back to the america

We´re not back in the states yet, but we´re on our way. Before getting there, a little recap. From Tangier we made a straight shot to Granada, our last stop in Spain. After encountering a lot of grumpy people unrealistically concerned about personal space on both the bus to Granada and the city bus to our hotel, we landed at a clean, new guesthouse inside of an apartment building.

The city of Granada is dominated by a fortress/palace structure called the Alhambra, the current buldings of which date back to the 14th century Islamic rule, but which has been the site of such structures since before the Romans. While the city itself is fairly interesting to roam around, this is the jewel that you are really supposed to see. As it turns out, this jewel is unimaginably sought after, and it took me three days to acquire tickets to get in, which in the end involved arriving an hour and a half before the 8am opening time, and then waiting in various lines and having 30 minutes of alotted time with which to view the most impressive palace seciton. I won´t say that the Alhambra is worth all the hype (I can´t imagine anything that could be worth so much hype, other than Jesus performing in Madison Square Garden with the Beatles as his backup band and Michael Jackson as the opener), but it was pretty impressive. The fortess walls and towers are pretty standard, but the palaces are really something to see. Nearly every surface is covered in impossibly intricate geometric carving, tiling, or plaster work. Many of these designs incorporate poetry written in stylized Arabic that blends perfectly in with the work of art as a whole. The cool, calm structure of the buildings only adds a sense of tranquility, with open patios dominated by fountains, palm trees, etc. In the end, I was on slightly grudgingly happy that I went.

We basically had a lot of down time in Granada; aside from waiting to get into the Alhambra, we lounged a few days so as not to rush ourselves and try to squeeze in another city. It also helped that I was suffering from a cold. Granada is not as picturesque as the other Spanish cities we visited, but it is still pleasant for finding a sunny plaza in which to enjoy beers and light, oily food in full sun. Perhaps my favorite venture in the city was when I climbed out of the city walls into the surrounding hillsides. I was happy just to be amongst the scrappy trees and flinty soil, looking up into the peaks of the Sierra Nevada, but on the way back into town I stumbled upon a little folded valley that was home to a settlement of people living in cave houses built right into the hillside. These varied in class from having patios, doors and chimneys to basically being burnt out holes in the gulley wall. Once I returned to the city proper, I discovered that there were actually a number of more "legitimate" cave structures housing restaurants, bars, even a museum, but I preferred the scrappy hillside hovels much more.

We finally got out of Granada on a night bus to Lisbon, Portugal. I imagined it would be difficult to tell the difference between Spain and Portugal, but I was very wrong. Aside from being linguistically disadvantaged here, we have seen many other differences. The
city of Lisbon is beautiful in ways the Spanish cities are not. The buildings have an older, more weathered texture to them, and most are covered in the most attractive tiling. Colorful patterns dance and swarm over at least 45% percent of the building facades. Red tile roofs are much more common, and the contrast of bright and drab makes the whole place look like a photo gallery. We have spent our days in classic T&T style, just roaming up the hills, down the hills, around the next corner, down that little street with all the grafitti, etc. On our first day I encountered the biggest, saltiest dish of assorted vegetable and pork products I have ever been challenged with in my life. I never leave an empty plate, but despite the deliciousness of this "typical Portuguese" food, I must have left at least a third on the table. The restauntuer seemed pleased that I couldn´t conquer his meal. Aside from that, we´ve been stocking up on last minute gifts, souvenirs and bottles of cheap red wine before making our reentry.

So ends our 19 months outside of the empire. Am I anxious about returning to the United States? Of course. Coming across big crowds of American tourists in Spain and hearing that chatter, that cadence of speach has been a little jarring. Am I excited to return home? OF COURSE. There are too many people, places and things that I miss too much in my home country to make me too apprenhensive. So, america, here we come!

lost the kasbah

From the southern tip of Spain, you can clearly see Africa across the Strait of Gibraltar. I knew that these two landmasses were very close at this point, but I had no idea how close. When I say you can see the African continent, I don´t mean as some misty far away hovering point on the horizon, I mean right across the way, like I can see the cities, I could probably swim there if I needed to. I didn´t swim to Morocco, but we did take the fast ferry from Tarifa to Tangier. It just seemed like it would be a crime not to go there when we were so close.

I want to make it clear from the beginning that I am writing specifically about the city of Tangier, and not the country of Morocco as a whole. We definitely did not do the country justice by only going to Tangier. I think this is probably similar to visiting Tijuana and saying you´ve been to Mexico, but we just didn´t have the time to go down to Marrakesh, which is supposed to be the best city. That being said, we had an interesting, if exhausting time in Tangier.

I really don´t want to be entirely negative about Tangier (and CERTAINLY not Morocco in general), but I must start out by saying that this city is sketchy and exhausting, more than almost any place I´ve ever been. Our taxi driver immediately ripped us off severely, when he could have just told us that our hotel was directly outside the ferry terminal. A guy in some way affiliated with our hotel began following us around as our "guide", despite our repeated and continuing declinations of his services, and then began to demand money from us. This actually happened a couple of times. People all over the streets try to sell you hash, and there are small packs of glue-huffing fiends lurking in all the piles of rubble and perched along the lookout points.

All this aside, Tangier is at the least a very interesting place, and as much as substantially pleasant and enjoyable. About 85% of the women wear head scarves, and maybe 60% wear this kind of sack dress article of clothing. Occasionally, you will see a young woman in a head scarf with tight fitting clothes and high heels. The old men tend to wander around in these neutral tone Jediesque robes with pointed hoods. A plurality of languages are spoken, with Arabic by far the most predominant. French is second, and apparently the official second language. Most people, however, spoke to us in Spanish, though they would usually switch to English if they heard us speaking English to each other. Of course, not everyone is out to bother you, and we met an incredibly nice man at his cafe up on the hill. He has nine children, but assured is it not difficult, because "whenever people come to my house, they bring me lots of fruit."

The city clambers up a small but steep hillside from the ocean, and to get to the action from our hotel we had to charge right up. The streets are all over the place, and most of the buildings are at least mildly shabby. Abandoned piles of rubble intermittently dot the blocks. In the northeastern corner of town is a big sprawling area that fits in with the conception of old-town Morocco. Winding, narrow streets, alleys and walkways tie themselves up in a maze of impossible knots. This complexity is mimicked in the intricate geometric patterns carved into wooden doorways and placed into tiles and mosaics. Bright colors contrast against drab walls, and many of the doors are shaped like spades.

This old town area is divided into two parts, with the Medina, the larger, holding a huge, sprawling market. We certainly got lost in there, but we became even more hopelessly lost trying to find the smaller section, the world famous Kasbah. I dragged Taylor up and down steep hills, around corners, up the stairs, down the stairs, mis-following signs, directions and maps before we finally found this old fortress. It was a lot like the Medina, except minus the market. It was good for wandering, and we finally came across the Kasbah Museum, which gave some interesting history of the city. Because of its unique location, this city has been subjected to one invasion after another basically since the time of the Romans. I think you can sense this history in the confluence of cultures and tough attitude of the people.

Next time, we´ll be sure to make it to Marrakesh, the Atlas mountains and the desert. There´s just never enough time to do everything you need to do in every place. We left Morocco with a good taste of the culture, and a desire to get out of the border towns and into the heart of the land.

hovering jesus and mary

For every time you celebrate the King of Thailand´s 80th birthday in Bangkok, or join 1 million Spaniards to watch some big sculptures burn down to the pavement, it´s good to make it to a small town for some important holiday. It is was this logic (as well as the lack of accomodation anywhere else) that brought us to Conil de la Frontera for the culmination of Semana Santa (Holy Week). We left Valencia on the 4am bus, and after a series of switches, layovers and long rides, we arrived at this sleepy beach town on the Atlantic coast at about 7:30 in the evening.

The town saunters up from the sea on a low rise, and is comprised of the classic boxy white mediterranean houses aligned at clashing angles. You can have a great time exploring the spiderweb network of passages that are the city, and the orientation along a hill makes it difficult to get lost (though we still managed it once). Though necessarily a tourist town, it is charming, and you could really see the local small town flavor in the Semana Santa celebrations.

Part of the reason for our whole expedition to Spain at this time was to witness the legendary Semana Santa festivities of the Andalucia region. These festivities are the classic processions that you can imagine in your mind, with enormous platforms carrying highly decorated Virgins and Jesus (not sure of the proper way to pluralize ¨Jesus¨) being lugged throughout the whole town. This is exactly what we found in Conil. Almost by accident, we stumbled upon the starting point of the procession both on Thursday night and Friday afternoon. On Thursday night around 11pm, what seemed to be some sort of Jesus and Mary warehouse opened its doors as bulky teens in freshly pressed robes with severely gelled hair nervously prepared to carry the platforms or march in the band. The crowd pressed around, and literally had to be pushed back by the bulk and momentum of the lunging Virgin. Mary came out, covered by a canopy held up by intricate metal banisters, being swayed in time by her team of porters. There was a lot of ceremony, with starting and stopping, setting down and lifting, the swaying left and right, and of course plenty of clapping as each of these tricky maneuvers was successfully accomplished. As Mary wheeled around the corner, Jesus was brought into the staging ground, ready to make his big appearance. Unfortunately, this move coincided with a light spitting of rain that was enough to dampen four or five hairs on my head and cancel the whole procession. Jesus was immediately moved to back from wherever he came from, and Mary was swayed back into the Holy garage behind him. Our senses still being cranked up six notches beyond full volume from the five days of partying, crowds, explosions and burning towers in Valencia, this whole spectacle left us feeling a little disappointed. Fortunately, a bakery caught fire on the walk back to hotel room and offered momentary excitement.

Friday´s procession turned out to be much more worthwhile. By sheer dumb luck, we stumbled up to the town church just as people were beginning to amass for the spectacle. This time, the late afternoon sun streaked across the sky, and the day´s showers had already rained themselves out. After a moderate wait, Jesus came charging out of the church, again having to physically press the crowd back, and scaring Taylor desperately that his structure was going to come toppling down onto us. The Jesus float stopped for a couple of songs to be sung, and then was followed by a band of drums and horns playing the most interesting music; mournful, slow melodies with distinct middle eastern tones and phrasing. The music was probably the most impressive piece of the whole celebration for me. Anyway, after the band came a train of ladies in black, folowed by many dudes in black and purple robes with pointy hats and full faced masks (if you´re thinking this looks like a KKK getup, you´re absolutely right, but I want to try my best to make the point that the similarities are in costume only). Next, the Virgin came out on her own platform, followed by a similar chain of events. The whole thing took about an hour to pass by, but I was convinced they could have cut it down to no more than 18 minutes. This suspicion was confirmed when, after wandering the town and using the internet for a couple of hours, the procession happened to pass us again. I´m still thinking about that music.

As it turned out, time constraints and logistics dictated that we would leave Conil before the actual full Easter Day events, and we ended up spending Easter enroute to and in Morroco.

(Author´s note: though this post is very much in need of photo documentation I will have to add them later from an internet connection that will allow me to. Thank you for your patience.)

Fallas, 2008

Fallas means ¨failures¨in Spanish, but in Valencia, a seaside city on Spain´s northern Mediterrean coast, fallas are huge 30-40 ft cartoonlike sculptures and the reason for a serious citywide party. 2008 was the first year in 190 that the Fallas coincided with Semana Santa (Easter week), arguably Spain´s largest national holiday. The coincidence of these two holidays made Valencia the epicenter of Spring Break madness in Spain. An estimated 1 million domestic tourists flocked to Fallas this year. The drive from Madrid, normally 3 hours, took 7.

We learned about Fallas from our friend Laura. Laura is a planner by nature, a doer, a mama bear type. We first met her on a beat-up, long distance bus in Laos, and were immediately charmed by her go-get-em attitude and warm smile. When we told her we were planning to visit Spain, she invited us not only to stay at her family´s home in Madrid, but also along for the weekend trip she and her 11 single, female friends had planned. Our 3 days exploring the neighborhoods, museums and cafes of downtown Madrid were awesome and nights feasting with her parents were even better, but the real highlight was Fallas.

After a beastly, reddish drive from Madrid to Valencia, we settled into the small apartment Laura had rented and waited for the rest of the crew arrive. Admittedly Travis and I initially felt out of place when the dozen girlfriends rolled in, wheeling mini suitcases and carrying hairdryers and makeup kits. Pre-dinner primping took so long we didn´t eat dinner until 12:30 that first night, late even by Spanish standards. The girls, who initially seemed high maintenance, proved to be really sweet; and once they blew out the water heater by showering twice a day (once before breakast and once before hitting the bars), the primping time was greatly reduced as was Travis and my anxiety.

Valencia is a gorgeous city. It´s historic architecture is more intact than Barcelona or Madrid´s, so it feels more authentic. It lies at the mouth of a dry river. Where the river once ran through the city, a long, pretty park runs instead. The streets are narrow and windy, buildings don´t reach more than 4 stories, and the cafes and restaurants with outdoor patios spill over the sidewalks and into the streets. All this loveliness is pretty typical of Spanish cities. What makes Valenica so unique are the fallas themselves.

Like I said, they´re huge and look very cartoonlike, in that Asian comic-book style. Most fallas have one big structure, like woman´s bust or full body surrounded by human-size figures in comical poses. People in different neighborhoods raise money, design, and have a falla built in their barrio every year. It´s a matter of pride to contribute to your neighborhood´s falla, and every neighborhood tries to outdo the others. The fallas are displayed for a week, and every night there are parties in the street that grow in magnitude and volume until at the end of the week winners are chosen, and at midnight all the fallas are burnt to ground. Though I can post photos to show what the fallas and the burning look like, it´s impossible to get a real sense of what Fallas 2008 was like without the audio component. In addition to typical crowd sounds- laughing, shouting, shuffling, music blaring, street vendors shouting (and making bizarre whistling sounds), imagine explosions all day long. Explosions of all sorts from poppers to petardos to firecrackers, weaponry to fireworks were fired from morning (Spaniard morning starts late, thankfully, at about 11) into well beyond midnight. At 2 pm all weeklong, an especially loud rocket show was put on in Valencia´s central plaza, the magnitude of the show increased every day, and lasted for about 15 minutes. On the last day we squeezed really close to the front of demostration. The sound was so loud and the smoke so thick and brown I felt I was in a bomb raid. My ears hurt for the next 4 hours.

We watched stayed in Valencia to watch the burning, then went to bus station where Laura headed South to Almeria for week of a scuba diving lessons, and Travis and I began a 16-hour journey to Conil de la Frontera. At the station we met some Moroccan dudes who told us algebraic riddles that I tried (but usually failed) to solve.

barcelona - don´t you dare call it spain

In the U.S., there has been a media frenzy over the upcoming November elections since what seems like a was a small child. When we landed in Barcelona on Tuesday night, there few to no visible signs of the Spanish presidential election on Sunday. We soon discovered that this was because Barcelonians only grudgingly consider themselves part of the greater political unit that is Spain. While their Basque neighbors to the north get all the hype for their separtist movement, the people of Barcelona have a similar sentiment of distance from the language, culture and governmental structure coming out of Madrid. I knew that people spoke Catalan, not Spanish, as their first language, but I had assumed this was just a Spanish dialect. Not so. It is supposedly a mix of Spanish, Italian and French, which made me think it would be mildly intelligible to me, but in reality, not really. Everyone can and will speak to you in Spanish, but it is not what you hear on the streets, and most of the signs are written in Catalan.

We stayed in Barcelona with Taylor´s friend Kathy in her bright, spacious, hardwood floor apartment that is perched atop six flights of winding worn marble stairs. It was comforting not only to have a place to stay, but to have somebody to show us around. Kathy and her boyfriend Felipe have a whole little group of friends who are almost exclusively immigrants to Barcelona. They are all native Spanish speakers, but still kind of outsiders in Barcelona because they do not speak Catalan fluently. We had a very enjoyable time partaking in luxuries from the western world, including fresh bread, specialty cheeses, the saltiest, fattiest, most delicious ham, strong coffee, cheap red wine and of course plenty of fragrant green herbs.

The city itself is charming and picturesque, its streets lined with apartment buildings from the early twentieth century. Their facades roll and twist and curve in intricate wrought iron balconies and carved stone. The people are well dressed, cool, mostly young and good looking. The vibe in the city is laid back and comfortable, not a fast paced metropolis. We saw many of the important sites of the city, including the most famous pieces of Gaudi architecture and the Picasso and Miro museums. While these cultural items were all very impressive, they all kind of left me a little disappointed, and craving a little more understanding and context. Perhaps my favorite activity in the city was wandering around in the slanting late afternoon light with a head full of thc and just taking in the sights, sounds and atmosphere.

The oldest part of the city was mostly destroyed during the civil war, and the characteristic narrow, winding, crazy little European streets work their way through reconstructed or restored old structures. Apparently, when Felipe arrived about 8 years ago, this area was a haven for anarchists, junkies, people on that margin of society. Now, as seems to be what is happening in every western city, the affluent folks have decided that this former wasteland is to be their new playground, and the anarchists and junkies have been replaced by slick little restaurants, bars and clothing stores. This is not necessarily to say that all of the anarchists have moved on, or that it isn´t still fun to wander around the twisting, gnarled old streets. What is interesting about this gentrification is that the whole development seems to be aimed almost exclusively at tourists, and the language you hear most on the streets in this part of town is neither Catalan nor Spanish, but English. It was heartening, however, to find what appeared to be some sort of anarchist occupied structure a little on the northern sloping edge of town near the Parc Guell. The whole building and adjacent stairs were covered in revolutionary grafitti, including one that read TERRORIST TOURIST.

I could have stayed put for years in the comfort of Barcelona, but after about six days, it was time for Taylor and I to catch the bus south to Madrid.

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.

Teenage escorts and Loy Krathong

Another full moon, another festival. Travis and I have a history of spending foreign holidays in small towns, so we opted to leave crowded MaeHongSon and travel further South to MaeSariang, a town completely unmentioned in our guidebook. We arrived the afternoon of the festival and after wandering the wide, dusty roads for over an hour we found little that indicated a major party would soon be under way.

In select hair salons women were being made up, their hair piled elegantly atop their heads and decorated with fresh orchids. A huge stage and sound system was being mounted, of all places, at the police headquaters. A dozen or so women could be seen sitting outside their houses folding banana leaves into floating altars, and movable food stalls were setting up on a side road near the river. But for the most part, things were very quiet. Had we not seen 2 parade floats hauled uphill by a pickup truck we may have assumed the festivals was in fact not being celebrated. We went back to our guesthouse to talk to the owner and find out just what we might expect for the evening.
There we met a nice couple from Quebec and we drank beers with them until the guesthouse owner told us it was time for the parade. In the 2 hours since we'd left the city center a total transformation had occurred! The sun had set, the streets were packed, music was intermittenly blaring from each passing parade float.

The floats looked more or less the same- sparkley, whitish, dragonlike, with a beautiful women perched on top smiling stiffly. Accompanying each float was a man holding a long bammboo stick with a "y" at the top who would raise the low-slung power cables and allow the float to pass without damaging the local electric supply. Hilltribe groups wearing traditional dress marched in loose formation carrying laterns, and local students wore golden costumes and performed dances. In between every float the crowd of bystanders would pour into the center of the street to see what was coming next. As the new attraction approached, the sea of people would part to again make way.
Midway during the parade we lost the Quebecans so I set out to find them. On my way back to Travis, I cut through a restaurant to avoid the crowd and there a group of teenagers pulled up a seat and asked me to sit with them (mostly using hand gestures). Flattered, I accepted. At the table, I had a hard time communicating with my new friends, but I think they understood that I was an English teacher in Korea and I think I understood that they were 19, going to university in ChaingMai and loved hardcore music, especially Slipknot and Korn. One boy had slightly long hair which he affectionately referred to as his "afro". Both boys were weaing oversized black t-shirts advertising the names of bands I'm not familiar with and wore long silver chains dangling with gaudy, plastic and metal Buddhist pendants. The girl had on heavy make up and a fake leopard fur hoodie. All three had impeccable manners and kept refilling my beer and adding ice to the glass as they chattered to each other and sent text messages on their cell phones.
When the parade ended I was still at the restaurant, so I tried to excuse myself to go find Travis. The boys, eager to show me the lanterns on the river, followed. Luckily, Travis is easy to find in a crowd of Asians. Once reunited, our new friends- who of course thought Travis' beard was awesome and kept touching it and comparing him to some member Korn- bought us banana leaf altars and showed us how to put them in the water. Unlike in Laos, where in order to get your altar in the water you had to either pay a young boy to swim into the river for you or wade into 1foot depths of mud along the riverbank yourself, in MaeSariang a little dock had been constructed for the altar send offs. The dock was full of people lighting candles and gently placing their banana boats in the water. Along the riverbank folks were shooting off fireworks and sending miniature hot air balloons into the sky. Loud, thumping music was bouncing from the police station, and you could smell the roasted meat from the food carts.

Our friends took us to a beer garden where we proceeded to drink pitchers of beer, each time cheersing with a hearty rolled R "Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroy!" in honor of the Roy Krathong festival. We met more happy teenagers who offered us spicy food we could barely eat, and who bowed and smiled and seemed to enjoy our being around though we couldn't communicate much. Finally when our heads were pounding from the music and the drinking and we felt we had almost repaid our friends by buying them and the next table over sufficient rounds of pitchers, we tried to make a polite escape from the party. We were nearly out of the town center and just 100 meters away from our guesthouse when the boys found us and insisted we light off fireworks, which we did. Then they escorted us on their motorbikes the remaining distance back to our home and gave us each one of their pendants.

six hour sangthaew

We woke up in Mae Sariang hungover from the previous night's Loy Krathong festivities, and not particularly enthusiastic about sitting in the back of a pickup for six hours on our way to Mae Sot. We had to do what we had to do though, and what we had to do was take the only available means of transportation to Mae Sot. We wolfed down eggs, toast and coffee, and hustled to the bus station to catch the 10:30 sangthaew.

The sangthaew is an interesting facet of southeast Asian transport. "Sang" means two, and "thaew" means bench, and these vehicles are appropriately two benches in the back of a pickup truck. There is also a roof over the bed, and basically a kind of cage around you. Somewhere between a taxi and a bus, these puppies are popular for shared transport to common destinations in the cities (bus stations, etc.). They are also the only way to get to some of the more out of the way towns. People clamber in and out of the vehicle at various locations, and there is even sometimes a bell you can ring from the back to let the driver know you want to stop (on the luxury sangthaew only). People riding on these contraptions often have bags or baskets or boxes of items with them, varying from fresh produce to electronics equipment to undisclosed merchandise.

As it turned out, the 10:30 sangthaew wasn't running that day, but the guy making wood carvings in the bus station parking lot assured us that the 11:30 sangthaew would be able to take us. When the 11:30 sangthaew didn't show up, the novelty of sitting out a hangover in the dusty sunny open dirt patch that is the bus station was beginning to fade. About 11:40, a sangthaew showed up and we threw our bags right on top, anxious to get the ride started so we could get it over with. Our eagerness would have to go on hold, however, because this was the 12:30 sangthaew, so we had another fifty minutes to kill.

At 12:28, approximately 24 people clambered onto the benches with their various loads, and some had to hang off the back. The two monks coming along were the only people invited to sit in the cab with the driver. After gassing up on the outskirts of town, we were on our way. Luckily, most of our fellow passengers were headed to nearby destinations, so the overcrowded bed soon became more bearable. The scenery was similar to what we've been seeing fo days, mainly sharp mountain peaks blanketed by thick rainforest cover. For the most part, the drive was beautiful, what you could see of it by craning your neck around and peeking out of the cage. We were cruising along fairly untraveled roads, through small villages, roughly tracing our trajectory along the western border with Burma (Myanmar). A lot of the people living in this part of the world are ethnic minorities, many having fled government persecution and geurilla warfare in their native Burma. It was cool to go through the small villages and pick up people in their brightly colored (but often faded) traditional clothing, speaking in languages other than Thai, and chewing bettel nuts in their darkly stained mouths.

It is an interesting observation of mine that the more comfortable a method of transportation, the more often you stop to rest. Riding around in big air conditioned tourist buses, you stop all the time for bathrooms, snacks, you name it. Riding in the sangthaew, we stopped once, when a dude rang the bell in desperation. Maybe half of the time we weren't crammed in like sardines, but even then the hard benches and backrests were not the best for multi-hour sitting. The rhythm of the sangthaew became lulling and monotonous; the back would fill up, empty out, fill up again, empty out again. About two hours from our destination, the bed filled up and did not empty out again.

Not that is, until about an hour later when we reached a huge, sprawling refugee camp on the west side of the road. As far as refugee camps go, this one was quite scenic, climbing up to the base of a huge limestone cliff. The camp went on for kilometer after kilometer, with people getting out in various spots. Having never seen a refugee camp before, I found it a very interesting place to drive next to. Thousands of bamboo stilt houses with leaf roofs were tightly packed in among the hills. There were various official looking concrete buildings, maybe schools, and the whole shebang seemed very organized and well run. The people had houses, there were places for the kids to play, conditions seemed sanitary. However, I couldn't imagine what life must be like for the people living there. They have no land to farm, they probably don't speak very much Thai, they aren't near a city or town with any kind of work. They seem to be taken care of by someone, but what do they do with themselves? It was good to see and think about and imagine what life is like for those thousands of people and the millions of people around the world who are semi-permanent inhabitants of semi-temporary camps in foreign lands.

The sun set as we were passing the camp, so the last hour into town was a bit breezy and chilly. When we made it to Mae Sot, we didn't care how questionable the guesthouse at the bus station was, or worry about the fact that our room had no bed.

"chilling" in Pai

We've been in Thailand for the past week, and I keep thinking about Laos. How can a country bordered by 1 billion Chinese, 80 million Vietnamese and 65 million Thais have a population of only 5.5 million? Laos is a land untouched by time. There people still live in one-room houses made of bamboo and use candlelight after sunset. Even the capital city, Vientiane, despite its wide roads lined with royal palm trees felt half asleep. There was a certain slow, listless quality about life in Laos that grated on my nerves. Besides the construction of new hotels and guesthouses, nothing was happening in Laos. And while every tourist seemed to be searching for a fictitious undiscovered Asian paradise, the entire country was clearly on the verge of a tourist explosion: temples crowded by foreigners and sly local tuktuk drivers well-practiced in overcharging tourists.
I did not have high expectations for Thailand because I imagined it would be basically a more commercial, touristy, crowded version of Laos. And yet Thailand, receiving over 10 million tourists annually, has proven to be a truly lovely place. It is easier to take public transportation here (and thus get away from minibuses crowded solely with travelers) than in any other country we've been in. Tourism is so much a part of the local culture in Thailand, that it doesn't seem out of place to see foreigners everywhere. Thais are accustomed to foreigners and genuinely seem to like us. People here are unbelievably friendly and smile at you for no reason at all. Best of all, daily life is intact and is moving at a pace I can relate to. We had a great time walking around Chiang Rai, going to markets and junk stores, catching a marching band play "It's the Final Countdown", and just watching life unfold on the streets. Thai people are unselfconscious, busy but not rushed, and that makes them so fun to watch.
But then we came to Pai. About 4 hours West of Chiang Mai, nestled in a beautiful mountain valley, Pai is Thailand's "hippie" town. The hippieness refers to the fact that every bar and restaurant advertises itself as being "chill" and Jack Johnson is playing at at least 4 restaurants at any given time. Pai is more than a tourist destination- it feels like its own tourist nation. On the streets foreigners outnumber Thais. Everyone speaks English. Gringos ride around recklessly on motorbikes. There are more massage and tattoo parlors than there are places to buy water. In the past 3 days I heard the following expressions, all spoken in an intentionally drawn out, stoner voice: "take it easy", "relax", "don't worry", "go slow" more times than I care to recall. Life has again slowed to a snails pace.

let's wok - with tee

Every country we've been through so far (with the possible strange exception of Vietnam) has a bustling industry of cooking classes to teach you how to make some classic local dishes. For some reason, I didn't really feel like taking a class in China, and the food in Laos is not particularly exciting, so we had mostly overlooked these. Here in Thailand, I had a change of heart and decided to take a class because, well, the food is delicious, but mostly so I can show off for my friends and family when I make it home.

In order to understand the story of our cooking, class, a quick background on the town we are in will be necessary. We are in a small town up in the mountains of northern Thailand called Pai. This town is kind of known as a hippy refuge, but seems to be becoming more and more a center for party backpacker culture. There are tons of bars and places to "chill out", and Jack Johnson plays continuously on the town's speakers. The streets are basically all winding pedestrian walkways with the odd drunken tourist trying to navigate a motorbike through. It was down one of these winding streets that we discovered the "Let's Wok - with Tee" school of Thai cookery. We signed up the night before our class, and Tee (the cooking instructor) seemed very friendly and explained the course to us, and the people in the class that was happening seemed pleased with their experience. It sounded like we would be the only two students in the class.

We arrived at ten the next morning to find that the class was actually five students all together, with a nice British couple, and a rugged, tattoo covered Aussie grandfather joining us. We were to have a morning session culminating in lunch, and then a break before an evening session. The mood was light, all the people in the class got along well, it was going to be a good day. Tee began by giving us in-depth explanations of the ingredients used in Thai cooking. Some of these were common, familiar food products, others I had never heard of before. We covered first the herbs and spices, then vegetables and finally sauces. We moved slowly, taking plenty of breaks.

After being introduced to the ingredients we would be working with, we delved into the topic of curries, which would be what our lunch consisted of. At the basis of curry dishes is the curry paste, which we made from scratch. This consisted of pounding various roots together with chili peppers in a mortar and pestle until the desired consistency was reached. With these pastes, we all made a different curry dish ranging from red to yellow to green to Massaman. All of us being a bit wary of the deadly little Thai chilies, we went light on the spice, using only 1 or 2 chilies per dish. Tee had five cooking stations consisting of a burner, wok, and small shelf in the middle of a big open room. He demonstrated first with his dish, and then let us all loose with mild coaching and encouragement. The resulting lunch was plentiful and delicious.

We had a four hour break before we came back for the dinner session. It's usually customary to have some beer while cooking and eating, so Taylor and I picked up a couple of big Chang beers (which is is purported to be illegal in Switzerland) on our way. Tee was already enjoying some beers with a friend on his front patio when we arrived. In a moment, Barry (the Aussie) cruised up on his motorbike fresh from the tattoo shop with a huge bag of beers for everyone. We sat drinking for a while waiting for the English couple, who had been detained by an extended massage session. Once they arrived, more beer was opened, new tattoos were examined, massage stories told. It must have been close to an hour before we actually started class again. Tee, in customary relaxed fashion went over the basics of stir fry sauce preparation. Again, there were many breaks, longer than the morning breaks, always involving at least one person running to the store to buy more beer.

When Barry's girlfriend showed up at eight to eat with us, we hadn't even finished the prep work on our dishes, and everyone was merry with beer (especially Barry). She seemed slightly annoyed but not surprised. After explaining soups and stock to us, Tee again demonstrated by cooking his dish before letting us loose. His demonstration involved copious moments stopping to take a sip of your beer. We made twelve different dishes, from a classic pad thai, to fried holy basil (mine), to creamy coconut soup. Everyone was a little more bold with their chili usage (due to our relatively mild lunch, as well as beer consumption), and Chris (the British guy) ended up putting ten chilies in his soup at Tee's suggestion. In spite of the prodigious quantity of beer consumption, no one was injured in the cooking process, and the dishes were all incredibly delicious, even if served an hour later than planned.

After the meal, everyone retired to the patio for more beer while Tee tried to put his house back in order (which involved calling a friend to come pick up the 30+ large beer bottles for recycling). Ginger (Tee's dog) had first pick over the leftovers before the neighborhood dogs had to fight it out over the rest.

We returned tonight for our complimentary extra practice session, and the class today was one Kiwi couple who weren't drinking any beers at all. Needless to say, dinner was served on time. We never heard whether Barry went back for the second tattoo he started ranting about after the meal.

opium

The area where Thailand, Laos and Burma (Myanmar) all converge is known as the Golden Triangle, and until recently, it was more or less the center of the world's opium production. It also happens to be the part of the world I am currently in. Being here, and having a keen interest in both drugs and their role in history and global politics, I had to pay a visit to the imposing Opium Hall (museum) up near the borders.

For some inexplicable reason, the entrance to the museum sits on the opposite side of a mountain from the museum itself. Shortly after paying your astronomical entrance fee of 300 Baht (US$10), you discover the reason behind the hefty charge; this is one of the most futuristic and fancy museums I've ever set foot in. Anyway, you're probably wondering how you get from the entrance to the museum on the other side of the mountain. The answer, you walk through the mountain in a 130 meter tunnel. This is not your ordinary, everyday tunnel; it creates a mood for whole museum experience with a dusky atmosphere, neon blue track lighting, creepy space music, and textured walls that are sculpted to depict various body parts swirling around in smoke. The bodies in the walls become progressively more wasted away until the end of the tunnel shows only skeletons amidst the curling haze.

Once you've made it through the tunnel, you watch a short film (one of at least 12 you will see throughout your visit) about the museum itself. Of course, I'm a fan of any museum exhibit about the museum the exhibit is in. After leaving the giant auditorium, you enter a planetarium-like room where you are treated to a second audio-visual presentation on the ancient history of opium and it's medicinal uses. This was fairly interesting.

Perhaps my favorite attribute of the museum is its comprehensive treatment of the role the opium trade has played in shaping world events throughout the past three hundred years. They start at the beginning. So, logically (or maybe slightly confusingly) the next exhibit concerns the British tea trade and features a huge mock sailing ship. While the connection was not completely obvious at first, the exhibits and signs go on to explain how and why the British began pedalling opium they grew in India in order to pay for their tea in China. It was interesting to see a museum take the time to set up the historical context of an event, rather than just saying "here's what happened". Having laid the foundation, the Opium Wars between the British and Chinese areexplained with more flashy movies, and even some very lifelike wax figures.

After this, you move down the second floor, where you spend a couple of rooms learning about and seeing artifacts of the practice of Asian opium smoking. My favorite informational panel was titled "How to Smoke Opium". All joking aside, it was cool to see the ritualistic method of lying down on a bed and smoking yourself into a white haze. There are a number of different tools that are needed, including lamps, pipes, dampers, trays, pins, scrapers, pillows, boxes, etc. Each tool is not only explained in detail, but there are also displays of all of the paraphenalia, ranging from the poor man's simple bamboo pipe, to the wealthy man's ornate porcelain, wood, or bronze smoking utensils. This was maybe my favorite part of the museum.

The display that comes next on the history of tea, the tea plant, tea drinking vessels, and different types of tea was as out of place as it sounds like it would be.

At this point, we arrived at the early twentieth century, when the western coutries changed their minds and decided they didn't like this drug at all, and were going to outlaw it (what the Chinese had tried to do a hundred years earlier). This also coincided with opium production moving into this part of southeast Asia. Again, in fully comprehensive style, the displays demonstrate how the Thai government had come to depend on taxes from opium sales for about 10% of its annual revenue. Thus, when opium supplies were cut during WWII, they coerced hill tribe ethnic minorities of the mountainous areas of northern Thailand, Laos and Burma to produce opium on a large scale. (The hill tribe people had already been producing medicinal opium on a small scale for hundreds of years.) As a cash crop that easily grows in the mountain environment, poppies provided a means of well being for the hill tribe people. This trend continued into the 1970's and beyond, when the illicit global trade in southeast Asian opiates really took off. One interesting piece of this area of the museum was a five minute movie that in no uncertain terms points the finger at the CIA as the main culprit in funding the illicit drug trade. It was good to see a museum come right out and say this, as mainstream American channels of information tend to neglect this well-accepted fact.

Thailand, of course is not the place we think of today when we consider opium production. There is a reason for this other than chance. The next exhibit talks about Thailand's successful crop replacement program which has helped farmers find other crops to make their livelihood with. It also briefly points out that the United States, since 1984, has had a policy of ignoring crop replacement schemes and using military style eradication programs. A comparison of Thailand versus Colombia (or Afghanistan) shows how well that policy works.

The final exhibit deals with the social costs of opiate use, and has mostly the kind of stuff we've all seen before in middle school health class videos and primetime made for TV movies. The one interesting part was a display on drug eradication approaches that gave equal time to supply reduction, demand reduction, legalization, and harm reduction approaches. There are also plenty of heartbreaking stories about people whose lives have been (negatively) affected by opiate addiction. The glass floor lets you view a scary prison-like room where people lay on beds shooting up and/or smoking opium.

Finally, the museum provides a large bright white "Reflection Hall" with soft new age music, benches, and columns painted with inspiring quotes.

The Farm

We met Laura, the world's friendliest Spaniard, on the bus from Savannakhet to Vientiane. She mistook us for South Americans, we were flattered, and became fast friends. A few days later when Laura told us she was going to an organic farm in Vang Vieng where you can volunteer to do farm work or teach English classes at a local community center, we decided we would go too. I was looking forward to being in a classroom and Travis wanted to help out in the gardens. Laura also told us that the farm was expecting a group of 20 Korean volunteers within the next few days. That sealed the deal. We hopped a morning bus and arrived in Vang Vieng in the afternoon.
Vang Vieng is like no other place we've seen in Asia. It's weird. It's sketchy. It's a rip off. It's a SERIOUS tourist trap- Internet is 3 times more expensive here than it is in the rest of Laos, and more than twice as much as in Korea or Chibna. The town is basically a single road lined with restaurants and "Friends" bars. These so-called "Friends" bars have low tables and lots of pillows for reclining and on small tvs mounted on the ceilings play "Friends" episodes on DVD all day long. All day long. In Vang Vieng many restaurants have not one, but 2 menus: the normal menu, and the 'special' menu. The special menu contains food cooked with marijuana in it as well as smoothies made with mushrooms and other natural drugs. After sunset, the whole town seems stoned or jittery, and everyone's eyes are glued to.... What else? "Friends"!
Busloads of obnoxious people arrive in Vang Vieng daily for one reason: tubing.
The tubing industry in Vang Vieng is unique. For $4 you can rent a tube and get a tuk tuk to take you up river. Within 50 meters from the drop off point is the first riverside bar, but there are dozens more most offering not only alcohol, drugs and snacks but also massive rope swings and high platforms for jumping off. It's a risktaking show-off's dream come true. As you gently float down the river in your tube, bartenders standing on stilted, bamboo platforms wave frantically and try to throw you a rope to drag you into their bar. People jumping and swinging off ziplines zoom above your head and splash loudly near you. People at the bars cheer at shout at the jumpers. Bad booty-fied early 90's rap music thumps from every riverside bar (though one of the last bars was playing Fleetwood Mac at full volume instead). In the water, which is only moderately clean, drunken people splash and splutter loudly. On one side of the river you can see large, steep, forested mountains. On the other side are scores of hotel bungalows being built. Everywhere in Laos, but especially in Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang, you can feel a tourism industry on the verge of blowing up.
We were understandably quite happy to be staying at the Farm 3km outside the town and away from the "Friends" laugh track, but the Farm was another trip all it's own. We showed up, were given organic mulberry tea, got a room and were ready to volunteer, but how we could get involved was not made clear. That afternoon at 4:30 someone led us up the muddy road to the classroom for the children's English class. On the road we saw plenty of chickens, plus locals bathing at the government-installed, public clean water faucets. The ladies bathe wrapped in a heavy sarong. The men just wear underwear.
There were 60 children outside the classroom aged between 7-12 none, plus a few toddlers. The kids grabbed our hands and were eager to look at us. As soon as the classroom door was opened they slipped off their shoes, ran inside, laid colorful plastic mats on the floor and diligently set up low tables to work on. A teacher was writing 10 sentences in English on the dirty, well-worn whiteboard. Once everything was set up, the teacher introduced us foreigners one by one. The entire classroom YELLED in unison "Hello! What! Is! Your! Name?!!!" Travis said his name and they shouted "Hello Travis! Where! Are! You! From?" He said U.S.A. and they screamed "USA!!! Nice to meet! You!" and then repeated this exact drill for exactly all 5 foreigners in attendance. By the end of introductions our ears were throbbing.
The second class of kids aged 13-20+ was much, easier on the ears. All of those students could read and speak in English and only their writing needed help. It was fascinating to see kids so eager to learn and so successful at using a foreign language. Put in perspective, our own Korean students, who I adore and put on a pedestal for being amazingly well-behaved and hard-working, are slackers given their positions of priviledge! When the group of Korean volunteers arrived, all of whom by law must have studied English all through elementary and middleschool, it was clear that the Lao students spoke MUCH better English than the wealthier, "better educated" Koreans.
We spent the next 5 days with the Koreans, painting a public school, digging a ditch for electric cables, making a concrete sink and patio, pulling weeds outside teh community center, watching Lao traditional dance, inspiring an impromptu B-Boy competition. I took four of the older students into town and showed them how to set up email accounts and use the Internet (only a mildly successive endeavour. 2 girls understood, the other 2 were lost mostly because they had trouble with typing accuracy and you can never really see a "password" because it shows up in dots not letters) Laura volunteered in the kitchen teaching the girls working there how to prepare Spanish food. We feasted on tortillas Espanolas and paella for dinner.

off the charts

Luang Prabang is where we were about five days ago. It is a nice, scenic town with several beautiful Buddhist temples. It is also crawling with people who love to make comments like "When I was here 4 years ago, it was much better, much less touristy." As travelling in southeast Asia has has now in many ways become a game of trying to run away from the tourists (while simultaneously forgetting the fact that you are yourself a tourist), Laos is not the tourist scarce haven that your guidebook from 2004 may make it out to be. This is not all bad, but it is not all good either.

With this in mind, we hopped on a slow boat that would take us 8 hours up the Mekong and Ou rivers to a village that can only be reached by boat. We had to stop over one night in a slightly larger village called Nong Khiaw where we drank way too much Beer Lao and rice whiskey with a friend we made on the boat, before making a hungover go at the final hour up to Muang Ngoi.

While Muang Ngoi was certainly not free of tourists, it was a pleasant mix of tourist infrastructure and actual village. Adding to the feeling of rugged isolation is the fact that there are no motor vehicles of any kind, no hot water, and the electricity gets turned off around ten pm in most places. The town is basically one main street lining the river with shops, houses, and guesthouse/restaurants. There are tons of animals roaming the street, including dogs, cats, chickens, and at least one turkey. It's a little chilly up in the mountains of northern Laos, so people like to light little streetside fires, especially in the early morning. The day we arrived, there was a wedding taking up a portion of the main road, where two Swedes who are (rumor has it) going to stay in town and open a business were tying the knot. The three of us were still a little too worn out from the night before to join in the festivities.

The next day, Taylor and I hiked out along a smaller side valley past sharp limestone peaks and out into a wide flat floor of rice paddies. Cutting across the rice paddies and into yet another side canyon brought us to an even more remote and rugged village. This place was the real deal: you can only reach it on foot, all the structures are bamboo houses on stilts, and everyone showers at communal spigets in the center of town. There are two guesthouse/restaurants right across from each other, locked in a bitter rivalry. We tried to climb further up the canyon to find a famed waterfall, but muck, streams, and loose water buffalo ultimately impeded our journey. That night we befriended the toddler daughter of our guest house owner, who is unbelievably cute and goofy. She promptly charged up to our bungalow when we arrived home, shaking her hand in demand of Taylor's tambourine, which we thought she had forgotten from earlier that day. She laughed, danced around, demanded tickles, etc. for a while before stomping off in anger because I would not give her my pen to draw on the journal entry I was working on.


Luckily, our new friend had forgotten my outrageous behavior of the night before when we said goodbye to her yesterday morning. Then we began a truly epic day of travel. We started by taking the hour long boat trip back to Nong Khiaw on a long narrow boat packed to the gills with people and cargo. In Nong Khiaw, we argued with for a while with our driver over transport to Udomxay. The problem was that we didn't have enough people for him to make the trip, so we had to wait around for more people to come, and ultimately pay an extra $1.50 per person (a hefty sum in Laos) for the journey in the back of his caged in pickup truck with benches. The three hour trip was scenic, windy and bumpy. Gentle on the eyes, hard on the rest of the body. In Udomxay, we had just enough time to pound a couple of helpings of sticky rice served in bamboo before our bus for Luang Nam Tha (our final destination for the day) headed out. This trip was on an actual bus, with the luxury of seats. The bus was driven and manned by two dudes with hipster haircuts who couldn't have been over 2o years old. It was also suffering from moderate to severe malfunctions in both the cooling and starting systems. In the last couple hours of the trip we had to stop about every 2o minutes to bum jugs of water from the nearest village, making sure to park on hills in order to pop the clutch. At one point during one of these stops, everyone except us foreigners left the bus, and then some unbeforeseen dude with a flashlight started poking around the bus and in peoples bags apparently looking for something. He didn't hassle us too much. In the end, we arrived here in Luang Nam Tha about 9 pm, which is quite late in Laos time. We were lucky enough to secure both lodging and food before the day was done.

for the children

If there is one thing I have learned in my year living in the Land of the Morning Calm, it is that Koreans love uniforms. For any special event or activity, there is a specific set of clothing that is to be worn. Matching is also quite common and popular (especially among siblings and couples). So it came as no suprise to me when the infamous "Korean Group" unloaded at the organic farm outside Vang Vieng and they were all wearing matching official Korea Youth Volunteer shirts and safari hats. We had been extremely excited that a Korean group was coming, but once they arrived, we were too shy to really talk to them. The necessary ice breaker came when I was unwittingly sitting with my guitar near me and the whole group accosted me out of nowhere and began demanding a pop song (luckily I recently learned how to play Beat It). Soon I was the center of attention, and of an impromptu photo shoot.

We had come to the farm hoping to volunteer, maybe teach English, or do some work with the crops. The disorganization of the farm made this difficult if not impossible. Working in the fields never materialized, and the teaching was only a couple hours a day in the evenings. This left us with a lot of time to kill during the day, and the 3km trip to town left us a bit stranded. There was originally some work to do pedaling booze to tubers heading down the river, but the overcast skies meant few tubers and lackluster sales. So it came that we eventually asked if we could tag along with the Koreans on their projects. Rather than just kind of helping out, we became full fledged Korean Youth Volunteers. The director's biggest concern was that they didn't have any extra T-Shirts for us. Luckily, they did have extra name tags.

The Korean Youth Volunteer Association has been working with the farm for several years now, and they (in conjunction with Mr. T, the farm's owner) have really been a gold mine for the local villages. They have set up several community centers and classrooms where there are English classes or other activities every night for any interested youth. The English classes are quite the experience. There is a basic introductory level class that packs the mudbrick classroom to the gills with about 70 (sometimes twice that) children aged 5-13. Having an introduction shouted at you by all those tiny voices is intense. The upper level class is smaller and more serious, with mostly teenage students, some of whose English is quite impressive. The kids all come on a voluntary basis every night to this open air simple classroom with only floor level seating and low desks. They are incredibly enthusiastic about the class and learning English. It's hard to imagine anything more different from teaching English in a Korean Hagwon.

Anyway, the Korean group took over the English classes from the regular teachers, which was quite interesting, considering many of the Koreans hardly spoke any English. There was mostly chaos and some games in those classes. Mostly what we did with the group was daytime working projects. We added a sink and expanded the patio of the bathroom at the community center, and then spent two days repainting and cleaning a nearby school building.

Now one problem that you can run into with volunteer work is that the volunteers, while enthusiastic, may not be experts in the type of work that is to be done. When you throw twenty Korean kids who have done nothing but study for their entire lives together with 10 five gallon buckets of paint which they are supposed to mix to a consistent color and then apply neatly to a shool building, the results can be mixed. After our first morning, the results were definitely mixed. No one had taped off the trim that was to be in a different color (until after we began painting) or laid down drop cloth. There were liters of sea foam colored paint in places it shouldn't have been. There were at least two shades of sea foam going on the school. Our pace was extremely slow. I was discouraged. by the end of the second day, however, the situation had improved vastly: the tones had been adjusted, some locals who actually know how to paint had taped off and fixed up the trim, and a full scale scrubbing operation had removed the globs of paint from the concrete entrance.

The school was about 700 meters from the farm, but the group had a special air conditioned bus (yes, there was even a microphone for speech giving that was used multiple times on the three minute journey) to take us all there. Every morning when we climbed on the bus to go out to the village, a crowd of children from the village would be waiting for us with special flower bouquets for the Koreans. They would hop on the bus with us and ride back out to the village. When we left for lunch or to go home for the day, the kids would all load onto the bus for the ride with us and then walk back to the village. The whole time we were working on the school, the kids gathered to help, or mostly play. The group handed out about 24 kites, which were constantly zipping through the air. One team of Koreans was blowing up and handing out balloon animals and swords. Periodically we would all stop work and ladies from the village would hand out fresh coconuts for us to drink from. The whole atmosphere was much more like a carnival than a work site. Despite my initial cynicism, the experience turned out to be quite positive. I realized that painting the school was only part of the intended purpose of the project. The cultural exchange, the fun atmosphere for the village people, the sense of accomplishment for the Korean students who don't get many chances to work with their hands, these were all important aspects of the project as well.

We felt guilty bailing on the olympic games the last afternoon to go tubing, but it was time for us to move on.

River festival in Laos

We left Vietnam urgently and abruptly in hopes of catching a Buddhist festival in Vientianne, the capital of Laos. We prompty forgot about the holiday after 13 long hours spent on busses and at the border. Our first night in Laos, at a guesthouse in Savannakhet we were reminded by the cute teenager rocking a side ponytail at the front desk of the celebration occurring the next day along the mighty Mekong River. Tired and travel weary we took a quick tour of Savannakhet's city center, seeing just enough of the modest festival preparations- an inflatable jumpy castle for kids, a miniature ferris wheel, and plenty of food stalls- to peak our curiosity about what was in store tomorrow.

The next morning we headed directly for the main plaza. At 9am the day was already hot. Not many people had arrived at the festival, but those in attendance were sitting along the river bank watching boaters prepare for races. Families, old men, women dressed in silk shirts and long wrap around skirts, young monks draped in bright orange robes, all meandered around the river bank gazing at the water. In the river long, exceedingly narrow, U-shaped boats with delicately curved and carved edges carried a dozen rowers each, all moving in perfect unison dipping paddles in and out of the muddy colored water. At the river's edge each boat team had its own tent and from these tents came live music. Some tents had full bands set up inside, others just drums made of upside down buckets. We couldn't tell where the race began or ended, but from the music played on the banks, we could tell which team won. Laos music is way funkier than other East Asian music and we loved hearing the electric guitarists wail and pluck frantically on their instruments while teh drummers kept the beat.

As the day progressed more people filtered into the festival grounds. A low rider pickup truck blasting hip hop- something we haven't seen in well over a year- cruised the main strip. The beer tents filled up. The game booths grew louder. Children packed the jumpy castles and parents milled around its edges peering over the wall at their happily shrieking kids.

There were very few tourists at the festival, so Travis and I (Travis especially) attracted a lot of attention. Little kids gasped when they saw Travis' big beard and curly hair. Adults whispered "Bin Laden?" to each other as we passed. We ducked into a beer tent to avoid sidewalk gawking and enjoy a Beerlao. Not suprisingly a couple of men shuffled in shortly after and instantly began talking about us. We felt uncomfortable til one of the men called over and told us to speak loudly so he could listen to our conversation and practice his English. Soon we were talking to him. SeeMon, it turned out was very friendly and loved to speak English. For 20 minutes we chatted and he progressively became more fluent, faster speaking and more erratic. He was thrilled to learn we were both English teachers. He started spelling words for us and asking for pronunciation tips, acting things out (he had to stand up and take off his jacket when explaining the word "weather"). At last he was chanting grammar exercises: "I go, You go, He..." "goes" we'd suggest, "GOES!" he'd shout and on and on. His companion meanwhile remained sedate and uncommunicative. Once they'd finished their beers, SeeMon wide eyed and smiling crazily, shook our hands and told us he would teach everything he practiced to his kids. We were happy to get someone so high on English, so feeling accomplished we decided to take a break from the heat and return to the festival later in the day.

In the evening when we returned the area along the river was packed. Between 3 and 5 thousand people were in attendance, hair combed perfectly, wearing their best clothes, walking up and down the strip, eating fried bananas and grilled meat on a stick. Bad karaoke-style music boomed from loud speakers in various tents and collided on the street in discord. Young women set up tables displaying elaborately decorated, dish-size altars made of folded banana leaves, orange and purple flowers and topped with incense and candles. The altars were beautifully crafted, and even as they sold them, the women kept their fingers busy tucking and folding corners and gluing flowers. We didn't exactly know what the altars were for, but we had a hunch they were supposed to float down the river.

We bought one from a girl, and she, without speaking English, led us down the river bank to the water. There she lit the candle and tried to used the candle to light the incense sticks, then she waded into the river attempting to place the altar in the water. Unfortunately, the candle kept blowing out. The wind prevented the incense from lighting. The lighter stopped working, and so did a second light Travis gave her. Our girl slipped in the mud and became soaked up to her waist. After 10 minutes of fumbling, she gave up, returned the altar to us and defeated we all climbed back up the slope. Travis and I felt terrible that we'd let the girl get so muddy for nothing. We sadly posted ourselves in a beer tent, sipped another Beerlao and watched dots of candle light bob along the edge of the dark river. It was too dark to see the altars themselves, but the small flames flickered brightly and the soft smell of incense wafted up into the tent. We went back and bought 2 more altars from our friend. She was happy.

This time we carried our altars up to the main dock. There were a dozen boys collecting altars and swimming them into the river. The air was thick and sweet with smoke. Hundreds of people watched the lights from the docks. It was breathtaking. Sometimes what looked like the skeleton of a boat would float by on fire. Across the Mekong in Thailand we could see thousands more altars floating along the river's edge. After our altars floated away, we snacked on sticky rice mixed with dark, brown cane sugar and cooked in a bamboo stick and wandered back home.