Flashpacking

Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, have in recent years become a fashionable travel destination for affluent, college-aged Westerners.  I was dimly aware of this fact before my first trip to Thailand, but it came into sharp focus the first time I wandered, confused (Thailand? Right?), through the jungle of white faces that is Bangkok’s Khao San Road.  This group, with tans that are too even, hair that’s too well maintained, and sunglasses that are not fake, is one that I try to avoid.    Maybe I’m a class warrior and maybe I’m judging books by covers, assuming that if a man wears Gucci sandals then I have little in common with him, but when I do sit down with this segment of the traveling population (I’ve been calling them Springbreakers,  Sophie calls them Flashpackers.), they always seem to get a little too drunk, laugh a little too loudly, and talk in tones that betray too much intensity, or not enough.  If I have to choose, and I often do, I tend to gravitate toward the hippies, or occasionally the French, who are apparently immune from this phenomenon.       

       

In Thailand I was under the impression, for some reason, despite taking note of the numerous T-shirts proudly worn by golden-skinned, freshly-manicured revelers which advertised that the wearer had indeed been to an impoverished Asian nation or two (you know, just in case it didn’t come up in conversation organically), that maybe the Flashpacker set wouldn’t be as prevalent in Cambodia.   As it turns out, they’re everywhere, wearing too little clothing, overpaying for everything, stumbling down the moonlit beach in a haze of Mai-Tais and weed smoke.   But then again perhaps their numbers are distorted in my mind.  It could just be that they stand out when viewed in contrast with the poverty here in a way that they did not in wealthier Thailand, and they seem to disturb me in direct proportion to that degree of contrast.     

The truth is, as much as I rebel against the idea, I have a great deal in common with the Springbreakers.  I have enough money to swing through a suffering nation, see the sights, and return, undisturbed, to my comfortable life.  It’s an unfortunate reality for me that whenever I follow the trail of my disdain back to its source, I always seem to find it’s the reflection of my own privilege and apathy that I can’t stomach, that causes me to roll my eyes in contempt at the blond college student with the shaved chest who sits down next to me at the beech bar and orders the same beer as we look out onto the same ocean, brushing off the overtures of the same beggars, as I hope desperately that I’m not really like him.   But even as I sit pondering our mutual need for salvation, I hear him speak a little Khmer (Cambodian) and when I look over, I see him smiling and joking with the children selling beads and suddenly I think maybe neither of us is beyond redemption yet.   Travel changes us, even if we resist it, and however bankrupt our lives were before we left, no matter what soulless occupation we plan to go back to, we will carry with us a lingering awareness of a world that is larger and more complicated than the one we see on MTV-Cribs.   And so with a shrug and a smile I raise my glass to the smooth-chested stranger and silently toast our mutual opportunity to leave this beautiful country a little wiser than we came.             

Touristing

Sophie sorted out her passport issues with greater efficiency than either of us expected and so it worked out that I had company on my journey to the must-see Temples of Angkor.  Everyone else was taking a tuk-tuk.  I wanted to take a tuk-tuk.  I insisted it was quite far.  But Sophie has a habit, or perhaps a policy, of avoiding the conventional way of doing things, and I am not particularly difficult to convince, so while all of the other tourists were catching tuk-tuks and being shuffled from one temple to the next at their leisure, we negotiated a couple of reasonably functional bicycles and headed off for the 40 kilometer round trip. Right away we managed to take the wrong route, using my trusty compass to determine a heading that took us straight for the temples, but managed to miss the ticket booth by 4 kilometers.

The Temples are remarkable, well worth the painful 20 USD price of admission that had me skeptical at first. They are intricate and massive and mysterious; almost rivaling Machu Picchu in their
other-worldly strangeness, hinting at the collective will of ancient and powerful people working at purposes far beyond my comprehension. I loved it. I loved playing the tourist; posing, taking photos that captured nothing, cycling from temple to temple, shaking off tour guides and drink-sellers. When my legs, which are apparently far from cycle-ready, started cramping horribly, I barely minded that we were still 15k from home. We managed to make it to the last temple on our rout in time for what turned out to be an unrestrained fiery spectacle of a sunset, then find our way, exhausted and uncertain, through the darkened streets of Siem Reap, back to our 8 USD guesthouse; an upgrade made just for one night, complete with the cherished extravagance of A/C. I started to love Cambodia a little that day.

Today I'm on a beach. The water is turquoise and luke-warm. The sand is white. Everyone wants to sell me fake Ray-Bans and beaded necklaces and hashish. It's another tourist town, like any other, but I don't mind it for now. Sitting in a beach-side bar, listening to the sound of waves breaking makes up for the lack of authenticity, for the lack of any real experiential connection with the culture or people of Cambodia. I wanted the beach and so here I am, and it's a pretty nice place to be.

Sustenance Again

I averaged 10.61 USD spent per day during my forty-one days in the Kingdom of Thailand, including bus travel, excessive beer purchases, and my visa extension.  I count this as a victory.  It wasn’t as hard as I expected, primarily because the cheapest food one can get in Thailand is still fantastic.   One can visit any street stall and get a hot, fresh plate of pad thai for a maximum of 1 USD.   Rice with curry is about the same.  And it’s all brilliant.  I know I said I enjoyed the food in Nepal, and to a large degree I did, but in Nepal I still felt compelled to indulge in the occasional 4 USD falafel and hummus at the upscale Israeli restaurant then order a whiskey and cola to go with it.  In Thailand I felt no such need.  I was always satisfied with the most inexpensive options available and, conveniently enough, those options were everywhere.   

Cambodia, so far, appears to be a little trickier.  Although I can buy a fifth of Cambodian whiskey for 1.50 USD, it’s extremely difficult to find a meal for less than 2 USD.  Last night I found chicken and fried noodles for a dollar, but it was rubbery and bland.  This morning I found noodle soup for 1.25 USD, but to do so I had to hike down the side-streets in the baking heat, then convince myself that the meat I was served was no more than two days old.  But then, on my way back to my room, feeling a bit concerned about the future of my precious budget, I noticed some delicious looking sandwiches that were selling for a dollar.  A minute later I saw big, fat, steamed dumplings that I felt certain would be cheap.  And so I reminded myself that these things take time.  By the time I cross the next border I’ll have the discipline of living cheap in this country firmly established, just in time to figure it out again in Vietnam.          

Holiday in Cambodia

Due to the apparent incompetency of certain German bureaucrats Sophie had to remain in Chiang Mai and wait for her passport, so on Friday I boarded the night bus, alone again, and headed for Bangkok with the hope of catching the 8am bus to Siem Reap, home of the reportedly mind-blowing Temples of Angkor.   My bus was scheduled to arrive in BKK at 5am so I assumed I would have ample time, but when it arrived at 8:30am I was forced to resign myself to the unexpected expense of a night in Bangkok, this time not spent in an utter shithole.  I found myself a guest house in the heart of Touristland for 7 USD, went out to find street-cart chicken and rice for .75 USD and, having done so, proceeded to make friends with an Aussie philosophy major, a patron of the same stall, who afterwards joined me for 8.50 USD worth of beers, destroying my daily budget.  But sometimes one has to go off budget to make new friends.   I wish that were not the case, but there’s just no denying it. 

I bought my ticket for a series of buses that would depart at 7:30am, taking me from Bangkok, across the Cambodian border and into Siem Reap.  Lonely Planet had advised against doing it this way, advising the savvy traveler to take a bus to the border then find local transport on the other side.  They warned that the tourist bus service will make sure you are uncomfortable and late so that you’ll be too tired to refuse their commission-driven guest house recommendations.   They further warned that they will overcharge for “helping” with your visa.  Both concerns ended up being partially warranted, but my ticket was so inexpensive and convenient that I’d be hard pressed to say I should have done anything differently.   

About 5 kilometers from the border we stopped for lunch, at which time I was given a form to fill out for immigration and also given the hard-sell by the travel agent on the terrible problems I would have handling the tedium of the visa process myself.   Since he wanted to charge me 40 USD and I was pretty sure the visa would cost 25 USD, I politely refused his help, repeatedly.   Strangely bitter, he snatched the form I had already filled out, saying it belonged to him, and skulked off.  I was slightly apprehensive approaching the border, but although the immigration officers did make a half-hearted attempt to overcharge me, in the end I got my visa for 25 USD, which made me a little smug in the company of my bus-mates, most of whom had succumbed to the sales pitch.  Unfortunately, as LP had predicted, we did not arrive in Siem Reap until 8pm, four hours after the time I’d been promised, but there was no hard-sell on the guest house issue and I quickly found a clean comfortable bed for 5 USD per night.  

After an evening walking the streets and yet another street-cart meal, Siem Reap doesn’t seem so different from any number of Asian tourist towns and I find myself wondering if things are starting to blur together for me.  The bars and guesthouses are the same; possibly nicer than Nepal, but not maybe not as nice as Thailand.  The prostitutes are about the same as in Thailand, although perhaps a little more aggressive, taking any glance as an invitation to run over and rub my arm.  The drug dealers are about the same as in Nepal, using almost the same pitch, “Tuk Tuk? Guide? Motorbike?” Then loudly whispered, “Mareeejuana?”  But maybe I’m just tired from a long day of riding buses.  Ultimately I trust that the temples will be awe inspiring and that the subtle beauty of Cambodia will reveal itself to me slowly over the coming weeks.   For now I’m content to have a new sticker in my passport and time to kill within a new set of borders.  

Picture Me Rollin'

Day two of Songkran was similar to the first with the notable exception that this time we had wheels.  We had accepted an offer from Sophie’s massage teacher, Timi, to take us to town and drive us around in her pickup.  Having witnessed the formidable powers of trucks filled with water-combatants armed with fifty gallon drums, blocks of ice, water cannons and buckets, we were excited to deliver the same type of shock and awe.  Sadly, when we climbed in the back of our little Mazda we found only a six gallon bucket, a little ice, and a couple of tiny buckets which we were compelled to fill only half-way in order to increase our number of potential attacks.   When we hit the battlefield I was reminded of something I’d heard somewhere about bringing a knife to a gunfight.  Although we were able to get a couple of nice shots in on some unsuspecting and unarmed tourists and locals, we were woefully overmatched whenever another vehicle approached or when we passed a bar-front bunker.   Compounding our problems, Timi had an infuriating practice of slowing down as we approached one of these bunkers, most of which were equipped with unlimited ice water and powerful hoses, allowing them ample time to rain down a deluge upon our defenseless heads.   I asked her why she did this and she replied with a smile of complete innocence, “So you can play with them!”

Festivities

We both saw the advertisement for a two-day festival featuring reggae, ska, and international DJs playing house and trance.  We both thought it might be fun to go.  Sophie looked up the website, sent an email and soon enough we had an appointment to meet the boss along with the tantalizing promise of an opportunity to work eight hours for a couple of free passes to the festival, along with some food and drinks.  So we met Joe at a bar and he bought us a beer.  He seemed smooth in a way that made me suspicious, but then again the man organizes and promotes trance festivals, recruiting artists and making sure local law enforcement doesn’t enforce drug laws.  You can’t do that for a living and not sound a little bit slick.    

The set up process was a bit of a mess.  We were constantly running out of supplies like staples and rope then making due with whatever we found lying around.  The crew was the not-unexpected collection of international riff-raff , most of whom hadn’t seen their homeland in years, each with a set of skills applicable to the task at hand; the French bar-fighter handled security, the Russian tea-maker set up tents.  Sophie and I hung decorations and dug holes.  By the time we completed the first day’s work it looked passable.  By the time 3am rolled around, with at least 2000 guests reveling in a frenzy of lasers and strobes, twisting and bouncing along with some really rather excellent music, we felt an unwarranted pride, as if we had done it all ourselves, proud of the successful festival we had managed to pull off.    We woke up the next morning, had a couple of screwdrivers, slept half the day away in the chill-out lounge we were particularly proud of building, and proceeded to do the whole thing again.

After a day of rest we headed into Chiang Mai for the first day of Songkran, a festival not unlike Holi, but from my perspective a bit crazier.  All I knew about it before was that people throw water.  I was not truly prepared for the madness of every single person in town carrying buckets, beers, and water guns, driving around in pickups with barrels of ice-water, often with menthol additives for additional coldness, intent on soaking absolutely everyone in sight.  I rode to town hanging from the back of a packed pickup-taxi and was drenched by the time we were in sight of the real action; a moat-like canal that surrounds the center of Chiang Mai.  The moat was lined on both sides by thousands of locals and tourists and water was flying everywhere.   We grabbed a couple of buckets, complete with attached ropes, tossed them into the canal for ammo, and started throwing water.  That didn’t stop for six hours, but after a long weekend of very little sleep we weren’t really up for another sunrise.   We surrendered to the ice-water induced cold around 6pm and headed home for showers and beers.

A Friend

I've hesitated to be more specific about my traveling companion because I didn't want you, my patient reader, to get the wrong idea.  But in order to continue my policy of (almost) full disclosure, and (unqualified) complete honesty, I will offer these facts: I met a young woman, "Sophie", who hails from my ancestral home of Germany.  She has been traveling for three years and seems disinclined to stop at anytime in the near future.  She has offered several suggestions, as I have mentioned, that have placed us in odd little worlds outside of the comfort of my customary travel stops, and for this I am grateful. We have lately come to an agreement, since we share an affinity for budget lodging and an aversion to photo-ops at temples, to travel together for a little while.  Both being nomads (the label applies more readily to her, but for the moment I'll borrow it) we fully expect our paths to diverge in a week or a month, from one day to the next when we decide to go solo again or when we differ on our preferred destinations.  I don't know quite what to make of this.  I'm watchful for complications.  I'm slightly concerned pairing up will limit my new connections, make me complacent or cautious, but truthfully those problems have yet to manifest themselves.  And I'd be lying if I didn't admit that, at least for the now, it's pleasant to have a friend that lasts for more than one town.             

Visa Run

I've decided to linger in Chiang Mai for awhile.  There's some kind of two-day trance/hippie/dance all night/sleep in a tent type of festival out by the lake on the 10th and 11th that I somehow volunteered to help construct and decorate in exchange for free admission.  The prospect has me a little nervous as it's not really my crowd, but I have resolved to embrace the weirdness and enjoy whatever comes.  Then on the 13th the festival of Songkran begins, which as far as I can tell involves everyone drinking heavily and throwing water at strangers in the streets.  Chiang Mai is reportedly the best place to be for this maddness.   So I'm staying for awhile.  Which means I had to make a 4 hour, 40USD run to the Myanmar border, clear immigration, have lunch, then head back to Chiang Mai with an extra 15 days on my visa.  After Sonkran, Cambodia awaits.  Really this time.

The Detour Continues

My two nights in Mae Hong Son were an interesting mix of riding a scooter over the hills to various natural attractions and trying to be polite to our host.  My traveling companion's friend lives in a cluttered home without furniture. He cleared a spot in the storage room for us to sleep, but without a fan or mosquito net we struggled to find the right balance between opening the window for relief from the stifling heat and avoiding being eaten alive.  Our host spends eight months per year in this strange little house and the other four working at a high end wilderness lodge in Alaska.  He had long before taken all of the chairs out of his home so that his one-year old child would not climb on them and then fall off.  He babbled inanely the whole time we were in his presence.  When we left and thanked him for his hospitality he told us without apparent irony, "Yeah, I wish there were more people in the world like me."


The next stop was another suggestion from my traveling companion.  After a three hour bus ride we found ourselves at another organic farm, this one run by a Thai owner who welcomes guests, for a small fee, to come and work as much as they like, use the kitchen to prepare communal meals and, if they are so inclined, build their own bamboo hut and stay for free thereafter for as long as they like.  The place attracts a wide variety of hippys and vagabonds and there were twenty guest from all over the world when we arived, the most veteran of the bunch having already stayed for eight months.  My companion and I worked hard for one day, took it easy the next, drank a lot of local rice whiskey while a guitar was passed around the campfire, and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this odd little place. 

Today we took the advice of the vagabonds and decided to try hichhiking.  It took us fifteen minutes to be picked up by a truck driver who spoke no English but tried hard to make conversation anyway.  He drove us almost the full two and a half hours back to Chaing Mai, dropping us off just fifteen kilometers out of town.  Within five minutes of leaving the truck, a British expat picked us up in his SUV and drove us the rest of the way.