A Week With 'The Scalenes' II: Cambodia and Saigon

Monday, December 18, 2006

We took a 5:55 a.m. train to Arunyaprathet, where took a tuk-tuk to a spot near the border and then wheeled our suitcases through a market a few city blocks deep to the border itself. (From the train, we could tell that people were wearing the yellow polo shirts in honor of Rama IX. Even out in the agricultural boonies of Thailand! We saw a lot of rice fields and adorable yellow-shirted kids on their way to school.)

We wheeled through stations for our exit stamp, walked across a road, and we were in Cambodia. We paid $20 for our visas at another station, were shuttled to another station where we got our entry stamp, and then shuttled to the cab stand. We chose to take a cab even though it was $15 per person compared to $10 for the bus, because they said the cab took three hours and the bus took up to six. We shared our cab with a guy named Elan who graduated from Stuyvesant in 2000. It’s a small world. But we couldn't find anyone we knew in common, except that he tutors a Chapin 10^th grader.

Unfortunately, the fact that we had a fourth person to make the cab ride cheaper for all of us was overshadowed by the fact that because our plentiful luggage took up the whole drunk, his backpack rested along the back of the backseat, which meant it rested mostly on Steve and Andre's heads. Whoops. Partway through the trip, though, we put the backpack at my feet in the front passenger seat, so that helped. Side note: Cambodians drive on the right side of the road but the driver's seat is also on the right side. Go figure.

The road from Poiphet (the Cambodian border town) to Siem Reap (where the Angkor temples are) is BUMPY. There’s a rumor in LP that some airline pays off the Cambodian government to keep the road horribly kept so that people will fly to Siem Reap. And we were crammed in that car with our luggage like sardines in a can. There was dust everywhere. On either side of the road, you could see a distinct line where the foliage stopped being brown and dust-covered and started being far enough away from the road so that it was green again.

We had to stop every hour or so to wash down the car and refill the tires, which lost air quickly because of the gaping potholes and rocky terrain. We saw drivers who drove these odd vehicles that looked like a tractor but with a huge pole between the two rear wheels and the front wheel, so that it looked like an overgrown tricycle. These contraptions dragged trailers with a dozen people squatting on them. And considering how bad the road was, I'm surprised they all didn't fall off the top. There were also flatbed trucks piled high with goods of some kind with dozens of people balancing on top. Because the road had giant craters and potholes and cracks and fissures in it, cars didn't really pay attention to lane lines and careened all over the place in order to find the least bumpy path.

Through the swirling dust, we really saw Cambodian daily life out the window. I had to use the bathroom once so we stopped at this family-run convenience store, and the kids were running around barefoot all over the place amidst the Doritos for sale and the family’s rooster and cow. A lot of agriculture and cow-cultivation went on along the road, too, and we swerved around cows and water buffaloes that we were chilling out in the middle of the road.

After four uncomfortable hours, we stumbled into Enjoy Villa in Siem Reap around 6:15 p.m. The guesthouse is owned by an Australian man and Khmer woman couple with an adorable little boy. We ate good food (with pumpkin as a main ingredient!) at Khmer Kitchen, where Mick Jagger has eaten, apparently. (Editor's Note: I had forgotten what we had, but it was yummy, so here is a direct quote from Steve's blog describing what we ate: "fresh spring rolls, beef larb [salad, kind of; mostly basil and mint], fried pumpkin with beef, and chicken and lemongrass soup.") After buying Love Actually at a bootleg DVD store, we crashed for 12 hours.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Our hotel's proprietors had recommended a driver for us for the day at $5 per person, and Mr. Sokum was a nice enough guy. It was fun riding around in a little carriage at the back of his motorbike. We bought three-day passes for $40 (a single day pass was $20, and we knew we were visiting the temples for two days), but the price seemed so out of proportion in a country where a good dinner cost about $3. But we figured that because the Angkor temples are one of the view tourist destinations in Cambodia, and many tourists (like us) visit the country explicitly for the temples, they can get away with charging that much. In any case, the temples have been through long periods of decay though the colonial times and the rule of the Khmer Rouge and it is only recently that the government had decided to pour some effort into conservation and restoration projects. It was not too long ago that people would just run away with pieces of the temples to sell on the antique black market. So in my mind I hope that the price of admissions goes toward keeping the site accessible to visitors.

So the deal with the Angkor temples is that the Khmer Empire built over 1,000 of them, and they were built from 900 to 1200 A.D, over which time there were a series of kings and religion changed in Cambodia from Hinduism to Mahayana Buddhism to Theravada Buddhism. The temple complex is one of the largest in the world, and the temples themselves are very diverse in their appearances.

We started at Ta Prohm, which looks straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, with giant tree trunks perched atop stone walls; little roots threading among and enveloping the rocks. We spent a lot of time at the temple walking around and contemplating the sight of nature reclaiming this once-sacred site. I think parts of Tomb Raider were filmed here. Then we headed to the nearby Banteay Kdei on the recommendation of a fellow tourist, and that temple's main feature was a very long central stone walkway/hallway, and when we peered down its whole length it was like rows upon rows of concentric archways. Very cool.

At each temple, we were mobbed by adorable girls hawking souvenirs. They would ask, "Where are you from?" and when we answered "America!", some would say, "Capital: Washington, D.C." We learned that they could speak some English, Japanese, and Spanish -- the languages spoken by the majority of tourists. They flocked to Steve and Andre more than to me; I think they sensed they were softies at heart. One girl even gave Steve (who was genuinely touched) a handwritten note in English introducing herself with a subtle plea to buy things. It was very sweet and I snapped a bunch of pictures and bought a t-shirt for $2.

At Banteay Kdei, Steve and I chatted with a British couple who were spending one month in each country in SE Asia and said they were rushing things -- said this to us, the group spending two days in Cambodia! They had been in Siem Reap for awhile and suggested buying candy or snacks for the kids hawking souvenirs because then it was something they could have for themselves, and it wouldn't go straight to their parents the way money would. We took them up on their advice the next day and we absolutely mobbed with kids who ran from across streets to get a piece of candy. I tried not to think about how rotten their teeth already were and focused on the fact that we were giving the kids a special treat.

We next went to Preah Kahn, which was apparently the site of the old university. There was a two-story structure with Roman/Green columns off to the side at the back of the temple; we joked that it housed an ancient fraternity that we dubbed Tao Tao Tao. We ate lunch at one of a series of identical restaurants under one roof near Angkor Thom. I mostly remember having coconut milk but I must have had something else...

Then we moved on to Bayon, one of the main parts of Angkor Thom, whose distinctive feature is that it has large rectangular columnar towers with faces carved on all four sides. It is said that the faces either represent the king, Jayavarman VII, who initiated the massive building program of Angkor Thom and others in the 12th century, or some kind of heavenly guardian to protect the king's prized temple (Bayon). One of the guidebooks described the outside walls of Bayon, saying that there were bas reliefs depicting Cambodian daily life, and somehow the joke of the day became looking for the "daily Cambodians," and trying to figure out what exactly they did with their time. This joke continued in various incarnations. (Example: Steve and I riding a bus through Vietnam and pointing at a woman harvesting in a triangle hat. We agree: those must be the "daily Vietnamese.")

We wandered on to other parts of the Angkor Thom complex: Bauphon, which is currently being rebuilt, one piece at a time, based on plans that miraculously survived the Khmer Rouge regime. Laid out in front of the half complete temple (which we couldn't go into, just walk around), were a lot of stones that basically all looked alike but all had numeric labels. Pretty impressive recon work by archaeologists. We saw the Terrace of the Elephants and some other animal carvings in a kid of maze with high walls, and then, exhausted, took the tuk-tuk back to Siem Reap.

We ate a good meal at Carnets d'Asie and (sort of) felt the French influence. I checked my email for free after buying a beer at what I later realized was a gay coffee shop/cafe, and then Steve broke out some Argentinian wine and we watched Love Actually on the hostel's DVD player, and began to feel warm and fuzzy inside. I also broke a glass. Whoops.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

We arose early to catch a 6 a.m. sunrise at Angkor Wat. After being initially grumpy at the cold and the hour, we (and the rest of Siem Reap, which had turned out to watch as well) decided that the temple made a pretty damn cool silhouette. As it became lighter, we explored that temple, climbing up to a ledge at the very top for a pretty view of the surroundings. It is the main temple in the complex (it is large, has a moat and several outer walls, it appears on the Cambodian flag -- i.e. it is important). After walking through the temple and climbing to the top of the one of the spire-things, we headed back to town.

Returning to Enjoy Villa, Andre and I had breakfast and then we all took naps. The rest of the day was spent using the internet and catching up on reading and journals in a very Western café called the Blue Pumpkin (which even served burgers and had very comfy couches). While I became a little sick to my stomach and watched part of Princess Diaries 2 at the Enjoy Villa, Andre and Steve continued to relax and journal-write at the café and also booked us a guesthouse in Saigon.

We had a 8:30 p.m. flight out of Siem Reap (which has a fancy-shmancy airport considering there are only two runways), and got picked up at the airport by our guesthouse.

IMPORTANT ANECDOTE ALERT: As we slouched on three different couch-bench contraptions at the Siem Reap airport, someone remarked that we looked like a scalene triangle, because we were all sitting at different distances from each other (and presumably also formed three different angles if we were connected by lines). Hence the name the Scalenes. So dorky. So great. Go team.

An easy flight and one cab ride later and we were comfortably settled in a cozy room at Minh Chau Guesthouse, which is owned by what seemed like a family of at least 7 who all slept in the lobby. Very homey. And they did laundry, which was clutch for Steve, who hadn't done it in three weeks, and myself, who hadn't done it in one week (but I only had one week's worth of clothing). And at 10,000 dong per kilogram (or about 67 cents at 15,000 dong per dollar), it was totally worth it. We crashed (me in the single bed, Steve and Andre in the cozy double) so that we could get up early the next day.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

We arose early and grabbed breakfast at Kim's Cafe in the backpacker district. I believe I had a banana pancake, which was delicious. We efficiently booked a tour to the Delta for the next day, confirmed Steve's and my flight to Hanoi later in the week, booked a bus to Dalat (Steve's and my next stop after Andre left us), and hired a driver to take us to the Cu Chi tunnels since we had already missed the departure of the day's tour.

Our driver then attempted to take us to a handicrafts factory where the products are made by handicapped people. After an initial presentation at the factory entrance about the difference between different types of mother-of-pearl inlay, the three of us shook off our confused stupor and insisted that our driver take us on to the tunnels, which were about an hour outside the city.

Upon arrival, we saw a video that looked like it was made in 1970. It centered on how, basically, the Viet Cong were fighting a good fight while the Americans were trying to kill them all unfairly, and thus they had to build a massive underground network of tunnels in order to hide defensively from American soldiers (there were whole living quarters down there -- man, were they cramped and cold) as well as to infiltrate southern Vietnam for offensive purposes. Our tour guide had a rather wry sense of humor, which served him well. He first asked us to find a tunnel entrance in a seemingly flat, leaf-covered patch of land. When he finally pointed it out to us, we were shocked by how small it was. We all had a chance to shimmy down into the small tunnel: I went first, but the darkness, combined with the bats and a weak flashlight, meant that I couldn't figure out how to get out the other end, so I backtracked after making it halfway. Andre, we learned, is both claustrophobic and afraid of spiders, so he came back up right away. Stevo, though, made it all the way to the other end! Yessss. This particular tunnel was not adjusted for tourists in terms of size; the "expanded" tunnels that we also crawled into were not that much bigger and made our backs hurt from hunching, and these soldiers spent weeks at a time down here.

We saw other sobering sights: an American tank that hasn't been moved from its spot amidst the bushes since it caught fire and broke down because of an explosion from a hidden booby trap, recreations of the VC's cramped sleeping and eating quarters, samples of the chewy tapioca root that was the VC's main source of sustenance, the various guns the VC had, and, most memorably, a display of the different booby traps that were placed both belowground and above the tunnel system to capture any trespassers to the area. I have never seen so many combinations of very sparp metal spikes. These traps were also placed in the tunnels themselves, in case an enemy infiltrated the system, only the VC knew how to skirt around them as they crept around. I shudder remembering the vivid mental picture the exhibits evoked of people being brutally impaled.

It was also more than a bit unnerving that there was also a shooting range nearby -- for about one dollar, you could pay to shoot at a target with an authentic VC weapon. We passed up that opportunity; however, needless to say, the gunshots echoing through the jungle as we're staring at a mess of weaponry and metal traps made us all a little jumpy.

Back in Saigon, we went to the War Remnants Museum, which presented a moving if very biased version of the "War of American Aggression." The museum's synopsis of the war went something like this: Americans and their allies committed a whole host of torture-and-violence-related atrocities against civilians and pretty much blameless VC soldiers. I know that Americans did very bad things in Vietnam, and that the war was just overall brutal on civilians and soldiers alike, but the VC certainly committed atrocities of their own, which were not represented in the museum. Some of the more moving parts, for me, were the images of some of the massacres (like My Lai), the images of Agent Orange sufferers (and deformed miscarried/stillborn fetuses in formaldehyde), and the exhibit on the photographers and journalists who died covering the war.

We walked over to the Presidential Palace (also called Reunification Palace) and saw the that the VC rammed through its gates when Saigon fell. (Sidenote: in Hanoi, we saw a tank there that also claimed to be the one used on that day... maybe there were more than one.) We read in LP that the tanks had already gone through the gates when they saw that there was a press presence there, so they backed up and then drove through the gates, knocking them down, for effect. Nice.

We passed by Notre Dame for Andre, our token Catholic, and then went to Ben Thanh Market, where I purchased sparkly silver flip flops. We took a nice long walk up Pasteur Street to find the Pho (Vietnamese national soup/noodle/vegetable/meat dish pronounced something like Fffa) restaurant (Pho Hoa) recommended by 1,000 places to see before you die. Our long walk paid off -- the pho was amazing, and we also met Andrew, 5, a Canadian visiting his Vietnamese relatives. We went to take adorable and hilarious sticker pictures at a shop nearby, but then I stupidly left them at the guesthouse in Saigon. :-(

We took an overpriced taxi (but we used the meter!) to the Rex Hotel and toasted Hanukkah at the rooftop bar (famous as a watering hole for expats, especially journalists) as Christmas carols played from the street below. We took a leisurely walk back to Minh Chau, taking note of all the street stalls selling hilarious Santa outfits crazy Santa outfits for kids. Vietnam is 70 percent Buddhist and about 20 percent Roman Catholic....but way more than 20 percent of the kids on the street were sporting these Santa suits with lights that blinked from the top of the hats... hilarious.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Before our tour of the Mekong Delta, we picked up breakfast baguette sandwiches at one of the many street stands; it was filled with ham, laughing cow cheese, fresh vegetables, pate, and fish sauce (a Vietnamese staple). Yum, French influence. After a bus ride where our tour guide, Ms. Lan, introduced herself with a funny and clearly practiced introduction. She said if we were late at any point she would leave us in the Delta and we'd have to become farmers and get some triangle hats (which people ACTUALLY WEAR). We started off on a boat at Cai Be, and oohed and aahed at the river scenes -- lots of smaller tributaries branching off of larger rivers, lots of small bridges arcing over the waterways, houses on stilts, kids bicycling everywhere, fisherman in smaller longtail boats, steering themselves with long poles.

Our first stop was at a candy shop, were we had tea and sampled lots of different kind of candy: ginger, peanut, sesame, coconut etc. Peanut candy won the price for the day, and I was so enamoured with it that I bought five packages, which I then sent back to the States with Andre.
Steve tried his hand at making tapioca crisps,l and Andre helped to demonstrate how to make popped/puffed rice (in case you were wondering, you put it into a big cauldron with hot black sand, stur it around vigorously, and then put it through two strainers -- one to get rid of the hot sand, and one to get ride of the unpopped kernels of rice). We sampled a version of rice krispie treats made from the rice before geting back into our boat and sitting on the roof and catching some rays with an Australian family.

The next stop was to pick up some rickety bikes, which we rode to a quiet lunch spot. The highlight was make-your-own fresh spring rolls with fresh vermicelli and elephant-ear fish, which was delivered to our table whole. We spent some more time biking around after lunch with two kids about our age who were doing the JET program in Japan. We passed a lot of fruit farms and over a small bridge over a narrow waterway that was the highlight for me -- it was nice to get off the beaten path a bit! After some more quality sun-tanning time on top of the boat, we stop at a fruit market and try pomelo (like grapefruit) , and dragonfruit, my new favorite, which is white with small black seeds in it. We also eat some pineapple, which is sold everyone for extremely cheap. Yum.

Upon our return to Saigon, we had dinner at an LP recommended place nearby -- Budda Bodhai Tree restaurant or something -- don't go there, it was not very good. Andre then left for the airport.

Some lingering observations about Saigon: It seemed very commercial. Ms. Lan explained that there was a lot of development of high rise residential buildings on the outskirts of the city because the population is expanding fast. In the city center, there are not that many residential buildings higher than about five stories. There were a LOT of hawkers, but many of them were disabled (missing limbs or having bad skin deformities, etc.) I wonder if that's a result of the war or agent orange, or because of some other reason. I felt a pretty deep sense of American guilt in Saigon. Crossing the street was an adventure. There aren't really that many lights, and there are just thousands and thousands of motorbikes that don't seem to comply with any kind of rules of the road. We heard one figure that there are about 20 deaths a day from motor-bike related accidents. We had gotten a tip to cross the street with regular and exaggerated strides, because that way the motos can go around us, as opposed to if we scampered in bursts across the street, they couldn't gauge how to avoid us. So that's what we did, though it took much bravery. By the end, though, we became street-crossing pros and began to coach other tourists.

A Week With ‘The Scalenes’ I: Bangkok

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Getting from Manila to Bangkok was a real haul. In order to save money, I flew on a discount airline, Air Asia, and thus I had to fly through Kuala Lumpur, its hub. Turns out Air Asia doesn’t fly out of Manila’s regular international airport, but rather out of Clark Airport, a former Air Force base about two hours north of the city. Suffice it to say that having left Leticia’s at 5 a.m., I finally arrived at the Atlanta Hotel in Bangkok at 10 p.m. But hey, I saved about 100 bucks, and I had the luxury of taking that day for transit. And I sat next to a British guy on the plane who not only paid for my taxi to the hotel, but gave me all kinds of advice and tips about what to do for my first day, before Andre and Steve joined me.

The Atlanta is interesting – they have large signs proclaiming that they do not tolerate sex tourists, as well as coasters with various quotes from the hotel’s original owner about the hotel's rigorous standards for guest behavior. There were also these cool writing desks in the art-deco lobby, which looks right out of 1960. The pool was nice, if cold, and there were hammocks alongside it that backpackers seemed to like to crash in after a night of partying. When I was shown to my room (which was just for one night, until I could move into our three-person suite), I found a curly hair on the sheet. That was an inauspicious beginning, but I asked for a new sheet and got one, and things were definitely uphill from there.

When I got to the Atlanta I was starving, so I had some pad thai in the hotel restaurant. The waitress spotted me using my hand to sprinkle the crushed peanuts over the noodles, and she rushed over and said “No!” She then looked kind of embarrassed for having made such an outburst (Thais are reputably rather composed) and then proceeded to explain to me how to eat pad thai. You sprinkle the peanuts over the top, then squeeze a lime over the top of that, then add some condiments – a splash of a sweet soy sauce and just a tiny bit of chili powder, then use your chopsticks to mix it all together. It was delicious. Then I went to bed and got up early to embrace the first day I was truly on my own.

Friday, December 15, 2006

This was my day alone to explore the city, and it was maybe also my favorite day. The Atlanta is in the newer, more commericial, more high-rise-y part of the city, which is connected to the city centre by this modern monorail marvel called the Skytrain (which I am in love with). It is speedy and clean and there are little TV screens in the cars that sometimes play music videos. I took the Skytrain to the a dock at the southern end of the Chao Phraya River (sort of the north-south axis of Bangkok), and bought an unlimited hop on – hop off ticket so that I could use the boat as my main transport all day. It cost 100 baht (or three bucks). I rode the boat to the northernmost harbor and got off to wander around, finding an adorable jewelry store and then stumbling onto Khaosan Road, which is the street on which most backpackers stay. It has tons of booths selling sparkly flip-flops and cute knee-length flowy skirts and faux designer sunglasses. It took a ton of willpower not to spend all my baht right there. I had bought a map at the Atlanta, but sometimes I had trouble figuring out where I was on the map. I realized that the tuk-tuk drivers did not want to help me find where I was on the map, rather, they sort of vaguely gestured to a few intersections and kept pestering “Where you go?” So I learned not to take their advice on where I was, since all they wanted was a fare.

I wandered to the Democracy Monument, which was the site of Thailand’s very small version of Tiananmen Square. I walked to the tourist information bureau and booked a dance show for that night, and then peeked into one of the boxing stadiums (Thai boxing is very big – there are no real rules so its generally quite gory). I met a South Korean at the United Nations and we took pictures of each other in front of our respective country flags. I had a pigs in a blanket type thing and a chocolate ball from a bakery along a small canal that seemed to be only patronized by Thais.

After a mediocre pad thai lunch on Khaosan Road, I bargained down a tuk-tuk from 60 baht to 30 baht to take me to the boat ferry. I went to the Royal Barge Museum across the river and was directed through narrow streets dotted with small shrines and altars and filled with kids playing soccer and guys whizzing by on motorbikes, which nearly gave me a heart attack since the roads were so small. I was directed by nice expat man who teaches at an international school. The museum was very simple, eight gold-and-jewel bedecked longboats and tool around with the king when he does a royal procession down the river. The biggest boats require 55 rowers! They are very grand and beautiful. I was pretty wiped at that point, so I had a foot massage at a Let’s Go recommended place. One hour of total bliss for 250 baht, or about seven bucks. Then don’t just rub your foot. They massage it with purpose, and they massage all the way up your calf to mid-thigh, and they use lotion and oils and tools and it is just heavenly. I befriended a couple with an Australian husband and a Bangkok native wife. They gave me some good advice, and I went on to find dinner in the area of my show at the Chalermkrung National Theatre.

While I was finding my way to the theatre, I passed through the flower market, which was stunning at the particular moment I came across it. It was dusk, and there weren’t really any more tourists there, so it was just the vendors packaging up their flowers for the next day. Rows and rows and piles and piles of newspaper-wrapped bouquets filled the street, filled with roses and other flowers that I couldn’t identify. Maybe marigolds. Whatever it was, it was beautiful. A produce market adjoined it, and it seemed to me that a Thai man would drive a motorbike down the alley with a Thai woman on the back of it, and then the man would slow down and idle while the woman, still straddling the motorbike, performed the transaction – the one I saw was a few baht for a few onions. That’s pretty convenient shopping, right there.

I found dinner at the street stand with little plastic tables and chairs on the sidewalk (all the furniture at these sidewalk joints seems to be for kindergarteners), so I got hot soup with noodles and wontons and scallions. It was stellar. I saw a traditional Thai dance show but was too tired to absorb most of it – the take home message was that the story was basically the Thai version of the Hindu Ramayana story. After an initial Garden-of-Eden indiscretion, Hanuman the monkey saves the wife of a high-up person in the military whose name I forget, and thus gets exalted and promoted. There were intricate masks and sparkly costumes and a lot of fluid meaningful hand gestures. I took a cab back to the Atlanta and waited for Andre to arrive…

Saturday, December 16, 2006

… which wasn’t until 2:30 a.m., when I was fast asleep. We started talking in an excited stupor about our travel plans. Not five hours later, Andre woke me up because he thought he saw a mouse high up on a wall. It turned out to be an electrical outlet. Since we were awake, we jumped into the pool, scaring some backpackers in the hammocks. We had a leisurely breakfast and decided to go to the teakwood palace, which was built around the turn of the twentieth century by Rama V (but we’ll get into the Ramas later). It is billed as the largest teakwood palace in the world, but later on Steve and Andre brought up an interesting point – are there other teakwood palaces in the world? What is our frame of reference here? We had to take off our shoes before entering the palace and we also had to rent a covering for my shoulders and also a pair of drawstring pants for Andre, who was wearing shorts. And it’s interesting that the palace isn’t even a religious building, but the Ramas just command such respect!

The mansion was uneventful, some nice rooms with a lot of photographs. The guides made a big deal out of everything in the house that was a gift from another country – the Spanish this and the British that and the Italian this and the Japanese that. Thailand has never been colonized, thanks mostly to Ramas IV and V. Rama IV was the king in Anna and the King, and Rama V was one of her students. I think that by adopting Western practices and household objects and taking initiative in foreign policy and forging diplomatic relations with the West at its own pace, Thailand was able to keep its autonomy, unlike every country adjacent to it save China (Burma/Mynamar and Malaysia were British, Laos and Cambodia French).

As we soon realized, the king is fervently revered in Thailand. The current king is Rama IX, and on December 5 he celebrated his 60^th anniversary on the throne. He is about 79 years old or so. His visage (and that of HRH [her royal highness] is EVERYWHERE. On arches over main boulevards. Framed at every dock along the river. Plastered across billboards on the sides of office buildings. Propped up next to cash registers and hotel front desks across the country. In honor of his 60^th anniversary, people all over Thailand wear this yellow polo shirt with the royal crest on the left chest. At first, I thought that everyone around me was part of this massive tour group that I wasn’t a part of, but the couple at the massage parlor set me straight. Thais wear the shirt even after December 5 has passed out of honor and devotion and love. Even when we took the train out east to the Cambodian border, rural Thais sported the yellow shirts. In this worshipful vein, at the teakwood palace there was an exhibition of Rama IX’s photography. The current Rama apparently has a passion for documenting the common folk as well as his wife. Andre and I learned from the photo captions that he shuts off the flash in order to photograph his wife in a flattering way. There were also photos of Rama IX jamming with Louis Armstrong in America. He apparently plays a mean trumpet. We joked about Thailand’s future Rama XVII and what qualities he would have.

Feeling fully acquainted with Ramas past and present, Andre and I went back to the Atlanta to meet Steve, who was, as he joked, a day late and a bag short. Over the course of five flights from South America, his luggage got lost. But we were in good spirits and happily talked a mile a minute. We chatted for awhile, then decided to go out to see if we wanted to see a Thai boxing match (Thai boxing doesn't have the rules that American boxing does -- biting and kicking permitted). We got a free peek at two sweaty men in a ring with some folding chairs around it, and decided we didn’t.

Thus began a night of misses. We passed through a bustling night market. We decided to take the MRT (the glorious SPOTLESS futuristic subway) and Skytrain to the Oriental Hotel and a rooftop bar on the second-highest building in Bangkok. We got turned away from both of those things for sandals and shorts, and felt like paupers when the Oriental called us out of their ferry boat and made us get off at this decrepit dock while the rest of the properly-dressed passengers continued along to the dock with the light-up sign and jazz music accompaniment.We bought some beers at a 7-Eleven and walked east along Silom Road (one of the main drags going east-west).

We hit up Patpong, the red light district, and, after catching sight of many scantily dressed women through not-really-closed-but-on-purpose curtains, got a free peek at one of the famed ping-pong shows. We saw a girl pop open bottles with her special place, and then decided we didn’t need to see any more of that. (But questions are still burning in my mind -- did she have a bottle opener in there? Either way, it's impressive. Also, did she need special training to do that? Who was her teacher? Do Thai women make a living teaching other women skills for these shows? Other women can throw darts that pop balloons, or project ping pong balls...) I almost bought all the seasons of Gilmore Girls on DVD for 30 bucks, and Andre and Steve bought cufflinks. A taxi home, a brief swim, and then to bed we went.

Sunday, December 17. 2006

We spent most of the day with this wonderful couple who teach at the school Andre works for in Hangzhou. Henry and Nancy and Nancy’s daughter Emma (who is a senior in college) accompanied us to the Grand Palace and the emerald Buddha, which are all on the same compound. They are the two most famous sights in Bangkok, and I know I can’t do them justice here. I’ll try to post a few photos. Let’s just say that the amount of gold-painted wood and sparkly colorful things adorning every single inch of the multi-building compound – if converted into wattage based on sheer luminescence – could probably light up New York for a week. It’s that bright and overwhelming and over the top and yet really beautiful and regal at the same time. The Royal Barge Museum, which I saw before the guys got to Bangkok, was like the Grand Palace divided by a million.

We then went to Wat Po (a wat is a temple -- what? a wat? wat? was our brilliant joke...), which is the largest wat in Bangkok. We saw a GIANT (fifty meter?) reclining golden Buddha there and wandered around the premises. Then we all had a foot massage like the one I had on my first day. We crossed the river to go to Wat Arun, a wat built to honor Rama II which is made out of shards of china, so looking at it up close is pretty cool. We had a hilarious dinner at Cabbages and Condoms with Nancy, Henry, and Emma. The restaurant promotes safe sex in Bangkok and has various things made out of condoms, like pillows and lanterns and clothing.

Quote of the night: Emma recounted a story about a bachelor party her friend attended at which a woman dropped mints into guys’ mouths using her special place. After we all wrinkled our noses contemplating this, someone said something to the effect of, “That’s gross.” Without missing a beat, Andre says: “I know. I’ve been there.” Needless to say, we laughed really hard. We successfully got into the rooftop bar and had a drink there -- the view was beautiful and i had really good watermelon juice -- and then took two tuk-tuks who raced back to the Altanta. We unsuccessfully tried to get full body massages, but “the girls were busy” at most of the places. Oh, well, maybe in Phuket. We headed to bed for a few hours of sleep before our early train.

An observation: everyone says that Thais are very mild mannered, which I guess was seen in hotel staff, but the red light district at Patpong and the one, called Nana, near our hotel, certainly weren’t at all composed. An odd contradiction.

Things I Love About Thailand: The food. It's amazing. The use of basil, peanuts, lime, noodles, and meats is just outstanding. The weather. The really snazzy temples that just glow in the sun because they are bejeweled and golden.

Things That Took Some Getting Used To: The fact that the sex trade in Thailand is so open took some getting used to. On my way from the airport that first night, I looked out the window and saw a white guy with a Thai woman walking a few paces behind him. Were they a couple? Had he hired her for the night? I want the Thai woman to make a good living economically, but is her self-confidence or her self-worth affected? Does it affect the self-evaluation of Thai women not involved in the sex trade that it is legal there? All interesting questions, and I have no answers...