The Taxi driver who drove me to Suvarnabhumi Airport is named Sukhumnipursriniram. I’m mot sure I spelled his name correctly. I haven’t the foggiest idea how to say it correctly either. It’s a long ass name, longer even than the Hawaiian Superman Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. Actually Bruddah Iz is not the Hawaiian Superman. He just wrote and sang a song called Maui, Da Hawaiian Supaman. But at least I know how to say Kamakawiwo’ole correctly, with the proper accent and all. A dubya ain’t always pronounced like no dubya in Hawaiian. Sometimes it&rsquo [View Full Entry]

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Saturday, April 12, 2009 I really have nothing specific to do here. The only reason I’m here is because I booked a flight online a few days ago when I was in Laos to Bali from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport. My flight is on Monday, April 14, 2009, two days away from now. I got here early for precautionary reasons, in case something went totally awry, so that I would have enough margin for a contingency plan and prevent my itinerary from totally going out of whack. I always hate it when things don’t go according to my plan. That’s why [View Full Entry]

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A large group of young monks in orange robes piled into the tiny Nong Khai train station in the afternoon accompanied by an older monk who was obviously an elder mentor of some sort as well as their guide or guardian. These young ones were tiny little creatures with shaven heads and wearing nothing but the bright orange sheets that they wrapped around their bodies with and their feet were either bare or are fitted with your run of the mill rubber slippers or sandals. They ranged from aged six to twelve. They wandered around the station like they’ve never seen [View Full Entry]

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Southeast Asia is full of hawkers, touts, and scam artists combing the streets where many tourists tend to congregate, and they are the most intense and aggressive in the border towns of Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Burma. The minute you get off the plane, train, bus or outside of your hotel touts of all types will undoubtedly approach you and quote you a price of a service you don’t even want or need. “Sir, tuk-tuk to bridge, 100,000 kip” was the first thing that came out of the tuk-tuk driver’s mouth who was parked across the street the minute I [View Full Entry]

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The flight from Hanoi to Vientiane takes only about one hour but the price of the plane ticket cost almost twice as much as the flight from Saigon to Hanoi. I have no idea why this is so other than it’s probably due to some tariff levied on international flights. I had wanted to take a bus from Hanoi to Vientiane, Laos via Dien Bein Phu but many travelers whom I met in Hanoi discouraged me from doing so. “No, no, no. Big mistake. Buy a plane ticket. You’ll thank me for it later” was what this big burly Americano told [View Full Entry]

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“Dominique!” An old French lady yelled to another near Gate 6 of the departing lounge at the domestic terminal of Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Saigon. “Dominique!” She yelled again. “Dominique!” She yelled a third and final time because that’s when “Dominique” finally noticed that her old friend was trying to catch her attention. Dominique’s friend had been whistling and beckoning, softly shouting her name for the last five minutes while Dominique was fumbling around the terminal, getting lost, and looking desperate wit [View Full Entry]

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Got in a little hometown jam So they put a rifle in my hand Sent me off to a foreign land To go kill, yellow man, now From Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen Refugee The dust has settled somewhat after thirty plus years since the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. The Vietnamese Refugees have settled somewhat comfortably in the USA. Some have even comeback to visit the motherland. Others have totally abandoned the idea of ever coming back home to Vietnam. When I was a kid growing up in the Central Valley of California I had classmates [View Full Entry]

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Got on a plane in Frisco And got off in Vietnam I walked into a different world The past forever gone From Still In Saigon by the Charlie Daniels Band Getting on the plane in Frisco My coworkers tried their darnedest to keep me in the office for as long as they could but I wrestled my way out of there by 4 pm. I got out of there, past my coworkers, past some pretty important people whose favorable opinion of me depends a great deal on the enormous amount of time they see me devotedly engaged in my profession. I [View Full Entry]

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Manila is not for the faint of heart. Even if you’ve been to some pretty nasty places on the face of this planet, it is hard not to feel sad and disgusted at the sight of Manila’s slums and squatter areas. I made a cursory walking tour just across the Pasig River from Intramuros, and what I saw was not a pretty sight: a hodgepodge of settlements; makeshift houses made of corrugated sheet metal, cardboard boxes, plastic awnings, and other junk scavenged from a dumpsite; naked homeless kids washing in dirty unsanitary water; people begging; people sleeping on the pavement; pickpocket [View Full Entry]

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Manila is a god awful place. This is what I was told by every Filipino I know in the United States: Filipinos who've never been to Manila, Filipinos who have been to Manila but left a long time ago and never wish to return, Filipinos young and old, Filipinos born in the Philippines but immigrated to the United State a million years ago, and Filipinos who were born and raised in the United States and have never been to the Philippines but have only heard about it through second hand sources, like their parents or grandparents, and upon hearing of the [View Full Entry]

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