Keepin' It Real

Back in America

2006-04-24T06:51:00.000+07:00

I am now in San Francisco, California. It's been two weeks since I got back. It's really cold here! I was mentally preparing myself for the shock, but it didn't matter. I have always said that SF is an air-conditioned city, but I think I may start to refer to it as a meat locker.

The job search has already started. While in Thailand, I was online... checking out Craig's List. I am delightfully surprised as to how plentiful the job market is. I've had a few interviews, but everything's in the early stages.

After securing a job, I will start looking for places to live. I don't have much stuff - I got rid of most everything when I left New Orleans and what I did save was kept with friends in NOLA. I lost my clothes and personal documents, but the CDs, cookbooks and photographs survived.

If anyone's got a lead on a job or a place to live, lemme know!

Angkor Wat - one last adventure

2006-04-02T18:39:00.000+07:00

One destination that has been on my list of To-Do is to visit Angkor Wat in Cambodia. This area has been declared a World Heritage site by the UN and quite deservedly so. It contains the ruins of an ancient empire dating as far back as the 12th Century. What it is most famous for are giant stone sculptures of faces. I first saw these images in the movie Apocolypse Now, where Brando is nuts and has an army to call his own (but the movie was actually shot in the Philappines).

The first part of my adventure starts with just getting there. People have told me that it's a harsh journey to Siem Reap, the town that borders this area. Though it's only 200 kilometers away (120 miles), people have told me that it took 12 hours out of their lives. But a reputable source told me that these people are wussies who can't handle a five hour bus ride and that the road is bearable. Always looking for an adventure, I followed the latter opinion.

He was right, but failed to stress the conditions of the road. I chose to take a minivan (instead of a huge charter bus) and that was a poor choice. I've been on some horrible roads before, let me remind you that I've lived in Senegal, West Africa where there's a running joke of who's drunk: the driver who is going a straight line or the driver who is swerving all over the road. Answer: The driver in a straight line because he's not avoiding the potholes, mounds of random dirt and wandering animals.

This road to Siem Reap can't be as bad as that, I thought, and if it was, I've been conditioned to handle this rough terrain. Well, I gotta say, that if this wasn't worse than what I 've been on in Senegal, it has to be the longest stretch of crappy highway that I've ever experienced. It took six hours to get to Siem Reap!

I should consider myself lucky, though. The rainy season just started - prior to this, the 200 km would take twelve hours because of the loose dirt and sand.

But I made it to town safe and sound.

Siem Reap is an odd town. First of all, though the Cambodian currency is the riel, US dollars and Thai baht are preferred. The few ATMs in town don't distribute riel, either. It gives dollars, with a maximum amount of $800, a limit that I haven't seen since Las Vegas.

The town also has a wild, wild west, outlaw feel to it. While walking alone at night, many a motorcycle taxi would pull up next to me and ask me a series of questions: 1) do I need a ride somewhere. 2) do I need a woman for "boom-boom" 3) do I need any drugs.

Angkor Wat is just a buncha temples from a time long forgotten - in fact, it wasn't "discovered" until the 1860s by a French biologist. Words just can't do justice to what is here, so I'll just post some of the many pictures I took.

Some of you may have seen this image of the buddha face, but the face isn't as obscured by the tree roots. This is an example that there is still real growth in these ancient ruins.

End of the dream

2006-03-24T15:41:00.000+07:00

After seven months of no work and all play, it's time for me to leave this paradise and come back to the land of the "free" and home of the paranoid. Actually, the well has gone dry. It's time to start working again. I will fly into San Francisco on April 10th.

Until then, I've been hanging in Phuket enjoying the last few weeks of my early retirement. After this weekend, I'm going to Cambodia to check out the ancient ruins of Ankor Wat. This will be my last adventure before leaving Asia.

What follows are some of my favorite photos from my journeys... (A warning again - the first group of photos are from the Vegetarian Festival [see http://therandychung.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_therandychung_archive.html Oct 11 entry]. Some of the photos are extremely painful.)

These are the some gods that are possessing the people to pierce and mutilate themselves.

These gods are waiting to be carried through the parade.

He is on his way to get pierced. I've tried to get this look in my eyes, but I just can't. I would have to say that he really is possessed.

These buddies are sharing the same sword to slide across their tongues. Obviously, AIDS is not a concern for them.

waiting for the parade to start

After marching about 10 kilometers around the city, all gather at a temple at the edge of town and say prayers into the horizon.

2006-03-24T15:26:00.000+07:00

waterbuffaloes finish wading in the pond at sunset.

Than Bokkarani national park

This is my favorite beach in Thailand - Railey Beach. The water is clear blue, the beach has fine sand and the backdrop is of linestone caves.

perhistoric drawings alongside this wall on an island in Phang-Nga.

Here is plant growing in a trees branches in the Koh Sok rainforest.

Koh Sok River

monkeys hanging with Gonesh

2006-03-24T15:16:00.000+07:00

2006-03-24T14:55:00.000+07:00

construction of a new stairway.

This was a staged ceremony in a remote village north of Pai. The photographer on the right is working for a French magazine and paid the village to put on this ceremony.

nap time for a tailor and the street dog

Gabor and I paid a village woman to guide us through the forest in search of a couple of hidden caves.

scenes from Taman Negara rainforest

2006-03-16T23:22:00.000+07:00

Our bus was delayed for an hour while en route to the park. We arrived just as the car driver sprayed the engine with a fire extinguisher but to no avail. After ten minutes, flames started shooting out from the front.

In the center of the photo is a dung beetle in part of a mating ritual. He is in direct competition with another male as to who can roll the bigger ball.

In the center of the photo is a macaque that was hiding from me.

Serenity now.

2006-03-15T13:07:00.000+07:00

I am back in Thailand, finished with my travails on the Malaysian railway system. What started at midnite of Monday morning in Jerentut has finally ended in Phuket at 5:15 AM of Wednesday.

Forty hours in the same set of clothes (I only have two "sets" of clothes - one for biking and one for non-biking activities. This time I am wearing a hybrid of them, biking shirt and regular shorts with biking shoes).

All this for what normally is a twelve-hour ride. I was able to get out of Jerentut, but not on the 12:30 PM train. I had to wait another eight hours for the 6:22 PM train. The 12:30 is an "express" only and does not have cargo capacity.

Once out of Jerentut, the #58 local route (my third time on this route in four days) rolls on for seven hours until reaching the end of its line at Gua Musang. I arrive at one in the morning, Tuesday.

I then find out that the next train that leaves Gua Musang, the 4:44, is an express. So now I have to wait until seven in the morning for the train that hits every single town and village along the route until it reaches its destination of Pasir Mas at noontime. I am now thirty kilometers from crossing the Malaysian border.

I bike the distance after eating my last Malaysian meal, chicken in a tomato onion curry sauce over rice with sauteed oyster mushrooms (a common item in the daily market) and baby bok choy. Also in the veggies was some extra flavor provided by a couple of tiny, tiny silk worms (presumably) not washed out before cooking.

Eighteen miles to the Thai border is a short distance for me after going all the way down to Singapore. But the mood changed a little after considering all that I had to go through just to get my bicycle on the proper trains. During this hour's time, the thought did occur to me that if I just biked to the border from Jerentut in the first place, I would cross into Thailand just a few hours later. I saved almost no time by taking the train system!

The Malaysian immigration officer did have a curious look when he saw my passport. This only meant just a few more minutes standing at the border. The Thai side was easier. I just filled out a form and was back in Thailand.

The final challenge was getting out of southern Thailand. For the past few years, this area has had occasional insurgent activity that is being unsecessfully suppressed by the military. Thais from other areas try to avoid this area after nightfall, so I felt it was in my best interests to follow suit.

Only one bus was leaving town. The midnight express bus leaves at 5 pm and arrived Phuket twelve hours later. I managed to get four hours of sleep on the bus. This gave me enough strength to bike a final 18 km to get to Debbie and Eric's house close to Naiharn Beach.

Finally, my journey has ended...

Trapped!

2006-03-13T12:46:00.000+07:00

I am trapped in hell!

Right now I am in Jerentut, Malaysia, the entryway into Taman Negara, Malaysia's rainforest.

Ever since I made the decision to get out of Malaysia (while I was in Singapore), I've been getting the screw job one way or another. The first is when I took the train out of Singapore to Jerentut. While crossing the Malaysian border, I noticed that there was no one getting off the train to get a visa stamp. This bothered me all the way to Jerentut (a seven hour ride. When I got off the train, I made an inquiry about the visa stamp, but no one could give me an answer. So I decided that I probably needed to go back to the border to get the stamp. This means that I needed to wait eight hours for the southbound train. Once I get there, the immigration officer informs me that I didn't need to do this my initial visa was still valid. I had the impression that once I left the country (for Singapore), the visa was canceled and I needed to get another one... wrong! So this trip was unnecessary.

Once back in Jerentut, I spent a day and a half in Taman Negara, trekking thru jungle trails and walking thru a half-kilometer canopy walk - a roped path high in the trees.

After coming back from the park, I made arrangements to get to the Thai border. This was 6 pm. I purchased a ticket and asked about the cost for taking my bike. The man said no charge. Interesting, it cost me almost the price of the ticket when I left Singapore.

Well, it seems that this bike is as much of a curse as it is a blessing. I went back to the train station an hour before its arrival, midnite. I wanted to confirm that taking the bike on the midnite express was not a problem (especially since the previous train station attendant said it was going to be free). He told me that it was a problem because it was an "express" and that it did not have cargo capacity. Unfortunately I had already purchased the ticket. The guy said that he could send the bike on a later train, but it would cost me 12 Ringgit.

In my pocket at the time was only 8 ringgit. (I did have 90 ringgit a few hours before, but wanted to go for broke as I was going to leave the country so I had a big meal and got some alcoholic beverages - something I rarely did in this Muslim country.) I told the guy that I would go to an ATM to get some more ringgit. The first ATM didn't accept foreign cards. The next five ATMs didn't dispense cash because it was after midnite.

I went back to the train station tell my story. He was rather unhelpful, meaning that he would not take any other currency (I have US $, Thai baht and Laos kip) to make up the remaining 3 ringgit (equivilent to 75 cents). No help here. I ended up having to scrap the ticket (refund of 50% - 9.5 ringgit) and stay the nite in Jerentut. The guy had the nerve to ask if I had 50 sens - I didn't even bother to check my pocket - I wasn't going to help him out either! Jeez, what a nice guy... he gave me 10 ringgit back.

I go back to the hotel and hope that I can use the room that I got just seven hours ago. The catch is that right when I left the hotel, I let someone else who was staying in a dorm room sleep in it. Not only that, it was 1 AM and I wasn't sure if any one was awake to unlock the front gate. A good thing that some people were still awake and in fact, the guy who took my room was also still up.

I woke up this morning with a mission to get out of this stinktown. I go to the bus station (right across from my hotel) to see what they can do. The bus driver refuses to deal with my bike. Off to the train station again. The attendant says that I can take the 12:44 train, though I need to come back at 11:30 to buy the ticket. Fine. I go back to the hotel and fortunately I can still use the room to lay down on the bed for a few hours.

Right about now my frustration level is very high. I am way past rage and anger - last nite's mishaps at the train station vented all that. I get to the train station and see a new attendant. (Every time I go to the window, there's a new guy.) This man tells me that the bike can't go because there's no cargo car. I ask him of my options and the best thing he suggests is that I take the 6:22 PM train to the end of its line (Gua Musang) then take another train to the Thai border, which requires a four hour wait in the middle of the nite. I hope this works, otherwise I am throwing the bike in front of the next train.

I love Singapore!

2006-03-08T20:40:00.000+07:00

I missed a turnoff while trying to find a biker trail and ended up in a Nature Reserve in the northern part of the island. Above is one of the many trees in the mangroves.

Sunset from the "Southernmost point of Continental Asia" on Sentosa Island, Singapore's island resort. This is rather a misnomer, because this was on an island and not on the continent. Obviously, just another tourist trap.

Singapore is known for their harsh penalties (remember Michael Faye and the caning incident?). This sign is found at the begining of underpasses along the river. This is about a $625 US fine.

scenes from a Hindu temple

2006-03-07T21:02:00.000+07:00

flower petals and lime peels are filled with candle wax and lit for the gods.

March 6: Batu Prahat to Singapore - Mission Accomplished!

2006-03-07T13:18:00.000+07:00

Woke up with a full nite's sleep and the legs felt fresh. Yesterday was just a fluke. I was able to get into my top gears for extended periods. Maybe it was the excitement of this being the day that I cross the Malaysian border. Whatever it was, I was in a good mood.

Light traffic, no hills and cloud cover during almost half of the day. At one point, I was concerned about rain. This concerned distracted me at a critical point in the ride as I missed a turn.

Suddenly I saw a sign telling me that I was on highway 95. But wait, I was supposed to be on Highway 5. I kept going, thinking that maybe this stretch of road was both highways, which happens a lot in this country. I saw more signs for 95, but no mention of 5.

I stayed the course, thinking that even if I am on the wrong road, I should be able to correct it witha simple turn to the east. At the 16th kilometer, I decided to check the map. #%*&!!! Hwy 95 doesn't go to the border and it doesn't hook up with anything that does.

Here is a Muslim cemetary that I passed while going the wrong way.
I had to turn around and found out that the turnoff was the town where I had lunch. So what was supposed to be 150 km to Singapore just grew another 32 km. In other words, the ride just got an hour longer. That I didn't need.

I was able to shave maybe ten kilometers by taking the new, second bridge into Singapore. It was a risk, because my map showed that I would be on the expressway for a short spell before the bridge and I didn't know if bikes were even allowed on the bridge.

The expressway was not a problem. Traffic was so light, that even though it was a four lane highway, only one vehicle would pass me every minute or so.

The bridge was the same situation. The border cop at the Malaysian side let me on without any issue. She just stamped my passport and let me go in less than sixty seconds.

As I approached the Singapore border, a cop on foot was waiting for me. He informed me that bikes are not allowed on the bridge and gave me the safety speech despite the fact that traffic was very minimal. I suspect that since it was such a slow day, he didn't have anything better to do.

It was very official, he got on his walkie-talkie to inform the border patrol of the situation. He was very helpful and friendly and led me to the nicely air conditioned office to process my visa.

With everything taken care of, he escorted me to the customs agent. This was a very official stop, compared to crossing the borders in Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and Burma. The cop actually rifled thru my bag and gave me the run down of what I intended to do in the country.

Finally, it was all over and I was free to roam Singapore. Maybe I should have purchased a map of the island before coming here. I just figured that it would be rather self-explanatory on finding the city. But that is if I took the freeway.

TheTiger Beer brewery greeted me upon my arrival into Singapore as I got off the freeway. Ahhhhh, the smell of barley and hops in the air...

It was rush hour traffic, and I learned my lesson in Kuala Lumpur. I found myself in the industrial zone of Singapore and was asking people waiting for the bus where the city was. As I got closer to the City, traffic started to get heavier. At this point, my fatigue was weighing down on me - it was six pm and I had been on the bike for almost eleven hours.

The worse part was that I wasn't seeing any hotels. For thirty minutes, nothing. When I finally got into the downtown area, I saw hotels, but four and five-star places.

I finally found Chinatown, usually a sure-fire area for cheap hotels. No such luck, but I had come to the end of my rope and just wanted to stop. I found a rather nice hotel at $60 (Singapore currency... roughly $35 US) and well, I guess I should splurge after successfully touring the Malasian country.

Singapore is definitely part of the Developed World. A sign of this is that everything is at American prices. Cheap food is at a couple bucks, but would normally cost less than a dollar in Thailand or Malaysia. Yuppies populate the bars and drink prices are through the roof. I might as well be back in San Francisco!

One of the delicacies that I have eaten so far is the Black Pepper Crab. All the travel brochures made it a point that this was a must-eat. It was really tasty seasoned with black pepper (of course) and soy sauce, almost the size of a dungeness crab. I had to choke on the price of $20 for a kilogram's portion. After this, it's street food for me otherwise I'll go broke!

March 5: Melacca to Batu Prahat

2006-03-07T12:46:00.000+07:00

I didn't want to admit it the other day, but after starting out this morning I feel as though I blew a piston yesterday. I'm still able to bike, but I just don't have the same speed as when I started this journey. Though I don't have an odometer or speedometer, I can tell that I'm not up to snuff because I'm not getting into my top gears as often.

Oh well, today's just going to have to be a slow day. Just make it into town, I tell myself.

It went by rather uneventful, actually. No hills, no mountains, not even any rain.

Finding a suitable hotel was my biggest challenge of the day. Most of the places that I checked out were either full or way above my price range. The last place I stopped at had an advertised rate of 35 ringgit for an AC room. I saw this place earlier, but avoided it due to its grim exterior. By American prices (less than $10), this sounds like a bargain. But compared to Thai prices, this was overpriced. By Malaysian standards, this was low-end.

It was my last chance and checked it out. On first glance, the room looked acceptable and I took it. Well, the next cheapest option was double the price, so I didn't really have a choice. The room was on the fifth floor, so I had to go back down to the lobby to check in.

That was when I saw the first problem. The elevator can only be used to go up. The owner made some excuse that the it was so old, he wanted to minimize the usage by preventing people from going down it. "Use the stairs," he told me.

Well, this did bother me, but not enough to leave the hotel and pay double elsewhere. At least I didn't have to go up the stairs, I thought.

After checking in, I went up the elevator and realized that the fifth floor button did not work. I wondered why the owner went up to the roof first, before going down to the 5th when he showed me the room. OK, so I do have to go up the stairs... but at least it was only one flight.

I turned on the TV. First channel I saw was HBO. This is a good sign. Then I toured the other options. Thirteen other options, two of those were duplicate channels and three were fuzz. Well, TV is not a priority and at least I have HBO. (Top Gun was the prime time movie)

So I went into the bathroom to take a shower. The shower head was missing! The water heater was ripped off. The only thing that was useful was a hose attached to a sink faucet, but that couldn't be the intended shower, I thought to myself.

I went down the five flights of stairs (floors in Malaysia start with level G for ground level, then level 1...) and notified the owner of a missing shower head. "There's no hose?!?," he replied. So that was its intended use.

At this point, most people would have run away, but a jobless cheapskate like me talked myself into staying. "I've been to Africa! I've taken bucket baths back in my Peace Corps days. I can live with this. The most important things are that the AC and TV work. I wanted to rest my legs, so as long as these two things work, I can live with it."

March 4 - Port Dickson to Melaca

2006-03-04T14:25:00.000+07:00

the dead are remembered in a Chinese temple

Chinatown rooftops

Ahhh, today was an easy day! I woke up at the crack of dawn to cool temperatures and ocean breezes and a sign that said 96 kilometers to Melaca. The day before, I spoke to a bike mechanic in Port Dickson and he informed me that it was a straight shot southeastwards to Melaca, with many signs to lead the way.

The terrain was flat, traffic was light (well, lighter than a four-lane freeway) and my mental state was calm (it's amazing what listening to four lanes of cars at 100 km/h does to the mind). In fact, the day got better as the map that I have helped me out. This map, purchased in Thailand, was utterly useless during my stay in KL. It showed the major roads, but did not label them. It failed to name any of the towns bordering KL for a 40km radius. But this time, it helped me out by saving me 12 kilometers on a shortcut that the signs did not mention.

Triumphantly, I rolled into Melaca before noon with a head of steam and a smile on my face.

Melaca has its roots in the early age of exploration as a trading route between Europe and Asia. Portugese and Dutch influence can be found in the architecture and food. Plus there is the Chinese, Indian and Malaysian influences to be felt.

84 kilometers, 4 hours

March 3: Kuala Lumpur to Port Dickson

2006-03-04T14:07:00.000+07:00

sunset at Port Dickson

I am so glad to be out of KL! If I stayed any longer, I would be coming home in a body bag. I started out of the city at the peak of rush hour, much to my dismay. The plan was to pass through Putrajaya (just 20km south of KL), then down to Melaca (144 km away from KL).

As predicted, I was forced to get on the freeway to leave the city. I made the effort to avoid this, but the street that I was on morphed into a freeway after ten minutes without notice. It didn't seem so bad at the time, an explicit motorcycle lane was separate from the automobile portion.

Thirty minutes later, I saw a sign for Melaca and moved onto another freeway. This is when things started to go awry. First of all, there wasn't a cycle lane any more. I was now on a slim shoulder of a three-lane highway (each direction had it's own section of road).

The next problem was that the signs only mention cities but not cardinal directions. When I saw the sign to Melaca, a city for the opposite direction was listed. Given my lack of knowledge to the area, I ended up going west instead of east.

When I noticed that I was going the wrong way, I tried to correct the situation, but only made matters worse. As a result, by the time I got back on track and going in the right direction, I had already ridden for four hours and biked probably fifty kilometers off course.

fields of coconuts near Port Dickson

My eyes jumped out of my head when I saw the sign to Melaca (six hours after starting) saying 121 kilometers. At that point, I realized that I had to change the plan and stay the night at the next major town - Port Dickson.

130 kilometers (maybe, I just don't know how far I strayed off course), 7 hours

Feb 29: Malim to Batu Caves to Kuala Lampur

2006-03-02T18:08:00.000+07:00

The day started like the others... in a pool of sweat at the crack of dawn. I set out on the bike ready to go to capital city - Kuala Lampur (called KL by the locals). Just a simple 80 kilometers, so I was looking to get into the city by noon.

As always, things change in a split second. About halfway, I spotted a sign for the Batu Caves. This was on my agenda of things to see in the city, but I was surprised to see a sign for it so soon. I looked on the map and noticed that it was just outside of the city, to the northeast. On the map, it looked like a shortcut, possibly saving me 10-15 kilometers.

Unfortunately, I failed to do a visual check of where this "shortcut" would lead me to. Some five kilos down the road, I figured out that I was headed directly into some tall hills (but not really mountains). So maybe I did save some distance, but I actually added some time climbing the hill.

The Caves were a let-down, actually. I was expecting something close to walking thru darkened corridors, but instead it was just a huge cavern with a very high ceiling and it led out to an opened area with Hindu shrines. Not to say that I regretted coming here, it was interesting to look at. Plus there were monkeys patrolling the grounds.

After that, I weaved my way into KL. This sounds easier than it really was. First of all, being on bike, I had to figure out which roads led into the city. The first choice I made led me into a four lane highway. I stayed the course for a kilometer, until I thought it wise to get off and try my luck on the streets.

I ended up following the main flow of traffic that went into the direction of downtown KL. There are two main landmarks - the Petronas Twin Towers and the Menara Tower. I eventually found my way thru the maze of streets and weaved thru the gridlocked intersections and found a place to stay.

Traffic isn't as bad as that of Bangkok, but almost. Certain areas get choked with traffic, but on my bike, it was easy to navigate through. The main problem is breathing in the fumes.

The problem with the city is that whenever I tried to find anything outside the downtown area, I was forced to get on a four-lane freeway. I asked many people for directions to places that would not include a freeway, but that doesn't seem to work. I asked one person about avoiding the freeway and he just said, "Don't worry, just go slow".

90 kilometers, 4 hours (of biking time to get to the city, another hour winding through the city).

FOOD: I'm starting to find out that there is not much variety in this country. KL does have its share of fine dining, but I'm not prepared for that (I only packed a shirt, shorts, very informal pants and sandals). I've resorted to either Indian buffets, Chinese street vendors and noodle shops. There are regular Chinese food restaurants, but they are a minority and on the surface most look like cheap, dirty shops that I would avoid in America. The others look like fine dining.

more pictures

2006-03-02T17:59:00.000+07:00

view of the Cameron Highlands

Garpor and I

Zam and his wife, Az-Linda

Curiosity kills the cat? With a name like this, I was hesitant to try it. It tastes like sugar cane with additional sugar and lime flavor added. After the first sip, my heart started skipping a few beats. By the time I finished, my heart was racing down the street.

Feb 28: Brigchang to Mallim

2006-02-28T18:55:00.000+07:00

Woke up to a very cold morning. We were high in the mountains, above some clouds. The morning mist had burned off, though.

We started riding downhill and I was freezing! With the windchill, my fingers and toes had me concerned. Not that frostbite was possible, but I hadn't felt this cold since winter in America.

Eventually things started to warm up, but only after 20 kilometers. I kept waiting for a hill to climb to warm up, but it never happened. We just kept descending until we reached an elevation that was not cold.

Lemme tell you this was fun! We kept going down for 60 kilometers! Though we were only coasting (due to Garpor's spoke-situation), this was the longest downhill that I ever experience. Lotsa twists and turns and the scenary was just brilliant - lush tropical jungle foliage and flora.

Only until we reached to bottom of the mountain did it start to get hot - 2.5 hours later! The sun was blazing when we reached the town of Tapah. This is where Garpor and I split up - he returned to Ipoh and I continued south.

Throughout the descent down the mountain, distance signs to Kuala Lampur kept reducing. So much so, that I was entertaining thoughts of going the full distance to K.L. - 212 kilometers! Well, it was possible, seeing how the first 60 km was downhill and I didn't really pedal or expend any energy.

This thought diminished as the miles went by, though. Why? Well, it was really hot today. Hot and steamy. I probably could have made it to KL, but at what cost?!? By the time I reached Mallim, it was 2:30 and I still had another 80 kilometers to go. I saw a hotel by the side of the road and pulled in.

130 kilometers, 6 hours

FOOD: tostai (a thin pancake) with curry sauce, fried chicken, fish with green curry and rice, rice noodles with a red curry sauce, dinner will come after I finish this entry...

Feb 27: Ipoh to Brigchang (Cameron Highlands)

2006-02-28T18:34:00.000+07:00

Zam, my Malasian biker friend, hooked me up with another biker in town. Uncle Garpor is a 63-year retired man who was eager to join me to the Cameron Highlands.

The Highlands are the highest point on the western mountain range of the country. We began at 8AM. After leaving the Ipoh, the climb started. Zam warned me ahead of time that from this point until we reached Brigchang, there would be rolling hills with no villages in between.

I was ready for the lack of villages but not the rolling hills. Actually, there wasn't much rolling at all. It just kept going up and up and up - 80 kilometers until two villages just before Brigchang.

The climbing wasn't too steep, though at the beginning, Garpor had me sucking air. He was cruising so fast and I had to use all my powers just to keep up with him. His secret was that he was locked into the low "granny" gear (or as I will now call it, the grampy gear) and he had a thin slick tire in the front, reducing street friction.

Unfortunately, the star that burns twice as bright burns twice as fast. Eventually, Garpor bonked in the middle of the climb. He wasn't prepared for the lack of villages; he only brought one bottle of water and only Snickers-style candy bars. Fortunately, I had some water, peanuts and a Cliff bar (brought by my brother on his visit) for him. This brought him back to life just enough for us to make it to an oasis another kilometer away - a roadside stand with food in the middle of nowhere.

From this point on, it was slow going. Garpor was trudging along and I stayed behind to spot him just in case.

When we finally got to a major downhill (after the 80km marker), I flew down to the hill. Up until that point, I felt as if I was going in slow motion. At the bottom, I waited for Garpor. It seemed to take longer than it should have and he explained why. A spoke blew out, causing his rear wheel to wobble and jiggle. Rotten luck! At least he was able to ride the bike without any difficulty or serious danger.

The last ten kilometers were rough for me, too. We had been on the road for almost twelve hours and my mind was fried. We rolled into Brigchang with a quick rainfall that hit its apex just as we entered the town. A stroke of good luck?!?

90 kilometers, 12 hours, one stretch of light misty rain, five minutes of heavy rain

food: roti with curry sauce, peanuts, peanuts and more peanuts, soup with veggies, soup with beef, calamari in a spicy tomato sauce

Feb 25: Penang to Ipoh

2006-02-28T18:19:00.000+07:00

After spending a couple of days in Penang, I felt ready to do an American century (100 miles). Actually, what forced me to do 100 miles was the fact that there weren't any hotels within 30 miles of Ipoh. And there were a couple of other factors that insured that I did 100 miles.

The first being a bend in Highway 1 that went out of the way northwards for 15 miles. An expressway actually undercuts this bend, but bicycles are prohibited. I would not have minded if this was in the beginning of the ride, but it happened in the last quarter.

The second factor was after meeting a Malaysian biker. He pulled me over on the road in his car (just before the bend) and wanted to go biking with me. Zam rallied home, got on his bike and met me by the time I finished the bend on Highway 1. From where he met me, Ipoh was only 15 km away, but at Zam's suggestion, we took a sideroad to avoid rush-hour traffic. This diversion added another 15 km to my ride!

All in all though, I would have to say I felt real good about the Century. This was the first Century since the AIDS ride back in 2001 and this was the first ride done with mountain bike tires.

180 kilomters, 10 hours and 1 liter of 100 Plus (Malaysia's version of Gatorade).

Food: roti with curry sauce, Indian chicken curry with green beans over saffron rice, Rock-salt chicken with rice noodles and steamed bean sprouts.

Pictures from Malaysia

2006-02-23T19:13:00.000+07:00

Casa del Colonel in Penang. I tried the Colonel's fried chicken after seeing a bus stop's ad for the original recipe. In the ad, the chicken looked different than the O.R. in America, and well, it is different. It tasted like Weaver's frozen fried chicken that you bake at home.

Though the country is dominated by Muslims, there is still pork to be had (bless the Chinese!).

a view of Penang from the 55th floor of an office building

Instead of a Hackeysack, Malaysians (and Thais) use a woven ball made of bamboo strips.

check out the tanline!

Feb 22: Kangor to Penang

2006-02-22T18:47:00.000+07:00

I started before the crack of dawn this day, with the knowledge that I would be doing about 150 km, just under 100 miles. It was very interesting to see the area waking up. The biggest obstacles that I encountered were school children on bicycles going against the grain of traffic on the shoulder that I was riding on. I did have a close call with some kids on a motorcycle who were doing the same thing and were too busy looking at the traffic to cross over. Fortunately, they looked at me just in time to turn away.

From that point on, it was smooth sailing. Unlike the previous day, no directions were needed. It was just two different roads to take. It was almost really boring, staying on the same highway for five hours.

Today was really sunny, as shown by my consumption of beverages. I probably drank four liters during the ride and another two afterwards. Only now as I am writing this (five hours later), do I feel that my thirst has been quenched.

I started to get fatigued by the end of the ride, as I was entering Butterworth. I really did not have any idea how I was going to get the island of Penang, I just assumed that there was going to be a bridge to cross. As I was going through town, I started to stress out, wondering where the bridge was. Eventually I started to see signs for a ferry and was relieved to an extent.

It turned out to be a good thing, as the ferry docked on the island less than a kilometer from where I wanted to sleep.

Kangor to Penang: 150 km, seven hours (not including the 1 km ferry ride).

Food: Little India is next to my hotel - samosas and chai were consumed after the ride. Chinatown is next to Little India - fried noodles on the street was my dinner, though I'll probably get something more to eat after finishing this blog entry.

Feb 21: Satun, Thailand to Kangor, Malaysia

2006-02-22T18:24:00.000+07:00

The start of a new adventure! I began the trip through Malaysia at the crack of dawn. Being so close to the equator has made me realize the necessity of biking as soon as possible. The morning temperature is around 25 degrees centigrade, and eventually it rises to at least 35 degrees, not factoring in the intensity of the sunshine (and lemme tell you it's freakin' intense!).

It took me 87 km just to get out of Thailand, through flat terrain and a slight wind to my back. Crossing the border on my bike was nice and easy. No hassles and I was in Malaysia in no time.

As I crossed the border, I realized that I had no ringgit, the Malaysian currency. Unlike Laos, I heard of no reports that Malaysia accepts Thai baht or US dollars. Not that I was hungry or in need to purchase anything at the moment, but it did put me in a position that I needed to make it to a big town that had ATMs. That town was Kangor, another 35 km away.

I hadn't set out to break the hundred kilometer barrier this day, but well, I didn't really have a choice. This was the most riding I have done in one day since doing the AIDS charity rides back in 2001. No worries, I told myself, I've been kinda "training" myself for this in the past few months in Thailand.

The only real problem was finding Kangor. Every sign that I encountered was followed by a sign telling me to got the opposite direction. Often times the first sign would say to go south (which is what I assumed, looking at the map) and the next sign, just a hundred meters away, would say to go north. This happened at least four times.

Eventually I made it Kangor: 125 km, five hours.

My first thoughts of Malaysia: large Indian population, not dominating the country in numbers, though. The countryside is rather flat with lush green flora. It's a Muslim country, so alcohol is not too popular. The upside of this is that the roads are not peppered with broken bottles. The downside is that beer can be found, but at American prices. A bottle of beer costs a little over a dollar in the stores! A half pint of Guiness at the bar costs $2.50, a full pint cost $5.

Food has Indian and Chinese influences - at a Muslim restaurant, I had green beans in a yellow Indian curry, a peppery beef stir fry and sliced Chinese mustard greens, fried chicken with Indian curry spices in the batter and this weird dish that contained deep-fried crab and shrimp, dried beef served over sliced cucumbers and a very sweet BBQ sauce.

Lopburi - the land of monkeys and Bangkok - an urban sprawl

2006-02-14T21:11:00.000+07:00

My brother Derek came to Thailand for a visit this month for a short nine-day holiday. For him, it was a planes, trains and automobiles experience... but in a good way... Criss-crossing the country, going from Bangkok to Phuket back to Bangkok to Lopburi to Chiang Mai and back to Bangkok once again. Fortunately, there were no break-downs or train wrecks.

The only new sight for me was to visit Lopburi. Known for its ancient temples (though less than five hundred years old) that are homes for a rather large population of macaques, we stopped for the day. The timing of it was perfect. We took the midnight bus out of Phuket and arrived in Bangkok early in the morning. A taxi took us to the train station, where we were just in time to catch an outgoing train to Lopburi.

The macaques were a huge presence in one particular temple. Not fearing the hand of man, these animals would go as far as jump on people in hopes of catching some food possibly located on their person. I saw a team of them sneak up on a seven-year old girl and take her bag of sweets from her hand that she just purchased ten seconds before. ("taking candy from a baby")

The final stop of Derek's stay was in Bangkok. We stayed at a friend's of his back in the college days. It was swanky apartment on the 13th and 14th floors, overlooking some of Bangkok's financial district. I think that this is probably one of the top five most luxurious homes that I have ever stepped foot in.

Having been in Bangkok three other times for only one day at a time, I was looking forward to being able to spend some time there. The city is very big (population-wise and size-wise), with traffic jams everywhere to underscore the point.

Our first day was spent doing probably what every other tourist does on thier first visit to Bangkok - check out the Grand Palace. While it houses the king, only the temples are open to visiters. When we got there, the area was elbow to elbow in tourists. Tour groups were walking around, being led by guides speaking German, English, Japanese, Russian and French. The number of Russian tourists was surprising. Just on observation only, I would estimate that a quarter of the tourists that day were Russian.

Next to the Grand Palace was a temple housing one of the biggest buddha statues that I have ever seen. He is laying on his side and stretches to about forty yards long. There were other buddha statues in other buildings in the temple, but well, I starting to get bored with all the temples in this country. While not all the temples are the same, they really aren't that much different.

After the day, we pretty much felt that we had seen all that we wanted to see in Bangkok. This was confirmed by talking to Derek's friend. Bangkok's tourist highlights for the world are centered on food, temples, shopping and raunchy sex clubs. Shopping seems to have gotten out of control. In the Siam neighborhood, I counted at least ten shopping malls in one intersection. One of these malls has a handful of car dealerships on the fifth floor: Ferrari, Lambourghini, Porshe, BMW (for the poor people) and Maserati.

Along a couple blocks in the Financial District are rows and rows of clubs (straight and gay). In the middle of the streets are merchandise vendors, hawking clothing, pirated DVDs and CDs, jewelry, crap and junk. This gives the area a weird effect of clean-cut tourists innocently walking around looking for stuff to buy and party people checking out the bars where touts are on the sidewalk holding cards with a list saying "pussy ping pong... pussy bottle rocket... " and other sordid acts. Some of the bars leave their doors open, allowing you a taste of what you are getting into - Handfuls of girls dancing on a ten-foot diameter stage wearing bikinis.

Three days in Bangkok was more than enough for me. I can't take the immensity of the city (it's hell getting from one place to another) and everything is so expensive compared to the rest of the country.

Long weekend in Vientiane, Loas

2006-01-30T13:34:00.000+07:00

Yeah, yeah, I know, it seems without a job, this whole trip should be considered one long weekend. I actually still recognize the weekend, if only for the fact that is when others kick it up a notch on the fun scale.

I finally spent some time outside of Thailand (the trips to the border towns of Myanmar do not count, seeing how I only spent maybe a total of sixty minutes during four visits there). The destination was Vientiane, Loas, Capital City.

Vientiane rests along the Mekong River, on the northern border of Thailand's eastern territory. The area is quite flat, with very little shade, though it didn't get unbearably hot during high noon.

Maybe it's the area, maybe it's just me, but I can't say that I had a great time in Laos. First of all, the food is just average. Granted, there is a mix of Chinese, Lao, Thai, Indian and French (from colonialism) ethnicities. I just didn't find anything of high praise, especially for a capital city. One thing that I did like were the grilled baby back ribs. Using a dry rub of spices (cumin, coriander, garlic, salt, pepper and many others I couldn't make out), when it was grilled to juicy-ness it was a winner.

Due to the French presence, the baguettes were nice. Sandwiches are dressed with unripened papaya, cucumbers, tomatoes, mayo, green onion stalk, sliced yellow onion and sweet pickles. The main item of the sandwich could be tuna, eggs, cheese... but the Laoation way is with a pate spread, Lao-style BBQ pork slices and chicken breast slices.

Beer Lao is supposed to be known as the best beer in Southeast Asia. I can say that their lager (the flagship) is, but only marginally. Thailand's Singha is a close runner-up, but tastes nasty when it gets warm. Beer Lao doesn't get as nasty. The one Beer Lao flavor that does get raves from me is their Dark beer. Of course, I haven't had a good beer since leaving the States, so this stuff could just be the equivalent to Killian's or Michelob's Special Dark (I can't say for sure).

The city itself seemed quite lame to me. Aside from a few places with worthy photo-ops, the architecture was bland and monotanous. After one afternoon of walking around with my cameras, I felt as if I saw all there was to see. The next day, I resolved to rent a motorcycle to check out the countryside.

The day began as an indication of what was to come. I ordered breakfast at a noodle-shop. I pointed to something on the menu, noodles, but ended up with vegetables and rice. I rented the motorcycle and got the crappiest one of the bunch. Before leaving, I noted that the fuel tank was not full, as stated in the rental agreement. A kilometer after filling up the tank, I noticed that the gas tank-needle was not functioning properly. Within minutes of that, the side mirrors swayed with the wind. That's fine, I thought, I can deal with these minor problems. I could just switch bikes, but I had already filled the tank and didn't want to go thru with that again.

My destinaton was a national park about 100 kilometers away from Vientiane. Adding to my adventure, highway signs are in short supply in this country. The map that I was using neglected to show what the highway numbers were. For a while, I was just moving, blindly, hoping that the direction I was going was correct. Let me add, the directions that the Lao tourism bureau gave me said to take Highway 13 south, though clearly the road was going due east the whole time.

I finally made it to the park without any more incidence. A fork in the road gave me the choice of a couple of waterfalls. En route there, I passed thru a gate guarded by two men working for the parks department. Their only job was to make sure that all tourists pay $0.50 US as an entrance fee. (For this day, I was their only visitor.) On my way out, I saw what they do with the rest of their time.

One guard stopped me at the gate and ordered me over to him. He wanted to give me some sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf. Not a bad tasting treat (especially since I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast). He gave me something to drink. It came out of a fish sauce bottle, but it wasn't fish sauce. It smelled like kerosene and well, tasted like kerosene, too. The guard told me that he and his co-worker would drink two of these bottles every day. Yipes! One shot was enough to burn a hole in my liver.

I left the park soon enough. Just like the area around Vientiane, there was not much shade. The trees were no more than four stories high, not much of a shade canopy to keep me there for more than a few minutes. As I got back to the main road to Vientiane, the rear tire went flat. It was so old, that it just exploded en route. That cost me 70,000 kip to replace (or the equivalent to $7 US). No more than fifteen minutes later, I ran out of fuel. Fortunately, as the bike was coasting on fumes, a roadside stand had a liter of petro to sell me.

I finally made it back to Capital City, but only after scrapping plans to visit the sculpture gardens that were slightly on the way to town. That turned out to be a good decision. The next morning when I went to return the bike, the starter failed to start and I had to push the bike back to the dealer. It's a good thing he wasn't around (too early in the morning), otherwise I would've yelled at him for renting me such a shoddy bike (which would have caused him to lose face... a social no-no around here).

With that behind me, the only thing I found left to do in Vientiane was just sit along the Mekong River, watch the sun set while drinking Beer Lao Dark.

back to Phuket and then to Bangkok to TCOB

2006-01-23T15:24:00.000+07:00

After three months of being on the road, I made the journey back to Phuket island. Aside from seeing Debbie and Eric again (who are doing great and about to move to another home closer to the beach), I wanted to drop off my bike and get ready for my brother Derek's visit in a few weeks. I also needed to grab my plane ticket back to America (more on this later).

Phuket is in many ways different than when I was there. High season does bring in many tourists and adds to the traffic gridlock. Prices for everything has ramped up. The beaches are crowded, but not as bad as I was expecting (though Debbie said that this weekend seemed to have less people than normal).

What is very disturbing is the number of fat tourists who insist on wearing as little as possible. The stereotype of the fat German man wearing a Speedo g-string two sizes too small is all too true. What is even more disturbing are the obese women who go topless. Not just laying on the sand for a tan, they prance around the beach and sea with no shame. Keep in mind that topless sunbathing is illegal and socially rude in Thailand. The Thais need to take back their beach! If they didn't need the tourist dollars so bad, I would imagine more fines being handed out.

A weekend was all I needed back in Phuket, I'll be back in a few weeks with Derek. Last nite, I took the midnite express bus up to Bangkok. I arrived into the megacity at the peak of morning rush hour. Perfect timing to take my digital camera into the shop for repairs and change the flight back to America. I still haven't been able to figure out how much of a tax refund I'll be getting for last year (a benefit of working only half a year), but I think I'll be able to squeeze out another couple o' months here. I think after Derek leaves, I'll check out Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam...

Jan 12 - 18: Kampheng Phet, Klong Lan Waterfall and Mae Wong National Park

2006-01-19T14:36:00.000+07:00

Another adventurous week to say the least. I left Umphang in search of Mae Wong national park. Mae Wong has been on my mind for the past three months, ever since reading about it in the Bangkok Post. They reportedly just added seventy kilometers of bike trails. Ahhh, to be on freshly-laid bike trails that have not been spoiled by others...

First, I had to get to Kampheng Phet, which serves as the closest big town to the park. Details on the park have been sketchy, getting there even sketchier. Eventually, someone was able to give me clear directions and even a map to get to the park, which is not too far away from town. I even got details about camping - no food but there are food stalls and restaurants in the nearby waterfall park in Klong Lan.

On the first night in Kampheng Phet, I had my first unfortunate battle with Thai food. As usual, I sought out the local food stand market in search for good eats at cheap prices. I found som tom (the spicy papaya salad), strawberry smoothie, chicken skewers with curry/peanut sauce, roasted duck with sweet-n-sour sauce, sliced pineapple and jelly-filled donut balls. Well, some demon grabbed ahold of the insides of my belly in the middle of the night (Friday, the 13th, I will add) and wouldn't let go after until many trips to the bathroom. It took me a whole day to rid myself of that demon.

When I was able to safely leave the confines of my hotel room, I roamed around the town. Just like Sukhothai, this was an area of an ancient Thai kingdom and many of its ruins still lay around town. (Photo to come later)

On Sunday, I departed for Mae Wong and Khlong Lan. Khlong Lan is only sixty kilometers away, so I packed the tent and a brought some clothes and camera equipment for the voyage (no bulky backpack this time ;). During the whole way, there was road contruction. This means for me that the shoulder was dug up, waiting for a new lane to be paved; or in other words, a two-foot drop if I should get bumped to the side.

Fortunately, this never happened. In fact, traffic was very light and I was making great time on the flat terrain. So great, that I actually missed the turnoff to the waterfalls and went another five kilometers to Mae Wong. The waterfalls looked nice, but even nicer was being able to camp alongside the stream that resulted from the waterfall.

When I checked out Mae Wong, the park ranger informed me that there weren't any new bike trails... only the road that goes up the mountain. Hmmmmph! I guess you can't believe everything that is printed in the paper. Since I was already here, though, I decided to go up the mountain until the sunshine got too hot to handle.

On the way back to the campsite, I decided to check out a few of the breaks in the forest alongside the road out of the park. The first turned out to be a bust, ending up in another ranger station. But the other break was a winner!

It was labled as a forest restoration project and began as a steep climb up uneven, rocky terrain. After pushing the bike up this (yeah, yeah, that's not really keeping it real), I saw a smooth dirt road created by a big bulldozer. I'm not sure what the real intention of the restoration is, maybe this was the new bike trail?!? If so, I haven't been on anything nicer in the country. The best thing about the trail was that the downhills were usually steep enough and the trail integrity was solid enough, that I didn't need to use my brakes. I would let gravity and momentum take me down the hill and up the next hill without even having to pedal. At one point, it felt as though I were on a roller coaster... until the end when the momentum took me over the first initial rocky hill from the road. As I was descending down this rocky road, my whole life wsa flashing before me... then I applied the brakes.

Along the Burmese border

2006-01-11T16:00:00.000+07:00

Since leaving Sukhothai a week ago, I've been having a blast!

My first destination was Mae Sot to renew my visa. This is a town on the northwestern side of Thailand, bordering Myanmar (a.k.a. Burma). It's a small town, but as they say, it's a small world. To me, it gave me the same feeling as Senegal. There is a heavy Muslim presence here, as seen by the large goat population that roam the streets and the mosque in the center of town. Mae Sot seems to have the highest ethnic mix that I've seen concentrated in one city. There are Thais, Chinese, Burmese, Indians and a handful of westerners working for NGOs for the Burmese refugee camps located around the area.

While combing the streets looking for photo ops, I met one Burmese refugee named Mg Mg Lay. He is a Unicef-recognized refugee. Mg Mg fled Burma twelve years ago and is currently settled in Mae Sot with his wife (Ma Su) and son (Mg Thin Thung Oo). When asked about whether or not he wants to return to Burma, he said no. He fears that the current military regime will arrest him on sight if he enters the country due to his job when living in Burma at the Information Center (the media wing for the Burmese revolutionary group). If and when there is a new government, then he may return. Both he and his wife still have family there.

this is taken from the Friendship Bridge. at the top is Burma, below is Thailand.

Myanmar is a strange country, indeed. When I do my visa runs, I have to pay either US $5 or $10 to enter the country, depending on where I cross. The thing is, they will only accept crisp, whole bills. The first time I noticed this was up in Mae Sai. I paid using a $5 with one of the corners being ripped off. The rip was no more than a millimeter, but the border cop wouldn't accept it. I told him that this was the same $5 that they gave me the previous month when I did my border crossing at the same checkpoint. He looked at me with no mercy and forced me to use another bill. I heard that outside of the designated tourist areas, the government actually has signs that say stuff like, "Don't trust Americans". Hmmmmm, they hate Americans, but want our money. But they won't take slightly mutilated paper...

I moved south a few days later to an overgrown village called Umphang. It serves as a tourist destination because of having one of the world's six largest waterfalls. I really wasn't here for that though. I was only there to make my way to another national park. When I arrived, I realized that there was some good biking to check out. One of the routes along the road leads up to the waterfall entrance, but I was denied access. The park ranger was adamant about this. He said that only 4WD vehicles could pass. Another route had the possibility to enter the waterfall thru the south, but after biking thru a forest for an hour, the trail stopped at a farm. When asked where the falls are, the farmer just waved his arm in a direction that didn't seem to lead me anywhere. Hmmm, he must be keeping it a secret.

I enjoyed the biking around these two areas. I finally feel comfortable just exploring blindly into any dirt road that I pass. Oftentimes, this leads me thru farmlands along open valleys. The above picture is one such area. The trail was a dirt road, with two grooves worn out by tire tracks. It was a pleasurable winding and twisting path that eventually lead into a forest and river. Along the way were empty bamboo huts. My guess is that they are used as meditation huts for the nearby monk's compound.

New Years in Sukhothai

2006-01-02T18:22:00.000+07:00

I moved westward for the New Years celebration, arriving in Sukhothai on the 30th, late in the morning. After finding a guesthouse to stay at, I walked around town to get a feel of what kind of action to expect for the eve. Not much to report, I saw lotsa commercial activity, but I didn't see any signs of events going on.

Later in the afternoon, I jumped on my bike and did another stroll thru the city, this time, covering more ground and circling the city. Still not much to report. In fact, it seems as though I covered the whole town in just thirty minutes of casual riding. I did find a restaurant to eat, Poo. (see above picture)

Yes I went for some poo for dinner. Actually, Poo in one tone is the word for crab. It's also the name for Thai women. (Thais actually usually have long, muli-syllable names. Everyone then has a one syllable nickname. My friends from camping up in the mountain nicknamed me "Ken". The restaurant actually didn't have any crab on the menu, so instead, I ordered chickened stir-fried with veggies.

The food in Sukhothai is nothing to rave about. The spicy sausage balls had the hard "bone-like" substance that I haven't encountered since Phuket. The fried chicken was super greasy and lacked any flavor in the plain flour-water-salt batter.

I spent the actual New Years Eve party at my guesthouse. They had a Thai buffet of noodles and a spicy curry sauce, green curry and pork over rice, stir-fried veggies with oyster sauce and varieties of fruit and sald veggies. There was a couple performances of traditional Thai dancing, complete with costumes. Of course, there was music. Raise-The-Roof Dance music and lots of it. I escaped at one point and did a tour around the town at 11 PM. The best thing going seemed to be at a bar/restaurant that was watching a Manchester United football game. So I went back to the guesthouse to finish the countdown.

The only big attraction that causes tourists to stop thru the city is to tour the ruins of Old Sukhothai. Almost 800 years ago, this was the capital and hotbed of the ancient Thailand. About 12 km away are the remains of temples, buildings and buddhas. There has been an attempt to restore some of the original structures, but for the most part, it's just a collection of bricks laying in a field with weeds growing on them.

Christmas week

2005-12-28T14:35:00.000+07:00

I left the Chiang Mai region on Tuesday with the intention of spending Christmas in a town called Phitsanoluk (often called P-Luk) , once the capital of Thailand some 500 years ago. The bus ride was rather uneventful, save for the an odd sign just a few kilometers from P-luk. Another sign right alongside it identified the area as "Indochina". I'm guessing that this is the intersection for the whole SE Asia area?!? The road to Danang, Vietnam supposedly runs continuously to India, I suppose the road to Kuala Lampur is also continuous.

There's not too much to do in P-Luk. Aside from a few wats and some ruins from the old capital palace, the most interesting attraction is the factory where bronze Buddha statues are created. While walking around the area, I encountered a four-foot long, 3 inches wide snake of some variety. He was slithering around the buddhas in a dark corner. I asked the woman there if the snake was a pet. She nodded her head, but a few moments later she saw the snake and freaked out. Apparently it wasn't a pet.

I've found that P-Luk is just a nice hub for doing stuff around the area. I biked my first metric century (100 kilometers in one ride) in three years, along Highway 12 (the same highway that leads to Danang). It was mainly one straight line along the flat savannah of lower Northern Thailand. I was so encouraged by the flatness that I convinced myself that I can ride to the national park with my camping gear, cameras and backpack, which is 80 kilometers from P-Luk.

I almost left for the park on X-Mas eve, but made a last minute decision while waking up to stay one more day to experience what Thais do for X-Mas. There was a street party along the river that featured over 50 food stands, as well as live performances of traditional Thai dances and music, handicrafts, pirated CDs and DVDs, clothes and other "stuff". It turned out to be a good decision.

Among the highlights of food tasted were roasted pork and Thai fried ice cream - a ball of ice cream is covered in a donut and flash fried in oil then topped with chocolate syrup and sprinkles and served with a side of fruity jello.

Christmas Day was a roller coaster, both literally and figuratively. It started with biking to Thung Salaeng Luang park. I read that this was supposed to be the best trail riding in all of Thailand, so I was stoked to bike out there even with all my stuff (probably weighing 30 lbs). The first 50 kilometers were mostly flat (which I already experience a few days earlier), with only one minor hill to climb.

At about the sixtieth kilo, the hills started to get higher. It wasn't climbing the elevation that started to make me cranky, rather it was the fact that once at the top of each hill, there wasn't any fun downhill to give me momentum to go up the next hill. Adding to this was that I was probably getting a little dehydrated (it wasn't a hot day, so I wasn't drinking as much water as I normally would), which showed when I misread the map when plotting a spot to take rest.

My attitude started to sour when I told myself to stop at the 63rd km marker where there should be a waterfall. Upon approaching said marker, there was nothing around. 64 passed, nothing. 65 passed, still nothing. With each passing marker, my frustration grew. By the 67th km, I pulled out the map again and realized that the waterfall was actually at the 72nd km mark. Aaaarrrgh!!!!!!!

But all this rage faded upon reaching the promised land. 80 kilometers had exhausted me, but my spirits lifted when I saw a bike trail on the side of the road just one kilometer from the HQ. Ahhh, a good sign if I already see a trail!

Then the mood changed once again at the ranger station. While registering for the campsite, I asked a ranger where the foodstalls were. She informed me that they permanently closed down a while ago, but that the closest town to get food is just twelve kilometers away. My heart just fell to the ground. Bike another twenty-four km! Yipes! I didn't want to do another century, but it seemed to be my only option. [Actually this is untrue. I did have a stash of jerky that I could've just gnawed on for dinner.] I dropped off my stuff at the campsite and headed out to town. Fortunately, there was a roadside food stand just a kilometer from the park's HQ, so I delayed the journey to town for the next day.

When I got back to camp, I started to read a book (In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - a great book, highly recommended!) while sitting on a large rock in the river. No more than two pages were read when I poked my head up and noticed a new tent was pitched and four PYTs (Pretty Young Thing for you Michael Jackson fans). They were sitting in front of the tent and waved at me. One of them walked over to me (just ten meters away) and offered me some snacks. We made some small talk then she invited me to dinner. What a stroke of luck! or rather a Christmas Miracle!?! They are second year students in P-Luk out for a one-day camping excursion. We had Thai-style ramen noodles and roasted sweet potatoes and corn in the campfire.

The next morning I met another group of nine campers who were on holiday from Bangkok. Mostly teachers from the same school, every year they get together during the holiday break to celebrate the birthday of Tom. When they found out that I was American, they invited me to hang out with them so they can practice their English. They poured me a cup of coffee and we chatted for a while. Soon enough, they asked if I would join them on the next leg of their journey - to camp up in the mountains in a cabbage farming village called Tab Berk, 1800 meters in elevation.

One thing I've learned in Thailand is to always accept an invitation to go camping with Thai people. Obviously, the company of Thais is always enjoyable. But what is most enjoying is the food that they bring to a party. This was no exception! We stopped at a market to pick up some food: four red snappers, corn, sausages, fruits and veggies, club soda and three bottles of scotch whisky (hey! it's Tom's birthday!). At the last minute, Moo grabbed me and we sprinted to the butcher stand to purchase a shank of pork. Apparently, pork was not a planned item and Moo saw that this grave error be rectified. I was in full agreement.

The next morning we parted ways; they went back to Bangkok and I headed back to Thung Salaeng to take care of some unfinished business - biking. Knowing that there was a twelve kilometer climb en route to the park, I chose to take a bus instead of biking. About four km from the park HQ the roads were moist from a brief rainfall. For a second I considered just staying on the bus and go back to P-Luk because I didn't want to hang out in a park while it's raining. I buried that urge thinking, "I wouldn't be keeping it real if I let a few drops of rain stop me from biking thru the best trails in Thailand."

Maybe I should've followed my instincts. As I was descending down the three kilometer hill to get to the campsite, I excercised caution because the road was slick. What I was not factoring in was the weight and bulkiness of the huge backpack behind me. On the last turn at the bottom of the hill, the tires slipped and I was down for the count. The first thing I checked was my left hand: no blood from where a previous blunder still shows a scar, but a blood blister did form underneath. #$%#! It seems that this hand will never fully heal. The only blood was just a flesh wound on the left elbow. There were also two huge scrapes, one on the hip and the other on the shoulder. While these were just minor wounds, biking was now out of the question because the hip took most of the impact and pains me so. I can still bike, but I would rather not. I should be back on the horse in a few days, don't you worry!

pork!!

2005-12-28T14:27:00.000+07:00

spicy pork snausage balls

on the top is pork jerky, bottom right is moo todd (sun dried pork strips that are fried in oil creating a bacon-flavor sensation), bottom left is beef jerky

northern foods

2005-12-20T15:08:00.000+07:00

Moo tawd: I am in pork heaven up here in the north! Above are strips of pork drying in the sun. Once dried, it gets fried in oil to a crispy texture. The end-product are strips that taste like bacon! A friend from Bangkok introduced me to this while in Mae Hong Son. He also brought to the table eggs that were grilled in their shells - a winning combo!

Pork and bacon jerky: Finally! after four months, I finally found jerky! The Thai twist is that they add coriander to the soy sauce marinade for a refreshing sensation. On an eight-hour bus ride from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son, I was able to survive with just water and a bag of beef jerkey.

Khow kow moo: a shank of pork that has been slowly steamed (not braised) and is served over rice. The pork is so tender. Usually, a small portion is served over rice for 50 cents. In a Chinese village near Pai, a restaurant serves the whole shank with skin and fat for almost $4... this is meant to be for a whole family, but Gabor and I ate the whole thing - gluttony at it's finest.

Hanglay: a northern specialty. Pork is slowly simmered (possibly steamed) and served with a dark red curry sauce. Not especially spicy hot, but extremely tasty. One restaurant in Mae Hong Son has the pork so tender that it melts in the mouth. I usually don't eat too much of pork fat or skin (yeah, cardinal sin of pork lovers is to waste pork, but I eat so much much pork, that I gotta draw the line somewhere), but I had to make an exception for this bowl of goodness.

kaoh soy: wide yellow noodles are served in a spicy red curry broth, with some sort of meat added - usually chicken, beef or pork. Crispy fried noodles are thrown in on top for texture, as well as pickled cabbage and sliced shallots. It's usually only 50 - 75 cents. Since I've been up north, I probably have this five times a week for lunch/breakfest/brunch.

fried chicken: previously reviewed, but it needs to be revisted. Some of the northerners have fried whole legs and sometimes half the bird, which keeps the natural juices inside. I must say that this is the way to go... soooo juicy. The batter is somewhat thicker than other places... maybe someone stole the Colonel's method of the double-dipped batter?!?

Northern sausage: I know I've forsaken sausages when in the south because of the bone-factor, but was conviced to give it another try up here. I found a place that roasts a coil of sausages in an oven. I just had to try it. Nice and spicy, reminded me of an andoullie sausage. And there were no crunchy bones! There are also sausages that are like the Cajun Boudin - rice and glass noodles are added to pork and rolled into either a suasage link or many little balls. I'm not a big fan of these, but they are really cheap.

Fern leaves: I've had this in a couple of varieties - steamed and served with oyster sauce (preferred), as a salad with roasted garlic and dried shrimp (the shrimp/garlic combo is too strong of a flavor) and an addition to a soup (not really a big player). These ferns have many tiny, sharp thorns on the stems, which have been playing havoc on me when I'm biking on some of the trails in Chiang Mai - if one thorn tears into me, ten others follow. Eating them is a small bit of revenge.

Mae Hong Son - The Thai Alps

2005-12-20T14:25:00.000+07:00

I spent the last week in Mae Hong Son, located in the far northwest corner of the country. Up until a few years ago, this town was barely noticed by tourists, in part to its inaccessibility. Even today, the roads are steep, winding and of poor quality, though it is changing with new pavement being laid down in some areas.

Of tourists spots, MHS is probably the least visited by non-Thais. Evidence of this is that I only counted maybe ten westerners in my week there, this pales in comparison to the ten I see every minute in Chiang Mai. The people that do come here are mainly Thais and Japanese.

{On a side note, people always wonder what nationality I am. It has turned into a game for me. People will look at me and assume that I am Thai. Then I open my mouth and if I speak Thai (what little I know), Thais will look at me funny like I am mentally retarded or have a speech impediment. They will ask me where I am from. I will reply that I'm American. They will give a second funny look, as I was lying or jerking their chain. Then I will tell them that my parents are born in Hong Kong. Their faces light up, as if they guessed correctly on a game show saying (translated), "Ahh, I knew you are Chinese!" and start smiling. However, in the northern towns, there are people that will assume that I am Japanese, presumably because of the huge numbers of Japanese tourists that come thru.}

I met up with my Hungarian friend, Gabor, for a few days. He's also a photographer/reporter (the only Hungarian correspondant in Southeast Asia he contends). Basically, we did the same thing as we did in Pai - look for interesting photo ops via obscure trails in the mountains or in villages.

One place was called Maeo Microwave, the latter word added because it was adjacent to three microwave towers on top of a mountain. The road to the village was so steep that our motorcycle stopped dead on a few hills, either because of us being too heavy on the steep angle or else the gas in the bike was so far back in the gas tank, that the engine ran out of juice.

After Gabor left, I explored the countryside via bicycle. Just like Pai, the rolling hills were fun, though at times intense. One climb was a solid fourteen kilometers up, more than half of it was on dirt trails. It was so steep that the rims on the bike were almost melting the break pads on the way down.

I visited one of the famous long-neck hill tribes, which is sorta like a tourist rip-off/exploitation of a poor population. The village doesn't have much of an economy (blow is a picture of clothes being made), though they have realized that tourists will pay money take pictures of the villagers. This has turned into a big money maker for these villages, but the social cost is that hordes of tourists (both Thai and outsiders) invade the village to take a bunch of snapshots. I am reminded of Lisa Simpson asking Homer, "How would you like it if slack-jawed yokels came into your home to take pictures of you?" Yeah, yeah, I know I am part of the problem in this sense, but the reality is that the village is gteting money... money they would not otherwise have.

back in Chiang Mai

2005-12-10T18:59:00.000+07:00

up in the mountains, north of Pai

farmlands near Pai

Though my stay in Chiang Mai was supposed to be only a month, things change (as always). The day after my birthday, I traveled 120 kilometers to a small town called Pai. Pai is a artists' community (both Thai and foreigners) that attracts like-minded tourists. Most of these tourists are dreadlocked hippies, but they often travel together in groups, so it's easy to avoid them.

The town is northwest of Chiang Mai and up in the mountains. The bus ride was painfully slow at times, both up and down the mountain as it inched around the hairpin turns. To make the ride more interesting, the already-full bus picked up five more passengers just after leaving Chiang Mai. They were forced to stand in the middle walkway between the seats, so I got up and let a couple girls take my space. As we went thru the mountains, I was reminded of being on a MUNI bus in San Francisco because my body was shifting left and right with the bus.

Pai itself doesn't have much in terms of landmarks or fancy attractions. But it is close enough to many parks and caves. A Hungarian that I befriended in Chiang Mai met up with me for a few days. We traveled north thru another set of mountains to a huge cave. We hired a bamboo raft (more like a canoe) and checked out three sections of the cave that have rock formations and cave paintings from many centuries ago. We also trekked thru random forests in hopes to find ancient coffins made from wood that were stashed up in caves. We were successful once and it turned out to be an archeological site and off limits.

I left Pai a few days ago and am back in Chiang Mai to take care of some business. I had to renew my visa by crossing the border into Myanmar, but didn't do anything there. Just a quick in and out. (There's strange things going on in Burma - the capital just up and moved a few weeks ago without any real explanation to the outside world... it's doubtful anyone inside of Burma really knows either.)

Tomorrow I think I'll be departing this city for another adventure...

2005-12-01T16:14:00.000+07:00

This is part of the fence on the southeast corner of the Old City in Chiang Mai.

The hill tribes don't really have many sources of income, so some resort to a form of begging. These girls dress in traditional clothes and ask for money when tourists (like me) take thier picture.

2005-11-29T16:20:00.000+07:00

These are a couple of cats that live in a temple... probably abondoned due to poor health. The Thai word for "cat" is "meow".

inside a temple

Wat Chedi Luang , about 600 years old

Why didn't Wal-Mart think of this? On the front of a hotel in Chiang Mai, a Christmas tree is lit, topped with the Star of David.

Chiang Mai life

2005-11-24T19:00:00.000+07:00

Life has been moving along very slowly compared to the previous month. Back then, I was darting around from town to town, doing something exciting every day. Being in the big city has turned things around. Doing something each day isn't a priority because I have so much time here. Well, I have to admit that on some days I wake up krusty and resolve to waste the day doing nothing.

Do to the availabilty of so much food, I have changed my eating schedule. I now have about four or five feeding sessions daily. If I go for a bike ride, I'll get some sorta breakfast, usually boiled rice and meat or noodles. Around the noon o 'clock hour, I'll have a rice dish or more noodles. Late afternoon is prime time for fried foods to be coming out of hot grease... I have a couple places earmarked for freshly fried pork chops and chicken wings when the clock hits 4 PM. The sunsets at 6:30ish (a consistent thing year-round) and I look for something substantial to eat, maybe a curry dish with rice or a stir-fry. After midnite, I have a favorite place near my guesthouse that serves up pad-thai and rice with chicken (or pork) with basil and chili peppers for 50 cents each. With all that said, I still only spend about $5-6 a day on food. (I'm not sure I'll be able to eat in good conscience at Commander's Palace again.)

I probably go for a bike ride about four or five times a week. If I feel only slightly krusty, I'll still force myself to go for a road ride to sweat out the alcohol from the night before. Last week I was able to do an 80 km ride without any difficulty and probably had enough gas to go another 20km, if it wasn't getting close to nightfall. I found a great set of bike trails behind the city's athletic sports center. (The center has a giant stadium, five indoor stadiums, tennis court, swimming pool and even a velodrome. I tried to ride the velodrome, but couldn't build enough speed on my mountain bike to successfully stay on the almost vertical edges of the oval-shaped loop.)

Last week there was a week-long festival called Loi Kratong. People release paper lanterns that rise in the air due to burning paper in the center (much like a hot-air balloon). The concept is that the bad sins of the past year will fade away. Hundreds of lanterns are released each night, giving the effect of the sky coming under artillery fire, except the artillery is rising instead of descending. Floats made of banana leaf carry lit candles and are released down the river. The festival gives everyone a reason (though I don't think anyone here ever needs a reason) to light fireworks and firecrackers and toss them anywhere and everywhere.

Winter is slowly setting in; temperatures are falling down to probably low sixties at nite, but the days are still warm... probably low eighties.

more food

2005-11-15T16:20:00.000+07:00

Crickets: it's a big thing in Chiang Mai to eat crickets, beetles and other bugs. It's supposed to be a great source of many vitamins. I only had one cricket... just one. It tasted and had the consistency of popcorn. Not disgusting, just conceptually I was grossed out.

Steamed Pork buns: These are basically the same thing as what is found in Chinatown - white dough stuffed with a pork filling (also available are sweet jelly and bean curd) and steamed. However, there are many varieties to this. My favorite so far is found in Krabbi - they use shredded pork and spice it up with chili peppers. Bangkok has a fancy version where they use shredded pork with a piece of hard-boiled egg and shitake mushroom. Up in ChiangMai is the closest thing to Chinatown in North America - BBQ pork bits with a red tangy sauce.

Crispy mini-crepes: street vendors make a crepe the size of a billiard ball and add a filling of coconut and/or green fruit jelly, which I think may be guava. The crepe batter is poured on a hot surface just long enough to get a toasty brown color on one side, then is removed. By the time it cools, it is almost as crispy as a fortune cookie.

Penang curry: uses a red curry base, but the heat is tempered a little bit and peanuts are added. Very tasty; so far my favorite curry. Origin is from Malaysia's Penang region.

Som Tom salad: unripened papaya is shredded then pounded with sliced carrots, tomatoes, palm sugar, chili peppers (usually many), Thai eggplant and garlic. Can be very hot.

Thai ceviche: raw fish marinated with lime juice, sliced kaffir lime leaves, garlic and lotsa chili peppers.

l'il wieners wrapped with won ton wrappers and deep fried, served with a chili pepper/ketchup sauce: surprisingly very tasty, but of course, it's fried!

sausages: many varieties are offered, but I've only tried one. It was a chicken sausage with chili peppers and garlic. I tasted something crunchy and got grossed out, thinking it was probably bone. So far, this has ended my craving for sausage (such a shame, I know).

Roti with fruit: simliar to the Muslim Roti gai. A pancake with fruit filling like pineapple or banana. I'm not a big fan because they add a thickened condensed milk sauce and granulated sugar. It's just too soggy.

Pork riblets: cut-up ribs, about 1-inch in size, deep fried and served with thinly sliced garlic, shallots and chili peppers.

Roast duck, sliced and served over rice : just like what I could get in Chinatown.

jok: Chinese rice porridge served with meat. very similar to what is in Chinatown, except this place (in Chiang Mai) blends the rice to a finer degree.

Dim sum: har gow, sui mai, pork bunds, crab meat and mini-corn cob, ground fish & something... basically what's found in Chinatowns, except they are served with a soy-vinegar sauce (savory & sour), which I'm not a big fan of. Just like in Chinatown, to get full on this dim sum costs more than the average Thai meal.

Deep fried pork chop (also pork shoulder blade): battered just like fried chicken... of course it's delicious!

Pepsi Latte: Do they have this in America? It's a new product here in Chiang Mai. When I touched the bottle in a restaurant, the waitress quickly and repeatedly advised me against ordering it. When a Thai person doesn't want to sell me something, that says a lot!

Green curry burger: my new favorite food?!? The meat is seasoned with a green curry before it is formed into a patty. Tastes great! The chili flavor is predominant over the coconut.

beef jerky: It's about time I found some jerky! Beef is thinly sliced, marinated with soy, garlic, probably fish sauce, then sun-dried. The version I had wasn't as good as I was hoping.

Crispy pork: a whole slab of pork is deep fried until it is crispy like what we know as a pork rind. The skin and meat gets really crispy, enough to withstand being in a broth with noodles.

Peanuts: many varieties - Candied with sugar and sesame seeds (made to give everyone cavities), roasted with salt, pan-fried with salt, kaffir leaves and chili peppers (not as good as it sounds... I didn't like the lime flavor), cashews aplenty

Banana chips: thinly sliced chips with an almost caramel-like crispy coating. Very addicitve.

Waffles: a big dessert treat in ChiangMai. Fruity fillings, chocolate fillings, it's even served with a hot dog on a stick.

Kow Thome: similar to jok, but Thai style. Leftover rice is reheated in a tasty broth and served with meat, cilantro and green onions.

first few weeks in Chiang Mai

2005-11-11T16:20:00.000+07:00

Chiang Mai is Thailand's second biggest city and is located in the northern part of Thailand. The first impression of the city I got was the feel of an ancient city. The Old City is in the center and is surrounded by a moat. Remnants of brick walls are scattered along the moat and give it it's historical feel.

I found a guesthouse in the northeastern corner of the Old City - single bed with bathroom inside (as opposed to a shared bathroom) and hot water for the shower. Cable TV is also included, but for some reason, ESNP is not included, so I get screwed on any chance for NFL action. All this for only 150 baht a day ($3.75)!

Around the area are many cheap food spots. Most of the places I've been eating at usually cost about 60-cents a plate. Mainly noodles and fried rice. (There will be a bigger food write-up soon.)

The northern region of Thailand is supposed to be a mecca for mountain biking. My first trip was a ride up the Doi Poi mountain. The information that I was going with told me that there was a Buddhist temple 5km up, then the national park entrance with bike paths another 4km. What I didn't realize was that it was a steep, constant uphill climb.

When I got to the park, I found that the one bike trail was not really feasible for bikes after the rainy season. Every 20 meters, I had to get off the bike because of fallen trees and braches on the path. After 1km of this, I turned around and continued up the road/mountain to get to the top. Had I realized that the top was another 8km up, I probably would have turned around.

As I climbed upwards, I kept thinking that the end would be near or I would just keep climbing until the road started going down. That didn't happen until the 17th kilometer. What kept me going were the street signs notating that Phuping Palace (pronounced pooping palace) was coming up. Using my Beavis voice, I repeatly said "pooping" until reaching the summit. The payoff was a nice 24 minute descent down the winding roads.

The next time I went to this mountain, I hired a taxi to take me to the top (120 baht ~ $3). From there I found what I have been reading about - single-track trails alongside the mountain with rolling hills, surrounded by lush green trees and plants and flowers. The terrain was varied, too. I found a trail that led downhill and was as wide as a fire road. Due to my unfamiliarity with the trails, I took it slow and mellow. ( I didn't want to drift off the side during a turn, of course).

That turned out to be wise, because the surface degraded into a rocky terrain. For a solid two hours, I was going downhill, but not pedaling. It was a complete upperbody workout because all I was doing was using the breaks and steering between rocks. Eventually I made it to the bottom of the mountain, but on the opposite side and had to go another 25 km on the road to get back to Chiang Mai. No complaints - I figured something like that would happen.

Chiang Mai also has one of the highest concentration of temples in the country. On one block in particular, there are four alongside and across from each other. It's a good thing that they are buddhist, otherwise I can see how turf wars could break out. I spent a couple of days wandering around, but it got to a point of sensory overload and they started to all look the same.

photos from southern Thailand

2005-11-02T16:20:00.000+07:00

My understanding of this kind of tree is that the roots do not grow too deep in the ground. Instead, they grow outside of the ground, resulting in a weird looking tree trunk.

There is one intersection in the heart of Krabbi that has these cavemen holding the streetlights .

Limestone cliffs overlook Rai Ley beach. As you can see, high season has arrived with the influx of tourists.

Above are the tree vines that I saw in Koh Sok rainforest. These vines are about three stories in length and seem strong enough to support the body weight of a human (though I didn't try this theory out).

A wall of foliage has spread across two trees over the river in Koh Sok.

Above is the sight of the beach party. The beach is actually double the length of what is shown.

self portrait on James Bond island.

on the move again

2005-11-02T07:20:00.000+07:00

Oct 30 @ 7:30 AM - left Phang-Nga (where I was hanging with Debbie and Eric) by bus
Oct 30 @ 10:30 AM - arrive in Phun Phin train station
Oct 30 @ 4:30 PM - leave Phun Phin via train
Oct 31 @ 5:30 AM - arrive in Bangkok train station
Oct 31 @ 2:30 PM - leave Bangkok via train
Nov 1 @ 6:30 AM - arrive in Chiang Mai train station

Yipes! 33 hours of actual travel time; 47 hours from start to finish. At least I was able to take a shower in Bangkok's train station. I was getting sweaty and stinky after the second leg of travel. The long hours did take its toll on me. After a short nap in my hotel room this morning, I realized that I left my sunglasses in the train's sleeper compartment. I will miss them (I've actually had them since my days at Helm... some seven years ago).

nine days in Krabi

2005-10-30T19:20:00.000+07:00

Krabi (pronounced grab-BEE) is a great town, especially compared to Phuket, the only other big city I have visited. It is mainly a hub to get to other destinations around the area. Tourists would fly into Krabi then take a boat and/or bus to get to some exotic island nearby.

I was there to just hang out and use the area as a hub to get to some biking destinations and check out the local limestone formations and Buddhist temples. As mentioned previously, I checked out a wat with a golden Buddha some 600 meters and 1227 steps up. Another day, I took an island tour with the infamous "James Bond island". This island (picture forthcoming when I find a better computer/Internet shop) was used for a scene in The Man With The Golden Gun.

One thing I realized about the southern part of Thailand is that it isn't the biker haven that I am looking for. I'm using the bike, but only for transportation purposes. It gets me to a park, but the trails are not wide enough or friendly for a bike (meaning lotsa roots blocking the paths and very slippery sections). I can't wait to get out to the northern part of the country where I have confirmation of many bike trails of long distances.

I met a Thai who is creating his own organic farm. He's probably one of maybe a hundred (probably much less) people in the country doing this. He created his own organic fertilizer thru composting of plant matter in full-sized oil drums. It looks like black tar, but he claims it's organic and it works. He's growing bananas, guava, coconuts, chili peppers, papaya, tomatoes, star-fruit, basil and other herbs. I tasted the star fruit and it is much sweeter that ones I've tried in America (I think farmers have to pick them before it gets ripe so it won't spoil during the overseas transport to Whole Foods). The bananas were much sweeter than any I've tried in Thailand so far.

I got invited to hang with a group of Thais on a beach party/camping adventure. There were six Thais and three foreigners (me and a couple from Europe). Starting in the morning, we toured around the islands. The highlight was finding a lagoon that was knee-high deep in water. Many starfish were hanging out (picture forthcoming). Eventually we found the perfect beach to set camp.

The area was originally inhabited by a group that was turning the island into a swallow conservatory. They would actually shoot at any boat that would get near the beach (probably to prevent poachers from stealing the birds' nest for Chinese gourmands). But now, this area is free to the public and is still a best-kept secret. The beach is half a football field long and no more than ten meters deep. There's other land, too, but not much worth exploring. The water was blue, perhaps more blue than what I've seen in Phuket and Hawaii, and was shallow enough for me to get a little snorkelling in.

Lemme just say this. Thais know how to have a beach party. On the agenda was this: grilled pork and chicken with two types of dipping sauces, yellow curry chicken, Thai chicken soup, leafy vegetables in a coconut sauce, four types of fish (baracuda and grouper were the only ones I recognized) and blue-spotted stingray. The latter was new to me - the gills were the only thing consumable and the texture reminded me of a portabello mushroom and tasted like tuna. For refreshments, two cases of beer (though one was almost consumed during the tour), two bottles of Thai rum, Pepsi (there is a cola war in Thailand, too), club soda and tequila. By the end of the night everything was consumed except the tequila. Upon waking up in the morning, it was deemed necessary by others to finish that so we won't have to transport it back to land... mission not accomplished. Halfway thru the bottle it was agreed to stay another night.

Unfortunately, I couldn't be involved in round two. I was scheduled to meet Eric and Debbie in another town the next day.

out and about

2005-10-22T10:51:00.000+07:00

I finally have been able to forget what day of the week and what the date actually is on a consistant basis now. While in Phuket, I was able to keep with current events due to being in constant contact with cheap Internet access. Now that Super Information Highway is rare and not-so-super.

It began when I arrived in Rangon to extend my visa. Didn't do too much there, it's not much of a Big-time town, it was the final day of the Vegetarian Festival. Unfortunately, the followers here just don't seem as hard-core as the people in Phuket are. Aside from the lower number of "spirits" present (I only counted maybe ten people), these spirits didn't have any fresh scars on their faces (though I didn't check to see if anyone had sliced their tongue).

I did meet a Danish man named Preban. He married a woman from Bangkok and moved to this area about six years ago. Fortunately for me, he was also a biker. He took me out to the Rangon Canyon, a forty kilometer round trip. A few hills, but is getting me in condition for what I expect to experience when I roll up north.

After finishing the ride, I grabbed my stuff and jumped on a PT bus for Laem Son national park. Not much of a stop, though. The tsunami did a job along the coastline/beach, but there was not any commercial areas demolished. Supposedly, there are lotsa birds around, but I didn't see many. The next morning, I jumped on a bus and headed for Kaoh Sok again.

I only got a taste of this national park a month ago. It was just a weekend and I was only in the park at night for a lame hike. This time was great. The park is supposed to be older than the Amazon Rainforest and I can believe it. I saw the weirdest insects, plants, fungi, spiders and such. There are many waterfalls along the way.

As much of a great time I had in the park, half the fun of the area was outside the park. The river from the waterfalls form one river leading out of the park and along many of the resorts and bungalows. One of the places that I stayed in did a real nice job of landscaping. One particular bungalow was on stilts, up to the third story. One tree was rooted underneath the bungalow, but grew around the building and over the river. Within the tree were other plants growing. They were using the tree's branches as support and the roots would just fall downward. In front of the patio to this bungalow hung all these roots. The bungalow was empty, so I was just hanging out while it rained. I got the idea that this is what Tarazan would swing on to get from tree to tree. These roots actually felt like soft bark on a tree, no more than a half-inch in diameter.

On the other side of the river, another tree had other plants growing within it and was angled over the river. Eventually thru time, these plants grew and created a wall from one tree to the other. It seems that tree branches would fall from a tree, but a plant below would catch the branch and use it to grow outward. Eventually, a wall formed.

It rained each day I was in Kaoh Sok. I was able to do something in the morning, but after lunch, clouds would roll in and douse the park. After five days of this, I moved southwards on to Krabbi. It's been two days now, and the town has grown on me. There's a night market that busts out some great food. I've had this fish ceviche using chopped garlic, chili peppers, cilantro and lime. There's waffles on a stick, fresh fortune-cookies (instead of a fortune, there's coconut jelly), fried bananas, donuts, mussels and fried chicken.

I've climbed 1227 stairs, up 600 meters, to see a golden buddha on top of a hill. It overlooks the countryside, with nothing impeding it's vision.

Today, I took a cooking class. I now know how to make five types of curry pastes: Massaman (the yellow Muslim curry), Red, Green, Pagnan ( red curry based) and Jungle (red curry with many vegetables simmered). The teacher got carried away and showed us Pad Thai, Thai Fried Rice and Tom Yum Goon (sweet & sour soup).

Not sure what I'll do tomorrow... I'm still feeling exausted from the 1200 steps.

WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THESE PEOPLE ARE REALLY KEEPIN IT REAL!

2005-10-11T04:07:00.000+07:00

The story goes that 150 years ago, tin miners were hit with an epidemic in a town 15 kilometers northwest of Phuket. A visiting Chinese opera company also fell ill. The company believed that this was the result of them failing to head the nine emporor gods of Taoism. For nine days, they performed acts of penance, including piercing, meditaion and a vegetarian diet. At the ninth day, everyone recovered from the illness.

Every year this goes on. In Phuket, a temple will host a series of events that are open to the public. The nine emporor gods and monks from the past will manifest themselves through devout followers of good virtue. What this really means is that the spirit possess a person. People will work themselves up in a frenzy and take on another persona. Each day will have one big ritual. Firewalking over twenty yards of burning hot coals at least a few inches deep. Climbing a two-story ladder with metal blades edge-side up as steps. But the most intense thing that they do is the piercing.

At the crack of dawn, the spirits insert anything and everything through their skin and walk around town (kinda like a Mardi Gras parade). They use simple things like anywhere from 6 inches to two yard-long spears, knives, swords that would go through one or both cheeks. The goriest thing I saw was multiple barbed wire through the cheeks. Weird things were inserted - the chain that led to a kerosene lamp, a wooden horse statue, the barrels of two automatic rifles.

Other acts of penance during the parade are: swinging an axe up and over the shoulder into their backs, running a sword along the tongue, then along the forehead, a man would grab iron rods that have been kept hot by contact with a burning log and run his hand up and down the rod - this man was already annointed with oil all over his body and smoke would trail his hand.

As far as I can tell, everyone believes that the gods are present. I will say that these acts of mutilation and penance are very real and not a sham. Blood does drip/pour from those possessed. In the case of the second picture where two men are licking something, that something is a three meter double edged sword with teeth. They would just run their tongues along the blade, rest for a few seconds, then repeat licking the blade. No screams of pain, no acknowledgement of pain. As I write this, I am still trying to cope with what I have seen.

These people are keeping extremely and religiously real. Real to be so involved and passionate about one's religion. The residents of Phuket take this event rather seriously and yet don't consider these acts of penance and bodily possessions out of the ordinary.

These are only just a few of the photos that I've taken. I've probably taken four hundred photos, what you'll see is just an example of what goes on. Each parade (there's eleven temples that roll thru town) has anywhere from twenty to fifty spirits who get pierced, cut, whatever.

THESE ARE NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF SELF-MUTILATION, BODY PIERCING AND BLOOD DISTURB YOU, AVOID LOOKING AT THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

more photos

2005-10-04T13:04:00.000+07:00

the evil clown terrorizes Thailand.

Clean Food Good Taste: the sign of sanitation...

pork at the nite market

2005-10-04T01:05:00.000+07:00

LEFT: overhead view of Ao Sane beach. I had a bungalow at the top end of the beach, underneath where the trees meet sand and water.

BELOW: fish washed ashore during the night's rainfall. There was no chance of revitilation by the time I arrived on the scene.

night market

2005-10-03T15:02:00.000+07:00

green mussels in the front

blue spotted stingray

banana stand - on display are at least four different varieties of bananas.

vegatable vendor; the six plates in the top left corner are varieties of chili peppers

finally, some photos!!!

2005-10-03T00:25:00.000+07:00

this spider was hanging out beside the road.

Sunset along the west coast of Thailand along the Andaman Sea.

Rotting bananas are used to attract various insect, bugs, flying objects. In this case, a blue butterfly takes a snack.

fried chicken

2005-09-30T06:20:00.000+07:00

This is the fried chicken sold on the street. The sticky rice is on the right side of the plate and toated garlic is sprinkled on top. The plastic bag on the right is filled with a sweet vinegar chili sauce.

Cheap Trek

2005-09-29T15:41:00.000+07:00

I finally purchased a mountain bike! After asking numerous people and following a few false leads, I found a cheap Trek just 20 kilometers north of town. While I was riding back to Phuket Town, I realized that I now had the means to tour across the countryside.

FOOD!

2005-09-18T06:20:00.000+07:00

Donuts - There's a few kinda donuts here. Chinese donuts are sold on the street for one baht apiece. They are fried in a wok and come in two-inch pieces shaped like a 'H'. Each donut is crispy and filled with big air-pockets. Oddly, they are not sweet. I had to add lotsa sugar and it was like a sugar donut back in the States. Dunkin Donuts has a presence on the Island. Each donut there costs seven baht. They have the same variety as American Dunkin Donut shops, with the exception of a donut-on-a-stick. It is a yellow cake donut that is smothered with icing and has some cute HelloKitty-like design.

Pan-fried fish with crispy herbs - a whole fish, possibly a red snapper, that is lightly breaded then fried. It is topped with very thin stips of basil, Thai chili peppers, garlic and a few other leafy-green herbs that have been flash-fried and crisp. A thick, caramel-coloured sauce is added.

Deep fried chicken - sold on the street, the chicken is cut up and fried in a wok with a batter containing slices of garlic, served with a spicy sweet/sour sauce on side. Each piece costs about 25 cents. The Colonel has a very strong presence. On one major street, there are three KFCs. An interesting note is that the Thais eat fried chicken only with a fork and knife, never handling them.

Red curry paste - purchased from a neighborhood corner store. Very spicy. Eric combined the paste with coconut milk and added to cooked squash, onions, potatoes and carrots.

Chicken with cashews - a standard Chinese dish. Carrots and onions are added in this stir-fry. There is a sizable Chinese population on the island with a considerable amount of political and economic power. Our neighbor made their money thru ownership of five jewelry stores and a few factories.

Crab with coconut curry - yellow curry with small crab pieces (usually unshelled). The crabs are slightly larger than blue crabs, but nowhere near the size of the west coast dungeness crabs.

Black pepper fried rice - an enormous amount of black pepper is added to the rice, for a plate-sized portion I would guess a whole tablespoon is added. It provides a nice punch.

Shrimp with tamarind sweet-sour sauce - nice and tangy, shrimp stir-fried with onions, garlic, ginger and carrots. The shrimp are of medium size (probably around a 50-count per pound size), but I have seen large sizes in the market (20 count).

Roti with chicken - bread dough that is flattened and pan-fried into a square pocket with a layer of chicken in a curry sauce. Served on the side is additional sauce with a few pieces of chicken and potato and a bowl of finely sliced cucumbers, shallots and Thai peppers soaked in a sweet white vinegar. Served only for breakfast. I like to keep the roti crisp and dip each piece into the curry sauce.

Muslim curry - a yellow curry with heavy tumeric flavor. This curry reminds me most of my first tastings of any curry in life. Served with potatoes and chicken.

Chicken on a stick - more street food. The breast is flattened, dark meat is sliced into pieces and other parts are marinated in a soy-ginger sauce. The dark meat and misc. parts are skewered and grilled. The breast is wedged between two bamboo sticks then grilled. A thick, brown sauce is glazed on as it grills to caramelization.

Thai (Iced)Tea and Coffee - costs 20 - 30 baht. The iced tea tastes just as it does in America. The hot tea is a nice touch. A pot of tea is served alongside a 6-oz cup, half filled with condensed milk. As more tea is consumed, the tea gets stronger because the milk-ratio drops and the tea brews within the pot. I really like the Thai Coffee. It is a nice strong brew, that reminds of Vietnamese coffee.

Fruit shakes/smoothies - the island is rich in tropical fruits. Coconuts, bananas (various types. all are less than five inches long and vary in width), pineapples, oranges, mangos, papaya, guava and many things I've never seen before in America.

Sodas - Coke and Pepsi are the major players, with Schwepps being found in stores catering to foreigners. The sodas are sweeter and go flat upon opening.

Frito Lay potato chips - I've had a couple of their flavors, but there are many weird flavors to try: Mexican BBQ, Shrimp, Basil, Lime to name a few. What I did try was "Extra" BBQ - a sweet BBQ flavor and Grilled Lobster. The first taste session of lobster was pleasing, though further tastings got grosser and grosser. Within the bag were huge boulders of flavor crystals that never made it on any chips.

Wrapped crabmeat - thin "cigars" filled with lump crabmeat and deep-fried like an eggroll. Served with a chili-pepper and sweet vinegar sauce.

Oysters on the halfshell - served with sliced chili peppers, toasted slivers of garlic and lime. Each cost 40 baht, $1 US.

Shrimp with chili pepper sauce - Red curry paste is fried in a wok before throwing in onions, chili peppers and garlic. Shrimp is added in the end.

first all-nighter in Thailand and, man, it was action-packed!

2005-09-07T06:20:00.000+07:00

Last weekend was spent down at Debbie and Eric's weekend house in the southern tip of the island. They just rented it the weekend before; the place was just renovated days before that. They will be using it as a weekend place, spending most of their time in the city, closer to their work. It is located just a few minutes from the first beach that I visited - Nai Harn. It is also along a row of four other houses that also house farangs.

Friday marked the end of the workweek for the other farangs. (It seems that every foreigner except me works as a teacher, usually teaching English as a foreign language.) I greeted the first to arrive, Devlin, with a taste-test of the local beers while playing video games off of a bootlegged Sony Playstation 2. The beers were Leo (a low-brow version from the Thai-owned Singha brewery) and Tiger (not sure who owns it). Both had aftertastes that were not objectionable... but won't be winning any awards.

Devlin was starving and suggested to go to the Rawai Mini-Golf Course for a buffet. Hmmmm, eating at a mini-golf course? Is this like eating at a mini-country club? But with a price tag of 120 Baht ($3), I figured that I could get my fill. What a great move it was! BBQ ribs! fried chicken! Grilled asparagus wrapped with bacon! Grilled pork chops! Potatoes au gratin!

After dinner, we went back to Farang Alley to hook up with Devlin's neighbor. We sat around and caught up on current events, daily activities and the like. Once it got sufficiently dark outside (Phuket gets about 12 hours of sunshine, from 6ish to 6ish), we headed out to explore the Thai-nighlife.

The first stop was a quaint bar along the waters in Rawai. There was only one customer, a Brit who was talking to one of the bar girls. I was happy with the pool table. (Thais have a weird rule after a scratch - the other player gets two shots.) We only stayed for a couple beverages and moved a few doors down to this interesting bar with lotsa bar girls. As far as I can tell, bar girls do tend bar, but are there more for eye candy. Here we met up with many other teachers and eventually closed down the bar.

We went to a few more bars and it hit me... The music here has something to be desired. Western pop music is fully embraced here, but only a select song list is in heavy rotation. Boys II Men - "I'll Make Love To You", Black Eyed Peas' latest hit, Madonna... ughhh! The same music is played in every club!

Slowly, our posse thinned out, until it was down to me and three other people, Logan, Nate and Nick. I've hung out with Logan a few times already (he's from Sacramento); Nate, I've seen one other nite; I just met Nick that night. It was late (probably towards 3AM, but I wouldn't know - I don't have a watch or a cell-phone) and the only place that would be open was in Patong, halfway up the coastline (which is only 20 minutes away). We took three scooters and followed each other into the night. Nate took the lead and actually lost us past a hill.

Halfway there, upon our descent down a hill, we saw one oncoming headlamp just fade as it drifted left at the foot of the hill. At the same time, we see another headlamp dart towards and eventually pass us. Not sure what to make of this, we continue ahead, and after dipping to the bottom of the hill, the scene unfolds. Logan and I get off the scooter to tend to a scooter that was run off the road. Nick turns around to chase down the other scooter, but to no avail.

The fallen scooter contained a Frenchman, apparently sauced from the bars. He was trapped on the scooter, pinned beside the hill. His face had a few scrapes and blood. He had a Thai companion who was already off the scooter. She appeared fine, except for some bloody knuckles. I helped the man off his scooter. In his drunken state, he claims that the other scooter knocked him off the road. We suspect he was partially right and that his altered state didn't make things better.

By this time, it was well into the 3 AM hour and pitch black in the middle of nowhere. The Frenchman's scooter was in working condition, though the headlamp was not working. It was decided that Nick would take the Frenchman and taxi him to his home. Logan would follow in the blind scooter. The Thai girl said that she called her friends and that they were going to pick her up on the side of the road. I stayed with her at the scene until this happened.

With my limited Thai-language skills and her lack of English skills, there wasn't much to talk about. By the time Logan and Nick arrived, the girl's friends failed to pick her up. Logan found out that she lives along the way to Patong, so we insisted that she come with us. This was a good thing, since no cars passed us since the incident first began.

She took us to a bar (she's a bar girl, of course... what would a twenty year old be doing with a 50-year old Frenchman?!?) where we were greeted with a hero's welcome. Ten other bar girls cheered us as we rolled into the bar. They wanted us to stay, but we had other plans. (Memo: we must go back some other time ;)

We finally arrived in Patong at 4ish and the bar, The Jungle, was jampacked with revelers in an open-air setting. Thoughts of Spring Break come to mind! Loud music and lotsa bodies shaking. We made our way thru the crowd and ran into Nate. Figuring the night was just too crazy, we found a building that had a totally different vibe. It was very mellow and allowed for actual conversation without screaming. Eventually, the time caught up with us and the Jungle anounced that it was time to close. We left the dark bar and realized that the sun was peeking thru the mountains. Outside the bar, across the street, people were washing elephants, starting a brand new day.

thoughts about New Orleans

2005-09-01T06:00:00.000+07:00

I've been reading about what's been going on back at my old town of New Orleans. It seems that I'll never be able to go back to the same place again. It looks as though my old neighborhood is still intact; I have only seen photos of downed trees and some crushed buildings, but haven't read any reports of serious flooding. The rest of the city, though, wasn't so lucky. It was gut-wrenching to see the areas along Lake Ponchatrain. My thoughts go out to everyone in the area.

Life's a beach

2005-08-30T13:26:00.000+07:00

Spent the weekend on the beaches in the southwestern tip of the island. I was at a bungalow on the edge of one of the beaches for just 300 bhat a nite (yes, that's roughly almost $8). Granted it wasn't the Hilton, but it was just ten yards from the ocean, with waves crashing so loud against the rocks that I needed earplugs to sleep. Accomodations were just a bed with mosquito net, toilet, sink and showerhead.

An interesting site was to look out into the open sea at night. One would think to just see darkness, but the whole skyline was illuminated by fishing boats, working hard to bring the fresh catch to Red Lobster the next morning.

Photos will be coming soon. I'm waiting for high-speed Internet to be hooked up at the house. It should've happened two weekends ago, but Thai time moves in mysterious ways.

Wat Thep Khachonchit

2005-08-27T01:26:00.000+07:00

I made it to my first wat (Buddhist temple) and just in time! After about fifteen minutes of picture taking, a serious rainfall started. I was able to run away from the temple while my shoes were still dry. (Shoes must not be worn in buildings with a Buddha) I sought shelter inside the neighboring temple that is under construction.

It's been about thirty minutes with no sign of letting up. There are make-shift apartments in this area - aluminum siding are used for walls. I see about eight units, but there are probably more. There is electricity. In fact, one of the units has the TV blaring some Thai soap opera and a stereo blasting some rock-n-roll at the same time. No one minds my presence here, they just go about their business.

Dogs, chickens and cats roam the area. Unwanted animals get dropped off by people, and the monks take them in as family. The monks will not kill any animals, but sometimes this is an unfortunate thing. Debbie has seen dogs with distemper or other terminal illnesses that just linger around in pain.

The monks are in the temple; the last I saw, they were eating. One of the monks was showing me around the temple, encouraging me to walk around and take photos. He took me underneath the temple that is under construction and showed me the pieces that get put up on the rooftop. They are solid pieces of metal, painted gold and red and are very heavy. He then led me to the prayer room, library, and up to the statue. While I was photographing the Buddha, the monk disappeared. Within moments, it started to rain.

Rainy Monday

2005-08-24T01:21:00.000+07:00

I woke up Monday morning to a slight drizzle of rain. This kinda put a damper on making it down to the Internet Cafe. After seeing a break (birds were chirping, that means the rain is over, right?), I dashed down to Mae Porn for some Pad Thai and Thai iced tea. The plan was just to have a quick lunch, then head down to the neighborhood market area for the afternoon.

As I was eating my noodles, the rain came back with a fury. I didn't bother to bring any raingear (from the States or from the house), so I figured to wait out the storm. I was intending on getting something else to eat, but Anon (the waitress who has been Eric & Debbie's ace in the hole for information and translation) "talked" me into having a beer. She said that since the temperature was cooler, I should have a beer. I couldn't argue with her.

Meanwhile, I noticed the teevee was playing a familiar program. On the Spike network in America, they air a game show... maybe from Japan... that consists of goofy people doing goofy games like a person on a slide that goes along a ledge and the objective is to stop the slide before being dumped into a pond. Another is an obstacle course where people are supposed to go thru covered doors of abandoned buildings, avoiding mud pits and an oversized caricature of a samurai behind some doors . The audio wasn't in Thai and definitely not in English, like the Spike Channel. I did gather that the two commentators make silly comments about the contestants.

The eagle has landed!

2005-08-23T01:39:00.000+07:00

After 28 hours consisting of four airports (SFO, Taipei, Bangkok and Phuket) and three airplanes, my new life finally begins! Everything went smoothly, no delays or bad weather and most importantly, no lost luggage.

I was quite satisfied with EVA airlines. The flite from Taipei to Bangkok had individual TV screens with various video games, teevee shows, movies, music to choose from. The only unsatisfying thing being the in-flight meals. Being a Taiwanese airline, I presume that the meals were samples of Taiwanese cuisine. There was a flaky pastry with flourescent-red pork products, rice porridge (not bad, but not too flavorful) and peanuts fried with sardines, to name a few of the items.

Leaving SF in the middle of the nite was a great idea. I managed to get enough sleep over the Pacific Ocean, so that by the time I arrived into Taipei (5AM local), it seemed as though I didn't miss a day or mess up the internal clock. Of course, I took a few naps along the way, but by the time I touchdowned into Phuket (5PM local), I felt as though I could stay up long enough into the evening that jetlag wasn't an issue.

Within a couple of minutes of stepping outside of Phuket's airport, my friends from the Peace Corps days (Debbie and Eric) picked me up in a tuk-tuk (open-air taxi). It had just rained, so it felt like a humid, 85 degree afternoon, slightly cooler than current NOLA conditions. It's the tail-end of the rainy season. My time in NOLA did well to prepare my for this time of year. The ocean breezes do a lot to cool things down.

They took me to their house in Phuket Town, the SE corner of the island. It's a modest, one-story house with two bedrooms and baths, spacious living room, kitchen, open courtyard and carport (inhabited by two scooters). I say modest because there are rows of two-story houses and Mercedes Benz cars and SUVs in the 'hood (a middle-class area).

For my first meal in Thailand, we went to a place a couple blocks away from their house: Mae Porn. No, the servers are not walking around wearing thongs, serving food with a "massage". It's a delicious seafood/curry spot that made it's way into the Lonely Planet guidebook. Chicken with cashews in a spicy tamarind curry. Marigold leaves and stalks with chili peppers (similar in taste to snow pea leaves). Fried fish with sweet/sour sauce. Quite a flavor sensation, especially since it cost about $7 with a couple rounds of Singha beer for three!

An early bedtime led to an early wake-up: 7 AM (Debbie and Eric were also suffering the same consequences of global travel, coming back from a holiday in the States). We walked to a breakfast spot for iced coffee and an omelette with diced curry chicken and sauce.

The sun was shining, so we went down to the beach. It's the low season, so there weren't many tourists, maybe ten people including us. The sands were generally clean, with occasional broken glass. For the most part, these shards of glass have been smoothed by the ocean waves - just like how rocks get smoothed down in beaches everywhere. The water was warm and very blue, in three tones to denote depth. Eric says that the water is much cleaner than before the tsunami. The waves are quite strong, which, for a non-swimmer like me means that I'll only be going ten meters offshore, if I'm lucky. (Strong riptides might me the end of me if I'm unlucky.)

Traffic can be intense at times. It's not about bumper-to-bumper congestion. Scooters and small-engine motorcycles are very common, sometimes dominating an intersection at a red light. Traffic flows along the left side of the roads, so I've got to make the adjustment of looking right-left-right before crossing the street, lest I get smacked by an oncoming scooter. Fortunately, everyone's used to everyone else driving erratically, so there's a sense of defensive driving. What this usually means is that drivers will swerve across the center line or take the shoulder on the left or scooters will ride three-deep in one lane to pass slow traffic, merging traffic and those about to turn off. What's good is that high speeds are not common because people are trying to conserve gas (or rather, reduce the number of times they have to buy gasoline - a mindset that has yet to become common-place in America). Top speeds are usually at 45 mph.

The adventure has just begun...

final days in America

2005-08-18T05:05:00.003+07:00

Ahhh, this trip to San Francisco has been fun, despite not being able to bike up in the trails and hills of California. I've managed to eat two burritos, two chimichangas, one cheeseburger Animal-style at In-N-Out (should've ordered two), visit Wine Country, attend a wine and chocolate tasting, pool party in the South Bay, see the White Stripes in Berekely's Greek Theater, and logged in many happy hours.

Just a few more days and I'm outta here!