Lao PDR and the Lonely Planet

Woo hoo! One of my Lao PDR photos in the Lonely Planet mosaic.

Share your favourite travel photos with Lonely Planet and win over $170,000 in prizes! | home

Tokyo Year Zero

Tokyo Year Zero by David Peace


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A very long time ago, someone close to people I cared about got murdered. For weeks, every lurid headline made me shudder, hoping they hadn't seen it. I swore off crime fiction for years afterwards, no longer having any tolerance for the death of someone's loved one being reduced to a plot device. And for exactly that reason, there's a lot of crime fiction I still really can't bear.

What I admire most about David Peace his ability to convey what is real about these events: grief and hurt and loss. Yes, there are murders, but in a David Peace book they matter. And the fact that they matter, that they are tragedies, means that reading Peace ain't no picnic. He is a master of his powers, its his skill that lets the reader understand tragedy. Characteristic stylistic techniques such as intruding internal voices, section introductions using different font, layout and voice in almost stream of conciousness flashes, and stark, short-sentence prose all work so effectively that there are bits that are hard to read, because you know that you probably should look away. And, perhaps because Peace draws from history to write his fiction (in this case a real case in immediate post-WWII Tokyo), redemption is hard to find. It you read crime for the satisfaction of justice and order being restored at the end, then this is not the book for you.

If there is redemption here, it is in a book rendered powerfully enough to make the reader see things they would rather ignore, the things that will continue for as long as we continue to look away.

I would rank it as good as GB84, better than The Damned United. The rest of the Japan trilogy is now on my list. (Might recharge the psychic batteries with something a bit fluffier first, though.)





View all my reviews >>

Stephen Fry V Catholic Church

Thought you might enjoy the attached YouTube clip of the passionate, eloquent and generally impressive Stephen Fry's speaking in support of love, and in opposition to the Church.

For all of my friends out there raised under the wing of the Big C (and most of you have been, lets face it), I would like to stress that I include this because of its succinct eloquence and passion. I would be equally happy to pick on the many other religious brandnames, protestant versions as well as ones with different other choices of deity, who are equally remiss on various matters of social and moral policy. Though generally speaking, they are not as powerful and therefore not as dangerous. And, yes, they do good things too....but I won't witter on. SF will explain much better than I can:

Bateman, you're a fiend

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis



My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A recent review (of another book) raised the possibility that this was another example of a narrator who was utterly unrealiable, and that Bateman never harmed a fly. Could this be true? I wish I had a copy handy so I could go and investigate. All I can say is that it has the distinction of being about the only book that has ever made me view my fellow commuters with a high degree of wariness and suspicion, nay, fear. It scared me.

Ultimately though, the driving force of this book is, in my view, a righteous rage directed firmly AT Bateman and all he represents. Very satisfying.

View all my reviews >>

"That hurts, doesn't it?"

In Vientiane, you can't go far without bumbing into an establishment offering massage.  Of the wholesome, theraputic variety, I hasten to add. The most rudimentary menu will offer you a choice of 'soothing', 'Lao1 (meaning a little more vigourous), facial and foot.  Depending on the size and ambition of the establishment, any number of variations may soon follow.

I had no real intention of indulging, having generally stuck to the principle of only sharing a massage with someone with whom I would be willing to share a bed. However, my firstThursday in the country, I woke to find my lower back completely dysfunction and the rest of me barely able to walk. By the end of the day, I could barely stand straight. It was disturbing. The next day, I was heaps better, but tap-dancing - or climbing in and out of large vehicles to go to my meetings, for that matter, remained completely out of the question. The top half of my body was tilting forward at 45 degrees like a giraffe in mid-stride.

Enter Mrs B. The minute our locally-based collegues heard of my demise, they had no hesitation in recommending her. She couldn't fit me in for two days, but it was worth the wait. A small Lao woman wearing jeans and a striped, long sleeved t-shirt, she agreed to meet me at my hotel.  I later realised I had put her in a rather akward position with this request, as it was not becoming for a massuer to be seen visiting hotels. If I had been a man she would never have agreed. I so glad she did. Within five minutes, she had not only pinpointed the spot in my lower back that was misplaced, she had also identified two other spots, including this little one at the base of my skull which I gave up mentioning years ago because no physio I had ever seen in Melbourne had made the slightest iota of difference to it.

" Mmm," says Mrs B. "That hurts, doesn't it?"
"Yes, it does."
"That's hurt for a long time, hasn't it?"  I could have hugged her then and there. By the time she proceeded to make me completely better with forty minutes of massage and gentle manipulation, I was ready to dedicate my unborn children to her Genius. All this for the equivalent of about $15US.

Ms B happens to be a trained physical therapist, as well as a great massuese, so the session included helpful information about what number vertebrae were needing attention, and a little lesson in stretching exercises to begin the next day and stop the problem from re-occuring. Excellent health care in anyone's world. Unfortunately, public sector salaries for health professionals here in Lao reflect the GDP: they are at rock bottom. A doctor's monthly wage is not much more that a single Medicare session payment in Australia, and other health professionals earm much less.  As a result, this genius of life-giving goodness has to work in the private sector to earn enough to support her family, largely ministering to the aches and pains of  the employees of international NGOs and aid organisations i.e. those with foreign incomes.

If I am ever lucky enough to be back in Vientiane, the first thing I do will be call Mrs B. I might have to borrow someone's house for my visit.