Asia: Who's the Daddy?
Wednesday, 11 May 2005
I just jacked in my shit job on Friday as it was making me loose faith in humanity in general and Australia in particular. Hurrah! This gives me plenty of free time to write some rubbish on here, so I decided to finish off this artical that I started in Malaysia. Here it is:
In the quest to find out who is the Mummy and the Daddy of all Nations I have devised a very cunning formula and visited many countries. You can now find out who wins as the best country in Asia. (It turns out its Laos after all that - second one we went to - I thought it was Borneo myself but you can't argue with the formula)
The formula is thus:
(atmosphere x food) - (scariness x toilet badness) + environment = Greatness of Country
Dan has added extra discretionary points for musical taste and ability of the countries inhabitants - I think that Donk core would be Laos's downfall here.
Here are the scores:
Thailand
Atmosphere: Score 8
Despite the fact that every fifth person you (as a Farang) will meet will be either a hooker or a con man, Thailand does have a lot in it's favour for atmosphere. The abundence of lady boys and men in drag means it's never boring, and the whole culture is extremely accepting. Of everything. Thai people are very cute, I think, and are always 'avin' a larf! Everything IS funny! And worth a bit of a thigh slap - You want to go 200m in a tuk tuk - 10 million Baht! Ah ha haha! You got one big sock and one little sock back from the laundry, all the people in the launderette will be called over to cry with laughter at the one massive and one tiny sock.
Say Oh My Buddha! in a camp voice - it's fun and it's also funny! There's a PARTY! Close the bar! Let's go to it, materialism is nothing! Fun is everything! * Thai people continue 'avin' a larf constantly if you go there you will see them expressing this via lots of muy thai play fights and constant giggling. And despite the prevalence of con artists, a lot of Thai people just want to go out and have a bevvie with you. Ahh!
Religion is also very important, as is good luck and the two seem to be fairly well intertwined with everday life. Nearly every Thai house has a spirit house outside, which looks like a very camp version of a bird house. It will be extremely ornately decorated and have offerings of incense, tango, rice cakes or whatever else the owner decides is a great and good thing to keep spirits happy. This ensures that the spirits in the actual house, stay in their camp extravaganza and do not get up to naughty mischeif in the Thai person's house. Spirit houses are also seen in Laos and Cambodia, but not as much and not as camp. In Thailand, I saw homeless people, who themselves lived under a small scrap of blue tarpaulin who had amazingly decorated spirit houses.
*except when you're being ripped off for the hundreth time.
Food: Score 11
Thai food is great. Too spicy! Too Tasty! As the woman on our cooking course would say. If a Thai person smiles at you and asks if you want it "spicey" don't be too enthusiastic unless you really do want chillieees in chillie sauce and a little bit of rice on the side. Sticky rice, Tom Yam, green, red and yellow curry, penang curry, masaman curry, sticky rice and mango, fruit smoothies...mmmm I didn't put on half a stone in Thailand for nothing. They can't cook bread for shit though. And the beer is awful. Chang Bleurgh! Also there's no good cheese or wine.
Scariness: 3
Thailand is not that scary apart from some of the border towns with Cambodia
Toilet Badness: 9
The toilets are variable and have some bad aspects, but at least they nearly all have a hose. Bowel badness bumps up the score from 7 to 9.
Environment: 6
Awful concrete boxes and building sites. Beautiful beaches and forest, big gold buddhas! Lots of them!
The score for Thailand is:
(8 x 11) - (3 x 9) + 6 = 67
Laos
Atmosphere: 12
Yawn! Sorry did you say atmosphere, I was asleep there, yes under my mosquito net in my hut based shop that doesn't sell anything.
Yes, Laotian people are so laid back they are often asleep. Tuk tuk drivers here can barely be bothered to hassel you, children all want to say saibadee! and run after you. Women in sarongs washing in rivers will look up and give you a smile, show you their baby. No-one wants to point out that you are "many Kilos" as in Thailand. They're all just gonna chill, chat to you, explain a bit of marxist budhism, practise a bit of English ("no have" is a popular phrase in shops), wish you good luck, send you on your way and go back to sleep. People who spoke no English gave us free lifts back to our hotel in the Capital city. Monks chatted eagerly to us everywhere we went. Laos is just chilled.
Food: 8
Baguettes, cheese, wine (cheers french people), mild curries, noodle soup (of course), meat based salads, road kill, rotten eggs on sticks with half developed foetus's in them, fish soufle in banana leaf (this is great). Beerlao is supreme, Laolao is like paintstripper, laowine is like what you drank when you were 15.
Scariness: 4
Laos gets an extra point for very narrow unmarked and often unpaved roads, but has one removed for not having very many vehicles. I also added one for the complete scary grimness of eating rotten foetus's
Toilet badness: 8
Nuff said.
Environment: 15
Laos is beautiful, the mekong, the mountains and the very national geographic villages and villagers. All this plus crumbling colonial architecture and budhist temples.
And the score is:
(12 x 8) - (8 x 4) + 15 = 89
Cambodia
Atmosphere: 14
The people we met in Cambodia were wicked; sassy, cheerful, resiliant and totally switched on. They'd work 12 hours a day seven days a week and live in their tuk tuk so they could afford one hour of English tutition a week. The children were beautiful often speaking three languages and selling postcards for a living, or pushing those with fewer limbs around the begging circuit. Everyone was trying hard to make life better and I loved Cambodia for that.
Food: 8
These people know how to fry a chip! They also make a mean fish based curry inside a coconut shell, a novel change from the coconut leaf. And a welcome one, I can tell you. They can make any food happy, sometimes catatonically so.
Scariness: 12
There is no real way to describe the traffic in Cambodia, except to say that around 57% of the time they drive on the right. I was on the back of a moto that took me all the way to my destination on the wrong side of the road once, that's actually 30 minutes with no helemet careering along the wrong side of the multi vehicled unpaved road. Take any other third world traffic you've seen, take away any even vague policing and give all of the inhabitants of the local nut house a vehicle to play with. People with no limbs in wheel chairs being pushed by children who can't see over the top, motorbikes with six people on them, wooden carts which people with no legs operate with their arms, toyota camrys with all of the inhabitants of a psychotic village in them. Other scariness points are gained for the countryside being covered in mines, fishing using hand grenades and settling personal matters using left over artillary from the Khmer rouge days (I have kept a local paper to prove this!).
toilet badness: 5
The toilets in Cambodge are OK.
Environment: 14
Cambodia is beautiful and devastated all at once. The ruined hill station in Kampot is surrounded by primary growth forest, studded with machine gun fire and the reason why the forest is primary growth is that it is full of mines. Angkor Wat is actually as excellent as it looks on the tourist guides and much better than it seems on me and Dan's "Arty" photos. Check how we discovered that our camera does sepia when we were there. Villages are not sleepy, but full of people trying to claw their way back out of the wreckage, skinny cows grazing in rubbish dumps, motor bikes with three live pigs strapped on to the back...
And the score is:
(14 x 8) - (12 x 5) + 14 = 66
Malaysian Borneo, Daz's Mum's area & KL
Atmosphere 9
It is very civilised here, they have Cadburys chocolate and ribeana and everything. You can tell it was once oppressed by us English types. There is an excellent mix of Indian women in gold and colourful saris and Muslim Malays in their tropical fish coloured head scarves and long tent-like dresses and chinese people with theme park like temples lanterns and dragons. As it's not really a cheap country compared to those around it, there are very few back packers
so people are genuinely interested in you as a novelty, also as the place is really multicultural anyway, your novelty status does not become oppressive (i.e. you wont be stared at unblinkingly for the duration of a 12 hour bus journey). And the people of Borneo are mad for it.
Food: 8
Indian curries, satay, hawker stalls, laksa. It's only let down by the foul chinese food on offer.
Scariness: 1
Malaysia is not scary, at least not the places we went to. I gave it one point because Rachel was scared of something she saw when diving. I believe it was some sort of fish based creature.
Toilet badness: 6
The toilets here are not that bad, but I added marks for the number of stairs you are required to go up to get to them.
Environment: 12
Malaysia is pristine. It has heat and rain. The beaches are empty and beautiful, the streets are clean, the jungles are amazing and have monkeys with rude noses in them, the Chinese temples are always freshly painted. And KL is a truely excellent city, great night life great shopping the twin towers there are all muslim designed and look truely amazing. The only odd thing is, if you're driving along a motorway in an air con car you could actually be in Britain...well until you notice the massive palm oil plantation on your right, anyway
And the score is:
(9 x 8) + (1 x 6) +12 = 78
On March 16, 2005, mike said:
hi cath send me an email i sent you one but to your old address and was to lazy to send you another but rest assured it was very sympathetic and brotherly hope your doing better lts of love bruv
On May 25, 2005, Jonu Dslugo said:
Ugh.. time to review the formulae.. time to add more element in it..
Laos cant be better than Malaysia.. ;)
Anyway.. hv a nice journey..