2013_02_19 facebook post + e-mail

Facebook post:

Booked a flight March 1 for Milan, on the same day I fly from Burma to Bangkok. Risky?

It was the cheapest European destination on Skyscanner.

 I have some 6 hours between flights.

 Now looking for an Italian couchsurfing host!


e-mail:
March 1 I fly to Milan from Bangkok,

My return ticket March 23 is from Lisbon.

2013_02_22 Chiang Mai, Thailand, continued

On 22 Feb  Alexa sent the 2^nd installment of :  Chiang Mai, Thailand

I was lucky to be delayed as two friendly young American Lesbians were
leaving Lucy's couch as I arrived. One had my same haircut but
plans on keeping it. I can't wait for my bald head to disappear.

 My wonderful ex-pat couchsurfing hostess, Lucy, never wants to live in
the states again and distrusts Obama.  She showed me a map of
Chiang Mai, indicating the sights, the markets, the travel agency
where I could find a plane ticket to Myanmar. In the spare room for
couchsurfers were travel brochures and a glossy local expat monthly
with an article about couchsurfing quoting Lucy. There was also an
invitation to help oneself to free books left behind. I took Kurt
Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus, an absorbing, offbeat read. I later bequeathed
it to the guest house in Yangon and picked up Water for Elephants.

It's never easy to leave the security of a couch for the unknown, but
I headed into the hot day, bought four little bananas from a stall on
the alley leading to the main drag, with Chiang Mai University, and 
eventually leading to the historic center. I hailed a small taxi truck 
where passengers sit in the back, getting on and off whenever
they need to. Schoolgirls in the back helped me decide where to disembark:
by the statues of three emperors. Lucy's travel agent, All Seasons,
was kitty-corner from the police department but they were only half
open and directed me to another branch a ten minute walk just past the
city gates. 

 It's always challenging to walk down excavated sidewalks and cross streets clogged with motorcycles and vehicles. Traffic is a universal dilemma.

I'd heard that Bagan Air flew from Chiang Mai to Yangon (Burma) twice a week,
but it was much dearer than Asia Air. So I'd have to return to Bangkok
to fly to Myanmar.

The girl could've booked the ticket for me for 200 baht but I saw she had Internet computers in the office for hire so I did it myself at a tenth the price.

Was that why the 350 baht bus tickets back to Bangkok for the day I needed were sold out? She told me I could go to the bus station out of town where numerous companies made the run. But none of the vehicles that stopped for me wanted to go there for the sum she quoted. I was getting nowhere fast. I paused at a few travel agencies advertising buses to Bangkok but they were a lot more than 350 baht, and left you at the notorious party street. I was afraid of buses being sold out and being unable to get to the flight I'd just paid for to Myanmar!

I found an Internet cafe where the clerk assured me I could find a ride to 
the bus station but wouldn't do it for me.

I stopped in a 7-11 for whole wheat bread, a half dozen eggs, watabi flavored dried peas and a 6pack of coconut yogurt to get change for the tuk-tuk driver. One finally agreed to take me for less than half what I'd paid in the morning from the train station.  Somehow the air-conditioned taxis of Bangkok charge a fraction of what they do in Chiang Mai. But the ride was a revelation, going past all the lit-up tourist 
traps of downtown.

I'd thought of asking the driver to wait for me to go back into town but he was soon gone. I stopped at several counters but nowhere did they have that 350 baht deal. I went across to an older bus station and found a 'government' bus for a couple of hundred baht more. It had air-conditioning and the seats reclined somewhat. It would be an all-night ordeal.

My next driver seemed pleased to take me back home for 60 baht but he
hadn't understood my destination. He stopped somewhere in the dark
night that made no sense, then picked up another passenger and she too
looked at my writing from the morning, Wat U Mong. He stopped again
seemingly in the middle of nowhere. I didn't have Lucy's phone number
with me. I was in despair and the motor was running. He turned around
and found about 6 Chinese partygoers with drinks and suddenly
something looked familiar. I banged on his back window and climbed
out, thrust money through his window. I saw the 7-11 up a slope
I'd noticed in the morning. I followed my nose and found the banana
seller's stall. Lucy's street! It was a miracle. I later realized he'd
taken me to the right place, the cul-de-sac where Lucy had met the
morning taxi and led us to her house. She  had retired for the night.

I took a shower, squeegeed the walls and looked at Kurt Vonnegut's
prose, secure in my couch!

Lucy gives her surfers breakfast. She toasted the bread, hardboiled
six of the eggs and made me coffee, which she no longer drinks, with a
French press. Her gym had gone bankrupt and she was shopping for
another one nearby where she could bring her personal trainer. She
hires local youth to clean her house. They have trouble adapting to
Western ways: being on time; using a vacuum cleaner rather than a
dusk-raising broom. I admired her garden in the back which was a 

rubbish strewn sandpit when she built her house. Now it was a garden
with a pond. She's trying to grow tomatoes.

Lucy urged me to find a clinic to get my next rabies shot. I walked up
her street, turned the corner, passed the banana seller and emerged
again on the main drag.  There were numerous food stalls catering to 
university students. I had a snack, bought some papaya and started 
asking where a clinic was. On and on I went, past a canal, past a pagoda
worth a look, a craft store outlet for hill tribe handicrafts, and a fruit stand 
for pineapple. My fan hat kept blowing off my head, and I discovered that
one of my Bangkok turquoise earrings was missing. I started retracing my 
steps in the dusty heat but it was hopeless. 

Finally I reached a hospital just outside the historic part. I went in a room
for treatment but the doctor looking at my paperwork noticed I was a
day early, according to the original Bangkok schedule. So I continued into 
the sightseeing center, joining others in doffing their shoes and touring 
and photographing temple complexes, trying not to stare at orange-clad 
bald monks.  Buddhas, drums, amd bells, altars and dragons, lifelike figures 
of dead monks and stone elephants.

The next day I boarded a tuktuk for the hospital but the driver didn't grasp 
where I needed to go, turning off into another part of the city. Eventually 
he delivered me, smiling, to the hospital, and I found an older British fellow 
being treated for wounds. Was he a drunk who'd fallen? I never found out. 
I joined a long line to pay my fee, entertained by electric keyboard and various
karaoke volunteers. Then I had to wait for the pharmacy to locate the rabies 
shot, which I took back to the treatment room. After a bandage change and 
a shot, I was off into the hot day again. 

I was again near the school and heard a band practicing. My happiest moments
in high school were in band. I stood outside the gate and cheered as they rehearsed a spirited YMCA. Other tourists joined the fun. So funny to hear familiar music on the other side of the world.

After two nights a Chinese couchsurfer and his mother were due so I
had to vacate the beautiful home with the big back yard. I put on the
TV briefly to hear that Obama had mentioned climate change in his
State of the Union message. I packed and departed, leaving the key
under the mat; Lucy was gym-shopping; then at the banana stall I
realized I'd left the boiled eggs behind in her fridge and so I had to drag
my suitcase back for them. 

Map in hand, I hailed a tuktuk. He turned at the moat surrounding the 
old town and after a couple of corners, I decided to bail out, in case
he headed away from the old town, and then I accosted tourists, asking
after cheap guest houses. Temples demanded to be photographed. The
place was crawling with guest houses but it took some time to ferret
them out. I passed a shoemaker stand on the sidewalk and turned back
to see if he could sew up my rolling suitcase. Where I'd strapped the broken
handle the stitching was pulling free. The airline in Indonesia insisted I get 
the suitcase plastic-wrapped or plastic-strapped. Just a few more weeks of 
service! He laid it down, opened it up, got out a needle with a hook and in 
ten minutes, for 20 cents, made an excellent strong repair. I was afraid 
without elastic thread it would break again, but so far, so great!

I kept accosting backpackers. Some guest houses were too high, another 
required a wait, finally I came upon Jay's Guest House (my father's
first name) and a surly woman advised me look at the dorm first. It
was up a flight, dark and dismal but had a fan and was dirt cheap without 
being especially dirty. Of course the shower was over the toilet. In Bangkok, 
hostels were 250 baht; here, 90! I settled in (no storage locker, just a door key) 
and plugged in my camera and Kindle for recharging, did a little eating and reading, 
then set off again.

I wanted to see elephants before leaving Thailand. At the travel agency there
was a brochure about an all-day mahout training course, feeding and washing 
them but it cost a hundred dollars. When I mentioned to the manager I was looking 
for an elephant tour, she handed me a booklet of various options. I chose a 1200 
baht all day safari tour with van pick-up, an hour's ride to an elephant park for a show, an oxcart ride, an elephant ride, a buffet lunch, a bamboo river raft cruise, an orchid farm and a discounted price of 900 baht if I didn't tell. 

I found a restaurant down the street and chatted with a young tourist about Burma. 
I was getting more and more nervous, hearing about high prices for hotel rooms, a
total lack of ATMs, US currency having to be in perfect condition, a police state...

before leaving Lucy's I'd been ironing my remaining greenbacks. I didn't have much

and someone said two weeks in Myanmar required $700!

Only one other person was in the dorm that night. I woke early and 
paid 15 baht for instant coffee with my hardboiled eggs and bread. I
stuck my luggage in storage ready to get the bus that night. The tour van
was due from 8 to 8:30 and I got quite worried as the minutes ticked
by but finally a tall friendly stocky Thai appeared and I mounted the van. 
We stopped at several fine hotels for more customers, all Chinese. The
guide discussed a tiger photographing opportunity at the end of the
day, about $15 to enter and pet tigers, a high price for a few minutes but
they eat a lot of chicken. They are sleepy in the daytime. The cubs were 
higher priced than the big ones. I wanted in!

At the elephant sanctuary an hour away were many women selling sugar 
cane and bananas to feed the elephants. We gathered in bleachers
before a field on a river for the show. The announcer kept asking
people in the front to take their seats so others could see. The
elephants with their trainers were introduced, name, age and sex.

They paraded in a circle holding tails in trunks. They played soccer, kicking the ball. They danced to music. They painted portraits: one of bird; one of a tree; one of an elephant. It took months of training and the sale of the pictures benefits the elephant hospital. I thought they only did abstract painting!

We next headed for the oxcart ride behind two Brahmin bulls 
continually whipped and yelled at by the driver who took pictures of
us with our cameras, appearing to drive the cart. I think he expected a
tip. I gave the oxen a few of the bananas I'd bought. Then we were
left at a platform awaiting our elephant ride. No one paired up with
me so I was alone behind the driver, who was sitting on the elephant's
head. The elephant slowly lumbered down into the river. I gave it more
bananas, and the driver a tip at the end.

Lunch was a huge buffet of soup, fruit, rice, salad, curried meat, 
breaded fried bananas, coffee or tea on a large scale. There was a
gallery of paintings, of elephant-painted fabrics made into clothes,
bags, etc. I spied a conical palm leaf hat I had to have for 100 baht.
I'd been lusting for one since Indonesia. Now I was ready to work in
the rice paddy. The Chinese were very friendly and amused. Then we
were herded onto bamboo rafts for a peaceful seated cruise down the
river. I had no more small change for the two boatmen but the Chinese
took care of them.

Next, the tigers. I later realized I could have watched from outside 
and saved some money, but I used my card and was allowed in the cage
with the beasts, drowsing in the midday heat. My backpack with
luncheon chicken scraps for stray cats did not go with me. I had to sit 
behind them where they lay and stroke their tummies as the keeper took 
photos with my camera. It was very brief and the fur was not soft at all. I 
walked around and saw the popular cubs cavorting and a solitary lion sitting 
on a table in his cage. What a profile!

Our last stop was the orchid farm, with row upon row of hanging  flowers; also an antique car collection and restaurant. We rode back the hour to town, arriving as promised by 4:30 and I set off to find an ATM. It didn't work! Was it the plane ticket I'd bought the day before?

My USAirways Mastercard had not cooperated in the purchase, a later email announced suspected fraud activity. My OU credit union debit card had worked for the flight but no more! Call your bank, the ATM told me. Back at the hostel an obliging Italian let me use his laptop to Skype a call to the bank, but of course it was 6:30 in the morning in the US so that didn't work.

People were waiting for pick-ups by the cheap bus to Bangkok. The manager could have sold me the cheap bus ticket to Bangkok but I'd already bought mine out of fear.

I had to find a tuktuk willing to take me out to the bus station for my 
overnight ride. French tourists helped me flag one down.

It was a double decker bus with a toilet, a free bottle of water, a 
paper coffee cup, instant coffee, a sweet roll and a blanket. I sat
with a Thai man but couldn't get the reading light to work. The hours
passed and suddenly we were somewhere at some terrible huge bus
station in Bangkok.

I found a motorcycle taxi to the nearest subway and headed back for my old hostel where I'd been bitten. They let me store my luggage and get online, but the dog-owner didn't want to pay for any more rabies treatment. I emailed the fellow who wanted to start his own guest house in Myanmar; he said he would reserve a dorm
bed at Okinawa guest house, where he was, $9 a night. One of my fears, of only finding $45 plus accommodations, was set to rest.

Last minute luck: the hostel staff asked me which airport I was leaving from. 
I'd been advised earlier which subway stop to use: wrong airport! 
I left again for the Queen Sikirit station, rode to the end of the line, and then 
found the local bus that went all the way to the right airport. It looked like I 
was going to make it!

2013_02_18 Penang, Malaysia

These travelogues are getting harder and harder to write! Pictures will follow in...three months?

   The bus for Penang, Malaysia from Kuala Lumpur: After dining in an empty food court with an Asian woman from Singapore, I rushed for an early bus but just missed it. Another coming soon in the hot shade. I waited, I boarded. We finally left, gassed up at a filling station and returned to the starting point! I thought I was leaving early, and didn't really leave til an hour past departure time. In Penang I shared a taxi with some Europeans to the guesthouse area. He could've have driven in circles and charged us. Who knows?

The Chinese presence in Southeast Asia is very large. The island of Penang was preparing for the Chinese New Year.

I thought I had a hostess there, an older American woman with a theatre background, permanent resident of Penang, but I never heard from her again despite repeated emails from me. Online I had found a cheap hostel, but it was full. Across the street was a shiny Japanese hostel I took for one night, air-conditioned, wifi, breakfast included. Inquiring after dinner, I was directed a block away to a large outdoor food court with karaoke entertainment from a stage, offering everything from beer to deer to frog meat, watermelon juice to tofu to Indian food, doing a huge business. The next day I moved across the street to 75 Travelers Lodge with none of the amenities but at a third the price. It was full of older Europeans, mostly British men. Was I in Losersville? I was extra careful with my belongings, suspecting desperation, even over clean drinking water. I was the only female in the dorm, with worn sheets, ceiling fan, yet a friendly atmosphere and lots of repeat business. "I've been drinking this water for 30 years!" said one Brit. I read newspapers in the lobby and watched men play chess and drink beer in the evenings.

Since my three months in India in 1978 I am a big fan of masala dosa, the rice pancake filled with curried potato with numerous dipping sauces, and this I found in abundance in Little India, a nine-block neighborhood near the ferry to the mainland. So tired of white rice and noodles! At one restaurant, they called me 'auntie.' I sure prefer it to 'oma' (grandmother)! 

I rented a bicycle for a day and a night, mainly to find where to buy a train ticket to Thailand. With much help and advice and hours of wild goose chases, I finally found a tiny office by the ferry to the mainland past a gauntlet of food sellers. The young Muslim widow and mother who set me up for my next adventure doesn't trust men and vows never to marry again. I had to vacate the hostel at noon, catch the 1 pm ferry for the 2:30 overnight train to Bangkok. She also let me know I needed Thai money to buy food on the train. Though money exchange shops were everywhere, I had trouble finding them on my last hectic morning and got a very poor rate. At the train station after the ferry was a far better rate and even on the train it was possible to change money. And the train food was lousy and overpriced!

Meanwhile there were things to see, temples galore, and the Penang Botanical Garden, established in an old quarry in 1884, a long bus ride away. It was good to get out of the crush of vehicles into some nature. I climbed a rainforest jungle trail to the top of a hill where the British originator, Charles Curtis, once had a home. No shortage of monkeys and joggers in the tropical heat. By the end of the afternoon it was a jogging convention so you know some Malaysians are health conscious. 

There was more to see in Penang than I had time to investigate, a 33 meter reclining Buddha, a narrow gauge train to the top of the mountain, a floating mosque, fishing villages and beaches, snake temple, firefly sanctuary and spice gardens. The native I met in the Malacca hostel urged me to visit the blue mansion. On the last morning I tried, but the guided tour exceeded my pocketbook, and I had a ferry to catch to a train. I'd hoped to meet a Malaysian couchsurfing host coming to Penang to get his car repaired, but it didn't work out.

I've been reading T. C. Boyle's Riven Rock, about the mental illness of Stanley McCormack of Chicago wheat reaper fame, and this kept me occupied on the train. Everyone had to disembark at the border, sans luggage, for customs, always nerve-wracking, but the Thai visa was free. The meals were plastic wrapped porcelain and delivered to your seat, but not tasty. 

I had booked three nights online at ETZ hostel in Bangkok and the directions were easy, the subway roomy, modern and air-conditioned, with a metal scanning station and uniformed female guard to look in your bags and salute you with a smile. Half price for seniors. The hostel was clean and new, each floor white with painted bunks and accents in red, green or yellow, with kitchen, lounge, computers, and widescreen TV beneath the roof. Noisy British males filled the place with liter beer bottles.  You had to doff your shoes and the bathrooms were always wet. Towels are extra in Asia! I make do with my Shammy.

Since the hostel was near the largest city park, I strolled over to Lumpini past the horrific traffic and finally found an entrance. There was a free orchestra concert playing in the middle of the green space. Everyone stood still as the national anthem played. I sat on a rock listening to Andrew Lloyd Weber until I was attacked by ants. There was a body of water with pedal boats for rent. It grew dark and I wandered home.

My first morning at the hostel, having coffee, I met a lovely Chinese girl (I mistook her for Japanese!) Lina is a teacher at an international school in Peking, who invited me to join her at the weekend market for some serious shopping. She had Euros that were losing value fast, and everything is much cheaper than in China. A slim but enthusiastic gourmand, she and I had many meals and snacks, cocoanuts and pad thai together. She wore a flowered headband and bought crazy yellow sunglasses, which made her look like a 'stupid Japanese girl,' she laughed. And heavily discounted winter coats from a Korean outlet near a huge shopping mall. I bought turquoise earrings (one of which I lost today) and a long-sleeved shirt covered with a Frieda Kahlo self-portrait, and odd green pants. My luggage grows heavier and heavier!

We had to move, the hostel was booked the next night. She had stayed at another one before going to the beach at Phuket, which she said was a waste of time and money. So we took the train 2 stops to Queen Sikirit (I say 'secret') Convention Center and dragged our goods down an alley with a dirty canal and into another alley in a treeless neighborhood. It was 10 baht cheaper and the dorm rooms were bigger, most of the clientele Asian. One of the workers lived permanently in our dorm. There was a box of free left behind shampoo and such in the lobby, hot and cold water, a fridge, and on the second floor a place full of pillows to watch movies and TV and a bank of computers. 

We set off for a big shopping center. Lina's cellphone charger wire had suddenly cracked and she needed to replace it. We explored a large food court in the basement. There was a 'ladyboy' or drag queen serving at one of the stalls. Lina wanted to catch a drag show badly. And a floating market. We climbed the staircase over the highway to another mall with a Tesco but couldn't find the proper cord in any of the stores. She can call China on her phone and do everything on the Internet. She doesn't trust 'public' computers to book with a credit card.

The Grand Palace of Bangkok is a must-see. Lina had already been, and went shopping with a new Chinese acquaintance the next day. I took the train to the end of the line, Hua Lamphong, which is the main train station, skirting Chinatown. I should have bought my ticket then to Chiang Mai! I ran into a German girl from the hostel; together we took a hot city bus to the Grand Palace. (Lina believes in taking the much cheaper buses than the air-conditioned subways, from which you see nothing but commercials on video and your fellow passengers.) I walked to the wharf to see the tourist boats and catch a snack. Near the grounds a man was telling tourists the place was closed, monks were in there praying, but it was a story to divert them to other places. I was dressed respectably, long sleeves and pants, socks in my sandals, but you can borrow a sarong to look decent if you must. I spent too long in a museum of gold teapots and betelnut containers, little imagining what awaited me outside - brilliant temple after temple, gold or ornate mosaic, large dragons or Buddhas, each one outdoing the previous one. Everyone was snapping away.

There were even orange-garbed monks sightseeing. One building held many Buddhas to admire, another was devoted to the good works of beautiful Queen Sikirit. She was a beauty who in the '60's graced the best-dressed lists. A previous monarch had discouraged native dress and the queen encouraged villagers whose income ended with the rice harvest to revive their silk-weaving traditions. She hired designers to reinterpret traditional clothing into shimmering gowns she wore nearly 50 years ago. They are displayed in her museum, along with videos and testimonials of her meeting villagers to revive their crafts and improve their living. Her charity is called SUPPORT. I have never seen a photograph of her husband, the bespectacled king, smiling. She wears bright red lipstick but has lost her girlish figure of the Kennedy days. Who has not?

When I got back to the hostel, an American who plans to open his own hostel in Burma (now Myanmar) told me there was a Couchsurfing gathering that night and gave me directions. Also to the Burmese embassy. My online research told me visas to Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos would cost too much for the short time I have left, so I decided to see the newest hotspot before tourists ruin it. Save the rest of Southeast Asia, including China, Korea and Japan, for 2015! I took the train to the Skyway, a newer line high in the air, with no senior discount, and found dozens of Couchsurfers at an ever-growing long table at an outdoor restaurant in Cocowalk. I sat with a French man longing for a cigarette, a Mexican girl who married an American and they'd just lost their house in California; a Russian, a man who promised me a beer if I could guess his nationality (I couldn't; we had the same haircut) and a Jamaica-born Floridian I was later to meet again on the train to Chiang Mai.

So I treated myself to a liter of Thai beer and peanuts from a hawker.

I headed home and just a hundred feet from the hostel, two street dogs I'd seen being stroked in the afternoon got an attitude, started barking at me, and though I acted cool and did not rush, they both bit me, one inside my right knee, the other through my dress on my right hip. They let me go and I told the Chinese guy in the lobby always on his computer to watch out for them. He said he grew up with a lot of stray dogs and the thing to do is crouch down to their level and confront them. (Someone else said they'll then go for your jugular!)

Upstairs at the row of computers I warned people, and they thought I should go to the hospital. What trouble! Finally in the room I told Lina about it and the Thai girl who lives there immediately called her boss, Chinese Iata, who came around in her truck to drive me to a nearby hospital. They dogs did not seem rabid, but...she'd had trouble with them before, they'd bitten a neighbor and another hosteler, and the owner had a business on the street, a Mercedes, but a reluctance to muzzle or take home the street dogs he liked. She'd previously called the dog pound but he insisted he'd adopted the dogs and given them shots. The emergency department, unlike any I've seen in the States, was empty of customers. They dressed my wound, gave me a tetanus shot, a course of antibiotics, and an appointment for the next day. Also an adhesive guard to keep it dry in the shower. But it took the dressing off when you removed it!

The next morning one of her employees took me down the street to the business of the dogs' owner. Iata was sitting waiting for him, and I joined her. We watched a very large fish (for prosperity) in a large fish tank, and the ten uniformed employees at their computers, doing his import export business. After a while he came in, and I noticed Iata saying "KA" a lot, presumably a polite honorific, but the discussion became louder. He swore he'd had the dogs treated but didn't come up with the paperwork. He would pay the hospital bills. Even the rabies shots.

I'd been planning to go to the Burmese embassy for my visa. Iata knew they closed at noon and handed me 200 baht and called a taxi. I knew how to get there by the trains but I would never make it. It was Thursday and I risked having to stay in Bangkok past Monday if I didn't apply that day. I rode in a scarlet pink taxi, watching the meter, and it went past 100 baht ($3). I would take the trains back and give her the change (she wouldn't take it). The visa office was a madhouse. I filled in my form, luckily had grabbed 2 visa photos and a tattered photocopy of my passport. Someone had brought a gluestick which we all borrowed to affix our photos. I didn't have enough Thai money to pay to get it done by the morrow and they wouldn't take my dollars. The banks closed at noon. I raced into the sunshine and dashed across eight lanes of speeding traffic to a bank. The ATM was closer than the bank. Back I sped across the highway to the visa office to return the next day for my visa to Burma!

Iata took me to the hospital two more times. She told me her sister had owned the building her hostel was in, it was apartments, and wanted to sell it. Iata got it for nothing but put millions of baht into it. She manages condominiums in Bangkok. Her married nephew was becoming a monk for a month, not seeing his wife in that time, and the family was witnessing his ordination. There were lots of New Year's preparations, cooking for three days, offerings in every home for the ancestors, fake money and cars and gifts ritually burning - fake but still costly...and she had to give money to her younger nieces and nephews. My dressing was changed again. Lina and I took an evening walk in search of dinner, climbing dreary stairs over highways. I bought a big plastic bag full of lime juice. Was that why I had diarrhea all night and hardly slept? I lost track of the trips to the bathroom I made. Several times I had to frantically clean the bed. Happiness is a dry fart!

I rested the next day but had to eat. Lina's bed was booked so she had to move back to ETZ. I was afraid of dehydrating and losing electrolytes. In the evening I met the blond German girl and we took to the streets in search of dinner. We found a night market that was a true horror. Chickens! Alive, dead, in between, the sidewalk slick with greasy filth, vegetarianism beckoning. I wanted pad thai but couldn't find it. Back and forth we traipsed, finally I settled on a soup but lost it to the gutter halfway through. She gave me some white bread and I had peanut butter and jelly. The next morning Iata recommended I drink a 'spy'; she reached into the fridge of drinks for sale and gave me a Sprite. 

I finally got to the train station and the trains were sold out! I bought a sleeper a day later for Chiang Mai, earlier in the evening than I wanted, arriving in the wee small hours, but it was all that was available. Lina and I were to meet again but she didn't show. Later she called to say she'd been stuck in Chinatown, could we meet in the evening? I opted to chill out on pillows with the hostel's many DVDs. I saw "Due Date" and part of "Bad Teacher" before dozing off. 

One more day of sightseeing. I had a ticket left over from the Grand Palace, of a mansion in another part of the city. Conflicting opinions set me in the wrong place and I had to take a taxi to get there. The royal wooden Vinmanmek mansion was full of Chinese tour groups. We had to leave our cameras and backpacks in lockers and our shoes at the entrance. It was impressive but the visit to the Coronation building was overwhelming.

Golden thrones, jewel-encrusted elephant tusks, huge bas-relief religious murals, and in the basement, Queen Sikirit's collection of elaborate embroidered pictures of animals and forest scenes. But I had to rush to a taxi to the subway, to the hostel for my luggage, back on the subway to the train station, and the evening sleeper to Chiang Mai.

Lucy, a retired American occupational therapist and couchsurfing host, had been booked but since I was delayed, had a free bed for me. In the morning I frantically fed coins into a public phone several times until I understood the directions to give a taxi driver to her neighborhood. Somehow brand-new air conditioned taxis in Bangkok cost a fraction of a broken down truck taxi from the train station in Chiang Mai. The grumpy driver did call Lucy, who met us on her scooter at a dead end past the university and cursed the overcharging driver in Thai and insisted he follow her and drop me off at her house a few blocks away. Lucy had designed her beautiful spacious home with a large green backyard leading to a pond with koi in it (3 survived to grow large of about a hundred). Two backpacking Lesbians were just leaving and I read Lucy's sheet of instructions: minimizing plastic, squeegeeing the shower afterwards, no cooking...but she provided breakfast! She is a volunteer English teacher of 73 with a progressive lung disease, a personal trainer, and plans to live on the first floor when her health deteriorates.  Report on Burma ... To be continued....!

-- 

ALexa

Posted on Facebook on 14 or 15 February
Flying to Burma tonight (Myanmar) with a one hundred dollar bill. VISA card decided to stop working. Call the bank (on the other side of the world)!   -- follow up on Facebook reported her VISA card was back in action.

2013_02_09 Facebook postings + photo

Posted on Facebook on 7 February (my time or hers?)
Last night was attacked and bitten by 2 street dogs. But the hostel owner took me to the hospital for tetanus and rabies shots. The 'owner' is paying for it.

Posted on Facebook on 9 February (atlantic time?? )
Very little sleep, lots of diarrhea. Was it the lime juice or the antibiotics?
Night train to Chiang Mai Thailand tomorrow, Burmese visa inhand.


Posted on Facebook 6 February
Went to the Palace in Bangkok. Nothing like it! Wait til you see the photos...
deciding to save Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos for another time and check out Burma (now Myanmar) before too many tourists discover it!

Posted on Facebook on 2 February
Hello from Bangkok Thailand! Just arrived, settled in the hostel, gone online!

Posted on Facebook on 31 January
Batu Caves

photos Courtesy of Mahathv Krishna

Pre-haircut /shave

2013_02_05 Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Thaipusan Hindu Festival

Subject: Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Thaipusan Hindu Festival

My Kuala Lumpur Chinese Couchsurfing hostess Jasmin rises at 4:30 am to commute 60 kilometers to her math teaching job. She doesn't stop at 3 pm either, but tutors privately. Most nights she gets back at 7 or 9. She studied in the UK and will travel to the British countryside in the summer. I am left with her two 'fraidy cats and computer.

My first day I didn't venture far, to buy spicey potato puffs at the corner, and try the complex's round pool, where a Pakistani woman, Mariah, befriended me and took me home to meet her daughter Sara and have tea and apples. Then I had to sample her chicken curry and chapati. She studies English and wants to learn to swim. I promised to return the next morning, Prophet Mohammed's birthday.

After more chicken curry the next day, I set off on the trains to see the sights. I walked to an enormous gleaming high-rise shopping center and bought milk for my costly Australian muesli. With free maps I set off for the super tall KL Tower, pausing at a closed urban forest for deep fried sweet potato snacks. There was a free shuttle up to the tower building and I was about to leave my camera behind on the seat! I walked through a miniature display of native Malaysian houses and learned those in the long line waiting for the elevator to the top each paid over $15 so I gave it a pass. I saw a monorail high above the city but never rode it. I would've if it made a circle.

Back in the shopping center, I waited for a Chinese lion performance (acrobats in costumes) and got an orange and a free Chinese calendar (New Year is coming!) for Jasmin, my hostess. She has piles of pirated videos and I went overboard, watching When in Rome, PpS I Love You, and The Holiday in one night. Another night it was Sherlock Holmes,The Nanny Diaries, Woody Allen's Scoop (or Snoop), and New in Town (which switched from English to Russian halfway through so I gave up). A couple of them froze, and Sherlock Holmes clearly had pirated subtitles. They vaguely resembled the spoken word and were in English, but made no sense whatsoever!

Jasmin urged me to visit Malacca, an historic Dutch colony, so I took a small pack to the wrong bus station, then another bus to a huge new bus station, and sat with a Pakistani man whose leather business is in Malaysia. He couldn't understand why I wasn't in Pakistan which has deserts, mountains, forests...and is not dangerous as our media contends. The scenery was not rice paddies like Indonesia, but palm oil plantations, the scourge of deforestation and climate change. 

In Malacca, I met a Finnish couchsurfer on the local bus to Chinatown, where the cheap accommodations are, a girl told me. She also warned I risked being bombed by terrorists crossing the border to Thailand by bus or train!

Chinatown was just over a bridge from the old Dutch statehouse (now a history museum), the clock tower, and the old fort. The narrow sidewalks were hot and crammed with tourists. I stopped in a library and the lady drew me a map where to find the cheap guesthouses. I passed a mosque and several Hindu and Chinese temples, walking another half hour and seeing obvious plastic-wrapped shark fins hanging in a store window. That night I emailed Jasmin about it and she pronounced the soup "deelicious"!

The main drag is called Jonker. I returned to a guesthouse I'd seen advertising dorm beds with breakfast and wifi for less than $7 and was shown to a large attic room with about eight cots and numerous fans. The next day I peeked into the costlier hotel rooms, they had nothing better than the bunks but walls. When I asked the jovial Chinese host about restaurants, he told me there was a night market soon with every type of snack available, so I got online at the lobby computer until it got dark. Some backpackers shared a bunch of what looked like tiny new potatoes but had tasty white fruit inside. 

The streets were crammed with tourists and stalls. I bought lime juice, my favorite, deep-fried this and that, and enjoyed Malaysian Chinese women line-dancing to a '50's Mambo recording and then doing the Twist. I met a Chinese architecture student from Penang at the hostel who advised me where to stay in Bangkok. The Chinese are a suppressed minority in Malaysia. They don't get the scholarships to the UK like the Muslim students with lower scores do, he told me. I walked through Chinatown again and had a delicious spicy soup for lunch. The woman had a production line of ingredients to concoct dozens of dishes. I shared a table with visitors from Singapore. All the bicycle rickshaws are covered with flower blossoms and have loudspeakers to entertain the passengers.

I crossed the bridge to the old clock tower, fort and colonial remnants, first exploring an architecture museum. Each region of Malaysia has slightly different traditional housing, and customs in choosing, blessing and orienting the building. The blood of a freshly killed rooster must drip on the central post. At the old Dutch state house, now a historical museum, I read about marriage ceremony customs and admired the costumed mannequins. The country's history was too complicated for me to absorb, I had a bus to catch back to Kuala Lumpur. Looking for a bank machine I found the modern part of town, wholly unexpected, and when I caught the bus back to the bus terminal, it made a forty minute circle back to Chinatown before delivering me back to the bus station. The fare coming from KL was 9 ringits; one company wanted 23 to go back. I found another company selling tickets for 12. 

A bunch of young Moslem men all in white mounted the bus, coming from a conference. I asked my seatmate about the way back, and a woman of Indian extraction took me under her wing and rode the train with me in KL. Jasmin had told me about an upcoming Indian festival I shouldn't miss, though I remembered seeing a Saddhu with a pierced tongue years ago on the road to Nepal. This woman planned to go to Thaipusan, as it was called, the next day. 'Thai' means the harvest season in Tamil language and 'pusam' means a celebration. She said people travel from India for the event. Late as it was, I got home before Jasmin to watch more movies. 

The next day I took the train to Majid Jamek and found Hindus waiting for a bus to the ceremonies. It was a long ride, ending at Batu Caves, where thousands of people were milling past hundreds of stalls. A retired Malaysian policeman, Maha, befriended me after we got off the bus and together we made our way through the crowd. His wife is Catholic and made the pilgrimage just once; he comes every year. In the past he was part of UN peacekeeping abroad, and has visited friends in Darwin, Down Under. As he explained in an email later, The devout Hindu will go on a religious fast, where he refrains from eating meat and leading a very simple life, 42 days before the celebration. He will not have any form of sexual gratification or entertainment , will not lose his temper, pray to God every day, do charity work and eat little vegetarian food during the fasting period. 

Many Hindu will carry out a vow to bring peace in their lives or to avert a calamity or to thank God for solution to their miseries.

Big heavy wooden and metal structures (called Kavadi) are carried and walked barefoot for several miles (in sweltering heat) that ends in The Batu Caves walking up 272 steep stairs up into the limestone cave, where they would be blessed by a high priest. The lightest vow is to carry a metal pot of cow milk on their head and pouring the milk onto the Lord Muruga (Hindu diety).

Men with hook-pierced skin pull and lift elaborate flowered displays with god statues, peacock feathers and loudspeakers up to the temples within the caves. There were numerous Westerners snapping pictures. I hadn't recharged my camera, but Maha kindly shared his by email. 

All those people moved very slowly up all those steps, so it didn't seem a problem. But first, time for a snack! Hindu charities give out drinks. water and meals. Some people were having their heads shaved, then covered with tumeric, men, women and children, for $3. I was considering it!  We found a makeshift restaurant and Maha joined me in delicious masala dosa, a rice pancake filled with curried potatoes, with dhal and other sauces for dipping. Then a stop at the free toilets, no waiting for such an enormous crowd, and we took our places in the procession to mount the stairs to the caves. I was wearing Ida's maroon batik blouse and my yellow batik fan/hat; Maha was sure he could find me if we were separated, which we soon were. I was directed to another staircase that moved much faster than the ones with the slowly mounting displays.

Some people suffered in the heat and exertion. Medical personnel and plain clothes policemen were on hand. At the top of the stairs I waited for Maha a long time, but later he told me he'd been busy helping people who fainted. I gave up hope of ever finding him again. The limestone caves had lots of height and I spotted monkeys clambering up the sides. There were several temples inside and more vendors of drinks and offerings. There were plastic bottles and trash everywhere, as well as offerings of food the monkeys would enjoy. Caught in the crowd I suddenly realized we were heading down a staircase next to the one we ascended. Back below, I bought drinks and snacks, always looking for Maha's blue shirt and red cap. 

Finally I was heading for the train back to the city when he caught up with me. A miracle! We hadn't exchanged emails yet and it seemed impossible to find him again. In 1978 I'd thought of having my head shaved in India, a sign of devotion (and widowhood). This time I was ready to do it. Maha found a place and snapped away as I got a $3 G.I. Joe haircut, which a friend posted on Facebook. Too late I asked for a little tail in back for Krishna to grab. People were surprised I was doing this and a Western girl snapped me. When I saw the shape of my head later, I had regrets and hope it will grow back fast before I get home to the States.

Getting back to town was long and complicated but we finally located the right bus. Maha and I parted and since I was near Chinatown, I decided to visit it. Young men hawked pirated videos aggressively. I found an upstairs restaurant that had deer and frog on the menu. My meal wasn't tasty after the Hindu food and the tea was terrible. Back to the bus station past the same old man and woman singing on the sidewalk to amplified music, the same blind man selling tissues, the same boy sitting alone on the walkway. How fortunate I am to be passing through!