A Mardi Gras Faux Pas part deux

2/3/2007 - 7/4/2007

I spent one day in Queenstown attempting to catch up with my e-mails and blog, and trying and failing to meet up with a couple of friends who were in the area, then I headed off to Christchurch. I found a nice hostel with a spa (very important after a day of travelling), found a nearby vegetarian restaurant with the most lovely, wholesome yet tasty food EVER and then slobbed in the spa and the TV room for the evening. I went back to my room for a fairly early night, but got chatting to a Belgian guy staying in my dorm who'd spent the last year in Australia working as, well, pretty much as a cowboy for the last year. He had some wonderful stories that kept me listening and chatting long past my bedtime. The only moment I didn't enjoy as much was when he talked about this town close to where he had lived that had a high percentage of aboriginal inhabitants and that was dangerous, as if there was a causal link there. I've heard worse things said by travellers who've been to Australia, but the social acceptibility of aboriginal bashing bothers me a lot. I've heard travellers referring to Aboriginals as raging alcoholics and lazy bastards without any attempt at understanding why the sociological problems experienced by the aboriginal community exist in the first place. When I've questioned these backpackers, they've been completely ignorant to the fact that, when white people turned up in Australia, Aboriginals were hunted for sport by these "civilised" people, and the backpackers certainly weren't aware that, as recently as the sixties, children were forcibly taken from their aboriginal parents and given to white foster parents, internment camps and orphanages, in order to give them a better chance in life. Would you want to be an active member of a society that in recent history treated your family in this way? It's impossible to address the current race problems in Australia without some understanding of the shocking history of race relations in this country. After gently suggesting some of this and, I think, pissing off everyone in the dorm, the lights went out fairly quickly and I managed to get some sleep.

I got up well before the crack of dawn in order to catch my flight to Auckland, packed my bags in the corridor in order to not wake up the other people in my dorm, waited outside for the airport shuttle, twitching more and more as it became later and later, just made my flight in time and did my best to sleep through it.

I found the information desk at Auckland airport and made enquiries about buses to various tourist attractions outside of Auckland (I didn't fancy going into the city and polluting my most recent memories of New Zealand), discovered that there weren't any buses and that taxi fares would be just a tad extortionate (90 dollars to Piha beach), so I gave up on this idea and spent about 10 hours wandering round the airport, using the free internet (thank you Samsung), phoning family and friends in England and eating food from around the world. Against my better judgement I tried Laksa soup - I should know by now that when someone with an Indian accent tells me that a dish is only slightly spicy, I should take it with a pinch of salt (and a dollop of yoghurt). Having established my status as a spice wimp once again by giving up after half a bowl (I did bloody well in my opinion) and having pasta instead, I went to the duty free shop and gave myself a make-over with the make-up samples (is that not what they're there for?).

Eventually my plane started boarding so I joined the queue, intending to sleep through the flight as I was due to arrive into Sydney in the middle of the annual Mardi Gras - the gay pride festival and the biggest excuse for a party in Australia. My plan to sleep failed on account of my finding myself sitting next to someone more well-travelled than me, and we chatted most of the way to Australia. I arrived in Sydney, collected my bags mercifully quickly (given that I was desperate to get to Mardi Gras), got on the train to the city centre, and arrived at Central station less than 45 minutes after I had landed.

Sean and Zoe came to collect me from the station and after a series of hugs and kisses and remarks about their astonishing lack of tans (given that they've lived here for a year), we headed off towards Oxford Street and the parade. Actually we headed in several different directions consecutively as Sean and Zoe tried to agree on which way we needed to go. Eventually they managed to come to some sort of agreement and we made our way to the parade. It was mad - there were 350,000 people lined along the parade route, so it took us a fair bit of searching to find a decent viewing spot. Eventually Sean (bless him) insisted on minding my bags while Zoe and I tried to find a way through the crowds. We gave up eventually and started to head back, when I came across the entrance to the far less crowded area where people with tickets can watch the parade. I tried to blag my way in, failed, but then noticed that several of the more exotically dressed queens had tickets and were going through. I stuck around for a while to see their fabulous costumes and get some photos. I was just having my photo taken with two of them, and I said "Thanks guys" without thinking. Just as the shutter clicked I heard a deep voice next to me hissing "Ladies" through gritted teeth. Oops.

I headed back to find Sean and Zoe, and we were just discussing whether or not to head back to their flat to get ready to go out when we heard the distinctive nasal sound of a Kylie song and watched 260 Kylies dancing along the parade route. We left the parade with big smiles on our faces!

We made our way back to Sean and Zoe's flat in order to dump my ludicrously heavy luggage (25kg altogether now apparently) and for me to have a badly-needed shower (in my own bathroom, Sean and Zoe have two of them - apparently this is fairly common in Australia, but more to the point - I had a beautiful, immaculate pristine bathrooom ALL TO MYSELF. Picture me turning cartwheels). After a quick tour of their rather impressive flat, we sat on the balcony (with a view of the harbour bridge) and caught up over a bottle of wine, all the while intending to go out clubbing still. It was so good to see my old friends, it felt like the first time I'd chatted to them properly in years, and the first time I'd had a decent conversation (phone calls excluded) with anyone who knew me for months. At some point between the 3rd and 4th glasses of wine, and between various slurred political discussions (Sean was wrong in all of them obviously), a strange time-dilation effect occurred, and suddenly it was 4am. I would probably have still staggered to a club somewhere had it not been for the fact that my body was still on NZ time and thought it was 6am. I gave up fighting exhaustion and collapsed into the spare room (double!!!) bed and passed out.

I woke up late in the morning, went out onto the balcony and almost fell over backwards when the temperature and humidity of the non-air-con world outside hit me. I sat down grumpily, growled and glowered at the world generally (it was far too bright and sparkly for my liking at that time in the, well, nearly-afternoon), until Sean appeared and made me a glass of wonderful, life-giving freshly squeezed orange juice. When Zoe appeared, we decided to get going, and Sean and Zoe took me on a guided tour of Sydney.

After making our way through a maze of streets that I was still too tired/hung-over to notice and absorb, we got on a ferry across the harbour, under the harbour bridge, and to the opera house. Even in my damaged state, I had to admit that it was pretty cool getting my first view of the opera house from the water under the harbour bridge. Unsurprisingly my camera came out. It wasn't until we got off the ferry and started wandering around in the heat of the midday sun that we realised that none of us had thought to bring any sunscreen. There was nothing for it but to find a nice restaurant for a prolonged lunch under a parasol. After the most wonderful mushroomy, tomatoey, creamy, cheesey pasta ever (and a few more glasses of wine), we wandered off to the opera house. Sean and Zoe had done an architectural tour of the opera house a while back, so they repeated all the stories of budgeting and political problems and of divisions in the architectural community while my pounding brain tried to absorb it all.

There was talk of visiting the botanical gardens when we left the opera house, but it was felt by all that it was far too hot to attempt that (especially without suncream), so we made a half-hearted attempt to locate a market I'd read about in the bible, gave up and made our way back to the lindt cafe near the flat and had iced chocolate drinks and cake (ohmygod it was the most divinely delectable, beautiful slice of moist, chocolatey goodness ever).

After a quick trip back to the flat I headed out to meet up with Degs (a.k.a. Matthew Degnan - an old school friend of Steve's who's been living in Australia for several years now). I hadn't seen him for the best part of a decade, so I had no idea what to expect, and I found myself quite nervous, as it turned out for no reason. We jabbered for hours, catching up on the last few years and reminiscing about Steve, and the good old days at school. It's bloody wierd when you see someone you used to see all the time, after such a long time - getting used to the odd mixture of the familiar old piss-taking Degs, and the new responsible adult and father Degs. Fatherhood seems to suit him. It was good to see him, and I can't even describe how much better I felt when, in the middle of talking about Steve and how shit and hideously unfair it all was, he said "you're never going to meet a better bloke than Steve". It was just such a relief to hear someone else saying that, after two months of trying to convince almost-strangers, who'd never met Steve, of what an amazing guy he was. After an evening that was both enjoyable and cathartic I refused a taxi back (it's ok when you're with other people that want a taxi, but I can never bring myself to get a taxi just for me, partly because I'm a tree-hugging hippy, and partly because I'm a cheapskate), and staggered back to the palatial flat through a violent thunderstorm, thinking about my wonderful big brother the whole way.

I sprang out of bed at a reasonable hour the following morning, wandered around the flat and mumbled at Zoe, then rethought my rather hasty decision and went back to bed. I got up again after a couple of hours, chatted with Zoe (using the English language this time rather than a series of incomprehensible grunts) and completely prevented her from doing any useful work for an hour or two, then decided that I should probably get out of her hair and went for a wander along the coast from Coogee beach to Bondi beach. I stopped and paid my respects at the memorial to the people of Sydney who'd died in the Bali bomb blast, and then snorted my disrespect at a "holy" spot where the virgin Mary has been seen to "miraculously" appear to numerous people. Oddly enough I wasn't one of them. The walk was really lovely, with lots to see along the way - crazy rock formations, statues, and surfers and body-boarders doing their thing in the sea below. Unfortunately it rained for most of the walk, so I really had no choice but to warm up with a marvellously-gloopy mug of hot chocolate at the lindt cafe on the way back to the flat.

Sean, Zoe and I spent the evening in with yet more wine and more jabbering, and had an early night (they had to go to work the next day, poor things).

The following day I was determined to go and join the surfers that I'd seen the day before on Bondi beach. I took the bus there again and hired a board despite the extreme messiness of the waves and the shortness of the rides. I paddled out and spent an hour struggling to even get my board in the right position to paddle before the wave crashed over me. There were no long clean waves, just titchy little broken up bits of waves that were staggered, and there wasn't enough time between scratty little bits of waves to line your board up, paddle and catch the wave. Instead I spent a lot of time practicing paddling and perfecting the art of dramatically parting company with my board. Eventually I managed to line my board up in time and stood up for all of 10 second before the wave reached the shore. I gave up, took my board back, caught the bus back to the city, went back to the flat, collected my belongings, said my goodbyes and made my way to the station to catch my bus to Melbourne.

The bus journey was long, boring, and uneventful. I get travel sick if I read, and for some reason there were no films on this bus, so of course I ended up spending most of the overnight journey listening to music and thinking about Steve and getting upset.

I arrived in Melbourne in the morning, just in time to make Jon (an old friend of Steve's who now lives in Melbourne and who'd been kind enough to let me stay in his spare room and to pick me up from the bus station) completely late for work. I was exhausted and looking forward to a lie down, when Jon told me that the spare bed was broken and due to be replaced later on that day. After a quick perusal of my lonely planet, I decided that I didn't need a lie down when there are Japanese baths just around the corner from the house.

After a quick walk around Fitzroy gardens (where I found a fairy tree that had been carved and painted by author Ola Cohen, as a sanctuary for fairies - perhaps they feel ostracised and marginalised by society, who knows?), I spent several hours swimming, steaming and sweating in sweltering waters and saunas and guzzling water by the gallon, until I could take no more. I got changed, looked at the prices for a shiatsu massage, gasped, decided I could hold off on a massage until I reached SE Asia, and went for a late lunch in Fitzroy, the area where Jon lives. Apparently Fitzroy used to be a great place to live for the alternative lifestylers, and people who like to live on the cheap. In recent years Fitzroy's inhabitants are gradually changing from bohemians to fashionistas, and while the influence of the former is certainly still present, you're more likely to see trustaferiens and the uber-trendy and uber-rich doing the casual look, with their hair carefully cut and tousled and their clothes precisely creased and wrinkled to project just the right self-consciously rumpled image. Many people, Jon and Monique (Jon's wife) included, loved the area when they first moved there, but feel it's losing it's charm now. Be that as it may, it's still a fascinating place to have a drink outside a cafe and people watch.

After many amusing barnets and a huge omelette I headed back to Jon's flat to discover that Jon had arrived back before me and was waiting for either Monique or myself to let him in. I'm the world's worst guest, it's official!

Monique arrived back from work (with a new spare bed) a short while later, and after rather subdued introductions (perhaps I should have had a nap on the sofa after all), we headed into town to a Vietnamese restaurant (I'm going to the country in a month or so, and I've never had the food before - a shocking oversight that Jon and Monique quickly rectified). We'd just finished ordering when Monique's parents wandered into the restaurant - less of a coincidence when Jon told me that the restaurant was their recommendation. The food was lovely - Monique described it perfectly - kind of like Thai food, but fresher. Lovely. But very messy. In fact it was quite a relief to find I was sitting next to someone (Jon) more inept than me when it comes to transfering food from plate to mouth.

When we got back to the flat, Jon and Monique showed me how to use the dvd player (after spending the day completely bushed I was now up for watching tv - don't ask me why, I don't know either) and recommended a couple of dvds, then went to crash (more people with jobs, bless 'em). I decided it was about time I found out why cake was a made up drug, after hearing Jamie quoting that line a million times at university, and watched the drugs episode of Brass Eye. After laughing my arse off (very quietly, in an attempt to be a better guest), I watched Roadhouse in utter fascination - how has this become a cult classic. It does just about scrape into the "so bad it's good" (with the emphasis heavily on the bad) category with other 80s classics, such as Tango and Cash, but how is it still around?

The following day I intended to visit the botanic gardens and all sorts of other exciting places in Melbourne, but I decided it was about time I caught up on my blog, so I spent the day getting half-way there (I did manage to leave the flat once to people watch while having a wonderfully hearty bowl of borscht for lunch), and gave up and posted what I'd written when Jon came home and expressed disbelief that I'd spent my last day in Melbourne staring at a computer screen and not being paid for it.

We spent a big chunk of the evening looking at photos of Steve, with Jon telling me a series of increasingly daft Steve stories to go with them. I think it surprised Jon that it didn't upset me, but the truth is talking about Steve is one of my favourite pastimes at the moment - I love hearing other people's stories and anecdotes. After his funeral I talked about him all the time, but I seem to have passed some time limit that I wasn't aware of, and people who didn't know him no longer want to hear me talk about my brother. Or maybe it's because I've been spending most of my time with people I've only just met. Either way I've missed having people to talk about Steve with. In Australia they use the phrase "good value" to describe someone. Steve's the best person I could use to elaborate on the meaning of this phrase - he was a big brother, a best friend, a stand-up comedian, a mentor, a lifestyle guru for many (with constant unsolicited but indispensible advice in my case) and a social lubricant in human form, all rolled into one person. What a bargain.

The following morning, after a couple of enjoyable days of getting to know one of Steve's closest friends and his wife, and completely failing to see Melbourne properly, I got on a bus to Adelaide to meet up with a teaching friend of mine - Mazza (I should apologise at this point to Mazza and anyone else who knows her - normally I call her Maz, but she answers to both names and I'm trying to avoid confusion with my sister). I had bought a bus ticket for the daytime, incorrectly assuming that the bus would follow the Great Ocean road and wanting to see it. Instead I had a view of highway surrounded by dusty nothingness on either side, and various arse-end-of-nowhere villages along the way. Thankfully the bus was comfortable with loads of leg room, and the tv and video were working (unlike the previous bus journey). I thoroughly enjoyed Shirley Maclaine's and Nicholas Cage's performances in Guarding Tess, and the Notebook passed the time satisfactorily.

I arrived in Adelaide exhausted and smelly, and was taken straight out to a Vietnamese restaurant to celebrate Luke (Mazza's boyfriend)'s recent ascension to the heady heights of advanced skills teacher. The food was delicious, the company was great, the wine was sufficiently alcoholic, shame about the smell lingering in the area surrounding me. Somehow I managed not to put everyone else off their food, and after the meal Mazza and I headed off in search of ice-cream, chocolate, and the fringe festival with one of Mazza's friends (whose name now escapes me). None of the shows took our fancy, so we sat around drinking not very nice wine from plastic cups, chatting and watching a possum in a tree (my first marsupial in Australia!).

Eventually we headed back to Luke's auntie's house, where we sat up with their friends for hours chatting and poiing (of course).

The following day, after a prolonged lie-in and a slow, ambling start to the day, Luke, Mazza and I headed off to WOMADelaide. The first musicians we saw were Lior (who was extremely cute, so Mazza and I decided we had to go to the cd signing tent to meet and have our photo taken with him) and Augie March, both Australian, both very good. The next group were by far the wierdest of the day - Huun-Huur Tu, a group from S Russia. At first we sat at the back and listened to this wierd sound combining what sounded (to my untrained ears) like comedy Chinese plinky-plonky music, Tibetan chanting and the didgeridoo. Except, when we got closer, there were no didgeridoos on stage - the sound was coming from a guy with a microphone, throat singing. It sounded nothing short of fucking wierd, but actually surprisingly melodic when you stopped to listen for a while and got used to the alien sounds. I listened for a while longer (and played with other people's babies) after Mazza and Luke went off to the healing fields. When I'd had enough of the odd music and the dribble, I gave the baby back and I joined Maz and Luke for a wander round the "of all the people in all the world" exhibition that uses grains of rice (one per person) to illustrate various global statistics (numbers of immigrants of various nationalities living in Australia, numbers of refugees in the world, birth and death rates, etc) and make them visually meaningful. Was v impressed. If I wasn't unemployed and avoiding thinking about work of any way shape or form, I'd be thinking about lesson plans inspired by the exhibition about now...

Another of my favourites was Ensemble Shanbehzadeh - a traditional group from S Iran. The rather attractive frontman played the Iranian bagpipes while dancing around on stage in a style that entirely relied on wiggling his bum around rapidly. As the temperature was in the mid-30s that day, he quickly had to remove his shirt, to the shrieks and squeals of various excitable females in the crowd. I wasn't one of them, no, no, no.

Later in the afternoon when the temperature had cooled a bit, we went to join Sambasunda - a Javanese gamelan orchestra - to learn how to play some percussion instrument or other that I've completely forgotten the name of (this is what happens when you don't update your blog for weeks), and to learn Javanese dance. I was pretty crap at both, but had fun trying and failing.

I ran into Phil (a fellow surfer that I met in Raglan) on the way back to the main stage, and we went to see Etran Finatawa - a bizarre cross-cultural sub-Saharan African blend of traditional instruments and electric guitar. It was surreal but funky, and was a strong contender for the wierdest music of the day. Later on we saw the Waifs (an Australian group that had just reformed after various members had babies - Mazza and Luke were very excited), Lila Downs (a Mexican singer with a beautiful voice who sings strange songs about revolutions and cockroaches that smoke too much pot) and Mariza (a woman from Mozambique who's so tall and thin she made me think of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, with a stunning voice and a phenomenal stage presence who unfortunately sings fado - overly slushy songs that make her sound like Portugal's answer to Celine Dion). Luke and Mazza decided they'd had enough in the middle of Mariza's performance and headed home while I went on to watch Mr Scruff's wierd but strangely dancable dj set, and then went back to crash in the early hours of the morning.

I got up at some unholy hour of the morning, said bye to an exceedingly bleary eyed Mazza and got a lift to the airport with Luke (bless him). I arrived in Sydney, got straight on a bus to Canberra and found myself sitting next to someone with a laptop, who didn't mind me stealing one of the headphones and watching V for Vendetta with him, when I should blatantly have been sleeping.

I arrived in Canberra to be met by Carrie (a long lost university friend who seems determined to isolate herself geographically, first of all at the other side of the British Isles in St Andrews, and now at the other side of the world in Canberra) and Daniel. The first evening is a bit of a blur, as I was so knackered by that stage that I'm not entirely sure what we did. We definitely sat out on the balcony and watched the myriad of birds flying past - mainly fake magpies (they look kind of like real magpies, but are unrelated) and galahs (cue repetitive Ralph from Home and Away impressions). I think pasta and pizza may have been a feature of that evening, and I remember being deeply disturbed by Carrie's pseudo-Australian accent (she frequently says things like "Aaaaaahhhww yeeeaaaah?" instead of "Really?", her t's are turning into d's, and when she's not stating her nationality as "Bridish", she claims to be "Austreylian"). I also think I watched the episode where "Yes Minister" becomes "Yes Prime Minister", but I don't really remember how it happened.

The following day largely involved lazing and food (the food in Australia is a huge step up from New Zealand, it has to be said - unfortunately this means that all the weight I exercised off in NZ is back, with a few friends) - we went out for a delicious Chinese meal in the evening, when I discovered how much better Daniel's taste in TV is than Carrie's, and we ganged up on her. It's her own fault for not appreciating the genius that is Buffy (and as for thinking that Firefly is better, I mean, honestly). The Chinese food wasn't quite enough for my rapidly expanding stomach, so we headed off to a nearby cake shop and after much indecision I had the most delicious sticky date pudding in the universe. When we got back to the flat we rounded off the evening by slobbing in front of Casablanca - one of the many classics on the list of films that I really should have watched but hadn't yet.

The following morning I managed to persuade Carrie to avoid work for long enough to join me on a cruise on Lake Burley Griffin, a very relaxing trip filled with terribly interesting bits of information about Australia's capital that I promptly forgot afterwards. We then went back to Carrie's office on campus to spot birds from her balcony (going by the Martian Embassy a.k.a. the architecturaly wierd and wonderful Academy of Science building), except they all seemed to be hiding that day. I had a wander round campus, keeping an eye out along the way for birds, but saw nothing new sadly. My beginners luck with twitching appears to have run out. Damn.

I headed back to the flat and slobbed in front of Father Ted episodes while Carrie went to a lecture that Daniel was giving which, I was assured, I definitely would not understand. When Carrie reappeared, we headed across town to yet another wonderful restaurant, this time a Turkish one, and we pigged out on meze in a way that should have made us ashamed of ourselves (strangely it didn't).

The following morning I said my goodbyes to Carrie and Daniel, Carrie and I vowing to see more of each other when she actually returns to England in a few months time, and caught the bus back to Sydney, met up with Zoe for a very hurried dinner, and then caught my flight to Cairns, arriving into the city centre at nearly midnight. I located my hotel, had a shower to the relief of everyone within a hundred metres of me (Cairns is located in the middle of an area known as the wet tropics - it's ever so slightly hot and humid), got my gladrags on and headed out in search of Cairns' infamous nightlife. Before long I'd been adopted by a loud group of Australian males who took me to a local club (that in all honesty I found somewhat underwhelming) where I danced and drank with them until the early hours of the morning, then caught sunrise over the sea from the esplanade on the way back to the hostel.

I snatched 3 hours kip before getting up for the 10am bus to Cape Tribulation - a stunning bit of coastline that's part of the wet tropics national park, where the rainforest meets the sea and the great barrier reef, and one of the best places for cassowary (an endangered species that grows to the height of 1m and is a close relative of the emu) spotting.

I arrived in the early afternoon, dumped my bags, had a wander round the hostel grounds, almost trod on a huge brown snake, stepped around it gently in as non-threatening a manner as I could muster, had a wander on the beach with another new anonymous friend, had some food and tried to have an early night. This was not made easy by the loud music booming from the bar.

Sleep's overrated anyway.

It was with drooping eyelids that I moved hostels and then embarked on an epic 9km journey (Australia is making me very overheated and lazy) through the tropical rainforest (with my aforementioned friend thingummyjig) to a good swimming spot that isn't inhabited by freshwater crocs. By the time we arrived at the river, a swim was the only thing in the world that I'd been thinking of for the last 20 minutes. A friendly French guy (called Francois - I sometimes manage to remember) showed us a spot where we could climb to a ledge 4m high, and jump in. I sat there looking down for an eternity (it did look alarmingly high), then I thought of Steve, and how he wouldn't even hesitate before he jumped off the 5m boards at the swimming pool, completely fearlessly, when we were kids, so I just jumped right in.

After splashing around in the river for a while we decided to walk back via the beach as it was low tide. We clambered over rocks, and avoided the shoreline as best we could (there are both saltwater crocs and box jellyfish in the area). Back at the hostel I made myself food and then settled down in my dorm to finish off "Nights at the Circus". Suddenly Thingummyjig bursts in, grabs for his camera and shouts "Fucking big bird" in a very excitable manner. I grabbed my camera and followed him out, but sadly the cassowary had run away from all the noise being made by a German girl nearby. Thingummyjig and I went a few metres into the forest with our cameras - just far enough to be able to see the silhouette of a huge bird behind a tree. When I bent down I could see it's legs shuffling. Sadly I couldn't see anything through my camera lens (and yes, I had taken the lens cap off), so I gave up on the photo and went back to camp. On the way I felt an incredibly sharp pain on my toe, I knew immediately it was a bite of some kind and was worried that it must be serious, given how much it hurt. I lifted my foot up to examine the viscious creature that had bitten me (if it's serious, it helps if you can give a description of the evil bastard), to find an ant crawling around on my foot. Not that serious then.

The German girl was still shrieking when we got back - she'd already seen a cassowary earlier on that day with some friends, and she was claiming that it had visciously attacked them without provocation, and she didn't want to see any more big birds. Her strategy of shrieking was a good one - she was scaring off all the wildlife. After talking to her for a few minutes, it emerged that they'd all been taking flash photographs of the cassowary at the time. She seemed astonished at the idea that this might have been what had bothered it, and said that no-one had told her not to use flash photography. It amazes me that people need to be told things like this, that blinding flashes of light might bother a wild animal.

That night I finally managed to check my e-mail (the internet had been down for 2 days), and discovered that Katie Chalmers (an old school friend) had e-mailed me 2 days before with a change of plans, and was currently waiting for me to appear on Mission Beach, a days journey south of Cape Tribulation. I replied quickly, apologising for not being in contact sooner, and I booked myself on the first bus out the next morning.

During the night I woke up at irregular intervals because of the rain thundering on the roof of my hut. When I tried to catch the bus in the morning I was told that it wasn't coming out this far as the road was flooded. I had a connecting bus to catch from Cairns, so I asked around at the hostel and found that the German girls were leaving too, and had space in their car. I prayed that they were more blessed with driving skills than they were with common sense, and loaded my things into the car.

We made it 10 minutes down the road before we came to the first washed out section, under 60cm of water going at high speed across the road, with all sorts of waves and eddies involved. The car was pretty crap, and not up to that much of a challenge, so we sat in the car, waiting to see if the water level would go down now that the rain had stopped, trying to convince the German girls that it would all be ok somehow, and that this wasn't the end of the world (they were really high maintenance travellers). We eventually gave up temporarily, in favour of a pub lunch, and returned to find the water down to 30cm. When the rain started again, we decided that this was probably our best shot to get across, ploughed through the water, shrieked with relief when we got to the other side, and were soon followed by everyone else.

The girls dropped me off in Cairns and went off to get a head start start celebrating St Paddys day, while I went to phone Chalmers, and to catch my bus to Mission Beach. The journey was broken up by the film Secondhand Lions and fruitbats flying through the dusky sky. I arrived at Mission beach to see Chalmers waiting for me at the bus stop with a bottle of beer for each of us and wearing the most lurid range of green clothing and accessories that you can imagine, and a big grin. After the shrieking and hugging that ensued, we realised that getting my bags out of the hold might be an idea, so that the bus could continue its journey south, and we headed back to the hostel Katie had found for us.

I had a quick shower (it's so bloody hot in the north of Australia, you have to have two showers a day, for everyone's sake), and changed into the headache-inducing, painfully green clothes Chalmers had found for me and got tarted up. We got on a free bus provided by a pub that was just too far away to walk to and chatted nineteen t the dozen, catching up. After a few minutes the subject of Steve came up, and Katie said that she was so sorry about what had happened. Unfortunately, some idiot in front of us chose the worst possible moment to decide to join in a conversation that he had no understanding of, with the worst possible choice of comment that he could have made - "Yeah he was a right dickhead".

I understood that the twat was operating under the assumption that Steve was a cheating boyfriend who had just dumped me, or something similar, and that he had no way of knowing how much he had just put his foot in it, which is why I fought my instinct to pound his nose to a bloody pulp. I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't come out in a shriek, followed by tears, so after giving him a look that clearly told him to shut the fuck up and not intrude further on our conversation, I turned to Kate and carried on talking as if he'd said nothing.

We arrived at the pub to find that we were the only ones who were wearing green, shrugged, got the drinks in, and carried on filling each other in on the large gaps in our knowledge of each other's lives for the last few years. After a couple of hours, some guy sitting next to me joined in the conversation. Katie asked where he was from and he told her to guess. He then proceeded to get incredibly pissed off when Katie answered Kent (apparently that's a whole world away from Surrey). When he was still acting like a knob 5 minutes later, Katie went off to the bar in exasperation, and came back to find him still making a fuss. When he guessed that our accents were from London, and we pointed out that his guess was much further out than Katie's had been, he still kept on ranting. We decided to move seats, and went inside just as that twat from the bus sat next to him and they both glared at us and started talking about what awful people we were. This was such a blow to us that we could think of nothing else for it but to hit the dancefloor.

We arrived back at the hostel in the early hours and sat up chatting to other travellers until sleep became imminent, either sitting there, or in bed.

We got up just in time to pack up our things and check-out in time, then had breakfast while it poured with rain outside. When it had calmed down a bit, Katie devised a challenge for herself - she was going to take two of the foil bags from old boxes of wine, inflate them, attach them to her feet, and try to walk on the water in the pool. Oddly enough, it didn't work ( I thought we needed to locate two more bags, strap them to her hands and try crawling on the water, but we couldn't find any more wine bags). It had become stiflingly hot by that time, so I changed into my bikini, Katie found the wooden pole that goes across the pool, we found various inflatables, and then spent a happy hour playing gladiator games, trying to knock each other off the pole, and diving into the water. Katie was consderably better at this than I was, and it didn't help that I kept collapsing in fits of giggles and losing my balance either. Eventually we tired of behaving like children, got changed and slobbed in the tv room until it was time for our bus.

While we waited for the bus to arrive, we got chatting to two English guys (Nick and Whatdeyamacallim) and discovered that they were heading to the same hostel as us on Magnetic Island. They were a decade our junior, but mature enough to be able to have a laugh with them without feeling ancient.

The bus came eventually, we found our seats, and just as we were heading out of town, the driver suddenly braked, and we looked out of the window to see a huge cassowary crossing the road. Sadly it disappeared into the rainforest before I could get to my camera. Katie wisely passed out shortly afterwards, and once again I found myself listening to music and, as so often happens when I spend hours on a bus without someone to talk to, thinking of Steve. By the time we stopped for a toilet break I was a snotty mess, so Katie and I went and sat on the beach and told stories about Steve until it was time to get back on the bus again. This time thankfully they had a film to watch for the rest of the journey, not an especially good one, but it passed the time.

We got to the ferry port, got on the boat for Magnetic Island, and when the sea became rough, quickly discovered the joys of jumping high into the air on deck and landing 2 metres away, trying not to fall over. Does everyone else regress this much when they meet up with school friends, or is it just Chalmers that has this effect on people?

When we arrived at the hostel, after a chat on the phone to my parents, we found our dorm, dumped our bags, got some food and settled down with a cheap box of wine for the evening with Nick and friend.

The following morning was spent reading and sunbathing by the pool (it was really too hot to do much else), and in the afternoon we headed off to the nearby koala sanctuary. A highly enthusiastic guide led us round on a very imformative tour of the sanctuary, periodically removing various reptiles from cages and pens and letting us hold them. The baby crocodile was surprisingly strong and wriggled around to show his displeasure at being held, so we gave him back pretty quickly, but the carpet python that wrapped itself around me didn't seem to want to leave me (constrictors can be very clingy and needy like that). In fact, it was quite a pervy python and spent a large amount of time slithering over and around my arse (hence the photo of me giggling). At the end of the tour we came to the koalas, and the guide let us take turns hugging them. They're so cute, cuddly and fluffy (I want one, please can i, pleeeeaaaasse...).

Katie and I had planned to go for a walk after the sanctuary tour, but Katie had assured me that there were no poisonous snakes on the island, so I was wearing my sandals instead of walking boots. When we asked our guide however, he told us all about the ominously named death adder that is quite common on the island (it's amazing how often you get misinformation if you believe everything you're told over a few glasses of cheap wine). I went off the idea of a walk without properly covered feet, and we headed back to the hostel.

We joined in the jostel wide pub quiz, sadly just coming second, but we managed to pick up a couple of jugs of snakebite along the way for Chalmers' inspired choice of team name (no sex please, we're British), and for Katie's general willingness to volunteer to make an arse of herself between rounds.

We played pool for a while (I played with my customary inconsistent mixture of truly dreadful shots - often ending with the black or white ball disappearing down a pocket to the sound of me shrieking - and the odd blind luck shot), then went outside when the bar closed. Katie suggested a drinking game called "Eat my box" involving trying to pick a box off the floor with your teeth, without putting your hands on the ground. After each go you tear off a bit of the box, until people are trying to pick up a tiny scrap of cardboard, and everyone has pulled all the muscles in their thighs. We were joined by a friend of Katie's from earlier travels - Matt, and some random drunk guy who developed an annoying habit of trying to put his hand round my waist in order to get my attention, and didn't seem to be picking up on my subtle indications that I wasn't interested.

The following morning we packed our things again and headed down the coast to Airlee Beach, in order to catch our cruise round the Whitsunday Islands. We booked ourselves on the cruise and negotiated a good rate (Chalmers used to work on the boat), left most of our luggage at a hostel, bulk bought alcohol for the next two nights (Whitsundays cruises are all about competitive binge drinking apparently), and got on the boat. I was given a double berth (all to myself!), dumped my things on it, and then we all went up to the deck for a safety talk. We set sail for the islands, had dinner (cooked for us by the sous chef that works on board - the cruise really wasn't as posh as I'm making it sound, it was the cheapest backpacker boat trip there was), and then spent the evening engaged in a variety of drinking games, and getting to know each other between rounds.I've forgotten most people's names now (surprise, surprise), but I do remember Owen the drunken Irish comedian and Molly, who I spent most of my time with, when I wasn't with Chalmers. I was one of the last ones to go to bed, after Katie and I had polished off the equivalent of 5 bottles of wine between us.

Unsurprisingly, the next morning I wasn't feeling at my best. I managed to get some breakfast down me and keep it down, and after a bit of sunbathing on deck, and a lot of water, we arrived around the other side of erm, some island or other, from Whitehaven beach - one of the best beaches in Australia. While we were waiting for a dinghy to take us to shore we spotted turtles coming up for air in the water around us. I obviously spent the next half hour taking pictures and jumping up and down in fits of ecstasy between photos.

Eventually I managed to drag myself away for long enough to get to shore and to walk up to the viewing spot that gives fabulous views of the beach, the sea and all the pristine white sand sandbanks. From there we walked down, past an enormous lizard, to what would really be a spectacular beach if it weren't for the hundreds of people sunbathing on it. Katie and I went for a wander along the shore and watched the baby reef sharks swimming around in the shallows. We were indulging in a spot of half-naked sunbathing, when Chalmers decided she wanted a picture (see above. I apologise to anyone who's easily offended. We felt that between putting the picture on my blog, combined with some mouse mat/coaster/t-shirt merchandising, we might be able to start Katie on her career as a glamour model. Actually, Katie wanted to put the picture on her blog, but then realised her Grandma would see it, so I jokingly offered to put it on mine, and Katie thought it was a great idea. Sorry again.).

After lying on the beautiful, powdery white sand for about an hour, we had to head back to the boat, in order to move on to another bay with some good diving. We got all kitted up, went to shore in the dinghy, did our safety checks in the shallows (Katie reminded me how to do them), and then went under. There really were some lovely fish (sadly parrotfish are the only ones I remember the name of), and some huge ones too, but the visibility was shit. We surfaced after 45 minutes and went to sit on the beach for a while.

That evening, back on the boat, we sat around chatting, eating beautiful food, and consuming the remaining alcohol over a game of poker. I'd never had it explained to me properly before - once you understand what the fuck's going on, it's a great game! Sadly I lost all my chips when I mistakenly thought someone else was bluffing, but I was one of the last ones in. I couldn't manage yet another ridiculously late drunken night, so I headed to bed before 1am.

The next day we stopped for a spot of snorkelling (great, but once again, the visibility was shit) on the way back to Airlee beach, where we found our hostel, had long showers, and then got dressed up and went out with the guys from the cruise (evidently we hadn't consumed enough alcohol with them on the previous two nights). When the pubs closed we staggered off and found ourselves at Mama Africa's, where Katie introduced me to jagerbombs - a red bull cocktail that keeps you dancing all night. Funnily enough, that's just what we did.

In the morning Chalmers and I said our goodbyes as I got on a bus to Brisbane. I wasn't sure what to expect when I met up with Katie as it's been a long time since I've spent any real time with her (perhaps it would be more accurate to say that in some respects I knew exactly what to expect - inebriation and some appalling but wonderfully funny behaviour), but it fantastic to spend a week catching up with her properly, and I definitely want to see more of her when we both get back to England.

The bus to Brisbane was long and dull, my mp3 player was out of batteries and the films they showed were pretty shit (I believe one was called Ella Enchanted if that helps to illustrate my point), so I spent most of the journey catching up on sleep. I left Airlee beach in the morning, arrived in Brisbane the following morning, and then caught a bus further south to Byron bay. Unfortunately I had left booking a room for the night until the last minute, and all the nice hippy places with yoga classes and poi workshops were booked up (Byron bay is a renowned hippy town in Australia). Eventually I settled on anywhere with a spare bed, and found myself staying in Byron bay holiday village - a haven for the youngest, freshest out of school, Oz experience children. I've met many people who have been on the jump on, jump off backpacker buses, but this was the youngest, most immature crowd yet. I was invited out to a club with a bunch of eighteen year olds (normally self-respect would mean that I wouldn't, but I really had nothing better to do that night), after one of them conceeded defeat in a game of chess (ha - first game of chess I've won in, well, possibly, ever). Once we got to the club they started acting like cliquey school children - giggling whenever I said anything in a way that suggested they didn't think I understood they were laughing at me, not with me. Not entirely sure why they invited me out if they were going to behave like that, so I just found a nicer group of people (staying in the nice hippy place with yoga classes and poi workshops, of course) and ditched the greasy, spotty, hormonal half-wits.

I got up in the morning in time for check-out. At least I thought I was going to be just in time - the night before the clocks had changed, so I had spent some time the previous evening trying to work out what was going on with the clocks changing, and moving from Queensland to New South Wales (different time zones in the summer), and catching a bus that goes from Quieensland to New South Wales that evening, one of which was had daylight saving, and one of which didn't. What I forgot to factor in was that I was now in the southern hemisphere, and daylight saving was starting, not ending as it was autumn. Basically I got up early and was ready to check out at what would have been 9am on the previous days time, what I thought was 10am, but what in reality was 8am. After a crap night's sleep too (hostels filled with 18 year olds are rarely the best place to get a good night's sleep). On the spur of the moment, I decided to avoid the 18 year olds entirely, and do a daytrip to the nearby village of Nimbin - a pot-smoking haven since the 60s.

As the public bus service for the day had already gone, I booked myself on Jim's alternative musical tour with some trepidation. I've never been a big fan of day tours (or any tour for the matter) - they just try to go to too many places, and you have a set amount of time there, that you have no say in, and it's invariably not long enough. Jim's tour, on the other hand, was the most perfectly organised, imaginative tour I've been on. Jim, the driver, clearly has done a stint as a radio dj at some point in his life - his music collection was excellent, and his banter hilarious. We listened to everything from Pink Floyd to Salmonella Dub, from Lou Reed to Moby, from Nina Simone to Xavier Rudd, with excerpts from the Big Lebowski and Denis Leary and anecdotes about stoned travellers on his bus in between tracks.

We arrived in Nimbin after an aurally stimulating hour and a half on the bus, and all went off in different directions around the village, some people looking for lunch, some looking for pot, some looking for mushrooms. I'm not entirely sure how it came about, but Nimbin has been somewhere where it has been incredibly easy to get soft drugs on the street without the police interfering for the last 30 years (it has something to do with being the site of a huge festival in the 60s I think). Anyway, I felt it would be wrong to come to Nimbin and not have a couple of spliffs, so I located a vendor without too much difficulty, and purchased a small amount for the day. I found a nearby coffee shop that had pot smoke billowing out onto the street, found a seat and got chatting to a man with certain, erm, horticultural interests in the area. He proposed to me after one spliff. I didn't think it was the best idea to be honest, so I went for a wander down the street and ran into a red-headed girl with dreds from my bus. We found a little park and had a quick smoke before we went back to the bus.

The journey back was wonderful - he played some chilled out, blissed out trance, some dub, some folk and some old classics. We'd stop at odd places to appreciate the view, to smell pretty flowers and to eat munchies. It was all very lovely and I loved it. On one stop, a fellow English traveller pointed out that daylight saving had ended the day before in England too, and we spent several minutes trying to work out the new time difference while the fabric of the universe slowly came unravelled inside my head. I napped for the rest of the way back.

I arrived back at Byron Bay's answer to a PGL summer camp in the early evening, packed my belongings, and went downstairs for one last joint and one last poi before being stuck on a cramped bus for the next 14 hours. I chatted with other people at the hostel, told them that I was about to catch my bus to Sydney in order to fly to Bangkok, then gave my remaining weed to the first person to be extra nice when he put two and two together (and hoped to come up with an eighth) when he realised I couldn't take it on the plane.

Once again I had no battery on my mp3 player, but this time the tv on the bus was broken, so I had a very boring overnight bus trip and I did my best to sleep through most of it. When I arrived in Sydney, I made my way to the airport, checked in, went through security, had a laugh with possibly the only customs official in the world with a sense of humour, and then stood by a payphone for at least 15 minutes trying to work out if I'd been correct with the new time differences to England and if it was in fact now 7:15am, and therefore a just-about-acceptable time to phone. I called Ben and Emma and squealed down the phone at them until my flight started boarding.

I kept myself amused on the flight by my usual method of watching as many films as I could fit in before landing - The Devil Wears Prada was a wonderful no-brainer, The Fountain was surreal and upsetting (I don't recommend watching it if you're recently bereaved), and the plane landed before I saw the end of Deja Vu (I'll just have to learn to live without knowing whether Denzel Washington saved the day or not).

I arrived in Bangkok exhausted and seriously smelly. I wandered around in confused circles, while the same five people asked me if I wanted a taxi over and over agin. Eventually I found a shop where I could swap a note for coins in order to check my e-mail to find out where my friend Ruth had booked us beds for the night. I shared a taxi into town with a Hungarian guy who was just finishing his travels, so he gave me his don't miss list. I arrived at the guest house at about 1am, found my lovely, spacious, pristine, incredibly cheap room (with a welcome note from Ruth on the door), had a blissful, life-afirming shower, then passed out.

I woke up far earlier than necessary, considering the pathetic amount of poor-quality sleep I had had for the previous few nights. I lay around writing the postcards I had bought over a month ago in New Zealand, and then discovered that I didn't have anyone's address (if you're reading this and want a postcard, e-mail me your address). Ruth eventually got up (she had just arrived into Thailand the night before, from India), and when we had finished hugging and exclaiming we left the guest house to hunt out some breakfast, and eagerly swapped our travelling tales so far over fresh fruit, muesli and yoghurt with fresh mango juice.

Breakfast was followed fairly swiftly by lunch (I love the food here), and after checking our e-mail we went to a restaurant to meet Niki and Anna, friends of Ruth's. Anna had just come back from China, was in the middle of a rather unpleasant bout of bronchitis, and was having problems renewing her visa because of new regulations. She wasn't in the best mood. I tried not to form any lasting impressions of her in case she turned out to be a nicer person under less stressful circumstances. Niki, on the other hand, I took to instantly - a very opinionated but friendly person with oodles of enthusiasm and energy. I tried to talk to her as much as possible, and Anna as little as possible.

After a couple of hours I had to go back to the guest house and lie down - I was exhausted and the heat and humidity were zapping what little energy I had. I couldn't sleep because it was too hot, even with the fan on 3 and plastic bags and bits of paper blowing all around my room. I gave up, had another shower and went back out to meet Ruth, Niki and various Iranian relatives of Niki's boyfriend. We took a boat across town to the shopping malls, and wandered around (I tried not to drag my feet - I don't know what it is about shopping in malls that I hate, when I love shopping in markets), I played with the incredibly solemn and shy kids, determined to get a smile out of one of them before the end of the night. We found a food court for dinner and sat around chatting about living in Thailand (Niki does for 6 months of the year), her recommendations for places to see in Bangkok that aren't in the Lonely Planet, and drinking ones own piss in order to solve various medical ailments.

I would like to emphatically state that I was not the person at that table who was speaking from experience. Niki, however, swears by it and claims that it cured her psoriasis and helps with viral infections. That may be true, or it may be a load of bollocks, I don't know, or much care, as I have to say, that may be the thing that stops me being able to use the phrase "I'll try anything once".

I made my way back to the guest house for another attempt at sleep when Ruth decided she wanted to go to the cinema. I tried several taxis, and they all tried to charge me about 4 times the correct price, and wouldn't budge, so I eventually gave up, found the nearest bus stop and paid about 10p for the journey home instead.

I spent the following day trying to start updating my blog for the first time in weeks, searching my memory for the details of what I'd done, while Ruth tryed to get her laptop fixed. My computer in the first internet cafe I went to rebooted after two hours of cropping, resizing and uploading photos, and I lost everything that I'd done. When they tried to charge me for the 2 hours, I quite reasonably pointed out that I really shouldn't have to, as it was their faulty equipment that had caused me to waste two hours and I had nothing to show for it. Ruth turned up and suggested a compromise, so I offered them money for one hour, which they refused. I was getting fed up at this point, so I just threw the money on the counter and said in a direct quote from one of my students"So stop me walking out then".

I then spent the rest of the afternoon kicking myself as I wandered around Bangkok trying to find another internet cafe with photoshop, cd readers and a fast connection, all of which were in the old internet cafe, that I had just lost the use of, over 50p. Damn.

After another couple of hours I found a decent internet cafe and started all over again with somewhat diminished enthusiasm (take your least favourite part of this posting and assume I wrote that in Bangkok). I gave up in the early evening, and Ruth and I went to meet Niki, Anna and Anna's husband in a lovely restaurant just off the Khao San road. I managed to avoid talking to Anna (I had formed lasting impressions of her, despite my good intentions) and chatted to Ruth and Niki, who it turns out is a fanatical conspiracy theorist. Apparently tha CIA and the Israelis collaborated when they blew up the World Trade Centre (in order to justify America's actions in the Middle East), and it's common knowledge that America will be sending nuclear missiles into Iran soon. I did my best to argue back, but didn't really know where to start, as Niki's conspiracy theories were so detailed that they were all interlinked, and it was difficult to argue against one as to do so would involve separating it from the web of conspiracy theories in Niki's mind. Oddly enough I thoroughly enjoyed talking to her, and still think she's a lovely person, despite her being on the completely barking side of eccentric.

The following noon I said my goodbyes to Ruth when she flew to KL to meet up with her brother. After a long afternoon of frantic catch-up blogging, I went for dinner in my old favourite restaurant (hemlock) and then I went back to the guest house and packed my bags for my early morning flight to Cambodia.

I set a new record for myself by getting up at 3am in order to shower, leave the guest house, heave my luggage 15 minutes down the road and be on the first airport bus at 4am. There was a friendly, energetic, bouncy Canadian lady who kept trying to start conversations with me. I hid my irritation by falling asleep.

The only thing that penetrated my doziness at the airport, at least enough for me to notice and remember it, was that, in addition to the usual displays saying not to carry more than 100ml of liquid onto the plane, and no sharp objects in carry-on luggage, there was a sign saying "Passenger with firearms, please notify staff at checkin counter". I thought about suggesting to the airport staff that they have a separate check-in counter for terrorists and hijackers, but then remembered that airport staff don't have a sense of humour.

I managed to doze most of the way to Phnom Penh, and when we disembarked the aircraft, I was hit by a strange sensation - excitement. New Zealand and Australia were nice, but so similar to home, and that must have been my sixth time in Bangkok, but I'd only spent 4 days in Cambodia before, and every one had been an adventure. It felt so refreshing to have my old joy of travelling back - I haven't had it since Steve died, but for the last week in Cambodia I've been my usual excitable, bouncy, enthusiastic self.

I made it through passport control fairly quickly, went through the gate, and was greeted by dozens of people all of whom were competing to shout at me the loudest in broken English that they wanted to take me to town for good price. I eventually found someone who offered two dollars, which seemed like a bargain. We went outside and he stopped in front of a motorboike and indicated that I should take my backpack off. I decided that I couldn't be bothered to walk back into the airport again in order to find a taxi, and that these moto drivers take people into town with huge rucksacks balanced on the bike all the time, so it must be ok, I just don't understand how with my western mind.

The big rucksack was balanced in front of the driver and the small rucksack stayed on my back as we nipped in and out of traffic for the next hour. By the time I arrived at my guest house I was fairly certain that they are encouraged to drive on the right hand side of the road in Cambodia, but that this is not enforced as a hard and fast rule. The rules of the road appear to be similar to India in that it's perfectly acceptable road etiquette to drive headlong into busy oncoming traffic when attempting to turn left onto the road, for several hundred metres as you gradually edge your way across to the centre of the road, and eventually onto the correct side.

I had a look round my first choice of guest house by the lake, and fell in love with it. The guest house is built on stilts on the edge of a lake that's so filled with algal blooms and other plant matter that it's bright green. The communal area had dozens of ridiculously comfy bamboo recliners and hammocks with a view out onto the lake, potted plants scattered everywhere, a wide screened tv, a pretty decent dvd collection and a pool table. I found a room with an attached bathroom and a double bed for about two quid, dumped my bags and went for breakfast.

I got chatting to a couple of really sweet Irish girls who had arrived the previous evening, and after several hours of idle banter, I decided it was about time I got off my arse and did something for the rest of the day. I had a quick shower, and then found a moto driver to take me to S21, the most infamous prison used by the Khmer Rouge to torture and kill suspected traitors, spies, doctors, teachers, people with glasses, people who spoke out against the regime, and their entire families. I'm a big believer in the importance of not shying away from seeing the more horrific sites in countries with a history of genocide, like Cambodia. In order to understand Cambodia and the Khmer people today you need to understand what has come before. Nonetheless I was dreading it.

After I had paid my money and gone through the barbed-wire-topped-gates, I overheard a guide standing by a notice next to the entrance, with photos of people high up in the Khmer Rouge and the people who ran S21. He was pointing at the different murderers and saying what had happened to them, but when he came to a couple and said that they were ministers in the current government, I almost fell over. Some of the people responsible for the horrors that happened at S21 were ostensibly held responsible and were put in prison, so that some, like Pol Pot, were allowed to die free men, while others are still alive and in power, safe in the knowledge that their old lackies are doing their time for them.

I started my walk around the grounds and displays of S21 with a sense of disbelief that, nearly 3 decades on, some of the perpetrators were still at large, but this feeling was swiftly overtaken by horror and nausea by some of the things I saw. They don't pull their punches at S21, the buildings are filled with admission photos of the men, women and children who were brought to S21, and photos of their defeated, emaciated bodies after they had been tortured to death, or battered to death with a bamboo cane to save on bullets. Outside the buildings were the most unnecessary signs I've ever seen, telling people not to talk loudly or laugh. The thing that got me the most were the mug shots of the people as they were brought in. One or two of the children reminded me of students I have taught. Several of the teenagers were facing off with the camera in absolute refusal to show fear, attitude dripping from them (this reminded me of my old students too), but the vast majority of them just looked shit scared. I came across a woman of about my own age, who had been admitted on the day that I was born - that made my stomach churn.

I came across a couple of dutch girls who had hired a Cambodian guide. They were trying to communicate in English, but were struggling with each others' accents, so I joined them and repeated things back and forth in my English accent. As well as going into more detail about the various methods of torture used (I'll spare you), she gave us some statistics (2,000,000 dead - a quarter of the population of Cambodia at the time, everyone was affected, only seven of the tens of thousands of people admitted to S21 survived). We also got talking about the situation today, with Khmer Rouge people still in power. She said that there have been all sorts of cases of electoral fraud since the Khmer Rouge decided to join the Cambodian People's Party after Pol Pot's death. She told us that pop singers who have spoken out against the party, or ex-Khmer Rouge officials, have been shot.

In the last building of the complex are photos of various people involved in S21, victims and guards, and some information on what happened to them. The pictures of the guards were the only place in the complex where I saw any graffiti, and they were absolutely covered in it.

I watched a film about S21, but found I couldn't absorb or respond to anything more, I was emotionally exhausted. I left S21, went to a nearby restaurant for the blandest food I could find (I didn't feel up to anything rich), and then decided to wind down and distract myself with a massage.

Seeing Hands Massage is one of the more ingenious ideas I have come across while travelling. The project was set up by an NGO in Phnom Penh. They trained people who were blind (either from birth, or from landmines) in the art of massage. Given the number of backpackers who, like me, can't seem to pack lightly and perpetually have sore backs, it's not hard for the masseurs to be self sufficient. What sets this project apart from the other livelihood projects for handicapped people is that, if there is anything to the theory that blind people have more acute senses of touch than other people, then they can actually can do the job better than your average person. I have to say, after the best massage of my life (and I've had a few), by quite a long way, for about two pounds fifty for an hour long massage, I would highly recommend it to anyone. It says a lot about the skill of my masseur that after the massage, I barely thought about S21 for the rest of the evening, instead of obsessing and moping as is my normal reaction to these things.

I floated back to the hostel, noticing the number of people who'd finished work and were sitting around on lawns chatting to their friends. This isn't something I've seen elsewhere in SE Asia. I wondered if this is what people have meant when they've told me that the Cambodian mentality is to not dwell on the horrors of the past, or worry overly about the future, but to enjoy the here and now. Cambodian people do seem to spend more time enjoying each others' company, smiling and laughing amongst themselves, and generally being happy than other people I've met. They certainly hassle you less and are much more friendly and polite when they try to rip you off. When I walk down the road I have a constant string of people asking if I want to moto or a tuktuk, but all I have to do is smile and say I'm happy walking (complete with mimes), then say "arcun" and they break out in smiles because you can say thank you in their language and they'll wave goodbye. Other people just want to smile at the white girl and say hello, while yet more people will quite happily sell you any drug you desire for about 3 pounds, if you're foolish enough to think that's a good idea.

I eventually arrived back at my hostel, floated over to the nearest table and flopped down in the nearest chair with a big contented sigh. I ordered some food and then got chatting to the Israelis at the next table. When they decided to play a game of pool and I explained that I was one of the worst pool players in the entire history of the game, one of the guys took it upon himself to teach me how to play properly. He actually did an alright job too - after a couple of his tips on correct stance and cueing technique, I have now progressed from being godawful, to being just plain bad at pool.

Just before I went to bed I got chatting to an English guy who'd lived in Phnom Penh for 3 years, and had no intention of going home. When he told me that his Dad had died recently, I told him about Steve. I knew this was a mistake the second he started lecturing me on how I should feel happy because that's how he'd want me to feel. No amount of telling him that I didn't think Steve would want me to force myself to or kid myself that I was feeling something that I wasn't, and that he'd understand that I have to grieve, and denial wasn't going to change that. I ended the conversation as quickly and politely as possible, then headed to bed.

The following morning I got up, decided that I needed a rest day before I could face the killing fields (and besides which, I'd been rushing around seeing sights for weeks without a break, I needed some quality slobbing time) and lounged across a seat in front of Little Miss Sunshine (an absolutely wonderfully heartwarming bit of fluff), followed by Running with Scissors (one of the wierdest, most screwed up films I've ever seen), and then got chatting to a succession of people who drifted in and out of the hostel throughout the day. First came the Canadian guy - one of those people who've smoked so much pot that they sound perpetually stoned, followed by Tom, a good bloke from Sheffield who'd just arrived into Phnom Penh. Shortly afterwards we were joined by the charmingly scruffy Dave, who'd met Tom in Siem Reap, and came over to say hi. Later came Alex, a tall, thin Belgian guy who constantly had a smiling, happy look about him. I spent the rest of the day, the evening and late into the night in their company, slobbing, chatting, eating, watching tv and playing pool - I actually won when I played Dave for the first time (although, to be fair he has beaten me every time since, so don't judge him). My main achievements for the day were making new friends, winning a game of pool (without being carried by someone else in a game of doubles) certainly for the first time I can remember, and discovering a divine new drink - mango and banana shakes.

The following morning (I use that word in the loosest possible sense - mid afternoon would probably be a more accurate description of the hour that I rolled out of bed grumbling to myself and cursing the world for waking me up) after breakfast (late lunch) Tom, Dave and I headed off to the killing fields, the place where the people who didn't die during torture at S21 were taken to be executed.

The first thing we saw on arrival was a big monument filled with shelves, all of which are covered with human skulls unearthed from the mass graves there. We wandered around the mass graves seperately, alone with our thoughts as we walked over ground that still has scraps of clothing and bones of the victims poking out in places. There were huge butterflies flying round the mass graves. This struck me as completely incongruous - life in all it's multicoloured glory existing in this place of death.

After an hour or so, I had to head back into town as I couldn't take any more. I suggested a massage, as that had taken my mind off things last time. Tom declined and went back to the guest house, so Dave and I had massages, but unfortunately I didn't fully appreciate mine, as I slept through most of it. When we got back to the hostel, we stayed up late into the night playing pool, chatting, drinking mango and banana shakes and watching films.

The following day I decided another lazy one was in order, so I dedicated the day to trying to catch up on my blog and post it, a task that I completely failed to achieve, but I did manage to write myself almost onto the correct continent by the early evening. Tom, Dave and I went to the Foreign Correspondants Club, in order to find out the results of the days local elections, and hoping to talk about world politics with high-powered people-in-the-know and were disappointed to find that the election results were to be announced the following day, and that there didn't seem to be one journalist there, just tourists. The later part of the evening was spent, once again, back on the veranda of the guest house, alternating mango and banana shakes with chocolate and banana shakes (a recent discovery I made when one of the staff misheard my order), playing pool, playing cards (I won at poker, for the first time ever!!!), "playing in the pot", teaching Dave the fine art of swinging in hammocks, chatting, taking photos of Dave and Tom eating various invertebrates that they had purchased at a local market, trying not to hurl while watching them do so, laughing and watching films with Dave through the early hours of the morning, and well into what can only be described as mid morning.

After another day of not quite writing enough of my blog to feel like I was nearly there, I set off to meet two friends of Steve and Ruth's - Keith and Angela (I met up with them in Bangkok in September when they started their travels), at Friends restaurant, a lovely little European place that ploughs it's proceeds into livelihood training courses for street kids. My moto driver was a guy called Peter who had asked me if I wanted a lift several times a day since I arrived, so I got a lift to the restaurant for one US dollar. He kept asking me things like if I knew about Pol Pot's real name or why the Khmer Rouge killed so many people. When I said no, but asked if he could tell me, he'd ramble on and on about how other moto drivers didn't do their job properly, he was the only one who talked to his clients, and I'd have been much better of if I had gone with him. If I then asked again what Pol Pot's real name was, he'd go off on another similar tangent. I was left with the impression that he didn't know the answers himself, and as he hadn't taught me anything new, just tantalised me with information he didn't share, despite that fact that i was paying him for this trip, I decided not to use him as a moto driver in future.

Keith and Angela were, as always, lively company. Sadly the same could not be said of me, I was absolutely shattered from my late night the night before and I was about as much fun as a wet dishcloth. After some delicious food and a lovely smoothie, the heavens opened and it poured with rain. We chatted inside the restaurant for a while, but then I decided I couldn't take any more and needed to be in bed, badly. We went outside to find a moto, only to be told that it would cost 6 dollars. I laughed and enquired as to whether petrol became more expensive when it rains. When he wouldn't go below 3 dollars I walked off. The moto driver tried to explain to me that I couldn't possibly walk in the rain as I was a tourist. I patiently explained in turn that I was English and could walk under a waterfall while barely feeling a thing. Eventually he agreed on a dollar and a half, and I went back to spend several hours yawning in the company of Tom, Dave, Alex and two new girls - Phoebe and Tamsin.

I spent the majority of the following day lying in bed in a state of exhaustion and then managed to tear myself away from my guest house in order to meet Keith, Angela and Georgie (a friend of Keith's) for a few drinks. Thankfully I did have some energy this evening and we chatted nineteen to the dozen about Steve, about our travels, and about anything else that came to mind. At dinner our table was constantly surrounded by young children selling illegally photocopied versions of popular travel and historical books on Cambodia. My father has always been convinced that people can spot him as a mug a mile off, and I rather suspect that the trait may be hereditory. After the relentless campaign of poking me and giggling, waving books in my face, demanding money rudely, then giving the sweetest, most innocent, cherubic smile imaginable and playing thumb wars, hand-slap and pat-a-cake with everyone at the table, I bought the lonely planet to Cambodia (it's more detailed than my guide to SE Asia) from a ridiculously cute little boy, and then promptly left it in the moto driver's basket when I got back to the guest house. Bugger.

I stayed up with Dave again, lounging in the hammocks and exchanging views on books, films, music, life, the universe and everything. It turns out that we've read an astonishing number of the same books, and have diametrically opposing views on them all. Our tastes in music are completely mutually exclusive, but we do seem to like the same films, especially given that he has a soft spot for romantic comedies, something that became very clear after several rounds of 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon (he may make me remove this last sentence, if he reads it...).

Once again I spent a strenuous day doing not much (except for miming a conversation with Alex and a Vietnamese lady who was deaf, but then staying out of the conversation and watching at an amused distance when I realised she was trying to chat Alex up - if I understood part of the conversation correctly, she was offering to bear his children), followed by an evening of socialising. This time Keith, Angela and Georgie came to my guest house in the slightly less posh, but slightly more fun area of town by the lake. We all sat around chatting and drinking (I had just discovered how cheap cocktails were) while I attempted again and again to do rounds of introductions (as always in perpetual fear of blanking at the wrong moment). I went through the photos I have of Steve on my mp3 player with Keith and Angela, explaining the stories I knew behind the photos as I went along. Several of the photos had been taken by Justin - a friend of Steve and Keith's, and Keith had been there at the time, and I could tell they brought back wonderful memories.

Keith and Angela were sitting on the other side of the table to my friend Dave, and for most of the evening there were two separate conversations taking place, one involving Dave, the other involving Keith and Angela. I was quite keen to get everyone involved in the same conversation, but I'm utterly crap at that sort of thing, and had no luck. At some point during the course of the evening it occured to me that the reason I wanted Keith and Angela to have a proper conversation with Dave (with whom I've been "involved" recently in some uncategorised, undefined capacity) was that I wanted Keith's seal of approval in lieu of my brother's. I started remembering the times Steve has met (and usually not approved of) various dates/"friends"of mine over the years, and the odd ways he'd assess their suitability to date his younger sister, based on such discerning criterion as their handshake or their clothes. Anyway, any attempt to engage in conversation and enjoy the evening from that point on fell rather flat, and I reverted to my wet dishcloth mood.

Yesterday Dave and I finally managed to drag ourselves away from number 9 guesthouse, after a week that redefined the benchmark for slovenliness, and after an alarmingly large room bill that I was in no position to argue with (in all probability, I may have had 23 mango and banana shakes in that time). We got on the bus to Kampot on the south coast, where Keith, Angela and Georgie already were, having actually managed to get up at an early hour.

It got hotter and hotter as we headed further south, and as the breaks that the bus driver needed to repair the engine became longer and more frequent. After watching Cambodian pop music on the bus TV on karaoke videos (sadly the words weren't written in the Roman alphabet, so we couldn't join in) Dave and I swapped mp3 players for the journey, if for no other reason than to convince ourselves of our own superiority of music taste over the other one. We stopped for lunch and were mobbed by people who wanted to sell us hard boiled eggs (Dave was disappointed that they were actual eggs rather than the bird embryoes you can buy at markets, sick puppy that he is) and mangoes. I found a cafe and ordered a delicious veg fried rice for less than a pound. The road was bumpy and at one point I fell asleep and woke up with my head rolled back at an angle that reminded me of a Pez dispenser. Suffice to say that when we arrived at Kampot I was sore. We wandered around town with our bags looking for a suitable guest house - our first choice was full, but we found a nice place with a room for 5 dollars (more than either of us would usually pay, but the bathroom was tiled and pristine, the towels were actually white, not off-white, they had toilet paper, bottles of water and little toothbrush/toothpaste packets and soaps for us, so it was worth the splurge).

We went for an explore round town, found a street stall that sold good soup and dirt cheap fruit shakes and then had an early night.

In the next few days I'm planning to stay on the coast, near Keith and Angela (and possibly Justin and Kate). We're all acutely aware that in a few days it will be 6 months since Steve died (I can't believe it's been that long. I suppose time flies when you want it to go backwards). We haven't quite decided what to do on the 10th yet to remember him, but we have various ideas.

I have only burned my photos from Australia onto cd so far, but more photos of Bangkok and Cambodia will follow on this posting, so keep your eyes peeled. For now I'm going to go and celebrate being up to date on my blog for the first time in a month and a half.

Keep the e-mails coming...