I am Irony Man

I'm a huge fan of irony. I've never demonstrated irony so perfectly as on that April afternoon in 2009 when I sat for an hour in front of Akihabara Station, reading an actual book.


On the turntable: LCD Soundsystem, "LCD Soundsystem"

Door to Door

December, 2009

...slept poorly, with a bad stomach. Awoke at 4:40, vomited at 6, on a bus by 7. A long day of praying that my bowels would hold. Miki vomited at 8. No toilet on board, with a bathroom break on the side of the road, trying not to think about mines.

There was an Englishwoman on board who was finishing a long stint with an NGO in the jungle. She loved Cambodians, said she never saw one angry. Unlike Thais or Vietnamese, who were just looking to rip you off, the Cambodians are more friendly. They always seemed to be helping one another.

Further conversation was drowned out by the karaoke videos blaring through the bus speakers. The music was catchy in its own way, Ram Wong sounding like lazy calypso, with gentle free-styling rap lyrics, the hands of the dancers tracing small circles. The girls in the videos all wore traditional dresses, and had tall hair and long lashes, looking like they were at a Kennedy era garden party.

Got to the border at 2, processed through quickly. Met some farang on the other side, including a laid-back Canadian tennis instructor. For a few baht, we joined their minibus ride to Bangkok. Miki and I had originally planned to head due north, taking a couple of days to get to Nong Khai. I also knew that there was a train leaving Bangkok at 8pm, though I doubted we'd make it. Yet our driver, unasked, seemed as if he was trying to get us there on time, driving at dangerous speeds, passing on the left, and forcing oncoming traffic onto the shoulder.

We got to Hufflepuff Station five minutes before the train left. There was only one sleeping berth remaining, but Miki said she was fine in a reclining seat. She was comfortable enough, but didn't sleep all that well due to the cold air blowing through windows left open all night. I didn't mention to her that I'd had an excellent night's sleep in my cozy bunk. I did awake often, but I'd pull back the curtains to watch the jungle pass by in the dark.

The train arrived on time, which got us to Mut Mee Guest House by nine, allowing us to score the last room at this popular place. We had a lazy breakfast, our first food in 38 hours. In the afternoon, we rented bikes and rode out to the bizarre Sala Kaew Ku, with massive concrete nagas, Hindu and Buddhist gods, and walk through diorama of the wheel of life. In the temple itself, beside all the Buddhas, was the corpse of Luang Pu himself, as if contained by a snow globe, the hall flanked by photos of him, all doctored with a magic marker to fill in lips, eyebrows, and hairline. Back intown, we biked down the Mekong. Very slow pace here, tourists and locals chilling on cafe verandas. Cars and tuktuks drive sanely for a change. Climb up to the rooftop Buddha of Wat Lam Duan, look at the submerged chedi of Phra Tat Nong Khai. Even the market here is laid back, wide and clean, with no pushiness.

The rest of the two days I spend at Mut Mee, rocking back and forth in a hammock, watching the Mekong race by. The river is fast here, pulling fishing boats along quickly. I think how I've been on it twice before, hundreds of miles away both to the north and to the south. A boat repeatedly crosses between here and Laos on the far bank, transporting goods back and forth. I eat, read, get a massage, doze in my rustic bungalow with its wooden decks and shower open to the sky. After three weeks of hard and fast travel, it feels great to come to a complete stop. This pace, this life here is addicting; I could easily finish out my days here. Nothing to do but laugh at the cat siblings who ambush one another amidst the leaves and the rattan furniture. I think about how much cleaner Thailand is in comparison to Cambodia; how much more pleasant to be here, and I'm not sure why I felt so much resistance to the country to the east.

I have another massage, the most intense of my life, this small woman's elbows grinding into the areas I most need it. But the pain. As she presses onto my outer chest from above, she inadvertently gives me an Indian burn, and I howl in pain. "Too tense," she says. Afterward, I fall asleep in a hammock, and am spacey for the rest of the day. An excellent night's sleep follows...


On the turntable: Louis Armstrong, "Stockholm 1959"
On the nighttable: Eric Blehm, "The Last Season"

Pehnning Phnom

December 2009

...Bustling, noisy, expensive city. People less friendly than in Siam Reap, but then again, they've had a harder history. More beggars and amputees. One guy had shriveled legs folded well past his hips like an extreme version of Cow Face Pose. Far more bicycles than cars, but Black Lexus SUVs prevail, the apparent replacement for the white Landcruiser legacy of the UN days. Motorbikes everywhere, some with up to 4 riders, including kids. One woman has her child tucked under her left arm as she worked the throttle with her right. Some girls use an underhand grip, on the handlebars, nearly all wearing gloves and long sleeves. Other girls sit side saddle behind their beaus, completely relaxed, not at all concerned with the wind mussing their hair or clothes. Traffic is less hectic than in Bangkok, but it is more anarchic, cars and bikes rush into every intersection, stop, then steer to untangle the snarl. A white woman pedals through it all, prudently wearing her bike helmet...

...monk begging in late morning, a woman on her knees before him. The jingle of ice cream vendors. The riot of noise of funerals. French buildings with ornate trellis designs on balconies. Cyclos more often seen ferrying goods than people...

...great respect for life, more so than in other parts of Asia. Then again, these people know suffering. The love of children is especially strong. The rebuilding of a culture can be measured in its number of children...

...when I was in Vietnam in 1997, I'd spent some time with European aid workers who'd fled the coup that summer. They'd told me that the average Cambodian was fairly stupid and unskilled, the majority of its educated class having been executed by the Khmer Rouge. I don't find this to be true now, yet Phnom Pehn seems a little less educated than the tourist-savvy Siam Reap. Two of three tuk-tuk rides end up with me giving the directions...

...didn't sleep well at all during my time in Phnom Pehn, disturbed perhaps by the ghosts of those who'd died there. Physically felt ill as well, my nervous stomach constantly upset. I felt much more at ease after crossing back to Thailand...

...the name "Lucky" for the supermarket really sums it up. US goods at US prices. A few Westerners are shopping there. I'm baffled by Cambodia, this 3rd world country with a 1st world economy. Far too touristy now. I realize that every place has its 'heyday,' but to visit afterward is perfectly valid. The experience you create will forever be your own. Yet I feel that I blew it in not coming here sooner, either in 2003, or in 1997, as I'd planned. Had I come in '97, I couldn't have seen much of Angkor, but I would have seen the country at an important time in its development...

...had a burger at Rabbit Cafe, staffed with handicapped workers. Likewise, I'd had a massage from a blind masseuse the night before. She hadn't been that good -too soft - and seemingly had a cold, constantly sniffling throughout. But I liked the gentle birdlike chirping of her conversation with the woman beside her. Later, when I saw a sign in front of another place with the words, "Massage by Blind Person," I cringed a little...

...Chan Muslim school and town, women in headscarves bike to the mosque...

...two naked children play with a bicycle tire...

...Cambodians laid-back about haggling, not too good at it. Thais, by contrast, will actually walk away rather than offer a counterprice...

...motorbikes attached to what looks like a rowboat, with slats of wood running the length, atop which passengers sit...

...monkeys and elephants and beggars around the base of Wat Phnom. Hundreds of statues inside...

...a taste of colonial flavor in a coffee in the Elephant Bar at the Hotel Le Royal. Now restored and part of the Raffles chain, this legendary hotel had once been a star on the SE Asian colonial circuit. It served as a refuge for foreign journalists during the Vietnam War, then a sanctuary once the Khmer Rouge rolled into town. Continuing the theme, we finish the afternoon at the Foreign Correspondents Club. Happy hour beers drunk at the window, watching the last boats of the day go up the Tonle Sap. We talk with a brother and sister from the States. He's taking a group of 18 year old on a 10 month world trip. She works for an art group in Marin, most recently having hosted Gary Snyder at a reading...

...peace from the city's bustle found at the mellow history museum. Beautiful arched roofs around a lovely courtyard, the statues open to the air. Incredible to see the pieces that were missing from Angkor...

...fat cops arbitrarily point their red and white sticks at cars and trucks, pocketing wads of rolled-up baksheesh handed through windows...

...OK Guest House just that, merely okay. The staff a little surly. One guy actually seemed angry when we caught his mistake on the bill. Rather than apologize, he simply said, "Pay what you like"...

...The Killing Fields. Such a beautiful morning. Surreal to hear the voices of children as we look at the tower of bones. Chickens peck in and around the mass graves. Miki and I circumambulate the as yet disinterred mass grave, filled in as a swamp. A boy follows along on the opposite side of the fence, begging for money. In a patois strangely similar to JarJar Binks, he goes on about not going to school, about the cops always beating up on him. As we say our multiple "Sorrys," he begins to plead, his voice raised in volume and fervor. It adds an bizarre, somber accent to an already somber walk. We come back to the excavated graves again, and Miki begins to weep. She tells me later that coming from Hiroshima, she feels a kind of affinity with these victims of mass violence.
We finish our visit with a short film in the museum. It is so badly produced that I would've laughed had I been anywhere but here. The soundtrack had cliche'd horror movie music, along with occasional werewolf howls. I think that the true power of this place is enough to move anyone. The film's overwrought emotion is almost parody. In the yard again, we see a palm tree pushing up through the dead trunk of an oak, proving once again the resilience of life...

...Toul Sleng,a shop of horrors. Being in the torture rooms makes me feel physically ill. The wooden cells aren't much better, like narrow rodeo chutes. The photos of the victims are surprising in their complete lack of emotion on their faces, showing no fear, no anger. It is like they've already accepted their fates. I wonder what was going on in the minds of the children. In the final building is an interesting photo display by a Swedish socialist who'd been a member of a group brought to Cambodia in 1978 to tour the country. Interesting to see his comments from 2008, written from the vantage point of history and hindsight. As I walk these grounds, I watch the other visitors, and am unable to grasp the mentality of those who want to shoot video here, or at The Killing Fields. I can't take much more and make for the main gate. It feels strange to walk out of Toul Sleng prison, considering that, between 1975 and 1979, almost no one did...


On the turntable: Son House, "Father of the Delta Blues"

Road to Phnom Pehn

December 2009

...The distended belly of a child playing with friends. Another boy slides naked down the rough wooden steps of his home. Yet another throws fruit to a monkey tied to a tree, the monkey nearly his size. Many homes have ads for tobacco or for political parties. Two men soak up to their necks in brown muddy water. Women sit under netting and pick tea. Heavy stares in a rural roadside market. A smile to an old woman in the market isn't returned. A French man buys a huge spider as a snack. Miki chooses rice mashed with banana. Motorcycles in the bus's luggage hold. The karaoke videos on the bus share a common theme: poor country/city boy pursues glamorous girl of obviously higher social status. The karaoke vids are eventually replaced by noisy Cambodian manzai routines. Heading south into a landscape that is lakes and streams, then rice fields lined with palms, then forests laden with banana trees...


On the turntable: Pink Floyd, "Meddle"

Angkor: Dreams in Stone

December 2009

...Bayon smirking faces hiding secrets they won't reveal...

...monotonal hum of cicadas creates a supernatural, otherworldly feel, like film suspense music, or that track by Black Sabbath, "E5150." Any musician could quickly identify this pitch...

...two boy monks linger atop the ruins of Preah Palilay. At the foot of the ruin, a woman bathes in a sarong. A temple is a short walk away, where the head monk is busy blessing a young couple...

...a Cambodian tour guide at Angkor speaks with a Cockney accent...

...frustration at the ongoing construction at Angkor, and the inability to enter the innermost, and therefore holiest, sanctum...

...visiting Angkor at sunrise. Walking through the temple in the dark is like walking to some pagan sacrifice. The coming light brings out the temple's features, like Shiva's trident. I like the temple more like this, from a distance, features indistinguishable. Later, we have coffee and baguettes on the grass, with the temple's reflection appearing amidst the lilys on the surface of the pond...

...Miki shopping at Rin's stand, while I play with her 1 year old daughter. Rin assumes Miki is Japanese because she's 'not sexy' like the more fashionably dressed Chinese...

...ruins are more interesting the more disheveled they are. It was great to walk through the forest of Angkor Thom, duck through a hole to see a new pile of stones before us...

...head craned upward in order to aim a camera has become a form of worship of sorts, a new form up supplication...

...the landmine orchestra stops their playing once the tourists pass by...

...finding solitude in an empty courtyard of Ta Prohm, eating dried pineapple amidst the broken walls and persistent tree limbs...

...road to Bantrey Srei. A sign written with "We Don't Need Weapons." Another sign for battered wives. NGO offices interspersed throughout the jungle. Kids play in the canals. Land for sale. Volleyball games here and there. Jackfruit for sale. A hello Kitty tuk-tuk. Coconuts piled in the corner of a yard look like skulls. A guy drives golf balls out into the open fields. Eight people piled into one tuk-tuk. Miki falls asleep in ours. Later, a trio on a motorbike warns her about her scarf, which is blowing precariously close to the rear wheels--potential to strangle her, break her neck, throw her from the vehicle. A thought keeps reoccurring in my head: "Democracy comes from the Barrel of a Gun"...

...the red dust and porous rock of Bantrey Srei. Cambodians bicker in the forest beyond, cows far more grave beyond them. Entered the site after having lunch, next to a hefty, happy Frenchman. It's never a good sign when the toilets smell like what you had for lunch--fish paste mashed with rice...

...sunset at Phnom Bakheng. Thousands crammed atop the ruin to watch the sun drop into the jungle. Despite having Angkor Wat behind us, the whole experience seemed pointless. Better to watch it set behind something. The only real gain is for the elephant mahouts, shuffling lazy tourists up the mountain...

...feeding two hungry kids atop the Bakong. An even poorer looking boy in a tree is bullied by another boy heading to school. Chatting with a group of Japanese nursing students from Fukuoka. The landmine orchestra plays a traditional Japanese song as they pass. A Korean princess in high heels and Jackie-O shades doesn't even make an attempt to climb the precariously steep steps. I watch her Korean tour group climb the ruins from one side, the Japanese nurses from the other. I fantasize that they meet at the top, and a wicked kung fu battle breaks out...

...guide at Prah Ko tells us he lost 2 family members to the Khmer Rouge. He's happy with the peace but still doesn't like cops...

...monk at Lolei. he himself is a student, but is hard at work teaching English to local children. He talks with us as lunch is being prepared in the shade. His white board is filled with dozens of English words translated into Cambodian. I notice that there is no translation for 'antique'...

..artist at the Eastern Baray has paintings of Angkor scenery, monks, and a man in a wheelchair. I assume that the latter is a political statement, but find out that it is a tribute to his uncle, a landmine victim. The artist is 24, and hoping to make enough money to go to art school in Phnom Penh...

...our tuk-tuk driver, surly and unfriendly. It's beginning to affect our day. At lunch, he apologizes, telling us that the night before he'd fought with the hotel owner, quit, and had gotten drunk. This morning he's been nursing an aching head. After this he becomes nice and helpful. As he waits for us at the final temple, he flirts with a woman selling drinks. It's the first time we've seen him smile all day. Then he drops us off at our hotel, his employment there finished. We've been together all day, then our lives go in separate orbits. How American of me to want to be friends, yet our relationship is based on economics...

...Angkor Hilton owner perpetually shirtless, watching the French version of Jeopardy. Roza, the 21 year old manager, ever smiley, ever sleepy, newly married to a girl "not beautiful." Our resident gecko bounces its voice off our bathroom tiles all night. Other geckos sing from outside, each in its own distinct voice...

...the Brazilian girls at our hotel wonder if Roza, the manager, knows he has girl's name. I wonder if he knows it means 'rouge'...

..walking the Old Market grid of Siem Reap, made slightly annoying due to the impossibility of going 10 steps without someone shouting, "Hello tuk-tuk?" I've come to hate the economy here. Dollars are used but I can't approximate their ever-changing value. I do like the narrow dusty streets, the French balconies. But far too much is geared toward the tourist dollar. "Seam Reap it in," has become my mantra. I compromise on a coffee at Red Piano. I sit on the veranda of this old French building, under the cool of spinning fans. The view of the street is obscured by potted plants, but beyond can be heard the ever-present purr of moto engines, waiting...


On the turntable: Rolling Stones, "It's Only Rock'n'Roll"
On the nighttable: Bill Morgan, "I Celebrate Myself"
On the reeltable: "Nobody Knows" (Kore-eda, 2004)