kissing elephants

Coming home

So this is it. Time to go. Had a strange moment yesterday while packing when it suddenly hit me that this was the end of something unique. I shed a few tears and thought about how privileged I was to have been able to do this and what an amazing time I've had. And next came a wave of fear over what comes next. Then I went for cocktails in the Shangri-La La La.

People ask me how I feel about 'going back'. If I thought I was doing that I wouldn't get on the plane. The way I see it, this is just the next step in my little adventure. I still don't know what comes next.

Well there is one thing I know. I have a job interview next week and while I'm very excited about it, it has reminded me that I can't be a gypsy (or unemployed vagrant as someone else put it) forever.

So onwards into the cold. I will miss it here but I also can't wait to see everyone. Despite what that place has thrown at me in the past few years, it's still home.

Some people have asked whether I'll continue to blog. I get the feeling that Adventurer Meroe has more pulling power than 9to5jobwiththreekids Meroe but I'll let you know on that one.

But anyway I'll leave you with my favourite quote from Proust:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having
new eyes."

Festivities

Suddenly realised it's only a month until Christmas. You just don't feel it here. There's very few annoying ads on the TV, you have to go to the fifth floor of the department store to get cards and decorations and I have yet to see any Christmas lights or one of the many Santas.

I am hoping for a white Christmas this year.. see what you can do weather fairy. What's everyone got planned and for that 'celebration' that never fails to disappoint, New Year?

Body sculpture

Friday was a day of forget-me-not blue skies and big waves. Bondi in the morning is like stepping into a mini-California. We wandered along the beach front to visit the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition past surfers riding huge rolling water and avoiding the sewage scum churned up by the recent storm. I sniggered too loudly at all the keep-fitters who charged at us like an army of low-fat sausages in lycra. Can they really imagine their leathered skins, tiny speedos and glistening, vein-bulging bodies are what could be termed body beautiful?

The sculpture show was worth seeing if only because it provoked a new examination of the amazing landscape round there. You can keep all your giant deckchairs and fishing nets embroidered with environmental messages but I really liked this one. It had the grace and poise of a dancer and its rusting curves made the sky even more blue.

Bondi life

On Thursday I headed off to Bondi for my dinner party and more time by the sea. You'll be pleased to know I behaved myself at dinner although most of the conversation was about pornography and Ralph magazine which for the Brits is a low quality Loaded if you can get any lower. It's funny how people have the same terms of reference because Lizzie (who is British) and I both had the same instant reaction to the name of the magazine. We turned to each other and said 'Do you remember Judy Blume?' The Ozzie boys had no idea what we were talking about.

Reading Judy Blume's book 'Forever' seems to be a momentous point in many pre-teen girls' lives. In it, the young protagonist meets her first example of male apparatus, which is lovingly termed 'Ralph'. I can remember vividly the day at school when the playground was buzzing with stories about this book. I was so excited when I got my hands on it and so shocked by the reality of the content. But I'm sure now it would seem very tame to 12 year olds. Did anyone else have this shared rites of passage? I know at least one of you did...

Blog searching

I can tell from my site statistics that my blog is now getting picked up by search engines. Google has it listed number 4 for the words 'kissing elephants' but it has also been found by people doing searches on 'naked nymphs Sigiriya' and 'Nha Trang prostitutes'. That worries me.

Anyway, Thailand photos are now up for your perusal. Off to a dinner party tonight. I've forgotten how your supposed to behave at these things... oh dear.

Photos

OK, stop pestering, the Vietnam photos are now up. I managed to cut over 400 down to around 150. It was hard. Thailand should be up later today. Photos have taken over my life.

Starry skies and sunsets

And now the end is near, my South East Asia experience is over. I'm back in clean and tidy Sydney, applying for a job, desperately trying to reduce the number of photos I've brought back with me, watching my tan rapidly fading (why do we bother?) and missing my grubby, sunny, lazy life.

I particularly miss the community of outdoor life. In both Vietnam, Thailand and Sri Lanka, much of people's working, social and home life is combined in one place. People sit outside their businesses which are also their homes with groups of friends only stopping the chat to serve customers. There are no closed doors here. The streets are always full of people. Contrast that with the way we live where everyone disappears into their burglar alarmed homes, draws their curtains to stop people looking in, close their windows to shut out the noise, to watch their cars on their newly installed CCTV system. Maybe that's a little extreme but you get the picture.

So what didn't I tell you about Thailand? Perhaps, about the number of mosquito bites I got and the number of hours I spent whinging about my itches. What about how many penis shaped pieces of coral I found on the beach. Or the fact that I very nearly fell down a flight of concrete steps taking my travelling pal with me. About our grumpy waiting staff at the Phi Phi resort who didn't get our humour. Or that I finally saw some cool fishes while snorkelling off the beach.

Maybe about the best sunset I have ever seen in my entire life that no photo can do justice to. A yellowy orange glow one evening beckoned me out of our dark bungalow as if something was on fire. We wandered out in a daze down to the beach along with most other guests who were drawn there by the eerie feel this glow was generating. The sea was on fire. An orange lava bed against black, black mountains peppered by a strange purple mist hovering over the floating fire. It was astonishing. Everyone stood and watched in quiet fascination as if aliens were invading, nuclear war had been declared or the sky was falling in. A very moving moment.

Then night fall and a beautiful starry sky complete with shooting stars and satellites a la Tamsin Archer as we made our way home in a longtail boat. Gosh.

Monkey Magic

As well as fearing deep water, I am simultaneously fascinated by it. It turns out that Greg has the same relationship with everything monkey. This goes back to a moment in India when three of the blighters brutally ransacked his table while he sat drinking coffee. Having started the process of rehabilitation at the crocodile farm, he had a more intense bout of therapy at our Phi Phi resort.

One morning, a family of around six or seven monkeys came down from the jungle to receive scraps of food from the hotel staff. As normal, the alpha male came to check it out followed by younger and older members of the clan. Greg and I left our breakfast to go and get a better look. As we wandered towards them, Greg obviously got a bit too close to comfort for some of them and one suddenly rushed at him hissing and screeching. This was followed by two others equally hostile. Just when we thought they had calmed down, the big alpha male came running from nowhere and went for him from behind. Now I know monkeys are cute small things, but these were four vicious bastards and he was lucky they were probably more scared than we were. The face-off came to nothing and both sides backed off to lick their psychological wounds. But lets just say, the dreams have started again.....

Big Fish Little Fish

Because the water is so clear and the reef so full of life here, I have been trying to conquer my irrational fear of being underwater and out of my depth. This all stems from a bad experience on my first school swimming trip at the age of eleven when I hadn't learnt to swim but was too embarrassed to tell anyone. The teacher lined us up and told everyone to jump in and show them what we could do - one by one. When it came to my turn, I showed her what I could do. I jumped in and didn't come up again. Luckily a friend dragged me up coughing and spluttering. The most humilating thing about this frightening moment was that we were in the shallow end. No-one told me I had to straighten my legs on landing.

So anyway, Greg 'The Fish' Shannon is patiently teaching me snorkelling but I am not the best pupil and am too fearful to do it any distance from the shore. He, on the other hand has been learning to scuba dive and while I sunbathed on the boat, went swimming with turtles and a leopard shark. The whole set-up was all slightly disconcerting though. If you do a discovery dive, they take you out, give you a five minute briefing, show you how to put on the kit and then push you off the side. I can't imagine anything more petrifying but of course, Greg loved it, is now on his second trip and is hatching plans to become a Dive Master. I preferred lying on my back gazing up at the limestone mountains that surrounded me in the bay and wondering what it would be like to be one of the eagles above me. I guess that puts play to my plans to be a marine biologist. I'm sticking to high speed sailing, riding and driving - much safer I'm sure. Although I did go sea kayaking yesterday.

Paradise in Phi Phi

After a quick stop in old Phuket town, we got the boat to Phi Phi. I'd heard mixed things about this place. Some that it was great, some that it was over developed, some that it had suffered badly from the tsunami. So I think I was expecting a repeat of Samui but I was wrong.

From the moment you see Phi Phi, you realise how spectacular it is. They filmed The Beach here and you can see why. The dramatic limestone cliffs, the long white beaches and the clear blue waters make it as close to paradise as I've seen. Although the main town was almost obliterated by the big wave, they have rebuilt most of it in a year and the development continues. I can imagine it could be a bit of a nightmare in high season and in years to come but its fairly laid back at the moment in comparison to the Gulf Coast. On our tour guide in Vietnam, Eloise's recommendation we got a taxi boat straight to Long Beach to the Pearl Paradise resort and have been here ever since. Its gorgeous. We spend our days swimming, lounging, reading and eating with a little bit of adventure every now and then.