A Week of Banter in Bali

Sunday 19th March 2017

After two days spent surfing the polluted waves of Kuta Beach, I headed north to the town of Seminyak and checked into Capsule Hostel, which at the time was the highest rated backpacker accommodation on the whole of Bali. Entering my assigned dorm I could have been mistaken for sneaking backstage at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. In a fully-booked room of twelve beds I was the only penis present and, as I unpacked my dirty laundry, girls came in and out of the showers wrapped in nothing but towels. Girls pranced around in sexy lingerie whilst doing their make-up in the mirror. Girls stood around stark naked, unsure about what outfit to put on for that night. Girls. Girls. Girls.

The cause for the dorm to be turned into a dressing room was the Single Fin party that took place each Sunday at a beach club in Uluwatu. Sitting down at the long wooden bench in the hostel’s communal bar area and taking a sip of my first beer, an American collegiate rower called Nick told me that Capsule offered a two-hour party bus to the venue and back. He also informed me that he was without a bed for the night, the receptionist having apparently cancelled his extended booking, and that someone in his dorm the previous evening had pissed themselves. We raised a cheers and chinked our second beers.

I got onto the party bus carrying my third beer and found myself talking to a German dude called Soren and his older sister. I cracked a fourth beer whilst telling them about a friend of mine who once lost a large amount of money investing in Kazakh oil fields. Having held in a piss for so long that I was convinced I was going to give myself a urinary tract infection, we finally stopped for a toilet break. I pushed my way to the front of the bus, raced into the roadside shitter, and proceeded to let out a golden stream of glory with more pressure than a fire hose. I then replenished myself with a fifth beer before retaking my seat.

We got off the bus in Uluwatu and I went into the convenience store across the street where I purchased a sixth beer, proceeded to drink said beer in front of the cashier, and then bought a seventh. It hadn’t taken me long to realise that Single Fin was not going to be the type of party I’d enjoy. There were more pretentious fuck boys hanging around than in the smoking area of an upper-west-side New York nightclub. Therefore, whilst everyone else entered the establishment I ordered a pizza and got inadvertently involved in a drug deal. Some dude was looking to jack off some questionable weed to drunk westerners and a preppy wanker with swooping hair and wearing an elephant embroidered plaid shirt was being suckered in. After some deliberation and CSI forensic levels of investigation, however, it was concluded that he’d been suckered for some oregano instead of prime green. I laughed. “If you’re not going to smoke that can I have it to garnish my pizza with?” At this comment, the preppy wanker nearly swung for me so I departed and spent the next four hours trolling everyone in sight that I could find. When this got boring, I then bantered with Nick. He had met a lovely Canadian girl who had a spare bed in her room because her friend was off with one of the pre-described fuck boys for the evening. Everything resolved, I passed out on the bus back to Seminyak, woke up briefly for another snack when we stopped at McDonald’s, and then passed out in my hostel bed.

Monday 20th March 2017

Trying to stomach some food at the same wooden bench where I’d started drinking the previous day, I looked over to my left and enviously watched a tattoo-covered, beardy, guy demolishing a burger and fries in record time. Fraser was also from Glasgow, Scotland and we quickly made acquaintance with one another. We had such a good bond, in fact, that a week later we would go hunting for dragons together on the small Indonesian island of Komodo. After a full day of barely moving and talking utter shit, in a way that only Scottish people can do, we grabbed Nick and headed to a watering hole in Seminyak town called La Favela. It had, quite simply, the best atmosphere of any drinking establishment I’ve ever set foot it. And I’ve tested a lot off establishments in coming to that decision. Perhaps it was the chilled-out, foliage-covered, patio area; perhaps it was the selection of drinks on offer; perhaps it was the type of crowd that had been drawn in, or perhaps it was simply because it had polar-opposite vibes to Single Fin. Whatever it was, I was completely in my element.

The Canadian girl who had been kind enough to let Nick use the spare bed in her room, her dishevelled friend and a bunch of other people joined us in the utopia. One was a crazy Dutch guy who, after initially being rejected by a pair of lesbians, ended up necking off with a gorgeous Latina girl against the bar as we all danced around the heavenly air-conditioned dance floor. A laser light show played in perfect time with the tunes; the DJ playing club banger after club banger. I may not have been able to point a finger as to why I found La Favela so awesome, but I could certainly stomp a foot along to the beat of the music.

At stupid o’clock, Nick, Fraser, and I exited the club in search of a sensible bite to eat. The three of us had agreed to get a boat to the Gili party islands the following morning and were conscious about potential sea-sickness. The Dutch guy, however, wasn’t. “Kaasoufle,” he yelled, pointing across the street. “Bitterballen! Oh my God, frikandel!” I couldn’t believe my eyes. Directly opposite La Favela was a traditional Dutch hole-in-the-wall. I used to live in the Netherlands when studying, so for me what happened next wasn’t a real surprise, but the others looked on in absurdness as the Dutch guy marched quickly over; jammed some money in a slot between the bricks; opened a release door, and took out his fried treats from within. Fast food the traditional Dutch way. As he bit into his battered cheese sticks a look of glee spread across his face, and at that moment he must have been the happiest man on the island. It’s amazing what a bit of home comfort can do to a grown man when on a different continent 12,000km away.

Tuesday 21st March 2017

I clung onto the railings for dear life as waves came crashing over the top of the speedboat. With no seats left indoors the three of us had been instructed by the lunatic captain to sit on the roof. Little did we realise upon tentatively agreeing to do so, however, that he would proceed to lead us directly into the eye of a thunderstorm. Not that we had much say in the matter. As reggae music blasted from a crackling speaker, we were simultaneously drenched to the bone whilst being fumigated from the five outboard motors working overtime to keep us upright. “Fancy a beer?” asked Fraser, unzipping his bag in a moment of steadiness to reveal three cans. “Do I ever,” said Nick, cracking open a cold one.

“Where are we staying tonight?” I asked him as we, somewhat remarkably, put our feet on the dry sands of Gili Trawangan without throwing up our Dutch dinner. “My mate’s place,” he responded, leading Fraser and me up onto the cobbled main street and past heaps of rubble. In January 2017, the local government had come along and bulldozed all the beach bars that had been built on the water side of the road, claiming that they had been constructed illegally and without proper permission. They had never bothered disposing of the resultant debris, however, and it spread out as a horrific eyesore for the tourists and incessant reminder for the locals of who’s really in charge. “Awesome,” said Fraser. “I didn’t realise that you had a friend on the island. I thought we were just booking into a hostel.” “That is the name of the hostel,” laughed Nick in response. “It’s called My Mate’s Place.”

“What’s your wifi password?” I asked the guy behind the desk after checking in. “Go fuck yourself,” he responded. “Sorry?” I frowned, taken aback. “‘Gofuckyourself’,” he repeated. “That’s the wifi password. No spaces between the words.” I chuckled. These were my type of people.

Wednesday 22nd March 2017

Nick and Fraser went on a booze cruise where, much to the displeasure of the steroid-induced fuck boys with their sleeve tattoos and two-figure-IQs, Nick showed a Godly feat of superhuman strength that sent palpitations around hearts of the women on board by pulling himself out of the ocean and back onto the boat one-handed. As they stared at this Hulk in awe, Fraser sat back, topped up his sunburn, and simply announced, ‘he came with me’.

Whilst they were sailing the seven seas, I went for a bike ride around the island with a posse who had assembled at the hostel. ‘You look familiar,’ I said to the expressive American bloke I found myself peddling alongside. ‘I get that a lot,’ laughed Eric, getting out his phone. ‘Recognise this photo?” Squinting my eyes to focus on the screen being hit by the glare of the powerful sun, I could just about make out the iconic photograph of Angelina Jolie posing in a slit-leg black dress on the red carpet of a Hollywood premiere. ‘Of course,’ I said, puzzled. ‘Well, zoom in and you might be surprised,’ he chuckled. Eric worked as a production coordinator on large annual events such as the Oscars Award Ceremony and the Super Bowl halftime show, where his daily job involved brushing shoulders with Hollywood’s elite from Oprah to Tom Hanks to Bruno Mars; the latter who he once had to fetch a very specific tuna & cheese melt sandwich for. Sure enough, standing suited and booted behind Angelina’s exposed right shoulder, was the guy cycling next to me, a Cheshire cat grin spread across his face. "You have seen me before," he laughed.

“What’s that cat over there doing?” asked a fucked-up Eric later that evening whilst Nick made-out with a Norwegian girl called, and I shit you not, Asshole. He’d consumed a bag of magic mushrooms right before we’d headed out to the bar street and was beginning to hallucinate. ‘That’s a bottle of juice,’ laughed Fraser, grimacing as Eric gave him an apologetic slap on his sunburnt back.

Thursday 23rd March 2017

Shaken awake by an earthquake registering 7.1 on the Richter scale, Fraser and I said goodbye to Nick (he was off to pursue a business venture in Brazil) and introduced ourselves to an English dude who was hanging around the hostel. Ben had come to Gili Trawangan on holiday; lost his passport; missed his flight home; learnt fluent Indonesian; married a Balinese girl; been adopted by a local family; set up the booze cruise which Fraser and Nick had been in attendance the previous day, and then got divorced. As we sat down to have a beer with him, a disheartened Ben told us that he was in the process of designing an app for visiting tourists in an attempt to save his marriage. He’d been on the island for three years. “Want to come to my house and smoke some blunts?” he asked, lonely and looking for company. “Sorry man,” I said. “That’s not really my thing.” He was a good bloke and I hoped for his sake that things would work out for him.

Friday 24th March 2017

Sat around the wooden benches in the common area of the hostel, Brendan, the owner of My Mate’s Place, introduced us to a drinking game called ‘mushroom cup’. It was a load of fun and as I tried to balance a beer bottle on the ass of a Canadian slut who would go on to bang an Afghan guy later that evening, Brendan proceeded to lose at his own game in spectacular fashion and became blind-drunk. A large Canadian dude in a Hawaiian shirt at the other end of the table, much displeased at the acts of his fellow countrywoman, said that he recognised us from Capsule Hostel and the Single Fin party; a miracle considering that I’d barely even set foot in the bar itself.

“I probably didn’t speak to you that night because I was in a bit of a bad mood,” he admitted. “The previous night I was asleep in my bed when I felt a warm sensation rubbing against my leg. Startled, I awoke to find a naked German girl squatting at the end of my bed and pissing on me. Her eyes were bloodshot red like she had been possessed by the devil and she was so off her face on mushrooms that when I tried to ask her what the hell she was doing she just stared through me like I was a poltergeist. I’ve had better night’s sleep.”

Saturday 25th March 2017

“I’ve got a text from Ben,” said Fraser as we lazed about on some beanbags. Both of us had decided that it was far too hot to be outside on this day, our last on Gili Trawangan before making the short trip to the more chilled out sister island of Gili Air. “He’s offered to take us on a private snorkelling trip and drop us off at our next stop so that we don’t have to worry about getting the public ferry boat.” I had reservations about this, Ben being the type of person who would probably struggle to organise a piss up in a brewery, so was relieved when a second message came through to say that his offer, unfortunately, had to be revoked because the engine on the boat he’d sourced had blown up on the way across the bay.

Fraser and I went back to Plan A, which saw us lugging our bags across Gili Air from the public ferry port on the south side of the island to Begadang Backpackers, the hippie commune style accommodation we’d booked for a few nights for the sole reason that it had a pineapple-shaped swimming pool. No complaints could, therefore, be made when we found out that our beds for the night were nothing but a couple of dirty mattresses on a raised bamboo plinth; an al fresco affair exposed entirely to the elements and with only torn mosquito nets for protection. As I dumped my bag and took a seat I spotted a familiar face lounging in one of the hammocks. “Eric,” I exclaimed as a naked Indonesian child suddenly sprinted across the clearing and dive bombed into the pool. “Fancy seeing you here. How are things?”

“Not too well, man,” he admitted, his voice shaky and weak. “I had my first ever diving lesson today and my body failed to adjust to the change in pressure correctly. Whilst underwater during training I started to bleed from my nose and ears into my mask. I looked like one of those Scream Masks that kids dress up in at Halloween. Safe to say that it will also be my last ever diving lesson.”

Sunday 26th March 2017

With Gili Air being very much a chill-out island compared to the rowdy and boisterous Trawangan, we hung around the pool all day and ate, lazily paying an extra charge for delivery even although the restaurant was literally just across the road. We also figured out that this is where the naked kid had appeared from the day before, his father clearly having turned his back on the little nipper for one second too long. Lauren, a cool New Yorker who had studied down in New Orleans, considered helping me put together a novel sports day by making the best use of the basketball hoop, volleyball court, and tightrope that were set up, but in the end, it seemed like too much effort in the sweltering heat.

Instead, I spent the day worrying about the gnarly purple mark that had appeared across my translucent white chest, morbidly guessing that I’d somehow either contracted meningitis or that it was varicose veins that had formed because I was pregnant. Fraser and Lauren told me that I was being over-dramatic and that my self-diagnosis may be slightly off.

Monday 27th March 2017

Convincing Lauren to come back to Seminyak with us with the promise of an epic night out in La Favela, the three of us got a return boat to Bali and Fraser ordered take away McDonald’s to the Capsule bar area (just because he could). In our room, we met Peter, a PE teacher and basketball star from Germany with his own Facebook fan page. He broke the sad news to us that, because it was Balinese New Year that day, La Favela was closed, but then quickly heightened our spirits by showing us a video of him doing a rhythmic gymnastics floor routine in front of his students; black leotard, pompoms, and all.

Following a rather uninspiring and extremely amateurish parade that made its way through the town centre with no real gusto, we returned to the hostel to find out that we would then be locked-in for over twenty-four hours. From 6 am the next morning until 6 am the following morning nobody on the island was allowed to go outside or use any form or artificial light as a form of respect to the Gods. As an atheist, I opposed to such restrictions, but then was reminded that the Balinese police may not see my logical protests in such a similar light; or with any light at all.

Prepared for the occasion, Peter got out a bottle of whisky that he had hidden in his rucksack and we headed to the rooftop for some star gazing. There, whilst trying to pick out the North Star and forgetting I was still in the southern hemisphere, I met a girl from my hometown who used to shag a mate of mine. Small world. As hostel management came and confiscated Peter’s whisky, we called it a night, called the next day void, and hit the hay. Two months later, Peter and I would rendezvous in Cambodia to play cowboys and Indians in a war museum with real firearms. Fraser and Lauren would reconvene in New Zealand to spend four weeks cruising around both islands on a hop-on-hop-off party bus. None of us would forget our time in Bali and the crazy people we met.

In Search of a Lost Friend: A Study in Human Psychology

Phnom Penh, Cambodia • June 2017 • Length of Read: 5 Minutes

“Hey guys, I've got a hypothetical research question:

Suppose you're meeting a friend in a random European town or city that neither of you has been to before. You don't have the chance to plan a meeting place beforehand and you cannot contact one another when there. You just know that you will both be there on the same day. Where would you go? How do you find one another?

If you could comment below and answer that would be awesome. I'll let you know soon why I'm asking.”

Recently I’ve been burrowing down the rabbit hole of human psychology. Whilst writing these words I’m currently sitting on the rooftop of a quaint and cosy little café in Ho Chi Minh City; what seems like a million miles away from the hectic Vietnamese traffic racing around the streets below. I’ve been on the road for five months now and studying the way in which people interact with one another, in particular strangers, has fascinated me. On a daily basis, I’m subjected to meeting new people and listening to the conversation of others in hostel dorm rooms and bars. In fact, when just trying to write this paragraph I’ve stopped and had a ten-minute conversation with three lovely Germans at the table next to me about my books. So much for productivity and getting into my flow state, I know. There’s clearly just something far too intriguing about seeing a foreign traveller hammering away on the keyboard of a laptop.

Anyway, a while ago I mysteriously posted the above italicised question on my Facebook page with no real explanation as to why. A friend of mine living in Auckland had recommended a book to me called What If?, subtitled: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions and one of the chapters which really grabbed me was regarding the possibility of two immortal humans, placed at random points on planet Earth, actually managing to bump into one another. In attempting to answer this, the author drew upon an American study that was done in the pre-mobile phone 1970s, which puzzled a similar question to the one I asked my Facebook followers.

Back then, the best logical solution to finding your lost friend was deemed to be going to the town’s main post office and waiting at the receiving window where out-of-town packages arrive. The inventor of the puzzle’s logic was that it’s the only place that every town in the U.S. has exactly one of, and which everyone would know where to find. To me, this argument appears a little weak and outdated. There are far too many psychological factors in place to assume that everyone will follow this same thought process. I was curious. I wanted to know what people would do if placed in a similar predicament in the current era of 2017 but didn’t have access to the modern day smartphone and wifi technology with which we are now so accustomed.

Now, by nature of what I write about; my age; and my lifestyle, my primary demographic is twenty-something adventurous Westerners. The suggestions of brothels; pool halls; strip clubs; and Irish bars as possible meeting places were, therefore, inevitable. What could initially be dismissed as stupid, albeit funny, answers, however, have actually collectively formed the second of three categories that I’ve filtered the responses into.

The first category of response is what I will refer to as landmarks. These were the most common and basic responses, with no intuition about what the other person will be thinking required. Someone suggested to wait at the base of the tallest building in the city because it is likely to catch your eye just as much as the other persons, others suggested the main town square; train station; airport baggage reclaim; McDonald's; cathedral, and art gallery. The post office would fall into this category.

The second category is what I call inside jokes. This is more effective as you are actually using what you know already about the person to make an educated assessment about what their thought process is in the same situation. In addition to the aforementioned, ‘go to the equivalent place where you first met them’ was a popular response, as was ‘the common area of a popular hostel’ and ‘a hipster café’. If you and your friend have a shared love for flat whites then it’s highly possible that they will kill some time in a local edgy hangout, just as if your friend loves to get a lap dance at the end of a night out then you may well find them in a strip club. A silly suggestion at first that actually makes sense if you take into account a person’s interest and hobbies; not that I’d call lap dancing a recreational pastime.

There is a third category, however, which unanimously seemed to be regarded as the outright way of meeting your friend as efficiently and effectively as possible. A category that both What if? and the 1970s study failed to address. I call this category, public nuisance. The major flaw with the landmarks category, and henceforth the suggested solution of the post office, is that, even if your friend did decide to embark upon a city sightseeing tour, the chances of them spotting you in such crowded and busy places is extremely slim. Imagine trying to find a friend next to the Eiffel Tower even if you knew they were going to be there. I still lose people in the bloody supermarket. The same flaw is also at play in theinside jokescategory. Yes, there is an almost 100% chance of meeting your friend there if you’ve assumed correctly, but if they don’t make the same deduction then there is a 0% chance that you’re going to bump into one another accidentally. Unless you make yourself known that is…

The highest voted response that I received to my question? ‘Walk around bollocks naked and cause a city-wide commotion’.

What better way for a friend to find you than to stir up an event that draws maximum attention to yourself. Whether we like to think it or not, humans operate primarily under a herd mentality. We are constantly drawn to things that others are looking at, or commenting on things that others are talking about. If somebody decides to get stark naked and run about the town centre, then you can bet your damn ass that everyone nearby will soon gather round for a glimpse of the action. The only question now is, how do you cause such a public nuisance that you find your friend, but don’t have them bailing you out of jail for indecent exposure a short while after?

Perhaps I should just heed the advice given to me by my crazy and psychotic friend Lara: “If you’re talking about a girl, no need to meet her, just stay at home. If it’s not a girl then it simply doesn’t exist, since you have no friends. So there’s no need to bother yourself with this kind of ‘hypothetical research question’. Stay at home and close the door.”

Well, that's me told.

Crobs Abroad: The Seven Wonders of Scotland

Scotland, UK • June 2017 • Length of Read: 7 Minutes

There are numerous ‘seven wonders of the world’ lists kicking about online, from the ‘seven wonders of nature’; to the ‘seven wonders of the industrial world’; of the ancient world; of the solar system; of the underwater world; to the ‘seven wonders of the modern world’, which we have pretty much agreed upon as being, Machu Picchu; Petra; Chichen Itza; Pyramid of Giza; Great Wall of China; Christ the Redeemer, and the Taj Mahal.  I’ve visited the South American pair so far, but still have another five to go before I can tick off bucket list item #57.

Albeit quite novel, these lists are pretty interesting, so I was therefore disappointed when finding out that nobody has ever come up with a set ‘Seven Wonders of Scotland’. The Scotsman newspaper did once run a public vote to find out what Scots thought some of the most wonderful things that their homeland had to offer were, with the impressive Forth Rail Bridge taking first place accolades, but I still feel that a definitive list needs to be compiled.

Now, caveat time. I am neither a historian nor a geographer, and I struggle to follow Lego instructions never mind architectural blueprints, so for the purposes of this list I have excluded all wonders of nature and engineering. Scotland is one of the most beautiful countries in the world and I could never separate what if feels like to drive through Glencoe; climb Ben Nevis; traverse Skye’s Cullin Ridge, or witness the wildlife of the Outer Hebrides. If you are looking for this then Visit Scotland have put together a list of the best walking trips throughout Alba. And with this in mind, here are Crobs Abroad’s alternative Seven Wonders of Scotland.

Single Malt Scotch Whisky

Having rambled around a large part of the globe, the most common response by far from the locals of foreign lands when finding out where I’m from is to simply exclaim, ‘whisky’. No other word can define Scotland in a nutshell other than the name of the country itself, regardless of where you seem to go. I’ve had Cambodian taxi drivers, Peruvian mayors, and Kiwi hoteliers all express their love for the amber bead, and each also was under the impression that we have been raised on the stuff from birth as if it’s a replacement for breast milk.

Now, as most whisky connoisseurs will tell you, to be a single malt scotch the whisky must have been distilled at a single distillery in Scotland using barley and then matured in oak casks for at least three years and one day. What many people get confused over, however, is how to spell the word. Is it ‘whisky’ or is it ‘whiskey’? Quite simple, really. In almost all cases, if the whisky is made in countries with no ‘e’ in their names, such as Canada, Japan, or Scotland, then it’s spelt as so. If it comes from countries with an ‘e’ in their names, such as Ireland or the good ole’ U.S of A, then it's spelt ‘whiskey’.

Golf

The first written record of golf is when James II banned the game in 1457 because it was becoming an unwelcome distraction to learning archery. Even the King couldn’t resist the allure of the stick and ball game, however, and lifted the ban in 1502 when taking up the sport himself. The Old Course at St. Andrews in the Eastern Kingdom of Fife has been labelled ‘The Home of Golf’, and has its place on The Open Championship rota every five years, the oldest and most prestigious golf tournament in the world.

My favourite story about the sportsmanship and camaraderie in golf comes from what was labelled the ‘Duel in the Sun’ at the 1977 Open Championship at the Turnberry course, also in Scotland and now owned by President Donald Trump. Two of the all-time greats of the game, Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus, found themselves streaks ahead of the rest of the field and in a tense battle all weekend, with Watson eventually pipping Nicklaus to the Claret Jug on the final hole by one stroke.  That night, the pair were reportedly sitting in the clubhouse knocking back drinks and talking about the epic display they had put on for the crowd. ‘You got lucky,’ joked Nicklaus. ‘I had you all day,’ laughed Watson. A few hours later, a security guard, noticing some unusual activities on one of the greens, ran out onto the pitch black course to apprehend what he thought were a couple of hooligans. Instead, he found Nicklaus and Watson drunkenly staggering about, Watson with the trophy in hand and Nicklaus holding their sole club. They had decided to settle their argument like men, with a three-holes, one-club, midnight shootout. I have no way of verifying this story, but I so hope that it is true.

The Original 007

‘The name’s Bond, James Bond’. A famous catchphrase that Sean Connery almost never got to say. The anecdote goes that, when initially casting the titular character for this now world-famous spy and lady killer, creator Ian Fleming and the picture house production team didn’t want an already famous face to portray Bond. They, therefore, held an open call to which Sean Connery attended and absolutely bombed. In a stroke of luck, however, when discussing who they wanted at the end of the casting, Fleming happened to look out of the window of their offices and see Connery walking across the car park. ‘He walks like a panther,' said Fleming, commenting on Connery's  stride. 'Bring him back in for another audition’. The rest, as they say, is history. He nailed his second attempt and was given his license to kill.

The Kilt

“Is it true that you don’t wear anything underneath your kilt?” is one of the most frequently asked questions that a Scotsman gets from foreigners who are intrigued about our strange culture. Worn nowadays as a replacement for a tuxedo or a dinner suit at a black-tie event, no Scottish man is likely to ever look better than when donning the tartan skirt of his clan. I personally own one for formal use and have a second, more cheaply-made kilt, for partying and travelling. The looks that I receive when marching down the street in a foreign country with my pleats billowing in the breeze never get old, although most of them are unfortunately from people simply not familiar with what a kilt is as opposed to groups of girls getting hot under the collar. It is true, though, ladies. I don’t wear any underwear beneath my kilt.

Television

On 25th March 1925, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of televised silhouette images in motion. Cue the birth of the television. Within a year of this, he was demonstrating the transmission of the image of a face in motion and its popularity grew to a level that households around the world are now more likely to have televisions in them than hot running water. American’s spend on average five hours per day watching mind-numbing programming on the box, with hundreds of terrestrial and digital channels to choose from. Baird didn’t have this luxury, however. Rumour has it that he was pissed off after inventing it because there was nothing good on to watch.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

For the entire month of August each year, the streets, pubs, clubs, and theatres of Edinburgh turn into a city-wide party when the world’s largest arts festival comes into town. The Fringe started in 1947 and there is no threshold as to whom can get involved and participate. All you have to do is rent out a performance space, come up with a ludicrous act, and the flyer like mental for people to pop their head around the door and watch your act. Categories of shows span across theatre; poetry; dance; circus; music, you name it.

What it’s most famous for, however, is the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, which has launched the careers of dozens of household comedy names. Previous recipients of the prestigious main prize include Stephen Fry; Hugh Lawrie; Al Murray; Steve Coogan; Dylan Moran; and Rich Hall but to name a few. There’s also acknowledgement for the funniest joke of The Fringe. Last year’s winner: “My dad has suggested that I register for a donor card. He’s a man after my own heart.”

Haggis

As much as we like to mess with far-too-enthusiastic Americans by telling them that a haggis is a three-legged creature that runs around the Scottish hills and Highlands, it’s actually just a savoury pudding made from the pluck of a sheep. That is, it’s the heart, liver, and lungs of the sheep minced with some spices and stuffed into the lining of its stomach. Sounds delicious, I know. When served with a side portion of neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes), however, it is absolutely delicious, and nothing takes me back to my childhood faster. It is the tradition for a haggis to be bagpiped in and addressed during a Burns Supper; evening events which take place on the 25th January each year to celebrate the birthday of Scotland’s most famous poet, Robert Burns.

So, in conclusion, what I’m really saying is that, if under some bizarre circumstances you happen to turn on your TV and see a kilt-donned Sean Connery driving a golf cart through the streets of Edinburgh on his way home from finishing an improv sketch show at the Fringe Festival, whilst washing down a mouthful of haggis with a bottle of Glenmorangie, then that’s pretty fucking Scottish.

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Riding the Battambang Bamboo Train through the Cambodian Countryside

I first heard about the bamboo train from my friend Mario whilst lazing around on the beaches of Cambodia’s southern islands. He’d been the north-western town of Battambang the previous week and could hardly contain his excitement when retelling the story of his trip along the tracks of one of the world’s all-time unique rail journeys to the crowded beach bar that evening. From 3.7km east of Battambang’s old Parisian-style bridge, the bamboo trains race for twenty minutes along 7km of warped, misaligned tracks and over vertiginous bridges left behind by the French, rolling green pastures stretching out as far as the eye can see in all directions. Known in the local Cambodian language of Khmer as a norry, each little bamboo train consists of a 3m-long wooden frame covered in slats of tightly-strung bamboo canes. This is then simply balanced atop two barbell-shaped railroad trucks, a chugging gasoline engine is attached to the rear, and the train is ready to roll.

When the clock struck midnight the music came to a crescendo; the beer stopped pouring; and the bar was closed, plunging the place into darkness. We were living in a wifi-less island paradise and with zero artificial light around, and no pollution in the air, the sky was able to conjure up its magic for all to see. Racing to the beach, everyone stripped down to their white bits and splashed into the warm waters of the Gulf of Thailand. The sea glowed from the bioluminescence of the plankton living in its depth, and with each movement shimmers of glittering gold momentarily glistened under the light of a thousand stars that shone like diamonds on the big black canvas behind them. A more beautiful representation of nature you would struggle to find. As I floated about in the wonderment, however, a nagging began in the back of my brain. Mario had planted an idea, and when something new excites me I do everything in my power to make these ideas blossom into realities. I was going to have to change my travel plans once returning to the mainland. I was going to have to get on a bus to Battambang.

I was welcomed into my hostel with a free cold beer and I got chatting to the owners whilst perusing the lunch menu. Here Be Dragons was run by a lovely, nerdy, English couple in their early thirties and it was immediately apparent that the décor and vibes of the boutique backpackers were a direct extension of their own passions and interests. A graffiti mural of the Tardis from Dr Who covered one of the walls and gaming memorabilia was dotted around the bar between bottles of export spirits. The Beatles hummed softly in the background. Ordering a pork schnitzel and fries from the specials board, I asked the lady the inevitable question. I was too curious not to. ‘Why is the place called Here Be Dragons?’ She laughed, turned over the menu to the back page, and pointed at the old medieval calligraphy printed on it. ‘So many people were asking that we thought a full, proper, explanation was necessary’:

“It is a well-known (though false) fact, that there are places on ancient maps of the world marked with the legend ‘here be dragons’. All that the mapmakers knew of these mysterious, dangerous realms were the tales sailors and explorers brought back with them – fantastical tales of magical beasts and sea-serpents, of men with horns and lambs that grew on plants, of giant eagles that could swoop and seize and carry off an elephant. Here Be Dragons is a land of myth and make-believe, apart from reality, where anything could happen…”

Being low season, and the fact that Battambang is not a place that many travellers find themselves visiting, the hostel was fairly quiet. I therefore headed out on a solo mission guided by a local tuk-tuk driver called DJ who raced around town beforehand to show me the sights. At one point he even stopped in the middle of a roundabout so that I could get a good photo of the Battambang Buddha Statue before getting me safely to the start of the bamboo train. Dozens of the wooden slats lay strewn about and the place looked more like a mechanics’ forecourt than a station, but as soon as they spotted a Westerner the locals who were milling around jumped into gear; something the trains most definitely didn’t have. I paid my $10 fee and hopped aboard the front norry, balancing myself on a couple of cushions whilst my driver with a long emo-like haircut pulled at the starter chord. The engine looked like it had just been lifted from a lawnmower but it was still enough to get the wheels rolling along at 20km/h. With the wind gusting through my hair, I sat cross-legged and took in the beautiful landscape; a wide smile glued to my face.

The bamboo frames were originally built to transport crops between farms and are strong enough to hold up to three tonnes of rice. With the introduction of paved roads, however, the train track was disbanded in favour of trucks, before being re-opened solely as a tourist operation. Each norry would now be said to have a maximum capacity of between ten and fifteen people depending on sizes, which is more than can be cramped into a modern day elevator. I also used the word ‘track’ there in its singular. Interestingly, there is just one parallel track slicing its way through the countryside, and this is where the simplicity of the bamboo norries shines through; providing the perfect solution to the halting problem on any single-track line of what to do when two trains going in opposing directions meet. What happens? One norry is simply picked-up and taken to the side of the tracks so that the other has free passage. When the coast is clear, it is then replaced and you are on your way again. Sometimes there’s no need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

Having let past a couple of German girls on their return journey, the rule being that the norry with the fewest passengers is the one that has to cede the track, we were soon back up to full speed and click-clacking our way along at breakneck speed. The brakes sounded like they were about to fail, the engine sounded like it was sure to blow, and the wheels sounded like they were hanging on by their last few screws. It was more like the world’s least health and safety conscious rollercoaster than a train, but for the entire journey, I felt like the norry had warped me back into a childhood state of fun. As Emit Brown said to Marty McFly: “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

See A Dead Body (Bucket List #15)

Cambodia/UK • Various Dates • Length of Read: 3 Minutes

“So there’s a great essay written by Sigmund Freud called ‘On Transience’, and in it, he cites a conversation that he had with the poet Rilke as they were walking along this beautiful garden. At one point, Rilke looked like he was about to tear up and Freud said, ‘What’s wrong? It’s a beautiful day. There are beautiful plants around us. This is magnificent.” To which Rilke says, “Well, I can’t get over the fact that one day all of this is going to die. All these trees, all these plants, all this life is going to decay. Everything dissolves into meaninglessness when you think about the fact that impermanence is a really real thing. Perhaps the greatest existential bummer of all is entropy.” I was really struck by this because perhaps that’s why when we’re in love we’re also kind of sad. There’s sadness to the ecstasy. Beautiful things sometimes can make us a little sad. And it’s because what they hint at is the exception, a vision of something more, a vision of a hidden door, a rabbit hole to fall through, but a temporary one. And I think, ultimately, that is kind of the tragedy. That is why love simultaneously fills us with melancholy.” – Jason Silva.

When people look through my bucket list, there are two items which tend to be commented on far more than any others: ‘#52 Fall in Love’ and ‘#15 See a Dead Body’. I think that this is because, as humans, we feel a much greater connection to ideas and events that tug at our heart-strings than we do to adrenaline based activities such as skydiving, relaxing activities such as bathing in the blue lagoon, or adventure activities such as spending the night on a desert island. These other activities are nice added extras, but love and death affect us all. Not in equal measures, but they do affect us all.

My second published book, We Ordered a Panda, which can be purchased through my online bookshop, is my comprehensive answer to the former. My way of feeling better about things is to write them down. Yes, I wish to entertain and inspire, but my writing also doubles as a form of therapy. As an atheist, I am constantly melancholic about love and death. I know that there is no afterlife. I know that I am no phoenix and that when I do eventually die there will be no rebirth from the ashes. By seeing a dead body, I felt that it would provide such a horrific and stark image of the fragility and shortness of life, that I would then be able to further comprehend and understand how I wish to better spend mine.

I have now been unfortunate enough to see multiple dead bodies, and can indeed say that this has been the case. I’m not going to go into the specifics of such incidents. Trust me, as much as you think you want to know, you don’t want to know. And even if you did want to know, I don’t want to share them with you anyway so you won’t know.

What I will say, however, is that crossing this item off my bucket list has strangely led me to be a much happier person. Knowing that I only have a limited time on this Earth, and staring death in the face, has triggered something in me to live much more in the moment; to stop worrying as much; to do even more crazy things, and to eliminate any regret from my actions. Instead of fearing death, I am embracing life.

When I was walking home drunk from the pub one night with my good friend Possum, she got out her phone and started to play Yellow by Coldplay. “This is the song that I want to be played at my funeral,” she said, almost stumbling off the pavement into oncoming traffic, “and everyone in attendance will have to turn up in yellow clothes. I want it to be a celebration of my life and not a mourning.”

How beautiful. How melancholic.