Video Vault: Waking Up a Napping Cat

Bangkok, Thailand.

I'm still traipsing around India with Jess. We've stopped in on Mumbai (nasty), Pune (nasty), Udaipur (amazing), Agra (more amazing), Varanasi (even more amazing), and now we're in Amritsar staying for free at the Golden Temple, the most holy site in the Sikh religion. And, sure enough, it's even more incredible than Varanasi. I'll give 'em all a full post up once I get some photos uploaded.

Albert Goes On a Trek and Invades Laos and Cambodia

Ok, time for a super-mega catch up post. What have I been doing, you ask? (You did ask, didn't you? I'm not making that up?)

Well let me tell you.

In Chiang Mai, Thailand, I took some cooking classes. This is me with some Pad Thai I made. Yummy! Funny enough, this was the first day of my trip I had a tummy ache, and I had only eaten things I made myself. I was pretty heavy on the spice. Click for more.

Then I went on a trek through beautiful Northern Thailand with an international group of ten. Click for more.

The first night we spent in a Karen tribe village. That's Anders there, enjoying the green tea and banana leaf cigarette he's been given. Click for more.

Then we hitched a ride on some bamboo rafts back towards home. They assembled these things the morning we left. I was put in the back to steer because I'm a strong man. Click for more.

Then it was across the Mekong River to Laos! Click for more.

I took a two day boat ride down the Mekong to Luang Prabang, which was a beautiful trip. A few times kids from the villages came out to say hello. Click for more.

Near Luang Prabang is a little village that makes money brewing lao lao, a whiskey made from fermented rice. Click for more.

That's some good hooch. Click for more.

Kept moving south, to Vang Vieng, which has some beautiful scenery. Click for more.

Vang Vieng has dozens of caves to explore. I met an Irish girl named Christine and we got into a couple really good ones. This one had stretches that we had to swim through to go on. We went about an hour in before deciding we should turn around if we wanted to get home before dark. Click for more.

The next day, Christine and I went kayaking down the Nam Xong. Click for more.

Vang Vieng is notorious for its "tubing," which involves little tubing and lots of drinking. It's feels very much like MTV Spring Break. Big dangerous rope swings and a waterslide. That's me in the upper left of this picture, midmaneuver high above the water. I'm like freaking Spider-Man. Click for more.

Spent an evening drinking with some friendly Laos. That's Christine, and James from Australia who just showed up in town minutes before this photo. He's the best Australian I've ever met. Click for more.

Then I kept moving south, going part of the way in a local "bus". These things are packed, and what you see here is us making a quick stop and these veggie hawkers thrusting their wares into the car looking for buyers. Click for more.

You're encouraged not to pee on the beautiful views along the roads. (Sorry, no more like this...)

After going by Champasak, where the pretty cool temple Wat Phou is, I made it to the beautiful island of Don Det, in Si Phan Don (The 4,000 Islands). Click for more.

Rented a dirty little bungalow for about $1.25, and relaxed for days. This was my favorite stop in Southeast Asia. Click for more.

One day I swam out among the islands and wore myself out so's I didn't feel too much like swimming back. I flagged down this boat of Lao children and they were happy to give me a ride back to Don Det. Click for more.

The next day I went garbage collecting in the Mekong around Don Det. The Lao people thought this was hilarious. Click for more.

Then I was in Cambodia, the land of gas stations that fill your tank from whiskey bottles. Click for more.

I met this South Korean girl Sumi on the bus into Siam Reap and this is us getting some squid on the waterfront before we go for a swim. Click for more.

My first night in Cambodia, I went to see the sunset at Angkor Wat with a gang of lovely ladies. That's Anne from Sweden, Sumi again, and Anke (pronounced almost just like Angkor) from Germany. Click for more.

Woke up early to catch the sunrise from Phnom Bakheng, Angkor. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a HANDS FREE HEADSTAND. They said it couldn't be done. Click for more.

The temples at Angkor are ridiculously cool. Really good condition, really good design, really Indiana Jones. Moreso even than Petra, which was actually in an Indiana Jones movie. This is Bayon. Click for more.

Some monks at Bayon. I'm always hesitant to stick a camera in locals' faces, but monks are so damn photogenic so a common tactic of mine is to let them pass and then spin around real fast to get a picture of their backs. This time, it appears I was caught.

That's Sumi and me at Ta Phrom, one of the Angkor temples. I think this door was in the movie Tomb Raider. Our tuk tuk driver had this awesome wig, which I ended up wearing around all day. The Cambodians loved it. Click for more.

There are little kids everywhere trying to sell things to tourists. But they aren't annoying, they're really really fun. Super smart, savvy kids who love to joke and have a good time. Here I'm negotiating a price for a little wooden mouth instrument. I paid 2000 riel ($0.50), which I knew was too much, but I didn't realize HOW too much until I told another kid I got it for 200 riel ($0.05) and he offered me another at the same price. D'oh! Click for more.

I got a little turned around at Angkor. Hah! Click for more.Celebrated my Cambodian good times with a whiskey bucket. Click for more.

At about 6:00am after a few of these, I realized I might not have taken the days of the week into account when planning my Indian visa retrieval. Sure enough, it was Thursday, the Indian consulate in Thailand closes for the weekend at noon on Friday, and my flight to India leaves from Bangkok at 9:00am on Monday. I had 28 hours to get from Siam Reap, Cambodia, to Chiang Mai, Thailand. That's a long way, look at a map. So I got an hour's rest, rode on the back of a motorbike drunk as a skunk to catch an 8:00am bus, crossed the border, hopped on a cramped minibus with broken A/C that made my slimy whiskey sweats all the more unpleasant, got into Bangkok at 6:00pm, ran to a 7:35pm night train to Chiang Mai, had a nice sleep, got into Chiang Mai on Friday at 12:10pm...

ULP

ran outside, negotiated a fair tuk tuk price, got to the consulate at 12:20 after a couple of wrong turns, waved my visa receipt through the bars at the Indian guard ("Yes, come in, come in") and was very sweet to the grumpy Thai woman behind the counter that kept reminding me they were closed. But I got my visa, and tomorrow I'm in India!

So About Those Ladyboys...

A lot of people (mostly concerned family) have asked me what exactly happens at a ladyboy show. Well, here is the answer, snippets from two numbers:


Calypso Cabaret, where the boys and boys and the ladies are boys.

My Cheapest Accommodations Yet

$2.50 in Chiang Mai! The bathroom is shared, right outside, and someone might move into that other bed, but... $2.50!

Looking for Andrew in Prison

This is a story that is from those wonderful carefree days when Andrew was here with me in Thailand. One day, we resolved that he would spend the morning painting graffiti and I would wander around, and we'd meet up at his spot at 11:30am. So I left him:
At 11:15 I showed up and saw this:
But no Andrew! What would cause my good friend to abandon a piece halfway through? I thought for sure he had been spotted by the police or at least run off by some locals. I waited until 11:31 but thought he had bolted and didn't want to return to the scene of the crime, returning instead to where we were staying, which is where we had agreed to meet in case we missed each other at the spot.

So I went back to where we were staying and he wasn't there, and I thought for sure he had been arrested. I saw his parents and Andrew's mom asked "Did you lose my son?" and I laughed nervously and replied "Nno!" I chatted with them for a bit, the whole time thinking furiously how this could really ruin the trip for everyone, and they left. I had a feeling that if I sat around and did nothing Andrew would show up eventually, but I also had a terrible vision of him not returning and me having to explain to his parents why I hadn't told them anything sooner or done anything all day when I knew he was missing. In my head, I literally repeated the words: "This is an adult situation. You are an adult. You will deal with this situation AS AN ADULT." I ran and grabbed a map of Bangkok, pinpointed the closest police station to where Andrew was painting, hopped in a tuk tuk and told the driver to take me there:

"Why do you want to go there?"
"I'm looking for my friend."
"Your friend a policeman?"
"No."
"...Oh."

We zipped off, and when I told the driver I thought my friend had been arrested for graffiti, he told me he was pretty sure they don't arrest people for that. Maybe, I thought, but who knows what Andrew was painting on. The wall he chose was mysteriously bare of graffiti in a part of town that was pretty well covered, so I thought it might have been on the backend of an important landmark or something.

We arrived at the police station and the tuk tuk driver acted as interpreter. The police didn't look like they had much going on, they were very unhurried and weren't at all dismissive of me, in fact they seemed to enjoy the conversation. The police told me that they do not in fact arrest people for graffiti, but continued wanting to talk anyway about the wheres and the whats and things:

"Like this?" [pointing at a small tag nearby]
"No, more like that." [pointing at a larger piece across the street]
[Policeman nods his head appreciatively] "No arrest."

They gave me a Thai donut and told me if he hadn't shown up after 24 hours to come back. I was pretty nervous still, but when I got back to where we were staying THERE WAS ANDREW! I kicked a shoe at him, and was both a little angry and happy to see him.

So what happened?

Turns out Andrew went to go get some water at 11:14 and returned at 11:33. He waited around for me until 12:20, thought I got lost but that I'd sort it out, then left a "BRB" message on the wall while he went to get more paint. When he returned and I still wasn't there he got more worried, updated his note and went back to the hotel:
He took a shower, and as he was getting out I walked in and kicked a shoe at him. He got a little angry but was happy to see me.

The finished piece, with a couple of additional throwups he did while waiting for me:

New Year's Eve in Bangkok

The night began at Sanamluang, The Royal Field that leads to the Grand Palace in downtown Bangkok. Locals were out in force, with pop up festivities like bumper cars:

...and a raffle being decided by the whims of a rat:

5 baht (about $0.15) got you a number, and if the rat ran into the hole with that number on it you won! I didn't. I headed back to Banglamphu, where all the backpackers hang out, to countdown with my fellow whiteys:

But there was no countdown! Except for "The Final Countdown." Which, honestly, almost makes up for it. Though I didn't realize it at the time, I apparently drank more than I should have, because I wasn't feeling so hot the next day:

Happy New Year!

My First Monetary Exchange With a Lady of the Night

My father told me I would have to look out for prostitutes in Thailand.

"Albo," he said, "Every hotel in Thailand is a brothel. You'll be takin' a shower and they'll jump right in with you and you just gotta kick 'em out."

Well, times have changed a bit since he was here 30 years ago and most of my showers have been cold and lonely. But in certain areas there is definitely an aggressive swarm of professional ladies. Well, always in search of a complete cultural experience, Andrew and I decided to see how close to the sun we could fly without getting burned. The swarm fell upon us in a bar which cannot be named on this family-friendly blog. After successfully swatting most of them away, one particularly quirky girl (when she first approached me she was doing a gorilla impression, I kid you not) wrote me the note above. For those who can't quite make it out:

YOU GOOD ARE NICE
BUT WHY YOU NO GOOD
WHY YOU ARE MEAN?
YOU GAY ASS?

In an effort to get some peace I communicated to her that her suspicion was correct, and got such a kick out of the note that I bought it off of her for 100 baht (roughly three dollars). Such was my first and last monetary exchange with a lady of the night.

A Well Conceived Scam

So last week, before Andrew arrived in Bangkok I fell into a very well organized scam. It started like this...

I was walking around Bangkok aimlessly, and wandered into a temple. On the way out, a guy started making fun of my shoes because they are so worn. We got to talking, and after a few minutes he started telling me some places I should check out. Then he mentioned that as a thank you to everyone for celebrating his birthday so magnificently, the king (who everyone in the country LOVES, and who in turn supposedly loves everyone in his country) was sponsoring a tuk tuk (a little motor taxi, so named for the sound its uncovered engine makes) company for the day and that they would drive you pretty much anywhere you wanted to go for 20 baht (about 66 cents--really cheap for a long tuk tuk ride). He told me to look for the yellow flags, as they marked the sponsored tuk tuks. On the way out of the temple, a tuk tuk with a yellow flag was waiting and the driver approached me: "Special deal! King sponsor today! I drive you many places, 20 baht!" So my thought is of course "Well, these two are working together to get me into this tuk tuk" so I say "No thanks" and keep walking.

So after about 15 minutes I wander into another temple. I stand and stare at the Buddha for a few minutes, when a Thai man that has been kneeling there looks up at me and asks if I know how to make a wish to the lucky Buddha. I say no and he leads me through the process on my knees. Then we get to talking, he tells me he is an English teacher at the school attached to the temple, etc etc. He asks me where I'm planning to visit today, and recommends a few other places. Then he says "You know, what you should really do is get into a tuk tuk with a yellow flag, there's a special promotion, etc etc

So I walk out of the temple and I'm like, "What are the odds that two super nice people at two separate temples are working in concert to get me involved in some elaborate scam?" I decided whatever the odds were, 20 baht was a good deal for a tuk tuk adventure. So I flagged down a tuk tuk with a yellow flag and asked "Is there some sort of special deal today?" "Yes, yes! The king sponsors tuk tuk rides today! 20 baht! I take you anywhere!" So I hopped in.

After taking me to a couple of temples, he tells me he needs to go get a stamp to be reimbursed from the government. So we stop in front of a clothing store and he tells me to go in and at this point I realize I've been suckered. So I go into the shop and tell them I want to buy two suits but their price is too expensive and come back out. I ask the driver what the next stop is, and he tells me it's a temple. I figure I might as well get another temple out of the deal and go with him. On the way I ask him who is sponsoring this trip, the government or the stores, and his answer is murky (intentionally, methinks) thanks to his uncertain grasp of the English language. So we go to the temple and on my way in a man sweeping the ground tells me I can't go in yet, and directs me to a little sitting area where I can wait. There's a very friendly-looking man there and I sit and stare at the trees, counting down the seconds until he starts up a conversation that leads to talking about this amazing deal the king has going on. It takes about 8 seconds.

When I leave the temple, I ask the driver what the NEXT stop is, and he says it's another sponsor. I tell him I don't want to go to any more shops, and pull out my 20 Baht. Then he levels with me, and tells me that if he takes me to three stores today, the person running the scam promotion will fill his gas tank and give him dinner. He begs me to keep going with him. I figure it's like TV commercials or ads in a magazine--sometimes you gotta put up with a little crap to get what you want. And I was enjoying the cheap ride around, so I accepted the subsidized trip and had a fine time for the rest of the day.

What amazes me is how intricate the scam was. They had friendly people planted all over the city just to plant the idea in people's heads that this government promotion was going on, so that when a select group of tuk tuk drivers, who are notoriously untrustworthy, mention the same thing it comes with a certain amount of credibility. Impressive!

Ladyboys!

Andrew and I were strolling around Bangkok last night looking for something to do, and wandered into The Asia Hotel to see if the Elvis impersonator was performing. While we were trying to figure that out, a Chinese woman walked up to us with her brother and asked if we were here for the show.

"What, the Elvis show?"
"No, the show downstairs in the cabaret. We have two extra tickets and we're trying to sell them."
"What sort of show is it?"
"It's a ladyboy show."
[Albert and Andrew start digging through their pockets for money.]

It was very fun and very strange. I have some videos that I'll get up at some point.

Hotel Comparison Videos: $7.50 in Jordan vs. $6.75 in Thailand

Recently I've stayed in two budget hotels. The first was the Sunrise Hotel in Amman, Jordan:

And the second was the place I've been staying in Bangkok, My House:

The Verdict:
The Sunrise Hotel in Amman was bigger and had two beds, but My House is much cleaner, has a [cold water] shower that works, and is in a much much MUCH nicer part of town than that Jordanian hole. Plus I didn't have to haggle for the Bangkok price, while the guy in Amman started the price at $22.50. After I walked out he chased me down the street and agreed to my price, then while registering asked me "Why so angry? Why you want to [punching motion] me?" He was a young guy, probably 16. Later he asked me how to get a girlfriend, and when I said "I don't know," he accused me of lying: "Don't say you don't know! You American, you have many girlfriends, I know! Tell me!"

How I Spent My First Day In Thailand

After a quick breakfast in a cafe near my guesthouse, I headed to Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University. Luckily I didn't have to ask for directions to find it. They offer free meditation classes, and free anything is good. Especially inner peace. It was just me and a girl from Chicago named Amy in the class, and we practiced some basic sitting and walking meditation. I certainly learned some things I hadn't known before, like when you are meditating (in this particular school, at least) you don't IGNORE all the distractions, you have to be aware of them, think about them, and then cut them off. But you have to be aware of them. So most of the time you're thinking about your breathing (not controlling your breathing, just breathing naturally and being aware of how your body moves with the breath), thinking to yourself "Rising, knowing, falling, knowing, rising, knowing, falling, knowing..." as your abdomen rises and falls. The "knowing" is the moment between inhaling and exhaling. So when something else comes in, like an errant thought, you go "Rising, knowing, falling, knowing, rising, thinking, thinking, thinking, rising, knowing, falling..." Much of the time my inner voice was saying "Rising, knowing, falling, knowing, foot's asleep, foot's asleep, foot's asleep, foot's asleep..." I found walking meditation much more enjoyable, for comfort reasons as well as the hilarity of looking like a pacing mental patient.

The quick primer on Buddhism the teacher gave made me not very interested in Buddhism. The way it is taught here, you must detach yourself from all earthly things. Attachment=bad. So you feel anger--detach yourself from it. Sadness--detach yourself from it. Happiness--detach yourself from it. But I fight every day to ATTACH myself to happiness. Detachment is what comes naturally for me, it wouldn't be a struggle for me to get there (I am the Buddha), but I'm not very interested in cutting my emotional connections to the things and people I love in this world after working so hard to build them in the first place. Granted, I know jack about Buddhism and this woman might be spouting some splinter doctrine, but this is explicitly what she said is the goal. So no one has to worry that I'll come back to the States as one of those Nuveau Buddhist assholes. Though I had previously wanted to do so just to exasperate some folks.

Anyway, Amy and I trekked to Wat Pho together. It's a temple, see?

I think Amy did quite well with this pose.

This I believe is the largest reclining Buddha in the world. It looks like a monster movie. Wat Pho also happens to house the most famous Thai massage school in all of Thailand, so Amy and I naturally got massages as well. One hour for about $12 (which is expensive compared to most of the places around town.) I've never had a Thai massage before, and had a good time with it. There are a lot of things they do that feel like wrestling moves. Leg locks, head locks, that kind of thing. Some of it really hurt. Especially when the guy tried to pull my head straight off. He tried awfully hard.

Watched the sunset behind Wat Arun (Wat means temple), and then raced home to tell you all about it!

Always and forever, more at My Flickr Page.

What I've Been Doing for 42 Days

So, it's been a while since I posted here. To blame: having a really great time in places where internet access was a rare and fleeting treat. But now I'm in Bangkok, where they shower tourists in liquid cyberspace for pennies. So, let's catch up.
Went to Jordan! First stop, Wadi Ram, a valley that Jordan sees as it's answer to the Grand Canyon. Spectacular. No Grand Canyon, mind you, but spectacular. We made arrangements with a Bedouin who called himself Desert Wolf over the 'net to camp out in the middle of the desert. He drove us out and dropped us off...
The next day we went hiking. The whole place was sandstone, which was really grippy and made for some excellent bouldering/climbing. There were a few spots where I thought we'd gotten ourselves stuck, but we always found a way out. Expected to see Desert Wolf that night. We didn't have any kindling to start a fire so we looked around for paper...and I realized I had a copy of Fahrenheit 451 with me. Sweet sweet irony. Anyway, Desert Wolf never came. Not that night, and not the next morning when he knew we needed to leave.
So we started the long hike out. About an hour or so in, we flagged down a passing Jeep that gave us a ride to the nearby village.
Spent most of the day chilling at "Ali's Place." That's Ali there on the left. Lots of tea, some tasty food, hooka smoke. We had missed the morning bus to Petra, so we had some time to kill and expressed to Ali an interest in a Jeep tour, but the asking price of the official guides was too much. So he found some young relative to drive his truck for us at a reasonable price, and off we went.
The muffler fell off pretty early into the tour. Nice guy, though, that driver. About an hour into the trip we realized we had met the night before, when I had helped repair a Bedouin tent in the dark. (Maya actually suspected it was him immediately, but I resisted)
That night Ali saw us drawing and asked us to draw something in his guest book. We left a drawing I had done of Maya sitting at Ali's Place earlier in the day. In the morning we caught a bus to Petra.
Petra! You may recognize this particular structure from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Pssh. Back to Israel!
To a goat farm! With about 220 goats (we counted every day, but no one was actually sure what number we were aiming for), from which the farm produced...
Cheese!
It was a beautiful place, in the mountains of the Galilee, looking down at Nazareth through the valley.
It was run by Amnon (pictured here with live-in grandchildren Chumba and Ta'el)...
...and Dalia (pictured here with Maya).
I spent most of my time there making a stone pillar. I finished it once with a rounded top in an effort to be different from all the flat topped pillars around, but some people thought it looked too phallic (and maybe it did), so I had to circumcise it and refinish it. It's a sturdy pillar, with a hitching post for cows/horses.
There were a few Americans there, so we organized a Thanksgiving celebration and the locals indulged us, letting us butcher one of the turkeys they had on the farm. Cooked in sheep fat, it ended up tasting a lot like sheep. Green beans, mashed potaters, POMEGRANATE sauce, stuffing, pumpkin pie (not from a can, a first for me)... It was all there.

So I just arrived in Bangkok, and I'll be bumming around for a couple of days until the Kobayashi-Downs' get here and then it'll be a whirlwind of family fun. I'm looking forward to it, and I should be able to update this blog more regularly for a while. We'll see!

I leave you with... PUPPY CAGE MATCH!!!
As always, there are more adventures photographed at My Flickr Page.