"Soot Thanon" ...The End of the Road

As the glass doors before the international arrivals waiting area flew open we paused & held onto the last moment of our adventure, flinching hard at the reality of returning. 6 movies were watched back to back as we traveled home in a reverse swoop across the Pacific Ocean & the entire width of North America. For a mere 30+ hours we drifted through time zones without shutting an eye, hiding our dismal anticipation within our tireless involvement in plot after plot. 

Surviving the initial celebration of our arrival, we stood side by side staring at the revolving luggage while our parents happily & cruelly shared in each others joy behind us. The treasured backpacks that hadn't left our sight in months had apparently been audacious enough to stay in Thailand. So we got into our respective cars, with our respective immediate family members & drove home down that routine stretch of highway from Boston to Newport. I woke up the next morning (that should be night) alone in my bedroom, surrounded by things I'd forgotten were significant to me. The only evidence of  the past three months of my life was on this site & in the printed pages of my mother's following; as I still waited for my backpack filled with all I'd thought a person could possibly need to return to me. Landing in Thailand, the culture shock was expected to such an extent that the suspense was more potent than the impact upon arrival. Returning home, there is nothing quite so jolting & unnerving as feeling the familiar as foreign. Like getting through a hangover, we waited to readjust.

Very aware that our time was coming to an end, our last weeks in Railay were savored. I don't have a written word in my journal from those weeks, doubt I made it a full chapter through a book. We were in the home stretch & had officially stayed into Thailand's undeniably hot season where survival techniques like water breaks became priority out of necessity. 

Arriving in Railay, we hopped off the longtail boats on the sunrise side of the isthmus & anxiously made our way along the sandy path, under the dreadlocked trees, & back into the little neighborhood of huts & waterside 'Shangri-la'. Things had changed in our absence & we reminisced about our friends that had moved on & the days when the now vanished coffee shop was the place to be. Slowly familiar characters awoke from their daytime slumber in unknown corners & climbed down from their limestone playground to greet us. We moved back into Rappala bungalows, this time coupling off into neighboring quarters, tossing our damp sarongs onto neighboring porch rails.

Immediately we resumed our roles as locals & all that entails on Railay. Every morning we trooped past the chickens on the path out of Rappala, bounced down the 58 steps, mutually greeted Thais leisurely putting their bars back in order, walked way down to the end of sunrise & by the gangs of monkies along the cave covered path, past the climbers clinging with powdery fingers to the cave walls & wobbling tight-ropers, past the phallic tourist-swarmed fertility shrine & the people floating under the canopied shelter of the cave's overhang, around the woman selling corn & her flock of friends offering up massages/mani/pedis, to our favorite spot of sand- 20 feet from both the longtail snack bars & an available patch of shade. Phranang is no doubt in my mind the most beautiful beach in the world. The fine sand shoreline stretches along sheer turquoise water from it's cave beginnings, bending around corners lined with longtail boats, past limestone stacks & shallow sand bars that lead out to them, until it hits a small patch of jungle leading to more complex caves at the far end. We spent our very last day soaking up as much of this slice of heaven as we could. We braved the hot sun all day long seeking relief lounging in shallow spots or floating around making random conversation with other floaters. A late afternoon downpour forced us to dodge into the far cave where we climbed through narrow twisted passages until we found ourselves looking out from a sheltered height over the stormy beach. It felt as if we owned part of this island just for appreciating it's every inch. Life in Railay was true bliss. Sunsets on the sunset beach watching the locals play, curried dinners with friends & their newly expat Swedish girlfriends, fireshows, Chang beers drank barefoot & indian-style by candlelight.. Jenga. We scoffed daily at the longtail drivers along the sunrise-side wall asking if we wanted a ride back to the mainland Krabi town. Why would anyone even humor leaving?

Reality, I guess. 

We said our goodbyes & gathered at the travel agency booth to await our exit. As we sat reluctantly looking for our longtail to appear the sky opened up wide & rain came down torrentially. The tide was out so far that several longtails lay stranded leaning on the exposed rain splattered sand. We walked through the length of this surreal tropical shower a good mile out till we finally reached water. I don't really remember much from there. I think we likely got dropped to a truck that drove us to a bus that took us with however many transfers back to Bangkok City where we feverishly hunted for an elaborate variety of souvenirs until a cab took us to Chatree's so we could organize with the added baggage we'd stored there, shower, & get in one last cab to the airport. Maybe Chatree drove us to the airport, he was always more than willing to make our lives easier, which felt so luxurious amidst backpacking. With all the different forms of transportation we'd experienced, a car seemed so personal.

last minute consolidation

our transport list:

tuk-tuk (with bicycle & motorcycle)✓

songthaew (gated truck bed)✓

taxi✓

minibus✓

bus (including double deckers, dilapidated, & sleepers)✓

longtail boat✓

ferry✓

speedboat✓

slowboat✓

skylag✓

plane (assorted)✓

junkboat✓

moped

bicycle

ricksha (samlor)✓

We never got mopeds because of the horror stories (falls, accidents, tailpipe burns, & most worrisome: the frequent outrageous charges for damage already existent at the rental). We tried to stay at hostels that offered bicycles but were never lucky enough to end up with tires. Rickshas simply weren't big enough for three of us let alone the days when there were four & five or in Vietnam where passengers on samlors were carted solo like kings. We managed to check this last one off the list (technically) in the airport & were fully satisfied, as you can tell...

Subsequently our devious backpacks got dropped on our US doorsteps, we made our re-entry into Newport life, & smiled through the agony of endless ambiguous questions such as the "how was it?"s & the "you guys have fun?"s. Occasionally one of us would go off on an elaborate spiel or share some animated travel anecdote, but more often than not we all just said "oh yea, it was a blast." At first we often found ourselves retreated into the ladies room or huddled into a corner clinging together for support & sharing disgruntled memories of paradise. By May the three of us were living off Thames, reconciled with summer in Newport. We served food to thousands, double biked to the beach clutching pool floats, threw backyard cookouts, late night soirees, & celebrated everything from graduations to America's independence; breaking from real life here & there for a little wistful nostalgia...

Days turned into weeks into months & we all got accustomed to life revolving around whatever it is that life revolves around normally. By January we were all antsy to run away. The girls took off to Costa Rica where they've been playing beachside in Tamarindo since. March 24th I'll be joining them with Lonely Planet guides & Spanish companions to throw on our backpacks & uncover what Central America has to offer. Before we know it we'll be right back in the throes of reverse culture shock, coming to terms with routine & reality... only with even more adventures whispering in our minds.

Always do what you wish you could.

✶ tag along to Central America ✶

Hakuna Matata

Quick update for I feel we may be falling off the face of the earth 

& deep into island mode...

With Tara enroute back to the Big Apple, we eagerly departed busy Bangkok & ventured all the way South on a draining series of buses/ferries. During the long overnight segment, the bus operators kindly played our entire collection of black market DVDs for us on the second level while they thoroughly scoured through our backpacks in the luggage room under our feet. A grueling & unexpected 24 hours later (we'd been prepared for 12ish) we arrived on the quiet island of Lanta Yai; dirty, tired, & stripped of a baht-load more than I care to admit. BUT, the glass was half full- Lauren ended up with a quality pair of old man socks & I found in my poor ransacked backpack some chicks supply of anti-diarrhea pills, a really big bandaid, & a travel packet of laundry detergent... life. is. good. Without sarcasm, I can't think of anywhere better than Ko Lanta to station yourself & reconnect with a love of Thailand after being violated in Southeast Asia. We stayed under thick palms in beyond authentic bamboo bungalows only sandy steps away from a desolate perfection of a Thai beach right past the shabby chic restaurant & bar of the fabulously titled "Sanctuary Bungalows." In our garden bathroom the toilet sat out of place surrounded by crushed pieces of coral & an absurd amount of plants, the shower was a waterfall that came out of a slit in a bamboo pipe that ran overhead, & you had to be truly careful not to step on the caterpillars. Our beds were surrounded by mosquito nets that effectively kept all the geckos in their place, & if that's not enough- there was a horse tied up outside our door, Lauren & I chased a chinchilla out by throwing a shoe in it's direction, & we learned that the croaking animal we've been hearing constantly since Cambodia actually resembles a crocodile (we'd had some sort of duck in mind). Mother nature truly seemed to be paying unusual attention to the little island during our visit as we also lounged nightly under clouds illuminated by heat lightning, sat in pure awe of the most amazing sunsets, & took daily breaks from the hot season heat in afternoon tropical rainshowers. On our final night we ventured down a pitch black stretch of silent dirt road to "Relax Bay" for a live reggae performance under the stars.

   

We've now landed back in Phi Phi, have had our local pals henna-tatoo our tanned selves, & spend the days as we have since we arrived in the Gulf of Thailand: sprawled out on baby powder sands devouring memoirs & breaking only to savor flawlessly fresh fruitshakes, float around in the bathtub clear waters, or switch from the sun to a shaded hammock. OMMMM.

As for our big plans for the remainder of our second & final stay on Phi Phi- we'd like to take Mindy on another snorkeling adventure, want to climb to viewpoint for a sunset, really need to try the mixed berry fruitshakes, & (if we can find the time) might pick up some pool floats :) Saturday we jump a ferry through the limestone splendor of Krabi back to our beloved Railay where we intend to rot away blissfully until heading back to crazy Bangkok to fly back to crazy America. The clock is ticking on our Great Asian Adventure, but I'm sure there will be some part of our experience in home-away-from-home Railay that will be just too irresistable not to share*

 

Party Of Five

We had a couple days to kill in familiar Bangkok before the girls arrived. After re-aquainting ourselves with the over-stimulation that is Khao Sarn Road, we dropped off a couple kilos of excess backpack weight & had an amazing Italian feast at Chatree's place, got to know modern Bangkok downtown at the malls, & lay out at Lumphini Park in front of a pond full of massive lizards that we initially assumed to be either anacondas or snakes (hey, you never know in Bangkok).

An era ended & a new chapter began when the girls joined us on the other side of the world- we officially went on a vacation from our vacation. Conveniently we decided not to acknowledge Tara & Mindy's jet lag & on their first day we dropped them at the Royal Palace, took an hour long cruise of the canals, squeezed all five of us into one tuk-tuk across town where we weaved our way through hectic chinatown, explored the uber-modern central world mall, & then head to the train station where we hopped on an overnight train bound for Chiang Mai.

Immediately after checking into our hotel we called up the same massage parlor we'd visited during our first whirl through town & arranged for them to pick us up ASAP. After being chauffered, we all changed into those same orange pajamas & sipped pandanus tea in a row while our feet were scrubbed clean. The former-inmates/current queens of massage lay us out on floor cushions & introduced Tara & Min to what Thailand really has to offer... tiger balm & all. We spent the rest of the day & into the evening perusing the Sunday walking street that had erupted outside the salon unbenounced to us. Every street inside the moated area of the city had closed down & been completely taken over by vendors offering up a unique selection of food, art, & souvenirs. It seemed nearly every person in Northern Thailand was floating through the maze.

ironically looking like jailbirds

The next day Lauren, Jenny, & I separated for the first time in months. Tara, Mindy, & I went off into the suburbs for a 7 hour intensive cooking class while Lauren & Jenny head to the Chiang Mai Zoo. While we learned & successfully made everything from heavenly mango sticky rice to drunken noodles, the girls got up close & personal with hippos & giraffes. We met up later for a cruise through the Night Bazaar & a couple St. Patrick's Day beers at an Irish Pub.

Perm showing us how it's done

Next stop: Pai. Lonely Planet's description of this Northern expat haven sucked us right in.

"The hippie trail is alive & well in Pai"

After a long, indescribably overcrowded, winding trip through the mountains of Mae Hong Son we found ourselves beyond perfect accomodations at the Golden Hut Bungalows where from the benches surrounding our bamboo patio you could see the bright orange robes of monks (who we could also hear chanting at dawn) through the palm trees at their nearby wat. The town was quiet, bohemian, & fully enamored with it's own unique vibe. Small galleries sold postcards & other souvenirs baring cutesy recognition for Pai's Pai-ness...

"utoPAI"...

"insPAIration"...

"Pai in the sky"...

"Do nothing in Pai"....

We spent our first day poolside & surrounded by mountains before heading out into town to scope out the perfect spot for Jenny's birthday celebration. At the edge of town we stumbled upon Ting Tong Bar (Ting Tong means "crazy... but in a good way"), a huge open air bar ran by a lively bunch of locals who promise nightly fire shows & live to entertain. We dropped word of Jenny's birthday to this fun loving bunch & extraordinarily the next day employees donning customized Ting Tong shirts passed out flyers inviting the entire town to join in the celebration of Jenny's 23rd. Strangers were actually stopping the herd of us on the street to wish Jenny a good one. While the girls found a new pool to spread out at, Tara & I spent that afternoon playing alone in a nearby river with a couple loveable elephants. We rode bareback through the countryside & got repeatedly dumped into the river as our new friend plopped himself over repeatedly. Tara had been waiting a long time to hang out with a real elephant & the experience could not have been more ideal.

0 . 2 . 8 . 4 . 0 .

That night, after a candlelit pregame with appetizers on our bungalow patio, dinner at a local restaurant, & a quick bar crawl for some cocktails & live music, we made it fashionably late & spent a memorable night at Ting Tong. Another unique 23rd birthday in Southeast Asia!

Are you Ting Tong?

The next day we left Pai behind & took a bus all the way back to Bangkok where we've been wandering for the last couple days. After a final Thai experience in the Red Light District last night, Tara flew back to the US & now the four of us have only a few hours until we get on a bus that will take us back down South where we'll spend our final weeks on the beach :)

Yet another chapter begins....

The Kingdom

The faces in Cambodia are darker, the exchange rate is 3800 riel to 1 USD, women balance massive bowls filled with fried tarantulas on their heads... Cambodia is definitely different than anywhere we've encountered so far. Yet, our expectation that this place would be less intense than our experience in Vietnam was way off, at least historically speaking. Cambodia's history may not be quite so personal as learning about our impact on Vietnam, but their memory is still fresh & the details gruesome.

We spent our first days in Phnom Penh visiting S-21 Prison, a now eery genocide museum where makeshift brick cells are still intact, rooms are lined in black & white mugshots, & torture rooms still house their sole wire beds. A high school until 1976 & formerly known as "Tuol Sleng," this prison was designed for the interrogation of anyone accused of being "anti-Angkar."1,500 Cambodians at a time were imprisoned at S-21 for supposedly being against the Khmer Rouge regime. Their photos were taken, biographies recorded, & then they were beyond brutally tortured into writing absurd often lengthy confessions of betrayal before being executed. Their families, including children, were also round-up & killed for clean measure. Of the 20, 000 total brought to Tuol Sleng, only 7 survived. We also ventured to one of the “Killing Fields”, Choeung Ek, a former tree farm slightly outside the city where the prisoners were shipped, killed, & tossed into mass graves. The ground is covered in holes where the bones were fairly recently excavated & a tall haunting memorial holds piles upon piles of anonymous skulls. 343 mass burial sites have been found throughout the country. At these, the Khmer Rouge is estimated to have killed nearly 2 million before being removed from power in only 1979 as the result of an invasion by Vietnam. The organization was not formerly dissolved until 1996 & Pol Pot, the KR’s infamous leader, died soon after in 1998 having never been put on trial.

Our nights in Phnom Penh were spent unwinding. The strip of the city along the riverside is truly beautiful, the food delicious, & the young children constantly hawking souvenirs with their sing-songy sales pitches undeniably adorable. The main market is set up inside a massive warehouse- a seemingly endless maze of stuff. You’ll be standing in an area surrounded by black market dvds, walk too far in one direction, & find yourself smack dab in the middle of motorcycle parts. We often seemed to be the only tourists in sight & the weather was just right for wandering.

For the past several days we’ve been in Siem Reap, a cozy little town with something for everyone. We spent a full three 3 days exploring the lost city of Angkor with the help of a hired tuk-tuk driver. On our second day we watched the sun rise & set behind Angkor Wat; the once principal temple of this region & currently one of the seven wonders of the world. Starting in the 9^th century the Khmer empire built Angkor including numerous stone temples that today are the crumbling evidence of the great city. Each temple was different from the next, some slightly restored & others in the midst of being swallowed up by twisty trees.

Early Risers

Last night we went out on the town in celebration of both a break from temples & not leaving SE Asia as planned (we would be home by now!) Cheers to another 4 weeks! Next we take on the 12 hour bus route back to Bangkok that Lonely Planet refers to as “the Boulevard of Broken Backsides.” Worse than the endless up, down, zig-zag in Laos? We’ll see about that.

2 months deep in our great Asian adventure

In Bangkok we're picking up two of our girlfriends from home before heading North. Should we be warning them about the constant sweating, repulsive bathrooms, or cockroach in my dinner last night? Nahhh half the fun of SE Asia is figuring all that out for yourself :)

Open Tour VN

We made our way from Hanoi to Halong Bay through kilometers of green countryside. Motorbikes toting crates packed with frightened dogs awaiting their Eastern-world fate swooshed by & the heartbeat paced farming community practically spilled onto the highway from both sides. As we passed through tollbooths women in conical hats worked knee deep in rice patties literally right off the edge of the road.




We arrived to another surreal scene at the dock in Halong. Swarms of massive wooden junk boats flying bright Vietnamese flags waited out their turn to scoop up an awaiting group. Once aboard, we quickly left the shore & head out towards the endless limestone stacks that loomed across the entire horizon. We spent the next 24 hours drifting through the bay, sipping wine on the rooftop deck, & daring to karaoke with our hilariously shameless Volunteers for Peace pals. We also made a couple quick pit stops to kayak through the floating neighborhoods which live under the shadows of the massive cliffs & to check out an expansive cave grotto hidden within one of the mountains. It was a heavenly experience. After being dumped back on shore we said goodbye & got on the road again... just the 3 of us at last.

final VFP shot

Hanoi was also an altered image in the wake of the Tet celebrations. The roads were unrecognizable with all the storefronts open & business back to usual. We had little time to take in the new vision of the city- signed up for an open-tour package (so we could hop on & off at a number of cities along the route to Saigon) & a couple hours later hopped on a sleeper bus for the first 12 hour ride to Hue.

We'd been living in Vietnam for weeks, but traveling down the East coast of the Indochina peninsula we've begun to take on a more complete awareness of this country & the Vietnamese people. The Vietnamese have defended their nation against the Khmers, Chams, Mongols, Chinese, French, Japanese, & of course good old Americans- & still come out alive & kicking. They pride themselves in their resilience which has also helped them bounce back after outbreaks of SARS, the Avian Flu, & an economic crisis back in 1997. Lining the highways are old fashioned propaganda billboards sporting the face of Ho Chi Minh, both the Vietnam & communist flags, images of all people from soldiers to monks, & always at least one peace dove. Vietnam is ALL about National pride & we were en route to find out what all the fuss is about.

Our two days in Hue, the country's former capital city, were rainy. We'd left the majority of our warm clothes behind in Viet Tri expecting sunshine & instead found ourselves trudging endlessly through local highlights. We dripped back & forth over the Perfume River to see Notre Dame Cathedral, the Citadel, ancient forbidden purple city, & a couple pagodas. The crumbling sights looked older & even more magestic in the persistant rain, but we were simply muddy & wet. Luckily we found a great Italian restaurant to camp out at for the evening & we refused to let the weather get us down :)






Next stop- Danang, where we spent the night right on China Beach where the US soldiers spent their downtime during the war. In the morning, after trooping up & down buddah swarmed Marble Mountain, we head to Danang's neighboring city Hoi An, where we'd catch our next bus down the coast. Hoi An was a sleepy pretty little town with a unique Asian/European feel. The weather was beautiful & the fruit shakes just right. It was here that we stumbled upon Randy, an expat from Laguna Beach, California who had set up a bookstore down a quiet street near the river. He set us up with "the boys guide to Cambodia," a list he & a friend created which (aside from the dirty bar suggestions) should serve us well in the next couple days.

Well, thank Buddah we got the sleeper bus, because our next leg out of Hoi An took us 24 hours South to Saigon. We stopped only for a couple bathroom breaks, & a chance to eat at the beach in Nha Trang & the deserts of Mui Ne. Saigon is an intense city. With two names (Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City), 8 million people, & 4 million motorbikes, I think it might just bustle more than Bangkok itself. Even the backpackers district where we're staying is full of locals parked in near-kindergarten sized plastic chairs outside all the local eateries. The markets have absolutely every useless thing you could imagine, the nim chow is incredible, & the traffic is out of control. Yesterday we visited the War Remnants Museum & walked through exhibit after exhibit portraying America's heavy impact on the country during the Vietnam war; every wall covered in beautiful black & white photo evidence backing up every snipit of information. It was hard to take in the dramatic extent of the long-lasting damage we imposed. This was Vietnam's side of the story so it obviously was going to be a bit biased- that we were prepared for. Yet, you couldn't help but be embarassed by the story told. We are supposed to be the country that only gets involved in order to stop inhumane treatment, our constitution is all about equal rights, & yet we were destroying villages full of innocent civilians, dropping anti-foliants for a better view from the sky & meanwhile both destroying lush jungles & poisoning generations to come with Agent Orange. When we finally did retreat, we left in our wake thousands of unexploded ammunitions. 

Today we took a day trip to the Cu Chi tunnels where the Viet Cong operated from intricrate underground communities during the fighting. We attempted to crawl through the tunnels only to rush out the nearest early exit to escape our claustrophobia. Our guide laughed at our sweating, flushed group & informed us that the tunnels had already been widened by nearly 2/3rds to accomodate tourists. Tomorrow we leave all the intensity of Vietnam behind & head across the border to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Tam Biet Vietnam!

playing w. an old US tanker