Manga Mondo

A place like this exists??

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Joc

Words can’t describe The Maldives. You have to watch this video I made to understand.

It must be the most beautiful place in the world because even in my wildest dreams, I can’t imagine somewhere more picturesque than this small island nation. The Maldives is a string of islands in the middle of nowhere in the Indian ocean. Google Map it.

I arrived from Colombo at Male airport, which is a man-made sand island. From there I boarded a 15 or so passenger sea plane to my hotel. Go on one of these if you ever have the chance. When I made my reservation, I told them that I was a travel writer, which I technically am, here’s the proof. So when I arrived, it was nice to see that they had upgraded me to a beachfront bungalow at no extra charge. The hotel is just an island. The staff lives there in a small staff village that the guests don’t go into. No cars, no motorcycles, you walk everywhere.

Everything was INCREDIBLY expensive…but I had a plan: Eat as much food as I can possibly fit in my face hole at the included breakfast buffet (which went until 10:00). Lay in the sun, fall asleep in a coconut pancake induced food coma and get sunburned. Wake up and rent snorkel equipment for $14/day and snorkel on the reef outside my room and sunburn the whole back of my body since I only managed to get the front while I was drooling on myself/sleeping after breakfast. Walk around the entire island, alone, (only took 45 minutes) while all the honeymooners stare judgementally at me. Do that again. Take a shower, eat a Clif bar and watch BBC news have a jolly good meldown about the birth of the royal baby. Watch the staff feed fish guts to a bunch of sting rays and smile awkwardly at me while they try to deduce where my husband was and who left whom at the alter. Go to the bar and buy one drink for $17 (at happy hour price, obvi) so I could eat 3 bowls of free banana chips. Sleep for 10 hours straight. Repeat X3. This place was so beautiful, it never got old. Although, one day I did go on a boat trip to another island for my daily snorkelling/sunburning activity. The guide talked to me, as I was the only person without a spouse, and was surprised when I asked about Maldivian culture because apparently no one had ever given a shit about it on any of his other trips in the last 7 years. I guess when you go on your honeymoon, your brain temporarily melts out of your head and gets replaced with those little paper umbrellas. So that was a little disappointing to hear, but whatever, at least I was the one whitey this guy had ever met that actually cared about his culture. Either that or I was the only solo female traveller on a small paradise island and he wanted to try his luck…

Anyway, this post is kind of short because that is literally all I did and it was awesome. Photos can describe it much better and also provide you with a new desktop backgroud at your depressing office, sorry had to say it, and if you’re offended it’s cause you know I am right. Smiley face. So check out the video I made of my photos (anyone who can guess where the theme song is from had an equally nerdy childhood). Here are a few of my favorites:

Hello paradise

The ocean was my husband on this trip so we color coordinated

This is an actual photo of where I lived for 3 days

Where’s Gilligan?

My day’s find

Time for re-thatching

There were a lotta selfies on this trip

Categories: Beach, Maldives, Paradise, Snorkeling, Uncategorized | Tags: Islands, Maldives, Paradise | 1 Comment

Sri Lanka

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Joc

Oh Sri Lanka, that’s interesting. So,why did you go there? A lot of people ask me this question when I tell them I went to Sri Lanka. It’s unfortunate because it’s one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been. Maybe the fact that no one sees any particular reason to go there is why it’s still so awesome and not overrun with neon tank-topped backpackers. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m no better than anyone else, I didn’t really have any intentions of going there either. When I was booking my flight to the Maldives (more later), everything transferred through Colombo so I thought, oh what the hell, I’ll spend a couple days there and see what it’s all about.

Sri Lankan Rupees

Since I had such a short amount of time (only 2 full days) I splurged and booked a private tour so that I could maximize my time. And when I say splurge, I mean I spent $300 for a veteran, fluent English speaking guide/driver, 3 nights in a hotel, food, and all transportation.

I was as grumpy as this Sri Lankan eggplant man

Things got off to a bit of a rocky start when I arrived at the airport in Bangkok and Sri Lankan airlines told me that my 7:30 PM flight (which I was confirmed on and checked in to) was full, sorry, but they could put me on a flight at 11AM the next day. Um, what? That wasn’t going to work at all since Raveen was supposed to pick me up at the airport at 10:00PM that night and drive an hour to the beach town, Negombo. Basically, Sri Lankan decided to change to a smaller plane and as a result 20+ people got bumped. I put away my recently acquired Thai sensibilities and went American on them. I stole so many faces at the airport. But, long story short, I got on a 10PM flight that night, which still disrupted my plans, but only by a few hours. A pregnant lady wasn’t allowed to fly and I’m convinced that since I made the biggest scene at the airport, they gave me her seat because they probably just wanted to get me the F outta there.

I arrived in Colombo without any other problems and Raveen picked me up. He was a 50ish year old, smiling Sri Lankan guy and he was really friendly. Since it was just going to be the two of us for 2 days, the 14 passenger van that the tour company provided us seemed like a good, economical transportation choice.

Tuk-tuks for all

The next morning we got an early start. We had a long trip ahead of us to Dambulla, a town in the middle of the country. The long drive was cool, I got a chance to see a lot of stuff. The whole 7 hour trip was on a 2 lane road; about 30% of the time we were in the correct lane. There are also more tuk-tuks in this country than I have ever seen anywhere. For a developing country, Sri Lankans have an amazing appreciation for nature, unlike I’ve seen anywhere else. Everything was so green and lush. We drove past textile factories, brick factories, rubber plantations, and small towns and there was no scarcity of trees. It was also a holiday and every 10 miles or so, there was a group of people with flags and whistles giving out free food and drinks.

Modern meets colonial

We got to the hotel around 2:00 and Raveen told me to meet him at 4:00 and we would go see elephants. I totally forgot what my itinerary was for the trip and when he told me this, honestly I was kind of like, oh great, this is going to be one of those “let’s take the white person to see some elephants chained to trees and feed them bananas” situations. I decided to get an Ayurvedic massage during my 2 hour break and it was relaxing and not painful which was a nice change from Thai massage.

Family photo

At 4:00 I headed to “see the elephants” and I was not excited. That sounds very spoiled of me, but I have already done the elephant thing in Thailand like half a dozen times, and while it is cool to see them up close, I didn’t come all the way to Sri Lanka to do the same thing I could do 2 hours from Bangkok.

This elephant has 5 legs

Wow, I was totally wrong. This was a safari. We drove through a national park for several hours on dirt paths and I saw probably close to 100 wild elephants. Despite still being endangered, Sri Lanka has the only growing elephant population in the world. They were in big herds in open fields hanging out and eating grass and making funny noises. I saw some tromping through the forest ripping off tree branches and just chowing down. They eat a lot. I also saw peacocks, water buffalo, monkeys, a not that exotic tree squirrel, lots of birds, and I ate some kind of delicious tree nut that a Sri Lankan guy gave me. So unexpectedly awesome.

Me and Raveen

The king of coconuts

On the way back to the hotel, I wanted to drink one of the ubiquitous orange coconuts that are for sale everywhere. They are aptly calle King Coconuts, and they are appropriately huge and golden. I had to pee about 10 minutes later. One of the things I will miss most about the tropics is the ability to buy a coconut for 50 cents, get it hacked open horror movie style with a butcher’s knife and drink it on the street, as opposed to going to Whole Foods to buy an 8 oz. bottle for $5.

nom nom nom nom nom

That night I ate lots of Sri Lankan food at the dinner buffet. The chefs were all surprised at me because A: I was a woman travelling alone, and B: because I passed by the big vats of Macaroni and Cheese and went for the small pots of delicious, spicy Sri Lankan foods. I couldn’t believe how many foreigners just ate pasta and Chicken Piccata and bread. What the hell is the point of coming here?? Whatever, more for me.

Girls going to school

The next day was kind of a mish mash of different activities. We were generally centered around Kandy, which is an important religious city in the center of the island. The “Temple of the Tooth” is located here which is supposed to house one of Buddha’s teeth. Apparently the monks at the temple have been corrupted and charge lots of money now to enter the complex, so I was ok skipping that.

Downtown Kandy

Cocaine

We went to a spice garden first. The central part of the country is like a Garden of Eden for spices. The gardens are all regulated by the government and you drive down the road and they are all numbered. Like they just have a big sign in front that says “16”. Raveen was surprisingly open about the fact that anything I buy here, he gets a kick back for. It’s something that is always assumed by the saavy tourist, but there was something refreshing about him telling me straight up instead of pretending like he didn’t. They grew so many things: nutmeg, rubber, jack fruit, cinnamon, peppercorn, rose something, something else, another thing, and cocaine but they said they don’t produce enough to make it illegal. Then I got another massage, this one for free, with a special Red Oil. After the tour, I’ll just say that Raveen’s honesty with me from the beginning paid off for him, pun intended.

Dig in

The next stop was really cool. Many people know that there are huge textile factories in Sri Lanka. When a company like Polo has shirts made, they produce roughly 110% of what is required so that if there are defects, it’s like an insurance policy. However, if the order is perfect, that extra 10% gets offloaded into the local market basically at cost. So we skipped over some of the touristy stuff on our itinerary to go to Raveen’s buddy’s house to shop, both of us. We took the massive van down a way too small back alley and wedged it in between a rock wall and a tree and went shopping. I got like $500 worth of clothes (at retail) for like $25. It almost beats the Nantucket Dump prices.

Progression of how a Batik is made

Elephants in progress

I wanted to see a Batik factory so we went there next. Batiks are cloth paintings made with wax. They paint with hot wax, then dye the cloth, peel the wax, paint again, dye the cloth again, peel the wax etc. I remember doing something similar when I was like 7, but the stuff these women were making was amazing, way better than an elementary school student from Connecticut. Sometimes they stitch gold thread into them when they are done.

Batik artist

After the Batiks, it was lunch time. We drove into downtown Kandy and wandered around for a little while before going to a tourist trap restaurant just outside the city. Despite not being local at all, I got a really awesome meal of 9 different bowls of Sri Lankan food so that I could try everything. I loved almost all of it except for the sardine paste.

Feast! …for one….

Photo I took while waiting for the car to start

You may be thinking, wow, it seems like this trip went so smoothly except for the flight issue in Bangkok… After lunch our trusty van wouldn’t start. I am no mechanic, but I have spent enough time in the developing world that I know everyone around me inherently has more knowledge about how an engine works than 95% of mechanics in America, so I wasn’t too concerned. I learned something new that day. On a standard car, if you push it and pop the clutch it will start. So 10 guys and a dog showed up out of nowhere, literally, we were in the forest on the top of a mountain, and pushed the car through the dirt parking lot while I helpfully stood and watched. Well, that didn’t work. So I learned something else new that day. If you push a large van down a mountain and pop the clutch, it will start. Voila, we were back in business and on our way to a tea plantation.

Fresh tea leaves

The Geragama Estate produces what is known worldwide as Ceylon Tea and has done so for over 100 years. They grow the tea, ferment it, and package it at this estate in the mountains outside of Kandy. I took a walk around and then sat and drank tea in a colonial-esque wooden room. The tea was flavored with 19th century British imperialism with undertones of Portugese occupation. There are several different types of tea that range in quality. In this particular area, they grow mostly black tea. By the way, the van was on the whole time, sitting outside of the factory. We asked a local guy to make sure no one stole it or any of the stuff inside. Thanks bro.

That was pretty much the end of my whirlwind tour. My only regret is that I didn’t have more time. I know that I only saw a fraction of all the amazing things this small country has to offer. It has everything that a mega tourism destination requires, minus the tourists, so go while you can, before the neon tank tops get there.

OMG ELEPHANTS!! – was basically my reaction

Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Things I will not miss (America version)….

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Joc

Let me begin by saying, I love America. While it’s tough to compete with Thailand (the land of ass hoses and lazy gym goers), I still think America is the best place in the world despite its flaws, of which there are many (FoxNews?). With that being said, when you spend a significant time abroad, you view your home country in a totally new light. The following is a list of things that always annoyed me when I was living in America, but became so much more pronounced when I went home over the holidays.

Frostbite will ensue.

1. The concept of “Wind Chill Factor”. I actually completely forgot about this weather term while living abroad. When I was in Chicago, there was a day when the high was -15 degrees Farenheit (-26C). That’s pretty f-ing cold to begin with, but when Al tells me that it’s going to be -53 with wind chill…?? WTF. The liquid in my eyeballs was literally freezing so I had to pull my scarf up over my eyes and walk blindly down the street which was covered in ice. Good thing I had health insurance…not.

2. Snow/Cold Hysteria, especially in the city. I think people watch too much apocalyptic, “end of the world” programming these days. The media certainly doesn’t help by naming every snow storm and cold snap something that triggers people to hysterically prepare for the second coming of Christ. I’ve managed to survive Snowpocalypse, Snowmageddon, a Polar Vortex and something in January called “Hercules”. If the end of the world comes in the form of snowflakes rather than fire raining down from the heavens and a bearded, Jewish ghost judging the living and the dead, then I am pretty fucking happy. What ever happened to just: Winter. In winter it’s cold and snowy, that is not news. In the near future when it stops being cold and snowy in January, well then that is news. Also, in the US (not counting Alaska) when has it ever been so cold or so snowy that the average, non-Rascal riding person couldn’t go out to get food? Like once every 15 years. And on those very rare days, do these people really not have ANY food in their houses to sustain them for 24-36 hours?? Then why do all the grocery stores look like they’ve been looted? There can’t possibly be that many handicapped and or elderly people clearing out all the shelves in the grocery store in preparation for a 4 inch snowfall. Worst case scenario Americans, if you don’t have any food and you are too lazy to shovel your front steps to get outside, you can survive off the blubber you’ve been storing up for the last 20 years for this exact situation; God knows you have plenty of it.

My favorite Thai food - This is 4 times the portion size that I get in Thailand

My favorite Thai food – This American portion is 4 times the size that I get in Thailand

3. Celebration of obesity. I am sick of hearing about people who are obese being raised up on a pedestal and regarded as a good example for young people because of their “confident, I don’t care what anyone thinks about me attitude”. I am NOT saying that it is ok to be cruel or mean to someone who is overweight, or to anyone for that matter. But it is even less OK to elevate fat people (yes, fat people, not curvy, not big boned – fat) to a place where they are regarded as “role models”, UNLESS they are making changes to get healthy. To tell children and other people that it is ok to be overweight and it’s the person inside who really matters is exactly the same as telling people it’s ok to smoke 2 packs a day if you are a kind person with a good heart. Health and personality are two totally separate things and someone’s obesity and the dangerous health effects associated with it should not be excused because they are nice and baked you cookies. If your friends smoke, you tell them they gotta quit smoking and it’s totally normal and fine. If your friends are fat, you should be able to tell them they gotta lose some weight and get healthier without looking like a total bitch. This concept is VERY uncomfortable for us, and even as I am writing it, I feel uncomfortable.

So much charm.

4. Public Transportation. The El is so charming. Look at all that charm strewn all over the floor and seats. The NY subway is also so charming, especially when I saw a homeless, black-out drunk man start dancing in front of a guy playing the trumpet at Union Station and then slip in a puddle (of pee?) and break his fall with his forehead, on a vertical I-beam. American individualism and independent attitude is a great thing in many ways. However, the lack of “we’re in this together” mentality that Asian cultures seem to have nailed means that, unlike American public transit, their trains are not covered in garbage, feces and vomit. They don’t smell like urine and they are not a make-shift shelter for homeless people. In fact, the trains in Bangkok, many places in Europe and even in Cameroon (despite being old and life threateningly dangerous) are some of the nicest, most well taken care of places to go in the city. If Thomas the Tank Engine were American, and not British, he’d have a black eye, be covered in gang graffiti and probably be drunk.

So thanks America, it was great to come home and see you, but I am just not that into you right now. I’m going to go back to Bangkok now where it is Tropicpacalypse every day.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: America, Obesity, Polar Vortex, Snow Hysteria, Snowpocalypse, Wind Chill | Leave a comment

Things I Won’t Miss…

Posted on December 16, 2013 by Joc

I love Thailand. In fact, most of what I write about on here is about how great it is. However, on the eve of my return to America (for 3 weeks), I want to reflect on the things in Thailand that I will not miss. Not even a little bit. If I never had to deal with/see any of these things ever again, I would be happy, but I know they will all be awaiting me upon my return in January. I’m sure just to even out the fact that I won’t have to encounter any of this stuff for 3 weeks, I will probably have to deal with no fewer than 3 of these things on my first day back, triggering a reverse, reverse culture shock meltdown.

10 Things I won’t miss:

Mine enemy.

1. The slip and slide on the womens’ bathroom stall floor caused by the ubiquitous Thai ass hose. You don’t want to use toilet paper? Fine. But could you at least exercise some control when using the hose so that I don’t have to step in whatever you hosed off your butt? This thing is so gross in so many ways. I just can’t even….

2. Taking, at minimum, 8 minutes to order/attempt to order one cheese pizza on the phone. I say “attempt” because only about 60% of these missions end in success. Sometimes when nearing minute number 7 of explaining that I just want a cheese pizza (not seafood supreme or hot dog explosion), the person taking my order will say “Chee pizza finit” – which means, we’re all out of cheese pizza. As an American, imagine this scenario occurring over an 8 minute phone call. Feel my pain.

3. Paying a significant amount in taxes and still being charged a “foreigner” fee at national monuments/attractions because I am white. Ok, I am willing to meet Thai people halfway on this one and say that maybe it’s ok to charge tourists more because they don’t pay taxes here. Fine, that’s reasonable. However, when I am charged this fee and I am paying more taxes than the majority of Thai citizens, and my expat friends of Asian descent get to walk in for free because they are Asian, I get mad.

Please put your hand in this water to use the scoop to “flush”

4. Squat toilets. And the people who say “oh they’re not that bad”. I’m not sure which thing annoys me more. I think the latter because there is no way that standing precariously on the edge of wet, polished porcelain, often when drunk, while trying not to pee on your feet or soak your clothing in standing “water” or accidentally slip and end up with your foot in the hole is “not that bad”. It’s pretty F-ing bad.

5. Being literally twice the size of most adult women (and many men) despite wearing a US size 4/6 and then having those same women say to me “I so fat! I need to lose my weight”. I take solace in knowing that part of the reason I am bigger is because I have muscles, that I could use to punch those women in the face with.

I’m not kidding, I couldn’t use this machine because the sad bear was using it

6. Going to the gym to do a real workout while Thai people hog all of the equipment and literally do nothing with it except take photos to put on Facebook. Thai food is not forgiving to the waistline of Western women, but Thai girls can eat it like Kobayashi and not gain an ounce. So I find myself at the gym cursing them while they walk at a .5 on the treadmill and I try to jumping-jack away the green curry.

7. Saying the phrase “I just want a god damn sandwich!” after trying for 40 minutes to find one that isn’t – A: prepackaged Wonderbread and mayonnaise, B: prepackaged Wonderbread and tuna (?) or C: prepackaged Wonderbread and some kind of brown paste.

Waiting to use their phones until they get in the stalls

8. Having to pee really badly and waiting 5 minutes for each Thai girl in front of me in the bathroom line to update her facebook status then take, edit and post a selfie from inside one of the two bathroom stalls. Besides spraying the ass hose everywhere, this is the only other logical explanation for what’s going on in there.

9. People not knowing who Adolf Hitler was or thinking he was just a “bad army guy” or even worse (yes this is true), that he is a comic book villain like Doctor Octopus. I’m not sure if this is more annoying or frightening. When I tell my students to choose someone famous and tell the class about them, someone always chooses Hitler; and then proceeds to talk about how he was the president of Germany and other benign facts, with no mention of the Holocaust. Geez, no one ever gives that guy credit for all the positive stuff he did.

10. My archenemies – Bangkok taxi drivers, for so so so many reasons. Even Thai people will agree with me on this one. It is illegal to refuse a ride to someone, apparently, unless you are a taxi driver. They have perfected a look of disgust that they use when they refuse to take me to where I want to go that would be appropriate to use if I were telling them that I just shit my pants and want to sit in their cab, not that I want to go 10 minutes down the street. I’m not even going to get started on how they shamelessly rip off everyone, even Thai people. I saw an article recently from hotels.com, that ranked Bangkok’s taxis as #8 in the world, and my immediate reaction was, oh there must have only been 8 cities surveyed.

Let me first say this again: I love Thailand. Secondly, I am aware that all Thai people are not like this, just like all Americans aren’t fat, but we are all loud. If these are my biggest gripes, I’m in a pretty good place. Don’t feel left out America, I will be doing the same for you in 3 weeks upon my return to the Land of Smiles and 8 minute pizza ordering.

Categories: Uncategorized | 2 Comments

It’s Poo-ket, Not Fuck-it

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Joc

Phuket

Brag Alert: When I have a long weekend, I can go to Phuket for the cost of two 30 racks of beer. And yes, that was the best price analogy I could come up with. Phuket, often mispronounced as Foo-ket, or Fuck-It, is a big tourist destination in the south of Thailand. It was also made famous after the 2004 Tsunami devastated some of the most highly populated areas.

Shipwrecked

I met up with some Thai friends while I was there so I got to see some of the real Phuket rather than the perfectly manicured resorts. Unfortunately this paradise has fallen victim to out of control tourism development (like much of Thailand) so being there with Thai people made a huge difference in my ability to visit an area that wasn’t swarming with sunburned Russians and sex-pats. We went to a really beautiful, quiet beach that still had forest along the shoreline rather than massage parlors and McDonald’s.

After lunch, I got all American and went swimming and walked around on the beach for 2 hours with no sunscreen while the Thai girls sat in the shade with their skin covered. When I’m a wrinkly old hag, they are gonna look like they’re 20.

Patong Beach – 9 years post Tsunami

Just in case

The next day, I wanted to go see what the area that got hit by the Tsunami looks like now. In 2004 the Tsunami hit this beach, Patong, and several thousand people, Thai and foreign, died. It’s pretty amazing, it’s almost impossible to tell that it ever happened, everything has been rebuilt. But the evacuation route signs all along the beach are a reminder.

Heeeeerrrrre fishy fishy

After checking out that scene, we went to a local fishing village. The people who live/work there are actually a kind of tribal people who are treated much like the tribes in the north. There were so many different kinds of fish, shellfish, lobsters and crabs. I admit that while the market was cool, I couldn’t help but think that a lot of these fish are probably highly endangered and were yanked from the already dying coral reefs. I’ve always been pretty sensitive about fish; this makes logical sense though because the Ouija board also told me that I was an octopus in my past life. I’ve never really liked eating fish, but when in Rome…

Tiger Prawns

We bought tiger prawns and squid, and nothing that looked like it could be Ariel’s best friend. We walked across the street and the restaurant just cooked them up for us. Well, not the squid, we ate that raw in a salad; I don’t much care for that consistency, it reminds me of a bouncy ball, but the squid doesn’t really taste like anything. The tiger prawns were so delicious. Eating fresh meat of any kind, and I mean like within 30 minutes of slaughter, has a totally different taste and it’s almost impossible to find in the developed world. The best meat I’ve ever eaten was in Africa actually. I understand why vampires drink blood, eating fresh meat is like eating life rather than eating death.

Unlike most of my other travels, nothing went wrong, I didn’t do anything stupid and miraculously, I came home injury free. So, The End.

A typical Sunday

Categories: Thailand, Thailand Beaches | Tags: Patong, Phuket, Thai food, Thailand, Tiger Prawns, Tsunami | Leave a comment

The North

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Joc

This post is shamefully late in being written, as in 6 months late, but better late than never I suppose. I’m really starting to embrace “Thai Time”. After drying out from Songkran (in April), we took a couple days to explore around the North of Thailand.

A real live money tree

First, we headed up a big mountain about 15K outside of Chiang Mai to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. I actually went here on my December trip to Chiang Mai, but it is so beautiful that I wanted to make sure I took my sister and friends to see it.

Making their rounds

This is a big temple complex built on the top of a mountain. Basically the legend goes like this: a monk found a relic which was thought to be Buddha’s shoulder bone…. I’m sure it actually was… It could disappear and glow and fly, just like a regular shoulder bone. One day, it split in half as shoulder bones often magically do. Half of it was enshrined in another temple and the King had the other half of it strapped to the back of a white elephant named Dumbo, or Babar or Horton, I can’t remember exactly. The elephant was released into the jungle and climbed all the way up this mountain then trumpeted 3 times and died. Doctors concluded that he hadn’t spent enough time on the stair master before attempting this strenuous trip. He probably should have just taken a pick-up truck taxi like we did. Now, the place where Mr. Suffleupagus kicked the bucket is the site of a really important, really impressive, Buddhist temple whose construction began in the late 1300s.

Our religious leader showing us how to fold lotuses

The main chedi is so golden that it literally blinds you when you look at it. You are supposed to walk 3 laps around the chedi and pray for good fortune. In the photo you can see the people walking around and praying. We got all Buddhist and took our lotus flowers and walked 3 laps around the chedi too. It was very peaceful. I understand why there has never been a war fought in the name of Buddhism; these people know how to chill the F out. Later, when I went to the bathroom, I found 5 Baht AND there was toilet paper, so it must have worked.

Also, there was this guy:

A delicate butterfly

Riding ON a truck is better than riding IN a truck

After visiting the temple we got back in our pick-up truck taxi, which Abby especially loved, and went to a local village. The truck bed had a cover over it and benches running from front to back. I felt like I was gonna barf from sitting inside so I hung off the back with Jantzen instead. Despite my clumsiness, I didn’t fall off, thank you very much.

Bangkok is pretty modern (at least the areas that I spend most of my time in) so it is easy to forget that Thailand is still a developing country. The houses in this village were of similar quality to those I saw in Africa, but not the same style. There were chickens running around all over the place and elevated houses with thatched roofs. There were ancient women sitting next to girls with infants who looked much too young to be mothers. They were selling nuts and dried fruits and of course letting the wacky foreigners sample everything.

The Simple Life

Many of the residents don’t speak Thai and adhere to much more traditional customs, including hunting with wooden crossbows! OMFG, YESSSSSSSS. For just 20 baht, we could shoot some kind of jungle fruit hanging from a string. The crossbow was handmade from wood and some kind of really strong grass. The arrows were also all wood. For the record, I am the most lethal, 2 out my 3 shots were bullseyes. Don’t mess.

Assasins

We wandered around this village for a little while and checked out some of the gardens. Everything was built on a hillside in the mountains so it was really beautiful.

Sister time!

From what I can understand, the Buddhism here is also very different from other parts of Thailand. Since these villages are largely inhabited by tribal people coming across the northern border from China and Burma, their religious practices are different. It appears that they have adopted some Buddhist practices (at least the people who lived in this particular village) but they also hold on to some more animist customs.

Mix of Religions

That night we went to an awesome Jazz bar called North Gate. If you’re in Chiang Mai, go, it was a lot of fun, but it closes early.

The next day, we went on a tour than encompassed a lot of different things (culture, nature, adventure) . I’m usually not a tour person, but when you have limited time, they are a good way to see and do lots of stuff in a short period of time, and that’s exactly what we did.

Long Neck woman

We started out at a village of Long Neck women. This Anthropology major could have easily spent the whole day there. So here’s the story: these people are a tribal group who originally came from Burma. Recent violence in Burma has forced many of them to flee across the border into Thailand. The problem is, Thailand is highly xenophobic. While Thai people are generally friendly and welcoming and it is easy to get a tourist visa, citizenship for a non-ethnically Thai person is nearly impossible, even if you live here for 20+ years and are married to a Thai person. Thailand is for the Thais; the Long Neck people are a sub-group of the Karen tribe and are ethnically Kayan. Consequently, they are existing in a sort of “no-man’s land” status of citizenship, as are their children. They are living in refugee camps in many cases and those who aren’t, are surviving on subsistence farming and money from tourism.

Long Neck Woman with her daughter

Kayan girl

Kayan woman with baby

As for the brass rings, the women start wearing the rings when they are kids. Their necks aren’t actually lengthened, but appear to be. Their collar bones are slowly deformed due to the weight of the rings and their rib cages compressed as they get older and add more rings. The women and girls were stunningly beautiful, we all commented on how gorgeous they were. The women are also really talented weavers. The scarves we’re wearing took 3 days each to weave and cost us about $9 each.

Tribal Girls

Local troublemakers

The Kayan people aren’t the only tribal people living in the north of Thailand. There are several other ethnic minorities who have fallen victim to similar circumstances and are squatting in Thailand. One of the largest tribes is the Karen people (of whom, the Kayan people are a sub-group). We also visited a Karen community. The Karen women do not wear the brass rings on their necks.

On average, I kill orchids about 1 day after I buy them

After getting yelled at by other obnoxious tourists for being 1 minute late back to the pick-up truck (one of the annoying parts of the group tours), we went to an orchid farm. The flowers were beautiful, but I was spoiled by the Botanic Gardens in Singapore so I was a snob about this place.

All aboard the elephant express.

Next up was the ubiquitous Thai elephant ride. This was my third elephant ride, and as I have said before, these beasts are slow and boring, but it is still really cool to be so close to them. People seem to have strong opinions about doing elephant rides. A lot of people argue that they don’t treat the elephants humanely, which I’m sure they don’t in many cases. But in my stong opinion about elephant riding, the alternative for these animals isn’t to live in happy Jungle Book land with Mowgli. It’s death; likely in a horrible way where they saw their faces off to get ivory and leave them to rot to death. I think that’s a worse scenario than walking around for 15 minutes eating grass and bananas while I sit on their back and take pictures.

Jungle

Next we went on about a 90 minute hike into the jungle to a cool waterfall. It was nice to be in nature. I miss it so badly. Bangkok has like 4 trees. We hung out there for a little while and then proceeded to the final activity.

Last on our day of Thai experiences was “white water rafting”. The only problem was that not only was there no white water, there was no water at all. April is the end of dry season so the rivers are at their lowest. We thought about this before the trip, but assumed that if they were offering it, they would take us to a river that had enough water in it to raft. Plus, the waterfall seemed to be doing just fine. Oh Thailand…. We basically just bounced from rock to rock for a few hours trying to wrench ourselves free. The most exciting part of the trip were all the drunk Thai people in the river doing post-Songkran celebrations and splashing us when we went by.

The north of Thailand is such a diverse, naturally beautiful place. Writing this post 6 months later is making me want to go back ASAP…

Sunset

Categories: Chiang Mai, Long Neck Women, Thailand | Tags: Chiang Mai, Doi Suthep, Elephant Ride, Karen Tribe, Kayan, Long Neck Tribe, Long Neck Women, Northern Thailand, Thailand | 1 Comment

Illiterate No More?

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Joc

I can officially read 4 words in Thai. READ. Not write or pronounce. Fortunately, anyone who has read my blog probably can’t really remember not being able to read or write. I think that by all official definitions, I am still considered illiterate and being illiterate really sucks. To my credit, I have learned to speak a functional amount of Thai, and I’ve learned how to say important things like “go eat jizz water” and “you are a buffalo” and “If you eat that, I will kill you”.

English may be a bitch to learn, but at least we only have 26 letters in our alphabet which are, in my opinion, easy to write. Thai Script on the other hand has 44 consonants, 15 vowel symbols (that can combine to form 28 vowel sounds), and 4 tone marks. On top of that, the vowels and tone marks can be arranged above/below/left/right of the main consonant letter. As far as I can tell, the concept of a “sentence” in English, does not exist in Thai so they are just lines of letters with no spaces. To it’s credit, Thai script looks really cool.

I’m sure that if I studied it, I could learn it. But instead, I developed my own highly sophisticated way of reading. I associate things with Thai letters that look like English. Let me demonstrate this technique:

Spot the Baht

The first word I learned is “Baht”, which is the Thai currency. In Thai, it’s บาท. To me, this looks like the English word urN (u, backwards r, backwards uppercase N). By virtue of not being a total idiot, I was able to figure this one out fairly easily.

I can also read the numbers 500, 3 and 0

Next is my addiction, Coke Zero. In Thai, it’s โค้ก ซีโร่ (thanks Furn). Which actually doesn’t look like any kind of English words. I drink a cancer causing amount of this nectar, but there are a lot of things that I eat and drink a lot of and I can’t recognize their names if I see them. Because Coke Zero looks like “Ean BTS” when they stylize the letters on the bottle/can (Ean like the name and BTS like the name of the sky train in Bangkok), I can read it. But in regular script, no way. However, knowing how to read this in Thai is almost 100% useless becasue the other side of the label says everything in English. I guess this one half counts.

Pull.

On the flip side, probably the most useful word I’ve “learned” to read is the word for “push”. In Thai it’s, ผลัก. To me, this looks like “wan”. After many lessons, the sign on the door to my building which I walk through multiple times every day finally taught me this word. Just like when I read the word push in English, I still pull. At least the Thai lessons were free.

U-S-A!!! U-S-A!!! U-S-A!!!

Last but not least, I learned the letters of whatever the brand of my laundry detergent is. Side note, for the first 2 months I was here, apparently I was only washing my clothes with a bottle of Downey fabric softener because I couldn’t read any of the bottles and I bought the wrong stuff. Anyway, I don’t even know how this is written in Thai or where to begin looking for it on the internet. But this laundry detergent is the most patriotic one on the shelf. USA brand. How could I not buy this??? I assume the text under the brand name says something like “This gets your clothes so fresh and so clean, clean.”

Categories: Thai Language, Thailand | Tags: Baht, Coke Zero, Learning Thai, Thai language | 1 Comment

Songkran 2013/2556

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Joc

Chiang Mai: Epicenter of Songkran

I trained every summer for my whole childhood to prepare for this moment: Songkran. Songkran is a 3 day celebration of the Thai New Year that occurs at the peak of hot season (Mid-April). To celebrate, people spend 3 days in the streets soaking each other with water. My sister, friends and I rang in the year 2556 in Koh Phi Phi and Chiang Mai so we had a taste of two VERY different celebration styles. Sorry to disappoint everyone, but there are still no flying cars in the future.

My first day of Songkran was spent on Koh Phi Phi. On my way to the boat (see previous entry about Phi Phi), the few Thai kids who live on the island were out splashing around and being adorable. They squirted us with little guns or splashed some water on us as we headed toward the harbor. We had no idea what an absolute drunken farang (foreigner) shit show was awaiting us upon our return.

Firearms + Farangs + Flames = Songkran Phi Phi

When we got back to the island around 5, the children were gone and the farangs were in full war mode. No wonder Thai people hate us. Farangs significantly outnumber Thai people on Phi Phi. As a result, Songkran in Phi Phi reflects how Western people would celebrate this holiday rather than how Thai people celebrate it. It was like war. While Thai people shoot you with a water gun and smile, cheer, and dance around, farangs drunkenly shoot a highly pressurized jet of water straight into your eyeball or ear. Their aim after drinking 2 bottles of Sangsom is unbelievably accurate. Luckily, Songkran on Phi Phi was only one day which is good because I think the Thai people would literally kill the farangs if they had to deal with one more day of that moronathon. Even though it was highly aggressive, I still had a great time, but one day was enough. We left Phi Phi the next day (some of us more hungover and wounded than others… ahem…) and flew to Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai is an awesome city to begin with, and then to be there to celebrate Songkran was a blast. We had a big group of people, and we were there on the 3rd day of Songkran which was apparently less wild than the previous two but still really fun.

Neon tank top time

We started around 10AM and went to meet our other group of friends. They were staying at a hotel with a baby pool full of water so we loaded up with water and went to the center of the Songkran celebrations. The street was totally packed with cars, pickup trucks full of people and barrels of water and motorcycles. A lot of the barrels are filled with ice water. So, even though its like a gabajillion degrees out, Songkran can actually get really cold. Getting a bucket of ice water splashed on you 100 times eventually takes its toll, but it’s so much fun you don’t even notice. Some people also carry around bowls of powder and put in on your cheeks if they feel inclined, but it gets washed off in like 2 seconds.

Faces of Celebration

Around 1:00, the foam party started. Now, we were all completely soaked, standing in street water that came about halfway up our calves and had foam pouring all over us. When the foam stopped spewing, we just kept walking/splashing/shooting. Of course, in my clumsiness, somehow my foot slid off my flip flop, and I cut the entire ball of my right foot open and broke my shoe that Meg had just brought me from the US . This was also only two days after my “performance” in Phi Phi so now I had a fat lip, and multiple open wounds. The foam mixed with street water will just clean those out right? Eh whatever, I could still walk. It was a Songkran Day Miracle that none of my self inflicted wounds got infected. Ironically, the only post Songkran damage I suffered was an ear infection from the damn farangs on Phi Phi. Happy 2556!

We're the 3 best friends that anyone could have. And we'll never never never leave each other.

We’re the 3 best friends that anyone could have. And we’ll never, ever, ever, ever, ever leave each other.

Categories: Chiang Mai, Koh Phi Phi, Songkran, Thai New Year, Thailand, Water Festival | Tags: Chiang Mai, Koh Phi Phi, Songkran, Thai New Year, Thailand, Tourism, Travel, Water Festival | Leave a comment

Paradise?

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Joc

There are 2 questions that people frequently ask me:

How’s TAIWAN?
What’s it like to live in paradise?

I am not even going to address the first question because it is so ignorant that I am mad at myself for even associating with people who would ask me that.

The second question is fair, assuming that I am a 50+ year old, fat, British or Australian man with a thing for Thai women. If that were the case, the place where I actually live, Bangkok, would be considered paradise. I think the Travel Channel’s incessant repeats of “21 Sexiest Beaches”, “Best Beaches in the World”, “World’s Hidden Beaches” and other diverse beach programming has conditioned people to think that all of Thailand is paradise. Thailand is, in fact, very diverse. While I don’t actually live in “Paradise”, a $5 bus ride or a 1 hour flight can get me pretty damn close so I’m going to take a step back and talk about the islands that I have had the opportunity to visit: Koh Samet, Koh Kood, Koh Tao, Koh Samui and Koh Phi Phi Don.

Koh Samet

View from my hotel porch

This is a small island east of Bangkok in the Gulf of Thailand. I decided to go here in October, about 2 weeks after I first arrived and it is still one of my favorite islands. I hopped on a bus for 300B (about $9USD) and headed east. Coach busses here are the same as the ones you took in middle school to go to the Science Museum. However, there is one major difference: for 9 bones I got a 3 hour ride to the coast, a bottle of water AND a snack. We are lucky if we even get water on an airplane in America anymore, and a snack?? Forget it. I was legitimately confused when this stuff was handed to me.

One of the other interesting parts about this trip was seeing the industrial sprawl of Bangkok. In America, we often hear about “our” manufacturing jobs going overseas, but until I saw the factories, I didn’t really see SE Asia for the manufacturing juggernaut that it is. When driving through American cities, even the largest ones, we are typically out of the built up areas and into farmland within an hour; maybe 30 minutes for the smaller cities. Here, it was over 2 hours before I exited factory land and saw my first crop.

Fishing boats

Anyway, back to paradise. When I arrived at the port, I took a ferry that cost like a dollar. It was a short trip and they put us on a working boat so it was a little different from the other ferries I’ve taken. Samet is a really great place because most of it is actually a national park so it hasn’t been scarred the same way so many other islands have been. The small main road in town takes about 10 minutes to stroll down and there are a handful of restaurants, and two 7-11s, across the street from each other. The road dead ends into the most popular beach on the island, Hat Sai Kaew, which literally translates to Crystal Sand Beach. I spent my day lounging around here and reading and just enjoying the view.

Curry!

That night, I found a great restaurant for dinner with a foreign owner who was a highly entertaining drunk. Since it was just the beginning of high season, the place wasn’t very busy and he sat with me and a German girl and ate dinner, which his Thai wife cooked for us. Still one of the best curries I’ve had. After that the German girl and I headed to the beach to check out the nightlife and watch one of the infamous fire shows. Those guys are crazy, but the drunk idiot, tourists are even crazier. All in all, even though I only spent a weekend here, I totally recommend it to anyone who wants to go somewhere that has clean water, some nightlife and isn’t covered in resorts.

Koh Kood

Postcard photo

Koh Kood is also in the Gulf of Thailand, further east than Samet. I won’t spend too much time talking about Koh Kood for a couple reasons. One, I already wrote about it in a previous entry (How to Spend 3 Weeks of Vacation). Two, I didn’t/couldn’t really

Happy New Year!

do much there since I was still beaten up pretty badly from my motorcycle accident in Pai. Koh Kood is definitely the least developed island I’ve been to. As a result, the water was the cleanest and the beaches were the nicest. We never left the resort because there was basically no town. Had I been alone, I would have gone insane, but I spent New Years there with about 10 of my friends so it was fun. We stayed in a bungalow that was on stilts on top of a stagnant pool of water, which made me a little nervous at first, but I got no mosquito bites. We just had mattresses on the floor and a couple bathrooms and it was perfect for our group.

Koh Tao

One fish, two fish…

Also known as Turtle Island. My next island trip didn’t happen until February when Doug came to visit. We took the overnight train to Chumpon and then ferried over to Koh Tao; this time on a real ferry, not a freight boat overflowing with palm fronds like the one I took to Samet. We got in early and parked it at the beach. The beach in Koh Tao is not as nice as Koh Kood or Koh Samet, but still, I can’t complain. I managed to completely sunburn almost my entire body within a few hours. Mission Accomplished.

Now that’s a sunset

We started that night at the beach watching the famous Koh Tao sunset. It was one of the most beautiful ones I have ever seen. Then it was food time. As of February, I had been in Thailand for about 4 months. With the exception of my pizza Christmas feast, I had pretty much only eaten Thai food. And there happened to be an Italian restaurant next to our hotel that had surprisingly good reviews on Trip Advisor so I dragged Doug there. I still do not understand why anyone who doesn’t live here would go to a non-Thai restaurant in Thailand unless a hangry ex-pat forces them. After that I introduced Doug to the orgasmically delicious banana pancake and we wandered around the town.

Herrrrre fishy fishy

Koh Tao is world famous for diving. So this officially means that I have been to 4 of the best diving places in the world… sans PADI certification. We had to go snorkeling, again, sorry Doug. We got on a tourist boat which took us around to lots of really good spots though. The first place it dropped us was actually kind of sad. The coral was almost completely bleached out and dead. It was like an underwater wasteland. So…. that was depressing. The next stops were amazing though, including Ao Leuk. I saw some of the most beautiful coral and fish that I have ever seen. This moment was probably the closest I have ever been to realizing my childhood dream of becoming a mermaid. I also felt better about my lame snorkeling situation when I saw the scuba divers just a few feet below us. And Doug saw a squid that I didn’t see, so he won in the end.

Coral Reefs

The last stop was Koh Nangyuan which is a small island orbiting Koh Tao. We had 2 hours there so we hiked up to the top of the island and got a really breathtaking view of the turquoise water.

At the summit

That night, we headed back to the beach, post sunset this time, and watched some fire shows. It got really entertaining when the guy accidentally threw his flaming nun chucks onto his kerosene can and all of his other props.

Koh Samui

Garden of Eden/Our hotel

These look way less scary on land

About 20 years ago, this island was probably amazing. Unfortunately now, it has been the victim of overzealous development and I don’t know that I would go back there, unless I got a free trip. This was our next stop after Koh Tao. Our first night we splurged and stayed at a resort that we had no business being in. It was absurdly nice. Promptly after check-in, we escaped the resort bubble, on foot, and had a goal of making it to Bophut beach, but we didn’t realize it was like 10K away. On the way, we stopped at a local market and saw the catch of the day. Sadly, there were Parrot fish in this market and sharks and other sea creatures that I don’t think the WWF would be happy to see on land.

Do people actually eat these?

We continued our trek and finally made it to the Fisherman’s village area at Bophut beach. This was actually the only part of Samui that I thought was nice. It was built up, but not horribly like the Chaweng area. The beach was still nice and the water looked fairly clean. We took a taxi back to our hotel and as part of our splurge, ate a really nice dinner at the hotel restaurant.

We like play banana boat!

The next day, after eating breakfast, which included cereal (big deal for me these days), we relocated to the Chaweng area of the island to meet up with some friends. We actually had a nice hotel that was right on the beach and in a quieter area. But as we all agreed, the actual beach was nothing particularly unique. It was lined with chairs and umbrellas and annoying people trying to sell us stuff. It could have easily been Mexico. But again, I shouldn’t complain. The highlight of the day was our banana boat ride, or as our students say “we play banana boat”. It was fun and only a few of us got kicked in the face.

Kayaking views

The following day we went to Ang Thong National Marine Park (a chain of islands west of Koh Samui) and went kayaking and hiking. This place was breathtaking. Everyone was experiencing varying degrees of hangover, except me, so the hour and a half boat ride was a little rough, and still drunken for some. When we got there, they put us in our kayaks and sent us on our way. After kayaking we went on our first hike, which was more like climbing stairs that were like half stairs/half ladders.

The “trail”

We continued on to another island for the big hike. This one was basically straight up a mountain for about an hour, which was really challenging in flip flops. They also had a rope tied to trees that zig zagged across the trail, but all it did was get in the way and make me try to climb over it or duck under it and almost fall to my death. Near the top the “trail” changed from dirt, rocks and trees to just rocks and trees, and finally to just really sharp rocks. But the view from the top was totally worth it. I’ll never forget it.

We clambered back down the mountain just in time to get rushed back on to the boat because the monsoon was coming. A literal monsoon, that’s what it’s called here. I thought the boat ride to Ang Thong was rough, but the trip home was just painful. Thank god I have spent a significant amount of my life on boats because otherwise I would have been barfing like lots of the other people. It was pouring rain, and we were heading straight into the wind in a basically uncovered boat, for 2 hours. Thailand is hot, but when you’re soaked to the bone and the wind is blowing 25 knots in your face, it’s not hot. So that was an unpleasant end.

Longtail Boat at Ang Thong

Did you mean sex or….?

For dinner, we went to a place called Green Bird and it was really good and comparatively cheap. I couldn’t resist shopping in the night market and bought a bunch of soap which I am still working my way through. Then we checked out the bar area of Chaweng and I really couldn’t tell the difference between Samui and Cabo. Same Same but different.

We flew Bangkok Airways home the next day. That is the nicest airline I’ve ever flown. We got to the gate and there was a free refreshment section with mini muffins, complimentary wifi and I felt like I was sitting on a couch at a resort hotel. Once aboard the plane, they served us a full meal, and the flight is only like an hour. What the hell America?

Koh Phi Phi Don

Longtails

Last but not least, Koh Phi Phi, pronounced pee pee. This island was wrecked by the tsunami in 2004 but has been completely rebuilt. There are no cars so the town is all built on small walking streets. This place was a tourist explosion, but for good reason.

Are we even related?

I went to Phi Phi with my sister and 3 friends from college. The first day, we just took it easy and hung out at the beach. The water was actually really dirty here, the worst I’ve seen so far, so that was a little disappointing. My friends had just flown in from the US, so our first day on Phi Phi was happily uneventful. We got some great Thai food for dinner on the beach and called it a night.

The next day, was the first day of Song Kran, which is the Thai New Year. They celebrate by throwing water on you. In the morning, only the kids were playing with water and we got splashed a little bit, nothing compared to what we would experience upon our return…

Mosquito Island

I’m here Leo! Where are you?

We hired a long tail boat to get us off party island and take us to the smaller uninhabited islands surrounding Phi Phi. It was just the 5 of us and a Japanese couple so it was basically a private trip. We went snorkeling and saw a bunch of really cool places, including Maya Bay, which is where they filmed the movie “The Beach”. These little beaches were the most beautiful ones I’ve been to; the sand was like sugar and the water was clean, so we took full advantage of that.

When we arrived back on the island, Song Kran was in full farang effect (farang is the word for foreigner). Gone were the little Thai kids splashing us with water. I can see why Thai people hate us. While the Thai people squirt you with a gun or splash a bucket on you, the farang get shit faced and pump their super soakers to full pressure and, shoot you right in the eye ball or ear. It’s more like war. And since the ratio of farang to Thai people on Phi Phi is in favor of the farang, walking home from the boat was like a battle zone.

Sister Time

It also happened to be Meg’s birthday, so for dinner we went to the Mexican restaurant across the street so we could enjoy some food without getting completely soaked. Well, the two margaritas and birthday shot got me off to a good start.

10:30?

After dinner we went to one of the infamous beach bars, Slinky’s, but on the way, this farang decided that she needed to drink an entire bottle of Sang Som served to me in a bucket. I remember about 30 more minutes of my night. From what we could all piece together, the black-out started around 9:30. During the next 2 hours, I danced with a guy swinging fire poi around my head, lost and retrieved my phone, camera and wallet (although I didn’t find my wallet until the next morning on a table outside my room), ate a piece of pizza, and stood with Meg in the middle of a circle of people who were just shooting us with water. My injuries would indicate that I also: fell no fewer than 5 times, hit my forehead on something, fell down at least one flight of stairs, and stepped on something that caused the entire bottom of my foot to bruise. I am still unsure of how I got the fat lip. Maybe Meg punched me in the face when she brought me back to the hotel room at 11:30 PM and I projectile vomited on her and myself while she was trying to put me in the shower. Happy Birthday Meg, welcome to paradise!

Categories: Koh Phi Phi, Koh Samet, Koh Samui, Koh Tao, Snorkeling, Thailand, Thailand Beaches | Tags: Koh Kood, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Samet, Koh Samui, Koh Tao, Longtail Boat, Paradise, Thailand, Thailand Beach, Tourism | 1 Comment

Angkor Wat

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Joc

Angkor Wat at Sunrise

As an American, the idea that “Bigger is Better” is the number one most important thing I think about every day. So, it was no surprise that I thought Angkor Wat was

Heyyyyyyyy, sexy lady

awesome because it is the largest religious monument in the world; we should relocate it to Texas. Angkor Wat was built by a Khmer King in the 12^th century, originally as a Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu. The Khmer empire was the largest pre-industrial empire in SE Asia, but I’m sure everyone already learned that in their history classes. Incidentally, the Angkorian Empire was brought down when the Ayutthayans (see previous entry) sacked the city in the 15^th century. Over the years, the religious observation of the people in the Khmer empires changed. As a result, Angkor Wat is now recognized as a Theravada Buddhist temple. Luckily for the historical sites, when the Khmer Rouge were in power in the 1970’s and during the subsequent civil war, there was not a great deal of damage done to the 1000+ temples. They were too busy committing unimaginable crimes against humanity.

I first learned about Angkor Wat in an art history class at Miami, and I remember distinctly when I was sitting in that class thinking, “Man, I am so hungover right now, thank God we are learning about something interesting”. I had a few days off from teaching and my sister Meg was visiting, so she, my friend John and I headed via bus to Siem Reap.

As some people know, I have a tendency to faint when I am standing for 1 hour+ in really hot areas (i.e. waiting in line for roller coasters). When it came time to cross the border into Cambodia and I saw that line of people, I knew exactly what was going to happen to me in about 55-65 minutes. I almost made it. When I got to the counter to get my passport stamped, I was literally holding on to the finger print machine so that I wouldn’t fall. My eyes were half blacked out as the guy was asking me what my intentions were. After we got through all that biznass, I crouched down in front of the counter so that I wouldn’t completely lose it and I think he was very surprised to only see a set of fingers gripping the edge of the counter when it came time to return my passport. On the plus side, I didn’t completely black out (only about 75%) and I’m sure I gave all those bored people waiting in line something to talk about. One of the guards offered me some kind of smelling liquid with Chinese symbols on it, but I politely declined and headed back to the bus.

How is this a good idea?

At the border, there are lots of casinos. Poi Pet, the border town is like no man’s land. Unfortunately, since my brain was melting out of my head, I couldn’t go in, but Meg and John had a chance to go gamble some Bahts and came out with a significant win of about 60 cents. We continued through the countryside of Cambodia on our way to Siem Reap and I noticed that it was significantly, but not surprisingly less developed than Thailand. When we got there we took a Tuk Tuk to our hotel. It seems like every city has a different style of Tuk Tuk and so far, Siem Reap has the most death defying version. It’s literally a motorcycle with a hitch welded on to it and it tows a cart that seats 4 people. So safe.

The beginning of the end.

After checking in to the hotel, we went to Pub Street which is the main nightlife road. The food was delicious and draft beers were only 50 cents, and since Cambodia’s currency is worth shit, they take USDs everywhere. We were well prepared with a stack of Washingtons. We also got a fish foot massage. Fish eating skin off your feet for 30 minutes is a strange sensation. Since I still felt impaired from my fainting spell, I thought it best not to drink, but Meg and John carried the torch…

Massage + can of beer

until 3:23 AM when I woke up to both of them spooning me at the same time. I reminded them that the alarm was going to go off in 36 minutes because we were going to meet our guide to take us to Angkor Wat at sunrise. I think John got 12 minutes and Meg got about 30.

I want some of what he’s on.

At 4:30, we were greeted by our guide. Robin Hood. That was his name. He had an unbelievable amount of cheer and energy and every time he said Angkor Wat, he said ANGKOR WAAAAAAT! in a loud cartoonish voice. I think maybe he had been a little bit rattled over the years. He was a child during the Khmer Rouge rule and was then in the army during the civil war. The Khmer Rouge separated children from parents so that the children wouldn’t try to get revenge for whatever happened to their parents and then used the children to carry out torture. About his time in the army he just said, “We had to just keep shooting because if we weren’t shooting them, they were shooting us”. Now, he’s a teacher and a tour guide to support his family. The English in Cambodia was excellent compared to Thailand. Robin Hood spoke very well and we met several other people who had been taught by Peace Corps volunteers.

The herd

Upon arrival to Angkor Wat at 5:00 AM, I had a better understanding of what a million tourists a year breaks down to on a daily basis. The one thing that was kind of disappointing about the trip was the number of tourists. The sun rose over the main temple like a giant red ball in the sky. It was pretty cool to see, and unfortunately my lack of photography skills prevented me from capturing it, but I won’t forget it. Robin Hood took us all around the temple and explained different carvings and buildings to us. The temple is covered in Apsara dancers (because of it’s Hindu origin) and they are all different. There are also amazing bas reliefs of big battles and important religious events.

Work it girl.

Our last stop was the top level of the temple which now represents Nirvana. We had to be covered to go up there so John and I went first and checked it out. There was a really peaceful lady monk singing at one of the small shrines which was quickly ruined by obnoxious Russian tourists yelling about getting her photo. I came down and gave Meg my extra shirt so she could check it out and John comfortably fell asleep on a rock.

Am I in a movie?

When we were finished with the main complex, Robin Hood hiked us through the jungle to the Ta Prohm complex. It used to be a university and is also where parts of

The jungle is hungry.

Tomb Raider were filmed. We did not see Angelina, but we did see many trashy looking Russians posing like her for photos. They love to pose, I don’t get it. This was probably my favorite site. The buildings were significantly more ruined because they had been constructed more hastily than Angkor Wat. There were Banyan trees growing out of the tops of several of them and piles and piles of ruined stone. Robin Hood had us climb over them to get to other areas which I am sure is not in line with any sustainable tourism standards but, meh. Some areas had been restored, but most of the former university was being eaten up by the jungle.

Legend of the Hidden Temple

Narcissism to the max.

Our next stop was the temple of faces called Angkor Thom. At the entrance to this complex, there is a large gate with a 4 sided face tower and balustrades supported by Naga (the snake god) and demons and humans playing tug of war. By this point, Meg was about 95% dead so she stayed in the Tuk Tuk and chatted with the driver while John and I made one last push to see this temple. It was really cool. The highlight of this building were the many 4 sided towers with all different faces of the narcissistic king that built it carved into them. Robin Hood had drank a Red Bull so his energy level was reaching cocainic proportions but the rest of us were exhausted so we hopped back in our death cart and went back to our hotel for nap time.

Faces everywhere

Kermit is delicious.

We checked out the night market where I got some cool stuff and then went to have dinner at the same place as the night before. We got some BBQ frogs which were delicious and more Khmer food. Meg went back to the hotel but John and I stayed out for $2 foot massages. He was on a 2AM bus back to Thailand, but Meg and I stayed until the next morning.

Our trip wound down fairly uneventfully except for when our bus drove in to on-coming traffic in Thailand on a 4 lane road. In Cambodia they drive on the correct side of the street, but in Thailand they drive on the left. I made it through the border without passing out which was a big victory.

We accomplished a lot in just 2 days. We saw the largest temple in the world, ate some frog, spent USDs as legitimate currency on the other side of the world, all passed out from different causes and survived riding on the most dangerous machine I have ever encountered.