The U.N. is reporting as many as 100,000 dead and more missing.

International media is reporting that most countries wanting to send aid to Burma, including the U.S., are waiting outside the country in ships, helicopters and planes…waiting for permission from the junta to let them enter. NGO’s insist on distributing the aid themselves but the junta wants it to go through them…of course…and then they’ll snag much of it and take the credit for the rest…not wanting to admit that they can’t handle the catastrophe themselves.

Commercial flights, however, have partially resumed. The web is awash with people in Asia wanting to help. Yesterday a woman posted this:

I am presently talking w/ my colleagues back in Myanmar at the International School Yangon (Rangoon) and they are setting up a fund raising ‘relief’ fund in Singapore that they will be able to access to directly help the people of Myanmar without governmental interference - soon. Most likely I will find out tomorrow, Friday May 9, some more information and will be able to share that with you. Our school is putting together several community service projects to rebuild homes, provide safe water, food and other services. I will post the information as soon as I have it.

A Swiss guy living and working in Rangoon has this to say this afternoon:

“To my knowledge most of the money donated to charity will end up in administration and of the money that actually makes it to Myanmar a huge percentage will end up in the hands of the corrupt Junta. The best thing would be to bring in the money in cash and hook up with a NGO who can distribute it directly to the places where it’s most needed. I was in Bangkok during the disaster but some friends went to buy rice and gave it straight to the people on the street. That’s also a way to do it. I’m going back to Yangon tomorrow with lots of candles and purification tablets.”

A Thai friend and I bought tickets for Rangoon a month ago. Hmmmm.

KL is a big cosmopolitan city vibrant and alive especially late at night. Luk noticed it right away…watching the 20 something girls dressed in the latest Asian fashion. Today she came out of her hotel room sporting a white mini skirt with over the knee black stockings with lace at the top and new black patent shoes.

Populated mainly by Malays, Chinese and Indians and various unidentified others, it’s difficult for me to identiy the ethnic origin of many of the people. Certainly few Thais and other SE Asians. Lots of moderate muslims with hibabs and long dresses but haven’t seen the full-face covers from the middle east that you often see at Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok.

Chinatown pretty ratty. Wide four-lane streets in parts and narrow meandering streets in the rest. The Golden Triangle could be NYC…mall after mall after high-rise mall with expensive stores and restaurants of all kinds. And then there are the Petronius Towers and the Kuala Lumpur Tower…stunningly lit at night. The transportation system is excellent…trains and monorails go to all parts of the city.

We’ve eaten at Mexican and Chinese restaurants, at Malay food stalls, had Turkish coffee and roll-ups and I still want to eat at a Lebanese restaurant next to our hotel…the Sungei Wang Hotel (probably Chinese) on Jalan Bukit Bintang. This morning the breakfast at KFC was pretty bad. Today lunched at Shakey’s Pizza for $4…pretty good. Outback Steakhouse across the street but at 45 ringit (about $15) it’s too expensive for us. Very few clubs. You have to know where they are.

Yesterday we went to a fish acquarium with the longest underwater tank in Asia. Doug and Luk went to see “Iron Man” (they loved it) and today Doug is taking Luk to see her first iMax movie entitled something like T Rex. I declined…

Last night the police herded about 30 young guys into an official police “bus.” For what I don’t know.

The big news in the media here now is a debate about whether women should get permission from their families to travel alone. Can you imagine the snarl this would cause in train stations and airports? And I guess a single woman with no family here would be SOL.

I have a sense there are a fair number of westerners living and working here…walking down the street like they know where they are going…like it many other Asian cities. Some Australian and Brit travelers are hauling backpacks. Why they travel with such big loads is more than I know.

Sitting behind me in the patio, under the mister fans, outside a Starbucks…on Wifi…is a Malay twenty-something. She’s been on MySpace all afternoon.

We’ll take the train all the way to the airport Sunday morning…about 70 km outside the city. Doug will have his Thai visa tucked safely away.

Last week Amy, Josh’s wife, flew down to Samui from Beijing with a colleague from her international school where they teach history. Four short days but it was a treat to see them!

Koh Samui to Trang to Krabi

The day before they left Doug, Luk and I drove to Trang to leave Ting Tong, their dog, in the care of Luk’s mother during our week-long trip to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia to renew Doug’s Thai visa. We had planned on spending the night in Trang before driving over to Krabi International Airport to catch a plane to KL but that was not to be. We checked into the hotel at 11am and was told the rooms would be vacated at noon. Noon came and went and so did 1pm and 2pm. Rooms were supposedly being made up for us. Finally at 2:30, with absolutely no concern being shown by the dour desk clerk, we decided just to drive the 1.5 hrs to Krabi for the night. So much for the land of smiles! Typical foreign “customer service.” But we were not really surprised and quickly let our frustration go. We have had a lot of practice at it!

Driving to Krabi in a monsoon rain, a dog ran out in front of doug’s pick-up. I thought we had hit a rock. Needless to say the rest of the trip was a pretty sober one.

Kuala Lumpur

Now we are in Kuala Lumpur. We checked into the Backpackers Travellers Inn in Chinatown recommended by Lonely Planet and an expat in KL. Wrong! Filthy concrete floors, no top sheet, had to purchase a towel, no soap but for $25 a night, in their generosity, we did have air/con. However with no sheet it got cold during the night and turning off the air/con just meant we got hot again. But the owner/manager was quite the charmer…think he charmed Lonely Planet a bit too much!

The next day, we found a nice hotel for $40 a night…worth every penny. Think the kids on the road are a bit too tolerant of some of these backpacker guesthouses. $25 a night was robbery! Usually a room like this is $5-10.

Thai Immigration

The next morning we took the local train to the Thai embassy…and after a two hour wait Doug was nearly ecstatic to get his Immigration O visa renewed for another year. We have learned to make it easy for the officials. Shove all the documentation you can think of in front of them (some of which could have been rightly questioned) and ask absolutely no questions! You never know what the requirements are in whatever immigration office you are visiting. “Depends,” Doug says, “on what how the local office interprets the myriad of rules, on what they think of you, what their mood is and whether they got laid the night before” Told Doug shame on him. But don’t think it’s too far from the truth.

One very angry farang, married to a Thai but living and working in Malaysia just wanted to get a Thai tourist visa to visit his wife’s relatives. It is required that he have a letter from his boss verifying his employment. But I am the boss, he said. I own my own company! Didn’t fit the rules. They refused to give him his visa. An older Malaysian gentleman spent quite some time at the window arguing with a young female officer. I told Doug to try to get the the guy at the next window who was whipping them through. Suspect that if you try to argue you are doomed.

Burma

While waiting for Doug, I had a great conversation with a young guy from Burma (Myanmar he calls it…I said we foreigners refuse to use the names changed by the junta). We lamented the damage to southern Burma by the cyclone that has killed more than 20,000 people and knocked out electricity and basic services like the food supply. A Thai friend and I have plane tickets to fly to Rangoon on May 19 for a week but think that trip is not to be. Probably can’t get a visa now. Internet is down and I can’t get ahold of my guesthouse. Travel web sites are awash with friends trying to get information about friends traveling in Burma. Pictures of Rangoon that looked like they had been taken from a plane on a Malaysian TV news program this morning showed widespread devastation.

A report by a young woman living in Rangoon found on the net:

“Hello everyone: I am finally in Bangkok after a Iloooooooong try to get out of Yangon. The cyclone was horrible, I felt guilty leaving all of my friends who have so much to deal w/ roofs off or w/ huge holes, windows gone or broken, cave-ins, tropical trees laying around on tops of houses, our school, roads and everywhere. yangon will never look the same…

The local people have no expectation of governmental help - they are used to a lifestyle that deals w/ daily challenges unsupported by the use of machinery nor having an expectation that their govt. will come to supply aide. they do not have one ‘iota’ of the services ‘we expect’ in the states. I only saw govt. people working close to the airport areas on Sunday and Monday when I was trying to find out about the airport traffic. its been a huge community effort to clear things up. people from all social economic levels were out sawing trees, clearing dibree and offering a helping hand. There were a few chain saws about, but very few.

The worse is yet to come. Our school will be closing due to lack of fuel and fresh water available for people. There are many unknowns - the last stat I heard about death toll was over 15,000 - there is no way of knowing the numbers. I pray for these peaceful people. Going there without support of an NGO or other agency to help would be foolish. Be careful!

Am beginning to wonder what is going on here…student demonstrations in Istanbul, tsunami in Thailand, military coup in Thailand, bloody 7 month teacher strike in Oaxaca, freezing cold among stranded travellers in freak storm in China…now Burma. Better get the hell home before the monsoons start in Thailand…assuming nothing will happen again for the next few months in the NW. Last year 8 tourists were washed away in Koh Samui. So glad Doug has his pick-up now.

U.S. Customs

Meanwhile in the US of A Bob returned to Salem via LA and Las Vegas. Said he was “detained by customs in LA who were certain that they had apprehended the kingpin of child porn. Went thru everything including a half hour search of the nooks and crannies of my computer. Subsequently I missed my Las Vegas connection and had to spend the night in the LA airport sweet place between 2 and 4 a.m. Complained at the custom’s office but was patronized. Will write a few letters as they were abusive and caustic and played ‘big cop.’ A little scary re the potential of what the government can do in the name of national security…..”

The AP wire service today released an article:

“Interpol launched a worldwide appeal to the public Tuesday to help identify a man suspected of sexually abusing young boys from Southeast Asia - hoping the rare move will lead to a quick arrest. The suspect in the latest case is a white man, shown with gray, thinning hair in photos released by Interpol. He appeared to be in his late 40s or early 50s in the images.”

No wonder Bob was detained! Told him not to go through LA but what do I know…

Actually this has happened to Doug three times. Fitting the drug “profile” with only a small backpack and a frequent traveller back and forth from SE Asia to the U.S., he was very rudely harrassed in the PDX airport by customs for over an hour. He refuses to travel with his computer anymore.

Free WiFi

Doug and Luk have gone to the Thai immigration office again today to pick up Doug’s passport. This city is totally wired with free WiFi everywhere. Now I am ensconsed in the Golden Triangle in the BB Plaza in front of a shopping mall and coffee shop where I can pick up free WiFi and even plug in the computer for a limitless power supply and watch this diverse Malaysian city meander by. I am set! Glad to know I am not the only one who can sit for hours with my computer though. An Australian woman sitting behind me just got up to leave. It is 11pm. We sat down at 5.

Oaxaca’s Radio Wars
By Charles Mostoller
Despite assassinations, community radio is spreading throughout southern Mexico. “Some people think that we are too young to be informed, but what they should know is that we are too young to die.”

These were the fateful words of Felicitas Martinez Sanchez and Teresa Bautista Merino, two indigenous Triqui radio broadcasters who were assassinated in southern Oaxaca on April 7th.

The two girls, aged 20 and 24, had worked for the recently inaugurated Radio Triqui, “The Voice that Breaks the Silence”, in the autonomous Triqui municipality of San Juan Copala. Read the rest of this entry »

An excellent site in English for people wanting to understand China is “The China Beat…Blogging How The East Is Read.”

One of the writers is Peter Hessler Peter Hessler (b. June 14, 1968) who is an American writer and journalist. He is currently the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker and a contributor to National Geographic. He has previously written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, and other American newspapers and magazines. He is best known for his two books on China: River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (2001), a Kiriyama Prize-winning book about his experiences in two years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in China, and Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present (2006), a collection of journalistic stories he wrote living in Beijing. His stories are about ordinary people’s lives in China and are not politically themed.

In 1996, he joined the Peace Corps and spent the next two years teaching English at a local college in Fuling, China. Since 1999, he has lived in Beijing as a freelance writer.

Found some trivia in a Bootsnall article:

Portland, Oregon, where it rarely snows, is about 130 miles further north than Toronto, and over 200 miles further north than Boston.

The entire country of England, with over 50 million residents, is a wee bit smaller than the state of Louisiana.

If you combine England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, then together they are a bit smaller than the deceivingly large state of Michigan.

France is about 30% larger than the state of California.

Crescent City, California is about 15 miles south of the Oregon border, but it’s about 10 miles further north than Newport, Rhode Island. In other words, you can still be in California and be further north than coastal Rhode Island.

Madrid, with summers so blazing hot that most people take a long break from work every afternoon, is about 10 miles further north than Salt Lake City, Utah.

About two-thirds of Africa is in the Northern Hemisphere.

Rome, which is located in the center of Italy, is located at the exact same latitude as Chicago.

Tehran, Iran, with its scorching summers, is located on the exact same latitude as relatively mild Tokyo, Japan.

About 90% of the world’s population lives in the Northern Hemisphere.

If you are trying to get a handle on the climate of India it helps to know its northern border is the same as the northern border of Mexico in Tijuana, and the southern border is about the same as the southern border of Panama.

Sunny and just-barely-tropical Rio de Janeiro is about 25 miles further from the equator than Hong Kong.

Scientists recently discovered that Florida and Hudson Bay in Canada are getting about 1 inch closer every 36 years.

New York Times Article

By SHAILA DEWAN

Published: April 29, 2008

LOS ANGELES — When the time came for the smiling Tibetan monk at the front of the University of Southern California lecture hall to answer questions, the Chinese students who packed the audience for the talk last Tuesday had plenty to lob at their guest:

…….

As the monk tried to rebut the students, they grew more hostile. They brandished photographs and statistics to support their claims. “Stop lying! Stop lying!” one young man said. A plastic bottle of water hit the wall behind the monk, and campus police officers hustled the person who threw it out of the room.

Scenes like this, ranging from civil to aggressive, have played out at colleges across the country over the past month, as Chinese students in the United States have been forced to confront an image of their homeland that they neither recognize nor appreciate. Since the riots last month in Tibet, the disrupted Olympic torch relays and calls to boycott the opening ceremony of the Games in Beijing, Chinese students, traditionally silent on political issues, have begun to lash out at what they perceive as a pervasive anti-Chinese bias.

Last year, there were more than 42,000 students from mainland China studying in the United States, an increase from fewer than 20,000 in 2003, according to the State Department.

……..

As the U.S.C. session wound to a close, the organizer, Lisa Leeman, a documentary film instructor, pleaded for a change in tone. “My hope for this event, which I don’t totally see happening here, is for people on both, quote, sides to really hear each other and maybe learn from each other,” Ms. Leeman said. “Are there any genuine questions that don’t stem from a political point of view, that are really not here to be on a soap box?”

At that moment, the bottle hit the wall

Read the full article here.

This is an interesting post in response to the Australian who described his experience in Canberra with the passing of the torch (read below.) This writer was born in China and has lived in China, Mexico and now France. She is well educated and speaks several languages.

After our discussion, I checked several big forums and found that almost all internet surfers are proud and encouraged by the passage [of the torch] in Australia. And Chinese who had taken part in the passage in Canberra (includes some of my friends who live in Aus) felt honorable. Today I read also some news about the torch in Korea. I just have no words and am really worry about the nationalist state [of mind] of many Chinese!

To explain the difference of Chinese value to the west is a bit long and complicated I think. I try to give you some examples. Chinese [were] educated by Confucion thoughts since more than 2500 years which [are] totally different from the west thought - freedom, equality, personally value, etc. For example, [the word] “Country” in Chinese is “Guo (state) Jia (family). Chinese also used to compare country as mother. That means for Chinese there first have country then family, the country’s (mother’s) interest is much more important than self interest. People could even forget or modify their own interest to adapt [to] the group or the country. For Chinese, though mother (country) has many faults, this has to be keeping [kept] inside. That means this is a family case, the others should better not criticize on.

Since last later of the 19’s century, china invaded by west countries and had been in a chaos. That’s the reason why when PRC was founded; china stopped almost all communications with the world. Later 70’s, Chinese understood that they have to reopen the country to make up for lost time, then Chinese try to learn as much as possible on other developed (democracy) countries. So there is a kind of complex feeling on Chinese, as I said in my last posting when we talked about the Tibet issue, which confused by pride, inferiority, curiosity and fear.

I have awareness about the problems, but I don’t think it works to simply complain and support one side. That’s why I suggested “less critical” and tried to explain about China and Chinese. Personally I feel there have big inner difference between two values. There are a lot problems in China, some can be treated and changed by exterior influence, some have to be changed from inside. Such as Tibet issue or any other human rights, culture reserve etc. This is just like a person who has many problems, people around him can give him suggestions but finally it’s himself who have to recognize and to change. If we criticize too much on him and forced him to follow our ideas, he would never listen and accept at all. Things would turn contrary as we would like to see. This just identifies the recent reactions from Chinese, no? Combined [with] the bad experience in the past, Chinese people feel one more time the “west control” on China and then the nationalism comes back more than ever this time. This is very dangerous and worries me a lot.

member of couchsurfing.com

Had a great conversation with a German guy in his 40’s the other night. Culture, politics, language, heritage…then I told him my maternal grandparents were from Poland. “When, did they immigrate…after WWII” he asked. No, they immigrated to the US through Ellis Island in 1892, I replied. Told him that the Germans wanted to conscript the boys into the army and force students to learn German in the schools. The main idea of the government was to “Germanize” the Polish community and education was one of the means used. So my great grandfather said…ok we’re out of here. They sold their land in the Prussian sector of “Poland” near Olstyn and sailed to America. I asked him what he knew about what was happening at that time. He said he had no idea. I thought this was odd. Even we in the states know what happened 200 years ago. But ill-feeling would be slow to die. Polish was my mother’s first language and in Montana, living on the family homestead, she used to say that the Germans in school would make fun of her.

The fact is that Poland did not exist as a country for about 120 years…from the late 1700’s until after WWI. Not having defensible borders, Poland was taken over by one country after another. But if you asked my ggg grandfather where he was born he would have said “Poland!”

Then, the next night, on a German TV channel that switches every 90 minutes from German to English, I watched a program describing an educational project. The Germans are rewriting the history books that are used in schools. Turns out there is much written about WWII…but nearly nothing about the history of Germany vis a vis Poland. To illustrate the point both German and Polish students were interviewed. The German students were shocked to find out their own history. The Polish students said they wanted the Germans to know what they did to the Poles.

Then my friend got up to leave. Over his shoulder he said, “when you go home say hi to that asshole Bush for me!”

I have been following a thread on a discussion forum on Couchsurfing.com about the Olympic Torch Relay in Australia. An Australian fellow who was among the Tibetan supporters wrote the following posts in response to what he experienced that day. Some of it is repetitious because he is responding to some others who are defending China, primarily a French girl living in Britain who felt that China should not be censored because the people there have not had much experience with protest movements. In the interest of space I am not reprinting her comments here… most of which were in marginal English and it was very difficult to tell what she was intending to say…which was part of the problem with the exchange. My intention, however, was just to reprint his description of what happened…not to argue the pros and cons of it.

However, that said, it is my opinion that the fired-up students were probably sent in to provoke the Tibetan demonstrators so China could capitalize on the unrest. I saw this repeatedly in Oaxaca Mexico during a peaceful teacher strike that was joined by many civil organizations. “Students” (called “porros”) were paid by the government to infiltrate the strike, provoke disturbances, and then the teachers would get blamed. The teachers never knew who was who during the marches when they were joined by several thousand supporters. We also saw it during the protests against the Viet Nam war. Sounds like China is getting the idea…it just needs to learn not to be so obvious.

“Today brought shame on China in Australia.
at least 20,000 young Chinese students were transported to Canberra in time for the Olymplic torch relay. These representatives of “modern” China proceeded to scream down any pro-Tibet supporters, physically and verbally abusing anyone that passed. I was personally assaulted as I attempted to help a pro-Tibet protesters. They surrounded us, at least 50-100 of them, screamed slogans and hit us with their flagpoles. When I escaped, they chased me up the hill abusing me and grabbing my flag from my hands. Many others were assaulted. Flags stolen. Children screamed at. This is what China brought to the Australian Capital today. Shame on China, Shame.

……

This has everything to do with freedom of speech. When I walked into the crowd at the finale event yesterday, an Australian wearing a Free Tibet t-shirt was speaking to a reporter. Immediately hundreds of young Chinese dressed in uniform t-shirts printed by the Chinese embassy, surrounded him and the reporter screaming slogans and calling him a liar (they hadn’t actually heard anything he said). I tried to get through the crowd to assist. When I tried to speak to them I could not be heard over the deafening screams of the crowd. They began to hit us on the head with flagpoles and I feared for my safety.

Later on, when a newspaper journalist was taking photos of us, young Chinese surrounded us and the journalists. They stood in front of the camera to prevent them from taking photos, they screamed at the journalists and chased us down the hill. We could not go anywhere, so we had to wait until they calmed down.

Earlier in the day we held a banner in English and Chinese, appealing the government to talk to the Dalai Lama. The Chinese covered our banner with their own flags. During the day whenever we flew Tibetan flags, they brought bigger Chinese flags to fly in front of them.

…….

Throughout the day we never engaged in any such activity. This has everything to do with freedom of speech, and the lack of respect that these people had for that right here in Australia. It was a disgusting display. One that I hope will never, ever be repeated.

I live in a country where we value truth and the right to free speech. I will not ignore what happened to me and my friends yesterday.

If you are worried about “critical” visions of China, perhaps the Chinese should stop creating so many “visions” to be critical of!

It was not the Tibetans, or the “westerners” that created yesterday’s riot, it was the young Chinese, who had been bussed in and let loose on our streets by the Chinese embassy. They paid for the students transport, accomodation and uniforms for the day, and then allowed to create riots in the streets of Canberra.

…….

I am not aware of news from overseas, but I can relate my experience here yesterday. A personal friend of mine who attempted to write a balanced journalistic piece yesterday approached people from both sides, pro-Tibet and pro-China. Many of the Chinese refused to talk to her, some even yelling at her for having spoken to the pro-Tibetans. The ones that she did speak to did not seem to be aware of the issues that the pro-Tibet demonstrators were raising. All they knew was that they had been given free travel and accomodation in Canberra for the day, and given Chinese flags to wave for the cameras. With this kind of behaviour, what do you expect the media to report?

…….

If you had been there yesterday you could perhaps better understand my point. In Australia, the media is allowed to speak to whomever they wish and do that in a peaceful environment. The Chinese gangs actively disrupted interviews by blocking photographers, shouting and intimidating them and threatening those that dared to speak to pro-Tibet demonstrators. Yesterday my right to freedom of speech was infringed. And despite what spin anyone wants to put on it, I find that outrageous in this country.

……..

I think the image of China has been hurt here in Australia in the last couple of days. Some newspapers have printed photos of the Chinese students behaving as animals, and last night a TV Current Affairs programme showed the footage of me being surrounded and beaten with flagpoles…I really worry about the feeling that Chinese are creating for themselves amongst Australians.

The media saw how organised their demonstration was by the Chinese embassy and feel that things may be out of control. When the event closed and the national anthem was sung, there was silence in the audience, because they were all Chinese students waving Red flags and no-one knew the words!

…….

On Thursday in Canberra the Tibetan community organised an entirely peaceful demonstration as the torch passed through our city. This was in the face of extreme provocation, as we had roving bands of Chinese students accosting us all day encouraging us to fight with them. This went as far as hurling insults and making provocative gestures while holding a camera, hoping to provoke a response that could be caught and displayed as evidence of Tibetan extremism. Chinese people encouraged their children to hit pro-Tibet people in order to provoke ugly scenes.

To me the Tibetan community did themselves extremely proud on Thursday, it was something that reminds me of Gandhi’s policy of ahimsa (in the face of extreme violence, non-violence will expose the motives of the oppressors). And that is what happened.

Then I wrote to the Australian:

I can’t help but think there is a backstory to what happened to you…and why it happened in Australia.

About 2-3 years ago, a young Chinese guy held a press conference in Australia asking for asylum. He said he and other young Chinese had been sent by the Chinese government to spy on Chinese people living overseas. But while there he realized that what he was doing was wrong and damaging the lives of others so he went to the press to tell his story. The Australian govt refused asylum because of course they are trying to develop trade etc with China. Then the guy asked the U.S for asylum and was refused. Then he turned to Australia again. I haven’t heard what happened since then. Do you know what has happened to him? He was desperate to not be extradited back to China because he said he would surely be imprisoned and tortured or killed.

What are your thoughts about this?

His response:
That man was Chen Yonglin, I have met him personally. He was eventually granted asylum in Australia. In fact he was arrested at the protests yesterday. Yes he spoke about his job at the Chinese consulate before he defected. He was in charge of coordinating Chinese expatriots to spy on the activities of Chinese dissidents and Tibet activists in Australia. They collected information on people like me who was volunteering with Tibet Support Group. There is quite a disturbing history of Chinese intervention in Australia, including bashings of Tibetans going back to the 1970’s, harrassment, including a friend of mine who had his house broken into and his computer violated.

Yesterday, however, showed the ugly side of Chinese ultra-nationalism. People were prepared to run riot in an Australian city, abusing media representatives and innocent bystanders in addition to the activists.

It was a really scary scenario and it really shows up the hypocracy… they (China) are criticising what happened in previous torch relay legs (and then they do this to try to further discredit the Tibetan demonstrators.”)

Found a great thread on a Bootsnall Forum so I picked out the ones I could relate to and added some of my own.

You know you are a traveller when:

you spell traveller with two l’s. (Every other English speaker in the world uses the British spelling.)

you know what a “gap year” is. (Year between uni (university) and career in Britain, Australia and New Zealand.)

you smile silly to strangers back home and want to know where they come from

you rehearse what to say before going into the post office at home, then realize that they speak English there

you actually don’t mind Nescafe coffee anymore

your friends email, and the opening line is, “Where are you now?”

you are home from Mexico long enough to remember you can put the toilet paper in the toilet…and then you go to Asia…

going into a McDonalds means a clean bathroom and a sit-down toilet

you carry toilet paper with you at all times no matter where you are.

you have “toilet money” in your pocket just in case.

You’ve mastered ‘the squat’ and the bucket of cold water in the bathroom

the idea of a bathroom in your own private room makes you feel like you’re in the lap of luxury.

you prefer to crash on somebody’s floor or stay in a Motel 6 even if you could stay in a 15 star hotel because that’s “just not you.”

you feel guilty about 3 quick showers a day in 95 percent humidity in Asia when all you hear on the TV is news about the lack of food and water all over the world

someone asks what your favorite country is and your mind goes blank.

your conversations with friends include “when i was in…” or “oh yeah, that happened to me in……” and then the veil comes down over the eyes.

You have to fight the urge to say ‘Sawadee Kap’, or ‘Gracias’ to store clerks when you’re back home.

your backpack never quite seems to make it back into the closet

you wake up in the morning and have to remember where you are

you think a packaged tour is not travelling!

processed cheese and crackers from 7-11 sounds like a great meal especially after two months in China

you feel at home everywhere… but you feel like an alien in your own town

you catch yourself flipping your underwear inside out because you have run out of clean clothes

you can’t figure out how much something really costs without thinking about the exchange rate

you can’t figure out which way to look when you cross the street

you walk in the street at home forgetting you don’t have to watch out for the cracks, holes, telephone poles, phone booths, hanging electric wires or motorcycles on the sidewalks

you are at a party where people are listing off their accomplishments and you’re mentally listing off viruses you’ve survived, cities you’ve gotten lost in, and families you’ve lived with

a hotel (or hostel) room over 20 dollars makes you wince

When you have over US$200 in four different currencies in your wallet and you can’t even buy a coke during a seven hour layover in London’s Luton airport.

you have been listening to non-native English speakers speak marginal English for so long that you start making the same sentence structure errors and then return home and can’t switch back…”what we do today?” or “where you go?”

going days at a time with out hearing English spoken and you begin to forget English words

you return home and remember your life is not on the line anymore in taxis, tuk tuks, sangtaews , trucks, minivans with crazy drivers.

but you return home and driving a car yourself seems terrifying

you won’t eat Uncle Ben’s rice because it doesn’t stick together.

You have more guidebooks than pairs of pants.

You go to a chain restaurant at home and you still feel like a sell-out for not finding a good local place to eat.

you tell someone where you are going next and their response is, “are you nuts?” And you take this as confirmation of a well-made destination choice.

you hear the word “visa” and you don’t even think about credit cards.

your “home” is occupied by people other than you and all your worldy possessions fit into your spare room

you hear people back home tell you that they just spent 45 dollars on getting their nails done and all you can think of is how many nights in a South American hostel that could get you

you find it normal to go out alone

you can’t understand why everybody isn’t travelling

TV news at home is frustrating because of the lack of global input.

you come home from a long journey and people ask “Were you able to find yourself?” And you say, “Yeah, and I think I left it there. I need to go back.”

you eschew shiny new luggage with wheels in favor of your ten-year-old pack which carries the scuffs and dirt of three continents and which you have lovingly repaired by hand.

You look at the clock and think, ‘In Kathmandu, it’s midnight’.

you can finally understand all other English accents…Oz, Kiwi, British, Singapore etc.

you stumble off your flight to the airport McDonalds, and the value meal is the most expensive meal you’ve had in weeks

buying a full-sized bottle of shampoo/toothpaste/etc feels like a “long-term investment.”

you forget you don’t have to brush your teeth using bottled water.

It no longer makes any difference to your body when you wake up or when you go to bed

you know what time is being referred to when the ticket reads “2330″

you spend X amount of money on something (like $550 to fix your air conditioner, let’s say) and think, “Aw man, that’s enough money for a plane ticket to ___________”

you use web sites like Bootsnall, couchsurfing and rideshare and when you explain these to friends they think you are completely nuts to be meeting up with, staying with and driving with complete strangers that you talk to over the internet.

half your backpack is full of your computer, plug-ins, converters, cameras and video tapes and you only have room for two pairs of pants, three t-shirts and your toothbrush.

you hear people talk about how hard and expensive it is to travel and you think “huh?”

you feel like having a T-shirt made that says in six languages “I didn’t vote for Bush”

If anyone can think of any others it would be great if you wrote them in the “comments” section.

‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax –
Of cabbages — and kings –
And why the sea is boiling hot –
And whether pigs have wings

Young and old revelers hanging off of pickups and sangtaews fling plastic pans of water from a garbage can at the traffic going in the opposite direction. Small children aim at cars and pedestrians alike from the sidewalks. Anyone brave enough to venture into the streets end up drenched many times over…no matter who you are.

But it’s a good thing! Sanuk! Fun! Often motorcyclists and pickups actually pull over and stop to get their blessed cleaning…and a dousing of white talcum powder for good luck from the splashers. The most fun, however, is surprising an unsuspecting target looking the other way.

On April 13th to15 Thailand took a bath…celebrating the lunar New Year…washing away all the events and sins of the past year. Called Sangkran, this is the one time of the year when the normally reserved Thais can release all their frustrations in one big splash. Buddha images are “bathed” and monks and elders receive the respect of younger Thais through the sprinkling of water over their hands…traditionally speaking anyway.

Doug’s wife Luk was not about to miss the fun this year…talking Doug into driving her and her friends in the back of his newly acquired pick-up through the streets of Lamai and Chaweng. But first stop was the 7-ll to get ice for the garbage can full of normally tepid water. Doug and I could hear peels of laughter in the back as Luk and her friends watched the unsuspecting react to the shock of cold water.

But after a few hours of this Doug got tired of dodging traffic so we pulled over and joined a couple young Finns and members of an original Samui family on the side of the road who were watching the scene pass by over drinks and snacks laid out on a metal table. It was great fun pulling a double whammy on the passers-by in coordination with the splashers on the opposite side of the road.

Two years ago I experienced my first Sangkran in both Vientiane Laos and Bangkok Thailand while traveling with an Australian friend. I must admit, however, that you can get pretty tired of it by the end of it all. And it’s difficult filming all this while keeping your camera safe at the same time. If being “bathed” means what it means here we are starting out the new year as innocent as new born babes.

I arrived on Samui, an island in the south of Thailand, from Bangkok on tuesday. Doug, my son and his Thai wife Luk found me a lovely quiet hotel with a pool right in the middle of Lamai but back off the street. Of course there was a method to their madness…Luk loves the pool but last night, she hit the bottom and chipped a tooth. She’ll have it fixed in Trang, where she is from, when we take Ting Tong (their Shamitzu) to stay with her mother while we all go to Kuala Lumpur next month. Prices much lower in Trang.

Bought an internet card at the IT Internet Complex up on the ring road so now if I walk up to the 2nd floor veranda of the hotel I can get WiFi reception on my computer. There is WiFi access over much of the island now.

Hard to believe how much Samui has developed since I was here two years ago. And the government has recently eased up on foreign investment after having previously clamped down. But a welcome change from noisy smoggy Bangkok. Blue sky…blue water…eye candy.

One of the most popular tourist attractions on Samui: Grandfather and Grandmother Rocks.

The price of rice has sky-rocketed in Thailand to such a degree that gangs have taken to raiding farmers’ rice fields. Some farmers have taken to sleeping in the fields to guard against thefts. One economic advisor on CNN Asia has called it a “rice tsunami.” He went on to say that this has been coming on for some time but people chose to ignore the signs…land crunch…draught…and other factors that are world-wide. And even though there is a draught in the north, local officials in Chiang Mai have decided to release more water from the dams to accommodate revelers during Sangkran next week (the water festival) much to the dismay of the farmers. More on the significance of Sangkran (cleansing ceremony) to the Thais later when I report on being drenched by water with buckets, water guns and hoses…some of it ice water provided by the bars! It’s the hot season so you can imagine how a sudden douse of ice water feels on a hot sweaty body!

Tonight I went out to the street and bought my dinner which I brought back to my room to eat. First, a Papaya Salad with only one little red chili and it’s still hot! 80 cents. The two sticks with small pieces of what we would call pork bacon cooked over coals. 30 cents. Then on to another cart with steamed hot corn which she cut off the ears for me and bagged. 30 cents. Then around the corner to a soup cart where he bagged up delicious hot broth in one bag, my choice of noodles with bits of chicken and leafy green vegetables in another bag, a little bag of chili vinegar and another little bag of chili. 25 cents. For dessert a huge mango for 40 cents. These are Bangkok prices however food prices are going up all over now. On Koh Samui where my son Doug lives, this food would would have been less…except for the soup.  In the countryside even less.

This is enough food for two people. The soup filled up my bowl twice. I will save my papaya salad and mango for breakfast.

Another cost: 11 plastic bags not counting the two little ones with spices.

Last night I opted for a foot massage at a place where the strong Isan masseuses from NE Thailand are trained at Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha). Dating from the 16th century, this monastery in Bangkok began as an open university and is still the national headquarters for the teaching and preservation of traditional Thai medicine including Thai massage.

While zoning out in my reclining lounger, an older American couple walked in. Happens that although they are living in Singapore…he still working for Caterpiller Tractors…they are waiting to retire near Klamath Falls Oregon…the city of my birth and where I went to high school!

You hardly find a mention of Soi 22, where I usually stay in Bangkok, in the travel guides. Interesting. Not anything here for sightseers really. But good if you live here long term.

The well-dressed tourists in the high end hotels and serviced apartments here must just head off in a taxi because you don’t often see them on the street. The men in the high end hotels are mainly businessmen…many of them Korean or Japanese. Most of the farang (westerners) that live around here and are married to Thais or farangs. Some of them have lived and worked here for 30 years and just retire here. Hardly ever see female farang tourists by themselves, although on this trip I did meet a young Frenchwoman who missed her flight on a layover and was stranded. So here I am with the “boys” and the Thais.

I’m staying in a lovely refurbished room above the Bourbon St. Bar and Restaurant, a family restaurant owned by an American…in Washington Square…behind the Mambo Cabaret.

The guesthouse is small and they keep good track of me. If you stay a month they give you 25% off the room rate so I am paying 1000 baht (about $31) a night with free breakfast. Most of the people frequenting the restaurant are the male guests upstairs who are here on business (I’m the only woman) or farangs and Thais who live around here. The restaurant serves great Thai and western food including a whole menu of Canjun, Creole and BBQ dishes. Last night I splurged on one-half kilo of the biggest crawfish I’ve ever see.

However, when I was looking for an inexpensive room for Doug and Luk, I found several in the small sub-sois off soi 22. Som’s Guesthouse has nice rooms with free WiFi, free breakfast and air/con. Then there’s House By The Pond…both well under 1000 baht ($31) a night.

There is one short stretch on one side of Soi 22 with lady bars but the rest of the street is crammed full of street food vendors, great little Thai (including Northern style) air con restaurants with very reasonable prices, various western restaurants and legit Thai massage places (1 hr for about $10) mixed in with high end hotels, serviced apartments and condos. I used to stay at the Admiral Serviced Apartments or the Bally Serviced Apartments, both owned by an Indian family, but they are now out of my price range. The Queen’s Park Hotel, with mostly Korean and Japanese businessmen attending a conference (often with their families along) on an expense account is out of the question. Further down 22 is a private Thai secondary school…vendors with snacks waiting for the uniformed kids taking taxis or tuk tuks home after school.

Behind the Queen’s Park Hotel, between the QP and Sukhumvit Rd., next to the Emporium, is Benjasiri Park built in 1992 to celebrate the Queen’s 60^th birthday. Here in the early mornings and in the evenings you can watch Asians and a few westerners doing Tai Chi and other exotic exercises to music. It is a wooded peaceful place that belies the frantic traffic just over the fence on Sukhumvit Road. Through the park, almost behind the Emporium, is the World Fellowship of Buddhists Center in a lovely Thai style building.

There is a neighborhood feel here and some of the lady vendors remembered me from two years ago! The lady who serves Khao Soy, a northern specialty soup, welcomed me back the first day. Incidently, I did notice that she used to use bits of beef but the soup now seems to have mostly beef parts suggesting that the effects of inflation has hit the street. At my first visit this time to an almost hidden sushi restaurant (set dinner of 8 pieces of sushi with big bowl of saba soup for $4) tucked behind the Admiral Apartments, the Thai waiter greeted me with open arms…remembering me from previous visits…showing off his two little girls who were at work with their father. And it’s been two years since I’ve been here!

From Sukhumvit Rd., at the end of Soi 22, turning left at the dead end, the street becomes soi 24 where my dentist is and more high end hotels like the President Park and the Davis, restaurants, a Starbucks and a Tops Market. Soi 24 is probably the most expensive soi off Suk. Rd. I usually take a motorcycle taxi to my dentist for 20 baht…about 60 cents. Two years ago I paid 10 baht. Inflation. By law the cyclist has to wear a helmet. Heck with the rider.

And then there’s the Emporium vertical mall at the top of Suk 24 on Sukhumvit Rd. for shopping. Two English language bookstores are on the 3rd floor. The 5th floor is full of Thai food stalls, a great cheap Thai Food Court with every kind of Thai food you can think of, an upscale food market with things like peanut butter and maple syrup or bread, bologna, mayonaise and mustard for sandwiches, ethnic (Italian, Chinese, Japanese etc) restaurants, a Starbucks, a bakery, pharmacy etc etc. On the Sixth floor is a plush movie theater with more western movies in English than other Thai malls. The infrastructure around here definitely caters to Westerners…a welcome respite for people living here or staying long term…after braving the hot noisy city.

Up on the corner of Sukhumvit Rd. is a great Irish Pub with Irish fare like Sherpherd’s Pie and is filled mostly in the late afternoons with Western businessmen on their way home after work. Down Sukhumvit toward the Emporium is a great 2111 Pizza delivery place.

Further down Sukhumvit is an English language used book store. The Dasa Book Café opened in Bangkok in 2004 and boasts a stock of 10,000 secondhand books, both paperback and hardcover, on two floors of a shop on Sukhumvit Road between Suk 26 and 28 about a 5-minute walk from the Emporium Shopping Center. Dasa will pay cash for those used books you have been lugging around or accept titles for trade credit. Customers can also enjoy a downstairs coffee shop which, in addition to fresh brewed coffee and tea, also sells homemade cakes and cookies. Dasa Book Cafe has also begun a book club and all are welcome to participate. All books are kept on the store database, which can be downloaded online at: www.dasabookcafe.com.

If you risk your life to run across Sukhumvit Rd. to the other side you will find similar sois with similar neighborhoods.

To go to the Bumrungrad Hospital where I have all my medical care done, I get on the BTS Phrom Phong stop at the Emporium Mall and zip down Sukhumvit in the elevated air conditioned sky train to the Phloen Chit stop, cross an expressway and take a motorcylcle taxi for 10 baht which takes me into the back of the hospital. I could get off at the Nana exit and wait for the hospital van to pick me up but the street is frantic with vendors and pedestrians and in the heat I just want to get into the air-con hospital. Besides I don’t like the whole Nana area full of sight-seeing tourists and young guys on the prowl. There is a big Indian and Muslim population here so this is the place to come for Indian and Muslim food although these kinds of restaurants are in my neighborhood too.

When I come back to Bangkok however, I think I’ll pick another neighborhood to stay in…and get to know. At the Ari sky train stop the leafy neighborhoods are full of single old style Thai houses with large and small condos mixed in…and a Mac store in an upscale plaza!

Bangkok and New York…two of the most diverse cities in the world…two of my favorite. Guess growing up on a sheep ranch in southern Oregon cured me of the isolated life.

Why am I suddenly posting so much? I’m avoiding the heat. And April is the hottest month of the year.

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, who took over after Thaksin Shinawatra, the former PM, was ousted by a military coup after charges of corruption, claimed yesterday that he is being threatened by yet another coup…the result no doubt of political infighting. The military has promised there will not be another coup.

I was in Chiang Mai during the massive rallies in Bangkok. The bloodless coup finally took place while Thaksin was at a UN meeting in New York on September 19 2006 when I was already watching marches by striking teachers in Oaxaca. Thaksin was then exiled to London. But he returned to Thailand a few weeks ago and Thai political watchers are wondering what deals were struck even though Thaksin says he is finished with politics. No one believes it.

In the meantime the opposition to Thaksin has been mysteriously quiet. We have been waiting to see what will happen. Yesterday, the opposition party, PAD (People’s Alliance for Democracy), held a political forum at Thammasat University with several thousand attendees, while outside, Thaksin’s supporters held a demonstration.

But Thaksin still has friends in the government. The PAD has vowed it will stage massive rallies if the government moves to amend the constitution which they believe would protect Thaksin’s buddies…and Thaksin himself who is still facing corruption charges.

From a university student demonstration in Istanbul in the 90’s to win the right for women to wear jibabs, to the tsunami in Thailand when I was in Bangkok in December 2004 and from which my son and his wife barely escaped with their lives in Krabi, to unrest in Thailand before the coup, to a subway strike in New York City when we were living in Brooklyn, to a 7-month bloody rebellion in Oaxaca while I was living there, to immigration rallies in my my home state of Oregon, I wonder what I will next be witness to.