paintings and drawings we are hoping to exhibit at the October exhibition of Khmer art to accompany the re-launch of my book 'A Story of Colors of Cambodia'.

Smoothly eloquent Steven Fry entertained us from the car's CD player, making me realise how under par my writing really is, and how I really should not bother to express myself in the English language. Nonetheless, secondary school boy or not, I traversed that sun-threatened highway all the way down to the very tip of peninsula Malaysia, caught in a literary bemusement with high hopes and balmy,  if not barmy dreams.

Upon our arrival, kind hands aided the transportation of paintings and drawings from the SUV, making our work so much lighter, and stacking those products of industrious Cambodian chidren in our friends’ brand spanking new office. There were heavy sighs of relief on task completion, and hasty talk of Bak Kut teh (pork stewed in Chinese tea) in the town of Johor Baru. A reward for all our labours.

Pig's intestines, stomach,  ribs all floated, or sank, in a Chinese herbal soup. Long, fried, Chinese donuts (Char Kway) were chopped and took the place of croutons in the porcine stew. Participants (6) tucked in, further flavouring their chosen morsels with a mixture of soy sauce, raw, chopped garlic and chopped ferocious chillies. It was an epicurean delight marred only slightly by a thin soup.

The promised dessert never materialised. I went to bed heaving sighs and having images of black glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk swimming before my gluttonous eyes. Malaysia is THE place for desserts, but none were to come my way that night.

The next morning's early start never materialised. Sleepily, we trundled back (uphill) the 3 hours 22 mins and 330.4 kilometers to Puchong, to catch the telecom guys in time to install our fibreoptic internet. Within minutes all was very well. Holes were drilled and cables laid. Our broadband was duly installed,  with thanks to the diligent workers. Thus I no longer have to rely on my mobile data at home for news and reviews. You cannot see it, but I smile as I write.

A Moving Story

Moving house is a trial obviously invented in one of the innermost circles of Hades. It is meant to torture we mere mortals for all eternity.

When moving house, normally placid tempers become frayed,  not mine as mine is constantly frayed, tireless people become tired and tiresome and legions of previously undisturbed dust mites dance merry dances to irritate further, already irritated sinus.

In Malaysia, folklore has it that there are tiny magical creatures called Toyol. Those creatures steal anything shiny, or valuable, and no doubt have a grand old time when humans decide to move home. Toyol puloin just about anything during packing, transporting and unpacking from one place to another regardless of the items value.

Combs, always to hand, go irretrievably missing. Could the old cliche of the single sock and the missing matching pillowcase, also be down to Toyol, one wonders.

Moving house is one of the most stressful life events,  according to psychologists. I can attest to that. During moving, life is turned upside down, or is that down side up. It's difficult to tell when you life is in boxes and unlabelled bags. Then there is the physical exertion, something I loathe, and the waiting, the endless waiting for services, lorries and goods. There is the constant nagging doubt of insecurity and, of course, the expense. Only minions of Hades would devise a torture which you pay for yourself.

Oh there are joys.  There is the joy of finding that article which you swore others had lost, and the continuing guilt of that knowledge.  There is the joy of seeing your previous abode suddenly become very attractive without all your furniture. It is the very same furniture you have just moved into your new dwelling, making that seem less attractive. 

There are joys to be found in hard labour, or so I am informed,  and the joys of a job well done.

Moving home may be a necessary evil. Yet at this precise moment, with my internet connection in one place and my office, and home, in boxes, I long for the gentle quiet of a less turbulent, perhaps even static,  existence.

Eating Catalonia

Dali was absent, nevertheless it was still exciting to be sleeping in the room he always stayed in (room 101) when visiting Hotel Duran, in Figueres, Spain. Those two weeks in Hotel Duran were time well spent and extremely memorable for us as my artist wife was using the room as a temporary art studio. Her exhibition was later to be hung at the cafe/restaurant Dalicatessen, in Figueres, known for its speciality of anchovies from Roses on the Catalan coast. 

The Durans had been great friends of Salvador Dali, schoolmates, friends and patient chefs too, acceding to Dali’s often eccentric tastes in both food and art materials. Rumour has it that as well as ordering a variety of birds to feast upon - thrushes, larks and terns, Dali once ordered an octopus, but not for eating - for use as a brush for painting. Another gem tells that Dali was in the habit of drawing on the hotel’s tablecloths, which were subsequently sent for laundering. You might wonder just how many millions of Euros those tablecloths could be worth on the current art markets of the world if they had been saved from laundering.

In Figueres nearly everything is Dali. The town has made great use of its connection to that great Surrealist painter, especially after Dali made inroads to construct his teatro museo de salvador dali (Dalí Theatre and Museum) there, in 1974. At times the sheer weight of commercialism does tend to cloy. You can only see so many badly made Dali watches (as key rings) or buy so many posters of his work before the excitement wears off. But, and there is a big but, when you come face to face with his actual works (in the Museum) you are frequently awestruck. Well, I was, and that does not happen to many times these days.

Hotel Duran was a sheer delight. Yes, the hotel did make its connection to Salvador Dali clear, but in an understated, subtle way. Photos on the wall showed generations of Durans with Dali, or Dali and his classmates both at school and at the art school in Madrid. Other photos were of Gala and Dali, but they were all outdone by original Dali lithographs hanging in reception and all dinning areas of that hotel. Hotel Duran is a treasure trove for lovers of Dali’s work and, incidentally provides some of the best accommodation and food to be found in Figueres, as we (my Dali struck wife and I) were to discover on the last night.

Breakfast at the hotel was the usual European fare, with lashings of cold meats and cheeses, not to mention gallons of Nespresso coffee to wash down the rolls, croissants and chocolate croissants. Tea infusions nestled against each other for comfort and the odd pyramid of Lipton’s Earl Grey tea waited for this odd Englishman to purloin. We never lunched at the hotel. Daylight meant us traipsing off to Cadaques, Port Lligat, Roses, Girona, L’Escala or Besalu (a medieval Spanish town famed for its Romanesque bridge).

Lunch was grabbed on the fly, and where we could, along bus or train routes. Sometimes it was green tea with fresh orange drink and later gelato ice cream (an Italian import) in Girona. There was zarzuela (Catalan fish stew) in Roses, washed down with sangria, after visiting a local famers’ market and buying chorizo (Spanish sausage). Other times Middle-Eastern cous cous in Cadaques, taken down some ancient lane laden with bougainvillea, accompanied by Damm Lemon 6-4 (cold lemon cerveza - the Spanish equivalent of British shandy), or simply gazpacho (cold, spicy, tomato soup) taken with local Catalan bread smeared with garlic and rubbed with tomatoes in the Spanish way, while we were on our way.

Generally we steered clear of the tapas bars. Tapas (Spanish appetisers similar to the Middle Eastern mezze or Hong Kong Dim Sum) are a great way to sample Spanish food, but are renowned for cost, not per single dish but as an accumulation over the evening, like in Sushi bars. Tapas simply was not in our meagre budget, travelling, as we were, from the Far East and having to convert from Malaysian Ringgit to the more expensive Euro.

We made plans to meet up with Hotel Duran owner Lluis and his beautiful and most charming wife Joaquina, for dinner, on our final evening at Hotel Duran. Admittedly I had fantastic notions of being served the head and feet of terns, or sea urchins, thrushes, if in season of course, and finished off with garnatcha, which is a sweet local wine. The actuality of that meal was no less fantastic than my imagination had been moments beforehand. 

It was Hotel Duran’s Degustation Menu - a careful, appreciative tasting of various foods and focusing on the gustatory system, the senses, high culinary art and good company (according to Wikipedia). The wine was rioja, not garnatcha, but local and tasty. The appetiser was gin and tonic iced lime foam, which immediately send me back to my pre-hippy days a young mod pretending to be all Ray Davies and ultra sophisticated. I had been introduced to frozen margaritas, in Cambodia, by one wealthy American and here was being introduced to a frozen G & T by a wealthy Spaniard - is there a connection between wealth and frozen alcohol, I idly wondered. That drink of fantasy and memories came accompanied by a cracker (biscuit), brandishing cold meat, foie-gras and one troublesome small fried egg. Why was the egg troublesome? I stared and stared and thought - how on earth did they manage to reduce that egg in size, then it hit me - it was a fried quail egg, duh!

The salad was a carpaccio of wild mushrooms, local prawns and mixed lettuce in black truffle oil, wrapped with toasted bread. The soup was cold. It was meant to be cold, and green, with leaves of lettuce shredded, almonds and paper-thin baked wraps to dip into the soup. The fish dish was wild fish grilled to perfection, as opposed to tame fish perhaps, with steamed cauliflower, broccoli, courgette and cherry tomatoes, and the meat dish was a succulent centre steak with a buttery, creamy idiazabal (Basque) cheese sauce and scalloped potatoes, with a fruit drizzle. Just when we had surrendered, on came the dessert. An Ascot hat on a white plate appeared before me. The hat’s feathers were solidified sugar twists, its brim was three different coloured and flavoured sauces - including a freshly and properly prepared vanilla cream, while its mainstay was the tatin (jelly) of fresh fruit.

What a send off. The airline foods, on the flights back, were a pale comparison to those we experienced in Catalonia, northern Spain. But, there again we were happy to be returning to the gastronomic hub of Asia - Malaysia, home of Durian, nasi lemak and teh tarik. We flew home to the children, writing and painting, glad to be back after two weeks away in our Surrealistic fantasy, but with very fond memories of Hotel Duran and all the amazing people we met on our travels.

Who was that Masked Man

As we equatorial dwellers cough our guts up and mime curses at international smoke plumes, and I say mime because our throats are far to sore to utter said curses, some are reminded of dusty blighty, fog, smog and other hazy days.

June is a long way from November. Bonfire night, in dear Albion, is 5th November with memories of gunpowder plots and although escaping a rapid change in government ala Guido Fawkes today, in KL, it would seem that every night is bonfire night, and every day this month is bonfire day.

We not only have evenings, but days, of swirling mists, fog and smog enough to expect an Asian Spring-heeled Jack to pounce. And perhaps pounce he would if he were not also coughing up his lungs somewhere in a Kuala Lumpur gutter. So maybe that's a blessing in disguise.

Horror aficionados wait anxiously for John Carpenter’s The Fog to roll down Putrajaya, some with thoughts of seeing Jamie Lee Curtis, some just waiting to groove in the sheer mayhem, but alas and alack as yet it has not happened.

While going out into the city reminds me of glitzy, or painfully real, TV series set in hospitals, with nearly everyone wearing paper masks as if going to, or returning from, operations of a medical variety, I remember someone saying that a standard surgical mask is of little use against many environmental contaminants. Perhaps people prefer the psychological assurance, like one KLite, who yesterday faithfully wore his mask right up until the point that he needed to smoke a cigarette. Curious.

It is said that a surgical mask actually offers no protection against ozone, nitrous oxides and only some limited protection against fine particulates. A mask may prevent some pollen exposure, but to be effective it must be very tightly fitted and not removed. A N95 style mask may offer some protection against is dust, but not over long periods. Smog is curious enough without people hiding behind thin sheets of paper.

Back in the land of my birth, face masks were only popular during Halloween, and then only lately because they were seeing far too many American TV shows or, more recently for cyclists in the Big Smoke (London). In cities, certain masks might be deemed to be advantageous due to diesel and other noxious car fumes, if you are a cyclist, but probably not if you are a pedestrian. Even mask protected cyclists have to change their mask pads frequently, for them to remain effective.

I hope that this mask phase, and the smog, will clear soon and that Indonesian peat fires will be better controlled next year - if we all survive this pollution that is, and if Spring-heeled Jack, perhaps wearing a cheap paper face mask, doesn’t get us first.

Lazy Hazy Crazy Days Of Summer

It was the summer solstice and, coincidentally, the first actual day of summer here in these heat blessed lands. I had been having all sorts of weird dreams and awoke with a start. I gave up, I did, didn’t I? I’m sure I did. Then why does this place still smell of smoke.

My newly awakened brain could not cope. I struggled to come to whatever senses I still had left in my severely advanced years. I gave the last fifteen years a quick run through. Yep, I did give up. I remember all the cursing and swearing and the delusion of addiction, and distinctly remember the craving and the ‘Ok just one last one, then I will quit completely”. I also remember that I quit completely so many times that I had to quit quitting completely to enable myself to quit smoking. In my awakening state I swore that I gave up smoking and have not had a cigarette in all that time. Then why did everything smell of smoke?

‘Oh, my godlet we are on fire’. I dashed the duvet off, dived out of bed and ran through our minuscule flatlet, rebounding off the piano in the hall - because the hall is small and the piano is not. The tiny kitchen was not awash with flames, nor were the storeroom, the office/studio or the second toilet. I slid into the bedroom across not so cool tiles, again, and burst into the cupboard we laughingly call an ensuite bathroom (minus the bath of course). No fire, just a cockroach which, incidentally, also was not on fire.

I distinctly remembered that old idiom - where there’s smoke there’s fire, but I couldn’t find the fire, but the smoke was everywhere. A dingy grey haze hung over Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur. Everywhere was ‘misty’, half hidden and reeked of burning, including our tiny apartment. Online news informed that the ‘haze’ as it is officially known - not ‘that reeking bloody stink’ as some would have it, came to us courtesy of Indonesia. Thank you so much Indonesia, you may have your haze back now, we have done with it, I silently groaned. Silently, because I was alone indoors and really didn’t want to open my mouth unnecessarily, and gulp in countless atoms of scorched peat.

The smog, for that is what is really is, reminded me of those winter school days in the UK, when we would all be sent home early because of rolling, smothering smog. We prayed, or rather the more religious children prayed, the rest of us just hoped that their prayers would be answered and we wouldn’t have to commit to any religious dictatorship, that smog would come. It wasn’t that we hated school, but that we were children and preferred anything apart from school - even smog! With the later affluence of central heating the smogs died away and I escaped the motherland to bask in the equatorial sun of Kuala Lumpur. Only today there was no sun, just smog.

So that was it. My morning burning smell came with thanks to a smog caused by bloody peat forests in Sumatra. Sumatra, no less! Singapore was suffering its worse pollution levels - ever, and asthma sufferers in Malaysia have become homebound, even though without double-glazing it was rather pointless to sit indoors as the stench was insidious, and crept through doorways and window frames etc. And there was not a bloody thing I could do about it except for to blog - hence this diatribe.

Hats Off

I usually have little trouble with children. They know their place and I know mine. In rapscallion moments I have been called a ‘dinosaur’, a ‘mountain’ and things in Chinese I have not the wit to translate. Over time I have acquired a twelve year old stepson, whom I think the world of and, in my folly, I attempt to teach creative writing to a group of 11+ years olds, once a week. I also volunteer in Cambodia, frequently in schools with young children, and visit homes of impoverished Cambodian children. However, those children, no matter how monkeyish, ebullient and gibbering they appear to be at times, are not the issue here.

Some days past I was on a working holiday, in Cambodia. I was giving Art talks and reading poetry to students in Siem Reap, as well as visiting the aforementioned impoverished children who, incidentally, were all tucked away down barely beaten paths in the most rural of rural places in the Cambodian countryside. They smiled their dirty faced and most glorious of innocent smiles to me and I reciprocated, while simultaneously trying to dash coconut water from out my drowned beard - with thanks to one village parent who had organized fresh coconut juice - straight from the coconut. 

No, it was not the charming children in the rural villages, nor the insistent but nevertheless endearing children in the towns with their baby milk scams, that had me all wound up and virtually fuming at the ears, but one singular urban child. He was a Malaysian tyke whom we had brought with us. He was a jackanapes of a male child, who had, perhaps somewhat reluctantly, accompanied his mother on our saunter into heaty and dusty Cambodia.

The fun had began on the plane. The boy’s voice could be heard above all others on the silver cigar tube slicing through sufficiently fluffy clouds of South East Asia. It was heard right up to the moment of disembarking and through into customs and into the baggage hall. That unmistakable demanding and simultaneously whinny voice was no less silent while we waited for our transport to whirl us away to our hotel. Joy upon joy upon joy - we were to be staying in the same hotel, which rapidly became hot hell.

Other guests complained. The boy was given a warning to be silent at night while other guests wanted to enjoy the peace of Siem Reap and soak up the Angkor atmosphere. To no avail. I kept my distance, not wanting to be drawn into remarking upon that individual’s behaviour, unfortunately, fate decided otherwise.

Our small group went shopping in the local day market. We trundled the lanes, browsed the stalls and lit upon a stall selling material goods - T-shirts, shirts, blouses etc etc ect. Being somewhat tired due to my size in a hot country, I sought to rest on a chair opposite. My good friend was on one side of me and my wife was occupied buying goods for us both. The chair on the other side of me was empty save for my wife’s hat - exactly like mine but a tad smaller and brown. I had bought both in John Lewis before departing to live in Malaysia, eight years since at a cost of￡35 each.

The child, who was rapidly becoming someone out of a Hilaire Belloc Cautionary Tale, was continuing his obnoxious behaviour with no respite. Nerves were on the point of fraying, teeth were grinding and all thoughts of Buddhist philosophy had flown back to Angkor Wat and Bayon. The child then did something quite unimaginable. The frowning, grumpy child, awash with his own thoughts, and giving little thought for others, grabbed my wife’s hat from where it rested on the chair and threw it onto the dusty, dirty floor. Without a moment’s consideration, my right hand clipped the back of the boy’s head as my wife’s hat touched the filth of the ground.

My friend leaned across and whispered “Good, I have been wanting to do that all day”. The boy stood stock still. His lips trembled, but no sound was emitted. He stood, inwardly sobbing, for some seconds, then moved to the comfort of his mother. From behind her, he screamed at me “I’ll, I’ll, bash you”. He had not learned a lesson, but I had - not to allow myself to be in such situations with obnoxious small boys ever again. Now I have to practice Right Thought and Right Action even harder than before. My life journey continues.

The Price of a Happy Sunday

The price of a happy Sunday, in Malaysia, is exactly fourteen ringgit, that is £3.

It was a sleepy layin Sunday morning after an early morning cockroach scare which had us chasing the poor soul and beating it to death at about 1 am. The day, when it arrived, was hotter than Hell, and as bright as the Sahara. Morning tea was Lipton's instead of Earl Grey, and brunch instead of Breakfast. Despite all that minor upheaval, we (my wife and I) emerged into the punishing equatorial heat and made the decision to forgo Banana Leaf in favour of the large won tons sold at the predominately Chinese food court.

Once there and cheerfully parked under a leaning tree whose leaves gave shadow enough, and whose space was miraculously empty, the won ton soup was uninspired and insipid. The won tons themselves, once I decided not to lift them with slippery plastic chopsticks but speared them with a fork instead, were as tasty as ever, especially with the soya sauce and cut chili accompaniment. All appeared fine. Fine that is if you ignored the meal interruption by my wife’s friend who insisted to sit and chatter away in whichever Chinese dialect suited the occasion. It left me with the continuing sense of being a stranger in a very strange land, and suddenly very intent upon my meal.

The meal was paid for. It was at that very point that the cost of a happy Sunday became poignantly apparent. There was a dispute over whether change for the meal was given or not. I didn’t see one way or the other, intent as I was on taking my first food of the day. The change, yes you guessed it, was RM14 (£3).

All changed at that point. Sunny smiles and affable demeanor ceased in favour of scowls and remonstration. The waiter was challenged but chose to deny owing money. Grumbling, groaning and a great deal of frustration ensued, enough to sour what was left of the morning and threatened to extend itself into the afternoon too. I too was beginning to lose what little calm I am able to muster these days, due perhaps to increasing heat outside and a form of moroseness which seems to come with advancing years. Though, in my defense, I am nowhere near as bad as a certain British jazz/rock drummer, once famous for Toad, and who one is asked to beware of.

But as the day progressed, to quote the Bard of Avon, ‘All Well that Ends Well’ and, in time, the triviality of the small theft was put aside, yet the darkened clouds remained for a little while after as poorly exercised mindfulness took its own sweet time to develop for right thought to emerge triumphant over wrong.