won't you take me to tacky town?

so after the bike ride of doom and a night of me moaning in pain, tim and i had to go into town to return those bastard bicycles. i managed to ride all the way into town (standing up the whole way) and was only too happy to hand over the evil creation. on our way, tim saw it: A MINIBUS DEPOT, shining like a beacon! o, minibus, you go so fast and have seats big enough for two western-sized people! no thighs need spill over the end of the seat, like water in a waterfall! we immediately ran over and booked two seats back to chiang mai. unfortunately, the bus was not as promising as it seemed--i was stricken with CAR SICKNESS and was unable to both read my book and enjoy the 6732847823-mph drive as we careened dangerously around corners and whizzed past other cars. we eventually got to chiang mai, where, after a week of nothing but delicious thai food, we decided to eat CRAP. so, we went to one of the american-style restaurants and ordered the cheese plate. note: when outside of actual cheese-eating countries, do not order cheese. yick. after dinner, we stopped at a convenience store to get some water, and the smiling cashier surprised us as we were leaving. WAIT! he screamed, and ran around us toward the door. i thought he was going to open the door for us, but instead, he opened his cooler and gave us two free ice creams. THAI PEOPLE LOVE US!

thus, i left chiang mai the second time with another fuzzy feeling. the fuzzy feeling evaporated quickly when we arrived in bangkok for our flight to phuket, and there it was; TACKINESS. we had managed to avoid most of the narsty package-holiday-going/tiger beer wife-beater-wearing/generally white trashy crowd, but BAM! there they were, like an international convention, in bangkok, all waiting to get on our plane. on the plane, which WAS one of those low budget free-for-all seating deals, it got even worse. i sat next to the window, and tim sat in the middle seat, and next to tim, she sat. some kind of euro with SOME KIND OF B.O. o man, i had to stop breathing through my nose. i don't know how tim made it all the way to phuket without fainting. i have never smelled stench like that in my life. the homeless people in new york had nothing on this woman. i feel dizzy just thinking about it! the flight was longer than it needed to be, sitting next to her, and was, of course, full of white people. not an asian in the bunch. ah, the joys of going to popular tourist destinations.

but, oh, phuket...our hotel made up for it all. i knew i would love it when we were being given the tour of the place, and we saw a 4-year-old elephant, belonging to the hotel, just walking around. for anyone contemplating a trip to phuket, i can highly recommend le meridien. i don't know if it was hit by the tsunami or not, but it was right on the (private) beach, in a horseshoe shape, overlooking the pool. one end was under construction, but that was the only problem i could see. the bed was big and soft and beautiful, the food was pricey but good, the beach was gorgeous with clear, warm water, they had cable TV, and THERE WAS A HOTEL ELEPHANT! what more could you want?? if that wasn't enough, the elephant played the frickin' harmonica! i never wanted to leave. so, we stayed an extra night.

on the other hand, patong. in one word? ew. patong was like coney island, or blackpool (tim says), or old orchard beach, or any other tacky beach destination you can think of. it was the epicenter of white trashiness. neon lights everywhere! wife beaters as the uniform of choice! drunken english people staggering around! tacky souvenir shops on every corner! and, no good restaurants. it was terrifying. but, because it was the nearest town to our hotel, we went there almost nightly because it was cheaper than eating at the hotel. however, one funny thing happened in patong, when i was buying a t-shirt for colin's friend jon.

me: (trying to do the recommend tourist thing and haggle with the t-shirt woman) how much for this shirt?
salesgirl: XXX baht
me: how about 40 baht less? (abt $1)
salesgirl: 20 baht less
me: how about 40?
her: NO! 20! WHERE YOU FROM?
me: america
her: YOU FROM AMERICA? THIS ONLY $XX! WHY YOU NO PAY? WHY YOU CHEAP CHARLIE?
me, horrified
her: CHEAP CHARLIE! YOU CHEAP CHARLIE? WHY YOU NO PAY ME MONEY?
me, still horrified, whispering to tim about whether we should go

and? i ended up paying the lunatic what she wanted, because i was:
a. scared
b. ashamed that i was trying to barter over $1 with a woman who probably makes in a year what i make in one story, DESPITE the fact that you are supposed to do it
c. happy to have a t-shirt that was the right color and size, and that came with such a good phrase. cheap charlie! how rad!

a guy in pai (where i almost died!)

when we decided to leave mae hong son, we had two choices for a morning bus: 8am or 10 am. being the lazy bastards we are, we decided to go for the 10 am. babs at the guesthouse had told us that the 8am bus was another minivan, so we decided to be adventurous and go for the local bus (which takes almost twice as long). so, we showed up at the bus station, giant bags in hand (or on backs) and tried to figure out what to do. the local buses are basically big school buses painted in a charming shade of orange, with constantly open doors. there was a luggage rack on top, but no luggage on it. we walked over to the bus and tim went in the back door with the bags, thinking maybe we could leave the bags in the back and sit in the back row. as he did that, 10 little monks, all decked out in monk gear (bright orange robes) turned to look at him and he remembered that OH! the back row is monk seating. thus, we clambered onto the bus with all our gear (now totaling 5 bags--two giant backpacks, a booty bag full of presents, and two other bags just holding a variety of crap) and tried to fit it all into one seat.

HA. the seats on these buses are built for thai people (how inconsiderate!). that means that the seats are big enough for tim's skinny rear and maybe one of my giant thighs. and certainly not for two 40-pound bags. eventually the ticket guy took the giant bags and put them in the back row with the monks. and our journey began. now, let me explain about these buses. apart from the beautiful paint job and the open doors and the tiny seats, they also have no air conditioning! they have little fans nailed/glued/stapled to the ceiling and they run intermittently, in a sad attempt to cool down the bus. fortunately, we were in the north of thailand and not back in cambodia with a stinky frenchman sitting in front of us again, so it wasn't too big a hardship. what was worse was the fact that the bus only seemed to run at a maximum of about 40MPH, which meant that we lurched along the VERY twisty roads, with a lovely view of the mountains, and an even better view of the very steep, terrifyingly dangerous-looking cliffs that rested about 6 inches away from the left side of the bus. ah, there is nothing like a slow view of your potential death.

after about 4 1/2 hours, we arrived in pai and called the guesthouse where we were supposed to be staying. it's a good thing we did, because the last time our guisebook was updated was 2002, and many things have changed since then. including the location of our guesthouse. the owner of the guesthouse, a charming frenchman named guy (pronounced ghee, of course, car il est francais, bien sur!) answered and immediately came to pick us up at the bus station. sweet action! he popped us in the back of his truck and drove us a little way out of town to his little restaurant/guesthouse, made up of three little rooms, which looked like condos, all facing the mountains. when we arrived, he told us if we didn't like it, we didn't have to stay. so sweet! of course by this point, i had decided that i would stay no matter what, since he was such a nice man. and i was right. the room was immaculate, with a great big double bed, a little porch, and a giant, beautiful bathroom with hot water AND a western toilet. we had hit the mother lode. guy then drew us multiple bike routes around town, and told us the best restaurants and bars to visit, and then drove us back into town, before recommending another place to eat lunch. guy is a god. oh, and also? guy has a great big giant yellow lab named either buster or wooster. allie likes dogs she can play with!

pai is basically a sweet little town that has hit it big with dirty hippie tourists. it's a quiet little place in the middle of a little valley, with a river running through, and is full of restaurants and bars and coffee shops and internet shops. but not yet in an offensive i-want-to-get-out-of-here-before-i-am-attacked-by-a-billion-germans kind of way. more like a central american i-think-i-could-maybe-stay-here-for-a-while-and-eat-delicious-thai-food-and-do-yoga-and-be-far-away-but-still-speak-english kind of way. we had lunch at a restaurant called na's, which was absolutely delish. i had pad see ew, and tim had some kind of curry and the grand total of the meal was $4 with drinks. HOORAY THAILAND! we walked around town for a while and bought some postcards and then went back to the guesthouse, where we took HOT showers of love! o, hot water, you are so underrated in life!

for dinner, we decided to go to la terrasse, guy's restaurant at the guesthouse. it was perhaps not our most inspired decision. guy and his wife swan had owned a restaurant in pai for years, which was highly recommended in our book. of course, the book, having not been updated in almost 4 years, did not know that guy and his wife split up and the wife sold the restaurant to an englishman with a burmese cook and guy started a new restaurant, la terrasse. anyway, we went over for dinner, and i was desperate for a croque monsieur, thinking that HOORAY! it was a french restaurant--they will know how to make one! first, they brought me an omelette. when i tried to explain what i wanted, the poor girl got all confused and kept pointing at the omelette. finally, she understood that it's a SANDWICH, and she went back to the kitchen. meanwhile, tim is chomping away happily on his steak, and i am getting crustier by the second. finally, they bring me a croque--an asian croque. which means a cheese toastie. it actually wasn't bad, but i was a little unimpressed. tim thinks the restaurant (and the guesthouse) has just opened and that's why they don't know how to make everything on the menu yet. all i know is that the english-owned-french-restaurant-with-the-burmese-cook in town was sounding pretty damn good.

the next morning, we decided we would be ACTIVE TRAVELERS and rent bikes to ride around. the whole trip, we have been wanting to rent bikes, and something has always happened (usually rain) to stop us. guy had given us two bike routes, and since tim didn't want to rent a motorbike, we decided on bikes. old-school raleighs instead of the shiny new mountain bikes for rent, because mountain bike rental man was nowhere to be found. so, off we went on our 20K journey to the hot springs and the canyon. no problem, said guy, it's very flat. GUY LIED. about a half mile into the trip, i was remembering that I HATE BIKES. about a mile in, i hated bikes, the people who made them, the freeks who ride them actively, and everyone who ever thought about riding one. oh, and tim, for not just renting a motorbike like everyone else in thailand. i had visions of us riding along, through the valley, laughing and stopping to look at the view. instead, it was me grunting and trying to get up the hills, and then stopping to yell at tim.

eventually, we reached the hot springs, which was about halfway. at this point, i was walking like a cowboy and sweating like a hog (no one ever said this trip was romantic). we stopped for a while and played with a little thai girl in the water (she was about 6 and was splashing around like a little fish). and then, i made my colossal mistake: i listened to tim. he said we could either go back the way we came, or keep going. then he spewed forth some math theory designed to confuse my liberal arts brain about how we would be going down more than up, blah blah. TIM LIED. we knew there was a big hill just after the hot springs, so we walked up that. then, there was some beautific downhill cruising, but then, when i was hoping we would just keep rolling on downhill...A GIANT HILL! i think maybe bigger than the first one. at this point, thai people in trucks are driving by and waving (and laughing?) at us and i am ready to throw the bike in front of a truck and get a ride back into town. i think i walked part way up the second hill, having grunted my way up the first one, and by the end of the second hill, divorce was calling my name.

finally, we got to pai canyon, which meant we could get off the stinking bikes and look at pretty things. of course, it's hard to look at pretty things when sweat is pouring down your brow and obscuring your vision, but ssh. tim offered to take a picture of me and was almost pushed into the canyon, and then it was time again to get on the bikes. fortunately, from this point, it WAS all downhill (at which point old hill was triumphant, despite the fact that his theory was completely flawed). we swept downhill, and rode through the quiet part of town (which was quite lovely) and finally made it back to pai. in pai, we ate at another guy-recommended restaurant baan banjaran. OHMYGOD. it almost made up for the hellish torture that was the bike ride. we had a banana leaf salad and beautiful crispy gourds and it was absolutely delicious. of course, it then meant we had to ride our bikes back through town in the darkness, but it was completely worth it.

that night, we slept (well) and in the morning, we got a bus back to chiang mai, and i was crippled for days. people, take note. i have now voluntarily arisen before sunrise and ridden a bike for 20K. do you know what this means? get ready, kids--the end is near!

sweet garlic love

by the time we left chiang mai, i was getting pretty fed up with thailand. sure, the food was great and the country was pretty, but where was the action? where was the adventure? where were the hundreds of people trying to thieve from us, giving us great blog entries? WHERE WERE THE ADORING FANS?

thus, at the chiang mai bus station, i was unimpressed. we booked our ticket to go to mae hong son (after some confusion--the woman pointed us in another direction, and when we started to walk over there, she called us back and booked the tickets), and then we went where the woman had pointed. tim tried to distract me from my extreme grumpiness by pointing to the newstand, with what looked like english magazines. standing in the newstand, glaring at the thai version of OK! magazine (who knew?), i was hating thailand. suddenly, the girl at the cashier called out to me and we started talking. she is a university student who speaks 7 languages. she works at the newstand to make money for school, and she eventually wants to travel the world. i LOVED her. i loved her so much that she is going to be my new pen pal! suddenly, thailand didn't seem so bad. there WERE nice people, hiding out in newstands, wanting to be my friend! i gave her my address and as i was walking away, she called out, 'allie! have a good trip!' oh, new friend, how i love you!

thus, i was in a pretty good mood as we tried to find our bus to mae hong son. it seemed we were in the wrong place, and we were eventually directed back to the original ticket counter, where the woman pointed us to a minivan. A MINIVAN. say goodbye to the good mood! we climbed into the back (after watching some poor tiny thai man try to strap our 5436284552-pound bags onto the roof) and prepared for a long ride. as it turns out, the ride was about 2 hours shorter than it should have been! our driver careened (hurtled?) around the twisty, curvy roads of the northern thai mountains so fast we could barely see the scenery. we stopped for a break halfway through, and tim bought some food at the local store. when he said thank you in thai to the salesman, the man gave him a thumbs up and said 'number one!' tim was so happy, he called himself 'number one' for days. (okay, weeks. he STILL calls himself number one. i am going to hunt down that cashier and kill him!)

finally, we arrived in mae hong son, another dusty old-west-looking town. the owner of our guesthouse pulled up in a black jeep to take us to the hotel and straight away, i knew i would like it. THERE WAS A DOG IN THE JEEP! hooray! babs, the german owner of sang tong huts, is a lovely woman who has been running the place for 12 years. her husband died a few years ago, and now her boyfriend runs it with her. unfortunately, the boyfriend speaks barely any english, so our first night there was...awkward. the way it works there is that you can sign up for dinner, and the cook, muk, makes dinner for everyone. you all sit together at the table, in the yurt, next to the fire, and eat. our first night, it was just the four of us. until babs started making conversation, it was a quiet meal. the good news is that muk is the best cook on earth. dear god, the food she made was amazing! of course, it didn't hurt that she included 4637825 pounds of garlic with everything, which pleased us immensely.

our hut had a very luxurious bathroom (without hot water, sadly), with a FLUSHING EUROPEAN TOILET! we had a nice porch with pillows to sit on, and a big bed with a giant mozzie net over it. yay! and, babs has 7 dogs, so there were always dogs to play with.

our first day was spent walking around town doing errands (email, booking flights, sorting out our aussie visas), and booking a tour of the local hilltribe villages for the next day. we found a restaurant called the salween river restaurant, run by an englishman named allen, which was just like cheers! it was full of expat locals, and there was some damn fine green curry (which, i am sorry to say, was my last green curry in thailand because i am officially overloaded on green curry).

our second day, we had to get up early and go into town to find a phone because it was thanksgiving! we managed to find a phone card after about 3 tries, but then, MOST INCONVIENTLY, all the international phones were broken! argh! we ended up calling my parents from the tour office, and having them call back. then, we went on the tour. i forget our guide's name, but he was a very sweet and gentle man who spoke excellent english (we had been told he barely spoke at all and to ask back at the office if we had questions). we rode in the back of a pickup again, to see some fish caves and then to a waterfall, and then to the villages. we snaked up and down the hills by the burmese border, and stopped first at mae aw, a chinese tea village, where we sampled the merchandise. then we went to a meo (hmong) village, nicknamed 'switzerland of thailand', which was lovely--on a lake, with little huts along the shoreline. then, we went to another village, which is made up of four tribes, and then back again. and then? DINNER AT THE HOTEL! finally, some more guests had arrived--2 more germans, and 2 hilarious chinese guys, who entertained us all night. we chowed down big style on muk's delicious garlicky feast, and asked the guys all about china. (if you go to china, go to beijing and then to tibet, they say. also, be prepared for china to kick ass at the olympics--the rest of us have no chance.)

after 3 nights in mae hong son, it was finally time to leave. waaaah! the town itself is not much, but the hotel was lovely and the food (if you haven't yet noticed) is delicious, and the surrounding area is gorgeous. and so, on we went to pai.

(sorry these posts are so boring...with no one around to try and cheat us, there is not much action in thailand--everything is easy! how repulsive!)

a mountain, an elephant, and a really cold river

man, am i behind on this thing! i am almost five posts behind--please forgive me! tim and i got the schmancy overnight bus to chiang mai from bangkok--it was almost as nice as the nice bus in singapore, but this time, we had a thai movie (subtract five points for non-english filmmaking) and a back massager (add three points for traveling in lumbar-assisted comfort). we got in early early morning, and at the time, i hoped maybe it was just the sleepiness or the darkness that made chiang mai so ugly. sadly, it was neither.

we got to our guesthouse, and miss pissamon, our hostess, immediately handed us the reviews of her treks and left us to sit for a while before she took us to our room. we took this to mean that we should book a trek. feeling rather hardy (or sleep-deprived) and unimpressed with the concrete-ness of chiang mai, we agreed. a three-day trek through the mountains it was. we then went immediately to bed. when we awoke, we wandered around town a little. it was still ugly. we tried to get some delicious falafel for lunch, but it was friday, duh. israelis don't work on friday. so we went to an english-owned establishment, bought some books and ate cheese and pickle sandwiches. hurrah! that night, we were off to the night market, which is a series of stalls selling just about everything. we wandered around a little bit, and then bought some things (maybe for you!) and then went home again. oh! and, on the way to the night market, we walked down this skankatron road full of cheesy bars with hookers inside. THE HOOKERS PROPOSITIONED TIM! WITH ME STANDING RIGHT THERE! i could not believe it. chiang mai was rapidly declining in my books. listen, ladies, don't try to seduce my husband when i am standing right there! at least distract me with some chocolate or something!

the trek took off at 9 am, which was not so bad. what was bad was that tim and i were the only english speakers on the trip, and we were all (12 people) crammed into the back of a pickup truck. me, tim and 10 germans. now, i am not normally such a fan of german tourists (call me racist, you already know it's true from the spanish tourist posts), so i was not too thrilled by this new event. tim speaks about 1.5 words of german (i can ask for a beer, which is odd since i don't drink beer) so it was us, sitting in silence while the germans chatted away. it was actually us, 3 swiss kids and 7 germans, to be precise.

we stopped at a market on the way and made a little small talk with a few of them, mostly with martin, this rad swiss kid who just finished uni, speaks perfect english, and is en route to japan for a year-long internship. we stopped for lunch a little further along, and then began to trek to a waterfall. up, up, up and then the waterfall, which was COLD. then, down, down, down, and back to the truck. we finally started the 'trek' at about 3 pm, and i think mr chan, our guide was in a rush, because we virtually sprinted up the side of the mountain and across and down, to get to our first hilltribe village, where we spent the night. finally, at the village, we started to befriend the germans. the two swiss girls, jasmin and claudia, started to talk to us, and two of the german girls, irina and bettina, also made some conversation. mr chan made us some delicious green curry and eventually built a fire, and we all made friends.

let me tell you about our deluxe accomodation for the trek: it was much like our deluxe longhouse accomodation (though this time, no one robbed us). we slept in wooden huts, side by side on the floor on mats that have probably been slept on by every western visitor in the north of thailand since 1950. we got some scabby blankets and no pillows, and the bathrooms were, of course, the fabulous squat toilet with a shower head beside. irina was terrified of the bathrooms, since she is an arachnophobe, and would regularly go to pee and come screaming out of the toilet because she had spotted a spider. it got to the point where the poor thing had to bring bettina in to pee with her.

the next day, we trekked some more, but went a little more slowly this time. the mountains were not far from the burmese border, and the views were spectacular. the pain in my behind from walking uphill for hours on end, not so much. tim and i spent most of the second day trek talking to irina and bettina about bettina's love for british film, and eventually, we reached the elephant camp. at the elephant camp, we decided to swim in the river, which meant that we would walk to the middle and then let the current carry us downstream. only at the end did i notice the giant pile of elephant dung next to the water. mmm, tasty. suddenly, it was elephant riding time! i almost fell off, because you have to step on its HEAD to get on, and i felt badly. but soon, we were both on board, and we were lurching down the river. our elephant had a baby girl who accompanied us on the trek, which meant that she mostly rolled around in the water, kicking up her baby white feet, and flopping around so that we could only see one eye, blinking up at us. let me tell you: riding an elephant in the water is ok, but going downhill is no fun! it requires some serious thigh muscles and no fear of death.

we got to the second hilltribe village after a couple of hours (tim was unimpressed by the elephant ride and swore it off forevermore), at which point i was exhausted (having been unable to sleep on the ancient mattress with the scabby blankets and crusty mosquito net). while we were having dinner, irina and bettina came shrieking into the cabin and ran out to the beds, from which they soon emerged with the news that tim and i had a virtual river of termites climbing up the wall next to our bed. we switched to sleeping next to them. we read our books for a while, and then ate dinner, and then i went into our 'bedroom' to read some more. after a while, i got bored and couldn't sleep, so i went out to the fire with everyone else. tim was chatting it up with our other guide, chai, who spends most of the treks poking people with sticks or yelling, 'SNAKE! SNAKE!' chai was some kind of hilarious, and a very sweet man. he used to be an elephant rider at the camp, where he earned the princely sum of $30 a month. now, he is working on his english and trying to be a proper trekking guide. we loved him. he took my book and tried to read to us, and then taught us some thai, all the while patting tim on the shoulder or the leg, and cracking up laughing. the interesting thing about thai men is that they are very affectionate with each other--more so than with women!

the next day, we woke up and it was time to raft. rafting meant that half of us would stand on one raft, which was composed of several planks of bamboo roped together, and raft down the river. the water was cold, and the currents weren't too bad, but of course, our boat (led by the mischevious chai) hit a big one halfway down and jasmin, tim and i all keeled over (we didn't fall in, but were wet from the waist down, and of course it was the one day that it was about 50 degrees). soon enough, we were back on the road to chiang mai. we stopped briefly at an orchid farm, and then we were back.

we went to dinner (we finally got our falafel and sweet tzaziki of love!), but even with our delicious middle eastern feast, i was depressed. as we were getting ready to go, a man came in with a thai woman. the man was geeky and nerdily dressed, and the thai woman was beautiful, and clearly, an escort. the man was desperately trying to entertain her (he even had a book of thai phrases) and she was totally unimpressed. it was so depressing. the poor man, having to go to thailand and hire a girl to go on a date! usually, i feel badly for the women, and loathe the men, but this time, i wanted to slap that girl silly and tell her to listen to him talk about dungeons and dragons! we had made plans to play snooker with chai at 7.30 (he is a snooker nut), but when we arrived (at a abandoned-looking building full of men smoking and playing snooker, with 5 policemen on the floor in the back playing cards), he wasn't there. tim played for an hour with a man named jee, and then we met the other kids from the trek for drinks. the germans were lovely kids, and i really liked them, but we had to get to bed early because i was making tim go to the elephant conservation center the next day--at 6.30!!

o man, the elephant conservation center was the best thing about chiang mai, and it's not even there! we got the 7.30 bus out of town, and 90 mins later, the bus pulled over to let us off. we got on the elephant bus with a little boy and his sister, who were ecstatic to be seeing the elephants, and it dropped us near the baby cages. there were two babies at the center, and we got to feed them and their mothers. feeding them basically means you hand them a banana, which they either suck with their trunks, or curl around in their trunks and then flip into their mouths. it was great. then we saw the show, in which about 20 elephants demonstrate how they worked in the jungle, and play music, and paint pictures, and raise and lower the flag and all kinds of other human-taught tricks. they even bow to the audience. they all seemed very well cared for, and man, were they smart. I WANT AN ELEPHANT!!

blah bangkok

so it turns out, for all the hoopla about bangkok, it's a lot like the other cities we've seen on this trip. not too dirty, not too clean, lots of people, great transportation system (in part of the city, anyway). we didn't see any prostitutes or dirty thai massage shops or ANYTHING. man, what a disappointment!

we decided that we would be decidedly unmotivated in our room at the marriott. o, what sweet action was our room at the marriott! the hotel was beautiful and it had about 372138 restaurants, and our room was very big and had a nice tub and NO ROACHES or anything. and, even, a western toilet (you come to appreciate the little things here). our first day, we had breakfast at the hotel and then took the hotel boat to the other side of the river, where we got the skytrain to the emporium shopping center. that's right, i voluntarily went shopping. not because i wanted to buy things, but because i wanted to be around bright and shiny things, and BOOKS! so many books, and not even photocopied!! i spent a lot of time in the bookshop fondling a variety of tomes, until tim dragged me away (after he made out with the math books. nerd.). then, we went to see a MOVIE! in a real movie theater! in english! with candy! we saw flight plan, which was mediocre, but the experience was long-awaited. then, we went to dinner at an indian restaurant (somewhat disappointing after our banana leaf love and the gorgeousness in saigon), and then we went to bed. yay.

the next day, we decided to be motivated. so we went to breakfast, and then came back to the room where i promptly fell back asleep. oops. when i finally awoke, we ended up going into town to the grand palace, which was just like disneyland but more crowded and garish. after fighting our way through, we escaped and walked down the road to wat po. outside the wall to wat po, a man intercepted me. where was i trying to go? he asked. i pointed to the wall, and he told me it was closed. he then began a very animated explanation of where we should go instead, drawing in our book and jumping all around. suddenly, his friend came around the corner on a tuk-tuk. 'he will take you!' the man cried. oh no he won't, tim said. as we were walking away, the man shook his fist in fury at us!

of course, the stinking wat was totally open, and very lovely. it was much quieter than disney palace, and much less flashy. we walked around, past the kids playing soccer, and the other tourists and the funeral, and then went in to see the giant reclining buddha. it was a big buddha, i'll tell you what. and, on the way in, the guard gave me an apple! so nice! THAI PEOPLE LOVE ME!

after the wat, we decided to walk to khao san road to find this place that supposedly has the best massaman curry in thailand. of course, we got lost. so we ended up walking in circles around a neighborhood with no english signs, snarling at each other until we ended up in the right place. the massaman was GOOD, but we ended up screwing up our whole schedule. we had planned to eat early and then run over to the train station, get our tickets for the train to chiang mai, and then get back to the hotel in time for the loy krathong (i think) festival on the river. it took about17 hours to get to the train station, and when we got there, the A/C private cabins were all taken, so all they had left were top bunks in a 40-bunk room with fan. um, no. i'm paranoid enough about people stealing my crap on a train with 4 people in a room--no need to multiply it by 10!

so, back into a taxi and back to the hotel. except the traffic. was. not. moving. at. all. it took us almost an hour to get back to the hotel, when it should have taken maybe 15 minutes. at one point, we sat at a red light for literally FIVE MINUTES while the light just sat there, mocking me. our taxi driver was so annoyed he got out of the car to see what was going on! we finally got to the hotel, 75 mins. after the festival was supposed to start, and we went to the bar (even i needed a drink at that point). what we saw of the festival was nice--families going down to the river with ornate little floral decorations with candles in them, to ask for good luck in the new year and forgiveness of all their sins. the river was all full of shining little lotus baskets--very pretty. then, FIREWORKS AGAIN! from our porch, we could see them perfectly, and they was good. real good. my mother called soon after that, and then i decided to take a bath (note to self: don't try to get into a slippery bathtub while holding a newspaper). needless to say, i wiped out. the good news? i have a WICKED bruise on my right leg which takes up almost all of my thigh (which is saying a LOT, as most of you know).

the next day, lazy again. we checked out of our room at the last possible minute (i blame it on the fact that i was hobbling around on the bruise-thigh) and went to the shopping arcade for lunch. mcdonald's! mcdonald's in thailand has CHILLI SAUCE for french fries! it is even better than sweet and sour! then, back to the boat to go see jim thompson's house. jim thompson was one of the masterminds behind the thai silk empire, until he vanished in the 1960's, leaving behind a tremendous house filled with beautiful antiques and paintings. it was tremendous: a beautiful garden, all different little buildings, and wide teak floors. very pretty. the design students among you would have approved.

and then, it was hot. so? we went to see ANOTHER MOVIE! we saw proof, with tim's much loathed gwyneth paltrow. we both liked it, even tim, and agreed it is her best work. it was really very good--if you haven't seen it, i would recommend it. and then, we got some sushi for dinner at another shopping center, and then skytrained it back to the hotel in time for our night bus to chiang mai.

one sad story about bangkok: our taxi drivers were very nice the whole time in the city, and the one to the bus station was no exception. the hotel told us we would have to pay the meter and then the toll on the expressway, which was fine with us, since the station was waaaaaay across town. on the expressway, the driver suddenly started asking for money. tim gave him exact change for the toll. then he started saying, 'big money, big money' and repeating over and over that he had no money as he asked for 200 baht. we pretended not to understand what he was saying, thinking we were being scammed AGAIN. he would start the whole routine, and we would say we didn't understand, and he would hit his head and try to explain better. cute, we thought, but we're too smart for you, pal. after all, we have been in asia almost THREE months. we're wise to your ways. when we got to the bus station, tim tried to pay him with a big note. the driver has no cash, he says. yeah, right, thinks tim. 'can i get change from over there?' tim asks, annoyed as all frig with this guy. 'yes! yes!' cries the man, thrilled that we have finally understood him. HE WANTED THE BIG MONEY SO HE WOULD HAVE CHANGE FOR US! we are such bastards. asia has made us suspicious of everyone--even nice taxi drivers! needless to say, he got a pretty nice tip. and we still feel guilty.

shaken, not stirred

after a few days in siem reap, tim and i realized it was time to investigate our onward travel plans. unfortunately for us, onward travel = broken down old cambodian bus, because flights to bangkok were $150 EACH!! (+ $25 airport fee, those dirty thieves!) so, we asked the boy at our guesthouse about the guesthouse bus to bangkok. the boy, lihoung (who will tell you his name is 'not your business' if you ask and then collapse into giggles) said he could get us seats on the bus for $12 each. is it a good bus, we asked? 'it's not a bad bus,' he answered. for those of you who may not know this, when a cambodian tells you the bus isn't good but isn't bad, this means that by western standards it is completely useless.

our third day at the temples, we ran into elena, from our trip up the mekong. elena is a sweet spanish girl who almost completely redeemed her fellow spanish travelers in my mind. almost. she was with two other young spaniards who had just come from bangkok. they proceeded to tell us the horror story of their journey (complete with photos!): they had a nice bus to the border, and then were ushered onto a pickup truck on the cambodian side, without even a roof (thai pickups have rooves when they are used for transport) for 17 HOURS. tim and i blanched at the news, and ran back to the guesthouse to find out if we would be taking a bus or a truck. we asked not your business' father. 'is it a truck? we heard people take trucks to siem reap sometimes,' we said. NYB's father squirmed uncomfortably and pointed to a picture of a modern-looking, fairly large, bus on the wall. 'no, this.' satisfied, we booked two tickets and prayed for the best.

the next morning, we sat in the guesthouse with not your business, and he and tim talked about soccer. again. our bus was about 15 minutes late, and we were teasing him about when it would come. 'there is no bus, is there? you are using our money to buy football DVDs!' NYB would laugh hysterically. then, a pickup truck pulled up outside. i pointed to it and said, 'it's the bus!' NYB laughed even more hysterically just as a man came up and said, 'the bus is here.'

THANK GOD the bus was around the corner. and it was a bus and not a truck (though it was a glorified minivan bus with very tiny seats, no A/C to speak of, and tim and i had to sit above the wheel, all crunched up). the A/C worked until we got out of siem reap, at which point tim and i noticed that the frenchman in front of us stank of ripened cheese. maybe camembert, maybe a really ripe brie.

but still, the roads were ok. UNTIL about an hour into the journey when we suddenly hit a dirt road. being the optimist (read: fool) i am, i thought the dirt road was only temporary. WRONG. we were on the dirt road for FIVE HOURS. now, let me describe for you the dirt road. imagine the worst dirt road you have ever seen. it is red and dusty and dirt flies everywhere when you drive down it. at the same time, the A/C in your vehicle is no longer working, so it becomes necessary to open your window, thus getting all the dust all over you. the driver of your bus is desperately trying to avoid the potholes (of which there are many), so he drives back and forth across the dirt road, hitting only 1 out of every 3. 1 out of 3 sounds like good odds, but it means you still hit a pothole every 30 seconds or so, and your bus has no shocks. for some of you, this analogy will work better: picture being inside a martini shaker for 5 straight hours. fun, right?

again, the redeeming trait of the journey was the people on the side of the road. being kind of a whore for the smiles, i eventually made tim move away from the window so i could meet and greet the kids along the road. as always in cambodia, the kids were thrilled to see the bus, and even more thrilled when people waved (or even smiled) at them. kids on the backs of trucks, kids walking down the street, kids biking home for lunch, and kids in the rice paddy waters along the road all jumping around, waving like lunatics and yelling 'haaaaallo!' and there i am, doing my best princess diana, caked in red dust and sweat with my hair in pigtails, waving and smiling until i thought my face would crack.

after about five hours on the road, i saw it, shining like a friggin' beacon: PAVEMENT! about an hour later, we got to the border, and we went through cambodian customs, and then thai. at the thai border, we saw the irish girls (whom we had never seen in siem reap, but whom elena told us were leaving the day before). they caught up with us just before we boarded the minivan to take us to the big bus to bangkok. we couldn't talk long, but we did manage to confirm mags' email and discover her mother had forgotten her 25th birthday.

we got on the minibus, where i sat next to matt, who taught in red hook in brooklyn before setting off to find himself. also on the bus were the welsh kids from our hotel in hoi an. we were deposited at a roadside cafe, and had been sitting around (waiting for the bus to arrive, we thought) for about an hour when one of the welsh kids asked where the bus was. turns out it was right there the whole time! the driver had let us sit for all that time because they thought we were buying things. so, on we went to the BEAUTIFUL 21st century bus with air conditioning and soft, squishy seats, on to a PAVED road with MULTIPLE LANES and REAL FLASHING LIGHTS!

we arrived in bangkok at about 10pm. the cost of a ticket to bangkok on a dodgy cambodian bus: $12. the time spent on the journey: 14 hours. damage done to our spinal column along the way: incalculable.

more, from angkor

after phnom penh, tim and i got a bus (the mekong express) to siem reap. we had heard various horror stories about the journey, but it was fine in the end--we got some weird cambodian pastries and the roads were good. we went through village after village of neon green rice paddies and wooden houses on stilts, all of which were very beautiful. we stopped halfway in a town, and we bought some bananas and some pineapple. while we were standing outside the bus eating the pineapple, a little boy came by, begging. i gave him two bananas. he gave me a radiant smile and ate them immediately. another boy came by. same routine, same response. kids in cambodia are hungry, man, and they like bananas. we ended up giving the first boy the remains of our pineapple as well, and on our way onto the bus, we gave some money to a landmine victim with a fake leg and a blind baby. i know we said we weren't going to give anyone any more money, but sometimes you have to make exceptions.

when we got to siem reap, i got off the bus and was immediately in a scrum of tuk-tuk drivers. no joke--about 30 men surrounded us and tried to take our bags to their tuk-tuks, and would only back off when the policemen with whistles and sticks kicked in. tim went with the guy with the sign for the guesthouse we wanted, and pissed a bunch of the rest off. there was room for us at the guesthouse, but our tuktuk driver seemed to think he would be driving us to angkor the next day. tim told him no and paid him for the ride. i think it's normal for you to go with the driver from the station, but we didn't know, which was great because we ended up going with theary, the guy from our guesthouse, who is the sweetest, most gentle man. he told us he was a tuktuk driver when we arrived, and the next morning, when we asked him to drive us, i have never seen anyone as happy. he was the best driver ever, as well, and we just loved him. if any of you go to siem reap, i will give you his number. he is the greatest!

tim and i loved siem reap. i think it was the best destination (apart from sa pa) on this entire trip. tim thinks so too. it was in siem reap that i fell in love with cambodia and with the children (who for me, were just as good as the temples). let me be clear: siem reap itself isn't too pretty--it's sort of like a town from the old west, with all one-story buildings and dusty roads. also, there are dozens of children and women and men with missing limbs begging in the streets. i have never seen poverty like that in my life. there are families who sleep on the sidewalk at night. on our block alone, we had a family of 4 (one mother, 3 kids) sleeping on a mat on the corner, and a man with a whole mossie net/mat setup right by the hotel.

the temples are amazing. easily the most tremendous thing i have ever seen (man-made, anyway). we started at angkor (in the scorching sun) which is simply spectacular. we climbed to the top and walked all around. it's hard to envision it being lost in the jungle, but once you see the other temples, it's easier to imagine. and it's perfectly clear why it is the cambodian national emblem. from there, we went on to the bayon, which is a pretty massive complex itself. the temple is full of 51 towers with 4 faces each. inside the temple, there is also a very aggressive little buddhist nun who grabbed us, thrust some incense in our hands, made us pray with her and then made us pay. it was kind of a neat experience, but she was surprisingly sassy. outside the temple, we were trying to get to the terrace of elephants when we were approached by a cambodian kid who just started directing us around and giving us information about the temples. it was good he came along when he did, but we knew we were going to have to pay in the end. he told us his story: his parents were killed by the khmer rouge and he had only his sister, who was killed by a landmine. now he is in school, living with his friend and the monks. he told us he was in his early 20's (i forget exactly), which means his parents would have died when cthe khmer rouge was fighting vietnam. but can you question it? no. at the end, he told us he couldn't go any further and asked us for thai baht. we didn't have any, so he told us he wanted $5 each. (he had taken us for about 15 mins and we were paying theary $10 a day). we gave him $6. that night, we went to watch the sunset with everyone else in siem reap. it was beautiful, but there were clouds which meant the sunset itself was obscured. oh, well.

we liked angkor so much that the second day we got up BEFORE SUNRISE (please, let me repeat: TIM AND I WERE AWAKE, VOLUNTARILY, BEFORE THE SUN) to watch it rise over angkor. it took ages, but i think it was worth it in the end. afterwards, we had breakfast nearby, which was uneventful except for the fact that I TOUCHED A DOG! hooray! after 2 months of dog-free life, a dog loved me and jumped in my lap. and he didn't even chew on me! yay for the dog love!

after that, we decided to have theary take us to the faraway temple and a waterfall in the jungle, about 35k from town. this was the best day ever. the ride to the waterfall was amazing--so many kids and parents along the road, waving and smiling at us. and the scenery was stunning. i have never seen green like that in my life. tim and i took about 4394372 pictures before we figured out how to get them right, but we still have some good ones. the waterfall was at the end of a half-hour hike through the jungle, and was so pristine and quiet. a polish woman was there and she told us to walk along the river to see the carvings, so we did. when we got to the top of the waterfall, there was a man there who started pointing them out to us. he showed us vishnu, and the 1000 linga, and a frog and all kinds of carvings we never would have seen on our own. when he was done, we expected him to ask for money, but he didn't. tim gave him $2 and he was very pleased. it turns out he works there, so he probably shouldn't have shown us around, but thank goodness he did! and he was one of the first people we saw who asked for nothing. bless him.

then we went to banteay srei, the faraway temple. i think this one was my favorite. it looks like a big pile of bricks from a distance, but when you get up close, it has the most ornate carvings i have ever seen! after that, theary took us back to town for lunch. the next day, we went to see the smaller temples, and ta phrom. ta phrom is where tomb raider was filmed (which means nothing to me because i never saw it), and the whole complex is covered with giant trees and their roots. it's pretty amazing, and it's the place where you get the best idea of how these places could have been hidden in the jungle for so long.

the temples were completely magnificent, but i think the thing which has stuck with me most about cambodia is the people. from the boy at our guesthouse, who befriended tim over football talk (who goes to private school and is fluent in english) to the kids begging on the street, to theary, the people were just beautiful. we stopped giving the kids money in siem reap and started giving them bananas and pencils, which worked for the most part (it worked best at the temples, when the kids selling stuff would be so pleased to get a present that they would just beam at us).

we had one ugly altercation with some local kids who wanted more than we were going to give them, and it ended up with one girl following us around town telling me "f*ck you, f*ck your mother, f*ck your father, f*ck your dog". she was angry because we had bought baby formula for some of the kids with babies and we were going to buy her fruit. she wanted shoes instead. but there was another day when tim gave me some money and he went to do a photo cd. i ended up using most of the money for food for kids. there was one beautiful little girl with a baby named mom (the girl's name was ray-something) and i bought her some formula and a giant orange, and she was just so happy. of course, once people saw me with her, they all wanted something, so i ended up buying some other kids some food, and then giving some money to a man with one leg and a woman with a baby in leg splints. but again, they were so grateful, as most of the people were. just for a friggin' banana.

it's hard to say how i feel about cambodia. i think the best way i can explain it is that it stole my heart and broke it at the same time. the country is enormously beautiful, but you can't really explore it because of the landmines. the people seem to have survived the khmer rouge and are trying to look ahead, but the poverty is still pretty devastating. and it's a nation of paradox--you see lexus SUVs all over the place, and then you have a family sleeping on the curb. one night, tim had a man with stumps for arms following him down the street, whacking him with his arms. another night, we saw a little girl no older than 2, carrying around an infant. the country used to have one of the greatest kingdoms in the world, and now it's been reduced to poverty and landmines and the simple survival of the khmer rouge. it's awful, and so sad, and yet the people are so beautiful that you just have to believe if they have gotten this far, they will keep on going.

death is everywhere, or, people suck part II

tim and i awoke totally exhausted in phnom penh, but tim made me get up anyway and go get breakfast (which we thought was included in the room price). two slices of toast and an orange juice later, i was fed and ready to go. WAIT! breakfast ISN'T included in the room price, and we owe $28! crap.

we decided to begin our trip to cambodia on a happy note--by visiting the tuol sleng museum, otherwise known as S-21 prison, otherwise known as the genocide museum. most of you know that between 1975 and 1979, pol pot and the khmer rouge took over cambodia in an attempt to create an entirely agrarian society, by beginning again in "year zero". (if you know all this already, move ahead.) in their attempts, they managed to kill off 2 MILLION cambodians (let me repeat that again: 2 MILLION, or two maines, or a brooklyn, or some other equally horrifying number) in a variety of hideous ways: shooting them, beating them with bamboo sticks or spades, or shooting them, or, in the most shocking of all, bashing children and babies against trees so as not to waste precious bullets.

back to tuol sleng. it is widely known that there are two must-see memorials in phnom penh: the tuol sleng museum and the killing fields (where 3,000 people were killed and left in mass graves). we decided to start with the prison. S-21 is where 20,000 cambodians were imprisoned (according to our guide) and only 7 survived. they were kept in tiny cells, with shackles on their ankles. most of the cells had no light, and they had no toilet facilities. the prison, which had been a high school before the evacuation of phnom penh, also had a gallows (formerly for gymnastics) and a bunch of mass graves in the back. the whole place was pretty horrific--we began with the graves of the last 15 prisoners to be killed there, moved on to the cells where the 15 people were found (with pictures to commemorate their gruesome deaths, which i shall not go into here), went on to a section with the photos of the khmer soldiers/cooks/guards who worked there, and then photo after photo of the prisoners, who most certainly all died. from there, we saw the cells, and then moved on to a section devoted to the history of the khmer rouge. our guide was a lady in her mid-50's, and in the last section, she pointed to a map of cambodia which had the routes by which everyone left phnom penh. completely expressionless, she showed us the route that her family used to flee the city. her little sister (5 years old) died somewhere outside of phnom penh. then, in their first destination (near the vietnamese border), her 6-month old baby and father died of starvation. then, one brother and an uncle died at their second destination. another brother and his wife were killed at the killing fields. her husband, a pilot, was beaten to death with bamboo, she told us as she pointed to a painting depicting the same act. she was the only one to survive. she was sent to the rice fields, and, being mid-to-upper class, she had no farming skills, and she had to work very hard just to survive.

these stories are everywhere in cambodia. if you ask practically anyone over about 30, they will tell you this story first hand. if you ask younger people, they will tell you these stories about their grandparents, parents, sisters, brothers. it's impossible to even contemplate.

in the museum, we ran into the irish girls from the bus. we walked back through the museum without our guide, and talked to elinor and catriona. then, we watched a movie about a cambodian couple who was separated and then killed by the khmer rouge. exhausted, overwhelmed and depressed, tim and catriona and i went across the street to a lovely cafe for lunch. the other two joined us, and we spent a lovely 3 hours in the cafe, out of the rain, talking about things that had nothing to do with genocide (like katie holmes and tom cruise: who are they kidding?). we had some beautiful sandwiches and bored tim out of his mind with girl talk. then, we went back to their hostel to see if we could book a bus to the killing fields for the next day. no. so, tim and i walked across town, back to our hotel in the dark. phnom penh is an interesting city--very modern and clean, but at night it seemed a lot more sinister. we stopped for some "dinner" (from a gas station--hooray for processed food!) and then bought some oranges (to counteract the pringles) and went home to sleep.

except i couldn't sleep. i stayed awake most of the night thinking about all those poor people and what even the survivors have been through. (tim, of course slept like a baby--insensitive creep!) and then, the next day, it was on to the killing fields! we got a taxi from the hotel, and as soon as we were out of the car, we were mobbed by children "lady, want picture? 1, 2, 3, smile!" we told them maybe when we got back, and we went in. despite the fact that so many people were slaughtered there, the killing fields are remarkably peaceful and serene, and even beautiful. they are out in the middle of green rice paddies, with flowers and trees and an inordinate number of butterflies. as you walk in, you are faced with a giant tower. as you get closer, you realize the tower is full of skulls. from the mass graves. row upon row of skulls. and as you walk around the grounds, you pass signs that say things like "mass grave. 1,576 bodies" next to a remarkably small hole. most of the butterflies are around the mass graves, which seems appropriate.

of course, there was drama at the killing fields. we were approached by a bunch of kids inside "1,2,3 smile!" and i said i would take their picture, knowing they would want money. so, i took the picture and then tim tried to give them the money. suddenly, another 5 kids appear and tim is surrounded. he tried to give the money to the head girl, but another (unbelievably cute) kid snatched it and ran away. cue the group tears. the first group of kids start wailing and telling us that they are so poor and the other kids don't go to school and they need money. so we gave them more money. it was at that point that we decided not to give anyone any more money in cambodia.

after the killing fields, we had our driver take us to the wat phnom, which was where we saw our first landmine victims (men with no arms or legs, sitting on the stairs to the wat, begging). the wat was nice, and then we had our driver take us to the national museum. upon arrival at the museum, we were immediately surrounded by a bunch more landmine victims selling books, but we went down the street to the friends cafe, which is an NGO supporting street kids in phnom penh. after lunch and visiting the store, we went to the museum, which was very lovely indeed. the best part is the garden in the middle, which is full of monks (smoking! am i wrong, or should monks not smoke?!) and other tourists. on our way out, we ran into the irish girls again. mags had just been to the palace, but she couldn't get all the way in because someone was visiting. it was the thai king, we told her-- our taxi driver told us! we said goodbye to the girls and went to the palace ourselves.

by the time we got there, we couldn't get in at all, but it was obvious there was some kind of state visit. we took some pictures of the palace (and of an elephant in the street!) and then got a tuk-tuk home to the hotel. in the tuk-tuk, our driver kept asking if the president was paying for our room at the intercontinental. no, crazy man...but suddenly, when we got to the intercontinental and went to the newly established metal detector, it became clear. the president (not the king) was staying in OUR HOTEL! now, just so you know, this is the second time we have stayed in the same hotel as important heads of state--a dutch prince was in our hotel in hanoi. anyway, we have now realized that it must have been the thai PM, because there is no thai president, but that's beside the point. the point is that we went to dinner in the hotel restaurant (tim was to grumpy to go anywhere else) and THE SECRET SERVICE WAS THERE! yes, we dined with the thai secret service, and despite the fact that i kept saying 'there's nothing i wouldn't do for the thai president', they didn't even shoot me. (of course, there isn't a thai president, so they probably just thought i was on leave from the hospital.)

also, it was cambodian independence day, so there were FIREWORKS! i love me some fireworks, and since we were on the 9th floor, we got to see it all from our window. it was some kind of fancy, let me tell you. it almost distracted me from all the death we had been seeing. almost.