Seven Years On..

Yup, it’s been seven years since my last post. Seven freaking fuckadoodledoo looong years.
It’s amazing to be picking up the thread, and I’m all pumped up. And, it feels good to be writing in a little longer form than my cryptic tweet-bursts. (outbursts?)
The old blog posts from 2011 were definitely hacked with all kinds of garbage - from penile enlargement persuasions and calisthenic acrobatic sex addled artistes, and that same chap from Nigeria still trying to please, please use my bank to kindly park his £15 million...

I had to go in and clean up a lot of it, so it’s littered with broken links, and I finally decided to just leave it as is and move on. Living in the ‘now’...

So definitely the way I write will have changed over the years, I’m sure. I really hope so. Evolution is change. Change is good. Possibly it may reflect some abandon, and a sense of new adventures.
And speaking of adventures.... in a few days all of us are off for a long overdue family trip together.
Mexico 'May-hee-co' and the US. They better watch out. Hang onto your hat! And follow along if you please.

Sime Cemetary

The Sime Cemetary is now unused. Is that possible? When does a cemetary stop being 'used'? Anyhow, I discovered some great off-road trails for my mountain bike, and it's all overgrown and empty and trippy (and only sometimes spooky) and if you really explore, you can find some lost trails that drop you through the jungle and in to the Polo Club. I came across some of these beautiful stone sentinels around the graves (notice their hairdo's) and one of the graves are even guarded by fierce Sikh guards resplete in uniforms, bandoliers, rifles and even a puppy-dog by his feet! Riding by quickly is ok, but a much more effective deterrent than the guards are the clouds of mosquitos - watch out and move quick!

In a Vice-Like Grip.....

Imagine being locked in a vice-like grip between the thighs of some large muscled female wrestler! Well that's what I thought of (my twisted imagination running away..) - when I saw the temples of Téy Phrom with all the trees wrapped around them. There are coils of the stuff, everywhere, like liquid toffee - as though someone had just poured the roots that completely envelop the stone in some fantastic embrace!

Cambodia distilled

Tonlé Sap

An entire village on boats! There were shops, basketball courts, a pool hall, a police station, hardware stores, a church (really!), and lots of homes that were built above floating fish farms. The water at the mouth of the estuary of the Tonlé Sap lake looked like, and had the consistency of a light chocolate soufflé - froth and all.

S-21 Tuol Sleng

Take a school, convert it into one of the most brutal centres of torture and destruction - this was Pol Pot, along with his Khmer Rouge, a nightmare come alive - reminding us the of depravity we can be capable of....
A most sobering experience. The 'school' just sits there, in the middle of a bustling Phnom Penh (well not really - nothing about Cambodia is a real bustle), and it's amazing to watch the subdued atmosphere and the effect on all the visitors. We didn't take Mara & Tia with us (I'm glad), and it later took a long boat-ride on the Tonlé Sap for us to snap out of it.