Passport to Life

By Dennis Coughlin

When I split with my wife ten years ago, my antidote for the resulting feeling of loss and the negative emotions that a marriage breakup engenders was to be dramatically life altering. At the age of fifty-five I planned to teach English in Asia and South America. However, the road from plan to realization was littered with mental and physical obstacles, some of which almost proved fatal.

Somehow surving these setbacks, I completed my quest by backpacking through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, South America, Central America, and Burma. This is a tale about my physical, emotional, and psychological journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477230947

Dennis Coughlin

I am sixty-four working in a pastoral role with a cluster of inner-city schools in Cardiff, South Wales (UK). When I split with my wife ten years ago, my antidote for the resulting feeling of loss and the negative emotions that a marriage breakup engenders was to be dramatically life altering. I planned to teach English in Vietnam and Ecuador. However, the road from plan to realization was littered with obstacles, some of which almost proved fatal. Eventually cured, I completed my recovery by backpacking through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, South America, Central America, and Burma. This a tale about my physical, emotional, and psychological journey.

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© 2013 by Dennis Coughlin. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/19/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3093-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3092-3 (hc)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

By Jove I’ve Done It

Flunking at Harrow

Day Trip to China

From Suburbia to Bohemia

Gizza a Job

My Cul-de-Sac of the Mad

I Fought the Law and… Drew

Sleepless in Saigon

At Last They Certified Me

A Spot of R & R

Miss Chi Gives Me My Big Break

You’re on Your Own Kid

Barmaid My Wife Doesn’t Understand Me

Spend a Bit Save a Bit

A Welcome Visitation from the North

Cambodia Revisited

Contentment at Last

Sweet Sorrow

A Stroke of Bad Luck

Off to See Uncle Ho

Feeling Lousy in Laos

OK Doc Give It To Me Straight

Welcome To Cuenca

House Hunting

Jima—Estupendo

Embracing Polite Quencan Society

Jumping Freight in Rio

Self-Destructing in Peru

Cusco

Titicaca

I Know How You Feel Mate

Breathtaking La Paz

The White City

Flight of the Condor

I Left My Heart in Lima… . Along With Two Cameras, a Rucksack, My Specs, Bus Tickets, Photos, My Sanity, The Will to Live…

My Night of Smack-head Debauchery

Hi Y’all

Tear Gas, Bombs and Revolution

Blackboard Jungle

Heading Home—The Scenic Route

Let The Journey Begin

San Pedro de Atacama

And It Was All Going So Well

Move Over Darling

The Road To Infinity

On The Whole I’d Rather Be In Philadelphia

I’m At The Bottom of The World Ma

Camera No. 4?—It’s Toast Mate

Croeso y Chebut

Puerto Madryn

Buenos Aires

David Lynch Meets Salvador Dahli

Music To My Ears

No Country For Old Men

Right, So Where Was I?

Tricky Dickie’s Legacy

Luang Prabang

Me, Two Old Sweats and the Blonde

Chang Mai and Bangkok

Burmese Days

Hit The Road Jack

Where The Flyin’ Fishes Play

Brief Encounter

Affection For The Disaffected

Central America? No Sweat

Bates’ Motel

How To Coban Survive

A Bit of Slap In Tikal

Zapatista Revolution

Not Only Is Your Belch Pardoned, Your Sins Are Too!

There Aint No Mountain I

Can’t Climb… . Oh Yeah?

TGA By Any Other Name Would Smell

Brothers in Arms

Laid Waste in Granada

Colon: A Critique

New York, New York, My Kinda Town

Latin American Fever

All’s Well That Ends Well

Front Cover:

Children in a remote Muang village in Laos surrounded by murderous weaponry from the Vietnam War. The bomb casings are now used for house stilts, animal feeding troughs in the fields and for growing vegetables.

Back Cover:

My class after an impromptu English lesson in the centre of Lima, Peru.

By Jove I’ve Done It

Unless you experience the tangible immediacy of placing a Union Flag at the top of Everest or scoring a winning goal in a cup final the euphoria of realising a treasured dream or reaching a somewhat unlikely objective sometimes passes you by in the act of achieving it. This phenomenon dawned on me as I stood at the back of my English class. As I looked at the whiteboard in the distance, with my words and arrows looking like a map of the D-Day landings and despite the fact I had been teaching for a month, it was only at that moment of realisation I thought to myself. I have actually done it

It was several years earlier when I planned a dramatic life-altering move to avoid or at least delay my suicide. At that time I was drawing up a blueprint to create a new challenging and exciting lifestyle and I had an image engraved on my consciousness of me standing, chalk in hand, in front of young students in an exotic location in Asia. I now walked through the desks where about twenty young Vietnamese teenagers were scratching away with their pens amongst their whispered asides and then drew their attention to the answers of the exercise I had set. I deliberately took up the classical teacher’s pose of facing the board then eliciting answers looking over my writing arm. I was recreating the stance I had imagined when the first seeds of what, at the time, seemed to be a rather whimsical and fanciful notion, first took root. The fact that in the intervening years the journey from plan to realisation was so tortuous and psychologically damaging that with my feeling of inevitable self destruction I searched suicide websites, added to my sense of achievement.

Less than two years earlier, at the age of fifty five, I was faced with the prospect of leaving the family home to live alone in rented accommodation which I knew would be fatal. The reason for my planned self-inflicted demise was unremarkably common… a woman, my wife, from whom I am devastatingly divorced plus the thought of what should have been, if not with her, with somebody else, dominated my consciousness through dark, silent, and often tormented nights.

The reasons for my eventual survival was the thought of the resulting trauma and stigma inherited by my son specifically, family in general, the choice of modus operandi, and the fact that eventually after many trials and tribulations I found meaning and incentive to carry on. During my darkest moments I had settled on checking into a hotel and taking an overdose washed down with a fine claret in fresh underwear. Hotel staff are trained to be unruffled by such discoveries. However having looked into the matter it seems that an overdose can cause severe vomiting and embarrassing survival. Even worse a coma rather than death could result, leaving me in a permanent vegetative state. A car exhaust pipe was my second choice but that would have involved being found up a country lane by an unsuspecting member of the public, maybe a child. I had no intention of dramatically throwing myself from a cliff or standing in front of a train, apart from the involvement with others, I intended to end up supine with my arms across my chest and all my features serenely intact. I was involved in a conversation about mushrooms when a work colleague informed a group of us that there is a specie of magic mushrooms that if more than the allotted amount that creates hallucinations is consumed, it becomes fatal. I intended to investigate further.

I’m not flippant about suicide and I am sensitive to desperate people who end their lives, especially the young and those often in a state of violent frenzy. Others are more measured, objective and reasoned. Some do not want to live on after the death of their partner, often going together. I considered myself in this group. In arguably the best film of all time, It’s a Wonderful Life, the morally upstanding character played by James Stuart is saved from suicide by the love of his wife, family and home. What happens if the home is a single rented flat after rejection from your wife? Jimmy, I believe, would have jumped in similar circumstances. The result of broken relationships is manifested in various ways and the most dramatic reactions seem to affect men mainly, where extreme violence is often involved against their partners, themselves and even their children. Often youngish and successful men who seem to have so much are ruined in moments of madness driven over the edge by these extreme violent emotions. They are young enough to start again. At fifty five my time had gone.

Because my suicidal ambitions couldn’t be realised immediately after my marriage break up I decided, with some planning, to avoid the worst immediate after-effects of bed-sit blues and self pity by creating a dramatic and exotic lifestyle of travel and adventure. Despite my advanced years I decided to run away to the other side of the world to teach English. It would be my Foreign Legion. I was to plunge myself into new challenges and adventures away from the source of my misery and hopefully forget. I wanted to see the world before, at my own hand, I departed from it.

I had been a director of a small printing business for twelve years after working for a multi-national company for seventeen years so this would be a drastic move, although of course I had no plans for longevity as I was just filling in time living day by day. Leaving the family home at the end of 2002 with the shock of impending divorce and separation from my teenage son, plus the prospect of a single life in a one-bedroom apartment with old age beckoning, I needed this spectacularly positive response. My marriage had become loveless and sexless for some years so the timing of my exit was mine to choose. I waited until my son was mature enough before I put my plan of action into force, starting by securing a TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) qualification which along with my Open University Degree more or less guaranteed a job abroad. This life-changing move was inspired by my life-long lust for travel and my interest in the English language. As I considered I had a good understanding of English I chose the most demanding and respected of TEFL courses which was CELTA under the auspices of Cambridge University.

Firstly I had to explain my leaving to my seventeen year old son, Ben. I had maintained a level of normality and civility at home but at seventeen he must have realised that his Mum and Dad would be expected to share the same bed. I decided I would ease him through in stages by just telling him I was to work in Asia for a while so that he could get used to me not being around. The permanency of my move would be put off until a later date. He thought working in somewhere like China was cool and was quite relaxed about the change of circumstances.

Although I was at a low ebb my remaining few years would be full of travel and adventure. What could possibly go wrong? There’s a line from a favourite song of mine that goes When you think you’ve lost everything you can always lose a little more. Well I lost a lot more in my initial attempts as one disaster followed another. You would expect that after my situation becoming even worse I would be pushed over the edge but I instinctively rallied to overcome these setbacks. My self esteem had always been high as I had nothing of which to be ashamed. I had after all been a victim of circumstance. I certainly had no intention of casting off my mortal coil in the midst of failure.

Flunking at Harrow

There are many schools and colleges around the country that offer a variety of TEFL courses and I chose Harrow House in Swanage because it was a large Edwardian building in a beautiful location. I arrived in a confident, bullish mood looking forward to meeting new people and to learn the intricacies of the English language. I assumed I would take the course in my stride and be amongst the leading lights of the class. I did well in the Literature module of my OU degree, had a knowledge of split infinitives and I never ended a sentence with a preposition. It was upon this I based my confidence.

There were about a dozen students including me with three men, including a retired naval officer. Several of the course members had already gained experience in teaching abroad but wanted the prized CELTA certificate.

After the first day it was clear the standard of the three rotating lecturers was exceptional. Over the next few days I was very impressed with the course structure and the vitality of our tutors. There was a huge workload and an intensity that I had never experienced on any other course. There was a lot more to the English language than I realised. In fact I printed a list of definitions of grammar terms and topics and it filled forty-four pages, and this wasn’t fully comprehensive. Every other day each of us taught a class comprised of foreign students domiciled at the school. Standing in front of a class or any group of people doesn’t faze me so long as I’m reasonably prepared. The lecturers and selected members of our class sat at the back with clip boards scribbling down comments for a post lesson critique. This debrief was often brutal and seemed on occasions pedantic and petty. Some of the girls were brought to tears after their lessons had been mauled by the tutors. The experienced ones did the best because they knew their topics intimately and could concentrate on class management, their very detailed lesson plan and the step-by-step method of successfully passing the course. They ticked the boxes that guaranteed the certificate. The rest of us had to first learn the topic, such as comparative adjectives, modals or conditionals, and then teach it with confidence, meticulously obeying strict classroom management instructions while following a detailed comprehensive lesson plan. An array of aids, props and exercises were expected which we had to prepare unaided.

We were warned before the course began that each individual must be of good health, free from worry and stress because no time could be allocated for sickness or a domestic crisis. No part of the course could be omitted. At the half way stage at the beginning of the third week I got toothache. I never get toothache. This toothache became, so I discovered later, a nasty bout of neuralgia. The whole of the right side of my head throbbed with agonising pain. I was up all night despite taking pain killers which turned out to be ineffective. I spoke to the lecturers the following day but their only concern was that I was prepared for my lesson that afternoon. The agony I was suffering was completely ignored. They implored me to teach my lesson despite the fact I hadn’t prepared it and my face was contorted in pain. If I didn’t teach that lesson I would fail the course. Even if I had taught that lesson, the content of which I was totally ignorant, I still had to catch up on two days work when we were struggling to manage the existing workload. This was also based on an immediate recovery. I flunked. I’m convinced I would have coped and passed if I had enjoyed good health. I base this on a fellow course member, Sue. She was in her early thirties and we became friendly on the first day and remained so. Apart from being over twenty years younger than me she was very attractive. I think she saw me as older and more sagacious and we worked together with her getting the better of the deal and me enjoying her glamorous company. She was also very hard working and tenacious often working to 3.00am before beginning another intense stressful day. For the remainder of the course I continued in class and helped Sue gain her hugely deserved CELTA certificate. There were two other failures.

Although I learned quite a lot during the second part of the course I felt a total failure. I felt I had deserted the others in the trench because of my lack of moral fibre. I was coasting, relaxing in the bar while they were studying till midnight, preparing lessons, experiencing the stress of their critically observed teaching, subsequently being verbally abused regarding their performances. I later convinced myself that my neuralgia was a psychosomatic cop out. It was the first time in my life that I had suffered this affliction but it wasn’t long before I experienced another, again when under extreme stress. My second fortnight wasn’t totally wasted, during that time I got a job… in China!

Day Trip to China

Towards the end of my time at Harrow I began applying for various TEFL positions, mainly in China. This was the obvious choice because there was great demand for English teachers as a result of the imminent Olympic Games in Beijing. If you have a good BA plus a CELTA with a few years experience you can secure the best paid jobs in the most desirable locations. Only having my BA (Hons) restricted my choice but it secured me a place in a school near Shanghai. The contract was agreed via the internet. It sounded like a good deal. The pay was fine and the contract included a fully furnished single apartment with cable TV, a computer plus other benefits. A week before I was due to leave, the destination was changed to Shunde. At first I was annoyed until I discovered that it was in the province of Guangdong and was only four hours by road from Hong Kong. I was to travel in February 2003 which meant I would be just in time for the Hong Kong rugby sevens in the March. I was happy.

I flew to Hong Kong where I was to spend a night at an expensive airport hotel. From there I called the contact number in Shunde. It was arranged that I meet a woman called Ning at noon the following day at a hotel near the bus terminal. At six the following morning I headed to the airport bus terminal to be confronted with a choice of six buses none of which depicted the city of Shunde. I showed my map to a uniformed employee and he casually pointed to a bus where the driver was sat in the driver’s seat smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. I bellowed at him over the noise of the running engine. Shunde?! He looked over his newspaper, mumbled in Chinese and reverted back to his paper. There were a couple of people on board but departure didn’t seem imminent. I wandered to the other side of the bus just as the baggage compartment door was being raised. I dragged my suitcase toward the man who instinctively heaved it inside. Again I said Shunde?! He smiled exhibiting his battered teeth amongst the gold fillings. This and the fact he had slung my bag in I took to be an affirmative.

I clambered on the bus and sat near the front not totally convinced I was heading in the right direction. It was bad enough heading into the unknown with my best prospect meeting Ning, a stranger, without the alternative of heading into mainland China on the wrong bus ending up who knows where, with the total inability to communicate. More people got on and as it began to fill up the driver’s assistant jumped on and began selling the tickets. He must have noticed my furrowed brow and look of pleading concern. This happy smiling young man finally reassured me. No problem, I will look after you were his soothing reassuring words in broken English. I relaxed and began to look forward to the next four hours of adventurous initiation of this huge, mysterious and oh so alien country.

We travelled across bridges that gave full view of the famous Hong Kong skyline, circumnavigated the metropolis and headed off the island to cross into mainland China. Then we stopped and instructions were issued. Everybody began disembarking, not only that they began collecting their luggage. I followed, perplexed and annoyed. We entered a frenzy of activity that is unique to customs worldwide. I assumed that as Hong Kong was now again a part of China we would zip across into the mainland; not so. Being the only Caucasian on the bus I was separated from my group as I headed to the Foreign Nationals sign on the far side of a huge hall that was teeming with humanity. It took just under an hour of queuing, processing of documents and searching of bags before I appeared on the other side. I pulled my bag through the exit to be confronted by dozens of buses which were being gradually filled with travellers. Most of the buses had their baggage compartments opened as people jostled for position eager to offload their weighty burdens. I stood bemused before a uniformed transport official came to me, viewed my ticket and gently led me to my bus.

I sat looking through the window at all the activity, becalmed and thankful that the mini-crisis was now over. The bus eventually crossed into the mainland and stopped. The whole process was to be repeated. The procedure was the same as leaving one country and entering another. The traumatic experience was more or less the same as leaving Hong Kong. Again I stood frazzled next to my suitcase at the exit of customs looking at the dozens of buses and the multitudes that were boarding them. Again I asked for directions, and again I followed a less than precise pointed finger to a bus. I sought confirmation from a porter who nodded without conviction. I sat on the bus rather drained and unconvinced. I noticed a transport official with an air of studied professionalism and gravitas. I left the bus to seek confirmation that I was in fact on the road to Shunde. It transpired that I wasn’t. The driver had to retrieve my suitcase and I was guided by my favourite Chinaman to the correct mode of conveyance. Then I really did relax.

I gazed through the window recording my first impressions of China. At first we travelled past built-up areas that resembled eastern bloc countries in the fifties. There were huge imposing tenement buildings which were grey and austere. Heavy industry was represented by Dickensian dark satanic factories with billowing black smoke snaking into the foreboding sky. This sinister, cheerless, concrete jungle was what I expected. This eventually gave way to rural China with paddy fields stretching out in the distance manned by thin, almost transparent workers wearing conical hats, up to their knees in the swamplands. I was now utterly relaxed as the changing landscape passed me by. After about three hours I became slightly more animated not wanting to go sailing past my destination. I spoke to the driver’s assistant who in his own jolly way assured me that he would notify me when the time came.

We had travelled about four hours when we arrived at what I assumed was Shunde as there were no Shunde Welcomes Careful Drivers notices on the way in. Eventually we stopped in front of a smart hotel and everybody began to alight. As I fetched my case I was approached by an attractive woman of about twenty eight who greeted me in a formal business like manner. It was Ning. She led me into the hotel where we were to have lunch. She spoke very good English, was pleasant but always formal and business like. She explained that apart from the school in which I was to teach, the hotel was one of several private business contracts the school had and could be a source of extra earnings for me. I was disappointed that I was to teach conversational English to kindergarten aged kids, but it was my first TEFL job so it would be an easy introduction compared to something like teaching business English to adults. She then drove me to the school. What I expected was a building full of noise and activity staffed with a good sprinkling of native speakers from the likes of the UK, USA and the antipodes.

We pulled up outside a grey, dour, and unremarkable building. We entered a small courtyard and then a larger concrete quadrangle. This quadrangle had a few kids’ activities such as a climbing frame and a see-saw dotted about. Around the quadrangle there were several small classrooms but there weren’t many children about. I was led into a small office where I was introduced to another young woman who was very much like Ning with the same pleasing smiling visage but formal and cold. We sat alongside each other on a sofa as Ning disappeared back through the door. This new acquaintance, whose name escapes me, chatted as she gave me the once over. There seemed an air of disapproval in her manner. It could have been the fact that many men of my age work in China because of the easy access to young Asian women. She then made a rather surprising request. I would like you to shave off your moustache. By this time the heat and the affects of jet lag were beginning to take its toll. My clothing was sticking to me and I was still lugging my suitcase. I had worn my moustache, on and off, (mainly on) since Sergeant Pepper and it had become the familiar furniture on my face. I refused and my indignation was barely concealed. Up until then I had passively accepted the role of the employee to her condescending employer role. My look of disdain created a slight panic in her demeanour and she became apologetic and suggested a tour of the school. There were four classrooms which were small with only a handful of tots in each. I noted there was a distinct lack of colour and the walls were bare and grey. I made a mental note to rectify this. We climbed the stairs and came to a door, with my guide proclaiming as she opened it This is your room.

Now there are moments in our lives that define our fate and destiny. This was one of them. I stepped inside to experience one of those gut wrenching instantaneous moments that cause hyperventilation and acute nausea when no thought process or analysis is required. My reaction was instantaneous. There were no options, no alternatives. I was heading home on the next plane all plans and credibility shredded. I was confronted by a concrete cell with two bits of battered wooden furniture and a mattress. There was a gaping curtain-less, glassless window that looked down on the quadrangle below. My rigid silence was contagious as my guide looked at my stunned countenance open mouthed. Then I instinctively started frantically rifling through my rucksack before indignantly exhibiting my written contract highlighting the salient points with some vigour. And to think she wanted my moustache too!!

She panicked and ushered me out of the room. We descended the stairs as she jabbered on in mainly Chinese although I did detect a mood of contrition. Back in her office she claimed to have a better place for me and within ten minutes or so with my rucksack and suitcase still in tow we were driving through the busy streets of Shunde.

It was a short ride and we entered another building on a busy main street. Initially it looked like a small office block but as I sat in reception it transpired it was a school for the more mature such as teenagers and adults. I didn’t see many students but about three young female Chinese English teachers regularly came to the foyer to ask me to explain points of English. They were very polite to the point of deferential. I think I was also a bit of a novelty which was actually quite depressing as I was getting the feeling that I was the only native English speaker for as far as Hong Kong. I sat on that sofa for nearly three hours becoming more nauseous, sticky, feeling more and more depressed and exhausted staring blankly at my unpacked suitcase. Dusk had arrived before my new boss returned. They have finished now, it’s ready. she announced. Apparently they were cleaning up my new flat. We arrived at a block of flats which was almost next door to the hotel we lunched at earlier. My pad was on the fourth floor, there was a lift and it worked. Despite the three hour renovation the flat was drab, depressing and a bit shabby. Assuming I was now happy it was arranged that I would be collected the following day. She left and I flopped onto the sofa and for quite some time sat there staring trance-like into the distance. What had I done?

I snapped out of it as I needed food, drink and toilet rolls so I descended in the lift and nodded at the uniformed man as I walked through the lobby. Nighttime had fallen as I entered the busy Shunde street and I negotiated my way across the busy road to a mini-market. I was aware that I was attracting a lot of attention because I looked so different. Apart from the eyes even at only five feet ten I was still much bigger and bulkier than the men and I totally dwarfed most of the women who were very slight. I was feeling self-conscious as I felt that my every move was being closely monitored. In one of the aisles a petite and smiling female assistant walked toward me with a pack of toilet rolls despite the fact that I had already secreted the very same in my basket. She continued to hold it out despite me pointing at my purchase. The puzzlement was rectified when she placed her toilet rolls in my basket while removing mine pointing to a miniscule tear in the packaging. She then coyly backed off down the aisle with a wonderful benign smile lighting up her face. I think she wanted partly to provide a top class service to a foreign VIP whilst creating an excuse to make contact with this alien being. I tried to be as gracious as possible as she slowly backed her way down and around the aisle maintaining her radiant smile.

Back in the flat because of my culinary limitations I ate a basic meal then flopped on to a sofa and attempted to plan my escape. Because an escape is what I felt it to be. I had heard that a minority of TEFL jobs in China can go wrong. I had also heard that passports had been collected by schools and not been returned until the basic contract, usually six months, had been completed. So paranoia began to consume me. My big problem was that I didn’t know the route back to Hong Kong. I decided that at dawn I would head for the hotel where I left the bus a matter of hours earlier with so much hope and expectation. If the apartment hadn’t been so close to the hotel I have no idea how I would have attempted my escape.

I arranged my clothes for the following day, packed my bags, set the alarm, and retired for the night. As I