It Must Be Love

"Hello"! It was dark and on the beach last night as I went for a long quiet walk so the two voices surprised me. Hello I called back to the black lumps on the sand. "How are you"? I walked over to the two voices and there in the dark moonlight were two very attractive 24 (so they said) year old Viet Namese women. One very drunk and flirty and the other sober but just as flirty. Now, the average guy would have thought one of two things at this point. 1) Don't pinch me now as I like the way these dreams usually end. Or 2) I don't remember being killed or suffering a heart attack but all those good deeds paid off and I make it to heaven! But I've already mentioned-OK discussed thouroughly and at length- how, via face cremes and astringents, I'm not the average guy. My first thoughts were confusion as I tried to figure what kind of scam these girls were going to work on me. That lasted all of 60 seconds as, in under a minute the drunk girl grabbed my hand and held it to her face. "I want to be your girlfriend, will you be my boyfriend"? I told her I already have girlfriend. "But you not married?" I tried to explain that it didn't matter because I was in..."but I love you, you no love me?" The bus trip earliet that day took around 4 hours to go about 100 miles. In that short span I saw 7 to 10 billboards along the way reminding people of the dangers of HIV in Viet Nam. They were all in Viet Namese which is as legible to me as Thai or Chinese, but the graphics were clear enough. The cartoon figure of Mr. Happy Condom (or the poor emaciated cartoon HIV victim who obviously hadn't shaken hands with Mr. Happy C.) were effective reminders to wear a helmet. Those billboards flashed through my thick head as I realized that these weren't just friendly girls...they were friendly working girls. I explained that I liked them very much but no, I didn't love them. The drunk one let go of my hand, pouted severely and promptly passed out with her head on a coconut. So much for my sexy animal magnatism that I initially thought drove these girls to lusty desire. But it left me to have a conversation about love with the conscious one. It went something like this. "I love you". "How can you love me when you don't even know me?" "We go back to your bungalow now"? "Look I'm 44 and you're 24, I'm an old man". "In Viet Nam" she said smoothing out the sand and writing the numbers for emphasis, "man 64, woman 24"! We both laughed and I wrote the number 28 saying "no older than this for you". She laughed again but in a different way that let me know she knew it should be, yet won't be, true here. We soon ran out of topics for conversation as my two words of Viet Namese (hello and thank you) can only get you so far (but in this situation far enough!) and her English was limited to talking about her profession...kind of like a stock broker or a Boeing engineer. Every sentence led back to my bungalow somehow and she was as good as any hungry street hawker in Bangkok. "I have a girlfriend", "yes but you no married". "I'm too old", "no you good age". "I can't be your boyfriend I leave in 2 days". "You be my boyfriend 2 days then". We were going in a circular route to nowhere but laughing a lot getting there. It was time to pull out my trump card. "My sister is in my bungalow so we can't go back there". When she finally understood, after repeating the odd sentence 3 times, it was like a misfire, a sputtering of an engine and she had no quick comeback...no instant response. At the moment she realized she had wasted the past 15 minutes trying to sell herself to me something changed. Not a hardening or pouting attitude, nor an angry huffing off in frustration(both of which I expected). She softened and smiled and relaxed. Just then she looked behind me as 3 more potential customers were walking by. As they passed I heard one of them give me the "MM-HMM". You know the sound. Accent on the HMM as the inflection rises on it at the same time. It's the sound every mother gives to every kid upon the discovery of some sneaky behavior. That sound that so economically delivers maximum guilt. It had the exact effect on me as if my own mom had said it. I wanted to run after them shouting "no, wait, I only wanted to talk to them"! Thus buurrying myself further. Wisely I didn't. But I did feel a shame that was too strong for the crime of only talking to 2 young pretty girls who just happened to be prostitutes.
I said my goodbyes and shook their hands with a friendly "I like you very much, you are both (no I don't love you!!) very pretty". The walk back to the Bungalow ( and Samantha has no idea how much I appreciate her being there for me-asleep) had me asking the question youv'e probably been asking for the past few paragraphs. Why did I hang out and chat with these girls once I knew what they were after? The answer isn't as clean or simple as I wish it were, but that doesn't make it any less true. On the one hand, being raised a bleeding heart liberal makes me believe that people are basically good, and make bad decisions...usually a lot of them. Except for the ultra right wing conservative republicans that is, who are basically bad people that make bad decisions. Part of me wanted to hang out with these Viet Namese girls and just get to know a piece (no not that piece gutterheads!) of this lifestyle/culture/desperation. To make contact with them in such a different way than they are used to...a human way, as fellow travellers on this path of life. On the other hand, being raised a bleeding heart liberal means that I have no guiding moral compass...wishy-washy or Godless in the parlance of the Bush doctrine spin doctors. Chosing my morality by the way it feels at the time. This part of me (yes, that part gutterheads) was very intrigued by sitting next to two young pretty women who would have sold me an instant of bliss and a lifetime of shame. Was I testing myself? Was I playing with a razors edge trying not to get cut? Or was I just experiencing a moment in south Viet Nam that was weird and fun and uncomfortable? Yes to all of the above! The titilation died rapidly when early on I realized no matter how thrilling or exciting or taboo, I can't separate sex from love. I already knew this intellectually and it was nice to have the feeling confirmed. At that point my choice to engage in conversation (if that's what you call continually refusing to have sex) was about connection. Not much of a connection to be sure. But maybe the next time they hear the phrase "I'm American" they won't instantly recoil. Maybe they'll look back fondly on a moonlit night in January and laugh at the funny homo they met who travels with his sister!

Slummin' It

I love traveling down here in Cambodia and Viet Nam! Seeing how the people live here has really enriched my life!!The infinity pools are fabulous and the umbrella drinks strong and cheap!!! With all this opulence and wealth I kind of wish I was born Viet Namese. I've even looked into emigrating as the thatch roofed palapa I'm now gazing at (on the sparkling white sands of Phu Quoc Island off of the southern tip of Viet Nam) is surrounded by lovely fair-skinned Eurobabes. The thing holding me back from getting my green card is that it seems a bit more modest here than S. Thailand as none of the babes are topless. Thankfully all the Viet Namese seem to have been removed from the entire area except the kitchen, and boy can they cook! I almost forget that I'm not in Hawaii anymore as I look out amongst the pale sunburned flesh eating a baguette and an omelette. And the coffee here is top notch as Viet Nam is one of the worlds biggest coffee exporters ...which just puts the icing on my whole "meet the local people" cake. Day two "in country" and just got an email from Sheryl that noted I aways say that whatever country I'm now in has "even nicer people than the last place I visited!" But I'm going on record here that the people of Viet Nam are a lot less friendly tham in Malaysia, Tahiland, or Cambodia. I could blame it on the American war (what we call the Viet Nam war) but after my last blog on the history of the U.S. in Cambodia that doesn't work for me. It's funny though how the few people we meet color our view of an entire population. Through sheer laziness we will judge the behavior of millions of (in this case) Viet Namese on a few rare encounters...which are usually initiated by someone who wants our money. Knowing this and totally disregtarding it I can say with 90% confidence that the viet Namese people are not as friendly as others in S.E. Asia. Except for our new aquaintance Phan who might be more friendly so I could be wrong about the Viet Namese (a 10% chance). We met her in Phnom Penh and she invited us to meet up with her in a week or so in Hanoi. I've tried not to write about the hotel we met in, as it was a new low in cheezy travel. But with the trauma fading into the distant past I can face it now. The Riverside...an 8 story block tower just across from the Thon Le Sap river. Back in 1962, in a small city in, say Ohio this might have been a nice place. No, it wouldn't have but it would have been cheap. At $35 in Cambodia, it should have bought us a night of luxury. Instead it bought us hallways filled with cratered matresses smelling of cigarettes and rooms reminiscent of e.coli! Now, I'm not really sure if e.coli has an odor in and of itself but it thrives in the large intestines of all of us so you get the idea of the bouquet of the rooms. Besides the gaseous-ness of it all the hotel had the charms (casino included) of an all night shriners convention after last call. But that isn't what I wanted to write about, at all!
Phan met us here over a breakfast that I could tangent on for a page or so but lets just say "CHEEZY" without the cheese. She was instantly warm and welcoming and open with her opinions of Viet Namese politics as well as American politics. She has a PhD in water resource management and her daughter is on a full ride scholarship at Harvard. Just an ordinary Viet Namese family she assured us...so emigration to this land of wealth and warm sandy beaches sounds better all the time. Oh, except for the crushing poverty, pollution and overcrowding that the American pig-dog capitalist propagandists like to call the "real" Viet Nam. They talk of filthy packed markets with piles of rotting vegetable shavings in the middle of the alleyways slowing foot traffic to a crawl. They talk of the throngs of moped drivers being way more aggressive and seemingly needy than in other countries. They talk of people being more dour and less full of joy than anywhere else in S.E.Asia. And, oh sure, we've seen some of that too...between our hydrofoil high speed boat ride and beach resort we are now enjoying. And I almost got sad about it too until I remembered that you can either focus on the good or you can focus on the bad. And isn't that what our left wing media excels at? It's always so negative! So I'm jsut going to stay positive here and use my own experience as a guide. And that experience tells me that about 80% of my time here (and Cambodia too!!) has been spent surrounded by crisp uniforms, smiling people who respect me so much they call me sir, pools to die for and great food...the baguettes almost make me think I'm in Paris (except the beaches remind me of Mexico)!!! I don't mean to be all polyanna about this place, at all. We have had some difficulties for sure. Like the time 2 days ago upon our arrival when we went into a stinking bustling market and were greeted with grimaces instead of smiles. That was kind of hard. And after Elliott had to wrestle his new Ipod out of the gripping hands of some really poor kid it made me anxious to pull out my new Samsung camera as well. That uncomfortable moment for me was kind of hard too. Also, the bargaining here is a lot harder so Elliott's new watch cost us $4.00 instead of the $3.00 we should have paid...and over time that bargaining stress becomes hard. So whoever said adventure travel is dead obviously hasn't been to Viet Nam. And if you need another example, the beaches down south here are so deserted it makes you feel like an adventurer! So yeah, I'd say that Viet Nam still has it's share of hard travel AND adventure travel!!! But tired of slumming it in our $18 resort room we'll fly to Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow and stay at a refurbished 1920's hotel that promises 4 stars and a swimming pool...I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!!!

The Horror...the Horror.

Phnom Penh Cambodia!! While I love S. Thailand, and Kuala Lumpur is special to me, and Bangkok full of great memories and hideous traffic, I think Phnom Penh is my favorite city yet. The only regret I have is flying into it instead of cycling. I'm now laughing at my earlier inexperience when I wrote about the chaos of Singaporian traffic. If chaos means no predictable order of patterns then Phnom Phen traffic is the epitome of chaos. Cars seem to go in any direction they please, red lights are loosely interpreted as stop or slow down a bit, and merging is a total random event. The only rules I can discern are... never actually stop moving, and size matters i.e. get the hell out of the way of anything bigger than you. So you can see why I would want to cycle this city so badly as I could flaunt any traffic laws and any laws of self preservation. But somehow it all works and the liquid flow moves slowly along the path of least resistance. Waiting for this flow to stop to cross a street would be foolhearty as it would never come. So while chanting my new Thai mantra of "They don't want to hit me, they don't want to hit me" I look straight ahead (never look into the eyes of a driver here it only confuses them and and that is not good when you are a potential speed bump) and begin the journey. The flowing machines and steel somehow part, and without quite knowing how you did it, you're on the other side of the street except with a big shaky adrenalin rush. In simply crossing the street, Elliott has found a sport more exciting and cheaper than skateboarding!
But I write through the eyes of an ex-cyclist who misses his frequent brushes with death or pain. Phnom Penh is so much more than insane roads of course. It is the beauty of fading french colonial architecture glowing warmly in the setting sunlight. Or a filthy night market smelling of fish and feces (a good name for a string quartet by the way), next to a woman cutting the heads off of live fish next to my nephew begging Samantha to video the gore. It is the amazing and genuine smiles of the people who, even though harrassing you endlessly to ride tuk-tuks or buy photocopied versions of lonely planet books, quickly lose the sales pitch and engage in warm conversations after you say "no" for the millionth time. As we chat, there is physical contact with an arm on the shoulder or elbow. Even the monks are touchy feely (but not in a creepy way so get your mind out of the gutter) as they instruct me in the 5 basic laws of Buddhism (like the 10 commandments only less filling). For a people who have had such a painful, horrible and recent history of genocide it is amazing! When people ask where we are from I say "America!" and (after the obligatory disclaimer that we have a horrible president) they almost always say what a great country it is. I have never considered lying about my nationality here even if this is the one place where I should have to!
The United States of America...what is it about our country? Since travelling in SE Asia and loving almost all of it (OK so Bangkok mostly sucks) I have come to appreciate things about my own county that I always took for granted. Things like toilet paper, traffic patterns, seat belts, the lack of constant harrassment, and emissions laws. Although I have to admit the toilet paper thing is over-rated as I've given up on it and prefer the pressure-wash of the wall bidet. I feel cleaner and fresher and god knows it feels like a fire hose after some of these flaming stools (also a good name for a band by the way) one has to suffer over here. So, while I do love home and my friends and family, The more I learn about our history the less respect I have for the U.S. OK, here we go...an angry rant.
In 1970, during the height of another pointless and unwinable major war (no not Iraq) my country began "secretly" bombing a soveriegn nation that was officially neutral in the area. Secret... unless you were Cambodian! North Vietnamese troops were using Cambodia as a way to get to south Viet Nam and also transporting weapons to be sure. Our response? Carpet bomb the country side in Cambodia hoping to stop the enemy. Hundreds of miles from the Viet Namese border, the United States was killing hudreds of thousands of innocent Cambodian farmers and villagers. Hmm, bombing soveriegn nations and thousands of dead innocent civilians...at least we won't make that mistake again! All this isn't new information to me of course, but what is new is just how that insane decision in that insane war set the stage for the rise of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pots genocidal rampage. In a very direct way we are responsible for the deaths of between 2 and 3 million people. People either executed, starved or worked to death. That figure (besides its unimaginable size) is freaky. How can these estimates be off by 1,000,000 peope? The Khmer Rouge were nothing if not meticulous record keepers and S-21, the Phnom Penh museum that was once a high school before being converted into a prison and torture center has thousands of organized, numbered photographs of prisoners that stare at you from a very recent and gruesome death. So where is the one-million-person-question-mark? In a country with a population of 7 million in 1975 we are talking about 40% of the population! Were they lost in the carpet bombs? Blown up in a landmine field ( as an aside...seven people died the other day trying to diffuse a few of the 4 million estimated landmines still buried here. And landmines have move down to #3 on the list of causes of death for Cambodians. By the way a warm round of applause for Bill Clinton who refused to sign an international treaty banning the use of landmines after almost every other nation in the world already signed it. But I'm OK with it because the national security of the United States is dependent on having small explosive devices under other countries' soil... kind of like oil Speaking of Bill Clinton, he just happened to be here in Phnom Penh last month. I wonder if he could look into the eyes or dropped a few Rial into the cups of the one legged beggars that are prevalent here)? Or is the million person question mark from the destroyed records of the psychopatically paranoid and insane Khmer Rouge? These inhuman people, who were just like you and me in any other situation, turned the clock back to the date "zero" to begin the great agrarian utopia. A utopia with a national anthem that goes something like..."Oh Kampuchea, with fields and roads awash in blood, let this blood of the peasant martyrs fuel the hatred..."etc. but with a lot more references to blood. Now here's a utopia I could party in! With anyone educated or tainted by the west now dead in a mass grave, we could invite Mao Tse Tung over for some old school ethnic cleansing. Oh crap, he died a state hero didn't he? Let's see...scratch Hitler off the list-suicide. Saddam...dead. Osama RSVP'd that he's still hooked up to dialysis and can't make it. Noriega-doing time in Florida. Nixon, who started this whole mess...died a crook. That leaves a bunch more on the long list but for the short list I'll just speed dial George Bush (OK both of them) and we can party among the pieces of clothing and bones that continue to poke up from the soil of the not yet totally exhumed mass graves just 12 kilometers from the capitol of Cambodia. Here, in just one of the 65 or so killing fields spread throughout the country, there are over 60 large mass grave pits that pot-hole the land. Every year the rainy season exhumes more bones that are left in the ground for us to walk over and on. Eight thousand skulls are on display here in a stupa built 13 stories high. Over half of the victims remain in the ground. It is sobering and sad and horrible. The horror of the Khmer Rouge...killing their victims with shovels etc. to save on the cost of bullets and turning up the music on the loud speakers to drown out the screams. The Khmer Rouge who, in the height of their paranoia attacked Viet Nam in 1979. Since they were anti-Viet Nam they were funded by...yeah, the U.S. government!! After the atrocities had been known to the world!! Am I angry? Hell yes! How can I not be angry and disgusted by the atrocities of war, of pointless bombings of civilians, of genocide and know that it was due to, in large part, my own government?!
Thank god that part of history for Cambodia is over and that Cambodians have the most amazing capacity for forgiveness on the planet. The old Cambodia that bordered Nazi Germany, Iraq and Crawford, Texas is gone and the new one is bustling and vibrant. We all owe it, literally, to come here and visit this amazing place and spend tons of our American dollars here. It's easy as it is the currency of choice here.

Really Big Balls

Thank the lord! Or in this godless country thank Buddha. I'm no longer in Bangkok and if I have to see another freaking wat, I'm going to recline under a bodhi tree. The biggest reclining Buddha in the world is at Wat Po. I don't know what po but I can tell you when (a long time ago) and how big (it's huge!!). You see the reason I want to recline, if I have to suffer another Wat, is because that is the position Buddha took just before entering into Nirvana. SO, and stay with me here...I was saying in a really funny way (actually not that funny since I have to explain the subtleties) that if I have to see another wat I'm going to die. Ha Ha...oh never mind. I'm now in Phnom Penh Cambodia and it is HOT. I flew into the city, instead of cycling, and that was kind of weird (and really easy). I could contrast and compare the differences between flying and cycling but their kind of obvious so I'll just say it is cooler and higher and you don't sweat nearly as much on a plane. But...it is so nice to see a city again where the horizon can be seen through trees instead of spaces between skyscrapers. The city is bustling and full of energy and dirty and smelly in places and yet feels super friendly and has a small town feel donwn near the river. Another bonus is that the horizon is kind of blue instead of this grayish dishwatery Bangkok brown thick substance that comes off on your towel when drying your face even after washing with a deep cleansing non-astringent, alcohol free product brought in from Seattle by a sister who is helping my skin attain its natural lustre. But that isn't wat (kidding) what I wanted to blog about...at all.
There is a museum in Bangkok that is so inappropriate for kids under 12, that my 10 year old (OK 11 in 3 days) was in heaven lurking around looking at photos of decapitations and eviscerations. The forensic museum at one of the hospitals near our hotel was strange and creepy with cabinets full of actual murder weapons and the bloody clothes of the victims. There should have been a "you need to be this tall to see the disgusting exhibits" sign out front but there wasn't...so all of you wanting to call CPS just relax...the nightmares only lasted for a few hours. One big crowd pleaser was the actual bodies of several murderers who had been "naturally mummified" whatever that means and their almost dry, leathery bodies were standing in some stainless steel...um...drip pans for lack of a better word. And the drip pans had some brownish goo in them of which Elliott kept trying to determine the source. On second thought go ahead and call CPS...Samantha should be home in 2 weeks or so. But it didn't just contain the remains of murderers or their victims... this was a forensic museum after all. In the pathology wing there was a model display of intestinal parasites enlarged a few milion time to the size of footballs. Feeling the effects of these bugs is bad enough but to have to look at them with suckers and tentacles as big as my head was enough to restart the cramps all over again. Elliotts favorite bizzare thing of the day (and there were many) was the photo of some poor guy who was sitting on his balls. I mean literally sitting on the biggest scrotum you never want to imagine! It wasn't even covered up...just a wrinkled flesh colored hippity-hop that swallowed his penis into an innie of an indentation. Fillariasis had messed up his lymph system and for this poor man it caused massive scrotal swelling. Even better, for Elliott that is, was the guys actual scrotum sitting in a jar (ok, a huge jar) of formaldehyde next to the photo. A beachball of a reminder that size really, really does matter...and the good news my friends is that it is definitely OK not to be the biggest on the block!
It was all kind of lightly creepy and campy and it will make for some good fireside stories for my nephew. Tomorrow it won't be so, as we go to the famous Khmer Rouge prison S-21 in Phnom Penh and then to the killing fields just outside of town. I know that this journey won't be for fun. But for tonight I am enjoying everything about this beautiful old city.

The Furry Man

Lane splitting my way up to the front of the parking lot called traffic, I unclicked from my pedals awaiting the light change. You know that feeling when you know someone is staring at you...that spider sense tingling somewhere on the back of your neck? I felt it standing there in the mid-day heat and tried to pass it off as sweat pouring down my (yes unhelmeted) head. The sweat was aready streaming down my forehead and, mixed with my favorite moisturizer, into my eyes. The back of my hands were sweaty wet-wipes and totally useless in clearing the tears. Standing there in my tight lycra shorts, form fitting and very loud campagnolo billboard of a cycling jersey, surgical mask and ipod earphones it's no wonder someone was staring. I looked like a depressed, asthmatic Lance Armstrong wanna-be...with an ipod. But the woman in the car two inches from me wasn't interested in my lycra, or my shapely figure, or even my sad looking affect. She was pointing at me and laughing and saying something to her driver and pointing again. I lowered my mask and smiled and dazzled her with 50% of my Thai vacabulary. "Sawatdee Kap" (or "hello" for the logically challenged) I said. This wasn't intended to be super funny but her laughter was raucous as if I'd told her my most recent favorite joke (emailed to me by my dear friend Paul in Ohio-not mean 'torture massage' Paul. The fact that I actually laughed out loud when I read this joke indicates 2 things. 1) I have been away from home too long and 2) I desparately need people to email me more jokes... "What did the fish say when he ran into the wall? 'Dam'!") I'm laughing all over again. That one slays me. Anyway, I didn't tell her a joke at all. Her amusement seemed to come from somewhere on my body as she reached out and stroked my forearm. Had she been years...no, deacades younger it might have been a lot more interesting. But she wasn't and the gesture was just curious. I continued smiling uncomfortably at her and wondering when the freaking light was going to change. Then the source of her delight became apparent. She suddenly pinched up a batch of blonde forearm hair, tugging it until the skin lifted up all goose-bumpy. That really set her off until we were both guffawing. I reached over and rubbed her smooth hairless arm and noded as the light turned green. It was one of the weirdest, short-lived , non-verbal cultural exchanges I've had yet. Giddy local smooth skinned Thai woman has "first contact" experience with strange, hairy, crying, western man.
It just made me realize, once again, how much I like travelling and how much I like Thai and Malaysian people. If I had been in Seattle at a stoplight and some nut-bar reached out and pinched my arm hair (and I realize that by harping on this point it makes me sound like I have fur instead of skin...its a lie) I would have freaked out. The cool thing about travelling is that I'm the nut. All this craziness that is Bangkok-Chiang Mai-Thailand is normal and I'm the lycra stranger in a strange land. The other day at the airport, having dressed up for the occasion of seeing Sheryl again, I struck up a conversation with an old Thai man. After the usual niceties, he wanted to know how I liked the Thai people...concerned that I'd been robbed or taken advantage of. After ensuring him that I really like the Thais and have never had any problems, he leaned toward me and said knowingly "It's because you dress like a poor man". I looked down at my slightly wrinkled fake Polo shirt, mostly clean shorts and tattered but functional Birkenstocks, and had to admit that next to his creased polyester pants and "kings yellow" windbreaker complete with the kings emblem on the breast pocket, I looked a bit worn down. Maybe even a little sad. Again, in Seattle I might have told him to "piss off"...or at least try to defend myself by explaining the nature of this trip. Here I just laughed and thought, "Hey that's not a bad strategy for fending off theives...just look shabby!" Apparently it's worked for me so far as all I've lost is my bike computer.
God knows how many people I've offended over here ( not as many as my sister Samantha has managed to in just under 48 hours..you'll have to ask later), but that is the challenge and joy of travel. I have walked into stores or hawker stalls more times than I care to remember and enthusiastically said "Thank You!" instead of "Hello!" Never has anyone rolled their eyes or made fun of me or tried to make me feel like an idiot (I do that all by myself). They may laugh (wouldn't you?) but never maliciously. Trying to figure out cultural roadmaps is sometimes harder than figuring out the actual road maps...and I've been lost a lot over here. I wish we gave everyone we meet in daily life the same latitude and space for mistakes that we do when we travel, or that is given to us as travellers. It would be a lot more fun to laugh at all of it than to get so offended and angry. The Thais seem to understand what we don't or have forgotten. That there is no need to take all of this craziness so seriously. Relax and bust a gut over how insane this lifetime is. It is all a cosmic joke and we are all the fools. How else does one explain the Tuk-Tuk for Pete's sake?

Who Am I?

Who am I? Yes here we go again, and if your reading this Cary just skip it all together and go to the next post. Because I realize that this is the only question that matters. If unanswered and even unasked then the rest of life seems rather random. I am a seeker...always will be. And as much as I would love to just let this life fly by without introspection, sounds a lot easier, I can't (though you wouldn't really know it from reading this blog). Who was it that said an unexamined life is one not worth living? I don't know but I do know that for me it is true. For until I find out who James is, everything just seems like running on a hampster wheel. I just re-read the side bar on this blog page, then re-read many of the entries over the past few months. Were they even written by the same guy?! Going on some journey looking for inner truth? Who am I kidding?! I end up writing volumes about other peoples' appearance or behavior. I end up writing about the physical hardships or the humor of miscommunication. I end up writing fluff...which I actually enjoy and so do many others it seems. So maybe the side bar is perfect. As I step toward truth and deeper understanding of all of this and start getting close to it, I go for the easy way out and find the cute, humorous tale/anecdote every time. I'm not judging this as a bad thing as I occasionally crack myself up. You get the added bonus of having vicarious diarrhea which is a whole lot better than real diarrhea! As an aside (yeah I know I never get off track), in Tibetan Buddhism there are many levels of "hell" or a really bad next lives. One of them is the "hot flaming poker up the butt lifetime" where that is your existance for however long you live in it. I often wonder while I'm squatting on the Asian style toilets, cramping up with tears in my eyes, if whoever came up with this particular nasty idea had travelled to Thailand and ate at the same hawker stalls I have...because he hit the nail (or hot poker) squarely. Anyway, it seems like I'm often copping out on exploring the deeper reasons for travel as I'm too busy seeing and doing some really cool and fun stuff. Stuff like scuba diving off of Tioman Island in southern Malaysia or rock climbing in amazing Krabi, Thailand! And I'm not whining here...I've had a blast. But my sister Samantha and my nephew Elliott (aka butthead) are flying in tonight and I realize that this trip is going to change character drastically for the next 3 weeks. Time to dust off the vaval and have a gaze before the distraction of constant family brings me back to this "reality". OK, here we go.

Surely I am not James W. Bryner Jr. That is my name of course given to me by my parents 44 years ago and I like it well enough. But it isn't ME just as "a rose is a rose by any other name" (even if I don't smell as sweet after my Bangkok sweaty-ass-crack-bike-ride today). My passport even says that is who I AM and the photo even looks like ME. A bad photo by the way... as if I was given a large dose of Thorazine before some low quality mug shot was snapped. And even though I've lived a life of crime (see last blog) no mug shots were taken until this one. Ten years. It's a long time to have to look at this picture. As you can see above for yourself. And for those who don't know me? I'll paraphrase Richard Nixon "I am not a crook...or a psychopathic killer"(he, for those of you under 30 and educated in the U.S., was a "bad man". You can google him or better yet 'wikipedia' him. But don't bother My Spacing him as he's dead.).

That picture was taken 2 years ago now and not a single cell on my face in that picture is still with ME...so I am definitely not my body as I regenerate a new one of those overy few months or so. Is this body then just a bag of skin and a food tube from mouth to butt, occupying space as a container for the real ME...my soul? If so then why bother and why not let the soul run free because this thing is kind of goofy shaped with all kinds of needs and pains. It burns in the mid-day equatorial heat without a good moisturizing sun screen, and keeping up with my nails is just tedious. Or am I the air that comes in and out of this cellular tube/bag? Because without the air I am dead...or at least this tube/bag is. How about the food that shares the same space as I do once I eat it...is it me? Am I it? Once again, no food or water...no James. And what about you? I am certainly not me without a you. I can't be me without a you, it is all a relationship. Is there a writer without a reader? There really is no seaparation from me and you. No you, no me...Know you, know me (sorry about that, I just couldn't resist the cheezy bumper sticker reference "No Jesus, no peace..."). Then, there is no separation from all of this that we experience (foods events thoughts dreams) and even things we can't experience. Because I really don't experience the space between me and this computer screen but without that space there would be no differentiation and I couldn't BE. What a beautiful thing this all is. It means that we are not only all connected but that we are all essential...the mosquito that is buzzing my head right now, and the guys outside tearing up the street driving me crazy at 12:30 am. Just as George Bush needs to be apart of it all so do we who oppose all he does at home and Iraq. For what is a 'warior of peace' without a war? Just a warrior ( now I'm really sorry as that is a truely meaningless and cheezy sounding bumper sticker style quote). I have no idea where I'm going with any of this but it is exciting because I feel so connected to everything instead of so alone or pointless. It's why I continue to ask the question. And of course I'll get back on the hampster wheel tomorrow but maybe I'll walk it for a while before getting all rodent-psycho again...maybe not.

p.s. For those of you who think I've gone off the deep end or have been taking mushrooms stored in a box from the late '60's you're wrong. For those of you who think I'm reading too much Alan Watts...spot on.

The Thai Massage

I thought my new travelling friends Paul and Kelly were...well...friends. Turns out they're really mean. Oh sure,they said they had the best intentions by suggesting a few different places for a Thai massage. And sure, a Thai massage sounds wonderful, but my God...have you every had one? I recently did and the whole time I kept grunting out the only four letter word that came to mind...PAIN (I know what word you were thinking of)! Maybe I'm just super sensitive from all the face cremes and product I use but Crikey these massages hurt. I have had two now as I wanted to give it a second chance and thought maybe the practitioner the first time was just aggressive or something (hmm, come to think of it she too was recommended by Paul...coincidence or a pattern of latent aggression?). No, I think Thai massage is just a painful mistranslation for "this is gonna hurt". Read the sign "Thai Massage" but think Thai Pain, or Thai Torture, or...ok you get the idea. Sheryl also got a massage and kept looking over at me and laughing as I made contorted faces of concern. But she said that her experience was quite enjoyable. And Paul and Kelly will sometimes go every day for a stretch. What am I missing here! I know, more pain. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 3 times, um...well... hmm. Let me try to describe the exerience.
You know those weird one-fingered police holds that can drop the biggest (American) football player to his knees begging for mercy? It's like an hour of that...but seems longer. Not that I've ever had the police grab me like that...well, OK, they actually did once...no twice. But that was different! I mean who didn't get arrested for trespassing on airforce bases in the '80's protesting Reagan's MX missle system? Even the actor Robert Blake was in the fray, getting arested for protesting the opening of a nuclear energy plant that was constructed on Californias biggest and most active (San Andreas) fault...however, probably not the best example as he recently spent a lot of time in jail before being acquited for the murder of his wife. It's what we did then, protest I mean...not kill our wives, because MTV was only in its infancy. Now that there is so much better programming we don't have time to protest things like MX first strike nuclear weapons!! But it warms my heart to know that Reagan went down in history (and only American history) books as such a great and wonderful leader. I'd like to read an El Salvadorean history book someday, or Guatamalan, or Nicaraguan, or... well, pick a country. Woah, TANGENT ALERT!! But police holds are intended to inflict pain while massages aren't. Here's the deal. I just spent the last year before this trip in massage shcool in Seattle. I learned Swedish massage which focuses on relaxation and healing. Thai massage focuses, it seems, on pain. And at home, when setting up for a massage my routine goes something like this; close the curtains, get a soothing color of sheets that coordinate nicely, light some incense if desired, light up a few candles, make sure my water fountain tridckles 'just so', chose a nice smelling oil (season appropriate of course...citrus in the warmer months!), and put on some mellow music (anything but enya that is). If time allows, a warm foot bath and a hot cup of herbal tea tops off the experience nicely. And we haven't even come to the massage yet which is ( and here comes the "shameless plug for my massage practice when I return to Friday Harbor to set up shop" part of the blog), if I say so myself, an amazingly relaxing and restorative process. Let's contrast this with the last Thai massage I received. And I'll preface this with the fact that I was rapidly getting sick when I got the massage and had to hold down my lunch while she worked over...er...on my back, so I wasn't in the most tolerant of moods. As I was lying there I noticed the ambiance of the place. Of course I realize that massage comes in many forms (including torture) and that what matters is the massage and not the frilly (Sheryl would call this "puppy dogs and rainbows" part) accoutrements that accompany it. However it just feels better when you can relax...which means having the TV turned off! Or at least turning it down so I don't hum along with the jingles and cause my practitioner to laugh spasmodically. Or at the very least STOP WATCHING IT while you are giving a massage. I caught her glimpsing at the screen during one especially tear producing vulcan death grip. And if the cell phone rings, don't answer it. And if your 5 year old is playing drums with a pair of chopsticks, have her go outside. And if your co-worker is also giving a massage try not to chat too much. And if the guy collecting the money is sitting at the desk next to you, have him not stare too much. Bad flourescent lighting I can live with...bad Thai soap operas just take me out of that hoped for relaxed place that I never found. So much for atmosphere...and we haven't even come to the massage yet. The aforementioned police grips, pushing hard into points of pain, me flinching and gritting my teeth, the twisting and popping of joints ( which is rather satisfying in its own way)...it's all here as well as the hyper-stretching of muscles. My favorite being the one where you sit up and the practitioner places her knees in the small of your back, grabs you under the arms and hauls you backward hyperextending the entire spinal column. The sounds in the room are momentarily drowned out by the snapping of vertebrae as you look down at your toes and smile to see them wiggle when you ask them to. I know Paul and Kelly are laughing like Austin Powers' Dr. Evil while reading this, but I'll get you guys...someday, I'll get you!

Feelin' Good!

You know that feeling when you've been sick on and off for a week and you wake up feeling really good? You tend to over-do it on day one don't you? Let's call today "day one". A week ago I had the Nausea/Vomiting/Diarrhea triad...the unholy trinity that can pour its wrath on the colons of all western non-believers. But as I became a true believer and the ring of fire that is my ass returned to its normal hand scrubbed self, I caught the upper respiratory infection that is tearing through the family running the guest house where I'm staying...cough, fever, snot. Great timing for Sheryl to come halfway around the globe to wait for me to recuperate. But the vacation from my vacation was sweet and Sheryl and I visited many Buddhist shrines, rode on elephants, floated on bamboo rafts, and did a bunch of other stuff you really don't want to read about. But today, with Sheryl somewhere over the Pacific and me with 100% colonic and respiratory fitness, I decided to ride my bike UP to Wat Than Doi Suthep.
Other than to move my slowly flabbing butt, the reason I did this was to get away from the innumerable Jesus-of Nazareths that have descended, nay, pilgrimmed to Chiang Mai recently. Really, it's weird; long brown stringy hair, scraggly beards, emaciated, dining vegetarian (although the vegan thing is never really mentioned in the bible) and wearing undyed brown burlap gowns and head scarves circa 5 or 6 B.C. There are many of these guys around and usually with a few desciples in tow...dressed similarly but with dreadlocks. And yes there is a Mary Magdeline along with them as well, although I've witnessed no actual feet washing. These are not the Khao San Road pierced and tattoo'd sketchy set, but a kind, soft voiced, smiling group of soap dodgers from the late '60's era and I find myself wanting to lay palm fronds at their feet. That or ride as fast and far away from them as possible down a steep mountain road helmetless! I just had an epiphany...THEY ARE ANOTHER REASON I LEFT KAUAI!! Just before I left the island of Kauai I saw a Jesus guy in the same uniform of brown rags (although Sheryl just updated me that someone must have donated a new sheet to him as he was kind of spiffed up at last sighting) and as I was pulling out my palm frond he squatted up against the wall of Borders Books and lit up a joint. Very disappointed that it's all just another fasion statement, I put away my frond worried he might smoke it. Maybe it's just another fasion craze here too since that new movie The Nativity has just been released, or maybe it's a sign that I need to be following. Not sure but that isn't what I wanted to blog about...not at all.
Doi Suthep is a gorgeous 14th century temple built on the spot where an elephant, carrying a relic of the Buddha, died while looking for a holy place to put the thing. I know just how the poor beast felt as I wondered what they'd build when I died of heat stroke. But thank Buddha (or his evil minions) that all the temples here have tons of food and drink stands where one can rehydrate and another can profit! I was glad the Jesuses hadn't followed me or else there might have been some serious over-turning of tables around this Wat. While drinking my second amazingly delicious coconut, I thought about how far I'd ridden today. The Wat is about X kilometers from the center of town and straight up hill with an incline of YX% bringing the ratio of meters moved forward to meters climbed to about XX:YY. In other words, my bike computer was stolen and I have no idea of any of that data. Thank God, because who really cares how fast I go or how far, and what the average speed is or how many verticle feet I've gained today (and you know I'd blog it so thank your stars). This is the kind of crap that gets in your head when you're in the middle of nowhere and it really wears on you. "Wait" you think, "how can I be so tired now, if yesterday I gained 250 more verticle feet by this time already today"? Like the way you feel is dependent on the data in a computer! And as I write this the two guys next to me in the internet cafe are getting so angry and disgusted by the slow speed of their computers that in a way the computer is controlling their thoughts and emotions...hm. When I first saw that my computer had been stolen I was so angry I cursed the thief to get multiple boils and pustules all over his body. But only a few days later I was laughing at myself and thanking the poor boil covered guy for easing my load as well as my mind. And, they say that ignorance is bliss which makes me just about one of the happiest people alive. So now I measure things in "pretty far", "very fast", "damn steep", and "no freakin way!" The climb up to Doi Suthep was a moderate "no freakin way". Moderate only because my panniers were back at home. It is a steep climb that for some sick reason I wanted to do without stopping...in the noon-day sun...wearing a surgical mask (it's not like I miss nursing that much but the air here in Chiang Mai is about as fresh as a burning Marlboro). From the base of the mountain it took an hour and ten minutes (watch not stolen!) of sitting and standing in low-low gear (bike lingo for "don't ask me how many teeth are on my chain ring...don't care") to get to the summit. It took 18 minutes of ear to ear grinning to get down. Life is good again when I can sit on my bike seat without tears of pain welling up!

Poopin' and Barfin'

Without getting super graphic (your welcome) todays title says it all. Chiang Mai is an awesome city in northern Thailand...well, at least the bathrooms I've visited are nice! This town has a funky "if I were in the U.S. I'd be a Santa Cruz or a Santa Fe (not Ohio!)" vibe. Yoga studios and vegetarian restaurants abound and for some reason (too stoned?) there aren't many dreadlocks around. I'll blog more later when the car parked on my head allows. Happy New Year!

Escape From Bangkok!

Finally, after almost 2 weeks in this hell that is Bangkok I'm on a train north to Chiang Mai. I know I recently said I loved this city but that was on Christmas Eve and I was enjoying the melancholy of loneliness and the amazing night lights that can intoxicate. But Bangkok is draining. I wake up tired, I eat tired, I walk tired, I ride tired, I drink coffee tired, I refill the cup with a double espresso and still I remain exhausted. Ten million people are all rushing around in the deafening roar and the hazy thick air. Ten million people struggling to get by, to eat, to get to school, to make ends meet, to make love, to find peace in their surroundings and to find peace within, to get to the end of another day. I know that I will never understand how it all holds together without the wheels flying off. The jostling to get on to a crowded skytrain with bodies pressed on all sides. Or stuck on a bus in traffic that hasn't moved, literally, for 45 minutes. The ear peircing roar of constant internal combustion engines...how do people live like this without going ballistic? The only answer I can find is that they are all too tired. All this shared frenetic energy is too much to take and the mass consciousness is worn down and worn out. How else can you explain the rate at which civil servants do their jobs? Or the fact that I pass out the second I get on the water taxi (no, I'm not trying to avoid paying the fare! Tried that already...they wake you up.) and upon waking notice about 30% of the passengers are immitating dash board bobble-heads too. There is just too much of...everything... here. And the human brain wasn't wired to deal with all of this mass buzzing. Maybe that's why I haven't blogged in a week...just too tired. But now I'm on a train north with my girlfriend Sheryl who just flew into Bangkok for a visit and already I feel better. Except for the ringing in my ears that appears to be a permanent souvenir from Bangkok. A constant reminder of where I don't want to retire. I can trace some of this white noise to a few Tuk-Tuk rides I've been on recently.
How can a small three-wheeled vehicle make so much noise and pour out so much blue smoke? Every one of them has a muffler. I know this because I look, wondering how many hearing-aid-free and oxygen-tubing-in-my-nose-free years I'm being robbed of when one drives by. And there every single Tuk-Tuk is...mufflered. Wet with oil dripping mufflers that spew smoke and scream out painfully. And I wonder why they even bother putting them onto the exhaust manifold in the first place. (Disclaimer: I just had to ask Sheryl if a muffler attaches to a thing called an exhaust manifold. She nodded instantly and probably wondered how I could ask such a stupid question. As if I'd asked her if we breathe something called air. But you'll be glad to know that this in no way has caused me to question my sexual orientation...really.) Because to my ears and lungs the "mufflers" only seem to direct and amplify the sound and smoke. Maybe that's what they are disigned for in Thailand...pushing the choking smoke and blasting "Tuk-Tuk-ing" away from the drivers and toward the sidewalks. But that doesn't make any sense, or isn't working as all the Tuk-Tuk drivers are deaf. That or my pronunciation of Thai is worse than I feared. Because usually, after a third attempt at stating my destination and the accompanying third look of confusion, I'll either give up and walk away or get taken to the wrong destination. And believe me, that is no treat because then the re-negotiation of fares starts all over. And this time the driver has the upper hand because now I am hopelessly lost in a city of ten million people of whom the vast majority speak less english than my hearing challenged driver. And try saying this in Thai..."OK, we agreed on the fare from Siam Square to Soi Rambuttri. The fact that we are now on The Last Place I Want To Be Street, and YOU drove me here, shouldn't change that fare" (go ahead, try it, I'll wait). I don't, and instead I pull out a map and a finger ( no, not THAT finger) and we haggle out a newer and more painful price. But that's not what I wanted to blog about...at all.
Sitting in the train station tonight while waiting for departure I thought, with some concern actually, what a perfect bomb target this would make. Not a normal thought for me but quite understandable after last nights multiple explosions throughout Bangkok that killed 4 and injured dozens. Sheryl and I were just blocks from one explosion sitting in a movie theater eating popcorn. An anouncement was made that the movie was cancelled tonight and we had to leave. In the lobby were soldiers with helmets and we knew something wasn't right. We didn't know what to think when the entire mall and then the entire downtown shopping core of Bangkok began evacuating. We finally got a Tuk-Tuk out of there (they were all asking three times the going rate...except for the one we took that got lost!) and when we got to our guest house the mood was subdued. All celebrations and fireworks shows had been cancelled. Everyone was glued to CNN which looped images of Saddam Husseins body over and over again. I became incredibly sad as James, the inn keeper, toasted us with a weak "Happy New Year". What kind of year is this going to be? What new world order are we creating? Violence begets violence. We can not have war and expect peace. Somalia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Afganistan, Darfur, and now Bangkok? As much as I'm glad to be leaving this city I grieve for it. The people have showed me nothing but kindness (that, and a monster instinct for haggling). They are so gracious, and especially so, given the pressure cooker of overcrowding, pollution, noise, grime, heat, humidity and the struggle to survive. The last thing they need is the added stress and anxiety of random terrorist attacks.