Grandpa wins! And other news.

My request for car name submissions pretty much confirmed what I already knew: that my Grandpa is the only person who reads my blog. So thanks for the suggestion, Gramps! Manuel it is.

So far Manuel has been a swell car—he’s taken me safely up to Napier and back for my Christmas roadtrip. However, much like my Thanksgiving experience, I found that Christmas without the fam (even though we don’t celebrate) really sucks. But on the bright side, I’ll be ringing in the New Year with my urban family when friends LauraLe from SF and Jane from Christchurch join A and me for a couple of wild days in Wellington. And from here, LauraLe and I will be heading up North for some much needed fun in the sun. Beaches. Wineries. Sheep sheering. We’ll be taking in all that the North Island has to offer.

Grandpa, I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

Now accepting submissions.

I just bought a car. And not just any car—a manual. So now on top of driving on the wrong side of the road, I also have to deal with shifting with the wrong hand. It’s scary as (this is New Zealand speak—they like to add the word “as” to adjectives for emphasis). But it’s also sort of exciting. Ashley thinks it’ll help stave off Alzheimer’s, kind of like doing Sudoku.

Anyway, I’m thinking that my new car needs a name. In high school I drove the Blue Beast. Then there was $*&%@#$ Piece of &%*@. And my last car was lovingly called the Tin Can. I recently drove a campervan named Murray. And I was frequently a passenger in a Mini Cooper named Wills (after Prince William before he turned ugly). I guess if this car was red, I could call it Hot Ginge after Prince Harry, but it’s white, so that won’t do.

What do you think? Any suggestions? Is Mr. Thornton too much for a Suzuki Baleno?

It's pretty cool, I guess.

My friend Melissa and I have an unnatural obsession with Napoleon Dynamite. Randomly, yet at frequent intervals, we like to bust out with a, “Tina, eat the food.” Or, “Your Mom goes to college.” Or, “And here we have some boondoggle keychains. A must-have for this season's fashion.” Anyway, you get the picture.

So over the course our weeklong roadtrip, we were humming an endless loop of Jamiroquai’s Dance and practicing our sweet moves at every stop. This is the result:


Though nothing can compare to the original:

Gosh.

Gone fishin'.

It’s pretty crazy the difference 12 months can make. Last year I was obsessed with spinning class and high fashion. This year it’s spinning rods and high tide. On Sunday I went fishing for the first time, and it was surprisingly fun. Of course, I had quite a bit of help, but I did bait the hooks myself and then stab the fish I caught in the face after I reeled it in. And I think I probably could stomach hacking its head off and gutting it, too, now that I’ve witnessed the proper way to do it. I can’t decide if this makes me barbaric or simply practical.

Thanksgiving: The Post-Bird Analysis.

Let me first start off by telling you how I feel about Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday, hands-down. I love everything about it: the sentiment, the gluttony, the family time. I love waking up late to the smell of a cooking turkey (Mom’s an early riser). I love reverting into an obnoxious child, which I invariably do when my sisters are around. I love getting all boozed up with my Grandpa before dinner and then lounging around in front of the fire with my nieces afterwards.

Anyway, Thanksgiving: it’s the best.

So, spending it in another hemisphere was kind of hard. But even though it made me really homesick, I wasn’t about to let it pass unnoticed. After searching far and wide, I found myself an 8-pound, $40 turkey (to put this into perspective, my Mom told me she bought a 29-pounder for $9). I found a pumpkin. I bought all the fixin’s. I was going all out. The only problem? I had no idea how to make any of it.

Skype to the rescue.

My sister, Katie, was nice enough to tell me how to make dressing. Her instructions, verbatim:

• Melt some butter and throw in onions and celery ‘til they’re soft.
• Sprinkle breadcrumbs with:
o Pepper (lots)
o Thyme
o Sage
o Poultry seasoning
o And maybe some rosemary if you feel like it.
• Pour the other stuff on top, stir it, and stuff it up the turkey’s bunghole.

Very precise, I’m sure you’ll agree. And apparently, “bunghole” is a technical culinary term. Listen for it on Top Chef.

Anyway, due to a minor oven snafu (snafu in the sense that I apparently have no idea how to use an oven), my turkey didn’t finish cooking until 9:30 at night. Which meant that my pumpkin pies didn’t finish until 10:30. Needless to say, my first attempt at Thanksgiving on my own was a long and arduous task. But in the end, it was a delicious one, so I’ll not complain.

But all deliciousness aside, when it comes to Thanksgiving, Dorothy Gale said it best, “There’s no place like home.”

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I miss you.

Hutt Bogans and Tramp Stamps.

Have you ever heard of pack floating? I hadn’t either until I inadvertently signed myself up for it, thinking I was just going on a weekend tramp in the Ruamahunga River gorge. When I became apprised of the situation, I was oh-so-close to backing out because it’s kind of insane. But I didn’t, which leads me to believe that I might be kind of insane.

Here’s the deal: pack floating, as its name suggests, involves using one’s backpack as a floatation device when crossing or following the course of a river. The trick is in making sure you have a plastic packliner without any holes in it. When sealed tightly, the liner turns your pack into something similar to a life jacket, though slightly less stable.

Our plan was to do a two-day loop, hiking to the DOC hut we were staying at on Saturday night and then hiking/pack floating our way out through the river gorge on Sunday. Sounds easy enough, but let me tell you, it was brutal. Lugging that pack up and down the sides of mountains takes a level of endurance that I was not at all prepared for. My legs were literally shaking with fatigue be the end of the first day.

Day two was exponentially harder. Immediately upon setting out, we had to do our first river crossing, trudging straight through waist-deep water in our hiking boots and polypro thermals (the most amazing material of all time, btw). So I was basically soaking wet from 7:30 in the morning until the time we made it back to our van at 5:30 in the evening. And it was effing cold.

Once we made it to the main part of the gorge where the trail ended and we were forced to follow the river the rest of the way out, we all put on wetsuits, which helped a lot. However, mine didn’t have sleeves, and wet polypro can only do so much. But for all the cold and over-the-top physical exertion, pack floating was still super fun. I’d definitely do it again, and probably enjoy it a lot more now that I know the ins and outs of how to go about it.

Some tips if you’re keen to try:
• Unless you live in the tropics, a wet suit is vital. Don’t do a half-suit; you need both tops and bottoms.
• Polypro and/or merino under the wetsuit is even better. Layers are your friend.
• Wear at least two pairs of wool socks. Yes, they’ll be wet and soggy the whole time, but wet wool can still keep your feet from freezing.
• Gaitors. They’ll help keep the gravel out of your boots. I was sorely missing them.
• Make sure your packliner is new. If you spring a leak, you’re screwed.
• Don’t use the chest strap on your pack. You need to be able to get out of it quickly if something happens.

And that was my weekend in a nutshell. I actually feel pretty bad-ass for having made it. The crazy part is that the trip was only graded “medium.” I shudder to think what a “fit” trip would entail—I’m pretty sure I would die.

Anyway, I also learned some new and colorful words to add to my international vocabulary. My tramping companions (two brits, an Aussie, and a Canuck) taught me various derogatory terms, though my absolute favorite was a “Hutt Bogan,” which is somewhat akin to the American redneck. “Hutt” refers to a town near Wellington. And a “Bogan” is recognizable by his scraggly rat-tail or full-on mullet.

Eager to reciprocate in this cultural exchange, I had the privilege of explaining the definition of a tramp stamp. As you can tell, our conversations were very deep and meaningful.

The Thanksgiving Conundrum.

Every year, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. So this year, Thanksgiving falls on November 24th. And therein lies my conundrum. November 24th in New Zealand is actually November 23rd at home. And given the fact that Thanksgiving is an American holiday, should I celebrate it on American time? Or should I strictly adhere to the fourth Thursday formula?

Of course, as of right now this is all a moot point anyway because I cannot seem to find a turkey anywhere in this entire country—a national tragedy that people, thus far, do not seem to comprehend. My mom assures me that a chicken would be almost the same, but I'm not convinced. And who knows if cranberries have made it this far? I'm not going to hold my breath.

Will it all end up being a depressing disaster regardless of the date? I'll keep you posted.

South Island Rhodes Trip

Over the past six months, The Tandem Bike has hosted a few guest pedallers, and Melissa Rhodes, one of my all-time favorites, was back once again for a week-long spin around the South Island. It was a bit of a spur of the moment trip—the result of a weird confluence of events—but planning is for the birds anyway.

------------------

“Melissa, you’re driving on the wrong side of the road.”

“Why, yes. I am.”

This happened about two or three days in, when we both were starting to zone out due to our ever increasing, though completely unfounded, feeling of comfort with driving in a flip-flopped version of reality. So when I said “wrong side,” what I meant was “right side” because here the right side is actually the left side. Got it? Good. Anyway, she was driving on the wrong…er, right side, which could have rendered us both dead no matter which way you looked at it. However, everything was quickly righted (you know what I mean) and thus passed our one and only mishap in what was otherwise a marvelous week.

So, what all did we see? Well, despite being a copywriter, I’m having a hard time describing the landscape here. Insanely beautiful? Spectacularly lovely? Incredibly epic? Supercalafradulisticexpialadocious? Melissa and I usually just settled on any combination of the following:

Beautiful
Dude
Amazing
Totally
Wow
Shit
Holy
Crazy
Unbelievable

For instance, an entire conversation could go something like this:

“Shit, dude.”
“Totally amazing.”
“Unbelievably beautiful.”
“Wow. Just wow.”

Or:

“Holy shit!”
“Crazy, dude.”
“Beautiful.”
“Totally beautiful”

I think the two that I would like to eradicate from my vocabulary are “shit” and “dude.” They make me sound vulgar and American—both of which I am—but just like Madonna, I can pretend otherwise. Besides, I’m trying to be a positive ambassador to the rest of the world—an effort that also includes losing the word “like,” though that one is proving exceedingly difficult.

Anyway, we saw mountains, valleys, waterfalls, beaches, cliffs, plains, forests, pancake rocks, glaciers, pastures, lakes, seals, sheep, birds, cows, flowers, sand flies, vineyards, ducks, rivers, and deer. Want to know what we didn’t see? People. There aren’t very many of them here. I heard a statistic that helps illustrate this statement: New Zealand is two-thirds the size of Germany, yet Germany has 83 million people to New Zealand’s 4.4. No, not 44—4 point 4. So, two-thirds the size and one-twentieth the population.

The thing is, I actually really enjoy this aspect of New Zealand. People are highly overrated. This isn’t to say I don’t want to meet people—because I desperately do (New Zealanders, if you’re reading this, let’s talk! I have so many questions!)—it’s just that it’s nice to have a bit of breathing room—and to not have that breathing room contaminated by the collective filth of a bazillion other worker bees.

Bottom line: one campervan trip in, and I am completely sold. Dude.

South Island Rhodes Trip (images)

Did you call me?

No, I didn't miss your call. I just have no idea who you are or what you said. I believe you were Scottish. But after saying, "What?" about five times, I finally just had to pretend to understand. I apologize for the deception, but I was honestly baffled and embarrassed by my lack of comprehension. I hope it wasn't anything important. And if it was, could you please put it in writing? Thanks. Eleven.

Settling.

Ashley and I found a furnished flat and moved in last Monday. To be completely honest, it’s a bit of a shithole. But a shithole with a fantastic view.

Visitors welcome. Just don’t judge.

New Zealand gang activity

is apparently gardening.

The Tongue & Meats.

If you’ve ever seen photos of New Zealand (or watched Lord of the Rings), you’ve doubtlessly noticed the one, unremitting constant: this entire country is spectacularly beautiful. And the people here love to be out in it. I am bound and determined to join their ranks. How? By becoming a member of the Tongue & Meats—otherwise known as the Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club. (Apparently, Tongue & Meats is a reference to a meatpacking plant that has the same acronym—it’s thoroughly disgusting, which means I absolutely love it.)

Just to clarify for my readers in America: tramping has nothing to do with being either a hobo or a whore. It simply means hiking. But unlike hiking at home, tramping in New Zealand requires a level of preparedness that I was not at all prepared for. Gaiters? Definitely don’t own any of those. Heavy-duty waterproof parka? Nope, don’t have that either. Hand-held GPS? Oh, dear. I’m in trouble.

I’m going on my first day-tramp this weekend and should be okay with my cobbled-together gear, which basically consists of everything I own that isn’t a sundress. I also signed up for an overnight tramp, but for that, wearing a glorified garbage sack for a rain jacket just isn’t going to cut it. However, I’m pretty committed to becoming a hardcore tramper (as you can tell, I’m loving the word “tramp”), so I’m willing to invest in quality gear.

As for the Tongue & Meats, those whom I met all seem like really lovely people. I felt immediately at home with them, which bodes well for our many future tramps together.

What’s black and white and Kiwi all over?

The New Zealand All Blacks. This country has some serious rugby fever. And with good cause. They’re playing France in the finals of the Rugby World Cup this Sunday. A and I were lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) enough to catch the semi-finals last week on our stopover in Auckland. It was a total madhouse. People were screaming, honking horns, climbing on things, getting drunk—basically anything they could possibly do to show they were pleased. And I was pleased, too, until it was time for me to go to sleep. And then my pleasure quickly evaporated with the ever-rising volume of the revelers.

But now I’m back to being pleased again. It’s nice to see people so excited. Just walking around Wellington (yay! we made it!), we could see the extent to which rugby is engrained in New Zealand’s culture. Kids are playing it in the park. Dads with their sons. Friends goofing around. Guys tossing the ball in the middle of the street. And almost every store window is devoted to black and white clothing only.

Ashley and I haven’t yet decided where we’re going to watch the big game. There’s a fan zone down by the water, but we did that for the last game in Auckland, and it was freezing. But regardless of where we see it, we’ll both be backing black.

Singapore: A summary.

Singapore is an interesting place. It is, without a doubt, the cleanest city I’ve ever visited. And possibly the most polite. There is a method to everything. Need some stamps at the post office? Take a number and wait patiently until it is called. DO NOT go to the counter—even if there’s no one else there—until you have been acknowledged. Want to catch a movie? Pick your seats in advance. DO NOT sit in any seat other than the one indicated on your ticket. Going to a club? Keep you hands to yourself. DO NOT pinch someone else’s bum or you will be lashed (my friend told me about this one—apparently a British backpacker is currently awaiting his punishment).

It’s kind of freakish the way everyone toes the line here, especially coming from the absolute chaos that prevails everywhere else in Southeast Asia. It’s calming. I like it. But after a while it starts to become too calming. Like they’re lulling you into this happy acceptance of the fact that the government dictates an awful lot of what goes on in your life. So maybe I shouldn’t like it. But I can’t help myself.

In my five days here, I did start to notice all the little ways in which the people try to rebel. Or at least assert their individuality. There are a lot of tattoos. And vividly-colored hair. Teenagers attempt to escape the pressures of society by going to the movies and then talking incessantly. College students light up cigarettes even though they’re incredibly expensive and there are very few places they’re legally able to smoke.

Anyway, in addition to being run like a well-oiled machine, the following are some of Singapore’s highlights:

Food courts. They’re the cheap alternative to the vastly overpriced food on offer in real restaurants. And they’re way better. Down and dirty, they’re a fast-paced, somewhat confusing mishmash of cuisine from all over Asia. Some of it’s delicious. Some of it’s repulsive. But the experience is always interesting. I was told to try a Mango Kachang—a very Singaporian dessert consisting of red beans and jelly (Americans, that’s Jell-o to you) covered in shaved ice with different flavorings poured on top like a snow cone. And then on top of that is a mango puree. Ashley said it looked like a rainbow puked in a bowl. It kind of tasted that way, too.

Museums. They’re so well done here. You can tell that a lot of time and money was put into making them some of the best in the world. Immaculately presented, thoughtfully laid out, and technologically advanced, each one offers a very distinct, yet informative, experience to its visitors.

Architecture. They’ve got some weird things going on. There are strangely-shaped buildings next to massive skyscrapers next to beautifully restored old colonials. My four-year-old niece, Eva, professes to hate trees and love architecture. I think she’d be right at home here.

Art. Ashley and I went to two art museums in Singapore, and they couldn’t have been more different. The first was pretty much what you’d expect from a modern art gallery. Lots of white space. Some really amazing work. Some not my cup of chai. But all-in-all, a very lovely experience. The second was just pure craziness. The entire gallery was devoted to a single performance/mixed-media artist. In one room, we watched a video of one of her performance pieces.

It started with her dipping magazine ads featuring supermodels into a bucket of blood and then pinning them up on a white wall. All the while there was a rhythmic pounding in the background, which we later found out was a man chopping a huge piece of meat with a cleaver. She left the room for a minute and came back in sporting some sort of tampon chain trailing from under her dress like a really long tail. When she took off all of her clothes (except her socks and Doc Martens), we found out that the tampon tail was attached to her via an inserted tampon. I was dying laughing through the whole thing. She was so serious. It was so ridiculously artsy. The people in the audience on the video seemed almost traumatized. They didn’t know where to look or what to do. Anyway, more weird stuff happened over the duration of the 30-minute performance, but I think you get the gist.

After that one was over, we watched another one in which the same woman was videoed walking around the city backwards with a high-heeled shoe in her mouth while looking in a mirror. According to the write-up, it was meant to symbolize how the feminist movement is going backwards as women become more and more enslaved to fashion and the desire to be visually pleasing to men. Or something like that. Huh. I kind of dig the sentiment, but I never would have gotten that from seeing a crazy Asian lady with a shoe in her mouth.

Next up was this installation piece consisting of slashed minivan seat with century eggs stuffed into the ripped leather. I have no idea what that one was supposed to symbolize, but the security guard told me all about century eggs, which was absolutely fascinating. A century egg is an egg that has been soaked in horse pee—yes, horse pee—before being buried in the ground for 100 days, after which time it is dug up and eaten. Apparently, it has a sort of jelly-like consistency and turns an opaque black-ish color. I’m told it’s delicious. I have no desire to find out for myself.

And that’s Singapore in a nutshell. Or an eggshell. Soaked in horse pee.

The tuk-tuk incident.

Tuk-tuk: a motorized rickshaw.

In Southeast Asia, tuk-tuks are the ubiquitous mode of transportation. Everywhere you go, it's "Tuk-tuk, lady?" Sometimes as many as ten times in a single block. On a good day, it can get a bit annoying. Today was not a good day.

I was wandering around Bangkok with no real destination in mind. Just checking out some temples and random other points of interest, when a man came up to me, inquiring, "Tuk-tuk, lady? Where you go?"

"Nowhere," I replied. "Just walking."

"You want to see the giant Buddha? The lucky Buddha? Government buildings?"

"How much?"

"70 Baht." (That's just over $2.)

For a three-site return trip, I thought 70 Baht was pretty good.

"Ok, sure."

It started out fine. The giant Buddha was, indeed, giant, and the lucky Buddha may well have been lucky. But the government buildings were where everything went sour. As we were about to depart the lucky Buddha, Mr. Tuk-tuk Driver said, "Ok, now we go to the factory."

Uhhh...factory? That wasn't on the agenda. Of course, I'd heard about the tuk-tuk scam where they try to take you to random shops where they get a kickback for everything you buy. But I was not falling for it. Or was I?

We argued for a solid five minutes over whether or not I was going to the factory. I was very adamant that I wasn't. He was very adamant that I was. When it became apparent that the "government buildings" were some sort of bullshit code for a jewelry manufacturer that's supervised by the Thai Government, I said I just wanted to be dropped off where I started.

He wasn't having it. I had to at least walk through the factory for him to get his free petrol (I'm guessing this is the form kickbacks take here).

I just wanted to be back in a place I recognized. So, I agreed to walk through the factory. And I did. But he still wasn't satisfied. Next, he wanted to take me to a garment factory, because I hadn't spent enough time in the jewelry place to get his petrol. He refused to take me anywhere else. And that's when I lost it. The guy's English wasn't all that great to begin with, but he should now be well acquainted with every four-letter word in it.

In our first argument, I had made the mistake of paying him half of our agreed-upon fare. But there was no way I was letting him get the other half. Instead, I stormed off and caught a cab back to the familiar chaos of Khao San Road. It took a banana pancake with Nutella and a beer for me to simmer down.

Tuk-tuk drivers beware: I am no longer a happy or passive passenger. Bangkok is turning me into a bitch.

Supersize me.

I am McDonald’s to the insect population of Southeast Asia. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were over a million served.

Massage is a many-splendored thing.

Khmer massage. Thai massage. Oil massage. Elephant massage (don’t ask; I don’t know). Blind massage. Foot massage. Head massage. Neck and shoulder massage. Aromatherapy massage. Aloe Vera massage. Fish massage.

In Southeast Asia, there is a massage for every body part (yes, every body part) in a variety of styles. I, personally, am a big fan of foot massages and blind massages—usually including some sort of oil or herbal extract. Other people—namely gross old white men—seem to prefer massages more “happy” in nature. In fact, A and I were at a salon the other day getting pedicures, where we witnessed said older gentlemen emerging from the private back rooms after their rubdowns. The men all had big smiles plastered on their pervy faces. And their masseuses were all smiles too…until the men paid and left. Then the smiles fled, and it became obvious they did not relish the intimate details of their profession.

I do, however, think the blind masseuses and masseurs are relatively pleased with their jobs. In a region where having a disability generally relegates you to a life of beggary, getting a job as a skilled worker is kind of a big deal. I like the idea that, by going to them, I’m helping the blind community live independent of charity. Plus, they just give really great massages.

A fish massage, on the other hand, is a weird and slightly disturbing thing. Basically, you sit on the edge of a giant fish tank with your feet dangling in the water. Then hundreds of little flesh-eaters swarm around your hooves and devour all the dead skin. I was both repulsed and intrigued when I saw this, so of course I had to try it. But being overly ticklish, I only managed to last about five minutes. Which really is a shame for the fishes because, given the current state of my feet, they would have had a feast.

The Killing Fields.

What do you even say about a place where hundreds of thousands of people were bludgeoned to death, stripped, and dumped into mass graves? The juxtaposition of its current tranquility with the horror of its past is striking. In the middle of it all stands a stupa filled with the skulls of the dead—acting at once as a memorial to the slain and a warning to future generations.

For those of you who, like me, didn’t learn much (or anything) about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge Regime in school, here are some of the basics of what I gleaned from today’s visit to The Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum:

Pol Pot was a homicidal maniac bent on creating what he called an “agrarian utopia.” An agrarian utopia is basically Communism on steroids. He and his followers imagined a world where everyone was the equivalent of a worker bee—owning nothing, wanting nothing, and doing everything for the collective good. There would be no individuals. Just cogs in the wheel of the greater machine. He wanted to do away with money. With education. With cities. With love and familial bonds. Everything was for The Party, and dissent—real or imagined—was punishable by death.

The first victims of the Khmer Rouge were intellectuals, professionals, and anyone with ties to the West. The scope of his brutality quickly spread to include anyone with ties to anyone else outside of Cambodia, anyone of Vietnamese or Chinese descent, and anyone remotely associated with the former government. And then it just became anyone at all. You could be in one of his trusted cadres one day, and horrifically tortured the next for suspicions of disloyalty. And if you had children, they’d die too because The Party feared the thought of them seeking revenge as adults.

The politics around his rise to power are still pretty murky in my mind. Alliances with Vietnam were created and later broken—in fact, the Vietnamese were the ones who finally toppled the Khmer Rouge Regime in the end. And for this, the Americans and numerous other members of the UN decided to recognize the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia for over 15 years. Just to stick it to Vietnam. No biggy that anywhere from 1.7 to 3 million people were exterminated under its reign.

I feel ashamed that I know so little about world history and America’s part in it. To me, this stuff is far more important and relevant to current events than memorizing the names of Columbus’s ships (the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria) or the date the Magna Carta was signed (1215 A.D.). How can we ever hope to ensure something so horrible as the genocide in Cambodia never happens again, when we don’t even acknowledge that it happened in the first place?

Anyway, I don’t intend for my light and fluffy travel blog to take a dark and heavy turn toward the geopolitical. But I do hope that this may spark some interest in others to learn more about recent world history. I promise I will be doing my part as well.

Angkor Wat.

Is incredibly beautiful.

Waterworld (minus Kevin Costner).

The Tandem Bike's arrival to Cambodia was a wet one. From the window of the plane from Pakse to Siem Reap, I could tell there was a lot of flooding, but I wasn't prepared for the extent of it in the city. It was like Venice, only instead of gondolas, the streets were filled with hundreds of bikes, motorcycles, and tuk tuks forging ahead through knee-deep water. I guess life doesn't stop in Cambodia over a little bit of rain. Ours certainly didn't.

Our first day in Siem Reap, we rented bikes and took a pleasure cruise through the city swamp. First stop: a blind massage. Apparently, it's a pretty big thing in SE Asia—a real feel-good way to spend your money. And I've got $7 burning a hole in my pocket for the next one. I don't know what I'm going to do when I get back to the Western way of life and can no longer afford daily massages and pedicures. It's a thought that doesn't even bear contemplating.

Anyway, second stop: Angkor Wat at sunset. And by sunset, I mean torrential downpour. We didn't even make it past the moat outside the Wat before the weather forced us to turn back. And then it was a wet four miles into town.

Third stop: dinner on Pub Street. Though we hired a tuk tuk there, we finally just had to break down and take our shoes off to negotiate from one restaurant to the next. Who knows what we stepped on or what sort of nasty bacteria got into our bare feet. Ashley informs me that she has some meds if I happen to get worms, so I should be sitting pretty.

The most interesting thing about Siem Reap being under water was how quickly it dried up. We spent all of the next day in Angkor (no rain and hotter than Mr. Thornton with a loosened cravat), and by the time we returned to town, the streets were back to normal. Which is to say, full of pot-holes, trash, and stray dogs. I was actually really glad we got to see it during the flood—it covered up most of the ugly bits and made the city seem that much more beautiful and romantic.

Showers, toilets, and hand-held bidets.

The bathroom norm in SE Asia seems to be maximization of space. None of this separating the shower into its own little cubical like Westerners are used to. No, here when you step into the bathroom, it’s to get shit done. Literally.

The set-up usually involves a toilet, a showerhead attached to the wall (sometimes directly above the toilet if space is particularly limited), and a sink. Though the sink also seems optional. The part that is not optional is the bidet sprayer. Without fail, it is attached alongside the toilet. So, you could theoretically use both it and the showerhead at the same time. Seems kind of redundant to me, but then again, I’m not Asian.

While I understand the spatial reasoning behind this arrangement, the problems seem to outweigh the benefits:

1. The toilet paper always gets wet. You cannot have a shower without getting the toilet paper wet. You just can’t do it. Period. If you say you can, you’re lying.

2. You towel, clothes, and anything else you hang on a rack also get wet.

3. You can sit down and go to the bathroom while taking a shower. This is excessively lazy and can lead to numbness of the backside and atrophy of the leg muscles. Plus, it’s just kind of gross. The two should be separated.

4. The floor is always wet. Yes, there is a drain in the corner, but for some inexplicable reason, the tiles always seem to slope away from it. It’s a ready-made environment for mold, mildew, seaweed, fish—basically every form of aquatic life.

5. Did I mention the toilet paper always gets wet?

A case of the Mondays.

Like the Brawny Man says, “Sometimes the day just looks at you funny.” Today (and I have no idea if it’s a Monday or not) was one of those days.

Despite the rain, cold, and general miserable state of the weather, A and I were interested in checking out the waterfalls on Bolaven Plateau, about 90 km outside of Pakse, Laos. We booked a day tour that, in addition to the falls, included a visit to a tea plantation, a coffee plantation, a school, and a couple of ethnic minority villages.

I won’t go into the details of the myriad things that went wrong, but just give you the highlights:

1. The weather. Ok, I already mentioned that one, but it bears repeating. It sucked. The rain turned everything into a soupy mess. At one point, I had to take my flip-flops off for fear of losing them in a muddy, feces-filled bog. I now probably have worms.

2. The coffee plantation. We each received a free cup of coffee made from the beans picked there. It was like rocket fuel. And since Ashley doesn’t like coffee, I drank both hers and mine. And then was horribly sick for the rest of the day. I had the shakes, the sweats, and a wretched headache. I thought I might have the shits, too, but no such luck. Just an upset stomach without the payoff.

3. The school. I have no idea why they took us there. We were completely disruptive in an already chaotic environment. I don’t know how these kids learn anything. Half the classes were missing teachers, and the students were running around like rabid animals. There was screaming, fighting, playing, singing—just about everything other than learning. And then we showed up taking photos of it all. I felt weird and creepy about the whole thing. It was just wrong.

4. The ethnic villages. Again, I have no idea why they took us there. It wasn’t as though there was any sort of cultural exchange. Nobody was making anything or selling anything. We basically just walked around gawking at people living in abject poverty like we were on human safari. The worst part was at the last village where the kids (who should have been in school) were hanging out under a house on stilts, playing marbles, and smoking gigantic bongs. We’re talking eight-year-olds. With bongs. While their parents were sitting five feet away playing cards. Our guide told us that kids start smoking as young as three. What the ef.

In addition to feeling physically sick, the whole thing just left me feeling emotionally ill as well. I wanted to cry at the sadness of it all. I wanted to hug my mother and thank her for not letting me smoke a bong as a child. I wanted to be in an environment that wasn’t completely covered in a horrible mixture of human and animal refuse. I wanted a break from being attached by swarms of insects.

Tomorrow has got to be better.


R.I.P. Auntie Gladys. And all my love to Uncle Jim.