Mosquito Lady

The mosquitos have woven a delicate tapestry of pain on Sarah’s flesh. On arrival at any destination the local insects will gather and descend on her in cloud formation, and while she flails and spits uselessly from within her black burkah of itchiness, I am able to walk calmly away. She is better than deet. In the night, while I sleep like a baby log, the creatures find tiny holes in the window screens and announce their arrival in her ear with a high-pitched “deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet”. In the morning she looks like an angry map. At breakfast her bites are all she can talk about and her ranting always spoils my good mood.

It’s not my fault that I don’t get bitten by insects and that I mostly don’t even have to wear repellent, it’s just something in the natural order that makes her unnaturally tasty. I try to stay positive by saying “Hey, we’re only spending half as much on repellent,” and such, but the more I say things like, “Why am I not being bitten AT ALL!?” or “Maybe I should be wearing mosquito attractant!” the more agitated Sarah becomes, and the more her usually adoring look turns to a look of pure hostility. The other night I woke with a sudden shooting pain in my thigh and when I looked, I found teeth-marks. When I poked her Sarah pretended that she’d been sleeping, like, “Waaaah, what? Wh-who’s there?” and refused to admit to biting me. If you ask she’ll tell you that this never happened, but don’t believe her, she tells lies. At the end of the day there is no logical or scientific reason (none that I know of) to explain why Sarah is like candy to these insects while I am like candied faeces. If anyone knows a reason, please respond below. The answer, I think, is theological: God moves in mysterious ways, and he clearly hates Sarah.

Cambodia’s Ambient Industries

Visitors to Cambodia should be aware of the country’s ambient industries: those services that are enacted without the recipient being aware of it. If for example a man suddenly appears from behind a rock and starts running ahead of you and pointing the way down a perfectly well-signposted path, occasionally gesturing towards a non-obscured statue while smiling and saying “Statue,” you will know that you’ve just hired yourself a guide. Likewise, if a woman leaps from behind that statue, shoves two jos-sticks into your hands, and then points to a money tray, you will know that you’ve just received a traditional blessing. Outside the ancient temples of Angkor Wat your every step will be shadowed by women and children hawking cold drinks, coconuts, books, scarves, flutes, trinkets, and other strange goods. At one temple a man tried to sell us a weird instrument I didn’t recognise, until he put it between his teeth and it became one of those “twongy” things you play if you’re in an Alabama jug band. Frankly, he alarmed us, and even when we said “no thanks” and moved on, he started to follow us up the road, grinning and playing a jaunty tune; he danced alongside us all the way up to the gates, his Appalachian jingle drifting over the thousand-year-old temples, and the people coming out of the gates looked at us like we were crazy. They must have wondered what travel agency we had to go through to hire ourselves a hillbilly guide. In conclusion, my memory of the thousand-year-old temple of Banteay Srei will forever be accompanied by a down-home country jig.

Rank Insensitivity

Ah, the monks, so holy, and yet so vibrant. There are basic rules for interacting with the Buddhist monks of South East Asia and those rules are these: Be polite, don’t touch them, don’t crowd them, don’t photograph them while they’re bathing or washing their robes or sleeping, don’t tug on their robes, don’t whistle or shout at them, don’t enter their quarters without permission. These are all sensible rules and I find them easy to follow because they’re basically the same guidelines that Sarah has set for me.

I’m big enough to admit that even though I’m nodding solemnly while someone outlines, say, Buddhist temple protocol, or the problems with the behaviour of tourists towards the monks, on the inside my mind is full of profoundly insensitive questions that beg, like a great cloud of cultural flatulence, to be released. When someone tells me that the rainy season is about to start because a particular Buddha has been blessed with water, and that this happens consistently every year, I have to fight the urge to say, “Well don’t do it then! I was going to go to the markets today!” But I don’t, I just nod and say something like, “Wow, there’s so much we don’t understand about the universe.” And when someone explains to me how frustrated the monks get with tourists photographing them all the time I have to strain to prevent myself from pointing out that one of the fundamental laws of travel snaps is that a photo becomes at least ten times more interesting if it has a monk in it. That’s just the law. Likewise, I want to point out that people who wander around major tourist attractions in bright orange sheets are bound to draw a few onlookers. But again, I just nod and say, “We in the West have so much to learn”. I try to be sensitive. I try, but can anyone explain to me this: why, as visitors are we asked to wear demure, respectful clothing while visiting the temples—long pants, shirts with sleeves—out of respect for the ancient, sacred ways of the monks, while those same monks can dress like frat boys on their way to a toga party? They’re showing nipple, for God’s sake. Again, much to learn.

Traversing the Heavens

Anyone visiting South East Asia should probably study their basic Gods, their powers and modes of transportation. Brahma, the creator, sits at the top of the Hindu trinity, bestowing blessings, meddling in the affairs of humans, and generally just chilling. Shiva, the destroyer brings destruction to the universe and should not be approached. He rides a bull called Nandi or possibly Mandy. Vishnu is the protector and has the ability to change forms—lion, boar, fish, pigeon. Vishnu flies Garuda, despite their poor safety record. That’s all I know so far. Sarah and I have never flown Garuda but we have prayed aboard many of South East Asia’s cut-priced airlines. There’s Nock Air—“We fly smiles”, there’s PMT Air. No joke there. Sarah and I took a flight out of Kuala Lumpur with an airline called Firefly. (“We fly fire”?) Let me tell you a little about Firefly. This carrier operates out of one lonely gate at KL’s former international airport, Subang: Subang is a ghostly complex of abandoned halls where the only things still in operation are Muslim prayer rooms, and Firefly. We reached our plane by crossing the tarmac under a sky as black as smoke. After takeoff the drinks trolley was trundled out by two lovely Fireflettes, and I ordered coffee. No one else on the plane ordered anything. As the ladies were preparing my brew the plane struck turbulence and I quickly began to realise why I was the only customer. It’s because the other passengers aren’t mental. As you know, sign language in foreign countries can often be misinterpreted, and in Malaysia, clearly, waving both hands and saying “No, no, it’s ok, I don’t want coffee now,” is the signal for “No milk for me. But please fill my order as quickly as you are able.” The pilot yelled something over the intercom that could only have been “Ladies, buckle up, some shit is about to go down.” One lady passed me my coffee with trembling, painted hands and flashed a taut smile before they both sprinted off down the aisle.

Now, anyone who suffers from fear of flying will find that being left holding a Styrofoam cup full of boiling liquid with a laminated air-safety procedure card clamped over the top while your pilot flies the aircraft directly into a tropical storm is a great way to transform your brewing anxiety into an essence of pure panic. The egg-shell thin cup is the perfect metaphor for the fragility of your position, but the act of keeping the liquid in the cup, the burning sensation in your hands, the hot liquid dribbling down your sleeve, is a fine way to distract yourself from reality. You’ll be oblivious to the tortured screams from the propellers as the craft is thrown around like a paper dart; the gasps from the other passengers; the look of horror on your loved one’s face; the fact that you’ve chosen, of your own free will, to fly with an airline that contains the word “fire”, from an airport that contains the word “bang”, and into a storm front that only minutes earlier you’d observed from the ground as a black wall pulsing like a cosmic discotheque. You’ll pray gently, earnestly, to whichever of the Gods you believe in, or whichever one you once believed in before you went to university, or whichever colourful deities command the skies in this part of the world. You’ll almost cry when the plane finally punches through the storm-clouds to reveal a magnificent scene: an ancient sun rising over a golden ocean above a densely jungled coast. You’ll almost laugh out loud when the Fire-foxes appear beside you with their trolley, and one of them hands you two paper napkins to mop up a small, grey puddle of spilled coffee, and the other leans in and quietly says, “That will be 4.80 please”.

Things that are illegal in Singapore

Graffiti, swearing, loitering, littering, loitering with intent to litter, knowingly abetting a litterer or litterers to litter, gambling or “gaming”, partial or total nudism, prostitution, public displays of affection, private displays of affection, (apparently, if you’re getting “bi-zazzy” with your “ho” and you haven’t drawn the curtains I can have you arrested, even if I’m using this very powerful telescope to watch you. Best to use the bomb shelter,) international terrorism or being part of a terrorist organization, book-group, or such and such; dancing, giggling while the president is talking, ironic t-shirts, criticising the government. Things that are legal: spitting, talking loudly, staring at foreigners, blowing snot, making your maid sleep in the bomb shelter.

Homeland Security

In Singapore, terror is everywhere. It might not look on the surface as if terror is everywhere, or anywhere, but it is, so get the fuck ready. On the platforms and in the carriages of your local MRT, vidi-screens confirm this and encourage you to observe your fellow passengers—the jumpy guy in the green raincoat—he may not just be nervous about the possibility of showers, he may be preparing a terrorist attack or littering spree. If the nervous man tries to leave his bag on the train you should say “Sir, I think you have left your bag,” to which he will reply “Ah yes, my bomb.” If he runs away, perhaps pausing to shout “Ha ha, suckers!” then don’t panic, don’t run screaming from the carriage while smashing small children from your path, just do as the prim looking lady in the video does and calmly alert the driver using your carriage’s emergency phone. Simple.

When we arrived in Singapore our friends Anne and Richard were keen to show us their bomb shelter. By decree, every new apartment building in Singapore has to have a bomb shelter. It is all part of a widespread government initiative to get “Bi-zazzy” with terror. Actually, these shelters are just small concrete rooms with no bomb-retardant properties. Their only real use, in the event of an attack, is to serve as a convenient tomb. Anne and Richard told us that a lot of unscrupulous people use them as sleeping quarters for the maid.

As we visit, the terror-hysteria is at an all-time high. Mas Selamat Kastari, former bus mechanic, father of 5, and suspected leader of the Singapore arm of the Islamist militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, has escaped from a detention centre after asking to use the toilet. “He walks with a limp and is presently at large,” the Home Affairs Ministry said in a statement to The Associated Press. Now his glazed eyes stare down at you from a thousand wanted posters, taunting you, daring you to find his clever hiding place, “Maybe you should only have counted to 50, assholes!” he seems to say. “Maybe you should have imprisoned me, instead of just giving me detention! Ha!” Despite his obvious physical giveaway and the extra time it must have added to his escape, the search is in its third hilarious month and locals are now becoming depressed, speculating glumly that he’s probably limped to another country. On 21 April, the Committee of Inquiry announced its findings: he had escaped through an unsecured bathroom window. The Committee attributed the escape to three critical factors – first, the lack of grilles where the window was located; second, Mas Selamat being allowed to close the toilet door; third; a physical weakness at the perimeter fencing.

So your vigilance is needed, the posters say, to help us catch this dangerous terrorist. Again. Your vigilance is needed, the subway video says, to protect Singapore from terror, and the cost of failing to remain vigilant, or to act on your suspicions, is almost certain disaster, and it underlines this by showing a train carriage, very similar to the one you’re sitting on, disappearing into a tunnel before exploding in a brilliant ball of fire. The carriage is very quiet after this video. If you ever travel to Singapore and have the chance to see this production for yourself, try to resist responding in the way I did: by looking around the carriage at your fellow passengers with your mouth open in a way that says “Are they fucking KIDDING us,” because no one else thinks it’s strange, and all you’ll get back is a sober look that says, “He looks crazy. I wonder if he’s a terrorist.”