Foreign Relations Disaster

An entry in the Salon War Room points out that after Hurricane Mitch hit Central America in 1998 and killed 9,000 people, the Clinton administration gave $988 million in aid to the affected countries. So far, Bush has promised $35 million to the countries hit by the recent earthquake and tsunamis. This after an initial paltry sum of $15 million. Embarrassing enough. But then yesterday, at a briefing on US aid efforts, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman said this:

So our expectation is, is that the European Union, the United Nations, other countries will also join in this. This is not something, although as Andrew said, we make a substantial contribution, more than anyone else in these emergencies, this is certainly not for us to do alone.

Keep in mind that Spain has promised twice as much as we have, and the World Bank has promised $250 million. And, typical for the Bush administration, we aren't coordinating our efforts with the UN; instead, we have another "coalition of the willing" (this one actually has some other countries in it). Sigh.

(This is basically a summary of what was in Salon, but I know a lot of you don't have subscriptions there.)

Update: Bush upped it to $350 million. That's a little better. Did you know that the US spends less than a quarter of a percent of its budget on foreign aid?

Oh, wait. The government shouldn't give any money because it's not theirs to give. They extorted it from taxpayers. So sayeth The Ayn Rand Institute. Giving aid to tsunami victims is as bad as the Marshall Plan. (Stupid fuckers.)

Jet Lag Sucks

I'm awake at 6:17 am. Those of you who know me know that there must be something wrong. It's jet lag! (hurrah!) My sleep schedule is completely messed up. Yesterday I went to bed at 11, got up at 4:30 to watch Chinatown and check my email (nobody emails you at 6:30 in the morning), and went back to bed at 9:30, to sleep until 1:30. Not good if you're trying to get back on a normal schedule. Plus I have this stomach ache, which I think I had last year when I came back to the states as well. Yuck.

The trip home was nearly unbearable. We had to get up at 5:30 in the morning, catch a cab to the airport for a 6:30 check-in, and get on the plane at 8:30. While sitting in the airport waiting to board, we were treated to a really obnoxious family which was sitting behind us. The kids were loudly upset that they weren't allowed to sit in first class (god save me from kids who feel entitled to first class). The mother was giving a long, loud lecture about an assistant of hers who is obviously suffering from depression; the self-important woman doing all the talking was unable to conceive that it might not have anything to do with her. We prayed that they wouldn't be on the flight between Tokyo and Chicago.

The Japan Airlines plane was among the most uncomfortable rides I've ever had. It was physically impossible for me to sit normally; I had to either have my knees pulled up to my chest, or have my legs stretched out under the seat in front of me. I think I slept a little, but I can't remember.

At the Tokyo airport, Tim and Peggy had to go catch a different flight, and there was an emotional parting scene. Peggy's the best grandma ever, and I hope I have the opportunity of traveling with her again. We staggered into the concourse at Tokyo in search of food, but all we could find was bad rice dishes (but isn't all airport food bad?) and nothing vegetarian for Rebecca. In the biggest airport in a country where just about everybody eats fish all the time, there wasn't even any fish. Just meat, meat, meat. Huh.

The flight from Tokyo to Chicago wasn't as bad, except it was longer, and there was the shrieking baby, and the obnoxious Americans (different ones this time) who sat behind us, kept their overhead lights on, talked in really loud voices, and watched the "Everybody Loves Raymond" channel, laughing like buffoons the entire trip home. The flight attendants close all the blinds and turn off the lights to provide a better environment for sleeping; this is supposed to help you cope with jet lag, I guess. Or it's just in recognition that most of the people on the plane have already been awake for something like fifteen hours. But there was no stopping the Ugly Americans.

We didn't hear about the earthquake or the tsunamis until we got home, which I think was a good thing. And I guess that's about it: our trip is over. I can't wait until the next one.

Home

No, I wasn't in Thailand when the earthquake and tsunamis hit. I'm safe at home, more or less in one piece, and headed for bed. More details later.

One Last Entry before We Go

Let's say you travel around the world. Which of the following activities would be on your list of priorities? (a) Spending hours in the hotel computer lab, playing video games. (b) Eating at the McDonald's in the hotel lobby. (c) Spending the day drinking Corona at the bar next door to the hotel. (d) Getting a tattoo in the tattoo parlor off the hotel lobby. (e) None of the above.

My choice is (e), but there are a whole lot of Western tourists in this area who choose a combination of (a-d). Maybe I just have too strict a definition of acceptable vacation choices, but the main rule on my list is this: don't do/eat things that you can do/eat at home. (I realize that I can blog at home, but that's different, because I'm practicing my travel writing skills, skills which will support me when I move to Thailand. And I'm entertaining my loyal readers.)

Breaking that rule, we ate dinner at a pizza place tonight. (But it was Thai pizza, he rationalized.) There isn't anywhere around here to get good Thai food, and we didn't want our last meal here to be bad Thai food. It was nothing like dinner last night, at a restaurant owned by a friend of a friend of Rebecca's: Eat Me Restaurant and Art Gallery. I didn't expect to be eating at a luxury restaurant any time on this trip, especially not one with $50 bottles of wine. We ate with Jim, from Axis of Evil, and Rebecca's friend Brian and his boyfriend, whose name sounded like "A." Decorating the walls was a series of photographs re-enacting ancient Greek sculpture using nude male figures. And beach balls. It was a perfect combination of goofy and artsy. Jim and Brian teach at the same university here, so we were glad that they seemed to hit it off. Tim volunteered to pay before he realized that a single dish at Eat Me cost about as much as a meal for four up in Chiang Mai. Ouch.

So we have to be in the lobby of the hotel at 5:45 in the morning. I should try to sleep, but of course I'm not tired, nor will I be for a few hours. I suppose this will help me sleep on the plane. I was going to write up a list of the things I forgot to mention in my various blog posts, but I forgot most of them. Maybe they'll end up on my travelogue CD after I ask Rebecca to remind me of them. I'll close with the name of the lounge singer in the Hotel Amari Rincome in Chiang Mai: Dang Fantastic. A good description of this entire trip.

See you guys in a couple of days.

Bangkok Dangerous

Today we had one of the indispensible Bangkok experiences: we got hosed. Cheated. Scammed. Taken for a ride. Literally.

Bangkok is criss-crossed by hundreds of canals, some as wide as superhighways, some as narrow as hallways. I think the bulk of the population lives along these canals, although I'm not positive. They're generally lined with dilapidated houses that stand out of the water on stilts; the houses are patched together from a combination of wood and sheet metal and tree trunks. Some of them are really beautiful, but most of them are just incredibly interesting to look at.

We booked a canal tour, where you go down some of the main canals on long boats powered by car engines fitted with propellers. A "normal" canal tour, like the ones that Rebecca and I had taken in previous visits here, involves a long canal trip on a boat, with perhaps a stop for a bathroom break. These stops are usually short, unless you work out with your tour guide that you want to do something extended.

This trip was arranged by the travel agent in the lobby of our hotel, but what we thought we were paying for and what we got were two entirely different things. It started out reasonably well: we took a mini-bus to a pier, where we got onto a boat. The bus driver said that he would pick us up after the trip. Everything seemed normal. It was a little difficult for Peggy to get into the boat, but she managed.

Then the surprises started. We were taken, after a short ride, to a souvenir shop and forced to get out of the boat. We had entered from the front, where there were stairs leading down from the prow of the boat into the seating area. We were told to climb out the side, over a row of seats and onto a swaying dock that varied between a few inches and a foot and a half from the boat. This seemed like too much for Peggy, and we figured we wouldn't be there very long, so we asked if we could just sit it out. Nope. We had to leave. Peggy managed to get out, with the desired help from us and some undesired tugging from the dock workers. I realize that they were trying to be helpful, but yanking her arms out of her sockets or attempting to bodily lift her is not helpful. I won't be surprised if she ends up with bruises.

We had to leave because if we didn't leave, we wouldn't have the opportunity to wander around the shelves full of overpriced and under-quality merchandise for a half hour. There was nowhere to sit, so Peggy had to stand until Rebecca stole a vendor's stool for her. Everybody was done looking after ten minutes, but we were forced to wait, even though the boat driver, who had pulled downriver a few hundred feet, could see that we were all ready to go.

The second indignity was being taken to a literal tourist trap: a crocodile farm intended for tourists. It was a trap: we were again ejected from the boat and forced to wait. The crocodile attraction cost an extra 100 baht apiece, which the travel agent neglected to tell us. Instead of going in, we sat at some benches near the dock for the 40 minutes they were inside. We tried to find out how to hire a water taxi to take us back, but nobody was willing to help.

Finally we made it back to the dock, where the last surprise awaited us: the mini-bus driver had lied; he was not waiting for us, nor was there any plan for him to return. We had to take a cab, which, after a bit of strident arguing from Rebecca, the guy in charge of the dock paid for. We were gone for three hours, and we spent almost half of that time in tourist traps that we didn't want to see.

When we got back, Rebecca stopped to complain to the travel agent, this time a different person than yesterday. I am not positive, but I don't think she understood half of what we were saying. She nodded and smiled, or frowned when it seemed appropriate, and said a sincere apology at the end.

The time spent on the water was really nice; I took around 20 minutes of footage on Rebecca's video camera. But we couldn't understand a word of the broken English that the boat guide spoke, and we were forced to climb in and out of the boat twice and wait at places we were never told about.

I don't really like Bangkok; this confirms it. It's too big, too fast, too dirty, too polluted. While in Chiang Mai, the "taxi" drivers knew their city and usually understood where you wanted to go, here they look at you blankly even if you manage to pronounce the name of the road correctly. They don't read maps, so it doesn't help if you produce your Lonely Planet guidebook map. And since it's a big city, there are a lot of scams around. I don't think that this canal boat debacle was intended as a scam; it was more a series of miscommunications: between the travel agent and us, between the travel agent and the bus driver, between the bus driver and us, etc. It makes me miss Chiang Mai even more.

We're going to the Jim Thompson house later today; Thompson was a former CIA agent who became a major silk exporter until he disappeared while traveling in Malaysia. After that I hope to go to the MBK, a multilevel maze of shops where I hope to find some Thai movies with English subtitles. Rebecca was successful there last time, so I hope I have the same luck. We have to get up before dawn tomorrow to catch our 8:30 plane home. Gah. I'll write about that experience when I recover from the trip. Merry Christmas!

Update (like anyone has read this yet): We found Thai movies with English subtitles! It was amazingly easy. We walked into MBK, and there in front of us was a DVD store with an employee who understood what we were asking for. We got around six movies, including a couple that were at international festivals recently, and I got a Joey Boy CD. Joey Boy is a Thai rapper. He sounds about like what you'd expect, given that description.

Crazy in Bangkok

Bangkok is crazy enough; Khaosan Road is extra crazy. We're staying here because it's close to the Royal Palace and several other important cultural sites. That's likely the same reason that the legions of sweaty, twentysomething backpackers are staying here too. It's loud, and smokey, and filled with Westerners without shirts, Westerners with severe sunburns, Westerners demanding cheap taxi service to the airport. If I weren't rather dazed from it all, it might make for great people-watching.

Tonight we're having dinner with Jim Barnhart, who was intereviewed for Axis of Evil, and one of Rebecca's friends. They both teach at Chulalongkorn University here in Bangkok; they both expressed amazement that we were staying here in backpacker central. But they're both making their way over here for dinner.

This might be the last chance I get to blog before I head back. You're all off work, celebrating Christmas or something, so you won't miss anything. Did I mention that they really get into Christmas over here, despite the fact that they're Buddhist? I suppose it doesn't really have much to do with Christianity anymore in the US, so why should Buddhism keep a country from hanging colored lights and worshipping a fat house burglar? The woman who sold us our tickets for a canal boat tour tomorrow respectfully asked us if she could wish us a merry Christmas. I respectfully ask my loyal readers the same. Merry Christmas (eve)!

Short Goodbye to Chiang Mai

I have a master plan. It's simple, really: (1) Sell Rebecca's condo. (2) Move to Chiang Mai and get an apartment. (3) Find a way to earn a living. It's foolproof.

So it's the night before we leave for Bangkok, and just three nights before we leave Thailand. Just as last year, I don't want to go home. I could really see living over here. I would miss my friends and movies. And fall. Maybe some other things that I'm not thinking of right now because I don't want to leave.

Today we went to The Land Project, a sort of collaborative art/agriculture project near Chiang Mai. Kamin, a local artist who is close to being big-time, and one of his friends started it. They get artists to design simple houses on the property, and young art students live there, make art, and grow crops. It's just wonderful, and I'm too tired to come up with better adjectives. I shot almost ten minutes of footage around the property, but that probably isn't enough to convey how great the project is. After we left The Land, we went to Kamin's studio to drink tea and see his latest projects.

Kamin was immediately taken with Peggy, as is just about everyone over here. Khaew, the young artist who took charge of her at dinner on Tuesday, gave her one of his paintings as a going away present, and everyone calls her grandma. When Kamin dropped us off at the hotel this afternoon, he stood next to her, rubbing her back and complimenting her on how "strong" she is. And he's right.

Rebecca had another lecture tonight, and then we ate at our new favorite restaurant, Khun Churn, with Ong, another local artist, and his girlfriend Kat, an artist and dancer from Australia. I met them last year, and it was nice to see them both again.

They're closing the internet place, so I have to go. Goodbye Fine Thanks, the nightclub that we didn't attend. Goodbye Girly Cutie and all the other crappy pop bands with odd English names that they play on the radio. Goodbye Amari Ricome Hotel, with your opulence and the desk clerk who seems to work 24 hours a day. Goodbye, Chiang Mai. I hope to see you again soon.

Bumming Around and Climbing Mountains

So of course, after I told everybody that I would be able to blog every day, I missed a day. Will you ever forgive me?

Yesterday was my bumming around day. I slept in past our usual breakfast time of 8:00, instead making it down there at 9:30. Rebecca had to prepare for her lecture, so I wandered around a little. I made it to a big mall-type thing, where I looked for Thai movies with English subtitles and Thai music. I struck out on the first one, but I found a couple of CDs that the Lonely Planet guidebook recommended: Carabao and Modern Dog. If Santana had been Thai, he would have sounded just like Carabao. The CD I bought was actually a double-disc live compilation, and aside from the cheering and the bantering, it's really good. If Modern Dog had been American, they would sound like just about every other mid-1990s alterna-pop band. Sean Lennon plays guitar on two of their songs. Wahoo.

I got too much sun on Monday and was feeling a little feverish, so I went back to the hotel and took a nap. By the time I was ready to face the rest of the day, it was almost time for Rebecca's lecture. Because I'm a good boyfriend, I went with her to hear her talk about visual culture and why it was a big thing for academics to study. The thing about translated lectures is that they take twice as long. It was a fine lecture, but I was bored silly by the time the Q&A session finally ended, a half hour after the posted time of 7:00.

I learned something interesting about the peculiar kind of politeness that Thai students demonstrate. They will talk through the lecture, answer their phones in class, and come in fully an hour late. But they didn't leave early; they didn't even leave when the lecture went a half-hour over, even though they weren't paying attention. They waited until their adjarns (professors) gave the signal that the shindig was over, and then they left. American students would have likely been quieter during the lecture, but they would have flocked to the exit at exactly 7:00.

After the lecture, I had what is probably the most fun I've had in Thailand. We went out to dinner with a bunch of people from the Media Studies department. In addition to me, Rebecca, Peggy, and Tim, there was Uthit, a senior professor who drove like a raving lunatic; Arun, a quiet and friendly man who isn't really a student but isn't really a professor; Khaew, a student who took charge of Peggy during and after the meal, talking animatedly to her and helping her up the stairs; and Thasnai, one of Rebecca's former students in Chicago who recently joined the faculty at Chiang Mai. We ate like kings at a restaurant right on the river that flows through Chiang Mai and down to Bangkok, as a lively conversation, half in English and half in Thai, flowed over the table. I was a bit tipsy by the time we got back to the hotel, and it was past our bedtime (10:20!), so I didn't blog. Don't blame me, blame the Beer Chang.

This morning we were up at the crack of dawn, or thereabouts, because we had a trip planned to Doi Inthanon, the tallest mountain in Thailand. On the way we stopped at a temple that was populated by several monks and dozens of cats; here we learned that our wonderful tour guide, Ying, unlike most Thai people, preferred cats to dogs. There was also a relic of the Buddha at this temple, but they kept it locked under a small chedi in the main wiharn. It made me wonder how many relics of the Buddha there are in the world, and whether the old joke about having enough slivers from the cross Jesus was crucified upon to build a city. But these relics may just be things that the Buddha touched, and hey, it is a good excuse for building a huge, beautiful temple, so I'm not complaining.

When we got to the top of Doi Inthanon, after a long, long drive, it was actually cold. Our guide told us that it sometimes gets down to zero degrees in the highlands, and she found some frost to prove it. Of course, we made do with sweatshirts and extra layers, while many of the Thai people visiting the mountain were wearing parkas. One funny thing about the highest point in Thailand: there's a big sign, where tourists can stand and have their picture taken, that reads "The Highest Point in Thailand." Then there are the stairs that lead up to the actual highest point, which isn't nearly as photogenic. We went for a short walk on a great wooden walkway through the forest, which I filmed and which will end up on the CD I'm supposed to make when I get back.

After we scaled the mighty mountain, we ate lunch at the Royal Projects (or something like that; I don't have the guidebook with me). This is an enormous valley filled with greenhouses where they grow the houseplants we Americans know and love, in addition to beautiful, gigantic flowers and rare plants from around the world. Our guide told us that the king and queen had the project built to give the hill tribes somewhere to work instead of growing opium. I don't know how well it's working. On the way down the mountain we stopped at a Karen village. Our guide informed us that the Karen were the "best" hill tribe because their traditional economy doesn't involve clear-cutting the forest. I don't know exactly what it involves, but part of it was weaving beautiful cotton scarves on hand looms. I just had to buy a couple.

We stopped at a waterfall after that, and then headed back to Chiang Mai. I went on a mission to find Thai movies with English subtitles. Rebecca's Thai friends told me to go to the Airport Plaza, which is a huge mall, so I went. What a frustrating trip. I wandered around until I had located all of the stores that sold DVDs or VCDs, but nobody seemed to have what I wanted. Or perhaps they did: ye olde language barrier got in the way of my even finding out with any certainty whether they had what I wanted. The most likely store was staffed by a woman who kept repeating "In Thai! In Thai!" because I couldn't make her understand "subtitles." Rebecca had this problem the last time she was here; she ended up with some movies, but only after she went to the store with a fluent Thai speaker. Put that on your checklist for your next trip to Thailand: a fluent Thai speaker. You'll have to count him or her as a carry-on item at the airport.

Tonight it's dinner at the vegetarian restaurant again, followed by rampant capitalism at the night market. I can't wait to spend my money. Which prompts an interesting story. The first night we were in Chiang Mai, Rebecca and I went in search of an ATM. I was really tired, and I was having trouble calculating the exchange rate, and they had thoose "instant cash" buttons, so I just jabbed the highest one: 10,000 baht. It was only on the way back that Rebecca informed me that it was nearly $250, a hell of a lot more than I would ever need here. It was all in 1,000 baht bills, which almost nobody can break. I felt like the main character in The Jungle, when he gets the $100 bill but finds that it is basically useless because nobody will take it and the police think he must have stolen it. Thankfully, nobody arrested me, and I was able to break some of them at the hotel desk.

Elephants, More Temples, and a Long Drive

I discovered that there is a limit to how many wonderful temples I can look at. Today we went on a long drive from Chiang Mai to Lampang and Lampun provinces to see more ancient temples. By the end of the day, after an hour in the bouncy van and several hours out in the sun, we had had enough. We were all sort of grumpy on the way back, except for Peggy, who reacts to everything with a mild, self-deprecating humor.

But first, the elephants! We went to an elephant rescue camp, where they take in elephants that are no longer needed in the lumber industry. We saw elephants dance, paint (sort of like early Picasso, only with more elephants), play music, bow, push logs around, put logs in piles, and voraciously eat bananas and sugarcane that we held out to them. There was a French father with three or four little kids who insisted on ignoring the warning over the loudspeaker to keep behind both fences: he was letting his kids clamber around between the fences, and we all watched with a sick fascination, wondering if an elephant was going to accidentally take one of his kids' arms off in its haste to get at the sugarcane. Thankfully, no arms were lost.

After that, we drove to Wat Phra That Lampang, which was built in the fifteenth century on the site of an eighth century fortification. It's different from many other temples because its sides are open instead of being enclosed, and it hasn't been constantly remodeled to fit current ideas about temples, as so many other Thai temples have been. Its wiharn (pronounced wee-han, the central prayer hall) is the oldest wooden building in Thailand. The massive teak pillars that support the multi-level roof have been standing for over five hundred years. I can't get my brain around that. You can see traces of sixteenth-century paintings on the interior walls of another building on site. Finally, two outbuildings have really cool camera obscura features that show the inverted image of the main chedi and wiharn. Sadly, Rebecca and Peggy couldn't see the most stunning camera obscura, because the building was marked by a large sign that says "no lady intry" or something like that. Many Buddhist temple buildings are off-limits to women.

On the way into the temple, a woman selling lottery tickets was also offering the string blessing I described earlier. She didn't look much like a monk, but hey, as Rebecca said at the time, the Buddha works in mysterious ways. We had strings tied around our wrists, and she said a benediction that included words of luck in five or six languages. I suppose it couldn't hurt.

We had lunch at a restaurant that made me feel like we had wandered into an Indiana Jones movie. It was in a resort that was set well away from the road, and to reach the restaurant, you had to wend your way down a series of foliage-cloaked paths (cloaked, as usual, in houseplants), and then across a swaying, rickety wooden suspension bridge. The effect was somewhat ruined when we ate lunch overlooking a river that was in the process of being dredged by large construction equipment.

We were pretty tired by the time we got to Wat Cham Devi in Lamphun. It is interesting because of its chedi, built in 1218, that is the oldest surviving square chedi of the Dvaravati period (guidebooks are helpful). The stepped tower is festooned with dozens of different Buddha figures, each in his own little alcove. Pretty neat. That was about all we could take for the day.

We rode back in the bumpy van, took a long nap, and went out to dinner at a Filipino restaurant that Rebecca and I had visited last year. The restaurant is in the owner's house, and she doesn't get much business. We pretty much had the place to ourselves. The owner is somewhat batty, and it takes forever for the food to get to you, but hey, if you starve to death waiting for dinner, it was just your time to go. The food was really great. I had what was basically spaghetti and meatballs, but really tasty and spicy Filipino meatballs. Rebecca's dad Tim had a Pepper Incident: he bit a big chunk off a vegetable that looked sort of like a big bean, and it turned out to be a really hot pepper. He didn't suffer as much as I did last night, though.

Tomorrow I get my bumming-around day, as Peggy and Tim are going on a guided tour in the morning while Rebecca prepares for a lecture she's giving at the art museum tomorrow night. I'm going in search of classic Thai movies and music. I'll get to ride in a tuk-tuk, which is an experience not to be missed, or repeated too often.

Mountain. Market. Attempted Murder.

This morning, after our usual 8:00 am breakfast, we started walking toward Doi Suthep (pronounced soo-tape), the mountain on top of which the sacred white elephant dropped dead. We walked about a kilometer and a half (like, quite a ways) and then rode in a sawngthaew (pronounced song-tow, basically a pickup truck with two long benches in the back). We had earlier walked past the driver as he shouted "Go back! You go back!" and lowered his asking price from 600 baht to 300 baht ($15 to $7). When we encountered a road that would have been nearly impossible to cross—there aren't a lot of crosswalks around; if you get run down by a car, hey, it was just your time to go—we realized that the sawngthaew driver had been tailing us, and we gratefully climbed into his "mini-bus," as they so quaintly call them around here.

Driving up the twisting, dusty road that led up the side of the mountain, I could easily understand why that sacred white elephant dropped dead at the top. It apparently used to take five hours to walk up the old trails to the top, and it takes a good two hours to walk up the new road. We made it to the top in something like twenty minutes. At the top of the road, we encountered the first really pushy salespeople: hill tribe people wanting to sell you paintings, plastic kites, and lottery tickets. Last year, when we went to Angkor in Cambodia, just about everyone was incredibly pushy about selling you things, but you don't see that a lot in Thailand. Except, apparently, on Doi Suthep.

To get up to the temple, Wat Prathat Doi Suthep, you have to take an elevator that climbs diagonally up the last stretch of mountain. There were hundreds of people there: it's one of the places in Chiang Mai that you "just have to see," in addition to being a major holy place for all of Thailand. It was a little crowded for my taste. Still, it was pretty amazing to see the glowing golden chedi, which some workers were patching up with gold paint.

There were two places where you could interact with actual monks. In one temple, a monk was tying strings around the wrists of kneeling visitors. This string, which has been blessed by the monk, is supposed to stay on one's wrist until it wears off; it brings luck, or something. As usual, I didn't take part. I'm so afraid of coming off as the Ugly American that I am often too respectful: there were hundreds of bells around the temple grounds, and Japanese visitors were ringing them merrily (I learned that it, too, is supposed to bring luck), but I didn't ring a one. The other monk interaction zone was another temple where an elderly monk was splashing blessed water on a crowd of kneeling visitors. I went in and kneeled, but far from the monk. Still, a drop of blessed water hit my right knee, which can't be bad.

We came back from Doi Suthep and had an hour or so off for a nap and some reading. (Since I started my trip, I've read Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere [a good book with a terrible title], and half of Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Seville Communion.) We then set off for part of the old city that is sometimes blocked off to traffic and turned into a market. I purchaced gifts for a few people and two shirts for myself, and fretted over what else I needed to get. It was a little overwhelming, especially since we didn't really expect there to be a market; we simply expected to be free from the danger of getting flattened by a motorcycle bearing an entire family. We made it back to the hotel for another hour of rest before dinner, which was a traumatizing experience for me. My pork stuff tried to kill me.

We ate at Le Gong Kum, a Vietnamese restaurant at the end of a dark alley and hidden in a maze of foliage—foliage that serves as exotic plants in American households. The loud sound of croaking frogs filled the air, as there was apparently a large frog population living in the foliage. Oddly (or not so oddly), frog's legs were featured prominently on the menu. I assure you that none of us ate Kermit. The meal was sort of disappointing, even without the attempted murder. My pork tasted vaguely of fish, the corn cakes were too deed-fried and greasy, and the barbequed pork tasted vaguely of lemon furniture polish. Then I bit into the pepper.

I didn't even see it. I noticed the larger red and green peppers, which I knew to be really hot, and which I avoided. I didn't see the tiny, undercover pepper, no bigger than my pinky fingernail, that was hiding under a piece of pork. I bit into it and swallowed, and the Hellmouth opened up in my mouth. My nose started running, my eyes gushed tears, and my ears burned to a crisp and fell off into the rice noodles. The entire back of my mouth and throat was a flaming hell. It was hard to breathe, and it felt like real damage was being done to my esophagus. I drank the rest of my... some kind of fruit juice, then Rebecca's lemonade, then Peggy's lemonade. Then Rebecca ran to find the waiter to bring some water, which I promptly drank. I ate up most of the rice, the cucumbers, the tomato slices, and some rice noodles. Dairy products are supposed to help with such things, but there aren't a lot of dairy products in a Vietnamese restaurant. I gradually recovered, but the burning didn't completely go away until I drank an iced coffee, which is made with cream. I still feel a little shaken.

Tomorrow we're going to Lampang province to see an elephant rescue camp and another big, historical temple.

Flashback. Temples. Food.

After we landed in Chiang Mai and got settled into our posh hotel, we walked down to the Chiang Mai University art museum to see what they had going on. When Rebecca was here teaching last year, I stopped by, but the only attractions were the dogs wandering around the grounds. The museum staff want the museum to become what the wats (temples) used to be: a cultural center for the town. For wats, this entailed, among other things, taking in stray animals. The museum was fulfilling this job admirably: this time, there was a well-fed dog with a pronounced limp hopping around outside the main building.

The museum's main installation was something that you just wouldn't see (at least, I hope we won't see) in the United States. In commemoration of the Queen's birthday and visit to Chiang Mai, students of all ages were asked (ordered?) to paint pictures of her. There were literally hundreds of paintings of her, lining the long walls, like some kind of Andy Warhol installation gone mad. The Queen in acrylics; the Queen in oils; the Queen in crayon. Can you imagine an art exhibit devoted to hundreds of images of Laura Bush? Well, now that you mention it...

Chiang Mai was founded in 1293 (or 1295, depending on which plaques you read). It means "small town," and although it has close to a million inhabitants, it still feels like a small town. I suppose it's a matter of ease of getting around: because I can't imagine driving around a big foreign city (like Bangkok) on a rented motorcycle wearing a battered batter's helmet on my head, as we did last year, it must be that Chiang Mai is small enough to allow such craziness. Within the borders of the old city, there are 97 temples; there are over a thousand of them in Chiang Mai province. Today we went on a guided tour of some of the most important local temples. I was initially a grudging participant in this tour. I wanted to rest my legs, and the prospect of all the walking that temple-crawling entails didn't appeal to me. Also, I had already seen these temples. I had the idea that going back to them would be like entertaining visitors to Chicago with a trip to Navy Pier (yawn). I only went because the trip didn't start until the afternoon.

Now that the trip is over, I reflect on how stupid I was being. These temples are not Navy Pier. For one thing, the guided tour, complete with a tour guide who spoke pretty good English, taught me a lot about the temples that I didn't know before. We visited Wat Pra Sing, Wat Chiang Man, Wat Chedi Luang, and Wat Suan Dok. Wat Chedi Luang has an enormous chedi (which is generally a bell-shaped tower that houses a relic of the Buddha or the ashes of someone important) that was mostly destroyed within a few generations of its construction some 600 years ago; what remains is 50 meters tall (like, a lot of feet tall). Wat Chiang Man houses a marble statue of the Buddha that is said to date from the Buddha's lifetime, or some 2500 years ago. Wat Suan Dok houses a holy relic of the Buddha, which miraculously replicated itself upon being interred in the chedi in the late 14th century; the new piece was placed on the back of a sacred white elephant, which was allowed to wander wherever it wanted to go. It stopped, trumpeted a few times, and dropped dead on top of Doi Suthep, the mountain overlooking Chiang Mai, and they built a temple on that spot to house the relic.

History lesson over. The greatest part of these temple visits is the unbelievable calm they prompt in me. You walk up the steps leading into the main wat, kick your shoes off and remove your hat and backpack, and walk into a cool, unevenly lit, sometimes vast, sometimes close space. You're surrounded by murals, stencils, huge teak pillars that support the roof. Ahead of you is the main altar; there might be one large Buddha statue, or there might be dozens. You walk quietly toward the altar and kneel. You can bow, but I can't remember how to do it properly, so I don't. You sit there, and this weird feeling of everything being right with the world washes over you (or at least it does me). After a few peaceful moments, you get up; you can light a candle or a stick of incense up at the altar, or you can drop some coins or paper money into the offering boxes (proceeds go to feed the monks and pay for repairs), or you can just quietly back a few respectful steps away before turning to leave.

Temples prompt an almost religious reverie in me; so does good food. We had some damn fine chow for dinner tonight. It's a vegetarian restaurant called Khun Churn (pronounced koon chun, meaning either Mr. or Mrs. Churn's [depending on Churn's gender]), on soi 7 (alley #7) of Nimmanhaeminda Road. They serve manna from heaven. If you leave now, you can be there in time for dinner on the 20th. Mind you, I have never had a bad meal in Thailand. Everything has been at least pretty good. This was ambrosial. I don't know enough adjectives to describe how good it was. We had... well. I don't know what most of it was called. There was the curry stuff with the noodles, the corn cakes, the pad thai, the "cripey protein" (English spelling is always a source of amusement over here) in sauce, the pepperish pastey stuff that was so deliciously hot. When we ordered, I thought we were getting way too much food for the four of us. But we pretty much cleaned it up; I was the last to finish, as I was desperately trying to shovel the last of the curry into my mouth before my satiety cues kicked in and told my body that I had already eaten too much. We sat there, dazed, staring at the wasteland of piled plates that our table had become. We vowed a blood oath to return there for another dinner before we leave. Care to join us?

Tomorrow it's off to Doi Suthep, where the elephant carrying the miraculous Buddha relic dropped dead. It's an important pilgrimage site for all Thai buddhists, and a hazing ritual for incoming students at Chiang Mai University: they have to walk up it, five hours of hot, dusty exertion. We'll be driving.

Where the Heck Am I?

I'm sitting at a computer in an internet cafe down the street from our posh hotel. The Miami Sound Machine is on the overhead speakers. Now it's Michael Jackson (I wonder how you say "You know I'm bad, I'm bad, shamon" in Thai?). It looks like I should be able to post just about every day while I'm in Chiang Mai. We're here until the 24th, then we head to Bangkok in time for Christmas.

There are little islands of the West here; but in other places you'd think would be just like home, there's nothing familiar. I stopped at a 7-11 looking for shaving cream and snacks. They didn't have shaving cream, nor did they have it in the drug store next door. I suppose there isn't a whole lot of shaving going on around here. The guy at the drug store pointed at his hairless chin and giggled as he regretfully informed me that he couldn't help me.

I miss the freedom we had the last time I was here. We had rented a motorcycle, and we could just putt-putt off in whatever direction we wanted to go. This time around, since we're here more as tourists (read Rebecca's blog post here about the difference), we're doing more planned tours of the usual tourist spots. Not that 12th-century temples that have survived dozens of invasions are a disappointment, mind you. I guess I'll just have to come back. I guess I already said that.

We're off to tour some of the temples in the old city this afternoon. I already have pictures of most of them from last year. I was going to put together a CD-ROM of my travel photos and writing, but I never got around to finishing it. Maybe this will prompt me to do it. Then I can give it to my family and friends, who will complain that looking at someone else's travel photos is boring.

Now Johnny Hates Jazz is on the radio. Let's do the timewarp! And it's not the original artists. The guy singing Wham's "Careless Whispers" has a French accent.

I had this crazy dream a few nights ago, my first night in Luang Prabang. Loew's had bought my little theater at the LaSalle Bank. It was undergoing some major renovations: a huge, dazzling concessions counter, a grand staircase, uniformed ushers, lots of blinking lights. The problem was that they didn't have room for me and my little 16mm projector, which they didn't bother to replace. They finally decided that I could project through a window in one of the doors to the main theater. People walking through the door would block the light, interrupting the show. I don't know what this was supposed to mean, or why I would dream about it in southeast Asia.

Anyway. Time to find a laundromat that doesn't charge 50 baht ($1.20) to wash a pair of socks. I'll write more later.

Greetings from Chiang Mai

So where do I start? With the flight that they bumped me from on my first, aborted travel day? That got me an $800 travel voucher, but you already knew that. With Steve, the secret agent who was my single-serving friend from Chicago to Tokyo? He was an "intelligence liaison" for the US government, who had flown secret anti-drug flights over Peru and surveillance flights over Afghanistan. He didn't wear a black hat or a trenchcoat, and he said there was no glamor or danger in his job, but he had nightmares that scared him awake. Or maybe that was just the airplane food.

I still can't sleep on the plane, at least when I want to, even after two Tylenol PMs and 13 hours to think about it. So I watched Beverly Hills Cop and Independence Day and Billy Elliot (which is really good), and spent the rest of the time staring at the inside of my eyelids. At least they put me in business class as an apology for bumping me from the earlier flight. Business class. Mmmm. It's like heaven, if heaven includes almost-fully-reclining seats and enough legroom to stretch all the way out.

When I got to Tokyo, I had a three-hour layover, so I thought I could curl up under a bench somewhere and sleep. Wrong. I stood in one line for an hour to check in, then another line for an hour and a half to go through security, and then they were boarding. There was a monk in his saffron robes waiting to board the same plane. Nothing says "you're a long way from Chicago" like a monk waiting to board a plane.

I couldn't stay awake on the second leg of the flight, even with Metallica blasting through my headphones. I had wanted to stay awake then, because I didn't want to be wide awake when I got to the hotel. I'm glad I slept, actually, because I needed to be alert for the desperate search for my bag, which had departed Chicago without me, and which they couldn't find for two and a half hours in the Bangkok airport. They finally found it, and I staggered to the hotel, to find that they wouldn't let me check in without Rebecca's credit card. I was too broke to pay for the room by myself, and I limped back toward the airport, thinking that I would just sleep in the terminal until my flight to Laos the next day, but a kindly agent of a local hotel offered me a good deal at the Jumbotel, which had a bed and a wake-up call, the only two things I needed right then. I probably could have done without the bed by then. I made it to the hotel at 3:00 am, and I had to leave for the airport at 8.

I depend on the whims of my clients (I guess that's what they are) for my "walking-around money," and since the LaSalle Bank's main branch recently caught on fire, paying the projectionist at their money-losing theater was probably not high on their list of priorities. Thus, I was completely broke by the time I paid for my hotel. I had enough for the 500 baht (around $12) "airport tax" at the Bangkok airport, and I scraped up the $20 visa fee that Laos would charge... except it was $30. I had to beg $10 from some kindly Torontonians, one of whom was an art history professor. You just can't go anywhere without running into those people. My favorite art historian paid them back when we made it through the Kafka-esque series of immigration and passport control lines at the Luang Prabang airport.

So I made it to Laos, and it was pretty darned great. Too many Western tourists for my taste, and a constant haze of woodsmoke, but nice nonetheless. One of the best things about these trips is the food: I had the best damned sausage I've ever tasted, an array of colorful and flavorful fruit, and French baguette sandwiches on the side of a mountain overlooking the Mekong river, having just emerged from a dank cave where Buddhist monks go to purify themselves. Former French colonies are strange places. The most interesting part for me, for some reason, was learning that the water level of the Mekong river raised up to 50 feet during the rainy season, and the scattered islands and banks that were planted with crops and tended by people in ramshackle huts were on land that didn't exist for almost half of the year. China has been building dams on the Mekong, and when they are finished, the river won't change its level very much, which will put these farmers out of work because their land won't be there.

Throughout all of this, Rebecca's grandmother Peggy has been simply amazing. I'm almost 30, and I get tired and sore and cranky from all the walking we've been doing. Peggy, at 88, keeps up without a complaint. Sure, she didn't climb the 328 steps to the top of the hill in Luang Prabang to see the view, but it's amazing how much walking and climbing she's been able to do. I only hope that I have that much energy when I'm 88 (or 38).

So now we're in Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand, where Rebecca was Fulbrighted last year. This is my favorite place of everywhere I've been in Southeast Asia. It feels sort of like I could stay here, while the other places have felt like vacation stops. I'm going to spend tomorrow relaxing and resting my aching legs and back (I'm mostly healed, but all the walking has reminded me that I spent most of last week in bed). I sent a bunch of postcards from Laos before we left, but I doubt you'll get them before I get back. I took ten rolls of film last year, so I'm not taking as many pictures, but Rebecca has her camera in case we run into anything that we didn't cover last year. This week, we're going to see elephants working, climb the highest mountain in Thailand (well, drive up it), and go to the night market, where I'll buy beautiful things for my favorite people, and lumps of coal for the rest of you. :P

I wish I had a better memory for details. There are so many things I've seen that I wanted to remember, but by the time I got back to the hotel to write them in my journal (good idea, Shawn), they're gone. I guess I'll just have to keep coming back.

Sigh

I'm not in Thailand. This is because they couldn't fit me on the plane, even though the ticket was purchased in October, I got there over two hours early, and I was fourth in line to check in for a boarding pass. They've bumped me to the same flight tomorrow, and they've changed all of my connections: from Tokyo to Bangkok, and then from Bangkok to Laos the next day. They couldn't do anything about the hotel in Bangkok, so I will likely get charged for an extra night, and maybe they'll get the amended reservation I emailed to them. (I tried calling, but I don't speak any Thai, and the woman who answered the phone didn't speak very much English. She kept asking, "you want make reservation?") It means one less day in Laos, and having to work my way through the Bangkok airport and then Laos's customs procedure without any idea what I'm doing. I did get an $800 travel voucher out of it, so maybe I'll use it to visit some of my friends who live outside of driving distance. At least my luggage probably made it to Bangkok. I hope it has a good time.

Update: I talked to Rebecca, who will meet me at the airport in Laos, assuming I make it that far. My hotel reservation has been changed. I'm sitting at home watching Wake Island, a war movie released in 1942. On the basis of the first 51 minutes, I highly recommend it to anyone who likes war movies, or needs something to watch with their father (it's a perfect dad movie). I'll see you after Christmas.

Leaving/Buffy

This will be my last post until I return from Thailand after Christmas. I hope everybody has fun over the holidays. My back is a little better, but not perfect. I'll probably need another week in bed when I get back to heal, because I don't intend to spend my two weeks in southeast Asia lying around hotel rooms.

I finished the last season of Buffy. Overall, it was pretty good. The blend of humor and seriousness was a little iffy at times, but it's not the worst season (that would be season 4), and it included the best cultural reference in the entire series. Without giving too much away, there's an important character named Robin Wood. Robin Wood is also the name of a film theorist who wrote what is probably the most important text on the study of horror films, an essay called "The Return of the Repressed," which was published in Film Comment in 1978 and expanded for a book of essays called The American Nightmare in 1979 (it's out of print, which is criminal). The essay looked at the genre through the dual lenses of Freudian and Marxist theory. It's essential reading to any fan of horror films; I wish that people who dismiss the genre as garbage would read it too. Anyway, it can't be an accident that the name cropped up.

See you in just over two weeks!

Throw the Book at Grandma

A Cook County circuit judge has just given a three-year prison sentence to a 76-year-old grandmother, who wrote $200,000 worth of bad checks to local auto dealers. She "has heart problems, cancer and renal failure and requires kidney dialysis three times a week. An ear infection that started when she was taken into custody has caused a hole in her ear, her attorney said." She's freaking 76 years old, and they're throwing her in prison for writing bad checks. I don't care how much those checks were for. They're throwing a 76-year-old grandma with a bad heart, bad kidneys, and cancer in prison, likely until she dies. What the hell kind of legal system is this? What about house arrest, probation, a tether? God, I hope she wins a lighter sentence on appeal.

The Sorrow and the Buffy

They said Thursday. They promised. They lied.

Let me backtrack a little. Saturday afternoon I hurt my back. I have a long history of back problems, of two varieties. There's the upper back ailment, which I can have fixed by visiting my chiropractor and getting jerked around. Then there's the lower back ailment. I used to get it a lot in high school and college, and it would make me miss a week of work at a time, prevent me from playing street hockey in the parking lot behind Wightman Hall, and sometimes make me cry pitifully. I went to several doctors, and none of them really knew what was causing the problem. The only fix that ever worked was bed rest. My injury on Saturday was this variety of injury, so I've been spending this week in bed or on the couch.

It gets pretty boring, lying around the house all day. Monday I had to work at the ad agency, which was miserable, but at least it kept me occupied. Monday night I watched Sergeant York, and Brian came over to learn how to gas Rebecca's cat (Mini is asthmatic, and someone has to administer her inhaler while we're away). Tuesday during the day, Gaia came over, and we watched the documentary I helped make. After she left, I watched Johnny Belinda, and then I received the all-important email from Netflix telling me that the second half of season seven of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was due to arrive on Thursday. I am happy to report that season seven is better than I expected it to be.

To kill time yesterday, I rented the first two discs of season three of 24, which, I am happy to report, is better than season two was. Last night I went to Kris's cabaret concert, which, I am happy to report, was a lot of fun. I finished off the 24 discs and went to bed, content to know that by the time I dragged my injured ass out of bed, the mail would be here and I would have my Buffy fix.

They weren't there. Netflix has never failed me before. Usually, things show up a day before I am told to expect them. Why, when I need them most, did they fail to come through for me?!?! Why are they going to make me put on some clothes and drive to the video store to rent something that isn't Buffy? The video stores down here don't have many TV shows available. When I'm in the state I'm currently in, I don't feel like watching feature-length movies because I don't have the attention span for them. I want 45-minute chunks of entertainment, punctuated by slow trips to the computer to check my email. I'll have to rent the rest of 24, which is a sad and pitiful replacement for Buffy, even if it's actually pretty good.

I'm done whining, at least for now. Have a good Thursday!

Book of the Bushwatch

This prayer, from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, was originally called "The Negative Confession"; in Bush's version, circa 1240 BCE, it is a positive confession.

Hail, Usekh-nemmt, who comest forth from Anu, I have not committed sin.
Hail, Hept-khet, who comest forth from Kher-aha, I have not committed robbery with violence.
Hail, Fenti, who comest forth from Khemenu, I have not stolen.
Hail, Am-khaibit, who comest forth from Qernet, I have not slain men and women.
Hail, Neha-her, who comest forth from Rasta, I have not stolen grain.
Hail, Ruruti, who comest forth from heaven, I have not purloined offerings.
Hail, Arfi-em-khet, who comest forth from Suat, I have not stolen the property of God.
Hail, Neba, who comest and goest, I have not uttered lies.
Hail, Set-qesu, who comest forth from Hensu, I have not carried away food.
Hail, Utu-nesert, who comest forth from Het-ka-Ptah, I have not uttered curses.
Hail, Her-f-ha-f, who comest forth from thy cavern, I have made none [many] to weep.
Hail, Basti, who comest forth from Bast, I have not eaten the heart.
Hail, Ta-retiu, who comest forth from the night, I have not attacked [m]any m[e]n.
Hail, Unem-snef, who comest forth from the execution chamber, I am not a man of deceit.
Hail, Unem-besek, who comest forth from Mabit, I have not stolen cultivated land.
Hail, Neb-Maat, who comest forth from Maati, I have not been an eavesdropper.
Hail, Tenemiu, who comest forth from Bast, I have not slandered.
Hail, Sertiu, who comest forth from Anu, I have not been angry without just cause.
Hail, Her-uru, who comest forth from Nehatu, I have terrorized none [many].
Hail, Khemiu, who comest forth from Kaui, I have not transgressed.
Hail, Shet-kheru, who comest forth from Urit, I have not been wroth.
Hail, Nekhenu, who comest forth from Heqat, I have not shut my ears to the words of truth.
Hail, Kenemti, who comest forth from Kenmet, I have not blasphemed.
Hail, An-hetep-f, who comest forth from Sau, I am not a man of violence.
Hail, Sera-kheru, who comest forth from Unaset, I have not been a stirrer up of strife.
Hail, Neb-heru, who comest forth from Netchfet, I have not acted with undue haste.
Hail, Sekhriu, who comest forth from Uten, I have not pried into matters.
Hail, Neb-abui, who comest forth from Sauti, I have not multiplied my words in speaking.
Hail, Nefer-Tem, who comest forth from Het-ka-Ptah, I have wronged none [many], I have done no evil.
Hail, Ahi, who comest forth from Nu, I have never raised my voice.
Hail, Neheb-ka, who comest forth from thy cavern, I have not acted with arrogance.
Hail, Tcheser-tep, who comest forth from the shrine, I have not carried away the khenfu cakes from the Spirits of the dead.
Hail, An-af, who comest forth from Maati, I have not snatched away the bread of the child.

Miscellany

Sweet Home Alabama: An Alabama lawmaker wants to ban books featuring gay characters from the state's public libraries, including university libraries. "I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," he said.

In similar news, the Valparaiso student who slashed five of his classmates with a machete and a saw blade says God told him to do it.

This shouldn't make me happy: one of the Wal Mart heiresses is accused of paying her roommate $20,000 to do all of her college coursework for her. It shouldn't make me happy, but it does.

Another great article from Mark Morford of SFGate.com, this one about what he sees as the inevitable backlash against the right-wing backlash against sex and gay people and freedom. "America Loves Kinky Sex."

And the further the petrified fundamentalists now squeezing the testicles of our born-again administration cram us down the bleak hole of 1950s-style sexual ignorance and misogyny and homophobia and silly whining to the FCC about bare breasts and curse words and heavily Botoxed white women daring to expose themselves to black NFL stars, the more potent and delicious and the backlash will be.

Don't know if I agree with him, but it's a nice vision.

Guess that's it today. I stole the first three links from Obscure Store and Reading Room, and the last one from my coworker Brenda. Thanks Brenda!

Forgot the Best Part

The most entertaining thing about Thanksgiving (listen to the sarcasm rolling off his keyboard) is that I got an update on my recently divorced sister Michelle. Apparently, she was in a "life group" at her church, where people get together to solve their life's problems with the help of scripture. Well, when she filed for divorce, they kicked her out of the group. A week or so ago, the elders of her church approached her because they had heard she was dating. They informed her that she didn't have the right to start dating until her ex-husband Steve started, at which point it would be acceptable for her to date. You know, he has to release her from her wifely bounds, even after divorce. Thankfully, she laid into them, told them that he was already seeing someone and asked exactly what right they had to tell her what to do. I wish she had left the church, but she thought giving them the business would be enough.

One of my ex-brother-in-law's biggest problems was that he was really domineering. He was a real "woman's place is in the home" kind of Promise Keeping guy, the kind of person who didn't want to buy the fresh vegetables she needed for her diabetic diet because it would mean they couldn't afford to tithe, the kind of guy who would inform her that they were selling the TV because she didn't spend enough time reading the bible. I wonder where he learned such behavior from?