Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Borneo Chronicles

I am on my way to Kota Kinabalu to present a paper on how to use the media to save the world.

I was delayed for the 5.30pm flight, so I had to get on the 8pm one instead.

So I went for a smoke and sat beside a hot blonde Russian dude, Ivan. He's a biologist who does chemical weapons for Russia.

Nah, he does some transgenic research. And he's also a surfer.

He just took a two-month holiday to surf in Bali cause he lives in Siberia and there is nowhere to surf in Siberia.

He's pretty cool, and I invited him to come to Malaysia next time.

He said that he really is impressed that Malaysia is a concrete jungle - at least, from what he can tell. And it all happened in the past few decades.

"Moscow is 800 years old!" He said.

Well, Ivan, nevermind.

We always fail to appreciate what we have. Maybe if we lose it, we will. Or maybe not. Not even then.

I talked about what I know about Russia.

"Bigger is always better," I said. It was a Russian Cold War philosophy.

I talked about Automatik Kalashnikov and Mikoyan-Guyrevich.

And, repeating what I heard from a drunken conversation, of how Boris Yeltsin sold the country and Putin got everything back together.

Russia is set to rise again. And their girls are fucking hot! Hell, if Ivan was a girl, I'd fuck him, too.

I love meeting strangers while travelling. I feel like we can talk about anything. And some are very interesting.

Well, Ivan has left to charge his laptop. And I am enjoying solitude as I smoke and think how big the world is, and how small we really are. I feel like a fucking citizen of the world and shit.