Trip Update #11

Since I've booked the next 6 days solid and I'm not sure if I'll have access to the Internet, I figured I'd send this one out a little early. Hope ya don't mind... Before we continue, I have a correction I need to make: C&C Music Factory sang "Things that make you go Hmmm" and "Gonna make you sweat". "Pump Up the Jam" was sung by Technotronic. Now that you are thoroughly maxxed out on useless information... Monday, July 22nd From the sleepy little border town of Huie Xay in Laos, there are two ways to get to Luang Prabang, where there's actually people living: a slow boat or a fast boat down the Mekong River (opposite of the Yukon). In true Paraagian fashion, I took the fast boat. The fast boat takes 6 hours to complete the journey. Remember the longtail boat I described a few weeks back? This boat is very similar, except that the boat itself looks like it was meant for racing. And definitely not meant for comfort. We each had an area of about 2 ft x 2 ft to sit in, meaning that we were inhaling our knees for the entire trip. It's like an upright fetal position in fact. It would have been nice if it took six hours. But it didn't. The boat kept breaking down - I have a picture of this guy working on the motor with a machete, a hammer, and an iron spike. This is engine mechanics at its finest, folks. Take notes. After changing boats twice, and changing the propeller twice, we finally made it to Luang Prabang. The Mekong River itself is a funny river. To begin with, there had been heavy rains the last 2-3 days in the region and the river was already high because of rainy season - so this river was moving fast. But it was chaotic too - there were whirlpools everywhere, along with completely random waves coming out of nowhere. And the weirdest thing was that the river seemed to change level at it's own whim - my understanding was that gravity was a universal law and would dictate that the level be flat or descending. Perhaps I'm in some alternate universe. Tuesday, July 23rd I rented a motor scooter to drive around all day today. This was great fun, especially since I've never really ridden a motor scooter much in my life, let alone one that is manual shift. Thankfully, I didn't hit anyone. Or at least, not on purpose. Luang Prabang is famous for its Buddhist temples. Go figure. So I went temple watching for a good portion of the day. Temples are known as "wats" here and in Thailand. My favorite temple names so far: Wat That, Wat May, and Wat Pho. If I were to establish some temples, I'd add Wat Dahey, Wat chostep, and Wat Yoolookinat. I could go on forever here... Doesn't take much to amuse me, does it? In the afternoon, I rode 30km one way to the Kwang Xi waterfalls. It being rainy season and all, there was a boatload of water tumbling down the mountain - just awemazing (I'm getting tired of using the same old adjectives to describe things, so I'm going to start making words up). But I think I liked the scooter ride just as much as the waterfall itself, especially since the vast majority of the road was unpaved dirt road, where I had to maneuver around potholes and water puddles. Overall, Laos is much greener and less developed than Thailand - that's the alluring part of this country. As such, you won't find top-notch accommodation or anything fancy around here. It's a nature enthusiast's paradise - just so untouched. And the Internet connections are slow as all heck out here. Wednesday, July 24th Rode in the back row of a bus for 7 hours with my knees to my chest, heading south for a town called Vang Vieng. This town is pretty much a small tourist industry and that's it - no real town or village. Really quite a shame. But why? Because this area has some wowtacular mountainsides and caves. In fact, the number one activity for people to do here is rent an inner tube and float down the Nam Song River just to take it all in. So, I did that. Beauty. The mountains are just holeymoleyiscious - looks like a crazy large piece of shale just jutting out of the ground, and a layer could just flake off at any given moment. But it doesn't. Had a really interesting snack from an Indian street vendor - a roti filled with bananas and chocolate (rich chocolate Ovaltine in fact). Mmm, mmm, good. By the way, I leave for home in exactly one month. Terrifying. Thursday, July 25th First off, happy birthday to my big brudder Neeraj. Did a full-day kayaking/spelunking trip today with 13 other fine individuals - by the way, spelunking is the fancy-pants term for cave exploring. This was incredipendous. I got to have my own kayak too, though it wasn't complete with spray skirt and all - so I couldn't practice rolls or anything. But it was still a lot of fun to tool around a bit. The thing that made today a hit though was the spelunking. The second cave we went into was waterlogged, so we had to swim into it in the complete dark. Only the guides had lights, so we were just kinda feeling around to make our way through. Finally, we reached dry land inside, though it was not so dry. We were pretty much walking on mud. This cave served as a home to the locals for 4 months while the U.S. was carpet-bombing the area during the Vietnam War to keep the North Vietnamese from using Laos as a land crossing to the south. There was even a toilet (big hole in the cave), a kitchen area (room with a vented roof), and a large sleeping area. We continued through the cave for another hour or so, none of us knowing in the least what to expect since the guides didn't bother telling us about all this before. I was totally fine with this, but a few others were really disappointed and upset, which I can completely understand. We were scrambling up steep muddy banks several times - no doubt a slip had the potential to fall for quite a ways in the darkness and potentially hit a rock and break something. We even got to slide down a mud-chute into a water pool - I enjoyed this so much that I climbed back up and went again! After squeezing through a very narrow crevice (I could barely fit through it!), I was outside at last. Free at last, free at last. But now where to? And walking in the forest with no shoes? Not only the forest, but also ankle-deep in mud... or at least I thought it was mud until a distinct smell arose. Needless to say, many of us spent some time in the muddy river trying to clean off said "mud". And a nice long shower was in order when I got back to the guesthouse. Friday, July 26th Rode for four hours in the back of a pick-up truck to Vientiane (capital of Laos) this morning. After finally reaching the backpacker area, I did something I should have done before - read the guidebook. After realizing that Vientiane is kinda like Jakarta in having a lack of things to see or do, I went to a travel agent. Fortunately for me, there was still a flight left this afternoon for Hanoi, Vietnam. So, I took it. At the airport, I bumped into an American fellow (Rob) who I had met in Luang Prabang. So we hung out the rest of the evening around Hanoi and just chatted. It was really nice to just talk with someone who's from the same country - it'd been a while. Especially since we could compare notes about our observations and such about everything. I think this is the first Communist country I've ever been in. There seems to be an abundance of red flags everywhere, and plenty of people dressed in a military-looking uniform. But otherwise, Hanoi seems like a normal city. In fact, some have apparently termed it the "Paris of the Orient", a fitting description since Vietnam was under French rule until independence some 55 years ago. There are still many French remnants left in the landscape, architecture, and even food (baguettes are quite common to see on the streets). Saturday, July 27th Spent the morning booking up trips for the next 5-6 days. Then the afternoon was left to explore the city. First stop - Ho Chi Minh Museum. This place is weird - don't even know how to describe it. But they had a room with a bunch of Picasso stuff in it - made no sense at all. UNESCO has designated Ho Chi Minh as being a great leader, and this is the guy we were fighting against in the Vietnam War. Of course, you won't see the U.S. side of the story here. In any case, it's clear that I need to brush up on my history a bit. The rest of the day, I just wandered around the city, checked out a few pagodas, strolled by some lakes, etc. This city has a strong potential to be a really romantic place to spend some time. I've definitely had my fill though. Since I'm not much of a city person, I'm pretty happy that I leave tomorrow morning. By the way, it's frickin’ hot out here. Till next week, -Paraag Tidbits: 1. Pringles are everywhere. I mean absolutely everywhere – even in a small itty-bitty village along the Mekong River between Huie Xay and Luang Prabang. It appears as though they are a bigger hit outside of the U.S. than in the U.S. 2. Red Bull apparently was created in Thailand. It is sold in this area in glass containers that resemble medicine bottles. And it's cheap. Really strange to see. 3. In Laos, the highest denomination bill is 5000 kip, which is equivalent to roughly 50 cents. So, people pretty much walk around with a stack of bills. Larger purchases are made with Thai bahts or US Dollars. 4. Laos and Vietnam both drive on the right side of the road. So, what happens at the land crossings between Thailand (left side) and Laos? Does the road do a twist? Or are there just a bunch of head on collisions?

Trip Update #10

Well, I'm getting closer and closer to being back on schedule... Monday, July 15th Woke up after a second night in paradise - a floating guesthouse on the lake in the middle of nowhere, Thailand. This is the last day of my three day excursion with C&C Jungle Tours (not to be confused with C&C Music Factory - remember "Pump Up the Jam"?). The first item today was to take a rather uninteresting jungle walk over a mildly barren hill and along a paved roadway for about an hour with a guide who didn't speak English. Not quite sure what I was supposed to get out of this, so I just smiled and said thank you. This is an essential tool to survival in a foreign land - the smile and thank you. Learn it well, my young apprentice. The next item was a much better jungle walk, for which I was joined by 6 other people on random trips with this C&C Jungle Tour company. After about an hour's journey, we reached a cave - and a very unlit cave at that. Another non-English speaking guide-type person proceeded to light up an oil lamp and motioned for us to follow him. Somehow it escaped this whole crew that having one lamp for seven people through narrow entrance passages on rocky and slippery terrain won't quite cut it. So four of the other tourists backed out, leaving me, the guide, and one other person as the lone spelunkers. And of course, I was last, so I couldn't see a damn thing. It was fun bumping into very hard rocks with my head and knees and toes and shins and all that. Really it was. Trust me. It was worth it though - the feeling of venturing into a cavern barely able to maneuver through narrow crevices only to find yourself in a huge room is kinda cool. The last item on the agenda was to ride the railway over the actual Bridge over River Kwai, but some other girl got really really really sick and had to be rushed back into town. Somehow, this meant that I couldn't be dropped at the train station, but being in the situation I was without being able to communicate effectively, I simply smiled and said thank you. Almost forgot - the mountains in Thailand are rather peculiar looking. The silhouette of the mountains against the horizon is very random. Imagine a 5 year old's scribble or doodle of one continuous line across a page; this is what the mountains look like. Tuesday, July 16th Not feeling very well today. Tough luck. I had already booked a day trip to Ayuthaya, which was one of the previous capitals of Thailand. The first capital was Sukothai, then Ayuthaya, and now Bangkok. In each case, the new capital was established after the Burmese took over the existing capital and ruined and pillaged it. Needless to say, Thais are not generally fond of Burmese people. Ayuthaya was neat - bunch of old buildings made of brick with Buddhas everywhere. I think Mojo Nixon should rewrite his song "Elvis is Everywhere" to "The Buddha is Everywhere". Though the place was interesting, there's only so much of ruined buildings that I can take - they all start looking the same after the first 15 minutes, regardless of the function of the structure in its previous life. So, I was quite ready to go by the end of the day. Back in Bangkok, I boarded an overnight bus to Chiang Mai, which is way up north in Thailand. Thanks to my comfy down-feather travel pillow (recommended my Scott), I was able to catch some zzzzzzz's. Wednesday, July 17th Arrived in Chiang Mai at 6am. After wandering around a bit to check out hotel prices and trekking prices, I settled on a place called "Nice Place". This is a rather apt name, since it says it all in one phrase. You know that it's not a crappy place or a wonderful place, it tells you right in the name. Life would be so much simpler if everything were so named - KFC could be "overpriced fast food" and Taco Bell could be "drunk/hungover food" and White Castle could be "dain bramaged food". Chiang Mai is Buddhist temple central. There are over 200 temples in this town. So, I spent some time looking around and checking out a few temples. It's just really neat to walk along what appears to be a normal everyday street by most people's definitions, and then all of a sudden be confronted by this beautifully constructed and adorned multiple-level golden A-frame roofed temple every few blocks. Just strange. And kinda cool. At 6pm, I met a bunch of people that I would be stuck with over the next few days on a trekking expedition in the mountains of northern Thailand. We were given an overview of the expedition and what we needed to bring. Then we were let loose. To get better acquainted, a few of us went out and grabbed some dinner and drinks - nothing major. Another relatively low-key day. Thursday, July 18th Began the trek this morning. After having a Nice Shower, checking in my bag and my valuables at the Nice Safety Deposit Box, and getting some Nice Breakfast, we were on our way. There were 13 of us: 5 Brits, 3 Dutch, 3 Americans, and 2 Kiwis. The split was 7 guys, 6 women - not bad at all. We were headed to an area called Pai, which was a good 4-hour drive away. So, we packed into a songtaew (the pick-up truck with a canopy) with our 3 guides and the driver and off we went. Since there was not nearly enough room for us all to sit, two of the guides stood on the tailgate and held on to the roof. Slowly, we started trading places with them for a change of pace. Then, one of the guides hopped onto the roof. Not to be outdone, I hopped up there and joined him. Don't worry - we were wearing our seatbelts! :-) I've been known in the past to drive my car on cruise control and standing up so my head is through the open sunroof - this was a similar sensation. (From the audience, a collective "you idiot!") After our 4-hour drive, we arrived at a Lisu hill tribe village. One chief guide Chan explained the Lisu traditions and conventions, and then we were on our way for a 2-hour hike through the jungle to the next village, where we would stay the night. The path was extremely slippery, so it didn't take long before people were falling. Soon, we even devised a scoring system for falls - 1 point for minor falls and 3 points for major falls. By the end of the two hours, we had lost count because one of the British girls apparently had Teflon for shoes and kept us laughing the whole way. At the Lahu village, we played a little soccer (I was goalie, as usual). My team lost, but not until I was replaced at goal and moved to forward, where I scored two goals. Yes, they were off two very good assists, but hey - I scored! No, I didn't take off my shirt a la Brandi Chastain since I wasn't wearing a shirt. We all had dinner soon afterwards - a homecooked Thai meal, family style with all of us sitting in a big circle. After dinner, the village kids came and sang along with the guitar for us - incredibly adorable. You know how kids sing - with no regard for pitch, volume, rhythm... brought tears to our eyes. Our sleeping quarters were one huge room with a bunch of mattresses on the floor - very communal. The shower was a tap flowing into a bucket. And the bathrooms were umm... squatters. Many of you know what squatters are, and many do not. Those who do not, please ask me some other time for a description. So we sat around, sang songs, drank beer, smoked cigarettes (mostly), and just got to know one another. Really a wonderful day. Friday, July 19th Woke up late this morning and didn't get out of the village until 11:00 or so - a full two hours behind schedule, or so they told us. It had rained all night, so the points were sure to rack up today on the slip-o-meter. But, we were all given walking sticks to use. Apparently, this was the missing link - we recorded a very low number of falls. Oh well. We stopped by a waterfall after a two hour hike to rinse off the thick layer of sweat, sunscreen, and bug spray. Very refreshing. After lunch, we hiked another hour or so before mounting up for an hour long elephant ride. This was incredible - the scenery was gorgeous untouched jungle, and we were riding on elephants. The pictures are sure to be stunning. Of course, just riding on elephants wasn't enough, so we got a hold of a few slingshots and tried to pelt each other with balled up leaves. When am I ever going to get a chance to do that again? After another brief hike, we arrived at a Karen tribe village, where our head guide Chan was from. Same type of setup as the night before. This evening's activity was a local game, which was eerily like a drinking game, except whenever someone messed up, they were the recipient of a char smear on their face from the underbelly of a cooking pot. Different. Saturday, July 20th Our last day on this trek - boo hoo! The major activity today was a 2-hour bamboo raft trip. The raft is as follows – a bunch of bamboo stalks tied together. Then three of us plus a guide are placed on each raft. Each of us has another bamboo stalk to push against the stream bottom to propel us along. This quickly became competitive as we were trying to steal the sticks from other rafts, tip them over, or any number of crazy ludicrous things. But it was definitely good fun. My boat won, which ironically had all three Americans on it. The other American fellow wasted no time in chanting "U.S.A." repeatedly, to the groans of everyone else present. Apparently, it's a commonly held belief that Americans are very arrogant. This fellow was not helping the cause (through the chanting and other conversations that he had with folks). I'm sure that people from other countries to an extent are hearing what they want to hear, but I can see some truth behind these allegations. Most people also claimed that I am very different from the typical American that they meet. So I don't quite know what to believe. But, I guess whether we like it or not, we are all ambassadors of our respective countries and we just need to remember that. This 3 day trek may have been the highlight of my trip so far -it's difficult to say. I just had an incredible time in an incredibly beautiful area. It was simply perfect. Sunday, July 21st Hopped on a government bus for a 6 hour ride to Chiang Khong. This was a luxury bus, fully equipped with A/C. Unfortunately, the A/C was too strong and I froze my tail off. Oh well. Chiang Khong is a border town from which I crossed the Mekong river to get into Laos. Laos is a country - really, it is. Go look on the map. In fact, Hank Hill's neighbor Hanh is from Laos. So I spent the night in this sleepy little town on the Laos side called Huie Xay, not to be confused with the neighboring towns of Louie Xay and Dewey Xay. My room was the most basic possible - a full bed with four walls and not much more. In fact the four walls weren't really finished walls - my side of the wall had the beams exposed. But there were some friendly spiders that were sharing the room with me. Bumped into a guy that was on the bus from Chiang Mai with me at a restaurant and I ended up hanging out with the group he was with for the rest of the evening. They were enjoying a few bottles of the local rice whiskey. Before I myself partook, I figured that I should examine the bottle. It read "1999 Bordeaux". Oh well, bottoms up! After finishing this bottle, the waitress told us that they were out. I think she was secretly trying to get rid of us, since one person in our party was busy feeding his dinner to the shrubberies. Till next week, -Paraag Tidbits: 1. It's rainy season here. This means that it's impossible for clothes to dry, so my bag smells like umm... wet underwear. Yecch! 2. The humidity also causes it to not take much to begin sweating. And sweating is like "breaking the seal" - once you start, it's difficult to stop. 3. The unit of currency in Thailand is the baht. To pronounce this word, imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger saying "Baht I don't want fries with that" and there you have it. 4. I've had a strikingly small amount of satay in Thailand. But I've had enough chicken fried rice to last me a lifetime. This is the "fish and chips" or "cheeseburger and fries" of Southeast Asia without a doubt.

Trip Update #9

It just feels like a few short days ago that I wrote you last... oh wait, it was just a few short days ago. Or at least it was when I started writing this damn thing... I've come to the realization that there is no way that I'll be able to stick to a schedule of sending out updates. There's so many places that I'll be heading to over the next few weeks that have no Internet access at all. So, you'll just have to make do with whatever and whenever I dish it out. Monday, July 8th Today, Brian and I went out in search of a dive shop, with whom to flex our scuba muscles and plunge into the depths of the murky waters below. Except that the water wasn't murky. It just sounds better calling it murky. Apparently, all the dive shops on the beach have done us a "favor" by standardizing their prices. So, shopping around will get you nothing cheaper. While this will save us time, I'm sure that in the end, the consumer is getting screwed. We ended up selecting this place called Stingray Divers, solely because they were extremely laid-back and willing to make trips whenever and wherever we wanted to. Luckily, this was not at the expense of professionalism. So, I did two dives today - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Both were pretty good dives - lots of fishees. Crystal clear blue water. Kinda like you'd expect a dive to be like off of a tropical isle. Tuesday, July 9th Did three dives today with Stingray. The first one was to a place called Temple in the Sea, where the visibility was just awesome at about 20m. We saw 6-7 nurse sharks hanging out underneath some coral (nurse sharks are the only sharks that can breath without swimming along), a few larger black tipped sharks scurrying along the ocean floor, a number of blue spotted rays, and a whole school of barracuda - every time I say or write "barracuda", that 80's song sung by some woman (Pat Benatar perhaps?) keeps popping in my head. I wish it wouldn't. Make the voices stop. For the love of God, just make the voices stop. Whoops! Sorry about that. Anyway, we saw some barra... umm.. you know. Our Canadian divemaster guy even wrote on his underwater slate "It just doesn't get any better than this". Wasn't that the slogan of Old Milwaukee beer or something? I faintly remember a commercial way back when with a bunch of cowboys sitting around a campfire drinking beer, and one of them uttering that phrase. Obviously, that cowboy guy was wrong - just ask our Canadian divemaster guy. He'll tell you. The afternoon dive was a little less spectacular. Just as we were heading off, a huge storm came overhead and the visibility in the water became very poor with strong currents. But, we did see a huge sea turtle - at least four feet in length. That's almost bigger than my sister! The third dive of the day was a night dive. I think this is the sort of thing that I want to do much much more of. Not being able to see a damn thing just increases the adrenaline rush tenfold. Not that I'm into adrenaline rushes or anything... Ironically enough, this was the absolute worst dive I've ever had. Everything that could go wrong went wrong, except that I didn't die (sorry Marcus, can't have my Alfa). As soon as I got into the water, my legs started to cramp. Had to stretch them a few times to get okay again. Later, my toes started to cramp - but there's nothing you can do about that. Then, I was having an equalization problem with my ears and had to mess with that for a while. My scuba partner Brian seemed to not know where he was or where I was, so I had to keep tabs on him to make sure that we were close to each other. Through all of these problems, I was consuming air faster than normal, so my air pressure started getting low quickly. And, as the last straw, the battery in my flashlight started fading until it was no longer working at the end, so getting someone else's attention under water was close to impossible. But I still did get to see a few crabs, a ray or two, several cuttlefish, and an eel. After the dive, it was apparent that I didn't get my equalization right, since my right ear was absolutely killing me. Sleep was difficult to come by. Wednesday, July 10th Took a speedboat back to Kuala Besut on the mainland and bid adieu to the islands. From Kuala Besut, we took a taxi to Thailand. Doesn't that sound neat? I mean, how many times in your lifetime will you be able to hop in a taxi and say "To Thailand!". Guess I can check that one off the "list of things to do before I die". The border crossing was pretty simple. Walk partway across a bridge and check out of Malaysia, like a hotel checkout ending with an additional stamp in the passport (my favorite part). Walk a little further and check into Thailand. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. In Thailand, we walked a kilometer in the blazing heat to the nearest town, and then made preparations to head up north. Our first stop was initially planned to be Ko Tau - an island off the east coast of Southern Thailand that is supposed to have great diving. But seeing that my ears were still hurting, I wasn't really up for going diving again so soon. And Rayman had come to the conclusion that he needed to cut his trip short lest he lose his sweet downtown NYC apartment (and the girlfriend that came with it). So Rayman and I booked a 21-hour train to Bangkok, and Brian hopped off the train after 9 hours to take a ferry over to Ko Tao. Along the way on the train, I inadvertently befriended some local Thais in a very interesting manner. So here's the story... You see... these older fellas started drinking some whiskey and generally having a good old time. Soon, one of them had a little too much and decided to go to sleep at the oh so early hour of 7:30 p.m.. Since we were in a sleeper car and I had the upper berth, this meant that I would be confined to a very cramped space up top way earlier than necessary. So, I retaliated by giving the guys "evil eye" and commenting loudly to Rayman that they could have been polite and had the beds made on the other side instead of bothering me, a total stranger. After a while they genuinely felt bad, and talked to me every five seconds thereafter, trying to get me to consume some whiskey with them. Finally they went away and I was in peace again. Thursday, July 11th Arrived in Bangkok at 9am or so. We took a tuk-tuk (a small open air three wheeler scooter like taxi) to Khao San Road, where all the backpackers stay. After some shopping around, we settled at this place called Green House Inn. Turns out that this place is pretty much jam-packed with Israelis. So it was me, Rayman, and a bunch of Jews. Hmm... A Hindu, a Muslim, and a bunch of Jews - sounds like a good movie title to me! Starring Gilbert Gottfried, Whoopi Goldberg, and Barbara Streisand as the Jews, Omar Sharif as the Muslim, and Jason Scott Lee as a very Chinese-looking Hindu (hey, it worked for The Jungle Book). As expected, we spent all evening singing Hava Nagila and having a grand old time. Would you believe that I learned 3-4 Jewish songs while attending Hindu summer camps when I was a kid? I remember the shocked look on my Jewish friends' faces at college when I started singing "Shalom Chaverim" one drunken evening. We went and caught some Thai boxing this evening – ringside seats. The fights weren't as bloody as they seemed they should be, but I'm not much of a fan of this stuff anyway. It was still good to see something different though. The fifth fight we saw pitted two boys who seemed to be roughly 9 years of age each. This was different enough for us, so we took off. I have no desire to see something like that, let alone watch other people egg them on and even gamble on it. Just doesn't seem right. It gets difficult at times like this to remember that things are not always as they seem to the Western eye, and the important thing is to not rush to a judgment just because this is not acceptable in our society. After the Thai boxing match, we went to the Sukhamvit area of Bangkok. As many of you may know, Bangkok is very famous for just what it's name sounds like in English - the flesh trade. Sukhamvit is one of those areas specializing in this. In all honesty (and I know you won't believe me), neither Rayman nor I really had any interest in seeing this stuff, but it's just one of those things that must be seen here. So we walked around the area, watching tons of Western guys with Thai girls on their arms, got solicited numerous times to go into this establishment or that establishment, and so forth. In the end, we just went back to the hotel (really Mom - we did). Friday, July 12th Today, we did the tourist thing. We first went to a temple with a very large reclining Buddha, where we met a Puerto Rican guy who worked for P&G in Australia in marketing for animal medicine. Go figure. Next, we went to the Great Palace. This place was just superb - no words can describe how stunningly beautiful it was. I was having a hard time figuring out what to take pictures of; there were simply too many things to photograph. I almost felt like I was doing a disservice to some buildings by not photographing them also. One of the temples in this complex contains the "Emerald Buddha". I'll let you in on a secret: it's not made of emerald; it's made of jade. Don't tell the Thais though - it's a secret. This Emerald (hee!) Buddha sits atop a very large infinitely ornate gold mounting of some sort. But we weren't allowed to photograph it. We also spent some time at a tailor getting three suits and five silk shirts for Rayman and his new Wall Street job – all custom made and for relatively cheap. It almost made me sad that I didn't need any suits for work. Okay, I take that back. All day, we were continually getting solicited for some "boom boom", which meant a massage plus a little something extra. I took this as a compliment, since you know - how worthless would you feel if even the pimps turned you down? Saturday, July 13th Early this morning, Rayman took off for the airport in hopes of securing a standby ticket to get home a week early. So, we split up, and cried a last goodbye. Parting is such sweet sorrow... I began a 3 day / 2 night trip this morning to Kanchanaburi, where the infamous Bridge over River Kwai is situated. This is an old WWII bridge that was part of a railway commissioned by the Japanese to connect Bangkok and Burma to have a way to ship supplies and ammunitions to troops trying to advance into Burma and India. This railway was built mainly by POWs from the war and by many locals under very excruciatingly oppressive conditions. About 30% of all those who worked on it died during the construction. Very very sad indeed. We saw a cemetery, rode a bamboo raft under the famous "Bridge", had an hour-long elephant-ride (baby elephants are so unbelievably cute, by the way), an area of the railway called "Hellfire Pass", rode on the famous train for a little bit, petted a tiger at an animal sanctuary, and... oh yeah, gotta tell this story. One of the girls in our group was absolutely convinced that all tigers have attacked humans at some point or another and kept on giving crap to the monk who was taking care of the animals. Truth is that tigers are more scared of us than we are of them. The monk kept on saying, "No, no, tiger is friend. See?" and put his entire hand in the tiger's mouth. She didn't buy it. Clearly she must be right since her entire experience with tigers is what she's seen on TV, and as we all know the TV never lies. Back to the story... umm… that's really about it for today.All transport around the area was by songtaew - picture a pickup with a high canopy over the truck bed. Along each side of the pickup, there is a bench seat. That's about it. For one of the short journeys, I only had one cheek on the bench, and had to brace myself with my foot against the open tailgate to make sure I didn't fall out. Good times. Our accommodations were out in the middle of nowhere – a floating little guesthouse on a lake. No electricity at all - had to use oil lamps. Rooms were very basic with just a mattress on a floor. And we had authentic Thai food for dinner, served family style. Awesome. Sunday, July 14th After breakfast this morning, we all hopped on a small bamboo raft pulled by a longtail boat. What's a longtail boat? It looks to me as though they took out the engine and driveshaft from a perfectly good automobile, secured the engine down to the back of a fishing boat, and tacked on a propeller at the end of the drive shaft (making it a long tail). I don't quite understand why they didn't use an outboard motor like most other boats in existence. Then, we entered the Erawan National Park, where we spent about 3 hours hiking and swimming around a cascade of seven beautiful waterfalls. Simply gorgeous. Unfortunately, it was too gorgeous and so everyone and their mother-in-law's pet cat were there. Still well worth it. After a fried rice boxed lunch, we saw some hot springs - which appeared to me like two little pools of water that were man-made. I didn't see any spring. Of course, our guide couldn't speak a lick of English, so we just smiled so that we could get on with the rest of our lives. Okay. Gotta run. Have lots of figuring out to do for the next few days' adventure. -Paraag Tidbits 1. It's neat to see how the American fast food restaurant franchises have adapted to the cultures in Asian countries. For example, KFC in Bangkok had silverware and served beverages in actual glasses. And, they served rice with some of the meals. They also serve ice cream here. McDonald's has a McCyber Cafe. 2. Mental note to read up on WWII a little more when I get home. There's so much that I don't remember from my high school history class. 3. If you ever read a British novel, keep in mind that lighting up a fag doesn't mean that to set fire to a homosexual (not that there's anything wrong with that, oh wait... yes, there is), rather it refers to lighting up a cigarette. Also, getting pissed means getting drunk. And you thought you wouldn't learn anything from this message... 4. Why do they call him "the Buddha" rather than just "Buddha"? I should probably know this, since Buddhism sprouted from Hinduism, so I guess I'm a bad Hindu.

Trip Update #8 - a little late

For those of you who have been counting on my updates as your Monday morning coffee break/sanity check, my apologies for this being a little tardy. But as my mother says, "it's better to be delayed than the late" (sounds much better with a thick Indian accent). Essentially, we had no Internet access from 7/5 till 7/11. In the interest of keeping this relatively short, and allowing me to get to sleep sometime soon, I'll limit this to just a weekly update (till Sunday, 7/7). I'll type up the update in a few days to completely catch up. So here's what happened... Monday, July 1st A little diddy kept playing in my head all day long. It went something like "This is my birthday song, it isn't very long" (lyrics courtesy Aruna, visual imagery courtesy Saravanan). So how did I spend my 28th birthday? Why by visiting temples of course! What else would I do? Something a tad bit unholier? Never. The morning started off with a trip to Borobudur, a very massive Buddhist temple that was constructed around a hill, such that there is no real interior to the temple - just the shell around a hill. This place is deemed by the folks who spend their lives deeming stuff to be one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. This clearly begs the question, how often is it that one of the ancient wonders of the world (Borobudur) and one of the modern wonders of the world (me) are united? Truly a special occasion for everyone involved. This afternoon, we went to Prambanan, which is a massive Hindu temple complex that was built about the same time that Borobudur was. To me, it was equally spectacular. So why isn't it an ancient wonder of the world too? I guess because they only had one spot and they had to flip a coin. That would be the only fair way to do it. Brian and Rayman were rock stars all day. Everyone wanted to take their picture with the white guy and the brown guy with blond hair. No love for the brown guy who's keeping it real. On his birthday nonetheless. Tuesday, July 2nd After about 3 hours of sleep, Rayman and I got up to go to Mt. Merapi - an active volcano just north of Yogyakarta. It was really cool because we got to see some hot liquid magma (spoken Dr. Evil style) spill from the top of the mountain and roll down the mountainside. This sight can't be seen during the day – too much steam and smoke and whatnot. Late this evening, we boarded a overnight train to Jakarta. This train was actually quite comfortable - the seats were rather wide, reclined pretty far, and they gave us decent size pillows and blankets. Better than air travel in the US by far. Except that we didn't get any peanuts, not that it's such a big bag. Wednesday, July 3rd Got into Jakarta. We quickly realized why the tour books tell people to avoid this place. There's nothing to do here. Apparently, one of the previous dictators (Soekarno) saw it fit to spend valuable country resources in constructing useless and tasteless monuments around the city. There's one in the central square of the city called Monas (or National Monument) that kind of looks like the Washington Monument with a wider bulge of an observation deck at the top. The Indonesians love it so much that they call it Soekarno's Last Erection. I guess it was the last monument the he commissioned in the city - that would explain the nickname. We spent the morning trying to figure out how to get to the harbour, since this harbour was supposed to be one of the more interesting places in Jakarta. Along the way, we ate breakfast at an A&W's. I've never eaten at an A&W's in my life, so I guess Indonesia is as good a place as any to start. But they did have unlimited ketchup. I suggested to the counter lady that they use this as a major advertising ploy. She couldn't see the light. So after a lot of trouble, we finally make it to the harbour. It was pretty lame. A bunch of people unloading lumber off of schooners. That's about it. In the afternoon, we hopped a flight to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Before I forget, during our entire stay in this city, a favorite joke between me and Brian was "Lumpur, I don't even know her". Thank you, thank you. Next show in half an hour. Immediately upon reaching Malaysia, we noticed a distinct difference. This place seemed clean and modern and orderly and all those other adjectives that are generally associated with Western nations. Apparently, Prime Minister Mahathir has a Year 2020 Goal to get Malaysia unlisted as a third-world country. They're on the right track. We stayed in Chinatown where all the backpackers go, and immediately started looking around for a place. I was convinced that we could find somewhere that didn't have all the bells and whistles and met our basic needs for cheap. And I persuaded Rayman and Brian to agree with me. So, we found a pretty good place, checked out the room and everything seemed fine. Suddenly, I see Rayman point to the bed, mouth agape trying to find words to express himself. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the object of his attention. The upper bunk was already inhabited! Let me describe this being as in a matrimonial ad: two inches, hard brown exoskeleton, six legs, carries many many diseases. Before you could say Jehosephat, I was outta there. Fortunately we stumbled upon a very nice hotel a few blocks away - it was at least twice as much as the Roach Motel, but this was no time to be a cheapskate. Rayman and Brian were thoroughly enjoying this, having finally found my weakness to not accepting meager accommodations. Thursday, July 4th I felt so fat and lazy this morning that I decided that I would look around for somewhere to run. It didn't work. I ended up jogging on streets, and having to pause to navigate through traffic to cross the streets. But it felt nice to get some blood pumping. Kuala Lumpur (also known as KL) was crazy hot and humid. So what better a thing to get for breakfast than some spicy Indian food! We're idiots. First stop on our walking tour today was Merdeka Square, where Malaysia declared its independence from the Brits sometime in the 40s, I think. Now the square is home of SE Asia's tallest flagpole. Whoopty frickin doo. Since it had been two whole countries ago since we had visited a tower (last one was in Sydney), we walked a few kilometers to the KL Tower and purchased tickets for the observation deck to get a good view of the entire city. We also got an audio tour free with the observation deck ticket, which meant that we got to wear headphones and listen to some lady tell us about KL. At Station #9, this lady also explained to us that Satay originated in Malaysia and not in Thailand. She followed this proclamation by purring a convincingly sexy "mmmmm". Rayman and Brian were fascinated by this (or turned on - I wasn't about to look), and replayed Station #9 over and over. I had to peel them away. Such children. Sheesh. Chinatown's Night Market was particularly interesting. They had DVDs on sale for Spiderman, Men In Black II, Minority Report, Blade II, Star Wars - Episode II, and other movies that hadn't even made it to theatres yet. Felt like Spaceballs all over again. Friday, July 5th Checked out of our comfortable luxurious hotel in Chinatown and took a shuttle bus north to Taman Negara National Park – the oldest rainforest in the world (apparently, it survived the last ice age). After a three hour shuttle bus ride, which included a brief stop for breakfast at an Indian place where an omelette was the equivalent of a quarter and a dosa cost 50 cents. Mmmmmm.... dosa (if you don't know what this is, ask your friendly neighborhood brown person). Anyway, after this bus ride, we hopped on a riverbus for a 3-hour journey to the park. Well, they call it a riverbus. I liked to think of it as an overgrown canoe with a roof and an outboard motor. Nevertheless, the 3-hour journey was very peaceful and relaxing, though our butts were glad when it was over. We had decided not to stay at the resort and village and instead stay at Nusa Camp 15 minutes upstream so that we could be more in touch with nature. Well, we succeeded in that – we were bombarded with mosquitoes at every waking moment, and our shared bathroom played host to all sorts of creatures, including a bunch of 1.5 inch ants - I kid you not. Saturday, July 6th This morning was a nightmare. We had run out of money and needed to change some US dollars, but Nusa Camp didn't know the exchange rate and wouldn't do it for us. We also still needed to pay for permits to be able to hike around the national park. To do both of these things, we needed to get back to the village, but the first boat back was at 11:15. By the time everything was said and done, it was 1pm before we could get started. So at 1pm we were ready to start our journey, and who did we bump into? Alfin and Christine - the Canadian couple who I hiked with at 3am to see the sunrise over Mt. Bromo in Indonesia. Go figure. So we all spent the afternoon together. The highlight of the afternoon was the 421 meter canopy walkway, which is a series of rope bridges going from treetop to treetop. Felt kinda like that scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, except with a rope bridge and no hottie martial arts expert trying to kick my butt. The afternoon was crazy hot and humid - we were perspiring like we had spent all day "Sweatin to the Oldies" with Richard Simmons (hey, at least it wasn't a Deal a Meal reference – How do I remember this crap?). So, we spent an hour tubing down the river to cool off. Niiiiiiice. Sunday, July 7th Caught the 9am riverbus to get out of the park. We were in a bit of a rush to get 300 km away to Kuala Besut, where we planned to catch the last ferry to the Perhentian Islands. We had arranged for a taxi to pick us up for this purpose. Our taxi was a hoot - it was a late 70s model Mercedes with an old Chinese guy for a driver, who didn't like to go above 60 kmh. After I complained that we'd never get there in time, he switched us over halfway to another taxi. This was much better - an early 70's model Mercedes with no air conditioning and an old Malaysian guy who didn't speak a lick of English driving. But he passed cars like nobody's business. We got to Kuala Besut a few minutes before the last ferry - just in luck. Aiming to learn from our Taman Negara mistake, we decided to stay on Long Beach at the Perhentian Islands, which was the most popular area. By the time we got there, it was nightfall and most places were booked. Finally, when we got to the last place on the beach, we found a suitable room. All in all, it was a bit of a nerve-wracking day. Since we all had that no-so-fresh feeling, we took turns showering and then had a bite to eat. The Perhentian Islands are primarily two major islands, with some teeny-tiny surrounding islands. The Malaysians were very selective when they named these two major islands: they called them Perhentian Kecil and Perhentian Besar, where Kecil means "small" and besar means "big". That must have been tough. But the islands are beautiful, the water is crystal-clear, and the beaches are real nice. It's not overdeveloped, so you get a nice cozy feel. Finished two more books - The Jesus Man by Christos Tsiolkas and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling. I'm a reading machine. Till 60 hours from now, when I write the next update, -Paraag Tidbits 1. No Bill, there is no city called BooBoo-akarta. 2. Quite possibly the best feeling in the world is a cool shower after a day in hot sticky weather. This might be a close second to the sensation of taking your ski boots off after a long day of skiing (what my brother calls "the best part of skiing"). 3. The first American television I've watched in two months happened at Nusa Camp in Taman Negara, of all places - a very funny episode of Dilbert. There's probably some learning in here about how I probably watch more TV than necessary and all that, but I refuse to accept this theorem.