Interlude

I spent an afternoon looking around the old house of an American ex-pat who had something to do with the Thai Silk Trade and disappeared in Malaysia in the 60's.

Then I head off to the bus terminal where I bought my favorite second class ticket to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. 11 sleepless hours later I arrived and crashed at a really, really terrible hostel, then awoke and changed hostels. At this point I walk around to try to buy a plane ticket to Burma (Myanmar) and notice a newspaper headline about an airplane crashing a few kilometers south of here in Indonesia. The airline? Mandala Airlines. Struck by the fact that this airline is the only airline that runs from Chiang Mai to Mandalay, I pause to analyze the situation. In the past few months an absurd number of flights in the developing world have met the turf a bit early. However, in this short span no one airline has lost two planes. Just one each. Thus, the fact that Mandala Airlines just lost its one in Indonesia bodes well for me, as the chances of the encore just days later in Myanmar (Burma) are slim.

Except that I'm an idiot and I'm flying Air Mandalay. Not Mandala Airlines. You understand, of course, how I made the mistake. So now we're back to square one with Air Mandalay's card yet unplayed. But if there is an omniscient time-teller out there, he(she)(it) would have to be pretty deranged to throw that one at airflight historians who would require entire paragraphs if not chapters ensuring that their audience of academics understood the distiction between the companies that experienced crashes on the same subcontinent just days apart. Oh the confusion. The sheer chaos of it all.

Either way, my flight leaves tomorrow afternoon. Let's just hope it arrives as well.

Last night I went to three bars with three Swedes. The last afforded us the opportunity to see the other side of thai tourism - there is not one single hill tribe member or trekking agency present in the discoteque. Instead, there are thais and Europeans alike trying to relive spring break 1995. Except that they don't HAVE spring break in Europe and all the European men that I've discussed it with are at first enfactuated that it is, indeed, a real phenomenon, then become wholeheartedly regretful that they didn't get to be drunk on the beach in Mexico for a week of debauchery when they were 19. Apparently, they're trying to make up for it in Chiang Mai.

Today I woke up at my typical hangover time of noon, and after recovering rented a moto to see what there is to see in the hills, then took it easy in town.

Now, as I mentioned before, I am going to Burma (Myanmar)(Interestingly, in the government's quest not just to oppress the ethnic Burmese, but the entire population, they chnanged the name of their texas-sized territory). There is no internet accesss in Burma due to the preceding parenthetical reference to oppression. There is, supposedly, email, but not web-based email. I have no idea how that will work out. International Phone calls from Mandalay are of terrible qualtiy and reportedly cost between 5 and 7 dollars per minute.

You will not be hearing from me for two or three weeks. I'm out.

The choices, it's always the choices

After sitting in the numb, dull existence that is Khao Lak for the afternoon, I finally head to the bar to see who was stirring (the lack of rowdy foreigners in the bar is a testament to the fact that the volunteer organization grossly overstates the number of volunteers present in the town). I end up speaking with a Dutch guy and a Brit.

After a while hanging out in peaceful calm, and speaking of, among other things, the astonishment the Brit experienced when he traveled to Tennessee and witnessed the outright racism still rampant there; he decided to move the conversation to his own outrage at a lack of protectionism in western policymaking. Specifically, this was spurred by his own disgust that "wages in the UK are held artificially low by immigrants" and, moreover, "that the elvis ashtrays in Graceland are made in China." Seriously. This is what pissed him off.

When I informed him that I didn't really care who put Elvis's profile in the little dish that sits next to the guitar-shaped pool so that people can suck on their death-sticks before heading to the Opry no matter the implications on balance of trade or international economics, he became downright irate - spurting out prophecies that the US (and Europe, the entirety of which he encorporated into his own nationality somehow) would soon be a third world country. Somehow I also became responsible for the Chinese government run oil conglomerate's bid to buy a US oil company.

When I told him I try to think more internationally and see more the fact that international condition is much more desperate than the US condition and...blah blah blah, I became a "traitor" against my country. I'm dead serious, he turned his back to me - this retired Englishman - then said "I don't even want to talk to you anymore. Don't say another word to me." and then muttered periodically over his shoulder "traitor" just as a first grader might mutter "cooties."

This absolutely stunning experience marked the first time that I have been barraded overseas for differing with the policies of my country, and for trying to think somewhat independently, as much as that is even possible. Everyone in the bar was stunned.

So then I talked with Tom, who's living in Laos doing development work and recently managed to swim through the bureaucratic nightmare there to marry a Laos woman (it is illegal for a Laos woman to sleep with a foreigner - and he has a 2 year old son). And we spoke of his overall experience there.

Next day, I spent time wandering down the deserted main road, wondering what I would do with myself for two days were I to stay until Monday when the volunteering would begin. After a few hours of doing this, and of staring at the ceiling, I realized that I really didn't feel a pressing need for my mediocre skills and spontaneously jumped the bus to Bangkok.

Here, I arrived at 5 am and headed to Khao San Road, again, as my passport was waiting in a travel agency there. I found a group of "travelers" (mostly just drunks) still going from the night before, and sat with them - a few of whom were very cool. I was only the second one to get out of there at about 9:30, after the Argentinian rugby player fell over backwards while trying to lick Daniel in the face and then poured beer all over himself.

"Yes sir, for three times the price we'll give you a smaller room whose floor tiles are so scratched you can barely tell what color they were in 1960 when we installed them. We will also provide gross grime slowly working its way down the shower tiles, and will replace your western toilet with the asian squat toilet. We will make your desk smaller and older, and make your windows open into the hallway where the lights will be on 24 hours a day. We will also remove any curtains. But, you will be away from Khao San Road."

Sign me up.

Then I jumped the sky train to go to the "world fellowship of buddhists" to see about the rumored sunday afternoon mediation classes. When in rome, why not meditate? Except I got off at the prescribed stop and found the center of Southeast Asian commerce. You could feel the money pouring out of this place. Skycrapers of offices and apartments sprouting every few feet. Designer shopping centers. Everything in English. I did manage to find one sign for the fellowship, but whoever named it the fellowship of buddhists should be shot, as there is no less understood phrase in SE Asia except maybe "Aphrodite picked lilacs for lucifer," and that's really a sentence, not a phrase. Plus, I'm not sure the place really even exists anymore.

So after a few hours of looking, I hop back on the skytrain to go do the very opposite of meditation and walk around the friggin mall. This place is 7 stories high, with three story high billboards and TV screens. All the models both on said billboards and in the "model search" going on are white. KFC, Starbucks, McDonald's, Dairy Queen, Mrs. Fields....my god they're all here. Everything is in English - I ate at a restaurant named "noodles." Dentyne is sponsoring a concert outside and teenagers are bowling upstairs. Across the street is a similarly sized mall. And across the other street is a gigantic outdoor market. I may as well have been in New York, save the really terrible teenage asian haircuts, karaoke booths, intestine soup, and buddha shrines.

Nevertheless, I'd like to drag that Brit from the Bar in Khao Lak right up to one of the signs that reads "Brand new technology from the United States!" and say "yeah, it's true that if China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia took their money out of the NYSE, we'd all be screwed, but tell me, just tell me, the ideology of the United States - the idea of the US - is not alive and well."

Then last night I finally got in touch with Bum, a friend of mine who I met in Costa Rica, who is working at Exxon while simultaneoulsy getting a master's degree. She took me to a traditional puppet show and then treated me to the most fantastic meal I've had while I've been away. Last night definitely ranks among the best nights I've had thus far, just reminiscing and catching up - and getting filled in on a few details of Thai life that have been perplexing me.

Now back to life as usual...

On the toprope

It is downright eerie to read the New York Times' coverage of the devastation in New Orleans from Khao Lak. Outside of this internet cafe, one can walk down the main road and look to the left to see the stores closed, the diveshops with newspaper stuffed over the windows, and the sporadic tailor trying to sell his suits to the no one that is around. And on the left you can see why. The town is not here anymore. Gone. Wiped away in a single flash by one of mother nature's most powerful weapons. Demolished by the Tsunami. Half of Khao Lak lost their lives, and yet Thailand barely got hit when compared to Indonesia.

And who would have thought that right here in this ghost town where emergency procedures were scrutinized and criticized; where my protection from another tsunami is my hostess's word that "don't worry. If it comes again I'll let you know;" that THIS is where I'd be reading the rants and raves going on in New Orleans because the United States, the "most developed nation in the world" that has been bracing for disaster at an accelerated clip for four years now, cannot handle the situation and people are dying and starving. Human suffering, it would seem, is beyond politics and development. It is beyond geography.

And yet still I sit here amidst the devastation not knowing what to do. Yes, I could say here for three weeks and try to rebuild some houses. But the last time I tried to build a house was with habitat for humanity, and our contributions were that Dan Craig and Ken Scott built a toolbox about which the forman said he was "embarrassed that a member of his gender built that," and I used a circular saw to cut through its own power cord. So carpentry may not be my calling. I just don't know how much I have to offer here. The old "the foundation for doing good is doing well" thing just won't get out of my head.

But anyhow, let's step back from all this for a moment and remember just what it is about life that makes it worth living, shall we?

I boarded the bus in Siem Reap for Bangkok, and was quickly convinced that all the rumors about the road were just exaggerations. The first hour or so (if that) was only a little bumpy, and after a little while a dutch woman gave up here seat with leg room to me, so that she could cram into the tiny little space I had been occupying next to her significant other. Then, suddenly, the pavement disappeared and sans AC all the windows had to remain open. And the door, right in front of me, sporadically opened and closed based on the driver's assitants' smoking habits. Seven hours later we arrived at the border looking as though we'd simultaneously been fighting a war while crawling across the Sahara - covered head to toe in dirt.

Then, stunned, we all crawled into the nicest bus I've ever been on. A double decker with recliners, AC, and all the jazz. Later in Bangkok I would overhear travel agents advertising the trip to Siem Reap on this bus and pushing how nice it would be. I felt a moral obligation to intervene and reveal the truth to the would-be suckers, trying to get the words out through the barrage of sneezes that lasted through the next day.

Back in the middle of the fiasco that is the Khao San Road in Bangkok, my spins again, but doesn't get as much momentum this time. I guess I was just more prepared. That, and the continuous pleas from Moto and tuk tuk drivers to go somewhere with them have become commonplace throughout SE Asia; though still annoying, they no longer make me want to jump the next plane to Europe.

After one day of walking around Chatuchak market - said to have 200,000 visitors per day with 12,000 stalls to visit, we found it much less crowded, less exciting, and impossible to find anything you were actually looking for - I spent the next wandering around trying to find a cheap way to get to the embassy of Myanmar.

Matt Bruce once said (or wrote) "Climbing, just like traveling, is not always bold...so many people comfortably tie into a toprope, where they assume no risk. They never get the opportunity to discover where their limitations disappear." Well, I tied right into that toprope when I gave up my journey for the embassy and dropped my passport off at a travel agent who would get the visa for me. Then I found the bus station, spent a few hours hanging out in KFC with two other Americans on thier honeymoon trip around the world (michaelshannonwt.blostpot.com), and rode to Railay Beach.

In Railay westerners outnumber the locals even in the offseason (now) and you'd be hard pressed to find the local bowl of noodle soup in the morning. Thus, everyone speaks english and eats the "American Breakfast" before heading out to do some sport climbing.

I hook up with a few local guides to head out and climb, and am fully impressed by my own ability to get in with the locals so quickly. However, it is quickly apparent that no English will be spoken except to me, and that they are infinitely better at climbing than me. I ponder the fact that moving from place to place and constantly changing languages is akin to re-living the terrrible, awful first bit of being an exchange student - when you can't understand a damn thing - over and over again. So I find some lethargic brits and jump on board with them. Ironically, despite my status as toproping re: traveling I jump onto the lead re: climbing because, well, they're just that lethargic.

The next day, after sleeping off the hangover until noon, we jump on the rock at around one. Quickly, we tire out, but keep pushing it. Around five or so, I hop onto a 5.11 - well within my capabilities at home, but out of practice and worn out, this is a little much for me. I give up, leaving some gear up high, and instead try to climb the 5.10 nearby so I can, theoretically, lower to get the gear I've left from the next anchors over.

The crux (hardest part) of this climb is right at the top, and protected not by a nice solid bolt, but rather by two worn out, decaying ropes slung through holes in the rock. Again, I'm thoroughly worn out and too tired for this climb. So after failing once or twice on the move, I think, "Mike, there is absolutely no reason why you cannot do this. Just do it." So I did. Hit the side pull, swung around, left foot over, I'm at the top. But I'm barely hanging on.

Frantic, I look to the anchor to which I NEED to clip which is just beside my head. I feel about to slide off the side, and in a terrible, terrible move that goes against all laws of climbing, I reach for the anchor itself to keep me up. All this accomplishes is to swing me around so I'm facing outwards before I peel off and become inverted, barreling downward head-first.

In slow motion, I first think, oh crap. Then wow I'm not even going to get hurt. Then ow, but that could have been much, much worse. After the 25 foot fall upside down, I emerge with a scraped up back and a bump on my head.

The brits couldn't stop talking about how lucky I was to be alive.


Lessons: don't climb too hard when you're worn out (esp. leading), DON'T CHEAT, and helmets are good things.

Next day I hook up with 3 Israelis and head out again, this time only leading 5.10 or so, and jumping on the toprope for the 11s as I still have no strength.

Despite the Israelis saying "I don't know HOW you could leave this place after only 3 days!" (It is absolutely magnificent - huge limestone cliffs adorned with stalagtites jutting straight out of the sea. It's a paradise in many ways.) I decide that I am not traveling to be on vacation and drink beers on the beach and go climbing with Israelis. So, today I zipped over to Krabi, where I got a bus to Khao Lak.

And here I am, pondering the nature of...nature.