Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Northern Laos


I met Jane at the airport in Vientane, having survived my second Laos Airlines flight. It should be noted that flight departure/arrival boards here are printed pieces of paper, taped to a wall like a display in a third grade classroom.

Jane is a Canadian who talks faster than a six year old on cocaine. She is the character who enters each scene talking, machine-gunning syllables. The best way to adjust is to turn on the Janefilter, listening to only the important bits ("hey, are we lost?") and tuning out most of the rest ("this one time I was at a shop opening and Chevy Chase was there and I had a margherita that was so good but anyway back to Chevy Chase who does not look good by the way but wow, was that a margherita").

I have such a filter.

Vientiane is a sleepy riverfront capital. Our two days here cruised by, with eating taking center stage. I finally got my pasta fix at a great place called Sticky Fingers. We splurged for two nights at Lani Guest House and had huge rooms in a colonial-vibed French house. It was a dream to stay somewhere opulent, especially at the price of $30 a night (I had been averaging $3-5 per night for the past week). The sights here are fairly limited but it is an excellent place to kick back.

We pushed north with a 5 hour bus ride to Vang Vieng, which has a decidedly Spring Break vibe despite being in an incredibly beautiful location. The locals have their hands dirty with backpacker money. Even the most scenic riverside bars blare rudimentary techno and serve "happy shakes".

My guest room had a series of warnings posted, including this one: "Do not bring both men and women which is not your own husband or wife into room for making love." Also: "Do not allow tourist bring prostitute and others into your accomodation to make sex movies in your room. It is restriction". Other than the signs, Le Jardin Organique Guesthouse is wonderful and a highly recommended find.

We spent a full day here tubing down the river, which was great fun. We took a tuk-tuk to the drop point for the river, although it took a while because the vehicle kept dying (we pushed). We grabbed mulberry mojito's from a stand and jumped in the river. There were about a dozen kids swimming along with us, all asking us for money for "helping" us into the water. One kid swam up with my sunglasses, which he had deftly swiped, extorting a buck from me for their safe return. I admired his ingenuity so much that I had to smile. Little fucker.

Tubing in Vang Vieng is the kind of thing that has never been replicated elsewhere; a true original experience. Granted, the river is full of drunk idiots but if you let go, you can become a drunk idiot too. The drill is simple. Get in tube. Stop at makeshift river bar. Climb up an aparatus and jump from a rope swing. Get back in tube. Repeat. The actual float time for tubing is 2 hours; the rest is stopping for a refill and socializing.

Some people love VV dearly but a few days was enough for me. The parties might have been exciting for someone from Maine but they failed to impress this New York City Boy. A neon sign, a couple of hammocks and a bonfire hardly rivals a NYC night out. With a Douchebag Factor of 93, I was ready to head to Luang Prabang after three nights.

Jane and I took the infamous bus ride north, a 7 hour affair involving massive inclines and declines so sinister that would even make Rambo whimper. A thunderstorm hit on the way, which only slowed our driver after he skidded us into the other lane, barely recovering the wheel as even his hands flew in the air.

Luang Prabang is sensational and was easily my favorite place on the trip. The town is parked perfectly on the Mekon, its charm obvious in every street and alley. It has a movie-set quality at night, with twinkling overhead lights and endless craft stalls. Monks nearly outnumber tourists. You cannot walk down a road without seeing one in his bitchin' little orange robe, often carrying a matching umbrella to block the hot sun. Jane became a monk-magnet, talking to them endlessly. I am a little monk-shy, fearful that I will make an unprovoked dick joke in their presence.

We took a trip up to the big waterfall, hiring a tuk-tuk with a Canadian couple we had met down in Vang Vieng. It was a hot and humid day, so the icy little pools below the falls were The Best Treat Ever. We settled on a serene spot away from the tourists, which was also being enjoyed by a couple of young monks. We jumped into the cool water and joined them, all taking turns jumping from two massive trees that had fallen in the pool. The monks swam in their orange robes, looking like some kind of blooming flowerpeople as they treaded water. You really can't have a stressful day when you're hanging with monks at a waterfall.

That night we ate at Lao Lao Garden, a great spot built into the mountain. We cooked food on our own mini hibachis and drank too much Beer Lao. The staff here was as gay as it gets, flitting from table to table in order to show the white folks how to properly cook their food. The owner was dating an Australian guy, who hung with us and gave us all of the town gossip. Asking him how he ended up here, he replied "I am a motherfucking rice queen, why else do you think?".

Jane left for Singapore the next day and I decided to spend my last Laos week at a guest house across town. Luang Prabang was so relaxing that I just couldn't pack up my bags and trudge to another place - I was spent. I explored the Wats and took a full-day cooking class, boozing afterwards with a woman in her forties who had traded her Australian banking job for a teaching job in China. I wandered every corner of Luang Prabang, from the river restaurants to the endless night markets.

It was finally time to enter my trip's endgame, headed towards Bangkok for five last nights. I woke at dawn to catch my flight and met my yawning tuk-tuk driver. We drove through the misty streets and both chuckled when we encountered a procession of at least a hundred monks. We had hit the only rush hour this town has - each morning the monks walk from one side of town to the other, collecting gifts of sticky rice from people along the way (this is mostly what they eat all day). It was a very different kind of traffic jam. The oranged robes parted a hole for us to pass through and smiled, knowing that I had a flight to catch. I can't think of a better last memory of this wonderful place.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Sometimes I Still Feel The Bruise


I have only been in love once. I am talking about the kind of love that dazes your days and smacks you like a UFO sighting. Overpowering, crushing, kneedropping, how-did-this-happen-to-me love.

I met Dan through a 14.4 dialup modem in 1996. It was a challenge to access the World Wide Web in those days, let alone view anything that loaded in under five minutes. I had just been given a monstrous laptop from my new job and it accessorized perfectly with my lunchbox-sized cell phone. I began doing something called "surfing", which meant finding websites linked from others. I suppose I was trapped in some pink linkring when I stumbled on Dan's Diary. Nowadays, just google "hamster in the ass" and a wiki will come up, explaining some fetish and its mistaken correlation to an actor with grey, feathered hair. Back then, if you were not linked, you were invisible.

As everyone knows, the internet was originally invented for scientists and lonely gay people. It was the shot- heard-round-the-world for men who looked like Rick Moranis; the kind of guy who had an incredible brain but a discredible body. It was also the most embarrassing place to meet someone romantically, thought of as a sewer where rats met and bred. Thousands of mid-nineties relationships were given false beginnings to the outside world. "We met in a bar, mom" was much easier to swallow than "we met in an aol message forum about Vulcan roleplaying".

You must also understand that people used to genuinely work at the office. Ten minutes was never wasted on Britney' snatch or Scrabble battles with Betty From Duluth. It wasn't until my laptop arrived that I began wasting time on the clock. My modem was constantly dialing, trying to find a local number that would connect me to America Online's labyrinth of message boards. It was during one of these wasted office hours that I discovered Dan's Diary.

It was a seemingly simple site, which required hours of programming back then. The idea that somebody would regularly document their life online was crazy. That somebody would take the time to code it was just plain batshit insanity. The webmasters of those days were regarded as gurus, pulling off something that any douchebag with a keyboard and wifi can do today. The truth is, Dan's blogging preceded the term by ten years. He was a Woe Pioneer.

I read as many entries as I could in one work day, before packing the Black Monster into my bag and flying to Cincinnati for a business trip. I finished the final entries on an airport floor, dialed up through a newfangled port on a public pay phone. Technology was moving fast.
There is no understating what Dan's Diary did to me. It made me feel like there was someone else exactly like me (who wasn't Morrissey), a real person capable of breathing the same air that I breathed. He even liked my favorite band, a semi obscure shoegazing outfit called Spiritualized. I was thrilled.

I wrote the email to Dan all night long. I knew that it was a futile exercise; that I would never see a reply from someone who probably got dozens of emails per day (dozens was, like, a lot back then). The letter was the most honest thing I had ever written. It was the first true proclamation of my gayness and one of the few times that I showed all of my cards. I confessed my huge high school crush, my deepest secrets and my favorite Mazzy Star song lyrics. I pushed send as soon as it was finished, for fear that I would lose my connection.

Then, nothing.

Then, something.

Two days later an email arrived. It was surprisingly long and began with a confession. Dan was not, in fact, writing the diary in real time. He was posting bits of his early 20's experience while now in his late 20's. It was more a memoir and less a diary. This did not phase me because he went on to write the best letter that I have ever read. It was like the someone telling me that I was the guy in his songs.

I walked around the East Village ninety times, re-reading the line-printed copy of his letter and trying to fathom my response. I had nobody to call because I was entirely in the closet, without a soul to talk to about the chemicals screaming through my brain. I was at the emotional level of a fourteen year old, having never had any feelings for the dozens of girls that I fingerbanged and dumped. This was all frighteningly new.

I wrote back a letter that rivaled the length of something written by Tolstoy, unable to stop myself but sure that its length and contents would put Dan off me. My new letter, further pouring out my heart and pathetic feelings, might as well have come from the psych ward at Lennox Hill Hospital. If it was a Harry Potter howler, it would have screamed "I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU AND I DONT EVEN KNOW YOU."

Then nothing. Then something.

Lots of something. Hundreds of pages of letters flew back and forth over the next two months, often even slowing down the progress of the website, which angered many addicts of the diary. Dan regularly received letters from bereaved men in their sixties who were tired of watching Dallas re-runs and ignoring their wives. He confessed to me that many of these men offerred him money, plane tickets and promises...they felt like they knew him from the diary and were in love with him too. The thing was, my creepy love was requited.

We both changed our calling plans so that we could talk into the night. I would dial his nine digits into my plastic Connair touchtone, praying that my roommates could not hear my fluttered conversation. I would lay on my floor like a fifteen year old, twirling the cord between my fingers and toes.

The first call was the most terrifying thing I had ever done, besides fingerbanging the girls previously mentioned.

"This is weird".

"This is really weird".

"Are you breathing normally?"

"No"

"Me neither. I might have an embolism"

"Don't".

"Ok".

"What's an embolism?"

We were pushing the three month mark when one of us finally brought up the idea of meeting. He lived in Boston and I lived in New York, so the distance was surmountable enough if we were not so chicken shit.

Anyone now knows that you should move a relationship offline within a week. I was not even experienced enough to ask for a picture. Keep in mind, this was when a modem made a high pitched shrill upon dialup and jpegs were still not in fashion.

I was too scared to make the simple trip - our relationship was just too perfect. Any chance that it might deflate was just too scary to consider. So, we continued until I finally had to be in Boston for work, a couple more months later.

"I am going to be in Boston"

"My boston?"

"Yeah, your Boston. The one at the end of the Mass Pike "

"Oh"

We were both witty on paper or after 2am. 11pm to 2am was not our strike zone.

"So, we should meet?"

"This is going to be a disaster"

"Challenger level disaster".

"Exactly."

"We have to."

"I know."

Everything about the meeting was ill- conceived, from the location to the plan. We were to meet in my room at The Park Plaza Hotel, an institution that was glorious in 1962 but, despite hanging onto it's prime real estate, could never quite maintain that original polish. It was where wives went to drink champagne and men went to hammer their secretaries.

From there, there was no plan. I was so nervous that I could not work out a proper first date. First, there was the (ludicrous) proposition that somebody should see us and learn of our homosexuality. Second, I had no idea where we could go and be comfortable picking up the dozens of conversation threads of the past five months.

Third. Oh god. This was happening.

I was pacing at seven, when he was supposed to arrive. I was frantic by 7:20. By 8:00, I was nearly throwing up, imagining that he had panicked and fled for home. I pondered running through Cambridge with a boom box overhead playing "Fade Into You".

Then a knock on the door.

I had told myself that I would not look at the keyhole but I did anyway. Imagine how many people have been inappropriately judged through a keyhole since its invention.

I opened the door to find the opposite of my dreams. Dan was, it seemed, human. His hair was thinning, his waist was expanding and his glasses were the size of icecaps. He looked twice as frightened as me, which put him at Defcon Five. I invited him in.

I was so busy being nervous that I could not even process how to handle things. Physically, this was not the man if my dreams. My mind was trying to catch up, to figure out if I could accept this substitute. Had I simply expected too much? Were the pages more important than the cover?

Anyone who tells you that the cover is unimportant is lying, or needs to drop forty pounds. The cover is what sells the book. Over the past few months I had read the forward, contents and the press quotes without seeing that it was bound with. I knew after seeing Dan in person that I could not purchase this volume.

He knew it before he even came into he room. Being older and a natural fatalist, he knew that it was going to be a tragic occasion. He had driven around for an hour stalling the inevitable but eventually swallowed his medicine.

There we were, alone in the room, already weary by the seconds of anxiety. Neither of us could get out a full sentence.

"So what do."

"Not sure. Do we?"

"I guess stay or."

Maybe something just here. "

"In the room. Movie maybe. "

We payperviewed a thriller starring Gina Davis, when her career had promise and zing. We watched it sitting inches apart on the full-sized bed, both pretending to watch the movie and both doing the opposite. Our minds were racing, doing triage. Neither of our diagnosises seemed promising. This silent hemorrhaging continued for over two hours, at which point Gina Davis' career began its descent.

"That was horrible."

"She'll never recover."

"So, I should go. You think?"

"Yeah. I think."

"OK".

A walk to the door. A horribly confused moment. An exit.

Three days passed before we interacted again. The meeting was such a letdown that neither of us had recovered well. I came home and called in sick with what every New Yorker claims ails them (sushi food poisoning). I didn't listen to melodramatic music. I did not write in a journal. I did not drink or smoke too much. I just wallowed on the bed in my tiny bedroom, trying to figure out how everything could be fixed. I didn't want Dan out of my life - I just wanted the memory of The Park Plaza Hotel to be wiped from my brain. I wanted to go back to the way things were when I did not know what he looked like, or that our chemistry could be so disrupted. I wanted back my virtual reality.

It was never the same. Dan kept me at the center of his life, while I tried to be more absentminded about his existence. I used to crave his emails but now they plagued me. My guilt over this made me feel even worse. He called me out as I dodged him, which made me even more cagey and distant. His tone took that of a person losing love, yet I read it as that of a stalker. He became somebody who would not take no when it came to being in my life. I became a giant asshole.

So, it ended. I don't remember how. It may have been something quick after one of his long, confused emails. It may have been one of my brief letters with lines that were meant to be read through. Either way, I found ways to occupy The Space of Dan in my life, locking him into the part of my brain that stores anguish.

I still think about Dan all of the time. It happens at the best times, like when i discover a new band or read a new book. Or travel somewhere that he would never want to go because they don't have hamburgers. I smirk and laugh and have a moment. I imagine that he is there, comprehending.

Getting older frames things in ways that they were not intended to be hung. The time between Dan's Diary and now has negated the bad things and brightened the good ones. I can only remember how romantic it all was and am sure that I will never feel this way again, mostly because my innocence is now polluted to the point of toxicity.

I will feel this strongly about someone else, someday. But I worry that the marker has been set too high, if anything can ever achieve the intensity of Dan.

It's funny how two hours in a hotel room can completely fuck up your whole life.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Laos and I


I flew from Siem Reap to Pakse, Laos on a prop plane with neon seats and a terrifying reputation. I then took a tuk-tuk to the southern bus station(a dirt parking lot that resembles a fairground in the off-season). I negotiated a lift towards Si Phan Dom on a local bus, a pickup truck with seats in the back (and a basket of pigs). They stopped about half way and added a freezer our load, right next to the swine and just shy of my right foot.

I found people from nyc on my bus. They were a couple in their early twenties who had been teaching in China. We agreed to stick together and found accommodation on Don Det island, which involved hiring a motorboat after the bus dropped us in a another dirt field (bus station). Travel days are a pain in the ass.

Don Det is surrounded by an alleged 4000 Mekong islands and the river itself. It has about 30 guest houses (huts with hammocks) and generated electricity from 6pm until 10pm. There is a crazy rumour going around that there will be electricity here by 2009 and this means that it's only a matter of years before float planes and a Sofitel appear. Until then, it's a backpacking stop where days are spent hammocking (new verb) and riding around the island. The sunsets are shocking and I could easily have spent a week here doing nothing.

One hilarious thing is that the walls of most huts are paper thin and conversations easily floats from bungalow to bungalow. So does the noise of sex. Take a stroll around the island just after the generators kick and you'll hear hut after hut of backpacking couples doing the nasty. My neighbor on one side said "Fucking Hellllllllll" as he was busting into his girlfriend last night. The guy on the other side just got a blowjob, which I knew because I heard no girl-moans to indicate sex; yet out of the blue I heard the sound of a man who just couldn't hold it any more. "Guuaawwwwwwwwwahah". Then his girlfriend opened their door and spit off the balcony. Total sorority girl move.

I blew the bank on a 15km kayaking trip, which was the highlight of my time on DD. We were dropped in just after the waterfall and had to traverse some nasty Class 4 rapids quickly. I flipped going into the biggest rapid - anyone who has spent time in rapids will tell you that this the worst time to wreck. The realization that you have to go down the whole stretch this way is terrifying. I desperately clung to my kayak as I was thrown down the river, gulping for air and using ny knees as a shield oncoming rocks. The guide was shouting "STAY LIGHT" (right) but I was pulled by the much harsher current on the left. Scary, scary shit. I was pretty banged up by the time I was spat out. One puncture wound on my right shin is going to take months to heal and could probably have used some stitches (if there was a doctor within 200 miles).

Three nights passed quickly on Don Det. It's got just enough tourist charm and just enough rural feel. With all of the construction going on, it's obvious that won't last for long. Right now I can even overlook some of the douchier backpackers because it's so lulling. Ok there was one I couldn't overlook but he should face a firing squad - anyone sitting in a hammock in yoga pants, smoking a joint and playing Radiohead's "Creep" deserves a good kick in the cock.

I made a fast decision to head north for Champasak, which was a relatively quick bus+boat trip away. It's a sleepy town with few tourists and I loved it immediately. I fell in with a couple from California, who were also staying at my guesthouse. Over the next two days we drove motorbikes up to the local temples (Wat Phu), ate a fuckload of delicious Lao food and drank cheap whiskey.

The whiskey here is $1 a bottle and is sweet, kinda like Soco. The brand is called Lion King. The best part about it is the typo on every bottle's sticker, which purports the contents to taste "smooth and mellon".

I have now landed on the island of Don Daet, which has increased the number of tourists here from zero to one (me). I am at the island's community guesthouse, which has two mattresses on the floor and a balcony overlooking the river. Everyone is quite curious why a tourist would come here and dozens of kids have ridden by, smiled and shouted "Sabadii!!" (Hello). I rode a clunky bike around the island today and became a local attraction. Tomorrow morning I have to find a fisherman who will take me back to the mainland, were I can head up to Pakse.

After Pakse I meet up with a friend. She is with me for one week and I am sure that this will be a shock to the system. It's been ten weeks since I've seen a single person that I know. I am not sure if I am nervous or excited. No wait. Nervous.

I'd suck each of the Seven Dwarfs off for a slice of good pizza.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Back Problems and the Cu Chi Tunnels


It was enough to make me recoil in fear and nearly vomit. I was standing at the top of a staircase that led into one of the Cu Chi Tunnels when I saw it. I stood motionless, frozen at the sight. It was enough to make me recoil in fear. I held a hand to my mouth and gasped at the one thing that can send a shiver straight through my soul: back hair.

There need to be seminars. Huge, mandatory camps where all men must be detained until they learn The Correct Ways of Grooming. Better yet, Norelco lessons in the Eighth Grade, when even the wimpiest kids have finally sprung pubes on their dick. I encourage any technique needed to drive home the point, from Chinese Water Torture to Enema Water Torture. Guys have to understand that they are not primates and remove all hair from their backs, as well as properly trim whatever forest grows under their wear. For the love of God and all that is Holy.

Take, for example, the gentleman in front of me. He was a striking British guy in his early twenties whose teeth were not like those of an otter, as are the choppers of so many English guys. Yet he had completely overlooked the hair which was growing on his back. It wasn't as offensive as some I've seen but it was there, and surely there were paths of it down his spine. I wasn't even going to think about the underbrush.

Nobody told me. Nobody said "Hey, you know, there are about ten square inches of hair on your back". I just figured it out. Over the years I have waxed this spot before long holidays and buzzed it flat during the winter, when even girls don't shave. It was never something to be embarrassed about and something that could be discreetly taken care of in my home. Wham, bam. Gone. Please take a long look in the mirror and, if necessary, go gardening. Or find a woman named Olga, who will be happy to rip it off for 20 bucks. You will get laid again. I swear.

So anyway. How did I end up following a Muppet into a tunnel? Tourism. The Vietnamese have opened up the tunnels that were used with dramatic effect against the Americans. The Cu Chi Tunnels go for miles underground and are surprisingly intricate. Dead ends with boobytraps were created for any American whom dared to enter. Rabbit holes were poked for VC to pop from and shoot incoming troops. It was so effective that despite the enemy's tanks and bombs, this region never fell.

Walking through the actual tunnels brought on a feeling of claustrophobia that I have never before felt. There was no light and I could only walk slowly, completely hunched over and feeling into nothingness. It was very Frodo. After two minutes there was the fear that I had taken a wrong turn. After five there was a paralyzing fear that I would never get out. Ten minutes later I found an escape hatch and breathed fresh air again. Enough already with the caves.

Lucky for me there was a firing range, with leftover war weapons that could be fired for a price. I plunked down $15 and manned up to a machine gun. My tutorial was brief - "you squeeze trigger". I followed the expert instructions and was spraying bullets in no time. Not only did I hit my target but the gun's kick had pointed it at several OTHER targets, making me look like a casting leftover from Police Academy. It was like watching someone bowl a strike from three lanes over.

The last stop on this tour was the most amazing. Displayed in front of us were all of the jungle traps that the VC had set for The Americans. Most involved a pit with spears - it would be simple to mistake these places for solid ground. Others were more gruesome, with spikes that contracted upon a limb when engaged. Most mindblowing was the front door trap, a wall of spikes that would fall from the ceiling and gore a soldier who was trying to enter a home. These were not replicas and all of the spikes had been forged from the steel of fallen planes and bombs. American Made steel had killed Americans.

Back to Saigon and then off for Cambodia. Vietnam must surely be ready to spit me out by now.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Miss Saigon


Nobody calls it Ho Chi Minh City. The new name has stuck about as well as New Coke or Clear Pepsi - everyone still calls it Saigon. It is my favorite place on the trip so far. Reckless, insane and alive. Even the people who live here can't believe that they live here. There are seven million bodies and five million motorbikes. Every crosswalk is a new way to die - fender in the face, kickstand in the liver, tire in the anus. You can't even hear yourself think during rush hour. With so many people in your business, I would have to imagine five pm as the ideal hour to get a rimjob. Nobody would hear you moaning as thousands of horns blared outside of the window.

I saw the sights in Saigon. The War Remembrance Museum was as brutal and sobering as I expected. I am glad that I was still playing with Weebles in the early seventies and did not understand how miserable the "conflict" with Vietnam was. The History Museum reminded me that these people were just not to be fucked with. Each room was a different century of failed invasion, from the French to the Chinese to You-Know-Who.

I pulled the ripcord on Saigon early so that I could take a three day Sinh Cafe tour of the Mekong Delta. Day one was a motherfuckload of bus travel, spruced up with cultural stops that did little to provide culture. Watch people make candy, opportunity to buy candy. Watch people make rice wine, opportunity to buy rice wine. Watch people puff riced...yeah. Clearly someone in this country had visited Disneyworld and learned that the ride's exit should be constructed directly through a shop. I believe that the world's capitalism was created in Tomorrowland, just outside of Space Mountain.

The bus contained French people who had not discovered deodorant, fat English girls who talked too loud and four Dutch guys who, combined, might be taller than The Empire State Building. I sat next to Phillip, an acceptable German man. Neither one of us was in love with the match but given the friendship options, both of us knew that we could spend a few days together. It turned out that we both like super hot men, which means that neither of us is attracted to the other. At least we had common ground and I was reminded that he Cosmos sure does have a way of pairing The Gays.

There was also a deuce of Lesbians on the trip, who naturally kept to themselves. There is simply no mistaking dykes. They wore smart, sensible Northface daypacks and halter tops. They ate nutritious pineapple snacks. They had tight frosted hair, cross-training sneakers and shorts that will never be in fashion, anywhere. Mom + Pop sporting goods shops should never fear financial difficulty, so long as their town has a baker's dozen of rug munchers.

Chau Doc is near the Cambodian border. Our hotel was on the river. Herpes ridden whorehouses are a notch classier than river hotels in border towns. Dozens of people asked me if I wanted a massage but every time I explained that I am just not that kind of lady. The truth is, I am just not that kind of lady for asian people.

We spent two days touring floating markets and non-floating markets. You can get a good sense of the big differences between life here and in the north by taking one of these tours. You can also come to loathe markets, which never seem to have a salad bar like Whole Foods, never mind a buffet like Souplantation. Aisles are filled with stinking fish, buckets of dried fruit and restaurants that could collapse in a Two earthquake. I had only paid 50 bucks for the whole trip and couldn't really complain, even if the windowless one star hotels were located above Peavey amps blaring Toni Braxton.

Our guide spoke a smattering of english and was always keen to point out that we could make a pretty picture at each location. This could be a rice field full of graves, or a town that had been flooded with bodies in 2005.

Tourist village kids were sent out by their parents for our money. I learned how to furrow my brow just like them and mimic words back like "PLeeeeeeez" and "KoKonut", which pissed them off to high heaven. After about the thirtieth child attack I began pretending that they were all ShortRound from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which gave them a Speilberg quality and made them much more palatable.

Phillip and I did our best to be Foodies, eating at neighborhood haunts. All of the guide books say to go where the locals are eating but I think they have missed an important point - just because locals are eating chicken feet does not mean that it is good. We began ordering at least two unrecognizable items per meal, unsure if they were Ox balls or Venison Vagina. They often looked like things that could have been either, so we tended to sweep them under our piles of rice and cut our losses. This was impossible to do when they brought out an foot long catfish, which turned out to be quite delectable. Neither of us tried the whiskers.

The days took on a Super Mario quality. No obstacle was too difficult to overcome, but each was rather tedious and something that we must do to advance. Bus. Market. Bus. Bad lunch. Bus. Bowser.

We had to take a few ferries because the bridges had once collapsed and killed hundreds of people (engineering goes out the window in monsoon season, when everything sinks further into mud than anticipated). The chaos of hundreds of people embarking and disembarking resembled the Superdome circa 2005. Couples argued over which blue bus was theirs, amputees on boards grabbed at the knees and old ladies laughed like witches amidst the chaos. There were also the requisite old men selling Rayban sunglasses, all with logos that could be scratched off with a fingernail.

One thing has always kept me from crisis mode in Vietam - the promise of strong, sweet coffee. No matter where you are here, even if you are a field of treefrogs, you can get the most delicious coffee. It is unlike any other. Imagine the last concentrated drips from a filter tasting like pure sugar cane and you will come close to it fathoming the deliciousness. Poured over ice, it is orgasmic. Handed to me in trying circumstances, it is a nipple to my mouth and instantly quels my whimpering.
...

I just became distracted because a man with a bicycle full of dried quid and fake lonely planets tried to sell me both and I purchased neither.

...

I am writing this from Saigon, where I am spending my last days in Vietnam. My flight leaves tomorrow for Siem Reap and I am very excited to arrive in a new country. Especially since I have picked a posh hotel to crash at for the next few days.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Homestayin'


I arranged a homestay through the travel agent in Chau Doc, Vietnam. Uncertain of what I had just negotiated and booked, I boarded a bus for My Tho. Three hours and one Crocodile Farm visit later I had arrived in town.

I was met by a beautiful young woman wearing a pink and black sweater and white furry gloves. It was eighty degrees but I knew that this is how people dress for long motorbike rides - you never know when the weather or your vehicle will break down. She introduced herself in Vietnamese as Hanh and then spoke seven sentences that I did not understand in the slightest. Smiling and nodding, she grabbed my pack and put it on the bike between her knees. I strapped my daypack to my back, put on a helmet and jumped on the seat behind her. We flew out of the dirt lot in light speed, me clinging on for queer life.

Wide bridges and wide roads became narrow roads and terri-fucking-fyingly narrow bridges. There was no communication between us, other than nervous laughs as we went over bumps or nearly died crashing into oncoming vehicles. Somewhere in those seven sentences she probably told me that the trip would be forty minutes long but I was fucked if I knew how long it would be. I had a horrible itch on my nose but dared not take my hands off of Hanh's shoulders. It was my own kind of waterboarding.

Moving to dirt roads, we began to blow through villages as kids were being let out of school. They all pointed at us when we drove by. These people were used to seeing almost anything transported on motorbikes but we still turned heads - tiny pink girl, whiteman and one hefty backpack. This combination was about as improbable around here as seeing Scooby Doo nail Pamela Anderson on a pool table.

We finally arrived at Hanh's house. My friend Glenn has a habit of calling accommodations by the synonym "property" and I snorted at what his description would be. "It's, how shall I say, a rather modest property that has its own unique charm and atmosphere." It was a house on a river with a brick deck. It was exactly what I hoped to see.

Seven or eight people came to check out the arrival. Everyone talked about me while I was standing there, trying to figure out what they were saying. This would happen repeatedly over the next day. It was like being an infant...I only knew five words in their language and Poop doesn't get you very far in conversation.

I imagined if it would be this crazy to be airlifted into my own family and realized that it wouldn't be nerve-racking, it would be downright frightening. My mother would be whizzing around with a four hundred degree baking sheet of Fridays' Stuffed Mushrooms, my sister would be yelling at football players on the TV and my uncle would be skunk-drunk by four pm and discussing how horrible the world was going to shit, I tell ya, you can't even go to Costco without running into goddamn Mexicans. This before Nana even arrived with her nine plastic bags full of combs, Saltines, Sweet N Low and yarn.

So this was a piece of cake.

I wrote for a while, in between playing with the puppy and eating lunch (something called Elephant Ear Fish). Hanh took me up river for a boat trek and it felt like a reverse African Queen with her as Bogie and me as, well, the Queen.

A couple of the neighbor girls decided to show me off and take me up to the village. Lots of the normal in the market - squirming eels, flopping fish and dried quid. More Scooby Doo pointing from the locals. One kid of thirteen years said something unflattering about me as I walked by (I just knew it). I turned around and walked back toward him like only a New Yorker could, with severe attitude - he screamed and ran away. Little bitch.

Six O'clock is when kids start taking baths. This involves taking some shampoo to the river, stripping and jumping in. The grownups lifeguard and the little ones wear life jackets, lest they drown or get eaten by crocodiles. Adults begin taking river baths around seven. I even saw one guy hurl a bottle of shampoo across to his neighbor, who had clearly run out of Herbal Essence.

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching a man make a chair. This sounds mildly interesting until you really process that I mean MAKE A CHAIR. Home Depot had not contributed. He had found the appropriate pieces of bamboo and carved holes in them, carefully piecing together the interlocking parts. No bolts. No drills. He used leaves to sandpaper it. I am impressed when I make fajitas from an Ortega kit. This dude...this dude made a CHAIR in an afternoon.
.
Night fell and I had a great dinner. Everyone sat on the deck and told stories but I only listened because they sounded like this:

"Neow tong mee kayartima chee chee yowl horra meeeeeee".

Then laughter. I prayed that these were not tales of previous guests, all now kept chained in a pit.

Four French people showed up by boat around 10pm, looking for rooms. Their arrival ruined the whole balance that I had with the family. Worse still, they talked loudly and excessively in, get this, French. Each person smoke ninety two cigarettes and none of them made an effort to communicate again with me or the family. I am sorry to generalize about an entire people but

I
Fucking
Hate
The
French

Worse still, I have three school years of their language and could understand half of what they were saying. They spent a good deal of time ridiculing Vietnam. As an American, I have spent some time being judged by The French and I wanted to kick them all in the balls and vaginas. Had they asked where I was from, they surely would have scoffed or done that lipcurl-while-smiling thing. Like when I order a Croque Madame in Paris. Yet here they were in the home of a people who had been tortured and "colonized" by their ancestors. Laughing at them. Not sure how to properly say "suck me" in French.

My dreams were intense. I had popped my first pre-Laos anti-malaria pill and knew from a trip to Africa what could happen. Crazy dreams are a common side effect. I do not recommend French Anger and UFO podcasts before a first night of Larium sleep. Like, whoa.

I woke up at 6am. I ate the same thing that has been served to me for the entire time I have been in this country - two eggs, a massive roll and the strongest cup of coffee you can imagine. The French were asleep and it was blissfully quiet on the river. Then Hanh took me over the river and through the woods on her motorbike again. This time I recognized many of the kids from the past day and they waved at me with a smile and familiarity.

"Hello Meester. Hello!"

Do I really have to go back?

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Nha Trang and Dalat, Vietnam

I met back up with Alec The Dogeating German in Nha Trang. He had seen enough rain and was headed for the west coast. He had a guy attached to his hip, a Brit who seemed like a total douchebag. We had a sidebar when the guy went to the bathroom.

"Alec, why are you hanging out with a douchebag?"

"I know. He's totally like douche".

"Then why?"

"I got lonely"

I can understand this. I have had a few drinks with DB's just to kill some time. They almost always tell me about how corrupt America is within the first five minutes. I have taken to chumming their water, creating an entirely false self. I claim to be Republican, pro-Iraq and from an oil family. They go fucking beserk.

"Alec, how do we ditch this guy?"

"So simple. Just leave"

And just like that, we were out the door. We never saw him again. I like to imagine that he was excited to have met Alec and was destroyed that we had bailed on him. This was probably better for him than hearing my sermon about sending more weapons to the Saudis so that we could control more oil.

We had an amazing night. We found a seafood cart by the water, pointed at two huge lobsters and watched them grilled live on the curbside hibachi. We ripped them apart with our hands, sitting at a kiddy table and chairs. Lots of Tiger beer. It was like a shellfish tea party for two. Grand total: $7. We barhopped after this, finally settling on The Sailing Club for jugs of vodka orange. Alec had peeped my Facebook and asked why I didn't mention that I was gay. Unsure of how to respond, I went with "don't tell me you want me to suck your dick now". He laughed until he couldn't breathe. Then we drank too much and walked home, mindful of the packs of roving girls (big scam here. the group of them pretend to flirt and embrace you while fleecing your pockets). Alec was annoyed that my goodbye hug was too mindful of his heterosexuality and demanded a second one "for real". We said goodbye and good luck. Good Ol Alec The Dogeating German.

The next two days in Nha Trang were mostly a waste. It rained. All of the boats stayed in harbor and people did cultural things like watch Blades of Glory. I managed to take a taxi to the hot spring and sat for 20 minutes in a hot mud bath. Big whoop. Tips: stay at the Ha Van Hotel, drink the Bellinis at Guava and get a lifechanging massage the place that begins with an "s". Oh, and go to Nha Trang when it's sunny.

The ride to Dalat was just past hazardous and just before terrifying. Huge mountains. Oncoming buses. Roads more narrow than Bleeker Street or Brick Lane Road. Seven Hours. Thank god for my Coast To Coast podcasts, which never fail to distract me with thoughts of UFO's and Atlantis.

Dalat is a town in the mountains, originally built by the French. It is centered around a lake and has the freshest air in Vietnam. I found the Dreams Hotel and haggled a room down to $15, then went for food. I met a French Canadian named Julie (joo-lee) there; she would play an interesting part in my evening, which is best described in another entry. Not like that.

The Easy Riders were once a group of motorbike guides who began running mountain tours from Dalat a few years ago. Like everything successful in Vietnam, it was copied a thousandfold. The town is now over-run with knuckleheads on bikes, goading you for a ride. They haunt the cafe's, the bars and even the hotels. If you stop to look at a map or admire the lake, there is one on your shoulder in under a minute. I beg the town of Dalat to do something about them because they have ruined a beautiful place to visit. It's worse than any kind of touting because they usually engage in conversation first. "How are you? Where you from. Where you go next?". Then you wait for it. "So you want easy rider?" A "no" turns into two more minutes of pitch, quieted only after two more "no's" and one "NO". I am not lying when I say that this happened to me forty times a day, even when I had my headphones on and hoodie up. Imagine not being able to relax in a lake town. I cut my trip short to two nights. Fuck the Easy Riders.

Off to Saigon on a seven hour bus ride. Completely unsure of what to expect.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Notes From Vietnam


There is this squatting thing that people do in this part of the world. Usually the person is steeped on a curb, feet on the edge, chilling the hell out. There is no muscle quiver, spasm or give. They can squat like this for hours. I see hundreds of people a day like this. Not impressed? Go ahead - try it. Stand in the middle of your room and squat, keeping your ass about one inch from the ground. Try it for ten minutes. Imagine staying like this for an hour. Then call Jenny Craig.

This is just one of a thousand differences I have found between Vietnam and America. There are no spinning classes or McDonalds or air conditioner repair shops. There are no public libraries or subways or Doppler weather forecasts. No gutters, barristas or professional clowns. Jobs that Westerners have created still serve no function here. I spent the better part of fifteen minutes trying to explain what a Dog Catcher was to a semi-English-speaking waitress who was fascinated with The American Way. "But why you want catch dog? Dog go when he ready."

In fact, the only universal thread I can seem to find (other than soccer) is video games. Internet stores are jammed from 4-6pm with kids desperate for an hour of dance simulation or first person murder. Video games. It seems that the only way to world communication maybe be between an online bullet battle between Nguyen in Sapa and Michael in Fort Wayne.

The most important job in Vietnam is not President or Oil Tycoon. It is Cook or Motorbike Repair Man. The jobs that are given value are the ones which actually keep society functioning. Bus Driver is high on the pyramid. Not only is this the main form of long-haul transport but it is an incredible challenge, given that the highways here are really just byways. You can count the number of daily domestic flights on two people's hands. You couldn't count the number of buses. Period.

Here are some things I have seen on my bus ride today: A family of four on one motorbike with a tarp over their heads (rainshower). Cows in the front yard of a one bedroom house. An overturned motorbike with a crowd and a body on the ground. A fifty year old crane pulling a piece of bridge into the air with what looked like silly string. A monkey in a cage. A wedding in a field. Foggy roads that go into the sky and come out the other side of heaven. This ain't even close to Kansas.

Vietnam gets a bad rap on the Southeast Asia travel circuit and it probably deserves it. There seems to be quite a bit of crime committed against tourists here - crime that the people would not commit on their own (mostly because it is not as lucrative). Drive-by pickpocketing is prevalent in Nha Trang, especially at night when the bars let out. Hanoi is scam city, with taxi drivers pulling shit that I have never even heard of before (and I once had a NYC cab driver jerk off while looking at me in the rear view mirror). The constant deluge of potential grubbing can get you down some days, especially if other travelers' stories begin to stack up.

The thing is, you just can't feel the hand of government here. There is not enough paper to push. Perhaps this why the country lags between so many social structures. Ho Chi Minh is revered everywhere as a communist who united the people against the French and Japanese. Yet capitalism is everywhere - it is just a matter of time before the Starbucks and Gaps come to town. It's this confusion that makes the government seem invisible. With no desperate need to show The Vietnamese Way as The Right Way, it is left to quietly do the basics of what government needs to do. Like build bridges, build schools and get the people through to next year.

Overall, enough is more. Chess on the ground suits most people in the evening. There is no dying wish for a trip to The Mall or a $200 bar bill at Chateau Marmont. Why? Because it would not even occur to the people as an option. The American Dream has become getting fired and paid out, in order to start a new life (where eventually we will long to be fired again). The Vietnamese dream, at least for now, continues to be just getting through one life, not three.

Some days I look around and try to comprehend that I am here. Right now I am only 50km from jungle that is laced with undetonated mines and fields that have still not recovered from napalm. I wonder how unearthly a place this was to fight a war and then wonder again if a desert is much better. I see orphaned kids with deformities and yet healthy kids with school uniforms and backpacks. The West is creeping into this country but from where I stand it still feels foreign and remote.

If I was a 'real' travel writer I would be trying to find a way to thread all of this together. Maybe some kind of Carrie Bradshaw voiceover that ties it all together. But this country isn't simply sewn up. Vietnam is teetering on the edge of two millenniums and I am lucky enough to be right here in the middle, at a cafe in Dalat.

Eating pizza.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Halong Bay, Vietnam


The three day trip to Halong was very cool, even though the weather was overcast and cold.

Day one was on a Junk Boat, which we headed to after a three hour bus ride. There are 500 of these boats trying to pull out of the harbor at the same time and it was chaos. I was not sure what to expect for $90 (booked out of Hanoi Backpacker) but it was a sweet setup, with rooms nicer than most hotels I have stayed at on this trip. There was a mish-mosh of fellow travellers - an older British couple, Australian girls (always), a 20 year old danish couple, an english engineer who had just quit his job and various others.

We spent most of the day cruising for caves. They are astounding. You can walk for an hour in some. Eventually they dump you back to the water, where women in rowboats try to sell you supplies. These little floating bodegas seem to be everywhere on the bay and the women are, shall we say, insistent. "YOU BUY OREO! YOU NEED OREO". They seemed genuinely shocked when I actually purchased Oreos because hey, I really did need Oreos.

There are different kinds of party nights in this world. There are the ones where you spend eight hours at a club, main-lining vodka redbulls and avoiding drunk girls with cigarettes. And then there are the ones where you drink a liter of Johnny Walker and do karaoke on a boat with strangers. Take a guess. Everyone bought a bottle and was drunk by nine, swapping stories in the main cabin.

Our hosts started the karaoke. I am not a fan of singing but scotch turns me into another person. Pretty soon the whole boat was singing the Grease megamix. The other boats floating around us had the same idea - anyone with ears could hear the echoes of "Kharma Chameleon" and "I've Got You Babe". It was an early night. Everyone was passed-out drunk by ten thirty, dreaming of a Loverboy hit.

Most people ended their trip here but I pressed on to Cat Ba Island with the older Brit couple. Our guide Hung took us off the map with an unadvertised visit to a cave in the middle of nowhere. It was discovered in 2006 and was only reachable by two longboats through calm, beautiful water. A man's body had been found when the place was discovered and the bones dated back 1,000 years. Imagine walking through a city block's worth of caves with only a flashlight and three other people. In the middle of fucking NOWHERE.

The Brits stayed in a fancy hotel. I shacked at a cool 3 star facing a bay full of fishing boats. After dinner Hung knocked on my door and told me to get my ass in gear - we were going out. But, ya know, in Vietnamese. He took me to a bar down an alley, owned by his friend and frequented by the other guides. These guys were insanely cool and suprise partiers. Several of them had never tried tequila and that was all that I needed to hear. Our (severely) broken english conversations ranged from the meritts of handjobs to the economy of southeast asia. Hung guided us home, although I am not sure how. I recall something about singing "New York, New York" at the top of my lungs.

We journeyed back to Hanoi the next day. I couldn't sell Hung out as a party animal and let him tourguide us back, although we exchanged some boozy glances. I also began calling him Hung Over, which only amused me. Back in Hanoi I checked into my own room at The Ritz Hotel for a cool $22. I plugged my dvd player into the tv and marathoned bootleg movies for the better part of 24 hours.

And now, off to Nha Trang via airplane. Meeting back up with Alec The Dogeating German.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The Underdog


I wasn't even thinking of eating dog until I met Alec. He has a way of smiling and raising his eyebrows that suggests trouble, but the kind of trouble that you just have to get into.

Alec is German - the first German that I have ever liked. He could be my boyfriend if he didn't have a girlfriend. He giggles at my unspoken jokes (a nod at a kid picking his nose, for example) and speaks excellent English. Alec is also insanely hot, a triathalete who still drinks enough beer to not be featherweight but enough muscle to have a tight, convext chest. Swoon.

During our first drink, he told me about the time on when he cheated on his girlfriend back home. It had been after a long bus ride through Laos, during which a beautiful girl had suggested that they seek accomodation at the same guest house. He aquiesced. After dinner they had some drinks and headed to her room. Just before they started making out he felt a bit sick but his hormones got the best of him and he forged ahead. Halfway through the act, with her on top, he began having severe gastric pains. She thought it was him getting more turned on and thrashed harder and faster, which made him offer a clenched whimper. She interpreted the whimper as ecstasy and rode even harder. At that point, Alec said, "I shit on bed a little but she never know". This made him my best friend for life.

"You know. We should go for dog".

We were out drinking whiskey at four in the afternoon when he offered it up, straight from the 'ol Lonely Planet. I could only hear Anthony Bourdain whispering in my ear not to be a wimp, not to be the safe American consumer. So, I agreed to eat man's best friend. Alec was thrilled. I was thrilled to thrill him.

We continued the evening by drinking free beer on the roof of our hostel, the well-run, Australian-owned Hanoi Backpackers. Alec looked at me and tried to speak code as we batted off two frumpy Polish girls who would not stop hitting on us. Had it been a frumpy Polish guy, I may have considered a bit more discussion.

Alec. Giving me the accent. "Time for D-O-G now?"

Certainly.

We hailed a taxi and took a drive to a decidedly sketchy neighborhood, at which point the cab driver continued and took us five miles further to an even sketchier one. It's a universal rule that no good comes of establishments near an airport. There were no people, no cabs, no stores and no cyclos. Only a semi-fancy shack with ten tables and no customers. "Dog! " Said our driver. "Woof Woof".

The anxiety of eating Lassie was quadrupled by the apalling neighborhood and certainty that we would never get home. That feeling went through the ceiling when we realized that there were about ten canines wandering below the eatery. The reality that dog came from DOG was almost too much. Tony Bourdain kept whispering in my brain, cooing me closer to the tables. Before I knew it, my shoes were off and I was sitting at a Japanese style table on the floor. It bears repeating that Alec and I were the only customers.

Two men served as our cooks and waiters. They looked like mechanics more than restauranteurs. Between the two of them, they knew three words and gracefully laid out the dining options. "Boy Dog? Girl Dog?". We shrugged our shoulders and told them to pick what they wanted. Not understanding a word of what we said, they moved quickly towards the back. Chef's Special it was. I worked in a rib joint once and it is best that the customer never knows what really happens behind the door that swings both ways. I shuddered to think.

Dinner arrived before we could even think about bailing out. Two small plates of grilled dog were placed in front of us, with three equally mysterious dipping sauces. The meat was brown and rump-like, chunked and sliced. The smell coming off of it made me momentarily gag. I proceeded to momentarily gag four more times.

There was no backing down, as our two hosts were now watching to make sure we partook. I grabbed my chopsticks and shoved a piece in my mouth before I really had time to process what I had in front of me.

Dog was a completely new and distinct taste to me. It had never struck me that at my age I might discover a new taste. It was like the first time I tasted licorice or lemongrass or coriander. Except more horrible than anything I had ever eaten in my life. Years of Liver Night as a kid had taught me how to convincingly fake-eat with a quick napkin spit, which is exactly what I did. Unlike in my childhood, the dogs under this table would probably not appreciate my palmed scraps.

"Boy Dog", said our waiter as Alec took a bite from the same stinking pile. Some people turn green - he turned neon. Our waiter departed and he hacked out his bite into a napkin.

Of course we should have stopped right there but we didn't. Neither one of us was leaving until we successfully downed one piece. We both went for the other sliced pile and I guess that I can compare female dog as something pork-like. It was only half as bad as the first pile, which was ten times worse than anything I have ever had. We swallowed. Dog had been ingested. We pounded our orange sodas and looked at each other with grim faces.

There was no pride in the achievement. We were just two dumb guys doing something for the sake of saying that we did it. Neither one of us enjoyed a single second of the experience and neither one of us felt good about what we had done. We had psyched ourselves into doing something because it felt adventurous and non-tourista. It was a horrible mistake and a nasty decision.

We paid quickly and left as if it was a brothel, grabbing the first cab back to the city. It charged us three times the going rate and neither one of us cared. We just wanted that behind us. We deserved to be ripped off.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Hanoi (tourism and masturbation)


A man driving a motorbike with 50 crates of eggs stacked in every inconceivable direction. Another driving an identicle bike with two (live) upsidedown pigs strapped on the back. Blinding numbers of bicycles and taxis. Streets that change names every block. Hotels that appropriate the names of other popular hotels and kick back money to taxi drivers who take unsuspecting tourists their way. Horns. Constant horns. People cooking on the sidewalk. People doing tai-chi on the sidewalk. People screaming on the sidewalk. Women balancing pounds of fruit like Atlas in a produce department. Horns! Absolute, unfettered, constant mayhem.

I love hanoi.

I have spent three nights here and really enjoyed every second. There's a rhythm that this city has and I can dance to it. I can cross the street while 50 motorbikes are driving, all hellbent on plowing through whatever stands in their way. I know this game.

While here, I made a few stops on the tourist trail. First was Hoa Lo Prison Museum, which is a heavy place. There is a dirth of death in these walls and if anyplace is haunted, this is it. Used first by the French to imprison the Vietnamese, it was later used to hold American pilots who were shot down while bombing Hanoi (including John McCain). Walking through the rows of tiny cells gave me the shivers. As did some of the tortue and murder devices, like a guillotine and iron gloves. This building was misery, disease and death for the people who stayed here in the 20's. The thing is, the pictures of American prisoners don't make it seem nearly as rough. Prison is prison, but snaps of GI's playing volleyball and decorating for Christmas pale in comparison to some of the images of decades before. It seemed more like a holding place than anything else...maybe why it was nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton. Of course, the folks of North Vietnam probably had some uglier pictures of the 70's that aren't prominently displayed...

The Temple of Literature should be re-named The Temple of Wasted Time. This seems to be where tourists go to be pushy, talk on their cell phones and let their children scream. Lonely Planet can suck me. This place looks more like a knockoff setting for Kill Bill than it does something historic and jawdropping. It's like getting to Disney World and realizing that there are no other rides besides It's A Small World.

Last night I did a really stupid thing and jerked off in the middle of the night. It had been five nights and I woke up at 2am riding my dorm bunk like I was in The Preakness. The other nine people in my room all appeared to be sleeping and I did my best to use my comforter like Harry Potter's invisibility cloak. The hangup was that I couldn't sprint to the finish, for fear of rocking the bed. That last ten seconds is a bitch in four wheel drive. After ages I finally committed to my endgame fantasy, which revolved around the guy from the Singapore bridge in the missionary position.

One can forget just how much fluid can come from one's body at a moment like this. I immediately wished that I had not done it. In fact, in the middle of spewing I was having to organize a cleanup plan. This was not a daily wank - the Nile
Delta was emptying into the top bunk of room four, with nine other people dreaming about fairies and spiders around me. "Gnwweaaa" was as close to a moan as I could utter. All of this needed to happen under the covers and everything went everywhere, with tributaries draining out of my midsection. I had no socks for mopping and could not get up, so I took the route a tenth grader would take. I just wiped it all over the side of the bed and fell asleep.

Much of my time here alternated between drinking and walking, with some delecious vietnamese meals inbetween. I ate on posh roofdecks but I also ate squatting on street corners, slurping whatever the locals fed me for $.50. It's a great city to wander for hours. I ended up completely lost two times, which was easily solved by jumping on the back of someone's motorbike for 10,000 Dong. You can blend into the madness here if you have the technique, even if you are a foot taller than everyone else.

Not much more to report. I am off to Halong Bay for a cruise + island trip. More soon.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

Tanah Ratah is a particularly ugly town in an extraordinarily beautiful setting. It sits smack-dab in the middle of the Cameron Highlands, a crisp and cool area of Malaysia that supplies enough tea for the whole country. The tea plantations are mostly owned by a Scottish family, who have made a killing by hiring locals at .20r per kilo of tea picked. The place has a laid back feel, and not in a hippy-mystical sort of way. Eyesores like the abandoned development in the center of town are forgotten when you look look at the hills, while sipping a cup of tea or eating a local strawberry.

My first accomodation choices were booked and I randomly found Papillion, a small guesthouse set back a superhero's stone throw from town. The owners are about the nicest people you will ever meet and my room was perfect, with the added indulgence of a hot shower. They are renovating the small hotel next door and it's only a matter of time before the Lonely Planet travellers start filing into this secret little spot.

Tanah Ratah also seems to be the perfect example of how different a people the Malay are. I was ignorant to the fact that there are vitally different races who inhabit this country and somehow manage to do it peacefully. The predominant split is between the chinese and islamic factions, who seem to talk about each other behind closed doors, yet smile in public. I rode by an apartment for let with a sign prominantly displayed that said "for chinese only" at the bottom. Food stalls next to each other waft a conflicting mix of curry and stirfry, each delicious in a different way. There is the attempt to present this culture as "Malaysian" but it has been obvious through my travels that there is no such thing, only symbiotic factions who live in the same place. Yet there is no hint of upheaval or conflict, as with many countries in the same situation.

Truth be told, sightseeing here is littered with tourist traps, all trying to sell you what is displayed on the tour. There are strawberries at farms, tea at plantations, honey from hives. I spent one day touring them all and that was plenty. The real treaure here lays in the nooks and crannies, with the locals who are nice to people even if they are from the country that needlessly starts wars.

The shining example of the vibe here is at T Cafe, where I ate every day. The owner's six year old serves as hostess during the afternoon, ushering me to a seat in a way that almost makes me interested in having kids. "You sit, you eat, you love!". And love I did, trying almost every excellent thing on the menu. Postcards line the room from people who became as sucked into this 10-table restaurant as I was. I've never had service that felt as genuine before and the owner is greatly flattered when you return for the third time, almost to the point of being embarrassed. Her look says "but we really don't do anything THAT special here". They do.

I spent my mornings playing with Max The Puppy and my nights tossing wood on the bonfire at Daniel's Guesthouse, where a dozen backpackers gather each night to swap stories. The nights here are chilly and I stayed close to the fire, even when the wind changed direction and blew smoke in my face. Each morning I woke up smelling a bit like a fireplace.

I had one noteable encounter while in town, writing at a corner bar. A 20-something guy ripped me out of my writing trance, asking me if he could sit down and have a beer. I had the sense that I was being hit on and I was right. Ryan, a Fillipino living here for two years, studied hotel management back home. He pointedly asked me if I like boys or girls and I coughed up the boy answer, outing myself to the only gay for miles. He said that he had been watching me for two days and I heard a tone in his voice that concerned me - absolute loneliness. It became quickly apparent that Ryan was desperate to fall for someone. It had been two years since he had sex in this largely Islamic town and several since he had a magical kiss. I began to catch a tone that unsettled me, the "take me away from here" thing that I have encountered before in other small towns. Ryan had been daydreaming about me and I think he had swept himself up into a fantasy that I was The One, or at least A One. I created a story about a boyfriend back home, in order to sidestep a dream-crushing. His face fell but he continued to work me over, offering that he found white guys "delicious". I coudnt break it to him that I found white guys delicious too and had no urgings for men of the asian variety. Better to let him think that Mike The Banker was the reason for my below-the-belt indifference. We had a couple of beers and I left before his smalltown sadness could seep into the pleasant buzz that this town was giving me. Anyone looking for a nice Flip guy, just park yourself at the corner bar here and make yourself known. Also, they are probably lying about there being no tap beer, so that they can nab an extra two ringit for a bottle. Raise an eyebrow and you'll get your pint.

I am sitting in the yard, writing this with In Rainbows on my headphones and Max chewing on the lace of my shoe. Three nights in Tanah Ratah has been just right. Tomorrow I head back to KL, where I have bid myself a luxury hotel (on priceline for dirt cheap). It may be another solo Valentine's Day but at least I will be wiping my semen on sheets with a thread count over 100.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Taman Negara Rainforest


My guide kept reminding me not to touch hanging branches because of wipers. I had no idea what he was talking about...his accent was rough. Imagine talking to a Bostonian about cars and heart attacks. Then it processed. Vipers. I needed to be careful of vipers.

Welcome to Tamen Negara rainforest in Malaysia, where the death potential goes thermo. I came here on a cheapo package tour, which I purchased at 6:45am in KL. I would never have found the counter in Chinatown had it not been for the one-armed deskclerk, who happily abandoned his post to walk me there for a fivespot. It wasn't until he offerred his good arm that I realized some fingers were missing there too.

The trip to TN is an adventure in and of itself. The three hour bus ride is enough - the driver climbs mile-high hills in first gear, only to barrel down the other side at 120k. This is followed by a 3 hour boat ride up-river. The boat is made with popsicle sticks and chewing gum. The engine seems to operate on the same principles as most blenders, although it never gets beyond Purree.

I picked up accomplices on the bus ride up, two english guys. We hated the canadian girl in our group. She made unprovoked remarks about America and ever since I have been telling her that I voted for Bush and wrote my Congessman to invade Iran next. Which is a fun way to wind someone up even if you are a Democrat who protested the war. I wanted to kick this girl in the vagina.

Kuala Tahan is the only blip on the river's map and is one-stop for Temen Negara adventures. Most of the town (three restaurants and a store) are built on the river and float - a good wake can make dinner turbulent. I am given a tasty little chalet at Ekoten, which is up an flight of vertical stairs, just one stop before heaven. The people who handle the whole trip (Han Travel) are very nice and have their shit together in a big way.

Night One began with an after-dark trek in the jungle. The eight of us headed out into no-man's-land with our guide and flashlights. Over the next two hours we saw everything from stick insects to glowing mushrooms to black scorpions to bird-eating spiders (yep, they are really called that, and they're as big as your hand). The rainforest is loud, with the sound of a million insects buzzing at once. It is also the annual hatching week for chickaras (pictured), which are divebombing insects with a wingspan measured in inches - they scream like the zombies in 28 Days Later. Thousands of them fall from the sky. The Brits were squeeling like little girls.

The second day was action packed. First stop was a walk in the rainforest canopy, courtesy of a series of questionably constructed bridges, hanging 50 meters above God's Green Earth. Scary but incredible. We hiked a mountain next and this left everyone sopping in sweat - it was exactly the kind of workout that people pay a personal trainer hundreds for back home.

Next we visited a local tribe, only one of two that are allowed to live in the rainforest. I was worried that it would feel too Epcot but it ended up being quite cool. These people were the real deal. The tribes are nomadic (they must move every time somebody dies) and this assures that where they live has what might be called a "rural feel". We were shown how to make darts, dip them in poison and shoot them out of bamboo. My shot missed the mark by an inch, which is a legendery first shot for a white man from a big city. The chief jokingly suggested that I might like to move in - I was not sure how explain that Tivo is waiting for me back home.

I am pretty fascinated with the hunting though. The men hunt monkeys mostly. They shoot darts thirty meters into the canopy and nail the little fuckers, who run away after being iced. It takes three minutes for the poison to kill them, at which point they fall from the sky. The poison will spread through the monkey if the injured limb is not immediately hacked off. The things you learn...

The day ended with a boat trip upriver. We all got drenched in the rapids. Everyone went for a swim, except The Japanese people who just plashed each other and giggled like Japanese people. I have long since stopped trying to figure out the Hello Kitty nation.

I am writing this from my second night on a floating restaurant, where tonight I decided to splurge and not eat a rice/fish/"chicken" based dish. I will later make an attempt to cross the river. This side of the river is dry (Islam, etc) and I would fuck a woman for a beer right now. Word around town is that someone is selling contraband Carlsberg for 10 Ringits each but I can't bring myself to pay that. Surreal given that I'll pay $10 for a beer back home.

Cameron Highlands next and Vietnam around the corner.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Singapore Sling

I am at Hooters in Singapore, which is the "first in Asia". It is Hooty Hour, according to the girl with orange shorts up to where her hymen used to be. They serve a dish called the Lover's Knot, which is chicken with mushrooms (and apparently has nothing to do with knots or lovers. Genius marketing). They are playing "Strawberry Fields" on the house system and have mispelled a drink on the menu, "Lover's Portion". It does not get any weirder but they do have Heinz ketchup and mozzerella sticks, so I could definitely live here. I could, however, deal without the tits. Today I also saw my first Taco Bell in five weeks. It was like seeing a unicorn.

Two days ago I broke down and visited a gay sauna. A month without anything but a prostrate massage led me to desperate measures. I paid my "membership fee", buzzed through a windowless door and was given a locker. I am not a sauna kinda guy and this was only the second time that I really remember visiting one. There had been jaunts to one place it Toronto during my ecstasy phase, but that was because it was the only dark place to come down at 7am on a Monday morning. I was clearly not keeping a blog in those days.

For sauna newbies, the game is pretty simple. Take off your clothes (save a towel), turn left at the dusty weight room and enter a dimly lit labyrinth of sin. To be honest, I was not looking for nookie and just searching for something that felt dirty, even if it was just the vibe in the air. The porn chip in my brain needs to connect to something regularly or I will just start jerking off in a Mcdonald's without even knowing it.

Unfortunately I forgot that the place would be filled with asians, who greatly resemble tiny aliens inside a maze with poor light. I ran from their clutches, desperately trying to find someone over the four foot mark.

So this is where things get filthy and I would caution family members to stop reading. It's also when my google adwords start making interesting link choices.

I found the one lone caucasian, a French college student. He was all kinds of hot. I would like to thanks Jesus Christ for three years of high school French - between our Franglais we were able to deduce that a massive hookup was forthcoming. I kinda grabbed him and headed for a darker room with a door. I pulled the door shut and heard a clink as my body connected with something cold and metallic. We had entered the sling room.

S+M is just something that old people do because they have run out of options - I am not there yet and headed back for the door. Then I realized that this experience would make for the best blog title ever - I swear to you this is why I stayed. How can you pass up a wordplay like that? It didn't help that the Aliens were outside, waiting to abduct and probe us in ways that are even unpleasant to me.

So, the French guy and I started fooling around bigtime. There was so much wood that we could have started a fire. Towels fell off and I spied a free condom dispenser on the wall. I need to install one of those at home.

If you have never attempted to fuck someone in a sling before, I suggest that you seek instruction before you try it. Even a diagram or hyroglyphic. If you are as inexperienced as I was, it can be as confusing as assembling a desk from Ikea. There is the constant re positioning, which is about as romantic as back surgery. Entry is quite simple given the exposed anatomy but then it gets a bit too Ringling Brothers and moves into a trapeze act. I awkwardly got some sort of motion going but there was no leverage, sort of like when astronauts try to move in zero gravity. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to grab him, the chains or a combination thereof.

Then there is sex noise, compounded with school playground noise, which is disconcerting on about nine levels. It goes like this in the blink of an eye: Slam, clank, pause for sling to come back down, bigger slam, relaunch. Way too much going on. Frenchy was well into it. I flashed to the future when he and his boyfriend Marcel would attend the Monsieur Leatherman competition, both wearing studded halter tops. I was thinking about closing down the whole operation when he blew like Mt St. Helen, making me wonder what else was on the floor in this room. Sex to completion was out of the question for me and I wasn't going to play the fake orgasm game. A simple "au revoire" and I was out the door, showered and headed for the street in five minutes.

Everyone talks about how reserved and sanitary Singapore is. About how there is no underbelly. I think they just aren't looking in the wrong places.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Blowing It In Singapore


Anyone who knows me will tell you one thing about me: I hate when people chew gum. Specifically, I despise when people chaw, gnarl and mangle their gum. A combination of this with bubblesnapping is enough to push me to the boundaries of sanity. I have had more cinematic daydreams about murdering gum-chewing fiends than there are stars.

It's a problem.

I decided to pitstop in Singapore because it is still the only place that gum is unlawful. This is my Holy Land. This is my Jesus Christ.

The horrors of gumchewing began with the Greeks and Aztecs, who chewed on tree resin. Things really didn't get cooking until a formula was patented in 1869, which found its way into gumball machines two years later. William Wrigley souped up the recipe with mint extracts in 1914, if only to drive me insane ninety years later. Frank Fleer was the real gum nazi, creating Blibber-Blabber in 1906 (the first bubble gum). If I had a time machine I would kill all of these men. Anyone - ANYONE - to do with the creation of this substance would fall to my axe.

Fortunately, there is Singapore. Gum was banned in 1992, after vandals began sticking it on the sensors of the prized Mass Rapid Transit. Here's the best part: Nobody even missed it. No black market ever developed, even though offenders were only "named and shamed" if caught, which is not even a slap on the wrist by Singapore standards. I wish I could tongue kiss the then-Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yen, for saying "If you can't think because you can't chew, try a banana". Dude gets me hard when he talks all tough about gum law.

The resurfacing of legal gum in Singapore is an excellent example of just how bizarre and corrupt America can be. In 1999, desperate to open bilateral trade with Bush's USA, the Singapore government agreed to two things. The first was public support for the war in Iraq. The second was repealing the gum ban. That's quite a dicksucking for trade negotiation.

How did they end up swallowing their gum? Only Americans will fully understand, for we a retarded people. The year before, Wrigley's had hired a lobbyist and leaned on an Illinois congressman to put gum on the Bush Agenda. Only the devil knows what was traded in making this a sticky issue for Singapore, who picked up a 150 million dollar tax break per year on their end of the deal. Wrigley's had fucked them with a handful of spit and no condom.

The Singaporian government found a crafty way to save face. Some gum has medicinal purpose, even if is to help build enamel or fight cavities. Therefore, they made gum an item that must be handed out by pharmacists, only after taking down the names of customers for a national record. Any importing of gum is still illegal. There is something perversely exciting to me about this. I could buy a 19 inch black dildo in Manhattan but a person in Singapore must ask a pharmacist for a stick of Hubba Bubba.

For five days I have not seen a single person chew gum. No whorish women snapping their cud. No athletes mouthing the sticky substance like it was pussy on a first date. I have had beautiful, thoughtful moments without the presence of my nemesis. And nobody - not even the spoiled tourists - seems to miss it.

I propose a gumfree world. If I had a billion dollars I would buy lobbyists and make it a priority. I would not use the money to build houses for the poor or find a cure for the Superflu. I would find a way for Americans to choke on the estimated 300 sticks that each person chews every year.

Until then, Singapore.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Coming Up In Ubud and Down In Kuta


Anyone who has ever taken ecstasy will tell you that it is impossible to plan for when it will hit. It's up to the purity of the drug, the environment and your general mental state.

I had been waiting for this trip to hit me. To "come up", as they say. I thought for sure it would be scuba diving The Reef, skydiving in Sydney or chilling on the beach in Seminyak. But it never hit until tonight, in Ubud. Bammmmmmmm, just like when E hits. A force that knocks your knees out from under you and leaves you hanging there, floating above where your toes just were. Here is what I now understand about this trip.

The unplanned stops are going to be better than the planned ones. The low points are going to be lonely. I need to stop veering my course so accurately and pick left when it feels better than right, even if right has air conditioning and blowjobs. I nleed to take chances that I would never even conceive at home. I need to miss new york in a devastating way before I can go back.

I can't put my finger on why THIS is the place I came up but if you're a traveler then you will understand. Sometimes you unexpectedly pause in a place that feels right. At that point, either everything goes right or terribly wrong. Even when it goes wrong, you have a great story. Like the time I had to help bury a woman and slay cows on a fijian island. Another story.

I played Lonely Planet Roulette with my first guest house (Sarong House) and wished that I hadn't. The owner's children kicked, smashed and screamed their way through my 24 hour stay. I hit paydirt with a switch to Warsa Guest House, which was recommended by a friend. My little guest house had aircon, a great pool, a non-smelly shower and very friendly staff. Way-recommended if you are ever in Ubud (and not listed in Lonely Planet).

I became at ease with Tout Life. It's happened to me before. After you get over being annoyed by the haggling, you understand that these guys sometimes go eight hours without a sale and when they do, it can mean as little as one US dollar. Bali has never recovered from the bombing and there are simply not enough tourists to go around. Hotels and restaurants were erected for a banner decade. Now they sit empty and yet everyone here is still cheerful and nice. There is not a hint of crime, despite the lack of cashflow. I can deal with a little bit of hawking for that.

I finally caved and took a cab (mini van style) to a distant museum. I dug my driver Nyoman and we struck a deal for him to show me all of the local sites the following day. We went up into the hills and saw temples, rice fields and far-out sights. I had to put on a sarong every time I entered a temple and I can reveal here that they are kinda sexy. I ate lunch on a cliff but it was ruined by the instrumental balinese version of "my heart will go on" - imagine your nine year old sister playing it on clarinet while watching Titanic and you have the idea. Nyoman dropped me back at my guest house, scorned by evil looks from other taxi drivers who were not so lucky that day.

One night I went to a traditional Wayang Wong dance in a temple. It was like tripping balls and watching the off-Broadway production of The Legend Of Zelda. Two masked kings fought for a girl (straight out of Buffy), while the monkeys plotted to kill one of them. This went on for a good hour, without a translator. If it was a Nick Cage movie I would left after 15 minutes. But we were kind of in a sacred place and it may have been more conspicuous than jumping out of National Treasure 2.

My last two nights were in Kuta. I am not ashamed to say that I got a cheap rate at the Hard Rock Hotel and was looking forward to it. The chain seems to have sent only obscure and aged memorabilia to this outlet. The walls are lined with guitars from such noteables as Seven Mary Three, Better Than Ezra and Tom Cochrane. I lapped up every cheeseball video that played in the bar, thrilled to see Ted Nugent play a melodramatic solo in the pussyrock band Damn Yankees. I drank Papaya Don't Preach smoothees. I ran a tab at the hotel bar, where the Bali cover band played souped up Heart covers and dressed like AFI.

Inevitably, I guess, my comedown was horrible.

My last day here was ruined a boy drowning in the hotel pool. There is no Merideth Grey here...I watched the staff pull his lifeless, facedown body from the water after other sunbathers started pointing at him. The unsuccessful CPR was not followed by emergency helicopters or vacationing doctors with miracles. Just death. A little boy, dead. I am still trying to shake the screams and cries of the parents, which drove me to my room. Their life is clearly over. I am sure that I should be writing more about this but I just can't. It was a horrible thing to have seen. And now, five hours later, there are fifty people laughing and swimming in the pool.

Comedowns are a bitch.

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Bali Beginnings - Seminyak


I landed and took a shuttle to the Puri Cendana Resort. I picked it on the internet and recommend it highly to anyone who wants to stay in this area, especially for $20 bucks per day. My duplex had a massive bed upstairs and the pool area was as nice as anything landscaped to look like Bali in orlando. Bathtub big enough to drown a Samoan.

The problem is that Seminyak is annoying and not at all what I pictured Bali to be. The hawking is relentless and it's difficult to walk five feet without somebody trying to sell you something. The taxis ("taksi") are motorbikes and every step finds one of them beeping at you twice, trying to get you to hop on. They warn oncoming traffic with one beep. Thousands of beeps per day. Thousands.

I decided to have a big gay night out, since this area hosts the island's gay bars. The three bars are next to each other and people shift to the next at predisposed times. The crawl starts at Q Bar. I am happy to report that Beyonce is was well-represented by the drag queens here.

I quickly find out that I am The Money Shot. I am one of five white guys in a sea of Balinese dudes. Everyone wants my Johnson. I am even more appealing given that two of the others greatly resemble Santa Claus. I cannot flinch without a tiny man coming on to me. It's immediately apparrent that they all want money, or to marry me and wear Armani forever. I loathe this kind of attention and can't land a conversation that does not feel like I am being worked. I drink eight rum + cokes and leave. They are yelling after me when I exit. Meeeeeester. It's like five hundred cats in heat, all with their tails in the air and begging from their puckered backside.

The next day I poked around town. I had my laundry done. $2.50 wash and fold. Score. Dogs roam everywhere, every bitch with her tits to the ground from eleven litters of kids. There is not one dog that even approaches cute - even the puppies have scabs and patchy fur.

I have found that most countries in this part of the world are trapped in 1999. Rock music is supplied by Bizkit, pop music is by manufactured groups whose name was fogotten at the turn of the century. Westlife seems exceptionally popular and I am quite sure that Hooked On Phonics was consulted before the songs were written. Every word is of a fourth grade reading level and rhymes. I whoohoo every time I get hear the sad/mad/glad trifecta. When you say goodbye I want to die - I don't even try to guess why. Eh.

The other time-warp issue is clothing. Quicksilver is by far the biggest thing going, followed by brands that were dumped along with the Gameboy. Sadly, I am out of clothes and purchase the least offensive Quicksilver shirt I can find, knowing that it will wow like Versace.

Seminyak sucks. I meet nobody. I eat shitty, touristed-down food. I am overcharged and hassled at every step. This is fucking Bali?

I am headed for the mountains with hope that there is more to it than this.