The Plains of Bagan

The road from Yangon to Bagan might as well be labeled the Ghost Highway. You leave the suburbs of Yangon and the highway (consisting of two pristine lanes of recently laid asphalt – running in both directions) is as empty as Camden Yards in early October. There is literally no other vehicle on the road, yet these highways are flat, well-lined, and of western standards. Given the topography of the region the roads are relatively straight, which allows you to actually see where you’re going a mile or two ahead into the horizon. Yet all you take in is emptiness. The road is built but no one uses it. Or, more likely, the road is built but no one can afford to use it.

Its quite a sight (and paints a decent picture) to crest a hill, gaze out the front window, and see groups of men slowly standing up from their seats on the highway surface and move to the dirt shoulder. What better place to have tea and conversation than the fast lane of a paved highway? Gives you an idea of just how few vehicles traverse this route.

My accommodations for the 15 hour journey along the Ghost Highway was seat 37. Austin was seat 38. There were three guys behind us bringing up the rear of the bus (let’s call them 39, 40, and 41). With that said I did a head count of all passengers on the bus: 51 total. I’d previously be unaware of the mysterious center aisle seat. From the right aisle seat, a tiny seat folded down into the middle of the aisle. No backrest, no headrest, just a seat. For 15 hours. Wow. But let’s not forget those one foot tall tiny Brown Memorial-style stool/chairs found all over Yangon. Who needs a real seat? Throw one of those bad boys in the center aisle and you’ve got yourself a lift to Bagan! All told 51 people.

From seat 37 the view was something like this:

• The AC did nothing and the windows were closed. You don’t sweat, but you’re dangerously flirting with it. Needless to say there is nothing pleasant about the climate.
• Resting on an unoccupied stool to my right and chest high (and by this I mean an alarmingly short 18″ from my reach) are two bare feet belonging to the gentleman with the unfortunate pleasure of seat 41. Thankfully don’t smell. I consider turning around and shooting a “you have to be joking me” look, but I figure these are their rules so I’d be an ass not to play by them.
• The TV speakers could not physically be positioned more centered and more directly above my head than if NASA’s best were given the job.
• Out of those speakers (from 4pm until roughly 9pm) were blasted the musical accompaniment to the bombardment of Japanese karaoke videos with which we were subjected, being displayed on the screen at the bus’s front. Apparently 60% of Japanese music videos featuring any type of love song originate with a male and female narrowly missing one another in either a fender bender or bicycle accident. Once both parties get over their anger, they fall deeply in love and abandon said vehicles/bikes and frolic in a beautiful lake side park complete with swans. Its laughable and entertaining, but only to a point…
• Bus Entertainment raises a few questions. Pirated DVDs with subtitles are accessible to buy. So why watch karaoke when Transformers will do? Does anyone care? And how come no one says to the driver, “Hey buddy, five hours of this garage is boring, put in the Steven Segal DVD sitting on your dashboard”? And how come no one complains about the ear-drum-bursting-decibel-level? “Hey buddy, turn the sound down. Blood is coming from my daughter’s ear”? None of this happens. No objections. No interaction between passengers. Are they just submissive by nature or is ignorance part of their bliss? After all if you don’t know the alternative exists, you’ll never pursue the alternative.
• Our bus had no toilet. I drank 3 liters of water in the two hours leading up to our 4pm departure. I don’t like buses that don’t have toilets, especially one in which I have to climb over 7 aisle passengers to voice my request to the driver. After four long, hard, loud hours we finally stopped for dinner. I make a frantic dash for the john…
• The rest rooms turned out to double as the summer residence for a spider population that must have numbered in the tens of thousands. It was (unfortunately) a spider’s lair of epic proportion. The long hall way, dimly lite by a few randomly placed light bulbs, was something out of childhood nightmares. Big guys hanging from every nook and cranny. If you’re 5’8″ this is not a concern. Lets just say I am made myself 5’5″ for that walk. Not since the Latrine Tsunami along the Trans Sumatran Highway had I so forcefully relieved myself so as to escape my surroundings. I return to my table and tell Argentina and Israel of the conditions. Then I look up. The ceiling is one giant web. I slowly back away from the table and peer underneath. Few big fellas just hanging out…few inches from where my knees had just been.30 minutes later I would aggressively kill one of these guys that had hitched a ride on my shirt back to the bus. I eff’ing loath spiders. If Indiana Jones has “Snakes….why did it have to be snakes…”….I have “Spiders….why did it have to be spiders….”
• The early hours from midnight to dawn are spent alongside Robert Langdon as he entertainingly crisscrosses Washington, D.C. in search of yet another mysterious relic lost to time…

Friday October 30th:
7am arrival into Bagan. Shortly there after Argentina, Israel and I do the walk. Objective: find, evaluate, negotiate accommodation. Coming into town you pretty much know where the hostels are (courtesy of Lonely Planet), so your task is to quickly rank and file and settle on something. Don’t over think it and spend an hour wandering around town checking out every place, but also don’t jump the gun, settle on a flea-bag, and be uncomfortable for the next few days. I usually make a decision based on the following (in order of importance): Cleanliness? Western toilet? AC? Price? Charm? Granted all this is thrown out the window when you have two options…or its raining upon arrival…or you haven’t slept in 22 hours.

I find an acceptable spot with a killer balcony overlooking the main (dirt) drag. Sleep for three hours…

I hadn’t done a wash of clothes since Singapore and was long over due. The front desk said they could handle it: “No wash machine in town. Wash in river.” When there is no alternative, there is no alternative.

Head to a lunch spot on the drag. I order fish curry. Eight plates of food appear immediately. Only two are recognizable (fish and green beans). Eight plates, one pot of tea and $2usd later I head off down a dirt side street and west towards the river. I pass tiny hut-like dwellings where you exchange a hundred “helloooooo”s and smiles with the locals. Indonesian-like friendliness. I emerge from the tree line and into a clearing and the Ayeyarwady River: Myanmar’s main artery. No sound. Just a surreal view that reminds me of a painting which used to hang in my office — peasant life along the banks of Nile. Women wash themselves along the muddy banks. Long boats lazily cross the half kilometer to the other side. Its timeless. The only thing that looks familiar are the clouds and blue sky above. Everything below is uniquely Myanmar.

I head home. Laundry is sun dried, folded, and waiting. Every piece of clothing I possess now pleasantly (yet temporarily) has the earthy scent of the Ayeyarwady River. I’m OK with this cuz Myanmar is getting under my skin.

The sun is starting to sink and late day light is golden. Its the sweet spot of the day. I grab a bicycle from the hotel owner and head off to behold what brings people here in the first place: the twenty-six square miles of roughly 4,000 Buddhist temples laid out across the great Plains of Bagan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagan

As I’m getting lost and trying to contain myself from shooting absolutely everything, two teenagers on motorbikes pull up along side. We exchange words and suddenly I’m veering off the main dirt trail and onto secondary dirt. We pull up to a deserted 100ft tall pagoda. We enter the temple, begin climbing stairs and day turns to pitch black. Only 50 blind steps later does light return as we emerge on the tower’s viewing deck: the endless temples of Bagan, basked in a sunset glow, laid out before you. Its tough not to fall in love with a country and its people after moments like this.

The two 19-year-olds turn out to be extremely knowledgeable little fellows with a solid handle on English. We head off together in search of a local tea shop. Minutes later, as we’re passing through the gate of an ancient city wall, I have one of those moments of complete contentment. A massive modern tour bus perpendicularly crosses my immediate path from my right to my life. Its contents, a white aging population and surrounded by luxury, comfort, and predictability, peer tentatively out its windows. I think to myself: they’re heading exactly where they belong. Flanked by two teenage locals, chasing the unknown, I follow the boys towards the great expanse of temples in search of a local hangout. I think to myself: I’m heading exactly where I belong. And just like that the the bus passes and the moment ends, but the reinforcement lingers long after.

I round out the day with an Indian dinner, an Indonesian beer, and the company of Argentina and Israel for $3usd.

After 14 hours in Bagan, I feel comfortable bestowing upon it one of those great backpacker accolades: its an easy place to linger. The world is slow here. Few motorbikes, fewer cars. They trade asphalt for dirt. The way it should be. Outside of this internet terminal and the occasional satellite-feed television to watch Liverpool take on Arsenal (an absolute necessity – the Burmese are European football fanatics), there are welcome few reminders that this is the 21st century. And at the rate this country is going (er, changing) it may very well look the same in the 22nd century.

Its official. This country is something special.

Thanks for reading.

“Summers in Yangon…luge lessons”…

…and if you don’t think that title has been on deck for a few weeks think again.

I’m here. Yangon. There are no luges. But the heat feels like its August 23th and Drew Meredith Haugh is blowing the whistle at the first day of summer football practice. Summer – yes. Luge – no. That out of the way back to the beginning…

I’ve imposed upon myself a 4 hour minimum for all air travel days. In other words…leave for the airport 4 hours before the flight is scheduled to leave. It sounds insanely unnecessary but one day it’ll come in handy (I’m sure).

Monday October 28th – 10am:

I leave the hotel room that had been my prison for the last 7 days. Seven days in KL is about 4 too many. If you consider the hotel in Chinatown I called home…maybe 5 days too many. I leave my room and take care of unfinished business: “disrespecting the elevator.” The lift doors closed with such quickness and force that had I been drinking V-8 that week I most surely would have been decapitated. I disrespect the Chinese elevator, pass the lobby, and hit the street.

It’s a unique feeling being en transit. First, there is no home to go home to. When you travel short term at home its always circular. “I’m going to Flint for business…be back in a few.” When you do it backpacking there is no circle. It’s a one-way street. Never straight though. I’ll never be in Chinatown, KL again in my life. And I personally enjoy that feeling. The place you visit will always be the place you visited, regardless how it changed over the years. That place is frozen in your memory the day you left it. Thankfully the world is a big place so I doubt I’ll ever run out of places (for better or worse) to never see again. It’s like when you part ways with people and they say “Take care. Nice meeting you. See you later.” I usually turn around, make eye contact, pause, and reply “No you won’t. Good luck. Have a nice life.” It may sound cold but I like being a realist. Secondly, walking down the street carrying everything you own creates that rare momentary feeling of complete freedom. I relish both.

So you lower your shades and walk with long purposeful strides. 10 minutes on foot to the subway…two stops to central station…transfer to the express train…ride the 30 minutes to KLIA…check in…clear immigration…sit down…open The Lost Symbol…and enjoy the fact that no unforeseen hiccup is going to derail your travel plans…today.

As the waiting area swells with Burmese you begin to notice things. Despite the heat no one is wearing shorts. All pants. The faces change from the Malaysian medley of Indian, Chinese, and Malay to a consistent look…a consistently different look. With about 20 minutes to go before our 2:00pm board time the lovely people at Myanmar International Airways come on the PA. Apparently there is some type of special gift promotion for 10 lucky passengers. Half expecting to get called as the lone white guy in the terminal…I get called as the lone white guy in the terminal. I am likely the only American to have in his possession 4 MIA pens, 10 MIA binder dividers (you read that right) and one large grey MIA polo shirt. A lot of good the “large” will do me…maybe my 120lb brother can wear it. After having my picture taken with the entire flight crew (God I hope that finds its way into a marketing brochure – “Fly MIA…serving Ginger Gods for over 4 years.”) I board the plane.

I don’t know whether economics or the fact the average height of most passengers was 5’5″ drove the row design of the aircraft, but the leg room was non-existent. I did happen to snap a nice self-portrait – my head, the only head, sticking up above the head rests.

150 minutes later we land in Yangon. The view coming in from my window seat elicited one of those travel moments where chills roll up your spine. You’ve read about this place. You’ve seen film about this place. You’ve seen pictures about this place. Then suddenly on the distant horizon you make out the tallest and only recognizable image in the city’s skyline: Shwedagon Pagoda

It’s just a speck on the horizon, but the reflection of afternoon sun off its gold laden surface makes it pop. And with that you say to yourself: good god, I’m actually here.

Immigration is hassle free. Baggage claim is hassle free. Walk outside and the evening air hits as if you’re emerging from New York’s subway bowels into oppressive mid-July heat. The air is dense. The heat is on. I begin to sweat…

Immediately I’m approached for a taxi. I was told $8usd is a reasonable fare to downtown, so I jump on $6. I really hadn’t looked at my driver in the face before we stopped on the curb to make small talk. It was then I got my first glimpse of the affects of betel nut.

I’d read about betel nut – the Burmese equivalent of chewing tobacco.

You place a handful of crushed betel nuts (whatever and wherever those come from) in the center of a fig leaf, sprinkle in exotic (read addictive) powders, add some spice, roll up tightly, insert into mouth, and treat like a giant wad of Redman chaw. I don’t know what the pleasure effects are but the atheistic are undeniable. Your entire mouth, lips, teeth, and gums turn blood red. You’d be excused if you thought they’d just drunk a pint of pulpy blood. I make eye-to-mouth contact and kind of reel backwards. Holy hannah! I then look around and every other person milling about looks like they just left the set of a campy B-zombie movie. Eyes turn to the ground and little red spit droppings are everywhere. I haven’t even left the airport. I’m gonna dig this place…

I get right into it with my taxi driver (Steven). He speaks decent English and had an air of openness, so I fire right into questions. Money changers, the junta, street danger, gas prices, civil uprising, food, etc. And in the confines and safety of his taxi Steven was more than willing to address a few things.

We get into downtown, I try a few hostels, and settle on the third. Clean bedroom, western toilet, air conditioning that sinks to 18 Celsius (Q: who doesn’t spend the extra $2usd to upgrade from fan to AC?), and $10usd/night. Check check check check.

I dump bags and shower. It’s dark out but I naturally do what I naturally do when I blow into a new place: walk. Exiting the front door, the heat hits full force. The sweat line on your brow kicks in. I make it about 5 blocks and tap out. “Taxi!….Central Hotel please.”

Central Hotel is known to have decent exchange rates and a decent bed, so I figure it a sensible place to trade dollars for kyat. I roll into the lobby and up to the counter. They quote a rate of 1040 kyat to the dollar. Works fine. A crisp, clean, wrinkle-free $100usd note appears from my wallet. ~ I’m already thinking about street food. ~ “Sir, we can not accept this.” The faint pink dye that appears to the right of Ben’s head (completely not uncommon in recent bill series) is a deal-breaker. Oh my. This country could be a challenge.

Pissed, I walk out the front and head off on foot back to the hostel. Thirty minutes later I’m a soggy mess. I shower…again. Set the alarm for 6:30am and hit the pillow.

Tuesday October 27th:

Up at 6:30. Shower. Breakfast of toast. Over to the lobby for the obligatory crash course in foreign language. Having only a loose grasp on my own native language, I’m never going to be a great foreign linguist. Drop Anna Belle Dunne into central Afrika and she’ll be presiding over village weddings in perfect Sudanese by Day 3. That’s never going to be me. So I saddle up to the lovely girls at the front desk and grind out the required basics:

Kyae zu bell (sounds like Jay zu bay) – thank you

Min ga lay bay (ming ga la bah) – hello

Kyae zu pyue (Jay zu boo) – please

Cow thaw nan net khin ber (gone do nan net kim bah) – good morning

Armed with just enough to elicit a smile I head out. Destination: Central Hotel…this time accompanied by two Ben Franklins…sans pink dye. I walk in, present my bills, and am this time quickly handed a 3″ thick white envelope. “Sir, right this way please…” I’m ushered into a windowless room where I lock the door and count my stack of two hundred 1000 kyat notes. All is well. Cash securely locked down in my front zipper pocket, I head out and into the city morning…and the growing city heat…

Yangon feels dense. The city center is laid out on a grid system. And with narrow side streets, all building heights a conforming 5-6 stories, five million inhabitants, and varsity level street life…Yangon is dense. Now add the heat and serve with a double helping of humidity. That weary visual aside, the sun always shines and no building rises more than six stories which produce a very light, airy, and breathable city. Cars fill the streets, but there is a welcome absence of motorbikes. *Motorbikes, I’m realizing, truly are the required ingredient to produce urban bedlam in Far East cities. Your town’s motorbikes outnumber cars 5 to 1? Great, welcome to the NFL Denpasar, Bali. Cars outnumber bikes? This way to the CFL please, Kuala Lumpur.

The city center’s grid is (not surprisingly) easy to navigate. The main drags go east-west, the narrow one-ways north-south. The narrow one-ways are something out of a bygone era. Barely wide enough for two cars and a sidewalk, the streets are enclosed on either side by 5-6 story buildings. The buildings, giant unappealing boxes, extend the entire length of the block. These are the urban residential dwellings.  Out every available window hangs clothes, laundry, flags, wires/ropes traversing the street, you name it. I imagine the interiors to be alarmingly devoid of light, given the alarming lack of windows. It sounds silly to compare these to the tenement halls in lower Manhattan centuries ago, but that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw them.  It’s like a time warp.

And then there are the building’s exteriors (and this description goes for what seems like every building in the city). No façade in Yangon has seen a new paint job in 10…20…30 years. Maybe longer. The resulting appearance is that of shower tile that hasn’t been cleaned…IN 30 YEARS. The grim, the mildew, that lazy layer of smudge… it’s on every building and results in surreal moss like streaks that drip down every surface. Imagine painting your house white. Then construct a greenhouse on your roof. Then turn the heat up to 95 and dump 200 years of rain on the roof. Your house is no longer white and your neighbors start to complain. Yet no one seems to mind in Yangon, especially the one group with any money to do anything about it. The appearance is not pretty…but at the same time it’s not ugly…it’s uniquely Yangon and serves as a sobering visual reminder that this city, its buildings, its streets, its people….really have been neglected for quite some time.

Yangon is a city absolutely teeming with street life. If the streets are its arteries, Yangon’s heart is in great shape. The blood is flowing here. Home kitchens don’t exist in the urban center. Result: no one cooks at home. Result: meals are had on the street. Result: food is prepared, served, & consumed…on the street…everywhere…all hours of the day… You can’t take more than several steps without finding exotic fresh fruit, vegetables, skewers, meats of every shape/size/color, fish, nuts, and (as I found today) locust within your reach and ready for sale. Street life, like street food, is amazing.

I spend the day strolling, eating, chatting, & sweating….

One encounter (the likes of which occurs daily) is worth sharing. Wandering down a random side street heading in the general direction of Chinatown, I come across a group of six men having tea on the sidewalk. Don’t fool yourself. No linen cloth was present. I mean on the sidewalk. All six are shirtless and sitting one foot off the ground on tiny chairs. These chairs are all over the city. It’s what everyone perches on. These chairs – no more than 12″ tall – might as well been lifted from the kindergarten class at Brown Memorial, yet everyone uses them. Women breast feeding. Old men chewing betel. Everyone.

I’m nearing a boiling point and everyone can tell. Its high noon and I’m pouring sweat. As I approach the group I wipe my brow and smile to acknowledge the clear fact that this westerner is not used to such extreme heat. No words are exchanged. Rather one of the elders grabs an empty stool and fills out the circle, inviting me to sit. I park and am provided tea. No one speaks. Not even a little. I was on the receiving end of looks that made me feel like the new star attraction at the zoo. Star attraction up close and in the flesh. Here is this giant…seated a foot off the ground…knees coming up to the chests of the others. It was a great scene. The language barrier is like the Berlin Wall, so I sit, drink, and sweat. More people start to gather. No English Spoken Here. With this I figure its time to short-circuit a few minds. I pull out the lone magic trick in my arsenal, and make a certain green handkerchief disappear into thin air. – Silence – Eyes open wide. I sit back down and get back to my tea, yet all the swelling group of 20 can do is point to their hands and converse in Burmese amongst themselves. Its moments like this when all you really want is to break out the camera and capture the scene. Sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes it feels right, but other times you lack the courage to pull out a piece of hardware, no larger than a brick, that’s worth more than these men will make in a year…maybe several. It’s always a game time decision.

Wednesday October 28^th

Out the door at 9:30am. Late start to avoid the heat. Rendezvous with Hillary (62 year old retired tour operator…but seeing as he was touring me around I guess he’s still in the game). $10usd for a full day of getting underneath the city’s skin with his son at the wheel. High light of the morning: Buddhist monastery at lunch hour. The grounds, the students (mostly orphans), the interactions, meeting the head monk (i.e. principal) was all brilliant. As was being able to communicate via Hillary’s translations. Witnessing 600 young monks pray in unison before lunch was just surreal.

Hillary was also more than willing to address 6 hours worth of my inquiries ranging from “are monks allowed to have intercourse, drink soda, watch TV, or consume beer” (no, yes, yes, no) to “as a resident of urban Yangon, how do you truly know whether instances of forced labor are not actually occurring in the rural countryside?” Our time was an invaluable education on a wide range of topics that I’m sure will come up in the next few weeks.

Back to the hostel, immediately shower, and dive into the lonely planet to strategize the next move. After deciding on a move north to Bagan, I walk downstairs and begin addressing logistics with the staff. A 25 year old Argentinean finds himself in the same problem. Several dead-end-phone-calls and an unsuccessful-attempt-to-recruit-a-4^th-passenger-to-make-hiring-a-taxi-for-the-15-hour-drive-economical later…Austin and I settle and book ourselves each a 13-hour-bus-ticket to Bagan (in the country’s center). We leave tomorrow at 4pm. The red eye…the bus red eye. Flight is too expensive, train is government run, and there is nothing between Yangon and Bagan that warrants an overnight break. Suck it up and roll. Upside is Austin enjoys a drink and is leaving Myanmar the exact same date as I. Company is key.

Radio silence till Bagan…

Into The Unknown ~ Myanmar

I remember the first time I learned of Myanmar. It was geography class in roughly 5th grade when I recall stumbling across a country labeled “Burma” on the towering map of Asia in the rear of the classroom hanging from the wall. If you need help finding Burma on a map it borders Bangladesh, India, Tibet, China, Laos, and Thailand. On Monday I’m going to Burma…

Fact Sheet ~ Odds & Ends:

• Myanmar or Burma? The government changed the name to Myanmar in 1989 believing Burma was too closely linked to British colonial rule. The country is Myanmar. The people, food, and language are Burmese.
• Population: 47 million
• Geographic size: Bigger than France…slightly smaller than Texas.
• Religion: 89% Buddhist
• Home to 52 types of venomous snakes, making it home to more venomous snakes than any other country in the world.
• World’s second largest producer of heroin.
• 250,000 tourists visited in 2007.
• National literacy rate: 93-98%. Education is mandatory from ages 5 to 11.
• Ranks globally as having the 13th lowest income per-capita. Estimated at roughly $450usd per year.
• Home to the world’s longest running military dictatorship, in power since 1962.
• Rambo fought said military junta in Rambo 4.

Recent Events:

• Burma gained independence from the British Commonwealth in January 1948.
• Throughout the 1950s the government gained control of the country and unified its ethnic tribes. During that time its economy plunged.
• By 1966 the government had instituted full blown socialism. Unemployment soared.
• In 1988 citizens took to the streets to demand change. Military reaction lasted six weeks and claimed 3,000 lives. The government quickly established martial law but promised to hold democratic elections in 1989. Aung San Suu Kyi became the voice of the opposition party ~ National League for Democracy (NLD).
• In an effort to subdue the swelling democratic movement Suu Kyi is put under house arrest in July 1989. In May 1990 the NLD wins a landslide victory over the sitting regime. The government responds by barring the newly elected officials from assuming office. They follow up by imprisoning, exiling, or killing the party’s majority leaders.
• In mid 2007 the government raises gasoline prices by 500% (despite having the largest oil and gas reserves in SE Asia). The public response is bold. By September 24th an estimated 150,000 citizens had gathered in Yangon alongside 50,000 monks to protest. On September 26th the military answers. All told an estimated 3,000 were arrested and 31 killed. Two days later internet service is cut off nationwide. (The events of the September 2007 uprising were only made available to the outside world through a group of Burmese filmmakers who recorded the events (at great personal risk) with hand-held camcorders. These images were sent via secure satellite to contacts in Norway which then relayed the footage to the BBC, CNN, and outside world. The images of the September uprising and the story of those that captured it are told in a brilliant independent film (Burma VJ – http://burmavjmovie.com/about_the_film/). Please try to see it over the next 3 weeks if possible.)
• Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest.

The Debate:

• There are two well defined positions to the debate surrounding tourist travel to Myanmar:
  • Proboycott ~ By choose to visit Myanmar you knowingly help finance, sustain, and (some say) condone a military government that has been responsible for everything from human rights abuses to murder. A government that closed its own borders to all foreign humanitarian aid services in May 2008 after Cyclone Nargis claimed somewhere between 80,000 and 140,000 lives. Regardless how carefully I spend my money (i.e. choosing to stay/feed at private business rather than government owned ones) roughly 20% of the dollars I will spend will inevitably find their way into government pockets. This is just unavoidable.
  • Protourism ~ The overwhelming majority of locals you’ll meet want you to visit their country and by contributing 80% of your budget into their private hands you are in fact improving their economical situation.
• I have hitched my wagon to the later argument (and not just for convenience). The government is sitting on gas reserves off its west coast valued at close to $20B over the next 20 years. They have oil, gas, timber and jade contracts with neighboring Thailand, China, and India that will (sadly) ensure they remain well capitalized for some time to come. Tourism, on the other hand, is estimated to represent 0.7% of the country’s $14B annual GDP. That’s a drop in the bucket. Given these facts and given my intention to avoid all government services (as most travelers do) I feel my visit can have economic and social benefit.

Logistics:

• There are no banks and no ATMs in Myanmar. The official currency, the kyat (pronounced ‘chat’) officially trades at 6.4mmk to $1.00usd. That’s the official rate. The rate the government gives and you’ll find at the airport. The black market rate (the real rate) is roughly 1000mmk to $1.00usd. Money changing is standard affair in the markets in Yangon, given you’ve got crisp, clean $100usd notes.
• If you run out of cash as a visitor in Myanmar you head to the airport, buy a ticket to Bangkok (with credit card), and leave. Apparently this happens quite often to the uninformed. So for the last 6 days I’ve shopped KL’s countless moneychangers for information. The exchange rate between Malaysia’s official currency (the ringgits) and the dollar has not moved more than a cent or two in that time, so timing is not a concern. The negotiable exchange rate between ringgit and dollar does not move more than half a cent for large volume transactions. So for the last several days I’ve woken up, walked to HSBC (where I have an account…thus no withdrawal fees), withdraw ringgits, found a decent moneychanger, and covered ringgits to dollars. Repeat. I’ve got enough crisp, clean, Washingtons, Lincolns, Hamiltons, Jacksons, and Franklins to make even Pacman Jones take note.
• The Myanmar consulate was kind enough to process my 28-day tourist visa in about a day. Very straight forward.
• Electrical power is a question mark. In some towns power is only on for 6 hours a day. In others…not at all.
• Internet is a question mark. I’ve been told to “save often” as you never know when the power outages will strike. Needless to say I have no idea how often I’ll be able to write.
• Mobile phone access is a question mark. Indo, Singapore, KL…I buy a SIM card, buy credit, phone home. There is no roaming in Myanmar and I read somewhere that SIM cards cost $1000usd.
• Production note: My Sony camcorder can store a hair over 10 hours of high-definition video (roughly 60GB) before its internal hard drive reaches capacity. When that occurs I transfer the raw files from the camcorder’s hard drive to an external hard drive I carry with. When that external hard drive fills I bubble-wrap the snot out of the device and FedEx it home (thus ensuring I have the original files to edit with later). On the outside chance I get hassled for shooting in Myanmar I’d rather not have the last 45 days worth of film confiscate, so I dropped 130GB worth of high-def 3rd-world travels in the FedEx yesterday. Better safe than sorry…

I’ve been fortunate to see a great many places in my life, yet I have zero doubt whatsoever that Myanmar will be unlike anything that’s come before. And for that I can hardly sleep at night. I just hope Kipling is right…

“Burma is quite unlike any land you know about.” ~ Rudyard Kipling (Letters from the East, 1899)

Fear & Loathing in KL

Inevitably on the wild, disorganized,brilliant ride that is backpacking you’re going to get bottle-necked and spend more time in one location than you ever thought possible or even appropriate.

That time is now. That place is Kuala Lumpur. If we haven’t yet reached our threshold of tolerance for “KL” than God knows we’re butting elbow to elbow with it. The bus from Singapore arrived here Monday Oct 19th and it’ll be Sunday Oct 25th very shortly by my watch and we’re still here. But more on that later…

Compared to the chicken buses of Sumatra, the luxury coach from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur might as well have been Road Bus One (i.e. Obama’s Greyhound). Our bus had reclining seats worthy of first class. It was on time. It smelled like (3rd world) roses. Our driver drove like his eyes were open. And the roads might as well have been paved with gold.

<– Malaysia ~ Singapore –>

The only (slightly) uncomfortable part of the 5 hour trip was the Godzilla-like 4 year old in front of us who hadn’t t yet grasp the concept of personal space.

Within 30 minutes of finding accommodations I set out on foot, a man on a mission. Top priority: a shave and a cut. For $2usd a pleasant Indian fellow in Chinatown put straight razor to my neck made my face feel like an egg. Minutes later I would comically overcome language barriers with a rather androgynous Malay hair stylist to bring my hair style back from the ’70s.

Kuala Lumpur ~ Some cities just possess that undeniable vibe…that energy. You walk outside and the air is electric. New York. Paris. Tokyo. Syracuse. They’ve got it. KL, well…can’t say it does.

The skyline is iconic thanks to the world’s 3rd highest telecommunications tower and those instantly recognizable Petronas Towers.

The shopping is on par with Singapore but a fraction of the price. The eating is a funky hybrid of Indian, Malay, and Chinese. The city is sprinkled with lovely little parks and mosques. All is well…then you get to the people. I remember one guy not smiling at me in the whole of Indonesia (the ‘mobster’ in Jakarta). I remember only one smile in KL over the last 6 days. Not to say the people are inhospitable, its just…well, they’re kind of bland (which is kind of the overall reputation of Peninsula Malaysia). But hey, they do have some ass-kickin’ly tall buildings which kind of makes up for the lack human charm (kind of)…

So back to the original question: 7 days in KL, why so long? Well, because when we leave the relative comfort of this overly western Asian city we ain’t coming up for air for quite some time. Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam…untold transportation hardships…untold what-the-hell-did-I-just-eat…untold where-the-hell-are-we…untold who-the-hell-knows…it all begins the moment when we pack up and leave. Recharge your batteries before the next leg. Enjoy the calm before the storm. Buy what you need. Ship what you need. Acquire what is needed.

Acquire what is needed. In our case that means two separate visas for two separate countries. Devin is headed to the country of Laos to hang with a friend for a few weeks. She flies out Tuesday. I fly out Monday afternoon at 2pm for a country that will be unlike anything I’ve ever seen or experienced in my life.

My destination is home to the world’s longest running military dictatorship.

My destination is Myanmar.

Singapore

“Don’t think of Singapore as a country…think of it as a business,” I was told over a Tiger beer in Clarke Quay (Singapore’s riverfront entertainment district that had all the feeling and appearance of a revamped and modern EPCOT Center).

Singapore is an interesting place. That’s for sure. True to reputation its extremely clean, extremely well organized, extremely modern, and extremely pricey. Its not one of those places you visit where your camera can’t stay hidden for long. Its the opposite. There isn’t a great deal from a visual standpoint to illicit those ‘ooohs and aaahs’ that inevitably come from beach and mountain and temple. Its a city. A tiny city. A clean city. An ultra-western city. An ultra-wealthy city. But a city all the same.

What I found more intriguing than Singapore’s facade were the discussions I shared over beers with members of its significant ex-pat community.

• You want to buy a posh sports car? Tack on 150% tax to that imported BMW. That $30,000 whip in the States becomes $75,000, so when you see that 735i or Maserati cruising the street you know the driver is part of that 5% uber wealthy upper class.
• Rent on a $1,800,000SGD ($1,260,000usd) suburban apartment complete with the 20 minute commute to the CBD? Try extremely reasonable given what its mirror in NYC would fetch.
• You’re a young couple and have your first child….try an all-in-cost per month for a full time live-in nanny of $700usd. That’s room, food, and salary for an ultra-efficient 24/7 Filipino do-it-all (its up to the employer whether they give Sunday off or not). Now I haven’t had the pleasure of shopping for a nanny in NYC recently, but I imagine that figure is nowhere remotely close to being even in the same ballpark as $700usd. So newly minted parents can find themselves both hitting the town into the wee hours on a Saturday. Both careers can continue uninterrupted with the home front under control. I thought that was a real game changer.
• It is a shock when your $2.00usd Bintang in Indonesia is replaced with a $6.00usd Tiger in Singapore. Makes a backpack eager to find the Malaysian border and favorable exchange rates again.
• Taxes? A 40% tax bracket in the States melts to around 20%. Game changer.
• The government’s 10-year business plan requires the construction of Asia’s most ambitious casino project (take that Macau). Where to build? Oh, hows about just filling in one of the city’s major downtown marinas. Presto-change-o…. newly created prime waterfront real estate. No loop holes to navigate. You’re the Singapore government. You already own it.

• If you are caught riding your bicycle up/down the handicap ramp leading to an underpass…its a $1,000SGD fine. Says it right there on the wall. Can’t miss it. Ok, most people can’t miss it. “Hey Devin, you might want to walk your bike…” So you think, aren’t they maybe getting a bit excessive here? Then you hit the bars and learn that prostitution is rampant and everywhere and apparently condoned by the government. Maybe not openly condoned, but they certainly look the other way. So you’re telling us that spitting on the sidewalk is a caneble (?) offense , jay-walking can get you a stint in the joint, smoking a joint will definitely find you the noose, but the far-from-discreet sex trade isn’t an issue? Again, interesting.

Overall Singapore is an interesting visit. A couple of days is plenty, unless you’re trading 3rd world overnight bus trips for free lodging in 1st world million dollar apartments, in which case 96 hours does nicely.

And yes we did imbibe in the obligatory Singapore Sling at its birthplace: The Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel. The signature cocktail, I thought, was pretty representative of Singapore itself:

Easy on the eyes, easy going down, painful on the wallet.

Worth a thousand words…

I’m not a complete narcissist, so allow me to explain where these photographs come from. The Sony camcorder I’m documenting with has a feature called “Smile Shutter.” When enabled and while shooting video this feature identifies faces which are smiling and stores that image as a jpg. Pretty cool. Therefore the majority of these photographs were not intended to be photographs, but are rather frames of video clips.

Have a look…

8 Hours in Jakarta
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?albumId=730639928703&ownerId=87300034603

Odds & Ends…
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?albumId=708554028703&ownerId=87300034603

“No English Spoken Here”

If only there was a cameraman…

On Tuesday Oct 13th I got back on the bike. I had too. $5.00usd is a cheap price to pay for freedom on two wheels. I’d met a number of travelers that spoke very highly of a natural lake about 45 minutes west of Bukittinggi, Sumatra.

Up at 7am, consume the consistently simple breakfast de backpacker (toast and tea), and turn over $50,000 rupiah to my hostel owner in exchange for a 125 cc bike (i.e. scooter with gears…to get SBO-technical). Long sleeves, pants, boots, sunglasses, and helmet…I set off at 8am into a clue blue morning sky. The road is uneventful until you arrive at the gateway to the lake. Without warning the horizon reveals what you’ve been searching for. You stop at the highest overlook, park the bike, and gaze 1000ft down the mountain walls to the lake below. You survey the lake from the northern end to southern and can’t help but be impressed by the towering walls that rise up from the lake’s shoreline. The water is crystal, the rice fields a fluorescent green, and the sky a popping blue. It’s one hell of a view. What could be better? Perhaps the 44 hairpin turns that navigate the 8km down the mountainside to the lake below. You put it in 2nd gear, cover the brakes, and enjoy the decent. Not much else I’d rather be doing at 9am on a Tuesday. The road terminates at the waterline and a tiny village. Two options. One decision. I go right. The next hour would take me past rice paddies so green, so well cared for, so iconic, so picturesque, they’re almost comical. It’s a scene of such landscape beauty you’d think it fictitious if you saw it painted and hanging on the wall. All this on the back of a bike.

It’s at this point I try and tighten my chin strap…and it breaks off completely. The angle of the helmet’s visor is such that without a chin strap to hold in place, the wind would lift the helmet off at any real speed. Conclusion: I’ll have to go without a helmet for the return. Why write this? Why paint this picture for my poor mom? Because without this untimely incident, the following moment never takes place. And it’s the following moment that makes the day, week, month worthwhile.

I make my way to the far side of the lake. If the eastern road down to the lake drops you at 3 o’clock, I find myself at 9 o’clock. The road turns from asphalt to dirt. The concrete homes turn to thatch huts. It’s as if you rolled the hands of time back 50 years on this side. Google Maps would have you believe there is no road around the lake. There is. And suddenly you find yourself having one of those brief moments where everything just clicks. Every set of eyes you connect with convey the same message: haven’t seen the likes of your kind around here for quite some time. Yet every smile that inevitably creeps across the face says the same: but we’re glad you came to see us.

The sun shining down and the locals are out to catch a glimpse. And at that moment you look down, adjust your right mirror, and catch your own reflection: hair matted straight back by the wind like a dog out the window, 11 days of unshaven growth on your face, a forest green button down shirt flapping in the wind, and a look of concentration and focus hid behind your most treasured pair of sunglasses. I felt like Steve McQueen at that moment for absolutely no justifiable reason. And you think to yourself: I’m currently in my dream. Living my dream. And man what would I give to have a photo of this moment right now.

A dear friend once told me the story of a Latin colleague he worked with at Morgan Stanley in New York. The man, well into the middle chapter of his life, took my friend aside one day. He pulled open a drawer and retrieved a leather folder. Opening the folder he revealed a black and white photo of himself. The photo, symbolically capturing the embrace of his own youth, a youth long ago since passed, was that of him…standing atop a surfboard…riding a wave. We all have that picture we treasure (or will treasure) in a leather folder in a hidden place. On Tuesday morning…that momentary personal reflection caught in the mirror…that was my picture.

If only there was a cameraman…

On Wednesday October 14th. Travel day. Travel Day o’ Hell…Part II. With my lunch pail packed, the crusts of my PB&J cut off, my shoes tied with double loop-d-loops…I sat outside my hostel waiting for the school bus at 7:30pm. What arrived was sadly not the school bus. I had booked a seat on a transport from Bukittinggi in western Sumatra to Dumai on the eastern coast. It’s a funny and unsettling thing when the travel agent informs you that only two sets remain. “Which would you like? The middle seat in the front [leg to leg with the driver], or the window seat in the second row?” What is this, my Mom’s woody wagon from 1988? Is this thing on wheels or rails? Motor or animal power? I choose the window seat in the back figuring there is absolutely no upside to the front.

7:45pm and a mini-bus pulls up. I’m the last pickup. I toss my bag in the back and maneuver myself into the window seat. The scene: three men across in the front seat. And as Jake Manookin’s dorm room door used to read: No English Spoken Here. To my right are two old men. Again No English Spoken Here. To the rear, three teenage boys three across. No English Spoken Here. Sweet…10 hours…here we go.

About thirty minutes in several facts became evident. 1). The driver’s skill set will keep my heart race at normal levels. Was he really that much safer or am I just getting conditioned to this type of travel? 2). We would listen to music for the next 10 hours straight. No choice in the matter. When we get into the Michael Jackson’s Greatest Hits portion of the journey, I fire off a text to my brother describing my surroundings and the musical accompaniment of MJ’s “Bad.” His reply: “You love your 2nd class 3rd world travel” to which I could only reply “Sadly in Sumatra 1st and 2nd class travel simply doesn’t exist.” And it doesn’t. If I was getting to Singapore I just had to deal with this.

About three hours in we stop at one of those all-too-familiar road stop dining halls. Central Sumatra. 11pm. No English Spoken Here. By this point I’m used to the looks. The curious gazes. I sit down at a large table filled with strange, curious, friendly Muslims. My driver the only ‘familiar’ face in the joint. Plates appear; I dig in with my hands, and annihilate four plates in a matter of minutes with the ease as if they were soft taco supremes from Taco Bell. As my rampage continues various men exchange words and share laughs…clearly all surrounding the large ginger giant very much out of place. It’s at this very moment that I realize I’m tired of Sumatra. I realize I haven’t had a decent conversation over a meal in days. Wait, I haven’t had any conversation whatsoever over a meal in days. I’m ready to get to Singapore. I’m ready to get on the backpacker trail again. I’m ready to get off the relatively un-beaten path.

We drive through the night. Nothing to see. Impossible to sleep. All you can do is let your mind wander and fantasize about the shower when you get to Singapore….

At 4am our bus pulls over. Words are exchanged between my driver and that of another mini-bus. Handshakes and hugs are exchanged and suddenly I’m being ushered to the other bus. Go with the flow of the Dharma River, right Bobby? The only seat on the new bus…middle…front row. No sleep will be had until I reach Dumai. 5am….5:15am…5:30am…the sky starts to brighten…haven’t slept…5:45am…where is this town…6:00am…6:15am…6:32am…Dumai. THANK THE LORD.

Fingers still tinted red with curry from dinner… awake for 22 hours…smelly…and in need of my toothbrush…I disembark in an oil town that serves no other purpose for the traveler than as a pass-though. There is no earthly reason to spend any more time in the grim city of Dumai then is necessary to buy a ticket and board a ferry…which is exactly the next challenge. Within minutes I’m handing over $200,000 rupiah to what seems like a trustworthy type and being issued a ticket for the 7am ferry to Batam, Indonesia. Minutes later I’m back in a new cramped bus heading off to the docks, the sky now completely bright and the streets alive with locals. Ten minutes later I’m walking down a gangplank to a beat-up double-decker ferry. Hells yeah! I board, find my seat, stow my bag and pop out to the rear deck for air. Oil tankers fill the background, deckhands hurling luggage and sacks of produce from the pier to the ferry fill the foreground. Its 8am and people are still coming boarding. I’m 12 hours in, snacking on local fruit, leaning on a railing, exchanging smiles with deckhands and babies below, and (to state the obvious) the only white guy in sight. It’s brilliant. It’s a moment.

If only there was a cameraman…

Its 8:30am, we throw off our lines, and motor out of the harbor. I find my seat and crash. Hard. The ferry from Dumai to Batam is 7 hours. Thankfully there are no potholes or blind turns on the Straits of Melaka that separated Indonesia from Malaysia. The 7 hours pass by like they were 2. On the final stretch I gaze out the window and see a skyline: Singapore. I immediately bolt to the top deck and fresh air. A burst of adrenaline fires through you. You’re almost there…

*This is what 20 hour of Sumatran land & sea travel + zero sleep will do to your face…

We park in the island of Batam, a mere 45 minutes from Singapore. I buy a one-way ticket to the birthplace of the Sling, inhale my last Bintang, throw down lunch, and am left with only $11usd worth of unused rupiah. You smile cuz you’re getting good at this. Clear customs, walk down another gangplank, kiss the ground (at this point who really cares?), say goodbye to Indonesia and board a ferry for mainland Asia. Its 4pm. The as-yet-incomplete travel days stretches to 20 hours.

The ferry is not crowded. I have the top side deck to myself. We motor out of port and head north, the Singapore skyline clear as day. The afternoon clouds have parted and the sun feels remarkable. The ferry is full throttle. Suddenly a deckhand appears beside you. He unties a rope, lowers a flag and raises another.

“What is that?”

“Immigration flag. We’re now in Singapore water.”

“How can you tell?”

He points to the port side and a tiny rocky island we’ve now just passed. It houses a small lighthouse and the marks the international boundary between the 3rd world and the 1st world.

You throw on your $2uds pair of shades bought on the street in Java. Your hair is completely matted back by the wind. You put your hands behind your head, tilt your head towards the sun, take a deep breath, and smile ear to freaking ear. And there it is. You’ve done it. You’ve done Indonesia. Talk about confidence building. What a moment in the afternoon sun.

If only there was a cameraman…

Welcome to Singapore: A Pleasant Place to Shop. I clear customs and find myself in a mall surrounded by every luxury and convenience that New York or LA or London could offer. I find my HSBC atm, withdraw new funny money, navigate the Singapore metro (might as well be the Uptown 6 train) to the eastern suburbs, flag a taxi for the last 2 kilometers, walk to the apartment gate, hit the buzzer…walk past the infinity lap pool and into a four-story, million-dollar apartment that will be my free home for the next 4 days (it’s good to know people that know people…Fred Clark. Taylor Hurt. You are The Man(s)).

It’s almost 6 o’clock when I drop my bag. 22 hours. Two mini-buses. Two ferries. Two metro lines. One taxi. One epic story.

Who needs a cameraman…

En Route…

Ten hour mini-bus ride to Dumai.

Eight hour ferry to Batam.

45 minute ferry to Singapore.

Stage 1 commences in T-minus 90 minutes…

Hello mainland Asia.

So long Indonesia. Its been real.

Its been…

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=113857108228539669434.000475cd617df8978ac81&z=5

Trans-Sumatran Highway: A Game of Inches

It is a nearly impossible task to do justice to the complete and utter misery that was the last 24 hours of travel. Near impossible, but I’ll try to capture the suffering and discomfort. The 14 hour bus journey from hell from Danau Toba to Bukittinggi as described in bullet points…

• The Trans-Sumatran Highway is not a highway. Its just a road. In parts it wouldn’t qualify for even that title. The road, at least the 500km we drove, didn’t have a single straight stretch of track anywhere longer than 1km. Think about that. The best way I can describe it is to picture the twists and turns of the Pacific Coast Highway (Rt. 1) just north or south of San Francisco. Those hairpin turns high on the cliffs overlooking the beautiful Pacific and rocky death below. Now reduce the quality of the road by 50%. Narrow it from two lanes to one and a half. And surround it by jungle.
• The route: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=113857108228539669434.000475b602c895b6fb944&z=7
• The drivers have absolutely no concept of risk versus return. Speed is paramount and safety an afterthought. Close your eyes and imagine sitting in a Greyhound bus glued to the window as your bus driver navigates the PCH in a fullsize coach bus…at 50mph. I’m not embellishing here. The speed was horrifying. The driver was some demented hybrid of Mario Andretti and Evel Knievel.
• Due to the speed and “S” like nature of the road, all objects on the floor constantly shifted from left to right. Right to left. When brakes were needed: back to front. Upon immediate acceleration: front to back. Objects included but not limited to garage bags, trash bins, empty soda bottled, etc.
• I was the last row on the right side, positioned just in front of the john. The toilet was an Asian style squat toilet. As such there was a giant container of clean water used to flush. It took about an hour before the turns and speed got so fierce the water started splashing over the container sides and on the floor. “Dear God people, keep that door closed at all costs…”
• The bus left at 2pm. It broke by 3pm. By 5pm we were in valleys that time seemed to have forgot. Majestic rice fields going off into the distance only to disappear into the valley wall miles away. The beauty is nice but all you can think about is the fact that driving on the valley floor means you’ll inevitably have to climb out of the valley. And that means back into the hills…
• Any shotty cavity work preformed by any of my dentists over the years would have been exposed last night due to the ultra violent jarring of the bus as it flew over unsealed roads at 100kph for a cumulative total of between 8-10 hours. I felt like a astronaut on the launching pad. Face, torso, limbs…all jiggling nonstop. My jaw hurts just a tad today.
• Thankfully I had eaten a small breakfast. The poor chubby kid several rows up was not so lucky. The vomiting started at 5pm. By 9pm he was dry heaving (nothing left in his tank). By 1am he sounded like a dog whimpering. It was horrible. Thankfully no smell, and his pain did bring the slightest bit of comic relief.
• On that note: I couldn’t think of a worse punishment for a severely hungover individual than this bus. Forget jail time. Liquor someone up and lock them in the bathroom for 14 hours. Who needs capital punishment?
• We started in the northern hemisphere and terminated in the southern. At that latitude the sun goes down at 6:30pm like clockwork. I’ve never dreaded nightfall so bad. As the sun set in the mountains to the west…and hauling @ss through the jungle in a bullet on wheels with reckless abandon…I felt like Martin Sheen heading up the river in Apocalypse Now. I mean we’re headed like a bat out of hell into the dark jungle and we’re now 4-5 hours away from anything that resembles civilization. That was a very lonely sunset.
• I limited my water intake for several reasons. 1). I didn’t want it to come up. 2). It would inevitably mean I’d have to enter The Cave at some point. That moment finally came after sundown when I couldn’t hold it any longer. Miraculously the bus pulled over to pick someone up. I jumped at the (stationary) opportunity. Never have I peed so quickly, but as I’m heading down the homestretch I can hear the engines come alive. We take off and I brace myself. The door flies open. I zip and leap out of the cave as the latrine tsunami gathers force.
• Like the ride from Medan, people just pass. Its horrible. But its just what they do. I think 35 passes per hour over 14 hours is pretty accurate. That’s a good 500 passes. Each played out exactly the same:
  • Pre-pass: 1-5 honks. “Hey, car/taxi/bus/truck/motorbike…out of my way. Here I come ready or not…”
  • Lane shift.
  • Acceleration.
  • Mid-pass: 1-5 honks. “Hey, car/taxi/bus/truck/motorbike…you better slow down and let me back over because there is a massive truck coming at me at 100km and I need to get back in my lane in 3…2…1…”
  • Abrupt lane swerve.
  • Post-pass: 1 horn. “I beat you. Who’s next?”
  • Acceleration.
  • Repeat…for 14 unmerciful hours….
• To complete the surround-sound experience (vomiting monster to the front & latrine tsunami behind) the 60 year old man sleeping three seats across on the last row would produce a cough every 30 minutes with Old Faithful-like consistency. The sound was unlike anything I’d ever heard, but with each eruption I couldn’t help imagining a black cloud of bubonic-plague smoke come out as well.
• Oh yeah. They had no problem smoking on the bus. But really that was the least of the worries.
• At about 9pm the AC becomes a problem. Its too cold to sleep. Plus the overhead lights don’t work so you can’t read (my torch is in my bag, captured in the bowels of the bus). So really all you can do is watch the clock slowly tick by and count down the minutes until 6am. Talk about torture.
• At 9:30pm we pull into the obligatory middle of nowhere bus/diner stop. Numerous buses are parked. People everywhere. Its a scene. Kids running around. Merchants selling fruit. Old men chain smoking their lives away. And off walks a 6’1” giant. Kind of used to this by now. All eyes turn to me. I’m too tired to smile. I’m hungry. I walk in and sit down next to the mother and son seated across from me on the bus. I wave my hands and plates of rice, chicken, and tuna appear…along with a spoon and fork. Following the others I dig in and start shoveling food into my mouth…with my right hand. I polish off everything and win a few points from the onlookers. I walk outside and pull the old “hey little kid, watch me as I make this green handkerchief disappear” trick. Suddenly 15 adults are smiling and throwing me these puzzled smiles. And the little kids multiply like Gremlins after midnight. God those are fun moments.
• Back on the bus and a little prayer that the food doesn’t act up. Cuz if it were to come out (either way) its going to be the worst experience of my life.
• At 11pm the speakers come alive with music. You’ve got to be f’in joking me. Everyone is trying to sleep, but no one does a thing. No chance. I’m not dealing with this. Last straw. I walk to the front and wave my arms. A few minutes later the music stops.
• I catch the time at 11:46pm and think of Dave Rose & Company drunkenly raising beers as player introductions commence inside Raven Stadium (12:46pm EST Sunday afternoon). I look at my surroundings and smile.
• 12am to 4am were horrible. I must have tried 30 different configurations to find a comfortably sleeping position. No joy. I’m a zombie.
• 4am the bus stops. Someone says “Bukit” and I realize, wait, perhaps the hell is over? Are we really here (2 hours early)? We are. I get a taxi to a hostel. Wake up the guy, find a bed, and shut my eyes at 5am.
• No joke…at 5:01am the morning prayer calls begin BLASTING from the loudspeakers all over town. I can’t help but laugh. Ear plugs in. Slumber.
• Can’t wait to never do that again…….until next month (probably).

Get me to Singapore.

“Found one of your passports to Sumatra, I missed you by about a week at Fiji…”

What has transpired since Jakarta ? Much and little.

Wednesday October 7th:

Up early and time to do irreversible lung damage by simply breathing. Jakarta is more than just a “city.” The tag doesn’t do it justice. If it had ten 50-story buildings, it might as well had one hundred. Jakarta is (cue dramatic drums: bum bum buuuummmm)…a MEGACITY.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_by_population

It apparently resides at #2 on the list of urban population centers after Tokyo and before New York .

I consume the lavish free breakfast at the hostel, tea and dry toast, and head for a cocktail at one of “The World’s Best Bar.” Its 8am. First off this “Best Bar” accolade was bestowed by Newsweek magazine, which I suppose is akin to having a group of MIT students choose and present the ESPY for Year’s Best NHL Goal.

I get a ride to the harbor a good 5 kilometers away. Means of transport: 2

1). A 3-wheeled black-smoke-belching motorized somethingorother that can only be described with a visual.

2). A taxi, which only became necessary when the above mentioned Mini-Dragon was not allowed on the express road.

I get out at the intersection of Hood & Slum and walk into Café Batavia. First customer…

The Café Batavia (http://www.cafebatavia.com/) might as well have walked off the set of Casablanca , hopped a tramp steamer from Morocco to Java, and changed its name from Rick’s to Batavia . The two story bar, dripping in old British naval charm, is just flat out cool. Built entirely from well polished teak wood, complete with those Panama-style ceiling fans, it’s the kind of place you walk into, grab a stool, and say to yourself “what century is it and what continent are we on?” I immediately fired off a text to the one person whose phone could actually receive it (Tom O’Neil). Every inch of wall real estate is covered in portraits. The original 007 next to Ronald Reagan next to a vintage BMW 1930 motorcycle print next to Mickey Rourke (what?) next to Sir Winston Churchill. And on and on.

I have a black coffee and a Borneo Sunrise (have one) and enjoy my moment of peace. Cuz when you walk out that door its back to Jakarta . On foot I head towards the harbor. I don’t know why. On the way I get offered a lift from a 55 years old on the back of his bicycle. When in Rome . I get to the harbor, look around, blight as far as the eye can see, make a 180 degree turn, and start off on foot to walk the 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ? Kilometers back to city center. I take a picture every 30 minutes when my phone alarm goes off. One day those should find their way to the screen.

Same drill, different city. Loads of smiles and lots of “helllllo misssster.” There was ONE guy that didn’t smile when I made eye contact (he had mob written all over him, so I decided to let it go. Whatever, I’ll take my .999 batting average).

About noon I get back to the city center and Freedom Square . Freedom Square’s crowning attraction is the ultra phallic 450 foot National Monument in its center. It’s blatant. Through the park and pass the heavily fortified US Embassy. Its nice walking by and exchanging afternoon pleasantries in your native language. “Selamat sore” gets traded for “good afternoon” with the big American soldier carrying the big American gun in front of the big American security wall. God bless. USA ! USA ! USA !

I spend the early afternoon getting lost in a state-of-the-art shopping complex (i.e. MEGAMALL) that’s easily 4x as large as Towsontowne. In the city center, where space is at a premium, it shoots up 8 stories. I could still be wandering around 6 days later and not have checked off the upper floors. Other stuff happened and more stuff and another old guy gave me a lift and more stuff.

Two nights and one full day in Jakarta are all one needs. Jakarta : B- on the face. B+ on the body. Overall: B. Too much? Time to get out.

Thursday October 8th:

I pack. I shower. I eat toast. I throw on 30lbs and walk out the door. The walk from my hostel to Gambir train/bus station is rather nice. Only catch is you have to cross a main transportation artery, which might as well be the crocodile-filled Nile River . It takes time. Minutes go by and there is no normal stop in traffic. Then a gap opens and you dash, but then three bikes you never saw appear out of no where and force you to retreat. Its comedy. I get to Gambir, buy a $1usd bus ticket to the airport, and pray that the 4 hours I’ve given myself to make my 1pm flight is enough time in the Third World . It is. Bus takes 40 minutes, check-in takes 30, so I’m left with a healthy balance of time to consume as many Us Weekly, In Touch, Star, and People trash mags as I can. When you’re devoid of Americana Pop Culture for weeks on end, you can’t help but utterly consume the details surrounding the tragic death of…… Jessica Simpson’s dog.

Sumatra is the world’s 6th largest island, with a population a quarter of Java. Whenever tragic headlines caused by natural disasters mention Indonesia , they usually surround Sumatra . Be it earthquake ( Padang ) or tsunami (12.26.04), Sumatra is rough. There is no train network to speak of and the loose bus network relies entirely on an unforgiving stretch of two-lane highway that goes from its southern tip to its northern and known as (cue dramatic drums: bum bum buuuummmm)…THE TRANS-SUMATRAN HIGHWAY. More on that later. Why fly? To willingly subject yourself to a Jakarta – central Sumatra bus trip, given the laughably cheap cost of air travel, would be like hopping a hobo-filled freight train from Baltimore to Denver when Southwest was running $30 one-way specials. It’s a no-brainer.

So I fly the 2 hours up to Medan in northern Sumatra .

My 12 hours in Medan , Indo’s 3rd largest city, will forever be anchored to 4 memories:

1. Looking across the airport baggage claim area and realizing I had 10” on the 300 locals. It’s just a straight up awesome feeling. Either I’m growing or they’re shrinking.
2. Three orders of chicken tiki masala in Little India.
3. Losing to a chubby local in a one-on-one arcade car racing game. Big loss for America , as about a dozen people cheered us on.
4. Riding in a motorcycle sidecar ( Medan ’s form of local transport) in the pouring rain.

Friday October 9th:

I’m big on traffic safety. Sadly no one else is on the Trans-Sumatran Highway . I arranged a 5 hour ride ($6usd) through the hotel in a new Toyota SUV from Medan to Lake Toba . We were two hours late leaving, got a flat tire along the way, must have passed between 100-200 cars, and were not passed a single time. Thus I can say with complete certainty that we were the fastest car on the road. It was white knuckle the whole way.

That’s all I care to say about it. When we got to Toba I got my bag, walked to the driver, extended my hand, looked him in the eye, and said very slowly:

“You drive like an asshole. You are not very bright. You drive to fast. You are going to die soon.”

At best he might have recognized “asshole” and “die.” At best.

Myself and Pea, a 33 year old German with a cute lisp who shared the drive from Medan , take a $0.70usd ferry to an island (Tuk Tuk) in the middle of the largest lake in SE Asia and set ourselves up at the “nicest resort on the island” for $6usd a night.

I play chess for two straight days, drink tea, and decompress with a great view after a week that included:

* One 17-hour bus ride.
* One 1-hour ferry ride (from claustrophobic hell).
* One 100km motorbike ride.
* One 9 hour train ride.
* The world’s 2nd largest city.
* One 2-hour plane ride.
* One 5 hour taxi ride (from hell).

Decompression is now over. At noon today I take the one-hour ferry back to the mainland and pick up the 15 hour bus to Bukittinggi, where I’ll spend two nights, before taking the 5 hour bus to Pekanbaru, before taking the 6 hour ferry to Pulau Batam, where I’ll catch the 30 minute ferry to a tiny slice of the First World: SINGAPORE.

Oh, and the only seat available on the 15 hour bus ride from hell: next to the john. Singapore sounds pretty nice right about now.

Appreciate the positive feedback from folks. Thanks for reading.