Vientiane Solstice

December 23-24, 2009

...started the day in Sabadee Cafe, with a coffee that was the best I'd had since starting the trip. The poster above me showed a collage of photos of various menu items, each one with a time and date signature in the lower right corner. Equally hard to ignore were the BGM Xmas Carols being sung slightly off-key by what I presumed were Laotian kids. There probably weren't many tracks on the CD, for the same song would repeat every 15 minutes.

First up this morning was the National Museum. Downstairs was the cultural history, many exhibits made of styrofoam and papier-mache, like in a elementary school history project. The Buddhas were, of course, lovely. Upstairs was all political. Paintings showed the devil French acting in their usual barbaric French ways, with lots of dead babies and monks tied to posts. Later, photos showed Laotian rightists meeting with men only identified as "American imperialist." Another exhibit showed the cultural traditions and clothing of the various SE Asian countries. Singaporeans were represented by their stewardess uniforms.

We rented bikes and rode along the dirt trails paralleling the Mekong, through open air restaurants and past lazy dozing dogs. Some Chinese tourist was taking a photo of the Don Chuang hotel which rose like a tombstone above the rest of the older French architecture. Midday we arrived at the Linda Sisaphon, which did a great Thai lunch of crab and tofu puffs, and spicy noodles. The ubiquitous corner television was showing a karaoke video of Ram Wong, Laotian style. Unlike in Cambodia where the hands seem to delicately trace the Khmer alphabet in the air, the Laotians instead keep their arms stiff at their sides like David Byrne.

Bellies full and sinuses clear, we biked through a series of gradually posher suburban neighborhoods to Sok Pa Luang, where we sat awhile on the steps of a small, unoccupied temple and watched the dogs sleep and the leaves fall. Stomachs finally ready, we walked across the grounds to have a sauna and a massage. The former was wonderful, a handful of us clad in sarongs and roasting in the steam. Water and herbs were boiled in a steel drum, from which a pipe fed a small opening in the floor of the shack.. The shack and the heat began to make me feel a bit like a Vietnam War era POW. The light streamed through a small square window and was backlit by steam. Slipping further back in time, I was now a 1950's European cinema-goer. Sitting and passing the afternoon in this way was a wonderful thing, in the company of two Frenchmen, a Columbian, and a Puerto Rican guy ever hitting on a gorgeous Persian-American girl. The massage that followed wasn't quite as good, done by a young, obviously untrained guy who pawed me like a weak kitten. A return to the sauna was a nice consolation.


The light fading, we followed a dirt path along the Mekong. There were quite a few rickety wooden decks built over the river, where people could drink and watch the light fade further still. We took a seat on the deck furthest west, well beyond the dusty construction zone nearer the city. Below, fishermen brought in their boats, women bathed, and kids played, everyone eventually fading to silhouettes and becoming figures of art, the subjects of our photos. And the miracle of the sunset followed, as it would again tomorrow.

We returned to our new hotel, Mixay, and got into a conversation with David, who'd been staying here for 5 months. He'd been offered a job with the UN, who'd then reneged upon his contract when he'd arrived. The length of his stay in country was due to the fact that he was in the process of suing them. A lawyer and former anthropology teacher, he'd been living in Hanoi for the past 8 years. We had an interesting chat, but for his bile against aid groups, he insisting they were all corrupt. Most interesting was his take on the Vietnamese, forseeing an inevitable decline in their currently booming economy, since their main investment was in their children and in feeding them. Once the resources have all been eaten, it's all over...

...In the morning, we took a jumbo out to the Buddha Park, which is an older version of the work by Luang Pu that we'd seen a few days before on the other side of the Thai border. Here too was the same jumbled array of towering Hindu and Buddhist figures, built in a somewhat amateur fashion. The setting though was better, alongside the Mekong, looking in the direction of the other park, a few kilometers and a whole country away. We had a good time climbing in and around the hollow, pumpkin-like tower, but didn't feel that the expensive tuk-tuk ride out here was exactly worth the fare.

We were dropped off at Pha That Luang, a big, gaudy, gold gumdrop that is a source of pride for the Laotians. There was a pretty impressive temple being built next door, roofs folding in atop one another. A group of ladyboys posed in front for photos. We left them behind and began to walk across the city, past a sign for a shop called, "Scoubidou," and past bus stops which all had those large plexiglass walls that in China would hold newspapers for commuters to read. Here, they held only advertisements.

We'd hoped to have lunch at the infamous Pyongyang restaurant, being naturally curious about what passes for North Korean food, but the restaurant seemed to have been closed down. We walked hungrily through the city, having a snack at the mall, which was filled with hundreds of young girls in a frenzy over some boy band that was scheduled to play later. We quickly escaped to the Scandinavian Bakery, where we passed the afternon reading and writing. We also had a war of attrition on the balcony, with a workman blowing dust outward into our drinks. We finally gave in due to the chemical warfare that followed, consisiting of fumes from floors newly stained. We ducked into a supermarket geared toward Vientiane expats, stacked with a far better selection than anything I'd seen in Japan. Appetites whet, we sought out dinner...

On the turntable: Sonic Youth, "Daydream Nation"
On the nighttable: Edward Abbey, "The Brave Cowboy"

First Day Vientiane

December 23, 2009

...We tuk-tuk to the Immigration post, get processed, then board a bus that crosses the Friendship Bridge. On the Lao side, we switch from the left of the road to the right, then have our tires sprayed. It's a bit like being part of a child's toy car set. Off the bus now to apply for our visas. We wait under a banner that proclaims Vientiane to be a non-smoking city. It isn't a long wait, and after getting our stamped passports, we go to the tuk-tuk queue. Rather than the usual chaos, we are shown a sign with fixed prices, held up by a handful of smiling drivers. One is chosen for us, and upon paying the fare upfront, we are given a receipt and climb into a jumbo. the whole process has been quick, neat, and polite. The same can be said about the roads, the driving, the city itself. no rush, little dust or trash. Laos begins to work its magic spell early.

We check into a hotel, and begin to walk. A few blocks over is the fountain of Nam Phu , and nearby, we grab a tuk tuk to take us to Patuxai. This large concrete slab stands in the center of a roundabout, showing what Soviet architects could have accomplished had they been allowed to design the Arc de Triomphe. The Champs d'Elysees then would be the broad avenue leading past the moneychangers and fancy hotels to a mock-up of the White House, painted pink in this particular version. On the way, we detoured through the 'Development Center,' a fine euphemism for the up(-per) scale Malaysian shopping mall built on the grounds of what had for centuries been the city market. This places enables the rapidly increasing middle class a place to spend their kip while simultaneously crushing the chances for the lower wage earning sellers of the former market to join them. Seems that the socialist economic policy here is a slightly less than level playing field.

Nearby is That Dam, a stupa whose former gold leaf was stripped by Siam invaders nearly 3 centuries before. The US Embassy stands beside it, reminder of yet another cultural theft.

Took a lazy stroll amongst the Buddhas at Si Saket, then crossed the street to Haw Pha Kaeo, squeezing between Chinese tourists to walk through a building that can't seem to decide if it's a temple, a museum, or a gift shop. Inside, a Buddha had a large fleck of gold stuck to its forehead, as if playing Indian poker.

There was much more space out by the Mekong. A construction team was in the midst of some huge project which stretched halfway across the river to Thailand. (It dawned on me later that in this, the dry season, the river is always that low and dusty.) After buying a painting from a young mother, we ate some ping ka and learned from a former Thai expat that all this construction going on was the building of a park. He'd come here a dozen times on visa runs, but hadn't visited for over a year. He'd noticed a lot of new businesses and hotels over that time, probably due to the Southeast Asian Games which had just finished the week before. The vibe however, hadn't significantly changed.

We worked our way slowly through a few other Wats, their gilded facades even more brilliant in the fading light. Kids played volleyball in an adjacent lot, and others, clad in saffron, knelt before the Buddha and followed the chants of the head priest. We wandered the alleys of Chinatown back to the riverside, where hundreds of people sat drinking Beer Lao and watching the last of the day's light. Up the street at the Hare & Hound, I found my own beer to wash down my first Bangers and Mash in five years, to the accompaniment of a Laotian boy singing along to an Abba CD.

Our hotel had a special show for us, perhaps inspired by this town's popular "Dumb Show." It began when I tried to make a phone call, but the guys at the front desk couldn't figure out how to make the phone work, then finally said, "Broken." When I said that I'd just used it a few minutes before, they went and got someone else. Later, when Miki and I asked them a few questions, they just looked at us. In the past, I've found that even if you don't share a common language, it is possible to convey information if both parties are patient listeners and have a small share of common sense. These guys appeared to be operating at a deficit.

The highlight of the show began later. We'd already suffered for a few hours from noisy Thais in the hotel fiercely competing with the street noise coming through a window frame that had no pane. This was all nearly drowned out by the sound of water (along with the accompanying smell of waste) rushing through the pipes just outside the aforementioned windowless window. Somehow, Miki and I both fell into sleep, but an hour later, the A/C unit (which we purposely hadn't paid for) began to turn on and off by itself. I guessed that someone in a nearby room had gotten the remote control for our unit, and perplexed as to why his wasn't working, kept turning ours on and off for at least half an hour. I noticed that our own remote control was marked with 206 rather than 209, so I went down the hall and knocked on that door. I was answered by a German voice, which continued to speak in German, rather in than the English that I spoke, or in the language of the country in which we were all guests. (Somewhere, there is probably a German blog entry about all this.)

I eventually went down to the front desk, waking and scaring a poor girl sleeping in a cot in the lobby. She seemed reluctant to wake the manager, who, when he came out, was rubbing sleep from his eyes. I explained as simply as I could about the problem, then led him to our room. He stared at the offending unit for about 5 minutes, during which time it was silent, of course. Then, he said something like, "Too cold, it becomes ice," and left in apparent incomprehension. Ten minutes later, after I was on the brink of sleep, the phantom A/C resumed its earlier routine, until someone somewhere finally grew tired of the monotony of pushing buttons and gave up.

Until 6 a.m. the next morning...

On the turntable: David Byrne, "Growing Backwards"

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)

To the Border

December 2009

...out of Bangkok, early Sunday morning. A driver's ed course on the outskirts of town, a simple layout of tires and cones rather than the miniature manicured streets of Japan. Eastern Thailand is flat, reforested, but for the large lurking Maurice Sendak trees seen occasionally between the rows. Lots of people as work in the fields, or manning the stalls alongside the roads. There are no Sundays for the rural poor...

...Aranya Pratet, a dusty, featureless border town. Poipet across the way, the white-tile razzle dazzle of casinos. The countryside is merely rice fields, stretching away to both horizons. Dusty paths bisect them, sometimes traversed by bicycle or motorbike. The odd village pops up now and again. We stop awhile in one, talk with some kids selling bracelets. They speak good English, and a couple even speak basic Japanese. One girl asks for a coin, and we give her five yen that she can make into a necklace. She in return gives us bananas. Another girl looks hurt when I give her one yen. They seem happy despite the rural poverty out here, the houses simple and built upon stilts. The wall of one house has been recently repaired and painted with the 'trois colouers.' After dark, I notice that there is no electricity out here, single candles break the darkness within. There is a bizarre light in the sky above the fields, probably a far-off tower, but there is something otherworldly about it...

...Siem Reap has plenty of lights, Xmas decorations hanging around most of the large hotels. (I remember too seeing Santa out there somewhere, a bizarre sight in rural Cambodia.) Many of these big hotels are Korean, one with a sign for "Korean girled meat." Most of the people we've encountered are young, kids hocking their wares will grow up to lead tours and run hotels. I love that those kids we met earlier at the road stop have little, but still have to confidence to convince us to buy their bracelets for 25 cents...


On the turntable: Depeche Mode, "Music for the Masses"
On the nighttable: "RE/Search, Real Conversations #1"

Ayuthaya

December 2009

...Our Thai friends Dew and Pom drove us north. When they pick us up, Dew is not allowed to enter the house that we're renting, due to her being Thai. She tells us that it feels lousy to be discriminated against by her own kind. On the way out of town, Miki waves to a palace guard, who half-raises his gun...

...at a rest stop, a group of kids is milling about. They think Dew is the farang, and speak Thai to Miki instead. I sip coffee in the sun...

...Bang Pa-in Palace isn't too interesting to me, too grand a display. A woman thinking Miki is Thai, scolds her for her improper 'wai.' A monitor lizard sunbathes beside a wide lake. The bungalows built for the consorts are small Victorians sitting on a wide grassy expanse of lawn like in a Midwest college town. A houseboat provides shade from the heat, two pink pitched roofs over water. Lazy tourists drive golf carts around the expansive site. Later, we cross a moat on a pulley system operated by young monks. Rama V built a temple here, designed as a cathedral. Bizarre to see Buddha sitting behind stained glass. A monk here has tattoos that his robes can't completely hide. Working off some prison karma, I suspect...

...a truck waits for a massive snake to cross the road. Further on, a monitor lizard doesn't share the same luck...

...a blue-eyed nun plays with some children at Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon. I press my fingers to apply gold leaf to the reclining Buddhas, then to my sweaty forehead, where the gold remains all day. Buddhist figures with their arms extended, like The Supremes doing "Stop! In the name of love." Dead turtles bob in the moat, fish dining on their feet...

...Wat Phra Mahatat and its wonderful disembodied Buddhas. (A wonderful pun, if you get it...) A film crew from Akita is shooting amongst the trees. A gay Thai man asks to take a photo with me...

...sit awhile with the Buddha at Wat Phra Si Sanphet. On the grassy lawns beyond, farang pay huge fees to ride elephants. Next door, people fire rounds at a shooting gallery. As I sit, the ruins here are invaded by kids on a school excursion. A boy steals a kiss from a girl, who protests, but follows. Twelve years ago, I had the place to myself. How can UNESCO protect what it deems worth protecting? Tourist circuses inevitably follow, destroying any value the place once had...

On the turntable: Green on Red, "The Best of..."
On the nighttable: David Desser, "The Samurai Films of Akira Kurosawa"
On the reel table: "Hearts and Minds" ( Davis, 1974)

The Grass is always Tastier...

A decade ago, on a visit to the States from my home in rural Japan, I entered for the first time that yuppie food mecca of Whole Foods for the first time. I'd been struggling for years as a vegetarian in a country that had forgotten that that had been its traditional diet for centuries. After WWII, when the nation was occupied by an army of big-bodied meat eaters, animal parts were seen as a status symbol, a way of elevating you above your poor, malnourished, millet-eating neighbor. The custom stuck and by the '90s, finding a restaurant meal sans meat was an exercise in developing the purest Zen-like patience. Pork oil in the ramen. Beef stock in the soups. The real whack of the keisaku was settling yet again on a salad, only to find bacon in the dressing. I eventually found Tengu Foods in Saitama, and mail order became a monthly exercise, though admittedly, this wasn't the most eco-friendly, sustainable solution. Thus, entering Whole Foods was an epiphany. In the States, I could eat in a way that was healthy for both myself and the planet. I toyed with the idea of returning to the States within the year.

Life is a fickle percussionist, and I didn't get back here until a year ago. And now, I can barely stand Whole Foods, the extremities of its prices nearly equaling that of the pretension. Meanwhile, I've been visiting the blogs of a handful of expats who've done an I-turn into the Japanese countryside. Many have recipes included. So here I sit, mouth watering over photos of homegrown veggies, mulling a possible return to that great supermarket without walls...


On the turntable: Everything but the Girl, "Baby, The Stars Shine Bright"
On the nighttable: Yoshida Kiju, "Ozu's Anti-Cinema"
On the reeltable: "Food, Inc."

Visions of Bangkok 2

December 2009

...Weaving beneath the high walls of Thammasat U., along streets selling Buddhist art and amulets. In front of nearly every amulet stall is a man with a monocle to one eye, examining the quality of the stones. Monks swathed in saffron peruse Buddhist statues carved of wood and stone. And there is of course food: fruits and chicken and fish. I get some chicken fried in garlic, washed down with a whole coconut. The vendors aren't pushy at all, not bothered if you don't buy...

...sunset cocktails at The Oriental. Not the Bamboo Bar made famous in the writing of a generation of scriveners, but out on the patio beside the river. At the next table, a pair of Dubai businessmen have a meeting with a well-dressed, quick-talking Thai woman. This interweaving of the region is foreign to both my American and Japanese selves. It speaks a completely different vocabulary, dialect, language. Southeast Asia and its complexity of linked cultures intrigues...

...another night on the Chao Praya, eating on the patio on the opposite bank of the river. Neon lit dinner boats cruise slowly past, some with bands playing on board, traditional dancers somehow finding balance on one foot. Tugs pulling barges laden with sand represent the economic spectrum's other end, their dark hulking forms blocking any light emitting from the opposite shore. After dinner we go next door to the Patravadi Theater, to watch an eclectic mix of Thai and modern dance and musical styles. The lead performer dresses in the traditional way, but has the look and moves of a butoh dancer...

...an uninspired walk through the Grand Palace, and its attached wat, one chedi looking like a wedding cake, and another chedi a solid piece of gold that makes me think of the equally absurd Asahi Brewery Sperm. Outside again, I look once again through the palace gates, flanked by lethargic looking guards. A far cry from the erect poses of Buckingham Palace. I'd love to see a pair of these Thai guards frolicking barefoot on the grass behind, guns down, playing frisbee...

...Wat Pho massage not quite as good as I remember, but a good review of my own Thai Massage training. (The last time I was here I was lured in by a beautiful young Thai girl, only to be worked on by a pair of hands decades older. Fishing for farang.) Afterward, we walk the wat at night, having it mostly to ourselves. Being alone with the reclining Buddha is a rare treat, and we linger long. A nice consolation to Bangkok's smog is that the light amidst the forest of chedi is as lovely as it gets, though it is impossible to capture on film, despite Hollywood's moniker of 'magic hour'...

...Miki and I join the 'cool' of Khao San Rd., sitting at a cafe table and watching the world. Thai girls in scanty dresses hustle street traffic for business. One of them can't be more than 11 years old, but already looks hardened. In sharp contrast are the hill-tribe women, tottering along and selling their headdresses and noisy wooden frogs. Slick Sikhs grasps hands of passing travelers and greet them with, "You are a lucky man!" Music pulsing, pulsing, less like a heart filled with excitement but more like a cerebrum on the brink of hemorrhage. Backpackers lurch by, the ones with their packs on looking like they just stepped off the moon. Their bags are huge these days, and what's with the rain covers? I hate how the farang always keep these packs on, clustering in small shops and blocking the way. Carts, vendors, punters--everyone--rushing suddenly to the curbside when the cops occasionally pass through...

...riding the river buses up and down. Boats of all sizes. Most pleasurable to the eye are the roly-poly brown ones that plod across like top-heavy turtles. Cops on jet-skis jump their wakes, slalom the clumps of river weeds drifting slowly by. Long-tailed engines like dragonflies. The city's extreme poor are housed in shacks along the banks. The flow of the river counts time in its own unique way...

...Climbing the lego set that is Wat Arum. The lazy alleys behind, monks dozing, children queuing in their boy scout uniforms...

...life in Asia is life lived on the streets. (I've always thought of Kyoto in the same way, that most Asian of Japan's cities.) There seems to be little separation of life and work. The movable feasts of cart and boat. Food displayed in inflated bags...

...Imported personalities such as Ronald McDonald and The Michelin Man 'wai' in front of their respective shops...

...the dainty way that Thai women handle money...
...the birthday bash for the King. They love him here, his photo everywhere, in various poses and at various ages. My favorite is him playing the sax. For his bash, there are fireworks and Xmas lights strung from trees. One street is closed to car traffic, but packed with bodies dancing and singing to some live band, apparently incredibly famous...

...Khao San Rd, Sunday dawn. Twenty-four hour Burger King. Broken bottles down the streets...

On the turntable: Kevin Seconds, "Heaven's Near Wherever You Are"

Visions of Bangkok

December 2009

...the obvious economic power in Sukumvit, where the Thai women look bigger than those lower down the economic ladder, they're taller and curvier like the Asian women further north. Many are doing ablutions around Erawan, to the accompanying music of tradition dancers and musicians. I'm amazed at how young most of the worshippers are, how seamless the fusion of commerce and spirit...

...tuk-tuk scurries across the city. The driver picks up his wife, who bats him about the shoulders or shrieks when he does something reckless, which eggs him on even more. We three in the back share a bond, as we rush between tons of chrome and steel, choking on exhaust fumes...

...the surly staff at The Atlanta. My mother for 2 days, grabbing my wallet and cash when I'm too confused and tired to pay my taxi driver. Lightly slapping my cheek when I can't find my visa. Slapping Miki's hand when she uses the wrong utensils. Late night dip in Thailand's first swimming pool. Sitting in the high red booth, which, like the menu, haven't changed since the hotel opened back in 1952. (The music here is two decades older still.) The hyperbole of the signs around the place, threats and insults softened by the erudition. The desks reserved for writing, and the books penned by former guests. A glimpse of "The Queen," as she's led quietly to her Volvo, her cat ceaselessly yowling in its cage. Her son, the mysterious Charles Henn, being simultaneously nowhere and everywhere. Ah, The Atlanta! Such a reminder of more genteel times...

...a cabbie, all smiles and seemingly without a care, as he leans against his brokedown cab on the highway late at night. An example of 'Mai Pen Rai" optimism vs. the fatalism of "Shoganai"...

...farang circus on Khao San Rd. Slumping, hulking, frowning beasts. No one talks at any of the cafe tables, just looking cool and seeing who comes by. Posers. Khao San on steroids now, spilling into the street itself. A far cry from the week I spent here in 1997, though I did notice the change beginning during another visit in 2003. A different breed of backpacker now, more Asians and Eastern Europeans, the latter unmistakable since they swagger like thugs. A meaner spirit here now, less experience and more consumption (though that may have also been true back in '97). Western girls showing ridiculous amounts of flesh, their nearly visible breasts swinging in tank tops like udders. A cop with his vice grip on a young Thai who's nearly gone limp. Another Thai (friend? foe?) stands nearby yelling at him. A couple of seedy looking foreign guys involved somehow. The whole street looks on, except for the cafe workers who try to ignore it and keep busy. "Something to drink, sir?" Miki and I spend half the day here prepping for our journeys out. We stay at the D&D, but their are no dungeons or dragons to be seen. We are happy with our cheap, quiet room, until returning at night to find we're just below the rooftop bar which pumps bass downward until late. Change rooms the next day, then change hotels the next, moving away from Khao San entirely to a small dark rental house nearby, which has no hot water and loses its electricity after dusk. Many late night massages. Free breakfast on the carp patio, watched over by a cross-eyed cat. Fireworks for the King's birthday, watched from the roof of the D&D, bursting over the city like it's under siege by the red shirts, who'd demonstrated near the Democracy monument earlier in the day. (This political tension hung over our entire trip, with the king lying ill in hospital. Had he died, we planned to flee the country immediately. But the violence held off for a few more months, before erupting in March.) As the explosions rock the city, the Western punters below, oblivious due to the rock-blockin' beats, party on...

On the turntable: X-Ray Spex, "Germfree Adolescents"

Taipei Notes

December 2009

A train took us into Taipei. Unlike in Japan, no one was texting, though a few people had no qualms about talking on their cell phones in soft voices. More than a few phones had really stupid ringtones. We had a brief adventure in trying to exchange dollars, bills of a 1996 vintage being problematic for some reason. The height of this comedy was when we couldn't figure out how to cross the street to a bank in clear view. The drama was compounded in trying to figure out how to deal with the chips used as subway tokens.

We got off the MRT and had a Chinese Pizza and tea, a delicious and cheap lunch. The better part of the afternoon was spent at the National Museum, a place I'd long wanted to visit. We tried to see the exhibits chronologically, zigzagging from room to room as this place has no rhyme or reason in regard to layout. We started our tour slowly, amazed by jade possibly as old as 8000 years. But these and the pottery began to grow tedious after an hour. It was interesting to see their progression through time, and how styles had changed based on things like spiritual and political change, contact with foreign influences, etc. I was also comparing this with chronologically parallel art over in Japan. But I really wanted to see more statues, more paintings, and more spiritual art in general. (I got an inadvertent glimpse of the latter when a young woman stood staring at a blank space behind glass.) The ever-increasing crowds also began to grate, their numbers surprising on a weekday. Unlike the Japanese, who queue and file past, making it easy for me (at 6' 1") to see over their heads, the Chinese cluster like a rugby scrum. At one display, Miki and I found ourselves completely surrounded, and pressed to the glass. The most popular displays were those related to a specific personage, proving that the cult of personality is ever-pervading. I was also surprised by the number of video and interactive exhibits. A shame that people can't seem to relate to a simple static item anymore.

We'd expected to spend most of the day at the museum, but after a few hours, our brains were full. We did, however, save room for leftovers. The nearby aboriginal museum was intriguing, but had a sad lack of English explanation. I was impressed by the spirit poles, a pot with 2 intertwining serpents, and weapons used to subdue evil spirits.

We went back across town to the Chiang Kai Shek memorial. The large building was at the end of a huge open plaza, and his figure, seated in his chair atop a high flight of steps. was reminiscent of Mr. Lincoln. On the veranda of the equally massive National Theater, some students were practicing acrobatic routines. Out on the tiles, people queued up to have their photo taken with a dog. While observing all this, I loved this feeling of incongruity, that lack of understanding that I've long lost in Japan. It is always fun to hear of things mysterious to visitors to Japan, and today I could rekindle that sense of wonder. How easy to it to accept that which you don't understand.

In the Memorial itself, we caught the tail end of the odd performance known as the changing of the guard. Five men took turns high-stepping and suddenly freezing into strange poses, like an bizarre game of freeze-tag. I suppose they needed the exercise after standing still at attention for so long. I find these displays have an equal dose of the comic and the horrifying. I had a similar reaction to the propaganda downstairs, pictures of scenes from the generalissimo's life, his writing, his cars, and the mock-up of his office. There was a strong emphasis on his awards, international recognition, and photos with other heads of state. It was like the unpopular kid who tries so hard to be accepted by the big boys. I got into a conversation with an 80 year-old mainlander from Fukien, though unfortunately I didn't ask his opinion on all this. But I didn't need to ask the opinion of another man of similar age, who when entering the hall, removed his cap and bowed deeply to the bust of General Chiang.

It was growing dark as Miki and I walked the streets now crowded with traffic, past a couple of the old city gates. The phallic 101 building continually lurked over our shoulders, proving that the government's craving for international acceptance didn't end with ole' Chiang Kai Shek. We stumbled across an alley now renovated to look as it did before the occupying Japanese bypassed it with the broader avenue beside. The buildings flanking the alley were empty but for a few small displays amidst brick and beam. I can see cafes and restaurants here in a few years.

Nearby was Longshan temple, completely abustle. People of all ages were chanting, kneeling in prayer, or holding joss sticks at 45 degree angles from their foreheads. We eavesdropped on a Japanese tour in order to hear about the figures to whom the Taiwanese were bowing. Our timing was perfect as the guide quickly ran through the names, then said suddenly, "OK. Let's eat!" to the obvious relief of the tour. We had no idea if all the activity here was a festival, or simply an average night, but you'd think it was Christmas by all the numbers here. One young man in a dress shirt and tie was sitting full lotus and chanting, one hand raised vertically to his chest. An old woman came over, and with obvious displeasure, did some weird mojo in his direction.

We walked a couple of blocks over to Snake Alley, the only other place I knew about in Taipei. It was a let down. Rather than a market awash with rampant and dangerous serpents, there were only a couple of dismal and near-empty shops, though one of them did host a lovely albino python. Nearly as interesting were the few shops with sexual paraphernalia, plus a few pitiful hookers lurking down alleys. All the food on display around here stimulated a different desire in Miki, who bought a phallic cob of corn to eat on the way to the train station...

...our last morning in Taiwan was spent slowly, over tea. Got to Taipei around noon, dropped the bags, and went up to a couple of temples. The Confucian Temple was newly restored last year, a bright blue, with lovely walled gardens and ponds. The Taoist counterpart nearby was all red and brick, looking older, but vibrant. The Confucian Temple was more a museum, yet the gardens offered a quiet escape from the city. From atop the Taoist temple's 4th floor, we could see Yangmingshan to the north, the stacked up Chinese-take out boxes of the 101 building to the south. There were so many things here that we hadn't seen, post pilgrimage fatigue catching up with us, and a few quiet days were more fitting to our mood than rushing around a busy city. We'd be back.

The neighborhood around the temples was very intriguing, but we'd have to wait for that next visit. A nearby Rinzai Temple was a garish yellow against the hills. The soccer stadium next door was in the midst of being torn down, looking like a Roman ruin. With the Asian Games being held here next summer (2010), this whole area will have a different look the next time I'm here. At the airport, we checked into the mysterious Air Asia, a steal at a mere 50 dollar ticket from Taipei to Bangkok. They said nothing about my bag being 2 kg overweight. As we boarded our flight, I hoped that they wouldn't be as lax about things such as the number of bolts on the plane's fuselage...


On the turntable: Grateful Dead, "Santa Fe Downs, 10-17-82."

After the Quake...

March 1st, Miki and I moved from our mountain home in Tesuque to the extreme southern edge of Santa Fe, the desert mere steps off our back door. Then, a week and a half later, Japan was in turmoil. I was unable to write anything, or barely even think. I stayed in the realm of feeling for a while. Then the words returned. I had a piece ready to post here, but chose instead to publish it in #quakebook. I'll eventually post the original, but for now you can read it in a shorter, less acerbic form here:

http://www.quakebook.org/buy-quakebook/

I also wrote a piece for the Write for Tohoku project, available here:

http://fortohoku.org/

These two digital books cost $9.95 each, which will provide you to with a good read while simultaneously supporting the survivors in Tohoku.


On the turntable: Jefferson Airplane: "The Volunteers Sessions"

Chungli notes, Dec. 2009

It was our 4th day in Taiwan. Our new friend Olimpia had picked up up at the airport and brought us back to their spacious flat in Chungli. After a quick tea, we had Teppenyaki at a small Japanese place around the corner, mere hours after leaving Japan itself. Later, we took the dog to run around the beautiful banyan trees lining the roads. One in particular had a root system which pushed it a meter above the ground. Slawek finished work and we went out to the night market to look around. the stalls ran down both sides of the street, many converted to food shops, various smells intermingling. Snakes tangled together in cages were also considered potential edibles. The scent that stood out most was "stinky tofu," pungent and strong like Nuc Mam. Nearby, Slawek's Polish friend was doing the best business, selling his "Polish cakes." A group of about 20 people, mostly young, was completely surrounding his table. He spoke to us entirely in Polish, which according to Slawek is his wont. He started this business two years ago; after a party, he told a couple of friends to try to sell the cakes that remained at the end of the night. This they did in less than 20 minutes. Now, he makes more money in a night than Slawek does at the University in a month.

Next was dinner at a Hakka restaurant. Over a table with the obligatory lazy-susan at the center, we shared various things, including a complimentary cold, sliced duck, downed with a weak Taiwanese beer. The food was good, except for the shrimp, covered in vanilla icing and sprinkles.
Later red wine until late...

...coming back from Taipei the next night, Miki and I completely forgot about rush hour until we were crushed into the last train car. Chungli Station was equally manic, with an election truck howling away in full force, fireworks shooting horizontally in every direction, and a procession of at least 200 supporters waving and smiling inanely. For a full 10 minutes, they blocked the entrance to the station, preventing all traffic, buses, and taxis from coming in or out. The loudspeakers on Japanese election trucks may be annoying, but these clowns had brought the whole city to a stop. Unreal.

We took a bus to campus, had a uninspired dinner, and waited for Slawek to finish his soccer practice. We sat on the grass and talked with a couple exchange students. One, from Guatemala, absolutely loved it here, and planned to stay on longer once his program finished. The other had the opposite opinion, badly missing his wife and two daughters and was counting the days until graduation in May.

While waiting for Olimpia to pick us up, we sat on the campus' open lawn beneath a huge banyan tree. As dogs frolicked around us (dogs in Taiwan always seem to be merrily running somewhere), Slawek told us about a Canadian gone missing. A couple of friends went to visit a woman with certain spiritual gifts, who said that the Canadian was currently in a deep trance, essentially made the pet of a group of aborigines deep in the mountains of the south. On a follow up visit to the woman, she revealed that he had suddenly snapped out of the trance, so the villagers had been forced to killed him. We continued in this vein, talking of things unexplainable, until Olimpia came and rescued us from the encroaching darkness...

...the next day, we barely left the house except for a few hours in the afternoon. We'd finished our long 1600 km walks only a few weeks before, and welcomed the chance to lay low to recoup. Slawek had told us of a restaurant near the University which intrigued him, but had never visited. It was one of those places of classic Chinese design, with moon windows framed with lattice-work, and walkways zigzagging over ponds brimming with carp. We thought it a wonderful place to sit and linger with our books, but the prices scared us off, and we rushed out past an obviously angry waitress.

We found a cheaper, modern coffee joint back in the city proper, where we read until our massage. This was the fourth massage I'd had since finishing the Shikoku Henro, but was the only one that had wrenched those last bits of tension out. I paid a serious price in pain. Miki and I were both silent as we ate dinner, the beef noodle soup that I'd been seeking for days.

Slawek and Olympia were up in Taipei for a party, and we had the place to ourselves, in exchange for dogsitting Maya. We took her for a walk, her behaving well despite being off leash on these narrow, well-trafficked streets, obeying all the commands I issued in a bad Polish accent. But at one point, she suddenly stopped and turned back toward the house. I ran to catch her and carried her to the park, her shivering violently as we sat on a bench. We thought that it was the sound of one of those election trucks that set her off, and that we'd wait until it passed. But 20 minutes later, we gave up. When I set her down, she turned and literally sprinted all the way home, Miki and I trying to catch up, yet failing despite running on legs strengthened by 10 weeks of walking. The city polls had closed and they were apparently celebrating the election with a full-on fireworks display, well visible from the 11th-story flat. They continued for 2 hours, with Maya cowering on the sofa the entire time...


On the turntable: Frankie Goes to Hollywood, "Liverpool"
On the nighttable: Miyamoto Tsuneichi, "The Forgotten Japanese"

Shihtoushan, Dec. 2009, Pt. 2

...was awoken at 5 by a bell ringing from one of the temples on Shihtoushan. Slept again, but had to get up for 6:30 breakfast. We found ourselves the only ones there. It was a simple meal of congee and veggies, thankfully less oily than usual. There was also a triple-decker sandwich of peanut butter and tofu, as well as the obligatory steamed buns. We decided to save these for lunch, and as we walked toward the door to look for a baggie, the caretaker yelled at us for wasting food, until he figured it out. We relaxed and read in our room until 9:30 or so, then decided to go over the mountain. A long steep flight of stone steps led to the top. There was a woman about 30 meters above us. I heard her shriek, then yell something down to us. I thought she was talking about some stones that had fallen just beside her and were now rolling our way. Then I saw the snake, about two meters long, greenish yellow with black dots. It was racing downhill toward us, veering suddenly up the slope again when it got close. At the temple at the top of the hill, we again found the woman talking to a couple of old nuns, gesturing wildly to tell them that the snake had fallen from the cliffs above, landing at her feet and scaring the crap out of her. She laughed and pointed in our direction. In her broken English, I caught two words: "beautiful," and "poison." Much later, I came across a picture of this type of snake. A Russell's Viper, one of the most deadly in the world.

At the next temple, we met a friendly young nun who spoke good English. She spent the next half hour explaining all the figures here, to our relief, since they'd been puzzling us since yesterday. Our talk was occasionally broken by another visitor, who paid this nun great deference. It was apparent that she was someone of great respect and importance, but we never got her name. Further down the mountain was another temple, a cave temple like the others, but this one was an actual cavern rather than a ornate building erected across a gap in the cliff face. The entrance looked to have been re-carved, evidence of rebuilding after the 1999 earthquake. The monk we met there had a kind face but didn't speak. Miki commented that the women's temples seemed softer than those of the men. This point was proven at a small Confucian temple back up on the ridgetop. Three old men were sitting back in conversation, and seemed quite reluctant to let us enter. OK, fellas, keep your boys club...

We ate our lunch at a pavilion above Chiuanhua Hall , then dropped down a steep narrow trail through the jungle. Midway down were some Chinese characters carved into the rock wall, alongside some bizarre cuts that looked like the face of a gorilla. At the bottom of the steps was a rowhouse, abandoned but for a single residence in the middle. A man was sitting inside, watching a TV that blared its drivel into the jungle. As the bus stop was directly across the road, we in turn sat and watched him. Chinese homes are open like dollhouses, so we could his every move. When an exercise program came on, he sat astride his scooter which was close to the set, then followed the arm and neck stretches onscreen. This finished, he returned to his seat further back, yet could only remain seated for a few minutes at a time. He'd get up, go pull some weeds, then sit. get up, walk across the road, return, and sit. He repeated this for the 45 minutes we were there, though we don't know how it all turned out since the bus came by about then and took us away.

We followed the river back to the city. One stretch of hillside had been cleared of jungle in order to erect graves that were almost the size of some Japanese apartments. In Asian societies, the dead always get the best real estate. The temples that served them also made the occasional appearance, their ornate roofs always looking in need of a shave. On the train platform, we sipped our long awaited tapioca shake and nearby, a woman popped her son's pimples. We walked from Chung-li's station, past the youth culture monuments that flanked the station, moving back in time past shops that served the needs of their parents and grandparents. Later, after dark, my friend Slavek showed up with a couple of colleagues from the University, one French, the other Mongolian. We sat at a dark back table of a local drinking hole, eating wings and drinking beer. The design was of any similar establishment back in the States: long bar, funky art, pool table. A few of the local expat teaching crew were in attendance, served by a friendly Chinese girl with perfect English. Accent American, of course. I thought of all the other expat nights I've crashed -- Seoul, Nanjing, Miyake...


On the turntable: Talking Heads, "Stop Making Sense"

Shihtoushan, Dec. 2009

We were walking through the forest when I noticed the birdsong. It was different than that of the birds which had serenaded us in Shikoku and Kumano. The forest opened onto a large parking lot, revealing a pagoda atop one hill, and Chuanhua Monastery above it on another. Here we'd spend the night.

We'd left early from Zhungli. With time to kill until the train, we walked the narrow streets surrounding the station. It was a busy Sunday morning, and Miki commented that she felt that fashion here in Taiwan was a simpler, scaled down version of the fashion in Japan. We laughed at how Mr. Donuts says, "Japan's #1" where the ones in Japan tout America. Circular signs hang in front of 7-11, advertising coffee and mimicking the familiar Starbucks logo. Beauty salons have sexily-clad employees and I wonder if they're a front for prostitution. There are different faces on the streets, speaking in different rhythms, making me wonder if they are maids and if they are Filipinas.

The train we take is an exact replica of an express train in Japan. From it, we get our first glimpses of true countryside. It is landscape I'd been expecting, jungle and rice fields, none of this cold urban stuff of the last few days. A lone dirt house sits squat between these two extremes. In front, a man squats and soups the rims of a luxury car.

After 45 minutes, we are in a quieter town. Trying to find the bus, we head down a road lined with shops now becoming familiar. What surprises us is a bride and groom coming out of a comic shop and getting into a Lexus doled up for the occasion. Well-dressed young women stand nearby, taking photos and wearing wide smiles. We spy a foreign couple walking with a Chinese man. The latter helps us find our bus and after 10 minutes we're aboard. At the bus stop, a young couple expresses their affection. Behind them, a shop keeper rocks her toddler to sleep, despite Eminem blaring through the speakers above. There's a market going on at the center of town. The bus can't make a turn due to a couple of poor-looking peasant women who've set up shop at one corner, their goods overflowing into the street. The driver yells at them to move, and after a moment, we inch forward, unsnarling the traffic backed up in three directions.

The town drops away and the mountains loom up. Our eyes follow a river awhile, then taking a wild guess, we get off the bus in exactly the right place. There's just a hint of a village here, just outside the gate leading to the mountain temple complex. We enter a small restaurant and mime-order noodles and rice. A woman at the next table talks in a really loud voice, something I'd grown used to during travels in China, but hadn't yet seen in the more refined Taiwan. A boy sits in the kitchen doing his homework on a day so sunny it is shame to waste it indoors. A poster above him shows us a picture of Bigfoot on the moon, appearing from behind a rock in that familiar stride.

Next door is a small shop where we decide to stock up on snacks for the hike. The woman behind the counter is busy making betel. She is dressed much more conservatively than those binlang girls decades younger selling their wares in the glass booths in the cities, their skirts shorter than the odds of the KMT retaking the mainland. The woman seems determined that I try some of the betelnut, which she is spreading inside some sort of shell with a butterknife. I pop some in my mouth, spitting a massive blob of red out onto the road outside. The woman laughs. Miki asks for some, and the woman suddenly stops laughing, seemingly annoyed. We never find out why. Is it because Miki's a woman, and they don't do betel? Or is it because she's Japanese? The latter is doubtful, since most people think she's local, continuing to speak to her in Mandarin even after it's obvious she doesn't understand anything. On the final climb up the stone stairs to the temple, another betel seller on a landing chooses to speak with her in English, asking her how she can be so beautiful. Miki smiles, vindicated. Perhaps this man is the betel seller's husband?

We find our room at the temple, the key handed over by a woman happy to use her rusty English. It is a plush room, with a big bed and balcony. Not bad for 64 NT (1800 yen) a person. We do fell slightly disappointed at not being able to do "A Day in the Life" of the monks here. We'd expected bland common meals, tepid baths, austere sleeping quarters, crack of dawn chanting. Which is why we came. But the room pleases.

Time to explore. In the main hall, Buddha, Confucious, and Lao Tzu all sit together. Upstairs, they each have their own section, but down here, they intermingle. In front of them is Matsu, Goddess of the Sea. I know her better as Tien Hau from my time in Hong Kong. She mysteriously gets the place of honor in this, the Hall of Earth. The grounds have the usual Chinese 'look,' of lattice gates, three-legged iron incense pots, tea pavilions, phoenixes and dragons guarding every eave. A trail leads us away, where a man is playing a bamboo flute. It is similar to the shakuhachi, but with a differently carved mouthpiece. I pick one up and begin to play, and the man begins to instruct me in Japanese. We'd heard that many of the old timers can speak it, but he's the first we've come across. He plays a few songs--a couple classics, some Misora Hibari. As he plays, Miki sings along, as does a Chinese man strolling by. Later, when we meet this latter man again, we try to ask him how he knows these songs, but outside the lyrics, we don't share a common language.

The trail brings us to a Taoist temple. A nun clad in maroon is chanting, a trio kneeling behind her, their voices harmonizing beautifully. I step around back to look into the grotto itself, which contains a single statue of an immortal, its expression both soft and tough simultaneously. Coming back around again, I find that one of the chanters is now sobbing. I'm assuming that this is a memorial service of some kind. A man comes over and speaks to her kindly yet sternly, warning her perhaps that the crying may confuse the spirit, bringing it back to this world rather than allowing to pass into the next where it has already found immortality.

Further up the mountain is a temple dedicated to Kuan Yin. The statue outside looks similar to Kannon over in Japan, but with its long face and large hands it has the androgynous look of a drag queen Beside the temple is a small grotto with a small red-faced figure with bulging eyes and wild frizzy hair. His red face is that of a drunk. I wish there was an explanation somewhere, but I wouldn't be able to read it anyway. We follow the trail around, other figures looming up in the forest. One Kuan Yin sits in meditation before a high rock wall, a heart locket around her neck.

Back at the room, we read for a few hours on the balcony, eating ice cream, drinking coffee. It is peaceful here, and we decide to stay another day, rather than rush north to Wulai. Below us, someone is playing er hu, singing boisterously. Around five o'clock, the day trippers go, the shutters of the shops shut. The mountains beyond disappear into the mist and fading light, the pagoda before us blending into the trees.

In the dining hall, we have a simple dinner of tofu disguised as meat. There are no monks here. Due to the absence of these fingers, we go look at the moon. The halls are empty and we have the gold statues to ourselves. A caretaker comes up and despite our making it obvious that we don't speak Chinese, proceed to explain. We listen but don't understand. Except for the words Kung Si, Lao Si, Ami Tamo.
Confucious, Lao Tzu, Buddha...


On the turntable: Rodney Crowell, "Sex and Gasoline"