Thailand sidetrack

Really, if I never see the inside of another South Asian emergency room, I wouldn't complain. I don't need to make this a habit.

I am on pain meds right now for some gashes in my wrist, so I apologize if this gets too rambly, etc.

My Thailand visa was set to expire, so I had to leave the country and return. The Red Shirts, supporters of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, decided it would somehow give them the moral high ground if they postponed their big demonstrations until March 12, rather than Feb. 26, the date of a court ruling that enabled the government to seize $2.2 billion of Shinawatra's money. The Yellow Shirts, their bitter rivals, shut down Bangkok's airport for a month a year or so ago and pissed off a lot of people, so the Red Shirts are trying to voice their displeasure in a circumspect manner.

Regardless, if I am to be in Bangkok for the action on March 12, I have to renew my visa by leaving the country and returning. I thought about Cambodia, but my flight leaves out of there, so that would mean I'd have visited the same country four times in a few months. I hadn't been to Malaysia yet, so I got on a train south.

It was a full moon and a lovely sunset, so I went to the rear of the train to grab some food and to photograph the landscape as we rumbled along. You can sit on the steps in between cars or on the platform of the caboose in the night air.

On my way back, however, I again ran into this aging guy from Massachusetts who earlier had been snuggling with his Thai boy-toy at one table, then came over to mine and tried to convert me to Christianity as I ate. He's also a Republican, he said. Guess he's sort of an elderly, traveling Ted Haggard. Well, I had already made my escape from his rants earlier, but he collared me as I went past and told me he thought that they were about to decouple the rear section of the train and send it off to some Burmese border town while the front end, my end, went on to Kuala Lumpur. He invited me to come along to Burma. It's much cheaper there, he said, and closer. Beer is cheap there. Sex, also. Although he said he had no personal knowledge of this. Anyway, I declined his gracious offer and made my way toward my own car.

Well, the guy was plenty kooky, but it wasn't the time to second-guess. I was heading up to my car anyway, but I did not really want to end up in Bumfuq, Burma, at least not when I hadn't had a chance to research the place. I skipped over all the people sleeping on the floor in the aisles in the cheaper cars, but came to a sudden halt at the start of the air-conditioned ones. I was standing between cars, outdoors, when I encountered a train car that some asshole had locked. Why would you do this? I don't know. I was basically locked out of the train, or at least my portion of it.

I couldn't open the door, couldn't pick the lock with my State of Maine drivers license, so I just started pounding on it, trying to get someone's attention. On about the third pound, the train lurched to the right, and I lurched to the left, and my fist landed on the plate glass, rather than the door.

For an instant, I stared through the shattering glass at my hand, inside the train car while I stood outside. Then it was just blood, blood, blood and flying shards. At first, I stood there, stunned at how much blood was coming out, and how quickly. Then I turned and went back into the car behind me. One Thai man was snoozing in the front row, but woke up in a hurry when he saw me bleeding all over the floor. He gave me a handkerchief or some sort of white cloth, and I fashioned it into a tourniquet around my wrist. But it wouldn't stop bleeding. I remember thinking I was going to die. There was just too much blood. And then I wondered why I hadn't fainted. I am the biggest candyass when it comes to blood. I actually fainted during an interview in which a cardiac surgeon was merely DESCRIBING a heart surgery to me.

They stopped the train in some little backwater Thai town called Mamrit or something. Somebody at the station fired up his little moped and I got on the back, holding my wrist above my head. I was getting pretty woozy at this point, and was afraid I'd fall off the back. But we made it there, and the nurses stitched me up.

I had this feeling of elation in the emergency room. At first, I didn't want to let go of the tourniquet for the nurse, but I did and the bleeding stopped once she stitched it (without local anesthesia). I really thought I was going to die, and I had accepted it on the train. I just couldn't believe it. When no one speaks English, I feel like it's OK to say whatever I am thinking sometimes. I just kept saying, I'm alive, I'm alive. I was pretty happy about it. But maybe that was just the big shot of morphine she'd just put in my shoulder.

However, there was one moment on the train, when I thought, you know, if this is how and when I have to go, it's not the worst situation. It didn't even really hurt, initially. It must have done some nerve damage, because the side of my right hand is numb, but I can feel a little bit, and, in my experience, nerves grow back if you can feel a little bit. I think they gave me nine or 10 stitches. I'm not sure. I'm a little nervous about taking off this bandage.

The great thing was how sweet the Thai people were in this little village. One girl, apparently the only one who spoke English, came to my guesthouse on a moped to translate. She went to the station and got me train times and offered to give me a ride there. I ended up taking a bus. Then this guy who was the brother of the woman who owned the guesthouse bought me breakfast, took me to buy some new pants (Dumbass: I took only one pair of pants, and after all the bleeding, they basically became one giant scab that could stand on its own), and then to the bus station. I really like Thai people.

Cheeseburgers, bat caves and jackboots

Regardless of your politics or your shirt color, you can't deny the Bangkok riot police wear some kickass boots.

I've been staying in the Bangkok area for the past week and a half or so, waiting for some riots that so far have failed to materialize. Nothing was happening other than a lot of talking. I got bored waiting, rented a motorbike (a Honda 200 cc Shadow that is OK, but, well, it's just OK), and rode 150 kilometers or so north into the mountains of Khao Yai National Park, and I'm so glad I did, because Bangkok was driving me nuts. Perhaps it was more that cities in general were driving me nuts. Phnom Penh for four long, long weeks, Saigon, Hanoi, Saigon again, back through Phnom Penh, then Siem Reap, and Bangkok -- it's been nothing but cities.

No riots, no riots, no riots, so I'd had enough and left. Thailand's highways are nerve-wracking, I'll admit, riding a motorcycle, but they are a relief compared to Bangkok. Bangkok and New Delhi -- it's a tossup, I'd say, as far as how difficult it is to bike.

I was actually surprised I found Khao Yai, since few people here speak English, and all of the Thais I consulted in Bangkok advised me to take the bus. The highlight was after we'd toured the bat cave and rolled around to the backside of the mountain just before sunset to see them come out for their nocturnal forays.

We waited at the foot of the mountain, nothing stirring but the wind rushing through the trees that lined it. The sun sank lower, and we began to hear the chirping of two million bats as they developed a consensus on when to leave the cave.

A gray hawk diving from a tree above the cave gave the first sign that the bats were beginning to emerge. The hawks had been circling for close to an hour, black ones silhouetted against the darkening blue sky above the mountain and lighter ones in the trees, all waiting for a meal on the fly.

The chirping became a whirring rush of wings as the bats spiraled out of the cave. The column undulated over our heads, curled over a hilltop behind us, and swirled into the valley below. It appeared that the bats collectively functioned as a single living being. They flew into the wind, as bats do, like a horizontal Wizard of Oz cyclone, fluttering and swirling in response to changes in the air flow.


Then it was back to Bangkok. And, yes, I do eat cheeseburgers any place I find them.

Bangkok

A Thai filmmaker last night invited me to play Buddha in a flick he is putting together involving the major characters from the various major world religions having romantic time together. He wanted me to be Buddha, and to make out with Jesus on a park bench.

"We already have Jesus; he's staying right up there," he said, gesturing to a hippie lounging on a balcony above us. He did have a nice beard.

It's because I'm bald, isn't it? But, no, to answer your question, I did not use this opportunity to launch a career in film. Well, I didn't use it at all. No, I did not make out with Jesus!

I moved to a sort of artists' colony yesterday. My little house opens right onto (as in, 6 feet from) the Chao Phraya River. Waves slap against a three-foot concrete wall, and barges rumble up and down the water.

It's one of the cheapest places in town, and pretty eclectic. A Belgian couple is working on a photography project on ladyboys. A faux-hawked Uruguayan juggles clubs and plays the recorder. Guests are invited and encouraged to paint their rooms any way they like.

Anyway, I am here to report on the demonstrations staged by the Red Shirts, supporters of a guy who was ousted while facing corruption charges. Still need to get a wide-angle lens.

Oh, so these boys were playing on the dock that floats about 50 yards from my little house. The kid doing a backflip was fearless. He would jump off of anything.

Angkor Wat: the pride of the Khmer. And other stuff

Money to burn

Saw this family on the street in Saigon burning money. I asked around, and it seems it is traditional to do this to honor ancestors.

Snake farm!

I had been out all day taking photos at the Moon Bear sanctuary, about two hours away from Hanoi, and rolled into my hostel about 7 p.m. This Finnish couple was waiting up for me.

Turned out the timing was perfect, because the taxi was waiting for us to go to the snake restaurant. Well, apparently I had forgotten committing the previous evening to go to this place. The taxi took us through a winding series of Hanoi's backalleys, which are pretty horrific, but at least it was dark.

Somebody was slaughtering a dog when we got out of the taxi. That's what it sounded like.

We walked into the courtyard and this guy thrust an eight-foot cobra in our faces. Tossed it down on the ground repeatedly and snatched it up by the tail just before it got to us. I'm guessing its teeth had been removed, but I could be wrong.

Juno was talking about how snake's blood and heart was supposed to boost your libido, which I understand was the principle draw. I am not sure why someone would want to boost such a thing, but that's yet another story.

The second snake they pulled from the bag would be our dinner. They made each of us hold it before finding our table. It was probably five feet long, although it was hard to tell, with it winding around our wrists.

They brought out the snake and cut out its heart on the floor in front of us, drained blood into three shot glasses and presented them, accompanied by shot glasses half full of something alcoholic.

Well, I've eaten goat brain in India, and had no problem with that, but this threatened to turn my stomach. Snakes just don't look appetizing in general.

Anyway, I did it. Then they brought out five or six dishes, different iterations of snake, snake and more snake, fried, covered in soy sauce, wrapped in seaweed. The morning after, it just sounds nasty.

Well, it pretty much is.

Saigon hookers

So many mopeds here in Saigon! Traffic is pretty crazy. I took the above photo through the front windshield of the bus I took from Phnom Penh. We'd been rolling right along for seven hours or so, and then came to a full stop. Everywhere we looked were these little helmets, people jostling and swarming on their mopeds.

(I'm not actually writing about hookers. I just wrote that so you would read this post.)

Saigon's are possibly as aggressive as New Delhi's, especially after Phnom Penh's. I don't think you have to be an anthropologist to figure out why, though. Look at the numbers:

Vietnam population 86,210,781
Square miles: 128,379
People per square mile: 672

Cambodia population: 14,699,885
Square miles: 69,898
People per square mile: 210

India population: 1,139,964,932
Square miles: 1,269,221
People per square mile: 898

I would venture a guess that if you go to a country with a denser population, you're bound to receive more elbows to the ribs, or more dents to your moped mudflaps. The disappointment to me is that Saigon seems to have about as lame a motorcycle selection as Phnom Penh. No, I don't want a moped. I don't want tiny wheels, and I sure as hell don't want a basket on the front. At least they don't push you to rent pink Hello Kitty bikes like in Phnom Penh.

While I research for several different projects, I'm going to explore a bit. I am hearing that getting your divers certification in Nha Trang, off the coast near here, is the cheapest in the world -- $155. A friend was telling me she just got her certification in Cartagena, Colombia, for $400 or so.

Below I am posting photos from Phnom Penh. I'll put up captions or explanations if you want.