Malaysian Reflections

Bribes
This country is full of interesting people and different cultures. Things are different here.
Especially when you look at a country rich in colonial history and immigration

After having a drink or two with a meal in a group of ex-pats we discussed the local drinking and driving laws. Nobody could tell me what the allowed blood alcohol level was. So we had to do some research. We asked some locals and none of them knew what the allowable blood alcohol limit was. These were the answers I collected:

"Normally when you are talking on the phone, it is 20 or 30 Rm bribe"
"What is the allowable limit? Umm, 50 Rm"
"Depends how drunk you are, normally 50 Rm though"
and,
"Oh, that is very serious... you must pay a 50 ringgit bribe."

So in short I have discovered that the allowable blood alcohol level is 50 Ringgit.

Foolishly, I wondered that night why I have been here for almost 9 months and not been asked for a bribe. The Law of Attraction states quite simply "You get what you wish for."

The next day was pulled over for some complete bullshit reason but had to drop him a bribe 'cause he could find some dirt on me if he wanted to badly enough. I only had a 5 and a bunch of 50's on me. The normal bribe for something like this is about 20-30 Ringgit, I couldn't offend him with the 5, so instead I offered him the 50. He pretended to think about it for a few seconds and then said "Ok, I think better not I write you a summons. Good day."

Snipped
Just yesterday I was at the pool with a friend. After swimming, I went to the change room to get changed and rinse the chlorine off with a hot shower. When I got in there were two people, a little Southern Indian guy and a Malay woman. They were the janitors and doing some end of the night cleaning. She saw me and split fast realising I must have wanted to get changed. He however, stayed in and kept cleaning.
I took my towel into the shower and rinsed off when I came back to the locker and dried off and started to get changed. The little Indian dude called from the end of the room.

"Hello! You from where?" (a question I get a lot).
I told him Canada.
He said "Ohhhhh, You are Muslim?" and he pointed to Claudius Jr.
"No,I am christian"
"Ohhhh! Christian same like Muslim" This this time I was understanding that he was talking about the fact that I am circumcised (I gathered this by his snip snip gesture)

For me it was a little more than a little awkward but I realised that it was more a cultural learning thing for this guy and by no means a pick up attempt. Regardless, I got dressed as quickly as I could to avoid further gawking and to minimise my discomfort.

The conversation never finished there either. I got into the rest of my clothes and he came closer and asked me, "So how long in Malaysia?" and "How much, one plane ticket your country?" Then he asked me again if all Christians are snipped. I told him the truth. In North America it is very rare not to be snipped but it isn't a rule for Christians.
I have heard of people getting it done when they are teenagers and into early adulthood in Canada. Ticking it off after years of teasing and self consciousness.

We used to say "Helmet or Tuque?" (It is pronounced Took)
I said goodbye.
He pointed at my and gave me a thumbs up and a big smile.
"Nice"

Let's transplant this situation back to Canada. I could never imagine looking at a random dude and yelling "Nice!" from across the room and gesturing at his "cash and prizes." You would probably get beat up. Cultural learnings... What the hell Lets try it just for the sake of Learning.

It was necessary for me to talk about this with my friends over drinks later.
There aren't many tuques out there in N.A. But in Malaysia it is only the Muslims who are snipped every one else is a Tuque. Now we had most continents represented at the table with Europe represented along along with Indian-Malaysians and Chinese-Malaysians present as well. Pretty much every dude in Europe (Jews and Muslims aside I guess), is a tuque and Girls there have no preference. I am not sure what people in N.A. think anymore. Have we started to open up to the concept of going Natural or is it totally ingrained into our thinking or is it up for debate again?

Thai Reflections

Well now that a few months have passed and I have gained a bit of time off and some travel stories I think it is high time for a travel update.

Upon receiving news that I had a week of pending leave that had to be used up, I simultaneously got an email from Kristen Wurtele declaring her arrival onto the peninsula. She and Patty were hanging in Tonsai, Krabi, Thailand for a climbing vacation. I bought my Ticket and flew out right away to join them. They were in amazing shape after climbing for a weeks already and even training a bit back in Canadia. I however had a bit of a tough time catching up to them but still managed to break through a couple personal bests. I kranked out a couple of the stiff leads rating in at 6c/7a in the French system which is a 5.11b/c By YDS standards. I was sooo stoked, and in great shape when I came back to Thailand. Some of us were doing better than others...

Kristin somehow managed to crank up a 7a "onsite" which means she climbed it clean, on the fist try. Her climbing blew both me and Pat away. She went into everything saying "Unnnhhhhh. I don't think I can do that one" and then climbed them clean again and again.

Patty had a bit of a fever for most of the time I was there. It didn't seem to get in the way much of his climbing too much but sometimes when you are down the world likes to just keep throwing low blows at you. Which can be pretty funny when you aren't the person it is happening to, but it is especially when we are talking about Patty who can make you laugh until you are sore with his self deprecation and his tales of bad luck. While belaying K up a pretty tough climb he managed to pick up a hitchhiker that tagged along all the way up with him to the top of the climb. Pat finished setting up the top anchor and got ready to lower. All at once he started screaming and yelling, "S#!t, F#@K, Lemme Down! Lemme Down!" While he punched his leg and convulsed. "S#!t,S#!t,S#!t" K was on the Catch and dropped him super fast, he scraped against the rock and bounced off it a couple times then hit the ground with a thud. Immediately upon hitting the ground he pulled off his harness and pants. He looked on the ground and found the little bastard that climbed into his pants and started stinging him when he sat down in his harness at the top of the climb. We took pictures of the scorpion for identification sake but it is too blurry to post. (sorry)

The next day we sat in at a table at a bar on the beach that a week prior, a man was seated there had a large snake fall out of a tree onto him. Patty predicted the future a bit when he said, "If a snake fall today, it will land on me. That type of shit always happens to me." Only a few moments into our pineapple chicken salad a big Scorpion crawled out of his salad and onto his plate. "Scorpion!" he states matter of factley as if he knew all along it was going to happen. "See?"

The next night, I walked out into the forest for a funny Photo-op of K Posing on a toilet and I stepped on a nice rusty old nail. Thought of Tetanus and gangrene quickly came front of mind. Patty with his E.M.T. experience and his rapid bandaging and cleaning skills, managed to get me doctored up and ready to climb after only one rest day. It poured blood and was super gross.

A couple of days later while in the bathroom I found a little gecko. They are remarkably quick and not so easy to catch. I did my best but was still only able to catch it's tail. Their tails by the way come off as an defense mechanism something like a distraction. The tail keeps twitching after it falls off. No need to worry though. The tail grows back in a couple weeks. We showed this video to the local Thai guys and they told us that they eat them listing the regenerative properties in the tail as a good source of the magic juice of life that keeps people looking young. I have no idea if they were just pulling our chains or not but I got the impression that people really did eat them.

Where'd he go?

Some people have been wondering where and what I am up to these days. Since my last update I finished a degree in Ecotourism and Outdoor Leadership at Mt. Royal College in Calgary AB. Lived in France for 6 months, drove from Morocco to France, hung out in and finished backpacking across SE Asia (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Tokyo Japan). I did have the best intentions of updating my blog while I was going to school but you know how it goes… I once read that only like 20-30% of people who start a blog continue to use it after three months. Well I guess I am now transcending the boundaries of this statistic. Where is the number of people who actually pick it back once they are doing something interesting again. I kinda doubt you wants to hear about the papers I wrote for school, or the new shoes I just bought.

So now that I is a graduate, What’s next? My friend Paul told me that there is usually a time of doubt and uncertainty and “What the 'F' am I going to do with my life” (sorry for using harsh letters), between graduating and getting that first real job. I pretty much wrote my last final exam and came home to find the job offer in my email inbox. Now I am the Outdoor Operations Coordinator for Nomad Adventure (for webpage click the preceding text) in Malaysia.

It may sound pretty serious and it kind of is. Mostly though, I just go rafting, kayaking, caving, and rockclimbing. We also do corporate teambuilding and high ropes courses. Our clients are mostly from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

I have adjusted to life as a Mat Saleh (malay for foreigner, or white dude) now that my Impression of Austin Powers’ Goldmember is finished “that’s a keeper.” The Peeling and collection of my own skin is no longer a passtime. Back to Sudoku for me. I am starting to learn a bit of Bahasa. (the local language) “Saya chakap Bahasa Malayu sikit-sikit” (I speak a little Malaysian). It’s not really that hard since there are no real verb conjugations to speak of. Heavily influenced by Portuguese, English, Arabic and Dutch. Bahasa is similar language to that of Indonesia and a bit like Tagalog from the Philippines. The fact that it isn’t tonal is a relief after trying to learn some Thai last year. There is also a healthy mix of Chinese, Hindi, and Tamil spoken here. Many speak a pigeon of English which is pretty cool. A language into its self. ‘Hey Boss, boleh?” May I. Speaking even just a little bit of Bahasa gets you a lot of respect here.

This is a picture of me and my Kiwi Kolleague tandemning it down the Sungkai River in Gopeng.

I have been doing a bit of raft guiding and some Kayaking too. I had a really cool day a couple weeks ago.

There were some “Orang Asli” (Original People) kids from a local village swimming the rapids or just sitting on the rocks while we kayaked down the river. It was so priceless. They were watching us surf in the final hole on the river and just jumped into our boats while we were having lunch and started to surf it on their own. They were naturals and did it with “minimal” gear too. They knew exactly how to paddle and exactly where to sit in the boat to surf. Incidentally this is my most viewed picture on my flickr site. I called it “full frontal”
I don't understand it. Hundreds of people have viewed it already and probably hundreds more will.

Trekking in Pai and Rooster Revenge

After finally leaving Chiang Mai, the beautiful/artsy college town of the north. We took a Thai Government Bus to Pai. The distance was about 135km's but the trip took around 5 hours. We had frequent stops and the bus was over flowing with travelers, locals bags of rice and boxes. The Thai locals, who can be found sleeping in the most bizarre places at best of times, have no qualms about falling asleep on your shoulder or your lap. Several Farangs exchanged confused and bemused looks at each other and their new snuggle buddies when their "Church Nods" turned into "Sleep Ons". 4 hours later we find ourselves in the lovely little mountain town of Pai. Where people are friendly and livings easy. Where the foot of the Himalayan mountains greets you every morn' with beautiful and deep fog, dancing on te mountain tops, Where a receding hairline is no excuse not to have Dreadlocks. The Dreadlock Mullet or Drullet, if I may, was proudly displayed on the backs of Men's, Women's, and (Oh yes) even children's heads. So many heads donned this hair fashion that I gave it the status of the "Official Haircut of Pai."

We checked out the hot springs which are highly recommended and can pump out some heat. Many of the pools can be sat in but some of them reach a whopping 80degrees Celsius. Christine and I thought it would be cool to go have a dip under the full moon so took off on our motorcycle and got there just in time for the moonrise. The night was gorgeous but the park was closed. We ended up sitting at a hot pool outside of the park. The water was too hot to sit in so we sat around it until a security guard came around and started to ask us questions. The first being, "Are you Catholic?. " My first answer was "no". Given the amount of Muslims around and the Burma border this was a safe answer. I had heard about the riots over a cartoon of the Prophet Mohamed and I was a little apprehensive about his intentions. He immediately seemed disappointed that we were not Catholic. He happily admitted to being one and seemed to glad to see some white people who were most likely Catholic. In Thailand the dominant religion is Buddhist at about 95%. The rest of the religious spread would probably be contain about 3% Muslim and the rest would be Christian or Animist (ancestor worship). We chatted for a while and when he found out that I was Canadian he got excited again. He is studying French and wanted to practice his vocabulary. He struggled to remember a couple words and came up short. He remembered his cheat sheet someone prepared for him. Deep into his bag he reached to pull out a Japanese word sheet. The story ends with me somehow translating his Japanese into English, then French, and back into Thai for him. It was a really enlightening experience.

My original plan for going to the north was to do some Trekking. I pounded the pavement and found what I believed to be the most "Eco", the most rugged, the most untouristy of all the Treks in Pai. After 4 days of, "OK. We definitely leave tomorrow." 's from our guide Lert, we finally got on a trek into some hill top villages to see some of the local Thai indigenous cultures preserved in all of their rugged, rural, and undiscovered glory. Maybe we could go see some of the long necked Karen or the ancient Chinese lost Hmong tribe. What about the Lisu or the Akha's? That would be fun. Maybe we could learn some of their ancient wisdom and see how life is lived high in the mountains of northern Thailand.

The following morning we most definitely left. On the road at last. We met the cast and characters of our trip. They were: Lainie the Photographer from T.O. , Greg "Why wait til I retire to travel" from Ontario, and Christine a classmate from Mount Royal in Calgary and Prisca and Nina the Swiss Germans. Nina, who is 5 years old understood little english and got Mama to translate by asking, "Mama, was ischt?" She was quite a cute little redhead who was already growing quite tall for a five year old. We reached the first village at around noon, ate some lunch, and watched the school children play and colour during their lunch break. We gave the teachers gifts of school books and pencil crayons. She said, "Thank you" but was seemingly unimpressed by our act of generosity. The people of the village were candid and they carried about their lives despite our little intrusion. The children played the dogs growled and the cocks crowed.
That afternoon had some more difficult hiking, so Nina and Prisca took a motorcycle to the next village where we would spend the night.

We arrived at the Lisu village around 5:00 and were greeted by a local lady. She was most certainly mute and quite possibly deaf. She had lived a hard life in the fields. She was very intrigued with the the little paleskinned redhaired Falang we brought into the village and followed them around staring from 2 feet away. Our guides cooked up a feast while we slugged back some Lao Khao, a local rice wisky, watched the vilage boys play Ta-Kraw, and then enjoyed a beautiful mountain sunset.

We laughed and told a stories by the fire after dinner with the village boys. Someone suggested we play some campfire songs. How perfect would that be? Some traditional Thai Folk songs in a Lisu Hill tribe village. Maybe the village boys has a guitar! In my best Tinglish I asked them for a guitar. I am pretty much certain he understood me as he immediately said no but said something quickly to his friend who started occupying himself with something else. Moments later, he was gracing us with music. In fact his cellphone which was capable of playing not only rocking beats but, videos as well as. We jammed out with the niether primitive, nor pristinely preserved Lisu Villagers late into the night with our Traditional Lao Khao wisky.

Sleep that night, against all odds, did not come easily. With a belly full of Lao Khao and a days worth of trekking in the northern Jungles of Thailand, we laid ourselves down. At around 1:00 in the morning we were awoken by a large rooster tied up behind our hut. It had this distinctive crow, you see, kind of a: "Cock-a-Doodle..." It never really finished it's sentence. But that never stopped all of the roosters in all of our Village (and the surrounding villages) to join in on the rooster circuit. The full moon must have set them off. Somewhat confused by the excess of bright light. All of old MacDonald's Farm was singing us a beautiful chorus of Ee-I-Ee-I-O.

Every one of us laid awake listening to pigs running past our heads "oinking", dogs "barking" and starting fights with the pigs, roosters "crowing" and cows "mooing" all the way home. The stinkin' Rooster ruined our sleep. He's the one who started it all and just when there was ten minutes of silence he'd do it all over again, "Cock-a-doodle..." I laid awake. Seething. Furious. Vowing to get revenge. I was so tired. I pictured myself actually punching this rooster in the face. Right in the beak. Just the thought of it made me giddy with joy.

The following morning I saw what could only have been a gift from the mountain spirits, who most certainly have a sense of humour. There he sat, perched on his little mount. The Half Cocked Rooster that started the whole thing was tied up. My heart lifted. I walked up to it and with Greg as my witness I did the unspeakable, what I so longed to do, what my better judgement and the look of fear on the faces of the onlooking villagers told me not to do. I raised my tightly clenched fist and I punched the the little bugger. I punched it in the face. And with a 'Cluck,' it was airborne.

In a daze, I recoiled. I saw the rooster flying in circles on its little tether and we giggled a hysterically as the tether bird tethered about. I was shocked and delighted all at once. Shocked at my ability to stoop so low. I actually punched it. I struggled with the duality of my emotions as I giggled uncontrollably and shook with fear of the creature that was unleashed inside of me. One that was capable of animal rage. What was next, Slap a Seal, Headlock a Hamster, Wrestle with a Walrus... The possibilities were limitless.

As the day went on we hiked higher and higher, my list grew longer, and remorse started to set in. I punched a creature that I outweighed by about 30 weight categories. I didn't punch it hard really, more of just a poke with a closed fist. I kinda just pushed it abruptly. It couldn't feel anything. Surely it wouldn't remember anything. Would it? I went through a short period of self hatred before quietly reminding myself never to sign up for PETA. We returned home that night and celebrated our successful trek with a couple Singha's and a bottle of Sang Som although our expectations of primitive were no where near reached. We saw some beautiful scenery, learned to appreciate what happens to a small tribal village when Tourists come to their town 3 nights a week and what is like sleep high in the mountains with the Lisu's. When I asked my friend Greg how he liked it, he said, "Well, I've slept on the farm before, but this was the first time I've slept in the manger."

Temples a'Plenty, Rock climbing in Railay, Buckets in Bangkok, and Motorcycle Mania


I left Mama's bungalows in Ao Tonsai, Krabi Province by longtail boat and I got on a bus with a Mexican named Pablo and a hillariously cynical Napoleon Dynamite haired German named Phillipe. We shared stories and succomed to the nods more than once. After some crazy driving in our not so special bargain basement, "VIP Bus" we arrived at our destination 17 hours later. The morning was welcomed with greetings and offers from Scouts, Touts, and Tuk Tuk Drivers in Bangkok. 7:00 Am is not a good time to get on my nerves. After telling them off in Thai (I only know a couple of the important words, but still enough to get the point across) We took off to find our hotel my usual one was full so we followed the German to (ironically enough) the United Hebrew Connection (sometimes referred to as the UTC or united travellers connection) It was a very Posh, Clean, and Cheap albeit noisy and slightly pretentious.

That day was spent waiting at a coffee shop for a familiar face from College, Miss Christine Lynch. A Comically warped and Hysterical person who I have shared a sea kayak in the gulf islands, a tent, a rope on a Glacier in Garibaldi National Park, and way too many vegetarian camping foods. Parenthetically, two vegetarians should not share a tent if eating large quantities of tofu. We met up and immediately took off for some sightseeing. Later that night, Christine, Pablo, Phil, Lucas (an Argentinian from the bus) and I all got together for a ruckous good time on Khao San Road with some icy cold Chang and some Tasty homemade Buckets (Red bull, Song Sam wiskey and Coke all mixed together in a bucket with the appropriate amount of straws in it. Thais seem to think drinks are made better by putting them in a bucket or a bag for takeaway). Too many to count. After dozens of fended off offers for delivery to a Ping Pong show (use your immagination) on Patpong Road we made our way into a night club and another nightlub followed and the rest is blurry but it ended hilariously with mostly everyone ending up somewhere other than at home for various reasons all with their own story of how their night ended. Spicy food on the way home made for some regrettable but hilarious morning after stories.

We spent the next day taking all of the shady gem tours and Lucky buddha scams we could find. After getting run around town adn left in the middle of nowhere. Christine and I stalked up on some new books and headed off to Chiang Mai in a stinky and possibly condemned bus. The side door was bungy strapped shut and no one seemed able to navigate them to get to the toilet so those that couldn't wait asked the bus driver to stop at the next toilet. When the driver pulled over on the side of the road and ran up (double decker bus) yelling "Toilet, Toilet. You say toilet. I go toilet. I stop. Stop toilet. ToiletSTOP, Toilet TOILET TOILET LOITET! I go Bangkok!!!!" People were, understandably, confused. Nobody got up. Nobody even reallly said anything. Scared to say the least. I presume everyone just waited so as not to cause any more trouble. I should note that this was the first time I had ever really seen a Thai person "lose it" in public. They are usually well mannered and calm. Mai pen rai is a great Thai saying. It means no problem and never mind. They think life is fun and that there should be no reason to get overtly upset at anything.

Christine and I started to attack the towns tourist attractions and temples as soon as we had a 5 hour nap in our hotel room in Chiang Mai. The town is a very bohemian sort of college town. The arts here are very present. We took part in a market day and went to china town for some chinese new year celebrations. I carried around 4 boxes of fire crackers all night and never found an opportunity to light them. I am trying to be culturaly sensitive and do the right thing. Which is hard, since I am a redneck from Saskatchewan. I follow examples I was hearing firecrackers all day long and I thought, "Sweet I am gonna get a whole bunch of these things and light them off tonight" The final showdown for chinese new year. Everyone is wearing red. Dragons spraying sparks out of their mouths, or spraying you with water when you put money in its mouth. It was really cool. But there were no fire crackers and definitely no countdown. The kids were getting right into it though. We had some awesome food and called it a night.

Renting motorcycles is a pretty important thing when travelling in Thailand. You can rent one for about $3 Canadian and gas for the day can cost you about the same. Christine and I rented one and went to the biggest national park in Thailand with the tallest mountain in Thailand. Our goal was to summit this ethereal beast. We left at around noon and drove for about an hour. We got to the mountain thinking we could scramble up it. When we got there we found out that the trail up was 50 kms long and mostly a road. So we opted to drive our 125 Honda Dream Scooter up to the top instead. We nearly Froze to death wearing nothing but a thin shirt and shorts when temperatures dropped to (brace yourselves) 16.5 degrees celcius. I know my friends from Saskatchewan are giving me no sympathy right now but let me tell you this when you drop 25-30 degrees in any climate your body will notice. Ouch! That was Cold. We got to the top of Thailand 2575 metres. I drank some delicious and locally grown Coffee and headed home. We stopped along the way for a bite to eat and watched night fall on us. Upon getting back on the bike we found our headlight to be burned out. I stopped at every gas station along the way and tried to get a bulb through mimeing broken thai and broken english and found out that my desired product waited for me only at my final destination, Chiang Mai. "Mai pen Rai", I said, "I will just put a small LED headlamp on my helmet and follow a car or another motorcycle." When you don't have a headlight the scariest thing isn't not being able to see people but, rather, them not seeing you. This was the cause of our near demise. People driving and running accross the road immediately after a car has passed. What they didn't account for was the small motorcycle with no light carrying two passengers. I recall asking Christine: " Who do you think would be at fault in an accident like that? The guy driving a motorcycle at night on the highway with no headlight or the guy driving the wrong way down the shoulder and cutting accross three lanes of traffic? I would rather not be around to find that debate out the hard way. We got home sucessfully and enjoyed a large Singha and a cheesy Thai "B" grade movie at the theatre with funny mistranslations in the subtitles and gratuitous Bikini scenes.

New Years Eve 2006

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Quite possibly, one of the best New Years Eve days ever.

This was the aggenda.
Kayak all morning in the jungle's of Gopeng near Ipoh. Followed by a Caving exploration with a crazy ultra fast Flying Fox from the end of the cave to a giant pillar of limestone in the mouth of the cave. Then later that day we drove through torrential downpours to get back to KL.

We made it back to my friends place just in time to squeeze in a beer and a shower before racing off to the MRT train station to the Petronas Towers just in time to catch the countdown and see some fireworks and shake our booties all night long at the free rave at the foot of the towers. Would have been better without the creepy old dudes taking pictures of the girls we were with. The red bull was flowing like water and the guy to girl ratio got better as the night went on. When the party was over we wandered into the streets in search of a club that would let us in for free, not a bloody chance, but with some cunning and a little guile you can sneak in through the back door. What a good night.

It was awesome.

Claude

Free Advice for Travellers in SE Asia


I would like to offer up, free of charge, some of the advice everybody is expected to learn the hard way.

Firstly,
Never trust anybody who starts off a conversation with flattery, Eg: "Hey, Where you going? You have good body. You work out at gym. Very fit. You look like musician, You in band. You like music, I play in a band. Hard Rock Cafe tonight. You should come tonight watch me play. (here comes the con) You live in Canada, My family is moving to Canada. My father is very nervous. You should come talk to him to tell him that there is a china town in Vancouver and he will be able ot get Pad Thai there" Then they take you around the corner and drug you then take your kidneys out so they can sell them on ebay (so says a guy who knows a guy who it "actually happened to").

Secondly,
Never trust any taxi driver or tuk tuk driver that tells you anything is closed or dirty or full. It usually means they will not recieve a comission if they bring you there.

Thirdly,
Always carry something to read. When you Ipod's batteries die and you are on a twenty hour bus ride and can't sleep cause some large insects ate your seat cushion, you will really appreciate that good book.

Fourthly,
Never trust a fart.

And finally,
Always wear underwear (see above).
I am serious. Wear it. It could save your life.

Bangkok Blues

Please come inside, Nice suit for you.,
originally uploaded by claudius_maximus.

I would like to preface the following rant with a disclaimer: I Love Thailand. And Thai people... I can't stand Bangkok. I am officially sick of the big city backpacker scene and I now know what my college professor was talking about when he told us about "Self Indulgent Backpacker Ghettos." Every one of these "Ghettos" has:

17 cutrate tailors, "My friend , my friend. Please come in side have a look. Nice suit for you.";

A bunch of pirated cd/dvd/vcd/software/videogames, all for about $3 a pop. Each one trying to "out music" each other with their loud Jack Johnson which is, by the way, so over played out here that i wanna flick myself in the eye every time I hear it now (with so much good music in the world why do we have to listen to the same thing over and over and over and over... 'flick' "ouch!");

About 12 stations with various colours of hair to get your own real (really fake) Dreadlocks so you can be different like everyone else here (about one in five people here have them, or just got them, or are about to get them as soon as their hair grows out);

Various noodle vendors, "Meat on stick" vendors, clothing vendors hawking immitation brandnames , Fried Insect Vendors (I highly recommend the grubs);

Bucket Vendors, who will sell you a bucket full of Ice, Songsam Wisky, Coke, and Redbull. A combination of fluids whose chemical makeup can make normally sane people (some, not all are sane to begin with) turn into screaming, raving lunatics who swing flaming fireballs on a stick amid a crowd of people;


Tuk Tuk Drivers at every corner, "My Friend, My Friend. Where you going? Where you from? That place is closed for "Special Thai Holiday" Come with me to my friends jewelery store for special happy hour deals on gems. My Friend, My Friend" Aarrrrgh!

John Denver said it best,"Country roads, take me home, To the place where I belong"


Once again, I love Thailand but can't wait to be in the Jungle.

Claude

There is a certain beauty in Portugal. The people are kind and no matter how much or little english the people speek the first thing they will say to you when you ask them "O senore/A senora, Fala Inglese?" is: "Sim. A leettle beet" then after that the first sentence may get completely wasted on ears. Since my Portuguese is Terrible, I resorted to the bare minimum tourist words phrases but learned as much as I could in four days.

Travelling in Portugal is fun, easy, and cheap (think eastern Europe of the West) The Food is great as long as you like barbecue and the scenery in the countryside is beautiful as long as you like looking at Cork trees or the ocean.

If you only learn one phrase be sure to learn "oun cafe, por favor" The cofee there is so good. It is easy to get addicted. People who know me know my 12:00 rule. I never drink coffee after Noon but while I was in Portugal I was drinking 4 cups a day (at .50 centimos per cup it was a waste not to drink the stuff)

Also Of note was the Bone Cathedral or Cabello dos Ossos in Evora this was a church whose walls were made up completely of bones. I loved this place it was eerily beautiful what you are looking at in this picture are skulls arms and leg bones to give accents to the decore. To the immediate left of the cross is an adult body and on the left of that, at the corner of the window, is a Baby's skeleton. Can you say Austere? Or is the correct word Gorey? Either way, this definitely got my attention.

After leaving the Church I found a park to relax in and found myself fortunate enough to catch a group of kids playing Capoera with their Gym class. They were pretty good at it and the excercise had to be good for them too.




Lisboa/Lisbon was the home of the 1998 World Fair EXPO. The legacy that is left is the beautiful and sureal Oceanario. A Monstrous aquarium, with four oceans represented in seperate tanks with a VERY large central tank that housed sea creatures from the deep sea Sharks, Rays, Sunfish, Dorado, Tuna, Octopus. All shapes and sizes. It was a great escape from the crazy heat of the Portuguese summer.


The other notable reminder reminder of Expo's presence is a modern and very clean Metro (Don't get me started on Paris doggy terd dodging). I saw a blind guy walk on and do some portuguese Freestyling Hiphop while tapping his Cane on the ground and hitting a box on his chest in exchange for peoples spare change on the metro. You can cross the whole town for .75 centimos

My Journey wouldn't be complete without a description of the young Fado Musician I saw singing with his dog. The dog was absolutely tiny and he actually sang along with the boy while he played his accordion. Many people would take pictures with him and never dropped a cent into his or his dogs box/cut off waterbottle. Fado Music reflects the sadness thatcomes through in the eyes and spirit of the people in the countryside. The people are said to be sad because of generations of sailors who were lost at sea. Widows dress forever in Black and are sadder than anything you have ever seen. The Sadness is a Beautiful Sadness and the people's gentle nature and kindness comes through in their eyes as well.