Ralph's Diner, Worcester MA

The last time I see Mike, Patty, and the other Mike who went to Harvard is at 2am outside Ralph's Diner in Worcester, MA.  Last call is over and the door man has ushered everybody outside.  People stand around smoking, waiting on cabs or designated (or drunk) drivers to pull up.  We are waiting for my mom to come pick us up.

The past several hours are spent drinking.  We drink at Mike and Patty's and laugh at the fact that we spent much of our time together at Chillis because we are apparently 50 year old working stiffs. 

Mike and I go to Walmart where he paid for a pump and walked out without the pump.  The pump is for an air-mattress that he doesn't need because I am not sleeping over. 

"Thanks for the mattress, Godfrey," he says. 

At the bar Jeff shows up, Rick, Lauren, and her sister.  I buy people drinks and lose track of all my money and time. 
The night is cold but it was all a great send off.
As we stand and wait it all sinks in and I don't want it to end.  I wanted to go to Korea so badly but now that I am on the verge of leaving, I am tremendously sad.
When I wake up in the morning I won't fall asleep again until I am in Seoul. 

Read more...

A Korean in New York

It is somewhere near midnight.  I am in SoHo with Han, my coworker from Kim Hak Soo.
I need to stop calling her my coworker; we haven't worked together in over a year.  Now she is just my friend.  A really good friend.  She has done her time and is no longer responsible for my wellbeing and happiness in a country that is strange to me.
 
She goes to school in New York now.  Everytime I see Han in the States it jars my reality.  It is like a kind of ghost of a dream that invades the day.  It is wonderful. 

Last time she was up we got drunk in Ralph's Diner with Mike, Patty, and Larry.  As we laughed, glossey-eyed, at the 3-6-9 game and pounded beers I became aware at how odd it can sometimes be when two totally seperate social groups that span the globe come together in a union you never thought would ever happen. 

If this were at a party that I had thrown, then the two groups would have not mingled at all and I would have gotten drunk alone off the keg in the middle of the room. 

But, we are getting drunk in SoHo now.  Outside New York revelers scatter this way and that.  It is February but the weather is freakishly beautiful, even at night.  Little Tokyo is abuzz.  We are in a Mexican joint.  Through the window I see Kanji script, English, and Hangeul.  We might as well be in Itaewon. 
We talk about students and the other teachers and the rumors of that fledgling school. 
My mojito is destructive.  After that and another beer I am speaking in mumbled slurs.  It is liquid courage that is necessary maybe because I am staying at Han's apartment with what sounds like the United Nations of alcoholics. 

We talk about money.  I am drunk enough to start going on about some nonsense about not caring if and when I die broke and alone so long as I can see the world.  Han agrees with me.  Over the past year and change Han became a really great friend.  It is funny that one of the people that I can relate to the most is a 22 year old Korean girl. 

"I wonder if it is all a huge mistake," I tell her.  My head sinks a little.  It is still drunken conversation over rum and tequilla, but I am talking about something that genuinely worries.
Many of my conversations with Larry from Cheonan entail him telling me not to go back to Korea.  I spent god knows how many nights and days dreaming about going back to Korea and almost always caught myself using my Cheongju friends' faces as stand-ins for the friends I will make in Seoul. 

I have this fear that I will land in Seoul and then get hit in the gut with that "what the fuck have I done?" feeling. 



 

Read more...

Waiting

It is just past midnight on a Sunday.  Tomorrow I will pick up my E2 Visa from the Korean Consulate in Newton, MA.  My recruiter, a man who calls himself Steven, has told me that any day now he will send me the itinerary for my flight from Boston to Incheon.  It seems real now.

It has been a long and unproductive road to this point.  It seems as though it was so recently that I touched down at Logan International Airport in Boston after over a year away from home.  It seems such a short time ago but it has now been nearly 9 months. 

I have done next to nothing noteworthy over the past 9 months.

The weather was turning from pleasant to oppressive when I landed.  I had a girlfriend and my family was so happy to see me.  I saw my friends and I told my stories.

Kelly lives in China now.  My family is probably fed up with the horrible mood swings and general crankiness that accompanies an utterly idle and comfortable life. 

I have this memory of sitting in MJ's, an expat bar in my old city of Cheongju.  I don't really remember who was there but Gavin, the only Kiwi in my main circle of friends, was talking about the difficulties of doing stand-up comedy in Korea.

"It won't translate," he said.  "Nobody will know that the hell an ajumma is."

The problem with comming home after a year of living and teaching in Korea with other people from a bunch of other countries living and teaching in Korea is that you almost forget how to relate to anybody else.  You tell your stories and find youself laughing your ass off by yourself, wondering where your Waygook friends are. 

"I felt like I didn't belong," said my friend Tim the day after I got home.  He had been home for a number of months.  "Sometimes, I still don't."

It is hard to come home after something like that.  Well, it isn't.  When I saw my mother, father, and sister after so long it was hard not to cry.  My dog lost his shit and I spent the next several weeks catching up with friends, family, TV, burritos and alcohol.  I told my stories and they told theirs. 

So many of my friends obtained jobs with decent pay and decent respect.  A few were married, bought houses, and / or had children.  I can barely take care of myself. 

Close friends aside I felt myself falling by the wayside of secondary friends and vice-versa.  It wasn't a bad thing; it was a natural thing.  A short common history was partially eaten by the intense experience that is international friendship abroad.  I couldn't relate to a year of adulthood and they couldn't relate to my year of reckless abandon. 

I knew I wanted to go back to Korea almost as soon as I got back.
I put it out of my mind and occupied my time with distractions.  Within a week or so of landing I was on the road with Brandon, one of my best friends and a guy I missed profoundly, down to Florida to see the one and only Hadley. 

I went to the worst part of Brooklyn and deap sea fishing.

Larry from Cheonan is successful now.  I saw him with Mike and Patty in Brooklyn.  At the train station it was hard to recognize him: clean-shaven and dressed to the nines from work.  It all seemed so different.  Last time I saw him we stunk of booze and I was sleeping on his floor because he had already given away his couch. 

It all came back, though.  A couple months later we all went deep-sea fishing.  I brought peanut-butter and jelly, Mike brought grinders.  Larry from Cheonan brought a package of Oreos and a water bottle full of soju.  This was at 7am. 

I tried to put the feeling of wanting to go back to Korea aside.  It was inconvenient.  My family wanted to know my plan, Kelly wanted to know my plan, I wanted to know my plan.  My plan was to blow through my money as fast as possible.  I immediately went out and bought a new laptop and a giant TV despite the fact that the only TV show that I watch is AFV.

After a few months I decided that I really wanted to go back, but I was wary.  Larry spent a long time telling me that it was probably a mistake.  I knew he might be right.  He told me that he had friends who tried for the "repeat" and it ruined it all for him.  I told him to "shut up" but I knew he was right. 

I sat on the idea of going back to Korea for a while because I was scared that what I actually wanted was to go back in time.  I spent so many hours at Buzz in Cheongju talking to Tim and Andrew, Amanda, Amanda, Katie, Gavin, Robyn, Kim and everyone about how we would pay all the money in the world to go back to University. 

It seemed as though my ideal memories of an idyllic University had been replaced by idyllic Korea.  I knew this was fantasy.

Cheongju was gone.  it was over for me.  The vast majority of the people that made that place special were long gone.  I tried to fight the urge to go back to Korea because I knew my tendency to dwell on the "good ol' days" but it all won out.

I took a job in Gangnam, one of the richest areas of Korea. 

The school covers the same age-range of my old school and, while slightly bigger with 2 foreign teachers, does not have a massive / impersonal number of students. 

So, tomorrow I will find out when I leave for Korea.  I have done this before but still I feel anxiety and nerves saturating my core.  My temper is short and I wake up with the jitters. 

Read more...

Same, Same

The area looks the same.  I am in Newton, MA.  On the horizon I can see the fuzzy Prudential Center and the rest of the Boston landscape shrouded in an unnatural winter fog. 

I park in the same spot as before.  The last time I was here I managed to fuck up the walking directions to the Korean Consulate General of New England.  Now that I know exactly where the building stands, I feel like a moron.

Directions
Park on Washington Street (literally park anywhere on Washington Street).
Walk towards all of the buildings.
Find the ONE ENORMOUS BUILDING.
Walk in.
Simple as that.

Last year (a little over a year ago, actually closer to two) I walked past the building and looked like a moron: it was cold and I had a handful of papers and was dressed to the T.

This year I have a handful of papers and am sporting a horribly shaved face (read: half a beard) but I walk right into the building.  On the second floor, amongst the doors labled "Fenway Pharmaceutical" and other such things, I find blocky Korean characters.  I walk in and tell the lady behind the glass that I am here to apply for an E2 Visa. 

Last time I had to sit down for an hour and fill out the paperwork.  Looking back on it, I am suprized that I made it into Korea at all; I had no idea as to what address to put down and my Visa sponsor ended up being a combination of my actual employer and my recruiter.  I sat through an interview that I wasn't prepared for but its goal seemed only to determine my pedophile status.

I passed.

I walk in, hand my application and $45 under the glass.  Off to the side I hear Korean spewing from the television.  Korean News.  Over the past 8 months I have missed the crescendo and stoccato of spoken Korean: the frenetic pace with which they say absolutely everything.  Even now the sounds from the TV are over my head.  Still, all the "-sseyo's" and "-mnida's" make me smile.  In an ideal world I would understand more.  The anchor says the number "four".  I understand this and it is a victory.

I effing own "four".
Fact is, last time I was here they were talking about the recently sunk Cheonan.  Months later the sinking would be officially attributed to North Korea.  This blame would lead to one of two incidents in which the North's verbal vomit led to my school warning me to get ready to bail: a modified zombie contigency plan.  The second time, Tim's birthday, was a bit more than verbal.
Nothing of the sort this time.  Kim Jong Il is dead.

The woman tells me to pick up my visa on Monday.  I look at her and ask her if that is it; I am aiming to impress and am wearing a shawl.  A shawl, for Christ' sake. 
Yes.
I wish I knew I could have mailed it.

Read more...

Jordi's Village, Spain

What can I say about my time in Spain?  For one thing, I was apparently so excited to get on out of Asia that I arrived a full 4 days before I had planned to.  It was luck that on the last bit of battery I got a hold of my friend and host, Jordi, and informed him that I was at the airport in Barcelona awaiting his arrival to pick me up.  I was tired and was basically out of money and stretched a bit too thin.

His reply was something about “what the fuck” and “are you kidding me” and that he was on his way.  For a little while I was worried about old Jordi popping me one in the face but he did not.  Instead he rushed over, swore at me, gave me a hug and took my things. 

Jordi is an old friend.  I knew him for a time when we were both waiters at a restaurant and were two of a very small group that actually gave a shit and worked.  He was an international student and spent his last week living at my apartment in Brighton before returning to his native Barcelona.  Now I was repaying the favor, or rather he was. 

Add caption

So, for a little less than a week I stayed with Jordi, his wonderful mom, and his incredibly obedient dog at their apartment in a village by the sea, less than an hour to downtown Barcelona.  It was relaxing and for the first time since I left Korea I didn’t have to think about anything other than what I would have for breakfast (usually cheese and sausage) or where I wanted Jordi to take me.

Barcelona

I met his friends on the first night at a dinner party that I couldn’t stay conscious at.  I took great pride in declaring that I was slightly tired because the last time I had slept I was in Thailand.  I ate pickled fish in olive oil.  I met Jordi’s family at a kind of giant dinner party.  For a while I think his family felt bad that I was sitting there unaware of what was happening due to my zero Spanish language skills but I tried my best to make them understand that at this point not understanding was my life. 

I drank wine and I ate.  For two or three days I was left alone as Jordi had to work and I wandered the village, sitting by the Mediterranean watching the waves crash while eating olives and cheese because I am a massive cliché.  I discovered that clothing is not a legal requirement and that beaches in Spain are a magical thing to a guy who had just spent a year in East Asia. 

I took the train to Barcelona.  The rail ran along the beach and I made certain to get a seat at a window overlooking the coast and basically saw a million boobs.  I ate aged ham and wandered around the Placa Catalunya.  I drank coffee in a market and watched as gypsies begged along fountains lined with statues and pigeons.

France

Every night Jordi and I walked along the beach with his dog and then to the market to by cheese or else something for dinner.  I watched TV and read each night in the guestroom in which it was impossible to move because of my luggage.  I did laundry and took a long shower, the first since Cambodia. 

Andorra

We went to the South of France, to an old village in the mountains on the edge of an active military fort.  We saw a woman walking around with a grenade launcher like it was no big thing.  We ate Croque Monsieur sandwiches at a café high in the mountains.  We drove through the small country of Andorra and I basically hyperventilated at every curve along the cliff’s edge.  I saw snow for the first time since winter. 

I met Jordi’s cousin, a local tennis star, and we saw Fast Five in Spanish.  Translation was unescessary as it appeared to be universally terrible. 

At the end of the week, Jordi drove me to the airport.  It was sad to say “goodbye” to him, but it was sadder to know that it was actually all over. 

A few hours later I was in Dublin.  A day later I was watching the doors past customs open at Logan Airport.

Read more...

Egypt Air

By the time I arrived in Bangkok, I was all jumbled up in my mind. On the one hand, I was happy to be leaving Pattaya and I was excited to arrive in Barcelona and see my friend Jordi, who I had not seen in a number of years. On the other hand, leaving Thailand meant that the bulk of my traveling, particularly my no-plan-do-whatever-I-want sort of traveling, was pretty much over. It hit me as I ate crappy mandu in the airport that I was leaving Asia. I had been in Asia for over a year, and while I had not been in Thailand for a year, something felt significant about leaving this part of the world. It was bittersweet in that I was excited to see the people who were back home but also it was hard to grasp that it was all coming to an end. How can it really be over, I thought.

Not without a fight.

My luggage was 10 kg beyond the limit for Egyptian Air and the few hundred dollars they were trying to charge me was definitely not going to happen. So, I found a quiet corner of the airport and proceeded to throw away a close to 20 lbs worth of my belongings.

It is amazing what one can part with when faced with a hefty fine.

Basically all of my clothing

Laptop fan tray

Shoes

Ok, it isn’t so much when I put it in list form but remembering that most of the weight I shed was in the form of clothing. I had two rolling pieces of luggage and I left Thailand with one full piece and one totally empty.

The woman at check in laughed and told me that I threw away a few extra pounds and that if I wanted to I could go dig some things out of the trash. I told her that I didn’t care, and further some of the cables and battery packs / chargers I threw away might set off some sort of bomb scare when security found them and I didn’t want to be associated with that particular trash more than I already was.

This flight was the one I was most worried for. I never like flying and this goes beyond the normal phobia. At best I am a nervous wreck and at worst I am all read, sweaty, and having a panic attack while these Final Destination images run through my head. Best case scenario is flying in the day, on a new plane with plenty of room, with the air vent on full blast on my face.

Worst case scenario was basically my flight with Egypt Air. For one, their safety record is about as sucky as it gets before it actually becomes a risky carrier. Upon reading their safety records it seemed they were constantly crashing into sand dunes upon landing and takeoff while they weren’t pulling suicide dives into the ocean off of Massachusetts. The customer reviews were more or less unanimously horrid and my flight path (Bangkok – Cairo – Barcelona) seemed to be the worst. The often cited “run down, old plane that creaks” made me nervous. Further, it was a 9 hour flight in the middle of the night which adds tremendously to my claustrophobia.

Another thing that made me a little more apprehensive had nothing to do with the company but had to do with current events. Osama bin Laden had been killed less than a week before. The news was full of speculation of revenge attacks and the methods they might be carried out. It was just the cherry on top of the shit sundae.

The plane was old, I thought as I sat down, but it wasn’t as cramped as I was expecting. Ok, I can deal with this. I had a window seat in a 3 seat row. Next to me was a woman and her baby which was both a blessing and a curse.

I popped a few Xanax, applied my death grip to the armrests, and waited as the plane made its way to the runway.

I confess to being a giant vagina when it comes to airplanes. I have been in cartel held towns in Mexico, I have seen people crushed in cars and splattered on the street after scaffolding accidents, I have seen a man get out of his car and start shooting at the house in front of me. I was fine through all of these things, but put me on a plane and I almost instantly lose my shit.

The engines charged and soon there was that rumble and we all sank into our seats.

The baby wailed in the dark and soon began to scream. I held on for dear life as the plane groaned and creaked and lifted off. No sand dunes anyway.

The plane began to bank to the right and the baby continued to scream.

A few more minutes, I told myself, and we would level out.

We hit turbulence immediately. It was the sort of stuff that you frequently hit before the plane rises past the weather. It was a little more violent than usual and was a hell of a lot louder to say the least.

For a few moments we bounced and shook and vibrated as we continued on up.

Then we hit some kind of air pocket.

Free-fall while banking to the right and aimed upwards.

It didn’t last more than 1 second but it might have been the single most terrifying event of my life. It wasn’t just me. As my stomach rose in weightlessness I heard other people gasping and screaming. I could see nothing as the plane was pitch black and the windows offered nothing but foggy abyss.

The worst of it was we fell for long enough for me to actually think during it. It felt like that first second of the drop on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. I wondered if we were seriously about to belly-flop in a fiery splash somewhere outside of Bangkok.

All of this happened in no more than a second. The plain caught air again and again we were thrown to and fro in turbulence. Half a minute later and it was over. Soon people were sighing in relief and letting out little chuckles. The pilots probably didn’t even notice it. Meanwhile, I spent the next 9 hours sitting in darkness, popping Xanax, white-knuckled. I felt every minute of that flight.

But, I lived. I landed in Cairo, chain-smoked, and a handful of hours later I was sitting in Europe and Asia and Korea were a long ways away.

Read more...

Pattaya Life

If I am being honest, I did nothing of any significance in Pattaya. This is nothing I feel bad for, as I had sort of planned on using Pattaya as a place to rest and say goodbye to Asia, but it makes for boring blog posts. Basically, every day I did this, or some other variation with remarkable similarity:

10am- Wake up in total darkness courtesy of wooden shutters. Turn on light and remember I am in the shittiest hotel on earth. Listen to maids talking in Thai.

11- Walk outside past the lady who glares at me for not leaving my key with her. Realizing they probably have an extra my money is in the nastiest smelling sock on earth. Camera is behind the fridge covered in boxer shorts.

The walk basically consists of me walking past a few markets, drunks, a million foreigners and Thai on scooters, dillapitated stores and stands selling durian fruit. The heat is strong and the broken assfault magnifies it. There is the occasional palm tree and street side offering shrine with smoking incense and orange Fanta.

When I get to Walking Street, which is parallel and closest to the water things get interesting. Imagine a boardwalk anywhere with restaurants, activities, bars, and men soliciting Jesus or Blink’s Fry Dough. The decorations are loud and tacky and the place is full of trash, and disgarded food. Street food is prevalent.

The difference between Walking Street and, say, the Hampton Beach boardwalk, is that the restaurants are full of prostitutes on break, the activities involve prostitutes and various themes, the bars are basically show rooms for prostitutes, and the solicitors are advertising prostitutes, or at least a bar that has prostitutes.

12pm- Eat lunch at one of the little alcove restaurants. Listen to old American and British men laugh with their Thai “girlfriends.

12:30- Buy a bottle of fresh mandarin juice for maybe 50 cents. They are ice cold and probably one of the best things about Pattaya.

1:30- Rent a chair and umbrella at the beach. Wave away women selling fruit from their head, men selling sunglasses, children selling bracelets, so on and so forth. Go swimming. Catch hepatitis as soon as I go in the water. Apparently there are two beaches in Pattaya and I picked the bad one. Watch as a man from Africa who is sitting next to me has no will power and proceeds to buy EVERYING that is offered to him. At one point he had a few vendors lined up.

4- Walk back to the hotel. Watch the news or advertisements for beer bars and go-go bars. There is a channel dedicated to expats in Pattaya. While most of the expats I have seen in Pattaya creep me out, I am aware that I am in an area that exists basically only for the sex industry and that most of the people I see are NOT actually living here and are a poor representative of the community. The man on the show is interviewing owners of German, Mexican, Indian restaurants. There was some functioning celebrating the royal wedding.

6- Walk back through Walking Street. By now a few girls populate every small bar. Many of these bars are open air. One enormous bar actually spins. There are usually a few ladyboys there. Men are now outside promoting and being obnoxious and aggressive. Walk all the way to the end of the main drag. Be accosted every couple of feet by young guys trying to sell me suits, Zippos, brass knuckles with a taser at the business end, knives, sex, everything. Buy and drink half a dozen orange juices.

7- Eat dinner at a different restaurant than lunch despite that almost every restaurant offers the same fare of Thai / American / British / German / Russian. These same places existed also in Saigon and Cambodia. They are awesome in that they serve a little of everything. Once, I thought “what the hell” and got a burger that ended up being a round piece of meatloaf on soggy bread.

8- Walk along the beach past pimps and girls working solo. The general atmosphere of this place weirds me out. Even if prostitution is legal here these girls sitting under trees make me way more uncomfortable than the ones in the bars. Still, sometimes they call me sexy , even if they look at me funny when I say “why thank you!” and walk on.

10- Walk down Walking Street again and see the last of the few families that made the same mistake as me and thought Pattaya was a “normal” place getting the hell outta dodge. Watch the general fiasco as the giant halls full of small square bars fill up with men and girls and ladyboys. The prostitutes on Main-South in Worcester got nothing on the girls of Pattaya.

11: Walk through the tent markets and eateries around the area near my hotel.

11:30- Get drunk while watching the news.

Read more...

Worst Hotel Ever

The Russians and I hopped from the bed of the pick-up and said our goodbyes to Mary (or whatever I named her, I forgot) and her friend. Her friend, a heavily tattooed American gave some recommendations as far as places to stay that were either closer of further from the hotspots, depending on what we were looking for.

I found out shortly thereafter that what people in Pattaya are generally looking for, is sex.

I followed the Russians into a hotel run by Russians. Girls sat on a dirty couch and looked at me. The guy at the desk disappeared for a time and I listened to pumping techno for a while until I decided I wanted to try my luck elsewhere.

This was the situation: My bank card was sitting under my bed (or what was until recently my bed) in Korea. My cash was starting to dwindle. I was searching for a cheap motel that I could put onto a credit card so that I wouldn’t have to worry much about what would be the largest bill in Thailand.

No luck. Cash only. Apparently people don’t want others to know they were in a place like Pattaya. I walked over a mile down the only stretch of road near the coast that was barren of hotels. Occasionally I would pass these weird combo gym-hotels but I didn’t fancy the look of any of them. By the time I found a place I was covered in sweat, my arms hurt from dragging a couple of pieces of luggage, and I was frazzled and close to losing it after trying to avoid the constant rush of scooters.

I finally walked into a wide open room, asked for a room for the next handful of days. I was stuck behind a fat, bearded American biker guy as he waddled up the steps. I found my room, opened the door...

The room was actually quite large. That is all it had going for it. As I turned on the light a lizard scurried across the plaster ceiling. This is not a lie, nor is it even a slight exaggeration. My hotel room had a fucking lizard in it. The funny thing is that didn’t bother me at all. Grain and dirt covered bits of the linoleum floors. A bound menu sat atop a broken table. The menu, it turned out, was to some other hotel that had room service / a kitchen. I turned on the TV for a little background noise as I looked for the remote to the air conditioner. CNN was on and talking about some compound in Pakistan. I turned off the TV and headed out for some food.

I returned with a plastic baggie full of cellophane noodles, chili peppers, tripe, sausage, and vegetables bought from a vendor outside. It was delicious. The whole atmosphere of Pattaya that night was of a wild party. Foreigners shouted from scooters and in bars amidst bright TVs and the prospect of cheap sex, I could hear cheers. I was missing something maybe.

The bathroom was the worst part of the entire room, maybe even the worst part of Thailand in general. It existed on the same level as my bathroom in Korea in that the shower was not separated. The millipedes that sat dead in the middle of the tile should have tipped me off.

I turned on the shower found that the drain was clogged with all manner of black, mucky debris and that as the water level was raised, all of this shit just floated along the bathroom floor. I turned off the shower and tried to do some laundry in the sink and found that this water also drained into the same pipes and soon there was an inch of water on the floor and a bunch of gunk floating around. I did what I could and hung my clothing to dry on the balcony.

I then turned on the TV, popped opened a mini-bar beer and discovered that Osama Bin Laden was dead.

Read more...

Border Crossings and Riding in Cars with Russians

Pattaya, Thailand

Sometimes when you are on the road, traveling for a long time you hit a wall.

I hit the wall in Thailand.

A tuk-tuk brought me to a back-packer guesthouse in Siem Riep, Cambodia. It was early enough for me to be barely awake and also miserable, but it was already hot and humid enough for me to be drenched in sweat.

Further, the place was jammed and there was really no room for myself or my two rolling-luggages, backpack, or camera bag and I basically just stood red and wet in the middle of everything like I was totally fine.

At some point a big old bus came rolling up and we were carted on. A girl around my age, who happened to be quite large, sat in front of me until the driver made a big fuss about her size and made her sit on the tiny, fold-out seat at the front to the bus.

The bus went to the Thai border. Here we were let out at the most grueling border crossing I have experienced thus far in my life.

To begin with, the bus dropped us off in a cluster-fuck of traffic. All around were trucks, freights, cars, motorcycles laden with all manner of luggage and goods. Once past all of that, we had to stand in line at a check point. While waiting and sweating profusely, I exchanged a few hundred US dollars and the bulk of my remaining Korean Won into Thai Baht. It was sad to part with the won.

Once through the checkpoint, I had to drag my luggage somewhere close to half a mile, over curbs, broken sidewalks, through groups of people and chickens (seriously) to the other side. It was a sort of no-mans-land, I guess. Here, I waited in line again, this time with sweat pouring into my eyes as I passed into Thailand.

Once my passport was stamped I was pointed through some doors, hollered at to walk straight and take a left, hollered at again that I went the wrong way, and hollered at again to find the right bus. The bus company tasked with getting me from Cambodia to my randomly chosen destination of Pattaya, Thailand, apparently ran several routes.

So, I sat or stood and perspirated for a time underneath the awning of a little market. Some people tried to eat ice cream before it fell onto their shirt. A guy with long hair was talking about doing a work camp, I thought about chiming in about my camps but remembered that it was too hot and I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anybody.

We waited an hour or so. Vans came, picked up the right people, and were then bouncing on the dirt road to such places as Bangkok or Phuket. I fell into conversation with the large girl from the first bus. For the sake of not calling her “the large girl” I will call her Mary, for no reason. I do not remember her real name.

She told me that she was returning to Pattaya from vacation, that she was staying there for a couple of months trying to soak up the experience, and that I should shadow her until we arrived. So I did.

When our van finally arrived the driver and his little buddy were dismayed when they saw my rolling luggage. They argued amongst themselves and then started shouting my way.

“This is too much!”

I stared at them and said something like “uhh ok.” I was wondering what the hell they expected me to do about it, and besides nobody ever mentioned an official baggage limit of the “White Rape Van Travel Bus Company” when they told me I must pay.

Here we go again, I thought.

He then quoted me 90 baht, around $3. Mary said he was ripping me off but after getting taken for a $50 cab ride in Vietnam (twice) “ripping off” can become a relative term. So, we loaded into the van, a fuss was made of the size of Mary, and we were off.

In the van was a Russian couple, Mary, and myself. Mary made a comment about how nice it was that the van wasn’t crowded, then immediately after karma punished us all for something.

We spoke for a while, not really noticing that the van would occasionally stop at a corner or a checkpoint and somebody new would hop in. Mary was essentially on vacation. She had a friend who owned property in Pattaya and had set her up with a place to stay for a few months. As for what she did in real life, I don’t know. She said she was going to try and rotate between life in small town USA and Pattaya.

The Russians were on holiday for a few months and were, like me, almost at the end of the road: they had a handful of days in Pattaya and then were heading back. Somebody made a crack about the American having a lot of baggage for a vacation and I felt it necessary to inform them that I had been living in Korea for a year and had been unable to send as much home via cargo ship as I had hoped. I felt vindicated.

The bus could seat 11 comfortably. By the time we passed through the last armed checkpoint near the border, there were 15 people jammed in on top of the luggage. I was cut off from conversation and basically jammed into the window. The air conditioner basically became pointless.

It took us a long time to get where we were going and while the tropical trees and landscapes of Thailand were nice to watch, the general crappiness of the van became too much to handle.

After a few hours we were let out at a gas station where I met a ladyboy and ate a kind of cheese pastry and bought a water. Then, the Russians, Mary, and I waited with anxiety for the van to come and pick us up and worried if maybe it had left us.

It didn’t, and hours later we finally arrived in Pattaya.

The sun was sinking and that nervous feeling I get when I get to a place with no plan whatsoever was put to ease by Mary offering to get the Russians and myself to the main drag so as to find cheap lodgings.

My baggage became an issue again. In Korea there are taxis, Vietnam: taxis, Cambodia: tuk-tuks; in Thailand there are dudes driving pickups with a couple of benches in the bed. They wanted to charge us extra and Mary did not want any of that nonsense.

I did, but I was tired and hungry enough to where I was starting to lose grip on what was really going on. So, Mary called up her friend and soon I found myself flying through town in the back of a pickup with a couple of Russians sitting on cardboard boxes.

Read more...

Angor Wat, Cambodia

DJ Camera and the manager of the Noura Motel were kind enough to set me up with transport to and lodging at Siem Riep, a few hours north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. So, early the next morning I was picked up in an overcrowded van and made my way to one of the most beautiful places I had ever been to.

The way to Siem Riep is gorgeous and at times difficult. There are valleys of deep green with scattered bodies of water that are no deeper than a glorified puddle. Water buffalo and other manner of livestock graze, drink, or block the road. Then there is the ever present presence of extreme poverty; worn bare feet walking in the dust on the side of the road, shanty towns made largely of tin and blue tarps. Emaciated dogs darted into the road every so often.

Still, I was thankful that the trip did not take so many hours as the bus trips I had made in recent weeks as I had been jammed into seat that would not have enough leg room for a small child and the air vent was apparently just for show.

The van arrived at a dirty but quiet bus station in Siem Riep sometime around noon. The town seemed a good deal smaller than Phnom Penh, but still it was overwhelming to be hit by the barrage of hawkers and tuk-tuk drivers.

This time, it had all been planned in advance. A squat man, similar in features to DJ Camera but a good deal younger and less enthusiastic, approached me from the shade of his cart.

“Thomas?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“Ok, I take you to the hotel.”

We drove through the streets and it became apparent that I was a long way from Phnom Penh economically, if not distance-wise. It looked -how do I say this without coming of as insulting or belittling- bland. To be honest, I appreciated bland. The level of poverty was nowhere near as apparent. The landscape was not as impressive and rough as Phnom Penh, but it maintained the sort of charm that comes with a small town in New Hampshire, or Vermont. It had that feel that true, it wasn’t polished, but nor was it rough by any means. It was worn but comfortable.

The hotel I stayed at was the nicest place I stayed throughout the entire trip in that it was a characterless, uniform hotel that I have stayed in dozens of times before. There was no dirt, no grime, no prostitutes and no beggars meandering around. There was a little restaurant that served mediocre food, a small in-ground pool that I meant to use but never got around to it, and an actual reception desk. My room was large and unassuming. Further, the manager at Noura had gotten me a good deal and I was paying only $25.

Truth is I didn’t know very much about Angkor Wat. It was not the purpose of my going to Siem Riep. I went to Siem Riep because a lady in Vietnam told me that I didn’t want to spend too much time in Phnom Penh and that I might become bored or dead. So, when DJ Camera suggested it and mentioned Angkor Wat, I figured I should go.

Sometimes in travel, everything just works out.

My tuk-tuk driver drove me a handful of kilometers outside of the city. We passed what seemed to be a university and came to forested land. At a kind of toll booth I spent a good $30 on an entrance ticket to Angkor Wat. We then followed the narrow roads that wound around the edge of a forest. It was here, at the edge of the jungle that I saw what might rank as one of the highlights of the entire trip: wild monkeys!!

I saw wild monkeys!

I almost flipped the tuk-tuk whipping around to see them sitting there. I was hoping they might do something funny like steal somebody’s glasses, hell, I would probably laugh if they stole my camera, but they just sat there eating. Still, totally awesome.

The complex of Angkor Wat is massive. It sits behind a moat and is surrounded by jungle. Outside are throngs of people: vendors, beggars, scammers, tourists. My driver parked his tuk-tuk amongst hundreds of others, warned me not to buy anything and soon I was off.

I didn’t know much about Angkor Wat and still, this remains the same. I could include some facts here but that would all come from Wikipedia, and what is the sense in that? The important things:

-It is the largest religious building in the world.

-Its grounds are expansive.

-It is still a place held sacred by monks who make regular pilgrimage.

This is what I saw:

I sat for a while on a stone wall overlooking the structures across the moat taking photos. Aesthetically, if Angkor Wat has a theme it is contrast. Ancient stones sit atop deep green grass with patches of burnt dirt. All of this is reflected in the greenish waters of the moat.

I spoke for a time with a Khmer man. He asked if I spoke Khmer and I told him that I didn’t. He asked if I spoke French and for a time we spoke in broken French. The man was this warm, timid, meek character. He asked why I was here, where I had been, and then if I could give him any money. I gave him what I could, which was admittedly not very much, but he let me take his photo.

Across the moat is a photographer’s haven. The very stone these massive buildings were made from puts focus on their age. The darkness adds to shadow and gives everything this almost mystical quality. On the foot path, green grass pokes out.

There is a pond some ways into the complex. On one side is a kind of bazar populated by over-aggressive vendors vending overpriced merchandise. If you refuse to buy a painting they will try to sell you a Pepsi.

A canoe sat on the shore, tied to a kind of palm. About the pond nude children ran about as their parents begged the hundreds of visitors for change. A horse in elegant and festive dressings stood tied to a post. An Indian woman crossed in front of all of this and the crumbling buildings in the distance. She was dressed in a flowing gown of bright colors that contrasted with her skin, and for a minute I forgot what country I was supposed to be in.

Inside the main building are both empty, forsaken corridors that are empty and dark save echoes from afar and light from some stone cut window, and courtyards filled beyond capacity. Across, a group of children dressed in shiny soccer uniforms of every color of the rainbow pose for photos against the dark stone and shadows. The flow stops as people photograph them. The occasional lone child, dressed in red or blue darts around a corner or is stopped for a photograph. Then, a man asks for a donation for the orphans- smartest scam ever.

In the main courtyard, a line stretches almost full-circle around a great tower. Visitors climb to the top and then crawl down a set of metal and wooden stairs that make for better chances of survival than the crumbled steps beneath them; still, some are going down on their ass.

I do nothing but wander and sweat and click the shutter of my camera and dread the day I have to go through all of these images. I wander to every corner of the obvious compound and marvel at the age of the place. It is that nice sort of attraction that does its job by making you feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Every now and again obvious bullet holes dimple the stone, a product Cambodia’s past and present conflicts with Thailand.

The last photo I make is of a young monk in bright orange robes standing against stone carvings. I count my blessings and leave.

In the hotel I watch, of all things, the Red Sox because NESN is playing on Cambodian TV. I also become aware that I forgot to close my window and that there were now hundreds of bugs flying around.

The next day I went to Thailand.


**For more photos go here

Read more...