It's a Thai!

Monkey!
Originally uploaded by PhoJones

This picture is actually of Cambodia, but I've reached the stage of travel where viewing the hyper-documentation of others has given way to an appropriate now-ness of things.

Anyway, since I updated about a week ago we have crossed into Thailand, spent some thia-me (ha!) in Bangkok, the islands and Bangkok again. So far Thailand has lived up to every positive thing we've heard about it.

Our first day in Thailand landed us in Bangkok wandering the streets of Baglamphu ("the backpacker's district"). At first the only sign of protests were a few bouts of red graffiti on national landmarks. After some food and rest we made our way to the main train station to secure transport to the islands that night. With about five hours to kill, we took the Bangkok metro over to Lumphini park. The metro is impeccably run. You pay for the distance you travel (similar to London's zones), have air conditioning, clear announcements and general cleanliness. NYC could learn quite a bit (ie- they have a glass barriers protecting people from stumbling on to/dropping things on the tracks).

After wandering the Silom district for a bit we found the park and immediately noticed the large amount of oversized lizards that live there. Surprisingly no tourist information even vaguely mentioned this (all prided the park on it's opportunity for aerobic activity), but these things were everywhere. They were the size of fat crocs. Initially we though they were Kimono dragons before reading about how Kimono dragons eat full grown deer and buffalo for meals, which wouldn't really suit them for a public park.

After the park we headed through the south end of the park, which held several protest camps. While several countries had issued travel warnings to Thailand because of the red shirt protests, being actually confronted with the action was surprisingly non threatening. They sold us some cheap water, a woman followed me for a bit saying things to the affect of "do you know what my government did," and people seemed more concerned with passing the time than anything else. We proceeded to the Silom mall complex and ate tiny sausages with Thai Iced Tea (Iced Tea with coconut milk).

That evening we took a night bus/ferry to Ko Phi Phi on Liam's suggestion. The bus played us an insanely good movie called "K2" that had great lines such as "It's a chance of a lifetime! [retort] A chance of a lifetime to get yourself killed!" Really high-art stuff.

The 12 hours of travel plopped us in one of the most objectively beautiful places I've ever seen. Huge cliffs, crystal waters, fine white beaches: the works. After checking into a fairly cheap room, we went out to find a beach and surprisingly found one a completely abandoned one near or room. After grabbing some beers and chairs, we tucked in to swim, sunbathe and watch the sunset.

The following day we took a boat tour around the islands where we quickly discovered why the first beach was abandoned. Each place we stopped had a new twist: one covered in monkies (not kidding, I fed a baby), one where you could walk about a mile with the water reaching your waist, one where they actually filmed "the beach." Between these we snorkled around the reefs and managed to see all the fish from movies. Every last movie-fish.

After this we caught a ferry/bus/ferry to Ko-Phagnan, which is the home of the legendary "full-moon party." We arrived the evening before a half-moon party: a drum and bass fare set in the jungle and seemingly attracting every party monkey west of India. What transpired over the next two days turned out to be an enigma of what the party does vs. what we do. We fully intended on staying at a beach that was a bit removed from full-moon-party-ground-zero of Hai Ann, but when they dropped a group of British boys (on gap year, of course) in the area it seemed utterly dead. The party migration/onslaught of wasted 18 y/os were not around, so we opted to stay right in the thick of it. The beach was certainly equipped for the 8K people it claimed to house during full-swing times, but there were easily only about 100 people there. I'm thinking we benefited from a bizarre mix of events that caused people to avoid Thailand: the protests scared them off, the Icelandic volcano grounded theme and the rainy season made them avoid it all together. In the end, we were smack in the middle of a party shell without any meat.

On the 21st (the day of the half-moon party), we toyed with the idea of taking a boat around but once again found ourselves within a short walk to one of the most gorgeous beaches I'd ever seen, so we opted to plant anchors in the shade of palm trees, and snack on nuts and rum until the sun went down. That evening we spent about 2 hours toying with the idea of going to this half-moon jungle party. Everything about a jungle-rave/party dj/western d&b haven runs counter to what both alex and I generally look for when out to have a good time, but we also were so close to this huge phenomenon. We spent about an hour having drinks on our balcony watching the migration go out. A seemingly endless run of drunk, annoying, scantily clad kids hailed the tuk-tuks to whisk them to the jungle, and by the time we figured out that it was 200B to get there at 500B each to get in, it seemed stupid. At one point Alex rather hilariously explained our predicament in the following terms: "it's like when the nazis had killed half the jews. whether they stopped or kept going, most reasonable people knew they made a terrible mistake." (Apologies if this comes off as offensive; it's meant to be tongue-in-cheek).

In the end we decided to pace the beach and once again return to the bar that had people dancing with long sticks of fire to the counting crows and other hits. The night ended well and much cheaper than being stuck in the jungle with ravers. (Side note: every hostel/hotel we looked out had a charge for getting neon paint on any towel or sheet. This was a very legitimate threat for property damage.)

The day after half-moon we caught a ferry/bus back to an overnight train, which arrived an hour and a half late but provided me with one of my best nights sleep thus far. We had a nice first-class, air-con private car that we procured on a third-times-a-charm basis after two agents told us all trains to BKK were full. Never trust a lackey on the first go!

We arrived in Bangkok yesterday around noon, picked a new hostel with three beds and settled into a nearby Indian restaurant to wait for Alex's friend Todd to arrive from Singapore (he will be traveling with us for the remainder of our journey and, for what it's worth, is a doctor). On the stalwart advice of Sanji from January, I ordered the butter chicken at the Indian restaurant and was exceedingly pleased.

Todd eventually arrived and after some catching/cleaning up, we made our way out to Bangkok for our first proper night on the town. We initially tried to take a ferry to Chinatown but watched two of them go by before realizing how it worked (the boats just barrel up to a ferry port, where you are expected to jump on in about 10 seconds). We lucked into figuring out how it worked by missing the very last ferry run of the night so began to walk. On our way a friendly tuk-tuk driver told us we would certainly be shot and he could take us for 300B to our desired neighborhood's tourist info. Of course we were able to get him down to 90B and he likely got commission off taking us to an agent who tried to sell us transit or lodging or really anything. We have already taken care of our train to Chang Mai so started asking him some of our random questions (what are those giant lizards in Lumphini park? what happens if you overstay your tourist visa (they changed it from 30 to 14 days)? etc.) The most interesting answer he gave us dealt with the areas that are unsafe due to protests (apparently three tourists were killed with a grenade went off in Silom mall, which was where we ate sausages). He told us that we were safe everywhere except for Lumphini park and the Silom area, which is ironically the only places we naturally went the week before when things had not yet escalated.

After speaking with this guy we were taken (free of charge) to a "show", which I did not realize until we were inside was one of the infamous "ping-pong" shows. Don't look up what this means lest you be mildly afraid for the health of humanity.

We were then offered a free tuk-tuk ride to a "go-go club," which we indulged as it also happened to take us about half way back home. The club was full of ladies of the night and featured drinks priced approximately 3x the most expensive drink I'd seen in Asia thus far. What do they think this is, a bar in NYC? No thanks!

After being carted to another free place and suckering various tuk-tuk drivers into a few more free rides, we were home and exhausted.

This entry is getting very long and I apologize for the inevitable lack of coherence that even the mildest of proof-reading could have afforded, but I'm far too weary for that level of scrutiny.

After the strangest night last night, we woke up this morning at 8:00 am, toured the Royal Palace, several Wats (temples), a huge reclining Buddha, Chinatown w/ Dim Sum and Jim Thompson's house (an American architect who moved to Thailand after a stint in the military, founded the Thai Silk Company, which gained fame after the King and I came out, and mysteriously disappeared into the highlands of Malaysia leaving behind an impressive Teak house with a brilliant Asian art collection--some of the most annoying people we have encountered thus far were on this tour (one offered to pee in a porcelain cat that was once used as a chamber pot)).

After that run of sight-seeing we attempted to find a cheap mall with an extensive food court but ended up getting mixed up in a protest camp and found out the mall was shut down because of this. The environment in Bangkok has changed so much in the last week. What seemed like casual protest camps in the park last week has turned into huge barricades surrounded by tires and sticks, police in riot gear, huge trucks, and stickers with very graphic violence and defaced pictures of the king plastered everywhere. Getting stuck in the protest camp was very tense, and although I didn't particularly feel unsafe, we all wanted to leave immediately. Getting out of the chaos proved quite hard, as it all blocked the streets (making jumping into a cab impossible), cut off the pedestrian walkways above ground and generally caused chaos.

We managed to escape the confusing take-over and found two separate taxi drivers who pretended to know where our street was but ended up taking us in the exact opposite direction before giving up. Thankfully the last one happened to drop us off at the largest night market in Bangkok (free of charge, again). There were over 3,700 vendors and a huge stage that featured Thai singers, dancers in short shorts and oodles of food vendors.

After watching a confusing performance where people arbitrarily cheered in the middle of the songs since a Man U v. Tottenham game was on in the background, we grabbed a taxi that actually knew where it was going and finally got back to the hostel. Now I'm totally exhausted writing this at an Internet cafe around the corner. I was surprised that the BBC hardly mentioned Thailand in it's nightly report and all the media outlets seem to indicate that the end is near though it seems far from it on the streets. In my opinion the protests is just a matter of protocol at this point as eventually the government will just change the date of the election and everyone will go back to work. I'm sure it's more nuanced than that, but in the words of a British national who lives in Bangkok that we encountered at the border "Thais are too useless to have a revolution." More accurately, everyone here seems to happy to need a revolution. I'd liken it more to the transit strikes in Paris. Every few years the citizens just want to know what democracy could feel like.

Once again, I hope to upload pictures/videos properly soon, as the one for this post is a monkey in Cambodia. The Thai pictures thus far are striking.

Tomorrow we have an overnight train to Chang Mai and expect to head to more markets/a giant swing tomorrow. As for tonight, we may go dancing with a girl Todd picked up in the mall during the one hour he opted out of touring Jim Thompson's house. More likely I'll be asleep in about ten minutes.

Thai-ered,
Jones

Angkor What?

Buddhist school
Originally uploaded by PhoJones

After the last post we ventured out and had some nice curry/soup before wandering around the night markets, seeing some Assuara dancers and watching very strange Asian TV. The night before we ate a restaurant where Mick Jagger ate and spent $3 on huge entrees. It's important to remember.

Today began roughly the same as yesterday with an 8 am call to the tuk-tuk though we left slightly later to ensure our bus tickets to Bangkok are sorted. We began at the oldest temple group, built around 875. My favorite turned out to be the smallest (Lorei, I think?) as it featured an active monastic community behind it. We met a nice monk who spoke decent English, told us he planned to study English Lit in University in the fall and is currently teaching about 35 students to read and write in English. The picture above is us in his classroom. There weren't any students around because of New Years, and though he said he didn't have anything to do during his break because he can't dance or sing, I think he was keeping busy fund raising just fine. The money I gave him is debatably the best I've spent so far (other exciting purchases include a wooden juice harp, a strange shuttlecock thing that kids are kicking around everywhere here and I can barely make contact with, and and ancient looking bell (purchased after haggling with a four year old)).

The rest of the day seemed significantly hotter than humanly possible and included a huge empty reservoir temple (that I swear is the model for an entire level in Super Mario 64), well preserved elephant sculptures and an 8th century Buddhist university where we got very turned around and failed to effectively leave for about an hour longer than intended.

Tonight we ate some more Khmer food, procured snacks from a hilarious super market featuring Dr. Lerry's Corn Flakes (the box has an Aryan family twirling in a corn field. Pictures forthcoming). After I got a Dr. Fish massage while Alex ate ice cream. The massage is a large pool you stick your feet into while dozens of fish eat away at the dead skin. The fish apparently came from Turkey and feel certifiably strange.

Tomorrow is a 5 am wake up call to see the sunrise in the temples before heading over to Bangkok. The red shirt protests have been making world headlines every day, the new year festivities (including the world's largest water fight) have been cancelled, and several countries have issued travel warnings, so it should be an interesting leg of the journey. They aren't targeting tourists or westerners though, and we plan to head to the islands the day after our arrival, so fear not moms in the crowd.

Legends of the Hidden Temple,
Jones

PS - click on the picture above for some more images. Slow and steady, but at least it's working a little now...

Keepin it Riel

After the last post we walked successfully found the Foreign Correspondents Bureau and on the way passed dozens of Cambodian youths doing an elaborately choreographed line dance to some strange pop music. Strange. The FCC featured photographs from the last 30 years by foreign artists all over it and had a nice lounge feel. We drank chilled coconuts then walked back to the room.

Yesterday morning we got up early to hit the markets by 7:00 am, which was a great idea as the vendors were too preoccupied getting things ready to chase us down for needing something. The Phnom Penh market is housed in a large circular building with a lot of surrounding stalls. Each leg has a theme (clothes, fruit, flowers, electronics and miles and miles of strange meats/fish). After we walked to the Royal Palace to unfortunately find it closed for prayer all day (Khmer New Year) so instead went to the National Museum, which is very much like the National Museum in London that features sculpture and artifacts from hundreds of years ago. The vast majority had been taken from Siem Reap/Angkor Wat, which was a city that boasted a population of 1 million when London had a measly 50,000. At noon we caught a bus there that traveled like a NYC bus went to Boston picking up people all along the way. The majority of the way (6 hrs), we sat next to a family of 3 adults and 8 children sharing 4 seats.

Angkor Wat has definitely earned its place as the 8th wonder of the world. Every person we have consulted counts it as a highlight of the region, and it has surely impressed. After foolishly trying to walk to the market (the bus station turned out to be different and about 3 miles further than expected), we encountered a nice tuk-tuk driver who offered to cart us around to all the temples for cheap. This morning at 8 we went directly to Angkor Wat, which is the largest religious building in the world. Through the years the temple has transitioned from Hinduism to Buddhism so retains features from both religions. Hinduism left an impressive line of bass reliefs telling the stories of the gods (my favorite being judgement day with extensive and very specific versions of hell -- you get nailed to a frame for sleeping with a scholars wife or drinking too much). The rest of the day we hiked around other temples in the central Angkor area. One was disassembled before the civil war only to have the Khmer Rouge destroy the plans, making it the world's largest jigsaw puzzle. One was the "sun temple," which we climbed up to at mid-day despite the largest incline of stairs I'd seen in recent memory. There were terraces full of elephants and mythical dragons and an homage to the Leper king (rumored to hide his leprosy from the public) and monks at every center giving out incense and bracelets and teaching how to pray (three bows of the head). I particularly enjoyed To Phanom (probably spelled wrong; I'm tired), which was built as a Buddhist temple representing wisdom and warning against knowing too much too soon. It has slowly been taken over by these mammoth trees whose vines wrap around everything and create a lovely combination of "hey, man could build this! whoops, nature can too!"

Now we are back at the hostel and about to head out for some Khmer food and a night market. Today was exhausting and dirty and hopefully I'll get pictures/videos up soon. There are seemingly thousands.

Also, the title of this post refers to Cambodian currency but we have actually yet to see Riel. Everywhere takes and often prefers USD (ATMs dispense only USD) and all coins have been replaced with Baht (4000=$1). I guess it works.

Monks not dead,
Jones

PS - Our tuk-tuk driver has two thumbs growing out of one thumb-stump. He reminds me of Gertrudis, my polydactyl cat in new york. I hope she hasn't been defenestrated.

Cambodia? I hardly know ya!

Cambodian Border
Originally uploaded by PhoJones

Today marks our fourth day in Cambodia. The guide book describes this country as tantalizing for body, soul, and mind, which despite it's cheesy travel writing gloss has been true.

The 6 hour bus from HCMC included a painless border crossing and compelling countryside. This is the first primarily Buddhist country I have been to, and the first noticeable signs are the temples everywhere (much like mosques in Muslim countries). The postcard images of Cambodia are certainly not confined to tourist areas, as the countryside featured huge (what I assume to be) temples, vendors of all sorts of animal statues, and houses on stilts (for the rainy season).

We arrived in Phnom Penh around 2 pm having eaten only tiny bananas and coconut flavored peanuts (the rest stop smells made my stomach churn) and were swiftly met by an endless proposition of motorbike and tuk-tuk offers (tuk tuks are motorbikes with a little cart on the back). A hot and confusing trek to the nearest Lonely Planet guesthouse landed us in a hotel room with HBO. Strange. That night we tried to find an NGO restaurant that gives proceeds to local children but failed and ended up wandering aimlessly before stumbling on to one of the same NGO's affiliates. I ate fish amok (a spiced fish cooked with coconut milk in banana leaves
-- very good). The clientele was firmly western, and I overheard a girl talking about doing freelance work for the LA Times.

The next morning Alex ran out to the bus station to scope out tickets and procured two 8:45 am seats to Sihanoukville. The bus played ridiculously loud Khmer music videos that included old men yelling and teenage girls poorly singing along to music in headphones. A lot of crying/love emotions as well. Yikes.

Sihanoukville is a classic foreign beach town that reminded me a lot of Dahab in Egypt. Crowded with western tourists, signs for scuba/snorkle/island/dive/boat tours, and restaurants with pillows directly on the beach. Also, insanely cheap ($3 for a huge plate of fresh bbq tuna and 50 cents for drafts of Angkor beer (the brewery is nearby)). The first afternoon we learned an important message about being hassled for money: don't sit where there arent tons of other people (no one else for them to divert to) and don't talk to the children unless you want a bracelet. We were immediately wooed by two girls that started asking us a lot of questions and offering free bracelets just to peak or interest. Mine was a better salesman than most and told me about where she lived, went to school, what it was like during the rainy season, etc. I bought two bracelets from her, which immediately made about 10 other people (including a legless man and a baby) come to our table with open palms. Eventually they all left except the girl who had hassled Alex. He explained that he didn't need a bracelet, tried to sell her the free one back with the same tactics, and tried to impart some sort of market value lesson. The girl provided some gems-- "Where are you from? - New York City - Oh, in Australia!"-- "Do you have a girlfriend? - No - You don't have a girlfriend because you won't buy a bracelet"-- "Come on man, your friend got one! She worked on Wall Street. - blank stare." After his continued resistance, she demanded the free one back and chopped it up in front of us. Anyhow, that night ended pleasantly enough with fireworks and stars and a new friend from Boston who is moving to NYC in June. Go figure.

The next morning we climbed over a bunch of rocks with a puppy (that only made it half way, though a challenging half way) to sneak into a really swanky beach resort. After about four hours crashing on their nice, swindler-free chairs and swimming in the South China Sea, a hotel employee caught us but only demanded $6/each. We think he probably just pocketed it. Everyone there seemed to be avoiding the real Cambodia in favor of something that could be found in Mexico, Spain, the Caribbean-- really anywhere with nice weather and tepid water. Little did they know the prices were about 5x higher than 30 seconds down the road. After tiring of the lovely fresh-water pool, we hired a motor bike, and went back to have curries at a beach bungalow for reasonable prices. Sihanoukville is clearly what they mean by a delight for the body. Now I look like a lobster.

We attempted to book a bus back to Phnom Penh this morning but all were full until 10 am, which would put us back here firmly in time to miss out on everything closing at 5:30, so we splurged on a blissfully break free, silent taxi that got us to our hostel door by 11 am.

After a quick meal, we hired a tuk-tuk driver to take us to the Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng Museum. Both experiences are very heavy on the heart. The Tuol Sleng Museum was a primary/high school before the Khmer Rogue took over just about 35 years ago to the day. Pol Pot and his regime attempted to turn the nation communist pretty much overnight. People were immediately evacuated from cities (under the guise that the US would be shelling them soon, though all that resisted were forced out as well), taken to work as laborers or farmers, and rampant starvation and lack of trust abounded. Any person with any education, that wasn't illiterate, could speak another language, showed affection for their family, or had any "upper class" skill such as being a doctor or lawyer was immediately taken and tortured/killed. Over the next four years, the Khmer Rogue (once misspelled as Khmer Rough - Engrish at it's best!) managed to kill off roughly one-fourth of Cambodia's population. The prison was by far the most well-curated museum we've attended so far-- probably due to being put together by European graduate students that had a firm grasp of English and dropped the need to repeat every fact 300 times. People from the prison were then taken to the Killing fields, which currently has an impressive monument containing about 8,000 skulls. The excavated graves now feature chickens and lizards. It reminded me of the pollywog fields at Birkenau (near Aushwitz). Soul wrenching.

That brings us to now at an internet cafe around the corner from the prison. Tonight we are going to try to find the Foreign Correspondents Bureau for dinner per Paul's suggestions, and tomorrow we are going to try to hit the Russian market and Royal Palace (with a 90kg Silver Floor) before catching a 12 pm bus to Siem Reap/Temples of Angkor Wat - (the blow your mind).

Apologies for the lack of pictures. I forgot my camera cord and didn't expect to find such a speedy Internet cafe today. Hopefully there will be more soon. And kudos if you got through this whole thing.

Things keep happening,
Janelle

Onward!

Crying Penguin
Originally uploaded by PhoJones

Internet has been infuriatingly slow, but I just updated my flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/phojones/. There are some descriptions.

So far we spent a packed day in HCMC (US Embassy, Reunification Palace, War Museum, Market, Pho lunch, Independence Festival), made it to Phom Phen and Sihanoukville. Now my e-time is running out like the sunset.

More later!

I'm a Seoul Man

Free Slippers
Originally uploaded by PhoJones

After several hours in JFK and 13 hours in the air, we've safely made it to Seoul having forgotten about our 14 hour layover. Though the airport features massages, food, movie rooms, craft/art displays, rest areas and lovely chairs, we've taken to the internet for two hours.

On the flight, they served two meals with both a western and eastern option. I ended up saying "the first one" both times and got a bim bi bap (which the man seated next to me taught me how to eat, a feat i'd been doing incorrectly for a while) and an egg roll filled with cheese (maybe?!) covered in hash brown. The Korean TV featured a boy band with beatles-bowl cuts doing a christmas special and a reality show of Korean celebrities trying to become professional baseball players. They both translated pretty well without being in English thanks to the universal messages.

We've also discovered several popular Thai musicians from a replay of their 2007 Grammies, so if you get bored of your current music offerings, please look up "Ice" and "Potato" and "Golf" (I hear Golf does an incendiary duet called "Golf & Mike").

5:30 am? Yes!

The Beginning

Tonight my colleague Alex and I will embark on a 7 week exploration of Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos (click for route). The trip has been months in the making and required some lifestyle upheaval, but now that we are both homeless and temporarily jobless, it's time to get out of town.