Arriving in the Philippines

Next morning I said goodbye to Gick and took a taxi from the hotel to Kho San road. I had bought a shuttle to the airport for one dollar and fifty cents. I bought a few things at 7-11 and headed to the stand to wait for the taxi. There were three other travelers in the car with me. Two Japanese girls and I think either an Englishman or an Irishmen.

The cab driver asked us if we to take the regular roads or the toll roads. I told him I had no idea. I figured that was your job to figure that out. He said that the toll would cost more. I told him I had no more baht left. I only had enough for the departure tax. He went on the toll anyways and then before entering the toll gate began to ask for more money. The girls in the back had none either. The cab driver began to get visibly upset. Finally, the Englishman in the back took off his earphones and asked what the problem was. He got this annoyed look on his face and dug into his pocket and saved the day. He handed over the baht to the driver and berated him for his greediness. The taxi was supposed to be 60 baht each paid up front with no extra charges. It was unfortunate to leave the country on such a low note, but I was not going to hold several million Thai people accountable for one unprincipled cab driver.

I was shocked getting through security as it was pretty tight. I had my bags checked going through the security checkpoint and then also before boarding the plane. Welcome back to the world of Al-Qaeda I thought. One of the reasons I chose the countries I have traveled in so far was the peaceful situation of each of the countries. Southeast Asia is for the most part pretty stable and with not many extreme terrorist or militant groups. Thailand has a small Muslim minority in the south that from time to time causes problems, but for the most part is a very peaceful country. The Philippines of all the countries I was going to travel in has the largest Muslim minority and they have been known to cause some problems. For the most part this group, called the Abu Sayef, is limited to the southern island of Mindanao, which I had no intention to visit, so I was not worried. They have been known to kidnap and bomb other areas of the Philippines, so that explained the tight security. I was also to find out when I arrived in Manila that there had been some recent problems with the Abu Sayef , which also explained the tight security.

Arriving in Manila was a little crazy, but every new major airport is. I managed to navigate the immigration line with no problem. My next order of business was to set my ticket for my departure to Japan. The Philippines has an automatic twenty-one day visa for staying in the country without an official tourist visa. So I had to leave in three weeks or apply for an extension. My ticket to Japan was originally set for March 23rd, which would only give me a week in the country. I was told that I had an open ended ticket and could adjust my departure for any date up to six months from when I originally purchased my departure for. There was a Japanese air office in the airport here, so I reasoned I might as well take care of this now.

I found their office and in ten minutes I had a new ticket for an April 7 departure to Japan. I also obtained a departure from Japan to home for a week after. I have nothing but great things to say about Japanese air. They were incredibly efficient; everyone who worked for them that I had any contact with was very friendly and accommodating.

Then I went outside and found a taxi. A man in an SUV offered me a ride for 300 pesos. He then drove past check off place where a couple of uniformed police were orchestrating the taxis through. There was a warning in my guide book about unauthorized taxis robbing tourists, so I was a little skeptical about this arrangement. I approached the policeman and asked if it was safe to take a ride in that SUV. He shook his head and flagged down a cab, and I got in. This cab ended up breaking down on the way to the pension I was planning on staying at, but he flagged another one for me and I paid him for part of the ride and gave the rest to the other driver.

I checked in to the pension and got a room for five dollars, or a bed, in the dormitory section, which was basically a dorm room. I picked a lower bed and took a nap. Once I awoke I met my bunk mate who slept above me. His name was Roger and he was from England. Roger was having a little bit of a crisis. He had lost his passport and wallet with credit cards while walking down by the Manila bay front. He was a pretty experience traveler in the Philippines, so he was a good source of information. He was there for several weeks, but he was being detained in Manila until he got his financial and passport situation under control. There are some nice things in Manila, but no one who comes to the Philippines wants to spend too much time here as it is crowded. However, Manila is the hub of Philippine travel as all ferries and planes and buses go through here, so I found it necessary to spend quite a bit of time here while I was going back and forth to other places.

Roger and I went out for dinner at the closest McDonald’s. I felt kind of lame, but I went two months and one week without American fast food, so I figured I could let my standards down. We then went to a local bar called the LA café. There was some good music being played and the San Miguel beers tasted pretty good. Roger turned to me and said that he thought he knew this guy coming in. A littler later he motioned to this guy and he came over and said hello. He was a fellow Brit named Richard and Roger introduced him to me. It turns out that Richard lives in Angeles City, which was a place I was considering a visit to on my way north to the rice terraces of Banaue. I told this to Richard, and he said excitedly to come on up and visit. He gave me his number and said that he would get me situated in a good hotel. It is always nice to have a contact when you are visiting a new place. Roger and I had a few beers and called it a somewhat early evening.

Ladyboy breakfast in Kho Yai National Park

When I awoke I took another walk and again saw many hornbills. After my short walk I came back to the camp and my neighbors were awake and had started to pack up. They gave me a cup of coffee and they were making breakfast. I started to pack up myself. They again reiterated their invitation of breakfast, but I did not think I had time. I was a little worried about this because I wanted to have breakfast with them as I really enjoyed their company and wanted to sit with them a little longer before they left, but I did not want to make my ride late. I was afraid of offending my new friends if I had to leave with my ride, but this problem worked itself out. Angh came and picked me up and came over and talked to my new Thai friends. She said that I should sit and eat and she would wait in the truck for me. That is what I love about the tourist industry here. They are just incredibly accommodating.

I then ate away at breakfast with Toon, Tik, and ladyboy Wit. Once again they had many fresh fruit, along with a tomato and fish dish, rice, and beef. I was just thinking last night how much I am going to miss Thai food. They took out their camera and took about 5 pictures of me with them and I took some as well and then gave me their address and told me to send them a picture. They also wrapped up some of the beef and rice in a plastic baggie and the lady said take this when you get hungry walking. I got in the truck and they smiled and waived to me until I disappeared around the corner.

I was given a new guide this morning named Sompeth. The first half of the day’s walk was completely uneventful, but then things started happening fast. In fact, I was getting a little annoyed as the new guide moved much quicker and was not as good as Chiawet. This feeling changed dramatically as in a sequence of a half hour we saw three really cool things that each alone would have made the day. The first was we heard a big squawk and Sompeth excitedly pointed to a hornbill in a tree. I got up and snapped four pictures of him as he posed in the tree with his wings out. I am not sure, but I think he also smiled and winked at me. These birds seem to be shy and elusive, but I finally got a good still shot of one.

We walked a few more minutes and my guide was a little ahead of me. All of a sudden he came running in my direction right into me shouting “Chang, Chang.” This is the Thai word for elephant. He grabbed my arm so hard that it later bruised. It is a little disconcerting to see my tour guide in such a huff. I was not sure if I should run away or if everything was ok. I have received conflicting reports about wild elephants. I have heard they are gentle peaceful creatures that pose absolutely no threat. I have also heard that they can be ornery pissed off animals that need to be give a wide berth. I am sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but I was not going to take any chances, so I hurried down the trail behind my guide and we took cover behind some large trees and peered back.

The elephant was coming straight towards us up the trail crashing through the trees on each side of the trail. From our vantage point behind a bunch of downed trees we noticed that the elephant had stopped. Sompeth urged me up the trail to take a photo. I got to within 20 feet of the elephant and he was staring straight at me. Unfortunately, I could not focus the camera in time. I had his whole face in my zoom and he raised his snout over his face with his tusks in view, but I couldn’t focus in time to take this incredible picture. He then started to take off and I got a sideways picture of him. This might turn out good or it might be all blurry. It is unfortunate that I did not succeed in taking this picture at the perfect time, but I will always remember his face looking at me in my minds eye. Anyways, I think that sometimes on vacation you live through your camera too much. The most important memories of a vacation are the ones not stored on a hard drive, or in a photo album, but those lodged deep in the membrane of your mind.

The elephant took off and crashed through the trees. I tried to follow along the trail in hopes of getting another photo, but I stopped after a few minutes. I did not want to bother the beast too much and plus he was moving pretty quickly. At least I got another view of him running through the trees. I thought that I was lucky seeing the 5 elephants in the salt lick the night before, but this was even more exciting.

A few minutes later we were walking and I noticed a quick movement to my left. It was a snake. The snake looked harmless as it was not too large and it was slithering away anyways. It had its mouth open for some strange reason. I looked a little closer and the snake had a horned lizard in its mouth that was twice as large as its head and it was attempting to swallow it whole. I took a few pictures of this and we headed on. These three events happened all with in a half hour of each other.

Soon we were done with the trail at a waterfall. This waterfall was just a fall though as there was no water going over the rock except an occasional drip of water. For waterfall viewing it is best to come in the rainy season. My ride was there and it was time to head back. Angh drove me to the park gates where I got a bus back to Pak Chong. I went to 7-eleven for some snacks then walked across the street to the bus station. There was one bus out front. It was for Bangkok. I got on this huge luxurious bus and paid my three dollar fee for the 5 hour trip back to the nation’s capital replete with AC and it was only a quarter full. As soon as I boarded and got comfortable the bus pulled out of the curb and left Pak Chong towards Bangkok.

Traffic was horrible as we arrived in Bangkok. It must have taken almost an hour and a half to get from the city limits to the bus station which is not even close to being city center. I then had to fight the hordes of taxi drivers wanting to take me into town for prices twice as much as a metered taxi would cost. I bargained and got a decent rate and collapsed into the cab. It probably took another hour to get to the hotel. I sent a text message asking if Sofia wanted to do something tonight, but she said she was with her sister and could not. It was just as well, as I had had a long day and collapsed in front of the TV around 10pm. A day of breakfasts with ladyboys, trekking through jungles, running from elephants, and long bus trips can really take a lot out of a man.

Camping with Lady boys in Kho Yai National Park

The next morning one of the other students told me that the walk through the jungle had to be canceled. I was not sure why. I thought may be the guide had canceled. I said goodbye to my new friends and bowed and said thank you in Thai, they bowed back and clasped their hands together. Adjacent to the camp they had a little cafeteria place that served some really good food. I got some coffee and sat and thought about how great the evening was last night. I was so happy that I had this experience. As I was sitting drinking coffee some of the students came up and had breakfast with me. Then Kak emerged and he looked green and almost like death itself. I now knew why the guided trip was canceled. Kak was too hung-over. They said their goodbyes at 11am again, and I was now by myself in Khoa Yai. I had my gear with me and walked over to the visitor’s center to get information on where to go for camping and walking in the park.

I was told there were two trails that led from the visitors center and a guide would cost 7.50$ for the 4km and a 12.50$ for the longer one. She asked which one I wanted to do and I said both. Being 11am it was too late to do both because the guides go over the trail really slowly. I told her then I would like to do the 4km one today and the other early tomorrow morning.

The guide prices were pretty cheap, but what they really get you on is the taxiing around the park. After the hike I would have to go to the tent camping spot because the place I stayed at before was a reservation only place for groups. Since I was now alone I had to move and the camping place was about 8km away. It cost about 4$ a trip to the camping spot and around 15$ to get a ride to the edge of the park. I paid for all this because I was kind of in a hurry to see as much as possible and leave the next day. I knew I could have hitch hiked, but I was not sure how long it would take for a ride. Plus, I was afraid that another group of college students would pick me up and get me drunk. After two days in a row of hitting Thai whiskey pretty hard, I was in need of a break. One of the reasons I came to this park was to dry out for a day or two. This sure had not happened so far.

I was then introduced to Chiawet, who was my guide. He was dressed in fatigues with insignia from the park on it. He did not speak much English, but we were able to communicate. This guy had eyes like a hawk. He saw things way before I did, and sometimes I still could not see what he was pointing to. We were walking through the jungle and the vegetation was pretty thick. The trail though was well marked, plenty wide enough, and pretty easy to follow. There were a few ugly thorny thistle like plants, but if any stretched across the trail Chiawet would break it and throw the branch off the trail. I was expecting huge spider webs across the trail with giant spiders in them or at least giant pythons slithering through the trees, but there was nothing of this sort. Actually, after fifteen minutes I felt completely at ease in the jungle as if I was walking through the Appalachians.

We came across some elephant dung and Chiawet picked at it with a stick and then declared that it came from this morning. Right there was worth the four dollar admission price. One does not get the opportunity to have a guide in a Southeast Asian jungle pick at elephant dug everyday and then add commentary about the whereabouts of the source of said dung. I was next expecting him to take a taste of it and tell me more, but this did not happen.

The walk was nice, and many interesting birds were seen, but nothing really outlandish. Towards the end of the trail we came to a salt lick where I think we saw the elephants the night before. There were bones scattered everywhere from Tiger kills and elephant dung everywhere as well. Most of the big exciting animals do not come out in the day as it is too hot, but it was evident from these kills that the Tigers were busy here at night. We headed toward the end of the trail and all of a sudden I heard a squawk and looked to my left and this huge pterodactyl like looking bird came flying over head. It had a large crested hornbill and looked a bit like Toucan Sam. I learned that it was called a hornbill and there are four varieties that live in the park.

As soon as the bird flew over us we continued on and shortly came upon three Thai people taking pictures with these huge cameras. They also had a huge telescope. They set up the telescope in front of me and beckoned me to look through it. I did, but it was pointed to the sky. They told me to focus it, but I told them I could not see anything. They then came over and reset the telescope into the trees. I thought may be they were inviting me to see the hornbill because if flew in the general direction of where they had readjusted the telescope. I began to look through it and tried to focus in the trees. While I was doing this the Thais were taking pictures of me looking through their telescope. They then came over and said thank you very much, and then left. I think that they just wanted to take pictures of me looking through their giant telescope. It was kind of strange.

A truck was supposed to be waiting for us, but it was not at the end, so we walked the 1km back to the Visitors center. I was thinking about complaining about this, but it turned out better that we walked as I had more time with my guide and we ended seeing quite a lot on the way back to the visitor’s center. On the way we saw a giant black squirrel, and it was just that. It was a large squirrel, probably three to four times the size of our largest squirrel, with a big bushy tail. We also saw an impressive looking hawk at the top of a tree. It had this cool looking plume on top of its head that looked like what a quail has on their head.

The forest ranger Angh apologized for not picking me up at the trailhead. She said she was just about to leave when we arrived. I said goodbye to Chiawet and got in the truck and headed to my campsite. On the way there about 5 hornbills flew out from a tree. I got out of the car, but they were gone. I was trying to get a picture of one of these, but they proved very elusive. Two minutes later we were driving and a huge 6 foot long monitor lizard was on the side of the road. I rushed out and tried to take a photo, but it cruised away. Angh told me that once I set up my camp that I should walk down this road around 6pm and I would see a lot. She wasn’t kidding as we were already seeing a lot and it was still early in the day.

I got to the campground and paid my 75 cents for camping, set up my tent, had dinner at the campground restaurant and then went for a walk. You could tell that Thai people are really into food as even in a far away place like Khoa Yai, they have a restaurant at both the visitor’s center and the campground. On my walk I immediately saw a bunch of deer. Hornbills were flying all over the place. This was the Thailand I imagined when watching the jungle scenes from Bridge over the River Kwai. I was looking through my zoom lens at some hornbills when I saw a flash of gold run through the field to my right in the distance. It was Tiger like color, but too small. It turned out to be three Asiatic Wild Dogs. I got a few pictures and kept walking. I then came upon a tree with over 50 hornbills on it. I walked over and they all flew away. I got a few pictures, but not of any close ones. I was getting a little frustrated at this because I really wanted a good picture of these impressive birds.

After walking I returned to the campground around dusk. I was at this point afraid to even make eye contact with anyone because I just wanted to relax and take it easy tonight because I was waking up early for a hike the next day and the Thai people here were just so friendly. Going back to my tent I passed a cute Thai couple eating in front of their tent. The man held out a glass and said “Thai whiskey?” I hated to turn down his offer, but I did. Then I passed my neighbors which consisted of two men and a lady, or maybe it was two ladies and a man, or maybe it was one man, one lady, and one in between. Regardless, as I passed they all swung their hands in the air yelling “welcome to Thailand, come here.” Well, I could not pass up this gesture of extreme friendliness, so I walked over and said hello.

This group consisted of a man and wife and the wife’s brother. They had all this food spread out and encouraged me to eat. They also had a bottle of Thai whiskey, which I passed on. Once again these people had so much food and drink with them for their one day camping trip. Once again they must have said, “what if we meet a hungry American tourist that is camping next to us?” and decided to buy way more food and alcohol than they really needed. They had a tray of pineapple and mango along with fish, rice, and other treats. Even though I had already eaten I was still hungry. Thai food sometimes is not the most filling, so you can eat and eat and not get completely stuffed. Thai people tend to eat this way. Instead of two or three big meals, they seem to eat smaller size entrée meals and then snack at different times through out the day. This is especially true at night. Except when we are drunk and salivate for Taco Bell, we usually do not eat after dinner. I think Thai people sometimes have two meals after dinner.

The man and wife were very normal looking. Toon was an airborne ranger in the army. His wife was named Tik, and she was really pretty. She said she had a 27 year old son, which shocked me because she could have passed for 27. She told me she was 47 and that just floored me. Her brother reminded me of the Saturday night Live special where the person’s sex was hard to tell and the person’s name was Pat making sexual distinction even tougher. Tik’s brother’s name was Wit and although completely flat chested and had an Adam’s apple, smiled and acted very, very feminine. He also had this little nervous laughter that sounded like a high school girl giggling. He was a hairdresser. Tik referred to her brother with the pronoun “him,” but she sometimes called him her sister. I thought it was mistaken English perhaps, but I soon realized that Wit was a ladyboy. The term ladyboy, or as the Thai’s call “Katoeys,” does not necessarily mean the man has a sex change to female. I think it could also mean a very effeminate male. I do not base this on personal experience of lady boy genitalia, as I have not gone there, nor do I plan to, but this is just what I think after what I have observed. The term can be used very loosely. It is also viewed as a good natured rib to any male. It is interesting because one could call anyone at anytime a ladyboy in Thailand and get a laugh out of it. Even the ladyboys would laugh. No one gets offended. In America if you call someone a fag, gay, or queer it can be very offensive to certain people and might even land you in sensitivity training. Another difference in Thailand towards ladyboys is although there is a lot of teasing and joking about it there is absolutely no hate directed towards them. This is similar to our society too, but unfortunately there is a small minority that hates gay people and even attacks them. That sort of occurrence I think is unheard of in Thailand.

I excused myself from this company early as I had a long day the next morning. I thought I would not see them again because I was being picked up at 8:30am. Before leaving they invited me to breakfast. I thanked them and wished them a good night.

Kho Yai National Park

Next morning I predictably felt like hell and all hopes of getting an early start to Khoa Yai were dashed. I went up to Ollie and Harry’s room and woke them up around 11:30am after getting breakfast. We agreed that we would leave for Khoa Yai in an hour. I went on the internet and came back to the hotel in an hour, but they were nowhere to be found. I waited another half hour, but still no Ollie and Harry. This was a tough call because I wanted to leave, but I was thinking that knowing Ollie and Harry may be they found an expert guide in town that would drive us to Khoa Yai and show us around. Anything was possible with them. I finally gave up and wrote a letter telling them to meet me at the tent camping area in the park.

I started to walk to the 7-eleven and ran into them talking with some Thai people making new friends. I told them I wanted to get to the park because since I was tent camping I was in a hurry to get set up before it got too late. I told them to meet me in the park if they wanted and shook hands with them in case I did not see them again. The lonely planet says that there is a bus for 50 cents that goes to Khoa Yai that picks up at the 7-eleven. When I got to the 7-11 there was some guys advertising a taxi to Khoa Yai for about 8$. I said no thanks to the scam and walked around the corner and found the 50 cent bus.

I got to the park around 3:30 pm. I paid the entrance fee and asked where the tent camp was. The man at the gate said 14km. I said any food available, and he again said 14km. The lonely planet did not mention this. He said I could hitch hike. I started walking into the park and stuck my thumb out and the first car sped past. I was a little dejected. I started walking and it looked like it was going to be another hike your ass off Asian National Park experience. I pretty much was resolved to walking and knew I could get there before dark.

After walking one km with no other cars I heard one approaching and before I even pivoted around to stick my thumb out it began to slow. It was a pick up truck with about eight young Thai guys in the back. They said you come with us. I threw my bags in the back and took a seat. I was very thankful I found this ride as the 14km into the park was straight up. At one point in the ride there was a sign warning of Tiger habitat as we were driving through all this lush vegetation. Not the kind of place I wanted to be walking by myself, although I am sure anywhere near the road is completely safe during the day.

They were all smiling and began to ask me the normal questions. They asked also if I liked soccer. I said not really, but I liked NBA. I told them I lived in Chicago and they yelled “Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen.” They also asked if I liked to drink. I said that I did and they all busted out laughing. They told me that I should come with them.

When we got to the visitors center they motioned for me to follow. We then headed down a hill to a bunch of buildings, which was like a camp. There were wild monkeys walking around all over the premises. A man from the park began to collect fees and the Thai people began giving him money. I asked how much, and they said for you free. I turned out these guys were all Thai university students and they had just finished an exam and were taking a break. In fact, their teacher was with them.

We began to set up camp. I took my camera out and was going to take a picture of the Thai people putting up the tent. They all stopped what they were doing and excitedly got all together and posed. There was one guy who was about 50 meters away. When he saw I was taking a picture he sprinted over yelling for me to wait. They then got a camera out and made me get into one of the group pictures. They also had me take a picture with their teacher when they found out I was a teacher also.

After setting up camp they gave me this bamboo pole that was cracked in half with this purple matter in between. They told me to eat it. It turned out to be this delicious fruit. Then they got out these Styrofoam containers which had rice and meat entrees inside. They gave me one. I tried to give them money, but again they said for you it is free. Then they got out the Thai whiskey and poured me a drink. Once again I tried to pay and was refused. They brought so much food and drink to this little camping trip it appeared they were going to be here for a week. They were only spending the night. It was almost like they asked themselves when shopping for this excursion “what if we meet a dumb tourist hitch hiking with two backpacks who is hungry and thirsty?” and then decided to get more food and drink. Every time my glass was even near empty they filled it with more whiskey, soda water, and ice. Later they brought out a 12 pack of Leo 24oz beers and same scenario ensued with the beer.

When in Pak Chong there were many tours available that were very tempting, but I have found through experience that it is a better deal to just get to the destination and then make arrangements. One of the perks of these tours was a night safari. The students told me in one hour they were going on one of these and asked if I wanted to come along. I said sure. Around 8pm a pickup truck drove down to our camp and it had railings all around it. We all stood up and held on to the railings while we drove around the park. One of the Thai students had this hand held halogen light that he shone around the side of the road. We saw civits, which are big raccoon looking creatures, many deer, and then we got to a salt lick and there were five wild elephants sitting in the salt lick. Unfortunately, my digital camera’s flash was not strong enough to catch the wildlife, but the experience was great. There are also about 30 Tigers in the park and other smaller wild cats, but we did not see any of these. The Tigers are incredibly shy and are rarely, rarely seen. I asked a few park rangers who had worked there if they had seen any, but not one had ever seen a tiger. One woman had worked there for ten years and had never seen a Tiger. With 10 chatting Thai students in the back of this truck, I knew the chances of seeing one were basically none. It was funny, at one point one of the guys stopped talking for a second turned to me who was not talking and put his finger to his lips in the quiet gesture then turned and continued talking with his friends.

We returned back to the camp and continued drinking. These guys were leaving the next day, and they were intent on getting drunk. One of the guys that spoke decent English named Kak said that he would stay the next day until 2pm and we could get a guide and walk around the jungle a bit. He kept repeating many times that he was leaving tomorrow and tonight was for fun and asked if I was happy. I said I was. At one point someone’s cell phone rang and he answered it. The first five minutes of his conversation concerned me. I heard him say farang, Chicago, and then other things like Vietnam and Philippines that made me know he was talking about me. I think they were as excited about having me as I was having met them. Even though I had brought only myself, I think they were happy to meet me and would go back to school and tell their friends they camped with an American from Chicago. Since I had no food or drink to offer it made me feel good that they felt this way.

One of the guys said I was lucky to have seen elephants. I said I did not care so much about the elephants, but I was lucky to have met such good people. They loved this and a loud boisterous chung kow(Thai for cheers) ensued and many more followed. Unfortunately, later, my friend Kak threw up and that pretty much ended his night.

Off the beaten track in Thailand

The next morning I took a flight out of Hanoi back to Bangkok. Before continuing my trip to the Philippines, I wanted to back track to Thailand and see a few places I had missed in and around Bangkok. I had no idea when I would return to this part of the world, so I did not want to regret missing anything. This flight was about the easiest flight ever as the plane took off almost to the second of the departure time and in less than two hours I was in Bangkok. I had the best seat on the plane as it was a window seat and right next to where the stewardesses sat for take off and landing. There were no seats in front of me so I had infinite leg room and during the take off and landing two cute Thai stewardesses sat across from me and asked me about my travels.

It was nice being back in Bangkok as for once in my trip I was at a place I had already been too, so I knew exactly where to go. I confidently walked out of the plane to baggage and then knew exactly where to go for the most economical taxi and I got one that took me to the Mo Chit bus station. A couple of Thai people saw me with my backpack and asked if I was going to Chiang Mai. I said no and told them I was heading for Kho Yai National Park. They said window 87 for tickets to Pak Chong, which was right across the way. I bought my ticket and stopped at the 7-eleven for some snacks and boarded my bus. In minutes the bus took off. I am starting to get pretty good at this traveling thing. It is nice when the answers come to you and you do not have to seek them. It helped that the bus system in Thailand is so efficient. They have buses every 15 minutes to Pak Chong between 8am and 10pm.

Five hours later I was in Pak Chong and found a cheap hotel. Two of my favorite Europeans that I have met on this trip were two Germans named Ollie and Harry that I met in Cambodia. I was thinking of them here in Pak Chong because this town was close to Korat, which was a place that Ollie and Harry talked about visiting. They said there were no tourists in this town and they were even greeted by the tourist police there and they told them they were the only tourists there and that they were there just for them. I referred to Ollie and Harry as the German Rastafarians previously because of their love for partying, Bob Marley, and they both had really long hair.

I went up to my room to get situated and then went out to get a bite to eat. I was going to leave my key at the front desk and as I was coming around the corner there was a man with long black hair at the front desk with his back to me. I saw the hair and immediately thought it was Ollie, but I figured it must be someone who looked like him as it was too unlikely to run into him again here in Pak Chong. I came around the corner and the man turned around and sure enough it was Ollie. We both looked at each other and disbelief and then we both smiled and gave each other a hug. We then exchanged happy greetings. I could not believe I ran into these people here. This was absolutely crazy. I grabbed a beer and went up to their room and then exchanged greetings with Harry. We caught up on our travels and talked. Unfortunately, they were a little down as they had some bad luck on their travels. Harry broke a few ribs in Phnom Penh on a moto-bike. They also had their cameras and money stolen in Saigon.

This was very unfortunate because they showed me some of their pictures in Cambodia and both of these guys were talented photographers. Harry had this one picture at Angkor with a monk kneeling down in front of a temple with the sun setting and a temple in the background. This was gone as someone had broken into their room in Vietnam and took it. Ollie had this 1000$ 35 mm digital camera on a tripod and was concentrating on focusing the camera when a moto-bike driver cruised past snatched the camera and took off. Due to these circumstances, they did not have much good to say about Vietnam. I felt fortunate that I had some good experiences in this country to offset some of the bad that I experienced. I also felt fortunate that nothing like this happened to me. On the whole though, they had a good attitude about it and said it was really no big deal. They did have a good time in Northern Vietnam, as they traveled even farther north than I did to Sapa and saw the hill tribes in Northern Vietnam. They said this experience was incredible. I had wanted to go here, but it would have been another three or four days, and I did not have the time.

I have had a few emails from friends at home complimenting me on the fact that I go out of the way and see things in each place that I go to beyond the normal tourist places and also make an effort to meet interesting people. I am an amateur compared to these guys. They are even more handicapped than me as far as language because their English is not that great, but they are really great at meeting the locals. What they do is just cruise out in the countryside on moto bikes and if they see a friendly face they stop and hang out with them. They have even stayed in small huts with families that they had just met. They had some printed pictures in Cambodia of them posing with children and people they had just met. That night in the room they had some printed pictures from Cambodia of them with some locals they had met. A couple of the pictures were of a very attractive girl. I looked at these pictures and thought may be they were one of their girlfriends. They must have understood what I was thinking as Ollie came over to me looking at the girl and he said this girl was a friend and “not for the fucking.” I hate to make fun of people from different countries whose English is not great, but this misuse of English just cracked me up.

They told me that they hated big cities like Bangkok. They also tried to say something like the destination is not important, but the way. They asked me if there was an expression like this in English. I told them the expression “off the beaten track” because I knew that was the kind of places they liked. I tried to explain this to them and finally was able to with gestures like pounding my feet to explain beaten. They liked the expression so much they had me write it down.

We were so busy talking and catching up that it was all of a sudden 11:30pm, and we finally decided to go out and have a bite to eat. We were unsure if any place would be open, but we left anyway. There is a market right close to the hotel and we headed there, but it was pretty much closing. One food stand still had some food and the people motioned us to sit. I sat in the little chairs they had arranged. There were people behind the stand sitting on mats eating. Ollie and Harry bypassed the chairs and went straight for the people on the mat. Ollie grabbed one of the peoples hands bowed and said hello my friends in English. I thought that they would be put off by this and think this person must be crazy, but these Thai people immediately loved him. I got to see the way they met people firsthand. Pretty soon we were all sitting around with these people eating their food and drinking their whiskey. We soon ran out of whiskey, but Ollie bought another bottle at the 7-eleven up the street. We drank with these really kind people until 3am and they were so nice. They had some fruit including sliced mango and other dishes with rice and they encouraged us to eat as much as we wanted.

The people behind the stand on the mat were the owner of the food stand. I assumed the rest of the people were his friend and family. One of the Thai men around the mat took a liking to Harry’s shirt and offered him a trade. Harry was too nice to reject the trade although it was evident his heart was not into it. Harry received a dirty blue shirt from the Thai fellow that barely fit Harry and in return he gave the Thai man his prized Beerlao shirt that he bought in Laos. It was pretty funny as the Thai man had a huge grin on his face while Harry had a resigned but sheepish look on his face. I wished I had a picture of them together after the exchange. I felt a little sorry for Harry as he now lost another possession from his trip, but at least his new shirt would be a prized memento from a great night with really friendly Thai people. Another Thai fellow tried the same thing with Ollie, but he said the shirt was a gift from his dad and no exchange was made here.

At one point Harry left without telling anyone. All the Thai people got really restless and asked where Harry was. They were worried about him. If there is one person I was not worried about it was Harry. He is about 6’4 with long hair and kind of scary looking at first glance. I tried to assure them that he was fine. This did not settle them and they kept nervously looking around for him. He finally returned and they relaxed.

We ended up on these mats until 3am drinking Thai whiskey and having a great time. The only problem here was I knew this would delay my arrival at Kho Yai tomorrow. Pak Chong is 40km from Khoa Yai National Park. This was the reason I came here. My plan was to leave immediately the next day for the park. Ollie, Harry, and I had decided in the room we would go there together. I wanted to stay at the park, but they wanted to just visit for the day and come back. They asked if I would rent a moto-bike. I said no way. I had no desire to get on one of these things and Harry’s broken ribs made me even more adamant about not riding them.

Journey to Cambodia

The bus was leaving for Cambodia in front of the travel agent where I bought the ticket. I arrived in front of the travel agency around 7am and there was no one around. Finally another backpacker arrived and I asked where they were heading. They said the floating markets. Another tourist arrived and she confirmed that she was going to Cambodia as well. There were no Thai people around at all or any buses for that matter, so we were all a bit apprehensive. These round ups for departing are never very well organized, but somehow everything works out. Sure enough, a smiling Thai person arrives, and I show him my receipt and he gives me a bus ticket and tells me to go around the corner to find the bus. Around the corner was the bus, which was of the large, comfortable, air-conditioned variety. I had two seats to myself in the back, which is rare on these tourist buses, as they try to pack you in to maximize their profits. I laid back and stretched out and listened to my music and thought this trip was going to be a breeze.

When I was out in Patpong with the American friends I had met watching the Super Bowl, I was warned that this bus trip was rather hellish, by their friend Christian. Christian was teaching in Chiang Mai. He had never made the trip himself, but he had heard horror stories. I laughed and thought this was one of those rumors where the experience got worse and worse as the rumor mill turned, but yet the actual experience was not half as bad. I kind of knew in the back of my mind that things might be different once we reached Cambodia. As I watched the Thai countryside go by, I was sad to be leaving Thailand, but I was trying to figure out a way to get back here for a week or so before I left for the Philippines. There were still a few places that I had not seen that I really wanted to see. I had not had time to visit Kho Yai National Park, which is supposed to be a wildlife paradise, so I wanted to come back and see that if I could manage it.

The bus trip from Bangkok to the border was restful, peaceful, and easy. It took us about 3 to 4 hours to go the almost 200 miles to get to the border town of Aranyaprathet. Once we hit the border was when things took a turn for the worse. It happened to be Chinese New Year, and apparently many Thai people visit the temples of Ankgor, so the crossing into Cambodia was really crowded.

The guides said we had to take everything off the bus as the bus was going back to Bangkok. We all grabbed our things and headed for the border crossing. The line was incredibly slow, and we baked in the 90+ sun while waiting. There were two lines, one for Thai people and one for foreigners. They only had one person on each line. The Thai line moved briskly as they only did a cursory look at their passport. The foreigner line was painstakingly slow. At first this line spilled outside the customs building and around the corner. We all had our bags on and were dripping with sweat as we roasted in the Thai almost Cambodia sun. All around us were dirty beggar children pulling at our hands. The guidebook warned about these kids at the crossing and wrote that one needed to safeguard valuables from them. While baking in the sun we were all hoping to reach the building to get out of the sun. Once inside the room there was over 200 people in line with nary a fan to be seen, so it was just as bad. Inside we baked in the heat instead of roasting outside.

I finally made it through and was in Cambodia. It was hot and bothersome, but at least it was done with. We then started to advance towards the bus. We then realized we were not done yet. We then had to go through the Cambodian side. All we did in the first line was exit Thailand and now we had to enter Cambodia. We were currently in no-man’s land. Surprisingly the Cambodian side was much more efficient and we passed through this line in about a half-hour.

The first thing I noticed on the Cambodian side is two huge extravagant buildings on either side of the road and then the desolate, ugly, dirty city of Poipet beyond these two buildings. It turned out these two nice buildings were casinos where high spending rich Thais come to gamble as there are laws against gambling in Thailand. There were all these moto-bikes waiting in this queue and they all had these scarves over their mouths to protect from the blowing sand. None of the streets of Poipet were paved. I had no idea where everyone went to, but a Cambodian fellow saw me and waived me over to the waiting bus. I was the last one on. The new bus was a little dingier and older than the Thai bus, but it was comfortable, and I had my own seat, so I was happy.

The bus then drove to a currency exchange and I exchanged some American money for Cambodian real. I forgot to check the exchange rate in Cambodia. The guide on the bus said that they would give a rate of 2300 real per 1 US dollar, which is better than in Siem Reap. He said in Siem Reap the banks will only give 2000 per US dollar. He looked friendly, so we believed him and cashed in some money. I was going to exchange 50 usd, but I decided 20 would be enough for now. This was a good thing as we found out when we got to our destination that this was a major scam. All of a sudden some other Cambodians came on and said to get on another bus. We all thought it was just some scam to get us to pay extra for a VIP bus or something because these people were different from our driver, but it was not the case and we were moved. They told us a larger group needed to use this big bus. A much smaller bus not much bigger than a mini van came up around the corner and we were told this was our bus. I could not imagine how all us would fit as there were over twenty of us. I was one of the last in. I looked inside and all the seats were taken. They had these little mini seats that opened in the aisle that were low to the ground, which I had to take. There was a great ruckus from two German ladies who would not get on. They yelled at the Cambodians that this bus was unsafe, but they were eventually coaxed in and I got on my seat and we took off.

We drove through the town of Poipet and this had to be the ugliest town I had ever seen. As I mentioned before none of the roads were paved and were sand covered instead. Every bike, car, and bus kicked up big clouds of dust obscuring the view of the city as we drove through. This was not such a bad thing as this town looked like how I would imagine Fallujah or some other war torn small Iraqi town. There was garbage everywhere and the buildings in the town all looked like they had been bombed. If they had not been bombed, a well place bomb would have been an improvement.

As we left the town the view in the countryside was not much better. Since it was the dry season everything was completely brown. There were not many trees and the trees that could be found were pretty sad looking sights. The condition of the road was absolutely horrible. Now I know what Christian was saying was no lie. There were small sections where the road was paved, but then they would give way to dirt and gravel and huge potholes. When our over capacity bus hit these potholes, the driver had to slow down to an almost stop. When going through the potholes the whole bus lurched and bounced us around. Since it was so hot, the windows had to stay open and dust kicked up from vehicles in front of us poured through the open windows.

After two hours of this we stopped for dinner. Everyone came out of the bus and walked right in and sat down. No one even said hello to our Cambodian hosts at the restaurant. I said hello and our waitress looked shocked for a second and then said hello. The guy I was sitting with made some joke about the food being fried cockroaches. This kind of annoyed me. Everyone was in a horrible mood because of the strain of the day, but it was not the people’s fault at the restaurant. They still deserved to be treated with respect. As we were leaving the Cambodians said nothing except when I passed the waitress and she said “see you mistuh,” and smiled. I think she singled me out because I was the only one with the courtesy to say hello to her as we arrived.

We got back on the bus, and somehow I got in a worse position than before. One of my legs was wedged against someone’s luggage and the other was penned in by the seat beside me. This meant I could not shift my legs at all. I tried to shift my whole body back a bit and struck the person behind me in the face with my seat. I apologized and realized now I could not shift my back either. I basically could hardly move. To make matters worse, being in the mini seat in aisle I was lower than everyone else and my legs had less room in front of me because of this. I was also not near any open window, so I could not catch the breeze coming in. I am not sure being near an open window would have been any better as I would have been all dusty. It was either hot and stuffy or breezy and dusty. Everyone on the bus was uncomfortable, so I do not think it really mattered much where one was sitting, but I think I had the worst of the worst. Everyone else was probably thinking the same thing. Comfort was non existent on our bus.

Then an amazing thing happened. The horrible road got worse. The potholes became more frequent and we also moved more slowly because we encountered many bridges and each bridge was only one way. There were also these huge inexplicable piles of dirt in the middle of the road for who knows what reason that our driver had to avoid. I have thought long and hard why these were there because they were piled high and in a way that could only have been done by man, so they had to have some sort of purpose. One guess is may be a road crew dumped them there and then someone else was supposed to spread this sand over the road. Another guess was maybe they were there over big potholes that could not be driven on and by putting the dirt there the driver had to avert these dangerous potholes. Whatever their purpose, they slowed us down even more and made this strange trip even more bizarre as we veered back and forth through these piles of dirt. I think it is about a seventy mile trip from the border to Siem Reap. It took us over five hours to make the trip.

Usually when I am making a road trip music or reading is what saves me. I could not read since it was completely dark on the bus. I had a flashlight in my bag, but I could not move, so that was a problem. I did have access to my music though. I listened to one CD for a bit and then just turned it off. It was doing nothing for me in my misery. I was hoping the music would take my mind off of my current unpleasantness, but I was too uncomfortable to enjoy the music. Also, I was afraid that whatever music I listened to might in my mind be linked to this trip and I may forever not be able to enjoy it. I may listen to that CD again in the future and my mind would think of cramped legs, stuffy breathing, heat, and dust instead of the music and it may forever tarnish the songs. I turned off my CD and just sat in a trance trying to meditate myself into numbness. This was not working either. I had had it with this trip. I was hot, I was dusty, I was tired, I was pissed, and my whole body was aching and uncomfortable. I was just about to scream out loud in anger, frustration, fatigue, and any other word that evokes misery and discomfort when the bus started all of a sudden picking up speed. We amazingly hit a patch of pavement that was not broken by a pothole, or a one-lane rickety bridge, or a pile of dirt in the middle of the road. I did not want to begin to hope as I did not want to be cruelly disappointed when we hit the pot holes again. We kept going though picking up more speed. Soon there were buildings, lights, and road signs indicating we were entering town. Then we passed these huge hotels that could only be for foreigners visiting the Temples of Angkor. We all exhaled in relief. The bus then dropped us off at the guesthouse where a new adventure ensued. Our troubles were not yet over.

We were dropped off by the bus at the Sidewalk Guesthouse, which was the first guesthouse as we arrived in town. I was so thankful to get off the bus. I grabbed my things and dropped them off in a corner and smoked a cigarette and just stared off into space. I could hear people talking around me making plans on where to stay. I heard people say there were no vacancies here, and I also heard panicked talk of absolutely no rooms available in the whole town due to Chinese New Year. I did not care. All I cared about was that I was off of the fucking hell bus. I was happy as could be at that point. I would worry about a place to stay soon enough.

A small man then approached me and asked if I needed a room. I feared some scam as I thought I heard that there were no rooms in Siem Reap. I said I did, and he said he had an available room for 2$. He said to follow me. I was really confused at this point because a lot of people from the bus had already left in search of rooms as they were told no vacancies. I followed him into a fairly comfortable room for 2$. I could not believe my luck. I did not know why they refused many others who asked for a room, but approached me and asked if I needed a room when I was simply and quietly minding my own business at the moment. I was not going to ask questions, so I threw my stuff in the room and then headed back outside for a beer. After that trip I needed a drink more than I had ever needed one in my life.

They had this beautiful little table under a thatched roof right outside and a few people were out there having a drink enjoying the beautiful night. I took a seat and ordered an Angkor beer. Another surprise from Cambodia was that this beer was very tasty and much better than any beer found in Thailand in my opinion. I started talking to some of the survivors from the bus trip. The German couple with their mom who had made the big ruckus when we were moved to the smaller bus was there under the roof. There were also two German guys named Ollie and Harry that had arrived earlier in the day. They had had a long trip too and we all shared horror stories.

More people kept arriving and some were put into room and some were allowed to sleep outside. The workers at the guesthouse were doing all they could to accommodate these late arrivals. One gal slept right behind us in a hammock while we bantered away over beer after beer. I kept turning around, but apparently we were not bothering her as she was fast asleep. We did our best to talk lightly. Then the workers from the guesthouse began questioning us about our rooms. I was hoping to have a room by myself, but when they found I did they asked me if for half the price if I would share. I reluctantly agreed. Then more people kept coming and they continued to try and accommodate. I saw them talking to some Germans that just arrived. I could tell the Germans were in distress. I saw a patch of sand right next to the guesthouse and I had an idea. I told the man in charge at the guesthouse that I had a tent and asked if he did not mind I could pitch it in the patch of sand. I then told him if I did that then he could give my bed to someone else. He was very grateful and told me that would be great and there would be no charge for staying in my tent. As it turned out the bed I gave away was to an older German fellow traveling with his son Jorge. Jorge was very appreciative of this gesture and bought me a beer. I told him I was doing my part for improving German-American relations, and we had a toast to this. This was great for me. A free nights stay, a free room, a free beer, and I get to finally use my tent. I brought my tent thinking I would need it for camping, but in my month in Thailand I camped 0 days.

I spent the night talking to Germans, Australians, French, and English people. The Germans from the bus trip were named Ullie and Kerstin. It so happened that Ollie and Kerstin were from the same small town in Germany. I was the only American there. Kerstin worked for the BBC as a free lance producer and was in Sri Lanka one day after the tsunami hit and covered the story from there. We had to keep it down as there were people sleeping all around us. One man sat and read the whole night never once looking away from his book. He never once looked in our direction. A gecko made its shrill sound from under the rafters. I now know why it is called a gecko as it chirps out its namesake in a hoarse voice. G-E-C-K-O it kept repeating as we all laughed. We then heard someone throwing up in the bathroom. Someone made a joke and said it must have been a drunken gecko. We all laughed at this. The vomiting person sensed we were laughing at his misery and began to curse at us in a Russian accent out the window that he would come out there and kick the crap out of us. This made us laugh even harder.

I ended up drinking awful rice wine, smoking opium, and drinking Angkors with Ollie and Harry until 4am the next morning. I could not believe I was still awake after such a calamitous day. I must have been wired after all that had happened to me during the day. I had drunk this awful concoction known as rice whisky in Chiang Mai, and I could hardly stomach it. In Chiang Mai I usually took sips of this devilish potion every time it was passed to me, but Ollie and Harry were taking shots and pouring shots for me. I took a couple and every time I finished one my whole body shook in horror as it tried to cope with this awful liquid I was allowing to enter my body. It reminded me of a billboard for Jagermeister. The billboard has a picture of a man just finishing a shot and he has this awful look on his face and is half spitting out the drink. The caption on the top of the billboard reads “so smooth.” Jagermeister is like a kiddy cocktail compared to this rice whiskey.

As if there were not enough strange things to happen to me during this day, the strangest thing then happened around 2am. Out of nowhere during the middle of our drunken revelry under the thatch roof enters a young Cambodian with his mom and another gentleman. The young Cambodian has no shirt on and he approaches us and introduces himself to us. He tells me that he saw me in the bathroom and he heard me pissing. He then makes this fake pissing sound. I found that many times when I have met Asian people here that they like to inform you that they noticed you before you introduced yourself and then informed you what they noticed you doing even if it was the most mundane thing possible. In this case I was peeing and this person wanted to let me know that before we met he heard me peeing. That is great, I told him, not knowing what to say. If I noticed him noticing me peeing I could have told him that, but I was unaware that he was hearing me pissing, so I just said that is great and smiled.

It turns out that he is a martial arts student and the other guy was his teacher. When Ollie finds out about this he goes crazy because he is into martial arts too, so he challenges him to a fight. They agree to fight with no contact and Ollie takes off his shirt and they move away from the table in order to not wake the sleeping people around us. Harry and I follow with our cameras giggling as they start jumping at each other and doing these crazy pirouettes in the air. After they are done they give the Cambodian guy some rice whiskey. I am glad because the more people to help drink that awful concoction the better. Usually, when it comes to alcohol I prefer to have more, but this is not the case with rice whiskey. After a couple of shots, they offer him another, but his mom says no. His teacher and mom take him away stumbling, and he is bowing to us as he is being led back to wherever it was he came from.

We then retired to Ollie and Harry’s room for some more opium smoking. Thankfully the rice whiskey was finished. We listened to Kill Bill volume 2 soundtrack as the opium pipe was passed around. I finally got in my tent around 4am and slept for about four hours as the hot Cambodian sun plus all the activity at the guesthouse awoke me around 7:45. I had a splitting headache from the previous night’s activity, but it was quite a day. Today was time to see the wonders of Angkor, but I first needed to get rid of the not so wonders of my hangover.

Last Day in Bangkok

The next morning I slept in and rested most of the day. I grabbed a papaya salad at a restaurant off of Kho San and then decided if I wanted to see the Grand Palace that I had better do this today. I started walking there in the blistering heat while trying to avoid the scam artists trying to get me to go into their tailor shop. One person asked where I was going and I told him the Grand Palace, and he told me it was closed for Chinese New Year. What a crock of shit I thought. The Thai people would not close their most important and probably their most lucrative tourist attraction for one day much less a whole two weeks for Chinese New Year. I arrived there and sure enough it was teaming with tourists. The palace was absolutely beautiful. The Palace had many towers and statues all adorned with the most intricate gaudy décor. I took many pictures and then retreated to the shade.

After a while I left the Palace and started to walk south to see if there was anything else of note down that direction. A man asked where I was going and I told him that way and pointed in the direction I was going. He told me Wat Pho temple was closed until 4pm and that nothing else was down that direction. He told me the only thing down there was a flower market. I think he just made this up and said the flower market because he thought this would be the object that would be the most unappealing to me, so I would take a guided trip instead. I told him that I love flowers and kept walking. He busted out laughing. At least he had a sense of humor. I kept walking and arrived at the Wat Pho temple complex and it was a gorgeous set of temples. May be the prettiest I had seen yet. The man that told me it was closed until 4pm obviously lied as it was open.

I was beginning to understand their scheme for telling me that certain places were closed. If they saw you walking they wanted to tell you that places close by were closed until a certain time to discourage you from going. Instead they recommended a place farther away. Since it is so hot in Bangkok, it is difficult to walk long distances, so you would have to take a tuk-tuk. This is the way they tricked you in order to take a guided trip instead of going by yourself. Once you get a tuk-tuk, they probably try to take you to all types of places like tailors and massage places. Sometimes I like to be guided, but a lot of times I like to do things myself, so I found this deceit very annoying.

Inside the Wat Pho temple there was this huge likeness of Buddha that was reclining. It was naturally called the reclining Buddha. It must have been two hundred feet long and about twenty feet wide. We took off our shoes and walked around while taking a few pictures.

I had heard about a sitting Buddha on the other side of Kho San road, but I could not find it. Normally, I would just ask someone to show me where it is, but it can be hard to get a straight answer from people around here as they just want to steer you to the nearest tour. These people that hang out on the street must make commission from the people that they lure to these guided trips. They then also get commission if you buy from the tailors and any other place you get taken to and spend your money at. This is why it is more expensive when you buy items on these tours because everyone involved in getting you there gets commission. If you find places to buy things by yourself you eliminate about five middle-men.

I gave up on the sitting Buddha and instead walked to the Golden Dome. The Golden Dome was much easier to find. It is this huge Golden Dome that overlooks all of Bangkok. It is like Sacre Couer in France. I got there and walked the spiral staircase all the way to the top and was treated to a beautiful view of the huge city of Bangkok. Everywhere I looked was city. On one side you could see one hotel after another, which must have been the Suhkomvit with all its luxurious hotels for traveling foreigners.

At this point I was nearing heat exhaustion, so I limped home. On the way back, I stopped and took a picture of their Democracy Monument and then returned to Kho San. I took a long cold shower in order to lower my body heat. Sofia was coming over later that night for dinner, so I just relaxed until she arrived. My last day and night in Thailand was very uneventful. I left my hotel in a cost cutting venture and settled into another cockroach infested guesthouse for a couple of dollars. I lunched around the corner from the guesthouse where about three or four other foreigners were eating.

I returned back to the guesthouse and before entering they have a place where you take your shoes off and put them in this shoe rack. I took off my shoes and placed them in the rack and off to my left I saw movement right in front of me. I glanced up and right in front of my face and right on top of the shoe rack on the wall was one of the biggest spiders I have ever seen. Its body was not that big, but its legs were long and hairy. If he was on top of a basketball he would have covered half the ball. I then went to my room and in my room was one of the biggest cockroaches I have ever seen. Usually, bugs do not bother me that much although I am not very fond of big spiders (who is?) The combination of these two sightings within minutes must have unnerved me. I could not sleep. I kept waking up every five minutes thinking that something was crawling on me.

I tried to name the spider Alphonso in order to calm me. Usually giving an ugly big insect a human name is a strategy that works for me in order to personalize the insect and make it less scary, but this time it did not work. I still could not sleep. I finally gave up and woke up, showered, packed, and checked out of the hotel around 3:45 am. I turned in my key downstairs and went to get my shoes. The guy told me thank you very much, and he held the door open for me. The spider was not there anymore. I put my backpack down and got my flashlight out and closely inspected the inside of both shoes. Satisfied that Alphonso was not in either shoe, I sat down and put them on. I looked up and the guesthouse dude was looking at me quixotically. I felt like turning to him and saying “just making sure tyrannosaurus fucking spider is not hiding in my boot,” but I did not think he would understand.

After I left the guesthouse I walked around the corner and surprisingly the same lunch spot I ate at yesterday was open at 4am. Even more surprisingly, the same four foreigners that were eating there yesterday were still there. I do not think they had left. They were watching soccer at the bar. They all grinned at me when I came in and sat down and they remembered me from yesterday. The two that I started talking to were from Germany and Ireland. They were both shit-eating drunk and both beaming with drunken grins. They kept repeating things as well. I ordered coffee and an omelet and told these fellows that I was leaving for Cambodia that day. They were very interested in this and wanted to know about my travel plans. After awhile I bid them farewell and they wished me good luck in Cambodia, and I headed down to the travel agency where I bought my ticket to Cambodia to wait for the bus.

Super Bowl Monday Part II

I got back to my hotel room around 3pm or so and took a nap and then just laid around and enjoyed the air-con. It was weird to wake up in the mid-afternoon after a morning of hard drinking. I had made plans to meet up with the Super Bowl crew to hit the infamous Patpong area around 8:30pm. This is an area full of go-go shows, strippers, and prostitutes that helps give Bangkok its seedy reputation. Up until last night I had not ventured there even though my hotel was really close. Just about EVERYONE in Thailand both Thai and foreigner alike have told me that I HAVE to go there at least once just to experience it. Even Ann had told me I should go. After meeting back up with the Super Bowl group, the nine of us left for Patpong in two cabs.

The first place we hit was the old tried and tested 7-11. I think they should rename this city 7-11cock. I even have a picture on Kho San road where there are two 7-11s right across the street from each other.

I bought a large Chang beer as did a few others in the group and they also bought a bottle of whiskey and some cokes. We started walking around the district checking places out while drinking. The area was really crowded as along with being the seedy sex district, Patpong is also a market area for craftsmen. I really love the fact that we can walk through this commercial district drinking beers right out of the bottle and also passing around a whiskey bottle. The whiskey was passed freely around and soon we were all in an artificially good mood once again. I think this was a first for me to get drunk in the morning and in the evening.

Soon some people decided that they wanted to see a show. Others did not as they had been there before and just wanted to drink beer and walk around. We agreed to meet at the (you guessed it) 7-11 in one hour and we went our separate ways. I went with the group that wanted to see the show, and ironically it was mostly women in this group except for me and another guy from Seattle named Christian. Christian had been before and he was our guide. There were these Thai people all over the place shoving placards of sexy shows with a list of what the women did with their anatomy with prices on it in an attempt to lure us into their fine establishment. One go-go show professional recruiter approached us and we agreed we would take advantage of his special, which was pussy cigarette smoking and ping pong throwing with no cover and one beer for 100 baht beer ($2.50). What a deal, and we were lead by this Thai young urban professional to his place of business.

I like going to strip clubs with women. It brings a sense of legitimacy to the outing. Instead of being a perverted male leering at females disrobing, I am part of a social group going to interact at a valid entertainment establishment. We sat down and ordered a beer. Suddenly, these two annoying Thai girls came up and started yelling 300 baht in obnoxiously loud voices and showed us a different placard than what prompted us to come to this bar, and her sign that said 1 beer + show 300 baht. We told them “no” we are only going to pay 100 baht as advertised by our recruiter. They yelled at us and said “no 300 baht,” again in a really loud obnoxious voice. They then told us to leave. We told them we would drink our beer and then leave. They hovered around us for a second hoping we would give in and pay the 300 baht. Then, like vultures who realize there is no decaying rotting flesh around to eat, they left. They never came back either. I hate to split hairs over a couple of bucks, but they need to stay true to their original advertisements.

When I was done with my beer the girls were still half-way done. There was a friendly Thai man that worked for the place near the stage, and he saw I was done with my beer and asked if I would like another one. I told him no thanks as I did not want to pay 300 baht. He smiled and said “for you, 100 baht.” I feared a scam, but his smile disarmed me, and he returned with a Singha for 100 baht. I drank this beer, and we left. The show itself was interesting, but it was no big deal. I saw things that I did not think could be done with the female anatomy, but on the whole I was not that impressed.

As we were leaving the two annoying girls were harassing another group of foreigners for 300 baht. I said to the newcomers “don’t give in,” as we were departing. I do not understand why they try this scam. I have heard this same scam from just about everyone that has been to Patpong. It seems logical that if they just were nice to people then people would become comfortable and want to drink more. Instead they try to fleece people for an additional 200 baht by really angering them by this silly scheme. The place was empty except for us. Even if they are successful and get an additional 200 baht from people, they probably will not stay. If they were accommodating many people would end up spending much more than 300 baht. I have thought about this long and hard and I do not understand their motivation for doing this. May be they feel that it is part of the ambiance of the place and that it is their duty to try and scam foreigners as it is part of the Patpong experience.

We left and joined the group again. I was supposed to meet Sofia at 10:30, and it was now 11:30, but I was in no hurry to meet here. The disco tech places here are basically sweat shops, and I did not feel the need to hurry there and sweat like crazy. Just walking around Patpong it was unbelievably hot even at this time of night. I tried to get the Seattle crew to join me, but they declined. I gave all the girls a big hug and the guys a handshake, and we parted ways. Sadly, they are leaving for the South of Thailand today. I got Mark’s email and told him I would send him an email and to look me up if he ever gets to Chicago.

I take a cab to the Novotel disco and join Sofia and her two friends Jay and Pat. I like this disco a little better as it is not as crowded as the other two I have been at and it is a littler cooler. It is in the basement of this hotel, which is why it is probably a little cooler. Once again it is the same songs I have heard from previous discos, but in general it was a good time.

I only have two more days in Thailand. I am so sad. I have gotten so used to this country, but I still have a lot to look forward to. The temples of Angkor are one of the 7 wonders in the world. I will be touring this by bicycle in just a couple of days.

Super Bowl Monday Part I

This morning was actually Super Bowl Sunday in the United States, but here it was Monday. First time I would ever see the Super Bowl live on a Monday. I awoke at 6am and packed up. I knew the Super Bowl was early, but not sure of the exact time. I sent a text message home to ask a friend when the Super Bowl was going to start and I got a response that kick-off would be in forty minutes. I packed the rest of my belongings and then walked out to find another room. I booked another room at a hotel this time, but could not move until a littler later in the day. I walked down Kho San and searched for a bar with the game on. The first bar that I came to was the same bar where I met Ivan from Columbia. I looked inside and saw a TV showing a football stadium. A few other early birds were gathered around the screen. I found myself a seat close to the action and waited.

I ordered an omelet and coffee as it was only 7am. Very different than a beer and chicken wings I would order at a bar in Chicago if I was watching the game at 5pm. I made the remark to some people next to me that it was the first time I have ever drank coffee and a Super Bowl viewing, and we did a toast with our coffee cups. There was this one dude across the bar drinking a singha and asked if anyone wanted a beer on him. At first no one said anything, but then a guy right behind me said “sure I will have one if you are buying.” I then got up and said, “I will have one too and then offered to buy him his next round.” The person who offered the beers pumped his fist in celebration that two people accepted his offer and soon we had three cold Singhas in front of us. This was around the second quarter and I looked at my beer and my coffee next to it, and I said enough of this coffee let’s have a beer. The man who offered the beer to me, the other guy that accepted, and I raised our beers in unison and we said a mutual toast and had our first of many drinks.

Most of the people around me were Eagle fans, so I joined the Eagle bandwagon. Soon the people around me all said let’s go to the table in back as there is a big screen. I headed back there with about 8 or 9 other people. The guy who bought me a beer joined us too. His name was Kip from Alaska and he was quite a character. It soon became apparent that he was on an all night drunk as he was still partying from the night before or he was just naturally insane. I think he was on something more than alcohol because he kept talking at a frenetic pace changing from one story to the next and making absolute no sense. He would be talking about his job as a backwoods park ranger at one point and then talk about circumcising a polar bear the next without any interlude in the story to explain the shift. He was always spewing inconsequential facts out too. At one point he said “do you want to hear a fact about navigable rivers?” I said Kip, there is nothing more than I want to hear right now than a fact about navigable rivers. He then replied that he was just a stoner. Why he decided to say this at this point, I have no idea.

The first person to accept Kip’s invitation to drink was a fellow by the name of Mark. I started talking to him and his girlfriend Helen and they were really cool. They were right there with me egging on Kip’s weird stories. They were teaching in China and were on Chinese New Year break. They were from Seattle. Mark had a couple of sisters with him and a posse of other people. It was a great time. There was also this dude from Philadelphia who kept running circles around the circle of drinkers around the TV every time the Eagles did something good. I did not catch his name as he had a 1:30pm flight, so he left right after the game. There were many cheers and toasts made to Super Bowl Monday. Another funny thing was we were watching the game on ESPN worldwide and they did not have the chic commercials we were all used to while watching the Super Bowl. Instead they kept showing these highlights from past classic Wimbledon matches. We began a mock cheer to these commercials because they were so boring and so far from what we were used to while watching this iconic media event.

I ended up drinking with this crew until 2pm, so we were in the bar for eight hours. A pretty long time, but a far cry from the sixteen hours I spent at Joe’s bar in Chicago during and after a Tennessee/Florida football game. So far on my trip I have not met many Americans, and I did not meet that many throughout the trip compared to the many Canadians, British, and Aussies, so it was nice to spend some time with some really cool Americans watching something totally American like the Super Bowl. I made plans to meet this group later on for the evening and I stumbled back to my new hotel room. As far as I know, my room does not have any roommates. It also has air-conditioning, a towel, and a sheet on the bed. The room had all these amenities for 10$. Sometimes you just have to splurge.

National Park and Ann’s Father’s Farm

I had the good fortune to travel with Ann to her family’s house outside of Bangkok in the town of Suphanburi. We stayed there one night and then we left for her father’s coffee and rubber farm near the Myanmar border. On the way there we visited historical places in Kanchanaburi like the River Kwai and the World War II cemetery there. I was really fortunate to have such good friends in Thailand. We awoke early the next morning, and they loaded up the family SUV and Op, Ann’s brother who was the family driver, took the wheel. They told me it would take four hours to get there and on the way we would stop at a waterfall and the River Kwai museum and bridge.

Our first stop was the town of Kanchanaburi, which is the biggest town in the area. In this town is the famous River Kwai bridgehead, a World War II museum, and a World War II cemetery. We entered the Jeath war museum, which is basically a little fake POW hut that holds pictures and other artifacts from the building of the bridge. At first I thought Jeath was just another funny misspelling by Thai people and that they intended the word “death,” but in fact it is an acronym for the countries involved in the building of the bridge. The acronym stands for J-Japan, E-England, A-Australia and America, T-Thailand, and H for Holland. The river Kwai Bridge was supposed to have taken five years to build, but due to the oppressive means used by the Japanese it was built in 16 months. 100,000 civilians died and around 16,000 POWs from various countries died from building the bridge due to the mistreatment and various jungle diseases.

Next, we drove to the actual bridge and Oat and I walked across while he told me what he knew about the history. The heat was the most oppressive heat I have ever felt. I was so hot I was woozy, and even though I was at a place where I really wanted to see, I was pretty indifferent to what was going on due to the heat. It was the kind of heat that just exhausted you almost immediately. It was so hot that even focusing attention was difficult. I walked through the hut like a zombie. Normally in World War II museums, I want to read everything, but in a trance I went through this one pretty quickly. Oat told me to take any pictures that I wanted to, but the effort of opening my fanny pack to get my camera was too in this stifling heat. I think I took one to pretend I was interested in order to appease my guests. I think the area we were in used to be a jungle, but the area has been completely deforested and in the place of the trees are fields of sugar cane. The area once was a jungle, so it was naturally very hot, but the loss of the jungle vegetation has made it even more hot.

After this we took off for the farm. In America when going somewhere we usually go like crazy to get there and then try to enjoy the time there as much as possible. Not so with Thai people. They take their time in all aspects of the journey. We stopped along the road to pick up fresh hand-picked vegetables, skin cream at a market, and we took several bathroom breaks. With seven people in a car it is hard to make good time. Each time we stopped I had no idea what we were doing and why we were stopping or for how long. At one point Op pulled over on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and just coasted for a second. Oat then informed me that the slope was downhill, but we were going backwards due to the magnetic field, and Ann’s dad wanted to experiment with the slope. Oat asked if I had ever seen this before. I was still a little punch drunk from the heat, but I looked ahead of me to see if I could ascertain the extent of the downhill slope. It looked pretty level to me, so the fact we were coasting backwards did not impress me, but I did not want to argue, so I said no I had not seen this before and agreed that it was quite amazing.

We finally got to their farm around 4pm and there was not much daylight left. Ann’s Dad owns a rubber tree farm and a coffee farm near the Western border of Myanmar. The rubber is harvested by these black cups that are placed around the tree fastened by a metal fastener. The tree is then cut open above the cup and then the liquid seeps into the cup. The liquid in the cup is then congealed somehow and produced into rubber. The farm was basically 100 acres with a couple of wooden shacks in the center of it. All of the workers on the farm are Burmese who had fled their country.

A National Park was adjacent to their property, so Op, Eve, Oat, Ann, Ann’s mother, and I then got back in the car and drove the couple of bumpy miles to the National Park entrance. We drove down this dirt road in the middle of nowhere and then came to the entrance to the park. There was a little hut at the entrance of the park with a barrier across the road. Ann went to the hut and registered us and then the girl in the hut pulled the drawstring and let us in. We drove around a couple of bends and then parked. There was a sign to the waterfall that said 800 meters. Ann and Ann’s mother stayed at the parking lot while the boys headed to the waterfall to play.

The waterfall was awesome and amazingly refreshing. Right below the waterfall was a really nice deep pool and after being in the hellish heat all day the water felt incredible. We swam for a time in the pool and then went above the waterfall and climbed up these rocks to another mini waterfall. Up above we could actually sit in these pools as the water rushed over us from above. It was great. One of the most amazing outdoor experiences I have ever had. I am sure there are some pretty venomous snakes in the area. Oat had told me that Ann almost died from being bitten by a snake near her farm. The boys did not seem worried, so I followed their lead and ran around the jungle trail with no fear. I have done some camping in poisonous snake territory in the U.S. and it is rare to see them since they are more afraid of you than likewise. I was pretty sure poisonous snakes in Southeast Asia acted the same.

The swim really revived me. I felt like a new person. Unfortunately, Ann was suffering from the heat and actually threw up on the way back to the farm. It was so hot even the Thais were suffering. On the way back to the farm, we stopped at a little store to get some drinks. Up to this point I had not paid for a thing and was a little worried about it. It was nice saving money, but I felt like a bit of a moocher. Ann’s parents had paid for everything so far. At lunch on this day I had asked Oat if I should pay for something. I wanted to pay for the whole lunch, but I was afraid of offending Ann’s parents by extending such an offer. Oat said not to worry about it, but just thank her parents. At this store I really was thinking on passing on beer as I was quite tired, but Oat said maybe I should buy some beer for Ann’s dad. Brilliant I said to Oat and bought 6 24 oz beers. No better way to thank hospitality then by buying the host beer. That is one of the many beautiful things about beer. If there is one thing that I am an expert on it was buying beer. This was right up my alley.

When we got back to the farm Ann joked that I was trying to get her father drunk. I felt like telling her that she might be the expert about traveling in Thailand, but I was the expert in buying beer. We got back to the farm and had dinner and drank beer and looked at the amazing stars. At one point there was a lively discussion about the size of Eve’s penis. Apparently his shorts had fallen off in the waterfall at one point and Oat had said it was a good thing I didn’t take a picture of it as I was snapping many pictures with my digital camera. I assured him if I did, I would promptly erase it. Eve was 16 and Ann and Op where 24 and 25, so poor Eve as the baby received the brunt of the joke-making in the family.

We had a great political discussion that night. This was on the eve of the Thai election, so we had talks about our relationship with their country. Apparently, Bush and their prime-minister Taksin get along quite well. They did not like Bush that much, but they said that the relationship between the two leaders was good for Thai business. Op then told me that at his university they had a refugee camp set up for the foreign tsunami survivors. He said that it was very sad as many of the survivors had only the clothes on their back as they lost all of their possessions and in some cases could not find any of their friends and families. He related that they were extremely unhappy, as you can imagine, and had this almost dead like look in their eyes as they had been completely devastated by the tragedy. We ate a variety of snacks for dinner. Everything cooked was done over the fire. They also had some rice set out. Ann’s father joked that it was a Thai barbeque. Although Ann’s parents could not speak English, it was easy to communicate with them as all three of their children spoke fluent English as did Oat. They were extremely pleasant people and I was very appreciative of their wonderful hospitality. We then went to sleep in their little hut. It was much cooler here as we were in the hills a bit, so it made for easy sleeping.