Towel Trudgings

Behold: Content!

2009-08-26T22:41:00.000-07:00

Hi there everyone,

It's been quite a while since my last post. If your life is based around reading my blog, I am deeply sorry (on many levels.) I have been busy, sick, and then busy again. I've mostly been writing e-mails to US universities, processing volunteer project items, doing website updates, and working with freelance multimedia designers. It's all very interesting, I assure you.

In my spare time I have been fighting a losing battle against my neighbor's chickens, teaching immersion English, muay thai boxing, starting marathon training, getting back into music from the early 90s, teaching a soi dog how to sit, getting the flu, recovering from the flu, unsuccessfully attempting to resume marathon training, exploring on my motorbike, getting pissed off at Thai police for pulling me over for driving without a license when no one in my town has one, reading the ticket and realizing that it's a load of malarkey and doesn't have any information on it about me or the bike (read: the cop wanted a handout), checking out be-be guns for the chickens in my backyard, teaching some adorable Thai children, swimming at the beach, getting flat motorbike tires, playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, writing a new young adult novel, ALMOST going to Cambodia, and a few other things.

When I got the flu, there was a short scare about H1N1, as it has come to Thailand. When I began describing my symptoms to the doctor at the local night clinic, he ran out of the room and came back with a mask on and a tongue depresser. After examining me, he told me that I had the regular old flu and they gave me an injection... in the bum. That, my friends, was a humbling experience (not to mention numbing). Still, in a few hours, I felt better than I had in days.

I started (and finished) teaching some adorable little Thai kids by the names of Panya, Pancha, James, and Khao Kong (rice belly). They enjoy counting very loudly, jumping, and crawling under the table. I have to say, I've never taught children that young, and it was pretty fun. The only problem with teaching young kids is that if you don't bring the energy, they still will. Sometimes moreso. Still, it's been over a year since the last time I taught in a classroom. I've done a lot of immersion, camp, and business English stuff in the past year, but I haven't been in a seats, whiteboard, calendar, etc. classroom in a while. I have to say, I did kind of miss it. I've had some really good times teaching (and some really awful ones), but generally speaking teaching has been a positive experience. Statistically speaking, now that I have entered my fifth year of it (if you can really count this year) I am extremely likely to stick with it. I can see why people would, it can be a very rewarding job, it can be a lot of fun, and you can LIVE on the pay in most places. I've learned a lot since my first teaching job, and sometimes wonder what I would even tell myself if I could go back and have a conversation with freshman teacher Sean.

"Stick with it," maybe?

I dunno. I can't, so it's kind of a moot point.

All I know is that for now, I will be working in Education for the foreseeable future, but then again...

...my foreseeable future is never very far off...

Ha ha ha ha ha...

To the Countries Formerly Known as Indochina! Part Three: Stranded

2009-06-12T01:26:00.000-07:00

After unsuccessfully navigating the Vietnamese visa renewal process, I had a few more days to kill before I could even START the three week process by which I would get my new passport.

Having a little extra time to kill, Kia and I attended the Moustachio Bashio, and I grew in a little something to have to show. We stayed long enough for me to shamefully not win anything, but then again, there were some other very compelling moustaches. Kia flew out the next day, back to Soju and Pancake who were apparently very lonely and had forgotten everything about how to use a litter box or wait to be walked to go to the bathroom.

Getting terribly low on funds, I reached out to Tyson and asked if it would be cool if I crashed at his place for a little while. He talked it over with his roommates and told me that it was fine.

Back to couch crashing.

Still, the extra time in Ho Chi Minh City allowed me to visit Bien Hoa (pronounced Bee-ehn Hwa), the capital of Dong Nai province. Mr. Duc, my contact in Dong Nai, picked me up at the bus station and took me around Bien Hoa. It's a very nice place, as you can see from the pictures. However, most of the government schools there looked to be in good enough condition that there had to be some serious money being funneled into them. Probably not the place to send volunteers. However, Mr. Duc assured me that the places that volunteers would be sent would be in the far more rural and needy areas of Dong Nai.

Additionally, I got to meet with Saigon Children's Charity in Ho Chi Minh City, and blundered in looking for a Mr. Chinh. Shortly, I was awkwardly introduced to a Mrs. Chinh (whoops) and we began talking about more possibilities for volunteers in Vietnam. She corroborated what Mr. Duc had said about Dong Nai being badly in need of teachers and mentioned that many of their trade programs and English volunteer programs are out in that province. She gave me some very professional looking materials with information about the programs for at risk youth, and we had a very nice chat about the whole thing.

I spent the remainder of my three weeks in Vietnam attempting to do my job via e-mail, hanging out with Tyson, exploring Ho Chi Minh City, and talking to local business owners about the possibility of our trainees getting discounts on things like guesthouses and meals. Most weren't terribly cooperative, but all were very nice.

I also found an obscenely cheap Internet cafe with air-conditioning hiding out behind a convenience store on Doung Bui Vien. One of the reasons, I am sure, that the place is so cheap is that the owner has a pest problem.

Not ants.
Not rats.
Not roaches.

Feral...

Children...

I am NOT kidding. I felt bad for the kids, and I was horrified when the owner came after one of them with a billy club, but I could feel his pain, too. The children storm the store on an almost hourly basis, getting into fights with each other, smoking, annoying patrons (such as myself - one little girl started punching me in the arm for no reason, and I eventually left one day when I got hit in the back of the head with a wet towel - what it was wet with, I haven't the foggiest), and straight up stealing snacks in front of the owner.

When he threatened the little girl (she was maybe eight) with the billy club, she smacked her cheek twice and stuck out her jaw like, "Try it. I dare you." He didn't, and, frankly, I don't think it would have been wise. Granted, I don't think I could bring myself to hit a kid with a billy club under any circumstances, but if he had done it in that situation, I don't know how much of his store would have survived the ensuing bedlam caused by the street kids. I tried talking to them, but it didn't seem to do much good. All I could really get was, "Hello. How are you? F**k you."

Yikes.

Hanging out with Tyson and co. reminded me a lot of the life I had in Korea. Good pay. Decent hours. Constant parties. The life of an overseas English teacher is a good one, but it can be a trifle exhausting. I was sleeping on a couch and on what shall be referred to as the BahnFast diet - a bahn mi (egg and vegetable baguette) for breakfast, a bahn me for lunch, and a sensible dinner. I wasn't trying to lose weight, but it kept my budget at around five dollars a day - if that. The results were less than favorable as far as my health. Put these facts all together, and it started taking a bit of a toll on my health. Kia and I had both gotten some sort of respiratory goop cough in Phnom Penh, but I was starting to feel like I might be getting sick again.

Mercifully, one of Tyson's roommates went on vacation, and I was able to sleep in an actual bed. I felt like I had become rather soft, as for parts of the last several years I've been consistently sleeping on cots, couches, floors, mats, the ground, etc., etc. After having trouble sleeping on a couch, I was really feeling like a bit like a baby.

A few weeks later, I had my passport and was ready to ship back to Thailand on literally the next flight. Here are some interesting excerpts from the previous weeks:

Enormous English teacher party sponsored by ILA at the zoo. No one is eaten.

Impromptu pool party on the roof of Tyson's friends' apartment. I slip on wet stairs and tenderize my derriere. Bruise twice the size of a baseball rises out of my hip making it impossible to sit for long periods, which I have to do anyway.

Whilst waiting for a bahn mi, an older man asks me if I am American. I nod, wondering what on earth could be coming next. He asks if I am CIA. No. FBI? No. He says, "Ah! America good! Me, 1970, American Army we shooting VC! I South Vietnam Army!" I look around as if to appear to not be talking to him.

Across the street and on a different day from the wildly pro-American gent, I was walking somewhere when I see a tourist filming something. I look to see what it is and several stories above ground is a guy holding a ladder over the facade of a building. His colleague appears to be hanging on the ladder and repainting the front. Meanwhile, the wind is causing the ladder to twitch and shudder constantly, sometimes even bending it sideways. As I reach for my camera, a man comes running down the street and yells at the two of us, saying "No picture! No Picture!"

I'll admit, it was probably pretty crass to be taking a shot of that, but I couldn't resist.

To the Countries Formerly Known as Indochina! Part Two: Viet Nam

2009-05-16T00:09:00.000-07:00

So, after having the bus cleared of zombies and vampires, we continued on until after nightfall. It wasn't terribly long before I started to be able to recognize a few of the buildings, which was a bit refreshing. Eventually, we entered the Pham Ngu Lao area, recognizable from any distance because of the park and the Allez Boo sign about halfway down the block.

I introduced Kia to crossing the street in Vietnam, and she was less than thrilled by it. Having paid virtually nothing for my room the last time I was in Ho Chi Minh City, I managed to find my way through the network of alleys back to where I had stayed before, but the place was shut up for the night. The guesthouse across the street was open and the owner offered rooms for seven dollars rather than six, but she had two fluffy dogs and gave me a big bottle of water for free, so I said yes. Having been short on money, I figured I could do a bit of a half-hearted search the next day and if anything stupendously better came up, I could take it.

We checked in and sacked out.

That weekend we had some genuinely weird experiences at the Ho Chi Minh City zoo that I will include below. Later, we enjoyed 20,000 dong (17,500 dong = 1 USD) Vietnamese vanilla rum, which was surprisingly delicious. I met up with a good friend of mine from Korea, who now works for ILA in Vietnam. Tyson and I had worked for the same company in Seoul for a year and swapped a few stories about that. It was good to see him and, again, I had no idea how helpful he was going to become.

The Monday following our arrival in Vietnam was a flurry of activity. Kia submitted forms to get her 90-day Thai visa at the local consulate, which was more of a closet annex than an actual building. I visited the UNESCO office and met with the head of the Dong Nai school district to whom I talked about placing volunteers at needy schools. We discussed the possibility of having volunteers work part time for private English academies while in Dong Nai in order to make the project less expensive. I said I'd give it some thought but was more concerned with six month volunteer contracts than anything else. The problem is that if a person volunteers for less than that, it interupts the school's class schedule, and the school is left either with an empty class either at the beginning or the end of the term. In that case, rearranging the schedule to fit a volunteer does more harm than good. We chatted about it, and he asked me for a letter of intent - typical slow-moving business practices here can be full of asking for stamped documents, etc.

And if I thought that was bureacratic, I had no idea what I was in for later...

Kia and I packed up our stuff and got ready to roll back to Thailand, having completed what we had set out to do. The only problem was that Air Asia decided that it couldn't sell me a ticket. Here's what went down:

Air Asia Man: Sorry sir, but you cannot purchase a ticket to Thailand with a passport that is going to expire in less than six months. They will not issue you a visa.

Sean: I have a valid visa/work permit with multiple entry good for two more months. That's more than the visa on arrival would have given me anyway.

Air Asia Man: I do not know if they will let you into the country.

Sean: I just came back from Laos with less than five months on my passport, no one said anything.

Air Asia Man: Yes, five months okay. Maybe three months. Not two.

Sean: What? So wait, there's no hard and fast rule about this?

Air Asia Man: Maybe three months sometimes.

Sean: Like when? Like when a person has a valid visa and Thai immigration won't have to issue them another visa? Like then?

Air Asia Man: I cannot read Thai, so I don't know what that says.

Sean: Trust me, it's a valid work permit.

Air Asia Man: If it's not, we will have to fly you somewhere else.

Sean: I'll pay for it.

Air Asia Man: I need to see the money.

Sean: I am not carrying around a hundred dollars in cash.

Air Asia Man: Then maybe if you can get a letter from the Thai embassy saying that they'll let you into the country.

Sean: As in the Thai embassy that is closed right now?

Air Asia Man: ...

I thought about taking a bus back, through Cambodia, but realized that it would be as expensive with visas, etc. as flying and heck of a lot more time consuming. Or at least, that's what I thought then. On top of that was the nagging possibility in the back of my head that maybe the guy was right and that for whatever reason, Thai immigration wouldn't let me back in despite my valid work permit. Then, I'd be stranded in Cambodia where I didn't know anyone.

The first thing the following day, I went to Thai immigration, and they told me that they didn't have any such letter to give me. Disheartened and worried about the ticking clock on my Vietnamese visa, I researched what would happen if I overstayed. Apparently, Vietnam finances something pretty big with its overstay fines. First, you HAVE TO have a valid visa when you leave Vietnam. If you don't, you have to get a new one, and you're charged for overstay the entire time that you're waiting. Oh yeah, and overstay in Vietnam is NOT cheap: I've heard from anywhere from 100,000 to 800,000 PER DAY. Also, it can take almost a week to get a new visa, so you can imagine how bad that is.

I decided that the first thing I needed to do was get a new visa. My quest to find that, I will relate to you as if it were a 1990s point and click interface video game a la King's Quest:

Air Asia Elder: Nay sir! I cannot sell you a ticket! I hereby charge you with the quest of retrieving a letter of from the Thai embassy. If not, ye shall have to complete the quest of Golden Passport Renewal! It is long, perilous, expensive, and irritating. Ye shall be plagued with crazed motorbike drivers and drunken ex-pats. Ye shall be depressed by begging elderly and children! Ye shall have people butt in line in front of you, and tell you erroneous things. Go forth first and try to get the letter. If not, then seek the Sage at the temple of American Embassadordom.

Sage of the Thai Embassy: I'm sorry Mario, but your ticket out of here is in another castle.

My vietnamese visa was about to expire, so in order avoid the overstay charges of doom, my next stop was immigration. I got the address from a website. After waiting in "line" (line in this context is a huge crowd of Vietnamese people shoving each other and handing passport applications over each others' heads) for about a half an hour, I finally got to the desk.

Pirate Captain of the Ship Immigration: Nay! This be not the correct Immigration office! Yeargh! Findeth the correct one at this address.

The CORRECT address was actually right down the street from where I've been staying.

Her Lady of Immigration Authority: Take you these forms and go to the dread castle of the Police Station. You must bring me the (stamp from the) Head of the Chief of Police!

So I went to the office for Pham Ngu Lao (the Itaewon, Khao San road, South Street) area of Ho Chi Minh City. What I found was a rubble filled abandoned lot, cordoned off with corrugated metal.

NICE.

Upon walking around and swearing to myself in every language I could think of, I eventually found a sign saying that the police station had been moved to another address. I asked some motorbike taxi drivers where it was and they all told me, "Oh far! Very far! I take you! Cheap price!" Er... keeping in story dialogue: "Growl! Snarl! Grrrr! Give me your gold!"

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid Sean.

I check a map, and it was about a kilometer away, so I walked there.

Police Chief: In order to get the (stamp of the) head of the chief of police, you must first get the guesthouse where you are staying to fill out this form! Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Sean: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Guesthouse Attendent: We're sorry Mario, but our Manager is (in another castle) out at lunch.

Sean: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Finally, the guesthouse manager returned from lunch and signed the form. I returned to the police station and was then informed that the signature was in the wrong place and that the whole form was null and void.

HOW

AWESOME

THAT?

Now, try to keep in mind that this whole process was carried out in parses of English and Tieng Viet. It was a very long day. I finally ended up coughing up the extra bucks to just have someone else do it for me. I am pretty sure the guesthouse manager signed it in the wrong place on purpose because he wanted me to pay him to do the visa stuff for me. I was so ticked off at the guy that I told his staff that our passport stuff had gone just swimmingly. Then I changed guesthouses.

Moral of the story: Renew your passport when it hits the seven month to being invalid mark... or you will die.

To the Countries Formerly Known as Indochina! Part One: Cambodia

2009-05-07T01:28:00.000-07:00

So, it came time again for me to go check out volunteer sites from Cambodia to Vietnam. I was excited, but it wasn't necessarily any new territory. I think I'd have been a bit more apprehensive had I known exactly how long I was about to be gone.

Kia and I boarded a bus for Trat, the closest transportation hub to the border crossing at Had Yai. Now, I have never liked international borders for a ton of reasons. Imaginary lines that keep some people in a place where they don't necessarily want to be and keep others out for no good reason other than the fact that they were born on the other side, are stupid. There, I said it. I think national borders are stupid. People should be allowed to go wherever they want.

To which, a lot of my American friends might respond, "But the terrorists! The Mexicans! Oh no!"

Oh yes...

Oh.

Yes.

If there were no borders, there really wouldn't be any nations, now would there? If there weren't really any nations, we wouldn't worry too terribly much about terrorists attack OUR nation, because it would be THEIR nation as well. I know that somewhere out there someone is singing "Imagine" by the Beatles and laughing at me, and that's all well and good because they're right, it's NOT going to happen. And why not? Because people like having more. They like being able to say, "I live on this side of the line, and you live on that side of the line, and therefore I should be entitled to a better life than you."

And, unfortunately, those are the people who have really, really big guns, satellite tracking systems, laser guided bombs, and countless other billions of dollars of technology dedicated to killing people most of whom don't have shoes.

Okay, end tirade.

Anyway, I hate borders, and I hate border towns. Bureaucratic officials, who get on a power trip because someone gave them a stamp and said, look at people's documents to make sure that they have the correct arbitrary whathaveyou to be able to cross this line, can kiss my posterior. Unfortunately, because they tend to be the ones with all of the power, the reverse is usually what actually takes place.

Kia and I arrived at the border and had some children try to rifle through our bags. Kia grabbed hers away from one of them and the kid looked at her and said in fairly good English, "I don't like you."

She just looked at him and said, "Fine."

We walked went through the Thai immigration exit and headed across the liminal state between the two countries. At the Khmer side, there were about a half a dozen middle-aged men who were creepily skulking about and on good terms with the border bureacrats. They were looking over our shoulders as we nervously filled out our documents and one kept asking me the time, I think, to get a better look at my watch. The border bureacrats hustled to get Kia's documents signed after they saw a golden opportunity with mine: my passport was set to expire in less than six months. I had heard of people having problems with this, but I had just come back from Laos and there was no problem there.

Stupid, stupid Sean.

Cambodia is frequently grouped in among the countries suffering from the most government corruption in the entire world. I've known this. I've seen this. And yet, somehow, I didn't think about it before crossign the border. Realistically, if you're going to Cambodia, the best way to get a visa is to register for it online at this site: http://evisa.mfaic.gov.kh/e-visa/vindex.aspx

I didn't do that and ended up paying for it. Literally.

First, the visa fee that I got charged was substantially more than it should have been. Then, "because they liked me" the border bureacrats "allowed" me to pay an extra fee to get into the country. Right. Awesome guys. Thanks.

By the time we finally got all of our papers signed and stamped, it was dark. I wanted to get away from the place and the shady characters that were around there, but there isn't a lot between the border and the next largest town, Koh Kong. So, weighing the options, I decided it better to take a taxi than to take my chances with walking twenty kilometers through the night on a deserted road.

We stayed at a guesthouse for the night and checked out the sites of Koh Kong the next day. It was a sleepy little town and reminded me quite a bit of Ban Phe actually. I tried a bit of Khmer food, but most of it wasn't vegetarian, so my options were a bit limited. As far as actual site-vetting for volunteer projects, I couldn't find much information readily available, but figured that I would as I got closer to Phnom Penh or Sihanoukville.

Kia and I sampled some of the local brews to see what they were like. Though I cannot find them, we definitely have some photos modeling "Black Panther Stout" and "Special Beer" It'll have to be up to your imagination.

As we wandered around town, we met some helpful and very nice children. I rewarded them with a soccerball and have probably sparked fighting that had previously been unknown to these innocent young people. Whoops.

Many of Koh Kong's buildings look of the ramshackle variety, but guess what building had air-conditioning, purified water and chairs with cushions on them? See that? That's a bank. Shows where our priorities are as a civilization. We met a British gent in town who had a beer with us and let us in on some of the local gossip and whathaveyou. One story he regaled us with, I thought was particularly worth retelling:

"Mike," an American, literally bushwhacked an Englishman out in the jungle. After disposing of the body, he is caught, arrested and placed in Khmer prison. An NGO by the name of Care gets involved and continually investigates the prison for human rights abuses. The warden gets sick
of dealing with them and releases Mike under house arrest, where he must work in a bar for no money.

Mike eventually escapes from Cambodia. Is this a happy ending? I don't really know.

Kia and I eventually hopped a bus to Sihanoukville and stayed in the Ewok village near Serendipity beach. After a couple of days my teacher friends from Korea, Rachel and Zach, showed up and we were able to compare notes on a few things. They have been traveling around SE Asia for several months and had been, at this point, through Vietnam and a good bit of Cambodia as well.

Meanwhile, I found what I was looking for in the way of honest legit NGOs to partner with for teaching volunteer placements. One of the organizations helps beach children and their families to try to keep the children in school and away from the beaches at night where all sorts of nasty things happen to them. I got an interview with the young guy, Felix, who manages the project. He seemed very competent and very helpful.

Also, there was the Rainbow Foundation and Mr. On. I met up with him through two of the managers of the Seaview Villa, which has great food, comfordable (little portmanteau word) rooms, and friendly staff (little plug there.)

Sihanoukville is a beautiful place, but you really do have to remember that you're in Cambodia and anything can happen. I got close to being torn apart by two enormous dogs that came after me out of absolutely nowhere one day. I run a lot in Thailand and have had problems with the dogs there - once resulting in a series of rabies shots, but I have NEVER been this scared of any animal. The dogs were enormous and snarling as they charged at me from behind a building as if they'd been waiting for me. I went into an all out sprint as fast as I could go and thought for sure they were going to catch me. About two minutes later they tired and gave up, but my heart was beating so fast and my breath was coming so hard that I felt like I was going to die anyway.

Another incident happened when I was very obviously followed by two guys. I doubled back on them twice in crowded areas, and they stopped walking and watched me to see where I was going. Fortunately for me, they weren't very subtle, and I made them after not very long at all. Eventually, I waited them out and stuck to the more populated roads as I walked back to the guesthouse.

The food in Sihanoukville was cheap and unbeatable - it was probably the best food I've had since I've been in SE Asia. Anything can be had there, from Korean food to "happy pizza" and of course a healthy amount of Thai and Khmer cuisine. One thing about the countries that were formerly occupied by the French - they all know how to make baguettes, which if you've been living off of bread made from rice flour for a while, becomes a big selling point.

Sihanoukville, despite being somewhat touristy and somewhat shady, was a really nice place and about as safe as you'll find in Cambodia. After talking to some of the local NGOs exchanging business information and doing some local fact-finding, Kia and I again packed up our bags and headed to Phnom Penh.

Rachel and Zach had told us that there were a few things worth seeing in Phnom Penh, and we saw them. Unfortunately, we also got sick (probably from the pollution) and were feeling pretty feverish the whole time that we were there. Kia came down with something nasty first, but it wasn't more than a few days before I was feeling it, too. Respiratory snot fests and coughing fits confined me to not leaving the guesthouse much and eventually, when we left Phnom Penh, I was grateful to go. A few funny, if somewhat unfortunate, things happened along the way:

I was getting pretty hairy, so I decided that I should probably shave. I think I had left my razor somewhere else, but I wasn't sure where. Sometimes it's can be relaxing and extremely cheap to get a shave at one of the various barber stalls in SE Asia. Unfortunately, I bit off a bit more than I could chew in Phnom Penh. Surely, someone reading this is going, "You did NOT get a straight razor shave in Phnom Penh, did you!?"

Eh. Yep.

The razor was new, but there wasn't any sort of shaving cream - I think the girl was using hand lotion or something. After applying that she began hacking away at my jaw, as I struggled to keep still. What was worse, was that this was not taking place in a chair with a regular back, much less a barber's chair. So, I had to keep my head up while worrying that one false move was going to have my jugular spraying skyward like a garden hose that's been hit by a lawn mower.

Then the power went out.

The girl giggled. Sat there for a moment and then went to get a lantern.

Awesome.

A few days later, we packed our gear again and started heading for Vietnam. While trying to make our way to the bus station, our tuk-tuk stalled out in the middle of a crowded intersection. As bad as this would be anywhere else, in Cambodia, there are NO road rules.

None.

They have streetlights, but no one even bats an eye when they change. Casual observation of the streetlight system would lead anyone to believe that they are there for aesthetic purposes and nothing else. No kidding, no exaggeration.

So what does the driver do? He gives Kia and I a concilliatory look and then puts his helmet on, as if to say, "Best of luck!"

Eventually he got the thing started again and got us out of the intersection, but it was a hair raising experience nonetheless.

We made it to the bus and after a few hours we arrived at the Moc Bai border checkpoint. H1N1 scares were at their height around this time, so we were all given a very rigorous health check: in other words, all the white people - not even all the foriegners - the white people were asked to remain on the bus while some doctors walked around the bus asking us all, "How are you feeling?" shining lights on us and checking our pulses.

I quipped to another examinee - Well, at least they know that none of us are zombies or vampires...

Songkran: A Day of Bathing Where You Hope You Don't Get Hookworm

2009-04-17T07:34:00.000-07:00

Thai New Year is Songkran. Now, many ex-pats celebrate nearly every sundown as if it were December 31st, but Thai new year is something different all together. In the old days, Thai people would anoint you with refreshing mist of water to sort of wash you clean of your past year and get you ready for the next one. At least, that's how they did it before anyone I knew lived here.

Songkran of the present day is a martial law of wetness. I'm not kidding. You go outside of your house, you will get soaked. There are literally, literally, bands of people roaming the streets in pick-up trucks with mythic sized buckets of water in the back ENFORCING the wetness law. The nicer you are dressed, the better a target you make. Case and point: Songkran Day is different depending on where you are in Thailand, and (lucky me) I got to be in Phuket for Songkran and in Ban Phe.

Phuket, clearly the crazier of the two, involved the foreigner street (a la Itaewon's main drag in Korea, Khao San in Bangkok, "on the lake" in Phnom Penh, or Pham Ngu Lao in Vietnam) that would have had an agoraphobic rocking back and forth biting his or her knees. If people hadn't been tossing buckets of icy cold water on each other, it might have been unbearably hot simply from the body heat.

Kevin's girlfriend, Alisara, works for a radio show in Phuket and was supposed to do some live stage announcing for a mini-festival on the beach adjacent to the enormous water fight. Unfortunately, traffic was impassable due to a parade that was going on so we had to stop and walk part of the way. Getting Alisara to the stage as dry as possible was tantamount to trying to provide security to George W. Bush in the middle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan. EVERYbody wanted to be the one to drench the girl in the nice clothes.

So, Kevin and I orbited her trying to block as much water as possible, which only increased everyone's desire to see her get soaked. Ahhh, a challenge! One foreign kid, who looked to be straight out of a casting call for "irritating fat kid", nodded when we said, "Please don't shoot her with water. She's going to work."

Immediately after we passed him, he opened up on all three of us with his Supersoaker. I was tempted to take off my flip-flop and begin smacking him across the face with it, but manage to summon enough self-control to continue walking. We finally arrived at the stage soaking wet, but Alisara was reasonably dry.

As night descended, Kevin and I watched people lighting Kerosene balloons as is the custom on some holidays in Thailand. They're very pretty to watch as they go up, especially when you see dozens of them dotting the sky at the same time. I'll never forget the first time that I saw them (especially because it is being immortalized in the Blog now.) I was on one of the least comfortable bus rides I've ever been on - from Buriram to Rayong, and I looked out the window to see, what I first thought was a succession of planes taking off way to close together. It was dark and I couldn't see about anything except these lights that formed almost a square root curve up into the night sky. It was pretty and very strange at the same time. Kevin and I watched them go up for a while until we started seeing them coming back down, and Thai children running and swimming to retrieve them like a southeast Asian version of the kite runner.

I eventually needed to check my e-mail and use the commode. Unfortunately, the closest places to do either of them was back down the waterfight alley and I had just started to dry off. I was fairly concerned that by merely walking into a Thai-wired net cafe, I might burst into some sort of electrical fire. I didn't, though, and I lived to see another Songkran two days later.

Songkran in Ban Phe was... perhaps "toned down" is the wrong word, but it was certainly not even close to as crazy as the one in Phuket. Still, I must say that it was crazy, and it was fun. I got to splash a lot more Thai people as Phuket was crowded with farangs. Soju, my dog, got his fair share of being splashed, and at first was into it. Then, I think he just got annoyed and sleepy so he sat down on the street and tried to sleep. I don't think he was successful.

There were, of course, transvestites (I mean, hey, this is Thailand - what party would be complete without kathuays?) hanging out on the backs of pick-up trucks dancing provocatively and shrieking when hit with water.

Eventually, Soju and Kia grew weary of being doused with cold water, so I took them back through the crowds and dropped them off. On my way back to the party, I was stuck in traffic and felt my bike shift and buck as if someone had nailed it from behind. I looked back and a young Thai gentleman was sitting on the back of it trying to get me to drink some whiskey. I refused, but he wasn't having it and proceeded to pour it all over my face and down my shirt. What little of it I did imbibe made me realize just how comparitively good Sorngsom (brand of choice for most Thai people - tastes a bit like you might imagine liquid burning to taste like and gives me horrible sweats the next day if I make the mistake of drinking it, smelling it, or looking in its general direction) can be.

Songkran was a big success and I got to wear my Hawaiian shirt for the first time in the company of other Hawaiian shirt wearers.

This Will Not Include a Lame Joke About the Name of the Town; It's "Phuket," if You're Wondering...

2009-04-12T05:26:00.000-07:00

So we have a bunch of course centers all over the place. Up to this point however, I'd only been to two. Now after the staggering success of my Phuket trip, I have been to three. It's mind-blowing, I assure you.

Well, maybe not the math, but Phuket is really, really nice. It's a tad touristy, but most places that you're going to go in Thailand that aren't pretty rural are going to be touristy. If you've been to Thailand, and you follow my blog, then you're probably one of two people - if you're not me, then I am curious as to who you are and why you have so much time on your hands.

I kid.

Anyway, it might seem odd that I would go to Phuket in because there aren't really any volunteer gigs down that way unless you go way deeeeeeeep south, waaaay past Phuket (cue ominous music) and down into the part of the country where I can't place volunteers because every couple of months or so some militant group decides to blow up a bus or something. We try to make sure our volunteers are safe, and much of the rural area down that way isn't somewhere where I'd be comfortable sending any sons or daughters of my own (which for those of you keeping score at home, I don't have anyway).

So why then, did I go to Phuket?

My aunt was taking the TEFL course there, and since I never get to see family, I thought I'd give it a go.

Generally speaking Phuket town is very pretty. It seemed that there was a pretty solid amount of little houses and businesses with old stone and whitewash facades. I forgot how much I missed variety in architecture. Old Phuket town was one of the only places I've been where I could see some older buildings that weren't 1) dilapidated 2) wats. If you're going to see a Wat. See Angkor Wat. After that, it's sort of "seen one, seen them all." Perhaps that sounds a tad harsh, but I have seen more than enough of them for my lifetime and feel that the last hundred or so were probably a waste of my time. They tend to sort of stick together in my mind like dried gold paint... Then again, I'm not Buddhist, so perhaps I don't appreciate them in the way that others do.

There were some really nice places to eat in Phuket town, and I met some interesting people. It was very good seeing my aunt and she was almost finished her certificate course so she was generally in a good mood and rightfully proud of herself. We ate dinner one night at an Indian place where the food was good, and there was something of a large ex-pat group there. They apparently all knew each other and two of them had returned after an absence of two years. While eating, they recanted a story of woe in dealing with a corrupt former landlord who had tracked them down for an apartment fire they'd been cleared of two years ago. As the young gentleman described it, "The landlord probably had to take a bath on the apartment so he tried to put it on us. Since we were out of the country, it would have been just insurance fraud, but now we're back..."

I am paraphrasing, but you get the gist. Word of advice to all travelers - whenever dealing with the police, it's best to get as much put in writing as humanly possible.

I am not sure what happened with them, but I hope that it worked out in their favor, they seemed nice.

My friend Kevin, who used to be a human resources manager for the school I worked for in Korea, met up with my aunt and I later on that same week. It was Kevin that taught me how to ride motorcycles (so mom, if you're looking for someone to blame, he's your man) in Korea and was good enough to merely cheer when I took a minor spill on his bike.

"Alright! You've dropped your first motorcycle!"

Kevin showed us around the island a bit, including a military observation post at the top of a hill so steep that my rented moped wouldn't make it to the top. There were a group of Thai tourists buzzing around and checking out the view from the highest point on the island. At one point I yelled at my aunt because she was attracting some less than wanted attention from the guards at the observation post - not a good idea to take pictures anywhere but DOWN the mountain.

We also got to see (and climb up in!) a big statue of Buddha. The climb reminded me of a scene from Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, and I sort of expected to fall out of the Balfour mansion at the top. Didn't happen but it was a dark precipitous climb up and even worse on the way down. Still, the Buddha itself was very nice and the ride up was pretty as well.

The night my aunt left, after perhaps too many beers, I got into an argument with a stockbroker about the Obama administration that made me wonder if the guy wasn't on the lam from some subpoena or another.

Hmmmm... that's an interesting word, "subpoena." I wonder if there is such a thing as a "superpoena."

Go Thou... to Laos!

2009-03-01T22:47:00.000-08:00

It seriously took me at least five minutes to come up with that title. I must say, that I am very disappointed with it, but I am not going to spend five more minutes trying to come up with something even cheesier. So, yeah, Laos rhymes with how, not house... Just so you know.

Right, so, repairs to the house on hold, I needed to head to Laos to do some vetting at the Sunshine school - if you've read any of my older posts, you'll know that I wanted to do that some time ago, but had to head back to Ban Phe before I was able. This time, as that was my expressed purpose in going, not so much.

Kia and my friend Joe's girlfriend Kelly needed visas, so they tagged along and we three merrily made our way to Rayong's 407 bus. (I think it's called the 407 bus.) Anyway, it was the same bus I took up to Nong Khai last time, the one with famously comfortable seats. This time, on the tuk-tuk ride to the border, our driver tried to stop at one of the various "pay for the form you get for free at the checkpoint" stalls, and I told him not to stop. The throng of other foreigners was not as lucky - I saw them later at the border as the realization dawned on them that they'd been ripped off. I had been tempted to jump out of the tuk-tuk and reveal the scam, but I also had had a feeling that if I were to take away a bunch of Thais' means of living, I might not make it to Laos with all my teeth.

Sadly, I did not meet up with Bibi again, but I did stay in the same guesthouse as before. It is still popular with French ex-pats who wear shorts that are incredibly short.

On remembering how much of a pain it was to try to get around Laos without a motorbike, and not even knowing where exactly the Sunshine school was other than the fact that it was in Vientiane, (Pronounced anywhere from Vee ehn tee ehn to Wang szchjen - I believe that the correct pronunciation rhymes with vision.) I decided to rent a motorbike. This was my first long term experience with a much hated "semi-auto" transmission, which I will hopefully never have the displeasure of riding on again. Seriously, no clutch makes for some... shifty riding...

God, I am sorry. That was awful.

After arriving and settling in, I met up with Didi, the manager of the Sunshine school. She was showed me around the grounds, and I saw a number of children having their PE class which at the time seemed to involve a lot of running for how hot it was. She also brought me to sit in and partially teach one of the English classes. The students commented that I looked like Peter Parker, which was a new one for me, but they were very cooperative, eager to learn, and looked very fresh in their Laotian standard school uniforms. (Complete, from what I recollect, with a red communist party scarf.) They also commented that they knew how to spell my name, despite the fact that it can be a tough one for Asians just learning English, and I soon found out why: Sean Kingston had just recently played in one of the local venues and the kids were rabid about him.

At lunch, I sat down to have some of the school's touted vegan fare. The Sunshine school, like Baan Unrak and Baan Dada in Thailand are associated with the Neo-Humanist foundation. At first, I was a little tense about this because I don't really want to be entangled with any religious organizations. NGOs and governments can be a little strange if your organization is directly linked with something religious, particularly in Communist countries such as Laos, Vietnam, and China. As it turns out, the Neo-humanist organization is not really religious, but perhaps spiritual - they didn't seem to mind my sort of Prussian terseness on the subject of the metaphysical. After all, a lot of our views are the same anyway. I don't eat meat (though I do love cheese and eggs) but accidentally imbibed some pork when one of the teachers brought some into the school from outside. I had thought that it was some sort of vegetarian meat substitute like tofu, quorn, or seitan. (I love seitan! Ha ha ha! Always get a kick out of that.) I took one bite of it and the texture revealed its true nature. I hadn't said anything to them about being a vegetarian because I figured that I wouldn't need to. After seeing the look on my face, I didn't need to. They took the pork, and I continued eating my rice porridge with veggies. Not exactly the best fare for a hot day, but it did the trick.

After showing me around the school and having lunch with me, Didi invited Kia and I to come with her to inspect some land that their outreach project was trying to develop. The places was a little ways down one of the Mekong's tributaries, and I thought it would be a great experience to see a bit more of Laos, so I said yes.

Everyone got started out very early in the morning at Didi's place, near the school. We piled a lot of groceries into her Landrover and started out of Vientiane. Practically a few feet out of the city, the roads cease to be paved and the red clay soil that so typifies Southeast Asia is the road of into the country. We got to visit an eco-lodge (where everyone seemed very keen on telling us "it has a bar!") and see the stadium where the ASEAN games will be. Apparently there are some ghosts on the loose near the stadium, and they prevented the bulldozing of a grove of trees. Local rumors said that every time the machines got near the grove they would start to malfunction and eventually stop working altogether. Whatever was planned to be built in that particular grove had been relocated elsewhere.

Eventually, we arrived at a river junction with a rickety bamboo bridge that crossed a deep gorge above a stream. Kia was not thrilled about the prospect of crossing it, but after seeing a guy go before us with a motorbike, she calmed down a bit about it. The view above the river was spectacular and the temperature probably dropped several degrees as we descended the banks to the pontoon boat below. Some kilometers downstream we stopped to see the land that they were developing, but due to a recent fire there was very little there except some cows grazing. It was exceedingly hot, so everyone hopped into the fast flowing river and immediately exchanged remarks on how incredibly cold it was.

While being exceptionally refreshing, I must say, the water was a tad fast for my taste. It took me nearly three minutes to swim the length of the pontoon boat against the current. I reached the other side completely exhausted. Eventually, Didi told us that she was planning on staying at the eco-lodge a few kilometers back, but that we could get back with her friends in the Landrover.

Over the next couple of days, I checked out areas around the Sunshine school for local amenities, lodging, and the general fact-finding I do wherever I vet a volunteer site. I found a few interesting gems, but most of them are pretty well-known if you spend more than a day or two in the area with a Lonely Planet. Disappointingly, I didn't have time to make it up to Luang Prabang, as there was a site or two that I would have liked to have seen up there. So, I eventually bid Didi adieu and Kia and I headed back to Nong Khai.

Our train ride back was one of the least comfortable experiences I have ever had, but during our border crossing we met an interesting young Brit who lives in Bangkok. He and his friends had produced their own kung fu movie and were promoting online in a number of places. We exchanged numbers and I agreed to come see him the next time I am "yoo krung thep." (in Bangkok)

He caught his train, and Kia and I caught ours. Third class train seating is rough no matter how you slice it, but a sixteen hour trip on it is downright brutal: the seats are made of wood so hard that after a half an hour you need to continually poke yourself in the derriere to make sure that you still have one. There are fans that oscillate with the regularity of Halley's Comet and even when they are on you, it's difficult to tell. Couple all that with the fact that the windows are kept open for air-circulation, thusly allowing every winged pest in creation could find its way into your facial cavities, along with dust, etc from outside of the train. Then toss in more people than there are seats, and you've got yourself a train ride you won't soon forget.

Sixteen hoursish later, Kia and I were disgorged, somewhat frazzled into Hua Lamphong station in central Bangkok. After meeting up and handing off data to our company IT guy, we decided to see a movie at the fancy theater at the upscale Siam Paragon. Benjamin Button was playing, and I figured it would be cool to see in an actual movie theater since I don't usually do that (closest one to where I live is in Pattaya, and I've never actually seen a movie there.)

I was thinking about how much our tickets cost a little after we bought them and realized that they were the most expensive movie tickets I'd ever bought. It puzzled me, but I chalked it up to the obscene elitism that is Siam Paragon and thought nothing more of it other than how I could make up for a little over twenty dollars missing from my budget.

Then I saw the movie theater:

First off, we had the place to ourselves and all the chairs were bigger than those you'd find in first class airline seating. All of them had buttons to call attendents over for popcorn, etc. and electronic massage machines built into them. All totaled there were probably twenty seats in the whole movie theater. Still, it was an insane price to pay for a movie ticket and if I'd been thinking more quickly in baht (just having converted from kip) there's no way I'd have gone for it. Still, it was an interesting experience, as so many things are in Asia, to have just once.

Home is Where You Install Your Shower or Adventures in Thai Wiring

2009-01-27T18:40:00.000-08:00

I've now been in Ban Phe for longer than ever before, which is nice. About a week ago I rented an apartment (uhhhhh... building). It's an absurdly large and echo-ey place, but it is literally a thirty second walk from my office and, while unfurnished, is insanely cheap.

Less than two hundred American dollars a month cheap.

Before explaining anything else about the place, I must first explain my landlord. Going by the name "Power Tiger," and constantly explaining that he was once a spy, the man is a story in and of himself. Power Tiger's favorite past times are as follows:

- holding various members of the chicken family that lives on his property aloft in his palm like Yorick's skull and speaking to them in the same manner.

- insisting that I get a ride back to my house with him after paying rent, a total of about about 300 meters. However, this gives him a chance to drive his 1970s Mercedes down the street.

- Meeting at 8 o'clock. After missing several meetings with him, I realized that it was better to communicate times in Thai (despite the complicated Thai time system) because "8 o'clock" just means "morning" I think.

- Having a good man. No, this does not mean that he is... well... it's just something that he laments a lot when I tell him about anything going wrong in the house. "No have good man! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!"

However, as our dear former Secretary of State would say, "You don't work on the house with the man you want, you work on the house with the man you've got." This means that whenever there's a problem I can't fix, or worry about the structural integrity of the building if I were to try, Power Tiger brings over some goons who get the job... "done."

Thus, with makeshift solutions abounding, I will relate to you the joys of exoplumbing: All plumbing in Thailand appears to be comprised of various sizes of blue PVC pipe. This is because plastic doesn't rust, it's incredibly cheap, and, I believe, it's made in Thailand. The problem is, that it also breaks relatively easily and, to be honest, it doesn't seal very well. Or, if it does, my landlord never really figured out how to make seal very well because the walls began peeling and dripping not long after water started running through their defunct veins.

So, rather than tear out the walls to get at the old pipes, Power Tiger has decided to reroute all of the pipes in the house. Furthermore, the new plan will make it so that all pipes are accessible at all times... as they are in plain view.

I would say that this has made my hooking up of a hot water shower unit (the only hot water in the house... when it's working) and the installation of other water using utilities a lot easier, but it was actually pretty easy to begin with.

I got the bedroom air-conditioned because it honestly wasn't that expensive, and as David S. Landes said in The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (and I am paraphrasing) "...work in much of what is now the developing world had been impeded by enervating heat for many years until the advent of air-conditioning."

Okay, that's my academic way of dismissing my pansiness. Yes, I finally have air-conditioning. No, I am obviously not totally comfortable with that, but perhaps it will pass. Either that or I may donate it to a Hmong child.

Next on the list:

On the Legality of DIY in Thai(land)

In the midst of installing a few items of my own at the house (a fan that carries air from the air-conditioned bedroom to where I work, sinks that formerly were for aesthetic value only, the hot water shower unit, and a few other items) I mentioned the work to my friend Dave Hopkins, who gave me a very stern look and said, "Don't let your neighbors or your landlord see that."

"Uh... why?"

"Because you could be deported."

I imagine my face probably looked a bit like the guy who finds out that his visa expiration date numbers go day first, month second only to find that he has overstayed his welcome in a country by a month - this is because I was remembering that someone was due to be at my house any minute... and there were tools out all over the place.

"Uh... why?"

"Because there are so many Thai handimen about that it takes jobs from Thai people if you work on your house yourself."

"Whoa. Uh... I gotta run!"

I rushed home and did the Raskolnikovian (yes, I made that word up - remember, English major?) task of hiding all of my tools. Then ran back to the school and made a list of things that I had done in the house, explaining to my Thai friend, Nat, that HE had actually done them, he just didn't remember it.

Problem solved.

This concludes another exciting episode of "CSI: DIY."

Right. Till next time...

HOME!

2008-12-28T06:09:00.000-08:00

I landed at New York City's JFK airport on the 19th of October. It's always a little strange being back in the states after a long sojourn away - this time it's nearly been a year on the money since I left my native shores.

First order of business, as has been my custom: find a big, steaming cup of American coffee. I've gotten very adept at various grinding methods, etc. to the point where if I have BEANS, I can usually render fairly decent coffee. (Yes, addiction is a terrible thing.) So the first big cup of American coffee is actually more tradition and habit than anything.

Also, I get a big honking headache if I don't have a big cup of coffee immediately upon waking up. I'm getting better. I keep telling myself that.

Anyway, I met up with my friend Jocelyn, a friend from Korea, in Brooklyn. We exchanged stories to fill in the last year or so - the parts worth telling at least - and had some brunch. Then I headed over to Jersey on Jersey transit and met up with my brother at our usual drop-off/pick-up point, the Willowbrook Mall.

The next day, we met my parents at a diner (YES! AMERICAN DINERS!!! Another thing I find myself missing.) I keep worrying that when I come home one of these times my parents are going to look far older than they did the last time I was home. I know that they're aging, but the thought of it is an unpleasant one. So far, so good. A few gray hairs more, but they were just as happy to see me, and it seemed that little had changed all that much.

Over the following weeks I saw friends and got my motorcycle started again. Said motorcycle became my mode of transportation to various college information sessions, tables, and trifold drop-offs at career centers from Ursinus College to Johns Hopkins.

All totaled, I hit twenty-one colleges and universities on the eastern seaboard. Interspersed with all of this, I managed to find time to have a few pints with friends and see some family members. One thing that I have found, that I think keeps me traveling like I do, is that I've realized that whenever I come home more and more is changed. Friends have moved, gotten married, had kids. Some are buying homes. Some are changing jobs.

Of the original crew of kids I hung out with from grade school to high school, few are still in the area. I've been fairly good at keeping in touch with them in spite of things. Still you can't help but feel that there's something surreal about a child appearing in your absence to a friend you remember sneaking into a movie theater with. And now suddenly, not only is there a child there, but they can speak to you...

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade what I do for anything in the world, but I will say that coming home is frequently the paramount of weird.

Anyway, I talked to a lot of students at a lot of colleges about our program and am really hoping to see more enrollment in the volunteer projects I've been scouting. I guess we'll see in a few months. I ended up flying back on Christmas Eve - flights out of the states were probably cheaper than they'll be all year. I flew into Heathrow, excited to spend my ten hours hanging out in a country I'd never been to before.

Unfortunately, the Underground was closed and the only way I could get into the city was via a bus they wanted twelve pounds for a one way ticket on. I figured that I'd give London more of a go some other time when I had more money and instead celebrated with an enormous two pound Cadbury bar. It made me a little sick, but I slept it off on a bench waiting for my flight.

PAD, PPP, and Ride Your Bike to Work Day

2008-10-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

After returning from Vietnam, I went to a laundry to wash some clothes as I hadn't anything clean for the next day. I've resorted to washing clothes in the sink sometimes, but there's really nothing quite like a washing machine to get your clothes really clean. I know, I am a big sissy.

Anyway, I was lucky that the place was closed because I talked to my boss soon after and ended up heading right back to Bangkok to work on a video about our program, using the footage I'd collected. Had I stashed my clothes at the laundry, I would not merely have had no clean clothes, I would have had practically no clothes.

So, I hopped the next bus to Bangkok and decided to do some exploring as the aforementioned l'Auberge Thailand had raised their room rates and was a bit of a distance from the area where I would be making the video. I managed to grab a room above a restaurant for about seven dollars a night, one subway stop from where I was going to be working. There was a laundry down the street and a place where I could get a much needed haircut.

The next day I set out obscenely early for work because I wasn't totally sure that I'd be able to find the office where we were planning on making the video. After a wrong turn that netted me a cup of decent coffee and having my bag checked, cursorily, at the subway, I did manage to get there. On the way, I encountered the business district's ride your bike to work day. It was just the kind of surreal that goes well with the day's first cup of coffee.

As I jibed back and forth with the IT staff that helped me work on the video, discussing anecdotes and jokes, we all eventually became aware of a faintly audible -wsshhh- that eventually became a recursive roar.

Protest!

There has essentially been non-stop protesting in Bangkok since scandals dealing with the prime minister erupted some months ago. There was a bloodless coup in Bangkok two years ago that left the former prime minister exiled in England. The next guy was protested so heavily against that eventually the rest of the government used his appearance on a cooking show to kick him out. Most of the western media sort of dropped the story after that, but the protests continued when another People Power Party guy stepped up to the plate. In a very general sense, they stay in power by courting the majority of urban and rural poor. The People's Alliance for Democracy, ironically, is mostly comprised of middle-class Thais who claim to oppose the ruling PPP because of corruption. Despite the cessation of most of western news coverage after the ousting of Somchai, there have been a few really, really nasty ones since.

Sitting in the office with a bunch of video equipment, I wasn't nearly about to let this protest get away without getting at least some video of it. I grabbed my camera bag and ran down the stairs as the chanting grew louder.

I missed the front of the protest, but watched as Thais with colorful plastic clapping noise makers strolled by, chanting. Eventually, the convoy came to a halt and some older men with the kind of glasses, beards and t-shirts that conjured up images of the Grateful Dead, began giving speeches. There was a lot of yelling. I suppose that they were mistaking me for some manner of journalist, but the crowd opened up a pocket so that I could get some majestic looking video of the guys riling up the crowd.

The rest of the week proceeded rather calmly. Although I did manage to end up spending three hours in a night market looking for a reasonably priced long-sleeved shirt as the weather predicted for New York City was not going to be as "balmy" as Thailand.

Vietnam

2008-10-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

The morning after my arrival in Ho Chi Minh City, I headed over to Ben Thanh Market to find the UNESCO/TEFL International office. It was a nice day out in spite of the inclement weather the previous evening. As foreigners will, I was propositioned every five feet by motorbike taxis, but eventually picked my way through the city to get there. It was a very pretty office in a nice part of town. Ho Chi Minh City has a lot of personality, as does nearly every city I've been to. There are a lot of very pretty parks and some amazing food. The weather was hot, but bearable. Most of the people were pretty friendly.

Upon arriving at the TEFL office, I met Sa, the course coordinator/office manager of our center in Vietnam. She was exceptionally nice but declined to have her picture taken. I may or may not have gotten one of her when she wasn't looking, but I don't think it would be prudent to post anything without consent on this blog.

The UNESCO meeting went well, and I started writing up the Memorandum of Understanding that we were proposing to sign. I won't bore readers with the details, but basically it was nice to meet Khoi.

I spent a good portion of the day walking around and taking pictures. I met with some of the trainees that were taking the TEFL course and talked to them, briefly, about the possibility of volunteering with UNESCO when they finished the course.

That night I went jogging around the park near Pham Ngu Lao and almost ran over a rat the size of my head. Also, later that week I saw a near purse-snatching from an elderly western couple. The thieves got nothing, but made an impressive display of motorbile dexterity after nearly falling over.

I enjoyed Vietnam, but soon a bigger trip was coming up. I had gotten a plane ticket to fly back to the states on October 18th.

Crossing the Street in Vietnam and Other Forms of Passive Suicide

2008-10-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

Eventually, I did make it to Vietnam. Cultural Extremes/TEFL International have been writing up plans with UNESCO's office in Ho Chi Minh City for some time, and I was to go meet with the representative there. So, I packed up my towel again and headed back to Bangkok.

This time, things started out much more smoothly. I arrived at Tân Sơn Nhất airport in the evening to cloud cover and rain. I almost never check bags, so after some run around with the immigration authorities, I made it downstairs to the concourse. An English girl in front of me in line was giggling to herself and then commented to me, "You'd think that they could make this stuff a bit more obvious."

It was true. If I hadn't known people who'd been to Vietnam or had business contacts there already, getting a visa could have been a rather large hassle. In fact, I could easily see someone who didn't know that sort of thing ending up there and then not being allowed out of the airport.

Just outside the concourse I encountered, as you will in every airport that I've been to in Asia, the cabbies. I really don't like saying this, but if there is one group of people I've learned to distrust, in the whole world, it's the collective group of cab drivers. There was a time when I tried very hard to mask this. I gave big tips to drivers who didn't try to screw me, hoping that the great cab conspiracy would somehow see fit to leave me alone. Nothing has worked. I have had cab drivers try to rip me off from Baltimore to Bangkok.

What I have found to be somewhat effective is noted below:

- Speak to the cab driver in their language. It seems obvious, and, realistically, it's a good idea to speak to people in the native language of wherever you are. However, if you don't speak the local language, memorize some phrases and try to practice them well enough that they seem to be yours by the time that you talk to a cabbie. If you can't do that the first time, make sure you can by the second.
- Know exactly where you're going. Even if you DON'T know the exact location of whatever it is that you're trying to get to, know the name of the area and the surrounding streets. Definitely do your homework on the general area you want to head. Indecision will land you at the nearest relative's tailoring shop.
- Negotiate prices with the cabbie when OUT of the cab. In Seoul, I once had a cabbie try to charge me nearly DOUBLE the fare, and when I said no he locked the doors and drove me to a police station. My busted Korean was not enough to explain the situation, and I ended up having to pay.
- If you've got the time, try to look at a map and visualize the route. See if you can find out how long it's going to take you to get there. If you agree on paying the meter, ask if there are tolls on the way.

If you don't ask about tolls, you could have this situation on your hands:

After agreeing on paying the meter price to Pham Ngu Lao, the Khao San Road (ugh) of Ho Chi Minh City. I ended up in the back of a surprisingly nice and surprisingly large car. We pulled up to the airport gate and went to pay the parking fee. The cabbie (and his friend?) then turned to me and explained that I was supposed to pay the airport parking fee: 800,000 dong.

I laughed. I don't care what unit of currency you're using 800,000 is a lot. As the exchange rate was about 16,500 dong to a dollar, that's still nearly fifty bucks. After having my laugh at the price, I then got out of the car. He followed me down the airport curb saying, "I thought you want big car," in English. No sir.

I got a motorbike taxi just outside the airport limits and paid a fraction of a fraction of what I would have. Ah, motorbike taxis. I'll come back to them later.

Pham Ngu Lau is, as I mentioned, the Khao San road of Ho Chi Minh City. Lots of foreigners, lots of foreigner stuff - bars, guesthouses, shops with shirts that have pictures of Ho Chi Minh on them, things like that. I got a guesthouse room for six dollars a night in the attic of an alley apartment. The room was pretty big actually, and the bed wasn't hard enough that I could hear my knuckles when I hit it - probably one of the best rooms I've had in my travels.

There was a pretty awesome little Pakistani food place down the alley from me. I got dinner there, read for a while, did some Korean textbook work for extra cash, and then went for a walk. The weather was still less than agreeable, and I did see a motorbike ridden by a little girl and her mother, smack into a car. I ran out into the street, a little more apprehensively than I would have liked, but some of the locals already had them on their feet, and they were okay.

Speaking of motorbikes, there is a constant river of them in Ho Chi Minh City - relatively few streetlights make for few breaks. The more or less constant flow would give even the most intrepid jaywalker pause. Fortunately, I'd read up a bit on this, and observed some locals doing it first, but here are your instructions for crossing the street in Vietnam: officially more scary than the Bangkok motorbike taxi:

- Lock eyes with the a driver close to the curb but some distance down the street.
- Wait for some manner of pocket to open up near the curb. Here's where you earn your wings:
- Step INTO the flow of traffic at an even, slow pace. Do not greatly increase or decrease your speed as you walk, Moses-like, through the crowd of scooters. The drivers gauge your speed and plan out where they are going accordingly. If you freak and make a mad dash for the other side, you're more likely to get run down.
- Upon reaching the other side, praise whatever gods you worship and change your underwear.

It really is that freaky the first several times you do it.

Bangkok Dangerous... But With Better Hair

2008-10-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

I climbed into my friend Mem's car with her boyfriend, Ryan, and we headed to her aunt's place in Bangkok. The plan was to meet some of the former TEFL course trainees on Khao San road, a place that all guidebooks invariably describe as “notorious.” We were going to have a few beers with them whilst I got video testimonials for Cultural Extremes/TEFL advertising.

Then on Monday, I was supposed to head Vietnam. Supposed to.

It was still the Vegetarian festival, a Buddhist holiday that, to my understanding, corresponds with the time of year when Buddha sends out his angels to check up on who has been naughty or nice. All the Buddhists, in that sort of “he's coming everyone look busy” way, cease the eating of any kind of meat. They even stop eating carrots and certain other rooted vegetables - basically anything that dies when you eat it.

Ryan was doing it, too. I defended my Pescatarianism with my usual, “I eat things that lack the appropriate neo-cortex to feel pain.” Still, we had a good repast of textured vegetable protein, or TVP for short, noodles, and veggies. It was, honestly, really good. Ryan regaled us in the Bubba from Forest Gump style of what meats he had plans to eat a few days later.

We watched a Japanese drama, in Thai, with Mem's family. Ryan and I made up our own plot to it. This made for minutes of amusement and, eventually, we ceased speaking and just watched it in Thai. Later, there was talk of Ryan holding a chicken down, brandishing a machete, and staring at a clock as the hands struck midnight. To the best of my knowledge, there was none of this, but then again I wasn't around for it, so who knows.

As it so happened, we got to Khao San, for my second time in two years, in the middle of an election night. This means, no beer for thirty-six hours. The look on Ryan's face enough entertainment for me. I have now seen the Socratic Ideal of “crestfallen.” I got a rootbeer float and felt tired.

The next day, I was working on e-mails, etc. at a local coffee/wireless joint when I realized I was five baht short of my thirtieth coffee. I ran across the street to get some more out of an ATM. I grabbed the money and came back.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, but well beknownst to me now, I forgot a part of that transaction. This was to be very, very unlucky for me later.

The next day, I revisited Khao San and Jared and I headed for some coffee while we did the testimonials. I went to pay for the coffee with my Thai debit card and realized that my last coffee venture had misplaced my ATM card for me.

Lovely.

I checked the balance online and found nothing missing and the card already canceled. It was the sort of feeling you get after waking up from a dream where you've lost all of your teeth. I had the account number and two forms of photo ID. So to celebrate, Jordan and I found two bars that were shirking the temperance ordinance. Ember and Brady joined us and I woke up at around nine to find scenes from Gettysburg being reenacted in my head.

I hobbled over to the bank and filled out a withdrawal form. It was still early, but my plane was going to leave for Vietnam at 4 pm, and I had other things I had to do.

Turns out, in Thailand, you cannot withdraw money with only an account number and two forms of photo ID. It seems incredibly stupid to me that I would have assumed that you can, but really, how many of you would have assumed the same thing? It just seemed so logical. It seemed logical, as it were, all the way to the bank.

Just not during the part where I can't remember if I was yelling at the clerk, but he was definitely saying something to me to the effect of, “Our bank is not as sophisticated as your country.”

Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh. On so many levels... Le siiiiiiiiiiigh...

Right, so time for the even worse news. I opened up the Leonardo DiCaprio wallet that I am, in fact, still toting around.

20 baht.

For those of you keeping score at home, that's roughly sixty cents in American money. To get the play by play, in Bangkok, no money, no place to stay, plane leaving for Vietnam in a few hours... Basically in the words of Henry James the situation was turning screwed.

Okay, so he only sort of said that.

Fortunately, my my friend and co-worker, Neung was coming to Bangkok to drop off a CD, so all I had to do was navigate through the heat and maze to the victory monument. I managed to do that and borrow the cash to get back to Ban Phe, where I could retrieve my bank book, and, hopefully, transfer my ticket to a later date.

No go on the ticket, but I finally, exhaustedly, did manage to make it back to Ban Phe, and swore an oath NEVER to go back to Bangkok until Tuesday. Which, I did, without a hitch and made it to Ho Chi Minh City.

Isaan (or Esarn)

2008-10-01T02:46:00.000-07:00

Isaan is "as Thai as Thailand gets" in the words of my friend Fritz. This is where you will see rice paddies for as far as the eye can see, water buffalo grazing in fields and along the roadsides, monks out for their morning alms runs at six am, ancient Khmer ruins straight out of the jungle book, and the Winston Churchill-looking faces of Asian elephants as they whack roots on the ground with their prehensile schnozes to clear the dirt off of them. My experience in Isaan was relatively short, but that won't be the case for long.

After one heck of a bus ride, I arrived in Khorat (Nakon Ratchisma) feeling rather gross. Ice-cold fruit, my saving grace, made me feel leagues better as I scoured the town for an Internet cafe to upload some pictures and relieve their weight from the overburdened memory of my camera.

Khorat wasn't great to be honest, granted, I wasn't there for very long, but I read up on it in Lonely Planet and found a euphemism about every six or seven words. Basically, it's a hub to get to other places, but I didn't see much worth sticking around for outside of volunteer work - and my contacts weren't there. So I moved on to Buriram.

Buriram, I actually like quite a bit more, despite Lonely Planet's description as "the forgetable capital of Buriram." I didn't think it was bad. On a tip from our teacher trainer, Dave, I hit up a Rajabaht school - kind of the Thai version of state college - and checked out their Education department. I was immediately surrounded by a group of principals who wanted volunteers. This happens to me somewhat frequently because people don't think of the problems of hiring people to work for free.

You get a lot of schools that want free English teachers, but they already have paid ones. They don't think about the fact that this is going to be no end of headaches for them. Can you imagine being an English teaching volunteer and then finding out that two people are being paid to do the exact same job in the exact same place?

That's why I do the job that I do.

Part of my site vetting is to make sure that volunteer sites are legit. Some places just want money from the general public, some want free workers and don't actually need them, some places are actually just fronts for far more insidious business - this is particularly true in Cambodia.

One of the Rajabaht school principals took me to her elementary school. I think I am going to pass their information on to our people that work on Special Thai Project. Here's a picture: compare with the hilltribe stuff.

Pâak Nĕua Part Three: Chiang Rai

2008-09-27T01:30:00.000-07:00

Chiang Rai is the northern most province in Thailand and home to an area known as "the Golden Triangle," where the Burmese (Myanmartian) and Laotian borders intersect with the Thai border. Obviously, the cultures of all three places mix and mingle to provide a unique ethnic backdrop while some Hmong, Akha, Lisu, Karen, etc. hilltribes add even more diversity to the flavor of the area.

I rented a motorbike and headed off to the north of town where I had heard that there were hilltribe federations, villages, and schools. Villages are a good find for volunteer site vetting. They're small, so usually there's amount of community support for things like homestay. Also, the isolation tends to make the locals treat any volunteers like celebritie, so volunteers tend to be pretty happy with their experiences in this sort of setting.

I looked at some heavier models of dirtbike - 250s with knobby tires and prominent shock absorbers. I wasn't sure if I'd need anything that "motorcross" to get where I was going. I checked with a local cop at the bus station, and he said that there were roads going out that way, but that they weren't very good. Turns out the roads weren't even all that bad - I've seen far worse in Nebraska... that is until I got into the jungle. The roads turned to dirt and then, eventually, mud and were full of turns as they wrapped around big hills and followed riverbeds. It was some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever encountered, and, quite honestly, that is a tough list to top.

Eventually, I racked up a number of contacts for homestay, hilltribe foundations, and even got to see the inside of two schools. The place is, as advertised, pretty out in the sticks, but the countryside is amazing. The kids were cute, but I felt sorry for them because of the situation that they're in. At breakfast I had heard some tourist saying that she "wanted to see hilltribes that still dressed and acted traditionally," the German fellow that she was talking to responded, "Well, but they tend to like clothes now."

They are a group of people that is simultaneously being kept alive and destroyed by external influence. Traditionally nomadic, national boundries and border conflicts have left them not only refugees from nowhere, but refugees to nowhere. None of the governments really want to have anything to do with them, so, frequently, their children remain half-naked, without education, hungry, and preyed upon by human traffickers. It always amazes me how positive and happy a lot of the kids can remain in spite of the terrible conditions. I guess in a lot of ways it's the same thing as a dream: when you're in the thick of it, you accept it because there's nothing outside of it.

With my mission of finding sites for volunteer placement, fact-finding on the "schools," talking to locals, and getting in touch with local organizations, it was time to hit the road. I felt bad leaving as soon as I was, but I needed to get back to Ban Phe to get my multiple entry visa, and I still had to stop in Isaan to check out some schools there...

Pâak Nĕua Part Two: Chiang Mai

2008-09-26T00:20:00.000-07:00

I booked a sleeper train to Chiang Mai and hung out in Bangkok's central train station. "Sahthani" if you will.

It was scheduled to leave four and a half hours later, so I got some pad suek (big fat noodles) and started writing a short story. The ride out was gorgeous (see photos) train was nice and full of personalities. I shared a compartment with a quiet Thai man who answered my questions with non-sequitur monosyllabic answers until I realized that he probably didn't know what I was saying and just wanted to be left alone. There were some Canadians (nice patch there on your backpack) having a post-Korea holiday, and some eastern Europeans who were on a trek of defrauding as many hotels as possible "with a tour agency." They invited me to Prague but warned me that there "weren't a lot of good drugs there."

Finally, there was an Italian guy who I eavesdropped on, trying to see how much I still understand and was impressed with the results. Of course, if I were to try to communicate with him I could probably see myself slipping into Spanish and, more likely Korean - I have answered "Naaaaaaeee" for "Si" more than once.

The first thing that struck me when I arrived in Chiang Mai was the prevalence of English book stores. As I was looking for a place to stay, I made mental note of their locations so that I could remember to come back and look for David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, a book I had been looking for for a while, but has become insanely hard to find since the late author's suicide.

The next thing I noticed was the number of restaurants catering to nearly any ethnic whim or diet imaginable. As someone who has lived in Asia for a little while, I appreciate the food of wherever it is that I am currently residing, but novelty to me is a good sandwich, anything with avocados, or, the elusive decent Mexican restaurant. Food is one of the best parts of traveling, and I've eaten still-living squid to fried grasshopper and everything in between. I love trying just about anything once, but over the years I have developed favorites. Mexican seafood is in my top three, easily.

In any guidebook worth its salt, the first meat and potatoes section that you see is always “Where to stay.” Obviously, this is because anyone with the guide book is, first and foremost, going to want to know where they can leave their junk before heading out to see the sites. The inherent problem with having a guidebook worth its salt, is that everyone and their mother is probably using that same guide book, so they're going to be looking at the same places. My advice to bargain hunters and intrepid backpackers is to find the area of the city where your guide book talks about staying and go there. Of course, you won't be able to make reservations this way, but you gamble either way.

I stay in a lot of “rustic” places (Read: mosquito nets are a must.) So the only thing that I am terribly picky about is price. As a volunteer on a living stipend, you really have to budget well, which is something I didn't do as successfully as I had wanted on this trip. (Curse you avocado omelette!) However, my four dollar room in Chiang Mai was a happy highlight. No great shakes, fan, cold shower, but seriously - a hundred twenty baht?

Alright, so to business: looking for schools that need volunteers to teach English... I found: hill tribe treks, elephant treks, "eco-tourism" that suspiciously involved dirtbiking, along with two dozen schools for everything "Thai" that you can imagine: massage, cooking, Muay Thai, yoga, etc.

Couldn't find any schools in the area. I considered getting a motorbike to go out and look for them my self, but I couldn't decipher directions to any of them for certain. In the end, I decided it was better to cut my loses from the weekend and move on to Chiang Rai with more promising possible volunteer sites.

And volunteer sites there were...

Pâak Nĕua Part One: Bangkok

2008-09-25T22:11:00.000-07:00

Or, "ภาคเหนือ" in Thai script, which I still have nearly no luck reading, means "the northern part," which is where I just was.

There are stories to tell:

I left Ban Phe for Bangkok to get get some additional pages put in my passport so that I can actually use my multiple entry visa. Now, mind you, I am technically a volunteer on a living stipend, so I don't have cash to throw around senselessly. When I look for places to stay, I am typically looking at rooms for less than two hundred baht - one hundred to one hundred-twenty is what I usually aim for. That's about three to six dollars US, per night.

Cold showers, shared rooms, and beds that would make the torture rack I had in Korea look like one of those NASA memory-foam beds, are all part and parcel of the deal, but you have to keep in mind that it is all relative, and a lot of the people that live out here would see ANY of those things as something of a luxury. Normally, I just bed down in Banglamphu on Khao San road because I know a place that has extremely cheap room rates, and it's a place that I've been several times.

I know that Khao San is "not Thailand," in a manner of speaking, but 1) the large number of guest houses in the area drives down the prices 2) I live in Thailand, and don't feel a particular need to be experiencing "real" Thailand every single day. Anyway, this particular night, I decided that I was too tired, it was too rainy, and basically, I was sure that I could find a spot of equal or lesser value around Sukhumvit. Which I did.

The Soi 1 guest house seemed like a caricature of itself. A large number of farang (western foreigners) were clumped together around the second floor TV/bar area watching "The Last King of Scotland." There was a pool table in the background and collections of magazine scraps and newspaper clippings adhered to the walls. The price was a little more than I usually pay, two hundred baht, but a cab or tuk-tuk would have easily cost me that to get to Khao San.

A motorbike taxi would have taken me for less than that, but it was pouring rain and the last time I got on a motorbike taxi in Bangkok, I gave up swearing, alcohol, and bad thoughts to a god I'm not even sure exists in some manner of last second plea-bargaining. Seriously, that was extreme.

Of course, I played it off like I drive like that...

Which may, or may not, have caused him to drive a little extra crazy - I don't think I'll ever know.

So right, the backpackers' hostel - after stashing my stuff in a locker, I walked around for a while trying to find the place and was accosted by a number of "working girls." One of whom, after eliciting no response from me on my third walk down the street, stepped out of the bar and screamed, "Why won't you talk to me!?"

Right then.

I just wanted some of the pizza I saw down the street. Retrospectively, I must say, it was worth three trips past the aggressive prostitute. I love Thai food, but every now and again, there's no substitute for some good old pizza. I came back from eating my pizza and went almost directly to bed.

My experience the next day at the American Embassy was a relatively easy one. I got to the American consulate backpack in tow and they said "Go ahead! Go right in!"

Then, I entered the door to see an airport like screening station.

Oh.

No.

The reason I say this, is because when I go out into the wild green yonder, I am normally carrying enough electronics on me to signal the Mir space station. Video camera, lap top, digital camera, cell phone, Go-Go Gadget Go-Go boots, etc.

"But Sean, don't you worry about them getting broken or stolen?"

I'm glad you asked, and no, I don't. I don't have to worry because I pack them in amidst all of my (usually dirty) laundry, thereby cushioning it and simultaneously dissuading any potential thieves. (If you want my camera, you've gotta touch my undies) Or, the various whatnot is packed into my cargo pockets and thereby pressed up against me in such a way that I would surely notice it being taken. No, I am not a fanny pack wearer as of yet.

Unfortunately, this means that my retrospectively shortsighted trip to the embassy is half taken up by my security check where I am removing various electronic items as the guards stare at me, jaws agape.

I am the ugly American. I admit it. However, I refuse to be angry at myself in situations like this because we all make mistakes and people too judgmental to realize that are not the sort of people I want to be around.

Before heading to the train station, and subsequently, Chiang Mai, I grabbed some waffles and a cup of coffee (instant, blech) from a street vendor and walked around Lumphini park to the metro station.

...what would you say you DO here, exactly?

2008-09-17T02:17:00.000-07:00

In case anyone was wondering what exactly it is that I DO for a living, this is a post you may find interesting. If not, I'll try to make some jokes, show some pretty pictures, and, hopefully, make this worth your time.

My title at TEFL International is "Volunteer Program Manager." What this means, is that I monitor content on the Cultural Extremes website, advertise for the site, respond to various E-mails from prospective, current, and past volunteers, keep e-mail and phone correspondence with various volunteer projects (read: schools that need volunteer TEFL teachers), and, my favorite part of the job, vetting volunteer sites.

This essentially involves me trudging out into the wild to find schools that need volunteers in various places (currently this means Southeast Asia.) I get contact information from school representatives, check out housing, talk to/play with the kids, take video/pictures, check out general information about the students/teachers there. It may not sound like barrels of monkeys, but it is pretty awesome. Here are a few shots of schools we've vetted around Rayong, Thailand.

Next week I am off to Bangkok to get more pages put in my passport at the US Embassy. No point in having a multiple entry visa if you've only got one blank page left.

Then I'll be vetting some sites around Chiang Mai for about a week. Around the end of September, I'll be heading back to Ban Phe to pick up my multiple entry visa. Vietnam and Cambodia will follow. I am hoping to set up volunteer projects outside of Ho Chi Minh City and Pnomh Penh. There will be photos and blogs to follow.

So You're Saying That There's a Temple Full of Monkeys?

2008-09-15T19:17:00.000-07:00

Between looking for schools that cannot afford teachers, sorting out visa issues, and doing Internet work, what is there that I do around Ban Phe, when I am "home?"

Well, there are a few things to do around Ban Phe, but after rediscovering how much I love riding bikes, I found that there is a monkey temple a short distance away.

What could be better than a crowd of monkeys that you can feed bananas to?

Um... I'm going to go with, "What is 'nothing,' Alex?"

So, my friends Ellen and Tik and I set out to find said simian sanctuary. Part way there, we stopped for water, granola bars, and large clusters of miniature bananas. After about twenty minutes or so, we rolled past a Wat to a fairly long set of stairs that led up to a large, old tree. Tik stopped us part way up and pulled a large branch from the small forest that surrounded the staircase. She broke smaller limbs off of it and swung them in demonstration.

"For... the monkeys?" I asked, wondering if I could bring myself to hit a monkey.

She nodded vigorously and smiled. Ellen and I shrugged, and picked up branches.

As if to add dramatic effect, the monkeys didn't appear until we walked around to the back of the temple. Even at that point, there weren't many... two or three... then Ellen and I started lobbing bananas to them. I tried to throw the bananas over their heads to keep them back, but these monkeys had their eyes on the prize - the large cluster of bananas that they assumed were in Ellen's bag or perhaps in my large pockets. (This monkey hypothesis was, in fact, correct.)

Soon we were more or less surrounded, and I found myself with more or less intensity holding onto the small branch I was carrying. One alpha male monkey began scaring off of the smaller monkeys in an effort to get more of the banana share (he had already taken two). So, I directed my efforts to getting the bananas to specific monkeys - the pregnant, the old, and the scrawny.

The alpha male was not happy and took the opportunity to attempt to climb my pant leg. I shook him off and was afraid that he might try to bite me. He didn't, but I've heard of this sort of thing a lot.

After a short time, they realized that we were out of bananas (which seemed impossible after how many we had brought) and retreated to the woods. We took a few more pictures and hit the road. The back roads behind Ban Phe were not without charm and pretty nice scenery, not to mention a house that was painted with all the subtlety of a birthday cake, and random cows hanging out at intervals.

It was very pretty.

Tik stopped and showed us another Wat where a monk, fifteen years deceased, was entombed. According to legend, after he was laid to rest, his hair continued to grow. (I know the medical explanation behind this.) It was pretty unexpected to walk into a shrine and see a glass box, a la Lenin, sitting there with a monk in it. He was in remarkably good shape for having been fifteen years dead. No pictures if you're wondering - I didn't even ask.

We continued down the road, and Tik stopped (a little to short this time - she fell over and smacked my bike handlebars on the way to the ground) to show us an orchid farm. The orchids were very pretty, although I am nothing of a connoisseur. The method of planting them and the various stages of their growth were pretty interesting to see. Unfortunately, my camera card was full of monkey pictures that I couldn't part with for the sake of orchids. Ellen got some pictures - I'll have to get them from her and post them at a later date.

Viva Vientiane!

2008-09-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

One would think that with the amount of bus rides, and long ones at that, that I have to take, I would be semi-good at bus riding. As it turns out, I'm not bad, but I have never been able to sleep on one for anything more than a few minutes at a go. Not only that, but I think on one of the first bus rides I ever took, I must have stepped on the foot of a witch or something because I CONSTANTLY have bad luck on buses. Typically, it comes in the form of the hugest person on the bus using me as armpit floss. It could be a mousy old woman with the ugliest family ever caught on film and the most mundane stories imaginable. Then on some special occasions, I get the full brunt of the seat next to the bathroom - and the bus houses a group returning from the kimchi eating finals.

So, when I heard that the bus ride to Laos was, "between fourteen and sixteen hours," I was less than thrilled.

Surprise of surprises, this was, bar-none, the best bus experience of my life. The Rayong to Nong Kai bus was air-conditioned, I had a seat that actually reclined rather than tilting back enough to make a person feel that they are being mocked, and I didn't have to explore the sebacous glands of any mastodon/human hybrids. In fact, my seat was all on its own enough that I could sleep.

Which NEVER happens for me.

No kidding. I once bought sleeping pills to try and knock myself out - a gremlin forced me to leave them on my desk at work.

Right, so I woke up and made friends with one of the only other denizens of the bus, a French kick-boxer by the name of Bibi. We groggily stumble of the bus and into a waiting pool of tuk-tuk drivers. After fighting our way through them, Bibi and I headed into Nong Kai for some brunch. I got some decent pad thai with egg, and Bibi insisted on having a beer with me - it was ten in the morning. After that, the rest of the day was rather sedate. Take a tuk-tuk here. Pay this fee. Fill out this form. Take a bus across into Vientiane. Fill out this form, haggle with these drivers. Haggle with guesthouse owners. Yadda yadda yadda.

After sorting out our trip incidentals and bonding as impromptu travel companions, Bibi and I got dinner on the Mekong. Seeing the sunset over it was pretty amazing. The smell from my fish salad attracted a cat who sat looking very tired on the railing by the table. Bibi tried to play with the cat, who was not amused and eventually walked off.

The town of Vientiane (Vi-en chen, Vi-ang chan, or any of the various other pronunciations between Lao, French, and English) was pretty amazing. First of all, most people from the western world wouldn't peg it as a capital city. Ninety-nine percent of the buildings don't exceed four stories high. The city butts up against, but does not bestride the Mekong - the other side is Thailand. The street names mostly appear in Lao and French.

Though it may not necessarily have the look of a capital, there are some pretty great sights to see. They have a Laotion version of L'Arc de Triomphe and some pretty boulevards that you can cruise by on a scooter or stroll down on foot. There are some nice clothing shops that sell woven clothes and the benefits (theoretically - sorry, I am a bit of a cynic sometimes) go to help the area's marginalized hill tribes. The food was tasty and healthy, lots of veggies and mekong fish. Laotion coffee, while perhaps lacking some of the flourish that we throw at it in other countries, is good and pretty robust. I about turned green with envy upon entering a convenience store to see coffee and (decent) cheese for sale.

I really liked the city, and in many ways, Vientiane is a beautiful place.

Laos is another country that I have been interested in setting up volunteer teaching projects in, but unfortunately, we don't have a course center in Laos, so unless large groups go, it can be very difficult to set up projects there. I was supposed to vet a school while I was there, but the woman never e-mailed me back, so I didn't get the chance. Laos, like many other countries in Southeast Asia, also needs teachers.

After doing battle with lines, line cutters, Laotion bouncers, sudden and torrential rains whilst being on a scooter, and, possibly, some low-grade food poisoning, I bid Bibi adieu and climbed back onto a bus and headed for Bangkok, where I restocked on books and bought a dress shirt for my upcoming visit to the labor board.

It was an interesting week.

Kickin' it in Ban Phe

2008-08-30T00:38:00.000-07:00

Back in Ban Phe, Thailand. I've been here teaching immersion English for a couple weeks to a nice Chinese man named Steve. We've talked about the Olympics, history, and a variety of of other subjects - basically to try to get him talking so that I can correct his pronunciation. It's interesting to talk to someone from China seeing as how it's a country that people have no small number of passionate opinions about. I try not to let my politics show in teaching - I feel like that's immoral. I wonder how good I am at hiding my opinions.

As interesting as talking to Steve is, it's not as much fun as hanging out with orphans in the jungle. However, it's one of those things that will help me bankroll my next sojourn to the US. Good to know that I seem to be able to find some sort of employment in teaching just about anywhere I go. The five year mark in my teaching career is approaching. Supposedly once you hit that you're statistically pretty likely to keep doing. I don't know. We'll see.

I still remember my first day as a teacher. God, I was terrified. I meet the new teachers and have talked with the trainees that are taking our course about first class jitters. Sounds similar, but at least the Thai kids sound enthusiastic - nothing like staring down a group of jaded, apathetic inner city kids who feel like they need another suburban kid "trying to make a difference" like a hole in the head.

Ban Phe is nice. The breezes that blow in off of the beach keep it pretty cool. Spicy's or Tawan Inn are great for lunch. Occasionally, I head downtown to Christie's and Blue Sky Books for some reading material or a veggie burger. It's a small town and most of the people I deal with from Petra, the shop owner who exchanges Korean won for me, to Shane, a local oddball who gives me the thug love pound everytime I see him, all know me. There usually isn't much excitement going on here, but that's fine with me. I can use my time to write or read or study Thai. Sometimes I hang out with the trainees down in Oliver's bar at the end of the road. I try not to too much though - Thai beer has given me the first migraine I've had in twelve years. I always think of that line Steppenwolf "...the headaches behind the eyes..." Man, you know when one of those has hit. They're unmistakable. I've pretty much adopted this scrawny stray dog. I call her "Olive" after Oliver Twist. I've been running regularly after work and feeling really good generally. I always try to do it right around sunset because I have this strange feeling that I am going to unwittingly start taking the ocean sunsets for granted or something. The mountains are also gorgeous, just beyond the highway.

Ryan, one of the trainees, mentioned the other day, as we were walking to Spicy's, "It's hard to believe that you can just look out there and see Koh Samet. It's right there. Every day. Nice to see that at the end of your street." I couldn't have said it better myself.

Alright, that's it for the day. I think I may head out for a swim or a run.

Cambodian Border Run

2008-08-20T02:45:00.000-07:00

As Burma is closed off increasingly to the point of nearly being a Southeast Asian version of North Korea. So, as much as I wanted to stick around in Baan Dada and get a passport stamp from nearby, I had to go elsewhere. Since, I needed to post things and Internet in Sangklaburi was touchy at best, I figured it would be better to just head back to Ban Phe and hit Cambodia the next day.

I was walking back to the school from the bank and a taxi driver asked me where I was going. (As they usually do.) I told him that I needed to hire a car to get to Cambodia. He said 3000 baht (about a hundred USD), I told him (this was a lie) that there was a guy doing it down the street for 2000. Not looking to be outdone he said, "Okay, 1800."

Nice.

I've been across the Thai/Khmer border before, but it's always an experience. This time was no exception. After watching the Thai countryside fly by at intermittent breaks from reading The Double, we arrived at the red clay streets and hot, sunny sky of the Khmer border. I paid the cabbie 900 baht for the first leg of the trip agreeing that I'd give him 900 more later. He took out a cigarette and retired to the shade, while I got in the line of people putting out their best, "don't mess with me, I'm no tourist" faces.

After getting my passport stamped for Thailand, the official pointed over to a guy standing on the liminal area between countries. The guy was wearing a jean jacket and smoking a cigarette. The official explained that he would help me with the rest of the process. "Who's that," I was thinking, "your brother?"

He was already looking at me expectantly, and I felt as though I was being made a mark. I instantly began imitating the faces of the people in line. Don't mess with me. I am not a tourist. I've lived in Thailand for a whole month.

Right.

So we walked over at a table and he sits down with a sheet of paper and asks me what my name is. I remember this from last year. Sell you the paper that you get at the customs office for free anyway. I've seen this song and dance before. No thanks, bud. I'll do it myself.

"What is your name?" the guy asks.

"I can fill the forms out myself."

"But you might not understand them."

"They're in English."

"The process can be very complicated."

"I want to do it by myself."

He looked down at the sheet of paper and then back at me.

"I go with the forms to Cambodia, you wait here."

"With my passport?"

"Yes, I take forms to Cambodia."

Now, if you think I am going to hand over my passport, money, and wallet-sized photo of myself to some stranger who appears to know a Thai official, you are very, very, very, very much mistaken. I'm sorry. Some people have told me afterward that this is just how the process works, but call me stubborn, I'll take my chances bucking the system.

"I'll take the forms over myself," I said trying to give him my best stern voice and simultaneously trying to think about any connections this guy might have. I tell myself it's just stupid suburban paranoia.

After this he sighs and shrugs. I am still trying to figure out if that was upsetting to him to see me getting away, or if he was upset that I was being stubborn and not letting him actually, genuinely help me. I don't think I'll ever know.

So I trudge across the red dirt to the rickety wooden bridge over a dirty river. The minute I am on the border a group of half naked children seem to pour out of the surroundings. Like water through a cloth, the materialize from under umbrellas, the banks around the bridge, and from places that seem to be just out of the corner of my eye. About a dozen of them approach me with hands out. They crowd around, some holding Chang beer cans, and I am hit with a tangible quaff of the urine odor of cheap beer. Drunk eight year olds with hand out.

You've heard that old truism that people use to assauge themselves of any guilt of giving money to the poor, "they'll just spend it on booze"? Never thought I would hear that in my own head dealing with children.

Mental Note: Next time I come to the border I am bringing food.

Baan Dada

2008-08-10T02:47:00.000-07:00

August 4th, 2008

Arrival at Baan Dada

So there I was in my camo pancho standing outside the bus station as a thin rain came down. I negotiated my headphones to keep them playing the Decemberists and slid the heavy pack off of my shoulders onto the cement underneath the overhang of the bus stop. It was hotter than it was wet out, so I took the pancho off, folded it, rolled it, and strapped it to the side of my pack. The light misting rain called me out to cool off a little bit. I rubbed my face with my wet hands, and it felt good.

The buzzing of yet another motorbike caused my ear to perk, and I looked over expectantly at the man passing by. He smiled at me, but didn't stop. Obviously, not the person that was supposed to pick me up.
Right then. Sanklaburi, huh? This place was fairly remote, but there were still paved streets and an Internet cafe. I wondered how far it was to Huay Mae Lai and the Baan Dada orphanage.

The views on the way out here were a lot more like what I expected Southeast Asia to be like the first time I came here: green misty mountains, water buffalo, sporadic rain, and skies that alternate between dark gray and pristine blue every ten minutes.

A young man buzzed up to me on a motorbike and gave me a look of some kind of recognition.

“Sean?” he said.

“Yep. That's me. What's your name?”

“We la,” he said.

“Me tah?” My Thai comprehension makes me feel like a tourist every time I open my mouth. Can't expect too much. I haven't been here a full month yet - can't even read.

“We la.” He said. I wasn't sure if he'd misheard me and was confirming it, or correcting me.

I got onto the back of We la's motorbike, and off we went. Whenever I get on a motorbike in the rain, whether I'm driving or I'm on the back, I can't help but think of Billy Joel's “You May Be Right.” A breathtaking (in both view and speed) fifteen or twenty minute ride later, we pulled down a dirt road with rubber trees on the right and, eventually, a playground in front of several buildings on the left. A few less than a dozen children looked up at the passing motorbike expectantly, and I saw a handful of farangs (foreigners) engaged in various play with the children.

We la pulled up in front of one of the buildings, and I got off of the bike.

Almost as soon as I turned around, a little boy was hugging me. I found out later that his name is Pochada. He would be my near constant companion for my time I was at Baan Dada.

This is him, holding a picture. Pochada's biggest thrill was to take pictures with my digital camera. He was pretty adept at operating it, and many of the pictures he took are in this photoblog.

Not long after I arrived, a thin, tired but healthy looking man emerged from the main building.

“Sean?”

“Hi.”

“I am Dada.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Over the next several days I was to find out that “dada” means brother (and didi means sister). I'm still not totally clear what language it comes from, though my research indicates Hindi and Bengali. It doesn't refer to an Absurdist attack on structured art - at least he never mentioned that.

So, I met the other volunteers: Steve, Jen, Charlotte, Mickey, and Amanda. Steve and Amanda were from the states - North Carolina and Massachussettes, respectively. Jen and Charlotte both study at the same university in England. Mickey is from Israel and doing her year of traveling between the army and college. Bo Lan is a Thai girl who does professional English translation when she's not helping out at Baan Dada.

This is Jen after being given a "makeover" by some of the kids here at Dada's.

I learned through conversations with Dada, the volunteers, and some of the children themselves, that there are fifty-four children here. They range in age from near infancy to near adulthood.

The kids all have school of some kind, whether it's regular school or trying to learn to Thai enough to get into regular school.

A lot of the kids don't speak Thai because they aren't Thai - They might be Karen or they might be Mon or a member from another hill tribe. The problem is that the schools are in Thai. Many of the children aren't raised speaking it, so just to pass the entrance exams into elementary school, they have to study. The hill tribes are a historically marginalized group for a number of reasons. Probably not least among these is the fact that they were nomadic and not really concerned with the lines on a map that we call "borders."

The children are loved, and I think Dada's a shoe-in for saint hood. You'll never meet a more dedicated, resourceful, and humble man. Our days started at six or six-thirty with a cold shower and a delicious vegan breakfast. There were pumpkin fritters that I must get a recipe for. After breakfast, depending on what is going on, the volunteers may be doing work around the orphanage (eg - clearing a section of forest, making adobe bricks, helping with the construction of spaces for the kids to live in, etc.) or just be playing with the children. When the older children finish school the volunteers usually have their hands full trying to supervise all fifty-four children playing around all at once. The kids are generally happy, playing games or pretending to ride bikes with no wheels on them. A few of the bicycles work, and one has a chain but, when I was there, the gear spool was busted loose from the axle, so no matter how fast you turn the pedals, it doesn't go anywhere.

This kid was bringing it to the top of a hill and coasting it down.

I wanted to stay here longer. Dada is a great guy with a good sense of humor, the other volunteers were really great, the kids are unforgettable. I told them I'd be back, and I mean to keep to that.