I got hit by a car today.
I’d figured it would probably happen at some point, given the traffic conditions here and my tendency to drift off into space at inopportune times, but I hadn’t expected it to happen quite the way it did. It really had nothing to do with me at all, which in some ways is almost worse.

I suppose I should start somewhere near the beginning.
I’ve been spending the past four days on the back of a motorcycle, on a relatively fruitless mission throughout the city of Bangalore. I have visited more ‘Reliance Mobile’ stores than I care to know of, and dealt with more inept and unhelpful service representatives than I thought possible. I thought it was annoying to deal with inept outsourced service representatives on the phone from Canada – this was far and beyond the irritation of simply waiting for hours on hold. And all this simply because I’d been hoping to acquire a wireless USB device for my computer.

The problems? Where to start.
India is not Mac literate. Windows literate, yes, but when my newly purchased USB neglected to function correctly on my Mac, for all it’s box proclaiming otherwise, the blame started getting shifted. ‘Call our helpline’, ‘Call our technical company’, ‘We’re just a franchise, we have no responsibility toward our product because you chose to buy it through our online store’. The excuses were endless, and those who did attempt to help would prod vainly at the mousepad, with no knowledge of how to so much as double click on an icon, let alone have any idea of why the software might not be registering.

And so phone call after phone call was made, and from Reliance store to Reliance store we went. We, in this case, being myself and Johnson. Johnson is one of the newest and youngest teachers at Shanti Bhavan, who was coerced into helping me out of the goodness of his heart. The discovery of a purported gift-inclusion of a trip to Goa (home to his girlfriend), as long as we subscribed to my USB via online-purchase, made it a reasonably worthwhile endeavour for him too, which I was pleased about. Unfortunately we’ve both ended up paying dearly for the prospect of said trip.

The first day, meant to be a half day, there was a novelty factor to the whole expedition. I clambered on to the back of the motorcycle, my third time ever riding on one. The wind in my face was pleasant, but I realized rapidly that I would have a hair-style much a la Bridget Jones on her way to the countryside, should I not do something about my headgear. Johnson had a helmet, but there didn’t appear to be a guest-helmet.

Helmets not being particularly used in India, I decided to suck up my Canadian safety issues – When in Rome, right?! In terms of hair, I did have a scarf, which I carefully tied around my head, and promptly felt very local. Two kids, a sack of groceries, sitting side-saddle with a cell phone to my ear, and then I’d really have fit in. I was glad to be minus the accoutrements, however, my hands being fully occupied with gripping the back handle for dear life.

Fast forward 3 days later, and I was for a third day sitting on the back of Johnson’s motorcycle. I’d ended up having to get left behind in Bangalore by the other volunteers from Shanti Bhavan, so that Johnson and I might continue on for another 8 hr stint of ‘how do we get these useless employees to do something about their non-functioning product’.

My computer was manhandled by everyone from the semi-knowledgeable lone female employee at one store, through to the one guy in that fateful moment at another outlet, where out of eight plainly aimless dudes behind the counter, our guy was interrupted mid-in-depth-nose-picking session by a superior, and finally, unwillingly deigned to drag himself out, only to do nothing productive whatsoever.

The most ironic was probably the guy who smirked throughout his conversation with us, plainly not going to bother doing anything, particularly because, as he kept telling us, it was Sunday. This all the while wearing a shirt which read (in blazing letters) ‘Available 24/7’. I could have hit him. By this point I’d missed four key events at the school that I’d wished to be in on. Nothing story-destructive, but galling nevertheless. I was not happy.

My computer battery was dying, I was feeling guilty for the troubles I was putting Johnson to (I’d ended up spending a night in his father’s guest room just so we might continue our mission the following day), and my nerves were fraying. My biggest wish was to be able to return to Shanti Bhavan, missions accomplished, and not have to come out to Bangalore again any time soon.

As the bike wove through traffic, I’d drifted into my own thoughts, now reasonably comfortable with motorcycle riding. Fortunately I have a habit of keeping stuff in my hands, with a reasonably firm grip – this time I unconsciously continued to grip the back handle. This meant that when the red car tried to turn right, and smashed into my left leg and Johnson’s pedal, I didn’t fall off. It happened before I knew what had happened, as I’d been looking the other way and hadn’t so much as seen it coming. I was definitely a little shocked, and Johnson felt horrible about the situation.

Luckily for me, my leg just felt bruised, there was only the tiniest of scrapes on my knee, and after five minutes or so it felt ok to walk on and move. So all in all not as bad as it could have been.

I would’ve liked to have had a helmet after that, having realized that though perhaps in Rome, I am most definitely not a true Roman. Unfortunately, however, placed as we were in the middle of a dirty thoroughfare under a highway overpass, I didn’t know quite how to go about procuring one. And so Johnson beat his pedal back into a semblance of order with a rock, I wiggled my leg into action and retied my scarf, and we carried on.

As I went to unlock the upper lock on my door today, I thought I saw a movement in the hole from which the bolt drew back from. As I peered up into it, it looked like there was an object of sorts, curled up and motionless within the hole. So I stuck my finger in and poked at it. Stupid? Yes. Whatever it was scurried up further, I shrieked and stepped back, and both the creature and I probably lost a year or two off of our lives. I’m still not sure what it was, but at least it didn’t bite me. In a best case scenario, it’s just another Leonard. Leonard 2.0. Or else it’s that rat one of the volunteers keeps talking about. I’d rather not think about that.

Crushed. That was the word Mrs. Law (the principal) used, and it feels quite appropriate. I’m definitely feeling that way, and apparently I’m looking it. Awesome.

It all basically boils down to this – due to the terrorist attempt in December, the Indian government has decided to implement a new rule which would not permit me to return to India within 2 months of my departure from it.

The main exams I need to shoot are late in February, most definitely less than 2 months away. If I miss the exams, I miss a significant chunk of the story, thereby the movie, and thereby everything I’ve invested so far. Not cool. Added to all this, the guys have their own work commitments. They have to go back on Monday no matter what, and, crucially, will be taking the main gear (ie the camera) with them. I don’t even know quite where to start. I feel like this came from nowhere but somehow I should’ve known and so it’s me that’s messed up, and my fault. Now I need to figure out how to get on from here. On my own. At least for the next little while.

Crushed is definitely the word.

He poked the pen deep in his ear, twisting slightly, then brought it out and chewed on the same end, contemplatively. It took three cellphone calls, and much waiting time, for him to confirm that we three foreigners, going on the same three-day trip that he’d been scheduled to drive, and the only car-waiting passengers in the alley, were indeed the people he was meant to pick up.

Our driver was a revolting man on some combination of drugs and alcohol, with the whites of his eyes turned red with whatever substances he abuses, and thumb nails that were at least twice as long as the actual part attached to his thumb, probably around 2-2.5″ total. The nails were yellow with age and nicotine, and had bits of dirt caught under them. These were extended toward me when he leaned back to get a twenty Rupee bribe, to pay off the policeman who was trying to write us a ticket for being stopped in a no-parking zone. We’d briefly stopped in said no-parking zone because the one student we’d been meant to pick up and bring back to his village actually ended up having 4 extra compatriots who he’d thought we’d have room to bring as well – we didn’t. To give the student credit, the typical car sent by the school would’ve had room, it’s just the school is closed over the holidays and so we only had a local rental vehicle, which was tiny.

Though this is India, where lane dividers and street signs appear purely for decoration, and general road rules seem meaningless, the aforementioned physically cringe-inducing driver was completely not interested in accommodating so much as one extra passenger, and so we ended up sending all but one of the students on a selection of 5 buses to the destination village. I felt guilty, and we all felt a little dubious about our ride. That was how our trip to Tirupattur started.

We’d planned on stopping for food along the way, and had started the trip hungry. This ended up being a mistake. With only a single student, and a desire to get to our destination as quickly as possible, we ended up passing the four and a half hour journey in progressively stronger stages of hunger. The driver stopped for tea around three-quarters of the way through, at which point we bought a couple of packs of chips and a pack of miscellaneous puffs recommended to us by the stall keeper. Deciding local tastes should be attempted, I’d purchased the 5 Rupee ‘Pudina Puffs’, which I shared with the rest of the back seat passengers. They grew on me, but Greg figured it was only ‘cause there was nothing else to eat. In retrospect I think he was right. Comfortably seated shotgun, with the only seat belt in the car, Mike chewed contentedly on his respectively chili & ketchup flavoured chips. He hadn’t gone with the shopkeepers’ suggestion. Smart guy.

Finally we arrived in Tirupattur, the town that really must be the armpit of the state of Tamil Nadu. It was chaotic and dusty and packed with people – the India that is, but that the guys had never really yet experienced. It reminded me of my travels with Evy, as the plush two-bedroom apartment and fancy restaurants in Bangalore had not. I had never yet experienced what was to come however.

The student and I started to look for a place to stay, a basic lodging all that was really necessary. This turned out to be a problem. Upon seeing me, or even hearing of my presence, the keepers of vacant hotels would suddenly be roomless. The issue? No ladies permitted. It felt like we’d entered some archaic land. Hotel after hotel refused me entry. I’ve never felt quite so scandalous, or rejected. Maybe the term should be discriminated against. Traveling with Evy had its issues, in terms of two girls traveling on their own, but to be traveling with two guys and be shunned was completely unexpected.

Upon facing this heretofore unforeseen challenge, the student called his cousin, the same age but more at home in the town, and together they motor-biked around without us, eventually arranging with the uncle of a connection for us to stay in a lodge titled ‘Modern’. “Not quite up to it’s name”, said the student, but as the only place willing to take me, and that only through the pulling of a connection, we didn’t seem to have much choice. Even at that, there were rules:

1.I was not to go into the boys’ room, for whatever reason.
2.The boys were not permitted to come into my room, for whatever reason.
3.We should not speak to one another in the rooms, or anywhere in the hotel really
4.We should not attempt to speak to the hotelkeeper in English, because he wouldn’t understand.
5.Should the police come, we were to show them our passports, and that was it. (Why the police might disturb us in the middle of the night was not explained.)

The hotelkeeper, missing all but a couple of side molars, took down Greg’s passport information – all hotels in India must take down the information of each guest. Old Toothless, however, did not take down my information. Nor Mike’s either. Perhaps our skin-colour was the issue in this case, I’m not sure. We were then led up to our quarters.

The rooms were dank, the floors had no obvious recollection of a washing. The walls were a collection of miscellaneous dark splotches and liquid track marks, with no obvious sources. Mike figured spit, but that was a thought process I had no wish to follow. Each room possessed a squat toilet, from which odd smells emanated. The sink in my room didn’t work, Greg & Mike’s room smelled like their squat toilet throughout. With our Indian escorts we were permitted to sort out our luggage (my sweater from Mike & Greg’s room, Greg’s clothing from my bag, etc.)

We were then escorted to the one restaurant deemed acceptable for us, which was just around the corner. We drove the student to his home village and then came back for dinner.

Starved by this point, having neglected to eat anything substantial since breakfast, we ordered our usual (Mutton Biryani) along with half a tandoor chicken, a mixed veg curry and 6 rotis. We dug in with vigour, and made short work of it all.

Upon return to our lodging, we greeted the hotel owner with a Namaste (having paid through the nose, as the Germans say, for the rooms, he greeted us with quite a cheerful, if toothless, grin). I quietly said good night to the guys from the hallway outside their room, and then we all went to sleep.

We’d been invited to breakfast at the student’s place the next morning at 8am, meaning we needed to leave by 7:30am. I woke up at 7, having slept sans pillow because it was just too disgusting, and keeping my shoes right next to the bed for bathroom purposes. When it was almost 7:30, and the boys hadn’t come out yet, I went to knock on their door. I was a little frightened that their room looked dark – I’d thought I’d heard noises that meant they were up, but apparently not. I knocked.

Greg answered the door, then tottered immediately back to the bed – slight problem. He’d been up all night emptying his stomach from both ends. He looked revolting. Mike was just in the washroom. I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around how positively ill Greg looked. I stepped slightly in the door, just as the hotel owner/manager came up the stairs. Shoot. Stupid room restrictions. The last thing we needed at this point was to be thrown out of this so-called hotel. I stepped quickly out into the hall, waiting to see what would happen. The manager toddled over slowly in his dirty button-shirt and bedraggled lungu (the Indian man-skirt). He looked vaguely menacing. There wasn’t really anything I could do at this point, and I was too worried about Greg’s health to care. As to what Old Toothless’ original intention was, I’m not sure – but as soon as he’d peered in and spotted Greg, plainly in the throes of some sort of all-consuming sickness, he grunted vaguely understandingly, and moved on.

Mike and I left on our own, only 15 minutes later than planned, after having left Greg with a stock of drugs & food/drink, not that he was likely to be eating much.

We spent a lovely time in the village, which was really quite picturesque, but were worried about our man down. We returned at noon to check in, and found all not well in the least. Greg was in no way better, and the room had acquired a humid, jungle-like atmosphere in our absence. Together with the lack of light (there were no windows to the room) as well as the whorking sounds emanating from a gentleman in the room above, and in no way forgetting the squat-toilet feeling native to the room, all in all it was plainly not a set up for convalescence. Even my room was slightly less overpowering, with a functioning fan and less smelly bathroom. With commitments back at the village, and at a loss of how best to proceed, we eventually prodded Greg out of his sweaty hole of a bed and over into the slightly more amenable bed in mine. This of course all completely illegal, given the original room agreements.

Then, quickly, while Mike looked into some footage issues in the diseased-jungle room, I went out to look for an even slightly more acceptable lodging, preferably one with even the smallest of windows to the outdoors. Almost anything would be better for Greg than the place we were at.

The trudging through the dusty heat ended up being for naught however – once again obviously vacant hotels turned me away upon sight. With a Joseph and a well-progressed pregnancy, I’d have been a walking nativity story.

I returned to the “Modern”. Greg, now ‘comfortably’ established in my room, was plainly in no real state to move anyway. We put the keys to both rooms under his pillow, and left him to attempt sleep through the whorking of our upstairs neighbour and construction goings-on below. We grinned amicably at Old Toothless on our way out, praying he wouldn’t discover our room rearrangements during our absence.

The end of the day eventually rolled around (we spent the whole day in the village, one of our most successful shooting-wise). Unfortunately, absence from our lodging had not made our hearts grow fonder. In fact, Mike had by this point gotten himself into a complete state about the hotel. To give him credit, the rooms really were disgusting. That said, I’ve definitely been where Greg was, and when you’ve reached the depths of those lows, typically the last thing you’d like to face is travel. Because travel means distance from a toilet. And when you’ve spent the day lying within feet of a toilet, there’s a serious push-pull relationship going on – the last thing you want to see is more of the toilet, but the last thing you want to do is get more than a couple of feet away – just in case. So I left Mike in the car with the camera (we were hesitant to show it in all it’s glory around the lodging, not wanting to incite anything) and went up to have a chat with Greg.
I presented the options:

1. Emerge from bed and drive the five-ish hours back immediately, arriving in Bangalore around 1:00/2:00am, to a much cleaner, pleasanter apartment and no more squat toilet, but without any significant toilet access throughout that entire journey
or
2. Spend another night, in proximity to toilet facilities, but in these plainly less-than-stellar accommodations, and depart at a more reasonable time the next day, once all is slightly more stable

The invalid, lying prone on the bed, pondered briefly.
Option 2, toilet access, took precedence.

But then, Greg being Greg, even in his state and my attempt at couching the terms in as non-pressure laden a way as possible, perceived through it all that Mike was super keen to leave. So he decided to see if he could make it to the car, and check the lay of the land, so to speak. {It was a significant lure. Our apartment in Bangalore, though considered nice before, was Eden when compared to the “Modern”. If the Ng stomach could handle it, we’d probably all be better off not spending a second Modern-style night.}

We made our way slowly down the stairs, past Old Toothless, and out toward the car. Mike’s eagerness to be out and away was palpable. I’d say it was that puppy-like excitement with which he presented his case rather than the actual arguments (‘more comfortable’, ‘real toilet’ blah blah) which sealed the deal.

And so it was that we left Tirupattur in the middle of the night, hopefully never to return again. Ever. It was with relief that we arrived in Bangalore early the next morning - a wonderful, western-toilet possessing, female-friendly haven, with windows, a porch and a TV. I didn’t even really begrudge Babu, the grotesquely-manicured driver, his rather excessive self-included tip. It’s good to be back.

A haunting call echoes through our living room. No, it is not the amplified sound of the local Muezzin, but a second, immediate imitation by its newest interpreter, a gentleman currently going by the name of Mistar Grrrrreck.

We are two days into our stay in Bangalore, 3 days out of Shanti Bhavan school life. The Shanti Bhavan children remain with us in spirit, however – our current favourite colloquialisms, besides ‘Mistar Grrrreck’, are using ‘paining’ instead of ‘hurting’ (ie ‘my arm is paining me’) and constant references to a rather primal State game we filmed the younger students playing, called ‘Kabadi’, which involves pouncing on one’s opponents and forcing their heads to the ground, all the while calling out ‘Kabadi Kabadi Kabadi’. You’d have to see it to understand it, and even then it requires a certain amount of explanation. The guys picked up on the instructions a lot faster than I did, and seem to have formed a particular affection for the word ‘Kabadi’. Everything is ‘Kabadi’ now. And chanting it at any time appears to be constantly entertaining as well. I am perpetually impressed with their ability to find amusement in the same thing over and over… While perhaps not having the same affection for the term, I definitely appreciate its success in generally causing amusement. If never-ending repetition helps ease the long work days, dirtiness, and general chaos that seem to be forming a structure for this trip, I’m all for it!

All in all, things have been going pretty well. It was fun being back at Shanti Bhavan, I was surprised at the number of students who remembered me. Some even confused me with Evy, and a number of them wished to know if I remembered teaching them line-dancing two years ago – as if I could forget being completely put on the spot in terms of teaching a ‘typical Canadian dance’, and Evy’s and my late-night attempts at creating new line-dancing moves because we’d both forgotten how it should really go!

The guys’ first introduction to the children was pretty great. We arrived late on Thursday night, and so on Friday morning I took them on a little tour of the school grounds before breakfast. As we made our way around, we accidentally stumbled upon the first to sixth graders morning exercise session. Aunty Shanti Mary, upon our arrival, encouraged the children to ask us questions – as the sun rose over the reddish floor and green half-walls of the basketball court, we were swarmed by a mass of children wanting to know everything about us, from our names, ages and countries of residence, through our favourite colours, film company names, and how we’d heard of Shanti Bhavan. ‘Miss, Miss, do you remember me?’ was a common one for me, as I struggled to recall names like ‘Bharat’, ‘Puneet Kumar’, and ‘Gayathri’. On the whole I think I did ok, my particular classes from last time seemed impressed at least.

We were limited in terms of filming the older grades through the first weekend, due to their taking exams, which put a slight hold on production – a delay that I found to be a little distressing. Fortunately we were able to kick into full gear as of Monday though. It’s been rather crazy since then. We did interviews with all of the twelfth graders, as well as the principal, vice-principal and class teacher, and those were really great. I enjoy the rapid low-down on a person’s life and thoughts that a documentary interview can provide. I don’t think I’m digging immensely below the surface or anything, but it’s nice to get at least a sense of character.

School closed for the holidays on Sunday, and we’ve been living in Bangalore since Monday. We’ve visited two homes of children so far, with plans for several more. Originally we were only going to spend time with a couple of the students and their families, but for a variety of reasons that hasn’t ended up being as feasible. For one, the home life of the children is hard to determine without seeing it. Also, parents/family members & community need to be willing to participate, something which requires at least a basic initiation. Unfortunately I think the longer visits will have to be on a separate trip.

That’s all I have to write for now - we’re enjoying our first real day off since we started filming the older grades today, and it’s time to go for food!

It’s Christmas Eve here, and if all goes well we’ll be spending part of Christmas day in a Stone Quarry. At this point, that would be the ultimate Christmas gift! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

The power just went out, causing a stop to our footage reviewing. Sprawled on our respective beds, we have a half hour before snack time. It is Day 2 at Shanti Bhavan, 4 days since we left Vancouver, and we’ve only just had a full night’s sleep.

A harmonica sounds softly. Its bluesy tones are vaguely reminiscent of that of a down and out jailbird from years ago. Mike says as much, causing the harmonica to be put down in general laughter as Greg takes a break from his new favourite pastime. Somewhere in the room, our fourth roommate lies hiding. A good half hour was spent by both guys attempting to catch him upon our initial arrival – Mike having taken a particularly prejudiced dislike – but the efforts proved futile. The 4-inch salamander, and semi-accepted perma-roommate, now rejoices under the name of ‘Leonard’.

All has been going well so far, though I hate to jinx anything. It hasn’t been hurdle-less, and the flight here was a complete gong show. I’d accepted that my replacement travel agent was not as good as my last one, but when we had to de-plane in Korea I was ready to write a vicious email. By that point we’d had a stopover in San Francisco, had been informed that our baggage was going straight through to Bangalore (even though we’d originally been told we’d get it for our day-layover in Singapore) and were in the process of convincing the Korean customs agent that the maple syrup Greg had bought at an exorbitant price at the Vancouver airport had indeed made it’s way safely through the San Francisco airport and that no we really did not wish for it to be sent as checked luggage through to Banglore – the three original litres already re-destined in our previously checked luggage should be sufficient. We seem to have made our case with sufficient conviction - 3 flights and nearly 24 hours of travel time from leaving Vancouver, we were able to snag Greg’s replacement maple syrup from the baggage carousel in Singapore.

We cabbed to our hotel, and checked in – local time 2:00 am. Did I mention that the original flight plan had included a two-night stay in Singapore, rather than an ungodly hour arrival and 18-hour layover? Or that I’d had to find a hotel myself, as the ever-helpful travel agent had discovered that she couldn’t find anything handy and perhaps I should look for myself at hotels.ca? Anyway. We ended up at the newest outlet of a decent-seeming chain. My thinking was that I’d ease the guys into traveling first, then gradually make our way into cheaper, closer-quarter-style accommodations with such deficiencies as cold-water showers and communal bathrooms.

The rooms I’d found online for our trip beginning looked to be simple, clean, and in possession of both windows and bathrooms. What the website neglected to mention however, though perhaps a mere architectural detail in their minds, caused a bit of a shock for us. The bathroom walls were made of glass. 1/2” thick, transparent glass. There was light frosting over the bottom half, but that was in large part ineffectual. The view from the bedroom to bathroom was quite clear – clearer in fact, than the view from the inside out. This last was established by the guys, who were sharing a double room. It seems their bonding started a lot more quickly than originally planned, and being who they are, this apparently deserved a photographic record. ‘Mike taking a shower in Singapore’ will forever remain a beautifully PG-frosted recollection of our first night away. I was thankful for my single room.

As Evy said, the day pretty much started going wrong from the moment we didn’t wake up.
We were supposed to catch a train to ‘La Rochelle’, a picturesque town on the East coast of France, at the ungodly hour of 6:31am this morning. It was our only option, and as we’d decided that we should take advantage of our Eurail passes to see as much as possible, we booked it. The plan was to visit ‘La Rochelle’ in the one-day travel of the Eurail pass that we’d be using to get to Paris from our relatives’ fort/ruins in western France.
Now that I think about it, I suppose it all really started in the earliest hours of the morning, when we’d stumbled into bed only a couple of hours before our departure time, and slightly inebriated at that (it had been our aunt’s birthday). I think that it was entirely due to our cousin’s girlfriend (who with true German practicality had set two alarms) that we even made it to the depot. Through her, we were woken with a ‘6 minutes to departure’ from my cousin, which resulted in our eventual exit from the house. I would be lying if I said we actually managed to get our stuff together in 6 minutes, nevertheless we did make it to the station in time.
After one switchover, we arrived at ‘La Rochelle’ just after 9 in the morning. This is where we found out that the train station had no left-luggage facilities. Slightly daunted, and still rather sleepily grumpy, we lugged our large backpacks along with our daypacks and made our way to the tourist bureau. Sure enough, the tourist bureau had no idea as to where we might leave our bags. The one option they had was to visit the aquarium (a mere 11 Euros/$20 per person) and leave our bags there for an extra 50 Euro cents a piece while visiting the fishies. Hmmmm.
We’d read about an option to bicycle around the city on free yellow bikes, so decided to go check that out instead. Maybe they would let us keep our bags there while we biked… Having trekked out to the bike rental area, we learned this would not be possible. Evy went to ask at a couple of nearby hotels. No go. We decided to attempt to bike with the bags. Driver’s Licenses deposited, bikes & locks rented, we attached the smaller backpacks to the rear wire racks. I clambered onto my bike, wearing my larger backpack, and promptly sent my carefully attached backpack and water bottle flying. Evy’s backpack and purse performed a similar maneuver a minute later, though her baggage stayed hanging via bungee cord against the bike chain. Perhaps this would not be a successful mission. I biked sans baggage down to the aquarium to see if it would be possible to leave bags without visiting the fish. There was a massive line-up and no possibility of simply depositing baggage. I stopped by a policeman, and was informed, as Evy had been informed at the tourist bureau, that there was absolutely nowhere in town where we might leave our bags for a couple of hours. ‘La Rochelle’ as a potential terrorist target?! All we could see was an immense tourism industry that was being hampered by this lack of left-luggage facilities. So we went to the beach.
Lying in the sunshine by the sea was very pleasant. Then we both eventually got burnt & the tide went out to reveal masses of barefoot unfriendly barnacle covered rocks. So we got dressed again, walked past the semi-nude population that had arrived in the meantime, and made our way to the old part of town. We decided to take turns – each would get a certain amount of time to wander around, and the other would stay with the bags. I went first. I got lost. Half an hour after our scheduled meeting time, I eventually found my way back to Evy. Mission to have found an internet café unaccomplished. Evy went off in the opposite direction from where I’d gone. I waited.
My people watching was eventually interrupted by Evy’s return, which heralded a new disaster. She’d discovered an internet café, and there had received a message from our supposed Paris residence, which claimed not to have received the payment and assumed the reservation canceled. We lugged our bags back to the recently discovered internet café, forwarded a copy of the payment confirmation, and a brief note asking the owners to please figure something out because we are currently scheduled to arrive this evening in Paris, and would really prefer not to have to spend the night wandering the streets.

We are currently sitting on our train, heading to Paris, with as of this moment nowhere to stay. At least in India there were always cheap alternatives. I don’t know that cheap is even possible in Paris, let alone this last minute in August. Maybe we’ll try to channel a little Toulouse-Lautrec or something and stay in a brothel. No favours expected or given. That could be an experience to write about…

Post script (written 6 days later!) –
Re-reading this, I had no idea how foreshadowing my writing would be. We arrived in Paris to two memorable events, besides an email from our bed & breakfast owners saying they would meet us and help us out.
One – a bum who yelled at us for about five minutes (‘Fuck you, yeah you! Fuck you!’) because Evy didn’t want to give him her waterbottle.
Two – the old lady standing on the street our bed & breakfast was supposedly on, our first street we actually walked along in Paris. The old lady who was rather fat, wearing fishnets, and currently facilitating some sort of transaction when we arrived at the street our bed & breakfast was supposedly on - and then of course noticing the fellow middle-aged to old ladies similarly dressed and standing within 15 ft of each other up and down the street, all enacting or hoping to enact similar transactions…
Suffice it to say that after waiting 2 and a half hours at the bed & breakfast address (next to what appears to have been the local pimp cars), after attempting fruitless email communication (via longdistance phone call with my cousin in Germany, who kindly checked our email for us as the nearby places were all closed), and after calling repeatedly and leaving an unanswered phone message, we finally gave up on our bed & breakfast people and their offered ‘help’, and at about 11:30pm got ourselves the last room at a nearby hotel. 70 euros. Rather expensive, but we were apparently lucky to get a room (I suppose especially given our middle-aged competition…). I honestly looked briefly through the room for peep holes & made Evy turn off the glowing red light on the tv. It was just that kind of place.
We left early the next morning.
(Fortunately we found a different place through craigslist and have now been happily living in an apartment that’s quite centrally located. We have a distinct feeling the original bed & breakfast was a scam, and have given up our deposit as lost. An expensive lesson, but a lesson learned.)

We’ve been spending the majority of our time in Bali relaxing. It’s been pretty great. Especially after our recent educational overload of Laos, Vietnam & Cambodia history. We decided however (both for our own mental health and cultural interest), that we should do something a little different than just sit on the tourist trap beach for two weeks straight. Thus we have now come to Ubud, a little artist town centre and I think the capital of the island.
It turns out it’s perfect timing - a huge cremation ceremony for the 1st son of the 10th son of the last king of Bali (or something like that) along with several others, was set to take place on our last day of our Ubud stay. The fact that the cute little bungalow we rented for next to nothing was then abruptly taken away from us without warning (we figure the owner decided she could get more money from someone else in this time of festivity) was a little unpleasant, but other than that our time here has been very interesting. We found ourselves a new place to stay (with great difficulty, because every local who possibly can is coming to the ceremony and everything is full) and have started frequenting a delicious organic food restaurant.
Today we saw the ceremony, and for that the photos/video I took is required. It was pretty insane. To begin with, 4 immense statues had been created. 2 bulls, 1 dragon, 1 phoenix. The bulls were about 25 metres high, the dragon and phoenix about twice the size. Absolutely massive. The dead bodies were apparently put into the bulls, which were then burned. Prior to this burning, there was a long 1.2 km procession through which these 4 structures were carried. No, they were not wheeled, driven, or otherwise transported. 6000 men on rotation carried these immense pieces on their shoulders. It was pretty crazy. We waited 2 hours in brilliant sunshine, packed in like little sardines on the streets, but I think it was worth it. There was a very old-world feeling to the whole ceremony, and not only because we’d been requested to wear the traditional sarong. The masses of people were unlike any crowd I’ve been in, perhaps because I’ve never seen so many people gathered for a death with such a sense of festivity. The streets were jam-packed, to the point that there were police officers who remained 10 feet in front of each structure in order to force people back onto the sidewalks and further. The structures were so large, including their carriers, that they took up the entire street including the edges of the sidewalks. Every time one of the structures would make it’s way up, the crowd would swell back, pressed against the building walls as tightly as possible. Hard to describe, but I’ll try to post some of the video clips if possible!

– This man was old and trembling so that he could hardly walk. He looked like he wanted to cry. When I left him I heard two rifle shots.
Life, January 19, 1970 (Quote under picture at the Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam ,War Memorial Museum)

– “Guys were about to shoot these people,” photographer Ron Haeberle remembers, “I yelled, ‘Hold it,’ and shot my picture. As I walked away, I heard M16s open up. From the corner of my eye, I saw bodies falling, but I didn’t turn to look”.
Life, January 19, 1970 (Quote under picture at the Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, War Memorial Museum)

People have been asking me whether I’ve changed in the past couple of months, now that I’ve been away so long. It’s usually said with a laugh, maybe with a slight question behind it. I too find the whole ‘finding yourself’ concept a little trite, if not pretentious. At the same time, I would dare anyone to learn more about the recent history in Laos, Vietnam & Cambodia and not feel their outlook on the world to be a little altered.

I came here with very little knowledge of these countries’ past…in my head were approximate (weak) definitions – Vietnam War = BAD; ‘Apocalypse Now’; Draft dodgers… Khmer Rouge = Genocide; Civil war; Cambodia… Cambodia = landmines; child prostitution… Laos = little country by Thailand/Cambodia…. That was about it. Embarrassing, yes, but I don’t know that there are that many people in the western world that really have a full grasp of how the past half-century’s events have affected these countries. I certainly can’t claim to have a good grasp on it all, even having spent the past weeks going to museums, reading books & visiting sites to do with this time period.

Vietnam I suppose was to be expected. Of course arriving at a war site and learning more of the gory details makes it all more real. But it does. To such an extent that you wonder how this sort of thing could ever have happened. Not only that but, having happened, why isn’t it discussed in basic high school social studies or history classes? Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. Little countries on the opposite side of the world from us, yes, but it’s a small world. Shouldn’t their history be acknowledged as part of our history too? We get the same extensive Canadian history rammed down our throats, year after year, but end up knowing little to nothing about much more recent, and in effect more pertinent, events. Montcalm & Wolff are all well in good, we even did learn the odd bit about the second world war (and of course Canada’s part in it), and if you’re lucky you get a brief mention of the Vietnam war (and then only because Canada played host to draft dodgers). Fine, but shouldn’t somewhere, somehow, there be a lesson about how within our teachers’ lifetime the Americans dropped more bombs on little Laos than were dropped on Europe & Japan combined in WWII? That was only 30 years ago, yet somehow I feel a little as though wars in school history classes are sort of treated as if the major ones are over. WWII was the last of the great wars and now we just have ‘little’ ones to straighten out, ‘unimportant’ ones… The Vietnam War Memorial museum in Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) had some of the most depressing sights I’ve ever seen. 2 days later we learnt of the quarter of Cambodia’s population that were massacred in the Khmer Rouge genocide. ‘Unimportant’ wars? Somehow that doesn’t seem right.

Evy & I weren’t in Vietnam very long, but the War Memorial museum we went to in Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) was by far one of the more culturally/intellectually stimulating tourist attractions we went to. Perhaps part of the most moving sections of the exhibition were the photographs taken by various photo-journalists, the majority of which had comments like ‘last shot of so-and-so before hit by enemy machine gun’, or ‘last shot before photographer accidentally hit landmine & died’ or even ‘photographer killed in ambush, film roll found later in possession of Japanese soldier’. Then there were the quotes like those I quoted in the beginning, which would be under a seemingly less terrible photo, of a single person or group of people. Prisoners, but not wounded. Or perhaps a group of already dead. And then you’d read the quote.
‘Most were women and babies. It looked as if they tried to get away.’
Life, January 19, 1970 (Quote under picture at the Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam ,War Memorial Museum)
And then you’d wonder what it must have been like to be documenting an event like this. You’d wonder what the photo-journalist must have gone through, what they must have been like. How they could survive in a war day-by-day, living, broaching death, and often dying with the army, purely to attempt documentation for the outside world. And last but not least, how it could become possible to stop the killing of civilians in order to take a photographic shot, and then just turn away.
Perhaps as a sort of explanation, there was this (as posted near the end of the photographic exhibit):
‘Photographs are the images of history rescued from the oblivion of mortality. Long after those who died to take these photographs are gone, long after those of us who knew them & survived them and remember their experience are gone in turn, the images they captured will remain to show generations to come the face of the war in Indochina.’
Neil Sheehan
Very true, and much appreciated. The Vietnam war is no longer a minor headline in my mind, and I would recommend anyone to both visit Vietnam (we found it to be a beautiful & fascinating country) and in particular, visit the war memorial museum in Ho Chi Minh city (for a little historical perspective).

Cambodia
‘To keep you is no gain; to lose you is no loss.’
Khmer Rouge slogan (as seen posted at the Killing Fields)

Cambodia, if possible, was an even more emotionally taxing tourist experience than Vietnam. It’s hard to know where to even begin. On the bus ride from Vietnam I read the Lonely Planet recommended ‘First They Killed My Father’, an absorbing (& depressing) autobiographical account by a woman who was 5 years old when the Khmer Rouge first took over. It gave me a good introduction to the time period, and an idea of what the sights we’d be seeing really meant.
The commonly advertised daily tuk-tuk tour in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, is a trip to the Killing Fields in the morning, with a visit to the Tuol Sleng Prisoner Museum in the afternoon. In our case, however, we’d heard via Lonely Planet that they played a film at Tuol Sleng (in the morning and in the afternoon) regarding the Killing Fields – so we decided to go there & see that first instead.
The original plan was to see the film & visit Tuol Sleng in the morning, and the Killing Fields in the afternoon. This was abolished upon waking up less than half an hour prior to the start of the film. We ended up doing some other touristy stuff and then making it to the afternoon screening at the prison. The Killing Fields were left for the following day.

There are some sights, especially some seriously touristed sites, that lose their impact with the large number of visitors. For us, Tuol Sleng prison is not one of them. Whether because it hasn’t been fully maintained & put together as a tourist site, or because it was a site of such horrible acts, recent enough not to have completely dulled with time, I’m not sure. It, along with the Killing Fields, is one of the most depressing places I’ve ever been to.
The prison is a converted highschool, ie. it was once a highschool but then it was turned into one massive torture location during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Perhaps that is part of its emotional weight. Hallways, classrooms, it still feels like a highschool, kind of…
Except for the barbed wire criss-crossed through all the windows and exterior walls (criss-crossed so as to prevent suicide attempts).
and …
Except for the presence of long rows of shackles in the larger rooms, used to hold 20 to 30 prisoners (penning them head to foot, and they with punishment-enforced no right to move).
and…
Except for the little one-man prisoner stalls, with barely enough room for a single person, created in several of the classrooms – and each complete with their own individual shackles.

There are rooms with remnants of the prison ‘facilities’. There are rooms that are empty, fallen into complete disrepair since their last atrocious use. And there are rooms with photographs. Hundreds of photographs, of prisoners. Men, women & children alike. And there are signs which request no laughter.
It is not a place where you feel like laughing.
There is even a room with skulls. Skulls of murdered prisoners, at times with descriptions (post-death deduced), of the method of killing.
The Tuol Sleng prison is a must-see museum.

The Killing Fields in some ways had more impact for us after the Tuol Sleng prison visit.

The Killing Fields are the fields outside of Phnom Penh where a vast quantity of the quarter of Cambodia’s population that was killed during the time of the Khmer Rouge were murdered (often transported directly from the Tuol Sleng prison).
The Killing Fields countryside would be a beautiful area, were it not for the deep holes peppering it throughout, each labeled with a sign reading the quantity of bodies discovered within. Some with heads. Some without. Some only children. Some only naked. And then there’s the tower, probably 20 metres high, filled to the top with victims’ skulls.
It is not something I can adequately describe.
And it is not something I will ever forget.
It is something that everyone should visit.
Genocide is a term easy to gloss over until you see sights like this. We ran into after-effects of the Khmer Rouge genocide consistently, and in a vast array of areas. In cultural museums and locations it was to be expected, but to see the result on the actual population was shocking. It was a brain drain – the Khmer Rouge, as an acquaintance of ours working in Cambodia aptly put it, ‘killed anyone with an IQ above being able to tie their own shoes’. From my understanding there has never before been such a systematic killing of one nation’s ‘intelligentsia’ – no matter age, sex or religion. For example? – Little children weren’t permitted to wear glasses, because wearing glasses could be seen as a sign of intelligence…
It was not a good time to be in Cambodia, and the after-affects are still very-much being dealt with.
From restaurant owners to store clerks, we consistently ran into a general lack of education, visible not only in the lack of general knowledge and aptitude (we literally never had a properly added bill) but in basic skills such as being able to think for oneself (a very low-percentage of entrepreneurs or wannabe entrepreneurs). Following orders is the most many can do, and even that appears to be difficult at times. {At our guest house the owner was trying to get several of his staff to do various odd jobs around the yard – every job had to be precisely demonstrated to it’s full extent, even simple ones like painting a piece of wood. It was painful, reminded me of working with really dumb PA’s (film production assistants), except in this case it was more distressing than simply writing it off as a case of stupidity as I would on a film set… We encountered various similar episodes.}
It is also a very young population in Cambodia. Whenever I’d see a middle-aged to elderly person on the street all I could think of was ‘you lived through the Khmer Rouge. You must have crazy stories to tell.’ Unfortunately we weren’t in Cambodia long enough to really talk with a lot of people, but we got a good start.
We also learned of & donated to a local hospital basically started with the help of one guy and the Swiss government – quite a story, which I won’t get into right now. His name was Dr. Beat Richner and it seems mainly through him there are now 4 hospitals in Cambodia which help prevent something like 1000 child deaths per month. He plays the cello every Saturday at a concert hall near Angkor Wat in Siem Reap to help gather money for the hospitals from tourists – a very interesting character & story.

I think I may have made Cambodia sound very depressing, but it wasn’t. Just thought provoking. I would highly recommend visiting the country – very nice people and culturally absolutely fascinating!

PS Angkor Wat was fun to explore too!

Today we visited the caves that were used as hideouts during the war by the leaders of the Pathet Lao (the Lao communist party, 5 of whose 7 leaders at the time have ended up serving terms as president of Lao since). The caves were pretty neat. Due to the excessive bombing in Laos during the war, the leaders, along with 2300 civilians, hid out in these caves in North-eastern Laos for a total of 9 years, much to the Americans’ dismay. Villagers would farm at night, cooking would be done with gas inside the caves if American planes were spotted outside, and generally an entire community was sustained within these limestone cliffs. There was even a massive cave that had been turned into a theatre, complete with cement orchestra pit. Pretty crazy.
At the moment only the caves in which the leaders stayed are open to the public, as well as the theatre cave, but eventually I think they hope to open the ones used by civilians as well.
You really realize at sights like this, which are only just beginning to come together, what a lot of infrastructure goes into making a tourist attraction actually tourist friendly. Here it ranges from the basic stuff (like having signs, explanatory displays, etc.) to potentially life-saving stuff (like clearing tourist sites of unexploded ordnance left over from the war…). They’re making progress, but it’ll be a while yet before the sites here are fully up to westernized expectations. From what we’ve seen so far though, it’ll be worth the wait.