| Chapter Summaries &
Pictures |
 |
Does
Your Meter Work?
No
taxi driver wants to use his meter because some charitable government
officials, who probably have a few cousins in the business, had established
overblown fixed rates from the Manila airport to the various parts
of the city - in the $15 to $20 range. One company controlled a monopoly
in the departures area. I was asking in the arrivals. Any driver
can bring trips to the airport and I wanted an independent operator.
Next cab.
Click
here to read this story
|
|
 |
Unearth
You Traveling a La Carte
Possibly the most rewarding feature
of
travel is the sentimental, mushy "finding yourself."
|
|
 |
Knights
in Feathered Armor Risk the Consummate Wager
Filipino
Chickens Are
Anything But Chicken: Sundays in the Philippines, with the largest
Roman
Catholic population in Asia, slides from pious to pagan. Morning
mass
dispenses to get on with the afternoon service, cock-fights
|
|
 |
A
Tropical Watercolor
Come On In, The Water's Psychedelic:
Self Contained
Underwater Breathing Apparatus. By the time you say it, you're drowned.
Scuba's better. I don't know if a five minute lesson, then twenty
thousand
millimeters under the sea is a wise thing to do, but one of the advantages
of diving in countries that need your money more than they need your
admiration is the chance to say, “I dived
and gone to heaven.”
|
|
 |
Getting
Around the Last Frontier of the Philippines Can Be Tricky
After a few days of scuba and laziness,
it was
time to get moving again. A jeepney pulled out and I hopped on. To
augment
the adventure, two hard-assed looking guys in camouflage dress, M-16's
equipped with grenade launchers, and lots of ammo climbed on as an
escort.
|
|
 |
You
Can't Get Higher in South-East Asia
East
Malaysia is a natural
playground with gigantic caves, the rain forest, and South-East
Asia's
tallest peak, Mount Kinabalu. In thirty hours I climbed and came
back down
its rugged 13,451 feet.
  |
|
 |
Niah
Cave
Shit.
Kaka. The French say “merde.” Translated literally
in
Mandarin, it's “big convenient.” Guano, the combined
faeces from birds and
bats, derives from huanu, which derived from Quechua, a South
American
Indian language meaning fertilizer dung. On the island of Borneo,
guano
harvested from the floor in Niah Caves means cash.
 
|
|
 |
Digital
Transportation
"Uh,
no Carl, I'm gonna hitch." Backpacking alone
on the cheap allows the freedom to blurt things before your brain
can stop
it. Since the next day Carl and I were both heading to Kuching, the
most
westerly city of consequence in East Malaysia, 400-plus miles away,
he
suggested that we team up. A bus to Sibu, an overnight, then highspeed
ferry to Kuching would shuttle us in early the next morning. Carl
wasn't a
lout; I just couldn't bear the thought of his voice and the hiss
of public
bus tires simultaneously…
|
|
 |
Thumb
More
Digital
transportation was a story with a hitch, a wild day
hitchhiking across Borneo. Hitching is like heroin, they’re
both addicting,
and I was jonesing for more. In Johor Bahru, the Western Malaysian
city
across the causeway from Singapore, I walked away from the airport
and hung
a thumb.
|
|
 |
Swept
Away on a Parasail
The
boat powered its 200 hp motor. Like Wile E.
Coyote watches a fuse on a bomb, the pile of rope dwindled before
my eyes.
The only instruction was to run as the line went taut. Run?!
How about
maybe two lousy steps in fluffy sand, then before the chance
to chicken
out, straight up and gone. The sunbathers grew smaller and smaller
and the
seagulls bigger and bigger. They'd seen this movie before and
dispassionately banked away. Settling into the harness, my frame
jerked
about until I found someone’s ankles patting against my
chest.
 |
|
 |
Thtill
More Thumbin'
After
12 daze of soaking up the sun on Thailand's famous beach at
Phuket, my Scandinavian pals were on their way home, and the
idle days were
growing too listless. A flight to Bangkok gouged 3000 B ($120).
The train
was full for another week or more. The bus, a red-eye special
@ 550B,
departed Phuket in the afternoon and arrived in Bangkok at 6
a.m. Racing
against this schedule and budget by hitching sounded like the
most fun. |
|
 |
Angkor
Wat, A Far, Far Better Place Than I Have Ever Been
Ineluctable
Angkor Wat, the world's largest temple city the size of Manhattan,
remained
hidden for half a millennium in Cambodia's jungles.
 
 |
|
 |
Cambodia,
Smiles and Skulls
In
contrast to the inspiring architecture of
Angkor Wat and the citizens’ innocence and gentleness is
the damning
evidence of the Khmer Rouge, the Killing Fields, and a Phnom
Penh school
converted into a house of torture. Cambodia shoved me in two
directions: to
celebrate mankind for its incredible abilities, and loathe it
for its
shocking primitiveness.
|
|
 |
Moc
Bai
Transportation
choices from Phnom Penh to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh
City) were either to fly or by land. Overland had two alternatives:
bus or
shared taxi to the border. Moc Bai is the point of entry at the
south end
of VietNam where taxis destined for Saigon wait on the other
side. At this
outpost, staffed by bored immigration officers, even papers that
are in
order sometimes aren’t good enough. |
|
 |
Teaching
English in Asia
Finding
work as an English
teacher is easily found. In fact, I arrived in Saigon on a Sunday
night,
and had a job the next afternoon. The work is a double-edged
sword, cutting
between inspiring and dreadful.
 
|
|
|
Saigon
Cafes
& Bars
Vietnamese
culture can best be seen by hanging around the night, and day,
life. Here provides the observer the chance to mingle and jingle
with the people.
|
|
|
Saigon
Streets
No
streets in South-East Asia teem like Saigon’s, day or
night. Crossing the street seems like a dangerous proposition,
until
someone tells you how, then it’s safer than any other in
South-East
Asia.
|
|
|
Coin
Candy Capers
After
a few months as an English teacher in Saigon, my
visa was 12 days expired, requiring a visa run. My VietNamese
boss said, “
When you go through Customs at the airport, take VND150, 000
($13) and put
it in your passport. More important, smile. Always (he pulled
up the
corners of his mouth with his pointer fingers) BIG smile.” At
the airport,
I queued at Immigration. Today’s officer, dressed in his
perfect uniform
and firm demeanor, waved me forward. My papers slid across the
desk from
one greased palm to another and the game was on. |
|
 |
Saigon
Hookers
Hookers,
hookers, who's got the hookers? Saigon does. Prostitution is
a tragedy, one seemingly is too many. But the business is as
old
as life
itself, and when the players use it because finding a job is
beneath them,
sympathies become jaded.
|
|
 |
Hand
Job Park
Yes,
it's exactly what it sounds like, and something only
discriminating publications would be interested in, but what's
a list of
Asian stories without this vulgarity. 'Nuff said.
|
|
 |
$tolen
Money, or a Story Maid in Vietnam
What
happens when money goes
missing from your hotel room, you know who took it, everyone
else knows who
took it, but you're too far from home to find justice.
|
|
 |
Orchid
In
a serene tourist town in central VietNam, a heart-stopping
VietNamese lady and I folded two lifetimes into eleven days.
To be together
was the classic ending, except inescapably unworkable.
|
|
 |
Are
Things Going Poorly in Nepal?
No Sweat, There's Always Next Life
"A
Land of its Own" splashes across the tourist posters of
Nepal. Unlike other
Third World countries struggling to stand on their own bare feet,
Nepal is
not overtly adamant about its plight, if that's the term. Andy,
a
transplanted Brooklynite and a wealth of knowledge, provided
insider
trading that allowed me to unearth even more generally uncelebrated
tidbits
of this fascinating kingdom.
|
|
 |
White
Knuckle Rafting
Ship
Of Fools Survives The Spills: Trekking in Nepal
didn't sound like such a hot idea, but rafting sure did. A 4
day/3 night
white-water rafting dash through the Himalayas.
|
|
|
Connecting
with Strangers Makes Traveling Priceless
Out
in the wild blue
yonder, a million miles from home, anyone who invariably judges
us is
restricted by the transitory nature of traveling. Wary at first,
I probed
for his plans. To discover he was soon on his way, in another
direction,
eased me. Now disarmed, it was safer to expose myself. Stating
what was on
my mind without fear of reprisal, and no threat to our temporary
friendship, I tried new ideas and monitored his reaction…
|
|
 |
Holy
Cow, India Fascinates
The
Hindu ritual of bathing in India's Ganges
River at sunrise is a spellbinding kickoff to a day. This time
offers the
only peace in a country whose daytime streets make Saigon's feel
like
Sunday School.
|
|
 |
I'll
Bet You Didn't Know That the Machiavelli Family Lost a Son
at Birth and It Resurfaced as a Ticket Agent in Northern India?
More
than a billion
people live in the mother of all destinations - India, the world's
largest
democracy. More than 1.5 million people work for the world's
largest
employer - the Indian train system. India's big on one more thing
- shoddy,
perverse treatment of people; foreign tourists are no exception.
|
|
 |
Sri
Lanka
In
spite of a tiring civil war and a
dysfunctional parliament where Sicilians go to graduate school,
the country
has also been called “India for beginners.” Palladian
architecture from
British times, loads of wildlife, a quiet manner, and friendly
folks.
 
 |
|
|
Jewel
Fool
Sri
Lanka has some of the highest quality gems in the world,
particularly rubies. It also has some of the most talented scam
artists on
the planet. Simple jewelry shops lined the street in front of
my hotel. A
slight man with tousled hair and old clothes waved...
|
|
|
Not
My War
Sri
Lanka, involved in their tiring civil war for many years,
regularly stop-and-searches riders of public transportation to
curb
terrorism. I decided my distinctly alabaster face and foreign
passport left
me immune from the miniature chaos on the streets, and I refused
to play.. |
|
|
Crappy
Traveling
A
collection of four stories relating to the "dumpier" side of Asia.
|
|
 |
Too
Much Garlic is Never Enough & Other Lunch Time Adventures in
Asia
Collection
of four stories about eating in Asia.
 |
|
 |
Hand
it to Mankind, They've Learned to Communicate
Five
short stories of
hand gestures from around Asia.
|
|
 |
Iguacu
Falls
The
Niagara on Viagra: Five thousand cubic meters per second
spill over the precipice at the border junctions of Brazil, Argentina,
and
Paraguay. For a story with a splash, Iguacu Falls and the Devil’s
Throat
make Niagara look like a honeymoon.
|
|
 |
Bahia
Bonita Club
Translates
from Brazilian Portuguese into “Beautiful
Beach Club.” Well, it loses a bit in the translation, but
the beach is
exquisite and so is the four-suite hotel, built by three Argentine
amigos
on the Brazilian coast. An “Inns & Lodges” type
feature.
|
|
 |
Viagra?
Antler Velvet? Nah, Gimme the Globe
What
does "g" stand for in
g-spot anyway? Bodies have distinct individual points that, when
pushed,
trigger a tingle. If Earth is a heavenly body, then reason concludes
that
our world maintains these "g" or, for our purposes, "globe" spots.
Viagra
et al examines my selections for the world's g-spots, accrued
by traveling
and working in 45 different countries.
 
|
|
|
Ca$h
in on Your Luck by Teaching English Overseas
To
teach
overseas is a wondrous opportunity that native English speakers
have
sitting in their back pockets. Like so many things in life, all
it took was
a fortuitous break -- a chance conversation with a veteran of
the escapade,
or perhaps an article by the same veteran.
|
|
 |
Mexico
All Inclusive
Slob,
glutton, spoiled rotten. Guilty on all counts and loving it.
A week, or
two, at an all-inclusive resort is just the ticket to gaining
weight,
finding sand in places you never knew you had places, and not
cleaning up a
darn thing.
|
|
 |
Chinese
Paper Cuts
Nearly
2,000 years ago, the Chinese began making patterns out of delicate
rice paper to transform embroidery patterns. The art evolved
over time into symbols for births, deaths, and marriages. With
today's technology, paper cuts are readily found in your local
Chinatown gift shops. Buy some to slip into a card... they're
light, breezy, intricate and spectacular..
 
 |
|
 |
A
Lake of Gold at the End of the Rainbow
Maligne
Lake nestles into the
Canadian Rockies an hour from Jasper. This jewel of a body of
water sits
over one mile above sea level and, boy, can you catch some nice
rainbow and
brook trout. Bring your parka, even in July.
 |
|
 |
The
City of Champions is More Than Just Blustery Winter Days
In
August of 2001, the World Track & Field Championships, the
world's third largest sporting event, was staged in my hometown,
Edmonton.
The Games placed the city in the international spotlight for
two weeks,
drawing 3,000 athletes, coaches, and officials plus four billion
people on
60 networks. But there's a lot more to know about the City of
Champions,
such as its arts scene, roaring economy, and bum-rapped weather.
 |
|
|
Culture
Shock
After
two years, 22,000 miles, 62 beds, 13 countries,
diarrhea, spider bites, and more praying than a card-carrying
agnostic is
comfortable with, I was back in North America from Asia. Immigration
slapped down a stamp without a hitch and I moved to the bag-check
area. The
agent instructed me to pass by two others who had formed a line
and go to
the next officer. The second-in-line didn't take kindly to my
advancing
quicker than him, and informed me he was the line and "to
get to the back
of the bus."
. |
|
Does
Your Meter Work?!
