But then it got better....

Because Matt & Jill came!  Matt & Jill!  Matt & Jill!  Matt & Jill!  Look how cute:

In our 48 hours together, we covered quite a bit of ground - conversationally, bondingly, and block-wise.  Seeing our buddies from NYC in Saigon was fantastico and we wish they could have stayed indefinitely. 

On our first evening together we accidentally landed ourselves in a hostess bar where we drank some beers and gorged on free peanuts.  After a wander through the city and several boutiques we made it to a fab restaurant recommended by M&J's tour company. 

The second day we had quite a bit more time and a hefty agenda.  In the morning Ed & I finally found the much beloved/discussed French style pastries at a nearby patiserie and checked out the Ho Chi Minh museum across the river.  Then the four of us gathered for a banh mi tasting (3 kinds, 5 sandwiches, homahgah) at a corner stand. 

Afterwards we visited the war remnants museum which was extensive, humid, and heartbreaking.  I'd like to learn more about the war that took place here, but the museum didn't serve the purpose of filling the gaps.  Its aim is to outline the atrocities that took place in Vietnam, exhibit an incredible collection of photographs by journalists who traveled with the military, and publicize the long term effects to both humans and the environment of the toxins dropped there. 

This last lesson wasn't something we needed to visit a museum to learn about.  The effects of Agent Orange can be seen all over the city of Saigon and probably the rest of Vietnam...  Through the 90s, babies were still being born with serious physical deformities as a result of their parents' exposure.  Impacted residents of Saigon, many of them beggars, suffer from spina bifida, dwarfism, deformed limbs, blindness or missing eyes, and a range of other serious health issues.  Its devastating to witness but important, I think, to see.

Thoroughly shocked after visiting the "Tiger Cages" at the museum, we four were ready for something on the lighter side.  We visited the massive Ben Thanh market, drank some insanely delicious and cracky iced coffee and bought ourselves some trinkets.

In the evening we headed to the rooftop bar of the Sheraton for an overpriced apertif and view of the city and then to the truly delectable Hoa Tuc for dinner.  A lovely little spot tucked in the rear of a courtyard and away from the non-stop motorbike buzz of Saigon, we had a feast and hours of sparkly conversation. 

M&J's visit put our visit here back on track.  Our time together tipped the scale from annoyed/overwhelmed to amused/interested.  Having friends rulez.

Oh, Saigon.

We were sadsosad to leave Thailand.  Our expectations, particularly of Bangkok, weren't meteorically high and were surpassed in every category.  Plus, we made friends at the beach with an awesome couple, Chelsey & Dave, and traveled back to Bangkok with them.  We all stayed at the Atlanta and had fun times and foods and laughs and puppies.  We were comfy and complacent and full of fruit shakes and it was like ripping off a band aid to come here.

Our Friends:

The puppy:

Our very first experience in Saigon was with a taxi driver who tried several tacts to overcharge us.  We had agreed upfront that he would use the meter but as soon as we were out of the airport parking lot he started to ask whether we knew how much it would be, would rather pay a flat rate, that there would be other charges, etc.  When he realized that we weren't turnips who were ready to hand him our dong (its the currency, I'm not being dirty) he tried to leave us on the side of the road in monsoon force rains.  After refusing his kind offer of being ripped off and deserted, the 3 of us had to spend a purgatorial hour and a half in rain drenched traffic together, grumbling.


We're staying in the heart of downtown Saigon, district 1.  And, yet, the next morning and each subsequent we've been awoken by a rooster crowing at dawn.  I'm starting to miss the call to prayer and dog howling in Lanta.  As unwelcome 5 am wake ups go, it was a bit less grating.  This city is loud, crazy cacophony all day, all night, always.  The power goes out fairly often and the pollution makes Hong Kong look like Mongolia.

But, we're adjusting.  Its now day 5 and we've had some amazing times and have figured out how to cross the lawless six lane roads choked with motorbikes.  We're eating bahn mi like we've just come home from fat camp and today spoke to a travel company about our trip to the Mekong.  Vietnam didn't make the best first impression, but we're going on a few more dates before we flee and return to the loving arms of Thailand.

travelin' reading list, part IV

Being at the beach for a couple of weeks with no TV and very limited internet access gave me plenty of time for reading.  A couple of books were given to me in old fashiondy non-digital paper format.  And you know what?  I hate them!  I wasn't exactly an early adapter to the e-reader trend.  Ed bought me a Kindle for Christmas last year in anticipation of eventually going away and even then I was only moderately convinced.  But now that I've grown accustomed its hard to go back to analog.

A lot of people we've met along the way have asked us whether we like our Kindles.  And, seriously, Amazon should be sending us royalties for our unpaid spokesmenship.  Though going back to paper books has reminded me how much more comfortable the Kindle is to read (one handed!), how much brighter the screen is (no glare on the beach!), that one's place is saved automatically (no bookmarks!), there is one feature that I miss more than all of these combined: the dictionary function.  Getting into the habit of moving the cursor to any word I'm not sure of in a book and having a two sentence definition appear at the bottom of the screen has been nothing short of miraculous.  Just last week I learned what "picaresque" and "surfeit" meant.  Growing and changing, growing and changing. 

And now, my words.

Everything Change by Jonathan Tropper
Actually, nothing changes.  This book, like the 3 or 4 others of his I've read follows the same story arch of estranged-rich-Jewish-kid-with-complex-familial-emotions as he comes back to the family fold.  Thing is, I like this story so as long as the Trop keeps writing it, imma keep reading it.  In like a day and a half.

Old School by Tobias Wolff
Set in a New England prep school in the 60s, which is usually the start of something I thoroughly enjoy (Friendly Fire, The Secret History), I have to admit I had a hard time getting through this one.  I found the unnamed narrator dry and there were too many moments where a perspective would have been much more engaging than straight observation.  In some ways it reads more like a play, or short story, than a novel.  The genius of the book which, in itself, is writerly is that the main characters are aspiring writers and the plot is driven by their heroes, the famous writers of the era.  So meta.

Into Thin Air by John Krakauer
This one was on Ed's Kindle, and I'm so so glad to have been introduced to the world of Krakauer.  Just a fantastic author, I had dreams for days about the harrowing experiences he describes on Mt. Everest.  Even though the prologue summarizes the events and names the dead, I still found myself hoping for a happy ending.  The trauma that unfolds, though unimaginable to a non-climber, is completely engrossing and impossible to stop thinking about.  Such a great read.  

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang
This book felt like one that would have been assigned in a college level business school class.  But, having recently spent time in China, it was worth slogging through.  Chinese society comes across as heartless, opportunistic, and hollow; the view isn't balanced.  But, the lesson of the last 100 years of Chinese history and how it relates to the evolving workforce is informative and relevant.  Understanding how the interpersonal tenets of Chinese society and the brutality of history have come together to create a new class of independent and brash workers keeps it interesting.  As I was reading it, I felt like so many behaviors and norms I had seen in China were answers to the equation laid out in this book.  But, not that fun.  Not for the beach.

Bangkok 8 by John Burdett
An awesome "airplane" recommendation from Pete, reading this book while we were in Thailand was just super cool.  Its definitely on the light side, the plot is pretty ridiculous, but the energy and vibe of Bangkok is captured perfectly.  I actually learned quite a bit about the more illicit underbelly of what I was seeing, too.  I loved this book for the same reasons I loved Thailand: they're a little trashy, but there is no looking away.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Or, as it was renamed in our bungalow, "I Need to Read About Kevin."  This novel was given to me by an awesome girl we met at the beach.  Its written by the mother of a high-school mass-murderer (Columbine style) as a series of letters to her estranged husband.  The couple start off young, successful, hip New Yorkers and somewhat hesitantly transform themselves into suburban, SUV-driving, parents.  The book is a fascinating read and beautifully written (I longed for my dictionary function) but I think it especially resonant for any woman who has questioned motherhood as an option.  Its a brilliant novel and people who give out book awards thought so too.  Must must read it.
 

Happy Thanksgiving, 50 Staters!

At dinner, when squinting, the peanut sauce looked just like gravy.  This year I'm thankful for so many things, but most of all for my traveling companion. 

Bangkok Flash

I went to India for work a few years ago and beforehand I had visions of an exotic, balmy, colorful place. I thought Southern Asia would have the vibrant nuttiness that staid and steady North Asia lacks. And while there are undeniable elements of beauty, my impression of Mumbai wasn't what I'd pictured.  My romantic visions were overwhelmed by unfathomable slums, pollution-browned waters, and crushing poverty.  Bangkok, on the other hand, is what I thought Mumbai might be. A city that's a bit ancient, a lot modern while colorful, spicy, flashy, and full of kind hearted souls.

The monuments to the monarchy and to Buddhism are no exceptions. I love that Thailand's mantra seems to be 'go big or go home.' Surely one of the most impressive sights we've seen, The Grand Palace in Bangkok is a castle, a temple, the King's residence, an outdoor museum, and a park all rolled up into a tidy package where you're not allowed to wear shorts or tanktops. Gaudy?Absolutely, but no one ever accused the Thai of lacking in flair.  Subtlety isn't the fashion here, and the extreme is evident everywhere from the aspirational Skytrain to the bell-ringingly spicy food.  We're gonna miss it mightily.

Its possible we've been at the beach too long...

Evidence submitted for consideration.

1. Ed and I have placed a hefty wager.  The bet is on who can hold out longer: trimming his beard or cutting my hair. Unless he goes latter day Brad Pitt style with ugly braids in his beard, in which case I will take care of it for him. In his sleep.  

2. We waited until we had almost nothing left to wear before dropping off our laundry on Sunday night. On Monday we didn't pick it up before closing because we didn't want to miss the sunset. Koh Lanta is 96% Muslim and the following day was Eid al-Adha. The stray dogs howled along to the pre-dawn call to prayer, and we were roused several hours before our usual wake up, so we felt we had sufficiently participated. Point being, the laundry was closed as a result, so we just wore bathing suits all day and out to dinner. Finally yesterday I made the pilgrimage to the main road to collect our sunshine fresh threads, but we have yet to open the tidy, sealed bag that I retrieved. Hippies!

3.  While walking on the beach, I collected shells and filled my shirt pockets with them. Upon later examination, I decided that one was particularly special. Using a leatherman and some string given to me by a Buddhist shop owner in Beijing, I made this necklace.

4. I ask at least once a day whether its Wednesday (I'm right 1 in 7). And this evening had to ask Ed when the last time I showered was.

5. The proprietor of our bungalow home invited me to go to market with her tomorrow to buy dragon fruit for afternoon snack. 

6. My blog posts have become lists because I can't tell a cohesive story that has, like, paragraphs.

After a quick reread of the above, perhaps I've been hasty. Maybe we haven't been at the beach long enough?

Hamburg, Thailand

Running across German tourists anywhere on earth is unsurprising.  I believe the term "wanderlust" is from the original German.  These folks are everywhere.

Add to the globetrotting culture the direct flights from Europe to Krabi (the launch point for many island ferries) and you have a veritable Novemberfest.  Hours on end pass without us hearing a word of Thai spoken; there are Thai people around but they tend to be soft spoken and haven't been sucking down Singhas since sunrise.

We occasionally have to remind ourselves that we are, indeed, in Thailand.  For Ed this means ordering (another) atomically spicy papaya salad.  For moi, an equally brutal/addictive sensory experience: more Thai massage.  I bring this up to say that there are a worthy lessons to be learned from our Deutsche beachgoers in just 3 short days.  FYI.

- Fear not, trashy Americanas.  Some of you regret the tramp stamp you had inked on spring break to Nassau but, alas, this is a perfect inky complement to a triangle bikini if you are a Germany lady between the ages of 20-45.
- The beach is an EXCELLENT place to bring very small children on a family holiday.  During the day, toddlers are free to explore their fear of surf as they bound into neck-deep white caps unattended.  Or, while Ma & Pa sit at the beach bar, the tykes can choose to nap it out in their stroller.  Which will be parked safely out of sight of grown ups alongside the driveway in a shady spot.
- If you are a German man over the age of 40 and you do not already have permanently tanned skin do not, under any circumstances, wear sunscreen.  Obviously turning the color of boiled crawfish will fool the Thai waitresses into thinking you've got a bitchin' tan. 
- Although running or competitive walking is a mandatory bullet on the daily agenda, don't bother bringing athletic gear.  If you're a middle aged woman, just wear your underpants to exercise on the beach.  No one will even notice.
- When you observe someone snapping a pic and feel that you are the superior photographer, by all means take that person aside and instruct them on how to capture the shot you just took.
- Doing yoga in a bikini in front of a crowded beach bar is meditative.  Its not a performance, and its certainly not indicative of daddy issues.  Obviously.

All of that said, I'll take these folks over the Jersey Shore crew any day.  At least we can't understand what they're saying.  And, we end each day with this.  Solid.

The Atlanta to Koh Lanta

The day went like this.

6:30 a.m. alarm => taxi => plane => minivan => ferry => minivan => ferry => minivan

But then:

One Day in Bangkok

A couple of days ago, we planned and executed what amounted to the perfect day in Bangkok. Although the US dollar has shat itself, our money still goes far in this part of the world. Much, much farther than at home or in Tokyo, por ejemplo. It didn't take long for us to seek and find affordable luxury in Thailand. And I'm not (just) talking about the hookers.

We woke up and had brekkie in our hotel. We love the pancakes, but also that we get a side of time travel, gratis. Pics of the place coming rather than embedded due to 3rd world wireless.  The dining room is religiously preserved, the only nods to modernity are wireless internet and diet coke.

After breakfast, Skytrain to massages at Healthland Massage. As one might imagine, it takes a bit of research to nail down a reputable spa in Bangkok. Some googling and elimination of the words “exotic” “happy” and “soapy” in the results did the trick. I knew we were in for just the prudish experience we were after when the receptionist insisted we have same-sex therapists. The massages were painful in the Thai way and we rolled out of there lump of clay-like.

Starved after a rough morning, we headed to a street side warehouse lined with food stalls. We ate more than is appropriate to write about. We also provided plenty of entertainment for the vendors, who looked on in astonished curiosity as we took the first bites of chili soaked noodles. So good. So much sweating. They seemed pleased.

In the afternoon, we hit the famous Jim Thompson home. Its a veritable complex of original teak houses imported and furnished by the exotic American silk importer. Sadly, he lived in the house for only 8 years before disappearing on a vacation in the Malaysian jungle. The Buddhist antiques he collected (that's the nice word for it) in his time in Thailand are truly special pieces.

We walked along one of Bangkok's many canals to get back to central where we planned to see a movie, on Molly's recommendation. On our way back through the sky walk, we wondered onto the set of a commercial. We watched 2 takes of teams of hip hop kids dance fighting – fortunately we had just watched most of “You Got Served” while in Tokyo so we could follow the nuanced plot. We were definitely in the shot, so if you happen across Thai TV (I'm guessing an ad for extreme soda) look for us farang!

The Siam Paragon makes the Short Hills mall look like a Caldor in the 80s. Coined “The Jewel of Bangkok,” its not just a mall, its a mecca to consumerism and the movie theater is appropriately grand. We got the cheap seats and were treated to monstrous leather chairs in a stadium theater. Apparently, the first class theaters offer individual lazy boys and cocktail service. Next time...

Any guide book or food nerd research will tell you that aside from street food, the best eating to be done in Bangkok is in the mall food courts. At the Siam, there are probably 40 sit down restaurants and another 60 stalls. We opted for the prepaid card to be swiped at several stalls and had an amazingly delicious feast for about $7.

On our way home we saw a festival going on at the noted Erawan Shrine.  The long walk through the city and back to the 50s was breezy and tropical.  A day of super fun planned stuff and happy accidents along the way. Done and done.

A petite math riddle, if you will...

We arrived in Bangkok last night and are staying at the Lynch-esque Atlanta hotel.  I'm obsessed with this place, recommended by Molly, photos to come.  Coming here from Tokyo feels like being dropped in an 80s video that overtly glamorizes colonialism after living in the land of robots.  Tokyo was so tightly run, measured, calm, unbelievably quiet.  Bangkok is gritty and chaotic and lacking in scruples.  We're having a really good time so far.

I've mentioned before that geography is not really my strong suit, yes?  I can visualize a map of Asia in my mind grapes (Ed has handily also made it the wallpaper on our laptop to help me learn good), and yet I'm constantly amazed by how far apart things are.  Do you know how long it takes to get to Thailand from Japan?  Me neither, but it is a LOT longer than I thought it would be.  Which leads me to a math problem that I've been turning over in my sleep deprived brain since we boarded the plane yesterday.

Our flight from Tokyo departed, on schedule, at 6:30 p.m.  The arrival time indicated on the ticket was 11:45 p.m.  According to both the United website and our turbulence-challenged captain, the estimated flight time was 6 hours and 15 minutes.  The timezone in Bangkok is 2 hours behind Tokyo.

Am I cray-cray, or did I lose an hour of my life?

What did you do while you were in Tokyo, Rodney?

Um, went to the 100 Yen store, mostly.  Why? Because it is my favorite place in Tokyo, if not on earth.

Molly took us to the 100 Yen store in our neighborhood on our first full day in Tokyo.  In the 5 subsequent weeks, we've been dozens of times; sometimes twice in a day.  We've taken visitors, bought gifts, and spent rain soaked hours just browsing the aisles.

The concept is akin to the dollar store but there is more of a focus on crafts and home decor and the stuff is amazingly high quality.  As I've been packing up today and organizing the apartment, I'm astonished by how bad ass the stuff we bought there is.  A brief summary of my favorite scores, each for about $1.20:

Fleece lined winter hat, which is actually cute and I'm wearing as I type.
Soy sauce
Bathmat
Crazy high quality nail polish that didn't chip for weeks
A set of 4 prettily painted wooden chopsticks
Package of 10 arty cards to accompany gifts
Sharp knife for cooking
Speakers for the the laptop
Surge protector
Black leggings
Set of 2 handtowels

I could really go on and on about this place and its awesomeness.  Suffice it to say, our stay here was made far more comfortable by the creature comforts afforded to us at rock bottom prices, courtesy of the Sensa store in Sangenjaya.

Mt. Fuji; like Where's Waldo for adults, the Japanese

The first time I came to Tokyo was on a business trip when I was 23.  Our office was in a glass box high in a skyscraper and on my first nerve wracking day someone pulled me aside, pointed out the window, and said "On a clear day, you can see Mt. Fuji from here."  I looked out that window every morning and every evening for 2 weeks.  I saw fog.

Since then, I've lost count of the number of times and places that the phrase has been repeated.  I've made several trips to Tokyo in the last 10 years and have only seen the famed peak in photos.  At the top of Sunshine City in Ikebukuro, on a hill in Ome, from a bar in Ginza, on the roof of the Mori, and plenty of other places, people have signaled to where the mountain would be if only the seemingly mystical conditions for its appearance were met.  

We figured our best shot at it was the daytrip we had planned to Mt. Takao.  A lot of photographers go just to shoot the Fuj, so we waited for a day that the weather called for sun and boarded an early train.

You can imagine my excitement, when, about 3 stops before we arrived at Takaosanguchi, I glimpsed the thing between the buildings flying by the train window, looming in the sky.  I roused Ed from his magazine and frantically pointed, much to the amusement of the other passengers.  For once I wasn't at all embarrassed because seeing the mountain seems about as likely as seeing a unicorn.  And if that isn't something to spazz over I don't know what is.

Once we arrived and hiked up trail 6, past waterfalls and through a stream via a boulder path, the view was even better.  And when we climbed to a 2nd, higher peak, we saw it closer and were virtually a private audience.  Ed tried valliantly to capture it but without his hardcore camera gear it was tough.  I still think he did alright:

We leave Tokyo tomorrow.  We love this city, we've had a blast, and I'm sure we'll be back.  But I'm not sure when next I'll have this view.  I'm so glad I saw it at least once, its definitely one for the highlight reel.