Spanish travelers, Lovers, Boddhisatvas.

 

 19. Arturo and Mariana: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Yes, the best bamboo bridge did wash out last April and the concrete one has gone up, but it’s still cool when you’re walking home at night and come to the guard rail to haggle with the shirtless teens for the 40 cent one way tax, promise again to play them a song or two on the ancient guitar if they’d put some tuneable strings on the thing. You can always go back across the other bamboo bridge to avoid the tax, but best to catch this in daylight, as you’d also have to negotiate cowfields on the other side. And it’s all about the other side. Irish Joe is still there running the Maylyn with his Laotian wife and their brood, like some genius crumudgeon pirate guesthouse owner. Yes there are more buildings going up in town all the time, and you have to be a bit more slick with the man. But there is still all of the joy of before. And I’d forgotten about the butterflys, as Maylyn is essential just one giant garden. Oh, plus shelling, I honestly awoke to the sound of shelling yesterday morning….
The miltary is practicing some exercises up the valley. Rumor has it a farang was picked up while trying to enter the area, but you figure he might have been holding, which is foolish of course. Still, also evidence of a sort of checkpoint. An area the military doesn’t want foriegners in right now. Also rumors from Joe of Mong rebels, but you never know when he’s talking shit, and that’s half the fun of him. But let me tell you there is no mistaking the sound of artiltery and short machine gun bursts. More exciting than anything to worry about. And it wasn’t going on this morning…
Got some shots via Dutchman Marnix of the amazing Nang Khai sculpture garden made by Luang Pu Boun Luea Sourirat. Manunderstress saw the one on the Laos side in Vientiene but I opted for the newer one on the Thai side. Plus I got the added bonus of the other building, through which we toured with a heavy accented Thai man’s barely discernable recitation of the life story of the wacked-out artist. We saw multiple portraits with heavily stenciled-in eyebrows, photos of him in the hospital after falling from one of the huge sculptures, his bloody spitum on a framed snot rag, various buddhas that had been in his family for centurys; banged some gongs, and finally, there in another room, inside a giant snowglobe covered in chirstmas lights, the man himself, some ten years gone: ‘no formaldihyde’ ‘no pre zer va ti’ as the guide explained. It was so fucking bizarre I didn’t even think to urge Marnix to photo. Kind of thing you couldn’t capture from our angle outside ‘the chamber’ anyway, and there was a really holy vibe we were trying to respect too, so no photo – but unforgetable. You’ve heard of ‘man as godking’? This was ‘artist as godartist/holy man’. Far out.
Came up into Laos with Marnix and French/English ‘George Verat’ from Leon, great guys both. Also, it was time to move on from the Mutt Me guesthouse in Nang Khai, getting caught up in minor social shit, not writing enough, meeting lots of great folks but somehow never getting one recorded for the podcast. Really, eager to be here. Now for some writing and some R+R. I am so pleased this little taste of heaven from before still exists and I get to soak it, and the river tubing and the beerlao and everything else, up, for a nice long time…

Swedish traveler, audio and visual designer, sedate ladies man.

 

 18. Peter Olausson: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

That last night in BKK was an absurd party I’m not going into right now. On three hours of sleep in morning train station ran into Spaniards Arturo and Mariana, rode with them to Ayutthya. 1.2 hour ride for 65 cents. Just stayed up anyway and rented bicycles to check the ruins. Got some sleep, did an intervew. ‘Tonys’ is a great guest house but under construction still: morning hammering which did not go well with my evening hammering, planks constantly being ripped up and replaced, at one point the stairs to my room were gone – so I ‘got monkey with it’ already three stories up. If you didn’t know already, American lawyers can go fuck themselves because personal responsibility is the way of the Tao.
But as the Spaniards moved on there was always a fresh crop of good folk, not interviewed so I give’m brief descriptions now- young German Nicole on her first trip abroad; ‘Mr. Cha Cha’ from Holland with the disabled leg; James the Aussie hippy who had a near death experience 26 years ago and now feels ghosts, goes on insane walkabouts, Dirty Three fan! (sadly too rare among Ozzies), is the quietest talker I have ever met, but managed to annoy his female temp-travel companion enough that when he took off she stayed a day to drink with me. Lovely Lothlorien from Lester, England but with royal Rom blood, essentially healthy but willing to climb inside the bottle. Meanwhile the lau cao and Sang Som are running riot releasing djinis within, me always cool with my friends but quick to ‘get spikey’ as Lothlorien put it, first with Brit Gen Y english teacher then a blonde Monanta cunt – also a teacher, each of whom butted in univited on our festivities I might add. Decided it was best I move on.

Lothlorien and I flirted a bit but both knew it wasn’t really in the cards. Said goodbye at the station, bedding down in Khorat which is very much just a Thai city without farang, but a nice place to break up the train ride. Hilarious tuk tuk driver ‘Cookie’ had good english and wanted to take me on a boom boom adventure, but also pay for his ho, as he hadn’t had any in three months. Read my lips Cookie: “I am laughing at your ‘pain’” Ate entire rotissery chicken which was worrisome, but stayed down. Got back into the writing.

Seems my camera has shit the bed, and I seem to remember some moment of whiskey spillage that may relate to this, but perhaps I can extract the SD card to use it in a borrowed one or buy one here in town. Think I’ll rest up a bit and catch up on the writing before ‘the crossing’. Nang Khai isn’t as cheap as I’d like it to be, but comfortable and I’m learning many tricks to keep the budget down.
The guy who built the wacked out Buddha garden on the other side of the river also did one here, but now I have to figure out some way to photograph it, as I’m heading to see it tomorrow. Apparently there is no website to link to….

Highlights so far: started a chaste relationship with a lovely woman from Surin named Oh. She moved me out of the farang Banglamphu backpackers ghetto and into a room next to hers at a non-farang hotel (she put in the good word for me with mgmt.) nearby where I have triple the space, my own bath (have already adjusted to the asian/french style toilet – which my ol’ buddy Carla Jones-Antonelli always claimed was better for your health anyway…), and the all important electrical outlet right in the room. Not to mention a cultural ambassador right next door.

I’ve been writing! Nothing stellar yet but bit by bit each day.

Trying to get an interview for the podcast with Gaa the lesbian pimp, whom I first met here 2 years ago, but she’s often off hiding with her new lovely or one or both of us are too drunk when we run into one another.

Got fooled by my first katoey (ladyboy) but it was nothing like what ‘Mick the Crazy Irishman’ had to go through in Trainspotting: the morning I met Oh, she had been up all night at this one bar on soi Rambuttri, and I was still in a period of only being able to sleep 4 hours at a time – which between the jetlag and apnia still sort of continues. There were all of these wasted french around, including this one complete psycho dude, who hit some x-boyfriend in the head with a bottle, so we quickly split to flirt and shoot pool at another place. With us came her fat friend Pai. A few hours later, when we were all buzzed and it was decided she’d move me into her hotel and Pai got up from her lounging on the sofa and was bitterly storming off because we were getting along so well, Oh gave chase and brought Pai back, who quickly hit me up for 100 baht cabfare. Later when I asked about seeing Pai again to get the money (though this is less than $3 and I essentially had kissed it off as I handed it over) Oh made the following confession.
“Pai owes me 200 baht also”

“Well that ain’t right darlin’. She said she ran a stall and she’d get me back. I will be leaving town eventually…”

“Whenever I ask her for this, she say she don’t have. What I can do?”

“Well we can be in her face until the money comes”

“This is usually way with ladyboy, they just drinking and eating ask for money money all the time”

“WTF! Pai is a ladyboy!”

“Yes, you not know this?”

“Your telling me that ugly fat chick is actually an ugly fat dude?”

Oh was laughing at me. “Yes you not could tell? You not know this?”

Rumor has it Vang Vieng is already past it’s prime, the bamboo bridge gone, the swell bamboo bungaloo’s gone and concrete highrises going up, the entire town overrun with Israeli’s. (Go ahead and think me an anti-semite by making this statement, then YOU come on over and deal with these people. I assure a very high percentage are obnoxious.) But I’m going anyway. I have to do a visa run, as my trip is 35 days and visa only good for 30. I get a fresh 30 upon return to Thailand (but you can only do this three times in a row, then must wait 6 months and pay more money).

I threw out the idea to Oh of going back to her home in Surin with me, as I’ve never been there, but she’s waiting around town to get her old job back at a guesthouse. So this most likely won’t happen.

Sunday night happened to be New Year and traditionally evey good buddhist buys these little flower boats and put’s them on the river with a candle inside and sends them off. The big river by the park was completely swamped with farang and Thai’s, but we found a quiet back canal where a family she knew ran a stall and put our flower boats in there. The tradition is to put finger nail clippings and bits of hair in the boat, as you are symbolicly letting go of last years bad karma. Everyone got a kick out of me trimming my goatee a bit and putting it in my flower boat. There were a bunch of adorable kids running around, excited about operating the hoist that put the boats in the foul smelling canal. The host guy kept switching out cassettes of this awesome scratchy Thai music. Oh and I prayed together and sent our ‘old bad’ away down the river.

My new favorite breakfast is a glass of cold black thai tea and an authentic bannana shake, which together come to about 80 cents US. I have yet to experience any intestinal discomfort, aside from some rumbling on the plane, but I have a bit of a sore throat this morning. It’s hilarious how Oh is always complaining about this being the cold season and she’s always in goose bumps, while I naturally haven’t stopped sweating since I got off the plane.

Click the Flickr badge on the right for a few photos.

I really must apologize for the lack of podcasts. Sometimes things just turn out that way, haven’t put anything up in over two months. But I’m off to Asia again and hopefully will get some ‘field interviews’. So you can expect less frequent blog posts here too. I plan to come back with a chunk of writing – out of my head and into the land of 1’s and 0’s, which is what you say these days instead of ‘out onto the paper’.
Here’s the final scene of Factotum. I’m sure this won’t stay up long, but when I saw this, it was like the Ghost of Bukowski was kicking me in the gut. I knew he was right. I’ve been playing games with myself, commited to part of the fight but not necessarily the right part, no pun.