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The LISTENup podcast series returns, with a sensuous foray into the Sumatran jungle, before catching a tortuous getaway bus out. Ant gets up close and overly personal with the People of the Forest, before sampling the rich palette of colours which make up this mystical Indonesian island. Continue reading ‘006 LISTENup: The Flirt of the Forest’
I stare at the newspaper. It wasn’t me. I gawp at the television. It wasn’t me. I trawl through the internet. It wasn’t me! I listen to the radio, podcasts, and conversations on the bus. It WASN’T me! At least — I hope it wasn’t me? Continue reading ‘Trails of the Unexpected’
In almost every country I’ve visited in Asia there is a town where artisans almost outnumber tourists. Undoubtedly talented, you can find the most amazing local and international art at guilt-pecking prices. In China it’s Lijiang. In India it’s Cochin. This image could have been anywhere, but it’s from the Balinese town of Ubud. Continue reading ‘The Reprint: ‘Split Personality’’
Zoom in a bit, in a bit more, more, more, out a bit, a touch more. Now focus. Slowly does it. Breath. Easy on the trigger. Look around the frame. Zoom in a bit. In a bit. In a bit. Breath. And. Wait for it. Shoot! Snap? Click? Damn it. Turn it on. Refocus. Pan right a bit. Easy on the trigger. Breath in. Breath out. Perfect. Count down from three, two… get out of the way! Three, two, one. Snap. Click. Whirr. You beauty! Continue reading ‘The Reprint: ‘Taj. You’re It.’’
Déjà vu: a flash flood of familiarity bursting through the secret sluice between our worlds. I’m sitting on a tiny tropical island that wears a golden ring of sand engraved by faint footprints being slowly blotted out by the sapphire of the ocean. I know this island well. I know where the sun sizzles the horizon at the end of play and I know where she washes the sleep from her morning eyes. I know its highest point, its longest route and its shortest way. Then this, is surely déjà vu? Non, Madame, Monsieur. I just believed my heart, and bullied my head to bring her here. Continue reading ‘Turning Circles’
I’d seen him from a short distance, twelve months previously, he travelled alone aboard a plane to Moscow. He wore a dark tracksuit top zipped over a light t-shirt, and loose pale green shorts covered the knees he cradled by his chest. His hair sprayed out in loose brown curls beneath a khaki cap, highlighted by scribbles of grey. His pale thin lips lined a shallow smile, and his early morning eyes seemed glazed with relief. As his homeland slipped beneath a thin veil of cloud, he lifted his cap and ran his fingers through his hair, his lips parted just once to release his farewell thoughts: Let the journey begin, my friend. Today, he lay upright on the rippled white sheets of a double bed, in a simple, homely room on the island of Bali. Continue reading ‘A Thousand Glorious Times’
I concluded it was time to leave the city when a gay man insisted I meet his girlfriends back at his hotel room; It quickly transpires I’m in a brothel, one of the ‘staff’ sits her four year old son on my knee to act the puppet for her inquisitive line of questioning – read sales pitch. ‘Aldy, say: where’s you girlfriend?’, Aldy’s eyes find me like blameless beacons in the seamy smog ‘where’s girlfwend?’ he recites brightly through his chubby smile, ’are you maweed?’ ‘Howold are you?’ ‘Are you my daddy?’ I answered his questions with tickles, and a smug smile toward his mother. As I sat on the foot of the bed, I listened to my whereabouts for the last week of nights retold from a room full of ten strangers. ‘You were in this bar’, they said. That bar. Early night, that night. Shop. Internet. You spoke to her, shook his hand. Aldy’s hugs and handshakes were my only escape from the tumbling reality, so I smothered him with attention. He was polite and his hand was warm with innocence, in an inescapable environment that drifted on a river of love, but respect among kith was the ragged survivor of the rivers rapids. It had a story to tell. Continue reading ‘A Harlot and a Holiday’
