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Of Thanaka tricks and pagoda picknicks: Getting off the Disney trail in Myanmar

Myanmar. The crown jewel of the adventurous South East Asian backpacker. A hard-to-reach country, long shut off to independent travel and still a little too expensive for bottom line shoestring backpackers. Of the thousands of hip young gap-yahs we have met on route over the last few years, only a choice few had stepped across the border from the default destination Thailand to mystery-shrouded Myanmar. It’s an understatement to say we were excited about shooting Stray’s first ever trip, so as our plane headed west from Bangkok on a hazy March morning, we eagerly anticipated the treasures that lay ahead.

The start of our trip was relatively straightforward. Touching down in Mandalay, we had a chance to meander around the city’s busy streets, stumble across tasty, cheep Indian food and shoot a spectacular blood-red sunset over the Irrawaddy River and U Bein teak bridge, while locals, tourists and monks strolled across enjoying Burmese dance music blaring out from a restaurant at the near end of the bridge, who’s owner was hell bent on letting everyone know where they can get a beer. Early the next morning we set off to through Mandalay’s hilly backdrop to former British station Pyin Oo Lwin, featuring it’s own governor’s house reconstruction, Kew-style botanical gardens, horse cart tours and goat-antilope hybrid. We had sweet & sour chicken lunch in a quaint Swiss-style restaurant and our bus came with a handy conductor who opened the door and guided us onto the road with help of a little wooden step. But hang on. Take a step back for a second, dear reader. You’re scratching your head in disbelief, we can see you. Is this an episode of antiques road show? Surely, cause this doesn’t sound like the Rat & Dragon blog.

And here lies our problem. Myanmar may sound super-exotic. Only real off the beaten track (OTBT) travelers ever even get close to a destination like this. Whilst we haven’t been to Iran, Turkmenistan and North Korea we know they enjoy a similar kind of promise for ‘read adventure’(by the way, we’d LOVE to go, so hit us up!). But in a country dominated by its government, tourism is often heavily regulated, which in Myanmar’s case meant we found ourselves slap bang in the middle of the Disney trail tourists are herded around. Experiencing a country in a ‘package deal format’ keeps everything well organized, accountable and ‘safe’, but just like Cuba’s many insular US-targeting beach resorts, it keeps the status quo strong and locals and tourists well apart.

Whilst travelling through Indonesia to Dili via public transport, we were confronted many times with the concept and reality of OTBT travel. It’s practically fashionable to go more OTBT than the person you’re talking to, but when faced with the reality of not having any accessible toilet, soft drink stand or road to get where you want to go, 80% of people we met discovered they do need certain basic things to have an enjoyable holiday. You want to go where no one else does? Well, there’s a reason no one else goes, and it’s cause it’s uncomfortable, risky and hard work.

Our first small taste of OTBT was just outside the comfortable circuit of Pyin Oo Lwin, as we headed down a wide but steep dirt track with no shops or toilet anywhere to be seen, with only the promise of a waterfall at the bottom. For 40 minutes we walked through the mid-day heat, knowing that with every step we plodded down we were going to have to walk back up again. A monk passes us on the back of a rickety scooter, the bruising bumps in the track making it hardly worth the lift. But when we got to the bottom, we were standing in front of Dattawgyaik, one of the most spectacular waterfalls we had ever seen. Eager for a cool off we jumped right in, but had to keep our t-shirts and sarongs on to cover up for the nearby temple. Some people may find this frustrating, but wasn’t this what we signed up for? Getting to a place away from western influence? Well guess what, they have their own rules and you can’t just impose your ideas of body modesty on them.

The walk up was seriously hard, but once the cable car is installed the place will be teaming with people. We counted ourselves lucky. Back in Mandalay we soaked up some history by visiting the Royal Palace, the ‘big book’ at Kuthodaw Pagoda, sunset on Mandalay Hill and the Shewnandaw Kyuang teak monestary, which despite being firmly ON the beaten track and full of a massive Russian tour group was stunningly beautiful. Do check it out, if you’re lucky the Russian tour group may still be there taking photos of each other.

After our wonderful slowboat ride down the Mekong in Northern Laos, we were looking forward to our journey town the Irrawaddy to Bagan, but the Disney trail caught up with us as the chosen mode of transport wasn’t some romantic fishing boat but a big, metal riverbus full of middle aged Europeans and a school class of selfie-obsessed Danes. It did give us a chance to catch up on work as the scenery didn’t change much and our group just chilled all day with cold Myanmars. Bagan had some more obligatory sites in store, including a visit to Ananda temple and a puppet show, but these brief activities highlighted the indescribable value of our guide Somboun, who’s care free curiosity and willingness to get a bit lost really shone through. On our free afternoon a small part of our group set off and did exactly what it said on Boon’s t-shirt. We strayed.

In quest of the actual local market we plunged into the maze of dusty village streets, dodged feral pigs, played hide & seek with giggling local kids in smaller pagodas and met our fair share of dead ends on our little hired electric bikes. Sunset at Shwesandaw pagoda was full of people but beautiful, just like the sunrise we’d seen earlier that morning, whilst two of our group had splashed out on a hot air balloon ride at dawn. Climbing Taung Kalat near Mount Popa the next day is also one of our favorite memories, as we shared our experience on equal level with the groups of local tourists who had come to do exactly what we were doing, and delighted in taking photos with us (not of us, and us not of them). Our long drive to <威而鋼
a href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalaw” target=”_blank”>Kalaw was interrupted by a spontaneous stop to see a village novice ceremony procession and later when our bus broke down. We bunkered down in the nearest bar, which happened to be a wood shack, complete with loo with a view across the hills, filled with a bunch of raucous village locals. Finally we got our ‘authentic’ drinking experience.

Our commitment to OTBT was tested again the next day as what was supposed to be a 4 hour hike to a village turned out to be an 8 hour trek to a monastery, on the top of a hill with the best phone reception in Myanmar but another 1 ½ hours from the nearest village and shop. The trek was hard in parts, but also picturesque. There was little interaction with locals, because none had been arranged and people were busy getting on with stuff. The place we had lunch happened to be a bit empty at the time, and once we got to the monastery where we were going to stay, there were only ourselves, a couple of monks and a cat to talk to. Meeting people in a crowded restaurant where you’re sharing tables is pretty normal, but someone walking into your garden, playing with your kids and laughing and chatting to you in a language you don’t know whilst you’re trying to fix your computer is a bit strange. We really started to appreciate the effort our guides put into building up mutually beneficial relationships with homestays and villages throughout their South East Asian network, which allowed foreigners to visit and hang out with locals. Sometimes a lot of work goes into your ‘natural, authentic’ local experience, if it’s provided to 20 people, consistently, twice a week.

How much fun our stay in the monastery was going to be was up to us. With nothing to do, we had to create our own entertainment, which is how we discovered the 3 wall shower, the milky way and silhouettes of monks walking through the flames in pitch darkness whilst they meticulously burned off the undergrowth to created fertile soil for next year’s plants. Our monk-prepared flaming banana desert earlier in the evening had been a little indication of this spectacular sight, and we set off smelling of smoke through the sunrise haze the next day on the long and beautiful trek back to Kalaw. We had really achieved something in those last two days, so the definite tourist conveyor belt of Inle Lake didn’t phase us as much as it would have. Shipped around a set route via numerous passive workshops, past fishermen posing for coins and farmers tired of having cameras shoved in their faces, our trekking experience still held its ‘personal victory’ magic so we sat back and enjoyed the stunning countryside, paying little attention to exiting via the gift shop. After hanging out at a local winery, our group was determined to have a last local eating experience, which ended up with a lot of beer and a long drive back to Mandalay the following day.

We left our group to continue on to Yangon, on recommendation of the Stray team, and boy were we happy we’d taken it. An overnight bus ride put us in the heart of a bustling city full of the chaos, ruggedness and air of slightly dodgy adventure we love about South East Asian cities. Life changing events seem just around the corner as you could easily get tangled up with a quest to find a hidden temple in Mongolia, breaking into a warehouse for an illegal rave or joining the mafia. Whilst Yangon isn’t hard to get to, the vibe on 19^th street had an air of exactly what OTBT enthusiasts crave: backpacker community large enough to feel like you’re in the right place and there are ways to get around other than expensive hitchhiking, but still hard enough to get to which means people are still interested in others and willing to create their own adventure. Our guide for the day, Kay, reflected this vibe, was genuinely passionate about her culture and proud to share her personal favorite places, restaurants and hideouts. We checked out the fascinating Drug Elimination Museum before spontaneous lunch at her favorite soup kitchen and a trip to an aquarium shop to see fish with Kanji painted on them. The atmosphere at gold plated Shwedagon pagoda at dusk was magical, with visitors and families using the space not just as a place to pray and pay respects, but to hang out together laughing and chatting.

Street food dinner on 19^th street reminded us of Shantaram’s Mumbai, with stalls all along the streets selling the same stuff to tourists and locals, beggars singing hauntingly beautiful chants for coins and genuinely interesting snippets of conversation from every angle. Whilst Myanmar’s Disney trail is well established, logistics are growing up around it and glimpses of interactive travelling are shining through everywhere. It’s a magical place, and now we’ve had a taste of its adventurous glory we simply can’t wait to go back.

Why Travel is the Secret to Eternal Youth

All, Learn

You probably don’t remember this now, but there once was a very first time that you ever laid eyes on a toaster. You didn’t think to yourself: “Yawn. Vegemite. Maybe jam”. Nope. What you actually thought was: “Ohmygod! Ohmygod! A machine that you put bread into and it launches out hot and CRUNCHY!” Mind = Blown.

Of course, after marvelling at The Machine for the next couple of breakfasts, you gradually got so used to it that it became simply that old toaster and your youthful brain, ever insatiably craving more info, went on to discover the marvel that is your own doodle (or if you’re a girl, butterflies or pencil cases or whatever). In those days, a trip to the shop on the corner might as well have been a deep space mission to an unexplored galaxy.

Not only were these discoveries monumentally profound in themselves, but each and every one of them hinted at the marvels of the world beyond your horizons of understanding. And, being a kid, you weren’t self-conscious at all about embracing the sheer, massive volume of what you didn’t know. Rather, you looked out at the world with massive, wide and earnest eyes, asked questions and sucked in more and more knowledge. After a while though, just like The Machine became that old toaster, and the trip to the shops became a pain in the ass, all the things around you grew familiar and unremarkable (everything except your own doodle, that is). Moreover, as you got older, the people around you expected you to know more and more too, even actively ridiculing you if you didn’t know. Bam! You’re an adult now and people pay you to know! (You’d better not admit that you’re still in awe of that old toaster.)

So once you’re an expert in all that once-incredible stuff around you (and even in accounting or conveyancing law, as your boss and peers demand you to be) how are you expected to keep that wide-eyed, youthful attitude? Well, most people don’t. They build their lives becoming the all-knowledgeable experts of everything around them. The unknown stuff takes on a more sinister shade. If they don’t know it by now, it’s probably not worth knowing. There’s probably not that much out there that they don’t know by now anyway. It could even be dangerous out there in amongst all that stuff they don’t know. Uh oh – they’ve “grown up”.

But hold on. Believe it or not, there is a place where mind-blowing discoveries still exist. There’s a place where, not only is it OK to admit that you don’t know stuff, but the people around you wont even expect you to know about the simplest things – as fundamentally simple even as how to talk. In fact, these people will probably be really encouraging about showing you this stuff – and they’ll take infinite delight in the way you marvel at stuff that, to them, is as boring as that old toaster. That place is, of course, everywhere on earth that you haven’t been yet. A trip to the shops on the corner becomes a voyage of discovery again. It’s filled with weird, colourful things with squiggly lines instead of what you’d call words – there could be ANYTHING in those packets! New sights and sounds arrest you in the streets and new smells and tastes astound you at every meal time. And what the hell is that thing??? You put dried corn in that side and out comes flat bread at the other end (You’re in Mexico now, and it’s a boring old tortilla mill). And that little intricately decorated doll house in the corner of the room? (You’re in your Japanese friend’s Tokyo flat and it’s a shrine to their ancestors – every house has got one, obviously)

You flounder at meeting people – suddenly you’re learning to make new sounds with your mouth and getting amazing results from the people you’re trying to communicate your intentions to. Good for you – you’re saying your first words all over again! – only now it’s called “learning a new language”, and it’s not merely “something expected of you” – it’s actually amazing and highly valued – it might even help you land that new job. You realise there’s so much out there that you don’t know, and you embrace that fact and run to it, wide-eyed and thirsting for discovery. You’re absorbing new things – you’re developing! Congratulations. You’ve got your youthful drive. You know what? As long as you’re travelling new places and discovering, you’re pretty much a youngster, no matter how many candles on your cake. Just remember that, next time you make yourself some boring old breakfast.

Turns out Cambodian Rock is shit hot

All, Inspire

It’s Nottingham, 2007, and our Rat’s at uni. One of her much cooler housemates’ boyfriends is banging on about some Cambodian Surf Party a kid in the block was having last night. It sounds like another one of those ketamine fuelled, retro-novelty vegan crunk nights. The hipsters were in incubation, bringing a wave of obscure vinyl-kitsch in their wake, and with our Rat and pals being of the more breakbeat-inclined ilk, no one is paying much attention.

Fast-forward to 2013, a beach in Thailand. “These buckets are ace”, says hot-bod Nick. “Where should we head next? I hear Cambodia is totally intense, man,” replies Toby, his brand-new ‘sexy man discount’ bamboo tattoo gleaming in the sunset. “You can shoot a cow with a bazooka”. Nick stirs his Samsong & Coke. “Yeah, I heard Phnom Penh’s pretty happening right now. Like, for travellers, not tourists, ya know?” “Yah, totes”…. *slurp*. Aside from the usual war and genocide history, Nick and Toby find themselves in for a treat, when they hit the big city lights of Cambodia’s capital city 3 months and roughly 800 buckets later. Our Rat shares a 6-hour train ride with them, discovering an actually genuinely interesting bunch of dudes behind the Gap Yah facade. She also realizes, that she’s gonna have to retrospectively give credit to her otherwise obnoxious involuntary housemate. Turns out, the Cambodian rock scene is something pretty special.

Rewind to the 1950s. Southeast Asia has its ancient cultural routes on display all over the place, whilst each region is heavily entwined in it’s own political struggles against ex-colonial powers as well as the big players of the 20^th century. Europe and America are bracing themselves after decades of armed conflict. Re-building after WW2 and learning to deal with the challenges of modern life and technological innovation (microwaves!), the focus of most people is placed firmly in the west. But at the height of the Cold War, Princes and Princesses, CIA and KGB, foreign schooled rich-kids and radio-obsessed poor kids, diplomats and degenerates were all dancing to a new beat in a far away kingdom.

Cambodia in the 1950s had one of the most vibrant and advanced music scenes in the whole of Asia. Phnom Penh’s dance halls were raving with Big Band music and the cities’ foreign-schooled elite brought back the newest records by Perry Como, Pat Boone and Frank Sinatra when returning during summer breaks from university in Paris. Even the rats were sneaking in through the back entrance to catch a soiree of Petticoats & Dreamboats. King Sihanouk’s rule was fraught with poverty and political repression, but creativity and artistic expression were widely encouraged and supported. Whilst playing dangerous political hot potato, breaking ties with the USA, hosting a visit from Jackie Kennedy, allowing North Vietnam to build bases and relying on the good will of China (yah, good luck with that one), the King found time to play the saxophone, piano and clarinet as well as composing and often performing songs in English, French and Khmer, with his wife Norodom Monineath.

The 60s and 70s saw the Cambodian popular music scene explode with it’s own version of rock n roll as rich-kid bedrooms as well as rural homes blared with the music filling the airwaves from GI radio, stationed just across the border during the Vietnam War (1962-1975). Kids all over the place were coming up with their own versions, mixing Khmer lyrics, microtonal singing, Farfisa organs and rocky guitar solos with the sounds of The Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, CCR and The Doors. Combining Elvis and Frank Sinatra in one Cambodian swoon-inducing persona, Sin Sisamoth is still considered the greatest Cambodian Singer of all time. Here’s a direct Sin-Elvis comparison (Elvis sings second). Ros Sereysothea, Cambodia’s answer to Janis Joplin, was named “The Golden Voice of the Royal Capital” by King Sihanouk himself. If you’re into Jefferson Airplane, you’ve got to give this a listen. It’s pretty wonderful. Pan Ron is another famous name who joined the creative powerhouse of Cambodia’s musical triumphs of the 60s and 70s, publishing an impressive amount of vinyl, from romantic ballads to psychedelic surf-pop with a hint of afro-cuban influence from artist like Santana.

As well as music, film was big on the agenda. King Sihanouk was into making feature films. How does he find the time, you ask? Well, he was kind of a big deal. He inevitably won the annual Cambodian Film festival he organized. Think of it as the good old days when Schumacher always won the Formula 1, but who came 2^nd and 3^rd was the really interesting bit, as the festival gave voice to other Cambodian film makers on a regular basis. “What? Modernity in the unenlightened East?” we hear the cynics amongst you cry out. We’re not for a moment suggesting that Cambodia’s adoption of western music and art themes is some sort of quaint colonial imitation. Cultures all over the world inspire each other, but the rate at which rock and roll was released in the west and adapted, with an incredibly short time lag, into Cambodian popular music is exceptional.

And just as quick as a track was transformed from a Liverpool vinyl press to a popular Cambodian dance track, it all ended abruptly with the rise in power of the Khmer Rouge. You can read up on the details of the horrors of the Cambodian Genocide between 1975 and 1979, but for this post’s purposes, it suffices to say that this incredible creative scene was obliterated completely with the targeting of intellectuals, artists, ‘decadent’ western influencers and the killing of over 2 million Cambodians. Famous faces found it impossible to hide, but some backing vocalists, drummers, guitar and bass players managed to pass themselves off as peasants and some survived the hard labour.

What little of this once unstoppable scene was left after the Khmer Rouge was traumatised and stripped of its identity. The assembly of the 2014 documentary on Cambodian Rock & Roll “Don’t think I’ve forgotten” is little short of a miracle, as most footage, photography and music recordings from the era were destroyed to save people’s lives from Pol Pot’s state police. Nevertheless, some brave souls hung on to fragments of the time, despite the danger. The re-building of Cambodia’s rock culture and abundance of gigs in modern-day Phnom Penh are easy to take for granted, but are a true testament to Cambodia’s cultural spirit that survived near destruction to become so incredibly vibrant today.

So, you want to get your teeth into some Surf Rock? Hell, yeah you do! If you’re a start-way-back-from-the-beginning kind of girl or guy, check out the Rough Guide to Psychedelic Cambodia compilation album. or Parallel Lines’ Cambodia Rocks. For something more contemporary, listen to the epic sounds of Khmer singer Srey Channthy and her Aussie Band lead by Julien Poulson as she sings “Whisky Cambodia”. It almost fits into the Suckerpunch soundtrack, and just check out that digeridoo. Now hear her band The Cambodian Space Project not taking themselves too seriously in “Have Visa No Have Rice”. LA-Cambodia collaborative band Dengue Fever also rips it up with psychedelic tunes to accompany your next acid trip (or Asda trip if you’re not into drugs).

Somewhat reminiscent of living the expat dream finally-being-in-a-band-here-when-people-at-home-would-have-laughed-or-beaten-me-up, Leicester born rapper Gobshite (you do it to yourself, bro) is making his name in Phnom Penh. Whatever your taste, his teaming up with local rapper Chally Dang (aka Prolyfik) and Srey Leak is creating an interesting mix of old Khmer styles and modern urban arts, which may be the accessible middle way for teenage inner-city Brits to explore more of Cambodia’s musical culture.

And just at the right time, as Cambodian contemporary art is spreading through Phnom Pen’s galleries such as Meta House, The Java Café & The Bophana Centre and hits the world stage in New York. Rity Panh of the Bophana Centre received Cambodia’s first ever Academy Award nomination in 2014 for the animation “The Missing Picture”, whilst the Insitut Francais du Cambodge runs an urban art festival showcasing work by Lisa Mam, Peap Tar and Fonki, who spend their time painting awesome stuff on bars, advertising, restaurants and hotels, rivalling Ernest Zacharevic’s world-famous work in Penang. International ‘graffiti tourists’ such as the UK based ‘world domination’ group, come, paint and leave, reflecting graffiti as the art of the lower class, who don’t have the money for high-brow gallery work, but steal cans and paint guerrilla style where their finished work can’t be ignored. Paradoxically, this ‘art by the poor’ model doesn’t sit well with Cambodian Buddhism, as stealing is out of the question and kids need people like Benjamin Pecquer, Cambodia’s country manager for Skatistan, to allow them to use his HQ as a canvass. Norodom Blv also has pretty good graffiti, check our Lee Bo’s “Global Street Art” web archive next time you’re planning a trip to the capital.

All in all, Cambodia has a hell of a lot to offer and its unique positioning that encourages art and musical crossover has created some surprisingly awesome stuff. So next time you feel like throwing a little hippy revival soiree with your unenlightened mates, make them actually listen to some Cambodian Surf Rock. Our Rat would have had her pointy ears opened to a whole world of wonder back in 2007’s draughty, pot-noodle filled kitchen, and would have been telling Nick and Toby all about her amazing discoveries on the way to Aranyaprathet, instead of the other way round. On that note, you should definitely read the short guide on shit to say to backpackers. And get your mits on some Cambodian Space Project vinyl, apart from being awesome, it might even qualify to make you a bit of a hipster.

Of ancient temples, glowing oceans and new beginnings: Cambodia

All, Destinations

Thailand is diverse, yes, and distinctly Thai all over – green curry and lemongrass, laid-back beach boys and lady boys laying back. It’s a sophisticated up-and-comer with a cool middle-class that loves skinny-mocha-latte-frappuccinos and travelling the world. Bangkok is ablaze with passion, neon, creativity, vice and above all, vibe. Laos too, has a distinct flavour. Its natural beauty is breathtaking; the people are genuine and extravagantly generous with their smiles. Their history of invasions and secret wars is harsh and life is hard – but simple – and in one way or another, almost entirely dependent on the mighty, glorious Mekong River that holds the country up from Northwest to Southeast like an ever flowing spine.

But what do we capture when we need to wrap everything we experienced in Cambodia into 90 seconds of digital visuals for our latest project for Stray Asia?

Let’s take its history: Reaching way back, we have the most powerful and robust relic of all of ancient South East Asia – Angkor Wat. Built around 900 years ago, it’s staunch, sculpted stone walls and thrillingly intricate spires tower over the jungle and dominate all constructions in SE Asia bar the most recent of skyscrapers. It’s the jewel of a massive 1000sqkm temple and ancient city complex, atmospherically only partially reclaimed from the jungle into which it was lost by 1300AD, way before Angelina Jolie clambered seductively around Wat Tha Phrom in the perfect set for Tomb Raider. Angkor Wat is even the centrepiece for the nation’s flag and pride, and many visitors to the country come to see this impressive place, and almost nothing else.

Those that do stick around to explore Cambodia a little further often find themselves entering the dark domain of one of the most destructive and depraved eras in human history. Rural born Saloth Sar, who later adopted the name ‘Pol Pot’ (short for ‘Political Potential’) led the nation to catastrophe in the 1970’s in his attempt to re-boot society. He envisioned a simpler lifestyle of agrarian self-sufficiency – a brand of communism that would see society return to the iron-age.

When his party, the Khmer Rouge, came to power in 1975 he declared it “year zero”. It seems he attempted to “fix” the issues he perceived by switching society off and switching it on again – only “switching it off” meant exterminating anyone who stood for society’s progression or the betterment of themselves and their lifestyles. Doctors, teachers, engineers and academics were first – rounded up, tortured, worked to the bone and often killed – most of the time along with their families. With the utter breakdown of society that followed, millions more starved. You can go see the evidence today in a Phnom Penh middle school transformed into hell, where innocent people were imprisoned and tortured, and many died. It’s now a gory museum, Tuol Sleng, otherwise known as S-21.

Then there’s “the killing fields”. The remnants of a human slaughter factory turned into a memorial site and museum is sadly only one of dozens of similar (but as yet closed to public) sites in the country. In the most graphic but poignant of ways you can pay your respects before a towering stupa filled with the skulls and bones of over 3000 victims of Pol Pot’s regime, the evidence of their violent deaths brutally apparent in the holes, slashes and fractures of their remains. The killing fields are gut wrenchingly confrontational, yet an incredibly important experience to appreciate Cambodia as a whole. Go there, stare the darkest aspect of human nature in the eye sockets and be thankful for the life you’ve led. Reflect on what you can do to make sure humankind doesn’t try to dissolve itself again.

Pol Pot didn’t quite see his dream realised. Once the world understood what was happening, the Vietnamese army rolled in to salvage what it could of Cambodia. What was left of the country (only about ½ the population by that stage) put its strongest, bravest foot forward to start the long, slow battle towards a better life. And they’ve come a long way. Whilst this part of Cambodian history cannot be ignored, neither can the backdrop to this tragedy – the pure physical beauty of the country. Lush, green rice fields and one of planet earth’s most unique, reversible river-systems, the Tonle Sap, which runs inland in the dry season and back out to sea in the wet, like an enormous lung, breathing in and out with the rhythm of the tropical seasons.

We are welcomed by dozens of laughing, curious kids at our homestay near Battambang, who can’t wait to show us around the neighbourhood, play catch in the rice paddies and leap headfirst into haystacks to see who can bounce off furthest. Whilst the owners of our stilt hut for the night share a communal bucket shower with adventurous (maybe just sweaty) members of our group, others cook mouth-watering dinner. A local group of musicians have a night off and play music so we can join in dancing with the elders. Everyone is so genuinely sweet and interested; we leave reluctantly the following morning.

Then there are the gorgeous beaches and islands off Sihanoukville in the south. A thumping seaside hedonist resort around Serendipity Beach, the further away beaches are idyllic and splashed with sumptuous colour every sunset – go there and you might just catch the best sunset you’ve ever seen in your life. Get to Koh Tunsay (Rabbit Island) to swim through the shimmering green phosphorescence at its brightest under a new moon after the generators are switched off for the night, or explore the salt & pepper farms around Kampot that flavour Cambodia’s tastiest national dishes. Finally, you’ll have to be bunkered up in your hotel room with food poisoning to miss the coolness of the capital Phnom Penh. Big city lights, bustling makeshift markets, artistic community projects that rival Siem Reap’s fantastic Cambodian youth circus (a MUST visit!), amazing food and world-class street art grapple for your attention.

So how do you wrap all that up in 90 seconds without being all doom and gloom, without ignoring the ghastliness or not taking things seriously? How do you capture the darkness and the light? What is Cambodia’s flavour?

The common thread to these stories was standing right by us the whole time. It was plainly evident in the curiosity and welcome on the faces of the people of Cambodia. Energy and sass of the youth and wisdom and wrinkles beyond words in those old enough to remember. And in every face blinking back at us, whether in smile or in furrow, was hope moving forward. Something we recognise easily, and probably the best thing in all our faces.

Rat & Dragon found hiding under Burmese lady’s skirt

All, Destinations

We admit it. We’ve been in hiding. A whole month and a half without a word, even a simple little ‘boo!’ failed to emerge from the Casa del Rat & Dragon. (Unless you have us on twitter/instagram of course). Our mothers have been worried, our younger siblings moving into our metaphorical bedrooms and our friends, well… probably just thinking ‘bet they got stuck in some jungle waterfall or super-secret hilltop rave pad in Borneo. Bloody typical’.

Fear not, dear (otherwise avid) readers. For we are back. Back from the jungle of our own minds, from a journey that took us from dodging crocs in northern Queensland to working the fields of central New South Wales to careering around the hinterlands of Cambodia with a bus full of off-the-hook nut-jobs to conquering the mystical backpacker Eden of Myanmar.

As we emerge from the little hideout we shared with Tanaka-Tigerbaby, blinking into the bright daylight of what some refer to as ‘the civilized world’, we find ourselves in one piece but also split to opposite ends of the globe. In the next few weeks, our Dragon will be reporting from the front line of the centre of the universe (also called ‘London’) and our Rat is on standby during her rural work and can be spotted climbing the coconut trees to get reception in the middle of nowhere (also called ‘a farm and hour’s drive from Spot X’). Bring binoculars and avoid early mornings.

You have been patient. You have grown your Karma points beyond belief. But in the next few weeks, hold your horses. For you’re about to be rewarded by having a humongous amount of awesomeness pour straight into your retinas.

Fishing for monsters (by beginners)

All, Learn

Queensland. Some call it the Texas of Australia. Some call it ‘the place so humid, no one actually lives there’. Some call it the Sunshine State, and our Dragon, well, he calls it home. With a plethora of backpacker-catnip along the East Coast, you’d be forgiven for bypassing unassuming and confusingly named Townsville. Yep, it’s the place you get the bus to, to get the ferry to Magnetic Island, where you really wanna be going. It’s the place where the Powerpuff girls live. It’s also the place that has three major events on the annual calendar (if you go by what the locals say): the first is any Cowboys Rugby League game, the second is the V8 Supercars convention, and the third is the opening of Barramundi season.

As a city girl, it’s never even occurred to me (Rat) to go fishing. As a Townsville guy, it’s never even occurred to our Dragon to not go fishing. So after a month solid of 10 hour editing days powerhousing two series of 7 films each and another 2 projects from scratch, we were waiting for feedback and took an afternoon to explore the local delight that is the hunt for barra.

3pm, we’re at a friend’s loading up his boat with rods, fishing line, hand reels, cooking utensils, sausages and beer. In Queensland, I am told, you can have a beer without fishing, but don’t go fishing without a beer. We head off past idyllic beach fronts, through lush green jungle canopies, past a Mac Donalds and along a dual carriage way. A sharp turn brings the ute (pickup truck and pride & joy of any self-respecting Townsvillleite) careering down a steep gravel path to a small car park and the well-camouflaged boat ramp. We crack the soft drinks. Beer is only allowed after catching the first fish, but seeing as JD & Coke in a can counts as a soft drink, reversing the boat down the ramp and into the river goes like a well oiled dream. A dream involving a 15 part turn.

Our captain Jimbo opens the throttle and we speed down the river with the wind in our hair and the smell of wet dog in out nostrils. We zoom past more lush greenery towards what appears to be a huge concrete H blighting the otherwise idyllic scenery. We come to a standstill right underneath a motorway bridge and strap our boat to one of the pylons. Really? Is my first thought. All this beautiful fauna around and we’re heading straight for the eyesore? “This is the best fishin威而鋼
g spot in Queensland”, pipes up Jimbo, and with that launches into a 7 hour on off conversation about how he’s caught the biggest fish and the best fish out of everyone he knows, right here at this secret spot. Not that he seemed to have been many other places, but why fix something that’s not broken?

Dear reader, now comes the squeamish part. If you are vegetarian on moral grounds, or a member of PETA, or watch Sea Shepherd, or believe that anyone who doesn’t leave animals be in their ‘natural’ habitat is evil, please stop reading now and skip one of our other blog posts. Here’s a good one on fun you can have with road kill. Maybe not that one. Please also stop buying suede belts from Topshop, check your new yoga trainers for white-brushed leather, stop using plastic and chuck out all your cosmetics containing palm oil.

For you bloodthirsty adventurers, this is where is gets interesting, and there are different types of fishing. You can throw big cast net into the water using a spiralling action to maximise the surface area, and you pull in anything that gets caught. You can spear your fish with a bamboo spear from a rock outside the water, you can wade and spear or get yourself a spear gun and snorkel/dive and pretend to be James Bond.

The most commonly known way to get dinner is probably with a rod and a hooked worm, and again this is only one way to do it. Fly-fishing is an art form within itself and involves complex feathered and knotted fake insects and special techniques to coax the fish to the hook at the end of your line. Lure-fishing allows you to try out an enormous array of different multi coloured plastic or metal fish that simulate a swimming dinner for a bigger fish, right up to attracting Marlin in deep sea areas. Apparently it’s not how tasty the lures look, but how pretty they seem to the fish, which encourages our aquatic friends to give them a bite. For the real Bear Grills types, there is bait fishing. You can use little hand reels, i.e. a plastic circle with fishing line wound round it and dead bait attached to the hook at the end – chopped up liver works a treat, so do grubs, pieces of fish, squid and prawns you can buy deep frozen from a fishing shop. And this is how you catch live bait, which is exactly what we were up to under out motorway bridge.

Sitting there with music blaring, all four of us chatted away about fishing exploits and nothing else. I didn’t have much to say, this being the second time in my life I was at the other end of a hooked line (the first time I was 6 in a trout farm in Austria, and I think I got quite a bit of help). As the afternoon progresses the narrative fish get bigger and more ferocious. The circumstances harder, the bravery peaks in a story of catching a mythically large barramundi in what sounds like a cyclone. Graham sharply pulls at his little blue circle of fishing line and yanks a little stripy fish about the size of my palm out of the water. First bait is caught, deposited in a special compartment at the rear of the boat that lets in fresh river water to keep the little ‘Barra Mars Bars’ alive and the first beer is cranked. The second yank is mine, another little unsuspecting nibble turns out to be a hell of a journey for a spiky little black and yellow striped bait fish. I have to carefully smooth down his dorsal spikes so I don’t get jabbed as I pull the hook out of his lip and get him to the wet box as quickly as possible, before he wriggles around enough to scare me into letting him go. K-SHHHHHHHH I’ve earned my beer.

As it gets darker, we catch more, 15 in total, and Graham who is by far the best hooks a turtle. Don’t confuse them with uber cool dude Crush from Finding Nemo, these river turtles are ugly and they stink to high heaven. We unhook him and are glad when he disappears off to where he came from. During the spectacular sunset we move the boat out from under the bridge for the ultimate showdown of the day – using our live bait to catch what will hopefully turn out to be a monster barramundi. Quick reminder that this is my first proper time fishing. I have no childhood memories or familiar fondness to connect to what we’re doing. To me, the fishing shops we visited earlier during the day may just as well have been huge warehouses filled with millions of different coloured key rings and a wetsuit or two. But as the sky turns blood red and purple, and we set up for the hunt, I find myself feeling quite excited.

First, we need some decent tunes. Rage against the machine takes over from N’Sync. The little camping stove is fired up for dinner. We’re hardly in the open roaring ocean but after 5 hours under the bridge seeing the sky makes me feel a little bit like we’re in open water. We take it in turns to scoop a bait fish out of the wet box, hold it so it can’t squirm out of our hands or spike us, and hook it onto our bigger barra hooks. This is probably the ickiest part, but at the same time the hook is best placed where it harms the fish the least, so it can happily swim around the longest to attract a barra munch. Different people do different things, some hook through the back above the spine, some through the lip, we hook ours into the mouth and out through the forehead. This has several advantages, first it misses all vital organs and blood supply keeping the fish alive and wriggling temptingly. Secondly, when you drag the fish back in when it’s wondered too far, you are dragging it in the direction it would usually swim, not against the grain, as a back hooking would.

We let our little fishies swim for it. Put our rods that were unknown to our bait and target still firmly attached in the rod holders around the side of the boat and watched the line as it wandered around the boat following the fish exploring. Chatting away about – you guessed it – fishing, we sat, sipped our beers and watched the sausages sizzle. A couple of times, when the lines looked like they would tangle due to our fishies wondering, we reeled them in again, and let them run in a different direction. I felt a little bit like I was taking 4 small fish on leads for a walk around the park.

The sausages were cooking away nicely and I was just reeling in my little dude who was chilling under the boat too close to the anchor line when BOOOM – something massive tugged at the line. Within lightning speed, the half cooked sausages and gas stove where stored away and everyone’s lines were brought in. Instructions were given from all sides, but no one touched me or my rod, I had to do this on my own. I had never realised that fish are caught in sport on lines that only hold a certain amount of strain, measured in kilos. The thrill comes from letting a hooked fish run, then slowly reeling it in, then letting it run again if it does, then slowly reeling it in, all without breaking the line. The lower strain the line can take makes the bigger the fish you caught even sweeter. Suddenly the prestige of “I caught a 10kg tilapia on a 5kg line” made total sense. The extreme case of the chase can lead whole boats following a fish on the other end of one guy’s line, to avoid breaking it before the fish tires out. This can take hours and hours, with no guarantee that he will get away last minute. Cue more cyclone/shark infested water/”it was bigger than my auntie” stories from the crew.

And so I carefully reeled, waited, lost line, gained line and brought the fish closer and closer to the boat, without seeing what it was. Suddenly it jumped out of the water 2 meters from the boat, to my delight (it wasn’t an eel!) and the other’s horror (this is when fish are most likely to get unhooked). I got lucky though and reeled him in again, and again until he flopped into a net. In the boat, everyone cheered. It was a big one. The minimum size you can keep is 58cm length, this means that there are enough baby fish to keep the species alive and kicking (or swimming). The mythical size everyone wants to catch is over 1m. The biggest fish the boat had ever caught was 89cm. This one was 75cm long. Despite my previous indifference, some primeval funny bone had been tickled deep inside my Neanderthal brain matter. Seeing the fish I had just single-handedly caught was awesome, and thanks to barra season officially open, it also tasted awesome the following day.

Many sports fishing enthusiasts will unhook the fish, possibly tag it, and then let it go. Cue forehead slaps and confused looks from our Indonesian and Laosian friends. But I wanted the full experience, and you learn something new each day, if you try new things. Whilst I don’t think I’ll be swapping an opportunity for a great discussion on some lofty subject amongst good friends with sitting under a bridge with a line and raw liver all over my hands, I can now say I have an idea how to survive on a desert island. And that’s quite a skill to have acquired.

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