Kids in Cambodia

This is how it started. On our first day at Angkor Wat, already a brutally hot and airless morning, Jeff spotted a little girl selling fans. We wanted a fan and only a fan. But Fan girl was standing with two friends, one selling bracelets and another tok-tok-toks, a toy made from a hollowed out coconut shell (yes, we made up the name). Tok-tok-tok girl worked on Jeff. Meanwhile, Bracelet girl, of grubby fingers and big brown eyes, whispered mechanically to me, One for a dollar . . . no, okay, two for a dollar, two for a dollar . . . okay, three, three for a dollar, okay. For 100 yards we smiled and said no thank you and please no thank you until finally Tok-tok-tok girl gave up. Jeff turned around and saw her looking over her shoulder back at him. And then she said, in the manner of an injured puppy: Why no?

No, because parents send their kids out to trail tourists precisely because (some) tourists won’t be able to walk away. (Jeff and I are easy targets. The kids know to make for young couples or small groups of Western tourists; they don’t even approach the middle-aged Asian men with their shorts hiked up to midbelly, who stand around smoking cigarettes and have an amazing ability to pretend that the kids are not even there.) This means more money for a poor family, but also that the kids don’t go to school. Not that they could afford to go to school anyway…

In the end it is just unbearably sad to be pursued by tiny children with matted hair and small voices, hoping to sell you all manner of things you don’t need before you hop into your chauffered car (a green Camry, of the same vintage as the one I drove in high school) and make your way around the great temple complex that fuels Cambodia’s economy. So we bought two tok-tok-toks and two bracelets, one of which has gorillas etched into plastic. The girls looked like they were about 7 years old, which later we learned means that they were probably 11 (malnutrition is a problem). We also bought: two bootleg copies of the Lonely Planet (the one for Cambodia was published in August 2008), a book of postcards (10 in all!), a t-shirt (scoopneck, brown, size L), and a stack of bracelets (from a girl who said to Jeff, Where are you from? America? Capitol: Washington D.C. Population: three hundred million something something).

In Phnom Penh a few days later, we met a Nicaraguan/Iranian guy from San Francisco who moved to Cambodia from Barcelona after he came here to work on a documentary about child prostitutes. He volunteered at one of the many orphanages around town for a while before he had the opportunity open up a new place with funding from an American couple who had lost their daughter – a place where the kids have decent living conditions and attend school and the director has not been accused of corruption or rape. The kids at his home mostly aren’t orphans – their families live at the garbage dump on the outskirts of town and barely eke out a living sorting through trash. Their parents have agreed to let them come live at the home, called Aziza’s Place, where they eat three meals a day and are attended to by a nurse. They go to public school (which is a joke) and they take lessons at the home as well. They also get karate lessons and art lessons and dance class and computers (they're the first in Cambodia to benefit from the One Laptop Per Child Program). We’ve been there and it feels like a good place.

Here is the website for Aziza’s Place: http://www.azizasplace.org/index.html.

Bangkok

After Phuket, we headed to Bangkok for two days. What we learn is that Thai people bling like rappers, at least with respect to architecture and giant buddhas. Here are some pics from the National Palace. I am wearing that ridiculous straw hat because we have arrived during a historic heat wave and it is like 114 in Bangkok, no joke. I am wearing that ridiculous long skirt and sweater because we have to be covered up like nuns to enter the grounds of the National Palace. The giant buddha is from next door at Wat Pho.

The next day we decide to take in a different kind of Bangkok treasure -- its airconditioned shopping malls. Happily we find a store that is a foundation that gives people good jobs as an alternative to opium cultivation and prostitution and it happens to sell nice scarves. Guess what everyone is getting for Christmas this year...

More Phuket..

ok.. we've been here too long. its been comfortable but we need to get out of the marriott, so we booked 2 tours to get us away from the typical resort activities. also, we decided to check out early and head to karon beach.

first up was a canoe tour of the sea caves around phang-nga island. the guides were a riot. all they do is make fun of each other.

then a day tour of the phi phi islands. as beautiful as advertised. We signed up with a tour company called Simba. Run by a couple named Jenny and Geoff. Funny.

finally to karon beach. unlike the marriott, where apparently every single person expect us and an older russian couple hung out at the pool instead of the beach, karon is crowded. likely b.c most of the small guesthouses don't have pools. that was always one thing that got to me. why come to the beach to hang out at the pool. why not go to vegas instead?

kinda hot in karon

Phuket

Oh crap... this place is expensive. This is really going to hurt, especially after northern thailand was so freakin cheap. It was a $12-13 dollar cab ride from the airport. Wasn't the 4hr bus trip from pai to chiang mai only $5? Who wanted to come here again?

So we are staying at the JW Marriott resort in NW Phuket. Mostly b/c we have these leftover points from Marriott, since Jenny wouldn't let me get a 2nd plasma from them. Anyway, the points have been sitting idle in the account for about 3 years, so we thought a free stay at nice place would be a good break from our relatively budget oriented guesthouses.

This place is pretty crazy. We are so set off from everything, and this place is so freaking huge. Anything we buy in the next 5-6 days is going to be from marriott. And of course, the food and drinks are going to be 10x the price of other parts of thailand. The first dinner in thailand was less than $5 and was 3 dishes and beer. A sandwich from the deli is $10 here. Sure, urth cafe can be a $50 brunch and even jenny is willing to go to Mozza every time I bring it up, but c'mon this is THAILAND!

but a glimer of hope!!!!!!!!... my status with marriott rewads is still active ("mr. tarn.. you are a valued marriott rewards member"... haha. right. ), so not just a room upgrade but we also get free breakfast for 2 everyday. No small concession on their part as the buffet runs $28/person! crazy, huh? anyway, (this is totally cheap of us) we have figured out that there is free fruit in the gym that we can eat for breakfast. Then we can use the free breakfast buffet around 11am and stuff ourselves silly, then hopefully, we can have a reasonable sized dinner without having to pay too much. So any opinion if its better to load up on carbs or protein on our big lunch?

Its funny... most people eat really light for breakfast at a beach resort so their stomachs are not bulging at the pool. exhibit A is 30 mins after eating our meal.

exhibit A

Other problem is that the people here are probably coming just for the resort, so they have beachwear for the day and resort wear for nights. we have ratty t-shirts and shorts.

Jenny is off to sign us up for the marriott timeshare tour, where we can get another $200 hotel credit. I wonder what their reaction is going to be when we put "0" for total household income.

Anyway... come here first, before you realize how cheap the rest of the country is. .

Jewf in the house!

wow. JEWF REY instead of JEFFREY. with a pretty common american name, I never get to see it butchered like this.

the contractor we had working on the house before we left spend 4 weeks calling me "jaff" (confirmed by jenny who saw that he had me listed as "jaff" on his cell) but as far as entertainment value, this one was pure gold.

PaiMOTO!

its the way to get around in Asia. And Pai was the perfect place for us to ride. a few years ago we had a friend fall off and hurt himself in Thailand from going too fast. I think we were on the border of the opposite problem. Toppling over from going too slow. At first Jenny was both too nervous to drive her own, or to trust me enough to ride on the back of mine. Finally we get on mine and head off to the elephant riding camp, going 20 kph. I probably don't need to do the conversion for you guys to realize how slow that is.

anyway.. a reasonable amount of speed is important.

Finally we settle into a groove, and it turns out to be one of things I most enjoy about Pai. Its about $4/day to rent, and cruising around was great and better than walking in the midday heat. and plus.. we feel totally ASIAN now!

Riding an Elephant

But one cool thing we did manage to do in Pai before I was forced into early retirement was ride an elephant. I had mixed feelings about this little adventure. Elephants are really big and I imagine that it’s not hard to be squashed by one. Also, I worried about exploitation and the fact that it damages their spines to have people sitting on seats on their backs. As it turns out, however, we rode bareback, with me sitting on the elephant’s neck, the mahout on her head, and Jeff behind me. And the sad but true thing is that if not for tourists, elephants – the very symbol of Thailand – as well as their human handlers, would have nowhere to go and nothing to do but beg on the streets of Bangkok, eat garbage, and get hit by cars.

Elephants are really leathery, and very solid, despite the appearance of wrinkles. Their heads are covered in three-inch wiry black bristles and they are quite nimble, handling steep narrow descents without hesitation. Our elephant was called Nom. She was in her 40s and despite her advanced years, enjoyed swinging her trunk around and spraying us with snot. First we did a jungle walk, which was like Costco on a Sunday afternoon for Nom, who stopped on every corner for a free sample. Then we went down to the river, where it was time for stupid animal tricks. This involved dumping tourists into the water with a simple shrug or twist and a lot of wriggling around in the water like dogs. I think Nom found the tourist dumping part a little annoying, but I think she enjoyed splashing around in the river. I hope they are living good lives in these elephant camps.

Pai and the Lesson about the King, aka The King and Pai

Pai is a small town in the middle of a pretty nowhere populated by Thai hippies and coffeeshop types and the kind of tourist Lonely Planet helpfully identifies as “bird shit” foreigners – so called because they wear fisherman pants, smell bad, and are super cheap. Hmmm. (Don’t worry, that’s not us – except for that day that Jeff ran out of shorts, and the next day when I decided it was just too hot to wear normal clothes.) Pai is a real cute place, with lots of vegetarian restaurants and yoga studios (What’s worse than Birkram yoga? Not much, except, I assume, yoga in a fan-cooled room full of bird shit foreigners in 90 degree heat) and chill bars with bearded Thai musicians doing classic rock hits.

Jeff and I hit one of these places one night after dinner and got a lesson on the King from a bartender named Siam who was maybe a few cards short of a full deck. We already knew that they love their King here – many people wear yellow rubber bracelets stamped “Long Live the King” and it seems that they really mean it. (Sadly, it’s pretty shocking to be in a place where people truly respect and trust their leader. FYI, Thais don’t feel the same way about their elected representatives). According to Siam, the King is a very talented blues musician and has jammed with all manner of jazz and blues greats. Plus he speaks 7 languages and built an expressway in Bangkok using his own money. Or something like that. Yesterday, Jeff and I bought the King’s cd, entitled HM Blues (His Majesty’s Blues). We haven’t listened to it yet, but just the idea of it is pretty cool.

Anyway, while in Pai, Jeff and I went for a splurge and got ourselves a fancy cottage all our own right on the river with a private deck and everything. And a good thing too because I spent an entire night, the next morning, and a miserable ride back to Chiang Mai being sick. That was kind of it for Pai.

The Road to Pai

I thought it was such a great idea to take the bus from Chiang Dao to Pai because they look so close on a map – both north of Chiang Mai, somewhere in the mountains. The first part was no big deal – just 30 minutes on a flat road to a dusty town where we were supposed to change buses. We were dropped off on the side of the road with vague directions – really a hand gesture – that the bus station was that way. Luckily, we spotted two white guys by the side of the road – a father and son team from San Antonio – who were also headed to Pai. They were in front of a barbershop where there also happened to be a few benches. This was the bus station.

The bus was supposed to come every hour, but we learned that it skipped our stop if it was full, and it hadn’t come all day. But then – yay! – about an hour, and a good amount of stress later, the bus appeared like an ancient, green, sputtering savior. When it stopped, two guys jumped out and put little wooden anvils in front of the tires to prevent the bus from rolling. Our backpacks joined everyone else’s crap on the roof, strapped down by those ever so handy bungy cords (I now understand why they are sold everywhere in this country). Inside, the density was kind of like a subway in Tokyo during rush hour. And this is how we got to Pai – standing, as the bus twisted up and around through valleys and mountains, while monks and solders slept, and an old Lisu woman cleared phlegm from her throat, and home brewed whisky escaped from its broken casket and cascaded down the aisle. There were no animals on board and no one was sick, though. So apparently it was a pretty uneventful ride.

Chiang Dao Caves

All these pics are from the entrance where they have carved out a bunch of images from the rock

Never really did any spelunking before, but this was pretty much the coolest thing we've done so far. For about $3, a guide takes you for a 1/2hr tour of the famous caves.

this is my favorite pic from that day.

Our guide is holding a kerosene lantern and wearing sandals. as we get into the cave the ground is all wet and slippery, and as we go further and further, it starts to dawn on me that if the guide slips and the lantern drops and breaks, there is no way out. and it gets pretty exciting. '

We are ducking in through tiny holes, crawls spaces, and tunnels. At first, when she tells us where we are going, we think it must just be a joke, but as she disappears through a tunnel, you really have no choice but to follow, But the bats, the rock formations.. all amazing and made it a great experience.

One interesting thing we did not expect was for these caves to be so hot and humid. I was drenched by the time we got to the end. lucky it was not more than 1/2hr.

Chiang Dao

This place is great. I won’t be surprised if the place we stayed, the Chiang Dao Nest is the best place we stay on our entire trip. It’s a handful of little bungalows scattered on lovely landscaped but not manicured grounds – maybe three acres – at the foot of a mountain and a national park. There are butterflies everywhere (alas, their evil cousins, the mosquitoes are abundant as well) and trees that I’m sure bear fruit in other seasons. The open dining area features a high thatched roof, freshly picked flowers, and lantern lighting at night. I am such a sucker for lantern lighting. There is a fabulous cave in the neighborhood and the most peaceful remote wat we visited just up the street. And all this for . . $20 a night.

They make up for it, of course, by charging a ransom for food and drink (or so we thought before we entered the kingdom of Marriott where they should simply be ashamed of themselves). They feed you western-style food because the Thai-born owner used to be a chef in England, and its pretty decent. It’s a little odd, though, to be chowing down on steak and sipping red wine in the middle of a jungle in northern Thailand.

That was our first night. The second day we started off at the market in town. This market was of the daily living variety. Afterwards we decided that we may have marketed ourselves out, having little interest in buying either tourist schlock or ten cent toothpaste and bungy cords. We did, however, get a good map and a tasty bowl of fish noodle soup out of trip to town. That afternoon, after killing a few hours on the couch reading about Eliot Spitzer’s exploits (such a disappointment), we rented some mountain bikes from the Nest and took off to explore the area and grab a few beers along the way.

Beer with ice.

Caged Heat 2!!! -- Chiang Mai Women's Prison

One of the "must do" things in Chiang Mai. There is a women's prison toward the center of town that offers Thai massages at good prices. And you know its going to be a good massage, because if you complain, the warden will throw them in the hole for a month!

But really, we heard its a program where they try to teach a new, legal trade the ladies about to come up for parole. the prison center also sells different crafts and such. I wasn't sure how a massage would be with all those prison bars and a lady in a black and white jumpsuit, but hey, its cheap....

We were pleasantly surprised when we got there. It was actually a really nice facility next to the actual prison with cold A/C (so important for this time of year) and the prisoners were dressed in traditional thai clothing. For my massage, I had a 90 pound girl that trouble twisting me in the "stretching" moves, and had tiny bony knees that killed my back when she jumped on. And I think her and another girl were laughing at the money belt when she was massaging my back (you change into these thai pajamas for the massage, but no way I was taking off the money belt. I wore that thing all through Europe. I think I even wore that one to the beach once. thanks yuvette, I'm permanently scarred.. paranoid that foreigners are always after my loot)

But overall, its was really relaxing, and for $5/hr, I could have sat there all day. Jenny had a good one too. Her masseuse was a lady named "meow" (according to her, "meow, like cat.. MEOW"), who had a hard time communicating with Jenny. The other conversation I heard went like this

Jenny: I am feeling a bit sick
Meow: when i sick, I eat duck
Jenny: huh? duck? like quack, quack?
Meow: oh.. sorry. drug.

So it was such a good deal, I went back on the last day for another massage. A new prisoner this time. And this time, the massage was no joking matter. She came to bring the pain, whereas the first one was more like a nice, polite massage, this girl jumped right in and did not hold back. There was no reaction from her to my grunts and squeals, and my back was cracking loud enough that the australian guy getting a massage in the same room woke up to see what was happening. Made me think the first girl was in for something like check fraud... but the second was definitely in for assault... or multiple assaults.

Funny thing is.. all the girls in the prison massage center were pretty, young, and very innocent looking. Not what I would expect for hardened criminals. But what about the tough looking biker chicks with tattoos? are they even given a chance to be in this program? or are they automatically put on the basket weaving team?.

Chiang Mai

This was our first destination, and also our fourth. We spent four nights at a guesthouse at the beginning of our trip, and then one night after our journey into the mountains, en route to the beach. (See Jeff in a songthaw, our primary form of transportation in the city, that is other than our own four feet; then see Jeff again at the temple on a hill near the city. We were supposed to get a panoramic view from up there, but it was not to be.)

Chiang Mai is a charming old city, well equipped to host the drooling mass of backpackers without giving over its soul. Wats (temples) and motorbike garages cohabitate on the same block without weirdness. The buildings in the city are low and the old quarter is a square surrounded by a moat and at places, walls which appear on the verge of collapse but have probably stood in such condition for hundreds of years. There is a gate – or in some cases, simply an opening – in the center of each wall of the square. Narrow lanes weave and dead end and meet up with major streets all throughout the old quarter. Guesthouses and bars and massage joints (not of the sleazy variety, and offering $4 Thai massages for one hour!) have to post signs at the mouths of these alleys to let people know that the alley is worth a wander. I have developed a particular fondness for the 20 baht (that would be about 66 cents) bottles of freshly squeezed orange juice that are sold on every corner.

Outside the old quarter, there are markets everywhere. On our first night, having just disembarked from a 40 hour journey from LA, we sleepwalked through the night market, which is a maze of shops set up on several floors inside a large open air building and outside even more shops lining both sides of the sidewalk in the area. This area is geared towards tourists, but we weren’t in a shopping mood. Later, we visited, briefly, the Warowot market complex, an enormous Thai shopping emporium. It was like a Taiwanese street market times a hundred. If ever I’m looking to buy cheap underwear or pungent dried sea animals, I’ll know where to go.

There is a river that cuts through Chiang Mai. Right now, it is brown and sluggish, but at night the lights on the many bridges go on and it is a lovely place. We went there one night for dinner at a restaurant in an old teak building with a gallery in front facing the road. Later we wandered down the street, filled with art galleries and like minded shops and other riverside restaurants and bars. The next day, further up the same street, we dined twice for lunch on the local specialty, khao soy. This is a noodle dish of the kinky eggy variety steeped in a rich but not coconutty curry with crisps of some kind scattered over the top. To be eaten with some pickled cabbage. Completely delicious. (Here's a picture of me enjoying the day's first khao soy. Next up is a picture from the cooking class that Jeff and I took. We learned to make pad thai, some kind of sour Thai soup I can never remember the name of, the best green curry I've ever had in my life, chicken with cashews, spring rolls, and mango sticky rice. If you're (un)lucky enough to live in LA Jeff will cook for you when we get back. I am particularly bad at rolling spring rolls, which are supposed to be long and slender. Surprise surprise, mine are short and stocky. The third picture is me completely jetlagged; we're at a coffee shop next to the river trying to use caffeine to stay up past 9 pm.)

That night, which happened to be a Sunday, we headed back into the old quarter where a huge pedestrian market had taken over like a virus spreading over every square inch of the place in a very short time. It is very intimidating at first, but then you realize that everyone is selling the same thing – hilltribe bags and headwraps, baggy Thai pants and tissue paper thin shirts, paper lanterns, wooden board games. Also you realize that as an American, you are walking on the right side of the road against traffic, which makes moving forward that much more difficult. But really what is a market if not a place to sell food We only a fraction of what looked good to us and quickly became unpleasantly stuffed. Three kinds of noodles, rice balls, omelettes, rotis, a blueberry mochi for Jeff, and of course, mango with sticky rice. We are going home fat. (Here is Jeff eating what he thought was going to be his third khao soy of the day but it turned out to be pigs' blood soup with noodles. He said the chunks of pigs' blood tasted like porky tofu. I did not attempt to confirm or deny. Next is a picture of the night market very very early on, from atop one of the crumbling walls of the gate.)

Thailand

In LA our lives are spent in temperature controlled offices (too cold) and cars (same) and even when we’re outside, it’s lovely and warm and even when its not, the a/c is blowing in every Starbucks along the way. In Thailand, in March, even up in the mountains, where we were a couple of days ago right now, it is hot. We’ve learned that the thing to do is to get up early, stop moving around 1pm and resume activity again around 4pm. Of course, most days we fail to heed our own advice. So how anyone mistakes us for Thai is beyond me. We’ve observed that Thai people don’t sweat. Jeff and I walk around looking like we’ve just emerged from the sea. We inspire people to apologize to us for the lack of air conditioning. Meanwhile, the Thais around us wear jackets and jeans and find our inability to acclimate amusing.