So I'm going to skip out pretty much everything I've done in the past month in Thailand and Malaysia, but who wants to hear about swimming with gay sharks and silly ting like dat anyhows? I'm in Singapore and fly home, at the end of my 4 month sojourn in Asia, in 3ish days (I should probably check when my flight is, oh and what the day is today... i think it's the weekend...). More about Singapore perhaps in my next post, but for now the tale of how I fought mother nature and her jungle minions; mammalian, insectosoidal and otherwise:
'Twas a warm and ravenously sweaty day in the not so distant past when our charming and hunklicious hero, Squire Gordon, squeezed his finely toned buttocks into a wooden long boat beside a not-unattractive french girl. The motor up the river was uneventful, disappointingly the pretend machine gun and grenade launcher he had packed were not needed, the documentaries 'Sharktopus' and 'Mega Piranha' were apparently not the definitive authority on water dwelling creatures that their high production values would have one believe. He ditched the scantily clad extras in the river, it looked like he wouldn't be needing their sloppy acting talents after all, though it was a shame to see the eye candy go to waste.
That evening in Kuala Tahan, a shoddy jungle village where there was not a gram of tuppence nor a crumb of 'Parle G' to be found anywhere about, he chumbled upon two unlikely gents. "Greetings fine gentle folk! I seek accomplices in my quest into the jungle where I intend to find and capture the fabled Crockosaurus and make my fortune. You two unlikely gents fit the very outer percentiles of acceptability of the bill and will thus, as they say, do." They were clearly not upstanding gentlemen of the British Empire (Hoho! Wearing sporting jackets, and this not being grouse shooting season! The plebs!) and showed no signs of comprehension so he repeated his request in the apelike bastardisation of his noble mother language so often found conversed by non native englishmen in backpacking hostels throughout the world. "I going to the Jungle, no? forest? woods? you know ... with the trees (gesticulates wildly). you are wanting to go with me also?". The Canadian and the Frenchman accepted, though the later's was more of an acquiescence. This reluctance would later manifest itself in a dark and most undelightful moodiness that would move the party (maybe like 1/2 an inch) toward mortal jeapordy.
The next morning they stood, already soaked in sweaty sweat, like a bucket of pungent sponges, facing the sign proclaiming "proceed no further without a guide". A warning to foolhardy tourists, which they certainly were not, chuckling the party partied on. In a tree high above, a monkey with round white eyes looked on, a twinkle of a foreboding smile remained momentarily as he faded away, Cheshire Cat-like into the darkness.
The jungle was a bitch. That much was rapidly apparent. The terrain was tough as nuts, the men fell down muddy banks and stumbled over roots. At one point Squire Gordon lost his entire leg to a termite ridden log. Worst of all were the leeches that wiggled and flopped from all around - a hoard of miniature horror movie monsters. They clambered over the adventurers' shoes and slipped through their socks. Home, they sucked on flesh, swelling in size until finally, gorged on blood, they fell away leaving small gushing wounds all over our heroes' lower limbs. They were unstoppable. The tiny terminators clung to the nail of a flicker or the sole of a stamper and proceeded, heedless, on their way. After a couple of hours this was enough to flap flappable Clement into a cursing rage. "Not cool bro" thought a passing grasshopper.
Despite the necessity to keep an eye or two on the treacherous terrain Shaun proved his worth with a new found talent for spotting wildlife; lizards, a preying mantis, a dead scorpion and a monkey or two were among his visual conquests. This perhaps explains why he slipped more frequently than the other two onto his muddy buttocks. A sacrifice The Squire was willing to make.
In the words of (/sampled by) Jack Beats in 'Get Down' (Tuuuuuune!) "And then it happened"; a black jungle pig covered in dry mud, with a glint of fire in his eyes materialised on the path ahead. The brave chaps hushed one another lest they scare him away. Unnecessarily. The confident pig sauntered first past Clement then The Squire, he stopped and sniffed Shaun's bag which the chap held between him and the porky mammal. He sniffed again, then, quick as a flasher, grabbed the satchel in his teeth turned and pelted down the steep bank towards the river. Without hesitation The Squire chucked himself down through the foliage after the thieving sack of sausages yelling obscenities at the top floor of his voice. Shaken out of his shocked state Shaun made chase, jumping down in adrenaline fueled excitement, straight onto The Squire who lay in a muddy ball, having tripped over a branch a moment earlier. In fear or perhaps mirth the notorious highwaypig had dropped his swag. The chaps retrieved it and its spilt contents and climbed back up to a nonplussed Clement. Pig Turpin was all the while hovering at the fringe waiting for a repeat opportuinty, he followed them for a while but finally conceeded defeat when the party picked up defensive sticks and The Squire pulled a really scary face at him.
Too many hours later they arrived at the hide where they were to spend the night. It was a wooden structure on stilts. The Squire cursed the current post modern design fashion when he stepped inside; filling the hut with live wasps was not an aesthetic choice he agreed with. The evening was spent looking out into the jungle watching fireflys doing an amusing impression of what it would be like if the stars above had adhd. Crockosaurus did not appear. Tired after a restless night spent fending off rats from their wooden bunks, the fellows headed back to civilisation. Exhausted but glad of the adventure they arrived at the village to great excitement, and later acclaim, they brandished photographic proof of Crockosaurus! Ever the prepared scout, The Squire had knocked up a photoshop a couple of days earlier.
The moral of the story: 'Megashark vs Giant Octopus' is a corker of a movie film.
x
'Twas a warm and ravenously sweaty day in the not so distant past when our charming and hunklicious hero, Squire Gordon, squeezed his finely toned buttocks into a wooden long boat beside a not-unattractive french girl. The motor up the river was uneventful, disappointingly the pretend machine gun and grenade launcher he had packed were not needed, the documentaries 'Sharktopus' and 'Mega Piranha' were apparently not the definitive authority on water dwelling creatures that their high production values would have one believe. He ditched the scantily clad extras in the river, it looked like he wouldn't be needing their sloppy acting talents after all, though it was a shame to see the eye candy go to waste.
That evening in Kuala Tahan, a shoddy jungle village where there was not a gram of tuppence nor a crumb of 'Parle G' to be found anywhere about, he chumbled upon two unlikely gents. "Greetings fine gentle folk! I seek accomplices in my quest into the jungle where I intend to find and capture the fabled Crockosaurus and make my fortune. You two unlikely gents fit the very outer percentiles of acceptability of the bill and will thus, as they say, do." They were clearly not upstanding gentlemen of the British Empire (Hoho! Wearing sporting jackets, and this not being grouse shooting season! The plebs!) and showed no signs of comprehension so he repeated his request in the apelike bastardisation of his noble mother language so often found conversed by non native englishmen in backpacking hostels throughout the world. "I going to the Jungle, no? forest? woods? you know ... with the trees (gesticulates wildly). you are wanting to go with me also?". The Canadian and the Frenchman accepted, though the later's was more of an acquiescence. This reluctance would later manifest itself in a dark and most undelightful moodiness that would move the party (maybe like 1/2 an inch) toward mortal jeapordy.
The next morning they stood, already soaked in sweaty sweat, like a bucket of pungent sponges, facing the sign proclaiming "proceed no further without a guide". A warning to foolhardy tourists, which they certainly were not, chuckling the party partied on. In a tree high above, a monkey with round white eyes looked on, a twinkle of a foreboding smile remained momentarily as he faded away, Cheshire Cat-like into the darkness.
The jungle was a bitch. That much was rapidly apparent. The terrain was tough as nuts, the men fell down muddy banks and stumbled over roots. At one point Squire Gordon lost his entire leg to a termite ridden log. Worst of all were the leeches that wiggled and flopped from all around - a hoard of miniature horror movie monsters. They clambered over the adventurers' shoes and slipped through their socks. Home, they sucked on flesh, swelling in size until finally, gorged on blood, they fell away leaving small gushing wounds all over our heroes' lower limbs. They were unstoppable. The tiny terminators clung to the nail of a flicker or the sole of a stamper and proceeded, heedless, on their way. After a couple of hours this was enough to flap flappable Clement into a cursing rage. "Not cool bro" thought a passing grasshopper.
Despite the necessity to keep an eye or two on the treacherous terrain Shaun proved his worth with a new found talent for spotting wildlife; lizards, a preying mantis, a dead scorpion and a monkey or two were among his visual conquests. This perhaps explains why he slipped more frequently than the other two onto his muddy buttocks. A sacrifice The Squire was willing to make.
In the words of (/sampled by) Jack Beats in 'Get Down' (Tuuuuuune!) "And then it happened"; a black jungle pig covered in dry mud, with a glint of fire in his eyes materialised on the path ahead. The brave chaps hushed one another lest they scare him away. Unnecessarily. The confident pig sauntered first past Clement then The Squire, he stopped and sniffed Shaun's bag which the chap held between him and the porky mammal. He sniffed again, then, quick as a flasher, grabbed the satchel in his teeth turned and pelted down the steep bank towards the river. Without hesitation The Squire chucked himself down through the foliage after the thieving sack of sausages yelling obscenities at the top floor of his voice. Shaken out of his shocked state Shaun made chase, jumping down in adrenaline fueled excitement, straight onto The Squire who lay in a muddy ball, having tripped over a branch a moment earlier. In fear or perhaps mirth the notorious highwaypig had dropped his swag. The chaps retrieved it and its spilt contents and climbed back up to a nonplussed Clement. Pig Turpin was all the while hovering at the fringe waiting for a repeat opportuinty, he followed them for a while but finally conceeded defeat when the party picked up defensive sticks and The Squire pulled a really scary face at him.
Too many hours later they arrived at the hide where they were to spend the night. It was a wooden structure on stilts. The Squire cursed the current post modern design fashion when he stepped inside; filling the hut with live wasps was not an aesthetic choice he agreed with. The evening was spent looking out into the jungle watching fireflys doing an amusing impression of what it would be like if the stars above had adhd. Crockosaurus did not appear. Tired after a restless night spent fending off rats from their wooden bunks, the fellows headed back to civilisation. Exhausted but glad of the adventure they arrived at the village to great excitement, and later acclaim, they brandished photographic proof of Crockosaurus! Ever the prepared scout, The Squire had knocked up a photoshop a couple of days earlier.
The moral of the story: 'Megashark vs Giant Octopus' is a corker of a movie film.
x
