Richard Stupart

With a number of months still to go before I can really get out and travel again (to Ethiopia this time),  there is some comfort to being able to roll like a pig in a sty through so many interesting pictures from previous trips.  Being something of a photomaniac, there are hundreds of pics from past adventures sitting on my computer – each with its own little story that usually causes the onset of a silly-looking smile. This is one of those.

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It was liberating to escape for an evening with a friend I have known forever – sitting on the roadside in a fat sofa with coffee and cocktails and watching the traffic – human and vehicle, strange and ordinary – passing by. Its those evenings when an hour turns to three and you can feel yourself physically melting into the night air, as your conversations – like a good book – start to straddle that space between talking about things and reliving those memories. This was a friend I had been to Laos with, during our Southeast Asia adventures last year, and the conversation invariably returned to the magical places we had seen. The reckless things we had done.

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Its a funny thing. Tripping down to Cape Town and booking into the Carnival Court backpackers (a fantastic little place if you are ever in the area and have need of a backpackers) and noticed a possible trend here. In Bangkok, those who have been will know about Khaosan Road – that noisy, messy, party filled wonderland of food and clubs and backpackers, spilling hippies and adventurers onto the road until the wee hours of the morning. Equally, in Vietnam, it was Pham Ngu Lao – the backpacker ghetto where all of the wealth of the world’s travellers condense into a humid, vietnamese mess of bars and buying and weird and wonderful guest houses crammed thick on the roadside.

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Again a quiet night, again another urge to write something. Having finally gotten around to the more-taxing-than-expected task of compiling various footage and pics from the Southeast Asia adventure into a documentary DVD thing, I have found myself giggling again like a small child at our silly antics, remembering the sadness of places like Choueng Ek and reliving parts of the trip I had forgotten in the time since. When complete, the video is intended to be a series of chapters reminiscing over key points in our travels – the things we got up to, the sights we saw and just generally taking people back briefly to that feeling of adventure one last time. It’s a useful antidote to the real world.

While the video is taking its sweet time to get made (It is tough. I am trying, and thanks to my brother and feedback from Jonathan, I may yet get it right), I have at least produced a poster. No, I don’t have a proper reason for having made one – it just seemed like a fun thing to do. If you like it, click the pic and you can download the full size version, which prints deliciously on A2 gloss paper, and will enhance all but the most terminally boring wall.

It is ten years since the death of Pol Pot – let’s hope that time will not deny the people of Cambodia the opportunity to hold the remaining Khmer Rouge figureheads responsible.

“Beauty is fleeting and arrives on its own terms always.

Holding onto it is little more than caging the wind.”

At long last, I have finally gotten around to framing the pics from the South East Asian adventure. Not all of them, mind you, as 12Gb of printed photos would probably pave a road from here to Krugersdorp (yes, that is how much footage we managed to take off our four or so cameras). As someone who has framed less pictures than he would have fingers left after a horrific machinery accident, a great deal of thought has gone into the enterprise. My general attitude towards framing pictures was that it is little more than a desperate attempt to fill empty space with sickening pictures of chubby nephews and baby photos. Which I would love to record with the same zest and vigour as high resolution images of athlete’s foot.

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Firstly, apologies for the lack of fresh thinking, writing, or even a moderately intellectual spit onto this blog in a while. It’s funny (strange, not hilarious) how the work of, well, work, can get in the way of more creative and emotionally worthwhile activities. Like Poi, for example. I blame Sam for this affliction (mostly), since it was her who explained to me what the coloured balls on string in the Khaosan Road market were, and how one was meant to swing them around to great theatrical effect. What happened after that has been largely a product of my own obsession and stubborn desire to master the activity, despite the necessary damage to light fittings, myself and my pride required when attempting the more exotic maneuvers. Read the rest of this entry »

Written on 9 Jan, while in Cambodia

Before I begin this post, I wish to share my irritation with the Cambodian government. We are in a bus on the way to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam (Saigon) and it is bouncing around like a rubber ball on amphetamines. It is bouncing and rocking so much that Andrew has taken to making whooping cowboy motions as we go. This in turn makes typing a grammatically and syntactically correct post difficult. Why is this happening, you ask? It is not the bus, as I have had far smoother rides on far worse buses, and this bus is by no means the dog of the Cambodian fleet. I am bouncing and rolling around because the fucking bus has no road. This is the route connecting two of the largest cities in this area of the world and it has no tar.

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Another day, another dispatch. Travel is nothing if not a long and painful lesson in new experiences and the painful consequences for my fragile little self. In the last few days, I have learned at least two new lessons. These little nuggets of wisdom are, I believe, rather universal in their application and lesson-imparting wisdomnicity.
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