Tales of Troy

A cool spinning form of the truth woven in various places around the world. You are on Troy's time now.

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The night taking over

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A chilly day in the north 

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NASA has done a study and found the best indoor plants (in order) to fight indoor toxins/pollution. 

Bamboo palm

Chinese evergreen

English ivy

Gerbera daisy

Janet craig dracena

Marginata dracaena

Corn plant

Mothers in law tongue

Pot mum

^ breathing the clean air in Paradise valley, Morocco

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Swam it, climbed it, jumped off, hurt myself

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Dogs' maths class on a small island off the coast of Vietnam

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Fun at the Vietnam Airport

^ catching a ride on a local's boat. It was 10am and he was about 8 shots of whiskey deep

I arrived at Singapore airport excited for what lay ahead. I flashed my passport to the check in lady and waited for my ticket.

‘Excuse me sir, where is you visa?’

Damn! 

Visa? What visa. Should have done my research. I had to bribe Vietnamese officials 200USD to backdate a visa approval letter by three days. That was to just get me on the plane. After touching down in Saigon, the sprawling capital of Vietnam I was whisked into a small room while a guy in an army suit got a photograph of me and proceeded to fabricate things about me to get me in the country. After which he stamped my passport and asked for another ten dollars to skip the customs line. I knew I had paid my dues so I walked straight to the staff check in and flashed the fresh ink. Straight through no qualms.

Sam was to pick me up from the airport on his scooter and nothing is a smooth run with that guy. A laugh is guaranteed however and this is far more important. I traded a local a 'silver' ring for a phone call and sure enough Sam arrives with his scooter helmet….And no scooter. Turns out it had broken down on the freeway so we were taxying back to his house. We picked up a working scooter and drove to broken down one. It was about midnight at this stage and hundreds of crazy Vietnamese were still on the roads. He told me to get on the broken scooter and pop it into neutral. Confused, I followed his instructions and coasted onto the highway. He started his scooter then pushed my scooter by pressing his foot on my back foot pedal. We gained some speed but cars and scooters were still whizzing past us. The hard part was synchronising the turning. If I turned too hard his foot would slip off and I would be coasting silently and unseen in the dark along the main road. The funny thing was the other motorists didn’t seem to mind at all. Traffic in South East Asia flows like a river. If one were to stop in the middle of the road the traffic would swerve to the sides and continue like water around a pebble.

The irony of having essentially no road rules and policing yet a more efficient system than any western country is satisfying. Sometimes it is better to let nature decide the best way. 

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An Unusual Dinner in Singapore

Basically after couch surfing I ended up in a local hawker market one night with some enigmatic renegades...

I had met Ol and James, two of the attendees, earlier in the day. Ol was from a wealthy family in France and had been a nomad since he blew up his classroom with a homemade bomb and didn’t respond to the two years of phsycolgist visiits ordered by the court. Luckily for him his father forked out 750,000 euros for the bill so he had no criminal charge. James happened to be from a small town in the Waikato and only had a passport to his name. he had never worked in New Zealand or paid any tax so was connected to the country by a small piece of paper. They had just finished riding motorcycles through Indonesia and while in a remote reigion of the Maya Arcialago had met a crazy Australian millionaire named Rodd, who had parachuted into the jungle for a construction contract. He was to join us also. The fourth and final member of the party was Rodd’s mate Damien, a fashion photographer of 40 years who had been clinically dead twice from heroine overdoses. He was also from a prestigious family and had chosen the life of a nomad over his aristocratic destiny. He told me he chained and padlocked his Catholic schools priests in a meeting room just for fun one day.

 All of these guys did not agree with the status quo and seemed to have problems with authority.

 I arrived at dinner and the four of them had already polished several vodka and coconut juices off and were well rinsed. The topic of conversation was a boat Rodd was building in the Philippines. His plan was get Kevin, Ol, James and Damien on board his boat and film their alcohol, drug and philosophical exploits throughout the world. All intelligent men with a penchant for mischief. I was slightly disconcerted when Damien grabbed the scruff of my neck, looked me in the eyes and told me I reminded him of his younger self, and that I should stay away from heroine. He had the presence of a madman mixed with the villain on Snatch. Not an evil man just a dog always looking for a bone. His older brother had died at the age of 18 and Damien almost met the same fate several times. He was strung out on smack for 25 years and finally kicked the habit 15 years ago. He had also just divorced his wife after 23 years so was living it up even more than usual. I casually asked how Rodd and Damien met.  They both laughed and Damien, always straight to the point, said he tried to sleep with Rodd’s supermodel wife 30 years ago while photographing her.

 By this stage the guys were well on their way and glasses were starting to smash. The Singaporeans were visibly irked although would never say anything to offend anyone. And the crew knew this. Eventually the old boys called it a night and headed off in a taxi. They invited me to a party on an artificial island the next night. Ol was excited as he was crossing the border the next day on ‘business’. I chose not inquire further. This was one of the few times I have been absolutely outclassed in every form of stories, success and scars

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Gili Islands, Jah mahn

One of the boys had one last night left so we decided to head to Gili  Island for the night.

We arrived around midday and had a walk around. The island was essentially a desert road parallel to beach and the local transport took the form of a mule and cart. The road was littered with imitation restaurants and bars and one local Indonesian was absolutely positively sure he was Jamaican, as evidenced by his valiant attempt at dreads. Nevertheless the people were upbeat and more than happy to help you out. We sat at wonky table in the sand and watched a constant stream of boats slide up ashore, packed with recreational divers and scuba equipment. I was disappointed  I wouldn’t have time for a dive as it was outlandishly cheap to do it there.

We went to a reggae party that night and after a 30minute snooze early in the morning awoke to find a mad gorilla filling our room up with everything he could find; bikes, tables, garden hoses, beer, rubbish bins. After an intense 15 minutes the gorilla left and one of the boys returned with a spear gun and a mask. No rest for the wicked. I picked up a mask and flippers for about 4 bucks for the day and headed out. The reef had a nice drop off but had obviously been plundered of its nutrients and had a barren feel to it. Sea turtles drifted down the coast with the current and would let you hold onto their shells for a cruise with the current. I was breaking molluscs with rocks and feeding it to a particularly ancient looking one. He looked like an old man with no teeth and sunken eyes yet had the wise aura of a sage. I broke my camera and never got it fixed or a new one. 

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A Desolate Lakey Peak

Got to Bima airport on the island of Sumbawa (google where it is). Ravaged by mining and poverty, the inland was a dusty wasteland  of rock piles and debri scattered on the cratered roads. The man that picked us up seemed very agitated and drove a rusty old land rover with no windows in the back. As we set off for our hotel it started to rain torrentially and having no window on my side I was soaked instantly. We felt lucky to be alive upon arrival at the coast after the 2.5 hour cracked out ride listening ton Kanye West’s new album, Yeezus. The driver sat bolt upright the whole time and didn’t blink once I think. Unfortunately he scared a dog into the path of an oncoming car and it crushed the right side of its pelvis. No local looked twice or came to its aid. Dogs have no value in Sumbawa so it was no loss to our driver. A goat on the other hand is far more valuable so we were careful to avoid hitting goats.

Our ‘hotel’ was run by a crazy Frenchman who visited Sumbawa in the 80s and never left. He married a local and set up some bungalows for lost souls and surfers. My room looked alright but I couldn’t actually get into it as there was a swarming army of giant red ants invading the porch. It was an interesting first night. We left the light on outside which in turn attracted insects and the bats were going crazy hunting them; high pitch squealing interrupting my dreams. A lady also gave birth in the kitchen that night which  sounded like a painful murder. Good to be a guy.

  The surf at Lakey peak was beyond heavy and we got pummelled on the shallow reef. Myself and the four other guys out just looked at each other in mutual fear as mountainous waves charged from the horizon and exploded over the reef. I paddled for my first wave and being absolutely positive I was down the face I stood up but something was wrong. This was no ordinary wave. Instead of racing down the bottom I actually rose up to the crest of the wave and it started to break beneath me. I stared below and could see the coral two stories below. I dug my arms into the wave to slow myself down so more water could wash over the reef before I hit. I free fell 15 feet and star-fished so I would have a shallow entry. It went black and silent for a single second. I knew I was quite deep and what was about to happen. I was picked back up by the wash and tossed around like a fly in a hurricane. My board was ripped away from me and I had no idea what was up and what was down. I grabbed my leg rope tied to my feet and pulled myself toward my more buoyant board which would be heading for the surface. I came up and got a quick breath before another avalance of water blew me apart again. I came up 80 metres down the line in waste deep water on the reef. I knew it would be bad form to paddle in so I headed back for the channel and re joined the lineup and took some more beatings but got a few good ones as well. Big swells bring jellyfish into the shallows and some of the boys were painted with stings. A Japanese lady got a tentacle across the face as well. I also got a mighty surprise when I stood right next to a sea snake sunbathing on the reef, an extremely venomous creature that could deliver a fatal bite.

   Besides surfing there is nothing else to do in Lakey Peak so when the surf dropped we left hastily. 

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Into The Bali Abyss

Beginning: Four of us + plane -> Bali. pretty boring really. 13 hours on the plane with no food or water and no tv in the back of the seat to look at. we passed the time by filming  nostril hairs and sipping the vodka bottle the lady at slipped in our bag fo free g. The smell of micro farts was in the air constantly and everyone was sure it was this old asian lady next to us wearing a wry smile. 

^A Kuta Room. Reminds me of the start of Apocolypse Now

We rocked up to the Kuta airport (Bali’s only airport) and our Bali contact took us to our crib, a room with two beds and a rusty fan puffing flies around. we were pleasantly surprised to find the bed had a sheet to lie on and also one on top. 

- the next day - 

everyone was quite white at this stage with clean clothes on so naturally we were targeted by the locals.  35 times the market price for a pair of ripoff vans sunnies? Why not, Kachinng.

Massage, massage? good karma good marijuana, disco biscuit? taxi transport scooter scooter? mushroom? MUSHROOM?

'No thanks we don't want that'. people would grab your arm they were so desperate for a sale. No welfare here so you got to hustle to survive. after a few days you get far more abrasive and eventually they recognise you and stop pestering you.

Into the night. 


back to the hotel room and into the havana club we go. I was the barman and poured five 50/50s and the bottle was empty. We had a few bin tangs to wash it down and there was purple Fanta in the mix. we arrived at sky garden, a sprawling rooftop bar with fire dancers and an eclectic array of ethnicities. pretty similar to other renowned tourist bars around the world. The night redlined and a lot of things happens. The locals like their home brew and one insisted I kiss this yellow spotted python rescued from somewhere. Anything for the right price I guess.

^Padang Weekend Reggae Night

^Padang Padang Beach

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WARNING yo

I have never read a blog nor written one so don’t know the do’s and dont’s and need to relearn how to write. I suppose I should  note that some of the characters and events are quasi fictional or aliases to avoid prosecution and stuff like that and  and parts (both small and large) of these stories are exaggerated and others just plain false for entertainment purposes. Some parts will be left out so people can save face and some added or modified because I can’t remember what happened. 

NUTSHELL: this is the coolest spinning form of the truth.

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A storm slips by 

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How has this song escaped me?