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Travel interruptions Dear Friends and Family, I am writing from Santa Barbara where I have been for the past three weeks as a result of the unexpected and sudden death of my mother. It's very sad, and I've spent the last three weeks beginning to deal intensely with the fallout and repercussions. After a lot of thought, I've decided to resume my round-the-world trip in a modified fashion, and reminiscing about my trip, and planning for the last leg, has been a healthy distraction. I'll write more later, but first comes the lighter stuff. As always, first come photo links for the ADD sufferers out there: Koh Phangan, Samui: http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeBMnLhq0aNWHC
More on Bangkok - After I finished deciding why I hate Bangkok so much, I came up with another top 10 list of why I hate Bangkok, but it was mostly about tuk-tuk drivers, so I'll spare you. In a rush to reach Koh Phangan for the full moon party, I splurged on a plane ticket in atypical backpacker fashion and saved myself from a 16 hour train ride. As we descended, the palm tree covered island came into view, and my excitement grew, as this California boy hadn't seen a beach for over 3 months. A short ferry ride later, I had met a few Kiwi blokes and was following them on a motorbike looking for cheap digs. As they actually knew how to ride the damn things, I quickly lost them and turned back to Hat Rin, the beach town infamous for holding full moon parties. With only 3 days until the madness, the town was completely full aside from the rare rat-infested basic room. And after roughing it in Laos, I needed my fancy a/c room. Four hours and forty guest houses later, I found the third last air-conditioned room in town, and paid the extravagant rate of $15 per night. I arrived a day too late to play in the volleyball tournament, but still played a few games in the hour or so each day when there was still sunlight but not 140 degree weather. I went out a couple nights to warm up for the full moon party, drank a couple beers, met a few people, got tired, and went home. Yes I'm an old man, I have to warm up to party now. The big night came around. Knowing that I would be unable to match the copious alcoholism of the Brits and Aussies, (and not unlike men with big trucks and small ... feet) I compensated with the best t-shirt ever – "Take me drunk, I’m home". At first, people just pointed and laughed at me cuz they were still sober - later people laughed with me. The beach was jam packed, and the omnipresent buckets did their damage. Buckets, you might ask? No, locals don’t go around beating Farangs upside the head with metal buckets (literally speaking, anyway). In fact, Sangsom Buckets are something of a Thai phenomenon, consisting of a small (but not that small) plastic bucket and a lot of bad whiskey, pepsi, and red bull. I quickly lost everyone I knew, wandered around, met new people, danced a lot, and avoided passed out people, newly made couples making out in the sand, lost shoes, and anything else you can imagine on the beach. It started raining around 2am and half the people (sober) ran into the bars, and the other half were completely trashed and swarmed out onto the beach and into the ocean. I almost gave out around 3am, but drank a pepsi and plugged on. I danced more, watched drunks dropping off like flies (but at least their falls were cushioned by sand), saw the sunrise, and wandered home. Good fun. Then I got massively sick (I think from beach vendor food) for a week afterwards, went to the hospital, took Cipro (that stuff is amazing!), got better, started moving towards Krabi, and got sick again (but mild this time). I was now convinced I had malaria or some rare tropical malady, but fortunately (from a health standpoint, or unfortunately from a storytelling standpoint), it was more of the same boring bacteria. I took more Cipro (is it addictive?), and quickly recovered. During the middle of this ordeal, I was stuck on Koh Samui, the second most touristy island in Thailand. Remember that I hate being surrounded by tourists (I am a traveler!) and I was stuck there for several days. Coincidentally, Songkran, the Thai New Year celebrated by massive water warfare, occurred during this time. Due to the scorching heat of April, it was actually quite nice to be constantly soaked, but the aggressive locals and tourists trying to smear baby powder all over me got old very quickly. I also got dragged to a cabaret show by some newly made friends, and might have lasted 3 minutes before hightailing out of there. The one saving grace of Samui was the excellent seafood restaurants. I also got stuck in Surat Thani for a few days, and it is by far the most boring city on this planet. This is not an exaggeration, and the yellow bible will corroborate my story. The good news was that I had to rest. The bad news was that there was absolutely nothing to do. But at least I caught up on all the bad 80's movies I missed via Star Movie Channel in my guest house. Finally healthy, I caught a bus to Krabi, and arrived too late to make it to Koh Lanta that night. I checked into a guest house, ate some food, and checked my email. I had five messages telling me there was a major family emergency, call home immediately. An hour later, in shock and extremely upset about the news about my mother, I was looking for flights back to California. The next morning, I reserved a flight, paid, and then minutes later the airline told my travel agent that in fact there actually weren't any seats available. The agent was almost as upset by this as I was, and he started calling around frantically. I was also agitated, but was told to sit down and eat some breakfast as there was nothing I could do. Ten minutes later, I was interrupted mid-meal and told that I now had a ticket for a different flight, but had to leave immediately for a 90 minute car ride to Phuket for a flight that left in under 2 hours. The travel agent drove very fast, and warned me to wave my arms frantically and shout in English if we got pulled over for speeding, since most Thai cops don’t speak English and are afraid of the US Embassy. We also discussed his views on world politics in considerable depth, and I learned all about the conspiracy to assassinate George Bush after he gets reelected (this is guaranteed by the American Illuminati) in order to consolidate power in the hands of Conservatives. I made it to the airport just in time, a Phuket travel agent met us with my paper ticket, and I was the last one on the plane. Our second stop was in Taiwan, and while I never actually made it to China, the artwork behind the escalators made me feel like I was ascending Chinese mountains looking for giant pandas. Three hours into the long cross-Pacific flight, a woman started having major medical problems on the plane. Our pilot asked over the loudspeaker if there were any doctors or nurses on board, and that we might be diverting to Japan for an emergency evacuation. We did, so I can now say I’ve been in Japan, without having to really go there. Paramedics in orange and blue jumpsuits ran onto the plane, and she was evacuated on a stretcher. We were later told that she made it to the hospital, but nothing more. We waited half an hour to refuel, and then an additional hour and a half for paperwork. The rest of the flight was uneventful, except for my conniving to get a more comfortable seat – I succeeded, but couldn’t get the flight attendants to move me to first class. I’ve been back in Santa Barbara for three weeks now, and have been dealing with many of the difficult aspects of the death of my mother. My family has been terrific through it all. I’m mostly finished with practical tasks, but expect that my remaining travels and future experiences will be tangibly different due to this major life-changing event. The limited good news is that I’ve seen a lot of family and friends, and have had an opportunity to play some volleyball and tennis. For many reasons, I’ve decided to resume my trip in a truncated fashion. I will be returning to Asia on Tuesday. I expect to spend a week in Cambodia seeing the highlights, three weeks in Vietnam, and a week seeing a small part of Europe (Prague and hopefully Budapest or London). I will then stop for a few days in Washington, DC, and return to Santa Barbara at the end of June. At this point, I will return to the productive world, and work for a couple months, before starting grad school at Stanford. Thank you family and friends for your support, and I hope to see many of you in Asia, Europe, and back in the US soon.
Regards, |