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. 

 

MELBOURNE: FRIENDS REUNITED

It's funny how some people come into your life. Take for instance one of my closest friends Kym. Kym was only meant to be in my life briefly and then vanish like a lot of people do. She was renting a room in our warehouse for a couple of weeks while my housemate was away on holiday. During this time I spilt up with my long term boyfriend who I lived with as he was cheating on me with a girl who lived down the corridor from us. With all the tears, shouting and drama, Kym must of thought she had moved into some sort of Jerry Springer episode. I chucked my boyfriend out as it was the only thing to do. The only problem with this was that between us, we rented a bedroom and an office. I could not afford both on my own. As I had been a complete nutter on the verge of a breakdown (or drunk!) most days since she had lived there, it was a complete surprise when Kym said she would move into the office and make it into a bedroom to cover the rent. She stayed for 8 months and over that time we became good friends, and when she left we continued our friendship and over the years she has become a really good, loyal friend to me. So looking back on it now, I'm really glad my boyfriend cheated on me, because I would of probably never of become friends with Kym and gained a person who was far more important to me in my life. I'm also glad he cheated on me as he was German and listened to bad German rap music, so it meant I didn't have to listen to that anymore as well! 

While I was traveling through South America this year, Kym emailed me to say that she had decided to move back to her homeland of Australia after 8 years in London. She was tired of London life and wanted a new start back home. I was devastated. Not only was it another person from my circle leaving London, but moving to the other side of the world! I was going to miss her so much. Kym was the person I rang when I was feeling down, if things weren't going right or if I was involved with another asshole of a man, and she rang me for the same reasons. Things were always easy and uncomplicated with Kym. She has at times, not had the easiest of lives, but you would never know. She never complains, never feels sorry for herself or never makes a song and dance over things.  She has the ability to laugh off the most horrible of situations. I once asked how she always remained so calm and was able to laugh off these things.

"Because if I don't, I would cry and it's much better to laugh" was her response.

I didn't get to say goodbye to her properly as I was lay up in bed with a chest and throat infection from Hell. Maybe it was a good thing as I would of cried my eyes out in front of her, so instead I cried my eyes out on my own, while high on Day Nurse and antibiotics for my infection! 

I was determined to keep in contact when she left. I sent her emails to ask how her new life in Australia was going, but got no response. I felt gutted. "Was this the way it was going to be now she back in Australia. Would she forget about me now" I thought to myself. A couple of weeks later I received an response email. Kym told me that she was sorry for not replying sooner but she had been in hospital for the last couple of weeks with Pancreatitis and a collapsed lung. She calmly said that it had been quite serious and she had nearly died. Not the start to a new life in Australia she had hoped for. Kym was one of my main reasons for visiting Australia. I missed her and I wanted to check my friend was OK. 

"You have Australian visa?"

I'm panting, out of breath at the check in desk of Narita, Tokyo airport after sprinting across the terminal, scared I was going to miss final check in after missing my train and having to wait another hour for the next one. I make it just in time but then I'm presented with this question.

"No" I reply "British passports don't need a visa for Australia!"

"I think they do" replies the woman politely, behind the desk. 

"I've been to Australia before and I didn't need a visa!" As this was seven years ago I really can't remember if this is true or not but I'm sticking to the story.

"I have to check with immigration" she says I picks up the phone and starts to dial. I'm starting to feel nervous. I spy an Australia couple at the desk next to me.

"I don't need a visa for Australia with a British passport do I?" I turn to ask them.

"Na!" they respond "You will be fine."

A tall, thin, camp Japanese man waltzes over.

"I believe you don't have a visa for Australia?" He asks.

"No. I don't need one!" I say defiantly.

"Well then I can't let you board this flight then!"

"What!" I go white and my mouth drops open. "You mean I can't get on the flight!"

"That's what I just said."

"But I have a British passport. I've been before!" I say in shock.

"I have worked here many years and you have always needed a visa" he responds. I hate this guy! He's smug and has a face I want to punch! I stand for a minute defeated.

"You pay 3000 yen and I can do visa online now for you" he says.

"Really?" My face lights up. This guy is not so bad after all. I wait anxiously as he types away at the computer as time ebbs away. This is cutting it down to the wire. After what felt like forever, he turns to me:

"It's done you can check in. Oh and next time you go to a country I suggest you check the visa situation!" 

No! I take it back! I hate him and his smug face, which I still want to punch! I make it to the gate as they announce the final call, with my nerves shot at.

I wasn't go to stay with Kym first up as she was moving into a new house. I had rented an Air B&B with  my friend Biskey who had come to see me from Sydney. As I said it's funny how people come into your life, well read how I meant Biskey and rest of the Pussy Fags (I did not give them this name before you all start telling me off for the use of this term!) in Colombia click here

Actually you should read it as then you will understand the chaos of what is about to follow as they seem to bring chaos with them. The plan was simple. I had the address of the apartment. I would buzz and he would let me in. Hey presto! That simple! Well you would think but as I have learnt, nothing is that simple with the Pussyfags, especially Biskey. After going through immigration and getting my luggage I arrive at the address at 2am. I buzz. Nothing. I buzz again! Nothing! I keep buzzing. Nothing! Nothing, NOTHING! I decide to ring him but I realise I only have Biskeys English mobile number from when he was in London. I have to turn on my 3G. I leave a message to say I'm outside. Nothing! So it's the early hours of the morning and I'm sat on the street with my bags looking like a homeless person in the middle of Melbourne. It's not even warm! I want to kill Biskey! I've been sat there at least half an hour, when a guy walks over:

"Are you OK there?" he asks.

I explain the situation to him. Luckily he lives in the building and takes pity on me and let's me in. Result. I find the apartment and knock on the door a couple of times.  Nothing. I try the handle. The door opens. Amazing! I walk into a dark and silent and apartment. I call Biskeys name. Nothing. I walk from room to room with no signs of life until I finally I reach the bedroom where I can see a figure asleep in the dark. I call Biskeys name again. I walk closer to the bed and then I have a heart attack. You see Biskey is of Indian origin and is dark. This guy in the bed is definitely white! "SHIT! I've walked into the wrong persons apartment! I'm going to get arrested for trespassing in some one else's place!" I think.

I'm still having a heart attack when the person turns around and looks at me.

"Hello slag! Surprise!"

It's Reuben! One of the Pussyfags, but he's not meant to be here! I throw myself on the bed and give him a huge hug.

"Where the Hell is Biskey?" I ask

"He got drunk and didn't want to wait, so went out!" replies Reuben.

"What! He's such an idiot! Why didn't you wait up and let me in?" I ask Reuben.

"I'm not even meant to be here remember? I'm a surprise! None of my responsibility!" is his response and turns over and goes back to sleep. A typical Pussyfag response: I'm not taking responsibility! I decide to go to sleep and not get angry. Why would I expect anything different from these guys? They are total nightmares. Isn't why I get on with them? Life is never boring with them? 

I've been asleep over an hour when I get woken by a phone call.

"Where are you?" Says the person down the line.

"Biskey! Is that you?" I ask.

"Of course it is! Where are you? I've been waiting for you!" He replies

"No you haven't! Where the Hell have you been?" I'm angry and tired after being woken from sleep.

"Yes I have! I've been waiting for you at the casino!" 

"Why the Hell are you waiting for me at a casino?"

"Because that's where I am!" He retorts

"Your an idiot and I'm going to sleep!" And I hang up.

An hour later I'm woken from sleep again. This time it's Biskey in person shaking me! He smells of alcohol. 

"Hey how are you? I was waiting for you?" He says drunkenly

"No you weren't! You were at a casino?"

"I know! I was waiting for you in the casino!"

"Your drunk!"

"No I'm not!"

"I can smell it on your breath!"

"I won $10,000 at the casino!"

"Yeah right! I'm going back to sleep! Nite!" And turn over.

I hear Biskey stumble to the kitchen to fix himself another drink and try to fall asleep while he plays music too loud in the living room. "Well a least they weren't a disappointment on the chaos element" I think to myself as I fall to sleep.

I will give Biskey his dues. No matter how drunk or little sleep he gets he always gets up to battle the next day. He just needs a pair of dark shades and a strong coffee to hot wire him. By the way he didn't win $10,000 at the casino. More like $800! The boys decide as its my first day in Australia they want to take me to the best breakfast place in Melbourne. The problem with this is, they can't decide on a good place. We walk the streets of Melbourne for over an hour to the point that everywhere has shut for breakfast! We miss breakfast! Typical! So I end up having the best lunch in Melbourne. It's not long after midday that the boys decide we should have the first bottle of wine. "Well we should" I think "to celebrate our reunion!" After the lunch (which was bloody amazing!) they take me to a roof top bar that looks like some picture postcard house of white picket fencing and pink upholstered chairs. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, my Dad is on the mend, I'm not on the street looking like a homeless person, I haven't been arrested for trespassing in someone's flat and the boys have just ordered a bottle of Bolllinger! Life is good! I'm full of the joys of spring! Life is very good! We get slowly drunk. We are served at the table by young pretty girls dressed in the shortest of tennis skirts, that if they bend over too much you will see right up them. The boys are in their element. They refer to the girls as number1,2, and 3 and compare who is the best. I think they forget at times I have tits and a vagina because they treat me like I'm one of the boys. The thing is I do have tits and a vagina and I'm really proud of my tits and vagina!

"Will you stop talking about women as if they are objects! We are not objects! We are people!" I berate them.

"We know you have tits and a vagina, but you should be happy that we treat you like one of the boys. Number 2 is nice but I don't really like the underwear she is wearing" Reuben continues to Biskey totally ignoring me.

Assholes! 

I arrange to meet Kym later that evening. I'm so excited to see her. I tell the boys they can't come. The reasons for this is are:

1. Reuben has already asked if Kym is fit. He can hit on the whole of Australia but he ain't going anywhere near my friends.

2. I don't want to be having a deep and meaningful conversation with Kym while in the background all I can hear is them two going on about the merits of the waitresses underwear. 

3. I need to get away from the walking bags of testerone for a bit. I tell them they can meet us for dinner later.

On the way to meet Kym at Flinders street station I realise I'm quite drunk. I have been drinking since midday though and trying to be one of "The Boys!" Kym is already there waiting for me at station. She looks really well. Radiant in fact. Not like someone who has nearly died. I'm so happy to see her well. We walk and talk. It feels like I just saw her yesterday. It doesn't feel like we are the other side of the world. We go to a bar down the lanes and catch up. Kym tells me she has been asked to do a PHD. Back in London Kym was a lawyer for Hackney council. She decided she want to do something different. So she decided to study for a masters in Human Rights and journalism, while still working full time. Kym is extremely intelligent, probably one of the most intelligent people I know, but what I like about her is she can be as ditzy as Hell sometimes too. She passed her masters with a distinction and her dissertation picked up the highest mark in her year. It's this dissertation that an Australian university has picked up on and want her to write a PHD on for 3 years. She tells me that she is waiting to hear if she has been successful in her application for the funding it will take, for the 3 years of research and writing she has to do. I can tell she has pinned all her hopes on this and doesn't quite know what she will do if the application fails. I tell her it will be fine. 

After meeting the boys later on an over crowded roof top bar we decide to go for dumplings in China town. It's cheap and cheerful as you have to bring your own booze. We get sat down in a massive room full of drunken people at a long table crammed with others. It's like some bad medieval banqueting hall. We are sat next to a group of girls when Biskey spies one and does his usual trick and turns to us all and says:

"I'm in love!"

"Your not in love!" I hiss at him "You have only just seen her and you have never spoken to her!"

Biskey ignores me.

By the time the food arrives I realise I'm completely wasted. I look around. Biskey is still staring at the girl like some love sick puppy or stalker (it depends on which way you look at it) and Rueben is looking at some girl in a short skirt that has just walked in. 

"Are they always like this?" Kym asks.

"Yes!" I reply drunkenly

Kym makes the wise decision to depart after dinner (I really don't know why as we are such pleasant company?). It would of been a wise decision for me too by then, but I'm not very good at wise decisions, so instead I down what is left of my bottle of processco in the street and start talking crap to some fellow Brits I find outside a bar. After that things become a little hazy. I remember the boys dragging me to some bar and then them arguing with the bouncer to let me in as he's refused me entry as I'm too drunk. He relents and I'm whisked in and sat down in a corner, while Biskey plonks down a pint glass of water in front of me and tells me to drink it. It's going to take more than a pint of water to sober me up and Biskey realises this

"I'm taking you home" he says. I know I'm in a real bad way as Biskey is the most irresponsible person I know and even he's looking after me! He drags me back to the apartment and dumps me on the bed and goes back out partying (as I said: not responsible)!

I awake the next morning to the hangover from Hell! I wander to the living room to find Biskey passed out on the sofa and Reuben on the floor with some blonde spooning him. They are surrounded by empty bottles and cigarette ends. I decide to have a shower and freshen myself up, while trying my hardest not to throw up on myself in the shower. "I'm getting too old for all of this!" I think to myself in the process.

When I return to the living room the boys are back in the land of the living, the blonde has gone and there raring to go again! "Right lets get back on it!" They beam. I just want to die.

Melbourne is known for its food and the boys take me to one of the best where we eat like kings. They order wine and I'm looking at the glass like its the enemy. 

"Come on. Hair of the dog Carly! It will make you feel much better!"

Funnily enough it does and a bottle later I'm feeling brilliant, and by the time Kym comes to meet later in a bar I'm well....... Drunk again! 

I decide to head to a BBQ of one of Kyms friends and have some time out from the boys. It was perfect weather for it. Melbourne has very changeable weather: worst than Britain if that's possible? One minute it can raining with gales the next it can be 33 degrees and so hot you can't think. It must of been that hot, as I wasn't thinking properly (or was it the fact I was drunk again?) as I rang the boys and decided to join them again instead of going home after the BBQ. They were at one of their friends houses in the suburbs, having a party so I drunkenly got a taxi to the address. The taxi dumps me at the end of a cul-de-sac and I look blurry eyed for the house numbers. I decide the house at the end is the one I want and stagger up the drive and to the porch. "It's very quiet for a party" I think to yourself. The door is open so I just drunkenly stroll in to find an old couple sat watching TV. They turn around in shock when they see me!

"Arnold? Reuben?" I blurt out in panic

They stare back at me blankly.

"This isn't number 34 is it? I'm in the wrong house aren't I?" I say pleadingly

"Yes Doll! It's next door!" Says the old man. 

Shit! I run out the house as quick as possible. "Why the Hell does this keep happening to me?" I think to myself. I don't tell the boys about this incident or I'd never hear the end of it. 

After too many drinks again I find myself collapsed in bed again before midnight (I really am getting too old for it!) and once again awake, to find the boys heaped on the sofas in some drunken state. Luckily they have to catch a flight back to Sydney (which in their state I'm not sure how they managed?), which means my liver and sanity can have a rest, until I see them in Sydney. I clear the carnage and the odour of stale booze left by them and collapse on the sofa. I don't drink that day. The boys have left me broken once again! 

The next day I go to stay with Kym at her place in the suburb of Northcote. She'd only moved in the day before as being ill and in hospital has set her back a bit (nearly dying can do that)! She has moved in with an old childhood friend Bryony who is an artist and her boyfriend Gregory who a scientist. There are two other housemates as well: one who is a teacher who plays the guitar and doesn't shave her arm pits and the other is a lesbian writer who also doesn't shave her armpits either. The house is big, but saying that there isn't much room due to the fact that ever square inch seems to be cluttered with anything and everything. No one seems too keen on cleaning either, but everyone is very big on communal living and sharing, so when dinner time arrives everyone chips in with cooking the food which usually consists of something vegan with kale in it. This is followed by after meal discussions about science, politics and green issues  which leave me feeling kind of stupid and not well read enough. Its how I'd  envisage a 1970s commune in San Francisco to be, only that we are not wearing flares or flowers in our hair; though I wished we were as that would be cool. I also wished I was wearing a crochet waistcoat as well because that would be even cooler. 

The days in Melbourne pass a lot calmer than how they started. Me and Kym go to museums, I eat well (lots of kale)  and my liver becomes normal again.

Before I leave I go to see Ann. Ann is one of my mums friends who she use to work with back in England. Ann has been over the years one of the most encouraging people to me about my travels and my writing. There is a reason for this. Years ago Ann lost her daughter in car accident in Australia when she was back packing. It was all very sad and tragic. I think Ann likes to see my travels as I guess it's probably what her daughter might of done if she was still alive. Ann ended up marrying an Australian and moving over here a couple of years later. 

I meet her at the train station and we go for dinner. Ann is all smiles, with a soft nature. She still has a strong northern accent without a hint of a Aussie twang. She tells me about her life here. She has been helping as a volunteer for road trauma victims and their families. She tells me she finds it hard here sometimes. Even though we speak the same language and Australia is quite similar in some ways to England, you have to remember it is still completely the other side of the world from us. I understand why it would be hard. That said you cannot focus on the negatives of situations in life and I tell her this. She must focus on what she has got here: a good partner; a beautiful city and the blue sunny skies. I would love to live in a country where the sky was blue most days. For me alone that would be worth it. We go and sit by the river and I make Ann have a glass of wine, because as I tell her "everything is better with a glass of wine!" We sit and talk as the sun smiles down on us and while I'm sat there with Ann talking about my travels, with my glass of wine, blue skies and not a care in the world it occurred to me that I should practice what I preach and think about all the good things in my life and not the negative. I realised at that moment I was a very lucky person indeed. 

Next stop Sydney! 

KYOTO: GUILT TRIP

A week before I was set to go on my travels, I went back up north to see my family. On visiting my Dad he told me he was going in for open heart surgery the week after I left. He asked me if I would go to the hospital the next day with him for further tests and to see the consultant. I guess you always think your parents are always going to be around forever, but no one is immortal, even your parents and this finally hit me when sat in a hospital room with the surgeon telling my father if he did not have this operation his heart was going to kill him. The operation was not with out its risks too, which he listed. We are sat afterwards in the hospital waiting room. If my dad was feeling scared or nervous by what he had just heard, he didn't show it. He seems more concerned with scar he is going have on his chest and how the operation is going to mess up his New Year plans, but maybe that was just his way of dealing with it. I on the other hand, was trying my best to reframe from crying. I felt like utter shit. I had planned this trip months ago and the thought of going away had been the only thing that had been getting me through the last couple of weeks. Going away, now seemed like the worse thing in the world. I tell him I'm going to cancel it. I know the ticket is non refundable. He tells me to stop being stupid. 

"You have worked hard for this and I know how much you want to go. Besides you have to go and see your brother and your nephew."

He tells me Barbara (His girlfriend) and my sister will look after him and keep me informed. I felt selfish and guilty going away and no matter how much everyone said it would be OK, the truth is I would never forgive myself if anything happened to my dad and I wasn't there. 

In a way Japan was the perfect place to go. There is so much to do and see that your days become so filled, you don't really have anytime to think of things. It was only at night when I finally stop and lay down to sleep that I would have time to think and become stressed about things. No matter how tired I was I had total insomnia that first week in Japan. The day before my dad's operation I decided to take myself off to Kyoto for 2 days as I had always wanted to see it and I wanted to be on my own, as solitude is my way of dealing with things. 

Now I've travelled a lot on my own, in fact it's what I prefer and not many things intimidate me but travelling in Japan is quite a different kettle of fish. As soon as my brother left me at the station with strict instructions of how to navigate my way through the Tokyo train system to my intended station, I had an overwhelming feeling of panic. 

"Shit I'm on my own! I don't know the language! I can't even read the writing! There are so many people everywhere and none of them understand me!"

I pulled myself together and get going, finding my way through the crowded commuter crowds. It's a good thing to be tall in Japan as it means that your head and shoulders above everyone else and that you can breath while everyone else is squashed down below, in the rush hour crowds.

After getting a little bit lost and confused I make it to my station to catch the Shinkansen otherwise famously known as the bullet train, Japan's high speed train which will take me to Kyoto. In a city as busy as Tokyo, the timing of the trains is critical. If a train is late it causes the whole system of flow to collapse. If a train is more than a minute late the driver has to issue an apology. I have never seen a train late in Japan. Please take note British rail.

Kyoto was the imperial capital of Japan for thousands of years and is known as the place to see the old Japan of geishas, tea houses and temples so it comes as quite a surprise when I get off the train and huge modern city presents itself to me. "Were is the quaintness?" I think to myself. It's only afterwards that I realise that Kyoto is still a city with a population of 1.5 million. I eventually find my hotel after walking around lost for half an hour, even though it is right next to the station and I've already walked past it twice. I cannot check in yet so I leave my bags and decide to head out and see the city. I buy a bus pass and decide to head first to the famous golden pavilion, Kinkaku-Ji. Unfortunately I get on the wrong bus and end up at another temple, which is nice but it isn't the bloody golden pavilion! After looking at the bus map at every angle possible, including upside down and getting on another wrong bus, I finally make it to the pavilion. It rather busy, mainly with really annoying Chinese tourists who seem more interested in getting a photo of themselves with the new Selfie stick than actually taking in the sights. I worm my way past them and walk past a group of Japanese school children, dressed in the traditional sailor suit style uniform which I think is particularly cool (High school would have been much better if we'd had that type of uniform)!  I see some of the kids pushing one of the boys towards me. He stops me slightly hesitating and starts to speak to me in broken English:

"Hello. Can we speak to you in English?"

"Yes" I respond. There is a cheer of excitement from the class. I have an audience.

"What is your name?"

"Carly." The is met with "arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" of wonder.

"Where are you from?"

"London." This is met with a double "arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" of wonder and even the teacher who is looking on seems so excited by my response he looks like he might wet himself. 

"Why are you in Kyoto?"

"To see all the temples and look at the ancient culture!" This doesn't get an "arrrrrrrrrrrrr" as I think I have gone beyond their English vocab and none of them can understand a word I'm saying but they nod politely anyway.

"Thank you for talking with us" says the boy "and here is a present!" I'm then given a plastic lamenated card which one one of them has made with peace and love written on it and then weirdly enough the puma sports logo drawn with "Puma" written underneath. Strange! I then have to have a group photo take with them all to prove that they have spoken to a weird white alien like lady who they can't understand a word she says. Peace, love and puma is all I can think as I walk away. I might make it into a saying?

Afterwards I decide to get the bus to Gion which is the district that my brother had said I would like. He was right. Here was my Kyoto, with narrow winding streets, and small wooden houses and shops that lined them. I'll say one thing about me, is that I can walk. I can walk forever (Actually this excluding up hill)! Maybe it's because of many years living in London, but it's a trait that I have taken traveling with me. I find nothing better than going to a new place and wondering the streets for hours. I do this in Gion Until the night has fallen and everything has turned black. I decide to catch the bus back to my hotel but have walked so off route I haven't a clue where it is anymore. I'm completely lost again (It seems to be a reoccurring thing for me).  I keep heading south through the back streets in hope that this will lead to the station and my hotel. It's on one of these back streets, I see a head of me, a woman at a door bowing to an older lady.  They are both wearing the traditional Japanese Kimono but the younger woman has a face painted porcelain white, a black stiff wig and flower ornaments hanging from her hair. It's a geisha! The geisha, the Japanese courtesan, who my brother had told me where very hard to see, as they are only seen in public briefly while leaving their houses and tea houses for short moment before they get in their chauffeur driven cars to go to another event, all done privately behind closed doors. Sure enough a suited, hatted driver waits by the roadside with car door open ready to whisk her away. In the west some people look on geishas as just high class prostitutes but in Japan it is a profession that is looked apon with respect. As they do not want to be a tourist attraction and shield themselves away from the eyes of the public, I feel extremely lucky to have seen one. I walk along a few houses further and the same scenario presents itself! A white painted faced kimonoed young woman bowing to an older woman and a driver waiting by the side of the road. It's another geisha! I can't stop staring. I want to take a photo to prove I actually saw one. Actually no! Two! But I can sense they feel my eyes apon them and feel a sudden sense of violation of the scene, if I was to get my camera out. This is why I would never make a good photographer. I photograph it with my eyes instead. I'm on cloud nine when I walk a little further to see another geisha just about to get in her car. OMG! This is amazing. I must of wandered into a street of where geishas live. I watch the rest get into their cars and drive off into the night. Sometimes it's good to get lost I think to myself.

I get back to my hotel eventually and finally check in. It's the smallest hotel room ever. A single bed squashed into a space that also contain a small desk. The bathroom is tiny too complete with a bath tub that is a like a big washing up bowl, but it's deep. I'm exhausted. I look more tired than I did in London. I text my dad to say I lit a candle for him at the temple that promises health and safety and because of that I know everything will be OK. 

I don't really sleep again that night but I have become use to feeling tired. Today I want to go and see the imperial place and Nijo castle. I decide the best way to do that is to cycle. The previous day I had seen that Kyoto was a very cycle friendly city and everyone cycles everywhere, especially on pavements and cycle paths. I headed to the shop where I was given a pink basket bike who I called Barbie Chan (I know I name everything!) I purchased a pair of gloves and brought along a wool hat as it was freezing. The shop owner gave me a map and asked me where I was heading to. 

"The imperial palace!" I reply.

"You have booking?"

"No!"

"Then you cannot go. You need booking in advance for tour. Weeks in advance!" He tells me.

Great! I think I guess I won't be going there then. I head straight for Nijo castle on Barbie Chan. Besides I was more excited about seeing Nijo as it was built by the Shoguns and was meant to be like something out of a kurosawa film. The only problem is that when I cycle up to it I'm met by a sign saying:

Shut today due to restoration work! What the Hell! I'm furious. My kurosawa fanasty is over. The day isn't going well, so I decided to cycle over an hour out of town to a bamboo forest and temple as they can't shut a forest for restoration can they? The cycle is pleasure able if not cold and I feel safe as I wiz by people at a fast rate (please note that 90% of the people I over take are 100+ year old pensioners, so this is not a great achievement)!

After a full day of sightseeing I sadly drop Barbie chan off and head back on an late evening bullet train to Tokyo. I'm anxious as I know that my dad is in surgery back in England now. I just want to get back to my brothers so I can be back on the Wi-Fi to find out what's going on. It feels like the longest journey ever. I make it back to my brothers just before midnight. He and Yuko are still up. 

"Have you heard anything about dad?"

"No!"

"Have you?"

"No!"

He looks worried, though he would never say he was. 

There is nothing to do but sit and wait and look silently at a phones to light up with some information of what's happening. We sit there for what feels like an age. Its horrible, this feeling. It's the early hours of the morning. We both know that my dad has been in theatre longer than he should of. The anxiety is overwhelming but I look at my brother. He looks tried and he has to work in morning. I tell him to go to bed and I will wait up for news. I lay in my bed in the early hours of morning staring at my phone. A message finally comes through from sister. At first I'm scared to look at it but read it all the same.

"The operation was a success! Now gets some sleep! X"

There was huge relief, of course there was. Dad was going to be OK. Everything was going to be alright, but I'd had got myself into such a state I felt sick and still could not sleep. But it didn't matter though. Dad was OK. It was only the next day I finally started to relax. My sister and Barbara kept me up to date with his progress. Already he was conscious and asking if his hair looked OK. That night my sister sent through a picture. It was Dad sat in bed in hospital. Even though he was sat in bed covered in tubes and a large line of stitches down his chest, he looked better than I had seen him in ages. The colour had returned to his face. I realised then my father for a long time had looked grey and ill in his complexion. It was a beautiful sight. I would like to say for all of you that know my father, after skyping him and keeping up to date with him, he is making a good recovery (though is still moaning about not being able to drive for another couple of weeks) and will soon be out and about causing as much trouble as he did before. The next night I had my first good nights sleep in two weeks. I awoke feeling great. I wasn't stressed and could finally start to really enjoy this trip. The guilt had gone.

OBSERVATIONS 

I know! I haven't done the observation section in a post for ages, but I Japan is a country full of observations, it would be rude not to. 

* You see a lot of crying girls at Japanese train stations. This is (as my brother tells me) because a train station is the main place to split up with your girlfriend in Japan. So if you have a Japanese boyfriend and he asks you to meet him at a train station it's not going to end well. I'm just saying!

* Thigh high style hooker boots seem to be really in fashion here. I will not be adopting this trend!

* Green tea is the favourite drink here but you can just about get anything in green tea: ice cream, crisps etc, but my favourite has to be the green tea Kit Kat, which looks like a Kit Kat but is green like someone has snotted all over it. Once you get over the snot look they actually taste OK.

* Japanese people get very drunk, very quickly on not a lot. My brother use to have a collection of photos titled "Drunk Japanese business men" which he use to photograph lying in the gutter after a night out. 

* You can buy used Japanese school girl knickers from slot machines. I'm informed they are of girls over 16 as school girls wear the uniform up to 18 but OMG! Wrong!

* Don't ever, ever, ever go into Toys R Us in Japan. It's like some bad acid trip!