Home Again

Back home again – everything seems vaguely 2 dimensional; slightly drained of color – a familiar song being played through a cement wall. I feel like i’ve been away for a year, but my roommate was surprised to see me and said it seemed like i was only gone for a week. The disparity of time and place combined with the jet lag is leaving me feeling distanced. All the gifts I’ve bought for people out of the context of the street vendors, hill tribe seamstresses, colorful market tents, acrid wafts, the shouting, blasting, blaring, lulling, snapping and tearing, seem to lack their original luster; how can i explain how hard won a particular bracelet was, that i haggled well, and that it took me hours to decide, because they were all so beautiful, and even so – the emotions i felt, when i thought, while on the other side of the planet, “they would just love this, i think.”

My place is a mess as i left it, though my plants are still alive they’re not in great shape, their’s alot of dust and for a second i thought it might have confirmed my sensation of being gone for longer than i was, but then i remembered i’ve never dusted anything here, and it’s been building up for months. Having Oldham back around is a treat; i really love the way he missed me.  Being missed is a great thing.

As per usual – i’m warn out, and as per usual, a good song can sum it up. This one courtesy of The Walkmen off their very under-rated latest album You & Me:

Seven Years of Holidays (for a stretch)

Eugene, I’m lost
The world as we know it is round
Well, I’ve traveled so far and I’m worn
And I’ve lived in a suitcase for too long

Eugene, I’m lost
The whole world around us is too small

Seven years of holidays
Cafes, bars and sunny days
We ran around, banged our heads
Never felt no pain

I hope we’ll find our peace someday
Until then these wild nights are no fun
My old friend
My old friend

Oh, someday when this darkness fades
We’ll wed our girls and move away
We’ll buy some land and build us homes
And no more will we stray

I’ve traveled so far
I’m done
Eugene, I’m lost

——-

Sh*t.

You know that scene in Trainspotting, with the “worst toilet in Scotland”? If you do than you have a some idea of the toilet situation in much of asia – that, minus the actual toilet. Instead it’s just a filthy hole in the floor you squat over and then  somehow flex your lower thigh / knee muscles in order to support your body while simulateously relaxing the “upper thigh” muscles to facillitate, at least in 90% of the situations for me, a massive violent dump. 

Nothing in asia is easy – it’s like, even when your trying to relax and let nature take it’s course, you’ve gotta be doing something that is both physically and emotionally challenging; some sort of bizziare character building exercise, i don’t know… Sometimes I get the impression asia is entirely peopled by my grandfather.

So during my last “minor medical emergency” Josh and i had just finished up an afternoon of visiting the Pearl Markets in Guang Zhou – endless counters and floors packed wall to wall with merchants hawking all sorts of awesome pearl gear, we’d found a McCdonalds and for some strange reason my body was really wanting a Big Mac, i was pretty curious how a Chinese Big Mac tasted (just like a US Big Mac.) but also wanted to give my stomach a break from spicy asian cuisine.  So josh went back to the market and i stuck around the McD’s eating french fries, sipping my coke a cola, waving back at the occassional curious teenager, watching a 5 story high voiceless Obama give a press conference on a massive screen across the plaza, and reading my political bio on Pol Pot. When all of a sudden i really had to go.

In most situations like this, you’d just walk up to the counter and say “hey where’s the bathroom” and it’d likely be placed somewhere convenient, just around the corner near that delightful nylon flower arangment and watercolor portraits of Grimace and the Hamburgler. But remember this is China, nothing here is easy. You have to work for a shit here, and the bathrooms are never in the restaurants, but rather out the door, down the hall, up one escalator, down 3, around the back, through a narrow alley behind the water main. All this explained to me, with detailed instructions and hand gestures, in crystal clear Cantonese.

So by this point in the trip i’ve become a pro at knowing how much time i actually have before i literally shit my pants.  In this situation i had one minute and 46 seconds.

After trying to fake non-chalance with a couple pearl merchants, beads of sweat start rolling down my forehead and back and i know i have to drop the charade. Plan B has me pleading with my eyes while patting my stomach and saying “sick!” and “Toilet!” and then cocking my head to one side and smiling painfully. That seemed to work. I’d stumbled upon the international sign for “Gonna shit my pants, Help!”

Most toilets in asia are by even the loosest standards, sub par. The toilets in the way back of the Pearl Market, a place that employs easily over one thousand people and see’s foot traffic in one afternoon of easily 100 times that, were not even up to that standard. I doubt they were sub par when they were built, by Chairman Mao’s grandma. snap.  A Squatter with a shit already in it, no running water but a nice putrid bucket and a ladel,  an inche of brown water everywhere, no toilet paper, and not even one of those outrageous (and sinfully pleasant) spray hoses. But the situation being what it was, I had no other choice but to dive right in.

On the way out, all i could think of was how badly i wanted to take a long hot shower. Or at least wipe my ass. With anything at all.

A little ass-ide for anyone who hasn’t travelled to SE Asia – in asia, in what’s either an attempt to be eco friendly or to torture stupid westerners, they often don’t include toilet paper in the squatters – you’re expected to bring your own (b.y.o.t.p.). That bucket of water with the ladle a thin film floating on top, is to flush the toilet, not as i attempted the first couple of times in Cambodia, to awkardly poor and/or splash at your bum in a feable attempt at washing yourself.  

So as i ambled out of the bathroom thoroughly disgusted with myself and humanity in general and hoping i could get back to our place without further insident when while attempting to avoid the stare of a curious pearl merchant i  happened to glance to my left and fix my eyes on the most beautiful thing i have ever seen.  A roll of toilet paper. In a glass case… In China you don’t ask why. That’s another lesson. I learned that one from Pearl S. Buck, or maybe from watching Uncle Buck. I just called the merchant over, and asked her how much the toilet paper was. She Didn’t get it. I put money down on the glass. I want that. The Toilet paper. She pointed at some pearls in the next case. No, that, then i pointed at the bathroom. She laughed. I didn’t. Then she paused, nodded solemnly and reaching under the counter, pulled out the golden roll, and handed it to me free of charge. I gained a Comrade that day.

——-

On the flip side – once you develop your knees/thighs, bring your own TP, and remember that the bucket of water isn’t to freshen up with – the squater starts to hold it’s own.

1) The Squatter doesn’t come in contact with you at all if you do it right. You just hover over it… like most of us do, but more un-naturally with public toilets.

2.) Once you just go for it and assume the full squat like you’re an ethiopian giving birth in a fresh tilled bean field, it’s smooth sailing – you’re western body/mind will want to reject it, but you’ll admit, it’s the way nature wanted you to shit. 

Guang Zhou & Hong Kong

One Night at the ChungKing Mansion

It’s 5:30 in the am and we’re in the first hour of our 5 hour layover here in Seoul Airport.  I’m probably going to use this time to either try to sleep, or more likely upload pictures from Guang Zhou and Hong Kong – in the meantime here’s a video someone took from the Chungking Mansion where we stayed in HK. Don’t let the way it looks scare you off, if you’re ever in Hong Kong and want a cheap and relatively clean place right in the heart of downtown, this place is your only option. We stayed at the Maple Leaf (12 floor, E block), it was run by a nice guy Mr. James, a soft spoken and informative asian guy from Canada… i think. (hense the maple leaf….) 

I’m exhausted and sick as a dog – so i’m not gonna go into details, instead i’m just gonna copy what other people have said about the place.

Today, the building is strikingly out of place on a street of posh Bally and Versace boutiques; it sits on arguably some of the most valuable real estate in the world. However, with over 900 owners holding shares of the building, the ownership structure is so confused that purchasing and developing the property is virtually impossible.

The ratty, exhaust-colored facade of the building features a thousand air conditioners leaking metallic water, a hundred windows punched seemingly at random through the ferro-concrete and a dozen rickety balconies piled with offal and empty crates. Reminders of past tenants can be made out in fading painted signs: Chak Mai Ivory Factory, Freezinhot Bottle Company and Yum-Yum Filters, among others. Over the years, tenants and owners have laid hundreds of miles of questionable wiring and run a few million gallons of water through improvised PVC and Bamboo piping. The Hong Kong Department of Water and Power has made efforts over the years to regulate the mess, but a quick trip up any of the stairwells reveals tangled wiring and dense shrubs of telephone and DSL line, all mashed into corners and sometimes sparking ominously amid thick, sedimentary layers of trash. Fire is a scourge of the Mansion. The worst fire occurred in 1989, when 11 people died in a blaze on the lower floors.

The police sweep the Mansion from time to time, seeking to flush out those who have overstayed visas, as well as to crack down on drug-dealing. One girl brothels, called yat lou yat fung in Cantonese, are legal in Hong Kong. Besides this legal loophole, the Mansion’s layout makes it difficult for the police to bust hookers or drug dealers. Only two creaking elevators serve each building, which forces police to climb the stairs. As most of the unsavory elements of the building operate out of the higher floors, by the time officers have huffed and puffed their way to the 17th floor, the perpetrators and hustlers, alerted by cell phones and pagers, are long gone down interior stairwells.

Talk to locals and residents and they’ll tell you about the stabbings and heroin trade, the padlocks they pile onto their doors to protect themselves from crime.

So why do thousands of Western tourists, some of whom could afford better lodging, still shack up at the Mansion?

the rest at worldhum

I already miss Laos

Ha Long Bay, Luang Prabang, Kouangxi Waterfalls…

 I am exhausted, and we’re tenitively scheduled to go out tonight with some friends and drink snakes blood. then catch our flight to China tommorrow around 5 am. Hanoi is fucking nuts. If traffic in Cambodia felt like a dangerous choreographed dance, Hanoi traffic is akin to a knife fight in a burlap sack. On our way back i we got to see first hand what happens when a driver blinks at the wrong time.

Last night we got into an altercation while out on the boat, Josh and I were rented a faulty kayak paddle and then charged an insane amount of money to replace it, trouble is it happened to a dutch couple as well; so there was a bit of a standoff, with the boat crew and kayak people demanding cash, and the 4 of us telling them to fuck off. we all eventually settled on 200,000$ vietnamese. Which is i think, around….17 dollars.

The rest of the night involved the boat staff not making eye contact with the passengers and the passengers, about 10 of us, huddled around a bottle of vodka (that cost me 5 bucks, but that they charged 20 bucks corkage…) playing asshole – apparently it’s big internationally. The mood was palaply hostile but we all did our best to enjoy ourselves, i couldn’t help thinking it felt like some kind of Agatha Christie story. 10 Strangers on a boat, someones paddle broke in half? who’s to blame? Who’s got 17 bucks?

 

A Quick Game

We were wandering around through Luang Prabang earlier and stumbled on these boys playing a game of soccer with an empty water bottle. The town is permeated through and through with gorgeous shrines and wats, and every corner brings you face to face with another jaw dropping scene.

Listen for when the chubby little kid notices us and yells out Sabadee! (Hello!)

Angkor Wat

Islands in the Sun

Sabadee from Luang Prabang

Day two in Luang Prabang – this town is gorgeous, simply stunning – it’s like a little forgotten dream stuck upon a hill where the khan and Mekong rivers meet. Once it was a jewel of french colonialism now the entire town is a UNESCO world heritage site. Every nook an cranny is like walking through time, and if the computer here didn’t think i was trying to upload virus’s i’d post about a million pictures.

We’re coming into the last leg or two of our trip and we’re hitting our strides – taking it easy, meandering around town, stopping for coffee, or to explore little side streets – tommorrow we think we’ll be taking a riverboat up to the buddha cave and waterfalls, or maybe we’ll just lounge around some more drinking amazing local grown Loas coffee and smoking endless .25 packs of laos cigarettes.