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Published: October 26th 2008
Allow me to be frank. I'm not feeling it. This whole blog thing. The mood's just not there. My imagination's no longer running wild, it's been caged in a zoo where it lounges on a log for 18 hours a day and only gets up to strategically lick its genitals when a nun walks by. I need new spark plug's in my brain to get my mental pistons firing. Blah Blah metaphor blah blah (something in parenthesis) blah blah atrocious grammar. I guess at the moment I'm just Skypeing it in. It may be the combination of epic bus rides, stifling heat and scam artist tour guides that's got me this way. On the other hand, it might be a delicious cocktail of breathtaking natural beauty, 40 cent liters of beer and 4 dollar full body massages that's put me in such a languid state. Whatever the case, my mind is such putty that I'm struggling to put together even these simple, less than inspired sentences (case in point- It's taken me 30 minutes to get this far in the blog). However duty calls and nothing is less motivating than a log jam of events left over to blog about. So
with all apologies to my readers, I now present this meandering, flaccid account of the last two weeks of our lives.
We escaped China with only a couple of casualties at our exit. We were forced to sacrifice a hefty sum of dollars to the Gods of ripoff Chinese taxi drivers and overpriced shithole hostels. Sadly though, we did lose one soldier who's been with us from the very beginning. We all watched him grow from a furry mess atop my head into the mighty mane of curls trailing behind me in the wind. My beautiful hair is dead. Gone. Murdered. I went to a barber in Hong Kong to get a slight trim in order to cool me in the unbelievable humidity and heat down here and came out with an angle bob with flairs at the tips. It was the most atrocious haircut in the history of civilization. My hair was left on life support, clinging to the hideous, shapeless mess that was its existence. The only honorable solution was to pull the plug and start all over. Now having devolved my hair from a Farrah Fawcett doo, to a Meg Ryan bob to an Ellen Degeneres
Guy's cut, our lives could continue unabated.
We flew from Hong Kong to Bangkok on the shockingly high-quality Thai airlines. My experience so far is that Asian airlines just plane (deliberate) do a better job than anyone else. For our in flight meal we didn't get a choice of two items. We got a menu. So we hit the ground in high spirits as we chartered a bus into the city. Bangkok is legendary for its chaos. It's a city that guidebooks will tell you will charm your pants off with its unbridled insanity. As is well documented, I am a devotee of chaos so I was excited. My experience however, showed me that Bangkok is not quite the seductress that it may once have been. The epic party scene seems to almost be a product of its own legend. It appears that in its embrace of the billions of worldly dollars that flow into Thailand every year through tourism, much of the genuine revelry has been replaced by a forced, contrived nuttiness. You're bombarded by touts selling snake wine and Ping Pong shows, but there's no joy in it all. It's just another profit making scheme to give
Trees growing out of the Temple
Not sure where the roots end upwesterner's stories to tell about there time in "crazy Thailand." The clamor for luxury and comfort has won out and it's like the whole city is keeping up appearances in order to protect a reputation that died a decade ago. To put it this way, if Bangkok were a woman she would fake it (and you'd probably get the clap).
Traveling to Thailand is a backpacker's pilgrimage to Mecca (outside of actual trips to Mecca, of course). It's a place where fun comes cheap and western currency stretches into next week. There is access here to some of the most stunning natural wonders and culture anywhere. That, however, is no secret. There's a mood that casts itself upon every backpacker you meet down here. We're all in awe of the amazing experiences our meager funds can lend, but you can see it in the eyes of every traveler you pass. Like a great song that's been played just one too many times, Thailand has lost its niche appeal. All around are reminders of how amazing an experience you'd have if you could just have gotten here ten years earlier. We all wish we had been in on the secret
Face Pillar
Bayon Temple a little sooner, when this place was truly wild, the beaches empty and the bungalows almost free. As we hum around this wonderland, each of us sings an elegy to that perfect paradise that we just barely missed.
Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here. Thailand still remains one of the most spectacular places I've ever visited. After a day or two bumping around Bangkok (and contracting heat stroke, my poor scalp not used to direct sunlight), we needed to get out of the city. So far this trip we've done a sampler tour of almost all the major cities in Asia and there was only one solution that would allow us to recharge and release all the smog we've inhaled over the past month. Forget sights, forget culture, we've spent so much time expanding our minds on this trip, let's spend a few shrinking them. Let's go to the Goddamn beach. We didn't just go to any beach, we escaped to the island paradise that is Ko Chang. It's a perfect little stretch of land in Thailand's eastern Gulf. Due to it's proximity to Cambodia, which was a no-go death zone for travelers until about a
decade ago, it's a touch behind on the developmental homogenization that some other islands have suffered. Not to say there isn't that tinge of corporate lechery to it (I counted 5 seven-elevens) but the place provided us with what we needed. We got a moderately secluded beach that supplied the requisite level of mind-numbing beauty. I'd love to give you our daily itinerary, but there was none. It was simply: lie in sun, swim in water, lie in sun with drink, swim in water with drink, lather rinse repeat. We used Ko Chang to refuel our aching bodies and charge up our energies. Unbeknownst to us, the next leg of our journey would require every ounce we had.
With tears in our eyes and aloe on our skin, we departed Ko Chang and headed eastward to Cambodia. Yes, Jello, a Holiday in Cambodia. Traveling through Thailand to the Cambodian border was as comfortable as one can ask for in these parts, no complaints. It's once you cross, that things become harrowing. Suddenly your posh minibus that you were promised no longer exists and you're stuck in the world's worst bus station. There's no locals here, just angry confused tourists
all of whom are battleing to keep their pride as they're assaulted by touts promising an easy exit from their situation, for the right price. Despite the fact that it is one of the most traveled routes in the region, the road from the border to Siem Reap, the location of Angkor Wat, is one of the worst in South East Asia. It's been deliberately left in horrendous condition to make alternatives to that road all the more enticing. It's been said that the airlines in Siem Reap are paying the government not to fix the road to increase the number of people who opt to fly. They've also made the bus ride as insufferable as possible in order to push travelers into opting for a $60 taxi ride instead. You sit, for hours, waiting for a bus that may never come, staring at you watch as the hours pass, knowing that the trip could be shortened from a grueling 7 hours of sweat and dust to an air-conditioned 3 in a cab. The whole waiting room sits with an indigent rage as some people cave and throw down the cash to get out of this sick spot. We held
strong. Why? Because fuck them, that's why. They're gonna get their money, but it sure as hell isn't gonna be from us. I'd rather walk than vindicate these assholes and their deceit. Thankfully, enough people had the same idea and we gathered enough travelers together to make supplying the bus worth the company's while and we proceeded on a hellish 7 hours that got us in at almost exactly double the time our tour company in Ko Chang promised.
Why suffer this misery? What could possibly counter balance the suffering that we endured to get here? The answer is the Temples of Angkor. Virtually unknown until the demise of the Khmer regime in 1992, the temples of Angkor Wat are fast becoming one of the greatest archeological sites on the planet. Their omission from the new 7 wonders of the world indicates not their shortcomings, but that of the voters who compiled the list. It's not like the churches in Europe that all start to run together at some point. Each temple is a completely unique site. Any one of these temples would make a trip to Siem Reap worthwhile and there are hundreds. As we were suffering a
time crunch, we only had one day to tour the grounds, but many people spend up to a week. After witnessing our first temple, starting out with the grandest of the bunch Angkor Wat, we feared we may have made the mistake of front-loading our experience. However, the requisite temples we visited were each so different and amazing that our only trepidation was watching the sun plummet and knowing that our time was finite. I could go into aching detail about the wonders of each temple, but I frankly don't have the energy. The pictures do far more justice than this humble blogger can put together. Need a clever pun or insulting one-liner and I'm your man. But somehow verbalizing the magic that permeates through the grounds here is a task for a far more ambitious and talented writer.
Up next is a long bus trip up to Laos, the forgotten Baldwin of South East Asia. I leave Cambodia a conflicted man. The tourist infrastructure is a heartless pimp, whoring out the timeless beauty of it's interior, but the slums got so much soul. Pol Pot!
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Dee Love
non-member comment
Hilarious!
You crack me up!! Its been 8 yrs since I was in Thailand, and my mate i've been staying with in Oz, had to leave his business after 5 yrs, when the army kicked all the lengthy tourists with fake stamps out, so I've heard there are now more Thai's on the Ko San Road at least. Wasn't really tempted back that way this time round, Cambodia would be cool, but did you see the slums, the citys built around rubbish! Where they fight off each other just to have first pickings of what comes out of the garbage trucks...dark! One tourist went to do a magazine article on it, and just made it out on time before the sun set and he was done over..seriously fucked up, but as long as we buy their coffee in cafes, and tourism supports the government, fuck the people! but that ain't coming from my own experience. nice one mate anyway, I had a good chuckle this morning. Deezel :)