Moving north towards the Laos border, I stop in the town of Kratie (pronounced Kra-chay). This is one of the few places where it's possible to view the soon-to-be extinct Irrawaddy dolphins. Dead infant dolphins have recently been found in the Mekong. Scientists predict that the dolphins will be extinct within 15 years unless new policy is established and enforced banning the international trade of the species. Fisherman use the fresh and salt-water dolphins to help herd fish into their nets, where the dophins often become entangled. Along with pollution and isolated breeding, the dolphins have little hope of survivial without immediate government interaction.
I arrive exhausted, as I seem to be all the time. I take a quick nap before the hotel wakes me for my 20 minute motodup ride up river to see the dolphins. I hop on the back of a motorcycle. There's another couple on the back of a second bike. As we're leaving the town center, there's a police checkpoint. A police officer motions for my driver to pull over, which he does not. A second officer 20 feet further up the road steps in front of us. We slow down. However, before we come to a complete stop, the first officer reaches us, almost pushes us over, takes the key out of the ignition and without even glancing my way, angrily walks away.
I'm slightly shaken up, more from the lack of control I always feel when I'm a passenger rather than the fact that this policeman nearly pushed an economy-boosting tourist from a moving vehicle.
"What's going on?" I ask. "Why did he do that?"
"The motorcycle isn't registered."
"Why not?"
"It costs $20."
"How can you get the key back?"
"Pay $2."
The driver pushes the bike to a nearby shop and they preceed to try to hotwire it.
After watching these guys fiddle with the ignition, I suggest that the other couple continue on and that someone call the hotel and get another motodup out here. No one has a cell phone. This is odd, as everyone in the country has cell phones.
Magically, somehow, a new key is produced. We start the bike and continue on.
Riding down a narrow, poorly-paved, one-lane road that runs along side the Mekong, I ask my driver to go slow. He laughs.
Finally at the "Irrawaddy National Park", we pay our entrance fees at a make-shift booth obviously started by locals looking to make some easy cash. I highly doubt that this is a government initiative, though I'm also sure that the police are happy to take their cut.
A small group of us board a long boat and we noisily proceed to the middle of the river and wait. Everyone is ready with camera in hand. The surface of the water is broken by the square heads of the dolphins. And down they go. What with the delayed reaction of the point-and-shot digital camera, there's no way I'm going to get a picture. We stay on the river for a half hour or so, watching to sun descend and waiting for a short glimpse of the top fourth of a dolphin head. "Don't they do flips or something?" It's a pleasant, relaxing afternoon, but Seaworld it ain't.
I skip dinner and go to bed early. I have no appetite, which is a rarity.
The next morning I awake to 50 dead cockroaches on my hotel room floor. They are the flying kind and will land on you in the middle of the night. I carefully tip-toe on clear spaces of floor, back my bag and go to meet a Dutch couple for a share taxi further north to Stung Treng. Chris, Karine and I share the back seat while 4 people ride in front. Yep, there are 2 people in the driver's seat. It is peddle to the metal all the way. Red dust coats our clothes, skin, tongues.
In Stung Treng Chris and Karine order breakfast at a riverside restaurant. I lay on a bench feeling nauseous and burpy.
Soon enough we board a speed boat for the hour trip to the Cambodia/Laos border. Now, when I say speed boat, I'm not talking Miami Vice, Charlie's Angels speed boat. I'm talking 3 feet wide, 15 feet long, 2 feet high. The seats are level with the bottom of the boat and one is only able to sit with knees folded up to the chin. But it does go fast.
We skirt along the top of the water, weaving through groups of trees that grow from the middle of the Mekong. The water is brown. The river is wide. I imagine Khmer Rouge hiding along it's banks. This is fun.
At the border, 3 boats of travelers pull up to the left bank where the Cambodian immigration shack sits perched at the top of a muddy incline. We patiently wait for the uniformed officer to stamp our passports. We then board the boat again and cruise to the opposite bank. We are now in Laos. We need to pay an extra overtime fee of $1 because it is Saturday.
There are 7 of us and a Belgian guy negotiates a ride in a large transport truck to the nearest town. The negotiation process is long, as there is one truck and the driver knows that we have no other choice but to pay the exorbitant fee. Jack is a savvy diplomat, but the driver ultimately drops us off at a point in the river 20 minutes further south than we had agreed upon. For me and the Dutch couple, this results in a higher price to reach the island of Don Det and the impossibility of the Belgians catching a bus to the next town north. They have no other choice but to go to Don Det for the night.
Don Det is one of what they call The 4,000 Islands. Electricity operates for approximately 3 hours a day. Mosquitos are abundant. Accomodations are basic.
While everyone else spends the rest of the day talking and drinking, I sleep in a stifling room. It has now been almost 2 weeks since I started feeling ill. My initial self-diagnosis of heat exhaustion or dehydration seems less plausible. But I push on, not feeling bad enough to spend an entire day in a room without fan or air/con.
The next day I take a walk around the island. At what looks like the community Buddhist temple, a huge festival is under way. Family and friends eat together, make offerings to Buddha, play sports and dance. Everyone smiles at me and happily lets me take their pictures. My guest house owner later explains that this is a roaming party, with different islands taking turns playing host.
I continue down the path that crosses the island. It is longer than I expect and the heat is gruelling. A tourist truck, not totally unlike the ones at Universal Studios, comes up behind me and I need to stand on the shoulder of the road to let it pass. Instead, I flag it down and join a small group of Thais on holiday. We are brought to one of several waterfalls that populate the island before returning to the Don Det docks. This is the common Asian tour. Get on bus, go to destination, take picture. Rinse and repeat.
While Don Det is beautiful, I gladly leave the next day with the Dutch/Belgian crew, hoping for respite from the heat in the next town.
It's a 2 hour drive north in a jumbo truck. Two chain-smoking monks sit opposite me. An old lady is chewing betel nut. Her teeth are solid lumps of black tar. Another women has just bought fish at the market and is spilling fish juice on everyone's feet. The truck is packed, with people sitting on the roof and hanging off the sides.
We are dropped off at the Champasak junction and must take a small wooden ferry across the river to reach this former capital. Champasak consists of one main street. The buildings are quiant and well-kept. Souchitra Guest House looks out onto the river and the distant mountains. It is cool (the temperature that is) and chill (the vibe that is).
I arrange a 5am tuk-tuk pick-up for the next morning so that I can see the sunrise from Wat Phu Champasak, as my Lonely Planet suggests. It is only as we approach the locked gates that I double check "The Book". Why would the authors suggest a sunrise viewing when the place doesn't open until 8am? But my tuk-tuk driver is resoureful. We go to the side entrance, wake up the grounds keeper and he not only lets us in, he takes me up the mountain side. This is, of course, not an act of altrusim. A tip is in his very near future. He's a kind man, though. He waits patiently while I take pictures of blades of grass and cracks in rocks.
Wat Phu Champasak is the most sacred site in Southern Laos. At one point it was part of the Angkor Empire and it's said that there is a road that leads straight to Angkor Wat.
That's it. One night in Champasak and I'm on the move again, thanks to the initiative of the Belgians. They have rented a boat to take us all 2 hours up river to Pakse. We try to play word games in the boat, but one girl doesn't speak English all that well. She is using French names for countries which often have different spellings. For instance, in French Uganda and Uzbekistan start with an "O". Germany starts with an "A". Chad starts with a "T". I ammuse myself with singing songs with the word "boat" in the title.
If I had a boat (Lyle Lovett)
Rock the boat (Hues Corporation)
Michael row your boat ashore
Row row row your boat
Okay, that's all I can think of.
Enjoying the fact that I haven't had to plan anything in days, I accompany the Belgians (along with some French and Germans) on an all day tour of the Boloven Plateau, the fertile plains north of Pakse. We visit coffee and tea plantation, both of which are grown in abundance in this area. At the tea plantation I ask where the lemon zinger tea plant is. Every single one of these arrogant fucks thinks I'm serious. Just another unrefined American.
I must mention that I am the only native English speaker in the group. Not really in the mood to talk, I have a good excuse to tune out the sound of their voices. When the different groups want to converse with each other, they use English. So, what I do get to listen to is a bunch of anti-Semites complaining about Israeli travelers. I am equally as sick of defending Israelis as I am of defending America so I keep quiet. I've had this conversation too many times. Yes, large groups of young Israelis can be loud and complaining and they're always trying to get a better price. But you never hear anyone complaining about Brits who drink themselves into oblivion but not before picking fights with anyone who walks by. Uhg! Fucking Nazis! I don't see any of them making friends with Israelis. Their limited observations are from afar. Nope. Everyone self-segregates. Except Americans. Last thing I want to do is hang out with a bunch of loud, complaining, wacko Americans.
American nut-job example: A man walks into an Indian restaurant and asks for Italian bread. This is a true story.
With the discomfort of my bloated stomach and the excrutiating pain of the skin boil that has been growing in my armpit since Sihanoukville, I decide to leave the French speakers and take an overnight bus to Vientiane, where I can recuperate in a cushy hotel room with a/c and cable. The bus ride is horrible. All through the night music keeps coming on, but only through the speaker directly above my head. The aisle is filled with people so there's no way I can get to the front of the bus to tell the driver to turn it off. Then, while in the bathroom the light goes off. I don't know where the switch is and I can't get out. I have no idea how I manage to finally open the door.
After two days in Vientiane with no change in my health, I go to the international medical clinic. I try to take a tuk-tuk, but when the driver quotes me a price more than double what I know it should be I start yelling at him. "I NEED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND YOU TRY TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ME!!! WHAT KIND OF PERSON ARE YOU!!!" Of course I know what kind of person he is. He's the kind of person who wants to feed his family. He takes a shot, as chances are good that he'll come across a tourist who doesn't know any better. I know I'm in a bad state, as I only yell at these guys when I'm over-tired or ill.
I walk to the clinic. Two doctors look at my armpit and suggest that it's a spider bite, which I know it isn't. They prescribe amoxicillin and some other meds for my stomach. The combination of the meds give me such severe heartburn that I'm throwing up.
There are two English movie channels on cable. For 4 days straight not one movie is repeated. This is an amazing thing is Asia. They show every Rocky movie. It is my opinion that the Rocky / Adrian romance is one of the greatest movie love stories ever told. Dumb, good-hearted, street thug falls for shy, homely pet lover. You don't get more real than that.
I spend 10 days in that hotel room with my arm raised above my head trying to keep the now cigar-sized crater of an open wound clean and dry. My stomach has not improved and I am forcing myself to eat so that I can take the medication.
I have now come to a critial point. I can barely move my arm, making it difficult and painful to carry a backpack, let alone put on a bra. The medication has not worked. I have no choice but to spend the cash to fly back to Bangkok. No Northern Laos. No Vietnam. These things happen.
As soon as I get on the plane I feel better. The psychological relief of a good decision I suppose.
In Bangkok I go immediately to Mission Hospital, which has been recommended by Steve Goodman. In the waiting room are pictures of hospital scenes where Jesus is standing in the background. Jesus in the operating room behind the surgeon with one hand placed supportively on his shoulder. Jesus standing over a doctor who assiduously researches G-d's latest plague. Jesus standing with the family of a terminally ill patient.
I am entered into the computer system and given an ID card. The comfort of a modern, networked computer system far exceeds that of the "Jesus is watching over you" evangelism.
For my skin ulcer I see a dermotologist who informs me that amoxicillin (prescribed by the Laos doctor) is for sore throats, not skin infections. She prescribes the correct anti-biotic and says that if my wound doesn't improve within a week I will have to have a biopsy. Freak out #1.
The internist tells me that I may have hepatitis. Freak out #2. I give a stool sample (yuck) to check for parasites which comes back negative. I then have blood taken to check for hepatitis. I have to explain to the nurse that people are really bad at taking my blood and to please get it right the first time. I have never gotton over the paradox of taking myself to do something I despise so much. If my mother isn't pushing me down the hallway, why don't I just turn around and leave?
Turns out I don't have hepatitis. A few anti-nausea pills and my symptoms start to fade. My terribly sexy armpit also starts to improve. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
In the two weeks I am waiting to get better, my good friend, Shai, arrives in Bangkok, having just been released from an Indian hospital where he was on an IV drip for 8 days. We recount our illness stories. He helps me negotiate a good price on a wedding present (Not that your wedding present was cheap, Danny). You see, if you want to get a discount, take an Israeli shopping with you.
I go to the movies at the shopping mall. After previews but before the main attraction, a salute to the King comes in the form of a short multi-media presentation. Everyone stands. Still pictures of the King and the grand landscapes of Thailand move across the screen while deafening Thai music plays in Surround Sound.
I also wander around the mall trying not to buy anything. The most curious item is "Pink Nipple Cream". I had no idea there was a market for this type of product.
So now I'm better. In the past 3 months, I've had my money belt stolen, been forced to socialize with men who'd rather pay $15 in order to NOT talk to women, had an upset stomach for 5 weeks (which curiously started just about the time I had the oatmeal cookie from the euthanasia activist), had fits of vomitting due to incompetent doctors and have cryed my eyes out watching my flesh fester and ooze. I'm sick of Asia. I haven't been home in a year. My cousin is getting married.
I'm going home. For now...
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Part 4 - Southern Cambodia, Oct. 2005
There is no public transportation system in Cambodia. The most common modes of travel include private buses, private taxis (beat-up old Camrys), tuk-tuks, rickshaws and motodups (motorcycle taxis - helmet not included).
Steve and I have rented the entire back seat of a private taxi, which would normally accomodate 4 people, to take us 2 hours south to the sleepy riverside town of Kampot. Most famous for it's production of pepper, the French used to say that a restaurant isn't worth it's weight in salt if it didn't serve Kampot pepper.
At the Mealy Chenda Guest House, we relax into huge yet severly water-damaged rooms. I have the worst banana shake of my life, which is either due to not-yet ripe bananas or powdered milk. Sometimes the only thing in life you can trust is a Coca Cola.
The afternoon is all about town exploration. We meander down quite streets, past abandoned open-air markets, along the motionless river and into a internet / coffee shop. Tola, an American ex-pat, has even made a fresh batch of oatmeal cookies. We sit for a while and exchange pleasantries. Tola recommends that we go to the fishing village across the river. Oh, how nice. What a lovely man, albeit a bit "off".
It is not two months later that Steve emails with news that Tola is promoting Kampot as good a place as any for euthanasia. Man, it just had to be an American. The other ex-pat business owners are outraged and are trying to have him deported. A quote from his website states: "If you are considering choosing the time, place and manner of your end of life experience then I would like to recommend that you visit Cambodia. There is much you can do here."
Now you'd think that if you're considering killing yourself, sightseeing wouldn't be a top priority. There's probably only one thing you're interested in doing.
You can read more about this at Tola's website:
http://www.euthanasiaincambodia.com/
However, his suggestion about fishing village was worthwhile. As usual, once you get away from town centers and people who deal with tourists, you find friendly, genuine people. Down the muddy road I follow Steve on his endless picture-taking odyssey.
Billboards and business signs are hand painted. After taking a photo of one such advertisement, I am questioned by an old man. "What are you doing?" he barks. As sweety as possible, I try to explain that signs here are different than in my country and I like them. I am totally lying, of course. What I'm recording is one country's lack of technical progress. But this guy scares me. I'm pretty sure he's former Khmer Rouge. What? Does he think I'm doing recon for some secret American agency that wants to bomb the local welder?
Ironically, he lets me take HIS picture.
--------------------------
Near Kampot is Bokor Hill Station, a former French resort spot that is now in ruin. Ten of us load into a 4-wheel drive truck, the only vehicle other than dirt bikes that can maneuver the rutted, winding dirt road. In the back of the truck, I am thrown about for nearly 2 hours. Steve is relaxing in the front seat.
Finally at the top, we take a short hike down to a waterfall. It begins to rain. My tevas don't work at all. I have not prepared for this. I bury my electronics deep in my back.
When we reach the diserted and decaying Bokor Hotel, I pout over a hot cup of nescafe while the others get the historical schpeel from our guide. Once my damp pants have ceased from sticking to my ass, I sulk around the eerie hotel that reminds everyone of "The Shining". Picture, picture. Snap, snap. Click, click. If there were any intact doors left, I'd have something to slam.
Another 2 hours back down the mountain and Steve and I go in search of comfort food. Whaaa!
--------------------------
The next day I want to take a break. I'm feeling oddly tired. But Steve pushes for the day-long circuit of the seaside resort town of Kep, local caves and a tour of a pepper plantation. Uhg! I'm traveling with someone. I have to compromise. I don't get to do what I want to do. Fine! He'll be sorry. I'm going to be a bitch all day long.
We arrange a private taxi for $15. The taxi arrives with a driver that speaks a little English. But what's this? He's leaving. A couple minutes later another taxi arrives with bald tires and a driver who doesn't speak a word of English. I can see this is going to work out well.
Kep. Great. Beautiful. Beach. Water. Shrimp. Local women swimming in jeans and t-shirts.
Caves. Unimpressive. A local boy leads us up the hill. Like we can't find our way up stairs. It is here that we run into a Japanese man who was with us in the Bokor truck the day before. His guide speaks English and informs us that our driver plans to take us back to Kampot. "What about the pepper plantation?" Oh, no. The driver needs to get home. Home? We don't care where this guy needs to go. If he doesn't take us to the freakin' pepper plantation he doesn't get paid. After much debate, the driver agrees and drives us out into the countryside. He's going to take us somewhere and leave us there. He's going to kill us. What he actually does is drive us down a road, stops the car, points to a field and says "pepper".
What can we do? We know there is a real pepper plantation that gives tours. All the guest houses advertise this. It must exist somewhere. Alas, there is no way to communicate this to our apathetic driver.
Back at the hotel, Steve gets into an agrument with the guest house staff. They just don't seem to understand our logic. It is astounding that they think they will get paid for a service they didn't provide. I calmly interject. "You said we would go here. We didn't. This is what you're getting paid." We hand over the reduced fee and walk away. I am now expecting to be smothered in my sleep.
The next morning I wake up alive. Woo-hoo.
-----------------------------
We arrange our own private taxi out of town rather than letting the hotel make any more money off us. It's a relatively quick ride to the beach town of Sihanoukville, named after the former king. Norodom Sihanouk.
Guinness Book of World Records identifies Sihanouk as the politician who's occupied the greatest variety of political offices, though most of them were honorific. King Sihanouk is a colorful political figure. He lead his country to indenpendence from French colonialism in the 1950s. In an effort to fight the greater evil of the moment, he often changed alliances throughout the volatile and distructive decades that still plague the country, half the time living in exile in Beijing and Paris.
In 1991 he returned to Cambodia as Head of State and was reinstated as king in 1993 under a new constitution.
Sihanouk abdicated the throne to his son in 2004. At the time, Prince Norodom Sihamoni was living in Paris where he was an avid patron on the arts. Having lived most of his life outside of Cambodia, he studied music, ballet and film-making and speaks Khmer, French, Czech, English and Russian. He is not married. Humm? Fifty-three year-old, ballet dancing prince that isn't married?
Serendipity Beach is a long, narrow stretch of white sand, lined with restaurants. It's a nice beach, but it ain't Thailand. Our guest house is a 5 minute walk away from the beach, as opposed to the the 5 second walk to which I am accustomed.
On our first night, Steve and I take a motodup to the town center. We are drawn to an unadorned bar where live music echoes out onto the empty street. There is one customer propped up on a bar stool. Steve points out that the owner is probably an ex-prostitute, now too old to attract the pedophiles that constitute the Sihanoukville sex clientele. The musician is Gypsy Davey, an Australian ex-pat who deftly plays old folk music.
Down the street we enter another bar with an Australian moniker: Down Under Bar or G'Day Mate. The customers, along with the owner, are heroin addicts. Boy, isn't this fun.
The next night Steve goes out on his own. While he is quite capable of hanging with hyped up ex-pats, I would rather stay at home and pluck my eyebrows. Regardless of my hunger, I stay in. I'm scared to go out on my own, even though it's a short walk to the nearest restaurant. This is the only time in my travels that I have ever felt so unsafe. Even the motodups frighten me.
I spend the entire next day at the beach-side Eden Bar, reading Leon Uris's "Trinity". Local women offer to paint my freshly pedicured toes. I teach a young Brit how to play the obligatory "Wish You Were Here".
I am now eager to get back to Phnom Phen, get my passport and get out. I've discovered a lovely skin boil forming in my arm pit. That's going to cause a month of discomfort. At the local pharmacy, the pharmacist pokes around the sore and gets me some anti-bacterial cream. He even puts a bandage on for me because Steve won't do it. Thanks a lot buddy!
There's a factual error in my last post. It is here in Sihanoukville that I receive a call from the Embassy informing me that I have filled out the wrong form and need to come back in. I am livid. I can't get back to Phnom Phen in time to get this all completed before the weekend. This extends the processing time by almost a week and I still need the new passport to get a visa for Laos and have time to reach the border before my Cambodian visa expires. I ask to speak to a supervisor. A man with an accent gets on the phone. "Are you American?" I condescendingly assert. "I want to talk to an American!" Yes, I know. This is terrible. I'm not proud. And yet, I berate the man for his incompetent staff, recounting all the errors that had been made thus far. "My taxes pay your salary..." In reality, I haven't paid taxes in the US in 4 years. He hangs up on me. Guess I brought that on myself.
Back in Phnom Phen I return once again to the embassy to complete the correct form which is almost identical to the one previously filled out. I am like saccharine, explaining my time-crunch predicament. The help-desk girl (ie: incompetent staff) informs me that I can use my temporary passport to get my Laos visa. So, I do that. I take the temp passport to the Laos Embassy and leave it there for a couple days for visa processing.
When I return the next day to the US Embassy to pick up my new passport, they ask me for my temporary passport. Oh my g-d!!! I start to tear up as this always evokes sympathy whereas yelling just gets you hung up on. I am explaining to a man (Yes, I know it's the one from the phone. We're both feigning recognition of each other.) that this girl told me to take my temporary passport to the Laos embassy. "She's new," he explains. "I don't care," I reply. "The amount of erroneous information I have been given is ridiculous. Why don't you train her." Sniffle, sniffle.
In the end, I am carrying around 2 passports: The cancelled temp with the Laos visa and the fresh new 10 year with nothing. I am heading to the Cambodian / Laos border crossing with 3 days left on my visa.
Steve and I have rented the entire back seat of a private taxi, which would normally accomodate 4 people, to take us 2 hours south to the sleepy riverside town of Kampot. Most famous for it's production of pepper, the French used to say that a restaurant isn't worth it's weight in salt if it didn't serve Kampot pepper.
At the Mealy Chenda Guest House, we relax into huge yet severly water-damaged rooms. I have the worst banana shake of my life, which is either due to not-yet ripe bananas or powdered milk. Sometimes the only thing in life you can trust is a Coca Cola.
The afternoon is all about town exploration. We meander down quite streets, past abandoned open-air markets, along the motionless river and into a internet / coffee shop. Tola, an American ex-pat, has even made a fresh batch of oatmeal cookies. We sit for a while and exchange pleasantries. Tola recommends that we go to the fishing village across the river. Oh, how nice. What a lovely man, albeit a bit "off".
It is not two months later that Steve emails with news that Tola is promoting Kampot as good a place as any for euthanasia. Man, it just had to be an American. The other ex-pat business owners are outraged and are trying to have him deported. A quote from his website states: "If you are considering choosing the time, place and manner of your end of life experience then I would like to recommend that you visit Cambodia. There is much you can do here."
Now you'd think that if you're considering killing yourself, sightseeing wouldn't be a top priority. There's probably only one thing you're interested in doing.
You can read more about this at Tola's website:
http://www.euthanasiaincambodia.com/
However, his suggestion about fishing village was worthwhile. As usual, once you get away from town centers and people who deal with tourists, you find friendly, genuine people. Down the muddy road I follow Steve on his endless picture-taking odyssey.
Billboards and business signs are hand painted. After taking a photo of one such advertisement, I am questioned by an old man. "What are you doing?" he barks. As sweety as possible, I try to explain that signs here are different than in my country and I like them. I am totally lying, of course. What I'm recording is one country's lack of technical progress. But this guy scares me. I'm pretty sure he's former Khmer Rouge. What? Does he think I'm doing recon for some secret American agency that wants to bomb the local welder?
Ironically, he lets me take HIS picture.
--------------------------
Near Kampot is Bokor Hill Station, a former French resort spot that is now in ruin. Ten of us load into a 4-wheel drive truck, the only vehicle other than dirt bikes that can maneuver the rutted, winding dirt road. In the back of the truck, I am thrown about for nearly 2 hours. Steve is relaxing in the front seat.
Finally at the top, we take a short hike down to a waterfall. It begins to rain. My tevas don't work at all. I have not prepared for this. I bury my electronics deep in my back.
When we reach the diserted and decaying Bokor Hotel, I pout over a hot cup of nescafe while the others get the historical schpeel from our guide. Once my damp pants have ceased from sticking to my ass, I sulk around the eerie hotel that reminds everyone of "The Shining". Picture, picture. Snap, snap. Click, click. If there were any intact doors left, I'd have something to slam.
Another 2 hours back down the mountain and Steve and I go in search of comfort food. Whaaa!
--------------------------
The next day I want to take a break. I'm feeling oddly tired. But Steve pushes for the day-long circuit of the seaside resort town of Kep, local caves and a tour of a pepper plantation. Uhg! I'm traveling with someone. I have to compromise. I don't get to do what I want to do. Fine! He'll be sorry. I'm going to be a bitch all day long.
We arrange a private taxi for $15. The taxi arrives with a driver that speaks a little English. But what's this? He's leaving. A couple minutes later another taxi arrives with bald tires and a driver who doesn't speak a word of English. I can see this is going to work out well.
Kep. Great. Beautiful. Beach. Water. Shrimp. Local women swimming in jeans and t-shirts.
Caves. Unimpressive. A local boy leads us up the hill. Like we can't find our way up stairs. It is here that we run into a Japanese man who was with us in the Bokor truck the day before. His guide speaks English and informs us that our driver plans to take us back to Kampot. "What about the pepper plantation?" Oh, no. The driver needs to get home. Home? We don't care where this guy needs to go. If he doesn't take us to the freakin' pepper plantation he doesn't get paid. After much debate, the driver agrees and drives us out into the countryside. He's going to take us somewhere and leave us there. He's going to kill us. What he actually does is drive us down a road, stops the car, points to a field and says "pepper".
What can we do? We know there is a real pepper plantation that gives tours. All the guest houses advertise this. It must exist somewhere. Alas, there is no way to communicate this to our apathetic driver.
Back at the hotel, Steve gets into an agrument with the guest house staff. They just don't seem to understand our logic. It is astounding that they think they will get paid for a service they didn't provide. I calmly interject. "You said we would go here. We didn't. This is what you're getting paid." We hand over the reduced fee and walk away. I am now expecting to be smothered in my sleep.
The next morning I wake up alive. Woo-hoo.
-----------------------------
We arrange our own private taxi out of town rather than letting the hotel make any more money off us. It's a relatively quick ride to the beach town of Sihanoukville, named after the former king. Norodom Sihanouk.
Guinness Book of World Records identifies Sihanouk as the politician who's occupied the greatest variety of political offices, though most of them were honorific. King Sihanouk is a colorful political figure. He lead his country to indenpendence from French colonialism in the 1950s. In an effort to fight the greater evil of the moment, he often changed alliances throughout the volatile and distructive decades that still plague the country, half the time living in exile in Beijing and Paris.
In 1991 he returned to Cambodia as Head of State and was reinstated as king in 1993 under a new constitution.
Sihanouk abdicated the throne to his son in 2004. At the time, Prince Norodom Sihamoni was living in Paris where he was an avid patron on the arts. Having lived most of his life outside of Cambodia, he studied music, ballet and film-making and speaks Khmer, French, Czech, English and Russian. He is not married. Humm? Fifty-three year-old, ballet dancing prince that isn't married?
Serendipity Beach is a long, narrow stretch of white sand, lined with restaurants. It's a nice beach, but it ain't Thailand. Our guest house is a 5 minute walk away from the beach, as opposed to the the 5 second walk to which I am accustomed.
On our first night, Steve and I take a motodup to the town center. We are drawn to an unadorned bar where live music echoes out onto the empty street. There is one customer propped up on a bar stool. Steve points out that the owner is probably an ex-prostitute, now too old to attract the pedophiles that constitute the Sihanoukville sex clientele. The musician is Gypsy Davey, an Australian ex-pat who deftly plays old folk music.
Down the street we enter another bar with an Australian moniker: Down Under Bar or G'Day Mate. The customers, along with the owner, are heroin addicts. Boy, isn't this fun.
The next night Steve goes out on his own. While he is quite capable of hanging with hyped up ex-pats, I would rather stay at home and pluck my eyebrows. Regardless of my hunger, I stay in. I'm scared to go out on my own, even though it's a short walk to the nearest restaurant. This is the only time in my travels that I have ever felt so unsafe. Even the motodups frighten me.
I spend the entire next day at the beach-side Eden Bar, reading Leon Uris's "Trinity". Local women offer to paint my freshly pedicured toes. I teach a young Brit how to play the obligatory "Wish You Were Here".
I am now eager to get back to Phnom Phen, get my passport and get out. I've discovered a lovely skin boil forming in my arm pit. That's going to cause a month of discomfort. At the local pharmacy, the pharmacist pokes around the sore and gets me some anti-bacterial cream. He even puts a bandage on for me because Steve won't do it. Thanks a lot buddy!
There's a factual error in my last post. It is here in Sihanoukville that I receive a call from the Embassy informing me that I have filled out the wrong form and need to come back in. I am livid. I can't get back to Phnom Phen in time to get this all completed before the weekend. This extends the processing time by almost a week and I still need the new passport to get a visa for Laos and have time to reach the border before my Cambodian visa expires. I ask to speak to a supervisor. A man with an accent gets on the phone. "Are you American?" I condescendingly assert. "I want to talk to an American!" Yes, I know. This is terrible. I'm not proud. And yet, I berate the man for his incompetent staff, recounting all the errors that had been made thus far. "My taxes pay your salary..." In reality, I haven't paid taxes in the US in 4 years. He hangs up on me. Guess I brought that on myself.
Back in Phnom Phen I return once again to the embassy to complete the correct form which is almost identical to the one previously filled out. I am like saccharine, explaining my time-crunch predicament. The help-desk girl (ie: incompetent staff) informs me that I can use my temporary passport to get my Laos visa. So, I do that. I take the temp passport to the Laos Embassy and leave it there for a couple days for visa processing.
When I return the next day to the US Embassy to pick up my new passport, they ask me for my temporary passport. Oh my g-d!!! I start to tear up as this always evokes sympathy whereas yelling just gets you hung up on. I am explaining to a man (Yes, I know it's the one from the phone. We're both feigning recognition of each other.) that this girl told me to take my temporary passport to the Laos embassy. "She's new," he explains. "I don't care," I reply. "The amount of erroneous information I have been given is ridiculous. Why don't you train her." Sniffle, sniffle.
In the end, I am carrying around 2 passports: The cancelled temp with the Laos visa and the fresh new 10 year with nothing. I am heading to the Cambodian / Laos border crossing with 3 days left on my visa.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Part 3 - Phnom Phen, Cambodia
I arrive in Phnom Phen to the usual swarm of tuk-tuk drivers vying for my business and reaching for my pack. I negotiate the $2 fare (obvious rookie traveler price) down to $1. Three minutes later I spot a tall white man wearing in bright yellow t-shirt standing a foot above the crowded traffic of the sidewalk. Ah, my good pal, Steve Goodman, aka Mythicaldude. (For all you non-SF people, Steve is a friend from the hood who has been traveling for years now and has settled in Phnom Phen for the time being.)
THE EXPAT SCENE
With Steve, I have an interesting and unusal glimpse into the life of the ex-pat in Phnom Phen. There are typically three types: (1) NGO employees, (2) English teachers and (3) old, burnout loser men. Numbers two and three can often be combined. (Steve, I must mention, is none of the above.)
Live Music
My first night in town, we head to Andy's (Aussie English teacher) apartment for some band practice. Steve, Andy and Davis (American English teacher) have put together some material and lined up weekend gigs. I play a couple songs with Steve on lead and Andy on harmonica.
The Friday night gig is at Rory's Irish Pub. This is an ex-pat bar. No travelers except my friend, Linda, and a guy (Paul - Aussie) she has just met at her guest house. It's a packed house despite the rain, which has filled the streets with fetid water. The Taxi Guys (That's the band's name, which references the local slang for prostitutes - "taxi girls".) bust out some Pogues, Beatles, Grateful Dead.
I take my turn at the mic and rock the house with some Bonnie Raitt and some other stuff which I can't remember because after each song the owner sends over a shot of something indistinguishable. The ex-pat girls compliment me, pleased to see a female on stage. Paul, the Aussie, is obviously taken with me. His lascivious grin is giving me the creeps. Although he's more impressed that my performance procured us all a free round of beers.
(More on Paul...
At dinner Paul asks quite out of the blue, "So what are Negroes like?" Steve and I look at each other in surprise and bemusement. "They're fine," I mumble, unsure how to respond. "But, you know, nobody's really used that term in over, say, 30 years. You can say 'black' or 'African American'." I guess they don't have TV on the farm...or newspapers or books.)
Saturday night we head to "Talkin' To A Stranger" bar and restaurant owned by a lovely Australian couple who sit with the customers and drink all night. Now that I think about, this is what all bar owners in Phnom Phen do. But I digress. The rain is still pouring down and is beginning to form shallow pools around the amps and surge protectors. Instead of certain electrocution, The Taxi Guys do an informal unplugged show sitting amongst the 5 customers. I bust out some shreddin' kazoo solos which inexplicitly provokes presistent giggling. However, the true kazoo aficionado realizes that this is serious business. The kazoo is no laughing matter. Hummf!
Old Burnout Loser Men
One lovely Friday evening, Steve informs me that his friend who we'll call Ramsey (Okay, that's his real name. I feel no need to protect his identity) is coming for the weekend from Saigon. Steve assures me, "You'll like him. He's a great guy." We meet Ramsey at a cafe photo exhibit. Five mintues after our introduction, I am quite possitive that Ramsey is the biggest ass I've ever met in my life. While I am usually a horrible judge of character, everything that happens that weekend confirms my initial impression.
Ramsey doesn't listen to anything I say. Each comment I make prompts him to recount a bigger, better ordeal. "You're pretty good at the 'one-up' game," I tell him. "Boy was my last menstrual cycle rough. 'One-up' that!"
After the photo exhibit, Steve and Ramsey take me to a bar that I am assured is an "everyone bar": good music, pool tables. Unfortunately, "everyone" in Phnom Phen means white guys and local girls (some obviously teenagers). An overwhelming number of the men are wearing Hawaiian shirts. They line the bar and wait to be approached. There are no men on the pool tables. The local girls play each other while waiting for that easy $15.
I excuse myself to go to the loo. When I return Steve and Ramsey are flanked by 5 women. Ramsey is touching the elbow length glove of one of them. He's saying something like, "I really like your gloves," all the while I imagine he's thinking "I am so smooth. I got this small talk thing down. She is so into me." She responds with a coy smile, a bat of her lashes and $15 in her eyes.
Other conversations with Ramsey...
Me: It's okay for you to have a girlfriend who makes $50 a month. But a woman needs her man to make at least as much as she makes.
Ramsey: That's so like a western woman. The man's gotta have a ton of cash.
Me: I didn't say a ton. I said as much.
Ramsey: I had a girlfriend in the states who made more money than me. I didn't like it.
Me: My point exactly.
Ramsey: That's why I like it here. In Asia, I am god-like.
Me: (groan)
-------
Me: So do you have any western female friends?
Ramsey: No.
Me: Do you have any local female friends that you aren't sleeping with?
Ramsey: No.
Me: So you have absolutely no need for the western woman?
Ramsey: Nope. Well, except for intelligent conversatioin.
Me: Oh, but that's such a little thing in one's life.
In the end, Ramsey needs to borrow money from Steve to get back to Saigon. He has spent all his cash on prostitutes. To quote: "My co-pilot and I are looking for a navigator."
--------
Looking for information about the border crossing into southern Laos, Steve suggests I go talk to Jim, the owner of the Califonia 2 restaurant and bar. I approach the only 3 white guys in the joint, assuming that one of them is Jim. I introduce myself and these men look up at me, or rather, through me. No welcoming smiles. No recognition that I even exist. "Wow!" I exclaim. "Nothing worse than when I white girl comes and sits next to you, huh?" Nothing. Their countenance remains unchanged - vacant and unfazed. What they are really thinking is "Oh shit. Here's a woman who knows that we are total losers. If we stay very still maybe she won't see us." Of couse I shouldn't be surprised. The only interaction these men have with women is as either waitresses or whores. What could they possibly say to a female who isn't taking their beer order or faking orgasm.
THE TOURIST SCENE
Besides the sleezy sex side of the city, there are amazing and interesting sights to be seen.
The city itself isn't without it's merits. Thanks to French imperialism, there are wide boulevards, bits of charming architecture and the best bread in all of Asia. The river front is lined with outdoor cafes (Where the burnout loser men sit all day drinking cheap beer and openly smoking marijuana.) and decorated with the flags of the world. There are excellent restaurants (mostly owned by foreigners), my favorite being Friends, a tapas place that trains and employs former street kids.
Most mornings I research restaurants looking for the place that serves the best muesli / fruit / yogurt. This is more difficult that one might think, for it involves the delicate balance of quality muesli (Not cornflakes!), fruit salad that goes light on the pineapple (The cheap fruit of Asia and too acidic for mornings) and plain yogurt (Not strawberry).
On the sight-seeing circuit, most poignant is Tuol Sleng, codenamed S-21. This high school turned interrogation center saw some 17,000 people tortured and executed by the Khmer Rouge. The site is modest: Old school rooms with iron beds, shackles and devices of torture. One wing houses thousands of pictures of victims, like unclaimed and rejected yearbook photos.
The dichotomy between the quotidian school and neighboorhood that surrounds it and the unthinkable activities that took place here is disquieting. One is more apt to associate such atrocious acts with equally deplorable places: dungeons, concentration camps. Certainly not classrooms with chalkboards, play yards, and food stalls and homes within earshot.
What is surprisingly anitclimactic was The Killing Fields. Yeah, I know. THE KILLING FIELDS. The book. The movie. I was expecting a vast area with mass graves reaching far out into the countryside. The physical size is the foremost characteristic that would have conveyed the genocidal breadth of the Khmer Rouge. Yet the area isn't much bigger than my mother's backyard. Time has filled in the ditches and covered them with a layer of fresh grass.
Our guide points nonchalantly to the remaining mass graves and instructs us to "read the sign" which specifies the number of bodies uncovered and the state of the remains. He is not the fountain of knowledge or humanity for which I was hoping and paying.
Another sign we have been ordered to read loosely equates the reign of Pol Pot with that of Hitler. I am initially offended at such blatant exaggerations. However, I come to understand that what is most inconceivable about the Khmer Rouge was that they were exterminating their own people whereas the Nazis looked to extinguish people they felt were inferior to themselves.
I leave with a sense of guilt. Is it wrong to want my horror-tourism to be more horrible? If the point of such attractions is to create a sense of empathy and understanding, then The Killing Fields has fallen short. In reality, it is a money maker. Pay $10 to the tuk-tuk driver. $3 to enter. Another $4 to an apathetic guide who hurries us along so that he can get to the next group of well-intentioned, well-funded travelers.
-------
On the lighter and more positive side of Cambodian culture, my first stop is the National Museum. Being somewhat adverse to intensive museum viewing, the National Museum is just how I like them...small. Set in a quaint, open-air compound surrounding a courtyard, an hour and a half is all it takes to be sufficiently cultured. Yes Mother, I went to a museum.
Most things of quality in Phnom Phen are due to international assistance and The Royal Palace is no exception, having been built by the French in 1866. The grounds are pristine and the gold and green Khmer-style rooftops sparkle in the sweltering sun. Most noteworthy is the Silver Pagoda, named for the 5,329 pure silver tiles that cover the floor. I must also mention that my guide was a kind, professional and knowledgable man. He seemed genuinely interested in sharing the history of his country, both good and bad.
The beauty and dignified air of the palace is a momentary distraction from the fact that Cambodia is one of the 3 most corrupt countries in the world, that the Prime Minister, Hun Sen, is a ruthless murderer and that most people in the country live in abject poverty.
Stories abound of nurses that won't change bedpans unless paid by the patient directly, police that won't assist victims without being tipped and national resources being sold by governemnt officials to the highest international bidder to the detriment of the local population as well as the environment.
-----------
MY PASSPORT - remember that?!
Way back in September my passport was stolen by a Thai humanitarian worker. Instead of waiting around Bangkok for 2 weeks waiting for a full 10-year passport, I opt for the 1-year temporary, figuring that I'll have the 2 weeks in Phnom Phen while hanging with Steve.
I soon discover that, unlike Bangkok, the US embassy in Phnom Phen is not the picture of efficiency we would expect from any agency dealing with high maintenance Americans.
I have now been to the embassy 4 times. On my first visit, it was closed due to some random local holiday. The second, I had the wrong size passport photo even though I told the photographer that the photos were for a passport. The third time I successfully submitted by application. I returned the next day because the local girl at the help-desk window had me fill out the wrong form. (Thankfully, I had a working cell phone and incompetent girl was able to call me.)
Waiting for my new, door to the world passport, it is now that Steve and I head south...
THE EXPAT SCENE
With Steve, I have an interesting and unusal glimpse into the life of the ex-pat in Phnom Phen. There are typically three types: (1) NGO employees, (2) English teachers and (3) old, burnout loser men. Numbers two and three can often be combined. (Steve, I must mention, is none of the above.)
Live Music
My first night in town, we head to Andy's (Aussie English teacher) apartment for some band practice. Steve, Andy and Davis (American English teacher) have put together some material and lined up weekend gigs. I play a couple songs with Steve on lead and Andy on harmonica.
The Friday night gig is at Rory's Irish Pub. This is an ex-pat bar. No travelers except my friend, Linda, and a guy (Paul - Aussie) she has just met at her guest house. It's a packed house despite the rain, which has filled the streets with fetid water. The Taxi Guys (That's the band's name, which references the local slang for prostitutes - "taxi girls".) bust out some Pogues, Beatles, Grateful Dead.
I take my turn at the mic and rock the house with some Bonnie Raitt and some other stuff which I can't remember because after each song the owner sends over a shot of something indistinguishable. The ex-pat girls compliment me, pleased to see a female on stage. Paul, the Aussie, is obviously taken with me. His lascivious grin is giving me the creeps. Although he's more impressed that my performance procured us all a free round of beers.
(More on Paul...
At dinner Paul asks quite out of the blue, "So what are Negroes like?" Steve and I look at each other in surprise and bemusement. "They're fine," I mumble, unsure how to respond. "But, you know, nobody's really used that term in over, say, 30 years. You can say 'black' or 'African American'." I guess they don't have TV on the farm...or newspapers or books.)
Saturday night we head to "Talkin' To A Stranger" bar and restaurant owned by a lovely Australian couple who sit with the customers and drink all night. Now that I think about, this is what all bar owners in Phnom Phen do. But I digress. The rain is still pouring down and is beginning to form shallow pools around the amps and surge protectors. Instead of certain electrocution, The Taxi Guys do an informal unplugged show sitting amongst the 5 customers. I bust out some shreddin' kazoo solos which inexplicitly provokes presistent giggling. However, the true kazoo aficionado realizes that this is serious business. The kazoo is no laughing matter. Hummf!
Old Burnout Loser Men
One lovely Friday evening, Steve informs me that his friend who we'll call Ramsey (Okay, that's his real name. I feel no need to protect his identity) is coming for the weekend from Saigon. Steve assures me, "You'll like him. He's a great guy." We meet Ramsey at a cafe photo exhibit. Five mintues after our introduction, I am quite possitive that Ramsey is the biggest ass I've ever met in my life. While I am usually a horrible judge of character, everything that happens that weekend confirms my initial impression.
Ramsey doesn't listen to anything I say. Each comment I make prompts him to recount a bigger, better ordeal. "You're pretty good at the 'one-up' game," I tell him. "Boy was my last menstrual cycle rough. 'One-up' that!"
After the photo exhibit, Steve and Ramsey take me to a bar that I am assured is an "everyone bar": good music, pool tables. Unfortunately, "everyone" in Phnom Phen means white guys and local girls (some obviously teenagers). An overwhelming number of the men are wearing Hawaiian shirts. They line the bar and wait to be approached. There are no men on the pool tables. The local girls play each other while waiting for that easy $15.
I excuse myself to go to the loo. When I return Steve and Ramsey are flanked by 5 women. Ramsey is touching the elbow length glove of one of them. He's saying something like, "I really like your gloves," all the while I imagine he's thinking "I am so smooth. I got this small talk thing down. She is so into me." She responds with a coy smile, a bat of her lashes and $15 in her eyes.
Other conversations with Ramsey...
Me: It's okay for you to have a girlfriend who makes $50 a month. But a woman needs her man to make at least as much as she makes.
Ramsey: That's so like a western woman. The man's gotta have a ton of cash.
Me: I didn't say a ton. I said as much.
Ramsey: I had a girlfriend in the states who made more money than me. I didn't like it.
Me: My point exactly.
Ramsey: That's why I like it here. In Asia, I am god-like.
Me: (groan)
-------
Me: So do you have any western female friends?
Ramsey: No.
Me: Do you have any local female friends that you aren't sleeping with?
Ramsey: No.
Me: So you have absolutely no need for the western woman?
Ramsey: Nope. Well, except for intelligent conversatioin.
Me: Oh, but that's such a little thing in one's life.
In the end, Ramsey needs to borrow money from Steve to get back to Saigon. He has spent all his cash on prostitutes. To quote: "My co-pilot and I are looking for a navigator."
--------
Looking for information about the border crossing into southern Laos, Steve suggests I go talk to Jim, the owner of the Califonia 2 restaurant and bar. I approach the only 3 white guys in the joint, assuming that one of them is Jim. I introduce myself and these men look up at me, or rather, through me. No welcoming smiles. No recognition that I even exist. "Wow!" I exclaim. "Nothing worse than when I white girl comes and sits next to you, huh?" Nothing. Their countenance remains unchanged - vacant and unfazed. What they are really thinking is "Oh shit. Here's a woman who knows that we are total losers. If we stay very still maybe she won't see us." Of couse I shouldn't be surprised. The only interaction these men have with women is as either waitresses or whores. What could they possibly say to a female who isn't taking their beer order or faking orgasm.
THE TOURIST SCENE
Besides the sleezy sex side of the city, there are amazing and interesting sights to be seen.
The city itself isn't without it's merits. Thanks to French imperialism, there are wide boulevards, bits of charming architecture and the best bread in all of Asia. The river front is lined with outdoor cafes (Where the burnout loser men sit all day drinking cheap beer and openly smoking marijuana.) and decorated with the flags of the world. There are excellent restaurants (mostly owned by foreigners), my favorite being Friends, a tapas place that trains and employs former street kids.
Most mornings I research restaurants looking for the place that serves the best muesli / fruit / yogurt. This is more difficult that one might think, for it involves the delicate balance of quality muesli (Not cornflakes!), fruit salad that goes light on the pineapple (The cheap fruit of Asia and too acidic for mornings) and plain yogurt (Not strawberry).
On the sight-seeing circuit, most poignant is Tuol Sleng, codenamed S-21. This high school turned interrogation center saw some 17,000 people tortured and executed by the Khmer Rouge. The site is modest: Old school rooms with iron beds, shackles and devices of torture. One wing houses thousands of pictures of victims, like unclaimed and rejected yearbook photos.
The dichotomy between the quotidian school and neighboorhood that surrounds it and the unthinkable activities that took place here is disquieting. One is more apt to associate such atrocious acts with equally deplorable places: dungeons, concentration camps. Certainly not classrooms with chalkboards, play yards, and food stalls and homes within earshot.
What is surprisingly anitclimactic was The Killing Fields. Yeah, I know. THE KILLING FIELDS. The book. The movie. I was expecting a vast area with mass graves reaching far out into the countryside. The physical size is the foremost characteristic that would have conveyed the genocidal breadth of the Khmer Rouge. Yet the area isn't much bigger than my mother's backyard. Time has filled in the ditches and covered them with a layer of fresh grass.
Our guide points nonchalantly to the remaining mass graves and instructs us to "read the sign" which specifies the number of bodies uncovered and the state of the remains. He is not the fountain of knowledge or humanity for which I was hoping and paying.
Another sign we have been ordered to read loosely equates the reign of Pol Pot with that of Hitler. I am initially offended at such blatant exaggerations. However, I come to understand that what is most inconceivable about the Khmer Rouge was that they were exterminating their own people whereas the Nazis looked to extinguish people they felt were inferior to themselves.
I leave with a sense of guilt. Is it wrong to want my horror-tourism to be more horrible? If the point of such attractions is to create a sense of empathy and understanding, then The Killing Fields has fallen short. In reality, it is a money maker. Pay $10 to the tuk-tuk driver. $3 to enter. Another $4 to an apathetic guide who hurries us along so that he can get to the next group of well-intentioned, well-funded travelers.
-------
On the lighter and more positive side of Cambodian culture, my first stop is the National Museum. Being somewhat adverse to intensive museum viewing, the National Museum is just how I like them...small. Set in a quaint, open-air compound surrounding a courtyard, an hour and a half is all it takes to be sufficiently cultured. Yes Mother, I went to a museum.
Most things of quality in Phnom Phen are due to international assistance and The Royal Palace is no exception, having been built by the French in 1866. The grounds are pristine and the gold and green Khmer-style rooftops sparkle in the sweltering sun. Most noteworthy is the Silver Pagoda, named for the 5,329 pure silver tiles that cover the floor. I must also mention that my guide was a kind, professional and knowledgable man. He seemed genuinely interested in sharing the history of his country, both good and bad.
The beauty and dignified air of the palace is a momentary distraction from the fact that Cambodia is one of the 3 most corrupt countries in the world, that the Prime Minister, Hun Sen, is a ruthless murderer and that most people in the country live in abject poverty.
Stories abound of nurses that won't change bedpans unless paid by the patient directly, police that won't assist victims without being tipped and national resources being sold by governemnt officials to the highest international bidder to the detriment of the local population as well as the environment.
-----------
MY PASSPORT - remember that?!
Way back in September my passport was stolen by a Thai humanitarian worker. Instead of waiting around Bangkok for 2 weeks waiting for a full 10-year passport, I opt for the 1-year temporary, figuring that I'll have the 2 weeks in Phnom Phen while hanging with Steve.
I soon discover that, unlike Bangkok, the US embassy in Phnom Phen is not the picture of efficiency we would expect from any agency dealing with high maintenance Americans.
I have now been to the embassy 4 times. On my first visit, it was closed due to some random local holiday. The second, I had the wrong size passport photo even though I told the photographer that the photos were for a passport. The third time I successfully submitted by application. I returned the next day because the local girl at the help-desk window had me fill out the wrong form. (Thankfully, I had a working cell phone and incompetent girl was able to call me.)
Waiting for my new, door to the world passport, it is now that Steve and I head south...
Monday, October 10, 2005
Part 2 - Cambodia: Siem Reap/Angkor
It's "The Great Bangkok-to-Siem Reap Bus Scam", filled with deception, avarice and mud.
It all started with a pedicure, as adventures so often do. My lavender, jelly-bean toes were under the fan when he sat down next to me. "What color are you getting?" I asked, my subtle humor once again wasted on a non-native English speaker.
It was here in a Bangkok massage/beauty salon that Per (pronounced pear), a Danish dude, told me of the devil incarnate: the journey from the Thai/Cambodia border town of Poipet to Siem Reap, the gateway to the ruins of Angkor. Per had just returned the day before and looked at me with a sympathetic half-smile, his eyes full of pity. He tried to prepare me by sharing his pictures of the worst road on the planet. "Picture a flat, 150 km (that's 90 miles) mogule run, where the pot holes are filled with red mud and the bus tires throw up red dust from the raised mounds." I bought his remaining Cambodian currency (riel) and thought of the absolute worst bus ride of my life: 6 hours on a winding, bumpy, dirt road in Nepal, where passengers were vomiting out the windows. Six hours of my head in my lap, trying to keep my lunch down. There was no way this could be worse.
At 6am the next morning I am fighting down a wretched cup of Nescafe at my guest house bar/restaurant and waiting for my van pick-up. Besides the table of drunken policemen a few tables down and an English bloke fighting with his Thai girlfriend (they needed an interpreter) of a whole week , the only other person in the place is a girl. We look at each other's packs and confirm that we're going to the same place and, thus, have not missed our ride. I essentially scare the shit out of Lenny, by relaying what Per told me the night before. She confides that she's stocked up with valium. And all I've got is dramamine. Hmmff!
At 7:30am everyone is snuggly tucked into the van. Why then are we parked with the "driver" and "guide" in the street playing hacky sack? What are we waiting for? The answer to this question becomes evident further on.
It's a painless 3 hour drive moving northeast to the border on a beautifully paved road. A little QT with the iPod. The countryside is typical: rice fields, wooden houses on stilts, kiosks, cement industrial-looking buildings. Ho hum. Ooh. A cow.
We're now 15 minutes from the border and we stop for lunch. It's 11am. The chicken cashew seems to have been made with ketchup. The locals are watching Coldplay on MTV. Our driver and guide have left us for the border to deal with our visas. For this service, they are pocketing the $10 surcharge they have surruptisiously added to the price of the visa.
As a rule, I find that all border towns are shitholes. This is no exception. Lines of trucks, cars, and ox-drawn carts wait to cross over. The immigration offices are hot and stinky as are the immigration officials. There are throngs of pedestrians and I hold tight to my baggage, frequently sticking my hand down the front of my pants to confirm the presence of my moneybelt. (I've learned my lesson!)
After only 6 1/2 hours, I'm in Cambodia. Country # 19.
Five of us climb into a steal box with side benches attached to a motorcycle. We are driven 100 yards down the road to the money exchange. Our guide convincingly assures everyone that we need local currency. However, there is no "money exchange" sign, nor are exchange rates posted. Thanks to my Danish friend I wait outside. The guide is eyeing me. He questions my lack of obedience. He is visably disappointed when I tell him that I already have riel. He feigns kindness. I feign innocence. We knowingly turn away from each other.
The travelers exit the money exchange in short intervals, each with the same expression, which I imagine to be very similar to that of a man after his first prostate examination. Not one of them had checked the exchange rate before leaving Bangkok, so when they were offered a 3000 riel to the dollar rate, they had no recourse but to accept. They had all lost over 25%, for what should have been 4200 riel to the dollar.
The greater grift here is that you don't even need riel. Everyone in Cambodia uses US dollars. Everyone! In fact, the only ATM in the country (in Phnom Phen) shoots out dollars, not riel. Thank you, Lonely Planet, for sharing that sweet little tidbit of knowledge!
A couple doors down from the "money exchange" is the "bus company". The group in the waiting room continues to grow as various vans full of backpackers cross over. The coversations turn into bitchfests, recapping every dirty little trick that has been played on us thus far.
We were now in the middle of the "stall 'em" con. This one had started with the hacky sack players, continued with the hour long 11am lunch and here we are. It's a 2 hour wait before 2 delapadated dust-covered minibuses chug and cough into view.
Packs are stacked along the back seat and in the aisles. One advantage of traveling alone is being able to easily get to the front of a mob such as this. The Cambodian mob boss puts me in a seat near the front of the bus - one of the few seats with a back high enough to rest your head. It's a single seat and I'm alone. Another point for the lone traveler. Most of the others are squeezed into 2-seaters made for tiny Asian bums that only go as high as the shoulders. A couple poor guys are seated on flip down stools in the aisle. No seat back at all. They spend the entire trip hunched over.
It is now a teeth-clattering, spine-compressing 9 HOUR ride to Siem Reap. That's 10 miles per hour. The driver stops a couple times and crawls under the bus. The clutch has busted and we can't get out of second gear. The iPod can barely drown out the high rive of the engine. This minor glitch hardly makes a difference, as there's few sections of road where we're able to go fast enough to warrent third gear.
After the dinner break, Lenny and I trade some meds. Let me tell you, you can sleep through anything on a valium/dramamine cocktail. I watch Lenny bang her head against the window, wake up, fall back asleep and repeat the process. Sleep, bang, wake. Sleep, bang, wake.
We arrive in Siem Reap at 11:30pm. Despite the assurance from the travel agent in Bangkok that we will be dropped off in the certer of town where all the guest houses are, we are taken to a guest house not of our choosing. Each delay has solidified the end result...Arriving in Siem Reap so late and exhausted that we will sleep anywhere. The grateful owners float over some cash to the Cambodian-side tour guides, for the guest house of which they are the the proprietors is on the outskirts of town and this is the only way they will ever see any business.
Big props go out to the German couple whose anger was stronger than their fatigue. They heaved their packs onto their backs and headed off down a dark alley in a strange town in a country known for it's corruption and theft. Principles won out over exhaustion and safety, and not even a $2 hotel room could cause a vacillation.
And me? Well, my laziness usually trounces effort. I even coughed up the extra dollar for hot water.
While we think we had it rough, in all likelyhood we got off easy. Others reported arrival times of 2am and even 6 the next morning. They drove through rice fields or waded through mud to catch a bus on the other side of bridges that had been swept away.
OTHER DEEP THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ROAD
The road is deep and rich in its redness. The flat and green moves towards the horizon. Ramshackle houses line stretches of the road. Otherwise, it's rice in every direction.
These people must want a decent road. Nobody would want to live this way. Now, now. I shouldn't use my own standards of happiness to judge these people. Maybe they are perfectly accustomed to this vertebrae compacting nightmare. Perhaps they don't know anything different. No no no. People throughout the world must have an idea of a sufficient road. An acceptable road would insure speedy delivery of local product to the market place, would do minimal damage to tires and axles and other underside car parts, would enable one to make it to a doctor before gangrene set in.
The rumor is that Thai Airways has paid the Cambodian government not to fix the road, in the hopes that people will more often than not, opt to fly.
A more realistic reason would be, however, that the governement is corrupt and the people are poor. Repairs and improvements are constantly made to the road, but engineering shortcuts bring ruin during the next big rain.
What we really need is for Cambodia to borrow large amounts of money from the Worldbank and then hire Bechtel to build a decent road.
KO NI CHI WA ANGKOR WAT
Preface: Angkor is a vast area of temples. Angkor Wat is one of them. Thus, people who have been to Angkor, say "Angkor". They don't say Angkor Wat, because that would mean that they paid the $20 entrance fee and only went to one temple.
Siem Reap is the town near Angkor where people live and work. When you visit Angkor, you stay in Siem Reap.
Now that we have that straight...
Three alarms sound simultaneously at 5am. It's a backup system I like to make use of when needing to wake in total darkness. Lenny and Linda (a couple girls from hell-bus with whom I'm now sharing a room) and I meet our tuk-tuk driver outside the "Shadow of Angkor" guest house. The air is dusty from the steady stream of traffic heading towards the ruins. Dawn is approaching. We are worried we might miss the magical moment when the sun peaks over the horizon and one of the wonders of the world is illuminated in gold and pink.
Sunrise - rush hour at Angkor Wat. We are dropped off in a parking lot, brimming with tour buses, private taxis (old Toyota Camrys), tuk-tuks and motorcycles. A bridge 25 feet wide crosses over the largest moat in the world at 570 feet wide and about four miles long.
Immediately inside the outer wall are hundreds of on-lookers, mostly Japanese. Every single person has their Sony digital camera poised and ready.
The impact of the sunrise is far from religious. The sky is hazy and gray. No golden beams. No pink hues. Nonetheless, the ruins are spectacular. Neither pictures or words can capture the feelings of immensity, intricacy, history. (However, see accompanying email for link to pictures.)
Each temple is built by a king looking for increased merit. They are monuments to egomania.
SIEM REAP
The town of Siem Reap is a dirty little place with structures either in the process of being built or razed. The smell of fish is in the air. People with missing limbs sell photocopied books on Cambodia's tragic history.
The street kids here are sharp. They are deft salespeople and employ a number of methods to seal the deal: friendship, guilt, anger, superstition.
Girl: Buy postcards madame. Very beautiful.
Me: No. I don't want postcards. (Pointing to another group of travlers) They want postcards. (She is not fooled.)
Girl: You can send postcards to husband.
Me: I have no husband. I need husband. You can get me husband? I will buy.
Girl: You have no husband because you do not buy postcards. You buy postcards and husband will come.
Me: You are very smart.
Girl: Yes, I know.
Further down the road, I inquire about the price of a book.
Boy: $7
Me: But it's $4 at the bookstore on the other street
Boy: Ok. $6.
At the bookstore, I ask the French owner if I can upwrap a book to make sure it's not a bad copy. His English is poor and doesn't understand my concern.
Frenchy: You speak French?
Me: No. Sorry.
Frenchy: Khmer?
Me: Khmer? Why would I speak Khmer? I've been here for 2 days. You speak Chinese?
Frenchy: Ahhhh! No.
Not that I can speak Chinese, but he doesn't know this. And I won't let this arrogant, sweaty, obese ex-pat who's probably married to a minor think that I am a typical unilingual American, which, of course, I am. I mean, who the hell speaks Khmer. Angelina Jolie doesn't even speak Khmer.
MOVING ON
After 3 days of temple viewing, I board a bus bound for Phnom Phen. There's a bus attendant who hands out wet wipes and boxes of pastries. It is clean and air-conditioned. I fall asleep quickly with my head resting on the window. Sleep, sleep, sleep. No bang.
It all started with a pedicure, as adventures so often do. My lavender, jelly-bean toes were under the fan when he sat down next to me. "What color are you getting?" I asked, my subtle humor once again wasted on a non-native English speaker.
It was here in a Bangkok massage/beauty salon that Per (pronounced pear), a Danish dude, told me of the devil incarnate: the journey from the Thai/Cambodia border town of Poipet to Siem Reap, the gateway to the ruins of Angkor. Per had just returned the day before and looked at me with a sympathetic half-smile, his eyes full of pity. He tried to prepare me by sharing his pictures of the worst road on the planet. "Picture a flat, 150 km (that's 90 miles) mogule run, where the pot holes are filled with red mud and the bus tires throw up red dust from the raised mounds." I bought his remaining Cambodian currency (riel) and thought of the absolute worst bus ride of my life: 6 hours on a winding, bumpy, dirt road in Nepal, where passengers were vomiting out the windows. Six hours of my head in my lap, trying to keep my lunch down. There was no way this could be worse.
At 6am the next morning I am fighting down a wretched cup of Nescafe at my guest house bar/restaurant and waiting for my van pick-up. Besides the table of drunken policemen a few tables down and an English bloke fighting with his Thai girlfriend (they needed an interpreter) of a whole week , the only other person in the place is a girl. We look at each other's packs and confirm that we're going to the same place and, thus, have not missed our ride. I essentially scare the shit out of Lenny, by relaying what Per told me the night before. She confides that she's stocked up with valium. And all I've got is dramamine. Hmmff!
At 7:30am everyone is snuggly tucked into the van. Why then are we parked with the "driver" and "guide" in the street playing hacky sack? What are we waiting for? The answer to this question becomes evident further on.
It's a painless 3 hour drive moving northeast to the border on a beautifully paved road. A little QT with the iPod. The countryside is typical: rice fields, wooden houses on stilts, kiosks, cement industrial-looking buildings. Ho hum. Ooh. A cow.
We're now 15 minutes from the border and we stop for lunch. It's 11am. The chicken cashew seems to have been made with ketchup. The locals are watching Coldplay on MTV. Our driver and guide have left us for the border to deal with our visas. For this service, they are pocketing the $10 surcharge they have surruptisiously added to the price of the visa.
As a rule, I find that all border towns are shitholes. This is no exception. Lines of trucks, cars, and ox-drawn carts wait to cross over. The immigration offices are hot and stinky as are the immigration officials. There are throngs of pedestrians and I hold tight to my baggage, frequently sticking my hand down the front of my pants to confirm the presence of my moneybelt. (I've learned my lesson!)
After only 6 1/2 hours, I'm in Cambodia. Country # 19.
Five of us climb into a steal box with side benches attached to a motorcycle. We are driven 100 yards down the road to the money exchange. Our guide convincingly assures everyone that we need local currency. However, there is no "money exchange" sign, nor are exchange rates posted. Thanks to my Danish friend I wait outside. The guide is eyeing me. He questions my lack of obedience. He is visably disappointed when I tell him that I already have riel. He feigns kindness. I feign innocence. We knowingly turn away from each other.
The travelers exit the money exchange in short intervals, each with the same expression, which I imagine to be very similar to that of a man after his first prostate examination. Not one of them had checked the exchange rate before leaving Bangkok, so when they were offered a 3000 riel to the dollar rate, they had no recourse but to accept. They had all lost over 25%, for what should have been 4200 riel to the dollar.
The greater grift here is that you don't even need riel. Everyone in Cambodia uses US dollars. Everyone! In fact, the only ATM in the country (in Phnom Phen) shoots out dollars, not riel. Thank you, Lonely Planet, for sharing that sweet little tidbit of knowledge!
A couple doors down from the "money exchange" is the "bus company". The group in the waiting room continues to grow as various vans full of backpackers cross over. The coversations turn into bitchfests, recapping every dirty little trick that has been played on us thus far.
We were now in the middle of the "stall 'em" con. This one had started with the hacky sack players, continued with the hour long 11am lunch and here we are. It's a 2 hour wait before 2 delapadated dust-covered minibuses chug and cough into view.
Packs are stacked along the back seat and in the aisles. One advantage of traveling alone is being able to easily get to the front of a mob such as this. The Cambodian mob boss puts me in a seat near the front of the bus - one of the few seats with a back high enough to rest your head. It's a single seat and I'm alone. Another point for the lone traveler. Most of the others are squeezed into 2-seaters made for tiny Asian bums that only go as high as the shoulders. A couple poor guys are seated on flip down stools in the aisle. No seat back at all. They spend the entire trip hunched over.
It is now a teeth-clattering, spine-compressing 9 HOUR ride to Siem Reap. That's 10 miles per hour. The driver stops a couple times and crawls under the bus. The clutch has busted and we can't get out of second gear. The iPod can barely drown out the high rive of the engine. This minor glitch hardly makes a difference, as there's few sections of road where we're able to go fast enough to warrent third gear.
After the dinner break, Lenny and I trade some meds. Let me tell you, you can sleep through anything on a valium/dramamine cocktail. I watch Lenny bang her head against the window, wake up, fall back asleep and repeat the process. Sleep, bang, wake. Sleep, bang, wake.
We arrive in Siem Reap at 11:30pm. Despite the assurance from the travel agent in Bangkok that we will be dropped off in the certer of town where all the guest houses are, we are taken to a guest house not of our choosing. Each delay has solidified the end result...Arriving in Siem Reap so late and exhausted that we will sleep anywhere. The grateful owners float over some cash to the Cambodian-side tour guides, for the guest house of which they are the the proprietors is on the outskirts of town and this is the only way they will ever see any business.
Big props go out to the German couple whose anger was stronger than their fatigue. They heaved their packs onto their backs and headed off down a dark alley in a strange town in a country known for it's corruption and theft. Principles won out over exhaustion and safety, and not even a $2 hotel room could cause a vacillation.
And me? Well, my laziness usually trounces effort. I even coughed up the extra dollar for hot water.
While we think we had it rough, in all likelyhood we got off easy. Others reported arrival times of 2am and even 6 the next morning. They drove through rice fields or waded through mud to catch a bus on the other side of bridges that had been swept away.
OTHER DEEP THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ROAD
The road is deep and rich in its redness. The flat and green moves towards the horizon. Ramshackle houses line stretches of the road. Otherwise, it's rice in every direction.
These people must want a decent road. Nobody would want to live this way. Now, now. I shouldn't use my own standards of happiness to judge these people. Maybe they are perfectly accustomed to this vertebrae compacting nightmare. Perhaps they don't know anything different. No no no. People throughout the world must have an idea of a sufficient road. An acceptable road would insure speedy delivery of local product to the market place, would do minimal damage to tires and axles and other underside car parts, would enable one to make it to a doctor before gangrene set in.
The rumor is that Thai Airways has paid the Cambodian government not to fix the road, in the hopes that people will more often than not, opt to fly.
A more realistic reason would be, however, that the governement is corrupt and the people are poor. Repairs and improvements are constantly made to the road, but engineering shortcuts bring ruin during the next big rain.
What we really need is for Cambodia to borrow large amounts of money from the Worldbank and then hire Bechtel to build a decent road.
KO NI CHI WA ANGKOR WAT
Preface: Angkor is a vast area of temples. Angkor Wat is one of them. Thus, people who have been to Angkor, say "Angkor". They don't say Angkor Wat, because that would mean that they paid the $20 entrance fee and only went to one temple.
Siem Reap is the town near Angkor where people live and work. When you visit Angkor, you stay in Siem Reap.
Now that we have that straight...
Three alarms sound simultaneously at 5am. It's a backup system I like to make use of when needing to wake in total darkness. Lenny and Linda (a couple girls from hell-bus with whom I'm now sharing a room) and I meet our tuk-tuk driver outside the "Shadow of Angkor" guest house. The air is dusty from the steady stream of traffic heading towards the ruins. Dawn is approaching. We are worried we might miss the magical moment when the sun peaks over the horizon and one of the wonders of the world is illuminated in gold and pink.
Sunrise - rush hour at Angkor Wat. We are dropped off in a parking lot, brimming with tour buses, private taxis (old Toyota Camrys), tuk-tuks and motorcycles. A bridge 25 feet wide crosses over the largest moat in the world at 570 feet wide and about four miles long.
Immediately inside the outer wall are hundreds of on-lookers, mostly Japanese. Every single person has their Sony digital camera poised and ready.
The impact of the sunrise is far from religious. The sky is hazy and gray. No golden beams. No pink hues. Nonetheless, the ruins are spectacular. Neither pictures or words can capture the feelings of immensity, intricacy, history. (However, see accompanying email for link to pictures.)
Each temple is built by a king looking for increased merit. They are monuments to egomania.
SIEM REAP
The town of Siem Reap is a dirty little place with structures either in the process of being built or razed. The smell of fish is in the air. People with missing limbs sell photocopied books on Cambodia's tragic history.
The street kids here are sharp. They are deft salespeople and employ a number of methods to seal the deal: friendship, guilt, anger, superstition.
Girl: Buy postcards madame. Very beautiful.
Me: No. I don't want postcards. (Pointing to another group of travlers) They want postcards. (She is not fooled.)
Girl: You can send postcards to husband.
Me: I have no husband. I need husband. You can get me husband? I will buy.
Girl: You have no husband because you do not buy postcards. You buy postcards and husband will come.
Me: You are very smart.
Girl: Yes, I know.
Further down the road, I inquire about the price of a book.
Boy: $7
Me: But it's $4 at the bookstore on the other street
Boy: Ok. $6.
At the bookstore, I ask the French owner if I can upwrap a book to make sure it's not a bad copy. His English is poor and doesn't understand my concern.
Frenchy: You speak French?
Me: No. Sorry.
Frenchy: Khmer?
Me: Khmer? Why would I speak Khmer? I've been here for 2 days. You speak Chinese?
Frenchy: Ahhhh! No.
Not that I can speak Chinese, but he doesn't know this. And I won't let this arrogant, sweaty, obese ex-pat who's probably married to a minor think that I am a typical unilingual American, which, of course, I am. I mean, who the hell speaks Khmer. Angelina Jolie doesn't even speak Khmer.
MOVING ON
After 3 days of temple viewing, I board a bus bound for Phnom Phen. There's a bus attendant who hands out wet wipes and boxes of pastries. It is clean and air-conditioned. I fall asleep quickly with my head resting on the window. Sleep, sleep, sleep. No bang.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Part 1 - Thailand...again.
BANGKOK FOR THE 9TH TIME
Devoid of the excitement of a "first time", I stroll through the Bangkok airport AGAIN. Ooh! They now have cameras at the immigration counters. Because of terrorism, some picture of me in bad lighting with a pillow crease across my check will exist in the cyber-universe for all of eternity.
In the arrivals hall, I eschew the private taxi touts who charge double for the ride into town and head to the public taxi que. I'm off to my favorite guest house where the rooms are cheap and clean and the staff is rude and jaded.
The next few days are business. A train ticket. A falafel. (I can get Thai food in Taiwan.) A haircut at my favorite salon. A massage from my favorite masseuse, Tiem, a 22 year old that has been working at this little massage place for 6 years.
------------
MEDITATE ON THIS
Despite the physical and mental anguish of my last meditation experience, I head south to Surat Thani Province and the Buddhist Monastery, Suan Mohk. 10-day English speaking retreats start the first day of every month. No smoking, no drinking, no talking, no reading, no writing, no sensual pleasure. And with that, you are locked in for the duration. After confiscating all my forms of entertainment and distraction (iPod, camera, books, notebooks), I'm shown to my room...a cement cell. The bed is a slab of concrete. The pillow a piece of wood carved concave on one side to fit... someones head. Not mine, that's for sure. I'll just inflate my handy travel pillow with full knowledge that Nirvana is that much farther away.
The rooms are all connected and form a square around a common courtyard, where large bathtub type, spigot-fed wells supply water for bathing. Wrapped in sarongs the women gather round the wells and scoop out water. Bucket after bucket after bucket. Wet down, soap up, rinse off. I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to get to my private parts. Oh well. Skip that. The water is mossy and, no doubt, full of lizard shit. I don't feel clean, but for 3 minutes of the day, I'm not sweating.
The keyword of this retreat is "mindfulness". The goal is to be totally present in everything you do. No idle thoughts. I'm walking now. I'm breathing now. I'm eating now. I'm peeing now. I'm scratching my ankles until they bleed from mosquito bites now.
As it turns out, I'm still really bad at meditating. Luckily, there were no tearful outbursts. Curiously, Tom Hanks did not consume my thoughts. But I did contemplate the phenomenon of the movie trilogy for many an hour: Star Wars, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings.
And strangely enough, there are components of Buddhism in each one.
Yoda as the teacher, the enlightened one.
The Matrix being an illusion, a creation in our minds. In order to achieve enlightenment, we must see beyond this illusion, which Neo finally does. He is able at last to see that the mind is what shapes the world around us and to change reality is a matter of controlling our minds. Thus, as my left buttock goes numb, I repeat "There is no spoon. There is no spoon."
Lord of the Rings? A perfect example of the Buddhist Wheel of Life (simplified here because I don't know any better): Consciousness leads to feeling (That's a gold ring and I think it's good.) Feeling leads to craving. (I want that ring and will kill to get it.) Craving leads to attachment. (I can't let go of that ring even though it makes me eat living fish and turns me ugly and wrinkled.) Attachment leads to suffering. (I'm falling into a river of lava. Ouch!)
And I often went into reenacting certain scenes in my head.
- You're a little short for a stromtropper
- Huh? Oh, the uniform. I'm Lukeskywalker. I'm here to rescue you.
- What?
- I'm here with Ben Kenobi. We have your droids.
A British monk gives daily lectures on Buddhist dhamma (The principle or law that orders the universe). We spend our lives running from dukkha (suffering) by chasing pleasure (iPod, camera, books, smoke, drink, sensual pleasure). But relief of suffering is only momentary. As soon as pleasure fades, we resume the chase. Another smoke, another drink, another wank. And all I'm thinking is, "man could I use a cocktail" and "that guy in the front row is really cute."
The British Monk is funny. He tells us of his former life as a postal carrier, his love of pizza and the last new movie he saw in theaters. Yup, that's right. Star Wars. Furthermore, his advice was to just ignore the mosquitoes. And then goes on to say how much he enjoyed having malaria. And here's something that George Lucas or Jim Henson never told us. The inspiration for Yoda was actually Ahjan Po, the abbot of the monastery. He voice, his face, the way he spoke without moving his lips. Just a jaw moving up and down. It is downright spooky. (You see the Star Wars theme now?)
After evening tea, sarong clad women gather at the hot springs. We soak and float and lounge in silence, trying to avoid eye contact, trying to keep our sighs of relief inaudible, trying to keep our sarongs on. The scene is mystical, surreal - reminiscent of an ancient harem, or the song of the Sirens or Wonder Woman's home island of Themyscira.
While keeping silent was easy for me, I did find that when I wanted to say something it was to correct, criticize, argue or make fun. Let all us Gills take heed. What does this really say about me/us? What am I putting forth that is positive, reassuring, understanding, and tolerant? Am I really always looking for what's wrong instead of what's right, or more so, what just "ïs". Or is it possible that being a shit is simply more fun.
Since the retreat, I've meditated once. It was during this session that it dawned on me, "Where the fuck is my money belt?"
THE BORDER RUN TO BURMA
I need to do a visa run. This means that my 30-day Thai visa will run out soon and I need to get to the nearest border (Myanmar in this case), cross over, get a stamp in my passports and return with a fresh 30-day Thai visa.
I group up with 4 others from the meditation retreat who need to do the same.
The players:
Paul 1. Australian. 31 years old. Real Estate Developer. Wealthy. Has a house in Krabi (Thai southern port town) and a 4-door truck. Talks like he's just come from the ultimate party/drug binge. In actuality, he's been sober for 3 years and is on somewhat of a spiritual / health-minded path. Meditation, Reiki, bee pollen.
Jim. Australian. 24 years old. Former Heroin addict. Has been living in Koh Pha-ngan for 3 years. Hat Rin no less. (For those who have been to Hat Rin, you can understand how pathetic this is.) The second he met me, he started in on "the American" who can't differentiate between the various accents of London. Not the UK! London proper. Anything to make one feel superior. How this guy ended up on a Buddhist meditation retreat remains a mystery. I suspect he's "laying low" for a while.
Paul 2. Brit. 27 years old. Is spending his time on Koh Samui waiting for this Thai girl to come back in the hopes that things will "work out" between them. Hasn't had sex for over a year. He's the type that tries to talk but nobody listens to him when he does. He tries to find an opening in the conversation, but people just talk right over him.
Emma. Brit. 22 years old. Is worried about going back home because of her problem with "Charlie". (Apparently, this is what the kids are now calling cocaine.) She talks about this with a giggle, like it's some endearing quirk, like sipping each mouthful of coffee twice or making sure that all your canned goods are turned label facing front.
Me: American. 36 years old. I'm not telling anybody anything!!!
Paul 1 offers to drive us to the border. This will save an entire day and I'm feeling blessed that I don't have to take a public bus. However, it is not long into the drive that I realize the bus would have been a far better fate. Paul 1 and Jim spend a few hours talking about their sexual exploits. I won't go into detail here because I HAVE SOME MANNERS. But one can imagine the scope of conversation, what with being in Thailand and Thailand being what it is.
So here I am, sitting in the back seat not saying a word, thinking that I'm too old, I've turned conservative, I'm not cool, I'm old-fashioned. Don't misunderstand. Tain't nothing like talking about sex with your friends. But I think that talking about sex in mixed company, especially when said mixed company are complete strangers, is in poor taste. Same thing goes for porn. Great will a lover. Fun with your girlfriends. Weird and inappropriate with a bunch of girls and guys sitting around twiddling their...thumbs.
The big-dick contest goes on...and on...and on. This is when Paul 2 confesses that he hasn't had sex in over a year. Doh!!! Dude, you just lost the game.
I try to focus my attention out the window. The countryside is beautiful. Rolling hills of jungle covering the spectrum of green. The road is lined with fruit trees and huge trucks are parked on narrow, mud shoulders while locals load bananas, mangoes, coconuts. Every 10 minutes we pass small clusters of shacks selling convenience store items, deep-fried everything and petrol stored in Coca Cola bottles. Some shacks are wall-less. Some 3-sided. All have a low wooden platform where the shop keeper and his or her family rest throughout the day.
Moving on...we get to the Thai border town of Ranong. We're trying to find the immigration office to get our exit stamp. We're lost. Paul 1 pulls over and what do you know, Jim the former heroin addict asks directions in Thai. Looks like he has some use after all, besides making me loose my appetite. No doubt, this is in some part due to the amount of time he's spent with the Thai ladies. (See previous paragraphs.)
Fast forward: Go to the dock. Get in a boat. 3 minutes to a shack on stilts over water. Get passports stamped as leaving Thailand. 45 minutes across the bay to another shack on stilts above water. Pay US $5 and get Myanmar entry stamp. Return to dock. Back to Thai immigration office for new Thai entry stamp.
While the bar was set high during the first half of the drive, the return trip to Surat Thani did not disappoint. I was car sick, sitting in between Paul 2 and Emma, both of whom had absurdly bad breath, screaming in my ears as they listed the drugs they'd done. A big-dick contest of a different sort. I realize that it's been over a decade and a half since I thought this made anyone sound cool. Furthermore, I thought wrong. The cool thing is to do all the drugs you want and not tell anyone.
When I parted ways with this group the next day, they were all exchanging email addresses and cell phone numbers. With a genuine "thanks" to to the driver, I left.
I have another 30 days in Thailand and will do my utmost to avoid people like Paul 1, Paul 2, Jim and Emma. Actually, that sounds more like a life goal.
SHARING THINGS WITH STRANGERS
I've made it to Koh Pha-ngan and am heading to the north side of the island to Choloklum. I like saying this town's name. Choloklum. Choloklum. Choloklum. I will meet up with 2 Bay Area folk from the meditation retreat and I can almost guarantee that neither of them will be telling me about the time they got a blow job from a lady boy.
On route, I stop at The Yellow Cafe for one of the tastiest sandwiches on the island. There I meet Mary, who offers to share her table with me. Like most Canadians, she seems nice, down to earth, friendly. It is only later in the presence of men, that she takes off her fleece to reveal a heavily tattooed upper body. When the men are there, she turns it on and they are mesmerized. She can hold her own with the drink. She can hold her own with that bar, shit-talking so popular in pub cultures. She is also going north so, together, we catch a songthaew (taxi truck).
In the taxi we meet Rhys, a 22 year old Kiwi with tattoos on his calves and, of all things, a dread mullet. Later, Rhys tells us that he cut off most of his dreads because it was too hot, but he wanted to keep a few for posterity. Thus, the dread mullet. Later still, we tell Rhys that we are going to cut off the remaining 5 dreads while he's sleeping. Undoubtedly, this will help him with the ladies. Rhys helps restore my faith in guys with tattoos when he apologizes after cursing. How cute it that.
Though we all have different, or no, destinations, Mary and Rhys come with me to Coral Bay where Dan, a UCSF anaesthesiologist, and Dyan, on leave from Sun Microsystems, are enjoying their release from Buddha State Prison.
And then here we all are. Five people who left their respective counties alone, sitting together on a teak floor around a table filled with wine and deep fried bananas, watching the sun dip down behind the mountains across the bay. It doesn't get much better.
It was a sedate 3 days, which felt more like one long one. When Dyan and Dan leave, Mary, Rhys and I head around the cove to Bottle Beach. Because it is only accessible by boat, for a long time, Bottle Beach was the get away place, most people not bothering to make the schlep. Quiet and idyllic, with a short stretch of white sand and soft blue waters, Bottle Beach still holds the same draw. However, with the virus-like growth of every beach on the island, it is now lined, end to end, with bungalows from high-end to complete crap.
I actually choose to share a room with these kids. It's the bathroom. Pastel tiles cover the bottom half of the walls and seashells are sunk into concrete on the upper half. I feel tan in this bathroom. And my hair instantly smells of coconut. And, of course, the balcony is always a strong selling point in the bungalow trade. (renowned "footshot" is imminent) I'm a sucker for a good balcony, which also acts as a bath waiting room, especially when there are 3 people for one shower.
Mary and Rhys are the entertainment. Mary is the master in movie dialog, over-the-top stupid movies being her speciality: Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Jim Carrey. Rhys is the expert accent imitator. His stereotypical German, Brit, Aussie, and Homosexual all cause bouts of hysterical laughter. Unless, of course, you are a German, Brit, Aussie or Homosexual. He cautiously looks over his shoulders before he playfully takes the piss.
When Full Moon arrives everyone on the beach is making arrangements to get to the other side of the island. I opt out, preferring to stay home and read. A casual "been there, done that" is the extent to which I explain my new-found aversion to staying out all night drinking until I do something stupid only to be left with a craving for greasy food and a 2-day hangover.
Mary returns at 7am the next day. She's speed talking about a Brazilian man she met who's also into capoeira and fairy tattoos. It is kismet that they run into each other amongst all these non-capoeira, non-fairy liking travelers. It is a tragedy that she must leave him to catch the 6am truck back to...well...me.
Rhys, not so surprisingly, misses the 6am truck. I'll give him a day. If he's not back by tomorrow I'll go looking: police station, hospitals, ditches.
"He bought a tab of E for 800 baht", Mary relays.
"That can't be right!", I reply like I would know.
Rhys embarrassingly admits, "I took it then I passed out."
"Did you have your wallet when you woke up?" I ask.
"Yeah."
"Consider yourself lucky."
Rhys wonderingly mutters, "It had a "B" on it".
And with this huge opening, Mary and I start in.
"B for bunk."
"B for bummer."
"B for bogus."
"B for boooo-hoooo."
Soon enough, movie dialog and accents run short. I leave Mary and Rhys where I found them; under a tree waiting for a taxi.
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY BELT?
The road running along the southern side of Ko Pha-ngan has been repaved with 2 lanes. Two whole lanes. One for each direction, in theory. It still remains a road I would never attempt on 2 wheels, with hairpin turns on cliffs overlooking the green-blue waters of the coral speckled shoreline.
From Hat Rin Sunrise, it is one short boat ride 10 minutes up the east coast to Hat Tien where "The Sanctuary" (http://www.thesanctuarythailand.com/) welcomes the physically and mentally dirty and unfit for spiritual rebirth, yoga, cleansing, detox, meditation and all around good vibes.
It is 3 days of raw foods in preparation for my 7 day juice fast / detox. I try every salad on the menu, paying twice as much as any other beach for the luxury of sun dried tomatoes, garlic and olive-oil dressing, and banana shakes void of condensed milk.
The fast starts with a 7am wake-up and my first of many psyllium husk/bentonite clay drinks and alternates with herbs, water, carrot/ginger/garlic juice and veggie broth with spurillina throughout the day.
I am so ready for this. I'm going to make this count. I'll do yoga twice a day. Take long walks. Read all those books I've been putting off. I'll meditate every morning. It is the second day of the fast.
I have my pink Fossil watch set for a 30 minutes meditation session. I'm not thinking about Star Wars or Keanu Reeves or deep-fried bananas. The thought that does cross my mind is "Where is my money belt?" It's an innocent, casual thought like, "Did I take my vitamins today?" I pull my room apart and fling clothes from my backpack that I've never taken out before. I know what has happened but the impact has not yet hit. I'm hearing the whistle of the rocket, waiting for the explosion.
Missing items: passport, travelers cheques, cash.
I am calm as I go down to the restaurant to talk to the owner. It's 8am and he won't arrive until 9. I try to explain to the staff what has happened, but as soon as I try to vocalize it, I burst into tears. The staff looks at me indifferently. They clearly don't give a shit. Michael, the owner, turns up shortly. He sits with me. Sympathizes. But then the phone rings and he has to take the call. So much for that. Short of writing me a letter to take to the police station, Michael does NOTHING. No, "Come use the office phone to call your embassy." No, "Why don't we give you a couple nights free." No, "Let's go to your room and make sure it secure." Absolutely nothing. In fact, he couldn't even sport me the cost of a taxi ride ($2) to the police station. I had to take a cash advance from my Sanctuary account.
My 3rd day of fasting I go to town to get a police report to take to the embassy in Bangkok. It's one thing laying in a hammock all day when you're not eating. Having to deal with boats and taxis and the smells of chicken on an open grill just add to the misery.
The police station help desk was open-air and the officers lounged around in tight white t-shirts and tighter khaki pants. They giggled when I told them what happened to me. Then they charged me 100 baht to get the carbon copy of the report.
There were 2 redeeming factors in this mess.
1) American Express comes through again. They filed my claim and then told me that I could pick up my replacement cheques at the bank around the corner from where I was making the call. I walked into the bank and they greeted me by name.
2) Because of my involuntary and quite public flood of tears throughout that first day, I made lots of friends. Girls are great. Strangers approached me and asked if I was okay. They gave me hugs.
During the remainder of the fast, I tried not to think about the wad of cash I'll never see again. In order to ease my pain, I imagine the theif as a fundraiser for tsumani relief and that my tax deductable contribution will rebuild an entire town.
THE HEALING LADY
Everybody is talking about the Healing Lady, a Dutch woman who not only teaches yoga, but performs rebirths, past life readings and chakra realignments.
"It was amazing! I wept like a baby. My hands cramped up into claws and I couldn't move them." This was the consensus. I figure fifty dollars isn't that much to be born again. Likewise, who knows what kind of sorry state my chakras are in.
In an empty yoga hall, the obligatory incense burning, Elizabeth has me go into "high breathing". It's a type of self-hyperventilation. So, of course people had their hands cramp no. Miracle? No. Lack of oxygen? Definitely. While I'm hyperventilating, Elizabeth squeezes out the toxins of my bad former life from in between my toes. So this is why people burst into tears. It is a horribly painful thing to have done to oneself. She then does the same thing to my gut. I'm reminded of the 2nd Indiana Jones movie where the vilan reaches into his victims chests and pulls out their hearts.
After 45 minutes, I'm allowed to breath normal and the feeling comes back into my hands and I no longer feel like I will pass out. She then places her hands on different parts of my body and holds them there. Unfortunately, my chakra results are less than enlightening.
Purple (Receptive, spiritual growth, third eye, vision of spirit) - My intuition is good but it could be better. Apparently, I don't listen to myself. Like I needed anyone to tell me this.
Blue (Receptive, peace, calm, relaxation, sleep. Communication) - Elizabeth says that I need to speak my mind more often. I'll give you all a few minutes to laugh that one off.
Green (Receptive, fertility, health, wealth, attunement, creativity) - This is good
Yellow (Projective, deals with digestion, nerves, lower mental body) - My confidence and trust is weak. "Oh really? I've just been robbed and my trust is low. Hummm?"
Orange (Projective, protection, self esteem, self worth, emotions) - I get an okay on orange. Whew!
Red (Projective, active, strength, blood, sexual concerns) - Uh oh. My red is weak. I can remedy this by having sex or wearing red panties. I buy a new, red money belt instead.
SO THIS IS WHAT THE REST OF BANGKOK LOOKS LIKE
Security at the US Embassy in Bangkok is covered by Thais who collect your electronics before letting you onto "American" soil. The American Citizen Services waiting room has no type of numbering system or roped off line. This is very confusing to Americans. We all look at each other wondering what we're supposed to do. Each new person that enters asks, "Is there a line?" or "Where do I take a number?" Shrugged shoulders is the response de norm. Despite the utter chaos each patient citizen is awarded his or her turn with the savior behind the buttet-proof window.
I am feeling especially lucky. Rather, it's something that hasn't gone terribly wrong. I can get a emergency replacement passport in 2 days. And when I apply for the full passport, I won't have to pay the $97 fee again.
And as if things couldn't get better, with the help of the salesman at the Sony store, I find the Canon Service Center. (As the topper of my hell week of robbery and starvation, my camera ceased to work.)
On the 10th floor of a skyscrapper in the Silom area is a full-fledged Canon oasis, number dispenser and all! I smile sadly, recounting my woes. "I need to get out of the country in 5 days. If I pay more, can you fix it faster?" Word up to the Canon peeps. Two days later I have a working camera with a new warranty-protected part. And just when I was ready to bust out for a new super-slim 5.0 mega pixel camera.
LESSONS OF MEDITATION UTILIZED
1) Don't live in the past. It's gone and there's nothing I can do to change it. Thus, I will let this go.
2) Be mindful of the present. Thus, everytime I started thinking about my loss, I concentrated on my breathing.
3) Attachment brings misery. Thus, said items are only things and having them gone does not deplete my life of happiness.
With new passport and working camera in hand, I leave Thailand after 6 weeks. I'm in a taxi van moving towards the Cambodian border of Poipet and, unknowingly, the worst road on the face of the entire planet...
Devoid of the excitement of a "first time", I stroll through the Bangkok airport AGAIN. Ooh! They now have cameras at the immigration counters. Because of terrorism, some picture of me in bad lighting with a pillow crease across my check will exist in the cyber-universe for all of eternity.
In the arrivals hall, I eschew the private taxi touts who charge double for the ride into town and head to the public taxi que. I'm off to my favorite guest house where the rooms are cheap and clean and the staff is rude and jaded.
The next few days are business. A train ticket. A falafel. (I can get Thai food in Taiwan.) A haircut at my favorite salon. A massage from my favorite masseuse, Tiem, a 22 year old that has been working at this little massage place for 6 years.
------------
MEDITATE ON THIS
Despite the physical and mental anguish of my last meditation experience, I head south to Surat Thani Province and the Buddhist Monastery, Suan Mohk. 10-day English speaking retreats start the first day of every month. No smoking, no drinking, no talking, no reading, no writing, no sensual pleasure. And with that, you are locked in for the duration. After confiscating all my forms of entertainment and distraction (iPod, camera, books, notebooks), I'm shown to my room...a cement cell. The bed is a slab of concrete. The pillow a piece of wood carved concave on one side to fit... someones head. Not mine, that's for sure. I'll just inflate my handy travel pillow with full knowledge that Nirvana is that much farther away.
The rooms are all connected and form a square around a common courtyard, where large bathtub type, spigot-fed wells supply water for bathing. Wrapped in sarongs the women gather round the wells and scoop out water. Bucket after bucket after bucket. Wet down, soap up, rinse off. I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to get to my private parts. Oh well. Skip that. The water is mossy and, no doubt, full of lizard shit. I don't feel clean, but for 3 minutes of the day, I'm not sweating.
The keyword of this retreat is "mindfulness". The goal is to be totally present in everything you do. No idle thoughts. I'm walking now. I'm breathing now. I'm eating now. I'm peeing now. I'm scratching my ankles until they bleed from mosquito bites now.
As it turns out, I'm still really bad at meditating. Luckily, there were no tearful outbursts. Curiously, Tom Hanks did not consume my thoughts. But I did contemplate the phenomenon of the movie trilogy for many an hour: Star Wars, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings.
And strangely enough, there are components of Buddhism in each one.
Yoda as the teacher, the enlightened one.
The Matrix being an illusion, a creation in our minds. In order to achieve enlightenment, we must see beyond this illusion, which Neo finally does. He is able at last to see that the mind is what shapes the world around us and to change reality is a matter of controlling our minds. Thus, as my left buttock goes numb, I repeat "There is no spoon. There is no spoon."
Lord of the Rings? A perfect example of the Buddhist Wheel of Life (simplified here because I don't know any better): Consciousness leads to feeling (That's a gold ring and I think it's good.) Feeling leads to craving. (I want that ring and will kill to get it.) Craving leads to attachment. (I can't let go of that ring even though it makes me eat living fish and turns me ugly and wrinkled.) Attachment leads to suffering. (I'm falling into a river of lava. Ouch!)
And I often went into reenacting certain scenes in my head.
- You're a little short for a stromtropper
- Huh? Oh, the uniform. I'm Lukeskywalker. I'm here to rescue you.
- What?
- I'm here with Ben Kenobi. We have your droids.
A British monk gives daily lectures on Buddhist dhamma (The principle or law that orders the universe). We spend our lives running from dukkha (suffering) by chasing pleasure (iPod, camera, books, smoke, drink, sensual pleasure). But relief of suffering is only momentary. As soon as pleasure fades, we resume the chase. Another smoke, another drink, another wank. And all I'm thinking is, "man could I use a cocktail" and "that guy in the front row is really cute."
The British Monk is funny. He tells us of his former life as a postal carrier, his love of pizza and the last new movie he saw in theaters. Yup, that's right. Star Wars. Furthermore, his advice was to just ignore the mosquitoes. And then goes on to say how much he enjoyed having malaria. And here's something that George Lucas or Jim Henson never told us. The inspiration for Yoda was actually Ahjan Po, the abbot of the monastery. He voice, his face, the way he spoke without moving his lips. Just a jaw moving up and down. It is downright spooky. (You see the Star Wars theme now?)
After evening tea, sarong clad women gather at the hot springs. We soak and float and lounge in silence, trying to avoid eye contact, trying to keep our sighs of relief inaudible, trying to keep our sarongs on. The scene is mystical, surreal - reminiscent of an ancient harem, or the song of the Sirens or Wonder Woman's home island of Themyscira.
While keeping silent was easy for me, I did find that when I wanted to say something it was to correct, criticize, argue or make fun. Let all us Gills take heed. What does this really say about me/us? What am I putting forth that is positive, reassuring, understanding, and tolerant? Am I really always looking for what's wrong instead of what's right, or more so, what just "ïs". Or is it possible that being a shit is simply more fun.
Since the retreat, I've meditated once. It was during this session that it dawned on me, "Where the fuck is my money belt?"
THE BORDER RUN TO BURMA
I need to do a visa run. This means that my 30-day Thai visa will run out soon and I need to get to the nearest border (Myanmar in this case), cross over, get a stamp in my passports and return with a fresh 30-day Thai visa.
I group up with 4 others from the meditation retreat who need to do the same.
The players:
Paul 1. Australian. 31 years old. Real Estate Developer. Wealthy. Has a house in Krabi (Thai southern port town) and a 4-door truck. Talks like he's just come from the ultimate party/drug binge. In actuality, he's been sober for 3 years and is on somewhat of a spiritual / health-minded path. Meditation, Reiki, bee pollen.
Jim. Australian. 24 years old. Former Heroin addict. Has been living in Koh Pha-ngan for 3 years. Hat Rin no less. (For those who have been to Hat Rin, you can understand how pathetic this is.) The second he met me, he started in on "the American" who can't differentiate between the various accents of London. Not the UK! London proper. Anything to make one feel superior. How this guy ended up on a Buddhist meditation retreat remains a mystery. I suspect he's "laying low" for a while.
Paul 2. Brit. 27 years old. Is spending his time on Koh Samui waiting for this Thai girl to come back in the hopes that things will "work out" between them. Hasn't had sex for over a year. He's the type that tries to talk but nobody listens to him when he does. He tries to find an opening in the conversation, but people just talk right over him.
Emma. Brit. 22 years old. Is worried about going back home because of her problem with "Charlie". (Apparently, this is what the kids are now calling cocaine.) She talks about this with a giggle, like it's some endearing quirk, like sipping each mouthful of coffee twice or making sure that all your canned goods are turned label facing front.
Me: American. 36 years old. I'm not telling anybody anything!!!
Paul 1 offers to drive us to the border. This will save an entire day and I'm feeling blessed that I don't have to take a public bus. However, it is not long into the drive that I realize the bus would have been a far better fate. Paul 1 and Jim spend a few hours talking about their sexual exploits. I won't go into detail here because I HAVE SOME MANNERS. But one can imagine the scope of conversation, what with being in Thailand and Thailand being what it is.
So here I am, sitting in the back seat not saying a word, thinking that I'm too old, I've turned conservative, I'm not cool, I'm old-fashioned. Don't misunderstand. Tain't nothing like talking about sex with your friends. But I think that talking about sex in mixed company, especially when said mixed company are complete strangers, is in poor taste. Same thing goes for porn. Great will a lover. Fun with your girlfriends. Weird and inappropriate with a bunch of girls and guys sitting around twiddling their...thumbs.
The big-dick contest goes on...and on...and on. This is when Paul 2 confesses that he hasn't had sex in over a year. Doh!!! Dude, you just lost the game.
I try to focus my attention out the window. The countryside is beautiful. Rolling hills of jungle covering the spectrum of green. The road is lined with fruit trees and huge trucks are parked on narrow, mud shoulders while locals load bananas, mangoes, coconuts. Every 10 minutes we pass small clusters of shacks selling convenience store items, deep-fried everything and petrol stored in Coca Cola bottles. Some shacks are wall-less. Some 3-sided. All have a low wooden platform where the shop keeper and his or her family rest throughout the day.
Moving on...we get to the Thai border town of Ranong. We're trying to find the immigration office to get our exit stamp. We're lost. Paul 1 pulls over and what do you know, Jim the former heroin addict asks directions in Thai. Looks like he has some use after all, besides making me loose my appetite. No doubt, this is in some part due to the amount of time he's spent with the Thai ladies. (See previous paragraphs.)
Fast forward: Go to the dock. Get in a boat. 3 minutes to a shack on stilts over water. Get passports stamped as leaving Thailand. 45 minutes across the bay to another shack on stilts above water. Pay US $5 and get Myanmar entry stamp. Return to dock. Back to Thai immigration office for new Thai entry stamp.
While the bar was set high during the first half of the drive, the return trip to Surat Thani did not disappoint. I was car sick, sitting in between Paul 2 and Emma, both of whom had absurdly bad breath, screaming in my ears as they listed the drugs they'd done. A big-dick contest of a different sort. I realize that it's been over a decade and a half since I thought this made anyone sound cool. Furthermore, I thought wrong. The cool thing is to do all the drugs you want and not tell anyone.
When I parted ways with this group the next day, they were all exchanging email addresses and cell phone numbers. With a genuine "thanks" to to the driver, I left.
I have another 30 days in Thailand and will do my utmost to avoid people like Paul 1, Paul 2, Jim and Emma. Actually, that sounds more like a life goal.
SHARING THINGS WITH STRANGERS
I've made it to Koh Pha-ngan and am heading to the north side of the island to Choloklum. I like saying this town's name. Choloklum. Choloklum. Choloklum. I will meet up with 2 Bay Area folk from the meditation retreat and I can almost guarantee that neither of them will be telling me about the time they got a blow job from a lady boy.
On route, I stop at The Yellow Cafe for one of the tastiest sandwiches on the island. There I meet Mary, who offers to share her table with me. Like most Canadians, she seems nice, down to earth, friendly. It is only later in the presence of men, that she takes off her fleece to reveal a heavily tattooed upper body. When the men are there, she turns it on and they are mesmerized. She can hold her own with the drink. She can hold her own with that bar, shit-talking so popular in pub cultures. She is also going north so, together, we catch a songthaew (taxi truck).
In the taxi we meet Rhys, a 22 year old Kiwi with tattoos on his calves and, of all things, a dread mullet. Later, Rhys tells us that he cut off most of his dreads because it was too hot, but he wanted to keep a few for posterity. Thus, the dread mullet. Later still, we tell Rhys that we are going to cut off the remaining 5 dreads while he's sleeping. Undoubtedly, this will help him with the ladies. Rhys helps restore my faith in guys with tattoos when he apologizes after cursing. How cute it that.
Though we all have different, or no, destinations, Mary and Rhys come with me to Coral Bay where Dan, a UCSF anaesthesiologist, and Dyan, on leave from Sun Microsystems, are enjoying their release from Buddha State Prison.
And then here we all are. Five people who left their respective counties alone, sitting together on a teak floor around a table filled with wine and deep fried bananas, watching the sun dip down behind the mountains across the bay. It doesn't get much better.
It was a sedate 3 days, which felt more like one long one. When Dyan and Dan leave, Mary, Rhys and I head around the cove to Bottle Beach. Because it is only accessible by boat, for a long time, Bottle Beach was the get away place, most people not bothering to make the schlep. Quiet and idyllic, with a short stretch of white sand and soft blue waters, Bottle Beach still holds the same draw. However, with the virus-like growth of every beach on the island, it is now lined, end to end, with bungalows from high-end to complete crap.
I actually choose to share a room with these kids. It's the bathroom. Pastel tiles cover the bottom half of the walls and seashells are sunk into concrete on the upper half. I feel tan in this bathroom. And my hair instantly smells of coconut. And, of course, the balcony is always a strong selling point in the bungalow trade. (renowned "footshot" is imminent) I'm a sucker for a good balcony, which also acts as a bath waiting room, especially when there are 3 people for one shower.
Mary and Rhys are the entertainment. Mary is the master in movie dialog, over-the-top stupid movies being her speciality: Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Jim Carrey. Rhys is the expert accent imitator. His stereotypical German, Brit, Aussie, and Homosexual all cause bouts of hysterical laughter. Unless, of course, you are a German, Brit, Aussie or Homosexual. He cautiously looks over his shoulders before he playfully takes the piss.
When Full Moon arrives everyone on the beach is making arrangements to get to the other side of the island. I opt out, preferring to stay home and read. A casual "been there, done that" is the extent to which I explain my new-found aversion to staying out all night drinking until I do something stupid only to be left with a craving for greasy food and a 2-day hangover.
Mary returns at 7am the next day. She's speed talking about a Brazilian man she met who's also into capoeira and fairy tattoos. It is kismet that they run into each other amongst all these non-capoeira, non-fairy liking travelers. It is a tragedy that she must leave him to catch the 6am truck back to...well...me.
Rhys, not so surprisingly, misses the 6am truck. I'll give him a day. If he's not back by tomorrow I'll go looking: police station, hospitals, ditches.
"He bought a tab of E for 800 baht", Mary relays.
"That can't be right!", I reply like I would know.
Rhys embarrassingly admits, "I took it then I passed out."
"Did you have your wallet when you woke up?" I ask.
"Yeah."
"Consider yourself lucky."
Rhys wonderingly mutters, "It had a "B" on it".
And with this huge opening, Mary and I start in.
"B for bunk."
"B for bummer."
"B for bogus."
"B for boooo-hoooo."
Soon enough, movie dialog and accents run short. I leave Mary and Rhys where I found them; under a tree waiting for a taxi.
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY BELT?
The road running along the southern side of Ko Pha-ngan has been repaved with 2 lanes. Two whole lanes. One for each direction, in theory. It still remains a road I would never attempt on 2 wheels, with hairpin turns on cliffs overlooking the green-blue waters of the coral speckled shoreline.
From Hat Rin Sunrise, it is one short boat ride 10 minutes up the east coast to Hat Tien where "The Sanctuary" (http://www.thesanctuarythailand.com/) welcomes the physically and mentally dirty and unfit for spiritual rebirth, yoga, cleansing, detox, meditation and all around good vibes.
It is 3 days of raw foods in preparation for my 7 day juice fast / detox. I try every salad on the menu, paying twice as much as any other beach for the luxury of sun dried tomatoes, garlic and olive-oil dressing, and banana shakes void of condensed milk.
The fast starts with a 7am wake-up and my first of many psyllium husk/bentonite clay drinks and alternates with herbs, water, carrot/ginger/garlic juice and veggie broth with spurillina throughout the day.
I am so ready for this. I'm going to make this count. I'll do yoga twice a day. Take long walks. Read all those books I've been putting off. I'll meditate every morning. It is the second day of the fast.
I have my pink Fossil watch set for a 30 minutes meditation session. I'm not thinking about Star Wars or Keanu Reeves or deep-fried bananas. The thought that does cross my mind is "Where is my money belt?" It's an innocent, casual thought like, "Did I take my vitamins today?" I pull my room apart and fling clothes from my backpack that I've never taken out before. I know what has happened but the impact has not yet hit. I'm hearing the whistle of the rocket, waiting for the explosion.
Missing items: passport, travelers cheques, cash.
I am calm as I go down to the restaurant to talk to the owner. It's 8am and he won't arrive until 9. I try to explain to the staff what has happened, but as soon as I try to vocalize it, I burst into tears. The staff looks at me indifferently. They clearly don't give a shit. Michael, the owner, turns up shortly. He sits with me. Sympathizes. But then the phone rings and he has to take the call. So much for that. Short of writing me a letter to take to the police station, Michael does NOTHING. No, "Come use the office phone to call your embassy." No, "Why don't we give you a couple nights free." No, "Let's go to your room and make sure it secure." Absolutely nothing. In fact, he couldn't even sport me the cost of a taxi ride ($2) to the police station. I had to take a cash advance from my Sanctuary account.
My 3rd day of fasting I go to town to get a police report to take to the embassy in Bangkok. It's one thing laying in a hammock all day when you're not eating. Having to deal with boats and taxis and the smells of chicken on an open grill just add to the misery.
The police station help desk was open-air and the officers lounged around in tight white t-shirts and tighter khaki pants. They giggled when I told them what happened to me. Then they charged me 100 baht to get the carbon copy of the report.
There were 2 redeeming factors in this mess.
1) American Express comes through again. They filed my claim and then told me that I could pick up my replacement cheques at the bank around the corner from where I was making the call. I walked into the bank and they greeted me by name.
2) Because of my involuntary and quite public flood of tears throughout that first day, I made lots of friends. Girls are great. Strangers approached me and asked if I was okay. They gave me hugs.
During the remainder of the fast, I tried not to think about the wad of cash I'll never see again. In order to ease my pain, I imagine the theif as a fundraiser for tsumani relief and that my tax deductable contribution will rebuild an entire town.
THE HEALING LADY
Everybody is talking about the Healing Lady, a Dutch woman who not only teaches yoga, but performs rebirths, past life readings and chakra realignments.
"It was amazing! I wept like a baby. My hands cramped up into claws and I couldn't move them." This was the consensus. I figure fifty dollars isn't that much to be born again. Likewise, who knows what kind of sorry state my chakras are in.
In an empty yoga hall, the obligatory incense burning, Elizabeth has me go into "high breathing". It's a type of self-hyperventilation. So, of course people had their hands cramp no. Miracle? No. Lack of oxygen? Definitely. While I'm hyperventilating, Elizabeth squeezes out the toxins of my bad former life from in between my toes. So this is why people burst into tears. It is a horribly painful thing to have done to oneself. She then does the same thing to my gut. I'm reminded of the 2nd Indiana Jones movie where the vilan reaches into his victims chests and pulls out their hearts.
After 45 minutes, I'm allowed to breath normal and the feeling comes back into my hands and I no longer feel like I will pass out. She then places her hands on different parts of my body and holds them there. Unfortunately, my chakra results are less than enlightening.
Purple (Receptive, spiritual growth, third eye, vision of spirit) - My intuition is good but it could be better. Apparently, I don't listen to myself. Like I needed anyone to tell me this.
Blue (Receptive, peace, calm, relaxation, sleep. Communication) - Elizabeth says that I need to speak my mind more often. I'll give you all a few minutes to laugh that one off.
Green (Receptive, fertility, health, wealth, attunement, creativity) - This is good
Yellow (Projective, deals with digestion, nerves, lower mental body) - My confidence and trust is weak. "Oh really? I've just been robbed and my trust is low. Hummm?"
Orange (Projective, protection, self esteem, self worth, emotions) - I get an okay on orange. Whew!
Red (Projective, active, strength, blood, sexual concerns) - Uh oh. My red is weak. I can remedy this by having sex or wearing red panties. I buy a new, red money belt instead.
SO THIS IS WHAT THE REST OF BANGKOK LOOKS LIKE
Security at the US Embassy in Bangkok is covered by Thais who collect your electronics before letting you onto "American" soil. The American Citizen Services waiting room has no type of numbering system or roped off line. This is very confusing to Americans. We all look at each other wondering what we're supposed to do. Each new person that enters asks, "Is there a line?" or "Where do I take a number?" Shrugged shoulders is the response de norm. Despite the utter chaos each patient citizen is awarded his or her turn with the savior behind the buttet-proof window.
I am feeling especially lucky. Rather, it's something that hasn't gone terribly wrong. I can get a emergency replacement passport in 2 days. And when I apply for the full passport, I won't have to pay the $97 fee again.
And as if things couldn't get better, with the help of the salesman at the Sony store, I find the Canon Service Center. (As the topper of my hell week of robbery and starvation, my camera ceased to work.)
On the 10th floor of a skyscrapper in the Silom area is a full-fledged Canon oasis, number dispenser and all! I smile sadly, recounting my woes. "I need to get out of the country in 5 days. If I pay more, can you fix it faster?" Word up to the Canon peeps. Two days later I have a working camera with a new warranty-protected part. And just when I was ready to bust out for a new super-slim 5.0 mega pixel camera.
LESSONS OF MEDITATION UTILIZED
1) Don't live in the past. It's gone and there's nothing I can do to change it. Thus, I will let this go.
2) Be mindful of the present. Thus, everytime I started thinking about my loss, I concentrated on my breathing.
3) Attachment brings misery. Thus, said items are only things and having them gone does not deplete my life of happiness.
With new passport and working camera in hand, I leave Thailand after 6 weeks. I'm in a taxi van moving towards the Cambodian border of Poipet and, unknowingly, the worst road on the face of the entire planet...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
