you dont have to read this first part, its just a bit of an intro, and explanation.


i know that its kind of long, but i just decided to post everything i have got so far. if you dont want to read it all, just read til you get bored and tell me where you got to. i havent written anything since i was at school, but i used to be quite good at it back then. i stopped because i couldn't find any subject matter that properly interested me, or that i thought would be enjoyable for other people to read. this is the start to a memoir (of sorts) about the past year or so of my life, spent weaving through twelve countries in south asia.
i started writing a blog while i was out there about where i was and what i was doing etc. but it just became a long winded list of things that i had done, and it didnt really do anything for me.
so i started taking notes and thinking about how i could write it up, if indeed i end up writing it up at all. and i came up with this idea that, instead of writing everything in order, i could come at it like a series of flashbacks to singular events, written in present tense and exquisite detail to really immerse the reader in that one time and place. after all, that is how i remember my time in asia.
anyway i tried to put in as much imagery as i could without getting boring, and really try to convey what running through my head while all this stuff was going on.
the first section is set in england, near where i live. it is just a short piece, trying to explain to the reader why i quit the daily grind and wasted ten grand doing what i did, and subsequently the difficulties i have relating with people who havent done the same.
the second part is set in indonesia, around two weeks before i was due to fly home. i intend to base the rest of my story around the time between this event and my landing back in england.
so, enjoy. and feel free to tell me if i sound boring, inexperienced or a bit up myself. i would much rather get that kind of opinion anonymously than embarrass myself in front of people i know.


(ps. the title comes from a card i was given by my mother on my departure, containing a small poem by the same title. i intended to cover this later on.)





ZEN DOG


“Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, consider Phlebas
Who was once tall and handsome as you.”
TS Eliot
The Waste Lands




People are always looking at me like I'm crazy.


I keep thinking back a few years, to a life so similar, yet fundamentally different to this one. This life found its valuation in little brown envelopes, torn open to reveal little green slips of paper with my name printed neatly on, accompanied by a hastily scrawled cheque for a small amount of money. The debt this life would pay for these little brown envelopes was forty-five hours, lifting, pulling, hitting and digging whatever I was told to. The van would arrive at the entrance to a small attic flat, and I would be waiting in the porch, wrapped up and tense against the clear, abrasive winter sky, clouds of breath drifting behind me like ghostly deserters as I made my way out to the road. The same van would skid to a halt with all the urgency of a day almost complete, and kick me to the pavement as the night approached. But this was only half of this life's debt; the other half manifesting itself by tearing away this very valuation in its own sustenance – heat and food to maintain the body, poison and lungs full of smoke to alleviate the mind. Every night this life would, in its own microcosmic fashion, try to end itself. And every morning, the cheques would disappear, as if they were never worth anything to start with, and the van would be there at the curb, frost melting from its windows, staring blankly down at the glistening road, ready to extract its next forty-five hours. Ready to feed off this life once again, to grasp it tightly, squeeze it and blind it, pet it and comfort it, whisper it sweet nothings and make it believe it is the only one.
Many lives begin and end this way. Most never think to slip their collars.
My memory always takes me to the same place. The rain has been relentless over the previous days, but today the sky is clear again, dew freezes on the grass banking at the entrance to the concrete farmyard, the corrugated iron on the roof of the huge barn to our right sparkles with frost as we roll to a halt. I open the door and jump out of the van, turning momentarily to the steaming mountain of silage on our left. I let the thick, pungent smell fill my lungs, my eyes following the flow of effluent in root-like veins across the concrete towards me. Then I go to join the others.
A barking, snarling collie tests the limits of its chain, secured to a bolt in the wall near the corner of the building, while I nod studiously at my superior and lift some wooden rails to my shoulder. I carry the rails round the corner of the building to where they are required, giving the dog a wide berth on the way. I double back once I have dumped the rails, to find one of my colleagues; an old man named Keith with a crooked nose and a claw-like nail on his left index finger, exercising less than ample caution.
The dog's chain is taut, the collar round its neck dragged down almost to its shoulders, still scratching for purchase on the icy concrete and baring every one of its teeth at him, throwing forth strangled barks and spinning white strings of spittle while my colleague stamps the ground and swipes at it, just out of reach. I tell him to get on with his job. He stops and looks round at me with a wry smile, then stamps at the dog once more before leaving it hysterical on its restraint.
I catch him a few more times that morning, taking a few minutes out of his day to torment the animal. I don't say anything, but he stops when he sees me watching him. By lunchtime, the dog is removed; taken away by an old land rover to earn its dinner out of sight. I am hammering some nails into a fence a couple of hours later when I hear the old man howl.
I didn't see the attack, nor the aftermath, as I was told to keep working while my boss drove him to hospital, but the story was clear to me before I was even told.
Keith had been walking through the farmyard when the land rover had pulled back in from its trip, the dog in amongst the tools in the back. The farmer had switched the engine off and gone round the back of the vehicle to get one of his tools, but as soon as he opened the door, the dog had shouldered its way out. It had its eye on Keith from the moment it was driven into the yard, and it wasn't going to give up a chance like this. Keith tried to run, but I don't expect he got far in front of an animal that runs for a living. It clamped the back of his calf with its jaws, and, by all accounts, made a good mess of it before the farmer could prise it off.
I would feel sympathy for the man, had I not known the dog's reasons for acting as such. As it was, I just shrugged, picking another nail from my pouch and continuing my work. A little while later, I hear the land rover labouring up the steep hill on the other side of the fence. The engine cuts out near the top, about three hundred yards away, and two doors open and slam.
The last of my nails goes in towards the end of the day, and I holster my claw hammer and head up the line towards my boss, glancing up the hill towards the land rover, and noticing two men next to it, digging a hole in the damp earth.
“what are they doing?” I ask my boss as I approach him, nodding towards the two men.
“are you finished?” he asks.
“yes,” I say. “double nailed all the way to the bottom.” he nods, satisfactorily.
“they're taking care of the dog,” he says, head bowed a little, walking past me and back down the line. I turn and follow him, keeping one eye on the two men and the land rover.
“it wasn't really the dog's fault, you know. Keith has been riling it up all day.”
“doesn't matter.” he says, in a matter-of-fact way. “dog's got human blood on its tongue. It's got the taste. Every time it looks at your legs now, it knows that they're made out of the same stuff as its dinner. That jozzer has two young kids, he can't risk that.”
I turn back to the two men in time to see one of them holding the dog by its collar, the other one holding a long shotgun, and craning his neck to survey the surrounding countryside. The first man throws the dog in the hole, and I look away. Two shots echo round the hills, then one of the men picks up a shovel and sticks it in the displaced pile of brown dirt.
My boss looks briefly over his shoulder at me. “once the dog has that taste, that's it. There's only one thing you can do.” he gestures towards the men, quickening his pace. “come on, its getting dark.”
There is no question that the dog had a violent temperament. Dogs react in accordance with their surroundings, and most dogs in such a line of work learn very quickly that it does not pay to show affection. But what I found strange about this situation, the reason my mind keeps going back to it again and again, was not the dog's behaviour, but that of the humans.
The dog was not being punished. It did not need to atone for its violent disposition any more than it did for having teeth. It wasn't killed for getting angry at the old man, nor for taking its revenge on him. After all, one cannot mistreat an animal and expect it not to retaliate.
The dog was killed for what it knew. It slipped the collar, and it discovered something. It may have been something that the dog suspected all along, some tiny itch in the back of its mind that it had managed to ignore until that single, incendiary moment, muscles taut, mainlined with adrenaline, washed over and driven forward by a wave of anger, and feeling that warm, metallic liquid spread over its palate, living meat twitching and writhing in its grasp. I often wonder, in that torrent of emotion, if the dog experienced surprise.
I also wonder, perhaps for slightly longer, whether the dog realised that its discovery, rather than its actions, had caused the behaviour of those around it to change, and how it might have felt towards them in its final moments if it did.
In reality, I don't think it would have made the connection. But I do think that it might have recognised the way that peoples' faces change, when I forget where I am or who I am talking to, when my tongue slips and I don't realise that people will not understand things the way that I have seen them. And once I have finished talking, and the people around me are silent, looking me in the eye or down into their laps, I see a lot of things in their expressions: bewilderment, incomprehension, occasionally curiosity. But most surprising of all is the fear.
After a while, these people will look around at each other, one or two of them may take a sharp breath, and a question will be fired at someone else in the group, the banter will continue, and only I seem to notice everyone in the room lean, ever so slightly, away from me.
Every time I see this happen, I am left wondering why. I have had my share of dark moments, but there is nothing that has happened to me that others don't experience every single day. Mark my words; I am not special. If anything, my experiences have been almost orthodox. No, something else is bothering these people, and I believe it is the same thing that bothered the farmer about his dog. Most lives begin and end in the same way. Most never think to slip their collars.
But some do. And when they do, they discover something about their environment, about the way that the world without the leash has shaped the world within it. And, as they return to the fold, they bring this new world back with them, with all its delirious triumphs, its unforgivable downfalls, its open wounds and bony resilience in the cold light of day. The other dogs recoil, grasping frantically for their leash, wishing for that comforting familiarity, for they don't know this place, they are startled by its intensity and by the harbinger of it. This dog is different; this dog left the pack and wandered into the darkness of the woods. And, somewhere along the way, he woke up.






I watch the rough ground race by underneath me through the hole in the floor. The sun has parched everything over the past few days, and the draught blowing through the bemo brings in wave after wave of dust kicked up by its tyres. I stop wondering what my lungs look like after all this time, and lift my gaze to look out through the hole where the window should be.
The chalk, brown dirt track throws the bright green of the undergrowth trundling past us into sharp contrast, almost forcing me to stare at it. The plants here seem to wrestle with each other, battling and stretching for the thin shafts of sunlight that dart down between the fronds of the giant palm trees that lean over us. I stare at each part in turn as we rattle downhill towards the beach, absorbing the brilliant green and feeling as though, if I shut my eyes, a negative of this vivid botany would fade on the insides of my eyelids, my retinas smarting from the intensity of colour.
But what I am really looking for is something that I don't want to see: concrete. I strain my vision downhill, in the direction that we are travelling. All I see is more of that bright green, so I allow myself a smile and sit back, enjoying the extra space I am awarded by travelling further than everyone else, and returning to the hole in the bemo floor.
We are close now, within a few minutes from the beach, and there is no concrete. No paths, no buildings, not even a house. Before I even arrive, I know that I have succeeded in finding another rare little piece of undevelopment.
I am briefly pressed against the side of the bemo as it rounds a right turn, and the Onion Farmer, my sole fellow passenger, turns round, pointing at the horizon. “that's it,” he says. “the sea.”
I crane my neck round his smiling face, and direct my gaze through the windscreen. The road continues in a straight line towards the bottom of the hill, foliage giving way to rough grassland to our left. The track ends abruptly, next to a small concrete hut, past which lies a thin strip of dazzling white; land giving way to the calm, bright blue of the ocean. The Onion Farmer is wearing a look of accomplishment. I smile briefly back at him, trying to remember his name. My mind searches what I can remember of our first conversation.


“Waiting for the bus?”
I nod slowly, reluctant to stop reading. People rarely talk to me without prompt, and as such, this man has aroused suspicion.
“i dont know when it will be here, though.” I said.
“nobody ever does,” the Onion Farmer replies, and I finally tear myself away from the guide book to meet his broad smile. His teeth are immediately noticeable, straight and unusually white for the native of a society that never brushes their teeth. They are set in a round face, topped with a black baseball cap.
“have you just been up to Bromo?” I ask. He nods, moving his gaze up the road, searching for the bus.
“yeah. Its beautiful up there, but very cold.” he looks back at me. “and I forgot to bring a coat.”
I note his use of the past tense. This is a man who is used to speaking english. I decide to take a guarded interest in him.
“so are you going east or west?” I ask him.
“west,” he says. “i have to get home to yogyakarta before the start of deepwali. I still have a little time spare, so I was thinking of stopping somewhere for a day or two. What about you?”
“ive got about two weeks to get to jakarta,” I say. “then I fly home.”
there is a short silence. I know he probably means to ask for money. Locals rarely have a genuine interest in the outside world, or anyone from it. Conversation like this is usually just a measure of patience. His should be running out about now.
His eyebrows raise slightly. Here we go.
“where have you been in indonesia?”
...unusual. “i spent a month in sumatra,” I tell him. “then I went to sulawesi and travelled west across nusa tenggara.”
“thats a long trip. I dont think I've ever been further than lombok.”
“yeah. Travelling in indonesia is difficult, too. Slow and uncomfortable.”
“tell me about it,” he says. Tell me about it? Rare, perfect use of sarcasm.
“are you a tourist guide?” I ask him, fully expecting a yes. Anyone in need of trust from a foreigner would award themselves such a title; most do just for good measure. In reality, few of them have done more than offer directions.
He fixes me with a puzzled expression for a moment. “no,” he says. He looks back up the road for the bus and I eye him for a moment. He isn't ticking the right boxes. I decide to throw him some bait.
“well your english is very good. Where did you learn?”
ah my friend, I have many friend from england, same as you, and some from america, and norway, I talk to them in internet every day and practice english, they are telling me about david beckham and the queen, and the house of the queen is very beautiful, oh I would much like to come to england, but my money is too few, I am very poor for have to pay for brother school, oh many many school fees, and now my grandmother is sick, I cannot care grandmother, she cannot up from the bed and I have no money for the medicine, oh please help me, please give for me the money... etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I am used to dealing with these people.
Trouble is, he doesnt appear to be one of them. He gazes casually into the distance, a faint smile on his face. “I used to go to college,” he says. “but I dropped out years ago.”
fair enough.
“what do you do now, then?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“im an onion farmer,” he says, looking at me with raised eyebrows. “you know, the red onions.”
“yeah,” I reply. Maybe I am being too cautious.


I can't remember him telling me his name. I wouldn't have asked, so maybe it just didn't come up.
I feel the engine vibrations lessen as the driver lowers the clutch, free wheeling towards the bottom of the hill. I stretch my right arm out over the seat next to me, loosening up, my hand finding the rough, dried up cotton of my day bag and bringing it back in towards my lap. For a moment, I think about how tired I am. I allow my eyelids to droop as the bemo's brakes are applied, and decide to count up the hours i've been on the move.
The bemo grinds to a halt at the edge of the pure, white sand. I set off from bromo, that must have been seven yesterday morning. That makes twenty two hours. But I only got there at four. I must have done twelve hours from ubud before that.
The Onion Farmer opens his door and jumps out of the bemo, bag in hand. He runs towards the sea, jettisoning bag and shirt along the way. I watch him running towards the turquoise waves from my seat, suddenly feeling a little lazy. The driver jumps out too, putting his foot straight on one of the window ledges and vaulting neatly onto the roof. I hear clattering as he loosens the ropes that are tying my backpack to it. I have to get out; he's going to throw it off the roof whether i'm there to catch it or not. I take a deep sigh, open the door and make to swing my legs out.
It takes me a moment to realise that I haven't jumped out of the bemo. My legs haven't even moved. It is as if they received the order from my brain, and chose of their own accord to ignore it. My brow furrows slightly. I sweep my day pack from my lap and look down at my bare knees, one hand on the bemo door, one hand on the seat, and try to lift my legs again. They won't move. A sickening feeling wells up around my gills. This is serious. I take my left hand off the bemo door, gently place it on my knee, and slide my fingers down my shin. My toes are tingling. I draw a deep breath as my heart twists round in my chest. As if from far away, I hear myself mutter, “what the fuck is this?”
I reach my hand underneath my thigh and lift. Dead weight. I manage to drag my foot over the door sill, then sit there, looking down at the useless things and wondering what to do next. If I get out, I might fall over. But I need to tell somebody that I'm sick, and I don't speak good enough Indonesian to tell the bemo driver. I have to get to the Onion Farmer.
I look up in time to see him heading up the beach, towards the concrete hut. I could call him over, but I cant remember his name. Did he even tell me his name? I don't know. The sun is so bright all of a sudden. How come I didn't notice that before?
I look down again. My leg is sliding out of the bemo towards the ground. I don't think I can lift it again. It looks like I'm about to stand up. I lean backwards as I slide off the seat, placing both my hands behind me and waiting until I feel my foot touch the ground...there. I push myself forwards until I am upright, holding onto the seat behind me and supporting the rest of my weight with my left leg. I try to move forward, round the bemo door and towards the beach, realising too late that my right foot is still in the cab. I twist to the right, my knee buckles, but I manage to grab the bemo door before I go all the way over. I am now in a sitting position, facing the bemo, one leg out, one leg in, and nothing underneath me. All my weight is on my hands. I feel so heavy. I'm surprised I haven't pulled this flimsy door off.
I can't stand up on this leg. I need to get the other one out. I shake my hips around, and eventually manage to drag my right foot onto the floor. One solid heave from my arms, and I am up. My legs are shaking from the strain, my head is spinning. And Christ, the sun; it's so bright I can barely open my eyes. What was I doing?
I stagger round the bemo door, not bothering to shut it behind me. I need to get to that building.
I drag my feet through the brush at the side of the road, cutting across to the corner of the building that the Onion Farmer is disappearing behind. He has picked up his shirt, and looks to be drying himself off with it. That smile is as wide as ever, as if he is about to laugh. I lose sight of him for a moment, as he goes to sit down on the small porch at the front of the building. Then I round the corner, and feel smooth tiles under one of my feet. One of my sandals must have come off.
The Onion Farmer is sitting cross-legged on the black tiles, looking up at me with that triumphant expression. He slings his shirt over his left shoulder, reaches over his right, and loops it round his neck. I don't waste any time. “I'm sick,” I say. He nods, raising his eyebrows, and turns his gaze slightly to survey the sand stretching out behind me. As if I had just told him I had spotted a nice place for some fucking lunch. What must I look like to him? We must be five miles from the nearest town, and I can hardly stand. Can't he see how serious this is?
My head starts to spin even faster, and multicoloured fireworks pop in and out of existence in my vision. I am breathing long, deep breaths, I can feel cold sweat pouring down my back. My legs are shaking uncontrollably, I have to find something else to support my weight. I list over towards the concrete pillar on my right, not looking to check how far away it is. My body tilts over a little too fast, and I smack my shoulder into the concrete harder than I would have liked. The impact reverberates through my chest like it is a bag of water. One of my feet starts to slide, ever so slowly, away from the pillar. I give myself a minute in this position before I'm flat on the floor.
I am still staring at the Onion Farmer. I think he is avoiding my gaze. He seems to be looking for something further down the beach, but there is no one here. I decide to try again.
“listen. I'm very sick. I feel weak. I need to go to a doctor. You need to call a doctor, now.” I pause. No response. “call me a doctor.” I say, levelly.
The Onion Farmer meets my gaze with a wooden expression.. The smile is gone. “no,” he says. “why don't you go and sit in the sun? Maybe it will make you feel better.”
I consider this comment for a moment. It's only nine in the morning and it must be close to forty degrees already. “are you fucking crazy?” I say. and in this moment, this single split second, standing in the middle of nowhere in a third world country, thousands of miles from home, with this indifferent idiot as my only company, I realise something: things are about to get a whole lot worse.
“sit down,” he says. I can see his point. My body must be at a forty-five degree angle against this pillar. It's quite clear that I'm not going anywhere. I exhale sharply, and release the muscles in my rattling legs. My body flops forward onto all fours, and I manage to put my hands out in time to stop myself from head butting the floor. I watch my panting blow tiny grains of white sand from the black tiles, and for a moment I forget where I am. Then I am aware of the Onion Farmer moving away from me. I try to look up, but I can't lift my head. This is getting extremely painful.
I let out a long, low groan and my entire body starts to shake. I lean forward to rest on my elbows, and that is when I notice my hands. They've gone blue. I lift them and turn them over in front of my face. The tips of my fingers are tingling. They feel the same as my toes did five minutes ago. “what the fuck?” I hear myself say.
A horrible revelation is creeping across my mind. I shout to the Onion Farmer with all the strength I have left. “get a doctor! Panggil dokter, i'm sick! Tolong, tolong, I'm fucking sick, help me! I need a fucking....” I stop when I realise the last few words came out pulverised in a stream of drool. The use of indonesian doesn't seem to make any difference.
The blood is running out of my extremities. My brain is cutting off circulation to the furthest parts of my body so it can concentrate on my vital organs. That is why my legs won't work, and why my hands are headed the same way. I am being paralysed from the ends backwards. And if it goes much further, I am going to die.
I let out another long groan, this one louder and more desperate. I collapse sideways onto my hip, keeping my head off the floor with my elbow. This turns my head to the side a little, and I notice the Onion Farmer crouched at the corner of the building, peeking round and up the road, like he is hiding from something. He turns towards me as I collapse. “be quiet,” he says. “and sit still.”
I look at him in disbelief as he turns to look back up the road. What on earth is he doing? Why won't he help me? I feel my heart strain again as I pass from blind panic to total despair. I let out another long groan, this time trying to make it sound like a scream. If I make enough noise, someone might realise that I'm sick. The Onion Farmer turns to me again, this time looking at me through the flashing lights in my vision with an irritated expression. “you cannot make noises like that,” he says in a hushed voice. “just be quiet!”
I look down at my hands again, not knowing what to expect. They're fucking white. My veins are grooves in my skin, as if they have collapsed inwards, making sky blue track marks down the backs of my hands. My heart jerks again. It seems to want to beat faster, but it can't. The fireworks in my head are turning into explosions, my vision is starting to go dark at the edges. I scream again, as loud and for as long as I can, and start hitting my hands together in a futile attempt to regain some circulation. It's the only thing I can think of. I take in another breath, and continue to scream.
The Onion farmer turns from his post angrily, and gestates towards me as if to strike me. “Shut up! Shut up! I already told you before, just sit there and fucking shut up!” I lean back a little, startled. I can't argue with him. I can't even think.
he takes another glance round the corner, then comes to sit beside me. I can feel his hands probing around my hips, inside my clothes and my pockets. I don't know what he's doing, but it isn't helping. I try to hit my hands together again and miss.
I look round at the sea for a while, trying to focus. How did I get here? Why is nobody helping me? The sound of the waves grates against my eardrums like sandpaper; every grain of sand from the beach seems to attack my retina with intense white. A sickening taste of salt clamps my tongue and gropes up my nasal passage.
I start to groan again, this time at a lower volume, expecting to be chastised by the Onion Farmer. But he is gone. That's fair enough; he wasn't helping me anyway. I need to figure out how to get out of this place and tell someone I'm sick.
I put both my hands flat on the floor and start to drag myself around the porch, leaving dark sweat patches on the tiles behind me. All I can do is crawl round in circles, and, after going round a few times, I realise that it isn't doing anybody any good. My hands seem to be getting worse, and I am struggling to hold my head up off the floor. The sea seems to be doling me some obscene aural punishment, crashing up on the beach with all the regularity of a slave driver, relentlessly heaving his whip back and forth, and this hard floor is pushing against me, trying to crush me and suffocate me against the thick air. This is a prison. People I cannot see shackle me with unfathomable strength; I can feel them conversing through the ether, their words and ideas splintering through my mind in some ancient language like a thousand flakes of ice. They sound so indifferent, as if I were nothing to them, a mere technicality in the unthinkable billions of moving parts that make up this single instance of reality. They transcend reason, they are beyond dialogue, and they are crushing me in the space between a single flicker of their eyelid.
I look out towards the defiant waves, facing them with all my strength. Nobody is going to help me, I have to get out of here myself. And there is only one way to do that.
I press my palms flat against the floor again, this time tensing every muscle in my body, pulling my thighs up towards my chest in one movement that takes all the concentration I have left. Then, on all fours, with my failing eyes fixed firmly on the sea, I start to pull my limbs forward, one by one. My chest heaves with each mighty movement, drawing and expelling air with feverish intensity. I am out in full sunlight; the air beating me from above, the hot sand beating me from below, crawling in agony towards a sanctum that does not exist. I don't know where I'm going, or what I'm going to do when I get there, but that doesnt matter any more. I'm crawling towards the light, because it's the only place to go.
I manage about twenty feet. To be honest, a lot further than I thought. Then I stop dead in the sand. This is it. I can't get any further. I have never felt worse than this in my life. I start to think, very seriously, about what is going to happen to me after I die. I start to think about all the people that I have left behind, all the promises this will break, and all the potential that my life had before this terrible moment. And, while I am thinking about this, I manage to raise my head to one side, and then something strange happens. Suddenly, everything is perfect. Huge palms lean lazily over the smooth white sand, stretching in a wide arc towards the end of the bay, bright blue sea turns foamy white as it massages the tideline, receding endlessly into a cloudless, ethereally blue sky. And, as my vision tunnels to a point, as my rattling muscles finally gasp and give up, as the last rational thoughts spin round the plughole in the bottom of my mind, I wonder if anyone could have imagined that such a hell would hold such exquisite beauty.
Then everything goes black.