Lazing in Luang Prabang

January 1-6, 2010

...our first act of the new year is to catch a bus bound for Sam Neua. Far to the north on the Vietnam border, Sam Neua was the stronghold from where the Pathet Lao launched their attacks against US forces. Curtis LeMay is famed for his comment about bombing enemy forces back to the Stone Age. Yet it could be argued that the Pathet Lao had never left the Stone Age, living and plotting their raids from a series of caves. It was these caves that I wanted to see, a bookend of sorts to the Viet Cong tunnels of Cu Chi that I'd crawled through over a decade before.

So we waited for the bus. And waited. An hour after it was to leave, it hadn't. "No problem...Maybe this afternoon...Maybe tomorrow." We could stick around Phonsovan, attend the wedding to which we'd been invited. As we made our deliberations, a bus bound for Luang Prabang revved up behind us. We boarded and left within 5 minutes.

The trip seemed repeat of the one two days before, a dreamy floaty meander along mountaintops, Hmong villages like pearls on a necklace. One village seemed populated only by children. In another, a young man kicked a cow, sending the rest of the herd spinning like bowling pins. In the next, young women play catch with prospective suitors. At a pee stop, a hilltribe woman squatted in full view beside the bus and let fly...

...for 5 days we settled in Luang Prabang. There was little to do but wander the streets, hide from the sun on the grounds of shady temples, or sip coffee on the veranda of an old colonial French building. We liked the pace, tried not to plan, not to fill our days with things to do. One day, we went up the mountain at the center of town. On another, we visited the 'museum,' little more than a tribute to a long dead king, housed in a beautiful old building. Rings that had formerly been on the fingers of US Marines were on sale in the lobby.

One hot afternoon, we crossed the river on a rickety bamboo bridge to a small village before doubling back to town along the riverbank. A few foreigners had stripped down and entered the water, letting the current pull them toward the Mekong.

I especially liked the small alley down which we were staying. We'd first stayed in a different, grungy place across town, after searching for an hour, in a town swollen for the long New Year's weekend. Hotels were booked nearly solid with 500 Thai tourists. After a mosquito plagued night, we moved to our current digs, run by a friendly Hmong couple. In the afternoons, a man across the street played a wooden marimba, accompanied by his teacher on a gamelan, who also did double duty in singing out the notes whenever his pupil got stuck. Next door was a shack whose outdoor kitchen looked out on the alley and served as center for the alley's social scene. The baby that lived in our house was slightly croupy, and the mother spent a good part of the day soothing it in a sing-song baby voice that I at first had thought was a children's program. On the other side of us was a gallery, its European owner always reading a newspaper by day, merrily drinking wine with friends at night. Across from him was the Heritage House, a one hundred year old building built on stilts and partially hidden by tall trees. At the end of the alley was a large wat, and beside it, the peaceful Mala Cafe.

The cafe was where we relaxed during the blackout, amongst the trees and the ponds and the fish. Without TV, the staff seemed bored, except for one girl who, with a small baby on the seat, rode a bicycle up and down the alley, giggling as she was chased by dogs. The blackout also caused problems at the night market, quashing the usual tunnel of light. Some vendors had their own power generators, but I felt sorry for those who didn't, as they'd have no business. But it was pleasant to sit in the garden of the guest house basking in the complete absence of man-made sound. Nothing but the voices of people coming from out of the dark, inciting the barking of dogs, all accompanied by that omnipresent marimba. When the power eventually returned, the son at our guest house turned on the TV within seconds.

The town quieted considerably after the third day of the year. Most of the time I spent sitting and watching life as it is lived in Luang Prabang. Watching the tuk-tuk drivers gossip as they'd awaited fares. (They nap in the seats, rather than slung out in hammocks like their corresponding brethren in Vientiane.) The mystery of what goes on behind the louvered blinds above the shops. Joma like a US cafe, done up with murals and warm colors. Muggy, overcast mornings burning off to become hot afternoons. The social politics of southeast Asian;  the Laotians hate the Thais for looking down on them; Vietnamese backpackers telling how they are still discriminated against by non-Viet expats.(I feel like an ass after telling the backpackers: "Ten years ago I was backpacking through your country!")  A Western tourist guy with dreads, drunk everyday by afternoon, talking to ghosts, holding a beer in one hand and a book by Coelho in the other. His local counterpart, walking down the center of the main street in a sarong like a checkered tablecloth, topped by a coolie hat. Other times, he'd be squatting in a storefront smoking his pipe. Running into White Lotus's Beatrix at breakfast one morning. The sound of Lao, like backwards English, especially in the tones of men. Watching incense swirl into beams of sunlight at Xieng Thong, inspiring thoughts on transcendence and flexibility in travel. Zigzag walking the side alleys, looking at centuries-old human technology -- cooking, weaving, carpentry. Being sniped for a photo at Art House Cafe. Monks begging at dawn, along two parallel rows: one of orange garbed boys, the other of foreign photographers right up in their faces. The ever-present rivers. With the sun high, the river looked like someone was pulling a sheet of plastic wrap over dull-looking stones.

Every night we had dinner with the Italians. After they left, we ate at a couple of fusion cafes, one screening Casablanca on the bare white wall... On the turntable: Jerry Jeff Walker, "Navajo Rug"
On the nighttable: Craig Childs, "House of Rain"

Toasting the New Year on the Plain of Jars

December 30-31, 2009

...caught a minibus bound for Phonsavan. An overcrowded vehicle pulled away to reveal another one with ample space, allowing for a peaceful ride but for the driver and his morose humor. Every time our vehicle would chase an animal off the road, he'd make a chopping motion with his hand and say, "Laap! Beer Lao!"

The road snaked along mountain ridges, the valley floor dropping further and further away, with higher, prouder, peaks rising up on all sides. I remembered how incredible Laos had looked from the air, and now I was riding over some of the same unbelievable shapes I'd seen back in 1997. Closer in, things were equally fascinating. Hmong village followed Hmong village, each of them at the highest point of their respective mountain. Many people were hard at work digging a trench beside the road. Others were taking a bundle of reeds they'd gathered, then smacked them down with great force. These would become the roofs of houses, or the mats within. Nearly everyone seemed to be at work, from the aged down to the youngest kids. Nearly all of the women were busy doing something, including pre-teen girls carrying wood on their backs, counterbalanced by a strap around their foreheads. The only people I saw idle were the men, lounging under bamboo shelters, or leaning against pillars playing guitar. A few new homes were going up. The one's we'd seen in the lowlands were raised above ground by posts, but up at this height they were flush to the ground. Where all the wood came from was a no-brainer. The Hmong are infamous for their slash and burn approach to agriculture, with the entire region devoid of trees, completely picked clean. I saw one restaurant being built at the edge of a hilltop whose sides had been cleared for the wood to build it. I can picture the entire thing sliding away with the return of the monsoon.
In one town, we passed a long line of schoolkids heading home. In another, a man, badly injured on his motorcycle, was carried off and loaded into a car. An Italian guy who had helped now washed the blood from his hands. We stopped for lunch at a sizable town that had sprung up at a T-junction. Here we picked up a Swiss bicyclist who, upon reaching this spot, had found himself out of money. Bicycle touring through Laos seems to be quite popular. I'd already seen two women riders earlier in the day. The Swiss joined us for the final 3 hours of our drive.

Phonsovan was a one street town built upon a high plateau. At night, the only lights to be seen were spilling out of the open fronts of restaurants, or from the passing vehicles, dust swirling up through their beams...

...had breakfast at Crater's Cafe, located beside the UXO museum. At nine, we joined some new friends (including the Italian with bloody hands) for a one day tour of the area. We started at a Hmong village that sat atop a red earth mountain high in the clouds. The guide seemed bemused that our biggest reactions were to the animals. Pigs and dogs ran everywhere. A few buffaloes were tied to stakes, including one with an immense set of shoulders and a gnarled ear, the blood from it still staining his upper right flank. There were pigeons in coops, and a monkey on a chain. The latter was connected to a defused bomb ringed by a tire. This village is famed for using bomb casings as fencing, or as the support beams for structures. A few were also used as planters, or as cooking implements. This is unusual in itself, of course, so our finding greater enthusiasm in the monkey was highly amusing to the guide, his high pitched giggles heard frequently. Carlo, the Italian, mentioned that there had been more bomb casings on his visit here 5 years ago. The guide said that the Vietnamese had bought much of it for scrap.

I was greatly impressed with the visit to the shaman's house, with its immense spirit altar of origami paper and light, beside an ancient poster of Bruce Lee in 'The Big Boss. " Outside, a small girl seemed absolutely terrified at the sight of us, bawling in tears and clutching tightly to her older brother. Other kids were less bothered, including two boys who pushed bricks through the dirt like they were race cars, and one girl with a curious shock of blond hair. (I saw two others while in the area, complete blondes framing dark Asian faces.) As we left, a small gang of kids walked through the village, playing war games with their water machine guns. I found it chilling, since up to a few years before, boys not much older than they had been robbing and killing bus riders with arms of a similar type. Having ridden through their villages up along the ridgelines, I could see the ease with which they could.

Our next stop was the Plain des Jars site 1. We wandered the jars that spilled across the grassy hills, taking care to stay on the paths. The dozen or so bomb craters were reminders of the perils which still exist here. Many of the craters are filled with pretty wildflowers. After lunch, we went to site 16, opened just 2 months before. There was a real sense of danger as we walked the trail through the quiet forest. Our guide chose this moment to make a phone call, and we weren't exactly sure which places were safe. (His call seemed rather important--he showing furious and manic body language as he pleaded with his 15 year old sister's boyfriend not to elope with her.) I set off alone up the trail in order to pee, and nearly shit myself to see that I was standing amidst a group of holes where UXO had been dug from the ground seemingly days before. Carlo yelled to me that he'd found a safety marker, one that I had strolled 20 meters past into the red.

Our final stop was at the Old City of Muang Khoun, which the American Air Force had flattened in a single night. It reminded me a lot of Ayuthaya. We visited a large Buddha seated on an open brick platform between two broken pillars. A group of Thai were up here, the girls posing like supermodels, the camera toting boys down on one knee in search of the perfect angle. A short drive away was a single stupa that rose like a missile into the sky. It had been hollowed out by Chinese thieves, revealing an older stupa within. A trio of girls were sitting on the grass outside, playing a game where they'd throw a stone into the air and pick up as many sticks as possible before catching it again. An older woman sat with them, laughing at everything.

Back in town again. As Phonsovan is close to the Vietnamese border, that language can be heard everywhere, particularly in its Vietnamese restaurants. We chose one near the UXO museum, me enjoying my first water buffalo meat in over a decade. Some street kids were stealing food from the plates left behind by foreign tourists. We took a portion from our own plates, put it in a bag, then gave it to them conspiratorially. This didn't endear us to the owners. Then off to bed at 10, trying to ignore the karaoke and fireworks that counted out the last hours of 2009...


On the turntable: Richard Hell, "Time"On the nighttable: Earl Ganz, "The Taos Truth Game"

Between Holidays...

December 27-29, 2009

...awoke to the sound of pre-dawn roosters. One of them had a crow so bad that it kept Miki and I in bed, giggling. We rented bicycles and peddled around looking for other, less ramshackle places to stay. One of these, Mayly guesthouse, was highly touted but slightly past its prime. For some reason, the owner began to discuss with me his plans of expansion, but he sounded a bit weary from the uphill struggle, worn down by his own pessimism. Where a few years ago he'd been the only guesthouse on the far side of the river, now he was surrounded. Vang Vieng was on the grow, and as such, it was a very noisy place. Night was accompanied by the thud of bass, day was the sound of hammer and saw. For every existing guesthouse, two more seemed to be going up.

Five minutes on the road out of town, I got a flat. This was followed by an hour walk back to town with the bike on my shoulder. The woman at the shop would do nothing for me, so I walked away angrily after an uncharacteristic show of temper. I am usually very patient in times like these, but have grown weary with kind people who have sold their humanity for tourist dollars. More than this, I hate myself for my anger.

The new bike, from a different shop, handled the bad roads well. It took us through rice fields and jungle, past lazily grazing cows, and under high karst mountains. It also took us through a series of small villages newly created to house the resettled Hmong. In one, we caught a glimpse of some ceremony: two lines of Hmong girls in traditional dress tossing a ball back and forth. (I later found that this was practice for a courtship ritual.

We reached Blue Lagoon cave soon after. A boy took us up a steep climb over sharp, triangular rocks. The cave itself was a mere gash in the cliff face. Inside was a tight maze of narrow openings and a slippery, knife edge ridge above a chasm of imperceivable depth. It truly was dangerous going. The boys would stop sometimes and point their torches up at a heap of rock and say something in Lao. One boy ran his hand along a stalactite: instant xylophone. Back outside, we sat and drank water, our bodies and knapsacks streaked with mud. I found it strange that we hadn't seen anything that the guidebook had promised: no lagoon, no Buddha, and no Brooke Shields.

We cleaned off in a stream down on the valley floor, beside a boy spearing small fish with a small gun. Downstream, we had lunch on a deck overlooking a bamboo bridge, kids swimming and bathing below. One kid was handicapped, pushing himself along on a makeshift walker. His granny squatted, doing laundry at the water's edge, suddenly angry at a 4WD that created waves as it made the crossing. When we paid for lunch, we only had bills of a large denomination (worth $6 dollars US), which the owners couldn't break. The husband went somewhere for about 5 minutes, then returned, handing the bill to a girl, who probably would've biked off somewhere to change it, leaving us waiting further. Never in a hurry, the Lao.

We pedaled out along the dusty roads, under a sun now hot. There were plenty of villages out here, plus one 'town,' which housed a college composed of a few concrete buildings around a large, overgrown athletic field. It was around here, at a T-junction, that we found a good-natured Frenchman astride a dirt bike, looking at his map. He'd rented the bike 21 days before and had been riding around the country. He pointed us down the right direction. We ran into him later at a river crossing, the 3rd crossing of the day. We'd twice had to pay for the privilege, to nearly identical women sleeping in nearly identical huts beside a barricaded bridge. (Near the first, two girls riding a motorbike had fallen sideways into the river from the bank.) The Frenchman had told us that we'd mistakenly come along the southern road, and were now looping back. Which explained all the foreigners we'd passed coming the other way. It also explained why we'd had such a hard time following the map we'd gotten at the bike shop. This turned out to be lucky after all, as the northern road was fairly shady, cutting back some of the afternoon sun's bluster. Water buffalo had their own solution: bathing in the river, burying themselves in mud. In this they proved smarter than the red-faced tourists on bicycles.

Back in town, we rehydrated at Vang Vieng resort, then rode across the bridge to Tham Jang cave. We arrived at 4:20, 10 minutes before closing, but the gatekeeper wouldn't let us in. I tried reason, I tried pleading. I even pointed at the monk seated nearby and said, "Show some of his compassion." He didn't budge, despite there still being at least 20 people lingering up at the cave entrance. "You are a bad man!," I yelled in his face, showing anger for the second time that day. What had compounded my anger was the fact that, 15 minutes before, I'd realized that what we'd thought was the Blue Lagoon cave was a different cave deliberately mislabeled in order to dupe tourists. I wasn't liking the people of Vang Vieng at the moment. But our friend here wasn't so much greedy as lazy, and at 4:30 on the dot, he mounted his bike and rode away, passing a German in a small swimsuit who was swimming into the lower reaches of the cave, breaststroking like a big fat frog. Five minutes after the gatekeeper left, Miki and I hopped the fence and climbed the steep steps. We weren't able to enter, barred by a heavy gate now locked. As we looked out over the river, I wondered if I wasn't a bad man too.

In town, we looked for a place to enjoy the sunset. For all the building, very few riverfront cafes or hotels had seating that faced the million-dollar scenery to the west. We eventually found one, but the mozzies soon drove us off. So we walked the town. The video in one cafe was playing "Friends," (and would be every time I walked by). Another cafe had the sign, "No Friends." Two other cafes were partial to "Family Guy." A different cafe had the sign, "Give Pizza a Chance." Many other signs had bizarre English with nospacingbetweenwords. Down on the island, the coming of night brought mayhem. Many of the bars had their names spelled out in Xmas lights, music pumping competitively, the alcohol reached only by crossing haphazard bridges. (There was a charming transcendent nature to it all.) This, along with the chubby, half-naked drunks strolling around really made me dislike the frat party that is Vang Vieng. Twenty years before, I'd probably have loved it, but now, for me, "party" is no longer a verb.

We finally sat to eat at the Organic Cafe, but found both the men and the food wanting. As we ate, a truck kept circling the block, the people in back holding up a trophy and singing...

...Miki had a fever last night, so we had a mellow day of resting and reading. We spent most of the morning at Luang Prabang bakery, then separated. I watched monklets beg at the Irish Pub where I ate Steak and Ale pie. We spent the rest of the day beside the river on the island, lazing on one of the covered bamboo bungalows. Later, roti pizza from a street vendor....

...in the morning, we rode out to some caves in the back of a truck. Our guide was a jolly Lao named Boum, whose girth gave me confidence in the fact that, if he could negotiate the narrow passages of a cave, I certainly could. It turned out not to be necessary, a world away from the ridiculous danger of a couple days back. The first cave was a series of interconnected chambers; the second a long tube. Coming out of the latter, we saw hundreds of dead bees on the trail. The caretaker of the cave was nearby, preparing to roast the honeycomb. A few days ago, no one had been able to enter the cave due to the bees, but I doubt the genocidal solution was done out of concern for the tourists as much as a means to have a tasty snack.

We rejoined the rest of our group at the Water cave. The highlight here was pulling yourself through while sitting in an inner tube. Some of our group stayed inside to swim, but I'd had enough of the cold water and had come out early. After lunch beside the stream, we walked through a couple Hmong villages. The poverty was pretty severe, especially when compared to the Lao of Vang Vieng town. The low-riding pigs and chickens weren't food but commodities to be sold if money was needed for medicine,. etc.

The rest of the day was the highlight for me, the kayaking. I wound up with a boat to myself. Before leaving, the guide had shoved some weeds in a round slot in the aft. Assuming it was some superstition, I asked him about it, to be told, "Keeps the water out." It was bliss to work my way slowly down river, beneath high karst walls. Villages came up, and their villagers -- fishing, bathing. Two children led a herd of buffs across the river. A granny and child on the bank, silhouetted against the sky. Further down river were people tubing, looking drunk, cold, and bored. They were passed by the long-tailed boats ferrying Asian tourists up river. Most bizarre were the bars. You'd hear them before you saw them, the music booming along the water. Then the structures would loom up, rickety and precarious and teeming with partiers, who'd dive off the platforms or were swinging out over the river on zip lines. It all reminded me of the night scene in Apocalypse Now when Willard's team drifts up to a stream of lights hanging across the Mekong, distorted music rising above all. We took a break at an empty platform further on, to sit in the sun and swim. I took my turn on the zipline. Two moments took guts: letting your feet leave the platform, and letting go of the trapeze bar.

Had dinner back in town, sharing a table with a half-dozen Vietnamese backpackers. Funny that my memories of Vietnam 12 years before was of a country not unlike Laos today. And now the Vietnamese are backpacking. The meal, and the day, was soured a great deal by the waiter, who was as surly as he was incompetent. He got 2 of our 3 items wrong, and forgot the other one altogether. When it came time to pay, he couldn't remember what we'd ordered. We were complicit in our own poor memories. A fitting, and metaphoric, end for our lukewarm relationship with Vang Vieng...


On the turntable: "Suzanne Vega"
On the nighttable: D.H. Thomas, "The Southwestern Indian Detours"

...And all throughout Laos...

December 24-26, 2009


...this being Xmas eve, Miki and I had dinner at the Cote d'Azur French restaurant, culminating in a stroll down the French market and past the bars, the female staff dressed sexily and topped with Santa hats...

...we pedalled out of town on this Xmas morn, bound for Wat Si Muang. It was an extremely active place, worshippers showing great devotion as they placed tall arrangements of yellow flowers and candles on the floor just before their prostrating foreheads. Other worshippers were banging gongs, and one man seemed determined to destroy the head of a large drum with the force of his beats. The temple had been built on the site of a former Khmer temple, the ruins of which still rose as a pile of porous black stones behind the newer structure. A massive bird was perched atop this, turning its head almost mechanically. It remained balanced on a single leg, the opposite claw wrapped around it as if a hand. Nearby, a baby gibbon swung itself playfully about its cage, stopping only to look sheepishly into my eyes. Its parents were in an adjacent cage, looking forlorn, as if they'd given up on life.

We'd heard about a naga shrine that was out on the island. A man had told us to find the watertower, turn right, and cross the rickety bridge. The bridge was certainly rickety. If I hadn't seen a motorcycle go over, I doubt that I'd have had the nerve. On the opposite side was a small village on the bank of the Mekong. The shrine was set amidst a quiet bit of jungle, decorated with serpents of exaggerated size, all surrounding Shakamuni and his naga cloak. It was an equally peaceful and spooky place.

On the ride back through the village, we were chased by a group of dogs, which scattered with a loud kiai and an aggressive stance (something I've found to work well on Asian canines). We spent the rest of the morning in a cafe run by a Japanese woman, reading in comfy wicker chairs and sipping one of the best coffees I've ever had. The cafe was decorated in true sparse Japanese style, consisting of just a few pieces of furniture, some hanging textiles, and plenty of negative space. Next up was lunch at a Laotian restaurant where we shared a dish that was cooked like nabe, but rolled up like harumaki.

At one o'clock, we were picked up for the ride out to Dreamtime Eco Retreat. After a quick stop at the market, we rode the dusty red road through the jungle to the bungalows. Ours was built alongside a small stream, with a hammock for swinging. The other bungalows were built to be hidden from the others, a trait common to places like this. The main bungalow was the center of things, where we all lazed around reading and dozing, alongside a large litter of cats. The place was owned by a pair of Belgian brothers, who'd been raised in Israel. Their mother and sister were visiting, along with two other Israelis, 2 Brits, and a French woman. Mike, the owner, had found the land 3 years ago, and opened to guests the year before. The place was spantan and simple, little more than a handful of modest structures surrounded by ungroomed jungle. He hopes to create more of a spiritual center, but to progress slowly, by word of mouth.

We all had a Xmas dinner of grilled Mekong River fish, potatoes, corn, and wine. Lots of wine. The night culminated around a bonfire in the jungle with good songs and conversation. Definitely a memorable holiday...

...I awoke feeling poorly,laying in bed soaking in my own alcoholic sweat, the only peace found in the variety of birdsong. We finally got up, but with no one else around, slept again until 9:30. We'd thought about staying a second night, but not really being of the party set, felt a little out of rhythm here. Most of the morning was lost, but I did take the time to walk the trails, trying desperately not throw up. For the first time in my life, I'd immediately vomit up the water I'd drink. It may have been the wine, but my money was on the fish, cooked and eaten in the dark. (Cornflakes and coffee eventually restored the balance.) As I walked, I tried to distract myself by looking at bugs (including one that looked like lint), listening to the birds, and trying not to think about snakes too much.

We left at noon, and stopped soon after, wheels buried in 3 inches of sand. A villager suddenly aparated out of the jungle, and helped us out. It was a bumpy ride in the back of the pickup, which didn't help my head any. I had a quiet hour to recover in the cool of the Mixay Hotel lobby, but the next ride in the back of a minibus brought the headache to the comeback trail. Halfway to Vang Vieng, we entered the mountains, winding up through the banana trees and the jungle. This was the landscape I'd remembered from previous visits to SE Asia. It dawned on me that I'd been in the flat of jungle lowlands for three weeks. We arrived in town after dark, 2 hours late...


On the turntable: Happy Mondays, "Greatest Hits"
On the nighttable: Edward Dorn, "Interviews"

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"