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March 11, 2008

Top 10 for 2007 + 20 days

January 20, 2008

New York state of mind

May 30, 2007

Denouement

May 1, 2007

I arrived in California two days ago, and although my trip is technically over, I still feel like I am traveling. My mind is still occupied with logistical issues concerning where I will go, where I will sleep and how will I get there, albeit in an environment much more familiar to me. I suppose this feeling won't really go away until I settle somewhere more permanent. For better or worse, the feeling of constant upheaval has ceased to bother me; I guess that's one thing I can take away from the trip. I have spent the past few days trying to "reflect" on my trip, and figure out what insights I might have had at points during the trip, mostly because I know people are going to ask me and I don't want them to think I simply traveled to eat, drink and talk to other people who spoke english, even though that's probably the truth. So here are some insights I may (or may not) have had at some point:

-My ethnicity is usually mistaken in the following order: Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Malaysian, Indian.
-Every country has karaoke, and only in America do people sing karaoke ironically - even when it is Santana/Rob Thomas' "Smooth".
-When it is socially acceptable to cut in line, I benefit.
-Vietnam might be the worst dressed nation in the world.
-When the surface of bodies of water have ripples like rain is falling, but it isn't raining, you should not wade in it.
-Everyone in the world likes french fries.
-Mopeds are going to be the new fixies.

Not that there is a large audience for this site, but I'd like to thank the following people for making my trip as enjoyable and safe as it was: Miguel Aldaco, Zephyr Detrano, Doy and JJ, Orsolya Gabriel, Christine Huang, Chris Kierspel, Marina Krikorian, Ben Nguyen, Nga Pham, Goody Reyes, Surachai Sathitkunarat, Leszek Szalapak, Monica Thammarath, Jimmy Tran(s), Liz Willmore, Karolina Witkowska.

The End

Krakow - Warsaw, Poland

April 24, 2007

I normally have a difficult time enjoying the last few days of a trip, as my thoughts begin to focus less on my current state and more on what lies ahead when I return back home. This time around my mind could be occupied with thoughts about new cities, new jobs and friends in new places, but instead I find my mind most occupied with running around Warsaw, which consequently is making my time here seem very short. Strange, seeing as ten days ago I was contemplating how I would be able to endure the remainder of my trip when I had such a strong desire to return to America. Time is funny in this way, either contracting or dilating, usually against my wishes.

Before Warsaw, I spent six days in Krakow, walking around, eating kielbasa, getting lost, and then walking long distances back to my host's home in rural Poland. Krakow is an excellent city with picturesque views and some really great food, although the people are generally more obsessed with food from other countries than their own very excellent cuisine. I spent three of the nights surfing a couch in Poszadza, which is roughly 15 km from Krakow. My host, Leszek, fed me krokiety, beer and showed me his collection of over 1000 individual barf bags from over 100 different countries.

The remaining two days in Poland were spent in Warsaw, where I met Karolina, who introduced me to the hip hop scene in Poland. We began by checking out Bustah Rhymes on Monday at a small club in central Warsaw. There were three opening acts, all of whom were Polish, including one Polish reggae band. Everyone was amped up to hear Bustah. Some of the acts integrated Bustah into their songs, and the reggae band performed a cover, complete with super-fast rapping. The anticipation was reaching a critical level. The crowd was actually chanting Bustah after a while, and when the man came on stage it reached a fever pitch. I am not really familiar with much Bustah Rhymes oeuvre, but he played most of the singles, a song from Low End Theory and that Ying Yang Twins song. Let me tell you: there were few things that were more amazing than watching a crowd of several hundred Polish people chanting "wait'll you see my dick" in unison.

Kielbasa van in Krakow

This Polish act opened for Busta Rhymes. They did a song entitled: "We are going to take the money we earn from this show and share it with our homies"

Another opener. These guys did Polish reggae and talked a lot about how the president should just smoke some weed. They jumped around a lot on stage - one of them broke their microphone jumping too much.

Busta Rhymes and his cohort, sponsored by Pimp Energy Drink

I really got lazy with the picture taking the last few days. This is really the only picture I took in Warsaw, except for pictures of Busta Rhymes.

Me so hungy

April 16, 2007

Beirut, Lebanon

April 6, 2007

Colombo, Sri Lanka

April 1, 2007

I got in to Colombo yesterday morning, and spent the entire day in my hotel room, trying to repair my injured left leg and foot. Without going into many details, I learned a valuable lesson regarding podiatry in humid environments - mainly that it was unwise to pack only dress socks on a three month trip.

Now that my feet are somewhat healed, I decided to spend my last remaining day in Colombo outside, amongst the people. Walking around, I was quickly reminded that I am no longer the stealth tourist that I was in East Asia; I was approached almost every 20 minutes by someone trying to strike up conversation with me with the goal of asking me for money. The first guy that approached me was employing the sympathy tour guide method - a method that I am pretty familiar with by now. The interaction begins with the person simply befriending the tourist, offering to take them around, as a friend, eventually asking for money near the end, usually because it's their, or their loved one's birthday. This is pretty much the same tactic employed by the people I met in the Philippines. I think three or four people I hung out with in the Philippines all had birthdays within one or two days of each other.

Fortunately I recognized the scam early on, but decided to play along anyway, just to see what would happen now that I had more control of the situation. The guy taking me around, Asok, wanted to take me to a Buddhist temple, so we walked in the direction, passing by a lake along the way. I decided to walk down the steps that lead to the bank so we could get off the street a little. Asok decided to take a shortcut across the landscaping fronting the street. As I was descending the stairs, I heard Asok cry out. When I looked back, Asok's lower body had been engulfed by the dirt which he tried to step over as if he had fallen in some quicksand. This was sort of confusing because we were in the middle of the city, and the dirt looked pretty dry and not quicksand-like. I reached to pull him out of the quicksand, and as his lower body emerged from the hole, I realized that this was no quicksand. It was the foulest, most putrid green slime and it was bubbling out of the ground and on to the walkway. Asok's lower body was covered with this thick, vile sludge, and he reeked of the densest, most arresting odor that I have ever smelled - and I used to work next to a sewage treatment plant.

Luckily for him, we were near a water source. Asok simply sat by the lake and washed his lower body. Although it removed all appearance of being soaked in green slime, he still smelled like the bowels of hell, and it was starting to make me nauseous. I had to keep a ten foot buffer from him in order not to risk vomiting all over the street. Still committed to the payoff, Asok was determined to press forward and go see this "real old, like 450 years old" Buddhist temple. Didn't he know I had just been to Angkor Wat? Unless there were monkeys at the temple, I was probably not going to be impressed. I decided to go along, mainly because I was curious to see if he would induce a mass vomiting/evacuation at the temple when everyone got a whiff of the wretched miasma that was emanating from his pants. I had extended my buffer to 15 feet, and made every attempt to not walk where his feet had touched.

Asok really wanted me to take pictures of the temple and kept asking me if I was "happy." I took one picture to placate him, and told him that I was happy, but maybe he should go home and wash the toxic waste off his legs with some soap. He was excited to show me the elephant at the temple, and seemed kind of disappointed that I didn't want to take a picture of an sad elephant chained to the ground surrounded by its own feces. The smell of elephant shit actually provided temporary relief from having to repress my gag reflexes.

When we left the temple I knew I had to lose him because it was just getting too unbearable. I was also concerned that the sludge might actually harm him - one of his feet had a band aid on a toe, and I couldn't imagine what kind of gross infection toxic sludge would cause on an open wound. Of course, before I was able to lose him, we had to take care of business. Asok's daughter's birthday was tomorrow, and although he had previously mentioned that his daughter was four, she was turning four tomorrow. I just assumed he had already begun to think of her as four years old since it was so close to the date. He wanted me, to buy her a dress, because, well, he never really explained why I should buy her a dress, but he did say it would cost around $10. I said I couldn't buy her a dress, and after much haggling, I agreed to give him $3, because, well, his whole lower body was engulfed by green ooze and I wanted to play it safe in case he turned into a ninja turtle. As we parted, he extended his hand, as if to consummate the deal, even though I was just giving him money, but I just turned away and started walking. I had seen what that hand was soaked in.

This is the one picture I took of the "real old" temple. One of the panels depicts Buddah reaching enlightenment under a tree. Is it a coincidence that Asok fell into the slime under a tree?

This is Asok. He's not wearing any shoes because they were engulfed by the sludge hole.

The smell is going to stick with me for the rest of my life.

Seriously, where is all that slime coming from?