Vagabond Lee's very good birthday in Romania

It's been about seven years since the vagabond guest blogger, M. Lee, contributed anything here but last week, after his birthday encounter with a Romanian cop, he agreed to share the story here.

Peles Palace
Romania

I like Romania.  It likes me. Here is my birthday story.

Today was our last day with the car.  We're leaving tomorrow for Budapest.  I hate renting cars and I'm pretty sick of driving in general, but for here, it's a necessity.  So we had this car for six days.  On the first day, I dented it.  I have 3rd party insurance, but still, paperwork, anxiety, etc.  That was the first day.  Do you think I put it out of my mind?  No, of course not, each passing day it only got worse.

Asha hurt her knee so she can't walk much right now but we already took yesterday off, so I was at least going to take a road trip.  We headed out to visit Peles Palace on the main highway, a two lane road.  According to Google, it would take us an hour to go 20 miles.  I moved with the flow of traffic and about 20 minutes out I got flagged by a traffic cop who was parked by the side of the road.  I've been through this enough, it's the shake down and fuck it, Romania is cheap, but I've been saving the last of my Romanian money to fill up the gas tank on the way back.  It's a minor inconvenience, but I'm not really sweating it when the traffic cop comes over and starts talking to me in Romanian.

"Romeneshte no, inglese?" I say.

"I need to see identification and license please."

I hand over my passport and drivers license and he tells me to get out of the car and follow him back to his car.  There, he shows me a dashboard device displaying, presumably, my speed and the contrasting speed limit.  The angle is bad and I can't really see it but who cares, I know where this is going.

"You pay the ticket now.  145 lei.  You pay now."

"I need to see the ticket first, can you show me the ticket." I say.

He shows me the large ticket book but remains adamant, I must fork over the cash now, and he'll give me the "ticket" after.  I fork over the cash.

"You go back to your car now and wait."

I'm back in the car, waiting as instructed, about 50 US dollars poorer.  The other cop, the guy's partner, flags down a bus.  I don't feel so persecuted, so singled out.  If this is not a scam, they must have a remote radar somewhere on the road because otherwise, they are just two fat cops sitting in a car on the side of the road waiting for random victims.  As that guy passes me, heading toward the bus, he says "you go back there now".  So I go, back to the patrol car.

There, my cop has my passport open and points to the date and says "today is your birthday".  "Yeah" I reply, thinking, I don't know, maybe it's his birthday too?  "Happy birthday" he says, sticking his hand out to shake my hand.  I shake his hand and say thanks in Romanian and then he hands me back my money.  What?  "Happy birthday, you buy the missus with you some champagna, da?  You buy the champagna!"  Then he finishes writing the ticket, which takes about five more minutes because bureaucracy, and hands me my copy.  "Souvenir, you keep this for souvenir."

"Mooltzu mesk, la revederay" I say, showing off my scant Romanian, and skip back to the car.

And the dent later in the day at the car agency?  Fortunately, it's hard to see if you're tall, it's on the underside of the car below the door.  There's even a chance I didn't do it.  Amazingly, I get the tallest guy in the place to come look at the car, taller than me.  I wait inside.  He's back in a minute, rustling around, probably looking for accident forms while I act cool and pretend to be doing something on my phone.  He hands me a receipt showing the release of my deposit and I practically run out of the place before he can change his mind.

If the absence of pain is pleasure, then this has been a very good birthday.

In the rafters of a medieval church

Baby Watch 8 or Equation for BABY + Dinosaur Plant

source

And now in a Language Barrier exclusive.....

a renown mystery guest blogger aka the Itinerant Mathematician I encountered wandering in a desert dust storm on the Black Rock playa or was it somewhere outside of Las Vegas?, aka my brother (not the guy on the bike), combines the pure art and science of poetry and mathematics in this brilliant proof showing that indeed patience IS virtue, virtue IS grace and put TOGETHER make a very pretty face + Dinosaur Plant in bottom right-hand corner. Thank you Itinerant Mathematician.

(Click for a better look)

All available sizes here.

And thus and still... we wait.

Thailand, all good things must come

...to an end. Enjoy.

July 5 - In this final email Mr. Lee, esteemed guest blogger, kindly cobbles together not only some "best of" tips from his recent adventures in Thailand, but (finally) includes four very excellent photos he took along the way to leave us with these last tasty.....


~assorted bits~

In Ayuthaya the men in green vests are taxi drivers, maybe the only taxi drivers, and their taxis are tiny motorbikes. If you are born riding this way and are small, you will ride gently, gracefully, talking on your phone or perhaps reading the daily news, and if you are female you will even ride side saddle. But I grabbed onto the driver like I was drowning and I didn't let go. I wasn't going to fall off the back of his bike with no helmet, not into traffic. He was mildly perturbed when he dropped me off but I let him overcharge me by a dollar so what the hell.


Of all the Thai massages I had, the one in Ayuthaya was the best. It was pure local style, not for tourists, and I was the only Westerner in the place. Forget about your Swedish massage, Thai massage is communal and social and people chat and talk on the phone and grunt openly with pain and pleasure. There is no oil and you wear the clothing they provide. In my case, this was a comically tiny suit that covered to my knees and elbows, but nobody seemed to care and a couple ladies who were also being massaged asked me if I liked Thai massage and how often I got a massage and I said yes and weekly and they seemed to approve. My masseuse was short and round and his hair was frosted with blond highlights and I'm not judging but I have never been groped quite so vigorously by a man. It was the best and most thorough massage I had in Thailand.



Just outside Khao Yai National Park, Thailand's first but now just one among many, I saw two million bats fly out of a cave at sunset. It took an hour. They streamed out in a twisting column. It was a miracle. It happens every night. And then I walked among them as they fed. The next day, inside the park, I saw gibbons and hornbills and deer and macaques and snakes, poisonous and not, and I saw a sun bear climbing down a fig tree and a spider as big as my hand. It was the start of the rainy season - how much more exotic to call it what it is, the beginning of the monsoon - and the leeches were mustering and I had to wear leech socks which at first I thought were kind of a joke but later came to appreciate mightily. Leeches are surprisingly fast. They stay on the ground and whip around when they sense you coming and attach to your boot and work their way up looking for soft skin. They burrow into folds in the leech socks and wait for opportunity. Some move above the sock cuff, above the knee, onto the pants. They are relentless, they are the zombies of the animal world. Once, I stood off the path and peed onto the forest floor and the leeches came from all sides, inching toward the stream, looking for...food. I stared at the leaf scatter and the dirt and I stared into tiny mouths of hell. I checked my legs for leeches and moved on.

The ticket lady at the Bangkok municipal pier shortchanged me by a buck. I watched her shortchange other tourists while I waited for the riverboat. Later, a really helpful tout claiming to work for the government made me board a tuk tuk and negotiated an actual Thai fare, for which I was grateful, and sent me to "Thai Pier" on the Chao Praya River, the big muddy running through the heart of Bangkok, for an overpriced tour of the river and canals. I declined the river tour and really only got on the tuk tuk because I was tired and hungry and because there would be food sellers by the pier (and truthfully because I just wanted the novelty of paying what a Thai person would pay for a tuk tuk ride).

I found a food in Pak Chong, gateway to Khao Yai National Park, a food which could rival my beloved flan. It is called Kao Neow Sankayah. It is sweet sticky rice made with coconut milk and topped with egg custard and wrapped in a banana leaf. Ok, so it's flan, basically. Ok.



--M. Lee

Big thank you very much, Mr. Lee. Happy Travels.

Sound of one hand clapping.

Home

As I write this, Mr. Lee is winging his way home from Thailand, via Hong Kong. Winging, that sounds kind of nice, as though he's a huge, transoceanic bird doing what birds have always done, dipping and diving, floating, gliding and shooting wind currents the way a raft shoots the river's rapids. Unfortunately, this is not the case. He is stuffed into a too small airline seat that does not recline and, other than occasional stretches at the back of the plane, is stuck there for some 20 or 30 hours, including time spent waiting in airline terminals for connecting flights, iow... hell. He is flying backwards into our Saturday and, at this point, though it is morning here, he is somewhere in our last night, cramped, sweaty, maybe watching a second or third movie though one eye on a Saturday that just won't end.

Mr. Bun

July 21 - Mr. Lee, our Barrier guest blogger, discusses the finer points of international cuisine from the ancient city of Ayutthaya, Thailand's second capital.


Mexico has Chedraui, Thailand has the Big C. I love Big C for its a/c and its food court. I love Chedraui for its flan. In fact, I could never completely love a country that is flan-less, but in fairness I haven't yet sampled every Thai desert. There's a lot of cold sweet jellied stuff here that is sort of flan-esque and I could maybe make an adjustment.

Photo Kate Raynes-Goldie

Plus, Thailand has Mister Bun. Mr. Bun makes a humble little bun which resembles the Mexican bun but is oh so very much more delicious. Mr. Bun buns are crunchy, chewy, aromatic and scrumptious. I have had two flavors, coconut and coffee. I know the coffee flavor probably sounds weird but trust me. It is fantastic. It makes me very happy.

And Thailand is also the home of the extremely delicious, made-while-you-wait, deep fried banana/egg donut. A Bangladeshi banana woman sold me some in the market place one night. Unfortunately, I am beginning to think she must have been a hallucination. I have driven by what I thought was her corner about a dozen times. I swear she told me she was there every night, but I'll bet she was just there because it was the weekend, maybe? Maybe she told me she was at the Night Market every night? I don't know anymore. So, class, remember that you must savor what you can when you can because the opportunity may never come again.

I am so close to the Nat. Park that I am going to tough it out and go. Nature is one of my grounds, a true source of strength and insight, and I will regret it if I don't go and if I spend so many hot shitty days in the shit hole that is Bangkok. I'll be on a 2-day tour. I wonder if anyone else will be on the tour?

--M. Lee

Ugly American

June 21 - Happy happy... more from the Language Barrier guest blogger, what's left of him as it all melts down in Ayutthaya during south east Asia's record heat wave.

Two Guys and a Trip

Is the term Ugly American still used? Because if it is, I am the ugliest I've ever been. I rented a motorbike from a woman bartender today. I mention the gender because the bike was her personal machine and it was pinkish and the keychain was long, I mean really big, and furry and fuschia. Maybe a whole rabbit's leg de-boned? The Ugly: I don't know the speed limit here, I don't know any traffic laws, I can't read any of the signs, I can't even speak the language, I drive like a maniac, I am completely and blithely unaware of local or national customs (although I do know not to disrespect the King because that will send you right to jail in a hurry and for years)...when I do my laundry, which is often because I'm continually soaked in sweat, I go out in public in old surf trunks and a ratty shirt that looks and smells like cats clawed it and then peed all over it. These are my wash and wear items, the stuff that I rinse in the sink, that dries in minutes even here. It's an imperfect system.

More Ugly: It's too hot for my brain to give a shit. Sure, there's a decent part that yearns to, but I just can't be bothered to learn any Thai. After so much travel in Latin America, where criminals are crafty and mean and sometimes dangerous, the scams here are a relief. Stuff is cheap and I overpay and overtip and just don't care. You want to what? Overcharge me by 50 cents? Oh, you're a sly one ahahahahaha, please, go right ahead. Let me round it up for you to a buck, ok?

This is not me. My brains have been cooked into something else. On the plus side, I'm friendly to dogs and children and grannies and criminals alike and always smile and never raise my voice. Big happy goofy guy. Here, have a dollar.

--M. Lee

Michigan J. Frog does Thailand

Or is it the other way around?

June 20 - another contribution from the Language Barrier's vagabond guest blogger Michigan J. Frog in his gallant attempt to pad my blog...


Now that I am self-consciously a "guest blogger" I'm finding it hard to write. You know the feeling and now I do too. I'm not really inspired to travel-rant which is really the only time I enjoy writing at all. And now that I'm trying to craft them, the words just won't come. In this one sense at least, this trip has brought us closer together: I finally appreciate some of your artistic pain. Writing is hard and slow if you have to wait for inspiration to do it (but fuck that shit, 'cause I ain't gonna do it every day, not ever, 'cause I have NOT been chosen to write.). Photography, even as primitively as we do it, is hard. It's impossible to shoot people well. I have failed and failed. Even with objects, it is almost impossible to capture what you are seeing. You will get something and sometimes it will be nice, but you can't ever shoot what you see (it reminds me of what Dad once told me in a rare candid moment about playing jazz when he said he was always trying and always failing to play the music as he heard it in his head). And the battery ran out of juice while I was at Sukhothai. Woe.

Thai Panda blog

So today I'm going to continue my exploration of Thai historical sites. Ayutthaya, close as it is to Bangkok (about 50 miles), gets much more tourism than other places I have visited. I prefer to avoid tourist places - they can get ugly and warped like trash-eating street macaques (I tell you, the first time one of those little bastards bares his toothy fangs and stares you down while hissing at you, you will have monkey-phobia too because I don't care how badass you are on the internet, in real life you will be outnumbered by a thousand to one and those little fuckers can bite through a coconut). On the other hand, tourist infrastructure means English menus and free wifi, so it's not all bad.

Daily Mail

It's 8 AM and I'm sitting in the shade in front of a fan and already sweating. Where's my motorbike?

Thai Panda blog

--M. Lee

Buddha on the road

Old Sukhothai


I thank Whirling Phoenix for posting this lovely photo of old Sukhoithai. Other than one charming picture of his rented motorbike, I am still waiting for photos from Mr. Lee but he did email another post to share so back to Thailand, this time in the lovely old and new city of Sukhothai again on an old motorbike...

June 18

I'm staying at the TR Guesthouse in New Sukhothai. Yesterday, I set off for Old Sukhothai. The history is not clear, at least not to me, but many will tell you that Sukhothai is something like the origin of the Thai monarchy or possibly the cradle of Thai culture or even civilization and that its origins date to the 13th Century. Let's just say that it's an important historic site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it's full of old buildings and old Buddhas, all in a park-like setting.

Every single piece of literature you can find on visiting Sukhothai, no exception, will tell you to rent a bike near the front gate, and this is good advice. A bike is a lovely way to visit the park. But I was born to ride and you know it was way way way too hot to pedal. I got my motorbike, the oldest and the crappiest one yet, and I hit the road. Seven miles later I was at the entrance.

There were one thousand children there already, mostly on bicycles, mostly dressed in pink school uniforms. Most of them wanted to practice their one English word on the only foreign visitor there. They were polite and good-natured and I said "hello" back 500 times throughout the day. It was hotter than hell, probably 100 degrees. I talked to Buddhas, listened to monks, sat in the shade, ate lotus moon cake, drank water, said hello to children. All good things come to an end, and I made my way back to my room before dark.

Another day, another site. Si Satchanalai is like a sister city to Sukhothai except it gets few visitors and is less restored. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was too far for the little crappy motorbike, so I took a bus. This was stressful. I know I am a visitor here but Thailand has been part of the gringo trail for decades and yet it is shocking how little English there is. I didn't really plan this trip and I didn't learn any Thai but it would seriously help. I asked six different people to help me get off the bus (getting on the bus if fairly straightforward as New Sukhothai has a nice bilingual bus station) but this concern of mine was completely incomprehensible. Turns out, someone did help me get off at the wide spot in the road that is the entrance for Si Satchanalai. Without help, I would have missed it completely. On the bus ride back, I saw two Thais miss their stop by about 10 miles because no stops are announced ever. Probably happens all the time.

Wat Traphang Ngoen -Sukhothai, Thailand - photo by Taiger808

I rented a bike (sigh) for one dollar and had the park to myself. For me the place was 20 times better than Sukhothai. It was right on the river, it was covered in trees and wildlife, it had better buildings, though fewer Buddhas, and a temple with the remains of 36 life-size elephant statues. It was one of the most photogenic places I've visited in Thailand. I entered the site on a wood-planked pedestrian suspension bridge over a broad muddy river fringed with dense vegetation and palm trees and so damn picture perfect. Too bad I forgot my camera battery. I took it as a message from the Buddha to let go of my attachments and live in the moment and with only a few pangs that is what I did.

--M. Lee

Ps. In all fairness I can't really hold it against Mr. Lee for failing to supply me with tons of photos. Even I once fell into an irrational stupor while traveling in another country and was completely unable to download my photos until I got home. It was very strange but faced with a crappy, beat up hotel computer and connection, I froze. I like to think I'm past that now but who knows what lies up the dusty road?

Ayutthaya, Thailand - photo by aheu

New Sukhothai

Quick note this morning from New Sukhothai. Looks like a really lovely place but are there tiny little motorbikes?

June 16 - Language Barrier guest blogger

I'm here. The room is small and a little smelly despite all the glowing reviews. The train arrived an hour late and then I had to hunt for a driver to drive me an hour to New Sukhothai.

Anyway, I'm crashing after 14+ hours of travel. I'll see about calling you in the morning...the bandwidth here is scant, but I'll give it a shot.

monkey dragon love,
L.

Ratfink does Thailand

June 15 - another email from the Language Barrier's vagabond guest blogger M. Lee

I just returned the motorbike I have had for the last two days. It is (cannot find the apostrophe key on this Thai keyboard) one of two at the Rabieng guest house in Phetchaburi. I enjoyed the hell out of it probably a little too enthusiastically. Imagine if you will a tall pale giant hunched over a tiny little motorbike, death-gripped to the handlebars, dark wrap shades obscuring wild eyes, a loose fitting old bike helmet over a greasy stained cap (it is the law for farang but the moto helmets were too small), a big shit eating grin across the bug and dirt smeared face, weaving in and out of traffic like life is too short to care (if you are older, Ratfink will provide a frame of reference). Live free or die, baby.

I have a few minutes left on my card back at the Sun Hotel but I do not trust that card so I will tell you now that I leave at 5 AM tomorrow morning heading for Bangkok by train, 4.5 hours, and from Bangkok to Sukhothai by train, 9 hours. Long day. Will probably have internet at the end of it.

I will not be able to phone you in the morning but I will email you if I can when I arrive.

I am finally settling into Thailand. I think you would like it very much. It is possible to get off the tourist trail and have some fun. Phetchaburi is proof. Fun town.

Leefink

Monkeys & motorbikes

June 14 - More from the Language Barrier's roving reporter

I rented the motorbike for another day and have been exploring Phetchaburi. I already have my familiar stops. This is not unlike Antigua in size and feel. Except it has a lot of motorbikes and the monkeys are all over the place (macaques?).

Okay, now I need to use my precious remaining internet minutes figuring out to get the hell out of here.

L.

Phetchaburi

Back on the Thai mainland now, this latest post of Mr. Lee's is from Phetchaburi. I am learning a little bit about the country as he makes his way north. There are wild monkeys living in abandoned buildings and (literally) hanging out in town. And elephants still live free in Thailand. How cool is that!?

And now for the RANT PORTION of this post:
Unscrupulous people are poaching what's left of the world's incredible, irreplaceable exotic wildlife population and superstitious, self-indulgent Asians are their biggest customers. Together these assholes are responsible for endangering these fragile diminishing populations. Whether it's because of a taste for shark fin soup or an ignorant, misguided effort to increase sexuality (which doesn't work but that's not the point), I'm calling you guys out. Think I'm racist? Too bad. As long as you're killing and eating my friends, fuck off.

Don't support exploitation. If you are traveling in this (or any) part of the world please know that travelers are discouraged from buying food from handlers to feed animals or even having their pictures taken with them. The whole system is corrupt and illegal. In Thailand, Wildlife1.org provides a way to anonymously report handlers. I am including the link in case I'm ever in Thailand and want to report somebody. You can use it too.

So now, on to our guest blogger.

June 14 - Phetchaburi Thailand Photos here

After we got off the phone, I strolled around the town to try and get oriented. It had just rained, so it wasn't so hot and I had a window of opportunity to get out and explore. I was the ONLY westerner downtown. I finally shook off the grubby Euro backpack set. Obviously, there are enough stray visitors that I didn't attract too much attention (or the people were really sneaky about it). Folks actually smiled at me, but no one stared.

I found the food market. Pretty much like any market anywhere. I sniffed out some sweets. They make a distinctive egg-based sweet here, sort of like a custard ball, and that's what I thought I found cooking over a charcoal grill. But what I got was something different though probably no less delicious. The sweet was about the size of a ping pong ball and I would guess it consisted of roasted mashed banana or plantain, fresh coconut, maybe a little egg as a binder and maybe a little sugar for a sweetener. I got 10 for 50 cents.

As I munched my snack, I slowly made my way over to the Rabieng Guesthouse, reputedly the only place in town to rent motorbikes. They had two venerable Suzukis. I took the one with two mirrors So far as I know, there are only two motorbikes for rent in the entire town of Phetchaburi (contrast that with the hundreds available on the tiny island of Koh Tao). That's how slight tourism is here.

After learning that it was way too far to travel to Kaeng Krachen National Park (really, one of my main goals in my visit here), and after assuring the girl that I wasn't going to KK Park, I set off for KK Park. I had no map. I had a compass and a vague idea of where the park might be. It's large, the largest in the country, so I figured if I kept driving in one direction, I'd probably run into it. 50 miles later, that's exactly what happened. Although the roads are generally good, the ride there was perilous and hot and dusty and easily one thousand times more dangerous than my aborted plan to visit Khao Sok National Park on a tour.

At the KK Visitor Center, signs were in Thai and English, but nobody spoke any English. The girl at the desk told me I couldn't continue on "motorcycle". When I asked just how, then, I was supposed to get to a trailhead, I was met with incomprehension. It just didn't make sense to me, but she was adamant. I watched a couple motorbikes whiz by and decided to cross the street to Park Headquarters, maybe find a forester who spoke English. I talked to three fellows but they really didn't understand me and continued to gesture toward the Visitor Center despite my protestations, despite my pantomiming riding a motorbike, etc.

I set my jaw and resolved to drive up the damn road, and the heck with the Visitor Center girl. I hopped on my little Suzuki and, like a renegade outlaw biker, I gunned it straight to the center of the park. Nobody pursued me. Nobody cared.

After some time, I came to a luxury resort. I reckoned that a luxury resort would have someone at the desk who was fluent in many languages. I rode through the extensive grounds, covered in sweat and road grime, my filthy day pack on my back, and eventually I got to the front desk. Open air and quite beautiful. There, a nice woman eating a green coconut welcomed me in English. I asked her where exactly I was. My question was impossible, I know, but I had to start somewhere. A half hour and one coconut shake later and finally we came to an understanding. I was just outside the park proper.

The resort was hurting for business. Normally, rooms were $100 or more per night (nice big bed, TV, wifi in the room, biggest pool I'd seen in Asia, great staff, perfect grounds, I could go on). Without negotiating, she offered me a room with breakfast for half price. Great rate, but $50/nt is still too dear for my backpacker budget.

Back in Phetchaburi, I stumbled across the Monday Night Market by accident. Seems half the city was there. Interesting goods including a lot of manufactured goods that were made in Thailand rather than made in China and that just seems so odd and rare these days. In addition to every kind of clothing and consumer good, there was a vast array of food. I'd already eaten at the Night Market - fish and veggies and a fried egg over rice for a buck - so I just had a milky iced tea with grass jelly and two other kind of jellied things.

I'm at the hotel now. My body is still vibrating from more than a hundred miles of hard riding on a small motorbike. I will sleep now.

Mr. Lee

Read about Wildlife Friends of Thailand's latest rescue and news here.

Ps from Thailand

Travel in paradise, news from the Language Barrier guest blogger Mr. Lee

June 11 - Ps

I'll call you in my morning after my coffee and with a full charge on the computer. It takes days notice to make arrangement to get off and go somewhere and I haven't been sure where I'll be going and that takes many hours of research and this tiny computer is too tiny and sometimes the internet goes down for hours and I still have to book a 7-hour overnight ferry ride to somewhere I've never been, a ferry ride in which I'll be crammed like a sardine below deck onto a potentially bed bug infested thin mat 3 inches away from my fellow Thai travelers, no a/c, diesel fumes, body fumes, finally arriving at a port I've never seen in a place I've never been. To suffer like this takes copious research.

L.

Adventures of the Thai-Dragon

"Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why." -Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Circumnavigus Interuptus

June 11

I paddled as hard as I could, almost, but the sun and heat won. And the kayak, not much of a boat, tracked poorly and wallowed like a pig. But the water was lovely and the sea was calm. I did not come close to a proper circumnavigation; even in a real sea kayak, it would have been a serious challenge.

But I own that boat for 24 hours. Cost? 5 American bucks. Gonna paddle south when the sun gets a little lower.

You know that feeling when you are so coated with grime - the sweat and the sunscreen and the salt and the peeling skin - and it seems like nothing you do will ever make you clean, and everything you have is coated with salt and dirt. I feel profoundly dirty. I love the sea but it coats everything and then slowly eats it alive.

Wait, as I sit in my room overlooking the water, I see that another patron is paddling off with my boat! The outrage! I better go investigate.

--M. Lee

Thailand express

Thailand

The last time something from Mr. Lee appeared here at this outpost border crossing we were exploring Mayan ruins together in the Yucatan. Now he's in Thailand and I am not. It sucks. I miss him like crazy but it's clear the Universe wants me in the jungles of Berkeley exploring the poetry scene and I have found, after repeated attempts, that it's best to not argue with the Universe. Anyway, but and so for your reading pleasure I give you Mr. Lee our Language Barrier Guest Blogger du jour writing from the sunrise side of a Gulf of Thailand island paradise.

June 4

Do you like shadenfreude? I know you do. I'm racing against time here with only 22 minutes remaining on this satellite internet connection from bumfuck thailand (yes I found it). Power is supplied by generators and is only on 6 to 12. Internet was not working for me yesterday. Today is ok but like I said, time limit.

I am on the island of Koh Phangan. I flew to Samui and took a ferry. I am on the remote (where else) east side, a little place called Than Sadet. Thai kings used to come here so it is good enough for me.

I was the only patron at Plaas (do not be deceived by the web site, should you go there). Other than four drunk Germans smoking cigarettes around a table, I am the only person here tonight. Tourism is way off in general and it is also the start of the rainy season. I have a great bed, probably the best bed I have had in weeks. It is soaked in my sweat since the fan goes off at midnight. It is so hot here it is hallucinogenic. I can't be sure I am actually at a computer writing an email to you. I am nearly out of time now.

I had hoped to hang out with other travelers at least occasionally. I will move tomorrow to a little more populous place. Will it have internet? I do not know. Please do not be alarmed if you do not hear from me for a couple days by which time I will surely be off this island and on to other parts (the enduring irony here is that I went to this island for a little peace and quiet from the city, a place to gather my thoughts do a little research maybe even skype with you. a bitter irony indeed)

Please feel free to enjoy my plight. Savor the schadenfreude.


June 5 - Here's my "blog post":

I caught the "ferry" from Than Sadet this afternoon, destination Thong Nai Pan Noi, still on the island of Phangan. As lovely and budgetarian as Than Sadet was, it was really too hot and too isolated. The isolation alone would have been ok, but the heat was crippling without electricity to power a fan. Plus, no internet, and I need internet to make plans on the fly.

As I say, I caught the ferry but it wasn't a regular ferry as you might picture a ferry. It was a large boat and it beached, sort of, and I waded to the ladder and handed my backpack up and climbed aboard and then we sped off. There were three other passengers from somewhere else. I spoke to a taciturn Thai who seemed not to understand me at all and I was certain I would not reach my destination easily or quickly but somehow the boat dropped me off (in the water) right in front of my "hotel". It could not have gone easier.

I was the only person to disembark. My hope to meet other travelers is dimming for the moment, but we'll see who gathers around the water hole tonight.


June 6 (after finding lost passport)

sumbitch blended into my luggage, slipped behind a panel...I emptied out my luggage 3 times and the 3rd time was the charm...but first I hopped in a cab toward last night's lodging after trying and failing on each one of their phone numbers...they are really cut off and have no power until evening...was going to go there, find passport, catch the ferry back...stopped the taxi after quarter mile and decided to rent motorbike - cheaper and faster - eventually, I made it there on scary eroded dirt tracks ("you scratchee bike, dragon fucky fucky you long time!") and no passport. Had a great lunch and, dejected, I headed home. Decided to go through everything one more time before calling the US Consulate and BAM!, chinese dragon have pity on me.


June 7

Yes, I disembarked into bathtub-warm water up to my knees and waded about 20 feet onto the shore.

Had a Thai massage in Bangkok (G rated, with clothes on!). It was in a wonderful, relaxing old wooden house in the middle of the city and I was the only customer. I was prepared for lots of pain and a bit of coughing and phlegm from the masseuse, but it was really ok. More than ok, it was great.

I rented a small motorbike for a couple of days and have been exploring the island, cruising through dense jungle roads to get to distant beaches. The place is empty of tourists in general except for a few Germans.

For a variety of reasons (inertia, distance from anywhere else, tricky ferry schedule), I'm finding it hard to get off the island. Not a bad predicament, all in all.


June 10 - Your good night is my good morning

I'm renting a kayak tomorrow ($10 for the day to give you an idea of how cheap it is) and I will attempt to circumnavigate the island, something that is appropriate for a solo dude. I don't got to answer to no one, I just got to paddle. I'm crashing right now - I'll let you sleep and fill you in on the details as soon as I can.




--M. Lee

Guest post - Brandon

Brandon has had several digital incarnations since I first started reading him, among them being One Child Left Behind. I grow dependent on favorite writers so I was dismayed and disoriented when he suddenly pulled the plug on his blog. It's a terrible thing to do to your readers. It's like going out one starry midnight to revel in the beauty and joy of the heavens and seeing that, since the night before, one of your favorite constellations has vanished ... poof! ... It's NOT RIGHT!!! Several fine writers who make up my cosmos have done that and I HATE IT!!! You know who you are.

We who are left behind to lament the emptiness have one consolation. Blogging is addicting and happily very hard to kick so I was delighted, but not entirely surprised, to see that eventually Brandon resurfaced at The Blog Formerly Known as One Child Left Behind, from which he ventures out to do guest posts.

As the muses would have it, today Brandon is my guest here at this lonely outpost along the language barrier. I am honored. Here is the piece he wrote exclusively for this world that does not yet exist. Thanks Brandon and happy Independence Day!

oh oh oh
I like fishing next to this mountain alder, 'cause he chose a pretty view over a hale and hearty existence, disregarded the hidden costs of prime real estate, and even now the bottom leaves are yellowed in the cherry of spring, the roots bared by rising waters, doing his best salty mangrove. He's like an old refugee, managed to elbow his way to the front of the breadline, only to be knocked down by the crowd, watch the sacks of grain go by overhead, rise with fists.

This shore is littered with the trunks of trees that peeked too far over the edge, peaked too soon after a few years, piqued the interest of too many birds now nipping at the buds that sprout too far into the lake. The uppermost branches, once home to tanagers and flickers now occupy basement apartments for sand shrimp and mosquito hawks. I like this stupid old tree, the choice he made, give him a playful shove with my shoulder, like when we were kids, and we'd play along the highway and we all knew someone would push another kid out into traffic, the throughway, thoroughfare, arteries, et cetera, but no one would ever get hurt. A car might blare a horn and a boy would get a taste of the kind of mortality this alder's got no interest in. Don't push the trees, I think.

I don't begrudge this tree his real estate, nor do I fear his short time. I fret over confinement, my need to perch atop a hill and see the remnants of friends from faraway, to bear the harsh weather, to crack beneath the growing sun, to battle the erosion of the dirt between my toes, to stretch my arms throughout my space and offer my hands to the shrikes, the wee hawks confined to their sparrow bodies, that they might rend lizards upon my thorns, long after the barbed wire fences have rusted away.

When I find my spot, the seed I will plant will be a hawthorn, crooked and pale, with a vista over all the space I cannot seem to live without. I think I could stack 1,000 of those days on top of me and I wouldn't notice the added weight, how lightly I flow through the atmosphere, and oh. oh. I can remember learning to float on my back in those moments, winning the equilibrium that keeps naught but your lips above the crest of water, so close to breaking its bonds with your skin, flowing into your mouth. The sun was so hot in those days. Your toes would dip just below the thermal layer, feel the cold retained by the milfoil, force you to suck in a bit more air and rise. And rise. And rise.

You would hardly miss a thing, and have all of 700 years not to do so.

- Brandon

Letters from home

... home in this case being my little brother. It's one of those letters that meandered into some fanciful territory so I thought I'd post it here for the hell of it. It started out with a note from my brother. Naturally I have changed the names to protect the innocent but otherwise spared no details.

Dear sister,

I just donated some money to the Democrat Party to throw the bums out. Makes the day a little better to know I did something worthwhile. Last night we had my graduate students over for dinner. It is quite an eclectic crowd.

KA starting a MS degree is from Bombay. His parents were born in Pakistan. JG starting a Ph.D. is from Toronto. Her parents were from Vietnam. TL second year M.S. is from China. Her parents work for the government so they are communist. GH fifth year Ph.D. is from Pittsburgh. His father is a professor at Case Western. He was conceived in the Ukraine where his parents were from. He was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Cleveland. EZ Second year Ph.D. is from Hobart. His father was a Boeing engineer, who lives up in the Cascades off the electrical grid.
GF second year Ph.D. is from San Francisco or Modesto. He is doing a Ph.D. in from Sweden and I am his U.S. representative.

Needless to say telling stories to each other eating and drinking fine wine made it one of those magical evenings.

To which I answered:

And you from a village. Very exotic! Sounds like a great evening.

Glad to hear you threw some money in the ring. I did too. What bastards!

He replied:

Actually I trace my roots back to North Dakota, a place so strange I have this reoccurring vision about being a very old man living in a run down shack on the prairie. The only lights at night the Sirius and his friends rising. I am very old and everyone is gone except me. My memory is fading and I spend evenings talking to the west wind, recalling a family, sisters, wife and wonderful dogs, I only remember the dogs clearly because a stray dog comes to my back door, the one facing south, and curls up there on warm nights. This last winter he finally came in the house and after several circles and scratches dropped with a thud on the floor by the pantry door and watched me with intense suspicion. I sleep much and have strange dreams of the tropical ocean, mathematical equations, congress with golden angels in the ceiling. I don't know whose memories they are. After the stroke it all comes at me from the shadows. Approaches just to the penumbra of somebody's past and waits. And this old dog, there he lays, his chin on his crossed paws watching me with one eye. I am not dead yet you old hound. Is that what you here for? You are too old to eat me … heh heh. But he closes his eye and I have the distinct feeling that he knows the path through the prairie grass to the north where the lights dance in the sky.

Oops! Where did that come from? See. Just thinking of North Dakota does strange things to me.

Biking to Bonampak

I´ve given up trying to keep up with this trip. So far we´ve put about 7000 miles on the Jeep and I´ve taken over 7000 photos (and deleted about a quarter of them). I know, obsessive-compulsive. Now we are far too far down the road to write or post in chronological order. We´re currently in Merida. To fill in a bit here´s a copy of an email Mr. Lee sent recently about our visit to the ruins at Yaxchilan and Bonampak. Naturally, I have photos to go with this but only have time to post a few at the moment.



People used to say that the Mayans were completely peaceful but that just isn't so. Murals at Bonampak of ritual mutalation and killing. That's blood dripping from the captive's mutilated hands.

It would be hard for me to describe the past two days without sounding like some dime store adventure pulp, so I won't even try. I can't believe this sort of thing still exists in the 21st century. What follows is just a stream, unedited, typos and misspellings intact, just so I can get it down and then go to bed.

Departing Palenque, we took Hwy 307, a relatively new highway opening Mexico's last frontier, the Lancandon rain forest. It's a shame, really, but I guess humans won't stop until it's all gone. Well, it's not all gone yet.

We drove this road for about 100 miles, passing many tiny farming communities. Given that wood is in good supply and concrete in short supply, the pioneers all build with wood. It looks more like Belize than Mexico, with the exception that there is wave after wave of pioneers. Land that has become too poor to grow corn, beans and squash is burned to promote grass for cattle. Everyone looks fairly prosperous, in a rustic sort of way. As we continued down the new highway, we moved farther and farther back in time and the jungle increasingly pressed in on the road.

We reached our destination within a couple hours. Formerly, the road to Frontera Corozal was an all day grind on rutted, pot-holed dirt. This new road will bring quick change, but for now, Frontera Corozal is a sleepy village (sounds cliche, but there's no better way to describe it--it feels more like the Caribbean in pace). These days, Frontera Corozal is the frontier for Mexican eco-tourism. It's a new concept here. The community runs the one lodge. Even though it's a monopoly, it's reasonable, clean and very efficient (although we well never, ever again order the "mojarra frita", a whole fried fish with an eerie piranha-like smile). We stayed in a thatch-roofed cabana with mosquito netting over the bed, nice fan, and tepid water for the shower. The lodge is also the place to book a boat ("lancha") for the hour-long ride down the Rio Usumacinta to Yaxchilan.

We chartered a boat that evening, to set off early in the morning before any potential tour buses. I met the pilot, and he agreed to meet us at 7am the next day. He was five minutes early, and eager to set off. Our boat was typical, a roughly 30 foot open canoe with giant outboard. With only the three of us, we flew over the water. Like the highway (in fact, the Rio Usumacinta has been a very efficient highway itself, for thousands of years), the farther we went, the lusher the forest. After a short time, we left the corn and bean fields behind and found ourselves in basically intact rain forest. We heard howler monkeys and parrots and saw all kinds of water birds.

By 8am, our pilot steered our boat into the mud bank at the foot of Yaxchilan. The mists were just lifting, and it was just getting light. For the next four hours, we were the only people at the site.

There were no guards, no tourists, no people at all. We explored at a leisurely pace, following an excellent guidebook. At one point, standing in the enormous main plaza next to a large stela covered by a giant plastic tarp, I heard what sounded like the start of a tropical downpour. I looked up, and the stream was hitting one spot on the tarp. There was a troupe of howler monkeys just above the tarp, in amongst some spawling tree branches, and they were just waking. Amazingly, the whole troop began to void their bowels at the same time, splatting all over the tarp. We were just far enough away to avoid the overflow.

They continued to stretch and crap for some time. We watched, riveted. They would be one of several different howler monkey troupes we would see that day. The monkeys were in the trees everywhere, the big males making that distinctive roar. What an incredible experience.

Yaxchilan is the rare Mexican preserve that combines actual preservation with lost city adventure and no settlements. Other than the Rio Usumucinta, there is no road to this site. That's the only thing that keeps it so well-protected.

Throughout the day, we visited ruins major and minor and saw the occasional colorful blur, including toucans and parrots. We agreed that this is one of the best things we've ever done.

The ride back was slower since we were going upstream, and our pilot recognized the value of treating people well, so he slowed or stopped for every turtle or crocodile. At one point, this master pilot drifted back quietly to a croc he'd passed (and we hadn't seen, despite our constant focus) and we moved to within 10 feet of the sleeping beastie--I think he was sleeping, because his mouth was wide open. Eventually, he roused and slid languorously into the water and wee moved on. Asha probably took about a thousand pictures.

(Well, not quite a thousand photos but I did get a couple of good close-ups, not with a telephoto lens though. I don't have one. The pilot actually got us this close to the crocodile. It was very cool but we stayed a bit too long and finally the guy slid off into the water to get away from us. We felt bad about it.)

The jeep was packed and ready to go on our return. We hit the road, heading for a campground near Bonampak. There are two Lancandon indian towns here, one more westernized (barely) and one more traditional. Although it was late in the day, I drove to the Bonampak entrance to scope it out for the next day. We were greeted by an old Lancondon man with traditional haircut (long hair, bangs) and western logger garb. On a whim, I asked him if we could camp there, and he checked with some other younger men, and it seemed fine. Time left in the day, we moved on to visit a local site and spread some pesos among the community, our bid to promote forest preservation and eco-tourism.

We took a hike to "las cascadas", one of the most perfect swimmin' holes I've ever seen, complete with sweltering air temps to promote water sporting. Along the way, we passed a tiny undocumented Mayan ruin.

We got back to the Bonampak entrance after closing, but I wasn´t concerned since there wasn't a gate. But all the folks I'd spoken with earlier were gone. In their place was an ancient albino Lancandon man. I don't speak Spanish that well, but it's passable--it was mesmerizing to talk with this man with his thick Maya accent. He spoke Spanish with the most remarkable inflection---I mean, holy shit, a Maya accent, how anachronistic is that? His eyes looked in different directions and his reddish white hair was cut in the traditional Lancondon style, long with bangs. I guess he must have hypnotized me or used some kind of albino shaman trick, because within minutes we were following his grandson to his house, his grandson having just harvested two giant squash from their "milpa" right next to the Bonampak entrance.

We parked the jeep in a flat spot and tried to explain to people for whom Spanish is a distant second language that we were going to sleep in the "lancha" on top of our jeep, that we couldn't sleep in a hammock. I don't figure we could have appeared any crazier to these people, but on the other hand, they were looking pretty strange to us, too. The younger generation--there were four generations living here, the albino shaman grandfather the elder at 80--finally grasped that the white thingg on the jeep was a tent, but grandfather never wavered from his position that we were sleeping in our boat.

After some wild comparisons of our culture in Spanish, English and Mayan, the "artesanias" came out, and we were coerced, softly but relentlessly, into purchasing various necklaces and bracelets made out of local seeds. I knew it would happen. We were being ambushed. I bought some stuff, just enough I think.

I spent an hour or so talking to grandsons, 20-somethings with some sense that there was a world beyond their own tiny village. Their world was so tiny. There are no schools beyond primary. Everyone works in the field to produce what they eat. There are no jobs. There's very little surplus. With the exception of western clothes and TVs and, amazingly, satellite cable with a hundred or more channels (which every shack had, no matter how humble, leading me to believe that maybe there's a gov't pacification campaign here, since this is still part of the Zapatista zone), these folks had nothing modern, and no possible way to get it or change their lives in any material sense. They all sold trinkets to tourists for folding money, which they wanted for sugar and soap. Again, this sounds like a cliche, but it's the reality as far as I could see.

The grandsons, I believe, had never seen a large map of Mexico, which I happened to have. They knew nothing of their country. They'd never ventured more than 100 miles from where they lived now, for generation after generation after generation. "No dinero", they kept saying, and sure, they were hitting us up hard, and as I say, we bought what we could, what felt comfortable. It got awkward when they invited us for dinner, since we were sure they'd charge in some fashion, and that dinner would be some kind of range chicken or gamey bush meat.

We pretended to be as tired as we really were, and popped the tent, bidding all a very early goodnight. It was just getting dark.

Culture shock would be putting things mildly here. This was more like a cultural nuke. We clammered into our tent, clothes still on, and doused the lights.

We had a very peaceful night. Upon wakening, we hoped that the folks would be working the fields early and we were right. We made a mad dash for the exit, leaving granny a two-pound box of Swiss chocolates and feeling like we'd all hit some kind of cultural snafu, both sides sort of quiet and sheepish.

Who knows what kind of story they're telling now?

We reached Bonampak a few minutes later, dirty and a little crazed. We needed to eat. I popped open the back of the Jeep and poured a couple bowls of shredded wheat and raisins, and then I turned around and noticed the small crowd of Lancondones watching the morning's entertainment (us). It felt weird eating in front of these men, so I invited them to join us, distributing the last of our cereal into bowls and pans. One man asked if this is what we ate in America, and I said yes, sure. What is it made of? Wheat, said another, "trigo". I told them it was a different kind of cereal, not like the Mexican cereal since it lacked sugar. They treated it like an exotic dish and everyone ate everything and then washed bowls and spoons and fingers.

We rented decrepit bikes for the 6-mile ride to Bonampak. The site is very tiny, notable for its close alliance to Yaxchilan as a vassal city, and most famously, for its amazing murals. We saw reproductions in Mexico City and elsewhere, but there's no substitute for the actual setting (lost cities, monkeys, parrots, giant butterflies, albino Mayans).

We were filty and exhausted for our ride back to civilization, which, in this case, was Palenque, former hick town, now giant city with the perspective of a couple days in the Lacandon rain forest.

Now I'm going to surf aimlessly for a few minutes and then pester Asha to unplug so we can go to our room and crash. Next stop, Chetumal, sweet blessed funky Chetumal.

L.

Mt. Saint Helen Math

Mt. Saint Helen Web Cam
Someone at Bluesky was wondering about how Mt. Saint Helen's latest eruption fits into the passage of geologic time. So I asked my brother. I always ask my brother when I need an equation. Several years ago I asked him what my total life earnings as a poet figured out to be as an hourly wage. The answer was 8 cents an hour. Yes. Anyway, on to Mt. Saint Helen.


Mt. Saint Helen and Mt. Rainier

___________________________________________________________

"Here are my calculations:

We actually don’t need to bring humans into the process, unless one thinks that our evil ways with the body politic have upset the mountain again.


Mt. Saint Helen's new dome peeking up over crater edge

Contrary to the early century Christian scholars who thought the earth was 144,000 years old, the scientist think its more like 5 billion years old. Putting in the zeros the number looks like this 5,000,000,000,000. Of course we scientist don’t like to waste things much even if they are zeros, either do Norwegians, so we use a short notation and write 5E+9, which means a five followed by nine zeros after it. The E stands for exponent, what ever that is. So if there is a 70% change of Mt. Saint Helens getting pissed off this year and we assume that she only get pissed on very occasionally, for you see she is a cool mountain, lots of snow, and so the chance of it getting pissed off over the age of the earth is this…

Let’s just first figure out what percent one year is compared to the age of the earth. That is easy..

1 year/ age of earth = 1/5,000,000,000,000

Now we are wasting zeros again, so we write this the stingy Norwegian math way 1/5E+9 was is approximately 0.5E-9. We use the minus sign after the E to denote how many zeros in front of the nine. So one year equals 50E-9 % of the earth life. Notice we moved the zeros around converting from fraction of 0.5 to percent 50%.

So then multiple that by 70%, which reduces it to a chance of say about 35E-9% which is a very small number by our normal measures


Satellite image of Mt. Saint Helen crater and new dome

But this calculation has a flaw because the mountain has not been around since the beginning of the earth. Mt. Saint Helens is more like a zit on the nose of the earth. When it gets squeezed, out comes earth blood and puss, which for the earth is red lave and white ash.

So what do humans have to do with all this? Humans have been waking around the zit for about 5E+3 years which is about 30 seconds of the history of the entire earth.

On a related subject I thought I might write a book for kids. Here is the title:

"Mathematical Ecology For 9 Year Olds or How I Learned To Get Even With My Big Sister"

___________________________________________________________

Little brothers! They never really do grow up. I can count change.