Eating Durian and Saying Goodbye! July 19, 2008

I have eaten of that infernal, reeking fruit! And I’m back.

Arguably, it has been two full days since I touched down in San Francisco in a behemoth, double-decker plane crammed to capacity with over three hundred passengers, a trip that was just about 20 hours of spending time in airports, flying on two planes, spending more time in airports, all without seeing the sun, all without eating much that wasn't dehydrated pork gristle, all while crammed in a middle seat and not being able to sleep for 12 consecutive hours. Most impressively though was the consummate act of time travel I committed. You see I left Thursday at around 1 p.m. and 20 hours later I landed on Thursday at 4 p.m. Amazing! Of course it wouldn't have been a proper arrival if it didn't also involve a round of margaritas, some rounds of highballs, and high-spirited discussions about pantheism. Needless to say I'm still suffering the combined effects of jet lag, reverse culture shock, confusion about where I have left all my possessions, extreme doubt about certain things and extreme certainty about others, and all the other emotional baggage that comes with being a broke couch-surfer on malaria meds.

My last day in Vietnam, another hot, steaming morning, I found a cozy little alley in Saigon and settled down to my last traditional Vietnamese breakfast of beef noodle soup and hot "white" coffee. I had settled my visa debacle the day before and found safe transport on a bus back to Saigon from Cambodia. I had forgotten though just how bustling the city of Saigon is and was again amazingly appalled by the violent scooter circus that plays out all around you. High rise buildings and communist architecture, countless peddlers and of course those magically maze-like alleys that apparently tourists and backpackers steered clear of even though they were the most interesting part of the neighborhood I was staying in. Getting back, I had only a day at most to see the city again. I engaged in a long conversation with a local man about how long it took to grow my beard, which was charming. And then I sat down and drank some beers and watched the endless human traffic ooze before me.

But that last morning, after my delicious breakfast, I decided to fulfill a promise to myself I had made when I first got to Asia: to eat of the notorious Durian fruit. And I wanted fresh Durian, of course, sliced by one of the dozens of local fruit peddlers. Luckily, there was one standing just outside of my guest house and through a mixture of English, bad Vietnamese, and gesticulation I made clear my desire for half a Durian fruit sliced and put into a take-away box. For those that don't know, the Durian fruit is about the size of a football, darkish green and covered with spikes. It grows on trees and has been known to fall off and kill people. To add insult to injury, I had also heard that the Durian is notorious for another reason: its indescribably foul stench. But, even stranger, this malicious odor in no way correlates with the succulent taste of the fruit's flesh which I had heard was akin to slightly tangy apple custard. All these factors, and the fact that the fruit is mostly just found in Asian countries, makes it worthy of a quest or two in search of its mysterious secrets that all seemed to combine the worst kind of demonism with a Epicure's sense of taste and distinction. Either way I was about to find out.

The woman got a strangely-grooved blade, cleaned it on a rag and sliced gently into the large, violent-looking fruit. Inside, the flesh was white and bulbous, and strangely seamless, like some animal's inner organs. And in fact when she plopped out these fruit flesh orbs, that's exactly what it seemed like: like she was gutting some animal and doing a very clean job at it. I was beginning to get excited. It certainly looked like a lot of fruit to eat and I couldn't yet smell it because she bound it up and put in a bag for me. It cost one dollar.

With the elation of a teenage boy who just pilfered his Dad's penthouse, I hurried back with my secret bag of infernal fruit, walked up the stairs to my air-conditioned room and locked the door. I had no cutlery to speak of and the fruit, at first glance, seemed fine for hand-eating. I opened the bag, I took the Styrofoam box out and opened it. The off white orbs of flesh looked monstrous just then and I nervously leaned over and took a big whiff.

And really it wasn't that bad. I mean, it smelled at first sort of like fruit that had maybe become over-ripe and left in the sun. Certainly not as foul as I thought. And then I picked up a piece of it and decided the best way to eat it was just to sink my teeth into the liver-like orb.

First bite. Exactly the consistency of custard and the taste? Perhaps one of the strangest things I've tasted. Sweet yes. Rich too. Tangy a little. But also, a sort of strong after and before taste even of fermentation. Like a Balsamic tapioca. If you can imagine that. It wasn't exactly good but not bad either. I guess an acquired taste. And after a few more bites, a more accurate description came to me. The Durian, I said, is like the goose liver pate of the fruit family, because that's exactly what the taste started to remind me of, a sort of sweeter, more citrusy type of animal pate and of course the flesh itself came in liver-shaped vessels.

I then decided to leave the fruit there and take a quick shower. Ten minutes, no more than that, which is when I stepped back into my bedroom and almost keeled over. The whole room smelled like you wouldn't believe. Turned eggs, torpedoed shit houses, open sewers. The odor was somehow mutated too and it seemed to be spreading into the very walls. I ran up to the fruit and ate more of it, my eyes almost watering. It suddenly tasted less appealing. But I figured the more of it I dispatched to the clearing house of my stomach the less it would sit in my room infecting it with its insulting perfume.

The situation became quite dire after a few minutes because I had to check out of my room in twenty minutes and catch a plane and I had to dispose of the barbaric fruit somehow. And I wasn't about to eat all of it. It was clear to me I had purchased enough Durian flesh to feed a small family. I had to think fast.

I went in the bathroom and thought about the toilet. I couldn't conceive of a more proper burial for the Durian than to be sent down the can. But I was worried there might be an unsuspecting pit in there, perhaps even an ink pod that would explode or a tentacle that would shoot out. I had to be prepared to expect anything.

So I just shoved the remaining morsels into the bathroom trashcan and ran out of the room and bid adieu to Vietnam.

Mad Cambodia Part 2! July 15, 2008

Mad Cambodia again
Current mood: drained

I have time to write this because I am back in Phnom Penh, which wasn't according to plan. I was supposed to leave this morning for Saigon where I would have a day and a half to recuperate, enjoy the city, eat more street food before catching a flight back to wonderful San Francisco. However things didn't go as planned. I suppose, in this situation, it is because I am an idiot. I caught the bus this morning very early, like around 8 a.m., not feeling my best. In fact the last two days and today I have had something of an unfortunate stomach irritation, the details of which I shall spare my diverse readers, and which probably couldn't have been suffered in a more appropriate place than Cambodia. At least on this trip. Sadly, said ailment has stifled my ability to do as many here do in the evenings which is drink extensively and to the point or rip roaring night blindness. But maybe that is a good thing. I will say this, that before this ailment afflicted me I did have the opportunity to imbibe Cambodian beer at a bar really only noteworthy for its name -Heart of Darkness. But they didn't have shirts for sale anymore. Damn.

The bus trip to Saigon was going to take six hours, including an overland border crossing. I have a vivid memory of almost two months ago going to the Vietnamese Consulate in San Francisco with all my documentation, my visa photo and even a cashier's check for 130 dollars, the price of an extended 3 month multiple-entry Vietnam Visa. I received the visa the next day and thought nothing of it. Nor did I have reason to think of it at all this last month or so. After all, I made it to Vietnam, travelled around, went to a couple other countries, and put the thought of coming back to Saigon for my final departure at the very back of my head.

Twenty minutes into our bus ride we were asked to give our passports to the bus driver's assistant to facilitate the border crossing eventualities. Twenty minutes after that as we bumped along country ride just beyond Phnom Penh, the assistant in question came back to me with my passport and told me my Vietnamese visa was expired. And in fact, it was, much to my disbelief. I protested that I had go to Saigon at least by the 17th and he said I had to go back to Phnom Penh and get a visa and catch another bus. He said I should get off immediately. It would be easier that way. It was dirt road and little huts all around outside. Maybe, just maybe I could catch the 1 pm. bus if I made it back to Phnom Penh in time.

So despite being cordially kicked off a bus while everyone stared at me, the assistant was able to flag down a minibus taxi, actually just hitch-hiking with a small pittance a la Peru, to take me back to Phnom Penh. I was the only gringo in the ragged, hot vehicle and wondered where they were going to drop me off. And whatever part of Phnom Penh they did drop me off in, I didn't recognize it, except for responding to a general outlying city aesthetic of crumbling yellow villas wreathed with rusting barbed wire.

Anyway, long story short, I'm back in Phnom Penh at a pub-guesthouse on the river, feeling somewhat nauseous, exhausted, lonely but also humbled too, I suppose. My new visa won't be ready till this evening so I can't leave today. And yes for this final stretch Tim and I are travelling solo as you might have gathered. For completely mutually good reasons. And yes, I'm ready to go back to the city I love. I've tallied that with today's new and unforeseen accommodation we have stayed at a total of 17 guesthouses or glorified motels, slept on three overnight buses, one overnight train and spent one night on a boat.

But wait, I was going to finish the story about Poipet. Eh, that story takes too long. Needles to say we suffered the police-run taxi mafia, we waited for two hours, we were involved in a bureaucratic stand-off between one brave taxi driver and the police who wanted us to take a minibus instead, bulldozer roars and dust and exhaust and idle, tired corrupt officials gazing with beery eyes at us. We took the minibus for several more hours down dark, bumpy, pot-hole diseased dirt roads often plagued with piles of gravel too boot. The image of oncoming lights arcing in a mist of road dust. And waiting and bumping up and down. And then, one of the people we convinced to share the cab with us had the eagle eyes to spot on the side of the road a Finnish couple who had been at the taxi office. They were standing next to their now-idle steaming cab on the side of the road. It had broken down. And they had no idea when it would be fixed.

So our very optically astute cohort screamed for the driver to stop and we picked up the Finish couple much to our driver's bemusement. And then two hours later, and gradually approaching 11 hours of travel, the driver at 930 at night decided to have dinner and at a restaurant where he no doubt gets a cut of the profits. We're all rather incensed at the idea that the driver is postponing in such a dubious fashion our much-postponed entrance into Siam Reap so we all decide not to eat and he leaves us in the car, takes the key and sits down alone in a small alcove to a leisurely meal. The eagle-eyed German girl decides to jump into action and springs out of the car and we watch her verbally assail the driver with oaths and wildly-waving hands. She begs the help of one of the waiters to translate. But the driver is hungry and he wants to eat. He must eat. And really I can't argue with it. And frankly I find her screaming approach a bit counter-productive. But it is unusual for your taxi driver to take a dinner break while you're en route somewhere.

Finally he finished and we made it to Siam Reap at almost 11 at night and found a very nice guesthouse down a dark, unlit, dirt road....

All of you who I sent postcards too. Tell me when you get them.

Wish me luck. Two days left.

Mad Cambodia! July 12, 2008

Wonderful Mad Amazing Cambodia

I spent this afternoon sitting on the second floor balcony bar of the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Cambodia, a beautiful, colonial era building the color of varnished bamboo, with high, raftered ceilings and whirring ceiling fans, a U-shaped dark wood bar and a sumptuous view of the confluence of a couple rivers, as well as the flapping of UN flags, the hellicoptor-sounds of street construction below, and the parade of "tuk-tuks", construction trucks, and scooters. Some call it akin to the bar in Casablanca which is astute. A good place to drink iced coffee and pretend I'm a correspondent of some caliber and lose myself, as people find it easy to do here in the tropics, in nothing less than staring off into space.

The bar-restaurant-journalist meeting place opened in 1993 when Phnom Penh, as the country's capital, was solely under the jurisdiction of UN troops, its infrastructure was in terrific disepair from years of decimation inflicted by the Khmer Rouge and the occupation of so many foreign troops inspired an unprecedented surge in the industry of vice, culinary excess, drugs, guns, sex, etc. In short, a far edgier tourism industry came to flower during the 90s, but one, I've heard, decidedly more anarchic than it is today. I like to think the dizzying city I'm entranced with today, a place where bustling colonial streets, meringue-yellow walls stained by the ashes of cooking fires, sit side by side bumpy unpaved dirt roads that are heaped with rubbish, is the product of countless sensibilities as well as untold sufferings. That in truth, there is little commentary to be offered except to say this place is exciting, even if not as exciting as it was ten years ago.

Sitting there today, wasting time, I also forced myself to remember things: the red, dirt roads spiraling out through green barren flattnesses on the outskirts of Siam Reap, the sugar palm huts, the villages on stilts, the monkeys playing on the road on the way to the temple ruins of Angkor, the lack of gas stations obviated by countless peddler huts on the sides of roads where gas is kept handy inside old bottles of Johnny Walker. Yesterday I was greeted by the regular afternoon constitutional of the elephant Samdo, who is the guardian of a famous wat here in Phnom Pehnh. Our last night in Siam Reap we spent inside a former farm house building turned bar-restaurant that, inside was essentially a maze of alternating platforms and Escher-like staircases but the highlight was the live alligator pit below. They were alseep though when I gazed on them.

We've been in Cambodia now for over a week and it is dazzling and captivating and maddening in every sense. We have stayed here longer than planned and would have liked to stay even longer.

Befitting the raucous, complex character of this country, just getting here in the first place proved to be one of the biggest adventures we've had. And it wasn't necessarily the most pleasant either but certainly absurd enough and surreal enough to warrant a few guffaws. In short, we spent 16 hours traveling consistently to make it from the island of Ko Chang, Thailand to the infamous border town of Poipet, Cambodia. One boat, two mini-buses and a rather decrepit minivan taxi were all involved in the venture. Metaphorically it was like we were tansported from some idyllic, San Diego-like beach resort to a lawless Wild West town at high noon where an eerie, humid silence reigned that seemed the very prelude to a shoot-out.

The journey from the mainland of Thailand to the Thai border town of Aranyapra Thet was straightforward enough, if somewhat hot and cramped in the capacity-filled minibus where Finnish, German and French were all being spoken. Once there in the rather unspectacular border town it was like a series of bureaucratic initiations were set in progress that we either had to conquer or else humorously concede defeat. First of all, we had to avert our first scam when a woman told us she could get us a Cambodian visa expedited for a fee. But because we weren't doing the usual package tours that come out of Bangkok and were, in our modest way, trying to make the overland crossing on our own terms, we knew she was ripping us off by at least 3 dollars or so.

Next we had to deal with Poipet, one of the most maligned, dusty, unappealing towns we had heard of in the whole Southeast Asian region. The heat, of course, was appalling, at least by my terms. Our first rite of passage was making it through the market that stood at the crossroads of the two countries. And then there was a walkway, after the painless Thai immigration queue where children tried to shade you with umbrellas for a small fee. Others, it was warned, could rob you in a second. And then, with brave faces on, it was time to deal with the Visa officials at Cambodian immigration. As predicted, they told us the visas would cost ten dollars more than they should. We told them, no, they should be 20 U.S. dollars but they wanted us to pay the inflated rate of 33 U.S. dollars BUT also only in Thai currency. Seeming bored and tired, they insisted the visas cost 1000 Baht and not 20 dollars, that in fact U.S. currency was not accepted by Cambodian immigration.

Somewhere, of course, between the alley of beggar children and the Cambodian immigration, I had lost a thousand Baht (Thai currency) and only discovered it then as they demanded the fee from me. So I walked down to the currency exchange right near where we were dealing with the Cambodian officials only to find another VISA processing center, also OFFICIAL with a giant, clearly-stated sign that read: VISAS: $20.00. I showed Tim, and a rather irate German couple we were with. And thus began a series of incensed arguments with the Visa officials who wouldn't budge. Upon being interrogated about the sign, they only said, or at least our corrupt guide explained for us, "Its an old sign! Needs to be changed."

So we payed the thousand Baht and got our visas within minutes. Next we had to walk past the slew of casinos the town of Poipet is also known for. Finally, we made it to another official office where we had to fill out departure forms. We decided to tell the officer there about the visa guys and he told us that they always trick people and there's nothing to be done. This whole time a rather defensive guide had been with us, the very guide who had led us to the corrupt visa official station and was now arranging us a cab for a rather good fee. We had meanwhile convinced the German couple to split the cab with us, because although a little more expensive than the bus, it was guaranteed to be faster, more air-conditioned, and certainly more comfortable than the tourist buses which would take 12 hours to make it to Siam Reap, the main destination for people crossing into Cambodia at Poipet.

Then we walked into the town of Poipet proper expecting to just jump in the cab and make our way to Siam Reap. The town proper, beyond the casinos and the border crossing stations, was made of dust and piles of mud and broken-down buildings and countless men, with dust masks on, lingering on their scooters and children running around almost naked, begging. But it was also, like I said, eerily silent. At least until we made it into the scarily bureacratic clutches of the infamous Poipet "taxi mafia"!!!!

To be continued. Maybe.

Thai Beach Koh Phangan: June 27, 2008

A hiatus in a cove:

Night, men with miner helmets on spray light across the black waters scaring up fish, while down the beach someone unseen is setting off fireworks. You see them crackle and disperse into white and raspberry colored dots but you can never see the perpetrator. On the dark end of the cove, the stars are pulsing and luminous, and I curse myself at my lack of astronomical education. From this part too, the far end of the beach, the palm trees strung with octagonal lanterns looks like some nearly vacated boardwalk at Christmas time. Closer to the lanterns, the sand looks like snow and we hear the drifting hard syllables of people speaking German, spreading out on rugs thrown on the beach, sipping beer.

Then burning fire drifts across the sky. Fleets of them. Or actually just three. The lanterns set adrift that people mistake, the world over, for UFOs.

We landed at Koh Phangan three days ago, but wisely evaded the detritus of the Full Moon revellers for the remote north-eastern part of the island, a bumpy truck ride through volcanic mountains smothered in jungle, on switchbacks, the paved giving way to red, dusty unpaved paths. We land and see a pool flush with the sea, and only a minute later we are standing on white sand in an enclosed cove and it looks like no one is about. The bungalow we find is the cheapest so far. Beds: a four poster mosquito net feeling like a child's fort. A swing on the beach. The water still and clear and blue green.

Midday heat, we attempt a swim to the other beach beyond the rocks. Low endurance and heat stalls me on the rocks where for the better part of an hour, and quite stupidly, I clamber half naked in the sun across the rocks, through tide pools jagged with shells, determined to reach the beach through quite awkward and rather reckless bouldering. My hands are cut up, I'm sweating, my back is turning red, I lack water. I stop and explore tide pools, anenomes and urchins as big as basketballs and baseballs, the color of amethyst and scarlet, twitching and gasping. Scary to walk through the lairs of such densely-packed sea creatures. And the black crabs too which bask and then flee the bright, slippery rock faces.

At the other end of the beach, it is clear we have to swim back. Which is when my masterful dog paddle and 1920's fop side stroke become indipensable, as well as my flapper back stroke.

Then Tim and I discuss the peculiar belief in "fan death." And then I wash my wounds and work on a much-promised sketch book.

Bangkok and Beyond: June 24, 2008

Bangkok and beyond, kind of.

Under the dripping eaves of a sidewalk cafe, we wait out the brief afternoon showers of Hanoi with 15 cent beers and talk of snake's hearts being eaten while still beating. Next morning, we're flying to Bangkok. The city we land in is quiet. Not the perpetual cacophony of honking and swerving and beeping that characterizes Vietnam. Here in Thailand there are modern, docile expressways, dull architecture, the occasional cluster of palm trees. Without a plan, or even a Thailand guide book, we glut our eyes and ears on the world toursit din of Kao San Road which frankly is a rather appalling spectacle of skewered meat and obscene T-shirts and people trying to sell you wooden frogs. The day is steaming and we find a 4 dollar a night hostel down some back alley where four hotels and guesthoses clamber for space. When night comes, certain touts, as we have been forewarned by a couple Americans we met in Hanoi, are trying to sell us on the idea of watching a "ping pong show." When asked to explain the man only can point to a menu where there are various suggestively shaped implements listed, like bannas and cucumbers. Politely we decline until the next guy asks us ping pong show? and then the next.

Roosters are crowing as we stagger home, nearly lost. A child works the reception. Had some sinus-cleansing curry, and then in the afternoon we are camped out, nearly sleeping with hundreds of people in the Bangkok train station. At one point we stand and sing the anthem of Thailand, salute the king. The television set keeps showing ads promoting something called M-150 that is either an energy drink, a form of kick boxing, or the name of some faction of the military. Or all three. We can't decide.

At 3 a.m. the train lets us off and we haven't slept because in the 2nd class trains its sweltering, no AC and when the train stops it smells of urine. No big deal though. Soon as rain comes down we are shoved on a boat and three hours later, having lived out the dawn without sleep, we are on the island of Ko Tao.

Now it feels like two of the previous days were spent in some dream of a Bangkok train station, curry stands, a hotel room that looked like it belonged in a Bronx tenemant, and heaps of very clay-like sand coiled to look like worm poop.

Thank you.

A fortnight in Vietnam: June 20, 2008

A fortnight so far
Current mood: energetic

In a glittering bay studded with thousands of monolithic, limestone islands, each island sweatered in the greenest green, we stop to go kayaking and find a little cave as the sun begins to set, all streamers of pink and steel and muddy blue unfurling over the sea. So many varieties of green here you can't think of enough adjectives. The bay has fishing villages in it. People who live on the water on little makeshift isles made of bamboo and buoys. They have to go around in canoes and sell Oreos to people to supplement their fishing.

Slept on a boat. Haven't ever really done that. Awoke at sea to a meal of dragonfruit. In the night, as the moon rose over a giant rock, we drank Tiger beers with the Vietnamese deck hands, ate fried squid and sang karaoke. Squid is ubiquitous here in the north and as often delicious. Sitting on the top deck, moonlight casting a sheen on the now black rock walls of the many, many-sized islands and rocks.

At some point, we went to a jungle island, traipsed through mud in the stinking humidity to some blinding green summit that was crowned with a rusty watchtower that you ascended by way of an evern rustier staircase. Fear of heights damned to hell, I dizzyingly rose to the top which was a tin roofed little hut, with broken boards for a floor. Later at dusk I jumped off the edge of the 25 foot tall boat into the water. I feel like these are all new sensations that are really old ones coming back for just a little while.

After karaoke, after everyone went to bed, Tim and I violated a rather arbitrary prohibition and indulged in a little midnight swimming in the ocean. Couldn't tell how deep it was but there was a strong night current. Needless to say it felt pretty amazing.

5 people can fit on a scooter in Vietnam. That's an entire family. In the U.S. that same family would buy a fucking minivan.

I am having an excellent time. But it is still hot. :)

Vietnam Heat: June 12, 2008

Heat, etc.
Current mood: animated

It is hot in Vietnam.

20 hours of flying and plunged into the bustling scooter autobahn of Ho Chih Minh City and fed with beef pho and sweet coffee and dousing myself in DEET which I find strangely appealing as an odor. But maybe because its novel.

The park in Saigon was aflutter with bats and midnight revellers playing badminton.

It is hot here.

Whenever possible we sit in the improvised shade on improvised chairs eating piping hot street food which is many different and scrumptuous varieties of meat.

We got lost in the most amazing webwork of Saigon alleyways and everyone has their houses open, eating on the tiles, with the television near the shrines. I'm amazed how people can sleep on a motorcycle. The architecture here, I'm happy to hear, is sometimes called "tropical baroque."

I went swimming in the South China Sea and the water was warm.

Right now I'm sweating and its night and we're about to take a night bus to Hoi An.

The cemeteries along the coast were painted bright blue. There is so much green here and water and hills and heat and scooters.

Soon: Hanoi, then Cambodia perhaps. Or Bangkok first.

Cheers.