Farsiding Read online

  I'm going to buy a notepad and a pen, and start giving out my signatures.

  Borneo, it's a place that normal social norms seem to have forgotten.

  If you can't beat 'em, then join 'em.

  That's my new motto.

  I'm jettisoning the old grumpy bastard persona and keeping things jolly.

  The heat at Zero meridian just saps the life out of you.

  Some days are less hellish than others.

  It's like walking in a fish tank of water at a balmy 40 degrees Celsius.

  The balls get coated in gunk.

  The heat draws out the toxins and your jocks stick to your tackle.

  Too much information, right?

  I'm hanging out a Chinese warung.

  They go the extra distance to make you feel welcome.

  The point is, they don't even try and keep you happy.

  Just by being their honest and Chinese self, slotting into their way of thinking becomes natural.

  I spend most of my time with the Chinese Malaysian when I'm in Malaysia.

  I like their company, their rudeness, their inquisitiveness and their ability to be charming as fuck.

  Be nice to money and it will be nice to you, the Chinese know that.

  There's nothing to do here, says Indri, a Chinese lady who helped translate some blah blah blah for me at the noodle shop.

  And boy do I have some more blah blah blah.

  She says it's so hot here that all you can do in Pontianak is eat good food.

  I'm hoping to lose some weight while I'm here.

  I had to put the leftovers of my bami noodles in a doggy bag.

  'It was really good,' I said to the owner, whose name in Chinese means dragon, 'but I just can't eat it all. You wouldn't mind bagging it for me, would you love?'

  He obliged but looked at me with utter contempt.

  See, it's so hot I'm detouring from the truth again.

  A little boy was performing a dragon show for me this morning.

  The jaw snapped open and shut.

  He can't even speak but he's boxing his miners and other family members in sight.

  If there was a reincarnated Bruce Lee, I've found him.

  Indri also told me in March and October, during the solstices, your shadow disappears.

  'Very hot, the head burns.'

  It burns without a shadow too. Aint that just amazing.

  Oh god, not the dentist again.

  In saying that, without the dentist, I'd have little purpose in my life.

  I really didn't want to walk down Jalan Siam and chuck a left and walk another one hundred yards before entering the dentist.

  But I did.

  It's good for you.

  Think of the advantages, no self-medicating. Being able to eat, wow, I was convinced and needed to take action.

  'Don't give that man money,' said my dentist.

  I gave it to Ibu, who had a stroke.

  I could see he was tricky from the outset.

  I even have his card.

  He's apparently a practitioner of reflexology.

  Bile in the kidneys, he could cure it with a foot massage.

  The guy actually waited one hour for me then entered the dentist's premises, like we were best of mates, he said let's look at his villa.

  'And give me your fucking money.'

  His tone changed from the down and out uncle to a loan shark, within a period of one hour.

  I shook him off, I told the boy who doubles up as a nurse and a receptionist.

  'You did well,' he said.

  They were all rooting for me at the dental clinic.

  One more session.

  I was full of contrition.

  I couldn't get angry at my dentist for overcharging me because I'm the only white guy in a sea of brown.

  The pain had gone, I was eating without the pain associated with dodgy teeth and I could also manage a pained smile.

  I couldn't eat for another two hours so I hit Mc Cafe.

  I was swamped by the beautiful female staff.

  They wanted selfies with yours truly.

  They wanted videos with me.

  They even scripted what I should say. I said no wucking worries, and I'll even add you to my fuckbook and post the pictures and videos.

  Fuck this anonymity game, I was enjoying this exposure big time.

  Ariff, follow me, I said.

  I had to lure him out his comfort zone, the hotel where he solicits most of his clients.

  I'm staying at a short time hotel, which wouldn't surprise you.

  And across the street is China Town.

  They are a sensual race of people and love hot chicks working the coffee bars. It works, I've drunk more coffee than is good for an ageing old fart.

  But how can you not consume?

  Ekka, the owner of Mc Cafe has bills to pay, and if it means I need to order more coffees to keep his hot staff employed, I'll do the hard yards and drink more.

  I ordered us both a coffee at the Chinese Cafe where the Chinese owner with the shrine tattoo on his calf does a great impression of Kim Jong-il.

  He's his double, cloned by Putin's KGB.

  That much I'm sure.

  He quickly calls his sister who is a cleaner at a hotel in Sydney.

  Her name is Veronica.

  I'm teaching her daughter some English.

  I've got nothing better to do and mum seems happy enough.

  'I want Dangdut,' requests Ariff.

  That means he wants to see sexy Thai coyote dancers.

  I get the wifi sorted out and play him a few numbers.

  His massage technique is now half-hearted.

  He's only massaging my neck and back.

  I can't say I'm feeling any better but as Ariff says, he has four children to feed so I don't mind using his services, the cash is always going to a good cause.

  We are creating quite a stir.

  Those Thai coyotes of sound systems are always a winner here.

  Ariff is talking about big tits now.

  I say the dancer in pink has a big set. Implants of course.

  He argues, as a yellow nymph starts her gyration cycle, that she has even bigger tits.

  He can get me a set of big tits.

  'But don't tell anyone at the hotel.'

  Of course, what is said here, stays here.

  As he said, he's got kids to feed, and if it means pimping a set of big tits, he'll do it for the family.

  The price was fantastic.

  He is using a mini phone, the ones that don't have any graphics. It's almost a toy.

  It's not a smartphone and it's so small I'm surprised how Ariff manages to use it with his big clumsy hands.

  So there was no checking out the merchandise.

  As far as pimping goes, he has a long way to go.

  He has nothing on the hotel staff who have the photos to back up their moonlighting services.

  I'm still getting over one shot. I could see her tonsils.

  Ariff comes up with a swing ball, centre left.

  His grandfather was Chinese and converted to Islam.

  That explains his Chinese looks.

  Seems everyone is converting to some religion or another and shooting out their gene pool in any available vagina.

  This is Darwinism at it's best.

  'Blood, in tooth and claw.'

  Ariff is well read too.

  I said maybe we'll check out the big hooters tomorrow.

  Ariff is downstairs and it's now today. I better see what's up.

  He might have another surprise for me.

  Meanwhile, I'm heading to the ATM. The dentist is sucking me dry.

  How do you reconcile the normal world with the paranormal?

  You either freak out and go gaga or just play it cool.

  Quiet down girls, I said.

  Shhhhhhhhh.

  The wife of the magician, if that's what they are called, would let out little girl giggles every time I p
ut my finger to my lips and let out a low but resonating shhhhhhhhh.

  Was I stealing the show?

  It looked like it.

  When you manufacture your own reality, it's easier to cover.

  It was the balance an old cut-throat blade on a pin trick and making it move with non magnetic material.

  I was sold.

  It was stagecraft at it's best. Nothing was manufactured.It was just the props working against earthly laws. Even if it was a trick, I was sold on it.

  How could it be a trick?

  Later, I tried the magnet against the non-magnetic objects.

  After the fourth attempt, the magnet attached onto the black stone.

  Maybe I had the same powers as the magician.

  This wasn't supposed to happen but I'm glad it did.

  Persistence pays off.

  But something weird was going on that was beyond scientific explanation.

  Why ruin a good thing with science. It would take out the majority of the occultists who make their hard earned cash on the unexplainable.

  The kris, or dagger, only moves if there's a ghost in the object that's teased in front of it. In the cases I witnessed, it was a ring, a lump of rock and even a headscarf.

  It was a neat trick.

  I even went further and showed Ali a Thai tattoo on my back.

  'I think someone has a voodoo doll of me and is constantly putting pins into me.'

  'I'll pull that fucker out,' he said and showed me his intention by grabbing something from my back and then blowing it away to oblivion.

  He then got a ring with a rock on it called Borneo red.

  'You wear this,' he said, 'soon bad spell gone.'

  But he wasn't finished. He put the ring in a glass of water, said a few prayers then told me to drink the water and put on the ring.

  'Only take it off when you got the toilet or when you are fornicating.'

  I paid a small donation for his services.

  But I"m back onto my private masseuse, who is trying to knead out the evil spirits that may reside in my Thai tattoo. Gotta cover all bases, right?

  'I'm not a woman,' said Ariff. Good point.

  There should be a rule, I told him, keep French out of the English language.

  'It's just as bad as Dutch,'said Ariff, ' a language only spoken by tulip eaters.'

  I couldn't agree with him more.

  Ghost hunting.

  When my man say's he's going to show me ghost hunting, he does.

  Not once today has he given me a bull shit lead.

  These kind of people who don't promise the world but come through with their promises are rare as hen's teeth.

  First stop is a coastal town and a mangrove swamp.

  My man, a fellow coffee drinker I met at Merapi Cafe, doesn't speak English.

  I don't speak Indonesian, so neither of us have any use for feeling superior.

  Google Translate is doing more for understanding and friendship than anything else on the web.

  Most of his friends are volunteers at the swamp.

  'We volunteer,' says on of Agung's friends. Then he takes a picture of me.

  Then he scripts what I should say for a video.

  Then his friend says to smile, he's taking a 360-degree group selfie. He's not happy with it, and says to smile after three.

  I'm getting good at this shit, really fucking good.

  Later that evening the ghost hunter wants to show me how to see the ghosts.

  What do they look like?

  'They are your imagination,' he says, a fisherman from the Kapuas River, who sections off fish into pens and feeds them pellets.

  A big titted ghost, that's my imagination.

  We are eating dinner at a warung and a teacher want's to speak Enlighs with me.

  I exchange numbers then the ghost hunter comes back.

  Show me the ghosts, I say. Are there any fuckers around here.

  He goes into a brief trance, and points in front of me.

  I take a picture. I don't have infrared but I did capture a bubble ghost on my camera back at his house on the river.

  The mosquitos were out and I wasn't going to let Dengue enter my life again.

  'Here,' says the ghost hunter, who understands more English than he can speak.

  He passes me mosquito repellant oil.

  This guy is the real deal but we have a two-hour drive back to the capital.

  I've taken a round of shots with the aperture on 3200. There's something lurking in the tops of the trees.

  What I'm saying is that I went along with this ghost hunting business.

  I really tried to look sincere and interested.

  A few shots had a mist floating around the canopy, even at different bracketing settings.

  Did I find a ghost?

  Agung's wife, Indri, doesn't want to look at my pictures.

  She's shit scared, so I tell her she's in charge of singing English Karaoke songs on the way back.

  She's glad I've aborted the ghost hunt.

  Besides, a quarter moon was interfering with the ideal conditions, and a few stars were poking their heads.

  'Definitely not good for ghost hunting,' I said.

  I had the final word on the subject.

  I was fucking tired and was sick of tracking down whatever we were tracking down.

  Saying hello to thousands of people and posing for selfies all day is fucking hard work.

  So I was feeling a little tender at this stage of the trip and the excitement of walking in mosquito-infested forests and cemeteries tracking down ghosts seemed positively a stupid idea.

  Fucking in a cemetery?

  Definitely a different story.

  We hit a cafe before we left and recharged toys.

  Cafe PM is really a great name. It deserves an award for great coffee, service and really decent owners.

  It was the first coffee shop where the hot chicks weren't trying to pick me up.

  Come to think of it, there were no hot chicks except the lady who made the drinks.

  She was dressed in hijab and wanted a selfie with me.

  She decided putting her arm around me was a better photo op, and moving her hips into me was for my comfort of course.

  Hay, I really wasn't complaining.

  The next day one of the hotel staff comes up to me and shows me a slew of pictures of me with the hot staff from Mc Cafe.

  Apparently, photos of me are doing the rounds on Whats App.

  Now what the fuck is up with that, huh?

  Ariff is a big part of my morning routine.

  Today I got a three-hour massage up in the hotel's coffee shop on the third floor.

  His entertainment has moved up from hot coyote dancers to hardcore porn.

  It looks like Pirate Bay has saved the day.

  A copper from Java came up to my table to say hello.

  I quickly put the porn away.

  'No problem,' says Ariff, 'he's a fellow Javanese, and as you know, we all love porn.'

  I was waiting for him to quote Shakespeare.

  'But you wouldn't get it,' he said. I always had trouble understanding the intrigues of incest among royalty.

  Give me a good concubine thriving for power story any day.

  'We have ladyboy too,' says my massage man. He's also a driver and wants to show me around town.

  He's a holy man of sorts and has hands that heal.

  But we never did make it to the milk factory. He had to pick up his son at the dentist.

  He wants me to go to his dentist.

  Too late, I said, I'm done. But he tries it on again.

  I think I'll have to crank up the porn traffic, its the only thing that keeps him calm and focused.

  Driving back into Pontianak, we cross over two old steel bridges. The mighty Kapuas River winds around the town reminding me I’m in fucking Borneo.

  Below, I can see dark murky things swimming. I declined an offer to swim in the river at the ghost hunte
r’s house.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said,’ I have special powers to tame them.’

  That’s what the last guy said and now he’s a rotting carcass on the bottom of the Kapuas River.

  He gave me that smile that said I knew my shit. It pays to be informed, I said and handed him over some cash. Even ghost hunters need to be paid for their services.

  Borneo has rivers that follow swirly and curly paths.

  A study of it on Google Maps is intriguing. I know nothing about rivers and I don't think saying a river snakes across the landscape tells you much either.

  But saying that the Kapuas River looks like a snake playing weird contortionist positions is more accurate.

  The bends are gentle and almost symmetrical.

  There's an intelligent design about its meanderings. And using a snake metaphor is just nonsense.

  I wouldn't want to degrade a mighty river to the status of a reptile.

  The river is like a worm, burrowing its way across the island, loosening the soil and paving the way for micro bacteria to energise the soil for cultivation.

  The fruit is better here. It's less polluted than other parts of South East Asia.

  The river is a meeting point.

  Where does it begin? I'm supposing from the mountain.

  I don't recall seeing any rivers in Java, Bali, or even Sumatra.

  Borneo's river system is something you can't ignore.

  It's the longest river in Indonesia, one of the longest rivers on an island in the world and is about 700 kilometers long.

  It's the only river that has super red arowana fish.

  I ate one yesterday.

  The sauce was sweet and spicy, and the fish deep fried.

  The ghost hunter breeds those fish in one of the river tributaries and I wouldn't be surprised he supplies the restaurant I ate at.

  To eat from the river is to know the river.

  It's life-giving and when flooded, it brings goodness to the land in terms of fertility.

  The old bridges spanning across the river are throwbacks from another age. It's like driving over a camel hump.

  Only in Borneo, hay?

  According to my research, the Kapuas originates from Müller mountain range.

  The fucking Germans are everywhere, aren't they?

  When I first arrived, everyone was talking about the Papuans.

  They are here in Pontianak, they told me.

  This is the Papuan River, said, my driver.