Pizza Hut & Coca Cola

12 January 2010 – Siem Reap, Cambodia. Pizza place across from Home Sweet Home Guest House.

I was craving farang food so I headed across the road to the pizza hut. In Cambodia, this means I crossed a dirt road to a hut that serves pizza. I ordered the margherita and a coke, but was denied.[bxA]

“No, no have coke. Good coconut today,” the smiley waiter guy told me.

“You don’t have coke?” I pointed to the cokes in the fridge.

“Yes, have coke but coconut is better. Try coconut today?”

“Okay, fine, I’ll have a coconut,” I half-heartedly conceded. I wanted a coke.


The coconut was delicious – served cold and about a zillion times better than the warm ones served at Home Sweet Home guest house. People tell me coconuts are incredibly healthy. And it cost the exact same as a coke: $1.00 USD.

One of the few things I did during my many lazy days in Siem Reap was wander the streets (trolling for posh coffee spots) with my Lonely Planet stashed in my bag and Hot, Flat & Crowded playing on my iPod. (I didn’t want to listen to HotFlatCrowded but I’d discovered the long forgotten audio book my sister gifted me ages ago, and figured I ought to think about something since I was talking to no one.)

Within a couple of days of my conversion to coconuts, I read the Lonely Planet’s ‘Doing Your Bit!’ to minimize the impact of tourism on the local environment, which simply states:

“Drink coconuts rather than soft drinks.”

Meanwhile, on my iPod Thomas L. Friedman’s narrator rattled on (and on and on and on) about the devastating effects to the environment caused by the globally expanding middle class and its demand for products like coca cola. A local tourism brochure explained to me how much more the community benefits economically from tourists paying a dollar for a home grown coconut versus a manufactured can of coke. So, for once, I was doing the right thing not only for the community, but my health and the environment… all thanks to that sweet smiley waiter at the pizza hut.

But, before you go thinking I’m any kind of conscientious environmentalist eco-tourist, stop. I’m not. To me, Copenhagen is a chewing tobacco back in Texas.

Copenhagen, what a wad of flavor.
Copenhagen, you can see it in my smile.
Copenhagen, do yourself a favor.
Chew Copenhagen, drive them pretty girls wild.

- Robert Earl Keen,
Texas Singer Songwriter

Why Angkor Wat?

11 January 2010 – Siem Reap, Cambodia. Angkor Wat.

Most travelers rush into Siem Reap and see the ruins for a day, maybe two, before rushing onto their next destination. I’d been there an entire week, quietly wandering the town saying little to anyone, when I finally decided to check’em out. The thing to do, they say, is to leave at 5am.[bxA]

Angkor at Sunrise (random photo found on internet).

It didn’t sound fun. They set up lawn chairs – tons of them – and a stadium crowd shows up to watch the sunrise like a football game. I didn’t want to do it, but the thought sent me down memory lane...

14 August 2009 – Palmyra Syria – two strangers meeting. “Hey, will you take a photo of me?” “Sure, will you take a photo of me?” The rest, as they say, is history.

Back in the Beirut days, people often assumed Chaz and I were dating and I was asked more than once how we met. It was a romantic start - our platonic friendship – we were making idle conversation in the ruins waiting for the sun to crack on the horizon in Palmyra.

Palmyra, Syria. After the anticlimactic photo op, Chaz and I walked on the sand, in the wind among ruins discussing his research in Kuwait and my….um…basic lunacy I guess. Chaz became one of my all time best travel buds and introduced me to a whole new social world of great people back in Beirut.

But back to Cambodia…

“Have you seen Angkor Wat?” That’s what everyone asks. They don’t say, “Have you seen the temples of Angkor?” It’s very specific that the reason you travel to Siem Reap is to see Angkor Wat, the main temple with the moat around it. The Lonely Planet says it’s the largest religious structure in the world and various other travel blurbs call it “the eighth wonder of the world.” (Nikki reminded me that we were raised on the belief that the Houston Astrodome is the 8th wonder of the world. Isn't it?)

Angkor Wat is cool and all, but…

Bayon is way cooler.

Way way cooler.

When you travel a lot you come up with just a handful of unforgettables. Or, I do, anyway. There aren’t many and they’re not the ones you might assume – the sights that make you think, wow, that’s spectacular. Bayon is now near the top of my list.

And so…I will bore you with what the Lonely Planet has to say:

The Bayon epitomizes the creative genius and inflated ego of Cambodia’s legendary king, Jayavarman VII. Its 54 Gothic towers are famously decorated with 216 enormous, coldly smiling faces of Avalokiteshvara that bear more than a passing resemblance to the great king himself. These huge visages glare down from every angle, exuding power and control with a hint of humanity – precisely the blend required to hold sway over such a vast empire, ensuring that the disparate and far-flung populations yielded to the monarch’s magnanimous will.
Bayon Temple of Angkor - Bas Relief depiction of a cock fight.

The Bayon is decorated with 1.2km of extraordinary bas-reliefs incorporating more than 11,000 figures. The famous carvings on the outer wall of the first level vividly depict everyday life in the 12th-century Cambodia.

To be fair, if you really must know… Angkor Wat also has a rich history. The tour guide, who bored me nearly to death, talked for hours about its significance.

There are many books about it. Tons to know.

However, I will spare you the enthralling detail and tell you what Alyssa and have come to regard as ‘The History of Nearly Everything’:

Angkor Wat was built…

by the ancestors…

back in the day.

Solitude in Siem Reap

6 January 2010 – Siem Reap, Cambodia. Stuffed dog napping.

I didn’t run straight to the ruins. I wanted to chill out for a few days. My first venture out of Home Sweet Home Guest House was a long wander along the river. I didn’t say much to anyone [bxA] for days so I don't have much to say much here…


There are lots of cozy resorts, guest houses and restaurants along the river in the tourist section.

North of the second bridge there's a non-tourist area.

Lots of market stalls.

Clothes stalls.

Food stalls.

Adorable kids.
The Cambodians love their dogs. The cutest muts you ever saw are always sleeping in the market stalls.

The little girls run around the most adorable little pajama sets.

It was a good day. Peaceful. Siem Reap is my kind of place.

Cambodia Crossing

3 January 2010 - Poipet, Cambodia. Border crossing from Thailand.

7:15am. I asked the waitress at the Atlanta if she could make me some toast, takeaway. It was the older waitress, the one with the long black hair who remembers everyone. Every day she tallies my order at the cash register, and says, “ah one toas’, ah one porridge, ah one cappuccino… and one big smile!”[bxA]

The driver showed up while I was eating my toast from a Styrofoam box and the sweet Thai waitress reprimanded him for rushing me. Let her finish. She walked me to the street and hugged me like we were long friends. The young guy who always hauls my heavy backpack to my room on the 4th floor hauled my backpack to the van and even though it was just a few feet I tipped him 20 baht. He did the prayer thing with his hands, bowed his head and thanked me.

The mini-van was nice and there were only three other passengers. I asked if we could stop at an ATM since I was down to my last 300 baht (less than ten bucks). When we stopped at the 7/11 for me to get cash, it turned out what we were getting was redistributed into other already-crowded vans.

An older German man and I got stuffed into the very back half-seat next to an overflowing stack of luggage in an 8-passenger van that already had 8 people in it. German Man chatted me up with the world’s stupidest and most boring trivia about what awaited me in Cambodia – at the border and in Siem Reap. He asked me if I knew how much a Cambodia visa costs. No, I didn’t.

“Twenty US dollars… and they only take US dollars.”

“Well, I don’t have any US dollars.”

“You don’t have any US dollars!!! How are you going to pay???”

“I’ve got Thai baht,” I said, thinking dude, they’re lucky I have any money at all, didn’t you notice I just went to the atm?

He was like Rain Man regurgitating everything that was going to happen. “You will have to carry your luggage across the border. It is a very long walk. You will have to carry it all yourself…,” he recited in his thick German accent, anxiously awaiting my distress. I knew it would delight him to learn I’d overstayed my Thailand visa.

“You have!?! Do you know how much they charge if you overstay your visa!?!”

“Um, yeah…five hundred baht per day.”

“Oh, so you do know!”

German Rain Man wasn't finished.

“You can take a riverboat from Siam Reap to Phnom Penh for $35 dollars and a tuk tuk will cost you fifteen dollars to see Angkor Wat and the guest houses will cost you ten U.S. unless you don’t need air-conditioning it will be only five U.S.…”

I stared out the window for ten seconds then closed my eyes and pretended to go to sleep. Eventually he got the point and redirected his Rain Man ramblings to two guys in the seat in front of us - as if they didn’t have enough problems with the tower of luggage toppling onto their heads. Seems they were also going to places in Cambodia…that would cost money…and German Rain Man was going to tell them all about it. I turned on my iPod for the duration.

German Rain Man was correct: the border crossing was the longest ordeal ever. The bus dumped us at a restaurant next to a travel agency where I ate fried rice while a travel agent arranged my Cambodian visa. My agent, a young Cambodian man wearing a Jason Mraz hat with the brim pulled down over his smiley face, herded us to the side of the road and lectured on what awaited us corssing the border.

We were to hold our belongings close because children would approach us and ask for money or sweets or a drink but only as a distraction while they picked our pockets. Then, as we exited the Cambodian immigration office with our freshly stamped passports, official looking men would tell us to follow them, but if we did they would take us to the jungle and steal our money.

German Rain Man was right again: It was a long walk. It was hot, my backpack was heavy, and I braced myself for the seedy underworld that awaited me on the other side.

The villains turned out to be handful of joyful little kids, mostly girls, carrying brightly colored lifesaver striped umbrellas to shield us from the sun. They were barely begging much less picking pockets.

We waited an hour for our Thai exit visas, crossed the border and spent another hour in queue to get our Cambodian entry-visa stamps.

In the Thailand queue I’d befriended a young Italian guy who watched out for me the rest of the way. He reminded me not to talk to the jungle-villains (they too were harmless) and we joined the same share-taxi for the four hour drive to Siem Reap. He insisted the taxi drop me off at my guest house first because he was certain the driver would try to fleece me.

“I know how things work here,” Italian Guy told me, “because my country is enough dodgy.”

And he was right. The taxi driver did try to pull the exact scam the agent had warned about – where he delivers you to a tuk tuk stand instead of your guest house. Italian guy argued politely for a good long back-and-forth with our driver and a tuk tuk driver, eventually winning the battle and getting me to my guest house unscathed at 7:15pm.

Dinner with Family

Photo: Arrested Development, American comedy series.

17 January 2010 - Siem Reap, Cambodia

I’m sitting at the Two Dragons restaurant eating Thai food by myself because I came to Cambodia to be alone and alone I’ve been for fourteen days now. It’s great but it gets lonely. I was thinking, time zones aside, that it’s Saturday night which means my whole family is feasting at my parents’ house in Houston. Yeah, I know, it’s not Saturday. But I’m a gadabout and I don’t know what day it is.

Miss y’all!

Avatar & The Atlanta

2 January 2010 - Paragon 3D IMAX Theater, Siam Square, Bangkok, Thailand.

The Atlanta had no vacancies the night of the 1st, so I woke up on the 2nd at a semi-sleazy hotel [bxA]in the heart of the Annie’s massage complex, which spans a full block connecting Soi 1 to Soi 2 and hosts a variety of restaurants and pubs offering Annie’s famous soapy massage. I tried the complimentary breakfast while sitting alone next to two German guys eating with their morning-after Thai bar girls. It didn't look like their massages involved anything to do with soap. The sight was as unappealing as the runny scrambled eggs so I packed my rucksack and headed back to the Atlanta (where sex tourists are not allowed) to book my bus ticket to Cambodia and sip on a cappuccino so delicious it made the whole ordeal worthwhile.


An hour later my bus ticket was booked for 7am on the 3rd. The front desk said a room had come available and I could stay for the night. It was time to hop on the sky train and brave the crowds at the Paragon Imax to see the film everyone in the world was talking about, for which I hadn’t even seen a preview and had no idea the plot or premise.


What a movie! I wanna see it again.


I bounced back to my no-frills room at the magical Atlanta. Stayed up way too late writing postcards (let me know if they arrive!) and fretting a little bit over my decision to save a pile of money by taking the bus rather than a plane to Cambodia.

The alarm on my mobile beeped at 5:30am, when I got up to discover room C15’s hot water was on the fritz. A cold shower seemed apropos for a day I’d spend on a bus crossing the border to Cambodia.

A new year, a new adventure…

Happy New Year!

01 January 2010 - Bangkok, Thailand.

Happy new year, everyone!

I flew to Bangkok on the 30th and got to the US Embassy with only minutes to spare. [bxA] My new passport is valid to December 2019.

Reminds me of the summer 2000, waiting in a queue at a post office in Southwest Houston with the application for my very first passport. I was heading to Tanzania for a month to study abroad. My arms were sore from immunizations - Hepatitis A, Hep B (and the boosters), Yellow Fever, Tetanus, Typhoid, Diphtheria, etc...not to mention that fat stack of Lariam (anti-malaria) pills that made me CRAZY and DEPRESSED and PSYCHOTIC just like the disclaimer warned. Ahhh, the fun of travel.

Speaking of travel fun, I'm hanging in Bangkok lazily planning my exit strategy since my Thai visa expires on 2nd January. Looks like I'll probably head to Cambodia and check out Angkor Wat, then return to Phuket for a while. Technically I should leave tomorrow, but I want to see Avatar in 3D at a cinema in Bangkok.

So that's my New Year's Day report. Looking forward to 2010!

Merry Christmas

25 December 2009 - Thailand (Photo taken in Bangkok)

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

I have fallen off the face of the earth again and the blog is way behind. I am in Phuket for Christmas and things have taken an interesting turn once again. I'll be updating the blog soon!

Hope everyone has a happy, healthy and joy filled Christmas.

Love,
ali

Hornblower v. Captain Ron

24 November 2009 - Somewhere in Malaysia en route to Phuket.

It was my first night on Sirius when Simon insisted we watch ‘Captain Ron’ and start memorizing it because, [bxA] he warned in his theatrical British accent, “no one is allowed to say anything for the rest of the week unless it is a quote from the movie!”

Captain Ron (Kurt Russell / Martin Short, 1992) is an American comedy about an average yuppie family from Chicago that inherits a dilapidated boat and hires a madman, Captain Ron (Kurt Russell), to help them sail it from the Caribbean to the US. It’s hilarious, well worth memorizing.

Simon assigned us all roles from the movie. Thirteen year old Patrick got the role of the young boy, whom Captain Ron deems ‘swab’ and orders around constantly (“swab, bring me another brewski!”). Fiona got the role of the sexy teenage daughter who paints her toenails and lets a non-English speaking Cuban boy give her a tattoo “somewhere private.” I got to be the mom, a hopelessly naïve optimist in the face of extreme discomfort and danger. Mick and Simon shared the responsibility of quoting Captain Ron throughout our journey.

As we snuggled into the main cabin around the television to watch Captain Ron, I remembered Horatio Hornblower, a television series a young Royal Naval officer during the French Revolutionary & Napolenic wars. Each night of the 15 day sea passage from India to the Maldives on Millennium, we watched Hornblower get himself into a heap of trouble, then heroically get himself out. It’s definitely a guy’s show, but we girls respectfully made the best of the daily ritual. Many days into the sea passage, Captain John teased his Thai girlfriend Nat that she only watched Hornblower because Horatio is her new boyfriend. Alyssa and I erupted into giggles. We hadn’t discussed it prior to John’s remark, but finally it was on the table: Horatio Horblower is kinda hot.

Speaking of Alyssa….Captain Ron reminded me that Kurt Russell stars in ‘Overboard’, another great boat comedy and one of Alyssa’s most favorite movies (mine too). Patrick once asked me, “Are you ever going to stop talking about Alyssa?” No, I’m not.

Let us not forget Sybaris, the boat on which Alyssa and I sailed from Egypt to Lebanon and Cyprus. Life on Sybaris was too exciting to allow for much television and we never quite settled down enough to watch Per’s favorite film, Monty Python’s the Life of Brian.


I’ve never seen it and don’t know that it has anything to do with sailing, but the film was also mentioned on Millennium and I just got an invitation to sail from Italy to Greece next year with a guy who mentioned ‘Life of Brian’ as key qualifier for compatibility.

What was I doing all those years everyone was watching these films that I missed? I was busy watching ‘Caddy Shack.’

Pregnant Maiden

23 November 2009 - Lake of Pregnant Maiden, Dayung Bunting, Malaysia. A fresh water lake where the backdrop of trees form the silhouette of a pregnant woman. See it?

I stuffed all my stuff into my backpack and [bxA] paid six Malaysian riggits for a taxi to the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club. Hung out with Fuzz onshore for a while since they have wifi and we have laptops, then ...

went to town with Simon for some final provisioning. Saw the yummy crunchy fish I loved eating on Millennium...

...spotted the piles of Milo, which Alyssa turned me onto in the Maldives (Alyssa, please compile a photo album of our best Milo moments)...

...then about noon we motored away from Langkawi and on our way toward Thailand.
They told me we were stopping in a couple hours at a freshwater lake named Pregnant Maiden. Folklore has it that once you swim in the lake you get pregnant shortly after. Fiona's dad told her whatever she does, do not swim in that lake. Fiona swam laps. We anchored near the little island that surrounds the lake. Simon warned us not to carry bags ashore because there are monkeys, many many monkeys, and they will snatch our bags, crawl up a tree and toss our cameras and phones to the ground while scrounging for food. Yeah yeah, I know all about the monkeys...

Simon insisted we plop down on the pier near a spot where dozens of catfish will swarm your feet if you dangle them in the water and sprinkle crackers for the fish to eat. How this ever came to be a tourist attraction I cannot imagine, but we did it and it was...fun. Or maybe funny? Creepy for sure. They're slimy and they slither and nibble back and forth across your feet. Patrick, Fuzz and I got a little playful kicking our feet around, then trying to catch the fish with our bare hands. (I felt it was good practice in case I am ever a contestant on Survivor.) We debated whether the fish were poisonous, dangerous, etc. Nah, couldn't be...or else they'd post a sign or something...

...it wasn't until we were on our way out that we spotted the sign:

"...please don't KICK or CATCH the fish...the sting is so PAINFUL..."

We finished at the lake and continued on our journey, anchoring in a remote spot near a boat called Whim-O-Way...

The couple on Whim-O-Way invited us over for a beer so we dinghied over and watched the sunset while indulging in yachtie conversations about restoring old boats and everyone's favorite subject: pirates.

It's great to be back on a boat;)

Back to Boats

21 November 2009 - Langkawi, Malaysia.

Royal Langkawi Yacht Club.

I was delirious from jetlag and immigration issues when [bxA] I arrived at the massive Raja Muda Selangor International Regatta farewell dinner at the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club.

Forty-eight hours ago I was posing for photos with Sikh teenagers in a rock garden in Chandigarh, India. How did I get here? One of my roomies at the ashram, Tura, a loving girl who gave great hugs and traveled with a stack of deflated soccer balls she was delivering to an orphanage in Nepal, once explained to me in her adorable Spanish accent that we travel by air, but our karma travels by camel.

I made my way through the mingling yachties out to the main area where white clothed tables were arranged on a platform erected over the swimming pool, set to the backdrop of sailboats moored along jetties. Fiona ran up to hug me and I was struck by her goddessness. I had forgotten she’s nine feet tall with a personality as untamed as her curly brown hair. She introduced me to the Sirius captain and crew and we settled in for dinner at a table near the stage where trophies were passed out for the next hour or so.

(I'm standing on my tippy toes in this photo so as not to look like an oompah loompah next to Fuzz.)

The ceremony gave way to thumping loud American-wedding-dance-music (Celebration, Dancing Queen, Greased Lightening, The Twist…) and all the sailors bounced around happily after many days of hard racing in pouring down rain. In my sleep-deprived jet lag delirium, I mostly wandered through the festivities in a daze, engaging in a few quiet conversations about things that reminded me I’ve committed, once again, to join a boat full of potential lunatics for a journey that will ultimately lead to God knows where.

Here we go…

[Alyssa: WE MISS YOU!!!]

Chandigarh Rocks

19 November 2009 – Chandigarh, India. Rock Garden with art sculptures made from ‘urban waste materials’ by Nek Chand.

With just a few hours left my last day in Chandigarh, I made a list of all the errands I must do before leaving for Malaysia[bxA], walked out to the main road, hailed a motor rickshaw and commanded the driver, “take me to the rock garden!” Huh? Where did that come from? What about the list in my pocket? All the things I must do? They can wait. Abhishek said I’d love the rock garden.

I got there just before dusk thinking I’d wander aimlessly listening to my ipod. At the entrance there were a couple dozen Sikh teenagers who’d just finished their tour.

One of them asked to take a photo with me. This is a phenomenon I won’t try to explain now, but people love to take photos with westerners (they especially love to take photos with Alyssa, but when she’s not around, a photo with me will do.) After I posed with the first guy, pandemonium ensued.

Everyone wanted a photo. I only got a few with my camera, but they all had mobiles and the photo shoot went for a good 20 minutes, costing me precious daylight to explore the garden, but it was much fun and totally worth it. They took turns carefully asking me my name, which is now officially ‘Alexandra’ to strangers because I can no longer defend the ‘Ali’ thing. It’s a boy’s name.

Eventually I made my way into the rock garden, which blew me away. The sign said it sprawls over twelve acres, and it does. I got lost and had to be rescued by two adorable Sikh boys who made it their mission to lead me through the maze of walls and statues and rocks.



It was like Houston-Montrose-Folk-Art meets Xian-China-Terracotta-Warriors. Abhishek was right, I loved it. Made me think of Nikki’s dad and his propensity to not only landscape, but build artful constructs in yards of apartments he was only renting. A thread always weaves me back to Houston…

Link here for more photos on Picasa (click on photo to open Picasa album).

Chandigarh Rocks

Metal & The Maldives (Esquire Explained)

Metal in the Maldives...

I just got to civilization after a few days at sea to find these great photos from Alyssa in my in-box (of the Maldives boys). Thanks, Assie! You rock. The seemingly unknown Brian posted a link to John H. Richardson's Esquire column this week. You can read what I have to say about metal in the Maldives there, but wanted to share these great photos of the guys that jammed all day every day while we were hanging out on the Addu Atoll in March. In fact, one of Alyssa's and my favorite memories is our farewell-to-Millennium dinner, where we couldn't really talk because the guys were jamming so loud. We loved it! Oh, and the Esquire article contains a great photo of Umair's band in Pakistan (Umair worked with me at BofA in London - thanks, Umair!) so check it out. [bxA]

Blackberries and Bananas

16 November 2009 - Chandigarh, India. Abhishek's Blackberry (text is blurred to protect the inncocent...and I didn't have Abhishek's permission to take this photo, for the record).

I journeyed seven hours north of Rishikesh to meet Abhishek, a close friend and colleague from London whose wife just had a baby so they’re visiting her parents in the modern and beautiful city of Chandigarh. I got in late so Abhishek and I dined alone, indulging in work-talk while feasting on chicken, mutton and beer (after 6 weeks of no meat or alcohol).

Abhishek’s Blackberry sat on the table [bxA]and it really haunted me, the little red flashing light beckoning him to read new messages. His Blackberry is identical to my old Blackberry, which I seriously considered pitching into the Thames when I left my job last year, but decided I didn’t want to do that to the Thames. Abhishek and I had exactly the same job –both VPs covering BofA’s EMEA Healthcare portfolio, working on the same clients, same acquisitions etc. When Abhishek went to the loo, I peeked at his Blackberry to find the same old emails that were in my Blackberry over a year ago – same clients and coworkers, not even the subject lines have changed. That tiny little appliance was like a Pandora's box containing a galaxy of dynamic problems and prospects and obligations and responsibilities and anxiety and nerves and excitement and passion...with just a tiny red light flashing in the periphery of everything I did all day and night. My Blackberry was always with me. I checked it the minute I woke up (my analyst was several hours ahead in India), after I crawled into bed at night (many bosses and business partners were several hours behind in the US), and just about every five minutes in between. I carried it around the office with me, to meetings, to lunch, even to the office loo where there was often more than one Blackberry sitting on the sink waiting to be retrieved by their owners. After work we’d all have our Blackberries on dinner tables in restaurants or on countertops at pubs…red lights flickering as we tried, in vain, to pretend like we weren’t thinking about work.

But now I think blackberries are a kind of fruit, like bananas.

Esquire

"How 'Master of Puppets' Wins Hearts and Minds"

Not sure what what that means and why it's appearing on Ali's blog (posted by someone who appears to be stranger no less)? Then you can follow this link to find out.