Mark’s Vagabonding Blog

Hi everyone. I doubt any of my readers are still checking in since I seem to have abandoned my blog. I feel bad about it, and I’m sorry for abandoning you. Especially to those who don’t know me personally who have followed the blog. I want to thank you guys for reading, and for the nice comments you left. It was a great feeling knowing that people who didn’t even know me enjoyed reading my posts, and that they had been following my travels. I wish I had answered more of your comments, and perhaps gotten to know you as well.

Anyway, those who know me (and I also thank you guys for your loyal readership and comments) are already aware that I am back in America now. I’ve been back for almost a month. But soon I may be on another marathon flight, heading back to Asia. This time to South Korea.

I’d mentioned in previous posts about looking into going to Korea to teach English, and I have finally found a job. But there have been some problems getting my visa. I had to send my college transcript to the recruiter in Korea 3 times. The first time I had sent it from Thailand, along with my other documents, and when they arrived in Korea, the transcript envelope was opened. I don’t how that happened, it was sealed when I sent it. They won’t accept open transcripts.

So I had my college send them another. Now this screw up was partly my fault. When the college sent the transcripts to me in Thailand, they arrived fairly quickly, and it didn’t cost me anything extra. I figured I had time, so I took the risk and didn’t have them FedEx it to Korea, saving me lots of money (I am running very low on money). What I didn’t know was that the recruiting company had moved–they never told me–so it was sent to the wrong address. The envelope is still floating in oblivian as I write this. So then I had to have them FedEx another transcript, costing me lots of money, and the procedure was a pain in the ass. Anyway, it was supposed to arrive on a Friday, but when I checked the tracking online, it said “undeliverable: wrong address.” Unbelivable! It turns out, not only did the recruiter move, but they changed their name as well, and the FedEx driver didn’t deliver it to the address anyway. He could have at least gone in to ask someone.

So they finally got the transcript last Tuesday, and I’ve been waiting for them to get back to me with my visa number. It’s taking a lot longer than I thought it would. If I do end up going to Korea, the term will have started already. I’m making a bad impression on the school already and I haven’t even stepped on Korean soil yet.

That is where I’m at now. Waiting in my sister’s house in New Jersey for the word that I can go to the Korean embassy in NYC to get the visa stamped into my passport.

Since I’ve been back I sold my car, but I still have it until right before I leave. But what I forgot to tell the guy was that it is not a 100% certainty that I will be going to Korea. Immigration could reject my application. Another crazy thing is that my college diploma has my middle name spelled wrong, so immigration could reject me because of that. Hopefully the guy who bought my car won’t be too pissed if the job falls through and I keep the car. I’ll give him his deposit back, of course.

So if I do make it to Korea, I may fire up my blog again. I really did enjoy writing it, and reading all the nice (and some not so nice) comments. I may not be able to write much in the beginning, because I’m sure I’ll be plenty busy with tryng to figure out the whole teaching thing. But hopefully I’ll keep the blog going, and I can win back my readers, and hopefully gain some new ones with more exciting and funny stories. This time from the frontline of the classroom.

Meanwhile here is a video I made the other day after a snowfall here in New Jersey. Man do I miss the warm weather of Southeast Asia (and Florida, where I lived before I went on my trip)! It’s nothing great, I just wanted to see if my video camera still worked, but I think I made something out of nothing.

Thank you again for reading.

Mark

It is a 15 minute walk between mine and June’s apartments, and I’ve traversed the distance numerous times, sometimes in the middle of the night. One day June asked me, “Are you afraid (of walking the streets of Bangkok alone in the middle of the night)?” I said, “Only of the dogs and rats.”

There are hundreds of thousands of stray dogs in Bangkok, and, of course, millions of rats. On my 15-minute stroll between our apartments I might see between 8-12 stray dogs. And in the alley behind my apartment, if it’s night time, my sudden presence sends about 15 rats scurrying for their holes.

The dogs generally seem to hang out in the same areas all their lives: In front of a specific shop or apartment building (June’s has two dogs in front of hers); at a subway entrance; at a market; a bus stop; in an empty lot; basically everywhere. They do rome, but generally they stay close. Normally, the dogs and people here live in harmony. In America, if you see a stray dog, or especially a pack of them, it can be frightening. Here, the dogs see hundreds, even thousands, of people a day, so they tend to not pay attention to us. Mostly they just sleep, or lie motionless in the heat, and we can walk within inches of them without stirring them at all. And the people see dozens of stray dogs every day, and they know that they are virtually harmless, but that a wary eye is still somewhat necessary.

A couple of days ago, on a midnight walk to June’s, a couple of dogs paid particularly close attention to me. When I first started making this walk, these two dogs would bark at me, but nothing more. After they got used to me, they stopped barking at me, and with feigned interest, just watched me walk by. This day, however, their interest was quite real, and they didn’t just watch. They renewed their feirce barking, but also got very close to me and showed me their teeth. I didn’t panic or anything, but I tried to get away from them. I got passed them but the black dog was determined to get me. He lunged at me and bit me on my left calf. I was wearing shorts, so my skin was exposed. It hurt, but luckily he didn’t break the skin too much. But this thought did crossed my mind: “I just got bit by a mangy stray Bangkokian dog, that can’t be good.”

Click image to enlarge

Luckily I was close to June’s, so I went there and washed the bite, and put Betadine on it, then we went to the hospital (my third trip to the hospital since I came here). There was some slight bleeding, and a bite mark. At the hospital, I got two shots: tetanus, even though I was pretty sure I’d gotten one before I left America; and the passive rabies shot. One in each arm. And of course they disinfected and dressed the wound. But there was also another rabies shot they recommended, and they said it was very expensive. The nurse wrote the amount on a piece of paper: “21,000 baht.” Whoa, that’s around $561 for one shot! I wanted to make sure my insurance would cover it, but they didn’t get back to me, and now it was 3:00am. Even though the dog was pretty mangy, we didn’t think it had rabies, since it’s been there for so long. But they said I had 24 hours to get the shot (which is actually 5 shots), so we went home without me getting the shot.

The shot is a human immunoglobulin serum. I had an option to go to another hospital where they had a cheaper serum, but it was from a horse. The next day I called the insurance company, and they said the expensive human serum would be covered as long as the doctor said it was necessary. So I went back to the hospital to get the shot–better safe than foaming out the mouth in a few months, or craving hay.

The doctor gave me 3 shots directly into the wound! Yeeeeoooowwwwww!!!!!! June said he was wriggling the needle inside of my leg. It sure felt like it. Then the nurse shot me twice more. Once in each butt cheek. Now I have to go back for about 8 more shots, until April, where ever I happen to be. My insurance was due to expire in two days, so the timing was pretty good, but I wish I had taken a motorcycle taxi to June’s that night.

This is the nurse removing the bandage from my first visit. In a few minutes the doctor would come in and wriggle around a needle in my leg . . . three times.

Click image to enlarge

There wasn’t a whole lot of privacy in that emergency room. There were curtains, but they didn’t really hide much. I suppose they would have if someone closed them. I didn’t care though, because it was only my leg. But while in the waiting room, the nurse was talking to us–actually she was talking to June in Thai about my situation, so I didn’t really have to pay attention until June translated for me–and my attention drifted into the emergency room. There was a young Thai woman being attended to in the first bed right at the entrance, and her curtain hid nothing. She was on her side in quite a bit of pain and discomfort, kind of curled up, with her western boyfriend by her side. The doctor was working on her butt area for quite some time. I know I shouldn’t have been looking, but it was right there, impossible not to glance. Eventually June translated for me, and I stopped looking. And eventually the woman threw up. I hope it made her feel better.

Well, as I write this, tomorrow I will have been here for one year. So I made it. There were some ups and downs (read all of my previous posts and see what they were), but I made it through the year. Now I have to decide what to do next. I did go through quite a bit of money, especially lately with the teaching class and all, so I’m getting a little short on cash. So this week I have to aggressively pursue a teaching job in South Korea. But tomorrow morning, hopefully, I can watch the Mets and Cards in game 5.

I had a heck of a time trying to post this as there were problems with the site, and it took me days, but it looks like it will work now (part of it may have been somewhat my fault, but not really).

Okay, I know these pictures don’t seem to have much to do with traveling, but in a way they do. It was during Songkran in Thailand, and I wanted to stay dry (after having been soaked earlier), so while sitting in my room bored, I took these pictures. In a previous post, after showing one of the photos, I did a survey asking if you would like to see the series. The results were in favor of posting the series. So if you didn’t want to see them, but didn’t vote, you should have voted, and you must look at them. If you voted no, you can choose to look or not. If you voted yes, then here they are, enjoy. If you just randomly clicked on this post, and you don’t know me, welcome to my insanity.

Well, that’s it.

You might have noticed that my last post, (Legally) Qualified, is gone. That’s because the site lost all posts from Aug 17 to some date (unrelated to the problem of trying to post this), so I didn’t delete it for some reason. They suggested ways to get our posts back, but none seemed to work for me. I have no back ups of any of the posts I’ve written, so I guess I’m lucky I only lost one post. I wonder if any of you have saved some of my posts? Maybe it would be a good idea for me to have back ups, for the inevitable big crash.

Anyhow, if you didn’t already know it, now you all know that I’m weird.

Mark (Desperado) Schraeger

P.S. I still have no idea what the hell I’m doing with the rest of my life.

If you have traveled in Southeast Asia (SEA), or have done any research into it, you are probably aware of the reputation of Poipet, Cambodia, a border town with Thailand. If not, here’s what Lonely Planet: Cambodia had to say:

“Viva Poipet! Long the armpit of Cambodia, famous for nothing but mud and mess . . . during the wet season the roads become rivers of mud and detritus . . . There is no reason to spend any time here . . . Poipet is also emerging as scam central and many tourists are being ripped off on overland travel . . . Don’t judge Cambodia on your first experiences in Poipet . . . should you for some masochistic reason decide to stay in Poipet . . . (so and so hotel) is a good option if you are unlucky enough to get caught in town for the night.”

And if that’s not enough, here are a few more quotes from Bootsnall members:

“Poipet is a toilet,” Bubbha

“Poipet really is hell,” Static

” . . . poipet is a shit hole…get in, get the hell out,” Gooner

So for any sane person who is aware of this information, and has passed through before himself and seen the truth, and is also not with a volunteer organization that stuck you there, spending 4 days and 3 nights in a row in Poipet…by choice…would be unthinkable. UNTHINKABLE! Like running through an active slaughterhouse naked with your mouth wide open and flippers on your feet. Well, crown me insane, because I’ve just returned from my 4 day, 3 night vacation in sunny Poipet, Cambodia. And I did it by choice.

Why would I do something so masochistic, as Lonely Planet calls it?

Well, my Thai visa expired on Aug 8, so I had to leave Thailand. And I also signed up for the class to get my teaching certificate. The class is in Bangkok and it starts on Aug 14 and ends on Sept 8. Thailand allows you to stay in the country for one month upon arrival, but it’s not a calendar month. For example, if you arrive on Aug 9, you can stay until Sept 7–always 2 days short of your arrival date the following month. So the earliest I could return to Thailand and be able to stay for the duration of the course was Aug 11. So I had to spend 3 days in another country.

Sure I could have gone to Malaysia or Singapore, but that would have been too costly by plane, and too time consuming by land. And I certainly could have gone to a better part of Cambodia for just a little more time and money. So why didn’t I? Why did I choose to swim in the cesspool? Well, I had 3 other choices: Siem Reap; Battambang; or Phnom Penh. I’ve been to all 3 of those cities already, and if I could have snapped my fingers and ended up in either of them, I would have chosen Phnom Penh (At least for the reason that that is the only place I’ve been to that sells my brand of deodorant). But I haven’t attempted that trick since 1992 when I snapped my fingers for Fiji and ended up in the jungles of Guam–boy was that family startled, not to mention their monkey.

Phnom Penh is the farthest away of the 3 cities, and the buses leave from Poipet at 6:00-7:30am, which would mean staying overnight in Poipet anyway. And I’d only get two days in Phnom Penh then have a very long trip back to Bangkok, and would not arrive until late in the evening. It is also a pain in the ass to get to the other two cities, over horrible roads.

So the main advantage of staying in Poipet, was that on the 11th, I could walk out of my guest house at 7:00am, turn right, walk 100 yards and get stamped out of Cambodia. Then walk another 50 yards and get stamped into Thailand, and a few minutes later be sitting on a bus heading to Bangkok, and arrive around noonish. Because I had things to do when I got back. (But I didn’t set my alarm correctly and ended up leaving at 8:30 instead of 7:00. Still okay though.)

The assessments of Lonely Planet and the Bootsnall members are indeed accurate, the place is a cesspool. An ordinary traveler should never choose to stay longer than the few minutes it takes to pass through to their next destination. But if you have some time, an open mind, can stand some filth, and you are not just there to see the ruins, temples, mountains, and museums; if you want to see real life at a bustling Cambodian border town, then I recommend spending a night or two in lively Poipet. It certainly won’t kill you. I think the biggest threat is getting hit by a car or motorcycle. And if you are a photographer there is a great opportunity to enhance your portfolio.

The folks there are good people, just like any you’ll see in Siem Reap or Phnom Penh. They just live in squalor. Not that Siem Reap and Phnom Penh are Beverly Hills or anything. And you will come across the occasional shady character trying to sell you sex or something, but that’s no different than anywhere else in SEA. And there are the rip offs that LP mentioned, but that’s for the onward travel crowd.

There are actually a couple of decent places to stay in Poipet. I stayed at The Poipet Guest House (not mentioned by LP). For 400 baht/night I got a relatively clean, big room, with AC, refrigerator, TV w/cable, including HBO, Cinemax, Star Movies, ESPN, CNN World, and a few other English language channels (and they came in clear), a balcony to watch all the action on the street, and I was supposed to have hot water, but the heater didn’t work. But that’s okay, I’m finally getting used to cool showers. Sometimes they’re nice when you’ve been sweating in the hot, humid air. And there were some stains on my bed too that I didn’t want to think about. But overall, it wasn’t bad.

If you want greater luxury you can stay in one of the casinos for as little as 1000 baht/night. At least at the one I checked out. The casinos were where I chose to eat. When you see the squalor in the streets, the hole in the wall restaurants seem about as appetizing as a happy meal that had been sitting the sun for 16 days . . . after an elephant pooped on it.

My second night there I went to the Poipet Resort Casino for dinner. I asked where the restaurants were and the guy pointed me upstairs. The upstairs people told me they were downstairs. Finally, in the basement, I found a small food court with a buffet. None of the signage was in English (Which has got to tell you something), so I wasn’t sure how it worked. I approached the woman at the desk, and we had trouble communicating. It seems I had to get a coupon upstairs, after joining G Club International, or checking in or something. Eventually she told me to pay her 100 baht and I could go in (I did see something that said, “100 baht”). As I was getting out my 100 baht, a lady came from out of no where and handed me a coupon. The lady at the desk said, “okay,” and directed me toward the buffet. When I went to the buffet to thank the lady for the coupon, she gave me another one and said, “For tomorrow.” So I ended up getting 2 free buffet dinners from the generous stranger. And the food was pretty good too. I had two big plates each time.

One day I was walking down the street, and an SUV stopped next to me. The driver said, “Excuse me?” I turned to see a white American man in the driver’s seat. As I was turning my head he continued, “Are you the doctor?” Then immediately after seeing my face he said, “No you’re not.” Hmmm, if he thought I might have been the doctor, and had to ask, he had probably never seen him before. Why then did he immediately know that I was not the doctor after seeing me more clearly? Do I look like I could not be a doctor? This will haunt me for some time.

Anyway, I am one of the few who discarded all rational thought and went swimming in the cesspool that is Poipet, and I did not drown.

But I did find a new definition for the word “ruthless.”

Ruthless: Pawn shops in casinos.

It’s bad enough for people to open pawn shops near casinos, like in Atlantic City, NJ. But for a casino to operate one on the premises is just wrong! “Aww, was that your last baht . . . Hmmm, that’s a nice shirt.”

You might have noticed above that I snuck in the fact that I signed up for the teaching course. Yep, I finally did it. I’m taking the course with Chichester College. It is an actual college in England, but this is only a branch for the teaching course. So if all goes well, I’ll be spending a lot more time here than I originally planned. At least another year. And my life will change drastically. Also, the course is supposed to be very intensive, so this may be the last post until the class ends. But if I find time maybe I’ll post something.

All better go well, the course costs $1390 US! Plus I had to buy a new wardrobe. In order to get into the class, I had to answer 7 questions:

1) How would you describe yourself?
2) What are your areas of strength?
3) What are your weak areas?
4) What ages would you prefer to teach? Why?
5) What do you usually do in your spare time?
6) Why would you want to teach in Thailand?
7) What is (or are) the professional achievement/s that you are most
proud of?

I hate questions like that. Anyway here was the response of the admissions guy after I sent my answers:

” . . .I don’t think anyone has ever wrote such detailed answers before! It was a pleasure to read.”

Funny, I didn’t think they were detailed enough. Anyway, I thought I’d share my answer to question 5 with you:

5) What do you usually do in your spare time?

Well, the past 9 months has been my spare time. Every minute of it. In fact, if you are doing what you want to do, your entire life is your spare time. To take it even further, as I’m writing this, it’s becoming clear to me that everyone’s entire life, no matter what they are doing, is their spare time. This is the only time we’ve got. And if it is not your time, than who’s time is it? I understand most people would read this question, “What do you usually do when you are not working (for someone else)?” They may respond, “I like to go to the park and read, and go to the movies, and play tennis . . . ” and that may be what the author of the question had in mind. But even if you have an unsatisfying job, you made the decision to use that time–your time–to be at that job. It was time you had to spare in order to make money, and it was your decision to spend that time there. So for me, everything I have ever done in my life, has been done in my spare time. And that’s too many things to list.

What do you think?

Also, I’ve rented an apartment. It’s about a 5-10 minute walk to the school. It’s in a place I’ve stayed several times while in Bangkok, but I’ve never stayed in the apartment suite. I’ve always stayed in the cheap dorm room, which I’ve always had to myself. The daily rental rate for the apartment is 700 baht (approx $18.75). But if you are taking the course, or if you’ve stayed there so often that the lady knows you well, and you rent it monthly, it cost 8000 baht ($214). Plus I have to pay water and electricity. It’s furnished, and includes a bedroom, bathroom (cool water), a living room with a couch, a small tv, a refrigerator, and A/C only in the bedroom. But it has no cooking facilities, not even a microwave. However you can use the office for that, but it’s pretty far from my room.

The TV has HBO, and for two days after I moved in it had ESPN, but that changed to Super Sport, which is not nearly as good. It has no American sports, as far as I can tell. And you know what that means: Soccer, soccer, soccer. Also, HBO, and all movie channels here (all countries I’ve been in so far), show edited movies. The f-word is edited out, as is nudity, and various other things. Anyone who knows me knows that I f#@king hate censorship . . . and love nudity. But what can I do? At least they don’t edit movies in the theaters here. Two things different about going to the theater here are, 1) Before the movie, during the coming attractions and commercials, “Please stand and pay your respect to the King,” shows on the screen, and everyone stands. Then they play a montage of photographs of the king to music that he wrote. 2) Assigned seats.

Anyway, one thing that sucks about not having ESPN anymore is that the New York Mets (my favorite baseball team) are having a pretty good season, so far. And it’s possible they could be playing in October, which means the playoffs and possibly the World Series . . . Oh God I just jinxed them! Possibly in the World Series against the Yankees . . . oh oh, I just jinxed them too. Anyway, ESPN shows the games here. But even if I get a job by then, and move to a new place that has ESPN, it won’t matter, because I’ll be at work when the games are on here in the morning, except on the weekends. So I better not get a job until November. And one more thing. I still can’t get used to seeing Johnny Damon in a Yankees uniform.

Bad news. My camera broke. I can’t use the zoom anymore, so it’s stuck on wide angle. I also can’t zoom pictures I’ve taken to view detail on the screen. I hope I can get it fixed cheaply. Maybe if I get a decent job I’ll buy another, better camera.

Oh, and one other thing about my apartment. It is a part of a resort hotel that is involved, or was once involved with, the sex trade. So my bed is surrounded by mirrors on 3 walls, as well as the ceiling. But you get used to it after a while, and stop walking around naked all time.

Click on the images to see them bigger:

I did no editing at all to this, the sky looked like that. That’s why I took the picture.

Again, I did no editing at all to this picture. My hand, foot and juggle-ball looked like that. That’s why I took the picture. I have a whole series of these, if you would like to see them all in a future post, please vote in the comments. Vote yes or no, after a couple of weeks I will tally the votes, then either post them or not. But if I am taking the teaching course, I may have to wait until that is over, because it is supposed to be very intensive.

The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. When you go up, they only let you go to the bridge inbetween the towers, which is still quite high. I never made it up, however, because I never woke up early enough. It is free, but you must get there early as they only allow a finite number of folks up.

A corner in Kota Bharu, Malaysia. Kota Bharu is in the extreem northeast corner of Peninsular Malaysia. Pretty much every single female on the east coast wears some kind of covering like that, but I saw none wearing the full covering, which includes the face.

June (left) and her friend Erika. Erika is not a friend from Thailand. June met her at college in Sarasota, Florida USA. She is from Japan, but lives in NYC. She visited June (and another friend from Japan who lives in Bangkok) for a week, and is now in Tokyo with her family before she starts her new life and career as an Architect in NYC.

June (foreground) and Erika praying to Buddha at the temple at the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

This is an actual snake oil salesman in action in Kota Bharu, Malaysia. Unlike the first two pictures, I did a lot of editing on this one, but you probably figured that out. The orange blob on the table is the jars of the snake oil he was peddling, next to them are some kind of sugar pills he was also pushing. People bought this stuff too. P.T. Barnum was right.

I took this one at Ao Nang, in Krabi, Thailand. I wanted to include it in the pictures I posted from there. Remember the one with the monkeys? But I had it on DPChallnge in the framing challege, and it was in the voting stage at the time, so I couldn’t include it. Here it is now.

I wish I took more pictures in Malaysia, because it was a beautiful country, but the electric outlets are different there so I couldn’t charge my camera battery. I especially wish I took more pictures at Pulau Perhentian (Perhentian Island). I took a few, but nothing any good. It was a magnificent island in the northeast corner of peninsular Malaysia. The water was the most clear I have ever seen in my life. But on my first full day on the island, I went exploring. The combination of the sun and the crystal clear water (reflecting the sun) provided a double dose of sun to my body. I wore sunblock and did not get burned, but the next day I had a fever of 101. Too much sun. The next day I relaxed and recovered, then on the following day I left. So I didn’t get a chance to go snorkling, and I was even considering getting a scuba license. It would have been expensive, but it would have been cool. It’s possible I could go back and try again.

Don’t forget to vote on the hand foot juggle-ball photos.

Everybody sing along with me:

It’s a small world after all. It’s a small world after all. It’s a small world after all. It’s a small world after all.

There has been occassion in my life to speak, and not sing, those words (although after I speak them I usually end up singing the tune as well). For instance, when I was working in Florida, one of my customers happened to be the husband of my elementary school art teacher in New Jersey. And he was also the father of a colleague of mine in the same New Jersey town. “Wow what a small world,” I’d said. Then later the whole store went into song and dance. Well, today it has dawned on me that the world is not small at all. It’s huge!

I first started to realize that there was something amiss about this popular song about 9 months ago while sitting in the jet airplane as it traversed this small world at speeds over 500 MPH. Over 20 hours later, I was finally on the other side of the world. Do the math (I’ve never liked that cliche, “do the math,” and this is the first time I’ve ever used it. But it works here, and I hope I never use it again). Also, while high above the earth’s surface, I could see the miles and miles of shear vastness of this marble. Most of it barren nothingness, with seemingly not one cell of a living organism for miles.

But what really convinced me that this is not a small world, is that in the 9 months I’ve been here, I have not bumbed into, or seen from a distance, one person I know (June doesn’t count). I haven’t seen anyone who knows someone I know, or that even looks like anyone I know. I haven’t met anyone from within 300 miles of where I lived in Florida. I’ve met at least one person from NY, which is close to NJ, however. This may have less to do with the world being huge and more to do with me knowing very few people. But I still have a few months to go to bump into that familiar stranger, and vindicate the author of the song.

Anyway, Malaysia, being a muslim country, affords a visitor from America, and most other countries, an opportunity to see something that he has probably never seen before, except on TV, print media, or the internet: Muslim women wearing the full body covering, including the veil over their faces.

The official religion of Malaysia is Islam, but there are a great mix of cultures there. Chinese and Indians make up a large portion of the population, and there are, of course, many muslims. The only places I really saw the women with the full body covering was on Penang Island, and in Kuala Lumpur (KL). I saw none on the eastern coast of penninsular Malaysia. KL, the largest city, and capital, is where I saw most of them. But only about 2%-4% of the women wore the full black covering over their entire bodies.

It’s actually kind of a spooky thing to see if you have never seen it live before, as most Americans probably haven’t. In fact, it did remind me of Halloween, except that her husband, and her children forgot to wear their costumes. Once you’ve seen it a couple of times you get used to it, and it’s no big deal anymore. But you can’t help but think about it.

For instance, I’m sure you’ve had, at least once in your life, a piece of cloth covering your nose and mouth. It makes breathing uncomfortable, doesn’t it? Perhaps their cloth is specially made to facilitate easy breathing. I hope so.

I had always thought that every single skin cell had to be covered, except for the flesh of their eyes, so they can see all the foreigners staring at them. But in Malaysia, their hands and feet (if they are wearing sandles) are not covered. Perhaps this country is not as strict as the middle eastern countries, or in Taliban controlled regions.

Speaking of their eyes, I wonder if blind muslim women are still allowed the slit over their eyes? The only reason the the slit is there is to let them see. And if a kid gets separated from his mother in a crowd, how will he know which one is her? I guess the same way penguins know. Hey, I’m not making jokes here, these are legitimate inquiries. And if one of them commits a crime, that would be one hell of a sketch artist who can render her likeness.

Anyway, one of my goals was to see how they eat. I’d seen them milling around food places so I knew they must eat in public. “What do they do?” I wondered. Do they stick the food underneath the veil and risk sullying it? Do they lift the veil and reveal their mouth and chin for a second at a time? I doubted this. There is no mouth hole in the fabric. Plus I didn’t notice any special private rooms for them to eat (There are special rooms, for instance, in airports for muslims to pray). Or maybe they get take out, and never eat in public.

It took a while, but I finaly saw one eating at a McDonalds in the mall. And later I saw some others eating in the food court. The veils hang down about 6 to 8 inches below their mouths. So they just pull the veils out a little and bring the food underneath and up to their mouths without revealing any sacred flesh. Kind of what I thought. For drinks they must use a straw. I doubt they can eat an ice cream cone.

As a result of my fixation on these Islamic women, I’m now dying to read the book Nine Parts Of Desire, by Geraldine Brooks. The subtitle is The Hidden World of Islamic Women. This book was a big seller when it first came out, and I put it into a many readers’ hands when I worked at Barnes & Noble Bookstore. But I never knew what it was about, or even cared at that point. I just knew what book the customer meant when they said, “Do you have that book . . . the nine . . . something nine . . . parts of something . . . oh, I just know ‘nine’ is in the title?” Incidentally, unrelated to this, earlier I picked up Geraldine Brooks’ first fictional novel, Year Of Wonders. It was pretty good. Her second novel, March, won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I haven’t read it.

Lately I’ve had a powerful urge to devour books. That’s all I want to do now, read everyting I can get my hands on. If I don’t do the teaching thing (I am coming close to signing up for a course to get the teaching certificate), then I may use my remaining time to read everything I can. While in KL, in the day time I walked around and did some sight-seeing. But in the late afternoon and early evening I went to one of the malls with a large book store in it (Suria Mall, underneath the Petronas Towers, the worlds second tallest buildings, had Kinokuniya Bookstore [A Japanese bookstore offering a large selection of English titles] and Time Square Mall, a gigantic mall with a theme park in it–the main attraction being a large roller coaster–harbored a Borders Bookstore [the second largest American bookstore chain]), and ate dinner then went to the book store and read. I read the entire book, The Google Story, that way. It’s funny, I became the person that we made fun of when I worked at B&N.

KL was pretty cool. It was relatively clean, and safe, and most things were within walking distance. The Petronas Towers are quite an impressive sight. As I mentioned they are the world’s second tallest buildings, according to what criteria is being used. The tallest being a buliding in Taipei, Taiwan. They were especially impressive at night, like a painting in the sky.

What sucked was that I was there during the World Cup football tournament. People in America are going, “What? It ain’t no football season!” It’s soccer, people, a very popular sport in every country but ours. Anyway, with time zones being what they are, the games, played in Germany, took place in the middle of the night in Malaysia. Althought the Malaysian team did not qualify for the tournament, many Malays were still very involved in the games (as were their bookies). A couple of outdoor restaurants near my hostel showed the games on their big screen TV’s, which attracted hundreds of football fans, overflowing outside the restaurants to glimpse the action. As I tried to sleep, a near goal would elicit a tremendously loud, collective gasp, from the fans, startling me from my attempted slumber. I always knew when someone scored a goal.

Speaking of sleeping, here’s a word of advice for any non-muslim planning a visit to any predominently muslim city, or country: Locate where the Mosque is, then try to find accomodations as far away from it as possible.

Reader: “Wow, Mark, you really have something against Muslims, don’t you? First the veiled women, now this.”

Me: “No, I have nothing against Muslims. Most of them are probably very nice people. In fact, the ones I encountered we very nice.

Reader: “Then why are you telling me to stay away from the Mosques? They’re very interesting buildings.”

Me: “Right, they are a joy to look at. Very interesting architecture. But they use these buildings for praying.”

Reader: “That’s what they were built for, praying. What’s wrong with that?”

Me: “Nothing per say. But these Mosques, at least the ones I’m thinking of, are open air buildings. They are not closed like, say, a Catholic Church.”

Reader: “Okay.”

Me: “And Muslims must pray five times a day.”

Reader: “All right, go on.”

Me: “The first prayer starts at 5:30 in the morning.”

Reader: “Oh, so you can faintly hear them from your room while you are sleeping as they quietly whisper their prayers? It’s just loud enough to stir you from your sleep, and disturb your peaceful dream.”

Me: “Close, but there’s more to it. They don’t quietly whisper their prayers. One prayer leader opens up his massive lungs and belts out the prayer to make sure Allah hears him. But as a precaution, just in case Allah’s hearing is not what it used to be, he uses a PA SYSTEM!! And at the Mosque in Batu Ferringghi, on Penang Island, I think they purchased the PA from Pearl Jam after their 1997 world tour, and the prayer leader thinks he’s Eddie Vedder. And they set the volume at eleven! So you don’t faintly hear them whispering their prayers, and get stirred from a peaceful sleep. The whole town–the non-Muslims anyway–gets jarred from their sleep. Bolt Upright Jarred!!”

Reader: “Oh.”

Me: “Bolt . . . Upright . . . Jarred!” I’m sure somewhere one of them must have broached the subject to someone: ‘Hey, I bet you some of the people in the hotels and guesthouses around here might not be Muslim, not to mention the non-Muslim residents. And they are probably trying to sleep at five-thirty in the morning. And our prayers are pretty loud, you know with the powerful system we bought from Pearl Jam, with the five gigantic speakers and all. It’s probably waking them.’ ‘Ahh fuck ’em'”

A rooster doesn’t know any better.

An interesting thing about Malaysia is that, unlike most, if not all, other Asian countries, they don’t have their own script. They use our alphabet. The official language of Malaysia is Bahasa Malay, but there are a lot of Chinese living here so you see some Chinese script as well. But most signs are written in Bahasa Malay only, so it is not always easy for tourists who are not familiar with the language. A few important signs are written in English though, like, “Please do not throw trash in the toilet.” However, if you look closely at the words you can easily figure some of them out:

For instance, at the feri in Butterworth you would know how much it cost to cross if you were on a basikal or a motosikal. And if you want to take a bas from Penang to Kuala Lumpur, and you did not want it to make any stops in between, you would take the ekspres. And if you ate some bad food at a restoran and got sick, you could take an ambulans to the klinik. But most words are impossible to decipher without a diksineri.

While walking down a street in a mid-sized town in Maylasia called Taiping–a town that receives very little western tourists–I heard an unmistakably familiar, and surprizing, sound, emanating from one of the shops–a clothing shop I think. The sound stopped me in my tracks, and I laughed. Then I felt a slight ache in my soul, because I miss the sound very much. It was Dennis DeYoung belting out,

” . . . Thank you very much Mister Roboto for doing the jobs nobody wants to! And thank you very much Mister Roboto for helping me escape just when I needed to! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I wanna thank you . . .”

Okay, I know that Mr. Roboto is not one of Styx‘s proudest moments, it’s actually kind of an embarrassment to them and some of their fans (I know at least Tommy Shaw–one of the members of the band–is embarrassed by it). But it’s their earlier stuff that made them one of my favorite bands, as some of you know. The fact that it was Mr. Roboto is what made me laugh. If it was Come Sail Away piping from the shop’s speakers I wouldn’t have laughed, but I still would have stopped, been equally surprized, and felt the ache.

In some of the more developed countries in Southeast Asia you hear more western music, especially in Singapore. But in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, 99% of the music you hear is local. And it all sounds pretty much the same. Thai pop-rock has a simailar sound to ours, but with Thai lyrics of course. So that is somewhat listenable. Otherwise, the karaoke type music eminent in this region is all the same. And it’s horrible! (Sorry June if you are reading this, I know you like it, but I also know I’m not the only farang who feels that way. But I do like when you sing it at karaoke).

Actually, while in Singapore I splurged and went to a concert at the fancy concert hall there, The Esplanade. I saw the world renowned jazz drummer Billy Cobham with his current band, Billy Cobham’s Culture Mix. I have a couple of cd’s by The Mahavishnu Orchestra, a jazz fusion group from the 70’s where Cobham displays his phenomenal talent on the skins. I didn’t expect the music to be anything like Mahavishnu, and it wasn’t. But it was still cool to see, and hear, some good live music.

Anyway, I digress, it wasn’t as much that it was Styx I heard coming from the shop, as it was a reminder of music that I haven’t heard much of in a long time, and that I miss my music. Before I left America my sister recommended I get an Ipod or the like, so I could listen to my music while I travel. But I thought it would just be one more thing to worry about losing, so I didn’t bring one. Now I wish I took her advice. (Or is it, “Now I wish I had taken her advice?” If I’m going to teach English I better learn this stuff.).

From my seat in the middle of the minivan, a sense of hope swept over me as we crossed the border from Thailand into Malaysia. I’d heard so many great things about Malaysia, and immediately upon entering the country I was struck by the distinct difference between Malaysia, and where I’d previously been (Thailand, Loas and Cambodia specifically). Although the ride through southern Thailand was also quite nice.

The highway infrastructure in Malaysia is first class. If it wasn’t (or weren’t? . . . hmmm) for the language on the signs I would have thought I was in America. Nice, wide, smooth roads, a well manicured landscape, and even call boxes and food and fuel rest stops reminded me of the highways back home. As did the tollbooths . . . and they even had speed pass. Here the highways may even be nicer, because they are probably newer. And the scenery along most of the route is breathtaking. I couldn’t wait to get to my destination: Georgetown, on the popular island of penang.

Our minivan crossed into Penang on the feri from Butterworth. The Georgetown skyline looked welcoming as we floated toward the pier. There was one other westerner on the minvan, and he sat next to me, an older chap from Switzerland. He had been to Penang before so he told me where all the cheaper hotels were. That’s where he was going so I got off with him on a road called Chulia. He pointed around where I could go then he went on his way. Immediately, the hope that filled me earlier was infiltrated by disappointment and dispair. I was surrounded by interminably run down and grotty old buildings. And the ones that said “Hotel” on them wouldn’t even beckon a junky and his two-bit crack ho to step inside. How can this be? Did this country spend all of its money on its highways?

Not to be defeated, I walked with my–increasingly heavier–backpackpacks in search of suitable accomodations. This was a popular tourist spot so there had to be a nicer area. My long walk brought me all the way back to where I started, but I did see some better looking places nearby on the main road. So I went into one place and asked to see the room. From the outside this place looked considerably better then the flophouses I saw on Chulia. But the room itself was depressingly grotty (my new favourite word). It was small, and in dire need of a paint job, among other things. There was no way I would pay 60 Ringgit (RM60, approx. $16.67) for that room, so I declined. Before I went to that place I had passed a more upscale looking hotel, Hotel Continental, which cost RM80 ($22.23). My shoulders felt like they had been lugging around 4 two-bit crack hos, so I just went directly to the Hotel Continental and checked in.

This room was much better. But the AC was central air, uncontrollable from the room, and the air entered from a vent in the wall. And you know from watching movies that not only air travels through vents, but also sound. A hard of hearing guest in a nearby room left his TV on late into the night. I was going to stand on a chair and scream into the vent, but that only would have riled me up, and I never would have slept. So I just laid there with pillows covering my ears. It didn’t work.

The next day I went on another quest to find a cheaper place, not because of the noise–I finally did sleep–but because of the price. I found a room for RM35 ($9.72) at a place called 75 Travellers Lodge. It was a very basic small room with a cold shower directly above the toilet, so you could take a dump and have a shower at the same time. They did not supply a towel, TP, or even a blanket. But there was a sheet on the bed and the room was relatively clean. It had a concrete floor. Oh, and it had an air conditioner too, a window unit. Luckily, June gave me a large all purpose cloth that I was able to use as a blanket. And I have my own TP.

That evening on my way back to the Lodge, I was going to stop in a nearby bakery. But in the gutter, about 20 yards from the bakery, I saw 6 rats huddled over some garbage. I turned around and went back to the lodge. That’s another thing about this place. The sidewalks and gutters here are breeding grounds for rats. The gutters are large crevices filled with garbage and water. And you better watch your step.

It rained most of the time I was in Georgetown, so I spent most of my time at the mall.

A couple of days later I went to another part of the island called Batu Ferringhi. That’s where the beach is. The beach was okay, nothing special, but again it rained most of the time I was there, and rained hard. And there was no mall. But I’d say the area was a step up from Georgetown. The really nice beaches and islands are supposed to be on the east coast of Pennisular Malaysia, and I am planning on visiting them eventually.

Now though, I’m slowly working my way down to Kuala Lumpur, the capital, and the major city in Malaysia. I’m actually looking forward to going.

My first stop after Penang Island was, as previously mentioned, Taiping. Taiping was much, much nicer than Georgetown as far as cleanliness goes, but it still suffers from some grottiness, as I’ve learned most Southeast Asian towns do (Somebody give these people some paint). And I saw a number of rats there as well. (Incidentally, I just finished reading the book Rats, by Robert Sullivan.) However there is a gorgeous lake garden park in Taiping as well as a zoo and night safari. I didn’t make it to the zoo or night safari. I woke up to late for the zoo. It’s best to go early when the animals are out while it’s still relatively cool. I woke up too late because I was up all night watching CNBC (the financial channel) on cable. It was market hours in the US. I stayed at a decent place again, hence cable TV, but curiously the toilet didn’t flush properly, so they left a bucket for flushing. But I went to the beautiful park, which is where I wrote a good portion of this post in my notebook. The park alone is worth a visit, and I’d imagine the zoo as well.  As I mentioned, Taiping does not receive many foreign travelers. I think I saw one, maybe two other westerners. I’m not sure though, it might have been the same guy twice, we all look alike. We were both in Pizza Hut at the same time. Seeing only 1 or 2 westerners in two days is not the only reason I know they don’t get a lot of foreign travelers. I also know because I got a lot of looks, even people yelling to me in their cars. But some people didn’t give a shit.

I’m in The Cameron Highlands now. I just got here so I don’t have much to say about it yet, but the ride up here was magnificent. I’m staying in a place with shared bathrooms. My room is just a cube with a bed, and some bugs. It cost RM20 ($5.56), the cheapest place I’ve stayed in Malaysia so far. Accomodations here are pretty expensive compared to the rest of Southeast Asia, except for Singapore. In Singapore I had to stay in my first dorm rooms. It was an experience and I should have written about it, but that was during my lazy period of writing. Maybe I’ll write about it later. But I didn’t take any notes.

Okay, I owe this internet place a butt load of money, so I better end now and get out of here. It takes a long time for me to write these things. And besides, I probably lost a lot of readers along he way. If you are still with me, here’s a bit of information. The word dictionary in Bahasa Malay is kamus, not diksineri, I just couldn’t resist. I really did hope it was spelled something like that though. Now those who abandoned this post some time after reading that will go through life thinking Malays spell dictionary, diksineri. Now aren’t you glad you stuck around?

In case you were wondering, I’m still alive, and here are the pictures to prove it. Well, they don’t prove I’m alive, unless I’ve turned into a monkey. Sorry for those of you who have been following my blog. I’ve been doing a lot of nothing lately, just staying in Bangkok with June. I’m starting to consider teaching english here, somewhere in Asia, not necessarily Thailand. Traveling is losing it’s fun for me, and I feel it’s time to start becoming productive again, and start making money. But I don’t think I’m ready to come home yet. There is nothing for me there, just my old job. I’ll see what happens.

Oh, and I did go to Singapore for a week. That was pretty cool. It was nice being in a much developed country, where everything was clean, and you can drink the water. But it was too expensive to stay very long.

Tomorrow I am going to Malaysia, because my Thai visa expires. Then I’ll start thinking about whether or not I will try teaching.

Anyway, here are some monkeys. These are from Ao Nang Beach in Krabi, Thailand. These seem to be wild monkeys. When I first saw them, my first thought was, “Okay, who’s profitting off of these monkeys.” But no one asked me for any money. They are on the (I think) east end of the beach where the wooded, rocky, hilly area starts. They all hang out there because people feed them, I guess. Maybe there is a person selling bananas for you to feed to them, but I didn’t see any banana transactions taking place while I was there. But there was at least one tourist with a bag of bananas feeding the monkeys.

Click the pictures on to see bigger them. I think I’ll be a good english teacher.

The obligatory phallic symbol.

Mark

I’ve been trying to write and post this for 3 or 4 days now, and either the site or the internet I’m using keeps crashing on me before I can finish writing it. So I haven’t abandoned you again. Hopefully I finally get to post it.

Well, looks like no one came up with the right guess of what happened to me here,

although that Stephen fellow had some interesting guesses.

What happened was I got caught out in the streets during Songkran, in Thailand. It’s the Thai New Year celebration, also known as the water festival, where everyone gets water, either shot at them from a supersoaker water gun, or dumped on them from a bucket, or whatever other means they can think of to soak a person with water. While some people douse you, others apply the talcom powder paste on your face. No one is immune. If you are outside you are fair game. It was kind of fun and interesting the first day, and maybe even the second, but they do it for like 5 or 6 days in a row. At least it’s hot here and it provides relief from that. But eventually you would like to just go outside and not have someone dump a bucket of water all over you, or rub the paste on your face.

Here are a couple of pictures of the festivities.

These are from Kanchanaburi, Thailand. The pictures of me are from when I was near Khao San Road in Bangkok. It was completely insane there. I didn’t get any pictures though because I didn’t want to ruin my camera. What’s amazing is that it goes on for that long, and everyone is just as enthusiastic about it the on 5th day as they were on the first, like they hadn’t just done the same thing the previous 4 days in a row. It was okay, but it really sucks getting blindsided in the face with a supersoaker.

I also went back to Cambodia for a few days. I went to Siem Reap. I didn’t go there the first time I visited Cambodia. I think I was the only person in the history of travel to go to Cambodia and not go to Siem Reap. Siem Reap is where Angkor Wat is: the famous ruins from yesteryear. This is me with Angkor Wat in the background.

You might recall I had some anxious moments during my last trip to Cambodia. This time I crossed at a different border, Poipet. This border has a sign above the booth that lists the price of the visa as $20 US, but they still have the balls to ask for 1000 Thai baht (about 25% more than $20 US). Even after you act like a monkey and point to the sign 5 times, they still demand 1000 baht. But again, I eventually only paid the $20 US.

My cousin posted a comment to my last post–with the pictures of me from Songkran–in regard to my perceived weight loss. Well her perception was right, I’ve lost quite a few pounds. That’s what a diet of rice and vegetables will do. Most people would think it is awesome that I’ve lost so much weight, but they are people who don’t realize that I had no weight to lose in the first place. I’m not too worried about it though, I’ve read on the forums here about others who lose weight travelling here long term. Plus most people who live here are just as thin as I am. And I still have my appetite, so I don’t think I’m sick or anything. I had been checking my weight by wrapping my hands around my upper thigh–I don’t have access to many scales here, and even if I did, they are in kilograms, and I don’t know how much I’m supposed to weigh in kilograms–and if my fingers touched it meant that I’d lost too much weight and needed to start eating more pizza. Well, I never thought that my fingers would ever actually touch, but recently, the tips of my fingers met for the first time. So I’ve been frequenting a place called The Pizza Company. It’s actually not too bad. It’s not New York or New Jersey pizza, of course, but it’ll do.

Okay, I think I may finally be able to post this, so let me do it now before it crashes on me again.

Sorry, I haven’t written anything in a while. I’m still alive, and here are a couple of pictures to contemplate.

Put your curser over the pictures.

Explaination to come later.