PREVIOUSLY ON LOST

Coveting my flesh…
In and out, in and out, in and out…
With effortless ease…
My snake…
Pounded and pumped…
Cheryl Coles’…
Wet…
Pussy.

I was about to die. My life flashed before my eyes and in doing so I suddenly found the answer to the most important question of all; a question that has foxed me and escaped, nay, baffled mankind for years.
Reader, I need not tell you the question, but the answer is (and in this order)
Cheryl
Nadine,
Sarah,
Nicola
The other one.

I grabbed the reticulated beast around the throat squeezing the oxygen from its lungs while Doni pulled the tail end with all his mite. Being five foot nothing like all Indonesian men it was no help whatsoever: I was still sinking. This was like a tug-of-war between the entire A-Team, their van and Ronnie Corbett. Sorry; this plan was not coming together, Hannibal. As my energy drained and survival mode diminished images of my childhood, friends, lovers new and old, My Family and Robert Lindsay became entwined with religious iconography, the hooded, scythe-wielding Grim Reaper’s hand weighing down on my left shoulder and old movie posters all burned themselves onto my retinas. This isn’t what I imagined death to be like, this was more like a sped-up montage of Tom Baker regenerating into Peter Davison. The black rabbit of Inle from Watership Down, an uncle showing me his “purple trouser carrot” when I was five, more Doctor Who, The TARDIS spinning thru space-time, Billie Piper, Martha Jones, Catherine Tate. I hate Catherine Tate but at least some form of structured narrative was creeping into my dying thoughts. This preposterous internal slide-show continued while my electrochemical, physical brain asked my spiritual, metaphysical soul for answers to those unanswerable questions…
Is there a God?
Should I repent?
Do birds piss ? I’ve never seen a bird piss, I’ve never been hit by bird piss.
Why the fuck has Nintendo’s Super Mario become the universal emblem for all barbers?
What if I could have all five members of Girls Aloud at the same time?
Imagine the mess!

Although all of this had only taken a third of a second, it felt like a lifetime. If I was going to asphyxiate in boiling mud couldn’t we just get on with it? Perhaps I should do some new stand-up material to pass the time, you know, physical comedy to bridge the language barrier, after all if I was going to die standing up I might as well die performing; it couldn’t have been as bad as the last time I died on stage.

Now I don’t care what you say nor for cultural differences, children should not throw cabbages at a dying man. No matter how bad his material is. A single-engined plane buzzed overhead. At last! Rescue! Doni must have called in a favour from his mates in the air-force. Something trailed below the plane. A rope? I was going to have to be quick, quicker than quik-mud as I’d only get one shot at this. As it came closer and as my eyesight improved I could see what it was carrying. Behind the plane floated a banner reading “HAPPY RAMADAN” Happy Ramadan, my arse! I was fuckin’ dying here.

The plane flew off, I don’t know where, probably into a building and a mouldy potato hit me square on the jaw, jarring me to my senses. I still had hold of the snake… Well it was more of a slow-worm actually. I manoeuvred my left hand to hold both my iphone and the invertebrate. My free right hand snapped at its tongue and in one deft move I pulled its skin from its body, doubling it in length, eyes bulging and giving me one last fighting chance. Blup, blup, blup… the mud was up to my neck and any energy I had was gone. In the words of Jim Morrison “This is the end”

If nothing else, dying was exciting; I was moments from death yet I had never felt so alive. Beneath the surface I was getting an erection. I had the horn and it was winning the battle against the mud.
“I’ve got wood!” I thought my last words on this mortal coil would be.
“Apa?” replied Doni - Indonesian for “What?”
“I’ve got wood!” I repeated as the mud entered my mouth.
He looked blank.
“Wood!” I screamed as my iphone in its waterproof case glugged below the mud
“Apa?”
“Wood! Like Carolina uses for her furniture!” I gargled.
And with her form and visage fresh in my mind, my hands thrust through the surface as if they held Excalibur itself. Throwing the phone to one of the mesmerized kids both my hands were now above water, I summoned every last ounce of strength and lurched forward. With my new found virility I pulled myself out with my strong, muscular arms. I was almost out of the mud. With one last heave I landed on the ground at everyone’s feet and lay there panting; my dip-dops were gone, taken by the underworld but I was alive and it felt good.
“How the fuck did you do that Mister Will?” asked Doni.
“Well how am I gonna get into Carolina’s hotpants if I’m not breathing?”

We giggled like schoolboys as we walked into the sunset like two cowboys at the end of a western.

I had stared into the eyes of death and laughed in its face.

Some things are worth fighting for.

“She has a husband you know”

“I don’t care.” I said… “What’s the quickest way to Bali?”

KUWU MUD LAKE

I was dreaming when I wrote this, so forgive me if it goes astray… Woken from a wet dream I swear was in Polish by Doni kicking my door in at 7.00am we broke fast (other English people have started asking me for a knife-ful of my Marmite. I politely refuse then sit there making orgasmic sounds as I keep it all to myself) we set off on another five hour drive to Kuwu.

When we eventually arrived after stopping for lunch and to pick up something for Doni’s Jeep (which I am going to drive in the desert) we walked onto the edge of the mudflat. Every forty-five seconds or so a mud geyser would erupt from the middle. Then every so often a big one would fart its way out of the earth. My digital camera was not working so I had to take pics on my iphone with no zoom, missing the action every time due to the frustratingly slow finger to shutter speed action. It wasn’t really that interesting and I was beginning to question whether it was worth the eight hour round trip.

It was then that my friend called me over to a miniature geyser just on the mudflat. I say the word friend loosely as with hindsight I swear he did this on purpose. As the local children carried their 20 kilo frames almost weightlessly over the brittle surface and as Doni trod carefully, I slowly ventured out on to the sun-baked earth. Four or five steps in, the mud oozed under my right flip-flop and in it went, down into the grey oomska. Not a problem Will, pull your foot out and place it on terra firma; what could be more simple? With nothing to hold on to by pulling my right leg out I unwittingly shifted all my weight to my left foot which began to sink into the cartoon elephant coloured surface. With each pull, the opposing leg drowned a little more but I was determined not to lose my favourite Billabong flip-flops. They had cost me £1.80 after all. It was at this point I realised I was actually properly sinking. I was up to my knees in the stuff and thoughts of my own mortality entered my mind as Doni shouted words of encouragement like “Don’t struggle, Will”, “Keep still” and “Put your arms like this”

All I could do was laugh at the thought of my impending death. Drowning in mud was not how I envisaged dying… but what a way to go! This would certainly be one to tell the grandkids… hang on, that’s not right; I knew there was something I should I should have done before I died.

As Doni panicked and the local kids giggled, still skipping around with effortless ease like mini, raggedy-clothed, brown, riverdancing Michael Flatleys, my guide scrambled himself into rescue mode, which mainly consisted of pointing and laughing. “Get a fucking branch dude!” I screamed, adrenaline pumping but my life-force slowly ebbing away. “No tree” came the idiotic reply. My pulse in overdrive, I surveyed the desolate landscape, the nearest tree was a kilometre away. Great! My mind raced and a moment later clicked into survival mode… “Take off your belt” I shouted as I sank further into the quik-mud.
“Fuck off!” came the response.

He must have spotted something in the middle distance and ambled over to retreive it.
“No rush” I shouted sarcastically after him. The mud was passed my thighs and would not give up pulling me further down, sucking me further south as far as Hell itself. I was sure I could feel Cerberus, the three headed dog-guardian of the Gates of Hades snapping at my heels, but I was determined the rabid, mythological mutt wasn’t getting his greasy paws on my dip-dops. I looked down into certain oblivion when, in a flash and like a naked pygmy, Doni arrived. In a blur he threw what was in his hands towards me.
“Take hold of my snake, Mister Will”
“Snake, why’d it have to be snake?” I enquired, paraphrasing Dr. Jones in Pidgeon Ingriss.
“Like belt!”
My heart pounded and my blood pumped fast as I descended into the bowels of the earth.
I caught the scaly bastard with my right hand, for my left was clutched around my iphone tighter than Cheryl Coles’ chastity belt. I knew not what kind of snake it was but I was well aware that I now faced potential death on two fronts. Well done Doni, you fuckwit. But this was no time to be a wet drip, no time to be a pussy; if anyone around here was going to be spineless it was the snake, not me. Face to face, its evil, beady little slits for eyes pierced my soul as its devil-forked tongue hissed in and out, in and out, in and out smelling the air and coveting my flesh.

TO BE CONTINUED…

YOGYAKARTA

Upon arriving at Yogya I set about checking my e-mail, Facebook etc. Open Yahoo… Message from my brother entitled Flat Sale, I opened it… “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news…” began the e-mail. Oh Fuck. The flat that had been sold, subject to completion almost six months ago had fallen through. The buyer’s lender had pulled out; something was wrong with the deeds.
Why the fuck our solicitor hadn’t seen the same thing when we bought it eighteen months ago, only she knows… Its back on the market and there is a buyer interested, but what needs to happen first is the problem, whatever that is, needs fixing so the last ten wasted years of my life doesn’t turn into ten and a half.

It was so close to completion, but then the money that I had almost been relying on was no more.
With the house market so buggered, I reckon it will now sell for 20-30K less than this offer. There goes my two-bed, gardened house with swimming pool on a white sanded lagoon beach in East Java for five hundred million rupiah, or twenty seven thousand pounds. Fuck. My life fell apart in front of me for the fiftieth time. Thoughts of cutting my world tour short invaded my mind. I’d have to go back to London and get a job… I cried for the first time in a very long time., and not even kind words of encouragement from home on Koh Samui could help… I was shaking... Best get drunk.

The next day we woke at eight, a veritable lie in and visited BoroBuddar, the largest Buddhist monument in the world. Discovered and excavated in 1912 by a Dutch man, from under the hill jungle that Mount Merapi had buried it under, it was the second most beautiful sight I was to see that day.



Unesco provided $25m for its renovation and strengthening its foundations as it was built in the 8th century when Java was Buddhist with no cement or glue, just male and female interlocking bricks and slabs. The idiot guy from Holland had it painted gold after excavation which eroded much of its intricacies.



Escorted by Midi, my Arsenal supporting tour guide and with the hangover from Nilfhelm, I ascended the levels up towards the ninth and last… the Buddhist state of Nirvana. After reaching inside one of the bell shaped towers to touch the Buddah’s fingers to make a wish, a wish you can only make if you are dexterous and long-armed enough (no, I’ll never tell what I wished for, but read on…) I told Midi that I was not worthy of climbing to the ninth level where one is closest to Buddah. While locals and Japanese tourists stubbed their fags out on the temple, I told him that I would come back one day when I had stopped drinking, smoking, cursing and shagging around; when I deserved to be close to the only deity that I might be able to believe in, on account of him being a dude who went round telling people to be cool to each other. A bit like Rufus from Bill and Ted’s. I don’t really think of Buddhism as a religion, more a journey of self -understanding and inner peace. The three possessions of a monk; the begging bowl, walking stick and orange robe, which make up the three parts of the giant bell structures, inside which sit a statue of the Dude himself represent living without possessions, which I guess any backpacker can relate to. On the way down I asked myself if monks wore orange condoms.



Though a Muslim, Midi seemed to respect this plus my mei-ing as thanks for my wish and was surprised that I already knew the story of Sidhartha, who became Buddah, how his mother dreamt of a white elephant descending from heaven and entering her womb. Guess I did pay attention during R.E. probably only cos I had a schoolboy crush on Miss Thomas. He also said my Indonesian was very good, and that the way I interacted and pronounced words was much better than the average Farang which made me like him but he did also say that I looked like Paul Gascgoine, which didn’t.

Indonesian is so much easier to understand and speak than Thai, I guess primarily because I’m a wordy person. If I don’t know how to say a word like Sirkip’s name, I get Doni to write it down and then it permeates my thick skull. The letters in the Indo alphabet are the same Roman letters that we have in English, whereas the Thai language is made up from what I call noodle writing. Its as if someone had taken a Pad Thai and shaped the noodles into a sentence. We do a lot of driving and going through towns and villages its easy to pick up the odd word and use it as soon as you can, for ease I’ll start with a simple example seen on every petrol station - 24 Jam. You instantly know the meaning, if you catch my drift. After eight days on Java I can speak ten times the amount of Thai I learnt in two months.

That afternoon we visited Merapi and Kaliurang volcanoes.

Merapi was clouded in mist (hence the library pics) so I couldn’t really see the summit but we did get to watch a cool film about it in a groovy little cinema.





Kaliurang was surrounded by mist too, but we walked on some of it and saw the remnants of the pyroclastic flow that destroyed houses and killed eleven people including two geologist mates of Doni’s.









He apparently filmed the pyroclast or Wedus Gembel in Indoesian from a hill while he screamed to one of the two that died to run for his life. Measuring below the surface a week later, the rocks still gave off a staggering 400 degrees celsius.


After another long drive back I went to see a two-hour Hindi dance. I joked that I would probably come out a Hindu after my morning’s enlightenment, still at least I’m self aware enough to know how fickle I can be. When it started it felt like I was on a school trip. Bo-o-oring! With a backdrop of a ma-hussive Temple, the company entered stage right and to the slow, rhythmic yet somehow out of time (I’ll never understand eastern music, pentamic scales and the like) they took ten minutes to cross the and exit stage right. A couple arrived and I wanted to whisper to the English girl next to me that she should fill them in on the plot they’d missed so far. About half way through I realised that we weren’t watching a play in four parts as the programme suggested but we were in fact watching episode two of four. At this point the prancing about stopped and a narrative began. Now I got it. Cutting to the chase the Monkey God was shot with the magic arrow after a tremendous fight and was sentenced to death at the stake by the evil king. However, being immortal, he leapt free and burned the moutherfucking house down. Quite literally. Look! It was fantastic!



It turns out that Holly, the girl I was sitting next to was from Acton, half a mile away from me in London. Not having a pen I gave her an old business card so she could find my name on Facebook and vowed to meet up in Thailand to discuss tales of West London life and what sob stories brought us to this side of the world.

Doni picked me up, called me a crocodile for chatting up girls and we went for dinner. As we alighted the car out of a cab jumped a vision the like of which I had never seen before. “Oh. My. God” I mouthed to my guide. Walking behind the most amazing pair of legs, which seated themselves at a table for six, the waiter ushered us upstairs… I was having none of that and indicated to Doni exactly where we were sitting. The waiter insisted there was more room upstairs but I wasn’t budging, I wanted to sit next to the legs and hotpants so, ignoring the waiter, I did. Doni obediently followed.

Striking up a conversation with the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in real life took me all of fifteen seconds. Crocodile; no... a cad and a bounder; yes but you aint seen nothing yet my friend. It turns out the most angelic face and perfect body in the world belong to a raven-haired Polish girl called Carolina. We took turns in talking; her and Doni about exporting Indonesian wooden furniture which is her business she conducts from her home in Bali, Will in perfect stand-up comedy mode, you’ve all seen it happen, however occasionally. The words were flowing out of my mouth like an aria, striking the perfect balance between cheeky and frisky and she was lapping it up. The bar closed and I invited her to another bar. Doni didn’t exactly get my hint to piss off home but it didn’t matter, I was on fire. Flirting turned to outrageous flirting and double entendre to single, unadulterated filth. Those foot massages she mentioned were for later and that’s not the first time tonight she’d me making those noises as she impersonated a panting animal, I informed her… Discussing Buddhism she stated that she too would be Buddhist as it’s the only religion where you can have sex after you die. This was my kind of girl, I told her… she stroked my arm and agreed we were soul mates. Now. Go. Home. Doni.

After discussing children (amazingly she has a two year old boy, but trust me; adopting him would be well worth it) and her love of a little TV programme called Lost, and with me as good as saying come back to my room for aforementioned foot massage, she announced her intention to get into her waiting cab and get some sleep before her 6am flight to Jakarta. Bollocks. We said goodbye, I thrust my second of the night and last business card into her arms and mouthed the words “call me” then she disappeared into the night like a Transylvanian vampire queen in human form.

Buddah had come through with his promise early.

Jesus Christ. I was in love.

Again.

TRAIN JOURNEY TO YOGJAKARTA

After a few Bintangs with Sirkip while we became masters at each other’s country’s interpretation of Pool (or Billiard in Jawa) we slept and woke up at 05:30hrs. Under cover of darkness, those two fuckers crept to McDonalds, fake Muslims that they are… I’m guessing they don’t eat pork, but Islam alright?

Bloody farang !

At the train station we three stared at the floor and our cigarettes to avoid making contact with the mad woman that clearly thought she and I were old friends. Perhaps she was sane and correct, I wouldn’t like to say. She eventually disappeared and I turned to the newspaper vendor, apologetically explaining “Wanita gila” he smiled and nodded in agreement. It amuses me (as Rob also stated) that the first few words of any new language you learn are (in this order) Thank you, Hello, Please, Yes, No, two beers please and crazy.

This country looks like one big rice field. I thought I left the paddies in Chewang.
Most of this part of Asia looks the same. Maybe slightly cynical of me but one country’s red-rooved, dilapidated housing next to burnt fields, surrounded by green hills, palm trees and punctuated by electricity pylons soon merge into the next… not that its not idyllic, I suppose one just gets used to it. That said, I’d take this over London any day.

Drop the one from a British InterCity 125 and you’ve calculated our top speed, which explains how children can run alongside the train as it pootles through the greenery. You can always, always tell the good kids from bad no matter what continent you’re on. The good smile sweetly beneath their school caps and headscarves sometimes waving their miniature hands while the little terrors throw bloody great rocks at the windows as we pass. The giant spider-web cracks in the windows proof of their accuracy.

Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler’s The Tears provide the soundtrack for the seven hour ride from Bandung to Yogjakarta. God I love that album, its amazing how one’s interpretation of lyrics can bend so far from what they used to mean to you. Favourite songs and shared words once reserved for one girl quickly belong to another. Well, not all of them, but one has to replace the sentiments of
“I tried to move on but the ghost of you stayed” with
“We’ll fly over the endless ocean… You and me; we’re just two creatures on the run” and
“I want your language to be appalling, I want you to play with my hair in the morning”
and most fitting of all “In Asia we can mend our breakdown”
I also tried to work out who the lyrics of 10CC’s most famous song applied more to. Definitely me.

Question. Answers on a postcard please; why does God always put the beautiful but betrothed girls near me on public transport? I tested this long-held, but previously unchallenged belief by walking up and down the next few carriages; well there was fuck all else to do on a seven hour train ride…

Yup, just as I anticipated, my hypothesis was correct - no pretty girls.
In conclusion: God was fucking with me.

Rickshaw ride to our hotel, gym, swim, internet (if ze frigging Germans would goosestep away from the computer) and dinner later on. It’s a dirty job, volcano climbing, but someone’s gotta do it. No, honestly you do get filthy, I’ve never spent so much time removing dirt from under my fingernails and scrubbing my feet with Krakatoan pummice.

PAPANDAYANG

After a three hour drive, during which the word “Smoking!” shouted with glee as its the only English Sirkip understands and instantly complies with, we arrived at Gurung Papandayang… again no restaurants or cafes due to Ramadan so a Kraft cheese singles sandwich and a mango each would have to provide us with the energy we needed to climb another volcano. Hindered by idiots, I pressed on, constantly being told to slow down to conserve energy by Doni… But boy, I was excited!



Ahead of us, steam vents blew like whales and we ascended what used to be a road until the 2001 eruption and pyroclastic flow left it looking more like a Colorado riverbed, rocks n’ all. The landscape changed. Above and to our left stood a Alpine mountain straight out of Heidi. Before us lay a moonscape or the discarded set from an old Dr Who episode circa Baker - the best Doctor… Tom, not Colin.




It was definitely not of this earth. The red iron oxide deposits told me I was on Mars yet the yellow sulphur suggested Venus or Mercury. Why Hollywood spend millions of dollars creating computer generated other-worlds when we have this miracle right here I do not know.



Nearing the sulphur jets we donned gasmasks; right up next to the vents was the same as being in a sauna only this sauna was accompanied by the smell of one billion rotting hard boiled eggs. Yellow sulphur deposits and volcanic mud bubbled away with the ferocity of a whole coven of witches cauldrons. As we sat smoking, Doni farted. I made the obvious joke and asked if it was him or the volcano, and as quick as an asp he retorted that it had come from his “black ass!” Hilarity ensued.



As I took photo after photo and a few videos of the most surreal place I have visited on this planet, Bristol Rovers socks adorning my feet, gas mask protecting me from toxic fumes I realised I truly am a Gashead!




In the car on the way back down the mountain, Doni informed me that “every volcano is different, Will”
“Kinda like women” I proferred
“Yes they both have a hole” Doni swiftly stated.
And referring to parasitic cones I was forced to admit “I like the ones with two”

RAKATA ISLAND

Setting up the tents, Doni and Sirkip employed a military sense of having done this more than once before. The last time I put up a tent I watched as someone else did it for me, the time before that… I did the same. The tent I own I have no idea how to put up, usually on account of me being drunk. I’m telling you this as a precursor, so you understand how often or used to sleeping outdoors I am. Pay attention now… it’s important. I’ll be asking questions later.



My tent faced Anak Krakatau and provided the perfect view, as did my hammock that the guys erected for me. Two more pyroclastic eruptions gripped the mountain and, as darkness grew, the boat guys and Doni prepared a dinner of sweetcorn soup and garlic, cheese and tomato omelettes “to keep the Vampyre away”




If truth be told I was waiting for a full blown Strombolian eruption - to you non-obsessives that’s the one that looks like a firework with molten lava jetting every which way from the vent.




















As the three of us we laughed our tits off at anything and everthing, I produced my treat. DJ Willer was in da house once again. Doni and particularly Sirkip were bemused with what I brought from my bag as I blasted Rakata island with The Streets, Chris Cornell and Led Zeppelin. DJ Doni took the virtual wheels of steel looking like a kid in a sweetshop as he'd never heard music on Rakata before and I even proffered Doni’s favourite Phil Collins’ “I can feel it coming in the air tonight” as a sacrifice to anger the Volcano Gods into giving me my Strombolian. That is the first and last time I will ever play that bald shag-sack’s music.



We smoked a hundred cigarettes and entertained each other, the boys particularly liking my tale of the monkey that was hanged for being a Frenchman up north. Doni translated to Sirkip and I established that Javan stand-up comedians must be on stage a week as it took a good ten minutes to translate. They could have been talking about the price of Nasi Goreng or cockfighting for all I knew.

I swung in the hammock being eaten alive by mozzies, a tad reluctant to get into the tent. Then it was time for bed, I zipped up the tent as with a squint the volcano could just be made out - black against a blue-black sky.

Popping my head outside every three minutes wasn’t gonna cool me down but somehow, I fell asleep. Every few minutes I would wake but then after one hours sleep I woke from a nightmare. At that self-same moment, a giant bug landed on the semi-transparent opening. Aaaarghh. Things with four legs moved around outside knocking pots, pans and plates over… I couldn’t breath. I was having a panic attack. Eventually, having calmed myself down with ventolin I went for the most terrified wee of my life… I could hardly piss straight with fear as things moved front, left, right then behind me. The waves crashed ashore with such force that the whole beach shook each time, the noise tremendous. The forest moved unnaturally and the trees narrowed like a Spielberg zoom every time I trained my torch on them. I knew the only release from this, my normal antidote - was daylight.

After yet another night with one full hours sleep, I unzipped the tent to see the volcano erupting again. Doni brought some Farang food in the form of half a melon and a banana pancake, asked if I was okay as I looked like shit and very sweetly asked if he had done something to offend me. Bless. He let me half-sleep in the hammock for another hour before the boat left.

Only I could happen upon the country with the world’s largest Muslim population during Ramadan. There’s no food available during the day as everyone (except guess who) is fasting. We finally found a fish restaurant for want of a better word and ate prawns and carp and sticky rice with our fingers.

It goes without saying that I was tired and grumpy all day, on the drive back through Jakarta (think London but twice as many people (16million) twice as many cars and a googolplex more scooters) Grumpy that was until I showered, ate and best of all, got the first of what would turn into hundreds of texts from someone special.

Panic attack or no panic attack, I had climbed my first volcano; I had become an explorer, an adventurer. Fuck bungee jumping, any loudmouth Ozzie prick can do that, so from this day forth I shall be known as Will “Volcano Climber” Howell-Cornes… or you can just call me Indy.

ANAK KRAKATAU

Now obviously the thought of finally seeing my first and favourite volcano filled me with joy, but a two hour boat ride from West Java into the Sunda Straight still stood in my way, like a vast expanse of oceanic water, which is precisely what it is. My metaphor is similie. We careered through the jade green water for a little over half that time when Anak Krakatau slowly revealed herself through the mist with Rakata in the foreground to the left. As we neared I regressed in age with excitement, drumming the side of the boat with my palms and whooping.


Her perfect form loomed above us as we moved closer.






















There were eruptions three days before according to the fishy boatmen. We dropped anchor, and waited… and waited… and smoked… and drank coffee… and waited.


Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

Oh well, lets go climb it…





We passed the monstrous lapilli rock formations (one of which I Christened “The Eagle” because from a certain angle it looked like Sam the Eagle from The Muppet Show) and made shore.



We left the boat and yelled to the pilot “Yo Homie, smell ya later” and as my lily-white feet contrasted with the black volcanic sand, I looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, sitting on my throne as the Prince of Bel Air.

I was actually standing on Anak Krakatau.

My dream come true.

Leaving Sirkip on the shore and sporting nothing sensible (as, I hadn’t bought hiking boots in Singapore ‘cos in their infinite wisdom, my bank had cancelled my card as I showed up in three countries in the space of 9 hours) we began to climb my first stratovolcano in canvas Converse All Stars.

Stopping three times for breath and water, we made as far as we were allowed; the ridge of the 1927 crater.
Sitting looking up at the crater I knew there was some kind of important mission that I must accomplish. Something about a golden ring and a mountain… or something or other. I forget.




After the loss of the observation station to lava bombs in November and surveying some week-old lava bombs and their craters Doni and I sat on the basalt rock, chatting about a business idea. Gandalf arrived. I recalled the words “Keep it safe and keep it secret” Thorin sang about gold and time passed. Ah-ha! One ring to rule them… erm, what was that mission Goddamnit? And why was it so important to me and all hobbits everywhere? Grrrr. Time passed. More time passed….

And then, tick, tick, tick , tick… Booom!

Suddenly she erupted. And we were standing only a few hundred metres away from the vent. With the words of Wilfred Owen reverberating round my mind “The Gas. The Gas. Quick boys, an ecstasy of fumbling” I scrambled in my pockets for what I was told I would need should she erupt… my new Sony Cybershot digital camera and that first second of panic was replaced with awe.




Thousands of cubic metres of ash, dust, rock, steam, smoke, pummice and noxious gas spewed hundreds of feet into the baby-blue sky, from our position blocking out the sun. There was no real danger, the wind was easterly so the grey-black cloud which started its life as a belch in the belly of the earth would blow the opposite direction. Furthermore, the shape and positioning of the crater ensured that no 200 mile an hour, 1200 degree celcius pyroclastic flow (a boiling cloud of steam, gas and rock that devours everything in its path, like Vesuvius did to Pompeii’s residents in AD 79) could come close.



I was so glad that she erupted while I was there, one of the most awesome sights I’ve ever seen.

JAKARTA

Contrary to what I’d been told, Jakarta is one of the nicest airports I’ve been through. Terracotta and colourful tiles adorn the walls, musicians play traditional, Indochinese, pentamic scale music as signs hang above you saying DEATH SENTENCE FOR DRUG TRAFFIKERS.

Now I best get that kilo out of my arsehole before customs.

The mouth that launched a thousand words had nothing much to declare so I walked out to a throng of taxi touts, all shouting another new language at the white boy; I’d been warned about these guys.
Doni was meeting me here, with a sign with my name on and everything, but where was he?
After ten minutes I walked outside to sit by a good landmark. As ever the omnipresent mei-ing (bowing) Ronald McDonald again provided the perfect one; that’s all they’re good for really, that and McDumps when needed.

Another ten minutes and two cigarettes later, after I had warded off a cabbie who very kindly offered to drive me the six hours to Krakatau, Doni appeared.

From my e-mails and texts, Doni thought I was 53, and would be sporting a panama hat, short-sleeved shirt, shorts, socks with sandals and carrying an umbrella and a briefcase.

From his e-mails, texts and research on the web I thought he was a serious academic. We sat in a café with his friend Sikrip and he offered me a filterless clove cigarette. I was glad they smoked too, I’d been worried he might be an uber-geek. That saved me from lots of awkward pauses over the next ten days but five minutes later when he said that watching an eruption was “SuperBloodyMaximumFuckin’Crazy” which was to become catchphrase of the week. As Doni explained how he was “the world’s worst Muslim” I knew I was in good company. Missing Nat like crazy, but in good company...

Either that or what had these two bum-bandits done with the real Doni?

KSAM - BKK - SING - JAK

Nothing to report beyond the above line, the only thing of note that I’ve stopped putting London, UK as place of residence when filling out immigration arrival forms because I’m from Thailand. Make of that what you will, but for me that’s quite a big step I guess.

Oh and I suppose the bitch whore of a stewardess on Jetstar not getting me a tap water is worth a mention. You’re an airline FFS, you can’t not give people water and insist they pay SING$5 for mineral water. It surely breaks some air safety rule or convention which I’ll remember the name of in a minute…. Oh yes, that’s it - etiquette.

IT’S A LONG GOODBYE

After Nat nearly killed us about eight times (She drove while I was bitch, how embarrassing) our last night together was spent in my fave restaurant: Lobster for me again (I swear it never gets boring) and we walked into Chaweng Town before finding a lovely little bar with mats on the beach…Nat had sex on the beach but I only had two beers as I had to be up at 04:15 and I was driving; that’s the first time I’ve ever had to say that! Hand in hand on the edge of the sand we walked by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon, we walked by the light of the moon, lamented our brief time together and laughed at what might happen… On the way back to my place; we got lost, but it didn’t matter, it was fun and after the first-ever--time-sober “do you wanna come in for a coffee” type exchange, Nat for once took a firm stand… “No. We’ll only end up knobbin each other again” She’s such a beautiful contradiction.

I’d only known her nine days (let alone nine years) and already my double bed seemed empty… Like I say we’re not boyfriend and girlfriend or anything, nor will we ever be, but I just can’t imagine life without her at the moment, and I’m guessing from the amount of time we spend with each other neither can she.

Needless to say, I didnae get much sleep… About one hour before my alarm went off at 4.15 A in the M…
My cab driver, the jack of all trades, master of none who also hired me the deathtrap of a bike drove the three of us to the airport, (his Samoan gorilla of a wife inexplicably joined us) and lo, it soon became clear that he could not drive… He stopped on corners, having misjudged his turning circle, stalled and even pulled over to let scooters pass him. I sensed fear in the man’s pits and these fears were not unfounded as five or six kilometres later (the sign said the airport was 2km, but road sign distances seem to be halved here) traffic slowed to a standstill and men stood on the country lane just afore the airport…

The cars in front of us moved on, carefully swerving around something… It was our turn to move on - but what was all the fuss? What on earth could it be? We drifted passed the dead man lying in the road like ghosts. For a moment, time slowed down; it was surreal, just like a dream only this time I wasn’t hallucinating, this time it was real. I can still see him now in front of my eyes if I summon up the image, so I try not to think about it. I knew he was dead for three reasons; the amount of blood, coloured black under the glow of the streetlamps, the fact that no-one was attempting in any way to help and finally, though I have no idea what words the roadside man uttered, it did not need translating, I could tell by his tone…

This was definitely the closest I’d ever been to a dead person.

“Stop… rewind; when the crowd say KOH! SAMUUUUIIII”

Well fast forward from my last post, then rewind, fast forward and rewind a few more times.
Every day on Koh Samui is the same as the last, always ending with drinking cocktails because to quote my best friend Nat “there’s chuff all else to do” She has such a gentle way with words; on one occasion even describing her Grandmother as a gobshite.

I don’t know what pigeon-hole we fall into, We’re like a married couple in some ways; Mr and mistress perhaps? What’s the male equivalent of a mistress? We’re not boyfriend and girlfriend though sometimes it feels like it. When I arrive anywhere without her, everyone asks “Where your girlfriend?“ I’ve pretty much given up telling people that we’re not together, but when we do they give us a sly wink as if to say “Yeah, right” Then we explain some more but we always doth protest too much. We won’t end up together, that thought fills us both with horror… All I know is that she has become very dear to me.

I forget the order of events and days but one day we rode 20km on our bikes to a waterfall that wasn’t there, trekked over rocks for 20 minutes and sat on said rocks for another half hour. If it weren’t for the relentless heat making me sweat and Nat glow plus alien flora, fauna and noises they make we could have been at Lydford Gorge on Dartmoor, Tarr Steps on Exmoor or Kirkby Lonsdale in the Lake District. We tried to work out if the thing below our feet was a freshwater crab (unlikely) or some kind of armoured, venomous water spider (much more likely) Birds chirruped above, swifts swooped spectacularly for flying ants and all the while cicadas made a din reminiscent of a high-pitched pneumatic drill as they repaired their insect highway for two lanes of giant red ants to carry tree branches in their mandibles off into the distance. With Peak District girl leading the way, we hopped jumped, skipped, and precariously ventured around difficult rock formations, sliding back out of the forest until we sat down for a soda water on some steps before working out that there was a path leading to the waterfall. Although it was hotter than the sun, Nat galloped off up the path while I sat puffing Marlboro Menthol Lights… I watched the local children play hide and seek with a JCB digger as base. Then they played a game involving a kid (the fat one, naturally) being blindfolded by a group of older boys and having to feel the air around him to catch them. While he was stepping around cautiously, the other, more spritely kids hit him with ping-pong bats and sticks. Some things will never change; this is childhood, not PS3’s, texting and fingering.

At least I think it was playing, though thinking back, blindfolding a morbidly obese child and hitting him with sticks could have been the worst case of bullying I’d seen since we covered Heddwyn Aled “Taffy Wanker” Jones-Brown with dog poo and tied him to the top of that poplar tree in the fifth form, thus creating a shitty Welsh totem pole.

Like the opposite of an Edwardian child, the waterfall was heard but not seen. We turned round and headed home; the sun setting mercifully fast behind us and my bike’s back wheels sliding beneath me all the way home, deathtrap that it was.

Another night, in our fave bar we watched youtube videos of dogs wanking themselves off which wouldn’t normally make a boy and a girl horny, but this is Thailand and normal rules don’t apply… On tour and working away people state an oft used phrase, in this case it would be “What happens on Koh Samui stays on Koh Samui” but again, the rules don’t apply when you’re with a blog-posting comedy writer.

If you were to ask the best sites I’ve seen on my travels yet I would rank them like this:

Bronze, The reclining Buddah? No. The Emerald Buddah? Big Buddah?



No. The constant sight of a 22 year old girl looking so goddamned serene on her scooter in my left rear view mirror

Silver: The Grand Palace Bangkok? Nope. Guess again; The sight of a naked 22 year old girl bouncing up and down on my rooster inches from my face. Yes.

And in Gold place… well that’s for me to know and you to find out (your first guess was right, girl)

Back on Koh Samui...

So what's been happening in the world?

By sticking to the more biased, but superior Fox News and avoiding BBC News Worldwide because there's no real news on it, just promos for Talking Movies and reports on why Egyptian lesbians are getting mardy about something or other, what's coming up next and the fact they keep trying to sell you things! Yes... the Beeb trying to sell you things!

This isn't what I didn't pay my licence fee for.

I've learned that there have been riots in Bangkok, with one person being killed - I hope my mate who lives there is safe. Apparently there is a country-wide strike tomorrow, which means shops will close at will, the transport system won't run to maximum capacity and all Thai workers will sleep on their shop floors or on the side of the road when they should be working... in short, no change there then.

Like the old Thai saying goes - "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day"

Hurricane Gustav missed New Orleans, "The Big Easy", thank the Lord there wasn't a repeat of Katrina, thats the worst thing that part of the world needs unless there's a Republican convention just up the road... Damn! Missed 'em.

Then Man City go and snatch Robinho from under Chelsea's noses for a British record fee!

And my brother got married! Unbelievable!
The service was apparently lovely, Edward was in his element, mingling and generally being an all-round international man of mystery, suave and sophisticated like James Bond. Seems Michelle has really brought him out of his shell... Well done that girl... now feed him up!

I mean, honestly - what's going on. I leave you lot alone for five minutes...

Right that's enough news, lets get back to the reason you are reading this - me!

So I stayed on Koh Tao for about a week with Bas, Dene, Sash, Nam et al - a great little island, but not much more to do than eat, drink, read and sunbathe. Oh, and get your hair cut into a mohawk.

Yes, I really did it!

So let me tell you about the flora and fauna of this country, palm trees dominate every skyline, when they're not out pick-pocketing, monkeys are trained to climb the palm trees and knock the coconuts down, while sea eagles are trained to catch fish from the sea and obediently bring them to their owners and baby orang-utans shipped in from Borneo sit in cages, filling opium pipes, skinning up joints and reading The Bangkok Post to their masters.

On Koh Tao we saw some giant igneous boulders that looked like they were cartoon backdrops from The Flintstones. Which is on TV every day, sometimes in English and sometimes in Thai... as is the Jetsons, but then sometimes I swear they have re-cut their own versions so you'll get Deputy Dawg and Snagglepuss talking to Popeye the Sailorman in Thai - very strange indeed, unless I dreamt it. I do love watching old re-runs of Ren and Stimpy though, especially when Ren Hoek loses it and says "Stimpy, you stooopid eediot!"

Where was I? Oh yes; fauna... orange wasps as big as your thumb, not just the last bit with the nail on, but your whole thumb. Dogs are everywhere, there was just a pair humping in the sea in front of me, which reminds me I really must get my rabies jabs when next in Bangkok. Either that or I must stop having sex with dogs. No easy feat when the dogs here are so cool they wear shades.

After we shared aa post-coital cigarette, this dog later taught me how to rummage through bins for food with my snout. 200-300 people die of rabies in Thailand every year, and it sounds the most awful death imaginable. Only 6 people have ever recovered from full-blown rabies who were then brain damaged beyond repair... yes, I've certainly done my research, but am more worried about my new best friend Nat as she volunteers at the local dog sanctuary twice a week.

Now y'all know of my arachnophobia, and I confess I even used to check under my duvet for the hundred-eyed, eight-legged freaks in Chiswick, but with a raging Changover, the screaming ab-dabs or what Richard Ashcroft would call "The Fear" (the DTs - which even wikipedia says makes you imagine giant spiders) and staying in a tree-canopied bungalow all of my own, the thought of tarantulas in my room makes me cower in my sleeping bag cover like a six year old mummy's-boy with all the lights on watching Fox News until daylight arrives like anti-venom.

Not that any of us Farang can sleep; everyone you meet complain they thought roosters were meant to crow at dawn. Not here, in what I have christened "the country that makes no sense"

The roosters start at 3.12 every night without fail.

So long as the only tarantulas I see are behind glass frames like the one in the Men Behaving Badly living room, thats fine, but even they wierd me out a bit.

Since there's little point going back to the same town, I'm on a different opart of Samui, Bo Phut instead of Chaweng, near the Big Buddah (and before you ask no, its not Channel 4's new reality TV show) and it's like a totally different island...

There's no girly-bars inviting you for "sucky sucky" - good job - I don't even like ice-pops.
Its far more.... bohemian, insomuch as there are less shouty Oirish and Italian Stallions; you can tell the Italians as they're the ones in white speedos, while (conversely like Yin and Yang) ze German males wear black g-strings.

Like I say, I'm in my own little bungalow, but my friend Natalie has her own house where we watch DVD's when not out on the town. She's rented it for three months after running away from her TEFL course in Chang Mai up north. Seems everybody's running away from something... except me, of course.

Nat and I see each other every day, usually at night for dinner and drinks, with last night being reserved primarily for the latter. After about £20 on cocktails (that's alot of cocktails here, trust me) we went to the beach, where with the contents of my pockets I once again became DJ Willer.

As two lightning storms raged overhead, like Indonesian Gods battling each other for supremacy, Rufus Wainright, Sigur Ros and Oasis provided the soundtrack from the beach as we swam at 4.00 a.m. for over half an hour - probably the longest I've ever spent in the ocean... amazing what a twenty-two year old girl in nothing but her pants can make you do, eh?

From the bar I'm sitting in writing this you can see the boat that she wanted me to swim to...


Now we all know its a myth that I can't swim, I'm just not very confident, but even in my pina-Colada addled state I refused to go out of my depth... When we were done fooling around in the water, doing Kung Fu Panda moves and when she wasn't on the phone to her boyfriend in the UK (yikes, not again, Will!) Sopping wet and falling over drunk; Nat so drunk she was falling over twice a minute and when offered a helping hand up, she succeeded every time in pulling me on top of her into the sand.

She wanted to ride her scooter the three or four miles home but on account of her not being able to stand I refused, weighed up the option that I ride her back and stay at hers (I feel fine, my brain told me at the time) then convinced her it was a better plan to stay at mine. She'd have to share my double bed, but she was fine with that, so long as I "didn't rape her".

I reluctantly agreed.

In all seriousness, its nice to have someone to discuss my favourite books with, someone who likes all the same comedy like Father Ted, The Day Today, Brass Eye and Alan Partridge with and someone who understands my jokes about 1980's board games. I think she feels the same as before I arrived she "stayed in most nights" we meet at the same time in the same place every night, except for tonight as I've made it half an hour later so you lucky people can read this...

Amazing the difference between my mate Bas (20) and Nat - I guess girls really do grow up quicker.

Except when they're drunk.