I Will Not Train Your Elephant.

The title is self explanatory and I don't see my position changing anytime soon. Moreover this stance is not confined to elephants in Laos so any readers in Thailand, India or elsewhere need not get any ideas. But I will come back to this later.

Little Spoon and I had flown from Hanoi to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Luang Prabang in northern Laos for some relaxation from the moped madness of Vietnam's capital.

And it was certainly relaxing. Luang Prabang is beautiful, sedate and so relaxed that everything closes by 11.30pm. For a young go getter like myself this would usually be a major issue but I was happy to wander around looking at monks and drinking fresh fruit juice while Little Spoon took photographs of everything of any interest and everything else too.

We knew our visit was brief and that we would soon be moving on to Vang Vieng but it seemed worth investigating what activities Luang Prabang had to offer. Three things seemed popular and initially all were fairly appealing. First of all visit a waterfall in the jungle and swim around in the pool at the bottom. Granted this might not sound thrilling on the face of it, but everything closes at 11.30pm remember? If Britain was the same perhaps there would be less teenage pregnancy and more day trips to waterfalls.

But the trip looked a bit short, with too much traveling on a bus and not enough time waterfalling.

The second option is where the elephants come in. We had heard all about elephant trekking and although it is clearly a bit of a gimmick it looks interesting enough. Little Spoon collected the most professional looking leaflet with a huge amount of information about what we could expect for our money.

I opened it up wide eyed and expectant. I finished it furious and in the knowledge that I would have to take a firm stance on elephants from this day forwards.

Allow me to summarise the fun and frolics on offer for a fairly expensive package...

"Day 1: Learn how the elephant handlers train the elephants. Practice their techniques, collect the elephants food and feed it. Take the elephants to their enclosure in the jungle. Return to your cabin for the night."


Hmmm...my suspicions were already arising. This day one sounded worryingly similar to a day of work. I came to your jungle to relax and possibly galavant if the terrain permits it; I didn't come to learn techniques let alone practice them. I read on, perhaps day two would involve riding the elephant to a fun fair or watching them dance while enjoying a nice lie down in a hammock.

"Day 2: Rise at 6.00am"

I beg your pardon? I double checked, yes it definitely tells me to rise at 6.00am on my FUCKING HOLIDAY! Now I was angry, there had better be a very good reason for why I was expected to pay money to be woken up at 6am and it had better not involve practicing anything.

"...make your way from your cabin to the elephant enclosure and bring the elephants back to camp, clean them and give them their breakfast."

Right. That does it. Let me get this straight, I have come on holiday to one of the world's most beautiful towns to relax and soak up the tranquil and idyllic surroundings. I am now expected to pay money to train your elephants, feed your elephants and fetch them back and forth from their enclosure? Sure.

While we are it, perhaps I could enroll on a "Hotel Cleaners Camp" where I can pay for the privelage of learning the best techniques for scrubbing shit off a toilet, how to fold towels quickly and then I can get up at the crack of dawn to work for free.

If you elephant trainers didn't want your elephants you shouldn't have bought them from wherever you buy elephants from. You want the elephant to come back from its enclosure? You fetch it. You want it to have its breakfast? You feed it. I was half hoping the elephants might bring me breakfast not vice versa. Am I expected to put them on my back too and carry the lazy, long nosed swines up the mountain?

I hurled the leaflet away and told Little Spoon we were not going to be a part of such a swindle. But I could see she had been dazzled by the pictures of elephants and was still eager to embark on this madness. So I reminded her that it involved getting out of bed at 6am. Little Spoon is someone who finds getting out of bed at 1pm a trifle taxing and would probably be quite happy if she was reincarnated as a cat and could sleep for 18 hours a day.

That sealed it. She was now more opposed to elephant training than I was, and given that I now put elephant training courses on a moral par with racism, homophobia and kicking the elderly it was fair to say she felt strongly on the matter.

That left us with the last option. Massage. Several traditional massage venues were scattered along the picturesque streets and the prices were very reasonable. The only issue was that Little Spoon had become convinced that every massage available in Asia involved a "happy ending" if the client was male.

Little Spoon: "Oh so you think massage is a good idea? Yeah I bet you do."

Me: "Spoon, this is an UNESCO World Heritage Site, not the red light district of Bangkok. If anything we will probably get in there and have to learn how to give a massage, change the towels and sweep up."

Despite her reservations, she had been out of bed for a good three hours and the lure of being able to lie down again was too much for her to resist. We went inside the place that looked the most traditional. Having no idea what a traditional Laotian massage joint looks like, we based this on the amount of wooden carvings and plants they had.



We both chose a one hour massage with oils that was said to "Relax, Rejuvenate and Increase Blood Circulation".

The first 50 minutes were brilliant. It was the first time I had ever had a proper massage and it was indeed relaxing and rejuvenating. However, the final ten minutes were obviously where the tiny masseuse decided to increase my blood circulation. I have always been pro increased blood circulation, but ideally I would like it to circulate inside my body. But her techniques seemed focused on getting it to circulate all over the room and to splatter the white washed walls and fine wooden carvings.

She tried to pull my head off.

It was not a head rub. She took hold of my head and tried to pull it off. Off from my neck. Where my head has always been.

I grimaced and quickly thought through my options. I could punch her. She was very small afterall and I was feeling pretty rejuvenated so I could probably take her. Or I could bank on my neck being stronger than her arms and stick it out so as not to incur any fines for beating up the masseuse.

I chose option two. It was a fairly close call, but my head remained where it belonged and I hastily got dressed and came outside to find Little Spoon eyeing me like a detective might look at his chief murder suspect.

Little Spoon: "So...enjoy that did you?"

Me: "Well yeah, until the last ten minutes, because then she tried to do the old increased blood circulation thing and..."

Little Spoon: "I knew it! You got a happy ending didn't you? Didn't you, you filthy animal?!"

Me: "NO! Don't be stupid, she just tried to remove my head from my body and it hurt. Surely you had the same, didn't she try to decapitate you too?"

Little Spoon: "Erm...maybe, I'm not sure, I fell asleep after about 15 minutes and she woke me up at the end."

Brilliant. So I paid to have a generally enjoyable time that culminated in being assaulted by a tiny Laotian girl and Little Spoon paid to essentially go back to bed but in somebody elses house. Albeit a very traditional house with nice carvings and an outstanding array of plants.

Our time in Luang Prabang was drawing to a close and we booked our bus journey to Vang Vieng; home of the famous tubing, opium smoking hippies and drunken tourists drowning. It sounded great.

Until next time...

Monkey Roberts Hits Hanoi.

Do not be alarmed. Hanoi is not another abstract name for one of my students, so I have not resorted to beating any of them into a bloody pulp of bones, skin and Hello Kitty clothing. Anyway if I was to thrash one of my students it would have been 'Fred Flintstone' or a massive oaf called John who claims to be 14 but appears to be 36.

No, Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam you ill informed oiks and Little Spoon and I decided to travel there and beyond now that our contract was finished. We woke up at 5am to get a bus journey to Incheon airport, bristling with excitement at the prospect of visiting a country where a glass of beer is about 15 pence and where there are also some bits of history, culture and other afterthoughts to soak up too.

We were pushed for time because we booked an early flight and because we are miserly beggars who opted for a cheap bus rather than a rapid, expensive train to the airport. But when your destination sells beer for 15 pence, every penny counts.

The bus breaks down.

Of course it does. God couldn't possibly let me have a nice holiday just because I'm an atheist and refuse to acknowledge him. Little Spoon seemed fairly unperturbed as she had bought a stupidly expensive new camera for the trip and was now able to get some stunning shots of us stood on the side of the road with a broken bus.

So at least when we missed our flight, never went on holiday and returned to Daegu, hot, tired and forlorn we would have crystal clear images of Korea's motorways to dazzle our friends with.

Stupid Korean transport system. Yeah so every bus and train is always on time, there are never delays, it's good service and there are multiple journeys to every destination all the time. But now look at you with your broken bus, having me stand on the road for no good reason.

Three minutes later and the replacement bus arrives and we're off again. Okay Korean transport system you win this battle, but I'm keeping a close eye on you. As for you God...HA! Nice try pal, but I've been tempting fate and refusing to knock on wood my whole life, so you're going to have to do better than this if you want me to accept you.

The next few hours are about as dull as life gets, so I will save you the details of my sandwich in China during a 5 hour stop over to change planes, and spare you the hilarious problem with Little Spoon's shampoo at customs.

We got to Hanoi and it's mental. I'd been to Vietnam years ago and remembered the local people's love of courting death on the roads, but I never made it as far north as Hanoi and clearly up here they take suicidial driving very seriously indeed. Everyone rides motorbikes and nobody drives on a set side of the road.

We were in a people carrier so I was confident that any of the almost certain crashes we would have on the way to the hotel would at least only result in maiming or death to the unfortunate families of 4 on their mopeds and leave me happily protected in my first world transport.

So comforted, I chose to warn Little Spoon of the various scams and rip offs we would encounter. I carefully explained to her that people would hassle us constantly to buy badly made trinkets, pose for pictures for money, push unwanted snacks and tours upon on us and generally try to get us to part with our cash.

She nodded sternly and practiced her "No Thank You" line carefully. We worked on the stern shake of the head and dismissive wave of the hand.

Two hours later as we walked along Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi, I looked at Little Spoon in her traditional Vietnamese hat, wearing two locally made bracelets as she carried two bags of pineapple and a giant Chupa Chups lollypop and wondered when she would first get to use her hand carved ink stamp of an elephant.

A picture of Little Spoon using her lolly as a baseball bat. Well of course.



I was not best pleased with my own efforts at haggling and avoiding rip offs either. I had been reliably informed that a beer from a Bia Hoi venue would be about 15p and sometimes cheaper and yet so far today I had paid 25p and 45p!! I'm not Bill Gates for fucks sake.

But fueled by our extortionately priced beers we went out into the manic Hanoi streets to find a restaurant and to my delight I found a place serving a delicacy I had to try.

Me: "Spoon, let's go here"

Little Spoon: "Stop calling me Spoon. Why?"

Me: "I've been calling you it for 12 months, it's not going to stop now is it? Because look it sells baked tortoise."

Little Spoon: "You're an idiot. Oh my God, that's horrible, I'm not eating a turtle I used to have one as a pet, my Mom calls them 'tootles'"

I stopped her at this point and explained the difference between a tortoise and a turtle, as clearly only a savage, uncouth degenerate would eat a turtle (or a tootle for that matter) but dining out on a tortoise baked in its shell is every Englishman's dream.

I could be overstating the passion for tortoise based dishes in England, but I have grown to hate the lazy little leaf chewers over the years. And I'll have you know this is not an irrational hatred. Far from it. In fact it is a hatred born of a love that was not allowed to flourish. Allow me to explain.

As a young boy, fresh of face and yet dour of character I had a few things in life that I yearned for with a growing intensity as each month passed without them in my life. Each of these things would make my Christmas and Birthday request lists for many years until it became clear that my heartless parents would never indulge me.

These things were a Giant Tortoise, A Rifle, A Dog and a metal platform that you could screw to the side of your house and access via a rope ladder. I am sure that most readers would agree that aside from the dog, none of these requests was particularly unreasonable or outlandish for a small boy.

But my stick in the mud parents clearly didn't realise we were in the 20th Century and that their straight laced, killjoy attitudes were an embarrassment to them both. So never did a young Monkey Roberts get to sit 30 feet in the air on a steel ledge on the side of his house, taking pot shots at the local kids as his dog played cheerfully with a huge tortoise.

And for this reason, I came to resent tortoises. I don't like the fact that they live a long time and I don't like their work ethic. I would like to bake one and eat it on the streets of Hanoi however.

But once again I was to be denied. Little Spoon would not eat it and instead I had to settle for a delicious meal of marinated beef with local dips and vegetables. I bet if I wanted to buy a rifle she would say no to that too! But it's alright for her with her hat, stamp, bracelets, fruit and impossibly large lollypop.

We walked through the bustling streets to find a bar and I fumed at the injustice of it all, especially as Little Spoon had everything she wanted from here and more besides...

Little Spoon: "Oooo look, that man has balloons. Can I get a balloon?"

Ah ha! Justice.

Me: "Erm...no. No you can't have a balloon."

Never let it be said that I am a petty man. Because if it's said I will find a way to get you back, no matter how small the vengeance is.

As the first leg of Hanoi came to a close, it was time to look forward to the delights of the World Unesco Heritage site that is Luang Prabang in Laos...

Until next time.