Southeast Asia Travel Blog

Thailand, Bangkok: antique charkha, various update...

2002-11-23T16:27:00.000-08:00

Well, after an 12-hour bus ride with amphetamine-crazed driver playing "chicken" with oncoming traffic (i.e. a thoroughly uneventful, standard Thai bus ride), I made it back to Bangkok at 5am. At the bus station, I was immediately beset with taxi drivers wanting to take me to my hotel for a "mere" 300 baht (3x the going rate)--it's unbelievably annoying being a farang (foreigner) sometimes. I wound up hiking what *felt* like a kilometer and a half, backtracking the taxi line ("Ambassador Hotel, 300 baht") to the mother lode, i.e. the main street. There I flagged down an honest taxi driver and got back to my hotel for a reasonable fare.

Highlights of yesterday were the Chatuchak Market (more on that below) and the Ploenchit Fair. The Ploenchit fair is a charity event, sponsored by the British Embassy and normally held on the Embassy grounds, but after 9/11 it got moved to the Royal Grounds. It's a really odd mix of Western and Thai--probably the highlight of the evening was the Scottish-Irish-Canadian-Thai band fiddling Irish jigs while a bunch of Thai security officers looked on. (Really tight security presence--worried about terrorist bombings.) I went to the fair with the body painter (Richard) and also ran into Siri and Nima (two of Ben's cousins) there. Siri and I are going off to see the Harry Potter movie this afternoon, Ben and I may get together later this evening. Siri invited me to stay with her--if I wind up staying in Bangkok for a week or so (which now seems likely), I may take her up on it.

Plans for this week include arranging a time for body painting (depends on the artist's schedule), getting my Vietnamese/Cambodian/Lao visas (etc.) and probably getting a Thai language tutor to teach me basic Thai. Of these the really crucial one is the Vietnamese visa--the guidebook says it takes 3-5 days, so if I go for that, I'm stuck in Bangkok until I get it. Checking into a hotel here usually requires passport ID. So I may take some time off from traveling, catch up on my travel writings, etc.

I forgot to mention that I've changed my nationality. I'm now Japanese. With my hair braided and up in a bun, fastened with a chopstick, I'm apparently a Japanese tourist. Down in a ponytail, and dressed locally, I'm Sino-Thai. In conventional Western pants and American t-shirt, I imagine I'd be American, but it's hard to tell, since English is the established lingua franca in Asia. ("Lingua franca", meaning English, particularly amuses me because it happens to be Latin for "French".) In a drapey blouse and loose-fitting silk culottes (trousers that look very much like a split skirt), and especially with the little drop spindle, I'm apparently a very picturesque Japanese woman--I've noticed a couple of European tourists surreptitiously snapping pictu

Anyway, I'm feeling lazy, so rather than rewrite things, I'm going to append the Chatuchak Market (and antique charkha) description that I wrote for the handspinners' list this morning. (Feel free to skip it if you're not into textiles.) If you don't know what a charkha is, it's a spinning wheel where the wheel is cranked by hand and the yarn is spun off the tip of a very sharp spindle that rotates very, very fast.

The Western equivalent is called the great wheel, or walking wheel, with a hand-turned wheel 4-5 feet in diameter--it and the drop spindle were the predominant ways of spinning wool in American colonial days. (It's generally thought that the great wheel was the wheel that pricked Sleeping Beauty, since the (now) more common treadled wheel doesn't have pointy ends.) The charkha is smaller than a great wheel, and is designed to be used sitting down. Its modern use was popularized by Gandhi as part of his protest against colonial treatment--Indians were either required to, or generally did, buy foreign cotton, so Gandhi recommended hand-made local spinning as a way to reduce colonial dependency.

This is probably far more about textiles than you really want to know, so I'll just append the rest of it...feel free to skip if you like.

I got back to Bangkok yesterday morning and went hopping through Chatuchak Market (the Weekend Market), which is just amazing. You can buy *anything* there. Fighting cocks, religious amulets, textiles from Laos, Burma, China, and the hilltribes; antiques, Western oil paintings, dried fish, tasty noodle soup, papayas, gardening supplies, and (unfortunately, in some stalls) bits of endangered species. There are over six thousand vendors packed into a rabbit's-warren of mazelike paths--you could spend an entire day there and not see more than a tiny fraction of it. Paths are narrow, the place is dark, each stall is maybe six feet by ten, crammed with merchandise.

I bought beads there for my travel shawl (blue pearls, chips of lapis, round amethysts), and also some very wonderful used textiles from Lao. They're not in the best of condition, being used, (sorry, haven't taken pix yet), but they're clearly authentic and handmade--Mary Beth, I got one or two for you, I think you'll love them. They show off the exquisite Lao weaving--ikat work, some very nice overshot borders done in many shades of silk (looks like embroidery, but is woven--I looked), and some included patterns in the main weave which I dimly remember are symbolic of something. (Now I'm wishing I hadn't mailed my book on Lao textiles home, but...I needed the space in my pack.) They're quite worn, but (I think) more beautiful that way...also more likely authentic, as the new stuff in shops tends to be a mix of Burmese, Lao, and Chinese techniques meant to appeal to tourists. I plan to buy more Lao textiles once I'm actually in Lao...I figure that's probably better.

Anyway, I also found an antique Thai charkha there! I was looking for beads, passed a furniture shop, and stopped short--there was an old bamboo charkha, sitting on the table next to some handmade boat shuttles! I turned the handle and it spun easily--the spindle was bent out of shape, but otherwise it appeared functional. I was thrilled. I asked the dealer and he said it came from northern Thailand, Chiang Mai--asked him how much he wanted, just over $50. I bargained with him for awhile, and got it for 1900 baht, or just about $44. (He also offered me some pig troughs ("cultural artifacts"), but I declined. ) So I think I got a great deal.

The charkha is handmade of bamboo, with a hand-forged iron spindle. It was bent out of shape, but I (gently, gently!) straightened it out and even spun a little silk on it this morning! It's going to be a nightmare to ship home since it's quite delicate and is also huge (probably about four feet long and eighteen inches high), but it's well worthwhile. It's clearly seen some heavy use, there's a groove worn in the spindle-wrappings and in the sticks used to keep the drive-band from wandering. But it's fantastic. I'm going to see if I can find an antiques/textiles expert in Bangkok who can tell me something about its history/use.

Pix of it are here--you gotta look at it, it's way cool: http://www.travelingtiger.com/travelingtiger/travel_crafts/travel_crafts_index.htm

So, now the question: There appears to be one piece missing from the charkha (it may have fallen off while I was running around the market--hauling an irregularly shaped, twenty-pound object the size of a giant guitar through crowded narrow aisles isn't the easiest of things), a tiny piece on the end that keeps the spindle from sliding out of the bushings. Clearly, I need to replace it or fix it somehow if I want to spin on it. But, I don't want to damage its value as an antique, if it genuinely is one (and I think it might be). What should I do? I'm thinking of wrapping it in a bit of waxed linen thread or something just to make it usable--is that OK? I'm hoping some of you antiques collectors can give me some suggestions...

I'm not sure I'll have the houseroom to keep this once I get back (for now a friend will store it for me), but I just couldn't let it pass by...I figure, at worst I can re-sell it once I return to the U.S.

The travel shawl is coming along well--I'm on row 64, it's about sixteen inches across and I'm up to 256 stitches/round--starting to add pearls and other beads. I really want to fix this charkha so I can spin a skein of silk on it before shipping it back to the states--that would be really special, to knit into the shawl. So tell me, how can I repair this thing simply and quickly (temporarily), without hurting its artifact value?

Back in Bangkok--

Tien

Thailand, Similan Islands: Similan Islands, Day 1

2002-11-20T16:23:00.000-08:00

(Sketchy notes are taking longer to fill out than expected. hopefully I can get them down before I forget everything...)

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11/16 (Saturday) Well, we're off to the Similans...It's rather a nice boat, 36 meters long, with an upper deck (kitchen, food, lounge) and a lower one (cabins, dive deck, saloon/TV room). By some miracle, I've been assigned the only single--everyone else is sharing. I'm glad I have it; me and one other person in a 30-sq-ft space might very well result in a single by the time I got back. (In fact I suspect they put me in it because I'm the only novice on the dive, so they decided to spare the more experienced divers from rooming with me. Or maybe I just got lucky.)

Nothing much to report, except that the showers are lukewarm (but not cold!). Trying to read the screen with the ship moving is giving me a headache, so I think I'll quit now.

11/17 (Sunday)

Jesus. The Similans are Paradise. It's amazing.

Where to start? Well, the diving--it's hard to describe the diving. Take your National Geographic photos and double the amount of sea life. (Rob: forget the Antarctic trip, and come dive here; you'll flip over it. Promise.) I've been "stuck" at 12 meter depth since I'm not certified for open water yet--but this is hardly suffering: the reefs are fantastic. Giant sea fans (three or four kinds at least--some three meters across), corals in all shapes/colors, baroquely tasseled purple sea cucumbers a foot and a half long, tubeworms that look just like little purple flowers blossoming on coral, until they vanish, yanked back into holes in the rock. Giant purple-and-black crown-of-thorns starfish, shaped like an eight-armed starfish with sea urchin spines. Sea cushions, starfish shaped like pentagonal cushions.

And the fish! They're everywhere. Flocks of bright orange fish, the size of three fingers, flutter about, punctuated by slim black-and-turquoise cleaner fish; clouds of minnows school about the coral. First in shapeless clouds of brown fish; then a bigger fish frightens them, and the cloud instantly snaps into a school, swimming away in perfect formation. It looks almost like rain, the way they fall away in silver sheets.

Bigger fish, too: gaudy parrotfish, green, blue, and orange, nipping at coral with their hard beaks; lumpy boxfish, brown and white; graceful triggerfish, black and turquoise ovals rippling through the water, swimming with their dorsal fins.

A giant napoleon lurks closer, a dark shadow with a distinctively humpbacked head, visible only in five-foot profile. A gorgeous lionfish, zebra-striped, all fluttery fins and long, graceful spines. Clownfish, orange, black and white, hiding in anemones; and a big clown triggerfish, with giant head and mouth, impossibly striking, like an abstract artists' piece.

That really doesn't capture it; it's impossible to capture in words. At any given point, there were several hundred fish in sight, and usually at least fifteen or sixteen species; I gave up counting, I couldn't keep track of them. I wish I knew more about maritime ecology; the only fish book on board is in German, so all I can get from it is their common names, not habitat or any deeper understanding of what they're about.

And the landscape! The Similans are known for their reefs, but famous (says our divemaster) for the rocks: giant smooth boulders, jutting out of the floor like a tumbled-over Stonehenge, 40, 50 meters or more. They're visible on top of the islands as well; I'll try to take a picture abovewater, but it won't give you the seascape. Unfortunately I missed most of the good seascape; it's mostly at depths of 25-30 meters, and I'm "stuck" at 12. Still, I'm not complaining.

I forgot to mention a really cool starfish I saw. Actually, I'm not sure "starfish" is the right descriptor: it looks like a cross between a sea urchin and a starfish gone mad, 18" across, with eight or nine or ten purple arms studded with sharp, dark-purple sea-urchin spines. It's called a crown-of-thorns starfish, and feeds on coral. I really wondered if I wasn't hallucinating when I saw it, but it's very, very cool.

So anyway, that's a brief description of the reef diving. But you really need to be there, to really appreciate it; words can only go so far. I really wish I had a camera.

Above water, on the other hand, it's delightful as well. The water is sapphire--and I *mean* sapphire; not the dirty sea-green you get in California. I hadn't realized water actually came that blue; photos in Hawaii are obviously taken with filters to make the water *look* blue, but this really *is* the shade you see in travel brochures. Even the water off Ko Chang wasn't this nice. I wonder what makes it like that? At any rate, it's gorgeous.

The sand is white and powdery (apparently common to coral beaches); the perfect sand for walking, it starts out smooth and untouched, flat and pristine, then molds itself to your feet as you walk. No abrasion; it's soft, not sandy. Just enough support that your feet don't sink in, and no gritty feel. I *love* the beaches. If the diving weren't so spectacular, I'd spend entire days just walking up and down the beach, especially with the startlingly turquoise shallows. Tiny white ghost crabs run up and down the white sand; move slowly enough, and you can walk right up to them. Hermit crabs, too; and some very pretty spiral snails in the crevices of the rock.

In the interior of the island we stopped on, there's some sort of rainforest, with flying foxes, giant land crabs, and about a million different species of plants. I didn't see the foxes, but I did spot a two-foot monitor lizard, brownish-gray, with the waddling gait and side-to-side neck movements distinctive to monitors. I wish I'd kept that field guide to Thai reptiles; maybe I'll buy another one. I tried getting up for a closer look, but it climbed a tree, then ran off. Anyway, it was neat getting to look at a monitor in the wild.

I did watch for snakes, but (alas) didn't see any. it's possible they haven't made it out from the mainland, it's 40 km or so away. Mike (my instructor) says there are sea snakes in the water, and we'll probably see one--I hope so, they're very beautiful. (Also highly neurotoxic, but what are you doing messing with one, anyway?)

I think, though, that on the whole the best part so far was the lionfish. It was gorgeous--white-and-black feathery plumes everywhere. I could have watched it for hours.

Dive-wise, we did three dives today. The first was on a coral reef; everyone else went down to 26 meters, but Mike and I stayed at 12 meters and did some confined-water exercises before cruising around the reef. Almost no current, beautiful view. I had some trouble breathing initially, but eventually settled down.

Second dive was mostly a rock-landscape dive, so I missed that part (too deep for me); there was a strong current, too, which we could have avoided by going to the bottom, but I couldn't go that deep, so we simply hung onto the mooring line at 12 meters for twenty minutes or so, looking at the nearby coral and watching the fish schooling. Oddly enough I wasn't bored; there was plenty of action to watch on the corals, with little fish darting in and out, flurries of "minnows" forming and exploding, and the odd sea cucumber/sea fan to investigate.

The third dive was a reef dive; the others went around the north and south side of the reef, but we stayed on the reef, at 12-14 meters. This is where I saw the lionfish, and the clown triggerfish; it's also where I spotted the napoleon, a giant fish way bigger than me (!). It feeds on invertebrates mostly, and its meat is very highly prized, apparently fetching over $100/lb in Hong Kong (!). The lips of the napoleon are considered an aphrodesiac and fetch very high prices in Southeast Asia. All of which is a real pity, because it was a very beautiful and impressive giant fish. Fortunately the Similans are a maritime preserve, so fishing et al is illegal here. (The restrictions may even be enforced, which is (unfortunately) rare in Thailand.)

There are supposed to be leopard sharks here too, but I haven't seen any.

I should also mention that the two-legged scenery doesn't suck, either. There are fourteen other passengers on the boat, and four or five instructors/staff, most of whom are quite enjoyable to look at. In fact, when I get back, I'm going to write a book titled "All I Need To Know About Ogling Men I Learned From My AIDS Lifecycle Tentmate." (Hey, if you're going to learn about these things, learn from a pro. ;-) )

At any rate, despite all that, the real beauty is under the water.

Anyway, it's getting late, and tomorrow we start diving again at 8am. Good night.

Tien

Cambodia, Phnom Penh: comments on Cambodia, to Sai...

2002-12-23T17:03:00.000-08:00

Well, after two weeks in Cambodia, here are Tien's Rules for Surviving Cambodia:

(1) Moto drivers are *not* hitting on you. 1/3 of their approaches will be stylistically indistinguishable from Western come-ons, but honestly, they just want you to hire them, and are of the mistaken opinion that following you for half a block or murmuring seductively while circling you on their moto is the best way of convincing you to do so.

Really, they're harmless. Incredibly annoying, but harmless.

(2) Moto drivers have NO sense of direction. They also don't know the town, despite being taxi drivers by profession. Don't assume he knows where even the biggest tourist attraction is (even if he's nodding); look at his face to see if he *really* understands.

If you wind up in the middle of nowhere with a moto driver who obviously hasn't a clue (this seems to happen about 50% of the time, even with precautions), tell him to stop, pay him off, and flag down another moto driver. Eventually you *will* get a guy with a clue...and at 50 cents a pop, you can afford to go through two or three before getting to your destination. Don't panic; the world is full of motos, and in daylight, you're safe--the muggers only really come out at night.

(3) Ignoring someone in Cambodia isn't rude; just a sign that you aren't interested. Meeting someone's eyes--or any sign other than blank disinterest--means you're a potential customer, in which case you'll NEVER get rid of them.

Failing to observe this rule scrupulously will result in endless harassment by moto drivers, who will fall on you instantly at the slightest sign of interest. (This also applies to amputee beggars.)

(4) Don't bother with friendly conversation with vendors/moto drivers. They're just trying to get you off your guard. Other service providers, etc. are fine.

(5) Don't get fazed when even a decent hotel mysteriously turns off your electricity, removes the toilet paper from your bathroom, etc. This is Cambodia, after all.

In general, while I think the Cambodians have done a phenomenal job of rebuilding their country from the rubble left over from the Khmer Rouge and subsequent Vietnamese invasion, I'm not particularly fond of Cambodia. Phnom Penh isn't very interesting--the only real gem in the area is the National Museum, which has stunning artifacts from the Khmer Empire. Unfortunately, I'm pretty much deaf to both history and art, and sculpture isn't one of my crafts, so it didn't do much for me...if I hadn't been sick for the last week, I'd have gone to Saigon by now.

I also went to the Tuol Sleng (Holocaust) Museum; but I'll talk more about that later. I found it underwhelming, but I think that was because I initially found it overwhelming, and simply shut down.

Moving on: in a nice compromise between bus (slow, grueling) and plane (fast, expensive), I've discovered that you can get to the Vietnamese border by boat! and, better yet, the boat leaves at a decent hour in the afternoon, so I'm forfeiting my 6am bus ticket to catch the afternoon boat to the border, and will catch a pickup-taxi from the border to Saigon. This cuts a 10-hour grueling bus ride down to about a 3-4 hour journey by boat and taxi (the Vietnamese pave their roads--fancy that!).

I'm a little nervous about finding a taxi on the other side, and finding a guesthouse in Saigon, but I know (intellectually) that that's absurd; I'll be met by 10,000 hotel touts and about 4,000 taxis at the border.

To Saigon tomorrow!

Tien

Cambodia, Phnom Penh: A whole new insight into tra...

2002-12-21T17:01:00.000-08:00

..umm, there *may* be some in Cambodia, but if so I haven't noticed them yet.

Today, after five hours in an Internet cafe uploading my Website (I said it had a *faster* connection...I didn't say it was *fast*!), I decided to go see the Royal Palace, in hopes of getting a glimpse of the Silver Pagoda.

So I walked out of the hotel and summoned one of the circling buzzards, er, I mean moto drivers. I did avoid the ones directly in front of the hotel (six or seven of them perch nonchalantly on a sidewalk over the savannah, waiting for the kites that indicate a dying, no, I mean emerging tourist), on the general principle that someone who's been waiting an hour or so to pounce on you is going to want to extract extra blood for their trouble. In other words, as in Bangkok, never get into an idle taxi.

But, as it turns out, this did me no good at all. The fellow I flagged down and paid $1 to take me to the Royal Palace actually dropped me off on a completely gratuitous street somewhere in Phnom Penh, nowhere near the Royal Palace and, in fact, near absolutely nothing at all (as far as I could tell). Since he apparently didn't speak a word of English, I never did work out whether he knew where the Royal Palace was and simply dropped me there for the hell of it, whether he thought he was taking me somewhere else, or whether he had no idea what I was saying in the first place and just took me somewhere random. Traveling is kind of like that in Cambodia.

So anywhere, there I was on some completely unrecognizable street in Phnom Penh, with absolutely no idea where I was, thinking vaguely that I should have have brought my map. Fortunately, the *second* motorcycle I flagged down turned out to be driven by a much better driver, who not only charged me only half the first rate (2000 riel--50 cents), but actually took me to my destination (!). Cambodia is like that, too.

At the Royal Palace, the palace gates were closed and locked--since King Sikanoukh returned from exile the Palace has been off-limits to visitors. Well, I knew that, but I also wanted to find the Silver Pagoda, so I started walking around the Royal Palace grounds. Unfortunately the little episode with the random delivery motorcycle had cost me a good bit of time, so the sun was setting...I stumbled across the National Museum, realized I wasn't going to see the Silver Pagoda before sunset, and (in my ongoing quest to try every form of transportation ever invented) flagged down a cyclo.

What is a cyclo?, you ask? As far as I know, it's a uniquely Cambodian invention, and is (if you think about it) rather grisly. Cambodia, as you know, has an oversupply of land mines. As a result, it also has a large oversupply of amputees (about 1 in 250 Cambodians has lost a limb to landmines), and because the amputees do eventually get fitted with replacement limbs and crutches, it also has a large oversupply of wheelchairs. So what does one do with the excess wheelchairs? Well, if it's Cambodia, you cut the front end off a bike, weld the wheelchair to the bike, and presto! you have a cyclo. The rider sits in the wheelchair up front, the cyclo driver mounts the bike in back, and off you go, through the traffic.

(I should say that these are not the small wheelchairs you see in the U.S. These are high-backed wheelchairs. The upholstery is plastic and generally quite ratty, although many of them cover the cushions in fabric to make them look a trifle better.)

I should pause here to mention that I did finally learn the trick of crossing a street in Asia. Douglas Adams mentions (in his wonderful book _Last Chance to See_) that streets in China are remarkable--full of drivers passing through intersections with no apparent awareness of traffic laws--or, it would seem, the laws of physics.

"Just as you'd swear they were going to hit one another, the cars seem to pass through each other like beams of light, missing each other by no more than six inches" he wrote. And in fact crossing the street is just like that.

You don't wait for a break in traffic, because there won't be one. Instead, you wait for a slight break, not enough to cross the street but enough for drivers in the first lane of traffic to see (and presumably avoid) you as you step into the street. Now you're in the middle of the first lane, with cars and motorcycles whizzing by on either side. You inch slowly further into the road, always making sure that you're far enough from nearby traffic for drivers to react before hitting you.

But, they won't *always* swerve for you--that's the hard part. You have to look into the eyes of oncoming drivers and judge whether you or they will give way. If you judge wrong, you get to leap backwards at the last moment, which can be problematic since another car is probably swerving to fill the gap you left in traffic. All this makes it a rather nervewracking process for the hapless Westerner, who's used to more orderly things like crosswalks and stoplights. I still have to suppress the conviction that I'm about to die.

(Phnom Penh *does* actually have street-lights, unlike the rest of Cambodia. Some drivers even take notice of them... ;-) )

Anyway, that's crossing the street in Cambodia. Traffic in Cambodia works quite similarly. Nominally, traffic runs on the right-hand side of the road. But, since crossing traffic is complicated on foot and nearly impossible otherwise (no traffic lights), the Cambodians have discovered a "better" way of making a left turn.

One starts out driving on the left-hand side of the road (against traffic, but on the shoulder). Then,upon spotting a small gap, one starts driving head-on into traffic, but angled slightly, so that eventually one pops out on the other side of the lane and can join traffic in the right direction. If you imagine a fish swimming head-on into a school of other fish, at a slight angle, and emerging on the other side, you'll get a good idea of how this maneuver works.

However, this is not the sea and these are not fish: this is a motorcycle headed straight against traffic, with you behind the driver staring at three lanes of oncoming traffic and wishing you had a deity to say your prayers to. Imagine driving the wrong way down the 101 at rush hour in a motorcycle, trying to get to the other side, and you get a rough idea.

Amazingly enough, none of these people hit you.

Okay, that's the experience on a motorcycle. That's easy. Now, repeat it in a cyclo: you up front in a wheelchair (sitting there peacefully reclined, with an absolutely wide-open view of four lanes of impending doom) with an overgrown bicycle behind you, pedaling nonchalantly against traffic. It's a whole new vision into terror, especially if your cyclo driver is nonchalantly running a red light at the same time. As I said, there may be traffic laws in Cambodia, but if so, I haven't discovered them.

The amazing part about this is that the entire time we were nearly being crushed, almost hit, sliding narrowly through oncoming traffic, etc. my cyclo driver was chattering happily along, telling me about all the wonderful sights in Phnom Penh and trying to convince me to hire him tomorrow for extortionate amounts of money. He seemed blissfully aware of our imminently impending doom.

(Okay...after about three days on AIDS Lifecycle I was kind of like that too...but at least *I* didn't have passengers!)

Nonetheless, I have to admit I was grinning like a maniac for most of the cyclo ride. It's fun! You get to see traffic from out front! instead of behind the wheel, driver, hood, etc. of an automobile. Sort of like sitting in the middle of the street, watching the traffic pass by, except that you're moving, too!

Cyclos are way cool. If you ever go to Cambodia, I suggest you try one, at least once. (Skip it if you've got a heart condition.) After one cyclo ride, though, roller coasters will be blasé for the rest of your life.

Anyway, that was my exciting day today. Tomorrow I'm going to do a lightning tour, including the Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda, and National Museum in the morning, Tuol Sleng in the afternoon, the shooting range at night (?), and then take a plane to Saigon sometime Monday. At least, that's the plan. I have no idea what will actually happen...this is, after all, Cambodia. ;-)

Cambodia, Phnom Penh: Website updated

2002-12-21T16:58:00.000-08:00

First, happy Yule to everyone, and I hope you enjoyed Solstice! ...if you celebrate it, that is. (Happy Christmas, Hannukah, and other winter solstitial holidays if you don't.)

That said...you folks have absolutely NO idea how lucky you have it. I'm not just talking about your miraculous access to hot water ;-) , but T-1 Internet access...! The stuff dreams are made of. You have not lived until you've tried uploading 12 MB of Web photos from an Internet cafe where all the terminals share a single wireless modem line. And then the information has to squeeze through Cambodia's lone 56K modem line to the outside world...

...okay, I'm exaggerating. A tiny bit. But not much. I think Cambodia might have one T-1 for the entire country. it's certainly true that 2-3 times a day, Internet access slows to an unusable crawl across the entire city, and all the Internet cafes shut down. presumably this happens whenever a Liberate engineer checks in his/her code...is that like a kid saying "I don't believe in fairies"?? (one more packet winks slowly out...)

However, I have braved all these slow-connection horrors, staggered through the Phnom Penh streets relentlessly pursued by amputee beggars and roving gangs of motorcycle taxi drivers, and more prosaically popped through four or five Internet cafes until I found one that is equipped to handle laptops *and* has a fast enough connection to upload my Angkor Wat photos. (I am tempted to ask them if they have Robitussin cold medication, DHL service, and a couple of cute geeks (available for short or long-term rental ;-) ) on tap as well, but I suppose that would be pushing my luck.) So, the photos are now up on my Website--go check them out. http://www.travelingtiger.com/index%20pages/travels.htm (note: I have reorganized the structure a bit, bookmarks may need to be redone)

Not much to report the last two days--I have been down with a very nasty cold which has not been helped by the awful air pollution in Phnom Penh. So I have spent the last two days pretty much dead to the world, only shuttling between the essentials of life--sleep, Web development, and email. oh yeah, and hot showers. (Actually I have worked out how to get a hot BATH...! Luxury! Okay, it takes forty-five minutes to get enough hot water to fill the tub, but the result is blessedly hot, not lukewarm. I would probably sell my soul for a real live hot water heater, if I could fit it into my pack. ;-) )

At any rate, I'm showing vague signs of life this morning, but if I'm incoherent in this email, forgive me--I'm on the uptick, but nowhere near normal yet. I'll probably spend most of today holed up in the hotel, although I may take a field trip in search of more cold medication and a DHL shipper. (Cambodia has a small problem with medicine: the Khmer Rouge killed off all the doctors. So while they do have medicine, knowledge of how to apply it is somewhat scantier. Fortunately, this is not rocket science; I have two tabs of Robitussin to wave in front of pharmacists until I find one who has it, or something approximating it.)

Sights to be seen in Phnom Penh: the Silver Pagoda, whose floor consists of 1-kilogram plates of solid silver (a wonder the Khmer Rouge didn't loot it!), the Royal Palace, and the Tuol Sleng Holocaust Museum. I'm also hoping to shoot off an AK47...I think that should be great fun, although undoubtedly less exciting than it sounds. (I saw someone else's photos and they were, um, uninspired.) once I manage all of those, I'm flying out again, this time to Saigon. 2-3 days, most likely.

Btw, I did manage to get rid of the amputee beggars and taxidrivers--the key, once again, is hair: having taken my hair out of the Japanese-lady bun, and put it in a ponytail, i'm suddenly Cambodian. So all the taxis, beggars, etc. ignore me now, and the market women all speak Cambodian to me. Go figure. (When I get back, I'm going to write a book about traveling and title it "Hair and There".)

I also figured out that I wasn't being snubbed because I was female, but because I was a whore--yeah, I missed that career change, too. ;-) i keep forgetting how prevalent prostitution and "bag the wealthy Westerner" gold-digging is in Asia--to the point where an Asian woman accompanying a Caucasian man is automatically assumed to be a hired prostitute. It doesn't matter that you're speaking fluent American English or waving a U.S. passport--interracial relationships are only about one thing, and that's money. So as long as I'm around just one Caucasian guy I'm presumed to be traveling with him as his golddigger girlfriend/prostitute--if I'm with a gaggle of other tourists, though, I become a human again. *sigh* People are idiots. (Well, actually, they're not. They just learn from experience. That's the problem.)

It's quite interesting seeing how this assumption works, though. For example, I arrived at the Asia Hotel with Frank and the German couple. I checked in: no problem. Frank checked in: very confused hotel clerk turns to me and says, "Wait, you want your OWN room??" Umm, well, yes. The amazing part is that they knew him from five days previously, when he was traveling through Phnom Penh by himself, so they must have assumed he'd picked me up in the interim; just what kind of girl do they think I am?

Oh. Yeah. Thanks...I think. And all this *after* handing over a U.S. passport. *sigh*

At any rate, having pleasantly straightened that little bit out, I've recovered at least six-tenths of my temper. As far as I can tell, moto taxi drivers will pursue anything that moves, but are considerably more aggressive towards Westerners, and even more aggressive towards solo Asian female tourists--probably because Asian women just don't travel on their own (unlike Western women who are--sometimes--honorary men). Thus, the chivalrous male desire to rescue/escort the poor helpless little lady mixes with the mercenary desire to make a fast buck and the annoying male urge to hassle pretty girls to produce the Moto Driver From Hell. So basically, if I'm identifiable as a solo tourist, I'm in for it. Fortunately, I can actually pass as Cambodian, at least close enough to fly under radar. This is all very complicated and I can't help thinking life as a Pasty White Person would be much simpler--then this whole nationality/culture thing would coincide neatly in everyone's eyes and we could all be straightforward about our respective roles. Nonetheless, it's occasionally convenient, being able to blend into the scenery.

Anyway, that's it for the moment...having finished uploading my website, downloading my email, etc., I'm going to stagger off in search of food, and then go back to sleep.

Tien

P.S. If you see broken links, etc. please tell me--I put most of the Angkor section together during my brief moments of lucidity, so I make no guarantees about the quality.

Cambodia, Phnomh Penh: Hello from Phnom Penh!

2002-12-17T16:57:00.000-08:00

I have finished up five days in Siem Reap, touring the ruins of Angkor (which are amazingly impressive if also amazingly overrun by tourists), plus a side trip to Les Artisans d'Angkor's silk farm, where I got a good look at Cambodian weaving and looms. This morning I took a boat from Siem reap, and just arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. I've moderately adjusted to the temperature, which is to say that while it's still insanely hot and humid, I'm at least no longer worrying about heatstroke. I've discovered that a vicious glare translates perfectly into every human language, and worked out most of the details for getting waiters to acknowledge my existence and get rid of amputee beggars. So all in all, I"m doing pretty well.

Today, and probably tomorrow, I'm going to be resting up and getting my website organized (whether I'll be able to upload it is another matter), acclimating to Phnom Penh, and trying to fight off whatever virus/bacteria thingie has hold of my system. (I'm actually not sure it's an illness; it could just be throat irritation from the amazingly poor air quality in Siem Reap. Someone is almost always burning *something* there; it makes Los Angeles look like the epitome of air quality, even at its smoggiest.)

After that, I'll be out to explore, probably spending a day or two at the royal palace and museum, and then their holocaust museum (I can never remember the name--Tuol Sleng?), before moving on to Vietnam.

More details later; I haven't had a decent night's sleep in days, so I'm going back up to my hotel room to nap, lie around, rest, etc. for the rest of the day.

I should say that Cambodia isn't as bad as I initially thought; it just operates by an entirely different set of rules. Once you work them out, it's not too bad--though if you're not prepared to cope with, say, a six-year-old child beggar with one leg blown off by landmines, or an eight-year-old boy with his face rotting away, you may want to skip it. (Beggars hang out around the ruins because that's where all the wealthy tourists are.) Nonetheless, the ruins of angkor are just amazing. It's been exhausting and a fairly major ordeal, but I'm glad I came here. Considering what they've been through, too, the people are amazingly friendly.

Anyway, I'm going back up to my room, where I'm living in air-conditioned luxury (hot shower and a BATHTUB, can you believe that?!?); after a nap, I'll see if I can get my photos organized. I took over 500 photos in the ruins, and almost all of them are fantastic.

Tien

Cambodia, Siem Reap: Hello from Angkor Wat!

2002-12-14T16:56:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the radio silence, but the last few days have been physically exhausting--touring the Angkor temples. (The temple complex is generically called Angkor Wat, after the largest temples, but technically there are 38-odd temples in the area.) I've now taken over 200 photos, but since I haven't been able to connect up my laptop or digital camera, and have been too exhausted to update the website anyway, you're going to have to wait for a few more days--probably until I make it to Phnom Penh, the capital.

Cambodia is much hotter than Thailand, or else more humid, or *something*--I've successfully adjusted to Thai temperatures (mostly) but am really struggling here--sweating like a pig and worrying a lot about heatstroke. (Fortunately I almost dehydrated on Day 6 of AIDS Lifecycle--so I'm familiar with the symptoms.) The sun is much more intense here than in Thailand--really too hot to be out around midday, even though my pocket thermometer thinks it's only 85-90 degrees. So we are touring the temples from 8am-11am each day, going back to the hotel from 11-3, then coming back to the temples in late afternoon.

I've also been suffering from acute culture shock, and a certain degree of pure frustration. Cambodians react to a solo Western traveler about the same way that male Caltech students behave around single women: latch on, hang on, and use every emotionally manipulative trick in the book to make sure that *they* are the ones who wind up with you. The good news is that once they've already got you, they're generally quite friendly and helpful, i.e. you can basically trust anyone you're already employing. Otherwise, assume anyone being friendly/helpful is setting you up for emotional blackmail. On the other hand, vendors generally set their prices fairly, and are fairly easy to spot when they don't. so it's almost the exact opposite of Thailand, where people are generally warm, friendly, and helpful, but in business dealings will happily overcharge you by vast sums without your knowing.

Anyway, having discarded the nice clueless-farang-please-help-me persona that worked in Thailand, and reverted to the suspicious Caltech-female ("Hi!" "Whaddya want from me?") persona, I'm doing much better. It's not a better or worse way of dealing with people, exactly--it's just different. I think one of the hardest parts of traveling is that in every area, the cultural pitfalls/expectations are different--so the first few days in a new culture are sheer hell as your danger signals go crazy and you run into the unexpected.

It's been particularly tough for me because I'm getting the worst of all worlds--I'm a Western traveler (therefore a good "mark"), but also an Asian female, therefore quiet/submissive/a good target for bullying--which is to say that beggars, moto drivers, etc. are two or three times more aggressive towards me than, say, the German guy I'm touring the temples with. Cambodia is also heavily male-dominated--waiters won't speak to me, for example; if a man's at the table, they ask him for my order, and so on. (I'm not sure if that's related to being Asian--they do seem to notice/talk to Caucasian women. I wonder if they think I'm a prostitute, now that I think of it. They certainly present him with the bill.)

Anyway, whatever the reason, I'm getting pretty frustrated with the whole thing--if this keeps up, I swear I'm going to kick one of these fuckers in the balls. I'm getting very tired of being "leaned on" continuously by guys who expect me to cave in because I'm Asian and female. For Christmas, all I want is a T-shirt reading "WESTERN FEMINIST BITCH".

(No, that is *not* a chip on my shoulder. It's a fucking BRICK, and I'm about to brain you with it. Sweet and pretty Japanese tourist lady turns into Ramba. Thank goodness I had eight years in mathematics--not to mention self-defense--to toughen up for it. Good gods.)

At any rate, having re-set my expectations, I'm doing a good bit better than I was two days ago. I have a guide, and am touring the ruins with three German tourists--our guide speaks very good english and I've asked him to take me to some of the rural weaving villages after the ruins tour. (No, we're not going into the forest looking at dyeplants and such--Siem Reap area was heavily landmined, and although temples and villages are safe, you don't want to be in the outback.) I've learned how to deal with the amputee beggars and the kids that mob every vehicle wanting to sell you postcards, T-shirts, etc.--they're largely harmless (not pickpockets), and actually very cute (I took a photo of Frank, the German guy, getting mobbed by some). As long as you don't get into conversations with any vendors, you'll be fine.

Now, about the ruins...

The Angkor Wat region contains some really amazing temples--Angkor Wat itself is absolutely stunning, about 1.3 kilometers on a side, with a giant moat around the entire complex. (We are not talking a little moat, as is common for European castles. When I first saw the Angkor moat, I thought it was a lake (!). It's HUGE.) The complex itself is enormous, with five levels (I think), almost every square inch of which is covered with elaborate (and beautiful) stone carvings, from the Angkar sigil (repeated on every door and window) to bas-reliefs of various historical and mythological events (almost the entire outside wall), and apsaras (divine maidens) everywhere.

It's impossible to convey it in words--there isn't any modern work the SIZE of Angkor, let alone with the beautiful stonework. If you took the Pentagon (please! ;-) ), transformed it into an elaborately architected cathedral, and then covered every inch (and I really do mean every inch) in gorgeous stonecarvings, you might come close, but I still don't think it would capture the sight. It's beautiful.

And it's only one of the many temples in the area--not even the central one. Almost all the temples are similarly impressive, in one way or another--the Bayon has 54 towers, each with 4 giant stone faces carved into it (each head maybe 2-3 meters across), the "Jungle Temple" is filled with giant trees growing out of the ruins, and the other temple we visited this morning (I forget the name; it was a tribute to the king's teacher) sported what our guide described as a "swimming pool".

Okay, it's a swimming pool. It's just about the size of, oh, four or five football fields....500 meters by 300 meters, the size of a small lake. About ten feet deep originally. Dug out by HAND, about 800 years ago. Ye gods.

*That* is the scale of Angkor.

I'm running out of time, as I have to get lunch before going back to the temples this afternoon--I'll try to write a little more about the experience of touring the ruins tonight, but not sure if I'll get to it; the heat is exhausting and I'm also enjoying hanging out with my fellow tourists, so there isn't much time in the evenings. Tonight we may go to Le Bayon, one of the best restaurants in Siem Reap, per my guide.

I'll probably hang around in Siem Reap for a day or two after I'm done touring, both to write stuff up and to take a day "off" from traveling. Phnom Penh has better connectivity, but I really need a break.

Tien

Cambodia, Siem Reap: Hello from Cambodia!

2002-12-13T16:52:00.000-08:00

...and welcome to the Third World.

Yesterday I made the border crossing at Poipet, then took the bus to Siem Reap. It's about 325 miles total, 14 hours with a two-hour stop at the border. The Thai side (250 miles) took 4 hours. Covering the 75 miles in Cambodia, well, that took 8 hours. Roads in Cambodia, well...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I should start by explaining that I got massively overcharged for the trip. I paid 1200 baht ($30) at a travel agent on Sukumvit Road, near where I was staying. The other ten passengers paid anywhere from 150 baht to, well, 1200. I've pretty much given up on being angry about people trying to rip me off; it's nothing personal, just a fact of life. If you stop being paranoid for one instant, it happens. So why be upset about it; it's going to happen, you just can't do anything about it. (See previous commentary about "normalcy".) Fortunately, it's not generally for a large sum, by Western standards.

(What annoys me far more than the money, I think, is the idea of being treated "unfairly". The Western idea that all people should be treated equally is the real issue--after all, all tourist areas massively overcharge tourists; it's just comforting to know that everyone else is in the same boat as you are.)

At any rate, after four uneventful hours on the Thai side, we reached the border town of Poipet.

Poipet: dusty, unmechanized, full of boxes and crates being moved across the border. almost all carts are human-powered--imagine a pony-cart with a crossbar nailed across the hitches, and a man standing inside the "traces", pushing the cart along. Women and girls ride in the carts sometimes, hair and mouths covered against the dust, protecting themselves from the sun with umbrellas as their "driver" plods along.

More often, the carts are filled with boxes, since it's a border town; in fact, I saw one impressively massive cart being hauled by a team of five men. Amazing sight: about 300 boxes about the size of an orange crate, rising up like a giant mushroom from this little cart, with the men pulling and straining inside the "harness". Much to my surprise, they were actually able to move it; I even took a few photos.

Poipet is a pretty rough town; my guess is that it's a major clearinghouse for smuggling, among other things. At any rate, there is a great deal of poverty and a fairly aggressive set of locals: on the Thai side, it's beggars, and on the Cambodian side, it's thieves. Ten seconds after our group arrived at the rest stop and sat down, the inevitable swarm of vendors appeared, and a slew of child-beggars. One of them, a little boy of about six or seven, just wouldn't go away--he circled the group for thirty minutes, watching us like hawks, constantly moving into our field of view, hand outstretched. If any of us moved our hands towards our pockets, he was there instantly. Looking at him, I decided not to take any more photos; I didn't want to call any more atention to my digital camera than I already had.

Which was a pity, as the crossover arch to Cambodia was quite beautiful. It had the triple towers of Angkor Wat rising up out of the arch--every Cambodian government has flown Angkor Wat on their flag, even the Khmer Rouge, which says something about the magnificent architecture. (The Khmer Rouge, in fact, actually called themselves "the Angkar" for most of their reign.) And Poipet itself has many sights worth snapping: for example, I really wish I'd gotten a photo of the guy who rode by on a motorcycle, two live chickens dangling by their feet from the handlebars. (Insert mandatory rubber-chicken joke here. ;-) They really do look like rubber chickens, hanging like that--I thought they were dead, until I saw one blink.)

At any rate, hiding the digital turned out to be a good idea, because the Cambodian side is populated by some very bold thieves. (See previous comments about "rough town".) Five minutes into Cambodia, they struck our group--we were sitting in the pickup-taxi, a German woman had her backpack next to her, and in an instant when she wasn't looking, a passing Cambodian reached in, lightning-quick, and got his hand inside the back pocket of her backpack. She yelped and told the driver to stop, but he was already sauntering off, and vanished behind a crate. Just that fast, with all of us there in the taxi.

(Fortunately she didn't lose anything--she wasn't keeping any valuables in outside pockets. Neither am I; my pack and daypack are locked with little combination locks that I bought before leaving. I felt really stupidly paranoid in Thailand, traveling like that; I don't now. I'm also very glad I had my pants made with pockets that zip shut; near the Thai border, we met a man who had had his wallet stolen one minute (literally!) into Cambodia, and was returning to Bangkok to get his traveler's checks reissued.)

Anyway, after the border crossing, we got on the main highway to Siem Reap. 4 hours got us 250 miles into Thailand; it took 8 hours to travel 75 miles in Cambodia. Welcome to the Third World.

Cambodia is indeed very poor. In Thailand, the poor live in corrugated tin shacks; in Cambodia, corrugated tin means wealth. Most people live in wooden huts/houses raised up off the ground on stilts; the poor live in thatched huts, with thin bamboo-lath frames holding the thatched walls together. They look like they might fall down at any moment. Pigs, dogs, and chickens run around with sporadically naked kids; people travel by foot or bicycle, or sometimes by pony-cart (I saw two on the way).

Roads in Cambodia also come in many varieties, most of them poor. The road we were on is one of the main highways, and is in substantially better shape than most because of the tourist trade: the Thai underwrote most of the paved sections. Nonetheless we averaged under 10 miles an hour for the trip, which tells you something about the other portions.

A brief category of Cambodian roads:

Paved roads. These come in anything from smooth, paved road (a godsend for the 10% of the mileage it covers) to heavily potholed (marginally more common), to this stuff that I swear looked *exactly* like someone had tried to duplicate a washboardy, potholed dirt road in asphalt. I'm not sure who came up with the idea, but it's, um, memorable. Just like the same version in dirt, only much bumpier. (Fortunately there wasn't much of it--presumably the paver came to his/her senses eventually and left for a career in modern sculpture.)

Between paved roads and dirt roads is this very special stuff: sharp, ridgy rocks about the size of half-bricks (but more like shattered brick, all edges and bumps) packed into the roadbed. The ride makes cobblestones look smooth, but at least those sections aren't full of potholes--you can drive through them without breaking an axle or ripping the bottom off your vehicle.

And then there are the dirt roads. Ah, the dirt roads. SOME of them are flat and beautiful; you can travel almost as fast as on a smooth paved road, which is to say thirty to forty miles an hour. And then it gets worse. In the midlevel, there are the ones that look like choppy ocean waves--more a series of potholes punctuated by ridges (the ridges are just to allow more and better potholes ;-) ) than a road. And then there are the bad sections--with "potholes" big enough to swallow an elephant (or a minivan) whole--I honestly wondered if they weren't landmine craters, but they're not deep enough, only about a foot deep despite their impressive size. Still plenty big enough to break an axle, or strand a vehicle, and there are LOTS of them.

Driving along these roads is quite simple. You drive along whatever section of road (right, left, center, shoulder) you can negotiate; if you meet another vehicle, the bigger one gets the right of way. Fortunately, you're not really going to damage anyone else's vehicle, at least on the worst sections: neither of you can travel faster than a few miles an hour, so you'll see the other vehicle in plenty of time. It's *much* more likely that you'll break an axle.

At any rate, it took about 9 hours of slow, bone-jarring crawl over one of the best roads in Cambodia, to get to Siem Reap. (If I sound like I'm obsessing over road surfaces...well...I had a LOT of time to think about them. and they are, um, highly memorable. I don't think my back and neck will forget them anytime soon. ;-) )

We did stop twice along the way; the first for a rest stop, where we got mobbed by a swarm of child beggars/vendors. "Sir, give me pen!" "Madam, give me five baht to pay school!" "How old are you?" "What's your name?" I was accosted by one fifteen-year-old girl (who looked more like eight or ten); she said she had five brothers and sisters *(5,6,7,8, and 10), and wanted a pen. I gave her one, since I had it handy; then she demanded five baht "for school". She eventually wore me down--I gave her ten baht. Then she demanded $1, or $5--at which point I put my foot down. I felt bad for her, but money wouldn't have been helpful; I doubt that either the pen or the money were actually going towards school. (With three brothers at home, there's no way she was going to school--Cambodians, like most Asians, educate boys first. Welcome to the world of male privilege.)

On the other hand, for ten baht and a pen I got the full gamut of beggars' tactics in Cambodia; which includes remarkable persistence (ten minutes after I fled into conversation with another group she was still outside calling "Madame Tien! Madame Tien!" trying to get my attention) and a wide array of conversational tricks. I don't think I've encountered such shameless manipulativeness and persistence since, hmm, well, never mind.

Anyway, the stop was only supposed to be for ten minutes but stretched to half an hour; almost unbearable, as we couldn't step outside without being swarmed by begging children, and they were all around the windows, reaching in to try to grab our attention. The only "safe" place was in the very center of the minivan (and you can bet I was watching my bags the entire time). I felt rather like I'd stepped into Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds"--seriously under siege.

Still, there was lots of beautiful scenery, lots of surprisingly friendly people waving to us from the road, and lots of children splashing joyfully in the muddy ponds. Not to mention fishermen pulling nets from the shallow ponds by the road, and some very nicely muscled guys out bathing in the ponds (in sarongs, alas ;-) ).

Our second stop, which was much less trying, was at a Cambodian gas station. This is not your shiny clean petrol station with nice clean pumps and a convenient ATM/credit card device on the island; this is a little shack by the side of the road (tin roof; thatched sides, remarkably flammable) stacked with all sorts of makeshift/scavenged containers--everything from plastic jugs to glass soda bottles--full of gasoline. (As an aside, I now know that gasoline is yellow in color, about the same shade as urine left to ferment for three weeks. Sixteen years' driving and I never actually *saw* gasoline, since it was always pumped into the tank: weird, huh? (If you want to know about the fermented urine part, let's just say that some of the old-time natural dye recipes are a bit odd...leave it there, and we'll all be much happier. ;-) ))

Anyway, with Cambodian gas stations, you pull over to the side of the road, buy the appropriate size container, and pour it into your tank with your handy gas funnel. Not smoking while doing this is a nice idea, but (apparently) strictly optional. (!)

At any rate, it's getting late, and I need to be back at the hotel in fifteen minutes. I'm going to the best restaurant in Siem Reap (at least per the tour guide), which charges $11/head for dinner plus a performance of Cambodian dance. That's still outrageous by local standards--you can get a room for $4 or less, for example--but sounds pretty good to me. After yesterday's incredible ride and today's trying events (more on that later), I could use something easy/fun. Let's just say, I am now assuming that any Cambodian being nice to you has his/her eyes firmly fixed on your wallet. *sigh*

Tien

Thailand, Bangkok: Cover girl!!!! :-)

2002-12-11T16:50:00.000-08:00

Well, in the latest bizarre turn on events, Richard called me up yesterday and asked how I'd feel about being on the cover of Farang magazine (a Thai travel magazine targeted at backpackers)...they want me for the cover of their January issue (!). Needless to say, I said yes...so he's put together a sample to send to them, and in a few days I should know if I'm going to be a cover girl or not. I'm pretty sure I will be, though--it's a damn impressive photo. (Unfortunately I couldn't get it on my web page due to technical problems--hopefully will work them out in cambodia.)

Tien

Thailand, Bangkok: Cambodian survivors, transvesti...

2002-12-11T16:48:00.000-08:00

So, I've been spending a few quiet days in Bangkok taking care of little stuff before heading out on the Grand Tour...two weeks Cambodia, two weeks Vietnam, two weeks Laos, two weeks on the Burmese border working with at-risk hilltribe daughters, then to Chiang Mai and back down to Bangkok, thence to India. At least, that's the plan...

I've been reading a book written by a Cambodian survivor of the Khmer Rouge, a woman my age named Loung Ung. It's titled _First They Killed My Father_, ISBN 0-0609-3138-8, and is about her family's attempts to survive through the five years of the Khmer Rouge. (She's now in America, working for the Campaign for a Landmine Free World.)

What's striking to me about the book is the ordinariness of it: starving is matter-of-fact, a piece of daily life. There's one passage where she talks about how rations gradually decrease, until the rice gruel becomes rice soup. She is seven or eight, and she eats the broth a little at a time throughout the day, starting with the watery stuff at the top, hoarding the grains of rice at the bottom to eat last, knowing there will be no more food the rest of the day. She helps her mother in the shrimp farm; one day her mother calls her over and quickly, surreptitiously, hands her a small handful of mud, weeds, and live baby shrimp. She crams the handful--mud, raw wriggling shrimp, and all--into her mouth quickly, before anyone notices, then stands watch as her mother does the same. This isn't abnormal; this is how life is. She remembers when it was different, and she hates the Khmer Rouge, but today, it's how life is.

It reminds me of some of my talks with survivors of domestic violence. I used to wonder how people survived ten or twenty years (or even a few weeks) of abuse--but the answer is, it's not ten years; it's a week, a day, an hour. It's ordinary. At any given time, you do what you can to make your life better, given the choices you have. Sometimes the choices are awful--many battered women, for example, know they'll be beaten sometime over the weekend. So they deliberately provoke violence on Friday night--because that gives them the entire weekend for the bruises to heal, so they have a better chance of hiding them come Monday. Others return to their abusers because between losing their children (they can't support them on a single wage) and being battered, being battered is better. Logical choices; crazy situation.

So anyway, what strikes me about this book is that it's the same thing: it's how even atrocity becomes ordinary. The Khmer Rouge soldiers come, take away fathers and entire families, and kill them. Those left behind don't talk about it, and don't show their grief, or they'll be taken too. It's ordinary. It's survival. It's perfectly normal people, trying to survive in a perfectly insane world.

This is also part of the whole third world travel theme--not in as terrible a way, of course, but the poverty here hasn't bothered me as much as I thought it would. I think it's because it's not poverty, exactly--it's "normal". So there are street beggars, people with all their ribs showing lying in the dirty aisles of the marketplace, or with their skin rotting away from leprosy (I passed one last night in Patpong), or more prosaically women begging with their babies at the train stops. But, to the passersby, it's normal, no more horrifying than (say) a homeless guy in Palo Alto. People in rural areas often live in corrugated tin shacks, but it's not horrifying poverty--it's simply how life is. It's a different way of living. (Makes you think seriously about just exactly what "normal" and "good" are--does luxury really make that much difference, or is it just a slightly more comfortable way of re-ordering the social hierarchy? Relationships between rich and poor seem much the same throughout the world, regardless of whether "rich" means $200K/year and a Mercedes, or a tile roof rather than corrugated tin.)

* * *

To make up for the depressing reading, I've spent the last two days bar-hopping. (Hey, last chance before going to Cambodia...!) Two nights ago I went to see Calypso, the famous transvestite cabaret. Forget classical dance--you have not lived until you've seen Thai transvestite Marilyn Monroes (three of them!) dancing onstage with Michael Jacksons (also in triplicate) and a triple Tina Turner--all Thai transvestite professional dancers. It will seriously blow your mind.

They did a 1.5-hour number covering virtually every tourist culture--one Chinese piece, one Japanese, one Korean, a couple of American (Britney Spears, believe it or not ;-) ), and even a French version of "Vive L'amour" at the end. The "girls" are serious about being girls--most of them have had breast implants, and except for the overly slim hips, you'd never know they were male. They're also pretty darn good professional dancers. I had some photos taken with them--will post once I get a chance.

Anyway, Calypso was two nights ago. I spent last night in the Barbican, an expat bar in Patpong (one of the two major red-light districts in Bangkok). The Barbican is located on Soi Taniya, which is largely Japanese sex clubs--a crowded alley of neon signs, with pretty Asian women lounging around in evening gowns and skimpy lingerie, beckoning to passersby, and a well-dressed man standing beside every door, holding a battered piece of posterboard with forty or fifty female photos on it. Luxury cars with darkened windows pull up and disgorge fat, happy Japanese businessmen, who vanish into the clubs; if you aren't Japanese, or escorted by one, you won't be allowed in. The Barbican is one of the few non-Japanese places on the street, and is very popular with Western professional expats.

Think about that for a moment. When was the last time you saw a popular professional bar in the red-light district of any city in the U.S.? But in Thailand prostitution isn't like that...in fact "prostitution" isn't the right translation at all, since in English it carries connotations of criminal sleaziness that aren't quite right for Thailand. It's not that prostitution is respectable--it decidedly isn't--but it's not treated as criminal/dangerous either, as it is in the U.S. (I think this is because the idea of sin and retribution aren't linked in Buddhist philosophy, as it is in Christian theology; sin and crime are considered a karmic matter, i.e. carrying its own punishment, not something that needs to be judged/punished from outside.)

At any rate, Patpong, girlie bars and all, is one of the major tourist areas of Bangkok, with little old European ladies and tourist couples shopping in the night market, five and six year olds along, right next to the girlie and expat bars, street beggars, etc.. Designer ripoffs, beautiful women, begging lepers, neon signs, street vendors, trendy bars, dance clubs, and sleazy brothels all crammed into narrow sois (alleys). While I'm not sure I'd support the girlie bars (the sex trade is worth an entire essay in itself), it is certainly a unique experience, unlike anything else you'll find in Bangkok--definitely worth a stop.

At any rate, Kaew (a Thai friend, female, I met early in my sojourn in Thailand) and I went off to the Barbican together, to hang out and maybe meet up with Ben and some other folks.

I met some very interesting expats in the Barbican--which is a little too loud for good conversation, but passable with efort. Probably of no interest to any of you, but some very interesting conversation re national identity, being a foreigner in Thailand, Thai business culture, etc.--may write a bit about it later, if I have time. it is certainly making me rethink my perspective on integration; looking at the Westerner enclaves, I think I have a better understanding of why some Chinese immigrants choose to live in Chinatown and not integrate into American society (something I had never really understood, as my parents chose to integrate).

At any rate, in Thailand, if you're Caucasian, you are farang (foreign) whether or not you were born there--much, much more so than Asians are considered alien in the U.S.. So cultural identity for Western expats is a complex thing; they may consider Thailand home, but they're expats, not immigrants, and retain their Western identification. This is encouraged/enforced by Thai, who welcome them as residents/guests--but never Thai, not part of Thailand even if they've lived there for decades. My "feel" is that European cultures are like that too, though to a lesser degree; the U.S. is unusual in emphasizing ideology/culture so heavily over race and national origin. (One of the cultural things I have noticed here--in the U.S. kinship is ideological, which is to say that if you share the same values, you are family; in Asia, kinship is by blood--one doesn't worry about ideology, it's all about relationships.) I do feel somewhat alienated as an Asian in America, but not nearly as alienated as Caucasians in Thailand must feel.

Moving on...

After Barbican's (where I left Kaew trying to pick up a cute Swedish expat--have to call her to see if she succeeded ;-) ), I stopped briefly through a girlie bar called "King's Castle III". This had been recommended as being populated primarily by transsexual women. (Apparently most of the tourist customers don't know this--my contact thought that particularly amusing, so do I.) I think she must have been referring to the show dancers, not the regular workers--either that, or they're better than I thought, since I couldn't tell the difference. Anyway, it was a pretty standard girlie bar, which is to say both boring and depressing--a bunch of bored-looking women standing on a stage in black bikinis, waiting for men to pick them out, with loud blaring music and a lot of equally-bored-looking men sitting around the edges of the room. (Why do people go to these places, anyway?) I sat down and was immediately accosted by two or three women wanting me to buy them drinks.

The one who finally sat down by me (I did buy her a drink, mostly to fend off the others) chattered incessantly--unfortunately, between the loud music and the heavy accent, I couldn't make out more than one word in five. I rather wish I could have had a longer conversation with her, as she was quite friendly and spoke pretty good English (from the words I could make out), but I wouldn't have been able to understand her unless we went someplace quieter. This, however, would have required "renting" her for the evening--which would have led to a whole other set of probable misunderstandings (and politics) which I didn't want to touch.

I do remember that she was happy because (for some reason i couldn't make out) she was finally able to quit after three years--she was only planning to work for two more weeks--and was apparently engaged, though they hadn't set a wedding date yet. (This is part of what I meant in Thailand, about prostitution not being respectable but not criminally unrespectable either--it's perfectly possible for women to "work" and still have families afterwards, although generally CSWs aren't married while "working". The exception is bar boys, some of whom are supporting wives/children.) I may swing back through Patpong on my way back through Bangkok, in search of a quieter place where I can actually talk to someone.

off to run errands--tomorrow I leave for Cambodia.

Tien

Thailand, Bangkok: getting ready to leave for Camb...

2002-12-09T16:46:00.000-08:00

So, after two months in Thailand, I'm getting ready for the grand tour of Southeast Asia: crossing to Cambodia through the land border at Poipet, two weeks in Cambodia, two weeks in Vietnam, two weeks in Laos, then back to Chiang Mai, Thailand, and two weeks of volunteer work on the Burmese border. Then I'll be back in Bangkok for a few days before leaving for India.

In Cambodia, I'm probably going to focus on Angkor Wat, which is--from all descriptions and photos--one of the most impressive sights anywhere, and one of the top ten archaeological/historic sites in the world. Angkor Wat is one of about 100 temples in the Angkor area--at about 500 acres and about a mile on a side, it's the biggest and most impressive one. But there are lots of other temples in the area, in many different architectural styles. The photos are stunning, and the complex itself is supposed to be more impressive than the photos. (Just as Ansel Adam's best efforts don't really capture Yosemite, I imagine--a photograph just can't capture the scale.) There's a fair amount of tourist infrastructure in Siem Reap (the gateway to Angkor), so I'm not too worried about traveling there. I plan to get a one-week entrance to Angkor and spend a week there, photographing and reading about the complex.

After Angkor, I'm planning to go to Phnom Penh, the capital--primarily to look at their Holocaust Museum. Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 suffered through the rule of Pol Pot, who (from the brief histories I've read) makes Hitler look positively civilized. During his brief reign, Pol Pot literally emptied the cities, slaughtered almost all the minorities in Cambodia ("ethnic cleansing"), murdered everyone with a trace of education, and destroyed most of the country's infrastructure in an attempt to return the country to his rural ideal. (He even abolished money, because he thought barter was better.) It's estimated that between 1/5 and 1/3 of all Cambodians died under the Khmer Rouge--many gruesomely. (Disemboweling, burying in sand, ripping to pieces, etc.) And all that was before the land mines.

So Cambodia today is still recovering from a nightmare. The roads are unpaved ("resemble a BMX track" says one guidebook), armed banditry is still a serious danger, corruption is common, there's almost no money to do anything, and one out of every 250 Cambodians has lost a limb to landmines. There are so many landmines in the country that it's estimated it will take 30 years or so to clear them all...since the government doesn't have the money to do it, most of them will be "discovered" by Cambodians (thus the number of amputees). There's very little infrastructure, and the sewage etc. systems are similarly undeveloped (back to cold showers...*sigh*). The good news is, the locals (at least the unarmed ones ;-) ) are very friendly, and the scenery's supposed to be terrific. And, of course, there's Angkor, one of the great sights of Asia.

(Not only that, but in Phnom Penh there's a shooting range that will let you practice with AK-47s. Apparently you can buy them in the market there for about $20--yes, of course I'm tempted, but how on earth would I get it home??? It's really too bad I couldn't have brought one back to Thailand for the body painting--barbarian princess with AK47 would have been hilarious. However, I must of course try actually firing one of these things. )

Safety-wise, it's apparently (mostly) OK to be wandering around Angkor and Phnom Penh, although they say that armed banditry is a real danger at night in Phnom Penh (no late-night bar-hopping for me in Cambodia...I'm SO disappointed... ;-) ) and that traveling outside of the three major tourist areas is strictly at one's own risk. I plan to stay pretty much on the beaten track in Cambodia; as much fun as it would be to get kidnapped by bandits, I have a schedule to keep, so don't plan on being sidetracked. ;-)

(Actually it may not be that bad. Lonely Planet says it's safe, Moon Handbooks says not. I'm not sure who to believe, but I figure I'll inquire once I get there. In any event there's almost no infrastructure, so *getting* to those places would be complicated anyway; and landmines are much more dangerous/common than bandits.)

From Cambodia, I'm moving on to Vietnam. Not sure about the itinerary there yet--it's supposed to be very bicycle friendly, so I may try renting a bicycle and touring part of the country by bicycle. I think it's better not to do too much preplanning, though, as, from experience, preplanning is largely useless. I'll read through the guidebook, get an idea or two of the big attractions, and then see what turns up.

Someone remind me to write about Thai classic dance later--I spent yesterday morning watching a dancer taking lessons from her teacher, and it was really fascinating. Thai dance is a bit like T'ai Chi--in the hands of a beginner it looks mincingly overdone and a string of weird poses, but with an experienced practitioner it flows straight from the chi, and is beautiful in a very understated way. I also went to a dinner performance of Thai dance last night, but wasn't nearly as impressed--I don't think the dancers' heart was in it; the teacher's was.). I did take some good pictures of the costuming, though.

Thai dance in general seems to fit with the Thai perspective/approach, which could best be described as fitting oneself into a known format and merging with the format, whereas the Western approach is to create one's own format. But that's a much longer discussion, and I have to get to the Vietnamese Embassy today to get my Vietnamese visa...I'll probably leave Bangkok early Thursday morning.

Tien

Thailand, Chiang Mai: body painting, Chiang Mai, e...

2002-12-07T16:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, so you want to hear about the shower now, right? How I finally discovered the secret of getting hot water in Bangkok? No? Sheesh. Silly people. If you ever come to Thailand, you'll regret not listening...but OK, fine. Have it your way...

Coming in from Chiang Mai: I arrived on the overnight train, second-class sleeper compartment. This consists of two spacious benches facing each other, each easily wide enough for two people (three if they're friendly ;-) ). During the day, you sit on those benches. At night, the benches convert into a bottom bunk, and an overhead compartment (similar to an airplane's overhead luggage bins) drops down to form a top bunk. (They put two straps on the top bunk to serve as railings, so you don't accidentally fall out during the night.) This looks like a very civilized way of traveling, and is certainly better than a bus--but there's a lot of bumping and quite a bit of light from the aisles, so it's hard to sleep. I think next time I may shell out the extra $$ and fly.

Anyway, I arrived in Bangkok, napped for a bit, then collected my fish spear, bow, big bag of assorted props, and headed out for body painting. (You would not *believe* the looks I got from the taxi driver. Apparently a 5' rusty fish spear is not exactly standard equipment for a nice Japanese tourist lady. sheesh. what *are* these people thinking?? ;-) )

At the photographer's studio, I unpacked my bags while waiting for Richard (the artist) to arrive. I'd done some shopping at Chatuchak Market (Bangkok's Weekend Market, where almost anything can be purchased) and also in Chiang Mai, so the full set of props included:

1 rusty fish spear

1 four-foot bow

1 18" jade/serpentine dagger

various small seashells

1 tribal-looking necklace ($7.50 in Chatuchak)

1 feather duster

misc. wood and silver beads

1 silver tiara

Once Richard arrived, we added an ivory opium pipe, a rusty sword, and a chunky red coral necklace to the collection.

The tiara deserves special mention, as I'm quite smug about it. It's a jade cabochon set in sterling silver, and surrounded by sterling silver leaves. It's my work--at least the tiara part--I made it on the way to Chiang Mai, using my Leatherman and some wire from my repair kit. It's quite beautiful, and I've already decided to bring it home with me.

Anyway, Richard arrived after an hour or so, and after an hour of initial setup (which I spent wiring spiky seashells to the coral necklace, putting together test strings of feathers for my hair, and so forth) we got started on the body painting.

Richard paints with a variety of tools: airbrush, brushes, sponge, and (sometimes) fingers. The brushes put on heavy lines, with a precise edge and heavy lines; the sponge produces nice opaque coverage sans brush marks (good for large areas); the airbrush gives highlights and soft edges. Fingers are mostly good as very small-scale erasers, although for removing smudges he uses clean wedges of makeup sponge.

We argued a bit about the initial design. He convinced me that metal claws (a la Witchblade) over the breasts would be better than cobras--we could use a cobra as a figleaf over the groin. (Later, we discarded it entirely.) He wanted to do a single armored piece off the shoulder (from a book he had)--which was fine with me. We both agreed that metal spiky bits along the body would be great.

Richard didn't like the bone necklace, saying it looked "too feminine--like a shrimp shoot". (A "shrimp shoot" is apparently trade slang for the topless Asian girl in a sarong--think "hawaii".)) But we left it in, since it matched the tiara.

Anyway, he roughed in the design with a pencil, then put on an initial layer of gray paint with brush and sponge. (I've put a number of design-in-progress photos on the page--although unfortunately there aren't many of them; Richard was busy painting, and of course I was busy being painted. I have better work-in-progress frontal photos, but you'll excuse me if I don't post them. ;-) ) This was plain, flat gray; but since he mixed each small batch of color individually, there was still enough variation to make it texturally noticeable.

I have to apologize here. I know almost nothing about painting, so while it was fascinating to watch, there's no way I can write a description of the painting process. I did think it was really neat the way the paint built up: first a flat background, then dark shadows, then highlights, then medium shadows, then more highlights, and so on. it seemed like a process of overcorrection: the highlights made it too garish, then the shadows made it too dark, and finally the last lines threw everything into sharp focus. (The jagged lines on my back, for example, are actually four or five layers of paint: base gray, white highlight, dark brushed-on shadow, airbrushed shadow, more white highlight, dark lines.)

The cobra-esque brown bits around the breasts, for example, started as very dull brown blobs, then he added scale-pattern lines in black (which moderated to dark brown as the paints mixed on the body). At this point it was still quite dull; then he added highlights in bright yellow and suddenly it popped out with real three-dimensional color. At some point he decided that the metallic "claws" over the breasts were too sharp, so blurred it with the airbrush. That kind of thing.

(He also did some minor body modifications through strategic applications of dark paint, but since I'm feeling chivalrous towards the model (i.e. me ;-) ), I'll leave out those details. I am obviously a physically perfect goddess. Yeah, that's the ticket. ;-) )

All in all, the painting took six hours. This was a bit of a challenge, physically speaking, because body painting is not like other kinds of painting, modeling, etc.--the model can't take breaks. Once the paint starts going on, you can't sit down, go to the bathroom, or anything else--because if you touch *anything* (including your own arm, underarm, etc.), the paint's going to smudge. So as soon as you start, you're on for the duration.

(One also has to commit to full-body Nair, as even peach-fuzz, nearly invisible body hair interferes with an airbrush. Having tried it, I will reiterate my opinion that whoever invented Nair (or its relatives) deserves a place in the same torturous hell as the inventor of high-heels. (My private opinion on how women's fashion got started involves some gay Spanish Inquisitors undergoing career burnout--corsets are just WAY more fabulous (and just as uncomfortable) as traditional methods like thumbscrews, branding irons, and the rack. But I digress.)

Anyway, standing up for eight hours turns out to be no joke--walking for eight hours is bad enough, but for body painting you're not walking, you're standing there in one place without moving, so there's no relief for your feet at all. The floor was bare hardwood, which made it even worse--fortunately, we did find a rug to put under my feet eventually (which helped some), and also some Advil (much more helpful).

We were also painting with a good bit of infrastructure. The photographer brought two helpers (they all sat around very bored for six hours while we painted) and Richard brought along his secretary/girlfriend (I wasn't sure which and didn't want to inquire), Mai. Richard's assistant, Nung, was also supposed to be there, but he didn't turn up. Apparently he'd been panicking completely over the prospect of painting me ("very gay" was Richard's phrase) and so Richard wasn't sure whether he really was trapped at his home studio, or had just decided to bail. (In Thai culture, if you're late and turning up will create an embarrassing scene, you simply don't show up at all; that way next time you see the person, everyone can pretend that nothing happened. Something about "saving face".)

At any rate, it would have been nice to have an extra painter (we could have gotten more detail on the gauntlets, etc.) but it worked just fine without him. Mai was great--she put together the beaded feathers, the coral-and-shell necklace, and so on, while we were painting, which was really helpful.

Anyway, six hours after the painting was done, we finished, turned loose my hair, and got to the photo shoot. (The hair, by the way, is the end result of my braiding it and wrapping it in a bun for a day and a half, then undoing it and spritzing it with hairspray.) The overall effect was *amazing*. I looked in the mirror and a warrior princess looked back at me.

The photo shoot was more or less a standard photo shoot--which is to say, they set up a backdrop, stuck me in front of it, and then proceeded to do a lot of very boring things with light-meters, exposures, Polaroids, and so on before getting to the actual shoot. Tried a lot of different poses, props, etc.--swapped out the barbarian coral necklace for the jade tiara--and eventually, over 2 hours, managed to shoot 6 rolls of 120mm slide film. (We'd only paid for 5, but the photographer got caught up in the artistic spirit and threw in an extra roll free.) It was infinitely fun--imagine all your secret superhero fantasies suddenly gratified! which is to say, I got to try out all those wonderfully melodramatic poses usually sheepishly reserved for the bedroom mirror. ;-) And, it looked great...Richard did a *fantastic* job on the painting. I really hated to wash it off.

But, of course, you can't go walking naked (even painted) through Bangkok, and clothes would have smeared it immediately, so I hopped into the shower and de-painted. Six hours on, ten minutes to swirl down the drain. (Cold shower.) *sigh* I wish I could have figured out a way to get it back to the hotel. It was amazing.

So, anyway, I've finally found a use for being 5'0" and heavy-set; it's the perfect build for a barbarian-warrior. (A useful skill in today's society, you must agree. ;-) ) I'm also pleased that we got at least one good shot of my bulging post-AIDS-Lifecycle calves; I admit cheerfully that I'm quite vain about them (and the quads of steel, too). But then, if you'd ridden 2,000+ miles to get them, you would be too. ;-) I just hope I don't lose them before this year's Lifecycle; retraining is going to be a stone-cold bitch, especially coming in "cold" from Asia.

Well, that's it so far. After the body painting I went home and crashed--between no sleep, standing up for eight hours, and way too much caffeine, I've pretty much been out of it the last day or so. Tonight I'm going off for dinner with Kaew (my Thai friend whom I met at the Barbican with Ben)--I'm trying to convince her to go see Calypso, the katoey (transvestite) revue with me--and then either Monday or Wednesday I'll leave for Cambodia. The current plan is Angkor Wat, possibly followed by the Cambodian Holocaust museum in Phnom Penh, and then on to Vietnam, with a possible trip through Laos on the way back, or maybe straight to Bangkok. All of this is up in the air, though; the only thing I'm reasonably certain of is that I'm leaving for Cambodia, sometime next week. And that I'm going to try shipping the bow and fish spear home. Heaven only knows what DHL is going to make of the package. ;-)

Tien