rwaggs81

[rwaggs81]

2-9

I left this trip open ended, as far as my return flight was concerned.  I didn’t know where I’d be when it was time to come home, and I didn’t know when that would be.  I gave myself 6 weeks total, but understood that it may only be 4 or 5.  I had a sense that the time to leave would come on suddenly, and it turns out that I was correct.  I’ve followed my initial plan to some extent, with a detour or an extended stay at one place or another.  I had originally planned to end up in northern Thailand, and leave from there, but unfortunately, after a month, I think my batteries are worn out.  I’m sure there are amazing things in Chiang Mai, Pai, Chiang Rai etc etc to see and do.  The fact however, is that I’ve reached a point to where I’m forcing it.  My thoughts are not in the here and now, but in the return to home.  I do not believe that changing the flavor of the southeast Asian backdrop is going to add anything to my experience at this point, and whatever I was to take from this particular trip has been taken.

So, tomorrow at 5 pm or so, I will board a plane and fly home.  Flying home is weird, as with flying back over the international date line, I will leave here at 5 pm, and return at just after 6 pm of the same day, regardless of the 16 hour travel time.  I expect that to thoroughly throw me for a loop.

I want to thank everybody for the support and amusement you’ve provided me through social media during this trip.  There is lots of advice to be had in travel books that the proper way to do this is to disconnect yourself from all of that.  Certainly our parents and grandparents who trekked the “hippy roads” through this part of the world in the 60s would not have been able to do more than send a letter here and there.  I think that there is probably value to this advice, and I think that it would probably work well for many...but at this point, I believe this to be out of my comfort zone in any practical sense.

I’m having an interesting time reflecting on this trip.  As soon as I made the decision and booked the return ticket, I became oddly sleepy, like my mind has let down a guard that it had created.  One thing that has been weighing on my mind was how I was going to find the materials in a foreign city to prepare my bicycle for the return trip.  I went out earlier, blindly, to see about that.  I found packing tape in one small market which was a hardware store of sorts, and in another market that mostly sold Buddha figurines (and apparently shipped them), I haggled my way into a length of bubble wrap.  Based on my research, this should suffice.

People are going to ask me a lot of questions when I get back.  (How was it?  What did you do?  Did the locals speak English?  Did you feel safe?  Would you go back?)  These are going to be harder to answer than it seems.  It was great, and it was lonely, and it was sad, and it was exciting and it was scary sometimes.  It’s a month of time.  At home, you seldom have a month of time which can be defined with one emotion or impression.  I made some amazing friends I’ll never see again, and some that I may.  I served as an ambassador for America in the Trump era to young Europeans and Australians who’s impression of us right now is largely based on this constant news cycle.  I even served as an Ambassador FOR Trump, in a couple of cases, oddly enough.  Not for the man himself, but for the reasons he was a predictable outcome.

I saw stifling poverty, uncommon industriousness, lives of sadness, historical sites of even greater sadness.  I saw the indelible mark that the policies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford left on this part of the world, and yet was still treated gently and with kindness by the locals almost universally.  I felt hot and uncomfortable 90% of the time due to the hot and very humid climate mixed with my propensity to sweat from the head.  I often felt embarrassingly unpresentable in the face of people who seemed completely unaffected by the climate.  I felt very lonely a lot of the time.  It is admittedly this that probably took the charge out of my batteries ultimately, but it is not this alone...

The truth is that I do not resonate particularly well with the current cultures in this part of the world.  I am not repulsed by them.  I am not scared of them.  I love people everywhere.  I love the food, obviously (though I’ll probably take some time off).  But I think that perhaps the volume of tourism here, overwhelmingly at the hands of young Europeans of various backgrounds, Australians and Kiwis, has left too deep of a mark at this point.  To the hyper aware personality, such as myself, it starts to create a feeling of inauthenticity.  (I do understand that the areas travelers commonly get pulled into are not representative of any country as a whole, but, especially when one is by themself and not a seasoned traveler, traveling too far outside these zones becomes uncomfortable for other reasons...language barrier coming right to mind. ) These are historically conservative Buddhist (and in some cases Hindu before that) countries.  Was there really a history of happy ending massages and fake name brand products being sold everywhere before our influx?  Everything here is commerce for the sake of commerce, and foreigners such as myself jump right in.  I met a Swedish fellow who was legitimately upset when a Tuk Tuk driver wanted $3 for a ride that maybe should’ve cost $2.  Another girl thought it entirely out of line to pay $4 for a perfectly good pair of flip flops.  I’m positive that I paid more than I could’ve otherwise for a good many things because I just can’t find it in myself to look into the face of the lady who spends her day walking around peddling sunglasses that I need this one dollar we’re arguing over more than she does.

The other truth is that, compared to the U.S., these countries are extremely autocratic.  I cannot escape the sense that a simple mistake could land me in the hands of an authority who doesn’t speak my language, doesn’t care if I want to talk to my lawyer but does want $1000 from me to clear it up.  Or worse, end up somehow like the backpackers in Siem Reap who may not face trial for 6 months for being overly sexual at a private party (the official story, anyway).  If I take anything away from this trip, it is going to be an extremely enhanced appreciation for living in a country which is more free than most (with some very notable exceptions).  I will probably have less tolerance in myself for bitching over small things after seeing how hard life can actually be for people....how hard work can be...how little one could make...how deep corruption can sink its teeth.

I had also hoped that somehow getting away from everything could help with some closure or insight about having lost my mom to cancer this year.  It is actually what sparked the trip.  I’m honestly not sure I can yet report on the effectiveness of this.  She would’ve wanted me to do this, since I’d been talking about it forever, so I do take some comfort in that.  I’m not sure, however, that there is any magic bullet to heal that wound, and that time rules the day, ultimately.  Many outcomes of this I will not realize until later.

I am sad that I’m leaving at this point, but I don’t have any thought that I will end up regretting it.  I have a pretty good imagination, and I think I can envision the places I missed based on the places I’ve been.  I find myself wanting a road trip to Utah or something at this point more than another Thai, Cambodian or Vietnamese destination, and that’s okay.  That speaks more about me than it does about here, in my opinion.  A month is a long time to be away.  I am beginning to feel unproductive and like I’m spending money and time just to spend them.  I can’t honestly see how all of these 20 something gap year kids do this for 6 months to a year without feeling like they’re just spinning their wheels at some point, but to each their own.  I look forward to more traveling in my future, but I think I have a pretty good sense now of my personal expiration date on any given trip.  Your results may vary.

Mostly, I want everyone to know that I’ve missed you all very much, and I’m happy to be coming back to the place I count as home.

[rwaggs81]

2-6

Woke up today and caught my cab to Pattaya, or more accurately the Bali Hai pier at Pattaya (have very little desire to actually stay in Pattaya to take a ferry to a lesser visited (by American tourists anyway) island of Koh Karn.  The cab ride was uneventful.  The ferry ride was quite nice, and Koh Karn is very pretty, if not a little odd and seems to be mostly a destination for Russian tourists, and Thai people on day trips, perhaps.

I got off the boat and immediately decided to skip the main town for now and rode across the island to the “quieter” side.  I was aware of a reasonably priced “resort” with a nice beach, and figured I’d check it out.  It’s a little crowded, I suppose, but the far end of it is less so, and the crowds here aren’t really in a partying way.  It actually gets downright lonely at night, and that’s fine for now.  The water is great, and the food isn’t bad either.  I had some green curry tonight that was spicy as hell and very delicious.  Earlier, as you can see, I got into some fried seafood.  Squid to the left, shrimp to the right (and I’m the only bait in town, lol).

I may get back over to the town side of the island tomorrow, but we’ll see how I feel in the morning.  It’s pretty here, but I don’t know that I’d stay more than a couple of days.

[rwaggs81]

2-6

Yesterday was my last day in Bangkok, at least for now.  I.t started with me getting up at 5 am and riding to a sports bar to catch the Superbowl, which started at 6:30 am local time.  I posted pictures of this on Facebook, and I think they will suffice.  Everyone knows what a sports bar looks like, and they aren’t much different in Bangkok.

I had plans to leave the next day, and since I had gotten up so early, I was pretty tired and was going to probably just hang out in the hostel’s gathering area and take it easy.  Some of my fellow hostelers had a different idea, however, and I was once again convinced to go out in the backpacker ghetto pub street known as Khao San Road.  Once again, not my scene, but sometimes things are what you make of them, and I actually had a good time.  Really, the best thing to do with Khao San is to simply laugh at it.  Some of our group wished to laugh harder, as you can see in the picture them holding balloons.  These are filled with laughing gas, and can be purchased on Khao San.  I don’t dig laughing gas, so I sat that one out, but giant buckets of mixed drinks are A-OK with me, so there it is.  So, I saw Bangkok off with some merriment and street dancing.  I think I fell asleep about 2 seconds after hitting the pillow.

[rwaggs81]

2-2

I was finally convinced to go to Khao San Road last night.  Every major southeast Asian city seems to have some version of a backpacker ghetto party street, and this is Bangkok’s.  This is not to be confused with one of Bangkok’s 3 red light districts, of which I’ve not seen.  I know that there’s probably some sort of amusement in walking through a maze of Go Go bars and Ping Pong shows (yes, this absolutely exists), I just can’t find any interest within myself to do so.

Back to Khao San.  I guess it’s actually pretty fun.  There is any sort of street food you can imagine.  There is dancing.  There are beautiful people everywhere.  It’s pretty safe, as far as I can tell.  I’m glad that I went, but I don’t see myself going back.  It’s just not my environment.  I’m going to try to find some beaches and islands in the next days.

[rwaggs81]

1-31

Bangkok!!!!  Culture shock.  Comparing even Cambodia’s capitol city, Phnom Penh, to Bangkok is like putting Tacoma up to Los Angeles.  I got off the bus, found a place for a Thai sim card, got my navigation going, and then rode 8 km to my hostel.  Pretty much chilled out that day after traveling.  Had a really great curry duck dinner and chatted with some people on the front stoop of the hostel before going to sleep.

2-1

Got up today and had breakfast at the hostel.  Went for a walk in this neighborhood, had a forgettable lunch, and then came back to the hostel.  Some of the guys I’d met from the night before were planning on taking in the view at the riverside Hilton.  This involved a taxi ride and a river ferry, and paying western prices for a couple of drinks, but whatever.  The views were stunning and the breeze up there was great.  After that, back to the hostel to regroup, where I met a guy from Istanbul who had a bottle of a Turkish version of Ouzo and was more than willing to share....and then a walk to get dinner.  More curry for me, and some crispy pork.  No going out for me.  Had a nightcap beer at the hostel with friends, smoked a little of the weak local weed and went to bed.

[rwaggs81]

1-31

My last night in Siem Reap.  Bittersweet.  I was here longer than expected due to injury.  An international news incident happened right up the street from where I was.  I made great friends.  When I walked into the bar last night, the two directors called to me, “Ryan, we love you!  Come sit with us!”  It’s a nice feeling.

Another border crossing this morning.  I hate them.  Always something.  I walked 200 meters in the wrong direction this time before getting turned around.  It’s fine, I made it after standing in line for 40 minutes.

The first stop in Thailand, at a truck stop, showed the temperature to be very, very hot.  Hope it’s not like that in Bangkok...

[rwaggs81]

1-29 Angkor Thom (as mentioned in previous post).

[rwaggs81]

1-29 I haven't posted in a couple of days. Two days ago, on the 27th, I finally felt well enough in my foot to brave riding my bike up to the Angkor cities and temples. As I was getting ready to leave, a girl I did not recognize down at the pool area overheard my plans and told me she was just in the process of renting a bicycle to do the same and asked to join. So, I got to have a riding buddy for the trip and sightseeing, which was actually nice, considering I didn't know how well I'd hold up and it's good to have someone looking out for you. The day was very long and the temperature was very hot, but Angkor Wat is as amazing as advertised, as are the temples of Angkor Thom (next post).

[rwaggs81]

1-29 Angkor Thom (as mentioned in previous post).

[rwaggs81]

1-29 I haven't posted in a couple of days. Two days ago, on the 27th, I finally felt well enough in my foot to brave riding my bike up to the Angkor cities and temples. As I was getting ready to leave, a girl I did not recognize down at the pool area overheard my plans and told me she was just in the process of renting a bicycle to do the same and asked to join. So, I got to have a riding buddy for the trip and sightseeing, which was actually nice, considering I didn't know how well I'd hold up and it's good to have someone looking out for you. The day was very long and the temperature was very hot, but Angkor Wat is as amazing as advertised, as are the temples of Angkor Thom (next post).

[rwaggs81]

1-25  (It’s a hospital in Cambodia, it’s tough kid, but it’s life...)

Obviously, I posted pretty extensively on Facebook today about my trials.  I kept it pretty light there, I guess.  The truth is that it takes a lot to get me to a hospital, and it takes having literally no other choice to get me to a Cambodian hospital.  I woke up this morning to the realization that there was no way this was going to heal on it's own, and that, especially in this environment, I was playing with the prospect of very dangerous infection if I did not act.  Frankly, I'm probably still at risk of it no matter how I acted.  The doctors and nurses seemed a bit alarmed that I had not come immediately, to be honest.

Thankfully, in the large cities in Cambodia, there are options for very western style hospitals, especially for those with the means to pay up front.  I have all my invoices, and will (unless I'm completely mistaken) be reimbursed by my travel insurance for all of this.  I can't help but think about the Cambodian people who could not afford such a hospital.  I actually passed by a more local style clinic along the way, and I am selfishly thankful that I did not have to go anywhere near the place.

For now, I'm kinda stuck in place as the hospital needs me to come in every morning for a re-wrapping of my injury, and eventually, I will have to get to a hopital, either here or in Thailand, to remove the stitches.

Life goes on as usual at the hostel here.  Apparently, another girl messed her foot up pretty bad on the same boat trip.  Not a wound, but I think there may be a broken bone or two in her foot.  She has not sought medical attention yet, but she needs to.  I feel like Mad Monkey Hostels, even though I think they are very fun and well intended, probably need to take a step back and think about the safety of their guests on the sanctioned outings.  I'm not a litigous person, and I understand I need to take care of myself, but the surface we were on was simply not safe, and someone is going to hurt themselves far worse at some point if they continue to run the sunset "booze cruise" in the way they are.

[rwaggs81]

1-24

...continued from previous post.  Well, I’ve finally done something shitty to myself.  I tripped and fell on a tour boat (where many were tripping and falling) and hurt myself.  I caught my little toe on the railing, and split the skin between my two smallest toes.

So, yeah.  I deep cut in southeast Asia.  Not ideal.  I came back, rinsed it out thoroughly, scrubbed the wound with antiseptic wipes (please believe this hurt), pumped the whole area full of antibiotic ointment and wrapped it up. I also took an oral antibiotic. It’s also a bruised area.  It feels okay right now, and I’m pretty tough in general.  I hope it doesn’t derail my trip, but if it doesn’t start healing to my satisfaction, or if I detect any kind of spreading infection, understand that I will come home immediately, or race to Thailand where there is better medicine.

Send me good thoughts.

[rwaggs81]

1-24

Today, I was going to go to Angkor Wat.  My hostel in Siem Reap was running a sunset “cruise”, though.  Angkor Wat will be here tomorrow.  Cruise...not again until I’m gone from here.  Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, and we were to to take Tuk Tuks to the lake and then get on a boat.  Booze provided, obviously.  It waGs fun.  I had no idea that we were expected to jump into the water...I did, though.  Early on, we stopped at a Vietnamese run floating village.  Kids with snakes, offering photo opportunities in exchange for donations were there.  Crocodile feeding was an activity.  It was honestly beautiful.  For any videos, check my Facebook feed.

The younger crowd eventually got pretty drunk, which prompted me to go and sit with the crew on the bow.  They shared their food with me and we chatted, as one of them spoke pretty good English.  There’s not too much to say here, except that it was beautiful.  Unfortunately, I slipped on the very slippery surface, towards the very, end, as many had, and injured myself.  Go to my next entry for the description of this...

[rwaggs81]

1-22 (skip this entry if you are of a more sensitive nature)

After S21, I took a longer ride to outside of town, to the infamous Killing Fields.  It would be a beautiful place, except for its history.  This was the final stop for undesirables, and for some probably actually a relief after the hell they’d gone through, as you did not spend much time here before having your life taken.  Prisoners would be put, blindfolded, into a windowless shack, and then taken one by one and killed in various manners before being thrown into a mass grave.  The indentations you see in the ground are the remnants of the extraction of bodies from these graves after the liberation.

Bullets were expensive, so the executions were done with a machete or hammer to the head, or possible the slitting on one’s throat with the sharp edged bark of a certain kind of palm tree that grows here.  The tree with the bracelets and decorations hanging from it was the most unthinkable.  This is where babies would be swung by their ankles and smashed into the tree to their deaths and then also cast into mass graves.  The more viney looking tree was where loudspeakers were hung to play patriotic music loudly to cover up the sounds of the killing...that, and the sound of the diesel generator that powered them.

If you look closely at the skulls in the display, you can often see where the killing stroke hit.

These event, and the events in my previous entry, took place between 1976 and 1979.

[rwaggs81]

1-22

Yesterday, I did the hard things in Phnom Penh.  First, a late morning trip to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which is housed in the former S21 prison.   This is where, during the Khmer Rouge, undesirables were brought to be subject to unthinkable torture and have confessions extracted.  Telling the truth was not the point, of course.  Giving the exact answers the interrogator wanted was.  Even some westerners, who were caught in Cambodia when Pol Pot’s troops marched into the cities, were caught and subjected to this.  One Australian, in his confessions, named popular American celebrities as his CIA bosses (the Khmer Rouge didn’t know the difference) and was able to send covert messages to his family back home through his answers.  

He was, of course, killed eventually. Only 7 of the 10s of thousands of people who went through this prison ever made it free.  All were sent to the killing fields eventually.  The only people ever intentionally killed at the prison itself were the last 14 prisoners who were still there as the Vietnamese army was marching in to liberate the city.

Pol Pot’s vision for Cambodia was a purely agricultural nation, not based in cities and not inhabited by modernist thinking or intellectualism.  Wearing glasses, or having soft hands, could be enough to get you killed.  The cities were emptied and non farming people were sent into the country to grow rice with impossible quotas.  It failed utterly, of course, and between starvation, disease and the intentional murder of undesirables, 3 million of the 7 million who lived here died.

If you, like me, are sensitive to the energy of places, it is very hard to come here.  I cried several times, very suddenly.  Tourists are discouraged from taking pictures inside the rooms, but you can still the shackles on the floors and the beds, and blood stains.  They have mugshots of of thousands of victims and pictures of the dead who were found upon liberation.

[rwaggs81]

1-18 - 1-19

Mad Monkey Hostel is great.  I showed up sweaty and hot, as usual.  The desk guy gave me a place to stow my bicycle and walked me up to my room, which is about 6 flights of very steep stairs.  I’m situated above the rooftop bar, essentially.  My room is nice and clean.  The bartender, seeing my state of being, put a free cold beer in front of me.  They have Cambodia beer on tap, and it’s actually a very delicious and refreshing lager.  I was extremely grateful.

On Thursdays, they have a BBQ followed by a pub crawl.  The BBQ is 5 dollars and is a ton of delicious meat and veggies on skewers.  The pub crawl is 5 dollars, all of which goes to educating local kids and they pretty much load you up with free shots and you tipsy before taking you around the neighborhood.  The first place was an open air rooftop bar which had live music (a duo of guitar and vocals) and then a very good beatboxer.  The next to places were essentially dance clubs.  Not generally my scene, but I have to admit that I had a very good time.  The places have a lot of security, which is probably good here.  The security guards, like everyone else I’ve met here, are extremely friendly, actually.

The night ended with me sitting outside with two guys and one female member of the Mad Monkey staff, who was doing the chalk on the signs for today.  She’s from South Australia and has worked here for a few weeks.  Shes’s pretty much been everywhere.  It’s really nice at night, and I slept like the absolute dead for the first time since I’ve been here.

[rwaggs81]

1-18

Buses and border crossings.  Ugh.  Travel days are always a kind of pain in the ass, mostly because I worry about the transport of my bicycle.  It always works out, but it always costs a little extra money and conversation.  It’s worth it to have the thing, and I really think I’m going to appreciate it an Angkor Wat, but it kinda feels like I’m taking care of a child at times.

The bus ride was going smoothly enough, until well after our first rest stop my stomach decided to go all Asian vacation on me.  Basically, I’m just trying to will the thing to calm down when we pull up to the border.  We had previously handed our passports to the bus person, along with the visa money for Cambodia, and I THOUGHT that we were to just stay on the bus, mostly.  The communication is never very good, honestly.  Some people got off, presumably to use the facilities, and so did I.  I guess I was in there longer than the others.  When I came out, the bus was gone and I couldn’t see anyone.  I walked out into the lane and I could see that my bus had pulled through the border and was sitting on the other side.

I started walking towards it, and was intercepted by a Vietnamese guard, who seemed to know the word “passport”, and nothing else.  I kept pointing to the bus and telling him that my passport was on it.  He wasn’t listening.  Finally, I just kept walking past him, as he walked alongside and barked at me.  Scary to say the least.  I got to the bus to find that no one was on board.  Ugh, guess I missed something.  So, I walk back to the building, guard still barking at me, and finally found my bus mates standing in a line waiting while their visas were completed.  Felt like an idiot.   Glad I didn’t get detained.  I guess it’s a learning process over here.

Sitting across the aisle from me was a French couple who’s planning on spending a year on the road, but seemed to be running short of the budget to make that possible.  At most stops, they actually work in exchange for their lodging, and are doing a lot of humanitarian work.  Kinda made me feel like an ass, lol.  There was an adorable baby in front of them, and the girl in the couple was keeping him pretty engaged.  He cried for a spell during part of it, which didn’t bother me, and I was feeling about the same, and empathized.

Our one rest stop in Cambodia (thankfully my stomach had calmed by then, because I have zero desire to see what the bathroom situation would’ve been) was a hot and dusty group of outdoor vendors selling food and clothing items.  By food, I mean bugs.  Lots of bugs.  Fried or roasted, I assume.  Everything smelt pretty burnt and garlicky.  I did not partake.  I was not feeling adventurous in the least.

Upon arrival to Phnom Penh, the sim card I’d gotten from Ben the night previous didn’t seem to really have any data, which I needed to navigate to the hostel I’d booked.  Finally found a place for that.  The thing didn’t work at first, but the girl there was able to get it going, and I was off.  Riding in Phnom Penh is a little more gridlocky than HCMC.  They don’t really have the ballet down the same way.  It’s certainly hotter here, as well, but less humid, and I’ll actually take that tradeoff.    The navigation doesn’t work quite as well, either, but it works well enough.  I made it safely to Mad Monkey Hostel....