for the longest time, we had been hearing from people who'd been there that chiang mai was some sort of oasis of hot chicks, gorgeous mountains, and a bustling nightlife. in fact, papa skee, who had been to thailand several times before, recounted an interesting story to us: apparently, his good buddy flew a bunch of his homies out to chiang mai to celebrate his birthday. what resulted can only be described as some sort of grotesque sex orgy, where the five of them handled 30-odd girls in about 4 day's time. if that doesn't make sense, that's good, because its not supposed to make sense at all. suffice it to say that the dude who was having his birthday party was determined to spend as much money as he could on booze and women, and managed to drop about $5000 in less than a week.
we had been hearing two main things about chiang mai from travelers we had met on our journey who had been there: first, that after cambodia, chiang mai would be a place where we could kick it with other backpackers in hostels and go "trekking" through wilderness -- whatever that means -- and second, that chiang mai supposedly has the hottest girls in thailand, which we were determined to judge for ourselves. (we were panning through some of papa skee's photos on his digital camera and came upon some shots of the aforementioned birthday extravaganza -- and we determined that yes, those girls were pretty hot.)
what we would discover in chiang mai is, up to this point in my travels, perhaps be the biggest disappointment of my extended trip.
this is not to say that people can't have fun in chiang mai; it's just a report on the situation we found after spending two memorable weeks in cambodia.
i'll start from the beginning.
first of all, skeelow had had enough of cambodia and wanted to get out of there. this was in part due to his prolonged stomach illness that sapped him of his strength, energy, and overall good looks. as i said earlier, when we met up with him again in phnom penh -- and this was after he had been eating solid food again for 2 days -- he looked like a ghost. i guess he may have also been a little bitter that jason and i had so many interesting stories to tell about our nights out that didn't (couldn't) include him. all i know is that by the time we got back to phnom penh, he was jonesing to leave -- and i couldnt really blame him.
the problem was, jason and i had some unfinished business that we wanted to take care of in phnom penh, so skye and i decided that it would be best for him to head to chaing mai a day early and check the place out before i flew out to meet him.
after spending hours unsuccessfully trying to book flights through air asia's website at various internet cafes, we finally gave up and booked tickets through a travel agency and pretty much got ripped off. to make matters worse, i didnt account for the motorcycle traffic in the morning in phnom penh and missed making my flight by about 5 minutes. i haggled with the people behind the counter, but there was nothing i could do. at the last minute, one of the nicer girls advised me to immediately head over to the bangkok airlines counter to purchase another flight to bangkok so i could make the second leg of my flight. begrudgingly, i went to the ATM, pulled out some more useless cambodian money, and bought a ticket for a flight leaving in like 45 minutes with cash. then, i had to pay a $25 exiting fee to the nice fellows in the cambodian government.
after all of this, i was off. the flights themselves were pretty normal. on the first flight, i sat next to this girl who had a real bigtime job in phnom penh that involved making name brands and marketing them. she was nice enough.
the real bitch of the whole situation was that now that i was on a different flight to bangkok on an airline other than air asia, i had to basically run off of the flight, fight my way through customs, pick up my bags at the bangkok air terminal, and rush over to the air asia counter to recheck my bags in for the second flight. that sucked, but i made it.
when i got to chiang mai, skeelow had emailed the name of the guesthouse he was staying at. he said that the pool was freezing. wonderful.
skye and i spent most of our time in chiang mai searching for cool things to do. he met some gay, old french guy by the pool named michel who was super-tanned, super-old, and wearing a super-revealing speedo. michel told him that he was a professional sailor who had spent most of his adult life gallivanting around southeast asia, serving as a guide to rich tourists. he told skeelow about awesome places in the phillipines and indonesia.
(SIDENOTE: did you know that in some places in the phillipines, they don't bury their dead in the ground but instead, place their bodies inside of trees? so apparently in their tradition, a person is assigned a tree in some cemetery-like location and for his or her whole life, he or she carves exquisite depictions of his or her life and loved ones all over the bark of the tree while also carving out a large hole on one side of the tree. when the person passes on, he or she is literally stashed within the tree itself, right in the nook that he or she had spent his or her whole life carving... and you can go and see these places. they're mainly on islands that you have to take boats to, and traditionally, you can only go at night.... so from what i've heard, it's pretty fucking creepy. by the way, how fucking bullshit is it that we have to write "he or she" or "he/she" to make a sentence grammatically correct? i mean, can we petition the official department that decides these things and ask them to make "they" or some other word OK to use? i mean, that last little interlude reads like shit, and it's only partially my fault.)
michel also gave us a package of extra-strength immodium AD, the most potent anti diarrheal medicine known to man. he had also advised skeelow to drink the water that white rice is cooked in, which is interesting because that is the old-time traditional chinese remedy for an upset stomach. it's funny how different the west is from the east. here, they're absolutely averse to taking any sort of unnatural drug; in the west, we take chemicals for just about anything. which works better? in my opinion, for the little things like diarrhea, fever, cough, etc, i think it's probably best to stay away from that chemical shit. but, if you have, say, cancer or something severe and life-threatening like that, i'd go with the western medicine, just to be safe. in my experiences, i've never heard of a root or animal part that could cure cancer -- but maybe i just haven't seen enough stuff. but i digress. by this point, skeelow and i were pretty much backed up with all of the medicine we had been taking, so we were good on that front.
we hit up a lot of the open air markets in the old city that had probably the coolest stuff to buy that we had seen on our journey to that point. we met some guy who designed these sweet tee shirts that we liked a lot. we each bought like 5 we wore them almost every day for the rest of our time together. in fact, i am wearing one today. we even got the guy's email address because he wanted to see if we could market them to some stores when we got back to america. im telling you, the shirts are cool. trust me.
other than tee shirts and smoothies, there really wasnt much else for us to do... we decided against taking a trek through the mountains because it was going to occupy too much time and we had heard numerous horror stories about the shittiness of the whole ordeal. again, after being in cambodia for so long, we were looking to chill out. we had heard about some reggae area in the city, but never found it. everywhere we went, there were bars full of prostitutes begging us to come in and have a drink. to us, chiang mai was just like bangkok -- and we had had enough of that for a lifetime, thank you very much. again, we ran into a bunch of scumbag foreigners who were only there for the tail. by the end of the first night, we wanted no part of chiang mai.
the only thing that we discovered that we could do that we might not have been able to do elsewhere was to rent scooters without any proper operating licenses. we asked the guys at our guesthouse and one of the dudes went out and promptly brought two scooters back to us, one of which was being ridden by a kid of about 12 years old. they cost 200 baht a day, which is about $6.
neither skye nor i had ever really ridden a motorcycle before; in fact, both of us pretty much were against the whole idea of it. all throughout thailand, we had met travelers like ourselves who had all sorts of injuries ranging from road rash to massive head wounds from attempting to ride scooters. we didnt want to spoil the rest of our trip by incurring some sort of grievous injury, but chiang mai was such a disappointment, that we overlooked this danger and sped off into the harsh chiang mai traffic.
the city itself is interesting. the whole time, we were hearing (from travelers, lonely planet, etc.) that chiang mai was some sort of gorgeous place where the air was clear and the mountains were high. we didnt exactly find this to be the case. first of all, the place was polluted as fuck. there were tons of cars and motorcycles and all sorts of things that you wouldnt think youd find in a small city.
another thing we heard was that the city architecture was magnificent: an old city surrounded by a new city separated by ancient city walls and a moat. again, i am sad to report that there is absolutely no difference in the old and new cities save that one is within this moat thing, if you can call it that, and one is outside of it. the city walls have long been taken down and the moat thing is nothing more than a 30 foot wide sewage system that looks the same from just about any vantage point. one good thing about the moat was that it helped us initially figure out where we were relative to our guesthouse, which was just inside the old city.
i dont want you guys to think that all of our time in chiang mai sucked; it didnt. when we finally got going on our scooters after some initial hiccups, we headed out of the city towards the mountains. there was this giant temple on the top of one of the distant hills called doi suthep. from our guidebook, this seemed like the place to go in chiang mai. we had heard about all of these amazing waterfalls that you could drive to, but we discovered that they were extremely far away and had to be tackled early in the day to make it worth it; otherwise, we would be left in the mountains after dark on scooters that we didnt really know how to ride. so doi suthep it would be.
we brought out a big chiang mai map and tried to find it ourselves, but for the life of us, every place we went turned out to be a dead end. we ended up asking some monks after another failed attempt left us over by this small temple that definitely was not doi suthep. what we eventually discovered, after numerous pit stops, was that we had to go through chiang mai university to get to the doi. it didnt make any sense, but to this point in our stay, nothing about the place had made any sense at all. that was how it was going to be.
another thing that we had heard was that doi suthep was extremely close to the city and that we could even proceed there on foot if need be. again, not at all the case. the temple is about 16 km up this giant, windy mountain that has cars and trucks and tour buses and motorcycles running all up and down it.
it was on this windy stretch of road that skeelow and i finally became one with our scooters. we had no other choice. we slowly got used to banking the other way while taking sharp turns and using the horn while passing slower vehicles. the experience was liberating. i cant describe it in any other way. if you guys ever get the chance, do some scootering. you wont regret it, even if you do get some road rash along the way.
when we got up the the temple, it was already late in the afternoon. most of the tourists were descending the long steps to the temple as we were scampering up them. along the sides, there were the regular trinket hawkers and fruit salespeople that we were used to at this point. we got some awesome fresh squeezed OJ and headed up the steps. we found out that it cost some nominal fee to go up into the actual temple if you are a foreigner -- and only if you're a foreigner. it was cool though. skeelow didnt throw his normal hissy fit. we were on such a high from the scooter ride up and it was for a good cause.
the whole temple was adorned with opulent statues and decorations that were covered in gold leaf. because of its location atop a giant mountain, the view from the edge of the grounds was amazing. also, because it was so high up, the weather wasnt so hot and the air was much cleaner than down in the city. all in all, it was a good experience. it was nice to be out of the city if but for just a little while and it put an exclamation mark for us on an otherwise dreary experience in a place that we thought would be dope.
we had to leave quickly because it was getting dark and kind of rainy. the last thing skye and i wanted was to be stuck up on that mountain, or worse, on the road down. as we bombed it down that windy road, we discovered that going downhill was a lot easier than going uphill on our scooters, contrary to what we had believed. i guess thats why you've got to try things out for yourself; no matter what other people tell you about something, if you haven't actually experienced it, you may as well be reading fiction. we had to try chiang mai out for ourselves to discover that it wasnt for us and we had to overcome our fears of motorcycling in traffic to discover that we really actually loved it. to this day, i still crave the freedom of a motorcycle. there is no better way to see the place you are and no more convenient way to get around than on the back of your own scooter. that, my friends, is no lie -- but you're going to have to try it out for yourselves sometime to really get to know what im talking about. who knows? maybe you'll love it too.
ok, enough with the whole "take home message" crap; let's wrap this up. by the way, im sorry if this post kind of sucks. ive been writing it while trying to watch "into the wild" for the first time while sitting on darcy's couch. it's kind of not working out that well, so i apologize in advance if this post has little to no structure in its ramblings. the movie is making me think about my life, my travels, and my place in the world. if you haven't seen it, you should. i'm enjoying it very much right now.
so back to chiang mai: skye and i made it back to our guesthouse safe and sound, jumped directly into the freezing-ass pool and washed the sweat off of our bodies. that night, we went out again in search of fun but ended up just going to mickie D's because we were both sick of thai and other ethnic food by that point. had a filet o' fish, some fries and a coke. they were delicious. it was the first time that we had capitulated to one of the many mcdonald's along the way. sometimes, you just need some good old american home cookin' by some of the esteemed graduates of hamburger U. you know, it doesnt matter where you are on earth, mcdonalds always tastes the same and it was that consistent shittiness that made us feel so at home while we were eating it. im telling you, even if you never, ever eat that shit at home, you will at some point along your travels think to yourself, "hey, you know, i could really use some mcnuggets or a big mac or some fries right now." you dont believe me, do you?
the next day, we would be headed to pai, a little mountain oasis about 5 hours northwest of chiang mai where we believed we would be free of the hot weather and rampant whoreishness that had characterized our time in thailand to that point.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Phnom Penh for one last spin
so when i left off, i was writing about sihanoukville, on the cambodian riviera. after our nightly escapades of non-stop drinking, our daily excursions to the beach, and being devoured by the nastiest mosquitoes this side of hanoi, we were more than happy to go back to our home away from home, lovely phnom penh.
jason and i were excited to meet up with joe the tuk tuk driver again. we missed our scheduled bus back to the capitol because for once, a bus left at exactly the scheduled time and we were left sucking dust as we careened towards the station in a shitty tuk tuk. the people at the station were somewhat sympathetic to your travails and allowed us to take the next bus back. this bus didnt have a bathroom on board, but jason was pretty well recovered from his near-death experience so we made it back to the city without much fanfare.
when we arrived, we checked back into the okay guesthouse and met up with skye again. he looked like shit. he had lost a good 10 pounds over the last week and his clothes were literally hanging off of him. (he's not a very big guy to begin with, so his prolonged illness had really taken a tone on his chiseled physique.) i reassumed my position as skeelow's bed-partner and jason checked into a single. we immediately sent our clothes to be washed and headed down to the common area for some western food. there, we met some friends who had been in sihanoukville and recounted our experiences with them. jason and i had two things on our minds: hang out with joe, and buy a bunch of shit from the russian market to ship home.
we met up with this dude named jon (his full name was jon michael laine) from finland. jon had been living it up alongside of us in sihanoukville and had some fresh tattoos to prove it. im not going to tell you guys what jon does for a living, but suffice it to say that it's not really on the level, and that snoop dogg would be more than happy to know him.
jon hadnt really spent much time in phnom penh yet so jason and i determined that we would take him out and show him a good time. jon had hooked up with this cheeky australian girl on the beach named ash who was 19 and had been travelling with her mother, a handsome woman in her 40's. he was in the middle of telling us about how he had had to wait until her mom left to consummate their relationship, so to speak, when like magic, joe appeared again. he was wearing a new getup and had a pair of shades on. he was in great spirits. we hugged hello and immediately took off for the russian market with jon, ash, and some fat chick who was ash's friend.
when we got to the market, we only had about half an hour to do our shopping. jason and i were to be leaving in two days -- he for a quick tour of vietnam and i to meet skeelow in chiang mai, thailand. we proceeded to run through the hot as fuck market bargaining for goodies. we both got some sweet fake watches for cheap and other assorted souvenirs. we were determined to trust the cambodian postal service to get our loot back to the states. neither of us were sure if it was a good idea, but we didnt really see any other alternative. after a harrowing 30 minutes, we met outside, dripping in sweat, each carrying bagfuls of stuff. after eating some fried bananas and drinking fruit smoothies, we deposited out things back at the guesthouse and set out to see the sunset over the mekong.
the mekong flows through the center of phnom penh and the city is built around it. we decided to brave the mosquitoes as joe hurtled his tuk tuk towards one of the lakeside guesthouses. the one he chose was called 'same same but different', a common phrase that cambodians use to represent something or some situation that on the surface seems the same, but in reality is very different. hard to explain. suffice it to say that this term is pretty much universal in cambodia. everyone uses it to their own whim, even the backpackers.
the guesthouse had a sweet balcony-type thing at the end of it that bordered the river. after thinking that we had long missed the sun setting, we were surprised and pleased to find that the sun was going down just as we got there. the patio was filled with all types of backpackers who had gotten 'stuck' in phnom penh, only their experiences were vastly different from our own. for one, all they seemed to be doing all day was to recount their old travel war stories while smoking mass quantities of pot and drinking beer. we spent some time schmoozing with the others as well as partaking in some of the festivities. joe was in terrific spirits and was rolling up a storm. after awhile, we went inside to go play some pool on a less-than-perfectly-flat table. jason and i joshed around while skye ate his obligitory banana pancake.
after a few hours, skye begged off to go to bed because he was leaving early the next morning; he had had enough of cambodia and was moving on to greener pastures in chiang mai, where we had heard the guesthouses had pools. jason and i wanted to continue our authentic cambodian experience, so we asked joe to take us to the baddest-ass local spot he could think of for some dinner. we asked everyone to come with us, promising them the experience of their lives. only ash, her friend, and jon agreed to come with us.
joe took us to a restaurant that we had been to several times before. it was open to the air and served a variety of the best basil beef ive ever had. they also had a big pot of soup with noodles that we were craving. when we got there, joe met up with some of his tuk tuk driver friends -- 4 to be precise -- and we got to drinking, eating, and making merry. one of his buddies was this very well spoken guy who had taught himself to play the guitar. this dude was amazing, and soon, we were treated to a mini concert consisting of that guy on the guitar, joe on vocals, and the rest of us clapping and banging on the table. we must have raised quite a scene.
during the course of the meal, we were offered (and i ate) a bunch of assorted bugs and some barbequed snake. they were delicious. we probably stayed at that restaurant for 3-4 hours hanging out. by the end of it, we were all full to the brim and pretty much tuckered out. joe asked me if i wanted to go out to a local cambodian nightclub with him. he seemed to think that by working together, we could pull any chick in the joint. i agreed to go with him and we sped off.
the nightclub was probably the craziest place ive ever been in my life. the place was 100% local. i was the only non-cambodian in there, and i still looked kind of like them, so it was ok. we ordered some overpriced beer and sat at a table by the window which overlooked the mekong. after awhile, joe asked me to come out to the dance floor with him.
the way the nightclubs work in cambodia is pretty strange. first of all, all of the music is live. there was this totally effeminate dude with crazy hair up on stage with this hot chick who was kind of dressed like a prostitute. behind them, there was a DJ spinning phat beats. the sets were super short: just two songs where everyone crowds to the floor and kind of gyrates around without touching each other -- one fast number followed by a slow dance -- and then there is like a 15 minute intermission when everyone goes back to their seats and chugs beer while wiping the sweat off of their brows. this went on ad infinitum.
when joe asked me to go out there with him, i was pretty nervous. for one: cambodian people are like the most bashful people in the world. they can't dance worth a lick because it's super disrespectful to touch anyone else. we headed out to the dance floor and kind of did a little circle around the place. there were old people, young people, and ladyboys. everyone danced like a foot from each other, so i was left kind of dancing by myself, feeling awkward.
then, the real music started. i dont know if you guys have ever seen this on TV, but the set they were doing was the traditional cambodian dance set. when the song came on, all of a sudden, people stopped what they were doing, and started prancing around in a big circle around the dance floor. everybody moves at about quarter speed with their hands tilted upwards, fingers up and curled, thumbs in -- praising buddha, i think. what you do is follow the person in front of you while moving your hands slowly around in a kind of bollywood-style motion. the song was very traditional and slow and lasted way too long for my comfort. joe had to teach me how to do the dance and i basically mirrored him. the thing is, the people out there were having the times of their lives. everyone was just smiling with their eyes closed in ecstasy.
after the first number, the second song was a traditional cambodian folk song with steps that reminded me of the kind of square dancing you learn in elementary school gym class. one step to the left, one to the right, two steps back, et cetera. the thing is, there was still this formal thing you were supposed to do with your hands where you spread your fingers apart and kind of wave them over your crotch to the rhythm of the song, which again, was very slow. after that much culture, i begged off the floor and headed back to the table for the intermission.
after this, we drank and smoked, and left.
joe told me we wanted to show me some 'hot chicks', which i immediately read as meaning 'whores'. i begged him not to go, but he was on a mission. against my protests, he drove me out to his favorite brothel and basically forced me to go in there with him with the unassuming words, "let's just take a look.....hot chicks!"
the minute we got there, i was completely sketched out. for one, this was no normal brothel like you see in thailand. the place was a totally seedy storefront with a bunch of unsavory types hanging around outside. again, i begged joe to turn back, but he was undeterred. we followed some guy who joe said was his friend into an empty room and then through a dirty hallway into a room that can be best described as a cross between a high school locker room and a concentration camp gas chamber. there was a bench that ran around three sides of the room and on it were some of the saddest, most pathetic looking prostitutes that i have ever laid eyes on. most of them looked like they were 12 and were pretty much either chewing on their hair or playing with their gum or both. all of them looked very very sad. the guy pulled up two plastic chairs for us and we sat there looking at them like they were zoo animals while smoking cigarettes. through it all, joe kept asking me which ones i thought were hot. i told him that i just wanted to get the fuck out of there.
finally, joe capitulated and we took off, but not before he questioned my manhood and asked my why i wouldnt go to bed with them. apparently, joe likes his whores. i told him that he was welcome to go fuck as many as he pleased after he dropped me off. when we got back to the okay guesthouse, we made a date for him to bring us back to the russian market the next day for some hardcore shopping. he agreed to meet us around noon the following day and we parted ways.
the next morning, over breakfast, jason and i bought a cell phone for joe from jon, the fin. joe was nowhere to be found. we asked the other tuk tuk drivers if they knew where he was and they told us that he had gotten too drunk the night before and had gone back to his real house away from the city to sleep. we were left without another option. we asked one of the guys who had had dinner with us the next night to take us to the russian market.
when we got there, jason and i were pretty much over it, and were trying to find the nearest post office. we asked everyone who looked like they spoke english, but apparently 'post office' doesnt translate well into cambodian. most people looked at us like we were crazy. all they would say is 'DHL', which is the service that most foreigners use to send stuff back home. we knew that DHL would cost us an arm and a leg, so we persisted. eventually, we gave up and decided to see if we could find phnom penh's famous driving range. the thought of hitting some golf balls in a third world country tickled our fancy, for some reason.
SIDE NOTE: jason is a professional golfer, almost. he went to loyola marymount on a golf scholarship and decided that it wasnt for him. but he still caddies at the riviera country club in LA and has pretty much been doing golf shit his whole life. in fact, he made a small fortune with a website called 1daysports.com, a website that sells golf equipment at the lowest prices on the web, but only sells one particular product a day. basically, you have to log in early to see what's for sale and then you have to buy it before it runs out. when the product is gone, you have to wait until the next day to get another deal. he sold the website for a bunch of money and embarked upon his travels. as we speak, i think he's in europe right now.
so jason and i asked a tuk tuk driver to take us out to the driving range that some british girls had told us about. it was right in the center of town and it was very upscale, by cambodian standards. the people hitting balls there were definitely rich; everyone had new, super nice equipment and really expensive looking outfits on. the thing that surprised me the most about the place were the number of rich cambodian women who were literally ripping the shit out of the balls with deadly, trained precision. we got to talking with some of the people, and not to our surprise, they all turned out to be cambodian people who were on vacation -- back home to the motherland for some good, cheap fun. most of them lived in other countries and were somehow very wealthy.
jason and i each hit a bucket of balls and he gave me some tips that really improved my game. he was amazing, as he should have been. we played "lob the wedge into the basket" for awhile. it was hot as fuck and we were sweating up a storm. luckily, every basket of balls came with a complimentary frozen wet nap. after we were done, we asked the people at the range about the postal service. again, we were handed a DHL form. at this point, we decided to give up.
that night, joe made his first appearance of the day, looking refreshed as ever. we went out with jon again and hit up some spots like same same and ate at another local spot. joe was really sad to be parting ways with us, but we assured him that we would come back to see him. i still stand by this promise. we exchanged email addresses and we told him to get a number for that phone we had given him. jason and i had to be up early to continue traveling. he was headed to hanoi. i was going to chiang mai, like i said earlier.
the next morning, joe was there, as promised to take me to the airport. jason and i parted ways with a heterosexual man-hug and we were off. cambodia would now just be a fond memory for us; we had places to go and people to meet. people like joe made the whole experience worth it for us. despite the seedy conditions, the rampant mosquitoes, the heartbreaking poverty, and the like, we felt uplifted by the spirit of the people there. for the rest of my life, i will have a very special place in my heart for cambodia -- especially phnom penh. i felt as though i grew up a lot there and even looking back at it now, some months later, i wouldnt trade the experiences i had there for the world.
jason and i were excited to meet up with joe the tuk tuk driver again. we missed our scheduled bus back to the capitol because for once, a bus left at exactly the scheduled time and we were left sucking dust as we careened towards the station in a shitty tuk tuk. the people at the station were somewhat sympathetic to your travails and allowed us to take the next bus back. this bus didnt have a bathroom on board, but jason was pretty well recovered from his near-death experience so we made it back to the city without much fanfare.
when we arrived, we checked back into the okay guesthouse and met up with skye again. he looked like shit. he had lost a good 10 pounds over the last week and his clothes were literally hanging off of him. (he's not a very big guy to begin with, so his prolonged illness had really taken a tone on his chiseled physique.) i reassumed my position as skeelow's bed-partner and jason checked into a single. we immediately sent our clothes to be washed and headed down to the common area for some western food. there, we met some friends who had been in sihanoukville and recounted our experiences with them. jason and i had two things on our minds: hang out with joe, and buy a bunch of shit from the russian market to ship home.
we met up with this dude named jon (his full name was jon michael laine) from finland. jon had been living it up alongside of us in sihanoukville and had some fresh tattoos to prove it. im not going to tell you guys what jon does for a living, but suffice it to say that it's not really on the level, and that snoop dogg would be more than happy to know him.
jon hadnt really spent much time in phnom penh yet so jason and i determined that we would take him out and show him a good time. jon had hooked up with this cheeky australian girl on the beach named ash who was 19 and had been travelling with her mother, a handsome woman in her 40's. he was in the middle of telling us about how he had had to wait until her mom left to consummate their relationship, so to speak, when like magic, joe appeared again. he was wearing a new getup and had a pair of shades on. he was in great spirits. we hugged hello and immediately took off for the russian market with jon, ash, and some fat chick who was ash's friend.
when we got to the market, we only had about half an hour to do our shopping. jason and i were to be leaving in two days -- he for a quick tour of vietnam and i to meet skeelow in chiang mai, thailand. we proceeded to run through the hot as fuck market bargaining for goodies. we both got some sweet fake watches for cheap and other assorted souvenirs. we were determined to trust the cambodian postal service to get our loot back to the states. neither of us were sure if it was a good idea, but we didnt really see any other alternative. after a harrowing 30 minutes, we met outside, dripping in sweat, each carrying bagfuls of stuff. after eating some fried bananas and drinking fruit smoothies, we deposited out things back at the guesthouse and set out to see the sunset over the mekong.
the mekong flows through the center of phnom penh and the city is built around it. we decided to brave the mosquitoes as joe hurtled his tuk tuk towards one of the lakeside guesthouses. the one he chose was called 'same same but different', a common phrase that cambodians use to represent something or some situation that on the surface seems the same, but in reality is very different. hard to explain. suffice it to say that this term is pretty much universal in cambodia. everyone uses it to their own whim, even the backpackers.
the guesthouse had a sweet balcony-type thing at the end of it that bordered the river. after thinking that we had long missed the sun setting, we were surprised and pleased to find that the sun was going down just as we got there. the patio was filled with all types of backpackers who had gotten 'stuck' in phnom penh, only their experiences were vastly different from our own. for one, all they seemed to be doing all day was to recount their old travel war stories while smoking mass quantities of pot and drinking beer. we spent some time schmoozing with the others as well as partaking in some of the festivities. joe was in terrific spirits and was rolling up a storm. after awhile, we went inside to go play some pool on a less-than-perfectly-flat table. jason and i joshed around while skye ate his obligitory banana pancake.
after a few hours, skye begged off to go to bed because he was leaving early the next morning; he had had enough of cambodia and was moving on to greener pastures in chiang mai, where we had heard the guesthouses had pools. jason and i wanted to continue our authentic cambodian experience, so we asked joe to take us to the baddest-ass local spot he could think of for some dinner. we asked everyone to come with us, promising them the experience of their lives. only ash, her friend, and jon agreed to come with us.
joe took us to a restaurant that we had been to several times before. it was open to the air and served a variety of the best basil beef ive ever had. they also had a big pot of soup with noodles that we were craving. when we got there, joe met up with some of his tuk tuk driver friends -- 4 to be precise -- and we got to drinking, eating, and making merry. one of his buddies was this very well spoken guy who had taught himself to play the guitar. this dude was amazing, and soon, we were treated to a mini concert consisting of that guy on the guitar, joe on vocals, and the rest of us clapping and banging on the table. we must have raised quite a scene.
during the course of the meal, we were offered (and i ate) a bunch of assorted bugs and some barbequed snake. they were delicious. we probably stayed at that restaurant for 3-4 hours hanging out. by the end of it, we were all full to the brim and pretty much tuckered out. joe asked me if i wanted to go out to a local cambodian nightclub with him. he seemed to think that by working together, we could pull any chick in the joint. i agreed to go with him and we sped off.
the nightclub was probably the craziest place ive ever been in my life. the place was 100% local. i was the only non-cambodian in there, and i still looked kind of like them, so it was ok. we ordered some overpriced beer and sat at a table by the window which overlooked the mekong. after awhile, joe asked me to come out to the dance floor with him.
the way the nightclubs work in cambodia is pretty strange. first of all, all of the music is live. there was this totally effeminate dude with crazy hair up on stage with this hot chick who was kind of dressed like a prostitute. behind them, there was a DJ spinning phat beats. the sets were super short: just two songs where everyone crowds to the floor and kind of gyrates around without touching each other -- one fast number followed by a slow dance -- and then there is like a 15 minute intermission when everyone goes back to their seats and chugs beer while wiping the sweat off of their brows. this went on ad infinitum.
when joe asked me to go out there with him, i was pretty nervous. for one: cambodian people are like the most bashful people in the world. they can't dance worth a lick because it's super disrespectful to touch anyone else. we headed out to the dance floor and kind of did a little circle around the place. there were old people, young people, and ladyboys. everyone danced like a foot from each other, so i was left kind of dancing by myself, feeling awkward.
then, the real music started. i dont know if you guys have ever seen this on TV, but the set they were doing was the traditional cambodian dance set. when the song came on, all of a sudden, people stopped what they were doing, and started prancing around in a big circle around the dance floor. everybody moves at about quarter speed with their hands tilted upwards, fingers up and curled, thumbs in -- praising buddha, i think. what you do is follow the person in front of you while moving your hands slowly around in a kind of bollywood-style motion. the song was very traditional and slow and lasted way too long for my comfort. joe had to teach me how to do the dance and i basically mirrored him. the thing is, the people out there were having the times of their lives. everyone was just smiling with their eyes closed in ecstasy.
after the first number, the second song was a traditional cambodian folk song with steps that reminded me of the kind of square dancing you learn in elementary school gym class. one step to the left, one to the right, two steps back, et cetera. the thing is, there was still this formal thing you were supposed to do with your hands where you spread your fingers apart and kind of wave them over your crotch to the rhythm of the song, which again, was very slow. after that much culture, i begged off the floor and headed back to the table for the intermission.
after this, we drank and smoked, and left.
joe told me we wanted to show me some 'hot chicks', which i immediately read as meaning 'whores'. i begged him not to go, but he was on a mission. against my protests, he drove me out to his favorite brothel and basically forced me to go in there with him with the unassuming words, "let's just take a look.....hot chicks!"
the minute we got there, i was completely sketched out. for one, this was no normal brothel like you see in thailand. the place was a totally seedy storefront with a bunch of unsavory types hanging around outside. again, i begged joe to turn back, but he was undeterred. we followed some guy who joe said was his friend into an empty room and then through a dirty hallway into a room that can be best described as a cross between a high school locker room and a concentration camp gas chamber. there was a bench that ran around three sides of the room and on it were some of the saddest, most pathetic looking prostitutes that i have ever laid eyes on. most of them looked like they were 12 and were pretty much either chewing on their hair or playing with their gum or both. all of them looked very very sad. the guy pulled up two plastic chairs for us and we sat there looking at them like they were zoo animals while smoking cigarettes. through it all, joe kept asking me which ones i thought were hot. i told him that i just wanted to get the fuck out of there.
finally, joe capitulated and we took off, but not before he questioned my manhood and asked my why i wouldnt go to bed with them. apparently, joe likes his whores. i told him that he was welcome to go fuck as many as he pleased after he dropped me off. when we got back to the okay guesthouse, we made a date for him to bring us back to the russian market the next day for some hardcore shopping. he agreed to meet us around noon the following day and we parted ways.
the next morning, over breakfast, jason and i bought a cell phone for joe from jon, the fin. joe was nowhere to be found. we asked the other tuk tuk drivers if they knew where he was and they told us that he had gotten too drunk the night before and had gone back to his real house away from the city to sleep. we were left without another option. we asked one of the guys who had had dinner with us the next night to take us to the russian market.
when we got there, jason and i were pretty much over it, and were trying to find the nearest post office. we asked everyone who looked like they spoke english, but apparently 'post office' doesnt translate well into cambodian. most people looked at us like we were crazy. all they would say is 'DHL', which is the service that most foreigners use to send stuff back home. we knew that DHL would cost us an arm and a leg, so we persisted. eventually, we gave up and decided to see if we could find phnom penh's famous driving range. the thought of hitting some golf balls in a third world country tickled our fancy, for some reason.
SIDE NOTE: jason is a professional golfer, almost. he went to loyola marymount on a golf scholarship and decided that it wasnt for him. but he still caddies at the riviera country club in LA and has pretty much been doing golf shit his whole life. in fact, he made a small fortune with a website called 1daysports.com, a website that sells golf equipment at the lowest prices on the web, but only sells one particular product a day. basically, you have to log in early to see what's for sale and then you have to buy it before it runs out. when the product is gone, you have to wait until the next day to get another deal. he sold the website for a bunch of money and embarked upon his travels. as we speak, i think he's in europe right now.
so jason and i asked a tuk tuk driver to take us out to the driving range that some british girls had told us about. it was right in the center of town and it was very upscale, by cambodian standards. the people hitting balls there were definitely rich; everyone had new, super nice equipment and really expensive looking outfits on. the thing that surprised me the most about the place were the number of rich cambodian women who were literally ripping the shit out of the balls with deadly, trained precision. we got to talking with some of the people, and not to our surprise, they all turned out to be cambodian people who were on vacation -- back home to the motherland for some good, cheap fun. most of them lived in other countries and were somehow very wealthy.
jason and i each hit a bucket of balls and he gave me some tips that really improved my game. he was amazing, as he should have been. we played "lob the wedge into the basket" for awhile. it was hot as fuck and we were sweating up a storm. luckily, every basket of balls came with a complimentary frozen wet nap. after we were done, we asked the people at the range about the postal service. again, we were handed a DHL form. at this point, we decided to give up.
that night, joe made his first appearance of the day, looking refreshed as ever. we went out with jon again and hit up some spots like same same and ate at another local spot. joe was really sad to be parting ways with us, but we assured him that we would come back to see him. i still stand by this promise. we exchanged email addresses and we told him to get a number for that phone we had given him. jason and i had to be up early to continue traveling. he was headed to hanoi. i was going to chiang mai, like i said earlier.
the next morning, joe was there, as promised to take me to the airport. jason and i parted ways with a heterosexual man-hug and we were off. cambodia would now just be a fond memory for us; we had places to go and people to meet. people like joe made the whole experience worth it for us. despite the seedy conditions, the rampant mosquitoes, the heartbreaking poverty, and the like, we felt uplifted by the spirit of the people there. for the rest of my life, i will have a very special place in my heart for cambodia -- especially phnom penh. i felt as though i grew up a lot there and even looking back at it now, some months later, i wouldnt trade the experiences i had there for the world.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Sidenote: The Origin of the Name
without further ado, the return of the fivedollarsandabucketofchicken blog.
before i get started, i feel that it's probably my duty to explain to you guys why exactly the blog is named as it is. in fact, im not sure why i didnt put it in the first post. this has nothing to do with travelling in asia or five dollars or friend chicken; the origin of the name can be traced back to one rainy evening in new orleans, just a day or two before the start of the last new orleans jazz fest before hurricane katrina hit.
it was 2004, just about 6 months before george bush jr. was inexplicably reelected to serve another term as our commander in chief. i was working for a nonprofit organization called 'mobilizing america's youth'. my buddy eric and i were canvassing the southern portion of the united states for our organization's very ambitious "march across america", which was basically a cross-country winnebago trip where a bunch of college kids played house...but thats another story for another time. our goal was to GOTV, which means "get out the vote"... a cutsie term that "rock the vote" and other youth voting organizations made up that basically means, "get lazy young people to care about politics enough to exercise their american right to vote for their own leaders" or something to that effect.
our "boss", david beaumont smith, was a good friend from college and he used our being in new orleans as an opportunity to celebrate his birthday as well as to do some much-needed political schmoozing. so dave flew out and met us when we were floundering in the disgusting heat and humidity of houston, texas and the three of us made the 5 hour drive to the crescent city, which by the way is entirely on an elevated freeway over the deep bayou swamplands.
we left houston in the afternoon and got to louisiana in about 3 hours. by that time, it was dark and we pulled over to get some gas just across the border. i remembered hearing from somebody that it was legal to carry an open container in louisiana...or at least we thought it was... i mean, people carry their drinks around on bourbon street all the time, right? how else could mardi gras happen?
so we walked into he mini mart attached to the gas station and we asked the guy at the register what the deal was. what we really wanted to do was to buy some alcohol and consume it in the car as we were cruising into new orleans. as you all know, this is mucho illegal almost everywhere in the states (cause the states is pretty much gay). so this is what happened: the guy behind the counter was this big ol' southern hick with a deep southern/creole/bayou drawl that kinda made him sound like foghorn leghorn. he was a real nice guy and honestly wanted to help us out. he said that he always drank in his car while driving, but some cronies in the state legislature were trying to push through a law that would forbid regular, law abiding citizens from drinking while driving. so he picks up the phone and, i shit you not, calls the county sherriff, whose number i assume he has memorized or on speed dial.
the conversation went something like this:
"sheriff...i got some boys over here who wanted to know about the laws in louisiana.... they wanted to know if it would be alright if they bought some beers and drank 'em right there in the car while they were drivin'.....oh yeah?..... well that sure clears things up..... oh yeah, everythings goin' just fine out here...yep......well thanks, sheriff.....you have a good night."
at this point, we thought that our goose was cooked, so to speak, but with a big, friendly grin, the guy behind the register declared that he had OKed it with the sherriff and that we could indeed drink in the car without any problem. we asked him if we had to hide the beers if we passed a cop or anything. he kind of looked at us like we were crazy and asked us why we would do that. so that was that. we bought 4 bottles of 'mad dog 20/20', she shit we used to get drunk on in high school that has like 4 flavors: green, red, blue, and purple -- and we were off to new orleans.
that last little bit of a story has nothing to do with why the blog is called what it is, but i thought that you guys might want to get a feeling of where we were and the kinds of people we were dealing with.
there was this other time in louisiana when we went to this local diner that was set off the street a little ways in the woods. the place was packed so we decided that it had to be good. the scene was straight out of the fifties. literally everyone in the town was there eating. this was a little podunk town east of new orleans. the football team, all the cheerleaders and their parents and grandparents and whoever the fuck else was white in the town were there. (so i guess 'everyone' isnt really the correct term to use here -- let's go with 'every caucasian person' and be done with it.)
we sat down to order, and this 16 year old, britney spears lookalike comes over to take our order. we ordered our meals....i think i ordered the country-fried chicken-fried steak, because it had two 'frieds' in it. literally everything on the menu was fried. im not kidding. they had fried ice cream, fried bananas, fried snickers, fried pork chops....and here's the kicker: after we all made our orders, the waitress asked us how we would like our corn. huh?
apparently, they also deep fry corn on the cob in louisiana. i was astounded. i ordered it immediately, along with some fried alligator and a fried onion blossom thing. we ate our meals with ketchup and thousand island dressing and got the fuck out of there....the locals were eyeing us....and at that point, i realized that i was probably the first asian dude they had ever seen that wasnt on tv. awkward and illuminating.
so back to the five dollars and a bucket of chicken story:
so dave, eric and i -- because we were actually 'working' -- had each brought along a dapper-looking suit and tie getup so we could impress the political activists and leaders that we were lucky enough to get a meeting with. all along the way, eric and i hadnt really been able to utilize them ... for fear of coming across as douchebags. but on this occasion, dave had obtained for us an invitation to this big deal crawfish boil that this woman, peggy wilson, was having at her house.
she lived in the rich part of new orleans in a plantation-style house that had a big courtyard with a big gate and statues outside of it. dressed in our best suits and braving the rain, we hopped in a cab that took us out to her estate. she greeted us with big hugs and kisses at the door and warmly invited us in. her house was amazingly well decorated. everything was old and tasteful. it was just as you would imagine an old, southern, rich-white-person house would be... right down to the old baby grand piano with the bust of somebody dead and famous sitting on it.
ms. wilson told us that her next door neighbors were none other than the esteemed archie manning on the one side, and trent reznor on the other. she even complained that trent would sometimes play his music a bit too loud. we were pretty much in awe at this point. after some very awkward, but genuine meet and greets with the family and friends that were there, we were led into the kitchen area where most of the partygoers were there were gathered. we were told that there was a keg of beer outside and the three of us immediately got to drinking it.
we were the only people even remotely dressed up for the occasion. apparently, crawfish boils aren't really meant to be a big deal in new orleans. most of the people there were in shorts, tee shirts, and tank tops. most of them also appeared to have eaten a little too many fried corn on the cobs, if you catch my drift. so here we were, these three preppy yankees, trying to fit in with an intimate family gathering. this is why we started hitting he booze pretty hard.
they had hired this professional crawfish boiler to make the food, which by the way, is absolutely delicious. they said he was the best in new orleans, so im guessing he may have been one of the best in the world. the boil consisted of a bunch of crawfish, ears of corn, halved new potatoes, some scallion, and a bunch of cajun spices. the dude made the boil in this big cauldron that he had set up in the yard next to the keg.
after a few minutes of drinking and schmoozing, we were called inside to start eating. this is when the story starts to get exciting. we literally had no idea how to eat crawfish, let alone eat them at a fancy schmancy crawfish boil while wearing suits and ties. ms. wilson asked her daughter in law to show us the ropes. this thirty-something southern belle comes up to us and, without hesitation, grabs a crawfish in her hands, rips it in half, and proceeds to suck the brains out of one end, and tear the other end apart with a combination of her hands and teeth, all the while making this slurping, sucking sound. needless to say, we were very impressed. i guess thats why they were just wearing their yardwork clothes...this was going to get messy.
for the next hour or so, we sat with the wilsons at a table covered in newspaper and the crawfish king kept bringing in shovel loads of crawfish and piling them in front of us. as i said earlier, the food was delicious, but probably not so nutritious. we sucked and slurped with the best of them. the food was spicy, so we were crying, sweating, and constantly blowing our noses the whole time. with our meal, we had beer and white wine. everyone was getting kind of tipsy by the end of it all and ms. wilson began to open up to us a little bit.
dave had told us that she had run for the governorship of louisiana and had narrowly been defeated. again, we were very impressed. we didnt bring this point up until after we had talked about what we were doing, what our plans were, and why we wanted to get young people out to vote. she was very polite and hospitable to us and we were charmed.
we got to talking about that ill-fated election in the course of conversation. we were simply curious about what it was like, what she had learned, etc. that's when the old southern woman began to get a little saucy. she started lamenting about how corrupt the politics in louisiana were and how everyone in the government was corrupt in some way. she talked about kickbacks, bribes, scandals, everything and pretty much prefaced, for me, what happened in the city when the hurricane hit less than a year later.
then she uttered the magic words: "are you boys going to go and get the blacks to vote?"
umm... yeah
"those blacks -- they'll vote for anyone and anything someone tells them to. in the election that i lost, i was winning until the very last minute, when the democrats went and bussed a bunch of them blacks out to the polling places..."
umm... so what's wrong with that?
"them blacks... all you have to give them is FIVE DOLLARS AND A BUCKET OF CHICKEN.... and they'll vote for anyone ... they'll do anything you ask them to do!!!"
after this, we didnt know what to do. nodding and smiling, we politely let the conversation go towards greener pastures. then we got the fuck out of dodge. again, you have to remember that i was the only non-white person there; it became readily apparent at this point. actually, it hit us like a ton of bricks in the face -- people in the south are still racist....even the nice old ladies that run for governor.
we made an excuse about how we had to meet some girls out on bourbon street and made a mad dash out into the rain. ms. wilson, ever the proper host, offered to call us a taxi. we politely refused and said that we wanted to give one of those famous new orleans trolleys a ride. she kissed us mightily on the cheeks and told us we were good boys with a good cause. we thanked her and started off into the night, not caring if our preppy suits were getting wet. it was time to go... we had overstayed our welcome.
before i get started, i feel that it's probably my duty to explain to you guys why exactly the blog is named as it is. in fact, im not sure why i didnt put it in the first post. this has nothing to do with travelling in asia or five dollars or friend chicken; the origin of the name can be traced back to one rainy evening in new orleans, just a day or two before the start of the last new orleans jazz fest before hurricane katrina hit.
it was 2004, just about 6 months before george bush jr. was inexplicably reelected to serve another term as our commander in chief. i was working for a nonprofit organization called 'mobilizing america's youth'. my buddy eric and i were canvassing the southern portion of the united states for our organization's very ambitious "march across america", which was basically a cross-country winnebago trip where a bunch of college kids played house...but thats another story for another time. our goal was to GOTV, which means "get out the vote"... a cutsie term that "rock the vote" and other youth voting organizations made up that basically means, "get lazy young people to care about politics enough to exercise their american right to vote for their own leaders" or something to that effect.
our "boss", david beaumont smith, was a good friend from college and he used our being in new orleans as an opportunity to celebrate his birthday as well as to do some much-needed political schmoozing. so dave flew out and met us when we were floundering in the disgusting heat and humidity of houston, texas and the three of us made the 5 hour drive to the crescent city, which by the way is entirely on an elevated freeway over the deep bayou swamplands.
we left houston in the afternoon and got to louisiana in about 3 hours. by that time, it was dark and we pulled over to get some gas just across the border. i remembered hearing from somebody that it was legal to carry an open container in louisiana...or at least we thought it was... i mean, people carry their drinks around on bourbon street all the time, right? how else could mardi gras happen?
so we walked into he mini mart attached to the gas station and we asked the guy at the register what the deal was. what we really wanted to do was to buy some alcohol and consume it in the car as we were cruising into new orleans. as you all know, this is mucho illegal almost everywhere in the states (cause the states is pretty much gay). so this is what happened: the guy behind the counter was this big ol' southern hick with a deep southern/creole/bayou drawl that kinda made him sound like foghorn leghorn. he was a real nice guy and honestly wanted to help us out. he said that he always drank in his car while driving, but some cronies in the state legislature were trying to push through a law that would forbid regular, law abiding citizens from drinking while driving. so he picks up the phone and, i shit you not, calls the county sherriff, whose number i assume he has memorized or on speed dial.
the conversation went something like this:
"sheriff...i got some boys over here who wanted to know about the laws in louisiana.... they wanted to know if it would be alright if they bought some beers and drank 'em right there in the car while they were drivin'.....oh yeah?..... well that sure clears things up..... oh yeah, everythings goin' just fine out here...yep......well thanks, sheriff.....you have a good night."
at this point, we thought that our goose was cooked, so to speak, but with a big, friendly grin, the guy behind the register declared that he had OKed it with the sherriff and that we could indeed drink in the car without any problem. we asked him if we had to hide the beers if we passed a cop or anything. he kind of looked at us like we were crazy and asked us why we would do that. so that was that. we bought 4 bottles of 'mad dog 20/20', she shit we used to get drunk on in high school that has like 4 flavors: green, red, blue, and purple -- and we were off to new orleans.
that last little bit of a story has nothing to do with why the blog is called what it is, but i thought that you guys might want to get a feeling of where we were and the kinds of people we were dealing with.
there was this other time in louisiana when we went to this local diner that was set off the street a little ways in the woods. the place was packed so we decided that it had to be good. the scene was straight out of the fifties. literally everyone in the town was there eating. this was a little podunk town east of new orleans. the football team, all the cheerleaders and their parents and grandparents and whoever the fuck else was white in the town were there. (so i guess 'everyone' isnt really the correct term to use here -- let's go with 'every caucasian person' and be done with it.)
we sat down to order, and this 16 year old, britney spears lookalike comes over to take our order. we ordered our meals....i think i ordered the country-fried chicken-fried steak, because it had two 'frieds' in it. literally everything on the menu was fried. im not kidding. they had fried ice cream, fried bananas, fried snickers, fried pork chops....and here's the kicker: after we all made our orders, the waitress asked us how we would like our corn. huh?
apparently, they also deep fry corn on the cob in louisiana. i was astounded. i ordered it immediately, along with some fried alligator and a fried onion blossom thing. we ate our meals with ketchup and thousand island dressing and got the fuck out of there....the locals were eyeing us....and at that point, i realized that i was probably the first asian dude they had ever seen that wasnt on tv. awkward and illuminating.
so back to the five dollars and a bucket of chicken story:
so dave, eric and i -- because we were actually 'working' -- had each brought along a dapper-looking suit and tie getup so we could impress the political activists and leaders that we were lucky enough to get a meeting with. all along the way, eric and i hadnt really been able to utilize them ... for fear of coming across as douchebags. but on this occasion, dave had obtained for us an invitation to this big deal crawfish boil that this woman, peggy wilson, was having at her house.
she lived in the rich part of new orleans in a plantation-style house that had a big courtyard with a big gate and statues outside of it. dressed in our best suits and braving the rain, we hopped in a cab that took us out to her estate. she greeted us with big hugs and kisses at the door and warmly invited us in. her house was amazingly well decorated. everything was old and tasteful. it was just as you would imagine an old, southern, rich-white-person house would be... right down to the old baby grand piano with the bust of somebody dead and famous sitting on it.
ms. wilson told us that her next door neighbors were none other than the esteemed archie manning on the one side, and trent reznor on the other. she even complained that trent would sometimes play his music a bit too loud. we were pretty much in awe at this point. after some very awkward, but genuine meet and greets with the family and friends that were there, we were led into the kitchen area where most of the partygoers were there were gathered. we were told that there was a keg of beer outside and the three of us immediately got to drinking it.
we were the only people even remotely dressed up for the occasion. apparently, crawfish boils aren't really meant to be a big deal in new orleans. most of the people there were in shorts, tee shirts, and tank tops. most of them also appeared to have eaten a little too many fried corn on the cobs, if you catch my drift. so here we were, these three preppy yankees, trying to fit in with an intimate family gathering. this is why we started hitting he booze pretty hard.
they had hired this professional crawfish boiler to make the food, which by the way, is absolutely delicious. they said he was the best in new orleans, so im guessing he may have been one of the best in the world. the boil consisted of a bunch of crawfish, ears of corn, halved new potatoes, some scallion, and a bunch of cajun spices. the dude made the boil in this big cauldron that he had set up in the yard next to the keg.
after a few minutes of drinking and schmoozing, we were called inside to start eating. this is when the story starts to get exciting. we literally had no idea how to eat crawfish, let alone eat them at a fancy schmancy crawfish boil while wearing suits and ties. ms. wilson asked her daughter in law to show us the ropes. this thirty-something southern belle comes up to us and, without hesitation, grabs a crawfish in her hands, rips it in half, and proceeds to suck the brains out of one end, and tear the other end apart with a combination of her hands and teeth, all the while making this slurping, sucking sound. needless to say, we were very impressed. i guess thats why they were just wearing their yardwork clothes...this was going to get messy.
for the next hour or so, we sat with the wilsons at a table covered in newspaper and the crawfish king kept bringing in shovel loads of crawfish and piling them in front of us. as i said earlier, the food was delicious, but probably not so nutritious. we sucked and slurped with the best of them. the food was spicy, so we were crying, sweating, and constantly blowing our noses the whole time. with our meal, we had beer and white wine. everyone was getting kind of tipsy by the end of it all and ms. wilson began to open up to us a little bit.
dave had told us that she had run for the governorship of louisiana and had narrowly been defeated. again, we were very impressed. we didnt bring this point up until after we had talked about what we were doing, what our plans were, and why we wanted to get young people out to vote. she was very polite and hospitable to us and we were charmed.
we got to talking about that ill-fated election in the course of conversation. we were simply curious about what it was like, what she had learned, etc. that's when the old southern woman began to get a little saucy. she started lamenting about how corrupt the politics in louisiana were and how everyone in the government was corrupt in some way. she talked about kickbacks, bribes, scandals, everything and pretty much prefaced, for me, what happened in the city when the hurricane hit less than a year later.
then she uttered the magic words: "are you boys going to go and get the blacks to vote?"
umm... yeah
"those blacks -- they'll vote for anyone and anything someone tells them to. in the election that i lost, i was winning until the very last minute, when the democrats went and bussed a bunch of them blacks out to the polling places..."
umm... so what's wrong with that?
"them blacks... all you have to give them is FIVE DOLLARS AND A BUCKET OF CHICKEN.... and they'll vote for anyone ... they'll do anything you ask them to do!!!"
after this, we didnt know what to do. nodding and smiling, we politely let the conversation go towards greener pastures. then we got the fuck out of dodge. again, you have to remember that i was the only non-white person there; it became readily apparent at this point. actually, it hit us like a ton of bricks in the face -- people in the south are still racist....even the nice old ladies that run for governor.
we made an excuse about how we had to meet some girls out on bourbon street and made a mad dash out into the rain. ms. wilson, ever the proper host, offered to call us a taxi. we politely refused and said that we wanted to give one of those famous new orleans trolleys a ride. she kissed us mightily on the cheeks and told us we were good boys with a good cause. we thanked her and started off into the night, not caring if our preppy suits were getting wet. it was time to go... we had overstayed our welcome.
And....We're back!
so after about a two month hiatus, i've decided to continue writing this blog. obviously, a lot has happened over the last two months that will not make it into these next few posts, but i will try to recount some of the more amusing stories that i can remember to give you guys an idea of what ive been doing with myself all this time. again, the purpose of this blog is to inspire others to let go of their everyday lives -- regardless of how exciting or mundane they may be -- and for even just a week or two, go out and see what the world has to offer.
(im pretty sure that last sentence was grammatically incorrect, but i cant seem to figure out how to make it more coherent.... any suggestions?)
im not sure who is still reading this; i know i wouldn't be... but if you are, thank you! a special shout out to darcy, who keeps insisting that he wasnt the only person who was reading my posts.
(im pretty sure that last sentence was grammatically incorrect, but i cant seem to figure out how to make it more coherent.... any suggestions?)
im not sure who is still reading this; i know i wouldn't be... but if you are, thank you! a special shout out to darcy, who keeps insisting that he wasnt the only person who was reading my posts.
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