Sunshine On A Rainy Day

DAY 404: The overnight express from Bangkok to Chiang Mai continued on its way through the northern Thai countryside when I woke up that morning. It was a casual morning of reading, writing and eating the breakfast served to me by the train attendants, one of which was a cross-dressing "ladyboy," a common personality-type in the Kingdom of Thailand. The morning was just like any other morning I'd had in recent history but with one difference: for the first time in about two months, it was raining.

Rain, as I usually say to people who see it as a hindrance to their day's plans, is "just water" and I knew that even with precipitation falling from the sky, I could find a little figurative sunshine.

CHIANG MAI, THE FORMER CAPITAL of the Lanna Kingdom, is Thailand's second largest city in both population and tourist appeal. Unlike its bigger sibling Bangkok, it is a much less glitzy city, a relaxed suburban-like town surrounded by jungle and mountains, where a laid-back attitude replaces a barrage of neon city lights. As always, I arrived at the train station with no real agenda other than to find a place to stay, and then to figure it out from there. I was going to check out the Libra Guest House as recommended by Let's Go until I arrived at the tourist information booth at the end of the train platform.

"Which one are you looking for?" a young blonde traveler with a Dutch accent and a bright smile asked me when we both arrived at the same time.

"I don't really know."

"I heard about this one," she said, pointing to a brochure of the Chiang Mai Guesthouse, which coincidentally was the one the booth lady was suggesting. The Dutch girl, whose name was Lot, told me her friends recommended the guesthouse, along with the trekking expedition their affiliated tour agency offered. She said her friends told her the place was run by an eccentric middle-aged motorscooter-riding Thai woman with thick glasses who would introduce herself as "Mama" that the Anne de Rooy character of Dutch comedian Paul de Leeun might have been based on.

"You can check it out. If it's not good, it's not my fault, it's theirs," Lot told me.

"I'm sure it'll be fine." I gave it a shot since I was already in good company after a long train ride of meeting no one. The owner "Mama" was there at the station to meet her new guests.

"You come and see room. Single, one hundred fifty. You, one fifty, you, one fifty! Ha ha ha!" She was as quirky as Lot had described to me.

Lot and I were led to a free shuttle van along with two English girls and an Australian redhead named Elise -- the three of them were surprised that they found a place to stay since everyone in Bangkok told them Chiang Mai accommodations would be hard to come by because of a big festival. Lot and I both sort of just showed up not knowing of any festival, but were glad to have gotten there when we did.

As the van drove across town, a fast-talking tour agent rode with us and gave us a speedy pitch for the standard three-day trekking, elephant riding and rafting excursion offered by every travel agency in town. She scribbled an itinerary all over a map she had, connecting the dots from place to place in a rushed manner that we figured she did everyday. The whole program, although incomprehensible on paper, seemed like an okay deal, and the price was right too.

Mama, rode in on her motorscooter and greeted us at the guesthouse and gave us our room assignments. The tour agent lady was still around for anyone that was interested in her pitch and Lot joined right up because of the recommendation she got. I just went on her word again and wrote my name on the registration form under hers and signed up too. I figured I wanted to do the standard trek anyway and I might as well book one recommended instead of wasting the afternoon going from agency to agency who would all essentially tell me the same thing.

A DRIZZLE CAME DOWN FROM THE OVERCAST SKY when Lot and I went out to explore the neighborhood with no real agenda in mind. We crossed the moat left over from the old days, when the old city was surrounded by a water and a fortification wall, and eventually found (not surprisingly) a temple to visit. It was the Wat Chedi Luang, a Buddhist temple complex built by King Saen Suang Ma in 1401, home to Chiang Mai's largest chedi (temple) guarded by dragon statues. Behind the chedi was a wiharn, which housed a big gold Buddha protected by life-size stone elephants at one corner.

Inside the temple a big standing Buddha statue held its hand out where about thirty little Buddha statues were sitting underneath. The hand of the big statue was connected to each little statue by a string, and it sparked some curiosity in my new Dutch friend. "What is the meaning of the wire?" Lot asked.

"I dunno."

"I want to ask a monk." One walked by and she called him over but he didn't know any English. She asked another in the corner and he said something about a birthday. For Lot it was sometimes hard to process broken English, especially when she still thought in Dutch.

Flipping through Lot's Lonely Planet guidebook, we saw that the monks in town held something called Monk Chat, an informal question-and-answer session of monks for tourists. The book said Monk Chat was far out of town, but then we saw a sign that said Monk Chat was available where we were. We wondered into an administrative-looking building and snooped around, joking about this and that, noticing the monk in one room on a mobile phone. "It's funny we're laughing like this, I've known you an hour," Lot told me.

I approached the monk with the mobile phone when he was through and asked him about Monk Chat. He said in broken but decent English that it was canceled because of the celebration on the temple grounds, the birthday of the founder or something like that. The monk's name was Lau and he was a decent fellow as most monks are, and offered us a seat for an impromptu Monk Chat. Lot asked about the strings on the Buddhas -- it was a good luck thing for the celebration -- and I asked about the festival in town (which wasn't affiliated with the festival in the monk community). Lau told us the town celebration would happen in two main places: by the river and by the house of the... (He couldn't think of the word.)

"Mayor?" I asked, trying to complete his sentence.

"No... no.... Arno... You know Arno? California?"

"Oh, governor."

"Yeah, governor."

THE DRIZZLE TURNED INTO A STEADY RAIN, but Lot and I didn't mind for the most part. It's just water, as I said. We wandered some more, stopping by a 7-Eleven for drinking water and a couple of different travel agencies to try and move Lot's flight. We escaped the downpour of mid-afternoon in a small local's restaurant, with service also from a cross-dressing "ladyboy." "I think that she is a he," Lot told me. We continued to hit it off as we ate our Thai rice dishes -- at one point that afternoon she accidentally spoke to me in Dutch, only to be answered with my blank stare.

ELISE THE AUSSIE REDHEAD was in the lobby of the Mama's Chiang Mai Guesthouse to join us when Lot and I were going to wander around that night. Also there was another girl named Ani who I pegged as an American as soon as she started using the adjective "awesome" the way Americans do. "I'm sorry, I'm totally crashing your party," Ani told Elise.

"Well, I'm crashing their party," Elise said.

"We're crashing each others," Lot said, pointing at herself and me.

"If nobody crashed, there'd be no party."

The real "party" that night was the nighttime festivities of the Thai festival Loy Krathong, known and celebrated in Chiang Mai as the Yi Peng Festival. There was a hint of irony that night as it rained; the festival was meant to celebrate the end of the rainy season. No matter, it was "just water" and sunshine would prevail. Sunshine came in the form of the many rice paper lanterns flying in the sky, launched by people on the ground. Before I knew what they were, they looked like UFOs from Mars getting ready to attack the earth.

Essentially the lanterns were miniature hot-air balloons; imagine a rice paper condom about four feet tall with a wire ring about a foot in diameter at the base to keep the cylindrical form. Mounted in the center of the wire ring is a ring of slow-burning cardboard that is ignited. The heat generated from the flame inflates the balloon and sets it flying for a good two hours.

Inspired by the lanterns flying in the sky, the four of us chipped in and bought one and tried to set it off. We were complete novices at the practice and didn't exactly know what we were doing when we tried to launch it from the bridge over the river on the east end of town. We lit the center and let the balloon fill with hot air and let it go...

"Wooo!" we cheered as the rain fell on our heads.

It floated away sideways without rising though and eventually sank down into the river. The flame was extinguished in the water and the big paper lantern went flaccid and floated away rather pathetically under the rain.

THE NAWARAT BRIDGE WAS THE BIG LAUNCHING AREA for the paper lanterns and we bought another one there for another shot, this time with the help of a local Thai guy with a torch specifically for lighting them up. We held it up for him to ignite, holding it as it filled with more than enough hot air so it would just leave our hands. It worked that time and our ball of sunshine was up in the air with the others, creating a starry night of yellow constellations underneath the high overcast clouds.

"The best part [of this festival] is that we didn't even know about it!" I told Lot.

"Yeah, I know!"

The good vibe continued when we went to the riverside and launched off little krathongs that I bought from a "ladyboy", these little floating flower bouquets with a candle and incense sticks in the center (picture above). According to one Thai person, the point of floating the bouquets down the river was to (ironically) apologize to the river goddess for polluting the river. The worst of it wasn't the littering of candles and other non-biodegradables in the river, it was the fact that some guys under the bridge were stealing the money people often put in the little floaters. That and the fact that people were launching their little flower boats with firecrackers on them so they'd explode and sink. (Firecrackers and other pyrotechnics were a huge part of the festival, but I'll get to that in the next entry.)

The good times continued that night when we ended up in a bar with live music, first from a trio from Colorado that played R&B classics from the likes of Marvin Gaye as well as some of their own originals, some with lyrics in Thai. They were followed by a Thai band that played American covers. Over another round of drinks, Elise showed us a trick she knew that was similar to the principles of the rice paper lanterns: she lit a dismantled teabag on fire to make it rise. I was giddy to see it launch, only the bag was a dud and it just burned to nothing on the table. Meanwhile, people outside were still lighting up the paper lanterns with fire in the street. There was a near disaster when the group near the bar set one off -- it rose and got caught on some electrical cables and shifted over to the pole where all the wires met at some electrical box. Luckily someone threw a shoe and dislodged it.

Lot and Elise turned in early and in the end it was just Ani and me. "Oh, hey," she said to me that night. "Happy Thanksgiving!"

"Happy Thanksgiving!"

She too was the only American around on the American holiday the day before and was happy to have another one around for a change. She got a kick out of the fact that we did the American after-drinking thing of going out for pizza -- at a stand coincidentally run by an American ex-pat and his "ladyboy" partner.

THE MORNING AFTER, the rain was finally gone and the sun had come out -- not that I wouldn't have had a good time either way. Elise did her flaming teabag trick at breakfast and it finally lifted off the table as a little bag of sunshine that made me smile.

Recipes

DAY 405: I grew up with a love of cooking. I remember using a Sesame Street cookbook and making banana bread one day that pleased the family and since then I've like to cook since, up through my young adulthood when I got my own apartment. When I got a Showtime Rotisserie as a housewarming gift, I swear I made a whole chicken every other day; it's so easy when you can "set it and forget it."

After a while the novelty of making a rotisserie-style chicken went away like a passing fad and the Showtime Rotisserie oven joined my pile of old kitchen gadgets advertised on infomercials, right next to the George Foreman Grill. Not only that, but my passion for cooking faded away too since I lived in a fairly trendy metro New York neighborhood on the Hudson where many delicious and reasonably priced foods were readily available. Why cook when I could have someone else do it for me, with Chinese, Japanese, Moroccan, French, Italian, Jamaican, Cuban, Polish, Indian, American, Thai, Fusion and other ethnic cuisines all within walking distance?

"How can you afford to eat out all the time?" people would ask me.

"I don't keep food in the house," I'd tell them, before breaking down the details of everything, factoring the throwing away of leftovers you don't want after eating it three days in a row and the cost of ingredients for one person, etc. My bachelor pad's refrigerator often only had a jar of olives, a chunk of cheese, a bottle of mustard, and beer. Ramen noodles were in the cupboard.

This isn't to say I didn't completely lose an interest in cooking; it was just time- and cost-effective to go out, especially since eating out was essential to networking in the freelance game. Cooking was, and will always will be, a fun thing and rewarding thing for me to do.

ONE OF THE BIG TO-DO'S IN CHIANG MAI is to take a cooking course at one of the dozens of cooking schools in town aimed at tourists. Mama at the Chiang Mai Guesthouse suggested the Classic Home Cooking school, run by her sister. She said that it was superior to other schools because for a cheaper price, you could actually choose six dishes and a curry paste to make individually, instead of having specific dishes mandated to you and the entire group.

Elise joined Lot and me in our one-day course, which started at 9:00. We were picked up in a truck with six others from other guesthouses and were driven to the local market to meet our teacher. Our teacher was a guy named Meow -- "like the cat," he said -- and he was a jovial Thai man who first had us choose our dishes. Based on the dishes we gave him, the staff went out and bought the ingredients while Meow gave us a tour of the market. He showed us the different Asian vegetables and fruits, the meats (chicken, beef, pork, etc.), the seafood (including live eels), the congealed lumps of chicken blood, and the fish-filled vats producing the salty and pungent-smelling Asian fish sauce. A local woman demonstrated the coconut milk- and coconut cream-making process using what Meow called a "squish machine."

"Is that chicken blood?" someone asked, pointing to what looked like it.

"No," Meow said, chuckling as if to imply what was said was totally silly. "That's pork blood!"

A ten-minute drive later we arrived at our classroom, a big clean house with just a big kitchen and nothing else. Inside were prep tables, gas ranges, a dining table and the proverbial kitchen sink. We put our aprons on with the other Dutch, Czech and British students (including new friend, Briton Wendy) and got right to it, slicing and dicing the pre-determined ration of ingredients placed at each of our chopping stations, based on what we said we wanted to make. Meow stood at front as teacher, explaining the different vegetables and chilies. I was in the small majority that was going to make green curry paste (Nam Prik Gaeng Kiaw Wan), while others made red, yellow, matsaman and jungle curries. I chopped all my ingredients and place them in a stone mortar to be pounded with a stone pestle, the Thai way: while sitting on the floor.

"Can you imagine seeing this on a cooking show?" I told Elise. "This is the part when we sit on the floor."

The curry paste each of made was used to make curry dishes at our individual range stations. We mixed the paste and our other chopped ingredients into sizzling woks at medium heat while Meow went around and added in the other ingredients -- soybean oil, coconut milk, lime juice, fish sauce, sugar -- with measurements he knew to do without measuring utensils. Although he explained what each thing was, it was hard to remember what it was or how much he put afterwards, but in the end I was rewarded with a nice bowl of Gaeng Keaw Wan Gai (Green Curry with Chicken), worthy enough to be served in a Thai restaurant. It was put on the shelf to eat later; the next dish was to be prepared straight away.

"BEWARE OF MY SHOVEL!" Elise said, holding up her metal cooking spatula. The cooking assistants had given us metal utensils instead of wood for our next dish as we were, as TV chef Emeril Lagasse would say, "kicking it up a notch." My next dish, Stir-Fried Chicken with Hot Basil Leaves and Chilies (Pad Krapao Gai) would kick it up a notch in the spicy category too, with more small Thai chilies -- "dynamite chilies" as Meow called them -- crushed and put into the mix. Chilies were the only ingredient I really had the control over; as before, everything else was just handed to me in pre-determined proportional amounts, the way you see on cooking shows on TV. "I love how we're just given the things here," Lot said.

"Yeah, we're looking how to cook with three assistants," I said.

I stir-fried up my chopped ingredients with the additional sauces Meow put in my wok and in no time I had a promising and presentable platter of Pad Krapao Gai fit to serve the king of Thailand. We all had fun making the dishes too -- cooking is all about fun -- and it was a good time.

WE PREPARED TWO MORE DISHES before we could actually sit down and eat albeit the many tasters we had at our range stations. I chopped up more pre-determined ingredients simply handed to me, stuck them in the wok, stirred them around with the additional ingredients Meow put in for me, and soon I had a nice steaming bowl of Tom Kha Gai (Galangal Chicken and Coconut Soup) and the ever-popular standard, Pad Thai noodle dish, the one dish that I've noticed newbies to Thai cuisine often start with.

"If someone says to add more soy sauce or oyster sauce to the Pad Thai, you should get rid of him," Meow said. "The only sauce in Pad Thai should be tamarind!" Spoken like a true culinary master.

We finally got to sit down and eat our culinary creations after the fourth dish. With the exception of the noodle dishes, everything had gone cold already, but still tasty nonetheless. We all got sleepy with full stomachs afterwards, but head back to the old chopping boards to go at it again.

Next up was our choice of salad dishes, and for some reason I was in a crowd that really didn't embrace the taste or texture of squid as much as me. I was the oddball when I decided to make Yam Pla Mueg (Spicy Squid Salad) while everyone else made chicken, beef or vegetarian salads. All eyes were on me, "that guy who's actually making squid," and I got a round of applause after the quick in and out of stir-frying the seafood pieces -- one must be careful not to undercook or overcook squid; there is a perfect medium that a chef must achieve. I placed the spicy seafood salad on the plate in a nice presentation. "It's all about presentation!" Miro the Czech guy said (picture above).

As much as I love squid (yes, even the tentacles), I couldn't really eat what I just made because I miscalculated the chili-to-other ingredient proportions and ended up with YOW! Pla Mueg (Atomic Squid Salad).

For dessert, Lot and I were in a small envied group that prepared Khanom Gluay (Steamed Banana Cake) with a different teacher, a young Thai woman named Riam. She showed us how to core bananas (the center of the small Thai bananas is too hard for mashing) and mix it in with flour, sugar and coconut into a paste. The paste was plopped into the center of banana leaves and folded into cute little bulbs, which were placed in a steamer for 10-15 minutes. The sweet smell of coconut and banana escaped the steam trays and filled the room, enticing the others making other dishes. In the end, the Steamed Banana Cake Team shared our bounty with the others who reciprocated with their dishes. It was my American Thanksgiving, two days after the fact.

Class was concluded after that, and we were all proud recipients of cookbooks and one-day cooking course diplomas, which Lot, Elise, Wendy and I proudly showed off. Before graduation was over, I made sure I snapped a photo with my mentors Meow and Riam, even though I came away not really knowing how to cook Thai food unless I had the help of three assistants measuring out the right proportions for me. I suppose one day when I get back home in America I'll invest the time and make some Thai food from scratch, but then again, I might just go out for it; one thing they never tell you on TV cooking shows or in the class I took is that unless you have assistants or an automatic dishwasher, there's always a big pile of dirty dishes waiting for you once you're done cooking.

RECIPE FOR CHAOS: Take one thousand rice paper lanterns, hundreds of floating flower boats and stir in a whole bunch of firecrackers and other pyrotechnics. Add fire and bring to a high heat.

Soon after cooking class was our pre-trek briefing with others back at the guesthouse, and after that meeting, our little clique was enlarged by two people: Hans, a Dutchman traveling through southeast Asia, most recently with Claire, the baby of the group at 21, an outdoorsy-type originally from Manchester, UK. Hans, Claire, Lot, Elise and I head out to the Tha Pae Gate, the former big entrance into old city, now the center stage of the Yi Peng celebrations. It was there that Elise and I introduced the two newbies the custom of rice paper lantern launching, this time performing the traditional writing of wishes on the side before setting the core on fire. Elise wished for happiness, peace and sex; Claire, money, happiness, sex; me, "health, happiness, peace, prosperity... and sex." Before Elise set her lantern core on fire, she added the word "wisdom."

"What do you want wisdom for?" Claire joked.

"Wisdom? You don't need a thing like wisdom," I added.

"What? Wisdom to get sex!"

She stood on the queue to have the Thai firestarter guy set the core on fire as she held it and soon it was up and away, symbolizing the drifting away of her troubles and the bringing of good fortune. Claire's, Hans' and my lanterns followed, and they joined the hundreds of others that lit up and sparkled in the sky under the full moon. We didn't know exactly for how long they'd fly or how far they'd go, but supposedly after two hours the paper would burn out and then presumably the wire ring would fall to the ground. I imagine there was a whole bunch of metal rings somewhere off in the jungles of north Vietnam.

IT WAS THE MAIN DAY OF THE FESTIVAL, the day a big parade strolled through the city as a part PR stunt for companies, part Thai cultural show. Floats were followed by group processions and marching bands, one of which played the theme to James Bond amongst other things. We watched the whole thing atop the old fortification wall over beers and conversation. A big flashy boat float came through with Thai men pretending to row it forward.

"WOOOO!!!" we cheered to the stoic, stone-faced guys. No response. When Claire ran off to the shop to get something, a local woman grabbed her by the arm and scolded her, "You know you can be a bit more respectful when you're upstairs!"

We eventually walked the parade route faster than the floats and caught up to the flashy rowboat. The guy we cheered on noticed us and stared at us with a death look.

THE PARADE ENDED BACK AT THE NAWARAT BRIDGE, and the pyromania was ten times crazier than it was the night before. I thought the Hindu holiday of Diwali in India was a pyromaniac's paradise, but this was insane. Not only were fiery lanterns being launched left and right, but so were proper fireworks -- many of which were launched not upward but sideways. Launching flower floaters into the Ping River was like going into a battlezone, dodging flares and explosions, all to plant the flower into the river and send it off.

"It's a warzone!" Claire said. "I don't like this at all." She perpetually had her fingers in her ears the entire time we were there. We bumped into Luke and Nick, two guys we met at the trek briefing, and they told us that they held up a paper lantern as it was being lit -- all the while little Thai boys lit and threw firecrackers at their feet to make them dance.

After a flare came sparking down on us -- singeing my hair and Claire's arm -- enough was enough and we just called it a night and went our own ways. The pyromaniac festivities of the Yi Peng Festival continued all night with the high heat of a warzone and didn't simmer down until morning.

Facing Fears On The Non-Tourist Trek

DAY 406: The standard tour that everyone seems to do out of Chiang Mai is a three-day excursion of trekking, elephant riding and rafting, offered by every tour agency, hotel and guesthouse in town. The funny thing about this three-day tour is that most places advertise it as the "non-tourist trek" to attract the independent traveler set from doing the cardinal sing of doing something "touristy." Of course a tour agency offering a "non-tourist trek" is a bit of an oxymoron.

I say, doing something "touristy" isn't necessarily a bad thing, and so began Day One of the three-day trek through the jungles of northern Thailand.

THE TOUR GROUP OF TWO THAI GUIDES and seven foreigners, or farangs as the locals call them, piled into a pick-up truck with a cab mounted on the back. Sawit, one of the Thai guides, came to the back at a stopping point to learn our names.

"Elise," said the female voice in an Australian accent.

"Erik," said my American accent.

"I'm Claire," said the female voice in a non-regional English accent.

"My name is Lot," said the female voice in a Dutch accent.

"Hans," said the male voice, also in a Dutch accent.

"Luke," said the Australian accent from the Aussie ex-pat living in France. "[That's] Hansolo, I'm Luke Skywalker..."

"And Chewbacca?" I said, pointing to the guy on the end.

"Well he's got hairy legs," Elise attested for me. His name was Nick and he provided the male voice in an English accent.

The two Brits, two Aussies, two Dutchies, two Thais and me the lone American rode north out of Chiang Mai towards the jungle. On the way we stopped by a "non-tourist" market for supplies, parking the truck in a lot next to about six other converted pick-up trucks.

"Hey I thought this was supposed to be the 'non-tourist market!'"

We stopped for about forty minutes to stock up on necessities for three-day away from civilization. I got waterproof bandages for the wound in my leg while Nick and Luke went to get some more important provisions, and by that I mean booze.

"Should we get a bottle of whiskey?" Nick asked Luke. They were debating whether or not to get it there or if it'd be available in the village.

"I'm sure you can get it there," Luke told him. "Look at how many vans are here. It's probably going to be the same thing there."

However, the "non-tourist trek" became just that; after the market we really didn't see any other farangs for the entire day. After a refreshing dip under the Mork-Fa waterfall at the entrance of the Doi Suthep-Pui National Park, we had a delicious Thai lunch at a roadside restaurant that displayed spinning lanterns made of old soda cans outside, and then were dropped off at the trail head ten minutes away. The nine of us lugged our bags and our life jackets (for the upcoming rafting on the third day) uphill the single-track dirt path. After a good half hour, the trail still went upwards. "Hey I thought you said it would be up and down," Hans said to the guides, although he didn't really mind.

Eventually the trail started its undulation and we trekked up and down on the path -- the same path shared by dirt bike riders zipping by every so often with their loud buzzing and smelly exhausts. Each of us walked at his/her own pace and I spent a good hour trekking and chatting with Elise about this and that, including phobias.

"Are there snakes here?" I asked.

"They must be here somewhere," she said.

"That's the only thing I can't stand," I said. "Snakes are my weakness." I told her how the movement of snakes (and anything without appendages) made me cringe, the way being in a tall building's observation deck makes a person afraid of heights cringe. My ophidiophobia is so bad that when I saw the stuffed taxidermy snake at the American Museum of Natural History before I left on my global trip, I froze in the gallery with goosebumps while my friend and Blogreader Don W. continued on the aisle.

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? But I was happy to know the fact that generally speaking, snakes were timid creatures and usually avoided the loud noises and commotion of trekkers on the trails and campsites.

"Everyone's gotta have something," Elise said. "It gives you character." As for her, she told me one of her biggest phobias, as unusual as it may sound, was vomiting -- everything about it, from the sounds of gagging, to the smell, the sight and just the thought in general made her cringe.

THREE HOURS OF TREKKING LATER through the jungle scenery and passed a rice terrace (picture above), we arrived at a small village of the Karen hill tribe, a small collection of wooden huts and houses, a school, dozens of chickens, pigs and cows, all located conveniently around a mountain stream that provided for their livelihood. "Welcome to the Hotel California," Boon our guide said without singing when we led us to our accommodation for the night.

"Ah, such a lovely place," I said and walked through the doorway. Our home for the night was a basic house with a bamboo floor, some blankets, mosquito nets, a dining table and an outhouse in the back not too far away. All of these were situated right along the mountain stream, which also provided us with not only our livelihood for the night, but for a constant, relaxing auditory flow of white noise that made it sound like it was raining all the time.

"This is wonderful," Luke said, who seemed to be constantly impressed with the trek. I think he was expecting the "non-tourist trek" to be a lot more crowded with tourists, but we were the only foreigners in the village that night. "Non-tourist trek" was living up to its name.

DESPITE THE SERENITY OF OUR NEW HOME, Elise wasn't feeling well in the stomach from something she ate and she parked herself under her mosquito net to take a nap while the rest of us caught up on our journals or wandered around the village. There wasn't much to it; it was rather small and the only highlight was watching the local boys play a game of volleyball where they only used their feet or heads. Wandering the houses of the permanent residents of the village, I was only greeted with stares and disinterest.

"They probably think 'Oh, just another tourist,'" Lot said.

Boon, Sawit and the housekeeper prepared a delicious platter of vegetables and Thai yellow curry for dinner. Hans and the rest of us dined by candlelight as the mountain stream continued its relaxing white noise -- all of us except for Elise whose stomach was still queasy. Boon, Sawit and I often went to check up on her, but she refused any food. She thought perhaps vomiting might help her out, but the idea of it sickened her even more.

Nighttime entertainment came in the form of a roaring campfire created by Boon and the acoustic guitar available played by Luke. Sawit had a tattered songbook of photocopied lyrics and guitar chords for his favorite acoustic classics, including campfire standards like Don McLean's "American Pie" and The Beatles' "Hey Jude." It was a night of singing, often off-key, with and without the lyrics sheet in front of us. What is it about the human brain that only selectively remembers lyrics here and there in a song? For example, without looking it up, sing at your computer John Lennon's "Imagine." It probably goes something like this:

Imagine there's no heaven
And something something too
Dah da dah, dah di dah dah
And no religion too

CHORUS:
Imagine all the people
Living dah dah daah
Ah ha dah da dah

"I VOMITTED," Elise said when she plopped herself next to me on the wooden bench by the campfire. As much as she feared regurgitation, she bit the bullet, ran out from the shelter and puked in the bushes. She felt ten times better after that.

Coincidentally, shortly thereafter, there was a startling beneath the bench. Something slithered over Lot's foot and then made its way towards Nick's.

"SNAKE!"

Now I was sitting right next to Nick and right in front of us was a big dark snake about five feet in length with incredible girth -- perhaps a Burmese python. Before Nick made the "k" sound in "snake," I had jumped up to my bench in one swift move that probably looked like a video in fast-forward, like a scene in a "Little Rascals" episode complete with a sliding whistle sound. My heart raced and my breathing got heavy. I cringed as a chill went down my spine. But soon the snake slithered away frightened into the bush.

"Looks like everyone is facing their fears tonight," Elise told me.

THE SING-ALONG DIED DOWN and soon the fire did too, and we all turned into our mosquito nets one by one. I'm sure the villagers were glad we finally shut up from our singing; for them, there was probably nothing that made them cringe more than the awful sound of bunch of farangs trying to remember the lyrics to John Lennon tunes off the top of their heads.

Pineapples and Four-Legged Friends

DAY 407: I have faint but fond memories of my parents taking me to New York's Bronx Zoo as a kid, about twenty-five years ago. Not only was it one of America's more decent zoological preserves where I got to pet animals in the petting zoo section, but it was the place where I had ridden an elephant my first and only time -- until Day Two of my "non-tourist trek" through the jungles of northern Thailand.

THE DAY STARTED at the breakfast table. All of us were having our eggs, toast, teas and coffees -- minus Nick who slept in after complaining he didn't get much sleep the night before -- when an old woman with no teeth and a curious face stopped by. We thought she might have been there at the request of our guides, but no, she was just some random old woman who came to stare and observe us, possibly returning the favor of every Westerner that had come to the village to stare at her and her people.

"Look at her, she's so cute!" Claire said. Lot concurred and gave her some coffee and a banana. The curious old toothless woman sat down with us and enjoyed the free food for a bit, but we left her and her village about an hour later -- but not without Claire and Lot posing for photos, the latter with the balloons that Hans had given her as a gift.

"SÁAI OR KHWAA?" Sawit said at every fork in the trail as we proceeded on our trek. "Left or right?"

"It's this way?" Claire in the pole position guessed. The correct way was always to the right and for a short while we thought we might just be going in circles.

"Hey, there's that tree again," I joked.

After two hours of trekking and rest, followed by more trekking and rest through the jungle and through a dried up rice terrace, we finally saw elephants in the distance. Hans and I started to make trumpeting elephant noises, with no success. "That's not even close!" Lot told us.

We arrived at our midday camp, the Elephant Camp where our rides for the afternoon grazed freely on the local vegetation and drank at the river as we humans dined on a big pot of ramen noodles with fresh vegetables. Elephants never seem to stop eating -- an adult eats something like 80 kg. a day -- and I wondered how something so big could be vegetarian. "They're so big, but they're so cute," Luke said. It was pretty much the general consensus of all of us, minus Nick who noted that elephants "bathe in mud and shit all day." That was taken care of when the camp guides took each one and washed them individually like automobiles (picture above).

The elephants were fashioned with wooden saddles for us to sit on, two people on each of the thirty-something-year-old adults. There was an odd number of people in our group, and I was the odd man out -- but lucked out by getting an elephant all to myself, eight-year-old elephant boy Song Wong. The adult and baby elephant walk took us through the scenic jungle along a stream, up and down hills.

As exciting as all that sounds, let it be known that riding an elephant isn't the most comfortable thing in the world. On a scale of 1-10 in comfort (1 being the lowest, 10 the highest), it ranks about a 1.5, just above streaking nude in a cactus farm. I sat on the wooden seat with my feet up, down on the elephant's head and Prince Ali Ababwa-style, but nothing really felt right as I bounced violently along. Plus every time we went downhill I had to hold on for dear life with my hands on the sidebars to keep myself from falling off and being stepped on, or even worse, shat on.

Clearly, this was something I never had to worry about as a kid at the Bronx Zoo.

And speaking of elephant dung -- fecal matter is a common theme on this Blog if you're new to it -- the elephants produced a lot of it that afternoon. Whenever one had the urge for a Number Two, it'd stop, turn its ass to the side and then let it bowels go free. Claire especially liked my sports commentary of the defecation as the elephant she and Hans were riding did her deed.

"Oh, it's coming, it's coming! Oh! That was a fast one! Here's another... it's coming, it's coming... oh! Oh, it's stuck! Wait, here it comes, here it comes. You'll hear it, you'll hear it..." (A quick rustling of leaves, followed by a THUD.)

"Elephant pineapple," Sawit said, pointing to a fresh yellow elephant turd the size of a pineapple. Because of him, I may never eat pineapples again.

THERE MUST BE SOMETHING INHERENT in an elephant's brain that never seems to forget that it wants to be dirty; Song Wong often picked up dirt with his little trunk and threw it up over its head, right at me.

"HEY!"

The elephants were kept in line by the elephant camp guys, who conditioned the pachyderms with yelling and an occasional prick on the side with a slingshot. Song Wong didn't seem to mind and eventually got used to having me on his back. Near the end of our time together, he greeted me with his baby trunk. I'm sure if we spent more time together we'd go to America and get jobs in the circus.

Our rickety elephant rides were thankfully over only about an hour and a half later. We dismounted our long-nosed four-legged friends and bid them goodbye -- Elise thanked hers with a banana -- and proceeded on foot to the nearby village, which was a lot like a children's petty farm with baby animals running all around: chicks, piglets, calves, kittens and puppies. Claire took a liking to one particular puppy and brought him home to our shelter in the village for the night.

"We have to give him a name," she said.

"He looks like a Marvin," I said.

"That's such an American name," she said in her constant, but harmless stabs at me for being American. (She had lived and worked in the Lake George region of upstate New York, and to make a long story short, she gained a rather unfavorable perspective of middle-class America; she worked in a RV park.) "Marvin," she said. She liked it the American name and it stuck. She held him and stroked his little head as a cat Elise named Oscar sat on her stomach, until Boon and Sawit took Luke, Hans, Claire and me fishing at the nearby river.

IT WASN'T FISHING IN THE TRADITIONAL SENSE, with fishing poles, lures and slimy live bait; it was more like trekking in the river with a net. Sawit and Boon taught Luke and Hans how to throw the net in the river to catch fish, but with no luck -- the guides said the river was too muddy at the time for fish to be present. Meanwhile, Claire and I hung out on the riverbank doing Stupid Forest Tricks like popping a leaf on the top of my fist and blowing bubbles out of a leaf stem.

That only lasted so long, and with the rain starting to come down we head back to the village, traversing the muddy river back and forth in the process. Marvin, our new four-legged friend was there waiting for us at the gate, and we played with him some more until we were warned that perhaps he had fleas or some sort of disease. Claire and I let him go to play with his other four-legged friends and went to the guides' hut where Boon was cooking up Thai green curry with chicken and a savory pumpkin dish, and Sawit was playing guitar and singing Thai songs with a little village boy who hid in a blanket when we arrived.

For some reason the guitar wasn't available that night and the firewood was too damp for a fire, so entertainment came in the form of cans of Coke, a bottle of cheap Thai Sang Som rum (available at the village drink stand) and a box of matches. Boon and Sawit tried to boggle our minds with match brainteasers, many of them trick questions.

"Make [two triangles] four triangle. You can only move one," Sawit said.

Nick had the answer; he simply twisted a match in the first triangle to make it the numeral "4." It was his big contribution to the night, after an evening spent mostly flirting with Lot (but with no luck since she was faithful to a boyfriend back in Holland), complaining about how cold it was, and the snail in our room.

THAT NIGHT THE RAIN CONTINUED to fall when we turned in for the day, a day of baby elephants and puppy dogs. I'm sure in twenty-five years I'll have fond memories of that day, the second time I rode an elephant that is, and hopefully I'll forget about that image of the "elephant pineapple," so I won't have to think twice about eating them.

Whingeing Down The River

DAY 408: Of the many uses of bamboo -- panda food, decoration and crafts, scaffolding for Hong Kong skyscrapers -- one of the most fun is raft making. When I originally heard that Day Three of my northern Thai jungle trek would be spent mostly in a raft, I imagined it being the inflatable rubber kind. I was mistaken when I saw the bamboo rafts at the river on the edge of the village, which Boon and Sawit prepped up that morning by adding on extra bamboo to support our group's weight.

"Marvin!" Claire called out by the riverbank. Amazingly the puppy we named the day before responded and came to say goodbye with his little puppy dog eyes. "That's it, we're taking him with us," Claire said, but it was not to be. We left him, his mother, and all the squealing pigs and crowing roosters of the village and headed off at the will of the Maetaeng River.

We were divided into two uneven teams: Elise, Lot, Hans and I led by Sawit; Claire, Nick and Luke led by Boon. While according to age Claire was the baby of the group at 21 and Nick the oldest at 32, in terms of maturity on the river it was quite the opposite. For most of the time Nick would whine and complain -- whinge as they say in England -- about falling in or getting his camera wet.

"But it's in the waterproof bag," Claire told him as she tried her hand at fishing with a pole from the raft with no luck. His camera could have stayed in the sack because I took most of the groups' photos with my little digital spy camera from inside the transparent AquaPac sack I got from the Tokyu Hands store in Hiroshima, which made any point-and-shoot waterproof and submersible up to three meters deep -- however, I hadn't tested it out and didn't know if it was water-worthy just yet.

Getting wet was inevitable, especially in my team's raft, which was worn out and waterlogged and heavier by one person than the other. "We need more bamboo!" Hans shouted up to Sawit. Although still technically floating, our raft "floated" two feet underwater at times and often the water would come up to our knees. From afar it probably looked like we were sliding across the surface of the river on our knees. "Look at them, they're not sinking," Hans pointed out.

"Look at how green theirs is. Our bamboo is all waterlogged," Elise said.

We rafted onwards with the current of the river, through sections of calm water where elephants came to drink and sections of mild Class I river rapids, which seemed a lot tougher in a rickety bamboo raft. Hans and I, the two oarsmen in the back, listened for the commands from Sawit up at front.

"Left side, left side!" "Right side, right side!"

Sometimes the river was too deep and there was no floor to push off of with our long bamboo stick "oars."

"There is no left side!" I'd call up. At one of the deeper sections I lost my balance and was the first person to fall in, along with my life jacket and camera. I swam back the raft in no time, but with my The Global Trip shirt all soaked.

"Did [your camera] get wet?" Elise asked me.

"It's completely dry," I answered. "Successful test." There was no reason to whinge.

THE MAETAENG EVENTUALLY TOOK OUR TWO LONESOME RAFTS (picture above) to a village along the riverbank where we took a break to make my team's raft more river-worthy. At the village we finally saw other tourists on similar treks of different "non-tourist" routes. With them came the reappearance of vendor ladies who approached us with their decorative tribal hats and stashes of bracelets and woven goods, even before we dismounted the raft. "We don't need trinkets, we need repairs!" Luke told them.

While Sawit and Boon worked on adding another bamboo log to my team's raft, we wandered around the village. Elise, who was not at all scare of heights, sat out on one of the few planks of the nearby suspension bridge; Claire pet a nearby elephant grazing; and Hans blew up and distributed some of the balloons he had to the village children. He transformed what looked to be a bored sleepy village into a happy kids party.

Back on the raft, I was relieved of oaring duties for a while and sat in the middle with Lot, where there were no raft duties other than to stand and balance the raft with your weight if it started to flip one way. When the Maetaeng got rougher, I was put back on the back oarsmen duties since it was a "man's job" in Sawit's eyes. Even with the added bamboo log on our raft we still often sank and slid across the river about a foot below the surface, but we just sort of got used to it. Elise who sat in the center keeping balance got her trousers completely soaked but didn't seem to care.

Meanwhile on the other raft, Claire took one of the "manly" oarsmen positions while Nick took the center. "My camera! Be careful, my camera will get wet!" he'd still whinge as Luke, Claire and Boon kept the raft steady. It didn't always work though; Luke fell in at one point and during the end of one rapid, so did Nick. Not only did he get soaked, his shorts got snagged on a rock and pulled them down.

BY MID-AFTERNOON WE ARRIVED at the end of our river adventure, the end of our three-day "non-tourist" trek. We rested at the Ban Sobkai Riverside House a while for showers, Pad Thai and a group photo. Three hours in the back of a truck later, we were back in the civilization of Chiang Mai. Elise, Lot and I checked back into Mama's Chiang Mai Guesthouse while Claire and Hans switched to another place and Nick and Luke did their own thing. We agreed to meet up for a dinner of Western food after eating Thai for four days straight -- and nothing was Western than the food at the Chiang Mai Saloon, a rustic wooden-panel eatery fashioned like the Old American West, whose logo was the familiar cowboy-on-a-bucking-bronco, only the bronco was an elephant. Run by a Texan, they really knew how to serve up meat and plenty of it, and I gorged on a chicken and ribs platter. Mmm... chicken and ribs. Once it hits your lips, it's so good.

After a day of being soaked in river water, being smothered in barbecue sauce was a nice change of pace, as long as my camera kept dry.

Chiang Mai In The News

DAY 409: Everyone in my little Chiang Mai clique decided to "take a day off" to rest and recuperate in the city after being in the jungle for three days. Despite the beautiful weather outside, I spent most of the day indoors at the desk in my room writing and sorting out photos, all while listening to my eclectic music collection: the Linkin Park Live in Texas CD, Stevie Wonder's greatest hits and an assortment of MP3s like the underground hip-hop classic, Akinyele's "Put It In Your Mouth."

I took a mid-day lunch break back at the Chiang Mai Saloon for a baked potato stuffed with chili, cheese and sour cream -- probably the best baked potato I've had outside the USA. I sat alone at a table and watched the TV in the corner, which was playing a special World AIDS Day program produced by a collaboration of CNN and MTV. The program showcased how different countries were dealing with the AIDS epidemic -- from Beijing to Tanzania to West Virginia, USA -- and all of a sudden the image on the screen looked familiar.

"Here in Chiang Mai..." began the segment, with text on the screen saying "Chiang Mai, Thailand."

"Hey, that's right there!" I said to the guy at the bar. He was surprised too; they had shot just down the block from where we were. The report continued about AIDS in Thailand, how it's become more rampant since casual sex has become almost as common as sex tourism, but the rate of new HIV cases has taken a huge dive since the country's big education and condom distribution efforts.

LOT, ELISE, HANS, CLAIRE AND I MET UP that evening to go to the night bazaar, which was like most any other tourist-targeted market selling the usual wooden carvings, textiles, Che Guevarra t-shirts and bootleg CDs. There were also some Thai-specific items, like Muay Thai boxing trunks. I was looking for a new towel and a new pair of swimming trunks since I accidentally mine hanging out to dry in the village after the rafting trip the day before, but there was nothing to be found in such a souvenir market. "Basically they just sell the same thing over and over," I told Claire.

"Yeah, it's the same everywhere in Thailand."

"All over the world, really." Seriously, what is it about Che Guevarra that has made him this neo-bohemian t-shirt icon all over the world? Many people I've asked didn't even know anything about him.

I gave up on trunks and towels and just camped out with Claire in the corner Starbucks for Frappucinos until the others met us there. One thing I did buy though was some bootleg DVDs so that I could catch up on the latest in American pop culture on my laptop. Hans and I shopped at one stand where the actual physical DVD discs were somewhere else; you had to go through a catalog and pick the ones you wanted. Hans and I each chose five; the guy handled me first, but not in haste. For some reason he was stalling and kept on asking me to "wait five minute." He was on his mobile phone to coordinate the delivery -- I figured the guy on the other end was just having trouble finding the last remaining copy of Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. My discs came in a bag about fifteen minutes later, but Hans wasn't so lucky; the guy told him to come back later, and when he did, the DVDs were no longer available for the night.

"They're too many cops around," Hans figured out. One of the Bangkok Post's top stories that day was the fact that not only was it World AIDS Day, but it was one of the first days of a 90-day campaign of surprise bootleg media raids in Thailand. According to a factoid pointed out by Blogreader Noelle, "Rampant movie piracy in Asia in the form of bootlegged DVDs cost Hollywood more than $718 million in lost revenue in 2003, up from $575 million in 2000." Just outside of Bangkok, factories mass-produced illegal DVDs and distributed them around the country, from the beaches of the south to the cities in the north like Chiang Mai. Until the raids the police usually let the pirate vendors slide, but this time the government sent out the national police for the busts. In the first day alone, 200 policemen seized over a million illegal DVDs and CDs.

Isn't it funny how perhaps twenty years ago, we would have laughed and thought this was just futuristic science fiction? Back then, police made big drug busts, and now they were going out for electronic crime offenders. The future really is now, especially with mobile and internet technology advancing at an exponential rate; I can't wait until we start seeing flying cars.

IT WAS ELISE'S LAST DAY IN CHIANG MAI so we sent her off with a night of drinks. Just like in Bangkok, it wasn't necessary to be inside a bar to get schlacquered; right on the main road a couple of Thai guys set up a cocktail bar converted from a vintage Volkswagen van (picture above). Hans and I experimented by ordering drinks on the menu that we never heard of -- "Elephant Kiss" and "Around the World" -- but both ended up tasting worse than fish sauce. I played it safe afterwards with the standard Mai Tai, which Lot and I redubbed the "Chiang Mai Tai." Not many people called it that though, but I'm sure we could have sent a press release out to announce the name change for the next day the city of Chiang Mai was in the news spotlight again.

The Occidental Tourist

DAY 410: In independent travel culture, some would argue that booking any sort of a tour is a cardinal sin (right next to eating at McDonald's), as it is counter-productive to experiencing the real reality of a foreign culture. Lot, Claire, Hans and I were interested in seeing the Karen hill tribes of the north, near the Thai/Myanmar/Lao border, known for its long-necked women with bronze rings around their collars. We explored the different options of seeing them independently but in the end, the most cost-effective way to see them was just to book the standard one-day tour with an agency, which not only included the hill tribes but all the tourist traps on the way to break up what would otherwise be a boring four-hour drive.

Our guide Nok, a young Thai woman picked the four of us up in an air-conditioned minivan along with a French and Irish couple, two Aussie girls from Sydney and a lone Japanese traveler from Yokohama. Our first tourist trap on our road trip was the Bai Orchid and Butterfly Farm, which not surprisingly bred and cultivated butterflies and orchids in controlled environments. The butterflies weren't that abundant in number and variety and the rows of orchids didn't even really emit any odor. "Maybe they're plastic," I told Claire.

The "farm" did provide us with a half hour to stretch our legs and drink coffee in the cafe, right next to the obligatory gift shop.

"Ready?" Nok finally asked.

"I think we've been here twenty-five minutes more than we need to be."

NEXT UP WAS THE PAPER "FACTORY," which produced paper so they could sell it and its products in the big obligatory gift shop nearby. What made this otherwise tourist trap unique was the fact that the paper was made from elephant dung. A woman gave us the tour of the process, from the washing of the dung, the pressing, cleaning and pulping. In the end, the fibers dried in big wooden frames until someone peeled it off. "That's a sheet of shit," I said.

The tour ended not surprisingly at the gift shop, which showcased the many uses of their folded shitty paper, from photo albums to greeting cards so that one could give loved ones Christmas and Valentine's Day cards. (Nothing says "I love you" better than a folded elephant turd.) Lot and Claire bought into it anyway while I tried on a hat that screamed "tourist."

"This is definitely not the non-tourist trek," Lot commented as the cashier rang her up.

NEXT DOWN THE ROAD was the Chiang Dao Caves, a series of natural caverns-turned-religious Buddhist sanctuary-turned-tourist trap. After feeding the big four-foot catfish in a pond (where fish food was conveniently available from a man for 5 baht), we explored the main cave, a cavern lit with florescent lights to show off the Buddhas and limestone formations inside. Outside the cave was a touristy fortune-telling machine that worked like an electronic roulette wheel: you put in a one-baht coin and watched an LED light go round and around until it stopped on a number. With that number you went to a board on the side with different numbers and ripped off a slip of paper with your fortune on it. I pulled up arguably the worst fortune available -- no sugar-coated fortune cookie fortunes here -- and Hans' wasn't that favorable either. He put another coin in and watched the LED spin.

"Ha, I got the same number!"

FROM THE VENDING STAND SELLING different herbs and roots marketing for tourists for wellness and sexual enhancement, we drove off to a food stand for lunch -- it was obviously a restaurant in existence to specifically cater to the daily tourists going to the hill tribes. A family-style lunch of Thai food was already waiting for us and we sat down for the meal and talked about the tourist traps we'd seen and the big one at the end.

"We all do it, we do it to ourselves," Chris, one of the Aussie girls said. "You gotta see this, then this, then this..." She too wanted to do something more "independent" but knew it was just cheaper to do it the standard tourist way.

"You think there'll be a cardboard cutout [of the long-neck people] so we can stick our heads in for a photo?" I joked.

"That's so bad!" she said, laughing. "What a twisted sense of humor."

THERE WERE NO CARDBOARD CUTOUTS when we arrived at the Three Hill Tribes Village, designated by a sign that read, "Welcome to Three Hills Tribes Village," near a building with a big satellite dish on it. It was no surprise that the place was a built-up showcase -- or "people zoo" to put it more bluntly -- for the three hill tribes indigenous to the region, the Akha, the Meo and more popularly, the Karen, known for their self-elongated necks and ears, which the men in the tribe traditionally found attractive. Long earlobes were created by sticking pegs in ear piercings; long necks were created by keeping them coiled in a decorative bronze neck dress so heavy (about five kilos) that "long necks" were actually achieved by crushing down the shoulders and collar bones.

The parking lot was connected to the village by a paved tourist-friendly walkway lined with vending stands trying to sell the usual souvenirs and touristy hats. At the end of the trail there they were, the Karen women in their neck dresses (picture above) in a village comprised of nothing much else than more souvenir stands. Most of the women were looking quite depressed, weaving textiles to keep busy while tourists went around with their cameras and observed them like zoo animals.

"This is too weird," Claire said. "It's like a zoo."

For a second I shared her opinion, but soon snapped out of it. "Well," I initially said somberly, "We got what we came for!" CLICK! went my camera.

As culturally insensitive as that sounds, in a way it wasn't. From what I was told, the Karen people didn't normally wear the neck dresses; it was simply for show, to make money off of tourists. "I guess it's like when people come to Holland and pay to see people in wooden shoes," Lot said, who didn't exactly pack a pair of Dutch wooden shoes with her.

"I'll feel better if I buy something from them," Chris said. She bought some souvenirs but it wasn't exactly necessary; 250 baht of our 650-baht fee each supposedly already went to the community. (I bought a couple of photos anyway.)

While Hans distributed more balloons to the village children, Claire still wasn't into the exploitation of the long-necked women, but she found enjoyment in the village puppies. However, when she stroked one sleeping puppy, she didn't sugar-coat the probable reality: "There, there, you're going to be dinner tonight."

With that said, she too got over her inhibitions and shot some photos of the village women. Along with Lot and me, she did the crass pose in front of a loose neck dress, in lieu of a cardboard cutout.

"We have to get a group photo with one of them!" I said to the gang.

"Okay!"

We gathered around a lone girl with the decorative neck brace. "We're all going to hell," I said. "We might as well go all the way."

CLICK!

"I THOUGHT THERE WERE THREE TRIBES," Lot said to me. "There's the long ear..."

"The long neck..."

"And the other?"

"They don't have anything," I said. "It's just another tribe."

"Okay then."

At the end of the day of being me being a stereotypical obnoxious American tourist, we went back to the Chiang Mai Saloon to continue the theme. For my last American-style meal before heading out to less-developed Laos, I went all out with a nice big obnoxious ribeye steak and baked potato. This was followed by a game of pool.

In the world of tourism, there is a wide spectrum of tourists, from the lone hard-core backpacker with his/her own cooking supplies to the family with the matching Louis Vuitton luggage, and for me, sometimes it's fun to go to the other side for a change of pace. When tourist traps set themselves up for it, you might as well go all out.

The Power of Geography

DAY 411: My family has a history of geography contests. When I was in the seventh grade, I was chosen to represent my middle school in the statewide Geography Bee, proudly run by New York Knick-turned New Jersey senator Bill Bradley. I made it to the semi-finals, a written test with a bubble sheet answer form, but didn't advance because, from what I suspect, I used a No. 3 pencil instead of the required No. 2. Either that, or my Power of Geography simply ran out of steam.

Five years later when my brother, Blogreader markyt was in the seventh grade, he was chosen to be a contestant on the popular PBS geography game show, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, based on the highly-popular educational computer game. Markyt used his Power of Geography to put fictional baddie Robocrook in jail, and made it to the final round, a round where he had 45 seconds to identify eight African countries by placing a marker on each one on a huge map of the continent on the floor. Markyt's Power of Geography ran out at that point -- he only identified three, but hey, Africa's hard enough, let alone on a big confusing floor map -- but at least he got the privilege to command the rock acapella group (appropriately named "Rockapella") to "do it," "it" being sing the theme song for the closing credits. (To see the video highlights clip of markyt on Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, go to the Itinerary page off the CONTENTS above, and click on Madagascar.)

The study of geography isn't just about capitals and the shapes of countries on a map. It is a blend of anthropology, history and geology, all rolled into one social science (or as we used to say in the seventh grade, "soc sci"). Little did I know that morning that my family Power of Geography would come into play again.

MY LAST MORNING IN CHIANG MAI went by fast. It was a non-stop series of errands -- typing up a Blog entry, packing up, checking out, shopping for a new towel at the locals' market, and mailing a package home. Afterwards I met Lot for breakfast at the Zest garden cafe in town, where I had my final session with my latest Dutch partner-in-crime ever since Pepjin (Pepe) in Ecuador. We ended up at our usual high-speed internet cafe with the easy USB connectors, where coincidentally Hans and Claire were for a final farewell. The group would disband that afternoon with everyone going his/her own way. I was the first to go; I was picked up at 12:30 by a minivan that would take me and a group of others to Chiang Khong, the Thai border town with Laos, five hours away on a road that sometimes reminded me of California (picture above).

"What's your name?" I asked a guy from my minivan when we sat at adjacent tables during a mid-way lunch break at a roadside restaurant.

"Hoib."

"Herb?"

"Huyb. H, U, Y, B."

"Erik."

"And you are from the States I'm guessing?"

"New York."

"And where am I from?"

Without having to think too hard, my Power of Geography came to life. "Holland."

"That's right! How did you know?"

"I've been traveling with the Dutch for the past week."

"I try and hide my accent."

"I can tell though. There's something that you put on the end of your words." I couldn't really place what it was, but it's the same subtle sound that Mike Myers did so well as his Dutch character Goldmember in the third Austin Powers movie.)

"And you're going to Laos?" Huyb asked.

"Yeah, aren't we all taking the slow boat to..." I couldn't remember the name of our final destination. "...the one that starts with an 'L.'"

"Luang Prabang."

"Yeah, that one."

"Good, so I won't be alone then." Not everyone was taking the slow boat to Luang Prabang. The two girls he sat with in the back of the minivan and now at the table before us weren't traveling with him like I originally thought; they were going to take a bus from the border to some other town in the north. My Power of Geography couldn't deduce where they were from -- European? Israeli? -- but I figured that they were from the UK or something, not only because of their slight British accents, but because one of them, Jenny, reminded me of British actress Keira Knightley. We chat over our Cokes and Thai Chicken with Cashew Nuts, discussing snake and spider phobias (you either have one or the other) and that town most of us were headed to in Laos.

"I forget the name again," I said.

"Luang Prabang," Huyb said, smiling. "You have to study your cities!"

The Power of Geography only lasts so long.

THE SCENERY GOT MORE RURAL the farther we went and three hours later we finally arrived in the sleepy border town of Chiang Khong by sundown. We checked into the guesthouse included in our tour packages and sat at the dinner table to eat our complimentary last Thai dishes for the meantime. It was then we met a husky German guy who we eventually invited for drinks -- after we could figure out his name that is.

"What's his name?" Huyb asked.

"I don't know," Jenny said. Her friend Karin didn't know either.

"Hans," I joked.

"Is it really Hans?"

"It has to be."

We looked it up on the guesthouse registration book. It was Markus.

"WHERE ARE YOU FROM?" I asked Markus as we all walked down the small strip of bars, the only strip in the sleepy town.

"Germany."

"I figured that. I mean where in Germany?"

"The south of Germany, between Stuttgart and Munich," he answered with a hesitation to tell me exactly which city because I probably hadn't heard of it.

"Ulm?" I guessed.

"Yes! Ulm! You know it?"

"I was there last summer," I told him. "It's on the border of [the German states] Baden-Würtemburg and Bavaria." I continued to wow him with the trivia that it was the birthplace of Albert Einstein and that it boasted the world's tallest cathedral. My Power of Geography was in full force again.

His face lit up as he was completely amazed that someone had heard of this hometown, particularly an American. Americans aren't exactly known for their knowledge of geography outside the US, what with 90% of the population without possession of a passport, and people still not knowing how many states in the union there are (as proven time and time again by impromptu quizzes on the street by Jay Leno and Howard Stern). Sad, when you think about it, but then again, how many of you Blogreaders didn't know where Madagascar was when I told you to look it up?

Markus, Jenny, Karin, Huyb and I ended up at the Tee Pee Bar, a dark but cozy little place with posters of Hendrix and Marley on the wall, not surprisingly run by a Thai Rastafarian. We sat on the floor around some tables while Markus entertained and fooled us with card tricks. It was then that I saw my Power of Geography was fading again; Jenny and Karin were Swedish, not British like I thought, although I've made a similar mistake before -- I originally thought Dutchman Pepe in Ecuador was British because he reminded me of British actor Hugh Grant.

"What do Americans think of Sweden?" Jenny asked me.

"Well, my entire apartment was furnished by Ikea."

"So they don't think we are all socialistic?"

"Uh, I don't think Americans can think that far," I joked. "Just Ikea. And meatballs."

"In Germany we picture the [carefree] blonde girls. The Swedish boys are big drinkers."

"Oh yeah, we think that in America too."

Jenny had broken the Swedish stereotype -- she wasn't a dumb blonde in a bikini, nor did she throw around rubber chickens and vegetables and go "Mork mork mork" like Jim Henson's Swedish Chef Muppet -- she was a pretty bright business student studying abroad at the National University of Singapore. I suppose it's never to late too learn something new in the vast study of geography.

And speaking of learning something, in case you're still stumped on which one Madagascar is on the Itinerary map, it's the island off the southeast coast of the African continent, dummy.

The Wrath of Khan

DAY 412: Perhaps the most popular Laotian, at least in American pop culture, is the animated character Khan from the animated series King of the Hill, created by Mike Judge of Beavis and Butthead and Office Space fame. Khan and his family live in Texas surrounded by a quirky group of stereotypical Texans, and don't often see eye to eye. Laotian immigrant + Texas redneck = hilarity. In one of the first episodes, when Khan is introduced to main character Hank Hill and his beer-drinking friends, the dialogue goes like this:

Hank: So, are you Chinese or Japanese?
Khan (in thick Laotian accent): I live in California last twenty year, but first come from Laos.
Hank: Huh?
Khan: Laos. We Laotian.
Bill (Hank's friend): The ocean? What ocean?
Khan: We are Laotian. From Laos, stupid. It's a landlocked country in southeast Asia. It's between Vietnam and Thailand, okay? Population 4.7 million.
(Blank stares from Hank and company.)
Hank: So... are you Chinese or Japanese?
(Khan screams in a fit of anger and frustration.)

I suppose to the uninformed person, all Asians look the same and blend in with each other, and I suspected that with my Filipino skin and face I'd be able to blend into Laos when I arrived.

A ROOSTER CROWED, as one did almost every morning in northern Thailand signaling that it was still way to early for roosters to be awake crowing their heads off. In fiction, roosters always seem to be nature's alarm clock at the coming of sunrise, but in reality, they start hours ahead of schedule.

Day break finally came and I packed up my bags and joined Huyb, Markus and the rest, most of which were Dutch for some reason, for the complimentary breakfast and transport to the border post down the road. Exit formalities were a snap and soon we passed under the arch that read "Gateway to Indochina," and down to the riverbank where small slim ferryboats took us over the Mekong River into Laos. Entry formalities into Laos couldn't have been easier -- it was almost like checking into a hotel. Nearby the Lao flag waved proudly next to an old Soviet hammer and sickle; Lao is still Communist like neighboring China in the north.

A "slow boat" (picture above) was the preferred (and cheaper) option of cruising down the Mekong to the town of Luang Prabang, even though it would take two days to get there. The other option was the "speed boat," which would zip you there in a day in a small, and deafeningly loud boat with no legroom.

We arrived on time for our scheduled 10 a.m. departure on the slow boat, but nothing happened as we waited patiently on board for close to an hour. "This is really the slow boat," Huyb said. We waited and waited some more, so long that people just got off to stretch their legs and take pictures.

"What time are we supposed to arrive [at Pak Beng, the midway point]?" I asked Huyb. He pulled out his notes where he wrote down the intended schedule: 10h00 departure. Boat ride 6h. Arrive 17h00.

"That includes the one hour break."

"Did we take that break in the beginning?"

At 11:30 the captain got on board after registering his vessel with the river authorities, or just waking up, we weren't sure which. Finally the 80 or so of us were cruising downstream of the mighty Mekong. It was a long ride that was part relaxation (reading and writing), part discomfort (sitting or lying on wood for seven hours), part boredom (staring into space), part inspiration (staring into the beautiful scenery of rolling green hills and crazy river rock formations). We stopped for about twenty minutes at a fishing village with vendors who sold sodas, Pringles and Lay's along side village children calling out "Pineapple! Pineapple!" One boy spoke to me in Lao(?) and my suspicious of me blending in were solidifying into truth.

MORE SCENERY, MORE BOATS FLOATING BY. Right after dusk we arrived in the small town of Pak Beng, a village that strived on the nightly groups of people taking slow boats to Luang Prabang. There were just enough guesthouses in town to accommodate two boatloads. Huyb, Markus and I ended up in the Phonethip Guesthouse, run by a friendly woman named Sue who thought I was not Lao, but Thai. Wait, don't all southeast Asians look the same?

After settling in I ended up starting off my first night in Laos with Markus over the beer of Laos, named "Beerlao" for obvious reasons.

"Are you Thai?" the Laotian waiter asked me.

"No, American. But my parents are from the Philippines."

"Oh, Filipino," he said. "You look Thai."

"Thai? Not Lao?" I took off my glasses so he could get a better look.

"No, you look Thai. Not Lao," he said with confidence.

"I can see the difference in the Lao people," Markus said. "The darker skin and the nose is different."

"Really?"

He told me he read somewhere that there was an underlying conflict between Laotians and their neighboring Thai and Vietnamese and that if you befriended a Laotian, it was in fashion to get on his good side by poking fun at the Thais or Vietnamese. Khan of King of the Hill was right; Laos is its own thing, not to be confused with other Asian countries. If I was in the cartoon he'd probably get all pissed at me too.

Markus told me that he originally thought I might be Malay, but with my glasses he assumed I was European. Wow, European from Malay simply by putting on my big thick-framed glasses. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised; I mean, it worked for Superman's secret identity.

Accents On The Mekong

DAY 413: Sue, the woman of the Phonethip Guesthouse in Pak Beng, was making the sandwiches we pre-ordered the night before, so that we could bring them on our long slow boat ride down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. "You want banana? Buy from me! Ha ha!" she said in her thick Laotian accent with perhaps a bit too much energy for 7:30 in the morning.

"No, that's okay."

"You want pineapple? Very good. Buy from me, buy from me! Cheap cheap, ha ha!"

Her daughter (I assumed) Ponti wasn't nearly as high energy as Sue that morning as she sat nearby to see the latest round of nightly guests. "You look very handsome," she said.

"Thank you," I said.

Meanwhile, Markus was buying a piece of cake from Sue since he'd been around the block and saw the same things elsewhere. "Same same. Very good! You buy from me! Ha ha!"

JUST LIKE THE DAY BEFORE, it took over an hour for the slow boat to depart after we had all boarded and settled in. While waiting I made friends with Patty, the Canadian woman sitting next to me. "I'm from Saskatchewan," she said. "Tell me you've been there and you'll make me happy."

"No, no," I said. "But I have heard of it."

"That's a step in the right direction," Patty said. "And you?"

"New York. Tell me you've heard of it."

Behind her in the bench next to Huyb was her husband Larry, an American originally from Chicago who had a long ZZ Top beard with the ends braided. He was a scientist who had worked and lived in Japan for quite a while, which was where he met Patty. Both of them had an extensive travel history together ever since -- mostly off the beaten path, sometimes with just bicycles -- and Larry said he had been gone from the States long enough that he no longer had the American accent he came to find so annoying. "I really have a problem with American vowels," he said. "In the States it's A-E-I-O-U. Everywhere else it's ah-eh-ee-oh-oo." He continued by saying that no one but Americans had that piercing long "A" sound.

"Oh, like hamburger," I said in my best American accent. I had to agree with him on his point; I remember being really embarrassed in Cerbere in southwestern France, waiting at the train station for the overnighter to Paris, overhearing two American valley girl-types (most likely right out of high school) ordering two chicken sandwiches from the station cafe:

Valley Girl #1: Should we order in French?
Valley Girl #2: Oh wait, I can do it. (She turns to the Frenchman, and holds up two fingers.) Okay, dooo poolay.
(I cringe.)

THE DAY WAS A LONG ONE. Eight hours on a slow boat down the Mekong. Whenever a speedboat whizzed by there was a mixed feeling of jealousy and remorse. Larry and Patty had been on a speed boat down the Mekong before and Larry said it was like when Han Solo made the jump to hyperspace; the river looks completely still and the scenery just whizzes by. He thought it was pretty cool while his wife was pretty terrified by it.

We passed the time in different ways. Those with MP3 portables or Discmans used them. Others just sat around and read, wrote or slept in the cramped but bearable conditions (picture above). At sundown the boat slowed down and docked at the port of Luang Prabang, our final destination for the night. The first impressions of town was that it was a sleepy one, but in a good way, a subdued paradise of palm trees and laid-back people. Not surprisingly, when we walked into town from the riverbank, touts approached us with flyers for their guesthouses. Right away I saw the difference in Thai touts and Lao ones. Unlike Thais, the Laotians approach you with a pitch, take "no" for an answer when you decline once, and then just go on their way.

We all went our separate ways, Huyb one way, Markus another and me another. Checking out the different places, I saw that Laos was a tad bit more expensive than Thailand, with most initial quotes in the $5-$8 (USD) range, as opposed to Thailand's $2-$3. I was walking one of the streets when I was approached by one of the several touts on motor scooters, patrolling the streets for new backpacker clients wandering aimlessly in town. The guy was a friendly Lao guy named Keo and led me to his centrally-located guesthouse, with a spotless room with shared bath for $5. A bit steep I thought, but he said there was unlimited coffee and tea. "Okay, you got me," I said. I just didn't feel like looking around anymore. Later I learned that Huyb paid $8 for a place with roaches and Markus paid $6 for a place with free bananas. Supposedly the prices were higher because everyone was trying to play catch-up from the lull in tourism from the week-long border closure instated as a security measure for some national conference in the capital city of Vientiane.

LUANG PRABANG WAS ONCE THE CAPTIAL CITY of Lane Xang, the "Kingdom of a Million Elephants" of the 14th to 17th centuries. Luckily for Luang Prabangers, the capital was moved to Vientiane in 1556, leaving most of the town untainted from industrialization; it's charm and remaining historical sites earned it the recognition as a World Heritage city by UNESCO.

This isn't to say Luang Prabang wasn't influenced by outsiders. Laos, which was once a Thai territory, was given up by the king of Thailand in a treaty when the French were expanding their Indochina territories from what is now Vietnam. With that said, my pre-conceived notion of Lao cuisine was that it would be a lot like Thai with perhaps a French flair, but I saw that Laos boasted a unique cuisine that set itself apart from its neighboring countries or France.

I had my first real Lao meal at the place Let's Go highly-recommended, the Indochina Spirit Restaurant, known for its international and Lao menu. The place was a lot swankier than I thought it'd be, with nice furniture, candles and a live band in the corner playing the traditional Lao sounds of drums and a xylophone. The clientele was primarily older tourists in package groups, but more importantly there were many locals dining there too, although I guess I can't assume that every dark-skinned, Asian-faced person was an official Laotian. With me was Markus, the straight-edged German who had an epiphany that afternoon staring out on the river; all his life had been spent trying to get rich quick and it dawned on him that perhaps you didn't need a lot of money to have a fulfilling life, especially traveling in southeast Asia.

For my introduction into Lao cuisine, I ordered the "Lao Plate," a sampler of the different unique dishes: chai pen (Mekong seaweed, dried and seeded), sai ua (Lao sausage), gaeng som pa (fish soup), kau niau (sticky rice), and my favorite, ua no mai sai muu (deep fried bamboo shoots stuffed with ground pork). I washed it down with sweet Lao rice wine.

FAMILIAR FACES GREETED AND SMILED AT US as Markus and I walked the afternoon-turned-night market on the main strip. I recommended the Indochina Spirit restaurant to Larry, who loved going out to restaurants, but ignored the part about us sitting next to a table with three Americans with their piercing accentuation of American vowels. Markus kept on bumping into people he'd met in Thailand and in the end we bumped into Huyb at a bar. With him was another German also named Markus, who looked like actor John Malcovich. He laughed every time I pronounced "Ulm" in my pseudo-German accent.

"Say it again."

"Ulm."

"Ha ha! Next time I need a stand-up comedian, I'll call you."

Hmm, which is worse, the American accent, or the American accent trying to emulate other accents?

Three young Austrians that Huyb met joined us and our first real night in Laos was a casual night of Beerlao and soccer on TV. The bar closed at 10:30, but the owners let us stay an extra half hour while giving us subtle hints to leave: by putting up all the chairs, taking our empty glasses away, and ultimately, turning off all but one light. Outside in the streets, the busy night market had already disappeared, leaving nothing but a deserted sleepy town road.

Luang Prabang wasn't big in terms of nightlife, but at least wandering an empty street was better than being cramped on a slow boat all day.

Pousi Galore

DAY 414: I've been going through southeast Asia thus far with a sort of sardonic attitude; as nice as it is, "southeast Asia" has become a sort of cliché in my mind, although I have no right to be a cynic, it being my first time traveling through (the continental southeast Asia anyway). My attitude comes from the fact that in the traveler circles I'm a part of, almost everyone talks about their "big trip" through southeast Asia, how they're going to go, or have come back already.

"I'm going to backpack through southeast Asia!"
"So this one time, when I was traveling through southeast Asia..."

I swear, from the amount of times I heard people talk about "backpacking through southeast Asia," I expect to look up "beaten path" in the dictionary and see a map of the region.

LAOS PERHAPS IS THE EXCEPTION TO ALL THIS; even Lonely Planet's Lao guidebook's tagline is "Roads less travelled." Both Lara (Peru, Bolivia, Brazil) and Paul (Everest trail, Bangkok) told me, "Laos is what Thailand used to be twenty years ago." Both of them stressed that you should go to Laos now, before it becomes tainted with over-developed tourism like Thailand and soon, Vietnam.

Luang Prabang, despite it being one of the main stops on the northern Laotian tourist trail, retains much of its virginity to mass tourism, even with the small mountain in the center named Mt. Pousi (spelled that way probably to keep the immature from snickering every time). Luang Prabang is primarily a laid back little town and as you walk the street you see people just going about their day (picture above). Even the familiar faces of travelers wandering along don't look so much like "travelers" in a broad sense; for some reason, walking in Luang Prabang makes everyone look and feel like a local in a small community.

That's just what I did that day: just wander around the city aimlessly to see what the city had to offer, from the quiet streets to the local students' art gallery. The city was a relaxed hodge-podge of old and new, southeast Asian and French, from the architecture to the day-to-day life. On one road a woman would be eating sticky rice out of a small bamboo basket; on another one was walking home with a fresh baked baguette. On area would be full of motor scooters whizzing by; another would be the spot for old Lao men to play a game of bocce.

Architecture was also a blend of French and indigenous, the latter being a distinct style found in the city's many wats, or temples. Luang Prabang has over thirty all within the small central region -- most done in the distinct Luang Prabang-style of five-tiered roofs. So as not to get all "templed out," I only saw a few of the them, and one in particular, the Wat Xient Thong (Temple of the Golden City) built by King Setthathirat in 1559, was the one that Let's Go said was "widely regarded as the magnum opus of Lao religious architecture, boasting elaborate golden reliefs and a mosaic of the Buddhist Tree of Life." Inside was a golden Buddha. On the temple grounds was a golden sub-temple, which housed King Sisavangvong's golden funeral chariot used to carry his body for cremation in 1959.

AS I MENTIONED, in the center of town was the small mountain known as Mt. Pousi (pronounced "Mount Pussy," hehehe), whose summit was accessible by 329 steps and a one dollar admission fee. The short hike and small fee was worth it as the top not only had the Wat Chom Pousi and its towering golden stupa, but a spectacular 360° view of the city, from the Mekong River to the northwest, the smaller Nam Khan River to the east, the mountains and the valley town below. It was there that I ran into Markus (the second one); later on that day across the street at the Royal Palace, I ran into the first one, who lent me his rental bike for a short while when he was in the Royal Palace museum.

I had been to the museum before him and saw what it had to offer. The former home of the royal family until monarchy was done away with in 1975, the building now showcased different items left over from the royal times, from furniture and artwork. (No photography was allowed.)

During the course of the day I ran into both Markuses and inevitably Huyb, who were all casually strolling like my neighbors in my new community. With all the run-ins with foreigners I felt it best to do something more Lao other than having lap kai (Lao spicy chicken salad), and I did so that evening by going to the Laotian ballet in town for a performance of "The Golden Deer and The Abduction of Sida," which, unless I had a program explaining the story, looked like a random display of men in funny masks prancing around: Dragon-head Man, Hawk-head Man, Deer-head Man, Old-Face Man, plus the obligatory damsel in distress. Laos developed its theater from the drama of ancient India and China and was ultimately fused with classical theater in the 16th and 17th centuries. The result is a fluid dance of pronounced steps and graceful arm motions. "The Golden Deer and The Abduction of Sida" told the story of how Thotsakan, the King of Giants, kidnapped and stole a babe named Sida with the help of his old-man disguise and his partner Malit, who distracted Sida's bodyguards by prancing around as a deer.

AS RELAXING A DAY IT WAS in the chill, unpretentious city of Luang Prabang, I went the extra mile and went for more relaxation at the Pousi Massage salon around sundown. Pronounced out loud, the establishment sounds like either a place where horny women go or a prostitution front for guys. I paid the $3 for the one-hour foot reflexology massage, and I was surprised when my masseuse unexpectedly started rolling my pants up and massaging me with oil in parts higher than my feet. With her trained hands, she started touching and rubbing me in a place that was hard as bone...

...my kneecaps.

More Misconceptions

DAY 415: My name is Erik, with a "K" for the fourth letter, which is the uncommon spelling in North America. I was never a fan of pre-made personalized key chains and mugs growing up; most of the time they only had "Eric." "Erik" is the Dutch/Danish/Scandinavian spelling of the name, the name of a Viking (i.e. Leif Eriksson, Erik the Red), and my father says he chose it for that reason -- although my suspicion is that I was simply named after Erik Estrada when my dad was watching an episode of CHiPs in the 1970s.

Yes ladies, I may quite possibly be named after the heartthrob that played Ponch.

"Erik" often conjures up the image of a tall blonde, blue-eyed Ikea furniture-buying guy, but you've seen my picture; I only have the Ikea part down. But this misconception is probably the reason why my transport guy who was supposed to whiz by that morning and take me to the boat docks couldn't find me right away -- until he finally spoke up. "Are you Erik?"

"Yeah."

I hopped on the back of his motorscooter and he brought me to the slow boat on the Mekong just before departure.

GREAT, MORE BOATS, I thought, being back on the Mekong again after having spent two long days on it before. But it was a necessary part of a complete full-day tour I booked to see the two main points of interest out of town, the first one being the Pak Ou Caves, about 25 km. upstream. Originally the site of ancient tribal religion when the locals worshipped Phi, the God of Nature, it was converted to a Buddhist shrine when Buddhism swept the country and was adopted by the royal family. During the times of monarchy, the king and his subjects went every year to the Pak Ou Caves during Lao New Year in a pilgrimage to pray.

To break the boredom of being stuck on a boat for a long period of time, we stopped at some "villages" on the way. I put "villages" in quotes because they were primarily tourist traps so that people could be stuck somewhere away from town with nothing to do but browse for goods. The first one, a paper-making "village," was quite boring (Paper? Zzzzzzz...) but the second was a lot more exciting: the Lao whiskey village.

"Oh wait, you actually get to taste them?" said a surprised girl that I figured was from Vancouver because of her accent. She was Jes from Edmonton.

"Yeah, why do you think we came here?" I answered.

Lao whiskey is made by fermenting sticky rice and distilling it into bottles in two strengths; the clearer and stronger one for men and the red, sweeter one for women. "One tastes like gasoline and the other tastes like juice," Jes said. "I think I like the gasoline one." As strong as it was, it was no match for the bottles of whiskey with vicious animals in them: scorpions, millipedes and snakes.

"There's no way you'd get that through customs," I commented.

HALF AN HOUR LATER we arrived at the Pak Ou Caves, with its dozens of golden Buddha statues in two caves. About 2,500 were in the lower cave, most wooden or made of tree resin, all coated with gold leaf. Another 1,500 or so were in the upper cave, a place with no natural lighting, where it is believed that a large golden seated Buddha once stood.

With Jes was her schoolmates from the foreign exchange program at Thammasat University in Bangkok: Lysh, originally from Utah, USA but called the Bronx, NY her home; and German Michael from Heidelberg. They were all touring Luang Prabang and its environs for the weekend instead of studying for finals later that week.

After about an hour of exploring the caves, we were back in the boat to head downstream on the Mekong back to town. I sat next to Michael and inevitably revealed to him I was in my fourteenth month of travel thus far. "What, are your parents paying for it?" he said with a little disdain. (No one respects a guy traveling on the full expense of mommy and daddy.)

"No, I was working for an internet company that paid me out."

He was confused. "How old are you?"

I smirked. "Thirty."

"Thirty? Thirty? Three Oh?" He wrote "30" in the air with his finger.

"Yeah."

"Hey, how old do you think he is?" he called to his schoolmates in the back.

"Whatever you think it is, add ten," Lysh the American said, who was familiar to the genes that apparently made most Asians look far younger than they appear. I remember one of the early episodes of E.R. when George Clooney was still on the show. An Asian guy was rushed in with a sports injury and Dr. Ross (Clooney) assumed he was in school, when actually he was in his thirties.

Jes guessed 24, Lysh 26, and Michael figured 20. "See, add ten," I said.

My age has always been a misconception in my life for years. When I was about 18, I was carded for buying a lottery ticket (16 was the minimum in New Jersey). When I was 23 I was carded for renting a rated-R movie at a video store -- Monty Python and The Holy Grail of all things. Both times I had to prove them wrong with identification and each cashier was shocked. (Looking young has had its advantages though; like passing for a student in Egypt with a fake student I.D. to get into all the monuments at half price.)

THE FULL-DAY TOUR WAS ACTUALLY TWO half-day tours bundled together; only me and a young English couple, Catherine and Duncan from Leeds, had remained for the second half. Joining us was an old Dutch(?) couple, two Americans, and a Thai woman named Anne on vacation from her job in Bangkok. Luang Prabang was a vacation destination for her to get away from the craziness of Bangkok and the over-developed tourism of Thailand. "Luang Prabang is what Chiang Mai was forty years ago," she said. (She didn't look more than thirty years old.)

A minivan driver with a cheesy taste in music drove us the 30 km. south to the Khong Si Waterfall, a series of cascades and crystal clear pools underneath the main waterfall (picture above), all surrounded by jungle. It was held within a national park that required an entry fee. While waiting on line for a ticket, Anne heard my American accent, breaking her original theory of me. "I thought you were southeast Asian," she said to me. "You look Thai."

"Everyone says that I look Thai, and I ask them if I look Lao, and they say, 'No, you look Thai.'"

She analyzed me again. "No, you don't look Lao. You look Thai."

Amazing; I look Bolivian in Bolivia, Egyptian in Egypt, Nepali in Nepal, Thai in Thailand -- but not Lao in Laos. What gives?

Beyond a small animal reserve with a shy tiger and some curious Laotian bears, we hiked the trail up to the middle of the main falls, through the tropical vegetation and the pools of water streaming down succumbing to the force of gravity. The water of the main falls ran down the sloping hill to smaller waterfalls (HiRes), and ultimately to the designated swimming hole secluded in the jungle. The water was colored cyan naturally with algae, making it look like a man-made pool that fancy resorts tried to emulate, but all created by Mother Nature.

The girls were afraid the water was too cold, so it was just Duncan and me who went for a dip. "[After seeing this,] you have to do it."

"Yeah, it says 'swimming' right there [on the sign.]" The park people made a rope swing hanging down from one of the trees and the two of us ended up swinging and swimming until it was time to go. On the way back to town we stopped at one of the Hmong hill tribe villages, which, unlike the "villages" of that morning, appeared to be a real village with no vending stands -- until villagers just approached us with woven bracelets out of their pockets to sell to us.

BACK IN LUANG PRABANG, I booked a bus ticket for the next morning to go to the eastern town of Phonsavanh with the tour agency I dealt with before. "How are you?" the man asked.

"Good, good."

"What have you done today?"

"Uh, I just got back from the tour I booked with you yesterday," I answered. He didn't remember me.

"Sorry, we have many tourists."

The woman at the desk remembered me though. "You are Filipino. Your parents are from the Philippines."

"Yes, you remember."

"But you look Lao."

"Really? People say I look Thai, not Lao."

She analyzed me again. "No, you look Lao."

Finally, someone with the correct misconception. Now I could go proving people wrong in the proper way.

Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates

DAY 416: I am going to parallel this entry to scenes and quotes from the movie Forrest Gump, a movie I will assume most of you have seen (perhaps not as often as I have), since certain elements of the day set itself up for it. (Besides, I can't think of another angle for the day.) It started the night before when I saw an unexpected familiar face.

Jenny! "Hey, I know you," I called out to one of the two Swedish girls I met in Chiang Khong that I bumped to on the main street in Luang Prabang.

"Oh, hello!"

"I thought you were going trekking up north."

"Yeah, but we met a journalist who told us we couldn't because of the conference in Vientiane."

"Oh, that's over."

"Yeah, now we know."

She was like an angel with her bright Keira Knightly smile. We chat for a bit on the sidewalk and again we went together like peas and carrots. I almost forgot her friend Karin was standing right next to her when I asked her out for dinner.

"So what are you doing now? Have you eaten?"

"Yeah, we just ate," she answered. "We are going to the internet."

"Oh, I just came from the internet."

"We can meet for drinks after?"

"Yeah, okay."

"We just got here, do you know of a place?"

I thought about places in town. "There's the Indochina Spirit Restaurant," I answered. "They have live music. Live Lao music."

"Oh, I think I know where it is," she said. "Why do you say 'Indochina?' (pronounced indo ch-eye-na)

"Oh right. Indochina." (pronounced indo ch-ee-na) Me and my long American vowels.

"Yeah Indoch[ee]na. You call it Indoch[eye]na?"

"Have you seen Pulp Fiction?"

"Yeah."

"They say Indoch[eye]na."

"I don't remember that part."

"We'll just be French and say Indochine." (indo sheen)

We planned to meet a half hour from then, but soon two hours went by as I sat alone at a table at Indoch[ee]na Spirit with a plate of deep fried bananas and a tall Beerlao. Jenny was a no-show, either because she couldn't find the place (it was four blocks off the main strip), or because she simply stood me up. Oh well, I thought without much remorse. Out of sight, out of mind. We never swapped e-mails so out of contact too.

The next morning I boarded the bus towards Phonsavanh, one step closer to Vietnam. Bye bye Jenny. They sendin' me to Vietnam. It's this whole other country.

"[TAKEN,]" SAID THE MAN in Lao.

"[Taken,]" said another.

"Is anyone sitting here?" I asked a group in the back.

"Yeah."

Taken. I was foolish to upload a Blog entry that morning instead of getting to the bus station early as recommended. All the seats for the bus to Phonsavanh were occupied already (picture above).

Then, a lone traveler moved his bag for me to sit next to him. You can sit here if you want. His name wasn't Benjamin Beauford Blue, nor did people call him Bubba. People called him Gakuji as he was a 23-year-old Japanese backpacker from Tokyo on his second month of a proposed year around the world. He was quiet for the first half of the journey, hiding behind his sunglasses, but after lunch was a bit more social.

"What are you writing?" he asked me.

"Just my journal," I said. Eventually the proverbial floodgates were opened and I revealed my extensive travel history. Gakuji was amazed and I became the answer to many of his questions for his onward travel.

THE ROAD TO PHONSAVANH was finally "off the beaten path" of southeast Asia. The more common trail for a backpacker leaving Luang Prabang was to head to the popular hippie haven of Vang Vieng, a town I was told by Blogreader PC and German Michael (from the day before) that I could skip if I was looking for a more authentic Lao experience. Although Vang Vieng did have some historical points-of-interest, primarily it was just the base for backpackers to get high on opium and go inner-tubing down the river. Those people often skipped Phonsavanh since it was so out of the way from the other big cities of the northern Lao tourist trail, but for me, it'd take me one step closer to the Vietnamese border.

With that said, there weren't many options to get to Phonsavanh; there was just one daily public bus that left at 8:30 a.m. promptly from Luang Prabang's southern terminal. My Laotian adventure continued as we drove eastbound; in a seat ahead of me, I noticed a guy concealing a rifle in a duffel bag.

Uh, what's going on here?

When we stopped for our first pee break on the side of the mountain road in the middle of nowhere, I saw that there was nothing to worry about; the rifle belonged to the sentry who stood guard as we peed in the bushes. It was a good thing too, because the road to Phonsavanh went across the Xieng Khouang province, a territory the US State Department had issued a travel advisory for, due to its ongoing armed rebel and bandit assaults.

BY FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON (90 minutes ahead of schedule) we arrived safely at Phonsavanh's week-old new bus terminal, which wasn't in the guidebooks yet and threw us off guard since it was 4 km. out of the city center where the old station used to be. Gakuji and I met two other solo travelers, Sarah from Birmingham, UK and Werner, arguably the most distinctive looking old Austrian man I've seen (and I've seen Arnold Schwarzenegger once at a New York book signing). I'm not quite sure what the term is for his facial hair style; but it wasn't quite a beard, not quite a handlebar moustache. It was a long curly white beard and moustache, but it didn't exactly connect to his side burns. There was a strip of skin the width of a razor exposed under his lip.

With his distinct look was a distinct personality. Once a military man (let's say he's Lieutenant Dan for all intents and purposes of the Forrest Gump reference), he was now a teacher in a classroom. He had a quirky outgoing demeanor with a quirky Austrian voice like the scientist in the old Woody Woodpecker cartoon, and Gakuji and I soon learned he was quite the penny-pincher.

"How much to the guesthouse?" Werner asked a tuk-tuk driver.

"Ten thousand."

"Oh, that's too much! Let's go."

Five thousand kip, then four thousand kip. As we walked towards the exit of the station the tuk-tuk driver prices decreased. "It's too much!" he'd call out as he headed for the minivan on the end which quoted him (so he said) 1000 kip, even though I heard 2000. The minivan took the four of us to a guesthouse in town, which unfortunately was full by the time we got there. I paid the 2000 for the ride. "He told me one thousand!" Werner said in his Austrian accent. He shoved a 1000-kip note in the guy's hands and walked off without looking back.

Gakuji, Sarah and I followed the lieutenant down the block to another guesthouse where got rooms; my Japanese "Bubba" and I shared a big one with two beds. We all met up at the restaurant downstairs and chat with the house owner who informed us on the tour options to see the famous archaeological sites in the area. The price depended on the amount of people, and the lowest he'd go for our international quartet was $7/person, excluding entry fees.

"Oh, it's too much!" Werner said. It was becoming his catch phrase. "We have to find the Germans." He was referring to a German couple from the bus that went another way in town, and was determined to find them to make our group discount bigger. He marched out into town with the determination of a hunter.

PHONSAVANH, FOR SOME REASON, reminded me of a small sleepy southern California town, with its Spanish-looking French-influenced houses, the typical kind of southern France in the 1920s and 30s. There wasn't much to the central part of town; it was just one main dusty road with a couple of shops and a few side streets attached to it. After settling into our room, Gakuji and I went wandering to find an internet cafe down the road when we saw Werner walking back towards us with a grin on his face peering from behind his facial hair. He raised five fingers.

"Five dollars," he said. He had negotiated a price with a different tour company and had bargained down the price as long as he got us to join that moment. I ran off and got Sarah and we signed up with our passport numbers for the registration form. Later on, Werner tracked down the Germans and added them to the list.

"Five dollars is a lot of money here," Werner explained to us as we walked back to the guesthouse. "[Laotians] are told that five dollars is nothing to us, so they say seven or eight so they can raise their standard of living. But it's too much!"

IN FORREST GUMP, Bubba came from a long line of shrimpers. He knew everything there was to know about the shrimping business. Laos is southeast Asia's only landlocked nation, so shrimp was hard to come by in those parts for my theme of the day. In lieu of shrimp, I ordered something else for dinner.

[Frog] is the fruit of the [swamp]. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There's [frog]-kabobs, [frog] creole, [frog] gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple [frog], lemon [frog], coconut [frog], pepper [frog], [frog] soup...

I've had frog legs before, battered and fried and actually quite tasty -- tastes like chicken but less salty. I expected that the frog in my tom yam sweet and sour soup would be cut up and prepared in some way, but the cook simply just threw a frog into the pot and boiled it with the rest of my ingredients -- in my bowl, a frog laid dead in a pool of broth. I cut it up and ate it anyway, the limbs that is, leaving the head hidden under a bay leaf. To my surprise there were two frog heads in the bowl when I finished eating, and I only had four legs.

Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get. Sometimes it can be a chocolate with extra frog head in it, or a peculiar but sweet one like the one I picked up the next day...

Journalists In The Minefields

DAY 417: The infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail, the secret route that ultimately led Communist North Vietnam to victory in the Vietnam War, crossed through a portion of northern Laos. Because of this, the US military dropped over two billion kilograms of bombs on Laos between 1964 and 1972, making it the most heavily bombed country in world history. Reminders of this turbulent era in Laos' past is still seen today, from the bomb craters in the landscape to the active landmines still present in the ground, a danger for both Laotians and the tourists the Lao government only recently let into the country.

"FIVE HUNDRED KIP PER MINUTE? It's too expensive!" Austrian tourist Werner said at the one main internet cafe in the sleepy town of Phonsavanh. The satellites were finally up and running after a day of inactivity, providing access to the web in a slow and expensive way. Tourists went to the cafe anyway as the internet has become an integral part of travel -- my hats off to those backpackers of yesteryear who could travel without it -- and I spent the early morning uploading my latest before my ten o'clock tour of the archaeological sites in the countryside.

"Five hundred kip per minute? That's very expensive," I heard again, this time not from a quirky Austrian male voice, but from a soothing female voice with a non-regional American accent fit for commercial voiceover work. It came from the Asian-faced girl at a nearby computer who couldn't seem to connect.

"You can use mine. I'm done," I told her.

"No, that's okay. I think I'm finished." I waited for her to pay her tab and walked out with her to the main road.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

"New York."

She was amazed. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, she ran into a New Yorker; it was the first of many surprises of the day. Soon, I'd discover that in Forrest Gump's proverbial "box of chocolates" (you never know what you're gonna get), I had picked up a chocolate with many secrets hidden inside, but was ultimately still sweet.

NOW BEING THAT THIS BLOG IS READ BY MANY PEOPLE -- over 38,000 unique hits to date -- I have to keep the anonymity of my new friend so as not to incriminate her since she was an American journalist just off her coverage of the ASEAN Summit 2004 in Vientiane. Officially, she was supposed to leave the country right after, but she decided to wander Laos for a bit before heading back to her home in Bangkok. When I say she was a journalist, I mean a real one for an American national broadcasting network (that will also remain anonymous), not the freelance kind like the one I am, the kind that stands for Truth, Justice and American Poop Humor.

"Where are you going now?" she asked.

"I'm going with a group to see the Plain of Jars. You wanna go?"

"Okay, yeah. How much is it?"

"Five dollars."

"Oh, five? That's good. Everywhere I've asked wants seven or eight."

"Well, we have a big group -- well, a group we amassed yesterday. Plus the price was negotiated by this old Austrian professor who's, uh, eccentric."

"WHERE IS THE JAPANESE MAN?!" called out Werner in his quirky Austrian mad scientist voice as my new friend and I approached the tour office. Nearby a minivan was already full with the group for the day: Sarah, the German couple, and three guys from Jersey (the British Channel Island, not the Garden State of America). It was almost ten and Gakuji was a no-show.

"It's already ten o'clock!" Werner said.

"I thought you said [we meet at] a quarter after."

"No, a quarter to," he said. "Even if it's a quarter after, we would see him by now." Werner, my new journalist friend and I hopped in the minivan. "We go to the guesthouse and look for the Japanese man," Werner told the driver. "If he's not there, we go." (I realize that written on screen, Werner seems like a bit of a prick, but everything he said with his quirky accent and wild facial hair was quite funny.)

Back at the guesthouse, Gakuji was in the room reading until I ran in and told him the van was waiting. He got his stuff and soon we were off.

THE XIENG KHOUANG PROVINCE COUNTRYSIDE where the Plain of Jars is located, was where most of the US bombings of Laos took place. Thirty years later, grass grows in the bomb craters in the fields, while mountains sport "bald spots" where explosions took place. Landmines are still a problem, but are under the control of the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), who carefully swept areas for explosives and removed them. With that said, the traffic in region was regulated and we were stopped at a checkpoint by the Lao Police.

Now when I introduced my new Asian-American reporter friend to the group, we wanted to do the proper thing of adding her name and passport number to our registration roster. Our guide Chatha said it probably wouldn't be necessary because they probably wouldn't count heads properly. However, the cops did count our heads and noticed we were heavy by one person, and soon an argument started outside between the police, our driver and our guide.

"Do you have your passport on you?" I asked our unlisted passenger.

"Yeah."

There were more words going back and forth beyond the windshield. "It's okay. I have my passport," she called out, but they didn't hear her. In the end, the cops just let us go with our one stowaway. As we drove off, she told me it was a good thing they didn't check; we would have probably been detained for a while because her visa clearly stated she was a journalist, not a tourist like the rest of us, and all journalists had to be accompanied by a government-approved guide. "I would have been busted," she told me.

THERE ARE THREE SITES OF THE PLAIN OF JARS and we did them in reverse order, starting at the farthest, Site Three, and working our way back to Site One. On the way out we stopped to visit a stupa in the middle of a field, where people once came to pray by day and thieves came to raid at night in search of golden Buddhas to pawn. "There's another stupa over there," our guide Chatha pointed out.

"Oh, that one that looks like a radio tower?" I joked. A closer look at the second stupa revealed damage from the American air raids. Afterwards we were driven to other bombed out remnants: the old French provincial administration building and the Phia Wat, a Buddhist temple whose Buddha had survived, but with damage. Clearly, the United States of America bombed the bejesus out of the Laotian landscape.

The bombed out sites were scattered in the middle of villages and it was no surprise to see all the little Lao children walking to school -- running to school when we pointed our cameras at them. My new Asian-faced journalist friend surprised me when she could actually talk to them. "[Something, something,]" she said in the local language.

"[Something something,]" one of the boys answered before running off, laughing.

My new Asian-American friend was actually Lao-American, and was born in Vientiane before her family emigrated to the States at the end of the war. "You speak Lao?" I asked her.

"It's Hmong. I'm Hmong," she answered, referring to one of the bigger hill tribes of the region with its own identity and language very different from the mainstream "Lao" language. The Hmong were a relatively new people in Laos, descendants of China that arrived in the 19th century, whose identity had been threatened by the coming Communist party. "I have to keep it quiet. They can get pretty sensitive about that stuff here." Although officially neutral in the Vietnam War, Lao had a secret war within its borders; most of Laos supported North Vietnam while the U.S. aided the Hmong rebels, who had organized a guerilla army to fight the Communist threat from within.

Surprisingly, my new Hmong friend found some kids that could speak Hmong and they exchanged some small talk. "It's great to be here and to be able to communicate with them," she said to me. For her, being in Xieng Khouang was a sort of pilgrimage to her roots as she was seeing the area of her ancestors for the first time. It was her first time back in Laos after thirty years.

As the tour continued to the sites by minivan and foot, the Hmong reporter and I chat about the ups and downs of journalism as Chatha briefly explained some history. He mentioned someone in Lao history that wasn't such a popular character, one of the Hmong rebels. My new Hmong friend confided in me that she was actually related to that person (who will remain anonymous), another reason why she should keep a low profile in those parts.

"Boy I really lucked out when I picked you up this morning," I teased her.

She laughed. "I wouldn't reveal that to anyone, but you're from New York so it's okay."

THE PLAIN OF JARS IS APPROPRIATELY NAMED AS SUCH because it is, not surprisingly, a plain of big limestone jars, carbon-dated to 2,500-3,000 years in age. Like England's Stonehenge, the reason for their creation and position remains a mystery, although many theories exist, from the ceremonial to the practical to the extra-terrestrial. "What do you believe?" I asked our guide Chatha.

"The local people tell the children it's for Lao rice whiskey," he answered.

"But what do you think?" my fellow journalist asked, hoping to get a possible soundbite, but Chatha couldn't provide a straightforward answer.

After lunch, we drove from Site Three to Site Two of the Plain of Jars, stopping briefly at an old Russian tank left over from the war; Soviet technology was used by the northern powers. Site Two had many leftovers from the war, and by that I don't mean stale meatloaf, I mean landmines hidden in the ground (although some believe that meatloaf can be just as explosive). Chatha informed us to stay between the markers placed by MAG, the Mines Advisory Group, placed in pairs like a slalom course. The dirt path in between markers often had a clear patch of dirt where a landmine had successfully been extracted from, but I was careful not to step on them anyway. I step where you step. I touch nothing. Walking the trail, it sunk in where I actually was and I had to say it out loud: "We're actually walking through an active minefield right now."

The problem with the MAG trails was that sometimes they didn't exactly correspond with the established dirt path. If you simply walked the dirt path like you normally would, sometimes you'd actually walk out of the safe zone. "This is really confusing," my journalist friend said.

"Maybe we can throw a rock over."

"Yeah, that's smart," she said with sarcasm. Bombs were still out there; Chatha said that one had been set off accidentally by an animal or something just a couple of days before.

SITE TWO WAS SIMILAR TO SITE THREE, although it had the privilege of being the site holding the longest jar at 3.5 meters in height and some jar lids with vague figures of people on top. We walked around the limestone jars, taking photos of not just the artifacts but also the beautiful countryside around us. Gakuji felt inspired and just stared out and took it all in. Werner wandered around taking pictures with the Germans.

While wandering the Jar area, I was still careful where to step; although the site was cleared out by MAG, I didn't exactly trust the minesweepers. What if they missed one tiny patch that just so happened to have a landmine in it? Meanwhile my new reporter friend was asking Chatha more questions with not much progress in terms of a story.

Ask too many questions and you might blow your cover, I thought, but she was a real reporter and I figured she knew what she was doing. What she really wanted to do was show off to him that she was Lao and could speak one of the languages, but wisely held back. I can only imagine she felt like Wonder Woman as her secret identity being inhibited from kicking some ass.

"WE'RE SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST," I said to the group when we finally arrived at the Plain of Jars Site One, the biggest of the sites with 334 jars scattered in three sub-areas, connected by MAG trails -- one of which led to a dead end when I went exploring by myself (picture above). At the entrance were some collected bomb shells and nearby was a cave where the local people hid and survived during the brutal American air raids.

As planned by Werner, we arrived just in time for the beginning of sunset. My new Hmong Lao-American journalist friend and I sat out on two jars away from the bigger groups, perched halfway up a hill. The sky was just starting to change color, making the landscape a more dramatic and a bit romantic even. The two of us sat and chat while looking out at the majestic landscape reminiscent of one in a Spaghetti Western.

"There's no story here," she said. "Our guide [is awful]. I'm going to have to come back with a real guide." Real reporter, real guide -- of course. True, for a professional journalist for a national broadcast network, a day with Chatha wasn't exactly the story of the year. But for me and The Blog, a story was found. I mean, I was talking to my story, and was still in a bit of awe of discovering her and her many hidden secrets; not only was I amazed that she could quickly switch from the Hmong language to American English (complete with the use of the slang term, "sweet"), but her peculiar circumstances that just never seemed to end. Just ten minutes prior, we had run into the only other tourists wandering Site One the same time we were, a Lao-American family from Fresno, California, coincidentally the place where her sister lived. Chances are if she spoke to the Lao family for a while, they'd know her sister, which might have drawn attention to her she didn't need.

"YOU WANT TO MEET UP LATER?" I asked my fellow journalist when we got back into town.

"Yeah, do you want to have dinner?"

"Yeah, sure." We made plans to meet in an hour. In those 60 Minutes, I secured a seat for the next morning on the weekly Friday direct bus from Phonsavanh to Vinh, Vietnam (it was take it now or be stranded in Phonsavanh for a week). Meanwhile, my new friend's streak of weird encounters continued when she bumped into an uncle of hers that last she saw, was in a coma years ago, back in the States. Weird.

Gakuji tagged along for food that night and we ate at the journalist's guesthouse, a bungalow off the main strip that Gakuji and I wished we stayed at. Run by a young local family, it catered to a younger, hipper crowd with an outdoor bar, campfire and porch filled with cushions to sit on around a stove fashioned out of an old bombshell. The three of us sat around with duck curries, freshly-grilled pork and sticky rice -- a nice final meal in Laos. We were joined by the owner of the house, a funny drunkard who knew a bit of Japanese, mostly vulgar words that made Gakuji laugh. We were soon joined by a group of four Lao tourists, also quite tipsy from drinking Beerlao. My new friend explained to one of them our different Asian backgrounds: Japanese, Lao, and Filipino.

One of the drunk guys called out something in another language. The bilingual journalist translated: "He says we all look Chinese."

"THIS IS MY BEST NIGHT IN LAOS," I said by the fire. Good food, good company. It was my last night in the country after a very short stay, but in that period I came away with lasting impressions of a country I didn't really know about before I got there -- the Lao people, history, cuisine, theater and even an inside look of a Lao-American in a pilgrimage back to her roots. One thing missing was a look into Lao pop culture, but I ended the night with a crash course in it.

There was a seventeen-year-old girl that worked at the guesthouse named Chan, who was absolutely thrilled when the journalist walked in the night before. She too could speak Hmong and was overjoyed to have a big sister-type to latch onto; in fact, she always addressed her "big sister" in Hmong.

"Look at her, she's so precious!" the journalist said whenever Chan's pretty face lit up with a smile.

Chan took us to the big to-do in town that night, a Lao comedy show on a stage set up at the old bus station. Chan translated the Lao to Hmong for her "big sister," who translated it to English for Gakuji and me. Chan was often embarrassed to translate what was actually being said by the sketch comedy troupe mostly of men (some in white clown face make-up to represent being a "foreigner"), because a lot of it was very vulgar (i.e. "eat shit," "eat pussy").

Chan told us the tradition in Lao performances was to buy plastic leis and run up to the stage during mid-performance and bestow them to your favorite actors. In the middle of a scene involving a fight between a rich guy and a poor guy over the hand of a woman, we were the only ones to run up and give plastic leis -- in fact, we were the only ones to do so during the entire night. When we weren't up near the stage, we were standing on stools in the back for a better view, clapping and yelping "Woo!" at all the good parts. If anyone in the crowd cared, our journalist friend's cover would have been blown for sure.

GAKUJI WENT AHEAD TO TURN IN, leaving the three remaining of us to continue the lesson in Lao pop culture. The remainder of the show got repetitive though, with lanky ladyboys in drag dancing to the music of the crooner in the middle. After I won us some candy by popping balloons with two out of three darts at a nearby carnival stand (three would have gotten us a single bottle of Pepsi), we headed back down the main road to our respective guesthouses in the cold frigid air. (Yes, it gets very cold in northern Indochina in December.)

We stopped at the intersection of my way and their way for an e-mail exchange and a farewell journalists' handshake that turned into a farewell embrace -- and just after the mere thirteen and a half hours since we first met.

"And you thought you'd just have a boring day at the Plain of Jars," she said.

"Yeah, I know!"

Our time together wasn't nearly long enough, but perhaps there would be another since she told me to look her up in Bangkok.

"I'll see you in Bangkok," I told my fellow journalist. "Really. I'll be in Bangkok by the 22nd to go to Manila, but then I fly back to Bangkok. Unless you're in [that world city that will remain anonymous], I'll see you."

The girls went down their deserted road and I went down mine, pleased with the unexpected events of the day. Not all unexpected surprises in minefields involve severed limbs; it can involve a new colleague in the field of journalism, a new friend, or possibly something else.

"You look adorable!" the professional journalist called out in an unprofessional way as a final by-the-way, sending me down the cold, dark road feeling a little warmer and with a smile on my face. I suppose it's fitting it ended that way to build up the drama that as much as I would have loved to spend another day in her company in Phonsavanh, I was headed to the former warzone of Vietnam in the morning, whether I liked it or not.

Platoon

DAY 418: "I really feel guilty being here," said fellow American Dara at the border crossing into Vietnam. "I gave my form [to the customs officer] and he read it and said, 'American' and just gave me this look."

Exit formalities on the Lao side of the new, three-month-old Nong Haet crossing from northern Laos into northern Vietnam was easy, but it didn't go so smoothly on the Vietnamese side. I was behind the three Thai tourists at the entrance, who got in with a smile. The officer let me follow right behind them (I look Thai, remember?) until he saw the blue cover of my passport. American.

He seized my passport and instructed me to go with the other foreigners down the road to the separate customs office to fill out some paperwork. I got mine stamped after some time and went back with the others to get our passports stamped.

There was a stack of foreign passports on the desk awaiting our paperwork: five British and EU ones with three blue American ones underneath. One by one the passports data was recorded by hand into a log book. Most processed hassle-free until the first blue one: Dara took her glasses off for a better match with her photo. She was stamped and granted entry into Vietnam.

"Congratulations," I said.

Her new husband Jim and I both had special passports -- mine with the page extension in it -- and it took a while for us to process. There were extra codes to record and things like that, plus my Vietnamese visa was hard to find in my messy passport full of stamps from around the world, all while everyone else was waiting on the bus for us. It took some time, but Jim and I finally got our entry stamps. We had officially entered the country and got back on the bus for the rest of the journey.

VIETNAM. It is not just the name of a country, it has become synonymous with a troubled time in world history. The very mention of the name conjures up many emotions, particularly to Americans, as it is often referred to as one of biggest military and political blunders in American history. In short, the Vietnam War, known in Vietnam as "The American War," was the cold war gone hot: Soviet-supported North Vietnam and U.S.-supported South Vietnam duked it out after President Lyndon Johnson sent troops into the segregated southeast Asian nation. The end result was many casualties and injuries, many of them emotional scars for life.

Thirty years later, a unified Communist Vietnam is still on the rebound, with tourism as a big way to develop the war torn nation. Although tourism is still in its infancy, it has become increasingly lucrative as many backpackers flock to its colonial cities and its picturesque beaches. Tourism is one way to continue the mending process and re-establish the better relations with America, which really started to happen after economic sanctions were re-established in 1995 and President Bill Clinton's 2000 visit (the first of any U.S. president since Vietnam was reunified). Shortly after, the U.S. opened an embassy in Hanoi.

I can't blame the Vietnamese for still holding any kind of grudges towards Americans. Unlike former military powers Germany and Japan, who have both focused their energies in business and technology rather than weapons, America hasn't really changed, what with the army muscling its way with force into Iraq in recent history. True, I shared some of the guilt that Dara was having; I hadn't felt that guilt since wandering around Hiroshima in Japan.

THE ROAD FROM THE BORDER TO THE CITY OF VINH was a long one. Actually, it wasn't much of a road; most of it was still under construction. We must have passed by a dozen cranes, bulldozers and steamrollers as we drove on the mountainous dirt road. The ride was pretty crazy, causing my people to get motion sickness and throw up in plastic bags. Thankfully there was a mid-way break for a while, for Vietnamese pho noodle soup.

It was a full day of riding through the Vietnamese countryside -- rivers, villages, mountains (picture above) and fields of grain. I spent most of the time just writing and trying to keep myself from getting too nauseous.

Night had fallen by the time we arrived in Vinh, the central Vietnamese city where Communist leader Ho Chi Minh was born. The bus left me and a handful of backpackers stranded in a quiet bus station parking lot with no decent amount of local currency or a place to stay. We regrouped to collect our bearings and tried to figure out a plan of attack. Each of us wanted to make headway to Hanoi as soon as possible, but the night bus would get there at the undesirable time of two in the morning. The better option would be to spend a night in Vinh and go first thing in the morning.

The necessity at hand was money. "Can I leave this [bag] here?" I asked Dara.

"Yeah, I'll stand guard if someone stays with me."

"I'll stay," volunteered Brit Sarah.

Jim and I left our newly-established base and went on a reconnaissance mission to locate an ATM. I asked a nearby hotel concierge for one and in broken English he directed me two blocks away, across the street and left. Or so I thought. After walking the two blocks -- two long blocks I may add -- we found nothing and head back.

"WE HAVE A PLACE TO STAY and a bus in the morning," Dara said when Jim and I reported back to base.

"We have no money," I said.

"They can exchange money too."

While standing guard, Dara and the others had been approached by a guy named Hai who represented a hotel and travel agency recommended by Lonely Planet. He seemed to be the only guy that could speak decent English and so we decided to go with him; there were no better options anyway.

"You can walk or I can call you a taxi," Hai said. "[The hotel] is two kilometers that way."

"Two kilometers?" said one of the Swedes in the group. "We can walk."

LIKE SOLDIERS IN A PLATOON, we walked down the main city road under the nighttime sky. Each of us was carrying gear on his/her back, and one of us, Paul, even had a rifle -- a spear gun he would use when going diving off the shore at a later date. In the platoon, there was Kristoph and Anna from Sweden, Paul and Lisa from England, and Americans Dara and Jim from D.C. We marched through the Vietnamese city not knowing what to expect. At one point a huge sewer rat crossed our path but scurried away.

Hai, our new Vietnamese ally led us to the Dong Do Hotel, a decent mid-range place with private bathrooms and HBO. More importantly there were blankets for the cold night, but I failed to know they were in the armoires and pretty much froze my ass off that night.

My platoon regrouped at the restaurant downstairs for beers and our first real meal in Vietnam, a family-style dinner of vegetables, soup, and squid. Hai provided complimentary Vietnamese rice whiskey and we toasted around the table with our shot glasses.

"Welcome to Vietnam," I toasted the troops.

After a confusing arrival into the country, we finally found refuge for the night. It was a much needed night of rest for we would be deployed into Hanoi the next day.

The War Between Tourists And Touts

DAY 419: "Did you ever see the movie Speed?" I asked Brit Lisa in the back row of the bus gunning us from Vinh to Hanoi that morning. Unlike the rest of the bus, the back row was elevated in a way so one could see the oncoming traffic ahead.

"Yeah," she said. "You'd think it's like that." Our bus was almost out of control, weaving in and out of traffic like it'd explode if it went below 50 miles per hour. Often it'd speed down the opposite side of the road towards oncoming vehicles, and at one point, it swerved in and out of a closing railroad barricade.

"Oh my God!" Lisa gasped. As terrified as she was to look out the windshield, she was fixated on it like it was an action movie on a silver screen. "Did you see that?!" The bus was on the other side of the road again and just narrowly missed slamming into a cargo truck head on before it swerved back into the correct lane.

"It's a game of chicken every five minutes," I said.

FIVE HOURS OF THE ROLLER COASTER RIDE, with a pitstop for Vietnamese oranges and peanut brittle at the mid-point, my "platoon" and I arrived at the southern bus terminal of Hanoi, about 15 km. short of the Old Quarter where we had been promised to be dropped off by our agent Hai (who sold us the tickets the night before). The bus driver dropped us off in the middle of a big lot and unloaded our bags on the ground for us to fend for ourselves. Soon, we were attacked by Vietnamese auto-rickshaw drivers incessantly calling us over for our attention and ultimately our money. It was then we realized we might have been had by Hai. Western Tourists, 0; Vietnamese Touts, 1.

Jim the American wasn't the least bit impressed. "So Hai lied to us," he said, lighting up a cigarette. "I'm really pissed off now." He exhaled a puff of smoke.

I asked one of the auto-rickshaw drivers if we were at the Long Bien bus station and he said "yes," which meant we were in the Old Quarter after all. However, once we walked outside, we saw that we weren't near anything that looked like it might have been central Hanoi. Upon further analysis we were still way off our drop point.

Shit, had we really been had by Hai? I thought to myself. Dammit, I bought the open-ended hop-on/hop-off bus ticket from him for transportation up and down the coast for a flat one-time fee already.

Our "platoon" had no choice but to take a taxi into town, which was readily available at the nearby taxi stand of overly eager drivers. None of them could speak English of course, but one random guy in a blue shirt served as a translator, a liaison between us and them -- although we seriously doubted his neutrality as he spoke Vietnamese to his fellow countrymen so we couldn't understand. Prices quoted for the five of us (the two Swedes had wisely ditched us) were from 180,000 to 200,000 dong, a steep price they justified because the Old Quarter was "very far." "No, we want the meter," we'd argue back; but they were still pushing for a flat rate.

There were two vehicle types available, car or minivan, and we wanted the latter so we could all remain as a group. While most of us were arguing with the cab drivers, Lisa asked the nearby minivan driver if he'd take us all with the meter. He obliged and so she put her pack in the back of the van. "He says we can go with the meter," she told us.

Blue Shirt Guy intervened and exchanged some Vietnamese words with the minivan driver. Suddenly, his services weren't available, leaving us to split up the group into two pricey cars.

"Wait, let's just wait," Jim said, smoking his cig. We went to the side of the lot and put our things down. "I'm still really pissed that Hai lied to us. I think [Blue Shirt Guy] and Hai are working together," he theorized.

Another minivan pulled up, unaware of the commotion going on. Dara approached him for a ride and he accepted until Blue Shirt Guy intervened again. The deal Dara had made with him was off, under the justification that other guys vied for our business first. We sat back at the side to think. The smokers lit up while Blue Shirt Guy and other drivers had conversations in Vietnamese we couldn't understand.

Finally, after much deliberation, the first minivan driver was available to us and with the meter too. "Should we just go with him?" Paul asked me.

"Yeah, I'll go," I answered.

"You guys can go ahead. We'll meet up later," Jim said.

"Can't we just go with them?" Dara his wife pleaded. There was enough room for the five of us.

"I don't want to go with him," Jim answered.

"Why not?"

"Because then he wins."

Paul, Lisa and I loaded our bags in the back of the minivan while Dara had a chat with her new husband out of earshot. Soon, the American newlyweds were in the van with us. Never underestimate the power of a woman.

The driver turned on the meter as we pulled out of the parking lot. "This is probably going to be the longest way [to the Old Quarter,]" Jim said from the front passenger seat.

"Oh, it's gonna be the longest fucking ride of your life," Paul said, minding his spear gun rifle placed the length of the van interior. "We'll be back in Vinh."

The driver took us down the highway into the city. "Welcome to Hanoi," Lisa said.

HANOI, VIETNAM'S CAPITAL CITY and the center of the Vietnamese Communist Party for decades might conjure up an image of stoic unimpressionable buildings with little tourist appeal. However, it is quite the contrary, a place that Let's Go calls "one of Southeast Asia's most charming cities." Architecture in Hanoi is a reflection of Hanoi's hodge-podge of a past, from its origins in Chinese Confucianism to the era of French colonialism, all amidst a group of small picturesque lakes.

That's not to say that Hanoi's traffic was bland, with thousands of motorbikes (picture above) and cars weaving in and out of each other. One motorbike narrowly missed hitting a car head on, but swerved out in the nick of time. Lisa gasped again like she did on the bus.

Jim had Paul's Lonely Planet Vietnam book in the navigator seat and tried to get our bearing. Eventually he found our position on the map and traced it with his finger. "We're here, and we're going up here." His navigation skills kept the driver in check from going out of the way to increase the meter, a common scam amidst taxi drivers in any city. In the end, we got to where we wanted to go and the meter only read 57,000 dong. I assume Jim felt really good about that. Western Tourists, 1; Vietnamese Touts, 1.

We had been dropped off at the beginning of Tam Thuong, an alleyway where one of the cheap guesthouses that Lonely Planet suggested was on. Of course, the majority of the travelers have the same book and the hotel was full, as was all the other "backup" guesthouses in the alley -- except for one, the Tung Trang Hotel, a nice looking place with an incredibly friendly Vietnamese staff. We managed to snag the last three remaining rooms, just before the Swedes Kristoph and Anna showed up. They wandered off, but eventually found a place we assumed because we saw them wandering without their packs.

THE LEGACY OF FRENCH COLONIALISM IN HANOI is not only evident in the architecture of the Old Quarter, with its quaint European-style buildings with colorful shutters and a Christian cathedral, but also in the cuisine -- fitting for all the apparent French tourists we saw wandering around their former empire. The five of us ended up in one place, the Cafe Marleaux, a France-meets-Indochina-looking place that played the ambient lounge music of the Buddha Bar on Paris' Champs d'Elysées. I had quintessential French snacks -- a croque monsieur and a plate of frites -- with quintessential Vietnamese beers -- Tiger and Halida. After lunch with my "platoon," I went off to investigate the ticket I bought from Hai in Vinh to see if it was legit or not. In the end, the office he sent me to said that it appeared fine; I just had to call them up and sort it out when I wanted to go.

My "platoon" planned on regrouping at 19h15 to make the 20h00 show of Hanoi's famous Water Puppet Theater, but it wasn't until 20h15 that Dara and Jim woke up from their nap -- and more power to them; it was their honeymoon after all. Instead of the puppets, we ended up just hanging out in Paul and Lisa's room for a makeshift room party with a beers, a bottle of whiskey and Coke, cable TV and Jenga -- until we got a complaint call passed midnight that we were being too loud.

The end result of that day of Tourists versus Touts came out to be a tie, 1-all -- which is fitting I suppose, because "tout" is merely just "tourist" without the "ris," which is something I just pulled out of my ass just now because I have no idea what that means.

Rebel Without A Clue

DAY 420: If there's one distinct memory of Hanoi that Western tourists will bring home, it's the image of Hanoi's crazy traffic, a majority of which is comprised of motorbikes. Hanoiites (Hanoiers? Hanoians?) zip around the streets, sans helmets, to get to where they have to go in any way possible with only a few intersections with regulatory traffic signals. Most Westerners I met found the madness of it all sort of terrifying, and thought it crazy to ride on the back of a motorcycle taxi, let alone drive one.

"I'D LIKE TO RENT A MOTORBIKE," I asked the nice young lady at the desk of my hotel after stepping out briefly for pho, the Vietnamese rice noodle soup staple served almost everywhere in town. She made a call and in three minutes a man arrived with a Honda Dream. I signed a release to abide by the rules and pay the 80,000d (about $6 USD) for the whole day. He gave me the keys and zipped off with on the back of another scooter his partner was driving.

Awesome, I thought. Motorbikes have always been synonymous with the cool, from James Dean to Fonzie on Happy Days. My little Honda was nowhere near the cool bikes of the two American idols, but it would have to do.

I turned the key to the "on" position and nothing happened. And then I remembered, Oh right, I've never driven one of these before. I just figured it'd be just as easy as a motorbike in an arcade game, the kind with the simulated handlebars, so I looked for the "start" button. There it was in plain sight and I pushed it. The engine started. Oh yeah! I revved up the thingee on the right handle and the engine roared even more -- but it didn't go anywhere. The woman from the hotel came to my aid -- or rather, she came over to stop that idiot from obnoxiously revving his engine in front of the lobby.

"Here," she pointed out. "One, two, three, four." She explained the doohickey near my left foot, which was the gear shifter apparently. Oh right. Gears. This thing has gears.

(You Blogreaders out there that know about motorbikes are probably laughing hysterically or rolling your eyes right now.)

I shifted into first and the bike started moving. Alright, now we're cookin'. Soon I was out of the alleyway and into the madness of Hanoi city traffic.

Concentrate, I thought. It's just like a video game. I sped down the main road in true video game-style: using the accelerator, dodging cars and whizzing by pedestrians, and all without a helmet. Riding a motorbike was a lot trickier than I thought; suddenly I had to abide by one-way streets and traffic lights. This thing is really going slow, I thought. Oh right. Gears. I shifted up to fourth (the highest) and left it there all day.

"YOU COULD DO THE TOUR OF DEAD COMMUNISTS around the world," Ed said, about four months ago on the drive up to The Great Wall of China.

"You can do Mao in China and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam," Sam said, a couple of weeks before that when we were on line to see the body of Russian Communist leader Lenin in Moscow's Red Square.

For my first point of interest in Hanoi, I went to complete the Dead Communist Leader Trinity and zipped off to the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, where the body of the famous leader of Vietnam was placed to rest and be honored by pilgrims, despite his specific request to be cremated. The mausoleum was in the center of Ba Dinh Square, the famous square where he had declared Vietnam independent from the French in a moving speech on September 2, 1945, announcing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which eventually became the Soviet- and Chinese-supported North Vietnam.

I parked my bike on the south end of the square where the big tourist buses were and strolled up to the bag check-in. "What country are you from?" the military uniformed female guard asked me.

"Uh, Philippines."

"Oh, you are very handsome!" She said something to the other female guard and they snickered in Vietnamese like a couple of schoolgirls.

Chicks dig a guy with a bike.

Anyway, so there I was again, to see the body of a dead world Communist leader again. Formalities to see Ho Chi Minh were like the ones at Mao and Lenin, with a designated path, a military escort, and stoic military guards all over. The center room, kept dimly-lit and cold, was where Ho Chi Minh's uncremated body lay under a light, looking just as waxy as Mao and Lenin. Despite that, I have to say that Ho Chi Minh looked quite distinguished, with his long white beard and moustache, in an almost humble way -- it's no wonder he was known as "Uncle Ho" by his people. (That's not a joke.)

Nearby the mausoleum was Uncle Ho's house and Uncle Ho's museum and the One Pillar Pagoda, not created by Uncle Ho, but by Emperor Ly Thai Tong in the 11th century. Most of these places were closed for a mid-day siesta, so I skipped out on them and went back to my motorbike.

"You want ride? Where you go? I can be your guide!" said a motorcycle taxi tout that was trying to get business off of me as I walked down the street. "I have motorbike. I can take you. Where you want to go?"

"No, that's okay." Much to his surprise, I hopped on the seat of my own motorcycle, revved the engine and pulled away, feeling quite the rebel.

THERE'S A SAYING THAT GOES, "History is written by the winners." Nowhere is that more evident than at the Hoa Lo Prison, my next stop on my self-made motorbike tour. While Americans will always remember Hoa Lo Prison as the jail where American POWs were held captive -- thus some referring to it not as "Hoa Lo" but as "that Hanoi pit of Hell" -- the Vietnamese government has led its visitors to remember it as the place where Vietnamese revolutionaries were held captive and tortured during the French occupation. Paintings and memorial sculptures were erected throughout the compound, and even the former cells were fashioned with Vietnamese-looking mannequins for added effect, from the big rooms, the solitary confinement "dungeon," to death row. It was here that the French held patriots like Phan Boi Chau and Nguyen Luong Bang and future General Secretaries of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Truong Chinh and Le Duan -- who eventually worked to defeat the French in the first Indochina War.

Of course the Vietnamese tourism authority isn't completely ignorant of the second Indochina War, a.k.a. The American War in Vietnam -- it's just not the main focus of the exhibit, and understandably too. The American POWs were mentioned as a sort of by-the-way, like "(Oh yeah, the American POWs were here too)," in a little section allotted for their time there. An introduction panel stressed that the Americans held captive there were treated well (including one John McCain who eventually became a US senator) and in fact, all the photographs in that gallery showed Americans quite happy, playing ping-pong and volleyball, having sing-a-longs, and cooking together. In this "Hanoi Hilton" (a nickname given by Americans, which they pointed out), it seemed like being a prisoner there was like a spending a day at day camp.

Like I said, history is written by the winners.

Whatever version of the past you believe in, the truth I will report about its present is clear: Hanoi is ready to move on. Over half of the former Hoa Lo Prison had been torn down to make way for the Hanoi Towers built over it, a luxury hi-rise of corporate business and residential space, complete with a mall, supermarket, swimming pool and bar that makes really good bacon cheeseburgers. (Bet you can't guess what I had for lunch.) From what I saw, the newest occupants of the former Hoa Lo, including what I presume were American ex-pats, were now really living it up.

"UH, TEN THOUSAND?" I asked hesitantly with ten fingers up to explain myself at the gasoline station. My fuel gauge had been in the red zone all day; I was surprised how far I'd gotten without filling up the tank.

"[Something something]," the female attendant said.

"Uh, ten?"

With her body language, I managed to figure out she was saying, "If you want me to give you fuel, you have to pop the seat up so I can get access to the tank, stupid." Cluelessly, I lifted the seat with all my might until she rolled her eyes and took the keys from me to unlock the seat using the keyhole on the side. Oh right, the key. To unlock it. She did it for me and filled me up. The 10,000d (about 65 cents) got me 3/4 of a tank, more than enough to really crank it. I revved the engine and took to the streets again, passing the French-style Opera House in town, and rode off to my next destination.

NOT ALL TOURISTIC SITES IN HANOI involve history in the 20th century. Rewind about a thousand years and you'll see a much less hectic Vietnam, a time when Emperor Ly Thanh Tong founded the Temple of Literature, the first national university, dedicated to Chinese prophet of wisdom Confucius. Like the Confucius temple I'd seen in Beijing, this Vietnamese complex had shrines to great wise man, places of reflection and a series of steles where the names of the graduated scholars were etched into.

I'D BEEN ON THE MOTORBIKE ALL DAY and I was getting quite used to it; despite the appearance of Hanoi traffic (picture above) being a chaotic free-for-all, it is actually quite civil. It's not like people were aiming to hit people; people usually tried to get out of each other's way, just really fast. One traveler I met noticed that amidst all the madness, no one has road rage; if someone cuts someone else off, it's just accepted -- that's just the way it is. I was surprised there weren't many foreigners renting motorbikes (it's a bargain at $6 a day) -- my Let's Go book even recommended it -- until I saw that overly-paranoid Lonely Planet strongly advised against it. (Most people had the latter.)

I was pretty confident on the bike around afternoon rush hour to just have fun with it and just speed around aimlessly. I head for the highway too to crank it as fast as I could go. The speedometer was broken, but I figured I got up to 40 mph. I took the highway back and forth and even followed the congested mass of traffic on the Chuong Duong Bridge over the Red River out to the suburbs. At one point I was in between the highway divider and a bus moving into the fast lane. I zipped in between and cut the bus off.

"Ha ha ha haaaaaaa!"

The bus driver just honked his horn at me as I sped away.

I ended my day as a "tourist without a cause" running errands -- booking a two-day tour to Halong Bay the next day and my overnight bus to Hue the evening after that -- before heading back to the hotel. Paul, Lisa, Jim and Dara were amazed when I told them I'd been on a motorbike all day; both couples had a much less hectic day of lounging around and shopping the Old Quarter. We did a bit more shopping that evening on the way to dinner at Cha Ca La Vong, the proud "oldest restaurant of Vietnam" since 1871, which only had one item on the menu: their specialty cha ca, slices of fish fillets grilled on a sizzling platter of aromatic oil in the center of the table, served with green onions, coriander, peanuts and chilies.

We sat and ate and then traded Blog addresses (including Jim's "Rover the Bear" Blog) in my last session with my "platoon." The couples went out afterwards while I just retreated back to my hotel room to attend to Blog duties with my laptop. I sat the rest of the night and wrote about my version of the history of the day -- after all, I did win that little duel I had with the bus on the highway.

A Plan To Be Spontaneous

DAY 421: My "platoon" that I had arrived with in Vietnam two days before was on a much more relaxed schedule than me; they were after all in Vietnam with vacation/holiday-mentality, not that there's anything wrong with that. I on the other hand was merely rushing to cover the only-in-Vietnam sights before heading to the Philippines for Christmas. The night before, I bid my platoon farewell for I would be transferred to a new unit in the morning.

I was booked on a two-day excursion to the only-in-Vietnam natural site of Ha Long Bay with Ocean Tours, set up by the woman at the hotel. An organized tour was arguably the best way to see the remote parts of the bay since it required a boat; a tour was the most cost-effective way to go and it was offered by the dozens of tour operators in Hanoi anyway for about $15/day.

I was picked up by a friendly Vietnamese guide named Thuy on time at 8h00 sharp and was led to a transport van filled with German and French tourists. At a rendezvous point I was transferred to another unit, the English-speaking one, where by chance I sat next to the only other American in the group, a guy named Scott.

"Where are you from?"

"New York."

"I grew up in Rockland County," Scott said, referring to the upstate New York county across the Hudson River from the city.

"I was born in New York, but I grew up in Bergen County," I said, referring to the suburban county also across the river. Funny how small the world really is.

In my new "platoon" there was: an old Swedish couple with their three adopted Vietnamese children, ages 8 to 14; an Italian couple; Bob and Roland, Australian father and son; Natalie from the UK; Andy the German; and real military buddies in the Australian armed forces, Andrew and Mark. Our "squad leader" was Thuy, a very friendly and well-informed 28-year-old Vietnamese guy who led the introductions as the minibus head eastbound towards Ha Long City.

"I was with an American in Ha Long Bay before and he asked me what I thought of Americans, if I like or hate them," Thuy said. "Well, I was born after the war, [so I have no issues.]" He continued by telling us that although the Vietnamese government didn't want to forget the past, they didn't want to dwell on it and just move on. "The Vietnamese government says it wants to be friendly with all countries. Yeah, even America."

Laughter filled the bus and all eyes looked back at Scott and me. Hey, don't look at me, I thought. I was born after the war too.

This was followed by more harmless cracks at America by Mark, who mentioned how weak the US dollar had become since a certain someone took the White House in 2000.

"Yes, I know [how weak the dollar is,]" I said. "I'm reminded every time I meet a foreigner. Which is everyday."

BEING POKED FUN OF FOR BEING AMERICAN had been all fun and games in every country I'd been to thus far, although in Vietnam it was a bit different, what with all the history the USA has with the nation. It's funny how the US became obsessed with the search for WOMDs, chemical and biological weapons in Iraq in 2003, when they were the ones that used chemical weapons in Vietnam, (arguably) rather carelessly. At a halfway point to Ha Long Bay we stopped by the Dai Nghia Humanity Center, a craft, food and souvenir market benefiting those children deformed from the USA's "tactical usage" of Agent Orange -- a sign was prominently hung up stating this, most likely to guilt people into buying stuff.

I bought thirty postcards and a Red Bull.

"I THINK THERE ARE MORE BOATS THAN HOTELS IN TOWN," I said to my platoon. Ninety minutes later we were at the Ha Long City harbor, along with about thirty or so other minibuses loaded with tourists -- daytrippers and multi-day guys like us. With such a mass of people there were many boats to fulfill the demand and they all crammed next to each other in a wooden mass that could have formed a small flammable island. (All pyromaniac readers out there should ignore what I just wrote.) We waited at the dock with our gear while Thuy went to arrange our boat transport.

"Do you know what the plan is?" I asked Scott.

"I don't really know. I just planned on being led," he said. "It's more spontaneous," he continued, smirking.

Hmm, nice way to approach the organized tour: Be ignorant to the agenda and everything is a surprise. Good plan.

Thuy came back. "We are going to the boat now," he announced. He led us to the ship, which was much nicer than I thought it'd be with a nice dining room with settings all set for lunch. Later we saw the cabins were also very nice, with decent beds, private bathrooms and hot water. "This is better than my hotel in Hanoi!" my assigned German roommate Andy told me.

The upper deck of the boat was the least attractive, although still decent for all intents and purposes. We sat out on the bamboo flooring as the boat tried to muscle its way through the other boats surrounding it. Eventually we were out of harbor and into the calm green waters of the Ha Long Bay.

"We are going to have the lunch now," Thuy said when he came up to the top deck to announce the next "spontaneous" item on the agenda. Food was also a pleasant surprise; the Ocean Tours' chartered staff cooked up a feast fit for a king with Vietnamese dishes: spring rolls, broiled fish, baby spinach and pork strips.

HA LONG BAY IS ONE OF VIETNAM'S GREAT NATURAL WONDERS, or rather, one of the world's natural wonders ever since it was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO. While the actual body of water is nothing to write home about, it is what is in the bay that gets so much international attention: 1,968 limestone island peaks that jut out of the water like rocky camel humps, similar to the limestone peaks near Yangshou in China.

"Ha Long" translates to "dragon descending," which refers to the local legend that the bay was protected from Chinese invaders by a mythical descending dragon. After the Chinese retreated, the dragon simply settled down with the big scaling humps of his back protruding out of the water, solidified into limestone.

The ship cruised farther out from harbor until it reached the group of limestone islets, collectively all worthy of their World Heritage status at first glance. Eventually we rode up to one of them, Sung Sot, or "Amazing Cave" as Thuy said. Once inside it was apparent why it got its name.

"It looks like something out of a movie set," Bob the Australian father said.

"Yeah, I was just going to say that!" I said. I'd been in many caverns before, but this had to be the best of them all thus far. Unlike some other places, the dramatic lighting actually worked its effect on the stalactites, stalagmites and columns without being too cheesy -- the tourism authority really knew what they were doing. I expected to see a magic lamp or treasure atop on of the stalagmites.

"We will rest here and then go back to the boat," Thuy said, citing the next item on the agenda. "Here" was the wooden platform overlooking the lagoon where many other boats were coming in -- which was also probably flammable (but don't you pyros even think about it). Not surprisingly, there was a gift and snack stand as well. Although I had no intent on buying anything, we were there just long enough for me to cave in and spontaneously buy an ice cream cone -- although it was probably all a part of their master plan. Like I said, they knew what they were doing.

LIMESTONE ISLET PEAKS SURROUNDED US in every direction with the coming of sundown, and with the slight haze in the sky (or was it boat smog?) Ha Long Bay emitted a surreal fantasy vibe "like something out of Lord of the Rings," Bob said. However, the vibe was always ruined when one of the dozens of other boats zipped by -- except for the ones with the cool-looking sails, that is.

The next "spontaneous" activity was announced shortly after the boat anchored in the middle of the bay. "We stopped for swimming," Thuy announced to us.

One by one we jumped off the top deck into the cold, but gradually bearable water with a slight current that made swimming like being on a treadmill. The Swedes and Vietnamese kids jumped in, as did the Aussie military guys, Scott, and German Andy -- Natalie almost didn't jump in for fear of it being too cold until we talked her into it. Hot showers warmed us up after, just in time for the spectacular sunset (other picture above) that led to nighttime. Again there were so many boats around that the peaceful vibe was tainted; Bob said out the window it almost looked like we were near the mainland coast.

Afterwards we had dinner, which was also delicious, and also announced by Thuy. Card games and tricks followed. However I was pretty tired and slipped away, turning into my cabin bed early; it was the only thing I did that day that Thuy didn't have his hand in.

Now how's that for spontaneity?

Good Morning, Vietnam; Bad Evening, Vietnam

DAY 422: There was a peaceful, quiet darkness in my cabin near the engine room on the boat in Ha Long Bay, just before the break of dawn. My German cabinmate Andy and I were snug under our covers in our respective beds. Then, just a little passed 6 a.m., the motor kicked in to move the boat farther along and provide electricity to the ship. The loud rumbling was incessant and inescapable.

"Oh yeah, I like that sound," Andy said with the sarcasm one has after such a rude awakening.

"Good morning, Vietnam," I added, also with the same kind of sarcasm.

"Yeah, ha ha! Goooooood morning, Vietnam!"

IT WAS A GOOD MORNING IN VIETNAM after all, despite the rude awakening and the lack of a colorful picturesque sunrise with all the morning haze. We made our way through the limestone peaks (some of them very phallic) to the fishing village on the island of Cat Ba to drop off the three- or more-day tourists (about half of us) for the rest of their packages, while the rest of us remained on board to go back to the mainland.

After a good morning breakfast of banana pancakes and a really stimulating conversation about world politics with Bob, I just went back to sleep for a nap. Halfway to port we anchored for a mid-morning swim, and after that I just chilled out on the upper deck staring out at the open water and the boats going by (picture above) while writing out my postcards to send to Blog sponsors.

Good morning in Vietnam, indeed.

From the harbor back on the mainland, the good vibrations continued through mid-day when we were taken over a bridge to nearby Tuan Chan Island for a delicious family-style lunch of fake meat shaped from soy bean paste at a fancy Chinese-style restaurant -- it and the surrounding pavilion looked like something out of the World Showcase at EPCOT Center. In fact, Tuan Chan was an example of the boom of tourism to come, with combed beaches, an expo center, and luxury bayfront properties. From what I gathered, Vietnam was bracing for an influx of tourism, and would become "the next Thailand," which has its ups and downs. On one hand, tourism will pump money into the economy; on the other, really, do they really need obnoxious drunken backpackers spoiling the purity of Vietnamese culture?

THE "BAD EVENING" MENTIONED IN THE TITLE of this entry happened in the evening (duh) when we arrived back in Hanoi, just before sundown around 5 o'clock. These gave me two hours to run errands in town -- buy a new silk sleeping bag, get cash, buy postage and mail my cards off, and repack -- as well as quickly see some nearby sights I had missed: the 13th century Ngoc So'n Temple dedicated to Van Xu'o'ng, the god of literature, located amidst mangrove trees on the center of the island in Hoan Kiem Lake. One thing I didn't have time for was the famous Water Puppet show, which I sighed about and moved on. I had a quick sandwich at Ocean Tours' cafe and then headed to the Queen Bee Travel office where they said my pickup for the night bus to Hue would be.

It is probably the time to mention that the ticket I had had the Queen Bee name on it, but the business card Hai gave me in Vinh was for another agency, An Phu. I had gone to both places before and both said the bus company was just another company that small middlemen agencies dealt with. I simply went with Queen Bee because they were closer.

"They won't give us the money," the guy at Queen Bee said. He had called the bus to get me as a client, but the main company wouldn't pay Queen Bee out since they weren't a usual middleman. Queen Bee Guy actually knew me this before, but thought he'd try and help me out anyway and pursue the bus since he knew that I'd most likely been scammed; he showed me an article posted on the wall about how many people used the good Queen Bee name and reputation to do shady business.

"No really, it's me. The guy in Vinh told me to go to [An Phu]. I just came where because you said you could call [the bus too]." He let me call An Phu, and in their broken English they said something with the phrase "five minutes" in it; it sounded like they would send the bus over in five. Meanwhile I called the mobile number Hai gave me in case of a problem. Hai picked up and said everything should be fine as long as I went to the agency he told me to, An Phu.

Twenty minutes passed. No bus. In the interim, Queen Bee Guy called up An Phu and scolded them for using their name. Eventually I was suggested to just go to An Phu myself; perhaps I was supposed to go there in "five minutes." I hopped on the back of a motorcycle taxi and took off into the nighttime traffic.

THERE WAS A CROWD OF CONCERNED EMPLOYEES at An Phu, most likely because Queen Bee just yelled at them. I showed them my ticket and they said it wasn't one of theirs. They said that they never heard of a guy named Hai in the Vinh office. "Can we just call this number? He'll straighten this out. I just spoke with him."

No answer in Vinh.

"You want to book a ticket?" the An Phu Lady asked.

"No, I already paid for this [open ended, hop on/hop off] one."

They argued it wasn't theirs and even showed me a real one.

"Can we just call this number again?"

"No."

At this point we were just wasting time; the bus was most likely out of town already. More arguing went on while my motorcycle taxi driver was still lingering, waiting for an outcome. An Phu Lady said if I booked a ticket with her now, she could call the bus to come back for me.

"No, I just want to make a phone call."

"[Take him to the Youth Hotel,]" is what she told the taxi motorcyclist I presume, because one ride later, that's where I was. (She probably thought I was really young.)

Moon, the nice lady at the Youth Hotel desk greeted me. "I can put you in the dorm for two dollars."

"No, I just want to use the telephone." She let me use it and dialed the mobile number on speaker.

"The number you have dialed has been..." started the pre-recorded message. Moon hung it up. The number was no longer existent.

Fuck! I was scammed. The bastard probably pulled out his SIM card too.

"The bus has left already," Moon pointed out. She suggested I spend the night and then get on a bus to Vinh to get my money back, but I told her I'd probably just be wasting time going down a dead end and that I accepted my defeat.

Wow, that didn't take too long, I thought. Scams and other bad things are all a part of the drama of travel.

I thought about a Plan B. "What time is the night train to Hue?"

"Eleven. I can book it."

"It's available?"

"I can book it when you pay me."

A slight hesitation was followed by a forking over of money. "Yeah, okay." I had her book me a sleeper. In the meantime, suddenly I had time to do that one must-see thing I would have missed.

"Uh, what time is the Water Puppet show?"

WATER PUPPETS ARE THE BRAINCHILD of farmers of the Li dynasty in the 11th century, a thing invented out the necessity of entertainment during the flood season. Wooden puppets are controlled by hidden puppeteers like marionettes (in Prague) are, not by strings above, but by sticks below, hidden under the floodwaters. The craft of water puppetry had been perfected to simulate dancing, working, swimming and other life-life motions.

The Thang Long Water Puppet Theater Troupe has continued to preserve this proud Vietnamese art form and has been recognized for it, having performed overseas numerous times in Japan, Korea, Thailand, Australia, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, the USA, Mexico and Brazil. Four times daily they performed their show to busloads of tourists in the theater that started it all, just across the way from Hoan Kiem Lake.

The performance was divided into 17 short scenes, each one with puppets "acting" and dancing to the music of a live band positioned on the left of the water-filled stage pool. Wooden human dolls worked, played, paraded, swam, and raced boats. Floating dragons danced amongst waterproof pyrotechnics. One scene re-enacted the famous legend about King Le Loi defeating invaders with a magic sword he got from a giant turtle. The puppets were jolly and brought the kids out in all the adults in the audience.

And so, it was a bad evening turned good after all -- or was it?

"I BOUGHT A TRAIN TICKET FROM MOON," I told the new guy at the Youth Hotel desk.

"Oh, you're late."

"What?! It's at eleven. She said be here by ten fifteen." I showed him my watch. A quarter passed ten exactly.

"The train left at ten. You had to be here at nine fifteen."

"I'm going to Hue."

"At ten you should have been here," he said with a deadpan face. "Do you want me to book you a room?"

"No, no! I need to get to Hue tonight!"

"Where are your bags?"

"Here." There they were, on the side piled with the other bags.

"You can bring them to the room."

"Oh c'mon! I've already been scammed once today."

Suddenly his deadpan face turned into a smile. "Okay, okay. Here." He handed me my train ticket. He was kidding all along.

I snatched the ticket from him, got my gear and hopped on a motorcycle taxi to the train station. I made it to my bunk with time to breathe. Soon, I was on my way southbound to Hue. Finally.

I GUESS SOME DAYS CAN START OFF with good mornings and end with bad evenings, but that's all a part of independent travel. Earlier that evening I ran into Aussie father and son, Bob and Roland, on my way to the theater.

"I tell my son, there are good things and bad things," Bob said.

"Yeah, but that's just a part of the game," I said.

"It's a part of life really," he said. Spoken like a sage.

In the end, I was only ripped off $27 (USD), which wasn't too bad. After all, in Vietnam, a country with plenty of violence and bloodshed in its history, losing $27 isn't exactly the worst thing that could happen.

Temporary Ceasefire

DAY 423: When historians think of Vietnam, chances are they immediately think of The American War from 1965 to 1973 -- well, that's what I think of at least. In each entry I've written about Vietnam so far, I've eluded to The War with subtle literary devices, but for a change of pace, let's turn to another part in Vietnam's history. Call this a temporary ceasefire if you will.

One may forget that before the American War or the French War, there was a time in Vietnam of emperors and dynasties, and most of the remnants of that era are found in and around the city of Hue (pronounced "hweh") in central Vietnam. It was this city I was headed to as I woke up on the overnight train from Hanoi that morning.

THE LUMINENCE OF THE SUN lit up the overcast sky to a light gray, revealing the beautiful Vietnamese countryside whizzing by through the train window. Men tilled the soil with ox-driven ploughs. Women in cone-shaped straw hats tended to the rice. Fishermen set their nets out in the rivers while some villagers came by to observe our train as it crawled through their village.

Meanwhile, inside the train car, the conductor decided to play Christmas music on the speakers and finally, after having traveled for months in predominantly Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist countries, it started to feel a little bit like Christmas.

The complimentary cup-o-ramen-noodles provided by the train staff tied me over until we arrived in Hue's train station by late morning. Not surprisingly, the backpackers were approached by aggressive touts and cabbies looking for a fare. I took a breather in the waiting room but eventually had a motorcycle taxi driver take me into the tourist district of town. He brought me to the first place he'd most likely get a commission of course, which turned out to be a decent place that I managed to bargain down a $10 room to $7. Inside was a big bed, a TV, minibar fridge, private bathroom with hot water and something I hadn't seen in a long time: a tub. In the lobby, the owner Bacdat was playing Contra on an old late 1980's Nintendo Entertainment System clone with a fellow staff member.

My kind of place, I thought. I settled in.

SEVEN DOLLARS WAS STILL QUITE A LOT when I could have spent $3 in a backpacker house, but the splurge was worth it because the sore throat I developed the day before evolved into a slight fever and now I had a big bed to rest in and a hot tub to soak my feet. With the help of some OJ and Tylenol, I managed to get over it before the day was done.

I did manage to get out to see the city of Hue -- from its busy touristy neighborhoods to its quieter residential ones -- and to get a glimpse of Vietnamese dynasties though, with a stroll beyond the touristy dragon boats and over the Huong River, to the Imperial City in the Old Citadel, originally created in 1805 by Emperor Gia Long and expanded later on by Emperor Minh Mang, both of the Nguyen Dynasty. The citadel can be seen from afar with its towering Flagpole of Hue, the tallest of its kind in Vietnam, proudly waving the red flag of Vietnam with the yellow star in the center.

I walked over the citadel's surrounding moat via an old bridge (picture above) and entered via the Noon Gate, which led me to the Five Phoenix Pavilion, a courtyard with statues and big auspicious goldfish swimming in a pool. Just ahead was the Palace of Supreme Harmony, where the emperor used to sit on his throne all emperor-like, and held meetings with public audiences and entertained guests. Just beyond that were the Royal Library (being renovated) and the Duyet Thi Duong Theater, which still holds traditional music and drama performances today.

Walking around the Imperial City of Hue, I felt like I had been there before, like in a déja vù or something, and it was no surprise when I learned that it was actually modeled after The Forbidden City in Beijing, also home of a dynasty of emperors, although not nearly as grand or maintained (or audio-guided by Roger Moore for that matter). The inspiration from China is actually a surprising fact because four hundred years before the citadel's foundation, the Vietnamese wanted nothing to do with the Chinese, who wanted to take over and eradicate Vietnamese culture.

IF I WAS FEELING A BIT BETTER I might have gone off to see one or more of the seven tombs of Nguyen emperors, scattered outside the city. I read that some were more spectacular than others, displaying "great architectural balance," but all of them had one thing in common: they weren't so easy to get to in one afternoon, especially for someone with a slight fever that didn't feel like spending any money. Well, it didn't say that exactly, but you know what I mean. Instead I vegged the rest of the afternoon in my room. Overall, it was definitely a nice break from those other kind of historical sights of a later part in Vietnam's history.

The Vietnamese Version

DAY 424: When I was fifteen, one year short of being able to get a legal work permit, friend and Blogreader wheat and I made some cash to buy music cassettes (yes, I said "cassettes") by working off the books at a local family-run chicken take-out place that, because of its crappy location, didn't get much business. To suffice for the lack of customers, the Filipino-American owners of the place made a living by setting up food vending stalls at just about every summer street fair in the metropolitan New York City area. Wheat and I went from fair to fair every weekend that summer of 1990, to grill up chicken parts and pork shish kabobs under questionably sanitary conditions that would make Upton Sinclair turn in his grave.

The job paid us though, so I could get that latest tape from Information Society (yes, I said "Information Society"), which is why we dealt with it: riding in cargo vans on top of grills, booth equipment and spoiling pork pieces, and dealing with pushy bosses. It was especially an experience when we'd work the New York Gay Pride Parade and get approached by male customers flirting, "Hey boy, you sure have a lot of meat on that stick!"

You may be at your computer thinking, What does this have to do with Vietnam, Erik? Why? What's the significance? I don't know!!! (This is best thought in the voice of Pee-Wee Herman.)

With wheat and me were an illegal but hard-working Mexican guy named Manuel, and a young couple of Vietnamese immigrants, Faye and Hong. All of us hated the way we were treated -- think sweatshop meets the barbecue -- but we were all trapped in the situation of not being able to get real work. Faye and Hong, the most hardworking of all of us, secretly bashed our suppressors with the intrinsic resilience found in the Vietnamese people. Eventually there was a hidden rebellion in the ranks from us -- one of the Filipino bosses actually mistook me for one of the illegal Mexicans(!) -- and ultimately the chicken place went out of business. And we couldn't have done it without Faye and Hong.

A year later, wheat and I got jobs at the local frozen yogurt store where we earned money to finally buy CDs.

THE VIETNAMESE ARE A STRONG BREED, a people that has been shoved and pushed down many times in history, from the Chinese to the French to the Americans. They fought back every time and won, pushing out the Chinese in the 15th century, defeating the French in the first Indochina War, and outwitting the Americans in the second. This was reiterated to me as I went on a full-day tour of the Demilitarized Zone, more commonly referred to as the DMZ. DMZ tours were offered by every one of the dozen or so tour operators in Hue, none of them (to my dismay) named "Run DMZ Tours."

In accordance with the Geneva Conference of 1954, Vietnam was split in two at the 17th parallel and two political states were formed: the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (a.k.a. North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (a.k.a. South Vietnam). The area around the 17th parallel was the DMZ, a place of violence and bloodshed during The American War in Vietnam.

AFTER A TWO-HOUR BUS RIDE that started at six in the morning, my group arrived in Dong Ha, the main town in the DMZ, a town much like any other generic Vietnamese one -- at first glance one wouldn't think there had been much violence there. We had breakfast and picked up our guide for the day, a Vietnamese woman named Thach who spoke to us on the bus' mic as we head up Route 9 farther west into the DMZ.

"You probably know about the war from films and movies," she said, "but here you will get the Vietnamese version." Although she was a well-informed guide, she was a pretty fast talker, probably rushing through the content she spewed out everyday to another batch of tourists. As far as the "Vietnamese version," she was pretty neutral when mentioning the bare facts in history -- the separation of Vietnam in 1954, the proposed general elections that never came to be in 1956, the rise of Ho Chi Minh, the arrival of the Americans in 1965, the US air raids, the VietCong in the south and the Ho Chi Minh trail, etc. -- but then she concluded on a slant.

"[The Vietnamese had their own problems to work out, and the Americans entered a war that wasn't theirs. The worst part of the arrival of the Americans is that they brought weapons like Agent Orange and napalm,]" she said to the best of my memory in her rapid lecture. She continued by saying that the Americans came to "free the people" -- Gee, where have I heard that before? -- when in actuality they entered the war for their own interests, to "stop the spread of Communism in Asia." Communism was a very bad bad thing to Americans in those days and they fought against it at all costs -- whatever it takes. (Gee, that sounds familiar too...)

"And you are from...?" Thach the guide asked me at a photo stop of the famous Rockpile the Americans used as an "unassailable helicopter landing pad until it was stormed by Viet Minh commandos" (says Let's Go). She pegged me for some sort of Asian.

"Uh, American," I said bashfully. "I think I'm the only American on the bus." She wasn't phased and was happy that I was the only one asking questions amidst a group that didn't seem to care what was being said on the mic.

We continued along Route 9, the former US supply route that went to the Lao border. Driving through the rolling green hills, it was hard to imagine such a place of beauty was such a violent battlefield. It was harder to imagine how soldiers dealt with it; the terrain made it almost impossible to know where a bullet might have come from.

We crossed the Quang Tri River via the Daikong Bridge, the local tribute and symbol of the nearby Ho Chi Minh trail, which aided the north to outwit US and South Vietnamese forces. The trail was not one trail, but a network of secret passageways for supplies and sneak attacks, a lot of it created with the help of local hill tribe people who were also against the imperialist Americans. The resilient local hill people helped North Vietnam soldiers by identifying existing trails, guiding them in the dark and expanding the trail network -- some even pledged allegiance to Ho Chi Minh by adopting the surname "Ho."

We stopped at one of the ethnic minority villages, Bru Van Kieu, which one tourist in the group described as "like the villages in northern Thailand." Sure it appeared that way, but the history was much different; I mean, these people made Vietnamese food, not Thai food. Afterwards we head back on Route 9 to Khe Sanh Combat Base, site of the famous 75-day battle in which American and South Vietnamese troops under the command of General William Westmoreland, concentrated all their forces and fought to defend the base and nearby Ta Con airstrip. After all was said and done, it became clear that the battle at Khe Sanh was merely a diversion; during its siege, other northern troops and VCs used the Ho Chi Minh trail to capture the unattended US bases.

Nowadays the only "attacks" at Khe Sanh come from vendors trying to sell vintage VC pins and American dog tags. The only shooting comes from cameras, some from guys hiding in the bushes, soldier-style, for that perfect angle. Tanks, a bunker (picture above), helicopters and an air transport are still present, but only in an expository manner. Nearby is a museum with photos showing the fight of Khe Sanh, also with the slant towards North Vietnam.

BOY, YOU SURE HAVE A LOT OF MEAT ON THAT PLATE, I thought in a completely straight way when the waitress brought over a pork fried rice at lunch time. It was the meal of Tristan, an Australian student in Canberra on holiday with his friend Byron.

"So what did you think of Khe Sanh?" Byron asked me, curious to hear an American perspective.

"It was okay," I said, still not fixated on the amount of meat on the plate in front of me. "It was just sort of there."

"Amazing to see the photos of American soldiers look all terrified with the attack."

"I think enough Americans know that Vietnam was a mistake and just accept it."

NORTHBOUND ON HIGHWAY ONE we drove, to the former official separation of the north and south, the Ben Hai River along the 17th parallel. Bridging the two sides was a bridge (duh), the Hien Luong Bridge, one of the first targets of US air raids. A new bridge has replaced the old one, which was reconstructed for historical preservation purposes.

We drove another 15 km. towards the shore on the northern side of the DMZ, to a place Let's Go called "the DMZ's most interesting sight," the Vinh Moc tunnels. The Vinh Moc tunnels were a series of tunnels on three levels, like an ant colony but super-sized, where the local tribespeople lived under cover during the constant dropping of bombs by American forces. A true example of Vietnamese resilience, this engineering marvel had air vents and a self-sustaining well. People could live inside without seeing daylight for up to ten days. There were cave rooms set aside as family rooms, maternity wards, storage and kitchens -- a complete village, just underground. I'm sure if audio cassettes were invented, they would have had that too, or at least an 8-track deck.

The claustrophobic tunnel network (which reminded me of the mining tunnels in Bolivia) was created out of sheer necessity to survive. As the nearby museum pointed out, during the US air raids, there was only one concern: To be or not to be. The Vietnamese chose the former as they always have.

Nowadays the Vinh Moc tunnels exist as a tourist attraction, a place where tourists like myself could visit and see how the people survived. Bombs are no longer a threat, so much in fact that a couple of toddlers with squeaky shoes simply played around the remnants of them.

LIFE GOES ON IN THE DMZ. Vietnamese culture is alive and well, resilient as the people who created it -- I experienced this during the traditional music show I saw that night in a restaurant back in Hue. No matter what the future holds for Vietnam, I'm sure they will prevail, so that one day in the future, they can tell their version of the tale. Meanwhile, I'll be moving on from CDs and MP3s.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average Is Down A Quarter Of A Point

DAY 425: It has been brought to my attention that there are people out there who use travel Blogs (such as this one) as a informational resource for making their own travel plans. Can you believe that? People actually read this thing other than for its stories of misadventure and self-effacing poop humor. Ha!

I know this bit of trivia about travel Blogs as informational resources because I was interviewed by a reporter from The Wall Street Journal who was doing a feature about the business of travel Blogs. The interview with New York-based journalist happened over a series of back-and-forth e-mails that started way back when I was traveling through Morocco with a Canadian named Sebastian. If you recall the comment I posted from Tokyo about the outcome of that interview, in the end, the article failed to mention me or The Blog at all. I sighed and moved on. (This wasn't the first time this had happened to me; a CNN reporter once interviewed me for a feature about my on-line New Jersey Turnpike-inspired t-shirt store, but that too went nowhere.)

I understood completely, figuring that my Blog wasn't exactly WSJ material -- until this entry, that is.

THE EVENTS OF MY 425TH DAY ON THE GLOBAL TRIP 2004 weren't so exciting; I was on a train for twenty-three hours, traveling from Hue in central Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh City in the south, which passed by places of interest that shouldn't go ignored -- I simply skipped them because of my haste to see the sights of the south before heading off to the Philippines for Christmas. Since there are people out there who actually use this thing to plan trips -- really, that still makes me giggle -- I will mention some of the places in southern Vietnam I might have gone to if I had more time. I will also mention phrases from the financial world at random so that perhaps this Blog can be a little more Wall Street Journal-friendly. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down a quarter of a point.

Anyway, back to the story. It started when I checked out of the hotel in Hue that morning. Bacdat the owner gave me the train ticket he booked for me and then continued to play The Little Mermaid video game on the Nintendo Entertainment System clone in the lobby. He bid me farewell with the big cheesy grin he greeted me with two days prior, and put me in a cab. When I got on the train station (picture above) I discovered just why he was smiling so wide; he ripped me off $3 (USD) by booking me a spot in a six-person "hard sleeper" compartment instead of the four-person soft sleeper he told me he was going to. Hong Kong trading was moderate today.

No matter, I thought. At least I have a place to lie down for the 23-hour ride instead of being cramped in the car with the uncomfortable seats. With me were five other passengers, all Vietnamese, some who looked old enough to be alive during The American War in Vietnam and therefore possibly bitter about it, so I kept my American identity to myself.

"Vietnamese?" one woman asked me.

"Uh, Filipino," I answered.

"Oh, Philippine. You speak Vietnamese?"

"No."

Despite the language barrier, the five passengers were a friendly bunch. They shared their fruit and I shared my candy. I managed to understand what they were saying at times by mere context and body language. For example, the old woman clearly said in body language, "This is too much rice for me. Here, have some," simply by transferring some of her rice into my bowl. Furthermore, she clearly said, "I am a vegetarian," when she simply gave me all the meat from her railway-catered meal. She also put some chicken giblets on my plate that no body wanted. When I started eating them out of courtesy, they all started snickering like they had just gotten away with insider trading.

THE SOUTHBOUND "S3" TRAIN STOPPED for a while in Da Nang, a place of interest on the tourist trail in southern Vietnam, the former port of French colonialists eventually used by US Marines in The War. It was a shore town rivaled by the charming Hoi An nearby, which many travelers flocked to for its laid-back atmosphere, so my guidebook said. Also nearby was the famous China Beach where US troops landed way before it was the name of a TV show starring Dana Delaney.

After that, the train continued on its way through the southern countryside, passing by Nha Trang, the self-proclaimed "Vietnamese Riviera" with resorts, sandy beaches and a surfing scene, and Da Lat, nicknamed "Le Petit Paris," for its thriving artistic community and French influence.

All of these places might have been worth checking out for me, if only I had the time. Alan Greenspan has really nice shoes.

HAN, ONE OF THE TWO YOUNGER WOMEN in my compartment revealed to me that she knew a little bit of English, and with broken conversation she managed to tell me she was an accountant from Ho Chi Minh City, our final destination of the train ride. "Are you a journalist? A student?" she asked me.

Wow, she pegged me for a journalist right off the bat, I thought. Is it the glasses or the notepad I keep jotting notes into? I kept a low profile -- any kind of journalist in Vietnam had to have been declared at the border, just like in Laos -- and I simply pretended to be a Filipino student who had just finished studying in America and was on his way home.

BY 10:30 THE NEXT MORNING, we finally arrived at Saigon station in Ho Chi Minh City. I gathered my things and went out to begin my final days in Vietnam in the big metropolis, knowing that perhaps one day I'd come back to the country to see the things I missed on the way. The Nikkei Average is up two points. Sell, sell, sell.

The Touts Are A'Changin'

DAY 426: In 1973, the Paris Peace Accords put an end to The American War in Vietnam. The US conceded to North Vietnam and eventually pulled out its troops so that Vietnam could begin the road to recovery. Two years later, on April 30, 1975, North Vietnam hammered the proverbial "nail in the coffin" into the south when, using a big military tank, they stormed the presidential palace gates in the former South Vietnam capital of Saigon. Vietnam was reunified under Communist rule and after that day, the official name of the southern city was renamed after the Communist leader and became Ho Chi Minh City, often abbreviated in print as "HCMC" to save space and decrease writer's cramp. Verbally, "Ho Chi Minh City," is a mouthful in itself, which is probably why people still just call it Saigon. "Saigon" just rolls off the tongue.

DESPITE THE COMMUNIST NAME CHANGE, HCMC is a big cosmopolitan city that has been the center of Vietnamese capitalism for centuries, even way before the appearance of the first "GRK." Positioned near the Mekong Delta where the Mekong River meets the South China Sea, it had been a profitable port during the eras of the Chinese and the French.

Like Communist Hanoi in the north, the architectural style of HCMC is a reflection of the past, a city where cathedrals stand in the same neighborhoods as pagodas. And just like the north, the streets are littered with whizzing motorbikes passing through every inch of the city's concrete arteries that bring it to life.

HCMC does differentiate itself from its northern counterpart in many ways. For one, it's much warmer with its more southerly position. Geologically, it isn't a city of lakes like Hanoi, but one near the Saigon River (a river not exactly one to write home about). Commercially it is different from Hanoi, with foreign companies a lot more visible, thus continuing the streak of capitalism in the city's history. This streak is only ameliorated by the presence of the dozen or so shopping malls in the downtown area.

I HAD A PRETTY CASUAL DAY IN HCMC, just walking around to take photos for the Blog, and I noticed one distinct feeling about HCMC that Hanoi didn't have. For some reason, almost every street corner reminded me of the one in Full Metal Jacket, where the Asian actress playing a prostitute utters arguably the most memorable quote in film history, the immortal, "Me so horny, me love you long time."

(I'm sorry, did I say "arguably?" Scratch that, it is the most memorable quote in film history. And if you don't think so, then frankly [your name here], I don't give a damn.)

As legendary folksinger Bob Dylan once said, "The times are a'changin'," and in HCMC, these corner working girls have been replaced by working girls of a different nature, and by that I mean girls with big stacks of books trying to sell Dan Brown novels, of course. I swear, you can't walk down the street in the touristy District One and not get approached by a woman trying to sell you copy of The Da Vinci Code or Digital Fortress.

"Psst... You wan Dan Brown? Da Vinci Code? Dan Brown, Dan Brown, you read him long time."

MY GOAL OF THE DAY was to take it easy and get over the slight cold I still had and to run some errands -- get a haircut, book a flight back to Bangkok for my connection to Manila, and get my glasses fixed since a screw had gone loose. On my way to find an optician off the main tourist strip, I was approached by the other kind of tout in present-day HCMC, the omnipresent motorcycle tout.

"Where are you going? You want guide?"

"No, I'm okay."

"Where you going? I can take you. One dollar, one hour."

"No, I'm just walking."

"All the places very far! You come here. I have motorbike."

I swear it went back and forth like that for the entire time he followed me on the side of the road until I finally found an eyewear store and walked inside. He left me after that.

Later on that afternoon, I continued my leisurely Saturday stroll, when another motorcycle taxi driver followed me.

"Hey, where you going? You want ride? I have motorbike."

"Hey, it's you!" I said. Just by chance, it was the same guy as the first time around, and in a completely different neighborhood. I just laughed.

"Where do you want to go? I can take you. One dollar, one hour."

"Really, I'm okay. I like walking."

"Your hotel is very far!"

"But I just walked here from there." (I understand that the American accent usually translates to "person who doesn't walk much," but I don't really fit that mold.)

The motorcycle tout continued to follow me until I escaped into a bookstore. When the coast was clear, I walked back to the main strip in District One, only to have to deal with more girls with Dan Brown novels.

If Bob Dylan could revise his statement, it'd be, "The touts are a'changin'."

YES, CAPITALISM IS A STILL ALIVE AND WELL in HCMC (picture above) as it has been for centuries, only with little differences. I'm sure the working girls of the past are still out there somewhere, probably reading a copy of The Da Vinci Code or something, just waiting for their moment to utter those immortal words of film history again: "Frankly [your name here], me so horny."

Blame America

DAY 427: Allow me to reiterate a statement from a previous entry: "History is written by the winners." In Vietnam, "history" has painted US Troops of The American War in Vietnam as heartless, imperial scumbag bad guys, the same way the Germans are painted as in Hollywood World War II films, and aliens are painted as in the movie Independence Day. To be fair, the Vietnamese can say whatever they want in Vietnam; it is their country after all. As a visitor, I wanted to be respectful of it; besides, it's always nice to hear the other side of the tale.

This "other side" couldn't have hit me on the head as hard as it did that day when I saw two touristy sites, the Cu Chi tunnels and the War Remnants Museum. In the end, seeing the Vietnamese version of history ashamed me so much for being American, I wanted to give myself papercuts with a page from my US passport.

THE CU CHI TUNNELS (PRONOUNCED "COOCHIE TUNNELS"), which lies about a two-hour drive out of HCMC, provided my first insight of the "other side" in southern Vietnam. I had booked a half-day tour guided by a funny middle-aged Vietnamese man named Son who really played up his humor with his cheesy grin and loud broken English. For example, he summed up centuries of Vietnam's history in nine simple words: "The Chinese went out, then the French come here."

Son led a whole coach bus full of tourists from the parking lot to a briefing room at the Cu Chi Tunnels site. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a video!" The lights dimmed and a video was played on a monitor in the front of the room. The program, created from old grainy black and white newsreels and a rather cheesy soundtrack, was reminiscent of the old US propaganda and educational newsreels from the 1950s. But in this instance, US propaganda was replaced by US-bashing, as the female narrator started to explain, in her calming voice, how the Cu Chi people were a proud and happy race in the early 1960s, until the arrival of US troops. The footage of smiling kids and happy market vendors soon cut to a clip of bombs falling from the sky.

"Like a crazy band of devils, [the Americans] fired at women, fired at children... They fired in schools, at Buddha statues..." went the woman in her conversational tone. She continued on and on about how ruthless Americans were in the invasion, all over footage of war battles destroying the Cu Chi village.

The VietCong Cu Chi people didn't go without a fight of course, and using their ingenuity, they fled underground, creating an intricate series of tunnels to survive and fight the enemy with "a rifle in one hand and a plow in the other." Ultimately the VC Cu Chi became triumphant in suppressing the American aggression with clever guerrilla warfare, a lot fought out by women guerillas. These men and women were honored by their country with the honorable title of "American Killer Hero."

"The Americans wanted to turn Cu Chi into a dead zone, but the Cu Chi would survive... As much as the Americans wanted to take Cu Chi, they were defeated," concluded the narrator over some inspirational music.

AFTER THE ANTI-U.S. FILM, the lights came on and Son introduced us to the daughter of Cu Chi guerrillas in The War, who gave us a briefing in Vietnamese with a big map on a map and a pointer stick. Son translated with his stick and explained the different strategic points the Cu Chi used to win; it was like a military briefing for the other side. Afterwards, Son led us from place to place in the former Cu Chi village, explaining the different guerrilla tactics the Cu Chi people used to fight Americans: trapdoors covering spiked pits, hidden holes where people would emerge from, rotor spikes, snares and nail-in-the-foot traps. They even commandeered US tanks and bombs to use to their advantage.

"I DON'T LIKE THIS. Don't they know there are children here?" I overheard one concerned parent traveling with kids say. The noise of gunfire emanated from just beyond the jungle foliage, and when we got closer and closer to the source, we saw there was a shooting range where tourists could buy live rounds and fire a weapon of their choice towards cardboard targets far away: the M-1, the M-3, the M-4, the M-16, the Thompson, the shotgun, and the "Queen of the Battlefield" (as Son put it), the AK-47.

No one in my group really jumped at the opportunity to pay the one dollar per bullet. Personally, I felt they didn't need another American out there firing a gun after all that had happened, even if it was towards a piece of cardboard. Watching others from another group was enough, especially with the immediate ringing in my ears after every shot. Instead of bullets, I spent my dollar on ice cream.

Eventually we were invited to crawl into the Cu Chi Tunnels themselves in a designated underground shaft that was actually widened so Western tourists could fit. Back in the days of The War, the Americans couldn't fit either, thus the creation of Red Fox, a troupe of US-trained Hawaiians and Mexicans sent to scope for VC. Little did they know that the VC Cu Chi guerilla warriors devised a system where, at secret designated times of the day, the left trail of a fork in the tunnel would lead to a death trap. V.C. = Very Clever.

Being of Hawaiian/Mexican size and build, I managed to complete the entire tunnel "course," which gradually got narrower and shorter the farther one proceeded. (Exit points came every 20 ft. or so for those who couldn't make it.) I had heard that one fat woman got stuck a while back; they managed to pull her out, but without her shorts on. I assume she was red with embarrassment and there were plenty of tourists there with cameras to record the event.

THE SITE I WENT TO THAT AFTERNOON didn't have the capacity for such slapstick hilarity. In fact, it didn't have the capacity for anything fun at all. I am referring to the War Remnants Museum in HCMC, which was originally named the "American War Crimes Museum." It was changed after lobbying from, what I will presume, were Americans.

The name may have changed, but the content inside clearly did not. In seven exhibition galleries, the museum presented The War in a completely biased way, one-sided in favor of Vietnam. Photos from courageous photojournalists, many from legendary Life photographer Larry Burrows, captured the violence, the drama, and death of the war zone. One section was dedicated to the international journalists that died in the battlefield to get their stories.

Other exhibits showed off old military vehicles and bombs, while more poignant ones showed the effects of America's chemical warfare in the Vietnamese people: burns, deformations and birth defects. America's Agent Orange was more than a killer in Vietnam; it was more like a chemical plague with after effects still seen today. The Vietnamese can only blame America, and I really felt the guilt in my throat. I couldn't even play up my Filipino background to lessen the guilt; the Philippines, along with Thailand, New Zealand, South Korea and Australia, were all allies of the Americans and had their own troops there as well.

But the museum wasn't all depressing photos of Americans killing and capturing Vietnamese; oh no, there were depressing life-size dioramas of prison cells (a.k.a. "Tiger cells") and torture devices. One exhibit explained the methods of torture that American and South Vietnamese troops used, including Chinese Water Torture where one bloated the stomach with water and then kicked it around.

However, there were some positive things in the War Remnants Museum, like children's drawings showing kids' conception of war and peace (well, okay, maybe that's not that positive) and the last exhibit, which explained how pretty much every country across six continents opposed The American War in Vietnam (picture above) -- even the former military global bad guys of Hollywood World War II films, the Germans. The only positive light Americans were put in that I saw were in the images of American protesters back in the States that opposed the war, from the hippies to the Black Panther Party.

One could argue the American perspective of The War -- i.e. "It's not like the Americans didn't go through torture and hell too, you know" -- but there are plenty of exhibitions and movies in the USA for that.

I WALKED BACK TO MY HOTEL AFTER THAT, feeling like I should slit my wrists or something, or at least invoke some papercuts to myself with my US passport, but I was quickly cheered up with the lighting of Christmas lights on the street and at one of the local malls where a kitschy life-size dancing Santa danced to Christmas songs. With Dancing Santa and a bowl of pho, I was back to my usual Filipino-American self again, content that since I wasn't booked for any more historical tours in Vietnam, I wouldn't have to deal with another glimpse into the "other side" any more.

Mekong Enterprises

DAY 428: The Mekong, one the world's great rivers, touches six countries -- Tibetan China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam -- and has provided prosperity for those places in terms of trade and agriculture for centuries, as most rivers do. If you recall from your geography classes in grammar school, rivers usually spill out into a larger body of water, and the place where they meet is called a delta. Deltas provide a wealth of opportunity for business; they are "showcases" if you will, of the labor and services of the river within. Such is the case with the Mekong Delta at the South China Sea.

I opted for a one-day tour to see "life" of the Mekong Delta and was put into a small group of Canadians, Hong Kongers, a Thai, an Australian and an American. We were led by a guide named Khai, who was a friendly Vietnamese man that taught himself English so that he could make a profit from Mekong Delta tours. He told us, in one of many short but sweet lectures, that Vietnam is Asia's second fastest growing economy after juggernaut China, with tourism as a big factor in the boom of course. He argued that it's because Vietnam is safer than the other destinations in southeast Asia, with the kidnappings in the Philippines, the violence in Indonesia and the imminent threat of terrorism in Thailand.

"[Vietnam, no problem. It's cheap. Tourists come here and drink lots of beer,]" he said (to the best of my memory). "After the second war in Europe, Europe's economy grew. Now it's Asia's turn."

Vietnam is on the rebound from its time as a war-torn nation, and it shows. Construction is up, farmers grow rice surpluses to export to other countries, and even American Airlines had recently started a direct route between California and Hanoi. On a local scale, goods are sold to tourists with time on their hands, in many stalls as we saw that day on tour.

From the main port town of My Tho, our group was taken by boat to three islands in the delta, each a contributor to the local economy in its own way. Our first stop was Tortoise Island, home of handmade coconut candy factories. We toured one of course, so we could see how the candy was made -- and to pump money into the economy if we chose. Khai was an obviously good saleman because I don't think anyone went away empty-handed.

VILLAGE KIDS AND GUYS ON MOTORBIKES GREETED US as our group rode on the back of motorcycle tractors through the island villages to our next site of opportunity to pump money into the economy, a honey farm where one could buy honey or candies they made from ginger and coconuts. There were a couple of snakes in a cage -- two of the biggest pythons I've ever seen -- which were not only available for tourists to take photos with, but were grown and fattened for snake leather products. I swear one of them was so big from all that it was being fed. It must have eaten something big recently because in its throat region there was a lump the size of a Perdue Oven Stuffer Roaster.

A woman rowed us in a small canoe through a 350-year old canal (picture above), wisely created as a navigation route within the delta so one didn't have to fight the current as much. It was a casually fine cruise for about twenty minutes, until we hopped back on the big boat and sailed to Phoenix Island to pump more money into the Vietnamese GNP. Lunch was included on the tour -- the food that is; profits came in the drinks we had to buy on our own. We were allotted much more time than needed for lunch on the island, which was probably all a part of the strategy; nearby were vendors selling goods while people simply waited around for their boats to leave again.

The same was the case on Unicorn Island, where we went to sample local fruits and listen to local music performed by musicians and singers. There was a good half hour of "free time," where there was nothing to do but browse the vendors of handicrafts and textiles.

WE CRUISED PASSED PROFITABLE FISHING BOATS and arrived back on the mainland, we were driven to two more sites of interest: the Vinh Trang Pagoda with "the most beautiful architecture in Vietnam," a sacred place of monks and gardens surrounded by profit-hungry vending stands; and the local Bonsai Garden, which had more caged monkeys than actual bonsai trees. Not surprisingly, we had more than enough time in both, so that we'd have time to contribute to the Vietnamese GNP.

In the end, it was a quite relaxed look into Mekong Delta "life," and by that I mean "business." The Delta may have provided wealth in the past and I saw that it will continue to do so, especially if Mekong Delta tours continue. I'm sure if the great rivers of world merged together into some sort of big conglomerate, the shareholders would be kept happy.

M.M.B.B. (the Many Meetings Back in Bangkok)

DAY 429 (18 days since last Thailand entry): It kind of feels like I'm going to my second home, I thought as I flew over Cambodia on my way back to Bangkok. It was to be my third landing in Thailand's capital city, one of the region's major transportation hubs. As I stated once before, on the independent travel circuit in southeast Asia, "all roads lead to Bangkok."

Each previous experience was different. The first time I simply caught up on writing during a one-day layover en route to Kathmandu. On my second time, I did the "backpacker thing" of beers and banana pancakes with Manchester backpacker Paul. This third time would bring another kind of experience, one I was really looking forward to. As the saying goes, "The third time's the charm."

"IS THIS THE MYSTERIOUS JOURNALIST?" I asked over the payphone to the woman on the other end of the line.

"Uh, I'm not sure. I can try and find that person..." said the familiar voice with the non-regional diction.

"No, I think I've found who I'm looking for," I said.

This particular "one night in Bangkok" before heading off to the Philippines for Christmas would bring a meeting with the American reporter I met in Phonsavanh, Laos, on a day full of active minefields and ancient limestone jars. If you recall that entry, I kept her identity anonymous to protect her from blowing her cover as she was a journalist traveling in Laos unlawfully without certain red tape requirements. For this entry, I will maintain her anonymity for "security reasons," which is something I put in quotes because it's really just an excuse for an on-going literary gag. For an additional literary gag, I will entertain my penchant for making up acronyms and invent a few along the way instead of using her real name.

A.R.I.E.L. (the American Reporter I Encountered in Laos) told me to meet her at a train station on the other side of town from the Khaosan Road area where I was. It was rush hour at the time, with traffic as active as a parking lot, so I hopped on a motorcycle taxi that weaved in and out of slow-moving cars to get me to the nearest B.T.S. (Bangkok Transit System) station in record time. From there I took a train to our rendezvous point at Asok station.

T.A.J. (The Anonymous Journalist) and I wouldn't be alone, at least not initially; our meeting would also bring an opportunity for me to meet her colleague and good friend Nirmal, an Indian/German newspaper journalist covering the same beat.

"There he is. The reporter," called ARIEL's voice from across the way, taking my attention away from my notepad. In my zone, I had failed to notice that Nirmal was already by the turnstiles looking around for me. TAJ, Nirmal and I exchanged greetings and introductions and then head off to an Indian restaurant for dinner.

Just as the I.W.O.M. (International Woman Of Mystery) said to me on the phone, Nirmal was a really decent guy, one of those decent kind of guys that you actually have no qualms with using the adjective "decent" over and over again to describe how decent he is. Not only was he a top-notch journalist, but a wildlife conservationist and filmmaker whose self-proclaimed "calling" was to bring awareness to the problems of endangered wildlife. He had left a five-year post in Manila and had relocated to Bangkok about the same time as TAJ, where they became good friends both in and out of the world of journalism.

With a decent guy came a decent apartment -- hell, it was a real babe magnet lair -- a huge place with exotic furniture and decorations he had collected over some time. It was there we ended up after dinner to hang out with a bottle of really decent red wine under candlelight.

"So it's really great seeing you again," the IWOM said to me as we drank our first glasses of wine.

"Well, I was in the area," I said. I told her I'd go from Bangkok to the Philippines for a month but then come back, then go to Cambodia for a week or so and then back to Bangkok again.

"Oh, so you'll be around?"

"Yeah, I'll be in the neighborhood."

Nirmal was sitting on his decent sofa with his decent pipe, continuing the streak of the adjective "decent" so much that it's starting to get tired now. Second glass of wine conversation went into exploring the possibilities of his do-good personality, i.e. his love life, which will of course remain confidential for all intents and purposes on this Blog. This of course spawned a conversation about the balance of independence and relationships, which led to a discussion about the definitions that boggle most people in pseudo-relationships, the definitions of "dating," "courting," "seeing," and "going out."

"What do you think?" the IWOM asked me.

"There really aren't any rules," I said. "When you have something, you just know it."

Third glass of wine conversation went into ARIEL's romantic history, which will also remain confidential of course, but she did mention one of her requirements in men: "They have to be at least thirty," she said.

"And how old are you?" Nirmal asked me.

"Thirty," I replied. "I just made it."

LIKE MY TIME SPENT WITH ECONOMIC TIMES REPORTER CUCKOO in Mumbai, India, hanging out with the two Bangkok-based journalists was a nice change of pace from the trite introductory inquisition of "Backpacker Hell." It was quite educational to, hearing the inner workings of the field, the real field of journalism that is, with the jargon terms like "journo" and "fixer." It was also fun to hear about the subtle rivalries between different types of journalists -- print, radio, television -- and the ethics of getting news leads. Earlier in the evening, Nirmal had gotten a call from a TV journo from TV Asia who wanted to touch base with him for some advice.

"Call her up and invite her," TAJ said. "She's TV, so she has to be pretty."

Nirmal debated it but thought it was best to just finish his holiday shopping before having to leave town again. He tagged along with us to do so when we headed to the Khaosan Road district, which, so they told me, wasn't just for backpackers anymore; young Thais and ex-pats had started to frequent there as well.

We walked passed Gulliver's Tavern (a bar that they also had issues with), found an outdoor impromptu bar and sat outside and with a round of drinks, waiting around for the next meeting of the night, the one with IWOM's two Thai girlfriends, Náam and Joy, that she hadn't seen in close to six months. Náam and Joy finally found and joined us, and the three girls caught up on their love lives which, let's stick to the pattern here, will also remain confidential.

Nirmal went off holiday shopping, leaving the rest of us to drink and party the rest of the night away at a couple of hip-hop dance clubs in the vicinity (picture above). At the first one came yet another meeting of the night, this time with an Australian backpacker who started putting the moves on ARIEL, beginning with a foot massage since her feet were up on an ottoman beside him. I never got that guy's name, so we'll just refer to him as the A.S.S. (Australian Student from Sydney).

Anyway, so this ASS starts up with the usual flirtations, which she giggled and flirted back with the way girls do -- and to be fair, why not, a foot massage is a foot massage. The IWOM motioned me to go off and dance with Náam and Joy so she could see what was up with him. That ASS continued with his pick-up lines and what not, until the IWOM called me back and held me by the hand to speak with me out of his earshot.

"He's twenty-three," she told me. "It's pathetic, really."

Twenty-three, I thought. I did the math in my head: 2004 minus 23... yeah, uh huh, carry the one... Aha! 1981. One of the infamous 1981ers. Of course.

That ASS's come-ons were incessant -- the IWOM was quite the catch, after all -- but we eventually ditched him and went to another club where the music of the Black Eyed Peas and Thai pop-star Tata Young filled the dance floor. We hung around the bar, danced and had another round. After some time, Náam and Joy decided to call it a night -- it was a weeknight after all -- leaving me finally alone with ARIEL. It was then that the final meetings of the night came, the meetings of my lips to hers in the back of the club.

How about that? I thought. No mistletoe necessary either. Must be these thirty years under my belt. (Oh, and quite possibly the alcohol we had tonight too.)

BECAUSE OF SOME LAW, the clubs in Bangkok close around 1 a.m. and so came the ending of our "one night in Bangkok." TAJ and I strolled down Khaosan Road, passed the glowing neon signs, the drunken 1981ers, and the balloon vendors, to the main road where the row of taxicabs were waiting for fares. I escorted ARIEL over to an available car, opened the door for her and the new shiny blue balloon I had just gotten for her. "I'll see you again," I said.

"I'll follow you on your Blog. I'll be interested in what you write about tonight." She kissed me goodnight and then entered the cab.

"To be continued," I said to her and closed the door.

The taxi took off down the streets of nighttime Bangkok for her to get back to her journalist grind, and for me to get back to my grind and to my flight the next morning. And so ended this episode of me and the R.A.K. (Really Amazing Kisser).

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster, indeed.

Excess Baggage

DAY 430: To the uninformed, the Philippines may seem like "just another southeast Asian country," with people that look like the people of other nearby countries. This is a complete falsity, of course. As my Let's Go guidebook perfectly puts it, "the Philippines has been permanently thrown out of sync with the rest of Southeast Asia." The Pacific archipelago nation has a history unlike any of the others around, as it was a former Spanish colony eventually sold to the United States. Catholicism is the dominant religion, not Buddhism, and traditionally, no one uses chopsticks. Let's Go continues:

Described as a hodgepodge of "Malay, Madrid, and Madison Avenue," Filipino culture fosters a range of ethnicities, languages, and lifestyles among which natives have found unity and an unparalleled love for life. Their willingness to drop everything for a basketball game or a cockfighting match reflects the national philosophy of bahala na, roughly translated as "whatever will be, will be." At the heart of the Filipino tradition is a strong sense of community; Filipinos can't bear doing things by themselves and, above all, value family, friendliness, and personal loyalty. This cheerful attitude, along with convenient transportation, numerous English speakers, and inexpensive locales, makes the Philippines a budget traveler's paradise.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Welcome to the Philippines.

MY TRIP BACK TO THE PHILIPPINES BEGAN in Bangkok's International Airport when I was on the check-in line. At the desk, two people ahead of me, there was a lone Filipino woman that was quite distraught. On the scale, I saw she had a lot of luggage, and I figured she was over the weight limit. I noticed the commotion and came to offer help. It was Christmas after all.

"Do you want some of my space?" I asked. "I only have this [bag]."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I know it's just 25 kilos."

"Oh thank you!" Her name was Ida and she was a Programme Manager for the United Nations in Bangkok on her way back to the Philippines for Christmas. No doubt her extra baggage was loaded with presents. She showed me her ID badge.

"My aunt works for the W.H.O. in Manila, and I have two friends at the U.N. in New York," I told her, saying out the letters for the acronyms.

I put my bag on the scale, reducing the steep additional fee she had to pay. Her new bill came down to 800 baht and she went off to the cashier on the other side of the terminal to pay it off. I completed the formalities of my own check-in.

"You shouldn't really do this," the Philippines Airlines employee told me. She informed me that I was taking the risk of attaching my name to baggage that I didn't pack myself. Who knew what were in her bags? If there was a problem, I'd be responsible.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that part, I thought. But it was already too late. The bags were tagged with barcodes and took off to Airport Conveyor Belt Land.

Ida was nowhere to be seen as I waited around to see if she'd actually come back. Shit, where did she go? I wandered around the terminal and eventually saw that she was legitimately paying off her extra baggage fee. "This is the first time I've paid. I didn't think I would have to. We Filipinos are so giving, and it's Christmas." I walked back with her back to the check-in area, but she was directed to go back through security again, which I didn't want to bother with because I was starving at the time.

"I haven't eaten," I told her. "I'm going to find some breakfast, but I'll see you on the plane." I gave her my seat number and got some Burger King on the mezzanine level.

BOARDING TIME CAME and I looked around for Ida on the way into the gate, and again, she wasn't anywhere to be found. I probably wouldn't have been a little paranoid if the Philippines Airlines woman didn't say anything. I just banked on my common sense; Ida seemed like a decent person.

The flight to Manila was interesting, although not as interesting as the flight I had taken with my parents in 1975 as a one-year-old, when, so my mom tells me, I spent most of the flight in the company of African-American entertainer Flip Wilson, who was on his way to see Muhammed Ali in the historical "Thrilla in Manila" fight. This time around, it was me who was the older guy, sitting next to a little Filipino boy who went through spurts of laughter and spurts of hiding under his seat crying for his mother. There were other children in the area too, also crying, but that wasn't the worst of it; that came when there was a burning smell coming from the front of the cabin.

Oh man, is this going to be pinned on me?

After the flight attendants investigated it, it was merely a piece of paper or something lodged in one of the heating coils of the oven that kept the in-flight meals warm. Later on, on my way to the lavatory, I finally found Ida, who greeted me hello, and calmed down.

Bahala na. Whatever will be, will be.

LANDING IN MANILA'S NINOY AQUINO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT was easy; immigration formalities were a snap, and I got my bag fairly easily. Ida wasn't so lucky, with her four bags in different sections of the carousel belt. I volunteered to stay with her until she got them so that we could leave together in case they checked the bag tags, but she told me she was okay and told me to go ahead. I was a little incessant on staying with her, really to cover my own ass if there was any problem, but she politely tried to get rid of me. I think she thought I was some creep trying to pick her up, which wasn't the case at all. I eventually did as she wanted and left her alone.

For the first time on my trip in airports around the world, Manila's airport security actually asked to see my baggage code on the bag of my ticket to match with my baggage. It cleared of course, but I wondered if one of Ida's bags needed my sticker to be released. It was too late at that point anyway, and in less than a minute I was met by my Uncle Mike at the exit gate.

MORE THAN ANY OTHER CITY IN THE PHILIPPINES, Manila truly fits the description of "Malay, Madrid and Madison Avenue." The huge Filipino modern metropolis combines modern high-rises and Spanish architecture amidst traffic-congested streets and palm trees. My Uncle Mike and I chat in the car as the driver took us through the city traffic to the affluent neighborhood of Greenhills, where he and my Aunt Connie lived, the area of town with two prominent symbols of Christmas illuminating the nighttime sky: the Christmas tree and the shopping mall (picture above). Greenhills Shopping Center was bustling with people doing their last-minute Christmas shopping; it was there we went to one of many restaurants for dinner.

In the spirit of the Spanish and American influences of the Philippines, we went to Uno Mas, a Spanish restaurant that served us Spanish paella and an all-time favorite American delicacy I had not seen in other countries thus far: New England Clam Chowder. We sat and caught up on my travels and other things, and then went out for dessert and coffee. Outside, I really saw the American influence on the Philippines; there was actually a McDonald's with a drive-thru window.

It was pretty late when we got back to the house, so I just turned into the bed they had waiting for me and went to sleep as the rest of the house was already. The next morning, I found out that by some miscommunication, another group of my relatives had been sent to pick me up at the airport, and when they couldn't find me, they had my name paged over and over on the P.A. system. I thought perhaps Ida freaked out under suspicions of me, but then again, probabaly not. Bahala na.

Learning Tagalog

DAY 431: Tagalog (pronounced ta-GA-log) is the official language of the Philippines, along with English. It is unlike any language in the world; at its roots it is a tribal tongue which some have described as "like Malay," except certain concepts and nouns are taken from Spanish to fill a void. When Ferdinand Magellan landed in the Philippines during his attempted circumnavigation around the globe -- The Global Trip 1520 -- soon came the Spanish colonialists who ultimately took over in their need for a trading port in southeast Asia. Magellan however, did not reap the rewards of such imperialism, nor did he celebrate a triumphant return back in Spain for he died in the Philippines, ending his Global Trip early.

The Spanish brought over many Western things the native Filipinos didn't have, and it is for those things that words of Tagalog borrows from the Spanish language. For example, shoes is zapatos in Tagalog, as it is in Spanish; we can assume that the early natives just went around barefoot in the pre-Magellan era. The word for crazy is loco, which is also Spanish; there were no crazy people in the islands until the Spanish came. Numbers exist in native Tagalog -- isa, dalawa, tatlo (one, two, three) -- but the concept of telling time was an implant of the Spanish; in Tagalog as it is in Spanish, one says, "alas dos" ("two o'clock"). Inherently the Filipinos have no concept of time, which is why most of them are usually late to appointments by 30-60 minutes, thus the ongoing joke of "Filipino Time."

AS MUCH AS I'VE JUST GONE THROUGH about Tagalog language just now, I'm afraid to admit that I can't really speak it, or rather, I can only say certain key phrases. Most of my comprehension of the language is aural only. Having been the first generation born in America, my parents didn't teach me Tagalog at an early age, the excuse being that it'd be too confusing for my developing American mind -- plus I was already inundated with Spanish, having being babysat by Puerto Ricans in the projects of 1970s midtown Manhattan. This may or may not be true, but I jokingly have this theory that they didn't teach me Tagalog so that they could still keep secrets from me, right in front of me, without me knowing. "[We'll hide the Christmas presents in the linen closet,]" they probably said. Or "[Let's have sex now and conceive markyt so Erik can have a little brother.]"

I think my conspiracy theory goes beyond my parents, because most of my first generation Filipino-American friends are in the same boat as me; they can sort of understand Tagalog but not really speak it fluently. "[Let's keep secrets from the kids,]" they all probably said to each other at Filipino community gatherings in the 1970s. "[Okay. Anyone want to play Parcheesi?]"

This is all I will write concerning my history with grasping Tagalog for now; I'm still trying to shake the image I accidentally planted in my head ten seconds ago of my parents having sex. Noooooooooooo!!!!

"YOU GUYS HAVE TO TEACH ME TAGALOG," I said to my cousins Raymond, Mary Ann and Ruby Ann when I entered their minivan. I was picked up in Greenhills by them and my Aunt Vicky and Uncle Ruben, who would take me to their home in the Manila suburb of Rizal. When stuck in Manila's incessant traffic, a pseudo-lesson in Tagalog began.

"This is Mary Ann, but you can call her Mase," Ruby Ann said. "Do you know mase?"

"What's that?"

"Gluttonous. Overeating," she said, teasing her chubby sister.

"No, I'm sexy," she jokingly retorted. Ah, the subtle rivalries amongst my teenage cousins.

Trying to learn Tagalog is hard, particularly at the ripe age of thirty. The brain's capacity to learn a new language decreases with age, so I've heard. Back in South America, I was able to learn Spanish (at the "younger" age of 29) because I had no choice; no one in South American really spoke English, not even in a limited capacity. Such is not the case in the Philippines because everyone knows English; it's taught in schools at an early age as it is the country's second official language, a legacy left over from the Philippines' days as a United States colony.

Yes, a colony; the thirteen original British colonies of American eventually grew and expanded to a nation "from sea to shining sea" so big that it started having its own wars and its own colonies. The United States bought the Philippines, along with Guam and Puerto Rico, from Spain for the bargain deal of $20 million, after the peace negotiations that ended the Spanish-American War. Americanization soon began under American Governor William Taft who dubbed Filipinos America's "little brown brothers." Furthermore, the Philippines were actually in contention to become part of the United States union, even before Hawaii was a contender, but Filipino patriots nixed that idea -- ultimately the Philippines got its independence in 1946.

If not for those patriots I might have been just "American," instead of "Filipino-American," although I'm sure I'd still be mistaken for Thai or Vietnamese.

THE AMERICANS DIDN'T GO WITHOUT LEAVING ITS LEGACY BEHIND, and by legacy I am referring to the shopping mall. Metro Manila boasts many big shopping malls, none as popular or as big as SM Megamall, the "must-see" for any shopping visitor in Manila, with its many shops, restaurants and even an indoor ice rink. It was there that we stopped in for lunch at one of many restaurants offering international cuisine -- we went out for Korean "hot pot," where one picks raw ingredients from a buffet and cooks them up to personal liking at a grill or pot on the table.

"[How many people?]" asked the hostess.

"Six."

Raymond pointed to Mary Ann. "No, seven."

"No, I'm sexy!"

After dining on pork, shark, shrimp, squid, rice and other delicacies, we walked around the mall for a bit and then drove off through the traffic of cars, jeepneys and motor-tricycles to the suburb of Rizal to their house, a fairly big place with dogs in the yard and turtles in a little pool. Like most Catholic Filipino households -- Catholicism is the major legacy of Spanish missionaries -- there were many Christian artifacts laying around in almost every room; when I took a dump, Jesus was staring down at me in the bathroom. In lieu of a Christmas tree, my relatives had a life-sized statue of Jesus in the Agony in the Garden rosary story. I swear, if you took all the Christian trinkets from all the Filipino households in the world, you'd have more than The Vatican.

That's not to say a Filipino household is a virtual monastery or nunnery; in this particular household, specifically in my cousin Ruby Ann's room, there were black curtains, posters of rock bands, bats and severed baby doll heads hanging from the ceiling, and spray-painted graffiti such as "Punk is not dead!" Also, on the other side of the house was the music room, with a drum set, bass guitar and keyboard for the urges of teen angst (picture above).

The rest of the day was a casual one. We set up the pool table on the porch so my uncle and I could play a couple of games. Meanwhile, Raymond was trying to figure out how to use the Panasonic D-Snap camera they had just gotten. It was hard to practice Tagalog because everyone would just revert to English if I didn't understand something.

My Uncle Ruben schooled me on the pool table, over and over and over again -- all my shots were pretty embarrassing -- and after five games I called it quits to learn some Tagalog with my cousins by the swing set. "So how do you say 'I suck at pool?'"

After some deliberation on how to translate "suck," they told me: "Tanga ako manglaro ng pool."

IT WAS A CASUAL SORT OF RELAXING DAY as I hung out with my relatives in the suburbs. My 22-year-old cousin Aileen stopped by, who I hadn't seen in five years. In those five years she had gotten married and popped out two cute girls, Melody and Melanie, the latter of which would call out "dede" ("breast") every five minutes for a feeding.

"Did you know I'm a cow?" Aileen said to me -- in English.

Eventually dinner was served at the dinner table, a typical Filipino meal of rice, fried fish and vegetable stews. I ate it the traditional Filipino way, without utensils, (similar to the way they eat in India and Nepal). If I couldn't talk like a Filipino yet, at least I could eat like one.

Now if I could only shake a certain image out of my head...

Delusions Of Grandma

DAY 432: You Star Wars geeks out there are probably reading the title of this entry thinking I am playing off the famous Han Solo quote from Return of the Jedi after he is released from being imprisoned in carbonite. Well, as much of a Star Wars geek I am myself, I am not playing off of Han's line because it has already been done before; "Delusions of Grandma" is the title of a novel by Carrie Fisher, which the actress-turned-writer used in her post-Star Wars career when she was trying to distance herself away from her persona as Princess Leia while still trying to bank on it. I'm afraid it hasn't worked though, for I will always remember Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia -- more specifically, I will always remember Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in the gold bikini from Return of the Jedi, as most guys of my generation will.

Yowza, Leia! No, that's not a light saber in my pocket, I'm just happy to see you!

ANYWAY, IN A GALAXY CLOSER TO HOME in a time much closer to now, there is my grandmother, or Lola as we call her in Tagalog, my own living grandparent today. At the ripe-old age of 86, she has been over the hill and back again, almost to the point where she reverted back to the Terrible Twos. She has become a child again that everyone has to feed, baby-sit and occasionally sing to.

"Lola won't recognized you," my cousin Raymond warned me as we rode to the countryside province of Bulacan. "She doesn't recognize any of us."

"Us" in that statement is a lot of people; it's no wonder she has a hard time remembering everyone. I have trouble remembering. My mother is the eldest daughter (number 3 out of 11) of eleven children that my grandmother gave birth to. (Concurrently, my father is one of eight.) You can imagine how much I trouble I can when I had to make a family tree for a school project in the seventh grade. Eleven plus eight, plus all the people they married, all on that level of the hierarchy plus all of their kids on my level of the hierarchy. Let us not forget the cousins on my mother's level -- my grandmother is one of multiple siblings -- and then all the people they married and their children.

Confusing, huh? My family tree is more complicated than a universal all-in-one remote control. Seriously, you need an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to sort it all out. Fortunately, my father had just sent me such a document attached to an e-mail; unfortunately, it only covered his side of the family, leaving me to visit the Rivera Clan, my mother's side of the family, without any instructions.

What's more confusing is that with such a big gap of time between the eldest and youngest people on my mother's level of the family tree hierarchy, there's a whole generation in there. I am writing this now as a 30-year-old, and I still have baby cousins technically on my level of the tree that haven't been potty-trained yet. When my friends try and pressure me into settling down and having children like they are, I tell them, "How can I start a family? My generation is still being born!"

Anyway, you get my drift. I have a whole bunch of relatives, and having grown up away from most of them, it's hard for me to keep track of who's who, to match faces with names. Fortunately in Filipino culture, every woman who appears to be on the hierarchal level above you is a tita (aunt); every man is a tito (uncle), and you can simply call them as such and still be respectful. (This includes people you're not even related to.) This is a very convenient custom so that one doesn't have to deal with those "Hey... you" moments when forgetting someone's name.

SO BACK TO MY LOLA (grandmother) on my mother's side of the family. She and my late grandfather had raised a big family of eleven children. Eleven kids? That's not a family, it's more like a Filipino village! you may be thinking. This is somewhat true because they raised everyone on a big village-like farm in the tropical and rural province of Bulacan, about two hours north of Manila, more if there's traffic. The huge estate was a self-sufficient farm that produced more than enough for the family livelihood (the surplus was sold off), with chickens, pigpens, private rice terraces, its own water well, and a fish pond. At the heart of the estate was a big house with orchids in the front, the house my mother grew up in, which, over time, had been joined by other houses on the estate for family members to branch out and live in. Today the houses still exist in the gated compound for a whole new generation to be raised, and for future generations to come.

When I arrived to my humble roots -- me, the American cousin -- I was not welcomed with a big fanfare the way I had been in 1999 with my brother, Blogreader markyt during my first "real" visit to the Philippines. This time I casually showed up only to be playfully teased as the oddball cousin, the one that "has much shorter hair than everyone else," the one that "doesn't speak Tagalog" even though "his younger Filipino-American cousin Michael" can "speak it," the one that "should drink" "bottled water," the one that "has that weird tuft of hair under his bottom lip."

"Hey, Lola, ano ba?" ("what's up?") I greeted my grandmother when we arrived.

"Sino bato?" my Tita Vicky asked her.

"[I don't know, but whoever he is, he sure is ugly,]" Lola said.

Ladies and gentlemen, from Bulacan, Philippines... my grandmother.

Lola sits in the big rocking chair on the front porch of the big house with her flowing silver hair (picture above), like Queen of the Farm -- or prisoner of it, depending on how you look at it, since she hardly ever leaves the gated compound. She sits there, singing songs to herself to keep her mind stimulated. To keep her body stimulated, she often sweeps the pathways with an old straw broom and is actually quite resilient for a woman her age.

Lola and I posed for a photo, although I'm not sure she knew whom it was she was posing with. "[It's Erik, from America,]" my Tita would constantly have to remind her. "[The son of Nata.]"

Lola would just draw blanks and go back to singing.

MY COUSINS WERE A BIT MORE SOCIAL, each one an individual, but still part of a big blood-related clique. Dong sits in one house playing Counter Strike on his computer, while Malyn sorts her fashionable wardrobe of plaid skirts, Chuck Taylors, and Che Guevarra jackets in another. A whole group of seven of us piled into a beat-up jeep to go to the only places of interest in such a rural area: the old hanging bridge, the local dam, and the old abandoned railway bridge. We bonded and took photos, got some icees at a local corner store and then went back to the farm.

After a dinner of pancit (noodles) and kare kare stew, the rest of my Christmas Eve was a lazy one of sitting by the kubo (gazebo) and munching on butong pakwan (watermelon seeds), roasted and salted and eaten like sunflower seeds. More cousins, titas, titos showed up and greeted me. My cousin Marivic introduced me to her new husband and my new niece, while most of my other cousins were busy texting away on their cell phones. Later on that night, we made a campfire and had a cookout of pork shish kabobs over bottles of San Miguel beer.

"[Erik. Nata's son,]" my Tita Vicky was explaining to Lola again, but she went back to singing. Later on, she wondered who "that English caribou" was.

"She doesn't remember you," my cousin Imay told me. "She doesn't remember any of us [living here]."

MEANWHILE ON THE TAGALOG FRONT, I was slowly trying to grasp the language. I insisted that everyone just talk to me in Tagalog so I could be immersed in it, but every time I couldn't understand something, they would just get annoyed and revert to English. For a while my cousins gave me the silent treatment unless I could say a few words in Tagalog, and I surprised them with phrases here and there. It's in the back of my mind somewhere. For the most part, conversations were in English because none of the new vocabulary they were teaching me was sinking in. Seriously, I'd forget almost immediately after being told.

"I'm like Lola," I told my cousin Chie. "I don't remember anyone."

"You're so old," she said.

"Yeah, I know."

I suppose my brain might have had the ability to remember names, faces, and new vocabulary if I simply had the room. So much is jammed in there right now, from useless historical trivia to memories of the past. Perhaps I might have room for more information if I ditched that memory of Princess Leia in the gold bikini, but as any guy of my generation will tell you, that just ain't gonna happen.

A Lump Of Coal For Christmas

DAY 433: In the New Jersey suburbs just outside of New York City, my mother and half of her siblings had relocated and recreated the family communal feel of the Bulacan farm over three houses in the same neighborhood. It is Rivera Clan West, or R.C.W., an acronym I made up just now.

Christmas is a festive time at RCW, as it is yet another excuse to get everyone together for a meal -- it doesn't take much to make up an excuse usually, because they have one almost every weekend, especially in the summer. Christmas is also the time of the year when the family gathers around to watch Christmas videos and play, for cash prizes, the game Perfection, that one where you have to put all the different-shaped pegs in all the holes before the timer runs out.

Christmas is a particular time of year when the Riveras' sense of humor comes into play. For example, if one kid was particularly naughty over the year, s/he would receive a gift, all wrapped up nice-like. Upon shredding off the gift wrap, opening the box, and digging through the tissue paper, s/he would ultimately find a gag gift: a lump of coal, just like the one Ebenezer Scrooge gave Bob Cratchett before he had to go back to work in the immortal Dickens' classic story, A Christmas Carol. There are some classic looks on kids' faces upon the discovery of the lump of coal, especially with my Tita Bien laughing and pointing at them.

One lump of coal + gift wrap = Christmas hilarity.

MEANWHILE, AT THE RIVERA CLAN FARM in Bulacan, Philippines, a lump of coal can actually be a lot of fun. I know this because one of the family activities this Christmas was to sit in the kubo and play the card game, "One, Two, Three, Pass!", a game where, in a rapid succession, everyone has to pass an unwanted card from their hand to the next person after three counts. The object of the game is to get a four-of-a-kind and then slam your hand in the center of the table. Once this happens, everyone has to put his/her hand into the pile (picture above) -- the last one on top is the loser, and has to get a black streak added to his/her face with a lump of coal.

Needless to say, the game and the lump of coal provided for hours of enjoyment and multiple streaks on my face as well as all of my cousins, except for Malyn (right) who got away streak-free.

One lump of coal + deck of cards = Christmas hilarity.

THIS ISN'T TO SAY CHRISTMAS DAY wasn't all fun and games. As a Catholic home, we did go to church for Christmas mass after all, and at the groggy-eyed morning hour of 6 a.m. to beat the rush. It was a pretty anti-climactic mass, completely in Tagalog. "Did you understand any of that?" my cousin Chie asked me.

"Just 'Alleluia,'" I said.

We went to mass so early in the morning to leave more room in the day for more important things, namely eating. As I said before, Filipinos will find just about any excuse to get together for a meal, whether it be "the birthday of Jesus Christ" or because "it's Saturday and the weather is nice." For big festive occasions, the traditional Filipino culinary centerpiece is lechon, a whole roasted suckling pig -- head, feet, tail and all. Someone carves, or hacks rather, the pig into small pork pieces for consumption, although the most prized part of the pig is not the meat but the skin, the chicharron (pork rind), which people rip off the pig, dip in a sweet and spicy sauce and crunch away.

And speaking of Filipino cuisine, I must mention another I had that Christmas afternoon, balut, which appears to be a regular hard-boiled egg until you crack it open and find out it is filled with a duck fetus and all its surrounding nourishing development organs. Balut is not only a delicacy in the Philippines but in other southeast Asian nations, as well as on the reality television show Fear Factor.

Back in America, I had serious reservations to eating such a thing, but for some reason I had no qualms about eating it in the Philippines. When in Rome, do as the Romans do; when in the Philippines, eat an aborted hard-boiled duck fetus. It sounds disgusting when you put it like that, and I'm actually amazed that I didn't flinch or second-guess when I ate one with no problem. I cracked one open, sucked out the "juice," and then ate it all up, minus the really tough white part.

As I said before, if I couldn't talk like a Filipino yet, at least I could eat like one.

AS FOR SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE, my Tagalog was coming along slowly. I was actually surprised with myself with all the phrases I already knew and spoke when the occasion called for it. Mamya (later); hindi (no); dito (here); wala ng cards (there are no cards). I began to use Tagalog, filling in the gaps with English, the way Filipinos do anyway. This blend of Tagalog and English is known as "Taglish."

CHRISTMAS WASN'T A REALLY BIG DEAL down on the farm; sure there was a Christmas tree, but that was about it. Everyone had sort of grown out of the gift-giving thing, probably because everyone was always so busy texting messages on their cell phones. My cousin Aileen and her kids dropped by, as well as my mom's first cousin, who seems to be busy walking caribou around.

After a screening of Dodgeball and Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid on bootleg (two great family Christmas movies), it was back to business as usual like Bob Cratchett. That evening, relatives from my father's side of the family dropped by for a Christmas greeting, two of my grandaunts and my Tita Josie, who wanted to figure out my schedule so that she could organize a plan for us to the other islands of the Philippine archipelago when she got off of work on January 6th. It was actually a lot of work straightening out schedule conflicts with other relatives, and who would take me where, etc. The whole thing was overwhelming to me with multiple parties trying to plan out the next three weeks for me -- totally unlike my style, even before I started this independent do-stuff-on-a-whim trip around the world. At home, when people ask me "What are you doing Saturday?" I often reply, "I don't know. Ask me Saturday."

No matter; everything was sorted out during the "business meeting," which was a meeting, not surprisingly, over a meal. I'm telling you, Filipinos will find an excuse to get together for a meal every time.

Spider-Man In The Batcave

DAY 434: The roosters crowed and the pigs squealed as the sun illuminated my Tita Agie's old room (who relocated to Texas) where I was sleeping. And then, there was a slight rumbling that mildly vibrated the bed.

Spider-sense tingling. Is that an earthquake?

The sensation of being in a quake was still familiar to me after that 5.8 I experienced in Tokyo at Liz and Hiroshi's. The shaking went away and I assumed it was nothing more than the rumbling of the water well pump or something. No one else on the farm spoke of any tremor anyway.

BY 8 A.M. WE WERE ALL in the minivan for a family outing, even though we planned to leave by seven. "Kuya [Big Brother] Erik, see I told you it wouldn't be until eight o'clock," my cousin Imay pointed out.

"Yeah, Filipino Time," I said.

The family outing was to Biak Na Bato National Park, which translates to "Broken Stone National Park," a place frequented by local tourists since its establishment in 1937. The former short-lived Biak Na Bato Republic, founded by President Emilio Aguinaldo in 1897, which eventually became the headquarters of the Philippine Revolutionary Government in the rebellion against Spain, is now a big 2,117-hectare nature reserve of swimming holes, hiking trails, hanging bridges over the Balaong River, and numerous caves to explore.

After driving the hour or so through the countryside, passed the rice farmers drying their rice in the road, my relatives and I took to the bridges and hiking trails -- some paved, some not -- which went up and down the "Broken Stone" of the Sierra Madre mountain range. Every so often we would stop for an obligatory "picture time," for a group photo. We went rock scrambling (some call it "bouldering") in the Bahay Paniki Cave (picture above), a huge cave full of bats illuminated by the sun rays peering from an opening on the other side of the cavern. We walked through the flowing streams that wove through the rock formations, hopping from stone to broken stone and climbed big limestone boulders. With my previous climbing experience, I was able to zip up faster than most of my cousins.

"Mr. Adventure," my cousin Chie called out. "You're like Spider-Man."

"Yeah, Spider-Man."

We went up and down, exploring the big bat cave for as long as we could take it. With the many bats flying above our heads (and the occasional dead one on the floor), there was a literal shitload of bat shit, or guano, everywhere, and the stench was baho (bad smelling) and overwhelming.

I don't know how The Caped Crusader can stand it, I thought. He must have some really good industrial strength Bat Air Deodorizer in his utility belt. (Or maybe just a lot of Stick'ums.)

After some more trekking, we went off to explore the darker Santol Cave, a bat cave so dark it required a lamp and a guide -- my Tito Al hired one for us for an hour. The guide led us through the darkness, passed the stalactites and stalagmites, where we wandered around and took more group photos, wary of anaconda attacks since we had seen that Anacondas movie the night before. At one point I felt some little animal bump into me and crawl up my leg -- I simply brushed it off. I thought perhaps it was a lone bat that lost its way.

AFTER A PICNIC LUNCH OF RICE, paksiw (a pork stew), and dinuguan (pork chitlins stewed in a pork blood gravy), it was back off to the ranch in Bulacan for a brief session of throwing Pop Snap mini-firecrackers at each other and a final family group photo. Afterwards, some of us battled the jeepney traffic and head back to Manila. My Tito Ruben and family dropped me off back in the Greenhills district of Manila at my Tito Mike, Tita Connie and Lola Nene's house, where I chat with them for a bit before a session with my laptop to catch up on Blog duties. I was interrupted though, by breaking news coming from CNN on the television.

Reports of the massive earthquake in Indonesia that caused destructive tsunami waves in most of southern Asia were coming in, live from Thailand, India, and Sri Lanka.

Oh, it was an earthquake I felt this morning. My Spider-sense was right after all.

CNN International over-dramaticized the event the way TV media usually does, and I couldn't help but feel restless hearing the reports. "Eight point nine on the Richter scale." "Fifth largest earthquake recorded in history." I felt like a superhero powerless to use his powers, stranded in Metro Manila, out of harm's way.

Seeing the reports out of Thailand and India, my thoughts immediately turned to certain people, one being The American Journalist based out of Bangkok who could have been anywhere in the area during the catastrophe. I'm sure she was okay though, probably swamped with covering the disaster for her network, or being a guest correspondent on that other international television news network she sometimes appeared on.

"So if a bomb went off in Bangkok, you'd have to run off like Batman?" I asked her in our meeting that one night in Bangkok.

"Yeah, if something was going on, I wouldn't have been able to see you."

My thoughts also went towards friends and colleagues in Indonesia and Singapore, as well as the group in Chennai, India: "cousin" Chrissy, Kenneth and my "surrogate Indian mother" Geeta. Initial reports on the television said that Chennai got hit pretty badly with fatalities in the thousands.

As restless as a superhero in detention, the only thing I could do was call them and hope they were well -- but I only got voicemail on both accounts and simply left messages hoping they were okay, before I'd be out of reach in the rural northern countryside the next day. That was all I could do for the meantime; after all, as much as I can infer superheroes as a literary device in a Blog entry, the bottom line is, I am merely just a mortal human being with human emotions -- and quite possibly some sort of Spider-sense.