by Ning Cai
Copyright © 2012 Ning Cai & Pamela Ho
Cover art: Cover Kitchen
Flip animation concept: Ning Cai
Photography for flip animation: Weili Chua & Kerh Haun Keey
Photography for back cover: Eunice Lim
Published in 2012 by Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International
1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196. Tel: (65) 6213 9300, Fax: (65) 6285 4871. E-mail: [email protected]
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National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Cai, Ning, 1982-
Adventures of 2 girls / Ning Cai, Pamela Ho. – Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions,
2012.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978 981 4408 87 5
1. Cai, Ning, 1982- – Travel. 2. Ho, Pamela, 1970- – Travel. 3. Voyages around the world. 4. Independent travel. 5. Adventure travel. I. Title. II. Ho, Pamela, 1970-
G465
910.41 — dc23 OCN793214245
Printed in Singapore by Chung Printing Pte Ltd
contents
Acknowledgements
Route Map
Foreword by Neil Gaiman
Prologue
1. House of the Sun
2. Molokai Madness
3. Free Fallin’!
4. Trouble in Paradise
5. From Sea to Shining Sea
6. You Were Worth the Wait
7. Greyhound From Hell
8. Voodoo Dolls & Ghostly Whispers
9. B&Bs: The Good, the Bad & the Scary
10. Mes Garçons à Paris
11. Laundry Blues
12. Paris: I love You, I Love You Not
13. Ménage à Trois is Not a Brand of Wine
14. A Kiss is Not a Kiss in Casablanca
15. Maladies in Morocco
16. Hot for Harems
17. Moonshadows & Sandstorms
18. Journey to the Zen-tre of the Earth
19. Accidental Crossings
20. Call of the Wild
21. Joyeux Anniversaire!
22. No Visa, No Go
23. The Heart of Kashmir
24. Conning the Conjurer
25. Legendary Love
26. The Way of the Warrior
27. Ashes to Ashes
28. Sex, Sex, Snap!
29. Bali Bliss
Epilogue
Comics
About the Authors
acknowledgements
Our deepest thanks and appreciation, namaste, , merci beaucoup… to the following amazing people:
The dream team at Marshall Cavendish, especially Melvin, Stephanie, Tammy and Adithi, who have been so patient and encouraging throughout our writing journey. Neil Gaiman, writer extraordinaire and dear friend, for writing our foreword. Our dearest families: Ning’s parents Freddy and Vivien, and sisters Ru and Jia. Pam’s parents Patrick and Diana, sister Desirene, also John, Jeremy, Simon, Doris and Gen for their unconditional support. Our “families at work” who allowed us time to chase our dreams: JC Sum and Adeline Ng of Concept:Magic, and MediaCorp Pte Ltd, especially Gerry Tan, Lee Foong Ming, Chua Siew Lian and Debra Soon.
Our sponsors who helped lift our (financial) burden because we funded this trip with our life-savings: Hertz Singapore, Club Med Singapore, Great Eastern, Timberland Singapore, Puma Singapore, The Planet Traveller, Starbucks Coffee Singapore, Wen Ken Group, Earthling the Outdoor Boutique, KAPAP Academy Singapore, Frommers, Vine Elements Design, Nicely Photography, Kasbah Ennasra (Rissani, Morocco), Pantelia Suites (Santorini, Greece), 88BVR (Oudtshoorn, South Africa), Tissa’s Inn (Kerala, India), Bliss Sanctuary for Women (Bali), Himalaya Holiday Service (Nepal, Bhutan & Tibet) and Cape Town Hiking with Tim Lundy (Cape Town, South Africa).
Also our friends who have supported us in their own capacity, with their generosity and just loads of love: Irene Ang of FLY Entertainment, Alan Okami of KoAloha Ukulele (Hawaii), Michelle Ang, Weili Chua, Lam Ying Keat, Tan Su-Ming, Bryan Oh, Sol Foo, Diane Ho, Alfred Lee, Amos Lim, Cecil Hamilton, Spanky Han, Jas Choo, Kris Kam, Natasha Bournaparte, Marie Liow, Catherine Ho, Shireen Lim, Foo Siang Jeen, Cheryl Kow, Brigette Tan, Bellis Chew, Wong Yan Kit, Eunice Lim, Teo Yew Chye, Qin Yunquan, Deborah Chew, Shaan Moledina-Lim, Theresa Tan, Goh Chun and Samantha Pan, Victoria Yam and George Goh, Michael Chua, Denise Liu, Jo-anne Lee, Lau Joon-Nie, Asha Popatlal, Liew Tong Leng, Yeoh Teik Lee, Bernard Sim, Alexia Khadime (London), our Twitter friends @SideGravy and @sonnyboy808, and all our friends on our Facebook page (facebook.com/adventuresof2girls), Twitter and Instagram.
Not forgetting our awesome friends who opened their homes to us on our journey: Corrinne May and Kavin Hoo (Los Angeles), Cindy and Wijnand (Sunnyvale), Beth Harris aka @scootergirl (New Orleans), Dan Foley (Boston), Adil Ahmad (Kashmir), Jake Shimabukuro’s Grandma (Molokai, Hawaii). And friends who spent time with us in various cities: May Leng Yuen of Cirque du Soliel (Las Vegas), Diane Kwok and Keith Sim (Montreal), Louis Otrowsky (Paris), Angeline Tan and family (Honolulu), Constance Sng and Aries Liao (New York City), Leigh Pasqual (New York City), Sheldon and Sue-Lyn Chuan (London), Jacqueline Yee (Amsterdam), Carole Ng and family (Philadelphia).
Last but not least, we thank You, God. Because without You, everything would not have been possible.
Pam & Ning
September 2012
route map
foreword by Neil Gaiman
I was born in the South of England which is thus, to my mind, the single least exotic and amazing place in the world. Singapore, on the other hand, is a magical, strange and astonishingly exotic world. A city that’s a country that’s practically a state of mind. It’s extremely hot, and filled with people who want to feed me wonderful-tasting things.
(I do not know why they want to feed me. All I know is that when I go to Singapore people give me amazing things to eat that I have never eaten before, which they produce from brown paper bags. On my first visit I suspected them of something sinister: possibly even of fattening me up for the kill. Now I just enjoy it.)
I’ve been to Singapore twice. The last time I was there I found myself being interviewed. The interviewer had an friend with her who looked peculiarly familiar. Oh, right. She was the nice photographer from the first time I was in Singapore, and she seemed thrilled that I remembered her (she was easy to remember, being astonishingly beautiful). The interviewer was funny and smart and charming and she immediately produced a succession of brown paper bags containing amazing-tasting things I had never eaten befo
re and began feeding them to me. The charming interviewer with the paper bags was Pamela Ho, and the astonishingly beautiful lady was Ning.
Mostly what I remember was that it didn’t feel like an interview, more like three new friends talking and having a good time, not to mention eating things from brown paper bags. I invited them to Amanda Palmer’s gig that night, and we spoke more, and somewhere in there I discovered that Ning was not just a former photographer and full-time interviewer’s friend, but was also an international star of magic and illusion. I started following them on Twitter and on Facebook, and I was one of their followers and readers as they took their hearts in their hands and their life savings and set off around the world. I loved the photographs and snippets they posted.
When they sent me the manuscript for the book of their travels, I was eager to read it, and was delighted by it. Pam and Ning have two very different voices and ways of describing the world but they are both on the same journey, and whether they are locked out of a house in their underwear in Hawaii, enduring a Greyhound experience in Chicago, dealing with ghosts in New Orleans, evil landladies and Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, surviving an attempted robbery in Morocco or dealing with shady tuk tuk drivers in Agra, we are on the journey with them. And while they see and tell us about remarkable things – things and places familiar to me as well as those I’ve never experienced before – what I enjoyed most was feeling, as I read, that I was spending time with two very different people with two very different points of view, that I was learning about a friendship, that I was seeing the world along with them.
Also, they are very funny, particularly when things go wrong. And things definitely go wrong.
My only regret is that they never made it to the South of England, because I would have loved to have seen my familiar, dull world through their eyes. I suspect it might even, if viewed properly, be as exotic and magical as Singapore.
Neil Gaiman
September 2012
prologue
NING
‘Magic Babe’ Ning is the side of me that most people are familiar with. My fire-eating corset-wearing alter ego does death-defying stunts such as Houdini’s upside-down straitjacket escapes, sets world records, makes the news with mega illusions and very often, gets requests from people to make their mother-in-law or boss disappear. Sorry, but I don’t do requests.
The thing is, most people don’t actually know Ning. My childhood wasn’t a magical one and despite the stereotype that full-time artistes in Singapore are usually born into rich families, the truth is I had to work my way through school.
I paid for my own Cambridge O-Level exam fees in Secondary 4, put myself through film school in Ngee Ann Polytechnic and then my part-time Communications degree from RMIT at SIM. I held a host of part-time jobs, from selling my Dad’s curry puffs at pasar malams (night markets) to selling computers at the ever-popular IT fairs, promoting external hard drives at Funan the IT mall, being a barmaid/ greeter/ telemarketer/ tuition teacher/ online magic shop owner/ shopping mall marketing executive/assistant PR manager at a boutique agency… I’ve done them all.
This tough cookie’s been around the block and picked up the strangest skills from all over, but these experiences have helped me blossom into the fiercely independent woman I am today.
Being a successful woman in a traditionally male-dominated industry isn’t easy. I’ve been called an over-achiever and workaholic for good reason. I’ve fought damn hard for everything that I have today and I’m not about to rest on my laurels. Work is my life. It’s all I know.
PAM
In 2006, I found myself at a major crossroad in life. Everything that I’d thought was stable and strong and true in my life collapsed in one moment. I was 36, a mother of (then) 5-year-old twin boys, and a freelance writer working from home.
But as much as I was tempted to see myself as a victim in a failed marriage, I knew that I contributed to it, although at that point, I couldn’t see how it could have crumbled. I didn’t even see the cracks on the wall.
What was perhaps tougher than what was gone, was what remained – images in my head of the two of us growing old together, travelling the world together, writing a book, having “devil curry” Christmas dinners with our grandchildren, retiring by the sea in Bali…
I had to tear out those shared dreams from the photo album in my head. But they were still vivid and in full colour. He was so much a part of me that I had to forcefully rip him out from every fibre of my being. And I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t know where to begin.
As much as my heart was breaking, I didn’t have the space to grieve. His moving out left me alone with the boys, who were still their oblivious happy selves. I couldn’t bear to burden them with my grief, so I pretended to be fine, forcing a smile to my lips every morning before I stepped out of the bedroom. But inside, I was dying. I had never felt so alone and helpless in my life.
I remember one night, when the boys were fast asleep in the next room, the pain that had been pressed down like a rubber ball under water bobbed forcefully to the surface. All the loneliness, anger, remorse and fear exploded through my body; radiating to my fingertips.
I had never felt emotional pain physically before. It was a million times worse than being hit by a truck (not that I’ve been hit by a truck before)… but I am pretty sure it’s worse because you don’t die instantly.
The sound of my own sobbing and the violent shaking of my body were so alien to me that it scared the shit out of me. I had never seen myself behave that way before.
I forced myself to stop. Enough is enough, I told myself. Suck it up! Life simply has to go on. And so the next day, I looked for a job.
* * *
I immersed myself in work for the next couple of years. My life revolved around work and my boys. I was Deputy Editor of a women’s magazine called Vanilla, and clinched four Journalism Awards, including a nomination for “Feature Story of the Year” at the 2008 MediaCorp News Awards. It was in those publishing years that I first met Ning. I interviewed her for a cover story and we quickly hit it off.
At the time, I had deliberately cut myself off from the close clique of mutual friends my ex and I shared, because it was just too painful to be around them. In my feeble attempt to heal and to cope, I freed up a “friendship space” in my life and started to build a whole new network of friends who didn’t know about my past, and who didn’t know him.
Ning slid right into my life at that time. Both of us had odd schedules, with her night gigs as a professional magician and me in editorial. Often, at the end of a long day, we’d chat on MSN Messenger just to unwind. We shared with each other the ups and downs of work and our thoughts about life, but mostly, we just talked nonsense and laughed a lot.
I guess you can say we became the closest of friends because circumstances led us there. It was like the universe orchestrated it.
It was also around this time that I took a bold step to switch to a completely different broadcast medium: Radio. As a Senior Producer-Presenter with 938LIVE, I co-hosted The Living Room, Singapore’s longest-running talk show on English radio. It was nuts, but I’ve always been a learn-in-the deep-end sort of person and a lover of unexpected madness! Work never felt like work to me. I couldn’t believe that I was paid to chat with fascinating people every day.
But the big 4-0 was looming ahead.
When writing all those inspiring stories (for Vanilla magazine) of ordinary women taking risks to do extraordinary things, I knew I wanted to do something significant to mark my 40th birthday. Belinda “Buzzi” Foo’s story inspired me because when she turned 40, she did a triathlon. I always thought I’d follow in her footsteps, until I realised there was one slight problem: I don’t run long distance, own a bike, or swim in the ocean.
And if I were to be truly honest with myself, the one thing closest to my heart wasn’t to do a triathlon, but to see the world. So there I was, on the brink of 40, feeling a restlessness to do something significant with my
life.
It was in that restless, reflective frame of mind that I picked up a DVD of the 2007 movie, The Bucket List, which was recommended by my good friend Su-Ming, aka Dr Su. The movie was about two terminally-ill men (played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) making a pact to do what they had always wanted to do in life, but had yet to accomplish. In other words, to tick off items on their to-do lists before they kicked the bucket – bucket lists!
The story struck a chord in me, and it reverberated throughout my entire being. What had become of the plans and dreams for my life? Did I really want to wait till I was on my deathbed before I started chasing them?
NING
One evening, the BFF (Best Friend Forever) came over to my bachelorette pad with The Bucket List. The bromance movie was sweet, and it got us talking about our own bucket lists.
Pam wished that she could travel the world. When asked, I said I was happy and content, but the tough journalist squeezed out a dream from me; a far distant memory from before… to be a published writer.
Back in film school, everyone had thought that I was on my way to becoming a producer/ writer after graduation, especially since I was awarded the prestigious The Right Angle scholarship after garnering eight distinctions and writing awards one semester. But that didn’t happen because the local film industry just wasn’t flourishing well enough and I was the sole breadwinner of my family.
“And in a world without consequence, I’d fly to Paris and live there for months, to study the fine art of French patisserie at Le Cordon Bleu,” I grinned at my Baby Belling oven gleaming proudly from my kitchenette. “… even though the only things I really know how to make are Betty Crocker pre-mix cookies and experimental DIY marshmallows.”
“Hah!” The BFF clasped her hands together as her eyes gleamed. “You’ll have to speak French, everyone knows how proud they are of their language.”