The Further Adventures of An Idiot Abroad. Karl Pilkington
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so God knows how it would feel on their arses.
I tried it but I seemed to be too heavy to glide. So I tried using my feet to push a little bit but I ended up just looking like a dog wiping its itchy arse on grass.
Three middle-aged blokes arse-boarding on the side of a volcano: it was like a scene from Last of the Summer Wine. Albi was laughing to himself and loving every minute of it. All this did was back up my opinion that if people don’t have much to do, most will opt for arsing about. Literally.
This act of walking on fire has existed for thousands of years and is practised by cultures all across the world as a rite of passage into adulthood. I imagine most of the people who do this are like JJ and Albi who wander about all day barefoot which means their feet are tougher. When I got in the back of the van with Albi I noticed the skin on the bottom of his feet had hardened from having no protection from shoes. His toes were nice and straight though. I reckon Albi could walk on broken glass and not flinch. I tickled his feet when he wasn’t looking and he didn’t even notice. Another example of how modern living is making us a little bit weaker. My feet can’t even handle under-floor heating.
Thinking back, even though I was a bit worried on the edge of the volcano I’d say it was my favourite thing on this trip.
STEPHEN: Alright, Karl, by now you should have met quite a few of the happy islanders in Vanuatu, and I hope you’re starting to get a sense of what it really means to be an island dweller because it’s time to take it to another level, mate. One more plane ride to the remote island of Malakula where we’ve found you your very own Man Friday who’ll take you to your desert island and teach you all the survival skills you’ll need.
Another plane, a long drive, a pick-up of a pig from a farm (a payment for the tribe teaching me survival skills), and a boat on quite a rough ocean later, I was in Malakula.
Since being back at home I’ve found out that Malakula was named by Captain James Cook. It comes from the French mal au cul which means ‘pain in the arse’ after Cook found it difficult to deal with cannibals, volcanoes and other annoying features. It’s good to know proper explorers sometimes share the feelings I have on my travels. I remember feeling a bit like Captain Cook at this point in the trip. The whole reason why I picked the night on a desert island was because I like peace and quiet and my own company. I hadn’t really had any time to myself since leaving England, and it was difficult to have a bit of ‘me’ time while being here as the people of Vanuatu never seem to spend time on their own.
I got off the boat, and there was the chief stood with a stick, feathers sprouting from his head, wearing a nambas with flip flops. Again, if they can buy flip flops, they can buy a pair of pants, surely. The chief’s nambas was not made of wicker like Albi’s and JJ’s. It was made of leaves and looked like a cross between some sort of Thai starter and a spec case. Clothes normally help you to guess the age of people, so I was struggling to guess the age of most people while in Vanuatu. I tried to see how low the men’s testicles hung as a guide. The lower they hang, the older the man. For women I used the same technique but with their breasts. By using this guide I’d say the chief was around 40.
As he led us up to where he lived the the rain came down. We walked and talked. He told me they speak the language of Ninde. He said everything begins with the letter ‘n’. It’s at times like this I wonder if they make things up to joke around with tourists like me. A palm tree he pointed to was called a Nimdimdip, we saw Naho, which is a fruit, and he pointed out a leaf that was called Nooholee. I said that playing I-Spy here would be tough as you’d be guessing all day. He agreed.
We then stopped at an area where he explained that people lay. At first I thought he meant to relax or to have it away with their partner, but then I saw a load of bones and realised he meant where dead bodies lay. I saw a skull and asked whose head it was. Quick as a flash, he said, ‘Nicola’, as if showing me a photograph. I would’ve understand it more if it had been the head of some ancient chief or something, but the name Nicola isn’t usually the name of a leader. Maybe having everything beginning with the letter ‘n’ makes it easy to remember things. I thought it would be odd to see the skull of someone I knew.
We got to the village. It was really nice. The gardens were like something in a royal park. The chief took me to a wooden hut where I would be staying the night. It was basic but would do the job of keeping me dry. They had also installed a wooden toilet over a pit, which I think was built especially for me as it looked unused. This was how they showed their wealth. It wasn’t about how much they had for themselves, it was more about how much they could give to others. He told me meat and kava would be served soon. I set out my sleeping bag on the floor, put up a mossy net while there was still light and hung up my socks and trousers to dry before joining everyone at the communal eating area.
All the men were sat around chatting. A few set about making some kava, a drink made from the kava plant roots. They ground the plant with some water from the stream. After an hour of bashing the root with a wooden pole they had created a washing-up bowl full of grey kava. They poured me some first, as I was the guest. It tasted like soap and made my tongue numb, which at least made it easier to drink the rest. My taste buds were off their tits.
Apparently 5 million people attend Oktoberfest every year. I like the odd beer but not with 5 million other people. Imagine the queue at the bar. I’m happy having a night out with maybe three others but soon as you’re having to push tables together and use a notepad and pen to make a note of what people want to drink – it’s too many. I’ve only done it once or twice but I didn’t enjoy it. The saying used to be ‘two’s company, three’s a crowd’. I wasn’t sure if I was on a night out or on some sort of protest march. I remember having to announce I was going home forty minutes before I wanted to go to allow time to say goodbye to everyone even though I hadn’t actually had time to say hello to them as there were so many bloody people. Never again.
No women were present. In all the time I was there I didn’t see the men and women mix. Nicola’s dead head was the closest I saw the chief get to a woman.
The chief was sat on a log chatting on his mobile phone, a sight I’d still not become accustomed to, even though each tribe I’d met since being here seemed to have them. It struck me as odd that a man who’s a chief, wears feathers and has skulls of friends in his garden has a pay-as-you-go mobile. He must get sales calls from people trying to sell him things he doesn’t even know exist.
I ate some meat that I’m sure was nice, but I couldn’t taste it ’cos of the kava. I went to bed.
I remember waking up and feeling impatient. I just wanted to be introduced to my Man Friday, get to my island and experience what I had come to experience. It was the same feeling you get the day after a wedding when you’ve stayed in the same hotel all the other guests have stayed in and you feel like you have to continue the celebrations over breakfast with strangers you’re never likely to meet again.
I had a wash in the freshwater stream, and then Luke told me that I had to go and meet the chief who would introduce me to his son. He was the man who would be teaching me the survival skills on my remote island. He then said the chief would be expecting me to wear the traditional dress of the nambas. I said, ‘Not a chance.’ It annoyed me that he expected me to wear one. I’d been keeping myself well covered and taking malaria tablets all week, and now he wanted me to walk about with only my knob covered? It didn’t make sense with all the mosquitoes around. I wanted to learn skills like Ray Mears and Bear Grylls, but this was turning more into How to Look Good Naked with Gok Wan.
Luke said it was a sign of respect, but I didn’t understand why getting my bollocks out would show