New York, will you wait for me?

So here I am, packing up to leave town again.  I haven’t even finished writing about my last trip, and now I’m about to head back to Taiwan.  I really fell into a blogging void during my time back in NYC, which is unfortunate because this visceral, aggressive, beautiful city delights and frustrates me on a daily basis.  But as we are about to be parted for the longest stretch yet I find myself only recalling the romance of the place, and the thrill of making it through each day here.

New York, I love your citizens.  I love the deli people who follow my breakfast whims.  Every few months those whims change.  Sometimes it’s an egg sandwich.  Sometimes I’ll go through a bagel streak.  These days, it’s just my morning coffee, small, light, no sugar.  But after a few days the deli people have got it down, and they serve it up as soon as I walk in, to the occasional dismay of the other customers ahead of me in line.  They don’t understand; they don’t have the same unspoken connection to the deli people that I do.  They can only dream.  We may be a surly bunch on occasion, but damn if we don’t take care of our locals.  I can’t help but think that only in New York would the wine store guy up the street actually tell me to call at closing time if I “need a few more minutes”.  Yup.  The wine store will hold the show for me.

New York, I love your artists.  Through connections and blatant pandering I have been involved in an amazing show for the past month.  Look, I’m not going to lie: it is a weird, specific aesthetic that gets me going.  It’s rare that I meet someone who says, “Oh yeah, I totally dig Weimar cabaret.  In fact, I just wrote one that pretty much fits in with all that you think about religion and politics.  Why don’t you perform in it?  Also, two of your best friends are involved in it too.  So, you know, come on down to Brooklyn.”  Yeah, I don’t get that a lot.  But in New York I do.  It’s probably going to have to sustain me for the next year.  What can I say?  Ich liebe The Brick. 

New York, I love your food.  You do sustain me.  In fact, you might be specifically calibrated to my personal brand of gluttony.  In one week I dined on world-changing pizza, soft shell crab in green curry (yes! More please!) , and fried chicken with a side of FRIED KALE.  Yes.  You read that right.  Fried kale.  It was delicious, and I have no regrets.  None.  Admittedly, I have been in dumpling withdrawal, but that’s my own fault.  I could get my albino ass down to Chinatown, I just haven’t managed to do it because I’m a lazy over-booker who’s looking ahead to a year of cheap nightmarket delights.  Is that considered taking the easy way out? 

New York, I love the family you’ve given me, blood-related or otherwise.  How have I managed to stumble across so many people who are willing to look past my absurdity?  I guess I credit you.  And here I lose words.  How do I describe the unbelievable people in my life?  How do I explain the endlessly engaging conversations?  How do I describe the wine-fueled nights of dancing?  Can I really do justice to Girls’ Night?  What words can I use to explain finally feeling safe?

 While in Taipei I took part in the traditional “Chinese Valentine’s Day Temple Visit”.  It involves an elaborate ritual of incense, candy, “ghost” money, tea, and prayer, and it is ultimately supposed to connect you with your soul mate.  I don’t really go in for prayers or soul mates, but I’m certainly not going to turn down a chance to participate in a local tradition.  And what the hell, it’s not like it’s going to hurt (furthermore, I got some neat souvenirs out of it.  And tea.  Which you aren’t supposed to blow on.)  During this process you pray to about 50 million gods.  And I still don’t know what all of those gods do.  The only one that stuck in my mind was the City God.  If I remember correctly, he was our first prayer stop, and he is the one mainly in charge of helping us find the people we’re supposed to be with; the people who will enrich our lives.  Perhaps you’ve already guessed that I adored this idea.  The essence of the metropolis gets to decide who we need to meet, and then works it’s magic to make that happen?  Sign me up.  I believe in the power of the city.  I certainly believe in the power of New York.  And I hope that it won’t forget me while I’m gone, that it will manage to keep me in mind as it charts the courses of all the broke, desperate, amazing people who find their only home here. 

New York, I love you.  You are my home, you are my family.  I’ll be back all too soon.  And I will still hate your public transportation system, but that’s as it should it be.  There has to be some imperfection, somewhere.  It can’t all be roses, unicorns and rainbows.   This isn’t a love story.  This is real life. 

 

The Summer Backpacking Olympic Games

For most of my trip I did not go too far off the standard backpacking route.  For one thing I only had a month and three countries to traverse.  For another, the roads in Southeast Asia get a little bit interesting during the rainy season.  Picture unpaved roads with many, many muddy puddles.  Let’s put it this way; most of my intercity travel required a sports bra. 

I was not unprepared for this, however.  There are a lot of tales that emerge from the backpacker community, and I had done my research.  I knew, for example, that seemingly innocent locals may invite you to their homes, whereupon they will lock you inside an illegal gambling den and demand that you play Texas hold ‘em with a Japanese high roller.  And of course I was constantly vigilant lest I be smuggled into the Southeast Asian sex trade, because 34 year old Albinos are so hot over there right now, so hot.  So when I was chatted up by a friendly Filipino couple in front of the Grand Palace in Phnom Penh and invited to their “nephew’s birthday party” that evening I made sure that I had other plans.  Actually, I’m still kind of disappointed that I didn’t take them up on the offer, but I figured an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of Syphilis or something like that.  Also, did I mention that I was carrying all the money for my trip with me because of the complete stupidity of my US bank?  Yeah, I was doing that.  I spent much of the trip finding new and exciting ways to staple my bags to my appendages.  So in general I wanted to avoid unnecessary risks.

This is not to say that I avoided locals, but that I often ended up socializing with fellow travelers.  Luckily this proved to be a unique cultural experience as well.  You know, for a bunch of pot smoking hippies, backpackers can be an awfully competitive bunch.  I had a pretty clear idea of what I needed during my trip in order to feel safe and comfortable:  my own room, booked before I arrived, no more than $15 per night.  That’s it.  I didn’t care about fan vs. air con.  I could handle sharing a bathroom.  I just didn’t want to wander cities looking for cheap guesthouses.  I preferred to wander cities looking for attractions that closed just as I got there (I’m talking to you, Saigon!)  Here are just a few of the responses I got upon communicating this information to people I met on the road:

“$15!?!?!?  Wow, that’s waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than I would pay,” said the dirty hippie who walked up to me at a coffee shop and asked for “directions to the guesthouses”.

“You booked ahead?!  How do you even do that?” said the dirty, pot smoking hippie who eventually introduced me to the mystery meat that led to my one bout of food-borne illness.

“Your own room?  I’m sleeping three deep in one hammock over a lit fire next a pond of piranhas while a Donald Rumsfeld look-alike waterboards me.  Only costs $1.50 US.” Oaky, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but only slight.

You’d think I could just avoid these conversations, but backpackers seem to have the same genetic kink that New Yorkers have: after asking your name and nationality, the next question is always how much you pay for your place. 

As I said, I encountered this throughout my travels, but it only really pissed me off in Phnom Penh.  That may be because that city was one of the major stops on my Western Guilt tour.  After gorging on temples in Siem Reap, I gorged on sadness in the capital.  I visited two overwhelming genocide memorials in Cambodia: Tuol Sleng, the former Khmer Rouge prison, and Choeung Ek, one of the many killing fields throughout the country.  There is no way not to feel conflicted about visiting these places.  The history is so horrifying, and so recent.  Basically, any Cambodian my age or older lived through the terror.   Surely the current generation grew up in the shadow of their parents’ trauma.  Whatever justice can exist for the murder of a quarter of a nations’ population has certainly not been achieved.  Much has been made of “Comrade Duch”, the one Khmer Rouge official who was punished for his crimes.   But Pol Pot died while living under house arrest, and the Khmer Rouge retained a seat at the UN until 1993.  The country’s wounds are still disturbingly fresh.  Bloodstains are still visible in the cells at Tuol Sleng.  And the memorial pagoda is not the only place at Choeung Ek to see the skeletons of the victims.  Every year, during the rainy season, the waters bring up pieces of human remains and shreds of clothing from the mass graves.  The question, “is that branch or is that bone?” follows you throughout the area.  And while I did not follow the lead of other visitors who took pictures of each item for later verification, I still think a trip to the memorial is important.  Partly because of the travelers I met who “didn’t even know there had been a genocide in Cambodia”.  Partly because of the statement at the end of the Choeung Ek audio guide that “this was not the world’s most recent genocide, and it will not be the last”.  The survivor’s calm sense of certainty was terrifying. 

Humans are a blood-thirsty, mystifying bunch.  We will go to such lengths to label people as “others”, and then we do our best to destroy them.  Afterwards, we sell tickets to view the wreckage.  I do think these memorials are necessary, that they serve a purpose.  But as I was approached by burnt and maimed landmine survivors and crying, pleading children begging for money outside these sites I also felt that my visit was offensive and unjustifiable.  I am one person, taking a vacation.  I can do nothing.  I offer nothing.  I can’t help.  And if i can't help, do I have any right to be there?

 

I require curry

As my trip comes to a close I have a few regrets: I didn't achieve enlightenment, get a book deal, or take a Cambodian cooking class.  I still have a shot at the first two, but alas, I believe the ship has sailed on my Cambodian cooking dreams.  I had only eaten Cambodian cuisine once before visiting the country, and that was at an unmemorable place in Brooklyn. My pre-reading had told me it was kind of like Thai food (except less spicy) and kind of like Vietnamese food (except less fish sauce). Poor Cambodia. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.  Ultimately, it was an exciting prospect to discover a cuisine in the country of its origin.  So here is the low down on the memorable meals I enjoyed during my visit.

 

Ginger pork and noodles in Siem Reap. During my first day of marathon temple-viewing I was near the point of collapse and asked Mr. Ron (the tuk-tuk driver) if we could stop for lunch. I'm completely and utterly certain that he took me to some place that gives him a commission for delivering unsuspecting tourists, but at that point I really didn’t care. I was exhausted and I needed sustenance. And furthermore, my meal was delicious. The ginger was undoubtedly the star in this dish, and it played its part well.  I’m sure we’ve all had those overly gingered dishes in which the heat and sweetness somehow take a wrong turn at Albuquerque and end up a bitter, sad mess.  This was emphatically not the case here.  The sauce was rich, with bite, and it created a silky coating for the flat noodles.  Also, these noodles.  I recognize that they are of the instant variety, but they were sooooooooooooo good.  Their size and texture really matched the weight of the sauces in Cambodia.  Before I go on to the next dish I must give a shout out to Southeast Asia’s pork.  It’s some of the best pork I’ve ever had (okay, Spain probably wins, but come on, it’s Spain!!)   Always tender, often fatty, and never veering toward the dry, flavorless slabs of meat so frequently found in the US.  Yay Southeast Asian Pork!



Cambodian Barbeque.  Let it be known, I have eaten snake, and it was good. But nowhere near as good as crocodile!  Actually it was rather chewy, so I don't know what James the Thai Tour Guide was complaining about.  But I digress.  My big splurge dinner in Siem Reap was a heaping plate of Cambodian Barbeque, featuring five different kinds of meat, three sauces, and somehow, also, hotpot.  Who knew?  The whole meal is really stupendous.  You’re given your own enclosed mountain of coals, upon which is placed a rounded barbeque altar.  The hill of grilling goodness is then surrounded by a hot pot moat.  Really, the cookery alone won me over.  So here’s the process: the barbeque volcano is lit, and then a huge, glistening piece of pork fat is placed at the top.  The hot pot moat is filled with chicken broth, into which is thrown greens, carrots, squash, cabbage, and those ridiculously awesome noodles.   While the hot pot is working its sultry magic, the grilling begins.  The five “meats” I ordered were chicken, beef, snake, crocodile, and squid.  The beef came with an egg for dipping, which put such a Taipei-nostalgia smile on my face.   The snake kind of tasted like pork, nothing too exciting.  But the crocodile was amazing.  It had the gaminess of lamb, and yet the sweetness of squid.  I know, I know.  Lamb-squid doesn’t sound very convincing.  But it was good, dammit!  A really excellent meat, one which I would search out again.  It must be said that Cambodian barbeque is a lot of fun.  In addition to getting my grill on, I also got to play with sauce-to-meat combinations.  The sauces were explained to me thusly: one for meat, one for fish, and tofu.  Yup.  Just tofu.  I’m still not sure whether the waitress meant that the sauce was for tofu, or made of tofu, but no matter.  The “tofu” sauce kind of had a lemony béarnaise thing going on, and it was particularly good with the chicken.  The second sauce was reminiscent of chimichurri, filled with fresh herbs, oil, and a bit of vinegar.  I was happy to unite it with its crocodile soul mate.  The final sauce was a pepper-lemon oil, and it bathed the succulent pieces of charred squid in its goodness. 

Speaking of pepper, those Cambodians are pepper-growing masters.  There are pepper farms all over the country, and indulging in a product so fresh was a true luxury.  For my last night in Cambodia I decided to go for the official dish of Kampot: Kampot Pepper Crab.  I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this:

 

Crab is a food that makes me incredibly nostalgic. My Uncle Carl used to boil blue crab for the family at least once a summer. I was the only one who could stand to be in the kitchen during the morally-dubious cooking process. What can I say, I was a kid. I thought it was great fun to watch the crabs try to escape, and do to my part to round them up again. Once the crabs were finished we would cover the table in newspaper and break out the nutcrackers. Oh how the butter would flow! I recalled those days with my Uncle as I smeared the sticky, brown pepper sauce all over my hands and face in my attempt to delicately eat the meal. Chopsticks abandoned, I was pretty much just tearing into the claws and chomping down on anything that wasn’t shell. Every now and then a peppercorn popped in my mouth, and I scrunched my face up from the delightful, tickling pain. Throughout my trip the seafood was outstanding. This crab was rich, creamy, briny, and yet of course it also had that necessary burst of fresh sweetness. I wonder what my Uncle Carl would have made of this dish. I'm not sure he even would have tried it, but I'm pretty sure he would be glad that I did.

And those were just a few of the culinary highlights. Sadly I do not have a picture of a particularly kick-ass seafood red curry that I ate on the beach, but alas, not every meal can be captured. And I haven't gotten into the gloriousness that is Amok. Okay, I may have to revisit this topic in a later post. But for now, I leave you with sun-kissed pepper pods to hopefully tickle your fancy.

 

"Hello Ladeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!"

One again, I'm a country behind.  I'm currently in Vietnam, and have been for the past few days, but unfortunately you guys will have to wait for the gory details of the Vietnamese transportation system, because first I need to address my time in Cambodia.  That leg of the trip was added on once I realized that it made no sense to visit Thailand and Vietnam without checking out one of the countries in between.  I knew I wanted some serious beach time, so Cambodia won out over Laos.  I think I made the right choice.  Cambodia is an active contradiction.  How can a place that suffers from such extreme levels of poverty also manage to exude voluptuousness?  It's a beautiful, mixed up place, and it certainly dragged me into the confusion.

I was ushered across the Thai border with another US traveler ( a New Yorker, no less!) by one of the ubiquitous Cambodian "helpers".  You need a visa?  They'll show you where to get a visa.  You need a cab?  Oh, they've got cabs.  And tuk-tuks.  And motobikes.  Hell, they'd probably give you a piggyback ride to the next town if asked nicely.  Our Helper saw us safely through all the visa checkpoints and into a dusty Toyota Camry.  After a quick stop at a gas station (aka, a kid at the side of the road ran over with a jug of gasoline and poured it into the tank) we were on the Road to Siem Reap (yeah, there's really just the one road, paved as of 2009). The two hour long car trip immediately set the atmosphere.  There was such an impossible amount of green.  Stretching in either direction I could see crisp fields of grass, palm trees, rice patties, and emerald mountains in the distance.  There was the occasional shack, either tin-roofed or thatched, and plenty of livestock.  This is kind of area where you break for cow crossings.  As the sun set, I started to wonder where the hell we were going.  We had been on one straight road for two hours, and I could see nothing that looked like a city in the distance.  Darkness fell, clouds rolled in, and the vista was lit up by noiseless flashes of lightening.  We seemed to be outside of time and space.  Finally, we reached a crossroads, and this was the signal that we had arrived in Cambodia's third largest city.  My traveling companion and I were deposited in tuk-tuks (the tuk-tuk: a motobike pulling a cart-like thing containing one or more overly priveleged foreigners) and went our separate ways.

While my time in Thailand was delightfully organized by Cory, this marked the start of just a tiny bit of chaos.  Or not chaos, really.  More of a haphazardous wonder.  I just kind of decided to dive in.  Luckily, Angkor Wat was there to catch my fall.  Okay, just a bit of clarification, feel free to skip ahead if you already know this: Angkor Wat is actually just one of about 25 temples in the area.  It is, however, the biggest.  As in, the biggest religious building in the whole frickin' world.  So it's understandable that the whole area just sort of gets lumped under that title.  I spent three days touring the temples at Angkor, no guide, just me, a tuk-tuk, and a gazillion big eyed children trying to sell me things.  The structures are truly astonishing.  Massive sandstone slabs interlock to form monuments to ancient god-kings.  The obvious questions arise: how on earth were these materials transported?  How did they accomplish such uniform, detailed artistry?  And what the hell was up with king Jayavarman VII?  He oversaw the creation of a temple with 216 faces of a "god" who supposedly bore more than a striking resemblence to the king himself.   I mean, self-glorification is one things, but that's just ridiculous.

 

 

Perhaps one of the most amazing things about the temples is that they still exist. When the Khmer Rouge came to power they slaughtered the monks at the functioning temples, but left the structures standing.  The temples weren't left undamaged, but given the insanity of the regime it's hard to believe that more wasn't destroyed.  I guess they were too busy killing Cambodians for the good of Cambodia. While the temples have mostly escaped human destruction, they are slowly being pulled back into the jungle, wall by wall, stone by stone.  Monolithic trees have wrapped themselves around the temples, found their way inside, and are simultaneously dragging the buildings into the ground amd ripping them up into the sky. 

Since this is the rainy season the tourist hoards were slightly diminished.  Oh, they were there, but I was able to steal a few moments for just me, the jungle-temples, and the monkeys.  Outisde the temples, however, the place was mobbed with peddlers and beggers.  I knew ahead of time that this was the situation, but the scope, especially at Siem Reap, was overwhelming.  I'm not sure there's any real economy aside from tourism in the town, and the desperation for survival has led to a particularly twisted kind of child labor.  Before going to Cambodia I had made a decision not to buy anything from children - in most cases the money goes to a parent or a handler, and the more money they make, the less likely they are to be allowed to go to school.  I hadn't realized that children are basically the only people selling things around the temples.  There are children selling you water, food, scarves, bracelets, guidebooks, genocide memoirs, toys, postcards, paintings, and magnets.  These kids can count to ten in multiple languages.  They have been trained not to take no for an answer.  And this isn't even the most heartbreaking thing, no, that would be the children begging so insistently for money that they almost push you off the road, and will follow you repeating the same plea over and over and over again.  There is no good response.  You can't possibly buy from every one of them, give to every one of them.  And then there's the knowledge that it may actually be doing them more harm than good.  So you end up repeating the litany, "I'm sorry, I can't, I'm so sorry, I just can't," all day long.  To which they respond, "Why?  Why can't you?"

I don't know what else to say.  I also ate, and ate some good things, but  I think I'm going to save that for another post.

And that was Siem Reap.  Breathtaking.  Exhausting.



 

 

Bangkok Part 2: The Search for Ladyboys

People said it couldn't be done.  That I couldn't tour Southeast Asia with only a tiny, dragon-bearing backpack, and without suffering some sort of food-related intestinal calamity.  Well, they were half right.  Petite Bertha and I have been very successful on our travels so far.  So succcessful, in fact, that I've been frequently mistaken for a 26 year old NGO worker living in Cambodia.  I choose to take this as a compliment, rather than as a criticism of my hygiene.  But sadly, my culinary luck ran out.  Let it be known: my last night in Phnom Penh I did select a resturant based on the advice of a dirty, pot-addled backpacker.  And furthermore I did eat a small portion of mystery meat.  I neglected to trust my solid gustatory instincts.  If something doesn't taste good, don't eat it!  But I was trying to prove something, I guess.  And prove it I did, to my toilet, at 5am.  Ah well, such are the vagaries of travel.

I was going to postpone my trip down to the coast to give myself a day to recover in the solitude of my guesthouse, but I was done with Phnom Penh at that point.  So I soldiered on through a 5 hour bus ride (the bus drver was playing weird Cambodian karaoke the entire time) and I made it to Sihanoukville.  Yesterday it was rainy and bleak, so I stayed inside my bungalow, pounded the imodium and cipro, and awoke today to a perfect tropical paradise, and a reasonably recovered digestive system.  And now, with the competing sounds of reggae and Otis Redding, I'll wrap up the Thailand trip.

After Cory and I departed Our Jungle Treehouse we headed back to Bangkok for 1.5 days of temples and mayhem.  The mayhem was compounded by the fact that my ATM card had stopped working at the start of the trip, and after numerous calls to my bank, during which I was assured that everything would be sorted out, I discovered that the people at TD Bank have their heads placed firmly up their asses, and that no amount of pleading and/or threatening would give me unfettered access to my account.  Ah well, such are the vagaries of incompetent Canadian banks. 


True, I flipped out a bit, but with Cory by my side I was able to rally and enjoy our jam-packed 36 hours.  We did a whirl-wind tour of Bangkok that included every Wat in the country, I think.  We saw palaces.  We saw Buddhas.  We saw decorative monkeys (I'm still not entirely sure what the deal is with the monkeys in Southeast Asia, but they seem to play a really important role in a number of religious stories.  I guess I could have asked our guide about this, but she was busy telling us about the Buddha's seasonal wardrobe, and I thought it would be rude to interupt). We did a whole lot of sweating.  And finally we ended the tour with a boat ride through the canals of Bangkok.  The boat ride was spectacular, and I'm not just saying that because we were dead on our feet at that point.  The parts of Bangkok that we had seen were so congested and they were all starting to blur together.  The boat ride allowed us to get a different glipse of the city: we saw villas next to shacks, floating noodle shops, and monks feeding catfish!  My mind is still trying to wrap itself around all that it saaw in Bangkok, but for now I'm perfectly content to hold onto this particular nautical memory.

Of course, our trip to Thailand would not be complete without a bit more curry.  Up until now I haven't truly appreciated the lure of yellow curry.  I always considered it the "mild" curry.  The also-ran.  But after brutalizing my tastebuds with a bit too much righteous chili action I was ready to mellow out.  Also, Cory made some amazing yellow curry at our Chiang Mai cooking class.  Far from bland, it was a delicate mix of spices and coconut that sort of caressed your mouth, rather than attacking it with a hot poker.  To indulge in this revelation I decided to make my last Thai meal deep-fried, soft-shelled crab in yellow curry.  Sure, I could go on and rhapsodize about the meal, but do you really need to hear more?  Deep-fried.  Soft-shell crab.  In yellow curry.  Yeah, it's exactly as good as it sounds.

 

Cory and I also had planned on checking out some of the more "risque" things that Bangkok has to offer, but every place that we came upon seemed hell-bent on selling us into white slavery, so instead the trip ended the way it began, with Thai cover bands.  We came across a bar that had only a few prostitutes and a band of middle-aged Thai men doing surprisingly good versions of such classics as "Smells like teen spirit" and "My Sharona".  Cory and I are both fairly uninhibited dancers, so we got right down to it, and joined a dance mob that included Italian lovers, Irish backpackers, Australian sugar daddies, and Spanish senior citizens.  Our moves were so groovy that they drove the few prostitutes right out of the bar. 

So Cory and I finished our trip with a dancing bang.  All items on the spreadsheet were addressed.  And thanks to her patient ministrations I also managed to make it my bus the next morning, and over the border into Cambodia, which is where our story continues.  But right now my drink is almost empty, and the beach beckons!!

Jungle Boogie

I had three categories I wanted to indulge in during my great Southeast Asian Adventure: architecture, nature, and food.  So far it looks like each country I visit will more than satisfy all three.  I should pause for a moment to mention that while my next two posts will be about Thailand, I am in fact already in Cambodia.  Too much is happening everyday, and I can't keep up; I've only been in Siem Reap for two days, and I already feel overwhelmed, full.  But I cannot move on from my discussion of Thailand without a description of the jungle.  The Jungle!!!!

 

 

Cory and I left our colonial paradise in Chiang Mai after four days and began our trek into the wilderness.  The destination?  Our Jungle Treehouse Resort in Khao Sok National Park.  We were promised the jungle, and we were not disappointed.  Tucked away at the end of the road, right against a cliff, Our Jungle Treehouse was a rare experience.  It's basically a collection of bungalows and treehouses on the river, with a clubhouse/restaurant/bar at the front of the property.  Yes, we had a bathroom and a cold trickle of water that served as a shower.  Yes, we came into contact with all manners of insect life.  Yes, there was a bat in Cory's mosquito netting the night we got there.  But more importantly, we had unbelievable food, met wonderful people, and saw parts of nature that I don't know we'll ever experience again.

 

 

You'll have to forgive me, but I really don't have too many pictures of the food.  This is not for lack of trying - the main issue is that my camera does not work well in darkness, and there's suprisingly little light in the jungle after the sun goes down.  But no matter.  You can walk with me down culinary memory lane.  First of all, we once again had excellent options for classic American breakfast.  I have accepted that despite my huge appetite for culinary experimentation, when it comes to breakfast, I want eggs.  And toast.  And most likely bacon.  But while American breakfast is certainly important, but it is by no means what I came to Thailand for.  I came here, primarily, for curry.  In Chiang Mai I had the incomparible opportunity to make Thai-Burmese curry: pork belly!  pickled garlic!  more chilis than you can shake a stick at!  Thai-Burmese curry is not coconut-milk based, but the addition of pickled garlic and peanuts add almost as much richness.  And really, have you ever known me to argue with pork belly?  But I digress.  I want to talk about Our Jungle Treehouse's addition to my curry repertoire: Panang Curry.  WHY HAVE I NOT HAD THIS BEFORE?!?!?!!?  It's criminal I tell you, criminal.  This is thicker than your average red curry, using more of the coconut cream, rather than the milk.  The curry paste has the main ingrediants such as chilis, galangal, etc.  But then, peanuts!  These delightful legumes are toasted until fragrant with coriander and cumin seeds.  Coconut cream, curry, and meat blend together to form a velvety, spicy concoction.  The dish is garnished with lemongrass leaves, their herbal acidity a lovely note to the decadent curry.  What can I say?  This is the kind of curry you want to bath in (and then lick off yourself).

 

 

Luckily, however, prudence prevailed and I did not bath in said curry.  That might have had unfortunate consequences during the jungle trek.  On day one of our totally awesome jungle adventure Cory and I got right down into it and hiked the jungle.  Our guide was a helpful, knowledgable, yet almost incomprehensible Thai man.  He felt very strongly about preparing us for jungle survival.  And bamboo.  The man loved bamboo.  Cory and I learned all about what kinds of bamboo you can eat, drink, use to build shelter, and use as kindling.  This last item was one of our guide's favorites.  Have I mentioned that it's rainy in the rainforest?  As we trekked through the mud our guide continuously pointed out the specific type of bamboo which, no matter how wet on the outside, remains dry on the inside.  And proved this to us.  Again, and again, and again.  Every now and then along the trail he would grab a piece of bamboo, break it in half and say, "See?  still dry".  He was kind of like the Thai answer to the Slap-Chop guy, except in the jungle, and without a police record. 

 

 

 

Our guide also schooled us on the various forms of wildlife we could potentially encounter during our hike.  He gave us an excellent primer on what to do when bitten by a cobra (wait seven seconds and then die painfully).  He pointed out elephant footprints.  He alerted us to a squirrel-chipmunk death match, which our corrupt Western ears were unable to detect.  And of course, he showed us monkeys.  But really, the wildlife highlight of the trek had to be the leeches.  Que the thell!  The jungle is teeming with leeches!  Why, during no part of my indepth shoe research did somebody say, "hey, get closed shoes, cause the jungle is teeming with leeches, I tell you, teeming!"  Actually, I should confess: I remained leech free during the hike.  Poor Cory bore the brunt of our leechy escapade, and with aplomb.  The only "good" thing about Thai Jungle Leeches is that they bear no resemblance to the leeches from that memorable scene in Stand by Me.  Had that been the situation I would have uttered some very unladylike language and then forced Cory to give me a piggy-back ride the rest of the way. 

 

Okay, so sometimes nature sucks.  Literally.  As in, your blood.  But at other times nature is stunningly beautiful.  Sometimes nature seduces you with its blue, bath-like waters. 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes it humbles you with its unexpectadly gentle magnificance. 

 

 



Despite the discomfort, our time here felt like a gift.  Here is this amazing corner of the world that invited us in, let us hang out, and let us pull back just a little bit of the curtain. 

Oh, and did I mention that we rode elephants?  Elephants!!!!

"Snake meat not have enough chew for me"

Wow.  Thailand.  Ladyboys.  Curry.  Jungle Paradise.  Tons, and I mean TONS, of prostitutes.  All these, Cory and I have conquered. 

So when I last posted, I believe it was to tell you that I was incapable of finding my way down a New Jersey street, let alone a Bangkok neighborhood.  Luckily, I was rescued by Cory, the Spreadsheet Goddess of Long Island City.  Cory and I had similar childhood misadventures, and while they have turned me into a free-wheeling, bus-taking, foolhardy traveler, they have turned her into the ultimate Modern Woman.  Cory puts together a trip like nothing I have ever seen.  I may ask her to book all future events in my life, just to be on the safe side.

Spreadsheet Item #1: Cory and I meet at the Bangkok airport to fly together to Chiang Mai.  This went off without a hitch, since I had accepted the fact I will need to take a cab everywhere, all the time.  And it's worth it - the trip from the aiport by multiple buses took 3 hours and cost $2.00.  The return trip to the airport by cab took half and hour, and cost $6.  Best $4 I ever spent.  Cory and I arrived safely in Chiang Mai, and proceeded directly to our lavish colonial estate.  Seriously.  I spent three days feeling just like Meryl Streep in out of Africa, except without the Academy Award.  Or Robert Redford.  Or the Syphillis.  But we definitely had more prostitutes. 

The Chedi Chiang Mai is a teak outfitted, olympic swimming pool owning, delicate candlelight offering, little bit of Thai paradise.  I felt like a Communist refugee seeing a supermarket for the first time - the shades are automated!  We have a balcony and a foyer!  There's a phone in the bathroom!  Our hotel guide's name is Oily!  And, best of all, breakfast is included at the Chedi.  And breakfast involves fresh baked bread and REAL CHEESE.  I almost lost my mind.  Cheese and I have been parted for so long.  We had that one fling at the hotel in Taipei, but that was merely a teaser.  I needed serious cheese satisfaction, and the Chedi provided it.  Brie, gorgonzola, manchego, and two emmentaler-esque cheeses that struck just the right note of both salt and cream.  Cheese, our love will continue to be thwarted for much of the next year, but please, promise you'll wait for me. 

Obviously we've also been eating Thai food like it's our job, which at this point it kind of is.  I would like to draw special attention to Khao Soi, the unofficial dish of Chiang Mai.  You start with a vegetable broth flavored with coconut milk, and then, after simmering it for an extra tasty amount of time, you add two pieces of marinated chicken and wheat noodles.  The dish is then topped with a fried serving of the aformentioned noodles.  Because noodles are apparently an art, my Khao Soi was served on artist's palete with various accoutrements: shallots, pickled cabbage, sugar, fish sauce, chili, coconut milk, and slices of bananas to cool the inevitable heat.  It was street food, comfort food, and also a magical journey into the mysterious capabilities of curry.  Oh curry.  You and I are going to have a very good month together.

When not suffering the curry sweats, Cory and I took in some of the non-prostitue related Chiang Mai sights: driving up a mist covered mountain  and exploring Doi Suthep, one of the most important temples in Thailand.  While there we received sacred Buddhist wisdom about what our futures hold, why long hair can be an asset when starting a new religion, and why Lady Monks fell out of favor (strangely, some of the men didn't like women holding positions of authority.  Shocking).  All of these things were imparted to us by James, our tourguide.  He was accompanied by our driver, Mr. Cloudy.  James was so much more than your average tour guide.  He was, in his own estimation, the tour guide who told the truth.  He did not shirk from telling us that Chiang Mai women were so beautiful that wars were fought over them, or that cannibalism is still practiced in Indonesia and Papau New Guinea (roasted Shaman is a particular delicacy).  He was also a fount of knowledge regarding local medicines: for example, did you know that you can extract the oils from the horn of a certain type of antelope and "rub on man banana to make big"?  Well, now you know.

James and Mr. Cloudy also took us to the Night Safari, where we were able to frolic with Zebras and feed giraffes by hand.  It must be said, giraffes are AMAZING.  No joke.  When a giraffe sticks his head into your safari tram, you best believe that you're going to give him all your bananas and carrots, no questions asked.  As wonderful as the animals were, however, they were slightly overshadowed by the Chiang Mai Night Safari Cabaret show that closed out the evening.  How can you argue with poorly performed magic tricks, long-haired Thai men on unicycles, racy balloon tricks, and the most appallingly boring interpretation of Gloria Estefan known to man?  It was, in a word, hilarious, and of course the appropriate ending to a viewing of noble beasts.  You can just see the tigers thinking, "You moronic humans.  If we had opposable thumbs we would bust out of these cages, kick all your asses, and cook you up in a curry pot with a side of roasted Shaman".  Lucky for us that nature favors the silly. 

During the thrilling Gloria Estefan finale, James educated us further by confirming our suspicions as to which of the dancing girls were girls, and which were ladyboys.  I will tell you this: the ladyboys were much more committed to their performance, and much better dancers.  Just saying.  After this James and Mr. Cloudy dropped us at the Monkey Bar, where Cory and I listened to sensitive Asian pop with women who were most likely not prostitutes, but still dressed like them.  And then it was back to the hotel to rest up for today's adventure: a six hour trip into the heart of, well, not quite darkness.  More like rastafarian twilight.  Yes, we are now snuggly tucked away in the Thai jungle.  It has occurred to us that neither of us has ever camped.  And we're both made extremely uncomfortable by bugs, bats, and snakes.  But we will keep stiff upper lips and hike the jungle, visit coral caves, and ride elephants.  And get lots of massages.  Cause a girl's gotta relax after all this hard vacationing work. 

Stayed tuned for the next jungle update - we'll have true tales of scams evaded, and a description of our new cooking skills!  Until then, I leave you with this pictorial representation us as bowls of curry.  Try to guess who's who.

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster (but only if you can figure out the bus system)

Remember that time I said I wouldn’t neglect my blog, and would write every week, and then I fell off the face of the earth for almost a month?  Nope.  I don’t remember it either.  So let’s press on.

Somehow the leisurely wind-down from my month of teaching craziness was anything but – I barely made it to the airport this morning after sleeping through my alarm (note to self – those people who stay up all night in anticipation of an early morning flight might have the right idea).  But after racing through Taoyuan airport and running down innocent Taiwanese I made it to the plane, and arrived safely (and sweaty) in Hong Kong.  I had a nice airport nap, and enjoyed the free wifi and feeling of travel limbo while waiting for my connection to Bangkok.

And then, when I woke up, everything started going just a bit wrong.

Our flight was delayed, and once we got on it we just sat there.  For an hour.  With no air conditioning.  In the midday Hong Kong heat.  And I must say, we were a pungent bunch.  But finally we were given the sweet gift of air con, and then took off for our ultimate destination.  Tomorrow I’ll be meeting up with my friend Cory and we will be living the life of luxury, but for today I thought I should get myself acclimated to the Spartan measures I’ll be taking for the rest of the trip.  So I booked a room in the “backpacker” area of town, and I set my course to get to the hotel from the airport via public transportation.

Perhaps I should mention that I’m not all that good at orienting myself on buses.   Trains, no problem, whether above or below ground.  But buses require a sense of direction that I don’t exactly possess in any kind of useful quantity.  So maybe I should have thought twice about my brilliant idea to take not one, but two buses into the city center.  I guess it’s a classic case of hubris – I’ve successfully navigated NYC!  And Taipei!  And Bloomington, Indiana!  I can do anything!  (except get around Jersey).  The misadventures really pick up when I disembark from the airport shuttle at the main bus station heading to the city.  I knew I needed bus 556.  What I found were buses 551, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9.   Seriously.  So I looked at the routes; none of them appeared to go to the area I wanted.  I thought about just canvasing the station, meekly asking every driver “Khao San?” until I hit upon a winner.  Instead I just went up to the first bus that seemed be carrying other dirty backpacking westerners and whispered “Khao San?”  The driver nodded, so I got on.

You know, I really should have gotten off the bus the minute the other scruffy westerners came over and asked me where they should go while in Bangkok – they had no idea, you see, and had just randomly chosen a bus.  And these were the people I had pinned my hopes on.  But no, I got another brusque confirmation that the bus was in fact going to Khao San, so I settled in.  Fast forward to the bus entering the city proper.  I’ve just awoken from my 4^th nap of the day (I still don’t function well on three hours of sleep), and the ticket taker is telling me that the next stop is Khao San.  I thank her profusely and gather my stuff.  I notice that my crunchy cohorts are getting sent off the bus as well.  As the bus rolls away, I start to take in my surroundings: I was aiming for a nightmarket-ish tourist area.  This is a highway in front of what appears to be a Thai housing project.  No matter, it’s probably just a short walk, right?  So I boldly start off in one direction, but when nothing appears but more highway I give in and ask someone which way I have to walk to get to Khao San.  Except  I can’t walk there, because I’m nowhere near there.  Apparently I need to take the 36.  So I fight my way onto that bus.  At this point it’s rush hour, and bus drivers here just kind of slow down a bit and open the doors, expecting us to jump on.  Once on the 36 a nice man tells me that no, the 36 will in fact not take me to Khao San.  I need to take the 12.  I get off the bus.  I’m starting to get worried.   I try to get into a cab.  I plead, “Khao San?”  And the driver says “No!  No, no no!” and waves his hands back and forth.  I get out of the cab.  I realize I may be in over my head.

But I rallied.  I figured, okay, I’ll get the 12.  It has to take me somewhere, right?  So I get on the 12.  While this was not the end of my transportation adventures, it was certainly the most colorful.  The bus had a wooden plank floor, and driver had rigged old school speakers throughout the vehicle so he could play an array of Asian pop songs.  Loudly.  I can’t argue though, because the man was clearly a professional.  At point, feeling a bit peckish, he reached behind his chair, pulled out a spoon, rinsed it with water outside his window, and the reached back into a cooler to get a jar of mysterious food that he promptly slurped down.  He then placed the spoon back behind his chair and continued on his way.  I should mention that the spoon wasn’t actually used for eating, rather he used it to fish the jar out of the cooler.  But you’ve got to appreciate the cleanliness, right?  I mean, it is next to godliness.

The purpose of that tangent was really to avoid the next sad part of my tale.  The 12 does not, in fact, go to Khao San.  Or at least, not that 12.  I needed the “other” 12.  I was assured that 12 would be air conditioned, but somehow I didn’t think the music would be as good. 

I was getting desperate here, folks.  I could not get onto another bus.  Also, I’d been traveling since 6:30am.  It was now 7pm.  I hadn’t showered.  I’d barely eaten.  I was broken.  I fell to pavement, threw my arms up in the air, and yelled, “Khao SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!!”

Oaky, that may be a bit of an overstatement.  All I really did was run down two elderly Asian women in order to secure the next available cab.  Miraculously he understood when I sobbed, “Khao San”, and soon I made it to my destination, only three and a half hours after getting off the plane.  And from there it only took me another 45 minutes to find my hotel!  I’m amazing!  I can do anything! 

My first impression of Bangkok – this is where bad 90’s cover bands go to die.  Every few feet I was met with the sounds of Nirvana, Radiohead, Eric Clapton, and Red Hot Chili Peppers sung by a guy with a guitar and a questionable sense of pitch.  The other stores were reliably pumping out the Summer of 2012 Club Anthems – I’m pretty sure that by the end of this trip I will be convinced that I do in fact have the moves like Jagger. 

After my day of traveling I only had the energy to crawl to immediate sustenance, but damn it was good.  Spicy coconut curry with chicken and, perhaps, white asparagus?  Whatever that vegetable was, it was the perfect curry conduit.  And the curry itself was so delightfully layered: spicy, salty, sour, sweet.  The national flavors of Thailand, if I’m not mistaken.  I topped that off with a fried banana crepe, and took a bit of a walk around the neighborhood.  I found all kinds of interesting things, including an alley that seems to be dedicated to prostitutes.  Yup, less than 24 hours in Bangkok and I found the scooter girls.  I really need to start using my powers for good, not evil.

Tomorrow I’m going to attempt to hit the weekend market before meeting Cory for our flight to Chiang Mai.  However, I can’t guarantee anything.  Instead of finding the market, I might accidentally stumble into Thailand’s first manned mission to the moon.  Either way, I’ll be sure to be on time for this flight.  Cory has a travel itinerary spreadsheet, and she’s not afraid to use it! 

 

Yehliu - the urban antidote

July rolled to a shattering close amid twelve hour days, distracted students, and copious servings of wine and cheese.  My exhaustion hit its peak on Friday and Saturday, and I found myself wandering the halls of the office muttering, “Must grade essays.  Must grade essays!  Where’s Bao Bao?  Give me some dumplings, dammit!” 

Note to all: This is Bao Bao

At this point my pupils were dilated unevenly and I could no longer feel my toes.  I imagine that if House heard these symptoms he would immediately diagnose PTSSD – Post Traumatic SAT Stress Disorder.  And then hopefully he would serenade me with lonesome piano blues, as this is still the only known cure.

At the end of class on Saturday I hobbled home, crawled into my bed, and slept for fourteen hours.  I awoke to a dorm room full of people and plans.  We would finally start using our Sundays productively instead of merely sleeping off the effects of a rough night out.  We would sightsee.  On tap for the day?  Yehliu.

A trip to Yehliu had first been tossed around a couple of weeks ago.  A short, cheap bus ride would deposit us at a coastal geopark filled with sandstone rock formations shaped like mushrooms, tofu, ginger, fairy shoes, and queens (the monarchs, not the borough).  Our prior plans were thwarted in a number of ways: Luxy, Luxy-related exhaustion, essays, essay-related exhaustion, and the sad realization that if laundry was not accomplished on that particular Sunday we would probably all be arrested for olfactory indecency.  Also working against us?  Our routinely suppressed irresponsibility, flightiness, and inability to get anywhere on time. 

I’ve discussed this at length with my roommate / co-worker / partner-in-crime Linnea.  As a teacher, lateness is not an option.  You run the show.  If you don’t appear, 15-20 people get screwed over as a result.  So we simply have to ignore our dilatory natures, suck it up, and arrive on time with at least some kind of plan for the next three hours.  On days off this all goes directly out the window.  Plans are haphazardly made, and often broken.  Destinations are changed mid-route, if not mid-sentence.  Invitations are poorly extended.  Lengthy expeditions through underground malls deposit us directly across the street from our departure point.  And yet, somehow, despite all this, we made it to Yehliu on Sunday a mere three hours behind schedule.

Yehliu Geopark is a short walk through a small fishing village.  This village had an immediate and visceral impact on me.  I usually chalk this up to a childhood spent near the shore: I crave water, and get antsy if I’m away from it for too long.  I remember during college feeling a sort of painful longing every time I heard a chain clank against a flagpole.  The sound reminded me of boats and harbors, which I pined for endlessly during my Midwestern sojourn.  So the immediate sight of fishing boats, the smell of sea water, and the preponderance of crusty, muscled fisherman sent me reeling.  As much as I love cities, I must also have the beach.  And after four weeks of urban hysteria, Yehliu was exactly what I needed. 

 Yehliu looks like an alien landscape.  Black, pock-marked rocks cover a floor of golden stone.  The area is unfortunately well regulated so we couldn’t dive headlong into the surf in our underwear.  Also, Yehliu is popular.  Very popular.  I can only imagine what it would be like to have this place almost to myself, with no whistling guards, no Taiwanese tourist groups, and no Falung Gong protesters.  There’s something strange about being part of the picture-taking hoards.  I wonder how much I’m actually appreciating the scene on its own merits, rather than for its pictorial value.  I also feel competitive: that Asian woman over there is taking a picture.  I should be taking a picture!  She must know something I don’t!  I sometimes think traveling was easier when I didn’t have a camera and I just stole other people’s photos.  (OPP.  Shout out to the 90’s.)

Once I had finished reliving my central park mini-rock climbing youth, I joined the group in a hot, sweaty trek up the hill.  We finally left the tour groups behind, and were able to enjoy the juxtaposition of barren rocks, lush vegetation, and a perfectly blue sky. 

It was a good day.  I'm still not entirely sure what the hell I'm doing here, but days like this help.

A little slice of Taipei heaven

Oh how to begin.  Beasts.  We have been working like beasts.  Here is a typical day:  Wake up at 7am.  Fail.  Try again at 7:30am. Almost succeed.  Finally emerge at 8am. Stumble to the bathroom/shower (the shower is actually just a hose and drain in the floor - economical, or sketchy?  You decide.)  Abulations performed, I depart in a shamefully cheap cab at 8:15am.  I purchase various rice-y breakfasts, then stumble into SAT class, where I proceed to make self-deprecating jokes until my students laugh at me with a mixture of affection and pity.  I smile, confident in the scientifically proven correlation between adorable SAT teachers and SAT score improvements.  Suddenly realize that I may not be as adorable as I think I am.  And correlation still doesn't equal causation, dammit.  Smile falters. 

12pm.  Lunchtime.  Preptime.  Naptime.  Our midday meal is usually purchased from the food truck lady or the 7-Eleven.  Just for the record, 7-Eleven is the healthy option, but food truck lady is the delightful option.  Also, our colleague Connie translated the food cart menu so now we can knowledgably order such dishes as "fatty awesome pork noodles", "trouty rice", and "magical makes you skinny soup".  Coniferous, we miss you dearly, but bau-bau lives on. 

1:30pm.  TLA class.  Aka, a bunch of teenagers practicing English in between their packed flirting schedules.  It's a rough life, kids.  Early on I expressed my devotion to dumplings.  Now, everytime they have a free writing assignment, guess what it's about?  Dumplings.  Always, dumplings.  I don't mind, but I feel that I'm getting a reputation.  Seriously, there's more to me than dumplings.  Like cheese.  And wine.  And wine and cheese.  Why does no one appreciate me for the complex glutton that I am?! 

5pm.  Dumpling dinner, because those damn kids brainwashed me into dumplings agian.  I never would have done it otherwise.  Really.  I swear.  It doesn't help matters that we have an amazing underground dumpling/potsticker place right outside our door.  5 kimchi, 5 garden vegetable, roughly a $1.50 USD.  But the heart disease?  Priceless.

Next up?  Tutoring.  At this point, I'm delirious.  I start holding up signs that say, "Read the question.  No, I wasn't kidding.  Read it again.  Really."  But I also liberally reference comic book movies, so our tutor-student bond remains in tact.

8pm/9:30pm.  Work is done.  Andi is tired. Andi says she's going to go home and sleep.  Or veg.  Or grade essays.  Or take over the world.  But definitely not go out.  Because that would just be crazy.  Crazy, I tell you.  Crazy.

I won't do it. I won't go out.  You can't make me.

No, I will not wear sunglasses at swanky bar at night.  That would just be ridiculous. 

Friends, this will all be over in a week.  Then my posts might start to make a bit more sense.  At the very least, they will be more food-oriented.  And the word on the street is, trips out of Taipei will happen.  For now, I leave you with the emblem of my month of July:  money, essays, and dorm beds.

  Mo' money, mo' problems.  Or mo' essays.  Or mo' dumplings.  Christ, I'm tired.