Cross
, and stayed there for two days. We didn’t even have to get in
the dinghy, we could sit on the yachts and watch them eating, eating and eating. Called pygmy elephants, they are considerably smaller than their Asian cousins but they are not tiny, like their
name might suggest. There were calves that were probably about my height, and full-sized adults with and without tusks. When they weren’t eating they were bathing. I don’t know when
they slept because after dark Debs and I went closer in her dinghy and they were still wide awake, and eating. Their eyes shone white in the light of our torch but they didn’t mind us and
didn’t stop munching on their midnight snacks. Their trumpeting calls and bellows echoed through the jungle, competing with the hornbills for the loudest cry. The tourist boats didn’t
faze them much, either. They seemed to be on a bit of a mission to eat up all of the available grass in that area before moving on. Now I had seen how narrow the forest was I understood why
reported sightings of them were so frequent and why they didn’t just go deeper into the vegetation to avoid humans. They had little choice but to plod up and down this small promenade,
hunting out what food they could, putting up with the paparazzi and being chased along the banks by over-eager tourists who jumped out of their boats.
The excitement of elephant hunting over, things turned a bit more introspective on the boat. In the middle of the night I would wake up to go to the toilet to find Steve on his computer in the
cockpit, emailing his women, trying to strike up a relationship across thousands of miles. Flies would swarm around him and the laptop, attracted by the light of the screen.
I asked him if he was having any luck.
‘Four attempts have been failures now,’ he said.
‘Am I a “failure”?’ I made quotation marks in the air with my fingers.
He said nothing, just gave me a look over the top of his reading glasses, like a stern schoolteacher telling me off for being dim.
The next afternoon, trying to be helpful, I suggested he could rewrite his advert to make it more obvious that he was looking to meet a long-term partner.
‘Your original ad was a bit ambiguous,’ I pointed out.
‘What? What was ambiguous about it? Why didn’t you realise I was looking for a girlfriend?’ he demanded.
‘You said you wanted someone to come “for fun or something more”. That doesn’t necessarily mean a relationship.’
He handed me a printout of the reply I had sent to his advert. I took the paper and read it, wondering how he had a printed out copy of a message sent five months earlier, what was going on and
why I felt a bit like I was being ambushed. In the email I had introduced myself and written mainly about sailing, stating what I had done and what my level of experience was. It wasn’t
formal like a job application; it was friendly and chatty, but there was no flirting or innuendo. At least none that I’d intended.
I tried to point that out to him but he didn’t believe me.
So much for the tense atmosphere dissipating. Now it was as thick as fog. Next up was a question about how if I wanted a boyfriend ‘so badly’, I wasn’t able to ‘let
myself go’ and be with him.
‘What?’ I said. ‘What do you mean I want a boyfriend badly? When have I ever said that? Not everything is about looking for a boyfriend. I didn’t come away to look for a
boyfriend. That’s you. That’s what you’re doing. You want a girlfriend so badly it influences everything you do. But I’m not like that. If it happens, it happens.’ I
had joined
Kingdom
looking for excitement, for travel, for something completely different from life back home. All joking about hot sailors aside, that was why I had replied to
Steve’s advert.
His eyes widened in disbelief and then his expression changed to a sneer. ‘Oh, and while we’re on the subject,’ he went on, ‘isn’t it convenient that you
, and stayed there for two days. We didn’t even have to get in
the dinghy, we could sit on the yachts and watch them eating, eating and eating. Called pygmy elephants, they are considerably smaller than their Asian cousins but they are not tiny, like their
name might suggest. There were calves that were probably about my height, and full-sized adults with and without tusks. When they weren’t eating they were bathing. I don’t know when
they slept because after dark Debs and I went closer in her dinghy and they were still wide awake, and eating. Their eyes shone white in the light of our torch but they didn’t mind us and
didn’t stop munching on their midnight snacks. Their trumpeting calls and bellows echoed through the jungle, competing with the hornbills for the loudest cry. The tourist boats didn’t
faze them much, either. They seemed to be on a bit of a mission to eat up all of the available grass in that area before moving on. Now I had seen how narrow the forest was I understood why
reported sightings of them were so frequent and why they didn’t just go deeper into the vegetation to avoid humans. They had little choice but to plod up and down this small promenade,
hunting out what food they could, putting up with the paparazzi and being chased along the banks by over-eager tourists who jumped out of their boats.
The excitement of elephant hunting over, things turned a bit more introspective on the boat. In the middle of the night I would wake up to go to the toilet to find Steve on his computer in the
cockpit, emailing his women, trying to strike up a relationship across thousands of miles. Flies would swarm around him and the laptop, attracted by the light of the screen.
I asked him if he was having any luck.
‘Four attempts have been failures now,’ he said.
‘Am I a “failure”?’ I made quotation marks in the air with my fingers.
He said nothing, just gave me a look over the top of his reading glasses, like a stern schoolteacher telling me off for being dim.
The next afternoon, trying to be helpful, I suggested he could rewrite his advert to make it more obvious that he was looking to meet a long-term partner.
‘Your original ad was a bit ambiguous,’ I pointed out.
‘What? What was ambiguous about it? Why didn’t you realise I was looking for a girlfriend?’ he demanded.
‘You said you wanted someone to come “for fun or something more”. That doesn’t necessarily mean a relationship.’
He handed me a printout of the reply I had sent to his advert. I took the paper and read it, wondering how he had a printed out copy of a message sent five months earlier, what was going on and
why I felt a bit like I was being ambushed. In the email I had introduced myself and written mainly about sailing, stating what I had done and what my level of experience was. It wasn’t
formal like a job application; it was friendly and chatty, but there was no flirting or innuendo. At least none that I’d intended.
I tried to point that out to him but he didn’t believe me.
So much for the tense atmosphere dissipating. Now it was as thick as fog. Next up was a question about how if I wanted a boyfriend ‘so badly’, I wasn’t able to ‘let
myself go’ and be with him.
‘What?’ I said. ‘What do you mean I want a boyfriend badly? When have I ever said that? Not everything is about looking for a boyfriend. I didn’t come away to look for a
boyfriend. That’s you. That’s what you’re doing. You want a girlfriend so badly it influences everything you do. But I’m not like that. If it happens, it happens.’ I
had joined
Kingdom
looking for excitement, for travel, for something completely different from life back home. All joking about hot sailors aside, that was why I had replied to
Steve’s advert.
His eyes widened in disbelief and then his expression changed to a sneer. ‘Oh, and while we’re on the subject,’ he went on, ‘isn’t it convenient that you
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