Thieving Bastards V: Thieving BBC Bastards

I'd always planned to continue this spiteful blog series, as it was oddly fun - in an obsessive, vengeful way - the first time I wasted an entire weekend chronicling every unlicensed theft from my first two years' worth of travel photos, supplemented by the occasional futile email or Facebook comment when it was companies rather than individuals doing it. But the idea of putting myself through all that again was just depressing.

So I was delighted to have the work done for me today as I whiled away the afternoon catching up on comedy shows from the past year and saw my pervy anatomical photo of a baboon's puffed-up arse from Singapore Zoo being used as a non sequitur punchline in the middle of the second episode of Kevin Eldon's madcap sketch show It's Kevin.

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.'

Monkeytropolis

Another flight connection in Thailand meant another chance to finally get round to things I'd pointlessly missed out the last six or seven times I passed through immigration's revolving doors. The monkey infested historical town of Lopburi was one of them, and you could ask why this wasn't my first destination in Thailand back in February '11, and why I haven't been living here permanently in the nineteen months since.

Oh yeah. That's why.

A childish day out again again again again again again again again

In retrospect, this looks less whimsical and a lot creepier than intended

I didn't have any kind of plan when I took the JR train to Ueno, feeling restless and assuming there'd be something to occupy me there.

It didn't take too long before I ran into some critters that inspired me to visit my sixth zoo in a year and a half (not counting sanctuaries and wild critters). By myself. With lazy beard growth and wearing a T-shirt of an infectious parasite. I wonder why all the parents and school group supervisors were making sure the kids kept their distance? Just courtesy, I guess.

Into the lion's den

There's a lot to see in Sri Lanka's northern provinces, but weighing up how much I was prepared to spend and how many days' worth of blogs I really needed to get out of this place (come on, let's get to the insanity of Tokyo already), I decided the only other thing I really had to see before heading back south was the Sigiriya rock fortress.

I didn't feel like relocating to another part of the country for a few days just for the sake of 90 minutes' sightseeing, so I took the unprecedented luxury travel option of making the couple of hours' journey by taxi. These five days in Anuradhapura I've basically had a driver, like I'm Lady Penelope or something, because after dealing with bus hassle in Kandy and rail closures in Colombo I really couldn't be bothered any more.

It wasn't too long ago that I explained how travelling hadn't changed me, but that was before South Korea reminded me about quality of life. Hopefully this is just temporary wastefulness brought about by a couple of weeks of higher travel stress than usual, otherwise this blog could serve as a chronicle of my transformation into a monster.

Speaking of monsters, check this place out. No wisecracking commentary this time, just enjoy the journey.

Bodhi langurage

The pleasantly mouldering temples of Anuradhapura aren't just curiosities for tourists to visit and write ace blogs about. Even the more remote ones attract their fair share of interactive scenery (i.e. local people), and major ones like the Bodhi Tree Temple are extremely hard to take vacant photos of without some bloody humans getting into frame. Sometimes I can't tell if I'm a perfectionist or a misanthrope.

The Bodhi tree itself is reputed to date back to 288 BC, which is really, really old. Impressive, sure, but did this tree uproot itself and fly hundreds of miles to join its owner in exile, like the Tobiume plum tree at Dazaifu definitely actually did? Didn't think so - bad luck Bodhi, you get second place.

Citadel

'Citadel' is another word I love, like 'dilapidated' (and there's plenty of that here too). It's one of those terms that feels loaded with historical intrigue, like 'labyrinth,' 'catacombs' and 'Maharajah.' Or maybe these words just take me back to early-90s dungeon quest Amiga games. Either way it felt very satisfying to be wading through overgrown fields and discovering parts of Anuradhapura's forgotten city.

At least it feels forgotten compared to the likes of Angkor in Cambodia. I didn't have to make use of odd angles and strategic cropping to avoid the tourists this time - no one was here except me and my monkeys.

The fresh prince of bell stupas

(Yeah, I know - but it was either that or an even worse Star Wars pun based on these bell-shaped shrines being called 'dagobas' in Sinhalese).

The difficult-to-pun Anuradhapura was my third major stop in Sri Lanka, and the point at which this country finally became good. Wandering around in the overgrown ruins of the citadel was my favourite experience in this country, but the dagobas were pretty nice too - mainly for being absurdly gigantic on occasion. These were among the biggest structures in the ancient world, and not all of them have been annoyingly renovated and made to look nice.

Walking around on these vast stone plateaus took me back to the Egyptian pyramids, and I had a similar feeling of awe about the achievements of early human civilisation, long before the founding of Rome or Athens.

Or aliens did it, whichever.

Eye Kandy

Despite receiving a typically bad first impression of taxi drivers in Sri Lanka when a driver charged me 100 rupees to retrieve my own bag from his vehicle (to be fair, I had left it on the seat and he'd had to drive back around the corner again to find me, but still - prick), and generally having to shoo away more relentless taxi touts than mosquitoes in this country, I gave them a second chance by arranging a tour of Kandy and the surrounding area with a more reputable driver.

I was hesitant because I don't feel comfortable having my own dedicated driver, the same way I don't like people serving me in restaurants (you can cook the food, but at least let me do the washing up). But I wanted to see as much as I could in as short a time as possible, so as with Siem Reap and Jeju Island I ticked off a week's worth of blog material in one day, giving myself plenty of free time to lie around in my pants reading novels about Benedictine monks and eating ginger nuts. Makes you wonder why I complain so much, doesn't it?

This was supposed to be a day tour, but because I'm an efficient, unfeeling android with no interest in lingering in places beyond the time it takes to collect sufficient photos to document their existence in this blog (and because I passed up the factory visits after experience in Egypt taught me most of this time would be spent politely declining samples in the stores) we were finished by lunchtime.

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)

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Chang is

...an island, a beer and a Klingon played by Christopher Plummer in Star Trek VI. But let's start with the island.

This was my final destination in South East Asia, so I was determined to make the most of it. By doing as little as possible. It was nice. Here are my photos of absolutely nothing.

That one with the big faces

The 216 identical giant stone faces gazing serenly out of Prasat Bayon will already be familiar to anyone who's ever walked down any tacky party street in any city in South East Asia and seen cheap fibreglass imitations adorning gaudy clubs unfailingly named 'Angkor Wat.' These establishments are presumably run by the same people who think the Sphinx is in Cairo, that every establishing shot of Britain needs to have Tower Bridge in it and that Frankenstein's monster was named 'Frankenstein' (when we all know 'Frankingstein' is the correct pronunciation).

There's no need to get too pedantic about this arguably trivial distinction between two ancient cities located a short tuk-tuk jaunt from each other that were abandoned more than four centuries ago, but I've made the thankless effort to label these photos correctly so you're going to bloody well learn something.

Visiting the compact and creepy Angkor Thom directly after stomping around its broader and more famous relative really hammers the differences home. Which is what I'm going to attempt to do here. With real hammers.

Bignose strikes again

I debated whether to go to Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary on my last day in Sandakan, because I was about to spend a couple of annoying days on buses and could have really used the time to catch up on work.

Then I realised that hanging around with massive-conked monkeys would be the best thing it's possible to do on any day ever. This turned out to be the best day I had in Borneo by far, and for once my photos weren't a let-down.

The only problem I can see resulting from this is that the regular, non-snouted monkeys I used to enjoy hanging out with aren't really going to do it for me any more. It'd be like playing Spellbound Dizzy on an 8-bit ZX Spectrum emulator when you grew up with the superior 16-bit Amiga 500 version. Substitute this analogy for two comparative game consoles produced after 1990 if that's easier for you.

Cruise for a conk

Not my photo.
We'll get to my disappointing photos in a minute

Borneo might be best known for its orangutans, but it's also home to a more hilarious primate that I felt it was more pressing to see first - the big-nosed, preggers-bellied proboscis monkey.

Like the solitary tarsier, I feel affinity with this distant evolutionary cousin, as we're both blighted by enormous hooters. Though these monkeys also have humongous bellies, while I seem to be wasting away.

Monkeys can generally be relied on to be funny, so add a massive conk and you've got a winner in the comedy animal stakes. But if you feel a pang of guilt when guffawing at these sideshow freaks in places like Singapore Zoo, you can go down the responsible tourism route and see them hanging out in their native habitat on a cruise down Klias River.

Singa-poor

Do you see what I did there?

When I was travelling down the Malay Peninsula through Southern Thailand and Malaysia and the conversation topic of Singapore reared its ugly, lionesque head (on a fish body - how long would that creature last before devouring itself?) people would invariably complain about how expensive this place is.

Singapore likes to cultivate this affluent image, with its flashy malls and Filipino maids serving every loveless household (too harsh?) But unless you buy all your liquid sustenance from the needlessly extravagant Long Bar of the Raffles Hotel or insist on staying in the most luxurious and eye-catching hotels (and thus have a worse view than the people in cheaper hotels who can actually see your building - suckers), it's very easy to live cheaply in Singapore. It's not too far behind Malaysia, or even Thailand.

And with higher quality of life, well-behaved traffic and plenty of free attractions, you're getting considerably better value for money. Well, sometimes.

Is that all I get, Indonesia?

Earlier this year, I complained that 30 days wasn't enough time to fully experience Thailand. Even by maximising the daylight hours by taking night buses (and sometimes managing to sleep for as much as 45 minutes per night), I still had to renew my visa just to see a few more places before giving in.

Time for another complaint - 30 days to see Indonesia is even crazier. Especially considering this scattered island nation is one of the largest countries in the world and it takes practically all day to get anywhere.

This probably doesn't matter to the 80% of international visitors who never venture beyond Bali (the lazy bastards), but I would have liked to have spent longer In Donesia.

Twelve monkeys

I haven't finished seeing the sights of Bali yet, but if anything beats the Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud, I'll eat my sarong.

This place is right up my street. Literally (I'm staying on Monkey Forest Road). I haven't had such convenient macaque access (macaqcess?) since Taiwan, and as that means I'm obviously going to come here every day, this blog could easily turn into an endless gallery of hilarious monkey photos.

But you deserve to see more 'interesting' things than that (i.e. less interesting things), like temples and rice fields, so I'll simply present the top 12 monkeys.

Disclaimer: I am aware that some of these photos contain more than one monkey; that crab-eating macaques aren't technically monkeys; and that I've cheated by including monkey photos in other sections. Are you looking for a fight?

A childish day out again again again again again

Sentosa didn't quench my thirst for immature days out in Singapore - luckily Singapore Zoo was on hand for all my incarcerated wildlife needs.

Because it's Singapore, I correctly anticipated something more in the conservationist style of Taipei Zoo than the slightly harrowing leg-irons and irresponsible feeding of Bangkok's Dusit Zoo. The animals are still here to be ogled and laughed at (especially the ridiculous proboscis monkeys), but not touched.

Ridged for her pleasure

Singapore isn't just a city/country of commerce and grotesque statues. It is mainly that, but they've also managed to hang on to plenty of green outdoor spaces amidst all the capitalism. Which is a good thing, because these people really need places to relax.

Not that they're really using them. I've spent plenty of hours reading and writing in massive public parks and seen about three people cycling by. When I spent an afternoon walking along the famed Southern Ridges Walk (which apparently cost 25.5 million Singapore dollars to construct), I only passed a few joggers and a couple of other tourists.

Considering pretty much everyone I've talked to in my hostel is here looking for work, rather than visiting for the sights (spending all day sending applications and waking me up with their corporate phone calls), this place seriously needs to learn to relll ('relax' + 'chill' - you try coming up with a catchier portmanteau).

I'm aware this is coming from me - someone who had little concept of the value of relaxation until a few months ago. But at least they have options.