Fiddling with France

Cher Diary,

7ish. I wake up in a warm bed. As usual I am pleasantly surprised to find I am sharing it with a beautiful woman. We arise. Food is consumed, coffee skulled. We sheepishly make our way out of the house waiting to be slapped in the face by the cold wind, then jump into the back of Jean-Michel’s Ute and are taken up the winding gravel road to the cherry orchards.

This week we partake in the art of grafting trees (1), an art expressed through the slashing of a given tree with a chainsaw and the insertion of new shoots into its mutilated branches. This gives the tree new vigour and allows the farmer to develop new fruit varieties as well as cross pollinate.

The orchard is silent (2). One of the old grafters strikes a match, looking forward to his third cigarette of the day. His mate goes forth and does likewise. These guys have been up since 4.30am waiting to get into it. They start chatting in Southern French: ‘Cold innit’. ‘Shit yea, mind you it’ll be 20 degrees this afternoon and we won’t know what to wear’. ‘Bloody hot in the afternoons’. ‘Oh shit yea, bloody hot’. ‘Last week was freezing. Everything was frozen solid’. ‘Frozen solid (3) Bloody hell’ ‘Remember this time last year...’ This goes on all morning while they bang in fresh branches into old trunks with their sturdy weather-worn hands. Hannah’s vocabulary will improve quickly.

12pm. The 6^th cigarette is lit with a sigh to signify the arrival of the LUNCH BREAK. We are transported back down the hill for a 3-course meal at JM’s parents’ place. Dish after dish is presented to us. Guilt befalls my Anglo-Saxon mind as I contemplate this sloth and gluttony. With much inner flagellation I partake in the salads, boar, blue cheese, goat’s cheese, Brie, Camembert and wine.

I’m told we are currently observing Lent.

Herein lies the paradoxical nature of French culture- traditionally Catholic yet smartly secular; partial to old rites but primarily concerned with the sanctity of the lunch hour [Little do they understand of the sandwich-eating capitalist efficiency that has made NZ the superpower that it is today].

2pm. With the sun blazing down on us, we discuss returning to work.

2.10pm. We shed this morning’s outer garments and make our way back to the trees.

3.50pm. The silence creates a kind of sensory deprivation sending me into a world of hallucinations and megalomaniac day dreams.

6ish. Job done (4). Go home. Light the fire. Enjoy a variety of local beers and watch the Super 14 on the internet.

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Now for the obligatory analogies.

Here we are. Young shoots from the antipodes. We have been wacked into France and now must allow its sap to flow into us (wine, language etc) resting in the fact that, if we are looked after properly, whatever comes out the other end will be fruitful, unique and flavoursome... No. That picture breaks down on too many levels. Hang on...

Here we are- tree trunks that have had to cut off ties and comforts to experiment with something new. We are opening up to a new culture and giving of ourselves to it. Jean-Michel and Katy- our lovely farmers- are taking excellent care of us. The elements may wear us down and strange events may yet assail us. Nevertheless, our roots go deep and sustain us. You, dear whanau/friend are one of these roots. Let it be known that we hold on to your love, and live each day resting in the peace of belonging. Arohanui.

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Trivia: 1. typing ‘define:grafting’ into google search will be of little benefit to you- I got: ‘The Grafting is the third solo album by Christian rock singer and former Petra frontman, John Schlitt'. It is my humble opinion that “When Schlitt hits the fan” would’ve made this album more notable.

Do not image search grafting as it’ll show you pictures of skin grafts that will stick with you.

2. I cannot elude the perceptiveness of the reader. The deep silence of the hills was in fact occasionally perturbed by the whining of the chainsaw.

3. French conversation 101- put on an expressive face and repeat the end of the sentence you have just heard.

4. Copyright G. Duncan

5. Had to rescue the cat from a tree. It wasn't to keen to be saved and got a bit 'clingy' once it found my chest hair.

Tap into Thailand

It’s 10pm but the heat is invasive. The streets of Bangkok are wide-awake and the crowd wriggles its way through the thousands of stalls. We carve out a path through the masses. I still have a blocked ear from my pen-ultimate NZ surf so my hearing is muffling out the nasal Thai exchanges and picking up mostly the ‘doof-doof’ of the music and the crunching of the fried cricket I’m eating to impress the missus. My eye is caught by a poster advertising fake degrees and NZ driving licences when another sound is added to the mix- ‘pup pup... pup pup’- middle-aged Thai men smacking their lips- onomatopoeias of the Live Ping-Pong Sex Shows they present to you on comprehensive portable menus. Like Imams calling the faithful to prayer. Hannah and I clasp to our puritan upbringing and, with much cultural insensitivity, carry on our way despite these mouth watering invitations to truly- as the Intrepid package states- Tap into Thailand.

Bangkok offered some nice Pad-Thai, temples, and boat trips but it was just a transit for us. We soon caught the overnight train (picture Darjeeling Limited) to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand with our guide, Sanit, and a team of amiable Ozzies in their early thirties.

Chiang Mai is a cosy city with a nice groove and the Pad Thai Kai (Thai for ‘chicken’) kept me busy at $1.50 a meal. We continued north to trek up into the hill-tribe villages where Sanit comes from. The hiking was a solid quad-wobbling affair through the mountainous dry forest. We reached Sanit’s village just before sunset. It was breathtaking. As I looked down into the little valley, I couldn’t help but think it was a scene out of the Last Samurai- that kind of glamourized rural setting where everything is peaceful and abundant. The dry rice fields, carved like a Pa site, stagger down into a crisp stream. Water buffalo stare at you knowingly; pigs root around with bra like slings around their torso; chicks hop around with bare buttocks and dogs lie around in the hottest spots they can find. Bamboo is the chief living ingredient, at the core of houses, bridges, cups, rafts, walking sticks, et cetera.

The local peoples offered us Tea and sticky rice wrapped in Banana leaves (tastes like berries- very niice). My previous experience of food dressed up in a banana leaf had been in Vanuatu. The food in Vanuatu is poos, so it was a delightful surprise. This place felt much more intact than Vanuatu also. The Karen people speak their own language, practice animism, smoke their own tobacco, and are effectively living as they were a hundred years ago (apart from the disintegration of opium market and growth of the tourist trade).

Kids are sent to school in another village during the week, where they learn all the basics- including Thai language. We got to visit the school and play a game of soccer with the young men on a dust-field that I left intact but seemingly absorbed most of into my lungs.

We rode Elephants around windy hills on narrow paths. This feels like a slow rodeo on a gentle giant (It’s similar to being carried by an Ent).

We then bamboo rafted down the river past the nonchalant water buffalo and bobbing elephant dung, crashing into the odd rocks and then swimming around the bobbing water buffalo and nonchalant elephant dung. We dragged our feet back to the city and consoled ourselves with $5 Mojitos and Thai covers bands playing classic Rock: “Sweeee Hooo Alabama”.

It was everything I’d hoped for: a nice experience of Thailand- urban and rural; a nice team to travel around with; a good local guide; a kind-of tour with no blardy schedules; an exquisite array of sensorial experiences and close encounters with local flora and fauna. Yes. Lovely.

Thailand- we tapped it.