Steve + Nuca + Whatever

Chiang Mai

2008-09-25T23:28:00.004+10:00

My blog is not dead. It's just enjoying living in Chiang Mai too much. Nuca and I can not imagine wanting to live in Bangkok again. Chiang Mai is a beautiful small town. We're both working hard on our projects - she is designing her jewelery and I'm painting larger and larger canvases. Once in a while we get out of town for a break for a day or two. Here's some photos from our travels around the area...

Shanghai

2008-03-22T03:56:00.004+11:00

We just spent 3 days in Shanghai for a trade show and also made a quick tour of the city. I had visited there once before, 8 years ago, and I can safely say that I still dislike that city as much now as I did then. It's quite a large, bland, soul-less city. The inhabitants come from all over China, from all walks of life - and it's crowded. Need I say more about these people? Vehicle drivers in Shanghai are far more insane and deadly than probably anywhere else I've travelled.

Despite a couple valiant efforts, we were unable to make use of the underground train system which was not completed when I had first visited. There are no maps in the public areas of the station to help plan your journey, and if you are looking for anything written in English, forget it. Taxis and walking would get us where we needed to go anyway so that's what we eventually did.

The new Maglev train to the city from the airport was super fast, 431 Kilometres per hour at it's fastest point. The ride lasted only about as long as a ride at Disneyland, which was disappointing in a way.

With time running short we visited the standard touristy places such as the Bund, Nanjing Road, People's Square, Antiques market, Yuyuan Garden, and then headed back by Maglev to the airport back home.

In a word, Shanghai was boring. If I never go back there it will be too soon.

Get Back

2008-03-11T02:14:00.004+11:00

After a year of endless gambling, hustlers, boozing, barbecue pork rice and egg custard tarts, I've survived Macau and am back in Bangkok. It actually feels good to be back in Bangkok. Now that I'm back, I'm ready to leave. Nuca and I are off to find a new home in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, where we'll be starting a new business together. Stay tuned.

Just FLICK-IT !

2007-10-14T20:15:00.000+10:00

We were staying at a lodge in Namibia and for a couple days this bin in the bathroom was catching my attention but I couldn't quite figure out why. Then one morning, bleary-eyed, it finally dawned on me. I don't need to explain it do I?

BTW, the label says it's from South Africa, not China as I had initially suspected. I'm sure people at the factory in SA have had a good laugh with this product.

Namibia #2

2007-10-14T19:59:00.000+10:00

Here are some more photos from the trip. This batch has lots of pictures of Nuca, some with me, and some photos of Ratonda and her family and other people we met along the way.

If you didn't see the previous post yet, I recommend you look at those pictures first.

Namibia #1

2007-10-14T16:49:00.000+10:00

We returned a week ago from Namibia. Ratonda, a friend of Nuca, invited us to visit her there and somehow I managed to get two weeks off from work, so off we went. This trip also happened to coincide with our 5th wedding anniversary.

I bought a proper camera so this time I was able to take much better photos, and good thing -- there's a lot of things to take photos of there. We stayed in the capital, Windhoek, for a couple days and prepared for 6 days driving, which eventually was more than 3000km. Windhoek reminded both of us of a small town in NSW Australia called Tamworth. They seem earily similar. It was surprising in fact how familar Namibia seemed to us, in general. It was not noticably dangerous, it was clean, good food everywhere, weather was never too hot and in fact sometimes too cold, super frendly people, and everyone speaks English.

First destination on the road trip was Victoria Falls, which is actually along the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. As it was dry season, the falls were not nearly as massive as they could be, but this had the advantage of allowing us to wade across parts of it on the top, where we spotted wildlife, and the obscuring mist was not so great so you could appreciate the vastness of the falls from top to bottom. Best view by far is from the Zimbabwe side, although Nuca had to pay US$100 for a day visa (I had to pay $30). Entrance fee was another $20 each. Despite the high cost of getting there, we both felt it was worth it.

We then headed to Etosha National Park in Namibia, where we saw an amazing number of wild animals. We didn't get to spend enough time there, so we'll have to go back again someday.

Finally, we spent the second week mainly in Swakopmund, a very pleasant small town on the coast. The city has numerous German colonial buildings which are well maintained and a large number of people, mainly descendants of the white German settlers, speak German there. From there we made day trips to see more wildlife, such as an unbelievably stinky seal colony on the coast at Cape Cross, the massive sand dunes just south of the city, and Walvis Bay, a larger, but extremely dull, port city.

Two weeks was definitely not enough time there, and we are certainly going to head back to the region to explore more once we have time. Ratonda and all her family were so kind to us and looked after us well, perhaps a little too well -- we're seasoned backpackers and can look after ourselves -- but it was appriciated nevertheless.

Also, special thanks to British Airways for bumping us off our connecting flight in Johannesburg, and to Thai Airways for bumping us off our flight home, then losing our luggage, then returning it damaged the following week.

Take a look at our photo album here, and also check out this nifty link to Google Earth, showing our photos superimposed on the globe.

Here's a slideshow of some of our photos.

And here's a video Nuca took of a lion eating an antelope leg:

Borneo

2007-06-18T19:23:00.000+10:00

We're still around.. just way too busy to post anything. At some point I'll post some more details about what I'm doing in Macau.

Nuca and I went to Borneo in early April. We stayed in the jungle and spotted a lot of wildlife. We took a lot of pictures but most of them did not turn out because our little point and shoot camera is rubbish. Here's some of the photos anyway.

Click here to see the entire album and full size pictures.

Intermission

2007-02-01T16:43:00.000+11:00

Please enjoy this Macau Tourism Bureau promo. Blog will resume shortly.

Some final images from Thailand

2007-01-26T21:55:00.000+11:00

Our stay in Thailand is coming to a close. Next week we fly to Macau, where I'll be taking a new position as IT director at a Macau tourism website. Macau is a rather unusual place, I'll post some photos soon.

Mini Break: Penang & Langkawi

2006-11-23T21:05:00.000+11:00

Since we are presently living in Bangkok, Nuca and I try to take advantage of our location and the regular cheap flight specials, this time we headed to Malaysia, specifically Penang and Langkawi Islands. Flight to Penang was less than US$10 so it was hard to pass up (ok, that was minus taxes and fuel surcharges, but it was still cheap). We couldn't get a flight back for that price so we got a domestic flight from Hat Yai to Bangkok for $5 instead. Originally we were going to take a train or bus from Penang up to Hat Yai, but I discovered we could take a ferry from Penang to Langkawi, then in a single day take a ferry to Satun, Thailand, then a minivan up to Hat Yai and fly back to Bangkok.

Penang

Click here for our pictures from Penang

I'd been here once before, about 13 years ago. Nuca had been here more recently, about 7 years ago. Things have changed since then, in the suburbs were countless new hi-rise condos, and insane peak-time traffic jams, but central Georgetown itself has not changed as much as other Asian cities have over the same time period. You can still see a lot of the old shophouses and colonial buildings, albeit some seem to be in worse condition or abandoned and rotting altogether.

We saw all the basic sights - up the Penang Hill funicular railway, Kek Lok Si temple, and we hired a motorbike and drove around Penang hill where we visited a butterfly farm, and saw some lovely scenery, small towns and communities, and some nice, but not spectacular, beaches. We stayed in a dump of a hotel in old Georgetown, right next to a mosque which hailed an amplified call to prayer every morning at 5am! Still, the best part about Penang was the food!! With such a diverse population, you get a lot of choices. During our two days there we were never disappointed!

Langkawi

Click here for our pictures from Langkawi

After a two hour ferry ride we landed in Langkawi. Neither of us had been here before so we intended to have a good look around during our three days there.

After visiting so many beaches and islands in Thailand, we were pleasantly surprised at how few foreign tourists were around, and even the locals were seriously laid back and never once hassled us or tried to cheat us. We stayed at Cenang Beach, which is the main tourist beach, and there was never more than a handful of people on the beach at any time. Interestingly, we were there during Malaysian holiday season, so most tourists were locals, even still, it was pretty quiet. We noticed perhaps half a dozen or so English/Aussie tourists the entire time were on the island, most other foreigners appeared to be eastern European and Chinese. We met an American sailor who had sailed his sailboat from Seattle, making many stops along his 14 year journey. He told us an amusing story about becoming a "golden shellback" which is where you cross the equator at the int'l date line. He was quite a character.

We rented a motorbike and drove all around the island. We found numerous deserted waterfalls and beaches, and picturesque views of mountains and outlying islands at almost every turn. One of the highlights was taking the cable car to the top of a mountain.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Langkawi over Ko Samui or Phuket. If you want hassles, high prices, loud disco pubs, non-stop tourist shops lining the streets, bar girls, crowded beaches, ok then, go to Thailand.

Be sure to check out our photos and videos above, plus here's a Google Earth placemark I made with some additional Langkawi details such as hotels and attractions.

Day trip: Ancient City

2006-10-30T17:16:00.000+11:00

Now that the rainy season is over and the temperatures are heading down, the idea of going out and seeing some sights becomes appealing again. Normally, Bangkok folk spend the weekend sweating it out at home or cooling off at the local mall. We've done enough of that so I was ready to get out.

Last weekend we visited Ancient City. I'd never heard of it, and when Nuca described it it sounded like one of those Disney'ish "small world" kind of tourist sites. I wasn't too thrilled about it but rather than spend another hour debating where else to go we decided just to go. It's not too far away, about an hour drive, in Samut Prakan province. Samut Prakan is an industrial hell hole. There's really nothing nice to say about the place. When the oceans rise up from global warming in a few decades, Samut Prakan will disappear entirely, and that will not be a bad thing. Here's a Google Earth Placemark. Notice how the area looks like a map of Thailand. Cute.

As is normal for Thailand, the entrance fee at Ancient City depends on your ethnicity. Not being Thai, I was forced to pay 3 times the Thai price. I'd love to own a tourist site in Sydney, like the BridgeClimb, because I would charge (only) Thais and Indians 3 times, no make that 10 times, the local price. See how they like it...

Ok, so it was only 300 baht, big deal.

The place is huge, 320 acres. Good thing is you can bring your car and drive around. You can also rent a golf cart or bicycle for a small fee. They also have buses decked out like the old Bangkok street trams, which take you on a set path and provide a guide. We were starving so we sought out food immediately and found some noodles at the "floating market" area.

Click above for our pictures from Ancient City

My skepticism about the place pretty much vanished when it became apparent that a lot of the Ancient City are actual old Thai buildings and relics which have been rescued from destruction and rebuilt inside the park. Many of the workers actually live within the park and you can literally walk up and peek inside their homes, although I doubt they like that.

Several ancient Thai temple replicas have also been built, albeit at a smaller scale, but nevertheless, they were quite interesting to see. Least impressive was what was apparently Angkor Wat, which was the largest structure in the park, but also the least faithful reproduction. It may well not have been Angkor Wat, however, but it was definitely a similar Khmer style. Noticeably absent from all the 'temples' were actual monks.

The place is packed with trees and flowers and canals and wildlife, and it made a very relaxing and non-sweaty day out. Surprisingly, for a weekend, there were very few tourists. Between the odd busload coming and going, we pretty much felt like we had the place to ourselves. Of all the tourists we saw, there were maybe only half a dozen foreign tourists.

Unfortunately we ran out of time and only saw about 2/3 of the park before they closed at 5pm. We plan to head back someday and check out the rest, and next time drive bicycles around.

Moved house

2006-09-01T19:28:00.001+10:00

After one year in the suburb of Bang Na, we decided to move a little bit closer to central Bangkok. We're now in On Nut, right at the end of the BTS. The image is a little old, so all you see is some dirt and a tree or two. Our building is brand new. The air is a bit cleaner, it's much quieter, and it's much cheaper. On the bad side, it's smaller, and the views are not as good (unless you enjoy close up views of hundreds of your neighbors).

Click on the images below for full size.

This is what it looks like now (from our window)

This is a lightning rod RIGHT outside our window. I am not sure I want something ATTRACTING lighting right there.

Nuca INSISTED I take some photos of her. I won't torture you with all of them, so here are a couple.

The owner of our unit had a hot water heater installed in the bathroom. We now have one shower-head/knob for hot, and another one for cold. I don't know a lot about plumbing, but I'm pretty sure this is WRONG! We had the building engineer come look at it and he couldn't find any problem with this... Our bathroom also sports ZERO power outlets. If you want to use an electric hair dryer or razor, you'll need to go stand next to the TV in the bedroom (see Nuca photo above).

It's not all bad. We have a terrific view of this slum.

A swimming pool right next to the canal.

The canal (with taxi boat).

Fortunately, we do not have a unit RIGHT next to the canal. Besides the noisy speedboats buzzing up and down at all hours, it smells like an open sewer. Yes, the "water" IS black.

I made a panorama of the canal. Turned out ok (Click it).

Moving house

2005-11-16T15:32:00.000+11:00

After six months in Bangkok we're moving - two floors down. It's been a pretty-stress free move. We have been loading our stuff into shopping trollies and taking the lift down two floors and unloading, then back up and reload. No boxes to pack, just dump all the stuff in the trolly! :)

The telephone company is taking their time to install a new phone line so it looks like we'll be offline for a week to 10 days. This may be good as I'll be able to catch up on work with no distractions. Anyway, if you send us an email, that's our excuse for not replying back right away.

Why I'm never going to buy another CD again!

2005-10-10T20:25:00.000+10:00

I'm pretty pissed off.

I'm one of those people who downloads music from pirate bit torrent sites. I've downloaded A LOT over the years. A quick check of my hard disk says I have 932 albums stored on there, plus a gazillion more individual tracks. But I'm also one of those people who supports music and whenever possible I will buy the album on CD if I actually liked what I downloaded. I probably have the largest CD collection amongst all my friends. Moving house would be a heck of a lot easier without boxing up all these moldy plastic discs.

I tend to be fanatical about certain genres of music or certain artists and buy EVERYTHING, but unfortunately, nearly all of those artists are dead, and have been for decades. So not a lot to buy these days. Contemporary music, with only a few exceptions, has absolutely no relevance in my life anymore. I hate to say that because I used to live and breathe all kinds of contemporary music. I played music. I wrote music. Well, I still do, although it often gets put on the backburner when 'real life' takes priority. I listen to music all the time. But the music the majors are pushing these days is, well, rubbish. Music has become a business, no longer an art, and that's a shame. Of course this has been going on since long before I was born, but even as a teenager I could smell pre-packaged teen pablum the second I heard it. I wonder if kids today can? I hope so. These days there's little distinction amongst new 'major' artists. My company, BehindTheBeat, strives to avoid these kinds of artists. You'll notice even the 'major' artists we've featured are generally of a much higher standard.

Today, when practically everyone you see has white iPod buds hanging from their ears, I prefer listening to other people's conversations, or birds, or even - nothing. I never really got into the Sony Walkman craze, and the ipod/mp3 craze is no different.

I've only purchased 6 CDs in the past 18 months. One was Brian Wilson Presents Smile, possibly the greatest album of his career. It's brilliant and there is such a history behind it, and the man, that you can't help but love the guy for finally overcoming his inner demons and presenting such a beautiful gift to the world.

Last week I purchased Paul McCartney's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. Very close to his best ever album in my opinion. For once, his lyrics are strong, and boldly head into new areas for Paul. No more "Say you don't love him, my salamander" - which was a great song ruined, in my opinion, by insipid lyrics, any sadly typical of a lot of McCartney songs. I still love the guy. And the songs on 'Chaos' are top notch. The production is solid. A brilliant album. Love it.

Yet I've never EVER heard the CD. Or rather, I can't hear it. That's why I'm so pissed.

The record companies finally seem to have developed copy protection which prevents any CD players I own from actually playing the disk. Not in the car, not on the computer, not in the CD player, not in the Xbox, not in the notebook. Nowhere. I even googled for tools to rip the disk and found none which worked. Obviously someone has managed to rip it, because the only version I have heard is a somewhat less than perfect MP3 rip which I downloaded from The Pirate Bay.

This is not the first time this has happened. I now have 3 or 4 CDs I've never been able to play. I have always felt I was doing the right thing by supporting artists I like by buying their CDs. Now I feel like such a fool. Buying legit music online, besides not being available where I live, and not being priced sensibly, apparently leaves even less money to artists. So I still can't consider that option. If record companies want to sell these useless shit CDs I'm outta here. I have no sympathy for their plight - I hope all record companies die. Sorry Paul, next time I'll just download your new album. I won't be buying it. I tried to do the right thing, but...

Funny thing is, I would have just ripped the CD to MP3s on my hard disk and played it from there, and then filed the original CD away in a cabinet somewhere. CDs are so old-tech and inconvenient these days.

Nuca's new gig

2005-09-08T19:01:00.000+10:00

Here's a link, for the benefit of all you search engines out there, to Nuca's new website: http://www.nucafox.com/. She's already picked up enough customers to pay the rent. Go Nuca!!

I'm an Aussie now!!

2005-07-29T17:04:00.000+10:00

Just returned from Australia where I took the pledge. After years of paperwork, money, and waiting, I finally got it!

At the ceremony: the mayor of Burwood, me, and the vice-mayor

I stayed with my friend Ben while I was in town for the ceremony. He got his Oz citizenship just 3 weeks earlier. Here we are pictured with a poster of our mutual musical hero, Harry Nilsson.

Long time no update

2005-07-10T16:33:00.000+10:00

It's been quite a while since my last update, and people have actually written to me to remind me they read this blog, so I'll do my best to update it more frequently.

A lot has happened.

We moved to Bangkok on 5/5/5, a somewhat auspicious number, as "555" also sounds like laughing in Thai language.

Settled in a condo in Bangna, on the outskirts of Thailand. If you use Google Earth, you can check this out to see our condo.

The Taiwan online project is going full steam ahead. We're still planning to launch on schedule in August. Seems like I've spent more time in Taiwan than Thailand since I moved here.

A couple weeks ago Nuca and I spent some time in Koh Samui and Koh Phangan and attended the Full Moon Party, which turned out to be a huge bore. 20,000 drunken idiot British kids, bad vibes, and horrible, loud, "music". However Koh Phangan has some very quiet and beautiful beaches. I'd go back for that. Hopefully they will still be that way when I return. Things are clearly developing rapidly there.

In a couple weeks I'm heading back to Australia for just a few days. Big news. Will update here after I return.

The big 40

2005-04-07T12:00:00.000+10:00

Whoever said 'Life begins at 40" was a fucking asshole. I hope he died before 41!

This week I celebrated, or rather, didn't celebrate, my 40th birthday. I got my driver's license renewed the same day and you can see a distinct aging from my photo from my previous license just a year earlier. I've got chronic pain in my neck and I've got white hairs sprouting everywhere, not just on my head. Things are not looking good.

What to do??? Nuca and I are leaving Australia and moving to Thailand next month. That's a start. Australia seems to have put more years on me than the four years I've actually been here. I'm starting a new business and a new life in a new country. It won't be the first time I've done that. Let's see what happens.

Extra! Page 3 released on DVD

2005-02-01T09:46:00.000+11:00

When we were in Mumbai, Nuca and I were asked to be extras in a movie called Page 3 (see previous blog entry here). This week, thanks to bittorrent, I finally got a chance to see the movie, as it's just been released on DVD in India.

It seems to be a typical Bollywood movie, not terrible though. I was pleased to see that our scene was not left on the cutting room floor. Thankfully, you can not actually see us too clearly because we looked pretty awful having stayed up all night waiting for the scene to be shot. Altogether, we got about 3 seconds on screen. One funny part is when the cop grabs me by the shirt to throw me out, he says "Hey, Tom Cruise!". He definitely didn't say that at the time, they must have added that line later.

Here's a Google Video link of our scene (we appear about 30 seconds in):

Here's a better quality 10 megabyte XviD .avi file: page3.avi

Here's some screenshots:

2004-10-01T18:41:00.000+10:00

Spotted on a footbridge in Bangkok last month.

Rajasthan Patrika scan

2004-09-30T14:53:00.000+10:00

One day in Udaipur we were walking around the dry lake bed near the big hotel in the centre when a guy came up and asked us if he could take our photo on the camel. We agreed and he explained that the photo would be published in the next day's edition of the Rajasthan Patrika daily newspaper. Sure enough it was, and as we walked around town, for the next several days, even all the way to Jaipur, people recognized us. Even if they couldn't speak a word of English they tried their best to let us know they knew us from the photo.

BTW, the caption says something to the effect "Due to the lack of rain, the lake is dry and the boat can not take tourists to the hotel anymore. So the hotel is announcing that they have now employed camels to take the tourists to and from the hotel."

Photos!

2004-08-21T15:30:00.000+10:00

Here's a link to our photos, I didn't yet insert any commentary, but I'll try to work on that over the coming weeks. For now you can see from the file name where the photo was taken.

UPDATE: Sorry no commentary. Just photos.

View all the images here.

sick

2004-08-16T13:51:00.000+10:00

I planned to sort and upload our photos over the weekend but I got food poisoning and had to go to the hospital, and spent the entire weekend totally exhausted in bed. It's ironic that after two months in India without any notable incident, I returned to 'safe' Taiwan and got it. What did I eat? A Mosburger Chicken Burger, just the thought of it now makes me gag.

In the meantime, here's a link to an old friend's site: www.onwalkabout.com. Mike spent a year in India on a motorbike. He's a far better photographer than I (in fact I don't think anyone carrying my camera could ever be considered a 'photographer'), plus he spent a lot of time writing down and organising his thoughts and observations, which I could ever be bothered to do. Mike and I had surprisingly similar experiences in India. It's well worth a visit to his site.

I'll try to get the photos up by the end of this week.

Bangkok

2004-07-29T14:21:00.000+10:00

We arrived in Bangkok yesterday. After 2 months, our India journey is over. Despite the travel insurance, no major problems or illnesses (apart from my inexplicable seriously stinky gas problem for about 2 weeks), and we have a lot of great memories, and we met a lot of interesting people, Indians and other travelers as well. We had planned to stay in India another 10 days on the beach in Goa, but we later decided to head to the beach in Thailand instead.

It is actually a relief to return to pleasant Bangkok. For one thing the beggers are far far fewer and not aggressive. In India, beggers will reach right into your taxi window to beg, they'll grab at you and they are hard to shake if you are on foot. If you give them one rupee they will either immediately ask for more, or you'll find 20 more beggers chasing you thinking you are an easy target. Nuca, I'm sure, would love to be Mother Teresa, and despite my compaints, she would hand out food or coins occaisionally, which never ever seemed to satisfy any of the beggers. Occaisionally she would chastise some of more able-bodied beggers -- "go get a job", or "go to school" -- which only resulted in a puzzled look on their faces. You can never have enough money to solve these problems.

The shopkeepers in India can be so aggressive, and so predictable, that it's quite funny to watch them. As you walk past you will hear "Hello friend, you like pure pashmina shawl?". They will continue with their sales pitch which continues and fades away as you continue to walk past. Show any slight interest and you will get a price, inflated as much as 10 times higher than your highest expectations. As you walk away you will hear "hello? ok, 300. hello sir? ok ok, 200. 150! yes hello? 100 rupees!! My final price 80 rupees. I paid 75 rupees for this I only make 5 rupees, ok? Ok ok, 70 rupees! Hello!!?? 50 rupees..." and as their cries are drowned in a million other city noises you can hear what is probably a curse word in Hindi. By this time the next shopkeeper has already taken up their pitch, and so on and on and on...

Another interesting thing about India is the prices are not all that cheap. In fact, Bangkok, almost without exception, is cheaper than anywhere in India. Food, hotels, clothes, you name it. And not only cheaper, but things are cleaner, less aggressive, less polluted, more relaxing, more plentiful, and better quality. Petrol, for example, is even more expensive than in Australia, and nearly double that of Thailand. It's surprising then that transport is one of the things which is cheaper in India. Taxis and trains were quite cheap. And cleanest beds we ever slept on were on the trains.

Food is a big issue in India. Apart from parts of Mumbai and Delhi, kitchens and dining areas in India are filthy and pretty damn scary. You simply have to get over it as you need to eat. I got diarhoea twice and Nuca once. Nothing serious, just annoying and easily treatable. Though the food in India is delicious, it is not all too varied and it gets boring pretty quickly. We often would get started talking about Thai food, which was never a good idea as we missed it so much.

Don't get me started on toilets in India. Better let Nuca discuss that topic. Just picture the worst toilet you've ever seen, then multiply that mess and smell by a factor of 1000 and you've got a typical Indian toilet. Often there are no toilets available, just squat behind the bush or next to the river. Just watch your step because generations of people were there before you.

I have so many good memories of India too, I shouldn't just write all the bad stuff here. Indian people are very open, friendly, helpful, and very curious to meet and talk with foreigners. We had discussions with many Indian people and learned much about the Indian view of the world. We saw and even touched some spectacular and historical things. Overall, our experience in India has been very positive.

Stay tuned for more updates from Nuca, and shortly, once I get better net access, I'll begin posting photos.

Bollywood

2004-07-27T22:29:00.000+10:00

Mumbai is pretty expensive. It's also the most "western" of places we've visited, for better or worse. I wasn't thrilled with having to spend 4 more days here before we depart to Bangkok, but Nuca was excited about the shopping possibilities, of which there are many.

One afternoon while shopping we were approached on the street by a lady who asked us if we wanted to be in a Bollywood movie. "Bollywood" is the nickname given to the Bombay film industry, which produces far more movies per year than Hollywood. You've probably seen clips of them on TV -- lots of singing, really bad dancing, often lots of bad guys with guns, over-the-top melodrama, and almost always low-budget.

She said as "extras" we would get paid 500 rupees each, and we should meet tonight at 6 pm for pick up to bring us to the set. Well the 500 rupees (US$11) wasn't much of a motivation to do it, but we were curious to see a real movie set and besides, Nuca relishes any chance to have her photo taken. And it sounded simple enough...

So at 6pm we met the production assistant in town and we set off to the set first by taxi, train, then public bus. The set location turned out to be about 2 hours away in a villa on the beach. On the way there we met another foreigner who had been on the set the day before and he helped us understand how things worked. Basicially we sit around and do nothing until called onto the set, and that we were obligated to stay here until 6 AM!! We kinda forgot to ask that question before we agreed to go. We realized we may have made a mistake -- we didn't buy any food before we left and now we had an entire night without sleep to look forward to. Fortunately some pepsi and potato chips were handed out early on, and much later dinner was served to the cast and crew.

Some other Indian actors also arrived as extras and they played bad guys and prostitutes. The film was so low-budget that the actors were requested to bring their own costumes. Surprisingly, the girls all had pretty realistic hooker costumes in their bag. Nuca and I were never given any instructions about wardrobe though.

We learned that the film is about the nightlife of Bombay, primarily the glamourous & seedy underworld side, as documented in the daily newspaper. This explains the name of the movie, "Page 3".

The mosquitos were eating us alive, we couldn't sleep, we had nothing to read, nothing to do, and we were not allowed to hang out and watch the filming as it went on in various parts of the villa. It was truly the most boring experience of our entire 2-month journey in India. Finally at 4:30AM we were called to the set and given our characters and action. I was to play a bad guy and Nuca a hooker and we were in some bad guy's parlour making out, along with several other couples, when the cops will burst in and surprise us and throw us out. We learned that the conservative Indian actors were not going to actually kiss, but they knew we would as we were a couple, so they started the scene with a close up shot of the two of us locking lips. As we were not given any costumes we wore our backpaker clothes. Frankly, I don't think I could have passed as a bad guy and certainly Nuca could never pass for a hooker, dressed as we were. But the director and crew was satisified. We did one run-though, then 3 takes.

I think we did a good job, and I certainly did a pretty good job of getting thrown against the wall by the cop, since he actually did throw me against the wall. No harm done except my shirt was ripped a bit. The wardrobe guy stitched it up immediately. The other foreigner on the set had to reprise his role as a child molester. I'm glad I didn't get that part.

Despite the low budget, everyone on the set seemed very professional. And it turns out the director, Madhur Bhandarkar, is pretty hot these days. He's been in the front page headlines for the past few days due to rape allegations from some bimbo actress. This film is much anticipated by the media. Look for it later this year if you're in India.