back in Thailand

Memories of Thailand came flooding back Saturday night. The reminiscing wasn't prompted by a travel discussion, a photo or a similar landscape. The memories were prompted by a bar.
Specifically, Dr Dremo's in Arlington. The lower level of the bar is a dive (although the crowd turns it into a trendy dive) built in the style of Southeast Asia.
I'm sure this isn't on purpose. But the wall-less, roofed area on a concrete slab sets the scene just right. The colored lights and crazy-quilt decorating scheme continues the trend. And the plastic patio-furniture tables and chairs set up on the concrete, sitting in the humid air under weakly turning ceiling fans, perfectly captured the ambiance of just about every Southeast Asia bar, or restaurant, we entered.
Of course, the details shattered the illusion. There was a wide variety of beer, and it all cost considerably more than 80 cents a bottle. It didn't even come in the preferred Asian 600ml bottle, but in plastic keg cups. And once we walked upstairs, the bar transformed into a multi-level pool hall.


Image from Flickr user Furcafe

One of the few things about the States I missed in my time overseas was a good cheeseburger. Thanks probably to the global fast-food chains, hamburgers are on the cheap-eats menu everywhere, at least in the English-speaking world, but perhaps also because of the global fast-food chains, something gets lost in the translation.
I ate plenty of burgers in New Zealand and Australia, and not one left me satisfied. There was a variety of reasons, usually starting with the meat - it seemed the ground beef was more often than not cut with with soy protein or some such thing to bulk it up. Even if the meat was right, there was always something off, such as the sweet-rather-than-salty ketchup Down Under. Apparently the just-right combination of a ground beef patty with cheese melted into its very essence topped with a lightly grilled or toasted bun and accesorized with some mix of toppings, just isn't one easily hit on outside the States.
(I did find one great burger during the 15 months we spent overseas. It was in north Thailand, of all places, at a little burger counter opened by an American Vietnam vet.)

I've had a chance to catch up on my burger shortage. In Atlanta I nearly had an overdose. The "Coronary Bypass" at the Vortex wasn't even close to the biggest or best burger I ate last week.

The Ghetto Burger at Ann's Snack Bar is not only the largest single object of ground beef I have ever eaten. It's more than a burger, it's an experience.
For one thing, you can't just waltz up and expect to grab a burger. Ann, who has been running the Snack Bar for about 35 years, serves the people sitting at the nine stools inside. If you get there when the stools are full, as I'm sure they always are, you wait until there's a space. We arrived at 3 p.m. There were about eight people ahead of us waiting to get inside. We finally made it to one of the coveted stools around 4:15.
(As the lady waiting next to us said when a couple bailed after waiting about 15 minutes: "You got to want it.")
Once we took our seats, it was another 45-minute wait for the burgers. This wasn't due to lack of service, it was because the burgers were made to with care. Patties at least two inches thick covered the entire grill. Onions were grilled, buns were toasted, bacon was deep-fried (I knew I would love the finished product as soon as I saw the raw bacon loaded into a fry basket).
When we finally were handed our Ghetto Burgers, we had in front of us a double-cheeseburger (each two-inch think patty must have weighed at least three-quarters of a pound) topped with bacon, onion, lettuce and, wonderfully, chili.

I finished the burger. My body complained for the rest of the day. It was totally worth it.

(And I'm not the only one who thinks so.)

ferry fun

As the porthole exploded inward and I was drenched with a couple gallons of sea water, shipwreck movies were running through my head. When the ocean starts to crack the windows and flood the ship, it's time for the characters to panic. A few of my fellow passengers were eager enough to pick up the cue.
About all I could do was sit there, muscles tensed, clutching the armrests of my seat and watching as a skinny Thai crew member was nearly bucked off the bow of the ship as he lashed a sheet of metal over the hole where a window used to be.
On our way in to Koh Pha-Ngan the ferry ride was no sweat; it was a relief after an overnight bus ride from Bangkok. After a couple of nights partying and days doing exactly nothing on the island, it was time to head back to Bangkok and finish our time in Southeast Asia.
The morning weather on the island was fine. I didn't notice the rough seas until we got on the boat - a modern catamaran accommodating more than a hundred people. The route was in two hour-long steps: Koh Pha-Ngan to Koh Tao, another island off the Southeastern Thailand coast, then on to the mainland.
As soon as we left Koh Pha-Ngan, the boat was rocking in five-to-10-foot swells. Just big enough to throw me into my first bout with seasickness. I managed to avoid any personal food expulsion, but when we pulled into Koh Tao I was fighting nausea. During a layover on Koh Tao I popped a seasickness pill (a great decision) and my stomach decided it didn't need to scream at me anymore and settled into a sulking grumble.
By this time the sky had turned gray and a few short downpours had all the passengers huddled with their luggage in the snack bar or under the waiting area's roof. The scheduled layover dragged on, and word spread the boat from the mainland - which would take us to shore - was running late.

Eventually we loaded up. The rain forced the crew to move all luggage inside the passenger compartment, rather than the normal practice of piling it on the front deck. As the ferry pulled away from the dock, it became apparent the wait had only intensified the waves. The swells now were 10-15 feet, and every time the boat rose up on a wave, it violently slammed down into the water on the other side. It felt like we were constantly being picked up and dropped a few feet onto a parking lot. The boat shuddered on every landing, then made another rapid ascent up the next wave. In the brief instant of weightlessness at each peak, my stomach kept going up even as the rest of my body started to drop with the boat. Each parabola of rise and fall also propelled me up off my seat, and then back down, unless I physically held myself tight to the chair.
Eventually, the impacts took their toll - the plastic casing around some florescent lights at the front of the cabin came loose, crashing into a group of already-nervous passengers. One girl in particular ended up with more of her blood outside her leg than she would have preferred. Just as the crew had gotten her panic attack under control and moved her to the rear rows of the cabin, a far more alarming wave hit.
Instead of hitting this wave head-on, the boat was at a bit of an angle. The front right corner led as the boat tilted down into a trough, and the boat was stilled dipped when the wave crashed over the corner of the deck and up into the front of the boat with enough force to blow out a window. That's when I became soaked with saltwater and starting thinking about shipwreck movies, as well as the two-paragraph stories on ferry sinkings in developing countries; the deaths always well outnumber the survivors, by about 100 to 1.
The people across the aisle from me had pieces of glass coating them, along with sea water. Those passengers who weren't simply stunned by the event voiced some concern.

"We're going to die!"
Comforting to all, of course.
"We must go back!"
This one gained some traction among the group; we were only about 15 minutes into the trip and could still see the dock behind us. The Thai crew did their best to talk everyone down, although most people shouting were more interesting in voicing their opinion than listening to anyone else. A few individuals defused the crowd by pointing out the captain was likely better qualified than the screaming passengers to make such a decision. The captain, above in his cabin and unseen by the passengers, did make one concession to the situation by slowing down considerably. With a bit less momentum, the boat avoided any more waves breaking into the boat. The crew passed out doses of menthol oil which served two purposes: for one, it was calming and seemed to combat both seasickness and the low-level anxiousness which the roiling sea induced.
It also masked the scent of the passengers whose seasickness got the better of them; once one or two passengers' stomachs sent their contents outward, the urge was contagious. It also wasn't helped by the seasickness bags the crew passed out, which happened to be clear plastic.
The hour-long trip instead took more like two and a half. The surreal sense of the whole trip was only heightened by the TV monitors playing "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" in the corners of the cabin. Although I suppose it was better than "Titanic," or "Poseidon."




There is a postscript to this story. Our journey from the islands to Bangkok was supposed to take about 12 hours, putting us in Bangkok around 11 p.m. that night. Instead, the tropical depression off the coast delayed and slowed our ferry, which meant we missed our bus connection. We ended up arriving in Bangkok at about 4 a.m. We had no room reservation (a concept that doesn't exist in Asian backpacker budget accommodation). We walked along the backpacker area and found a room available for about 800 baht, or $20. Instead of taking it, we searched for another 45 minutes until we found a room for about 500 baht, or $12.50. A month in SE Asia will seriously screw with your cost-comparison calculations. We seriously felt the first room was simply too expensive to even consider, even though we were exhausted and it was 4 in the morning. Instead, we sacrificed an hour of sleep - when we knew we'd have to check out of either place in the morning - to save about eight bucks.
It didn't even strike us as unusual at the time. In a month traveling around Thailand, Laos and Cambodia we probably paid an average of $7-8 a night for accommodation, and that's double beds and private rooms, not the dorm beds we paid $20/night each in Australia. In SE Asia, most restaurants posted their menu (in English) outside. After a week or so, we'd look at the menus, and if any one item cost more than the equivalent of $2.50 or so, the place was too expensive and we'd find somewhere else.
Then, in Iceland, we stayed at the Salvation Army, in dorm beds, in separate rooms, and paid the equivalent of about $40/night each for the privilege. If we wanted blankets, it was an extra $7/night.

Hold it up
Originally uploaded by slack13.

Central Montana has been cold lately - a few days of 1° highs and around -15° lows. Looking through the travel pictures reminds me what it's like to be warm - like in Bangkok. It was about 80° most days, had to be about 90° the day we arrived, and humid. Also, while we were in Southeast Asia, it rained nearly every day. Luckily, it almost always rained early in the evening, when we were somewhere eating dinner. Maybe a couple of times were we caught in the rain - only one I remember was in Cambodia, while we were touring one of the Angkor temples.

This photos was taken at a Bangkok temple, or wat. It was the wat on the grounds of the Grand Palace.

another photo post

Gate to the Forbidden City from Tianamen Square, Beijing

View of the Great Wall at Simitai

Marching into the distance

Skewers of street food, ready for cooking. The scorpions on the center sticks were still moving.

Tanks in Bangkok, a few days after the coup (the day we left).

Ronald gives a Thai greeting.

island life

Made it to Bangkok, and after waiting an extra day (the train we wanted was sold out) we made it south to the island of Ko Pha Ngan yesterday. This is time to rest and recover, so our days are empty. Last night partied on the beach with some fellow travelers - all the bars open to the beach and play music, so the atmosphere changes as you walk up and down.
There were quite a few people out (including fire dancers) but nothing like what it will be like in a couple weeks - this is the venue of the Full Moon Party each month, when about 10,000 drunken backpackers descend on the beach to drink and dance to DJs and everything else you do when a lot of people are in one spot to party.

coup time

Woke up this morning in Siem Reap, Cambodia ready to head to Bangkok on a bus after three days of temple-seeing, then hopefully hop on a train south to the beautiful Thai island beaches. However, news of the coup in Bangkok caused us to postpone the trip at least a day, to see what's going on over there. So far it doesn't seem like it will be much of a problem for traveling, but hopefully we'll have a better idea in the next day or so.

The unexpected day of rest gave me a chance to put up some photos and the blog entries below about our time in SE Asia.

slow boat on the Mekong - Sept. 10-12

The Mekong River, even here in Northern Laos when it still has to wind south along the whole of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, is a wide, brown, smooth river. The river appears languid rather than powerful, the brown waters sitting flat under the hills. There's aren't any visible markers of movement until the water finds a rock poking through the surface, when the river throughs up sprays of white and you see how fast the water is rushing south.
We joined the Mekong's waters at the Thai-Laos border. A ferry - nothing more than a long canoe with an outboard motor - took us across to Laos. For US$31 we were issued a month-long Laos visa (Laos uses US dollars and Thai baht as much as its own Kip. Cambodia is even stranger. At 4000 rial to the dollar, Cambodians use US dollars as the primary currency and Rial notes as change (if you pay with two dollar bills for a $1.50 bill, you'll get 2000 Rial back).
After a night in the Laos border village of Huay Xia, we headed for the boat ramp. The two-day ride south to Luang Prabang cost 190,000 Kip ($19).
The boat was meant for cargo, but added 32 wooden benches barely wide enough for two people. At least 80 or 90 passengers are on board, sprawled on the floor among baggage and bags of rice. Those seated are in rows of the small wooden benches, not quite wide enough for two American tourists to share comfortable. The wooden plank making the seat is too narrow, the back too straight for any comfort even for one.
The first day, we stake out an area on the floor behind the seats, leaning against stacked bags. The second day, on a different boat, the only room is on the benches. The floor is far preferable. Benches leave your ass with a dull ache after the first hour. Regardless of how you shift, the ache will stay until you get off the boat six hours later.

up in the sky

When I woke up for the first time in Bangkok, I saw something I hadn't seen in at least a year: smog. The blue sky turned into a grey strip just above the cityscape.
There is no such thing as smog in New Zealand, and I didn't notice any in Australia. Driving past the Wellington airport with a friend one time, we watched a jet take off and noticed something we hadn't seen before in the States. The jet's exhaust left two distinct black tracks in the sky, long after it had gone. The air was clear enough to see blemishes that just blend in elsewhere.

The clear skies of New Zealand changed things even at night. More stars in the sky than I'll bet you'll find in any other developed country.
Even in the cities, the night sky offered as many dots as you'll see in most US rural areas. In NZ's rural areas, there might have been more than even my boyhood home in the middle of Montana.
But the most impressive night sky I've seen was from the deck of a sailboat in Australia's Whitsunday Islands during a new moon. The Southern Cross was nearly obscured by all the other points of light suddenly present in and among the cross.

Sept. 4 - in Bangkok

Bangkok is a frenetic place, but the chaos seems like it might just be the outer, visible layer on a city with a calm heart. Or maybe it's just full-go with a few pockets of calm in the shaded alleys.
The first impression for a tourist, at least a white backpacking tourist, is the number of people who eagerly ask you to redistribute a bit of your wealth into their pocket.
Generally they're asking for a swap: your money in exchange for transport. Every few feet on the street someone will offer you a ride in a tuk-tuk or taxi, or tell you the attraction you're walking to is closed and they have an even better destination to take you to (generally these "offers" are more indiscriminate shouting. And a tuk-tuk is a two-person cart hooked to the back of a motorcycle).
After a day, the people making these "offers" descend from the forefront of your awareness into the background noise. As your mind adjusts to Bangkok, the shouts reach annoyment status far less regularly.

Sept. 3

The day our trip shifted from Australia to SE Asia, with a 9-hour flight from Sydney to Bangkok:

Land in Bangkok near midnight. Exit customs, see the sign for our hotel's courtesy car on the railing separating the newly-departed passengers from everyone else in the airport's lower level.
We're looking for the sign because we made the decision to spend $90 (about the same as we'll spend on all our accommodation combined the next three weeks) for a Western-style airport hotel. The thought of landing in Bangkok at midnight and dealing with the chaos and transport options made overpaying for a night seem justified.
We waited with a group of other Westerners headed to the same hotel. The driver didn't show for a few minutes, then came to say the car was full and some of us would have to wait.
When it comes back, the courtesy car turns out to be a packed van and a pickup piled high with baggage. Ours are added to the load, we're ushered into the crowded vehicles and are off.

Every driver in Bangkok, whether transporting tourists or riding a motorcycle, drives the same: just a shade faster than conditions permit, trusting everyone else to do the same. The traffic flows around and through itself against all logic. On a two-lane road, there will be three lanes of traffic. On a three-lane road, there will be four lines of vehicles squeezing past each other.

The cars took us across the expressway, then off into a maze of alleys lined with tin shacks selling food or beer, lit primarily by strings of Christmas lights. Chickens walked among the small buildings, then suddenly the hotel rose out of the incongruous surroundings.
The hotel wasn't worth $90 if it was in the States, much less here where our next night's room cost about $7. The guy in line ahead of us, without a reservation, got a room for two-thirds the price. But it was easier than navigating Bangkok at night dealing with jet lag and culture shock.

over the river and through the woods, to Laos we go...

Spent the last two days on a long, slow boat plying the Mekong River from the Thai/Laos border south through Laos to Luang Prabang, which has a reputation as the prettiest city in Laos.

So far the main thing of note in this country is the currency: 10,000 Kip to 1 US dollar. If I traded in 100 dollars, I'd be a Laotian millianaire.

Even with the easy conversion, it's a bit tough, since all my money has already been exchanged for Thai Baht (37 to the dollar) and then to Kip. It's also a bit odd to see numbers on a menu like this: 8,000 for a beer; 15,000 for fried rice.

And after a few days in a country where a double room costs about $4.50 and food rarely breaks the $2 mark, I find myself thinking things like: I'm not about to go in that overpriced cafe - food is 60 cents more a dish!
At the night market today I heard an American couple balk at a purchase of a quite intricate carved wooden elephant. The too-high price: $6.

A few photos from Thailand:


Bangkok's Grand Palace Complex


Bangkok intersection

Ko San Road, the tourist center of Bangkok


Trekking in Northern Thailand

Dancing in a hill tribe village

Sunset in the village


the Chiang Mai market

north in Thailand

Left Bangkok after just two days to meet up with friends up north in Chiang Mai.

In Bangkok, we mostly just walked around (and sweated) in the heat to get a feel for some of the city, and checked out Buddhist temples (there's a lot of them - more than 300, the book says). Our second day was mainly spent in the Grand Palace complex, which also includes an ornate temple containing a Jade Buddha.

Took the night bus to Chiang Mai on Tuesday night hoping to catch our friends (Americans we met in New Zealand) before they left on a three-day hike Wednesday morning.
Chiang Mai is known for treks taking tourists to hill tribe villages - people well away from the Thai cities and some of the poorest people in the country. We ended up catching our friends and going on the trek with them. The hiking itself was quite nice - we carried backpacks with clothes and a few other niceties, while the food was prepared for us. The hike wasn't too demanding, although the first day was all uphill and the heat/humidity was well up there. Over the three days we walked through a number of villages. Generally they're loose collections of buildings made of bamboo with thatched roofs, with chickens, pigs, dogs and cats roaming around the dirt. The villagers subsist on agriculture - we saw mostly corn, some soybeans and other crops; the tour books say opium is also a major part of some tribes' incomes - and selling crafts to the tourists.

The second night we actually camped in a village. The local children sang and danced for us. Saw the local school as well.

The trip also through in a few extras - one afternoon the hike was eased by riding elephants for part of the route and today the final distance was covered by bamboo rafts.

Now we're in Chiang Mai for another day to finally see the city (and relax a bit). Sunday we'll head to Laos, then make our way toward Cambodia.

bangkok

typing this on a bar's free internet - so it'll be quick [shift key doesn't work, either]. flew in yesterday, walked around the city today. it's hot. after a year in new zealand, and a month in australia's winter without humidity, i'd just about forgotten what this was like. feels like i'm back in mississippi. actually, with the smog, heat and humidity it feels more like houston. not good. i'm enjoying the rest of the city so far - it's good to be somewhere a little bit crazy. the roads are hectic - crazy drivers, cross at your own risk crosswalks. tuk-tuk drivers are annoying. streets are also annoying - we wandered in a maze of alleys for nearly an hour before we found the guesthouse this evening. street vendors everywhere - lots of food on sticks. i'm always a fan of food on a stick.