Snapshots From A Journal: September In India

It's been three months since last I wrote in here, and a large reason for that is how powerful and diverse the experiences of the last three months have been.  First was India, and I found myself struggling with how I could possibly summarize the complexity and intensity I went through.  And so I didn't.  I let this blog linger and just kept putting it off.  Now, three months later and having experienced even more powerful and trying times in Nepal, I've come across a compromise that I hope offers a reasonable resolution to this issue: I won't try to summarize, but instead will simply offer some of the more notable journal entries from the last three months in the hopes that they can convey some sense of the world I've encountered both among these countries and within myself.

First: India.  Before I go on I'll admit that most of the following stories are negative experiences (including strong language and one or two graphic descriptions-- be warned!).  It should come as no surprise that the most memorable experiences are unpleasant: there's simply much more there to tell.  However, I don't want to give the impression that India as a whole is a terrible place.  If anything, it's an incomprehensible potpourri is beauty and misery.  There are delicious flavors, beautiful temples, and colorful clothes.  I can't convey flavor via the world wide web, but as for beauty, there's photos on facebook.  So with that said, here's a snapshot of my September in India.

September 8

Squatty Potty! Note the bucket
to clean your hand with.

More than any other country, India grabs your attention.  In less than 50 yards you might go from delicious scents of Indian curries to the smell of stale piss, then back again.  In fact, I think the smell that I will associate most strongly with this country will be stall piss.  You smell it literally everywhere; no place is exempt.  Then you have women in all manner of colorful saris, Muslim women completely in black, and beggars or children naked, covered only in a grit-gray dirt.

The abundance of garbage is sickening -- huge piles along streetsides, gutters and alleys so fully suffused with it that the pavement can't even be seen.  And now and again you'll see some poorly-clothed person wading through these piles, picking through them (even barefoot!) to find cans or other things they can sell for a pittance.

Garbage cans are a public novelty.  When you have some trash you just throw it on the ground wherever you are.  Well, actually, when first that situation arose I asked my couchsurfing host in Delhi, Chandan, "so I just throw this anywhere?" to which he said, "no, just dirty places."  This as we passed along one of the innumerable piles of trash.

Another way that India has struck me -- or it'd be better to say affected me -- is that up till India I'd stuck fast to my toilet-papery ways, using squatty-potties but never wiping with water and my left hand.  This changed.  Chandan had a squatty-potty of course; and no toilet paper, of course.  I had my own (as per my Southeast Asian means of avoiding the hand-water alternative), but when he said I'd have to leave the toilet paper in a nearby basket, I decided that it'd be a bit gross for him; better for me to deal with what I considered gross and to adapt to the local culture in the process.  And although the first time was indeed disgusting, it gets to be pretty normal rather quickly.  You end up with a fantastically clean, non-stinky butt, which is great.  Unfortunately the trade-off is a very stinky, dirty left hand.  Trade-offs!  Soap and water can't erase the smell or the memories, and it's strange to look at any Indian and know how many hundreds of times he's scooped shit from his butt.

From a run-of-the-mill scratch on the
neck. You could do this thirty times
a day and it'd always be like that.

As for the specifics of India, so far I've only been to Delhi, Amritsar, and Dharamshala.  I spent five days in Delhi and saw a lot of large, impressive locales -- Humayun's Tomb, Red Fort, Qutub Complex, and Purana Qila.  I saw the filth, experienced the chaotic bustle, and felt the kindness of the locals.  I also had the best lassi of my life from a chanced-upon shop near Red Fort.  The air pollution in that place left my nose constantly running though and I developed a type of cough whereby I could feel myself dislodging a sludgy mucus in my throat.  My eyes would occasionally burn and, as for visuals, the greatest horror was that anytime I scratched my neck my fingernails would come away covered with a thick, black tar-like gunk.  Worst pollution of my life.  That alone made me anxious to leave quickly.

September 7-11
Dharamshala was... unexpected.  I think I appreciate it more in retrospect than I did at the time.  Cool and cloudy, often rainy, it offered beautiful views and I could sit and watch the rise and fall of the mists all day as they skirted along the mountain slopes.
[...]

Near 11 pm on my first night there I began a bout of food poisoning.  I was up roughly every 1-2 hours to vomit or crap.  I vomited in my room's waste basket and then carried it to the communal toilet, which was maybe 20 meters away by covered balcony.  I remember the poetic and humorous case of lumbering to that bathroom in only my underwear, cold and nauseous beneath the light of the full moon.  Between bouts of vomiting or crapping I'd look out upon the valley and see the mountain slopes lit up beneath that moon... kinda nice.  Overall it was just another case of food poisoning* and it passed over me with little to-do.
*note: I estimate I've had food poisoning some 10 or 12 times in the last 10 months, largely because I have no scruples in what or where I'm willing to eat.  It's also a calculated risk: as I'll be traveling a long time, it makes more sense to try to garner immunity than to constantly fret over cleanliness and hygiene.


September 12-15
[...]
Agra has so many things to see: temples and tombs and forts and mosques, etc.  It took me several days to decide that most of it's not worth it.  Maybe I'm just temple'd out.  Really, though, most of it is that damn town.  You couldn't walk out the door of your guesthouse without getting harassed -- for two days in a row I was getting yells from tuk-tuk drivers before I'd even crossed the threshold.  I recall vividly spending two mornings lying in bed for a half hour, staring at the ceiling and trying to work up the strength to head out of the hotel and into that so-trying town; I've never to my mind felt like that in any other place.  It was so miserable as to render all that history and culture nearly moot.

The one exception is the Taj Mahal.  Harassment, aggression, unfriendliness, and on top of that a 750 rupee entry fee ($16-17)-- somehow it's still worth it, though I'll admit the hassles very nearly outweigh the majesty of the place.  Still, the incredible beauty of that building is almost surreal; I've never seen a building so breathtaking.  And the size of it is really a huge surprise (though I'd been made aware of that in advance).

[...]

It was as I passed through the imposing red entrance gateway that I first saw the Taj, rising majestically above the throngs going in and out.  It was like those movie scenes where a knight or similar person passes through to the courtyard of the castle and first espies the immense size and glory of the place, when they play some drumroll that culminates in blaring, Arab horns or the crash of a steel gong.  I could hear those horns in my head as I entered, or at least it seemed that way.

The place looked like it arose out of 1001 Arabian Nights or "Prince of Persia," so like the mythical, mystical Arab castles does it appear.  There isn't much to do but stare and try to get a stereotypical photo with the Taj, but those two things take up enough time as it is.

[...]

Once that obligation was dispatched I was able to fully devote myself to oohing and ahhing.  There's something about marble, maybe the smoothness and shininess of it.  Add to it the gorgeous contours and shapes of the Taj and its delicate in-laid gem art as well as Arabic script and, well, there's a lot to ogle.

It rained soon after I'd arrived (I chose a shitty day for my grand Taj visit, it seems), and the standing water only further enhanced the mystifying shininess of the place.  I don't know that there's much more to say of the Taj Mahal, actually, except perhaps of the interior mausoleum.  It was near itch black inside (why are all tombs so damn dark? Wouldn't an eternal monument and consecration to your deepest love benefit by a bit of sunshine?), and to stave off full darkness hung a solitary lamp, well ornamented as befits such a place.  All that was cool.

The entrancing, otherworldly aspect, though, was the sound in there.  Marble must reflect everything, because the inside had that incredibly soothing din that large, old cathedrals carry where the cacophony of human sound blends into a harmonious, low-pitched kind of hum.  Above this sonorous hum came every word and whisper, the sounds resounding off the shining walls, bounding about in the damp, still air.  The place was magical.  I could have spent hours there, and as I stood for some 15 or 20 minutes I thought that, if I were to listen to one sound for all eternity, I'd want it to be this.

Beyond the Taj Mahal, as I said, Agra offered little more than headaches.  I did meet two solo travelers though, who each proved interesting for a bit. [...] The other single traveler was a Hungarian who failed to take a decent picture of me (despite several opportunities) from Mehtab Bagh, across the river from the Taj.  He offered me a ride back in the tuk-tuk he'd hired for a few days and I acquiesced, in part to see what kind of scam he was being run through (he'd already told me how much he'd paid and he'd paid a world too much).

The situation was more laughable (or pathetic) than I'd imagined: not only did he pay too much but his driver was taking him to shops left and right so as to earn commissions and fuel stamps.  So we ended up at a shop where the owner told us he employs 4000 employees (cough) and that everything in the shop was handmade (I'd see identical wares in other shops throughout this tourist route).  The owner tried hard to get me to buy while a worker worked on the Hungarian.  No matter what he did he could make no headway; I was viewing the place as an art gallery, appreciating all but with no intention to buy.  Each time he'd start his pitch on something -- a marble table, a marble candle-holder, marble ornaments -- I'd say how beautiful it was but that, no, I wasn't interested in buying.  He must have been quite frustrated by the end because he said something like, "all you do is look!  Everything is pretty but you don't buy!  Then why don't you get out of my shop?"  I was pretty happy to do so, and lo-and-behold our driver dragged us to a second shop!  Ugh.  Had it been just me I would have told the driver to stop with this shit or he wasn't getting paid, but as this was the Hungarian's chosen misery and I was just an interloper I decided to deal with it.

The mausoleum of the Taj Mahal.

In we went for more pestering.  Luckily I found a way to defuse the situation: I asked one of the workers about a figurine of a Hindu god.  Which god was it?  What was he the god of?  In such a way I spent ten happy minutes in friendly conversation, learning about Hindu culture and not getting pressed to buy stuff.

The driver then took us to a tasty and quiet restaurant where he earned a commission and then headed to drop me off.  I'd agreed to pay him 70 rupees to bring me back but he drove to an intersection, pointed at a road, and said it was a 2-minute walk that way.  Luckily, I didn't have enough money on me to pay -- I had to get some from the bag in my room -- and so I told him and, amidst much complaining, I got to see his "2-minute walk."  The fucker had tried to leave me 20 minutes from the place we'd agreed on so as to save some money on fuel.  All during this last bit he harangued me for being so stupid as to not carry enough money on me, but seeing his cheat I felt pretty smart actually.

Then, when I got the money -- and all I can think is that I was in a good mood from the good conversation with the Hungarian and the singular aspect of this experience -- then I decided to tip this cheating fuck.  So I brought down two 100-rupee notes, one for him and one for the Hungarian, from whom I'd borrowed money for dinner.  I tried to give the hundred to the Hungarian and the driver literally started screaming, "my money! my money!" and snatching at it.  The Hungarian pulled it away and I revealed the other note, which the driver ripped from my hand without a word of thanks.  I started to say that we'd agreed on 70 when he screeched about how he'd shown us the two stores and the restaurant (how gracious of him...) and that he deserved it, that it was all his.

I was stunned by all this.  I told him that I was going to give him that as a tip but that I knew how he'd cheated us and that it was wrong to do that, and I begged him to please, please stop cheating people.  He didn't give a shit.  He feigned innocence with some statements like, "you not happy? Why you not happy?" before eventually leaving with the Hungarian.  This story epitomizes the Agra experience.

As an aside, this was the third and last tip I gave in Agra; in none of the three instances did the driver so much as acknowledge my kindness let alone thank me, so I stopped tipping.  Actually, I've pretty much stopped tipping all tuk-tuk drivers on the Indian tourist route as a result.  If they can't so much as say "thank you" then perhaps the money is better spent on better people.

September 16-17
Khajuraho was a disappointment.  I know part of it is that I'm temple'd-out (or notable building'd-out) -- I've just seen too many buildings in the last month to be very impressed by Khajuraho's Jain temples.  But still, the town and people could make the place enjoyable.  The issue is that they don't; they do the opposite.  In the town center -- or at least the scammy center -- which is right in front of the temple, you have significant tourist harassment, not as much as in Agra but still enough to annoy and discomfit you.

The bigger thing is that, away from this area, the townspeople are really friendly.  While at first in India this is kinda nice -- interacting and conversing with locals -- the conversations you end up having with Indians are always the same.  It's like a checklist:

• Where you from?
• What's your name?
• What work you do?
• You married?
• Where your girlfriend?
• Why no girlfriend?
• You travel alone?
• Where you come from?
• Where you going?

It's always the same.  Then the conversation dies.  Sometimes I ask them things but the answers are so boring.  The whole schema is boring.  If you try to ask anything interesting -- about beliefs or cultural traditions, why they do things certain ways, etc. -- you either get a poorly thought-out response, a blank stare, or incomprehensible English.  I'm not alone in this experience!

So after 30 or 40 of these boring exchanges you stop wanting to engage in them.  When a group of people yell, "hey!" and wave me over I think, "you're the ones who want to talk to me, why don't you move your damn selves?"  Often I'm just impassive: I don't respond and keep walking by.

In Khajuraho this was particularly true since I had a few of the above interactions which, a few minutes in, swung into sales pitches: "come see my shop" or "I'll show you around. I'm a tour guide," etc.  The first exchange in town was in a ridiculously overcharging restaurant I gave a chance (bad call); one of the workers or workers' kids, not more than eight years old, came and sat at my table.  I wasn't in the mood to talk but thought I'd humor him a minute or two.  He said he just wanted to practice his English, that he learns it by talking to tourists.  He jabbered through The Checklist (see above) and I unhappily conversed.  When my meal came I told him I wanted to eat alone, without talking (incidentally I had two other people come up and try to start conversations while I was eating-- what was with that restaurant??).  After I was done, had paid, and was leaving the kid stopped me and was like, "you haven't given me any money yet."  And I was like, "for what?"  "For talking with you."  Ha!  The fucker wastes my time and annoys me to "improve his English" and then demands payment.  Course I told him, quite politely, to go to hell.  But after that and one or two more conversations I wasn't interested in humoring anyone else with a friendly conversation when half the time they sucked and half the time it turned into a scam.

September 20-22 [I think-- no dates written]

They say Varanasi is the epitome of India, India distilled and exaggerated.  It's rather true.  Traffic was terrible, people everywhere and scammers at their worst (as well as touts).  Ok, to be fair there was only one scammer I came across but his tactics and aim were so incredibly reprehensible.

Dirty, dirty Varanasi.  This street is rather
wider than most-- probably twice the size.

The first day I went to the burning ghat and this guy told me I had to go up to a viewing area because the closer area was for family only.  So I followed him, we get to a balcony overlooking funeral pyres, and he tells me all about the ritual and customs of the burnings.  He says he works for the hospice here.  His good English, tour guide-like explanations (too well-rehearsed), and convenient do-good profession all have me on high alert.  Actually, I guess I'd been on high alert since the moment he pulled me aside because I'd immediately told him I had no money on me (though apparently he didn't hear that).  Well, as I grew more suspicious I snuck my billfold from my breast pocket into my satchel, leaving only my 1-rupee coin in the breast pocket.

The guy soon starts laying it on: many of the people that come to the hospice are poor and you need some-such number of kilograms of wood to burn a body and it costs 300 rupees ($6) per kilogram of wood (I asked someone later -- it costs about 5 rupees for a kilo of wood).  Anyway, he says how most tourists that visit are kind enough to donate a few kilograms of wood.  Before I can answer he drags me over to this old woman, makes me kneel down.  She puts her hand on my head and they do this lame blessing.  He then says, "now, how much would you like to donate? Five kilograms?"  For perspective, that's over $30, more than most people make in a week.

I tell him sadly that I have no money on me.  His tone immediately changes.  Bitingly he snaps, "what do you mean you have no money?  How do you travel if you have no money?"  I tell him I don't carry money on me out into the streets (just for note, he's conveniently blocking my way out by standing in the doorway).  He seems at a loss.  Angrily he again says, "how do you travel if you have no money?"  I tell him I don't carry it on me; I leave it in my guesthouse.  "Where are you staying then?  We'll go there and you can give me the money."  Here I get frank with him, tell him that this isn't how you go about asking for a donation, that his angry tone and insistence have made me suspicious and that I see greed in his eyes.  

I don't recall if it was right then or after one or two more attempts that he then switched from barring my way to literally shoving me out, yelling, "then get out!  You can't stay here!  This is bad karma!  Bad karma!"  All while he pushed me down the stairs and out and amidst his yelling I kept coolly saying, "please, please learn what karma is.  Money does not give karma."  I told him I'd come to learn and experience one of the Hindus most holy rituals -- surely that was an act of good karma.  I should have saved my breath though; he was just a greedy conman.  

What bothered me so much about his scam, though -- and still bothers me -- is that he was doing it at such a sacred place.  He was disrespecting both the Hindu religion and the deceased and their families that had come to observe this ritual  I still think his conscious, clearly daily disrespect and scamming there is one of the vilest, most reprehensible acts of humanity I've ever personally witnessed in my life.

Beyond this Varanasi lacked any other memorable anecdotes.*  This shouldn't be too surprising: so filthy, unfriendly, and unpleasant was the city that nearly every backpacker I met or saw would only leave the guesthouse for an hour or two each day, just to walk around and feel like they saw some of the city.  I'd quickly met two Ozzies my first night, Tom and Liam, and so spent most of my afternoons and evenings hanging out with them and a French couple I'd met on the train coming in.  The guesthouse had a rooftop restaurant with damn good food at decent prices so you'd pretty much see all the hotel's guests up there all day, socializing and avoiding the disgusting maze of alleyways six floor below.

*journal footnote: though I did end up seeing the funeral pyres from up close.  Like, within a foot and a half.  They were intensely hot and smelled like meat being cooked on a campfire.  I saw brain dribbling, boiling from a burning skull... I wasn't too affected, really.

The End Of Act II Plus A Refreshing (And Surprising) Intermission

The remainder of Vietnam was incredible.  The beauty in the North-- Ninh Binh, Sapa, and Halong Bay-- is breathtaking.  To be honest, Ninh Binh and Sapa stand beside Zion Canyon and Yosemite Valley as the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life.  Ninh Binh's gorgeous, black limestone mountains, surrounded by lush green rice paddies, is a dream.  Sapa's steep mountain slopes have been cut into jaw-dropping terraces of the same verdant green as Ninh Binh, but these lay pressed inside valleys, beside alpine rivers, and below ridges of rugged mountains... really, Northern Vietnam is otherworldly.

Also, the wild bipolar antics of the Vietnamese seemed likewise to abate the farther North I went-- a real breath of fresh air for me.  The people became more predictable: slightly scammy, slightly annoyed at having you around, but less likely to fly off the handle, which I certainly appreciated.  In addition, I soon started traveling with four guys, an Irishman I'd met in Saigon and three of his Australian friends.  They were mellow, intelligent, and all so different from each other.  We could spend hours at a restaurant talking or in a hotel room playing cards.  It was an experience I'd never had before, traveling with such a large, diverse, yet well-knit group; I miss that camaraderie.

On the 25th of August I left Hanoi, flying back to Kuala Lumpur for a six day respite before my next goal: India.  What amazed me was how differently I perceived KL.  I remember the first time I went there, fresh from Singapore.  Malaysia was the first country I'd ever been to where I couldn't readily communicate with people.  It was also the first third-world country I'd independently explored.  Everything seemed so dirty.  I couldn't communicate with anyone.  Everyone looked like they were ready to cheat me, trying to scam me or hawk their goods upon me.  People stared at everything I did and it just felt so oppressive that I couldn't wait to enter Thailand, fearful though I was that it might be worse in all those ways

It's almost impossible to describe just how differently Kuala Lumpur came across this second time.  After all the rest of Southeast Asia, KL was a dream.  Prices were listed on store items.  Everyone seemed to speak English or, if not, at least try to understand what you wanted and help.  People didn't yell, "hey you!" or "where you from?" and then enter into some sales pitch.  On a whim I asked a cellphone store owner where I could buy an alarm clock and, to my amazement, instead of trying to sell me something she offered me directions.  This was almost beyond belief.

The most memorable of my experiences in KL was on my second day, when I walked into a four-story department store just to wander and look around.  It felt so calm, so tranquil.  Ten minutes in, while passing through the clothes section on the second floor, I suddenly realized why it all felt so wonderful: no one was harassing me.  No one was shoving objects in my face, or pulling on my sleeves.  People weren't staring as I walked by; in truth they didn't even seem to care that some white guy was in their store.  I experienced a rare emotion then-- I felt a bit like crying, so much was my joy. I realized then just how different my relationship to KL was this time around.

It amazes me to compare that first and second time in Malaysia and to reflect on the immense contrast between my perceptions of that place.  Is it a sign of personal growth, of change?  Is this adaptation on my part something that will evince itself outside of travel, in my day-to-day life or is it a momentary or context-specific change?  I'm unsure, but hopeful of its salience.  In any case, this is the first situation where changes within myself have been brought to my attention....

They say that it's hard to see how you've changed while you travel; you're constantly adapting to new circumstances, diverging and branching off from one experience to the next, so that you never can see how you've changed from the original ones.  That is, you don't see how you've changed until you return and are put back in them.  Because one of the main themes of this trip is self-growth, I've wondered a lot about that growth: how much I've changed and how it will affect me.  Whether the re-experiencing of Kuala Lumpur is a hint of that change or of a momentary adaptation, it still impresses upon me how powerfully travel can affect us, and confirms to me my hope that it will leave a profound, lasting mark.

Hoi An, Vietnam: Baguette, Bakers, And An All-Nighter

At around 3 am on either the 6th or 7th of August I found myself wandering around the streets of Hoi An in central Vietnam.  I'd arrived an hour earlier and tried six guesthouses in town-- no one had any rooms.  Resigned to my situation, I decided to walk around town until sun-up.  About ten minutes in and down one of the many dark and empty streets I passed by a first-floor room, lit and bustling with four men and three ovens.  As I passed by one of them yelled something at me and, being bored and wandering, I went over to see what they were up to.

I ended up spending the next 5 hours with the bakers, watching them bake baguette as we engaged in simple conversations built out of their broken English and my non-existent Vietnamese, and in general just enjoying the serenity of spending those twilight hours with kind strangers as they produced hundreds and hundreds of baguettes.

 What follows is a brief series of photos from that late night and early morning.

The bakers baking.

Step 1: Shaping the dough into baguette form.

The formed dough waiting to be placed on the oven sheet.

Transferring the dough to the oven sheet.

Adding the dough to the oven.

Removing the finished baguettes!

Preparing the baguettes for market.  Goodbye, warm bread!

Journal Entry: Phnom Penh

The following is an entry I wrote a few weeks ago after I'd left Phnom Penh.  It's odd-- for the first four months of my travels, my journal was a regimented daily affair: every night, no matter how tired I was, I'd write a chronological account of the days doings.  "I went here", "I saw this," "I met so-and-so."  Then somewhere in the middle of Thailand (or in the middle of June, if you'd prefer), it just kind of morphed.  I started skipping entries.  I'd combine days or I'd write about general thoughts and out of nowhere I found that chronology had taken a backseat to feelings and flow.  I think perhaps it's a manifestation of a deeper change, but I guess that'll be up for debate for quite a while.  In any case, here's my thoughts on Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia:
----------------------------------------------


July 20th till the 26th were spent in Phnom Penh.  The place was like Bangkok must have been 30 years ago; all the same elements were there -- the touts and motorbikes and mayhem and dusty, dirty labyrinthian street setups -- just in a slightly more dampened tone.  Liam [a Brit I'd been traveling with for about a month] still felt perpetually exhausted, either from the pills or the former illness [he was hospitalized overnight with dysentery the week before], and so we stayed at the first place our driver took us, a $10 per night room that was like a palace: the sheets were so soft and nice, the bathroom so polished and lavished, that as we lay there that night, for the first time since I'd started traveling I felt like I was back in the first world, more specifically the US.  That bothered me.  It just felt wrong, sleeping in some room so alien to the world we were traveling in (living in, really).  I would have preferred to pay $10 for a dive, strange though that may be.

As we'd arrived into Phnom Penh on the bus the exit doorway had been mass-swarmed by tuk-tuk drivers; I hadn't paid enough attention to see but Liam said there was a person at the exit literally holding the touts back with a stick.  This was perhaps a premonition.  After our first (-world) night we switched to a cheap ($3 each) and popular guesthouse that swarmed with tuk-tuk drivers.  You'd usually even find one waiting outside the guesthouse door to spring upon you.  Turn left and two or three more would latch on as well.  God help you if you ate in the outdoor section of the downstairs restaurant -- you'd be swatting those flies off the whole time.  It was such a zoo that the drivers even had to set up a seniority/priority system, identifiable by the numbers emblazoned on their colored vests; number one gets the first crack, then number two gets to pester you, followed by three, four, and so on.

When it was Liam and me we were usually able to get a pretty fair price, maybe $0.50 each for a short ride on a tuk-tuk and between $0.75 and $1 each for longer hauls.  However, as Liam left one day before me I discovered to my horror how the tuk-tuks pounced upon a lone prey; drivers started off asking $4 for a short trip, budging reluctantly to $3 and then only $2.75 when I started to walk away (I walked away and found an honest one that started off at a dollar-- I was so frustrated that I didn't even bargain and just took it).  I can't express how furious I felt at the drivers' taking advantage of my vulnerability.  Despite loving Cambodians generally, I still think all tuk-tuk drivers deserve a special place in hell (ok, maybe that's a wee bit harsh).

Phnom Penh's only real attraction, besides the waste-of-money Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, was its memorials to the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime: the S-21 prison (Tuol Sleng) and the Killing Fields (Choeung Ek).  S-21, and to a lesser extent the Killing Fields, was chillilng, gruesome, and unbelievable in the paranoia and cruelty that was inflicted in such a short (4 year!) regime.  Still, at times it felt hard for me to connect, to get into it, and I wondered at my numbness towards others and lack of compassion.

Liam and two guys we rockclimbed with -- Ruben (a couchsurfer from Mexico but living in Phnom Penh) and a French-Canadian named Nick -- dragged me along with them to a girlie bar, a weird sort of pseudo-prostitution joint where you're swarmed by a gaggle of late teen / early-20s girls from the moment you walk through the door.  They're smiling, atttentive, playful; they give you free back massages while you sit at the table, drinking your beer and trying not to be freaked out as you realize the table is literally surrounded by this smiling, female Asian army.

The reason I say it's pseudo-prostitution is that none of the girls have to sleep with you; if they don't like you then it's not happening.  If they do like you then you negotiate a price; sometimes they are interested enough that they do it for free.  Some men have even found wives at the girlie bar.  The flip side of this is that the really cute girls generally aren't the ones fawning over you.  I saw the three cutest ones there just indifferently pass our table to hang out outside.  The whole experience was just sort of odd -- a bit awkward -- though after a beer or two it admittedly started to feel a lot less awkward.

Of course, the highlight of Phnom Penh had to be the climbing.  Three weeks, at least twenty emails, a half-dozen phone calls, facebook messages and couchsurfing messages and a bit of pestering (plus a lot of effort!) and it finally happenned: I climbed in Cambodia.  Moreover, it was my first time on granite (and it was in Cambodia!).  On top of that I was climbing with a Mexican, a Brit, and a French-Canadian (and in Cambodia!).  And while the climbing itself wasn't that spectacular, the ride out and back sure was!  Phnom Penh (and Cambodia in general) has without a doubt the most chaotic, lawless, and unpredictable traffic I've ever seen -- and this is including Vietnam (I [wrote] this from a restaurant in Hoi An).  To get where we needed to go we had to rent motorbikes, navigating the city in the pre-dawn light before hitting a 1 1/2-lane, more-paved-than-not highway for a good 45-minute drive, being passed by roaring trucks with horns blazing, and at times looking for a window of lulled traffic in which to shoot by other (or the same) giant, powerful trucks.

[... stuff about the climbing like the grades climbed and the crappy bolt and anchor placements ...]

A huge rainstorm was on the horizon, menacing, and so we packed up and prepared for a sloppy return.  And that it was: rain and mud and several messy traffic jams.  Seven routes climbed, my first foray with granite, and the sweet joy of being able to check Cambodia off on my climbing list.  Standing above it all though was the simple triumph of fighting to make this day happen against all odds.

Climbing was the 24th of July.  The 25th was a relaxation day.  The 26th I crossed the border to Vietnam, arriving in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) late in the evening.

Northern Thailand, Northern Laos, and Several Kinds of Love

Northern Thailand was a dream-- it really was.  Or at least it felt that way.  I can't say I really saw that much of the place other than Chiang Mai and, more realistically, the nearby rock climbing location.  Still, it was enough to fall in love with the place.  As with all of Thailand, there's the delicious food, the cheap accommodations, and the aggressive and scamming tuk-tuk drivers-- those things are the foundation of the Thai experience.  In Chiang Mai there was added to this a cool, comfortable climate; lush, beautiful forests; and one of the most enticing limestone cliffs in the world, Crazy Horse Buttress.

I spent most of my time in Chiang Mai at that buttress, climbing with a 60-something Brit, an American that was a journalist in Yemen for three years, a guy that owns a seasonal Christmas-decorating business, and several other odd, unexpected characters.  Each day was a joy: trying new routes, watching others climb, and just sitting and swapping stories.  I remember the rain coming down hard on my second and third days, dripping and dropping just out of reach of us as we stood beneath the overhanging cliff faces.  Then, as the winds would change, we'd be forced to abandon water-logged routes and move our gear a little bit closer.  By the end of the day, we'd be huddled in a small cave at the base of the cliff, taking turns on climbs and just hanging out.

And then there was the motorbike.  Crazy Horse Buttress is an hour away from Chiang Mai and, with no cheap public transport available, the only real option I had was to rent a motorbike and brave the Thai traffic. What a rush that was!  From my initial trepidation, cautiously hanging to the side of the road and trying to mimic the actions of the local motorbikers, eventually I found myself comfortable and free.  It was a special thrill each morning and night, driving on the shoulder as traffic whizzed around me, checking my mirrors and hitting the accelerator to whiz around slow vehicles, and just dancing this foreign dance of tuk-tuks, motorbikes, and cars, all honking and whirring and swirling around.

Yeah, Chiang Mai really was a dream.  But eventually-- somewhat sadly-- it became time to move on.  It was the expiration on my visa that forced that decision, and soon I found myself on the Thai-Lao border, preparing for a two-day slow-boat ride down the Mekong River.  That was a beautiful experience, to just sit and watch for two days the passing mountains and churning waters of this oh-so-rural place.  If nothing else, those two long days drove home just how utterly empty of people this place is.  Laos is a country of mountains, rivers, and clouds; towns are a peripheral idea.

People say that Laos is a place for travelers to "relax."  After a little more than a week here I've finally understood what that means.  It means that there's nothing to do here.  There aren't really many temples.  There's not a lot of great food.  The trekking opportunities are limited and other excursions are relatively non-existent.  Heck, there almost aren't even towns to really visit; the capital city of Laos, Vientiane, only has about 200,000 people and that's the largest town in the country.

Still, Laos has been one of the most memorable places I've been, and that owes itself to the people I've been traveling with.  I met five Israelis and a Brit while on the slow-boat and have been with them ever since.  They're so different from me that I knew I wanted to see the world they lived in.  They're wild and unpredictable.  They drink and chase girls.  They say ridiculous and absurd things you'd never in your life think to say.  It's been an incredible experience just to see how these more party-hearty travelers go through their day and, moreover, to really get to know them through and through.  And I feel I have.  Each one is so different and memorable from the next, and after more than a week together they've really begun to feel like brothers in some strange sense.

And so that's the present moment.  Soon things will have to change; a group of seven can't be sustained through too many jumps and travels.  These days have been good and will be cherished in my memory, but in the end, it's time to leave.  I guess, in some sense, it's always is.

Malaysia to Thailand

From Singapore I made my way north to Malaysia.  I crossed over the bridge linking the two countries and found myself completely, utterly lost.  You pass through immigration and then on the other side is just a maze of stairways and open corridors.  Was I supposed to get back on the bus I came from?  Was there a bus station nearby?  Add to this that I had no money in Malaysian Ringgit and I was kind of in an awkward position.  I managed to find the bus I came on, though, and it took me to a bus station where I was able to get myself on my feet.

I could say what I did in Malaysia but in general it really doesn't merit much discussion: I went to a tropical island (Pulau Tioman) and hiked through rainforest.  I saw the Petronas Towers.  I did some amazing hikes near Kuala Lumpur with gorgeous views.  The real highlight of the time I was there, though, was the Cameron Highlands, a region near the middle of peninsular Malaysia that, due to its higher elevation, enjoys cooler temperatures, lush greenery, and an insane amount of rain.  It's there that Malaysian tea is produced and with that comes the surreal beauty of the tea plantations.  They really are beyond description, but luckily the pictures do them a good deal of justice.

After the Cameron Highlands I was ready to leave Malaysia.  I took a bus to the most northern big city I could find on my free little map -- a town called Kangar.  It's the capital of its state and, being that it's like 30 kilometers from the Thai border, I figured it'd be easy to head off to Thailand from there.  Boy was I wrong.  What a weird town.  Small and filled with expensive hotels; nothing at all reasonable.  I actually laughed out loud at one hotel when the receptionist quoted me the price.  I'd arrived near 10 pm and by midnight I came to the sobering realization that there were no reasonably priced rooms in this town so I decided, "heck, I'll try sleeping on a bench."  The oppressive humidity and the aggressive mosquitoes made this effectively impossible, but I still struggled at it for a good hour or more.  Eventually I retreated to the bus station and it's stone benches which, inexplicably, alleviated both of those prior concerns.

The troubles had only begun though.  I found out in the morning that, despite being 30 km from the Thai border, there wasn't a single bus that went from Kangar to Thailand.  Moreover, none of the ticket sellers spoke enough English to help me at all.  I've gotten pretty good at using hand signals and my broken Malay to express myself (or drawing pictures when necessary), but the only seller that might have been capable of helping me wouldn't even try to understand me.  Even when I spoke in slow, terrible Malay, he would just lower his head, shake it slowly while looking at his hands, and say, "I no English."  This was absolutely infuriating because he wasn't even trying to meet me half-way.  After twenty minutes of fighting this wave of incomprehensibility and scurrying from vendor to vendor, I finally decided I had to just go someplace big and hope they had buses to Thailand.

As painful as it was to accept, I bought a ticket going three hours South.  Then from there I bought a ticket going BACK up those three hours and an hour into Thailand.  What a pain.  So my plan to get into Thailand quickly and easily turned into a day of frustration.

On the plus side, I finally have made it.  On another down side, I am in here on the 15-day visa exemption, meaning I didn't have to pay $30 for a visa but I have to get the heck out by June 26th.  I've spent the last four days in Krabi, Thailand, widely considered to be the premier rock climbing locale in the world.  I climbed for three days straight alongside beautiful beaches, but with my limited time and the long distances remaining until Lao, it looks like I'll have to make a break for Bangkok tomorrow.

So that's the whirlwind summary of the last three weeks.  The funny thing is I have barely any idea where I'll even be three weeks from now-- my plans are getting very jumbled and confused.

Another Beginning

Here I am in Singapore, my first dip into Asia.  The city is nothing like I expected, but I'll get to that in a minute.  First things first: the arrival.

Typical Singapore-- tall, tall buildings, some construction,
and an enchanting array of trees and grasses coexisting
alongside buildings and people.

I flew from Mexico City to Los Angeles on May 12th and spent a week in LA, seeing it for the third time but really, in many ways, for the first time.  The last two visits were short romps, more like drive-throughs than anything else.  This time I got to live there for a week, to walk the suburbs and get new-age fusion Korean food (whatever that means).  I picked up dry-cleaning and went to Goodwill and did other day-to-day things.  Really, the city's not all that bad-- certainly not as bad as I remembered.  Yeah, the people are kind-of loud and self-obsessed.  Yes, it's an unending jungle of cars and streets, but it's also got lush, rolling hills and a pretty good variety of trees and shrubs growing throughout.  I don't know, I guess my point is that the place has a more intimate, human element beneath that calloused exterior.

On the 18th I boarded a plane for Taipei and 13 hours later we touched down.  My layover was ten hours long, so I wandered the airport, found a good, comfortable spot, and slept.  At 7 am I made the 4-hour jump to Singapore, where I've been ever since.

The urban planning is amazing.  You're in the middle of a
five million-person city and if not for the misted facades
of distant buildings, you'd never know you weren't lost
amidst virgin jungle.

So Singapore.  It's absolutely amazing: huge buildings and modern architecture, an absurd amount of malls, and the most efficient public transit system I've ever been on in my life.  Trees and forests are everywhere; really the island is probably 50% city and 50% green spaces, mixed together in such a way that you never feel like you're in the middle of a humongous city.  The place is also like 75% Chinese by descent, with the rest being Malaysian or Indian and then whatever white people have immigrated here for business.  You hear English and Chinese everywhere, with Hindi and Malay thrown in at irregular intervals.  Every kind of Asian food is here in droves and in general the place just feels like a melting pot on a scale I've never experienced before.

And the famed draconian laws?  Pretty much Western media sensationalism.  Jaywalking is technically illegal but never enforced; people here jaywalk as much as in the US.  Chewing gum is allowed for personal use; you just can't sell it (so you have to buy it outside the country, I guess).  And the upshot of the strict penalties for crime (e.g. caning or death) is that the city/country feels like one of the safest places in the world.  In short, Singapore is like a tropical Europe with a hint of the exotic (via Asia) thrown in.

So much color and beauty find their way into the everyday
here, like this apartment building in Little India.

Other than shopping though, there really isn't that much to see as a tourist.  I've mostly been hanging out with couchsurfers, going hiking with a few, swimming with like 15, meeting up for dinner with a bunch more, pub trivia night with another gaggle, and then playing ultimate frisbee with, I kid you not, 40 of them.  I have met more people in the last five days than I probably ever have other than freshman year of college.  The couchsurfing community here is so active!

I'm thinking of leaving on Thursday, going to a play tonight and then heading off early tomorrow.  The next stop is Malaysia, which based on my discussions with people in Singapore could be summed up as "pretty alright but Thailand is better."  Honestly most people have said just to visit Malaka, Kuala Lumpur, and then leave.  Heh.  As with most advice though, I probably will just do my own thing and play it by ear.