Letter 1

Well we've done it - sold everything, thrown our briefcases in the rubbish bin, and given our business clothes to a charity. No jobs, no prospects and so far no worries. We have enough money to last us for a couple of years providing that we go easy with it and we're going to see what happens. I'm sitting under a palm tree on the grass next to our chalet on Tioman Island trying to figure out how this word processor works so that I can write this book. I think this island is an atoll but I'm not sure. Whatever it is, I like it.

It's in the South China Sea just off the coast of Malaysia and it's the kind of place we've always dreamt of spending a holiday - coral reefs, jungle, dusky maidens (I hope) palm fringed sandy beaches and warm water - in the sea that is - I haven't tried the taps yet.

Half an hour ago we checked into our chalet at the resort, unpacked our things, and sat down to a cup of tea made with one of those portable electric water boiler things which are sold in travel shops to people like us who don't want the management to know that they’ve been making tea in their rooms. I wandered out to the little veranda with my tea to look at the palm trees, and observe the nasty stinging insects which my Dad had always told me inhabited tropical climes, when I was approached by one of the locals carrying a walkie talkie. He looked like a sales representative. He was absolutely immaculate in his blue shirt, blue tie, blue trousers brown face and matching brown feet.

“I'm with Secure a Tea Service” he said with a broad white ventriloquists smile. What a concept I thought? back home we've got your Dial a Pizza services and telephone sex and you can get ladies of the night to come and visit your motel room, but here was this nice man, this chocolate coloured purveyor of the porcelain, offering to secure a tea service for me. Now, although we didn't really need a tea service, I thought I'd find out the going rate for a 36 piece, duty free Willow Pattern, or perhaps even a Ming? I've never seen a Ming tea set but they must be good because they're so famous aren't they? I mean, everyone's heard of the Ming Dinners/Tea.

I was about to open my mouth when the gentleman, inclining his head towards my shoes which were outside the door, suggested that I put them inside – “in case somebody takes a shine to them.” I thought to myself that if anyone did take a shine to them it would have been the fist time in a long while but I didn’t say anything. And anyway, they were suede. This was my first Malaysian/English conversation and after a little chat regarding the type of people who steal other people’s shoes, it transpired that he wasn't selling tea services at all. No - he was with (the) Security Service.

But back to this word processor. I should have taken some instruction on it when I first bought the lap top and had the salesman load the program for me because I must admit that it's got me absolutely xpxp *** ked .njnj@ czspx## **@ the.#....'king thing.


Normal service will be resumed as soon as the writer works out how to save his work to the hard disk.


Yes, where was I? Oh yes - it's got me absolutely befuddled - that's the word - befuddled. Funny word befuddled, don't you think? I wonder if there's such a word as fuddled? Perhaps I'm flummoxed or beflummoxed. If I was, I'm not now because I've found out how to work this thing - unbeflummoxed that's what I am now. I should have bought a dictionary along with me too I suppose. No more interruptions from now on, I promise - I'm now a fully-fledged word processor operator. Got fledge all over me, covered in fledge I am, even in the nether regions.

We were sitting in a little open-air restaurant on the second morning here when I glanced up at the palm trees and noticed a huge lizard, motionless, about ten metres from the ground. We looked around at a few more trees and saw three more of them measuring anything up to two metres long from head to tail - lizards that is - the palm trees here are much taller. I immediately made enquiries with the waiter as to the sure footedness of these reptiles because I didn't want to spend the rest of the vacation worrying about lizards loosing their grip and falling on our heads, in our breakfast etc. He told me that they are very shy, scared of humans and that they climb trees to steal baby birds and eggs. He didn't say anything about them being sure footed. After a quick scan of the menu to determine that they didn't serve baby birds, we ordered the fish. I wouldn't have minded the omelet but Alicja thought that the lizards, while they probably couldn't visually identify the eggs in an omelet, might still be able to smell them and home in on our plates.

Tioman Island is a place where you have to be careful of other things falling on your head too. I guess we've all had dreams of laying on a tropical island under the swaying coconut palms? Well, I'd never thought about it before but coconuts are big, heavy objects and if one fell on your head while you were laying on the beach in your reflective sun-glasses eyeing the exposed buttocks of the female tourists, it could change forever your future outlook on life - and make quite a mess of your reflective sun-glasses to boot.

So there I was laying on this beautiful beach watching beautiful young girls buttocks when I looked up and saw all these green coconut bombs just waiting to Isaac Newton their way towards my thinking apparatus. We'd only been on holiday for four days and already I'd encountered a stressful situation so when we got back to reception I asked the gentleman behind the counter if any of their guests had ever had the misfortune to have been metabolically disadvantaged by falling coconuts.

He was very reassuring and told me that the coconuts were the property of a man with a trained monkey who was given them in return for his (and the monkey's) services in ensuring that all the insecure nuts were removed from the tree well before they were ready to drop.

“How do the man and the monkey actually do the work?” I enquired.

“Excuse me sir?”

“How do they work together – the man and the monkey?”

“Yes sir, very well generally speaking but sometimes the monkey is little bit, how do you say…recalcitrant, and then they have problems and the man has to beat the monkey”

“I mean the method, the way they get the coconuts from the tree to the ground. How do they actually pick the coconuts?”

“Yes sir. You see sir; first he sends the monkey on an investigatory trip so to speak you see sir”

“You mean up the tree?”

“Yes sir. That’s what he does. The monkey is on a long string sir, and when the man commands him, he runs up and twists his [the man’s] nuts until they fall off. Then he inspects his stalks to see if they’re green and then…”

“Shit”, I found myself whispering to Alicja “I hope the bloody thing doesn't mistake me for its owner, I'd hate to be metabollockly disadvantaged by a trained monkey”.

Tropical Islands, if Tioman was typical, weren’t shaping up to be quite what I was expecting. In fact, this one seemed to have to potential to be downright dangerous. One morning we struck up a conversation with two French girls who were busy photographing a large spider and I asked if they had seen the big lizards yet.

“Yes”, they said, and went on to explain that at the place they were staying, there were "snacks."

“What, lizard snacks”? I said. –“Yes” they assured me, “lizard snacks”. I asked what kind of snacks they had, thinking to myself that perhaps we might go for the Lizard Mornay on toast or Lizard Wellington or something.

“Pythons” came the reply. How did they ever get Concord built, I wondered, if French/English communication could be so confusing? I mean…I’m surprised the bloody thing had any bracks to stop with.

It turned out that a large python had been found at the place they were staying and I asked exactly where it was that they were staying - it turned out that they were staying in the same place as us! Not having a snapshot of a genuine wild python in my album, and thinking that a good shot of one would impress the hell out of people, I visited the resort office again and saw the man who told me the one about the monkey and the mans nuts. I asked if I could see the said snack. He told me he didn't know anything about it, had never heard of pythons being found on the premises and that pythons lived in the jungle and didn't venture into the resort.

“Anyway” they said, “pythons are a protected species.” This news didn't exactly serve to put Alicja's mind at rest and she voiced the opinion that if any species on Tioman Island needed protecting it would probably be a good idea to start with the tourists. The next morning I asked a man who was doing the garden outside our chalet if he knew anything about the mysterious python and he was much more forthcoming than the people up at reception. He charged me two dollars and took me to the cool room where the python was coiled up on the concrete under a few damp sacks. It wasn’t huge. It just looked like a coil of condemned garden hose but thicker. I took a couple of photographs and he told me that pythons were sighted in the resort gardens every month or so and that they like to live close to human habitation where they can steal chickens.

On the fourth day of our stay we hired a fishing boat to take us around the island. Rahim Nordon Singh was the name of the skipper and proprietor of this once proud hulk and his mate was called Ali. Ali was a nice guy. He was dressed in a MacDonald’s sun visor and a pair of bright pink shorts and he had a face like a clumsy beekeeper. We were hoping that we'd have a romantic day under sail but there was hardly any wind so we had to settle for the chugging of the diesel engine. As we cruised along the coastline we worked out that it was running at around one chug per palm tree and it made a horrible knocking sound once it had warmed up. I wouldn’t have put to sea with an engine banging like a dunny door in a gale but it didn’t seem to bother Rahim and Ali. They didn’t seem to hear it.

I told Rahim that we wanted to go snorkeling and he said he knew just the place. Ten minutes later we stopped in a patch of sea and they threw down the anchor. “Snorkeling this one place” Ali said. Alicja, ever cautious, asked if there were any sharks in these waters and pointing towards a little island some 2 or 3 kilometres away Ali said that the sharks lived over there. I was quite happy about the situation because, after all, he must have known because he lived there. It occurred to Alicja however, that sharks were really good at swimming and she wouldn't go over the side which disappointed me because she'd agreed to go with me when we were at breakfast.

Suitably attired with goggles and snorkel I jumped in and started to look around. It was an awe-inspiring sight. I’d never had so much awe. Brimming with awe, I was. I was awful. I was also very struck with….. awestruck, that’s the word. See, if you look for a word for long enough it just comes to you doesn’t it? Just like that! Acres of coloured corals, shoals of colourful fish going back and forth in unison (no corn plasters like in the municipal pool back home) and the water was so clear that it was as if I was floating in the sky. It was so deep that I experienced a sort of vertiginous sensation. Didn’t know ver-to-go. It was far too deep for me to attempt to swim to the bottom and so I just lay there on top of the water watching it all go on. There was so much life to look at that I'd never seen before and it was so quiet and relaxing that I became totally wrapped up in it and forgot the rest of the world existed for a few minutes. The only thing missing was David Attenborough.

I would have been content just to float there for hours if it hadn't been for a big splash on top of the water. I bobbed up to see a life buoy on a rope next to me and Alicja screaming at me to get back in the boat pronto so I grabbed hold of the life buoy and was towed back to the boat at high speed by the two men. It was probably only a matter of seconds until I was at the side of the boat but a second can seem like an hour when the word shark is being shouted. As Ali and Rahim leaned over the side to pull me up on deck my heart was banging like a diesel driven doughnut and I was coughing as a result of swallowing water in my panic. Alicja pointed behind me and sure enough there was a shark about 3 metres in length cruising around about 20 metres from where I had been snorkeling.

Alicja had seen it first and raised the alarm but the crew just told her that it wasn't going to come over our way and when she finally started shrieking, they couldn't see what all the fuss was about. I told them that I thought myself very lucky but Rahim dismissed it with a wave of his hand telling me that the shark wasn't hungry. “Much faster dis shaak wen im ungry. Just wunna luk atcha no problem.” I indicated to him that I, the client, had a problem with snorkeling in shark infested waters and suggested that we continue with our cruise. Rounding the next headland we caught sight of a lovely, secluded bay with an old thatched roofed, wooden bungalow situated right on the beach. There was a flat area of a hectare or so around it backed by a thick belt of coconut palms and behind this, a steep, cloud topped mountain covered in jungle. It looked like the sort of place I have always imagined myself living in ever since I started reading National Geographics in Doctor Ford's surgery when I was a kid and I asked if we could go in a little closer to shore for me to take photographs.

Rahim just smiled and ran the boat right up to the little landing jetty and tied up. Ali whistled and out came the owner and his wife and invited us in. Well, not exactly in but to a table outside the door of the house through which we tried to sneak glances when they weren't looking. They gave us coconut milk which we didn't much care for and
I had a few words with the man. He didn’t understand either of them. My Malaysian, being in its formative stages, wasn’t quite up to his level of English, which was almost half as good as Rahim’s. Rahim interpreted for us and although he wasn't a lot of good at it we got by.

The couple who owned this little shack seemed to have it made. The man's grandfather had planted the coconut trees and ever since his father died, the plantation has been his. The grandfather had to wait for years before he saw any return from his work but his grandson is reaping the benefits. He told us that there was absolutely nothing he could do to promote the growth of the coconuts, they don't need pruning or spraying and you can't even pick them, they just fall when they're ripe. All he had to do was pick them up from the ground and, as most of them are growing on a slope, they roll towards the house when they fall. He said that once a year before they fell he walked around with a machete cutting the undergrowth back and that was about all he had to do apart from transporting them to his little jetty ready for collection by a boat from the mainland. He was paid for them on the spot and it provided enough to live on for the rest of the year. On reflection I think it's the best lifestyle I've yet to come across.

We didn't actually get to see the inside of the house but from the doorways we could see that there wasn't much in the way of mod cons and no electricity, but the setting was exceptional. A small stream ran through the property close to the house and although there wasn't a garden, nature had done a great job with flowers, bananas and a green lawn kept down by a humped back cow. The only contact these people had with the outside world was by boat because the jungle was impenetrable. They didn't even have a boat of their own; they just stood on the beach and flagged one down. The husband asked what I did for a living and I've had so many jobs that I didn't know which one to pick.The last one I'd had was as a marketing manager in a computer software house and I didn't fancy trying to explain that to a person who didn't even have electricity so the profession I chose was that of carpenter.

I don't know why, because I've never been one, but I suppose I thought that it would be easy to explain. I should have chosen software manager though because he took me all around the outside of the house and verandah asking me advice on how to repair the bloody place. I didn't have a clue and I was glad that Rahim's English wasn't too hot because we finally agreed that it was all too difficult to translate. I don't know how I missed being a carpenter in all those jobs, perhaps I'll take it up sometime between holidays.

We said our goodbyes and continued our circumnavigation of the island which now had to be done in a hurry because we'd spent so much time talking to the coconut couple. All these beautiful secluded beaches without a soul on them would be just the place for dark, sensual, dusky maidens dressed in sarongs, seductively showing lots of leg and half their boobs like you see in reproduction prints above the fireplaces of English council houses opposite the flying ducks. Alas they're all Muslims and the women cover themselves from head to foot even when they go in the water, which isn't often, and I suppose explains the absence of a Sufi Muslim women’s Olympic swimming team.

Nothing eventful happened for the next 3 hours as we cruised the coast looking at the beaches, palm trees and mountains. I shouldn't think this place has changed much since Europeans first came here and, with perhaps the exception of the introduction of a small number of rubber trees, it must look pretty much the same as it did 300 years ago. It would have been a wonderful experience to have come across somewhere like this all those years ago – to have been the first one to discover and name it. It put me in mind of the Intercourse Islands which, I think, are down in the Pacific somewhere near Australia. I don't know how the Intercourse Islands got their name but I can guess. I reckon that years ago, after they'd been at sea for three months out of sight of land, the look-out sighted the yet to be named Intercourse Islands and started bellowing "land ho". And this big, unshaven, sweaty chef came up from down below, wiped his forehead and said “where the fuck are we?”

So, we chugged around the island until at last we were in sight of the village of Tekek where we would be disembarking. Just then the engine, which I'd entirely forgotten about, chugged its last chug. I scrambled down to the stern and peered down into the engine room/pit/black hole where Ali and Rahim were both sitting on their haunches looking down in the dumps. The dumps is a nautical term for the place wherein the engine resideth. There was a big hole in the crankcase and a twisted connecting rod sticking out of the side.

“That's the end of your engine” I told them.

“No” said Rahim “tomorrow fix him, fix ‘im good”

I told him that this sort of thing was not fixable and he'd have to get another engine although perhaps he could salvage some parts from this one. He picked up a rag and wiped the other side of the crankcase down revealing a six-inch square sheet metal patch riveted there where it had happened once before and I had to admit that it was possible to fix ‘im good – well, fix ‘im temporary anyway. It was only after I walked back to the bow to tell Alicja what had happened, that I realised that we were in a bit of a spot. We were becalmed with no engine, no wind for the sails and a couple of kilometres from land. I asked Rahim what we were going to do but he wasn't at all phased by the situation. “We wait til nudderwun boat come long” he said. I asked when he thought "nudderwun boat" would actually come long, to which he replied that he didn't know but that we might as well pass the time with a spot of fishing. He passed the fishing gear around and baited the hooks for us and we all sat there fishing for about 20 minutes when "nudderwun fishing boat" did indeed come past and towed us in to the jetty.

Everything about these people was so casual and if something of this magnitude had occurred in the office only three weeks ago I would have had a panic attack. So would the cleaners come to think of it – would have made a real mess of the carpet. I must admit that my immediate concern when we broke down was not so much that we might be stranded but that it might be a while before I got to a toilet. Something I'd eaten hadn't agreed with me and I had diarrhea so as soon as we hit the land I left Alicja to pay Rahim and ran for the jungle. I'd never been caught short in a jungle before and didn't know what to look out for. I was hoping that none of those big, egg eating lizards or nut twisting monkeys on strings would come along while I was in a vulnerable position.

While I'm on the subject of diarrhoea I must here relate what happened to this English guy Andrew we met here who had just been on an organised tour to India with his wife. He said that when they came down for breakfast one morning only half the group had turned up because the other half had all got the dreaded Delhi belly and were on the toilet for the day. This was the day they were all due to visit the Taj Mahal and they would only get the one chance as the next day they were due to go somewhere up country. His wife Julie had always wanted to see the Taj Mahal since she was a kid and visiting this place was half the reason that they'd chosen India as part of their holiday.

They were both feeling perfectly well and since they'd followed religiously the travel agents advice "drink only bottled water" he thought that this was the reason. As they got on the bus for the trip he remarked to his wife that all those silly sods back at the hotel should have known better and that everyone knew that the drinking water in India was not to be trusted. They travelled out to the Taj Mahal and he was standing with the group listening to the guide when it suddenly hit him that he had express diarrhoea in proportions industrial. He reckoned that he only had 30 seconds to find a toilet or do it in his pants.

He said they were on the lawn right in front of the Taj' when he left the party and started running around in circles looking for a bush or anything to hide behind. There was nothing but grass. It was all over in no time, he just couldn't hang on and he pulled his trousers down and shat on the lawn right there in front of the Taj Mahal, which his wife had always wanted to visit. He said that there were hundreds of tourists walking around and elegant Indian ladies strolling past in beautiful saris and if his nails had been long enough he would have burrowed into the ground and hid in the hole. It was the most embarrassing time in his entire life and he had no paper so he took off his T-shirt and wiped his bum thinking that he could throw it into the first rubbish bin they came across.

He eventually stood up and turned around to face the rest of the group, who were all looking horrified, when he noticed a Japanese tourist standing a few yards away who was just putting his video camera back in its case after having filmed the event. His wife almost died of shame and refused to walk around the Taj Mahal. She got straight back on the bus and waited for the rest of the party to return. She hardly spoke to poor old Andrew for the rest of the week they were in India and the rest of the group didn't want to be seen with him. The final humiliation came a couple of days later when they were all in a restaurant somewhere and on his way back from the toilets he glanced over someone's shoulder and saw that they were all looking at a photograph of him evacuating on the grass with the Taj Mahal in the background.

He said that although there were hundreds of people walking about on the day, the photograph was taken from a low angle and all that could be seen was the Taj' with this tranquil pond in front of it and him in the foreground shitting on the grass.