Anecdotes I


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October 14th 2010
Published: October 14th 2010
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Anecdotes I



I have tried to collect a few stories and observations along my way that may be a little funnier than my normal posts on this blog. There are many more than the ones below, but I will publish them as I find time. Since these are just stories there will not be photos this time.

Gordon the Gecko



Some of my best friends in Southeast Asia are the geckos. These small lizard-like creatures work tirelessly through the nights eating mostly moths but also flies and mosquitoes. They are in other words extremely helpful and I have become quite fascinated with them. It has in fact turned into a kind of science project for me.

I will find myself in bed trying to read but in stead studying the geckos running around on the ceiling and the walls. It is just what they do, but it almost seem a bit show-offish that they can sprint across the ceiling upside down in a matter of seconds.

They are however surprisingly bad hunters. They seem to react mostly to movement, so you can find them sitting right next to a tasty moth for minutes and not react at all and then all of a sudden they run across the room because a tiny fly moved an inch over there.

I have noticed how I have been trying to help them with this obvious problem. "NO, it is right next to you", I have been saying out loud. "There is a giant moth right over there". Stuff like that but no reaction. Apparently geckos suffer from more than really bad eyesight. Their hearing is terrible as well.

My studies of geckos have been very rewarding. I have seen how the big ones are bullying the smaller ones. Their strange mating rituals and have gotten a quite comprehensible knowledge of the sounds that they are able to make. Essentially they can make three kinds of little squeals. Depending on the intensity they mean either "Fuck off, this is my territory", "Seriously, get the hell out of here" or "Fuck me, I am sooo horny".

I still remember the first night I saw a very unexpected behavior. One of my gecko friends was sitting on my ceiling and all of a sudden it looked ill. Weird twitches and all. I got out of bed to inspect this phenomenon at a closer range. All of a sudden it raised its tail (or if you will, lowered it, since it was upside down). "This is fascinating", I thought since after hours of studying these creatures I had never seen such behavior before.

It was of course just taking a shit. The theory of gravity (or Intelligent Falling) implies that this is going to directly impact the intrepid observer of geckos. It almost did. The surprisingly big gecko turd landed on my "Thomas Paine Reader" book and that is really, really not a befitting destiny for one of our most important ideological forefathers.

I still like them though. The geckos.

The other kind of Indonesian phrasebook



Phrasebooks are a strange phenomenon. They equip you with essential sentences but not at all with the capabilities for understanding the answers you will most likely get.

For example a phrasebook may make it possible for you to say "I think I might have an ear-infection" or "why doesn't this come with a two year warranty" but there is no way that you will be able to understand the answers you will receive. I realized this several years ago and I have since then tried to memorize how to say "Is it OK if I breastfeed here?" in as many languages as possible because it is the best possible way to confuse even the most persistent touts (salesguys) for long enough to be able to escape. It is more or less the only really useful sentence you can find in phrasebooks but it works perfectly. Well. at least if you are single and male.

My other main problem with phrasebooks is that they never contain the most interesting words. When we were traveling in Indonesia we saw a lot of signs along the roads and many of them had wonderful words. Words that simply taste well when you say them out loud or even think them. They are quite simply beautiful. So here are just a few of my personal favorites:

Doorsmeer



This wonderful word was everywhere. Particularly in Aceh but you can find it everywhere in Indonesia. We noticed it as soon as we had started our journey down through Sumatra, since it was on signs along the roads everywhere, but we really couldn't figure out what it meant and for a while we adopted it as a multipurpose word. Adjective, adverbial, noun or verb, everything. In other words we would say something like:

"Wow, this is really doorsmeer" if something was really pretty.
"It smells like doosmeer here" if there was a sewer close-by.
"I am so close to doorsmeer that guy" if someone was really annoying.

Eventually it was translated for us. A "doorsmeer" is quite simply a carwash for motorcycles. But it is a wonderful word. Or rather: it is a really doorsmeer word.

Tempel Ban



No, it has nothing to do with restrictions on Buddhist temples. A "Tempel Ban" (or Tambal Ban" as it is spelled on Flores and other parts of Indonesia) is a motorcycle repair shop. Sometimes it is just a guy who can fix a flat tire but it can also be a place that can weld any sort of spare part out of any sort of metal. "You need a new brake? Give me two minutes and a sewing machine or a Grundig Television. It will be as good as doorsmeer".

Puskesmas



This is by far my favorite word in Bahasa Indonesia. It took forever to figure out what it means. The word Puskesmas is so unlikely, so unexpected, so ridiculous that it sounds like something that was made up for a bad children's book. "He traveled to the far lands of Puskesmas to find the long lost Princess". "When he called upon the evil spirit of Puskesmas he vanquished his foe". Shit like that.

It could also be the state ideology in a single-party Asian country. A kind of soap from Lapland made from reindeer saliva. I guess it could also be the name of a national hero in Hungary or a nasty condition caused by violent pillow-fighting.

If I were ever to suffer from an excessive and compulsory consumption of urinal cakes I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the doctor stared at me with a worried glance and said: "I'm really, really sorry, but it looks like you have a severe case of Puskesmas".

Again the actual meaning is a bit more mundane. A "Puskesmas" is a regional clinic. Not really a hospital but still more than a doctors clinic. They have cars/ambulances that roam the countryside and that's how I first noticed this truly wonderful word. Puskesmas.

Swimming with dolphins



This last one is just a very good story I heard from a fellow diver on Alor. It is about one of his friends and the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

This guy had always wanted to swim with dolphins. He is a very experienced diver, but for some reason the excessive gear and bubbles everywhere seem to scare them away so you very rarely see dolphins while diving. Some divers I have met have been lucky and have spent an entire tank just fooling around with them underwater, but it seems like this almost never happens.

So this guy was diving in the Red Sea and in order to fulfill his dream he decided to go on one of the many available "swim with dolphins" trips. If you are only wearing swim trunks and maybe a mask then for some reason the dolphins are much more interested and well, downright playful. This says something about dolphins but I am not exactly sure what.

Anyway, our friend got very lucky. There were plenty of dolphins and they were very friendly. So he could ride them by holding onto their dorsal fin and everything was fantastic.

After a while he saw that the one he was holding onto was spewing something out into the water. "Wow, is it about to give birth", he thought, but as soon as he was drawn into the brownish mess he realized that it was much more mundane. The dolphin was of course just taking a shit in a similar fashion to geckos.

If you have ever taken a leak or maybe even a dump underwater you know that you don't really want to hang around afterwards. Dolphins are clever animals, so they know this as well. So the dolphin made am excessively powerful stroke with its tail fin and hit our friend hard on the head.

EXHALE.

INHALE.

Getting the wind knocked out of you underwater is pretty bad, but filling up your lungs with dolphin shit afterwards is downright terrible.

Even the most beautiful dreams can be ruined with the stroke of a tail fin. It is as simple as that.

Mini Update



I am sitting on my balcony in wonderful, wonderful Luang Prabang in Laos right now. Tomorrow morning I will try to get a drivers license to a 1-ton grey vehicle that is perfect for going through the jungle.

Hopefully you will like the anecdotes. I will publish by popular demand 😊

All the Best

Jens

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15th October 2010

Lolwtfbbq!
I laughed so hard i nearly doorsmeered my puskemas!
15th October 2010

comments on comments
Hello Mark Twain! You really have a good sense of humor. Like the late travelling commentator of american origin you twist your observations into something that makes me laugh. With all respect your old father.
25th October 2010

phrasebook entries
Agreed, puskesmas and doorsmeer are great. While not drawing attention away from those, I also believe that "knalpot" (exhaust pipe repair) deserves an honorable mention, as does "Awas!" - which means "look out", although it sounds more like what you'd cry when you didn't look out and something bad happened.
25th October 2010

Knalpot galore
Agreed Knalpot almost made it in there, but our Danish "Lydpotte" isn't much better :)
21st April 2011

Very funny, I have had many hours also watching geckos, funniest moment was 2 having an amorous moment on a ceiling, they lost their footing in all the excitement and fell the 9 feet to the floor never losing their stride, the fall took nothing out of them and their fun continued unabated, hardy little f****rs, Loving your blogs, good luck to you.

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