happy birthday, america.-sg
7.03.2008
6.03.2008
change of pace
it's been two long, boring, ladyboy-less months since my "escape from l.a." trip came to an end, and i still haven't posted anything that happened after leaving laos. as much as i'd love to share all my as-of-yet unreported advenures, it's looking about as likely as chinese democracy right now. in the mean time, i'm gonna continue to add new material to the site, beginning with the one posted below.
enjoy!
-sg
enjoy!
-sg
steve and sadie's play date
this is sadie.
she lives in the city with clark and jess.
everybody loves sadie. she's cute and fuzzy and always has a smile on her face. one day, clark and jess went out of town, so i decided to bring sadie out to the beach.
jess wrote out all the instructions for taking care of sadie, but i never read them. i mean, she's a dog, right? how hard could it be to take care of her? feed her, play with her, don't let her get away, all that stuff is common knowledge.
when it was time to eat, i gave her a can of dog food.
apparently, she's a picky eater.
if she doesn't like dog food, maybe people food would work. whether man or beast, we all like chocolate, right?
like it? she LOVED it!
i didn't want her to make a mess in the house, so i took her to the bathroom.
i waited…
and waited…
but she didn't do anything.
oh wait, it's cats that go indoors. maybe i should take her outside.
go to the bathroom HERE, sadie.
still no luck, so i showed her by example.
speaking of cats, they always land on their feet, right?
i wonder if dogs do, too?
apparently, they DON'T.
time for some exercise. let's go for a walk!
but it's so hot today! i need some a/c.
hey, maybe THIS will work.
after our walk/drive, we played fetch.
for some reason, sadie didn't want to play.
as the day wound down, i knew i'd have to take her home soon. but she was SO dirty!
time for a quick wash. i set it on delicate, of course.
then on fluff dry for 20 minutes.
voila, clean dog!
eventually, it was time to bring her home. but i didn't want to drive all the way into the city! not during rush hour, and especially not with gas at $4.50/gallon.
hmm…i have an idea.
home is THAT way, girl!
i can't wait 'til our next play date!
-sg
she lives in the city with clark and jess.
everybody loves sadie. she's cute and fuzzy and always has a smile on her face. one day, clark and jess went out of town, so i decided to bring sadie out to the beach.
jess wrote out all the instructions for taking care of sadie, but i never read them. i mean, she's a dog, right? how hard could it be to take care of her? feed her, play with her, don't let her get away, all that stuff is common knowledge.
when it was time to eat, i gave her a can of dog food.
apparently, she's a picky eater.
if she doesn't like dog food, maybe people food would work. whether man or beast, we all like chocolate, right?
like it? she LOVED it!
i didn't want her to make a mess in the house, so i took her to the bathroom.
i waited…
and waited…
but she didn't do anything.
oh wait, it's cats that go indoors. maybe i should take her outside.
go to the bathroom HERE, sadie.
still no luck, so i showed her by example.
speaking of cats, they always land on their feet, right?
i wonder if dogs do, too?
apparently, they DON'T.
time for some exercise. let's go for a walk!
but it's so hot today! i need some a/c.
hey, maybe THIS will work.
after our walk/drive, we played fetch.
for some reason, sadie didn't want to play.
as the day wound down, i knew i'd have to take her home soon. but she was SO dirty!
time for a quick wash. i set it on delicate, of course.
then on fluff dry for 20 minutes.
voila, clean dog!
eventually, it was time to bring her home. but i didn't want to drive all the way into the city! not during rush hour, and especially not with gas at $4.50/gallon.
hmm…i have an idea.
home is THAT way, girl!
i can't wait 'til our next play date!
-sg
4.09.2008
new frontiers
it's been awhile since i've added anything on here, which is pretty much everybody's fault but my own. anyways, i'm back in california now, spending plenty of quality time with those i missed most: my bed and my toilet.
my trip just doesn't seem complete without sharing written accounts of all that happened after flying outta laos. that being said, i'm gonna do my best to add what i can to the site. i have over 2,000 pictures to go through, not to mention 6 weeks of neglected mail, weeds, laundry and bill collectors to tend to.
cambodia was the next destination for me, but before i cover that fantastic nightmare of a country, i thought i'd share a photo of one of the more memorable parts of my trip: crossing the equator. sure, for most people, this is no big deal. but, shutterbug that i am, i managed to snap a photo of the rare and elusive line that separates our hemispheres.
behold:
the equator almost never shows up on camera. in fact, most "images" of it are actually illustrations on maps and globes. it sometimes appears as a dotted line, but in rare cases, such as the one above, it can be solid. so how did i manage to photograph such a hard-to-spot line in the middle of the ocean? maybe i was lucky, maybe i have a sharp eye, or maybe i just tweaked the image around on microsoft paint. who's to say?
for now, i'm gonna keep my eyes peeled for the even more elusive, oceanic land of rand mcnally.
-sg
my trip just doesn't seem complete without sharing written accounts of all that happened after flying outta laos. that being said, i'm gonna do my best to add what i can to the site. i have over 2,000 pictures to go through, not to mention 6 weeks of neglected mail, weeds, laundry and bill collectors to tend to.
cambodia was the next destination for me, but before i cover that fantastic nightmare of a country, i thought i'd share a photo of one of the more memorable parts of my trip: crossing the equator. sure, for most people, this is no big deal. but, shutterbug that i am, i managed to snap a photo of the rare and elusive line that separates our hemispheres.
behold:
the equator almost never shows up on camera. in fact, most "images" of it are actually illustrations on maps and globes. it sometimes appears as a dotted line, but in rare cases, such as the one above, it can be solid. so how did i manage to photograph such a hard-to-spot line in the middle of the ocean? maybe i was lucky, maybe i have a sharp eye, or maybe i just tweaked the image around on microsoft paint. who's to say?
for now, i'm gonna keep my eyes peeled for the even more elusive, oceanic land of rand mcnally.
-sg
3.24.2008
ancient asian philosophical questions
-what's the sound of one hand clapping?
-if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?
-can you hit a ladyboy?
it's questions like these that keep me up at night. especially the last one. as we all know, men are not allowed to hit women. not even on vacation. but what about when the woman in question isn't really a woman? and what if she really deserves it?
there are no guidebooks that deal with the subject of ladyboys, no definitive source to turn to. actually, i'm willing to bet there is such a book, or several books even, but i'm not gonna waste my precious time looking for them. you'd think hitting women, or newly minted women wouldn't even be a concern, but oh, how wrong you are. some of these former guys are highly aggressive*, and have no intentions of taking no as an answer. they will grab you, grope you, or occasionally grab you and use your own hand to grope them, stirring even deeper philosophical debates internally. as far as i'm concerned, this kind of behavior is sexual harassment, and i don't have to take it. but if telling them "no" doesn't stop them, and walking away only means they'll follow you, what's a boy to do? a real boy, that is.
there are two different philosophies when it comes to ladyboys:
1. if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. even if the genetic code ain't on par, this is a bonafide, de-bonerfied girl.
2. all the penectomies, breast implants, adam's apple shavings and addavadge surguries in the world don't make you a woman. no monthly bleeding, no babies: you're still a guy, just one with emotional and physical baggage far deeper than any customized crotch.
some guys are totally into option #1, or at least consider it after being fooled on a drunken night out. others are fully convinced that they can't be fully convinced by masquerading masculinity.
i'm wondering what other people's opinions are on the situation. is it acceptable to hit a ladyboy? i only bring this up because a friend of a friend has actually faced this scenario. apparently, she woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of the phony femme rifling through her luggage. while she was a bit restrained, her male friend became involved, and ended up hitting the thief. supposedly, the ladyboy mafia is now after them. yeah, really! wrong or right, that sight alone would be worth hitting a woman over.
feel free to add your own two cents on the subject.
thanks.
-sg
* i blame the lingering testosterone in their systems.
-if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?
-can you hit a ladyboy?
it's questions like these that keep me up at night. especially the last one. as we all know, men are not allowed to hit women. not even on vacation. but what about when the woman in question isn't really a woman? and what if she really deserves it?
there are no guidebooks that deal with the subject of ladyboys, no definitive source to turn to. actually, i'm willing to bet there is such a book, or several books even, but i'm not gonna waste my precious time looking for them. you'd think hitting women, or newly minted women wouldn't even be a concern, but oh, how wrong you are. some of these former guys are highly aggressive*, and have no intentions of taking no as an answer. they will grab you, grope you, or occasionally grab you and use your own hand to grope them, stirring even deeper philosophical debates internally. as far as i'm concerned, this kind of behavior is sexual harassment, and i don't have to take it. but if telling them "no" doesn't stop them, and walking away only means they'll follow you, what's a boy to do? a real boy, that is.
there are two different philosophies when it comes to ladyboys:
1. if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. even if the genetic code ain't on par, this is a bonafide, de-bonerfied girl.
2. all the penectomies, breast implants, adam's apple shavings and addavadge surguries in the world don't make you a woman. no monthly bleeding, no babies: you're still a guy, just one with emotional and physical baggage far deeper than any customized crotch.
some guys are totally into option #1, or at least consider it after being fooled on a drunken night out. others are fully convinced that they can't be fully convinced by masquerading masculinity.
i'm wondering what other people's opinions are on the situation. is it acceptable to hit a ladyboy? i only bring this up because a friend of a friend has actually faced this scenario. apparently, she woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of the phony femme rifling through her luggage. while she was a bit restrained, her male friend became involved, and ended up hitting the thief. supposedly, the ladyboy mafia is now after them. yeah, really! wrong or right, that sight alone would be worth hitting a woman over.
feel free to add your own two cents on the subject.
thanks.
-sg
* i blame the lingering testosterone in their systems.
3.22.2008
lao'd enough for you?
laos, days 6-8...
"one good thing about music: when it hits, you feel no pain." - bob marley.
apparently, bob never had to listen to thai pop music before. more specifically, thai pop music being blasted on speakers that go up to eleven on a crowded, decrepit bus bouncing its way through the winding hills of laos. a bus which was built for tiny people who have no need for leg room. holy crap, i've actually found a situation right on par with chili-infused 'rhea served over a squat toilet.
what was i doing listening to thai music in laos? doesn't laos have their own crappy music i could suffer through? not really. laos' only cultural contribution to date is beerlao; all other forms of entertainment are imported from thailand. consequently, most lao have learned the thai language, not for social or economic gain, but as a means to better appreciate television and radio. as far as i'm concerned, there isn't a way to appreciate the latter. in trying to think of a term to describe thai music, all i could come up was "sappy." well, there was also "unbearable," god-awful" and "downright shitty," but those aren't exactly categories that are charted in billboard magazine.
for some reason, all speakers in laos have only one setting: LOUD. earth-shakingly loud. i really don't know why this is, but whether you're at a bar, temple, restaurant or sadly, on a crowded bus, your ears are gonna hurt. i'd be sitting there listening to my ipod at full volume, forcing each tiny earpiece directly up against my eardrum, with every bass and kick drum note causing my eyes to involuntarily blink, and i STILL couldn't drown out the thai music. unfortunately, the bus driver calls the shots when it comes to controlling the dials, and i had no intentions of complaining to a guy whose one distraction could send us careening off a cliff into hazy oblivion. besides, he wouldn't even hear me if i tried.*
think this situation sounds bad? imagine doing it three trips this way, for 10+ hours each time, with your knees forced into the plastic seat in front of you, your head bouncing off the window every few seconds due to all the twists, turns and bumps in the road, the driver honking every 5 seconds either to warn potential approaching cars around the next turn, or to alert the truck in front of us that, somehow, we're going to try to pass it, the guy next to you eating a bag of fried crickets and dropping hairy, little jointed legs all over the place, because apparently, he finds the legs to be too gross to eat, the guy in front of you carrying a large machine gun despite NOT having a military uniform or any identifying aspect to suggest he isn't a total nutcase in plain clothes, and and yes, the horrible music, which thankfully drowns out the sound of the guy behind you puking his brains out into a doggie bag.** lao buses keep a healthy stock of these bags on hand, and i haven't taken a ride yet where someone hasn't used one. in fact, on one bus trip, nadja personally filled 10. i am very glad we traveled separately that day.
and it gets worse. imagine everything the same as mentioned above, but instead of listening to abortion-inducing thai pop music blasted through speakers, substitute it for abortion-inducing thai pop music blasted through speakers while simultaneously playing on a tv screen, karaoke style. great, now i don't just have to listen to idiots whining, i have to watch them, too. and if i thought thai music was bad and lacked variety, the videos are even worse. actually, there are three types of videos that thai pop singers prefer, each more shitty than the last:
1. a flamboyant guy singing, while 4 sexy, identical-looking women in matching outfits gyrate in the background, in front of a green screen showing various images of bangkok's skyline at night.***
2. a woman singing mournfully as she slowly walks through a market/shopping mall/cemetery, with flashbacks to her on romantic walks with a flamboyant guy,**** shot in soft focus.
3. a flamboyant guy singing in front of a green screen, as stock images of bangkok's skyline pass behind him.*****
and i thought rap videos lacked variety! jesus.
so yeah, you get the point: buses in laos suck. they suck so much, you'd eventually be willing to throw down any amount of money just to get outta the country in a manner not befitting of a thai pop soundtrack. for me, that amount of money was $190, which i will forever consider a bargain.
before i go on to tales of woe and "whoa!" in cambodia, i should explain where and why i went on those horrible bus rides:
bus 1 - vang vieng to luang prabang. i'd heard great things about this city, but once i arrived, everything was a disappointment, other than the food. hotel owners changed their rates on me, cab drivers changed their fees on my friends, and the first 5 shops i went to either short-changed me, created their own exchange rate that was highly advantageous to themselves, or downright "didn't have change" for whatever bill i used. sure, i coulda avoided some of this trouble by only using lao money, but since lao, thai and u.s. currency are all accepted there, it made sense to stick with what i know and love and already had in my pocket. plus, referring to the picture i posted previously of me fanning out the money: the largest bill they use is 20,000 kip,****** worth about half a cup of starbucks back home. carrying around giant stacks of money is only really useful for photo ops and music videos. rap music videos, that is.
that being said, these experiences, along with a few others i may or may not explain later, really rubbed me the wrong way. i lost a lot of faith in the people there, and it tarnished my image not just of luang prabang, but the entire country. it's a shame, 'cause every smiling face i saw on the street, every person who approached me just for an opportunity to practice english was someone who i felt like i had to watch out for. this is no way to enjoy yourself when traveling. it's too bad that it only took a few people to alter my entire experience.
bus 2 - luang prabang to phonsavanh. due to a lack of reliable/existing roads, getting from point a to point b here involved backtracking through previous point a's and b's. needless to say, the roads were just as miserable to traverse the second time around. at least the final hours of this ride were somewhat better once the bus was finally out of the hills and back to good ol' potholed tarmac. still, choosing phonsavanh as a destination was a tough choice. due to time constraints, i was either going to check out the gibbon experience further north in laos, or pass it up for the plain of jars, located just outside of p-town. the former is is a chance to see adorable little monkeys, sleep in treehouses and swing from ziplines, and the latter was a chance to see a bunch of jars in a field*******. knowing how much i love monkeys and ziplines, it would seem like a no-brainer, right?
why i went with the jars, i'll never know. i was a little concerned about time constraints for the gibbons, as it was a 2 night/3 day program that took a day of travel to get there and back. it's not like the jars were easily accessible, but at least they were located closer to the other destinations i wanted to see. don't get me wrong, the jars were interesting, but i couldn't find a single one that was capable of swinging from trees, doing cute little human things, or throwing its poo. in fact, all they did was sit there and look mysterious. to this date, no one knows what these 3,000 year old giant jars were used for. theories are either food storage, alcohol fermentation or as burial/cremation bins. sure, that gives them a stonhenge-esque mystique, but still, no monkeys. next time i'm in laos, i'm heading north. oh, and to make matters worse, my sandal strap tore in phonsavanh, and while the town had scores of shops selling footwear, i couldn't find anything larger than doll size. good thing i had a ratty pair of tennis shoes tucked into my backpack.
bus 3 - phonsavanh to vientiane. this trip did nothing but confirm my hatred for all things bus. i couldn't get on a plane fast enough. well, i could, actually, thanks to lao airlines "losing" my reservation for the 6:30 a.m. flight to siem reap, cambodia. lucky for me, the busy vientiane airport has more than just one flight a day: they have five! willing to go anywhere beyond laos at that point, i jumped the next flight available, which at least put me in the right country********.
phew, i'm finally caught up with laos and ready to reveal the wonders and worries of cambodia. but sadly, i have already moved on to the next country. the next two countries, if you count brief layovers in airports. where am i now? only time will tell. stay tuned in a few weeks to find out.
-sg
* or understand me, either.
** hooray for run-on sentences!
*** robert palmer must be spinning in his grave. at least he had the courtesy to use dozens of sexy women in his videos.
**** possibly the same flamboyant guy from the 1st type of music videos.
***** or maybe it's just that all guys in thai videos are flamboyant.
****** okay, i did see a 50,000 kip note, but only on 2 occasions. banks + atms sure as hell didn't give them out.
******* or a plain, if you will.
******** you can never have too many asterisks.
"one good thing about music: when it hits, you feel no pain." - bob marley.
apparently, bob never had to listen to thai pop music before. more specifically, thai pop music being blasted on speakers that go up to eleven on a crowded, decrepit bus bouncing its way through the winding hills of laos. a bus which was built for tiny people who have no need for leg room. holy crap, i've actually found a situation right on par with chili-infused 'rhea served over a squat toilet.
what was i doing listening to thai music in laos? doesn't laos have their own crappy music i could suffer through? not really. laos' only cultural contribution to date is beerlao; all other forms of entertainment are imported from thailand. consequently, most lao have learned the thai language, not for social or economic gain, but as a means to better appreciate television and radio. as far as i'm concerned, there isn't a way to appreciate the latter. in trying to think of a term to describe thai music, all i could come up was "sappy." well, there was also "unbearable," god-awful" and "downright shitty," but those aren't exactly categories that are charted in billboard magazine.
for some reason, all speakers in laos have only one setting: LOUD. earth-shakingly loud. i really don't know why this is, but whether you're at a bar, temple, restaurant or sadly, on a crowded bus, your ears are gonna hurt. i'd be sitting there listening to my ipod at full volume, forcing each tiny earpiece directly up against my eardrum, with every bass and kick drum note causing my eyes to involuntarily blink, and i STILL couldn't drown out the thai music. unfortunately, the bus driver calls the shots when it comes to controlling the dials, and i had no intentions of complaining to a guy whose one distraction could send us careening off a cliff into hazy oblivion. besides, he wouldn't even hear me if i tried.*
think this situation sounds bad? imagine doing it three trips this way, for 10+ hours each time, with your knees forced into the plastic seat in front of you, your head bouncing off the window every few seconds due to all the twists, turns and bumps in the road, the driver honking every 5 seconds either to warn potential approaching cars around the next turn, or to alert the truck in front of us that, somehow, we're going to try to pass it, the guy next to you eating a bag of fried crickets and dropping hairy, little jointed legs all over the place, because apparently, he finds the legs to be too gross to eat, the guy in front of you carrying a large machine gun despite NOT having a military uniform or any identifying aspect to suggest he isn't a total nutcase in plain clothes, and and yes, the horrible music, which thankfully drowns out the sound of the guy behind you puking his brains out into a doggie bag.** lao buses keep a healthy stock of these bags on hand, and i haven't taken a ride yet where someone hasn't used one. in fact, on one bus trip, nadja personally filled 10. i am very glad we traveled separately that day.
and it gets worse. imagine everything the same as mentioned above, but instead of listening to abortion-inducing thai pop music blasted through speakers, substitute it for abortion-inducing thai pop music blasted through speakers while simultaneously playing on a tv screen, karaoke style. great, now i don't just have to listen to idiots whining, i have to watch them, too. and if i thought thai music was bad and lacked variety, the videos are even worse. actually, there are three types of videos that thai pop singers prefer, each more shitty than the last:
1. a flamboyant guy singing, while 4 sexy, identical-looking women in matching outfits gyrate in the background, in front of a green screen showing various images of bangkok's skyline at night.***
2. a woman singing mournfully as she slowly walks through a market/shopping mall/cemetery, with flashbacks to her on romantic walks with a flamboyant guy,**** shot in soft focus.
3. a flamboyant guy singing in front of a green screen, as stock images of bangkok's skyline pass behind him.*****
and i thought rap videos lacked variety! jesus.
so yeah, you get the point: buses in laos suck. they suck so much, you'd eventually be willing to throw down any amount of money just to get outta the country in a manner not befitting of a thai pop soundtrack. for me, that amount of money was $190, which i will forever consider a bargain.
before i go on to tales of woe and "whoa!" in cambodia, i should explain where and why i went on those horrible bus rides:
bus 1 - vang vieng to luang prabang. i'd heard great things about this city, but once i arrived, everything was a disappointment, other than the food. hotel owners changed their rates on me, cab drivers changed their fees on my friends, and the first 5 shops i went to either short-changed me, created their own exchange rate that was highly advantageous to themselves, or downright "didn't have change" for whatever bill i used. sure, i coulda avoided some of this trouble by only using lao money, but since lao, thai and u.s. currency are all accepted there, it made sense to stick with what i know and love and already had in my pocket. plus, referring to the picture i posted previously of me fanning out the money: the largest bill they use is 20,000 kip,****** worth about half a cup of starbucks back home. carrying around giant stacks of money is only really useful for photo ops and music videos. rap music videos, that is.
that being said, these experiences, along with a few others i may or may not explain later, really rubbed me the wrong way. i lost a lot of faith in the people there, and it tarnished my image not just of luang prabang, but the entire country. it's a shame, 'cause every smiling face i saw on the street, every person who approached me just for an opportunity to practice english was someone who i felt like i had to watch out for. this is no way to enjoy yourself when traveling. it's too bad that it only took a few people to alter my entire experience.
bus 2 - luang prabang to phonsavanh. due to a lack of reliable/existing roads, getting from point a to point b here involved backtracking through previous point a's and b's. needless to say, the roads were just as miserable to traverse the second time around. at least the final hours of this ride were somewhat better once the bus was finally out of the hills and back to good ol' potholed tarmac. still, choosing phonsavanh as a destination was a tough choice. due to time constraints, i was either going to check out the gibbon experience further north in laos, or pass it up for the plain of jars, located just outside of p-town. the former is is a chance to see adorable little monkeys, sleep in treehouses and swing from ziplines, and the latter was a chance to see a bunch of jars in a field*******. knowing how much i love monkeys and ziplines, it would seem like a no-brainer, right?
why i went with the jars, i'll never know. i was a little concerned about time constraints for the gibbons, as it was a 2 night/3 day program that took a day of travel to get there and back. it's not like the jars were easily accessible, but at least they were located closer to the other destinations i wanted to see. don't get me wrong, the jars were interesting, but i couldn't find a single one that was capable of swinging from trees, doing cute little human things, or throwing its poo. in fact, all they did was sit there and look mysterious. to this date, no one knows what these 3,000 year old giant jars were used for. theories are either food storage, alcohol fermentation or as burial/cremation bins. sure, that gives them a stonhenge-esque mystique, but still, no monkeys. next time i'm in laos, i'm heading north. oh, and to make matters worse, my sandal strap tore in phonsavanh, and while the town had scores of shops selling footwear, i couldn't find anything larger than doll size. good thing i had a ratty pair of tennis shoes tucked into my backpack.
bus 3 - phonsavanh to vientiane. this trip did nothing but confirm my hatred for all things bus. i couldn't get on a plane fast enough. well, i could, actually, thanks to lao airlines "losing" my reservation for the 6:30 a.m. flight to siem reap, cambodia. lucky for me, the busy vientiane airport has more than just one flight a day: they have five! willing to go anywhere beyond laos at that point, i jumped the next flight available, which at least put me in the right country********.
phew, i'm finally caught up with laos and ready to reveal the wonders and worries of cambodia. but sadly, i have already moved on to the next country. the next two countries, if you count brief layovers in airports. where am i now? only time will tell. stay tuned in a few weeks to find out.
-sg
* or understand me, either.
** hooray for run-on sentences!
*** robert palmer must be spinning in his grave. at least he had the courtesy to use dozens of sexy women in his videos.
**** possibly the same flamboyant guy from the 1st type of music videos.
***** or maybe it's just that all guys in thai videos are flamboyant.
****** okay, i did see a 50,000 kip note, but only on 2 occasions. banks + atms sure as hell didn't give them out.
******* or a plain, if you will.
******** you can never have too many asterisks.
3.21.2008
vang vieng via vientiane
jumping back again, to days 2-5 in laos:
after spending the night in a bed that was just as comfortable as the floor would've been*, i awoke, happy to find no lasting effects of the absinthe. then again, i'd only had one shot.
vientiane is a quaint little city, but it was time to move on. other than the wat and arc de triomphe thing (which i now know is called patuxai), all that was left to see was the lao natural history museum. after a whirlwind tour of the place before they closed for siesta, nadja and i jumped a bus up to vang vieng.
pha that luang. it looks like gold, but the inside is milk chocolate.
patuxai, the arc de triomphe knock-off. you can practically hear the french laughing at it..."a-haw haw haw."
laos was never designed with travel in mind. actually, the place wasn't designed with anything in mind, other than kicking it and choking on dust. travel is done almost exclusively by bus, over roads of varying quality and maintenance. there are no trains, and laos' only airline, the appropriately-named lao airlines, is not only impractical, but has a horrible reputation. for reasons that can only be interpreted as grim, they do not publish their safety record. and even if you do wanna risk life + limb aboard their crafts, chances are they're not flying where you wanna go, anyway. at least when it comes to buses, you have options: shitty buses, really shitty buses, and minibuses**. naturally, they don't refer to their shitty means of transport as shitty. for interpretation, please refer to the following table:
v.i.p. bus = shitty bus
local bus = really shitty bus
minibus = itty bitty shitty bus
with v.i.p. buses, you get the following amenities: luggage stowed in a lower compartment, seats that may or may not recline airplane-style, and an overhead a/c vent and reading light. the "reading light" is just for show, and the a/c vent can vary anywhere from non-working amenity to arctic hurricane gust. basically, you never know what you're getting until you climb aboard.
local buses, on the other hand, feature all the people, animals, luggage and anything portable that can fit into and on top of the vehicle. as an added feature, they will stop anywhere to pick up or drop off riders. sounds nice, right? well, it is if you're starting/ending your journey mid-route. for the rest of the riders, it just adds more time to the experience.
as for minibuses, the name conjures images of a shortbus. this sounds fun, right? in actuality, these are commuter vans, and are just as crowded as the v.i.p. bus, but smaller, and with a name that conveys less of an aura of prestige.
per the suggestions of some other travelers, i was told to try the local bus at least once, just for the experience. since the vientiane-vang vieng route is one of the shortest in the country (4-5 hours, at best), this seemed like the one to try.
basically, the ride was everything i expected, only longer. nadja + i were crammed into tiny plastic seats, surrounded by bags of farming supplies and locals, many of whom loved to play loud music through tinny cell phone speakers. apparently, these phones only hold about 3 songs each. by the end of the 7-hour ride, i could practically sing along to them, despite having no idea what the words were. eventually, we made it through winding, bumpy hills and into the promised land of vang vieng. the town has quite a reputation for fun. here's what i'd been told beforehand:
1. it's a small town, but a party town.
2. it's almost entirely tourists, aka highly westernized.
3. there are plenty of outdoor-related activities, the most popular of which is tubing down the river and stopping at its many bars for drinks and rope swings.
4. they serve delicious shakes.
5. they serve delicious shakes with "happy" ingredients; stuff that is technically illegal.
6. they all love the show "friends" and watch it non-stop.
7. everyone who goes there loves it, and has such a good time that they stay a few extra days at the expense of missing out on the rest of the country.
after spending something like 4 days there, here's my take on the above-mentioned points:
1. yes, it is a party town. it felt a lot like spring break, but with paler skin and more dreadlocks. crap, you see a lot of those types here, and they're almost always europeans. these ratty-haired folks with various tribal tattoos and other poorly thought-out designs may scream individuality at home, but when they all amass in another part of the world to eat, stink and be merry, they start to look awful homogenous. oh, the irony! at least they're wearing proper swim trunks, not the atrocious micromini-speedos of their wrinkly parents' generation.
2. yes, there is very little lao authenticity to this town. don't come for the culture; come to make fun of the europeans.
3. this is why we come here. all sorts of caving, kayaking, swimming and yes, the holy grail of it all, tubing. of the 2-3km of river that people float down, there are at least 40 bars, most of them clumped together. they range from tiny porches with a single cooler of beer to large compounds featuring volleyball courts, palapas, restaurants/kitchens, and rope swings + zip lines. as for the rope swings? if you're like me, you're probably picturing something simple like a rope, hanging from a tree branch over the river. not the case. instead, rickety bamboo structures of various heights (generally 6-10 meters) are set up, from which the brave*** can swing wildly out on steel cables, covering enormous parabolic arcs before plummeting into the river below. this can be a really intense and amazing experience, even when sober. i can't wait to find a reliable computer from which to upload videos.
mark (ireland), midair @ last bar
4. yes, they do serve delicious shakes. no meal is complete without an ice-cold, sugary concoction overloaded with fruity goodness. i preferred the mint ones.
5. yes, they serve these, too. i assume they also taste good, but from what i heard, potency and legality varied by restaurant. some places avoid trouble by paying the cops to look the other way. apparently, busting tourists is a huge racket here. there are all sorts of people working undercover, and stories abound of guesthouse owners who set up their own visitors for busts. getting caught is a fine that can reach $500+, the proceeds of which go to the arresting officer, but with a healthy commission for whoever else was involved. despite the inherent dangers, plenty of people still walk around town extolling the virtues of their altered shakes.
6. they do show ''friends" everywhere. at first, i was under the impression that the locals were obsessed with the show and just loved having it on. but in actuality, the restaurants all air it with the assumption that westerners love it, and whether or not they actually do, they still frequent said restaurants and stare slack-jawed at the screens as they eat their traditional lao meals of hamburgers, pizza and spaghetti.
7. "groundhog day" syndrome is strong here. vang vieng is fun, but drinking and tubing all day, followed by drinking and watching reruns at night can get very repetitive. VERY repetitive. almost everyone i spoke with shared stories of their planned 2-3 day visits stretching out to 5-7 days, or even longer. some people blame the constant partying, in conjunction with the only buses out of town leaving before 10 a.m. others just have too much of a good time in a relaxing place, and are hesitant to jump back on the long, bumpy road.
speaking of long, bumpy roads, they get worse than the vientiane-vang vieng route. much worse, as i learned when i finally left for luang prabang, to the north.
-sg
another laosy sunset.
at 8,800 kip to the dollar, everyone's a millionaire. or in my case, a seven hundred thousandaire.
uh, nadja? the temple's on your other right.
they were both holding little tiny roaches.
if you can't find a buddha nearby, just worship one of these...
* but with slightly less bugs.
** minibuses are equally shitty, just smaller. by some sort of mathematical equation (transitive? i forget), that relates to more shittiness per square foot for minibuses.
*** aka the intoxicated.
after spending the night in a bed that was just as comfortable as the floor would've been*, i awoke, happy to find no lasting effects of the absinthe. then again, i'd only had one shot.
vientiane is a quaint little city, but it was time to move on. other than the wat and arc de triomphe thing (which i now know is called patuxai), all that was left to see was the lao natural history museum. after a whirlwind tour of the place before they closed for siesta, nadja and i jumped a bus up to vang vieng.
pha that luang. it looks like gold, but the inside is milk chocolate.
patuxai, the arc de triomphe knock-off. you can practically hear the french laughing at it..."a-haw haw haw."
laos was never designed with travel in mind. actually, the place wasn't designed with anything in mind, other than kicking it and choking on dust. travel is done almost exclusively by bus, over roads of varying quality and maintenance. there are no trains, and laos' only airline, the appropriately-named lao airlines, is not only impractical, but has a horrible reputation. for reasons that can only be interpreted as grim, they do not publish their safety record. and even if you do wanna risk life + limb aboard their crafts, chances are they're not flying where you wanna go, anyway. at least when it comes to buses, you have options: shitty buses, really shitty buses, and minibuses**. naturally, they don't refer to their shitty means of transport as shitty. for interpretation, please refer to the following table:
v.i.p. bus = shitty bus
local bus = really shitty bus
minibus = itty bitty shitty bus
with v.i.p. buses, you get the following amenities: luggage stowed in a lower compartment, seats that may or may not recline airplane-style, and an overhead a/c vent and reading light. the "reading light" is just for show, and the a/c vent can vary anywhere from non-working amenity to arctic hurricane gust. basically, you never know what you're getting until you climb aboard.
local buses, on the other hand, feature all the people, animals, luggage and anything portable that can fit into and on top of the vehicle. as an added feature, they will stop anywhere to pick up or drop off riders. sounds nice, right? well, it is if you're starting/ending your journey mid-route. for the rest of the riders, it just adds more time to the experience.
as for minibuses, the name conjures images of a shortbus. this sounds fun, right? in actuality, these are commuter vans, and are just as crowded as the v.i.p. bus, but smaller, and with a name that conveys less of an aura of prestige.
per the suggestions of some other travelers, i was told to try the local bus at least once, just for the experience. since the vientiane-vang vieng route is one of the shortest in the country (4-5 hours, at best), this seemed like the one to try.
basically, the ride was everything i expected, only longer. nadja + i were crammed into tiny plastic seats, surrounded by bags of farming supplies and locals, many of whom loved to play loud music through tinny cell phone speakers. apparently, these phones only hold about 3 songs each. by the end of the 7-hour ride, i could practically sing along to them, despite having no idea what the words were. eventually, we made it through winding, bumpy hills and into the promised land of vang vieng. the town has quite a reputation for fun. here's what i'd been told beforehand:
1. it's a small town, but a party town.
2. it's almost entirely tourists, aka highly westernized.
3. there are plenty of outdoor-related activities, the most popular of which is tubing down the river and stopping at its many bars for drinks and rope swings.
4. they serve delicious shakes.
5. they serve delicious shakes with "happy" ingredients; stuff that is technically illegal.
6. they all love the show "friends" and watch it non-stop.
7. everyone who goes there loves it, and has such a good time that they stay a few extra days at the expense of missing out on the rest of the country.
after spending something like 4 days there, here's my take on the above-mentioned points:
1. yes, it is a party town. it felt a lot like spring break, but with paler skin and more dreadlocks. crap, you see a lot of those types here, and they're almost always europeans. these ratty-haired folks with various tribal tattoos and other poorly thought-out designs may scream individuality at home, but when they all amass in another part of the world to eat, stink and be merry, they start to look awful homogenous. oh, the irony! at least they're wearing proper swim trunks, not the atrocious micromini-speedos of their wrinkly parents' generation.
2. yes, there is very little lao authenticity to this town. don't come for the culture; come to make fun of the europeans.
3. this is why we come here. all sorts of caving, kayaking, swimming and yes, the holy grail of it all, tubing. of the 2-3km of river that people float down, there are at least 40 bars, most of them clumped together. they range from tiny porches with a single cooler of beer to large compounds featuring volleyball courts, palapas, restaurants/kitchens, and rope swings + zip lines. as for the rope swings? if you're like me, you're probably picturing something simple like a rope, hanging from a tree branch over the river. not the case. instead, rickety bamboo structures of various heights (generally 6-10 meters) are set up, from which the brave*** can swing wildly out on steel cables, covering enormous parabolic arcs before plummeting into the river below. this can be a really intense and amazing experience, even when sober. i can't wait to find a reliable computer from which to upload videos.
mark (ireland), midair @ last bar
4. yes, they do serve delicious shakes. no meal is complete without an ice-cold, sugary concoction overloaded with fruity goodness. i preferred the mint ones.
5. yes, they serve these, too. i assume they also taste good, but from what i heard, potency and legality varied by restaurant. some places avoid trouble by paying the cops to look the other way. apparently, busting tourists is a huge racket here. there are all sorts of people working undercover, and stories abound of guesthouse owners who set up their own visitors for busts. getting caught is a fine that can reach $500+, the proceeds of which go to the arresting officer, but with a healthy commission for whoever else was involved. despite the inherent dangers, plenty of people still walk around town extolling the virtues of their altered shakes.
6. they do show ''friends" everywhere. at first, i was under the impression that the locals were obsessed with the show and just loved having it on. but in actuality, the restaurants all air it with the assumption that westerners love it, and whether or not they actually do, they still frequent said restaurants and stare slack-jawed at the screens as they eat their traditional lao meals of hamburgers, pizza and spaghetti.
7. "groundhog day" syndrome is strong here. vang vieng is fun, but drinking and tubing all day, followed by drinking and watching reruns at night can get very repetitive. VERY repetitive. almost everyone i spoke with shared stories of their planned 2-3 day visits stretching out to 5-7 days, or even longer. some people blame the constant partying, in conjunction with the only buses out of town leaving before 10 a.m. others just have too much of a good time in a relaxing place, and are hesitant to jump back on the long, bumpy road.
speaking of long, bumpy roads, they get worse than the vientiane-vang vieng route. much worse, as i learned when i finally left for luang prabang, to the north.
-sg
another laosy sunset.
at 8,800 kip to the dollar, everyone's a millionaire. or in my case, a seven hundred thousandaire.
uh, nadja? the temple's on your other right.
they were both holding little tiny roaches.
if you can't find a buddha nearby, just worship one of these...
* but with slightly less bugs.
** minibuses are equally shitty, just smaller. by some sort of mathematical equation (transitive? i forget), that relates to more shittiness per square foot for minibuses.
*** aka the intoxicated.
3.20.2008
thirty.
some years back, i set a goal, or at least thought about setting a goal to see the world before i was thirty. this milestone unofficially marks the end of youth, a point at which you theoretically have to slow down your wanderlust, not by choice but as a necessity. after all, the older you get, the more tied down you are; to work, relationships, etc., and the harder it is to find time to step away.
my goal had a pretty open-ended objective, as it's difficult to quantify what actually counts as "seeing the world." did this mean literally visiting every country or territory within reason, or merely touching ground on all continents? or was it even just an excuse for stepping away from life as i knew it to open myself up to new experiences? as the big three-zero loomed ever closer, i leaned towards that final, more practical option.
watching the sun rise over one of mankind's greatest achievements ain't a bad way to spend a morning.
-sg
my goal had a pretty open-ended objective, as it's difficult to quantify what actually counts as "seeing the world." did this mean literally visiting every country or territory within reason, or merely touching ground on all continents? or was it even just an excuse for stepping away from life as i knew it to open myself up to new experiences? as the big three-zero loomed ever closer, i leaned towards that final, more practical option.
in true steve spirit, i managed to put off my biggest trip to date until the 11th hour. turning thirty on the road seemed like the perfect way to acknowledge reaching my goal. or reaching it in the easiest interpreted manner, at least. additionally, i cherished the idea of celebrating the big day in a truly unique experience. sure, dinner + drinks at one of my favorite restaurants with friends back home is always nice, but wouldn't it be great to ring in the new era by watching a sunrise from the top of a volcano in indonesia?
as nice as that sounds, it didn't happen. i'm still in cambodia, geographically close but logistically quite distant from the volcano in question. but i can't say i have any complaints about plan b...
ankor wat, siem reap province, cambodia
watching the sun rise over one of mankind's greatest achievements ain't a bad way to spend a morning.
i always wondered what it would feel like to turn thirty. would i panic? would it be depressing? would i feel like i was missing out on life, worried that i'm way behind on reaching my goals and fulfilling my dreams? or would i take it all in stride? in the past few months, mostly when celebrating other people's thirtieths, i'd get an antsy feeling for a brief moment. it was the same sensation i got as a kid at the end of summer vacations, when, looking back, i wondered what i could've done differently to maximize my fun and adventure. eventually, those feelings subsided by the time the school bells rang, as i accepted my fate and realized there was nothing i could do to change the past. ditto for grown-up steve.
thirty's no big deal, especially when you've adapted the "you are as old as you feel" mentality. and hey, if i can bike 50 kilometers in 95 degree heat, follow that up with a night out until 3:30 am, then wake up 90 minutes later for another full day of biking and temple gazing, then i'm just as young now as i was ten years ago.
jay-z was right. thirty is the new twenty.
-sg
3.19.2008
absinthe minded
first off, internet connections in cambodia leave me longing for the days of 28.8 modems. it takes 30-60 seconds to open up a page, and on top of that, half the buttons on my keyboard are sticking. and this is one of nicer cafes i've found.
that being said, there's no way i'm gonna be able to get many pictures online. not in siem reap, at least. more importantly, i still haven't written much about laos, so for now i may just skip around in terms of what i add on here. seeing as my trip hasn't involved any foresight or planning, there's no reason for the blog to be any different. yet for sore reason, i AM gonna start up where i left off before.
day 1 in laos was spent in vientiane, the capital city. this has to be the most laid-back capital in the world...very little traffic, very little noise, and none of the hustle and bustle you see in, well, any other urban area on the planet.
within mere feet of crossing the thailand/laos border, i met nadja (germany), zoe (nz) and stacy (nz). we spent the majority of the day together, exploring sights such as pha that luang and some arc d'triomphe knockoff for which i've already forgotten the name. the lao name and pronunciation were plenty difficult, i assure you. i'd look it up in my guidebook, but i left it at the guesthouse. and i could look it up online, but it would actually be quicker to find my book. pha that luang is a magnificent gold wat, and is the pride of laos. actually, beerlao is the true pride of laos; this gold-colored temple is a distant second. and as for the arc d'triomphe structure, it's a tad lopsided, and it's interior consists of multiple floors of souvenir shops. just like the one in france, i'm sure. on a side note, the structure was built with concrete donated by the u.s. in the 60's; concrete that was intended to be used to build a runway. we may have bombed the bejesus out of them, but at least we had the decency to give them some a mixture of stones, sand and water.
after strolling the tiny town and checking out the views of the shriveled, dry-season mekong river, nadja and i grabbed drinks on the 4th floor of a riverfront bar. opening the menu, i was shocked by two of the listings i saw: the first was absinthe, the second was its price: less than $3.
i've never had the stuff before, yet it has piqued my interest ever since hearing friend's tales of wormwood-based debauchery on study-abroad programs in europe. the closest i've ever come to the stuff was finding a bottle in canada, which didn't appear to be authentic, and still cost about $90. this bar offered bottle service for a whopping $25. laos 1, canada 0.
while the traditional french method of drinking absinthe is to dilute it by pouring water on a sugar cube above the drink, the laofolk use a more direct approach: the shot glass. oh well, at least i was getting an opportunity to try it.
all i had to do was smell the stuff to realize i wouldn't end up more than $3 in the hole on the stuff. this hooch was so strong, i half expected to see vapor lines rising from the glass. it took me 6 attempts to finally finish my 1.5 oz serving, but only after using a bottle of water and half of nadja's drink as chasers. i actually felt buzzed afterwards, but in more of a bad way than a good way. as in, "i think i'm going to end up under a toilet if i so much as smell the stuff again." there's video of me finally killing off the shot, but posting it's gonna have to wait.
will i ever try absinthe again? if served in the traditional manner, sure. in shot form, hell no. i'd be better off eating one of the mystery meals from the local markets.
-sg
that being said, there's no way i'm gonna be able to get many pictures online. not in siem reap, at least. more importantly, i still haven't written much about laos, so for now i may just skip around in terms of what i add on here. seeing as my trip hasn't involved any foresight or planning, there's no reason for the blog to be any different. yet for sore reason, i AM gonna start up where i left off before.
day 1 in laos was spent in vientiane, the capital city. this has to be the most laid-back capital in the world...very little traffic, very little noise, and none of the hustle and bustle you see in, well, any other urban area on the planet.
within mere feet of crossing the thailand/laos border, i met nadja (germany), zoe (nz) and stacy (nz). we spent the majority of the day together, exploring sights such as pha that luang and some arc d'triomphe knockoff for which i've already forgotten the name. the lao name and pronunciation were plenty difficult, i assure you. i'd look it up in my guidebook, but i left it at the guesthouse. and i could look it up online, but it would actually be quicker to find my book. pha that luang is a magnificent gold wat, and is the pride of laos. actually, beerlao is the true pride of laos; this gold-colored temple is a distant second. and as for the arc d'triomphe structure, it's a tad lopsided, and it's interior consists of multiple floors of souvenir shops. just like the one in france, i'm sure. on a side note, the structure was built with concrete donated by the u.s. in the 60's; concrete that was intended to be used to build a runway. we may have bombed the bejesus out of them, but at least we had the decency to give them some a mixture of stones, sand and water.
after strolling the tiny town and checking out the views of the shriveled, dry-season mekong river, nadja and i grabbed drinks on the 4th floor of a riverfront bar. opening the menu, i was shocked by two of the listings i saw: the first was absinthe, the second was its price: less than $3.
i've never had the stuff before, yet it has piqued my interest ever since hearing friend's tales of wormwood-based debauchery on study-abroad programs in europe. the closest i've ever come to the stuff was finding a bottle in canada, which didn't appear to be authentic, and still cost about $90. this bar offered bottle service for a whopping $25. laos 1, canada 0.
while the traditional french method of drinking absinthe is to dilute it by pouring water on a sugar cube above the drink, the laofolk use a more direct approach: the shot glass. oh well, at least i was getting an opportunity to try it.
all i had to do was smell the stuff to realize i wouldn't end up more than $3 in the hole on the stuff. this hooch was so strong, i half expected to see vapor lines rising from the glass. it took me 6 attempts to finally finish my 1.5 oz serving, but only after using a bottle of water and half of nadja's drink as chasers. i actually felt buzzed afterwards, but in more of a bad way than a good way. as in, "i think i'm going to end up under a toilet if i so much as smell the stuff again." there's video of me finally killing off the shot, but posting it's gonna have to wait.
will i ever try absinthe again? if served in the traditional manner, sure. in shot form, hell no. i'd be better off eating one of the mystery meals from the local markets.
-sg
3.16.2008
i'm doing a laosy job...
...keeping ye olde blogge up to date with my adventures in laos. actually, i've already moved on to cambodia, but before i explain the situation here, i better dig back into what's happened in the past 10 days. wow, time flies when everything around you is covered in them.
but enough about thailand. thailand is in the past, even more so than laos. and oddly enough, thailand's transportation methods are a walk in the park compared to the latter, a subject i'm sure to whine about later.
-technically pronounced "lao." supposedly, the "s" is silent. i think. crap, i don't know any more.
- landlocked.
- one of the poorest nations on the planet, with a gdp around $400.- the most heavily-bombed nation in history, thanks to the secret war, a u.s.-led effort to stop the spread of communism via 580,000+ bombing missions from 1964-1973.***
- practically cut off from the rest of the world until the past couple of decades.-very mellow and slow-paced.
-only recently, and slowly, recovering from socialism.-only recently paved.
-subject to a midnight curfew. yeah, really. everything closes @ 11:30.
-really, really dusty/hazy.
my internet cafe is about to close, and wow, i haven't even gotten to the juicy stuff yet. someday soon, you too will know of 120 proof shots in vientiane, choking down homemade rice whisky in luang prabang and pounding giant bottles of beerlao while tubing in vang vieng. jesus, was this trip all about drinking? of course not. only the fun parts.
-sg
* "their own .67 baht," as the locals say.
** america: fuck yeah!
*** ibid.
**** despite his midnight curfew.
3.12.2008
without a paddle
ko phi phi, though very pleasing to the eye, is a very touristy place. everything about the island caters to westerners, and there is very little remaining thai authenticity. almost all the restaurants feature identical, "westernized" menus of burgers, pasta and pizza in addition to their thai offerings. and all sorts of package tours are available - for scuba diving, snorkeling, sunset cruises, anything you'd want to do to keep yourself occupied - which, while convenient, tends to standardize everyone's experiences. but yeah, it's still a nice place, so we deal with it. but whenever there's a way to do something against the grain, i'm happy to give it a shot.
thankfully, mike, nick and myself were of all the mindset that shelling out $20 to board a crowded tour boat to visit ko phi phi lai was for suckers. we're young, fit guys, and figured we were more than capable of getting ourselves there, via kayak.* that way, we'd not only get exercise, but set our own schedule and spend as much time as we wanted at each location, as opposed to being shipped around by some thai guy who was following a master schedule. the only problem was, by our best estimates**, the island was a few miles away, and would take a lot of time and energy to circumnavigate. we decided to rest up that night, and get an early start the next morning.
naturally, we woke up, dressed, and stepped out of the place sometime around noon. going to bed early on ko phi phi isn't a legitimate option, especially with all the swedish girls out on the town. countless buckets of sang som eventually led us to a fine little place called "reggae bar," which featured a full-sized boxing ring, and free drinks for anyone willing to fight their friends. they had me at full-sized boxing ring. actually, it's a muai thai ring, but subtle differences mean very little to someone who's both drunk and energized.***
sure, i hadn't thrown a punch in years, and i was already way too intoxicated for a free bucket to have been of any use, but something about seeing that empty ring just made me want to get in there and start swinging fists. maybe i have some aggression to work out, or maybe it's 'cause i'm one of the biggest people in the country, i don't know. anyways, i spent ages coercing nick to get in the ring with me, and by the time he agreed, the lights came on and they told us we'd have to wait until the next night. crap! i'm not sure if i'd be able to get that drunk again that soon.
naturally, you can understand why we weren't up at the crack of dawn to begin paddling. when we finally made it to the docks, we found out they only had 2-man kayaks available. despite numerous recounts, our hung-over selves kept coming up with one extra person. rather than shell out an extra couple of dollars to put one of us in his own craft, we opted to triple up.
as it turns out, kayaks are a horrible place to be the third wheel. well, all places are, really. steering our rented craft was next to impossible. hell, keeping it afloat was hard enough. the kayak turned whenever it felt like it, as opposed to when we wanted, picking any random direction and fully committing itself to it. after taking nearly an hour to make it a half-mile to the nearest beach, we decided to have one person swim, or at the least hold onto the boat while in the water, in order to make any progress. it took us a couple hours to make it to the southernmost point of ko phi phi don, and by then it really didn't seem practical to try to navigate the open sea to the other island. sure, we visited some great spots on the way that other tourists rarely see (a small lagoon, a cave that was completely hidden from site, monkey beach, which, yes, featured monkeys, and another beach we dubbed "rubbish beach" for obvious reasons), but we'd fallen far short of our goal. oh well, we still didn't need to take a cheesy guided tour. we could just wake up early the next morning and hire a longtail boat to take us where we wanted.
when we woke up the next afternoon (remember the movie "groundhog day?" life on ko phi phi is a lot like that), we trudged our way to the docks, and found a guy to take us all around the island in 3 hours' time. we also had mike's friends shaun (uk) and shannon (new zealand) joining us. sure, we weren't getting there under our own power, but we'd still have our own boat to use to explore the place and take us wherever we wanted.
or not. as it turns out, our longtail boat operator was one of the worst, most heartless, scamming asshats in all of southeast asia. the trip started out fine, and our first stop was in a breathtakingly beautiful lagoon on the eastern side of the island. limestone karst formations rose high above the turquoise water, and we really felt isolated there, from the rest of the tourists and the rest of the world. after less than five minutes of jumping off the boat and taking in the scenery, the boat captain (he doesn't really deserve the title "captain." he's just the schmuck who had his hand on the engine lever) told us it was time to move on. "oh well," we thought. i'm sure the other parts of the island are equally beautiful. and if not, we could just come back, right?
our next stop was maya bay, where "the beach" was filmed. living in l.a., i really can't be bothered to check out a location just 'cause someone saw it fit to film something there, but this really was a beautiful place. the boat guy told us we had an hour to snorkel, a few hundred meters from the beach. this seemed like a lot of time, and i'm not sure why we were letting this guy determine how to spend it, but oh well, we went along with him.
the snorkeling was nice, but when we felt it was time to move on, we asked to go to shore on the actual beach. once there, a local guy in a "staff" t-shirt came up and demanded 200 baht ($6.67 or so) for access. that seemed a little high for someone with no real credibility, so we jumped back on the boat and told the guy we wanted to go back to the first lagoon.
no deal.
apparently, it would cost us an additional $15 to go back to that first, beautiful lagoon. wait a minute: we'd hired out the boat so he could take us where we wanted, but he was calling the shots. now, he was insisting he'd only travel clockwise around the island, and we were due to go to the next point of interest. we begged, pleaded and argued, but there was no way around it with this prick.
while we were disappointed when the boat took off and continued around the island, we were even more upset when he chose our next destination: a non-descript, shaded corner with no beach that he determined was yet another snorkeling point. wait a minute: we'd already had our fill of snorkeling. besides, the water at this new place was filthy. there was plenty of trash floating around, not to mention a thick oil slick. apparently, paradise was tainted, and this guy was only making it worse.
we mentioned that we wanted to move on, but he wouldn't budge. we said we wanted to go home early, but he still wouldn't take us. he informed us that, like it or not, we were to wait out the remainder of our three hours floating amongst the garbage in this unnamed part of the island.
talk about a buzzkill. here we were, having so much fun, and this selfish prick had to ruin it by more or less forcing us to his will. sure, we could've shelled out the $15 to go back to the first lagoon, but why give in to him? doing so would just empower him further. some of us were considering far more threatening measures. after all there was one of him (and he was small), and five of us. five angry people who felt absolutely cheated. it wouldn't have taken much to overpower him and even leave him stranded amongst the floating rubbish, but i don't think any of us wanted to risk running afoul of the law in thailand. angrily, we waited our time out, with some of us swimming, some trying to snorkel and some just stewing in our own juices on the boat. the ride back to ko phi phi don was a long, silent one, filled with plenty of stinkeye for the captain.
i'm sure the boat guy (all the boat guys, actually) pulls this scam every single day. and i'm sure more than enough people are willing to deal with it and shell out the extra money to go back to the parts they actually want to see. but you know what? the $15 dollars we kept in our pockets did far more damage to this country and our impression of it than that money could've possibly done in his pocket. i returned to shore feeling absolutely violated and cheated, by yet another lying asshole. there are so many people in this country looking to take advantage of tourists, to squeeze an extra couple of dollars (or cents, even) out of them. boat guy, your dishonesty makes me lose faith in EVERYONE in your country. sure, the locals may be full of smiles, but behind those smiles are devious plans to take advantage of visitors in any and every way possible. i was upset after the first few times people pulled scams (or tried to pull them, at least). but now, after boat guy, i feel like the innocence is lost. i can no longer trust anyone here, for fear that they're trying to fuck me over.****
i hope it was worth it, boat guy.
that's all i'm gonna say regarding ko phi phi. scammers aside, i enjoyed it. however, i do have a lot more to add on the subjects of trust + respect when it comes to the locals. hopefully, i'll post something soon, as well as updates on the week or so that i've been in laos.
-sg
* the thinking man's boat.
** looking at a single, most likely not-to-scale cartoon tourist map.
*** buckets are to thailand's tourist areas what cocktail glasses are to the rest of the world. traditionally, they feature a mixture of sang som, red bull and soda. and btw, red bull in thailand is much stronger than what we're used to.
**** or in the case of the prostitutes, fuck me, THEN fuck me over.
thankfully, mike, nick and myself were of all the mindset that shelling out $20 to board a crowded tour boat to visit ko phi phi lai was for suckers. we're young, fit guys, and figured we were more than capable of getting ourselves there, via kayak.* that way, we'd not only get exercise, but set our own schedule and spend as much time as we wanted at each location, as opposed to being shipped around by some thai guy who was following a master schedule. the only problem was, by our best estimates**, the island was a few miles away, and would take a lot of time and energy to circumnavigate. we decided to rest up that night, and get an early start the next morning.
naturally, we woke up, dressed, and stepped out of the place sometime around noon. going to bed early on ko phi phi isn't a legitimate option, especially with all the swedish girls out on the town. countless buckets of sang som eventually led us to a fine little place called "reggae bar," which featured a full-sized boxing ring, and free drinks for anyone willing to fight their friends. they had me at full-sized boxing ring. actually, it's a muai thai ring, but subtle differences mean very little to someone who's both drunk and energized.***
sure, i hadn't thrown a punch in years, and i was already way too intoxicated for a free bucket to have been of any use, but something about seeing that empty ring just made me want to get in there and start swinging fists. maybe i have some aggression to work out, or maybe it's 'cause i'm one of the biggest people in the country, i don't know. anyways, i spent ages coercing nick to get in the ring with me, and by the time he agreed, the lights came on and they told us we'd have to wait until the next night. crap! i'm not sure if i'd be able to get that drunk again that soon.
naturally, you can understand why we weren't up at the crack of dawn to begin paddling. when we finally made it to the docks, we found out they only had 2-man kayaks available. despite numerous recounts, our hung-over selves kept coming up with one extra person. rather than shell out an extra couple of dollars to put one of us in his own craft, we opted to triple up.
as it turns out, kayaks are a horrible place to be the third wheel. well, all places are, really. steering our rented craft was next to impossible. hell, keeping it afloat was hard enough. the kayak turned whenever it felt like it, as opposed to when we wanted, picking any random direction and fully committing itself to it. after taking nearly an hour to make it a half-mile to the nearest beach, we decided to have one person swim, or at the least hold onto the boat while in the water, in order to make any progress. it took us a couple hours to make it to the southernmost point of ko phi phi don, and by then it really didn't seem practical to try to navigate the open sea to the other island. sure, we visited some great spots on the way that other tourists rarely see (a small lagoon, a cave that was completely hidden from site, monkey beach, which, yes, featured monkeys, and another beach we dubbed "rubbish beach" for obvious reasons), but we'd fallen far short of our goal. oh well, we still didn't need to take a cheesy guided tour. we could just wake up early the next morning and hire a longtail boat to take us where we wanted.
when we woke up the next afternoon (remember the movie "groundhog day?" life on ko phi phi is a lot like that), we trudged our way to the docks, and found a guy to take us all around the island in 3 hours' time. we also had mike's friends shaun (uk) and shannon (new zealand) joining us. sure, we weren't getting there under our own power, but we'd still have our own boat to use to explore the place and take us wherever we wanted.
or not. as it turns out, our longtail boat operator was one of the worst, most heartless, scamming asshats in all of southeast asia. the trip started out fine, and our first stop was in a breathtakingly beautiful lagoon on the eastern side of the island. limestone karst formations rose high above the turquoise water, and we really felt isolated there, from the rest of the tourists and the rest of the world. after less than five minutes of jumping off the boat and taking in the scenery, the boat captain (he doesn't really deserve the title "captain." he's just the schmuck who had his hand on the engine lever) told us it was time to move on. "oh well," we thought. i'm sure the other parts of the island are equally beautiful. and if not, we could just come back, right?
our next stop was maya bay, where "the beach" was filmed. living in l.a., i really can't be bothered to check out a location just 'cause someone saw it fit to film something there, but this really was a beautiful place. the boat guy told us we had an hour to snorkel, a few hundred meters from the beach. this seemed like a lot of time, and i'm not sure why we were letting this guy determine how to spend it, but oh well, we went along with him.
the snorkeling was nice, but when we felt it was time to move on, we asked to go to shore on the actual beach. once there, a local guy in a "staff" t-shirt came up and demanded 200 baht ($6.67 or so) for access. that seemed a little high for someone with no real credibility, so we jumped back on the boat and told the guy we wanted to go back to the first lagoon.
no deal.
apparently, it would cost us an additional $15 to go back to that first, beautiful lagoon. wait a minute: we'd hired out the boat so he could take us where we wanted, but he was calling the shots. now, he was insisting he'd only travel clockwise around the island, and we were due to go to the next point of interest. we begged, pleaded and argued, but there was no way around it with this prick.
while we were disappointed when the boat took off and continued around the island, we were even more upset when he chose our next destination: a non-descript, shaded corner with no beach that he determined was yet another snorkeling point. wait a minute: we'd already had our fill of snorkeling. besides, the water at this new place was filthy. there was plenty of trash floating around, not to mention a thick oil slick. apparently, paradise was tainted, and this guy was only making it worse.
we mentioned that we wanted to move on, but he wouldn't budge. we said we wanted to go home early, but he still wouldn't take us. he informed us that, like it or not, we were to wait out the remainder of our three hours floating amongst the garbage in this unnamed part of the island.
talk about a buzzkill. here we were, having so much fun, and this selfish prick had to ruin it by more or less forcing us to his will. sure, we could've shelled out the $15 to go back to the first lagoon, but why give in to him? doing so would just empower him further. some of us were considering far more threatening measures. after all there was one of him (and he was small), and five of us. five angry people who felt absolutely cheated. it wouldn't have taken much to overpower him and even leave him stranded amongst the floating rubbish, but i don't think any of us wanted to risk running afoul of the law in thailand. angrily, we waited our time out, with some of us swimming, some trying to snorkel and some just stewing in our own juices on the boat. the ride back to ko phi phi don was a long, silent one, filled with plenty of stinkeye for the captain.
i'm sure the boat guy (all the boat guys, actually) pulls this scam every single day. and i'm sure more than enough people are willing to deal with it and shell out the extra money to go back to the parts they actually want to see. but you know what? the $15 dollars we kept in our pockets did far more damage to this country and our impression of it than that money could've possibly done in his pocket. i returned to shore feeling absolutely violated and cheated, by yet another lying asshole. there are so many people in this country looking to take advantage of tourists, to squeeze an extra couple of dollars (or cents, even) out of them. boat guy, your dishonesty makes me lose faith in EVERYONE in your country. sure, the locals may be full of smiles, but behind those smiles are devious plans to take advantage of visitors in any and every way possible. i was upset after the first few times people pulled scams (or tried to pull them, at least). but now, after boat guy, i feel like the innocence is lost. i can no longer trust anyone here, for fear that they're trying to fuck me over.****
i hope it was worth it, boat guy.
that's all i'm gonna say regarding ko phi phi. scammers aside, i enjoyed it. however, i do have a lot more to add on the subjects of trust + respect when it comes to the locals. hopefully, i'll post something soon, as well as updates on the week or so that i've been in laos.
-sg
* the thinking man's boat.
** looking at a single, most likely not-to-scale cartoon tourist map.
*** buckets are to thailand's tourist areas what cocktail glasses are to the rest of the world. traditionally, they feature a mixture of sang som, red bull and soda. and btw, red bull in thailand is much stronger than what we're used to.
**** or in the case of the prostitutes, fuck me, THEN fuck me over.
3.09.2008
showing off my ko phi phi-ness
since i'm lagging, i'm gonna skip the rest of the details of krabi for now. just imagine me having fun on various islands, boats and bars. and getting punched by a prostitute. that's right, i learned an important lesson on my last night in town: never tease a working girl by suggesting your rates are higher than hers, and she should be the one paying for potential liasons. for someone who only weighed about 100 pounds, she could really pack a punch.
behold, the narrow isthmus!
ko phi phi is a bit more expensive than the rest of thailand. more tourists = more gouging. we were willing to shell out a bit more for a room here, but even with the three of us together, i still paid twice as much as other places. as usual, the room we found seemed nice at first (3 beds, fans, hot shower, toilet with both a seat and the coveted "flush" option), but then the ol' thailand surprise reared it's ugly head. an ugly head supported by an abdomen, thorax and eight of the hairiest legs this side of the israeli volleyball game.
from the picture, it's hard to get a visual reference for how big this guy is. imagine if, for some strange reason, you were to grab him with your fist...his legs would still extend about 1-1.5 inches past either side of your hand. this was by far the biggest arachnid i've seen outside of a science classroom. needless to say, we weren't too fond of our uninvited 4th roommate. even dan seemed like a safer option at this point. luckily for us, he was gone by the end of the first night (the spider, not dan. i still encountered him a few more times). unluckily for us, we had no idea where he had gone. all the searching in the world wasn't helping. every night, we waited in fear that he would swoop down from the ceiling to take one of us away.
maya bay, ko phi phi lai, where "the beach" was filmed.
view from a porch at the top of ko phi phi.
-sg
*is there any other kind of isthmus than a narrow one? i think not.
ko phi phi was my next destination, and it involved a lot more fun and a lot less makeup-smeared fists. first off, a little history on ko phi phi...the name is pronounced "pee pee." this is a small attempt on the part of the thais to make up for the fact that the island of phuket is not pronounced as hilariously as it looks like it would be. "poo-ket" is more like it. but i digress.
ko phi phi consists of two islands: ko phi phi don, the northern one, and ko phi phi lai, the less northern one. don is populated, while lai is more of a nature reserve. don consists of two large rock formations connected by a narrow isthmus.* each side features a long crescent of white-sand beach, and the town lies between them. smaller, less accessible beaches lie scattered amongst the rest of the rocky coast. together, these islands are considered to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. sadly, it was also one of the hardest hit by the tsunami. approx. 4,000 people lost their lives here, and 70% of the structures were destroyed. numerous restaurants + shops featured pictures of the aftermath, and it's very heartwrenching to think about the tragedy that occured everywhere around you. most of the casualties were tourists, and from the looks of the place, young ones, too.
behold, the narrow isthmus!
but i didn't come here to mourn. i came to take in the views and get loaded, not necessarily in that order. actually, i didn't go there with the plan of partying, it's just something that happened. when in rome...
the trip from krabi to ko phi phi was great. on the boat, i met mike (canada) and nick (wales), and we ended up rooming and hanging out together for the next 4 nights. while on the boat, we also met dan lavigne (canada), one of the wildest, craziest senior citizens to ever roam the planet. dan is an anomaly of a mystery of an enigma of a man. with an appearance and gait reminiscent of a thin rodney dangerfield, this outspoken, self-declared genius, poet and troublemaker wanders the globe consuming any chemical he can grab while spreading his ultra-liberal rhetoric. his numerous stories left us in a state of shock and awe. i was afraid to interrupt him or question his veracity for fear that we'd miss out on other tales of life on the wild side. according to dan, he's made + lost a fortune twice, been stabbed four times, overdosed on cocaine in honduras, and has the governments of canada and the u.s. trying to track him down for his aggressive anti-tax paying measures, which he promotes via the web. and those were only the stories he had time to tell us on the brief boat ride.
once we hit land, me, mike + nick set off to find a place together, and were barely able to keep dan from tagging along. he's interesting, for sure, but i didn't want to be the one to give him mouth-to-mouth when his reckless lifestyle caught up with him. it's a good thing he was in more of a tranquilizer mood that day, or we wouldn't have been able to shake him. he's remarkably mobile for a 67 year-old drug fiend.
ko phi phi is a bit more expensive than the rest of thailand. more tourists = more gouging. we were willing to shell out a bit more for a room here, but even with the three of us together, i still paid twice as much as other places. as usual, the room we found seemed nice at first (3 beds, fans, hot shower, toilet with both a seat and the coveted "flush" option), but then the ol' thailand surprise reared it's ugly head. an ugly head supported by an abdomen, thorax and eight of the hairiest legs this side of the israeli volleyball game.
from the picture, it's hard to get a visual reference for how big this guy is. imagine if, for some strange reason, you were to grab him with your fist...his legs would still extend about 1-1.5 inches past either side of your hand. this was by far the biggest arachnid i've seen outside of a science classroom. needless to say, we weren't too fond of our uninvited 4th roommate. even dan seemed like a safer option at this point. luckily for us, he was gone by the end of the first night (the spider, not dan. i still encountered him a few more times). unluckily for us, we had no idea where he had gone. all the searching in the world wasn't helping. every night, we waited in fear that he would swoop down from the ceiling to take one of us away.
oh, and if the spider wasn't enough, the bathroom also featured permanently yellow water in the toilet, an increasingly funky odor none of us felt responsible for, and a spray nozzle powerful enough to rip the ceramic tiles off the floor. remember how they don't use toilet paper out here? well, the two other options for cleaning yourself are pouring a bucket of water on the offending area, or using said spray nozzle, which is just like the one on kitchen sinks back at home. this fancy place featured the latter, which i've actually become accustomed to (spraying saves precious t.p., after all), but why this nozzle was powered all the way up to 11, i'll never know. it hurt to use, and it had so much force that i'm sure i had water gushing out my nose and ears every time i pointed it towards my starfish.
bathroom atrocities aside, the place was fine. our first night featured a wide variety of alcohol, consumed with a wide variety of people: russians, canadians, norwegians, swedes and those are only the ones i remember. if i could just say one thing about the swedish women: holy shit. they were ALL beautiful. well, 9 out of 10, but those odds ain't bad. in a land where every tourist is sunburned and scarred from insect bites, motorcycle accidents and encounters with coral reefs, these blonde beauties walked around with perfect, flawless tanned skin. holy crap, how do they do that? i thought the asian girls were sexy; i'd all but forgotten about them when i was on ko phi phi. and yeah, with good reason: there were more swedes than thais on the island.
well, that's enough computer time for me. more adventures from ko phi phi to come, to be followed some day by all the adventures taking place north of the border in laos.
maya bay, ko phi phi lai, where "the beach" was filmed.
view from a porch at the top of ko phi phi.
-sg
*is there any other kind of isthmus than a narrow one? i think not.
3.08.2008
i'd phuket
back home, you can't even mention visiting the great kingdom of thailand without someone asking you if you've been to a ping-pong show. do they exist? you bet they do. well, i haven't seen one for myself (not yet, at least), but i know they're out there. 50 million touts who begged, pleaded and even tried dragging me by the arm to see them can't be wrong.
and you know what? it's not just the ping-pong show they offer anymore. to keep up with these wild and crazy times, those wild and crazy thais have stacked their repertoires with anything and everything sick perverts like you (and me) would want to see.
as an avid photographer, i've always wondered what the greatest photo i'd take in this land would feature. would it be a fiery sunrise over a white-sand beach? a saffron-cloaked monk posing in front of a gilded wat? a wrinkly-faced, toothless old woman wearing traditional indigenous dress? no, my friends, my finest picture has already been taken, and it features none of these clichéd subjects. it merely shows a list. not just any list though, but a menu of what you can see if you're willing to (allegedly) shell out 500 baht (approx. $13.67) on the backstreets of sukhomvit or silom in bangkok.
never in a million years did i think i would capture one of these menus on film. while every thai male from ages 14-60 seems to be carrying one, they are very discreet about showing them off, and all but deny their existence when you ask if you can photograph it. getting this photo involved a bit of pleading, begging, bribery and downright lying on my part. oddly enough, these are the exact skills the touts have used to con me time and again, so i'm really surprised they fell for it. dose of your own medicine, fuckers.
ladies and gentlemen, behold in all it's glory: sex show menu.
as i glanced over the list, every item made me laugh a little harder. in fact, it's been 3 days and i still can't read it with a straight face. if i could, i'd like to address the items on the menu, point-by-point:
1. okay, that's standard. whoop-de-doo. this is to thailand what the donkey show is to mexico. any guy with a 3rd-degree level of kink has seen this online a thousand times.
2. pussy cut banana? this is a little vague. does pussy wield a knife (or other sharp object), or does it merely snap a banana in half? i guess there's only one way to find out.
3. i'm sorry, this may be interesting to see, but it can't be healthy. not for pussy, and not for me, the second-hand smoker. at least pussy doesn't have to worry about yellow teeth and bad breath. well, maybe bad breath.
4. similar to #2. this may be a case of engrish, which is ubiquitous here. does pussy blow up a balloon, or merely pop it by firing something at it? the latter sounds much cooler.
5. wow, pussy is quite the multitasker. i'd love to have pussy at parties.
6. since grammar isn't really priority #1 on the menu, they could've just kept it short and said "pussy queef." the candle is incidental here.
7. i don't know, and i don't want to know. magic or not, it sounds painful.
8. what does pussy have against bananas? first it cuts them, now it shoots them? you'd think pussy and banana would be friends.
9. is this how it prepares to blow out the candle?
10. also a mystery. but hey, we all like magic tricks, right?
11. how delightfully asian!
12. once again, mysterious. this one really creates some colorful mental images, though.
13. this sounds painful. pass. by "pass," i mean, "sure, i'd watch."
14. this is my favorite, yet it's still open to ambiguity. does pussy merely write out a single letter of the alphabet, or is it composing an entire letter? and if it's writing a letter, will it write what i ask/tell it to? if so, this show would be priceless. pussy, take a memo..."dear mom and dad, you'll never guess what i saw today..."
15. again, painful. doesn't pussy bleed enough already?
16. i'm sure it's mis-worded, but we all get the point. isn't led zeppelin famous for something like this?
17. if fish don't float your boat, i'm sure an eel will. definitely go for this one.
18. yawn. who wants to see this when you can watch pussy write letter?
19. double yawn. this is like going to a fancy restaurant and ordering a hot dog.
20. typical thai ambiguity. priceless, i'm sure.
i'm writing this from laos. deep down inside, i have a feeling i left thailand a little prematurely.
-sg
and you know what? it's not just the ping-pong show they offer anymore. to keep up with these wild and crazy times, those wild and crazy thais have stacked their repertoires with anything and everything sick perverts like you (and me) would want to see.
as an avid photographer, i've always wondered what the greatest photo i'd take in this land would feature. would it be a fiery sunrise over a white-sand beach? a saffron-cloaked monk posing in front of a gilded wat? a wrinkly-faced, toothless old woman wearing traditional indigenous dress? no, my friends, my finest picture has already been taken, and it features none of these clichéd subjects. it merely shows a list. not just any list though, but a menu of what you can see if you're willing to (allegedly) shell out 500 baht (approx. $13.67) on the backstreets of sukhomvit or silom in bangkok.
never in a million years did i think i would capture one of these menus on film. while every thai male from ages 14-60 seems to be carrying one, they are very discreet about showing them off, and all but deny their existence when you ask if you can photograph it. getting this photo involved a bit of pleading, begging, bribery and downright lying on my part. oddly enough, these are the exact skills the touts have used to con me time and again, so i'm really surprised they fell for it. dose of your own medicine, fuckers.
ladies and gentlemen, behold in all it's glory: sex show menu.
as i glanced over the list, every item made me laugh a little harder. in fact, it's been 3 days and i still can't read it with a straight face. if i could, i'd like to address the items on the menu, point-by-point:
1. okay, that's standard. whoop-de-doo. this is to thailand what the donkey show is to mexico. any guy with a 3rd-degree level of kink has seen this online a thousand times.
2. pussy cut banana? this is a little vague. does pussy wield a knife (or other sharp object), or does it merely snap a banana in half? i guess there's only one way to find out.
3. i'm sorry, this may be interesting to see, but it can't be healthy. not for pussy, and not for me, the second-hand smoker. at least pussy doesn't have to worry about yellow teeth and bad breath. well, maybe bad breath.
4. similar to #2. this may be a case of engrish, which is ubiquitous here. does pussy blow up a balloon, or merely pop it by firing something at it? the latter sounds much cooler.
5. wow, pussy is quite the multitasker. i'd love to have pussy at parties.
6. since grammar isn't really priority #1 on the menu, they could've just kept it short and said "pussy queef." the candle is incidental here.
7. i don't know, and i don't want to know. magic or not, it sounds painful.
8. what does pussy have against bananas? first it cuts them, now it shoots them? you'd think pussy and banana would be friends.
9. is this how it prepares to blow out the candle?
10. also a mystery. but hey, we all like magic tricks, right?
11. how delightfully asian!
12. once again, mysterious. this one really creates some colorful mental images, though.
13. this sounds painful. pass. by "pass," i mean, "sure, i'd watch."
14. this is my favorite, yet it's still open to ambiguity. does pussy merely write out a single letter of the alphabet, or is it composing an entire letter? and if it's writing a letter, will it write what i ask/tell it to? if so, this show would be priceless. pussy, take a memo..."dear mom and dad, you'll never guess what i saw today..."
15. again, painful. doesn't pussy bleed enough already?
16. i'm sure it's mis-worded, but we all get the point. isn't led zeppelin famous for something like this?
17. if fish don't float your boat, i'm sure an eel will. definitely go for this one.
18. yawn. who wants to see this when you can watch pussy write letter?
19. double yawn. this is like going to a fancy restaurant and ordering a hot dog.
20. typical thai ambiguity. priceless, i'm sure.
i'm writing this from laos. deep down inside, i have a feeling i left thailand a little prematurely.
-sg
3.07.2008
krabi town
as i mentioned before, i ended up spending way too much time in krabi. was it really that fun of a place? no. it's a tame town and it rained too much. but i did manage to enjoy myself, mostly by spending my days elsewhere in the region and coming back to krabi to crash in the evening.
so yeah, my first day was a wash-out. i spent most of my time in the comfort of a cafe, trying to plan what i could do that didn't involve getting wet. as it turns out, the cafe was my only dry option, and i was already sick of it. rain or no rain, i decided to hike to the top of wat tham seua (tiger cave temple) on the outskirts of town. i hadn't bothered to read up on the place in any guide books, as frankly, that involves reading, and reading is for suckers. instead, i took off for the wat armed only with the knowledge passed on to me by another traveler: it has a big buddha statue at the top, and a great view of the area. works for me.
needless to say, i didn't put much thought or preparation into the journey. armed with a travel towel, sandals and a camera, i jumped in a cab and set off for higher ground. from the drive, i was able to make out a magnificent gold buddha sitting peacefully at the top of a hill*. how high of a hill? i don't know, but it takes 1,237 steps to reach the top. that's a lot of steps, especially when it's:
a) very hot
b) very humid
c) raining
d) made of steps that look like this:
okay, not all the steps were this evil. but altogether, ascending that many takes a lot of time and energy. for those of you in the know, the santa monica stairs, the famous exercise area for starbucks-wielding soccer moms, consists of 170 or so steps. multiply that by 7, and you get a pretty good idea how intense it is. and yeah, whether you're taking on 1,237 or 170 or even 12 steps, i'd highly recommend bringing along some water. live and learn.
once i finally made it, the view at the top was quite rewarding. one side offered sweeping views of the region, with steep rock formations scattered around the bay in the distance. the other side featured, well, not much other than thick fog. thankfully, the occasional karst formation still managed to poke through.
the giant buddha statue was very impressive, as were the smaller ones surrounding it. one of the upsides to taking on the stairs in the rain was there were very few other people there, and i pretty much had the entire place to myself.
well, i wasn't exactly alone. on the way down, i encountered a truly amazing sight. wonder of wonders, climbers of trees, the pinnacle of mother nature's acheivements: the monkey. it started out with only a few of them, playing peacefully on and around the stairs, but their numbers grew to about 50 in the half-hour i hung around. and you know what's great? they really didn't care that i was there. they went about their regular monkey lives right in front of me, completely oblivious to my existence. it felt like i was in jr. high all over again.
and the greatest thing of all about monkeys: everything, and i mean EVERYTHING they do is adorable. they would swing from trees, pick bugs off each other, share their food and slide down the handrails, all to my amusement. they look and act so much like humans, it's astonishing. and i'm not one to gush and get all girly, but crap, they were just so damn cute. hell, they could be swinging fetuses by their umbilical cords while wearing nazi uniforms and it would still look precious**. i sat in amazement as, right in front of me, a mother carried her baby and breastfed it, a juvenile climbed a tree to throw stuff at the others (not poo, unfortunately) and one frisky pair even started going at it. when i started laughing, the girl monkey*** looked up at me, started howling, then stepped away from the guy monkey. crap, i am an interspecies cockblocker. sorry for that, little guy.
eventually, it started to get dark and i had to leave the monkeys behind. i would've loved to take one home with me, but they'd never be able to adapt to my domesticated lifestyle of banana eating, howling and masturbating vigorously.
-sg
* "sitting peacefully" is not a good description of a buddha statue, as that's all those things seem to do. well, occasionally, they walk peacefully or recline peacefully. if a statue of an aggressive buddha exists, i haven't found it.
**i'm sorry, i don't know where that came from.
*** i assume it was a girl monkey. hell, it could've even been guy monkey, or god forbid, a ladyboy monkey. anything goes in thailand.
so yeah, my first day was a wash-out. i spent most of my time in the comfort of a cafe, trying to plan what i could do that didn't involve getting wet. as it turns out, the cafe was my only dry option, and i was already sick of it. rain or no rain, i decided to hike to the top of wat tham seua (tiger cave temple) on the outskirts of town. i hadn't bothered to read up on the place in any guide books, as frankly, that involves reading, and reading is for suckers. instead, i took off for the wat armed only with the knowledge passed on to me by another traveler: it has a big buddha statue at the top, and a great view of the area. works for me.
needless to say, i didn't put much thought or preparation into the journey. armed with a travel towel, sandals and a camera, i jumped in a cab and set off for higher ground. from the drive, i was able to make out a magnificent gold buddha sitting peacefully at the top of a hill*. how high of a hill? i don't know, but it takes 1,237 steps to reach the top. that's a lot of steps, especially when it's:
a) very hot
b) very humid
c) raining
d) made of steps that look like this:
okay, not all the steps were this evil. but altogether, ascending that many takes a lot of time and energy. for those of you in the know, the santa monica stairs, the famous exercise area for starbucks-wielding soccer moms, consists of 170 or so steps. multiply that by 7, and you get a pretty good idea how intense it is. and yeah, whether you're taking on 1,237 or 170 or even 12 steps, i'd highly recommend bringing along some water. live and learn.
once i finally made it, the view at the top was quite rewarding. one side offered sweeping views of the region, with steep rock formations scattered around the bay in the distance. the other side featured, well, not much other than thick fog. thankfully, the occasional karst formation still managed to poke through.
the giant buddha statue was very impressive, as were the smaller ones surrounding it. one of the upsides to taking on the stairs in the rain was there were very few other people there, and i pretty much had the entire place to myself.
well, i wasn't exactly alone. on the way down, i encountered a truly amazing sight. wonder of wonders, climbers of trees, the pinnacle of mother nature's acheivements: the monkey. it started out with only a few of them, playing peacefully on and around the stairs, but their numbers grew to about 50 in the half-hour i hung around. and you know what's great? they really didn't care that i was there. they went about their regular monkey lives right in front of me, completely oblivious to my existence. it felt like i was in jr. high all over again.
and the greatest thing of all about monkeys: everything, and i mean EVERYTHING they do is adorable. they would swing from trees, pick bugs off each other, share their food and slide down the handrails, all to my amusement. they look and act so much like humans, it's astonishing. and i'm not one to gush and get all girly, but crap, they were just so damn cute. hell, they could be swinging fetuses by their umbilical cords while wearing nazi uniforms and it would still look precious**. i sat in amazement as, right in front of me, a mother carried her baby and breastfed it, a juvenile climbed a tree to throw stuff at the others (not poo, unfortunately) and one frisky pair even started going at it. when i started laughing, the girl monkey*** looked up at me, started howling, then stepped away from the guy monkey. crap, i am an interspecies cockblocker. sorry for that, little guy.
eventually, it started to get dark and i had to leave the monkeys behind. i would've loved to take one home with me, but they'd never be able to adapt to my domesticated lifestyle of banana eating, howling and masturbating vigorously.
-sg
* "sitting peacefully" is not a good description of a buddha statue, as that's all those things seem to do. well, occasionally, they walk peacefully or recline peacefully. if a statue of an aggressive buddha exists, i haven't found it.
**i'm sorry, i don't know where that came from.
*** i assume it was a girl monkey. hell, it could've even been guy monkey, or god forbid, a ladyboy monkey. anything goes in thailand.
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