Well I'm back and it's kind of depressing. Walking into my house and it just seems a little darker than I remember it...
We've got something like a 12 hour lay over in Seoul. This is when I'm going to finish inputting the pictures and clean up the other entries.
Due to the wonders of the international date line I get to experience about 36 hours of Valentine's Day.
Back home on my brother's birthday, talked Joe Lane into going to get sushi with me.
I've had enough of these early mornings, 05:15 is not a valid time to wake up, at least this is the last one. The train was half an hour late getting to the station and we were half an hour early getting there, I don't like the way the math works out. I ended up having plenty of time to stare at all the people.
I've gotten to where I can almost tell where most people are from before I hear them talk. The Japanese are pretty easy to spot, I guess I'm probably mixing the Koreans in with them I've read that it's pretty much impossible to tell them a apart physically. The Americans are too easy they're the ones that with the white shoes and their shirt tucked into their pants, and they talk really loud. The Germans you really have to spot by their glasses, they just look European. The only Chinese I've seen have been 60+ year old ladies. I the Israelis like it here too, they're pretty tough to spot you've got to wait for them to start speaking.
Don't let me forget the back pack people, they've got these humongous fully loaded expedition packs on their back and a full daypack on their chest. I kept meaning to stop one and ask what kind of crap they had in there. It's got to be too much of something, I've got three changes of clothes a laptop camera and accessories (including a 2 kg power converter) and I've gotten in all in a big daypack. It weighs way too much but compared to them I'm traveling light.
On the train down to Pattaya I slept almost the whole way, each time I woke up there were more and more 18-25 year old Japanese guys on the train around us. I'm not sure what it means.
Pattaya falls in the same category as most of India, a place I'm glad I've been because now I know I'll never go back. It was hot, there were way to many fat hairy white people with too few clothes on and all the prostitutes intimidate me, they're very aggressive. I don't know what the deal is but I guess you can get a girl for the whole day or something because there were way to many fat old white guys walking around with Thai girls.
The bus back was definitely they way to go, it was air conditioned, just 90 baht (~$2.50) and only took two hours as opposed to fucking hot, 36 baht and 4 hours.
We got dropped off next to a place called MK Restaurant. We had no idea what they served there but there were a ton of locals waiting out front so we figured it couldn't be too bad. Some one had a solid idea with this place, you pick out your ingredients, and vegetables, meat, noodles and then you cook them in an electric stove thing on your table. It took us a while to figure it out since only 1/3 of the menu was in English and only one person out of the 30 or so there working spoke it. She helped us find something that was vegetarian, and even showed us how to cook it. Apparently they're really popular here and they're opening one in California soon.
On to the airport by 21:00 for a flight that leaves at 01:00, I guess it's good that I get time to catch up on this journal but does anyone else see the pattern here.
I woke up in the middle of the night and was so drunk (see the yesterdays entry) that I stood knocking on the door to the hall and waiting for who ever was using the bathroom to come out. That only happens when I'm really drunk and in not at my house. Once, I spent five minutes looking through Sarah's closet for the bathroom door, she turned on the lights and got me pointed in the right direction (no pun intended).
I woke up at 8 and was still drunk. That's always a bad sign, one big hangover is on its way. You've really got two choices, start drinking again or getting as much water in you as possible and then make the best of it. While the breakfast beer was often my choice back in high school, all it really does give you another three to six hours. If you don't get some food and a lot of water in your stomach your right back where you were.
Since I didn't have another beer and I had I probably wouldn't have been able to drink it anyway, I decided to try to make the best of it. I staggered down and got some breakfast then decided that I wasn't going to be doing anything anytime soon. We checked out and I went down and fell asleep in the shade by the pool.
My dad talked me into going on a boat ride with him at 13:00, which wasn't too bad. It was in the shade and I just had to sit there and watch the scenery roll by. I've pretty much given up on taking pictures, I'm burned out, there were a couple of pretty cool shots that I didn't even want to bother with. As I type I've already taken 500 pictures (~175MB), I've got a problem so don't expect to see a bunch of pictures from now on.
We get on the plane back to Bangkok tonight at 21:00, I think we'll head down to the south but I'm not sure.
My dad had booked a driving tour up to the border with Burma and Laos for us so we got up pretty and ate pretty early. The drive was beautiful but I had no luck staying awake, put me in a car, bus or train and get it gently rocking and I'm out like a sorority girl after two drinks.
We stopped at this hot spring along the way, you could buy eggs that they'd boil for you in the water, your choice of bird species. Like most of the rural areas the ground was rocking and uneven and you had keep an eye on it. My dad ended up tripping and scrapped up his hand and arm pretty good. He washed it out with some of the water from the hot springs (probably not a good idea) and found a band-aid for it.
The destination was the Golden Triangle, it's where Burma, Laos and Thailand share a border. We took one of the long boats across the Mekong to Laos where we looked at all their shitty tourist crap and assorted beggar children, but now I've been to Laos. After lunch we found out we couldn't go into Burma because the Burmese army had invaded Thailand chasing some rebel troops so they'd closed down the border.
My dad decided to get a Thai massage to try and see if they could do anything about his knee, which had started hurting after the fall. I went to check my email. I found a place that didn't have a proxy running so I was able to telnet into the POP3 port on the mail server and read my mail. I'm not hardcore enough to remember the SMTP commands to send mail so I didn't bother.
As I was walking to the hotel I saw a bar and decided to stop in and see if I could find a beer in Thailand that didn't look like water. I asked the very cute bartender for just such a beer and got a lager that wasn't half bad. I really should have learned not to buy anything from the girls here; I end up buying stuff I don't want, paying way too much or both. In this case I ended up with three of the Tiger Eye lagers, they were 0.66 liters with 10% alcohol. In the process I met one of the other bartenders and the British chick that was dating him. She'd worked for four or five months back home and then would stay here for about as long living on the super cheap plan. Between talking to her and the bartender I'm re-convinced that I have to move to Thailand, even if I can't get a job there.
By this point I was pretty toasted, I proceeded bought them all a drink and in honor of Dan I made the bartender get a Long Island. The British chick decided she wanted to try making it, I'm glad I didn't have to drink it, I was drunk enough it shouldn't have tasted that bad. Some how I made it back to the hotel before passing out.
We went out and walked around I've got a very high tolerance for random strolling. My dad who was hauling way to much shit, even after we checked all three suitcases at the hotel, doesn't. We walked around for about 20 minutes before he broke down and said we need a plan. The response let's walk around didn't seem to be sufficient. The plan then became lets go to the airport and see if we can get an earlier flight, well that wasn't going to happen its' booked, so now we're waiting at the airport and I'm catching up on this journal. I'm starting to feel like Doogie Howser with all this typing.
We stoped in at an internet cafe and I tried to check my email, something is/was fucked up and so I've got no email. I spent 45 mintues (that I had to pay for) trying to figure it out before my dad got tired of it (for once his hotmail account worked fine). For the next couple of hours I was in a sulking mood that I wanted to try to blame on the fucked up mail server. After we walked around for a while and my dad when back to the hotel to get a Thai massage I sat out on the curb watched the traffic and people go by and did some thinking.
Major conclusions:
On an highly unrelated note, remind me to go find some China Dolls mp3s, they sound like good asian pop.
I finally got to see the Taj Mahal. It's as impressive as it looks in the photos. The story for those of you who haven't heard it, the queen died while giving burth to her fourteenth child.
The engineering and workmanship that went into it is incredible. The steps they went to to prevent damage to the main dome is amazing, the four minarets around it were built leaning two degrees out so that if they fell it would be away from the main dome.
Boy those Indians know how to make a great date film. On the flight out I watched this movie called Dhaai Akshar Prem Ke. Romance: He's on leave from the Army She's run away to avoid an arranged marriage. He pretends to be her husband so she doesn't have to go through with it. Back home though is another girl that that he's in love with. Predictably after falling in love with girl #2 he goes home to girl #1 and finds she's gotten married to his best friend in the year he's been gone. Back to girl #2 he goes and then the real twists begin.
Those of you who've had to sit through a movie with me know that there's a range of cheesiness that I can't deal with. If a movie is taking itself seriously and fails (likely due to realism issues) I can't sit through it quietly. On one side of this you've got your drama films and the other lite movies.
This landed nicely in the lite category. The short version of the plot could describe your standard Hollywood comedy-love-story that would have at least one of the members of the cast of Friends. What the Indians do that makes it a good date film is throw in a couple of cheesy fighting scenes to balance out the super-sappy romance. Then they do this cool music-video-breakdown-things.
They just didn't give a shit, and I really respect that. The opening scene consists of him destroying a platoon of enemy (Pakistani?) troops with a pistol in one hand and the Indian flag in the other. It made Rambo look like an Oliver Stone film.
The music videos were some kind of neat. The two of them were singing at each other, dancing, and running around all kinds of strange locations, sand dunes, castles, grassy meadows, etc. The dancing had me cracking up and had everyone else staring at me. For those of you who've seen Dawn's movie Rocker Dreams it's kind of like those dream sequences minus Valerie swinging the sword.
After the Korean film and this one I'm ready to go home and start doing a weekly foreign movie night, we'll see if that works out.
It had it all heavy handed dialog.
We decided that we'd had quite enough of India and since we had tickets back to Bangkok we could probably move them up and spend some time there. So now I'm on an Air India flight to Bangkok with four days to spend in Thailand.
This morning we went out with another cab driver and did a little sight seeing, more tombs and generally tried to avoid going to any stores the guy suggested. We've gotten pretty good at avoiding people selling stuff and staying off the referral networks. As a New Zealander we met at the airport put it, "When you come to India you're going to get screwed the only thing you can do is minimize the screwing."
Back in Thailand and it's nice. The weather is still hot and humid but I don't think that changes. The girls are still cute, I'd been wondering if it had all just been my imagination. The traffic here is completely placid by comparison to India, I'm ready to get on a bike and fight it here. Oh and there is no honking.
Oh man sometimes I really hate being cutting edge. This traveling with a second generation digital camera sucks. I'll admit that the battery life is bearable if you're going to be a nazi watching the power management procedures but it's just too unreliable. I've got three flash cards the 8MB one that came with the camera and two 16MB ones that Rasta gave me. One of the 16MB totally went out on me today. I ended up having to erase another card with pictures from the day before and that morning so I'd be able to get pictures of the Taj Mahal. Then to add insult to injury the battery died after 15 shots. So to re-iterate:
Had a bunch of driving today, we hired a mini-bus to take us to Agra for the day. The driver speaks no English and can't seem to read so once we got into Agra he stopped every block to ask directions to the Taj Mahal. We definitely should have known that the hotel would find the worst driver in Delhi.
Did I mention that driving here is sketchy? We almost hit a dog, had about 5 near rear endings, and almost got squeezed into the median by a tractor.
Got to thinking, in the same way that the monitor you're staring at displays many colors from only red, green and blue I could represent any smell I've encountered with only three basic smells. The Shit, Exhaust, Incense or SEI smell palate a I like to call it would let you represent any of the smells we�ve encounted on the trip.
Taking the repeated advice of my roomate Mr. Chris Larson, I got a haircut and straight razor shave at the barbershop in the hotel in Kathmandu before we left. The hair cut alone was an experience, no clipers used there, scissors and the straight razor. The shave was was very nice, even got the hot towel afterwards. All for 300 Nepalise rupees including a 50 rupee tip (that was a lot but it was nice and since that was the last thing I was going to be paying for�)
We're back in India, and boy this makes me realize how horrible Calcutta was. The sky actually has a blue tint to it here and the temperature is nice during the day.
The hotel we ended up in is definitely a local�s hotel. It's cheap but not cheap enough for what you've got to put up with. My dad said that if they hadn't picked us up at the airport he would never have gotten out of the cab. They've got the standard Arab bathroom, which means no toilet paper, just a faucet next to the toilet. It's located in the light industrial part of town which is nice in one respect because there aren't the usual people trying to sell you postcars or get you in their taxi.
It's likely that this is the closest I'll ever get to the sumit of Everest. The plane was a small twin turbo prop job, one seat on either side of the aisile. The flight was only a hour long, we flew out along the range turned around and flew back. Both sides got the same view and they let you go up to the cockpit to take a picture of the mountain.
Up at the unforgivable hour of 05:30 so that by 05:45 we could be at the airport that didn't open till 06:00 for a flight that didn't leave till 07:00. Man though getting to see Mt. Everest from the air was almost worth it.
God I'm sick of seeing temples and all the other tourist bullshit (some bit of irony was inteneded in this sentence). We've been to one two many places and I've heard "What you offer, I make you real good price" two too many times. It's supposed to only get wose in India.
One source of enjoyment was going into a used bookstore, it's such a great commentary on the (English speaking) people who come to Nepal. Doesn't anyone realize how clich� is it to take On The Road (4 copies) on a trip? Or does everyone else just buy their book at the airport (at least 3 copies of everything that�s been on the bestseller list for the last year). Hopefully it's just the sum of thousands of cathartic signs. Maybe they did realize the clich� and maybe that was the best way to recycle those airport books, the world will never know.
After the weather canceled our flight to Jomsom we decided that it wasn't worth the risk of getting stuck in the mountains and moved up our flight back to Kathmandu. I'd have liked to get to go hiking up there but it would be better to come back and spend at least a month instead of the two days we had planned.
A the airport in Pokhara we met a guy named Barry Jordan, he finished up school in and has been touring since July. We shared a cab from the airport to the Kathmandu Guest House where he was also staying and ended up going out for dinner together. He'd been to most of Europe and then aross Russia, Mongolia and into China on the Trans-Siberian Railway. He told us about being in in Tiananmen Square when one of the Falun Gong protests was occuring. He was lucky to only have his film confiscated after photographing the Chinese Police arresting the protestors, they'd initally tried to grab him. In the six months he'd been traveling he'd compiled a list of stories that could fill a book. It's really gotten me thinking about doing some similar type of tour.
I've only checked out one place and it had a reasonable setup, 192.x.x.x IPs behind a proxy or NAT router. Either takes some skill to setup so someone around here is making some money getting these places up and maintaining them.
Leaving early this morning we got to Pokhra by 11:00, Niab (spelling) met us at the airport and took us over to the hotel and got us checked in. Once we got everything squared away we went down to his office to figure out an itinerary.
We got out and did a little sightseeing by car, one place that was memorable was the Underground falls or Davi's Fall. The waterfall is in a gorge that�s probably 5 meters across and as many deep that then drops at least 50 meters. It got the name Davi�s Fall after a Swiss couple were swimming in some of the pools above it and some how the lady ended up going over the fall to her death.
We went to a Tibetan refugee camp, they had a monistary there I got a couple of pictures.
That night we went to a restraunt with a Nepalese folk �culture� show. I put culture in quotes because expecting to get authetic music and dancing at a restraunt is like watching the movie Oaklahoma calling that authentic American folk music and dancing. Now I�ll be the first to admit that I�m not a fan of any kind of folk anything, so they shouldn�t feel to bad, but I didn�t really like it.. One of the funnier things was [uh finish this?]
Bootleg albums are pretty great. I got a couple of eurodance CDs for about 3 bucks each. They're not half bad quality either.
I�d like to haul my laptop in, jack in and upload this database and website. The only problem is currently, with only half the pictures, the database is already 50 MB, to upload that on a 56k connection (5Kps) it would take 2.7 hours (5Kps * 60s * 60min = 18000Kph and 50,000K / 18000Kph = 2.7h) that�d cost 1134 rupees or $15 (7rupees per minute * 60min * 2.7h = 1134rupees) which is more that I want to spend based on optimistic guesses. A 2.5Kps connection is more likely which would double the time I�d have to spend waiting and the cost. The most likely possibility is that I�ll make a copy of the db and dump the highres pictures till I get back.
When I was at the airport wating for the flight to Calcutta, I got to talking with this Italian guy. I commented it would be nice to move to Thailand for a year or two if you could find a job. He hands me the want ads from the English speaking paper.Looking through them made me think I could definitely land a job here, computer people are very much in demand. It would probably pay shit compared to the US but it doesn't cost anything to live here.
What was really strange was the fact that they don't have many (if any) of the anti-descrimanory regulations we have in the states. They'd specifiy an age and gender for most jobs (or if unspecified it was probably just male) and ask for a current photograph.
Our guide dropped us off at a restaurant where we had a great lunch. In this case the referral network was a win. We had a couple of beers and spend an enjoyable couple of hours killing time until the first afternoon train. Had a good talk, one thing that was memorable was the discussion of how our relationship had improved once he gave up on trying to direct my life. He mentioned that my grandfather hadn't given up trying to run his live until much later. Hopefully I can give when any kids I have are around age 12, then in another two generations the trait should be gone from the bloodline.
Be in the proper mindset. There are no exclusive distributors here. Contrary to what they�d like you to believe they probably didn�t make it themselves. So as a result if one person has it for sale there�s at least one other.
They�ll tell you all kinds of things about how it�s been a slow day and they need to make a sale, if that were true they sure wouldn�t tell you that.
You really don't need it, if you can act like it's the last thing you want, you're in a better position. "But what am I going to do with it" as you shrug is a great phrase to use.
Never buy the first one you see. Use the first vendor as the test case to see how low you can get the item.
Walk away. Do is slowly so they can call out their price, if they don't find someone else and start again.
Never take it for less than half what they offer up front. I don't think I've ever had them stop before half way, often they'll start 3 times above what they'll take.
Sometime you've got to get thrown out of a shop or two to find out what the bottom is. That's one less person trying to sell you something.
Lie about where you're from telling anyone in India that your from the USA pretty much gets your first price set to 3 times what they'll take for it. The Dutch are supposed to be pretty cheap, so you might want to try that but it's kind of fun to just pick an English speaking country at random.
Check it again Consumer protection laws in the US cause you to forget all the possible "tricks" that can be pulled on you.
Reconfirm the price you agreed on, if they switch it walk away right then until they come back (you might want to try turning it around and going down).
Check that the item they give you is the same as the one you paid for. You don't want end up with a something of inferior quality to what you paid for.
Notes that really don't apply to a single day.
Man I thought Namaste was just some weird thing they say at the end of a Yoga class. Here and in India you can use it as it hello, good bye and thank you.
Jesus Christ, there's a lot of dirty hippies here. I don't know what the deal is but it's like they're baiting them with hemp products and clothing with Rastafarian coloring. Once they get them here, they sell them pictures of the locals smoking pot (I�m not sure it's pot but the fucking hippies are probably to stoned to tell the difference), incense, and pipes.
I'll attempt to document the infestation with out disturbing them. Even thought the homo deadheadias is generally docile, when upset they are known to lash out by flailing their dredlocks or summoning begars. Loosing an eye to a dredlock sounds bad to be, so I'll have to be carefull.
God damn Bill Spaceman would be proud. There's not a single bicycle in the country with more than one speed, and all the brakes use rods not cables. I guess when you build bikes like that you can give them to your kids when you die but man are they a lot more difficult to ride.
Oh shit I almost forgot, THEY ALL RIDE WITH FUCKING FLAT TIRES. It drives me nuts don't they realize how important proper tire pressure is? It prevents flat tires and makes riding n times more efficient. I'm going to get a pump and become the bike Mother Teresa, I'll have grease too.
Before you can even check in they X-ray all your non-carry-on luggage. To show it's been checked they put a plastic band around it. This works fine if it's a suitcase but they do it on duffle bags backpacks (well it might work if they banded the zippers closed). Then you check your bags as normal, and after going through Imigration, you have to go identify the bags that you just checked. I suppose this is a pretty good idea, prevent someone from checking a bag and then "missing the flight". Right before you get to the waiting area the finally put you through a metal detector and X-ray your carry-on. When it's time to board the plan you go down to some buses and they drive you out to the plane where they pat you down.
Metal detectors only detect ferrous metal, it wouldn�t detect a knife made of aluminum, plastic, or a ceramic. [I'll probably finish this rant later, if you're reading this I still haven't gotten to it.]
Up at 6:30 to be back to the Calcutta Int'l Airport for our 10:45 flight to Nepal.
The original plan was to go to Nepal 2 days later but Calcutta doesn't seem that great and we were able to change our tickets. My dad had a guy lined up to act as our guide but we hadn't been able to get in contact with him to tell him we'd be there early. Since planing comes in second to none with my dad he had researched several hotels in Katmandu.
The timing was such we were checked into the hotel and back out on the street by 14:00 local time. At the hotel I got my first internet connect in about a week (8 days judjing by the title of this entry). I had supprisingly little email probably only 20 or 30 part of that is probably due to the unsubscribing kick I went on before I left.
We got out and did a little shopping. The selling here is the standard tourist assault style, very high pressure, the walking vendors will follow you for a couple of blocks if they think they can make a sale. My dad made the mistake of trying to be polite and not ignoring them, they misinterpret this for interest. At one point he had four guys and a fruit cart following him.
well this is the first post since leaving. we're in nepal now, katmandu to be specific, it's much nicer than calcutta, which if you'll pardon the phrase must be the ass of india. the thai and us state departments consider it a hardship posting and only send you there for 2 years as opposed to the standard 4 years. the only reason i know that was we stayed with the german deputy consul and he had a friend who worked for the thai consul.
thailand is fucking unbelievable, i think after i do my cross country ride i'll look into getting a job there. india is probably the most polluted place on earth, breathing is like having your lips wraped around the tail pipe of a car. nepal reminds me of reno climate wise, much warmer and smoggier but it's actually plesant as opposed to caluctta.
i've gotten my database (with web view interface) together for photographs and text and have been dutifully loggin the journey. i've gotten a few cool pictures and a bunch of okay ones, the connect from here sucks, 500 ms pings so i don't know if i'll be able to upload the data i've captured. we'll see.
The rules I've observed for driving in India:
This may sound sarcastic but it's not intended to be. The burden of responsibility when driving is different here. Instead of being reasonably aware of all your surroundings and expecting the same from others, you need to be super aware of everything going on in front of you and assume that's all anyone else is focused on. To make this focus possible, you use the horn announce your position to others. Trucks and buses frequently have "honk" or "use horn" painted on the bumper.
Any compnay that has an ISO 900x certifictation puts a big sign on the front of the building ot announce it and prints it on all the products.
They all walk around looking at their cell phones, I guess they're sending and reciving text messages.
Get the desk clerk to pronounce the name of the hotel you're staying at for you, half the time they way you say it and they cab driver says it are totally different.
The light switches rock side to side no up and down.
My extensive knowledge of eurodance allowed me to be able to name the artist if not the title of almost every song we heard playing in a strip club as we'd walk by. Thank god for Digitally Imported
Wake up to the sound of honking horns and banging metal. Worked on the web interface a little and then had some breakfast. Our host departs for work, and we head out with Mr. David.
The first stop was at St. Paul's Cathedral, that might not be the correct name but it's unimportant, the place was pretty dull and we stayed there a total of 5 minutes, at least it was free. My advice, avoid it.
We stopped and saw Mother Teresa's grave. It's a big white marble box with flowers on top. They had some good quotes on the wall that I really should have written down. We walked next door to one of the orphanages her order runs. That was some pretty fucked up shit. There several hundred kids there ranging from babies up to five or six. From what they said most of them would end up on the street.
We went to the Asiatic Society's Library/Museum. Like many things in Calcutta it was pretty depressing, they have over 50,000 manuscripts dating back to the 7th century and the place seemed to be falling apart. The packrat in me is offended by the thought of all that material going to waste.
The Victoria Memorial was next. It too is a museum, the only thing of real interest there was exhibit on the history of India from the first European contact to present.
We stopped at the Oberoi Grand Hotel for tea, it was nice but super expensive. We got to talk to Mr. David a little. He makes 4700 rupees (a little more than $100) a month as a driver for the German Consul. There�s no public school in India, three of his five daughters are school aged, and it costs him ~1100 rupees a month for their school. I didn�t ask what he pays for his quarters or how big they are.
The highlight of the day was the Marble Palace. It's a mansion built some time back in the 1800s when Calcutta had serious money, they filled it some insane sculptures (Michelangelo) and paintings (they had a Rembrandt, and a couple of Raphaels). The house itself is pretty much a work of art, marble floors, intricately carved ceilings, it would be gorgeous if wasn't falling apart. The guide said that the seventh generation of the family that built it was still living in part of it. Apparently the house belonged to a trust so nothing could be sold. My dad kept getting all dramatic about how great it was, it was impressive but he was swooning like a school girl or something.
We went back to the Victoria Memorial for a sound and light show, 1980s would be the word for it. They had this annoying theme song "I am Calcutta" that kept getting played over and over, it really just a boring audio history of Calcutta.
I've got two say Indian wins the airline awards in two areas most homely stewardess (especially after Korean Air) and best food. The choice of meals was vegetarian or chicken and asked in that order. The next question was coke, beer or whiskey. I went with the beer and they gave me two cans of Kingfisher, who's got two thumbs and is fucking stoked... This guy (it works better in reallife, ask Dan to show it to you sometime). I was so impressed I'm letting my food get cold to type this.
Okay I'm back now, the food was good for airline food but not half as good as SS Super.
This plane scares me, not as bad as Aeroflot (check the spelling, it's a Russian airline) but the FAA probably have a few things to say about it. One piece of advice, wear your shoes to the restroom.
We went out to the Jim Thompson house this morning. Two words bore ing. The shout version of the story is, a fellow by the name of Jim came here (Thailand) during WWII and liked it so much he stayed. He bought a bunch of teakwood houses from the surrounding area and brought them to Bangkok. He lived in them for eight odd years before disappearing in Malaysia. A relative gave his stuff to a foundation, which made his house a museum. Crap all I did was stare at our, very cute, tour guide.
Speaking of which, all the girls in Thailand are gorgeous. Even the not gorgeous ones are cute. And if that wasn't enough to leave permanent scars on your knuckles from biting them then there are the tall AND cute Japanese tourists, so painful.
Got to the airport, got our bags checked and headed for the gate, I don't know what the deal was but even after you'd cleared the X-ray machine, they were hand searching carry-on bags. Then after you'd been sitting in a seating area on the walkway to board the plane they patted you down. It seemed like going through the motions of security was enough. If I was trying to smuggle something, had a bomb, etc., it would have been no problem. When I saw that they were checking bags I'd put it on my person then when I saw they were giving pat-downs I'd have stuck it back in my bag.
The flight was relatively brief. I used to think no one could clear a plane faster than Southwest Airlines passengers, I was totally wrong. The plane had just made its initial bounce off the tarmac when people were jumping out of their seats to pull their bags from the overhead bins. I was laughing the entire time, especially when the stewardesses got up to tell one guy to sit back down. The race off the plane to customs was pretty great too.
Our host in Calcutta was Mr. Ulirch Maier, the Deputy Consul at the German Embasy. We were met at the airport by his's personal driver, Mr. David, who took us to Mr. Maier's flat. Driving in Calcutta is stressful or exciting depending on how you look at it, but Mr. David is a very good driver and we were able to sit back and enjoy the ride.
Dad had heard from a guy he works with about this Buddha that�s supposed to work, essentially if you make a prayer and give an offering to him/it, you'll get a blessing. It's got four faces and at each one you give an offering at each one and do a little head bow-prayer thing. I decided that it was only proper that I wish for a pretty Asian girlfriend, and one for Joe Lane too, if he wants one.
We decided to take the SkyTrain (elevated light rail) back towards the hotel. We got off by the river and on a lark decided to go for another boat ride. For a mere 15 bhat we were on board a commuter boat headed up the Chao Phraya. Little did we know that we wouldn't be able to take the same boat back, we ended getting off 45 minutes later and catching a cab back to the hotel.
We were up and out of the hotel by 5:30 on our way to the train station. On the way the cab driver tried to convince us to have him drive us to Ayutthaya, "only 1500 baht", the express train cost 160 for both of us.
The train goes through some decidedly third world countryside. Seeing the way they lived caused me quite a bit of reflection, hopefully it will be reflected back on my actions.
Getting of the train a guy approached us asking if we needed a tuk tuk, we sort of waved him off as has become the habit with anyone offering something. He asked where we were from and after we told him he fumbled around in his fanny pack and pulled out a small spiral bound notebook. Flipping around for a few seconds he showed us several notes people had left about him for other tourists. At this point I was sold as I wrote in his book that afternoon, you can't go wrong with anyone who'll show you a book full of positive comments from past customers. My dad was sold when he showed him the Thai Tourism Authority's Sign with set rates, 200 baht per hour for tours (~$5.00).
The first temple we went to was very nice, the morning coolness helps make any place enjoyable though. [more to come here]
Among the stops at temples my Dad ended up riding an elephant, while I was waiting for him (after taking the half roll of film of my dad he wanted) I started reading there save the elephant stuff. They're having a hard time figuring out what to do with the domesticated elephants. They used to use them for logging but that was made illegal in Thailand ten or twenty years ago. After problems in Bangkok it became illegal to have them in the city, so now there's a lot of elephants who can't be put back in the wild and their owners have the tough task of finding a way to make money to feed them.
Most pictures that I've taken in the past are zoomed out, as if trying to get the whole picture. If they were cropped down it wouldn't be so bad but in any case the real detail is lost. On this trip I've resolved to try to limit the scope of the pictures, find one interesting aspect and focus on it.
I'll probably end up putting some of those zoomed out pictures in but they'll be more to illustrate a point. If I can I'll try to make the same point with a picture that's actually nice to look at.
The nice thing about using a digital camera is the iterative nature of it. Every night I can see what worked and didn't in the pictures I took that day, hopefully I won't keep making the same mistakes with lighting, focus and composure.
What I'm looking forward to doing is putting together a system that allows you to rate my snapshots, one vote per picture.
I think it was Mark Twain who said that Bangkok is the Venice of the East. Well I'd say that Bangkok is the New Orleans of the East, and Patpong is the Bourbon St.
The main difference, less T-shirt stores and the entire street is covered with booths selling bootleg CDs, bootleg clothing, Leatherman knock-offs, Zippo knock-offs, and the standard line of chop-sticks and Buddha figures. Oh yeah, on the side walk every 3m there are two or three people trying to show you the small laminated card they're holding that looks like a menu. On closer inspection it turns out to be list of all the acts (with simple illustrations) you can see inside the club behind them, notably the ping-pong show, the banana show, and most intriguing the balloon show.
Everything here seems to run on the basis of whoever brings in the tourist a cut, be it restaurant, shop, tour, or is this case strip club. Later I was struck by the fact that they're using the same business plan as many websites but these gentlemen (and the occasional lady) are making money with it. I suppose credit should be given to their aggressive sales techniques, banner ads just don't have the same effect.
In the interest of being an objective tourist we decided to visit one of these clubs. I'll only say this, the beer and cover cost 600 baht (~$15) and we stayed there less than 30 minutes. I've heard you can get a massage and sex for $30.
I should have known that IBM wouldn't let me down, their power supply works just fine with 220 volts.
That crappy camera on the other hand needs the power converted. I'm definitely going to be looking for a new camera when I get back, the Toshiba eats up batteries like it didn't take 6 hours to charge them. The next camera I get needs to run on some standard rechargable battery, and last longer than the 60 pictures on a charge this one gets.
First thing we did was go by the train station and check on taking a trip tomorrow.
We went back to the Grand Palace. My dad waited outside and wrote some postcards and I went in and took some of the pictures that I'd wanted to take the day before. I also stopped in at the Wat Phra Kaeo which houses the Emerald Buddha, it was kind of impressive in that it's whole lot of emerald but it the building it was in was sort of gaudy.
After leaving the Grand Palace we went to Wat Po and saw the reclining Buddha. I was impressed, the image is huge, possibly 30m long. I got a couple of pictures but they don't do it justice at all.
What's striking to me is how small the tourist circuit is. I keep seeing people over and over again.
I started updating this journal. Finally got a structure that I like, need to fix the input forms up next. They're pretty basic but functional. I'll probably try to get the web portion up so that I can upload it and the database when I find a net connection.
Freaking camera ran out of batteries by 13:00, ended up missing a couple of cool pictures. Part of the problem was that I was shooting indescriminately, tomorrow I'll be a lot more carefull what I spend battery on.
We went on a boat tour in the morning. I think it was a nice way to see the city, it's hot and humid in Bangkok (even in January) but there was a nice breeze in the canals and on the river so it was very plesant. The boat operator was kind enough (which most people are when you're paying them) to drop us off at a pier near the Grand Palace.
The Grand Palace takes up the space of several blocks so we spent several minutes wandering around trying to find the entrance. Inside were some beautiful temples and I got a few good pictures.
I should have known that IBM wouldn't let me down, their power supply works just fine with 220 volts.
That crappy camera on the other hand needs the power converted. I'm definitely going to be looking for a new camera when I get back, the Toshiba eats up batteries like it didn't take 6 hours to charge them. The next camera I get needs to run on some standard rechargable battery, and last longer than the 60 pictures on a charge this one gets.
I think it was Mark Twain who said that Bangkok is the Venice of the East. Well I'd say that Bangkok is the New Orleans of the East, and Patpong is the Bourbon St.
The main difference, less T-shirt stores and the entire street is covered with booths selling bootleg CDs, bootleg clothing, Leatherman knock-offs, Zippo knock-offs, and the standard line of chop-sticks and Buddha figures. Oh yeah, on the side walk every 3m there are two or three people trying to show you the small laminated card they're holding that looks like a menu. On closer inspection it turns out to be list of all the acts (with simple illustrations) you can see inside the club behind them, notably the ping-pong show, the banana show, and most intriguing the balloon show.
Everything here seems to run on the basis of whoever brings in the tourist a cut, be it restaurant, shop, tour, or is this case strip club. Later I was struck by the fact that they're using the same business plan as many websites but these gentlemen (and the occasional lady) are making money with it. I suppose credit should be given to their aggressive sales techniques, banner ads just don't have the same effect.
In the interest of being an objective tourist we decided to visit one of these clubs. I'll only say this, the beer and cover cost 600 baht (~$15) and we stayed there less than 30 minutes. I've heard you can get a massage and sex for $30.
Freaking camera ran out of batteries by 13:00, ended up missing a couple of cool pictures. Part of the problem was that I was shooting indescriminately, tomorrow I'll be a lot more carefull what I spend battery on.
We went on a boat tour in the morning. I think it was a nice way to see the city, it's hot and humid in Bangkok (even in January) but there was a nice breeze in the canals and on the river so it was very plesant. The boat operator was kind enough (which most people are when you're paying them) to drop us off at a pier near the Grand Palace.
The Grand Palace takes up the space of several blocks so we spent several minutes wandering around trying to find the entrance. Inside were some beautiful temples and I got a few good pictures.
We left Reno on 1/27/2001 at the unreasonable hour of 6am. My dad hears "6am at the airport" and it translates to 5am. I'd have no problem with it if it didn't mean that I had to get up with him at 4am.
After about 5 hours on the plane I broke down and got out the laptop. If I can't charge the battery I'll be screwed but I'd I think that's a small chance and I'd really like to get the database squared away.
The flight from SFO to SEO (I believe that's the airport code for Seoul) is 5500 miles and 12 hours. The only book I brought is Donald Knuth's Art of Programming vol 1, it was a deliberate choice, on past trips I've taken a book that was too entertaining I'll be too into it to pay attention to the trip. It's a good book though I'm getting a lot out of it.
On a 12 hour flight they play all kinds of crap on the TVs, I made the mistake of sitting through the movie Beautiful because it had Minnie Driver and that chick who played Finger Cuffs in Chasing Amy, I should know better by now. I did get to see a bunch of Korean pop music videos. I was enjoying them, just your standard poppy-eurodanceish-songs. Then they started singing in English, there's no such thing as good lyrics in a pop song I don't care what language it's in.
We land in Korea in about two hours then we get on a plane to Bangkok, as of yet it hasn't hit me that I'm going to Asia.
I'm sitting in the airport in Seoul watching a games show that some how involves telling which of two items is real and which is fake. What's cool is that the people are completely dressed up, men in tuxes and women in fancy dresses. The first round they were trying to spot fake ginseng, then it seems like they went into a kitchen and made something with it? I'm still not sure.
There was a second movie on the plane, it was a Korean film called Just Do It. I was very impressed, a nice dark comedy about insurance fraud leading to killing relatives, good indie feel to it.
Just updated the clock on my computer so the time stamps should now be on local time.
Because I've got one point of failure I'm a little worried. If the power converted I bought doesn't work doing this "digital journal" is going to be rough, I'll have to save the battery for downloading pictures from my camera.
I guess technically it's day three now but since we merged day one and two traveling, I'm going to make it clear that since it's after midnight it's day 3.