THE THREE AMIGOS: CHINA

 

THINGS THAT WORK, THAT REALLY SHOULDN'T WORK

1. Prawn cocktail crisps (Think about it! It's not right)! 
2. Alan Rickman being sexy as Hell in Robin Hood Prince of thieves (First real crush: I know! I'm weird)! 
3. High waisted skinny jeans (Now I know not everyone is going to agree with this one, but Hey! It's my blog, so what I say goes)! 
4. Goggle box (Who ever knew watching a TV programme of other people watching TV programmes could be so entertaining)! 
5. Me, Charlie and Kyle!

We can never tell in life who we will bond with, but if you told me I was going to have a close friendship with Kyle and Charlie when I first moved into their warehouse in Hackney wick, I might of laughed at you. Kyle was moody with bad taste in music, an addiction to violent Play Station games,and on occasion, when he got too drunk, would stand on a chair in the early hours of the morning singing at the top of his voice the songs from Les Miserables. Charlie would come out of his room and tell him to "Shut the f**k up!"  Charlie was a Essex boy that dressed like Johnny Cash and had the rock n roll attitude to match. I would usually wake up most weekends to find him passed out on the sofa fully dressed; leather jacket zipped up and shoes still on. When he regained consciousness he would usually discover that he'd lost a phone, a wallet or had been fleeced at a night club. Basically I had moved into mayhem, with (in most people's eyes) the housemates from Hell! The reason though, why it worked was because I am Mayhem too! So we lived in our little world of Mayhem for two and a half years like a dysfunctional family, until the day came that we had to go our separate ways. Kyle and Charlie moved out the same week and the day they left I cried all the way to work on the tube, with stoney faces looking back at me thinking "What the Hell is wrong with this girl?" It wasn't the same after they left. Believe me I could of killed them most of the time, but I missed waking up to Charlie passsed out on the sofa and moaning at him for never buying toilet roll!  I missed coming home from work to the sounds of Kyle massscaring people on the PlayStation while listening to Nicki Minaj (I said he had shit taste in music)!  I missed the mayhem. 

 

Kyle moved in with his boyfriend but stayed in London and we see each other all the time. Charlie on the other hand moved to the other side of the world, to Shanghai to be with his girlfriend, Joanne (she's a total legend) who is Taiwanese and who lived there. The three of us had not been re-united since the boys moved out, so when I decided it was time to go on an adventure again the first stop for me was Shanghai and Charlie! Kyle just didn't want to miss out, so came along for the ride too. Mayhem was coming to China!

Now I've travelled a lot, but never in the whole of my travels have I ever been upgraded. It's the stuff of dreams, but dreams are never reality. I'm tall with long legs! I'm 5'10 in fact! Economy is not kind to tall people. You feel like a batttery chicken cooped up! On flights they torture you by making you walk past first and business class and you look longingly at seats with leg room! So when I came to the gate to board the flight, I was frozen when the guy typed in my boarding pass for ages and then turned to me and said: "You have been upgraded!"  I'm frozen "Is that a problem?" He asks. "Hell no!" is my response, still expecting him to turn round and say it a joke!  I board the flight beaming from ear to ear! I enter business,  looking like a scruffy new age hippie back packer and I'm handed a glass of champagne. I find my seat which is next to a very snotty looking woman dressed head to toe black; Cashmere roll neck and Louis Vuitton bag. I point to me my seat next to her, to indicate that I need her to move. She eyes me with horror! She reluctantly moves and I sit in my seat and down my champagne! I indicate to the hostess for another with a look of distain from Louis Vuitton woman. I sit back in my chair with loads of leg room drinking champagne happy in the knowledge that I haven't paid for this privellege at all, while the woman next to me has probably paid through the roof! Stick that one up your back side Louis Vuitton woman! I'm loving life!  The boys are already waiting for me at the airport when I arrive. It's like I saw them yesterday (actually that's the case with Kyle)! We board the fastest train in the world to take us into Shanghai but we really don't notice this as we are talking so much, so it's over before we know it!  Charlie lives in the centre of Shanghai right near the river Bund. His building is an old Art Deco building which has seen better days. We walk into the lobby to find some old Chinese women (average age 100) doing their excerises! When I say excerises it's more like they are playing an invisible key board. Charlie tells me they are still trying to keep their chi alive! Well normally they would, but right at that moment I think their a bit more confused about three tall westerns being in their lobby. We get the lift up, though it looks like it's going to break down at any moment. The corridor is grim! So much so I start to call it the corridor of doom due to it being dark, dirty and with wire work hanging everywhere. I'm getting nervous about what the Hell Charlie's apartment will look like. A hotel seems a good option at that moment. He opens the door and we are in for a pleasant surprise. It's like some New York loft apartment. I'm totally taken back! Lesson learnt. First impressions are misleading. I should know that by now?

 

I'm not going to lie; before I came to China, the Chinese as people in my mind were not rated top of the friendly list of nations. They have a reputation for being rude, aggressive and ill mannered and I can still see why that comes across, but to truly understand the Chinese you have to come to China! China has the biggest population in the world with 1.4 billion people at the last count. There isn't a space that hasn't been filled or takened over by people. I've never seen so many people! They are everywhere! Hustling and bustling through everyday life. Basically it's a God Dam rat race, and when life is a rat race with that many people you don't have time for niceness or manners. You have to cut off from it all a bit. You have to learn: "Not to give a Shit!" The Chinese have really perfected the art of not giving a shit. The reasons I say that are:

1. They smoke everywhere, even next to signs that say "Don't smoke!" Why? Because they really don't give a shit!
2. Everyone drives electric bikes, that make no noise which they all drive on the pavements, so you nearly get run over at least 20 times a day. This risk is higher at night as they refuse to put on their lights to save the battery, which means not only can't you hear the bloody bikes you can't see them either! You will also be tripped up a lot on the street by the cables used to charge the bikes. All of this is because: they don't give a shit!
3. Queuing is not a concept in China. It confuses them. They will just push in front with out a care in the world, because they really don't give a shit! 
4. You can't take too many good photos in China as the rule getting out of the way for someone taking a shot means zero here. Your photos are just full of Chinese people taking rubbish selfies! They God Dam love a selfie here to the point of extreme vanity, but you know what? That's right people, they don't give a shit!
5. Ok I've seen people spit on the streets in England. I don't like it but it happens. The Chinese are the premiere league of spittting. In fact it's not spitting! It's like some one is hacking up their entire gut and ejecting it from their mouth! There were points I thought they were going to spit out an intenstine or a lung or something like that! They do it anywhere: while your on the street, at your feet; when your in the toilet; while their mid conversation and while your eating. Oh and you want to know why? Yes that's right! They truly, truly do not give a shit what I think, what you think, what anyone else thinks, not even God himself thinks because the Chinese have truly perfected the fine art form of not giving a shit and for that; China I salute you!

 

 So there you have it: the art of not giving a shit!  Not giving a shit became an interesting and important factor in my travels in china. No more so than when I got woken up at 7.30am, feeling a bit hungover by an excited Kyle. Now believe me this doesn't normally happen. Kyle is usually pretty awful in the mornings. It takes about 2 coffees and half a dozen cigarettes before he's even responsive, but we had  agreed to something awful the night before. Charlie had taken us out with his South African friend, jake, for food and then Joanne and jakes girlfriend came and met us for drinks. We ended up in some student bar called Perry's listening to crap music and playing drinking games with Chinese dice. At some point some one had mentioned there was a Disneyland in Shanghai. Kyle got super excited by this because he's not normal and wanted to go. Somewhere in this drunken haze we all thought this was a good idea and agreed to it. At the time it seemed like the greatest idea. The next morning it seemed like Hell! But agreed to it we had! So off we went! 

   

 Now as I said, the Chinese don't really queue, so when you turn up at a place like Disneyland where the whole concept is about queuing most of the day, this puts the fear of God into me. We get to the first ride to find a staff member with a sign saying "180 mins queue time!" "What the Hell! I'm not queuing for that length of time! It's ridiculous!" Is my first response. I'm over ruled and I'm left with no choice but to queue or sit on my own. I decide to queue. Charlie tells me it will be a bonding experience! I guess that's one way of putting it! In the queue the Chinese are queuing, but it's queuing not as we know it!  It's more like a game of risk and defending your territory against the invaders. At any moment they will try and move a head of you. They also like to be right up against your back, completely in your personal space as, in some way they believe that pushing at you will make the queue go faster. It doesn't! The rest of the day is spent queuing more; buying an over priced burger; trying not to throw up on the Chinese guy next to me on the rollercoaster and buying Kyle a women's jumper with "I love my guy!" Written on it and Minnie Mouse on the back (what in Gay Hell!) which he insisted wearing round the whole of China! So all in all another dysfunctional family day out! 

   

 I'm history geek! I make no apologies for this. Ever since I was a kid I've read books on the history's of the world and now I'm an adult I've made it my thing to try and see as many of them with my own eyes. One of these is the terracotta warriors. Discovered by a farmer in 1974, the warriors belonged to the first emperor of china, Qin Shi Huang and were made to guard the emperor in the after life. Every figure is different in some slight way. They are still being unearthed but it's estimated there could be more than 9,000 figures. We travelled to xian (The old capital) to see them. We got ourself an English guide called Lily who laughed a lot and tried to chat up Charlie. It's a pretty amazing sight when I finally get to see them. The warriors are not the only wonderous thing to happen that day. It's on this day in history, Carly Griffith learnt not to give a shit! I'm trying to take a picture of the warriors when a storm troop of Chinese tourists flood over and not only block my view but nearly knock my new expensive camera out of my hands. It was time not to get angry but to start playing the game. I start barging to the front! Don't give a shit! I knock people! I don't give a shit! I don't say sorry! I don't give a shit! I block people's view! Guess what? I don't give a shit! For an English person coming from a country that is so steeped in rules and manners, suddenly having no manners and not giving a shit is extremely liberating! For this I begin to really love the Chinese. They have liberated me! I take to it very well and for the rest of China I really don't give a shit! *Please note, I do realise I've used the word shit a lot in this blog post but as I'm not giving a shit about using the word shit, I don't give a shit! 

 

I don't know whether you have picked up by now, but Kyle is gay. Like a lot of gay men Kyle uses the app Grindr. For those of you that don't know what Grindr is, it's a social networking site for gay men to meet other gay men. They can chat, and meet for coffee or they can skip all that and get straight to the good bit, which I believe most of them do? Kyle was on Grindr through out his trip in China, mainly to check out what the guys were like over here. It appears he liked them a lot due to the fact he kept showing us photos of half naked Chinese guys usually in the middle of the restaurant, saying "Well people say Chinese guys are small, but Hell no! Look at him!" I would usually roll my eyes in response and look towards the heavens in hope of something!  It also appeared they liked him a lot too as being half Jamaican and half Irish, Kyle was seen as exotic and unusual, so had a few suitors chatting to him. As we journeyed to Beijing, things weren't as familiar to Charlie, as he didn't live there. When we were trying to figure out where to go or where best to eat Kyle would chip in with; "My friend says we should go here!" Or "My friend says you shouldn't go there at this time of year!" This friend or friends where Kyle's Grindr boys. It soon occurred to us that a man in need of some good times will do anything to please and make that happen, so we then starting asking, "Kyle ask your friend where is best to go for hot pot?" "Kyle what does your friend think of this place?" Etc. So here we have it my friends; a top travel tip! Forget about trip advisor! That's so last season. Get yourself on Grindr! This can easily be done! You don't have to be a gay male! All you have to do is think of a false profile. Mine would be something exotic like Pedro who likes to work out a lot (if you know what I mean)! Then up load a pumped up torso shot (faces don't matter much) maybe covered in some baby oil. Then most importantly find the biggest photo of a penis you can find and upload that (the bigger the better apparently)? Then Hey presto! You have yourself a Grindr profile and lots of horny men willing and ready to give you travel advice! 

   

 On our last full day together, we journeyed to the Great Wall of China. The wall is truly one of mankinds greatest feats (unlike the wall that stupid man with a face like a bad Wotsit is trying to build in America)! It was first started in the 7th century BC. When work had finished in 1644 the wall covered over 21,000kms. We hired a driver to take us on a 2 hour journey outside of Beijing to a section of the wall. Charlie had chosen this part of the wall carefully for us as it was quiet and remote, but also showed restored sections and ruined areas of the wall too. On the journey there it was quite obvious that Kyle hadn't had his nicotine and caffeine intake that was needed to make him human as he was grumpy as Hell. Not to help matters it was freezing outside. We arrived at the gate to start the walk. We open the car doors. It's like Siberia! I think we are going to die of hypothermia. We are stood freezing when a little Chinese lady comes shouting "coffee!" She beckons us to follow her. It's freezing, Kyle needs caffeine and I need something other than this! 10 minutes later we are cramped round a fan heater in her shop eating pot noodles, drinking tea and coffee and totally getting fleeced on the prices for them. We don't care we are warm. We start the walk. I'm now wearing a wool hat that says "Great Wall of China" on it (as I say she totally fleeced us)! I can't feel my face or my hands, but soon this doesn't matter because as soon as we ascend up onto the wall, the most over welming feeling takes over. I've travelled a lot and seen some amazing things but the Great Wall has to be one of the most wonderful things I have ever seen. The scale, the landscape. It takes your breath away. After being in cities with millions of people, cars, bikes and pollution (the pollution is off the scale in a China) for the last week, the remoteness of the Chinese mountains is an amazing treat. We all agreed at that moment we were lucky people to be here seeing this for how many people get this opportunity? I was even luckier to be sharing this moment with these two guys. This weird little friendship that had started in little warehouse in Hackney and now here we were all together again, the other side of the world, sat gazing out on the Great Wall of China. There have been some things recently that have made me question some of the friendships in my life on whether they are true friendships or not? I don't feel like this with Charlie and Kyle. They are like my brothers and I know they would do anything for me and me for them. This funny friendship that really shouldn't work but really truly does. 

 

The next day the boys left earlier for the airport. I had the day to myself to explore. It snowed heavily and I went and took photos of temples in the snow until I couldn't feel my hands and face anymore. Everything looked so beautiful in the snow, well until an army like work force of snow sweepers cleared it away in seconds and just piled it into dirty piles everywhere. Then it didn't look so beautiful! I eventually found a taxi to take me to the airport as when it snows no one wants to walk in Beijing, so taxis become like gold dust. I feel lucky to have found one, when I realise his driving is worse than the usual drivers in China (They are not great but I've had worse i.e. India)! I look down to see he has a half empty bottle of rice wine next to him. I point at it and wag my finger and shake my head at him. His response is to smile and laugh at it all. Yep! The Chinese truly don't give a shit! 

 

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH; THE TOUGH GET GOING!

I'm back in London. I've just returned from the hospital, where the doctor had just confirmed what I already knew. I have a bad infection, which had plagued me for most of my time in Romania. He's put me on a course of anti-biotics and told me to take it easy. I look in the mirror. I look awful. Im still not sleeping well and have bags under my eyes. I have skin like a spotty teenager and I've dropped over half a stone in weight while being away. I'm jobless and have lost my flat, and now, I look at my life piled into boxes, in the room I have rented from a friend for now, until I decide what I'm doing with my life. On top of that, the guy I was dating has been a real jerk, and was dating someone else the whole time. It has left me feeling like an idiot for thinking that he ever liked me in the first place. It's not been the best start to the year. I feel broken: mentally and pyschically. To sum it all up: everything is a bit shit! 

Now there are two options you can take when you feel this way:

OPTION 1

You can sit around feeling sorry for yourself and go "Why me! I don't deserve this!" Bla, bla, bla and be another of life's victims.

OPTION 2

You get can the Hell over yourself and go and find something that makes you happy.

I WOULD CHOOSE OPTION 2 EVERYTIME

I'm on the phone to my friend Lauren. She had rang to see how I was and to let me know she's happy I'm back from Romania. I'm moaning to her on how bad I'm feeling.

"Why don't you come to Mexico with me?" She says

"Don't be silly! I can't come to Mexico!" Is my response 

"Why not!"

"Because your leaving Monday and it's Friday now, and I just can't!"

The next morning I'm surrounded by mess as I try and pull from my storage boxes what is needed for my everyday life. It's freezing and I have a hundred layers on trying to keep warm. I look out the window. It's grey and raining. I get a phone call to say the job I was waiting on has fallen through. After I hang up the phone I look at the screen and begin to text Lauren:

"F**k it! I'm coming to Mexico!"

I'm walking out the airport at Cancun! "Shit! I'm in Mexico!" It all feels a bit surreal. The heat hits me and it feels wonderful, even though I'm wearing a thermal top (not a good look in Mexico)!  I go to find Lauren and her friend Millie who is travelling with her as they were on another flight an hour a head of mine. Funnily enough I find them in the bar sipping on Pina colada's. Lauren is like my baby sister. I met her while she was doing work experience on a film I was doing dailies on a couple of years ago. I instantly liked her (but it's kind of hard not to like Lauren) so then employed her as our trainee on one of my jobs, gave her lots of stick and gave her the nickname Sugar Tits (I treat all my trainees well)!  I've been stuck with her ever since. I'm quite surprised I want to travel with Lauren again though as she seems to bring bad luck with her. She was my side kick on my third trip to India, where I had never got ill. I go away with Lauren to India and in the first week we both come down with E. coli, which can kill you! I must say though, it really cements a friendship if you can still look each other in the eye after you both puked a hundred times in front of each other and have had to drop your pants at the same time, so a heavy handed Indian doctor can inject you in the ass! After that Lauren went to South America where she had her bag stolen in the first week, her leg swelled up so she had to spend a fortune at a hospital getting it checked out only to realise it was the heat, and when I melt her in Rio she had a face like a beetroot because she was covered all over in a rash after having an allergic reaction to some shower gel. I sit next to her in the bar to find her blowing her nose. She is full of cold which she seems to have caught on the plane ride over. The curse continues! Millie, her housemate is a brunette with a sexy, husky voice. I instantly like her as she has got a good sense of humour and she is the same height as me, so I won't feel like some Amazonian freak like the last time I did Mexico, as the average Mexican height is five foot nothing.

Lauren and Millie have booked us into a hotel in Cancun for the first night.

"It's spring break! We should really experience it!" They tell me excitedly. On my last trip to Mexico all I saw of Cancun was the airport and that was fine with me. Cancun is not my type of place when it's normal, but Cancun during spring break: well that's just my worse nightmare! It will be full of drunken students but they will be American which means they will be louder and the behaviour worse, as Americans like to everything bigger and better. It will be full of people called Chad, who have been working out for months for this one moment in time to parade his pumped up body around on a beach, while downing some tequila, in the hope to have sex with as many females as humanly possible in his one week vacation. Yep! Experiencing Spring Break is really not up there on my list of things to do. First we have to get to Cancun. This seems quite an effort due to the fact Lauren and Millie don't seem in that much of a rush as they are drinking Pina colada's. I on the other have to abstain due to being on anti biotics (the horror)! When they eventually do move, Lauren suggests that we walk outside the airport to flag a taxi as it's much cheaper according to her guide book. We drag our luggage in the heat and walk outside the airport to the road. It turns out Lauren's guide book is crap as we cannot flag a single taxi. We then drag our cases back inside the airport and get a bus, which we have to wait an hour for as we have just missed the last one. We eventually get to the hotel. It's is now dark. The hotel is very nice the only problem is, it's in Cancun town. All the parties and nightclubs are along the beaches which we are nowhere near. It's getting late and we are starving so we head round the corner to a restaurant to try and gain some energy. Two margaritas later Lauren is as white as a ghost and nearly face planting the table she is so tired. She hasn't had sleep for over 24 hours due to the fact she thought it would be a good idea to stay up all night before her flight watching Frieda and drinking red wine in bed (the mind boggles)! Millie isn't far behind her either. 

"I think I need to go to bed! Oh my God! This is the worst attempt at doing spring Break ever!" Lauren moans. I have to agree with her it's a pretty dismal attempt. Half an hour later we are all tucked up in bed with massive jet lag.

"What a massive failure. I guess we will never get to see Spring break?" Lauren's yawns.

"Yes it was a massive failure!" I think to myself as I close my eyes, but for once I have never been so happy to fail. 

Next stop Tulum. 

FILMING CLUB

Never complain,

Never explain.

Kate Moss

FILMING CLUB RULES

Rule 1: You never talk about filming club

Rule 2: You never talk about filming club

Rule 3: You never walk from filming club

Rule 4: You must sacrifice all for filming club: relationships, friends, social life and family.

Rule 5: You must deal with extreme stress and pressure for filming club, as your freelance, so you don't know where that next job is coming from. 

Rule 6: You must cope with extreme lack of sleep.

Rule 7: Filming will go on as long as it has to. 

Rule 8: If this is your first time at filming club, I suggest you have a strong deposition

I BROKE THE RULES: I WALKED FROM FILMING CLUB

I think I was seven when I first fell in love with film. I remember being sat alone in my grandmother's caravan. I don't know why I was on my own but I recall that I was there, alone for a very long time. Why? Because I watched the whole length of Gone With The Wind in isolation. It was light when the film started. It was pitch black when it finished, but time didn't really matter. It had stood still for me, as I was entranced by this world that I had entered. It was such a beautiful world and I wanted to be part of it. As the years progressed I try to educate myself with different genres: the black and white classics, where watched with my Grandmother; the best war movies were watched with my brother; and foreign language films where watched on my own due to the fact that nobody else in my family had the patience for subtitles. I would collect books and absorb all the knowledge I could and I became an annoyance to my media studies teacher as I would never let anyone else answer a question, in class. I had always studied fine art because drawing was the only natural talent I had, but instead of going down the artist route I decided to combine it with my love of film and went to study costume for 3 years. Then at the age of 21 fresh from university I finally got to enter this world that I had longed for, for so long. It was a different world to what I expected. I remember clearly my first day on set and how overwhelming it was. So many people, doing so many different things, none of which I had a clue of. I was a little fish, in a big pond. I soon came accustomed to things and learnt fast. If you don't, you sink  for filming is a brutal and unforgiving industry. You get tough quick and you become part of this world. This world where night can become day, or day can become night; where the heavens can be made to open up; where people look perfect; say perfect things and where there is usually always a happy ending. This is a world where you spend more time with your colleges than you do with your family or friends.  A world where you forget the outside world. It's a world where I've missed weddings, birthdays, even a funeral for. It's a world that has destroyed many a relationship for me. This is a world that is all encompassing. The problem is, this world is not real, but it is very easy to forget that as we get caught up in a bubble. The bubble is what keeps it together, it's what has got be through many a tough shoot, but then something terrible happened to me on this job! The bubble burst! 

I'm nearly 2 months into my job out of 5, and there is no escaping it. Im lonely, homesick and I'm miserable!  I've stopped sleeping and I've stopped eating. I'm a mess, so much so that the production coordinator pulls me to aside and asks how I am as she's worried about me, because I'm pale and gaunt. I go into a shell. I'm quiet and unsmiling. I have no passion for anything, even the costumes themselves.  I feel like there is nothing left of me. The thing is you can't leave, that's just not the done thing. The show must go on no matter what. I've never in 15 years in the industry walked no matter how bad it's got (apart from a Bollywood movie, but that was a joke and I only left 2 days early). So I battle with this feel for a long time. "You can't leave! You just can't leave! It's career suicide!"  I keep telling myself over and over again. It's part of the job to keep going. You don't complain or explain, you're just meant to get on with it.  The feeling doesn't go away though.  It's eating away at me inside and I'm living on my nerves and then one day I just crack. 

"I can't do this anymore. I want to leave!" I say

I'm sat opposite my boss. I feel like I'm going to throw up I've got myself in such a state, but she is calm about my decision and no great thunderbolt from heaven has come and struck me down either. A sudden weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I feel lighter than I have done in weeks. The decision has been made. 

I sit here now, a week later, away from it all, and ask my self "Did I make the right decision?" I know with my decision I have burnt bridges and made myself unpopular with the production. Some people didn't understand my decision, but it was my decision and the right one because it's my life and no one else's. This doesn't mean I still don't love filming and costumes. I still do. It just means this wasn't the right venture for me at this moment in my life. I've learnt it's OK to walk away. It doesn't make you a bad person. It just means sometimes things are not right for you and life is too short to be unhappy.

The person who summed it up best for me was my line producer, a small, golden haired, overly tanned man from South Africa, who chained smoked himself through the stress of his job. I was very fond of him and had a great respect for him as well. As I handed my notice into him fretting he could see I was broken, and he said:

"We make entertainment Carly! That's all, but when it stops being entertaining, then it's not entertainment anymore."

With that he patted me on the back, told me it was OK and went out side to have another cigarette to relive the stress of which I had just added to. As he left, I thought to myself if he found it entertaining anymore?

HOME SWEET HOTEL

YOU KNOW YOU HAVE BEEN STAYING AT A HOTEL TOO LONG WHEN:

* The bar staff have got you your drink before you have even ordered it. It's a glass of Argentine Sauvignon Blanc and the excuse is always "It's been a long day at work!"

* You have tried everything on the menu!

* When you have started to observer the habits of your next door neighbour. Mine, always permanently has do not disturb on his door ( but actually blue tacked to the door which is weird) and listens to the TV really loud (mainly CNN, but late at night I hear grunting noises so I think he's watching porn as well)? 

* All the hotel staff know your name. Some of them tell me, I'm their favourite! Yeah right! I bet they say that to all the hotel guests? 

My driver Dan (who actually happens to be the nicest guy in the world)  is dropping me off after a long days work.

"Your home!" He's says

"No I'm not! I'm at the hotel!" Is my response, and then it suddenly occurs to me, that I am home! My home is a hotel! Oh God!

Hotels are actually quite exciting! Well if your in a good one, which I am. Everything is new and modern! I have have a king size bed, with fresh cotton sheets, that some one washes and changes for me. I have 2 plasma screen TV's which have loads of channels, most of which are foreign and I can't understand. I don't have to cook and I can just order room service if I want. I have a power shower and lots of cool free toliettries, which I still feel the need to nick, and put in my bag so I get more!, which is kind of stupidi when your there for five months (I now have a huge stock pile)! Yes living in a hotel is cool! Well it is at first, because as we all know most of us never spend more than 2 weeks living in a hotel. After that, it, well? It becomes kind of weird. There is nothing really of you in it. It's just a box to live in with the essentials but no essence. It feels sterile! 

It's not only the room that's weird after a bit but the whole environment and you suddenly find that your living in this crazy artificial community. That said it the most amazing people watching experience ever and I start to become accustomed to the ways of hotel life. 

The hotel had a gym which I've been hitting hard to try and get Fit but my main excuse is to relieve the stresses of work. It has all the modern wonders of any gym you will find back home and had just as many posers as well. I put my head phones on and then listen to some hard cord music (usually the Prodigy) that gets me through the pain barrier of running 5km on the treadmill as quick as possible. Whilst I'm sweating my way through this process I observe the attendees of the gym. There are the regulars who prance around like they own the place in far to tight of shorts looking at themselves in the mirror. Then there the girls who come looking amaculate with full make up and designer sports gear who mainly take selfies of themselves. The gym is always completely crowded here, but overall my main observation remains that it's more a hangout place rather than anyone actually doing any work outs. 

I like to mainly hang out in the bar at the lobby. Its here I reel off emails and write. It's the best observing ground ever and the barmaid, Tina has become a good friend and she gives me free home made chocolate as I'm a good customer. It's a real melting pot of the strangest mix of people. The weekends are the best. It's a five star hotel but it's filled with the dodgiest mix of Eastern European gangsters on a Saturday night, with 80s style leather jackets, chest hair on show, with lots of gold bling. They are usually not the most handsome or youngest of men but always have a harem of young girls in tow with lots of make up, tight cleavage dresses and thigh high hooker boots.  I feel strangely plain in comparison with minimal make up, baggy jumper, turn up jeans ans scruffy boots, but at the same time I've never been so happy to be plain as I have no desire to attract any of these people's attention. Also at the weekends many Israelis come over to play in the many casinos that overload the city.  There're not very popular here, Tina tells me as they are very rude, which I witness first hand as Tina is confronted by one demanding ice for him and his mates own drinks they have illegally brought to the bar, as they don't want to pay for drinks. Then Tina goes and calls security on them and they get frogmarched out of the bar area while swearing at the staff in Hebrew (I don't know Hebrew but I'm 99% sure they are not saying "Have a nice day!" as they are leaving)? This process usually occurs about three times a night, and it's always quite entertaining and much better than watching CNN in my room (which I do a lot as its one of the few English channels). 

We are not the only film crew staying in the hotel. Another crew is in town making a movie for an over the hill 90's action star. The crew are usually quite easy to spot as they are all American and like to talk loudly so everyone can hear about them working in the movies and living in LA. It's one night like this when I'm sat down for dinner, that I hear the table talking about the movie. There're stunt men, I realise as the conversations flows and they are also talking a lot of shit as well. I'm looking over at them. One of the stunt men seems really familiar to me, then I realised he super liked me on Tinder the night before! Shit! I hide my face with a menu, and try and finish my meal as quickly as possible before he notices me. To be fair he's actually very hot but he's a stunt man (usually very arrogant) and he's just been talking shit for the last 10 minutes about his kick boxing skills. I decide its best to delete my account after that. To be fair I hadn't been on Tinder in ages, but I was bored and feeling sorry for myself as I've finished with the guy I've been seeing as what is the point of dating some one when your the other side of Europe from each other for 5 months. Anyway What I did see of a Tinder Romania was, well? Quite different. No one really smiles in their photos, and quite a lot of guys had 

"Do not disturb!" with "I'm already disturbed!" Written below it, as their profile picture! Maybe this is some sort of wooing technique in Romanian? Also lots of guys are called Vlad which just reminds me of Vlad the impaler or Dracula and I really don't want to be dating some one that could potentially bite or impale me in my sleep, as it's just not cool. I delete my Tinder account with a sense of relief. 

I don't know any of the crew here and most of them have worked together before, so I'm a newbie to the group, which has been quite hard. I'm getting back one afternoon from my usual Saturday walk that has become my routine when I bump into Angela from the crew. She's South African, with a lip piercing, half her head shaved, and always wears knee high boots and mini skirts to work. I like her as she's a real character with "I don't give a shit!" attitude.  I feel really honoured when she asks me to come for a drink with her in the bar later, though I think she just feels sorry for me as she always sees me on my own. I turn up to find her with a beer already under way and a cigarette in hand (you can still smoke inside in Romania). I pull up a chair beside her and order a drink and we start chatting. She's fun and entertaining. Then we have another drink and then another. Then some guy called Andy turns up who she befriended the night before at the bar, who is on a business trip. The next thing there are tequila shots being downed and then some more drinks and then more tequila! The bar is closing so Angela thinks it's a great idea that we all go back to her room for more drinks and I drunkenly agree. I'm half way through another glass of wine in her room when I'm handed a cigarette which I decide to start smoking. I know I'm drunk as I don't smoke and this sends me green. I'm sat there while the room is spinning and Angela and Andy are talking, thinking of how I can't throw up on my new colleagues sofa. They are in full flow when I stand up mid conversation, and very loudly say:

"I have to go! I'm going to throw up!" and then I'm gone in a cloud of dust! I'm racing down the corridors; hanging on in the lift; flinging open my door; and rush to my toliet and that's it! I'm sick! I'm really sick in fact! 

"So much for fitting in and making a good impression with the new crew!" I think to myself as I hang my head over the toilet! 

The next day I'm dying, but I'm in a nice King size bed, with fresh sheets, watching a plasma TV, ordering room service to relieve the pain. The conclusion is: living in a hotel is the best thing for a hangover but maybe only a hangover? I guess I need to be hungover a lot to cope? 

DAM IT! I'M HOME SICK!

10 THINGS I MISS ABOUT ENGLAND 

* People that get sarcasm.  It's wasted here! 

* Sunday roasts

* Topshop (I know this is Materialistic, but I don't give a Dam)! 

* Goggle box ( I can't believe I just admitted to that)!

* Purdey's vitamin drinks ( I have addiction to them and right now the cold turkey isn't feeling good)!

* BBC radio 6 music

* Queuing! Some one pushed in front of me the other day in H&M! Do they not know how much that annoys an English person? We love a good orderly queue!

*  People understanding everything I say all the time and not everything being lost in translation! Actually I take that back, as no one understands what I'm saying back home half the time and their English.

* Being able to find a good avocado (first world problems)! 

* My friends and family. 

So now I need to counteract that with with 10 things I like about Romania 

10 THINGS GOOD ABOUT ROMANIA

* It's cheap!

* It doesn't rain that much!

* Everyone is nice. Well apart from one person who actually just one of the most evil people I Have met!

* The bread is good!

* It's cheap! Shit I've already said that one! 

SORRY THATS ALL I HAVE TO GIVE, ROMANIA RIGHT NOW.

"Mum! Something terrible has happened!"

I'm face timing my mum for like the second time that week! She's in shock! I never contact my family that much. It's not that I don't love them: I do lots! It's just that I've always been very independent. I'm Carly the lesser spotted. A sighting, or a call is a rarity.

"I'm homesick!" I say.

"Oh my God!" Is her response.

At the age of 36, the girl that has travelled most of the world on her own, with never thinking about coming home; and who is fiercely independent, is home sick for the first time in her life and it's a horrible feeling! I remember when people use to tell me they were home sick when I was travelling. I would look at them weirdly as I could not emphasise with them as I'd never had this feeling. I always thought they were weak. Now I take back that view, because it's one of the worst feelings I've ever experienced. It's like a constant nausea and discomfort. I can't sleep and my appetite has more or less completely gone. All I can think about is getting on a plane home. It's all come as quite a shock to me this feeling, and I don't know how to make it stop. I have days better than others but the feeling is always there. 

To counter act my home sickness I'm try to make things as English as possible.  I'm doing this by:

* Saying lots of English little phrases, which we have lots of. I'm also calling everyone love a lot (which is very northern thing to say)! Most of the time this is completely lost on everyone as no one else on the crew is English and there are mainly tumble weeds of silence.

* I'm watching lots of English TV as I've downloaded Astril which allows me to watch stuff probably illegally? (Life on the edge)! This means I can watch as much crap TV as I want (which we have lots of in the UK) and I suddenly feel completely at home!

* I'm finding I'm ringing a lot more uk companies for Enquiries than other countries, which means I can talk to English people and spend a lot more time on the phone talking to them than I should do about such crap like the weather and should we leave the EU? How terribly English! 

CONCLUSION TO ALL THIS!:

I'm a idiot and just need to get over myself! As Scarlet O 'Hara famously said:

"After all; tomorrow is another day!"

WELCOME TO ROMANIA!

Hmmmm! So what do I know about Romania? Well there are the obvious things: Dracula! Translyvania! Then there was that gymnast in the 70s that kept scoring perfect marks at the olympics and looked rather smug with herself when she did. The horror of their orphanages. Errrr....they have the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon. Oh! And I remember when I was a kid, they had a ruler who they didn't like very much, so they went and shot him and his wife, which I found quite distressing at the age of nine when I found out, because I then started wondering if people didn't like the Queen, could they just go and shoot her and Prince Phillip?  Which would have be wrong as they looked like grandparents and no one wants their grandparents shooting! Oh! And there are the Cheeky Girls! Actually lets not mention the cheeky girls! 

"Anyway why am I wondering all these things about Romania" you ask? Well it's because Bucharest,  Romania is going to be my home for five months!!!!

I wasn't even meant to be in Romania in the first place. I was meant to be filming in Sri Lanka for the winter months, in the heat and the sun, amongst palm trees; slipping a cocktail by the pool after a hard days work, but as I know all too well things can change very quickly in my job. My job gets axed 3 weeks before Christmas. I find myself jobless at the worst time of year and stressed as I'm seeing a mortgage advisor the next week.  Then the next week like a ray of shining light I'm offered a job In Romania,  be it with a team I have never worked with before, but hey!  It's a job! The money is good and it means I can save for my flat that I so dearly want. On paper this is a good move. The reality feels a little different as I leave the airport at Bucharest and I'm confronted with a mass of snow and the temperature at -21. This is definitely not Sri Lanka! For anyone that knows me well, this is my worst bloody nightmare. I hate the cold with a passion! I normally have the costume truck so hot that my designer says its like a reptile house at the zoo, as he's stripping off his jumper in a hot sweat, and opening windows to let some air in (I would always shut them again as soon as he left)! I'm met at the airport by a big tall, serious looking man. This is Dan and he is to be my driver. We shuffle through the snow with my case to the car. I sit in the car a bit shell shocked trying to take in the surroundings as we drive by. Everywhere is just one big sheet of white. It's just after New Year, so the festive lights are still up. It seems Romanians  like lights. A lot of them! It's kind of like a eastern block Blackpool with all the tacky lights. I guess it's to distract from the fact it's not a very beautiful city. It mainly grey and concrete, vast blocks of buildings left over from the communist era. It does not have the elegance and beauty of Prague and Budapest. I'm dropped off at my hotel, a vast modern five star hotel in the heart of the city. It comes as a relief after the drive from the airport as it had made me think I'd be staying in some soviet style prison. The hotel is just as modern and as fancy as anything in London, but the next night as I sit there in its restaurant, looking out at the snow, I realise this gives me little comfort. I'm actually sat there thinking: "Why the Hell am I here?" I've left all my friends and family, to come to country that is cold and bleak; I don't know a single person here; I only have a suitcase of belongings and I have been dating someone I really like and it's been going well for once, and now, yes now I decide it's a good time to bugger off to the other side of Europe for 5 months! I could quite easily be  doing a job back in London. "Seriously I need my head checking!" I think to myself. There was one over riding factor to all this and the reason why I came here in the first place. The money to buy my flat. I know that I would never be able to save the money I want in such a short amount of time in London. Five months of sacrifice for years of security. Nothing really. "I must remember this" I tell myself and grab a black sharpie marker and pull out my treasured note book that I take on every job with me. I find the front page and scrawl across it the words: "Remember why!" in thick black letters. I tell myself no matter how bad or lonely it gets, you have to remember why you are doing this. I must keep looking at those words so I don't forget. I look out the window. It's dark and it's started snowing again. All I want is to do is down a glass of wine, but as I'm on a detox for a month after the indulgences of Christmas, I down a glass of water instead (how very unlady Warrington)! 

OBSERVATIONS

* Fashion traits that I have observed still in Vogue in Romania are: Leather trousers for men; 1980s dynasty style, big fur coats and Sun in (lots of people have orange hair)! 

* I've never eaten so much bread in my life, that's because strangely enough the bread is good here. I'm still scared I'll wake up though, to find I've turned into a big loaf of bread or something like that.

* Nanna Mouskouri is still big here!

* There are a lot of stray dogs here. I'm not sure if they out number people at times?

* I think Romanian TV has a thing about Mickey Rourke as the first week I'm here there seems to be a Mickey Rourke film on every night, but only his 80's ones when he was still hot before he decided to mess up his face with crap plastic surgery 

* They use horse and cart here for rubbish removal instead of a bin truck. I would like to say it's takes up less of the road and is quicker than the bin trucks back home, but this would be a lie. It also leaves a huge trail of horse crap where ever it goes, which you have to step over a lot! 

MEKHALA; THE GODESS OF THE SEA: RETURN TO THE TSUNAMI 10 YEARS ON

On the 26th of December 2004 at 00.58 UCT an earthquake occurred off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, with a magnitude of 9.1. It was third highest earthquake ever recorded. It triggered a series of deadly Tsunami's, that killed over 230,000 people, in 14 countries, most of them still in their beds sleeping unaware of the 100ft waves racing towards them. It is probably the deadliest natural disaster to have occurred in recorded history. 

I was traveling when this disaster occurred, but I was nowhere near it.  I was 25; on my first ever backpacking trip; with 3 of my closet friends around the world. We were thousands of miles away on that Boxing Day morning, living in our own utopia on a remote Fujian island, completely cut off and unaware that part of the world was falling to pieces across the ocean. It wasn't until a week later when we landed in Auckland, and I sat having my breakfast in a hipster cafe, that I was confronted with a newspaper; it's front page covered with washed up dead bodies on a beach, that I realised the true horror of what had happened. As we continued our travels up into Asia, stories drifted around of the big Tsunami, sometimes from people who had been there, (And some of them with so little tac that they describe the whole event as if they had survived the Big Dipper at Blackpool and had got T-shirt to prove it)! 

Two months later I found myself alone in Bangkok. My travel companions had all slowly, but surely left me because of money, home sickness or where missing their boyfriend. I on the other hand had no urge to go home, as I've never really suffered from the home sickness bug. I decided instead, that it was time to see this terrible event, that had haunted most of my trip, with my own eyes. After a lot of searching I finally found a bus and boat that would take me to the island of Phi Phi, one of the worst hit areas in Thailand and a place that I heard was still crying out for help and volunteers. I sat on the near empty boat, on my own heading to Phi Phi, contemplating what I would find there. It was one of the most anxious journeys I think I have ever taken. I stood on deck as the boat motored into the harbour. The first thing I recall there were no trees. The greenery of what we invision for a tropical island was void. All that was left were snapped off trucks and sometimes not even that. As we neared the harbour I saw groups of divers rising and descending again in the water, as people shouted instructions from the pier. I found it all very odd that people were scuba diving at a time like this. It was only later that I learnt that these people were also volunteers, who were diving to help try free the still trapped bodies caught under rumble in the sea. Once on land the true extent of the destruction became apparent. The pathway on which I walked away from the harbour was piled high on either side like mountains with debris: broken doors, motorbikes, and electrical wires all poked out from the mass. It was like something out of a apocalypse movie. I wandered for a bit to find a guest house that had not been destroyed and that was still open, eventually finding one run by a little old Thai lady, who informed me that the volunteers had a meeting every night in a bar in the centre to discuss what needed doing and to allocate jobs. Later that night I find my self sat at the bar surrounded by a mass of volunteers listening to what progress has been made and what needs doing. I'm feeling slightly shy and awkward as I'm there on my own, so compensate this by being very enthusiastic, as I volunteer myself for the first task that is requiring people. It's beach clear up. The girl sat beside me volunteers too. She looks at me and says,

"Are you here on your own too? Have you just arrived?"

I tell her yes to both questions. She is in the same circumstances too.

"We should go and get a beer!" She says.

This is how I met Mel. Mel was an Australian with fair skin that probably was not suited to hot weather and strawberry blonde flowing locks that fell to her waist. She possessed a confidence and sureness in life that I lacked. I instantly liked her. We walked to the beach, but the only way we knew we had arrived there, was by the the sound of the waves, as there was nothing but total blackness, apart from a small light, shining a little further up. We walked towards it to find a shack with a Thai guy selling beers from a cool box. This was Ya Ya. He told us his story. He was selling beers to help his cousin who had, had a bar on the beach, that had been destroyed. His cousin had also lost his wife and 2 young daughters and many other members of their family. I didn't know what to say. But inside my heart bled. We sat and drank beers brought from him, as it was a little constellation that this would help them in some tiny way.

The next day before I started my volunteer duties, I, as one of the new people,  was to be shown round the devastation of the small town. The climax of which ended at the once Jewel in the crown; a five star hotel that had taken pride of place on the beach. The luxury beach huts which had lined the sand where all gone apart from remnants of two that barely held together. The most casualties on the island were the guests of these huts, swept out to sea as they slept in their beds unaware of the tidal wave of horror heading towards them. The main structure of the hotel itself was nothing but a shell with damp rooms, filled with sand, water and rotting furniture piled in corners. It was a sombering sight.

I'm taken to where I am to start beach clear up. I realise it's the beach where we were the night before as I can see the shack where we drank beers from, but this time instead of a mass of black as my view there is the most beautiful bay and beach, with green hills, and turquoise sea. It's kind of breath taking even with the devastation which can still be seen on beach. The lead volunteer gives us a pile of black bin liners and begins:

"We have been clearing the beach a lot but every day new rubbish from the tsunami washes in. If you find anyone's passports or ID's you must hand them in. Dead bodies don't really wash up anymore but we did have one the other week, so you must be aware to expect it. Put everything in the bags and pile them down there."

I look a bit like a rabbit in the head lights after her speech and stand there for a while with the bin liner in my hand, until I realise everyone else has already started clearing and I then I know that's what I must do. I remember it being such a weird experience. For the most, it was just general rubbish: food wrappers, broken wood, wires, things you couldn't recognise anymore, but then, every now and again some thing would turn up and it would make you question, just throwing it into a bag of rubbish without a thought. A shoe, a item of clothing; books. Then one day I see some thing and it makes me freeze in my tracks. I pick it up. It's a small teddy bear. A child's toy. It's damp and rotting. One eye is missing. I look at it and think of who it belonged too? I wondered if the child was still alive? I felt my eyes start to fill with water and then I did what I did with every other item I picked up, I threw it into a bin liner. I only did beach clear up for a week. I found it too hard mentally. I thought about that rotting teddy bear for a long time. I still do sometimes now, and what happened to all those bin bags I filled and piled high everyday, full of people's lives. 

During our days of beach clear up me and Mel, would rest and take drinks from Ya Ya at the shack. We grew to know him well and so we met Ben. Ben was Ya Ya's cousin, who had lost the bar and everything. When I say we met Ben, we didn't really meet Ben. We met a man totally devastated and a shell of his former self who would be drunk most of the time, but then no one could blame him. I always found it hard being round Ben. I never knew what to say to him. What can you say to some one that has lost everything. Mel was much better at it than me and took an active interest in Bens plight and how to help. Mel was not the only one either. Ben already had a good group of people around him trying help him start rebuild his life and bar for him. There was an English couple Rob and Tash; then there was a crazy Irish guy Deco and a lovely German girl (who now all these 10 years later, name escapes me). They had already started between them, to put together the startings of a frame work for the new bar. After beach duty, Mel found us new work sign painting for businesses and as I've always been a painter, I couldn't have been happier. We picked up another members of the group, Charlotte the girl with the chin piercing; Andrew the journalist doing a story on phi Phi who I would later stay with in Hong Kong, and Bec's a beautiful blonde gap year student, who we found trying to sunbathe on the beach. Deco made, me and Bec's, go and wake him up most mornings for work, as he would always oversleep, as he had usually got wasted the night before. We would wake him and he would always have a beer and pre-rolled joint beside his bed, which he lit as he got out of bed and say "There's nothing better than being awaken by two tall blondes in the morning!" While drinking his beer and recharging for the day. So this became my life for a couple of weeks. This weird little community among the chaos. I always remember out of all the times I have travelled, this experience and the people I met,  being one of the most happiest (even with all the sadness) and influential experiences of my life and has always had a lasting effect on me. Just before I left, Mel painted a sign for the new bar. It was to be called the Sunflower bar! 

In times gone by this would of been the end of this story, but through the power of modern technology, we volunteers connected again through social media which had not exsisted when we first met, and so we saw each other's lives from a far. I kept in contact with Mel now and again as she always had the great trait of being an extremely social person. I had left her behind in Phi Phi where she had stayed on to help and I saw over time she kept going back, and then back again, and then there were photos of her and Ben and then the announcement: she was pregnant with Ben's baby! It was the craziest most exciting news. They had a baby girl. She was called Mekhala, after the Thai Godess of the sea. A poitiant name indeed. I watch her grow over the years through photos and she made me so happy, this little girl I never had met, because she was something beautiful that had grown out of such sorrow and destruction.

It's 10 years later. I find myself leaving Australia, and I have a flight to Bangkok with a week to spare before I had to go to Sri Lanka for work. F**k it! I'm going back to Phi Phi. It seems like the right time all these years on. I catch a flight to Krabi and realise I've missed the last boat to the island and find myself walking round Krabi town late at night homeless with nowhere to stay. There have only been three occasions in all my time travelling where I have actual thought I might have to sleep on the street. This is one of them. Everywhere I try is full and I put my backpack down in the street in despair. A tuk tuk driver takes pity on me and takes me to a friends to stay out of town. It's a dump and I probably paid too much but it's better than the street. He picks me up early the next morning and takes me to the port. I catch an over crowded boat that we are herded on to like cattle. A very different experience to the first time I caught a boat there. I sit crunched up, for over an hour feeling rather dissolllioned by the people that surround me until a glimpse of the island comes into my view and I feel a massive wave of emotion that I didn't know was there, sweep over me. I'm back! We pull near to the harbour and I feel a sense of fear of that harbour, of seeing divers swimming around in it again, but there long gone. In fact everything is long gone. I don't recognise anything. The debris is replaced by modern concrete buildings and tourist traps. I disembark thinking I would know my route so well, but I know nothing! It's a maze of cheap bars, restruants and tattoo parlours. The only thing I know is to head straight to the other side to my bay, to my beach. No matter what time changes, it can't change that? I finally find it. The view is still the same. It's still beautiful and it still has a hold on my heart, but what surrounds it is not the same! Bucket bars! Pool parties! Drunken tourists!  I came here last, at such a bleak time, but at least it had some natural respect for the place. This is not the case now. In some weird kind of way it seems just as bleak here. I head to the shoreline but I can't see where the sunflower is! I know this place! Where is it? I'm so confused! Has it gone? But I'd contacted Mel to tell her I was coming and she said she was there at the sunflower. It must be here?  I ask a local. They tell me to keep heading down the beach and then when I had just stopped believing it still exists, the past reappears to me. The half Thai boats as seats centred around a bar, but now they have a roof over them and so much more. I dump my back pack down but I can't see Mel. I go over to a Thai lady at the bar and say I'm looking for Mel. 

"I'm Carly? Mel's Friend" I say

"Carly! Mel's friend! So excited!" She says and rushes up the stairs.

A couple of minutes later Mel comes down the stairs. She doesn't really look any different from when I saw her ten years ago and strangely enough it doesn't feel any different either. As she hugs me it feels like I just saw her yesterday. I suddenly feel completely at home. I tell her I'm going to stay at a guest house but Mel insist's I stay with them, if I can stand it? It's a simple bed, with a mosquito net, in the storage room. She tells me the roof leaks when it rains and it's very unglamorous, but I couldn't be happier because between living next to the storage supplies and a leaking roof, I'm looking out over my beach, that bay, that beautiful hipnotic view that I still love just as much 10 years ago. For me this bed is priceless. I unpack my stuff and head down stairs and Mel introduces me to Mekhala. She very beautiful. It feels weird to meet her in person as I feel like I've known her for so long but I don't know her at all. Mel tells her our story but she still looks on me as a stranger. She does tell me the name of the stray kitten she has adopted though: Dog Mai ban. I think it meant flower house in Thai?

 I awake in the morning surrounded by storage boxes, a mosquito net and Dog mai ban scratching at my toes. Looking beyond that, there is my beautiful beach. I couldn't be happier. It occurs to me quite early on that Mel has her hands full. Not only has she built the bar; she's running it as well and it's a full time occupation. I decide to head to the beach to keep out of the way. I don't stray too far because, as soon as I head out of the sunflower it turns into foreign terrority for me. It's funny that my beach feels so foreign to me now, as all those years ago I knew it so well! There are cheap bars and the worst kind of tourists everywhere. I hate them! I hate them for stupidity and irgnorance! "People died on this beach! This is the beach ten years ago I threw people's lives into bin bags!" I scream to myself. I calm myself. They are not to know. It's not there fault. I'm sunbathing for a while, when I'm disturbed by a screech of laugher next to me. It's Mekhala and her very cute Thai cousin, Champoo. Mekhala starts talking to me, no holes barred (she has lost her shyness towards me) and I feel a sudden connection with her. She asks me to help her and Champoo into the water with their giant inflatable turtle and a motherly instinct in me doesn't just help them but spends all day playing in the water with them, having the most amazing time. So much so I burn my shoulders because I forget about the sun. So this becomes my days, back in Phi Phi. I play and connect with Mekhala. I put her to bed when Mel is too busy working the bar, and we talk about everything and anything while Dog Mai Ban scratches our feet while we chat. I feel very happy. Life has come full circle. I don't really leave the Sunflower while I'm there. For me the rest of the island has become an estranged relative. Only the sunflower holds onto the same energy and love, of what I first encountered on that island. It would be easy to say the westerns have ruined the island but as I have found in life, everything is a two way thing and the Thai's have let them, ruin it with their own greed for money rather than respecting their own natural beauty. I feel angry at them for ruining this beautiful island. Life is no fairytale and nor is this story. I don't believe in fairytales and I'm sure Mel doesn't either. We are too stronger women for that. Ben will always have his demons from the Tsunami and everything Mel has built up for herself and her daughter could be taken away from them any moment as Mel has no rights under Thai law being a foreigner, but what does matter is that little part of beach, on a little island in Thailand, that holds a special place in our hearts, and always will till the day we die. I hope to see Mel and Mekhala in 10 years time and it feel like yesterday.

I said my farewells to Mel and Mekhala the night before I left, as I was catching the ferry early in morning. It was better that way as I'm not very good at goodbyes even though I've said far too many of them in my life. I walked along my beach that morning and no one was around like all those years ago and then suddenly all the ghosts came flooding back to me and I thought about the teddy bear with one eye and thought about crying. Then I thought about about Mekhala and then I realised new life can spring from the most awful of stuations and life will always go on. I decided then it was time to bury all those bin liners of people's lives, there and then.