"COLONEL KURTZ."

I've just spent the last couple of days in  the middle of nowhere, hammock camping. I've been in the foot hills of the  Cardamom mountains. The only way to get there is by boat, those narrow fishing  type boats. The first part of the journey is along the river and then you turn  off into the mangrove swamps, which get narrower and narrower until they become  channels just wide enough to navigate the boat through. It's a confusion of,  seemingly, identical waterways How the boatman doesn't lose his way is pretty  impressive. Not as impressive as where I was staying though. After about five  minutes of walking through the swamp it starts going uphill. The land at this  point is moderately covered in new growth. there is a spread of smooth rocks  looking out to the mangroves and the surrounding mountains. A perfect place to  watch the sunset. Just before the jungle is an open sided small building, well  basically a roof but that's all you need. There's plenty of room to hang a  hammock under it and plenty of trees around to hang a tarp and hammock. Needless  to say, there's no electricity, no internet/wifi, no lighting. If you want to  cook something, it's real easy. Build a fire. Walk about two minutes up the hill  and you're in thick jungle. There are old animal tracks that are now used as  pathways for walking to neighbouring 'houses'. The nearest house is about a two  hour walk through really dense jungle. My feet have hardened up enough that I  did a four plus hour hike barefoot. Okay I got a couple of thorns but they  pulled out real easy and I didn't even bleed. I've turned into a right feral  shit. There's heaps of good crabs and shellfish to be had in the mangroves. The  shellfish stick long 'tongues' out of the sand and you grab them between your  toes and pull them out. I wouldn't advise doing that with the crabs though.  There's two guys who live up at the roof permanently. Bodies of forty year old's  faces of sixty year old's. they only speak Khmer and one of them tells stories by  dancing traditional dances I haven't got a clue what it's about but its  mesmerising. He fought in the Viet Kong and was involved with Pol Pot. His  stories alone are worth at least a couple of blog's. These boys know how to cook.  They know how to drink as well. They sneak off in the canoe to their secret  little mangrove shack whiskey merchant. They'll get stinking drunk fall over,  then drag themselves off to somewhere shady, where they can't be found and sleep  it off. funny guys. 'Oh that's awful' some of you may say. Well, they seem  happier than a lot of miserable fuckers in the western world and if you had been  through what they've been through, you too would be guzzling Khmer home brew  whiskey. I guzzle it because it's only $1 for two litres. Anyway, they cuddle me  when they're drunk. They're so sweet. Shit faced but sweet. So apart from the  cross dressing German Kiwi that's it really. Hold on. What!..... A cross dressing  what? Yep that's right. You read it  right the first time. Mani is a German but  he's lived in NZ for the last thirty years and he likes wearing frocks. He also  likes whiskey for breakfast......lunch and dinner. He's even got some really  feminine flip flops to go with his frock. That's nothing. He came wandering out,  the other day in a bikini. I swear I'm not shitting you. Now picture this: A  sixty three year old German Kiwi with a back as hairy as his chest, wearing a  bikini that would probably fit a sixteen year old girl, the inevitable bollock  hanging out. Yeah, I bet you could do with a Khmer whiskey now. I'm going back  out there tomorrow and I'm fully expecting an apocalypse now scene. For sure  he's going to turn into Colonel Kurtz.  

Speechless,

 (and I fucking was when I saw  him in a bikini)