on hold

As Taylor already described our situation so eloquently, I'll keep this brief. As the situation stands, we will probably not engage in any traveling, fanny packing, snacking, fun, or really anything other than work for the next two months. I assure you that teaching 45 hours a week in classrooms so packed with students that you have to turn on the air conditioner despite the sub-zero outdoor temperatures is every bit as awesome as it sounds, it just doesn't make for great blogging material. We may put up an update here and there, but for the most part, these fanny packers will by offline until our early March departure for Semana Santa in southern Spain. See you then!

back in Korea

We're home now. Sorry I got lazy about blogging towards the end of the trip. All I can say is that Thailand was GREAT! Meeting up with Hana and Jake, and then Amanda and Sean was fantastic! I love Bangkok, and would like to live there some time. It is so vibrant and fun. Lonely beach on Koh Chang was relaxing and gorgeous- clearer water than I've ever seen, but a little boring because there were no waves. Who ever heard of a beach without waves? weird, but great for kayaking and snorkeling.
It is wonderful to be back in Korea. After months of hot, sweaty, tropical climates, breathing in the cold winter air outside of Incheon airport was shocking and invigorating. Walking around Daejeon, on streets I know, seeing places I recognize, signs I can read, and best of all, familiar faces is a huge treat. Checking out super high maintenance, beautiful Korean femmes send text messages or slurp boiling hot soups in their elegant winter coats, stockings, heels and flawless makeup is another fun treat, as is slurping my own hot kimchi chigae and mushroom porridge, and making ridiculous Christmas Eve toasts to "Bill Brasky" until 3am with friends. Oh it feels good be home!
Korea is not at all like China or Southeast Asia- and here are two immediate examples of why. After taking a bus from Incheon to Daejeon, Travis and I flagged down a taxi, hopped in, gave him directions to our apartment, he took us there, and we paid the amount on the meter. Simple as that. How is this different from taking a taxi or tuktuk anywhere else we traveled? No haggling over prices- all the taxis have meters and the drivers do not rip you off, even if you are foreign. Second example. Within 10 hours of being in Daejeon I lost my wallet. I don't know how. I didn't lose ANYTHING in 4 months of traveling, but in 10 hours back at home I lost my wallet, right after withdrawing $100 from the ATM. Travis and I searched everywhere. We went to the restaurants we ate at- nothing; searched our hagwon and apartment- nothing. That night, the police called our boss. Someone found my wallet on the street and turned it. All the money and my credit cards were intact. Pretty great, right? How can you not love this country!! Man, it's good to be back.

cambodia memo

The main aspect of travel in Cambodia that you usually hear about from fellow travelers is the severe prevalence of scamming and extortion. When you arrive via the land border closest to Bangkok, you wade through a sea of opportunistic businessmen who assure you that you cannot acquire a Cambodia visa on the border, and must instead pay them an outlandishly inflated price to get your entry visa. When you arrive at the legitimate visa box on the border, the sign clearly indicates that the cost is US $20. When you hand your paper work to the immigration officer, he tells you that the cost is 1000 Thai Baht (about US $33). When you ask to pay in dollars, he tells you the price is twenty five. If you argue with him, he leaves the room for five minutes, comes back and demands his five dollar extortion fee. I could go on and on about this, but I think I've made my point, mainly that Cambodia can be an exhausting and somewhat hostile place for many travelers.

Luckily, I had a contact in Siem Reap who would whisk us out of the exhausting, hassle filled world of the Cambodian tourist, and into the fun filled and excited world of the Cambodian ex-pat. Bryse (my friend) has been living and working in Siem Reap for several months as part of an Engineers Without Borders project repairing a local dam. We arrived dusty and sweaty, and after several attempts to use the questionable Cambodian phone service, were invited to join the members of the dam project for a dinner. We didn't know what we were in for. We arrived at "Happy Night", a large open air restaurant with a large stage and various musical acts going on and off, and apparently you could even get up and sing Karaoke-style. Upon sitting down, we were flocked by dozens of women in very short dresses who were shoving cards in our faces with names of beers and pictures of equally scantily clad women, and demanding that we pick one. Overwhelmed, I looked to Bryse for guidance, but he just shot me a look of equal confusion and terror. Mr. P'law (sp?), the guy who had picked this charming dining location, seemed to placate the women by ordering several types of beer from them (one being called "Love Beer"). Our introduction to Cambodia continued with dishes of raw fish and beef "cooked" in lime juice, similar to cebiche. This was followed by dollar vodka-Red Bulls and foosball at the local roof top ex-pat bar. I couldn't already tell I was going to like it in Siem Reap.

The Siem Reap we encountered had two sides, one being the boozing side just mentioned, and the other being serious NGO and other humanitarian work. They balanced each other nicely. The project that Bryse is working on is pretty large scale, and involves repairing an ancient reservoir that provides irrigation water to local villages dotting the landscape filled with temples of the world famous Angkor complex. The team doing this job consists of my friend Bryse, Tobias (a very impressive 26 year-old guy who started his own NGO which is funding the project), Boone Te (a Canadian raised Cambodian girl who was very valuable to the project due to her bilingualism, and as it turns out, a hell of a party host), Chai (an engineering student from the far north of the country who works hard and parties harder), Sida (another young Cambodian whose role I never quite ascertained), and Steve Forbes (basically the coolest guy in the world, a 66 year-old environmental engineer who spends most of his time running around the developing world monitoring various projects such as this one). There was also Randy, who was trying very aggressively to get a job working for Tobias, but we'll set him aside for the time being.

The project was going along in full force when we arrived, despite many of the difficulties, ranging from finding a concrete company to getting the workers from the village to observe basic safety precautions. The drive out to the work site was one of the best experiences of the visit, as the entire village comes out to wave and shout as you drive by. On our way back from the job site the first day, Bryse promptly ran the truck out of gas. Luckily, the dusty dirt road had its share of "gas stations" where you could buy the yellow petrol out of Johnny Walker bottles on display. Bryse got Boone on the line, and then luckily flagged down a man on a passing motorbike. Boone explained the situation, and the man not only took Bryse to the nearest gas vendor, but also brought him back to the truck along with his son. It had taken less than 24 hours for me to forget about all my bitterness over the five dollar border corruption fee and my image of Cambodia as a land of people out to scam you.

Saturday night was the housewarming 80's party out at Boone's house (named "Browntown"), and this was when we really were exposed to the night life of all the Siem Reap do-gooders. The costumes were surprisingly well put together considering the location, and there were at least 13 mustaches. (Later, Taylor commented to Boone on how well the Cambodian girls had pulled off the 80's style, and Boone said "Oh, those weren't costumes, that's how they usually dress for parties.") Notable things about the party include: Steve Forbes boozing it with all the young ones while wearing a bright red bandanna, a wall of speakers the size of a hippopotamus provided by Boone's tuk-tuk driver friend, urinals in all three bathrooms, and Taylor taking second place in the costume contest. It made us feel a little like money grubbing assholes for working in Korea while the room was full of volunteers and NGO workers, but all the people we met were very cool, interesting and welcoming. The whole party was a success, aside from a comment from Randy that he doesn't believe in altruism, and that "all these people are either horny or degenerate", and the fact that Bryse made Taylor and I walk home alone on the mean streets of Siem Reap at 3 in the morning.


I could go on and on and on about the wonderful time I had in Siem Reap, I could describe in detail the amazing, inspiring, kind people I met, and I could list the good projects these people are working on and the numerous jokes we guffawed over. However, I've taken up so much space already (and Bryse specifically complained about my blog entries being too long) that I'm going to leave things as they stand, namely that I had a great time nuzzling into the ex-pat community of Siem Reap and I was very sad to leave.

Oh, two more things: 1) Siem Reap is home to the amazing ruins of the Angkor empire, probably the most impressive ancient structures that I have ever seen; 2) a dog at our guest house gave birth to puppies right outside our door on our first night there, they were pretty cute.

long live the king

In both China and Vietnam, there are pictures of Chairman Mao and "Uncle" Ho, respectively, hanging up in most businesses and homes. Neither of these characters, however, can even compare to the popularity which the King of Thailand enjoys here in his country. Every home business, bus, building, street corner, and sewer grate are decorated with photographs of this amazing man. Every Monday is King's day and people all over the country wear yellow King polo shirts. December 5th was the King's 80th birthday, so we arrived amid a flurry of elevated King-related hysteria. Entire stores devoted to selling nothing but the yellow (or pink) polo shirts, flags, giant shrines and pictures of the King, buttons, and other King items had popped up everywhere. And that was up in the wild northern regions.

Upon landing in Bangkok, the excitement was at a fever pitch. The whole road next to where we were staying was lined in white Christmas lights, and nightly events made evening taxi travel infuriating to the level of impossibility. Every day a higher and higher percentage (going from an initial 83% to 99.7%) of people were decked out in yellow polo shirts. The area around the Grand Palace became a de facto party central with multiple stages of rock bands, traditional children's theatre, and food stalls, food stalls, food stalls. We became so swept up in the excitement that I purchased a small yellow flag to fly from my backpack and Taylor picked up a button depicting the King playing saxophone (in addition to being King, he is also an accomplished photographer, jazz musician, composer, and purported inventor of cloud seeding (this claim has not been substantiated)).

On the big day, people were out on the streets in masses; dizzying crowds of swirling yellow bodies lined the streets of Bangkok, and everything seemed to be building up to a parade and singing of Happy Birthday to the King. Living right off of the main parade street, we bought some beers and went to check out the action. There were barricades along the street lined with miles of hand crocheted yellow banners. Eventually, the police blocked traffic from the street and let the crowd come out into the roadway. This was done in a relatively calm manner. Suddenly, everyone was holding lighted candles. Not having come prepared with candles, a policeman supplied us with some (it was difficult to tell if he was just being friendly, or if there was actually some kind of candle holding ordinanace that we were in violation of). Soon, the parade began with a flock of police cars, then THE KING drove by and I got a glimpse of his hat. Following were some other official cars, and then the parade was over. Aside from a relatively quiet verbal murmur as the King's vehicle past, the crowd was calm and collected. After the caravan passed, the people moved the barricades back to the sidewalk, replaced the crocheted banner, and moved on to the concerts and festivals down the road.

Having to get up at six the next morning, we opted out of the overwhelming crowds in the main party area, and went to bed feeling like the whole buildup ended slightly anit-climactically.

up and in in bangkok

For the purpose of context, after leaving Mae Sot, we went to Sukothai, an ancient capital where we met up with our friends Hana and Jake. Sukothai is dusty and boring for the most part, which makes for a good venue to catch up with old friends. The next three days were spent wandering around aimlessly mostly focused on chatting, riding bikes to the ancient ruins, playing guitars (Jake had a classic $12 Bangkok mini-guitar named "Plum Blossoms"), drinking beer in the park and smoking joints along the river watching the bats skim mosquitoes off of the surface. More friends than Thailand.

We sent Hana and Jake on their way north, and headed on our way south straight to Bangkok. Here, we met up with another friend-couple who shot us directly into the lap of luxury. These guys were spending their last night in southeast Asia staying at the 23rd floor apartment suite of the guy's friend's parents. It was stunning, but a little awkward to stay there because the people who lived there weren't even home. I know Taylor didn't dig the vibe, but the stunning views and deliciousness for me outweighed the oddness that these strangers' maid was cooking us dinner. As if the awkward meter needed to be tested to its furthest limit, there were also a friend of the couple's oldest son and his two friends staying at the apartment as well. Luckily before dinner, Shawn and I had gone into the local super-mega-market to pick up some beer and had been treated to sample scotch and sodas. Grocery shopping with a free cocktail in your hand feels so classy.

After dinner, the only reasonable activity seemed to be heading down to Patpong. Ironically enough, the name of this area resembles what has become the main attraction: ping pong shows. An area that was once a seedy gogo club and brothel area has now become a spectacle for tourists to come gawk at the seedy gogo club and brothel scene. There is a full night market stocked with the ordinary crap, fringed by dozens of clubs that range from an Elvis cover band bar to straight up girls in underwear dancing on the bar bar to the plethora of ping pong shows. While we didn't check out any of these shows, guys on the street were constantly tempting us into places with names like "Super Pussy" or "Pussy Collection" with a list of shows that could range from the tame ping pong to "pussy smoke cigarette" to "pussy chopsticks" to "man and woman make love" to the unfortunate "pussy razor blade show".

A scene that you know once drew the sleaziest out of a town known for lusty sinful recreation now seems to be overrun with normal people who are just edgy enough to view the sleaze but not take part. Of course that group includes me, but I was a little disappointed. We ended up at an overpriced bar with a marginal cover band (the only thing worthwhile was that they went straight from playing "Jump Around" by House of Pain to "Jump" by Van Halen). The night ended with me classily sleeping on the floor of some rich people's house while they were out of town, and I kind of felt like I was in high school again.