The Deep End

THATS IT!! I'm done.

jstern01 — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:18:00 GMT

I'm at a really nice bungalow village hotel in Gracias, Honduras and amongst many great services, they offer free wifi and computer for web use. The connections quick and to tempt fate I try to post another story (actually the past stories abbriged with some updated goodness). I'm concurrently uploading photos when Voooooommmmmm. No lights. If anyone is still checking this vacant website 'o' mine, please shed a tear for me, I have none left. For the sake of the good townsfolk of Gracias I shant write much further, lest I anger the the Mayan Gods and deprive them of future electricity tonight. This will be the last.

When I get back if I'm not directly thown into work, I'll try and post some photos and stories. See you all soon.

p.s. I slept in a haunted Honduran hooker hotel last night. Please ask me about it when I get back.

The Alpha and the Omega

jstern01 — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 10:00:00 GMT

No, I haven't been kidnapped by a cult. This will be the first and only posting by me until I reach an area of better bandwidth/electrical stability. I have, on two consecutive nights, lost power to my computer while writing posts to this here travelogue. These postings were funny, these postings were honest, these postings were shocking these postings were tear-jerking and now they are lost, floating somewhere in the digital ether. I lost gold, ya hear me; PURE GOLD. I love you all, see you soon (not too soon).

Angkor What??

jstern01 — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 02:33:00 GMT

In Cambodia:

- Renting a Motobike and driver for an entire day to usher you around Ankgor Wat ... $10

- The price of blowing up a bovine with a bazooka or other incarnation of rocket launcher... $1000*

- The cost of paying of a judge after murdering a Human ... $5000*

- Having a country for which you once conducted secret bombing raids more universally accepting US Dollars over their native Riel ... [Priceless]

Seriously, it's weird seeing all of these multinational tourist carrying around US greenbacks as currency for transactions in Cambodia. It's even wierder that I'm the only one of them who is actually attempting to use Riel, and who natively uses dollars. Actually that's a lie, I natively use credit.

Angkor Wat and the rest of the Angkor site is incredible. The city of Angkor Thom (in ruins for the past 1000 years) once held over a million people when London was just a sleepy mud hut town. A really amazing culture which I am not going to elaborate upon because I'm really tired and a little bit drunk.

* The above prose does not in anyway assume or incriminate the writer in any way, shape or form for having performed or enjoyed said activities.

Trekking to the ends

jstern01 — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 02:16:00 GMT

So much to tell, so little time/energy/concentration.

Before leaving Chiang Mai last week, went to an elephant conservation/rehabilitation camp about 1 hour outside of the city and met up with a dude that I went to High School with. Josh Plotnick is three months into his research on the higher cognitive abilities of elephant and their capabilities to recognize themselves in a mirror (self - awareness). He's getting his PHD in some sort of psychology. Who knew? Another of my good friends from high school is up for an Oscar on the 25th for his short Doc "Salim Baba". Congrats Francisco.

The bus out of Chiang Mai to the border town of Chiang Khong was a gruelling 7 hour trip. One side of the bus had three seats and the other two. It's not that the busses her are bigger, it's that Thai people have smaller asses. I'm a small person and was very uncomfortable (being shoulder to shoulder with my neighbor. The road was partially paved, meaning there was pavement around all of the potholes. To ease our discomfort, the nationally run bus service felt in beneficial to blast Thai pop tunes so loud that even with my earplugs in I couldn't think. This was followed by the Zany lady-boy variety show and bizarre ninja astral plane-fantasy adventure movie-thing. Awesome.

Getting across the border/river into Laos was like passing through a lunch line in middle school. After checking through customs and passing through 3 check points (fold out tables in the middle of the street) I was able to exchange some money. I traded $200 in traveller's checks for kip; 1.8 Million Kip. That's right, I'm a fucking millionaire. I'm rich Biotch. The stack of bills they gave me was easily 2" thick, mostly in 20,000 kip denominations.

Taking a minibus up to Luang Namtha, the Laos revealed itself as truly a third world country. Every town was really more like a tribal village with stilted houses and thatched roofs. It's like travelling through "Heart of Darkness". The lonely planet guide that I've been using estimated the trip to take ~9-10 hours but since then, Laos has invested in a super-highway, connecting China to Thailand. Their definition of a super-highway is what we would classify as a back road through the mountains. Simply a 2 lane road that is actually covered in tarmac rather than clay.

I land in Luang Namtha and it's really cold; and has been since. It's probably 40F that night and I'm totally unprepared. I take a hot shower and do some pushups to warm myself up (as none of the rooms are heated). Technically Laos is a socialist country, though really just in title and corruption. The town of Luang Namtha is considered a city; the largest in the region. To me it feels like a one horse town on the edge of nowhere. The streets are empty and foggy and cold. The next day I'm off for the mountains for a three day trek that takes me through numerous Hmong Hill tribe villages. My companions are a married couple from Germany and a girl from Holland.

The first day is a steep climb (400 meters) to a summit village our guide refers to as fucky village (foggy village). Although not to fucky, it was completely consumed in cloud cover. On the way up we stop for lunch on the trail. Our guide cuts down 4 enormous banana leaves and we use them as a table cloth. We eat with our hands after cleaning them in a small waterfall and the food is delicious. Bamboo shoots, sticky rice, chicken in chilli sauce and various other local vegetables.

The village itself was surreal. You couldn't see but 15' in front of you. In every direction was the silhouette of bamboo huts and the livestock ran wild throughout the town. We adopted a mother and two pups who cozied themselves next to the fire outside of the hut we slept in. Dinner was incredible. Our tribal chef slaughtered a game cock and 45 minutes later we had dinner. I can honestly say it was one of the best meals I've ever had.

We trek for about five hours the second day and end up in a drunken tribal village about 15km where we slept the previous night. The village was in the second day of a 3-day wedding celebration and were all completely wasted on their own home brewed rice whiskey and rice wine. We were welcomed with open arms as the newest form of entertainment in the wedding procession. Some of the huts had lights that were powered off of a few hydro-powered generators functioning in the various streams around the village. That rice alcohol packs a punch and I realized that drunk talk is a universal language.

Arriving back in town late the next afternoon, I shower and try to take a quick nap before dinner but am kept up by the evening propaganda. A series of loud-speakers line the town spewing provincial "news" and announcements for the day. This goes on every morning and night for about two hours. I guess Laos hasn't shed all of it's socialist ideals.

King of the Moto

jstern01 — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:36:00 GMT

Got up to Chiang Mai on Friday via the Night Train from Lopburi (monkey town). The safety standards in Thailand are much different than what we have in the US; and by different I could easily be saying non-existant. Standing in between train cars while traveling at 80mph is very acceptable. The doors of the train are never closed so one slip and out you go. This is kind of the deal all over Thailand. They aren't plagued with the same get-rich-quick lawsuit mentality that we have in the states and are in effect afforded greater civil-liberties. If you fall out of a train while drinking a bottle of Johnny-Walker Red and singing with a bunch of ex pats from Bali to Katmandu, thats your prerogative (more on this later perhaps).

The windows of the trains opened completely and had metal shades that could be drawn if sleep was desired (ha). I stayed in the second class car which means that the seats reclined. Saw some beautiful sights on the way trip(giant golden Buddhas on mountain tops, endless rice paddies, villages etc) but what really hit me was what I saw at night. For miles in every direction, great fires could be seen and the smoke was intense all up the countryside. This from what I gathered is the clear cutting and burning of the crops after harvest season and happens for a period of three days, three times a year. The environmental impact is immediately apparent. In fact, most everything in this country is burned it's use is finished (from the dead to garbage).

After taking the local form of taxi at 5:30AM @ the train station (basically a pickup truck with a bench on either side of the bed) checked into a guesthouse and slept till noon. At noon, I met up with Beth; the younger sister of a dude I went to high school with who's been teaching English in Chiang Mai for 1.5 years. She speaks and reads/writes Thai, which is really impressive and invited me out to her going away celebration at one of the temples that hosts a daily event called "monk chat". The sign says that if you walk by the tables without stopping, "we will be very disappointed". Beth is friends with all of the monk chat monks and they're having a blast. Learned a lot of things about the monks; most of which were around my age; and exchanged facebook, myspace and business cards with them {I have no idea either}. They're also big fans of karaoke.

The next day I rented a moto-bike and have been adorned by the Thais as a "Johnny Sunshine" aka "Johnny Moto". Seriously, they rent the things to everyone, manual trannys and all (that's transmission, not the other thing). I think one of the things amongst Thais in Chiang Mai is ridiculing the crazy Farangs (Thai for Gringo) driving like maniacs through the little alleys and thoroughfares; naturally I'm a pro and am exempt from their concerns.

I took the MOTO up a couple of thousand feet to the mountain Doi Suthep, which overlooks Chiang Mai. Towards the top of the mountain is an one of the Thai's most revered temples Wat Doi Suthep. You must walk up 326 steps to reach the temple (or take the tram for 20 Baht) to see the treasures hidden within (ATM's, gift shops and such). The temple is as oppulent as any other in Thailand and has the largest number of gongs and giant bells in SE Asia. The things are so noisy I felt as if my ears were going to fall off, I don't know how the monks up there meditate.

Anyways, tired of writing now. I think that's if for the photo uploading until I get back to the states. This (the most developed country in the region) probably has the same bandwidth as a small town in Mississippi; and I can't wait around for 45 minutes for my photos to upload.

Enjoy the Monkey pics.

Finally out of the 'kok

jstern01 — Tue, 5 Feb 2008 21:15:00 GMT

After about a week of Bangkok, I started feeling as though I was slowly losing my grip on anything that makes sense in the world. I was forced to stay 3 extra days because of visa issues and TET (Chinese new year). Jumped on a train to Lopburi which is an old city several hours north of Bangkok that has many ruins. In honesty, the reason for my visit is based exclusively on the fact that the city is overrun with monkeys and I like monkeys.

I can't say that I left Bangkok without a bang. The last day there I met with a Canadian from Toronto who quit his IT job to travel and re-asses things. Dude ends up being a total freak and we (gimpy Anna included) end up going to the Patpong district, which is much of what it sounds like. After walking the streets and being hounded by about 700 dudes providing pamphlets with various wonderful sights to be seen in bars entitled "Balls" and "Dream Boy" and what we ended up getting suckered into "Super Pussy". I would prefer not to mentions the things we saw in super pussy, but will say that there was a lot of talent and stringent discipline involved in the various crafts.

I'm very happy to be out of Bangkok

Sorry For the Delay

jstern01 — Mon, 4 Feb 2008 22:00:00 GMT

So, where to begin. It's been a little shorter than a week in Bangkok, but feels more like a month. Time seems to pass by a lot slower here; could be because I've only been able to sleep in 3 hour stretches (jet lag??)

While trying to conquer the most basic Thai pleasantries, I ended up thanking people by saying "Korp Kun Ka". While this is very pleasant for a Thai woman to here, when spoken to a man basically means "thank you lady-boy". I'm surprised no-ones punched me in the groin yet.

I suppose I could take the time now to describe all of the amazing thing I've seen here but I'm hoping once all of the pictures load up, they'll speak for themselves. In Thailand (the land of wats, bots and twats) I've been mostly visiting the Wats (temples).

While taking a canal taxi back to Banglamphu (the backpacker's ghetto) I met with an ex pat named Mark who's been living in Thailand on and off for about ten years. This dude is basically the mayor of Khao San Road (the St. marks place of Bangkok). Went out partying with him a bunch, and the last night ended up hanging out with the underground Thai Punk rockers in various bars I wouldn't have attempted to go into otherwise. Cool bunch of people. Got really wasted and, not to be outdone by the Thais) spent the night eating fried insects (locusts, grasshoppers, meal worms and other undescribable horrors). Ended up in a karaoke bar till about 5am where I made the mistake of eating what turned out to be raw shrimp and caught some sort of "death but". I felt like death the next day and after pumping myself with antibiotic and antibacterial/microbial, feel better now.

Lastly I found out yesterday that my friend Anna, who's also trekking SE Asia, fractured her foot while in Phnom Penh. She flew into Bangkok, and is going to be tagging along with me, her enormous pack and crutches. It might be a good thing to have some one there to advise me against eating raw bottom feeders, no??

Some random notes/observations/thoughts:

-One night in Bangkok does in fact NOT make the hard man humble.

-For God's sake be good to the foreign tourists in your own cities. In a country where the people are very helpful (a good deal of which speak at least some English) and a portion of the road signs are rudimentarily translated into English, I'm having a hell of a time getting around.

-If you think you know what spicy food is, you know nothing. I've eaten soups here that made my tongue swell, and the veins it the temple of my head pulse.

-It's funny that at least half of the tourists here are non-native English speakers and have to use English (or Ang-grit) to speak to Thais. This means that they're speaking broken English to Thais that speak equally broken English. Somehow I feel that they better understand each other than when I speak to either group. When I'm not struggling to talk to Thai, I'm struggling to talk to German's or Spanish or Korean or Slovaks... you get the point.

Touchdown

jstern01 — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:00:00 GMT

After an eighteen hour nonstop direct to Bangkok (with two hours of sleep... totaled between three session) I land in what is easily the strangest airport I've been to. This is not to say that it's decrepid; infact it's brand new, beautiful and enourmous. Take JFK's 5 independent terminals and squish them together without reason... that would be Suvarnabhumi Airport, but smaller. Anyway, having not being attached to any travel groups, unlike the majority of my fellow passengers, I decide to get a jump start on customs as to not wait on line behind said passengers. I'm making good time, power walking like a soccer mom down the "motivated" walkways through the airport, following the signs to the best of my ability. When I finally land at batallion of Thai Custom's kiosks, the majority of the groups on my flight are already there, some of them already through. I don't think that I was travelling in circles; though I might have been, really I have now way of knowing; but the fact remains that I set off well before the groups even started to convene. I don't know. One of the other things about the airport, other than it being decorated with 20' foot "?blue buddist demons?" is that they had special inspection offices for almost everything. For instance they had the Fish Inspection office and the Special Persons Inspection Office, whatever that means. I thought this was strange until I saw one of the Officers going through this little Indian Man's bag and emptying out what must have been 300 "vibrating ring" condoms, various toy robots and boxes upon boxes of chocolate liquoirs. He had nothing else, just the condoms and such. I guess they know what their doing. I spent 45 minutes figuring out what bus to take to Khao San, another 45 minutes taking the bus to khao san, and am having a great time in the process. 3 hours down, countless to go.

Gallery: One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble

jstern01 — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 06:53:00 GMT