Southeast Asia
THURSDAY, 1/6/00: Do-list: 1) Buy little spiral notebooks, 2) Pick up laundry, 3) Pay bills and taxes, 4) Pack (read book), 5) Trim beard, 6) Wash dishes, 7) Call Pope, 8) Call Rita, 9) Deposit check and get $300, 10) Call Fred about car, 11) Set up TV-recording, 12) Sort pills, 13) TV 8-9. Called Jerry C. about HIS trip to this area: 1) GO to Angkor second time, alone. 2) WALK in back, OUT of Siem Reap town. 3) Hanoi: Breakfast soup on street. Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Water-puppet show. Opera House. 4) Bangkok: One-foot worshipped Buddha outside Hyatt Hotel, offer incense. 5) NEARBY restaurant "Spice Market" in Radisson (?) Hotel. 6) Angkor: Bayon, Ta Promh. 7) Chiangmai: JJ's Pancake "fun gay stuff" house, "Whole Earth Restaurant" in Teak House. 8) Bangkok: Wat Indrawihan's "Living Buddha." Call him back on my RETURN. Bed 10:20PM. 11:25 pee. Tired.
FRIDAY, 1/7/00: 2:40AM in session, "If death is bliss, 'Oh, yeses.'" I WOULD sacrifice myself to be new redeemer/enlightener/death-BRINGER. "Go to computer, do session, and die WITH us." 6:20 pee. 6:50 get out of bed. Do-list left: 4) Pack, 14) Shower, 15) Breakfast, 16) CHECK flight departure (no TIME!), 17) Radiator off, 18) Record phone message. Take $673.46 in cash. As always, VERY rushed. Ask FRED to check flight departure, saying we'll pick him up at 8:20AM. In my haste of packing I FORGET to put out deodorant and forget to PACK small tube of toothpaste I'd PUT out. Weighed bags but only recorded weights at start of notebook: Blue bag 10# + Green bag 17# = 27#. Into car 8:20, to Fred's 8:32. Airport 9:05 for $38. Pay Fred rest of $50: $31 that I note to subtract from my expenses, but which I forget to do. Check-in machine RUINS undeveloped film! Exchange films in bags to carry on. HOT! I get a WINDOW to Narita, but the plane is JAMMED to Bangkok. Checked in at 10. Large SLICE for thirst. Phone John's machine for my enormous leak last night in bathroom. Long line at gate, entry at 10:40. Board at 11, crowded. Move out 11:31. 50° in Tokyo. "Fourteen-hour flight, over Hudson Bay, Northwest Territories, Mackenzie Range, Nome, north of Aleutians, to Tokyo at 3:30PM. Now (12:15PM) 2:15AM in Tokyo." Cloudy till snowy land at 12:45! #11: 1:13, "Face" in lower-right---the planet is inhabited! Ice melted at lake-river outflow rapids. 1:25 cloudy again, at "dinner." #12: 1:30, delicate tracery visible WITH cracks? 2:10 finish "dinner" with TWO small bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon and lots of water-leads below. Discover that brown "line" that I thought was smog-horizon line is our SHADOW! I'm HAPPY! 2:30 HUGE water, few leads, Great Slave Lake? Two time zones of ten, so it probably IS. I discover I did NOT bring ZOOM lens! #14: 3:10, Great Slave Lake western ice pack, sunset pink. Sunset on LAND below about 3:20, 210 minutes or 1/4 way! 4:20 1/3 way, and rivers TOTALLY frozen. Guy OPPOSITE raises blind and sun shines ON me---we're "even" with it, turning INTO it; it may NEVER get dark! 4:30 guy raises shade, sun shines BEHIND me: we ARE "heading down." 5PM: MUST be distant coast, south of Alaska; cloudy again, damn! Sun HAS set, only "skyglow" on "lit" wingtip and jet-bottom. Then, as I write, it began to CLEAR, still over LAND. Movies were 007 and Runaway Bride with Roberts/Gere---no temptation to watch. TWISTIEST river with ox-bows on ox-bows! #15: 5:35 JUMBLE of lakes and rivers near coast of Alaska. Meringue Mountains and alligator-back hills. #16: 5:50, huge areas look SWEPT CLEAN of snow in river valleys or on lakes. #17: 6:20, REAL mountains. 6:50: halfway and bigger peaks are ROSY (and plane blue[?]). #18: 7:10, mountains are DUSTY. #19-20: 7:15, COAST. 7:50 (8 hrs!) go to john, socks WET from floor. 10:45 feel awful! Disaster of a trip---CANCEL Mauritius in one long flight---dread return on THIS trip. Over three hours left here and SIX to Bangkok! I can't come NEAR sleeping. Feel better at breakfast at 12:40. Start down at 12:55!
SATURDAY, 1/8/00: #21: 1:08AM, first Tokyo sight. #22: 1:16, not YET Tokyo! Land at 1:20, 13½ hours! No SIGN of Tokyo. Across to Gate 45 at 2AM, but 4PM in Tokyo, to see 20:20 departure, arriving 1 or 2AM! Stretch out on empty seats and close eyes nicely for 1.5 hours, then Fred talks with sexy married guys and I go to john twice and check out $10 "courtesy" possibilities and board at 5:55 (7:55 their time) and two KIDS sit next across aisle! 6:30 ready to go: 6½ flight. Off at 6:40, easily. I sit on aisle in middle section. Scratch inside my nose so it bleeds when applying Vicks. Stupid! We bounce around over an hour; I sit!
SUNDAY, 1/9/00: At LAST at 12:30AM they put up the FIRST map of trip: we land in 35 minutes! I'm stoically numb as kids scream across way and I should pee and everyone starts walking around. Wait in line and shit a hard turd in relative calm at 12:42, not started DOWN yet from 35,000 feet. 19,500 feet at 12:50, 15 minutes to go. Land at LAST at 1:04AM. BUS leaves at 2:10. Breakfast served 5:30-10, lunch at 12, 12:45 bags out door, leave 1:15 on bus to airport. Into Rama Gardens ONE night at 2:30AM. Bed at 3:AM! Can't sleep! Look in COAT pockets for toothpaste, not there. Up about 3:45 to take SLEEPING pill and GET to sleep perhaps 4AM. Wake in LIGHT from window at 8AM and Fred's looking at me. I wave. He says, "Breakfast NOW?" GREAT IDEA! Up and write this at 8:05. GREAT buffet breakfast 8:15-9:15: ham/onion/cheese omelet, dragon fruit, honeydew, guava and grapefruit juice, sausage (poor), pancake with maple syrup (honey), bacon, roll, great! Change $20 for 690 baht and give Fred his $20 back. Shower. Organize! To 10:25, Fred not back from breakfast YET! #23 & 24: 10:45, Rama Gardens Hotel in/out. #25: orchids! GREAT gardens: water lilies, flowering trees, rocks, HERONS! Birds, butterflies, TREES of HUGE plush, full, yellow flowers (suponica) FULLER than dahlias; hibiscus, poinciana-like WHITE "common" flowers (frangipani), RED (both five-petalled), bougainvillea, and a smaller, PINK blossom; wilted, DARK red, dying blossoms and LOTS of others! Burble to Fred (watching TV) to 11:23. Brush teeth while watching Kevin Kline in sequel to Fish Called Wanda, which I look up to find is Fierce Creatures, to 11:50. Buy roll-on deodorant for 80B, which I’d forgotten to pack! Noon: FANTASTIC lunch buffet: cream of broccoli soup, massaman chicken, spicy pork salad, pork/apple soup, shrimp and "copone" salads, fruits, rolls, fried pragapan (salt-water sea bass) is great. Ham, sushi, pho, "sweet and sour sugar" (called pik-up, with chili and salt and sugar), lotus apple (white and sweet) for GREAT FULL lunch to 1PM. Purple FULL blossom is "cha-ba," "Lan-Tom" is frangipani, both white and purple, "ban-mai-roo-roy" is like a thistle blossom. GUAVA is the pear-apple. To flower shop, including enormous carved PAPAYA for decor. Pink hard SLUG-like formation on bridge-pier was SNAIL eggs. Joe talks of history: we're 13 in all since two canceled, among them the K.s. We must pay 500B for departure tax three times, or $16. But 500B divided by $16 is 31B/$, a very POOR rate, so it's cheaper to pay the 500B. Bus passes LOTS of temples. I'm at window on plane, Maxine next to me. Down to gate 59 and I (unfortunately) note that our BOARDING pass says Flight 936 at 3PM, and GATE says Flight 938 at 3PM. So woman changes all 9. THEN someone (Bob?) says, "But our TICKET said Flight 936 at 3:40!" So when Fred says, "We gotta tell OAT whose FAULT it was," it's now ME! Waiting area is jammed and NO plane's visible, though we DO get a "people mover" to get out. AGAIN flight's delayed! Go to john and shit a bit and bus boards at 3:35. Off at 4:10PM. 55-minute flight. AWFUL THICK SMOG to east of Bangkok, can JUST BARELY make out major roads. Great clouds and fields and palms (picture) and flooded fields and LOTS of ponds. Land at 5:02. HOT! Wait for bags to 5:20. Into A/C bus, MaRay talking to us as we go to Angkor Hotel at 5:50, going OUT to dinner at 7:30. Get welcoming scarf. Room leads onto terrace and pool. 6:06 to swim. To Bayon Restaurant at 7:40, out back in dumpy area. Fine fruit: sapotilla and longam, papaya and bananas really awful, and beers $1.50 each! UGH! Back to hotel 9:10, wakeup call for 6:30AM, bed at 9:50, tired.
MONDAY, 1/10/00: Pee about 2AM. Shit 4:10AM, and I'm out at 6:05 to WALK. Laundry/ pool hall the most interesting combination residence. Muddy road, cyclists let me pass, cute teenagers giving themselves showers, not the most attractive people, though. Back at 7:10, breakfast of omelet, rice porridge, French toast, bacon, fruit, juices. To room to get cameras, to (wrong) bus (first), people late. Hot. 8:30AM: #32: Angkor Thom south gate. 8:43 end of roll 1; #0 & 1 of roll 2: gate. 9:10: #3: Bayon main tower. 54 towers (old provinces), 216 heads, MOST in museums in Siem Reap and Pnom Penh. Incredible mazes, stones, heads, corridors, roof-stones piled on floor, CUTE tall tourist, little women fanning and helping up and down stairs. Buddhas in central halls with holes at top. VERY hot except in shade. Some temples in GOOD shape, some awful; Japanese STILL working. LOTS of pictures. At 10:45 to Welcome Shop and I drank soursop and litchi sodas for $1 each. #17: 11:15, start Baphuon. #22: 11:39, top left: HEAD of reclining Buddha, never finished, 70 meters long! "Next door" to 11:53, STEEP up and down. #27 & 28: 12:15, terrace of elephants. Shirtless cute guy with blue eyes. There's MaRay waving at me! Everyone's on bus! To Bayon II, same awful restaurant, at 12:15. I don't care for food but most do: beef, pork, both with garlic; chicken in coconut curry, snakefish, but no "ozone water" for $1.50, only Evian for $2.50 that David pays for. Leave 1:20, I'm bored, and we get left off at HOTEL at 1:40! Pickup at 3! I'm REALLY pissed! Look at TV, chat with Fred, rest, recharge camera, and TAKE HAT! Leave 3:05, to Angkor 3:15, and he TALKS to 3:35! #30 Angkor GATE at 3:40. In 3:50. Climb to TOP! Eight walls of carvings: too much! By 4:44 decide to take bus to mountaintop, so I hunt around TWICE at 5 and Al waves and takes me to bottom at 5:10 and I get to top at 5:15, exhausted. Lots of people, sunset at 5:56. Down to jam of people, but there's driver and bus and back to Angkor at 6:08 to pick up rest and back to hotel. Dinner at 8 after swim and shower and TRY to dry clothes out. Poor hotel dinner, no dessert, back tired and SORE from climb. Bed 10:15PM.
TUESDAY, 1/11/00: Up 4:20 to pee. Wake 5:40, breakfast at 6:50, brush teeth, bus at 8. 8:28: #22 & 23 North gate of Angkor Thom. 8:45: #24 Preah Khan gate. 8:57: #26 TREE! 9:40 #33 and 34 climb to TOP! 9:52 new roll. Leave 10:20 after $35 for book with ALL bas reliefs and $1 for map. #2: 10:28, Thommanon. #3: 10:40, Vishnu on garuda and flames. #5: 10:52, Chau Say Tevoda. #8: 11:03 Ta Keo-Meru. #9: 11:10 Ta Prohm over-hot. #20 LAST in Ta Prohm. #23 12:12 Angkor Hotel. Pack and 12:35 to bus to Chao Praya lunch. 1:52 out, after pork-noodle soup, crab, fish, pork and mushrooms, and dragon fruit on vine and milkfruit on tree at MaRay's house on the riverside. #25-27, 2:17, killing-fields pagoda. Mine Museum to 2:55. Main Street 3:15 #28. "Shop" 3-4. Bus leaves 4PM exact, to airport at 4:20. "Compliments of Thai Air" water tastes FUNNY at bottom, but Fred has two. 4:30 into warm lounge as ONE plane leaves. ALL planes left. But plane comes in (with another group of "us," all of them) and we board at 5:02. Off at 5:11 (actually nine minutes EARLY!) and #29 and 30 (airstrip and ANGKOR) on takeoff. GOOD views, then cloudy, then over what looks like sea, but it's land. Have two beers and NICE chicken and pasta and chocolate pudding and ice cream "tea" on flight. Start down 5:54. #33: 6PM, coming down to Bangkok. Land 6:05, just after sunset. Immigration takes my BAGGAGE form, but I fuss and Fred shows HIS and official says "OK!" Fred is ONLY one at baggage and collects FIVE carts and ALL bags, a RIOT. Down to sit and wait for others at 6:51, airport (and I) quite full! Onto HUGE bus at 7:01, 25 km to Monarch Lee Gardens on Silom Road, getting there at 7:45PM, street market to right of hotel exit, exchange poor in hotel. Breakfast on second floor from 6-10AM, tell the baggage people room number for luggage delivery. 10AM mezzanine orientation. Swimming pool open 7AM-8PM, we're in room 1808 for two nights. Good view, unpack to 8:50, tired. Fred wants only to go to bed, but I watch pairs skating on TV till 10PM. I WANT to stroll streets but decide on bed instead. We've somehow reset room clock to 12.
WEDNESDAY, 1/12/00: Up 1:30 to pee and 4AM to shit a few hard turds. Wake at 6AM, eight hours sleep, and think, then up at 6:30 to shit looser (oh, oh) and dress to go out. 35.20B to $1 in hotel for $20. Concierge says no "Events" publication for Bangkok. Newspaper shows no events save movies. Taiwan maybe-shoplifter has four fingers cut off. Mayor's tour finds body in river. Smokers fill lobby. Walk at 7:30 on loud, humid street. 7:50 try exchange MACHINE: 36.76 gives 735B for $20. Guy SCRUBS my step right after I leave! Sri Mahamariamman Temple ("no photos"); note Silom Village dancing. Back to room at 7:55 and Fred's UP and feeling rested and showered. Buy two bottles water for 16B! Lots of change. Breakfast at window from 8-9AM: omelet, fruit, hot chocolate, small hamburg, bacon, pork, MORE fruit, and watermelon FABULOUS. Up to write this at 9:15, then brush teeth, to 9:42. Code 2346 for safe. #35 and 36: 9:53AM, two views of Bangkok from room 1808. #0: 10AM, room. Mezzanine meeting, Meryl ill, so there are 12 of us. Joe's cell phone 9-01-818-3055, his personal cell phone 9-01-852-0961. There'll be water distributed on bus, no need to carry it from room. "Taxi with meter" and air conditioning is best. No "night rates," all are same. 35B at start, small change for tip, OR add 10B if VERY slow traffic. SAY "turn on meter." Joe needs COPY of Bangkok-Tokyo ticket AND copy of passport, and two photos for BURMA. Polaroid four pictures for 80B! Meeting to 11, then DIRECT to bus, at 11:06, all on at 11:07, leave 11:08! Tallest building is 94 stories, Hilton Hotel has about 90 floors. Thailand is 95% Buddhist, 60 million people, 10 million in Bangkok (of which 6.5 million are Chinese!). 14% Chinese in Thailand. Bangkok has 497 temples. #1: 11:23, Bangkok Chinatown Street. #2: 11:35, Royal Monastery. ORCHIDS at bases of palms. #3: "Royal Birthday." Gas is 35¢/liter! Thais drive on LEFT. 11:50 to Teak House, #4. Out at 12:51. Buy GREAT book for 300B! On bus 1:58. Dinner on 37th floor of hotel at 7PM. 7AM tomorrow for monks' donation-food, then breakfast, then tour of klongs at 10AM. Lunch at river restaurant. #6: 2:33, eating, working (wearing face masks), and shopping with street vendors. Taxi to National Museum. #10: 3:56 Rama II wood pediment. EXHAUSTING to 4PM. Try cabs till 4:10, at last! Hotel at 4:40 for 85B. Fred got four photos for 160B and postcards for 7B. He tells me where to go and I leave and do many tasks: 1) change two sets of $40 for 36.80B/$ = 1472B, 2) settle on TWELVE photos for 220B (Fred's just OVER $1 each, mine just UNDER 50¢ each!), 3) order a suit and shirt for $100 on First Visa, 4) buy 12 postcards but not 15B stamps for 20B each, 5) pick up a pricelist from cheap laundry, and 6) get a copy of Look for Bangkok. Up to chat to 6 and back to deliver laundry and pick up photos. Up to shower and get to dinner on 37 at 7:30 to return for photos and Xerox of tickets. Out at 8:20 and back at 8:45 after first suit-fitting. Rush through steak and back to room at 9:30 to put things away. Write this to 10:15. Tired and call is in for 6:45AM, looking forward to rest of trip.
THURSDAY, 1/13/00: Bed 10:35, pee 3:30, up at 6:30 with memory of ODD dream: I go into room where I'm a temporary volunteer and get told, "You can't work because we have chess club (chess exhibit at National Museum?) tonight, but maybe no one will show up." Then upstairs things must be moved behind gate, which I open and wedge open against floor near wall. We start pushing heavy objects, but I have to climb down steep stairs (like on Angkor temples) and a woman REFUSES to leave me alone (Maxine?), grabs my leg and I climb down with her ON my leg and she flips head downward, touching floor with head while others watch and she lets go and lies on floor (Fred "lying on stomach" as soccer team enters his restaurant on his tour?) motionless. I go to john to shit hard turds and write this to 6:35AM. Pour HOTEL water into refrigerator bottle to conserve pure water. Fred's up when I come out. To lobby for walk to monks (camera was FOGGED with humidity!). Lots of food and vegetables and live goldfish being sold. To room and breakfast 7:40-8:40 and up to write TWELVE postcards and hotel sells 15B stamps for 15B, HOPE she MAILS them!! To bus 10AM, may RAIN today?? #17: 10:24, river hotels. Chao Praya River. #21: condominium at 50,000B/month! #22: Wat Arun---Temple of Dawn. Leave 11:20AM. #30: 12:20, Royal Barge Museum. 12:30 to cooking class, good papaya juice (2) and water (4) glasses, and taste of ginger and galanga (ginger with PEPPER flavor) and lemon grass, like a scallion. Massaman is INDIAN curry, with tamarind and peanut added. Leave 7:30 from hotel tomorrow, breakfast starts 6AM. 6:30 leave bags out. Back to hotel 9:30. Dine. 55B taxi to zoo by 3PM. 4:43 first videotape ends at 2:03:16. #35&36: 4:56, crested fireback. Hippos, flamingos, Malayan sun bears, orangs, elephants, black and spotted panther, lions, six kinds of gibbon, exotic birds, lizards and civets and hornbills and 5-6 kinds of deer and 4 birds of paradise. Onto taxi 5:38, off just past Smile Tailors at 6:15 for 80B, out 6:25 WITH suit, belt-button redone. Pick up laundry to 6:30. Up to room to shower to 7:10. Leave 7:35 and "by mistake" pass Bussaracum Restaurant, which Joe knows, and we get to Sweet Basil till 9:40, one of best meals with reorders of favorites and spice-leaves plucked direct from pots on the tabletop. Up and pack and bed at 10:20.
FRIDAY, 1/14/00: Pee at 1:30 and 3:55. Shit at 5:40 softly and redolently of basil and Chinese parsley from supper. Note "safe" to make sure we clear it out and "get paper" for reading. Two dream fragments: 1) Having sex with someone VERY fat, like Jim, and we're just stroking each other's stubby cocks (monkeys in zoo yesterday?) and I wake hard after I give a wonderful lascivious pelvic thrust. 2) I'm riding in car with Vicki in back seat, Sherryl the driver has just told her, "You don't have to say 'thank you' every minute." "Thank you," says Vicki, quite unconsciously, and I glance sideways at Sherryl, who's looking gimlet-eyed over her right shoulder and sending a moue to the completely unaware Vicki. I remember last night's laugh as Joe says "tour bus" for restaurant's name, but he meant to say "topaz." I correct him, and he thanks me, for "Octical"-> "Octagonal" section of Teak House. Breakfast at 6:15, no omelet, no hot chocolate, to 6:50, get paper and skim it to 7:05, clipping "Skytrain," "What's On," and "comics." Check bag and pay 225B for wine and leave at 7:22AM! 128 kilometers to Kanchanaburi. #4: 7:38AM, longest hanging bridge (until Japan) over Chao Praya, and bank building "like in NYC," but it's not. $45 Bangkok-Chiangmai flight of 700 km! Bus stops 9:10: tamarind, coconut butter cookies, coffee-roasted peanuts exchange hands. JEATH (Japan, England, Australia and America, Thailand, and Holland) Museum, replica of 32 WWII camps in Thailand for Allied prisoners, working on 415 km railway, done in 17 months 6/42-12/43. Used for 21 months, then bombed, 200,000 in camps, 80,000 died. One grave holds 300 unknowns, no filming inside. 6982 graves in largest cemetery. 10:10 to JEATH; robber's hands beaten to pulp. Punishment: stones around neck. Maggots from infections scraped out with spoons. Fred tells a joke: "One tequila, two tequilas, three tequilas, floor." I buy buffalo-skin dragon for 200B or $5.50 "for two days' work" that started at 400B. UGLY museum but still I have SEXY thoughts of near-naked prisoners. Buy tiny book for 90B, which is a REAL rip-off. Place full of BUSSES from France, Sweden, Germany, Britain, and US, JAMMED with Thai kids rushing through. On bus ahead of everyone, leave 10:55. Should have filmed bus BACKING OUT of construction-closed road. #8: 11:03, cemetery. Chimpaya Restaurant to 12:50, with AWFUL Mirinda (fanta); to cave Kra Sae. #9: 1PM, Bridge on River Kwai. ON train OVER bridge 1:30-1:50PM, off at TraKiel(?) station. Onto bus 2:06. Tapioca (poem-like roost)(???) and sugar cane. To "Botanic Garden" Hotel at 2:30. Air conditioner is LOUD, room is AWFUL, shower is TINY, so I say we should move UP. See a room and MOVE up, glad to avoid HOT steps for ALL meals. Lie in bed. To BARGE, not boat, for fried flowers at 4:35-5:20, and see cows and boys and birds and river, and back to read South waiting for dinner at 8. Went to POOL for a bit, then needle-shower in SLIPPERY tub. Dinner is AWFUL but for curry chicken and fruit, so don't eat MUCH, notice two FIRES on horizon, cane burning?, and get back to talk OPERA to 10:15! Bed soft, but sleep well enough.
SATURDAY, 1/15/00: Wake 3:30 to pee and shit, 6:20 to pee and shit and repack, and breakfast looking over WONDERFUL view (actually COOL in morning). To bus, leave at 8:15. Men say KROB for sir, women CAW, after saying Sawadee. Thank you: "Kob kun, krob," and "kob kun mak, krob," is thanks VERY much. "Sawadee, krob," is good morning, good day, or good night. "Chai" is yes, "My" is no. Into hills and sparse farms. 9:50: "Oops, we went ten miles out of our way." Lower-left jaw, sore yesterday, OK today, but right WRITING thumb-joint hurts! 10:31 BACK to turnoff. Photo in Museum and they LEAVE, onto trail at 10:50. 10:55 I start ALONE and get past second rest stop and third cutting. WANT to go to "light" (would have seen CURVE of valley!) but no time. Pass Adele and Gary, back to museum at 12 and we're allowed ten MORE minutes. COULD have gotten to end. Into bus to cold towel at 12:12. Two last ones (Gary and Karen) on at 12:16. Into Saiyok National Park at 12:30. Boat GREAT 1-2:25 with snacks of jackfruit, pineapple and pomelo. Lunch to 3:30. Tomorrow leave 7:30: 6AM wakeup, bags out 6:30, breakfast 6:30-7:30. Multi-lines of distant smoke-dimmed mountains. 7:30 dinner. Back at 4:08. Just lie down until 6:30, when I dress and go out with Gary to dock to see Jim and Adele returning from a 500B, one-hour bird-watch boating. Chat and back to bar for 150B Botanic Sling, rum and juices, and dinner 7:30-8:10, better than last night: corn soup, hot salad, chicken and fruit. Wash shirt badly, want to describe the long-tail boat-ride: roaring past cliffs, sandbars, floating vegetation, smaller boats, lots of deluxe raft housing, scattered swimmers, oxen, occasional birds, strange trans-river wire and pulley contrivances, beached boats and pontoons, hoses leading to pumps uphill to houses, sheaves of bamboo, flights of flycatchers, beaches of butterflies and hurried pictures of everything while shielding arms from hot sun (suffer from itchy sun-poisoning for almost two weeks afterward) and face from ripping winds. Other boat roared past. Adele and I are so happy to be in FRONT, where we alone could stretch out our legs. Smell of fuel ahead, swerves from bank to bank to avoid shallows, and chaos of pierced, jagged, tumbled rocks that would make a Chinese collector avaricious. Fred to bed at 9! Looking forward to northern peaks up to 7500 feet. Read from New Yorker until 10:05PM.
SUNDAY, 1/16/00: Pee at 12, 1:30, 3, and shit at 5 and phone rings three times at 6AM. Decide to "check" both bags, though green is unlocked. #11: 7:08AM, west from Botanic dining room. #12: Otophora tree. Photos and videos to 7:20, COOL today, and on bus 7:25. Leave 7:30. 210 miles today. 8AM to Bridge on River Kwai. #18: 8:26AM, TRAIN at bridge. Bus leaves 8:36. Suphanburi: RICE fields. WIDE smoky areas. 10:02 bird sanctuary, LOTS of photos, leave 10:37. 12:25 to Royal Monastery, built 1987-1989. But monastery CLOSED 12-2. #24: 12:43, our barge. Sampans, water hyacinth, fishermen, boathouses, bridges, monasteries, and lunch. Boat docks 2:12. Market to 2:37. #30 and 31: 2:40, Utaitani town squares. Out of temple 3:30PM for LONG drive. 7:30 dinner, wakeup call at 6AM, bags out 6:30, leave 7:30. Stop about 5PM for toilets (urinals open in back, as usual) and caffeine for driver ("Oh, DON'T tell us the driver is SLEEPY!" moans Maxine) and ice cream at second stop for Maxine. I have sip of Joe's VERY sweet iced tea. To JUNKY streets at 6PM in Kamphaeng Phet and hotel "welcomes" us. Room OK. Out to invite Adele to market-walk, things closing, GECKO falls on my HEAD from canopy on street, she buys 100 satay skewers for 15B. Back to room for TNT TV, dinner awful but for fruit and lemon-grass soup. CHINESE trio and singing called THAI by Joe. "Specials" on Thai menu we DON'T have: all Chinese (sweet and sour pork, beef and onions, etc.). Up to room 8:30 for last half of Marx Brothers Day at the Races, which ends at 10 as I brush teeth, putting off shower to AM. Bed at 10:15, transparent curtains but up WAY before dawn. Up at 11:20 to shit vaguely loose, and I'd felt "odd" in late PM. Worried now.
MONDAY, 1/17/00: Pee at 12:40 and 2:30 and shit at 5AM even LOOSER and take two Imodium and lie till wakeup at dark 6AM. Shower and pack. Breakfast 6:30-7:15, tell Fred I have a "touch," and Adele HEARS from next table and asks how I am, and then Meryl asks on BUS! Leave 7:30 exact! Joe insists we "enjoy bargaining," but I don't! Joe: "Food is never bargained." "Thais never bargain 50%, only 20%-30%." "You help their economy." "You say 50%, they get angry." "Hill tribes can't deal drugs: it's illegal. King gives them rice or teaches them to plant. Also, education." Sukothai 1240-1270, arrive 8:48AM. 28 square miles, forty temples. #1: 8:53, Sukothai. Much RECONSTRUCTION, MUCH cooler than 1971. #6: 1238 Buddha (but new PLASTER applied) at Wat Mahatat. Lopburi is Khmer style, on Yom River. #11: Buddha across lotus-lake. #13-14: Wat Shri/Si Sawai, Hindu, built 1100s at 10:05. Wat Sasi is Ceylon stupa. PARADE for the fourth anniversary of the 1/97 opening of park, to 11AM. #18 and 19: 11:05, Wat Sri Chum. Leave 11:22. #21: 11:30, water lilies in temple moat. 12:20 lunch in Sri Satchanalai Park at restaurant Wang Yom #26 and 27 at 1:20PM. Meryl sick. My bowels OK. I open left shades. Paul says, "Sunny." I say, "I didn't come to Thailand to look at curtains." INCREDIBLE bougainvillea EVERYWHERE humans are. Hills! But with no particular "vistas." #26: 2:50 to Wat Suton Kiri. Assistant Abbot LONG explains, also 350 kg jade ball bought by Thais IN Canada buried here. #3: 4:45, naga ocean-churn-to-milk. 4:51 leave. Meryl threw up. Bus smelled. Tomorrow: 6AM wakeup call, 7:30 leave. Burmese Buddha covered with 253 kg of gold (replica!!). To hotel at 5:30, up to a DOUBLE bed and change it. To COLD-water pool and up to shower and BREAK "pimple" on upper left forehead and SCRUB right leg-front, but pustule won't break so I band-aid it. Dinner OUTSIDE in PERFECT temperature and humidity, not bad food. Oh, shit RATHER loose and took THIRD Imodium of day. 8:30 I'm bored with "Carpenters" imitation music and go out for walk: NOTHING but imitation Beatles across street. Back to sit with Fred at table and get smiled at by CUTE Anglo-blond with two hunky Thais who LOOKED at me as I exited pool in bathing suit. Read Sunday Bangkok paper and catch up with this at 9:50 and get to bed at 10PM.
TUESDAY, 1/18/00: Pee at 12:05 and 2:40 and 5:40, at which time I shit; still loosely, and take "fourth Imodium of day 1." Fred "knocks me out" of bathroom just as I finish at 5:45, and we turn lights on before 6AM call, which comes at 6:02. Dream: I'm in a house in northern Manhattan, like Inwood Hill, and a transparent cylinder rolls out of the roof, goes west to find a family on deck chairs blocking our way to the water there, and so roll into a clear driveway to the east that I'm certain will convey us safely to our swimming pool (from yesterday's swim---and homesickness?). Repack bags, now that I'm checking both AND have a lock for the green one. Bags out 6:25, Fred down EARLY. Ready-made omelets, icy-cold French toast and John BREAKS his chair-legs and falls FLAT back! Up to get JACKET out of bag and toothbrush, which fits nicely into sanitary-napkin bag, ONE elevator makes "missing in passing" impossible, but a PAIN for luggage trucks. Bus leaves 7:34. #4: Indigo at 7:51AM. Leave indigo house at 8:25. "Tee" is "boy." Commentary: "Boy or girl come from village, get AIDS, return to village to die. Some villages 100% AIDS. Want ALL hill people to become civilized---very poor." But maybe they ARE OK ON their own. Joe's younger brother smoked aged 9-30. "Bangkok building COLLAPSED when metro tunnel dug---not in papers." "Problems: drugs, AIDS, traffic, poverty." "Money, money, money," all to help save country: spend, buy, give! 200,000 Thais travel, 7.5 million tourists. 9:40 rest stop. HIGH hills behind. Ask Joe, "How many told you bus is cold?" Joe: "None." Everyone was COMPLAINING and NO one SAID anything! UNPAVED road-section COATS trees YARDS away with chocolate dust. Young woodapple tree has perfect WHITE SPHERES as fruit. Shrimp chips, rice cakes and onion and sugar, and roasted almonds passed. Maxine has me in perfect hook: I remind her of her SON in "attention-absorption syndrome." Thirty minutes at Phaya Lake, 10:40-11:10, NOTHING except ALL trees and bushes coated in spider WEBBING! Then to 11:30 for change, poor in bank at 36.6B/$. About 10% BETTER for $100 bill! Chiangmai is second- largest province at 3.5 million. Lunch 12:30-1:30 at Little Duck Hotel, poor but for soup and omelet. 2:04 to stationery shop 2:10 and Joe buys 80B stuff and I buy 70B DETAIL map. To school 2:39. ACUTELY uncomfortable till we leave at 3:30: classrooms, music, dance. To Akka village 4:10 to 4:30, into Yao at 4:55. Pongpakham Yao to 5:25. AWFUL! Past Ban Low Fu. Missionaries! Crosses on buildings! Passed SCHOOL at 5:35 and back to bus at 5:50, so 15 minutes TO school. Bus leaves 6PM, to brighter-lit Golden Triangle Resort at 6:40, beside gray Mekong River, black Laos, and twinkling casino in Burma. Great room with balcony. Shit OK at 6:50PM. To dinner of "western" fish and beef in red wine and pumpkin soup, but Singha beer is 112B. Four scenes of Thai dance that I video and back at 9:30PM TIRED; bed at 9:30PM.
WEDNESDAY, 1/19/00: Pee 12:08AM and 3AM and shit OK at 6:20AM. Shower. Breakfast 7:15-7:45, individual omelets again, and fruit, and onto bus at 8:05. Town at 8:35 and climb to 9:10 to scorpion statue and overlook to Burma. Cross border on foot at 9:20, buy Tachilek city map for 5B, and go to rickshaws at 9:30 and black car's TIRE hits back of Karen's leg---she YELPS and falls to ground. Crowd gathers to 9:36, and I video. My rickshaw is number 76. #21: 9:52AM, Thai village IN Burma. Fred: read Anatole France's Penguin Island. To 10:10. Shwe Dagon replica (with seven "day of week" gods) and Wat of Haloed Buddha to 10:56 to statue of 1350ish King, and back to border. Lunch 11:25-12:15. Walk and shop to 1PM: 30x binoculars exactly equal to my 10x! Bus leaves 1PM. Buy DURIAN for 70B, Adele chips in 10B, no one ELSE. People say it smells: Onions, nothing, awful. Me: "Tasty moister jackfruit." Dispose of it. DISTANT mountain TOO distant and FOGGY to photograph. Back to hotel 1:45. Laundry (beautiful!) back. Durian tastes MORE on BURP than DURING! Out for walk to Opium Museum (1 mile) at 2PM. 2:54 buy "60-year-old" tanka, priced at 2,200B, for $45 US cash. 3:30 leave Wat Pradhat Pukhao. To Opium Museum about 1/2 hour and price Danish group at 100B for boat ride at 4PM right up to Burma and Laos and BEYOND hotel in Thailand to 5:10PM! Buy T-shirt for 90B. Back to hotel and talk, have a tangerine, shower, watch TV, and dinner 7-8:35, hard to talk to Nancy, back to fold shirts and pants, turn on TV, write this to 9:10, brush teeth to 9:40. Bed 10PM.
THURSDAY, 1/20/00: Over halfway on trip! Odd dream: details forgotten. Pee at 1:10 and 4:20, only twice at last. Wake 5:50 when Fred showers, wakeup call at 6AM. Breakfast 6:30-7. #36: 7:25, Golden Triangle Resort. Adele mentioned "jacket" and I'd LEFT mine on the back of my breakfast chair! Off at 7:35. 8AM stop in Chiang Saeng at Wat Prathat Jadee Loung, mayor talking plans for princess's visit next week, at DAILY gathering and offering. Old stupa, #0: 8:15, leave. "Charin never die" on poster. Stop Charin Garden resort at 9:44. Assortment of pies: taste 1) honey banana (OK), 2) chocolate (good), 3) blueberry cheese (with evaporated milk), 4) avocado (frozen), 5) pineapple pie (FRUITY), 6) lemon pie (tart), 7) star-fruit pie (rhubarby), 8) coconut ice cream. Birds in cages and SAD puppy to 10:30. Got Joe to mark Akka/Yao map. 11:40 off at "Hot Springs," three rock-lined bubbling puddles and 100000000 shops! Back at 11:50 to read 1/1/00 Time. BUT at 11:52 Karen claims HER time to read it. I ransack seats for NO other Times, and settle grumpily to wait for everyone to return. Should I even BOTHER to complain? (Save to get another $250, or whatever, bonus, yet I'm even MORE reluctant to try another OAT tour---though Cambodia was SENSATIONAL.) Let it depend on Vietnam, problematic, since EVERY meal there is Fred and me and Adele and Nancy! At least we have the fun of all the animosity toward Maxine, the oddness (noises, standing, muttering) of John, and the detailedness of Adele. Drag Tee away from his noodles to open door for me, and others straggle in each minute, PAST the "noon" that Joe said, since he's five minutes FAST, and bus leaves at 12:01. OFF route 118 at 12:50 and bumble through suburbia (earplugs in to shut out obnoxious bus-Muzak) until, passing umbrella quarter, 1:11PM to Chiangmai Country Garden for lunch at Bua Restaurant to 2:20. GREAT chicken in palm leaf, good soup and fried-banana dessert. Leave at 2:28. Dinner at 7PM, wakeup 7AM, leave 8AM. To celadon factory 2:32. To umbrellas 3:10, leave 3:45. 3:58 into "shift vehicle." 4:21 to hotel. To hill-tribe Handicrafts Center at 4:25, buy hill-tribe book for 100B and Chiangmai map and elephant book for 70B. Leave 5PM back to hotel, and JUST about to leave for e-cafe, when group APPEARS and Fred says, "It's a dump!" ALTERNATE hotel on itinerary is 1600+B and OURS is 350B! Dave doesn't join us, so we walk out onto street and find ONE place: 50B/hr or 1B/min. Adele takes an age to log on through Netscape, but she deletes one and reads two as I write this to 5:55. I'm sorry I left my hill-tribe book on my bed! I fantasize Fred furious, trying to get US moved to BETTER hotel. I must admit the thought of THREE nights here isn't good. Leave 6:15, back to hotel, read Thursday paper, dinner 7-8:15, bus AROUND lit old walls, over to night market at 8:40. I TRY to enjoy it to 9PM, then sit and watch people. Meet at 10PM, back 10:30. Bed 11.
FRIDAY, 1/21/00: Pee 2:10AM, shit a TINY bit at 5:34AM, inexplicably 17:34 on my watch, which I reset at 6:40 BACK from 18:40PM to 6:40PM by trial and cycling. Also, last night I found a pen-SPRING on bed that I thought I'd lost in my bag when the pen came apart in it. Phone rings at 6:30 (for Fred to shower, which he does TWICE a day) instead of 7AM, for all the others, and I write of sadness of last night: watching young, ugly, eager, 20B puppet-monkey-and-ostrich seller putting up with bratty, scared-fascinated, American kids while fatuous husbands, who are waiting for shopping mothers, look on with no intention of buying. Most tourists are UGLY: fat-assed hard-faced Israeli(?) speaking group with woman haggling with sad-faced Akka (who MUST submit to photos---yet they may be faux-Akka for TOURISTS!) and others for silver trinkets. Drunk older Americans with Thai girls; ugly women, smoking, in hideous "seductive" black pants and stringy blond hair. Fred sees "many" attractive Americans---I saw ONE who moved away and maybe 1/2 another on McDonald's steps waiting for group to shop-exhaust themselves, feeling sorry for myself, natives (guy DID sell two puppets to ugly adult and one to skinny teen who tried and failed to bargain it down to 15B) and tourists alike, write this and switch pills from "reserve" to "use" till 6:45, shower and dress to 7:15, to breakfast. Scrambled eggs, wieners, juice, toast, papaya BROUGHT to table. I get two juices, no tea, reminding myself of the BUG in my water last night and others' juice this morning. Back at 7:35 to brush teeth and pack for day. Bus leaves to elephant camp at 8:07. #3: 8:13, Chiangmai wall-corner and #4 moat-fountains. Incredible one-way STREETS---we're back to ENTRY-street at 8:19!! Twelve minutes to "go around the block." To Mae Ping Elephant Village (two kilometers BEFORE Chiang Dao Elephant Camp) at 9:10, cool and smoky out. RAIN on windshield. Umbrella parade tonight 5-7PM! End Tape #36 (second of trip) at 2:03:17 at 9:57AM. Start Tape 3, #37. Elephant ride 10:10-11:10. River rafting 11:15-11:55. $1 tip for each, 10B for elephant-bananas. Toilet at Royal Ping Resort to 12:15. 12:50 to Sainamphung Restaurant and orchids. Out at 2:05 after good lunch: cabbage soup, pork and mushrooms, eggrolls and deep-fried sweet potatoes, two kinds of veggies, others. THEN Siamese cats (silver-point and 5-6 others), Ridgeback dogs (SO SAD!), and thousands of orchids, including heavily lily-of-the-valley-scented white and purple ones. John almost wanders into wrong bus, into driver's seat. Also pheasants and AGAIN tailless peacocks, and "fireback": rust-colored over iridescent blue. We tear back to bus at 2:10. In city we start going down MANY odd lanes, sending Dee out for directions, and Adele gets plans for umbrella festival AND restaurant if we DON'T get back to hotel at 4PM. At LAST to ENTRANCE of National Museum at 2:55 and NO photos, dash through prehistory. Ban Chiang was inhabited 25,000-2,500BC, and up to LANNA art and architecture, starting with Indian-style Dvaravati in 800 and going through Lanna and Sukhothai and Lopburi and Ranakisset(?) currently Bangkok today. Silver boat with two gold bars a hit, as was five-foot rifle like a small cannon! Out at 3:30 and cross highway and passing red taxi takes us 1/2 block from hotel for 20B, thanks to Adele's directions. Up to give plane ticket to Joe and get on bus 4:15 after battery recharge and drink and pee. Bus off at 4:18. VERY slow traffic 4:30-4:45. HUGE hotels and duplex-rooftop suites. Road closed, off 5PM exactly. Toilet. Speeches 5:15-5:30, but FIRST group "performs" to 5:38, and best lyric is "ma fuck-a you" repeated three times. Walk to end, since performers are SO slow (nail-dance and knee-bend TWICE in first three groups). Onto bus 6:40 and drive to restaurant at 7:10. Not bad meal, no soup, Sprite, fruit for dessert. Onto bus, videoing most of our circuit of the city walls. In about 9:30 and Fred says, "No city tour?" to Joe. He lengthily tells of OAT's VP's tour, and too-narrow roads. I tell of hill-tribe SHOP and he says that the driver misunderstood. I talk of Wat Chedi Jod and he says we'll go there AND Leung Temple! We'll SEE. I'm rapidly losing patience with him and all the people on this tour (and maybe even MYSELF). Write this to 10. Bed 10:20.
SATURDAY, 1/22/00: Pee 1:30 and 4:44AM and call at 6:30. 6:40 I try to recall dream I had before 4:44: Jerry C. is driving me somewhere, but I have to follow in another car and I realize I have to go from the extreme west of some island like Manhattan, although the island is foreign to the extreme east. Frustration abounds in trying to accomplish multiple steps of some necessary task, and I wake with muscles and jaw tense from the concentration and frustration. Debate writing in the john, but it's too complicated with flashlight and I'm too tired. Count only nine more meals avoiding Maxine, ten days left in trip, the last six of which are with only Fred and Adele and Nancy. Getting impatient with Fred's need for 1.5 hours for shower and breakfast before departures, his constant need for a frigid room, and JUST when I think to START drinking alcoholic beverages, he STOPS drinking beer because "In three weeks I have to diet to slim down for my bathing suit in Cancun." He's out of bathroom at 6:48, time for me to go in. Some local dog yelps and whines. Breakfast 7:05-7:40, brush teeth and shit AGAIN. To bus at 8:04 LAST, and off to Wat Chedi Leung (the "Big Pagoda") for CLASS. #20: 8:22, Wat Chedi Leung and pagoda. Inside to 8:50, then to CLASS. "Pra" of monk is "mister." Change/ALL change/is NATURE of reality. "Karma: you, not gods, control own life." Theravada=Hinayana. Three meditations: 1) on candle (look, close eyes, big/small, in/out), 2) breath (close eyes, in/out, on tip of nose, right hand held in left, breathe normally, then hard/soft, in/out: 1/1, 2/2, ..., 10/10, OR only to 3 or 4). Come to PRESENT moment, be HERE NOW. 3) walking meditation, eyes open: stand, left hand in right, walk slowly: left, right; walk 10-20 steps; turn; 10-20 steps. Good for FLYING time-passing, good for high blood pressure. To 10:15. Start up to Doi Suthep in haze at 10:40. Arrive 11:16; meet at Jade Factory at 12:50. Start up 11:20, lots of people, photos, videos. Buy two books at 30B and 100B. Clouds, water-spritzing monk. Collect a gold leaf-and-a-half. Omnium Gatherum Museum. Start down 12:30. Fred buys $1200 ring at Jade House. Bus leaves (after cooked peanuts, butterflies, and cookies, and Fred's candies) at 1:15. Down by 1:42. Out to Holiday Garden Hotel buffet lunch at 1:50. Bus leaves 2:54. Gary gripes "ABT": another bloody temple. To Wat Phra Sing at 3:08. #27 Wat scripture house (Mendop). #28 GOLD (of little quality, and it's hollow) Buddha. SOLID 80% gold Buddha in BANGKOK, "not on program." Bus out at 4:02! Gary LOVED it! Start 5:30 tomorrow. Back 4:25 and I read book and get SLEEPY, so I nap 4:45-5:15 and wash face and leave 5:30 for bus, feeling "toured out," not helped by dwindling supply of film and tape. Tomorrow to Bangkok. Dave and Nancy on ONLY at 5:38! Stop at 7/11 shop at 5:54. Leave 6:06: two beers for 56B! Go out same old north road to Mae Rim, arrive down Sports Club House road, narrow for bus, lots of houses, to WALK at 6:17. Short tour (shoes off) of "museum" bedrooms and sitting rooms. Lemon-grass welcome drinks, good chicken soup, sticky rice with pork, curried pork, great tonged skewers of chicken, broiled broccoli, and other dishes (oh, started with roasted fava beans), ending with coconut "soup" with YOUNG ginger slices and unnamed fruit tea, sweet and somehow coconut flavored. Great smudge-pot lights and distant frog-chorus lured me along to the pond, where the disk of the pond surface FOCUSSED the frog-chant, so that as I circled the pond, the loudest sound was always from the CENTER. The rosy sunset clouds were replaced by an orange one-day-past-full moon rising through shredded clouds. I stood (even with the distant drumbeat from the Gold Club disco) transfixed: this is rural northern Thailand, and I'm HERE! Group moves together and we leave at 8:55. Joe says Mary Jo and John want to shop for T-shirts in the night bazaar and everyone boos his bad joke, but it turns out they were SERIOUS (I insist it's because THEY sat in the bus while we'd enjoyed Wat Phra Sing), and they get OUT to a taxi Joe hails outside our hotel road! Gary jokes, "It'll be the most expensive T-shirt anyone ever bought!" (with the taxi-fare). Told Karen of levels of the body through subatomic and meditation on chakras. Gary at dinner talks about someone's VERY powerful aura in California. Back to hotel at 9:23 and write LOTS and read to 10:12. Bed at 10:30.
SUNDAY, 1/23/00: Pee 11:55PM and 2:15AM and shit at 5:15. Fred gets up as if call were to be at 6 and I lie in light from bathroom until 6:30 call. Up and change clothes and itinerary sheet and bags out 6:55. Fred goes to breakfast at 7 and I shower to 7:20 and breakfast to 7:47 with Gary and Karen, who LIKE trip but complain (so do I) about details. Back to find Fred in bathroom! Brush teeth, watch TV, out to bus at 8. $20 to driver and $5 to Dee in Gary and Karen's envelopes "for" use of my pen. To airport 8:25, get 39F seat, but BOARDING is at 9:55--why so early?? Mosquitoes in airport. #32, 8:30, Doi Suthep in mist, though CLEARER than yesterday, now 8:42 and NOTHING to do! Wander ground floor, go up to Gate 4, read Saturday's Bangkok Post, pee, see Singha beer DISPENSER for 35B, and still wait at 9:45. Buy 120B Chiangmai book and read it. Board at 10:15 and take off 10:45. Estimated flight time of 51 minutes. My seat on aisle in center sees NOTHING, so at seatbelt-off sign at 10:55 I go toward back---no window-seats available. So I pee and look out DOOR-window at hills, trails, characteristic DNA-ladder of river-town-canal-town-road mirrored around river-center, more and more LARGE towns with NO signs of temples and what MAY be Chao Praya River. Get nudged to buckle up at 11:25 for THIRTY good viewing minutes. Write till 11:30 and wait for landing at 11:34. Actually two, no, only one exit. WE get out FAST, but BAGS only start coming at 12! Into bus at 12:14PM. Monday leave 7AM. Leave 7PM for dinner. To lunch at 12:35. To Flea Market 1:30-4:30, when we're onto Skytrain at 4:45 for 40B. Back to hotel 5:22, shower, read paper, make a pair of reservations at Bussaracum: 4@7PM, 6@7:30PM. Maxine comes out as we're leaving and we run INTO Gary's room! Like KIDS! Meal is a SMASH at 400B/person including two 80B beers. Back via 7/11 for 22B almond Magnum bar and hotel at 11PM, with 7AM departure, wakeup at 5:45, so less than eight hours sleep!
MONDAY, 1/24/00: Pee 1:15AM, shit 5:10AM, wakeup call 5:40 and KNOCK at 5:50. Breakfast 6:05-6:35, close bags, stuff in safe, and it's FINALLY light over VERY smoggy city. Minibus leaves at 7:06. 11AM pickup tomorrow. 7:15 THIS evening. #0 and 1 and 2: 8:50, coconut oil for hair, sugar from flower-drip syrup, oil floating on top of boiled milk, MILK from squeezing rat-scraped MEAT. COPRA was cakes of white meat. To 9:05, he says, but bus leaves 9:13. I said to Fred, "More or less than TEN shops?" Turns into more than FIFTY! Another Hot Springs: three square feet for "show" and 500 square feet for shops. FLEA market yesterday surpassed for COLOR only by Kashgar, and UNSURPASSED for VOLUME. We walked THREE hours and covered perhaps 1/5 paths: restaurants, tattoos, plastics, silverware, teak furniture, bowls, handles, carving knives, "antiques" real and recent, foods, fruits, clothes for all ages, fabrics for curtains, bedspreads, shirts, skirts, hangings, carved-wood animal heads(!), screws, cameras, CDs, books, etc., etc., etc.!!! Stone! Cocks, bonsai, cabinets, sunglasses, orchids, flowers (real, dried, paper, wood, and plastic), coconut-tourist place toilet WAS free, now 5B. To long-tailed boat 9:23. Boat to 9:38. At 9:43 "1/2 hour for floating market," but ONLY for tourists, to the "other side" at 10:10. Gather at 10:26. FIND bus and get on at 10:34. IS that "all that's left?" "Yes, that's all." To woodcarving at 10:47, HUGE place, OVER ten busses. We leave 11:15. Floating market 99% CHINESE, CLOSED for New Year (Tet), Feb 5-12. HUGE (72-meter) Nakhom Patham stupa, in distance, ceramic covered. 12:30 to lunch at Wanfah Garden buffet, after which I find that Gary's "big aura" friend is gay, and I say I lead SAME lifestyle and "let me know if he comes to New York." Lunch OK, but warm even under water-cooled tin roof. To bus at 1:30, starting to tire. Soup and coconut-milk "crepes" best, will HUGE crowds FOLLOW us to palace? Get second bottle of water. To Royal Palace 2PM MUCH more elaborate than I remember, and with video I get details of each spire AND of Emerald Buddha. Back to bus after MORE at 3:45, NO 400 SLIDE film. To Reclining Buddha 3:50-4:10. #22: 4:17, 18% solid-gold Buddha. #23: fertility symbol. 300 Ayudyha and Sukhothai Buddhas! To solid-gold Buddha to 4:33. To bus 4:45. Tomorrow, breakfast 6-10, 11AM departure, bags out 10:30. To hotel 5:32. Read paper, look at TV report of Burmese hostages in Kanchanaburi, close to the floating market today. Give Joe $50. Look at itinerary. This time next week we'll be home! Shower. Fred trims my wild eyebrows and we're down to FINAL group bus at 7:15. Cocktails on 37th floor and Jim eulogizes and I film and have apricot sour and we board bus at 8PM. THEY must wake at 3:30AM! 8:15 across to Sala Rim Naam, good (probably WAY overpriced) dinner with dancing DURING, making videoing hard, but in repacking I found ANOTHER tape, so I have THREE hours left, not one. Visa 500+B for "proof" and leave 10PM by BUS! Back 10:15, farewells, only Karen hugs (Fred said Maxine hugged HIM endlessly!), and Joe hands me the ORIGINAL list from which Xeroxes were made, ironic since I probably will be writing to NO ONE. Up to write, finding only ONE bathrobe, but Fred says don't worry, we didn't take it, explaining later. Wakeup call for 8:30. Brush teeth 10:45-11:24 breaking SECOND brush so I don't have THAT implement for a week. Watch motorcycle obstacle-climbing as new sport! Bed 11:30PM.
TUESDAY, 1/25/00: Pee 3:30, shit 5:30 and again at 8AM. Meditate, feel the usual "Don't FEEL like doing anything but should do SOMETHING" in the last hours of a foreign city. Dress and down to breakfast at 8:20, with Nancy, then Adele. We three walk 9:35-10:25, concentrating on SHOPS! Two men stop to chat and say park is CLOSED 9AM-5PM for CLEANING, but we can go HERE to THERE for shops and SALES. They can't pass a DRUG store without saying, "Do we want----?" Kanchanaburi beseigers (9 of 10) from "God's army" killed to balance three-months-ago RELEASES for peace. 12-year-old twins, inspired by god and invulnerability, lead. Up to room at 10:30 and CAN'T find ONE earplug I lost in bathroom. Watch TV and write. Leave hotel 11:15. Ratanakosin is "new period," part of LONG OFFICIAL name for Bangkok. To airport (fast) by 11:40, lines STARTING at economy even before COUNTER opens at 12:15. LONG process for my left window to 12:30. Fred CRAVES KFC, so we walk WHOLE airport to pass time before 11:50 boarding (Singapore delayed to 4:05!). Fred stops in duty-free at 1:15. I get one liter of Kahlua for 600B, $16+. Shit a bit and to Gate 33. No news at 2PM, and read Adele's notes on Vietnam. Board 2:10. Back up 2:38. 1:35 flight. 15°C in Hanoi! 59°F! Wait. Takeoff 2:57. #27 and 28: 3:01, Bangkok. Sadly cloudy, but some rivers (Mekong?), villages, and Laotian hills. Video. Land at 4:32, LONG wait for bags: first on, last off. Guide is Bay, driver is Su. Arrive hotel through BIKE traffic at 5:50, meet at 6:45. Get out LONG-SLEEVED blue shirt and BLACK pants and HAVE three pair of socks and one shorts, so put one shorts and THREE shirts and one pants to laundry. Dress and get used to room and open Kahlua. Down at 6:45 and chat with Bay and drive to Restaurant for soup, eggrolls, and four courses and fruit and STRONG sip of Vietnamese green tea. Out at 8 and walk JAMMED streets (and fresh cement, TWICE!) to SOMEWHERE at 8:45 and Nancy has to PEE and we're back at 9:15. Great folk-arts books pass my time while girls dicker for fabrics (3/$10) and wooden stools ($8 and $6). Heartbreak: woman plaintively thrusts ONE HARD LOAF at fat-hipped Adele! Kids smile, adults somber. Traffic of bikes and cycles and scooters FIERCE. Bed at 10 after Kahlua and a pee.
WEDNESDAY, 1/26/00: Wake at 5 to LIGHT from open bathroom door and SHIT. Doze to 7, shower, and breakfast 7:35. Write to arrival of omelet, ham, "loaf" of three slices of "French" bread, butter/jam/cheese, orange juice, papaya, NOT a "minimal" breakfast at all. CNN on TV in background. Two four-person tables and three singles all speaking English. Fred comes in at 8, I walk 8:10-8:50 in old town north of park and video life on streets. Wait for group till 9AM. Put passports and plane tickets in hotel safe. 9:20 ride to waiting line for Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Guides must take ALL cameras. Move in at 9:26, walk silently through smallish chamber, four guards (who Fred said were almost identical and hunky), pale face LIKE his photos, lifelike, in a carved-flower catafalque like a fanciful sled to the afterlife. Walk through, get cameras back, and Bay talks about twenty minutes to 9:50. Video INCLUDES War Memorial Arch for two million Vietnamese dead in war (which I understand THEY call the AMERICAN war!). To Ho's "hut" (with private fishpond, cock house, and grapefruit trees!) and past ugly yellow French Presidential Palace, and to WONDERFUL orchestra of proto-theramin, hand-clap marimba, and various percussion instruments to 10:45. #35: 10:56, one-pillar pagoda, built in 1049 (reproduction). To Museum of Fine Arts from 11:15 to 12:15. Best: The War: burning Mona Lisa falling onto countryside. I take video of INCISED lacquer illustration. EARLY wood interesting, but not much else. FINALLY gather at 12:18PM. To Temple of Literature with 82 stelae, three gates, Pool of Celestial Clarity, to 1:12PM. To Soho Deli 1:26-2:39. To NEW ethonographic museum 2:50-4:15. Back to town. On cyclo at 4:49. Opera House built by French in 1936, open ONLY on Saturday evening. Off at 5:42, missed welding, pool tables, and many others. Repack partly. Meet at 6:33, to Ming Anh at 6:49. Soup, eggroll, papaya salad, tofu and duck, no time for tea, and pee and leave 7:45. JUST get to Puppet Theater when it starts at 8:02. Rude French come in late. Cute fireworks and smoke and snakes and video to 9:06. Out to walk bridge in West Lake and I get cruised and followed with slurping noises. Back to hotel to get Fred's receipt and my plane tickets. Search twice for MY receipt and finally find it. Pack bag to leave in AM and bag to take will be FULL with dop kit and Kahlua. Time for putting additional stuff into CAMERA bag. Clean teeth (brush gone/enoch(?)) and watch TV and catch up with this by 10:45.
THURSDAY, 1/27/00: Pee and try to shit at 2:24AM. 6:57 up to write this dream: woman on trip offers her introductory handshake with a sincere "Gazebo." Recall sexy Aussie descending stairs at Water Ballet with "G'dye" to me. OTHER dream involves INDIA travel. Shit loosely at 7AM and debate Imodium, but decide not. Phone rings at 7. Pour Kahlua into WATER bottle and leave big bottle in HOTEL bag. Dress and fuss to 7:15. Nose bloodied on blowing, first time in weeks. Fred exits bathroom at 7:22. Put towel back, take pills, pee. Go to breakfast at 7:30. Less-hazy (though still VERY dark) sky this morning. Good bodings for Haiphong? Get window-table for four. Long wait for ALL to be served when Adele and Nancy join us, and we're short-changed on fruit! Up to phone porter to check two bags at 8:10. Fred turns over my airline ticket. I'm writing more, now EXACTLY at 4 pages/day as of yesterday's 20th day (on tablet-page 80). Get passports, bags down for group-receipt. Watch sexy MTV to 8:30, Adele needs water (as Fred got pissed with her last night, "The bitch didn't think to take her coat?!") Nancy last down. Leave 8:39, 102 km, good road built one year ago. #9: 8:44, Red River from bridge. 9:42, halfway to Haiphong, stop for "tea" in snake wine (complete with snake), lace/embroidery/dress shop. Leave 10:10. To carpet factory 11:10. Almost DESERTED. Hanoi averages $600/year; Haiphong $400/year. "I'll be back in ten minutes," I say in non-shopper’s disgust. I sit at lakeside and mope. Leave 11:32. Arrive at Du Hang pagoda and 11:40. #13: 12:10, arch in Du Hang pagoda. Flower market to 12:38. Hotel du Commerce is down street from Museum and Opera House, we eat from 12:45-1:55. Buy 20 post cards for $1. Stop 2:07 for first ferry. Off ferry at 3:01. To second ferry 3:27. Ferry leaves 3:31. Land 3:46. Pi Tang River. Arrive 5:02. Adele: "A little travel weary?" Me: "No (but your-talk weary!!)" To room 301, NO view. Bay: Maybe move tomorrow. I insist on going out at 5:10, across another hotel's property (?) to beach and photo and video sunset 5:15-5:30. Fishing boat passing, DRUMMING, to get my attention? No, I guess FISH, which he WAPS with a pole. Dinner at 7PM, finish 8:45, QUITE drunk. Laughing with Adele and Nancy. Fred insists they DON'T like us, and I go out on balcony and sit in chair and LOVE "paradise in off-season, J.G. Ballard-like decadent splendor." Back inside at 9:25 to write this, ready for bed, having trimmed my fingernails, repack for COLD boat. Wakeup at 6:30, leave 8AM. Fuss, put clothes in plastic bag for Bay. Bed at 10PM, peeing many times, last at 11:22PM.
FRIDAY, 1/28/00: Pee 3:40, shit 5:40. Bell 6:30, up 6:50. Shower till 7:20 and down for breakfast of omelet, two orange juices, bread and bananas, taking two bonine and giving one to Adele. Up to brush teeth and close bag and down to our-people-less lobby at 8AM. Bay: room CHANGED to bay-view: room 202! Change rooms to 8:10, to bus 8:20, on board LARGE boat 8:30. 3,000 islands. #1: Grotto of Heavenly Palace 9:10-9:35. #2 Wooden Stake Grotto (since 1300s) 9:40-10:05. Keep thinking of FRENCH caves. Buy bone box for $1. Boat goes 10:23. Third, "Amazing" cave 12:30-12:50 with shouting Czechs/Hungarians. 1:15 to COVE and lunch to 2:05: crab, shrimp, squid, fish, cabbage, and orange and wine and beer. One of freshest, best meals of trip. 2:30 to Titop Beach and views from pagoda. 3PM start back, loan Adele $20. Count 156 of 508 World Heritage sites I've seen, and at 3:48 (all looking at cook's collection of pearls) take my front-center seat for docking. Dock 4:12, to hotel 4:22. I pour Kahlua into ice and sit on balcony and drink it. In to sort luggage to 6:33. Out to balcony, Fred showers, and takes key out of door at 6:45, would lock me OUT! I come in, pee, and join the three in room 204. Dinner at 7: onion-butter soup, grilled shrimp, curry chicken, fried fish, fried vegetables, fried squid, and creme caramel. Dismal. Up at 8, feeling poorly, AND Fred's getting a cold. Bed 8:40PM! Pee 11:11PM.
SATURDAY, 1/29/00: Pee 2:22 and 5:40AM. Dreams: 1) Brad Pitt hoists Gwyneth Paltrow on his shoulders to whirl in a dance, but she objects because she's topless (tiny, pointy tits) and they pause in front of me and she asks if I could pull on the two harness-straps at either side of her waist, which would pull two bands together into a narrow halter across her chest. I fumble for them, pull them toward the middle, and her breasts are indeed being covered. He, alone, then comes up to me and asks, "Are you still on the second floor?" I think to tell him I've changed addresses, but feel he's only perfunctorily kind and wouldn't remember my new address, so I just say "Yes," figuring if he REALLY wanted to find me, he could check the telephone book. But his face is so close and smooth and handsome I can't resist touching his cheek and neck, fearing he won't like it since EVERYONE does that, but he tolerates it well enough. Wake with a great YEARNING for SOMEONE, and a lingering sadness. 2) I'm picking up a program at the start of some kind of sales-pitch banquet (guy on Vietnam TV last night, talking to an audience est-like?), but I take TWO, and woman says "only one," and I get a card with a woman's name, wishing I'd gotten a man. Go to her table next to an empty chair, across from three connected people, and one across from me moves to my left to "form a party of four" and I face an empty place. Then same woman comes up and says, "You should have taken SECOND one," and hands me a card with a MAN'S name on it and a floor plan that indicates I'm at table TWO, and I recall passing a table ONE, but I don't remember if I should retrace my steps to it or just continue to circle the large hall until I find it. Wake with a sense of frustration and a vague sense of sadness. Shit while writing this, towel around my shoulders for warmth, until 5:55AM. Fret, count to a hundred, and doze until 7AM pee. Breakfast 7:20-7:40, just ahead of Adele and Nancy. Put on TV and brush teeth, having compared dreams and RECURRENT dreams with Fred. TV doesn't even DUB films, one woman's voice replaces ALL dialog! Only one channel of joyless faces, NO graphics, and solemn presentations, some in black and white. Now, hill-tribe dances. Cleaners come in 8:20 after I say we check out at 8:30. Down at 8:25. From 8:40-9:20 on OLD road for 28 km, then "most beautiful one-year-old route 18" for 150 km. Stop in humanitarian (disabled) shop 10:15-10:47. Tomorrow 8:30 pickup. $10US airport tax. #20: 11:09, cemetery on way to Nam Thanh for lunch from 12:40-1:40, to hotel 2PM and get bags and same room 502. Paralyzed with hatred of Adele. Lie and meditate to 3. Up to walk with Fred, get a Visa bill for two Metropole Romances at the famous Hotel Metropole for $12.13, check three places for French dancers at the Hanoi Opera, but it DOES seem to be sold out. Get GREAT trip-brochure for trekking, lots of shops. Back tired at 6PM. Shit, watch TV, write to 6:21, too tired to drink. Flick through TV to 6:55 and go down to "Aux Gourmets" in an AWFUL neighborhood near hotel, and "regular" food with AWFUL pianist on VERY out-of-tune piano that ENDS competing with 1) off-key playing, 2) off-key tuning, 3) bus-horns blaring, 4) a passing TRAIN, 5) Nancy and Adele conversing at normal level, 6) Bay and waitresses chatting, 7) Fred groaning melody, and 8) they accusing me of SLEEPING when I just want to NOT BE THERE. It's 8:30 (we got there at 7:10, were supposed to leave at 8:10) and still the agony continues, NOW with 9) Adele humming off-tune. Go to john at 8:40; I can't STAND it anymore. Will NOT come out till he's finished, I resolve. Will I have to write to page 92 to finish day 23? FINALLY out to Adele taking a picture AS HE PLAYS and we leave at 8:55 and hotel at 9 and take pills and pee and bed at 9:30, sleep mask ON. We're supposed to leave at 8:30AM. I just want it to be OVER!!
SUNDAY, 1/30/00: Piss at 2:02 and 5:30. Doze and dream: 1) I'm directed to walk across ridged rocks in a certain direction to get where I want to go, 2) I get valuables from a leather multi-compartment bag (like a large credit-card accordion-file wallet insert) and want to protect it, so I try to push it into the middle of a street, held above reaching hands, but it goes too far, to the opposite curb, and an old man reaches up and grabs it. I chase him around a corner and he's cowering on a grassy bank with his old wife and young child (like beggars on this trip) and he pleads with me not to hurt him or punish him. His face is caked with makeup to look even older and I'm reminded that I told Fred about Michael T.'s makeup and facial "do's" at the Metropole yesterday. Fred's up at 7AM and wakeup call comes at 7:01 and Fred says, "I was hoping we'd breakfast BEFORE the ladies, who won't be down before 7:50." I dress in jig time and down to breakfast 7:15-7:45, THEY down at 7:30! Up and watch Tony Goldwyn in a murder mystery with George Segal and Alan Arkin as a Mafioso. Up to pack and down at 8:25. #21: 9:04, Red River has the LONGEST bridge?? #22 and 23, RICE fields from bridge. Adele says, "Bob," to catch "tower on top" and I IGNORED her. To airport 9:20. 9:40 check in, two bags 20 kg, handbag 4 kg = 24 kg = 52.8 pounds!? 10:30 departure check-in had to LEAVE before we check in, but guard TELLS us "five minutes." #24: 10:25, Gekko Hippocampus Liquor in airport, after buying $12 Visa Pimm's #1 cup. Through gate at 11AM. Board 11:20, plane about 1/3 full, picture of new airport, fearing my camera might be snatched away. LOVELY Vivaldi on air. Check back: 85-minute flight coming. Estimated flight 100 minutes. Off at 11:35, above clouds till 12:24. #27: 12:38, midway? #28: 12:40, Mekong River. FIVE glasses of red wine, PORK lunch. Descending at 1:04, 70 minutes out! #29: 1:05, rural Thailand. Pee, TOTALLY plotzed, SLOW at 1:08. Happiness flows over me: in all (despite Adele) trip a success, thanks in GOOD part to Fred! #30: 1:11, airport town! #31: 1:15, river versus canal. 1:20 plane turns, I shift seats left to right 3-4 times, lovely! #33, North Bangkok at 1:27. #34: same at 1:28. Land 1:29, 94 minutes. 29°C = 90°F. Dock 1:37. 1:46: I pee and Adele washes hands from "Guy who sneezed in his hands and then shook hands with me." I'm feeling NO pain! Bed at 7PM-3AM=8 hrs? 2:01 meet Max, our guide, and Adele immediately fusses about MSG. To OAT bus at 2:05. Pickup 4AM, wakeup 3, breakfast in coffee shop, luggage INSIDE room at 3:30. To hotel 2:30, watch TV: Schwarzenegger 3-4. Repack to 5:25, feeling feverish. To bad toasted ham and cheese sandwich for 176B 6:15-7:05. Bed 7:20. 7:32 take one Rohypnol. Forgot to get HOUSEKEYS out. Dig them out of inmost bag to 7:53PM. Wake a moment as Fred enters at 9:05PM.
MONDAY, 1/31/00: 12:01AM pee. Dream: group tours Nan Merriman's famous jewel collection---on her "couches" outdoors, but a swarm of tiny gnats makes viewing VERY difficult, and we all can't HEAR commentary on faulty loudspeakers. Wakeup call at 3 and Fred HAS finished his shower, BLESS him! Shower to 3:17 and down to breakfast at crowded corner table and have French toast and two juices and LOTS of fruit. Up at 3:50 for bags STILL in room (and A/C STILL dripping). Pee and brush teeth and pay $4 and 40B for 176B meal last night. Bags now 19 kg, carry on 5.4 kg. To airport 4:25, GET window seat 52K to NYC, but 61D to Tokyo can't be changed on full plane. Seats to 4:42. First Adele goes to john and stalls us at hotel. Then Fred goes to john at airport and stalls us. Then Adele comes back and changes seat, then Fred goes back and finds they had to change HIS seat from BUSINESS class. Price booze and ALL they have is Bristol Creme for about $15, and I like cheap sherry ANYWAY. Fred moves away from a noisy Japanese group and we sit with noisy American group. At 5:05 see that flight ESTIMATED at 6:05! Adele confesses to Fred, "I don't like dead talk-space." She's STILL talking. To boarding gate for ANOTHER baggage-pack question set at 5:20, and AGAIN ask for window, but no. Jammed lounge for full flight. 5:25 read South. 5-hour flight, board 5:40. Long wait. Off at 6:30, at 6:45 sun still "below" plane. Stand at left window 6:50-7:30: Thai farms, villages, SAME airport city? Mekong, mountains of Laos, then clouds and back to seat for puzzle 7:27-?? Eat breakfast omelet (glad I didn't have one at Rama), look at and read MOST of Entertainment magazine. Snack at 10:15. Land appears outside at 11, as we start down at 11:07: "It will be quite bumpy during our descent." Gate 28D, a "bus gate." Land 11:29, 4 hours, 59 minutes! Now 1:30 in Tokyo. Through ANOTHER check at 2, Fred has to pee. Girls give us cashews and hug us. Flight "moved up to 14:50," but bus-loading line is JAMMED at 14:35. On plane at 2:48, window 52K crazed. 3:05: flight 11 hours 25 minutes = 685 minutes. Off at 3:30. #35: 3:36, Narita airport! Have Sapporo beer at 4:01. Flew EAST, then north: NO Japan visible! 4:30: WINGS sunset-red, clouds in twilight below. Estimated NYC arrival 1:10-1:15PM. We were, with tailwind, going 800 mph by ground speed. Turbulence for next 1-2 hours. NYC 37°F, snow abated. Sun gone and dinner at 4:35/5:35 "south of Anchorage, north of Toronto and Syracuse." TOTAL 4:52/5:52. Take TWO Rohypnol at 5:12PM Tokyo-time, 3:12AM NYC-time! Pee, ready for sleep 3:20. Do so after a bit, wake at 6AM to pee and watch Mystery Men, more a computer game than a movie. Even Ben Stiller and Greg Kinnear somewhat lost, only William H. Macy believable. Over at 7:45, so I saw 1:45 of a two-hour movie. LIGHTS (ships? Alaska towns?) out at 6:15, 4:45 into flight. Now 7:50, 6:20 out, OVER 1/2 way. 2/3 at 460 minutes, or 7 hr 40 min, or 9:10. Lots are watching TV. Finish second crossword and hear Bruckner's 3rd Symphony end for the SECOND time. 8:36: scattered LIGHTS below, crescent moon, and clouds JUST discernible at dawn. A real TOWN below at 8:48. LOTS of lights toward sunup at 9:41. Clouds close in at 10:20. Clouds break 11:45, at breakfast, then close in. Land at 1:17PM, snowy. Bags gotten by 2PM. Onto cab at 2:18, home at 3:15, having paid taxi $18. Kept a tally of dollars spent though the trip and came up with a total of $297, grossly different from the "Cash taken $673.46" and "cash back $143.46" for $530 spent. Could someone have taken cash from either of my bags??? How could I have "forgotten" spending $233?? Finish typing these notes at 12:45AM 2/18/00, VERY tired, and still have to "separate out" 1) dreams and 2) photo-shots. But at least THIS is FINISHED!
SUMMARY PAGE
JAN.7,FRI: Leave JFK 11:50AM, lunch and dinner on plane over Canada and Alaska.
JAN.8,SAT: Land 1:20PM Tokyo time, 132-hr flight, leave Narita 6:40PM(loseday).
JAN.9,SUN: Land in Bangkok 1:04AM. Rama Gardens Hotel for great breakfast 8AM &
lunch at noon. Fly to Siem Reap 4:10-5:02. Angkor Hotel swim. Bayon Restdinner.
JAN.10,MON: One-hour AM walk behind Siem Reap. Angkor Thom, Bayon, Baphuon, Phimeanakas, Terrace of Elephants. Bayon II lunch. Angkor Wat 2:15-4:44. Sunset and another swim before dinner at Angkor Hotel. Actually feel I've had enough!
JAN.11,TUE: Preah Khan, buy book. Thommanon, Chau Say Tevoda, Ta Keo and Ta Prohm. Chao Praya lunch. Killing fields pagoda and Mine Museum. Fly 5:11-6:05 to Bangkok for dinner out an unknown restaurant near Monarch Lee Gardens.
JAN.12,WED: Sri Mahamariamman Temple, Teak House, Ban Khun Laung River lunch. National Museum. Order photos, suit and shirt, postcards. 37th-floor dinner.
JAN.13,THU: 7AM monk-donations. Wat Arun, Royal Barge Museum. Supatra River House cooking class and lunch. Dusit Zoo. Pick up suit. Sweet Basil dinner.
JAN.14,FRI: Bus Bangkok-Kanchanaburi. JEATH Museum of WWII and cemetery. Chimpaya lunch. Kra Sae cave, Bridge on River Kwai, Botanic Garden Hoteldinner.
JAN.15,SAT: Hellfire Pass and Museum. Saiyok National Park, falls, longtail-boat ride. Unknown late-spot lunch. Botanic Garden Hotel dinner(Botanic Sling).
JAN.16,SUN: Bridge on River Kwai, Suphanburi Bird Sanctuary. Utaithani barge lunch. Wat Chantaram glass-mirrored temple. Phet Hotel in Kamphaeng Phet, with market walk and gekko on head, PhetHotel chinese singing-dinner.DayAtTheRaces*.
JAN.17,MON: Sukothai temples and parade! Wat Mahatat, Wat Si Sawai, Wat Sri Chum. Sri Satchanalai Park lunch at Wang Yom. Wat Suton Kiri's Assistant Abbot talks long to us. To Phrae and Maeyom Palace Hotel dinner on good-air terrace.
JAN.18,TUE: Indigo dying factory, Little Duck Hotel lunch in Chiangmai. School visit, with Akka and Pongpakham Yao hill-tribes. Golden Triangle Resort on the Mekong River, dinner with Thai dancing: long fingernails & flower-fingernails.
JAN.19,WED: Cross Sai River to Tachilek in Burma, seen from Scorpion Statue overlook. Rickshaw ride, Shan-style Temple of Haloed Buddha. Eat durian. Opium Museum, Wat Pradhat Pukkai, boat ride near Burma and Laos, dinner at hotel.
JAN.20,THU: Chiang Saeng and Wat Prathat Jadee Luong. Charin Garden Resort for pies and ice creams. "Hot Springs" shops. Chiangmai Country Garden's Bua lunch. Celadon/umbrella/hill-tribe shops. Suan Doi Guesthouse dinner. Night market.
JAN.21,FRI: Mae Ping Elephant Camp. Elephant ride and bamboo raft on river. Sainamphung lunch and orchids, Siamese cats, ridgeback dogs, and birds. National Museum for Lanna art. Umbrella Festival parage. Ruen Soontaree dinner.
JAN.22,SAT: Wat Chedi Luang and "class" with monks. Doi Sutep in haze. Jade factory. Holiday Garden Hotel buffet lunch. Wat PhraSing, MaeRim "private"dine.
JAN.23:SUN: Fly Chiangmai-Bangkok 10:45-11:34. Lunch where? Flea Market with Adele. Skytrain to MonarchLeeGardens Hotel. Bussaracum Restaurant dinner for 6.
JAN.24:MON: Coconut oil/milk/meat factory. Longtailed boat to Floating Market at Damnean Saduak near Kanchanaburi. Woodcarving factory. Wanfah Garden lunch buffet. Royal Palace and Reclining Buddha. Sala Rim Naam dinner & Thai dancing.
JAN.25,TUE: Bangkok "farewell" morning walk. Fly Bangkok-Hanoi 2:57-4:32. Local dinner. Walk Hanoi Old Town with Adele and Nancy, at Chains First Eden Hotel.
JAN.26,WED: Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and house. Museum of Fine Arts and one-pillar pagoda. Temple of Literature. Soho Deli lunch. Ethnological Museum and books. Cyclo tour 4:49-5:42, Minh Anh dinner, to Water-Puppet Theater and walk Park.
JAN.27:THU: Hanoi-Haiphong bus. Snakewine shop, carpet factory, Du Hang Pagoda. Hotel Du Commerce lunch, Hanoi forgotten-name restaurant. At Halong Bay Hotel.
JAN.28:FRI: Halong Bay cruise 8:30-4:12. Grotto of Heavenly Palace, Wooden Stakes Grotto, "Amazing" Cave. Lunch on boat, to Titop Beach. Name(?) dinner.
JAN.29:SAT: Humanitarian Shop stop on return to Hanoi. Nam Thanh lunch. Metropole Hotel for Romances with Fred. Aux Goumets piano-bar farewell dinner.
JAN.30:SUN: Fly Hanoi-Bangkok 11:35-1:29. Schwarzenegger*. Rama Gardens dinner.
JAN.31:MON: Fly Bangkok-Tokyo 6:30-11:29(4:59). Fly Tokyo-JFK 3:30-1:17(11:47).