Mini World Adventure Part 9

We flew Via Tokyo and Hong Kong to Singapore and found a Guesthouse in the backpacker’s area. Singapore has to be the food capital of the world, from Chinese, Malay, Thai, Indian, English and fusions of all them, it was fantastic.

We met up with Compair who treated us to a Dim Sum meal that lasted 5 hours, its strange now but I had never used chopsticks and at that time you didn’t get an alternative, so you either used your hands, or as I did, soon learnt. 
We advertised on the local radio and in the local hostel for a new cameraman and tried out two; The first was a Singaporean very slight and he almost dropped the camera several time, the second was actually a Swiss engineer who had travelled extensively, he was not an expert but knew what he was doing and could ‘bluff’ his way into anywhere, useful quality to have on the trip.
We filmed in the streets and the local markets whilst waiting for the cars to arrive. It was incredible to see what the locals had to sell and were prepared to eat!

 

In one street we came across a large crowd of Chinese men all shouting and waving money in the air. As we got closer we could see they were watching two little fish fighting in a bowl and gambling on which one took a bite out of the other. We passed by again several hours later and they were still there.

As soon as the cars arrived we met with the Local Leyland dealer, who kindly agreed to let me work on them at their garage. 

They both required major overhauls, complete engine rebuilds,gearboxes were stripped and rebuilt, new clutches, sub frames repaired and some modifications made. A new solid tow bar with easy fit pins on the front and rear of both cars.

 After a couple of weeks of hard work the cars were back to full fettle and sadly we left Singapore, well there was a sting in the tail; as we had overstayed our visas we were, and still may be banned from returning, which is a shame.
We drove up the west coast of Malaysia, a beautiful country with mile after mile of rubber plantation,(ironic as we had just left Brazil where it was indigenous to one of the places that caused the downturn in rubber production in the Amazon), and beautiful countryside with many fishing villages.

The photo above shows the ladies of the village sorting out the days catch and preparing some for drying.

We entered Kuala Lumpur, a vast and sprawling city to arrange paperwork to allow us to enter Thailand. The original plan was to ship the cars from Penang to Madras, but Save the Children Fund asked if we could detour to film a project of theirs in North East Thailand at the border with Laos in a refugee camp.

After sorting out the paperwork we drove north into Thailand and onto Bangkok to ensure we had permission to film and then onto the North East of the country. The food in Thailand was fantastic, if a little hot, but we soon got used to chilli in everything.
The people have a great mantra to live their lives by from their Buddhist beliefs;whatever good they do in this life makes the next life better.On the long drive towards the border with Laos we actually spent a night in a Buddhist monastery and found it fascinating.Many families send a child to live with the monks so the ages ranged from quite young children to very old men. Every morning the local village women brought rice and waited outside the temple,the monks passed down the line of food and had it spooned into their dish's. I was given a folded piece of material with strange signs on that was to keep me safe on the rest of the journey,it worked very well,but unfortunately I lost it somewhere coming home.


We stopped at one of the many bridges over the rivers and somehow explained to the locals we would like to go and film them fishing,without us speaking Thai and they had no English it was somehow agreed. So we were taken out onto the muddy water in a wobbly canoe and spent a very enjoyable afternoon watching them fish.

  

The further North we travelled the poorer the villages became and the less used to seeing Europeans,many villages scattered their crops (Corn on the cob I think) on the road for the cars and trucks to crush them.

In the town near the refugee camp we found Save the Children headquarters and as they were short of space managed to get rooms in a local guesthouse. 
There was some sort of celebration going on that evening,so we wandered through the town following the music. We found ourselves in an area of what would normally be waste land or possibly some sort of park. A large frame had been erected all brightly coloured to create and entrance.We were still not quite sure what it was all about, but there was a party atmosphere with food, fairground rides,music and stalls. On the right hand side there were long queues so we joined the end of one. When we got to peer inside we had a bit of a shock,it had a dead body,all dressed up in his normal clothes and in fact there were 4 similar tents some with whole families.When we asked, it was explained that the funeral could not take place when they died as the buddhist priest was not available, so they were kept until the ceremony could take place which was now? We did not stay as it was getting very late at night, I have spoken to several people since about this and no one has ever heard of it before.

We spent several days filming with the Kampuchean refugees who had fled Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's persecution through Laos into Thailand. 
One of the biggest problems was boredom, in the camp was large muddy pond 

and about 50 men were using a net to catch fish. They proudly showed us their net of tiny fish, only to release them to catch again the next day!
Water seemed to to be only turned on at certain times of day which meant there were great queues,everyone with buckets and containers pushing toward the tap.

We were given a fantastic show in a small area, the actors and dancers were dressed in beautiful costumes that the Americans had paid for as they did not want them to loose their identity and culture, the dancing was fantastic and very popular as you can see by the crowds outside looking in. 

 

In the creche and school about 70% of the children had lost their parents, it was heartbreaking and so so sad.On the last day we took the Mini's into the camp and managed to fill the cars with children in what must be a world record! It was have been very easy to adopt more than one of these poor children.

In the playground they sang us a very old Kampuchean folk song which sounded very much like 'Old MacDonald had a farm' to me!

This part of the journey left a lasting impression on us all, one we would never forget.We drove back down the country into Malaysia and caught the ferry to Georgetown Penang. I guess Singapore would have been like this 20 years before. I loved this place and in fact have been back since, it has a fantastic cultural mix of Indian, Malay and Thai as it has been a port and crossroads for travelers for thousands of years. the cost of living wa very low, the food fantastic, I can still remember the Apom Balik, a very thin pancake we would buy from the street sellers for breakfast,filled with an egg and very large crystal sugar, it was delicious.The chicken satay sold in the streets were also fantastic.

It was not possible to drive through Burma so the cars and ourselves were loaded onto a ferry to take us to Madras (now Chennai) India.