The futile quest for silence:
One thing (besides the heat) that always bugs me in Southeast Asia is the simple fact that it is never silent anywhere. Walls are thin and if there are no people talking loudly to be noisy in inhabited areas, then there certainly is traffic, car horns or an old air-conditioning-unit rattling away. You never get a moment of quiet and to me, who grew up as an only-child in Europe in houses with concrete and/or brick walls, this is a small but steady kind of stress. So I decided to set out to find some quiet, riding the motorbike out of the city, which is no small feat as the highways draw inhabitants to themselves around here, making it feel like you never leave the suburbs of any given city, always driving past houses, shops and snack-bars until you're in the next large center of population. Leaving Chiang Mai and going for about 15 kilometers one gets to Mae Rim, where, going left onto a more rural road, the way leads on to the Mae Sa valley. Besides several waterfalls and a holy cave, the valley holds a few villages clinging to the sides, apparently growing fruit or vegetables in greenhouses along terraces dug into the hillsides. Beyond the valley, settlement stops. The road snakes along a mountainrange overlooking a breath-taking series of jungle valleys and hills. Then there is the view platform. As I pull up next to it I realize that I won't find quiet here. The jungle is too close, up the hill across the street and right below the platform. It is not as noisy as in the city but the electrical-disturbance-sounds the crickets make are present. There is no quiet to be found around here, I realize, but the view is well worth anything...
...aaand incopatibility between Opera and blogger.com prevents me from showing it to you... I shall rectify that later when I'm at another computer...
Montag, 3. September 2012
Samstag, 1. September 2012
Snippets from Abroad 015
Exploring a waterfall:
At the entrance to this area I was appalled at the 100 baht that I as a foreigner had to shill out in order to see something as simple as a waterfall, but I have underestimated the size of the thing. Not like it's this majestic monstrosity, roaring very high or wide but it's a rather nicely made path through the jungle along ten numbered steps that the water allegedly takes from some higher point to some lower point I have already left behind me. I am the only person I have seen so far and the sign said that this was step six, counting upwards with me climbing up the mountainside while the water has been descending to my right. Now the path ends. I have brought no water and haven't drank in ages, something that is always dangerous in tropical environments. I may or may not be hungry too, but that is hard to tell with the Doxycyclin in my bloodstream. The onward path is blocked by a bamboo barrier and a sign in Thai telling me it's out of order and, being a good German, I respect the signs authority without anyone being here to enforce it. I stand in the water of one of the pools, the current dragging on me up to my knees, where I have rolled up my pants. Five meters away from me on one side, the water goes down about three meters, five meters to my left it comes cascading down some rocks. The path on the other side goes on up, I can see that, but without going deeper into the water, which I have spent the past ten minutes testing by walking around in it, I cannot get across. I could go back two steps of the waterfall to a bridge but I would have to wait for my feet to dry in order to get into my shoes again because I have seen what kind of little horrors (and ants) crawl around on that jungle-floor. A decision is made and I wade through, having all things water-damageable in my carrypurse, I nearly slip twice but I make it to the other side. I feel great but I need to take off my pants and remove my underpants because those won't dry on my body and I hate getting a cold in hot weather. I sit down on the rocks in the sun to dry my pants and my shirt. Then, fearing a sun-stroke, I tie my soaked underpants around my head like a bandana. In fact, people I later meet along the trail don't even notice that they are talking to a guy who is wearing his underwear on his head. Whether the joke's on them or on the guy who has seen too much Bear Grills I don't dare to decide. But After an hour of hiking through the hot and wet jungle air, I reach the last of the waterfall steps and feel like a king.
At the entrance to this area I was appalled at the 100 baht that I as a foreigner had to shill out in order to see something as simple as a waterfall, but I have underestimated the size of the thing. Not like it's this majestic monstrosity, roaring very high or wide but it's a rather nicely made path through the jungle along ten numbered steps that the water allegedly takes from some higher point to some lower point I have already left behind me. I am the only person I have seen so far and the sign said that this was step six, counting upwards with me climbing up the mountainside while the water has been descending to my right. Now the path ends. I have brought no water and haven't drank in ages, something that is always dangerous in tropical environments. I may or may not be hungry too, but that is hard to tell with the Doxycyclin in my bloodstream. The onward path is blocked by a bamboo barrier and a sign in Thai telling me it's out of order and, being a good German, I respect the signs authority without anyone being here to enforce it. I stand in the water of one of the pools, the current dragging on me up to my knees, where I have rolled up my pants. Five meters away from me on one side, the water goes down about three meters, five meters to my left it comes cascading down some rocks. The path on the other side goes on up, I can see that, but without going deeper into the water, which I have spent the past ten minutes testing by walking around in it, I cannot get across. I could go back two steps of the waterfall to a bridge but I would have to wait for my feet to dry in order to get into my shoes again because I have seen what kind of little horrors (and ants) crawl around on that jungle-floor. A decision is made and I wade through, having all things water-damageable in my carrypurse, I nearly slip twice but I make it to the other side. I feel great but I need to take off my pants and remove my underpants because those won't dry on my body and I hate getting a cold in hot weather. I sit down on the rocks in the sun to dry my pants and my shirt. Then, fearing a sun-stroke, I tie my soaked underpants around my head like a bandana. In fact, people I later meet along the trail don't even notice that they are talking to a guy who is wearing his underwear on his head. Whether the joke's on them or on the guy who has seen too much Bear Grills I don't dare to decide. But After an hour of hiking through the hot and wet jungle air, I reach the last of the waterfall steps and feel like a king.
Freitag, 31. August 2012
Snippets from Abroad 014
Hiring a scooter to get around and then realizing that This Is Asia:
I have to admit that I do not have the correct license to drive the motorscooter I am currently manning, but the irregular rides on my fathers electroscooter (a nice import from China) have given me enough practice to fake it to the guy who rents these things out (not that he would care) and I drive out of the Soi my guesthouse is situated in. When I get out onto the main road, part of me starts to scream incomprehensibly, while the rest of me is busy spreading my spatial awareness to 360 degrees around me, hopefully far enough to notice anything on a collision course; on a scooter, you are the weakest thing on the road (if you discount bycicles, which are rare around here) and probably the third slowest to boot (TukTuks, the carrion-eaters of traffic, and motorcycles converted to mobile food-stalls can't keep up with you; Songthaeuws, pickup-trucks, SUVs, family cars and the ever-crazed motorcyclists of these parts out/overrun you). The speedometer is broken (which I see often around here. Not having ever seen a broken speedometer in Europe, I must assume it's on purpose, to cloud the true age of a vehicle upon reselling it) and I have no clue whether the fuel-gauge will rise if I fill the tank, which I most definitely must soon. But right now I just try to stay in the general flow of traffic, following stronger vehicles closely, using them for protection, always expecting something to hit me from the side, ending the healthier part of my existence. I somehow get onto what the locals call a highway, which by my standards doesn't fit the definition, what with the stores and parking-lane, the cross-lights and the fucking pedestrians and all, and start looking out for a gas-station. There is one, but it's on the other side and I am not insane enough to do a U-turn on a highway in a left-handed traffic system (which would be perfectly legal and normal here) so I drift on with the traffic. As I start to calm down and get used to the traffic and its unwritten rules, I see a gas-station up ahead. I knew that all it would take was getting used to and here I am, pulling up like it's the most normal thing in the world...
I have to admit that I do not have the correct license to drive the motorscooter I am currently manning, but the irregular rides on my fathers electroscooter (a nice import from China) have given me enough practice to fake it to the guy who rents these things out (not that he would care) and I drive out of the Soi my guesthouse is situated in. When I get out onto the main road, part of me starts to scream incomprehensibly, while the rest of me is busy spreading my spatial awareness to 360 degrees around me, hopefully far enough to notice anything on a collision course; on a scooter, you are the weakest thing on the road (if you discount bycicles, which are rare around here) and probably the third slowest to boot (TukTuks, the carrion-eaters of traffic, and motorcycles converted to mobile food-stalls can't keep up with you; Songthaeuws, pickup-trucks, SUVs, family cars and the ever-crazed motorcyclists of these parts out/overrun you). The speedometer is broken (which I see often around here. Not having ever seen a broken speedometer in Europe, I must assume it's on purpose, to cloud the true age of a vehicle upon reselling it) and I have no clue whether the fuel-gauge will rise if I fill the tank, which I most definitely must soon. But right now I just try to stay in the general flow of traffic, following stronger vehicles closely, using them for protection, always expecting something to hit me from the side, ending the healthier part of my existence. I somehow get onto what the locals call a highway, which by my standards doesn't fit the definition, what with the stores and parking-lane, the cross-lights and the fucking pedestrians and all, and start looking out for a gas-station. There is one, but it's on the other side and I am not insane enough to do a U-turn on a highway in a left-handed traffic system (which would be perfectly legal and normal here) so I drift on with the traffic. As I start to calm down and get used to the traffic and its unwritten rules, I see a gas-station up ahead. I knew that all it would take was getting used to and here I am, pulling up like it's the most normal thing in the world...
Snippets from Abroad 013
Sitting in a boxing stadium, which sounds more grand than its den-like structure would justify:
After the Gathoey/Ladyboy/Transvestite (pick your immersion on Thai culture yourself) at the entrance has led me to my seat, which belongs to one of the seven or eight bars surrounding the fighting ring, I order myself a beer and enjoy the first match of the evening. It still feels a little weird to have paid money in order to watch two eight-year-olds kick the crap out of each other but this is just the opening match, the matches of the evening ascending in age and skill towards the main event and the fights of locals vs. foreigners. Giving a young fighter the chance to fight in front of a crowd early and often leaves to situations where a Muay Thai fighter reaching the age of twenty usually has hundreds of actual matches under his belt, something most Western boxers can only dream of. The kids fight far less controlled than their older colleagues but despite being very forward, throwing kicks more often than punches (which is the other way around with more experienced fighters), they never get carried away, there is always gestures of sportsmanship and a smile after the fight. I like that, myself finding the thing most US Heavyweights do ridiculous and WWF-worthy at best. No "I'll rape your wife and eat your children!" here. There are two main events this night, one fight between a French man named Mehdi, who has drawn quite a crowd of French fans (who will, after his surprising victory in the fifth and last round of the match, break out the Marseillaise) and a local fighter, and then two experienced and skilled Thai fighters. The last fight ends with the guy who was being beat up all fight starting to fight back in the fourth round and defeating his opponent by knockout despite his bruised and swollen face. A spectacular night. As I leave the stadium, it's raining so I decide to take a Tuk Tuk. I tell the driver, where I want to go and on the way he asks me, having noticed my Thai, if he shall take me to a place with nice ladies. I point out my ring and politely tell him off. Next time I'll just bring an umbrella.
After the Gathoey/Ladyboy/Transvestite (pick your immersion on Thai culture yourself) at the entrance has led me to my seat, which belongs to one of the seven or eight bars surrounding the fighting ring, I order myself a beer and enjoy the first match of the evening. It still feels a little weird to have paid money in order to watch two eight-year-olds kick the crap out of each other but this is just the opening match, the matches of the evening ascending in age and skill towards the main event and the fights of locals vs. foreigners. Giving a young fighter the chance to fight in front of a crowd early and often leaves to situations where a Muay Thai fighter reaching the age of twenty usually has hundreds of actual matches under his belt, something most Western boxers can only dream of. The kids fight far less controlled than their older colleagues but despite being very forward, throwing kicks more often than punches (which is the other way around with more experienced fighters), they never get carried away, there is always gestures of sportsmanship and a smile after the fight. I like that, myself finding the thing most US Heavyweights do ridiculous and WWF-worthy at best. No "I'll rape your wife and eat your children!" here. There are two main events this night, one fight between a French man named Mehdi, who has drawn quite a crowd of French fans (who will, after his surprising victory in the fifth and last round of the match, break out the Marseillaise) and a local fighter, and then two experienced and skilled Thai fighters. The last fight ends with the guy who was being beat up all fight starting to fight back in the fourth round and defeating his opponent by knockout despite his bruised and swollen face. A spectacular night. As I leave the stadium, it's raining so I decide to take a Tuk Tuk. I tell the driver, where I want to go and on the way he asks me, having noticed my Thai, if he shall take me to a place with nice ladies. I point out my ring and politely tell him off. Next time I'll just bring an umbrella.
Mittwoch, 22. August 2012
Snippets from Abroad 012
A small rural guesthouse, somewhere in the backwaters of Cambodia:
I return to the guesthouse after spending the entire day in the sun up on the mountain. I am thirsty and hungry and tired and my arms are itching from a light sunburn. There is a minibus in front of the place, having spewed its cargo of about fifty Cambodian tourists into the premise. I step over a field of flip-flops by the door and into the noise. The hallway is crowded with children playing and their parents eating snacks, while the washing-area is overflowing with people cleaning themselves. An old woman gives me an evil look while I push my way into my room, which is right next to the washing-area. I close the door behind me, open the window. When I close my eyes it sounds like the noise of the mass of people now filling the guesthouse is right in the room with me. I do not care, crash after the strains of the day and fall asleep for an hour or so. Then my hunger wakes me up, the only thing I have eaten this day being a baguette I had bought early in the morning at the local market. Time to check out the only restaurant in this town that I have read about on the internet: Pkay Prek. I am hungry and thirsty and I have reached the main goal of my trip. I feel just fine, as I make my way through the noisy crowd in the hallway, down the stairs and into the dusky glow of the setting sun.
I return to the guesthouse after spending the entire day in the sun up on the mountain. I am thirsty and hungry and tired and my arms are itching from a light sunburn. There is a minibus in front of the place, having spewed its cargo of about fifty Cambodian tourists into the premise. I step over a field of flip-flops by the door and into the noise. The hallway is crowded with children playing and their parents eating snacks, while the washing-area is overflowing with people cleaning themselves. An old woman gives me an evil look while I push my way into my room, which is right next to the washing-area. I close the door behind me, open the window. When I close my eyes it sounds like the noise of the mass of people now filling the guesthouse is right in the room with me. I do not care, crash after the strains of the day and fall asleep for an hour or so. Then my hunger wakes me up, the only thing I have eaten this day being a baguette I had bought early in the morning at the local market. Time to check out the only restaurant in this town that I have read about on the internet: Pkay Prek. I am hungry and thirsty and I have reached the main goal of my trip. I feel just fine, as I make my way through the noisy crowd in the hallway, down the stairs and into the dusky glow of the setting sun.
Snippets from Abroad 011
Contemplating environmental hazards to your health:
Having spent the last four hours climbing up and down the mountaintop-temple that has been the destination of this trip, having taken hundreds of pictures, I am exhausted from the tropical mountain-sun and sit down on a wall at the stairs that twelve hundred or-so years ago were built for pilgrims to climb. Behind me, maybe two dozen meters into the bushes, there is red tape and several signs warning of mines. Further up the slope is a blue sign about a cleared minefield. The Cambodians put up those blue signs everywhere. Every party-member has one at their house. Everywhere where there has been foreign aid there is one, usually proclaiming with a flag who did what for them. Korea built this school. The European Disaster Relief Fund dug this well. ZOA provided this medicare-center. The Hodgess-Family from New York built this family home. The German government financed this provincial police station. And then this: This minefield was cleared with funds from the French government. The cleared area encompasses 4313 square meters of steeply sloped jungle. 612 mines were disarmed, as were 7 unexploded pieces of ordinance. I sit next to it and do the math. Back in my army days I learned that a clearing-quote of 95% in land mines is decent enough. That would mean that there are still around 30 land mines in that patch of jungle. 15 for an area as big as my family-yard in Hamburg used to be. Yet, the mines are a very abstract danger to me. I sit there, contemplating them. Guess I just shouldn't go off the paths and roads then, huh?
Having spent the last four hours climbing up and down the mountaintop-temple that has been the destination of this trip, having taken hundreds of pictures, I am exhausted from the tropical mountain-sun and sit down on a wall at the stairs that twelve hundred or-so years ago were built for pilgrims to climb. Behind me, maybe two dozen meters into the bushes, there is red tape and several signs warning of mines. Further up the slope is a blue sign about a cleared minefield. The Cambodians put up those blue signs everywhere. Every party-member has one at their house. Everywhere where there has been foreign aid there is one, usually proclaiming with a flag who did what for them. Korea built this school. The European Disaster Relief Fund dug this well. ZOA provided this medicare-center. The Hodgess-Family from New York built this family home. The German government financed this provincial police station. And then this: This minefield was cleared with funds from the French government. The cleared area encompasses 4313 square meters of steeply sloped jungle. 612 mines were disarmed, as were 7 unexploded pieces of ordinance. I sit next to it and do the math. Back in my army days I learned that a clearing-quote of 95% in land mines is decent enough. That would mean that there are still around 30 land mines in that patch of jungle. 15 for an area as big as my family-yard in Hamburg used to be. Yet, the mines are a very abstract danger to me. I sit there, contemplating them. Guess I just shouldn't go off the paths and roads then, huh?
Snippets from Abroad: 010
Last stages of a long journey:
The road is terrifying. Not that it's in a bad state, it isn't clearly, it's just that where I'm from nobody would build a road like this. I sometimes have nightmares where I have to follow someone along a road or a path on foot and the way gets steeper and steeper until I am climbing and then finally, it's all wall and I can no longer follow. This is that road. The slope must in places be more than 110% and while I have no idea how we're getting up there on this little motorbike and whether or not the driver has calculated my immense weight correctly so we won't fall over backwards, it does explain why the temple visitors must take drivers working here, and here only to go the last five kilometers of ascending the mountain. I had intended to take some pictures on the ride up but now all I can do is hold on for dear life, trying not to slip off the back of the bike while the incredible view goes by largely unnoticed. We pass troops, first a few at road-posts, then an entire village of them, with their families around too. Some kids are playing volleyball, something that the Khmer seem to really love as I have seen dozens of volleyball-fields in front of even the poorest-looking peasant shacks in the countryside. Up on top I start walking towards the temple. An army officer calls to me and asks me for my nationality. I tell him and he says "Okay!" and gestures for me to go on. I do and wonder, what answer would have been the wrong one...
The road is terrifying. Not that it's in a bad state, it isn't clearly, it's just that where I'm from nobody would build a road like this. I sometimes have nightmares where I have to follow someone along a road or a path on foot and the way gets steeper and steeper until I am climbing and then finally, it's all wall and I can no longer follow. This is that road. The slope must in places be more than 110% and while I have no idea how we're getting up there on this little motorbike and whether or not the driver has calculated my immense weight correctly so we won't fall over backwards, it does explain why the temple visitors must take drivers working here, and here only to go the last five kilometers of ascending the mountain. I had intended to take some pictures on the ride up but now all I can do is hold on for dear life, trying not to slip off the back of the bike while the incredible view goes by largely unnoticed. We pass troops, first a few at road-posts, then an entire village of them, with their families around too. Some kids are playing volleyball, something that the Khmer seem to really love as I have seen dozens of volleyball-fields in front of even the poorest-looking peasant shacks in the countryside. Up on top I start walking towards the temple. An army officer calls to me and asks me for my nationality. I tell him and he says "Okay!" and gestures for me to go on. I do and wonder, what answer would have been the wrong one...
Snippets from Abroad 009
Being off the maps:
It is dark when the bus reaches the elusive Sra Em. The town isn't big, although I don't dare to guess the population as it would wildly differ from a German town of the same area. It's all centered around a circular traffic where three paved roads come together. At said circle is where the bus drops me off, the driver using several attempts at gestures and saying "Sra Em" until he gets through my stupid foreign skull that I have arrived and gotta get off. I grab my backpack from the mud by the side of the road, where it has been unloaded from the bus' belly together with the wares people brought here to sell, presumably on the market I can see stretching along one of the three roads. A moto-driver comes for me and asks in very broken English if I want a guesthouse. I assume that I'm too far away from anything for there to be any designated tourist-traps around here and agree, being glad enough to have found someone who has at least five or six words worth of a language I know (my attempts on the bus after English-Speaking-Guy had gotten off - "English? Deutsch? Pasa Thai? Nihongo? Okay I'll spare you the Latin..." hat been fruitless). He basically just drives me across the road, as the guesthouse is at the start of the market. He translates that I want a room and it's five dollars per night. Then he gets to the main course, as he knows why I am here and wants to be my driver tomorrow. "Seven AM" I tell him. "Eight?" he asks. "No. Seven." I say, wanting an early start and knowing it gets light around six. The room is tiny, a bit dirty and there are cracks in the boards where things I don't want to think about can crawl through. I have a fan that runs on the sputtering generator I hear from the backyard and the bathroom consists of a seatless toilet in a wetroom with a big bowl that serves as flush, shower and basin. Welcome to Cambodia. It starts to rain.
It is dark when the bus reaches the elusive Sra Em. The town isn't big, although I don't dare to guess the population as it would wildly differ from a German town of the same area. It's all centered around a circular traffic where three paved roads come together. At said circle is where the bus drops me off, the driver using several attempts at gestures and saying "Sra Em" until he gets through my stupid foreign skull that I have arrived and gotta get off. I grab my backpack from the mud by the side of the road, where it has been unloaded from the bus' belly together with the wares people brought here to sell, presumably on the market I can see stretching along one of the three roads. A moto-driver comes for me and asks in very broken English if I want a guesthouse. I assume that I'm too far away from anything for there to be any designated tourist-traps around here and agree, being glad enough to have found someone who has at least five or six words worth of a language I know (my attempts on the bus after English-Speaking-Guy had gotten off - "English? Deutsch? Pasa Thai? Nihongo? Okay I'll spare you the Latin..." hat been fruitless). He basically just drives me across the road, as the guesthouse is at the start of the market. He translates that I want a room and it's five dollars per night. Then he gets to the main course, as he knows why I am here and wants to be my driver tomorrow. "Seven AM" I tell him. "Eight?" he asks. "No. Seven." I say, wanting an early start and knowing it gets light around six. The room is tiny, a bit dirty and there are cracks in the boards where things I don't want to think about can crawl through. I have a fan that runs on the sputtering generator I hear from the backyard and the bathroom consists of a seatless toilet in a wetroom with a big bowl that serves as flush, shower and basin. Welcome to Cambodia. It starts to rain.
Snippets from Abroad 008
Off the beaten path:
This is what it must be like to be mute and illiterate, which I effectively am in this place. I am sitting on an overland-bus, the aircon soothing the heat of the tropical day, as it goes along a brand-new road I would later find out has been part of a 2000-km-roads developmental-aid-gift by the Peoples Republic of China. A guy sitting next to me speaks roughly fifteen words of English and I have a sheet of paper where my Tuk Tuk driver wrote down the place that I have picked as my final destination, the elusive town of Sra Em, Sro Em, Sraem, Sa Em or however you want to transcribe the place that isn't on any map, in Khmer so people know what to make out of my bad pronunciation of the word. These are the two assets I have. The guy at the office of the travel agency who sold me this bus ticket spoke some more English and said that the bus wouldn't go all the way to Sra Em, that I would have to get a taxi for the last 15 to 20 k. The guy next to me disagrees, says that I should go all the way to the end. Now all I can do is wait and watch the landscape go by, while the old TV mounted in the front of the center aisle shows the trips entertainment program to the crowd of Cambodians traveling between towns: First a movie about a young Jet Li defending a young woman from hordes of assassins, which really opens up some questions on the logistics of triads killing an unaware civilian with like thirty people spread out all over a shopping-mall, then a movie where Chow Yun Fat plays a professional killer - what else? The Khmer dubbing is horrible, especially when it comes to children, but I've heard worse. Having no idea when the bus arrives, I lean back and enjoy the show...
This is what it must be like to be mute and illiterate, which I effectively am in this place. I am sitting on an overland-bus, the aircon soothing the heat of the tropical day, as it goes along a brand-new road I would later find out has been part of a 2000-km-roads developmental-aid-gift by the Peoples Republic of China. A guy sitting next to me speaks roughly fifteen words of English and I have a sheet of paper where my Tuk Tuk driver wrote down the place that I have picked as my final destination, the elusive town of Sra Em, Sro Em, Sraem, Sa Em or however you want to transcribe the place that isn't on any map, in Khmer so people know what to make out of my bad pronunciation of the word. These are the two assets I have. The guy at the office of the travel agency who sold me this bus ticket spoke some more English and said that the bus wouldn't go all the way to Sra Em, that I would have to get a taxi for the last 15 to 20 k. The guy next to me disagrees, says that I should go all the way to the end. Now all I can do is wait and watch the landscape go by, while the old TV mounted in the front of the center aisle shows the trips entertainment program to the crowd of Cambodians traveling between towns: First a movie about a young Jet Li defending a young woman from hordes of assassins, which really opens up some questions on the logistics of triads killing an unaware civilian with like thirty people spread out all over a shopping-mall, then a movie where Chow Yun Fat plays a professional killer - what else? The Khmer dubbing is horrible, especially when it comes to children, but I've heard worse. Having no idea when the bus arrives, I lean back and enjoy the show...
Sonntag, 19. August 2012
Snippets from Abroad 007
Planning is nice and good and sometimes even works:
Over a beer last night with the Frenchman who either owns this place or very much seems like it, my hopes of getting to my destination easily where somewhat diminished. Nobody working in the guesthouse could think of a regular way to get where the crazy guy talking about needing to get there for his thesis wanted to go. Maybe from Pnom Penh, they said. There was no message from the batman-loving tuk tuk driver. I went to sleep, having decided to go by the Frenchmans word and ask my way through the bus-offices in town the next day. Said next day came and when I came down the stairs, I realized only after sitting down in the lobby that the vehicle parked infront of the place was covered in bat-symbols. I grinned and so did Nathy. "You want to go now?" he asked. "Just let me get my stuff and check out." I answered. Better have everything with you. Stay flexible. Keep moving.
Over a beer last night with the Frenchman who either owns this place or very much seems like it, my hopes of getting to my destination easily where somewhat diminished. Nobody working in the guesthouse could think of a regular way to get where the crazy guy talking about needing to get there for his thesis wanted to go. Maybe from Pnom Penh, they said. There was no message from the batman-loving tuk tuk driver. I went to sleep, having decided to go by the Frenchmans word and ask my way through the bus-offices in town the next day. Said next day came and when I came down the stairs, I realized only after sitting down in the lobby that the vehicle parked infront of the place was covered in bat-symbols. I grinned and so did Nathy. "You want to go now?" he asked. "Just let me get my stuff and check out." I answered. Better have everything with you. Stay flexible. Keep moving.
Snippets from Abroad 006
I once did know this place. It's just that I had chosen to forget:
Walking through this town costs me much more than paying a driver for a vehicle. I realize that I have made that same thought-connection before, more than eight years ago and until now had completely forgot. It all came back to me when I ran into a man named Tok Vanna, selling books from a mobile stall. At first glance he was just another street-vendor, at second glance I realized that he was missing both of his hands. Back in my days with the Armored Engineering Corpse, our hallway had been plastered with pictures of landmines and the horrible injuries caused by them and I realized what had happened to him. He spoke a few words of English and I bought two books from him, one I might actually find useful and one that I probably won't read. The man was amazingly skilled in using his two stumps to give me exact change and such things. He is married and has two kids. He hands out photocopies from a BBC-article about him to his customers. From it I now know his full story. How he was a government-solder when he picked up that landmine in '88. How he still had the presence of thought to try and kill himself with a hand-grenade right after his hands had been ripped off, but one of his fellow soldiers stopped him. How he had been homeless, saved by his mother, became homeless again and then taken to a disabled handicraft-center by an aid-worker. Later he opened his own business because he wanted to support a family, which he now does. I am glad I bought his books. On the next corner is a woman who is missing a leg. A fuse, or maybe a dragon-tooth, I think and give her my Riel which I won't spend anyways. She is grateful because it amounts to about two dollars. While I eat dinner, my emotions overcome me and I start to cry. Even the six-year-old girl selling postcards pities me and for once leaves me alone...
Walking through this town costs me much more than paying a driver for a vehicle. I realize that I have made that same thought-connection before, more than eight years ago and until now had completely forgot. It all came back to me when I ran into a man named Tok Vanna, selling books from a mobile stall. At first glance he was just another street-vendor, at second glance I realized that he was missing both of his hands. Back in my days with the Armored Engineering Corpse, our hallway had been plastered with pictures of landmines and the horrible injuries caused by them and I realized what had happened to him. He spoke a few words of English and I bought two books from him, one I might actually find useful and one that I probably won't read. The man was amazingly skilled in using his two stumps to give me exact change and such things. He is married and has two kids. He hands out photocopies from a BBC-article about him to his customers. From it I now know his full story. How he was a government-solder when he picked up that landmine in '88. How he still had the presence of thought to try and kill himself with a hand-grenade right after his hands had been ripped off, but one of his fellow soldiers stopped him. How he had been homeless, saved by his mother, became homeless again and then taken to a disabled handicraft-center by an aid-worker. Later he opened his own business because he wanted to support a family, which he now does. I am glad I bought his books. On the next corner is a woman who is missing a leg. A fuse, or maybe a dragon-tooth, I think and give her my Riel which I won't spend anyways. She is grateful because it amounts to about two dollars. While I eat dinner, my emotions overcome me and I start to cry. Even the six-year-old girl selling postcards pities me and for once leaves me alone...
Samstag, 18. August 2012
Snippets from Abroad 005
I don't know this place:
I've been here before, twice, spending a total of ten nights in this town, yet I know nothing about it. I guess that's the burden a place has to bear when the most fantastic historical ruins of the planet are nearby and buses tend to arrive at night and leave in the morning. The times I have been here, I spent all day from dawn until sundown around Angkor. Not this time. This time I'm just passing through and, for the first time, actually look at this place. It's a lot bigger than I thought. When I pictured this trip in my mind, I saw myself strolling down a main-street, not much unlike the one at the border, asking around in the few bus-offices where to find a bus to take me to my obscure destination. This won't work here. I hire a moto to take me to one of the guest houses that are on my list of good accommodations. The driver is a young boy, not in his twenties and his vehicle, a rikshaw drawn by a detachable scooter is covered with homebrew-batman signs. So I tell him what I want to do and, offer him a reward if he helps me. He gives me his cellphone number and I give him my name so he can find me at the place I decide to stay at. He'll find me a bus-ride and I give him money that I know is worth half a day of his driving. We both win.
I've been here before, twice, spending a total of ten nights in this town, yet I know nothing about it. I guess that's the burden a place has to bear when the most fantastic historical ruins of the planet are nearby and buses tend to arrive at night and leave in the morning. The times I have been here, I spent all day from dawn until sundown around Angkor. Not this time. This time I'm just passing through and, for the first time, actually look at this place. It's a lot bigger than I thought. When I pictured this trip in my mind, I saw myself strolling down a main-street, not much unlike the one at the border, asking around in the few bus-offices where to find a bus to take me to my obscure destination. This won't work here. I hire a moto to take me to one of the guest houses that are on my list of good accommodations. The driver is a young boy, not in his twenties and his vehicle, a rikshaw drawn by a detachable scooter is covered with homebrew-batman signs. So I tell him what I want to do and, offer him a reward if he helps me. He gives me his cellphone number and I give him my name so he can find me at the place I decide to stay at. He'll find me a bus-ride and I give him money that I know is worth half a day of his driving. We both win.
Snippets from Abroad 004
Sometimes, decisions need to be made quickly:
I have checked in at the small guesthouse in the dusty border-town two hours ago. It had been a rough trip here, through the nightly Bangkok, a long bus-ride, across a huge border-market full of scammers shilling out fake visa, waiting in line at the border for what must have been hours, evading the next wave of scammers, these forcing overpriced transport upon you and then finally arriving at this guesthouse where I am sure that I'm the first non-Thai foreigner they had as a guest in at least a month. I was tired and dirty and spread out my pack across the room before leaving to get a bus-ticket with one of the local bus companies for the next day. Out there I heard that there was no bus the next day. Only one today. Leaving in 16 minutes. There were two options here: Spend another day and night in this crummy border-town doing nothing or hurrying the fuck up. I decided for the latter and sprinted back to the guesthouse, running upstairs, stuffing everything I can find into my backpack running back downstairs, pressing my key into the waiting hands of the lady who seems to own the place and also seems to understand exactly what is going on and then run along the dusty road to get to that bus in time. Two steps of the trip in one day, not in two. I have lost some money on that room but I have gained a day. Not a bad trade...
I have checked in at the small guesthouse in the dusty border-town two hours ago. It had been a rough trip here, through the nightly Bangkok, a long bus-ride, across a huge border-market full of scammers shilling out fake visa, waiting in line at the border for what must have been hours, evading the next wave of scammers, these forcing overpriced transport upon you and then finally arriving at this guesthouse where I am sure that I'm the first non-Thai foreigner they had as a guest in at least a month. I was tired and dirty and spread out my pack across the room before leaving to get a bus-ticket with one of the local bus companies for the next day. Out there I heard that there was no bus the next day. Only one today. Leaving in 16 minutes. There were two options here: Spend another day and night in this crummy border-town doing nothing or hurrying the fuck up. I decided for the latter and sprinted back to the guesthouse, running upstairs, stuffing everything I can find into my backpack running back downstairs, pressing my key into the waiting hands of the lady who seems to own the place and also seems to understand exactly what is going on and then run along the dusty road to get to that bus in time. Two steps of the trip in one day, not in two. I have lost some money on that room but I have gained a day. Not a bad trade...
Snippets from Abroad 003
Reminiscing about boiling in my own juices:
The climate here and I are enemies. Up until now, neither of us was willing to admit it but as I find myself walking through the streets an hour before sunrise, already sweating like a pig, I realize that this is an environment hostile to me. Yes I can exist here but with the right equipment, human beings can exist on the god-damn moon - subsisting, now that is another matter entirely. Inside an air-conditioned environment I can exist but as soon as I'm outside, my very life-essence starts seeping out through the pores of my skin, draining me of energy, will and strength. Amazed, I see the locals, some wearing actual fucking jackets, none of them breaking any sweat, with the rare exception of what must be Thailands only jogger, who ran past me a few minutes ago, disappearing into the urban night like an apparition. I wasn't made for this climate. What is normal for the people here to me is something that has to be braved and endured...
The climate here and I are enemies. Up until now, neither of us was willing to admit it but as I find myself walking through the streets an hour before sunrise, already sweating like a pig, I realize that this is an environment hostile to me. Yes I can exist here but with the right equipment, human beings can exist on the god-damn moon - subsisting, now that is another matter entirely. Inside an air-conditioned environment I can exist but as soon as I'm outside, my very life-essence starts seeping out through the pores of my skin, draining me of energy, will and strength. Amazed, I see the locals, some wearing actual fucking jackets, none of them breaking any sweat, with the rare exception of what must be Thailands only jogger, who ran past me a few minutes ago, disappearing into the urban night like an apparition. I wasn't made for this climate. What is normal for the people here to me is something that has to be braved and endured...
Freitag, 17. August 2012
Snippets from Abroad 002
Waiting for the bus:
It's been over forty-five minutes I have been waiting here for a Bus with the number 47 to come by and take me to where I can shower, sleep, and recuperate from the pressing, humid heat of the day. Sometimes, three buses in a row, all bearing the same, wrong number come by, as if to mock me that, yes, this city is dying from cardiac arrest in its traffic-veins every night but there is motion there, just not the one I need. So I decide to go but then see two other foreigners, girls stacked with shopping-bags, come by, argue with a taxi driver, then say something along the lines of "or we could wait for the bus", laughing at the obvious impossibility of the joke, and then getting onto one of the waiting TukTuks, those carrion-sharks of the streets that are circling the area, waiting for customers/prey. Well, as I have a smug sense of superiority to defend infront of myself, my only option is to keep waiting, then, for the number 47 to arrive...
It's been over forty-five minutes I have been waiting here for a Bus with the number 47 to come by and take me to where I can shower, sleep, and recuperate from the pressing, humid heat of the day. Sometimes, three buses in a row, all bearing the same, wrong number come by, as if to mock me that, yes, this city is dying from cardiac arrest in its traffic-veins every night but there is motion there, just not the one I need. So I decide to go but then see two other foreigners, girls stacked with shopping-bags, come by, argue with a taxi driver, then say something along the lines of "or we could wait for the bus", laughing at the obvious impossibility of the joke, and then getting onto one of the waiting TukTuks, those carrion-sharks of the streets that are circling the area, waiting for customers/prey. Well, as I have a smug sense of superiority to defend infront of myself, my only option is to keep waiting, then, for the number 47 to arrive...
Snippets from Abroad 001
Somewhere in Bangkok, a man gets his picture taken for a Visa to the next country over:
This is the future, as seen from the warped perspective of a 1980s technophile fever dream, and I'm a disheveled-looking bum, I realize while a girl looking right out of Bladerunner with metal through her skin all over and the unsettling-as-fuck-look of black contacts in her eyes works her mad photoshop-skillz on the picture she has just taken of me until, at least in that picture, I look like I actually belong here in this noisy, high-tech slice of the 21st century. Then I decide to be more weary about how I keep myself: Beware or you may find some day that the overweight, shoddily-clothed, sweaty, shifty-looking foreigner voicelessly muttering to himself while strolling through the shopping mall is indeed - you.
This is the future, as seen from the warped perspective of a 1980s technophile fever dream, and I'm a disheveled-looking bum, I realize while a girl looking right out of Bladerunner with metal through her skin all over and the unsettling-as-fuck-look of black contacts in her eyes works her mad photoshop-skillz on the picture she has just taken of me until, at least in that picture, I look like I actually belong here in this noisy, high-tech slice of the 21st century. Then I decide to be more weary about how I keep myself: Beware or you may find some day that the overweight, shoddily-clothed, sweaty, shifty-looking foreigner voicelessly muttering to himself while strolling through the shopping mall is indeed - you.
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