Deleted scenes: Year one

It won't have escaped your attention that I'm not a professional photographer. Professionals don't stubbornly and stingily persevere with the same cheap camera long after its LCD display has broken, meaning they're unable to play around with the settings or even see the poorly framed pictures they've taken until they get back to their hotels. I don't owe you fancy pictures.

But sometimes I'm pleased with photos I've taken, as are thieving bastards apparently. Whether it's down to the serendipity of animals striking austere poses, the sunset picking out details in satisfying ways or me managing to pull a face that doesn't look smug, I'll try to find ways to include as many photos as I can that fit whatever agenda I'm going for in the relevant blog post, giving the nicest ones top billing.

For every photo transferred from my camera to my hard drive there are 10 deleted, and not all of these survivors make it to the internet, especially in the early days. When I've dragged old folders down from the proverbial loft to dredge out any unused pictures of Dave in a cave or Dave from a slightly different angle, I kept coming across photos that I forgot I had, which I never shared with the world because I was worried about storage space or irrelevant pictures distracting from the narrative arc of the post. I can take this much too seriously sometimes.

So here's a selection of previously unseen photos, videos and writings from my first year of travelling, after those first few countries I rebelliously tackled without a camera and excluding Thailand and Malaysia too, which were too big and get their own summer specials. It's guaranteed to be entirely free from coherent plotting beyond 'Dave saw some things and aimed his camera at them.' This post could just as well be titled 'Misc 1.'

Hey ma look, it's me!

I was gathering together some photos of me from this blog recently after someone requested them, so I thought I'd share them with you. This is the most self-indulgent post I've ever made, even by this blog's usual Onanistic standards, but this chronological collection could at least be useful for nutrionists interested in charting my weight loss throughout my travels (apparently I got fat before I left Edinburgh and was a shrivelled wreck again by the time I got to Thailand - really? How did I not notice?)

Putting this together, I noticed that I really don't take that many photos of myself any more - like I don't feel the need to get in the frame as evidence that I actually visited a place (unless it seems funny). Either the novelty of having a camera was finally worn off, or I've become less vain over time. Says the guy who just spent a couple of hours compiling a blog post all about himself, consisting entirely of images of himself.

This is just photos of me that you've probably already seen (though some are from slightly different angles - exciting!) It might be me next to a thing, me doing a thing or me wearing a thing, but the subject is still me. Seriously, there are about 50 of them - this is the equivalent of my Facebook tagged images or something. If you're not interested in me, don't read more.

Macaques all, folks!

Bereaved macaque

One of the advantages of keeping up this travelling and OCD blogging well beyond most people's attention spans and memory capacities is that I can pass off re-contextualised pictures from older blogs as new material. Like one of those budget-saving episodes of American TV shows where the characters get trapped in a lift and reminisce about their antics back when they had funding.

My own funding situation should soon improve, so I'll be able to hire back the green screen technology, guest actors and CGI artists needed to keep up the sophisticated illusion that I'm travelling all over Asia, when in reality I never left Scotland. It probably would have been cheaper to actually go to these countries and do these things for real, now I think about it. But I can't eat that foreign muck.

Anyway, better get on with fabricating a tenuous segue to introduce these old monkey photos. Hey, do you remember when I was in those other Asian countries where they had macaques roaming around all over the place? What was all that about? I'd love to go back and revisit some of those adven... oh dear, the lift seems to have broken down. Well, we might as well pass the time remembering some of those kerrazy monkeys and their wacky antics. Do you remember... remember... remember... (Overlay warbling sound effect)

Mm, that's nice

After a slightly downbeat post summing up my disappointing experiences in the Philippines, you might wonder what I'm doing out here if I'm intent on not appreciating Asia or enjoying myself.

Sometimes I wonder that too, but then I look back at my amateur, blurry, overcast photos of the ace things I've seen so far, and then check out professional, idealised, Photoshopped images of what's to come, and I feel like I'm not completely wasting my time.

Here are some of my favourite natural sights I've seen in Asia so far. The quality of the photos won't be enough to make you go 'WOW!' or 'oh my god, how does that exist on the same planet that brought us Preston, Lancashire?'

But hopefully they'll be enough to make you go 'mm, that's nice.'

Do first impressions count?

Day one in most countries I visit is usually pretty disappointing/frustrating as I'm forced to deal with over-zealous airport security, incompetent bus drivers and sleazy taxi drivers to get to my accommodation, hoping I don't have to share it with pests (bed bugs or English people).

Sometimes I get rained on as well (the fact that you're even reading this anthology blog means the weather here hasn't improved, or I'd have some tedious travel photos to show you instead).

These first days may be quasi-traumatic on occasion, but they're at least useful for setting the bar extremely low so that I'm easily impressed when/if things go right. And sometimes, they give an accurate indication of what I can expect during my time there.

The journey

'No man is an Iland,' wrote the metaphysical, can't-spell-for-toffee poet John Donne.

Taiwan is an island though, and sounds a bit like 'no man' if you're deaf and have a speech impediment and are mad, so this unfortunately required me to break my 'sacred' 'no flights' 'rule' to get in and out of the ROC. A self-imposed principle that I've previously upheld to the letter, only breaking it in the rarest and direst of circumstances as you'll see here and here. Oh, and here. And here.

I'm the Captain Kirk of the East; disregarding sensible precautions where'er I visit and corrupting their women. I also have ace sideburns.

But even when I took flights rather than other, better, greener, more interesting forms of transport, it was always as a last resort - either due to distance, border restrictions or simply a lack of alternatives. But now that I'm back on the mighty Eurasiafrican continent, and country boundaries are mostly political rather than geological, I have the opportunity to travel more authentically, experience the changing landscape and pay ridiculously cheap local prices. Flying is rubbish.

Here are some of the most notable journeys I've made so far.

Well, that about wraps it up for Taiwan

It took me two years to get Edinghbored in Scotland, but after two months I was already getting Taiwangst. I have the attention span of a - hey look, a bunny!

Taiwhat?

What the hell am I looking at? (Taipei Main Station)

A final anthology of more unusual/daft things I've witnessed with my eyes in Taiwan.

Why can't everyone be a bit more like me?

Taiwan is a very peaceful country. There's no hassle for tourists, no drunks on the streets and no cacophonous prayer calls bellowing five times a day. Even when they're forced to make a sound, the Taiwanese like to use pleasing musical jingles to brighten things up - like the Beethoven bin men, the Family Mart door chime and replacing the dialling tone with classical music.

It's just the people who visit Taiwan who can be inconsiderate dicks.

When you're sleeping in hostel dorms, you're all in the same boat (not usually literally, unless you're in some kind of wacky novelty accommodation in a harbour). I haven't seen or experienced any theft or other forms of foul play, but that doesn't mean people don't routinely piss me off.

If only everyone could be a bit more like me, but without the social anxiety and lack of direction, as then we wouldn't get anything done. Here's the new constitution.

Taroko: Regorged

I don't like going backwards. When I was in Egypt, returning to Cairo for a single night to catch a flight was enough to give me recurring nightmares about accidentally finding myself back in that crazy city, and I've had even worse dreams about realising I'm back in the UK.

But this week, faced with the choice of heading back up north on the efficient high-speed railways of Taiwan's industrialised, little-explored west coast or trundling my way back through the familiar mountains of the east, I gave myself permission to retrace my steps.

I've got four more weeks to kill after all, and one day at Taroko Gorge really wasn't enough.

Taitung in cheek

Nice place, shame about the title.

Dulan, where's Ami car?

Continuing the tradition of meaningless pun titles, this is less about sub-Bill & Ted whimsy and more about my most triumphant return to Taiwan's more attractive east coast.

With fresh air, minimal English and only one 7-Eleven in sight, Dulan is probably the least touristic place I've visited - the largely unspoilt home of Taiwan's indigenous Ami tribe (as indigenous as any non-African homo sapiens can be, anyway). Party on, ancient dudes!

Kaohsiung ka-kas

I choose to look at today as a bonus day in Kaohsiung - my favourite Taiwanese city so far - rather than the result of a combined screw-up between me and the guy who was supposed to give me a lift to Kenting, meaning I ended up not going there. This is why I hate lifts, I told you people are unreliable - especially when one of them is me.

So on the subject of screw-ups, let's see how Kaohsiung's local business owners have made a cock-up of the English language (great segue or what?) I wasn't going to do these for Kaohsiung, but when I passed this 'exotic' dance bar I had to share its delightful menu with the world.

Don't have a Kaohsiung, man

What's that? A twenty-years-out-of-date Bart Simpson reference that has practically no relevance to the subject matter (Kaohsiung architecture)? And you thought I'd lost it? Eat my shorts, naysayers!

Wet lovin' in Kaohsiung

Another misleading title that's bound to disappoint however you look at it. Unless your fetish is for giant, eco-friendly fish-men - in which case, get your ass to Love River.

A typical day (except with monkeys)

Fictional reader Norris Dudgeon wrote in to ask:

Dear Dave W,

You seem to have an atypical life.
What is a typical day in your life like?

Today was pretty typical of my life in Taiwan. Except with monkeys *

The American Adventure of Kaohsiung

Not my photo. You've seen my photos

Located in the historic district of Zuoying, Lotus Lake is the American Adventure of Kaohsiung.

A misleading comparison that's bound to be meaningless unless you were ever unfortunate enough to visit the now-defunct American Adventure theme park in Derbyshire, England that also consisted of tacky attractions dotted around the shores of an artificial lake.

That's not entirely fair though - some of these pagodas are pretty nice if you ignore the childish bits, AND THERE ARE TURTLES.

Cijin places

Because it's pronounced 'chi-jin,' so it's like 'changing places,' as well as being literally... ah forget it, I'm so done with rubbish pun titles. If only that were true.

Anyway, check out this weird little island just off Kaiohsiung.

The Great Museum-Off

Some experienced travellers claim you can't gain a true understanding of the world's myriad peoples by visiting museums, and that only by walking the streets and interacting with the locals will you really be able to appreciate foreign cultures.

But a lot of the time, the locals don't know anything and the streets are too strewn with innuendo to be of any cultural value. That's why sometimes, to truly appreciate a civilisation, you do need to visit a sterile museum and look at endless identical vases behind glass, viewed through the gaps in a Japanese crowd.

Alien City

I knew it! What have I been saying all along? And to think I spent all those years mocking David Icke for his crackpot theories that aliens were among us here on Earth, just because he lacked evidence or true facts.

Here's all the evidence you need that the Taiwanese people are from another planet (or at least the ones in Hualien City). Or I might be making too much of a slightly vandalised sign.