I'm going to Krabi this weekend. It's in the south of Thailand and it looks sweet. Check it and be jealous.
Part two of Cambodia will come after I rest.
Friday, 11 July 2008
Vacation Time
I'm going to Krabi this weekend. It's in the south of Thailand and it looks sweet. Check it and be jealous.
Part two of Cambodia will come after I rest.
Sunday, 6 July 2008
Cambodia - Day Post
I arrived in Cambodia very early in the morning of the 5th of July. I am counting it as my 4th of July celebration since I did not sleep the night before...or the night of the 5th. But that is a different story (blog post).
Basically the best way I can describe Cambodia would be with phrase/title of Conrad's literary classic "The Heart of Darkness"...which coincidentally was the name of a bar we went to on our one night in Cambo. There is definitely an eerie feeling in the air and speaking as a vanilla face backpacker, I can say that I constantly felt like I was a mark for some scam...whether that is true or not I have no clue. I guess I'll find out in 9 months...just kidding.
After going through customs which charged $20 USD (or 1000 THB [$30 USD] in my case because I was too drunk from the night before to bother changing money to the "official" currency of USD...it's actually riel but almost no Asian country uses its own currency), I sat on a bench and waited for my buddy to arrive from Singapore.
We met up and walked out into the light of day of Phnom Penh. As is the case in all South East Asian countries, we immediately had 40 taxi drivers asking us where we were going. We finally settled on a taxi driver when we decided we weren't going to find a better deal and headed off into the wild city of Phnom Penh...
Or so we thought. Our taxi driver ended up speaking English and offered to take us on a tour and to the shooting range. It took us about 2 seconds to give in. So we headed off to the shooting range at 9:30AM...Keep in mind I was still feeling quite drunk at this point. On the way there our taxi driver told us that if we wanted we could shoot chickens or cows for a price. Apparently though, it is cheaper to go to the market and buy a chicken there. BYOC.
We got to the shooting range and chose to shoot the classic AK-47 from their exquisite gun menu seen below:
It cost $50 for a magazine which had 30 bullets in it. Since we chose the automatic AK this took roughly 7 seconds to go through. For this 7 seconds we went into a shady ass building that looked straight out of some stage from 007 for N64 and proceeded to shoot a very loud gun. An aside: the guy in the video spoke very softly and bore an exact resemblance to the creepy Nam vet in The Simpsons. He kept asking us if we wanted to shoot a rocket launcher for $500...It was kind of tempting.
Instead we took some still shots as you can see above and dipped out. All in all it was cool but I felt a like I could have spent $50 better...or at least taken longer to spend it.
From there we went to the center of the city and found a place to stay. After throwing our stuff down we were ready to take Cambodeezy like a batch of crazy American devils...but we were not really sure what to do. So we did what all vanilla face backpackers do and caught a tuk tuk to "the killing fields."
We stopped at this gas station on the way to fill up. They had these on every corner.
The Killing Fields are where Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge slaughtered a few million Cambodians. All of the divots in the ground in this picture are where mass graves were uncovered during the 80s and 90s.
For some reason Pol Pot and his band of geniuses, all obviously possessing Mensa-like intellect, decided that they didn't like the direction Cambodia was headed in. So they decided a good idea would be to start Cambodian society over again their way. They rounded up all intellectuals, foreigners, people with money, and basically all of those who were established, in charge, and smart (or some combination of those), and tortured and killed them. The aim apparently was to bring Cambodian society back to "year zero" and start it over as a peasant/farming society. Well played gentlemen.
Of course I don't have to tell you that this plan obviously worked to perfection and Cambodia is now taking the lead on the world stage nowadays...er shit...they are now, by my calculations, at year 25ish. So they have a few thousand years of catching up to do. It shows.
The result of the shitstorm that occurred in Cambodia is that there has been a lot of war and poverty since the Khmer Rouge. There actually might have been some of that shit before, but I doubt as bad.
Suspected land mine explosion area...or maybe a place where they removed one.
This is the tuk tuk we took...took...to the killing fields. That is probably inappropriate.
These are the baller ass tuk tuks taunting our poor choice of tuk tuk.
After the Killing Fields we hit up an old school that was turned into a prison during the reign of Pol Pot to torture victims before taking them to be slaughtered at the killing fields.
You can imagine that this put us in the right frame of mind have a great night out on the town...so we headed home and got ready for just that.
Basically the best way I can describe Cambodia would be with phrase/title of Conrad's literary classic "The Heart of Darkness"...which coincidentally was the name of a bar we went to on our one night in Cambo. There is definitely an eerie feeling in the air and speaking as a vanilla face backpacker, I can say that I constantly felt like I was a mark for some scam...whether that is true or not I have no clue. I guess I'll find out in 9 months...just kidding.
After going through customs which charged $20 USD (or 1000 THB [$30 USD] in my case because I was too drunk from the night before to bother changing money to the "official" currency of USD...it's actually riel but almost no Asian country uses its own currency), I sat on a bench and waited for my buddy to arrive from Singapore.
We met up and walked out into the light of day of Phnom Penh. As is the case in all South East Asian countries, we immediately had 40 taxi drivers asking us where we were going. We finally settled on a taxi driver when we decided we weren't going to find a better deal and headed off into the wild city of Phnom Penh...
Or so we thought. Our taxi driver ended up speaking English and offered to take us on a tour and to the shooting range. It took us about 2 seconds to give in. So we headed off to the shooting range at 9:30AM...Keep in mind I was still feeling quite drunk at this point. On the way there our taxi driver told us that if we wanted we could shoot chickens or cows for a price. Apparently though, it is cheaper to go to the market and buy a chicken there. BYOC.
We got to the shooting range and chose to shoot the classic AK-47 from their exquisite gun menu seen below:
It cost $50 for a magazine which had 30 bullets in it. Since we chose the automatic AK this took roughly 7 seconds to go through. For this 7 seconds we went into a shady ass building that looked straight out of some stage from 007 for N64 and proceeded to shoot a very loud gun. An aside: the guy in the video spoke very softly and bore an exact resemblance to the creepy Nam vet in The Simpsons. He kept asking us if we wanted to shoot a rocket launcher for $500...It was kind of tempting.
Instead we took some still shots as you can see above and dipped out. All in all it was cool but I felt a like I could have spent $50 better...or at least taken longer to spend it.From there we went to the center of the city and found a place to stay. After throwing our stuff down we were ready to take Cambodeezy like a batch of crazy American devils...but we were not really sure what to do. So we did what all vanilla face backpackers do and caught a tuk tuk to "the killing fields."
We stopped at this gas station on the way to fill up. They had these on every corner.
The Killing Fields are where Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge slaughtered a few million Cambodians. All of the divots in the ground in this picture are where mass graves were uncovered during the 80s and 90s. For some reason Pol Pot and his band of geniuses, all obviously possessing Mensa-like intellect, decided that they didn't like the direction Cambodia was headed in. So they decided a good idea would be to start Cambodian society over again their way. They rounded up all intellectuals, foreigners, people with money, and basically all of those who were established, in charge, and smart (or some combination of those), and tortured and killed them. The aim apparently was to bring Cambodian society back to "year zero" and start it over as a peasant/farming society. Well played gentlemen.
Of course I don't have to tell you that this plan obviously worked to perfection and Cambodia is now taking the lead on the world stage nowadays...er shit...they are now, by my calculations, at year 25ish. So they have a few thousand years of catching up to do. It shows.
The result of the shitstorm that occurred in Cambodia is that there has been a lot of war and poverty since the Khmer Rouge. There actually might have been some of that shit before, but I doubt as bad.
Suspected land mine explosion area...or maybe a place where they removed one.
This is the tuk tuk we took...took...to the killing fields. That is probably inappropriate.
These are the baller ass tuk tuks taunting our poor choice of tuk tuk.After the Killing Fields we hit up an old school that was turned into a prison during the reign of Pol Pot to torture victims before taking them to be slaughtered at the killing fields.
You can imagine that this put us in the right frame of mind have a great night out on the town...so we headed home and got ready for just that.
Thursday, 3 July 2008
This Is Where I'm Moving Next
Here's a hint: It's the weed capital...OF THE WORLD.I think it is no coincidence that I just bought a pirated version of Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay just two days ago.
While perusing Wikitravel Amsterdam to get more info on my future destination I came across this section:
Tuk-Tuks
A Thai-influenced transportation service using three-wheeled, open-air (but covered) motorized vehicles was introduced in August 2007 and may be a more economical and fast way to get around the city centre compared to taxis. Tuk-tuk pricing is based on a zone system. Within a zone, a ride is €3.50 per person, €5.00 for 2 persons and €6.50 for 3. If you go to another zone, €3.50 is added (irrespective of number of persons). This service is handy if it is past the regular tram/bus/metro service hours (approximately half past midnight) as they take reservations 24 hours a day.
I thought I was getting away from these godforsaken things. The fact that they are charging 5 euro for a ride is laughable considering how much they cost here - $2 to go pretty much anywhere.
I wonder if the Dutch tuk-tuk drivers are as aggressive with the "ping pong show" offers as the Thai guys.
Monday, 30 June 2008
Safari World!
Last weekend my coworkers and I decided to have some wholesome fun and go to see some domesticated wild animals eat and poop in their cages.
We got more than we bargained for at Safari World, a zoo-like establishment 45 minutes from the center of Bangkok. Actually we literally had to bargain after one of the workers at one entrance took our tickets and then they asked for the tickets again at a second entrance. Apparently the guy was supposed to rip them and give them back to us but neglected to. Confusion ensued.
In my time here I have learned that Thais are not known for their excellent service. Most establishments I have seen are heavily overstaffed. This would lead you to believe that they are ready to meet any need you have or problem that might arise. In actuality it is very different. The best way I can describe Thai people working together to solve a problem is to picture the three stooges and multiply them by however many people are trying to help you at that time.
I think we went through about 10 workers trying to figure out what went wrong. 45 minutes of cooing and caaing and forced smiles through tears later we were finally let in to Safari World without having to pay more.
What follows is a montage of our day at Safari World.
This is from before the fiasco with the worker taking our tickets. We actually showed up in a taxi to the portion where you drive through the park to check out the animals, only to find out that you were supposed to bring your own car. So we told our stunned taxi driver to drive us through. Luckily we didn't have to pay for his entrance. I don't think they consider taxi drivers human here.
After the taxi we got ready for the zoo portion of the tour by wearing zebra and parrot paraphernalia 
World's greatest toilet. World's gayest fake "I have to shit" walk
Once inside the park we sought out the Orang Utan Show. It was just as awesome as it sounds and looks.
Orang Utan Boxing - I was hoping for real blows to be exchanged. Unfortunately the people who worked at Safari World do not believe in "cruelty to animals"
Me and an Orang Utan chillin before the big show
This was the giraffe feeding portion of the tour. For 40 baht ($1.25) you could buy a bucket of bananas and feed these guys. They stuck their long purple tongue out and curled it back into their mouth to eat the bananas. For participation points, make your own joke about 12 inch purple tongues.
Gerry the Giraffe. I fed him a banana. Then he stared at me for 10 minutes straight.
We got more than we bargained for at Safari World, a zoo-like establishment 45 minutes from the center of Bangkok. Actually we literally had to bargain after one of the workers at one entrance took our tickets and then they asked for the tickets again at a second entrance. Apparently the guy was supposed to rip them and give them back to us but neglected to. Confusion ensued.
In my time here I have learned that Thais are not known for their excellent service. Most establishments I have seen are heavily overstaffed. This would lead you to believe that they are ready to meet any need you have or problem that might arise. In actuality it is very different. The best way I can describe Thai people working together to solve a problem is to picture the three stooges and multiply them by however many people are trying to help you at that time.
I think we went through about 10 workers trying to figure out what went wrong. 45 minutes of cooing and caaing and forced smiles through tears later we were finally let in to Safari World without having to pay more.
What follows is a montage of our day at Safari World.
This is from before the fiasco with the worker taking our tickets. We actually showed up in a taxi to the portion where you drive through the park to check out the animals, only to find out that you were supposed to bring your own car. So we told our stunned taxi driver to drive us through. Luckily we didn't have to pay for his entrance. I don't think they consider taxi drivers human here.
After the taxi we got ready for the zoo portion of the tour by wearing zebra and parrot paraphernalia 
World's greatest toilet. World's gayest fake "I have to shit" walk
Once inside the park we sought out the Orang Utan Show. It was just as awesome as it sounds and looks.
Orang Utan Boxing - I was hoping for real blows to be exchanged. Unfortunately the people who worked at Safari World do not believe in "cruelty to animals"
Me and an Orang Utan chillin before the big show
This was the giraffe feeding portion of the tour. For 40 baht ($1.25) you could buy a bucket of bananas and feed these guys. They stuck their long purple tongue out and curled it back into their mouth to eat the bananas. For participation points, make your own joke about 12 inch purple tongues.
Gerry the Giraffe. I fed him a banana. Then he stared at me for 10 minutes straight.Lessons learned from the day: giraffes and orang utans coming together to provide customer service would probably be just slightly less capable than Thais doing the same.
Monday, 23 June 2008
Vietnam
I visited Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon last weekend. For another good synopsis see here. I will try to expound.
I arrived in the airport and to my relief the company who took all of my personal and sensitive information was legit. There was a Vietnamese guy waiting for me to give me a visa and a nice welcome to Nam that had nothing to do with stealing my anal virginity.
On the way into Pham Ngu Lao, the backpackers area of Saigon, I got my first taste of Saigon traffic. Bangkok and Manila are possibly the two worst congested cities I have seen in the world, but HCM definitely has the craziest system of driving. I believe I saw 3 traffic lights total in the entire city. There are a decent amount of cars and trucks but millions of motorbikes all over the roads and the general rule of thumb is that large sized vehicles run shit and small get dominated.
Basically Vietnamese people drive by a system that is more sonar than sight. Please insert asian driver jokes here. People do not look anywhere but straight ahead and there is always a rousing game of chicken to be enjoyed around every corner. Beeping is constant from everyone (possibly mandatory) and quite annoying when it is 8am and you are incredibly hungover sitting on a two hour bus ride going to the Mekong Delta. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Summing it up: Vietnamese traffic = school of mindless swimming fish.
After finding a hotel deep in the heart of enemy territory we decided the right thing to do would be to go out and get sloshed. So we headed to the local backpacker hangout where we found many dirty hippy white kids to drink with. This seemed very stale and boring (I actually found out later from my coworker who lived in Saigon that they do not allow Vietnamese people in this bar) so we decided to spice things up and go to "Apocalypse Now," Saigon's Spicy. Again, see what I did there?
That turned out to be a pretty large mistake as we quickly found out that the figurative Saigon whores we were looking for were not to be found here and that Apocalypse Now was actually filled with literal whores. Needless to say these ladies of the night enjoyed our company and banter but that was all we gave them. We retired for the night after going back to the backpacker hangout for many more rounds of drinks.
The next day was a hell on earth journey to the Mekong Delta (see bus ride mentioned above) where we were ushered around on no less than four forms of transportation in four hours. There was a bus, then a boat, then a paddle boat, then a horse and buggy...There might have been more. I can't remember. Anyway the tour was basically a Vietnamese tour guide bringing us around to show us what the "local people" do for a living. From the looks of it they make wooden spoons and handicrafts to sell to pliable tourists. I'm convinced this was a South Park "Pioneer Village" type setup where these "local people" drove home in their Honda Accords laughing at the silly "vanilla faces" who bought their stupid shit.
Local girl happy to be making wooden spoons for a livingThat night we went out as a group and enjoyed drinks at the local saloon. Literally. They have a saloon where all the staff dress up like cowboys. It was one of the few clubs we found with Vietnamese people so we decided to stay and we ended up getting bombed and hanging out with crazy Vietnamese dudes who got so drunk they were swinging their shirts around their heads and falling off of bar stools.
The next day was by far the coolest portion of the trip. We visited the Cu Chi tunnels where Charlie used to hang out underground during the Nam war and set booby traps for American soldiers. According to the video they showed us before seeing the tunnels, Americans were a "crazy batch of devils" who came and tried to "steal the Cu Chi land from peaceful Vietnam people." Also "Many Vietnamese heros were awarded the award for #1 American killer" by killing over 100 Americans. It's good to see the true story of the Vietnam war without the American devil spin.
After that portion of the tour we were ready to explore some tunnels. I'll just get this out of the way upfront and say I left a decent part of both my dignity and manhood somewhere in tunnels of Cu Chi.
This is a picture of me going into the tunnel. This is the picture most people take and then jump right back out since the guides warn that the tunnel is very small and dark and not suitable for tourists. The "tourist tunnel" comes later in the trip and it is cemented and lit for the greater portion. For a funnier rendition of me getting into the tunnel, here's a video of your average douche hippy backpacker going into the tunnel:
His dreads are so non conformist
Out of 40 some odd people in our tour, Shane and I were two of the three people who decided to actually crawl through this "real tunnel"...bad move. The other exit was about 20 meters away but once underground I found out that the tunnel did not go straight but curved in a different direction every two feet. To make matters worse it was absolutely pitch black and eerily silent. It was exactly what I imagine being buried alive would be like.
After crawling back to the light of day and being scared shitless, I proceeded to go to the other portions of the tour where I got to shoot an AK-47 and look at bomb craters the size of the foundation of a house. Badass. All in all a good ending to the trip.
One note to make. I met with this guy from the Thai Chamber of Commerce early on in the Bangkok project and asked him what his two favorite places in the world are to visit. Without batting an eyelash he goes: "Easy. Russia because the women there are absolutely beautiful, and Vietnam, because the ladies there are like Thai lady but have big boobs," illustrating large mammories on himself for extra emphasis. After visiting I can say this man is 100% accurate in his assessment and must be an amateur anthropologist in his spare time.
Fin.
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Other Events In My Life
I'm preparing for my big Vietnam trip tomorrow. Platoon has been on repeat on Star Movies here the past three days and I feel it has sufficiently prepared me for the mayhem.
It should be an interesting trip. I'm meeting up with a friend of a friend/another guy from my company and we are going to explore the literal and figurative Cuci Tunnels of Vietnam...see what I did there? Niooo.
We actually just figured out that we need visas today. Who would have thought that you need a visa to enter Nam? Can't they just get over the war already? I had to pay $100 to get some fast issued visa online from some shady company. I'm still not 100% sure my identity has not been stolen or that I'm not being sold into the Saigon sex trade. If I'm not back in a few weeks someone come looking for me around the Laos or Cambodia border.
Also I forgot to mention I am spreading my world class dance moves worldwide. It's the old logical step for world class dance moves. Think about it.
A few weeks ago some chick tried to test my skills in this club called 808. Here are some pics of me shredding her hopes and dreams to pieces:
Before
After
You can't see the shame in her face but just read her body language. If we were in Japan she would have had to go out back and put a samurai sword through her torso. I'm pretty sure her whole family would have to actually.
She asked for my number afterwards but I just didn't see her in the same light as before. Once you get burned by this you're changed for life.
It should be an interesting trip. I'm meeting up with a friend of a friend/another guy from my company and we are going to explore the literal and figurative Cuci Tunnels of Vietnam...see what I did there? Niooo.
We actually just figured out that we need visas today. Who would have thought that you need a visa to enter Nam? Can't they just get over the war already? I had to pay $100 to get some fast issued visa online from some shady company. I'm still not 100% sure my identity has not been stolen or that I'm not being sold into the Saigon sex trade. If I'm not back in a few weeks someone come looking for me around the Laos or Cambodia border.
Also I forgot to mention I am spreading my world class dance moves worldwide. It's the old logical step for world class dance moves. Think about it.
A few weeks ago some chick tried to test my skills in this club called 808. Here are some pics of me shredding her hopes and dreams to pieces:
Before
AfterYou can't see the shame in her face but just read her body language. If we were in Japan she would have had to go out back and put a samurai sword through her torso. I'm pretty sure her whole family would have to actually.
She asked for my number afterwards but I just didn't see her in the same light as before. Once you get burned by this you're changed for life.
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