Rewriting

I had finally found the courage to come back and write. I have been living and living the last year and life took much away from writing, but certainly not thinking. I wrote frequently in my journal as a way of documenting myself. I have decided to rewrite the last year here as I write the present, to clarify my own life story, one that has been a series of dreams in my fatigued head.

Its hard to imagine that one year ago, on this very day, I was on board a 3rd class train from Bangkok to the ancient city of Sukhothai. I can still hear that 8 hour train ride to Phitsanoulok rattling as I travelled northward to Sukhothai...

"The 7th of July,2008

Bright yellow cracked seats, pastel green window frames and peeling blue floor boards. I'm on board an open air, one way hobo heartland to Phitsanoulok to stay for the night at some $4 hostel before continuing my journey to the old kingdom of Sukhothai. The scenary outside is pastorally pleasant - fertile green rice fields, withering shadows of slow moving men bent over at work, the occasional buffalo. The scene inside, however was a different story.

I miraculously dozed off for the first hour but woke up abruptly to the smell of dried fish. The food vendors with their big straw hats had come on board and I found myself dodging bunches of fish that were inches away from my face. The people sitting across the aisle looked at me warily - they knew i was not local. My back pack was dubiously placed on a broken luggage compartment and it's straps were loosely flapping in the wind outside the window. A kind middle aged lady with her old blind mother smiled at me from the aisle. And then there was the drunk lady sitting across from me, who had been mumbling to herself since she came on board.

Realizing I was very unfortunately placed across from her, I moved closer to the window, letting the high speed wind whip my hair around. Holding her empty Chang bottle, she moves to the seat next to me. The smell of alcohol and sadness hit me in one swift moment. No, she didn't look dirty or homeless. She just looked very drunk, but she was properly dressed and she even had a pleasant face. She tells me that she has been drinking for 2 days, since her husband left her with nothing, for another woman. Cynics will tell you to be careful, that this is how a scam begins and that you will lose your wallet in the end. Human instinct tells me she had a story to tell. In between slurring obnoxious jokes in broken english and crying while saying " I love him so much", I felt a surge of compassion at this genuinely helpless sight.

Some moments, she would break into a drunken song and apologize to me for being like this. She kept apologizing over and over, as if there was a well of guilt she had to unload. I asked her about the huge scars on her arm, they were large and evil looking like tentacles chaining her arms. She kept silent and smiled. Then she cried and told me rather irrelevantly that she was working as a construction worker to support her husband. She was on her way to look for him to see him for the last time, because she hated him and she loved him at the same time. I told her that she could be better than this, she spoke english and she knew that she was in a sorry state. "But I love him so much..." she trails off falling into deep sleep, to a place better than the one she is in now.

I realized that love, even obsessive and unfair love was the greatest thing she could achieve in her small world of pain. Love makes the smallest person feel noble and immortal, even if there was nothing heroic about how things have turned out. This is one lady who simply could not let go of the one thing that made her feel closer to humanity.

Just before I get off the train, she wakes up and tells me humbly that she was glad to have met me and to go to the temple to pray for her because she was going to end her life. She was going to leave this world, unwilling and unable to let go of her past. There is a stillness in her eyes that makes you feel like you are already staring at someone who has died. I tell her to be strong. At the next stop, she smiles at me and gets off the train in silence. Suddenly, I feel the urge to get off and tell her not to do anything stupid. In a flash, the train moves off and I look at the empty space next to me. The man who had been standing for close to 3 hours moves into the seat and offers me and the people around me rambutans and everyone eats them heartily while introducing ourselves. And that woman becomes a forgotten figure, left behind with her own forgotten past."

when ash becomes gold.

I haven't had the heart to write for what feels like the longest time. its the process of thinking, absorbing and accepting that we humans go through. I find that i am quick in discovering and learning truths, but so very slow in absorbing and accepting them. a part of me has died with acceptance that can only be true because of its finality. i know the half heart that once stirred recklessly has beat itself to death. for awhile i was mourning, some times i still indulge in that heavy hearted feeling. but yesterday, as i stayed up meandering through my books, i saw the sun rise. i had never seen the sky with so much clarity - the perspective was so intense i felt must had been noon white light, only the cool breath of dawn reminded me that it was only 7 in the morning. it was moment where my past, present and future intertwined to a point of purity, distilled to a mere drop of happiness. I'm done with the past, and i've found peace at least. some quiet contentment, aligned with a strange source of strength. all fear melted then. it wasn't just the sun's tendrils that were caressing me, it was peace and silence. i never felt true-ness like this before, where everything was dissolved into a moment of stillness. that was truth. the light of it, in one moment the darkness had left me behind, abandoning the home it loved for years leaving me hollow and blank like a child in the withered bark of a tree again.

Angkor revisited

All that stuck with me 2

Vietnamese tea!


The traffic at Donc Khoi Market


Ho Chi Minh War Museum





NYE at Lan Kwai Fong


Causeway bay from the tram


Hong Kong Bay


The Three Hostesses!

I've stepped into a whirlwind - and been enjoying it. In less than 3 months I have travelled to 5 countries, started 2 work projects, made 2 new friends, caught up with 4 old ones and lost 2.

December. A christmas party with my 2 new friends, Amandae and Sin Yee aka my All Woman Empowering Solidarity Group and it was amazing! Somehow about 50-60 turned up during the course of the night with over 20 bottles of alcohol not including beer into a mid sized apartment on Kiliney rd. The police were invited to join us, lots of laughter, wine spilling, good music, hook ups and one friend's shirt caught on fire. I

The rest of December was history - i spent christmas having a nice quiet dinner with the girls and spent the 28th dancing wildly in 4 inch stilettos to David Guetta and shouting along with the French crowd. The next day i almost missed my flight to Hong Kong. I didn't like the place at all but it was nice catching up with old friends. Too many people, buildings and it didn't help that the apartment i was staying in was filthy. Completely uninspiring. I welcomed the new year, barricaded away from the main street (thank god) at Lan Kwai Fong and toasted to vanilla ice cream while my friends had beer.

January was getting back into serious mode and alot of my time was spent working on my dad's project. I made a trip to Ho Chi Minh city for some business and the weekend after I went to Phi Phi island. I really liked the scenary - limestone cliffs, turqoise blue waters, black tipped sharks... not the sound of long tail motrs though.I had a room with a hammock at the balcony and it was well decorated. Couldn't help but feel a little creeped out thinking about the tsunami, but the feeling certainly isn't as strong as the time i was in Prey Veng province in Cambodia.

February is here. I'm about to turn 23. Just before the family holiday to Burma i went to Bangkok and it was great being "home". I did the usual circuit and I was happy to see that prices did not increase. The number of annoying ang mohs have. I was particularly peeved at this one guy staying on my floor at My Mom's Guesthouse who kept wearing shoes into the bathroom when the rule was to leave them downstairs. By midnight Khao San is a jungle full of chimpanzees and chickens, to the great relief of the women selling tribal hats and bells as they cajole one drunkard to another into buying their goods. The hair weavers by the sidewalk too, realize that after midnight there is a sudden increase in people who suddenly want corn rolls and braided hair. Bangkok does most of it's selling at night, and I always look forward to the morning after when they start playing Jack Johnson over and over again.

It is so different from Yangon. Everyone smiled quietly, ran their little stalls selling roasted corn or junk and occasionally looked at you as they grinned widely with red stained teeth. I met a monk at Shwedegon Pagoda, who spoke french to me and told me to look at the 76 carat diamond at the top of the pagoda. then he told me i was born in the year of the lion according to the burmese calender and then left.

I've lost some weight recently - physically and mentally. Perhaps thats why I've been writing less, and doing more. Somedays I automatically slip into sentimentality and nostalgia as if pulling my mind and body back, afraid to lose all that I used to hold on to.

postcards from an ancient world of wars, lanterns and pagodas

updates.

It's been close to 3 months since I wrote. Those happy European days left me behind as I returned to the murky waters of school. Time went by faster than I thought, and here I am with the exams to deal with. I travelled a little, most recently to Japan while the rest were weekend breaks to Thailand and Malaysia. I feel a little of me dying everyday.

in the last few months, i've been virtually immobile. i researched and wrote 2 papers on Cambodia, both revolving around the Khmer Rouge period. Other than that, i've barely found inspiration elsewhere. I've decided to start writing again. The last few months of silence were heavy and draining on me. i need a voice.

2 days in Paris

here I am back in Paris with 2 days left and a ton of writing to do on the rest of Italy and London. I spent the last few days meeting friends in Paris on bicycle, racing before any impending rain. Surprisingly, the French are kinder to cyclists than to their fellow drivers. Yesterday i was back in Montmatre, along the Rue de Abbèsses, a really charming street full of cafes and restos and had dinner at the Relais Gascon, a southern french restaurant serving huge salads with foie gras and chervrè chaud( hot goat cheese)and in the evening i visited my friend Berengère at her new apartment in the Latin Quartier near Sorbonne. I watched Paris, Je T'aime, a 2006 film about love in Paris which featured a bunch of big names in 5 minute stories. not very original, but it is really potent in showing the randomness and going ons in Paris, with those 18th/19th century facades as background. the film made me feel like i was part of all that, desptie all the strangeness, it made me feel like i belonged with all these people buying their bread, falling in love, arguing, smoking, feeling lonely, being alive.

A little bit of Fantasy.

The view of the Lovers Lane Tunnel.


A hallucinating sort of blue.


The bar where i spent my evenings.


Not such a good idea going down there now that i think about it.



Uphill to the church.


The eternal sunset.

A little bit of Fantasy.

The following excerpt was taken from one of my journal entries written while watching a glorious sunset over the Coast of Liguria from the village of Manarola in the UNESCO protected region of Cinque Terre.

" Imagine five little villages, so precariously perched on metres of sheer cliff, pulled relentlessly by the emerald blue green Mediterranean sea. This is the sort of place i am at right now, watching a spectacular performance of orange, red and pink. Such a scene is inhuman - so cruel for the way it ends so fast, and so beautiful that it is beyond human comprehension.

The train journey to these relatively-unknown-but-steadily-gaining-fame villages was quite a buildup. As the train ascended into the higher regions in between mountains (i knew this beacuse of the sudden strips of tunnels that we swerved in and out of as well as the frighteningly high bridges that connected the valleys) and past little streams, i realised how inaccessible the place was going to be. I admit that i felt a tinge of doubt. Just what if this place does not meet my expectations? I was also desperately waiting to see the sea, hoping that the train would choo choo along the coast, for it must, to get to the other villages. No such thing was to happen when i arrived at the first of the five villages, Riomaggiore, where i stayed. Instead, I got off in a dark and dingy tunnel, feeling completely vague and confused.

Then the vasteness of the sea hit me, as i walked out of the tunnel, smelling the salty air. The time was about 9 plus; the sun had just set leaving a trail of purple and blue. I was overlooking the most dramatic scenary I had ever seen; sheer cliff, valleys of olive terraces and the infinite horizon. Disbelief, I suppose, is the first reaction of a Singaporean living a cluttered life can feel at the sight of the immense space and openess ahead. After a long walk uphill to my very pleasant room, i went to the bar (very quickly becoming my favourite) that i spotted from the train station overlooking this scenary.

The next few days I did the activity that the five villages are most famous for: hike. A safe and well protected coatal footpath known as the Via dell Amore or Lovers Lane linked my village and Manarola and it continues on to Corniglia, Vernazza and then Monterosso. The total amount of hours spent walking - about 4 or 5 maximum. There were also stairways from the cliff going down towards the rocks where the brave and vain can walk then scale onto a suitably sized tanning rock. That said, it was the most beautiful walk I had ever taken in my entire life. Every moment had to be captured on camera; every moment was so beautiful. Besides the scenary, what struck me most pleasantly was the fact that it remains a true village, inhabitated by Italians who grow their own fruit, make their own wine and eat their own pesto. None of that touting or hawking nonsense, no cars even, just simple daily livelihood. In the afternoons, i love seeing the old people sitting on the sidewalks talking about their distant past, or gossipping away on nearby news. One of the days I hiked up to the highest point on Riomaggiore where there was a church, and i was surrounded by plots of lemon trees and grape vine plantations, terraced onto the sides of the mountain. So beautiful and rural.

The last few of the 7 days i spent in Cinque Terre, there was a sudden wash of waves onto the rocks. the ferry services were stopped and people were advised against swimming so I had time to sit on an inland rock and watch the relentless pounding. the sea is such a potent force of distraction. I felt heartbroken leaving this little crevice of harmony. I dont want it to change, i dont want the Americans to discover it, i want it to be just the way it is when i come back.

In fair Verona where we lay our scene

Excerpts from my journal on the way to Cinque Terre

The following excerpt was written in my journal on the train after I left Verona through the stretch of North Italy by train until i finally reached the Coast of Liguria where my destination was.

" Verona was as pretty as Venice, a sleepy sort of northern italian town with rolling green hills and cream coloured bridges that are overlooked by medieval monastries. The town boasts some fine roman architecture that few are aware of besides having the third biggest ancient colosseum in the world. Verona had taken me by surprise; it was much prettier than i had expected. the soothing atmosphere suited the place perfectly, the kind of place where you could hide under a tree and fall asleep, listening to leaves rustling and the whispers of time gone by. its too difficult to imagine the kind of turmoil described in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but certainly the love. I climbed to the top of one of the castellos and was offered one of the finest views of Verona - so typically italian with the orange roofs, green trees and clear blue sky.

I am currently on the Italian regional train and i have just passed Parma, which bequested to us ham of the same name. I avow to try some pesto in Cinque Terre, supposedly the regional specialty. So far on this train journey I have passed some of the oldest and most important cities ever to have existed. Though the Lombardy and Piedmontese regions, there was Padua the oldest of the Renaissance university towns, foothold of some of the greatest Humanists and supposedly the oldest city in Northern Italy. And then there was Mantua, surrounded by 3 placid lakes, founded as early as 2000BC and birth place of Virgil, then later seat of the powerful Gonzaga family. i pass the nothern highlands through the Emilio-Romagna region i pass Bologna and Ferrara rumoured to be very pretty also with the exception of Modena where the expensive automobiles are manufactured. Its amazing how these people actually live with the medieval churches and houses, some actually residing in them.

I love train travel. Right now I am going in and out of tunnels through the Ligurian region, presumably under mountains. Sure, I see the streams and tons of mountains wihch are either the Apennines or Italian Alps and i am waiting eagerly for the suddenness of the sea to hit me. I am sure my train goes along the coast. the sun is setting and this scene is too beautiful for words- its too haunting with just these mountains, streams, houses and fortified castles.

Crumbling walls and Back alley canals.

yes, i did expect Venice to be a tourist trap and yes, i was also warned about the smell of dirt ridden canals in the summer. but i didnt think Lonely Planet would call it "mysterious and hauntingly beautiful" for no reason. my trip in Italy begun as i crossed my first bridge over a bright and white full moon. Venice by night was quite eerie and nothing i had experienced. No sound of cars whirring by or 24 hour mini marts, just old and dilapitated buildings, remnants from the 15th centuy or even earlier. I was too tired to be enchanted - i had missed my flight in the morning thanks to the bloody parisien traffic jam as parisiens were all rushing out of the city to go on their summer breaks. half of us in those cars must have missed our flights even though we left hours before hand.

i arrived at the hostel which was pleasingly near the campo santa magherita, the main hub of bars and restos. i realised i was living next to the university foscari. it was not until the next day did i realise that there was indeed a healthy population of young people living on the island, all studying here.

From the start I was prepared to be lost in Venice. its true that maps have their way of ceasing function and that for me, was the exciting thing about the city. I did the usual stuff, avoiding the queues (and pigeons) as much as I could but it was the Venice Biennale that first got me lost. Every part of venice had been transformed into a contemporary museum with only signs leading you to an obscure renaissance building or court and if you saw a poster with the Bienalle sign, you've wandered right. I managed to catch almost all the exhibits, except for the Singapore Pavillion which was closed. The thing i realised about Venice is that it was thriving with art. Many of the students i met were studying art or architecture , a position well exploited by the Universities there. But surprisingly this created a fresh edge over the blatantly Medieval and Renaissance feel of the city. Huge artsy wall posters could be found on slanted brick alleys with layers of history crumbling.

Venezia

the city of love.

Paris, paris, paris. If only i could find the words to describe how i really feel about this place. Quite honestly, my first week in Paris was heavenly - almost like falling in love for the first time. Paris, i fell in love with the city the moment i stepped out from the St Lazare train station. I didnt expect to feel this way. After all, i have seen so much of paris in books, on tele, in paintings. its as if i already knew the place like the back of my hand. probably because of that, i lowered my expectations of the place to avoid disappointment. i think after i was blown away. its impossible for this city to let you down. its too beautiful. As i made my first uneasy steps toward the gallery lafayette from the train station, i looked around in what must have been disbelief. everything is so drmatically beautiful in paris - the 18th century facades, the intricate art nouveau metal grills, the flowers, the smell of baguette, the overwhelmingly wide bouvelards, the sound of music! if only i could describe everything to you.

tonight i hqve been invited to an art opening at the Jeu de Paume of the french contemporary artists Pierre et Giles. Hopefully i can finish this entry then without getting too drunk on free champagne!

Montmatre-d.

Currently i'm writing from a squashed up hole in the wall internet cafe in the heart of Montmatre. Armed with nothing but just my wits and sunglasses, i stepped in hoping to make contact with some friends, since my phone turned off on its own. Thank god for the internet.

This is no place to describe my current love affair with Paris. But all i can say is oh my god. this place. where do i even begin? Do i start with the beauty of the buildings, the people or the culture? Thats too reductive i feel. Whatever it is its damn good, and right now i'm in the love at first sight phase.

I'm spending the rest of the evening (its 7.20pm now but the sky is blue and the sun is out) at a cafe with one of my friends Ailin and we're going to smoke our lives away. talking about shit of course. Funny how the people here make doing nothing look so good.

I will write more tonight!

Muse concert in Nimes

This is where i'm going for the Muse concert!

travel plans.

I just bought tickets to see Muse at the Nimes Roman Arena in the South of France. COOOOOOOOOL! This means that from Paris, i will be taken a train down to Avignon and then Nimes and Arles, which has the oldest remains of Roman colosseums in all of France. On the way to Nimes and Arles i hope to pass Bordeaux and Aix-en-provence which are areas with the most beautiful vineyards.

From there, I head off to Nice, on the French Riveria to get some sun and meet a friend there. I'll be celebrating Bastille day there, which should be quite wild. Nice is the best place to cross over into Italy which is what i will do either to Venice or Florence. Will figure out how things go from there, but this time round, dont think i can do my Amalfi Coast trip with no drivers.

Parting is such Sweet Sad Sorrow

Last night i went out and met up with the bunch i used to do business with. They all seemed to be doing well for themselves, but as we well know, business is a showey business. One thing that i really respect them for is that each of them had taken the unorthodox route of venturing into unknown territory when so many could have taken the easy way of becoming professionals. Instead, they prefer creating their own territory, and in the process make changes to Singapore's business landscape. These small and commercial changes have their way of affecting the country nonetheless. It was this that gave me a great sense of pride when i was working on my own.

Part of me felt sad for moving on. In fact, my whole journey coming back to Singapore has not been a process of readjusting and re-establishing, but a proces of moving on. In every aspect of my life right now, i have moved on. But every end brings a new beginning and it's safe to say that this is my beginning into the world. I have spent many days when i was younger yearning to break away and see the greater world, but only now do i dare say that i have the guts to take the big step. That big step is learning how to detach yourself from the place you grew up, from the place you know, however much you hate, like the back of your hand.

I feel like it's quite painful. I know i'm going to be back in two months time, but i know that when i come back i'm going to be a totally different person in a same old context.