BootsnAll Travel Network



Merry Christmas from Cambodia…err…Vietnam actually…

December 26th, 2006

Sorry for lack of updates: Lets start back in early November:
So i buy this Suzuki motorcycle from the Tahoe Sherpas….so the chain falls off the first day 7 km down a dirt road…so two days after that the electric goes out @ 9:00 a.m. Just as this happens i spot a sign that says “Suzuki”, so i turn in quickly, my stupid useage of front brake on gravel resulting in a dramatic entrance of my wiping out @ 8 km/hr in front of a cafe full of locals. Blood, cursing, bent protection tubes and 11 hours of repairs in the middle of nowhere. Pretty daughters offered, daughter #1 is sweet & speaks some english, takes me back to watch music videos &…talk. A delicious lunch, “bike fix 4:00 p.m.” = drinking with local men while pretty mothers & daughters talk about me. Someone’s Dad to me: “You:boom-boom?!” “Ah, no.”…more drinking…fumbled dictionary conversation with former Vietcong fighter…new girls show up, very well dressed:methinks they are an important source of income at this nowhere corner in the middle of Vietnam. One new girl (Daughter #2?) is VERY CUTE, not small framed like most Viet gals, she’d fit in fine at a better U.S. sorority. Spends afternoon staring @ me…(Shirtless drunk man: “boom=boom?” who then takes off from house and wife in search of this methinks)…i have got to get outta here! (But if she follows…)…Walk down dirt road, but every house stares @ me, half of them call to me but the White Guy Show is on haitus. One house has young women sitting on the floor who give me very enthusiastic Hellos and beckening hands. Local market spotted but halfway there an old woman appears @ a door: “Hello!” “Xinchao” i say and then notice the young women sitting behind her on the floor: “You Karaoke?!” Apparently sex is the ONLY source of income for this community. Outta there quick, buy some ice cream, walk back, Shirtless Drunk Man appears @ door of enthusiastic girls house “Hello..Hello Come Come!” He has left his wife travelling south on highway only to circle back around on a back road to get laid LESS THAN 4 BLOCKS FROM HIS HOUSE. Back to the White Guy Show, Daughter #1 “I work in Ho Chi Minh City” Then we should have dinner..”No i work @5.00..p.m.”..Only a few jobs start that late…Some young smokey boys show up drunk & sweaty from their own afternoon of helping the local economy, one a dead ringer for a tahoe Bro-Bra. Dinner with her & her friends, Viet Whiskey & beer. When i decline more local whiskey my next beer becomes strangely whiskey flavored. I do shots with each one repeatedly but they never notice my pouring half of them out secretly first (which still puts me ahead of everyone as there are 5 of them). “You You You Karaoke with me & friends!” says daughter #1 who is getting very drunk and is now just as cute as Daughter#2 (who then shows up and starts drinking [okay so she’s of age @ least] and we share ashot of whiskey and 2 halves of a CHICKENS’ HEAD.) Sound of vroom vroom=BIKE IS FIXED! (Every electric part replaced methinks AND COSTS 660,000! ~$37) But it is now 7:30 & no way am i driving very far…”Karaoke!” No i need hotel first, shower, then we all sing..”KARAOKE!!” she whines. I get ride to hotel with brother(?)as it starts to rain, first hotel refusing me as a foreigner. After shower i look @ the rain @ say i tired i go to sleep to brother(?) but then Daughter #1 shows up with friend & father & i give in. Father goes home. We ride to Karoake. I am supposed to sing every other song & it all sucks horribly as the boys are bored & the Daughter #1 is no longer as flirty or drunk (and where is Daughter#2 who is actually her Friend #1?) I am tired, most of my money is now gone & parts of me are very blue. “You You You-Cafe!” No cafe, me get bike, me sleep, me go Ho Chi Minh tomorrow. “Cafe!” Only if Friend #1 shows up & the both of you fuck my brains out for the rest of my money….

It was really a quite nice day.

And i didn’t even mention the goats. did i mention these guys?

FIRST BLOOD!blood!
EVERY SINGLE ELECTRIC PART…even the headlamp was open @ one point…i think they just kept replacing parts (including the battery) til they found the one that needed fixing. Maybe they we’re cheating me…maybe when i declined boom-boom they decided to fleece me elsewhere…maybe they just weren’t that good…every single electric part...even the headlamp!
Richard Nixon’s former Evil Communist Enemy…Note daughter #2 to right….she’s about 200km from me right now…Nixon's former evil communist enemy...

What is this? I have no idea…but it cost 180,000 dong For that price i could get 3 1 hour massages..or one 45 minute one with a “happy ending”!what is this?  i don't know..but it cost 180,000 dong
A smokey boy…Smokey bro! Young drunk & beyond excitied to see me…”You you you picture me!”
These guys drive 70 km/h on mopeds zooming & weaving their way through traffic, especially in the cities.
I’ve seen 1 post accident (nasty) and 2 of ’em followed me and my karaoke girl 2 blocks though HCMC (Saigon)@11:00 @ night: “Hey Hey Hey” (Hi boys…)”Hey Hey Hey!!”(…Sorry boys, this girl wants to fuck me, gotta go!) One advantage of a motorcycle over a motorbike: acceleration. We looked back to see them swerve a bit & go down…i think they we’re alright…Who knows what trouble they wanted though, so fuck ’em! My beautiful girl squeezed me even harder and off we went…Sorry, that whole night (which started off with drinking hard with Saigon POLICE @ a local bike repair shop) is for offline consumption.

GET ME OUTTA HERE! (Behind my head is the bloody gravel)GET ME OUTTA HERE!!!

Those eyes…daughter #1.Tell me she didn't want a taste of Tahoe's finest...

Tags:

alive…and exhilarated!

November 26th, 2006

Well my 5 day bike cruise turned into 8 & it was darned near impossible to give up that beautiful russian machine this morning.
STAY TUNED FOR MORE INFO on “The Greatest Thing I’ve Ever Done (plus hookers!)”

Tags:

Vietnam Now…Specifically Thursday…9 P.M.-ish

November 16th, 2006

Hanoi is wonderful…a million motobikes…HOT HOT HOT! i’m talkin’ 3 cold showers a day hot (this also applies to the girls on the motobikes).

Next…off on my first MOTORCYCLE ride ever Saturday..i’m learning on a Russian Minsk 125cc wonderbike…lets hope it stays together on my 750 or so km trip to the Tonkinese Alps Northwest of Hanoi. Vietnam…”the most dangerous country in the world to ride a motorcycle!”

Don’t worry…We’re leaving at 5 a.m to avoid traffic (& escape Pres. Bush who arrives Friday)after the first hard days travel of 250-300 km @ maybe 45 km/hr the roads turn to dirt, the traffic disappears, the speed slows to 20-30km/hr & i’ve got a helmut. Plus we’re going in disguise as locals to avoid bandits! And Tim bought a machete today!

What could possibly go wrong?

Just kidding!!!! Just kidding! here’s a real one…this is the real thing...

Tags:

a bike ride…

November 12th, 2006

So Gerald, Ray & Dan headed out one morning on chinese mountain bikes, which are just like the american ones, except they suck. The day before, Gerald (a scotsman living in London) & i had biked from my new home town Yangshuo to Moon Hill where we got lost on purpose, discovering a neat little villagevillage door...dor hid @ the sight of the camera, a beautiful viewmoon hill view..., and Yangshuo again by mistakeYangshou....
On this morning though, the three of us headed towards Fuli, where we encountered a military vehicle @ an intersection. two uniformed men sat in a green truck on which a large speaker was mounted. Which played…pop music. China is not much of a police state apparently. As long as Deng Xiou Peng’s reforms stand the Communist party-which isn’t very communist anymore-will stay in power. The people have the potential for everything now-“To get rich is glorious” said Peng in the 80’s- mini skirts, discos, nice apartments, everything except the right to protest & vote. The Republicans must be jealous.
Gerald & ray are pefecty companios for travel. At this intersection we discussed what direction to take, someone suggested “this way” & off we went dowb a dirt road. Within a few hundred yards we encountered another intersection and spent 5 minutes discussing politics before setting off again “that way.” We came to rice fields, got stuck, turned around, got muddy, laughed, politics and always plenty of patient stops for photos. Perfect. And no idea where we were exactly. we came to the Li river just in time for a boat trip across. 2.5 yuan each, 2.5 yuan for each bike. No price increase for tourists on this small utility barge.

After an hour of biking, an hour resting under some big bamboo trees-Ray’s Persion version of siesta- and some more biking we found a riverside village for lunch. The restaurant was closed though and a big group of English kids from China Climb-an adventure tour group in yangshuo-had just arrived. I stripped to my bright red Patagonia boxers & went for a swim. The river was cool, the kids loud, and soon Gerald joined me. A light current in the middle pushed against us as we floated. Ray was spotted sitting on a veranda, a local gentleman setting up an umbrella. Ray is quite the dealmaker, whether the market is global or village. All i can say is “Tai gui le” (too expensive)!

Ray making a deal en route…Ray doing some quick business @ the Fuli intersection...

Returning to shore we found Ray sitting with a big pot of tea negotiating lunch. I left at some point to take pictures within the village & came across some Americans making their way to a restaurant supposedly down some side “street.” There was a sign, but no menu. They spoke no english, we no chinese so I pointed to a rice cooker, said the word for vegetables (“cai“), and mimed the chicken dance while clucking. “Ahhh“! As I left I told the Americans “You’d better say no “CLUCK!” if you don’t want it!”
I checkeed back a bit later to find them on the roof drinking beer & eating candy bars: “we haven’t seen her!” Ah…China!

i returned to our own riverside lunch of noodles & green cabbage and egg-delicious, prepared in the dark, dirt floored “family room” below us. We we’re joined by a nice couple fro Kentucky -good Democrats both- whose guide, Wan (Juan?) was a delight. Informative, relaxed, great company versus pushy seller. He suggested arranging a boat back to Yangshuo: 60 Yuan each, boat to arrive @ 4:40 and we accepted. He brought out his cell phone-for everywhere in China they seem to work, even in this crazily hilled area. when in Yangshu, ask for Wan on West Street. he’s the best, very genuine..you’ll not even want to haggle much over prices with him!aadan 210.jpg

After lunch we made our way to the shorline with our bikes and I encountered the Americans. “How was lunch? Did you ever eat?”
“Yes…she cooked us a chicken–the WHOLE thing.”
“What?”
“Yeah…she was out killing it!”

I was jealous! …but they had to ride back to Yangshuo, and Wan got us this…
aadan 202.jpgaadan 180.jpgaadan 170.jpgaadan 185.jpgaadan 195.jpg

Tags:

PICTURE! PICTURE! LONGHAIR! BEAUTIFUL! 5 YUAN!!

November 9th, 2006

REMEMBER: CLICK ON PICS!

So i met this businessman from Tehran, we’ll call him Ray because later on i will be blogging about our tea time together in which we discussed many things, including the Mullahs in Iran. He is an amazing person and i will be adding his country to next years trip, as long as Bush doesn’t decide to fuck up a 4th country.* He’s the other foot in a prior post.
We travelled together from Yangshuo to the Pingan rice terrace area of northern Guangxi province, where we meet some ladies in pink who terrorized us. Pingan is a protected area for the minority Zhuang & Yao peoples who live there. It is one of those MUST GO places.VIEVPOINT#2, Our village for the night below... Which means in summer han chinese tourists (&westerners) overrun it. It was nice for us though. We arrived by bus at the tourist checkpoint, a 5-10 minute hike up to the village. Little old local ladies will carry up your luggage in baskets on their back for 10 yuan ($1.25) This is a breeze compared to the rice, wood, roots & vegetables they carry all over the valleys! They also are carrying THE LONGEST HAIR IN THE WORLD, which they of course will unravel for you for pictures. As you move across the village terraces, small gangs of these pink traditionally dressed old ladies accost you. They are very happy, very insistant & very strong.
After we found a hotel, Ray and I took off for what a sign said was “VIEVPOINT #2”. Along the way we encountered said pink terrorists. Ray pulled out his camera to videotape them, not hearing me say “They want 5 yuan for it!” (They fail to mention up front this priceis for EACH WOMAN IN THE PICTURE.) Ray handed them 2 yuan, walked off and the oldest one in the bunch grabbed and held my forearm with the strongest gentlest grip i have ever known outside masturbation. I pulled & she didn’t move an inch. And she smiled the whole time. They all smile. I resorted to charades. They want me to take picture? i have wife (Ring on finger motion)!, wife jealous (grimace, fist)!, wife kill me (hands to neck)!…ha ha ha…they loved it. Better to be happy than be mad…i got away…
the sunset up top was gorgeous.
And the king sized beer only costs 85 cents...

Ray had to leave the next day on business,the same local porter woman showing up right @ 10:30 as per prior arrangement. So i hooked up for a deeper day hike with a some israeli, italian, & english folks(please forgive if i left someone out!). We encountered another group of pink terrorists who led us up a shortcut to VIEVPOINT#1 overlooking a viev called Seven stars accompany the moon. Once up top the trading harrassment began–our standard reply of “Bu yao!” (“i don’t want!) ignored but i was singled out for extra attention, the ladies taunting me with You! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Zhuangxei! Long Hair! & then i recognize this new group as the ladies from yesterday! & i realize that yesterday i was not saying Bu Yao but some variation like Bui yao shawlerrr: not now-tomorrow! And it is now tomorrow! And they are looking at me and my nice profitable group to be led to their village for -who knows…I say “No no zhangxei village, OK?” “OK!OK!” and they follow us down the trail, happy, happy, happy!
My group grows quickly tired of them. I’m thinking they were just on their way back home from yesterdays’ profit taking. Harrassing us just for fun as much as for money. When we get to a pretty clearing overlooking a pond, we stop. They stop. We sit down in protest. They sit down & start eating berries. After a few minutes i’m thinking my friends are gonna blame me for this so i ask if they want them gone. YES. I check my ipod for suitable chinese phrases and stand up. “”Bu hao! (Not Alright!) No long hair! No Zhaungxei! Bu hao!” Smiling faces eating berries. “NO VILLAGE! PICTURES-BU HAO! LONG HAIR-BU HAO!” LAughter…chatter…berries. So…its time for charades. I jump around, gestering: “My friends here (pointing)-NOT HAPPY! (Clown grimace face) Friends (pointing to each one) HATE Me! Long Hair Bu hao! Friends kill me! (Mimic getting knifed in the back repeatedly) No long hair no zhaungxei no pictures no beautiful! Friends(point -grimace)kill(knife)me(point to self)! BU HAO! BU HAO BU HAO! Repeat. My gestering getting wilder as they chatter & laugh (Hey i’ll take ANY audience). Response: “HA HA HA! LONG HAIR!” Smiling-happy-laughing faces. OK, better than before.
We stand up. They stand up. We walk, they walk. We stop, they stop. Laughter. Two of us start running, me shouting run away! run away! And After a minute we seem to have lost them, along with half our group. We reassemble & move on, now the ladies following quietly behind. ok. Truce. Tim makes a crown out leaves to protect himslef from the sun. We enjoy the journey better. After 30 minutes or so we come to a spot overlooking the next valley. The pink ladies chatting, picking berries & offering us some (tasty). One presents me with my own crown of leaves, my poor placement of which is fussed over and corrected. OK- Now its a peace agreement. I wonder to Tim if this might be some sort of The Man Who Would Be King scenario…We move on. it is all spectacularly warm & beautiful.

AT THE VILLAGE: Trailing at the end of the group, i watch as the pink ladies lead the front to their part of the village…i shout: “I’m all for whatever’s next..but whatever it is they’re gonna wanna get paid!”

It was great.
The pink ladies lead...grave...right on the path...in the middle of the rice terracesdan 334.jpgsnuck a pic...saved 5 Yuan!the villageThey sold us cokes and went right to work...dan 343.jpgdan 358.jpgBeastie Boys no...Frank Sinatra yes...its a big shack...pig underneath..smiles up abovetim, his leaf crown, a cow


*HEY KIDS_WANNA WIN A PRIZE***? Click on the COMMENTS button below and submit YOUR guesses as to which 4 countries i’m writing about!

***There is no prize.

Tags:

entering MAINLAND CHINA

November 9th, 2006

(YES THIS POST IS FROM A TIME PERIOD BEFORE THE LAST ONE)..get used to it!

So, after a beautiful & efficient train ride from Hong Kong through the New Territories one arrives at the border. Signs at places say things like “No turning around” and i queued under a sign that says “FOREIGNERS” and there are a few guards but its not so ominous otherwise. Crossing over i followed directions to the bus station…and a new kind of chaos that i encounter everywhere i go.dan 036.jpg Not to mention my first chinese bathroom…Not so bad except for the wetness everywhere, especially the floor. A wall for pissing…No Big Deal. But i had to do other matters to attend to. Which meant entering…short walled booths with no doors in which one crouches over the 10 inch deep, 8 inch wide communal tunnel that runs beneath said booths. As you hold yourself there, trying to maintain balance AND NOT TOUCH ANYTHING ANYWHERE, one can behold the delight that is person behind you’s shit that is slowly working its way down the trench, pushed along by the barest minimum of water necessary…

The sleeper bus is quite fun…in order to make room for an extra row or two, the top third of the body is elevated at 30 degrees or so, more of a recliner really. And one sleeps soundly here-swimming in the pungent dreams that arise from having someone elses socked feet beneath ones head. i slept on and off, the bus departing at night and making its way through three hours of continous cities of factories & apartment towers, this run on sentence giving you an idea what it was like. City gave way to countryside, and i awoke to a burning smell & sure enough we stopped at a roadside repair shop where a kid not older than 15 fixed the truck, at first illuminated by my headlamp until they decided to get an auto lamp from the shop 5 feet away. dan 037.jpgFinally dawn came and i got a better look at China. The drama! The excitement! The concrete! dan 039.jpg
AND NOW…. MY FIRST VIDEO!!!!

Tags: , ,

Xie for the memories…

November 9th, 2006

nirvana...The first word i learned in chinese was xie xie, which means thank you.
Chinese is actually a very simple language. There are no gender words, as in the French Le & La for feminine/masculine. There are no time specific words like Was, Is, or Will be (Which is why many beginning english speakers say things like “Where bathroom?” versus “Where is the bathroom i am about to shit my pants?” The problem is in the pronunciation. Just as Asian people have a difficult time with the letter L, so i have difficult time SPEAKING CHINESE. Apparently for the last weeks i have been saying either SHOE SHOE, SHRIMP SHRIMP, OR SNAKE SNAKE. Which is probably why i had such a good time at the late night massage parlor in Longshen Friday…
GETTING MY FEET WASHED IN TEA!Getting my feet washed in tea!

CHINESE PHRASES I NEED TO LEARN:
No i don’t want to buy that… No i do not want the best pizza in china…No i don’t need a guide…yes 10 Yuan is a good price for beer but it is 10 a.m. & i don’t really feel like getting drunk quite yet.

ALWAYS dan 226.jpgCLICK ON PICS FOR BETTER DETAIL & MORE INFO

Tags: ,

Hong Kong Phoeey!

November 1st, 2006

Hong Kong morning...from Tsim Sha Tsui across the channelMy first hotel room..Hong Kong Airport Wednesday 1:00 a.m.The Tropical View outside my first hotel room in HONG KONG!Tuesday, Oct 24th.
“Orange is no longer my favorite color.”
-Overhead in Gate c-6 waiting area of Sea-Tac airport: a blue haired middle american lady commenting on the current Terror alert level.
No one told me about liquids on airplanes. no one told me that toothpaste, hair gel, shampoo, moisteUrizer, bug juice & callus cream where all part of Osama’s PLOT TO DESTROY AMERICA*
I gladly comply, digging though my backpack, pulling out all the offensive weapons -who needs hair gel? Shampoo? Toothpaste? Not The Toothpaste! “Its more than three ounces sir…” Me: “But Its only half full.” “We have to go by the label sir…” AH..HA! Who needs toothpaste! Away it goes! …& then i feel it. The brand new TWELVE ounce tube of Dr. Zonk’s Wonder Foot Crack Cream. The Sandal savior, the hippie healing balm for calloused rough heels. My heels. My heels which are still healing from a summer in Keen sandals. I take a quick peek up at the uniformed fascist-he is preoccupied with a potential terrorist from Kansas. My hands seem to be rooting around but in reality i am hiding the contraband from our FAA overlords. A few tense minutes as a rudimentary search of my pack is conducted…further sweats as the bag is x-rayed-did its conveyor belt just pause?
But the foot cream slips through…

*Much less successful than George Bush’s

HONG KONG
THE AIRPORT: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW
Sleep at the airport, but steal your airplane blanketfirst…it’s quiet@ night, but chilly.
HONG KONG: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW
Expensive, big, dirty, clean. Worlds longest escalator (& it’s outside), Hearing “Copy watch?” everywhere is Tsim Sha Tsui. Great curry. On Sunday the streets of Wan Chai district fill with THOUSANDS of filipino servant girls for their 1 day off. English signs everywhere-but few English. Great public transport. Buildings buildings buildings.

Wait for the pictures….

Tags:

ADVENTURES IN FOREIGN TERRITORY or Bong Hits with Bro-Bras

November 1st, 2006

Its a Sunday night, 2 days before departure & i am sitting outside Tahoe Underground smoking a joint with 3 typical tahoe snow-bras. They have taken me -dressed well, so very unTahoe to be almost preppy- into their confidences. I text friends with updates of the nights adventures. i awake one with a missbuttoned send, one who has EXPRESSLY stated she is not to be disturbed due to the next days final exam. My exuberance transends all social bounds. i pick a fight with a Bush fan. It fails, no blood is drawn, but it is not a fair fight anyways. He listens to O’Reilly: he is obviously an idiot. Still it was fun to call him Un-Christian. That threw him off. Earlier i took a drunken cab ride with my friend, the musician Dan Fuller, to Turn 3, Tahoe’s finest lowbrow establishment in search of girls. We found none. We harrassed our ex-Vet driver with many questions about his service in ‘Nam, a place he freely shared his distatse for when i mentioned i would be going there. We’re pretty sure he was stoned. Well, he said he’d smoked up, so yes, he was. I hit on girls elsewhere..all of them cute (for i have been drinking rum & cokes constantly), all of them young & this being tahoe bars, most of them dumb (Present local readers accepted of course). I finish the night in a room of which i remember few things: Torn snowboard posters, stolen beer signs & repeated utterings of the word “Dude” -even by me. Bongs are passed, a vaporizer bag is inhaled of, I am truly one with my fellow Bro’s. “Gonna miss some major snow dude!” Yes…yes i am….Thrill!
Danger! Slumming it! If i can do all this then China’s gonna be easy.

Tags:

Your host: clean cut, well dressed & ready…

October 20th, 2006

C’est moi…c'est moi...

In 1939, on the eve of war, the Englishman W.H. Auden wrote these lines:

“I sit in one of the dives
On fifty second street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire . . .”

I am a passionate, only slightly clever man. My belief in some positive striving for our species is matched with an incredulity at our stupidity, a rage at our carelessness. I believe that though i have not offered much personally, i have not taken much either. Indeed, considering the consumptive nature of my upbringing, the trend in my life has been smaller, light, simpler. However, there are the friends who inspired the adventure ahead have also inspired & humbled me with the beautiful simplicity of their own lives.

Of course i still like chicken.*

In a few days i will fly across the Pacific to a HUGE glittering city of many many millions, the economic & pollutive output of which will some day be judged along with the rest of the past decades & the century ahead. We live not in a new time of lies & self deception (for that is a trait our species has & will carry for sometime), but it is a time of tools & methods vastly powerful & quick.

i will be a stranger, their lives not for me to judge.

For, on this trip, it is the walk that matters, not where we are going.

*Yes, it is me writing. Getting a bit serious there, wasn’t it?

Tags: