TRAILS OF TWO CITIES- NOODLE WARS, BUDDHIST DESIRES, HOT SHOWERS, AND THE FREE TEMPTATIONS OF TRAVEL (part 2)

My current considerations for choice between TJ and Ensenada are more basic, like which place is more convenient, with better prices, with cable TV, and especially Internet. Two years ago finding a café with free Internet in Ensenada seemed pretty hip, harbinger of great things to come. Now it’s still the same, at a time when wi-fi is fairly standard fare in US hotel/motels, even cheap ones, and fairly easy to find world-wide, especially when you book online. But that’s not the case in Ensenada, with only a few high-end places showing up on my screen. In fact you’re lucky to find cable TV, or a movie channel at all. They must’ve cracked down on the cable guys. I’ve stayed all over town, moving on when a place renovates and raises its rates. I’ve only got one bottom line- no depression. But the blanket at my regular place is now getting holes, the water only gets hot for about three minutes, and the second-storey railings are dangerous. Cable or wi-fi wouldn’t matter much if I were still drinking y/o single, but… yeah, I’m gettin’ older 2. So it’s time to say good-bye to my trusty third home. I’ve already waved off Chiang Rai and Flagstaff this year, so it only seems fittin’. Everything’s different now.

So I get a room on the Revolucion strip in TJ with free wi-fi, scalding showers, morning sun, and plenty of room to work out, all for $22 Sun-Thurs. I’m in cheap hotel heaven. There’s no cable, but local TJ and San Diego’s okay as long as I got wi-fi. Being an Internet couch potato’s better than TV, right? The first night’s rough with the disco across the street going until 4am, but that’s fixable. I’m still nursing a tooth extraction on the #30 molar, so sleep’s not exactly a dream anyway. The doctor’s sixty-five and says it’s the toughest he’s ever done. I tell him that’s why I chose a doctor with experience. He tells me that’s why he charged me fifty extra pesos. The Thai dentist cracked it on a root job; an Arizona dentist x-rayed and diagnosed it; Mexican dentist jerked the mother. First tooth of mine’s ever had three countries and three languages. I thought he was going for the crowbar at one point. But TJ’s okay. There’s only one problem.

Last night thirty-three people were killed in TJ (including nine de-caps, and I don’t mean tire blowouts) as drug turf wars rage on. Two of the victims were children. One of the incidents occurred in a grocery store. That’s getting close to home. Weird shit’s going on everywhere, Mumbai not the least of it, as the world gets crowded. And doing things the much-touted ‘Thai way’ hardly seems enlightened, passivity as philosophy, allowing anti-democracy protesters to shut the country down. These are the same people who protested FOR democracy fifteen years ago, before they found out that idiots would elect sweet-talking ‘big men’ handing out favors every time. The conflict has spread to Thai Town in LA. Oord’s noodle shop makes the help wear red on Sunday. Those are PPP colors. Local PAD supporters say if they don’t wear yellow, or at least stay neutral, they won’t eat noodles there any more. PPP people claim that PAD ranks back home are being swelled by opportunists, reprobates, and prostitutes… but I won’t go there.

What’s a poet/blogger/traveler to do? Travel… and write. Future archeologists won’t believe it. Hopefully they can download the computers they’ll find in middens. The dollar’s stronger than in years and gas prices have been granted a reprieve. That won’t last forever. The US economy sucks… so the dollar is strong. Go figure. Recession is not so bad for us fiscal conservatives who don’t feed on credit. It’s my turn. So with one trip barely over, I plan the next, Caribbean al invierno. The Chilean gypsy’s love potions seem to have worked, so I’ll revolve around my wife in LA. The Caribbean’s still America, right, so close enough? For now I’ll just hang in TJ and listen to Tinariwen on MySpace. The sun sets at 4pm now, but temps are still mild. There’s a parallel reality, a real Mexican city, parallel to the Revolucion strip, just one block away. There’s a cultural center and an annual film festival here. Manu Chao and Lila Downs play concerts here regularly. But where do the people who make fun of TJ go when they visit? The Strip of course. Me in TJ? Or even LA? Who’d’ve ever thought? Life’s weird; you can quote me on that.

I almost feel guilty, that so many people are undergoing economic hardship right now and I’m traveling the world, but… naah. I’m just doing what I always do. Others spend denarii like it’s going out of style when times are good; now they cry when the credit’s gone. I never ask for credit, though I certainly could. It’s just not my way of life. People usually call me a tightwad when they’re not calling me a wastrel traveler. But I don’t spend that much and still manage to enjoy. The numbers are finally in from this last South American trip, $17-1800 for fifty days in four countries over thirty degrees of latitude and probably half that of longitude. That includes every thing but the flight from North America to South America, which was a freebie from points. Even for a paid flight that would have been only fifty dollars a day, not bad for some righteous travel. I don’t sleep in bunk beds either. You can’t live in LA on that, not like a human at least, and you wouldn’t see much if you did, just some pissy streets and lots of attitude. At least the food is good, and the music. Though immigrants can certainly do it for less, they’ll eventually upgrade or go home. They’ll live better later. That’s what I’m doing. We’re all immigrants here, or used to be, at least. I still am.

If the goal is to visit every single sovereign nation in the world, then I’ve still got a long way to go. I’m not a flight attendant, and doing mere airport stops wouldn’t account to much anyway. If someone’s been to them all already, then I haven’t heard about it. The guy who gets all the press and the ‘Good Morning’ gig for ‘most traveled person’ works from some list of 692 ‘significant places’ of which he’s covered maybe ninety percent. But I don’t know who compiled that list or what makes those places so significant. I’m looking at the UN list. At least maybe I’ve got as many countries as I’ve got years now. That’s a start. Europe’s got a quarter of them, of course, so that’s gravy, since you don’t even need visas for most, just the old USSR. Hopefully you won’t pass through one in the middle of the night unbeknownst to you. Europe’s got lots of cheap flights now, but flyovers don’t count. You have to stand on solid ground; that’s the rule.

For now the Caribbean Basin is the project. There are lots of little countries there and they’re scattered around. Any increase in flight fares could be disastrous. So I’ll start in Jamaica and take it from there. Barbados and Trinidad and Guyana are already booked, and some others should fall into place, Surinam at the least. That’s one of those back-water plums of international travel, a back-packer’s wet dream of cultural, linguistic, and sensory masala... or not. That’s the gamble. I’d like to go to Cuba of course, but that would be wrong. Uh huh. It’s a good time to use those frequent flyer miles. They’re cracking down on unused accounts. The trick is to work from your computer anywhere in the world. Or better yet, work from your world anywhere in the computer. The clock’s ticking.