Dateline Bangkok

The Best Thing About Laos

2012-01-27T12:36:00.000+07:00

Unlimited baguettes.

Cycling the East Coast

2012-01-17T21:50:00.002+07:00

It wasn't much more than a blurb in my Lonely Planet, not more than a few sentences informing athletically-inclined Taiwan travelers of the popular, moderately-strenuous three-day cycling trip from Hualien to Taitung (the official map name of the city that should be known as Taidong if it were Romanized correctly using Pinyin) along the island's gorgeous east coast.

"The 180 kilometers from Hualien to Taitung (and perhaps on to Chihpen hot springs) comprises the most popular long-distance cycling route in Taiwan," the book said. "The road winds, but the only major climb, to the Baci Observation Tower, lies behind you after the first morning. From Hualien to Chihpen, the highway has a smooth, wide double lined shoulder marked for cyclists and scooters only."

Something about that struck a gear in my inner cyclist. (I have an inner cyclist?) Maybe it was the lack of challenging hills that appealed to the novice in me. Some Saturdays I liked to rent a bike and ride along the river in Taipei for hours. Or maybe it was the views: cruising down Highway 11 sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and mountains. Or was it simply the challenge? Nearly 200 kilometers--185, to be exact--on a bike over three days (although I could have done it in two). I have never done anything like it, but I couldn't get the urge to hop in the saddle out of my head.

I left Hualien that first morning later than I anticipated. Phone, the awesome owner of the Sleeping Boot hostel, and I spent an hour or so trying to find an inexpensive place for me to stay that night. The planned rest town, Shihtiping, was full of upscale B&Bs catering to weekending Taiwanese. There was a campground where you could sleep for $NT30, but you needed your own tent. As I have a learned aversion to camping, I have no tent, and they did not rent them out. Finally the answer came in an unlikely form from a likely source--a seafood restaurant that rented out rooms, my LP advised, but I have never read it before since I skimmed over the section's dining options.

It was still obscenely expensive for the backpacker in me--the most by far I've ever spent for a room. I've turned down nicer, less-expensive places, out of sheer cheapness--but it was my best option.

I rented a bike and a helmet (Be proud, Mom) from the hardcore cyclists at Giant. They weren't going to give me a helmet and I immediately regretted it after I asked for one. But then I thought, Real cyclists wear helmets no matter how uncool they look. Lance Armstrong wears a helmet. He cheated death and still wears a helmet.

Huge semi-trucks barreled past me on Route 193 as I left town. I turned onto Highway 11 and the traffic melted away as I merged onto the coast. The Pacific Ocean was my constant companion, the waves breaking on my left as I rose south. Rarely was the sea out of my sight. On my right, the towering mountains of the East Rift Valley cut me off from the rest of the island.

And thus, the start of an epic trip--for me, at least--the first of many?

I cruised for the first 20 kilometers or so. This isn't so bad, I thought. I can do this. No problem. But I thought that much to soon. An hour outside of Hualien I hit the toughest part of the ride, a spirit-crushing 10 kilometer straight uphill. I knew from the LP that it was the only super-strenuous stretch and it was mercifully over early in the ride. If I could make it through those 10 kilometers of hell, it would be (mostly) downhill from there.

The ascent started sneakily enough, through tunnels that masked the incline. Only from the burn in my quads did I know I was climbing. I was relieved to complete the series of tunnels (In movies, does anything good ever happen in a tunnel?), but the climb continued. As I rested on a plateau, an older couple chugged past me. They were the only cyclists I saw going in my direction the whole trip, but they didn't look like they were riding for long. I passed them on the next hill and never saw them again.

Sweet relief rushed over me when I reached a peak and saw a steep downhill stretched out before me. This must be the end, I thought as I coasted down. My wobbly legs were grateful for a break. But at the bottom--and I nearly shit a brick in disbelief--more hills lay before me. I cursed every one that I huffed and puffed and chugged up before I stopped for a break and to do it all over again. I prayed the end would be just around the next bend. But each time I rounded a curve, I saw another stretch of road, impossibly high above me. It was miserable.

I very nearly turned back--Maybe I'm not cut out for this cycling thing after all, I thought--but the mere suggestion of going back up that lone hill deterred me from turning my wheels back--not the embarrassment of giving up, but the thought of climbing that one, huge hill. I'll admit I did walk my bike up the last six-tenths of a kilometer. I just reached a point when I said, I can't go up any farther. And I walked. The top was near and in the end, I was glad I didn't give up. A car stopped and a man asked me in Chinese where I was going.

"Wo qu Taitung," I told him. Was he going to give me a ride?

The lookout point at Baci Observation Tower marked the official end to the climb. I stopped there to buy a water. The woman selling snacks was incredulous, a belief others would later echo, that I was riding alone. "Yi ge ren?" they all asked. One person?

The rain started around kilometer 40, a steady relentless drizzle that lasted all day. I put on my rain jacket and stashed my iPhone, which had been playing a steady stream of Lady Gaga and Girl Talk to keep me entertained. The rain stayed with me the whole trip, which was the main reason I took so few pictures. I didn't even get to enjoy the scenery, as much of my time was spent with my head down pedaling away.

The wet road was slippery and treacherous in places. I met another biker at a 7-11 who had wiped out. He wore gloves over his bandaged hands. I realized that I didn't even have a Band-Aid with me. I wasn't prepared for anything but weather. The only problem I had, luckily, was when cruising down a hill at 40 kilometers per hour. A dog, unprovoked, but barking and snarling, charged into the empty road at me. I screamed, braked and my back tire violently wobbled back and forth seeking traction. After years of running outside, especially surrounded by mangy, temperamental soi dogs, I don't care for dogs very much. A cat would never do that.

Shihtiping is barely a town, just an outcropping of buildings that popped up around the harbor in response to whale-watching tourism. Tours there boast an obscene 90 percent success rate (but seeing dolphins counts in that number). The restaurant where I'd be staying, Xin Yang Live Seafood Restaurant, didn't have an English name. I stopped to check the characters and I asked some locals running a convenience store just to make sure. From Google Maps, I thought I still had to cross the river.

The men pointed across the street at a warehouse- sized nondescript building set back off the road. I didn't believe them. I thought they only wanted to get rid of me, a dumb, non-Chinese speaking foreigner. But I looked at the characters and there it was. I mimed to the woman that I wanted to sleep (obviously not an important word in my limited language study--but she was expecting me) and I forked over 1,000 NT for the night.

One thousand NT doesn't buy much in Shihtiping. There was no bed frame, just two mattresses on the floor (To be fair, up to four people could sleep in that room). There was no hot water. The flickering overhead light nearly gave me a seizure. But there was a TV, thankfully, since when I arrived in town at 4:30--after five and-a-half hours and 71 kilometers--I wondered, What the hell am I going to do for the rest of the day?

I showered and spent the rest of the night watching Game 4 of the NLDS between Milwaukee and Arizona dubbed in Chinese. The restaurant was closing when I went down for dinner around seven. I told them I was a vegetarian and I wanted something delicious. They must have figured I was famished--and I was--because they brought me not only a plate of fried rice but also a plate of stir-fried cabbage. I ate it all.

I was off earlier the next morning in the steady rain and just across the river in Shihtiping, I came across my first sign: Taitung 87 kilometers. This will be an easy day, I thought to myself. Maybe 50 kilometers, tops. But when I consulted my map at my first rest stop, I discovered that my stop for the night, Dulan, is just outside of Taitung. It's so close it's basically a suburb. Not as easy of a day as I'd originally thought. I later realized Dulan is only nine kilometers short of my destination.

7-11s were a mandatory stopping point. I could stock up on snacks and water, sit and take a rest and chat with other cyclists who were also taking a break. They were all friendly: even in passing they would call out Jai you!-- Let's go! Even construction workers and passing drivers would yell out encouragement.

I stopped for a lunch of Doritos, Craisins and a peanut butter roundie at a sala on the beach. Some local workers joined me with lunchboxes that smelled of dog food (as much of Taiwanese food does). I almost threw up. In Sanxianti, I climbed a steep bridge that led to another tunnel. The continued going up through all of Chengong, where I made a requisite stop at the 7-11 to relax.

Around midday, the rain stopped, and I dried off. It started up again before Donghe, when I was only 16 kilometers from Dulan. I could have easily finished the ride that day, but I didn't have to return my bike until the following day, and Dulan was supposed to be a nice town.

I rode 87 kilometers that day.

Maybe Dulan is nice on the weekend, but it was pretty dead in the middle of the week. After a rest, I walked to the edge of town to Marino's Kitchen, an Italian restaurant reportedly home to the best pizza on the east coast. After two days of intense cycling, I deserved a mouthwatering pizza reward. It closed at 6:30. I popped into the sugar factory, a converted industrial complex that is now made up of artists' workshops and cafes. Also, closed.

I went to bed at 8:30.

Technically Dulan is only nine kilometers from Taitung, but not the city proper. When I reached what should be been Taitung, I was still 10 kilometers from the city center. I should have stopped Xiaoyeliu with its weird rock formations, but I just wanted to be done. It only took me an hour and-a-half to reach the bike rental stop, conveniently located next to the train station. I was relieved, at the start of a holiday weekend, to have a seat on the six-hour ride back to Taipei. I was also relieved to be off that bike and finished with 185 kilometers.

My butt was sore for days. I don't get it. We can put a man on the moon, wipe out an entire city with a single bomb, connect people in Zambia and Kiribati, but the greatest minds in the history of the world--and even Nike--can't come up with a comfortable bike seat.

Taroko

2012-01-03T20:38:00.000+07:00

Taroko Gorge is Lonely Planet's top pick for Taiwan (and the book's editors struggled to come up with a full list of 20--fruit?--Come on), an unmissable stop for anyone visiting the island. Ten million years of rising mountains and winding rivers carved the narrow track through sheer limestone rock face. We've been left to marvel at 19 kilometers of the will of nature.

It's gorgeous, breathtaking, unforgettable... and yet I left somewhat disappointed.

Taroko sits at the crux of the modern dilemma between nature and development. In this case, mainland China--the nation in hyper-development with a nature-be-damned (or be dammed) attitude--wins, at least in terms of gorges.

I've done the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek twice and for me, it's perfect. Two days on a peaceful trail along the Yangtze, whose churning waters has carved a scenic canyon through the Jade Snow Mountains. I'd do it again--and another time, too, every day for the rest of my life.

I constantly find myself comparing the two and in every instance, Tiger Leaping Gorge came out on top. Taroko is an example of what could have been, the endless possibilities lost along the raging river.

I arrived in Hualien after a two-hour train ride form Taipei. Sunshine and clear skies greeted me after days of gloom and rain in the capital. They'd had plenty of rain in Hualien, too. It was the start of the rainy season. In fact, all of Taroko National Park had been closed the day before.

Renting a motorbike was a little harder than I imagined. Taiwan is not Southeast Asia. They at least pretend to have safety standards and thus, I needed a driver's license. A driver's license I have, but proof of that I do not. I believe my ID is somewhere floating around Penang, which is the last place I can recall seeing it after my ill-fated attempt to scale Penang Hill.

I had to pay a little more, but I still got a bike. The woman who rented it to me was shocked that I wanted to go to the park so late in the day (It wasn't much later than 1 p.m.) and she was absolutely floored when I told her I intended to hike the trails.

"These high mountains," she said.

"That's kind of the point."

I cruised north on Highway 9 to the park, passed every so often by a roaring tour bus that assured me I was on the right track. The buses only got worse inside the park. Chinese, both from the mainland and locals, love tours. They will follow the man--who most depend on for communicating with the non-Chinese-speaking world--holding the teeny flag on a stick to every corner of the earth.

You hear the roar of the coach before you see it, the relative silence shattered, before the bus whips around a curve into view. The buses stop at designated spots, let the people off to wander for a set period of time and then proceed to the next.

It was much better by bike, when I could stop as I pleased, narrowly crouched on the shoulder to take a picture of in the middle of an empty road. But I longed for just a long walk through the woods (Since reading that book, I am determined to hike the Appalachian Trail, all 1,000-plus miles). It would be similar to Tiger Leaping Gorge--roughly two days-- minus the local farmers living as they have for hundreds of years, only supplementing their meager incomes with weed and 10-kuai Snickers bars. A few guesthouses would pop up, or hikers could camp. Taiwanese are outdoor enthusiasts and unlike their mainland counterparts, enjoy physical activity that isn't limited to competitive baijiu drinking. (They're not big drinkers period, which is a shame since Taiwan Beer, at least in my opinion--and I cannot tolerate beer--isn't half-bad.)

Maybe it's the rugged terrain or the battering of typhoons and earthquakes, but there isn't a very natural way to explore Taroko. Sure, the park is dotted with trails, but they take you, again, to someone's idea of a special spot. The longest hike--if it's open--is three hours, but it's vertical rather than along the river. On the first day, nearly all the trails were closed.

A motorbike is the best way to explore the park, but getting in touch with nature, it is not.

That first day I was relegated?? to following the hordes up to the temple along Changchun Trail, where I continued climbing (stairs, since so many of Taiwan's trails have been carved into steps) alone to Changguang Temple. It didn't reassure me that the narrow, rickety bridge, suspended 200 meters above the raging water, could only hold five people or 350 kilos at a time. I crept along, my heart pounding in the back of my throat, taking short, deliberate steps while clutching onto the railing. No sooner did I get across and reach the monastery and I turned around and had to make the crossing all over again.

I drove along the gorge until the light started fading and I reached a point I couldn't pass, one where the road narrowed to one lane without a stop light along an S-curve. I waited for a break in the deafening tour buses but found none.

Stopped at a light on the way back, I ran into Ben, an English teacher in China on his National Day holiday. I had met him in the parking lot of the Visitor Information Center when I inquired on the state of the trails. We wandered the streets of Hualien looking for food, but didn't find much. Even he as a meat eater was unimpressed with the selection. In the land of night-markets-as-a-social-event, we couldn't find a night market.

I woke up early the next morning hoping for better luck.

Another trail was open, to Lianhua Pond, but with one caveat: the road, bisecting a construction site at the far end of the gorge, was only passable for a 10-minute window each hour on the hour. To return my bike within the allotted day, I was on a tight schedule, although I wasn't too concerned with paying a small penalty. But I wanted to make it through that first hour.

I leisurely cruised and snapped photos along the area I'd been the day before--and flew through that one-lane stretch; it was much too early for many buses anyway--before realizing I needed to rush to make my window. It was close, but I passed through without seeing so much as a worker.

I had to traverse another rope bridge near the trail head. This one was a little wider and looked a bit sturdier. It could hold 10 people.

"You walk very slowly," a man waiting to take a picture on the other side said to me after I remarked how scary it was.

He was part of a group of Germans who were coming back as I started along the trail. They told me it was closed ahead. And, it was. But there were, in fact, two trails--one to Lianhua Pond and another to Meiyuan and Zhucun. The latter was closed, and two park rangers sat guard. I took the left fork and could continue on--across another rope bridge.

This one was by far the worst. The river raged below, and the wind whipped violently through the gorge. I hyperventilated the entire way across, just one short gust from a full-on panic attack. I considered pulling a Kate Shelley and crawling across on my hands and knees. (Fun Fact: That was my favorite book as a child and every summer, when we passed a bridge as we drove to my grandpa's house in Iowa, I asked my mom, "Is that the Kate Shelley Bridge?" Every bridge, for years. And yet I've never actually seen the real one, the longest and tallest double-track bridge in the U.S.!)

I pushed myself along the whole 3.5 kilometers to make the 10-minute construction window back and also to challenge the estimated three-hour duration. I was to the top in an impressive two hours, 15 minutes. I could barely catch my breath to sing along to my iPod. The hike to the top was a steep set of stair switchbacks, and I was rewarded with views of Lianhua Pond, which closely resembled a cesspool of industrial sludge.

I was back through the construction site early, but still didn't see any workers. They were on lunch, maybe? The stop at Tianxiang on the way back was a total waste of time. The view from the top of the pagoda, after another anxiety- inducing climb up a narrow, winding set of stairs, was the same as at ground level. I headed back down and back to Hualien.

สัวสดีปีใหม่

2012-01-01T12:36:00.000+07:00

สุขสันต์วันคริสต์มาส!

2011-12-25T10:49:00.000+07:00

Merry Christmas from southern Thailand, and an exponentially better celebration than last year. The best part of all? There were mashed potatoes involved. And climbing.

Tainan's Love Motels

2011-12-06T19:23:00.000+07:00

Young Taiwanese couples island-wide are in dire straits: they live with their parents in cramped apartments with rice paper-thin walls until marriage. They're overgrown teenagers--always in search of a quiet, dark place (park bench, empty reptile house at the zoo, etc.) to cop a feel.

Enter the Taiwan's solution: the love motel. Private. Discreet. Perfect.

President Ma himself could hole up with a mistress and the public would be none the wiser (until the camera phone pics or the video pops up online, that is).

Unfortunately, I wasn't shacking up with some rich, married electronics heir--although how much better would that make this story? I was with Johnny who, along with his friend Em, were accompanying another friend, Wayne, on the trip to meet his girlfriend's grandparents. Johnny begged me to come too. (I would have preferred to go to Hualien.) I had only met him a few weeks before and we were still in that honeymoon phase before he decided that I could never fall in love with him and before we picked petty fights with each other.

Johnny borrowed a car from his job and he drove down after I got off work on Friday night for a "long" two-day weekend.

I stayed in two hotels in Tainan, which I feel is an adequate sample size for a case study in the love nests of Taiwan. From the time you check in to the time you check out, you'll only see one person--the perky girl working the drive-in reception booth. You pull your car into a private garage before you enter your room. Breakfast and the complementary tea--dong gua, one of my new favorites; I tried it for the first time and proclaimed, "It tastes just like Golden Grahams!"--is left on a tray in the car park.

The hotels know what their clientele are interested in. There are a number of theme rooms to choose from. There are condoms, of course, and everything else varies by location. A cock ring. Complementary vibrator with the hotel logo.

The rooms had massage chairs and huge bathtubs, and one even had a TV so you could watch fuzzy, black box porn while taking a romantic bubble bath. You could also order, via room service, sex toys advertised on a channel devoted to infomercials.

Pay by the hour? Why not?

But besides that, Tainan, the former capital, was boring. Saturday morning when Wayne went to meet Theresa's grandparents, Johnny and I went to the Chimei Art Museum. It didn't have that big of an art collection, so the rest of the museum was a motley mishmash to fill up the building--a stuffed animals floor (as in taxidermy stuffed, not teddy bears), a wing of weapons and armor and antique furniture.

On the way back, Johnny asked me if I wanted to drive. Of course I did, but I had my reservations. Now don't get me wrong. I am a fantastic driver. But I hadn't been behind the wheel for two-plus years. And at first it was just like driving for the first time. I was nervous, uncomfortable and on edge, like teenage me driving my friend's cars because my mom wouldn't let me practice until I had taken driver's ed. I checked my mirrors obsessively and overly anticipated what the vehicles around me were doing, especially those pesky, above-the-law motorbikes. But it was just like riding a bike. Soon enough my hands found their comfortable groove at the familiar eight and two o'clock positions. I calmed down, and we just cruised around the city.

Every so often, we'd think we were in a happening area, get out of the car and wander, only to find the neighborhood was actually dead. There was nothing interesting to do or to see.

"Why do people keep saying Hello to us?" he wondered at one point.

I looked at him incredulously. "Welcome to my world. This is what it's like traveling as a white person."

The next morning we went to Anping Fort, an old Dutch bastion. It was, to borrow an overused Taiwanese phrase, nothing special. I'd seen much cooler and less sterilized forts in India, great crumbling stone ones where you could clamber up onto the ramparts or sit on antique canons.

I had a similar feeling about the rest of Taiwan, specifically the cities. (Outside the cities is another story. The hiking/biking/river tracing/swimming/surfing/etc. never gets old. I'm more of an outdoorsy person now because of it.) There was nothing surprising or exciting or visually stimulating in the cities, just a sterilized version of China trying too hard to be modern and Western, but losing itself in the process.

Even Taipei, after a month or so got old. I fell in love when everything was bright and shiny and new but once that luster started to fade, it was exactly like an old piece of jade--dull. Yes, the people were nice--in fact, they were fantastic--and it was more orderly than China, but a boring version of China. Living abroad requires, for me at least, those did-that-just-really-happen moments when you have to double take at the man using a meat cleaver as a screwdriver; the garbage collector, a cigarette dangling precariously out of his mouth, pedaling a tricyclo loaded 10 feet high with a mountain of garbage or the woman deftly flipping live scorpions into a tub with a pair of chopsticks.

When I was in Shenzhen at the Universiade, everyone asked me, "How's Taiwan?" The best response I could muster? "Eh, it's okay."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

But how long did I have to give it? Six months? A year? How much do you have to think about the place you last lived before you can go back? When do you admit defeat? With winter nearing--cold and bone-chillingly humid where buildings have no heat--and the new semester starting in Thailand, the six month Taiwan experiment was over for me.

2011-12-05T21:03:00.001+07:00

In an ironic twist of fate, I have to teach five Saturdays this semester to make up for flood days. The kids have missed a month and-a-half of school with parts of the city submerged but will now, in effect, make up a whole five. Mai pen rai. This is Thailand.

Isaan Flooding

2011-11-24T23:03:00.000+07:00

Lakes instead of fields in northeastern Thailand on the way to Cambodia. Central Bangkok may have been spared--and the deluge has receded in many parts of the city, but many outlying provinces are still under a meter of water.

A Subdued Celebration

2011-11-12T20:45:00.001+07:00

Celebrating Loy Krathong--but this year, is anyone really thankful for water?

Phahanyothin Underwater

2011-11-11T14:57:00.000+07:00

Flooding on Phanayothin Road north of Saphan Khwai--about 4.5 miles north of my house--is as close as the flood has gotten to central Bangkok. I took these photos a few days ago--wading out in the filthy water in my new, faux-Burberry rain boots a la PM Yingluck Shinawatra--and in the time since, the waters have receded, theoretically ending the threat to the city center.

Even under more than 30 centimeters of water, there was still a sense of business as usual for local residents. Some normal buses, in addition to flatbed trucks, still plied their routes. Hustlers and thugs, in the true spirit of national unity in a time of crisis, are profiting off the disaster while locals struggle with rising food prices (Hoarding of eggs, usually between 2.8 and 3.5 baht apiece, has driven up the price to as much as eight baht. That's over $3 for a dozen.) and for the unlucky ones, life on the wrong side of the sandbags.

Famed Chatuchak Market is underwater.

Panic Mode

2011-10-31T15:08:00.004+07:00

It's dry in central Bangkok. For distant districts surrounding the city, it's another story. Bang Bua Thong, Lak Si, Sai Mai and Thonburi, as well as areas along the Chao Phraya River, have been inundated with floodwater making its way south to the Gulf of Thailand. It's not necessarily as the Western media would have you think.

Yes, an airport is closed. Don Muang, which was serving as an evacuation center is almost totally flooded, but it is only the domestic airport. Suvarnabhumi is operating as usual.

The government, led by a green prime minister, has been a hot mess of mixed messages and political infighting. It almost seems as though they want Bangkok residents to expect the worst, and then later they can slap each other on the back and congratulate themselves on how they averted true disaster.

This is the email I got from my landlord a few days ago.

Just a little hysterical, no?

She's not the only one, and no one has any idea what's going to happen. People have been preparing for the end of the world. Grocery store shelves have been cleared of bottled water and instant noodles for weeks. Some 7-11s have closed simply because they can't restock.

With high tides last weekend, the river should crest and the water should start to recede--but who knows how long that will take. Donate to the Thai Red Cross.

2011-10-13T21:17:00.003+07:00

And I'm back... just in time for flood-ageddon.

2011-10-09T16:44:00.000+07:00

So over Taiwan. Where to next? Stay tuned...

My New Library Card!

2011-08-30T17:07:00.000+07:00

I like books.

Typhoon Day

2011-08-28T19:39:00.000+07:00

My first typhoon is not just going to be normal, but super! Not only is Nanmadol preventing me from enjoying my few days off after the Universiade somewhere sunny and southern, schools are closed tomorrow for a typhoon day. It's like a negative day off!

Some Tennis

2011-08-21T19:22:00.000+07:00

Beach Volleyball

2011-08-19T19:19:00.000+07:00

2011-08-18T22:35:00.000+07:00

It's always about the cheerleaders.

Best Mixed Zone Ever

2011-08-18T19:18:00.000+07:00

Snoozie Time

2011-08-17T19:32:00.000+07:00

I Wish I Could Swim Well

2011-08-17T19:31:00.000+07:00

Some Archery Action

2011-08-16T19:24:00.000+07:00

A Little Basketball

2011-08-14T22:29:00.000+07:00

2011-08-13T22:26:00.000+07:00

That's us.

2011-08-11T20:28:00.000+07:00

A selection of Universiade rules.

And Pay Day!

2011-08-09T07:50:00.000+07:00

It's Banquet Time!

2011-08-09T07:45:00.000+07:00

The Harbor View

2011-08-06T13:02:00.000+07:00

I'm staying in a jiudian! The meaning here in mainland China has a quite different meaning.

2011-08-05T03:22:00.000+07:00

"It's nice...ish." I was leading Jack up the stairs in Mirador Mansions to my hostel on the third floor.

The tiles were cracked, the paint old and peeling. The hallways smelled of a mix on urine and cigarettes and on my floor, near the "terrace," rotting garbage overflowing from dumpsters. My room in a girls' dorm wasn't too bad--small and bare with hard beds and shared with five other girls, but it was relatively clean and we had air con and hot showers. It wasn't until my last night that I was brutally ravaged by bed bugs which, evidently, I'm allergic to.

But for Jack, it was all a matter of perspective. Since he'd left Taipei--where I met him staying in Taipei Hostel--he had been living in Chungking Mansions, Mirador's equally cheap but exponentially sleazier refuge for backpackers transfixed by the bright lights and shiny skyscrapers and immigrants trying to make a buck in Hong Kong.

Chungking is like a modern-day Silk Road bazaar, only instead of offering silk and spices and tea, the multicultural residents ply mobile phones, SIM cards and the ubiquitous "suit, copy watch, copy bag," for which you're accosted by swarthy men for at least a five-block radius.

The building is a throbbing mass of people--Muslims in white taqiyahs on their way to and from the nearby mosque, Arabs in flowing robes, Africans drinking beer on the street and wafting through, the mouthwatering smells of curry and naan from the Indian food stalls, run by proprietors in polyester leisure suit. It is chaos squared.

I arrived in Hong Kong after a brief, early flight from Taipei. I don't obsessively worry over travel like my mom so when it comes to getting to the airport, I'm usually running obscenely late. Not so this time, when I settled in at my gate nearly a full two hours before my departure time. I hadn't slept much the previous few nights so I was passed out on the plane and again on the bus into Kowloon. I woke up a little disoriented a few stops from the Mansions. I opted to stay there again because I knew it wasn't quite as seedy as Chungking, although just how much had yet to realize. Usually I don't care about staying in mixed dorms--I get along so much better with guys anyway--but its cesspool reputation and my first stay there made me wary.

Garden Hostel doubles as the Kung Fu Hostel, hosting nightly martial arts sessions. every nook and corner was crammed with some type of medieval torture or training device. Two lazy cats guarded the door.

I had to take care of my Chinese visa first. I arrived at the embassy at 7:20, a full 40 minutes before it opened. There was still a line of perhaps 30 people. It took nearly the whole time to fill out the application form which asked for, in addition to all the contact info for my inviters, the names of my family members (all of them?) and all the countries I've been to in the past 12 months and why. Inside, there was a special lane for Universiade VIPs, as there was one going through immigration at the Hong Kong airport, but no one staffing it. I had to wait about 10 minutes with the commoners.

Jack and I took advantage of free museum Wednesdays.The art museum was okay, but the best thing about it was its location at the edge of the harbor overlooking Hong Kong's highrises. On Jack's recommendation, we checked out eh science museum, where he had been twice before. It was overrun with kids, but it did not disappoint. It reminded me of the Museum of Science and Industry, of course, not as good because nothing beats it coal mine, the farm with its chick hatchery, the plane (It's an entire 727! Inside! Suspended from the ceiling!) and the U505 sub.

Hong Kong Science Museum is paradise for adults who are still kids at heart, which both Jack and I are. He directed me through the throngs of children on summer break to all the best exhibits. Nearly an entire floor is devoted to fun fitness tests like balancing, reflex response time, perception and vision. There was a hall of carnival mirrors that twisted and turned and distorted us, brain-teaser puzzles, a taxi-driving simulator and strangely, a section devoted to occupational safety.

Jack, as an official local, was an unofficial tour guide. I didn't need much help navigating the city, but he did lead me to an American Eagle I'd seen advertised (I wasn't impressed by the clothes, but just being there made me happy. AE, like Express and Victoria's Secret, was a standard in my old life.) and he knew all the best nightspots. He's basically a professional drinker, sleeping all day and scouting out the best of Asia's watering holes by night and very early morning. Hong Kong is much more his scene than Taipei.

We went out for Ladies' Night with Rachael, an Aussie staying in my dorm who had the misfortune of booking a room in Chungking online, to Smuggler's where we met on of his friends, Nate, a Milwaukeean(?) who went to Wisconsin (Big Ten Love!) and is working there for Rockwell right now. For girls, ALL well drinks were FREE. And they weren't skimping on the alcohol either. All the drinks were about 60 percent liquor.

It wasn't the booze goggles, but honestly, every guy there was attractive. The foreigners, the Hong Kongnese--they are definitely not Chinese--even the Filipino singer in the band. Seriously, every man in Hong Kong is attractive (outside the Mansions, that is). Why don't I live there?

The band was pretty good, playing all the current top 40 hits plus some dance-floor classics and giving some of us the chance to horribly belt them out on the mic. After they finished, the bar cleared out, and we headed to Carnegie's, which also has a branch in Taipei. I haven't been yet, but it has quite the sleazy reputation and is reportedly home to roving herds of cougars. Rachael and I danced on the bar there. If there is a raised platform, there is no stopping me: I will dance on it, and this one even had a handy-dandy bar for lushes like myself who may take a sloppy tumble off. After a whiskey and testosterone infused brawl, we decided it was about time to go.

We stumbled outside in search of one of Jack's post-bar standards, McDonald's, but cam upon Thai Hut. It was the best Thai food I've had since I've left the Kingdom--and, like the men, I'm not just saying that because I was drunk. My phad kee mao--phet mahk!--was crafted by real, live Thai people, and they didn't insult me by toning down the fire for my farang tongue. Again, why don't I live here?

The food was the best thing about Hong Kong. I didn't eat Cantonese once. I had a burrito that reminded me of Taco Burrito House, a veggie burger with avocado served with a weak booze milkshake, an America-sized slice of pizza that was decent by Asian standards, Chungking Indian food and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream from Ben and Jerry's that was way too expensive, but maybe the only place in Asia to find that overlooked flavor.

(Coming in second in the Best Things About Hong Kong category: H&M. It's expensive by Asian market standards but with better quality and tailoring. I went shopping at two different locations. Again, why don't I live here?)

With all the tall buildings, most people forget Hong Kong is an island and every island, no matter how developed, has beaches. We spent two days there, first at Stanley then Deep Water Bay. The water at Stanley was a little dirty, but they were both decent beaches, perfect for lazing around post-night out.

We went bar crawling the next night. Iowa City, with its T-shirts and bar crawl cups (pre-2009) and any- occasion-is-fitting-for-a-bar-crawl mentality, it was not. But there was a free shot waiting at each bar plus drink specials, so by the third bar (really the second for us since we came with about five minutes left at the first), I was pretty tanked. A group of guys set it up and they hold it weekly, mostly for tourists but also for the odd local.

I spent my last night in, catching up on sleep and detoxing before meeting up with all the news service alcoholics in Shenzhen. I had gotten a few bites in the previous nights, but they were enormous--much too big to be bedbugs. But that final night I could feel them feasting on me. I stripped off my clothes, got new sheets and changed beds. That one was even harder, with one thin mattress pad instead of two, and right in front of the icy air conditioner. I finally slept with metal bars digging into my hips and the neon lights from outside streaming in through the shower curtain pulled across the window.

H&M, It's Been Far Too Long

2011-08-04T11:28:00.000+07:00

I Read a Whole Sign!

2011-08-03T20:37:00.000+07:00

Dong Ya Riben Yu - South Asian Japanese Language

Spotted: Hong Kong

2011-08-03T17:26:00.000+07:00

I wish I had some duct tape for an impromptu game of Boone's Farm 40 Hands.

In Heaven There is no Beer...

2011-08-03T17:21:00.000+07:00

That's why we drink it here.

My Official Job Description, at least the English Version

2011-08-02T23:37:00.000+07:00

Back to China--Again

2011-07-31T18:14:00.000+07:00

I've put in three solid months of work here in Taipei. I think it's about time to hit the road again, don't you? All this work is cramping my wandering ways. Must... get... on... a... plane... bus... train... whatever. And again, I'm heading back to the Middle Kingdom, a place I seemingly can't escape, one so entwined with my existence that I sometimes wonder if we're soulmates. Am I meant to live there ensconced in the permanent smog, the spitting, the censorship?

In June 2008, I boarded a plane to China for a summer that would change the course of my life. It was an epic trip--twenty Iowa students let loose on the streets of Beijing for one of the world's biggest parties.

The athletes; the Great Wall; the student watering holes in student ghetto Wudaokou--Lush, Pyros, and Propaganda; Sanlitun bar district; front row for Usain Bolt's record-setting 100-meter win; Shanghai's Bund; hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge; baijiu and the utter cheapness of life...

What wasn't to love? I was hooked on the idea of more traveling. There was a great big world out there; I hadn't seen enough. Then Anna Frisk, an indefatigable traveler herself, planted the seed in my mind of teaching abroad. You can do that? I remember wondering. And I did.

After a year and-a-half of teaching in Bangkok, I had the opportunity to return to China. Guangzhou was hosting the Asian Games, and I was offered a position as a sub-editor. After the Games I traveled around the country from the shiny high rises of Hong Kong (which may or may not be a part of the mainland, depending on your perspective) to the barren plains of Tibet.

Just months after arriving in Taiwan (or Chinese Taipei, according to the news services' official style guide), I'm again on my way to the mainland. This time, it's the Universiade, the university Olympic Games, held just over the border from Hong Kong in Shenzhen, a Special Economic Zone boomtown set up in the late 1970s to promote overseas investment.

I'll be in Shenzhen for about three weeks working for the games' news service. Originally they had me editing, but I wanted out of the hole of the Central Editing office. So now I'll be a nomad, a roving reporter moved around to different sports as I'm needed.

Why did these games have to happen now? I've just moved to Taipei; it's too early for a fresh start. They would have flown me home, back to Thailand or anywhere my wander-lusting heart desires. I'm not overly impressed with Taiwan thus-far, but I'm not ready to give up on the country just yet.

The Stinkiest of Tofus

2011-07-27T22:54:00.000+07:00

Anyone who's traveled around China knows the smell: dirty gym socks and blue cheese marinated in vinegar and garbage rotting in midday sun. It's like a punch in the face, nearly knocking you backwards.

It's stinky tofu--chou doufu--of course. The name apt to describe one of the most foul-smelling foods you'll ever come across--fermented tofu, lightly deep fried, with a smell so thick and powerful you can gag on it as it envelops you.

But people here in Taiwan love the stuff. It's basically their national dish. Supposedly it's better here than in other places, but in order to try it, you have to get past that stench.

Jack, who lived in the hostel with me for my first few weeks in Taipei, tried it right before he left for Hong Kong. (He says Taipei doesn't have a drinking culture. He spent nearly every night pounding a case of beer and chatting with his friends on Facebook on the couch in the common area.) It was part of his Taiwan bucket list--something he absolutely had to check off before he left. And he left it for the last possible night.

He picked up some stinky tofu from a street vendor in Shilin on our way to the National Taiwan Science Education Center to see Body Worlds (It was closed, but I've seen it since. And you can also check it out right now at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago).

We pulled some stools up to a folding table surrounded by Taiwanese munching on chou doufu. "It doesn't taste as bad as it smells," he said after a few mouthfuls of steaming tofu, "but that isn't saying much."

Jack remained democratic while eating almost the entire serving--"Well, I wouldn't eat it every day"--but once he was done, the relief--and his true feelings--came out.

"I'm glad that's over and I don't have to do that again."

Jack is braver than I am. In two years in Thailand, I never had the courage to eat durian. Even though my students and even some other foreigners have told me that it's delicious, I can't bring myself to try it. I love tofu, but that smell is too much. I've put it on my own Taiwan bucket list, but without a foreseeable departure date, the day I finally try chou doufu could be far off.

2011-07-25T17:39:00.000+07:00

Tyler, one of my roommates did indeed move out after talking abstractly about it for a couple months. Although I wanted it and I had already been promised it, the room went to Angie, who used to have it. I was fed up with my bed, a brick that was too small. All night every night, I tossed and turned, flailing my arms into the wall as I searched for an elusive position that was comfortable. So gave up my window and took Angie's former room, the cave. It's a window-less black hole where time doesn't just pass--it's lost. You go to sleep at night and when you wake up, it could be morning, the next night or three days later. You'd never know.

But the bathroom is an upgrade. Finally, a real shower!

Don't Mess With Taiwanese Food

2011-07-24T22:51:00.000+07:00

Those bullies at CNNGo.com are at it again. Those uncultured bloggers first tabbed Taipei as a city of gluttony, then they moved on to label century eggs as disgusting. Now, they've left Taiwan's cuisine off the list of best foods in the world.

And man, the Taiwanese are pissed.

Sure, it's an Asian travel site with user-generated content. Yes, the lists on the site are purely subjective and unscientific. Doesn't matter to people here, who are insanely proud of their food and who, for most of their history, have been marginalized by much of the world who bow in the face of mainland China. Food is one thing that no one can take away from Taiwan. Go ahead, sever diplomatic ties, kowtow to China, but they've still got pearl milk tea and xiao long bao.

In April, the site listed Taipei as one of "Asia's Most Sinful Cities". Cities were named after one of the seven deadly sins; Taipei was crowned the capital of gluttony. It's not far off. As the article points out, "Taipei sports 18 streets dedicated to nothing other than food." Social life revolves around eating (This is one of the reasons cited by a coworker as to why, as a vegetarian, I will never have any friends, I'll never marry and I'll never be successful in life, the ultimate trifecta in failure). No activity is complete without food. Anytime I go somewhere new, the inevitable follow-up question is, How was the food?

In any other place, perhaps, this would only be a blip. But the media converged on the story like a pack of hungry Taiwanese at a night market and--this is only an assumption--goaded politicians into making a comment on it.“I can’t stand the idea that we are described as gluttonous," Kuomintang legislator Kuo Su-chun said. "Saying that Taipei is a city of gluttony is definitely not praise for its delicacies.”

Government Information Office Minister Philip Yang said he would send a letter to the site to clarify Taiwan's stance on the word.

“We understand the media’s need for interesting and provocative articles, but gluttony, the word … is indecent and it has a negative connotation," he said.

It came up in one of my classes and my students agreed--gluttony is a loaded word. "We just like delicious food," said Jacky, an engineer.

Then a couple weeks ago, CNN Go compiled a list of the most "revolting" foods. Century eggs--or pi dan--chewy, jelly-like preserved eggs that have turned black, came in at No. 1, although the foods weren't ranked in any particular order. Chinese people went apeshit to the point that CNN issued a statement in response saying, the foods weren't in any order, it was some one's opinion--as we're all entitled to have--and they didn't mean to offend anyone.

Tien Chiu-chin, a Democratic Progressive Party legislator questioned the culinary balls of the West, saying people "should be 'more courageous and willing to try new things.'

'Americans are chicken-hearted,' she said. 'If they try the dish, they will love it as I do.'"

And now the latest slight: leaving Taiwan off the clearly scientific list of the "World's 50 Best Foods". Stinky tofu which, depending on your point of view could be on the best or most revolting foods list, came in at No. 41 but was mis-attributed to all of Southeast Asia.

“What we have seen on the list are ice cream, donuts and potato chips — junk food probably favored by CNN reporters,” said the Broadcasting Corporation of China, a Taipei-based radio station.

Food can be a sensitive subject here: Two bloggers were recently charged with defamation after posting negative restaurant reviews online.

Thailand snagged the top spot in the CNN Go poll with Massaman curry. While that's not my favorite Thai dish, I can't complain about the country bringing home the top spot. Thai food > all.

Bulls Win!

2011-07-23T17:26:00.000+07:00

Babysitting

2011-07-20T15:45:00.000+07:00

Schools in Taipei have closed their doors for the summer, and Kojen has opened ours to the kids on vacation. Yes, I know what you're thinking, we're an adult language center. No, we don't have any materials whatsoever to teach children, especially ones with virtually no English skills already. And no, that doesn't seem to matter to management.

And more just keep coming.

The worst ones are burnouts, with little motivation or interest, that their parents don't want to deal with. I'd rather not either, but I've, in effect, become a babysitter in the afternoons to bratty, sullen, temperamental teenagers who'd rather be at home playing computer games.

Matt, our foreign boss, has fortunately shouldered a lot of the responsibility. He takes an almost sadistic enjoyment out of going over the textbook, a book with few pictures written for adults about business English, line by line. The kids don't even know what a spreadsheet is in Chinese. How are they supposed to learn it in English? And what do they have in common when they're mixed in with adults?

Their parents tell them to go study English and not come back. So these kids come to class every day for at least three hours at a time, usually. Sometimes they're here for five or six hours a day. Every day.

But seriously, don't these kids have any friends?

At that age, if I were them, and my parents told me to go to English class, sure I would go some days. But most of the time, I'd take that lunch money they gave me and go to the movies, go shopping, go the park, go wherever that's not school. It's summer vacation. They can camp out at their friends' houses all day, but don't.

That's part of the Taiwanese mentality: Parents make their kids go to school all day, every day to gain a competitive advantage. After school is cram school for English or math or music lessons so that, I've been told, their parents can show off to their friends. The kids are the entertainment at any gathering. Can your kid play Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 23? Mine can. It's keeping up with the Joneses using children as pawns.

And these kids are missing out on their childhoods. I saw it in Thailand--although acted out differently--and I see it here, too. The kids with no social skills become adults with no social skills. And in the meantime, I'm stuck with them.

This is not what I signed up for.

2011-07-15T18:22:00.000+07:00

I felt--and survived--my first earthquake on Tuesday night, a magnitude 5.4 temblor that originated in Hualien County, right in the middle of the island's east coast. I was sitting at work reading The New York Times online. It was almost imperceptible, the slight wobbling of the building, magnified because of my location on the tenth floor. It swayed back and forth a few times then all was still.

I turned to my co-worker Jarred sitting a few feet away. "Was that an earthquake?"

"Yeah."

"YES! That was my first earthquake!"

Many earthquakes hit Taiwan every day, most too small to be felt. But since I've been here there have been a few that have topped five on the Richter scale. Somehow--either I was on the MRT or walking around or sleeping--I missed them. Even other people in my office couldn't feel it.

I was waiting for that day for so long--for some slight movement in the Earth's crust, an aberration of plate grinding hard enough against plate. Nothing big, nothing scary. I didn't want chunks of plaster and brick raining down upon me or falling buildings or tsunamis. I just wanted a little shake-up.

One of my bosses from the Asian Games, Darryl, lives in Japan. He posted this on my Facebook: "The best earthquakes are the ones that let you look forward to the next one."

Anti China

2011-07-11T13:51:00.000+07:00

Although claimed as part of the mainland by the People's Republic of China, Taiwan (a.k.a. the Republic of China) is the Anti-China. When the KMT retreated across the Taiwan Strait from the advancing Red Army, they brought order, politeness and social graces with them to Formosa--as well as pockets stuffed with countless ancient Chinese treasures, now housed at the National Palace Museum.

Comparing the two is like comparing apples to, well, a crate of apples that fell off the truck on their way to market, tumbled down the side of a mountain and were run over by another vehicle. Add a little Cultural Revolution here, a dash of a Hundred Flowers Campaign and a sprig of Great Leap Forward and all you have left are brown mushy blobs.

In Taiwan, people are considerate of others. There are clearly-marked queue lines to get on the subway, and people wait patiently in them. On escalators, people automatically move to the right to stand, allowing those who'd prefer to walk a lane to reach the top faster. Cars and motorbikes follow the rules of the road. Pedestrians rarely jaywalk; I always feel like I'm getting dirty looks when I cross against a light.

Taiwanese haven't grown up in an overcrowded country where even simply walking down the street can be a full-contact sport. No melees at the cashier that look like the inside of a rugby scrum. Buying something doesn't generally involve elbows and nails and the pulling of hair.

The city is super clean, too. On the MRT and in the stations, not only is eating, drinking and chewing betel not allowed, but also gum-chewing is forbidden--and they're serious. A woman in my hostel was issued a warning ticket for chewing gum in Taipei Main Station. The fine, should she be caught again, is NT$7,500 (about $225 US). There are garbage bins that people use. Recycling, too. There's no hacking and spitting or toddlers in split pants shitting on the street. There are definitely fewer cigarette butts on the street--I think there are fewer smokers here--but, like in the rest of the world, they are the worst litter offenders.

There's a general sense of courtesy for others. "Please send a text message instead of making phone calls," encourages ads in subway stations."Create a comfortable atmosphere on Taipei Metro." On some bus routes--and I've been on a bus already a few times--the drivers say Xie xie to every single passenger when they get off. All day. Cab drivers wear sweater vests and ties.

In short, completely different from the mainland, two distinct peoples who diverged at one point and aren't likely to meet again.

Happy Lady Gaga Day!

2011-07-04T21:27:00.000+07:00

...as proclaimed by Taichung mayor Jason Hu to celebrate the superstar's first trip to Taiwan. He presented her with a key to the city and tonight, she'll perform for a select group of "Born This Way" album owners who waited hours for the chance to see her mini-concert.

Yesterday, she did yoga at a studio in my hood that I've been to. Lady Gaga and I! Working out at the same yoga studio! But I never look as fabulous as this. (Although it has a good reputation, I did not like Pure Yoga. I don't think the teacher even attempted one pose, and he had man boobs. But they did have conditioner in the bathroom.)

Driving, Taipei Style

2011-06-26T19:50:00.000+07:00

Work = Easy

2011-06-25T12:23:00.000+07:00

It's been an embarrassingly long time since I've updated but in Taipei, for the locals and me alike, it's all work and little play--and frequently that play lasts into the wee hours of the morning and I end up spending half a day in bed. So I've been a little lazy posting.

I got to Taipei mid-semester, so it was a little hard to find a job at first. Everyone wanted me to start in August. I had an offer to teach adults from a guy who also went to Iowa. I accepted, after some hesitation about teaching adults who I thought wouldn't be any fun, but then after a twist of fate, I ended up working with adults at another language school.

Kojen is one of the bigger chain language schools in Taiwan. It has a hit-or-miss reputation, as many buxibans here do. Another teacher saw my resume on a job board and told the manager to contact me. When he called me, I was footsteps from their front door looking at some shoes while on my way to the MRT. Immediately, they offered me a full-time job with guaranteed hours.

Adult classes are the Holy Grail of teaching here. There aren't any discipline issues, there's less prep work and very little grading. I don't have to yell at any of my students just to get them to sit down, and I don't have to do a song-and-dance for their learning entertainment.

And at Kojen, I really don't have to do anything. I don't have to prep. Most of the time I don't even follow a lesson. I just walk into class, start a conversation and the class just flows. I'm basically being paid to talk to someone. We talk about their love life, movies, FOOD (In Taiwan, everything always comes back to food.) and Taiwan in general. I can pick their brains about the country. Where can I get some good Thai food? Why does this creepy, crazy Taiwanese guy keep calling me? How do you say 'passionfruit tea' in Chinese? Where is the best beach in Taiwan? I learn just as much as they do.

Most students just drop in for class, so I have to keep office hours from 1:45 to 9:30 with an hour and-a-half break for dinner six days a week. When it's dead, it can be pretty boring, and those hours really cut into my social life. Sure, I can sleep late in the mornings, but I'm rarely home when my roommates are and I've lost a whole day out of my weekend.

It's cake, a dream job for a slacker. But the pay could be better, and I need another day off. It's okay for now, since the semester doesn't yet start for another couple months, but I'm not sure how long I'll stick around, full-time at least.

Home!

2011-06-21T22:11:00.000+07:00

The long-awaited glimpse at my new pad.

My bed is too small...

and my bathroom is underwhelming...

but the balcony really sold the place.

The view

And we have our own washer and dryer! My lifelong dream has come true.

And there's a kitchen, for those who are so inclined or talented to cook. I am not one of these people. After two years without cooking facilities, I have even less of an idea of what to do in here.

I was living with three American guys at first--Kurt, Justin and Tyler. Justin has already moved out because his room, a window-less cave was aggrivating his asthma. Now Angie, their former roommate has moved back in. She was basically living here on the weekends anyway. She's Chinese, but grew up in Botswana. She was staying with her extended family to work on her language skills, but that's way lamer than living here. Tyler may move--he's mentioned it, but who's to say for sure--and in that case, I have dibs on his room with a big bed. I need some rolling-around space!

I'm just a few minutes from the MRT, and I'm one stop away from work. I can walk there in about 15-20 minutes unless I'm running late or it's insanely hot (I have to walk at the hottest time of the day, but Taipei Hot still doesn't compare to Bangkok Hot).

It's not always this clean, of course. I took these a day after the maid came. That's right, I said it. I have a maid. Do you have a maid? I'm so bourgeois.

Ghost Town

2011-05-19T17:58:00.000+07:00

At 2 p.m. yesterday, Taipei shut down. There were no people on the street, no cars and no trains. An eerie hush fell over the city for the 30-minute air raid drill, or wan-an, "safety for everyone".

I watched it all from my school on the 10th floor of a high rise at a bustling intersection in downtown Taipei. Occasionally a police car drove down vacated Zhongxiao East Road, an eight-lane boulevard that cuts through a major shopping district where high-end retailers (Rolex, Omega) mingle with mom-and-pop stalls and not one, but two SOGO Department Stores. A few reporters filmed the empty streets.

It was like a post-apocalyptic movie.

Every year, the island organizes the drill in preparation for the day if--or when--Beijing decides to attack, to take back territory that it sees as belonging to mother China. In recent years the two countries have become closer, with direct flights and ships between the two. China sent Taiwan two pandas in 2008. A recent Wikileaks document revealed that Panama, one of the few nations that formally recognize the government of Taiwan, wanted to switch its political allegiance to Beijing, only to be rejected by the mainland because it didn't want to hurt its warming relationship with Taiwan.

Mistrust of mainland China runs deep. Taiwanese fear the two countries' growing ties. Today's demonstration shows just how fearful the Taiwanese are of unpredictable, nationalistic China (who, right now, is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the "peaceful liberation of Tibet"), just 180 kilometers away.

2011-05-19T09:31:00.000+07:00

Tonight I taught one of my students the word "fugly". I love teaching adults.

Apocalypse Tomorrow?

2011-05-11T10:18:00.000+07:00

Taiwan may or may not be devastated by a magnitude 14 earthquake and the ensuing tsunami tomorrow, depending if you believe Teacher Wang, a blogger masquerading as a psychic. Based on his interpretation of the Book of Changes, the I Ching, Wang has decoded that the "super" quake will hit at 10:42 a.m.

Buildings, including Taipei 101, formerly the world's tallest, will topple, millions will die and the island will be split in two.

He has encouraged people to take refuge in shipping containers set up in the mountains of Central Taiwan, where more than 100 were built in Puli.

Will we survive the next 24 hours? I hope so, since I'm moving into my new apartment. Stay tuned.

Unemployment Ends--Finally

2011-05-10T13:34:00.000+07:00

Today was my first (half) day of work (so I could still go climbing tonight). I'll get into the details later, but I was paid to sit in the office for three-plus hours. There were no students. I checked my email, read up on the news and read my book. This job is going to be pretty sweet.

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

2011-05-07T21:34:00.000+07:00

New Country, New Language, New Job, New Blog

2011-05-03T12:52:00.007+07:00

I've moved!--to Taipei--and my blog has too.

Across the Strait

Dateline Bangkok has officially been retired. Be sure to check out my Bangkok photos for the updated, full two years of cherishing Thai-ness.

UPDATED: Or not. All this moving that I'm prone to do is too hard to just change blogs all the time. The city will change, but the blog will remain the same.

Chok Dii, Muang Thai

2011-05-02T15:34:00.004+07:00

Things I'll Miss About Thailand

1. The FOOD!
Stir-fried veggies; fried noodles; fried rice; various deep-fried street foods--bananas, sweet potatoes, bean-paste sesame balls, spring rolls; ponlamai, fresh and cut for 10 baht; BTS waffles; fruit shakes of any variety; steamed corn and sweet potatoes; som tam loaded with peanuts; banana roti; spicy food that sets your lips on fire and the availability of it all on the street. It's cheap, too, so there's never a need to cook.

2. Never Being too Far from a Beach
Though I prefer the South, the ocean is only a few hours away and easily weekendable at Koh Samet to the east and Hua Hin to the south. Pattaya is only about 40 minutes but other than undesirable old men and the Russian mafia, who goes there?

3. Platinum Fashion Mall
Six stories of trendy, wholesale clothes, jewelery and shoes. The young and hip shop here. The selection is better than at Jatujak and it has air-con. Also, if you discover a stall, odds are you'll be able to find it again eventually.

4. Buckets
The ultimate in cheap, binge drinking--a small bottle of the liquor of your choice--Thai whiskey is the cheapest--in a sand pail of Coke and Red Bull. It's every backpacker's ticket to blackout, a lethal combination of booze intended to cripple.

5. The Ease of Life
I can speak and read some Thai. I can get around the city easily--although some parts of the sprawling mass of Bangkok are still a mystery. I understand the culture pretty well. I'm very comfortable, and once I go to Taipei, everything starts all over again. I'm back to being a toddler in a strange land.

6. The Language
Once you can get past the tones, Thai is an obscenely simple language. It's extremely literal. Sometimes describing something is the word itself: orange juice is "orange water" (som nam), vendor is "person who sells" (khon khaay), dentist is "teeth doctor" (mor fan), etc. Thai also relies heavily on English. Die, office, apartment, party, care, free and motorcycle have all been integrated into Thai. Plus, there's an alphabet.

7. Motorbike Taxis
The ubiquitous polyster vests lounging on every street corner will take you wherever you want to go. In Bangkok traffic, they're usually the fastest option as they zig, zap, drive against traffic and generally ignore every road rule, throwing caution to the wind to get you to your destination quickly.

Things I Won't Miss About Thailand

1. Always Being a Farang
To Thais, no matter how long I would stay, I would always be an outsider. They would still answer my Thai with English or not understand because they don't expect to hear their language coming out of the mouth of a white girl. I'd always have to pay the foreigner price, sometimes, depending on who and what they were selling, three times what they'd charge a Thai. And they lump us all together, all the same--and usually pretty dumb at that. All farangs are tourists and can't eat spicy food and want a bucket and want to watch a ping-pong show before the men go home with hookers, who may or may not end up as a LTW. As teachers, we're not very respected. "Put your clown shoes on," said Peter, one of my coworkers at St. Joseph's, before classes. We were expected to put on a show.

2. Thai People Who Don't Listen
Arai waa? I invested a lot of time and money into learning some semblance of Thai. Thais expect you to speak English, so they speak and listen in English--and even the ones who can't will go get someone to help them tell me, Sorry she can't speak English. "I'm not speaking English!"It's been verified by independent Thais in an unscientific poll that I can speak Thai both well and clearly. It's especially rough on the tourist trail. They're not appreciative that you've learned any of their language, they just reply to you in English. And then there's the opposite end of the spectrum. I can speak some, so I must be fluent, right? And they launch into a spiel at full speed like they're talking to their best friend. Even Jes would do this. "Slow down," I would tell him over and over again, but he never listened.

3. The Inescapable Heat
Even when it's not too hot, it's still hot. And you still sweat. If you seek refuge in any enclosed public space (mall, theater, bus), those are over-air conditioned. After a while inside, you'd rather be back outside.

4. The Mind-Numbing Bureaucracy
Everything, even the most basic act, is an elongated process that involves unnecessary steps. Want to do any type of banking? Go only to the branch where you opened your account. Fill out lesson plans that repeatedly ask you for the same information, just in different ways, like in a police interrogation. How do you plan to teach the present perfect? Are you sure?

5. Cheating My Students out of an Education
Thailand's policy of every student passing as an asinine measure in saving face ensures that they won't fail in school, but they'll probably fail in life. They don't learn because they don't have to. Quick--name a great Thai artist, scientist or thinker. Stumped? The King is my best answer. He's an accomplished jazz musician who has performed with jazz legends. He composed the national anthem, to be enjoyed by all twice a day. He also holds a few patents--but then again, he was educated internationally. He somehow managed to keep Thailand from becoming a colony when England and France were carving up territory for themselves at every border--but he did sign a non-agression pact with Japan during World War II. It allowed the Japanese to occupy the country, saving countless Thai lives, but effectively allowing them to continue their egomaniacal quest to dominate Asia on Thai soil. It's not to say that I didn't have a number of intellignet, gifted students. They truly made my job worth it. But in the future, what motivation will they have to continue to excel when they can't fail?

6. A Certain Gym Guy
'Nuff said.

The good definitely outweighs the bad. I love you, Thailand. Rak khun, Muang Thai. Chok dii. Ja khitung mahk mahk!

Why Taipei?

2011-05-02T11:26:00.000+07:00

I had heard good things about teaching there. I've always liked Chinese culture, but I don't like or trust the Chinese government. The expat culture in Taipei was supposed to be good, the pay definitely better and with most of the jobs at language centers, the hours seemed to suit my lifestyle--sleeping late and working in the evenings.

But the real answer, much like for Thailand, had to do with the weather. I wanted to stay someplace warm. I needed to stay someplace warm. I was pathetic in the onslaught of a Beijing winter. I needed to stay as close to the tropics as I could.

I looked into going to Korea, to Jeju Island in the south, dubbed "Korea's Hawaii." I think basically anyone can land a job in Korea, no questions asked. Schools were interested, but there was a huge catch. I needed to go to the Korean embassy in America and whatnot to get my visa. There was no way I was flying 10,000 miles home just for a visa run.

Schools in other parts of Taiwan wanted to hire me, but I was hell-bent on Taipei, the big city life within easy reach of hiking, climbing and beaches. So I ended up in the capital without a job in the middle of the semester, staying in a hostel.

It was a split-second decision to move without already having a job lined up but once I made it, frustrated by my lack of progress late one night, I bought a plane ticket and went to the embassy the next morning.

It was time to leave the Big Mango, and that's a choice I don't regret.

Songkran from the Sky

2011-05-02T09:14:00.000+07:00

Songkran: The Final Chapter

2011-05-01T21:14:00.001+07:00

Post-Songkran was the best time for me to leave Thailand. It was four days of water fights on Khao San Road for the Thai New Year that left me feeling like I'd come full circle.

Songkran in 2009 was my first time on Khao San, the tourist ghetto of Bangkok. It's most foreigners' first--and sometimes only--impression of the city. I, as a new teacher, lived in the dirty south in Yannawa, beyond the scope of most tourist maps. What is this mythical Khao San? I had no idea. I didn't yet know there were Thais beyond the administration at my school who spoke English and restaurants where you could eat falafels and vegetarian food and used English book stores.

It was a subdued new year's celebration due to the ongoing red-shirt protest a few blocks away at Democracy Monument. I was blackout drunk by the time Vinnie, Andrea and I took a cab from TIT Tower with a farang guy and his LTW who also lived there. We saw a bus that had been set on fire at the monument roundabout.

I lost a contact and my water gun and broke my phone and camera. I remember my eyes burning from all the water and freezing once the sun set. "We can't guarantee your safety," someone told us as they asked us to leave. We moved onto Silom, where the road was closed and people danced on fire trucks under the BTS tracks.

Last year's Songkran was also marred by the red shirts as they laid siege to the city. This year's was the first true Songkran in three turbulent years.

This time, I was staying on Khao San, firmly entrenched on the tourist trail, as I have been for months. This time, I was the seasoned Thailand sage. Friends wanted me to go to Koh Tao and Chiang Mai, but I had unfinished business with Phi Phi Alex, who I finally met up with after a month. He had gone to Malaysia on a visa run from Phi Phi and had promised to meet me in Ton Sai to do some climbing. He spent a few days in Penang before he realized that he needed to get to Koh Phangan for the Full Moon Party, roughly his 20th. I, a little bored in Ton Sai, wasn't too happy about that and I made my way south to Malaysia. I returned to Krabi, but he was stranded on KPN by a nasty eye infection and weather that shut down the ferries and flooded the roads.

Meeting for Songkran in Bangkok was our last chance. I was moving to Taipei right after the party ended. It was worth it. He was... special, the kind of guy who doesn't pop up very often. The real shame was that we didn't have enough time with each other, but the fates had conspired to keep us apart. Why are men like that so fleetingly temporary in my life?

Songkran, depending on your perspective, is either the best of worst time to be in Thailand, a drunken hedonistic Spring Break when, like on Halloween, Thai girls can dress as slutty as they want for the unofficial wet T-shirt contest.

We spent four days in battled armed with large Super Soakers, preying on foreigners--especially sexpats--dry people, people who'd taken the time to style their hair and anyone who looked like they didn't want to get wet. Those people are the best targets--new arrivals with luggage and misers who cursed at you for shooting them. Don't come to Thailand--or don't leave your hotel--if you don't want to get wet during Songkran. And don't think a phone or camera will save you. No one cares if your phone gets wet. We've all been there. Many times. (I learned my lesson and kept my electronics inside a waterproof case, not just a fallible Ziploc bag.)

Alex is an amazing shot. He grew up target shooting and spent time in the Air Force. He could easily shoot anyone within range in the face (because that's where everyone is aiming).

The water fight is supposed to give respite from the muggy heat at the start of the rainy season. Not so. I don't know if it was unseasonably cool, but the wet nights were frigid. Even in the afternoon after a few hours of warfare, Alex, his friend James from England and I would double back to the hotel--a crawl through the sea of bodies packed from curb to curb--and huddle together under the hot shower. We had splurged for a place with a hot shower and a pool. Those 20-minute showers saved us. (Sorry, Planet Earth.) Some nights the pool was warmer than being outside.

The water fight, for Thai men, is like a mating ritual. They single out girls, especially foreigners, who they find attractive and shoot them in the face or give them a TSA-esque rubdown with clay. I was groped twice. It's getting pretty old. The first time I was walking and a Thai guy who was with another girl grabbed my ass. "Was that you?" I asked Alex, who was behind me.

"What?" He was confused.

The second time it was a foreigner who slapped my ass. I pushed him and cursed him out mightily, but I should have rifle-whipped him with my Super Soaker.

I saved my drinking for the last night, my final night in Bangkok, the last buckets I'd have in the Land of Smile. I felt sad to leave, but it felt right, like it was meant to be. I had learned a lot in the past two years; I was a completely new person, wiser with age and experience, but still a reckless pseudo-adult at heart. Will I grow up in Taipei? We'll see.

Suk san wan Songkran!

2011-04-30T23:25:00.000+07:00

In case you've missed any of the past two years of my Bangkok shenangians, A.) Shame on you and B.) Check out my other blog, Dateline Bangkok.

It Wouldn't be Songkran Without the Red Shirts

2011-04-27T12:32:00.001+07:00

Prai -- Slave

Khrai khaa?-- Who killed them?

Khaa takawn! Thorarat khaa brachachon.-- Murderer! The tyrant killed his citizens.

Krabi Motorcycle Diaries

2011-04-24T11:58:00.003+07:00

Locals in Southern Thailand all agreed: "It shouldn't be like this right now." At the end of March it wasn't yet the rainy season, yet that part of the country had been inundated with an unseasonable amount of rain that would not let up.

Fifty-three people died in two weeks of heavy rains. Tourists on the islands had to be evacuated by the Thai navy. The flooding was worse on Thailand's east coast, in Suratthani, Nakhon Si Thammarat and Koh Samui, but I was also stranded in the west, in Krabi.

Igor and I huddled under my sarong on the ferry from Langkawi to Satun. What is with the over-air conditioning on public transportation and in malls in Asia?

We went through immigration where a man cornered us and told us he had the only bus to Krabi/Phuket. He wanted 650 baht to Krabi, where I was going. I laughed in his face. We took a songthaew to the public bus station. I paid 221 baht and Igor about 350 to go to Phuket.

It rained the entire way north. The bus station in Krabi was flooded. I had to wade through ankle-deep puddles to the songthaew. The rain continued all night.

I took advantage of the clear skies the next morning to go for a five-mile run. When I came back, air was the only thing coming from the tap. Didn't we get enough rain? There was absolutely no water in Krabi. We were without running water for 24 hours.

Dirty and smelly, I set out to do what I came to Krabi town to do. I've been through the province many times to my way to various islands, but I've never spent any time there to actually admire the scenery.

It was a perfect day for a motorbike ride thought the country. After my successful ride in Laos, I felt pretty confident taking a bike for the day.

I was a little nervous driving in the traffic of the city at first. I've never driven around many other cars. But I got out onto the highway north toward Phang Nga and I just cruised.

I was a distracted driver, gazing at the limestone karsts and reading signs in Thai. I stopped frequently along the side of the road to take photos. I took a random dirt path that looked like it ran right into a karst. It led to another road, which took me past a small village and to a cave with a swimming hole.

Some local kids were swimming. "You. You. What's your name?"

I told them, but they preferred to call me You!

"You! Tai luup." Take a picture.

I snapped a few shots of the girls.

"Fuck you." The boy was about 10. Where do they learn that so early?

"Yaa phut. Mii marayat na," I said to him. Don't say that. Have some manners.

The kids led me into the cave and pointed out the stalactites. Suay, suay. Beautiful.

"Yed mae." Fuck your mother. Thai people are not supposed to swear ever, although I think that rule is waived when it comes to playing video games. Of course I know all those words, but I only use them when I'm out-of-control drunk when Thai people find me cute and charming.

"Mii faen ru yang?" one of the older boys asked me.

You're a little young for me.

"Mii marayat," one of the girls said.

We said our "Bye-Bye!"s, and one of the boys chucked stones lovingly at me while I walked away. One hit me in the arm.

"Arai waa?" I turned around. "Phor laew." That's enough.

I got back on the bike and continued riding. Every bend revealed more awe-inspiring scenery. I finally turned back at Ao Luk, about 40 slow kilometers from Krabi.

I took a random turn toward Ao Pranang. Another turnoff came, but I continued straight. I liked that road too much. After winding around and following random signs, I was back on the track towards Pranang. It led to Nopporatthara Beach near Ao Nang. My butt ached.

It was low tide at the beach. I could wade out to the karsts. It was raining out over the sea. I could see it coming towards shore. I got back on the bike and headed back towards Krabi. The drizzle gradually increased, but it was never a driving rain. I would not have liked driving in that weather. I followed the signs back to town but it was a different way from which I came. I didn't know where I was. I drove perfectly until the very end when I made a right turn into oncoming traffic. No matter how much nurture I have in driving on the left side of the road, it's still my nature to drive on the right. But no one takes much notice in Thailand where motorbike drivers regularly drive the wrong way down streets and flaunt every rule of the road.

I did a couple small loops in the city before finding myself on the map and also realizing I had been just behind the guesthouse previously. I did spot a vegetarian point-and-eat restaurant nearby which I remembered from my discarded Lonely Planet, only I didn't know where it was.

We still had no water. I got a much-needed haircut just to get my hair washed.

I had lost my umbrella in Ubud (not my fault) and every trip outside involved getting wet. I had my rain jacket, but my entire lower body would end up wet. I couldn't break down and buy a shitty umbrella because I knew it would break in three uses. I went for vegetarian food--totally worth getting wet for--and spent the rest of the day inside watching the downpour outside.

The next day was same-same, no different. I had vegetarian food, then sat inside all day reading and writing. Then the electricity went out.

"Not the power," moaned Bryan, the owner of the guesthouse. "That's the only thing that's working."

It came back on after 30 minutes or so when we started watching The Big Lebowski, only to go out again for hours. The other side of the city, just a block away, had power so I went over there. I had no sooner sat down at a computer that it went off and came back on the other side of town.

Finally, the next day, we had no rain. I woke up for a run, turned on the tap to brush my teeth, but nothing came out. You've got to be kidding me.

I went downstairs. "Are the buses running?" I asked the woman at the desk.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere but here."

I ran, showered with a bottle of water (Do you know how hard that is?) and hopped a bus to Bangkok, where we drove through standing water past homes submerged in the flood waters. I wanted to be as far from Southern Thailand as I could get.

Rainy Langkawi

2011-04-23T22:40:00.000+07:00

Langkawi was a beautiful island, an unspoiled slice of paradise off the west coast of Malaysia. Unfortunately, I spent most days stranded indoors, taking shelter from the monsoon rains that drenched the island.

When the skies finally cleared, the island looked so much different. I never knew that was a restaurant... In the rain, I walked quickly with my head down, dodging puddles. I had to wait for my final day to finally get some sun and to see the main strip in the light of day.

I was up before the sun in Georgetown to catch the ferry north to Langkawi. Once I arrived, I only had time for a short walk to get some food before the rain started. Almost all of the residents of the Gecko Guesthouse where I was staying camped out in the common area, casually watching episodes of Britain's Next Top Model (America's is much better) and You've Got to Dance, a UK dance competition. The monsoon lasted all night. There was a brief lull during which I went to eat with Kim and Bernard, but it started up again while we were at the restaurant.We went to a bar but I was in a fatigue daze and went home. "Tomorrow night, I promise," I told them. Some girls were drinking in the dorm, but they didn't even bother me.

I wasted the clear skies the next morning by going for a run. I was only at the beach for a few minutes before the rained poured down in buckets. I could see it coming and I knew it was going to be a big one. Once again, I camped out at Gecko writing and watching TV.

Langkawi is full of old people, leathery, tan old people on holiday from Sweden. (I don't know if it's my hair, but everyone thinks I'm Swedish too, and I'm going with it.) There are three bars in Cenang, the main beach and people usually only go to one of the those, Babylon, and when that closes, to Sunba the dance club. On any given night, you're bound to see almost all of the under-30 crowd at one of the two.

I ran into two English guys from the ferry at Babylon. One, after hearing about my 10K run that morning, challenged me to a race down the beach and would not let up. I had to race him. We tied, but I could have taken him in a distance event. Then we moved onto Sunba, where girls get free drinks if they collect vouchers, until 4 a.m.

"Wake them up," I heard the guesthouse owner say the next morning outside the dorm. "It's sunny."

That got me up, but by the time I made it down to the beach to meet the English guys, it had clouded over. There was a mid-day downpour and then it rained later when the boys left for the airport for their flight to Kuala Lumpur.

That night, we intended to take a boat over to the full-moon beach party on Monkey Island, but heart it was lame. We went to Babylon again and then to Sunba.

I was dancing away when I felt a hand slide seductively up my leg to my ass. It wasn't Igor, one of the guys I was with, who didn't look like an Igor at all, but a handsome Spanish man. It was a short Malay guy who was already dancing with someone else.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I shoved him.

My night was ruined after that. I felt so small, so insignificant, like I was less than a person. Igor couldn't quite understand.

I spent my last day on the beach with him. I missed out on the island tour with Kim, Pony and a beautiful Malay, Dan, because I couldn't get out of bed at 9:30, an obscene hour given how late we were out the previous night. It actually didn't rain until that night, a whole day of mostly sun.

I was ready to leave. Groped and assaulted in Malaysia--and I was only there for eight days. Quite a feat.

Penang Kicked my Ass

2011-04-22T11:57:00.003+07:00

"What are you going to do in Malaysia?" Ryan asked me when I announced Penang as my next stop.

"Eat."

And eat, I did. Chinese and Indian and Malay, usually pointing out what I wanted from various dishes sitting out in stainless-steel trays. It was all cheap and a nice break from Thai food. I miss cheap Indian cuisine so much I'd nearly go back right away--with a man in tow, for sure.

I also needed to do a visa run at some point in the near future, but it wasn't impending. I didn't know where I else I wanted to go in Thailand, so I thought I would make an early trip south of the border.

I liked Georgetown, the main city on the island, at first. But it has a seedy side. I was honey-ed and baby-ed and hassled all day long. And at every turn something or someone was kicking my ass.

After deep-water soloing, I took a longtail boat back to the mainland for the start of the slog down into Malaysia. The driver let his seven-year-old son drive, preparing him for a future of shuttling tourists around. In Ao Nang, I hopped a songthaew to the Krabi bus station and there, a coach to Hat Yai, just north of the border.

We were late getting into Hat Yai, and I fully inteded to take a vehicle to my guesthouse, but they wanted to charge me 50 baht for a two-kilometer trip. It wasn't outrageous, but it wasn't that far.

"I can walk for 50 baht," I told the driver.

Hat Yai, the largest city in Songkhla, isn't the safest place to be walking around at any time. All four of Thailand's southern provinces--Yala, Songkhla, Narathiwat and Pattani--are hotbeds of Buddhist-Muslim separatist tensions. Usually not a week goes by that blood isn't shed on the streets somewhere in the deep south, disturbingly, with teachers and monks as prime targets. The national guard stood watch at nearly every street corner in the city center right next to the prostitutes waiting on visiting Malays.

In daylight the next morning, it looked like a nice town, a melting pot of cultures. Signs were in English, Thai, Chinese and sometimes Arabic.

I took a van from there. At the Thai side of the border at Sadao, we went through immigration, then got back in the van and drove to Padang Besar for Malay immigration. I changed vans to one heading to Penang.

In Georgetown, I stayed in a dorm for 10 ringgits, about $2.50, maybe the cheapest accommodation I've had in Southeast Asia. The dorm was full of old men. I think gray hair should automatically disqualify you from staying in a dorm. These guys had the lights out at 9 p.m. and then were up at dawn the next morning.

I had just left the hostel, only a few blocks away, without even a ringgit in my pocket, looking for an ATM when I slice my toe open. I was gazing around at this new city while scanning the horizon for a bank. The ridge in the concrete was nearly imperceptible to the naked eye. But it was enough to almost take a flap of skin clear off the bottom of my toe, unprotected in flip flops.

Should I go back? Blood was pooling in the toe groove of my shoe. I limped back to the room to clean it up.

I ate Punjabi food that night, a mix of potatoes, okra and veggies with naan bread. Oh, how I miss naan. I miss bread in general living in Thailand, but naan, lightly blackened in the tandoor, is probably my favorite. And the food was cheap, not like in Thailand, where a spread of Indian food will run you over five dollars. On the streets, vendors sold samosas, deep-fried balls of daal, onions and veggies for .50 sen.

The next morning I went in search of vegetarian Chinese food. The place in my Lonely Planet was closed, but I stumbled upon a different one on my way around town. A whole table was lined with trays full of mock meat and veggies. Meat eaters don't understand mock meat and vegetarians love for it, but if it's done well, it's really close to the real thing.

Eating from those trays is probably the worst thing you can do because the food has been sitting out, but I love it. If there are multiple veg options, I can pick a little of everything. I'm used to having a limited amount of foods to choose from. When I'm presented with many, I have a hard time deciding. The point-and-eat places, some of which allow you to serve yourself, let me try a spoonful of this and a spoonful of kale and some mock-BBQ chicken and potato curry, anything.

I made a big loop around town and made my way to the seaside along the road behind Love Lane, near my guesthouse. A man was standing along the street, waiting to cross, I assumed. I walked past him. When I stopped to pick a prickly ant off my foot, he passed me and stopped again. I didn't think anything was amiss and kept walking. Then I heard the sound of a shoe scraping on concrete and stumbled forward a few steps, propelled by his foot. I instinctively grabbed my purse and camera. Pain shot up my foot where I saw three bloody craters where he'd lopped off skin. I stood there for a few seconds in shock, not comprehending what just happened. He crossed the street.

"Hey! What the fuck is your problem?" I followed him. "Where do you think you're going?"

Angry Diane curses uncontrollably.

I kept yelling at him. He turned around and took a few steps toward me. My heart, already beating rapidly, jumped up in my throat. I took a look around--it was a bright and sunny and we were on a busy street, but there weren't any people, only cars whizzing by. A guy on a bike stopped to watch, whether to see if I was okay or to see a fight I don't know. What would I do if this guy approached me again? Did I even want to find out?

He turned around and started walking away. I continued yelling. "Get out of here, you bitch. Go to hell, you piece of shit."

He turned back and motioned for me to follow him like I was that brave or stupid.

"Yeah, I'm sure you'd love to get me somewhere more private."

He walked away and I didn't follow. The curses stopped.

I was shaking out of fear and anger. Then the tears started, little sobs then fat crocodile tears that I tried to hide behind my sunglasses. I kept checking behind me to make sure he wasn't following me. I didn't want to go back to the hotel because I thought he may have walked in that direction.

I continued to the ocean, sobbing and shaking and confused. My foot throbbed.

At first, I thought he had just wanted to hurt me. Why? Because my head wasn't covered, because I'm a dirty, menstruation-prone woman, a Western whore/imperialist, an infidel?

Then I thought, well maybe he was trying to rob me. I look like a potential victim: a blonde woman, all of 48 kilos, who with my hair in pigtails, looks about 16, alone in a foreign country. My camera makes me look like I might have money. But he never made a play for my bag. And if I'd fallen, how did he plan to get it unwound from around my body?

It didn't make any sense.

The more I've thought about it--and that has been a lot--the more I think he was just trying to hurt me. Georgetown has a dark underbelly hidden under its post-colonial facade. A woman was murdered with a hammer outside Jason from Phi Phi's hostel the last time he was there on a visa run. A Malay guy warned me not to walk around certain streets at night, as I tend to do--and yet I was assaulted in broad daylight.

Sexually-repressed me, ones who probably pop over to Hat Yai for hookers, leered at me all day no matter how much clothing I was wearing. They called me honey, sweetie, darling just like the men in Indonesia. They were always looking to strike up a conversation. I won't go to another Muslim country, no matter how moderate, without a man again, I vowed to myself. I'm sick of being treated like shit because I don't have a penis.

The next day I took the bus south through the city to the snake temple, a Chinese temple where people make offerings to live, un-caged snakes. I was floored when I got on the bus and needed exact change for the fare. Where was the krapaw rotme shaking her metal tiffin of coins? It was pretty hot, so they weren't moving. On the altar, harmless temple snakes had twisted themselves around tree branches. On other trees, pit vipers snoozed, with only a sign to warn people not to get too close. You could pose for pictures with giant pythons at the end.

I paid 5 Ringgits to go into the snake farm where the friendly snake keeper showed me around. He opened the cage of the albino Burmese python and kissed it.

"You can hold it," he said. Just like Britney Spears in the "I'm a Slave 4 U" VMA performance.

"That's okay." But I did work up the courage to pet it. It felt just like a snakeskin purse.

He showed me the lump of a chicken eaten the day before in the gullet of a reticulated python.

"You thought the Burmese python was big?" he asked walking through the open door of a cage. "Look at this." Inside was an eight-meter reticulated python. He pushed the snake's head away so it was facing away from us.

"Here, touch him."

"No, thanks."

I checked out the other snakes, plus the lizards, monkeys, rabbits and tortoises on display. I was looking at the green snake when I heard hissing.

The keepers had started the cobra show, first with a monocled one and then with the king itself. The keeper got up close and kissed it.

I took the bus back to the station and hopped on another one, this time going west to the Botanical Gardens and Penang Hill.

I didn't care about the gardens, but everyone who comes to Penang is supposed to climb the hill for views of the city. It's only 800 meters high, but Lonely Planet said it took three hours for the hike. That can't be right, I thought.

A guy in my dorm told me it took him 20 minutes. Now that sounds more reasonable.

Prepared for a 20-minute stroll meant I was ill-prepared for what lay ahead of me. I wore flip flops with baggy pants. I had my purse and carried a big bottle of water.

Now I don't know what path that guy was on that took him 20 minutes, nor do I know what path I should have been on but let me tell you, there are many trails on Penang Hill.

I took a set of stairs that other people were going up. In about 20 minutes, the stairs ended and the path leveled off. There was no viewpoint so I kept walking. Down the road and then the path veered back up through some trees. Some Malay Chinese appeared before me from another direction. We got to a fork. They went by way of the shortcut.

I don't need a shortcut, I thought.

I continued up, at times pulling myself up using ropes strung along the steep slope. The trail was littered with fliers for Georgetown's local Hash House Harriers that served as trail markers. "Take Nothing But Memories, Leave Nothing But Footprint," they said. The irony was lost somewhere.

There's got to be a better way to mark a trail.

Judging from the tree line, I was pretty close to the top when it started to rain. Thunder had been rumbling ominously the entire hour that I'd been walking. I kept assuming the viewpoint would be around the next bend. I'd come through a clearing and there would be all of Georgetown spread out below me. What started as a gentle drizzle quickly turned into a downpour.

The trail ended at a stone that someone had their names into. I looked around, but the path went no farther. Another path led down in the other direction, but I thought it better to proceed back down the one I knew. There was a shelter down at the road after I had climbed the stairs.

I didn't care about me being wet. I cared about my camera. I put it in my bag that isn't waterproof and hoped for mercy. Why, oh why, didn't I have my waterproof bag or a rain jacket during the rainy season in the tropics? I slipped and slid back down the trial as fast as I could. The rain made the mud slick and I had to lower myself carefully, clinging to a rope or tree or rock to keep myself from falling on my ass.

Why do I always end up hiking in the rain in Malaysia? I wondered, recalling last year in the Cameron Highlands, only in much different circumstances.

At some point, I noticed a lack of HHH fliers. Maybe there just aren't any on this stretch, I thought. Then a fallen tree. That doesn't look familiar. I don't remember climbing over that. Finally, two planks that served as a bridge over a drop off. Definitely not the same trail. But it was marked with yellow ribbons--now there's an eco-friendly way to mark a path--and had ropes in places. It was indeed a trail. It made no sense for me to go back up to try to find the original.

The trail became a soggy, muddy slog. Water rushed down the middle. I tried to straddle the rushing water, but it was impossible. I hope there are no leeches yet, I thought.

I prayed to all the gods I could think of for a sala and for my camera. Shiva, the protector, please protect my camera. I know I have bad karma.

Finally below me I glimpsed a roof. I stumbled, dripping wet, into the sala, a makeshift gym filled with Malay Chinese sipping tea. One offered me a cup.

The rain finally let up enough so that I could leave. I walked with some Chinese through the thick mud that caked to my shoes. Each foot weighed about five pounds.

"Do you know where you're going?" they asked me.

"No, I came up a different way," I replied. "I'll follow you."

We finally came to a viewpoint, and there was the city. I didn't even care. I just wanted to get to the bottom.

"Is this the first time you've come here?" one of the Chinese girls asked me. "I think you've very brave to come up here alone."

"Really? I think I'm pretty stupid."

We came down on the opposite side of the mountain. How did that happen? They gave me directions to wait for the bus outside the Hindu temple. I sat on a step with the caretaker of the temple. He offered me a ride on his motorbike. I declined. The rain continued and it got dark. A taxi driver making an offering said he'd take me back for a reasonable five ringgits--the bus cost two--but the bus had passed and it was circling back imminently. The thing I respect about Malaysians is their fairness. No one is constantly trying to rip you off and if they do, it's only a little. You'd be scammed out of a lot more money in another Southeast Asian country.

The bus took forever looping back from the botanical gardens and once inside, it was freezing. The ride back was long and by the time we were in Georgetown, I was shaking in my drenched clothes.

I had lost all sense of time. My 100-baht watch was waterlogged in the rain. I had arrived at Penang Hill in the late afternoon . When I got back to the hostel, stripped off my soggy layers and took a shower, it was 9:30 at night. Where had all the time gone?

Brother Mark, a traveling farang monk, was staying at my hostel. He had renounced Christianity because he had so many questions that the religion couldn't answer satisfactorily. He had been rich in the furniture business, but gave up nearly everything to don a saffron robe. The native monks looked down on him because he knew the texts better than they did and unlike them, he wasn't afraid to question higher monks.

"They're taught that, for example, if you're meditating and your teacher walks into the room and takes a shit right in front of you, you should take a deep breath and go, 'Mmm, that's my teacher's poo,'" he said. Having taught Thai students, I understood completely.

He gave me some of his Buddhist-with-a-farang-twist advice on life.

"Don't live your life like it's your last breath," Brother Mark told me. "I've talked to a lot of people who work in retirement homes. They say in those last moments, people think about their regrets. 'Oh, I wish I'd gone skiing in Colorado.' 'I wish I'd made peace with Uncle So-and-so.'

"Do you know how Sunny Bono died?"

"He was skiing."

"He hit a tree at 90 miles per hour," he said. "But he died doing what he loved. Live without regret, and if anyone tries to tell you how to live your life, you can tell them the Buddhist monk said to say...

"'Fuck you.'"

Bin Khaaw in Ton Sai

2011-04-19T23:57:00.015+07:00

Rai Leh, and its cheap, hippie sister Ton Sai, is basically an island. Part of the mainland, it's only accessible by boat because of the towering, sheer limestone cliffs that surround it. They were the same karsts that comprise much of Krabi, only these are bolted, making them some of the best and most scenic climbing spots in Asia, if not the world, attracting climbers from around the globe.

The first time I was there, I lazed around the beach and thought I'd try climbing the next time. I stayed for three or four days, which is short for most people. They get to Ton Sai, where everything is cheaper than Rai Leh, and basically take up residence. The climbers, especially, stay for weeks on end, tackling routes nearly every day.

This time I'd join them.

I took the boat from Phi Phi with Michal and Laura, who mercifully stayed on Rai Leh. I could not be around her desperate act any longer. Michal and I stayed together in a jungle bungalow on Ton Sai, the only ones from our boat going to that beach. Just walking there, we were mauled by vicious mosquitoes. If I'm ever to get Dengue, I thought, it will be here.

Ton Sai attracts an eclectic, hippie mix. On my first visit, I stayed on the beach with the relatively-normal bucket-drinking backpackers. Back in the jungle, during peak climbing season, it's a whole different story.

We ran into an Israeli who we'd talked to on our way from the boat. He invited us with him, a friend and a Canadian girl on a hands-on science lesson from two German guys.

There's not a lot going on in Ton Sai. That's part of the appeal, a break from the hectic chaos that is travel. People there have to fill their time when they're not climbing somehow. They pick up some strange hobbies. Jerking off sea cucumbers is one of the stranger, but the Germans assured us it, indeed, could be done.

We made our way over the exposed rocks that appear when the tide retreats until we found a flaccid sea cucumber. One of the Germans picked it up and went to work. At first it just spit water but after maybe a minute, it squirted out a milky, white jizz and got hard.

Another strange hobby is slack lining. I'd only ever seen it once: A guy used to practice in the Pentacrest in Iowa City. Almost every bar in Ton Sai has a slack line and a lot of people are pretty good. The fire dancers here twirl poi on the lines.

These people are weird, Michal and I agreed.

I did try the slack line after that night. I never invested enough practice time to balance on my own, but holding onto something or someone I could turn and do a few balance positions.

The first few days were rainy and overcast, signs of the looming rainy season. We met Ryan and Brennan, a couple of Canadians, and lounged around playing games and watching movies.

We took sea kayaks out on day, Ryan in his own and the three rest of us in another.

"I don't want to paddle," Michal said, so we sat in the middle while Brennan and I did all the work.

We paddled out and around the karst islands and docked on Pranang Beach on Rai Leh to go to Princess Cave a.k.a. The Penis Cave. Fisherman leave lingam offerings to the sea princess who lives there before they go out in their boats. There are a lot of penises, in all shapes, sizes and colors--except all circumcised--like at Mae Tubtim Shrine in Bangkok.

We finally had a clear day for climbing. Brennan, Michal and I took a class at Wee's School. Ryan has shoulder problems and doesn't like physical activities like that. He spent that day getting insanely sunburned on the beach.

Along with two other Canadian girls, we trekked across the boulders hugging the shore to Rai Leh. Brennan had climbed a few times before, but no one else had any experience. Michal, with a fear of heights, wasn't even sure if she could do it.

I got to climb first with Brennan belaying me, and then he went. When we weren't climbing, Samut, our guide, taught us how to top-rope belay, which I'd never done. I'd only ever lead belayed with Alex.

When Michal's turn came up, she barely made it off terra firma. She got a meter or so off the ground and was too scared and too unsure of herself to continue.

"I'm afraid of heights and I can do it," I'd told her before. Her fear was worse than mine. She couldn't even do the rope swings in Vang Vieng. A 10-year-old girl, forced to climb by her parents, sobbing in mid-air, was higher up than Michal.

We went over to Pranang Beach where there are four high routes. I finished the first one completely exhausted and sweaty. "A 6A+," Samut told me. "You the only girl I know that can do it."

Everyone else got to belay at the first spot, so I asked for my turn. there's a reason Samut didn't have me do it--I'm just too small. I can't hold all of someone's weight if they're bigger than me. One Canadian girl got part-way up the route, into the cave and couldn't get out. She abruptly decided she was coming down and let go. I flew forward a few steps. Samut grabbed my harness from behind and held me while I lowered her to the ground.

I tried that route next. Bam Bam, who belayed for me, called me Dor Dek, the first letter of my name in Thai. When I tell Thais my name, they always say "Jiane?" to which I reply, "Mai chai: dor dek." I was in and out of the cave just fine, straddling the limestone, holding on with only my inner thighs to get out. Above that, though, all the holds were dusty. I kept slipping as I struggled to get a solid hold. Sand cascaded down on me. But I made it, and Michal, climbing at the same time, made it a little farther off the ground.

After lunch, without Michal and the Canadians who only did the half day, Brennan and I climbed a relatively-easy route with only a tricky overhang to navigate. The last one was the hardest. I got up fine until the last few meters. There was one little nub that I had to grab onto. It was just out of my reach. (It always helps to be tall.) My arms were like Jell-O. I finally got a hold of it and hauled my body up. The ring, too, was just out of reach on my first attempt.

I talked to Mon in Thai. He was the deep-water soloing boat driver learning to guide. He didn't speak any English. Once everyone else knew I could speak Thai, they gave me instructions in Thai. Khun kruu, saay, khwaa, dii kwaa, dii leey. Su su, khun kruu. It was nice to actually have Thai people respect the time I've put into learning their language, but at times I was so tired I couldn't think in another language. I would reply in English.

Brennan and I were both spent, but Samut had us try one final course, a 6B. The beginning was the hard part. You had to pull and push yourself up and once on the rocks, the footholds were virtually nonexistent. Our arms, in that state, couldn't keep us up.

Brennan tried and quickly gave up. I did too.

"Do you want me to show you?" Samut asked. "I'll do it in my flip flops"--and he did, but even he admitted he was fresh. He hadn't even lead climbed that day.

We both gave it another shot and made it part-way up, but gave up out of sheer exhaustion.

"That was it?" Michal was incredulous. She had stayed to watch us during the afternoon. "It's the last one, and that was it?"

Easy for her to talk.

We took a longtail boat back to Ton Sai, where we collapsed onto the sand. My hands were raw, my elbow scraped and bleeding. I had purple bruises all over my shins and knees.

"What about the abseiling?" I asked Samut. We had totally forgotten that we were supposed to repel down a cliff as part of the day.

"You were too good so I changed it," he replied. "You abseil and then it's a baby course."

The next day I was so sore the real question was, Where am I not sore? My lower back, abs and feet felt fine, but everything else ached. I didn't move from the beach all day and for only a part of the next two.

Rai Leh proper is like a Club Med, a fancy resort with pools and beach-side seafood barbecues full of old people. The boys were to drink in Rai Leh one night. It was so dead they ended up getting tattoos, matching chess pieces on their feet. When they left the tattoo shop, which was not late, all the bars were closed. The beach is gorgeous, but that and the climbing, is the only reason to go. Brennan and I took the boulder route across one day.

The path to the lagoon and viewpoint is a scramble that involves hauling yourself up using rocks, ropes or whatever is available. A brief downpour earlier in the day had made the trail perilously slippery. Going up was easy, but coming down was a nightmare.

The path ascended steeply, leveled off, then descended. We carefully made our way down to a group of people pondering the way ahead. It was nearly 100 meters of nearly-vertical slippery, jagged rocks down to the lagoon.

We could only see a sliver of the water, but it looked murky green. "It doesn't even look that nice," I said.

"That's what we said too," one of the other girls said.

So we all turned back, Brennan for the second time. Maybe if it had been dry. We backtracked to the viewpoint which offers a view over the narrow isthmus that is Rai Leh. Going back down was tough and by the end, we were sweaty and caked in mud.

On the morning of the day I finally left, Brennan, Ryan and I all went deep-water soloing. It took me awhile to work up the courage, but I couldn't pass it up for 550 baht.

Deep-water soloing, rock climbing without ropes over water, is a combination of my greatest fears. I'm okay with heights when I climb because I feel safe in the harness. This removes the harness, my safety blanket, and adds an ocean beneath me. It was truly terrifying, but also fun. I don't know if I'd do it again, though.

We took longtail boats out to an island karst. There were a few routes we could pick from, each increasingly hard. Anxiety, nervousness, fear and trepidation all balled up in the pit of my stomach.

"Remember, you can knock yourself out if you jump from 30 meters," the woman at the shop told us that morning before we left, her only advice.

A few of the guys tested out the wall and then I was ready to do. But where were my shoes? I had picked out a pink pair at the climb shop--not because they were pink but because they fit--and tossed them in a basket with the rest. Another girl, in a boat that I think came directly from Ao Nang, had them. She barely got up on the rock before she couldn't do it and jumped in the water. Then she tried it again, as if no one else was waiting for the shoes. She got nowhere again, and then it was my turn.

The routes were all pretty easy except for one that this guy shimmied up and then jumped from 30 meters (He didn't knock himself out). And you could always jump off when you got stuck. I took the canoe over to the ladder. Most of the time, getting up the rope ladder was the hardest part. I tried the easiest, and also the lowest. At first, my limbs were shaking so badly I could barely move but once I relaxed, I made it up in no time. That was the easy part. But I couldn't climb back down. I had to jump.

Who knows how long I stood up there with everyone encouraging me to jump. Five minutes? Ten? My hands, clutching the cliff wall, were shaking. It was only eight meters to the aquamarine water below. The water looks so pretty, I kept thinking.

"Three... two... one..." the guides tried to count me down.

"No! I have to do it myself."

I tried to relax myself with deep breaths. I counted myself down and eventually, after a few false starts, I closed my eyes, plugged my nose and jumped.

And I was fine. Every time. I can swim. I'm not going to drown. But it's that first step, that leap of faith, that was so hard for me to get past.

I swam back to the boat but was right back out again to try the next route with Brennan. He went first and I followed him. The only hard part was a slippery bit where there was no chalk. You obviously can't DWS with a chalk bag so it's strategically placed in nooks, but not always quite where you need it. I got to the top, 10 meters this time, and again got stuck.

It's like you're a jumper out on a ledge except no on is trying to talk you down; they all want you to jump.

I hit my ass hard on the water on my way in. The canoe water taxi came to make sure I was okay. In a little pain, but otherwise fine. I didn't need a ride back to the boat.

I tried one last route before we moved on to a new spot. I didn't have much time. I hit a bottleneck early on, and then the boats were ready to leave. I was straddling a stalactite and just had to let go. There were people waiting behind me, which sped the process up greatly.

Just jump off. Just go, said one of two girls who had rocked up on a yacht.

I pushed off--oh, my sore butt--and we moved on to another wall. The last climb was a little more difficult, but that was mostly just getting up the long rope ladder. Only two of us girls attempted it, even after I cracked the code of getting up easily (hold onto the sides rather than the rungs with your hands).

Two guys jumped from 30 meters. When I looked up, I was nearly to that spot. I was definitely not jumping from that high. I down-climbed a bit to a small ledge. It was higher than 10 meters, but they tried to convince me it wasn't.

"Diane, your camera is dying," Brennan yelled to me.

"My arm's getting tired."

"The boat's leaving." (It wasn't, but that would have definitely worked.)

The day was awesome. I had so much fun. The girl who stole my shoes definitely did not. She barely did anything after those first attempts. A few other girls also spent most of the day in the boat. Ryan didn't climb much but he still said he had fun. It's not for everyone.

Would I do it again? Maybe. But I liked the climbing part better than the jumping-in-the-water part, and that's what makes DWS special.

Give me a harness any day.

Welcome to THE ROCK

2011-04-17T23:57:00.001+07:00

When you backpack around the world, you have to sometimes lower your standards. Simple luxuries like hot water, flushing toilets and a sheet become scarce. Electricity isn't guaranteed. Cleanliness is always questionable.

I've stayed in some grotty holes in my day, places just short of having blood on the walls to save some money. In Delhi, the plywood door to my room looked like someone had gone after it with an axe. There was the Red Cross dorm in Mumbai with the filthy bathroom. And then there was the Mansions in Hong Kong.

To those I probably wouldn't return given that money wasn't an option. Mirador and Chungking Mansions are the only cheap places to stay in Hong Kong, while the Red Cross dorm would allow me to earn a little money while furthering my Bollywood-extra career.

But there's one dirty backpacker hole I'll always come back to, The Rock, on Phi Phi.

It was my third stint on the island. The first was a brief stay on a whirlwind southern Thailand tour during my first school break. It made enough of an impact on me to go back. I returned for New Year's 2010 partly for a man and partly for the island. When things went south with said man, an island boy, I spent my New Year's Eve with The Rock Family. It was probably the best NYE ever, drinking buckets on the beach watching fireworks.

I had to go back to Phi Phi one last time before I left, as part of my Goodbye Thailand Tour.

Charm, of course, is subjective. Anna took one look at the dorm on my recommendation and found something she deemed better. "Admittedly, I passed on the Rock," she told me. "I felt a little dirty just looking at the porno drawings that appeared on every surface. I needed the Diane push."

Dorm A, the party dorm, is like a cave. Little light enters, which is a good thing considering the nocturnal activities of its residents. At any given time, the floor is littered with oversized backpacks, empty bottles and chip wrappers. Someone is usually asleep on the floor amidst the filth to catch more air from the fan. Clothes and towels hang from every surface. The metal bunks are rusty. Lewd and educational graffiti covers every writable surface.

Say what you will about it, but what The Rock--and those who make it their home, some of whom stay for months--lacks in hygiene, it makes up for in atmosphere.

Jason has been coming back to Phi Phi since he first volunteered post-tsunami. He was in his fourth month when I arrived. He and a few others instituted The Rock Family. A stay doesn't automatically ensure your initiation into the family, but while you're on Phi Phi, you are part of a singular entity.

Some mornings start with a giant communal bucket on the benches outside. The nightly pregame is there, too, before the group of 15 or 20 people move out together in a unit to the bars.

The cast is different every night, a revolving door of cheap, hippie backpackers, but the routine remains the same. The days consist of hungover, lazy sunbathing--if you can even make it to the beach--and maybe a dive or a snorkeling trip to Maya Bay. It's nearly impossible to escape.

My bus down south was packed. I'd assumed I would sleep find since I'd gone to bed at 5 that morning after a Khao San night with Jade. I couldn't I popped two Valiums. When the girls across the aisle from me got off in the middle of the night for the Koh Tao stop (NEVER take the overnight bus to or from Koh Tao), I crawled over and laid out.

We were running late, so there was pleasantly little sitting-around time We were right on another bus at Suratthani and onto the imminently-departing ferry in Krabi. Because of the Valium, I slept all the way across the isthmus and on the boat ride to the island.

I awoke to the familiar karst formations that surround the Phi Phi pier and thought, I'm home. This time, though, I was hit with a 20 baht Keep Phi Phi Clean fee that none of the Thais, supposedly because they were all locals, had to pay. (I asked Jason, almost a local himself, about it later. "I have to pay even thought I was here six years ago cleaning up bodies," he said.)

I barely got a bed in The Rock. They told me the dorm was full, but someone checked out a second after I asked. It was probably the worst bed, a lower bunk in the corner next to the broken fan. There was no air. It also gave me the best view of long-term Rock resident Adrian's love nest, although I never saw--or wanted--to see anything.

Most of my days were spent on the gorgeous beach--my favorite in Thailand--my nights, too, with a bucket in hand at a beach bar.

When I wasn't at the beach, I was probably climbing with Alex, a tall, handsome English climbing instructor who just happened to have all his own gear. He taught me to belay (Anna Frisk while we're tubing in Vang Vieng: "Belay: It's a noun and a verb.") because obviously, he had to. He lead climbed and I had to belay him. He tied me to a rock or a tree because I simply wasn't heavy enough to hold his weight. He showed me a quick demo on what to do and went up.

"Just don't fall, okay?" I said. He had more faith in his climbing abilities than my belaying. A woman from a local climb shop was guiding two other climbers nearby. Alex didn't want us too close to them.

"She might see you and start asking questions," he said.

"Do I really look that bad?" How would he know. He was always climbing when I belayed. "I'll try to look competent," I promised.

I had decided at some point during the first night that he would be mine--and I always get what I want. But Laura, a clingy English girl, was also interested. He wanted to spare her feelings, so we had to be discreet. We had privacy at the rocks, but whenever we were with the group, Laura attached herself to him.

I hated her. She knew something was going on with us, yet she still latched onto him all the time. And she was still sickly sweet to me, with just a touch of awkwardness.

Alex persuaded me to fight muay thai in the ring at Reggae Bar on one of those climbing days. I made this decision SOBER. He didn't have to try very hard. Everyone who fights gets a free bucket. What wouldn't I do for free alcohol?

"I could do that," I told him. I'm usually pretty optimistic about my abilities.

But when I got in the ring, set to square off against a Norwegian girl with about 40 pounds on me, I thought, Oh, this is a bad idea. A really bad idea. Why did I agree to this?

The other girl, fighting in only her bra, was huge. She'd shown up at The Rock when we were finishing pregaming--I'd already had almost a whole bucket in preparation for my debut in the ring--and announced her intention to fight. She's fighting tonight too, someone pointed to me.

"Let's fight each other!"

"Okay!"

I thought it would be a proper fight with defense and tactics. But she just came at me with flying limbs. I took a pummeling, to put it mildly. She landed a couple punches and kicks that left me with stingers. Alex, who was in my corner with Laura, said the shots I landed on her were solid, but he may have been biased.

"I'll be pissing blood tomorrow," I told them as I left the ring with my head hung in defeat.

I got my bucket. It was weak, with only a half-bottle on whiskey in it. I demanded more at the bar and got another splash.

It was not worth it. The entire left side of my body ached so badly I couldn't sleep on it for a few days.I eventually had three enormous, purple welts down my side for over a week.

The bar gave me a bottle of water after the fight. I put it into my bag and it leaked everywhere. I didn't realize it at first, but when I did, everything had been marinating in water for some time. I tried to turn on my little point-and-shoot. It refused.

I started blubbering. It is my bar camera, not my SLR, but it's still an electronics casualty. I can't take my SLR to a party. I still am my own worst enemy. I'd had a lull for some time.

"I have bad karma," I told Jason who pulled me away from the party and onto a quiet patch of beach. "I'm being punished."

I went back to The Rock. "Mii khao san mai kha?" They didn't, so I wandered, still crying, to Papaya, what I thought was the most authentic Thai restaurant on the island still open.

They gave me a bag of rice and didn't charge me. I think they just wanted to be rid of the crying farang. A few days later, my camera came back to life. It was a miracle.

Escaping from The Rock, just like the real Alcatraz, is difficult for most people. I stayed for five days before a mass exodus prompted me to move back to the mainland.

Surf's Up!

2011-04-15T18:06:00.000+07:00

Did I particularly want to go back to Kuta? No.

But I wanted to surf. And the good waves were in Kuta.

I arrived back the next morning after a short bemo ride from Denpasar. That gave me two days to make myself get into the water. I couldn't leave Bali without surfing.

It was also two days to fend off the Kuta Cowboys.

Indonesia, but especially Kuta, is Thailand for ugly, old, fat, bald(?) women. Any woman can find love there for a price. I had always wondered where this paradise for unattractive women might be. I'd heard Jamaica. I think it may be all islands. And there's something special about island boys with their tight jeans and their long hair and their tattoos and their six packs. I have a weakness for fire-twirling island boys.

The Indo boys in Kuta are getting boy-band ass. And because of that, every man there is a pig. They have no respect for Western women: we're all whores. The checkout guy at the convenience store: "Is that all, sweetie?" The waiter at the bar: "What would you like, darling?"

"I'd like you to treat me with respect, asshole." I was called everything--honey, baby, sexy, sweetie, darling, beautiful... Any time I walked down the street I was serenaded and leered at by locals who learned somewhere that it's okay to talk to women like that.

Anas, a Moroccan Cowboy, approached me one day on the beach. He made small talk.

"Do you surf?" he asked.

"No, but I want to try it."

"Maybe we can surf later at five or six o'clock when the tide is down," he said, "but then we might need condoms."

Oh, the lines they come up with.

"Maybe I can meet you at your hotel?"

No, definitely not. I don't need to pay for sex from a Moroccan gigolo.

I had been disappointed in Indonesian food for the whole trip. There isn't much of a selection and it's just not very good. A lot of times I just went with my standby cap chay, stir-fried veggies. I did love gado gado, a salad with peanut sauce on top. I'd eat a rusty tin can if it were slathered in peanut sauce.

Nasi campur is rice with a variety of sides picked from display trays. Usually it's meat heavy. But I found two cheap warungs in Kuta with lots of veggie options. Finally, I'd found some good Indo food.

With some rice, I'd get tempeh and tofu, potato balls, an egg and lots of veggies. I alternated between those two warungs at every meal. I like picked a little bit of everything, giving a lot of the vegetarian options a try.

I met Mick at dinner one night. I had some shopping to do, but we agreed to meet up later for drinks. He was Australian, a surfer, living in Kuta becuase his sister, Schapelle Corby, is in prison there for drug smuggling. There was tequila involved, a wise idea considering I had a surf lesson early the next morning. But I usually make good decisions when I have early-morning activities.

We shut down the corner bar, went to another and when I awoke the next morning, I did not feel good. I was exhausted and needed some nasi campur to settle my stomach.

Our instructor Norman did not look like a Norman. He was a short Indonesian with curly hair. "What's your real name?" I asked him.

"Norman."

"No really."

He taught us the three basic rules of surfing--keep control, watch the sea and protect your head--and gave us a brief demo on standing up. We practiced a few times on the sand and then hit the water.

I stood up my first time--not my second or third, but that's not important. I got up the first time.

I wasn't scared at all. We weren't in very deep water and the tide was low. It was so shallow, in fact, that I'd land hard on the sand coming in. I landed once on my bum knee, and it swelled up right away. I had water up my nose and I swallowed some, but I didn't care. I had a blast.

A Korean girl in my lesson with her boyfriend did not love it. Every time I looked over, she and therefore her boyfriend, were on the beach. The Swedish girl and I basically got one-on-one instruction in the water.

It started to rain, a biting, stinging rain that drove us to shore. We moved down the beach and waited out the rain. There, the water was full of floating garbage. Plastic bags wrapped around my legs as I waded through noodle wrappers.

I made it all the way into shore a few times. I could've gone on all day.

"You look like a surfer girl," Norman said to me. I'm sure he uses that line on all the girls. "Maybe we should go to dinner tonight."

"Yeaaah, maybe."

The day stayed overcast, and it rained off and on. I wandered around aimlessly. It was early evening when I made my way back to the hotel. Above the buildings, I could see streaks of purple and pink.

Here, finally, was the beauty in Kuta.

The colors were stacked in layers in the sky--blue, purple, pink, yellow and red, like colored sand in a jar. The red reflected off the water so it looked like fiery lava.

It was an orgasmic sunset, by far the greatest I've ever seen and quite possibly the best I'll ever see. It will certainly be hard to top.

"Did your teacher try to pick you up?" Mick asked me when I saw him that night.

"Of course."

"Do you want to go to The Steps?"

"What are The Steps?" I asked him.

"You'll see."

The Steps are exactly that--stairs outside a minimart where people, mostly Aussies, congregate to drink cheaply. Thgere is an obscene number of Asutralians in Bali becuase flights are so cheap. So the town is swarming with these drunk-for-the-first-time, obnoxious Aussies stumbling all over Kuta. Everyone hates them. They're the Ugly Australians. It's kind of nice not to be the most-hated nationality in a place.

Well The Steps sucked. The 18-year-olds, wearing man tanks, sang Aussie songs together at the top of their lungs. Once I'm off the Southeast Asia backpacker circuit, if I ever see another man in a tank top, it will be too soon.

And the professionals:

It's the End of the World as We Know It...

2011-04-13T17:43:00.000+07:00

"Bromo is closed," the tout at the Ketapang pier on Java told me as I boarded a bemo to the bus station, bound for Probolinggo. "It erupted a few months ago."

Conveniently, he could take me to another volcano, a more beautiful volcano. Just look at the pictures. He thrust some laminated cards at me.

Depending on who you ask, your destination is always closed. The Grand Palace in Bangkok is closed every day, if you ask a tuk-tuk driver. I hadn't checked Gunung Bromo's status--which perhaps would be wise for a volcano--but I was vaguely aware of some Indonesian eruption in the near past. Never mind, I wasn't even halfway into my 12-hour journey there and I had already arrived on Java.

Besides, an erupting volcano sounded pretty awesome.

The next morning I stood next to an angry Bromo, spewing dark smoke and ash into the air. I could imagine the Four Horsemen riding in from the horizon (and when the apocalypse does come, it will probably originate in the unstable Sumatra/Java area). The volcano groaned and sent out rumbles that sounded like thunder. I hope I don't live to see the end of the world; it's going to be scary as fuck.

I started my trek to Java later than I should have in Lovina. I was awakened at dawn by the screeching of the pet bird at Harris Homestay. Its cage was closest to my room. I walked out onto the porch and begged one of the maids, "Can't you do something about that bird?" I went back to sleep. If I had been wise and double-checked the distances I had to travel that day, I might not have.

I parked myself on the side of the highway and flagged down a bus to Gilimanuk at 10:45. It took us two hours to circle around to Bali's west coast to the pier town. The bus stopped three times at roadside shrines. The conductor jumped off to give an offering, and a holy man sprinkled the vehicle with water. The bus station was conveniently located right across the street from the pier (How often does that happen?), and I boarded a boat right away.

The ferry crept across the Bali Strait between the two islands. The tout tried to discourage me from going any farther, but from what I'd read, Bromo was the volcano to visit in Indonesia. The bus from Probolinggo was nearly empty. I hopped on just as it was about to leave.

Students in their uniforms walked home for lunch along the sides of the road. The younger ones wore white shirts with crimson bottoms, the older ones in white with blue-gray bottoms. On Bali, the girls wore knee-length skirts; on Muslim Java, their skirts were full-length.

The doorman--and this bus was a three-person job: driver, conductor and doorman--seemed friendly. He wanted to know what I was playing on my iPod. He showed me his phone. I couldn't see it at first from the glare of the sun. It was a video of a girl giving a blow job. Lovely. A subtle hint, perhaps? The bus was nearly empty and after all, I'm a Western whore.

We stopped for nearly an hour at Situbondo where the bus filled up. An older woman sat literally on top of me. At first, I thought it was so she wouldn't touch the man sitting on the other side of her, but later her legs were pressed against his. She loved my bracelets. She kept pointing and giving me a thumbs up. Then she'd tell the other ladies around her, I told her that her bracelets are awesome! She poked at the Lonely Planet I was browsing and my iPod. She even gave my boob a squeeze (to see if it was real?). When Ben, a roving musician who played on the bus for tips, boarded, she tried to set us up.

He spoke some English and translated everyone else. The first question is always the same. I heard it a million times in India, not that the answer matters. Men still hit on you anyway.

"Are you married?"

"No, but I have a boyfriend."

"Where is he?"

"In Thailand working."

In these instances, it's just easier for me to pretend that Jes and I are still together. If I had to make up a boyfriend, he would also be a gym guy, just one who was independently wealthy and with fewer strings attached.

It started raining heavily. The bus inched through flooded streets. I assumed it would be too late for me to get a bemo up to Cemara Lawang, on the crater's edge.

"You stay in a hotel tonight?" Ben asked me.

"I think so."

"Can I stay with you?"

"Definitely not."

At Probolinggo's bus station, a tout latched himself onto me. He had a van up to the crater plus transport up at dawn for 100,000 rupiah.

"I want to walk up," I told him. "I'll just get a room here and take a bemo up in the morning." But he was convinced I'd be wasting my money paying for a hotel and then the next day, on the crater, I'd have to pay for another one.

I walked through the downpour to get a bemo into town. He followed. I'm pretty sure he told the driver to overcharge me. When I asked, "How much?" he pulled out four 10,000 notes--the same amount I'd paid for a five-hour bus ride to take me the five kilometers in the middle of Probolinggo.

They're all in town, I was told, but you can take this van up to the crater with these people if you act right now.

I was tired, hungry and frustrated. The trip had been too easy. There had to be a catch somewhere and this was it, on the final leg.

Imbi, an Aussie, and a group of Malay Chinese had been traveling longer than I had that day from Yogyakarta. I didn't know what to do, so I just went with them, convenience winning out over cost.

All the guesthouses near the volcano had obscene prices. My old Lonely Planet listed the cheapest at 55,000. Actual prices, despite the fact that the volcano was active and tourist numbers were way down, started at 90,000. I think they figured you were already up there, there was no way you would turn around and go back.

I stayed at Yoschi's in the village for 90,000 that first night. I didn't even want food or a shower, just my bed. Before I went to sleep, I went back to the restaurant.

"It's 10:00, right?" I asked one of the waiters.

He looked at the clock and then back at me, confused.

"Yes, do you want something to eat?"

No, but I wanted to make sure my watch was right. Bali time is one hour ahead of Java, and I had a 3:30 a.m. wake-up call. With the time change, I'd been on the road for 12 hours.

At 4:30 in the morning, Imbi and I climbed to the viewpoint blind. No one said anything about having to hike. We assumed the van would drop us at the top. We didn't have torches. I was only wearing my trainers because it was bitterly cold. She used the screen of her phone and I used the LCD from my camera to light our path up the trail.

At the top, nothing but disappointment. A thick veil of cloud shrouded the mountain, at times reducing visibility to a few meters.

About 15 of us huddled out of the wind behind a sala. My feet froze through the mesh in my shoes. The Malays loaned me a hat and a scarf that I wrapped my hands in. There would be no picturesque sunrise that morning. The fog over the valley thinned eventually. The sun broke through a small hole in the clouds once for a few minutes.

In groups, people dropped out. We were one of the last, holding out nearly until the end of our two hours, but we went back to the van when it was blatantly obvious that it was not a day for a classic Bromo sunrise pic.

Instead, we drove to the lip of the crater where all my previous disappointment was erased. Bromo was spewing dark gray smoke that mingled with the fluffy white clouds in the sky. The earth rumbled.

I could see why native peoples believed the gods were angry when volcanoes erupted. It seems like the world is ending. What have we done? The gods are pissed.

The locals still throw live chickens into the crater to appease the volcano. It didn't work in November when Bromo sent rocks through the roofs of buildings in town. Flights in the area were briefly canceled from the ash cloud. And it has refused to quiet. When we were there, it was especially active. At night, sometimes it spewed lava.

And it was awesome. Imbi and I moved closer so we could be near it. I could have sat and watched it vomit smoke all day.

The shallot fields were covered in thick ash. It swirled on the roads and took flight in the wind. Once, a cloud hit me like someone picked up a handful of sand and threw it. You could hear the particles bouncing off my body. My skin was grainy and grimy.

I cracked the curtain the next morning and saw nothing but blue sky. "You've got to be kidding me," I muttered.

The night before, Imbi and I had resolved not to bother getting up at sunrise. We were satisfied with watching Bromo erupt all day. We didn't think there would be a perfect sunrise again the next day.

But after asking around, we discovered the morning hadn't been clear, although it had to have been better than when we were up there.

I went down into the crater. Indonesian tourism officially closed the crater, thereby washing its hands of any injuries or fatalities from people dumb enough to enter the live-fire zone. The volcano was active for two kilometers in all directions. The admission fee, which we had paid to the van driver before we went up to the viewpoint, went discreetly into some one's pocket.

The crater was like the surface of the moon. There was nothing but death, a barren wasteland. There were some charred tree stumps and a few green shoots poking out from the ash. Smoke blotted out the sun.

I only walked partway into the crater. I didn't want to get too close and I wanted to be able to make a hasty exit if there were any problems. The motorbike drivers offered trips to the temple that sits almost at the base of the volcano for 100,000 rupiah. I didn't see it, but I was told that right before our bemo left for Probolinggo that Bromo spit out a boulder that bounced off the roof of the temple.

The trip in reverse was equally lengthy. The bemo took an hour to Probo where I boarded the bus with two travel-snob Brits back to Ketapang. We got a quick ferry over to Bali. Blaring music videos played on the TV. The guy lent me his headphones to better drown out the noise. I split with them at Gilimanuk. Public buses weren't running anymore, but I hopped on a minibus to Denpasar.

It was 11:00 when we arrived. All the taxi drivers tried to rip me off at the station. I walked outside and found no better. They wouldn't use the meter. They quoted me 30,000 to 50,000 rupiah for the short trip. "The base fare is 30,000," one said.

"That's a lie." In Kuta, I knew it started at 8,000.

I started walking. I tried a couple other taxis. "Meter: yes or no?"

I was tired and frustrated. Again, it was the final leg where I hit the roadblock.

Finally, I raised enough sympathy for one driver to take me with the meter. It was 14,000 to the hotel. He had no change, of course, so he got 20,000. I woke up everyone at the hotel, only to find it had more than doubled its prices since my book was published. The woman pointed me farther down the street to a cheaper hotel. I've stayed in some dives, but I felt at this place, which looked like it was still being built, that I had to lock up my bags while I slept. I collapsed into bed.

Dolphin Hunting

2011-04-12T17:28:00.001+07:00

The full moon was still high over the ocean as I waited for a boat two mornings later in Lovina. All down the beach, captains rolled their trawlers into the sea, took on a few passengers and set off for a morning of dolphin hunting, the non-Japanese way with cameras instead of spears and harpoons.

Our boat left with a Dutch girl, a German girl and me on the narrow seats. Behind us the sun rose, casting yellow and orange hues over Bali and it's highest peak, Agung Volcano. Ahead of us, we hoped, was a sea full of dolphins.

The bus from Ubud traveled almost directly north across the heart of Bali, snaking around mountains and valleys on the way to Lovina, on the island's northern shore. Originally, Melissa had wanted to go, but she ran out of time. She left Ubud going south in a taxi to the airport and I went north.

Lovina, which sits on the noisy main highway that runs around the island, is a small town that has thrived because of dolphin watching. They've even erected a dolphin statue in the town square near the beach. The black sand makes the beach look like shit. There's precious little to do.

I better see some fucking dolphins, I thought.

I was prepared for the worst. I'll never forget that ill-fated trip to see the tigers in India. The sting of disappointment didn't fade until I saw them up close and drugged in Kanchanaburi. I got to pet them, but it wasn't quite the same.

Although we were practically the last boat to leave, I think we were the first to spot fins gliding silently along the surface. Our driver was a pro: he could spot dolphins 500 meters away.

The boats drove out and idled in the water; once a dolphin was spotted, a boat or two would motor off in that direction and everyone else would follow. Some captains had whistles to announce a sighting. The boats circled in around the mammals, usually in groups of two or three. We only had a couple of glimpses at them before they were gone.

I imagine it would be quite scary for the dolphins. They're just out for a morning swim, having run when all they hear is the deafening roar of boat motors closing in on them.

We usually only had brief flashes of fin and flank; they rarely jumped completely out of the water. The German girl kept getting out of the boat because she though she could swim with them like they were Flipper at Sea Word. Then we were held up while the driver had to hoist her back up.

We ended up seeing a lot of dolphins. The two-hour trip was definitely enough excitement. I failed, though, in my attempts at wildlife photography. Those people--and their cameras--have to be quick.

It took me nearly two years of ravel on islands and beaches in the tropics to get into the water to dive on Gili T. It only took me a week to get back underwater for a dive at a shipwreck at Tulamben, on Bali's east coast.

I had thought about stopping in Tulamben before Lovina, but it just hadn't seemed practical from Ubud. I was pleasantly surprised to find the dive shops in Lovina offering trips to the wreck, about an hour and 40 minutes away on bumpy Highway 1.

The U.S.S. Liberty was a cargo ship torpedoed by the Japanese in the Lombok Strait in early 1942. The ship limped into Tulamben and was beached to prevent it from sinking. The tremors from the eruption of Gunung Agung finally sunk it in 1963, just rolling the ship off the coast and into the shallow waters.

It's considered one of the safest wrecks to dive. You can even appreciate it snorkeling.

Women met our van and carried our tanks on their heads out to the beach. We didn't need a boat. Luxsamon, the Divemaster, and I waded out into the water and there was the ship.

In climbing, one piece of equipment can make you better--the shoes. In diving, it's the mask. "If you find a mask you like," the girl at the dive shop in Gili had said, "buy it." I hated my mask. The nose piece was too thin and allowed water in.

I tried to clear it, but when that didn't work, I panicked and wanted to go to the surface. Luxsamon tightened it and calmed me down, but it happened again. We switched masks. Same-same, but it was something I just had to live with. There was water on my nose and there was always going to be water there. I just had to clear it every few minutes and I was--eventually--fine.

Once I relaxed, the underwater scene was a million times better than at Gili. It was straight out of The Little Mermaid. Schools of shiny jackfish swam circles around us like we were caught in a cyclone of fish. I thought the garden was made up of some type of sea grass, but they were eels, seemingly planted in rows, shrinking away from us. Luxsamon kicked up enough sand on the ocean floor to unsettle three sting rays who always hang out there.

The wreck has become a living reef. Algae, anemones, sponges and coral all grow on the hull. The rudder sits just off the beach, and the stern gun is nearby. We saw the three giant boilers that once powered the ship. At certain points, we could swim through the ship, once home to U.S. sailors, now home to millions of marine organisms. A scary-looking barracuda lurked under an overhang.

We dove twice that day, with lunch in between. I wish I could have gone deeper, to the bow and the other swim throughs. I wished I'd had a camera. (Check out the Google images here.)

Culture in Ubud

2011-04-10T17:14:00.006+07:00

Ubud, is a town that, thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert, will live on forever in chick-lit lore. Allegedly, the author loved, after first eating and praying, in the town, Bali's cultural heart. Now desperate middle-aged women from everywhere make pilgrimages to Ubud (or just take the whole tour!), grasping the book like Jehovah's Witnesses with their Bibles, hoping to fill the holes in their lives. They come and seek out the people from the book as if they can also have some profound effect in their sad lives.

But Ubud is famous in its own right as Bali's cultural center, a town full of art galleries, museums, traditional dance and temples.

Melissa and I left Gili on the speed boat. She had a flight in a few days; Tina stayed longer since she had a month in the country. Of course, since it was a travel day, the sun shone brightly and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We sat up top on the boat, which was fine for the first 30 minutes or so.

We hit some rough waves and the spray cascaded over the side of the boat to the right side of the stern where we were sitting. Only four of us took the full brunt of the ocean. Everyone else on the deck was fine.

The crew did a pass to see if anyone wanted to go below. I wanted to, but stayed with Melissa who didn't. When they made a second pass, I was going no matter what. Melissa followed. We were passed along a human chain. The boat rocked violently. I was dripping, my hair and clothes soaked, when we reached the safety of the cabin. It looked like we'd been swimming.

After we went inside, we were told later, the sea calmed down and everyone else dried off in the sun.

The explosion of popularity in Ubud has jacked up prices universally. My Lonely Planet said it was perhaps the last true budget city on Bali, with doubles starting at 55,000 rupiah. Not so anymore. Melissa and I wandered for at least an hour looking for a place under 100 and ended up staying at a losamen that a tout had tried to sell us when we got off the bus. We bargained him down to 80,000 without breakfast (This is a hot sales point: With breakfast! Seriously, I don't eat breakfast. I prefer not to eat before at least noon.) but the owner threw in a complementary meal anyway, a banana pancake and a bowl of fruit.

We wandered down the main street, Monkey Forest Road, that leads past souvenir shops to the actual monkey forest where hungry, vicious monkeys will steal your soul if they can get their little, crafty paws on it.

Because of rain, we had to watch the night's Legong and Barong dance show not at Ubud Palace, but across the street. An old ticket vendor chased us down the block before we got to the Palace, trying to persuade us to buy from him and go across the street. We thought he was lying.

Traditional dance is not my thing. I can appreciate what is means to a culture, but I don't have to like it. I love the make up and the costumes--really anything sparkly, shiny and glittery I like. I'm like a baby transfixed by a shimmer. Perhaps I was a drag queen in a past life. But there are no words, no dialogue, no way for the story to play out except through interpretive dance and singing. I don't get it. We even had a cheat sheet to explain the story, but I still didn't catch everything. The Legong made no sense. The Barong, which Wes and I, once we obtain a costume, will busk on the streets of Pai with, was just two guys walking around in a shaggy yak costume.

The drama, the Sunda Upasunda, comes from the Mahabharata, the Sanskrit epic that's not the Ramayana. It was the only part of the night that I actually understood parts of. Two brothers are evidently going to take over heaven. The other gods plot to prevent this, sending a temptress ho and her army of skank nymphs to seduce the brothers. Both fall in love with the goddess and fight for her. But in the exhaustion of battle, her spell is broken and the brothers give up their dream to conquer heaven.

Melissa and I looked at so much art the next day we were nearly sick. We kept turning corners and there were more and more paintings, a never-ending wall of Balinese art. By the end of the day, our legs ached from all the walking. I couldn't look at one more painting.

We started at the Blanco Renaissance Museum, the former studio of the eccentric Antonio Blanco, the Dali of Bali, a moniker I don't understand. It's a cute hook; you'd remember it. But wouldn't you prefer to be the only one of you, not a copy of someone else?

Blanco was your typical sexpat--ugly, old, perhaps balding under a strategically-placed beret. He married a young Balinese dancer who served as the inspiration for much of his erotic art. He spent the rest of his life surrounded by a jungle garden painting naked women with huge boobs (According to a magazine article displayed, the Balinese habit of carrying lo0ads on their heads aids in the formation of pristine breasts, long noted by visiting explorers and artists). He wrote a lot of naughty poetry that he incorporated into his art and probably the coolest aspect of his art is the frames. Each unique one is an extension of the painting itself.

Next we went to the NEKA and Agung RaiAgung Rai, we were art-ed out.

That evening we went to see a Kecak fire and trance dance. Seeing two shows is completely unnecessary. The dancing overlaps. The story in Legong was more interesting, but the trance "dance"--it's no dancing at all--was awesome.

We were the first ones there, so we got the best seats in the house. It was a slow scene from the Ramayana. Sita is kidnapped and a battle ensues. the only good part was the ending, when one man, supposedly in a trance, walks over flaming coconut husks before someone else saves him and knocks him out of the trance.

Now that's what I wanted to do--walk over flaming coals. Where can you do this? I saw in on an episode of The Amazing Race once. I must do it somewhere, but where?

Me, Diving?

2011-04-08T17:03:00.001+07:00

There's always been an openness in the back of my mind to try diving. When I tell people I'm not a strong swimmer, they say you don't need to be. I've just always needed a little push, some encouragement, some reassuring words to get me off the edge of the boat and into the ocean.

Tina and Melissa, both dive certified, gave me that encouragement since they both planned to dive when we were on Gili Trawangan, one of the Gili islands off the coast of Lombok.

It was a wild ride to Padang Bai, the port town on Bali's eastern nub. Our driver was impatient, swerving through traffic. I tried to sleep but woke up for good when I was thrown into Melissa as the driver veered back into the left lane, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision. Although it was more expensive, we took the fast boat to Gili T, cutting the journey time in half. (The slow boat takes 11 hours.)

The island is completely traffic-free. The only vehicles are horse-drawn carriages that clop down the road, the bells on their reins reminding me of "Jingle Bells."

The water was clear and the beach wasn't too dirty. It was an improvement over Kuta. Tina still wasn't impressed. She splashed circles in the water, clearing the area around her of debris. The beach was narrow, ringed in my tall trees. In the afternoon, it was a race against the encroaching shadows to get a tan.

We met up with the boys who'd been on another boat--which was a good thing. They'd overslept and forced everyone to wait for an hour and-a-half. We chilled for awhile, but everyone went home early except for Thomas and me. We split a strong mushy shake--"It will take you to the moon," all the signs announced--on the beach, then went to Rudy's with its sparkling, shiny, moving lights.

We camped out in a gazebo on the beach and laid on the pillows for hours, drinking 10,000-rupiah cocktails. Night passed quickly in a blur of conversation. We got to the point where it was too late--or too early--to go to bed. It was better for me, at least, to just stay up. We were the ultimate bar survivors, the last ones there, even though we'd been accused of sleeping by the runners up.

The sky started to lighten. We walked along the beach as the island began to stir. The trash man was out with a sack looking for bottles washed up overnight. Fisherman readied their boats for the day. We walked inland along a dirt path. Women were out performing morning chores. Roosters crowed in a chorus. Finally we hitched a ride back to the beach with two trash collectors in a horse-drawn cart. I thought I was going to fall off on the bumpy road. I was prepared to offer them a couple thousand rupiah for the ride, but they didn't expect any type of payment when they dropped us back on the main street.

I had a baguette for breakfast, went home to change and went to the dive shop. I was going underwater.

Edwin, my dive instructor, started the day with a short lesson on land. I struggled to keep my eyes open, not only because I hadn't slept the night before but because of my general disposition to sleep in any class. It's a lot of physics, this diving, and I was never much good at physics. Plus, I was probably as qualified as my high-school teacher to instruct on the subject.

At some points during the lesson, I got so worked up in my own head that I felt like I would burst into tears. The fear welled up inside my chest and threatened to bubble up through my eyes. Get a hold of yourself, Diane, I told myself. You can't cry. This guy will think you're crazy.

I'm sure he deals with scared people all the time, but I bet ones with as intense of a fear of water as me generally don't make it that far.

I put on my wetsuit and climbed into the pool. Edwin strapped me into my equipment, explaining the function of each piece. I pulled the mask down over my eyes and nose, and then it was time.

And it wasn't scary. I was just underwater, breathing--maybe the strangest, most unnatural feeling in the world--and completely relaxed. Back at the surface, Edwin showed me a couple of maneuvers to practice in case I had a problem. I had to find my regulator in case it came out--unlikely, I later found out, since I clamp down so hard upon it that my jaw is sore afterwards.

Then I ran into my only real problem, the clearing of my mask. This is my real boundary to swimming: I hate my face in the water, with it stinging my eyes and burning in my nose. I had to let water into my mask, then expel it by tilting the mask and blowing out through my nose. I panicked and wanted to go up, but he held me down.

"There's no problem that you can't solve underwater," he told me later at the surface. And he made me do it again.

The sky was gray and overcast as the boat drove for about 10 minutes out to Meno Wall, the dive site.

Melissa, the birthday girl, was with me after one dive already earlier that morning. We sat in silence. I wasn't in the mood for talking. I'm really going to do this, I thought. I can't turn back now.

The experienced divers to in first and then it was just Edwin and me.

"Put your regulator in," he said. I hesitated.

He repeated it. He was always patient yet firm with me, which is what I needed.

I did, and on three, we rolled backwards off the boat and into the Bali Sea.

As we went down farther, the pressure in my ears was intense. It felt like my eardrums were going to explode. I popped and popped my nose to regulate, but my right ear refused to cooperate.

I motioned to Edwin to go up but again, he wouldn't allow me to. I cracked my jaw a certain way and--voila--my other ear popped. The pressure released.

Once the pain subsided, I relaxed. My rapid breathing slowed to an almost-normal level. I loosened the grip I had on Edwin's hand. Nothing I saw had registered up until that point. Hey, I'm underwater. I started to take a look around.

Edwin kept motioning for me to relax and to manage however much of a smile is possible with a regulator in your mouth. Eventually, I let go of his hand.

It was eerily silent. There was no sound, save for the gurgling of bubbles coming from our regulators and the hiss of my breathing.

The visibility wasn't great owing to the season. The coral was dull and muted, not like the vibrant colors from underwater dreamscapes. There were clown fish, little Nemos, hiding in anemones, angelfish and a ton of other fish I couldn't name. We saw a sea turtle swimming away in the murky distance.

Then another turtle--and these were big, full-sized sea turtles--was just chilling right below us taking a rest. It was so close I could have reached out and touched it. That's always the temptation. They look so cuddly and cute, and there's no guardrail or fence separating you. But that's the No. 1 rule in diving: Don't touch anything. That dentist in Finding Nemo was a real dick. The turtle swam off towards the surface. We came upon another sitting and then a different one swam by.

Everyone else was already up in the boat when we surfaced. My right ear was completely blocked. I couldn't hear out of it until that evening and it remained sore the next day. I was so cold that I was shaking violently as we drove back to shore.

I stripped out of my wet clothes and put on the warmest I had. Then, exhausted, I collapsed into bed and slept for six hours.

We ate dinner every evening at the night market, a collection of street stalls that pop up after dark on a vacant lot. I mainly stuck to stir-fried vegetables because it's usually foolproof. The Indonesian fare had been disappointing. But those were some of the best meals--and cheap too. The owner knocked down the price for us every night, the final night charging us 8,000 rupiah, less than a dollar for our food.

We me up with the boys who'd spent the day of a boat trip and went to Rudy's, smuggling in vodka and apple juice.

"Did you do it?" Thomas asked me.

"Of course I did."

Rudy's closed at 1:30 to "respect" the Blue Marlin's right to hose a party on Monday night. The party sites rotate among the bars every night of the week.

"What about capitalism, a free-market economy?" I asked the owner, who tried to get me to take his bracelet-making class.

I paid 50,000 rupiah to go to the Blue Marlin party for about 10 minutes. Everyone else had been up there for longer when they decided to go back to the bungalow. I had been sitting downstairs at the bar with a German we'd met at dinner. I did a lap of the party, used the bathroom and that was it for $6, or the price of six meals at the warung.

The boys left the next day for Malaysia. We wandered the island, laid on the beach and did nothing in particular. It was a gray, sad day.

Disappointing Kuta

2011-04-07T16:56:00.000+07:00

When you think of Bali--and that's really thinking of Kuta--you imagine an island paradise, the most beautiful beach you've ever seen. White sand between your toes, a wide stretch of sand surrounded by leafy palms, clear aquamarine water teeming with schools of multicolored fish. Sipping a coconut and watching the oranges and pinks dancing on the horizon at sunset.

That vision is long-gone in Kuta.

It's a concrete jungle. Not a beach town, but a loud city--motorbikes, construction, someone offering transport, massaaage, sex or a Bintang tank.

So many people I met were disappointed, their dreams dashed. It was nothing like they'd imagined in their beach fantasies. They left quickly and stayed away until the last-possible moment before their flights. I don't want to go back to Kuta...

My flight to Bali left at 6:15 a.m. Get to the beach as early as possible, I assumed when I booked it. But a flight at that time creates all types of problems. The airport shuttles only run between 4 a.m. and 11 p.m., the airport rail link between 6 a.m. and midnight and taxis, with the toll charges, cost an obscene amount. Plus that's a half-night of accommodation I'd have to pay for.

So I took the last shuttle bus at 11 at night and slept on a row of hard metal seats in freezing Suvarnabhumi. When I awoke to a loud tour group of Thai women mulling around me before four, there was already a long line at the Air Asia counter. Their lines are always ridiculously slow. Luckily, my flight had two queues of its own that I breezed right through. I got on the plane and was asleep before we even took off.

The Denpasar airport it directly on the beach. Sea stretches out onto the horizon on both sides of the runway. In the taxi line I met two French-Canadian girls, Melissa and Tina, who I split the taxi with to Kuta, and in there, we decided to share a room. They'd met in Chiang Mai and were coming from Phuket.

Our first perception, and one that would remain for the rest of the trip, was of the pushiness of Indonesians. The Balinese and later, the Javanese, were hawks. There was never a moment's peace. Few people actually wanted to talk to you; they just wanted to sell you something.

We just wanted something to eat, but we were surrounded by men offering transport, transport, transport, taxi and surfing. We wandered into a food center but had to leave. The workers competed for our business, yelling at us, pawing at us and thrusting menus in our faces. It was overwhelming.

The beach, touted as the best in all of Indonesia and one of the best in Southeast Asia, was even more disappointing. The water was murky, the sand dirty. I'll take any Thai beach over Kuta except maybe Pattaya. I've never seen, but I'm pretty sure you can contract gonorrhea from the sand. Only the surf lived up to its reputation. Medium-sized swells rolled in, tackled by surfers with a wide range of experience.

We met a group of French guys. French people really hate to use English. They just chatted away, knowing the whole time that I couldn't understand. It was rude. Fortunately, Thomas grew up in Atlanta and we talked all the time. We didn't need anyone else.

We drank that night at the boys' swanky bungalow in Semanyak before we went to Double Six club, a party on the beach that is the place to be seen. We got back to the bungalows early the next morning and I fell asleep on the couch. I hadn't had a good night's sleep in days. Thomas carried me to his bed; the party continued without me, I saw from pictures later.

The Old Capital

2011-04-05T17:26:00.001+07:00

I was passed out on the train when the krapaaw rotfai shook me awake to check my ticket. I was on my way to Ayutthaya, the former capital of Siam to kill the day before I left for Indonesia. Despite its proximity to Bangkok--about two hours by train for a 20-baht third-class seat--I had never been. My first year in Thailand, Sarasas Ektra took its new foreign teachers on a trip there. I wanted my school to pay for me to go.

I rented a bike a pedaled around the streets of the small, relatively-quiet city split in two at the junction of three rivers. It's full of old temples and relics from before it was sacked by the Burmese, and the capital moved to Nonthaburi and later, Bangkok.

I had forgotten to bring a copy of my expired work permit to get me in for the Thai price, a fraction of the farang fee. I'm sure it would have worked. The only other time I'd used it at Erawan Falls, the man barely glanced at it. But I'd stupidly left it at the hotel. I did have my teacher's ID card from St. Joseph's.

I arrived at the first temple, Wat Phra Mahatat, famous for its Buddha head embedded in a tree stump. I showed my ID to the woman at the ticket desk and told her, in Thai, that I didn't have my work permit, but I had this.

"No."

"Thammai?" Why?

"No."

I was obviously not just a regular farang. I was speaking to her in Thai, with an ID card from a prestigious Bangkok school, dressed modestly to go to temples. It was the middle of the week, but mai pen rai.

She also didn't seem to understand the basic principle in any language that a Why? question can't be answered with a simple yes or no.

I saw the Buddha and wandered the grounds. I went to Wat Ratchaburana and had the same story with the admission office. "These people are assholes," I texted my friend Craig who teaches there. "You're the only person who's ever said that," he replied.

The sites were full of decapitated Buddhas. It looked like the Khmer Rouge (actually the Burmese) had come through. Wat Phra Si Sanphet houses the three famous spires associated with the city. I walked past the ticket checkpoint where a man lazily called after me. I kept walking. If I'm going to be treated like a dumb foreigner, I can act like one, too. At Wat Viharn Phra Mongkol Bopit, my final temple of the day, I snuck in the back entrance after using the bathroom.

But I was tired. It was hot. I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to check out a couple of temples on the other side of the river.

I hopped the train back. We arrived in Bangkok and I didn't even stir. The woman next to me nudged me awake.

Love Pai

2011-04-02T17:20:00.000+07:00

Pai (pronounced Bpaay) is 762 violent curves from Chiang Mai. Someone went out and counted. Whoever designed that road was either drunk, a sadist or completely lacked foresight (something not uncommon in Thai urban planning).

The road whips back and forth up through the mountains and then back into a valley where the town is. It looks like an EKG. And it is not easy on the stomach. It's a running joke on the merchandise in Pai that you passed the test in getting there.

I don't think anyone, Thai or farang, has ever left Pai with a bad experience. Everyone loves it. People have been telling me to go there for years.

We intended to take the 8:30 bus to Pai the next morning. I snoozed my alarm for as a long as possible before I got in the shower. I tried to wake up a still-drunk Wes, but he just mumbled incoherencies at me.

"I can't understand you."

I crawled back into bed too and we slept it off until we really needed to get up for the 10:30 bus.

We got a tuk-tuk and hauled ass outside the city walls to the bus station. We just missed it. A minibus was twice the price, the discomfort and the next available one left in an hour. We had time to put some food in our stomachs and Wes, always a champion, started the day with a Chang.

There was confusion over seats in the minibus. Other people were in our seats, so they put is in another, identical van--maybe not as nice--but full of Thai people.

They hated us.

Why?

We had the nerve to talk.

The rest of the van was silent listening to us chatter on in the front seat.

"Five minutes stop!" yelled the guy behind us, but I didn't understand why he, seemingly another passenger, was announcing a rest stop. Then he beat his fists on the back of Wes' seat.

"All the time talking, talking, talking," he said. "Now stop!"

Evidently there was some sort of unwritten rule in the van. It was a no-talking trip.

"Don't do that again," Wes warned, and we continued to talk, now about what an asshole that guy was.

The driver took matters into his own hands. He turned on some traditional Thai music and cranked the radio as high as it would go, forcing us to retreat to our iPods. He'd obviously used that trick before. I had to shuffle through my songs for the loudest rock I had. "Bohemian Rhapsody" wasn't going to cut it. And I could still hear the Thai music over my own.

We mercifully stopped at a rest area and he axed the music after that, but Wes and I stuck close to the van because we were convinced they'd leave without us.

I had just told Wes that my stomach felt a little iffy--from the alcohol or the drive, who knows?But I have had a couple instances of mild motion sickness--when we passed signs announcing our arrival in Pai.

The town is a brand in itself. The night market is one long stretch of "I (heart) Pai" merchandise. It's cute overkill. It's the perfect place for Thai families or couples to come for the weekend and soak up all the love.

But there's not much to do. Just being there is enough. Wes and I laid out by the river during the day, but we were chased away by the offensive Muzak cover songs at the bar, the best spot on the water. We ran. He went to the gym and I did yoga for the first time in months (hamstring=100%). He got a massage, while I had a much-needed pedicure. We must have wandered the main street a million times. Every night, after walking through the market, we went to bed early.

On our last day, Wes was heading down to Bangkok and I was continuing northwest to Mae Hong Son, a town near the Burmese border to do some trekking.

I was running late and needed to eat before the five-hour bus ride. It didn't even occur to me to get something to-go. I conceded missing the local bus and assumed I'd get a minibus. Those were all full for the rest of the day. As quickly as that, there went my plans to trek for two days and then make the long journey back to Bangkok to fly to Bali. I was pissed. (It was Sunday. I should have known everything would be packed.)

Defeated, I waited for the local bus back to Chiang Mai. I'd have enough love in Pai. When it arrived (late), people started jumping on before it had stopped moving, Indian-style. Then a monk decided (also late) that he would get off too. I had to retreat to let him by me. So before I was even on the bus, people had filled the seats, the fiery stump over the engine and a tractor tire that was also used as a seat.

I dropped my bag in the middle of the aisle next to the back door and sat on it. I was in a foul mood.

Actually, of the people without seats, I was probably the most comfortable. I leaned against the last row and stretched my legs out to the wall. I had a perfect view of the mountains and a pink sunset.

In Chiang Mai, the bus station was a nightmare. All the overnight coaches bound for Bangkok were leaving. Traffic inched through the queue. I arrived back in the guesthouse area at 9:30. Everywhere was full and the workers were absolutely floored that I, carrying two bags, was looking for a room. I took the first one I found, a twin with a choice between a soft and softer mattress. I went to bed early again for a big morning: the Super Bowl.

The American contingent was out in full force pre-dawn at the two bars showing the game live. They were mostly anti-Steelers instead of pro-Packers. They were happy with the result, especially some dumb broad from Appleton, Wis. I was not.

I killed the next two days wandering in town. I ate my way through vegetarian restaurants I discovered. Chiang Mai is a veggie heaven. They even had brown rice. But all the menus tempted me with at least a page of avocado dishes. It's out of season, I was told over and over again. Even at the Mexican restaurant Wes, Anna and I had eaten at couldn't give us guacamole--a travesty. Guacamole is Mexican food! Import those avocados from somewhere!

Happy Anniversary!

2011-03-27T21:59:00.000+07:00

Two years gone, and to at least another year abroad.

Climbing and Cooking

2011-03-26T17:14:00.000+07:00

We all awoke early the next morning at the exact same time. The three of our cheap-asses were crammed into a double bed. We were too drunk to realize how little room we had in the bed. It was the only night we all slept comfortably.

It was a suspicious blackout. But balls to me for getting us all home. Wes went for a run and was extremely ill when he came home. There was little soundproofing in the hotel and his violent puking echoed through the halls.

Anna ran from the room. I, who had been trying to sleep, covered my ears.

He slept it off while Anna and I planned the rest of our stay in Chiang Mai. Because we didn't want to drink that day (although Dylan, one half of the Canadian pair, begged me to stay out for a drink with him), we decided to rock climb again the next day and take a cooking class the following day.

Crazy Horse Buttress, just outside the city, had hundreds of bolted courses across its face, a dramatic rock wall rising into the sky, ranging from beginner to crazy.

Wes did really good for his first time. Anna, as well as another guy who was into bouldering, was awesome. I was slow, as usual. I did fine in the morning and on the first climb of the afternoon which I flew up. But then my one foot started really hurting.

Climbing shoes should pinch. They should somewhat resemble foot binding. The pain is necessary so you can balance on the tip of your big toe on a minuscule hold. But this pain--and it was only in my right foot--was intense. When I put all my weight on it, I felt like I was going to pass out. I couldn't concentrate on the climb because all I could think about was the excruciating pain radiating from my toes.

I ripped off my shoe the second I got down and then realized the problem. It was a half-size smaller than my left shoe, which was a full size smaller than my normal shoe size.

My day was shot after that. I was irritable and I needed extra rest time to be free from that shoe. I did not have a happy afternoon.

Anna knew better than I did, but the company we went with, The Peak, was really unprofessional. We only did two climbs in the morning and then had an extended lunch. Nuey, one of the guides, struggled to lead climb the final route. It was her first time trying it. Oh, one of the other guards, was bilaying for Wes at the time. He wasn't paying any attention to Wes hanging 10 meters above him. At one point, he probably had two feet of slack and had to yell down to Oh. In fact, they gave very little instruction considering it was a group with only one experienced climber. None of us thought the third guide had any idea what he was doing.

That night, we went to the Saloon, a country-themed bar on the main strip. We sat with a big group of randoms who invited us, and then Dylan showed up. Anna and Wes made a strategic exit, and Dylan and I continued onto Paradise Beach, a bar with a sand-coated floor and an awesome cover band.

As the night wore on, we both decided to get tattoos. None of the tattoo shops were open.

"If we were on an island," I told him, "we'd have no problem. This is their peak time. The drunk crowd is their target clientele."

We didn't stay out late and didn't drink that much, but I felt rough the next morning. Maybe it was the tequila shot he made me do. I haven't reacted well to tequila since the infamous Tequila Thursday of sophomore year of college.

The first lesson of our cooking class was at the local fresh market where we learned to identify key ingredients in Thai food. It was really helpful for me because I learned the names of foods I'd seen and I could associate these with the names I'd heard so many times but never knew what they were. I learned it's the kaffir lime leaves I don't like in my curries and lesser ginger in my pad kee mao. I had eaten it all before, but I never knew what it was.

Perm, our teacher, was full of awful jokes. He told them all in monotone like it was just part of a daily act. The humor had worn off years ago. He did laugh at his ladyboy jokes; those never get old.

Our first course was a soup. I elected not to cook one. I don't really like Thai soups A. because it's too damn hot for soup, B. they're full of herbs and spices I don't like and C. they use, I imagine, a meat-based broth. I opted to cook an extra noodle dish, one of my favorites, pad see ew.

Those noodles saved me. They rejuvenated me--and they were pretty tasty too.

Cooking schools operate the way all cooking should be. Most of the prep work and the cleanup was done by someone else. All the ingredients came out and all we had to do was chop, chop, chop a few times and throw it on the stove. They even ladled in cooking oil and water into our pans and woks for us.

I cut up my tomatoes--which normally aren't in pad see ew-- kale and tofu and threw it into the hot wok with big noodles and soy sauce. Then i mixed up an egg and let it all cook together.

Everyone else made either tom yum or tom kha with chicken, shrimp or tofu. We ate our delicious dishes.

Perm then showed us hwo to make rice, the dipping sauce for spring rolls and the coconut milk sauce for mango and sticky rice. He demonstrated how to prepare som tam and we all had the opportunity to shave some papaya and pestle the ingredients together. He put together the spring roll filling and showed us how to roll them in rice paper. We each rolled one of our own, and they were deep fried.

All of that food was really good too.

Next we made curries. I had a hard time choosing between the options, but went with green. Perm threw some fresh curry paste in our pots and we stirred like crazy until it was oily, separated from the water. Then I threw in my tofu to give it some flavor, plus two kinds of eggplant, kaffir lime leaves and long beans. He added some chili for spice. But we couldn't eat it just yet. We had more work to do.

The true noodle course came next. Perm first showed us all hoe to make pad thai. Then it was our turn. I chose pad kee mao, drunkard's noodles, one of my favorites and not just because of the name. I cut some eggplants and threw them into the wok with lesser ginger, basil leaves and baby corn. Then I put in the sen yai and sauce. The cooking-basil smell assaulted my nostrils in the best way. I love that burning feeling.

The last course was a stir fry, and this was the part Perm called "adventure cooking." He put a clove of garlic in the wok and when it was hot enough, dropped in his plate of veggies. The flames shot up like he poured gasoline on the fire. From the hot garlic, for some reason, I guess. Then it was our turn. We worked in shifts for the best photos.

I cut up my veggies for pad phak ruammit and heated up the oil and garlic.

1, 2, 3...

I was a little slower on the trigger than the Aussies--the same ones Wes met on the bus in Laos who had taken the fast boat down the Mekong--but Anna and I dumped out plates into the wok at the same time. It was an inferno in the kitchen. Anna couldn't get her fire down for about 30 seconds. The veggies were finished cooking in about that amount of time.

Finally, we got to eat everything we made in the afternoon. With the exception of the curry, my dishes were really good. It was too thick and the taste wasn't quite right.

The food wasn't as good as the wok masters at their carts, but not bad for my first time cooking Thai food and my first time at a stove in two years. Anna's red curry with tofu was good and Wes' pad thai presentation style (wrapped in egg) belonged in a museum, Perm said, although Wes did smash his first egg all over the counter.

We were stuffed. After receiving our diplomas, we waddled home. Anna left for Bangkok on an overnight bus so she could go climbing on Raileh.

Wes wanted to go out, and then Dylan showed up to try to get me to go too. (He described me to the desk clerk as the "short, blonde, foul-mouthed American." "You think I'm foul-mouthed?" "YES.") I couldn't fight them both.

The night turned into a shitshow. We started with a couple drinks in a gazebo at Dylan's hotel with some other Canadians he'd met in Bangkok. The band at the sand bar was playing Red Hot Chili Peppers when we arrived and at that point, it was on for Wes. "I'm going to black out tonight," he told me and ordered a bucket of long island iced tea. After the band finished its set, we went across the road where Dylan insisted we do tequila shots. Then I knew it was on. We ended up at Spicy, a sleazy after-hours club.

Wes busted out his awesome dance moves. He is the best dancer I've ever seen. I promised I wouldn't leave him, but Dylan and I went outside. He was so pissed when he couldn't find us, relieved once he did and then pissed again. He wouldn't talk to me on the way home.