Sue Perkins - East of Croydon: Blunderings through India and South East Asia

Sue Perkins

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EAST OF CROYDON

UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia

India | New Zealand | South Africa

Michael Joseph is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

First published 2018

Copyright Sue Perkins, 2018

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Jacket design by Kate Barsby

The documentaries mentioned in this book are The Mekong River with Sue Perkins, and Kolkata with Sue Perkins, both produced by Indus Films, and The Ganges with Sue Perkins, produced by Folk Films. All broadcast by the BBC.

ISBN: 978-1-405-93815-0

For Dad
in the deep hearts core

If you never did you should these things are fun and fun is good.

Dr Seuss

I am deep within the forest, the raw heat of the day softened by the canopy above. The man in front of me is swaying, a gobbet of raw pigs liver hanging from his ear. Another man, to his left, has what looks like a piece of lung adorning his fringe. As I draw nearer, someone flicks a bit of kidney in my direction, which hits the white of my eye and bounces off again. Nearer still and the tribesmen rush to adorn my shoulders with offal, a ventricle here, a pancreas there. I think I can make out a spleen on my shirt collar, but am not sure. I was never any good at biology.

I am the only sober person in the forest.

Further offerings are made to the spirits, to the ancestors they believe inhabit this ancient land. A bubbling handful of intestines is respectfully arranged on a makeshift shrine. Men, and it is only men here, bob and bow though Im not sure whether this is down to reverence or simple intoxication.

The village elder is sitting next to a giant bottle, the glass stained with green fur. Inside is a strange liquid which smells like a holy trinity of gasoline, semen and Pimms. For all I know, it may well contain all three. One by one, the celebrants are invited to suck on the thick pipe that snakes from the murk. Some cough into the bottle as they drink. Some spit. Finally, the chief stares in my direction, his eyes glazed with grog. He beckons me over.

It is my turn.

The crew are some distance away, shooting on a long lens. I look towards them. Its the look of a woman who is about to cross every health and safety threshold she once held dear; a woman about to be exposed to the full spectrum of gastro-intestinal diseases known to man, and a few hitherto yet unidentified by medical science. Its a look that simply says, Help me.

I know that a choice is presenting itself. I can play the squeamish Westerner, protect the delicate flora of my intestinal tract and offend a bunch of festive animists. Or I can be another person, a different Susan a fearless explorer, embracing with open hands and open heart a strange new world.

I know the sort of person I am. So I try to be the opposite.

I steel myself. It is simply a case of mind over matter. I accept the blessings of the forest. I accept the glistening unknown in the vat beneath. I accept it all. Then, as I bend towards the liquid, breathing in its oily reek, someone leans over and pops a chunk of pig bowel on the end of the straw.

And I drink.

I am unaware of the global outreach of the Pimms brand, but I am reliably informed the other two ingredients are readily available in South East Asia.

Mum had never been to Spain before, so Id be interested to know what she was comparing it with.

Once, in Menorca, I got dared to jump off a vertical cliff face some thirty metres above the sea. I did. As the saying goes, how you fall doesnt matter. Its how you land. I hit the water at an odd angle and shattered my coccyx.

At this point in my life I measured everything in packets of Marlboro Lights.

My mum possesses 1950s America levels of paranoia. Kim Jong-un levels of paranoia. She lives in an almost permanent high-tensile state of red alert. In the winter just gone, there was an article about raisin shortages. She went to Morrisons and bought SEVEN KILOS of them. Why? Because her friend Margaret likes to make fruit cakes. Go figure.

I am not qualified:

1. I am a child myself.

2. I have no qualities that would inspire or motivate a young person.

3. I have attention issues, which means my mind is even more likely to wander during a lesson than my pupils

I know, this is the perfect name for a monk, right? With a name like Om he was never going to be anything else.

Not literally. I meant in his earlier life. In his previous life, he was a goose.

Claire was the brilliant director on this second shoot. She is super bright and super cool. She once told me that she had never seen someone attack a buffet with as much vigour as I did. I took that as a compliment.

I managed this until the end of the day, then spent the whole evening thinking about it.

A breakdown of this study reveals 10 per cent Renaissance Literature, 10 per cent Greek Tragedy, 40 per cent gossip, 35 per cent scones, 5 per cent marijuana.

Thank God for Steve and co. Of course they had checked on my behalf, and all was well.

I am aware that this view is entirely my mothers and is not backed up by either personal experience or medical science.

Once again, I display the worst traits of Ann and Bert. I am both cavalier and lacking in self-care. What a winning combination.

Lucy was our fabulous director on this third shoot. She is so wonderfully mellow she should be prescribed on the NHS for people suffering with anxiety.

As I write this, news is breaking about the collapse of an auxiliary dam at the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy plant. We may never know how many innocent people have lost their lives as a result.

I have only ever had two casting calls in my life.

I am actually interested in Booze World. Id definitely visit there.

Potential visitors should note that this decapitation ritual is not performed 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. every day including weekends.

There had been the outside possibility of a two-week trek on horseback and foot but I cant find my car keys most days, so the idea I was going to beat the expeditionary teams of some of the greatest scientific powers in the world was well, somewhat unlikely.

They are not that brief. The last phase has been going on since 1987.

Steve requested that in order to use this anecdote I put this bit in.

Dad has Charles Bonnet Syndrome, which can be one of the symptoms of a glioblastoma. Imaginary dark shapes appear from nowhere. They usually take the form of rats, but later he sees shadowy figures walking past him.