Video Vault: Rolling Down a Really Big Sand Dune

In Wadi Ram, Jordan. A first person view of an epic hill roll.

Albert Out-Ninjas a Pickpocket (Maybe)

vs.

(that's me)

Every ten years or so Albert does something so ninja he brags about it for the rest of his life. At 16 it was besting "The Pepsi Challenge" without taking a sip. At 6, punching Johnny Stikes in the nose for saying there is a kind of gold you can write with... Almost right on time, Albert's Third Ninja Moment...

Taking the overnight bus from McLeod Ganj to Delhi, I found myself sitting to the right of a small and beady-eyed but otherwise not-so-evil-looking woman. She wore a big poofy maroon coat and cradled a big bag and had a big blanket thrown over the whole deal and I thought Wow, what a big bundle of comfy. She held a wooden rosary in her hand, which together with the maroon gave her away as a Tibetan Buddhist. McCleod Ganj is a Tibetan refugee town situated a few minutes walk from the Dalai Lama's home (saw him), and one of the first things I said upon entering (to my now absent travel companion Jess) was "I love Tibetans!" because they were all smiling at me, and not in that creepy Indian "You're white and I'm staring" way but in a "You're human and we're at peace" kind of way. So this Tibetan sitting next to me was already one up in my Book of Books (I do have one... Rich Old White Ladies are at the bottom [the Upper East Side will do it to you--no offense to my UES aunts I love y'all] and Sikhs are at the top, a recent upset of longtime champions Old Black People).

My only real concern regarding her was to not let loose any of the toxic gas I had been producing during a troublesome sickness the past few days.

When the bus started rolling she leaned her seat back and rested her head against my upright seat. I was sad to think that eventually I would have to lean my own seat back and thereby deny her what appeared to be a very comfortable little nook. But eventually, it was time for me to doze and I found a moment to lean back when it wouldn't upset her head. I also pulled a dark gray hoodie from my bag, put the hood on my face backwards to shield from cold and light and wrapped the rest around my neck for support. I had never tried such an configuration before, and giggled to myself at the thought of my neighbor waking up and finding herself face to face with a Hanged Man.

After a while laying like this, the woman very deliberately laid her head on my shoulder. There was no shake of the bus that lolled an unbalanced cranium onto me, it was a conscious and deliberate placement. But I was still in love with her and indeed the world and people in India are always all over each other in many ways that seem weird to me and honestly it wasn't the first time a stranger had cuddled me since I'd been on this trip so I shrugged it off (figuratively, so as not to disturb Sleeping Buddhist.)

Now in the boundary war that is a public bus ride, I had already conceded a fair amount of territory before this. The middle armrest was hers, and I had allowed her leg to stray onto my side of the invisible division but that was all I was giving up and was holding my ground against further invasions because there's nothing worse than being a nice guy and then realizing you've been slowly pushed into a very uncomfortable and unrecoverable position. "Holding my ground" meant that our bodies were touching at a number of points, those points being all the points from my shoulder to my foot. I was considering laying my head on hers to complete the connection and pondering if it could be considered a show of solidarity with the Tibetan cause, one more human bond being one more step towards a Free Tibet, when a dark thought entered my head.

Somebody told me once that pickpockets often rely on physical distraction. While you would probably feel a person pulling your wallet out of your pants, you might not if he simultaneously bumps you hard in the shoulder while running for the subway train. I began to consider the possibility that something was rotten in Tibet, with no real reason to other than the fact that I have the instincts of a Ninja. If she was picking my pocket, she would have to be doing it very slowly to maintain her sleeping act, and banking on the fact that I was probably dozing in and out a bit myself and wouldn't notice the small movements. I got flashbacks of sleeping next to girls as a teenager, our bodies mysteriously getting closer and closer as the night went on, innocently touching while maintaining plausible deniability. You know who you are.

I decided to give her my usual pickpocket test: push back suddenly and observe any unexpected resistance. In NYC, if it's possible someone is fiddling with my backpack I'll jerk back and to the side quickly but casually, with the idea that I'll feel the pressure of their hand on my bag and know to check things out. Or at least shake 'em off. On the next big bounce of the bus, I exaggerated the movement and bumped my hips toward her. Inconclusive but worrisome so I did it again and sure enough there was some extra pressure right on my pocket, not a soft Tibetan body pressed against mine but something bony and sinister. Could have been a book. Or the corner of her bag. Or it could have been tricksy little Buddha fingers reaching for my precious, which at that moment was a $5 watch. A broken $5 watch. But below that open pocket was my zippered travel pocket, which held my passport and cash reserves. Still feigning sleep, I ninjaquickly reached my right hand across my body to the open pocket, as if to scratch an itch, and flesh met with flesh as I discovered two fingers knuckle deep inside.

Her fingers darted out and my left arm came down, sealing the open pocket and resting across the zippered one. We lay there motionless for minutes. I didn't raise a thief alarm and she didn't break her dozing act. She eventually turned the other way with an (to my ears) overdone sleepy snuffle, but my arm remained in place for the rest of the night.

The only other moment that could be suspected as an attempt ("Maybe he really was just acting reflexively in his sleep, surely he would have said something if he thought I was picking his pocket maybe I could just...") was later in the night when she decided to curl up into a ball on the seat and as she got into position her knee very forcefully pushed against my Guardian Hand, strongly enough that the only way it would have remained is if I was deliberately holding it there for a reason. She gave up after that.

Now is it possible that this was all a misunderstanding and she just gets a little grabby in her sleep and accidentally puts her fingers where they don't belong? (those really were the days) Of course! Which is why if she is a pickpocket it's a very good strategy. Plausible deniability! It's one of the reasons I didn't call her out for it. If she wasn't a pickpocket, I'd feel terrible. If she WAS, she could put on a very convincing innocent act and I'd STILL feel terrible. The other reason is the same reason I used to correspond with Nigerian scam artists--I'm interested in how these things work.

Oh, and I stopped worrying about holding in that toxic gas.

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.

Video Vault: It's Going Right Over Us

Tel Aviv, Israel

I'm in Udaipur, India with Jess Lewis at the moment. We're having a series of excellent days, I'll provide a full report once I get some internet that's decent.

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!

Video Vault: All Turkeys Go to Heaven

I've been in Lao for about a week now, but rather than spend the time necessary to type out some of my adventures from this wonderful country (I'll have time soon enough), all I can give you for the moment is a video from Israel. This the turkey we pulled out of its pen and slaughtered so we could celebrate a proper Thanksgiving on the farm. I call the video

All Turkeys Go to Heaven

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.