quixotic notions

Looks like we've made it to the end

2006-04-25T01:08:00.000-07:00

It's late afternoon now, and we're at the free internet cafe in Narita airport, contemplating the end of our extended little jaunt around the Far East. Surprisingly little to say: of course we wish we were still on the road for another 4 months like we'd originally envisioned, but in the end, sprinkled with mosquito welts and, I'm sure, all kinds of water-borne microbes, we're happy to be heading home to familiar surrounds, not to mention the land of cheap sushi and Triple-O burgers, and of course you, our friends, whose lives have all surely moved on while we were gone, haha.

Risking irrelevancy, I will try to play catch-up and post a few more times, but in any event, you'll probably get it straight from the horse's mouth when I see you in person anyway. My only regret is not having written more Sun articles: how often does a bumpkin like me get to bore a readership that size?

By the way, somehow we are bringing home that roll of toilet paper you can see in the title graphic. And it should be noted now, that Nazma did, on many occasions, brave the squaties with total success, major satisfaction, and incessant bragging afterwards.

Continue to stay well, everyone, and see you soon.

It pays to check your email

2006-04-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

Our last few hours in Bangkok were spent on a computer terminal frantically hunting for accom in Hong Kong. We ended up not prebooking anything, deciding to wing it and head back to the hotel we'd stayed at before. Big mistake.

So our first 3 hours were spent back at the Mansion, with Nazma guarding the packs while I raced up and down 16 floors, asking at and getting rejected at every guesthouse. This was a competition: other backpackers could be seen across the central courtyard, trotting along the outdoor corridors in their own vain rummage for rooms. Nazma found out from one of them that Hong Kong is in the throes of a series of trade fairs until the end of April, and places that aren't already full are sporting newly doubled rates. Alrighty then.

Finally we bunkered down in a grim little triple, with the requisite phone-booth shower/toilet, for a whopping HKD400 ($59CAD). We secured the room after a large, very hairy man was seen leaving it. We discovered that he'd already christened the toilet for us, remnants of his golden shower leaving amber trails down the side of the bowl. Thank you, Sasquatch. After almost 4 months of ups, downs, twists and turns, as we dumped our bags on the third bed and sat down things seemed about as low as things had ever been.

Nazma went off for some retail therapy while I tried to troll the internet for a vacant cot somewhere in the city that wouldn't cost us hundreds of dollars (seriously: the Holiday Inn wanted $370CAD a night!). Lo and behold, my cousin Joanna had written me to say her mother is out of town, and why don't we stay with her. A grown man crying in a public place is never a pretty thing, no matter what the movies might say, and I will never show my face again at that internet cafe.

We'd already paid for the roach hotel, so we managed to doze a full night tucked into our Vietnamese silky sleepsheets. First light saw us beelining toward the nearest subway station, to be whisked off to an unexpected, serendipitous salvation.

Lanta sunsets and lightning storms

2006-04-16T01:06:00.000-07:00

Arrived at Ko Lanta yesterday afternoon and brought the storm with us: within a half-hour of arriving, the fastest thunderstorm we'd ever seen blew right over us and headed out to sea. It joined up with two other storms somewhere south of Ko Phi Phi, we figure. Nice dinner entertainment!

How I learned to stop worrying and love the water bombs

2006-04-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

Well, we arrived in Bangkok safe and sound and it's been a wild last few days. Songkran did indeed begin in earnest the evening of the 12th, and it's just been getting crazier and crazier. But in the end, it isn't the drunken falang-fest, nor the massive unauthorized groping we'd feared. 99% of the people plugging the streets are Thai, and the few falang who didn't move up to Chiang Mai can't be bothered with other foreigners. The Thai are very good-natured: if you don't want to be smeared in their chalky paste stuff, or soaked with bottles of icy water, just put up your hand and smile.

In the end, we didn't do much of that, and as a result we (and especially Nazma) found ourselves in the middle of the scrum, clothes soaked and faces muddied beyond recognition (we were only missing the cucumbers over our eyes). The cheeky ones said hello before they coated our faces with goo; some looked genuinely sorry and apologised first, and then coated our faces with goo anyway, like someone was holding a gun to their heads.

The chalky paste stuff was apparently for good luck, and the saying about the water goes: the wetter you get, the happier you'll be. If these maxims hold true, we should be set for life. Here's some locals reloading their little plastic goo buckets.

All in all it was a great laugh: we spent all day doing laps up and down the main drag, watching the crowd packed in shoulder-to-shoulder, the unbelievably stupid passenger cars trying to get through the chaos (and getting muddy handprints all over their paint jobs as a result), and the shiny happy people dancing, dancing, dancing away, Thais and tourists, ladyboys and sexpats. That having been said, though, we're getting our asses to a mall tomorrow. Happy splashing!

Honeymoon suite

2006-04-08T23:55:00.000-07:00

After a comfortable (!) overnight train ride we arrived tired but jubilant in Sapa, in the northwest corner of Vietnam close to the Chinese border. Mountains, terraced agriculture, and clouds, clouds, clouds.

We arrived at the last of three hotels we'd inspected and found wanting, and trudged dutifully up the stairs to look at the room before committing. The room looked like most others -- faded glamour, dainty lace canopy/mosquito net above the bed, vaguely grimy undusted corners -- but what clinched our $6 was the soft-porn tiling in the bathroom. After the incredulity had subsided, two questions sprang to mind:

Why did the hotel designers decide to include this? They even had to rework the rest of the tiling in the bathroom extensively to do so.
You can't one-off these things: who's buying these things in sufficient quantities to justify their mass-production?

I could understand a poster, even a naughty lithograph, but having pornographic ceramic tiles doesn't quite smack of strong long-term-planning abilities.

I thought the man looked rather skanky with his long greasy Fabio hair and half-shaven chest, but Nazma was quick to point out that she's not the classiest dame either. A match made in heaven, fornicating in our shower.

Soggy Songkran

2006-04-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

We're pretty dumb. Our clever little scheme to escape Vietnam by retreating to safe, familiar Thailand has totally backfired, as we forgot about a little thing called Songkran.

Songkram is the Thai New Year, and is characterised by:

everyone travelling everywhere at the same time (i.e. no transport or hotels)
everyone throwing buckets of ice water over everyone else, especially tourists

It's the Water Festival, and everyone partakes, which would normally be fine. But apparently the Festival has been somewhat hijacked in recent years by drunken foreigners who are out to create as much mayhem and many wet t-shirts as possible. This means unrepentant gropings, general pandemonium, and not a few deaths from traffic accidents, caused by stupid people dumping ice water on passing motorbikes, causing the drivers to swerve into buildings or oncoming traffic.

Only in this part of the world would you have to plan around something like this. Our options now are to hole up in our hotel room (if we can find one), escape the city (if we can find a bus), or escape the country (Nazma's looking up flights right now). If you don't mind separatists and possible bombings, the Muslim south apparently is a safe haven.

Mind you, Giant Water Fight still beats Boring Commute To Work. Some people come to Thailand especially for this, and we wouldn't mind joining in the festivities (it's mid-to-upper 30's in most of Thailand). The worry is having to sleep on the soggy streets for want of a hotel, and injury after being drenched for the millionth time by some stupid falang on a passing flatbed. Keep your fingers crossed.

The finish line

2006-04-03T02:22:00.000-07:00

After a long afternoon of internetting and agonising on the couch of a JAL office, we've finally set a return date to Canada: 25th April. This will involve evacuating Hanoi (by plane, not by chopper) on the 10th April to a rather unexpected destination: back to Bangkok. There we've got 11 days to delay reality (on a beach perhaps) before heading back to Hong Kong through Macau. China's out - too expansive, expensive, and pointless if we're just using it as a cheap conduit homeward. And in the end, not so bad: the flights we've stitched together come to a paltry $150 CAD each. Isn't Google's currency converter a hoot?

Road to nowhere

2006-04-02T21:23:00.000-07:00

So for whatever reason, we are getting booted out of the country (along with everyone else who got their visa at embassies in Cambodia) on the 10th April. Ostensibly some big National Congress meeting or something (btw, did I mention that the Party is Life?), though now that we're in Vietnam no one has heard anything about it.

Long story short, if we could stay in the country another 2 days or so, all our stitched-together flights back to Hong Kong would click into place nicely. However, now we're T-minus 1 week and are having some trouble figuring out how we're going to evacuate, as we're now missing flights by as little as 30 minutes.

Also, China has suddenly become this big, money-guzzling proposition, especially if we're only entering to transit to Hong Kong. However, the alternatives (budget airlines to Seoul, backtracking to Bangkok, rotting in a Vietnamese jail) are equally unattractive.

As I write this, though, the tour lady at this internet cafe has taken it upon herself to start a frantic search for flights to Bangkok. The scent of commission must be thick in the air.

Road from Hoi An to Hué

2006-03-30T06:02:00.000-08:00

First grey rain in 3 months now. The land turns green green green. You'd think it was Ireland from the brochures, but for the palm trees and longhorn cows. Green paddies glow, flaring in the dim afternoon light. Sparks of white: scraps of cloth hanging from sticks topped with conical hats, sprinkled in the paddies to chase away Vietnamese crows.

The bus cruises, astride the centre-line; horn is relentless, every few seconds; we dip back into safety if we meet something oncoming, but the driver makes sure to blare his indignance. The trucks rush past, horns dopplering plaintively in return.

Here and there we pass a house, derelict, slate and brown in the green paddy; or a Chinese cemetery on a green slope, graves festive with orange and teal plaster. They peel as years pass, but not as much as one would think.

With >80million people one has to put them all somewhere. Apart from mountain roads, there isn't a stretch of highway that doesn't show some sign of habitation: roadside cafes, a shack, a farm. Kids in blue ponchos, some without; on bicycles on the way home, some without. The constant sprawl of humanity disorients me: I have no idea when we've left the city, nor when we've arrived at the destination.

A slash of red from the tilled earth; a lonely pagoda on the hillside: everything dashes out of the fog at us and retreats. The myopia from the mist doesn't let you see very far.

I fell asleep as we left Hoi An in sun, and woke up to this two hours later. The end of our trip draws nearer: 19 days left.

Party policies allow me to live a full and productive life

2006-03-27T07:14:00.001-08:00

Follow-up to that last post: I so didn't feel inspired at 4 in the morning, as the Vietnamese seem to have two standing policies:

Put all foreigners at the back of the bus.
Never replace the shocks on the bus.

But at least I have posted again - scroll down to March 6th. Funny thing: I actually haven't been able to access cheesybeefpizza myself since we entered Vietnam, but I can edit it for some reason. In most of the hotel rooms we've stayed at, there's been a list of "regulations"; being one of the last Communist countries, these very often have included a ban on "subversive materials". Maybe cheesybeefpizza is a corrupting influence on the fertile minds of the youth: I should inject some content to get myself back in the good books. Progress through technology! The Party is Life!

Published again!

2006-03-26T05:54:00.000-08:00

Well we've been in Vietnam now for a few days and it's not been as bad as all the news we've heard from people who've been. We haven't been killed by traffic in Saigon; we haven't been completely ripped off (only partially, and on several occasions); we haven't had our asses dragged 5 blocks by passing moto drivers attempting to snatch our bags. It hasn't been all lollipops and rainbows but it's been a lot of fun so far.

Will post more later when I get a decent computer (with cardreader) - have to catch up Malaysia, Cambodia AND Vietnam now, errant boy that I am. For now, we've been published in last Saturday's Vancouver Sun. You can look it up on www.vancouversun.com for the next while. This may be our last article; too busy to write these days. Mind you, we're on the bus for 16 hours tomorrow heading north, so maybe I'll feel inspired at 4 in the morning.

Welcome to the jungle

2006-03-06T23:25:00.000-08:00

While the né-Shivjis went to Singapore, the two in-law husbands (Arzoo and I) decided to hit the jungle. Taman Negara National Park holds what is reportedly the oldest rainforest in the world (130 million years) -- having never suffered an ice age -- and as such is home to all sorts of friendly plants and lush animals.

With more time, gumption and stamina, we could have attempted the 9-day trek through the jungle up Mt. Tahan, towering above the canopy. We only had three days before we rejoined the rest of the clan, so time was short. Most of the first day was spent first in a bus, then on a speedboat along the river to Kuala Tahan, the little village that acts as park headquarters and sits across the river from the jungle proper.

The adventure began when we got to the hostel and the reception lady said something about how we'd have to share a dorm with a bunch of girls. Her choice of words: "You have to share with bi women". This raised eyebrows and hopes, but sadly we were eventually conveyed to our own separate dorm room. Our bathroom was open to the outdoors and, with no netting and a 6-inch gap in the bathroom door, before long we were sharing our room with all sorts of jungle friends, all night long.

Our first foray into the jungle was a hour-long walk with our guide, Mr. Herman, and our group of 5 (2 Swedish girls, 1 Japanese girl, and us) at night to a hide (a treehouse lookout for observing wildlife) and into the forest to check out bugs etc. There was little hope for spotting anything of a decent size: the hide is only about 5 minutes walk from the posh resort some enterprising wag had decided to build right on the edge of the jungle. In fact, it seemed like half our time was spent walking through the posh resort to get to the jungle, but that's progress. In all fairness, we did spot some deer at the hide, partaking of the salt-lick bait people have put there. During our walk we saw stick insects, scorpion holes, and learned all about leeches when the nice Japanese girl in our group felt something on her torso and made a new friend.

The next day was our full day in the jungle, beginning with a hike up to the canopy walkway as featured in all the brochures. We woke early to avoid a huge group of Chinese journalists who were in the park, sponsored by the Malaysian government in some mad bid to boost tourism. We'd heard they would be going through sometime in the morning.

The canopy walkway is a 510-meter-long rope bridge that, at its highest, snakes through the treetops 45 meters above the ground. "Stairs" are rickety aluminum ladders woven into the rope, ascending at desperate angles. As a matter of safety, only 4 people are allowed on a particular section at one time. Mind you, as most things are in Malaysia, it was all pretty regulated and well thought out, and the ropes are tested "daily". I suppose it'd be a setback for tourism if 50 Chinese tourists plunged to their leafy deaths.

It was a grand old time for most of the way, wandering through the canopy, with nothing but birdsong and the squeak of ropes. I don't think we spotted any animals, but if at any point we were feeling jaded, we could always just look down at the drop and things would pick up considerably. Alas, our reverie was shattered by the foreguard of the Chinese group, who came racing up behind us. For whatever reason, they were in a hurry; pretty soon the 4-person rule was tossed aside (as we were about to be) and we were being harassed by a scrum of Chinese tailgaters.

After the canopy walkway we hiked up Bukit Teresek, a hill much favoured for its nice lookout over the forest to Mt. Tahan. It was a long sweaty climb but we finally made it up. Arzoo and I brought up the rear while the others went ahead to the lookout. As we neared, we heard screaming and looked up to see the girls racing back towards us, arms flailing. We thought this was a pretty silly dance until we found out someone had pissed off some bees, apparently. Then the bees thought we were in cahoots and started for us. We all fled, limbs akimbo, to where our guide was waiting for us, where he very helpfully pulled stingers from our now-lumpy arms. Arzoo got nailed right in the eyebrow. I think I may have caught a glimpse of something faintly resembling a mountain before I met the business end of the swarm.

As we went for lunch, both Arzoo and I discovered our own little lunching leech buddies, who'd managed to get into our boots and under our socks. Sure enough, pulling them off left a little circular wound that wouldn't stop bleeding, little anticoagulant-injecting bastards that they are.

Our afternoon was spent on the river, heading up towards a indigenous village and home of a nomadic band of natives. I was expecting something pretty circusy, like the village-cum-souvenir plazas we'd seen in Thailand, but this was something different. We happened to visit during moving day. Their previous village had had all the rustic accroutrements you'd expect: grass-roofed huts, fire pits, etc., but they'd only managed to get up a few shelters at their new place, and they seemed pretty happy to just sit around on logs and have a chat through our guide. We did get our Kodak moments when they pulled out blowpipes and we all had a go at a styrofoam target a few meters away. Then one of the older boys spotted a bird and went after it: he nailed it but apparently this bird had stamina, flying away out of range with a dart in its side.

I'd arranged with Mr Herman to go full tilt through the rapids we were due to hit on the way back to the camp, the better to douse the girls who were sitting in the back of the boat. This all went well according to plan and their waterlogged squeals echoed through the dense forest.

Once night falls, there's not much to do other than go on a night safari; as we'd had a rough approximation the night before and didn't feel it necessary to crash through the foliage in a 4x4, we sat at the floating restaurant and had a nice chat with Yuki, the Japanese girl whom we'd gotten to know quite well by that time. She's got an interesting story for sure: a few more weeks on the road in Malaysia, then back to Japan to prep for a 2-year stint with an NGO, teaching accounting practices in Senegal.

The next morning we all awoke early, congregated at the bus, and swayed our way along the dirt road back to civilisation and the family, whom we were to meet in Malacca. All in all, a nice gentleman's foray into the wilderness: decent conversation, a sporting game of blowdarts, a good amount of exertion and river-water intake, and enough creepy-crawlies to keep it from being just another walk in the park.

Hussin and his Mah-Meri men

2006-03-04T03:15:00.000-08:00

There's a store on the main street in Tanah Rata that sells local handicrafts. Ordinarily we're pretty blase about these things (overpriced tourist dreck) but something made Nazma stop, and we went in. Then I looked up. Wooden masks on the walls, dozens of statues lining the showcases everwhere, and not the cheapo phony "antiques" you normally see. Every one was different, and they were freaky: I mean Lovecraft-esque stuff-of-nightmares freaky; you'd think this was the Cthulhu Museum and Gift Shop. We'd never seen anything remotely resembling this level of artistry, skill and just sheer twistedness.

Turns out they're made in a village of Orang Asli ("aborigines") living on an island on the west coast of Malaysia. Actually they're made by only about 6 guys, and each statue takes about a month or two to do. Apparently each of these is a character from their many folktales, as interpreted by the individual carver, so either their stories are all uniformly scary, or the sculptors are all sick sick geniuses.

In this store, one medium-sized statue, say a foot tall, could cost you over $3000 CAD, so it's definitely a step above the usual trashy souvenirs. And if you had the money you'd pay it: the marquee piece is a tiger holding a chain: real wooden links carved from a single block of solid hardwood. We found out later that actually only one guy in the village knows how to carve the rings, and he doesn't need the money badly enough to spend a month whittling, so not very many get made these days.

In any case, it stuck in my mind and wouldn't go away after we'd left town. This led to a fool's crusade across several Malaysia sultanates that spanned the rest of our time in Malaysia. Long story short, if I've been vague about the descriptions, and you're wondering why I haven't bothered including any photos, or what the big deal is anyways, it's because we've ended up finding, buying and shipping 3 of these bad boys back to Vancouver, and no, we didn't spend $3000 each. Everyone's welcome to come over, hear the story, and draw your own conclusions.

I still love Pai

2006-03-04T03:05:00.000-08:00

Just a note that the Pai piece has been reposted with photos now. I'm frantically trying to post using the pseudo-modern computers here before shipping off to Cambodia tomorrow: will be too busy clambering around Angkor to write (though I guess we haven't written much here either). Any posts on Malaysia will be backdated to before this one, just to keep everything in chronological order, since I'm picky that way and revisionism is so easy on the internet.

And then there were seven

2006-02-28T03:20:00.000-08:00

(Today's blogpost by our special guest, Nazma)

My parents are both turning 60 this year. Dad's birthday fell on February 26, so Farah came up with the idea of treating both of them to a trip. As relatively well-travelled as the Shivjis are, Southeast Asia remained largely unexplored, and so Kuala Lumpur became the meeting point for everyone. Only the Shivjis would come from three disparate continents to gather on a fourth!
And so it was that Mom, Dad, Farah, Arzoo and Aliya arrived at the hotel at 3am on the morning of Feb 21, the flight from Bangkok having been delayed (we thought they'd been quarantined, or that Dad had been caught with dried fruit in his pockets, since he seems to carry it wherever he goes).

By then we were quite familiar with KL, and the best places to eat and shop, so a considerable amount of time in KL was spent - what else? - shopping and eating. On their first day, Dad made a beeline for the first coconut stall he saw. And one 10-story shopping mecca boasted the craziest roller coaster any of us had ever seen.

After a few days in KL, the two "in-laws" (Arzoo and Lloyd) headed up to Taman Negara to explore what's been billed as the world's oldest rainforest (130million years - never touched by an ice age -- Lloyd will write more about this). As the core-Shivjis are not "roughing-it" types, we appropriately took a VIP bus to Singapore. While they fought off bees and leeches, we avoided all jay-walking and consumption of bubble gum for fear of canings.

We then all reunited in the historic city of Malacca (or Melaka), allowing Lloyd and I to make a return trip to what has probably been the best eating experience of our two months: satay celup. Picture this: a bowling vat of satay sauce in the middle of your table, constantly replenished, in which you dip your choice of sticks from a huge fridge. We devoured, in total, 108 sticks and three plates of chicken, periwinkle meat, clams, shrimp, the biggest prawns we've ever seen, squid, tofu, bean curd skin, spinach, beef, fish balls etc. (Apparently the record for a single man is 169, and 70 for a woman set by a normal-set girl from - where else? - the US.) What enhanced the experience was the outgoing and proud owner of Capitol Satay, Mr. Low. It's been the family business for three generations. On our first visit, upon learning we were Canadian, he immediately pulled out pictures and a business card for "Spicy Steve". Turns out Spicy Steve is from N. Van and has a show on Shaw cable, of all things, and will be featuring our man some time in March, so watch out.

To his dismay, though, neither of us came close to beating the record. But Lloyd did plan out how he would, if he were to ever try! (Stick to the small clam/shrimp sticks, and of course avoid the bread cubes they give you for dipping--surely a rookie mistake if there ever was one.) Overall a great evening.

The next evening, and our last together as the Seven, was Dad's 60th birthday. Arzoo's family (ever-generous) treated us to a fine dinner at a nice hotel, which was then topped off by karaoke where even Dad participated with his own rendition of "My Way" by Sinatra.

Sadly we all had to part ways the next day after a week that just flew by too quickly. But we were so glad to have had the opportunity to be together.

Cooling off in the Highlands

2006-02-20T05:05:00.000-08:00

Realized we've hardly posted since coming to Malaysia. Well, the big draw was Thaipusam, a Hindu festival that we rushed down to Kuala Lumpur (KL) for. I can't say too much about this for the time being: first because we're still digesting the entire experience; second because we still have a lot of background research to do; and third because that will likely be the subject for the third Sun article. Here's a pic, though.

After this experience-that-we-can't-talk-about-yet, we fled to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands, a Banff-like little town in the hills where temperatures hover around a positively orgasmic 20'C, and taking a shower isn't this hopelessly futile errand, since I instantly burst into sweat as soon as I step out of the stall. A one-street town, the kind we love: no foreign subway or evil taxi-ripoffs to worry about.

The thing to do here is go for treks/walks into the lush surrounds. The local folklore, however, includes a fellow named Jim Thompson who, after introducing the world to the beauty of Thai silk, decided to go for a stroll in the Highlands and promptly vanished. Not wanting to enjoy the same fate, and being inexcusably lazy, we did none of this, and instead spent four days gorging ourselves on "steamboats". You've probably had this under a different name before. The largish Chinese community here seems to have made this the thing to do in town. You pay per person, and they bring out a huge pile of vegetables and raw meats, and a big pot of soup on a gas burner. As the soup roils away, you cook your meat in it; afterwards and during you can drink the soupy goodness and fish for those random food particles you lost during the cooking process. They do it with flare here: our first burner burst into flames and they had to give us a new one.

We did manage to go out to the tea plantations for which the area is known, from back when the British were kicking around. They still produce some pretty good tea, as Nazma the tea junkie will attest to. We're so high up that the tops of the beautiful green hills are shrouded in cloud and mist all day long.

This being a Muslim country, it's a bit hard to get good bacon these days, though there's no shortage of attempts to provide. Here's the latest: beef bacon, a greasy stringy pseudojerky mess.

G.I. Jane

2006-02-09T21:57:00.000-08:00

While Nazma and I work really well together, almost four months of constant togetherness can take its toll. We, of course, have diverging interests: Nazma seems to like painting her toenails every so often, and I hate feet. So when I found a one-day tour unlike any of the hundreds of cookie-cutter "treks" in Chiang Mai, the lightbulbs went off over both our heads. She could have her salon and shopping day, while I traipsed around the wilderness doing manly things.

The grand-day-out was a Thai-army "survival course" which had just started up a few weeks before. The upshot of this is by the time you read this, my ugly mug will likely be plastered all over the freshly printed brochures. The tour was run by Jane, the brutally honest lady whose internet cafe we would always end up at. "Brutally honest" as demonstrated one time I was there, when she tried to sell the tour to these two Brits. When they declined and left, she told me, without a hint of cattiness, "Probably because one of them is too fat". Sure thing, Jane.

Jane's brothers are in the Thai army, and to supplement their income apparently they have some kind of arrangement to let yokels like me into their jungle training compound on the weekends to do a bit of a hike and some other sanitised (i.e. less psychologically debilitating) but still interesting activities.

So five others and myself were whisked off in the back of a pickup early in the morning to the compound. First off we were shown snakes, and how to handle them. Things didn't bode well when the first snake they pulled out of the bag bit the handler dude, but he seemed to take it pretty well. If it's got its fangs in you, the trick apparently is not to move suddenly, and he won't venom you. Thanks for the advice. The two girls in our troupe were already pretty squeamish, and took this opportunity to hide behind the truck.

Language barriers being what they are, I couldn't identify for you which snakes we saw. We got to hold pythons, though, and he pulled a cobra out of a rice-sack and showed us how to suppress it. Then I had to pee and while I was gone they pulled out one that was even worse than the cobra; not even the handlers went near it. Pics were taken but the photos are somewhere in the Pacific right now, en route by slow boat back to Vancouver along with all the booty we picked up in Bangkok/Chiang Mai.

Next they showed us some useful jungle plants. Lemongrass apparently repels mosquitoes. Another one, when chewed, tasted like lemon but apparently stops thirst. One was some kind of iodine plant for cuts. There were a few different kinds that were for "man power", if you know what I mean. The Thais seem to be obsessed with this. "Well, I won't be needing that, haha", we all said to each other, manly men that we were.

Then they set up some fruit on stands and we had a little crossbow tutorial and tournie. This is tougher than it looks, and the equipment was pretty shoddy (yeah, that's it). I hit an apple on my second practice shot (the only one to do so) but when it came time for the actual contest I went 0 for 5. Mind you, I watched the army guys go afterwards and they weren't much better, so that's why I can blame the equipment.

We set off on our little hike, up for about an hour to the top of the waterfall. The plan was to do a 3-stage abseil down, with the last stage in the waterfall. My harness looked like something had been at the loop where the main-line/belay device attaches. When I pointed this out, Jane gave me another one, but took the gnawed one herself. "I'm lighter. No problem." Sure thing, Jane.

On the first stage, down a little crevasse in the rock, I got a taste of the iodine plant firsthand when I cut a knuckle on the rock face. They found a nearby bush, crushed up some leaves, and rubbed it into the wound.

Second stage was a bit freakier but still dry, at least. This was on a sheer face down the side of the waterfall, and the splash pool below looked pretty tiny. Still, no problem, and I arrived at a little lip right beside the rushing water. I was third up and watched everyone before me go, but when I traversed into the water, I completely blacked out.

I've never liked water, but I'd never known what a phobia was like until now. I started hyperventilating and while my conscious brain remembers everything, this primitive hindbrain reflex kicked in and all I wanted to do was get out as soon as possible. I scrambled back to the lip, but as soon as I was out I'd already forgotten why I was so afraid. Honest Jane was very sympathetic - "No problem, maybe you try again, but don't worry." I stood by while everyone cycled through and went, but I was totally lucid: part of my mind was thinking about how I'd explain a failure on the blog. I was determined to try again.

Second time around I think I lasted longer in the water, but I wasn't moving. My mind was screaming you can't breathe, and I just stood there in the waterfall, gulping air and mountain stream, while Jane screamed for me to come back to the ledge. In the end, the height wasn't the problem: it was this uncontrollable fear of drowning. They pulled my sodden, quivering wreck of a body out of the water and I slumped down the side, around the waterfall through the forest and down to where everyone was already waiting. One of the girls handed me a shot of something and commiserated. It turned out to be sangsom (Thai whisky); a few refills later, I'd calmed down pretty well, and the abseil became a very abstract memory.

One of the army guys had been doing the entire trek in his flip-flops, including abseils. He did the waterfall portion backwards (face down). Nice. By now, all the army guys were down and were prepping lunch. Here they showed us all the techniques they'd had to come up with to cook food in the jungle. They had hollow bamboo segments filled with soup and rice, double-boiler plastic bags full of sticky rice hanging from a bamboo tripod over the fire, and chicken/beef/pork sides roasting. Then they dug up the fire and underneath they'd buried bundles of rice, steaming in underwear, wrapped in banana leaves. Whatever it takes, I guess, but let me tell you, that, washed down with water and sangsom, was the best lunch I'd had in a long time.

Afterwards we hiked back down to the truck for the short drive to our last stop, a 35ft-high tower and zipline where they do basic parachute training for the troops. After the water, this was nothing; we strapped on our helmets and harnesses and I was the first one up.

Bravado aside, there's still a quiver that runs through you when you're tramping up the stairs. Two guys strap you onto the zipline, and there's probably only a 2-3 meter drop before the harness takes you. Still, the ground is pretty far away, and it is Thailand, even if they have insurance. Feet placed here, stare straight ahead, no clutching onto the side of the tower (I imagine all kinds of fingernail marks there but I was a bit busy to check). On the count of three, you're supposed to jump well clear of the tower on your own, but I could swear I felt a knee in my back at two-and-a-half. Out I went and the world spun out of control until the harness went yank. Then I was rushing down the zipline toward the far end, where another line clotheslines your harness and you swing up 90degrees before swinging to a halt. This was by far the worst part: that final downswing + harness + manly loins = crushed boys.

The stepladders were brought out, someone grabbed my leg, and I was unhooked and sent on my way. It was so good they let me go twice. Jane felt badly about the abseil, and I had something to prove. The second time was just as much fun, if a bit scarier, only because I was dreading that downswing at the end.

Part of the deal is you get awarded "wings" by a 5-star general once you've made your jump. As deplorably cheesy as this sounds, after the day we'd had, damned right we'd better get our wings. There was a palpable sense of accomplishment and we were all pretty pensive on the drive back into town, the wind rushing and the sun setting in the nearby mountains.

Nazma, toenails still drying, was there at the guesthouse to greet me as I returned, flushed with triumph, completely unaware of my manky jungle-stained clothes and parachute-helmet-hair. Clutching my wings and bundle of lemongrass, for a long time afterward I couldn't stop grinning, like a little boy who'd just done something really cool.

Bummed: beach- and otherwise

2006-02-07T05:10:00.000-08:00

We had heard good things about Ko Lanta, and headed out by ferry to the island after two days in Ao Nang. This involved sitting on the deck of the boat for 2 hours, at the end of which I emerged, lobster-like, into the din of taxi touts. We arrived at our first place, a pretty upscale place (by backpacker standards) right on the beach. The place had been rebuilt following the tsunami last year (out of pocket: they apparently saw no money from the aid) and only reopened three months ago. We got a nice bungalow amidst the palms.

I attempted snorkelling, but my ridiculous glasses proved too big for the mask, so on top of my morbid inability to swim, I was blind too. I saw several dark forms moving through the water that Nazma later explained were fish; I have to take her assessment on faith. Apparently there were topless girls about, which I also missed. Nazma was very happy to tell me all this, in the safety of my blindness. Utterly dejected, I spent the next two days reading on the beach while Nazma splashed around. And in case you were wondering, no more topless girls availed themselves once my sight was restored: a final cosmic kick-in-the-crotch.

In our walks along the beach we discovered what the travel agents in Ao Nang had failed to mention: all the places were beachfront. We found a place that cost a third what we were paying, and had more character, and so we moved there for the rest of our stay. This place had been similarly rebuilt following the tsunami, and was staffed by some cool tattooed dudes who liberally exercised their dj booth nightly. We also had our choice of hammocks. Here's the one on our porch.

And here's the other one, by the beach. I spent an obscene amount of time here.

(The photo at the top was a fire-dancer we chanced upon one night on the beach. If buskers in Vancouver put in this much effort, I'd empty my wallet (er, paper/money-clip) every time I saw one.)

Escape from the Germans

2006-02-04T04:43:00.000-08:00

We decided to forego the long train/bus journey from Chiang Mai to Phuket and just flew for cheap. Arrived at night and immediately was not impressed. While the rebuilding efforts of locals, international aid, backpacker et al. were laudable, Phuket was such a trap that we were glad we only had the two nights. Old and morbidly obese bikinied tourists, who were inexplicably uniformly German. Every fibre of our beings compelled us to flee.

Let us speak no more of Phuket. Skip ahead a couple of days: we arrived in Ao Nang, a little beach town north of Krabi. What Germany is to Phuket, for whatever reason, Sweden is to Ao Nang. All the menus were in Swedish, and we could even have had a decent approximation of Danish food, apparently, at any number of restaurants. The town has a nice boardwalky, schlocky, pirated-CD feel to it, if you like that sort of thing. Nice public beach, loads of knockoff North Face gear, and endless boat and taxi touts. But nice sunsets.

Oh, and random false teeth. I must say, I really like this photo: I think it captures this ineffable feeling of sadness and loss. Somewhere out there, a poor toothless Scandinavian granny gently weeps.

I Love Pai

2006-01-29T01:37:00.000-08:00

After a longer-than-anticipated stay in Chiang Mai, we hopped on a minivan to Pai. The treacherous mountain journey there, careering around hairpin turns, belied the peaceful hippie-ness of the town. We (or rather, Nazma) had our doubts about hitting a village reputedly overrun by yoga- and health-food-loving vegetarians. But soon we were totally sucked in, and we ended up staying almost as long as we did in Chiang Mai (though that doesn't mean we got our hair dreadlocked).

Meeting us there was Alia, Nazma's cousin's cousin who happened to be there for an extended stay, so she knew the area quite well and had been scouting places for us. After a brief reconnaissance we three piled onto two scooters and zipped off to what would be our first abode, an inexpensive ($6 CAD) little hut that used to be by a river, until that river flooded last year and redirected itself (after destroying everything). Pretty rustic, with the bathroom (though attached) open-air. Being bamboo huts, you can understand how nervewracking it is to do your business when you can hear (and participate in, if you like) the conversation next door.

Soon after arriving, we saw how everyone around town had a scooter: seems everyone gets off the bus and heads straight for the rental place (the fact that they sponsored the only free maps of Pai doesn't hurt their business I'm sure). We picked up a 125cc for $3/day, no questions asked, no licence necessary, and apparently no ability required. Guy tells me which buttons do what, and there I go. I only fell off our newly rented scooter once, and I made a woman on the sidewalk jump out of my way into a bushel of pineapples. After some initial rumbles, though, I was a pro, but like Zoolander, I could only turn left. We were also the only losers in town wearing our helmets.

After two days it started getting a bit lonely at our place, even with the poor French girls beside us, privy to our privy though they may have been. Maybe that's why they didn't talk to us. By this time we'd been to visit Ban Nam Hoo, another little clutch of huts where Alia was staying. More people about, gracious hosts, and better bungalows meant that we uprooted on the third morning and moved there.

Can't offer up enough superlatives for this place: our own wonderful, ridiculously underpriced bungalow ($7.50 CAD) in the green hills, awakening to cowbells every morning. So that's how we spent a week, not doing very much of anything. Our new scooter-mobility allowed us to make the 5-minute commute into town whenever we needed food or laundry: a nice simple existence, all in all.

One night, our two new Italian friends at Ban Nam Hoo had a run-in with a snake in their bungalow, which proved to be a very exciting evening. Of course Nazma offers up my skills as a "trained snake-handler", which is a total lie that thankfully no one really believed so I didn't have to embarrass myself. We had to get a expert from the village nearby to come and get rid of it: this turned out to be a guy in flip-flops with a rake who was even more scared of the thing than we were. At least the rake would have been useful for scooping it up, you'd figure; well no, buddy decides to stab the thing, with the blunt end, and he missed to boot. So the thing goes crazy and bolts/slithers for the nearest crack in the wall, and the next half hour we're thrashing around the bushes in the dark trying to find it. Of course it's long gone by now. We all went to town and had a nice dinner and reflected on what snakes like to eat ("Italians").

So that was Pai. We were sad to leave, but in the end, it was time to hit the south. Said goodbye to Alia and the Ban Nam Hoo crew and rode off one last time into the morning mist to catch the bus out of town.

(This photo is a total scam: Nazma never drove the bike herself. She just wanted a shot of herself looking tough.)

Whatch Me Bounce My Melons...

2006-01-23T08:49:00.000-08:00

A couple of days into our stay in Chiang Mai, we resigned ourselves to the impracticality of venturing out to Burma as we had hoped. Turns out that the visa process has become even more difficult as of this January, and it's both illegal (and extremely foolhardy) to cross overland and move into the country, unless you plan to do so on a so-called "visa run" where you sit in the border town for an hour before coming back. We learned that we might have been able to force the visa issue at the Burmese embassy in Bangkok by showing up at dawn, knocking on the wickets and greasing the right hands, but, well, we were in Chiang Mai already anyways. Leave it to the next time.

Slightly disappointed, we turned our gaze eastward and started thinking about Laos. Our hotel, and seemingly every other travel agent in Chiang Mai, advertised a package that included a Laotian visa and a 2-day "slow boat" ride on the Mekong to the historic city of Luang Prabang.

We signed on. Mind you, it took some talking on my part to convince Nazma that the boat would be a really great "experience", and that she could really claim to have mastered the squat once she had tried relieving herself in a hole in the deck. Maybe that's why they call them "poop decks", but I'm not a sailor.

And then, as we are wont to do, we changed our minds the morning the boat was supposed to leave, following an innocuous visit to an internet cafe. The change was in part prompted by (a) an e-mail from Alia, a cousin of a cousin who was just a few hours away in a village called Pai, inviting us to visit; and (b) my discovery of a pretty unique trekking opportunity which I've alluded to before, but have been too lazy to report on, as yet. Or maybe it was because I didn't want to listen to Nazma bragging about how empowered she felt with her newfound poop-deck talent for the next 3 months ("Guess what I just did...?")

So anyway, suddenly, Nazma and I realised that we should just stay put in the north for another week and a half; laid-back Laos (we would hear later from others) isn't really doable in the week or so we had available. The longer stay in Chiang Mai allowed us time to hit the elephant camp and for Nazma to blow more money on gifts (you lucky people).

(By the way, if you're wondering just what the hell the title has to do with anything, it was in the AutoComplete from some previous user on this computer when I went to type in our actual title. Sounds like a far more interesting post than mine.)

See elephant dance!

2006-01-22T01:00:00.000-08:00

Another common thing to do here is to go on a "trek". I'll post about my crazy Thai-Army-survival trek later, but for Nazma's sake, we opted for a sanitized, don't-get-your-feet-wet tourist special. Note we got a discount; otherwise, we probably wouldn't have done it. The tour-guide even pulled us aside and told us not to talk about what we paid with the other suckers.

Our "trek" involved a trip to the elephant training camp outside of town. All well and good, but it was a little sad seeing the big guys chained up and performing in a sideshow-like "performance" that had the package-tourists hooting. "See elephant dance!" "See elephant paint!" "See elephant play soccer!" (This last one was actually pretty cool - he'd toss it up with his trunk and scissor-kick it with his back foot into the goal.)

Mind you, the alternative is probably extinction: at one time, they used them for hauling logs, but now machines do that, and they don't have much of a wilderness to go home to, considering the people have stripped the forests, so they end up in these camps.

One stupid lady actually tried to feed them Campinis (those little cream-soda-flavoured stripy candies): zero nutritional value and it doesn't take much for it to lodge in a windpipe. They were selling bananas there to feed them with, which I guess she was too cheap to buy. We got a bunch and it was gone in seconds. We saw one elephant nip around a guy's back, take the whole bushel he was carrying and swallow it in one gulp.

After the performance, we got to go for a ride. This was pretty sweet; at one point the handler ran away with our camera to take a shot and we were left sitting on the head, where he'd been. No problem until Bertha started feeling around with her trunk for her errant owner, only to find nervous-Chinese-guy instead. Wet slobbery elephant kiss. Nazma said she'd let that one pass, though I'd pay money to see her take on Bertha (about even odds, I'd say).

On Nazma's insistence, here's a picture of a baby elephant to end the post, for you to coo over.

If Yan can cook, evidently so can we

2006-01-21T00:24:00.000-08:00

So it's almost a cliched thing for people to take a Thai cooking course when they come to Chiang Mai; of course we had to, to shore up our macaroni-and-cheese repertoires. A full day of training, including foodstuffs (i.e. aforementioned trip to Severed-Pigs-Head Market), cost us CAD$23 a head (haha).

We received our expert instruction from "Ma", a nice old (and very successful now) cooking instructor who took us to her home and in no time had us on the floor grinding our curry pastes. This was by far the toughest part of the whole process, so it's good to know you can apparently make a big batch and fridge it for months. Everything starts with this little bit of paste--it's pretty incredible.

We ended up making 6 dishes, each, which meant bloated stomachs and takeaway at the end of the day. Nice way to pass the day, and we've ostensibly learned a new skill. Wow did we feel like pros afterwards. No dish took longer than 5-10 minutes to cook, and still edible!

In retrospect, the thing we realised was all the ingredients were fresh fresh fresh and super high-quality, so you can't really go wrong. Even the coconut cream was freshly squeezed in this jumbo extractor, right in front of us. Even if we could gather all the right ingredients in Vancouver, there may not be any conceivable way for us to duplicate the success we had that day. But if you're brave, you're welcome to come over when we get back: we'll try our best not to kill you with our efforts.

Panda porn and diesel fumes: a miscellany

2006-01-20T23:47:00.000-08:00

Playing catchup with the blog again; hence, some random bits about Chiang Mai:

Went shopping for our cooking class at the local non-farang market. Loads of goodies: these handy froggies in a bag caught my eye. There were a bunch of big pigs' heads on display also, but Nazma won't let me post the photo for fear of causing bad dreams in the readership. Of course this means tonight she'll dream about adopting one of them or something, which equals juicy sleepquotes tomorrow perhaps.

Visited the Chiang Mai Zoo for something to do. I'd seen pandas when two of them showed up at the Calgary Zoo back in the 80s, but Nazma had never seen them live, so she paid extra to get into the panda pavilion while I stayed outside and watched on the monitors. We found out later that apparently that morning, tens of thousands of Thais from miles around had come to the zoo, because the female had gotten a little frisky and the pair had done the nasty for the first time (and in front of thousands, no less). Exhibitionist pandas aside, they had a pretty good selection of caged beasts here. They even had elk-analogues, probably imported from N. America for their "exoticness". Seeing as you can't drive through Banff National Park without swerving to avoid hitting them at least once, we bypassed that exhibit and went for the crazy, feces-throwing monkey cages. Those little guys can swing.

Went to a little town called Bo Sang just outside of Chiang Mai, and it happened to be a big festival day for them, celebrating their town's most famous export - paper umbrellas. It was interesting seeing how the Thais run their parades. The pageantry was marred slightly by the 10 security handlers for every float, and the interspersed loudspeaker trucks blaring slogans. The best was how the parade would grind to a halt every few feet, at which time the diesel gennys necessary to run all that loudspeaker equipment would slowly reduce life expectancies for the poor little girls on the float behind them (nevermind us). Note also the frequent stops were necessary for the speaker dudes to load up on beer. Still, a fun time was had by all.

We topped off the day with the greasiest omelettes ever, made by the only overweight people we'd seen in Thailand so far. This should have been our first indication but we were hungry, so we shared a flaming cup of canola with a side of seafood omelette for about 60cents.

Thai hospitality

2006-01-18T00:47:00.000-08:00

Our buddy from the bus, Boonjan, had left us his contact information, having suggested we go for dinner. Boonjan works in Quality Control with Chevron in the south of Thailand, and after working 14 straight days he heads up north to his wife and two sons for four days, before making the trek down to Bangkok to take classes at the university there for ten days. Then it's back on the job for another two weeks.

Boonjan had spent time with the Thai army, training in Texas. As a result, he spoke English and was keen on helping out confused tourists. While signs are supposed to be in English and Thai, it's pretty inconsistent. Good for linguistic/cultural sovereignty, but bad for independent travellers.

Boonjan suggested dinner on what was going to be our last night there. To our surprise, he brought his wife and two young boys in their new SUV and took us out for seafood dinner along the river. His poor wife and kids spoke no English and suffered through our yammering, but as Boonjan explained, he wanted his children to see their father interact with farang, speak English, take interest in our conversations, and learn (this was the first time his family had had dinner with foreigners). The dinner spread was fantastic, but most importantly we got to chat with a real Thai. Some of his insights about the future of Thailand were interesting, as was his take on the drunken youth. Apparently Thai boys drink too much, "not like in America". He has this idea that farang don't get plastered. Poor innocent Boonjan.

So far our time in the north has been nothing but smiles and hospitality. We're having a hard time leaving.

Welcome to the north

2006-01-17T00:34:00.000-08:00

We escaped the heat, pollution and general chaos of Bangkok for Chiang Mai, Thailand's second-largest city situated about 10 hours by bus north of the capital. We decided to forego the many Khaosan Road companies advertising bus fares for cheap, having heard they were total scams where people have been gassed and mugged during the journey. Who knows if this isn't just some Thai urban legend, but why take the chance?

Instead we hit the bus station for seats on the pricier, but infinitely safer and more comfortable buses that actual Thais use. While trying to decipher Thai to figure out exactly where our AWOL bus was (given that we were supposed to be departing in 10 minutes), we were approached by a man who wanted to help out. Having gotten the same schtick from some rather shady characters in Bangkok, we were a bit wary, but Boonjan ended up becoming one of our good friends and hosts. More on that later.

There are several classes of bus service in Thailand. We went "VIP", one step below "SUPER VIP" and a step above "First Class." Apparently this entitles you to a cute air host/hostess (in our case, ahem, he/she was both) dispensing drink after drink and snack after snack (the "nori seaweed"-flavoured Lays are highly recommended) Not too shabby, and seats actually recline almost flat out - which I found out in the middle of the night with dude-in-front-of-me's head snoring away peacefully in my lap.

We got in around 6:30 in the morning, and had a bit of a mixup with the promised free pickup from the hotel, which allowed me to make friends with the ticket girl. Nazma graciously promised to let her finish helping us out before she clawed her eyes out.

We boarded the songthaew, which is a pickup-truck taxi - you get in the back and sit in the covered cab on two benches. This is great but hair-raising at stoplights when the scooters behind you come within inches of going up your bum.

Our guesthouse had a TV, air-con, and clean sheets and towels daily for an extravagent CAD$13 a night. After a couple of weeks we were starved for news, and the TV provided, along with MTV Asia and two 24-hour Thai karaoke channels. This last seems to be a national obsession, as we would find out the hard way later.

Eating some most delicious bugs

2006-01-15T20:36:00.000-08:00

One last post on Bangkok. Finally found our crispy-fried bugs - at a street vendor outside a 7-11 (in case a Mars bar just isn't enough). As far as we could tell, you had your choice of mantises, grubs, locusts, crunchy-ant garlic stir-fry, big meaty beetle/cockroaches, and a few more I was too busy retching to catalogue. While we were there, one guy came and bought a big bag for the long walk home. The nice lady was very game and let me snap away, though later on we found one surly critter-dealer on the Khaosan Road who wanted 10B for the privilege.

In theory (and on Fear Factor), it seems imminently doable; I mean: what's the big deal? In any case, when faced with the six-legged reality I turned and ran like a dog, but am slowly building up my gumption for our return to Bangkok towards the end of January.

So we'll be escaping the Bangkok bustle tonight: overnight bus to the cooler climes of Chiang Mai. Have our minds set on trying Burma, but no one in Bangkok can provide us with any reliable info on flights and borders. There's a border crossing north of Chiang Mai that we're eyeing; will see if it pans out.

Smile like you mean it

2006-01-15T06:51:00.000-08:00

On the weekends, north of the city centre, Chatuchak Market opens up. We spent 5 hours there and barely covered a sixth of the sprawling mess (the long green section in the lower-left-hand corner of the map). There's a thriving T-shirt industry here, and pithy, iconoclastic down-with-the-man chest-statements you'd pay $30+ for on Main Street cost a song here. We loaded up on clothes, cold drinks and knockoff Danish assemble-yourself lampshades (?). After all the spiritual wattage of the last few days, it was grueling but supremely satisfying to balance our chi with some rampant consumerism.

The vendors here are out for your money, but it's all more good-natured than anything we've found in other countries. A smile goes a mile. Just figure out what you'd be willing to pay and turn on the charm; even if the final negotiated discount is token, both sides leave feeling happy if everyone is smiling. More often than not, maintaining a good sense of humour will net you a good measure of goodwill. Nazma's under the impression I have some kind of "way" with the locals here: I pretty sure it's because I've taken to grinning like an idiot in all transactions.

You'll find a god in every golden cloister

2006-01-15T05:54:00.000-08:00

Bangkok is a big noisy, polluted city and we haven't been terribly impressed. Even the vaunted red-light streets are full of knockoff-Rolex dealers and touts for "hockey" played using what Nazma calls (in whispered tones) "lady's private parts", which I have to say sounded pretty intriguing, if nothing but from a purely mechanical point of view. There was little to no one conducting any serious "business" here (apparently that happens in other parts of town). Just one big circus.

But every big city has something to offer, and Bangkok has wats, wats, wats.

We took a river ferry to the home of the most sacred Buddha image in the country. The Emerald Buddha is actually made of jade, but everybody here loves it anyways. It's housed in the big carnival-like Wat Phra Kaew just south of where we're staying. Tourists everywhere and we were so overwhelmed by the size of the compound that we ended up paying a guide to take us around. This ended up being this old geezer who shuffled us the close-to-retirement express tour, while every other person was getting their guide's first-born named after them. Uninspiring but the wat more than made up for it.

Just south of that is Wat Pho, which houses an enormous reclining Buddha. Apparently each rendition of the Buddha (reclining, standing, sitting, hands this way or that) represents a different stage in his development: reclining Buddhas represent the moment he received his ultimate enlightenment. I must say: with the heat I find myself reclining an awful lot, but any bright ideas are still pending.

Wandered halfway across town to Wat Suthat. We went in thinking it was the largest gold Buddha in the country, but we'd mixed up the wats in the guidebook and this one ended up being bronze. Still, nice to see real locals coming in to worship and the resulting tranquility, compared to the tourist-scrums in the other temples.

In the roundabout outside there's this towering red arch: the "Giant Swing". Back in the day, monks would perform feats of daring-do by swinging from the arch on ropes and catching money with their teeth. Needless to say, safety harnesses being what they were, so many monks were injured or killed doing this that they passed a law banning it. I can't think of anything snide to say about this; I think it'd be pretty sweet if we had something like that at the PNE.

Backpacker soundtrack for SE Asia

2006-01-15T02:50:00.000-08:00

1. The crappiest trance Eurohits from the last 5 years.
2. Jack Johnson, on repeat, forever and ever, in every CD store and every restaurant you pass on the Khaosan Road.

I promise I'll write about Bangkok itself, the good bits, soon.

One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble

2006-01-14T23:13:00.000-08:00

After a few days in the heat, and with beauty-salon touts papering our sticky bodies with flyers, Nazma decided we should go for facials. Now before the more manly readers out there start their lambasting let me tell you: it was feeling like my pores were soaking up every diesel fume in Bangkok; plus the idea of lying on a cushy table in air-con for 45 minutes sounded pretty good. In any case, I didn't put up too spirited a resistance.

Being a first-timer to this, I had no idea what to expect, while girls apparently are born with the knowledge from the womb. This is the only explanation for why Nazma failed to warn me of what was about to happen.

So you close your eyes, relinquishing all control, and they proceed to lull you into this false sense of security, right. They rub your face down with all these lotions etc. Then they stick this wand in your face and give you a good steam. Everything's going swimmingly for the first half hour, and I'm actually foolish enough to think I might make it out of this alive.

Then, with my eyes still closed, the lady starts going at my face with what can only be a dental pick. It was seriously like Marathon Man on my face. Or one of those garden forks they use for weeding. Holy crap.

I later learned that the stabbings were her picking out blackheads: mining for black gold, as it were. Since I don't have any blackheads, I can only surmise she decided to go prospecting all over my big stupid face. Note to manly readers: I didn't let out a whimper.

By now my futile writhing has left a Lloyd-shaped sweat stain on their nice clean table. Then. as if to make up for their assault, they start laying cucumber on my beleaguered visage, as they do at the finest buffet restaurants. Then they left me, laying there with the salad wilting on my face, contemplating how I was going to blog all this.

After all this, sure, I might look like a month or two younger, but I've aged about 40 years from the harrowing experience. On top of that, Nazma jokes that they might charge me extra for my extra-big face. Now wouldn't that have been the icing on the cake? Well, they didn't, so I suppose I got value for money. Cold comfort as I nursed my wounded pores all the way back to the hotel.

Clear-baggin' it

2006-01-14T01:42:00.000-08:00

In this heat one ends up spending most of their day guzzling cold drinks. You can buy an icy soft drink anywhere on the street for 10B (28cents). To keep the bottle deposit, the vendor will pour it into a little baggie full of ice, and in the afternoon sun, this is the only way to have a drink.

Beer here is anywhere from 30 to 40B for a small bottle, and seems very dependent on brand. I managed to get a big bottle (650mL) of beer Leo at an alley-side diner for 45B and they brew their lager strong here, let me tell you. Everything in moderation. I've heard they have table-side spigots of beer in Vietnam.

We also picked up icy chocolate drinks and strawberry frap shakes at the market for 40B. We are so ridiculously spoiled for cheap beverage options here we'll be crying bitter tears when we have to return home to $6 frappuccinos.

Not much between despair and ecstasy

2006-01-13T01:23:00.000-08:00

Arrived in Bangkok and we are staying off-off-Khaosan Road proper, and what a difference a few dozen meters makes. Fewer vendors and generally a less ferocious and seedy atmosphere. We've reverted to the "the-bathroom-IS-the-shower-stall" situation, but that's okay: even having an attached bathroom is a luxury. Hell, even having a room is a luxury--we were forced to take the only place left after arriving in the area on the first night: every place was full. Most of my mosquito-related injuries to date were sustained that first night.

It's been hard meeting anyone on the Khaosan Road--the backpackers seem more cliquey, or self-sufficient, or just wary of other farang (foreigners). If they wer looking for a more authentic Thai experience, I'm not sure what they're doing here. The whole road is one big market: stall after stall of pirated CDs, T-shirts, bling, meat-on-sticks, fake IDs, scammy bus-tours, dreadlocks-on-demand, throwing stars, luggage, stolen goods, beauty salons, scummy bars, phony restaurants, taxi touts and crushing, swaying crowds. One accepts it for what it is; don't expect any epiphanies (or maps to secret beaches) here.

Very few English speakers here. Apart from the few Aussies/Kiwis and Brits, we've heard mostly French and German, with a scattering of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Cantonese. We've only spotted one Canadian-flag patch, and one MEC bag.

Right on

2006-01-12T06:37:00.000-08:00

So we leave the country for barely over a week and you lot swing the country to the right by 10 points! You know, there's a nice selection of anti-Bush t-shirts available: maybe we should buy a bunch and do airdrops over BC and Ontario-outside-of-Toronto.

Entrada a Macau

2006-01-12T00:40:00.000-08:00

Hit Macau for about an hour before we had to get to the airport for the flight to Bangkok. It was interesting seeing what Hong Kong might have been like if the Portuguese had taken over more real estate in the South China Sea 400-odd years ago. Very reminiscent of a European city with its cobblestone plazas and Portuguese street and business names. There's also a flourishing scooter culture here--something we didn't see much of in Hong Kong at all. When things are this congested, it makes sense.

The big draw in the centre of town is the Ruins of St. Paul's, an old church facade that pulls all the tourists from HK and the requisite egg-tart and pork-jerky (!) vendors. Yum. Getting up the steps proved too ambitious: with backpacks girded on and stomachs full of orange juice and tarts, we only gained the first landing before being publicly daunted.

Apparently some people got shot up back in the 90s when all the gangs were scrapping over the casino rackets. Seems to have cleaned up now and they're want to remake it into China's own version of Las Vegas. Already you're seeing huge "Asian"-style casino/hotels along the water, and more under construction. The scale of these job-sites is staggering.

This will also be the last temperate weather we'll likely encounter: from here on, we're expecting balmy 30'C temperatures non-stop. Those of you who know me know that anything over room temperature has me sweating buckets and drooling with delirium. Well, I knew what I was getting into before I signed up. Hurray for air-con!

Kung fu and bird flu

2006-01-11T07:28:00.000-08:00

Some last impressions to sum up Hong Kong:

Nazma met the extended family on both my mother and father's sides for the first time. The meetings weren't the nerve-wracking trials-by-fire that we might have expected: they were incredibly gracious and even openly fawning at points. A little Cantonese goes a long way, it seems. We also got to meet my cousin's 5-month-old son for the first time. Apparently he looks like me. How this happened, no one can say, and I'll thank you wags out there to keep your jokes to yourself.

They do this killer martial-arts demonstration every Sunday in Kowloon Park. Locals outnumbered tourists by about 30 to 1, so we figured it was pretty authentic. They get pretty freaky with the balancing during the lion dances, and even the kids get into it: check out this little guy with his sword in mid hi-yah.

Dimwits that we are, we decided it'd be a good idea to wander over to the bird market and check out all the songbirds and exotics. What we had forgotten was that everyone there right now is on high alert over the avian flu, so of course we get there and find the place deserted. Where is everyone? So we're feeling pretty good about having the place to ourselves, wandering around the place checking out the toucans and the parrots and the apartment-style cage dwellings. I think we realised two days later, in the middle of the night. Even frenzied hand-washing won't save us now.

And now, off to Bangkok.

Eat till you cry (but bring your own tissues)

2006-01-10T00:49:00.000-08:00

You'll never go hungry in Hong Kong, but we nearly did, just from paralysis-by-indecision: too many options and we were frozen. On every street corner there's little vendors with their habachis doing up street-meat skewers. Think Richmond Night Market x 1000. But don't ask for sweet-and-sour chicken; Nazma went on a short-lived hunger strike because she couldn't find any, before finally giving up and tucking into her congee like a good (and starving) girl. And of course the noodle dives, posh buffets, and everything in between. And in case Chinese isn't your flavour, I think we ended up having Japanese and Indian food twice each.

In the end, though, the topper was this "Mongolian"-style hotpot we had with my mother's side of the family: insanely spicy broth on one side, and this garlic/ginger/ginseng concoction on the other. Basically you cook squid, fish, chicken, various meats in ball form, and paper-thin cuts of lamb and beef (no pork in deference to Nazma) in either broth and chow down until you pass out. To top this off, the family ordered spicy lamb ribs, the likes of which we've never seen in Vancouver. Each a foot long and heavenly. They even gave us disposable gloves to eat them with--Hong Kong being super hygiene-conscious post-SARS--and yet they still don't give out napkins at restaurants: you have to bring your own.

Walk of fame

2006-01-06T01:17:00.000-08:00

Went out last night for some night-market action. Hong Kong by night is a neon mess but the faded, decaying gargantuan signs have a real charm and romance about them. I almost suspect half the stores don't even exist anymore but the signs stay on for sheer inertia. This guy seems to have a problem with the perfume stores.

Had a nice stroll along Hong Kong's "Avenue of Stars", with people from countless chopsocky b-movies from my childhood and some bona-fide international stars. The Avenue ends at a much-touristed statue of Bruce Lee, silently kicking ass against the Hong Kong skyline.

Hot showers and cold fronts

2006-01-06T00:40:00.000-08:00

Switched to the business hotel this morning and had our first hot shower in a couple of days. We're now right across the road from some kind of school, as far as we can tell: bizarre Big-Brother-type pronouncements come out every few minutes over the superloud PA telling the students to finish their worksheets before playing video games. Freedom is slavery!

So last night a cold-weather warning was issued in the HK region, and volunteers have been mobilised to help prepare the elderly and infirm. The low today is a bone-chilling 13'C and it's expected to dip as low as 10'C tomorrow. When I called my aunt, she warned us to bundle up. The note of urgency and concern in her voice was touching but amusing.

Toilets on manual override

2006-01-05T01:13:00.000-08:00

No matter how much I travel, it's still a shock when you're halfway through your flight and you suddenly realise you've left your comfortable world behind. This time it was flying low on approach over the Tokyo suburbs that did it: cars were moving along lit ribbon roads through (surprisingly) wooded areas and it could have been anywhere, even home. But every driver in those cars lives in a totally alien culture compared to ours. This is especially scary when the external trappings are so familar at first glance.

Got into HK okay and caught the last bus into town, just in the nick of time. The guesthouse is good by backpacker standards but the manual-reset toilet seals and phone-booth-sized shower-cum-bathroom has Nazma worried and consulting the guidebook for more luxurious digs (we've actually found a "business hotel"--and not that kind of business--to stay in for the remainder of our time).

We're staying at a guesthouse, which is a room in a flat in a "mansion". In any other context, going from a "mansion" to a lowly hotel would be a step down, but here, "mansion" denotes any number of monstrous, Blade Runner-esque apartment/retail/everything concrete complexes, replete with silk ties for CAD$3, screaming babies glimpsed through kitchen windows, telescope stores, South-Indian sari shops, and touts, touts, touts. It's like a third-world microcosm. Capitalistic, overcrowded, decaying, and full of character. One mansion takes up an entire city block, with a central courtyard and open-air corridors. Clothes hang drying everywhere.

Weather is far cooler than I'd expected but still t-shirt weather (15-19'C maybe, though my thermometer keychain seems stuck on 24'C). Still, everyone's in scarves and wooley coats.

Nazma is in danger of being all shopped out already, even though we haven't actually bought anything yet, and the night markets haven't even opened yet. It's unbridled capitalism and it buzzes.

INSANE rush

2006-01-03T12:40:00.000-08:00

The library has no idea where my book is. To top it off, we forgot a piece of check-in luggage at home, so we have to go back now. If this is any indication of the next 4 months, it should be a pretty harrowing trip indeed. Nazma is only showering NOW, and we have to be at the airport in about 30 mins. Nice.

Next time I write, we'll be in HK!

Mad rush

2006-01-02T17:44:00.000-08:00

Well, the clock's ticking down and the little unravellings have already begun: I accidentally returned my buddy's Rough Guide to Hong Kong to the library's overnight bin (Pete, if you're reading this, apologies). Anyways, tomorrow we'll pass by and (hopefully) retrieve it on the way to the airport.

We're almost done packing but, as always, that vague sense of having forgotten something has starting gnawing at our insides. This feeling won't leave us until (a) we need the thing we've forgotten and suddenly remember, or (b) the trip is over and we get home.

On a brighter note, the Vancouver Sun article went over well, apparently, and we ARE getting paid for it, so that's a bonus. Of course our photos were horrid, but from now on, we get to control the photographic content (i.e. neither of us will be in the pictures anymore). Once a month, or however often we find stuff to write about, which will hopefully be often.

So everything seems set for now (until business hours tomorrow, when the rush starts again). Nothing to do now but wonder what the hell we've gotten ourselves into.

Mass consumption

2005-12-28T03:59:00.000-08:00

Well, it's confirmed: our first foray into something with a wider readership than our more-indulgent blog-reading friends will be published this Saturday in the Vancouver Sun travel section. We found out this evening and, after Nazma stopped hyperventilating, she agreed it was a good thing after all, reluctant as she is with "sharing our story with the world". Better yet, we're getting paid for it!

We had the highly unusual task of describing ourselves in such a way that the average Sun reader wouldn't immediately dismiss us as (a) boring or (b) way too controversial: I suppose race becomes a pretty touchy subject on newsprint. Also apparently I use too many semi-colons; still, I think the first piece turned out okay, and once we get on the road the punctuation will dampen down and the creative juices are bound to start flowing.

In any event, we look at it this way: anyone reading the article will have bought the paper for other reasons, so we're not too worried about disappointing them. Hurray for fluff!

See you in the funny pages

2005-12-24T13:48:00.000-08:00

One other thing happened yesterday that locked us into a course-of-action of sorts: we got our picture taken for the Vancouver Sun. See, months ago, when we thought we were doing our big trip, I'd approached the Sun about writing a few articles for their Travel section. We seriously didn't think they'd be interested, so I started this blog; then the editor actually came back! Apparently we may have some cachet, being a jolly travelling interracial couple.

So, months later, we found ourselves yesterday at the MEC, the nice photographer snapping away while we studiously sifted through racks of Dryweave shirts with concerned looks on our faces. We attracted some attention, mostly from other shoppers wondering who'd bother to photograph two such ordinary (and obviously nervous) people.

Thing about writing the articles is, we're following the dude who cycled from Vancouver to Moscow, whose articles ran earlier this year, so we're more than a little worried just how interesting we'll be. Fundamentally we both prefer conversation over crazy exertion, so there'll be few physical feats of daring-do. We could stuff our faces with nasty foodstuffs and talk about that, but how newsworthy is eating crispy fried bugs, now that we get daily doses of pig-rectum eating contests on Fear Factor?

Our challenge will be to turn what we see into something you'd like to read--which will require some vigilance on our parts--and that'll be a great way to keep us focussed and keen. And in the end, we're two ordinary people, doing something that is within the realm of possibility for most (should they choose to make the decision), and hopefully that will be compelling in its own way. In any case, we'll be making sure we get into plenty of trouble (interesting newsworthy trouble), without really getting into trouble (like the time we chased down the pickpockets in Barcelona to get my wallet back...)

Bring on the grasshoppers!

The redlined map v2.0 (with blue lines now)

2005-12-24T00:02:00.000-08:00

Now that Nazma's off work we've actually had a chance to talk about the trip. When I live with something for a long time (for instance, the plans for this trip), my thinking tends to get stuck in a very defined groove. In this case, I had consigned our poor tootsies to some frosty temperatures in southern China and northern Vietnam, just because (being an engineer) it seemed most efficient to plan our route contiguously: from Hong Kong, through China, into Vietnam, etc., cold weather be damned. Fortunately, my very practical wife decided she didn't feel like freezing her ass off, and pointed out that if we did the trip in reverse, we'd end up in these otherwise frigid climes later in the year, when temperatures will be more conducive to boat rides, beach-bumming, and the like. That's why she's the queen, and I but a lowly serf. So, we've rejigged the trip route:

Hong Kong, as before. Apparently the relatives are up to having dinner now; most of them will prove to be quite nice in the end, I think now.
Take the hydrofoil to Macau; fly to Bangkok (thanks to our new best friends at airasia.com, who seem to be giving away seats. Cost for 2 one-way tickets: ~CAD$180)
Cavort in Thailand; make our way to southern Thailand 4 weeks later to fly into Malaysia (again, our best friend. 2 one-way tickets from Hat Yai to Kuala Lumpur: CAD$34)
Malaysia in time for Thaipusam, where Hindu devotees pierce themselves with all manner of hooks and things that have no business going near anyone's cheeks or nipples. Seriously, very inspiring. During this time also, may hook up (bwa ha ha) with Nazma's family for a little reunion of sorts (coordinating 7 people from three continents to meet up in a fourth should be a riot)
MAYBE head out to Manila for a week (2 round-trip tickets from KL to Manila: CAD$50!)
Depart Malaysia ~4 weeks later, arriving in Cambodia (2 one-way tickets from KL to Siem Reap: CAD$60. Crazy, and thoroughly contrary to my backpacker sensibilities, but sod that, it's a 1-hour flight vs. a >27-hour-train-ride-plus-5-hour-taxi ride. Screw ruggedness and authenticity.)
Angkor, Phnom Penh; then boat-ride through Vietnamese border to Mekong-delta region.
Ho Chi Minh City and up the length of Vietnam, where by now it'll be nice and warm.
Into southern China, and back through to Hong Kong. Fly back to mundane lives.

Tickets are booked; resolve is steeled. Mettle remains untested, but that's the whole point of the trip, isn't it?

Ugly pink thing

2005-12-10T14:10:00.000-08:00

In a total 180 from my last post, I got an evite for a birthday party with this graphic attached. This has sparked some debate: if we assume that the blue thing is a bear, what exactly is the ugly pink thing?

With entirely too much time on my hands, I've made some initial observations:
1. The pink thing has no ears, unlike the blue thing (allegedly a bear).
2. It is comparable in size to the blue thing.
3. It is harelipped, similar to the blue thing.
4. It has 3 toes on each foot, though the birthday cake blocks our view of the other foot on each creature, so this is inconclusive. At this point we're assuming they're not each missing one leg, with the cake so placed for modesty's sake.

So it shares many traits with the alleged bear, but no ears. The outcome of this debate carries some urgency: one of the two birthday girls has equated herself to the ugly pink thing, and questions of self-identity have arisen. "What AM I??" she cries. YOU decide!

The redlined map

2005-11-28T10:51:00.000-08:00

A rough trip itinerary, as follows:

Note: Along the way, we'll be trying to hook up with any volunteer outfits we may find, in which case this plan may get temporarily derailed for days/weeks at a time (for a good cause).

Land in Hong Kong Jan 3; introduce new wife to potentially wary relatives.
Head north into China proper; buy cheap Chinese puffy jackets for chilly continental winter; take in the nice brochure-worthy river scenary. Attempt in vain to explain why this Chinese boy doesn't speak Mandarin. (We decided to add this leg because even with the Chinese visas it's still cheaper than flying to Hanoi, for whatever reason).
Head south to Vietnamese border; head by hydrofoil to north-Vietnamese coastal area and bask in surprisingly chilly temperatures.
Hanoi, NW Vietnam, and south to Ho Chi Minh City at a leisurely pace. Ditch winter clothes along the way (10'C in Hanoi, >30'C in HCMC). Mekong River delta, then up through to Cambodia and Phnom Penh.
Slow boat (?) to Siem Riep and Angkor. Westward over (a) notorious axle-busting road and/or (b) mud-skipping river ferry to Thai border.
Onward to Ko Chang and south-Thai coast and islands in general; bask in (by now) sizzling beach-appropriate temperatures.
Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and we're not really sure yet, but I'm sure something will come up (dashed line).
South to Phuket, potential island-hopping (dashed line), and southward still to Malaysia and Georgetown.
Kuala Lumpur, Melaka, and Singapore. Blow remainder of money on electronic gadgets.
Fly to Hong Kong; prepare for trip back to staid reality; return to same April 18.

That's why they call me Mr. Fahrenheit

2005-11-15T16:26:00.000-08:00

The credit card's been imprinted; the dates are confirmed. Finally, after months of uncertainty, our tickets for Asia have been booked. While this won't be the life-altering, pan-Asian circuit we had originally envisioned, it'll be over 3 months of education, recreation, and galavanting in interesting southeast-Asian locales, and these days we're definitely thankful for what we can manage. We've yet to lock down exactly which countries will be on the itinerary, but at least our boundary conditions are set: takeoff Jan 3rd to Hong Kong, return Apr 18th from same.

Years ago the world represented an endless continuum of opportunities to learn, connect and contribute. Lately, having settled into this comfortable, mundane suburban Western existence riddled with traffic congestion, politics and "responsibilities", I feel like we've completely lost touch with reality: the reality we thought we'd had such a good handle on in our early 20s; the one we'd sworn never to lose sight of.

This trip, like any move away from familiar surrounds, represents a chance to find that thing we'd forgotten we've been looking for: perspective. But hey, how can anyone but a fool look for epiphanies and expect to find any? We'll just go, and see what happens. And if our way to finding Purpose takes us through some nice sandy beaches, who are we to argue?

Close

2005-10-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

The abandonment of gainful employ affords untold freedoms, at the cost of being able to afford much of anything. But to hell with it. I'm off for 7 months from work - a leave-of-absence rather unexpectedly granted in a time of mass layoffs. And I'd been prepared to pack it in and quit - so desperate I was to regain control over my life.

That having been said, once the day came, it ended up being harder to leave than I'd thought. Call it loyalty to the friends I'd made. Maybe I feel like I should be standing with them in tough times to come. Maybe I just don't want to miss out on the hundred little jokes tossed over the cubicle walls every day.

Mind you, no complaints here. The abundance of time is fantastic, and by putting work completely out of my mind, the improvement in my mental state and gumption level is like night and day. I have time now to get the lawn-mower fixed. I can work on all the design -portfolio projects I'd been putting off. I can nurse our long-suffering trip plans back to health. My workplace hazards now include telemarketing calls and the bottomless pit of daytime-TV channel-flipping.

Actually, TV has been easy to avoid. It's remarkable how much there is to do, given the time. My to-do lists run pages. Between coursework, overdue yardwork, and long-neglected house-cleaning, it's been a pretty full first week of what many supposed would be slovenly destitution.

Where's an Ark when you need one

2005-08-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

So the first rain in 30 days hit the Lower Mainland yesterday evening with such ferocity it punched a hole in our beleaguered roof. This we discover as we bed down, past midnight, after an already exhausting day. In retrospect, amusing, though at the time not so much so. Pics show the bucket battalion mobilised to defend, after a long night and a partial emptying.

So the first leak started where the blue bucket was. As I was affixing a paper-clip/string dangly (stops the dripping noise!) to this one minor irritation, about five other points in the ceiling sprung up and began their symphonic accompaniment. At this point we gathered whatever Rubbermaids and saucepans we could, with a sort of Dutch-boy naïveté. With these in place, the valence above the window (upper left) began pouring like a water-feature at a posh restaurant. Towels and Old Navy bags were strewn about halfheartedly. Our indoor pool party had reached Egyptian-plague proportions, minus the frogs and divinely induced SIDS.

By the way, note the ingenious blue-bucket/Garbino overflow system in centre-right frame (gimme a break: I was half-delirious with fatigue, the other half with incredulity). This turned out to be a lifesaver: Blue was full and the Garbino close to brimming by the morning. To imagine the scale of the inflow: the white bin holds ~30litres and was totally full in ~6 hours. Note this wasn't the biggest leak.

Anyways, once the troops were in place we managed a fitful sleep and woke to find our placements had held back the deluge, barely. Roofer's coming in Friday, and the forecast is sun till Tuesday, so everything is falling into place (except, we hope, the roof).

Interpretating the trauma

2005-08-11T15:40:00.000-07:00

Another affirmation today that it is absolutely imperative I leave this job as soon as possible. As a favour to a so-called friend, I sat in on what was probably the worst meeting ever held: in this building; at this company; in the world -- its scale was incalculable. Its sheer pointlessness was impossible for my non-physics-post-grad, 3-dimensionally entrapped brain to quantify. There existed such a vacuity of worthwhile human thought that I feel like a good percentage of my brain cells have evaporated into the ether. I have to write this now, before the trauma of irretrievably losing an hour of my life in such an inhumane manner obliterates the memory from my shattered psyche.

By the 45th minute of arguing over the colour of the boxes in the table of results, I wanted to harm myself.

Biggest sign the meeting was chaired by a higher intellect:
Use of the word "interpretating"

Facile and cliché

2005-08-06T02:57:00.000-07:00

Can't sleep. The past few nights the heat has made it difficult but tonight it was something different. Something about transience. Our temporary nature, our shifting desires and responsibilities (i.e. rethinking the trip), our profound and devastating effect on our hitherto intransient terra firma, what to do with our lives -- I don't know. These are the morose garden-path meanderings of self-important adolescents and antsy midlifers, so I don't feel entitled, but it's nighttime and it's easy. Something floats up in my memory; something about how it's easy to be hard-boiled in the daytime, but at night it is another thing. I haven't been given to bouts of melancholic uncertainty since my indescribably indulgent teenage years, so what's going on?

Just finished a book called Chasing The Sea. Describing the author as "gifted" would be trite but appropriate. A compelling and very entertaining read but disturbing, and that's why it's essential. And that's why it's got me up and writing when I should be sleeping. Don't care about Uzbekistan? Couldn't find it on a map to save your life? Doesn't matter. I'll be returning my copy to the Richmond Public Library soon. Go get it. With a very familiar, drinking-buddy kind of presentation, without you knowing it it'll get you thinking about how unwittingly comfy your life is, relative to so many countless others. And there isn't one of us who doesn't desperately need perspective these days.

I think it's imperative that every one of us do one great thing in our lifetime, one thing that benefits someone other than ourselves, on a massive and lasting scale. That sounds so incredibly facile and cliché I want to punch myself in the face, but I think what's keeping me up is I'm so terrified that we won't do it, that we won't even try. We get so caught up in our overresourced, underhappy suburban lives that, even if we recognize and rail against the world's evils (and there's a lot of them), we'll never get up the gumption to effect any positive change. I'm not talking about semi-annual peace marches or wearing a tacky tie to work for the United Way; I'm talking about the kind of singular, good deed that my small, insomniac brain can't even begin to fathom right now.

Anyway, if you read this post, think about what we can do, you and I, as the sliver of the world's population that possesses the financial backing and personal liberty (and therefore choice) prerequisite to even accessing this blog. I'm looking for any good ideas. I've got my own but I need time to think them through. In the meantime, I know it'll be easier to feel better about this in the daytime, so I'm going to try and get some sleep.

Time well spent

2005-07-28T18:38:00.000-07:00

I just spent a good hour and a half building the Sleepquote box in the sidebar with my stunning trial-and-error HTML skills.

She's been pretty quiet lately, so I've had to mine the back-catalog. Enjoy!

Habit

2005-07-23T21:28:00.000-07:00

We came home last night from work to find the internet was out, cable modem all aglow with warning lights. 10 years ago, just out of high school, I was still working off the World Book and had heard rumours of this "In-Ter-Net" thing. Now the cable goes out and it's like someone's thrown a bag over my head. How will I check movie listings? How will Nazma check her email 10 times a day? Etcetera, etcetera.

Well, now it's back. Whoops of exultation all around, and back to scandalous amounts of time squandered online looking up random facts on Wikipedia.

I hear the secrets that you keep

2005-07-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

So my wife says funny things in her sleep. This is well-documented, with a long history that predates my involvement (at least as far back as a trip to Spain where her lung-shattering convo with figments-unknown woke everyone in the hotel). I've been fortunate enough to have been awake during some of these glittering utterances, and have started keeping a book. I'll share more gems periodically, in the sidebar.

Last night she dreamt of Skeletor. From what I could gather, he was in some kind of contest (beauty pageant?). She sounded really happy for him.

Nazma's Sleepquote-of-the-Day Archive:
"Goodnight, cheesy beef pizza."
"Skeletor number one! Number one... Skeletor!"
"Only one round of Genesis he's doing! One round!"
"It's too light out! Bye seven! Bye seven! Just stay eleven!"
"Get the warm millet! Blargh." [drool]
"I talk in my sleep too much. I really have to stop."
"Feel free to partially control. I mean, I'm drafting court documents for them. I'm not talking in my sleep - it's true. Why are you laughing? What's so funny? Zzzzz..."
"They used to give out fake flower petals and you'd make jeans or outfits out of them."
"Oohh, that's gotta be expensive. I don't know how it's produced, but it's got a crane."
"I'm just gonna put my zip-ups there, baby. Yeah, baby, yeah!"
"Why are we pushing this up to Christmas Eve? Don't make me grumpy!"
"I'm totally awake; I'm NOT sleeptalking, so you can stop laughing. I keep drooling. Why? WHY?"
"I'm sorry I have to overestimate things a bit." (Then she rolled over and took all the sheets)
"I'm going to flip over now and enjoy my passages."
"Goodnight, bubble."
"I'm not stupid! Don't call me dumb! Zzzz."
"Oh, drool again! I'm such a buddi!" (I think that means "old woman")
"I'm a weirdo. I keep imagining all the fancy fixtures in the boat."
"I think I know what I'm NOT doing with my $3000. If I even get it."
"I think we double-counted the money for the eggplant. You know, aubergine. I think it's a code name, like 'Project Eggplant'."

Gang aft agley

2005-07-19T17:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the real reason for starting this blog was to have someplace to post journal entries from the road. See, my wife and I were planning a long trip later on this year. We've travelled quite a bit before and have been totally truant when it comes to keeping a journal. This is fine when you're young: everything is so damned profound (how could I ever forget the name of that bloke I roomed with in Brighton for 2 days who taught me what a bottle toke was?). I was young, and my memory was indomitable. Journals were inadequate; I was too busy taking it all in and, anyways, I was lazy.

Well, now, with these once-profundities slipping out of my slowly aging brain and into the ether, I realise how vital it is to make at least some notes. 50 years from now, sitting somewhere in a cottage and finally getting down to writing my memoirs, I'd better have something to look back at, cuz by then I won't remember a bloody thing.

Anyways, the trip. Vancouver to Hong Kong. Then, 3 months in SE Asia, hitting everything save Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei, then from Bangkok or KL to Kampala, Uganda. This would be the pitstop for this leg of the race. 6 weeks there to rest up with family (with excursions to Tanzania), then off to Tashkent. 3 months split between Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, the Punjab in India, and northern Pakistan, before bussing the Karakorum into western China. Then back through China slowly till we hit Hong Kong again. Laden with cheap electronic goods and all the road dirt and grime of Asia, we return home.

We've both been in the workforce for a couple years now, and before we get too crusty and cynical (working in an office can do that to you), or too bogged down with mortgages and babies, we thought we'd quit our jobs and hit the road. Anyways, that was the plan.

Where's this all going? For reasons profound and unforeseeable (but which, thankfully, don't include babies), our plans are now on the brink of total cancellation. This was to be the Great Escape... the one last exert of Adventure! before we settled into Suburban Mundanity. But now we're stuck in Vancouver for the next few years.

So that's what life has turned into -- for now. I'll write more about the planned trip -- post some pretty ideas about adventures that were to come. Who knows, maybe -- just maybe -- things will work out and we'll be posting pics from Samarkand after all. You never know.

Snappy Title

2005-07-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

Well, my first foray into blogging. I always wondered why anyone would want to read about someone else's mundane life, but here I am, hypocrite and all, soapbox underfoot and heart on my sleeve.

Hi.