Decomposition v preservation

We all understand about fillers in newspapers, that they're just odd snippets poked in when there's a space around the actual news. No-one expects them to be anything especially current, no matter how much they pretend to be announcing something. But this one, today, in the NZ Herald? Tch. This is something I wrote about here almost exactly three years ago when I came across it at Vermilionville in Lafayette - and it was hardly a new development even then. Surely the discovery had already got around, in the scientific/environmentalist community? More than a bit disappointing, if not. Stuff like this should be shared, immediately. Er, like vaccine recipes...?

There was another newspaper connection on Saturday, also in the Herald, but this time of genuine interest. Regular 😃 readers will recall - indeed, may still be traumatised by - my blog entry about my visit to Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok again almost exactly five years ago. Not, thankfully, for medical treatment, but to gawp, as respectfully as possible, at the exhibits in the Department of Anatomy's museum there. It was full of astonishing, horrifying and deeply interesting preserved bodies of people who had been born with, and died of, terrible deformities. 

Most of them, anyway, and many of those, sadly, babies. But there were a few exceptions, and I clearly remember standing in front of the telephone box-like glass case in the photo below, studying the mummified corpse of this murderer/cannibal. Except, now it seems maybe he wasn't - instead, it turns out he was yet another victim of what seems to be the world-wide phenomenon of, shall we say, over-enthusiastic police detective work. So today I officially transfer poor Si Ouey into the same category as the other sad exhibits at Siriraj.

People and places. But mainly people.

So, here we are on the last day of the year - again! - and it's time, apparently, to review 2014. As I write, bodies are being retrieved from the sea after the Air Asia crash, so it's tempting to conclude that it hasn't been a great year for air travel, what with Malaysia Airline's two ill-fated jets plus a scattering of small-plane crashes over the last week. Of course, horrific as all those are, you're still safer in a plane than driving to the airport.

Certainly, in all the long-haul flights I did this year, there wasn't a moment of disquiet, not one. But I'm not going to list them all, or count the different airlines, or countries, or modes of transport (helicopters! horse!) or hotels I stayed in, or thousands of photos taken, or even the number of trips I went on (or, "holidays" unquote, tch). Not tonight, anyway. Instead I'm going to remember some of the people I met, all different nationalities and ages but who all had - have - in common a wonderful enthusiasm and positiveness, and an eagerness to share.

There was Suree, best guide ever, in Thailand - funny, patient, interesting, interested, knowledgeable, professional and honest. She was the very best bit about my famil to Bangkok and points north, and I especially admired her passion for her country and her eagerness that we should understand that Thailand is safe, and welcoming, and beautiful and fascinating. She was in tears at the end, as she said goodbye to us, urging us to pass on the message that Thailand is open and waiting for visitors.



I really liked Tehei too, at Taoahere Beach House on Moorea in Thailand, who was so motherly and hospitable, and took pity on me up in the honeymoon villa all on my own, and brought me meals and flowers and baskets of bread, and invited me for a family dinner with her children to eat poisson cru she'd prepared herself, which we ate alongside the lagoon, with fish jumping in the dark.

Then there was Dan, our guide in northern Australia, who looked like your typical Territorian: khaki shorts, stout boots, hat, tanned, a bit rough round the edges maybe - but he was lyrical about Kakadu, and so respectful of Aboriginal culture, and clearly in love with the land. Also, he had a most unexpected imagination, that kept him amused on long drives when all his passengers had fallen asleep, and in his head wrote screenplays for movies which he was keen to share in generous detail. I honestly hope Drop Bear: the Movie gets made - sounds like a classic.

There's no way I could ever forget Sean, at the Lindisfarne Hotel on that island, who thought he was so funny, which made him funny, but not how he intended, not that he'll ever know. He had a routine, you see, a set piece full of jokes that he trotted out as each roomful of guests turned up for breakfast, without ever being hampered by the fact that the previous audience was still sitting there, listening to it again. And again. But he threw himself into it so enthusiastically that it felt mean, to criticise.

On my first trip to the US this year, I met Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago. Well, I shook his hand at a tourism do that was all about schmoozing as he worked the room full of travel writers and tourism promoters. He was keen, I'll give him that. We were up on the Observatory of the Hancock Tower, with fabulous views on a sunny day out over the lake and city, and down to the welcome sand sculpture on the beach 94 storeys below.

The second time I went to the States, it was Jerry from Georgia, elderly and bald as a coot but full of life, who made the strongest impression. He was another passenger on the Silver Whisper cruise from Boston to Montreal, and a stalwart of our Trivial Pursuit team. At the end of each day's competition, he gave me his share of the place-getter's tokens, and he was olde-worldly flattering and complimentary, which was sweet. Excellent lesson in not writing off old people as just, well, old. So much more than that!

Down in Queenstown - or Glenorchy, more accurately - it was Kate and Matt, and his father Laurence who charmed me with their friendly enthusiasm and eagerness to share this particularly beautiful bit of New Zealand with the people on their bike tour. Even I, who hadn't been on a bike for years, felt inspired and capable, and with their encouragement not only kept pedalling along the far shore of Lake Wakatipu, but actually enjoyed it. And Laurence's dinner at the (sadly now burnt down) Paradise Lodge was genuinely 5-star.

In Scotland it was two people: John and Paul, who run 94DR which is a classy and comfortable B&B in Edinburgh. They were indefatigably cheerful and enthusiastic, full of suggestions for how to spend our time in the city, and effortlessly welcoming. Breakfast there was as much of a show as at Lindisfarne, but genuinely fun and really delicious: raspberry and rhubarb compote, homemade granola, porridge made (of course) the proper way with salt in it, avocado and bacon bagel... Yum. And Molly the dog was friendly too.

At the World Youth Rhino Conference at iMfolosi in KZN in South Africa, there were lots of inspiring people, most notably Dr Ian Player, then very frail and alas now no longer with us, a giant in conservation and a figure accorded the greatest respect by everyone there. But I'd like to pick Trang Nguyen, a young Vietnamese woman who got caught up almost by chance in conservation, bore the burden nobly of representing one of the two nations behind most poaching, and has achieved tremendous things back home in educating the public and spreading the word. She is a marvel.

So many other countries, so many other people - it was a very busy year - but I want to finish with a guy I never even spoke to. Just some random dude relaxing above a waterfall at Gunlom in Kakadu, he provided the perfect focal point for my favourite photo of all of the thousands I took in 2014. Thanks for coming along for the ride. See you next year?

In a bit of a whirl, here...

It's a confusing time right now. I'm reviewing Thailand and Kakadu to decide whether I've written enough stories about them, so that I can go back to June and catch up on some UK material - the Forest of Bowland, for example, or maybe Lindisfarne. Meanwhile, another bit of my brain is thinking about what I need to pack for South Africa next week, and how I can avoid overlapping with stuff I need to take to the US on the day after I return from Johannesburg, because I don't want to be lying awake for those precious few hours in my own bed listening to the washing machine whirring away. It's all a bit much, especially on top of also trying to organise tradesmen - and the Council - to sort things in the house and garden so that we can sell it as soon as we get home. Too much mental activity altogether. It would be a relief to go outside and just dig clay for a few hours (don't ask). Except that now it's raining.

Occasional messages are arriving from the Firstborn, currently cruising in the Galapagos Islands, consistently raving; "Holy moley! This place is AMAAAAZING!!!" along with pics of iguanas and tortoises. Of course she's having a wonderful time. It is an amazing place, and she's got the luxury of 10 days there to explore it all, twice as long as I had, sigh. The Baby, meanwhile, is disporting herself (well, actually, working) on a billionaire's yacht in Italy, where I've hardly been at all, though I've been trying to get back there. It's very frustrating, having got an actual commission for a story, and not to be able to persuade an airline to take me there. What's that? Buy a ticket, you say? Have you NO understanding of how this travel writing thing works?! There has to be some compensation for being paid peanuts.

And finally there's Scotland in the news, about to decide whether to vote Aye or Nay, so I'm remembering being there in June (getting sunburnt!) and seeing the posters and the badges everywhere. Meantime the All Blacks are being talked about because they're playing South Africa here tomorrow and, though I'm so not a follower of them, I've been preceding them a bit this year, to Newcastle's stadium where they're playing in the RWC next year, and to Chicago where they've got a game at Wrigley Field against the US in November. Somebody in Chicago actually offered yesterday to set me up with an AB interview. Puh-leese! (But I'm not above using them to try to sell a story...)

There's reasonable, and then there's not.

So far this week (and it's only Wednesday!) I've written and sold stories about Kakadu, Queensland, Thailand and pets on planes. As always, writing the stories is the easy part - what takes the time is sorting and editing the photos. Usually that's just because of dithering between similar shots, straightening the horizon (sigh), cropping, and fiddling with the exposure. Then they have to be filed, with captions, and a contact sheet made. All a bit tiresome, especially since I know that, more often than not, none of them will be chosen by the editor, entirely for reasons of cost, with a disappointing loss of relevance and impact on the final layout.

With both the Kakadu and Thailand stories, though, there's been an extra and time-consuming step: getting approval. Bangkok hospital's Medical Museum is anxious about respect and human rights, since its exhibits are dead people, there for teaching purposes rather than to be gawped at by curious tourists, some of whom are no doubt freak-show fans who don't give a moment's consideration to the losses behind the exhibits. Although Google is full of images from the various divisions of the museum (and I've added to it myself in this blog), for publication it has to be done properly, which takes time of course. But since I had a story published just a week ago that's been on the paper's files since April last year, maybe that's not important...

With Kakadu, as for any story about places in Australia with traditional owners, there's a quite remarkable amount of paperwork to be dealt with by media before being allowed in with our cameras and notebooks. In order to encourage the general public to come and enjoy them, and support the local businesses, you understand. Ahem. But that's ok, you don't have to spend much time in the Outback to know that there's an awful lot of making up to be done by the Government to the Aboriginal people. And, to be fair, there are a lot of sacred places that even ordinary tourists are discouraged from going to, and photographing - climbing Uluru is a case in point - so having to submit all your photos for approval is no more than an inconvenience, really.

But not showing images of people swimming in Outback waterholes? Now that's just silly - the official line is that it can never be guaranteed that there isn't a crocodile in there somewhere; and also that jumping into pools is dangerous because of rocks. Well, as our guide Dan said, "Jumping into waterholes is a human right." You can't walk through that desiccated landscape and come across a deep, green, perfect-temperature pool of water and not be expected to jump into it. Come on, already!

Droning on

Out on my constitutional today, while picking up litter on our suburb's little beach (you do that too, right? Takes a minute, and if we all do it, it makes a huge difference) one of the fish-threatening bits of plastic that I pulled out of the sand turned out to be a burst balloon. It reminded me of the night in Bangkok last month, when I was at the start of a festival put on by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, when at the climactic moment, hundreds of helium-filled balloons were released by the crowd into the night sky.

It was colourful, of course, and everyone, me included, snapped away with our cameras and phones - but I couldn't help wondering where all those balloons were going to end up, eventually, and how many fish were going to choke on them in the river or even the sea. Not that I am particularly drawn to the bigmouth catfish that are so populous in the Chao Phraya River - even though they took the bread quite gently from my fingers when we stopped to feed them on our cruise, in order to earn a little good luck - but it's a matter of principle. Admittedly, it was somewhat party-pooping, when all the organisers wanted was to whip up a buzz before the parade started.

That evening was notable too for the drone that was filming the crowd, zipping about rather excitably and ending up colliding with the awning over the stage, falling to the ground with a clatter - fortunately not on anyone's head. It (or a replacement) was up again shortly afterwards, so that was all right.

That was my first drone, but there was a second a week or so later, on my last trip, to Kakadu in the Northern Territory of Australia with World Expeditions. The official photographer was tasked with mainly recording video, and he was keen to try out his new toy. It got its first flight on the morning we did the Barrk Walk, climbing up an outlier from the main escarpment for wide, wide views over the plains towards the cliffs, all khaki-coloured gum trees, orange rocks and blue sky. Controlled by a gamer-type handset with his phone fitted into it, Anthony had the drone whizzing up and up, along, down and around, sending its pictures to the phone, and when it came back down again, was easily caught by someone else before it landed. Impressive!

But then, having walked across the top of this rocky prominence, we got to the other edge and another long view, and Anthony sent it up again. Unfortunately, he didn't notice that he was standing under a tree: the drone shot up, hit a branch, and came plummeting back down again onto the rock. It was sufficiently broken that it was out of action for the rest of the trip, sadly (because the film it took really, literally, added a new dimension to what we were seeing).

So, drones. Technologically right up there (ha) but hampered by the human element.

Read and be thankful

You're not seeing these photos. You may wish you couldn't for real - but please pretend you haven't seen them. I wasn't meant to take them, though I didn't see the sign until afterwards. I could of course have deleted them; but this was such an astonishing place, I wanted to have at least a bit of a record. I took them on my last day in Bangkok at the Museum of Anatomy, at the Siriraj Hospital by the river. It's one of the city's less well-known places of interest. Let's not call it a tourist attraction, because it's really part of the teaching hospital's resources; and as it's upstairs in a hard-to-find building, in a dimly lit room cooled by a series of whirring old fans, the exhibits lined up in glass cases and labelled only in Thai and medical English, it's hardly trying to pull in the foreign visitors.

But it's a grimly fascinating place. Preserved in formaldehyde, dried or stripped are dozens of bodies, many of them twins conjoined in different ways - even one pair sharing an arm but with two hands - as well as skeletons including one over two metres tall and, perhaps less startling but in their way more astonishing, entire teased-out nervous and arterial systems, the threads hanging down from the brain and branching out, in a curiously autumnal fashion. What a feat of painstaking extraction. There are cross-sections through the abdomen at different points, the slabs of muscle and bone looking not unlike something you'd see at the butcher's; and foetuses at all stages of development rather startlingly accompanied by jars of unborn piglets and other unidentifiable animals.

It's truly fascinating - if you're not the squeamish sort - and a real lesson in what a lottery life is, even before it has really begun. There are so many things that can go wrong as our bodies develop, and these were the unlucky ones, born - or not - with horrifying deformities. I understand the rule about photography. They're not a funfair freak show to gawp at for some kind of thrill. They were people, after all; and the babies were wanted, and mourned - they're still treated kindly, gifts of toys and sweets being left beside or on top of their glass cases. And the slogan printed on the unopened box containing a toy helicopter? "Keep Your Dreams Flying". Sad.

It begins with the people...

This is Suree, who is quite simply the best tour guide I've ever had. She works for Absolutely Fantastic Holidays Ltd here in Thailand, and over the last week has been professional, efficient, knowledgeable, patient, interesting, friendly and funny. She's been an absolute delight, and has added immeasurably to our enjoyment of this trip, which in other hands could have been something of an ordeal, given the programme put together for our media group.

Here she is, embarrassed and grateful at being given our group tip, saluting us and saying "Kop kun kaa" - thank you. After this she went on to say how glad she was to have been able to show us her Thailand, and when she tried to say how much her country needed us, she choked up and couldn't finish. She is so passionate about Thailand, yet realistic too. She didn't try to fudge the issue of the coups and the curfew, and was honest about the car bombing down way down south yesterday that led to an unfortunate juxtaposition on the front page of the newspaper. (Nothing to do with the coup, by the way: it's an unrelated, ongoing independence movement in the border country, instigated by Muslim separatists.)

Suree sees the leaders of the Yellowshirts and Redshirts as ill-disciplined boys, each wanting their own way, who have been held apart by an adult, the military, who is making them talk to each other nicely. She is totally optimistic about the future, and completely confident that tourists are safe here. It's something that's of utmost importance to the country: over the last five years, 50% of the people employed by tourism, one way or another, have lost their jobs; and if the visitors continue to go elsewhere, there could soon be only 10% left in the industry.

From what I've seen this week, she's right. Thailand is safe, it's fascinating, it's beautiful and it's fun. The food and the scenery are spectacular - but what really makes this country is its people, who are always so ready to smile. You should treat yourself, and come here.

Water first and last

Day 6 in Thailand started with a standard and ended with a surprise. Everyone who comes here goes to the markets, and why wouldn't you? Crammed full of cliche, they're colourful, busy, full of new tastes and smells, cheap, cheerful and totally photogenic. This morning it was the new version of the Floating Market. Years ago, this was a floating traffic jam of traders on the river in boats piled high with fruits and vegetables, beloved of tour companies - but then convenience called as more malls and the SkyTrain were built, the actual customers drifted away, and now it doesn't exist in that form any more. There is still a market by the river, though, where the same things are sold from stalls, and a few friendly cooks in boats still cruise the canals, and moor alongside the market where people sit at tables.

It's an authentic place, still mostly frequented by locals, and well worth visiting - as are some of the houses that we were taken to, actual homes of polished teak and airy spaces surrounded by gardens and muddy creeks and canals where turtles, catfish and snakes hang out. There was a lot of snacking along the way, of things like freshly-fried fishcakes, sweet sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves, crunchy guava, pink juice made from flowers. So much food, being prepared and cooked! You wouldn't think there were enough mouths in the country to eat it all - but there's very little waste, at the end of the day.

Speaking of that, after a sadly hurried dinner where we were greeted by traditional dancers, ours finished with a soothingly cooling night cruise along the river to Asiatique. It's a former warehouse converted to shops and stalls, lively and busy, with a theatre where we went to a Muay Thai show. That's kick-boxing to you, not the real thing with blood and bruises, but a slick and stylised version that tells the history of the country and the sport, with a bit of a love story thrown in. Our initial jaded cynicism about cartoon-style sound-effects was soon blown away by the energy and enthusiasm of the young men leaping and tumbling about the stage, and we were all captivated by the performance.

For the 2D version of the market visit, watch Duncan's report.

Getting into the spirit of Thailand

Back in Bangkok, a thousand travel writers and promoters from 34 countries were brought together for the Thailand Happiness festival, starting with some agreeably short speeches from the DG of Thai Tourism and the Commander-in-Chief himself. It's all about reassuring potential tourists that Thailand is safe and welcoming, and eager to greet them. "We are willing to service you forever," in fact, according to the headphone translation. The finale of the ceremony was the popping-up from the audience, 'Love Actually' style, of singers who came together on stage to sing a catchy number.

It did of course help that before all this, there had been a cocktail reception with liberal offerings of alcohol, most notably a drink based on Mekhong, a mysterious spirit which general opinion declared to be rum, but which was light and fruity and eminently drinkable. So after the speeches we were well primed to troop down and out into the street for the start of the party. There were balloons, there was a rain of sparkly confetti, there was a poor excitable drone that collided with the roof over the stage, and there was a parade.

It wasn't a parade in the OTT Malaysian sense, but what it lacked in numbers it made up for in enthusiasm: chefs, dancers, musicians, Miss Thailand... All very jolly and well received by the public standing grinning in the 28-degree darkness. Dispersing afterwards and wandering along the street, the smiles continued, from people manning food stalls, selling clothing, personalising handbags, driving tuk tuks, or just out like me enjoying the vibe.

Moving pictures here.

Thai wine. It's a real thing.

It was another rough day in the travel writing business: wine-tasting at 11am, who would choose to do that? But, conscientious as ever, there I was with the others at the PB Valley winery, slurping and sloshing - though not spitting. Well, there was no bucket supplied, so what else were we to do, but swallow? And it was no penance, as it turned out. Thai wine is not the main topic of conversation wherever oenologists foregather, but actually there's no reason why not, since it's really pretty good. We tasted chenin blanc, rose, shiraz and tempranillo, and it was all eminently drinkable, even before lunch. Don't go looking for it down at the bottle store, though: it goes to Japan mainly; and it's also a bit expensive. Not for us today, though, hooray!

After what was an unsurprisingly jolly lunch at the winery, we were off to an organic mushroom farm where they grow varieties with names like Ear, Angel Wing and Monkey Brain. Presenting us on arrival with a cold mushroom drink that had the consistency of snot wasn't the best marketing move, but it got better. The one that they cooked up for us in a light batter was really very moreish. The mushroom-shaped accommodation and swimming pool were perhaps a little over the top, but there's no faulting their enthusiasm for the fungus, which managed to survive even - presumably - Google Translate in their literature: "We have a good sniff exactly it helps people live longer with healthy." And the eager man who showed us around was a real fun guy. [*cough* Stolen joke.]

Pausing briefly at Palio, a quite bizarre Italianate shopping centre, complete with golden Thai shrine, bronze greyhounds and a shop selling Halloween costumes, we ended the day at a massage parlour. It was an everyday, unpretentious sort of set-up, nothing like the elaborate rituals of hotel spas: a team of small women directed us to battered loungers or mattresses on the floor depending on our wants, and proceeded to knead and poke with hard fingers and thumbs for an hour, or two. There was wincing, there was giggling and there was also, incredibly, given what I perceived to be a barely tolerable level of pain, snoring. But it was cheap, and I walked back to the nearby hotel on fluffed-up feet, to paddle in the infinity pool and gaze out over manicured gardens to the wild hills, which are about to be visited by a multi-billion baht development of hotels, shopping mall and water park.  

Lots of treats and two disappointments

Most of today was spent sitting - but on a wide variety of vehicles. First there was our usual coach, a fancy big black thing with massage seats that whisked us from Korat along a wide motorway through farmland with rice fields, small herds of water buffalo, little towns lined with shops, fruit stalls piled with durians and mangosteens, and, finally, hills. Here we went first to a pottery village which we toured in a sort of tram. Everyone there is involved in producing and selling all sorts of goods, from huge tasteful garden urns to garishly painted and infectiously smiling figures. We watched one of the former being made, in a dim shed by a man smeared in clay, the pot rising from a lump to a beautiful simple shape in just minutes. As mesmerising now as it ever was in the black and white days of the TV Interlude.

[Speaking of TV, here's a YouTube clip about today posted by Duncan of Duncan's Thai Kitchen. You may glimpse me in the background!]

Then came a silk-weaving village, where we were feted guests, and saw all the work that goes into producing a length of fabric: one barefooted man walks 10km a day, back and forth eight metres turning 120 of the finest threads into weavable thickness. Most of their machinery is so simple, wood and nails and wire, but the looms are something else entirely. I'm full of admiration for their skill.

Next we arrived at our very flash 5-star hotel for two nights - Botanica in Khao Yai, an elegant modern glass affair with views over the lumpy wooded hills. We drove further into them, a long way, to see a waterfall much talked-up by our guide Suree which was, almost inevitably, a bit of a disappointment - big, roaring, a torrent of brown water, sure, and reached by flights of the most astonishingly steep and narrow steps I've ever seen, but no match for Iguassu, naturally. Never mind, it was good to get the exercise. And the huge millipede, and the leeches attached to the specially issued anti-leech socks were something of a sensation.

More genuinely disappointing was not seeing any elephants, especially after driving past the yellow diamond warning sign Danger: Wild Elephants. We went on a night safari on the back of a ute, our plastic macs flapping, the warm rain slanting down in the light from our spotter's torch, but all we found were some barking deer and a big black-tailed squirrel in a tree. No elephants. So we had to make do with the photo taken by the guide just yesterday, right outside the national park headquarters. Sigh.

Dinner at Botanica's restaurant Tempo (curiously, reached via golf cart through the underground car park) was a consolation though, especially dessert: banana, mango, papaya and white chocolate mousse. Yum!

Second city delights

Today we headed north out of Bangkok towards its second city of Korat, along a wide, modern highway past rice fields, a big dam, small busy towns, men watching small herds of Brahman cattle or water buffalo, people sitting at stalls selling fruit and sweetcorn, and some hills - "mountains" according to Suree.

On the far side of the city we visited Khmer ruins at Phimai, a smaller but older version of Angkor Wat, which lies at the other end of a road that starts there. There was some history, of a pre-Thailand, the usual thing of shifting borders and exchanges of power; but mostly we wandered freely around the ancient stone, 1000 years old, carved and weathered, red and white sandstone blackened with age and set off by neat green grass being trimmed by women with big knives.

There was more eating today, of course, first a lunch of crispy fish and duck, with tangy papaya salad and delicious Pad Thai, in an open-sided restaurant where an eager cat flitted around under the table, shamelessly begging. Then tonight we had a succession of interesting dishes laid before us in another unpretentious place of formica and neon strip lights: fresh-tasting varied things frequently unidentifiable, but all hot and crisp and delicious. There were lotus stalks and a spicy peanut mix to wrap inside leaves, more fish and chicken and sweetcorn fritters, soup and rices, salads and noodles. We had all complained about over-feeding as we entered, but there were no complaints once the food started coming, and not much of it left at the end.

Then we went to a night market, which was really good: authentic, non-touristy, non-pushy, relaxed and lively. One side was food stalls, the other clothes, bags, shoes, electronics, a lot of it second-hand, and most of the customers and stall-holders young people, all enjoying the social side of the event as much as the chance to buy or sell. Everyone was friendly and smiling, the night was warm with a pleasant breeze, there was music, live and canned...  I even bought a gold watch, with Thai numbers, since I forgot to bring mine. It cost 100 baht! That's about $3.60. What a lovely way to finish the day.

[If you're interested, Duncan's YouTube post about the day is here.]

Not just the day that was full

A day that begins with waking at 4.30am is always going to be long, but this one was remarkably busy, too. Mainly, it seemed, spent eating. There was breakfast, with a temptingly wide selection at the Sukosol hotel's breakfast buffet (though I was faithful, as ever, to my old love Bircher muesli). Then there was lunch, at Sala, a sleek, shiny modern place directly across the river from the Wat Arun, with glorious fresh and tasty Thai food and an even better sticky rice dessert with coconut cream and fabulously ripe, delicate, yellow mango.

Later there was sampling of mangosteens and rambutans at a market, and guava and rose apple which was neither rose nor apple but tasted just like both together, and then chestnuts. That was all on our way to having dinner in Chinatown, walking past stall after stall cooking and selling bananas, fish, skewers, rice dishes, chicken, duck... We had a Lazy Susan full of different things - pork, chicken, cashew nuts and peanuts, Chinese kale and other greenery, a whole fish, still sizzling, dim sum, several sorts of rice, and Singha beer. Then we had to attend a reception with the hotel owner, a lovely little intense lady (Thai and lively), and management (German and serious) which was canapés then dinner with special dishes beautifully presented, and an international buffet. Augh. They were happy to see the 22 of us, mostly Aussies, since their occupancy rate should be 80% but is currently only 30% because of the coup and the curfew. Neither applies any more, but the media have omitted to do the follow-up to their stories of riots and containment, and government advisories are still in place meaning that travel insurance won't apply - so no-one's coming, and they want us to get the word out.

We've seen no sign of military rule - the closest we got was a ceremonial guard change at the Grand Palace, with lots of slapping and stamping from painfully tightly white-uniformed soldiers. We were dutifully doing Bangkok's sights: palaces, temples, markets, canals, Chinatown. Also getting stuck in traffic, learning that water monitors actually are a monitor of water quality, feeding huge but surprisingly gentle catfish for good luck, and having a really interesting conversation with guide Suree about Buddhism as we sat rather uncomfortably on the floor beneath the Gold Buddha.

Though I had seen most of today's sights before, twice, it was still good to visit them again, and enjoy the colour and detail, the refinement and the squalor, the real and the imagined, and hear the stories and the background. Though - and I'm sorry to seem churlish -  a bit less food would have been preferable.

Travelling hopefully

Here I go, off again. I'm at the airport, slumming it in a coffee shop like the unprivileged masses because - as indicated by the neck pillow stowed on my trusty backpack - I'm travelling economy today, sigh. All it takes is one business class flight to spoil you forever, and I've been lucky to have had many over the last few years, including very recently. Oh well, it's only eleven hours or so to Bangkok, and daylight too, so it shouldn't be too much of a penance.

What's slightly more concerning is that the Sunday papers today are of course full of MH17, with affecting photos of toys and travel books scattered on the ground, and plenty of graphic detail about what it would have been like for those on board when the plane was hit. The last time I was here at the airport - no, the time before (it's been a busy year) - I took a photo of the tails of several aircraft parked outside which included a Malaysian Airlines plane. I smugly noted that I wasn't flying with them, but with Air Tahiti Nui. That was soon after MH370 disappeared - who could possibly have thought that the airline would have another tragedy, let alone so soon?

Perhaps that's why I keep hearing a PA announcement for a passenger who's not gone to the gate to board MH130 - is that a last-minute chickening-out happening there?

I'm flying with Thai Airways today and have no cause for concern but, despite knowing (and being able to see, on various apps) how many aircraft are in flight at any moment of the day, flying safely, it still makes you think as you strap yourself in, what a precarious and unnatural thing it is, to fly.

See you on the other side! I hope.

I may have just done a 'Jaws'...

In the summer of 1975, I went to Australia for the first time by myself to take up a holiday job, and escaped the up-country property where I was working with horses to do a bit of Christmas shopping in Adelaide, and to go to the movies. That's where I saw Jaws, and it scared me so rigid that afterwards, when I went to the beach at Glenelg, I was unable to get into the water above my knees, despite the sunshine and the invitingly warm water. It wasn't so very stupid: I learned much later, when I was in South Australia again as a travel writer, that they filmed a lot of the shark scenes for the movie off the coast there, since they have so many great whites knocking about in the Southern Ocean. (You can cage dive with them if you're so inclined - here's the cage. Note the dings in the metal floats attached to it...)

Tonight I've just been to see The Impossible, about the Boxing Day tsunami, which I thought was amazingly well done and shockingly convincing. Full credit to the production team, and to the actors and extras who were tossed about in that terrible water - actual water, not CGI. And then next week I'm going to Waiheke Island, to stay in an apartment across the road from long and open Onetangi Beach, and though I know how unlikely it is, the images of those huge waves sweeping in aren't going to be far from my mind as I stand on the balcony or lie on the sand.

The last time I went to Thailand, two years after the disaster, it was to Phuket, where the tsunami did awful damage and killed so many people. Here's the end of that story: ...We sat in Baan Rim Pa, a fine and famous Thai restaurant where we enjoyed a magnificent multi-course dinner at a table on the veranda, looking down on local families fishing from the rocks 20 metres below. Out in the bay, lights looped through the dark where the squid boats were working, and a warm breeze made our candles gutter in their holders. Where we sat savouring fresh seafood cooked to recipes once prepared for the royal family, where the polished teak glowed warmly in the lamplight and the brass fittings gleamed, a wall of water had swept through on that terrible morning. Now there was nothing to show for it. Glasses clinked, people chatted and laughed, there was live music from the bar, and the air was scented with jasmine and spices. In Phuket today, everything is civilised again...

Eureka, and other water

Now that the All Blacks have trounced the Wallabies, who've succumbed to the Eden Park hoo-doo once again - the choke's on them! - the focus has turned back to real news and proper English words.

Progress has been made on the Rena, with salvors (another new word we've been introduced to) on board the nerve-wrackingly, and noisily, shuddering wreck, and the fuel oil is being removed using an Archimedes screw - because it's of the consistency of Marmite, and can't be pumped without being heated, which is impossible in these circumstances. It's a long, slow process and there's more weather on the way to interrupt it, and we've been told there will still be a spill when the ship, as it must, works free of the reef.

Hard work by many hands has cleared some of the sandy beaches, but there's still a lot of oil amongst the rocks, and fears of what will happen to the wetlands have led to a pre-emptive strike, trying to capture as many dear little NZ dotterels as possible. There are only 1700 of them in the world. That means abandoning their eggs, and having to wrestle with the new problem of looking after them till it's safe to return them to their territory - whenever that might be. And soon the godwits, and the lower-profile but equally doughty red knots, will be arriving from the Yukon and other incredibly distant places. Sigh.

Meantime, Thailand is disappearing under flood water making its way downstream to Bangkok, lying either side of the Chao Phraya River, which is both immensely wide and amazingly busy with boats and ferries constantly buzzing along it. One thing all tourists do when they visit is to take a long-tailed boat cruise through the khlongs, or canals, that wind like back streets through areas where people live in often fairly rickety wooden houses on stilts. They wash, fish and get about, in the water: it's part of daily life there, but they're very vulnerable to it, and any rise in height or increase in the current is going to make things extremely difficult, as well as threatening many fabulous and ancient temples. Tch, haven't we already had enough floods this year?

Excited mixer...

...is excited, looking forward to the fledglings coming home for brunch. Eggs, bacon, baked tomatoes and mushrooms, pastries, all sorts of fruit, juice and this time a lemon cake with marscapone frosting. Yum.

Lovely to see them both and catch up with their news, even if the reporting was all one way (we aged parents aren't expected to have news of our own). And brunch is the perfect, casual, free-wheeling kind of meal for this type of gathering. It's also the opposite of grazing: one good brunch will keep me going all day.

Oddly, the slightly scaled-down version that is a hotel breakfast never seems to last as well, even when I've managed to get outside an entire panful of super-hospitable Renee's sweet and more-ish appelskivers at Abendblume just outside Leavenworth, Washington; or prowled round and round the chefs' stands at Indigo Pearl in Phuket, dithering over freshly-cooked crepes or stir-fry or noodles or omelette or waffles, at the same time dazzled by the huge range of pastries, fruit and cereals. Or toyed with the idea of a Buck's Fizz at the Grand Hotel du Lagon in Reunion (first time I've seen an open bottle of champagne on the breakfast buffet).

But it's not all groaning tables, I'll have you know: in Peru, the standard breakfast was a saucer of (one) dry scrambled egg, two slices of tomato and a cup of coca tea. Yet, strangely, I didn't hanker for a larger helping...

Premade? Still working on this version.

Well, fancy that. Thanks, Google Alert! It's kind of exciting, to know there's a Sim with my name - and what are the odds that she's a traveller? She's also described as tan (nup), thin (hah!), Pisces (Scorp), brown-haired (who knows?), single and normal - but her eyes are grey and she aspires to Knowledge, so that's near enough. As for living in a 'secret sub-neighbourhood called Exotic Destinations' - well, how about Bay of Fires, Tryphena, Ningaloo, Koblenz and Paris? And that's just the first half of this year. (Sorry: but this blog is called TravelSKITE.)

I'm not so sure about the 'visiting foreign hotels' bit though: that sounds suspiciously like what's depressingly titled 'site inspections' in the trade - something that travel agents get saddled with when they're whisked overseas for what other people assume is an exciting, exotic free holiday. While we travel writers see ourselves as in an entirely different category from agents, I've been caught up in some of these myself on group famils, and also heard true horror stories of having to be shown round 20 hotels in a single day. It's madness: you can't distinguish them from each other after about the first four, so it's a total waste of time. But mainly, how tedious and dispiriting, to be shown some fabulous hotel room all marble, 1000+ count linen, balcony overlooking turquoise bay dotted with islands, and dazzling bathroom, and have to focus on the fact that the bath-tub is too high for elderly clients to climb into.

What they should do is give the agents video memory sticks of what's available, and then let them just enjoy the hotel they're staying in, which they will then remember both vividly and - hopefully - fondly. Like Indigo Pearl on Phuket, with its classy industrial-chic theme; or the Hong Kong Peninsula's 6-room suite with TV over the bath; or the Raj Palace in Jaipur's croquet lawn and super-attentive staff; or the roses and hand-made chocolates in the Plaza Grande in Quito; or the intricate pattern of bougainvillea petals on the bed at Legends in Mauritius; or the fireplace in the bathroom and the Inca walls at Hacienda San Augustin de Callo at Cotopaxi in Ecuador; or the over-water villa at Lagoon Resort on Aitutaki; or the rustic four-poster in the tent at Kangaluna in South Australia; or the 16th century longhouse in Anglesey that smelled of lilies and hay. See? I remember them all perfectly - and I'd recommend any one of them, totally (almost).

Coco loco

I can see the signs as well as anybody: two coconut references in the last post, and then I just read a warning about coconuts in my Mauritius guidebook. So coconuts it is today, then.

The warning was not to lie underneath one. Well, duh! I've been cautious about falling coconuts ever since I saw one in Tahiti drop out of a tree into a shallow pond at the base with the most spectacular splash. It was like a scene from The Dambusters. Noise, white water, small tsunami: the thought of my delicate noggin being underneath something like that has left me terminally cautious about the potential irony of the Tree of Life actually being an Instrument of Death.

That's what they call it all through the tropic zones, you know, because they use every bit of it. I have, myself, sat on a coconut palm stump on Atiu in the Cook Islands, drinking from a small polished coconut shell cup bush beer brewed from fermented orange juice and hops - a tradition since the early missionaries took a dim view of the original tipple of choice, kava. (Bush beer is so much nicer than that muddy, mouth-numbing disgusting drink anyway.) Custom is, to have it with a coconut milk chaser.

I've also drunk fizzy fresh green coconut milk there ("Tastes just like Sprite!" said Birdman George, who shinned up the tree to pick one for me - and so it was, sort of). The he cut a spoon from the outside with one slash of his machete and I used it to scoop out the soft, delicately-flavoured meat from inside ("Baby food," said George). Then he cut some fronds and plaited them into plates to serve our fruity lunch on at the beach, where freshly-grated coconut and a squeeze of lime juice made pawpaw and starfruit into something memorable.

I've been given a polished bit of shell with holes in it to keep my sarong secure, and a woven-frond hat to keep the sun off. I've eaten fish cooked in coconut milk in the Loyalty Islands near New Caledonia; as well as coconut crab which looked hideous, but tasted divine, thanks to its exclusively coconut diet.

I've sheltered in Thailand under a cococut palm leaf-roofed hut, on a coconut palm leaf mat and watched a trained monkey romp up a coconut palm tree to twist a nut free, and seen the meat boiled up in a vast wok to extract the oil - and then tasted the glorious caramel-y residue that's left afterwards. I've made a pig of myself on Aitutaki with rukau - tender green taro shoots baked in coconut cream. In fact, I've eaten a whole swag of foods cooked in or with coconut, and loved them all, ruinous though they are to the waistline.

And none of this is to mention how coconut trees are used in building, for roofing, for drums, for clothing (including the infamous coconut shell bra, all sizes) ... It's a marvellous plant. Just don't sit underneath one.