Beach Storm

Lone boat with approaching storm, Ko Phi Phi island, Thailand
Originally uploaded by .Anton

A storm just caught us sitting under a make shift internet hut on the beach. The cold Singha will have to wait because when it rains, it really rains.

Phi Phi has been a return to a younger than Koh Lak and more party lusting crowd. Also I met a lady who I think I could be if I were not so prissy. We went diving with this gnarly looking, freckled all over, wiry Ozzy woman who talks like a dike and splits her time teaching skiing and mounteneering. Sadly I can't ski. I do hope that if I end up weathered and cowgirl-esque in a decade or so to carry it with such grace.

The beach here is littered with wonderful bars spilling out their big pillows onto the sand, stoners singing soul music, Thai ladies giving massages right on the beach for 300 bhat and long tail boats showing up every night with the freshest fish. I do love Thailand.

More on Beach Chairs

I have in the past spoken about the amazing phenomena that is German vacationing behaviour, best observed in Mallorca or along the Adriatic coast lines. Here, in Koah Lak, Thailand, I was able to see the finest, proudest and most blatant display of this vacationing trademark. The fucking towels on the fucking beach chairs at 6 am. Why?



We arrived in a parent friendly and us friendly resort north of Phuket when there was not a soul in sight. Sun chairs littered the abandoned beaches, speedos were a rare sight, soft boiled eggs stayed behind at the breakfast buffet. Then the Germans came. A lot of them. And some Finns too. And I do think they deserve their soft boiled eggs piled high on their breakfast plates and I will not deny a man his right to choose a white or yellow speedo of the "banana hammock" cut and style but the beach chairs. Puhleeeeaaase. One morning, shortly after the towel cart opened, fancy and I were strolling along the lovely, sandy, white beach (so much better than the beach chairs!) being happy campers when it occurred to me to take a rest and sit on one of those fabled chairs after all. Not a soul was in sight and so I figured what I nice moment to gaze out upon the ocean and be luxurious. Except there was not a beach chair available. Oh yes, there are about forty of them lined up throughout the resort, in little coves and hidden under palm trees, but upon careful inspection I realized there was not one that did not have a carefully placed towel on top of it. We walked by a row of forty beach chairs, all toweled down with the same purple hotel beach towel. The owners were still piling soft boiled eggs onto breakfast plates and were not to be seen. How I wonder do they know which one is theirs? Who I wonder had to get up early and strategically place these? Is it the youngest child? The eldest? What I wondered would happen if I moved one?


I saw, without having to lift a finger, the anger this imprudent action would inspire. A few hours later, a white speedoed, bulldog faced fat bellied German family man (mini bulldog in a blue speedo watching intently) was directing some Thai guys to carry beach chairs clear across the resort in order to replace one that apparently had been stolen from him. It was not my doing. Yet watching him command these poor guys around I lost my taste to try to trick the Germans. You can't beat them, you have to join them?

Or you can just sit in the lush white sand and drink mojitos. I think I can! Pictures to follow.

Today is the four year anniversary of the tsunami and people in the resort have put down postcards and flowers for the people who died in the area (5000!). To think that the turquoise bay could part and send huge waves into our bungalows is hard to imagine. I guess it's always luck to be at the right place at the right time or not to be there.

No Longer Idle

27/365 Idleness gets the job done
Originally uploaded by Christiane B

The time has come to admit that in the previous months I had come close to having to state my occupation as being housewifery. Upon our arrival in SIN city any illusion of independence had been crushed along with that little bit of self-worth that comes with the ability to be independent. When I say independent I mean that before I moved here I was able to get myself a cell phone at my leasure, I was able to sign a lease, I was even able to open a bank account. Not in SIN city, at least not on a dependent pass. And that is what I was: a dependent. Someone who had to call her Cuban fancy to sign for her to get a phone and someone who could not even dream of applying for a credit card in her very own name. And lets be honest, asking a Cuban for help in anything money or credit related is obviously pretty much forbidden by law in most countries.

Well, the only reason I can admit to this gut wrenching situation is that it has now been remedied. As of a few days ago I am proud holder of an employment visa by a company that only narrowly escaped being named "Little Me Incorporated". Either way, I convinced my company to hire myself and turns out I was very convincing and now I am free again. I might just go out and buy myself something useless, just because I won't have to call fancy to sign for me. Yay!

Worth a Visit

P1090897
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

This is how much fun you could have. If you come visit us. Or come live here.

Apparently Air Asia is going to start flights from London to KL in March and from KL its only one awful long bus journey or one little puddle jumper hop on an aeroplane to us in Singapore.

So what are you waiting for?

Lack of Clarity

I had almost forgotten my password that's how long its been. You see, the thing is I am somehow in this state of suspense which makes it a bit difficult to say anything, anything at all, lest I be jinxing myself or contradicting my very strongly held opinion of today by early tomorrow.

The time spent swimming a few laps in the tropical downpour is about the only moment of clarity I have in a day. In the meantime I am scrambling to make some money while the money lasts. On one hand the world bank should be flooded with requests for projects right about now, making me a very rich woman on the other hand I fear soon there will be nobody to shell out the cash needed. Other than maybe Saudi Arabia but only if they get their super oil tanker back.

Then there is the big question of holy shit, will I go to grad school next year? Do I have the brain power to get some applications out and oh, is that a good idea or a rash and silly one? This weekend I have my debut as a children's photographer, which might plunge me back into the obsessive wishing to make a living as an "artiste" momentum or maybe not.

SIN city and its tales of chicken-rice and expat sluts does merit its own post. Soon. Very soon.

Shanghai

Old and New Shanghai
Originally uploaded by Christiane B

Hurrah! And no storm in sight.

You gotta sleep when you gotta sleep

Mid Day Break
Originally uploaded by Christiane B

I don't know how and what and why but I am running in circles like a mad rabbit. Need to start with the mid day naps.

In the meantime, fancy and I are double eloping so to speak. He is running us away somewhere for the weekend in honor of our ship wreckage one year ago. I just don't know where we are going and so far this is the only surprise he has been able to keep from me (duh, obviously as far as I know) .

My money is on Shanghai. Or maybe Tokyo. What do you think?

Asian Trust?

When we moved yonder east, fancy and I took the opportunity to finally get a joint bank account because that is what one does. Apparently it shows one's commitment and the general we are in this mess together-ness.

However, apparently Asian families don't dig being controlled by their significant other because upon finally checking my bank balance yesterday I realized that I could only see 2X worth of transactions, however my bank account has been reduced by something more around the value of 67X. Funny. Where did all that money go. Before accusing them of theft I realized, well, yes, half the transactions from IKEA are not on there I know that I left what feels like millions at IKEA (despite the fact that everything is so damn cheap! How does that happen?), so I knew something was wrong.

It turns out anything fancy purchases I cannot see on my statement and vice versa. It would have been funnier if he, as an Asian man, could see what I spent but I could not see what he spent. My favorite would be however if the total balance would only reflect my purchases, thus giving me the illusion of a double salary and only half the expenditures. Sadly this is not the case.

Do all joint bank accounts hide this stuff from you or is it just a testament to Asian family trust?

Voyerism

From the exact spot where I spend most of my days, the upper corner of the wood dining room table, I can observe two other people's lives, which by the way seem just as varied as mine.

Bare chested man across the parking lot hovers in a seated position by the window. I only see the pillows he leans against. Hopefully the glass is reasonably solid. Maybe he is a home-working professional or else he counts his drug money all day long. Then to my right, in very close proximity, is expat lady as I call her. I think she is English or maybe Australian and she spends most her days outside the scope of my prying eyes, but in the afternoons she flops herself onto some balcony chairs, adjusts her bathing suit to minimize tan lines and then gets up every two seconds to take care of something inside the house, only to come back out a minute later. She then readjusts her bathing suit and pretends to relax again.

I kind of want to meet my new friends. I hope they think I am either a lady preparing for her evening cooking show, a PhD student researching sexual abnormalities in primates or an astronaut.

The World Out There

Today I am taking my laptop and I am leaving Parc Emily, yessssir.

In the confines of kitchen (imported cafe Bustello), pool (Do I need to say more) and balcony (View of sleazy men carrying heavy things) I have everything to make the day go by.

Better even, wearing a beach sarong counts as being dressed, taking a break can include a nap and the snack selection is decent, but lacking are the hilarious things that happen when OTHER human beings actually interact with you, like not on the intenet. Maybe they will spill coffee all over you or cut you off at the light or maybe they will even swear at you when you spill coffee on them. I can't wait! Starbucks here I come.

Academia or Art

It's 7 am, the residents across the pool are sitting outside in their wicker chairs drinking sweet tea with milk or whatever it is that Singaporeans treat themselves to for rising early and I am trying to get in a little review of polynomials before work.

Will wait with the cat but will charge ahead with project "Just Do It" or as my friend just quoted her friend saying "Fucking Just Do It". The way I see it there are two options: Academia or Art. Thankfully they are not mutually exclusive and I might even believe that doing badly at one might increase my chances with the other. So with three weeks to the application deadlines for PhD programs in Singapore I finally got enough adrenaline going to decided to go for it. This is precisely the perfect time span that I can go into and remain in overdrive. I have had too much time to think and ponder for the past five years and as a result I have been to many pretty islands and have had many pretty wine induced conversations about finding my passion, but I have not done a whole lot.

Thankfully there are exactly two universities in Singapore worth applying to, so I am spared the pondering of 15 backup choices vs. reach schools and so on. A bit silly not to go to grad school in either the US or Europe you might say, especially given that those are the best schools and incidentally I have lived most my life in either place. Yes indeed, but what to do? The positive part is that it makes the process easy: either I get in and I accept or I don't. Filling out fun electronic forms, chasing down profs from almost a decade back and google-ing up some research ideas is not difficult. Difficult is trying to get a date to take the GMAT or GRE within the next three weeks in a part of the world where everyone is currently trying to get into grad school it appears and then not freaking out about well, having to take the test which means preparing for the test while working full time.

So the next three weeks, until November 11th, it is all about academia. After that it will be all about art. 11/11 is the magic day. I am shortlisting models (mentally) from the people I have met here so far and sharpening my photo lenses and come 2009 I should be well on my way towards academia or art. Or both.

How many islands...?

There is something inherently difficult for me to commit to one place, one thing. I think it's all about having options and as many as possible. The thought of shutting the door on anything at all seems ludicrous. As I result I may have adopted a bit of a short term mentality when it comes to life. The same way I would choose my classes in college never to commence before 10:30 am no matter how brilliant the subject matter, I also make sure nothing I commit to now ties me down for more than a year. Fancy is portable so that part luckily works out.

This strategy has worked out fine and dandy until now, but I am starting to feel that this attachment phobia is making me miss out. Some things seem to demand giving up the "off I go at the drop of a hat" mentality but they also promise something more than transient happiness.

I like where I am at in life in terms of achievements and my career but not too much. And that is the point. Liking it too much would have meant a lot of investment and thus maybe, God forbid, a reluctance to up and leave. If our past trip has taught me one thing it is that man do I love sitting on the beach, but if it has taught me two things, then the second one is that shit, these things always end, invariably washing you onto shore somewhere. You are a bit more broke, a bit more tan and in dire need to take a liking to your daily life because else there is not all that much to look forward to other than the next trip.

Most options that offer the possibility of maybe liking life in one single place involve either more school or some serious entrepreneurial effort that might have to stretch over more than one year and sure as hell will ruin some perfectly good vacation opportunities. It frightens me but I think it might be time to consider those options. At the moment the idea of housing a cat is cramping my style because what if I want to go to KL for a week to work from there, just because, and then to Brunei for a weekend, I mean holy crap, my life would be positively bogged down if I did not have the knowledge that I can do those things. Now imagine giving a shit about the work I do and I might and up sitting somewhere holed up with my cat too busy and possibly too involved with something to think about how many Indonesian islands one could hit on one season.

La Casa

Picture fancy peeking out behind IKEA boxes somewhere on the 7th floor around a bay window, while I am perched on our 4th floor friend's doorstep stealing the wireless.

So far working from home has been made interesting by construction workers flooding, then fixing, then breaking, then re-fixing our apartment. All day I am busy giving home-making kinds of orders to men in dirty overalls. It's exciting. So is the discovery of a Starbucks next door and our Belgium neighbor who boasts both wireless and a seeming endless supply of bubbly water along with an intense hatred of the Dutch to which he makes only one exception. ECONOMISTA has been incorporated and now all I need is a frilly art school or the courage to carry my impressively heavy Porsche camera around in this heat in order to get my fix of feeling creative.

I didn't want to....

...but I could not keep it in any longer.

Most everybody has already voiced their shock/horror/exhileration at the appointment of Ms Palin as vice presidential candidate, read: presidential candiate. Let me share with you why I am horrified, and actually, finally, really worried about the future of the good old US of A.

I don't agree with most everything McCain seems to have chosen to represent for the upcoming election, starting from his proposed immigration policy and ending with his sanctitiy of life/pro life views. However, I do not think McCain is completely unqualified for the job. I don't want him to get the job, but I don't equate McCain with the end of the America as we know it.

Palin as president makes me quiver. A redneck, backwoods lady with extensive PTA experience and a slight knack for abusing her power even on a small level packaged in a charming mother of four (with a fabulous hairdo?), a grandmother to be who believes it a good idea to re-institute prayer in schools, an avid abstinance teacher (see the part on being a grandmother) and a creationist. The kind of creationist nevertheless who likes to shove her views down other peoples throats.

My very personal and very subjectibve view is that she is a person who I judge to be unable due to her own tightly held world views to understand anybody else's point of view. A person who completely lacks any, call it cosmopolitan, ability to relate to the rest of the world on how they view the mess we have created. She IS America and she stands and defends the mess we have created. I think America needs now more than ever somebody who has both the experience to confront and play hardball with leaders of some countries (you know who you are) whose hardassed leader will not be impressed by her PTA credentials, extensive foreign policy experience and the ability to also employ some diplomacy when needed. No bulldog. Not even with lipstick. What we need is somebody with some experience, now that I think about it, sort of like Joe Biden, realistically probably the most qualified person to be president. Too bad that as soon as he entered the picture Obama stopped grabbing the headlines and now it's Palin, Palin, Palin. And I am doing it too.

America is already loosing ground on the rights that were won forty years ago. Do we really want to go back to the good old days of coat hangers and butcher knieves. Does it really seem like a good time and place to mix state and religion? Yikes, I am starting to think Obama HAS to win. Or else.

I'd be moving to Canada....

Lets talk about Cindy

Biggest liability? His wife

Best demonstration of his lack of judgement? His wife

Avoiding responsibility/not doing "the right thing"/family values in the gutter/bad Christian? Leaving his ex wife

Why are the demos playing fair all of a sudden? Cindy McCain has enormous potential. 

...and I am back

53/365 transport for London
Originally uploaded by Christiane B

London transport is still shit and people still call 16C weather summer but I am gorging myself on non-curry foods and cheap wine. Best of all is the feeling of fitting in completely. Nobody is looking at me, I don't have the feeling that I am representing anything other than myself. Even in Singapore I am something, either a tourist or an expat, but here I am nothing. I am just like the other free metro-grabbing, Costa-coffee chugging girls rushing around town.

In Quadruples

Death it appears does not come alone. 

A few weeks ago my grandfather passed away after a short but painful bout with cancer. Next a friend's father, then a friend and colleague of the newly acquired husband and now, probably most shocking, the sister of another friend. I feel like I am standing on the sidelines helpless as some of the people I love the most struggle to come to terms with what they know is best in some cases and what they know is not in others. Those are the moments when I wish I was not so far away.

Condo Heaven Condo Hell

Arriving at the fancy Changi airport, making my way down the fancy escalator to the fancy immigration desk where the pretty regular, non-fancy sweets await the eager visitor I did feel a strange sense of deja-vu. Fifteen years is a long time though and somehow the past few days were spent quite differently from last time. 

No moping around huge marble floor condo with giant swimming pool and maid bringing a parade of moon cakes home to make friends with the bratty daughter of her employer. Nope. It's me condo shopping (after a none-moping swim in the pool and stealing moon cakes from the lobby of our current residence) and I am about to throw all caution to the wind and sign up for a tiny place that is nothing special, does not even have the otherwise customary 50m lap pool or a gym, simply because it has the biggest roof terrace in history. Else I blow our yet to be earned income on an ugly as hell condo park that resembles a glorified Harlem block except for the price tag. Brand new it is with a view of all of Singapore from the 22nd floor and best of all, the whole thing is pretty much a water park. If you can overlook the industrial feel, you are spoilt for tropical, lounging and exercise pool choices and as the real estate lady assured me, I will be the envy of all my friends. Super. Does she know who she is talking to? Oh and the whole thing is built around the old US ambassador's mansion which is now the function room. Ha, functions?

I am sorry, this is boring and I am indecisive. Why can't I have the roof garden with the water park and then maybe a more central location close to the cute and uncharacteristically atmospheric Kampung Glam area where there are Jazz cafes and Turkish eateries in old Chinese houses with the pretty Chinese lanterns I so adore?

Expectations

With four days to go until we have to shed our dirty backpacker skins I am starting to dread having to give a thought to anything that does not involve transport, food and fun. From what I recall there are other things one does have to worry about (haircuts? paying rent?) or maybe one worries about those unnecessarily. I shall find out. 

I am having a hard time not wanting to write up to do lists that would scare the besus out of me. God knows there have been a million issues involving every public and private institution in three countries that we have been blissfully ignoring, unable to get our heart rate up enough to create the kind of care or concern that would possibly induce action. 

What does get my heart rate up however is the thought of how our lives will be once in Singapore, or really, lets be honest, what my life will look like. 

First off, fancy and I will be separated. I don't think him and I have not been sitting directly next to each other for more than maybe four hours (and that is an outlier) in the past three months. I like to think myself an independent person, but I have gotten awfully used to backing every major step (buy green or red dolphin sarong?) with a nod from him. I got used to wasting endless hours sitting by the ocean sipping mango drinks, reading the exact same books, meeting the exact same people, listening to all the same conversations, spending an identical day so that we are pretty much the same person. 

So lets presume I can manage to survive all on my own without developing phobias or anxiety attacks and manage to make my very own decisions about breakfast choices, the next big issue is, what do I do with the rest of the day? I am torn between two conflicting visions of my free-lance Singapore life. 

After spending an amazing day on the beach or on a boat, filled with nothing but happy endorphins I envisions this amazing life of mine as follows: getting up, going for a swim in our luxurious condo (haha! real estate prices are not quite there yet!), making myself that mango lassi, working at home during the noon heat, meeting some lunching lady for well, lunch, with a glass of chilled chardonnay, working a bit more, going for a swim in the afternoon and soon enough the weekend will roll around when we will go to Thailand or Indonesia or Malaysia for beach fun.  On the side I will dapple in photography, building up an impressive fashion-y portfolio that will then make the first part of the day redundant - the work bit, not the mango bit. 

On less optimistic days I wonder why on earth I thought it would be a good idea to move to a city where I know nobody except possibly the girl I was mean to when I lived there during 9th grade (and her two baby sons cause yay I love babies), in order to work at home, give up any contact with colleagues and clients except the odd instance when I will fly out to meet the team in some obscure location in the Middle East, give up any motivation to further my career via being stimulated by being around other people, only to spend weekends on a tropical island that lacks even a decent beach and boasts cocktail prices about the same level as London. 

Which one will it be?

Euphorically 'Narked"

I have finally reached the point where diving is more fun than terrifying and where I am more relaxed and enjoying the underwater waddle than in constant readiness to spring into a panic. Diving IS relaxing but all the tubes flowing around me, the swishing sound of breathing bottled air, the thought of those vital tubes disconnecting or me running out of air or being left behind or last but not least the possibility of an underwater creatures dragging me down into their dark holes has kept my heart rate up until now. 

Yesterday fancy and I completed our advanced open water dive course and in the process I got to love all the things I had anticipated with a bit of fearful dread: deep dives and night dives. Maybe nitrogen narcosis is real at 30m but in any case, I felt completely at ease maybe even a mild bit euphoric as we slowly make our way past colorful fishies gently hanging out sideways in the current and even the thought of encountering shark, in my book a dreaded event but somehow hailed by most divers as the ultimate goal of a dive, no longer freaked me out. And the evil suckers stayed away. Hallelujah. 

I felt so fabulous about the whole thing that I singed up to do it five more times over the next week. Yes, we really did abandon the whole travel thing and decided to stay our last two weeks in one single place, vacationing. The idea of making it to the Andaman side of Thailand has been abandoned due to reports of bad weather but mostly due to our unwillingness to pack and shoulder our bags again. It's pretty perfect right here. 

Full Mooners

She done dancing and she is DONE dancing and dancing done her. 

A little pre-dancing snorkel had done in her sinuses which she then numbed with some chuck a buck whisky bucket, which held her over to admire the highlights of the full moon party: 18 year olds everywhere, 18 year old humping in the water, 18 year olds being dragged out of the water where they passed out while vomiting, 18 year olds climbing up scaffolding that hosted the various sound stages, 18 year olds as far as the eye could see. 

The party was fabulous and grand but if you are not 18 and if you have traveled alone before or lived in Miami or if you have stayed out all night before (like, totally all night without like a curfew) or if you have been to beach parties before, then maybe there is that little part of you that says, this was cool but no, I won't be telling my grandchildren all about it. And actually that is a nice feeling:  this one is now happy to relax on the beach and she won't be crying for more and more and more dancing for a little while.  

The fabulous side effect of our last crazy bash was that now we are friends with everyone from our little island (Koh Tao) who took the boat with us to and from the party - the return journey at 5am deafening affair of Puff Daddy and Madonna. 

Most everyone also took a souvenir back home from Koh Phangan: some guys a black eye, someone a gash on their arm, me and fancy a cold and then there are the numerous multi day hangovers to cure. Now we are sitting first row beach side during the day, commiserating about the toughness of life and at night wander down along the beach visiting the various establishments that offer fire shows and candle lit beach dinners. 

Tomorrow the diving will begin. 

She Will Dance

Full Moon Party, Thailand
Originally uploaded by Brendan H

The past three months I have been living the tragic life of a a Broadway musical lead character. She scrubs the floors, she smiles and bows at her evil step sisters, she works day and night for a fat mean uncle who tries to seduce her, and all that because she always wanted to be a dancer. However, her path is littered with obstacles, reasons why she cannot dance, things she must overcome and disappointments she must learn to accept gracefully.

Maybe a slight exaggeration you say? Hardly. Until now there have been many obstacles cutting short my dancing career.

Sometimes there is no dancing because there is no electricity. Sometimes there is no dancing because there are no people. Sometimes there is no dancing because her beloved husband is nursing a peg leg.
Sometimes there is no dancing because there are curfews, strikes or blackouts.
Sometimes there is no dancing because she showed up too early or too late or not at all.
Sometimes there is no dancing because she is too tired to dance.
Other times there is a little bit of dancing but she still goes home wanting to dance more.

But as the 11th hour nears, she will dance like she has never danced before. She will be danced into the ground by many a pill popping nineteen year old, she will be tired and she will be cursing the dancing, but there will be sand, people, electricity and there will be music. All night. Every night.

Full Moon Party August 2008. Here we come.

No, I will not post a picture of my fists...

"Whatever keeps my skin the purest white" is the slogan of the wealthy woman in Thailand. Luxurious lily whiteness much like the Mom in "Little House on the Prairie" preaches is still all the rage. I suppose with most of the population living in the country side, working manual jobs and with urbanization a relatively new phenomena, whiteness is power, whiteness is luxury, whiteness means you have AC. I am searching the pharmacies in vain for some face cream that does not also have a bleaching agent. People, why do you think I sit and suffer in the scorching sun for? Maybe I should be grateful for the reminder that a leather face is not attractive ever. So given our next permanent residency's proximity to the equator, maybe I should lap up the spf 50+.

As you can tell, our hard core travel has ended and now we are on vacation. We sleep till noon, we plan lunch while we eat breakfast, we shop for fake Rolexes, we nap, we drink, we observe big white guys getting it on with petite Thai girls. We rest a lot. And we are not the only ones.

Sleeping unashamedly in public is a very sanctioned activity in general. This includes sleeping on your desk at work even while visible through the all glass store front from the street, it includes sleeping in a brand new Mercedes in the show room, even if visible from the street, it includes sleeping on the sidewalk on top of all your "same, same, but different" t-shirts you are trying to sell. Sleeping is always ok. As long as it is in the shade. See above.
The city of angels has once again created a wholesomely happy existence for us with none of the perversions and skankiness that we had hoped for readily coming our way. So, thank you Defender74RAB for your creepy request via flickr which I'll ignore but only after sharing it with the world.  Watch yo'self:

Truck Stuck Mud

DSC12130 - Sawngthaew truck stuck in mud (Laos)
Originally uploaded by loupiote (Old Skool)

If you type "truck, stuck, mud" into flickr, the first shots that come up are all from Laos and there is a reason why!

Today we saw a new variation of the truck stuck mud phenomena. Our optimistically named VIP vehicle called King Bus came to a screetching halt about three hours into the journey behind a line of other vehicles which I am estimating represent about half of all vehicles driving around in Laos. In other words, maybe about 15. It turns out we had a double attraction. A giant truck carrying a bulldozer got stuck, which pushed a minivan to try to pass said truck, in turn also getting stuck, balancing near the drop off that begins about 2 feet away from the road and leads down into the rainforest. Nobody was hurt but the clusterfuck of the van and truck were blocking the entire mud bath road. Always clever, the driver of the truck decided to drive the brand spankign new bulldozer off a make shift ramp off his truck to lighten the load. It did not appear that he had ever done such a thing and a took a good hour for him to lift the shovels, play with the engine and work up the courage to go ahead with the plan. With some effort he managed to plunge the bulldozer off the truck, manuever the vehicle through the lake of mud past the truck, attached his own truck and pulled himself out of the mud. In the meantime about 20 people had managed to get the minibus unstuck by vigorously shaking it and simultaniously pushing it away from the drop off that it was hanging out on and within two hours we were back on our merry way to Vang Vien.

I was upset that unlike the way one would expect it in India no little lady had set up a sandwich or curry stand to capitalize off the gauking crowds, tourists and locals alike.

Minus some AC drip in the latter part of the ride and having the dubious honor to sit bitch in the last row on what is known to be a motion sickness inducing road, we have no complaints or accidents to report.

Vang Vien is rich in so called "happy" shakes, "happy" pizzas (and no they don't mean extra pineapple) and other "poppy seed" infused items. Given my big plan for tubing tomorrow I may have to pass. Girl's got to get her priorities straight and I hear Laon jails aren't so hot, or rather they are pretty hot but not so well equipped with food and things like that.

Afternoon Near Death Experience

So, today we decided to set off for some waterfall action and thus we made our way down the main street of Luang Prubang to find the suitable rickshaw driver to take us. He was promptly located and we started off on the 30km drive into the country side. As we were rolling away we were talking about why don't we take rickshaws all the way to Vang Vien, 150km away, a drive that will take another nine hours due to random stoppage and other inexplicable events. After the drive both of us also admitted also thinking in private just how shit it would be to get into an accident with a vehicle like that regardless how fast and freeing the travel may be. Maybe hindsight is always 20:20 or maybe the driver was more crap than the average, leaning hard into the turns and swerving all over the road, giving us a good intuitive idea of what was to come.

Sure enough, 25km into the drive we came upon a vehicle parked on the side of the road. We came a bit closer, and a bit closer, as someone on the back of a glorified pickup one would and we did pay attention to the road and both kept staring at that parked truck coming closer and closer. As we got just to that point where one is close enough to start thinking about swerving out off the way, I saw the driver drop a tissue out of the window of his little cabin and I thought to myself, oh that is littering, bohoo! Three split seconds I had a whole different dilemma on my mind. There was still this pickup truck parked on the road and we were getting closer, definitely now having arrived at the moment where now one has to crank the wheel hard to avoid a nice little crash, an unnerving situation as a passenger. Does the driver dude really not see this truck? It turns out, he does not. He must still be hanging out the window blowing snot or littering or who knows, because we keep going, going, going, straight for it, all of a sudden it's not longer, holy shit, we are getting too close, it's fucking hell, we are crashing right into it and there is nothing we can do in our little metal cage to prevent it. There are bars stopping me from flying straight off the truck and there are bars holding up a rain cover in the middle of the truck and shit, which ones do I hold on to first?

As we slam into the truck, there is that scary second where I think we are going to slip and flip and then the driver wakes up and manuevers us into a ditch, thankfully without a drop off into any major abyss. We come to a halt. A giant piece of metal had come loose from the truck that we hit and cut up the entire side where newly acquired husband is sitting, slicing the seat he was on in half, without cutting him. He too apparently opted to hold on to the middle rail as had I. I only have a mark on my arm where I must have slammed into the railing and newly acquired husband is miraculaously completely uninjured, but both of us and mostly the driver are a mess. Not that anything happened, it's more the realization of how close we came to flipping over and flying out of a truck in a rural, poor, isolated country that has not a single medical facility up to snuff and just how fast fun and games and adventures can turn into a medical disaster. God knows we have ridden on a multitude of unsafe, overloaded vehicles cruising into night and fog without lights or seat belts to comfort one and it has been fun all the way.

With slightly shaky legs we were climbed into a new tuck tuck already loaded high with tourists which drove us to the amazing waterfalls where we wallowed in icy floods slightly shell shocked at how closely we diverted disaster. Our tuck tuck man deserted back to the city to bemoan his scratched and dented up vehicle.

We just had one more beer Laos and booked ourselves on a bus ride to Vang Vien on a VIP bus in hopes that that somehow means an increase in the safety precautions. Funny how it only takes a little jolt to remind one of one's own mortality.

Euro Snobbery

I realize how Americanized I have become when I get angry at the Euro snobbery that in principle I too am guilty of. There is this attitude in Europe, especially the old west (Germany, France, Spain, Italy...) that somehow the European system is a bit superior to the American one. After all, everyone has health care and we are not some money and power hungry capitalist system, letting it's weakest members rot in the gutter while bombing the shit out of the rest of the world.

Of course it is the same people who like to come visit America, bitch about the shitty system, American superficiality and stupidity and lack of worldliness (is it true only 5% of Americans have passport? Is it true Americans can't even find Americn on a map?) but then are too cheap to tip their non-healh insured waiter who has never had the privilege of travel or study abroad while they are trying to split a bill of four coca colas (with endless refills) that allowed them to sit in some cafe for hours thus depriving the creature they pity so much of his income. Apparently it is the Euro view that the state is somehow responsible for taking care of people and they often refuse to take any individual action.

Traveling, there are a lot of beer induced discussions with other travelers about the world system and how things are here and there and everywhere. Interestingly it is usually those nice middle class European kids, who have nice parents, who bough them nice little cars, helped them pay the rent and those who at the age of 28 have never worked a day in their life while studying social sciences and philosophy who complain about the US. If they ever held a job then it's to supplement their drinking or travel budget but at the same time they seem to think that this luxury life of theirs should and could be available to everyone. Sure, that would be nice but they are missing the point: The reason they can have what they have is that other people work for nothing, the reason they can take their nice vacations is because other people are poor. I am not saying that is right or good, but it is hypocrisy to believe one above all that just because one is a socialist at heart. It's the same person who won't pay 1 dollar to that rickshaw guy and who will haggle over 2 cents when buying snacks from the market lady who believes himself or herself a bleeding heart liberal.

Also there is usually an American kid at the table who at 13 or 14 has been put to work in his pop's friend's restaurant or truck rental and not to get himself a boost to his allowance, but in order to pay rent for the family house. This kid is exactly the uninsured poor bastard who did not go to college or enjoy any of the Euro perks. However, he already got street wise, knows how to negotiate with the locals, can communicate even with the language barrier, smiles while crammed into a small overheated minibus with 30 other smelly people and knows to survive on bread and rice without complaining. Also this person has by the age of 20 figured out some business, usually very blue collar and unsexy that involves getting your hands dirty that allows him to travel in his own dime, and surely in 10 years from now that kid will be a huge success while us Euro snobs will still debate the merits of socialism and how unfair the wold is to the poor while we order another cocktail in a poor rural country with the money that the strong Euro and daddy's bank account afforded us.

Maybe we won't. Maybe the Euro snobbery will end soon as there is less and less money to divide up between more and more people who feel entitled to it without pulling their own weight. And of course not everyone in Europe grows up rich, by no means, but more often than not it's the true poverty and scrappyness of those poor uninsured American (and of course also European, Asian etc) bastards that gets them motivated and ultimately successful, uncomplaining of their lot, but instead getting ahead and out of their situation while not loosing their ability to live cheaply and show consideration towards other people who are struggling.

So maybe this middle class Euro snob has learned to appreciate at least one aspect of American culture: the ability to take responsibility of one's own life and the knowledge that life will not be served up on a silver platter. Do I think everyone should enjoy a happy life with free health care and education and throw in some vacations for good measure? I do, I do, but do I think that is in the cards? No. So maybe the greatest thing to learn is not to rely on some ever present nanny state but instead get busy helping more people help themselves instead of propagating that things should be free.

Maybe I am getting excited to get back to work and actually DO something again, not just talk about it. That said, there are some reasons why I am thinking the new freelance situation I had worked out may turn out not to be the golden opportunity I had anticipated but for now I will stick with it. Well, actually for now I am still lazing the day away in pretty Luang Prabang with some river tubing and waterfalling on the agenda for the next few days.

Dien Bien Phu and into the Wild

Last Friday we made our way to Dien Bien Phu, where most notably the French lost Vietnam before the Americans tried a few decades later with the same results. It's a beautiful little town in the hills and rain forest where we promptly got stuck for a day because of our usual lack of planning. We had intended to take a taxi to the border to Laos and then maybe hitch a ride from there. Thankfully we were not able to negotiate the taxi price down enough for our liking which really was a blessing because it turns out there is nothing near that border and even catching a ride with a moto or a truck would have been an unlikely scenario. Instead we wondered around town in our new colorful plastic bag ponchos (the monsoon has really started now) in search of mosquito spray. I have learned that one can buy anything and everything is SE Asia, but the only items to bring from home are a) malarone b) mosquito spray and c) a device to purify water that does not give you silver cloride poisoning.

In the end we found our mosquito spray and booked ourselves a seat on a mini bus that is really more of a cargo truck that was due to leave at 5:30 am the next morning.

In the pouring rain in pitch black country side darkness we hiked to the bus station to be met by the angriest man in Vietnamese history. He ripped up our ticket, threw them on the counter, yelled and stomped around, finally pretty much dragging me onto the bus my my hair and shoving me onto some rice bags that had been piled near and far onto the seats, the floor, the roof and were hanging out the windows. All of this because we were five minutes late. I have never truly appreciated just how much cargo can fit into a minibus and how into physical abuse rural non-gentlemen can be. We were 25 people or so, perching with our knees slung over our shoulders or by our chins on anything and everything large and poky that one might want to transport. Five minutes into the ride, the angry man stopped the bus and we took a one hour break. This pattern set the tone for the rest of the trip. Extreme excitement, shoving, driving off in a hurry and then stopping, sometimes for hours for no discernable reason.

We found our non beaten trek alright. Against the advice we had received in Hanoi, one can cross the border at Dien Bien Phu without getting a prior Laos visa. In my case getting that visa ahead of time was a bit of a mistake because I got it in my German passport because that is cheaper, however I had traveled on my American passport in Vietnam and the border guards did not look kindly upon that situation and tried to convince me to buy a new visa for 37 USD which is what it costs to get the visa at the border. Thankfully the angry bus driver decided to take what turned into a four hour break for a nap at the border and that was enough time to convince the border guys to let me through.

We had picked up a few other felangs (gringos around here) on the way and now our cargo truck machine turned into a party bus - everyone trying to make the best out of the crammed, delayed affair. In the end it took us 12 hours to move a full 88 km. But what fun we had. The countryside is spectacular and the roads are spectacular rivers. More than once did the bus begin to lean dangerously towards the drop off that separated us from the jungly basin below and as the locals started scurrying off the bus, so did we, watching in awe as our overloaded machine balanced along the abyss. Trucks stuck in the mud had to be pushed and pulled out on numerous occasions to let us pass and by the time we arrived in Muang Kua we had made good friends with the now 8 man strong Spanish, British and American posse. Everyone on this group ironically had tried to get away from the masses only to find each other and accordingly everyone was fun, adventurous and took the debacles in good humor.

The last stop on our way to a cold Beer Laos was a precarious river crossing in motorboat that had to go full power upstream to deliver us to our landing point straight across. A small hike along the muddy river bank and we descended up a bamboo latter and voila, clean little huts and cold drinks abound.

Sometimes the best part of traveling really is the travel. I did't see any reason to stay in Muang Kua for very long, but just getting there got us an amazing view of the northern Laos country side, transport system and people. Also we learned to never ever ever set off without a bag full of goodies because it turns out there is nothing, absolutely nothing in terms of a town or a stand or a hut out there in the boonies. At 9:45 the electricity was cut and after some candle light salsa lessons by the Spanish couple we called it quits, killed a few spiders in our hut and went to bed.

The next morning we failed in our negotiation with a boating man to take us down river to Luang Prabang, so we all piled back in a bus, which to everyone's large surprise sort of kept driving most of the time without any four hours stops and the driver seemed to be in very good humor, blasting some awesome Laos pop on repeat. And here we are: back in the land of chocolate croissants and paved roads.

This is how we roll

This is how we roll
Originally uploaded by Christiane B

Over the past two months I have noticed just how wide the beaten path around SE Asia really is. It's a paved highway packed with gap years, summer tourists, pensioners and midlife crisis folks (just like us? Just when does a quarter life crisis turn half life?) trudging contently between Phnom Penh's "breezy balconies" to Battambang's "creamiest shake shop" and onto Saigon's authentic northern Italian corner shop run by the friendly Mr. Z, learning worlds like "local brew" before their hello's and thank you's. It is done by clutching tightly their yellow SE Asia on a shoestring Lonely Planet guide if they are long timers; short timers hold individual LP books having granted one single county enough visiting credit to warrant an entire vacation.

The by-product is that those breezy cafes "meant to linger" or oddly even the "best linoleum covered" hotels with a "backpacker vibe" are always packed while their neighbors with the identical breeze and linoleum stay empty. With many travelers virtually living by "the bible" every time you stumble upon a bible recommended haunt, even if by accident, you see people you first met on a different continent two months earlier. That's actually quite nice. It is also laughable what cattle we are, us independent travelers, too cool for the package tours, we created our own that spans entire continents.

I have been composing a letter to Lonely Planet in my head for a while and it's quit difficult to figure out what to say. It is not so much LP's doing, but rather what people make of it that creates this wide wide beaten path. Ten years ago I did not notice the ghettorization of so called independent travelers. Maybe I was younger and more in need to guidance or maybe there were less LP toting tourists with most students sticking to Paris and Rome for their semester abroad and older people being more of a Frommer's crowd. Now if LP speaks of a quite cave, 2 years after the edition went to print, there is an internet cafe, a hostel , cold beer and a scooter stand where there once was a quiet cave. That is a huge impact of a few written words. The local economy is rallying around the Lonely Planet, creating a right and a wrong way of traveling. The right way to "do"Angkor Wat for example is to rent a rickshaw guy who you will pay 12 dollars for the day. This is what is says in the bible and thus you will not get a ride for cheaper and the thought of doing a half day confuses the rickshaw guy and well, while you may be asked to pay more, in the end, everyone let you negotiate the price back down to 12 dollars. That is the law. Everyone knows that.

The right way to "do" Halong Bay is to go to Hanoi, check into an independent hostel and there book an independent tour which puts you on a boat with every other independent traveler. As we found out, anything else is not sanctioned. It took a nudge and some Vietnamese flash cards from our hotel owner to get a taxi driver to take us to the bus stop in Hanoi, a bribe to the bus driver to Haiphong to take us there and finally a stick figure drawing of a boat and us on it and a nice optitian and his pregnant wife to convince a cabbie in Haiphong to take us to the ferry, where we more or less easily got ourselves a ticket to Cat Ba. There clearly is a gentlemen agreement in effect to protect the local tour agencies, who as we found out are all owned by the same few guys who own the boats.

So we did go alone in the end and it was not difficult just time consuming. I have to admit - the tour would have been better: same price, less time wasted, better food (better than bus stop meat on a bun that is), more time looking out on the bay but the price of course is your independence. You cannot choose when to eat, when to swim, when to sleep, when to pick your nose in peace. So with plenty of time for nose picking we rented a motorcycle and lived out our freedom by cruising around Cat Ba island before, you guessed it, we had to join a tour for a few hours in order to get to see the actual bay area.

So what would my advice to Lonely Plant be. It's hard to give constructive advice because the LP really is a great resource. There is a reason why it's in everyone's backpack. And despite my annoyance at being that wide path cattle I have not thrown it off the highly recommended slow boat on the Mekong Riverbecause I love the quick history and cultural background lessons, I love that it promotes ethical and as much as that is possible sustainable tourism. It is full of valuable advice on medical things, on scams to avoid, on border crossings, cities that boast ATMs and those that don't. I would not want to miss that.

So maybe the answer is to make the path even wider. One option would be to eliminate specific recommendations of anything. Simple pointers and maps where to find bus stations, train stations and cross streets with cheap hotels or restaurants. Maybe in order to force people to choose their own path and find their own unique experience, it could be the setup of a scavenger hunt: Go to the local market located here and talk to three local people in sign language and by pointing and drawing; find out three great things to do in that city, do one of them, then ask other locals for their favorite food, make them write it down for you, go to the river/beach/food part of town and try to find that dish. And so it goes.

Else, maybe recommendations can be made less glowing. It IS nice to have a specific name of a hotel when you arrive in a town at 3 am, tired with your luggage and an upset stomach. Maybe recommendation can be only names and directions without the beautiful adjectives. I am personally very susceptible to a recommendation that sounds like a scene out of a novel involving fruity beverages, breeze, music, specific mention of just how wonderful and cool it is, how authentic the lighting and how one really would miss out by missing out, let alone not experience the "wow, where did the time go" sentiment that the writer himself experienced. Pathetically maybe we do all like to be told what to do, including when and how to loose track of time.

Going Rogue in 'Nam

That's right. So really, now bad can malaria be?

I am turning into a pink sow out of nowhere, a blotchy one at that. Apparently the malaria meds I am on, doxycycline, decided after two weeks of being uncomplicated, to act up and demand attention. Through last night's tinted bus window I have received enough sun to acquired the skin color so prominantly displayed on Spanish beaches once the Welsh and the Germans go on their first holiday of the year. I am essentially glow in the dark and I don't like it. We have been giving the big M the finger all through India and Nepal but had every intention on being responsible citizen through Cambodia, Laos and thus by default also Vietnam but responsibility has just come to an end. There is much resistence in the area against Lariam and Malarone, whose $800 price tag so deterred us in London, is unavailable in the region. Go figure. Where are knock off meds when you need them?

I COULD totally sit in my little hotel room, watch American TV, eat those wonderful baguettes with cheese and ask to be put into self imposed purdah, being transported around in a nice black box carried on newly aquired husband's back, BUT instead we are going to Halong Bay tomorrow to climb and beach ourselves and guess what, the doxycycline has to go. Don't tell my Mom.

Also, who wants to have condomed up teenage sex? On vacation? I mean that is why I got married in the first place. Right?

Bejewled Pigs and Tigers

double hats, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

This is the second day in a row that I am sitting in my hotel room using wireless internet. Vietnam rocks. Also, I have a SIT DOWN toilet complete with a seat and a lid in the bathroom, I have a shower that is contained in it's own boundaries and does not spill into the whole abode, I have clean sheets, yes, they are white, they are starched, I have pillows and I cannot see the moldy, nasty matress and there are no cigarette butts nor gum, nor insects, nor grime stains in my room. In fact the floor is not made out of bumpy half concrete, half dirt, instead we are looking at white tiles, we have electricity at all times, we even have AC! AND hot water which really we only need because we have AC. It is a perk of the sweaty hole in the ground hotel room that does not have AC that also makes it redundant to have a hot shower because that is the last thing you want.

It's amazing. And already the second time in a row.

Cruising north from Saigon we made blissful contact with an ocean and a beach hut in Mui Ne, where beach strolls and big waves are the major attractions. I would once again have ended the trip right there, confirming what I already know: we are beach bums and no glorified temple tours or museum trip will hide that truth.

Further north, Hoi An was quaint, peaceful and beautiful, there our main preoccupation shifted from strolling and bathing to strolling and eating: A gorgeous small town full of old architecture and restaurants by a river walk, complete with Chinese lanterns and humble fishing rigs.

Today we continued on to Hue where it seems everything is named something something DMZ although the DMZ is rather empty these days. Everyone is playing old Vietnam era tunes such as sweet home alabama and a lot of creedence clearwater revival. Our lives are pretty much filled with the Forest Gump sound track.

And to make things too good to be true: Vietnam is getting prettier as we go north. Furthermore, upon our recent evaluations, the backpacker scene has changed too. No more cheese cloth pants and nasty attitudes, more smiles, more Danes, less pretentiousness, more tans: generally speaking SE Asia attracts the happy crowd.

Surely everyone takes a vacation to get away from it all but around here people seem to have a place to go back to; they don't seem such unhappy souls marching along as if on their way to jail, viewing their vacation as punishment and just maybe that is why they don't seem like such a stingy, nasty bunch and we make friends at last. Maybe people in Vietnam are better at disguising their dislike at the stomping herds of tourists which just maybe makes the stomping herds kinder and easier to like.

And on a final note, don't think I am trashing India. India in my humble opinion is complex; India is amazing. Amazing in every way: the good, the bad, the ugly. SE Asia is wonderful, it's kind, it's gently, it's polite, it has a dark past, it could maybe be dangerous but it's contained and it's not prissy. One is a holy bejewled pig, the other a graceful tiger. You know just because you like tigers does not mean you don't love bacon too.

Saigon on Crack

Looking Back, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

Vietnam is Cambodia on crack. Traffic is a clusterfuck of motor scooters. Red lights seem like starting blocks for a 100 man deep field in a marathon race. It's daunting to be in the intersection when Saigon turns green and wizzes by.

Nobody we had met so far seemed very enthusiastic about Vietnam. It was sort of the Luxemburg of the region, people did not tell you not to go, but the place got a lot of shrugs and then conversation turned back to the Krabi's of the world. Saigon is not a tourist trap but a booming city, slam packed with extremely cute and curious kids who all sport American accents including when they pronounce the world Vietnam. I love it. Also sugary drinks are abound and tomorrow we will head to the old war era tunnels that were used to hide out in and smuggle arms to Cambodia back in the good old days of American carpet bombings.

A lot of older American gentlemen in pairs (not couples) in spiffy sunglasses and Nikes are running around the place as well trying to converse in Vietnamese with the shoe polishers who try desperately to convince them to get their sneakers polished for the third time before breakfast. War vets I am assuming.

Oh and do I love pho with beef or pho with chicken or pho with duck and do I love baguettes with everything under the sun but mostly bacon on them? Yes, I do!

Tonight holds a special treat: A Vietnamese country cover band. I am hoping for Johnny Cash interpretations.

Torture Prison - Tuol Sleng

Torture Prison - Tuol Sleng, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

Amazingly now I understand what everyone arond me said when the Berlin wall fell: what it would change the world. As a matter of fact, so much has changed that it took me a good while to even remember and piece together the geopolitical strategies that used to dominate this region and that have helped create the amazing cockup of the Kemer Rouge revolution.

The UN supported the Kemer Rouge's seat in its midst until 1990. The somewhat legitimate and certainly less murderous, yet Vietnam backed, government was shoved aside from the 1979 invasion until that date. Even until now there is no closure, there are no trials and only slowly are details of personal misfortunes coming to light. All in all there are 2 million corpses and relatives of those victims are still living in the same villages as the perpetrators while the former glorious kingdom that brought us Angkor Wat is returned to the Stone Age. A population decimated and missing the brightest and most educated in its ranks, a country that is collectively suffering from PTSD and mistrust. A country that is slam packed with phat SUVs driven by NGO workers, UN personal and the kids of those guys who bought their way back into power, who once in a blue moon seem to take fancy to crashing those vehicles into ancient ruins. The foreign correspondence is jam packed with NGO ladies drinking lychee martinis and guys in polo shirts trying to give the impression they were the ones who shot some cutting edge footage back in 1978. All this in a country that brought us Angkor Wat a thousand years ago. Corruption is the name of the game and there is a tension oozing out from under the laughs that are used to cover up anything from shame to a feeling of having gotten caught to general unhappiness. It seems the giggles, the unexplicible giggles that followed us from a hotel concierge not understanding to the rickshaw man overcharging to the prison guard in the Kemer Rouge video re-telling how he used to club prisoners but never, ever was the one cutting their throats. There is a denial as powerful as I have ever seen it, a smile the way to cover any feeling that is not a smile.

Coming from a country with a history that is generous to those craving a feeling of guilt and equally generous to the printing of text books, novels and biographies retelling and working through the horrors of the holocaust, I am perplexed at the complete absence of remorse and guilt let alone reconciliation and punishment of perpetrators of the Kemer Rouge years. The only people in the museums and holding virgil next to the killing fields are foreigners. Land mine victims linger in the parking lot to milk a bit of our guilt, but other than that, no Cambodian in sight.

Happy Campers

Boating Lady, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

We have been having some fabulous days. We left Siam Reap on a river boat for a small town called Battambang yesterday. We sat on the sunny roof on all our luggage along with a mix of Spanish engineers and a brigade of Dutch girls for eight hours as the little boat slowly crept up the river through small fishing towns, which are really bamboo huts on stilts right in the river. Lots of expert canoe ladies rowed on up to sell things or collect husbands off the boat and kids, naked and unashamedly so, were jumping into the water from their little "houses". It felt just like a vacation should. In the end I had built myself a tent out of the various scarf purchases and was sincerely understanding the usefulness of a nice burka, albeit maybe in white. It was hot! And we loved it.

Today, in an attempt to recreate my new favorite dish, Amok, we took a Cambodian cooking class. The class included a trip the market - nothing for weak stomachs. We watched a fish loose his or her life life on a bloody wood chopping board and a variety of people poking their finger in some chunks of beef selecting the most tender parts before fondling salad leafs, handling money, shaking hands...no washing hands involved.

As we were chopping our lemongrass leaves, grinding curry garlic ginger pastes and chugging Angkor beer in the heat I overheard a group of 30-something Americans on a table in the restaurant discuss their travels and their dreams, as one does. It suddenly occurred to me why we have had such a hard time connecting with long term travelers which there are so many off in India: We are simply too happy. Unlike say your normal 21 day European vacation troop, or unlike us say, or our average gap year kid, these people are some truly pained souls, running away from their lives, trying to find balance in Ashrams, discussing pressure points, inner silence, the benefits of no sugar diets, meditation, light and auras while their slightly worn faces show that they are not running towards anything, they are not trying to see the world they are running away from something trying to find somewhere that will give them answers. Very different crowd from the rowdy South American booze and beach stampede that I am so used to.

Fighting the Cambodian Jungle

Tree vs. Temple, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

We left BKK with much left undone. Most prominantly featured on the outstanding items list is the vagina ping pong, an event I will like to take part in as a spectator rather than a participant, because oouch.

Our time was mostly taken up by
a) trying to get up in time to see some tourist attraction involving gold domes or temples or buddhas, which was largely unsuccessful
b) trying to eat at least a few bits of every meat group for every meal such as maybe beef satay, chicken coconut soup and then some nice pork balls to round things off, which was very successful
c) sitting in AC rooms
d) eating drinks with ice cubes in them

All in all I am disappointed at our wholesomeness when BKK is just oozing raunchy raunchness according to everyone and their mother and all I could think of how clean and wonderful it was. But we will be back.

Crossing the border into Cambodia was like going to East Germany in 1989. Baaam, you hit pot holes large enough to house entire villages, the road is one solid mud bath the color of pumpkin soup, the ride knocks your brain against your skull and the motor rickshaws are once again abound and lawless. The major difference to India is that here a bike rickshaw really is a motorbike that has a fancy plywood carriage strapped onto the seat where the second person would sit or the seventh person really. In India the vehicle has been permanently fused but here one can take the carriage part off much like small scale white trash caravan can be disconnected from a 1959 el camono. I will try to demonstrate the difference photographically as soon as I can. The skill of balancing large items, entire families, ice blocks, pigs in crates, infants and rice sacks stacked high into the sky on motobikes is perfected in Cambodia as well. And maybe because they are piled so high with stuff there is something colonial and decadent in sitting in that plywood rickshaw fanning oneself gently whiel passing those heavy burdened motor beasts.

The vendors are communists I must say. It is almost insulting how half heartedly they are trying to sell you a t-shirt. They cannot really be bothered to raise their voices, let alone chase us around the block with their flutes and guide books. It makes me want to buy something. I think the bangles ear is over and I must expand into the sarong market.

The border crossing itself was littered with dark souls wanting our dollars as it is notorious to be, but I have heavily invested in the local snack foods industry which churns out brilliant homemade snacks that are sold on every corner so that I can outwait even the laziest commi to get his price right and then hop into this vehicle and demand he peddal faster. As I was lucky enough to get the front seat for the second half of our four hour journey from the border, along the blvd of broken backsides to Siem Reap, I even had the pleasure of starting the car for the douche commi who decided that he did not want to take us to our hotel. In unimpressive passive agressive manner he pulled over and tried to pawn us off to a bike rickshaw but I did not spend seven weeks in India and Nepal for nothing, so no way was I getting out of his car. Especially not because it was airconditioned. So I turn the key in his ignition, he shrieks, turns it back off and explains he has to go back to the border now and varies excuses from the road is closed to he does not understand English to he does not know where the hotel is. I shriek and turn the key again and so it continues until he drives us the three minutes to our hotel, which apparently does not give him a commission. Poor bastard.

Now in Siem Reap I am loving Cambodia. The food and is devine, or shall we say, amok: the best concoction of coconut, chicken, egg, tomato, various spices and then some more. The Angkor Wat temple ruins are amazing and there is nothing much to do other than eat amazing food, fan oneself in plywood rickshaws, wander around temples and call it a day.

Stingy, Angry and Haughty

As the plane touched down in BKK I was struck by the lack of grazing cows, lack of dirt and amazingly ordered driving behaviour as well as mild manered touts. They are the kind of touts one can easilty tune out, ignore and shake off without feeling how one's face turns into a bright red, angry mask and fuck becomes an adjective, verb, name and surname.

To make things even better, after six weeks of not eating anything meat, I started the day with some filthy, filthy bacon and oh, how wonderful those little shit rooting creatures taste. The day took on epic proportions as, for the first time in this millenium, probably for the first time since freshmen year dining hall dollars, I settled for a burder at MacDonalds in a snazzy shopping mall filled with healthy, blond expat kids and their daddies in relaxed tennis gear. The experience filled a void inside me. As I was chowing down on mother Goodess I started trying to put India into perspective.

I am approaching the big 50 on the country count but I don't think I have been to a place that is as difficult to categorize, describe, package and sell as India. India is everything that it's also not: poor and rich, inclusive yet prejudiced, amazing and revolting, cruel and kind, spiritual and lacking soul, repulsive and attractive and everything in between. My understanding of India as a soft, quiet spiritual place of tranquility and hushed words in air conditioned Yoga studios is the farthest from the truth. India at best is a chaotic whirlwind of praying, eating, shitting and the spiritual aspects are mostly displayed via the worship of everything ranging from plastic elephants, Maria and Jesus for good measure, cows, giant Buddha statues and the obvious major Hindi Gods. None of it is quiet and none of it feels serene. None of it takes place in an ashram and "namste" is a battle cry not a demure hush. India's spirituality is loud, obnoxious, practical, overcrowded, screeching like a banshee, sacrilegious looking, involving neon lights, inflatable plastic figures and a lot of diesel exhaust.

What I don't comprehend are the other travelers in India who somehow do not seem to see that. Never in my life have I met so many people who on one hand try to pretend to be "natives" and dress in rags to lower themselves presumably to fit in but put on airs of superiority when something costs more than 50 cents, mistreat every waiter, rickshaw driver and shop keeper and generally act like little spoilt fuckers. India is a country kissing the feet of movie stars, wearing Levis, desiring Prada and gold bangles while holding on to family honor and values at every level of society. Yoga is reserved for American girls wanting to find their sexual center which some soft eyed Indian boy will only too gladly help them find.

Despite that, it appears that most travelers we met seem to think they have found a way to assimilate and be "Indian" by wearing potato sack trousers not washed since the obligatory trip and dip in the holy shit filled Ganges and sporting hemp tank tops exposing a curry fattened mid rift and tattooed shoulders sporting the ever so original cluster of stars in various colors. Their look insults the beautifully, clean ladies in their ever fresh saris, their Moms who eye the excessive flesh, and the entire population in general by being angry and ugly. Angry and ugly is the way not to be. They seem to have created a caste for themselves: stingy, angry and haughty.

I think we left just in time before we too joined that angry and filthy club. Many happy returns I hope but only after some coconut curry in the land of smiles.

Camelz rule,...

...roar like lions and fart up a storm.

As promised, we spend the past two days camel safarying, sleeping in sand dunes during a sandstorm, huddling together with the camels while lightening crashes down in the distance, seeing lots of stars and spending the hot mid day in the shade of some bushes, drinking water that had reached boiling temperatures simply by being in a bottle. My attempt to try to ride in Pakistan was met with resistance by the guide unfortunately. The long ride back this afternoon had us fantasising about the amount, timing and refrigeration status of the mangoes we will eat just as soon as we get to a Thai beach. I am thinking this camel safari was my happiest moment on this trip so far, but we are ready for the beaches. So I am thinking as soon as we get to some beach, the first chilled mangoes will be administered at around ten, after a dip in the water, then continue the same dose in hourly intervals until evening. After a siesta around three maybe some frozen mangoes to mix it up.

Hardcore backpackers we are.

A Fine Balance or Me and Ma Camel

cool camel Cappadocia, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

Have been discussing the point where filth and pain cease being quaint and become nothing more than filth and pain. I realized I am in the in-between stage where I am perfectly aware of the fact that yes, it's ridiculous to be sitting in a stuffy box in a bus made out of bug infested cloth that has not been disinfected since 1982, the year the bus was made. Yes, it is hilarious especially when we and our now slightly decimated bags are juggled around like dominoes at every bump in the road (and lucky us got the baaaaaack compartment) while our only protection from the outside world is a shabby glass wall, but I do love it just a little bit, enough to do it again. And it does feel just a little bit quaint and awesome to be cruising through the night in a chaos of women in gorgeous saris, bags, stern looking men, music blasting, people jumping on and off, the smell of spicy rotis and samosas while watching the night roll by with the windows open and the bugs swarming. Yeah, it's pretty great.

In that spirit, we have decided to give a whole different style of dirt and pain a go. Camel safari here we come: cooking over a bonfire, starry starry nights, sleeping in more filthy, buggy blankets in the sand and lots of ass pain, yay, I can't wait. Especially the part where newly acquired husband will be smashing his balls on the camel saddle. He has no idea what he is in for.

Beasts Unrestrained

, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

Anything is possible in India and you only have to learn to play the game and know when to grin and say "bite me". You arrive in a town, any town and amazingly you will end up with the "most best and most honest and most fast and most good English speaking" rickshaw driver every time. He might be so much good that he even has a little travel journal where he has asked other travelers to underwrite his general goodness in every language, thus you feel refreshed and happy you found the one man on the block you can trust. If you don't pay attention he will drive you straight to his friends gem shop without batting an eyelash and later explain how he is not ripping you off, he is only showing you options, you decide what to buy, what to eat and what to do. He will be outraged that you hold him responsible in any way and he will say "if anything one my part not good, I appologize (and now give me my tip mothefuckers)", his voice will become lamenting like a widows and he will add something about him not being your babysitter, him just showing you good place, good price, saving you much money. Ha.

However, you can also make him into your personal bitch for everything. Certainly use him as a tour guide, make him find you an internet cafe, make him wait, then make him drive you to a palace for some touristing, then make him find you a place to buy mangos, a place for flip flops, make him wait while you have lunch and make him store your bags at his friends hotel for some easy frolicking around the city before re-boarding a train to somewhere. The reason for our trust on the latter is that we have too much shit so in a "let-kharma decide" moment we figured, if it all gets stolen minus passport and my porsche camera, at least we don't have to carry it anymore. I don't want to loose all my bangles and dirty tank tops but it would be a bit of a relief! And it turned out nobody wanted my bangles or my dirty tank tops so we are stil loaded high. In the end you pay him five dollars and that was probably double what his servics were worth, but who cares.

Our current location by the way is desert town Udaipur, Rajasthan. The town is prominantly featued in the slightly outdated James Bond film: Octopussy, which, for good measure, we re-watched last night. James Bond was so much better when sexism was less taboo. Unfortunately our abode is less glamorous and our autorickshaw drivers are less skilled than James'.

Now onto the beasts. All beasts in India are living unrestrained lives. Goats and cows obviously roam freely. Cows due to their holy status even sleep in the middle of the highway and won't budge and traffic swerves around them. Cows trampel through shops because they can whereas dogs get kicked if they only approach a puddle of dirty water in the proximity of a shop. Donkeys are hereded along the road without reins, without any way to realistically lead them to where they are destind to be going, yet they do seem to end up where they are supposed to go. Yesterday I even saw the biggest elephant I have ever seen gently waddle down the small road wearing no head piece, making all traffic come to a halt while perched atop her was a little man with tiny bamboos stick and nothing else to make her stop or go.

There must be something about the laws of chaos that allow the beasts in India to be themselves. And so newly acquired husband and I shall be on the loose.

Everything is Better in Agra

Things have turned a lot peachier since we managed to escape Varanasi. Not that that was easy. On a previous escapade around town our unfortunate auto rickshaw driver lost his front tire and we cycle rickshawed our way back home, not without paying him a bundle because he looked quite gaunt and scrawny and promising him he could take us to the train station the next day. Needless to say the latter was not a gesture from my personal bleeding heart, but we travel in a democracy and newly acquired husband does have the added gravitas of two crutches (that are too short for him).

On the fateful night of our departure out guy did show up on time but without a working rickshaw. Apparently him or better yet, his boss/pimp saw it fit to have us hang out in the mayhem of evening traffic (when everyone hauls everything they own back home on every imaginable vehicle in the midst of ear-splitting honking) shining our flashlights into his toy bike motor. Protests and shouting matches ensued when we made our exit. But oh, just in time, his brother did manage to show up in a working auto rickshaw. Not until we are 20 minutes down the road do we notice the unfortunate fact that this particular vehicle has no lights. Our 2 hour drive resembled an advertising run on how to become road kill as we were dodging trucks, cows, bikes, pedestrians and more rickshaws, some of which also had no lights, slowly but yet too fast bumping our way along the pitch black country road.

The train station was dire. People even tried to steal newly acquired husband’s crutches and I managed to get in a fight over luggage space complete with throwing a bunch of teenagers their one hundred bags straight out of my seat and into their laps. It appears Varanasi unleashed a beast in me and I forgot all the chill I may have acquired over the month and change and the fact that actually all that goes wrong really just makes for a better story and adds hilarity to mundane things. Hanging over us was also the knowledge that unless the leg situation of the husband improves we may be send home early, only where home is, that is not entirely clear. Hauling bags on crutches and a peg leg is no future!

But now we are in Agra, sipping mango lassis on a rooftop overlooking the Taj Mahal, Germany made it to the European Cup final and even the parasites seem to have died off and life is a happy beach again. I pretty much forgot for a few days that I am on vacation and that I am happy. And most imprtantly that I am NOT doing spreadsheets right now. Now, we figure worst leg case scenario we can still sit on Thai beaches, pouring Pina Coladas over the effected area, throwing mango chunks to the monkey and frying our brains, so the future is bright.

The major insight of the past few days is that whereas living and traveling in South America some years back really turned me on to economic development and sustainability and all that wonderful stuff that I made into my career, this makes me want to be a fashion photographer. It pains me to see the pretty saris be laid out to dry in the dirt and cow dung, I want to take pictures of the pretty bejeweled girls and boys who wear the glitter and the colors and have the pretty faces (maybe in front of their scenic, ragged home town well and always with lots of happy cows) and I just wish all the non-bejeweled ragged ones would already be happy and taken care of. Call me impatient but I feel like working in economic development for what, three years, should have done the trick and there should be no more sad poor people out there.

Off to the Desert

Street Corner, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

After three days of cow patty jumping, watching the river rise to spill all it's gooey goodness upon the holy sidewalks and picking up the odd stomach parasite at every meal, we have decided to move on, albeit at a different formation. Newly acquired husband will lead, loaded high with souvenir stuffed bags, on crutches, his leg in an oversized wrap, (which on the packaging was modeled by a very happy Indian girl in a light blue negligee so there is hope) and me following, crouching over every few minutes giving my parasites a moment to reshuffle asking newly acquired husband about the behaviour and status of his parasites.

We are picking up the pace now, giving ourselves a full 24 hrs in Agra to oogle the Taj Mahal at which point we are guaranteed to be saturated with more souvenirs, having learned more scams, made more random friends. The street kids stick to us quite literally speaking like flies to shit in the alleys that we have been roaming. Without a doubt the most entrepreneurial generation in an already amasingly entrepreneurial nation.

This weekend should have us in Rajasthan, more specifically in 50C weather by a lake in the desert. Hopefully we will make it without having to invest in a peg leg or declaring outselves post-eating in the most post modern way possible.

AHOY