Ryan McGinley

I first saw Ryan McGingley's photography in an issue of Vice (Volume 6 Number 5) a long time ago. 

I loved McGinley because of his no bullshit explanation as to why he took photos in the first place:

“I was so psychotically obsessed with documenting my life,” he said. “All I wanted to do was make pictures of anything and everything. One of my favorite things to do back then would be to go out and get completely demolished and take tons of photos. Then I’d get the film developed and they were like evidence of whatever I had done that night because I usually couldn’t remember any of it.”

He was just a young gay dude cruising around snapping pics of him and his friends. Simple and unpretentious. Then he was chucked into the art world and became the new sensation. But his early works are my favourite. And looking at them I'll think you will understand why.

The captions that go with each photo are just as fascinating as the pictures themselves.

SELF-PORTRAIT (CAR ACCIDENT), 1998

It was one of the hottest days of summer. I was riding my bike with my shirt off and I got hit by a car. My ass and back got dragged along the pavement for a good ten feet. The screeching noise those tires made haunts me to this day. It was my fault, but the driver was so freaked out that he gave me all the money in his wallet, close to $400. I was psyched! My back still has fucking gravel in it.

SPARKY, 1999

When I used to live on Seventh Street in the East Village, me and my oldest friend from Jersey, Teddy, sold weed to pay our way through college. When I started to date Marc, every time he would come over Teddy would say, “Hey Marc-y Sparky, let’s spark one up!” Anytime he walked through that door, they lit up a number. Fucking stoners, man. Everyone started calling Marc “Sparky” and that’s all we call him now.

MARIANA (BATHROOM), 1998

Mariana was my first muse. She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve every photographed. The energy this girl had. She was not afraid to say exactly what was on her mind. She’s the kind of girl you go to the movies with and she talks back to the screen. We were always up to no good and getting in trouble. In this picture we were at a party at some kid’s parents’ house and she was ransacking the bathroom, racking up some Kiehl’s and Crème de la Mer from their granny.

Read more: THE KIDS WERE ALRIGHT - Selections From Ryan McGinley's Early Work, 1998-2003 - Vice Magazine

Lou Reed Love

I don't know just where I'm going / But I'm gonna try for the kingdom, if I can/ 'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man / When/ I put a spike into my vein/ And I'll tell ya, things aren't quite the same/ When I'm rushing on my run/ And I feel just like Jesus' son/ And I guess that I just don't know

Everything I've ever told you could have been a lie.

This is my attempt to tackle the issue of the upcoming Federal election. Tony Abbott is comical. And lets be honest, Gillard is a puppet installed by the factional powerbrokers of the ALP.

Australian voters are truly stuck between a rock and a hard place.

So how to choose between the two candidates? Would you have a replica of John Howard or a softer, red headed version of Kevin Rudd?

Here is where they stand on immigration (including the issue of population and asylum seekers), war and censorship.

Abbott just wants to stop the boats. He has stated this exact phrase repeatedly and with frightening determination, most noticeably in his four point “action contract”.

He plans to stop the boats through off shore processing ( reopening Nauru). He also wants to reintroduce temporary protection visas (a visa document implemented by the Howard government in 1999).

The TPV stopped refugees travelling overseas or finding employment in Australia. It stopped them accessing social security benefits and they were not allowed to sponsor family members for settlement in Australia. It was highly criticised by refugee advocates and humanitarian organizations.

Abbott’s other solution to the refugee problem is to simply turn the boats around. I’m not joking. He actually thinks it is possible to physically turn the boats back to their origin without incurring deliberate sabotage of the boats and/or loss of life for both refugees and Australians.

Abbott also ignores the fact that there is nowhere to turn the boats back to. Indonesia will not accept them.

Opposition immigration minister Scott Morrison has stated that if those pesky asylum seekers try the old “throw the passport overboard trick” they will simply be kicked off Australian soil.

Gillard is espousing a completely different view on immigration and asylum seekers. She says that Labour has already reduced the immigration intake from 300,000 in 2008 to 175,000 this year. She has more reductions planned.

As far as refugees are concerned, Gillard is content to throw them over to East Timor where she is determined to set up a processing centre. She has not yet set a date for its completion.

Gillard’s goal is to reduce the number of asylum seekers by wrecking the people smuggling trade. She wants to remove the incentive for boats to leave their ports of origin in the first place.

How will she do this? I suggest bribing the governments of Afghanistan and Sri Lanka into increasing screenings of horrible soap operas Home and Away and Neighbours. Perhaps she could place a massive poster of Tony Abbott in his budgie smugglers in the centre of Kabul?

So now Afghanistan.

Tony Abbott is really looking forward to throwing even more of our money at a war that Australia never should have entered. He aims to increase defence spending by 3 per cent every year until 2018.

At Sydney’s Lowy Institute on 23rd April, Abbott stated, “…the near certainty of higher casualties must be weighed against the consequences of failing to shoulder extra responsibilities.”

So Abbott is essentially saying that he would prefer to have young Australian men being blown up than risk looking silly in front of the United States or Britain.

What a fucking dick.

Gillard’s stance on Afghanistan is, like many of her other policies, far from solid. But she has provided a timeline of two to four years for the withdrawal of troops.

Gillard is still keen on the idea of an Internet filter, which will block sites that contain “illegal material” (what this material includes is up to your imagination).

As for Abbott’s opinion on the proposed mandatory filter…

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

But everything I’ve ever told you could have been a lie. Don’t believe everything you read.

Bus to Sihanoukville

My quiet thoughts on the bus from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville.

Chubby.

1996 -2010

A little old man who gave love.

Cocaine for breakfast and sick thoughts.

I've been to prison. I have. I've been to prison. A prison of drugs, alcohol and sick thoughts. I used to have sick thoughts. So don't you come in here, preaching to me about hours when you're standing over there, and you're standing over there, and I don't know which way is up!

Freud, Incest and Totems.

We have a lot of weird, dusty old books in my house. They are fascinating because I have no idea who the original owners were or how we came to accumulate so many, stuffed in cupboards and on shelves in random parts of the house. One book in particular grabbed my attention. Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud. It was first published by Pelican Books in 1919 and looks very well worn. There is a pencil scribble on the front with a signature I can't make out and the year 1940.

I like old books.

Without sounding like a completely pretentious wank, I want to show why I am finding Totem and Taboo a good read. It makes me laugh because of the outmoded, racist concepts used frequently without. But it also has some really interesting points, mainly to do with incest.

The first chapter is "The Savage's Dread of Incest". Compelling title.

The idea of newsworthiness indicates that people are attracted to the most gross, debased subjects (notice the titillation component). This explains the popularity of trash/goss mags and hardcore porn. People want to know about this repulsive, shocking stuff.

This may also explain why there is a book by Sigmund Freud concerned primarily with incest.

So here are some of his ideas. Do you agree?

Freud compares the psychology of the "primitive races" to the psychology of the modern "neurotic" races in order to argue that "we can recognise in their psychic life a well-preserved, early stage of our own development". He uses the aborigines of Australia as his example of these primitive races. However, to Freud's surprise, these "poor naked cannibals" have exercised "the most searching care and painful rigour in guarding against incestuous social relations".

Just try to ignore the whole "poor naked cannibal" part for the time being.

Freud goes on to define Totemism which is what we were all made to learn about in Studies of Religion back in high school. Simplified, a totem is a tribal ancestor of the clan and a tutelary spirit and protector. Therefore members of this totem shall not kill or destroy it.

Something that really caught my attention is that through out Totem and Taboo Freud refers to aborigines as Australians. This book was published in 1919, years  before the Australian government even recognized indigenous people as Australians. So although Freud's writing is imbued with racism he is unconsciously granting indigenous people status as Australians, some years before they were legally declared as citizens.

Ok, so here we get back to the incest part.

Members of the same totem are not allowed to enter into sexual relations with each other. Violating this prohibition threatens the community as a whole and brings guilt upon everyone. The penalty for exogamy is death.

According to Freud, "these savages (exercise greater care) because they are more subject to temptations than we are and hence require more protection against them."

This idea is taken straight out of the Australian government's old laws of paternalism for indigenous people back in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Another idea that interested me in chapter one was Freud's examples of customs from other cultures which prevent "incest dread".  For example, on Lepers Island in Melanesia, the brother leaves his maternal home at a fixed age. He may still visit his home to ask for food but if his sister is there he must run away. If she is not there he can sit and eat by the door. If brother and sister meet by chance, she has to piss bolt out of there as quick as she can. This avoidance also extends to the mother and son. If she sees him in the street she uses the formal address, not the familiar manner of mother and son.

Freud also tells us that on the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain, a sister, beginning with her marriage, may no longer speak with her brother, "nor does she utter his name but designates him by means of a circumlocution."

I have no idea whether this customs still exist but there are footnotes in the book to back up Freud's examples.

Another Freud idea: a man is led to his love object through the image of his mother "and perhaps his sister" (p. 34).  But if this is true, what does this concept imply for orphans or children who have grown up without any form of guardians/caretakers? Is this a crack in Freud's theory?

Freud also believes that parents remain young with their children. Based on this assumption, he declares that it is better to have children so as to avoid the necessary resignation imposed upon the individual by marriage.

So there are my reflections on Chapter One of Freud's Totem and Taboo.

I don't know why I do this to myself.

This book is truly a mind fuck.

Grizzly Bear

I saw Grizzly Bear at the Enmore tonight. There were two supporting acts before the bear which sort of pissed me off as they were not exceedingly talented. Finally Grizzly came on and the lighting was spectacular. They played mostly songs from their older albums, but my favourites were there: 'Ready, Able', 'While You Wait For The Others' and 'Foreground'.

Some people say listening to Grizzly Bear is dead depressing.

This is because they don't listen.

What you're hearing is quietly uplifting. If 'Foreground' was a photograph, this would be it.

Taken by Satomi with Diana F+

Hocking.

"Chanel" mini bag

Gold Lame Dress

Peter Alexander Robe

Sportsgirl Purse

17 editions of Russh Magazine

Vintage Goldcrest Bag

This is blatant self promotion. Right now on Gumtree.com.au I am selling some pretty nice stuff. Pick up some stylish clothes, bags, accessories for DIRT cheap. If you want to throw stuff into together, prices are totally negotiable.

1. 1 Princess Highway Black tulle dress
2. One Teaspoon "Icecream" dress with black ribbon straps
3. 1 floral print Peter Alexander nightgown
4. 1 Vintage brown satchel bag
5. 1 Little White dress
6. 1 Black patent "Chanel" style bag
7. 1 Pink Hello Kitty Wallet
8. 1 Sportsgirl Loveheart purse
9. 17 editions of Russh Magazine
10. 1 Bangkok silk black dress
11. 1 Vintage Goldcrest big quilted bag
12. 1 pair of black sequined 'Vince Noir' leggings
13. 1 Gold dress

AND MUCH MORE TO COME.
Go have a look at some stylish stuff from a poor person.
LOOK HERE.

Gould's Book Arcade

If you've spent any quality time in Newtown, you will know Gould's.

It is indeed an arcade. A vast, multi levelled expanse of literary glory.

It is a place to think. A place to look. A place to engage. A place to make out.

And a place to read.

The first time I stumbled upon the store, one thing caught my eye.  A sign. "We buy books and magazines".

At that moment, it was winter. I was in the deepest depths of student poverty. I was down to my last Pall Mall and was tossing between spending my last four dollars and twenty five cents on a milkshake or four packets of pasta.

You buy books?

Holy Jesus.

My mind seized upon the pile of textbooks and magazines gathering dust in the corner of my dark, damp bedroom, ten minutes down the road.

The Essentials of International Relations. The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Art. King Lear.

Countless editions of glossy Vogues.

I was going to be rich. I could buy the pasta AND a milkshake. Fuck it, I could buy three milkshakes.

I sprinted home and shoved every book and magazine I could lay my hands on into a green enviro bag, and proceeded to sprint back to King Street.

Ok, I tell a little lie.

The sprint was more like the laboured chugging of a rusty bicycle loaded with bricks.

By the time I arrived at Gould's, I could feel my face burning and my lungs heaving.

I approached the counter, completely spent.

If you have ever seen the man himself, you will understand this description.

He is tiny. He sits amongst a mountains of books. A little Hobbit with a long white beard. But he does not acknowledge you. This is what makes him more intimidating than your average burly policeman.

I placed each book and magazine carefully upon the counter for his inspection.

He looked at the collection for the briefest of moments.

"No."

That is all he said.

No.

"But these ones are practically new. Not a dent. Not a rip. They're perfect. Look at these textbooks, international relations, politics, media... everything!"

"No. Don't want them."

You fucking prick.

In my mind, I tossed the books back into the green bag and threw them at his head.

In reality, I gave him the filthiest look imaginable and walked out of the store.

I later researched this man, Bob Gould.

Bob Gould has been a Sydney bookseller for more than thirty-five years, at a number of locations, and at Newtown since 1988. Gould's Book Arcade specialises in out of print books, publishers remainders of the last 30 years, and second hand books, catering to the general reader, students and some specialist areas.

Australian history and politics and Australiana are the main specialty areas. The collection on labor movement and left-wing politics is the broadest in Australia, and stands up well by international standards, covering Australia but also other countries. The Art collection contains thousands of books. There are big sections on Military History, Poetry, Plays, Fiction, Movies, Science, Philosophy, and all areas of human interest and endeavour.

I guess he had enough copies of King Lear, then.

Heres a link to the socialist, left wing writings of Bob Gould.

Fisheye One Hello Kitty Edition

My two obsessions have been combined.

My obsession is both sad and pathetic and undoubtedly a symptom of our disgusting consumerist culture.

But fuck it, I love Hello Kitty.

This novel is narrated by Death.

The Book Thief  by Markus Zusak concerns a nine-year old skeleton, flung into the home of a foster family on Himmel Street. It is 1939, Nazi Germany. Our narrator has never been busier.

The novel concerns Liesel, the perpetually malnourished girl, and her fight for survival and her fight for books. She is the book thief. As am I, having knicked this extraordinary novel from an unnamed hostel in Bangkok.

Liesels's first theft takes place when her brother dies. Her mother is taking them on a journey to save herself and her children. She is Communist. Liesel's little sibling perishes of cold and malnutrition. He is hurriedly buried in the snow beside the train tracks. From the pocket of the gravedigger falls a book. Liesel secretly seizes upon it, although unable to read its contents: The Gravedigger's Handbook

I could go on. But then you wouldn't read the book, would you?

This is my favourite passage.

A Small Announcement About Rudy Steiner

He didn't deserve to die the way he did...

On many counts, taking a boy like Rudy was robbery - so much life, so much to live for - yet somehow, I'm certain he would have loved to see the frightening rubble and the swelling of the sky on the night he passed away. He'd have cried and turned and smiled if only he could have seen the book thief on her hands and knees, next to his lifeless body. He'd have been glad to witness her kissing his dusty, bomb-hit lips.

Yes, I know it.

In the darkness of my dark-beating heat, I know. He'd have loved it all right.

You see?

Even death has a heart.

In the Saughterhouse of Love: Romeo and Juliet

The Sydney Fringe Festival and No White Elephant Productions presents...

In the Slaughterhouse of Love: Romeo and Juliet.

In the slaughter house of love, they kill

only the best, none of the weak or deformed.

don't run away from this dying.

Whoever's not killed for love is dead meat.

A Dove in the Eaves ~ Jelaluddin Rumi

The production is inspired by the lyrical poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi and combines Shakespeare's prose to beseech the audience to forget judgement, restriction and cynicism.

Rumi's poetry is beauty. More on that later.

Slaughterhouse rehearsals have been based in the training of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training:

This training has been designed to regain the perceptive abilities of the actor's body on stage in order to powerfully enter any theatrical situation. In practical terms, the Suzuki Method is comprised of a variety of exercises that challenge the body's centre of gravity by presenting a series of physical obstacles. This allows the actor to invoke their full creative potential within a given structure. By heightening the actor's awareness of their own physical habits, limitations and energies, the body becomes open to exploring emotion and truth.

The Creatives:
Producer: Amanda Laing
Director: Erica J Brennan
Composer/ Sound Design: Thomas Brennan, Daniel Curtis
Set: Kezia Sling
Costume: Roslyn Meijnderts
Graphic Design: Jefferton James AKA Jeffery Gordon (http://cuteasfudgefactory.blogspot.com/)
Photo Documentation: Byron Quandary (http://www.byronquandary.com/)

The Cast:
Emily Elise
Richard Hilliar
Gemma Laffan
Amanda Laing
Elisabeth Lamb
Georgina Neville
Pollyanna Nowicki
Max Paul
Diego Retamales
James Shepherd
Nicole Wineberg

Dates and Times :

21/09 @ 8pm

24/09 @8pm

25/09 @11pm

26/09@ 5pm & 8pm

Tickets $24 - Buy Here

Get Down Or Die

In the words of its creators, Get Down Or Die introduces readers to new music or gives them a sample of an artists work. If you like it, go out and buy it.
But how many blogs are there doing the exact same thing? Millions! Trillions!
But Get Down Or Die is different. Because this blog is for those who love spiffing, whack, dirty, hard mixes.
There are remixes of everything from Katy Perry to Tupac to Rod fucking Stewart.
This  blog might also be different because of the dudes running the show.
Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself.

And we'll always be freaks and we'll never be like other people.

American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes, script by Alan Ball.
This is my favourite scene.

JANE: Why do you even care?

ANGELA: Because you're my friend!

RICKY: She's not your friend. She's somebody you use to feel better about yourself.

ANGELA: Go fuck yourself, psycho!

JANE: You shut up, bitch!

ANGELA: Jane! He is a freak!

JANE: Well, then so am I! And we'll always be freaks and we'll never be like other people. And you'll never be a freak because you're just too perfect.

ANGELA: Oh, yeah? Well, at least I'm not ugly.

RICKY: Yes, you are. And you're boring. And you're totally ordinary. And you know it.

Watch the scene here.

They say we can throw far but they don't know how far we throw.

So I'm back in Aus. And of course the federal election is up for Saturday 21 August.

I'm too overwhelmed to touch the subject, having been out of the country for a while and in the meantime realising Australia's complete meaningless in the grand scheme of the globe.

But no doubt I will attempt a discussion on Gillard vs. Abbott, sometime in the future.

To me they're both evil.

Julia Gillard looks like a puppet. Abbott is just a fool (see previous posts on Abbott).

But fuck politics.

Here are photographs from the old world.

Cookbooks were big in the 70s. Especially Margaret Fulton.

Religion was big, too. Still sort of is.

Of course, the kissing angels.

Vintage.

Blue china.

Listen to 10 Mile Stereo by Beach House here. It is beautiful.

Wanna find myself by the sea in another's company.

Polly.

Polly.

Sunnies.

Flat Rock.

“Jesus, Mary, Muhammad and Vishnu, how good to see you Richard Parker!”

Life of Pi by Yann Martel is a glorious book.

It is about humans, animals, life and spirituality. This is my favourite part:

"I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy."

The Plot:

An Indian family decide to sell their magnificent zoo and move to Canada .They, and their menagerie, board the Tsimtsum, a Japanese cargo ship.

The ship sinks.

Piscine Molitor Patel is the last, and welcome addition to his family. At sixteen years old he is the sole survivor of the sunken cargo ship and has lost his brother, mother and father forever.

Well, I shouldn't say that Pi is the sole survivor.

The lifeboat bobbing on the surface of the blue Pacific also contains a hyena, an orang-utan, a zebra and one 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger, Richard Parker.

Martel's novel is understated, ironic, and despite the dire circumstances of the main protagonist, completely hilarious.

Martel's surrealism carries hints of Marquez and Beckett.

The author claims that Life of Pi will make the reader believe in God.

I read this extraordinary book while travelling through Vietnam and Cambodia. Buddhism and the notion of spirituality are deeply embedded in each of these countries- in the landscape, ancient temples and of course the people. 

Life of Pi did not make me believe in God, or God in the Christian sense.

I don't understand why bad things happen. I don't understand suffering. But I have developed an understanding that there is an omnipotent entity. I don't know if this entity goes by the moniker of Jesus, Muhammad, Vishnu or Buddha.

Or I am maybe being fantastical, unrealistic and overly imaginative.

These are Diana F+ shots of Cambodia and Vietnam, taken from the lomography website.

I woke up early this morning, but I still ain't seen the sun.

Kelis - Millionaire

Where there is cheese there are rats, where ever there are rats there are cats, Where ever there are cats there are dogs. If you got the dogs you got bitches. Bitches always out to put their paws on your riches. If you got riches, you got glitches. If you got glitches in your life computer turn it off and then reboota. Now you back on. Can't just put the cap on the old bottle once you pop it that will spoil it, gone and drink it and enjoy it. Mama I'ma Millionaire.

Fifteen

Do you remember what it was like to be 15? Stashing bottles of Vodka Cruisers under your bed, and pinching Winfields from your creepy uncle? Running around in parks at night and riding bicycles on the beach?
Photographer Ilana Panich-Linsman has captured all this gooey nostalgia in his collection of images.

Bangkok Dangerous

I've had two nights in Bangkok, and I'm not gonna lie, I'm not keen to stay.
The bus from Sihanoukville took about 15 hours in total, and was a highly confusing and disorientating experience.
Although I like the area I am in on Rama 4 Road. It is heaven compared to Khao San Road, which is vortex of debauchery, neon lights and pure filth. 2,000 baht for a tattoo? Are you fuckin kidding me?
I can't really express how it feels to leave my adventure, so I'm not going to try. Cambodia and Vietnam was the best experience ever. All that is making me happy is knowing that I can do this again not one day in the distant future, but soon. I'm thinking India next time.
Here are some beautiful pictures by Jackson Eaton, an Australian self photographer.

Sihanoukville

This is Otress Beach. The quietest, most peaceful beach in Sihanoukville. I wanted to sit on this swing forever.

Life of Pi, really good book. Just about everyone I've met here has read it.

Hippie love.

Taken at Tuol Sleng prison, which was formerly a high school before being turned into a detention centre by the Khymer Rouge in 1975. The K.R. killed 1.5 million Cambodians in their aim to create an agrarian society. They rounded up people they perceived to be intellectuals or against the state and tortured them until they confessed to crimes they didn't commit. They then took them to the Killing Fields, which are not far from the prison. They were shot or clubbed to death.
Sihanoukville is a province in southern Cambodia. It was a military port for the Vietcong and after 1975, during the regime of General Lon Nol it was the service of the United States.

You don't think about what day it is or what time. You simply lie on the beach, cycle around or sit around with strangers who are now friends.

You can easily live off less than $10 a day. Everything becomes less important and you realise the things that you worried about back home don't really mean anything in the broad scheme of things. You also realise that essentially people are the same everywhere. The notion of nationality becomes irrelevant.

After travelling Vietnam and Cambodia for almost six weeks, a lot of the time alone, I have devised three salient rules for myself:

1. Never, ever make eye contact with a dog that looks like it is about to attack you. Same goes for tuk tuk drivers.

2. Smile when people stare at you instead of verbally abusing them, as you would do in Australia. If you smile, they will smile, then you talk to them and you have a new friend.

3. Under no circumstances let valuable possessions out of your sight in public places. Before I left people warned me my backpack would be cut open while I was walking down the street. This is total crap. Don't be scared of people just because they don't speak English. But NEVER leave your shit alone, even if you're the only person in 30 km radius on a deserted beach.
And another...
4. When getting off a motorbike, always get off the left hand side. If you're like me and don't know what an exhaust pipe is... you only need to know one thing, it burns like hell.

Come to Cambodia if you want to feel at peace.

Stand Up

I arrived in Phnom Penh today. My first impression was not good. Before I even got off the bus I had a swarm of tuk tuk drivers staring at me like a vulture stares at its prey. When I disembarked, I was overwhelmed by the number of men shouting at me and shoving signs in my face and trying to grab my bag. One ran up and touched my arm, yelling, "Lady, lady come with me!" A police officer hit him with a stick.

No one had come to pick me up and take me to my hostel, as promised. I told myself not to panic. I would just sit down and figure out what to do, all I needed was a few minutes to get my shit together. But they gathered around me, repeatedly shouting.

"Go away!" I yelled, "Just fuck off!" They laughed and mimicked me.

I was drowning in a swarm of leering men. I didn't have one dollar on me after paying my bill at the hostel in Siem Reap.

Holy mother of God, I thought. What the fuck am I going to do?

Then I heard a female voice behind me. I knew she was Filipino. The slight American accent. "You need help, miss?"

I looked at her and nodded.

"My friend is here. He is tuk tuk driver. We take you where you need to go. Come with me."

And I trusted her because she had a wide, honest face, and she didn't try and grab my bag.

"My name is Linny. I work with a humanitarian organisation here in Phnom Penh."

"Thankyou for helping me, I really appreciate it."

"No problem! No problem at all!"

She told me that her organisation worked with Khymer Rouge soldiers who had become social outcasts after the fall of Pol Pot.

I don't know what I would have done if it wasn't for Linny. Actually I do. I would have stood up, told anyone in my way to get the fuck out of it, and made my way to hostel.

The Prodigy - Stand Up

Cambodia

When I arrived at Siem Reap International airport, it all hit home. I''m in Cambodia, alone.

But I don't think I ever want to leave this country, even though I've only been here for less than forty eight hours.

I went to Angkor Wat today and it left me speechless. I've never been that into historical ruins but this place makes you feel like you're touching history, something thousands of years in the past. It is a huge expanse of temples, which were originally all Hindu, then became Buddhist as well as the centuries went on. There are tall, stone temples that descend into the sky. Steps so steep their almost vertical. Intricate carvings of battles fought and women dancing.

One of the most beautiful places on earth.