bonglonglong

By now you all probably have read the news of the China earthquake. What most foreigners know about the region is that it has world famous food, it is the gateway to Tibet and it has the world's remaining population of wild pandas. But in the past week Sichuan has been thrown into the spotlight. The world is learning a great deal not just about the region but about its people, and I am proud to say that I am one of them.

Sichuan is considered a poor province mostly because it's landlocked and is mostly agricultural. Though with the recent economic boom it is becoming more prosperouse. It is surrounded on three sides by mountains and is abundant in rivers that flow down from the higher plains. It was also one of the most populated provinces in China. It is said that one in every 50 people on earth is from Sichuan. Historically Sichuan has suffered many natural disasters, and because of the geography the people have learned to rely on each other. The out pouring support from people less affected within Sichuan has been overwhelming. People bringing food into some of the hard hit areas, digging with nothing but their hands. It breaks my heart to read that some people think this is karma. We're all human, if we don't have eachother to rely on during a crisis such as this then we are hopeless as a species.

With any natural disaster, when it doesn't affect you directly, the numbers are meaningless, people become statistics. Our family was lucky. Everyone is accounted for and safe. A little shaken but not stirred. Send good thoughts to those who are in mourning, and to those who are still hoping.

NPR's All Things Considered was in Chengdu doing a piece about China when the quake hit. They have a blog set up at http://www.npr.org/blogs/chengdu/

I decided that I'm a lucky bastard.  I came to this decision yesterday, while sitting in the Cave of Penises, on the Beach of the Cave of Penises.
    For those of you who don't know, the Beach of the Cave of Penises is widely regarded as the most beautiful beach in Thailand, if not the world.  Picture it...sand as white as sugar (only finer), crystal clear water that's bath-water warm, buttressed on both sides by 1,000 foot cliffs which are draped with stalactites, backed by trees full of monkeys, and just off shore are a dozen jagged, deserted islands rising up from the Andaman Sea.
    And at the far corner of this beach is the Cave of Penises. It's full of...well...wooden penises of all sizes and colors. It's considered good luck, if you make a living from the sea, to make a pilgrimage to this cave once a year, and give your offering of a wooden penis to the Princess Goddess who rules the sea.  So the cave is full of heaps and heaps of penises.
    Yesterday afternoon, I was relaxing in this cave, overlooking the beach, while hundreds of screaming tourists ran to longtail boats to go home to their posh resorts as a dark storm started dumping rain on the beach.  I stayed in the Cave of Penises, dry as a bone, and watched the rain come down and the lightning hit nearby peaks...with all the beach and the world to myself.
    And that's when I finally realized that I was a lucky bastard.
    The Beach of the Cave of Penises is in Railay, where I was yesterday. Railay USED to be the best-kept secret in Thailand. A decade ago, you could get a thatched-roof bungalow on a picture-perfect beach for $5 a night. The fishermen and sea gypsies would come up on the beach at night in their boats and cook you fabulous Thai seafood for a dollar. During the day, there were caves to explore, deserted islands to visit, reefs to snorkle on, and the world's best cliffs to climb. Then sometravel writer started writing about it, and people started going there, and now it's full of glitzy resorts, packed with people, and expensive as hell. A single drink cost me FIVE DOLLARS. Can you believe it?
    I took a boat there yesterday from Krabi to spend one night, ... It's a 'HOT' destination right now.  Obviously.
    My lodging was quite acceptable, though. There are still a few cheap places to stay on the island, and I found the best. A cluster of so-quaint-it-hurts bamboo bungalows perched high on a hill above the beach. For 400 Baht (about $12), I got a bungalow with my own private bathroom and a hammock on the porch.  And you all know how much I love hammocks.

    The rest of the day was mine to explore the island.  I went first to the Beach of the Cave of Penises...I guess I should start calling it by its Thai name, Ao Phranang, so it's not so offensive...because it's supposed to be the prettiest beach in the world.  And had it not been occupied by about 2,000 tourists, and backed by one of the most expensive hotels in the world (Rayavadee...rooms starting at $6000 per night), I'd have agreed.  As it was, I wanted nothing to do with it.
    So I headed to the far end of the beach where there was this MASSIVE cave high on the cliff.  I found a trail up to the cave, and after squeezing beneath a boulder, I saw a bamboo ladder going straight upinto the darkness.
    So what does jerkboy do when he's in the middle of nowhere, with help faraway, when he discovers a rickey bamboo ladder of unknown age and condition, heading straight up into the darkness?  He climbs it, of course.
    It led to a massive cave chamber full of bats.  I poked around, and discovered yet another bamboo ladder heading straight up into darkness.  So I climbed that one, too.
    Six ladders later, I came out at an entrance about 1,000 feet above the ocean, overlooking another one of Railay's perfect beaches.  Wow! It was breathtaking. And a long climb back down to the Beach of the Caveof...I mean, Ao Phranang.
    My guidebook told me there was a practically inaccessible hidden lagoon in the center of the island that the fool hardy could attempt to reach. And I knew that meant me.  So I grabbed a quick lunch of barbecued chicken and a pineapple smoothie from a longtail boat at the beach, and found the trailhead.
    It wasn't so much a trailhead as it was an obvious route up a cliff choked with tree roots.  I started anyway.
The first people I passed were coming down.  Aussies.
'Did you go to the lagoon?' I asked.
'What, are you crazy?  That's a death wish,' they replied.  I noticed they were wearing flip flops.  (I came prepared with proper shoes.)
A few hundred feet higher I passed some Germans.
'Did you go to the lagoon?' I asked.
'No, it was too scary for her,' he pointed to his girlfriend.
'You were the one who ran back screaming,' his girlfriend replied.
I let them argue and kept on climbing.
I passed another couple of Aussies, one of whom was descending the trecherous cliff with a beer in his hand.
'Do you know where you're going, mate?' he asked me.
'Only vaguely,' I responded.
'Path to the left goes to the lookout. Brilliant. Path to the right goes to the lagoon. F--king steep. But Brilliant Lagoon, mate, worth the climb.'
'Did you go all the way?' I asked.
'What, are you crazy?' And he slid a few feet down, dropping his camera but saving the beer.
    At the top of the climb, the path split. A broad, well-defined route led to the left. And a narrow, overgrown path headed straight down to the right. And that's the direction I went.
    Eventually it got so steep there was a rope, and I used it.  And soon I found myself at the bottom of a deep, narrow canyon that was so dark at the bottom it might as well have been night time.  Thick rainforest filled the canyon, and I continued down.
    Soon, through a crack in the canyon ahead, I could see the lagoon.
'That was ridiculously easy,' I said out loud, because there wasn't anyone else around, and hurried toward the lagoon.
    I was stopped about 500 feet short of it by a cliff about 30 feet high. An actual cliff...meaning the kind that goes straight down. An old rope hung over the edge, and the only way down was to climb. Like...rock climb.
    I was by myself.  Help was far away should I need it.  So I started climbing.
    It was much easier than it looked.  And when I got to the bottom, I was eager to get to the lagoon, so I picked up the pace.
    That's when I started to notice the bones...
    Actually, they weren't bones, they were shoes, but bones sounds nicer. People had apparently come as far as the bottom of the cliff in flipflops, before realize what a horrible idea that was, and discarded the flip flops. Which means they must have climbed all the way out barefoot. Yuk.
    Soon I found myself at the top of another cliff, again about 30 feet high. But this one was undercut.  (That means it's a LOT harder to climb down.)
    I decided to ditch my backpack and continue down with only the camera bag. The climb was much harder, but not quite deadly, and I made it to the bottom.
    The third cliff was what gave me pause.  It was a good 50 feet high, severely undercut, and the old rope over the edge was badly frayed and slippery with mud and slime.
'How the f--- do people get down this?' I yelled.
Then I noticed another rope far to my right, seemingly coming straight out of the cliff. I skirted a narrow ledge leading in that direction, and found a hole in the cliff that led down about halfway to the bottom. From there, a rope led me safely to the edge of the lagoon.
    Which was, basically, a big mud puddle where rainwater collects.  I sank up to my knees in mud at the edge of the lagoon, but it was, nonetheless, spectacular. The walls of the crater rose almost 1,000 feet above me.
    Behind me I saw an entirely sculpture gallery made by those intrepid explorers hardy enough (or crazy enough) to get this far.  Each one had left a little mud creature on the wall of the cliff, and there must have been a hundred.  J-P and Jacques would have laughed, some of them were really funny.
    As the lagoon was only about 5 inches deep, with a good 2 feet of mud beneath the water, it was of NO use to me as a swimming hole. Which was sad, because I was blazing hot and sweating my nasty stress-cave-sweat-stench that indicates I'm really, really freaked out.
    So I decided to head back for a dip in the ocean. I took the climbs one-at-a-time, very carefully, and half an hour later I was back to the first descent in the rainforested canyon. Two girls were at the top, about to come down the rope.
'Is this the way to the lagoon?' one asked. Germans, by the accent.
'Do you have good footwear?' was my reply.
'Yes!'
'Do you have rock climbing experience?'
'No.'
'Then, yes, this IS the way to the lagoon, and if you don't have rockclimbing experience, it will be very scary for you, but it's possible.'
'Did you go all the way to the lagoon?'
'Yes,' I replied.
'Good.  Then you can take us there.'
    And that was that. Soon, two very fit German girls were standing next to me. I led them to the top of the first cliff, and Michaela immediately said, 'I will stay here and take pictures of the two of you going down.'
    So Tanja and I began the descent. It was much easier the second time, and I was in Trip Leader mode, so I made it down in seconds and helped her decide where to put her feet. She made it to the bottom without mishap, and was visibily shaken, so I asked if she wanted to continue.
'This is my last day in Thailand, and I'm going out with a bang.'
    So we continued to the second drop, and the third, and finally to the lagoon.
'Beautiful,' she said, and hollered back to Michaela that we had made it and were still alive. We took some pictures of each other, which was nice because I didn't have any with me and the lagoon since my tripod had been left with my backpack at the top of the second cliff.

    And we climbed out. A Mynah bird followed us to the top of each cliff, flicking his tail feathers back and forth as if to show us the way.
    As we descended the path to Ao Phranang, we passed many people goingup, and I told them exactly what it was like to get to the lagoon. We saw many of them on the beach afterwards, and not a single one madeit. That made us proud.
    Michaela and Tanja bought me a beer and we chatted about travel, Thailand, politics, and life in general. They were really neat girls. Then the storm kicked up, and I got them to a longtail boat to take them back to their resort, and ended up in the Cave of Penises, watching the rain come down for a good hour before walking back to my bungalow.
    That night I bought a margarita at one of the impossibly -atmospheric bars in Railay. It was happy hour...half price drinks come with a free shot of tequila. So my $5 margarita arrived, sans tequila shot, and strangely enough, the 'free' shot was not forthcoming, even after an additional $3 beer. So I scrammed back to my hotel, which supposedly had a renowned Indian restaurant.
    Veggie samosas, fresh naan, and butter chicken has NEVER tasted sogood, especially for $4 (knowing how expensive it would be at any other restaurant in Railay).
    I was asleep by 9pm and I woke up at 9:30am the next morning to the most pitiful rooster crow I've ever heard. I went outside and he was on my porch, crowing away, even though the sun had been up for 3 hours. I packed my bags and headed back to Krabi.
    It was my last day in southern Thailand, and I didn't want to waste it. So I rented another $8 motorcycle and took a truly dangerous trip 40 miles south on the highway, which was under heavy construction. But it was the only way to get to the hot spring I had heard about. And you know me and hot springs.
    The first stop was at something called 'Emerald Pool' which is apparently famous in Japan. Because, even though it was at the end of 10 miles of dirt road, there were 3 double-decker buses full of Japanese people there. They were all swimming in the pool, which was beautifully colored and situated in the middle of lush rainforest.
    I took a quick dip, but was ready for hot water, so I headed back to the car. I saw a sign at a stand in the middle of the jungle for 'icedcoffee: 40 Baht' and figured I could use a boost.  So I ponied up the $1.20 and watched the girl grind the beans, put them into an espresso machine, extract the espresso, put it into a shaker with sweetened, condensed milk (which is how they do it over here), and shake the thing up. And I proceeded to drink what was easily the most delicious coffee drink I've EVER had...made at a bamboo stand in the middle of the jungle. Who knows how they got electricity out there for the espresso machine.  (And this is in a country where most coffee is instant Nescafe.)
    Another few kilometres brought me to the hot spring, and I now have a new favorite one. Too bad it's in Thailand.
    A rather sizeable river of hot water pours over a cliff in beautiful terraces, like those in Havasupai or Yellowstone. The water is about 102F, perfect for long soaking without getting overheated, and some of the stone terraces hold back water that's 3 feet deep.  You can back up to the water falling over the terraces and get a massage. Exquisite!
    Unfortunately, the ride home was so stressful and scary that I was a wreck by the time I sat down at my favorite food stall on the river in Krabi. The cook recognizes me by now and came to give me a hug.
    After a truly incredible dinner of fried squid in ginger sauce, and chicken with cashew nuts, I took a stroll to the night market in the center of town for some cool photography. People were throwing fish and packing up the strangest fruits you've ever seen and frying things up in huge vats...
    I forgot how much I love traveling in Asia. I feel so comfortable in Thailand. It's so exotic and strange, but I feel safe here.  Thep eople smile at you with these huge, genuine smiles that just make your heart melt. If you speak a word or two of their own language to them, they'll give you the shirt of their back. The natural beauty is overpowering. And the food! THE FOOD! Thailand was centuries ahead of the western world, in terms of cuisine, a century ago.  And the fact that you can eat so well for a dollar here...  It's just ridiculous.

    I'm headed to Bangkok tomorrow for a weekend, and I doubt there will be much to write about that. Then I head for the extremely remote jungle in the northwest along the Burmese border. I will have NO access to internet, so don't be surprised if you don't hear from me until I get to Tokyo next week.
 

I had the most BIZARRE day today.  Today, for about an hour, I became the leader of a tribe of sea gypsies, before fleeing for my life so that I wouldn't be sacrificed.

It all started when the kayaking company picked me up from my hotel at 8am this morning.  (I slept 12 hours last night, after an AMAZING dinner at an outdoor restaurant along the banks of the river last night.  I paid $2 for the whole thing.  Thomas, you'd have died.  The food here is SO amazing...)
 
Anyway, they picked me up and drove me to Ao Nang, the big resort town nearby where all the luxury hotels are.  I waited there for the rest of the group, who were all coming from the big resort hotels.  They arrived with our trip leader, Michelle, who is a "kathoey."
 
Kathoey is the Thai term for the "third gender."  Throughout Thai history, those boys who exhibited effeminacy after puberty were called Kathoey and were revered as people who contained both genders within them.  Often they were made into village leaders and judges.
 
These days, Kathoey often become Lady-Boys, which means they take hormones to grow breasts, generally have their private parts reversed, and live their lives as women.  It's so common here that the operations are top-quality and dirt cheap, and a lot of transgendered people from the US come here to have the surgeries done because it's a tenth the price that it is in the US, and they can skip all the psychological treatment that is required in the US before gender reversal procedures.
 
I'm not sure how far along Michelle was, but she had little breasts, hairy legs, and a large Adam's apple.  But she was hard-core into kayaking and had dirt underneath her toenails and fingernails.  I was a little embarassed to find myself wondering how to respond to her.
 
We were paired together in a kayak, because everyone else was a couple.  And she and I were the ONLY ones in the group that had any kayaking experience, so it was frustrating waiting for the others to catch up all the time.  (They were all pasty white, overweight tourists who bought all-inclusive package deals to Ao Nang.)
 
We kayaked through mangrove swamps and into these magnificent sea caves.  They had many entrances, so there was plenty of light in the caves to navigate by.  At one particular cave, we stopped to observe a colony of "walking fish" or mud skippers.  I've never seen anything like it, they're fish that have both lungs and gills, so they can live on land or in water for any length of time.
 
When the tide goes out, they climb up on the land and hunt insects, walking around on their fins.  If only Darwin had known about this fish when he was being called a blasphemer!
 
Anyway, as the day dragged on, the pasty tourists were tired and grumpy and wanted to go back to the floating restaurant along the river.  Michelle asked if I wanted to see more caves, and of course I said yes, so we let the pasties head back for beer and food, and we headed further upstream.
 
"You want to visit Sea Gypsy village?" she asked me.
 
It sounded cool, so I said, "Yes."
 
About 2 kms of paddling brought us to this village where the sea gypsies spend part of the year.  It consisted of shacks built on stilts above the river.  They all came out shouting to us when we paddled up, and I was a bit scared, but Michelle didn't seem phased. 

Sea gypsies speak their own language, but it was close enough to Thai for Michelle to understand and be understood.  They pulled us up out of the kayak onto their pier and rushed us into a small thatched-roof hut.  They brought in some foul-smelling ooze wrapped in banana leaves and insisted that we eat it.  I was surprised to find it sweet, but it smelled and tasted like rotten fish.
 
Gagging, I managed to finish the whole morsel...I didn't want to appear ungrateful.  But they insisted I have another.  And another.
 
By the time I had eaten five, I was feeling very ill, indeed, and realized that it was all going to come back up.  I glanced around for the most discreet place to do the deed, but the gypsies were all crowded around us, watching.
 
It was almost in my throat by the time I stood up and burst toward the door...but it was too late.  I threw up all over an old man who was sitting right in front of the door.

The gypsies all started hollering and jumping up and down.  They jumped at me, picked me up, and carried me to a little shrine in the middle of their village.  Michelle was following at the back, trying to figure out what was going on.
 
They placed a silk wrap around me and a headdress on my head, and started singing and dancing around me.
 
"I think the man you puked on was the tribe leader," Michelle said, "And they have some legend that says the new leader will arrive by boat and vomit on the old leader, signifying that he is here to take over."

Great!  "So how do I get out of this?  Can you convince them that I just threw up because of the sugary rotten fish thing they made me eat?"
 
Michelle talked to several of the gypsies, but they didn't pay attention to her.  Meanwhile, I wasn't feeling so well again, and ended up throwing up several times while these crazed gypsies danced around me.  Apparently they thought it was a significant blessing.
 
Half of the gypsies disappeared, and about an hour later, I was led to dry land where they had a huge fire going.  Michelle screamed at me that they indended to put ME in that fire, and that we had to get out immediately.  So I threw off the headdress and scarf and pushed through the crowd...(sea gypsies are very diminutive in size, and none of them weighed more than a hundred pounds)...and we were off down the pier toward our kayak.
 
They hadn't tied the kayak up when they pulled us up from it, so it was trapped in some mangrove roots across the river.  We dove into the river and swam to the other side, while the gypsies screamed at us from the pier.
 
Some of them got in canoes to chase us, but we were fleeing for our lives, so we paddled like there was no tomorrow until we got far enough down the river where there were other people in boats around...and we were safe.
 
APRIL FOOLS!!!

Yes, they even have it in Thailand!  Actually, I didn't waste too much of your time.  The story was ENTIRELY true until the part about the pasties going back to the restaurant for beer and food.  I, too, was exhausted and hungry, so we ALL went back to the floating restaurant for beer and food.
 
On the way back to the hotel, Michelle took us to this lovely hidden spring-fed pool in the jungle, complete with rope swing, and we swam for awhile.
 
Now I'm back in Krabi, about to go in search of another $2 dinner.
 
I wish you all a Happy April Fool's Day, and I'll write again soon!

Thailand, Part 1

Well, I'm sitting on the ground floor of the KB Mansion Hotel in Krabi, Thailand.  Don't let "mansion" fool you.  My room here cost just under $10, there's no air conditioning, and the toilet is inside the shower.
 
At least I HAVE a toilet!  Most small guesthouses in Thailand have "squat toilets" and I'll leave that up to your imagination.
 
After the 18 hour flight, which didn't seem that terrible despite the length, I arrived in Bangkok early Monday morning.  (Thailand is exactly 12 hours ahead of Dallas time.)   

I transfered to a flight to Krabi, which is located on the far southern isthmus of Thailand, much closer to Malaysia than to Bangkok. 
 
Today, I did something that would make Christian proud and my mother pass out...  I rented a motorcycle and explored the countryside around Krabi.  (Hey, a car rental would have been $40.  The motorcycle only cost me 8 bucks...so gimme a break.)
 
It was a little scary in the city, but once I got out into the countryside, it was magnificent!  The landscape here is called "tower karst" which is a fancy name for these bizarre towers of gray limestone that jut straight up out of the rainforest.  They're riddled with caves, so I'm in paradise here.
 
The first place I went was a local temple, translated as Tiger Cave Temple.  It was bizarre...built into a cave and full of skeletons and preserved body parts, to remind the faithful that life does come to and end.  The temple was controlled by a troop of monkeys who were so brazen that I had a tug-of-war with one over my camera bag.
 
After soiling my pants...(don't ask, I should have taken Nutribiotic after lunch of curried fish balls at a roadside stand)...I headed up into the rainforest to a national park with a famous waterfall.  There were NO tourists in site, only Thai teenagers on swimming dates to the waterfalls.
 
This part of Thailand is predominantly Muslim, so the kids are very discreet when they swim...even guys wear shirts and full length pants.  But the kids were laughing at me and my camera, and posed for lots of  pictures under the waterfall.  The younger ones got a HUGE kick out of saying "HELLO!" to me, and hearing me reply "HELLO!" back.  They would fall over laughing, and then say it again.
 
I had only sporadic sleep on the flight, and almost none the night before I left, so I'm looking forward to an early bed tonight!  Tomorrow I'll go sea kayaking into some flooded caves nearby...should be fun!

On the account of our upcoming trip to China, I bring you this sports update (Via Imagethief)

Today's Bank of China box score:

• My place in the lineup: 297


• Batting when I went on deck: 204


• Time on deck: 75 minutes


• Time at the plate: 45 minutes


• Total game time: 2 hours


• Autographs signed: 10


• Transactions swung at: US dollars to reminbi (ed note: another name for yuan)conversion, renminbi withdrawal, US dollar to Singapore dollar conversion, wire transfer to Singapore


• Record: Four for four!


• Errors: One (wrote out figure in words when numerals were requested)


• Total receipts given to me at the end of the transaction: Eleven


• New vocabulary added:剩余 (sheng4yu2 -- "balance remaining")


• Teller courtesy level: Suspiciously good. No curveballs pitched.

All in all, pretty good as these things go. A marathon game, but it's rare that I have no strikeouts.