Coddiwomple

Ten minutes before we were due to leave Chiang May I had a…’where the hell are the train tickets’ moment, this was actually the first first time I’ve had one of those particular freak outs since we left home (which is miraculous now I think about it).

I knew where they were, I had put them where I always put them, and, as I do just before we leave anywhere, I check to make sure I have our passports, any paper visas, and the tickets we need next …THEY WEREN’T THERE – I had searched every pocket of my bag and THEY WEREN’T THERE. I literally threw everything out of my carefully packed rucksack muttering, swearing, and beginning to add another layer of sweat on top of the normal every day sweat induced by living life above 30 degrees. Rosa stayed calm, in a very similar way to the way Theo does when I panic, ‘where do you think they might be mum?!’ ‘I DON’T KNOW THEY’RE NOT WHERE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE’ …’where haven’t you looked?!’ ‘I’VE LOOKED EVERYWHERE!!’ At this point I do the unforgivable thing of tipping my handbag upside down on the bed. I know they aren’t in there but some tiny pre Stone Age part of my brain thinks they might magically appear if I tip everything out…

Tiny bits of dried biscuit, weird fluff, old receipts, tissues, pen lids, one mint wrapped in most of the packet, two hair ties and a piece of chocolate I’ve been saving fall on to the duvet …along with my notebooks, torch, pens, mosquito spray, ear plugs, headphones, playing cards, lavender oil, hairbrush, power pack, phone lead, purse and endless bits of paper.

It all goes everywhere and the fluff and dried biscuits make a total mess on the bed – Rosa says nothing (…she really is learning some useful life skills on this trip!)

Having now been through EVERYTHING, I start back at the beginning again. I get everything out of the pocket of my bag (which was zipped during the ‘great tip’) – this is WHERE THEY SHOULD BE! Rosa picks up a small innocuous looking 4cm square piece of card that I was ignoring because it was way too small to be six train tickets – ‘is this them mum?’ and there they were. ‘THEY WERE BIGGER WHEN I BOUGHT THEM…!’

I hastily stuff everything back into my bag and my rucksack, clear as much of the dried biscuit and fluff off the bed as I can, carefully put the train tickets back where they’d been the whole time and head downstairs to say goodbye.

Between them Natascha and Bob have given us enough food to see us through to Indonesia – fried Pad Thai noodles in banana leaves, coconut pancakes, packets of dried bananas and mangos dipped in lime (from the mountains), homemade biscuits (worthy of HRH himself), chocolate, nuts, seeds and some delicious looking Omani dates with almonds inside…

Saying goodbye was sweet, watching Zacky and Leilah laughing at Theo and Rosa larking about in the back of the car, I catch Natascha’s eye one last time and  I cry as we pull away. It is true that I often cry when I say goodbye to people I love, I used to resist those tears, feeling like an idiot for crying, but I actually think it’s good for me. I’ve learned to let myself just cry, it never lasts long and I feel myself come back quicker. When I used to try and stop the tears I’d have a pain in my throat, or heart…or wherever, for ages. I reckon if I feel the need to cry there’s likely to be a reason, however buried in the past, so let it the hell out…

Bob was driving us to the station and he was kind as I sat there, feeling my grief at how quickly everything had flown by …and then I came back onto the present, calmer. Bob and I chatted gently about markets and our time together, about relationships and the ‘where next’ of our trip.

We sit at the traffic lights, the very ones that nearly meant Theo missed his tooth extraction appt yesterday! They only seem to change once every ten minutes, which is deeply irritating if you happen to be in the car behind the driver that decides to stop ‘just in case’ the lights are about to turn Amber again.

This time twenty minutes is only five though and Bob parks the car, wanting to see us to the train (probably to make sure we have actually gone, bunch of high maintenance poms that we are!!)

A warm hug and his boyish smile firmly inside my heart, I turn to go. I turn back and blow a kiss to his retreating back – thank you for everything Cuz…

And now, glory be…our first night in bottom bunks!! (Rosa reminds me we had one in Europe but that’s like 150 years ago and totally doesn’t count!). The seats are wide and comfortable – each person has a whole seat to themselves, my seat is the same size as a third class two seater and the whole carriage is air conditioned. It’s actually a bit cold!

The beds are in a different configuration to anything we’ve seen before…sideways on to the central aisle like on the tour buses we used to sleep on when Jaki and I ran our own on tour catering company for bands…

The memories of our little business together come flooding in. Getting up at six in the morning, cooking all day, going to bed at 1.00 in the morning and up again at 6.00. During our first European tour we were often covered in sweat (and whatever we were cooking), and when things were at their most stressful, cooking dinner for forty and making a fabulous dressing room buffet for the band and guests, ‘the Coconuts’ (of Kid Creole and the Coconuts) would come in to the catering room looking fabulously glamorous and demand that we puréed food for them (who wants to eat puréed sprouts?!)…but that is very definitely another story…

There was a bed making man on this train and he came round at 8.00 to make up all the beds in the carriage – pillow, sheet, and lovely warm bed spread, all freshly cleaned. The beds were comfortable and I didn’t have to risk my life in the middle of the night climbing down the ladder for a pee.

I didn’t get to lord it up over the upstairs people the next morning – partly because the ‘upstairs people’ was Theo but also because the train arrived at 7.30 🙂

It had been an easy first leg.

We were in Bangkok for the next six hours and so we found somewhere to wait. We looked about a bit and found a lovely cafe area with food stalls on three sides – tea for Theo and Rosa and hot water for me. We got stuck into our rucksack full of food and then went for an explore.

There was no way we could access Bangkok without crossing an eight lane highway so we restricted ourselves to walking around the massive buildings, in the shade as much as possible, picking up the odd centipede that was destined to die of dehydration if it didn’t get back on the grass…As I was walking up, round, down and back for the third time I started to think about where we were headed.

Three back to back sleeper trains crossing two countries, Thailand and Malaysia, and then a short ferry over to Pulau Batam Island, the start of Indonesia for us. We would be rushing from the port directly to the Pelni ferry ticket offices to try and secure a place on the 30 hour ferry crossing to Jakarta the next day (or was it 32 hours, or 36, or 45?- I have read each of those times on different accounts of the journey…)

…and at this point let’s be clear, ferries are not my favourite form of transport. An over crowded ferry in searing heat during the rainy season sounds like my idea of something I’d like to read about happening to someone else, hoping it would make me laugh, from the safety of my bed.

I put sea sickness pills on my list of things that had to happen before ‘ferry day’ (along with getting my head examined…) – some loving and excited friend had pointed out to me that it might be ‘romantic, and that the sunset would be amazing …and we might see dolphins!! This was where we would actually be crossing the equator and it really was a marvellous adventure!’

I managed not to say ‘piss off’ because they might actually be right 🙂

So after three nights on trains, a night on an island somewhere, between one and two days on a ferry, we would  arrive in Jakarta, on the island of Java  and what then?!

Coddiwomple!

My cousin found the word when he was trying hard not to write a report – apparently it’s English Slang and means: ‘to travel purposefully toward an as-yet-unknown destination’.

We do know our ultimate destination of course (well we all like to think we know our destination, but do we really?) …any way such questions aside, in the next month we were going to encounter the ‘black hole’ of our trip before we somehow made it into Australia.

We had put mountains of effort into figuring out the best route through Europe, how to get through Russia, how to get into and out of China and then through Laos and on to Thailand…and almost no effort at all into what happens after that.

I have heard of Sumatra and Java, but I would not have been able to pin the tail of the donkey on to either of them on a world map. I didn’t know Jakarta was the capital of Java and I certainly did not know Bali was next to Java, or indeed that they were all islands that formed part of Indonesia. Not only did I not know any of that before we started planning this trip but I am also slightly ashamed to admit that I have only recently learned  the names of three of the other Indonesian islands we may need to travel across to get to East Timor.

Luckily for me two of them are called ‘West’ and ‘East’ Nusa Tenggara so I only have to remember ‘Nusa Tenggara’ but those two islands have been so low down my priority list that I know literally nothing about either of them. Underneath  East and West Nusa Tenggara there is also the island of Kabupaten Sumba Timur, and they are all, without doubt, ‘destination unknown’.

When we go to the Pelni ferry terminal offices later this week to book that wonderful 30/32/36/45 hour ferry, we are hoping there’s a timetable of ferries between all the islands and a clearer route will emerge (not putting money on that one…) In the meantime I would love it if anyone reading this post could share any first hand knowledge of either East or West Nusa Tenggara (or Kabupaten Sumba Timur for that matter). It would make my day if it turns out someone I know lived for three years as a car mechanic on East Nusa Tenggara and reckons if we go to ‘Lembata on market day’ we should stand a chance of meeting up with ‘Wayne who had a propellor plane and might be able to take us over the water for a few beers!’

To be honest if anyone knows anything about any of the Indonesian islands that would be great – there’s a fair chance we will be travelling through at least six of them before the end of November and it’s embarrassing that the only thing I know is how to spell the bloody names of the places!!

Normally I would sit on the train and Google myself silly until I knew loads of pertinent and interesting facts. Facts about the wildlife, history, culture, politics and religion of each island…but my phone package only allows data access in certain countries and there is no WiFi on any train ln Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia …and we will see what that bundle of delights ‘the ferry’ has to offer WiFi wise when we get there.

So where was I? Handing over to you dear reader I believe (…seems a little harsh saying reader when there are definitely at least two of you …so) dear readers!

Let’s find out about the Nusa Tenggara’s together and if any of you clever super sleuths manages to find us a boat over to Australia from either one of the Tenggara’s or East Timor …or Bali or Lombok or actually anywhere in Indonesia please let us know.

I have been walking up and down and round for nearly an hour now and it’s time to go back to the cafe, we need to get ready for our next train.

Turns out we are on the very last coach on train 171 headed to Sungai Kolok, a town only 1.4 km from the Malaysian border. Twenty-two hours through the rest of Thailand – a whirlwind change of clothes (…which actually means putting on some socks! Interesting Fact – Theo found out that open toes are not acceptable in Malaysia – I will of course be scrutinising everyone’s feet!) …after crossing the border we will play ‘let’s find the bus station in the midday heat’ and navigate the twenty three kilometres to the next railway station in a country where we know nothing, to wait the approximately seven hours before the train arrives.

I expect it will be easy and we can float into the loving arms of a Malaysian sleeper train…we are always in good shape after two back to back sleeper trains.

We pushed our luggage up the platform, marvellous invention the luggage trolley, especially when you are carrying enough food to feed the 5,000.

We cheerfully boarded expecting the train to be EXACTLY the same as the one we had exited this morning…No! Nooooo! This was the sleeper version of third class. Gone was the fake red velvet – replaced by drab brown plastic – no discreet ladders to the top bunks. This was full scale metal, designed to remind you prison was only one step away should you complain too loudly.

It was okay really (the blue curtains cheered things up a bit) and we would get to lie down at some point. Rosa and I played I spy (…how bored do you have to be?!) …we chatted and wrote our blog posts and then it was time for bed – at 5.45 when the flippin’ train guard decided he was putting the beds down!

I lay in my bunk thinking that I really ought to get up and clean my teeth…I pulled the ‘Friends’ t-shirt out that I had bought at the flea market for 50p last weekend. I needed something I could sleep in on trains, Theo having been using my other t-shirt as part of his clothes options …and I had seen a t-shirt with Yoda singing through an SM58 mic that I wanted to buy Theo and there was a good discount if I brought two!

The next day after my second hand purchases at the flea market I found out Matthew Perry had died, the guy who played Chandler. I’d listened to his audio book on the way to work earlier this year. He was reading it himself and it was not an easy listen…I felt deeply sorry for this funny man stuck in an endless loop of addiction and recovery, of loneliness and not feeling good enough. He was only 54 and I am so grateful he got the role as Chandler – for all its faults I love that TV show and I’m genuinely sad he has died.

…and then my thoughts turn to Theo’s aunty Dorothy – such a no nonsense woman, uniquely herself and always kind to me. Theo found out she had died on Halloween and is processing the regret at not having made time to see her before we left. He told me about a piece of Buddhist wisdom he had read in the last couple of weeks – ‘if you think of an old person, go and see them, make contact, they may not be here for long…’

A simple piece of wisdom.

None of us know what tomorrow brings, so for now, let’s travel purposefully toward an as-yet-unknown destination