that’s whacked

bangkok

Monday, Feb 28. 2005  –  Category: Travel

is it sad that everytime i think of Bangkok, the first thing that comes to mind is Tom Shane (of the Shane Company commercials we hear on the radio all the time here in the SF Bay Area) talking about how he goes to Bangkok every 3 months to purchase rubies and sapphires?

sad isn’t it?

anyway. so this is the conclusion to my travelog of my month in Taiwan/Southeast Asia. we spent the last 3 days of our travels in Bangkok, Thailand - doing… well, a lot of shopping. Ah Bangkok, home of the 95 degree heat and humidity. home of the wonderful air conditioned shopping malls. home of the INSANELY huge Chaktoochak (I’m sure I misspelled that somehow) open air market. home of countless night markets. home of strangely attractive transvestites.

we didn’t visit a single palace or temple or museum. National Palace? nope. skipped it. Temple of Dawn? nope. skipped it. Lucky Buddha temple? nope. skipped it. seriously, all we did was shop.

we stayed at this great little place called La Residence. what a wonderful place! it was a really cute little hotel with great clean rooms (it’s small, only 24 rooms). it’s run by some great ladies, with some really helpful staff. everyone spoke great English and were really really helpful with lots of local info, and tons of guidebooks/maps to give to us. definitely highly recommended. it’s really close to the Patpong area, 5 min. walk to a BTS station, and is just overall a great place.

upon arriving we went out in search of glasses. i finally bought a pair of wrap-around prescription sunglasses (can’t get them in the states w/ my prescription due to optometrists being scared of the liability). and wendy got a pair of eyeglasses.

then we started hardcore shopping. bought lots of great little wooden trays for our house, a gorgeous (and big) wooden vase. we of course bought lots of clothes, and wendy went shoe-crazy. anyway, i won’t dive into it - but suffice it to say Bangkok has some great shopping, and some awesome night markets. bargaining was fun as always, though i think not as fun as in China.

in China, the vendors treat it like a game. they size you up, and then basically throw out a ridiculous #. the Thai do this as well, but they seem to be more serious about it. they really ARE trying to rip you off. whereas the Chinese vendors throw it out and almost have a grin on their face because they know that you know that it’s ridiculous (like the woman who tried to sell Poorna a pair of sandals for 1200 yuan!). anyway, it’s just a vague feeling, but i feel like the Chinese vendors are more fun to bargain with.

my only real negative impression of Thailand is really just that i felt like everyone was out to try and rip me off. i realise i’m an American tourist travelling, and that i will get charged higher than locals - but don’t treat me like i’m stupid. i know that taxis are supposed to start at 35baht, so don’t try and charge me 200 baht to go 2 blocks. really, come on. i would say Thailand is certainly more developed and modernised as a whole than China. Bangkok is by far a more international city than Beijing - but i would have to say that in Beijing, i never felt like i was getting cheated. i don’t mind paying more - it’s natural that i’ll inevitably get ripped off as compared to the locals. it’s no big deal if i’m willing to do it, but what gets me is when people really try to cheat you - and i felt like this happened a LOT in Bangkok.

all in all, would i go back to Bangkok? eh. maybe for a day or two to do some shopping while en route to somewhere else. Thailand was fun, but a little too hot for me. nice beaches, nice resorts - but i think i’d like to go somewhere else next time. more countries to explore!

holy koh

Tuesday, Feb 22. 2005  –  Category: Travel

we took a crazy speedboat to Koh Tao today (1.5 hr there, and another 1.5 hr back) to spend the day snorkelling and lounging around on a beach. the speedboat driver was insane. that’s all i can say. certifiably insane. he was racing another boat out to Koh Tao for the better part of half the ride out there. wendy and i were holding on for dear life. after some really great snorkelling, we had lunch on the island and then headed over to some random beach to do some more snorkelling and lounging on the beach where we talked to some girls from Germany.

quote of the day: “for real man. fuck that shit.” - not amazing in and of itself, but it sounded better when it came from one of the German girls who was ethnic Korean. it was startling.

after that, our ride back to Koh Samui was even worse. the driver was trying to surf the waves…. with a speedboat. he would throttle down right before the wave, and then floor it off the crest of the wave causing the boat to SLAM back into the ocean every time. it was a long painful 1.5 hr back to the island where we recuperated by having dinner at Sandal’s again.

lazing around

Monday, Feb 21. 2005  –  Category: Travel

we did virtually nothing today. i bought a pair of swimming goggles. we lounged by the pool drinking mango shakes, reading, and swimming.

once we got tired of swimming in the pool, we walked all of 10 feet and headed into the ocean… to go swimming.

ah. what a lazy day.

around noon we moped’d around the island, this time riding north to see the Big Buddha and have lunch at Angela’s Bakery.

in the evening, we headed into town for our big indulgence. wendy got a massage, facial, anti-stress massage, and a body scrub. i got a massage…. and yes, my first ever facial. you could ask me how it was, except i have no idea. i fell asleep after 15 minutes. i woke up not being able to see (because of the mask/towel thing over my eyes), and with the faint scent of jasmine in the air. let me tell you, this is a disorienting feeling.

anyway. that was our day.

moped’ing around

Sunday, Feb 20. 2005  –  Category: Travel

we woke up late (9am… hey, it’s late for us) at our beautiful hotel. we stayed at “Baan Haad Ngam”, a really great hotel that’s in the best beach on the island: Chaweng Beach. Chaweng suffers from the usual glut of tourists, and it’s basically a strip of really loud noisy bars/restuarants/hotels. fortunately, Baan Haad Ngam is allllllll the way at the north end, secluded from everything else - but close enough to be a 10 minute moped ride into town. the only downside to the hotel? nobody speaks English. oh well. this is Thailand after all.

we woke up, did laundry, and headed into town to find a nice spa to book before heading off to Na Muang 2 waterfall on the moped. along the way, we stopped for a quick half hour elephant trek. it’s really tricky riding one of these things. i kept feeling like i was continually falling forward. all in all, a really interesting experience.

after the waterfall hike, we headed back into town where Wendy got what was apparently the best facial of her life at the Four Seasons while i bargain hunted for a new pair of flip flops.

in the evening we had dinner at Sandal’s, in my opinion - one of the best restaurants on Chaweng. it’s great, the tables are literally on the beach - you can take your shoes off and you’re in the sand.

to samui

Saturday, Feb 19. 2005  –  Category: Travel

we headed back to Bangkok today to catch our connecting flight to Koh Samui, a beautiful resort island in southern/central Thailand on the east coast (unaffected by the tsunami).

my airport observation for the day: you know people have traveler’s diarrhea when there’s a queue for the toilet stalls, and everyone in line is a westerner.

at the Bangkok airport we saw a huuuuuuge group of Muslim people… who were all Chinese! this was interesting to Wendy and I since you don’t often see Chinese Muslims. we guessed they were from eastern China, but what were they doing here in Bangkok? we asked, and it turns out they were on a pilgrimage to Mecca. cool!

landing in Koh Samui airport is a trip. the place is like Disneyland’s take on “Paradise-land”. there are little trolleys/trams taking you from the large open air terminals which look like big huts to the airplanes directly. a very very chill airport with almost no security. you can jump over the gazelias at the international immigration/customs, and you’d be on the island illegally.

we had dinner at this little Thai restaurant called Captain Kirk’s which had high recommendations. eh. not impressed. the food wasn’t great. the drinks were good though.

after dinner, we rented a moped and i proceeded to try and learn how to ride a moped at 8:00pm during the busiest time of day and on the busiest road on the entire island. fun experience.

that evening we headed into an English pub, because even though i’m on vacation: i gotta cheer for ManU as Ronald THRASHED Everton in the FA Cup 5th round…. at 12:30am (half past midnight)

shoooppping

Friday, Feb 18. 2005  –  Category: Travel

we made a very very brief visit to the Cambodian National Palace today. it was brief mainly because we were turned back due to Wendy wearing a tank top and shorts. damn westerners! excuse us for dressing for the 90 degree weather. oh well.

while everyone else went into the palace, Wendy and I took a tuk-tuk (those crazy motorcycle-drawn 2/4 seater taxi carriages) to the Central Market, a huge shopping market in Phnom Penh built by the French. after that we headed to the National Museum. i had mixed feelings about the museum…. it was only $3, so whatever - the architecture was really cool. the building was really nice, but exhibit wise - it’s just all statues of Buddha. i like Buddha and all, but after Angkor Wat, i was a little Buddha-ed out.

we had lunch at Crazy Uncle’s house where his personal cook (!!!!) made us a great Cambodia noodle curry.

after lunch we headed to the Russian Market, another shopping market - only one without any sort of air circulation at all. and metal tin roofs. and in 90 degree heat, you can only take that for so long.

in the evening we played pool with my crazy uncle at the SunWay hotel before heading out to dinner at Topaz, this really nice ritzy French restaurant near our hotel for our first try at Cambodian-French food.

wanna know the ironic thing? i ate all the Cambodia/Chinese food all week with no problems. but the French food? gave me traveller’s diarrhea that would stick with me for the rest of the trip.

damn French.

phnom penh

Thursday, Feb 17. 2005  –  Category: Travel

we headed back to Phnom Penh today, so i had some time during the drive to jot down my thoughts on Cambodia so far.

the country really is destitute. by far, the most poor and rural place i’ve ever seen. it’s sad to think how a country with a huge abundance of natural resources (Battambang was once one of the greatest rice producing regions in Asia, and Cambodia used to be covered in forests before the Khmer Rouge deforested it massively) and a great culture could have modernised and advanced so far if it just hadn’t gotten pulled into the whole war against Vietnam/Communism thanks to the political connivings of the French & Americans. sigh. go America. yay.

it’s interesting…Cambodians use US currency everywhere. The Cambodian riel is accepted of course, but you just can’t get around Cambodia w/o US money. at the gas stations, all the snacks/drinks, and gas are marked in US prices. bizarre.

anyway, after getting back to Phnom Penh, we visited Tuol Sleng (or S-21 as the Khmer Rouge called it), an old former high school that was converted into a detention/interrogation/torture centre. my initial thoughts were to compare it to Dachau (concentration camp in Germany I visited many years ago), and that this place was SMALL. it’s puzzling until you realise that not there was a high turnover rate. the Khmer Rouge didn’t imprison people for too long… instead, they chose to ruthlessly torture and kill them at a fairly quick rate. it’s a pretty moving place. they have a powerful exhibit of a large # of the photographs of all the victims. the Khmer Rouge were almost anal retentively obsessive about photographing everyone they tortured and/or killed.

after that sombering experience, we drove to my mum’s old junior high school, one of the few Chinese-community schools/temples in Phnom Penh. we saw the basketball court where my mum was captain of the basketball team. growing up, i never knew much about my mum’s history, and i always thought it was somewhat odd that we only ever visited with my dad’s side of the family. the past few months of studying up on Cambodia, and its holocaust have made me appreciate what happened to my mum’s family a lot more. the money to help rebuild my mum’s old school was actually donated by Haing Ngor, the author of “Beyond the Killing Fields”, and the Cambodia actor who portrayed Dith Pran in The Killing Fields (with Sam Rockwell, and John Malkovich), the movie portrayal of the Cambodia holocaust.

random thought for the day: “on choy”, a Chinese green vegetable that is popularly served at dinner is ridiculously cheap here. in the states, Wendy and I love it - but it’s expensive. how cheap is it in Cambodia? it’s so cheap and prolific that they have it at every meal… it’s in fact, SOOOOO cheap they use it as pig food.

Angkor Wat

Wednesday, Feb 16. 2005  –  Category: Travel

damn. Angkor Wat is amazing. My words can’t do it justice. One sentence description: It’s a Buddhist/Hindu temple, home to the great Khmer Empire (700AD-1400AD) which encompassed Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), that is the largest religious building/shrine in the world.

Truly awesome to see these kinds of monuments that mankind erected. Honestly, I can’t think of anything we’ve done on this scale in modern times. Louis XIV’s palace at Versaille is the most recent I can think of. Yeah, Taipei 101 is pretty cool… but it’s nothing new: it’s just a bigger taller skyscraper.

Anyway, back to Angkor Wat - wow. I finally learnt that the classic 3 towers represent different things depending on the interpretation. The predominantly Buddhist Khmer people view it as representing religion, country, and emperor whereas the briefly Hindu emperor who resided there for a while “renamed” them to represent Vishnu (the centre), Shiva, and Rama.

There are 3 levels to the main building.. the ground level representing hell, the second tier representing Earth, and the final high tower level representing heaven. In the Buddhist world these correspond to the continual cycle of suffering/reincarnation on Earth whilst trying to build merit and achieve enlightenment to end the cycle and enter heaven. We hiked all the way along some very steep stairs to heaven.

After leaving Angkor Wat, we had a traditional Cambodia lunch of hot spicy noodles (which surprisingly are really refreshing in hot weather), before visiting some other areas Greater Angor Wat. On the ride home we attempted to feed the monkeys. We also stopped at a side market for drinks and food where we ended up playing a Cambodian version of hackey-sack for about half an hour or so with a bunch of local kids. Great fun.

That evening we headed to The Red Piano, a local bar/lounge in Siem Reap for dessert. Yum.

into kampuchea

Tuesday, Feb 15. 2005  –  Category: Travel

Vacation officially starts TODAY!

We left Taipei to head to Bangkok, where we caught a Bangkok Airways connecting flight to Cambodia. Can I just say what an awesome airline Bangkok Airways is? They give you a meal (a pretty decent one too) regardless of the flight time. On a 50 minute flight to Phnom Penh from Bangkok? Meal included! And you get to use the free lounge with free snacks, drinks, and most importantly: free Internet.

We got to Phnom Penh, which has a surprisingly nice and modern airport to be hit by the crazy 90 degree weather there (and this is their “cool” season). It was nuts. Anyway, we met up with my uncle (my mum’s cousin) who took us to our hotel. Upon arriving we had a nice ant infestation which we tried to convey to the hotel staff. Their solution was to send someone up with a can of ant killer. This would have worked great if they had actually brought ant killer…. instead, due to their inability to read English, they brought Glade air freshener.

Air freshener does not kill ants.

Oh well. They eventually got rid of ‘em all. We wandered around our hotel’s area which was right around the corner from the National Palace), waiting for my parents, Jaime, & Zac to come in.

The next day we drove to Siem Reap, the city outside of Angkor Wat. Before leaving we met up with another uncle who looked so much like a kung fu actor in one of those great Chinese movies, we started calling him kungfu uncle. Later on in the trip, he would insist we call him crazy uncle. We also found out he’s had wives, and 12 children that he knows of. The drive wasn’t too bad… 4 or 5 hours… but it was amazing to see just how poor and rural the country was. Everything in Cambodia seems to be covered in this haze of red dust. You can thank Khmer Rouge deforestation for that. We stopped by a gas station, where the full service attendant pumped gas for us while our driver left the van running (standard practice in Cambodia… though scary nonetheless). We saw a lot of rural ethnic-Chinese farmers who didn’t speak any Chinese too.

Upon arriving in Siem Reap we took a short drive around the Greater Angkor Wat area (thank God for my uncle hiring a van and driver…). We visited my other uncle’s brick kiln which is actually IN the Angkor Wat compound area. I thought it would be a lot more boring than it was…. it actually turned out to be pretty cool to see how they made bricks there.

After that, we went to this temple on the mountain to see the sunset, before returning to our hotel (which comes free with about 30 mosquitos… thank god for DEET and Lemon Eucalyptus)

the liao banquet

Sunday, Feb 13. 2005  –  Category: Travel

We had a big banquet in Taipei today with Wendy’s mum’s family… it was at this crazy buffet place. Great food. After going to Costco and seeing just how much better the Taipei Costco is than our one in Richmond, we went to this great hole in the wall teppanyaki place with Dorothy (Wendy’s cousin)’s husband. We’ve been there with them a few times before and love it. The place has great food, and is super cheap. The Japanese may have made teppanyaki an art, but the Chinese made it CHEAP.

My random thought of the day: “I wonder why I don’t have Godparents… [10 second pause while thinking about it]… probably because my parents don’t believe in God.”