Dean Pickles

Moving Right Along

2011-01-19T09:01:00.003+08:00

This morning at about 1am, I (quietly) launched my brand new blog, Asia Obscura, at www.asiaobscura.com. You'll recognize some of the old stories, but there's already a heap of new content up there. If I have a personal story, it'll go here. If I have a "weird Asia" story, it'll go there. If you only check one, that's the one to see. I'm still tweaking it, and will be for a while, so lemme know what you think!

Charlie and Ox Head

2010-11-13T16:02:00.000+08:00

At a Fangshan banquet.

"Pyongyang" & "Pyongyang Too"

2010-03-21T19:19:00.003+08:00

M and I finally got to North Korea. While there, we did our best to replicate as much of Guy Delisle's incredible book, "Pyongyang," as we could. We then bound and printed a hardcover tome, "Pyongyang Too*," which we handed him in Beijing last week. We were both so nervous, neither of us thought to take a photo. Grrrr. Anyhow, below are a few pages from it... Apologies for some of the poor retakes -- as you'll read in the opening letter, it's forbidden to bring in any books about North Korea to North Korea. So we had to commit it all to (our rather awful) memories, instead.

xoxo
A & M...

Ten Days in Mongolia

2009-05-29T12:12:00.007+08:00

"I don't think you can see the Shamen," the fixer murmured. He watched his cup, the table, a fly, anything that wasn't our eyes. "They are far from here. In the mountains. It would take a long time to see them." He traced a line along a creased map of Mongolia. "Maybe four days drive. Then five days on horseback. It's not so safe." With every reason he offered not to chase the Shamen, it became more of a mission.

"Can we fly there?," someone asked.

He took a slow sip of his tea, looked over his shoulder, around the room, and came back to not looking at us. "I don't think it's a good idea."

We'd trekked all the way to Mongolia to see a Shaman. Mystics that secret away in the mountains, migrating with herds of reindeer, falling into trances, channeling spirits, predicting the future- changing the future. And yet everyone said "No."

Another fixer, Bobby, also warned us not to try. "They know you are coming," she said quietly, as if cast in a bad horror film. "If they want to see you, they will see you. And if they don't want to see you... they will disappear, or change the weather. They are powerful like that." She looked out the window, and back to us. "Go to the Gobi instead! It's very beautiful!"

The Gobi?! We wanted Shamen, not sand!

At the Grand Khaan Irish Pub, I ordered a beer and unfolded the map of the country, and we began to plot. We'll hire a 4x4 Jeep, and load it with backpacks, sleeping bags, and beer. We'll head north-west to Lake Khovsgol, the edge of which touches Siberia. From the map, it didn't look far: maybe about 800km. A day's drive along a main road. Not bad. We knew in the summer, the Shamen would descend from their mountain hideaways, and circle the lake. But Mongolian summer was months away. So instead, we'd fire our driver, get some horses, ride into the mountains, and find the Shamen. Three days? Four days? Five days? We were ready.

"We" was me, and Lollion, and Amanda.

I barely knew Lollion. I'd apparently met her at a cocktail party two years ago, exchanged a quick "hullo," and that's about it. Through a chain of mutual friends, it was determined we both wanted to see Mongolia, so -- against all reasonable judgement -- we decided to travel together.

Amanda, a friend from college, agreed to join us on a whim just a few weeks earlier.

Of the three of us, none was prepared.

First, Mongolia's a big country. Huge. It's hard to describe, but take France, and Germany, and Austria, and most of Poland, and shove them all together. That's Mongolia. In the south, it's a vast desert. In the north, it's all frozen. There's volcanos, mountains, rivers, lakes, sandstorms, fields, steppes, and almost no people. Three million, maybe, and half of them live in the capital. The rest are nomadic farmers, spread out across landscapes and valleys and nothingness.

In this nothingness, we set off. And then we discovered the first problem with our proposed timeline: in Mongolia, there are no roads.

There are roads drawn on the map. I can show you. The road we took was labeled, clearly, "Main Road." It's the largest road on the map. And yet, just a few miles from UB, it disappeared, and gave way to dirt and sand. We took to the fields, driving in the paths of cars before, veering this way and that, bouncing up and down over moguls, taking a left suddenly and then a right to avoid a herd of sleepy cows. My head slammed into the roof of the vehicle, so I pulled my seat-belt tighter, and held on to the dashboard. We passed a car, swerving out of control, and then an oil tanker racing through a field, leaving a storm of dust in its wake. Lollion lurched into the front seat, and grabbed the driver's arm. "Stop," she cried, one hand over her mouth.

Dust flapping up around us, outside the car, she vomited for the first time. Amanda and I watched the landscape, awkward, and feeling bad. But we'd get used to this. Every few hours of driving on this wild terrain, our friend would throw up. The road was bad. Awful. She cleaned up, and sheepishly climbed back in. "I'm okay. I just get a little nauseous. Let's move on." Bairaa, the driver, spoke not a word of English, but tossed away his cigarette, started the engine, and we set off again.

There were no road-signs, no markings, and no directions: just crisscrossing and splintering and conjoining sets of car tracks, heading into the distance. The GPS on the dashboard was nothing more than a very smart compass. "Head SSW," it read, and Bairaa did his best to follow the set of tracks that were heading SSW. A lake in the way? He'd make a guess. A mountain in the way? He'd just head over it.

Hundreds of little squirrels, zuram, scurried left and right and dove into holes in the dirt. "Can you eat them?," I asked Bairaa, pointing to my mouth, "Zuram food?" "нет! нет!," he howled in Russian, and pointed to my head, tapping it. "For hats?," I asked, confused. "да!," he laughed, "Hats!" I wanted one for a pet.

The first night, we stayed in a tourist camp, filled with a dozen young Japanese and Chinese tourists. We passed a bottle of vodka while an old Mongolian sang from his throat, and played songs about Chinggis Khan on his horse-head fiddle. I silently cursed: we were treading in tourist country, and that's never fertile ground. The traditional experience of sleeping in a ger was belied by the power outlets, to charge your cellphone battery, and the sit-down toilets.

Nevermind. After this first night, we left tourist country behind, with it's warm showers (or showers at all), and sit-down toilets (or anything more than a hole and two rotting planks), and silly foreigners (we would only pass two tourists, once, after this night). Instead, on the (not a-)road again, we escaped into rugged Mongolia.

And then an SMS text arrived on my iPhone.

I'd bought a Mongolian SIM card on arrival, so was always on the grid. Turns out that Bobby, after her fearful Shamanic warnings, had actually found us one. Find Ms Baikal in Moron, she directed, and she'll take you to see Mr Ganba. He can arrange everything. He'd arrange horses and lodging for the five day trek to see a Shaman. It sounded like a long ride, but I thrilled to the idea: could there be any better way to show up at a hidden mystic's tent than aching and tired, hair plastered to your face, reeking of sweat and manure, guided by someone named Mr Ganba? Hell, no!!

I texted Chinzo, our fixer in UB, to change our flights back home. We're staying longer!, I typed excitedly.

We still didn't realize how far from the lake we were. I could bore you with so many details of the ride, but suffice to say, it was a damn long ride. Sometimes there'd be five rows of car tracks ("a highway!," quipped Amanda), deep from the decades of use, but mostly we'd follow a solitary path. Baby goats and baby sheep would skip out of the way, while cows would ignore us. Cuddly baby yaks, wearing blankets to keep them warm, would bleat. And horses would gallop, unhindered, across the skyline.

One morning, we skipped breakfast, then spent an entire day lost in the mountains, listening to the same three cassettes over and over until one tape snapped. To ease the hunger, Amanda and I slurped down baijiu whisky, while Lollion dry-heaved in the desert. Bairaa would chuck out his half-smoked cigarette, shove us back into the car, and chase after galloping horseback farmers for directions. Finally, as the sun started sinking, we ate our first meal at 5pm.

The food in Mongolia was great. It was always the same, but always fantastic. Either rice or beef-fat-drenched pasta, fried potato slices, and fried beef. Sometimes it was served in three piles, sometimes mixed up into one. Sometimes it was soup, sometimes dumplings, and sometimes drenched in more beef-fat. But it was generally always the same. And always delicious!

I should note, though, that Lollion is a vegan. If there was rice, or potatoes on their own, she could eat that. And very rarely, there was a small coleslaw salad. But mostly Lollion would quietly open a package of instant kimchi ramen, while Amanda and I sucked down the home-cooked love-filled comfort food. Loll never complained, or even mentioned it, which astounded me. But I'd forget it, as I tucked back into my huge bowl of fat-drenched noodles, completely distracted. Mmmmmmm.

It took three days to draw close to the lake. On the way, we climbed a volcano, skipped rocks on a frozen lake, relaxed in hot springs, saw gers equipped with satellites and solar panels, slept in a village hotel from the pages of Gogol, passed honking through a hundred sprawling untended flocks of goats and sheep and cows and yak and horses and camels, and finally arrived at the northern capital.

For a big city, Moron is a tiny town. Small ramshackle houses sit side-by-side with picket-fenced gers, and city streets run the length of one long New York block. An election was looming, and candidate gers had been set up to spread the word. Banners and posters were everywhere. We were tired, and grouchy, and checked in at the best hotel in town, a gaudy Soviet throwback with clocks set to Moscow time, and -- in only the top-class "Lux" suites -- hot water. At $35 a room a night, this was a step up. We'd only been paying $3 a night so far. We got two of their four Lux suites. We showered, and ate, and slept like lambs.

The next morning at breakfast, Bairaa introduced us to Boldo, a local horse-guide dressed like every rural Mongolian, in a dusty, torn dell, tall black boots, and a hat. "I can take you to the Shaman," he promised, speaking some of the first English we'd heard since leaving UB.

"How far is it?," I asked, thinking of Mr Ganba's five-day trek. (After three days suffering in the off-roading jeep, my ass and legs already sore, a week on horseback was terrifying.)

Boldo thought, counted on his fingers, and offered a number. "Three days, by horse." This didn't sound so much better.

"Isn't there a faster way?"

He thought again. "Maybe.... By car, maybe it's two hours."

Two hours??? To hell with the romanticism of showing up tired and dirty to the Shaman. I was ready to do this. We shook hands, and set off. And, four hours later, we were still crisscrossing through fields, three of us crammed into the back seat. We'd pull up at a Shamanic tent, Boldo would shout the Mongolian equivalent of "Anyone home?," and we'd drive on. The ruts in the road grew less defined, and the time spent swerving to avoid trees or rivers grew more.

At this point, it might be nice to mention that none of us actually caught Boldo's name. So for the next three days, I called him Volto. Lollion called him Baltoo. And Amanda called him both Bosco and Roscoe. None of us were even close.

Headed up a steep incline, we passed three generations of men, walking slowly into the forest. Boldo rolled down the window to ask for directions, and two of them quickly squeezed into the car: a toothless, grinning old man, and a serious little boy. We drove on, further into the mountain and the forest, until we could drive no more. "Now we walk," Boldo said, and we silently walked into the trees.

The climb to the Shaman was postcard perfect. It was unreal.

A rocky path, leading up through a dead winter forest. Out of sight, a moldy teepee watches over a dry riverbed. The first thing I actually saw was the herd of reindeer, their feet bound, tripping through the forest, munching on moss. One of them, small and black and bowlegged and furry, couldn't walk right. He took a few nervous steps, then collapsed. His mother licked him, until he stood upright again. "This reindeer is very young," said Boldo, nodding. He talked with a dark stranger, who was smoking heavily and ignoring us, and then continued, "Yes. It is only half-an-hour old." As the reindeer's mother turned around, I caught sight of her placenta, still dangling from the womb. The baby collapsed again, and we hid behind trees, to give them a moment of privacy. I hate to say, but it was pure, awful, incredible Disney. I didn't need any cartoon sparrows twittering around me: this was magic enough.

Bairaa called to me, from inside the dark tent. "анди!" I crawled inside, joined him on a dirty, stained blanket, and accepted a cigarette. Boldo stuck his head in, and conferred with the grinning old man. "The Shaman is not here," Boldo explained. "She has gone to town. She will be back. We will wait."

A fire burned in the furnace, cutting the chill, and cups of salty butter tea were passed around. We dipped our ring fingers in, and flicked a drop to the gods. Then we drank, and sat silently in the smoke-filled tent. The scowling reindeer's keeper would step into the tent for tea, or a smoke, would glare in our direction, and would leave. His young son ignored us, as best he could. And I accepted another cigarette, and another.

And we waited. And waited. And, of course, she never showed up.

It took hours for the shift, which was dramatic. "We should leave," Boldo said, unexpectedly. "The Shaman is not coming."

"Can we keep waiting, a little longer?," I asked, unsure.

"No. We must leave." Bairaa was already in the car, starting the engine.

"But we can come back tomorrow?"

"No."

"But we've come so far!"

"We must leave."

Boldo never explained. How he knew she wasn't returning, or why he wouldn't take us back. But both he and Bairaa refused to speak another word about it.

Later, as we climbed on horseback, and spent two days riding through an unbelievably gorgeous landscapes, I felt a sense of closure. We came to see the Shaman, and we waited, and she didn't want to see us. We tried, and failed. And it was okay.

Instead, I had a lake of ice before me. A field of pine needles. A herd of yak. We stayed in a ger so cold that we slept in shifts, one of us waking every hour to add wood to the fire. When we ran out of kindling, we drank vodka and started burning my journal. I bought a dell, and wore it until I smelled like a rural Mongolian, of horse and smoke and vodka and dirt.

I was at peace with not seeing a Shaman. Lollion wasn't. So I found another lead, an Israeli in UB named Ron, who'd helped a friend of mine find a Shaman. But Ron, too, was of no help. He knew two Shamen, that he regularly talked to, and offered to connect us to. But, suddenly, they disappeared. "They still haven't called me back," he said, every time we called. He was sure they'd get back in touch soon. Of course, they never did.

Back in Moron, we ordered a round of Borgio, the only beer anyone drank up north. "Sorry," I offered, Lollion. "Maybe next time, we'll find her."

"That's okay," she sighed. Loll had suffered through the miserable drive, throwing up daily, with not a complaint. As a vegan, she'd survived almost entirely on ramen noodles, without a word of woe. But now, she was depressed. We'd come all this way, and failed at every step to find the Shaman we'd set out for. I remembered Bobby's words, back in the capital. "If they want to see you, they will see you. And if they don't want to see you... they will disappear." I wondered why she'd said this, how she'd known this would happen.

Lollion, sad, sipped at her Turkish wine.

Sitting on the table were four shagai, or sheep's ankle bones. "These are used for telling the future," a Mongol cowboy explained, as he joined us. He showed us how to whisper to the bones, then roll them with your right hand. We took turns, and, without the Shaman, told our own fortunes.

I don't remember what I rolled, but Bairaa later claimed it was one goat, one sheep, one camel, and one horse. The best fortune is on you. "This is the second best," the cowboy exclaimed, while his girlfriend whooped. I smiled, and ordered another beer. "Tell me about my love life," I whispered, and rolled again. Some obstacles will come. Hmmm... not so hot.

Back in UB, after a miserable fifteen hour drive, we said tearful goodbyes to Lollion, who was headed north to Siberia. Despite our failing to find a Shaman, it had been a remarkable trip. Incredible.

And as her train pulled out of the station, I reached into my back pocket. "I think I have a list of things to do in UB," I told Amanda. Months earlier, I'd made notes from Lonely Planet, and recommendations from friends. We started working through the list. The Political Persecution museum, shoved within the glitz of a Toyota dealership, was a heart-wrenching record of the Mongolian struggle. The bootleg DVD shop didn't have Poultrygeist, but downloaded (and loved) the trailer, and promised to stock it the week after. And we couldn't find the General Intelligence Agency museum, which, given the secrecy of their secret police, seemed fitting.

And then, next on the list, was something called Center of Shaman Eternal Heavenly Sophistication. I had no idea. "Maybe it's a museum?," I offered, as we set off looking for it. Up and down main streets, down alleyways, finally arriving at a rubble-filled building site. Workmen trudged by us, loaded down with bricks and concrete. A security guard dozed in a small booth. And, behind it all, in the middle of a field, sat two incongruous gers.

The first was locked, so we ducked into the second. Inside was a world of unique. Most of the ger was empty, but one corner was crammed full of suitcases, gowns, stuffed animals, holy figurines, rugs made from bears, and a wig on a stand, wearing a helmet with a dagger sticking out the top. In the middle of the ger was furnace with a boiling pot, and a desk. At the desk sat a workman, listening to a woman, whispering. The woman wore tight jeans, a glittery purple top, and a rhinestone headband. And I knew. She was The Shaman.

No-one acknowledged us, so we sat down quietly, on a bench beside another workman and a man in a suit, and waited.

The workmen each spoke with The Shaman for five or ten minutes, and then left. The man in the suit spoke with her for an hour. I listened to their whispers, and to the wind outside, and to the boiling pot. A massive Mongolian warrior strutted into the tent, pulled open the pot, and yanked out an entire sheep's head. He dropped it to a plate, and, with a pocket knife, worked chunks of flesh off the bone, eating them one-by-one. I watched, entranced, averting my gaze whenever he looked up. Amanda, never having bought into the Shamanic cult, just paced.

After an hour had passed, the man in the well-cut suit left his seat, and I took his place.

"San ban oh," I offered in Mongolian.

"I don't speak English," the Shaman whispered, in her perfect accent, "but I can understand. What is your question?"

"Tell me," I asked, "About my heart."

She looked at me, and consulted in Mongolian with the hungry warrior. He grunted and returned to his food. She thought, and picked up a post-it note from a pile, and began to pen in cyrillic. Every few words, she'd contemplate, consider, and study me again.

"I am sorry," she wrote, in what I'd later have translated, "I say it straight. In your case, you want to arrange your life now. Three times, you've had girlfriends, but your love will bring you dreams and happiness. Now you want to travel again, but after that, you will settle. You like to help others. Because you like to help others, God sends you happiness. Sometimes you have backaches, but you have nothing else serious. Another test, or exam, is waiting for you. You will have two children. And please make more time, and effort, if you want to make business."

She smiled, and handed me the paper. I smiled, and handed her 5000 tugrik, a few dollars. The warrior grunted, and pulled another piece of flesh from the sheep's skull. This was Mongolia.

Trans-Siberian Express

2009-05-17T12:41:00.005+08:00

To get from Beijing to Mongolia, you have a few choices. A flight takes just over an hour. The Trans-Siberian Express, meanwhile, offers a rugged thirty-hour ride through cities, towns, barren landscapes, desert, and finally the capital of Chingghis Khan.

It's a famously hard ride. I pictured drunk Russians and fiery Mongols and live chickens and illegal cargo. Border police and bribes and human trafficking. Vodka and filterless smokes and mystery and intrigue.

So, dressed in a t-shirt with red hearts and the huge word "KITTENS," I climbed aboard, ready to head up the wild.

The train itself is a fantastic relic of the Soviet era. It's staffed almost entirely by growing stocky Mongolian babushkas, uniformed in knee-high black boots and long, pressed jackets and skirts. Stewardesses of the SS, they should have carried riding crops to complete the picture. I tried to take a photo, but my camera was practically ripped from my hands. "No photo," she cried. This was about the only English I heard from their mouths. Instead, like a spiteful school-marm, every question was met with an exaggerated eye-roll, or perhaps just a scowl of horror. (I felt like a 12-year-old Andy facing Miss Duly again.)

"How do I flush the toilet?," I asked. A matron shoved me into the bathroom, and cruelly pointed at a diagram behind the toilet.

"Um.... But how do I flush?" She gave an exasperated, exaggerated gasp, looked at me, and pointed to a foot-pedal. It was hidden behind the bowl. It looked the same as everything else.

I had to bring her back to show me how to turn on the sink. And again to store my bag. And again to turn on the radio in my room. (The radio is a highly recommended stream of Russian pop, Christian rock, and, every now and then, Mongolian poetry read over Nino Rota's theme to The Godfather.)

The rooms, like the rest of the train, were unabashedly Soviet. Laminate faux-wood walls. Red diner booth benches to sleep on. Hooks and hidden drawers and switches that did nothing, with cyrillic lettering and complex maps all over.

I'd romantically hoped to share a room with a crowd of drunk Russians, filling the thirty hours with dirty jokes, smokes, vodka bottles, and дурак, a Russian dockworker card game Ankarino taught me years ago. But, even by myself, the room felt small. Sitting with Amanda and Lollion, two tiny girls, I felt trapped. Squeezing in with three manly hirsute strangers would have been a nightmare. I pictured that grand scene from A Night at the Opera, and escaped down the car, in search of a more spacious refuge.

Most of our first-class carriage was empty. Next door, a man sat upright and alone, staring out the window. He kept this posture for the entire waking ride. In the room beside his, two Mongolians lounged in their t-shirts and underwear, playing cards and laughing over an open bottle. The rest of the car was empty.

In the staff room, four matrons had squeezed in, gossiping away chirpily, draped across each other and sharing massages. I knocked and they all went silent. In unison, they glared up.

"где ресторан?," I nervously asked, and scurried off in the direction they all pointed.

The restaurant car, meanwhile, was a haven. The scowling all-Chinese staff perked up slightly when I ordered in their tongue. "我希望要二瓶啤酒," I called, and started drinking beer at 10am. Amanda was already halfway through a bottle of Great Wall red wine. "It's cocktail hour in LA," she offered. Jetlag was a good excuse. I didn't have a good excuse. I didn't have any excuse. But Amanda really shouldn't be drinking alone.

Beyond us in the rocky restaurant was a rough old Texan, with callused hands and one glass eye and a "waste management" logo on his shirt. This was John. He chain smoked cheap Chinese cigarettes, and held his bottle of beer tightly. He nodded hi. Rob, an effete bespectacled fellow from Ohio, fitting poorly in a too-tight GAP shirt and khakis, moved over to join us.

"I'm a lawyer," he shyly offered. He went silent, then dramatically threw out, "I do death sentence appeals."

"Yowza," I exclaimed, wide-eyed. Someone clapped him on the shoulder. John cheered out, lifting his beer. "One of the good guys!"

"Yep," Rob nodded, and leaned back proudly, his arm draped casually along the booth. He took a careful sip from the glass before him.

But this was the Trans-Siberian. We were somewhere between China and Mongolia. Everything was strange. Nothing was as it seemed.

John wasn't the hard-edged sewage worker I'd imagined. He was retired, gay, had taught history at high school level for 40 years. He'd just resigned from his week-long search for a small Chinese village, somewhere under the Great Wall, that he'd read about in a favorite series of New Yorker articles.

Rob, meanwhile, assumed we understood he fought death sentence appeals. All three of us gasped in a shared shock. "But what about the innocent," I gagged, realizing this man before me was a killer. "Like..." I searched for a name, for any name. "Like what about Tookie?"

"Tookie Williams? The gang leader? He deserved what he got! He should rot in hell. He claims to have written a children's book? Hah!" Rob snorted, and took a gulp of his drink. "He ran all gang operations from behind bars! He was criminal scum! He could have turned states evidence, and given names and evidence, but he refused. He deserved to die!"

I sat back, horrified. John and Amanda argued with the lawyer, giving facts and figures about the death penalty, and Rob questioned each of these. "What liberal source did those come from?" But as he backed deeper and deeper into his corner, and they pressed on, he finally squealed, "But that's just data!," and ran from the dining car. He spent the next twenty-seven hours sitting in his window, emptying two full bottles of vodka, alone.

But I, too, spent most of the next twenty-seven hours drinking. It was the easiest way to pass the time on the train. After the bottle of Great Wall, and the beers, Amanda and I cracked open the first bottle of baijiu. (An ugly Chinese liquor that tastes like rubbing alcohol and packs a serious punch, baijiu was a terrible idea. But it complemented the absurdity of this train. Thirty hours when we could have flown in one. Palling around with a quartet of grouchy babushkas, a food car of scowling cooks, and a baby killer. It all made no sense. And yet it was all perfect.)

I tipsily skimmed the one-page menu, and ordered the first item, sweet acid meat. It turned out to be sweet & sour pork. Lollion, my vegan friend, asked for the curious cabbage frieds, but the waitress said no. There was no cabbage. "Is there anything without meat?," she asked, but there was not. She snacked on crackers and packages of ramen instead.

Outside, the streets of Beijing had flown by long ago, followed by a sprawling suburbia, and now by beaten land and empty desert. Factory towns slipped past, micro-cities built up around a handful of warehouses, appearing from nothing and followed by nothing. I sat, and watched, and drank.

Late after the sun had set, as I was slipping into sleep, we suddenly lurched to a halt. My door slammed open, and a babushka shoved her head inside. "Use toilet now," she commanded in surprising English. "Toilet locked - four hours!" She slammed the door shut again and moved to the next room. I threw on my jeans, and climbed off the train in a pitch-black border town, where passengers filed into a small station.

Inside, two groggy men sat at old metal desks, lazily picking at a mountain of passports. Mongolians and Chinese, surrounded by dirty cardboard boxes, slept along the floor. A crowd of sleepy shoppers worked their way through a grocery store, browsing two aisles of Chinese soaps, rotting fruit, and hundreds of bottles of knock-off booze. Chingghis Vodka was available in five different spellings, so I skipped it, and bought another bottle of Great Wall. I sat on the floor, swigging from the bottle with my friends and an 18-year-old Mongol named TK. Slaughter Rob cracked open a bottle of vodka and held it out, desperate for some human contact. I felt alone for him. I accepted his offer.

Finally, several hours later, back on the train, we lurched forward, and back, and forward, and back, and then set off again, into Mongolia and towards UB. I slept poorly, waking to each lurch of the train, dreaming a baijiu-muddled nightmare about electric chairs and serial killers and Mongolian matrons.

The next morning, I discovered the Chinese restaurant had been left at the border, and replaced with a Russian ресторан. Tall stylish booths, and blue tablecloths, and a 14-page menu signaled the post-China stretch of the tracks.

I ordered vodka and cabbage.

Lollion sat with me, and we toasted to Mongolia. "You know, in just a few days," I offered, "We're going to see a Shaman."

"I know," she nervously giggled, and then cheered ever so slightly.

Mongolia

2009-04-30T14:08:00.001+08:00

All I have to say about China, today, is that the post office makes you fill out forms in triplicate, won't accept green-colored ink on your letters, rips open your packages unexpectedly, and has an assortment of reading glasses available in the form-filling-out area. Annoying, annoying, more annoying, and completely adorable. I left feeling both stressed and giggly. I loved it!

Something else I like is my friend Lollion arrived this week. As a Korean-American, she speaks not a word of Chinese, but at dinner, in cabs, in the street, people look to her to explain my mangled Chinese. "Ta bu shi zhongguo ren," I interrupt. "Ta shi hanguo ren." I nod, sadly: "Ta bu hue shuo putonhua." And then, self-critical: "Wo hue shuo, keshi wo shuoda bu hao. Wo xue xi." I think this impresses them. It impresses me!

Abyhow, this Saturday morning, I board a train with Lollion, and my friend Amanda, and ride thirty-odd hours to Mongolia. Apparently it's a country that eats only strewed meat and yak yogurt, and Lollion's a vegan. Everything I've heard is: "she's in trouble." There's nothing vegan there. Also, yaks and horses are apparently a part of everyday life, their hair used for everything. I'm hideously allergic to horse and yak both.

This trip is going to be remarkable. I expect some pained, fun anecdotes!!!

Hakone, Japan

2009-04-24T15:27:00.004+08:00

After the insanity of Tokyo, I really needed a break.

So, on the advice of a stranger, I bought a 3-day pass to Hakone. And what a break it was. A mountain town an hour from Tokyo, there's almost nothing to do here. No madness, no crowds, and certainly no stress. Just groups of old ladies in hats, taking a midweek break from the city.

I'd climb on and off a rickety train that ran up the mountain, wandering aimlessly in little resort towns. The best word for the area, really, was delightful.

One stop had a huge sculpture garden in rolling hills, with a Henry Moore piece that made me cry. A Picasso Museum left me unimpressed, save for a painting on ceramic of a boy's head... but it was Picasso in the Japanese mountains. That alone gave it cred.

Stopping at Miyanoshita, I found a gorgeous tonkatsu curry at the Fujiya Hotel. The pickle selection? Incredible! The tonkasu? Perfect. The views of mountains from the century-old dining room made up for the fact that they didn't have chopsticks.

After the train, you'd switch to a cable-car, which slowly carried you further up the mountain.

It ended at a cute bubble ski-lift, The Hakone Ropeway, which carried you over the top of the mountain, to an incredible sulphuric hot-water area.

Sulphuric steam billowed from the ground along little paths. 80 degree streams trickled down the mountain.

A series of buses had driven crowds directly here, so for the first time, there was something approaching a crowd...

Now, the resort's primary claim to fame is eggs, hard-boiled in the volcanic water. The shells come out black, and the insides apparently perfectly cooked. And legend has it that each one eaten adds seven years to your life. (Old ladies crowded around, shoving the eggs in their mouths, dropping black shell to the ground.) Egg-y things were everywhere: egg sculptures, egg paintings, there was even a Hello Kitty, dressed in a black egg shell, to pose with.

I watched, sad and left out. I can't eat eggs. (I did at 大 Sushi, and regretted it.)

But you know what I can eat? Azuki ice cream!!! All of Japan is flooded with red bean treats, and, on a cold volcanic afternoon, this was a real reward.

A second ropeway led back down the other side of the mountain, offering a gorgeous view of Lake Ashi...

...where a gargantuan Pirate Ship met us, and took us to the other side. Yep, a Pirate Ship. An incredible, cheesy, terrible plastic reconstruction of a pirate ship, loaded with a booty of retirees and awed schoolchildren. "Sailing" across Lake Ashi, with this photo-snap-happy group, it was just about the most fun I've had in Japan.

From the boat's deck, I saw a shrine, off in the distance, at the water's edge.

And immediately I knew. I had to take this photo. (Which looks remarkably PhotoShop'ed when so small, but it ain't compositionally altered. Click on it for a slightly larger version...)

Hakone: the perfect salve for a post-Tokyo decope.

Sushi To 大 For

2009-04-24T15:18:00.005+08:00

(or, in Japanese, "Sushi to Dai For." Get it? Haha. Oh, I'm a cut-up. Like the fish! Pow- I'm on a roll! No, the fish is. Yuk-yuk.)

Aaaaanyhow.... Japan, for many tourists, is all about monkey-staffed izakayas, maid-served mcnuggets, and a miracle fruit that turns a lemon into a peach. But, surprising to some, there's a little more depth to this country's epicuriousity. They've got sushi, here! Buckets of it!!! And I've been doing my best to research this wild raw fish craze that's sweeping the island nation.

Early Tuesday morning, on barely three hours of post-monkey-bar sleep, I rolled out of futon, pulled on some clothes, and groggily hailed a cab. "This had better be good," I thought, as I asked the driver to take me to Tsukiji Fish Market. Damn, it was.

Now first, Tsukiji Fish Market is a sprawling maze of warehouses. I didn't get a map, and had no idea where to go -- Japanese men in boots and bloody aprons ran left and right. They jumoped out of the way as tiny trucks and massive crate-lifters ploughed through, honking madly. 4:30am, and everyone was in a crazed rush. I didn't know what to ask for, so just followed the first white person I saw, running down an alleyway, dodging workers, to catch up. And as they entered a huge warehouse, filled with rows of massive tuna, I knew they were on to something good. Cos I love tuna!!!

Dudes in jumpsuits were marching up and down the aisles, spraying the frosty fish with water, then painting huge red numbers and scrawls on their bellies. A gang of old fellows followed, scrawling in notepads, crouching down for a peek, a sniff, and sometimes even slicing off a thin slice, discretely taking a bite. Real nice, old dudes. I wanted some.

Finally, at about 5am, the bidding started. A smiley, rosy-cheeked fellow stood on an upturned crate and shouted real fast, rolling like a Kentucky auctioneer on too much jank, while a crowd of old guys discreetly made bid signs. It was Sotheby's for tuna. It was awesome.

After the first round of auctions, I couldn't take any more. Watching these old guys sneak those tastes of o-toro had me hopping mad -- mad for sweet raw fishy meat. So I walked a block, paced a line of sushi shops, and saw that most were empty. Not too surprising -- it was 6am, after all! But outside one stood thirty hungry people. This was "大 Sushi."

"I waited for two hours yesterday!," one foodie proclaimed, "And I'm back today!" "This is the freshest sushi there is... I've been dreaming of this meal," Natalie piped in. All I could think was "I'm having sushi for breakfast?"

A Japanese woman walked outside, asked if we wanted to pay $30 or $50. "$50," I boldly proclaimed, as she walked back inside, leaving me in line for another hour. Finally, I was able to enter 大.

And it was amazing. Worth every minute of the wait. Toro from the heavens. Sawara of the gods. Ama-ebi that puts hair on your chest and a smile on your cheeks. And then there was Uni. A fish I abhor. An ugly hack-colored food of Satan. This uni? This uni made me love uni. This uni put Nobu to shame. This uni I adored.

(Note: I was far too mesmerized and sushi-mad to take a photo of 大's uni. But this, from a meal a few hours later, is a rough approximation)

Now, not every piece was amazing. The anago was so terrible that instead of butter, it tasted like burned rubber. The below piece, a pile of baby shrimp, was interesting, but not tasty. When 大 succeeded, though, it was (some of) the best sushi I've ever had.

A second contender for the "best sushi ever" award was a few hours later, at Midori's Ginza branch. (Ginza Subway, Exit C1, walk through the food court, and it's sitting under the JR line tracks.) Natalie, who I'd met that morning, urged me to go, and, judging from Midori's 30-minute queue, outside in the pouring rain, the Japanese liked it too.

Again, uni that made me gaze lovingly at the sushi chef. And ローストビーフ? Maybe not entirely traditional -- but a slice of raw beef, roasted atop the rice in front of you -- definitely worth it. And the taste? So fresh and bloody and juicy. Mmmmmm!

Mostly, though, I found myself on a dark tuna rampage. Over the meal, I ran through every tuna on the menu. I didn't even think to take photos as I plunged into the maguro, the "tuna pickled soy sauce," the broiled fatty tuna, the broiled medium fatty tuna, the "best of medium fatty tuna," and even the "best of fatty tuna." And a half-dozen others. It was like an orgy of tuna on the table, as the chef handed a piece over, I picked it up, flipped it with my fingers, dabbed it lightly in (wasabi-free) soy, and popped it (whole) into my mouth, savoring and smiling and offering a grand "thumbs up" or two to the waiter. "Oishii desu ne," I would call out when my mouth was free. I loved it. In Beijing, sushi was inedible and frozen. Here in Japan? So perfectly fresh.

The most divine piece, though, was something I've never seen before. I found it in Hakone, a small mountain town. (Across the road from 7-11. Sliding slat door, with no windows.) Maybe the piece was called Namaji Rasu, and maybe it's called Shirasu. But either way, it was incredible, deliciously sweet, and so unbelievably weird. Tiny fishies, with big eyes, piled into a rolled piece of nigiri. So entirely straight-from-Star-Wars, and so one-of-a-kind. The chef had passed it to me as a gift, after seeing my love for his work, and once he discovered I wasn't Russian.

Oh, I do like the food here....

Tokyo, Part Two

2009-04-24T07:31:00.003+08:00

Tokyo isn't just a collection of weirdness -- there's far more. History, culture, temples, museums.

But the famed Asakusa Temple was buffered by blocks of "traditional keychain" souvenir shops, under assault from an ugly hoard of tourists, and hidden behind a mask of white scaffolding. The Shinto Shrine in Yoyogi Park meant you had to fight the crowds of the park. And I quickly paced through the prized Edo-Tokyo museum, really appreciating it only for the fact that it kept me out of the rain.

No, the charm of Tokyo, for me, is the new, the odd, and the terrible. Like this McDonald's statue that bears an uncannily likeness to Michael Jackson....

Weirdness. I came to Tokyo for three pilgrimages. The first, a trip to Miyazaki's Ghibli Museum, left my cheeks wet with tears. The second, lunch at a Miracle Fruit Cafe, had me giggling aloud, the juice from an inedible umeboshi plum running down my chin. And the third? It was to be dinner at an izakaya tavern, waited on by monkeys. Monkeys. Not guys in monkey suits, or hirsute fellows, but real, honest-to-xxx monkeys. This was probably a PETA nightmare, but it was also something I'd never heard of elsewhere. Plus, monkeys are totally awesome!!!

But instead of being in "North Tokyo," which I'd heard from the Internet rumors, it was far north of Tokyo. The "short train ride" turned out to be two hours from Shinjuku. And from there, another two hours of walking through ramshackle neighborhoods, fields, along highways. I carried a useless map, and asked directions every ten blocks, miming a monkey carrying a tray of sake to help explain what I was searching for. Ominous clouds hovered overhead, threatening rain, but I kept pushing on.

Finally, after four hours of travel, tucked away down a dark, residential street, I found the Kayabuki Tavern.

And it was weird. Not awesome, not great, not especially fun -- just weird. I think I'd imagined a crowd of drunk salarymen, faces blotched red, downing shots of sake and telling loud bawdy jokes. The monkeys would push through the crowd, clutching bottles of sake in their hands. Maybe, just maybe, they'd even understand Japanese -- enough to take an order for Asahi vs Sapporo.

It wasn't like that. Instead, I arrived to an empty bar. The owner, Horu, offered me "chicken oiru," and proceeded to cook up a pan of chicken and oil. He disappeared out back, and after fifteen minutes of crashes and bangs, pulled out Fukuchan, a tiny monkey dressed in a matching checkered Izakaya suit, a chain hanging around its neck. I suddenly realized there would be no monkeys carrying bottles of sake -- this was a barkeep who owned a pet monkey.

Fukuchan was there just to entertain. He danced on command and did flips on command and bounced balls on command, looking anxious and scared the whole time.

Sometimes he just looked depressed, or would hide behind me while Hiru shouted for him.

It was sad. I wanted to leave, but also wanted to see where the night would lead. After four hours of travel, I thought, there must be some peak. There wasn't. I remained the only customer, all night, drinking beers while Fukuchan climbed on me and picked at my scalp. After a few hours, I had Hiru call a cab, and then paid double to take the bullet train home.

Tokyo Part One

2009-04-19T23:08:00.010+08:00

To be honest, I came to Tokyo for only three reasons. Each had been percolating in my mind, independently, for years. Each seemed to be something I needed to do. Each of these demanded a pilgrimage. And each of these would be difficult.

I first read about The Ghibli Museum in a New Yorker profile on Hayao Miyazaki, one of my favorite filmmakers. A legend in Japan, he's created a number of gorgeous, meditative animated masterpieces -- Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Ponyo are my three favorites. They're slow, weird, dark, and scary. Most of all, they're films about awe. Awe for the protagonists, and for the audience as well. The Ghibli Museum is his own tribute to his work and his inspirations.

Like any good pilgrimage, it wasn't an easy journey. Tickets could only be bought, in advance, from Japanese-language ATMs in Lawson's Convenience Stores. It took an hour to find a Lawson's. And then thirty minutes to work out how to buy a ticket. Then another hour to get to the suburb.

I needed a break. I needed sustenance. I needed some kobe beef.

Some girl had told me about a little shop, so small only a dozen customers, maybe less, could fit inside, with some of the best kobe beef you could find. One stop before Ghibli, I hopped off the train, and guided my way through alleyways, by intuition, straight to Satou. And what a find! Meat so tender, oozing with sop-worthy juices, every bite a dream.

The Satou waitress had forced a large paper apron on me, which -- alongside the instrumental version of "Chim Chim Cher-ee" playing softly, I felt a little like a character in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. But the two chefs slicing and frying meat inches away from me were nothing like mean ol' Nurse Ratchett... maybe more like sweet Mary Poppins. Satou was glorious.

Thus far, the best meal in Tokyo.

Another "best meal" contender was Toraji Param, a Korean hormone restaurant on the 500-something-th floor of some fancy Tokyo building. As the elevator flew up the 5000 flights, my ears popped. At our table, floor-to-ceiling windows showed off all of Tokyo. It was jaw-dropping, to put it mildly.

And then the food came. And my jaw dropped again.

Before this meal, I'd never heard of "hormone restaurants," but it's a new Tokyo fad where every part of the animal is offered on the menu. You want to try delicate, thinly-sliced, cow's diaphram? We got it! And it was TDF. So amazingly tasty.

We had a series of other oddball parts of the animal, but nothing made me cry like the diaphram -- so delicious!!! Except, maybe, the bowl of raw beef with an egg yolk on top. OMG YES!!! Even their $8-a-slice premium-grade kalbi didn't meet this perfection.

You might think it a bad idea to eat all these weird and raw meats. I did, too. So I found the world's only Parasite Museum here. Sadly, everything was written in Japanese, and I couldn't find a single employee to translate. Just an unlocked door, and room after room of parasites, and no people. Even the gift-shop was empty... parasite key-chains (real parasites!) stood waiting to be sold, but I left them there.

But back to Ghibli! I really can't describe it well. It was incredibly magical. It was weird, and odd, and, like his movies, filled with awe. There were physical animations (using times strobe lights) that made me giggle with joy. Everywhere, drawers to be opened, keyholes to be peeked through, doorways too small for adults to climb through, exhibits hidden away. Nothing was explained -- they only said "Let's lose our way, together." I lost my way. It was like Willy Wonka and Dave Eggers opened a place of curious glee together.

In a small movie theater, we watched a gorgeous scene from Totoro, a wonderful old Miyazaki film distributed by Troma. Along with a room full of Japanese adults and teens and kids and ust a handful of European geeks, I ate it up with such a wild wide smile.

Me and Totoro.

So the first pilgrimage was tackled, leading me to Mission #2: Miracle Fruit!

I'd heard about Miracle Fruit at a hipster science conference in New York a few years ago, and had dreams of them ever since. History: in the 1700s, an explorer moved into a West African village. Everything was great, except the food -- it was horrible! Sour, disgusting, absolutely inedible! After a few days in the village, though, he realized the locals were all sucking on berries before eating. He joined in, and suddenly, this vile meal became glorious! So sweet, so tasty -- absolutely divine! Turns out this berry makes everything sour taste sweet!

In America, though, it's banned. Sugar and confection lobbyists have kept the berry outlawed, leaving Japan to trailblaze with a handful of Berry shops. And, after a few hours of looking, I finally found one.

Hidden on the top floor of Ikebukoro's Sun City Mall, in the back of the terrible Namjatown Theme Park, there's a restaurant: The Miracle Fruit Cafe. For $2.50, they'll sell you one berry.

And to see the effects, you can buy a number of sour-as-hell taste-bud testers. I ordered them all. Lemons, limes, sour candies, undrinkably sour juices in test tubes, weird orange-colored sliced things, and one horrible umeboshi plum.

The umeboshi plum was about the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth. Here, this is how bad it tastes.

Seriously, I'll rather eat durian.

So, nervously, I sucked on the berry for two minutes, picked up a slice of lemon, and cautiously took a lick. "Not bad," I thought. I moved forward to a small nibble. "Wow, this is good." The next thing you know, I'd shoved the whole thing in my mouth, and was chewing away. Delicious!!!

If I look kinda scared, I was. This was the best thing I'd ever eaten!!! So sweet!!! All the taste of a lemon, but the sweetness of an orange. A really, really tasty orange. YES! I chewed away at both lemon slices, the lime, the sour candies, the orange things. The liquids that I'd earlier gagged on were suddenly sweet and delicious!

And, after I'd moved through everything else, I came back to that horrid umeboshi plum. But now, it was heaven. I could suddenly taste all the depth of the flavor, with none of the horror. It was smooth, and complex, and layered. I bit, and chewed, and ate and ate and, and it was gone. I was sad. I'd loved it.

The miracle fruit, just like the Ghibli Museum, was an incredible hit. I didn't care that I'd had to pay admission fee to a theme park to get this berry, or that I'd had to fly to Japan. It was all worth the hype.

Beyond these first two pilgrimages, I've been having a blast exploring the quirk of Tokyo.

Fashion: Pink is everywhere, lace is everywhere, it's the Lolita look.

But the real style de saison is dressing like a 19th Century French Maid. It's weird, but it's everywhere! Even white girls are buying in!

And so, of course, a world of maid-staffed businesses have appeared. They have maid bars, maid cafes, even maid foot massages... I didn't visit any of these.

Well, maybe I kinda did...

Okay, to be perfectly honest, I kinda went to them all.

The opener was at Nakano's Broadway Mall, a haven for geeky hipsters, with scores of shops selling maid costumes, princess costumes, and comic books. On the 2nd floor I found the Maid Foot Massage, probably the worst foot massage I've ever had, but also the most unique. The manager and his girlfriend perched beside Miko, excitedly quizzing me for the whole massage. "Where you come from?" "How did you find this place?" "You like maid?" "You must visit Akihabara," Do-ichi the manager insisted, to eager nods from the two others. "Yes, they have many maids there!"

Akihabara's a seedy world of pachinko parlours, comic book stores, and electronics shops, pretty much a geek heaven. And what's a geek heaven without maid bars? It was there that I found MaiDreamin' and my new pal, Rika.

Completely crowded, MaiDreamin' was full of drunk salarymen, toasting, but also filled with geeky couples on dates, two women and their young daughters, and a half-dozen bubbly Japanese French maids. I was again the only gaijin, and was again treated like a novelty by the maids. (I was the novelty? You're the one dressed from the 19th century, lady!) Pink and frills were everywhere, as were cutesy notes on the walls ("no photos" with a huge smiley-face cartoon), and photos of teen pop stars. When my beer came, Rika insisted I join her in a girly chant before I drink. "Oishii ku na ne," we both shouted, "Mui, mui, mui!" I had no idea what it meant, but with each "mui" we had to make heart shapes with our hands. (David later explained to me it means something like "This tastes terrible! I don't want, I don't want, I don't want!") When my nuggets arrived, we repeated the chant, Rika giggling the whole time. This was like a Japanese Hooters without the strippers. And with French maids. It was awesome.

And I'm not sure who decided to put a big ol' Statue of Liberty here on the Tokyo beach, but someone did. It's disorienting. It's brilliant. The beach only measures ~40 feet. It makes no sense. Crowds of school kids queued up around it. But I didn't come to Tokyo for Americana. I came for pure Japanese awesomeness, so left it quickly.

Kids on the subway this afternoon. Late nights, huh?

Actually, maybe those kids should have stopped at one of the Love Hotels for a little nap! I loved the euphemistic use of "rest" in the prices.

More to come!!!

Sancha, China

2009-04-18T11:13:00.003+08:00

What can you say about a six-day yoga retreat, when so much is shrouded in silence and confidentiality?

We stayed up in Sancha, two hours north of Beijing, in the shadow of the great wall. It's a tiny village -- a New Yorker article claimed there were 150 villagers who lived there, but I only saw five or six. And the only tourists who make it there seem to be lost Chinese picnic-ers, seeking an open section of The Wall. (Here, it's closed -- the route up is steep, slippery, winding and confusing, entirely unmarked, and entirely unforgiving. No souvenir stands, drink stalls, cafes or ancient warrior costumes to pose for photos in. Just 150 farmers, who work the same Apricot trees and land their parents and their parents and their great grandparents worked. If you trace far enough, their ancestors were the workers who carried the bricks, and built the wall.)

During the six days there, we'd wake before 7am for yoga, then breakfast at 8, but kept silent until 10am. mornings were class, studying The Five Elements. Afternoons were more class, or a hike, and a second yoga session from 4:30-6pm. From 10pm, it was silence again.

Yoga was incredible. (Save for a month of daily yoga after Obama won, I'd really never done yoga more than a few times a week.) Cameron's class was similarly great. (Initially I'd just been interested to know more about what Aaron was studying in London, but I walked away having bought in to it all.) And our surreptitious hike to the crumbling wall? Outstanding! It really was a treacherous climb, but enough branches allowed us to pull ourselves up the path -- and such an empty, desolate section of the Wall. Gorgeous.

But what I found the most healing, the most cleansing, was The Talking Circle, a nightly ritual from 7-10pm. We all sat in a circle, with a small stone in the middle. Everyone would stare at this stone, fearful, nervous, or eager. Someone might grab it, and talk -- releasing a witticism, a trivial comment, or years of pain and anger. Thin tears, sobbing, laughter, heartbreak... so much came out.

The first rule was that when a person had the stone, they were the only one who could talk. For as long as they wanted. No comments, no comforting, no one-liners -- everyone else was to be completely quiet. And the second rule is that I can't say anything more. Everything was to be kept to there and then. I can probably say, though, that I got a little emotional once or twice. Let's just leave it at that. The power of speaking things that you didn't expect to say? It was a healing circle.

I started the trip dubious, skeptical, even a little hateful. I ended it full of love. Not necessarily Guyana love, although I was accused of drinking the kool-aid. Which I kinda did.

Here's some pix!!!

Lessons with Ayi

2009-04-02T11:10:00.001+08:00

Homework Assignment #3: Talk With Ayi

"Hello, Ayi. Yesterday, what time did you go to sleep?"
"I went to sleep at 10 o'clock."
"Yesterday, I went to sleep at 12 o'clock. And you?"
"I went to sleep at 10 o'clock."
"Oh, yeah. Um. Today, what time did you wake up?"
"I woke up at 6 o'clock."
"Really? Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

And so on. She chuckled like I was a madman. Better than talking to myself on the subway, but not much.

Beijing, Week Two

2009-04-01T11:36:00.005+08:00

Beijing. I like it. (wo3 xi3 huan1)

I've been eating (wo3 chi1) like a king (wang2) -- either out at restaurants (fan4 dien4) or at home (wo3 nar4). Note the outrageous deep-fried chicken with lajiao below. Every bite was a taste of heaven. I'd been irritated that the restaurant, Lao Hanzi, had removed my favorites from their menu, but this sure as hell proved they still had it in them.

I'm shocked I haven't gained weight yet. Between the prepared feasts and the incredible home-cooked meals, I've been eating and eating and eating. Mrs Kuo spent days preparing an amazing royal banquet, 14-dishes wide. Mom and Dad collaborated on an insane lamb-cooked-three-ways-and-served-in-one-dish meal. And then there was Nicholas, who took me out for "dumplings," which turned into twenty dumplings, a dozen deep-fried chicken wings, a huge whole perch in lajiao, and then three desserts at another restaurant. All of this for lunch, and all of this consumed by just the two of us.

I need a real exercise regime to keep me skinny, and under the auspicious guidance of Mimi Laoshi, I've been getting my yoga fix. But even there, there's risk. After a grand two-and-a-half-hours of yoga with Mimi, she led me to a hutong-hidden cooking school, where we spent the next four hours making and eating dumplings. Bah! (The cooking teacher, an old Beijing lady I'd recently read a book about, kept commenting in Chinese on how strong I was. "Give the dough to him," she urged a fellow kneader, "He's burly! He knows what to do!" Five people passed their dough down to me, the rest to Aaron. Joo, a tall well-muscled Malay, stood empty-handed and looking confused.)

Beyond the eating, it's the learning that's keeping me busy.

Every day I spend two hours with Hu (Hu2) Laoshi, a 30 year old (san1 shi2 sui2) Chinese (zhong1 guo2 ren2) woman who's married (jie2 hun1) with no children (mei2 you3 hai2 zi). We sit in a small room and have difficult Chinese conversations about marriage, kids, jobs, etc. I get out, and my head is a swirl of broken sentences and half-remembered words. I see street signs, and recognize characters that make no contextual sense. One sign reads "Beijing {?} Child {?} Meat." Perhaps the missing characters make it less frightening, but they do eat dog here, so who knows!

On the subway, I recite sentences and phrases while listening to language tapes. Strangers watch me warily as I ask and answer convoluted questions to myself like a New York loon. "What time would you like to go to the Beijing restaurant to eat lunch?" "I would like to go to the Beijing restaurant at 9pm." "9pm is impossible. How about 8pm?" "I can not do 8pm. How about 7pm?" And so on. People either step away nervously, or just stare. But they stare anyway. There are so few whites on the subway that new arrivals to the city, short skinny men in cheap suits, loaded down with bloated laundry bags full of all their possessions, will stop walking and gaze in awe at the gwailo walking past. Yesterday morning, a small child sitting beside me couldn't look away. I took advantage, and practiced sentences on him. "Ni jiao shenme?" He was far too young to understand. His mother giggled shyly.

And similarly farang-free was my two-day Agile Project Management class, under the tuition of renowned ScrumMaster Pete Deemer. Located in a high-tech hotel downtown, the class was 34 Chinese project managers and programmers, one Finn, and me. Unshaven, with messy hair, shod in dirty black jeans and a cowboy shirt, I stood out: everyone else was in a suit. It reminded me of working at CNET.

And over the two days, repeatedly, I was cornered by tech-geeks who were sure they knew me. "Hi!," someone shouted. "Um...?" I strained to remember him. "Remember? We met at the Linux conference last month," he reminded me. "Sorry, I've never been to a Linux conference." "Oh, he looks just like you." A few hours later, I heard someone similarly mistake the Finn. "We had dinner together," he said, "With your friend Bobby!" "But I only just arrived in Beijing. And I have no friend Bobby. I do not think it was me." Later someone asked when I was heading back to Finland. Guess we all look the same, here, too.

The class was great, though, and the students treated Pete like a hero, lining up to take photos with him and asking him to autograph books he didn't write. Several of them lined up to pose with me and the Finn, as well, to show their friends back home.

I haven't explored as much as I want to, but I did discover this quirk-park, with an amazingly incongruous collection of old Russian metal art, Grecian statues, Indian mosaics, an angry alligator to scare kids, and one old man flying a kite without his friend. The park was mostly empty, trees had kites snagged in branches, and it snowed briefly, all of which made the scene feel quite incredibly romantic, in a desolate, lonely way.

North Korean in Beijing

2009-03-23T22:07:00.010+08:00

I've seen some crazy things in Beijing. A dog park filled with figures of Santa Claus, in March. A 50-foot statue of Shaq, towering over trees in a random parking lot. A cafe, almost sold out of their durian cheesecake.

This ancient traffic-filled futuristic city was a place of awesomeness until a few nights ago. A few nights ago, we went for North Korean.

Someone made a joke, the old yawner about Ethiopian: "They have food?" Evidently. My mom refused to call in the reservation, and instead asked a Chinese friend to do it. "Tell them it's for Mr Dee," she insisted. "We don't want them to poison the food." She was joking... kinda.

Then, when we arrived, someone pushed Mimi, my Chinese-American sister-in-law, in first. "Just in case," they muttered under their breath.

And we walked in.

The walls were bare -- blank, empty, like the plates of North Korea. Lights glaring bright (all the better to see us with.) One scrawny fellow swerved around in his booth, eyes wide at the four gwailo sauntering in. His face screamed a silent "WTF!" (Or maybe it was a signal to his comrade, who was furious tapping morse code missives with a toe.) Three 1960s-style stewardesses, clad in Dear Leader red and blue suits, whispered and approached us. (Approached? Cornered! And stewardesses? Not a chance! A trio of furious lesbian killers, trained to assassinate with shivs shaped from the slivers of chopsticks!) They guided us to a booth in the very back, and I couldn't help wondering why -- my eyes searched for alternate exits. (Does the bathroom have windows?)

I paranthetically jest. But I don't lie. It was weird. People did give us big old double-takes. But while old NK dramas played out on a vintage tv, our dining soundtrack was pure Broadway. The dulcet tones of Cats, The Theme From Love Story, even Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany's played out in an instrumental Casio cover. Elevator music and the land of Kim.

The English-language menus were huge hardback tomes, drenched in garish photos of old Korean favorites: bi bim nyeng mun (pretty damn good), pyongyang kimchi sampler (awesome kimchi, wrapped up into in tight groovy circles), dog. (Yeah, dog. We didn't order it, but the menu was dripping with photos of all the great canine dishes available: dog kalbi, bul-dogi, bi bim dog. Dog on a stick. It was sick.)

We did order meat, though. Good ol' bulgogi. Nice, family favorite. But when the meat came, we all stopped and stared. Cautiously, Dad tried a piece, and growled "It's okay." I picked up a thick grey slice, and took a chew. "Yeah, it's not bad," I lied. Aaron gave a "Hmmm" after his bite, and Mom just watched.

"I think it's dog," she finally said.

"No, no, no, it's not dog," Dad countered. "How would you even know what dog looks like?"

"Remember when your friend Handel tricked me into eating it?"

"Yeah, but this could be horse. I mean, it could be anything at all. You don't know."

"Relax, guys," Aaron offered with no confidence whatsoever. "It's just cheap meat. I think it's fine."

I kept silent. From the moment this dish appeared on the table, I could think nothing but "woof." But I couldn't stop eating. Bite after bite, I thought, "This is disgusting," and I kept going. I wrapped it in kimchi to mask the taste, as I chewed through the tough, ugly, sick grey meat. (*People muse that once you've tasted human flesh, you can never stop eating it. And while this tasted terrible and horrible and awful and ugly and I wanted to vomit, I still picked up yet another piece, smeared it in thick red kimchi drippings, and ripped off another bite with my teeth.)

Instead of vomiting, which I really wanted to do, I laughed. This was a moment. A gorgeous pure untouched moment. North Koreans, glaring at a table of Crazy Yanks, eating dog, while the theme from Breakfast at Tiffany's played. It was awful. Horrible. Amazing. I hated it. It was the best.

"You know those days when you get the mean reds?," Audrey Hepburn asks in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

"The mean reds?," George Peppard returns, confused. "You mean- like the blues?"

"No," Audrey sighs, in that way she does so awfully well. "The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?"

Yeah -- I had that feeling. I was afraid I'd been poisoned by Kim Jong-Il with a plate of Fido. These mean Reds fed me dog! Of course they're horrible!!!

But, unlike Audrey and George, I couldn't very well jump in a cab and head to Tiffany's. I'd left the closest branch in Singapore. So instead, Mom and I climbed in a cab and went to the Apple store. Which, ultimately, worked just as well.

xo
andy

Singapore, Singapore

2009-03-18T17:55:00.004+08:00

I had a blast in Singapore.

Maybe it was the bizarro mall culture. When I found old friend Abeer at Paragon Shopping Centre, she complained, "This city is nothing but malls." And she was right: twelve thousand miles from the midwest, Singapore reminds me of one sprawling Mall of America. Everywhere, there were malls! And food courts! And shopping centres! But while crowds stood ten-deep outside the Swensens and Andersens chains, and parents carried Starbucks as they trawled thru Guess Kids, this was still Singapore. For every McDonald's there was a nasi lemak stand, selling mounds of rice surrounded by piles of peanuts, dried fish, fried chicken, an egg. And stands that specialized in beef rendang, hainanese chicken, thick gorgeous laksa -- dishes I'd travel an hour to find in New York. And for those looking for international food, it was everywhere: bulgogi and ramen and even Chippy's British Takeaway, which did brisk service in Cheesy Curry Chicken with Cheese Sauce, Original Cheese Sausage with Mash Potato Dip, and Deep Fried Mars Bars. (I didn't join the queue only because it was way too long.)

Then, up on the top floor of the malls, hidden away from most white eyes, sat the crazy geek shops. I felt propelled here, every time. "Cosplay" shops stocked six-foot swords beside Sailor Moon schoolgirl outfits and Hello Kitty purses. One focused entirely on adult-sized props from the computer game Warcraft, with armor, daggers, cloaks, and capes for sale. It was weird. Really weird. Fetish weird. I wanted to record it all, but surrounded by high school girls, I already felt like a pervert. To whip out a camera would surely be cause for Singapura Security.

One awesome freako shop sold USB-powered eye massagers (for the sleepy hacker), "Gun O'Clock" (for the agro-freak), Custard Egg Tart wrist rests (to stave off RSD), and bakery-scented food products made from foam rubber (I don't know what these were for, but the croissants smelled just like croissants, the doughnuts like Dunkin' Donuts. The baguette? Yep, like a big ol' freshly-baked loaf of French bread.)

Maybe it was the food. I've already mentioned the nasi lemak, which could be found anywhere, but we found the best at Adam Hawker Center. At the huge Indian buffet at Raffles Hotel's Tiffin Room, a dining room straight from Graham Greene, we dined while tiny birds soared back and forth above our heads. Best beef rendang I've ever tried, at True Blue Peranakan -- rich, deep, salty as hell. Insane otek (oteh?) at 328 Katong Laksa. Roti Kaya -- a crepe filled with eggs and sugar and butter and something green and awesome. It was so delicious, I ignored my allergies and ate and ate and ate, then found Toast Kaya -- toast smeared with the same green beauty -- in the Paragon basement just a few hours later. And probably my favorite, Roti Prata and Tandoori Chicken at the United Mall, feet from Pete and LeeAnn's apartment. Everything I'd ever want in my belly, within steps.

The most unique meal was at the dive, Sin Huat Eating House. Squat plastic chairs at dirty tables on a sidewalk in the red light district. None of the waitresses spoke English (the language of Singapore,) and scowled at us like a table of intruders. When we asked our server for rice, she glared, stormed away, and didn't returned. Meanwhile, gaggles of hookers paced up and down past our table, walking their stretch of dirty massage parlours and "KTV" shops. ("KTV places in this area," Pete mused, "don't even bother buying the karaoke machine.") Scores of shops, with names like "King of Durian," "Durian Best Shop," and "Durian Empire," competed to sell the most durian. If you don't know, it's an ugly fruit that tastes like car exhaust and smells far, far worse. Less of a fruit than it is a scourge. It's specifically banned on the Singapore subway, and I understand why.

So Sin Huat was a real dive. But a dive with such food, I've never seen! Scallops served on their shells, drenched in a delicious thick brown goop, littered with obscene chunks of garlic. Giant prawns, sliced down the middle and perched upright up on a plate, front-to-butt like an Oxbridge crew, but soaked in a grand butter-garlic sauce instead of The Thames. The crab bihoon? I don't even remember it. I remember struggling against a claw, and drenching myself in the deliciousness that seduces both Dad and Anthony Bourdain back time and again. But I remember little more, falling into a deep food coma. Until the bill arrives, and shocks me up again. The price for this dirty rude roadside-seat hooker-filled durian-flanked two-beer three-dish meal? SG$240. Which is US$160. Which is insane. I was shocked. Outraged! I waved my hands in the air, and made goldfish moves with my mouth. And I let Pete and LeeAnn pay. Heh.

But most of all, I loved hanging with the kids. Felix kicked my ass in Mario Kart Racing twice a day. Nora used drawer handles as a ladder, and climbed up onto the kitchen counter, grinding the coffee beans, and fixing me a perfect espresso. She leapt down, balanced the cup, and carefully carried it to the table. And Loulou insisted on calling me Grandaddy all week. She tried Uncle Grandaddy on for size, but it didn't fit. "Where's Uncle Andy's nose?," I'd ask, leadingly. "Grandaddy nose!," she'd exclaim as she pointed. So frickin' cute.

We toured the night zoo. Raced luge carts down a hill. Hid from the wild tesla coil at the science museum. Felix and Nora posed with a chirpy dolphin, fed vicious flapping stingrays, and wore snakes as long as they were tall. The three of us even paid for pedispa treatments, dangling our feet in aquaria for fish to feed on our dead skin. I was the most popular entree -- masses of tiny tickling fish gobbling away at my callused post-Lao trotters, as Felix and I howled with laughter. Loulou asked "What does it feel like, Uncle Andy?," and I couldn't even answer, my face so contorted with laughter.

I think Pete and LeeAnn were present for some of these things as well. I think they paid for it all.

But the best was stealing away with Felix and Nora to the Pokemon show at the mall (yes), where a sexy Singapori in short-shorts danced on stage with Pikachu, Felix's favorite, singing about the joys of math and hosting an add-off. ("That is soo Singapore," Pete later chuckled.) We scored the last ticket for this sweet photo-op with Pikachu and his math-buddies, Plusle and Minus.

On the last day, walking into the subway, I heard a busker. Softly, along the tunnels, he sang with a chuckling, dry voice, something like Lee Hazelwood. "So listen very carefully," he sang, "Closer now, and you will see, what I mean." I heard a glorious irony, and classic Americana sound. "The only sound that you will hear, is when I whisper in your ear..." As I quickened my pace, I scrawled lyrics down. It recalled Bobby Bare, or Arlo Guthrie -- someone full of California goodness. I'd never heard a busker like this before -- it was gorgeous! "I love you, forever and ever," he drawled, and I loved him. Then, rounding a corner, I got my first sight of this amazing, passion-drenched busker: and he was a lank, scruffy Tamil, with bad hair and bad teeth and a cheap guitar. He sat, squatting on a small plastic seat, shit-eating smile on his face as he sang Herman's Hermits' big hit. And he was awesome. I wanted to stay there forever. Of the dozen versions I later found on iTunes, not one had his heart. I regret not taking out my camcorder. But now I have a mission for The Return to Singapore.

What I Loved Most About Chiang Mai (Videos)

2009-03-14T05:03:00.001+08:00

Videos

2009-03-13T15:14:00.002+08:00

I've finally been able to edit a couple of short videos together.

A day in Old Sukhothai (Why they changed it, I can't say! People just liked it better that way!)

The illegal border crossing between Myawaddy, Burma, and Mae Sot, Thailand:

The Party that is Bangkok:

Si Pan Don, Laos

2009-03-12T17:04:00.013+08:00

Also known as 4000 Islands. Mat called it "as close to paradise as anything I know." His wife almost died there, dengue fever in a land without real doctors. It's 18 hours from the closest second world city, a series of remote islands in the middle of nowhere in one of the poorest countries there is. So I took it as a recommendation.

It took fourteen hours to reach the island from Vientiane. First there was a sleeper -- a narrow bus crammed with dank inch-thick mattresses and itchy sheets. The curtains hinting at privacy were useless -- people were sandwiched in at your head and your feet, and officials would jerk open the curtains unexpectedly. I asked for any bed, "as long as it's far from the toilet." So the agent reserved the three beds flanking the commode, just for us. ("The other beds," he insisted, "they sized for Lao people.") But it didn't matter: some pharmacy in Bangkok sold cheap knockoff xanex, so I slept like a lamb for ten hours. Second was the minibus -- three dusty hours on an unpaved, uneven dirt road. We followed the deep tracks of thousands of cars before us, veering left and right in a slalom, as if to avoid UXO. Or to keep us awake and queasy. And finally, in a small shack-filled town, we hopped a long-tail, and set off down the Mekong again.

Forty minutes later, the boat-driver shoveling bucket after bucket of water overboard, we arrived at Don Khon. Rooms for a dollar a night. Electricity for four to six hours a day. You could check your email, of course, but it took an hour just to get there. The ATM was a half-day's journey away, and involved phone calls, your passport, two men in bad suits, and half-a-dozen forms in triplicate. Hot water was never, but you didn't need it -- you were drenched in sweat by the time you'd toweled off, anyway.

And, about as far removed from the rest of the world as you could get, it was pretty close to paradise.

We felt high-class, so rented a slick pair of bungalows for $12 each, with private hammocks sitting out over the Mekong. Sit-down toilet. A single electric outlet, useful only for a few hours. Local women washed their hair in front of our balcony, while kids swam naked except for goggles and wooden guns. We drank Beerlao out there to the sounds of birds and cicadas, but it was the chickens, dogs and pigs all over town that I loved the most, darting up to you and then bolting away at your strange smell. Eden, this was.

We rented bikes, and took them out to the waterfalls. Two mammoth falls where only tourists are fools enough to climb in. (The locals know the falls are traps for spirits of the dead. The few tourists that have tried, so we heard, didn't make it out.) They were amazing to behold.

(*Maybe ignore the next paragraph if you like pets. Or balked at Poultrygeist. Or are named Mari or Gubba.)

I witnessed my second food-pet of Laos at the waterfalls, as some Chinese lady searched for the best lunch she could find. Waiters in a stretch of restaurants would open their coolers of fresh fish -- begging her to come inside. At the sight of a fat fish in one cooler, she did a double-take, but then kept walking. The Lao waitress grabbed her. "Come back, you didn't see it all," she demanded. Or that's what she maybe said. It was in Lao. She reached into the same cooler and hefted out a heavy plastic bag, revealing the drenched dripping fur of the dead cat inside. The Chinese woman dismissively turned and walked away, while I resisted the urge to vomit on my flipflops. It was horrible. (The first food-pet was at the day market in Luang Prabang. A woman was selling her offerings from a plastic mat: one bunch of bananas and one roasted whole dog. She wasn't to be confused with the woman selling one bunch of bananas and one dead rat, who was down another street the day before.)

(*Gubba or Mari can start reading again)

We got lucky in Don Khon -- we hit two of the island's annual celebrations the weekend we were there. By big celebrations, I mean everyone gets mad drunk and hits the temples.

Friday night, the Wat laid out a huge spread: hand-driven carousels, dart gambling, bands on a stage, dancing, and tons of food and drink.

Old ladies lay inside the temple, minding babies and sucking on massive joints, while fifty kids crowded around a small TV watching brutal Thai kickboxing flicks. They were mesmerized.

At the side, in a small tent lit by a hundred strings of christmas lights, a young monk told fortunes. Fortunes? Booze? Kickboxing and doobies? I didn't think any of this seemed too Buddhist, but I don't know much about much, so I thought "Why the hell not?" You already know I got my fortune told.

As I kneeled in awkward prayer before him, hands wai'd before my face, the monk juggled a cup of chopsticks. I plucked one out, he grabbed a microphone, and boasted my fortune to the entire temple. It was in Lao. I didn't understand a word. And, being in a small Wat in a small town on an island in the middle of nowhere, not one person spoke English. If they did, they were too drunk to remember any. But he handed me a printout of my fortune, and I had someone translate it for me a few days later.

"This mean you will win everything in your life, you know," the guest-house manager proclaimed with a smile. "Very good! This like a Buddhist game, but is not game. You will have nice wife, she is very nice. You are like Pan, you know Pan? He very old man, he have young wife. You like Pan. You are very proud to do that! You are a very lucky man. If you lost something, you will get it back." Someone distracted him with a question about their laundry, and he walked away. I picked up my discarded fortune.

Of my fortunes told, I liked this one the most so far. Even if the monk might have been drunk. I'd actually plucked a "6", and -- from what I can read -- he gave me a fortune for a "5." I'd handed it back to him, saying "Ba ha, hok!" But this might not have meant what I wanted it to, and he'd shoved the fortune back towards me, almost jubilant, and an old lady smiled, pushing it into my hand. Maybe it was rigged. Maybe his mistake was divine intervention. Or maybe I can't read Lao and didn't know the rules of the not-game. So I bought a bottle of warm beer instead, and watched teenagers dance to psychedelic Lao rock into the night.

Two days later, Don Khon was just about recovered from its hangover, and the calendars turned to International Women's Day. And they celebrated again, with beer and whisky and singing and dancing in the temples, all day long. A truck drove up and down the single road, generator and speaker strapped to the back, playing pop while drunks trailed and barking dogs gave chase.

I was sad to leave Don Khon. Sad to leave my friends from Quebec. Sad to scarper just as I was learning to suffer the incredible heat, developing a darker tan, and remembering the turns of the rocky path by the light of just the moon. But it was time to get back to Bangkok, and civilization.

Vientiane, Laos

2009-03-10T23:32:00.016+08:00

France is in evidence everywhere in Lao. Countryside schools were labeled "Ecole" and government buildings "Bureau." All of Luang Prabang felt like a quiet arrondissement. In Vientiane, the capital, we stayed on "Rue de François Nginn." And almost every tourist spoke French.

But sitting right in the middle of Vientiane is the boldest evidence of the colonial history here: the Lao tribute to the Arc de Triomphe. Well, maybe not a tribute. Maybe, much like Nashville's "better-condition!" Parthenon, this should be called a one-upmanship. With four arches, it's twice as traversable as the original. A few feet taller, it's that much more impressive. And, as if to go so far as to mock the former occupants, the devilish Lao even named their arch "Patuxai," or Pas Touché. A brilliant slight! I was awed by such audacity! (I was then told my theory holds no water, and my pronunciation is very wrong. But I was also told this by Quebecois, and -- ahem -- what do they know about pronunciation!?! heh heh.)

A long slow dusty bus-ride (20 cents) from the city, the duration of which I resisted repeat offers of let's-three-to-a-seat from the old Lao woman and her pregnant daughter, and instead squatted in the aisle, we found the awesome Buddha Park.

A little Buddha Park history: forty or so years ago, some loony Lao was hiking along a remote mountain trace, accidentally tripped, and fell deep into a hole. A lot like Alice, I guess. But instead of the quick and bloody death you might expect (especially after watching Touching The Void), believe it or not, he actually fell into the padded lap of a meditating guru. The two became quick buddies, and traveled Laos and Thailand spreading their unique word. Part of this unique word was the need for more outsider Hindu-Buddhist art, created under the divine tutelage of the tripping faller, and artistically-inexperienced acolytes were suddenly creating hundreds of bizarre masterworks. Like this:

Which represents Heaven. Meanwhile, I'm sitting several floors below, in Hell.

And while you can't see much art in the photo below, you can see me with my friend Chloe's cousin Jennifer, who I found on the sidewalks of Vientiane. (One of several random meetings in town. After dinner, late, heading home before the midnight country-wide curfew, a lonely voice calls out "Andy?!!")

But when it came down to it, my favorite side of Vientiane was the least exciting or foreign. In fact, it was the American-owned chain of Laotian cafe's, Joma, which we fell in love with in Luang Prabang, and continued our embarrassing and indiscreet affair with here. The coffee was fantastic, but it was the banana bread (omg!) and apple croissants (a terrible thought and a beautiful crispy pleasure -- no matter how pale they were, the best croissants I'd had in years) and ham and cheese sandwiches (I cursed myself with each bite, and smiled afterwards -- the next Larb Gai could wait) that kept us sneaking back time and again.

It was at the Northern Joma that I met Debra, an incredible 40-something woman who'd moved unexpectedly from Harrisburg, PA, to Luang Prabang, Laos. "I had a vision, you see." "A what?" "A vision. I'm a devout Christian. And I know it sounds crazy, but I woke up one night having a vision, and had to move here."

It takes a few minutes to pry the full story out of her, and when she tells it, her eyes really do start to well up with tears. "There was a little girl, and she was being held in a cage. A small cage - it was only this big. And it broke my heart to see her like this. I didn't know who she was, but I knew she was in Laos. I didn't even know what Laos was, where it was. I didn't know anything, except that I had to help her. I'm a feminist, and a Christian, and I knew it was my mission to help her. So I sold everything I owned - I mean everything - and bought a ticket to Laos. I didn't even have a passport before this. My friends thought I was crazy. They thought I'd be back immediately. But that was four years ago."

"So you're a missionary?"

"No, it's not my place to preach. I don't want to push my religion on these people. I don't even go to church, here. I have private prayer. When you go to the churches, because you're white, it's suddenly about you. It's not about Christianity, it's about you. So I have quiet prayer, and help the girls here in my own ways. I teach them. I don't speak Lao to them - I make them speak English, to pull them out of their comfort zone, and help them to learn."

I wanted to ask about her comfort zone -- "You're in Laos, why not learn Lao, crazy lady!" -- but quickly realized she was coming from a completely different place than I. She'd never left the US before. She moved to Lao because of a single vision. She'd left her comfort zone long ago.

"So what happened when you moved here?"

"I did what I could, but my money eventually ran out. After two years. I didn't want to ask anyone for anything, because I knew Christ would take care of me. I believed 100% in Christ. I only had 1000 kip left, a single dollar, and didn't know where I could sleep. So I slept on the street. And then I used that money to check my email. And you know what? I had an email. Without asking, without anything, someone had just deposited money into my account. So I knew this was right."

"And now?"

"I'm the manager at Joma. It's great here. We help the girls. We train them, and give them education they wouldn't get elsewhere. And we don't let the men get away with the shit they normally do. Here at Joma, everyone's equal. You know how the newest employee gets the worst jobs? Well, here, that's cleaning the toilet. One day, I told a new man to clean the toilet, but when I checked up on him, a woman was on her hands and knees. I asked 'what are you doing?' And she told me, she told me, 'it's not a man's place to clean a toilet.' 'Oh yes it is,' I told her! And I marched over to him, handed him the brush, and watched while he cleaned it."

Such passion, such devotion.

But that was Luang Prabang. Here in Vientiane, Catherine and I sat at a pub discussing Debra, and the conversation segued on to monks. An eavesdropping Lao leaned in, and interjected. "Hey, I was a monk, once," he said. "Twelve years! Twelve years no sex, no drugs! You know what I mean? I MEAN NO BOOM BOOM!"

Vang Vieng

2009-03-05T19:37:00.004+08:00

What is Vang Vieng?

Imagine the most pristine, untouched, slow-moving river. A place that seems from a dream. It carefully wraps around banks of green, where water buffalo and cows nap in the shade, and wake to sip from small pools. Four novice monks hold umbrellas for shade as they cross a rickety old bridge. A fisherman slaps his bamboo rod in the water to punt himself a few feet upstream. Up above, two volcanic mounts bring Mordor to mind. Beauty. Absolute pure remote beauty. You float through this serenity on an inner tube, and smile.

Now hold that prior image. Jam twenty barts that resemble frat parties into this river, each jutting out, perched over the water, each with their own pounding '90s techno or hiphop soundtrack. At one bar, thirty muscled drunk jarheads dance in a sweaty circle to "boys who like girls who like boys" as four girls in bikinis pretend to be bored. A screaming couple fly over our heads, suspended on a zipline, and bellyflop into the river behind us.

Now try and retain the images of the four monks and the rickety bridge and the fisherman and the water buffalo. It's hard, but do it. It was all there.

"Free shots of laolao, man," some body-painted guy shouts to us, as a Bob Marley tune comes on, and I smile. He throws out a rod of bamboo, attached to a fishing line, and drags us in from the current. We sit beside a girl who's dancing by herself, fixated on her own hands as she draws traces in the air with her fingers. She's tripping hard. "A big bottle of beer," I order. "No free shot?," the bartender asks. "No!? Man, I ain't never heard nobody turn down a free shot of laolao before."

Two fat drunk Canadians, on leave from Afghanistan, drag us in. Both of them were unbelievably sunburned. "Long as I keep moving, dude, it don't hurt. But I gotta keep moving -- and drinking! You fall asleep on the roof of a boat, maybe one of your buddies gonna wake you up, right? But no!" "Hell, man, I passed out too! Shit!" They would pause only to suck at the large bottles of beer tied to strings around their necks.

Besides not being incredibly drunk, something else that set us apart was our virgin skin -- everyone else sported serious temporary tattooes: a gorgeous sunset above the promotion "sunset bar," a guy's name scrawled down a girl's arm, one man with a moustache and bow-tie both Sharpied on. "Were you passed out, or concious, when those happened," I asked, sure the answer would be about passing out. "Dude, they're sweet, right? I wanted to look real smart! Nice, huh?" Smart was about the only thing he didn't look, but as he kept dancing, I thought it was mildly awesome.

As a crowd of Japanese kayaking revellers approached our bar, we fled to the river, and slowly floated past empty bars playing rock, jam-packed bars playing Snoop, and a dozen bars playing Fatboy Slim. Finally, around a long bend in the river, we found a submerged restaurant playing soft Thai/Cantopop, and I grabbed a table. This was more my scene. A crowd of Thais wobbled around at a table balancing twenty large bottles of beer, and a group of well-tanned Persians sat to our right. I liked it. Sitting below water-level, we could perch our beers and Lao shish kebabs above the current, while cheesy love songs made me smile. A pair of flip-flops, twenty feet apart, passed us by.

This was Vang Vieng. It was amazing and terrible and awesome and horrible and the best of times and the worst of places.

I wanted to move here and to run screaming. I wanted to order happy pizza and to urgently call the DEA. I didn't know what I wanted. But I did consider the sign, perched above the water, that read "free meal and three buckets of whiskey for 3 hours work at river's edge finding customers for bar." I really did.

Back in town, Lonely Planet had mentioned the "Friends" bars, where stoned Farangs would order "Happy Pizzas" and sit and watch an endless stream of reruns of Friends. I thought it was a joke. But when our tuktuk pulled into town, I was greeted with a clumsy "ey'up mate!" from some kid I'd met on the slow boat. He was so stoned, at lunchtime, he couldn't remember his hotel's name. Or where it was. Nor could his friend. Instead, they turned back to the tv, and joined the dozen other zombies watching Ross and Chandler argue the merits of midget wrestling. It was a parody of itself, and awesomely so.

At night, we would explore the myriad bars, most of which were deserted, a few of which were jam-packed with sweaty kids balancing plastic buckets filled with cocktails and straws. (Some of them apparently filled with opiates or mushrooms or speed.) Ours were only filled with red bull and coke and vodka, but still packed a serious punch. The Dutch kids didn't think it was serious enough, so ordered rounds of M150, while we played makeshift UNO without UNO cards, and I watched a tuktuk full of blind-drunk Australians pounding on the roof as it drove along. "Oi Oi Oi Oi Oi!" they shouted.

For dinner, the best bet was pizza. "What's in the pizza?" Catherine asked. "Vegetables," came the reply. "Yes, but what kind of vegetables?" The waitress looked confused. "Tomatoes? Peppers? Mushrooms?" "No! No mushrooms here!" What a town. We left after 36 hours.

Bus from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng

2009-03-04T18:44:00.002+08:00

The ride to Vang Vieng is so fast and furious and windy and crazy that most bus drivers hand out vomit bags as you leave the bus station. We took anti-sickness pills, snapped on our iPods, and crossed our fingers.

It wasn't as bad as I'd expected, but it was a trial.

Warning -- kinda gross story: After a few hours, unable to hold the pee any longer, I made my way carefully to the bathroom, holding on to every seat-back I passed for security. In the tiny bathroom, the seat and floor were both drenched. I couldn't bear to sit down, so braced myself -- my back against one wall, an arm securely shoved against the far wall, just two feet away. The bus buckled around a corner, and another, and swerved around another. Finally, ten minutes later, I managed to pee. It was terrible.

But the view and scenery were amazing. We only stopped once, so these were taken from my seat as we sped along and veered around on the 6-hour mountainous road.

Luang Prabang

2009-03-04T18:27:00.003+08:00

A cute, quiet colonial town on the banks of the Mekong, and so absolutely gorgeous. Among the lanes of antique shophouses, on a quiet tres-francais side street, we found the Pakam Guesthouse, surely the most expensive guesthouse in town at $15 a night. But what a guesthouse it was! The balcony, where I wrote in my journal as monks walked by, locals squeaked by on old bikes, a neighbor plucked quietly at his bass guitar, was worth the price alone.

But I'm way behind on the blog, so a quick rundown.

1. Mount Phousi

A billion steps up and down. Topped by an ancient Wat and offering a great view of all of Luang Prabang. Hence the occupying Russians' decision to stick an anti-aircraft gun up there. It's rusted up and mostly dismantled, but you can still make machine-gun sounds and play Capture the Wat on it. Quite awesome.

The monks now reuse and recycle the ammo, which is so San Francisco and so Readymade Magazine. Again, awesome.

2. Khao Soy

Les Quebeqoises and I rented bikes and explored beyond the walls of the old city, discovering a sprawling city of shacks and autorepair shops and government buildings. We left the main street and followed a small unpaved road which became a path which became a footpath which became an old woman's kitchen. It was awkward, to say the least.

We lunched at the main Phousi market, where I'd read tales of an amazing Laotian khao soy. Exploring the food stalls, a mixture of oozing, bleeding meat, fish flopping on the floor, stray dogs, and so many flies that some cuts appeared black, we finally found an old lady selling khao soy. A gang of workmen looked up skeptically from their bowls of soup, and then ignored us. The fans kept away some flies, but not the dogs. "Are you okay with this?" I asked, and received a very skeptical "Okay." "Sweet. Nyong khao soy gai," I shouted. "Bo gai, moo!" "Okay -- nyong khao soy moo!" The lady went to work. And it was okay. Little more than chicken broth with noodles and pork.

I didn't mention to them that the money I'd paid for the meal, a handful of frayed, dirty notes adding up to a dollar, had been casually thrown by the chef into the piles of ingredients. Nice.

3. Tamarind

Awesome family-style meal with a collection of Quebequoise and Dutch folks. Most of whom I didn't know. I guess Luang Pabang is awash in them. The most expensive meal to date, at a shocking $8 a person.

4. Alms for the monks

Every morning at 6am, old ladies line the streets to respectfully pay respect to the monks by donating home-cooked food, a simple, honest, meaningful ceremony. Something that's existed for generations. And now busloads of tourists show up to buy buckets of pre-made food from vendors, stand in line, and flash-photograph it (and each other.) We didn't flash-photograph it, or join in, but did sit back and snooze a little.

5. The waterfall

Like a expensive multi-tiered resort oasis spa. Absolutely incredible.

Except when it was more like Coney Island on a hot summer day.

Slow Boat Down the Mekong

2009-03-02T13:13:00.006+08:00

Over and over, people said I shouldn't do it. "It's crowded and boring," they insisted. "Your ass will hate you. You'll get sunburned and boatsick." But I'd seen Apocalypse Now too many times to pass this up. Two days of nothing but floating down the Mekong. After almost a week in busy Chiang Mai, it sounded perfect.

And as I sat down on the hard wooden bench, so shallow it could only support half my behind, I realized what they were talking about. Ten of us had arrived three hours early, at the advice of our ornery Huay Xai guesthouse marm, who also sold us neccessary cushions and sandwiches. But she did nothing to stifle the flood of farangs who arrived right at noon.

These new crowds, young, old, couples and groups, climbed aboard with huge rucksacks and bags of beer. With each new influx, the boat sank deeper, we squeezed tighter, and boatmen ferried benches over heads, squeezing more and more seats aboard.

It was complete madness.

Shouts and cries began to emerge from the crowd, "No!" "Unsafe!" "No good!" These fused into a stomping chant: "Two boats! Two boats! Two boats!" I looked back, and realized there was no way to the toilet -- any pathway that once existed had now been swallowed up with bodies. The old lady who ran the operation watched the uprising with a humoring smile, arms folded, relaxed, knowing. Finally, having waited long enough, she climbed onto the boat, lifted her arms like a Lao Moses, and silenced the angry crowd. "Two boats!" she proclaimed, and a victorious roar came up. People squeezed off, bags were passed back, and benches were moved to the other boat.

And all of a sudden, the boat felt empty, luxurious, gourmet. Now that I could move a few inches, I didn't care about the miserable seat, the squat toilet, the lack of any safety precautions. And I realized this was all a game -- nothing more than a haggle. Pretend to gouge the customer with insulting abandon, and they'll smile when they walk away with only a rip-off-price instead.

And we pushed away from the shore.

Floating down the Mekong river, watching the banks and the water buffalo and the trees and the bamboo huts pass us by, it was glorious. Doing nothing but sitting, thinking, watching. Thailand, at first, to our right, but soon the boat was sucked deep into Laos.

The others on the boat were the same types I'd seen on the road. Two American retirees, dead ringers for James Coburn and Wildford Brimley, boarded with an older Thai transexual. An unconnected collection of Quebeqoise and Hollandaise health-care professionals surrounded me (and soon became my new friends). A dozen British ravers crowded in the bow, smoking and sleeping off hangovers. And a handful of Irish on the boat were determined to see the entire two days through drunk.

I'd met one of these guys at nine am that morning, when he stumbled up to my tuktuk, unable to stand without holding onto its bars. "Where's the fast boat? I need the fast boat. I have a very important meeting in Luang Prabang," he slurred, gesturing with his free hand which already held a can of BeerLao. "A meeting with the chief of the Lao tribes! I can't be late. I need the fast boat." But somehow he still made it onto the slow boat, and was never seen without a tall bottle of security in his hand.

Drunk Brits aside, watching the scenery move by was peaceful and gorgeous and such fun. Good company made it even moreso. A train of water buffalo, ranked in size, reminded me of the company of elephants from The Jungle Book. Women worked in the fields, while small children played in the mud, and showed off by diving from tall rocks. One boy pulled down his trunks to flash the camera-happy tourists. ("He did it facing the wrong way," an amused neighbor remarked.)

Our boat wasn't really slow -- it choked out exhaust and moved with haste, but nowhere near that of the fast boats, which flew down the Mekong, noses reached precariously high out of the water, the pilots (and not the passengers) hidden by mammoth jet-helmets. The fast boat reaches Luang Prabang in six hours. After eight hours on the river, we reached Pak Beng, a small one-road village on the banks of the river.

Pak Beng, I'm sure, is fueled by the overnight tourist industry. The one street is a squeezed glut of guesthouses, restaurants, bars, and porters who'll carry your bags up the banks for $4. (My backpack was one of several that disappeared from the boat's hold, and I gave up looking after twenty anxious minutes. And then found it in the hands of a little kid, halfway up the hill. "Carry your bag?" he eagerly offered. "You little shit," I spat back, snatching it out of his hands as he ran away and the other porters laughed. I figure they were holding the other missing bags.)

Walking in to town, I was offered grass, then opium, and the yaabaa, or meth. I didn't buy any, but evidently the drunk Irishman did, spending the rest of the night screaming and howling, crying out for water and talking to dogs as he marched up and down the street. Instead, I had a fried banana pancake for breakfast the next morning -- the best I've ever had.

And found a bottle of locally-brewed LaoLao, moonshine, the worn old tequila-worm gimmick upped with a snake and a scorpion, wrapped together in a vicious dead embrace.

The second day on the boat was just as peaceful and grand as the first. Playing Quebequois card games, slow chats perched on the edge of the boat, dipping our toes in the water, sending up a spray of muddy Mekong. Water buffalo walking by thatched bamboo huts sitting under banana trees growing in front of rolling hills foregrounding foggy mountain silhouettes. It was all gorgeous.

And then some drunk mick fell off the boat.

It wasn't the fellow who'd been howling at dogs all night, but was one of his drunk friends. We went back, and minutes later he was cradled around a fresh large bottle of beer, combating his new-found soaking sobriety. We've seen him since in Luang Prabang, stumbling down the street, fortunately not a glimmer of recognition in his eyes.

Luang Prabang

2009-02-28T19:39:00.001+08:00

Luang Prabang is a gorgeous little town -- quite completely stunning
in a cute, quaint, quiet, colonial way. When I asked Debra, at JoMa
Cafe, what there was to do in town, she gave me a great answer. "Eat,
sleep, and read." And I've been doing plenty of the first two.

Sadly, the third one is about all I'll be able to afford to do, unless
the situation changes rapidly. All ATMs in Laos have been down for
two and a half days. (Not just in Luang Prabang, but in the entire
country.) All VISA and Mastercard connections are similarly down. I
have an Amex card, but no-one accepts that (and it would surely be
down anyway.)

Fortunately, every tourist in the country is in the same boat as us.
(We already chipped in for one girl down to her last few kip.) I've
come up with an escape plan: if I can hitchhike to Vientienne, the
capital, and book tickets thru Thai Air's website, I can get back to
Bangkok. But I'm down to about $20 now.

Update: got some money. I'd saved this email in my "drafts" folder,
unwilling to send it until the situation was resolved. It was a
little worrying for all of us, though.

The White Temple, Chiang Rai

2009-02-28T11:24:00.004+08:00

An insane Thai artist, who resides somewhere between Henry Darger and Moebius the Frenchman, realized he needed to return to his hometown, Chiang Rai, and build a temple. Not just any Wat -- it had to be something bigger, something bolder, something more... white. It was to be the most renowned tribute to the Buddha, yet. It was to deliver him students and followers, and scores- nay, millions- of tourists a year. It was to put Chiang Rai back on the map.

And it did.

Bouncing along dirt roads in a tuktuk, sucking in truck exhaust, I cursed Sasha and Tina. "What's another Wat," I kept asking -- I'd seen thirty, forty, maybe even a hundred, so far. I was sick of Wats. And here I was, twenty five minutes away from my guesthouse, and the bus to Chiang Khong, just to see another.

Then, far down the road, something white appeared. It was glistening. It was literally brilliant. Closer, it appeared to be a palace made of Ice -- something from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Pollution and open sewers aside, this was breathtaking.

After seeing so few tourists on the road, I had expected to be alone, but for the first time, I was in a crowd. Schoolchildren filed past the arms screaming from, and dragging to, hell.

Demons and gargoyles tried to block the way, keep you from salvation.

And inside the temple itself, it was just gorgeous. And insane. And photo-forbidden. And it was too holy to break the rules.

On the far wall, a row of increasingly-huge buddahs stand, ending in a wall-sized mural of the Buddha, in complete harmony with the universe, and beginning with a single monk, in silent lotus-position meditation, a pair of glasses sitting on his nose, but his eyes closed.

"Of course he's not real," a woman whispered to her daughter.

"But he looks so... so lifelike," the younger woman replied.

"Look at the sign," I jumped in. "'Please don't sit on the monk seat.' So sometimes it must be empty. I think he's real."

"But look at his hands," the mom said. "They look like plastic."

We never could agree.

The back wall, allowing you to re-enter the world, was an incredible -- and very mad -- face of a demon, swallowing you back into the material world. Sex and drugs and Superman and the twin towers and cellphones and Ultraman and Converse sneakers and UFOs and so much more. All the awesome things and terrible things and things that I adore -- condemned in the face of the demon. And it was gorgeous.

Even the bathroom signs were works of beauty.

My favorite part of the museum, but the least photogenic, were rows of cabinets containing all the lost items in the temple. Bundles of money, a rubix cube, SIM cards, Flash cards, umbrellas. They'd been marked and dated and numbered and filed according to type -- a row of cellphones, each in their own small plastic bag, sat next to a row of baseball caps, each with a paperclipped note. Beside the exit, these worked as a final reminder of all the material things we cling to, that keep us from salvation. (Although it was also next to the official gift shop, an irony I'm sure the artist adores.)

Luang Prabang

2009-02-26T11:40:00.002+08:00

After two days on the Mekong, I was ready to get off the boat. But it was amazing. I'll post photos and tales when I have more time and a faster internet connection.

However, I do have a new Laotian phone number. 12 hours difference from EST in the USA. This should work.

011-856-20-625-6896

(Sorry -- the lady in the one-horse town where I bought my SIM card forgot to tell me about the "20" part of the number.)

Awesome things seen today for sale this morning at the market:

- two cow's legs

- one cow's tail (meat and flies)

- a woman selling one bunch of bananas and one rat

Awesome things not found at the market

- local khao soy, which I've heard some guy sells in the mornings. I'm searching tho!

Sooths Said in Chiang Rai

2009-02-23T17:59:00.007+08:00

After the ugly reading I suffered in Burma (a used car salesman, who should stay indoors after dark, and certainly not date until April), I had to go in for a second opinion. I mean, it makes sense a Burmese palm-reader would foresee doom everywhere. He's been stuck under the illegal rule of a cruel dictator for his entire life.

A Chiang Rai palm-reader, living under a benevolent ruler, with a stunning mountain view, and cool, airy nights? I'd hope for optimism! Even if, especially if, he read palms with only one eye.

"You are 36?" he asked, through a friend who took turns translating and sipping from a mug of whisky. He typed at an old casio calculator, doing calculations with my birthdate. "Ah. When you turn 39, you will meet the right girl. It will be very good. You will marry." As a consolation, he offered, "This year is good for you for traveling. Born on a Monday, it is easy for you to find girl. But a little bit picky." Both men chuckled at this, and at me.

"Ummm... do I have to wait until I'm 39? That seems so long."

He took my hand, and, carefully studying it with a magnifying glass, gave a little. "This year you might meet someone. It's possibly leading to marry. Around your birthday. When you marry, first child is a boy." This sounded promising! He kept on looking at my hand, barely looking up to offer diagnoses. "Mmmmmm, very high educate. Very bright. Smart. Do you plan to own your own business?"

"No," I decided on the spot.

He studied me with his one eye. "Good." I wasn't sure how to take this, but agree. "Verbal speech is good. Good to be a lecturer. Or in PR."

"Would I make a good car salesman?"

"Yes! Very good!" Hmmmm. "You have verbal and negotiation skills! Now, do you have any questions?"

"Can I leave home after dark? Am I safe?"

"Are you safe?" He didn't follow. Evidently nothing bold had lept off the palm.

"If it's dark, and I leave home alone, is that okay?"

"Yes, yes. You are fine at night. There is no negative in your hand. Because you born on Monday. Monday get along with anybody. And this year birth is very good!"

I liked this guy. Until he pulled out a well-worn mold of a couple going at it, and told me -- to really secure the marriage -- I should pay him again and let him burn me with hot wax, or something.

I didn't like where it was going. Nope.

I headed off for a tasty coconut ice instead, and skipped down the darkened late-night Chiang Rai streets, spilling coconut water as I passed a used car dealership on Th. Phahonyothin. Could this be a sign?

My mom's response: "Actually, Andy, you were born on a Sunday." Whoops!

My Fourth Favorite Thing in Chiang Mai

2009-02-23T17:25:00.003+08:00

The Chiang Mai Insect Museum may claim to be the quirkiest, but -- as I said -- I know my quirk, and they ain't got it. Wat Umong, though -- wowzers!!!

Out towards the zoo, hidden in a dusty residential neighborhood, miles from the nearest high street, in the middle of a forest, sits my new most favoritest thing in Chiang Mai. (Alongside the zoo, wat doi suthep, and bus station khao soy, of course.)

First, the monks have nailed random koans, most of them in thai, to trees through the forest. Some of them are fortune cookies in waiting ("Today is better than two tomorrows." "Marriage is a partnership in life.") but others made me feel remarkably at peace, like this stress-lifter.

Next, they'd taken piles of random broken Buddha bits, destroyed by looters or just accidentally dropped, and glued them together, regardless of size. Ask me? Totally sweet! Like Franken-Buddha!

A motley bunch of religious icons were packed together into a gorgeous large leaf-draped circle.

And then, in case the monks needed to hide or flee, they'd built long tunnels, with escape hatches, connecting avenues, and dead ends. At least that's what it sounded like the purpose was. The English translation of the story was very faded.

All of this was surrounded by other oddities, roosters, weird buddhas, the gentle swish of monks hunched and sweeping, and a catfish-bloated lake.

It was completely awesome.

Mo' Expats, Muay Thai, and Muy Kratoey!

2009-02-22T19:01:00.013+08:00

After the night out with the lads (see earlier post), my opinion of expat life in Chiang Mai was low. All I could see was a watered-down fusion of Pat Pong and Khao San Road, ugly areas of Bangkok.

So it was up to Odilon and Yuen, two of Aaron's awesome friends, to introduce me to a completely different side of town. Just ten minutes from my guesthouse, they live in an entirely different world. And what an enviable one it seemed!

In New York, $450 gets you a monthly parking space. But here in Chiang Mai, it sets you up with a huge, gorgeous two-story house. Sitting alone on a fenced-in yard, their mansion has tall ceilings, an absurd kitchen, a washing machine. Set back from the street, the only sounds you hear are the smacks and pongs of tennis balls in the rec center next door. Fifty feet away, sidewalk vendors cook chicken and fish over an open flame. Their closest neighbor is a kratoey. I loved it!

At the local takeaway shop (the best meal I had in Chiang Mai,) the menu was crowded with frog and snakehead dishes. Odilon specified in Thai, "Don't include the solidified chicken's blood," and turned to me, "I really don't like it. In Bangkok, the waiters laughed when I said this. 'You think we're up North? We don't eat that country food!'"

I could live this life. Maybe not with a 22-month-old baby. And maybe not by myself. But it seemed like an enviable one, all the same.

Muay Thai

So after dinner, I ran off for something truly tourist: Muay Thai. Pure, brutal boxing where anything goes. Fists, arms, feet, legs, punching and pounding and kicking until FIRST BLOOD.

Although, to be honest, I really didn't expect this. I wanted this. I hoped for this. But I actually expected a staged mockery of muay thai. "Wot," Tony had cried out a few nights earlier, "You think they'll give you real Muay Thai for 400 Baht? Are you joking? No, it's a stage show. That's what you'll get."

He was right. But what a stage show it was!

After paying your $12, a bar girl leads you down a long covered alleyway, crammed full of small dark bars, each of which in turn was crammed full of bar girls and ladyboys, each of whom would eagerly "Sawadeecah!" as you walked by, hoping to catch your eye. You duck under a long banner, and behind is revealed the main event: a boxing ring surrounded by chairs, tables, and -- unbelievably -- even more bars crammed full of bar girls.

About the match itself, I have little to say. It looked brutal. It looked violent. The first round was a pair of weirdly chiseled 14-year-old boys pounding at each other.

The second round was a pair of 16-year-olds. And after that, it was heavily-tattooed men.

Usually un-handicapped, but every now and then they'd blindfold four of them, throw them all in the ring, and see what happens. That was the best. It reminded me of an old video I found of midgets wrestling. Terrible, foolish, a reprehensible mockery, but so much fun.

But there was never First Blood. I only saw blood once -- when a boxer cut his lip, and spat it out into a cup. And Sneaky Pete (below) always seemed to know which boxer to bet for. Something told me, after I lost 20B time and time again, it was rigged.

(I really wanted these pictures.)

Ultimately, this was a tourist show for the all-white crowd. Something to take up the time after night market and before the bar girls.

The best part, though, wasn't the boxing -- it was the dancers! As if to underscore the homoerotic elements (elements? homoerotic core!) of a crowd of drunk men cheering on other men clinging to and beating against each other, someone had decided to punctuate each boxing round with a song-and-dance number, by a troupe of obvious transvestites and transexuals: The Marina Bar Girls.

We'd watch two greased-up muscular men wrestle against each other for ten minutes, then watch a group of trannies perform "It's Raining Men." Over and over and over again. It felt more than a little gay.

Well before the evening was over, I was bored. It became a skipping record. I left my new friends, a crowd of very drunk and sunburned Slovenian kids, who were betting each other heavily, insisting this was the real thing. "You think it's real or fake," I asked.

"Real?" one responded, completely confused.

"True. True, or no true?"

"True!!!" they all yelled, shocked that I'd even question this. "Yes, true!"

I maneuvered back through the alley of eager "sawadeecah'ing" bargirls and ladyboys. Now approaching midnight, though, these girls and boys lined the entire walk home, sharing the sidewalk with roti carts, makeshift massage chairs, and very drunk farangs.

I understand why Odilon and Yuen have settled the ten minutes from the center of town. Their oasis is far enough so they're not forced to witness this on a nightly basis. Evidently, that's how Chiang Mai can be a palatable place.

Things I like about Chiang Mai (Chiang Mai Part Two)

2009-02-21T13:32:00.004+08:00

1. Khao Soy

From the first spoonful, I knew I was in love. A thick, gloriously rich curry broth, it filled my mind with memories of laksa. As I plunged into this bowl at the bus station -- my first Chiang Mai meal -- I was completely focused. Tuktuk and songtao drivers honked and called to me, but I was on another plane. Of course, I had big stomach troubles for about 36 hours after, but it was worth it. Dinner tonight is at Just Khao Soy, the chic place to get it. Fingers crossed!

2. Wat Doi Suthep
There's nothing to upset a stomach like the windy 17km road up the mountainside to Doi Suthep, but nothing to calm it again like the peaceful view, sitting atop the mount at the temple, listening to monks (and tourists) ringing bells, sipping my coffee, writing in my journal.

I met this novice monk, "A," on the 309 steps to the temple. He and his two monk friends cornered me to practice their English. Nervously reading from his notes, A would ask "How do you find the reather here in Thailand?"

"The reather?"

"The reather. Oh, the... the weather?"

"It's great!"

"And are you married?"

One of the other monks videotaped the whole thing, shaking with excitement.

3. The Chiang Mai Zoo
I'm sure this zoo rates low on the morality and cleanliness scales. But on the awesomeness scale, it gets 120%! It's huge -- it took four hours to walk at a decent pace! It has pandas! And they let me feed the animals!!! Best of all, though, on this scorching weekday, it was completely empty. I mean completely. There were points where I would walk for ten or fifteen minutes and not see another person.

I happened upon a mahout playing the mandolin for an elephant, who was gleefully dancing without an audience. (Yes, the elephant was dancing!) I stood and watched, and the mahout tossed a handful of bananas into the animal's mouth.

He then offered me some bananas, which I nervously took, then threw into the elephant's face. Whoops. I tried again, and got his head. On my third toss, I almost got them in, but still hit the poor elephant (lightly, I assure you.) As I said: moral scale? Low. Awesome scale? Really high.

I fared far better with the giraffe. I woman sold me a bunch of bananas for 20B, and let me wander off to feed this guy -- from my hand -- all alone. Again, nobody else was around.

An electric bus would occasionally drive by, stuffed with tourists taping from their seats, but it was rare. One couple, on a date, stood beside me as I fed a growling cheetah raw meat on a stick. Two couples sat with me as I watched the lions wrestle. And a dozen eager parents photographed their kids, with Cheung Cheung the panda lazily munching bamboo stalks in the background.

Overwhelmed with joy, disbelief, and glee for these four hours, I couldn't resist buying an ice cream, to complete the sense of the childhood dream come true. I don't even like ice cream. It was that fun.

Finally, I walked into the scheduled 3pm penguin feeding. Instead of the huge crowd of gawking screaming schoolkids that I should have expected, there was me, and the feeder. And twenty penguins slurping down fish. And that's it. I laughed. I laughed loud. I ran up and down the feeding tank, videotaping everything, needing to keep the absurdity of it all. (And for the record, Leeann, none of these penguins seemed deranged.)

Things I like the least about Chiang Mai?

1) The Chiang Mai Arts & Cultural Center, which lulls you into sonambulism with the awful displays, each of which is progressively more boring, before thrusting you unexpectedly into a darkened full-immersion waxwork display that's meant to give you a feeling of market life in CM of olde. Instead of an incredible Madame Tusseauds experience, the rotting faces and evil grins made it a nightmare from the plague. I held my breath as I tiptoed through nervously, sure that museum employees were about to leap out at me.

2) The Insect Museum.

The owner/founder/curator/resident artist calls it the quirkiest museum in all of Chiang Mai, and charges, as admission, twice what my guesthouse costs on a nightly basis. And it's terrible. A billion mosquitoes stuck on boards, some mounted spectacles (to represent our inability to see), and some Santa Fe-style paintings. I know my quirk. And I know my bad. And this was somewhere on the "lousy" side of both.

A Night Out With The Boys (Chiang Mai Part One)

2009-02-21T12:51:00.002+08:00

Chiang Mai's an interesting town: a lot like Bangkok, but on a much smaller scale. (I've walked from one end to the other a couple of times in the last few days.) Hundreds of coffee shops and coffee stands. Great hipster t-shirt shops (none of the clothes fit me - I've tried.) And old white men with young Thai girls. Absolutely everywhere. Old hippies with Thai women in their 40s, and adorable little hapa kids. Bald and bearded bikers with chubby teenagers. Backpackers with stunning beauties. It's not as offensive as it was in Hua Hin, but it's twice as pervasive.

At the UN Irish pub, I joined a group of four older farang, each of whom turned out to have come to Chiang Mai for the women.

Derek, a 76-year-old cockney, works as a tree surgeon's assistant back home. He's been in Chiang Mai on and off for forty years, but for three years he's lived here more than not. "I went into a bar," he says, "And this bird sits down next to me and asks me to buy her a drink. Now she wasn't what's normally my type. I like 'em small, you see, and this one's big. She's got some weight on her. But I said, why not -- thinking to myself it's just one night. And we had some fun. Well, that was three years ago, and we're still together. Thirty six years old, she is." She's less than half his age.

"Yow," I threw out, my eyes opening real wide, the way they do.

"But you have to be careful," he went on. "A lot of them have husbands back home, in the village. Regular actresses, they are. Could win an Oscar. An Academy Award. This one girl, back in 1971, I thought we were in love. I wanted to bring her back to England. Now they'll only come to England for one reason. They hate the weather, these girls, and the food tastes like shit to them. They only come for one thing: the money. Now I'd heard that some of these girls, because they've worked in bars, they won't let them in, you see? Won't give them a visa. So I said, well, let's get married. We had a little ceremony, got married, and -- you know what -- it turns out they still don't give them visas! Well, when I got back to Thailand, she was gone. Disappeared. I never heard from her again. I suppose I'm still married to her."

"What was her name?" I asked.

"Her name?" He paused, and looked down at the table, rubbing his head. "Her name? It was..." He really looked confused. "Oh, bugger. I... I guess I don't remember."

Skip, a round American in his late fifties who works for the Parks Department, had only been here for three weeks, and was getting ready to return to the States. "My wife and I, it's pretty much over. Almost completely. Has been for twenty years. But I wanted to see the youngest through college, and she's only got a year and a half left. Which is how long a divorce takes. So I figure, time to find a new home. And I have some buddies who moved out to Thailand. Man, they love it here. Told me to check out Pattaya, but that's too much. Chiang Mai seems just about right."

"Have you been to the bars here?" (Everyone seems to use the word "bar" as a euphemism.)

"Oh yeah!" He raised his glass in drunken enthusiasm. "I've had a different girl every night! It's great!"

"I'd watch out, son," advised Derek. I waited for him to give Skip some sage advice. Maybe that prostitution is unsafe. It's a scourge. It's immoral. It's to be avoided. But his advice covered none of these. "First time I was here, I took one of them ladyboys home by mistake." Whoa. As a reminder, Derek is the 76-year-old. This was like an anecdote from Trainspotting, but from a septegenarian.

"What did you do," I threw out.

"What could I do? I didn't want to offend her! ... But I'll never make that mistake again." I've left out a sentence or two -- knowing that Gubba will surely read this.

68-year-old Tony, another cockney who'd been here for years, was horrified. "I don't believe you. If that had been me, I'd never tell a soul. Not one soul! And here you are, blabbering on about it... You can tell from their voice, Andy. And their hands. But the best test is you go in for a feel. No disguising that!"

"Can you do that?"

"Oh yes. You're sitting in the bar, you squeeze here, grab there. They like it!" Hmmmm.

Skip was chuckling away. "I can't see why I wouldn't move here!"

"Be careful, Skip," warned Tony. "They won't let you buy property, these Thais. Only 49%, they'll let you have. The other 51% has to be owned by a Thai, so you have to buy into a business. And you know what that is? Your girl." Derek chuckled knowingly into his beer as Tony continued on a story he'd obviously told before. "I did that once, bought a place. Worst mistake I ever made. Bought a house with some Thai bird, thought it was the real thing. Thought it was love. Went back to England for a visit, and when I come, she's shacked up with another bloke."

"So what did you do?"

"I just walked away. Nothing else you can do. Just walk away."

Even with these horror stories, there was a clear consensus that this was the thing to do. The right thing. The only thing. I don't know if these men had been burned too many times, or what, but there was no alternative to them. When I commented on a cute white girl who'd walked in the pub, Harry, a New Yorker in his forties, smacked my head with the back of his hand. "Andy, you've got to get past this! Falang women are nothing but trouble. They're just not worth it. A constant headache. Move on, already!"

Later, as we drunkly said our goodbyes, Tony, Derek, Harry and Skip and I promised to meet the next night, so that the ex-pats could show Skip and I "the bars."

At the proposed meeting time, I sat in my guesthouse, sipping my herbal tea, and wondering what the evening could have been. And not really regretting my choice.

Seen in Mae Sot

2009-02-18T18:56:00.001+08:00

Neil sent me this photo from Mae Sot. Evidently the orphans miss me. Or maybe the Burmese secret service. Either way, I want one. I want ten.

Old Sukhothai

2009-02-18T09:18:00.004+08:00

The long goodbye to Mae Sot was full of mixed emotions.

Without work to do, I felt unnecessary -- constantly walking the thin line between social visitor (spending time with Neil and family, and the awesome people I met there) and refugee tourist (getting down to brass nails, I did sometimes worry about that.) But the last night in town gave me a new role.

Beth the Educator invited me to join on a weekly trip to an orphanage on the far edge of town. Past the huge mosque, past the Indian tea shop, past a part of town I hadn't seen before. "Every Sunday night," she said, "We take them to a playground and run around for an hour or two." As we were getting close to the playground, now surrounded by forty screaming, jumping, running kids -- one of them dragging me along behind him as fast as I'd let him run -- she admitted another piece of detail. "When we say 'playground,' I should warn you, it's more of a field filled with shit and trash."

Which it was. And with building site rubble. And shacks and the people who lived in them. And motorbikes and cars rushing through them. And the kids loved it. A boy handed me a paper airplane. I threw with purpose, then watched as it nosedived straight into a huge soft cow pie. He laughed out, plucked it out, and threw it right back. ("I really have to remember to wash my hands," I thought, before minutes later finding myself picking at my teeth. Oh well, what's another parasite?)

I wasn't sure what I'd expected -- the kids to be malnourished? (most looked healthy, even though so many were living in what looked like one small house.) crying? (some did, but usually when their ball was stolen or they fell.) non-verbal? (some were.) but more, and this is incredibly trite, they reminded me of the children from Annie. Finding happiness where they find themselves. These couple of hours reminded me how adaptable kids are. And also that you really, really don't need a PlayStation to be happy.

Where are the parents?

I'm not sure if these orphans had parents or not, but the next morning, Neil and Hal and I visited the AAPP, commonly referred to as "the Political Prisoner Museum." Than, the guesthouse manager, had warned us, "You'll be watched when you go in. The Burmese military are always watching. They will write how many go, who you are, how long you stay, what is said." As we walked in and out, I did indeed notice men in dark glasses, watching us -- but they surely were with the building crew across the street. Surely, they were.

Inside, we met with a former Burmese student, Aung Kyaw Oo. He'd marched in 1988, and afterwards taken his political views underground. Until he was arrested in 1991, and held in a small cell filled with hardened criminals, for 14 years. He was beaten, he was tortured, he was one of the thousands of Burmese political prisoners, held without trial, without just cause. My reading material now is a torture book he gave me. It's a gruelling read, moreso in that there's no relief. Page after page of torture methods and reports.

Visiting a Christian coffee shop afterwards, flipping through a New Testament comic book, and chatting with the Iowa missionary who ran the place, I could finally breathe again. The shop was called The Oasis. I needed one.

And I've found one in Old Sukhothai, three hours further down the road.

It's really just another town of ruins. Nothing as expansive as Bagan (two thousand temples over a few square miles) or as glorious as Siem Reap (as I plan to discover in May), it's an old capital, full of much reconstructed Buddhas and Wats. But every corner is a picture postcard or a moment of peace. When you can dodge the aircon tourbuses filled with German tourists.

(I've found the best way is to bike down the unmarked paths. The Buddhas you find are oft-decapitated, oft-disarmed, reminding me of that old poem: "two vast, and trunkless legs of stone..." But they're also quiet, and incredible, and far from others.)

Heading to Chiang Mai today. Five hours away, I think. I've been told a series of different bus times by every person I ask, but the instruction always remains the same: "Stand in the middle of the street, and try and hail it." How do I know which bus it is? "It should be blue."

I spent the next 20 minutes trying to find this camp (some of you may know my horrible, bizarre, conceptual interest in cockfighting) -- but failed. I'll have to make do with Muay Thai fighting -- something of a human equivalent.

Breakfast in Burma

2009-02-15T09:26:00.002+08:00

Just like John Rambo, I made it over the Burma border and back alive. (Actually, having not seen Rambo IV, I don't know if he makes it back alive... don't spoil it for me!)

The Thai side, Mae Sot, is cute, with ice cream shops, a promenade, and a very clean, well-kept market. People smile, and stop to chat, and seem content. Then there's a highway-sized bridge over a river, connecting the two countries, but it's mostly empty -- only a few cars and pedestrians go thru the immigration booths. Most of the traffic sneaks below the bridge, where a steady stream of refugees and illegal workers pay to be ferried across the river on huge inner-tubes. Three of them, each carrying five or six people, were continuously moving back and forth, while armed border cops casually text-messaged and snoozed away.

This morning I decided it would be good to breakfast in Burma. Unsure about how a farang would be received on the illegal crossing, I took the more formal route.

And over the border, in Burma, it was a different story. I'd jokingly described Mae Sot as the wild west, but Myawaddy really was. Jeeps flew down the middle of torn-up streets, honking their horns, with soldiers (from one of three rival occupying armies) glaring down with their guns. Huge opulent houses and flamboyant statues flank ramshackle houses made of scavenged wood, leaning precariously. Men sit, unemployed and miserable, all over, while women hawk goods from baskets on their heads. I was told that most of the jobs are over the border, in Thai factories. You can pay to sneak over and work cheaply there, or you can suffer without employment hetre. (Hence the steady commute.)

Here in Mae Sot, I've been spending time with a Burmese monk named Ashin Sopaka, who escaped several years ago, and -- being a great speaker -- has become a flag-bearer of the freedom movement. A monk usually by his side, KenZero, was a leader of the September 2007 peace marches, where the military beat and gunned down monks openly in the streets of Burma. KenZero was undercover for a year, and finally managed to escape over the border, dressed in a lyongi and shirt, alongside factory workers and refugees. KenZero is nervous about his English, so speaks very little, but listens a lot. The two of them talk late into the night, planning for the next actions. I feel like I'm beside Fidel and Che, at the infamous dinner party, or perhaps listening in on the apostles and Jesus making their plans.

Back in Myawaddy, a guide showed me the glamorous side, the temples and hotel, but then reluctantly agreed to take me into some other places -- the beaten back streets with children burning trash, a desolate monastary, a school where only a handful of the kids could afford uniforms, and the one teacher I found couldn't speak a word of english, an outdoor bar filled with well-dressed military-looking employees, and a couple of off-work bar girls, all of which looked so out of place mere feet from a screaming-child-filled shack that was about to fall over.

We dipped our heads into a garish Baptist wedding, and of course ended up seated front and center. It was likely a military wedding (some of the immigration officers, I think, were there.)

And, finally, I visited a Burmese palm reader. He warned me not to invest, or date women, until april. "You will be very unlucky." And to stay in after 9pm. "Or else go with a friend." And that selling cars would be a good career for me. (Um.) He then asked if I had any questions for him, things he hadn't addressed. "What is the future for Burma?", I asked. he froze. he looked at my guide. my guide looked at me. they looked at each other, unsure of how to respond. "It will not be good." They both nervously laughed, and then my guide ran off to pee.

Oh, yeah, I also ate some roadside palata in sugar. de-lish!

Mae Sot (the Thai town) is otherwise a fascinating place -- completelty brimming with NGOs. (they look down on the rare tourists, like me, who pass through. and on journalists, like Nick Kristoff, who've been writing "the same story" about mae sot for the last ten years. and on each other, who are lying, or cheating the system, or etc etc...) I've spent more of my time here with Neil and his family, but a good deal just meeting expats who are spending months or years here. Jonathan the leprosy doctor. Elie the dam fighter. Beth the educator. (Beth offered me a position teaching sex ed in a refugee camp -- they need someone here. I'm not sure if my qualifications count.)

I'm here for a couple more days, and then either head up the border (which Ouie, a cafe manager, wants me to do) or go to Sukothai. It seems like Ashin (the monk) and I will both be in Chiang Mai after that, so perhaps we'll continue to see each other. (He's old friends with my pal Cristina, which seems mildly odd.)

And we're off...

2009-01-29T09:44:00.000+08:00

Nine hours into the trip east, NYC to HK, and everything seems right.

It all started out rough: three inches of snow meant I climbed into
the cab with soaked feet. The cab followed slushy tracks to JFK like
the footsteps of Good King Wencelas, and at about the same speed. A
car in front of us wrapped itself around a street sign. A bus flew by
at frightening speeds. At the airport, the plane, too, saw the pains
of the weather -- frozen by the rain and the sleet and the snow, we
sat on the tarmac while engineers in toxic suits hosed the 777 down
with green goo. And we joined a queue of other planes. And finally
we took off.

We're now eight hours into the flight. I'm eight hours and one ambien
and two beers and two meals and one awesome korean western ("the good,
the bad, and the weird") into the flight. The sun is rising outside
my window, peeking up over the clouds, while below is the a desolate
frozen mountain landscape. Somewhere near Noril'sk, halfway between
Novosibirisk and Beijing according to the map. Frozen rivers, grey
deserts, the shooting white exhaust from the wing -- it's all quite
gorgeous.

I'm expecting to miss my connection to Bangkok, but that means more
opportunities to scour the airport (and city?) of Hong Kong. Can't
wait!!!

Miss New York a little, but mostly am terribly excited about starting
the new chapter... Now if I only knew what the chapter was all
about....!

Snacky, grand st, wburg

2008-07-23T10:08:00.000+08:00

Quick note: the bi bim soba, nothing like the bi bim neng myun I was
hoping for, was okay. Generic, like bi bim bob. Boring.

This sticky rice ball, though, sanwichimg a thin layer of mushrooms,
and served with a small bowl of sriracha and thick soy, was jUst
gorgeous. And gelatenous. And sooo tasty.

Hong kong station

2008-04-04T01:55:00.001+08:00

Bon Bon korean fried chicken

2008-04-04T01:55:00.000+08:00

And kimchi coleslaw

Grand Sichuan

2008-02-09T08:40:00.000+08:00

St Marks @ 2nd/3rd ave

a few standouts from last night:

loofah
twice-fried pork
tea duck
chong ching chicken
wontons in chili oil

soup dumplings were okay. sweet-potato curry was decent. rest, though, was standout.

Taim

2008-02-09T04:09:00.000+08:00

Harissa-flavored falafel sandwich -- soft fresh pita, warm freshly-fried falafel, great salad, all drenched in sauce, and absolutely glorious. on off-days, it's acceptable. but when they're on... they're 100%.

Lovely way to spend the winter...

New Green Bo

2008-02-03T09:06:00.000+08:00

Bayard St at Mott Street, Chinatown, New York

Even though New Green Bo is always jam-packed, with a line snaking out the door, I suspect that the farangness of the line should be telling. It's always a decent meal, but never as good as across the street at New Yeah.

Last night, the four types of dumplings were... good... fine... okay... But these are soup dumplings! These are supposed to be a warming, calming, nurturing. A substitute for a good hug. A cheap way to tolerate a winter's night. And to be perfectly honest, I didn't find any of that in these. Not a semblance of it. These were just dumplings.

The scallion pancake was greasy and didn't taste like much at all - maybe a little like cardboard dipped in peanut oil, truth be told. And the lo mein (?) that someone ordered, with baby corn, really wasn't worth the space it took up on the table. (I've come to believe that any dish with baby corn isn't worth the space on the table. I've nothing against the vegetable, but it reeks of middle-America Chinese.)

The only standouts were the Snow Pea Shoots, a late arrival at the table, but a nice garlicky, pungent, bold-green addition to the cardboard-generic-ness of the rest of the meal. And the dessert -- Sesame Rice Ball In Soup (pictured above) -- was everything it sounds like, and was absolutely divine.

Dishes to try next time (from window reviews):

shrimp with seaweed
tong po pork
fried yellowfish with seaweed
duck cooked three ways
mock duck
fried eel in ginger sauce

New Malaysia

2008-02-03T00:43:00.000+08:00

Halfway down the Chinatown Alley, Chinatown, NY

Aish -- this used to be my favorite can't-fail always-absolutely-superb Malay restaurant. Guaranteed to be packed, few farangs ever present, and spicy, tasty, superb foodie food. Floors so greasy you had to step lightly, infallable recommendations, and nasi lemak to make you realize you've never tasted nasi lemak before.

But with the coming of the new year, the last three visits have left me with one sure belief: their old cook quit. or died. or ran off to singapore to cook the few meals I ate there. in any case, they must have changed their cook. The food is now lousy. Every now and then, there's a standout -- last week's Roti Canai (not pictured) was amazing. Perfect buttery fried roti, with a small bowl of amazing tasty chicken curry. The ice kachang was fantastic and weird.

but everything else form the last thee visits -- bland hainan chicken with dry rice, (again, dry) beef rendang that bore no semblance to the firey bold rendang of visits past, a char kueh teow that tasted like midwest Mall-sold pad thai (actually, it tasted like noodles in a thick brown sauce). an inedible nasi lemak. a barely-okay roti canai (pictured).

Last night, I asked for a dish that would slap me in the face with the flavors. I mimed it out, to be sure she understood. the waitress thought for but a second before recommending homemade tofu. "are you sure? I want to be slapped with taste!" again, I mimed a slap followed by an explosive smile at a plate. she nodded, "yes, with pork!" I gave it a shot, and -- unlike any amazing tofu dish I've ever had -- and just like every bland boring tofu & vegetable plate I've ever regretted -- this was edible. and that's really kind of it.

Tea-licious

2008-02-02T23:17:00.001+08:00

Mott St, just south of Bayard St, Chinatown, NY

Wow. The bubble tea? Sure, it's fine. (Bubble tea always seems to be. Can you really mess it up?)

But the $1.50 toast with condensed milk? Omg! Gorgeous! Absolutely gorgeous!!! Thick wondrous, crunchy, light bread, with the milk of the gods drizzled over it, almost as an icing. Worth every penny of that buck fitty.

Province Chinese Canteen

2008-01-30T02:40:00.000+08:00

305 Church St @ Walker, NY, NY

Spare rib and kimchi sandwich -- absolutely gorgeous, on just about the fluffiest dims(y)ummy roll ever. $4.50

Braised Pork Shoulder Sandwich -- so fatty, with a chubby pickle sitting on top. almost oozing with love. same roll, same price, same tasty wonderment.

recommend getting the sandwiches one at a time -- they arrived seconds after I'd sat down (on the hunking big danish tables with flat bench seats) andf the second was cooling by the time I finished the first.

Bangkok recap

2007-12-31T06:51:00.000+08:00

re. 6. Open Air Market by Wat Pho (aka market at Ta Chang)
fantastic food and fun location! great hainan chicken -- spicy, tender, juicy, and flavorful. absolutely amazing pad thai from the woman 2nd-furthest from the dock, in the middle. the larb gai, spicy as hell, from the shops along the wall, was good, but stingy servings (just a sprinkling of meat over a mound of rice). som tam (papaya salad, "2 chilis") was nowhere near hot enough -- maybe ask for 4 next time? the mangosteens were incredibly expensive and half of them were moldy (I'm just going to presume this is the worst time to order them?). decent, but somewhat bland, glass noodles with chicken and greens. and my brother found these little gelatonous doughy balls and dumplings that were great -- chewy and filled with peanutty goodness.

10. Food Court at MBK Mall -- we first found ourselves in the 5th floor food court, which felt like I was in kentucky -- farang everywhere, smelled of antiseptic bleach, and every sign ("chinese food") was clearly printed in english. we redirected to the 6th floor, where it felt a little less tourist-directed. later, though, we passed a small food court on the 4th floor that looked to be the perfect street-foodie treat. anyhow, this is all about the 5th floor, and I ultimately wasn't so impressed at all:
- oysters in hot plate -- enh.
- steamed pork with rice -- tough, bland, and not at all tasty.
- pork knuckles over rice with tons of fat - the first taste was a wham of flavor, but after that, it really wasn't much to write home about the fat slices dipped into the chili sauce made it worth ordering, but probably wouldn't get it again.
- som tam - medium spiucy, swimming in nam pla. really loved it.
- mama noodles with chicken and gravy - wide, flat rice noodles with a thick sour sauce, and greens, was okay.
- tom yum kang was underwhelming.
the two standouts were definitely:
- muslim chicken curry with rice - wow. this was a knockout. very indian, but sour, tasty, spicy. absolutely fantastic.
- spicy seafood fried rice - excellent. reall great.
re deserts:
- sticky rice with durian -- I'm not a durian devotee, but based on reports, wanted to give it a shot here. anyhow, with each bite it became a little more palateable. from tasting "like car exhaust" to "not so bad"... my chinese brother insists you just not inhale, which seems to defeat the purpose to me.
- fried balls filled with bacon/shrimp/other stuff, and doused in mayo and thick soy sauce -- while the sign insists they're a hit across japan and australia, these were not worth it.

sukhumvit 38 - a cute little food stall area just 1/2 block in from sukhumvit. the chicken satay was cheap as all getup, but was thick thickness, consistency, and taste of cardboard. (reminded me of the beijing dumpling stories.) hainan chicken was aces. a really nice spot to sit and watch the street, though.

ana's issan - gorgeous spot. the dinner was, by all accounts, delicious, although I didn't get to enjoy half of it thanks to the copious chilis that left my mouth quite numb throughout the night, and led to beer after beer trying to wash the pain away. from my notes, the sausage with green chilli peppers was amazing -- but dear *** please try and avoid the whole green chillis deep inside the sausage. deep fried sea bass with thai spices and chilli sauces was gorgeous. the roadside chicken wasn't very edible at all -- lots of neck, and bones -- but everyone at the table insisted it was normally amazing -- we got the last 1/2 chicken they had, so perhaps we just got the one they'd been planning to throw out.

suan lum night bazaar - still operating, and still huge. couldn't resist a mangos & sticky rice. swimming in coconut milk, and delicious, just as I'd remembered. (the thai cover singers with backup dancers on stage made it all the more fun.) (also stopped in for a little karaoke in the minibooths to whet my appetite.)

oriental hotel - desserts for mum's birthday. the mango with sticky rice was dreamlike... the most perfect I've had. tapioca balls in coconute milk with raspberry syrup -- first few bites were pure tapioca pleasure, but the glory petered out pretty quickly, and it became just a bowl on bits floating in coconut milk. but those first few bites? mmmmm.

single best dish of the few days there:
fried rice with chicken, at some two-table shop on charoen nakhon, north of taksin bridge. sorry I don't have a name, but it proves the old adage about BKK, that the best food you'll have will be a nameless shop on a busy street.

forgot a few restaurant names which I'll try to update with later...

next trip:

need to hit this polo fried chicken place -- you guys all seem to love it
rut & lek (soi texas? somewhere in chinatown)
khrua rommai (from post above)
yok yor marina (with floor show?)
soi pradit for breakfast
NYT article on street food
Or Tor Gor Food Market - across from Chatuchak - from WSJ's top 10 restaurants in Asia. 101 Khampaengphet Road

Fatty Crab (Malaysian)

2007-01-25T23:23:00.000+08:00

(643 Hudson St, Meat Packing)

Wow. Mind-blowingly good.

Chicken Wings
Crispy Pork
Nasi Lemak
Rendang
Fatty Duck

London recap

2007-01-20T04:53:00.000+08:00

Quick roundup of memorable London meals:

*** Arirang Korean Restaurant (31-32 Poland Street, Soho)

*amazing* stuff. bi bim neng myun (spicy cold noodles with cold meat and hard-boiled egg) was, as always, gorgeous. worth the pain. the pork bbq was fantastic. kim chi jigae was spicy and awesome.

* Busaba (Thai, 22 Store Street, British Museum)
crowded hipster Thai. it was fine. good, even. but not that memorable. mussaman duck, pad thai, and roti. fairly cheap, better than my neighborhood joints, but not terrific.

***New Tayyabs (Pakistani, 83 Fieldgate Street, Hoxton)
wowzers. those pakistanis really know how to torture. all the anglos were weeping -- the air was thick like mace with burning spices. the food, just as hot, was so good you couldn't stop eating it. lamb chops on the bone were heavenly. keema naan, so moist. arrive early to beat the queue (which was huge by the time we left). I don't recall the vegge dish being memorable, but I could be wrong. (channa? I can't even recall.) Service was insanely fast, sloppy, and the food was served from vats that you pass on the way to the bathroom. Must return. Bring alchohol.

**Masala Zone (Indian, 9 Marshall St, Soho)

Two big ol' thalis - the first, goa prawn curry, definitely worth eating. the second, chicken mangalore, worth returning time and time again for. loved it. the paratha is so buttery it's like eating a piece of godliness.

Belgo Noord (Belgian, 72 Chalk Farm Road, Camden)
Enh. It was fine... not amazing. Probably due to the fact that it was NYE, they were drunk or distracted, there were kids running around the restaurant with balloons. The company, at least, was fantastic.

***Satay House (Malaysian, 13 Sale Place, Paddington)
Wowzers! Just ordered their hoity-toity version of Nasi Lemak, but it blew my mouth off. Loved it! Wanted to return but never managed to. (Too many Malay options to explore in London!!!) The Banana Fritter dessert (pisang goreng) was merely acceptable, but I could have also just still beenthinking about my main course.

***Malaysian Student Union Dining Hall (Malaysian, 13 Sale Place, Paddington)

Okay -- now this was so amazing. it's across the street and in the basement of where you would logically expect to find it (based on street numbers). we ordered two meals... one was a point-and-pick of hard-boiled egg in red sauce, lamb curry, fried egg & pickles (pictured) - wow!!!! - and the other meal was a beef rendeng nasi lemak, I think, and that was just insane! so spicy, so tasty, and so cheap! (we could have ordered one dish for the two of us, but still force-finished the entire meal.)

***Ranoush Juice (Lebanese, Edgeware Road, Marble Arch)
Of course, the old traditional. The old standard. Lamb shawarma to obsess over. (Dry chicken shawarma to be disappointed with.) Hummus and vine leaves to desire. Oh yes. (Note: Don't try going at 3am on NYE.)

Garfunkel's (UK, 114 Praed St, Paddington)
Why, oh why? No no no.

Metropolian Cafe (Italian/UK, Edgeware Road, Paddington)

Greasy greasy diner run by a manic Italian and his daughter, neither of whom can stop running up and down the restaurant. Filled with homeless (or merely academic?) folk. Cheap, tasty, probably all defrosted or from a can, but really worth it.

Re: Laila (Middle Eastern)

2006-12-09T03:15:00.000+08:00

440 Seventh Ave, at 15th St, Park Slope.

No. NO! NONONONONO! Never eat here again. Quite positively the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth. I'm serious. Old over-fried falafel, wretched hummus, and salad that was cut into larger-than-bite-sized chunks. (Including the base of a head of lettuce.) It was as if they wanted me to never return. At 1:45pm, the place was completely empty -- it made sense. The waitress kept complaining to me about how sick and bored she was. Wow. Never return.

Moustache (Middle Eastern)

2006-10-18T12:29:00.000+08:00

265 e. 10th st @ Ave A, NY

1. the service was terrible. this really seems to be such a huge sticking point with me. in an almost completely empty restaurant, the waiter ignored me until I was comfortable at a table, with my jacket off, my magazine out, etc, etc, and then demanded I move to a far smaller table in a large puddle of water. almost every table was empty! I balked, so he moved me to another table the same size as the first, but with coats strung on all of the chairs. instead of moving them, he wandered off, leaving me to approach the people at the other two tables, asking them to move their coats. he then proceeded to ignored us for the bulk of the meal. we had to walk into another section of the restaurant (quite literally two rooms away) twice -- once to ask for the bill, and then again to ask for change. with three waiters, and only four tables of customers, in a huge restaurant, you might expect slightly, or far, better service.

2. the food was not worth it. bonnie's soup was fine; her salad was passable; my middle-eastern lamb pizza, however, was such a thin layer of what I can only describe as lamb spread (the same consistency and amount as a "buttery spread," or a "cream cheese spread") on a cracker-thin layer of baked pita, that I left wanting a second supper. had it tasted interesting, or exciting, or even good, that would have made it worth while. instead, it really didn't taste like much at all.

instead of a second supper, I went out for a glass of whisky. which suited me far more.

Roomali (Indian lunch)

2006-10-17T07:59:00.000+08:00

27th Street, just east of Lexington Ave. NY.

Best. Roti. Ever.

Sorry, couldn't resist. The roti was so buttery and gorgeous and melted in my mouth like nothing ever before. It was like a perfect but soft croissant
rolled flat. Then wrapped around a buttery well-fried egg, and a cluster of Chicken Tikka that would make any yob cry for joy. And the aloo roti, against all odds, was perfect as well. Spicy as hell, and tastily perfect. I can't wait to go back to this place... I've been thinking of it every meal since. (And sadly, comparing every meal since to it.)

Daltons Bar & Grill

2006-10-17T07:54:00.000+08:00

611 9th Ave @ 43rd, NY

Worst. Burger. Ever.

Inedible. I wish I'd paid them the $25 and then gone somewhere else for dinner.

Bar BQ (ummm... bbq)

2006-10-04T07:37:00.000+08:00

689 6th Ave @ 20th, Brooklyn, (718) 499-4872

okay, I know there are those who would say "what do you expect from barbeque in park slope?", but then again, there are others (like me) who sometimes have a need... an emptiness that needs filling... no matter the consequences. And so a chowhound search for bbq in brooklyn led to Bar BQ, 9 blocks due south of here. The place itself is great -- a small local bar, a couple at the counter doing the crossword, a quartet of old guys laughing it up in the back. Pity the food just wasn't all that great. The mac & cheese was real dry. (Most of the food felt as if it'd been sitting under a hot lamp for hours.) The beans seemed completely free of any pork. The ribs were dry, but tasty. And the pulled pork, for me the most important ingredient, was just okay. Again, dry. But okay. Doused in bbq sauce, it was tasty. I'd go back, but I definitely wouldn't take any NC relatives there. (Unless it was for bourbon sampling - the bar boasts the best bourbon collection in all of NY, I recall.)

Shake Shack (burgers)

2006-10-04T07:27:00.000+08:00

Madison Sq Park, NY. shakeshacknyc.com

One double hamburger (rare), shack burger (medium), cheese fries, and regular fries. and a bud and a glass of riesling. Hong-An was horrified that I'd never even heard of the Shake Shack. "It's an institution!" she cried. "Every New Yorker has been there at least once!" Well, I guess I'm finally a new yorker. And wow, it feels good. Moist, amazing burgers. I wish I'd ordered my Shake Shack burger rare, but it was still gorgeous to the mouth. Even though crinkle-fries make me think of british school lunches and frozen birds-eye fries, these were perfect. the burgers ranked with In&Out, the fries surpassed. And beer and wine in the park? Made for a delicious meal. Apparently lines get crazy sometimes, but we didn't have to wait.

Cocotte

2006-10-02T03:41:00.000+08:00

337 5th Ave, at 4th St, Park Slope

Such a cute inside... exposed brick walls with crummy (but wonderfully appealing) coffee-shop style art on the walls. Mason jars for tap water. Old reggae albums playing quietly. Perfect lighting. I wanted so much to adore the place, and yet everything else was just terrible. The service was friendly but completely absent -- five or ten minutes to get menus, longer to get the check. (I actually had to walk to the back to ask for it.) The food, as well, awful. Dense, mostly flavorless, complimentary banana bread. Brioche that I ordered was also dense, also flavorless. I feel like scambled eggs with salmon should arrive mixed, cooked into a harmony, but here it was served as an ugly, tasteless omelette with salmon carelessly layered on top. However it's supposed to be served, this didn't work. When we did finally get the bill, with tip, it ended up being $40. Far too much for a meal I really didn't enjoy.

Coffee Shop

2006-09-24T00:44:00.000+08:00

29 Union Sq West, New York, at 16th St. 212-243-7969

The waitresses here are referred to in the same hushed, obsessive tones as the women of Estonia. It's generally staffed by a cabal of models and actresses, all desperate to be discovered, and aloof as all hell. Now last night, for some terrible reason, most all the waitresses were men.

Sat at the bar. Stuck with the standard cheeseburger and garlic fries. Fine. Whatever. Service sucked. After taking our drink order, of two beers, the waitress wandered off, talked to some friends, joked around with others behind the counter, played some grab-ass, took a couple of other orders, wandered around, disappeared, came back, joked some more, then poured our beers and brought them over. It was representative of the rest of hte night. Charles tipped 8%. I thought he was far too kind.... I tipped half that.

Some balk at the idea of under-tipping -- but to not offer napkins with a burger and fries, and disappear before the question is halfway from my lips? When we ask to split the bill on two credit cards, the waitress takes forever, then only brings back one credit card and receipt. "I'll do the other one later," she said. Huh??? "Can you just bring my card, I'll pay cash." "Oh, I don't know how much it is -- I didn't split it very evenly." Huh???

Minca Ramen Factory

2006-09-22T23:09:00.000+08:00

536 E. 5th St., Aves. A / B, 212-505-8001

Wow. So the first few bites of this dinner were mind-blowingly good. Radish salad, doused in a peanutty sauce, followed by Char-shu Ramen with the Shoyu (Chichen/Soy) broth. The radish salad, actualy, was far too big and not so exciting, but the pork slices in the ramen were so tender and fatty and blasting with flavor. The broth was thick and gorgeous and loaded with salt. Those first few bites, I was in heaven.

But then you know that feeling when you have a wild rich desert, and no matter how good it is, at the 1/3 marker, you start to feel sick? This was far too rich. Far far too flavorful. And so salty. Focused on those first few bites, I kept eating, kept forcing my way through this insanely big bowl of ramen... and by then end, I was ready to have my stomach pumped. (Looking at the pictures, I start to feel a little nauseous.)

Never thought I'd say this, but if I go back, maybe I should try something a little more bland. ;)

** New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe

2006-09-22T05:31:00.000+08:00

65 Bayard Street, at Mott St, 212-566-4884

Update - 9/31/06 - Returned with ten friends for my birthday dinner, and again they failed to do anything less than completely wow me. The scallion pancakes were pretty good, but the soup dumplings were again fantastic. I ordered the Mapo Dofu without pork, for the sake of a couple of vegetarians, and it suffered, but it was still very good. The deep-fried duck was heavenly, and a noodle soup (with large mushrooms?) was absolutely amazing. Some broccoli and other veggie dishes were okay - it's quickly obvious that the merits here lie in the meaty dishes. At the end of the 11-person meal, including a bunch of beer and a healthy tip, the bill was only $160. Loved it.

Forgot to mention the great decor last time. Amazing cheesy river that you pass over on a bridge, and fantastic faux-rock plastered on the walls and ceiling, to give you the impression of eating in a cave. Wonderful.

It's been too long since I've posted, and too long since I ate here, to do a detailed description, but suffice to say: fantastic, cheap, and fun. Tacky water-themed decor.

Soup dumplings - wow.
Scallion pancake - wow.
Mapo Tofu - wow. porkalicious.

Look at that! Three wows and a porkalicious! Can't beat that, really!

Nomad (Moroccan)

2006-07-10T22:46:00.000+08:00

78 Second Ave, NY, NY

Awful food. Awful service. 10% tip.

Overything was overcooked, tough, rough, bland, undercooked, flavorless, or inedible. The foul was unlike any foul I'd ever had. The chicken in the pastilla was so tough I had trouble chewing it. The portions were far too huge, which would have been a good thing if any of the food was worth eating. And we had to fight to get noticed by anyone. Never return.

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** Sakagura (Japanese)

2006-05-22T07:58:00.000+08:00

211 E 43rd St @ 3rd Ave, New York 10017, 212-953-7253

Update - 9/29/06 - After a lousy meal at Tsukushi, and realizing that Sakagura was just around the corner, I dragged Hong-An over for a follow-up few courses. (Somewhat inspired by Aaron's second birthday dinner at Nobu a few years back, after a lousy first dinner.) Thank the lord she agreed... it was amazing. I couldn't remember what I'd ordered last time, but we sat at the bar, and ordered just two dishes: uzaku and maguro yamakake (loosely translated: tuna and mountain yams.) we also got a carafe of fantastic cold sake, masumi nanago. tasted like plum and some wild berries. so delicious. the uzaku was fantastic. definitely better than the first time I'd been. the first bite made up for the terrible first dinner. then came the maguro yamakake. wow. weird. any wonders of the tuna were eliminated by the weird gooey white slop slopped on top. as we ate away at the tuna, the pureed mountain yam seemed to grow like a streganona monstrosity. it wasn't bad... just weird. I don't think I'd order that again. However, the experience was so perfect, I was glad we returned.

Original post: Wow. A fantastic very-Japanese sashimi parlour in the hidden basement of a midtown office building. I regret not writing down what we'd ordered. But lemme see what I can cobble together....

The first (and best) dish we ordered was some kind of thinly-sliced Fluke. Actually, I suspect it may have been HIRAME CARPACCIO (Sliced fluke w/salmon roe, plum paste, shiso leaf & olive oil). Absolutely delicious. Paper-thin slices of fluke. Brought an orgasmic expression of shock and awe to my face, according to Daryl. An amazing way to start a meal.

The Agedashi Tofu was the best I've ever had. Three large very silken tofu blocks, served in a glorious simple ponzu sauce. For these two dishes alone, I would definitely return.

A Daikon Salad, served with a spicy mayonnaise, wasn't very good. I was picturing small, thick yellow slices of picked daikon. This was a huge bowl of long and very thin clear slices of (unpickled?) daikon. Certainly tasty, but not worth the occupied table space.

We had an $18 carafe, btw, of fresh cloudy cold sake. It was on the springtime sake menu. They had a huge collection, and we asked merely for a nice smooth one. This certainly was. Delicious.

Maguro Tar Tar (Chopped row tuna, salmon roe) - very good, but not as amazing as the two intro dishes. There were too many competing flavors in this round stack of chopped tuna topped with small pink and black roe.

Uzaku (Chilled broiled eel & sliced cucumber w/house vinegar dressing) - again, very good, but not great. for the same reasons. it was served in much the same fashion as the maguro tartar: cucumber, then eel, then cucumber, and again eel. the best part of this dish was the cucumber at the very bottom of the dish -- which had been soaking in the vinegar for far longer than the rest of the pile. Wonderful taste sensation.

I feel like we ordered more, but can't quite remember. A great restaurant -- decor, food, service, toto toilet seats, etc. I enjoyed thoroughly. (Note: no sushi - only sashimi!)

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Bombay Dream (Indian)

2006-05-22T07:44:00.000+08:00

257 Smith St, Brooklyn, NY 11231, 718-237-6490

How can you possibly make Indian food taste this bland and worthless? Somehow they've succeeded.

Samosas
Chicken Saagwala
Naan

Everything was so absolutely flavorless and valueless I could have just have easily had instant mashed potatoes for dinner. Part of me wishes I had.

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Devi (Indian)

2006-05-20T23:50:00.000+08:00

8 E 18th St @ Broadway, New York 10003, 212-691-1300

Gorgeous high ceilings, very fancy, yadda yadda. The food was good, but not great. I've still yet to find absolutely delicious Indian in this town. (Shocking, I know. But I'm let down time and time again.) The closest I've come thus far is Brick Lane - physically adjacent but spiritually a continent away from the Curry Lane Indian restaurant row. But to Devi:

we tried the tasting menu ($60), Mom remembering being blown away the last time we'd been here. (I had more vague memories of mediocrity... one of the reasons I'd started this blog.) some of the courses offered a choice -- so we just asked for one of each dish. here's what we got...

Papad & Mung Bean Chaat - amazing. every bite of this first course, and I was sure we were on track for a fine meal.
Grilled Scallops Roasted with Manchurian cauliflower, spicy bitter-orange marmalade - and with this second appetizer, I remembered how the meal wasn't all that. the scallops were fine, but nearly tasteless. the cauliflower was odd... spicy, but somewhat unappetizing. and the bitter-orange marmalade, far more of a chutney than a marmalade, was far too bitter. instead of a palate cleanser, or a complement to the scallops, it was just difficult to swallow. (perhaps in the same way I'd considered sushi's ginger side when I was a child? or perhaps just because it was poorly-designed.)

Tandoori Stuffed Chicken Legs (spicy chicken stuffing, tomato chutney) - excellent. spicy, full of flavor, both mom and I quickly gave up on the knife and fork here, and dove in with fingers aplomb. the tomato chutney was fairly addictive... and brutally spicy in the afterglow/lingering way.
Idly Upma (Crispy rice-lentil cakes & curry leaves, mustard seeds, coconut chutney, chili-tomato chutney) - or was this the spicy chutney? I can't say. I only barely remember this dish: perhaps we didn't have it on our menu, or perhaps it was only so-so.

Veal Brain & Liver Bruschettas (Brain with green chile, quail eggs and pickled ginger, liver with onions, tomatoes and cinnamon) - I adored this. plain, but very masculine. no subtlety to it at all. meat on bread. not one bit delicate. (mom hated it.)
Parsi Halibut "Paatra Ni Machi" with mint coconut chutney, lemon rice - again, plain, but this time it didn't work so well. the halibut just wasn't interesting.

Tandoor Grilled Tiger Prawns (Eggplant pickle, chickpea flour marinated prawns, crispy okra salad) - fantastic. perfectly cooked throughout. I was very glad that we didn't have to share this dish -- it was great.

Tandoor Grilled Lamb Chops sweet & sour pear chutney, curry leaf potatoes - at this point in the meal, we were ready for it to be over. enough courses, enough food. (unlike Tsukushi, where even though we were stuffed, we still met each new dish with excitement.) it was fine, but we certainly didn't need it.

Kulfi Indian ice cream with Citrus Soup - gorgeous. the soup was so fricking sharp, and the pyramid of ice-cream was a perfect little palate cleanser.

I'd maybe go back, but I actually think I'd prefer to visit Brick Lane again...

** Balthazar (Bistro)

2006-05-20T01:37:00.000+08:00

80 Spring St @ Broadway, New York 10012, 212-965-1414

The breakfast here was okay. Fine. Not great. Standard french toast. Generic Eggs Norweigian. Very good coffee, great orange juice. The prices were standard --about the same as any decent bruch place.

But the ambiance! The atmosphere! The sinful luxury of sitting back, enjoying the complimentary Times, and watching the affluent parade in and out. (No celebrity sightings, but Bonnie claims they're far from rare.) The decor -- mom insisted we'd made a wrong turn and accidentally sat down in Julienne.

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* Rice to Riches (dessert)

2006-05-18T12:05:00.000+08:00

37 Spring St @ Mott, New York 10012; 212-274-0008

The inside of this all-rice-pudding restaurant feels like somewhere between american-chain-hell and a shibuya-wet-dream. Beard Papa gone Tasty D'Lite. 18 or so flavors of rice pudding, most of which looked foul, but we still tried two: Caramel
and Cinammon-Raisin. Wow. Flavor blast. Going from the subtleties of Tsukushi to the slap in the mouth of this was intense, but a great ride.

Fine (tho overpriced -- $5 for a single serving) fastfood deserts. The General would be proud.

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** Tsukushi (Japanese)

2006-05-18T11:50:00.000+08:00

300 East 41st Street, Murray Hill; (212) 599-8888

follow-up - 9/29/06 - eating at 9pm, everything was rushed and terrible. the poached eggs were nearly hard-cooked. the yellowtail was boring. the sashimi (which, as if they wanted to taunt is, included natto) was plain. [hong-an notes: we didn't have natto -- we had the uni. the foot-tasting, tongue-textured uni. I reply: ultimately, those two words/dishes/things are interchangeable to me.] and those were the best parts of the meal. I was so dismayed at this early birthday dinner that -- even though we needed to wake up at 6am the next day -- I insisted on a follow-up meal at Sakagura, around the corner. At least that went well.

Original Post
To die for. Or, at least, to return to. Wow. It reminded me of Nobu (London), where every bite made me regretful that I'd squandered another bite... where by the time I a dish was gone, I missed it already. I didn't shed a tear at this meal, but expressions of awe did cross my face repeatedly.

Chef's choice, and apparently the menu changes regularly, but tonight we had:

Oshitashi - watercress and mushroom salad -- heavenly. clumps of perfect watercress. thin slices of mushroom that sometimes felt like thin squid on my tongue.
Cold poached eggs with okra and wasabi - so foreign, so absolutely alien... the first taste was weird, and then divine. This was the course that -- as I saw it appear on other tables thru the night, I felt jealous. So simple, so plain, and yet it reminded me of a fine religion.
Sashimi plate - thick slices of octapus, another fish, and a thinner sliced fish mixed with green onion slices.... wonderful. the octapus wasn't too chewey, and the two other fishes, although I have no idea what they were, were perfect.
Potato & ? Croquettes - again, there was something unidentifiable in these simple and delicious little fried samplings. a small pour of bulldog sauce was on top of each croquette, but I would have loved some yellow mustard.
Grilled 1/2 Head of Yellowtail Tuna - the one part of the meal where I wa sunimpressed -- until mom told me to go for the cheek. Don't miss the cheek. Also, long after I'd polished the meat off the bones, I realized there was a thick sliver on the underside, hidden between two long bones. Pulling that out with the chopsticks, it was the tenderest, most flavorful part of the fish. Fantastic.
Deep Fried Chicken Salad - at this point in the meal, we were both starting to feel bloated, and this large bowl of chicken and (mild) onions and tomatoes seemed like far too much -- but it was the perfect amount. it was gorgeous. (I've run out of bland praises, but I never did pass my verbal GREs.)

Finally, dinner was formally over, but the waitress now ordered us a long list of other things we could get -- soba, udon, flavored rices (we'd been offered no rice thus far -- fortunately), and a list of other things. She didn't mention Shumai, but I'd remembered seeing them mentioned in the NY Times review, so asked... sure enough...

Shumai - the most bizarre shumai I've ever had.. these pork dumplings were coated in rice, and served with yellow mustard. delicious! the large mound of bland russian salad on the side was worthless... especially in the face of such a worthy meal...

I would definitely return.

Kittichai (Thai Fusion)

2006-05-18T11:36:00.000+08:00

60 Thompson St @ Spring, New York 10012; 212-219-2000

Lackluster thai fusion in an incredibly haute restaurant. The decor was pretty magnificent -- dark walls, paper birds floating over a pool of water, orchids preserved in bottles of formaldahyde, etc. The food? Bites of it were awesome... the bulk of it was a weak attempt at fancy thai.

Crispy Rock Shrimp, Grilled Eggplant and chili lime juice - aka "popcorn shrimp". rather, bad popcorn shrimp. this could have been better at that nashville asian fusion chain.
Hudson Valley Seared Foie Gras with spiced pineapple marmalade - the foie was amazing. it was also only 1/3 of the dish. sadly, the other 2/3 were some thick-sliced deli meat (bad duck) and some unidentifiable tasteless meat in a cracker.
Braised Short Ribs Green Curry & Sweet Basil - pretty lousy, I hate to say.
Prik Vegetables - after I specifically asked "are they prik?", and the waiter insisted "very," I expected at least a modicum of spice. and yet these were some of the most bland vegetables I've ever had. cooked well, but hardly worth ordering.
Crispy Whole Fish with lesser-ginger & Thai hot basil - fantastic. spicy, the presentation (we refused their offer to pre-cut the meat) was amazing, I would definitely order again. it rivalled the spicy fish at Nyonya.

Fried Banana Slices with honey and ice cream - simple, but delicious. reminded me so much of a childhood indian restaurant. I only wish I could remember where it was.

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Gravy (American)

2006-05-17T01:00:00.000+08:00

100-102 Smith St @ Pacific, Brooklyn.

Southern Fried Chicken, the monday night blue-plate special. I really like this restaurant, but the food just wasn't all that good. The smaller pieces of chicken were fine -- great, even. But the large piece -- most of the food on the plate -- was completely under-cooked in the middle. I only tried to eat half of it before feeling somewhat nauseous. The collard-greens -- a huge mound that reminded me of Dreyfuss' mash-potato mountain, were mostly inedible (my body wishes I didn't try so hard), tho the mashed-potatoes were bacon-ey, lumpy, and fantastic.

Whatever Pale Ale was on tap (Whitbread maybe?) was nice and lemoney.

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Bar Tabac (Bistro)

2006-05-16T01:58:00.000+08:00

Smith Street at Dean St, Brooklyn, NY

local, normally quite good, but...

Salade Nicoise - absolutely boring. they had anchovies listed on the ingredients, but neglected to include them. even after those were added, it just lacked flavor. (Cafe Luluc serves a similarly weak Nicoise, but don't even carry anchovies. The crime!)

Lunch was improved, though, by the awkward grunts and moans of the older man sitting to my right. The table of hipster photographers, to my left, kept nervously glancing at me with each moan.

----------
5/16 UPDATE: returned the next day for the Caesar Salad. Again -- not very good. Definitely lacking in flavor. The chicken was overcooked, tough. My stomach hated me for the meal. I'd skip the salads here. However -- the fries were insanely good. Next time, just get the burger.

* Pipa (Spanish Tapas)

2006-05-15T09:40:00.000+08:00

38 E 19th St (@ Bway), New York 10003, 212-677-2233

Mostly tourists and bridge-and-tunnel clientele drunkenly shouting to make themselves heard in this ABC Furniture-funished restaurant. (The ceilings are crowded with chandeliers, each boasting a multi-thousand dollar pricetag.) But the food was great. Spicy, flavorful, and absolutely reeking of garlic. (Bring gum for after!)

Started with a shrimp & crambeat catalan flatbread -- a slap to the face of flavor. An excellent tunatype pizza.

Catalan Spinach Sauteed with Garlic, Golden Raisins & Chiles
Gambas Al Ajillo Shrimp with Garlic, Olive Oil, Paprika & Chiles
Patatas a la Brava Crisp Potatoes with Spicy Mustard Aioli
Tortilla Española

everything was excellent.

Because of my vege-companion, I skipped out on a bunch of dishes... but for next time: Dates stuffed with almonds & wrapped in bacon sprinkled with Cabrales blue cheese

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The Stanton Social (Eclectic)

2006-05-13T23:58:00.000+08:00

99 Stanton St (Orchard & Ludlow St), New York 10002, 212-995-0099

Far over-rated fancy-pants tapas. Reservations at 9:45, seated at 10:15.

French Onion Soup Dumpling - every review I'd read heralded this as the ultimate in oral orgasm. Sadly, it just burned my mouth -- I'm still scalded. This may have put a bad spin on the rest of the meal.
Duck Empanadas with blood orange dipping sauce - too much bread, too little duck. Probably my least favorite empanadas so far.
Crispy Nori Spiced Tuna Tartare Roll - okay, but not so flavorful. the texture was nice.
Baby Spinach with toasted garlic - amazing. absolutely perfect.
Kobe Beef Burgers - I agree with all the reviews saying "you can't tell it's kobe". it just tasted like a good white castle.
Rhode Island Lobster Roll - terrible, but I think I'm biased against lobster of late.
Warm Doughnuts with caramel - absolutely amazing. but, as Bonnie remarked, how can you go wrong with fresh, warm donuts? two other dipping sauces, jam and chocolate, were mostly ignored... the caramel was just perfect.

would not return.

Coco Roco (Peruvian)

2006-05-13T07:18:00.000+08:00

139 Smith St

Terrible. 15 or 20 minutes for a Peruvian Ham Panini to-go, which ended up being a flavorless waste of $6. A few slices of processed-ham, a few slices of cheese, and some grilled onions chucked into a cold piece of pita. Served cold.

The wait were friendly -- they gave me a small free milkshake. But even that wasn't very good.

* Good World Bar & Grill (Scandinavian)

2006-05-13T07:13:00.000+08:00

3 Orchard St (Division & Canal St), New York, 212-925-9975

The crowd was preppy, the service forgetful, the food so-so, the prices not-cheap, and yet I loved the place. Maybe it was the comfort factor -- the menu was somewhere between Helsinki's Zetor and SF's (that East German restaurant). Lots of meat, potatoes, and omega-3. And the beer list was grand. I stuck with Duvel... perhaps a mistake (and also perhaps why I enjoyed the meal so much)

Smoked Salmon Rolls - small but tasty. A blast of omega-3 that made me think of Katy's rolls down in Chapel Hill.
Swedish Meatballs with mashed potatoes, home pickled cucumbers & lingonberry sauce - about as good as Ikea's, which ain't bad.

Z had some huge sausage (made of Venison?) that I don't see on the menu now, but it was okay.

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Food

2006-05-13T06:53:00.000+08:00

I can't keep my restaurants straight. I return to places with venemous hosts and inedible dragon rolls. and I forget about the meals I adored. here is my attempt to organize it all.