กลับบ้าน Going home?

Well, today was my last class in Thailand.  Possibly the last class I ever teach. (That sound you're not hearing?  An exclamation of disappointment from potential future students,)  And with it comes the end of my stay in Bangkok.

I have had a really great time here, and it is hard to believe that my trip has come to an end.  I've been able to do a ton of different things here and I've made some really good friends, but seeing my friends and family back in the States will be appreciated too.

กลับบ้าน (klap baan) means to go home, which is only somewhat true of the trip I will be making on Tuesday night of this week.  Part of me knows my home is with my family and friends in the US, but for nearly ten months, my home has been apartment 501 on Soi 37.  That's where I returned after trips and workdays; it will take an adjustment for me to fully accept the fact that I'll probably never see these white walls and dim lights again.

I had planned on writing a longer post, but my computer is apt to occasional strange moments which frustrates me such that I don't like to type too much.  For some reason, the trackpad mouse now clicks whenever my hands are anywhere near the bottom half of the computer (probably ant-related damage), which makes even the most basic tasks far more difficult and infuriating than they should be.

I have a number of fascinating (well my mothers thinks so) stories I have accumulated throughout my trip.  Ask me about them sometime.

Thailand is one of my favorite countries in the world, and Southeast Asia is a magical place where things of wonder occur with freakish regularity.  I in no way find this goodbye to be a permanent decision, but rather a break until I can accrue enough funds to return again.

I would like to think that I did Thailand proper, though no other country did I do justice.  I was able to visit the North, the South and the middle.  I learned enough Thai to get by and was encouraged by the experience to keep learning languages and cultures.  Which, good news for me, usually means going to new places.

I haven't written nearly as much as I thought I would over these short nine months, but I like to think that I was too busy experiencing the world to pull out a pen and paper.  Which isn't to say I don't have pages and pages written (most of which I don't understand as I go back over it today), but more to say that I simply haven't written it for others to read.

Here is an excerpt from one of my journals as I rode the bus to Pattaya:

"Twenty minutes into our drive, we stop at another bus station, still in Bangkok. . . .  Bangkok is full of interesting things to see.  I just saw a man sitting beneath a freeway overpass, comfy as you please due to his Okie Shade Tree'd chair and table.  Ingeniously made from scraps of wood and no small amount of garbage, it was a reminder of creativity in uninspirational areas.  Steve Jobs died today.  And here was this guy, on his reclaimed rubbish table and chair.  Also, he was writing on his laptop.  Strange."

Many things happen underneath freeway overpasses here.  Some of those things, like the one above are strangely magical.  Other things are the opposite of that and better left to the dark recesses of our minds.  Occasionally they are just bizarre.  For example, one evening, about midnight:15, I saw a woman beneath a candlelit overpass, just hula-hooping.  Like you typically do on a Tuesday.

Some of my writings in my pocket journal I took on trips tend to be like that, in a usable story form.  Other times they are scant, difficult to read notes  Difficult to read both because I usually wrote on a bus  whose driving style you could term "runaway," and because I often just scribbled a few words that make sense in so few contexts it is ridiculous.  Like this following gem from my trip to Krabi:

"Left @ 8pm.  Watching some Stephen Baldwin vehicle.  Shoot the Duke.  Urge to buy vest with plentiful pockets."

Seriously, what the dickens was happening there.  I wish that were a one-time occurrence.

Sometimes, I would write something that was neither exotic, nor truly on-point.  Worth mentioning?  Probably not.  But some of these things are actually pretty good ideas.

"Sun, March 11, 2012
I've formulated an ingenious new strategy, whereby I use hot soup to wash a dirty bowl -- while eating it!  Renaissance man."

A final thought on neatness:

"I've found that 'cleaning up' often entails hiding dirty laundry in unexpected places."

Take what you will from the writings I have shared with you today (and possibly more from the writings I haven't shared), but know that this has been a truly life-changing experience, perhaps best illustrated by my last chicken scratches in my notebook, made only a few days ago:

"The goal of life/symbol of success = more independence.
The goal of spiritual life = more dependence."

The pages of writings and the gigabytes of photos I have attained on this journey don't hold a candle to the friends I have made and the experiences I have had.  Thanks for following along, those of you who have.

Happiness is a Warm Gun?

There are puddles in the streets, but it hasn't rained in a couple of days.  People walk around with guns, but nobody bats an eye.  Strangers rub your face, but you don't defend yourself.

สุขสันต์วันสงกรานต์


Suksanwan Songkran, or happy Songkran!

The Thai new year is celebrated for three days in April, from the 13th-15th.  Today my friend Jacob took me to Silom Road so I could experience what is now my favorite holiday.  It is a giant water fight that takes place across the country.

Bangkok has a population of around seven million people.  I would say about five million of them were playing with water today.  Everyone grabs their water guns (the prospect of which causes Jacob and I to reminisce about our Super Soakers of yore and how foolish we were for not taking better care of them/bringing them to Thailand) and heads out to face the crowds of people.

Jacob had a water gun emblazoned with the image of Doraemon (sometimes called "Gadget Cat from the Future") and I picked up a backpack/gun ensemble with MA-O RANGER displayed proudly on the back (strangely redolent of a flamethrower).  His gun had good accuracy, but mine was a bit more powerful.  However, I soon found that the backpack did not carry the volume of water I had hoped, leaving me largely defenseless against the hordes of Thai people.

The free water, which my friend and I were keen to use, was lukewarm, rare and seldom very clean. Many people sold cold bottled water along the way, with prices ranging from 5 to 20 baht.  Although expensive, this water definitely had more of an impact on one's victim, as the water was pulled from a bucket of ice.

Jacob told me before we ventured out that it was incredibly satisfying to shoot someone in the face.  At first I found the idea a bit cruel.  After experiencing it, however, I can tell you that there are few actions more satisfying in this world.  And the crazy part about it is how everyone is a good sport.  It is a water fight in the truest and most innocent way.  It is strictly fun.

As far as I can tell, Silom Road doesn't actually go anywhere.  In less chaotic times, I'm sure it serves a purpose, but for these three magical days, Silom is a 700 yard (roughly) walk of wet madness.  Some patches of the street move at a comfortable pace, but other sections slow to a standstill.  The weapons of choice seem to be these:

Water gun:  The power of these seems to range from squirt to light caliber firearm, depending on both the quality of the gun and the temperature of the liquid inside.  The aim of course also plays a role.  Kind people shoot at chest height.  Jacob and I found it more effective to aim for the twinkling part of the eyeballs, as it tends to make the other person halt their assault of you.  Some guns are pump-to-shoot, like mine, while others are pump-to-pressurize, like Jacobs.  And of course there are the small water pistols that were too cheap and feel like a moist fly is kicking you.

Bucket/bottle:  The small, bowl-like buckets and water bottles of the people selling food, powder and water on the sides of the street have a decent volume of water and are usually filled with the coldest liquid.  They are to be avoided if possible.  However, in times of trouble a quick burst of water to the eyes of the attacker should give you enough time to make your escape.

Bowl of talcum powder:  Surprising amounts of people enter the field as conscientious objectors, carrying only a bowl filled with talcum powder.  These people dip their hands into the bowls and wipe the thick paste onto your cheek, neck or shoulders as they walk past.  Sometimes the wipers are boys, sometimes they are pretty girls (!) and sometimes they are boys who are in some kind of transitional phase of becoming girls (also "!" but not in a good surprise way).  Everyone accepts the paste graciously, but it is nevertheless wildly satisfying to shoot them in their eyeballs.

Hoses:  Evidently there were no fires today in Bangkok, because the fire department decided to show up and spray the crowds with their fire hoses.  This is pretty fun, but I'm taller than most of the Thai people and was thus hit in the face with more water than the average person.  They were harder to shoot in the eyes because of the size of their artillery.  Which of course made it that much more gratifying to succeed.

Through this experience, I've discovered that I want to celebrate this holiday every year.  It's a true party and everyone has a great time, from the toddlers I saw (and subsequently shot) to the elderly (whom I shot fewer times, but still enough to cross it off the ol' bucket list).

My friend Jacob and me after a few hours of Songkran festivities.

they're chucking bombs in the street

At this point, it's 10:22 in the evening.  I have showered, brushed my teeth, flossed and run a brush through my hair 100 times (that last part isn't true, but I've heard it's crucial to maintaining a healthy mop).  Yet, sleep wags it's chubby finger at me.  So I will write.

Valentine's Day was last week.  I celebrated per my usual tradition of eating pizza.  But that wasn't the most interesting thing to happen that day.  Not at all.  (The pizza had corn on it; still not the most interesting thing to happen that day.)

While teaching in the afternoon at a Thai government school, AES, I heard three loud noises from outside the classroom over the course of about an hour.  The first I assumed to be really close thunder (an assumption in its truest form, given that it was not raining; indeed it was a blue sky).  The second crashing sound happened as I finished one of my classes.  The other teachers and I speculated about what the sounds could be.  Some thought a transformer had exploded (apparently a reasonably normal occurrence in Bangkok); others mused that it was a building being demolished.  The third boom happened while I was teaching my last class of the day at the Thai school before heading back to the language school to continue classes.  During that last class, the head teacher of the school took me out of class (an event that probably had little overall effect on the amount of useful information the students were able to glean from the hour) and informed me that the noises we had heard were in fact bombs going off on Sukhumvit 71, the main road where I live.

The first information I was given was that a foreigner had tried to throw bombs into a Kasem Phithaya, a school near my apartment.  This caused concern for me, as I have three students who attend that school.  Thankfully, nobody from the school was injured in the blasts.  The first news suggested that one of the bombs he had tried to throw exploded as he was throwing it, which blew his legs off, and he was lying in the street.  The head teacher told me that they weren't going to let any kids leave and that I shouldn't mention it to my students.  She also told me that she felt like I should stay on the campus for a little while, because I'm white and could potentially be a target.

However, I had a class I had to go teach at 3:00, so I needed to leave.  The head teacher talked to my boss, and it was decided that someone should give me a ride on a motorcycle rather than have me walk.  I was told that the motorcycle could take me in an hour.  At that point, I asked if I could just walk.  I got an unsure, "I guess so . . . ,"which is by far my favorite permission I've received to date.

How's that for an informational map?

Needless to say, I was able to walk from the Thai school to the language school without incident.  Once I got there, I was informed that my class was cancelled, as were all the classes for the rest of that day.  So all the teachers got to sit on the couches and speculate.  That was fun.

Of course we were following the news closely at this time, but, as with most bizarre stories, there wasn't a whole lot of information or consistency between reports.  Some reported the man as simply being a foreigner, while others suggested that he was Lebanese.  Still others said he was Iranian, which is the remaining opinion, due to travel documents and passports found.

The story as it finishes basically goes like this though:

Three dudes are in their rented apartment in the Ekamai area.  Of course their building bombs, because how do YOU deal with unseasonable heat and humidity?!?  It's February for heaven's sake!  Bombs are notorious for their finicky nature (heck, that's what makes 'em work), and evidently one of the gentlemen was a little heavy handed while assembling.  This caused the first explosion.  Shortly after that, the first two occupants of the house exited (one was later apprehended at the airport, the other in Malaysia).  The third roommate left last, carrying a black bag and what seems to have been at least moderate facial and smoke damage (due, naturally, to the bomb going off near his head).

He tried to hail a cab.  The taxi driver pulled over, but after getting a good look at his potential fare, decided against picking up the slightly charred, bleeding man.  Time for a sidebar:  I have been refused a ride by a taxi driver before, usually because their shift is nearly over, or they don't feel like listening to my mangled Thai or they simply don't know where my destination is located.  Either way, it is a somewhat frustrating experience.  My usual response is to just try my luck with the next cab I see.  That's what I would call a level-headed response to cab spurning.

Well, our ill-fated bomber decided that the time for cooler heads and prevailing had simply passed.  So he chose the opposing option, which is, of course, to throw a bomb at the taxi.  Like I said, I usually try to just find another way to travel.

The explosion rocked the taxi and injured the driver.  Around this time, police were arriving in response to the first explosion, in the apartment.  As they approached the man they suspected to be responsible (let's be honest, they had good reason to suspect this dude), he decided to side with the oft-repeated notion that if one bomb is good, then two bombs must be better.

To be evenhanded, baseball is not huge in Iran.  I think it's safe to say that few countries outside of the Americas play a whole lot of throwing games.  Cricket is played in some places, but I doubt if you go to the park in Iran you see anybody slinging sliders through a batter's wheelhouse to shake him off his game.  So, it is not a huge surprise to anyone that this thrown bomb probably didn't have the desired accuracy; it is only a slightly larger surprise, in my opinion, that the bomb should deflect off a tree and roll right back to the feet of the thrower.  Maybe he should have kicked it in the first place.

Can we take a moment so sympathize with the thoughts that must have been going through this guy's head during the course of this throw?

Alright, the windup felt good, the release was solid, but admittedly it's not going exactly where I inten--well, it's hit a tree.  That's ok, a certain amount of deflection can add to the element of surp--  well, it's coming right back to me.  Do I have a chance to try again?  No, it's definitely going to explode.  Shooooootttttt...


The resulting explosion took most of his leg off at about the knee and didn't do the other limb any aesthetic favors.  Evidently the lower part of his leg landed inside the school yard, meaning it had to clear about seven feet of fence, which is infinitely more impressive than his throw.

The police took their time in getting him evacuated.  Most news reports say he was moved pretty quickly, but he probably sat in the street for about 45 minutes before an ambulance took him away.  It can be argued, and logically so, that the police had to make sure the scene was safe; there could, after all, have been more explosives.  However, it doesn't feel like too much of a stretch to say that the police were a little peeved by the fact that he had thrown a bomb in their direction; it felt like they were going to let him sit on the concrete and think about what he'd done for a while.

Now, I saw a youtube video of the man sitting there, and it was pretty horrifying.  He was moaning in pain and was a pretty rough sight.  However, the camera, after panning over the scene, slowly moved up into a tree next to a traffic light, where a pair of jeans hung ominously.  I was hoping that some news report would mention the jeans, but to no avail.  I, naturally, have my own opinions.

First, he was carrying a bag of clothes, cash and possibly explosives.  It is therefore conceivable that the jeans were somehow blown out of his carry-on and into the tree.  The more interesting suggestion, however, is that he was wearing the jeans and they were just blown ten feet into the air.  Now that's denimpressive.  (Do you see what I did there?)

The last idea, and my personal favorite, simply because it's completely void of logic, is that some guy has been drying his clothes in this exact spot for several months because he doesn't have room at home. I like to think he also saw that video, and reacted, "Well, shoot.  I can't use THAT spot anymore."  Imagine his reaction when he learned the police took them as evidence!  "Have you SEEN me in those jeans?  The real crime is that the world has been deprived of my take on casual, about-town wear."

So, the widespread opinion of the police and media seems to be that these three men were planning to attack Israel's embassy or some representative of Israel in Bangkok, following up on the two bombings in Georgia and India the previous day.  The equipment they had in their possession matches the evidence found at the two previous scenes.  Their tactic seems to have been to drive a motorcycle near a car, attach a bomb to a car with a magnet, and then detonate the C4.  Thankfully, the accidental explosion caused their alleged plans to go awry.  Another thing to be thankful for is the timing of the blasts;  had they occurred just 50 minutes later, the sidewalk and bus stop would have been heavily crowded with students leaving school.

The incident, as such, and the intended bombings, are being described as the work of assassins and not terrorists.  Currently, police are seeking at least two other people in connection with the explosions and planned attacks.

Recently, several newspapers and online sources pointed out that the bombers spent time in Pattaya before coming to Bangkok to blow things up.  The articles focused on the fact that the suspected attackers spent several nights carousing and partying with local women before getting down to business.

Now, I've been to Pattaya, so there are two facts I would like to point out:  first, the local women in Pattaya were prostitutes.  Plain and simple.  There is a camera phone picture of the three men hanging out with a woman at a bar.  She is most likely a sex worker.

The second fact is that it's about a 50% chance (maybe better, maybe worse) that the women with which these jokers "caroused" were actually women.  The playing field in Pattaya is vast and diverse.  Not everyone is who they seem to be, and admittedly not everyone is doing as convincing a job as they would hope.

But anyways, that was my Valentine's Day.  It was kind of crazy.  And, because the street was shut down for a few blocks on Sukhumvit 71, all the cars were redirected through my Soi.  Traffic was crazy for a few hours.  Still got that pizza, though.

Let the media hear you:  what's the story with the jeans in the tree??

Dental Assistant for A Day

On Saturday, February 4, I went with several people from Hope 4 Bangkok, a ministry that works in and around Bangkok, to Chonburi prison.  I was invited not knowing what to expect, and the day made for an interesting time.

We were scheduled to depart from the Thailand Adventist Mission headquarters near my apartment at 6:30 am.  Peter, another missionary in Thailand, and I waited until about 7:20 am, late even by Thai time, for the van to pick us up, with a number of other volunteers, mostly Thai.  We arrived at the prison and at that point found out we were going to be helping with dental work.  Dental work may not be the right words, as we did no cleaning.  We did, however, do about six hours worth of extractions.

When we first arrived at the prison, Peter and I asked if we would be allowed to bring our cameras in.  Originally, we were given permission, as long as we did not take pictures of a certain wall.  We were also not allowed to take pictures of the prisoners' faces.  We agreed, but when we pulled out our cameras, another guard said we had to leave them in the lockers at the entrance of the prison.  Some of the other people in the group managed to get cameras inside, however, so there are a few photos of the work we were doing.

The front of Chonburi Prison in Bangkok, Thailand.

My first job was to help Goi, one of the Thai workers with Hope 4 Bangkok, and several other people in assembling syringes for anesthesia.  We also put together several small trays with the necessary dental equipment for the day's work.  Soon, prisoners began to queue up, sitting on two benches while larger groups sat in a row on the path leading to our work area.

Trays prepared for extractions.

The second job I did was to hold the head of the prisoners while the dentist did the extractions.  The first several extractions went fairly well, but the third or fourth was particularly stubborn.  This led to the dentist with whom I was working, a Filipino who had lived in Thailand for about 30 years, to use a sharp tool as a chisel and a pair of pliers as a hammer.  It was fairly gruesome for me, and I quickly felt like I was going to faint as the doctor repeatedly pounded the sharp tool into the prisoner's face.  The heat and face mask didn't help my situation.  I took a quick break after all the shards of tooth were recovered from the patients head.  A drink of water and being able to sit for a moment helped a lot and I was able to steel myself against what I guessed I would see the rest of the time.

Here I am holding the head of a prisoner as the doctor works on a tooth.  That isn't fear in my eyes.  Honest it isn't.

More head holding.

I continued my job as head-holder for a while, providing a solid base against which the doctor could pull or push.  After a while I was replaced by a prisoner so I could have a break, so I took the job of preparing sterile gauze for the dentist.  From that angle I could see more clearly what was going on, which wasn't much of a respite from the action.  It was extremely interesting, however.  I heard stories from the dentist about some of the prisoners, and saw some criminals genuinely frightened as they saw and heard him bringing the plier handles against his metal pick again and again.

It took a lot of people for this tooth.  I guess.

All in all, the prisoners seemed very happy that they were getting this service done.  The teeth really did need to get removed as they were severely rotten and undoubtedly painful.  The reactions of the people in the prison to getting their teeth removed ranged from the boyish fear of going to the dentist for the first time to the stoic, "let's do this" attitude.

A full day of working on teeth.

At one point the dentist, having hammered his chisel a fair amount into a prisoner's face, turned to talk to someone and left the tool sticking out of the man's lower jaw like some frightening flag, warning against prolonged floss inaction.

Goi, Peter and I after work was finished.

I also got a chance to meet Jonas Anderson, a Swede who has been living in Thailand since he was 9 years old and is now a very popular singer.  He has released eight albums, and had joined us at the prison to give a concert and help with the dental ministry.  A really smart and well-spoken man, he has a Midwestern accent, despite having learned English from reading.  On the van ride back to Ramkamhaeng, he and I were given the opportunity to discuss a number of different things varying from Thai relations with surrounding countries to American politics to the state of Thai music (essentially things of which I know little).  A truly nice guy, he does a number of charity events every year.

The group of volunteers who helped at the prison ministry.

It was a great experience and something I look forward to doing again.  Chonburi prison is a maximum-security prison, but by no means the worst in Bangkok.  Most of the men within the prison gates are serving between four and 30 years of prison time, with crimes ranging from drug possession to murder.

This is the equivalent to a fire extinguisher in a prison, apparently.  This ball is filled with fire-retardant material, and when the ball gets too hot, it explodes, shooting the flame killer out.

The directions for putting out a fire with this ball suggested that you bolt the metal bracket to the wall, just above the source of the fire, and the ball will automatically explode when the time is right.  This seemed like a little bit too much work in the crisis of a fire.  Who really has the time to secure the correct size metric wrench and is willing to get close to flames while doing a tedious action like bolting a bracket to a wall?  I much prefer the "manual system," which evidently involves lightly tossing the ball underhand into the three foot flames (I assume this action is accompanied by a hopeless sigh/exertion of noise).  One of the people told me that these balls have a bad reputation for exploding, due to the pressure inside, and breaking all the windows in the vicinity.

That's what I did.

This post has been nine days in coming, though it feels like longer.  On January 4, 2012, I concluded (for the most part) my Christmas vacation, two and a half weeks of fun.  During those two weeks, my friend Steven and I visited four countries (five if you include an airport layover in Singapore), got ripped off several times, played a ton of cards, learned about the differences between Southeast Asian cultures, discovered what to eat (and what not to eat), spent significant time on beaches and vowed to return someday.  That is the effect of SEA; one trip is not enough.

I have a stupid amount of pictures that I will be trying to place throughout this post.  For that reason alone, it might take longer than I anticipated.  I briefly considered doing several posts, in which I profiled one country at a time.  But that sounds like the type of thing that I would give up on after a post or two.  So, if you will forgive the marathon style of this post, I'll forgive the fact that there is maybe only one or two people who will read every word I write.

Laos


Steven arrived in Bangkok on Monday, December 18, at just after midnight.  After a night's sleep, we stumbled through the city to exchange money and gorge ourselves on Thai food, mangosteens and fruit shakes.  We began our trip that evening by taking a night bus to Nongkhai to cross the border into Vientiane, Laos, on December 19.  Before we got to the border, a company offered to take care of our visas for us.  We accepted and found out that we had been ripped off at the border by being overcharged for something we could have easily done ourselves.  It was more convenient, however, as we did not have to wait in the visa line.

Freetime?  We played cards.  If this photo were wider, you would be able to see the delighted faces of everyone around.

For more information on Vientiane, refer to my previous blogspot post, http://faranglog.blogspot.com/2011/12/city-spotlight-vientiane-laos.html.  We spent the day in Vientiane looking at some sights and eating.  We then snagged some real estate by a pool and waited until evening, when we caught a night bus to Pakse, Laos.  The bus was terrible, which was my fault because I was the one negotiating with the bus companies and I wanted to save $2.  Steven was on board with my decision until he saw our bus.  He didn't talk to me much the rest of the night, but if he had I probably couldn't have heard him over the repellent Lao music videos playing full blast until 11:00 pm, when action movies were put on the screen until about 3 am.

Pakse is in southern Laos, and the bus station at which we arrived the next morning was such that Steven and I felt we were probably the only white people for miles.  A short tuk-tuk ride into the town repudiated our assumption, so we decided to offset the small white population by finding the dirtiest restaurant we could, where the very suggestion that somebody employed therein might speak English was meant with slightly peeved scoffing.  Luckily, Lao is similar to Thai and we were able to order some type of soup.

A couple of hours or so were all we needed to decide that Pakse was not for us except as a jumping point to Champusak, further south in Laos, the site of Laos' most important temple ruins.  So we boarded a heavily loaded Sawngthaew (imagine a mini pickup with padded rails in the back) to the small town.  Along with the giant packages and buckets of food and produce traveling with us in the rolling metal box, the driver had somehow managed to squeeze over thirty people into a space measuring about 8'x5'.  The ride was cozy, so it's no wonder that Steven and I met a couple of other travelers.  Ellen, from France, and Hero, from Finland, were both on long-term travels in Asia, and were spending the night in Champusak before heading to See Pan Dom, the Four Thousand Islands, so Steven and I joined up with them for a couple of days.

We arrived in Champusak and went immediately to an inexpensive guest house that would take us to the islands the next morning.  Steven, Hero and I rented bicycles, but Ellen decided she wanted to learn how to drive a motorcycle in Champusak, where there was virtually no traffic.  The dirt roads were not ideal for her learning, but she was set in her ways . . . right up until she tried it.  The owner of the guesthouse and the transport rentals was a cheerful round Lao who spoke good English and French, was not sure if she would be able to drive the manual transmission moped.  I'm not sure I have ever seen somebody so certain that his motorcycle would be destroyed by a french woman.  His unsafe levels of nervousness, clearly displayed on his face, dropped significantly when Ellen finally decided that a bicycle was a better option.  And so we set off on a long ride to the temples.

Look out, Champusak.  After a test ride, we were glad we rented two bicycles.

The temples, while not incredibly large, were nevertheless impressive and in a pretty location.  Steven and I spent about as much time as we could stand looking at old stones before we were too hungry to fake it any longer.  As soon as we could convince the others to find a restaurant, we were on our way.  The two of us blazed through a couple of entrees and a fruit shake each, as Ellen watched in surprise and Hero watched in envy.  He was on a pretty tight budget and could not afford the extra $1.50 apiece that Steven and I spent on food.

The mountain behind the Champusak temples.

Temple ruins, Champusak, Laos.

HDR image of temple ruins in Laos.

Pretty nice driveway, but it would be lousy on my suspension.

Steven en route to the stairs.  There were a few of those.

The long path in.

Fallen flower on a stone block.

Old wall and pond, Champusak, Laos.

We were tired from our bus trip the night before and the long bike ride, so Steven and I sat on some reclining chairs overlooking the Mekong, and had a couple of fruit shakes with Ellen until I fell asleep.  Someone shook me awake and Steven and I went to the room.  I showered, then went to look at pictures on my camera on my bed.  At 8 pm, according to her story the next morning, Ellen came to tell us that the guesthouse would stop serving dinner in a half hour.  She looked through our window and saw the two of us passed out, fully dressed on top of our beds with the lights on.  According to her, I responded to her question, and she suggested that we turn out the lights so we could sleep better.  Apparently I told her I would get right on it.  At about 3 am, Steven woke up briefly to see that the light was still on and I was fast asleep.  I had no recollection of any conversations the next day.

We climbed aboard a bus to See Pan Dom the next morning and arrived at the dock just after noon.  Into a boat we went and we cruised gently down the Mekong River to Don Khon, one of the two most popular islands.

The Mekong on a beautiful day.

Houses on the edge of the Mekong River, Laos.

A boat cuts through the monsoon water in the Mekong River.

Beautiful Mekong shoreline.

Mekong River

Steven and I ate immediately after getting on the island, then found Hero and Ellen and rented bicycles to go to the waterfall on the island.  Hero didn't join us, but Ellen came along.  Steven and I also decided to spend the night on the island instead of continuing further south.  We rode our bicycles to the waterfall, which was surprisingly large for an island that is essentially flat.

Riding bikes on Don Khon.

No hands?  No problem.  Way harder than it looks.

Whatever, Steven.

Panorama of a portion of the waterfalls on Don Khon, Laos.

After looking at the water for a time, we decided that swimming was a necessity.  We wandered around until we found an area with a little beach that was protected from the tremendously strong flood runoff water cruising down the Mekong.  We spent several hours there until we decided we wanted to see the end of the island, and perhaps see the famous Irawaddy dolphins, the rare freshwater dolphins found in only a handful of places on earth.

Finally!  Some water.

This little Laos kid didn't understand me and I didn't understand him, but we both liked the idea of climbing this rock and jumping off.

We biked to the southernmost point of Don Khon and got a boat to take us out to where the dolphins live.  We could see Cambodia across the sparkling water and Steven and I were excited to continue our trip the next day, while Ellen couldn't believe that our one day on the island could possibly satisfy us.  We got on our boat and cruised over to an unmarked point at which time the driver turned off the engine and we floated silently.  We noticed fish leaping out of the water around us and then saw a slight brown movement in the distance.  We had spotted the Irawaddy dolphin.  A pod of maybe eight began to come out of the water to breathe, blowing air and water into the air.  Unfortunately, they never came closer than about fifty yards, we were still able to see them.  We tried nearly fruitlessly to get a picture of them while our boatman laughed at our frustration.  After twenty or so minutes, we began back to the island, being treated to a gorgeous Mekong sunset.

Tiltshift fields on Don Khon.

Boats and a sunset.

Tiltshift boats on the Mekong at sunset.

Mekong boats.

Tiltshift boats on the Mekong River.

Do you see it?  The rare Irawaddy dolphin.  This is the best picture I got.  It's the dot thing.  In my defense, they're not much to look at anyway.  Kind of brown and piggish.  In an elegant way.

Another sunset picture?  Yes.

Steven admiring the sunset with our traveling friend, Ellen.

I'm hearing you, readers.  You want another sunset picture?  Request granted.

Sunset on Mekong River, Laos.

We had to bike back to the guesthouse still and rushed to do so before night fell completely.  We then ate dinner, had fruit shakes and then though, what the heck? and had some more fruit shakes at another restaurant.  The second restaurant's owner spoke English, French, Finnish and another of other languages and told us jokes while one of his newborn kittens crawled around our table from person to person.

The next morning Steven and I said our goodbyes to Ellen and Hero before getting on a boat that would lead us to our bus to Siem Reap, Cambodia.  Steven, having American dollars, also exchanged a sizable amount of Ellen's Lao Kip.  I have most of that money today, after finding out that nobody in Asia will exchange Lao Kip.  They all look at me like I've said the most bizarre thing in the world when I try to exchange it.  I feel bad for Laos.  When nobody outside of your country wants your money, that's got to hurt.

Cambodia


Our trip from Ban Nakasang (the port to See Pan Dom) to Siem Reap was slated to last 12 hours, so Steven and I steeled ourselves for the worst.  We were not prepared, however, for what was about to be.  At one of the frequent bus stops, we grabbed several baguette sandwiches.  Steven had three and I ate two of the bread, lettuce and spreadable cheese snacks.  We would begin to regret this about five hours later.  First we went through the border and waited about two and a half hours for another bus to pick us up.  Of course there was no bathroom on this bus, because that would be less like torture.

A couple hours into the trip, I'm not feeling so hot, but I think maybe it's just from sitting so long.  I see Steven take a pill.  "Charcoal," he explains.  "My stomach's getting torn up right now."  I kind of chuckle to myself, but in a couple of minutes when I feel worse, I ask for one too.  A couple more minutes pass and I see Steven searching through his bag.  He pulls out a black trash bag, originally designated to cover our backpacks in case of rain.  He gives me a sick look and tells me he might throw up.  Then he does.  Not great times.

I make it until our next rest stop, then I lose my lunch and breakfast and dinner from the night before into the squatter toilet.  Twice.

We got onto a new bus at this stop.  Steven and I were feeling pretty terrible, but our condition feels less terrible when we see the front seats are open.  We snag them, where at least we will have leg room.  A couple of minutes later, two Cambodians boarded the bus, and told us, with the broadest of smiles on their faces, that the seats in which we were sitting were in fact their seats.  A quick perusal of the seats showed no names written on them, but the Cambodians remained standing there grinning at us, knowing without a doubt that we will move and they will have their birthright seats.  And indeed we did move, being too sick to get into it with these guys.  This bus thankfully had a bathroom, which I used once to purge any substance accidentally left in my stomach from my previous vomiting adventure.  Steven does the same, but does it about a dozen times.  We decide to eat only cooked food from that point onwards.

We finally arrived in Siem Reap, after seventeen hellish hours on a bus, about half of that time miserably sick.  We got a tuk-tuk to a hotel and weakly climbed to the fifth floor and collapsed in our room, as sick as you please.  The next day, no longer completely nauseated, Steven and I stumbled into town to try to eat.  We were shadows of the men we had been just two days before.  We were weak, sore and absolutely destroyed from the day before.  But we were in Siem Reap, the site of the eighth wonder of the world, Angkor Wat and the Angkor temples.

We tuk-tuked to the temples and walked through them as well as we could, sicker than dogs but nevertheless hugely impressed by the sights.  We went through five or six temple collections and up hundreds of stairs.  By the end of the time we were there, we were begging our driver to take us home. The intense heat mixed with the complete lack of fuel in our bodies had wiped us out entirely, but we were thankful we had seen the temples.

Our first sight of the Angkor temples.

HDR of one of the incredible temples at Angkor Wat.

Panorama of one of some of the temple ground.

Lots of stairs at Angkor.  Steven and I felt like tired old women by the end of the day.  No offense to any tired old women.

Steven in the window of one of the less-reconstructed temples.

The strange Buddha who greets all who enter.

The famous walkway to the most famous temple in the world:  Angkor Wat.

A part of Angkor Wat, the largest religious building on earth.

The famous stone faces at Bayon, one of the Angkor temples in the area.  There are over fifty officially recognized temple ruins near Angkor Wat.

Me taking a much needed break.  And what a stylish seat to choose.

HDR of the sun peeking over an edge of Angkor Wat.

The rear of Angkor Wat.  These people seem more interested in the monkeys.  In there defense, the monkeys were pretty cool.  But handsy.

Probably the coolest way to see the temples.  HDR of a hot-air balloon approaching the temple courtyards.

A pond and a temple, near the Terrace of the Elephants.

Ta Prom, also called the Tomb Raider Temple, has trees that said, "Get out of here, rock.  I'm growing."

Another part of a temple.  We saw a lot of those.

Our tuk-tuk driver, an absolute necessity with the heat and the distances traveled.

Temples rising into the sky.  Incredible artistic pieces of architecture.  Somehow, the temples that were less rebuilt captured my interests more.

We spent one more night in Siem Reap before catching a bus to Phnom Penh, where we planned to leave on the first available bus to Vietnam, after Steven got a Vietnamese visa.

I had already gotten a visa the week before in Bangkok, so after the eight hour ride to Phnom Penh, we grabbed a tuk-tuk to the Vietnamese Embassy.  About 2/3 of the way to the embassy, our driver turned around and asked, "Why do you want to go to the embassy?  They're closed on Saturdays."  It was at this point in our trip that we realized what day it was and how poorly we had planned ahead.  This meant that instead of going to Vietnam that evening, we were stuck in Cambodia for at least three more days, hurting our intended but loosely defined schedule of events.  We went back to the bus station and, finding Phnom Penh to not be our ideal place to hang out, got a six hour bus to Sihanoukville, in southern Cambodia.  It was Christmas Eve, and we decided that if we had to be in Cambodia, we might as well spend Christmas day on the beach.

We arrived in Sihanoukville at about 11 pm on Christmas Eve and found the first four guesthouses we visited to be full.  The fifth place gave us a room for a ridiculous rate, promising a much better rate the next night.  Too good of a rate as it turned out, as the workers laughed our protests down the next morning saying, "There's no way we can give you that rate."  When I presented our receipt from the night before and advised that they should just ask the person who had signed our receipt about our promised rate, they changed the subject and took my receipt.  We said whatever and rented a motorcycle, which came with the threat of a $1200 charge to the renter if it was in any way damaged during the rental period.  We drove safely.  The motorcycle also came with a helmet.  The first helmet the staff attempted to fit us with had to be tied to the skull of the wearer.  We requested another helmet. The second helmet had been cracked from front to back and on the side.  We took off to a beach and promised not to give any more money to the guesthouse.  The first beach we went to was dirty and busy.  Every two minutes somebody would come up and try to sell you something, often enough a complete contradiction.  Both Steven and I were wearing sunglasses as three different boys approached us to see if we were interested in purchasing sunglasses.  Later one of the children who wander the beach collecting trash and begging for money sat with us.  It was ok for a while, but we asked him to leave after he tried to steal from Steven and then me.  We got on the motorcycle and drove up the coast looking for a more ideal beach.

We found just such a thing at Independence Beach.  Beautiful, nearly empty with a long dock extending out into the sea and trees for our hammocks.  The next two days were spent almost entirely at this beach.  While in town we also visited a restaurant called the Snake House, an eatery that doubles as a crocodile farm.  They have snakes in the tables.  Check it out if you're ever in Sihanoukville.

Merry Christmas from Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

Beautiful sunset on Christmas night.

Tiltshift photograph of the dock in Sihanoukville at sunset.

Hammock time on Christmas, my favorite new holiday tradition.

Steven getting in some sunset swimming.

Me getting some water after a long day of getting some water.

The Vietnamese Consulate in Sihanoukville has the reputation of giving the fastest Vietnamese visas in Southeast Asia, and our experience was very much in line with this.  The entire process took about six minutes, leaving us plenty of time to drive down the street, immediately get pulled over by Cambodian cops and be extorted for not wearing a helmet (which at this point was essentially in pieces) and not possessing an international driver's license.  At the invitation of the police officer, I handled the offenses as "a small problem" instead of allowing it to become "a big problem" (his words).  The next morning, Tuesday the 27th of December, Steven and I climbed aboard a bus to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, Vietnam.

Vietnam


Ho Chi Minh City is nuts.  We spent about three hours there, simply going from the bus station to the train station, our final destination of Halong Bay foremost in our minds, but just taxiing through the city was crazy.  A traveler we met told us, "There are eight million people in HCMC, and there are five million motorcycles."  Never before have I seen so many motorcycles.  They were like ants swarming the city, holding dominion over the cars and pedestrians.

We arrived at the train station at about 9:30 pm on Tuesday and bought two tickets for a train to Hanoi, more than 1,800 km.  Of course the train we booked had no more sleeper cars left, so we were going to sit the whole time (hooray!).  We found our seats with a fair portion of dread, being seasoned experts of terrible transportation by this point in our journey.  The ride was thankfully smoother than a bus and featured beautiful views.  To the left of the train was generally fields and rice paddies.  To the right was breathtaking coast for the majority of the trip.  Thirty one hours later we arrived in Hanoi.  We immediately caught a minibus to Halong City, the jumping off point to Halong Bay.  We rode in the minibus for several hours before it stopped on the freeway and the driver told Steven and me to get off. We were surprised to say the least.  We boarded a motorcycle, which took us to the pier.

At the pier we found one of a number of tour company employees wandering around and bought a package deal from him that promised one night on Cat Ba Island (the biggest inhabited island in Halong Bay) and one night on a boat in the bay for a total three-day, two-night trip.  Twenty minutes later, while waiting to leave, he told us that we could not stay on the boat for our one night trip.  We told him we had a three-day, two-nighter and he showed us our receipt, where he had written something totally different from what he had told us.  We demanded our money back and, to my surprise, it was returned to us.  We then found another company and got our originally planned trip.  We then set sail for the bay.  It was beautiful, even in the chilly fog.  With impressive limestone cliffs rising from the sea and beautiful mysterious water beneath, Halong Bay is a wonderful place to visit.  We enjoyed a lunch on the boat, a large cave, then kayaking on the bay.  As we sped across the water through rock arches and beside walls towering hundreds of feet above us, any ideas we had about swimming were dispelled.  The water was rightfully freezing.  We decided to enjoy above water activities.

Steven enjoying the view on Halong Bay.

It was cold there, hence the sweatshirt.

Beautiful limestone cliffs in Vietnam.

Halong Bay.

A cave on Halong Bay.  This is only part of the huge cavern.  The lighting is not natural.

Tiltshift photograph of boats in one of the bays.

Panoramic photograph of boats in a sheltered bay.

Solitary arch in the bay.  We kayaked through them holes there.

Tiltshift photograph of a single rower in the bay, completely outsized by the cliffs.

We watched the sunset from the boat as we moved slowly towards the dock, where a van was waiting to take us and eight other people to our hotel for our first night on Cat Ba Island.  We had dinner at the hotel then headed to bed.  The next morning began at 7:30 (most places we went requested we be up around this time, which we found strange) with a breakfast of . . . a baguette.  Still tremendously hungry, Steven and I joined a couple of guys from Denmark on a walk down the street for actual food. We found a grocery store and a street vendor who helped fill the abyss.

Panoramic photo of sunset on Halong Bay.

Halong Bay sunset and moon, Vietnam.

We departed for Cat Ba's national park, a giant stretch of land whose paths lead into the mountains and climax with a tall tower, the views from which are breathtaking.

The Garden of Eternal Happiness From Cat Hai District?  You know it.  Maybe the happiness wasn't eternal, but it was pretty good.

Climbing the tower.  This is about 1/3 of the way up.

Cat Ba peaks and a bearded man.

Steven atop the tower.

Panorama of the seemingly never-ending peaks on Cat Ba Island.  If I could see this every day for the rest of my life, I would be thrilled.

Cat Ba Island, Vietnam.

The sun trying to break through the gray on Cat Ba.

This is the purpose of fallen trees.

We spent the rest of the day walking around Cat Ba with the other travelers, talking about where we had been and what life is like in our respective countries.  We were then picked up by our boats for our night on the bay.  Steven and I got separated from our group by our tour guide who was trying to sell us a bus ticket from Hanoi to Luang Prabang, Laos, the next day.  We ended up on a boat with a large American family and an odd-couple mix of a Serbian from England and very young Filipino.  We spent most of the time by ourselves that night, away from all our new found friends.  The next morning we got up early to see the sunrise, but due to the heavy fog and clouds didn't see anything spectacular.

Moon above Cat Ba Island.

A boat at Cat Ba Island.

Sunrise??  Not really.  The boats are nice, though.

Looking port through a porthole.  Avast.

The next day we went back to Halong City and then boarded a bus to Hanoi.  Most of the group had paid for a lunch and ate at a restaurant, but Steven and I headed to an Internet cafe to research.  We decided that our original plan to go to Northern Laos was impractical and that we didn't have enough time to see what we wanted to see anyway, so we looked up flights to Thailand, finally settling on Phuket as our destination.  We returned to the group and boarded another minibus to Hanoi, what is usually a two hour ride.  Our trip was in no uncertain terms less than six hours.  At one point we pulled over to the side of a freeway and just stopped.  When we asked what was going on, one of the people in charge said, "There's traffic ahead."  We looked up and down the road and saw no traffic, but we were assured that there was a lot of it ahead.  This was mind-boggling to us, that they would rather wait where there is no traffic than where there is traffic.  Finally we started moving again, and ended up asking a local on a motorcycle to guide our bus to a point farther down the freeway where the traffic had cleared up.  The local led us on an hour-long swing through small villages until we were back on the road.

We finally arrived in Hanoi amidst the beginnings of New Year's celebrations, being reminded that it was New Year's Eve.  We questioned our ability to stay up until midnight and set off for a hotel.  We used the internet in one hotel lobby to book our flight to Phuket the following day, then checked about five hotels before we found one that could take us.  They told us we had to be out by 7:30 the next morning because they had early guests arriving.  We agreed, stashed our things in the room and set off into the city.  We wandered around eating food and looking for some dog meat (which we unfortunately never found), went back to the room to watch some TV, then went back out at 11:30 to watch the countdown.  Thousands of people choked the streets as loud dance music and a laser show blasted the square.  There were multiple spots to see the countdown, but we chose one close to the hotel.  The countdown happened, everybody yelled, and we went home.  We were in bed by midnight twenty.

The next morning we wandered the streets looking for a t-shirt until it was time to go to the airport.  Hanoi's airport was tremendously slow, having only one line for both customs and security checks, but soon we were on the plane headed for Singapore, where we would have a four and a half hour layover before we flew to Phuket.

Singapore


The airport in Singapore is incredible, but we had neither the funds nor the will to leave it in our layover.  The airport is huge, with giant boutique and luxury stores scattered throughout.  It served to remind me just how good I had it in Bangkok, however, as I could hardly afford a meal from one of their food courts.

Thailand


We arrived in Phuket at midnight and caught a airport shuttle to the town.  The shuttle drops off each passenger at his or her hotel, so we waited a long time until arriving at our hotel at Kata beach.  We walked a huge hill to get to the guesthouse only to discover they were closed because it was 1 am.  Disappointed and tired, Steven and I walked down the hill and found another spot, Lucky Guesthouse, not far from the first hotel.  We waited at reception as two middle eastern gentlemen and their hired company for the night negotiated prices.  When they finished we got a room, dumped our stuff and decided to try to find food, as we hadn't eaten in about nine hours.  We walked down the street past the bars and hordes of Thai women who would shout at us as we passed.  We got a little food at a 7/11 before stopping into a nearly empty restaurant/bar and ordering some food.  One of the workers kept asking if we wanted to play pool, but we declined and she set up a game with one of the short-skirted women who hung out by the front of the establishment.  We went back to the hotel for the night and checked out the next morning.

We then went to our original choice, Kata On Sea, which supposedly had bungalows.  Ours, being cheap, was less a bungalow than a shed, but it worked out.  We then went to the beach for the day, returning only that evening to get a camera and find the sunset.

View from our hotel in Phuket, Thailand.

Tiltshift photograph of Steven walking to the beach.

Everything you need for a good sunset.

Panorama of the sunset at Phuket.

Phuket sunset . . . again.

Yes, it's another sunset picture.  Sorry.

Steven and the sunset.

Do you like sunset pictures?  I hope so.  If not, this has been an uncomfortable minute for you.

Steven, a coconut and a sunset.

Final sunset picture!  I promise.  I think the light rays in this one are neat.

Later we returned to the room, each of us holding a pint of ice cream purchased at the 7/11.  We found a way to the roof of our building and ate ice cream while enjoying the stars and the breeze.  The next day we went to the bus station in Phuket Town and caught a bus to Bangkok, with Steven intending to disembark at Prachuap Khiri Khan, where I would join him in a couple of days after I finished working.

The bus ride to Bangkok, which was supposed to be 12 hours long, should have had me arrive in town at 2:15 am on the day I started work again, January 4.  However, due to flooding and traffic, the ride lasted 21 hours and I was a couple of hours late to work.  The following day, Thursday, I left after work on the train to Prachuap Khiri Khan, planning to get there at about midnight.  I didn't arrive until 1:30 am and was unable to get into the guesthouse where Steven was staying.  I walked down the street to find another hotel.  The next hotel was full, but a guy out front getting drunk with his friends said I could sleep at his place.  How could that be a bad idea?  So a couple of hours later I got on a motorcycle with two drunk guys, one, our driver, a Thai, and the other passenger a Scotsman who kept talking to me; his main two topics of conversation were 1) reassurances that I was in good hands and that these were all great guys and 2) that I should never, under any circumstances, trust a Scotsman, especially one who was drunk.  That was a very interesting night, which led to my not going to bed until about 5:30 am and my clothes smelling funny the next day.

The next day I finally got into town again and met up with Steven.  We went to a dock he had scouted a couple of days earlier and jumped off it until we were tired.  Then we lied in the sun, Steven trying to get his last rays before going back to Washington.  The following morning we watched the sunrise from a temple on the top of a monkey mountain.  The monkeys are reported to occasionally be aggressive, so we took precautions before we climbed the hill.  Let me just say this:  any trip you take in which a "stick with which to strike monkeys" is something you pack will be a great trip.  We didn't use the stick (although we were tempted to when a pack of street dogs came at us).

Some diving in the Gulf of Thailand at Prachuap Khiri Khan.

Steven at Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand.

Monkey Mountain and the Temple on top.

Steven admiring the sunrise atop Monkey Mountain.

Good morning, Thailand.

Once we got back to town, we each got about six and a half pounds of mangosteens for our trip back to Bangkok, then got on a bus to go home.  I had work the following day, so Steven hung out until I got off.  We then shot over to Chatuchak so he could get a couple of souvenirs for needy people back home, and gorged ourselves again on Thai food and fruit shakes.  The next morning, at 3:30, Steven caught a taxi from my apartment to the airport to begin his long trip home.

Traveling over Christmas was kind of a weird sensation.  I didn't have a "Christmas,"  but I have lots of great memories and a strong urge to do it again.  There is of course something great about spending time with family and friends over the holidays, but seeing foreign lands is amazing.

Enjoy this timelapse video of the sun rising in Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand.

(No, there is no music.  It's only 21 seconds long and finding the right song was too hard.  You may put your own music to it though, as long as the singer does not reference how well financially he or she is doing.)