The Culture Vulture Is Dead....

After near on three months of rocketing around the continent taking in the museums, galleries, architecture, a couple of Natural Wonders of the world and an indecent amount of pastries it was time to pluck the feathers of my favourite culture vulture and give in to the sun, sand, sea and 18-30s gallavanting of the Thai islands and what better company to do it in than that of the boys with whom I weaned myself on Wednesday imbibations and cheesey clubs for three years. Having met the boys in Bangkok after a long bus ride from Battambang it was straight out to the Khao San Road for some catch-up drinks and rite-of-passage street food (prompting dubious looks from the ever-sceptic DS Adams...) for the uninitiated travelers to our group before heading to the club virtually in our room at the Four Sons Place...Taking environmental and financial objections to the planned flight from Bangkok to Phuket I made my way down to the south of the country via another psychedelic night bus, this one complete with a downstairs 'lounge' and TV that made sleep near to impossible. Exchanging a bus for a boat I actually beat the boys in arriving in Ko Phi Phi, a small island about 35 km off the Phuket peninsula which was virtually wiped out by the Boxing Day tsunami. Now it is a teeming hotspot for party-goers combining a gorgeous bay of white sand beach and turquoise waters with a hub of bars and clubs in the centre of the island that offer Full Moon parties, Half-Moon parties, Black Moon parties...get the picture?!It's much pricier than anywhere else but we got a good room in the PP Princess Resort which is just off the main road and away from the paths of vomit and Bryan Adams looped soundtracks and instead backs directly onto the beach. Four days were spent lying on the beach, reading and paddling in the ridiculously shallow water spiked with rocks that prevent you being able to get any deeper than knee height resulting in you resorting to sitting in the water to try and cool off while the nights were spent indulging in the multitude of bars offering free buckets (and/or Wimbledon coverage on the big screens!) and beach parties where fire-limboing and dancing in the sea were the norm. It was both the much-needed blow out from a very packed agenda over the past few months and also, for various reasons, the perfect time just to chill out and relax on the beach and take stock of what I've done and where I'm going. Resisting the urge to become a complete bum Hiren and I resurrected our boating muscles and managed a two hour kayak ride out of the bay and into the ocean to traverse the island, a somewhat more indomitable trek than the mere pond in Pokhara! The following day we took a boat out to Maya Beach, the location where they filmed The Beach (and which blasted out All Saints' 'Pure Shores' as we approached it...) which included one of the best snorkeling trips I've been on and a chance to see the incredible evening sunset. Due to the many rocks in the low waters we had to anchor some distance away in the sea and swim to The Beach during which unsurprisingly virtually everyone managed to cut themselves on the low-lying rocks turning the turquoise sea a bloody red...It also marked the beginning of a very patient lesson from Dave in how to use my camera properly, prompted by his exasperation that someone who has filmed for television broadcast cannot deal with over-exposure on his cheap camera and promptly cued many a moody silhouetted backdrop shot! The last night was somewhat bizarre as I randomly bumped into an old friend from school in an art shop on the beach. We spent seven years catching the 10A to and from school and formed part of the back seat possy along with Matt, FK and some other undesirables from the outer echelons of Saltwood and Sellindge so there was plenty to reminsce upon as we saw the night out at the Sunset Beach Bar where it seemed like a good idea to try and learn how to fire-eat and prove that I could do the fire-limbo.... We eventually forced ourselves off Phi Phi and headed to Phuket for a night. The town itself is an ugly, industrial site but going a little beyond to Kata we discovered a gorgeous beach where we could surf and stayed in a fantastic little villa apartment overlooking the sea. The stay was made memorable by lunching in The Dino restaurant, a place dedicated to dinosaurs with a mini-volcano blazing all night, giant fossils for children to climb in and out of and waiters and waitresses dressed as the Flintstones! From Phuket it was (begrudgingly on my behalf...!) a flight to Kuala Lumpur where the pristine beaches and sun gave way to a bulging metropolis of skyscapers and spiralling alleys. We managed to check in to the very bizarre Wheelers guesthouse with its art-deco murals, cages of birds and giant fish tanks (not to mention rooftop restaurant with sun-loungers so you can breathe in the smog better) and got to go up the Menara Kuala Lumpur (telecommunications) Tower for sunset where getting a lift up 271 metres we were able to sit in the observation tower as day turned to dusk and the city burst into a kaleidoscope of flickering electricity. Walking back to our hostel we headed via chinatown and some brilliant streetfood and then pottered around the market (finally managing to replace the sunglasses I left on the Mekong Delta boat). Begrudingly it was back to the airport and another budget AirAsia flight and we had landed in Sandakan. Formerly the home to the largest proportion of millionaires in the world it now looks like a battered and derelict east London council estate complete with the requisite yoofs supping from bottles on the seafront. There wasn't much to do to entertain ourselves in the evening and so having discovered the Catholic church on the hill (again advertising mass times that bore no relation to real time...), been deterred from climbing the hundred steps hill by the proliferation of rabid dogs and dined at the Tomato which had none of my first three preferences, it was back to the May Bank hotel and our ginormous TV to watch the Wimbledon final! In spite of knowing I had orang-utans to trek the following day I stayed up and with them until 5am, huddled in the dark of the room with the volume muted so as not to disturb the boys who had flaked out several rain breaks ago, and watched in torturously enraptured silence.

Nothing to do with my having stayed up most of the night we annoyingly missed the initial orang-utan feeding session at the rehabilitation centre and had to content ourselves with the all-you-can-eat amazing buffet until transferred via taxi and boat to Uncle Tan's stilted cabins submerged under the floods of the Borneo jungle river. I think it was impossible to be any more remote, a fact made apparent by that night's boat trek where under the canopy of the most immaculately star-studded sky (which was worth the price of the whole expedition alone) we fished for monkeys, reptiles and birds amidst the drowned trees with only flickering torchlights - Granji, you would have loved the kingfishers, which transfixed by the light, allowed us to sail to within spitting distance of their perch.

The following day, by now already smelling permanently of deet, divided into our three separate groups (we were the fearsomely known Tarantulas) we had two jungle treks, clad in wellies plunging through knee-high mud and picking the leeches from our skin, and another boat trip where we saw a plentitude of monkeys, more birds and a crocodile or two. Bizarrely, it was back at camp where we saw most of the action with monkeys swooping into the dining area to swipe the glass bottles of jam and monitor lizards circling the huts and making us all wary of having to wade through the water to our boats.

I opted out of the final night trek as it coincided with the timing of Michele's funeral and wishing I could be there I wanted instead to spend the hour alone; it was extremely peaceful to be in camp completely by myself, lying on the bench of our hut and looking up into the stars and saying my own private goodbye knowing that thousands of miles away she was being given a proper send-off back in Hythe by everyone else.

The last day was spent hopefully in camp with a platter of banana fritters looking out for orang-utans. My disappointment in not seeing my own King Louis would have been less had it not been for the videographic evidence of the previous group's sighting of the gingered apes the previous day which served only to rub salt into the wounds. But it was not to be and soon we had been whisked back to Sandakan where a delayed flight scuppered our arrival back in Kuala Lumpur compensated for by Dave's refusal to slum it any more and book us into a hotel which on sight with its huge bedrooms, bath and kitchen looked fantastic but proved less adept at flushing heavier objects down its u-bend and an immovable air-conditioning that caused us to sleep with shirts, trousers and two blankets!

Sadly it was time to part with the boys who were off for one final frolic in Singapore while I headed in the opposite direction back to Bangkok to meet Mike. Refuting the airlines again I bravely tackled the route by bus, all 35 hours of...There's something romantically whimsical about trains which whisk through the gorgeous countrysides (as opposed to the tarmaced hells favoured by buses) that give you a real insight into a country as you bypass its labourers in the fields and children playing in the parks (as opposed to the sterile coffin nature of being huddled in an aeroplane). In my opinion, as long as you have a good stack of books, fully charged ipod and bag of snacks it is the best way to travel: privileged with beautiful sights (and sunsets), the opportunity to meet new people and strike up friendships over shared food and card games and an open window letting the hair whip through your long traveler-accumulated hair.

Having negotiated theborder crossing at Hat Yai and then the public bus in Bangkok and inability of the Four Sons staff I eventually found Mike and now have seven weeks traveling Laos and the Philippines with him. Rumour has it he may even prove his existence to certain fretful friends and relatives by appearing on this blog!!

FAVOURITE PLACE: Being in the middle of nowhere in Uncle Tan's quaint cabin huts.

FAVOURITE FOOD: The huge buffets and mountainous pancakes laid on at Uncle Tan's

WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: The stars in the jungle; lounging on Phi Phi beach; hunting for orang-utans

WORST PLACE: Wheeler's - stained walls and sheets, ricketty bunkbeds, no sheets and a bathroom half a mile away....WHAT I'M NOT GOING TO MISS: Taking half an hour to haul our kayak out to deep enough waters to sail and having to pick our way through the landmine of rocks that lacerated our feet under the deception of the water's shallows; people embarking upon their gap years and making me feel a million years old; deet MOST BIZARRE: Bumping into Alex! Being warned to be vigilant against the food-thieving monkeys who promptly as soon as I put my t-shirt over my head had swooped down and nabbed the pancake from the plate literally under my chin! There ensued a moment of staring out in where cowed by the monkey's resilient prepared-to-fight-to-the-death glare for the pancake (and wariness that no helicopters could pervade the Borneo jungle to airlift me to hospital) I conceded my batter to the jungle and took another fresh one from the pile! The train showing Alien vs Predator on the overnight journey to Hat Yai which caused repeated nightmares throughout the rest of the journey to the three small girls seated behind me... BOOKS I'VE READ: 'Saturday', Ian McEwan (A 'Mrs Dalloway' style 24 hour account of the day of the London Iraq protest march; as always, found his writing style brilliant, inspirational and so creative though sadly showing how poor his narrative plotting is by comparison with wildly unrealistic events opportunely designed in order for him to expostulate on the chosen 'theme' selected for that novel); 'Bitter Fame', Anne Stevenson (Not having read any of Sylvia Plath it was interesting to read a biography deliberately written to refute the hard, put upon, subjected wife line that is usually propounded by Hughes' enemies. It was also interesting to compare, inevitably, against the biography of Woolf who I do know about, though more difficult to resist generalised summaries lumping the two together. Must now read the Ariel poems and 'The Bell Jar.'); 'Time-Traveller's Wife', Anne Niffenegger (fantastic concept and must have been a logistical nightmare to plot! easy read and very addictive, with a bittersweet ending that had me...) QUOTES: "How I long to write on my own again! When I'm describing Henry James' use of metaphor to make emotional states vivid and concrete, I'm dying to be making up my own metaphors...I feel like throwing up my books and writing my own bad prose and bad stories and living outside the neat, gray secondary air of the university. I don't like talking about D H Lawrence and about critics' views of him. I like reading selfishly for an influence on my own life and my own writing." (Sylvia Plath - I know exactly how you feel!!!!); "...in general, the human disposition is to believe. And when proved wrong, shift ground. Or have faith, and go on believing." (Ian McEwan, 'Saturday')