Dispatches from a South-East Asian Hellhole, part one
You can’t trust these people. Every turn you are met with smiling people, trusting greetings and genuine faces; they genuinely want all your money, they all trust that you are stupid and they smile like Satan himself, knives hidden behind their backs.
Natural beauty and crippling social problems, a unique mix of heaven and hell awaits the hardy soul who would venture this way. It’s not at all like they will tell you back home, survivors either convince themselves that it was meant to be like that and they had a great time or they lie to protect their ego, before vowing never to go there again and heading back into their straight life without ever wanting to emerge again. I alone have the fortitude to let you know how it really is out here, I alone have the courage, the strength, the testicles to tell you the unadulterated truth. Anonymously in the internet I shall let it all hang out with no shame whatsoever.
The only souls in this wasteland of human horrors you can really trust are your fellow travellers – and even then you need a vetting process to weed out the morally crippled and socially corrupt ones. Not that either of these traits is all that negative, in fact I recommend growing a few calluses on your soul to get you looking a little like that, just so it all doesn’t hurt as much at the end of the day. No, those types often thrive all too well here, it’s just that they are equally as likely to steal the contents of your wallet as the natives.
So when you meet one in a bar or train station, in a guest house or on a bus, you need to check him out. The simple one is to get out your mouse-trap loaded fake wallet (carried in your pocket most times to foil and punish would be pickpockets) and “accidentally” leave it on your seat as you go to the toilet, or to the bar, or to get some water – if it is returned to you intact, then ok, the guy might be the type. Kerouac Cat was just this type. I got off the bus on the pretext of getting a bottle of water and slyly left it there on my seat and he had it in his hands when I got back. He returned it with a jaunty warning about less-than-trustworthy folk being around. Later on he confessed he noticed I hadn’t returned with any water, and even later on I noticed he’d disarmed the mousetrap and removed the Monopoly money I had in there. Crafty little bastard.
KC is kindly allowing me to publish these dispatches to the world on the “internet”. I thank him here for this chance, and hope that I encourage others to follow in my, and his, footsteps. Keep an eye out for more soon.
Natural beauty and crippling social problems, a unique mix of heaven and hell awaits the hardy soul who would venture this way. It’s not at all like they will tell you back home, survivors either convince themselves that it was meant to be like that and they had a great time or they lie to protect their ego, before vowing never to go there again and heading back into their straight life without ever wanting to emerge again. I alone have the fortitude to let you know how it really is out here, I alone have the courage, the strength, the testicles to tell you the unadulterated truth. Anonymously in the internet I shall let it all hang out with no shame whatsoever.
The only souls in this wasteland of human horrors you can really trust are your fellow travellers – and even then you need a vetting process to weed out the morally crippled and socially corrupt ones. Not that either of these traits is all that negative, in fact I recommend growing a few calluses on your soul to get you looking a little like that, just so it all doesn’t hurt as much at the end of the day. No, those types often thrive all too well here, it’s just that they are equally as likely to steal the contents of your wallet as the natives.
So when you meet one in a bar or train station, in a guest house or on a bus, you need to check him out. The simple one is to get out your mouse-trap loaded fake wallet (carried in your pocket most times to foil and punish would be pickpockets) and “accidentally” leave it on your seat as you go to the toilet, or to the bar, or to get some water – if it is returned to you intact, then ok, the guy might be the type. Kerouac Cat was just this type. I got off the bus on the pretext of getting a bottle of water and slyly left it there on my seat and he had it in his hands when I got back. He returned it with a jaunty warning about less-than-trustworthy folk being around. Later on he confessed he noticed I hadn’t returned with any water, and even later on I noticed he’d disarmed the mousetrap and removed the Monopoly money I had in there. Crafty little bastard.
KC is kindly allowing me to publish these dispatches to the world on the “internet”. I thank him here for this chance, and hope that I encourage others to follow in my, and his, footsteps. Keep an eye out for more soon.
