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.

Merry Christmas...or..Am I Gay?

Did I just say that I loved Bangkok? Only 24 hours ago?? What a difference a lonely Christmas day makes. Actually what a difference getting hit by a pick-up truck on a super smoggy ride downtown makes! Cut off, and with minimal time to react I grabbed my brake handles too hard. And as my rear wheel went up in the air and I had no choice but to let off the brakes and plow into the side of this guys truck. I grabbed onto the side of the truck bed to prevent hitting the pavement and held on until he realized he was dragging me and stopped. This time I did leave a dent, but only in his car. I came out with a small scratch but more importantly my bike is fine!! The time for selective helmet wearing is over as I got a good scare today. But that isn't what I wanted to blog about...no, that is boring. I want to talk about one of my favorite topics (not bugs), my neuroses!
My close friend Cary sent me and email the other day about these blogs. She is scratching her head (acually banging it against the wall) once again in response to my whining about trying to "find myself" on this journey. She's had to put up with these rants for 28 years now and she's just about had it. Reading her comments I could almost hear strains of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and Judy Garland crying, "There's no place like home". And that isn't because I'm gay, or sectretly craving those ruby red sequined slippers (actually those slippers are kind of hot and I think I may declare my heterosexuality a little too often and maybe even too loudly). Maybe I am a little gay...actually I think I might just be...no...I'm gay dammit and proud to wear the colors of the rainbow!! Especially the softer, yet bright pastels that bring out my summer tones...um, sorry about this Sheryl but what a great forum for me to come out and tell the world! This does explain the face creme and hair gel that occupy my toiletries kit (as well as the fact that I call it my toiletries kit instead of a shaving kit)... because I have been discarding any non-essentials from my panniers all along S.E. Asia to lighten my load. The roads of Malaysia and Thailand are strewn with my non-essentials. You know, things like toilet paper...and underwear...although as I write that I'm thinking that one or the other of those two things, doesn't matter which really, would be considered essential. Especially if I were gay. So that sort of trends me toward straight. And wait, when I have sexual thoughts or fantasies every 20 to 30 seconds (and who doesn't) there is always a woman invoved! OK, good, you know what? I'm straight dammit. Straight and narrow path for me...sorry David.
Good God are you still reading this blather? Got a bit off track...oh, right. The reason I hear Dorothy "...and Toto too? Yes, and Toto too" is because I know that Cary is right. Why go looking for yourself in far off lands when the answer is right here in your own backyard. (Cue the music and roll credits). But a quick explanation of Cary is in order. She is not only my very first girlfriend/true love, she is also a life long friend who keeps popping up after long abscences and tells it to me like it is. Very strange to have a connection so deep after all these years that cuts out all the crap and filler (maybe she could be my editor) and goes straight to the point. She is pragmatic, I'm obviously not, and thinks all this naval gazing is a waste of time. Like at the end of the day all I will discover in there is a sweaty ball of lint and no enlightenment (other than I need to find some Q-tips). In a way she's got a point. What did I expect to find over here in the back roads of Asia that I wasn't finding at home (besides crotch rot and blisters on my ass)? Is the answer to "Who am I" or "Why am I" more likely to be found in some overly ornate Buddhist temple than it is at home? I mean, the Buddhist temples are so dazzling and beautiful and gaudy that I really don't want to close my eyes and travel inward. I want to look around! But if I do close them, the whir and click of a thousand cameras competes with the constant clanking of baht coins landing in the brass donation boxes. Hardly ideal for inner journying.
Or am I going to discover "The Real James"cycling in the middle of nowhere sweating out my electrolytes faster than a San Francisco bath house workout? (Hey, is that another gay reference?...because I'M NOT...really...although my face creme is by L'Oreal which is not a good sign...but I've tried Nivea and I just find it too greasy, you know?) God, sorry...I was, yeah, finding the real James. By now, if Cary has made it this far into this mess of a blog entry then she has bloodied her monitor with her forehead. (Ibuprofen my friend, 800mg three times/day is the max dose but take it with food.) Because even asking that question has her thinking (and emailing) "Shut the hell up and live your damn life instead of wondering how to live it!" "Instead of asking 'who are you', just be you and enjoy that you are you for f***'s sake!" (She can swear like a sailor if she wants to.) It's a great wake-up call every time we talk or email and I find myself nodding my head in agreement. Then I look down at my belly button again and ask, "But how can I just be me or enjoy being me if I don't know who I am"? The naval never answers. So I keep staring at it and think about the next days ride into the boonies in search of some far off Buddhist temple...sorry Cary.
Hey it's Christmas day in the real world...Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Christmas Eve in Bangkok

Hey New Bangkok Photos!
In one corner of Santi Chai Prakan park near where I am staying, eight people on a makeshift stage (nine if you count the white guy listening) are playing traditional Chinese instruments and singing. It is sad, occasionally raucus, beautiful, rhythmic and reminiscent of howling cats, sitars and dulcimers. It is not Jingle Bells. In the opposite corner a Thai Capoera group is singing and clapping around two dancers/fighters who spar in flowing slow motion. Along the sidewalk an old white hippie teaches a "George-of-the-jungle" rhythm to a young Thai woman wearing a tie-dyed headscarf. Three stoned dread-lockers lie in the grass as a stunningly beautiful and tattood mother chases the toddler that just rebounded off of me like a diapered bumper car. The silver-blue and pink sunlight reflected from the Chao Phraya river has faded and the dim light remaining comes from flourescent tubes tied to sticks that are hammered into the grass. Some ambient light reflects off of the moldy and once-white castle like walls of Phra Sumen Fort and a small Buddhist shrine. Old men sit on benches watching the tuk-tuks speed by billowing massive amounts of blue smoke as bright ferries, lit up like Christmas trees, float by on the now black water. Above it all are the illuminated suspension cables of Phra Pinklao Bridge, asymetrically lighting up the sky like a giant broken harp...with...cars on it. I'm alone on Christmas Eve and I don't care. I kind of hate to say it, but I've just fallen in love with Bangkok.

The Boring Blog

My God, I think I've been in Bangkok too long. I'm starting to like it and today was even a little boring as I took a very enjoyable water taxi to a very enjoyable sky train to a very hot and crowded weekend market that was half tourist trap and half locals flea market. Bargained for some goodies (used down jacket and a used coat. So much for Kauai...back to WA state for me) and then went to the ultra modern mall The Siam Paragon and drooled over Maseratis and Ferraris before watching a lame movie called Aragon. Sounds like a sleeper of a Seattle day except for the heat. The only excitement came when once again I tried to order some food. There is some weird vortex of energy that surrounds my ability to order food. Actually I order it just fine I think, but what comes to my table is without exception not quite what I ordered. Point to a menu item, butcher the Thai pronunciation, repeat myself two more times and when I think the waitperson has it down, I close the menu and smile. The smile isn't because I just successfully ordered something but because I enjoy trying to guess what exactly will come from the kitchen. Somtimes it's just a question of volume like when I ordered a beer and two big fourty ouncers showed up opened and ready to drink. Do I look like that much of a lush that the waiter didn't stop to think for a minute that maybe I didn't want two monster beers right out of the gates? But then again this is Bangkok where you can walk by a table and a couple will be trying to make eye contact around a two foot tower of beer equalling 5 liters or so. So OK maybe he didn't think twice about my alcoholism. But the odds of getting it wrong every single time are kind of astonomical. I try to keep all extraneous words out to simplify things but forgot today and said "No rush, I'll just sit here and watch some soccer". The blank look I received was uncomfortably long but was then followed up with "one minute sir". He brought over another waitress to translate the fact that I "wasn't in a hurry so no rush" but it was sort of a moot point by then. The soccer match was brilliant by the way, as neither team scored. And in England that means it was a good match. In America it's called boring. Another reason it's good to not be in the U.S. right now...I can enjoy a boring soccer game. So that is all I have for now...I'll try and do something stupid and suicidal tomorrow so I can be a bit more "edgy". Merry Christmas to everyone, and to everyone a good night.

Khao San Road

OK I just posted a few more pics on flickr.com so hit the link button if you're interested.
Is every western man in his 40's and wandering alone in Bangkok lazy, perverted or hungry? It's not like I am (well, 1 out of 3 maybe and you have to guess which one). If not, then why are the only people who talk to me wanting to sell me food, a ride on a tuk-tuk, or some sort of sex show that has women doing things that I don't want to see them doing. If curious about sex shows, ask my sister (again you'll have to guess which one) as she got "roped into it" the last time she was in Bangkok. Oops, sorry Samantha! Yesterday a tuk-tuk driver got all excited as I was walking down the street alone. And when I refused a ride he furtively glanced around then asked if I was interested in a sex show. Again I refused (yes really) and wondered if he was going to pull some food out from under the seat and try his luck a third time. I wouldn't have noticed if he had because my attention was now on the "food" stall next to his tuk-tuk. Fried bugs. How many times do I have to embarass myself here and tell you how much I hate bugs? They were dead, which is how I like them the most, but they were definitely cooked and ready to eat. As in "to ingest"...which is how I like them least...even less than in my pillow and hair. And these were not the same as some cute little worm floating at the bottom of a mescal bottle. You know, the bottle you pounded while on holiday in Mexico and got so drunk that you didn't care anymore and swallowed it whole. No...these were big and ugly and deep-fried. COCKROACHES for Pete's sake...huge ones! And praying mantises and yes even some worms in the mix. Why, I tried to imagine, would anyone not living in the deepest reaches of Borneo or maybe Ohio (that was for you Wheelz) ever pop one of those silver dollar sized things in their mouth and start grinding. It really can't taste that good. And if it tastes just like chicken then just eat a freakin' chicken! It's all exoskelton, dammit, which means shards of wings and legs will have you begging complete strangers for a tooth pick or some floss. Is it the protien lacking in ones diet that drives them to it? Is it too much reality TV that is normalizing the most abberent behavior? Or is it just drunk, bored, and stupid over tattoo'd/dread-locked/pierced 20 somethings looking for the next story to tell back home to their friends that smoked up the money they were saving for their Bangkok trip?
Because they are all here and they are starting to get on my nerves. The freaks I mean, not the bugs (well them too). I never realized that in order to travel out of the European continent/England and under the age of 23 you had to tattoo your face, or at least puncture it a few dozen times. I have been travelling with a German couple for a few days and it seems that once you're in your late 20's this travel restriction is lifted. Niether of them have spikes coming from their cheeks nor can you see behind them through dime-sized holes in their 'tribal' earlobes. But I hope they make it home alright. Apparently in order to be admitted back into your Euro country of choice you have to look even worse than when you left. That is the only explanation I have for the dozens of white people sitting in chairs in the street getting horrible hair extensions or worse the ubiquitous (and ultra cool only if you're from Jamaica and too stoned to find a comb) dreadlocks. Don't get me wrong, I love Bob Marley as much as the next white guy (AFRICA UNITE!) but I draw the line at dreadlocks. Actually I draw the line a lot closer than dreadlocks, which makes me old, and a target for the aforementioned sellers of food, sex and motorized transportation. But that seems a small price to pay to have my hair smell like shampoo rather than stale cigarettes and sweat (and bugs if they have an odor). I don't really care what people do to their own bodies of course. It just seems sad and kind of desperate to be 19 years old and trying to be so different than everyone else (just like all your friends) that you permanently out-do Michael Jackson...permanently. As in full-sleeve tattoos that run up necks to behind ears. Or facial tats, or gaping earlobes, or spikes all over the face. Whatever, I guess it makes me appreciate being an old boring guy. An unemployed-cycling-around-SE Asia-homeless-having-the-time-of-my-life-meeting-awesome-people-and-making-lifelong-friends-full-of-life-old-boring-guy. But at least I have two tattoos so I'm not that boring! Whew, thank god for ink.

BIKER DOWN!!!

It finally happened. And in the most likely place it could have...downtown Bangkok. Hit by a car for the first time ever. Actually I've been hit before, in Seattle and Singapore, but never actually went down until a few hours ago. Today however I left my mark on a late model Mercedes-Benz before hitting the hot pavement. Hey, at least it wasn't a crappy old Toyota or even worse a sub-atomic little Proton made in Malaysia! And my mark was just really just a smudge as my hand wiped clean a section of the passenger door covered in dirt. The thing is, and I hate to admit this, I totally deserved it. I deserved getting creamed really but I got lucky (that or the Buddha is watching out for me). Today I was craving a hard ride and in Bangkok there is only one way to get it. By riding with no regard to rules or laws or personal safety...mine or anyone elses (I smacked down a jaywalker stepping between two cars today as well but he'll have to blog about that on his site). Traffic in Bangkok is legendary and today the only difference was I got to play in it instead of being stuck in it. Lane splitting, riding between lanes of non-moving cars, is legal here (I think!). As the hundreds of cars are jammed into parking lots of narrow lanes, the thousands of mopeds drive wrecklessly between them. When the space between the cars fills up with mopeds it becomes fun and adventurous to ride on the yellow line separating the opposing lanes. Like a game of chicken with potentially disastrous results, the oncoming cars swerve just enough to let my handlebars breeze by their rearview mirror. The first few times is nerve wracking and sphincter challenging but after a while it is a crack-up and I end up laughing out loud or occasionally "whooping". Take note if you want to try this sometime...when passing a bus and there is a bus in the oncoming lane...brake hard and swerve behind bus number one. Buses don't play chicken. Underpaid drivers working long hours don't really care a whole lot about me. It's nothing personal. Now, if I were driving a car I would be cussing at the absolute idiot riding like he has terminal testicular cancer that has metastisized into the reasoning section of his brain. All testosterone and no thinking (as I write that I realize it describes about 97% of men between the ages of 18 and 45 but you get my point). I can't even blame suicidal thinking as I stopped taking my anti-malarials two weeks ago. It's just adrenaline. Some people ski, some rock climb...I ride into traffic head long passing everything in my way with no regard for my life. It is immature I know and I'm not really proud to describe my behavior, but it's brilliant. And all was going great until I mis-judged a bumper by a millimeter or so and hit it with my pannier. The swerving out of control didn't last long as I went down fast using the Mercedes as a way to slow my descent. Water bottles and concerned looks were all over the place but the only thing bruised was my pride as I suddenly realized what a complete asshole I had been. I picked up my scattered gear from the middle of the road, pulled over to the side, put the headphones back into my ears (I know I know...) and thought about what a jerk I can be sometimes. Then I jumped back on my bike and passed everything in sight, laughing like a maniac at the oncoming traffic.

Food

I'm not sure why I'm having such difficulty with food these days. It's not like I'm not trying. Thai food can be some of my favorite in the world so am finding myself continually surprised at how boring some of it seems to be. I guess when the Thai waitress sees how white I really am (by just looking at my american fanny pack and noticing I can only say "hello" and "rice" and "thank you") she tells the cook to make my dish milder than my moms homemade Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup. Sorry Mom. Phad Thai, red curry and noodles, green curry and rice, yellow curry and shrimp...all sounding mouthwateringly delicious and above all HOT. But... close my eyes, forget the consistancy, and I can hear my mom calling me to the table with "soups on!" And if she were here, I'd ask her to pass the Wonder Bread and "I can't believe it's not butter" spreadable margerine to spice it up a bit. But it's not just the subtle flavors and hot spices I miss from the "authentic Thai food" from the U.S., I also want to explore all the options of "real" Thai food that are available to a vegetarian...both of them. It can be difficult to find, and most of the time I don't worry about the things that at home would have me calling the waiter over to the table faster than you can say "organic, non-GMO, locally grown, free-range tofu". Things like fish sauce or oyster sauce... or even fish or oysters! Shrimp is now once again a staple and even though I love it and it tastes just as good as I remember it 25 years ago, I prefer to eat more simply ( like Snickers bars and corn chips). So I guess it isn't that strange when I freaked out half way through my banana pancakes this morning upon finding they weren't totally vegetarian. If you consider that the ants I had been chewing on are actually some form of meat that is. The pancake arrived on the plate looking beautiful, fluffy and rich, with bananas on top cooked to perfection. And if you look closely at a banana, you'll see little seeds throughout just about the size of tiny ants, won't you. So I didn't really notice that the specks were ants until I put a second helping of honey on my plate. The honey came out of the bottle kind of chunky style and sure enough full of ants. Breakfast was done for the day as the thought of how many I had actually eaten destroyed my appetite.
The rest of the day was awesome fun with a beautiful swim in the Andaman Sea under a 300 foot cliff face, swimming into caves, taking a long-tail boat ride and soaking up some sun with friends. And I actually forgot about the bug breakfast for most of the day until I crawled into bed and sat there for a while relaxing. A small black bug walked across the sheets and I flicked it off like a booger as I lay down. Another one came my way and I flicked it off as well. Looking up at the ceiling while on my back I felt a bite on my leg and noticed another small black insect burrowing into my skin. As one who leans toward Buddhist beliefs I usually try not to kill anything. Bugs included. As the welt started to form on my calf, I ground that bug into just another stain on the dirty sheets and noticed with alarm the number of small moving spots that were now crawling toward my body from the head of the bed.
I am no fan of bugs (recall the leeches story) and actually have of a phobia of them. Spiders are OK (as they eat other insects) but I have to catch them in a glass to let them outside when I find them in the house. The other night in Bangkok while eating at a food stall I looked down at my feet for some stupid reason and noticed the ground wriggling with cockroaches...not just one or two but ground wriggling numbers of cockroaches! I looked really stupid eating my soup with my feet up on my chair but I was wearing flip flops...and the bugs were everywhere! Over here the roaches grow really big and the thought of them all around me on my feet wrecked my dinner as I crammed down my food in record time. But last night was even worse. The number of little black bugs kept increasing until I looked inside the pillow case and saw a writhing mass of bedbugs. Pushing back the thought that my head had recently been on that pillow I let out a kind of girly squeek and threw pillows out the bedroom door. More bugs kept coming from under the sheets and from between the mattresses and I was lamenting the fact that the guest-house management had left for the night. I was exhausted and wanted to sleep more than anything after a long day in the sun. But by 3:00am I gave up the battle, after the slaughter left hundreds dead, and went out in search of another hotel. I found one for twice as much and happily paid the $7.00 (US dollars I'll have you know) for a bug-bite free nights sleep. It was too late to see the humor in the fact that I had started this day eating bugs and ended it being eaten by them.

The Birthday Party of a King

Arriving in Bangkok at 4:30 am and assembling my bike and panniers after the night of sleepless halitosis was bad enough. But riding into the downtown darkness of the 8 lane highway, over rutted and cracked shoulders strewn with glass, while avoiding the traffic inches from my rear view mirror just topped off my 24 hour day. Crossing over Phra Pin Klao Bridge the blackness of the water below matched my mood. The city was darker than I expected it to be and I felt lost and alone as I wound my way toward Khao San Road and Backpacker Central. This is the area of Bangkok full of cheap accomodation and the type of people that like cheap accomodation. I definitely fit into that category even if I'm no stranger to an occasional shower and some soap. I knew I was getting close when I saw a white guy fully tatooed riding his skateboard down the middle of the street (dreadlocks flowing like snakes from his head) as the three wheeled tuk-tuks avoided his drunken gyrations. Khao San Road was full of trash, beer bottles and a few drunks but not much more. I rode over to Rambuttri Road which still had one bar full of young Europeans drinking hard in the never ending party of Banglamphoo district. It was 6:00am.
After a long nap I awoke to a sea of yellow polo shirts all heading toward Sanam Luang which is a huge central park near the Royal Palace and the Wat Phra Kao. By the time I got to the park there was a mass of yellow like I've never seen. Hundreds of thousands of Thais had come out to celebrate their beloved king's birthday. Almost all of them wore the kings color yellow. It was hot and humid and dusty and packed with people jostling through the narrow spaces between stalls selling any and everything. I could feel myself getting that "Oh my god let me out of here before I go ballistic" feeling. You know that one, where for football fields around you in every direction there are thousands of sweating people bumping into you until you can no longer breathe. And to get a breath of fresh air here you will have to fight your way through them all. Sweat was dripping down my legs and back and trying to get to the edge of the masses was agonizingly slow. My bike was wider than the shifting yellow path ahead. It was then that I realized that going ballistic wasn't an option. Everyone in this crowd was relaxed and cordial and polite and CIVIL to one another. My claustrophobia and ensuing panic attack was apparently not being exerienced by anyone else here. The Thais were all relaxed and patiently having a nice day at the park. I was feeling my sanity being tested and noted that it was barely passing that test...C- at best. Long yellow lines that stretched for maybe a half mile led to mystery places...bathrooms?, juice stands?, I never found out. Smaller yellow lines led to the ever present water stands, and meat-on-a-stick stands, and fake yellow Izod shirt stands, and furry-brightly-colored-animals-that-squeak-or-pop-out-their-tongues-when-you-squeeze-them-stands. I edged to the perimiter and got on my bike and merged (continually avoided being run over) into the madness of buses and tuk-tuks and mopeds...all adorned with yellow passengers. Weird to see entire city buses filled with yellow shirts and not imagining some sort of summer camp or football team outing. The city was one big lemon chiffon custard...or else I was getting really hungry. Even though yellow has never been my favorite color, it was quickly becoming one I could hate.
After another nap it was dark and mercifully cooler. Wandering aimlessly I noticed that everyone was watching TV. Store fronts were crowded for blocks with people all looking inside at the same channel. Live coverage of the big celebration. The King of Thailand was being driven down the Main streets of Bangkok as hundreds of thousands of Thais held candles. White lights dripped from the trees along the way. It was all occuring only a few blocks away and I ran toward the massive crowd. A yellow ocean lay in front of me as I came to the main boulevard. Lights and candles and a calm patience were everywhere. Then, as the white Cadalac slowly approached, blocked from my line of sight by the thousands in front of me, the crowd began standing and undulating and calling out "hello!" in very polite but excited tones as the candles were waved up and down. It was sweet to see so many people that excited yet so composed and quiet. I tried to imagine a similar experience but couldn't. Ghandi wandering through a throng of adoring Thorazine addicts gets close but that's just a weird visual.
Fireworks are nice, sure, and who really doesn't like them? But after seeing many years of fireworks displays, they have rather lost their ability to amaze or really excite me. Of course, this is only true in the event that they are detonated at safe distances from myself or large crowds. But here in Bangkok they do things a bit differently. The closer things that have the potential to kill or mame get to me personally, the less boring they become. Trucks on a freeway for example are rather boring. When they come within a foot from my bike it can be thrilling actually. Psychopaths are another example. Back home, on the fourth of July, a barge would be set up, out on the water away from people, and the fireworks would be launched a thousand feet up into the air so all could watch in safety. Risk of injury usually reduced to sparkler burns or an occasional misfired bottle-rocket. So it really did surprise and scare me when the first explosions from just across the street began. I looked over to see 15 foot columns of flames and sparks shooting up from just over the heads of the crowd on the sidewalk. The concussions from every shot could be felt deep in my chest. The proximity alone would have contituted this as one of the most exciting fireworks shows I've seen. Then, as the colorful explosions above appeared, I thought that they seemed lower in the sky than I'd ever seen. Surely there are standards and codes for the height that explosive fireworks need to be launched. That is obvious. Why then did these seem to be going off way lower than what I thought that should be? Different codes? Indifferent operators? Maybe it was just me. "Maybe not", I realized as a big green spark trail from a huge explosion fell onto some guys yellow windbreaker and set him to jumping around patting his shoulder. Every laughed at that and it was infectious. For the next half hour I was staring into the sky howling with laughter like a madman as explosions were all around me and sparks rained down, occasionally causing someone to momentarily panic. It was madness. With a wall of fire to my right and brightly colored sparks raining from the sky it was absolutely the best fireworks show in the world. Near the middle of the show, however, in mid howl, a big piece of shell casing from one of the bombs hit me in the face. I stopped laughing then and noticed that the ground was covered with coconut-shell shaped casings that were falling with alrming regularity. Then someone else almost caught on fire and we all started laughing again. Happy Birthday King Adulyadej... and many more!

Beam Me Up...

It's so weird. I stepped onto the transporter, fell "asleep", and the next thing I knew I was in Bangkok. On TV it always looked so fast as they dematerialized and then reappeared somewhere else almost instantaneously. In Thailand it took 11 hours and my body is feeling the effects. The bus was amazing however and the attendant served drinks, snacks and a moist towlette at the end of the ride. The only problem was that I had to sleep with a man last night to make it happen. And listen, kudos to all the women of the world. Sleeping with a man absolutely sucks. I mean, most Thais are really thin even though there are food stalls every 15 feet or so on every street in the country. Anytime you want a bowl of noodles or a plate of rice or mystery meat on a stick, you don't have to go far to find it. So how is it that everyone is so thin? Everyone except Jabba the Hut sitting next to me. It must take him forever to go places as he has to be stopping at every one of these stalls to grow this big. He's actually not that huge. I'm just being mean after a long night of snoring and oozing onto my seat. At one point I almost elbowed him hard in the ribs and yelled "Hey Stinky, shut the hell up and get back onto your seat if you can fit in it!" But I didn't, as losing face in Thailand is not something done lightly. Being a good steward of my good nation I sat quietly and hated him in a seething molten pool of hatred and disgust. Let me explain. It's 7am and I've been up almost all night so I've earned this rant.
First of all there was the way that this guy slowly encroached into my space. I first noted the warmth of his sking through my clothes and was really creeped out by the fact that somehow his flank had seeped under my right ass-cheek. "Like liquid", I thought, "he is spilling onto my seat!" Then his left arm started to rest on mine as the chain-sawing of his open mouth startled me from non-sleep to full awakeness. There is only one guy on the bus snoring, why god... But that wasn't the worst of it...by far. I wasn't going to yell "stinky" for nothing. This guys breath had me leaning my head as far as out into the isle as I could and my neck still has that "slept wrong on it all night" feeling. The sheer lack of oxygen was bad enough but the stench that emitted from that hole! It was a mixture of old cigar breath, a beer drank maybe an hour ago, and fish. Really. I sat there and had the time to figure it out like a wine-taster discerning the specific "nose" of some horrid liquid brewed at the local slaughterhouse. Then someone behind me broke out some durian fruit roll-up and started chewing away on it. Back in Malaysia I met a very sweet retired couple who gave me a bite of their durian fruit roll-up. "The good stuff, from Thailand" they assured me. They were dying to see my reaction I could tell. Durian fruit is amazing. If you've never had it then you've missed the experience of eating a solid fart. From the first bite the sensation hits from deep inside your nasal passage like wasabe mustard. But instead of the hot pain of wasabe you get the smell/taste of a fart (someone elses mind you) that stays with you long after you swallow. The old couple laughed as I smiled weakly and lied "not bad". "Westerners think it taste like toilet" he said said to his wife and they laughed even harder. As the durian gas filled the bus I was almost grateful. But it didn't actually hide the halitosis of Jaba, it just added another layer to the cacophany of odors.
It was then that I came up with the idea of dropping a breath mint into his guano-emitting cave of a mouth. A tic-tac might do it, but being rather small it might go down his trachea and deep into a lung. More than the ensuing coughing fit resulting from such and act, I worried that a tic-tac lodged deep in a lung would do absolutely nothing about his breath. "A mento's, my kingdom for a Mento's". If that got lodged in his airway it would stick in the trachea and kill him. I smiled at the thought. Suddenly I remembered that I had bought some Juicyfruit gum at the bus station! I pulled out the pack and shoved several pieces into my mouth and for 15 joyous minutes all I could smell was gum. I laughed thinking of William Shattner overacting into his communicator. "Scotty... Scotty, get me out of here Scotty!"

Language #3 Talking in Fluent American

After practicing my Thai all morning on my 110km ride, I flawlessly ordered my vegetarian lunch. It was delicious! And by about the third bite into it noticed the hunks of dead chicken. Dammit! So much for flawless. The after lunch ride was a bit painful as my colon was reintroduced to the muscle tissue of another animal. How do you meat eaters do it? I'll spare you the soap box and politics of meat and just cop to the fact that it really was tasty. Maybe the meat showed up on my plate because I'm out of practice. And I'm out of practice because I've been speaking American! And I've been speaking American because I randomly bumped into the American couple here in Krabi that I originally met in Malaysia (OK another shameless plug for their website www.northstarjourneys.com). It was a great reunion and we hung out continuouslyfor the past two days. There is something that happens while travelling that makes friendships more immediate and more intense than at home. Maybe the knowledge that you only have a short time together condenses the experience and makes you cut out the filler that normally occupies most friendships. There is something more to this connection, however, as we all acknowledge that it feels like we've been friends for years.
I said speaking American and I meant it. I first realized it when Paul gave me the measurements of something big in football fields. I instantly understood the size of it without having to convert meters to feet to yards to football fields. The metric system is lame. I mean, sure it's logical. Sure it's neat and clean. Sure everything can be divided by 10 or multiplied by 10 which is really efficient. But if someone says "that is probably 450 meters long", I'm too busy converting that length into football fields to hear what comes next. Everything should be measured in football fields, it just makes life easier. Then late one night sitting on the curb in front of their guest house we had the inevitable conversation that every real American has. I realized that even though I haven't missed it, the topic hadn't come up until now. Of course I'm talking about Gilligan's Island. I haven't owned a TV now for over 15 years and yet there we were discussing the personalities of Mary Ann and Ginger. The relationship between The Skipper and Gilligan or...well you get the idea. That part of growing up, the afterschool television experience, is such a huge part of our collective psyche that many years later we have a common bond that, as silly as it sounds, runs deep. We barely touched on Star Trek (the Captain Kirk and Spock years of course) and for the first time having this discussion I didn't mention the Brady Bunch...which is probably just as well. In Kuala Lumpur I had tried to describe to my German friend the concept of a situation comedy about WW2 Prisoners of War but her horrified look of distaste kind of quieted me down. Paul and I just cracked up recalling Hogan's Heros' Schultz and Colonel Klink. Kelly was sweetly smiling but not as animated and I found out that she was more of a PBS kid. Sesame Street and The Electric Company were more her role models for TV and it sounds so much healthier to me now as I write it down. That led later to a discussion of the best kids album (and most aggregiously politically correct) Free to Be You and Me. After our discussion I now have a deeper under standing of why Kelly is one of the most mellow and gentle people I've met in a long time. We're all going to meet up again in Bangkok and I'm stoked. Not just because they're so fun to be around, but also there is a huge part of that topic that we left out, and need to complete. Sure we might have broken out a short verse of "It's alright to cry" from Free to be... but none of us sang a theme song from one of our beloved shows and that is an American birthright.

Language #2

Even though excited to get to Thailand, I hated leaving Malaysia as I grew to love the place. But after 5 weeks or so the hardest thing to leave behind was the language (OK and the food and the people and...). But oh how I miss the days of a good old "selamat pagi". I had studied bahasa Malaysia for a month or so before before leaving so I could at least find a toilet and food when I got there. Laziness and denial let me get to southern Thailand with not one word of Thai in my lexicon. Turns out I should have been studying Thai instead of Malaysian. The language situation is the exact opposite of what I had imagined. Everyone in Malysia seems to speak some English and a lot speak it well. In Thailand not many speak it well and there are quite a few who have no English words in them what so ever. And the written script? Where are my roman letters!? It makes it very hard to find anything or go anywhere by bike if I can't even phonetically try to read a town name. So that has been hard for me and boo-frickety-hoo! "Of course they speak Thai, you ninny, youre in Thailand!!" Oh my God, here come the voices!
I use the Lonely Planet guide book for a ton of information and it is great. For language tips, it's useless. When for the first few days here I tried to say "I am vegetarian" people would just shake their heads and pick up a fish or chicken part. I would point to the noodles and veggies and eventually come up with something to eat. Finally at the guest house in Krabi the owner pulled me aside and helped me out with some key vegetarian phrases. That night I tried it out and sure enough some veggie plate came to my table and it was delicious. The next night I tried it out again and more head shaking...which has been my response of late. Back at the guest house today, I tried my one phrase out on a group of women sitting with the owner and they all just laughed. Apparently I have been going around Thailand asking every food vendor if I'm a vegetarian. I guess my answer is yes when I refuse the meat held up to me in response. Language is tricky and I like to point a lot more now than I ever have. "I'd like one more Thai iced tea please" is easily translated to pointing my index finger at my empty glass then holding up the number 1. Simple, effective, yet not conducive to much more. If you can tell me how to sign "What subject did you study at University" please send it to my comments section... with photos! Well, it's almost 6pm here so off to dinner...hmm, wonder what will end up on my plate tonight?