How I'm Flying Home For Next-to-Nothing (and you can too!)

[Updates in brown]

I recently booked my ticket back to the States for this upcoming September, and after chatting with several friends here in China, I was shocked to hear that none of them are members of any airline frequent flyer programs.  So, this post is a short description of how to take advantage of frequent flyer programs to get cheap or free flights, and why you should!

First of all, let me say that my understanding of the frequent flyer programs is fairly rudimentary, and the advice I'm giving here is basic-nothing a seasoned frequent flyer will find all that groundbreaking.  If you want to learn to really take advantage of the system, check out Chris Guillebeau's Blog "The Art of Non-Conformity.  (Thanks to Francine for referring me to his site!)  He goes into great detail about what he terms "travel hacking", and sells several eBooks on the topic.  His blog, however, contains plenty of free advice, including this article on frequent flyer miles.

Most people, it seems, are averse to the idea of frequent flyer miles because of legendary flight restrictions, difficulties earning and redeeming miles, and most of all ignorance.  It is not as difficult as one might think to earn and redeem miles.  You can sign up for most airlines' programs online for free.  Some airlines even give you free miles just for joining.  Below are several links to the various airlines' signup pages:

• American


• Alaska


• Continental


• Delta


• United


• U.S. Airways


• Virgin Atlantic


• British Airways


• Southwest


• JetBlue

(links compiled by The Art of Non-Conformity)

Once you've signed up, it's only a matter of reporting your account number when flying.  If you forget to report your account number before flying, it's no big deal.  You can report usually for up to a year after the fact online or by phone.

Since my experience has most recently been with United, a member of the Star Alliance, I'll use that as a reference.  Other airlines might vary in rules and rates.  My one-way ticket from Beijing back to Philadelphia in September was priced at around $1,200.  Instead of forking out the cash, I started investigating how to use the 23,000 miles I'd earned on United to fly home.  Using their website's "Redeem Miles" search feature, I found that a one-way flight home would run 32,500 miles.  Still 10,000 miles short, I referred to my Continental One-Pass account, and saw that I'd saved 9,000 miles with Continental.  Although both of these airlines are members of the Star Alliance, and they've now announced their merger, after consulting with both of them on the phone, it became clear that while I could use my miles from one airline on one or the other airline, I couldn't combine the two.

[While United and Continental have as of yet not announced the details of how their Frequent Flyer programs will be combined, we can make some assumptions based on the past merger of Delta and Northwestern.  It's likely that after the two airlines have officially completed their merger (probably sometime in 2011), that miles from the two airlines will then be combine-able.  Until then, it's either convert, use one airline's miles, or forget it.]

I considered converting my Continental miles to United miles (yes! it is possible), but I didn't feel like waiting and dealing with the resulting loss in mileage.  Most mileage and point programs can be converted through a sometimes circuitous process of first converting to a middle-man program like Amtrak or HiltonHonors.  The process often results in 10,000 miles from one account being converted to 4,000 miles in another account, just hypothetically speaking.  For details, check out WebFlyer.

So, I was in need of another 9,500 miles.  My parents offered to transfer me some of their miles, but the airlines discourage this by charging a transfer fee and a per mile charge.  Instead, I learned that I could make up the difference by purchasing miles from the airline.  Miles may be purchased by 1,000 mile increment, and rates start at around $50 for 1,000 miles.  I purchased 10,000 miles for $357.  With taxes and fees added in, I spent only $390 on my airfare, saving over $800.  What's more, if I had had time to wait (I was a bit anxious about the available dates running out), I could have flown for nothing!

In my research, I discovered that United has a program called "United College Plus", which offers students 10,000 free miles just for graduating college.  I signed up (in under 5 minutes), had my university send them a copy of my transcript for verification purposes, and within two weeks, they credited my account with an additional 10,000 free miles.  I should mention that in the fine print, it specifies that you have to join the College Plus program before graduating (which I don't believe I had), and must report your transcript within a year of graduating (which I may or may not have just managed to do).

Furthermore, I realized that I've flown several times on Air China in the past year, and didn't earn any miles for those flights.  Since Air China and United are both part of the same alliance, I reported the flights to United, giving them my ticket numbers, dates of travel, etc. and earning myself an extra 5,000 miles.

There are plenty of other ways to earn miles without flying, however.  Exploring each airline's Frequent Flyer website will tell you that you can earn miles by showing your Frequent Flyer card while staying in hotels, renting cars, shopping online, and even eating out at restaurants!

What's more, one of the most efficient ways to earn miles is by signing up for an airline's credit card.  It may sound risky or scary, but after reading the fine print thoroughly, it might not be as risky as you think.  United is currently offering their Chase Bank Visa Platinum card with a bonus of 30,000 miles online.  What I've taken from the fine print:

• there is a $69 annual fee


• that fee is waived for the first year


• you earn 30,000 miles only after spending $250


• it may take 4-6 weeks after spending the minimum to earn those miles


• you can only use those 30,000 miles if your account remains active until after you've used them


• that means that you can cancel your credit card after using the points, but only after you've redeemed the miles and flown with them

After calling home today, I found out I'd received another mailing from United offering the same card with a bonus of 50,000 miles instead of 30k.  An additional 50,000 miles on top of the 15,000 I earned by sending my college transcript and reporting my flights on their partner airline would give me 65,000 miles-enough to fly roundtrip anywhere in the world OR to fly roundtrip in the United States 2.5 times.  A free flight anywhere in the world, combined with some CouchSurfing (check out couchsurfing.org) or a visit to an international friend could mean an amazing adventure for next to nothing!  (Taxes, fees, and food not included.)

What are the risks of signing up for a credit card deal like this?

Every time your credit report is checked, your score goes down slightly, but once will not hurt significantly.  Just ask Chris Guillebeau who signed up for 13 (!) airline credit cards, earning 300,000 miles and various other bonuses, and only saw his credit score go down by 4% (after 13 credit cards, 4% is not bad)!!!

[If you're concerned about your credit history (and even if you're not), you should know that the US government allows you to check your credit report for FREE once each year.  To access your truly free credit report, go to AnnualCreditReport.com.  This website will allow you to access your credit report with each of the big credit reporting agencies:  Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian.  You can even dispute negative claims easily online, talking your way out of any major blemishes.  Just realize that these reports don't give you your credit score, just a listing of all positive and negative marks on your account.]

Annual fees!  While some credit cards offer $0 in annual fees,. the United card I'm looking at charges $69.  While this may seem like a lot, for a free roundtrip flight, the fee is worth it (especially if you plan on canceling your card in the first year).  Furthermore, United is currently offering to waive the first year's fee, which means that as long as I get the card, earn the points, redeem the points, fly with those points, and remember to cancel the card all in the first year, I'll be earning 50,000 miles for free!

Privacy:  Some of my friends have told me they've heard stories about signing up for credit cards like this and having their private information sold to third party companies.  Whether this is true or not, I don't know.  My advice:  read the fine print thoroughly.  Most airline credit cards are sponsored through major banks, and specify how secure your information is.  A good rule of thumb, if you've read through the fine print and it doesn't seem legit, it probably isn't.  That doesn't mean there isn't plenty of secure free mileage to be had.

If you choose to keep your airline credit card, using it to book additional flights with that airline will earn you even more miles.  I, on the other hand, am a proponent of bank reward credit cards, through which you can diversify your points and miles.

Well, that's a basic overview of how to finagle some free travel or travel hack.  If you're trying to travel quickly, it might not be the best option, but if you fly anywhere, anytime it is extremely worth it to sign up for the airline's Frequent Flyer program, and start saving your miles!

If you want to learn more, I do suggest you check out Chris Guillebeau's blog, which I referenced and cited several times in this entry, or just do some web surfing and googling of your own!

[I'll write again soon about my upcoming plans and recent exploits.  I'm having some summer clothes copied from major clothing brands' websites and custom made by my tailor, and I'm continually fighting a losing battle against being a night owl.  The weather has been unflinchingly sunny and warm as always, and I'm up to the usual.]

Cycling Around Lake Dian: The Roads Around Kunming's Polluted Heart

Two weekends ago was 5/1 (May Day), or International Workers' Day, and I had my plan in order:  sleep, watch some movies, enjoy the sunshine, and maybe get some work done.  That was until Friday evening when my friend Abby asked me if I wanted to spend the weekend with her and my other friend Lisa  cycling around Lake Dian (滇池), south of Kunming.  A little hesitant at first, she talked me into it, and I woke up early Saturday morning to go rent a bike.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="361" caption="{Photo of Lake Dian taken from XiShan (I didn't take this photo)}"][/caption]

Lake Dian, a highland freshwater lake, is the largest lake in Yunnan Province, and the eighth largest in China.  It was the model for the much smaller, man-made Lake Kunming at the Summer Palace in Beijing.  It is truly spectacular that such a vast lake is so close to Kunming City, and only makes it all the more depressing that the water is EXTREMELY polluted.  We're not talking just "don't drink the water" polluted.  We're talking "do not touch the water" polluted.  (I was even a little afraid to look at it.)   The water in Lake Dian has been classified Type V (the worst possible rating), meaning the water is unfit for agricultural and industrial uses.  The reason:  prior to the first wastewater treatment plant being constructed in Kunming in 1990, all of the city's bacteria- and disease-ridden wastewater was dumped untreated directly into the lake.  The factories and farms crowding the lake's eastern shore no doubt do not help the matter, and despite billions of dollars being spent to clean up the water, it's been estimated that over 55% of the lake's fish population has died.  It is even more worrisome to see locals out fishing in its depths.

Despite the pollution, I had yet to go down to the lake, and decided a weekend out exercising with friends was better than a weekend spent sleeping and being unproductive.  So, Saturday morning, we got a quick  breakfast at Salvador's, and then set out south down through the city by the canal, passing roadside tattoo artists, coca-cola sponsored police tents, and endless honking cars.  We made it past the airport, heading east (clockwise around the lake), and keeping to local roads.  The city quickly turned into farms and smaller towns, extensions of the city.  After a while, we stopped to ask directions from a few PSB officers, who pointed us towards Chenggong-the main extension zone for Kunming city and home to the new campuses of all the major universities in Kunming.

Past the town, construction was strewn in all directions, new high-rises stood looming over the surrounding agriculture, and the roads were covered with rocks and dirt.  Massive diesel trucks roared by us, sounding their loud air-horns obnoxiously as if their engines weren't enough warning of their approach.  They kicked up the dust in clouds, making it difficult to breathe, and knocking debris flying into the air at us.  When we eventually stopped for lunch, our faces were brown with sunglasses-shaped patches of skin, and our eyebrows were white with dust.  We rode out towards villages,  under bridges, and through the black smoke of slashed-and-burnt fields.  More than once, the trucks were backed up honking at each other, and we did our best to weave in and out between them, dismounting when necessary.  It was a rough ride, if only for the traffic and dust, and I huffed and puffed, climbing up the final set of hills for the day, thankful to be that much closer to our first night's destination.  We zoomed at top speed down towards the southernmost point of the lake, the town of Kunyang (昆阳), over 70 km around the lake from our starting point.

We rode into town, found a hotel, and washed the dirt off our faces.  Every part of me was sore, and it was difficult to walk through the town.  We found a public square honoring Zheng He (郑和)-the famed early 15^th century Hui mariner and explorer from this small corner of Yunnan, who commanded fleets of ships sailing as far as East Africa.  The square was alive with local families and old men flying kites, vendors grilling chuanr, and children delightedly bouncing up and down on small inflatable carnival rides.  Later, we returned to our hotel and played cribbage before calling it a night.  I was exhausted, and my arms had apparently been sunburnt during the ride.  Moreover, with all my muscles aching, I hastily decided to apply tiger balm to my legs, back, and shoulders, falling asleep at around 11pm.  Two hours later, I awoke in a cold sweat, my sheets soaked through, and a text message on my phone.  One of my friends in the adjacent room was very nauseous, and wanted to know if I had any medicine.  I gave her something, took a shower, and went back to sleep, noticing briefly that it was pouring outside.  The next day's ride wasn't looking too promising.

Fortunately, the morning brought a sufficient lack of rain, renewed energy, and easiness in my friend's stomach.  So, we settled our bill with the hotel, strapped our packs to our bike racks, and left the town of Kunyang heading Northwest back around the lake.  The roads around the lake are all under construction-part of Kunming City's 12 year plan to expand and increase transportation routes-and the start of the second day's ride was beginning to seem like a repeat of day 1.  Fortunately, the western edge of the lake is less developed and much more scenic, and the road quickly flattened and became paved.  Just before Haikou on the southwest corner of the lake, we had a choice to make:  stay on the local roads, climbing up into the mountains and around, or sneak onto the expressway, cutting straight across flat roads and the new bridge into town.  We snuck past the toll, a little wary we were going to get chased or yelled at, but we were clear.  We saw the green, polluted waters below us as we crossed the bridge, and made it into Haikou.  We switched to local roads, and we passed donkey-drawn carriages, construction men yelling "Hello! How are you?" in English, local restaurants selling fresh-caught fish from the lake (!), and scenic "tourist" spots with mediocre views.  We made it to XiShan (the western hills), where the impressive cliffs towered above us on our left, a few stray sheep bleating somewhere up above us, invisible.

We stopped for a snack in a small village towards the north of the lake, watching the local stray dogs interact, sniffing each other and lying in the middle of the road, obstructing local traffic.  Asking for directions, we found a main road back into Kunming proper, and rode through town until we were back on familiar turf.  We pushed the last leg up towards WenHua Xiang, and locked our bikes up outside Salvador's (where we'd started nearly 140km ago the previous day) for lunch.

Since this was primary a cycling trip, I didn't take many photos, but I'll throw some up when I get the chance.

Over Land From Hong Kong Back to Kunming:"The Finest Mountains and Waters Under Heaven"

Well, this post is a bit overdue, but I wanted to at least give a brief retelling of my trip through Southern China, from Hong Kong back to Kunming by land.  After the Fulbright Conference ended in mid-march, my friend Laura and I set out back into mainland China by bus, traveling from Hong Kong directly to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province.  While the primary language in Guangdong is Cantonese, we didn't have any trouble getting by with our standard Mandarin.  The bus let us off after dark in downtown Guangzhou by a Hilton.  We checked the price, but it was far out of our budget.  So, we called around, and it seemed that most places were steeply priced compared to what we were used to in other Chinese cities (possibly due to the high volume of international business and trade conferences in the area).  We finally found a "cheaper" hostel south of the river, and cabbed it down there.

The next morning, we went to the bus station to buy overnight bus tickets to Guilin, a fabled city in Guangxi, Guangdong's provincial neighbor to the west.  We had the day to play, and we walked around a bit, met up with a friend of mine who was also staying in the area, got dim sum for lunch, and visited some sites.  Guangzhou was not exceptionally interesting, and we were glad we'd opted to only stay for one day.  That night, we returned to the bus station, and boarded a sleeper bus, traveling west into Guangxi Province.  The driver told us we would arrive in Guilin around 6:30am, and we tried to get some sleep on the narrow beds.

Around 6am, the bus stopped and everyone shuffled out.  We were told we'd arrived in Yangshuo, an hour or so south of Guilin, and where we'd intended to go after Guilin.  So, we discussed it, and decided to switch our itinerary around a bit, first spending time in Yangshuo.  We checked into a cheap hotel, and rested a bit more till the sun came up.  After a light breakfast of buns and dumplings, we rented bikes and set out into the countryside.  Yangshuo is known for its astounding karst scenery (much like the scenery I encountered in Laos), split picturesquely by the peaceful Li River.  Telling many Chinese people that you're traveling to Guilin and Yangshuo elicits an envious reply.  In fact, there's a Chinese saying: "桂林山水甲天下，阳朔山水甲桂林。"（Guilin's mountains and waters are the finest under heaven, but Yangshuo's mountains and waters top Guilin's）.  China's 20 yuan bill even depicts a scene of the Li River in Yangshuo.

We rode out around the area taking photos, visiting sites, climbing Moon Hill (known for its moon-shaped hole), and riding some more.  With no real map or idea of where we were going, we kept asking locals for directions, and got lost a couple times.  The weather was slightly overcast, and not the ideal for a visit to Yangshuo, but it was still quite an enjoyable day.  Flat roads by tourist attractions gave way to winding roads through vast open spaces between imposing karst cliffs, and then the Li River.  Flat bamboo rafts floated by carrying fishermen, cows grazed the fields, and everything seemed picture-worthy.  We stopped by a chicken farm, and the owner came out to ask us how many chickens we wanted to buy.  (We refrained.)  At one point, the road led right to the edge of the river, continuing on the opposite side, and a local helped us cross and bring our bikes across by raft.

By the time we made it back into town we'd ridden about 40km, and were fairly tired.  We walked around a bit, had dinner, and went to bed, catching a bus north to Guilin the next morning.  Guilin is an interesting city, but not necessarily deserving the above Chinese saying.  We explored, had some snacks, visited a number of different sites, including twin pagodas, one made of copper, the tallest copper building in the world.  For dinner, we had Guilin snails (a traditional dish).  The first one I went for turned out to be pregnant with lots of gritty little baby snails.  After that, Laura refused to eat any more than the foot of each snail.  We finished most of them, and explored some more.  The next day we visited the Longsheng (Dragon's Backbone) Rice Terraces.  I'd visited the Yuanyang rice terraces in southern Yunnan with Ariane, but it had been extremely foggy, and the views had been limited.  Fortunately, our day in Longsheng was a sun-filled one, and we climbed through the terraced hills above the quaint villages, feeling like we'd somehow stumbled out of our world and into the Shire of Hobbit acclaim.

After our day in Longsheng, we returned to Guilin and arranged train tickets back to Kunming.  Lonely Planet listed the travel time as 8 hours, and the ticket salesman told us the train departed at 4:30pm and arrived around 11:30.  We bought hard seat tickets, figuring 7 or 8 hours was not too bad a trip.  Later, however, after some online research, I realized that the train did indeed arrive around 11:30... the next morning!  The 8 hours that Lonely Planet listed had been a typo, and should have actually said "18 hours".  I was a bit concerned, and almost didn't even tell Laura about my realization.  Finally, however, I decided I had to, and with a couple hours left till our train was scheduled to depart, we headed to the station to try to switch our tickets to hard sleepers.  They were sold out.

A man approached us and offered us hard tickets, but we were very skeptical.  A bit desperate, however, we followed him to his tourist office, and made him sign a contract saying the tickets were real.  We didn't have a problem, and made it on the train, 18 hours back to Kunming.

I've left out a lot of details for the sake of brevity, but I've also posted photos.  I also be following this post up with some more recent events.

A Beautiful Day in Kunming

Today is one of those beautiful Kunming days.  It's 75°F and beaming with sunlight.  I made my usual way up YuanXi Lu and across Yunnan University's campus towards WenHua Xiang.  Women are out toting their parasols above their heads to keep their skin as white as possible, and there's the most refreshing of breezes passing through the shade, carrying a strong scent of flowers (which somehow doesn't cause my allergies to explode).  You could take me from anywhere on the globe and drop me in Kunming on a day like today, and I'd know where I was.  Sometimes I wish I carried my camera with me all the time.  But honestly, if I did, I'd never get where I was going.

I've passed the 5-month mark in my Fulbright grant, which means I have less than five months left till I return to the US.  I met with one of my professors here this week to discuss my research, and devise a plan for the next few months.  At the beginning of May, he's going to help me settle into a village in Luquan County, north of Kunming to continue with my linguistic documentation.  At the same time, I've been continuing the sociolinguistic portion of my project, speaking with Yi people in and around Kunming.  Over the next few months, I'll be visiting villages in every direction around the city, trying to get a better understanding of the changing linguistic environment.

I've been struggling with my apparently natural sleeping cycle, which would be more appropriate for Eastern Europe or Turkey than China (6 hours or so behind), but hopefully I've fixed it by getting so little sleep last night.  Going to the gym has become my daily goal, and it's been giving me a bit of structure in my otherwise unstructured life.

I'm sitting at Salvador's Cafe, which is indeed more of a social scene than a quiet study spot, exemplified by the fact that I've run into 7 of my friends since I walked in.  I'll try to get some work done anyway.  At some I'm going to write another post this week about my recent trip through Southern China soon and post some more photos as well.

Hong Kong & Macau: A View from the Top (and the Bottom)

Earlier this month, I attended the annual Fulbright China Research Form, held for a week in Hong Kong and Macau with Fulbright Fellows from China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan in attendance.  I flew into Shenzhen, the  largely uninteresting but prosperous Special Economic Zone in Guangdong Province (Canton), across the river from Hong Kong.  I immediately hopped a bus to go through customs and enter Hong Kong.

International borders have become a routine for me over the past months-exit form: filled out next to my passport photo page, paper clip on my Chinese visa, waiting in line.  China makes you patient.  The woman's eyes darted between my passport photo and my face at least 7 times before she let me pass-a testament to how much I've changed.

Back on the bus, we crossed a bridge and rounded jagged hills climbing out of the sea.  A few floating villages hid themselves in poverty by the border.  Around one hill, and a wall of identical high-rise apartment buildings stood against our approach in the distance-my first view of Hong Kong, and an impressive one at that.  I was beginning to feel the excitement of exploring a new place.

The bus let me off in the middle of Kowloon (pronounced Gaolong), the highly developed peninsula pointing south to Hong Kong Island.  It was dark already, hot-the straps on my pack pressed the humidity hard against my back.  The conference would begin the next day, and in the meantime I had no plans and nowhere to sleep.

I have traveled all over Europe, North America, and Asia, spent long periods of time alone backpacking, navigated countless cities, but never have I been so overwhelmed by a place as I was upon first arriving in Hong Kong.  I walked to an intersection, pulled out a map, and tried to get my bearings.  Everywhere around me were people, lights, cars, smells.  Within 20 minutes or so, I'd made my way on foot south towards the tip of the peninsula, arriving at the infamous Chungking Mansions, a decrepit tenement of low-budget rooms, teeming with African and Indian immigrants.  It was hot, and there was a definite odor throughout the building.  I decided to try a place on the 7^th floor that had received alright reviews.  The line for the elevator pulled away from its door and around the corner, sweating en masse.  I asked for the stairs, and was told to just wait in line.  So, I did.

Thirty minutes later, I'd made it to the front of the line, when an Indian man approached me and asked if I was going to the Pay-Less Guesthouse, presenting me with a business card.  Indeed I was.  I was a little skeptical, but he asked me to follow him-I thought that there might have been a better way to get there than this elevator (the building is separated into a labyrinthine set of blocks), so I followed him, only to arrive at the back of the adjacent elevator line.    He told me we were going to the 8^th floor.  He let out a slight grin to another man, and I realized what was going on.  I told him that the sign had said it was on the 7^th floor.  He told me it was a typo.  I asked to see his card again.  It said "7/F".  I told him I was going to the 7^th floor.  He finally realized his ruse was up, and demanded that I go with him, that the 7^th floor was fully booked.  I politely declined.  I'd lost my place in line, and waited again to avoid any conflicts.

The elevator he'd switched me into only went to even numbered floors, so I took the stairs down a level.  He hadn't lied.  Pay-Less Guesthouse was fully booked.  I spent an hour climbing the stairs up and down, floor by floor, checking each lodging.  This one was full, that one wouldn't go any less than 300 HKD-I was not happy.  I finally found a place with a free room, and managed to haggle with the manager until I was satisfied, paying more than I had originally intended.  He told me I couldn't check in for an hour, so I left my bags with him (locked), and went to get water and find an internet café.  Somewhere in the maze of Middle Eastern, African, and South Asian stores and restaurants jammed within the first few floors of the building, I found an internet café, and joined the multi-ethnic group of customers.  In the corner, an African man was using VoIP to call his home country, almost in tears that they wouldn't send him payment for the 4 out of 14 crates of some unnamed product he'd brought with him and managed to sell.  An Indian woman next to me was tending to her "Happy Farm" on Facebook.  I checked my e-mail, and looked up a place to get food.

After checking in to my room, I went for a walk.  Down Nathan Road, past the grandiose Peninsula Hotel, and to the Harbor at the tip of the peninsula, facing the stunning nightscape of Hong Kong Island.  The stress of the previous hours melted away, and I remembered why I love traveling.  I spent some time sitting, taking in arguably the best and most breathtaking skyline in the world, and then continued my walk.

I am very thankful that I have the opportunity to travel now.  Not necessarily because I don't think I'll have the opportunity again later in my life, but because I have a suspicion (and I say this as humbly as possible) that in the not too distant future I will have too much money, too many responsibilities, and too little patience to effectively experience the underbelly of a city; to arrive with no accommodations or plans, and to wander aimlessly through back alleys for hours.  For Hong Kong, these alleys, the decrepit and infested chambers of Chungking Mansions are as much a part of the city as the extravagant shopping plazas and world-class hotels, the trade conferences and business meetings.

The next morning, I made my way to the Grand Hyatt Hotel to check in for the Research Forum, and had apparently gone from rags to riches in the period of a night.  My room had a great view, and a waterfall shower, which made me quickly forget the heat and humidity of the previous night.  I went downstairs and lay in the hot tub for a bit before hitting the steam room, and then adorning my suit for the opening dinner.  The conference was a place for us all to discuss our difficulties and frustrations in performing our research, to learn from each other's experiences, and to see China and the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau in a new light.

On the second day we were joined by respected Hong Kong journalists and political analysts Willy Lam, Frank Ching, and Mark Sheldon to help us better understand Hong Kong's past, present, and future.  That night, we were invited to a reception at the US Consular General of Hong Kong's residence on the peak of Hong Kong Island.  There was good food, interesting conversations, and some great views.  On the third day, we had lunch with some leaders of groups invested in Hong Kong's development, and then made our way to the ferry port for a jet-foil to Macau.

Macau is a cultural anomaly.  Once a small fishing island, Macau was colonized by the Portuguese in the 16^th century, giving modern Macau interesting melds of languages, architecture, cuisines, and people.  The political clashes between the Portuguese and the Macanese were more violent than many Macau officials would like to admit, and the Portuguese tried to give Macau back to the Chinese during the 1970s.  The Chinese politely refused, fearing how it would affect people's impressions of China's intentions for still British-controlled Hong Kong, and the Portuguese remained in control of the island until the Chinese regained control of both regions in the historical 1997 handover.  In 1962, promising to promote tourism, Stanley Ho, a Hong Kong entrepreneur who'd fled from the Japanese to Macau during WWII gained an official government-sanctioned monopoly over the gambling industry in Macau.  He established several casinos, and maintained his control until 2002, when many Vegas casino entrepreneurs joined in the fun.  The result has been a massive boom in tourism and gambling, bringing in revenues that topple those of Las Vegas.  The casinos overshadow the Portuguese-influenced lanes and alleys throughout the island, and it seems that there's only more growth in sight, with some developers discussing filling in the water between the island and mainland China with land in an attempt to increase tourism and provide more land for casinos.

After sightseeing and listening to presentations during the day, a few friends and I met up with one of my friends' friends, a card shark who's currently living in Macau.  He took us around to several of the free shows in the casinos, and then to a quite infamous room in the Grand Lisboa, one of the older casinos.  As I'd heard previously, the circular room promises one-stop shopping for Chinese prostitutes.  You walk into the room, and the prostitutes strut around the circular wall, waiting to be picked out.  (We, of course, were only curious--not in the market.)  Unfortunately, upon our arrival the girls were lined up outside the room in a shakedown by Macanese police.  We took a few glances before being waved away, and heading over to the Venetian, one of the largest buildings (by floor space) in the entire world.  What better place than one of the biggest buildings in the world to build the Guinness Record-winning world's largest house of cards.  We wandered around for a bit, and then bid farewell to our card shark guide at his office, the high stakes poker area, for another night at work.

Back to Hong Kong the next day by jet-foil, I said goodbye to many of my friends and contacts, and got ready for my over-land trip back to Kunming.  I've posted photos from Hong Kong and Macau, and I'll write more about the rest of my trip and post more photos soon!

Southeast Asia Trip Part IV: Au Cambodge, Vietnam, and Back!

The Thai-Cambodian border seemed to be a gateway into poverty.  Ariane and I were both a bit tired and irritable after our difficulties getting on the bus earlier that day, and we were only more frustrated by the problems the other tourists on our bus had.  Since Bangkok is such a popular international travel destination, the assortment of travelers leaving from there to other places (especially on tourist buses) is probably on average less seasoned and travel-smart than at the other places we’d been thus far.  Three middle-aged Israelis held up our group asking question after question about the border crossing, and eventually having their visas cancelled by the border patrol and being denied immediate entry into Cambodia.  A group of Aussies refused to hand over their passports, and a Japanese man had printed out the wrong copy of his “e-Visa”.  In between the Thai and Cambodian entry/exit points, Thai companies have built faux-impressive casinos towering over the trash, hand-pulled fruit carts, and pickpockets, accessible only to Thai and international visitors—Cambodians are forbidden to gamble.

The roads from the border to Siem Reap had been recently paved.  For years the Thai airlines had had a deal with the Cambodian contractors responsible for constructing the roads.  The roads stayed bumpy and rough, the bus ride from Thailand to Bangkok remained long and uncomfortable, and more people continued to fly to the tourist destination of Siem Reap than to take buses.  Fortunately, the contract had ended, and the Cambodian government took advantage of the opportunity to find contractors willing to do the job.

We got into Siem Reap at around 7:30pm.  Siem Reap, located in central northwest Cambodia, just north of Tonle Sap Lake, is the jumping off point for exploring the famous temples of Angkor (usually called by their most recognizable member—Angkor Wat).  As such, the tourist industry there is booming.  High-end resorts and hotels line the roads into town, and a team of tuk-tuk drivers with excellent English await cranky tourists to disembark buses, shuttling them off to a cheaper selection of guesthouses in the Old Market area.  We hopped one of these tuk-tuks, which took us down a side alley to the Aroma Daily Hotel, where we obtained the last available room for $6/night.  The national currency is the Riel, but most places we visited, especially in touristy areas, preferred to receive and asked prices in US dollars.

After dumping our luggage in our lockless, sinkless room, we went out to explore Siem Reap.  We got a late dinner at Socheata 2 Restaurant, including a delicious pomelo salad, then returned to our room, where we watched the movie Blades of Glory on Cambodian television before passing out.

The next morning, we arranged a tuk-tuk driver for the day to take us around to all the temples in the area, and then got a quick breakfast:  banana pancakes, fried egg, spring rolls, and iced coffee.  Our driver was a young-looking Cambodian guy name Thom.  He showed us a map of which temples we’d be going to, and then stopped to fill up his bike with gas from a roadside stand, pouring the gasoline into his tank from old Johnnie Walker Red Label bottles.  At the entrance to the temple area, we purchased multi-day passes for $40USD each, and started off to the temples.  There are many temples in the area, most crowded with tourists, and some certainly more interesting than others.  Some temples are set in the open, bounded by water or grass, while others have been overrun by spung trees, strangling the stone walls of the temples with their great roots, adding to the adventurous feeling of exploring the ruins.  Sanskrit inscriptions and bas-relief can be found on many of the walls, and the sun sends its beams through the trees in just the right way as to make some of the more remote scenes all the more magical.  Here, it is easy to forget that you are one of millions of tourists visiting each year, and to feel like a true explorer, making your way cautiously and awestruck through the ruins of an ancient society.  It is also easy to see why the ruins have been depicted in such films as Tomb Raider, and why they are a symbol of Cambodian pride (even gracing the Cambodian flag).

We spent the day, peering through stone doorways and climbing steep stairs.  We gave our driver $3 for lunch (which he said was enough), and ignored the swarms of Cambodian children hawking goods outside each of the temples.  At the end of the day, we climbed to the top of Phnom Bakhang, a hill-top temple, accompanied by hundreds of other tourists to watch the sunset.  After taking far too many photos of the sun (sunsets are always somewhat anticlimactic), we headed back to town and showered before getting dinner at a wonderful restaurant called Amok.  Amok is down a rather busy alley, and is neighbored by equally as impressive-looking restaurants.  [[Amok|Amok (dish)]], both the name of the restaurant and a Cambodian dish made by steaming curry in banana leaves, is one of the signature dishes offered at Amok.  We ordered an Amok [[degustation]], grapefruit salad, fried morning glory with water lilies and bokchoy, spicy Khmer soup, and for desert fried fruit on sticks with honey and a sorbet degustation.  Having a mix of US and Cambodian currencies, it took me a significant amount of time (with the use of Ariane’s blackberry as a calculator) to figure out the bill, and then headed out for a walk before heading in for an early sleep.

At 4:30am, our driver woke us up for day two of our temple exploration.  Cold and tired, we piled onto Thom’s tuk-tuk (which had trouble starting) to head to Angkor Wat, the jewel of the temples of Angkor, to watch the sun rise.  With another hundred or so tourists, we stood in the dark waiting for the sun to rise.  It really makes you wonder how many people take photos of the same sun every day.  We were standing next to a man and wife who reminded me of people I’d know from Cherry Hill.  I can’t claim to be a photography maven, but I do find it rather amusing that so many people have such nice cameras and have no idea how to use them.  This couple was trying to take photos of the temple in dusk and were obviously only getting blurry shots and having other problems.  Watching us take photos, they started questioning each other, “they can do it, why can’t we—just put it in manual mode—it’s the camera—I don’t get it—it’s because the colors are too far away, and we can’t zoom that far”.  I love hearing other people’s bullshit.

To make the sunrise all the more dramatic, a white horse had been placed just beyond the lake and in front of the temple.  Anyway, after the sun rose (which it did do), Ariane and I sat by the temple at a small, outdoor food stand.  We got banana and mixed fruit pancakes and coffee, waiting for the temple to actually open.  After breakfast, we took our time walking around the magnificent temple.  A group of Korean men ran by at one point, yelling at each other, and followed by a camera crew—it was obviously for some sort of Korean drama.  Heading back to the tuk-tuk, a papaya suddenly hit us in the legs from behind.  We turned to find a very much stoned German couple, giggling.  They apologized for throwing a papaya at us, and we went on our way.

We spent the rest of the day visiting random temples, and then headed back to town early, tired from our pre-sunrise start.  After some much needed rest, we went for a walk, worked out some travel arrangements, and examined menus at a lot of restaurants, eventually ending up for dinner at a place called Champey’s, right next door to Amok.  When the waitress walked over to Amok for some of the food, we questioned her if the owner was the same.  It turns out that a very smart Frenchman owns 6 of the most popular restaurants in town, and is working on his 7th!

Later that night, in the market, two Cambodian women got into a real fight, pulling hair and wrestling each other to the ground.  We watched for a few moments, then went to get some ice cream.  Later, we went shopping in the night market, and Ariane bought a very cool bag made from recycled fish food sacks.

The next morning, we woke up at 5:30am for a boat south on the Tonle Sap to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.  On our way out, we saw that Thom, our driver, sleeps on the pool table outside in the lobby of our hostel with another guy, and is woken up every morning by one of the hostel workers knocking on the wood around them.  He told us that he is saving up all his money to afford to buy his own tuk-tuk.  He and I are the same age, and his situation really puts things in perspective.

Our transportation was a long, low-floating boat down the river.  It was really cramped, and even uncomfortable outside on the curved top.  We’d spent extra money to take the boat instead of a bus, and it was certainly not worth it.  The boat ride started out past floating villages, with children who had long gotten tired of waving to foreigners.  When we finally arrived in Phnom Penh, I was very uncomfortable and irritated.  Tuk-tuk drivers had boarded the boat even before we could get off, trying to get us to go with them to our hotels.  Distracted by one of them, I slammed my head very hard against the doorway on the way out (I had a bump for about a week after).

On the dock, we were pushed and shoved trying to grab our packs, and I was even more pissed off.  I’d read in our travel guide that tuk-tuks anywhere in town should cost 50 US cents.  When a driver tried to grab our bags, and told us it would cost $2.  Irritated, sore, pissed off, and all the more wary after getting ripped off for a tuk-tuk in Laos, I told him we’d only pay 50 cents.  The driver said, “fine, $1,” and I, stubborn as always, said “no, 50 cents!”.  A little pissed off himself, the driver said, “ok, ok, man, 75 cents”.  At this point all the other tourists and drivers were watching our scene.  When I refused to pay the extra 25 cents, the tuk-tuk driver said, “why you so cheap, man!  50 cents.  Can’t even buy a bottle of water!”.  I said, “if you don’t like it, I’ll find someone else”.  Then, I turned around offered 50 cents to another driver and we were on our way.  I’d won.  As we were driving off, however, we pulled around past the first driver, who yelled at us “I don’t know where you from, but I never met someone so cheap as you.  Why you so cheap!  Go Home!”.  I thought about joking with him that I’m Jewish, but he wouldn’t have gotten it, and I didn’t feel like bringing that stereotype to Cambodia.  As it turned out, we changed our destination mid tuk-tuk ride, and ended up paying a dollar anyway.

We hadn’t intended to spend much time in Phnom Penh, just a stop on our way to Saigon, and eventually Hanoi, and our first day was a reminder why.  The main attraction in Phnom Penh are the killing fields, left over from the all-too-recent days of Pol Pot, sending the educated and unneeded to their torturous deaths in his attempt to create an ultra-Maoist society.  While we’d opted to skip the fields, walking through the rainy alleys of Phnom Penh was reminder enough of the fear and devastation that had loomed over the city just over 30 years ago.  Legless mine victims hobbled by and uniformed officers patrolled the streets.  Still, I can see how the city could be a bit more appealing on a sunny day and in a better mood.

Down by the river, countless restaurants offer “happy” pizza, also tellingly listed as “special herb pizza”.  We opted for some Khmer cuisine, which was a bit disappointing, and then spent the rest of the night looking for toothpaste and contact solution.  Somewhere in the jumble of a day that was Phnom Penh, my cell phone was either misplaced or stolen.  We’d arranged a bus to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) earlier in the day, and went to bed to wake up for a 6am pickup.

We took 5 minutes too long to get ready, and went downstairs at 6:05.  Afraid we’d missed our pickup, I woke one of the hotel staff, and asked them to call. He told us to wait another 10 minutes.  We waited, and a man finally showed up, asking us to follow him through some back alleys to a van.  Then, he headed off to find more patrons headed to the bus for Saigon.  While we were waiting, we realized we’d never received any tickets from the hotel, and without them there’d be no way we’d be allowed on the bus.  So, I ran back through the alleyways, and re-woke up the man (who’d already fallen back asleep).  He tiredly shuffled through some papers and found our tickets, and then I ran back to the van, panting.

Relieved, we made it to the bus station and were seated in the last row of the bus.  The driver came around and handed us entry forms to Vietnam, and then asked to see our Vietnamese Visa.  Very confused, I quickly opened up our travel book, which clearly said visas could be obtained at the border, and then looked to some of the other tourists on the bus, who confirmed that we did indeed need to get visas ahead of time.  They kicked us off the bus, and we were a bit concerned, especially since we’d already booked plane tickets from Saigon to Hanoi for that night.  (The travel book, it seems, was 3 years old, BUT I’ve since been told that you can in fact get visas at the border—it just takes more time, and the buses don’t like to wait).

The staff at the bus station were fairly helpful, however, and they offered to have our visas processed for us, and get us on a bus that afternoon.  In the meantime, we tried to figure out what to do.  We called the airline, failing to move our flight.  We checked at a travel agency for other flights directly to Hanoi, and then we found an internet café (sitting next to a Cambodian man, who was doing his best to look at porn without us noticing) to research our options.  We decided to book another flight for the next day instead of having to worry the entire day about whether we were gonna make it in time, and then having to rush like hell through crowded Saigon.  We chalked the extra flight up to the nature of such traveling, and then went to a really nice French café to relax.  The food was delicious:  a Panini, a crumpet with ham and fried egg, a true éclair, and a brownie, plus great coffee.

After the café, we headed back to the bus station, where we retrieved our packs, our passports (fixed with nice new Vietnamese visas), and tickets to the next bus.  It was a comfortable ride out of Phnom Penh.  At one point, the bus headed down towards a river and boarded a ferry.  We arrived in Saigon after nightfall, and were stuck in traffic for eons.  By the time we finally made it to our destination, I’d already found where we were going on the map, asking the driver for confirmation.  We disembarked, and grabbed our packs.  While we were standing there, another backpacker from our bus, who obviously thought that I knew the area (for some reason), asked where he could find a guesthouse.  I told him I wasn’t sure, but pointed down a street that looked promising.  Then, another man, seeing me point the first guy away came up, asking directions to a specific street.  I told him I had no idea, and was very confused at why everyone kept asking me for directions in this city that I’d just stepped foot in a moment ago, in a country that I had never been to before.

We headed down the street I’d guessed would have guesthouses, which it did.  Unfortunately, one after another had no vacancies, until the last one.  We got our room, requested a wake-up for our early flight to Hanoi, and then went out for a quick walk and a late dinner.

I don’t have much more to say about the trip.  We flew to rainy Hanoi, where we were scammed into a different hotel, and then walked the streets and planned a tour to Halong Bay.  Somewhere along the way Ariane and I both got food poisoning—Ariane worse than I—and we spent a rainy and sick night on a junk out on Halong Bay.  On the way back from Halong Bay, the tire on our bus burst, and we all stood looking at it for a while before deciding to drive on it anyway.  Our stomach troubles and doldrums followed us north to the Vietnam-China border, where we crossed back into China and ended up stuck for a day in the uninteresting border town of Hekou.  Still sick, we watched some Chinese movies and taught ourselves to play a card game called Schnapsen (which is a lot of fun).  From there we headed up to the rice terraces of Yuanyang, where it was too foggy to really see the spectacular terraces.  Then, after a very long and uncomfortable bus ride, we made it back to Kunming in the pouring rain, and were very very happy to be home.

Well, there you have it, my trip to Southeast Asia.  Every country we visited deserves another visit, and I’m sure I’ll make it back at some point in my life.  I could spend a month in each country alone.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve had a suit made, been working on my research, joined a gym, thrown a dinner party, baked hamentashen for Purim, started running, and caused a car accident with a very large box of fireworks on Chinese New Year’s Eve.  This weekend I’m heading to Hong Kong for the annual Fulbright China Research Forum, and I’ll be there and in Macau all next week (I’ll try not to lose too much of my stipend at the casinos—joking).  Then I’ll be spending a week traveling with a friend by land across southern China and back to Kunming.  I have another field research trip planned for the end of the month, and a lot of planning and work to do in that regard.  But, overall, no complaints from me.

Southeast Asia Trip Part III: Don't Thai Me Down

The bus to Bangkok was a big, pink double-decker bus with the words “MYFRIEND TOUR” on the front.  There seem to be two types of buses in Southeast Asia: the regional transportation that locals take, and the tour-type buses that backpackers and tourists take.  While the more authentic bus experience tends to be cheaper and more frequent, the tour buses are often more direct, faster, offer hotel pickups, and aid in crossing international borders more smoothly.  Crossing from Laos into Thailand, we decided to take one of these “tour” buses.  As a result, what could have been a bus crowded with Laos men, was a bus crowded with high Aussies.  It was an overnight bus with reclining seats, and we expected to get into Mochit Bus Station in Bangkok at around 5:30am.

The border crossing went smoothly, and we got our Thai visas as we crossed.  Early in the bus ride, the air conditioner started making a high pitched squeal, and after several moments of mass frustration, I got up and gave the vent a nice hit with the side of my fist, which instantly quieted the noise.  The Aussies cheered and called me the Fonz, but after a few moments the noise started again, and was mostly incessant (despite repeated further attempts) throughout the ride.  To our surprise, the bus stopped at around 4:30am in the center of Bangkok, and the driver threw everyone’s bags out onto the street.  We poured out of the bus only to realize that this was most definitely not Mochit Station.  Instead, they’d dropped us off at Khao San Road, the main expat hangout in Bangkok.  A bit confused, Ariane and I strapped up our packs and started walking to try to figure out where exactly we were at such an early hour in Bangkok.

We sat down outside of an Israeli-run Tourist Café, and reorganized and settled ourselves.  Behind us, a woman rolled herself a joint.  Backpackers from our bus and others were trolling the streets, looking for hostels, drugs, internet cafes, or possibly all of the above.  On Khao San Road, a group of expats was sitting on the ground in the middle of the road, playing the guitar and singing.  Sleazy men were directing their hesitant-seeming prostitutes back to their rooms.  Cab drivers waited to rip off their drunk patrons.  Our plan had been to end up at Mochit Station, and to take a bus from there to Khao Yai National Park to do some trekking and see some elephants and waterfalls.  Ending up at Khao San Road instead of Mochit Station, we were not entirely sure of the best course of action.  So, we found an internet café, tried to find some information about the area, and then hopped a cab to Mochit Station.

I should first mention that cars drive on the left (wrong) side of the road in Thailand. I sat upfront next to the driver while Ariane was in the back.  Our driver started out going really fast, asking us questions in really bad English.  Were we married?  Why not?  Where were we from?  etc. At the first red light, he took a small white bottle out of his pocket, took a good sniff, and kept driving.  Faster and faster.  He started tapping his foot heavily to the music, massaging the shifter, and bobbling his head.  Every stop, another sniff.  He was high as a kite.  Ariane asked me what was going on, and I told her in Chinese.  We finally made it (alive) to Mochit Station, still dark outside, and went in to find our way to Khao Yai National Park.  We got bus tickets to Pak Chong, in the area of Khao Yai, and decided we’d figure things out from there.  In the meantime, we resettled ourselves in the bus station, were pleasantly surprised to see a Dunkin’ Donuts and 7-11 (neither of which can be found frequently in China), and had some bad coffee before boarding our bus as the sun began to rise.

When we finally arrived at Pak Chong several hours later, we got out and started asking people how to get to Khao Yai.  For the most part, people there were very helpful, and one lady eventually led us to the [[songthaew]] (two-rowed open air ‘bus’) headed for Khao Yai.  The other passengers were all locals, including a monk and his female counterpart.  We were unclear as to whether we wanted to stay overnight or take a tour.  (We’d heard that the elephants and other animals were best seen on night safaris.)  My indecision left us standing at the gate of the National Park, with our packs.  We managed to get student prices without having our student IDs, after I pulled the desperate student routine looking everywhere in my bag for my ID.  The man at the front gate said we should hitchhike to thse visitor center (since they have no free transportation available), and that he’d flag down a car for us.  He flagged down a pickup truck, and we threw our bags in the back, and hopped in the second row of the cab.  Our drivers were a middle-aged Thai couple, and the guard told them in Thai where to take us.  After 15 minutes, we saw the visitor center come and go, and not quite clear where they had been told to take us, we didn’t speak up.  Ten or so minutes later, still driving, we began to wonder if they knew where to take us, and looked through our guide book for any phrases we could ask to get that point across.  We would ask them “Khao Yai?” with a rising tone to indicate our question.  Of course, Thai (like Chinese) is a tonal language, and they simply repeated us, saying “Khao Yai”.  I was a bit hungry and tired, and not altogether with it.  An hour later, the car finally pulled to a stop, and we realized they’d driver us all the way through the park to the other side!  We emphatically expressed our desire to get out, and had the English-speaking guards at the gate explain what had gone wrong.  They had us wait and flagged down another pickup truck headed back the other way.  This time we hopped in the back with our bags, and enjoyed the ride back to the visitor center.  Monkeys lined the roads, hoping for snacks from tourists passing through, cyclists rode the way, but the park did not seem at all what we’d been expecting.  The flora seemed as if it were right out of North America, not jungle-esque in the slightest.

Back at the visitor center, we had a quick lunch, stored our packs, and then tried to get information from an annoying Thai park guide.  He told us that the park had no transportation available, and that to go see any of the waterfalls we’d have to either rent a car or hitchhike.  We went to get information on the night safaris, and began asking the what it entailed.  Beside the desk, there was a bulletin board with pictures of the different animals one might expect to see on the tour.  Seeing photos of tigers and elephants, we asked them, “we will see tigers?”.  They responded, “No tigers.”  “What about elephants?”  They laughed, “sometimes elephants”.  Since the other animals, included only bears, porcupines, and deer, and the cost would be fairly high to do the tour and stay overnight there, we decided not to do it, and that we’d head home after hiking a bit and seeing some waterfalls.  So, we tried to hitchhike out to Haew Suwat Waterfall.  Unfortunately, every car that stopped for us, had no interest in taking us all the way out of their way to go to Haew Suwat Waterfall, except for an exorbitant amount of money.  Giving up on the hitchhiking, we went back to “rent a car”, which it turned out meant “hiring a driver”.  The driver, of course, ended up being our favorite annoying tour guide from earlier, and we were on our way for a fairly high price.  Upon our arrival, we were all but impressed at the medium-sized waterfall, but decided after spending so much money, that we’d enjoy ourselves and take our time nonetheless.

Back at the visitor center, we did some hiking before eventually trying to head back to Pakchong.  The park was closing, and no cars would stop for us.  When were about to give up and pay exorbitantly for a ride once again, an off-duty taxi (a guy driving his sister to Pakchong) stopped for us, and agreed to take us.  They were very nice, stopped to feed the monkeys, and brought us directly to the bus stop.  I gave them a bit more money than they asked, and we got out, finding an immediate bus back to Bangkok.

We eventually made it back to Bangkok, and then to Banglamphu (an area near the river), where we walked around looking for a guesthouse, getting more and more discouraged as one after another guesthouse was either too full or too expensive.  We finally ended up at the Mitr Paisarn Hotel, a seedy-looking motel-like hotel in the alleys behind Samsen Road.  It was hot and humid.  We put our stuff down, and then went to grab dinner outside down an alley.  After dinner we stopped at a 7-11 for water.  It is worth mentioning that 7-11s in Bangkok are like Blue Safety Lights on college campuses in the US—you can literally see at least one other 7-11 no matter where you are.  They’re everywhere, and it’s actually a bit ridiculous.  In fact, there are 1500 7-11 stores in the city of Bangkok itself, compared to the 5900 stores in all of the United States.  Who would have thought?

We walked around Banglamphu a bit, and tried to head down towards the river under a bridge.  Tuk-tuk drivers were asleep in their tuk-tuks on the side of the road, and as we reached the end of the street, we saw a few homeless men, guarded by a pack of stray dogs.  Sensing our approach, the dogs got up and headed us off, growling viciously as a sign to us that this was their place and we were not welcome.  Their “owner” tried to call them off, but they would listen.  A bit scared, Ariane backed off behind me, and I tried to calm the alpha dog as he got closer and closer.  When he wouldn’t back off, I threw some water at him, and then backed off slowly myself, my knife ready in my hand in case they attacked.  When we were comfortably distant from their territory, the dogs stopped growling and “escorted” us back out to the main street.  We called it quits, and went back to the comfort of our filthy, but air-conditioned room.

The next day we had a flight to [[Phuket Province|Phuket]] in southern Thailand.  Phuket is Thailand’s largest island, located on the west coast of the [[Kra Isthmus]] in the [[Andaman Sea]].  Our bags came out soaked, and we realized it was pouring outside.  Fortunately, the next day proved nicer.  After some research and advice from our guesthouse, we decided to go to [[Ko Lanta]] by ferry, another 4 hours south of Phuket, and somewhat more secluded.  We found a small, family-run resort with cheap bungalows, and enjoyed the beautiful uncrowded beaches, the warm blue water, and the complete peace and company.

A relaxing time, another ferry, one flight, and a taxi ride later, and we were back at the Mitr Paisarn Hotel in Bangkok.  I’d ripped my favorite shorts trekking, and we dropped them off at a tailor to be repaired.  Then we spent the day shopping, visiting sites, and exploring Bangkok.  We met my friend Pat for dinner.  He is a Bangkok native, and took us to a popular modern Thai restaurant.  Then, Ariane and I excused ourselves as we had tickets to a Muay Thai boxing match.  We’d purchased reasonably pricy ringside seats, and showed up fashionably late in time for the main event.  I grabbed us some beers and we sat and enjoyed the matches, trying to understand the rules and pick our favorites.  All of the boxers were very young (some even young children), and when we had the opportunity to have our photo taken with the champion after the match, I towered over him.

After the match, we wandered into a rather chic night fashion market, and Ariane went shopping crazy, as I got hungrier and more overwhelmed.  After several hours of haggling for clothes and accessories (for Ariane), I needed a break and some food.  No street food in sight, and the Thai restaurant closed, we ended up at an Italian place where I got a pizza.  It had been a long day, and we headed back to the hotel to shower and crash.  Despite recommendations to the contrary, we’d purchased “tour” bus tickets from Bangkok to Siem Reap in Cambodia for early the next morning.  We woke up and headed to the travel agency where we’d purchased the tickets for our “pick-up” to the bus.  The “pick-up” turned out to be a woman with a clipboard waiting for our arrival.  She asked us where we were going, we showed her our tickets (which she took), and then handed us a different ticket, and told us to follow her.  After a few blocks, she stopped and told us to wait there while she figured out someone else’s tickets.  After a few minutes, a man shows up, looks at our “new” ticket and tells us to follow a second lady.  We follow her for a while to a few stopped coach buses on the side of the road.  They took our ticket and told us to get on the bus.  Fortunately, I asked them if the bus was heading to Siem Reap, just to make sure, to which they replied that it was not.  It was heading to Ko Chang.  A little confused, we told them we had tickets to Siem Reap.  Of course, we no longer had our tickets.  They told us we did not have tickets to Siem Reap, but to Ko Chang.  At this point, I’m beginning to yell, and tell them that I don’t care how, but they better figure out how to get us on the bus to Siem Reap.  Finally, after a bit more mutual yelling, and the man who’d taken us there claiming he’d never seen us before, they told us to go back around the corner.  I made sure they weren’t just getting rid of us, and we went around the corner to find the bus to Siem Reap waiting.  A bit relieved, we boarded and were on our way.

I’d also mention that at some point during this whole business, I’d stopped at a 7-11 and put 1 Thai baht (about $0.03 USD) in an electronic scale, which subsequently showed my weight to be about 10kg (22lb) lighter than the previous month, and about 20kg (44lb) lighter than when I’d left for China.

The bus took many hours, and stopped at a restaurant just before the Thai-Cambodian border to switch buses and prepare our visa forms.  At the restaurant, we met a 23 year-old local Thai guy named “K”, who had been released from the Thai military 4 months prior, and was waiting for the regional UN Security Station to open to find a job there.

He told us about being a soldier during the ongoing conflict in southern Thailand, and told us an interesting story.  His job, in part, had been to escort monks individually every morning from their residences to their monasteries, protecting them from potential attacks and explosions.  It is illegal for Thai citizens to carry their own arms, and the Thai military offered this escort service to keep the peace.  One day, however, he saw a monk walking alone in the streets, and upon K’s approach, the monk seemed scared and reluctant to speak with him.  K asked him what was the matter, and if he was ok.  The monk, a bit afraid, but not enjoying being dishonest said “if I tell you, can you promise to not get me in trouble?”  K was a bit concerned, and told the monk that he’d better explain the problem.  The monk lifted his robes, and around his neck was an AK-47, which he was carrying for his own protection.  Despite it being a major infraction, and worthy of a severe penalty, K confiscated the weapon, and told the monk not to carry his own arms ever again, but that he would meet him every day to escort him.  You have to imagine, when even the monks are carrying AK-47s, the conflict has gotten pretty severe.

[Well, that’s it for the third installment.  The next post will discuss at least our time in Cambodia, and possibly Vietnam and crossing back into China as well.  Also, Happy Lunar New Year or Spring Festival to all.  I’ll talk next time about the fireworks and festivities!]