hong kong

hong kong skyline at night

obama’s in, oasis are back and britney finds a diet that really works for her! all is hunky dory on planet earth right now providing of course you set aside the wars, the terrorism, the global financial crisis and the fact that people are losing their jobs and homes like chips on a roulette table. yeah true, one look at the headlines could send any normal person shivering like a smack addict into a darkened room, curtains drawn, hands cupped over the ears, squealing like tortured pigs but hey what can we do. what can we REALLY do? me. i went to hong kong…

i almost made it to hong kong years ago. before uncle sam became my uncle, before bill gates became the world’s richest man, before both you and i got email addresses and before bill clinton was pleasured by monica lewinsky. at that time it was a flip of the coin between new york city and hong kong and after much deliberation i bit into the big apple. since then, i always wondered what a plate of real chow mein would taste like and now having been to hong kong i still don’t know what a plate of real chow mein tastes like. i don’t even know if they have chow mein but hey whatever i ate, it was good!

my buddy joe had emailed instructions on how to get into town from the airport so i find the A21 bus and for about $6 get a relatively slow but steady ride into the city. it’s a beautiful day. clear skies, sunny as a fairy tale and to my surprise it’s bloody scorching. i thought as hong kong is surrounded by water it wouldn’t really get that hot, but the night before i left i checked the weather and realized that i wouldn’t be needing a jacket. it’s not as humid as bangkok but it’s up there. good job i travel lightly, i just have a small backpack, my guitar and some duty free smokes i picked up for joe on the way out.

southway's stuff

 

turns out next to me on the bus are 3 hot students from yonsei university in seoul. coincidently they came in on the same plane i did. they’ve just had their mid terms exams so this is the de-stressor trip. we chat away on our way through the suburbs which makes the hour ride pass quickly, they get off the bus first then i try to figure out where i’m at. i need to get off at Tsim Sha Tsui pier so i go up front and ask the driver who either as a result of my bad pronounciation or outta pure spite tells me to get off at the next stop, which is in fact the wrong stop.  

so i wander round for a bit, just outta curiosity really and end up choosing a direction to follow that i guess will take me to some water, after all i’m looking for a pier right? i suppose i could’ve asked someone i mean english is widely spoken, but for me it’s more fun to walk around and get lost that way you never know what you might come across. i find a bus station, then a train station, then a university, explore the campus for a while and eventually get a feeling for the direction i need to take to find my large mass of water. the sky always looks different over water so i follow my instincts and sure enough find a promenade that leads down to the harbour.

busy harbour. boats bobbing around everywhere heading here and there, i plonk my stuff down and take a load of for a minute taking in the whole vibe. there’s not that many people round here, i get the feeling that i’m at the far end of the promenade, just a few fisherman tickling with tackle at the end of their poles and the odd jogger keenly on their way to somewhere else. looking out across the water, my first sight of the city is bloody marvelous. harbour, late afternoon sunlit skyline and those beautiful hong kong mountains that give hong kong it’s unique backdrop….awesome. as i’m looking out at the skyline which i’ve seen many a time in print i figure out that i’m not actually in hong kong and that i’m probably in kowloon which is on the china side; the penisula that comes down from china that is, so effectively i’m on mainland china right now. 

from what i’ve seen so far i’m surprised how westernized the city is. i expected it to be developed of course, but its a trip. cars drive on the same side of the street as the UK and all the street markings, signs etc are exactly the same as england too so for me it’s like a little taste of home without the jetlag. looking out across at the skyscrapers on hong kong island reminds me of new york from new jersey, so all in all the whole place has this air of familiarity about it. you combine all that with a bunch of asian folk scurrying about at the speed of light which coming from korea is pretty usual, and the whole picture feels completely normal. i guess i was expecting more of a culture shock but i don’t get it. i’m probably the most relaxed i’ve ever been when going to a huge unknown city.

people trip out about travel and find it stressful. i just don’t anymore. airports are a breeze. you gotta stand in line a few times and put your boots through a metal detector, big deal! on the plane someone brings you food and drink, you have a glass of wine, pass out then wake up as they’re ask you to bring your seat to the upright position. sure you have to deal with a little bureaucracy after you land with passports and stuff, but before you know it you’re on a train or a bus, of if your lucky in a cab and your off  heading to some other place else where you can chill out, take a shower and put your feet up….well maybe. i love it, one of my favorite things to do, the journey that is sometimes more than the destination. and now walking around i might as well be strolling along by the ferry building in san francisco or by the docks in bristol or where ever for that matter. all that travel induced stress is like everything else just state of mind. if you let it effect you then it will, if you don’t, you just breeze through it like a diplomat with immunity.

after the sweat on my back dries and the cooling harbor breeze chills down my mule like carcass, i pick up my shit once more and make my way down the promenade. in the distance i can see many, many more people, sure enough tourist central is up ahead where camera clickers of many languages snap away happily as they walk on the stars of their favorite asian actors. the promenade here’s the ‘walk of fame’……just like hollywood! tourist trap usuals like portrait artists, photographers, tacky local souvenir stalls and over priced candy stores hustle for business and as i walk further the buildings get bigger, the hotels more glamorous and the coffee, more corporate…..starbucks in all it’s shining glory! it’s fisherman’s wharf, just replace the fog with sunscreen.

further down the quay ferry’s buzz like bees, zig zagging their way across the harbor to their relative hives. when i get down there there’s a big open area with a fountain in it next to an old clock tower that’s currently surrounded with scaffolding. it must be a famous landmark. built up around it is some kinda huge exhibition center or theater or something like that. palm trees line the fountain which against orange sky and the fading light looks like a postcard, well use your imagination a little a take away the scaffolding.

harbor city kowloon at sunset

 

i’m on no agenda right now. i’ll meet up with joe later once he’s finished all his stuff but that won’t be for a couple of hours at least so in this perfect little amphitheater i figure i could strum on the ole guitar. ya never know i might even make a few duckets!

i pull out the axe and do my thing, and sure enough the benches around start filling up. i could be onto a nice little earner here. i figure i should play it cool initially as i don’t know what the law’s like and don’t fancy getting kicked out on my first night, so i just stick to the guitar and don’t bother singing. a girl from LA comes over, says she plays too so i offer up my axe as she’s left her guitar at home and is consequently suffering from withdrawals. turns out she’s really good. more benchs fill up, guys this time! she’s been here a few days already as her dad’s here on business, hasn’t seen any buskers (street musicians), i’m actually the first person she’s seen with a guitar. maybe it’s illegal i say and sure enough, she gets halfway through another song and a little man in a uniform comes over. he says it’s ok to play for ourselves but attracting a crowd is forbidden. damn, i thought as much. if it’s too good to be true it probably is. good job i didn’t start doing the jim morrison thing. after a couple more tunes she takes off so i play for myself and for those around that are close enough to hear. the sun goes down and disappears behind the skyscrapers on the other side of the harbor. the sunset’s a picture and really deserves my full attention so i pack up my geetar and watch the show from the quayside as the beautiful boats and buildings light up like vegas……..vegas in a bathtub!

boat crossing hong kong harbor at sunset

you know i’m a sucker for sunsets. call me an old romantic, but i think when you get a good one it’s one of the best shows on earth. of course i was brought up in england so maybe that’s why i’m so into them. you rarely see the sun in england. i’ve seen some amazing sunsets though. the grand canyon and arizona desert can take your breath away, LA looking out over the pacific with all it’s smog makes for one of the bloodiest you’ll ever see but hong kong’s is pretty impressive too, though the sky itself isn’t the best part. it’s the fact that all those skyscrapers which are now a common sight in many cities are lit up in the most cosmic way that i’ve ever seen. all different colors, projections, even lasers, shooting out of the top of um during the daily light show that happens at 8pm. everything starts to come alive like bladerunner once the sun goes down and it’s really amazing to see this business city on the edge of china turn into a festival of light once darkness falls.

as tonight’s show comes alive i join all the other tourists that have gathered for the extravaganza and take in the preshow warmup of endless boats and their technicolored lights boarding and de-boarding as they make their way out to the best seats in the house, the center of the harbor. the show’s called the symphony of lights and while being one of the tackiest things on earth it’s also got that strange kitchy cool about it. it’s so over the top it’s actually amazing. choreographing a light show like this which they claim is the biggest on earth must be quite a feat. the whole thing is set to music, lights are programed on pretty much every visible building in the city on both sides of the harbor. check this clip out and you’ll see what i mean. as far as mind altering substances go these days i don’t partake, but if that’s you’re style i’m sure this would be one helluva trip!

the murmuring crowd ooh and ahh as they click away at pictures that will never really do the thing justice. even the little video here looks pretty shit compared to the actually show and though the whole thing is completely OTT i gotta say it does its job at being enetertaining. at least somebody somewhere is having a go at doing something completely un-neccessary in the name of showing people a good time. i leave before it’s over to beat the crowds and find a phone box in front of the ferry terminal to call joe from. he’s done with everything and says he’ll be over in 30 minutes, he makes it in 15! it’s been less than a month since we were jamming together in seoul so it’s not a big reunion or anything but is good to see him. this is his stomping ground, he was born in hong kong. it’s always good to see peeps on their own turf…it joins all the dots and completes the circle. besides that i get to see the real hong kong, not just the tourist’s version.

his dad just arrived from seoul today. he might have even taken the same flight out as me. he’s crashing at joe’s place which apparently at the moment looks like the triads broke in and turned it over. as a result dad’s not pleased, so we go looking for a hotel for me. joe makes a few calls and finds out the that best place in town for a cheap bed is ‘chunking mansion’. he fills me in on the history. its a place that later when local folks ask me where i’m staying involks a ‘oh wow! do you know about that place?’.

chunking mansion is as infamous in hong kong as a dodgy merchant banker. located at 36-44 nathan road, kowloon, hong kong its bang smack in the middle of everything. everything kowloon that is which is shops, restaurants, hotels, scammers and drug dealers. it’s as bright as times square and as busy as piccadilily circus. near by are designer stores such as D&G and channel, though this side of the street is far from DKNY. most cities have an area where you can find budget hostels and backpacker hotels, hong kong has chunking mansion: 17 floors of them with almost 2000 rooms housing on an average day about 4000 ‘visitors’. if you’re a backpacker and you’re going to hong kong this is where you’ll go, but brace yourself cause it’s heavy on the eye candy. apparently in 2003 a developer invested over $10 million in it’s redevelopment, man i’d loved to have seen it before! the place is chaos. outside, hostel hustlers claim they have the best deal in town, drug dealers claim there’s is the best high in town and other petty criminals offer fake work permits and other silly nonsense. the time of day doesn’t matter, the welcome commitee is always the same; though in the predawn hours they were a little thiner on the ground. years ago a place like this would have sketched me out but after living in the shittiest parts of LA and san francisco this feels like a picnic in the park. the hustlers just wanna sell a room, the dealers just want a score and everyone else ain’t interested in someone that looks like me. be polite, don’t ignore, don’t be an ass and you’ll be fine….EVERY TIME! 

apparently things have gotten a lot better in chungking mansion over recent years. it used to be be off the limits to everyone including the authorities. back in the day it was run by the triads and was home to foreigners stripped of their passports as a result of human trafficing. the poor souls would then used in various illegal activities if they were lucky enough to live that long! joe was a bit sketchy about telling me the full history but to me the place sounded perfect. why would i stay anywhere else? 

chungking mansions

these types of ‘establishments’ always seem to find their way to my path. it’s my curse. course the state of my wallet has a lot to do with it. even if i could afford the four seasons i probably wouldn’t stay there, but then again i probably wouldn’t stay here either! somewhere in between i guess would be a good call, but for now, chunking mansion is gonna be my home in hong kong and as we walk in through the front doors it feels like business as usual.

the ground floor is full of people. people from everywhere. every creed and color you can imagine is here, but ya know not everyone’s dodgy. some are just hanging out, others are getting some air and shooting the breeze with their cohorts and friends. there’s tiny little currency exchange closets, loads of um, internet cafes and cheap eats mostly from india and pakistan. we find the elevator, in fact there’s 2 of them, small ones. for a building with nearly 2000 rooms! yeah, this definitely ain’t america, this place would’ve have been locked down and taped up years ago in the US. the elevators being as small as they are have lines waiting for them, so we join the queue and wait our turn. we eventually squeeze in, my guitar shoved into some poor strangers groin, me with their backpack pressed up against my face. slowly we ascend the building that probaly didn’t meet building standards back in the day, and it sure as hell don’t meet um now. thankfully people get out pretty quickly, but we’re heading closer to the heavens. “which floor joe?”……”13″ he says. PERFECT!

 

13th floor

out of the elevator into another labrynth of industrial corridors lined with pipes and peeling paint. worn out hand painted signs for various guest houses point you down other corridors but were gonna stick with joe’s tip off. i can’t remember the name now, but when we walk up to the door it’s like an oasis in the desert. we stroll into a brightly lit and clean reception area and are greeted by the warm faces of an indian couple. business first. we check out a room which is more than fine and negotiate a price which comes out to about $50. bit steep for my pocket but the room is spotless, white tiles everywhere it feels more like a dentist office than a hotel room. shared bathroom down the hall but it’s clean and modern too so after a day of travelling i figure i’ll take this for tonight and maybe tomorrow i’ll look for something a little less punchy on the pocket. feels good to lighten the load after hiking around all day, but we don’t hang around. i drop my shit and take off as we’ve places to go and people to meet. my first day is coming to a close and though we’ll be up most of the night that’s still no excuse to waste time.

i don’t bother with a shower. fuck it food’s more important. we head back to the death trap elevator, out of the building and into the bustling streets of kowloon. shoppers and bags! spend, spend, and then spend some more! the feeling on the streets is more like the west than the other asian countries i’ve visited. there tends to be this air of respect between people in confucius driven societies. even in packed train stations for example there’s this kinda order to everything. it’s organized chaos rather than random chaos, but here in kowloon it’s just random. folks wandering out into the street, pushing past each other cause everyone is more important than everyone else. it ain’t new york, but it’s not far off. neon signs fight for attention, piled on top of each other like a balancing act, each one bigger and better than it’s predecessor.

 

joe on the streets of kowloon

‘hey joe, hold on a minute, let me take a pic!’. we head a little further down the street and find one of his local eateries and get a feast for about $9, spicy noodle soup. so good i go back the next night!

after our bellies are sufficiently stuffed and our pores are free from spicy leakage we head to hong kong proper. hong kong island that is. there might be a band playing over there that according to joe are pretty good. joe’s friends with the guitarist and apparently the gigs in a part of town that i should see. we make our way through the streets and alleyway’s of kowloon and head back to the ferry building that i was at earlier. nice. ferry ride across the harbor for a couple of bucks into towering hong kong. the boat docks next to the convention center that looks suspiciously like the opera house in sydney. not a coincidence, same architech! it’s way quieter over here on the island. this is the heavy business part of the city so i’m sure in the day time it’s totally different story.

we meet up with another friend in a bar, have a drink then go and look for the band. funny, the street where the band might be playing has a bunch of similar types of bars on it, apparently the bands rotate and do a certain amount of time in one bar, then switch off and head to the next. all the bands are cover bands with a majority of the musicians coming from the philipines. i was in a cover band years ago. you know i had to make a dollar some how and since then i treat cover bands like an infectious disease……i steer clear as much as possible! if that’s your thing then cool but it ain’t mine. watching someone else do someone else’s song just ain’t really entertaining to me. sure if they’re doing there own twist on it then that’s another story but in bars like these in hong kong that’s not what the punters are looking for and it ain’t what the the musicians deliver. as we walk into one bar the band is mid way through ‘with or without you’ which with the heavy filipino accent sounds pretty trippy. good musicians, just ain’t my cup of tea.

we try the next bar, then the next making our way down the street but the band we’re looking for is nowhere to be seen. must have the night off. this part of town is called wan chai. close to the most expensive hotels in the city it’s bars and clubs cater mainly to international business men. and where there’s international business men…..there’s girls…plenty of them. some bars are live music bars the others have pretty ladies mostly from thailand and indonesia sitting outside that flirt away with ya as ya walk by trying to lure you to their den. course then, for stately sum i’m sure, you could lure them to yours! don’t forget i live next to hooker hill in seoul so i feel like i just left home and went to the 7-11!

the three of us jump in a cab and head back to kowloon via a tunnel. it turns out this is one only time i will go to hong kong island. joe’s friend pete is with us, a super genius type dude, banker. as straight forward and black and white as any person can be with a piercing gaze that looks straight to center of everything….in an instant! he’s of korean blood too. studied at NYU in New York now works in ‘funds’. he did elaborate but i guess ‘funds’ is all i need to know. became a dad a year ago and lives with his wife and baby on the 65th floor looking out over the harbor. good job! i ask him if the current economical fuck up has hit him yet, he says it probably will but all in all he’s un-phased by it really. water off a ducks back, if he was a musician, he’d NEVER skip a beat!

out of the tunnel and back in kowloon, the cab driver takes a few turns then drops us outside a little irish pub. i forget what i was drinking now as i drank so much, we play darts which i haven’t played in years and now i remember why. because i’m shit! i can barely hit the board. sometimes the more drunk you get, the better you play. not me. i’m shit whether i’m shit faced or sober, it really makes no difference. i guess every man has his limits, playing darts or rather not playing darts should be mine. at least i give everybody a good laugh including myself. i think by the time joe and pete were out i’d barely chalked up 100 points. aweful. i lose track of my drinks, each one looks just like the last, the world gets wobbly and i just get happier. it’s good to be here, it’s gonna be a good time! pete sticks around for an hour or so then takes off and meanwhile we wait around for joe’s girlfriend to show up, she gets off work at about 2.30am. she works in a bar somewhere in kowloon and shows up later with one of her co-workers. both are korean, both are gorgeous. i’m already pretty lit by the time they arrive but they’ve just got out off work so there’s some catching up to do. we drink more. ouch tomorrow’s gonna hurt!

I really don’t remember much about what we chatted about though i do remember laughing loudly….a lot! eventually we’re the last left in the pub and the bartender starts bringing in the signs from outside and hosing down the sidewalk. it’s pretty clear. he wants us to get the hell outta there.

we finish up our drinks and head out, first walking joe’s girlfriend’s friend home, then heaading back to my spot – chungking mansions. i bid goodnight to the lovebirds, they’ve only been dating for about a month so they’re still in that stage…you know the one, all fragrance and flowers, then make my way into the mansion and the death trap elevator. i get into the hotel and check the time. 5am! shit i gotta checkout at noon! the A/C’s on in the room so it’s like a bloody fridge. i turn the damn thing off and climb into my dentist’s chair of a bed and pull my thin cotton sheet over me. it’s freezin! still, it doesn’t matter, it don’t take long before i’m dancing with the supernatural. it’s gonna be a short night and a rough morning but for now i’m sure i’ll sleep with a smile on my face. pretty cool first night in hong kong. i think i’m gonna dig it here.

i wake up with my head in a vice not knowing who i am, where i’m am or what the time it is. looking around the dentist room it all comes flooding back to me. ah, hong kong. i reach out for the TV remote so i can turn it on and get the time, then fumble with the A/C unit to turn it on but i’m unsuccessful. i lie back and contemplate my next move, my head thumping with every heart beat in a room that’s as hot a mild sticky sauna. the only channel that has a clock on it is from somewhere in the middle east so the time shown ain’t local. i figure there can’t be much more than 2 hours time difference between us and them so calculate that the latest it could possibly be is 11.30am. worst case scenario i gotta be out in 30 mins so i wobble my way up to sitting position and stretch for my jeans and a tee-shirt. i gotta pee so bad it ain’t funny and can only hope that the shared bathroom’s free otherwise i’m peeing out the window. thankfully it is available and after my joyous morning release i feel marginally better and poke my head round the corner into reception to double check the time. cool only 10.30. i’ve had a little over 5 hours of bad drunken sleep so today’s gonna be a bit of an uphill struggle i think, still better make the best of it. 

slowly i get my shit together, take a shower and make my way down the 13th flights of stairs (screw the packed elevataor on this hangover) and choose a little internet room where i can search for a better hotel. last night was a big night. after checking my wallet i realize that i’ve spent about 1/3 of what i brought for the entire trip. ouch! and i thought i was gonna have plenty! hong kong is expensive! no more than london or tokyo but hey i’m on a budget, there’s a reason i ain’t been to tokyo and it ain’t because i don’t like sushi! i’m gonna have to change considerably how i spend my time in hong kong which will involuntarily dictate what type of trip i will have. i’m just happy to be here really and to finally be able to  see the city for what it is; take in its sights and it’s sounds and really soak up what makes this place tick. i guess i spend about an hour on the net searching for a cheaper place and though i find some the reviews aren’t pretty. before i left the hotel the man at reception did offer me a much better deal bringing the price down from $50 to about $35 so now that i’ve had a look around in cyberspace and see what else is to offer i decide to go to back the dentist. i pay for another night, go back to the room, lie on my still unmade bed and fall back into dreamland.

i think i eventually got up again around 3 that afternoon. i took my guitar down to the quayside, played for few hours, and once the heat of the day past walked around kowloon exploring. later that night i met up with joe, he laughed when i told him about my change in spending habits but was completely cool. we grab a couple of beers from the liguor store and hang out back down by the water chatting and playing guitar, chatting mostly. one of his buddies ‘jay’ shows up and is stoked to be doing the hobo thing. he’s a great guy. ya know when you meet someone and it’s like you’ve met that person many times before, well it was like that. we’re just on the same page. similar experiences, interests and philosphies. it’s rare to meet those folks so when it happens it’s golden. my last two nights in hong kong i spend out at jay’s place which is outta the city, a couple of subway rides, a bus and taxi ride away. it’s nice to see another side of hong kong, the whole area’s got tons to offer outside of what the tourists usually see.

i spend the rest of my week doing much of the same. getting up late, going to bed late, in between wandering around playing the guitar, eating a sandwich or two here and there and drinking the odd cup of coffee in day and meeting folks in the night. i play everywhere. parks, promenades, fountains if there’s a bench then there’s a  jam. many people stop by and say hi, in the evening when i meet up with joe we bump into people that i’ve met in the day. i get a taste of what it is to be like a local and it feels good. as travel becomes more prevalent, more common, so the world shrinks smaller. the collision of culture is necessary for the evolution of man. there’s nothing we can do to stop it and why would we want to. it feels good to be at home on the other side of the planet. embrace the change, enjoy the change, bring on the change. 13 years ago i got a tattoo of a psychedelic butterfly inked into my upper left arm. i thought it was a good symbol to show. now i know why. change revives the soul. leave me your thoughts folks, keep on doing your thing and i’ll keep doing mine, thanks for reading, mo’ later. see ya…

rock’n'roll, spiderman, hookers and cash!

i heard in korea, that when the swelter of the summer ends you get four days of rain, then it’s fall. it’s not true. we got one and a half days of rain. a little over a week ago i was walking in the shadows, dodging the rays like a vampire all sweaty and red faced in balmy temperatures that were close to 90′F about 30′C. when i got back from busking at 5am this morning it was 46′F that’s 8′C! i couldn’t quite see my breath but it wasn’t far off. looking at the forcast for the rest of this week things are gonna warm up a little but really it’s safe to say that summer’s gone, autumn’s here and winter is in the wings, rubbing it’s hands like a wicked step brother that’s waiting for his evil plans to take shape and really fuck shit up.

i’m not much of a fan of winter. after 12 years of living in california my english blood has become thin; i get chilly when the sun goes in. not sure how i’m gonna deal with a real winter here. korea has four defined seasons, i’m only interested in two of them and after six months of being here i’ve already experienced those. still winter ain’t here yet so i ain’t gonna sweat it (literally) i’m just gonna take everything as it comes. my visa is up again at the end of october so i gotta do another run somewhere, ya never know that could open up some opportunities for a quick trip outta town for the frozen months.

i’m still undecided as to where i’m gonna go on my next visa run. hong kong is a strong contender but another look at ko samui wouldn’t go amiss either. i’m sure an extended period of time in thailand lies in my future, maybe playing for drunken aussie’s and brits is the way to go to escape mother nature’s spell of winter. i’ve actually got a lead on a gig down there already which is worth following up on, it’s as good an excuse as any, not that i need an excuse but it makes the decision at little easier.

as far as hong kong goes, i could stop there for a couple of days and visit joe who i’ve been playing in a band with here in korea. he’s the guitarist, a super cool dude that was born in hong kong who’s half hong-kongese and half korean. i’ve been playing drums. gerome who’s a native new yorker of korean decent is the singer, and gunn the only full-on korean is playing bass. joe’s already back in hong kong so the band’s been doing gigs as a 3 piece which is a different vibe but still cool. the other night we did two gigs in one day. it’s been years since i’ve done that, unfortunately i had the hang over from hell lingering from the night before!

the previous night we had another gig. i had the chance to jam with some other musicians too, singing this time, just impromptu stuff and i gotta say though i love to play the drums there’s nothing like singing with a good band. honestly for me it’s not an ego thing of wanting to be the front person or anything, it’s just that i love to sing. singing is so different than playing any other instrument. you are the instrument! your voice comes from some place deep inside of you. i don’t wanna sound too spirtual and airy fairy about it but when you sing you’re whole body’s involved including your organs, so in esssence it’s like some kinda cleansing, a release. jeez this is starting to sound really bloody new age so i’m gonna shut up but i think you get my drift. whenever ya get a chance to scream and shout and let off some steam it feels good right? think football match, rock concert etc. that’s all singing is only with some kind of control, and to be on a stage doing that so other people can get something out of it too is a fantastic feeling. if you’ve written the songs as well then it’s a whole other ball game……a quadruple whamy! i really enjoy the drums, it’s fun for me like a musical workout. if ya ever come and see me play you’ll see why. i hit like muhammad ali, but it’s no contest for singing. still variety’s the spice of life and the guys in the band are really nice guys. i really dig hangin out with them outside of playing music together so that in itself says a lot. 

it’s a pretty rock’n'roll set up. the weekend before joe left we all went to some stupid yuppy-crowd, poncy party. totally not my scene – full of pretentious city types pretending to have a good time. we have a few beers then bloody joe suggests shots. i’ve been wanting to stop drinking for a while now but the time just isn’t right yet so slowing down has been my chosen agenda. however hangin out with the band makes this a pretty tough agenda to keep. we’re like a gang of teenagers hungry for the next adventure. sure enough around comes a tray of jack daniels which on top of the beer that’s already been consumed sends me back a few years. time to be the lovable asshole.

outside there’s a roped-off stair case that leads up to the roof. well it was roped off til we got there, after all isn’t a rope supposed to be moved? we stayed up on the roof for a while, and being that the venue was on top of one of the biggest hills in seoul the view was outrageous. basically a full panoramic of the city, absolutely beautiful. well course it wasn’t long before our glasses were dry so we had to retreat for refills. after refills we head back outside to hit the roof again but by now they’ve got wind of our wanderings and refuse to let us back up there. turns out there’s these steps down into a little garden that has this lovely patio in it, kinda hidden from the view of everyone; we know this coz gerome trespassed down there earlier! so me in my infinite jack daniels wisdom has the idea of climbing up the side of the building from this secret patio, hence getting up onto the roof that way. turns out the club staff are guarding the entrance to the garden of eden so we have to hold back and wait for our opportune moment before we can enter. ten minutes or so pass and some wasted yuppy creates the perfect diversion. the guarded gates are wide open, time for the troupes to attack.

we casually make our way down the steps like we own the place and hangout for a while on some comfy patio seats in our own private paradise, free from the yuppies and they’re fancy cocktails. after downing my drink it’s time for me find the roof. so there’s a wall that seperates the club from the neighbours. i figure i can use this as a ladder to get onto the balcony that hangs above the patio, then from there pull myself above it and lever my way upon to the roof. funny though i’m wasted at this point i can remember everything clear as day. writing this down i’m thinking to myself what a fucking idiot, but in the moment having jack daniels as my guide it all seemed very logical. so first i gotta get on the wall. next to the wall is a tree, so i wedge myself in between the tree and the wall and ascend like spider man. from there i can grab the top of the wall and hoist myself on top of it. gerome and joe are pissing themselves at this point, encouraging me every inch of the way. i get one leg up, then another so i’m lying flat across the top of this wall. stage one complete! i’m just about to get on my feet, push up my torso so i’m in cobra position for those of ya that do yoga, when down the stairway to heaven comes mr. security. i look at him, he looks at me, are eyes meet across the til now private patio and i realize….shit! i’m busted! i gotta say, he’s totally cool about it. in the states they’d be on there walkie talkie’s and i’d be escorted with burning hostility outta the club and kicked out for eternity. he just says ‘get down!’

at this point gerome and joe are rolling hysterically like hyena’s on acid with me in cobra position on the top of this wall looking like i’m trying to make love to it! it was a funny i gotta say, but the funniest thing was i guess a bunch of yuppies saw the security dude coming down to get us and took that as a sign that the garden is now open to party. by the time i get my ass back down on the terra firma, the pretty little steps have turned into an extension of the dancefloor with the wealthy and beautiful strutting their stuff as only out of rhythm white people can. the look on the dudes face is a picture. he doesn’t know which way to look. kinda like the sherif in smokey and the bandit. see he should’ve just let the freaky guys do their freaky business in peace. now he’s got a whole bunch of drunken assholes to deal with. at least we’re lovable assholes! there was really nothing left for us to do, so we take the executive decision to exit the premises before something really silly happens. with this we make our way back through the yuppies, up the steps outta the gates and into the night. c’est la vie, mission accomplished, elvis has left the building!

that was good night, i can tell because my cheeks and stomach ached from laughing so much the next day. just harmless fun really, feels good to let go. tonight was a great night too. i played for about two and a half hours and made $130. sold about 5 CD’s, the rest was in tips. i’ve almost ran out of all the CD’s i brought over so i suppose i should get some more shipped out. cool, finally making some sales. i was playing just down the street from my new apartment in itaewon. i moved in at the beginning of september as my good buddy minchul had a room free. it’s cool, i really like the apartment and minchul’s the best room mate….well for starter’s he’s never here!

it’s in a trippy neighbourhood but hey that never bothered me before so why let it start now. it’s full of clubs, bars, restaurants…..and hookers. straight, gay and wavy. if i don’t get a song out of this i don’t deserve a new CD. i’m half way up a hill that is commonly referred to as ‘hooker hill’ for obvious reasons. technically the apartment is just off of an alley commonly referred to as ‘homo hill’, i’ll let you do the math. for some reason the rent is really reasonable…hahaha! so i was a little uncertain as to how i would take to the neighbourhood. before i was in sinchon which is mostly korean students, itaewon is the place where non koreans from all over the world come to party and have a good time. completely different crowd, a lot of US military too because the big base is right up the street. as a rule i like to be surrounded by locals where ever i’m at and that certainly ain’t the case here but it’s actually working out fine, especially financially. when i’m busking it’s very different to sinchon where i lived before. people don’t sit around and watch for hours on end and then throw ya a dime. folks here might stop for a song or two then they give ya a buck and take off. it’s perfect coz you don’t have that pressure of always keeping the vibe fresh which is really hard to do with just an acoustic guitar and vocals. having said that, one guy and his girlfriend tonight stayed for almost 2 hours! he wouldn’t leave. his girlfriend, who he sees once every 3 months really wanted to go to a bar so she could sit down but he was having none of it. i couldn’t believe she put up with it, but hey who am i to judge. i did suggest that they take off, i can’t really do any more than that.

i made a lot of people happy tonight and helped keep their evening alive as they stumbled from bar to club and back to the bar again. a lot of singing was done by all, many smiles were seen and i made out good with the cash so everyone’s happy. tomorrow night i gotta club gig; that clubs right down the street too, so i’m really in the thick of it here…all you gotta do is take the surroundings with a pinch of salt. it’s just life and people doing what they do to have good time. i totally don’t have a problem with that and if some other folks can make some cash outta other people’s wants and needs then more power to them as well! it’s a free world, the more freedom the better.

so that’s what’s been going on with me recently, basically a shit load of music, feels good! feels good to do what you love and love what you do. life’s too short for regrets and right now i have none. i plan on keeping it that way too. well folks that’s it for this little ditty for now, dust off your woolies, winters gonna be here soon unless of course you’re in the southern hemisphere in which case i’ve got a bunch of t-shirts you can borrow for a few months. don’t forget to leave some love y’all, it makes all the difference. see yas soon, i’ll try and be a bit more regular with my posts but things are busier than how they were initially so cut me a little slack and exercise your skills of patience. oh yeah one last thing. i didn’t have a drop of alcohol today, yahoo!!!…..til next time folks, a dry “cheers”……..S…..X

a night of a thousand guitars

music! the struggle, the plight, the path, the pocket, the need, the want, the hope, the reality, the no money, the – where’s the next meal?, the anti-social, the social, the addiction, the ridicule, the humility, the insecurity, the insanity, the infirm, the impending life disaster, the being dumped by your girl friend, the loser, the lost, the immature and the misery! all the things you experience and question frequently when you decide to choose music as your life’s path. but you know what – everything and i mean everything pails into insignificance, gets blown to smithereens when you have a good gig. tonight was one of those nights so now i’m suffering from yet another symptom to add to list….the insomnia!

a little over a week ago the phone rang and it was my good friend hahn dae soo. for those of you that don’t know hahn dae soo he’s an incredible singer/songwriter, legendary in korea and japan for basically opening the door to alternative music. now in his early sixties he’s had a fascinating life so far. his frank songs about freedom in a new world became student anthems back in the 60’s subsequently being banned by the korean government. he’s always done his own thing throwing caution to the wind, often to his detriment but always with the conviction of a true visionary artist. still a strong advocate for new music he has a radio show and last year when i came over to korea i was lucky enough to get invited on it. we’ve been friends ever since. “hey southway” he says. “what ya doin next wednesday? we’re gonna break the world record for the most amount of guitars playing together. wanna join me and my band on stage?” right on i say…count me in! turns out  we need a little over 2000 guitarists which is a pretty steep challenge but it sounds like a blast so i’m totally down. a memory in the making methinks and today being wednesday was the day of the gig.

i’ve spent the last few days learning the songs and last night i rehearsed with the band which is now tuned and ready to roll. the gig’s at seoul plaza in front of city hall, soundcheck’s at 5pm. i show up at hahn dae soo’s at 3.30 he’s out like a light. oxanna his wife answers the door, i guess i woke her up too. poor things, they have a beautiful one year old baby called Yang Ho who’s a bundle of fun but like all one year old bundles of fun she’s also a bundle of energy, mainly your energy! as a consequence ya gotta take a nap whenever ya get a chance and i guess i’ve just woken them up from theirs! Yang Ho’s out with the baby sitter at the minute hence their opportuntiy. oxanna puts on a pot of coffee and i entertain myself with a book so they can wake up in peace. just before 4pm hahn dae soo gets up, we shoot the shit for a while then gather up our guitars and head out into the heat to hunt down a taxi. there’s three of us and three guitars, hahn dae soo’s neice joined us as well, she’s today’s babysitter a drop dead gorgeous young lady who’s a music composition student. dae soo sits up front so we jump in the back, my old battered guitar riding on our laps. i get the impression she quite likes my guitar where it is, so as we kamikaze through the rush hour i smile like a teenager with a secret crush, gazing out the window til my blushed face turns pink again.    

it’s a pretty short ride to city hall, about 10 minutes in a cab from sinchon, our neighborhood. when we arrive the scene is set for tonight’s event. city hall is decked out with a huge korean flag flanking the front of it. some of the plaza’s been roped off for guitarists, other parts have seats set out and around the outer edges there’s a bunch of stands showing various ways to save energy coz today is energy day in korea. tonight’s event is part of energy day and at some point during the evening’s spectacle all the lights on the surrounding office buildings, hotels and billboards etc will be switched off for 5 minutes in observation. a decent sized stage has been built too. lots of lights and a nice PA which gives me that first little tinge of nervousness in the stomach. you know it’s that thing that makes performing so addictive. it’s something like the feeling you get before you go on a rollercoaster only better cause when you’re actively performing you’re completely involved in the situation as opposed to just being sat there waiting to be entertained by some external force. dae soo’s a little nervous too, he said so. we’re both like two little kids waiting to meet santa claus, our faces light up as we look first at the stage and then back at each other. it’s a cool moment and with that we pick up our axes and make our way over from the sidewalk to the back stage area. 

damn we’re the first musicians to arrive. isn’t dae soo supposed to be the last, rolling up an hour late in drunken stupor with an entourage of willing females in his wake! i think those days of rock’n'roll are long gone now. it’s all schedules and unit meetings as far as i can make out. everybody wants to chat with dae soo about this that and the other, so i pull up a chair and just take in the vibe! camera’s come in and out, the main TV network in korea ‘KBS’ is shooting a documentary on dae soo so they’re here plus there’s a couple of independent film makers doing their thing as well. as a result half the time i think they end up filming each other. one by one the band members drift in, last night i rehearsed with the guitarist, drummer and bassist though in addition today we’ll have keyboards and 3 females backing singers. pretty much everyone has played together before, the singers are new though and of course then there’s me. after the rehearsal last night we went out and had a bite together so that was a good way to break the ice. the bass player and me hit it off real good, he just came back from three months in thailand….need i say more!

seems like the stage is set and they’re ready for soundcheck. first the check the drums, then guitar, then bass etc. as i’m on acoustic it’s easy for me i just plug in and i’m off. what a luxury, just plug’n'play. no setting up a bunch of shit and trouble shooting as to why this and that don’t work. i hate that, it total takes you out of the moment, and when you’re performing that’s right where you need to be! we end up playing a couple of songs in soundcheck, one song that’s kinda got a latin, almost santana type groove. it’s perfect for levels because we can just jam for however long we need, looping around until the engineer gets everything just right. it’s fun to play too cause you can keep experimenting with different ideas allowing the song to evolve at it’s own pace and take on it’s own personality. all the bugs get fixed and everyone seems happy so we finish up then that’s it we’re done. we’re ready for the gig.

like most city halls, seoul’s is bang smack in the center of the city. the scene’s quite a picture with the majestic building itself and its huge grassy plaza surrounded by 5 star hotels, futuristic skyscrapers and huge ad blinking video screens. our band of muso’s take off down the street in search of a bite. we’re quite the troupe there must be a dozen or so of us complete with camera crew who document and interview as we tackle the sidewalks; sidewalk’s that are becoming jam packed with office workers heading home after another day at the office. we end up finding a restaurant in a street that’s full of them. this one specializes in seafood, there’s big tanks out front with different varieties of sea creatures swimming about in um unaware of their impending fate. fresh fish here in korea has a completely different meaning. we’re not talking dead upon arrival….we’re talking gills are flapping til you order it! seafood in the states is ridiculously priced and unless you’re in a fancy dancey restaurant it normally tastes like shit. maybe the northern coasts are a little better, could be i ain;t been there, but seafood generally in california sucks. when you have good fresh fish you can really taste the difference. it doesn’t have that fishy taste, which i guess is that taste of rotting fish not the fish itself. don’t get me wrong i’m no expert on fishy cuisine or anything it’s just an observation. as a rule i wouldn’t really call myself a seafood fan but in korea it’s another world, i love it. it’s so much part of the culture here it’s basically your given right. as a korean you eat fish, therefore it’s priced so that people can afford it. what a concept!

our loud’n'proud crew find a couple of tables next to the door. it’s a no shoes no chairs ordeal and our orders are sent off to the kitchen before i get chance to cross my legs. numerous side dishes of radishes, kimchi, garlic and other nibbly bits land on the table which is a good sign, the excitement of the day has built up a healthy appetite inside of me, i’m bloody starvin…..more than marvin! eagerly i await the main dish, i love eating out with koreans cause you never know what you’re gonna get and boy did i get a surprise when this dish showed up! talk about fresh, the f**ker was still moving! a big pot was brought over and placed on our table’s hot plate. in the pot was some soup, veggies and spices; and on the top rithing and wiggling were the tenticles of a very recently diced octopus. i gotta say, my heart dropped as did my appetite. i’ve been hearing about this dish for a while now and had always managed to dissuade people from going there but i had also promised that one day i would try it. i guess that day is today. better suck it up and get the stiff upper lip going cause i’m gonna be a total punk if i don’t do it now. everyone round the table laughs at my expression as my eyes grow to the size of saucers and i think the words ‘holy shit’ exit my mouth. man, it looks so trippy. this beautiful pot of bubbling broth with what looks like a bunch of worms with lepracy on top squirming away. ’try one’ i’m teased. oh man, ok i’m going in. i try fishing for one of the wigglers but the bloody thing keeps struggling out of my poorly held chop sticks. i go for another, a bigger one, same thing happens. i need help which dae soo’s neice happily provides, she nails a 3 inch fatty first hit that’s squirming away with it’s last remaining love for life. ‘here you go’, she says with a flirty demonic chuckle of a playful witch, ‘try this one’. how can i refuse? i grab the poor little f**ker and get a pretty good hold on it, take a breath then put it in my mouth. the damn thing’s fighting like a beached fish, sucking on my tongue and sticking to walls of my mouth, so i chew for my life to try and kill the sucker. its a battle of the beasts, but my teeth are gonna win godammit! everyone cracks up, i can’t say i blame um, i would have loved to have seen the look on my face. eventually the combat ends, my prey dies and i can chew in peace and actually taste my prize. boy - it tastes good! actually the taste is pretty slight, not strong at all, but i think the sense of relief that you have from the thrill of the fight makes it better than it would if ya didn’t have to work for it. i’m addicted now so i’m going in for more i just gotta catch um first! turns out the soup’s great too. korean food is really phenomenal. it’s a shame that in the west it’s not on the cheap eats circuit because i think if people got a chance to eat it more often it would become as popular as chinese or thai. maybe in the future it’ll open up a bit and the world can begin to see what korean cuisine has to offer. it’s fun meal one i’ll always remember. it’s sets a great mood for the rest of the night and with that mood we head out with our freshly filled bellies into the bustling streets and make our way over, back to the gig.

when we arrive, one of the openers is on stage and a healthy sized crowd has swelled. there are a lot of people with guitars, it’s a nice sight. normally when i see someone carrying a guitar i’ll say hey like one brother to another but with all these guitars around i’d be saying hey every 5 seconds….funny. i find my axe and tune her up. she’s feeling a little rough these days and could do with a bit of work but unfortunately i ain’t got the funds. she’s not really used to the heat so this summer has been hard on her which now makes tuning hard. her necks become ever so slighty curved so when you play up the top the tuning goes out. i’m sure most people can’t hear it but me and other musicans can which makes it a little cringey sometimes.  a couple of my friends have shown up and are somewhere in the plaza so i take off to meet up with them. just as i find them the announcer takes to the stage and i can see hahn dae soo and the band off the the side getting ready to go on. shit already! i dash back through the crowds as i get to the stage area the band gets on it! jesus i almost missed the gig. i grab my guitar and head up there too, phew, i don’t think anyone noticed, they’re all concerned with their own shit. a roadie plugs in my cord and we’re off. it sounds great on stage. orange lighting sets the mood like a late summer sunset, hahn dae soo steps into the microphone and his voice that’s been dormant for too long belts out, brash and bald, soothing as vintage wine like an old friend that came back to town. i’m honored to be up here with him and can’t take the smile off my face as we breeze from one tune into the next. he really doesn’t perform much these days so i’m lucky to have the opportunity to do this. we play a couple of songs then we’re pulled off stage for some official announcements and stuff. they do the turning off the lights thing as well. that was cool, i liked it when all the lights came back on, felt like the world coming back to life.we take back to the stage play a couple more crackers, they go real well, considering we only had a short rehearsal the vibe is pretty amazing. after that it’s time for the communal guitar song. ’sitting bull’ dae soo’s guitarist directs the tuning before we all play together, the chords are pretty simple so even a novice can follow. that’s what i like about dae soo’s tunes, anyone can play. that’s something that’s inspiring for me and  a challenge that i’m taking on board right now with the new songs that i’m writing.

on this big stage you can’t really get a grasp of the size of the crowd. with the bright lights in your eyes you can only see the folks that are right up close to the stage. beyond that it’s just blackness. i wanted to be able to see all the guitar players playing together but i couldn’t. from a performance point of  view it’s actually easier to play to bigger crowds than it is small ones. clubs are so intimate. you can see everyones face which is fine but that makes it tough. you have to win the audience every step of the way. every song and every note is important because if you lose um you’ll never get um back. in bigger arena’s people are just as caught up in the event as they are the music so really providing you don’t completely suck it’s easier to pull it off. course not only can i not see all the guitarists out there, i can’t hear them either as the monitors on stage are cranked up so high. all in all when we were playing it was hard to get a feel for what we were doing, after the song though the responce was amazing, everyone loved it! i’m sure being out there in amongst the hundreds of guitars it would have felt quite special. 

turns out we didn’t break the record. i think we had a little shy of a thousand guitarists show up but still that doesn’t matter. when we were leaving the venue you could feel the happiness from everyone that was part of it. people were stoked, their night was complete as was mine. see that’s the thing about playing music. by making yourself happy you also make other people happy and the bigger the stage the more people that can affect. it’s a dangerous business. sometimes it drives me crazy but when the good times roll there’s nothing that comes close. the good times certainly rolled tonight, spirits flew like eagles that were touched by the gods.a pretty special day to add to my asian adventure this far and my life adventure also. it’s another reason why i wann do this forever and you know right now i couldn’t imagine it any other way. rock’n'roll my friends, do what you love, love what you do!

back in seoul

 

neon streets of seoul

stepping off the plane in seoul was an funny feeling this time round. we arrive nine o’clock at night, a direct flight from bangkok to seoul is only 5 hours, however ours included a 40 minute pee stop in hong kong. this together with losing 2 hours due to the time difference makes the trip last all day. bear in mind i took the bus at 7am this morning. effectively this is my sixth korean immigration stamp so coming back in feels strangely normal. you know when you first get to a foreign country and there’s that exciting anxiety about being somewhere new, i didn’t really feel like that. don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the same as how it is when i go back to england or anything, but it was sorta like how i feel when i go back to the states. no matter how long i’m away from the uk there’s always gonna be that sense of ‘i’m going home!’ because i have an innate understanding of how things work there. it’s a nice feeling at least initially anyway, cause i never have to second guess myself as to what is the right or wrong thing to do. it’s ingrained. you’re brought up with it. it’s everything you know, which i why i guess most people choose to spend their lives pretty close to home. living in another culture is so fulfilling on many levels with the continuous challenge of new horizons and adventures on a daily basis, but there’s something very fulfilling too about a ginsters pasty and a box of quality street, i’d like those on a daily basis as well! i guess only the english will get that reference, the rest of ya can google it and build your international vocab of global peace policies.

the day after creme caramels...

if the political leaders of the world were each to spend a bit more time tasting each other’s best delicacy’s there’s a chance we might have a bit more peace on this spinning rock in space we call earth. yeah alright, it’s gonna take more that aunt jessica’s cherry pie to solve the worlds problems, but ya know ya gotta start somewhere and the stomach is as good a place as any? everyone knows when you eat chocolate it releases the same chemical in the brain that is released as when you’re in love, so a few truckloads of belgian truffles could be a good idea at the next G8 summit; might cause more than a hand shake at the photo shoots though. any of ya read the book or the seen the movie ‘like water for chocolate’? could be something like that. i can see the headlines now: ‘bush’n'brown caught in souffle sex scandle!’. wouldn’t that be something, ah brings a tear to my eye. i’d rather have a bunch of dirty old men and/or women taking out their sexual fantasies on each other, than the current idiots that continue fuck up the planet, and misrepresent 99.9% of the people that inhabit it.

you know, we’re constantly being bombarded with the state of the world, how bad it’s is and how it’s getting worse. how human nature’s being fed to the dogs with crime and war running rife in modern times, but once you get out there and see the world first hand you realize that all this ‘bad shit’ is just a microcosm of the overall picture. sure there is a lot a evil out there, i know that, but i wish people would talk about the good that’s out there too. think of all the healers in the world, health care workers working crazy conditions to solve the problems we have in africa and other underdeveloped countries. there are people in every corner of the globe just going about their daily lives with the intention of living a good and wholesome life; doing what they can to not only help themselves but also help those around them. folks at every turn, strangers you don’t even know, that will drop everything they’re doing just to help someone in need. you’re probably one of those people, they’re everywhere! on every continent in every country; every village, town and city you can find um. next time your car breaks down just see what happens. somebody will stop by and give ya a push, yet we have this preconceived idea that we live in a bad world. i don’t believe that. i believe we live in a good world, unfortunately the evil assholes always get the spotlight. they’re just power hungry dictators, democratically elected or otherwise, that have some insecurity complex about themselves and the size of their penis; after all most of them are men! your average everyday person just wants a good life and a peaceful existence, that’s universal.  

 

korean passport stamps

i clear immigration at the airport with absolutely no hassle whatsoever. i thought they might be a little dubious seeing as i left just a week ago, remember i was here for almost 3 months. turns out they couldn’t care less and didn’t blink an eye about giving me a stamp for another quarter year. customs was a breeze too. i just walked on through, then got some money outta the cash machine and went out to the buses. that was when it really hit me how familiar i’ve become with korea. i remember the first time i came over feeling completely alienated, but now just knowing how to get a bus ticket and which bus to catch and where to catch it makes realize how at home i’ve become. even though i don’t speak korean, just hearing it feels homey. what was a once a foreign asian alphabet that might as well have been hieroglyphics, now looks natural and familiar. i can almost read korean now too. that doesn’t mean i can understand everything, in fact i can’t understand anything, but phentically i can at least read and pronounce most words. small steps dear boy, small steps!

 

 

this is what chain calling does to you. see your physician now!

i’m back on the cellphone grid again too, so i make a couple of calls but don’t get too excited about it, i’m not that much of a phone person anyway. i love meeting up with people and having a chat, but the phone i find pretty impersonal and unless absolutely necessary i avoid it like the plague. skype on the other hand is brilliant. you can actually see the person your speaking with which makes a huge difference and of course it’s free! you just sit back and relax. no little piece of radioactive plastic pressed up against your ear. check out this youtube clip , i will say no more about cellphones. just watch the clip its pretty funny but scary at the same time and is another good reason as to why you should avoid damn phones like venereal disease. for those of you that permanently have your life line plugged up to your brain hole beware. your cooking your neurons like yesterdays leftovers! 

 

i enjoy the bus ride back to sinchon the part of seoul where i live. it takes about 40 minutes, the bus dropping me 5 minutes walk from my humble little room. seoul’s a stark contrast to ko samui. its a huge city. the metro area is the second largest in the world with a rapidly rising population that currently stands at almost 23 million.

seoul at night

only tokyo is bigger. new york city is fourth and london comes in eighteenth if that puts some kinda perspective on it. looks like the olympic scoreboard don’t it! i don’t know why but seoul doesn’t feel that big, or maybe i should say overwhelming. it’s probably more to do with the people than anything else. in new york or london or even LA for that matter you can really feel the size of the city because there’s this sense of anonymity that goes along with it. ironic really considering there’s people everywhere, but people are so caught up in themselves it feels like they’re unaware of anything outside of their immediate surroundings. that attitude of ‘if it doesn’t concern me i’m not interested’. here though, despite the swarms of millions it feels like people are somehow working together to make things happen. it’s hard to put your finger on it but having been here for a while now there’s definitely a sense of comaradary that’s built into korean culture. actually thinking about it there’s a similar feeling in thailand too so it could well be an asian thing. western culture is very idiosyncratic. ok we’re cordial to each other, but that sense of community that we once had, passed from our societies at about the same time as hitler. i know it was there once though because my grandparents used to talk about it, but in recent times it’s much more of an ‘every man for them self’ mentality. i guess that’s why the europeans have had so many great artists. individualistic behaviour breeds unique people, but the sense of community that i find here in asia is just a charm. i’m sure with the ongoing collision of east and west, things will eventually evolve and times will change here as of course they will everywhere, but for now those traditional sensibilities still stand strong which i find heart warming and inspirational. i hope that in the sea of change, the western world takes considerably more from eastern culture than it has in the past, as i truly believe that this is the way of the future. 

the bus drops me, my bag and and my guitar outside the hyundai department store.  then it takes off into the traffic which is still pretty heavy even though is past ten at night. i cross the road into my neighborhood which is shown in the video clip above. as it’s close to a number of universities its full of students and young folk chowing down on some good korean nosh. thai food is good, but i’ve missed korean food its amazing, healthy as well! as i make my way up the hill passed the restaurants, the smell of sizzling pork hits me, then barbequed fish and garlic. restaurants are packed it’s prime time to dine, and soju is flowing like han the river itself. already it’s consumed a few casualties that lie lifeless in the street, unconcious and oblivious to the night that’s surrounding them. neon signs flash and beep, and a whole variety of music from modern k-pop to old skool western rock drifts out to the street: the bars and clubs being notorious for making this hood bump and grind like vegas stripper. my payload, the hill and the heat are making me sweat a little, making the sight of the local g-mart owner even more pleasing than normal cause that means i’m just round the corner from home. i punch my combination into the keypad on my front door which welcomes me with a loud buzz. up the stairs i go, where i take out my key and unlock my door. ah my lovely little room and beautiful electric guitar. all my things just as i left them waiting for papa and papa’s finally home. wow what a trip that was, one i’ll never forget, i’ll miss thailand but it is good to be home. lots here to do, and now’s the best time to do it. after all it’s the height of the summer so if the good times can’t roll now, they’re never gonna. i switch on my fan, and lie on the bed. there’s no way i’m gonna sleep but it’s a nice idea i entertain for a few minutes. ok enough thinking, i’m getting antsy. my mind’s running like an excited  motor. after my trip to thailand i’ve got a new perspective on everything. the night is still young and though i’ve been traveling all day i’ve mysteriously got the energy of a bull. i’m headin back out onto the streets! no rest for the wicked. i’m gonna meet my friend hachi and exchange travel tales, he’s back from japan. thanks for reading everyone, leave me your thoughts and comments, thanks for those of ya that have already, if you would like me to put any links up on the blog just drop me a line and i’ll do my best to help out. ok back off into the world. see ya all later. live well. dig life. love S x

thailand-the conclusion, and back home in korea!

 

beautiful view from ko samui

why is it that ‘bad weeks’ drag and ‘good weeks’ pass like a speeding bullet? after a couple of nights in bangkok and a couple more on buses, boats and pick-up trucks i wasn’t really left with too much time to stick around and explore my island of peace. i only had 7 days in total. after all the intention of my getting away wasn’t really to ‘get away’ more a practical necessity to renew my visa for korea. initially i was gonna head out for a few days but my good friend james in london convinced me that i should spend at least a week in thailand, thankfully someone had a brain with some insight! so that left me with about 3 days at my hut by the waves, but those 3 days were enough to open a realm of possibilities that up until now were mere dreams.

yawning man in ko samui and southway

dreams and reality. ok, question. what’s the difference between ‘creative thinking’ and absent minded ‘day-dreaming’? what is it that makes one not the other? answers and comments please. could it be a paycheck? i guess people generally get paid a lot for ‘creative thinking’ whereas ‘daydreaming’ causes a slap in the face at school or in the office. kids get a whack many a time for allowing the mind to wander.

i remember a french lesson that was taught by a particularly boring weird teacher called mr. taylor. it happened often for me in his class. i’d find myself drifting off into the world of the unworldly. this one time in particular i was brought back to reality by a hefty shout from the master and chief. he had asked some question about some stupid slide show he was showing and of course i had no idea what in the hell he was going on about. however, there was a picture of a chateau projected on a screen at the front of the class, so grasping at straws i ridiculously responded to his question with, ‘is it a chateau?’. my response was purely in the hope that my answer might bear some relevance to his stupid question. it didn’t and the class errupted into hysterics making me the village idiot.

i never did find out what his question was, or what was so fucking funny about my response but the fact is i paid the price for his inability to be a good teacher. i was the the fool but really the joke should’ve been on him. i had the sense and imagination to go somewhere else other than his boring french lesson and i’m sure i was having a better time than he was.

banana tree in ko samui

 

 

in life, creativity always starts with a spark of inspiration and inspiration often comes from good old dreaming. so my point is ‘creative thinking’ or practical ‘dreaming’ is actually incredibly useful. of course, once you’ve created a concept or a vision from something out of your dream, you then have to act upon it in order to make it reality…..haha…and you thought it was going to be easy! i had a dream that one day i might have a place in thailand and up until now it was just thoughts of life in some exotic place. but now having been there and done that, that whole dream has an attainable reality firmly attached to it. thailand for me is no longer just a place on the map. its a real functioning country where people eat, sleep and shit just the same way that i do, i know i’ve seen it with my own eyes, not people shitting but you get the idea! it’s just another point on the globe where life can happen if that’s what you choose to do. so someday, maybe someday sooner rather later, that might well be something that i choose to do.

 

my buddy satyam

the cost of living and quality of life is out of this world. initially i had the idea of eventually retiring to thailand, but why wait? life as a starving artist ain’t easy and at this point poverty feels more like a lifestyle choice than anything else. initially it was intended to be a sacrificial stepping stone, but that stepping stone has gone from weeks to months, months to years and years to decades. it seems crazy to keep living in situations where the cost of living is so high, thus having the miniscule money that i make just cover the bear basics of existence. the thing is as we know, good art comes from life experiences. the more rounded your experience, both good and bad, the better your art! i don’t know how productive and ‘good’ my art and/or music would be if i lived in a beautiful paradise such as ko samui. i might turn into something horrible like jack johnson, though of course, seeing as he just headlined hyde park in london it could be considerably more profitable.

satyam's scooter, our babe magnet!

so i guess i’m not ready for that full transition just yet but the idea of making money else where in the world and spending it in a more affordable and pleasing climate, namely thailand, is becoming more and more appealing. my week in thailand was amazing. i had a great time and met some great people, saw a fascinating culture and had my travel bug severely proded and poked back to life. being in korea cracked open the door; thailand kicked it off its hinges! my world of travel this far is just the tip of the iceberg. everything in what was once the mystical orient to me is now a hop, skip and a jump away. i was crazy enough already, but now there’s no hope! i’m done for!

the quiet open road...ah

so this post is a little different from the last ones. i figured you already got the gist physically of what thailand’s like, if this is your first visit to my blog check out the previous posts for the sights and sounds of this terrific country. the rest of my stay on ko samui was more of the same: hot, beautiful, mostly nocturnal and fun.

an elephant i came across just before leaving ko samui

 

last view of the island from the boat

the pictures decorated throughout this post give you the visuals, ko samui’s just one of the islands too, there are many, many more each one boasting it’s own personality i hear. no doubt in my mind i’m going back and it’s gonna be soon, next time being armed with more time i hope. having ‘done’ bangkok i’ll skip it next time round, for me the islands are where it’s at, apparently chang mai in the north is a must too, then of course there’s the jungles. so much to see, the possibilities are infinite, but for now life back in korea is heating up, it’s getting busier. it’s all just talk for now but there could be some tv stuff happening soon. i got a call yesterday about japan as well. it’s all very interesting and i’ve only been in asia for 4 months. eastern promise? could well be, all good experience what ever happens and experience is priceless. good job cause i’m as broke as a beggar! don’t forget to leave sum love y’all and if ya like the vibe please keep coming back for more, pointless writing if no-one’s reading. love yas….x

back on khosan rd in bangkok waiting for the airport bus

follow the yellow brick road…

 

waiting for the boat from surratani to ko samui

it was a long night on the bus, but i was sucking zzz’s for most of it. as you might know, i’m not exactly the chattiest person in the morning (ok big understatement), but considering it’s unspeakably bloody early right now, i don’t feel too bad at all. we’re snaking our way slowly through some town with the bus bobbing from side to side which makes the guy’s head in front of me bash against the window- eventually waking him up…hehehe! i always find that type of thing funny, i guess i’m a little sick in the head. you know when people are nodding off, then their head jerks forward, they come to momentarily, then doze off again, only for the same thing to happen a few seconds later. is that funny or is it just me? i saw this youtube clip of bill clinton at a martin luther king speech. this guy is giving his speech his all and bill clinton’s nodding off in the chair next to him. i was pissing myself, must be that british sense of humor. hey, check it out for yourself here’s the link http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=BpEckWHSvXk i think its bloody hilarious!

ok, i digress, back to the program. it’s dawn again, damn i’ve never seen so much dawn; the bus pull’s over, most people are still dreaming fairytales until this lady gets on and shouts, literally shouts in a heavy thai accent ‘ok, ev-we-bo-de ov buz!’, which roughly translated means, ‘wake up ‘n’ get out!’ there’s a general sense of confusion, mainly ‘where the hell are we?’ and ‘what’s going on?’. turns out we’re outside a little shop in a town called ’surratani’ on the east coast of southern thailand. this little shop is apparently some kind of transfer point. not everyone on the bus i going to ko samui, other destinations i overhear are phucket, krabi and phi phi island to name a few, so at this point they check us for our final destinations and put little stickers on our shirts. feels like elementary school but i like it, it’s cute.

i look at the clock in the shop and it’s 6.15am, yep blood early. i figure i’ve probably slept for about 4 or 5 hours which under the circumstances ain’t bad. one bonus about being awake this early is that the weather’s lovely. maybe even perfect. not hot, just warm, not humid, just right. another lady comes up to me, sees my ko samui sticker and says, ‘bus at 7 o’clock’. ‘ok thank you’ i say, damn my voice sounds like louis armstrong after a night of marlboros. so i’ve got a bit of waiting to do. the little shop has some snacks and stuff so i get another plate of pad thai, yum nice breakfast and a bottle of orange juice. as soon as my plate comes out the smell lights up the tables around me and few others head to counter and order the same. little covered pick-up trucks with benches in the back and racks on the roof (like the one you can see in the picture above) show up, the drivers shouting out different destinations slowly diminishing the number of folks that remain in the shop. originally there was fifty plus of us and of course murphy’s law says that the ko samui lot are one of the last to be picked up. ah who cares, i’ll get there when i get there.

eventually our pick-up truck arrives, a little orange toyota. we throw our bags up on the roof and everyone piles in, but there’s no way we’re all gonna fit. i think the driver eventually squeezed about 3 people on the front seat with him, when he sees me he says ‘u superman’ and gestures to the back to the truck. i guess he wants me to stand on the bumper and hang on like superman. cool. so i jump up with two other supermen and we take off. course this would be completely legal in san francisco! there must be 15 of us all together in this poor little truck, we bob along through the streets, the shocks on this thing died about 10 years ago, then from the streets we safari down some un-paved gravel roads. we’re in lush green marsh land, so green you can taste it, tropical and exotic, untouched and beautiful. people are out and about early beating the heat of the day, but slow is the way to go. we hang a left down another dirt road and at the end pull over. we’ve arrived at a shack next to a river. 

waiting for the boat

there’s a bunch of people hanging out that arrived before us, everyone’s had a long journey and it’s shows. not long after us more pick-ups arrive packed to the brim with more folks, luggage piled up like a mobile flea market. i wanna be social but my friendly endorphins have yet to flow, so i wander over towards the river and pull up a seat under a little thatched pagoda, the one in the photo, and have a private moment to myself. the pagoda jets out over a little beach that lines a perfectly still and tranquil river. the sound of wildlife cherps, clicks and buzzes all around, off in the distance the low rumble of a longboat motor gradually builds in volume eventually passing by with a couple of fisherman on board heading out for the first catch of the day. a couple of the other guys are hanging out on the jetty where i assume our boat to paradise will bless us with it’s presence in the not too distant future.

dogs on the beach

then, out of the bushes, pop a couple of little dogs. one’s the mama, the other her young pup; all playful and dopey. they trot around up and down the beach the mama constantly being teased and bugged by the little one that’s desperate for attention and a play mate. mama takes it all in her stride though and is unphased by her offspring’s insistent hounding…haha…no pun intended. i feel quite honored at this point. a few days ago i knew i had to leave korea for a while but i had no idea where i would end up….now i’m here! just looking around fills me with a great sense of achievement. to some i just got on a plane and took a vacation, to others including me, i took a step out of the norm and into the realm of uncertainty based on instinct and a love for life. i realize for me at this point in my life i don’t want the same things that a lot of people want. i’m not looking for a nice car and a house with a two car garage. i’m not looking for fancy restaurants, fame and fortune. sure if that happens then i ain’t gonna turn it down, but it’s not the motive. i want a life rich in experience, full of travel and culture and essentially of simplicity and freedom. i realize that as you go through life goals and needs change, but for now this is where i’m at, and in this moment i am pursuing that one hundred percent. it feels good, and i smile to myself as the little dogs below tumble and roll together on the beach.

i come to after my philosophical realizations, remember where i’m at and which country i’m in, and take another look at the river before heading back to the shack where more people are arriving by the droves, this time from a big white double decker bus. just as i find a seat, a thai lady, older, well nourished wearing the face of a good life comes up and asks if i’ve got a place to stay when i get to ko samui. i guess she saw my little sticker, funny i’d forgotten all about that. ‘no, i haven’t got i place yet’ i begin, then continue to tell her about my quest for a beach hut. ‘i own some beach huts’, she fires back, smile so broad you could fall into it, and with that she flips open her clipboard folder to show me her prized possession. no way! it’s the same damn ‘A’ frame beach huts i saw yesterday on someone’s random blog. what the hell are the chances of that? yeah i know six degrees of seperation, the celestine prophecy, sphere’s of influence and all that other stuff but it’s still pretty f**king way out. ‘that’s the same ones i was looking at on the internet’, i tell her, and hope i haven’t given too much away in case she bumps the price up. i needn’t have worried, next she turns the page to the price list and shows me that it’s low season right now so i can get a water front hut for 300 baht, about $9 (US). sweet as a cashew! cheaper than i thought. not only that, if i book now, her husband will pick me up from the boat so i don’t have to fuss about cabs and stuff. winner. i’m super stoked, and happily turn over my 300 baht for the first night in return for a little blue receipt. well that was easy. i imagined myself scuffing along some beach in the sweltering sun dragging my guitar behind me in search of these little huts. turns out they found me! see ya just got have some faith and put yourself out there. sometimes the universe can be cruel and torturous, other times it’s as giving as your best friend.

‘ok, everybody on the bus’, yells a voice from somewhere near the white double decker. ‘bus?’ i say to myself. ‘where’s the boat?’. i guess there’s no time for questions as some folks obviously know what’s going on and have already loaded up and are boarding our over-sized fridge on wheels. the saga continues. talk about a soap opera of a trip, i guess this one’s a swamp opera…..da da! i grab my bag once more and pick up my guitar. f**k the handle falls off. typical. now i gotta carry her under my arm like a bloody surfboard. i stuff the injured handle into my backpack, pick up my stringed board, head over to the bus, throw everything in, then climb the stairs to the limousine. damn this bus is pimping too! it’s got frilly pink curtains down the windows and a bunch of island beads hanging from the helm up front. if grandma became rastafari, moved to jamaica and lived in a bus, this is what it’d look like. there’s a few window seats left so i take one, hit the recline button and engage chill mode. downstairs a loud but charmin irish voice banters and chuckles with few other familiar accents. up the stairs they come, sounds like a bachelor party in amsterdam. the one irish accent belongs to mick, and mick picks the seat next to me.

mick’s a fit guy in his forties i would guess, though his sun kissed leathered face makes it tough to be sure. he, like many irish, has the gift of being ‘insta-friend’ – just add beer. immediately likable though i guess the smell of alcohol on the breath of a red-faced pirate before 9am might put a few people off. ok i’m being generous, he stinks; but it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. i introduce myself and once he hears my name is shaun, i’m presumed irish too. i don’t bother to correct him, it’s fine just as it is. i guess to a drunken irishman who’s been on the sauce all night long, my twisted southwest american english accent would sound a little irish. aside from that, i didn’t get my flaming red locks from the romans! there’s celt in here somewhere so he’s not that far from the truth. turns out mick lives on one of the other islands, ko tao the most beautiful of them all he claims, and i’m sure he’s right. he’s been out on ‘the rock’ as he fondly refers to it for 6 years and will be there for years to come. used to be a seaman, ah that explains his strong physique and well-lined face, now he ‘gets paid so people can have fun’. he’s a diving instructor, until now working for various diving schools, but right now he’s in the process of starting his own school. him and his buddies are coming back from penang on a visa run. ha, same as me but in reverse. all these years he’s been in thailand on a tourist visa so i guess that means he does a visa run every month. what a trip! ‘ah there’s ways around every rule’ he says ‘you just gotta know how to work it!’. i gotta say he’s right, if there’s a will there’s a way. it might not be easy but there’s always a way. mick’s like  a spokesman for the thailand immigration board. not a bad thing to say about it. he says he still gets a kick everyday he wakes up. ‘i never thought it was possible to be this happy til i came here’, he quirks as only an irishman can. how many times in your life have you heard somebody say that? not too many i think, there’s inspiration there and i tell him so.

’so what’s the deal with the bus?’ i ask as he’s obviously well seasoned in this trip. ‘ah, we’re gonna be on the bus for about 45 minutes’, he says, ‘then we’ll catch the boat from there! ko samui’s first, i think it takes about an hour and a half’, so i do the math and figure i’ve probably got another 3 or so hours to go. remember it was only $15, just as a point of reference the plane from bangkok takes about an hour.

mick is as good a person as it gets. heart of gold, witty and relaxed, like the brother that moved away though you wish he hadn’t. we get along like lovable rogues and he says i should check out ko tao. he’s right i should, but time’s not on my side this time round so i tell him i will next trip. ‘i’ll be here’ he says with a cartoon character grin the size of a banana, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s right, he will be. ‘look at this’ he says, pointing out the window to a picture of the tropics fit for national geographic. ‘you go back in there and you go back a thousand years. people living with no electricity, growing food, living off the land. they’re out there, if you wanna see it, it’s there…right there!’ yep, it doesn’t have to be nine to five in grey cubicle the size of a prison cell watching repeats of ‘the office’ when ya get home so that you can turn of. life has many angles, just depends on which ones for you? kinda like cinderella and the slipper. ya check out different ones til ya find one that fits.

we exchange tales about life experiences since leaving our respective motherlands. funny you meet some people for a relatively short period of time and yet they have an impact on your life; like they were put there for some reason. that’s how i feel about good ole mick. we chatted on the bus, then once we got to the boat he went out on deck (old habits die hard) and i retreated downstairs to the comfort of air conditioning. we didn’t get chance to say bye though i’m sure mick found someone else to chat to there as well. the lack of sleep had caught up with me, and what with the swaying of the boat i floated off to dreamland like a baby in a mother’s arms. when i wake up, i see us approaching a beautiful island, shit i better grab my stuff this is where i’m getting off. ko samui, here i come – ‘hi honey, i’m home!’

i move outside onto the deck where my stuff, like everybody else’s is piled up in a heap like a bonfire waiting for match. i guess it’s about 11am and the heat is overwhelming! it takes me by surprise, i thought the islands would be much cooler. the sun’s so strong it feels like i’m stood too close to the fire. my face is burning! my sunsceen’s buried in the depths of my backpack, which is currently on the bonfire, eventually i locate it but there’s no time to rummage, we’re already at the dock and it’s over-run with cops! what the hell do they want? i jump off the boat expecting to be pulled to one side and searched but it doesn’t happen. there must’ve been 20 cops stood there, i think they were getting on the boat to go to one of the other islands. it was a bit of a shock at first though, felt like we were being welcomed by the gestapo. man it is hot! different heat to bangkok, i guess the islands have a direct line with the sun, like the red phone in batman. we have to walk down a long quai to get to the mainland, the beach adajacent is picture postcard perfect with hardly anyone on it. i can see a bunch of peeps up ahead under the shade of tree with little signs. man i hope my rides there, it’s sweltering.

a bunch of taxi pimps from both cars and mopeds give me their business pitch but i politely tell them i have a ride. i’m looking for some guy with a sign, like the limo drivers at airports, that says ‘new hut’. please be here and don’t let this be a scam. you hear so many rip off stories these days that i’m always expecting to be ripped off. i wish i could reprogram that train of thought, but at this point it’s buried so deep in the vault of past experiences i don’t know if i can ever retrieve it and throw it away. the heat haze makes everything shimmer like some kind of cheap sci-fi tv special effect, giving the whole scene a surreal feel. besides that, my brains being cooked like a sweet potato. i put my stuff down next to the tree and find it’s shadow for some temporary relief from the sun and chat with a girl who’s also waiting for a ride. she’s nice and friendly, caucasian from north america and is seemingly a warm girl. i didn’t even get to ask her name before i hear ‘new hut’ being mentioned behind me. i swing around and see the little sign. see i was trippin again. have some faith southway! ‘hi’ i holler ‘i’m going to new hut!’, and with that i pick up my stuff, say bye to my new found fellow traveller and melt my way over to this guys van. cool a van, not a pick-up! i dig the pick-up thing but right now it’s way up in the 90’s so i’d sing a celine dion song if it meant i could get some fake cool air for the ride home.

my poor ole guitars up on the roof again, hope the bloody neck don’t bend in this heat like it did once in the arizona desert. that’s another story in itself, i’ll save that for another time. it don’t take long before about a dozen folks are inside and we’re off and running. we head out of the little port village and into the tropical paradise that is ko samui.

 

the road to lamai, ko samui, thailand

 

more pix from the road to lamai, ko samui, thailand

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

as you can see, i’m slummin it big time! colors are as fresh as a painters palette. sky so clear, that if i was religious i’m sure i would be able to see god himself…….sucking down a margarita no doubt whilst sat on his fluffy, ever so fluffy cloud. if indeed there is a god, he made these islands first….on the first morning before dawn!

there ain’t that much money here…yet! at least not on this road, everything’s pretty basic, but anything else would just seem outta place anyway. we pass through a couple of little villages but they’re as loosely populated as any good island should be. after about 25 mins we hit a small town. there’s hotels, small restaurants, a market and dentists. a bunch of em. oh that’s right, i read somewhere that it’s getting popular for british folks to come over to thailand and get there dental work done here. it costs a fraction of what it costs in the uk, and after you’ve had your molar plugged you can go and sit on the beach and rest your numbed jaw, rather than dulling the pain in the rain of the gap that’s also been created in your once swollen wallet. oh, we’re slowing down and pulling over. i guess this is my new town, must be lamai. yep there’s a sign ‘new hut’, alrighty then, it’s party time!

we jump out and everyone seems to have gained some new found energy on the ride here. now the trip feels worth it. did i really get this for $15? right on. we follow our leader over a single file bridge which crosses a small ravine, on the other side of which is a covered bar that’s home to a bunch of folks with big smiles in pink t-shirts. they’re waiting for us. i catch a glimpse of the ocean, it’s looks totally lovely – i want in, but business first. where’s my hut? i take out my receipt and am led away by one of the friendly thai people in the pink shirts. he shows me my hut.

new hut beach huts lamai, ko samui, thailand

f**k yeah! right on. it worked. i got it. i got my damn beach hut. the exact one i wanted. and for $9! yeehaa! inside there’s 2 single beds with a mosquito net hanging neatly above them. above that there’s a little fan which i engage immediately and before i have chance to thank my guide he’s gone, off to show someone else their little slice of heaven. i plonk everything down and check out the bed. pretty good, nice’n'clean, comfy as i need. even with the fan it’s pretty warm to say the least, but i’m just splitting hairs now, this is awesome. alright then, it’s swim time! i find my new trunks that i bought back in korea but have yet to use, consider the goggles then retract that idea. the hut people gave me a little pad lock so i can lock up my stuff, the beach is much quieter than i expected so i’m not too worried about anything, though i do put the lock on the door.

so off i go across the beach. it’s really too hot to stand on without flipflops, but i ain’t got any so i speed up the pace a little and skip on tips toes to the water. jesus, the water’s hot too! i ain’t kidding, it’s really hot. mick on the bus had said that the water is 34′C but really that didn’t compute until now. 34′C is really hot for ocean water. where it’s super shallow right at the shore it’s even hotter making it boiling and a little uncomfortable. the further out you go out the better it is but it’s still like bath water that you would run for a small kid. it’s a trip, even maui was nothing like this!

another view at lamai beach, ko samui, thailand

 

 

view along lamai beach from new hut's on ko samui, thailand

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

right in front of my hut the beach slope is so gentle it makes the water super shallow even when you’re pretty far out. there’s a lot of rocks around so you have to tread carefully, i jump like frogger strategically from one rock to another, slowly making my way further out to the cooler temperatures. i get out just past my knees and decide to lie back and take a moment. this is awesome. i’ve been lucky enough to have spent some time in some pretty nice spa’s but this takes the biscuit. i can see tiny little fish swimming around me which reminds of a story that ole mick told about his favorite fish, one that he likes to introduce to his diving students. the fish’s name’s ‘bob’ and apparently bob likes to be petted on his belly. he just sits there, uh???…swims there, oh whatever; and let’s ya stoke his tum! i’ve heard it all now! i don’t think i’m quite there with these fish yet but i guess i shouldn’t be too hard on myself. after all, we only just met! 

after my lounging luxury, i dance my way back across the rocks and head for the showers. actually the shower consists of a copper pipe sticking out of the wall with a stop cock attached so you can turn the water on and off. technically there’s no hot water but man it’s warm enough. after my shower i make my way back to the hut and take a look at the palm tree leaf thatched roof from my bed, assuming the horizontal position. i guess it’s time to catch up on that lost sleep once and for all, when i wake up the sun’s down behind the hills, hinden in the masses of the newly formed thunder clouds.

it never rains, but threatens like a narc with a motive. after spraying myself down again from those damn mosquitos i take off in the opposite direction of the tourist intended beach haunts and find some little roads where the real people live. i love that noise that crickets make! to me its the epitome of summer and everything that goes along with it! folks are making supper in there one room shacks, kids are out playing in the purple dusky twilight, and more little dogs are fascinated by this foreigner with stripy pants and a strange hair do! this one little fella insists i’m the pied piper once more and follows me all the way through the back roads to the main drag that’s up ahead. i find a thai food place where it’s a little more expensive than the mainland, but in real terms it’s nothing. i get curry and rice for a couple of bucks then wander round some more before heading back to the hut.

i haven’t pulled out the guitar since yesterday morning, which makes me feel uncomfortable these days, so it’s time to change that. remember, good things happen when i play the guitar, gotta live by the rules. the sky’s as black as guiness, and the moon that was full yesterday for the last night’s party on neighboring ko phangan, cuts through the dark like a backlit stencil. i have my first strum on my desert island as the waves gently lap a few feet in front of me. music sounds different here, in fact everything feels different. i don’t have the desire to hit the strings like a busker on fire, more like gently pick a melody of peace and calm to sooth the nerves, so that’s what i go with. in this beautiful place of paradise on earth i feel a slight sense of sadness that i’m alone. it’s not overwhelming or anything, but nevertheless i wish i could share this with someone i love. traveling alone opens many doors and opportunities, opportunities that only arise when you are alone; but as with any action there’s always a reaction, and the reaction to solo travel is often that sudden surprise of loneliness. one minute you’ve made best friends with someone that you’ve just met, then before you know it either you or them are gone, and you’re on your own again. it’s a crazy life, one i would recommend to anyone that fancies it, but ups and downs are inevitable. i take a minute from my strumming and contemplate my loneliness, and with that thought a guy from nowhere shows up and sits down on the beach next to me.

wow, cool vibe guy! his name’s satiem, i hope i’ve spelt that right- if i didn’t sorry mate! shit i can’t remember which part of india he’s from but i do remember his flight was from bombay so it’s somewhere near there i would imagine. saying you’re from india (india being as big as it is) is like saying ‘i’m from europe’. a little vague to say the least. the different dialects that people speak are such that a person from one part of india cannot understand another from a different part. the culture, food, language varies from region to region so they’re like separate countries really. all these different regions together make up the country we know as india, a country that is home to 1.13 billion people, which means one in six people on the face of the planet live in india! 

satiem’s a cool mutha f**ka! we start shootin the shit, nice n chilled on this little desert island in the tropics, thankfully his english is perfect. he’s a massage therapist and yoga instructor. used to be a tv/film editor but wanted something more fulfilling so went back to school and reprogrammed himself. smart guy, cool as cucumber, true traveling explorer to the full. has been all over the goddamn place, loves south america the most and tells a great story about being searched when he arrived there for the first time last year. he said ‘i was so happy to be there, i didn’t give a shit what they did, i was just like, sure you wanna look in there go for it! i just kept smiling all the time, there was nothing they could do could to bring me down, in the end they just let me go!’ that sums up satiem better than anything else really. confident and smart, deep and unphased. as i said cool as a cucumber. we hit it off straight away, both of us are well travelled and open minded, we talk about meditation and he knows the style that i practice, vipassana that comes from burma. we’re similar people really: explorers, fun loving, music lovers that are not afraid to let our hair down, but we also share the same awareness that truly a good life comes from something other than a beer buzz and a cheap trick.

that being said i am enjoying those cheap tricks right now, it’s just the phase of life i’m in and what i need to do. after a while of laughin, jokin and philosophizin, satiem mentions there’s a reggae bar in a town a little further up the coast and says he’s got a scooter so we could take a ride there and check it out. there should be a band playing too. nice one. cool, so i drop off my guitar back at the hut and walk across the bridge where i meet satiem and his little red scooter.

this scooters great! in the black of night the temperature’s perfect and we take off along the road, no helmets, wind swirling through the hair. this is freedom. it might not exactly be a harley but i do feel a little like peter fonda in easy rider. i haven’t spent too much time on motorcycles and though this thing’s only a tiny little scooter, i get the feeling that i could really fall in love with motorbikes given the opportunity. there’s something about feeling attached to the environment around you as you move through it that’s really enticing to me, like you’re part of the picture instead of being away from it; stuck behind a wall of windows in a moving metal room like how you are when you’re in a car. i’ve got my camera with me so i film a little movie clip, i was gonna put some video stuff up on the blog but i can’t figure out how to do it. if any of ya know, let me know and i do what i can on the next entry.

southway and satiem on a scooter in ko samui

this road’s awesome basically skirting around the coastline of ko samui, up and down hills and around meandering curves. it’s lined mostly on the ocean side by the silhouettes of tropical vegetation but occasionally the trees break and blackness of the water offers it’s peaceful mystique. around the bay off in the distance i can see some flashing neon lights, looks like there’s a bit of activity over there which surprises me, i thought this place locked down after dark. though i’m convinced i’m now a member of the hell’s angels, the reality is we’re only going about 20 miles an hour. satiem is a safe conservative rider, which is absolutely fine by me, i’m a safe conservative passenger. we round a few more curves and climb a few more hills then drop into some life. there’s a few hotels here which don’t look small. shops are littered here and there, and as we go further the shops get bigger and more westernized, i see 7-11 and even a burger king. this wasn’t what i expected on my desert island! what’s going on? further on, people are out and about on the street. quite a few people, mostly tourists. then we pass a bar, then another, then another. jesus, what is this place? 30 minutes ago i was robinson crusoe with an acoustic, now i’m in ibiza! the further we go, the busier and louder it gets. we turn one street in search of our reggae club and there’s bars either side of it fronted by skantily clad thai girls whoopin at us as we fly by on our sex machine. yeah right. i don’t think we were hot stuff or anything, i’m guessing we’re in the red light district and these girls are paid to do that! i’m stumped by the whole thing. i was on a quiet little people-less beach not that long ago and had no idea that there was this side to ko samui. i think it’s bloody hilarious! 

at the end of the road we find the reggae club but it’s dead. see we’ve been spoiled now! 10 minutes prior to now and i’m sure we’d have both been happy with a game of pool accompanied by some bad bob marley covers, but now the explorer gene has gotten ahold of a different part of the brain and it wants to explore the party. we retrace our path back past the hooping and hollering girls, we had no choice it was a dead end, honest…that’s my story and i’m sticking to it. then turn off and pass a big lake. there’s a few people around it but no action to speak of really. overall though this town is full on. it’s called chaweng and is basically the capitol of the ko samui. as we’re exploring other parts of the town a boeing 737 shoots by over our heads low enough to see faces at the windows it seems, wow they even get big jets in here. it’s a fun place to be but i’m glad that my hut is where it’s at, i wouldn’t wanna be surrounded by this stuff. we make a right after the lake and find another busy street. damn this one’s even busier. it’s got a ‘boots’ – the chemist on it, tons of travel agencies, restaurants, bars, drag shows, supermarkets, sports bars, you name it and it’s here. i’m sure you could find almost anything you want to eat as well, providing you’ve got the pocket to back it up. there’s people everywhere, and this is the off season! not too many thai people to be seen, mostly over sunned tourists, dressed like they’ve just stepped out of the beachwear section of a high street clothing store somewhere in england.

i’m laughin my ass off like a mindless maniac as we’re riding along coz i still can’t believe what i’m seeing. what rock have i been under? desert island my ass! right here it’s about as deserted as oxford circus a few days before christmas. sateim thinks it’s funny too, he’s been to ko samui before but never saw any of this. he’s heard of another place besides the reggae bar that is supposed to be alright, a dance club called ‘green mango’ so we pull over next to a cab and ask for directions. seems like it’s not far up on the right, in reality it probably took us all of 20 seconds before we see the sign. we jump up on the kerb and down an alley that’s basically a miniature vegas. there’s neon everywhere, clubs either side of us with windowless fronts pounding heavy dance and hip hop beats like it’s a sound system competition. the sound systems are really out of this world. i know how much good sound systems cost and these are far from cheap. the big clubs here have had to have spent upwards of $100,000 on getting their tunes to our ears. sateim navigates us through the drunks and at the end pulls up in a little courtyard right outside the green mango.

the green mango’s a big club, two rooms, one big, the other huge. there’s pop type hip-hop and club stuff in the big room and ravey trancey dance in the huge room. last night was the full moon party which may explain why the rave room is more popular, just a guess though as it might always be like that. we walk around, me smiling and bewildered, i must look like i’ve come back to the future or something. it’s hardly the first time i’ve ever been in a club, but under the circumstances it kinda feels like it. ‘watcha drinkin?’, shouts satiem over the pounding beats, ‘ah….a beer i guess’ i shout back, slowly coming to terms with my new world. we have another beer, then another, loosen up quite nicely until i feel like john travolta in saturday night fever. then i’m off. the night is mine. i am the beat and the beat is me. we tear up the dance floor pretty good, it’s been a few weeks since i had a good dance freak out so it feels great to let go. what a way to end what seems to have been the longest day of my life! the longest day of my life being represented by the the longest blog of my life. hope i didn’t bore ya too much with all this stuff, it was an amazing day and i didn’t wanna skip any of the details coz it all felt so priceless to me. i even ended up dancing with a beautiful girl at the club. we got along real great, satiem ended up taking off before me. i stayed and danced with the her. later i jumped on the back of another scooter so that i could get home, only this time it wasn’t sateim that i was holding on to…

southway outside his beach hut ko samui, thailand

day 3 – hungover, 2 buses, a boat, a van and a pickup truck

i don’t know exactly what time i ended up crawling into bed, but i do know that the sun was happily rubbing shoulders with the few clouds that were up in the sky. dawn’s a strange time at khaosan rd coz you’ve got a mixture of people still going from last night as well as those early risers at are either too keen to  be human or are catching an early morning ride to their next destination. i’m sure i look like a musical vampire as i head back to the hostel with my guitar, and thanks to the alcohol i enter the world of sleep without a blink of thought. check out is at noon so it’s a short night. i still don’t have any way to tell the time so i’m trusting my body clock all the way on this one. i gotta say though i nodded off no problem, sleep was far from ideal. when i do wake up it feels like a rat has crawled into my gapping mouth and spent the night there. maybe it did, but it’s not there now, must be having a spot of lunch. i didn’t feel that wasted last night at all, we paced ourselves over a number of hours but the end result is that a lot of alcohol was consumed, stored for tomorrow it feels like as the aftermath isn’t too pretty. 

i feel a little better after my shower, still no soap though so i scrub like a maniac with an obsessive compulsive disorder. after that i pack up my stuff, and leave my backpack with the front desk then head off for a bite. after yesterday i steer clear of the eggs, my stomach still a little dodgey but that’s probably more to do with the alcohol at this point. man in san francisco i was hardly drinking, swimming almost everyday and generally being quite a good but boring ‘A’ hole, then i moved to korea and all that changed. you know i’m just putting it down to a phase as i’m having the time of my life, i know it’s not gonna be like this forever so i’m gonna enjoy it to the full whist it’s happening. and besides that you only live once right! after food i have a little strum to steady the nerves and then check my email. my great friend hachi, an incredibly talented musician from japan who lives in seoul has sent me an email. he’s back in japan right now visiting his family and it turns out he has a friend ‘bob’ in thailand on ko samui. i was actually gonna go to phi phi island but i check out ko samui on the net and it looks pretty amazing too, so i figure if there’s a chance to hang out with the locals then i’d rather do that.

so i head off down the street to find a travel agent. not hard to do they’re everywhere on khoasan rd. i walk about 5 doors down and see ‘ko samui’ listed on the window off one place so i pop in. there’s a number of ways to get down there: plane, train’n'boat, fast bus’n'boat or slow bus’n'boat so bear in mind we’re on musician budget here there’s no contest. i’m taking the slow boat! it might take 16 hours but its only 450 baht about $15….yahoo! bus leaves at 6pm tonight, it’s already about 2ish so i’ve only got a few hours to kill. i can’t believe it i’m stoked! $15 bucks. to be honest with ya i wasn’t sure if i was gonna be able to afford to take the trip down south but having come this far i really didn’t want to spend all my time in bangkok.

if ya look on the map, yeah i know it’s small but click on it and it should get bigger, it’s quite a distance down to ko samui which is one of the islands off of the east coast. i heard it was cheap here and thankfully it’s cheap enough even on southway’s budget. i decided to stay local for the few hours that remain, check out the local market, eat a plate of pad thai at a stall owned by a lovely family from laos. they don’t speak much english but we manage to communicate somehow, man they make a mean pad thai! i tell them i’m going to ko samui and they are excited for me which makes me excited too. my dream for many years is to have a hut on the beach on an island in thailand. i first heard about them about 15 years ago from a good friend’s brother and ever since then the image stuck with me so today with ticket in hand i feel one step closer to that goal. i checked on the internet and found someone’s blog with pictures of beach huts on ko samui, so i know they’re there i just gotta find um! after i finish my pad thai i shoot back to the hostel, pick up my back pack and return to the travel agent to catch my bus.

6pm rolls round and i’m sat in the travel agents office and this guy shows up. says something in thai to the lady that booked my ticket then turns to me and says ‘ko samui’? ‘yeah’ i reply and though he doesn’t appear to speak a word of english apparently he gets the affirmation. so i pick up my stuff and take off with him, no bus to be seen. we wander through some little back alley’s that i haven’t been down before, come out onto another street and duck into another travel agency. i wait outside. 30 seconds pass and he comes out with another guy, looks european, with a backpack on. we briskly walk further down the road stopping a couple of times at other agencies gathering more people each time. firstly where’s the damn bus, secondly is there a bus? you know one thing i’ve worked out this far in thailand is that things works differently here. they DO work, but as i said, just differently. it’s really fascinating and refreshing for me to see that quite a complex system can work super efficiently without so much of a hint of influence from huge corporations. like for example my hostel. can you pay tomorrow morning? i’ve never been to a hostel in the west that not only allows you to do that, but suggests it. most people would be out of the door like a bullet, thanks for the free night i’m off! but here there’s some kind of trust that seems to flow through everything, so with that trust in mind i bring myself back to my current reality, namely wandering about khaosan rd when i thought i was gonna be picked up by a bus and just go with it. either they’re rounding up a bunch of ‘fresh off the boat’ travellers and are gonna take us to some dirty room with bars at the windows the other side of the river, strip us of everything we own, shoot us in the head and feed us to the strays, or they’re gonna take us to our bus. i figure this happens everyday so by now someone would’ve caught on if there was some kind of mass slaughter so figure the chances of that happening are pretty slim.

we break out of khaosan rd and onto a big main street, now we’re hoofing it! i don’t know if we’re late or if this is just how our illustrious leader goes about his business but we’re on a mission now that’s for sure. i’m traveling pretty light but i feel for the other poor souls that are with us; they’ve got the full on ‘i’m going round the world for the next 9 months’ backpacks strapped to their hides and ole commander fast walk is showing no mercy.  i start chatting with one of the other guys, the first guy that joined our troupe, turns out he’s from the netherlands which for those of ya that are wondering where the hell that is, it’s holland. he’s been in bangkok for just one night and is heading to phucket. goes round the world working for hotels, then when he’s got enough cash saved up, he takes off to the cheaper parts of the globe and travels. he’s spent the last month or 2 in laos and cambodia which is really common here in thailand. most of the foreigners i met were either on a quick week or two hop from either europe or australia, or are travelling through thailand en route to various surrounding countries. either that or on they’re on there way back home and this is the last hurrah! bangkok is a hub for southeast asia, great accessibility to anywhere on the face of the planet, and very close to other seemingly as yet undeveloped countries. turns out he was in the bar last night watching the soccer match and saw me and jack singing for our supper outside, funny small world. laos sounds fascinating, super popular on the backpacker route now. when i was traveling around europe busking and hitch-hiking years ago, the eastern european countries were always the most popular with backpackers, i’m sure they’re still popular too but last time i was in prague a couple of years ago it didn’t have the traveller friendly price tags that once made it such a user friendly stop off. so i figure south east asia is the new eastern europe. i get the same feeling from what people have told me about laos, cambodia and vietnam as i did when i was in that part of europe all those years ago. it’s an exciting feeling for me, one i’m very fond of and it gives me the sense of infinite possibilities here in asia.

finally up ahead there’s a bunch of people, travelers, stood around on the side walk looking like they’re waiting for something….probably a bus methinks! our mild run from khaosan rd to here combined with the humidity has turned me into a sticky, sweaty meat sack. i’m glad to take off the bag and put down the guitar and have a sip of some good ole aqua. my poor buddy from holland looks like a sweat lodge victim, eyes buggin out of his skull so i give him some water too before he falls into a state of unconciousness.

another sunset! already! wow the days fly by when you’re up til dawn. we’re next to a park in a lay-by on a busy four lane road so i can actually see the sky without too many buildings poking their nose in. one positive thing – and i mean ONE positive thing, that comes out of smog is that the sunsets are spectacular. in normal daylight the sky might be a gross distortion of browny yellow but man once that sun gets down on the horizon, a grand canyon of color opens up. it’s a nice moment and for a a few minutes there i watch the sky change color and fade from light to dark, forgetting everything else around me, including the lead leaden air we’re breathing that’s creating this whole anomaly. the minutes pass, the light fades, street lights illuminate, self-lit carts selling fruits,nuts and other yummy nibbles pass by stopping for thankful customers, time seems of no consequence, no-one knows how long we’re gonna wait but no-one seems to care. it’s mosquito party time so i spray myself down, i gotta say i’m paranoid about mosquitos in general but here the little f**kers carry some heavy duty diseases so i spray myself down like i’m putting the final coat on a classic mustang. i don’t know what’s worse really, breathing in this nasty aerosol or getting dengue fever. more time passes, now it’s officially night time, then off in the distance down the road i see a bus. a nice bus. could it be our bus. i think it is. it slows down and stops………in the middle of the road.what a pretty bus! we stopped later on our journey and i took this picture, what a dork but jeez, what a pretty bus! so we all leg it across the road, dodging the left overs of bangkok’s rush hour as we go. i guess we’re all getting on one bus and later on we’re gonna split up and head on our seperate ways. our bags and stuff our thrown in different compartments and we’re told which part of the bus to sit on depending on our destination. um nice, a/c again. aw, we’ve got little blankets to keep our tushies warm! i plonk myself down, and an older lady finds the seat next to me, i say hello and she replies ‘parle francias’ bluntly. f**k lady, ok you’re french can’t you just find it in yourself to say ‘hello’, even bonjour will do. bitch. i figure it’s her loss, i’m a nice person to sit next to on a bus journey and if she’s too stuck up to realize it then she can go and screw herself! 

we take off into the traffic and though i’ve been in bangkok for less than 48 hours i feel a little attached and i’m a bit sad to leave. i’ve had a blast, but a rolling stone gathers no moss so the next town calls. i know it’s gonna be a long bus ride and the lack of sleep is catchin up on me, the on board TV flickers to life and the worst movie ever made commences to play. perfect, i’m out like a light. i hope i snore like a drunk with a nasal problem and piss frenchy off next to me but from what people tell me i don’t so it’s just wishful thinking really. 

I wake up and everyone else around is sucking air like it gonna be rationed; roll back the curtain and watch the night fly by. we make a stop a few hours later in the middle of nowhere where a bus rest area has sprung up out of nothing. there’s about 3 buses pulled up, most folks are still asleep and drooling down the windows but i wake up ole frenchy and head out for a pee and some munchies. according to their clock it’s almost midnite, i’m on my second wind now so i’m gonna be awake for a while. i rummage though the various snacks that are laid out on the table but i’m really not feeling very adventurous so eventually decide on some strange looking ‘cookies’ that resemble petrified volcanic ash. surprisingly enough they taste pretty damn good so i down the whole lot. i think we ended up hanging around for about half an hour so technically it’s now tomorrow, the day i’ll reach paradise. in the dark of night though, the impending beach lined with palm trees feels a continent away. i’ve still got about another 5 hours or so on the bus and then who knows what’s gonna happen. it feels great to be travelling again, new smells, new words, new cultures and a beautiful smile from a pretty girl on the bus next door. we back out, our eyes lock and follow, she waves and we’re gone. off into the night. slowly but surely heading south. i wonder where she’s going? i guess i’ll never know, if only we could’ve met next to the cookies maybe things would have been different but for now i’ll have to be happy with that beautiful smile that was meant for me. we don’t stop again and eventually i do fall asleep, rolling further and further into the tropics with every twitch of REM. this is life, this is now, i’m on the move and lovin it. i even did end up striking up a little conversation with ole frenchy, in very broken french, she warmed up quite nicely, amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it!

on the move in thailand – day 2

i wake up and it’s hot! as hot a summer drive through nevada in a 73 chevy with no a/c. i know i’ve done that too and it ain’t pretty. i peel open my sticky eyes and see my friendly ceiling fan spinning like a propeller but offering little reward. pore thing it’s doing it’s best but in these modern times of a/c units and refrigerators the ancient technology of a glorified windmill really stands no chance whatsoever. but y’know, i did get the cheap room so i figure i should just deal with the sweaty brow and take a shower. i have no idea what the time is coz my phone won’t tell me let alone allow me to make a call. i have to pay for the room for last night before 11am so i hope somehow that the 2 hour time difference from seoul to bangkok is on my side and has woken me up early enough to take care of bidniz. ah a shower with no hot water……it never felt so good. but no goddam soap. come on guys at least throw a soap dispenser up on the wall…jeez. despite the lack of soap after my cool shower i feel somewhat cleansed and head downstairs to pay my bill. turns out the time difference was on my side it’s only 10.30am, bloody miracle.

so today’s my first full day in bangkok, i grab my guitar and take off in search of some nice brekky. find a nice little place that does an english breakfast and as i haven’t had bacon and toast for quite a while i couldn’t resist it. after brekky, check my email and turns out they’ve got skype installed so i give my good friend chad in korea a quick holla. brilliant, for those of you that ain’t on skype yet do it. skype to skype is free anywhere in the world and if you’ve got webcam’s installed you can see each other and it don’t cost a dime! here’s the website if you’re into it it’s super easy to install even i did it which is saying something http://skype.com/intl/en/useskype/…..!

i’m chillin like a villain in this cafe and decide to have a little strum on the old axe. i was uming and ahing about whether or not to bring my guitar, she’s been pretty much everywhere i have but when you’re in hostels ya never know who might take a fancy to her and take her to a new home. in the end i just thought f**k it, take her everywhere with ya and tie her to ya when you go to sleep if you’re in a dorm. turns out i’ve got my own lockable room but still i don’t trust that lock if i’m not there so she’s seeing bangkok with me whether she likes it or not. feels good to play a little, didn’t play at all yesterday and my fingers are wondering what the hells going on. i do my best to not disturb the other eaters after all it is still morning and though ‘all along the watch tower’ might sound good when you’ve had a few, some asshole on the next table to you at 11am who thinks he’s jimi my not be the best cure for a stinking hangover. see how considerate i am!!!

when i had my layover in hong kong, i was sat at the gate and low and behold i bump into someone i knew. small world!!! i couldn’t believe it. i’d only met her once in a park in seoul, i remembered she was from thailand turns out she was headin back to bangkok to see the folks. it was cool, i got to quiz her on things to do whilst i was here, and one of the things she suggested was to take a boat trip. she gave me the name of the pier which apparently is close to khaosan road so i pull out my map and find my destination.  

the boats here are mental. they’re called longtail boats because they have…uh…longtails…. yeah thanks einstein! my photos kinda shitty but you might be able to see they have a huge V6 motor on a rudder that the driver uses to stear the boat. kinda like putting a viper motor in a mini! as a result these things go like geese from a gunshot, cool to see even better to be in one of the mofo’s. after navigating a few alley ways and cul-de-sac’s around khoasan rd i eventually find prahatit rd pier and jump onto the tail of one of those skinny boats. actually it was a little bigger than the ones pictured but use your imagination and you’ll get the picture. fare was 15 baht about 50 cents (US). cool, in paris or new york it would be like $15 so i’m very thankful at this point to get a tip of from a local. we speed off down the chao phraya river, zig zagging all the way from one side to the other, droppin off and and picking up passengers as we cut through the heart of bangkok. i have no idea where i’m going but i figure wherever i end up is gonna be a trip so just go with it.

i must have been on the thing for about 25-30 minutes when we pull over at this one spot and about 90% of those aboard jump out onto this pier. maybe they know something i don’t??? i’m not normally one to follow the crowd but figure in this instance it might not be a bad idea and besides that the english breakfast is churning inside my sweaty carcuss so i figure i should make a run for the nearest bathroom before i shit myself! man don’t ya hate that, you’re chillin, checking out the sights, ‘oh this is so wonderful, so insightful and marvelous, i’m the luckiest guy on earth right now’…then thwack……oh no i need to take a dump…..RIGHT NOW!!! i know that’s probably a bit too much info but i’m sure that’s happened to you too. so i try to look casual as i disembark but those over easy eggs are really not going over that easy with me at all…..see should’ve stuck to the street food….silly bugger!

i’m beginning to get the sweats a little and am horrified to remember that none of the toilets i’ve been in so far haven’t had any toilet paper in them. oh but hold on. i think i bought some last night….should be in my guitar case. i think i’m ok. see guitars have many uses. so god knows where i am, at this point i don’t care, providing there’s a bathroom close by i could be in kansas and it wouldn’t matter. from street to street i search and search but there doesn’t seem to be anywhere that would understand my desperation right now, oh what i’d do for a throne of porcelaine. a few blocks up ahead, down a smog choked main road i see modern skyscraper towering over the roadside shops and shacks. thinking back the juxtaposition of that sight would have been a nice thing to have taken a picture of but at this point the last thing on my mind was fulfilling my artistic fantasies. i head toward the shining tower where i’m sure i will find my zion. it’s actually a little further than it looked and with the combination of 90 plus degrees, 90% humidity and 90% impending diarrhea i’m sweating like a convict in a courthouse. deep breathes, deep breathes…..breathe….perhaps i’m gonna give birth! finally i find the entrance to the magic kingdom, climb the steps, and push on the door. ahhhhh….air conditioning. it’s like a fridge in here! or maybe i’m just a pepper on fire. indeed there it is. i see the sign. a stick man next to a door. bathroom. i go inside and come out a new man. i think i need to chill here for a while on these comfy seats and gather my senses.

actually all joking aside i was a little shaken by the whole incident. nothing worse than being caught short in a place ya don’t know. i was just thankful to find a proper toilet not just one of those where there’s a hole in the floor with a foot print on either side of it. after i regain my composure and a healthy body temperature i venture outside again. still not exactly sure where i am but there’s people everywhere doing this and that so it must be a well known part of town. i have a little stroll around, people watching is pretty much my favorite pass time especially when i’m in a new country. i love watching people go about their business and seeing how the whole thing works. there’s people crammed onto old buses, a/c provided by windows pushed all the way down, little fruit shops selling exotic fruits for next to nothing, the constant sound of moped’s and motorbike’s snaking through the traffic and often the sidewalks like an urban motocross.

i stop at a 7-11 and grab myself some bottled water which i figure out costs about 25 cents and sit outside on the sidewalk watching the city pass by. there’s a hospital opposite and a patient in full hospital gown is wandering around in his slippers holding his IV above his head. can’t work out if he’s just gonna grab a secret smoke or if he’s on the run. maybe he was making a beeline for the bathroom and took a wrong turn, who knows but people walk by paying no attention so i figure this must be normal. funny to see though. i’d been warned about the smog in bangkok and having lived in LA for 5 years i figured i can take anything, but the city air here in the daytime in the heavy traffic filled streets is in a league of its on. you can pretty much chew it! i wasn’t offended by it or anything but when you’re walking around the busy streets it starts to get pretty heavy. so i decide to take a few back alleys to escape the smog for a while and find a bunch of what i think are motorcycle messengers playing volleyball underneath a freeway overpass. seems like they just pull up for a little break and punch a ball around for a bit, pretty cool. from there i go into a more residential neighborhood which gives me the feeling of being in spain as a kid. don’t really know what it is, maybe its the heat and the smell, hard to put my finger on but it takes me back to the package holidays that i used to go on with my folks. it’s a nice feeling, makes me smile. wandering around, especially in the back streets, there’s stray cats and dogs everywhere. i guess being a buddist country they don’t kill anything so there’s these families of animals taking off through the town in search of their next meal. funny thing is, they don’t look like down and out strays. they walk about quite proud of themselves, dogs waving their tales in the air, seemingly having quite a nice life. on the native american reservations in the US you’ll see a lot of strays but they kinda hang out in super market parking lots all withered and hunched, like poor hopeless parasites barely making it from day to day but here the vibe is quite different. i had a family of a few dogs titter totter down the street with me, i liked it, ‘hey what’s up man, how ya diggin bangkok….pretty cool huh?’. i felt like the pied piper there for a minute, no pipe though, just me ole guitar as i said before this place is quite unique.

by now the ole body temperature’s rising again and though i don’t feel very hungry because of the heat, my energy is dropping a bit so i figured i must be hungry. i think i’m gonna head back to the khoason rd area, might even take a little nap later so i point myself in the direction of the thicker air in search of a tuk tuk. i’m dying to go in one of those little things, one passes me with six girls crammed onto the back seat, 3 side by side the others on their laps laughing all the way to the bank. you have to barter with the driver so i find one guy and he quotes me about $7 which for here is ridiculous. i offer him about $3 he starts on saying ‘ok, on the way i’ll take you to this place where they have some bargain jewelry. “you don’t have to buy just look….good prices i get you special deal”. i try to explain i just want to go to khoasan rd but i get the impression that we’re gonna stop at every goddam jewelry market on route, we laugh and joke with each other as best we can with the language barrier, i point to my guitar case and i think he gets the picture……guitar is pretty universal for ‘not born yesterday’ and ‘poor’. i shake his hand and head back towards the boat and can hear him shouting to me, ‘the beatles’ another universal word which translates as ‘peace’ in most instances, even apparently with hustling tuk tuk drivers! 

so i retrace my steps and make my way back to the boat, buy my ticket for 50 cents and watch the city float by. last night was a fairly short night’s sleep so i think i will take a nap once i get back, i grab a quick bite and head for the hostel. i think i saw the spinning propeller above my head for about one minute, could be hypnosis or fatigue all i know for sure is it didn’t long before i passed out and the reality of bangkok gave way to make believe movie behind my eye lids which entertained me for the next few hours.

i wake up feeling completely refreshed. refreshed but sweaty, so figure i should take another quick shower. damn i forgot to get some soap. i’m not very good with the practicalities of life at the best of times but give me the distraction of a new culture and i’m useless, maybe even smelly. nah i don’t think so, well at least not to me, i think my natural aroma could be bottled and sold. ‘essence de shaun – le fragrance de le monde’, what do ya think…could it catch on? after my shower i hit market stalls that have sprung up outside the shops in the street outside. i guess because of the rain they create these long corridors of ‘tents’ on the sidewalks. most of the merch is clothes, there’s alot of name brand stuff especially beachwear that must be copies. quality looks real good to me and i’m guessing it’s about 25% of the price in the west. pretty cool walking through these little tents, i come out of one and there’s a guy making banana pancakes. man he’s got it down to artform, for less than a buck he’ll make ya fresh pancake covered in chocolate and sweet milk, they are amazing. i should’ve taken a picture of mine it was so pretty but i scoffed it down in next to no time i just couldn’t resist it. i have a weakness for chocolate. back in to the tents again passed leather and jewelry stores i see a bunch of guitars, ah yeah now we’re talking. the store owners sat outside strumming away, sees me with my guitar and says, ‘ah my friend play, play, play’. how can i resist, it’s what i live for. so he breaks into a blues jam and we get lost in the music. in these confined little corridors lined with clothes the sound is wicked, one of his workers pulls out a little amp too so we pick up the volume and let go. turns out we’re getting quite the crowd, both the locals and the foreigners are into it, we do mostly instrumentals and i think he threw in a eric clapton cover. i did one of my songs from somapop ‘try n try again’. as it’s only got 2 chords it’s easy for other players to jump in on, sounded really great we must’ve played for at least half an hour with people stopping to hear a tune or two in between their browsing, it was one of the highlights of bangkok for me. one thing i noticed is that whenever i take my guitar out, interesting things happen so my mid year revolution is to take her everywhere. i buy a set of strings from my new found friend as i’m going to the islands tomorrow and figure if i break a string there i’m screwed. turns out there’s a thai street busker watching us play so we start chatting and he says, play with me tonight out on khoasan road. great guy, heart of gold, his english name is jack, i don’t know what his thai name is but i’m sure it’s a little more difficult that jack to pronounce so i’m happy to go with that. 

daylight is begininng to fade, the sky’s going from blue to violet. walking down the street with jack is like a stroll with an old friend. he knows everyone and they know him, i can’t remember everyone’s name but i gotta say it feels good to be introduced as a friend of a local. normally i go to place where i know at least some locals so i get to see the real thing, bangkok is the first city i’ve been to for a while where i’m going blind but the language of music is universal and opens many doors if you’re open to it. as we meander down khoasan rd our entourage grows like science experiment. turns out jack doesn’t just know the locals he’s also friends with a lot of travellers too so we have quite and international gathering. we head back to jack’s hotel to grab his guitar and have a few drinks, ya know ya gotta get loose before ya play, especially in bangkok any other way just wouldn’t be right. we’re on thai time now which means there’s no timely agenda things just happen as they happen. we go to one hotel room, then to another where friends are waking from their naps and getting ready for the night’s activities. everyone is super friendly, thai people especially are truely lovely people. by the time we actually get out onto the street i’ve got quite a nice buzz going on. night is now in full swing and the party’s on. last night it was raining and i was a little out of it coz of the trip but tonight i can feel the full effect of the area. there’s a big soccer match going on somewhere in europe tonight and it’s being televised in one of the bars here. i know the netherlands were one of the 
teams playing coz there was tons of folks walking round in orange soccer shirts. we pull up a table outside the bar with the soccer, i guess it’s as good a place as any and set up our busking camp. we had a bunch of folk out with us which was nice, we’re at least guaranteed some audience. we end up playing all night long, we didn’t make heaps of cash but had enough alcohol to entertain a crew of pirates for a week i think. it was a a terrific night, jack and i traded songs back and forth, i got to play some thai songs too, great songs, i had no idea what they were about about the vibe was wicked. people came and went throughout the night and many friends were made. you know travelling is amazing, one minute you’re alone and going where the hell am i, what i am i doing here, the next your off on some adventure with a bunch of people that you feel like you’ve known for lifetime whom you just met. see everyone’s in the same boat. you’re all going through the same thing. experience, adventure, the high’s and low’s of being on the road with no fixed abode. there’s an understanding there that brings you all together. if only the square world could work the same way. we played until dawn, i met jack’s wife and little daughter too, lovely people, ya know there’s hope for the world once you really see it. the skys turning blue again which i figure means time for bed though i’m buzzing still from a great night. i bump into jack the next day briefly before i head to the islands. we chat a little and i head on my way, he’s heading out of town too. maybe we’ll meet again somewhere somehow, but for now i’m happy that we had the bangkok busking experience together as we never met again and maybe never will. that’s life, and it’s a beautiful thing.

on the move in thailand – day 1 – a wander round bangkok

why do we need visas? in fact, why the hell do we even need a passport? maybe one day everybody on this planet will be free to go wherever we choose to go, work where ever we choose to work and see what ever we choose to see but that day right now seems a lifetime away. the reality is, we do need a passport, and we do need visas and those visas run out! no matter what you’re doing and how things are going once that date stamped in your little book becomes someday next week, it’s time to pack the bag and move whether ya like it or not. that day for me in korea was rapidly approaching so it was time to take off and go somewhere else for a while. being as the olympics are just around the corner china was out of the question (visa problems haha) and  japan is outta budget right now so i managed to wangle a cheap ticket to thailand. to be honest i didn’t really wanna go anywhere so didn’t have any expectations for the trip but thailand charms, relaxes and excites you all at the same time, gently taking you by the hand and saying no matter what’s been going on you’re in thailand now and everything’s gonna be alright.

i left seoul courtesy of thai airlines…winner. you’re basically in thailand the minute you step on the plane, greeted by a warm smile and a bow by a beautiful lady in what to me looks like traditional thai dress. after a quick touch down in hong kong we head to bangkok, and upon arrival i grab my bags and head for the bus. walking around the airport gives you a little false sense of feeling cause as soon as the automatic doors open onto curbside the sticky, hot humid air that makes bangkok famous hits you like a steamy oven. initially it feels a little overwhelming but just slow down the pace and take off the layers and you get into it. after about 20 minutes my bus to khaosan road arrives, and just as we get on the freeway the heavens open and bangkok gets hit by yet another tropical rain storm, typical in june. as a result it takes 2 hours to get to khaosan road (pictured above), a journey that normally takes just an hour.

khaosan road is the area of bangkok that the movie ‘the beach’ opened up in; ya know where leonardo is looking starry eyed at all the flashing neon, the part of town where you will find hostel upon hostel and everything backpackers could dream of. over run with foreign vistors looking for cheap beds, cheap food, beer and a good time it’s not exactly the essence of thailand or bangkok. it’s a great place to rest your head if you’re on a budget and meet other people just like you so you can exchange stories and advice about what to do and what to don’t! so i wander round in the rain, gettin soaked but liking it, i see a few different rooms then choose one. so i hear the variety’s vast, from bed bugs to bidets you can have pretty much whatever you want. mine seemed pretty clean which really is all i care about, it had a nice big fan so that was fine for me. after freshin up and droppin my stuff i head down stairs and across the road to have my first thai meal in thailand. some say the street food is dodgey but i didn’t have any problems i just looked to see where the thais were eating and went there. for somewhere between $1 and $2 you can get a fresh plate of pad thai, or curry with rice, something like that and it’s real good. i got lucky, as i finished my food the torrential down pore slowed to a mere dissle so i could start checking stuff out without looking like the man from atlantis.

walking through the streets and alleys around khaosan rd  is a great way to get the feel of the city without it being intimidating by it because there’s so many people from all over doing the same thing it feels strangely homey. i arrive 2 days before full moon so there’s travellers everywhere waiting for one of many buses to take them to the full moon party on one of the islands down south. there was a flickering moment there where i considered going to the party myself, i knew i was gonna head to the islands anyway but as i was only gonna be away from korea for a week i thought i should spend at least a couple of days in bangkok, and besides that i had my mind set on a quiet tropical paradise this time round rather than raging rave with 10,000 other nutters. maybe next time folks! when i got my bus ticket from the airport they gave me a map of bangkok so i pulled that out and started wandering off the backpackers paths into the real bangkok. generally i can get a feeling pretty quickly when i go to a city as to what is safe and what is not and to me bangkok feels harmless. being as thailand is a buddist country the overall vibe is very chilled, even with bangkok being a big bustling city, at no time did i feel threated. sure, 

you’ll have tuk tuk drivers hustling for fares, tuk tuk’s (pictured left) are little 3 wheeled motorbikes that are like budget taxis, and it seems like everybody has something to sell you, they all ‘know somebody that will give you a good deal’, but if the worst thing you have to deal with is bad salesman with broken english then i think that’s not too hard to deal with. it doesn’t take long once i get out of the khaosan rd area before the streets are quite quiet. bangkok is laced with canals, some have markets both day and night, and some are just convenient ways to get around the city without venturing into the exhaust fume filled gridlocked hot’n’sticky surface streets. by now night has taken over and the imminent full moon is riding high occasionally breaking through the patchy clouds. i wander from peopleless street to peopeless canal getting the occasional glimpse of thais at home in front of their old televisions watching poorly dubbed versions of friends. the domes and spires of beautiful majestic temples in all their golden glory, shimmer with pride in the night giving the city an enchanting exotic feel thats both peaceful and nourishing. golden framed pictures of the king adorned with fresh flowers and candles are everywhere, thai people our proud of themselves and their heritage and are not shy about showing that to the world. from the candles and temples i head into chinatown which funnily enough didn’t really feel to me to be very chinese. i guess coming from san francisco where chinatown is pretty in your face, it felt much more understated, maybe in the daytime there’s more of a vibe there, there was the occasional market style eating grounds where i’m sure if i was hungry i could’ve got some good nosh, but after a day in an airplane i was on a mission to stretch my legs and discover the bangkok, southway style.

as i pass from neighbourhood to neighbourhood the spires and domes of the temples and palaces give way to modern western style skyscrapers that are home to hotel chains that you find in any major world city. they’re all here so if your style and budget is more 5 star than 5 dollar then you too can enjoy bangkok, but i’m sure you’ll see a very different bangkok to me! outside the hotels, tuk tuk and taxi drivers work the crowd some more, promising to take fat wealthy business man to have a good time bangkok style. i’m handed flyer after flyer advertising ‘SEX DVD’, and escorted down the street by touts one after another claiming to know the best club in town. The sex scene of bangkok is highly over dramatized, and from what i can make out its confined to one pretty small district in the city named ‘patpong’. the rest of the city is one of mysterious charming beauty. funny how all the expensive hotels are centered around patpong, says alot don’t it!

patpong’s a trip, but not really any worst than amsterdam. markets, strip clubs, bars and ping-pong shows are pretty much the menu with guys and girls constantly coming up to you trying to lure you to their clubs. maybe behind closed doors there’s alot more than meets the eye but to me it all seemed pretty harmless. kinda like a ‘vegas unsencored’. there wasn’t hordes of underage kids being propostioned, at least that wasn’t obvious, it just seemed like a party place where sex is high on the menu. many people had said to check out a ping pong show so one guy came up and took me to some bar, but i must’ve been in there less than a minute when 2 girls came up and suggesting we get some ‘drinks’. apparently big scam in bangkok, they order the most expensive drinks on the menu and your ‘free’ ping pong show eats into your backpackers food budget for the next 3 weeks; so i turned around and walked out. in amongst the clubs and bars fronted by loud mouth ladies of the night there’s restaurants boasting cuisine from all over. you can pretty much eat whatever you want there, also ‘legitimate’ thai massage offer the deal of a lifetime. thai massage anywhere else other than thailand is very expensive but in thailand you can get an hour for about 15 bucks a 10th of the price. my one regret from the trip that i didn’t do that! i was on a tight budget and didn’t wanna over do it and by the time i got to the end of my trip i did have some cash but ran out of time, i guess that means there’s no question i’ll have to go back, one thing i’ll be more than happy to do. 

so what’s goin’ on????

hey there you! so where to start? i’m 2 months in now to my stay here in korea so the intial ‘what the hell am i doing here?’ has subsided to a more ‘Ok, lets get on with it’. funny, when you move half way around the world there’s all this crazy tension before hand about what the future’s gonna hold, what’s gonna happen, what am i gonna do, but once you actually arrive at your destination you realize that life just carries on. no aliens came down and intercepted your airplane before arrival, life didn’t stop for all of all friends and family just cause  you were leaving more importantly the whole world on the other side of the world wasn’t waiting for you to bless their shores with your golden shoes. life…….just goes on! it doesn’t take long to come to terms with the fact that exactly the same rules that applied before, apply now too. we have to eat and have a place to sleep, therefore we need some money, therefore i need to make some money. thankfully i haven’t been spending too much money of recent, one of the benefits about being buried in the process of writing and recording music is that you re ally don’t need too much money these days. food, shelter, a guitar, microphone and computer and you’re pretty much set! 10 years ago i can remember having the dream of being able to make a record whilst being on the road, finally technology has caught up with us and now we’re able to do that. it’s a beautiful thing, now the wandering artisan can truely wander like back in the old days and still churn out the tunes without missing so much of a step or a passport stamp. yeah it feels good to be here, i’m happy to be writing again, for a while there i couldn’t bear the thought of getting  back into that process, making SOMAPOP my last record was a lengthly experience and after that all i wanted to do was practice and play…screw writing, let’s just play but now i gotta say it feels good to write again. so as you might have guessed from what i said earlier, this record is gonna be a little different than the last, i don’t have as many ‘tools’ available this time, just a couple of guitars and a computer so the whole sound is being based around that. i’ve already got quite a few tunes building up all at various different stages, i’m quite pleased with the new sound thats coming out, at this point it feels like it’s gonna be a rock album. cool. so creatively that’s what’s going on, oh i apologize for not having many pictures in this post, i’ve gotta get used to carrying my camera around with me, as yet i haven’t programmed that into the ‘keys, money, wallet’ routin e that i do before i leave home. i have been listening to some great new music, i’m sure most of ya know about these bands but just in case they’ve fallen below your radar so let’s spruce up this entry with some new sonic gems.

The Ting Tings - http://www.thetingtings.com

 

 

 

CSS - http://www.canseidesersexy.com/

 

 

MGMT -http://www.whoismgmt.com/

 

 

that’ll do for now, it’s getting pretty late and figuring out this blog thing’s doing my head in so i’m gonna head off. check out these bands if they’re not on your ipod already, good fun ‘av it music. alright folks, be good out there, and if ya can’t be good, have a good time being bad. that’s all folks see ya soon…