The beginners guide to surviving a surf trip to the middle east

There’s a place where the wind blows offshore, and waves come and waves go but then they come back again and nobody paddles out. It’s sunny, hot and the water is warm, clean and there is white sand beach for miles. Feathered, emerald peaks dance on a limitless horizon devoid of human interference. This idyllic scene is in the Middle East. So nobody paddles out.

Yemen, Oman, Pakistan and Iran, a little, get waves. Oh yeah, they get waves. The ocean isn’t racist like you or me. It showers tubes and wedges on yellow, brown, white and red. Islamic browns get more than their fair share, actually. Unfettered Indian Ocean swell comes steaming around India and lights up hidden reef breaks and shories from Aden (Yemen) to Karachi (Pakistan). ‘Tis a good life. The sort Kanye sings about minus girls who ain’t on TV with more ass than models. It’s all waiting for you. The only trick is not to get your head cut off by the angry fundamentalist guarding this treasure. Without further ado, HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

1. You had better not fucking be cansei de ser sexy. That’s tired of being sexy in case you ain’t musically hip… and you had better fucking hell not be if you wanna live to see the inside of a Yemeni tube. I’ve seen more dildos go to the Middle East with Aids beards dotting ugly features. Canadian patches liberally strewn about the canvas of a rucksack so big two four year olds could be 69ing inside. Zip-off pants the color of vomit. Nasty specimens like this deserve to be sawn in half, be they at the Bondi Backpackers or Karachi Hilton. It ain’t the Muslim’s fault for doing what we all should with tourists on the hemp trail.

I’m being completely honest. If you look like a piece of human shit you will get treated like a piece of human shit.

Here’s a little known secret: Western films are EVERYWHERE. The poorest, backwoods Muslim in the poorest backwoods country (Yemen) has seen James Bond shooting up Russians on the telly. Is James Bond wearing an unwashed khaki-colored shirt from the 1998 Blues and Roots fest? Is he unshaven? Double oh no, my friend. Use that fucking media behemoth. Be a gun-toting, smirking, smarmy badass. Bite straight off Anthony Quinn, Stevey McQueen, Chuck Bronson or Clint Eastwood until you have enough sense to create your own personal interpretation of “international haute.”

Stuff your Vuitton suitcase full of Dior Homme suits, Tom Ford shades, and be off… with a gold plated derringer slipped into your side-zip Anello & Davide Chelsea boots just in case.

2. Move quickly, for tour busses are sitting ducklets, my love. The sightseers who dribble though most of the Middle East do so in large caravans. In sorta normal zones, like Egypt, the bus trains only get drilled once every 10 years. In places like Yemen I’d say once every five years. These slow eyesores follow the same paths and do the same things. Easy to track and even easier to slip a roadside bomb right next to the potty stop.
You be best served on motorcycles. Don’t worry about your sleds. They go in the van you hire to follow you. Sure, your lovely fringe is exposed, but do you think terrorists just hide in the hills waiting to shoot beautiful losers off fabbo Ducatis? No. Terrorists have bad aim anyhow.

3. Which reminds me, improve your own aim. Guns don’t kill people, people do. It’s up to you, my Islamic-world conquering friend, to know what to do when you’re toweling off after yet another solitary super session and an angry raghead is bumbling toward you wielding a rusted Kalash. Your Derringer ain’t gonna do the job itself. If need be, get into a shooting range before you plan your trip. Shooting range. Listen to my faggy little ass. Get into Hyde Park and clear the benches of bums. Or the trees of birds. Who cares as long as your pistola feels like an eleventh finger. Firearms are considered masculine necessities in this societal context. Don’t be a fair.

4. Last piece of advice, be ready for the shit to hit the fan. You’ve arrived in Lebanon looking snarling and sexy, jaunty cigarette dangling from the pout. The point breaks are firing winter fury and you’ve already flashed your piece at a goat herd. Then a bomb drops from the sky and you totally lose your cool, pissing all over the Hedi Silmanes. Bombs are not like you think. I had all sorts of misconceptions, myself, before experiencing the wrath of a Blue Peacock. For instance, I thought you’d hear the planes first, droning in just like WWII. Then I thought you’d heard the bombs whistling through the sky. THEN I thought when the bombs hit they made a loud sound, but unless they landed on you you’d be safe.