Buddha Talk: Save Yourself, the Save the World...

Hypertravel with Hardie #19: Laos and Southern China

#19 Lao/Yunnan xPhongsaly, Laos: at the end of a long lonely road... It may or may not be the 'end of the earth', but it definitely qualifies as the outback of Southeast Asia, for whatever that's worth, probably not much, so long as China keeps encroaching, as it surely will, not so long ago Vietnam probably the greater transgressor, with its oversized population, locked into such a narrow sliver of prime southeast Asian coastline, and punctuated by rivers, this the only country in the world, that I know of, that is self-defined by its water, i.e. 'nuoc Vietnam', Viet-water, as opposed to Thai-land, Ire-land, Green-land, or Switzer-land, for example (if you're familiar with Vietnamese fish-sauce, nuoc mam, then you might recognize that same word nuoc)... But that's Vietnam, and this is Laos, though you might not know it at the crossroads town of UdomXai, a town of literally no more than a few tens of thousands, but with buses heading to all the four corners, i.e. China, Vietnam, and Thailand, every neighboring state except Burma, Myanmar, and locals can even go from Phongsaly to Luang Namtha, one part of Laos to another, via China, would that this option were only open to foreigners, and you might have a resuscitation of the backpacker market in this region... Which has largely left China out of that equation, not that they'd even know or even care, given the swarms of their own locals that have largely taken over tourist sites once almost the exclusive private reserve of foreigners. But that won't likely happen any time soon, much less the 'Five Chiangs' concept, of somehow re-configuring that original Tai-land... ...proto-state, with one visa for it all, splayed now over four national territories and the upper Mekong River, same as it ever was: Chiang Rung, Xieng Tong (Luang Prabang), Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, and Kyaingtong, which failed to thrive until reconfigured as Lan Na and Lan Xang, long before the modern states of Thailand and Laos came into existence... And the hills of Phongsaly sit overlooking much of that. But first you have to get there, and the fact that the bus driver's helper hands out little plastic bags before the trip should give you a clue. Hint: the bags are not for trash. And so it goes, up and up and up, but not so high, really, just twisting and turning, past the non-descript little burgs of Boun Tai (lower) and Boun Neua (upper), where much of the modern infrastructure of government is being relocated, apparently, as Phongsaly itself retreats further into the clouds... Confirmed upon arrival, the curly twirly road transforms into a curly twirly town, with no real center, much less a red light, or anything fancy like that, just a few key intersections holding place notation, for what constitutes the definition of a city, a place where roads meet and business is transacted, long before houses will be built and babies will be born, far less an entertainment district upon which to flail oneself and desires shamelessly... But the temps are cool, so this would be quite nice in the hot dry season March-May, while all the lowland dogs are dizzying with parched eyes ears nose and throat. And this is still the rainy season, too, though theoretically petering out, but I'm not so sure, as the third day grows torrential, and I'm worried about that patchwork road, and it's not so dirt cheap here, either, much less spectacular, the tribal peoples a bit dogged and tired-looking, a bit the worse for wear... So I leave after four nights, after a long 6-8km/4-5mi hike down down down a long country road and back back back the same way I came, Ban Chantane I believe was the name, calves now aching from the long uphill, and after torrential rains, and forecasting more of the same, figure I might better hoof on out of the woods while I still can, 'cause if that road washes out, then I'll be at the mercy of ditch diggers and tractor drivers, while all the fun is going on down below in the the green beautiful valleys... Ha! Luang Prabang, maybe, the pearl in Lao's oyster, but not UdomXai, just a hard-scrabble crossing, of roads and peoples, but that's okay, 'cause once it gets that groovy 'travel vibe', then it loses whatever authenticity it may once have had, but hard to calculate, because it's just too fluid and changing to measure with any accuracy, the comings and goings of peoples on landscapes, further confused by the dimension of time, and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which makes it impossible to calculate position and momentum simultaneously... And sure enough it happened! We get stuck! Or almost, anyway, the bus unable to climb the muddy hill without sliding into the ditch. So it'll take a wench and a large tractor to get us back mobile, and on into UdomXai before nightfall, rooms at the ready, unlike the previous stop, some four days before, after midnight and all rooms full, just Mary Magdalene roaming the streets looking for something and I not about to be the one to tell her either yes or no... It's better this way, I recovering my travel legs after two months of four walls, steeling myself for the re-entry into China, m*therf*cking China, full of face and lacking in grace and as inevitable as it is unfathomable. And that is my fate. But there is no rush, so first I'll go to Luang Namtha and Muang Sing, the latter apparently fallen from grace since its heydays of the 90's, last time I was there, too, so we'll see... If nothing else, it'll be worth it for the Tai Dam peoples, one of my favorites, and the start of any serious discussion of Tai history and culture. After all I can speak this language, and that's the Holy Grail of travel, chatting up the locals, especially here and Thailand, where people are infinitely chattable. So that's what's for supper tomorrow. And what did you do today? Time-Travel: A Tale of Two Towns in the Laotian Outback... At age 64, and after 155 countries and more than forty years of travel, it's all time-travel now, going back to see something I once saw before, and seeing all the changes that time has wrought, rather than seeing it all virgin-like for the first time, like a gap-year giggly-mouthed googly-eyed greenhorn, that prototypical wide-mouth chin-dropping awe that inspires sales of toothpaste and fashion, featuring credit cards and deodorant, dreams of midnights and long flights, and carrying prophylactics, just in case... But it's all different now. What was once exotic is now just chaotic, and International Standard Pidgin English ensures that you're not likely to miss a meal, unless you really want to. Hard-core travel cowboys consume geography like chocolate cake on Sunday, apps logging miles and journals logging impressions, with an index, and a table of contents, and an itinerary to be followed.... But once upon a time the mark of a true backpacker was his ability to get lost, and find the remotest track to the remotest border crossing in the remotest neck of the remotest woods of the remotest God-forsaken country, with a pristine people and a pristine attitude and a pristine culture, just so that we can change all that, in exchange for some sustenance in the form of a few crusty loaves and a pocket-full of tissues... But most travelers now it seems just want to party, the more the better, vast quantities of alcohol to help ease the transition into a once-foreign culture, locals reduced to extras in their own movie, culture and language just a sideshow for evening entertainment, to hold ones interest between the main acts of daily sightseeing and nightly binge-drinking... But before all this there was pot, grass, weed, joints, spliffs, reefer, marijuana, whatever, you smoke it and it gets you high, or so I hear. And for the really adventurous there was even opium, vestige of the old days here in outback Asia, religion of the masses back when not much else was available, and cash crop for many when the market got excited about heroes and heroin back in the late 20th century flowering of youth culture, and related fashion accessories... And that's where Muang Sing fit right in, a few years before Y2K (remember that?), as Laos re-entered the world after its aborted Communist nightmare, and travelers rushed in to enjoy cheap rooms, cheap highs and all the Lao beer one could drink. So when I stumbled in to Luang Nam Tha around '97-'98 from China, that's where all the travelers were heading, Muang Sing, a couple hours away, and nestled up against a Chinese border crossing that foreigners weren't allowed to use, still aren't... There were hill-tribe peoples there galore, and revolution in the air, Laos still proudly Communist, even if dependent on a helping hand from distant cousin Vietnam, while capitalist big brother Thailand stayed far in the background. I was buying crafts, and they were making them, so plenty of reason to hang around, just to see if something might make a splash in the market... And when I came back around 2002 it was even better, Tai Dam people coming in to the area from over-crowded Vietnam, and inviting me in to their houses, just as if I were one of them, ostensibly to look at crafts, maybe even buy, but no big deal, just chill with or without a deal. And Lao people from all over were coming in, too, just to catch the buzz, and hopefully make a few bucks... Back then Luang Nam Tha was just a stopover on the way there, nothing much to see or do, a provincial government center, and not much else, first stopover on the way in from Yunnan province, China, or connection point up from Huay Xai and Chiang Khong, Thailand, down on the Mekong, all secondary to the main tourist business a day away in Luang Prabang, and another day to the capital Vientiane... But that's all changed. For some reason Muang Sing has dried up, while Luang Nam Tha has made steady gains, if no big deal, but still steady. All the major latter-day-hippie trade in tricks and treats has moved far south to Vang Vieng, between Luang Prabang and Vientiane, and even farther south to the 4000 Islands, near Cambodia... There's little or no indie travel to China here now, even though the road from Thailand is now good, but the travel scene in China has largely dried up, too, for indie travel foreigners, that is, not the Chinese hordes, who have largely repopulated the groovy destinations that backpackers once put on the travel map. Meanwhile the travel scene that barely existed in Cambodia in 1997 is now near saturation, between foreign indies and those same Chinese hordes... And it's impossible not to compare with another prime location some twenty years ago, already written up in these pages a few posts back, i.e. Yangshuo, China, which is now totally overrun by the aforementioned hordes, to the extent that it is now imminently avoidable, and hopefully forgettable, as I struggle to erase it from my short-term memory before it writes itself into long-term. This is the extreme opposite of what has happened in Muang Sing, and honestly, I don't know which is worse, uh-huh. I persevere... YUNNAN 828 Leaving Laos, Enter the Dragon... So the nice lady at the Boten-Mohan border between Laos and China in the far Southwest decided to hassle me about my latest entry into the Kingdom—my fourth over the past year—inquiring as to my motives. “Tourism,” I respond, just like it says on the form. But that doesn't seem to satisfy her. “Sight-seeing,” I add, since I know I'd seen that word on the form, also. I have a ten-year tourist visa, BTW, so 3650 days, plus two or three for leap years, maximum 60 days per entry, so some 600 entries possible (but who's counting?)... Then she asks, in English, if I speak Chinese, so I shrug and respond, “a little.” That's what she wants to hear, I figure. If she wanted to speak Chinese, she'd've asked in Chinese. So she fumes and fusses and calls someone over, who quickly green-lights the entry, but just for a final 'f*ck-you' she holds my passport up to my face as I pass, as if to verify my identity. The passport and picture are less than a year old, so not much has changed, but that's not the point, is it? xTai Bizarro World in China? If I didn't know better, I'd almost swear that on some cosmic drafting table in some corner of the universe there is a blueprint for the Tai diaspora out of China from a couple thousand years ago, or maybe outta' North Vietnam in half that, in which the northern and southern flanks of this proto-Tai state are laid out on either side of what would become Laos like a mirror image of each other, in which the northern Tai towns of Jinghong (Chieng Rung), Mengla, and Mohan (Bor Han) would become Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Mae Sai, respectively... And it will take me a cool year or two to become fluent in Mandarin, no matter how hard it try. So Mengla has been my makeshift home for the last three weeks, while I finish my current term for online studies, and plot my next move. Frankly I really don't want to travel much in mainland China, due to the difficulties of indie travel there, here, mostly in the booking of rooms, but that is not so much of a problem here. I've been at the same place for three weeks and never even registered! That would be unthinkable elsewhere, where foreigners are often not even allowed, especially in the cheaper digs, and always thoroughly registered, complete with color glossy photos or at least smartphone pics. Remember that in case you need to 'lay low' somewhere sometime. But don't expect a 'travel vibe' here, as I have yet to see another western soul the whole time. I'm sure Jinghong has more, but not much... The bloom is off the rose in China, and rightfully so, as it ain't so cheap any more, and the hassles are endless. But that's next stop. Fortunately in this neck of the woods cheapie hotels are ubiquitous and not hard to find, so kinda' like the old days where you get off the bus and just start walking, Lonely Planet optional. Forget the booking sites, except for reference, or just to book the first night and then take it from there... Jinghong is perfect, so similar to my erstwhile digs in north Thailand, that they almost share the same language, if you care to take the time to learn it. And no I'm not talking about the lingua franca of Chinese, but the original Tai Lue dialect, so similar to northern Thailand's kam meuang... But these Tai ladies still wear the traditional rags, so as to distinguish themselves from the predominant Chinese, I suppose, something you'd only see in northern Thailand in such out-of-the-way villes as Pai or Mae Sot, where a northern Thai majority is not assured, and so becomes a matter of pride, similar to the African dress of Trinidadians, where a black majority of the population may or may not exist, and where such clothing doesn't exist elsewhere in the Caribbean where blacks indeed do have the majority... But Jinghong resembles Chiang Mai more than Chiang Rai, if only for the larger population and greater stategic importance, even if Jinghong is much more attractive, really, with its tree-lined streets, of mostly palm, something any place in Thailand could only dream of, that and clear clean sidewalks, which you do have to share with the occasional motorbike, unfortunately, but still... So my new project now is to learn the Tai Lue alphabet, so as to learn the Tai Lue language, half of which I know already, but I just don't know which half, and to learn Chinese characters, also, except in the case where I already know the Chinese character, so compare it to the Tai Lue script, to see if I'm right or if I'm wrong, or if it's a phonetic transcription of the Chinese character, or a definition thereof, or if by luck there's some Latin letters, too, then I'm in alpha beta heaven, no quibble between us where there's no stones to be thrown, Rosetta stone, that is... And so for kicks I go to the nearby town of Menghai, which apparently hasn't seen a foreign Westerner in many many years, judging by their reaction to me, ranging from fear, to endearment, to outright befuddlement, but the city's no beauty, and the altitude guarantees a chill, so I put it on the back burner for the hot season, just in case I have no other way to beat the heat... And that’s just about a wrap, for me, at least, with probably six months in China over the previous two years and with most of that in Yunnan, including the Tai far south and the Tibetan far north, in addition to Sichuan to the direct east and Guangxi and Guangzhou to the far southeast, all the way to Hong Kong. Still my favorite day was in the Xishuangbanna town of Mengla, already mentioned, when and where I was invited to attend a wedding celebration between two local Tai youths tying knots and what-not while I watched as Buddhist monks presided over the ceremonies and I spoke Tai Lue as best I could with the peeps, the final swirl to the linguistic dressing of Tai dialects that I’ve been rehearsing over my many years there. The same is true for the Kingdom of Laos. There isn’t time or space nor easily available pictures to rehash it all here, but much , if not all is available on my Backpackers/Flashpackers blog on Wordpress. There won’t be many more video episodes of Hypertravel with Hardie for better or worse, but i can put it all in book format, if the demand exists. Please like and subscribe.

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Hypertravel with Hardie #15: Myanmar (Burma)

The Name Has Changed: It's Myanmar now, not Bummer... I've been to the Burmese/Thai border-town Tachilek many times on visa runs, and so have had my eye on the country for years, while never having a pressing need to collect the stamp, just to satisfy my personal mandate to visit every country in the world before I die—or it does... And I've been to the Thai-Burmese border town of Mae Sot a few times, too, and even though it's on the Thai side, while the other is officially Burmese, it always felt more truly Burmese to me, Muslim Burmese mostly, refugees I suppose, and complete with nearby violence and cross-border excursions from Karen (no, not her) tribal violence in the area... But I finally got serious about visiting the real Myanmar a few years ago. So did everyone else, and demand suddenly exceeded supply to the extent that not enough rooms were available, and those that were were pricey. Think a dozen or two Expedia listings for Yangon three years ago, a hundred or two now... So far it feels good, here in Yangon. I'm flashing on Hanoi 1996, but it could just as easily be Viangchan 2000 or Phnom Penh 2004, that sweet spot between development and primitiveness, when there are enough amenities to allow indie travel, as opposed to fail-safe group tours, but not so overrun with travelers that it spoils the reason you came in the first place. Or maybe Chiangmai, Thailand 1992... That means that you'll get a lot of smiles without too much trying and a lot of scammers trying to get their hands in your pants—pockets. It also means a lot of signs in a language you don't understand, and very few in the international language—English—such as it is. So what there is for foreigners are few and far between, and higher-priced, to boot... But that assessment should be qualified. Prices are higher in the most obvious tourist gathering places, such as Bogyoke Market, which is otherwise very interesting and nice, a central market for crafts and local products, the likes of which are getting harder to find in this world of malls and suburbs. But menus without prices in the down-and-dirty comedores? Not a good sign—but not to worry, whew, buck and a half with green tea included, my kind of deal... Ironically you can find some very reasonable prices in very sanitary conditions in some of those very malls that I otherwise abhor, like good-quality espresso for little more than half a buck USD, which would cost almost twice that in the fancy places near the central market. Go figure. Moral of the story: avoid the touts and loud shouts, as the best things in life are quiet, sweet and discreet... And the Burmese are sweet, notwithstanding the seemingly random violence that still haunts the country along its edges and among its minorities. So Myanmar has the dubious distinction of being the only Buddhist country with overt religious violence, at the same time that it has a reputation as the strictest of countries in the Theravada school of Buddhism, a major interest of mine... So I went to check out a Buddhist meditation center called Dhamma Joti, and it looks pretty good, ten day retreats available that apparently are free, and with room and board. Of course, you're expected to meditate most of the day every day, but that's what you want, right? Yeah, right. This is not Buddhism lite... I personally would only hope that there would be some temple life to go with that, which may or may not be the case. Many Westerners don't want any religion to spoil the flavor of their 'wellness' broth, so that could conveniently be missing. And there are others, too, yet to be thoroughly sussed. Apparently Myanmar is getting a reputation for such centers. If the price is right, the tourists will bite... Shwedagon Pagoda is the big tourist draw in Yangon, gold and glittery and crawling with tourists, I mean 'pilgrims', golden spires to inspire you and money-changers right there in the temple to relieve you of the extra pounds under your belt. There are also many lesser sites if you want to get totally stupa'd with them, a Buddhist bang for your buck, five quid a head and the palatial estate is yours—and theirs—for the day... They even have Christian churches with meetings on Sunday, helluva deal. There are ATM's everywhere, and nobody gets too hot and bothered by a creased banknote now, very civilized for a country on its way to the tourist big-time. There is a Chinatown and a downtown, but I can't tell the difference. But this is still Old Asia, and you'll see things here that long ago disappeared elsewhere, things that only poverty can produce. Enjoy it while it lasts, next stop Bagan... Angkor What? Anchor this: The first thing you notice on the bus up from Yangon to Bagan is that the entire countryside seems empty. As Gertrude Stein put it so aptly when describing Oakland, CA: “There is no there there.” Now this may indeed be the new road, so avoiding the population centers directly, but still: in Thailand every available parcel of land would have a 'For Sale' sign before the road was even finished, and there would be new developments springing up as fast as the equipment could be trucked in from China... But when we finally do get off the main road and into some villages, then you see why. It's poor, dirt poor. If Communism stopped a clock for those countries that only began ticking again in 1991, then 'Burmese socialism' stopped a clock which is only now beginning to tick some quarter century after its Commie neighbors in SE Asia. Better late than never, I suppose. But you'll see things here that have long been rendered obsolete elsewhere in the world, like horse-drawn carts—for locals! At reasonable prices! And ox-carts, too, in the countryside. And taxis in general are reasonably priced, for that matter, no small miracle in a non-Uber part of the world. And those teak-wood storefronts that you occasionally see in small outback Thai towns are still de rigueure here, where almost all houses in small villages are still that stilted wooden variety... The town of Nyaung Oo serves as support base for the nearby ruins of Bagan, but there isn't much to it, truth be told, just a long strip of funky shops, banks, airline offices, hotels and tour guides that feel like they landed here from another planet, which they did, I suppose, after the government ran all the locals out of what is now called 'Old Bagan', the densest core of ancient temples and ceremonial structures... It's all pretty loosely organized and if you're serious about temple spelunking, you better hire a guide. Otherwise, you can wander around on bicycle or e-bike and just get a sense of the splendor of it all, which is what I did. It lacks the intricate detail of Angkor Wat in Kampuchea, but makes up for it in sheer size and scale of the 42 sq. mi. splay of antiquity. If you want the money shot of 'Balloons over Bagan', then you might need to ride in one yourself, but it likely won't be cheap... Aside from the field of dreams itself, Mt. Popa is another convenient and nearby excursion for pilgrimages to the mountain-top temple and its nat-filled haunts, full of local pilgrims and a few tourists, too. Now I don't know what you've heard about Myanmar/Burma's emergence onto the tourist scene, but I assure you, it ain't too late. No, it's not the cheapest place in SE Asia, but neither was Vietnam back in 1995 or Laos in Y2K. That takes time, and by then it'll be overrun and the locals will be jaded... Get it? This is the last domino to fall, and Old Asia will be just a pleasant memory, of coolies with canvas sacks on their backs, water buffalo plowing fields, crowded 'wet' markets piled high with produce and dry ones with clothing and crafts and antiques and such, women—and men—with balance beams across the small of their backs with two heaps of something or other in baskets carefully balanced so as not to kill the messenger... This is Burma. This is Asia. This is planet Earth. This is 2017. Everything changes, not some of the time, but all the time, and the things that are gone will not come back, except in memory. There's only one catch: without those memories, you're limited to your immediate field of sensory perception and nothing else, and that's poverty, my friend, poverty of the worst kind—unless you're Buddhist, and/or lost in meditation. Word to the wise: see Burma before it all changes and something classic is lost forever... Burma Up North: The Road to Mandalay... ...sounds romantic and all, but it isn't so much, really, just asphalt and gravel, like anywhere else. Fortunately there are other options, like the train, plane, or boat. I'd like to say that the boat ride to get here from Bagan makes it all worthwhile—but it doesn't, not really, though admittedly it is more comfortable than pot-holed roads and betel-chewing Burmese drivers... At any given moment the average Burmese working stiff is working a wad of chew that would make a Cincinnati Red pitcher green with envy. But don't startle him or he may accidentally unload a dollop of spittle your direction that just might ruin your day. At least they don't drive like the maniacs in Thailand. Burma is chilled by comparison—and the roads simply won't allow it... But the river trip really has nothing much to see, not until you get to Sagaing, and that's an easy day-trip from Mandalay, anyway. It's not like there are loads of cool river villages and towns to view along the way. There just aren't. So I'd say the river trip is optional—at best. Burma is not cheap, anyway, so save your money for something more worthwhile, like paying your entry fee to selected sites, like the archaeological zone at Bagan or the human zoo at Inle Lake—free sarcasm available upon request... But I don't think Mandalay deserves the bum rap that it sometimes gets. Sure, it's a big busy city, but I've seen worse. At least it's walk-able, something you'd have difficulty saying about Bangkok, Jakarta, or many other places in SE Asia, or the world, either, for that matter. And what it lacks in charm, it makes up in open space, including a massive palace complex and a commanding hill-as-pilgrimage-site like only Burma really knows how to do it—okay, so maybe China, too... What I don't like so much about Mandalay is that the quality of refreshing innocence available elsewhere seems to be singularly lacking here. And of course, that's most easily measurable amongst the taxi drivers. Whereas in Yangon the first price quoted is pretty accurate and honest, God bless them, in Mandalay that doesn't hold true, and in fact they can be as rape-atious as anywhere in the world. They beat me on the price from the boat landing to my hotel, so I was on guard after that... After the long walk to Mandalay Hill AND a long confusing walk up to the top, I somehow managed to come down a different path, despite my best efforts. So that kind of disorientation is always a good time to hail a taxi, so I proffered offers from the local moto-boys. The first one asked 30,000 kyat (about $25), at which I suggested he needed psychological help, and responded with an offer of 3000, which I figured to be about right, walking away to make my point... ...which is what you have to be willing to do, of course, if you want the right price. Anyway, I walked over, so I figured I could walk back, so that helps. Another bike-boy came up and did the trip for 2500. It also helps if you the name of landmarks in the local tongue, correctly pronounced and with the right tones. The main market is zeigyo, pronounced zay-joe not ziggy-o. Don't f*ck with me, m*otherf*cker... So yes, Mandalay is guilty of the same crimes as Paris and the same samsara pitfalls as Kathmandu, but it ain't all that bad, really. But no, Mandalay is not a place to fall in love with, more like a place to bide your time, a place for life to happen while you make other plans... Those plans could include excursions in any direction, though Shan state to the east is the big lure for me, with close relations to ethnic Tais in Thailand and Laos and China, too, the Far east of the state arguably more 'Thai' than Burmese, and an open question for me as to whether and how well I might be able to communicate, what with my knowledge of standard Thai, Laotian and northern Thai dialect... The Burmese and Thai language have little or nothing in common, unlike Khmer and Thai, unless you count the similarities between the Thai and Burmese words for two-wheeled conveyances, 'mo-to-cy' in Thai and 'mo-to-by' in Burmese, apparently deriving from a common Sanskrit root. Oh well, I guess it'll have to wait, unless my meditation retreat in Yangon falls through, something Burma has become known for, apparently, though not the inspiration for this trip. But that's where I'll go after a brief stop at Inle Lake, and that's worth more to me than all the travel in the world. Mindlessness or mindfulness? Tough choice, yeah, right... Inle Lake: It's a Wet Dream.... For the first time, I'm annoyed at Burma, probably even pissed, at having to pay an entrance fee to the tourist complex at Inle Lake, based in Nyaungshwe. I mean: preservation of an archaeological zone is costly, and expensive, too, but Inle has none of that, and Nyaunshwe is a bit shabby, if you don't mind me saying, a coat of dust covering the entire affair, tourists included. What are we paying for, anyway? But the main offense is the mere proliferation of tourist amenities, albeit without the aforementioned infrastructure. This is something that has been lacking—refreshingly—so far in Burma, and really the reason to justify the higher prices, like paying a premium bride price for a virgin. And the main marketing pitch seems to be toward millennial malingerers, looking for alcohol and a place to drink it... But my fears are largely misplaced, for now at least. This is hardly Vang Vieng in Laos of a few years ago, or Siem Reap, much less Khao Sarn Road, or, God forbid, the Full Moon party

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Hypertravel with Hardie #14: Nepal

NEPAL First some backstory: My first trip to Nepal—and KTM—was around 1994-5, when I made a brief trip here as a world handicrafts dealer, for only a few days, to shop for wool sweaters to complement my alpaca product line from south America, especially Bolivia, which was the staple of my business for at least about a decade from around 1987 to around 1997, until a totally different SE Asian woodcarving line largely took its place for me. So, I spent less than a week, in KTM only, seeing almost nothing, not even a mountain, until my plane left the city, staying in a neighborhood, that I couldn’t even find today, now knowing the city well, even if I wanted to, with only vague references to ancient roads that I could only navigate by dead reckoning, I having no map. I’m not even sure if Thamel was a tourist area then, but I know that I wasn’t there, Freak street, either, though I suppose that I at least got a glimpse of the classic 70’s-80’s era of that region, before they shut down the hashish shops. Oh, well, I enjoyed Latin America in those years, instead. Fast forward to 2016, and I don't care much about the 'sights' as such, anyway, especially since I'm here to attend a Buddhist monastery, but not much anyway, regardless. I'm pretty much from the 'Long March' school of backpacker tourism, which relies on random encounters for little thrills, like the little girl who takes my hand and walks with me a block or two, or the shoe-shine boy, complete with story, enough to double-up his pay, since he's gonna' take it upon himself to repair my classic leathers anyway. My days here are largely scheduled around the power outages. In Nepal, getting a good Wi-Fi signal is the least of your problems. Getting electricity is the real challenge, with power out typically half the day. What decade is this? What century? About the only thing predictable about the blackouts is that they won't occur during the night. Stock up on it when it's available...But you'll have plenty of power while you sleep, if the drunks downstairs out on the street will let you. This is Party Central, for Nepal, at least, Thamel is, even if mild by Bangkok standards. A band-for-hire plays an early Beatles hit: can you imagine somebody playing Al Jolson to us back in the 60's or 70's? Life is weird—and ever-changing. Durbar Square charges $10 for admission now, to all pale faces, but this can be 'hacked', just pick an entrance other than the broad way leading from Thamel Street and avoid the guy who wants to show you Kumaree the virgin princess. And wear a baseball cap like the stars do in Hollywood. And don't ask questions: worked for me twice. Harder still is avoiding Thamel while staying there. The noise and crowds get loud and old, think I'll stay at Freak Street next time, rooms for four bucks... ...The temps are nice this time of year, though a bit rainy, but not overbearing, and fairly predictable: the clouds roll in every mid-afternoon. I'm going vegetarian again for the first time in two years, no buff nor boeuf, and that's easy to do here, just like India, where every meal is a humongous pile of rice surrounded by minimal amounts of veggies. The farther from ground zero Thamel, the cheaper the price, as little as 35 c for a plate of chow mein. They have good coffee here and peanut butter at reasonable price. I'm good. Pokhara is Nepal's second city, and such a change from the first, that it's almost hard to believe they're in the same country. Where Kathmandu is noisy and chaotic, Pokhara (pronounced like a distinctly southern-drawled and gooey 'okra', y'all) is chilled and peaceful—almost TOO tranquil. I start to miss all the chaos and manic maniac drivers with foot on the gas and hand on the horn (I even had one flashing lights at me, so I stopped in the middle of the road to force him to do the same, just because I could)...Of course, I'm talking about Lakeside, where all the tourists and local groovers hang, and full of spa-like accoutrements, boutiques and yoga, trekking centers and restos, caffeine and alcohol. But there's another Pokhara, too, the original one, just up the road a piece, as high up as you can get in that particular valley, and filled with goldsmiths and silver, as opposed to the lakeside scene that tourism built. So, I had to go check it out, just to get some traffic to avoid, if nothing else. Lakeside only really comes alive at night, and much of that in second-level clubs and drinkeries, so not immediately accessible to pedestrians. But to call it a 'little Thamel' or 'second Thamel' is a bum rap, as the place is eminently walkable, as opposed to the bruised knees and psychological near-misses involved in just walking Thamel after dark. It's cleaner, too, with wide sidewalks flanking one broad thoroughfare, with a lesser muddy walkway along the lakefront itself... Prices are higher, though, for nearly everything except 'momos', the hearty Tibetan dumplings that are ubiquitous in the region. The real challenge is to find the bro' price on food, the Paknajol price (where you go in Thamel), where any meal with dal baht (soupy lentils and rice) will allow you extra to fill up on, like tortillas in Mexico, nobody goes hungry...And coffee goes for a price here that would make Mr. Starbucks himself blush, much too expensive, so I go for Red Bull rip-offs (which was a rip-off itself in a previous Thai life). But the power still goes out half the day, maybe even worse than the Kathmandu area, and I end up staying up half the night just to use Internet. In all fairness: WiFi is generally good, whether there's power or not (they have backup), so the power is the real problem—what a shame...So Nepal missed the Digital Nomad boat, just a few old hippies left from the old days who could care less about Internet connectivity. Pokhara seems fully given over to tourism, with sweet smiles and pleasant dispositions well-suited for it, everything but the electricity. So, I feel sorry for the taxis without passengers and the hotels without guests, whether victims of the earthquake or not. So, they're building buildings like no tomorrow, all with no power; only Commie countries ration power rather than raise the price...But it's not all sweetness and smiles. Nepalis will blow cigarette smoke in your face no joke, right inside the resto, and Europeans all too happy to follow suit. So I take long walks and befriend all dogs, writing on scraps for later transfer to computer on the midnight shift. I even finished my curry cookies on the uphill climb to Sarangkot, for lack of better options. I got halfway up before turning back, more put off by the prospect of a twisted ankle than a twisted psychopath. I mean: what if I meet someone on this lonely narrow path? Worse still: what if I don't (meet anyone)? Fear is the great conservative influence on behavior, the what-ifs of life come forward to haunt in advance of any display of unwarranted bravado...And the bus ride Kathmandu-Pokhara is beautiful, if problematic. A round-trip is not backtracking, not the first time, since it's an entirely different view, right? But the drive stretches out forever, one hour to leave KTM, and worse on the return. They stop for lunch TWICE for driver to fill his gut free while passengers mingle listlessly. And trucks pull over to sides of roads with no shoulders, so no shortage of anxiety there... But the real problem is that the last 12 mi/20 km on the return to KTM takes at least three hours, due to road work and traffic jams, so plan accordingly. And you'll FINALLY see mountains after three weeks, if you know where—and when—to look, same in Pokhara. In Kathmandu, you'll only get that at the airport. Now you know... Did I mention that Bhaktapur is the real deal: with cobblestones and muddy streets, jugglers and clowns, musicians and townspeople all gathered in daily celebration, in worship to all gods, deities and governmental authorities alike, where chaos rains supreme, especially in the reigny season, the chaos of fuzzy logic and faulty reason, post hoc ergo propter hoc, begging questions and begging for dollars from unsuspecting tourists??Or maybe that was just me. Year 2022 Fast forward again and I’m back in Nepal to spend the winter of 2021-22, in prime COVID time, with the Omicron variant ascendant. I spent the first month in India, mostly Bodh Gaya, then high-tailed it to Nepal to tough it out for the next 2-3 months. KTM is cold, though, and I’m a Buddhist by this time, so I’m drawn to Lumbini, the Buddha’s birthplace, on the border with India, where the temps are moderate, not like the capital uphill. But the fog persisted about a full month before finally lifting, so I got a lot of work done, writing and re-writing my historical novel abou the Buddhist pilgrim Fa Hien (Fa Xian). Finally, well into February, the temps started rising and the sunny room got toasty, complete with mosquitoes. Still, the temps in KTM (Kathmandu) were chilly but improving. And the lockdown was long gone, so a couple days ago I made the big leap, and took the longest taxi ride of my life (so far), a full nine hours over bumpy roads. I did that because people won’t wear masks on buses, so I don’t trust the Covid virus to exempt me from its cruel reach, even if I’m one of its kinder sympathizers, figuring it can probably teach us a thing or two. So, the taxi cost basically the same as a plane, all things considered, and I could stop along the way if I wanted. I didn’t. There is nothing spectacular along that road, and much of it I’d already seen coming from Pokhara previously, a fact that I wasn’t previously aware of, that I would be retracing some steps. What else? Lumbini is very close to the border with India, so it definitely feels more like that than Little Tibet. In fact, that is one of the prime features of Nepal, that it is something of a Kathmandu sandwich between a slice of Tibet and India. And the food reflects that influence, also, not surprising since Indians are probably the main tourists when times are normal. Nepalis can party with the best of them, also, New Years’ Eve one of the biggies, but weddings every so often. Even the nearby villages get in on the action. Basket-weaving is a local craft, also, and of high quality. But the Buddhist connection is the big deal here, so Hinduism is not as dominant as usual. And there are Islamic mosques, also, with even local saffron-robed Theravada monks here, too. Back in Kathmandu, there’s only one thing left to do, and that’s another small trip to the heart of Nepal, the Gurkha heartland, which is who the Nepalis, that Indo-Aryan group, really are, aside from the other immigrant Tibetans and the original Newars and other ancient tribal groups. But the purpose of this trip, this side-trip, from Kathmandu, was hardly of the ‘Lost Indo-Aryan Tribes’ theme. In fact, I doubt that anyone would even consider that a proper theme, since, in general, Indo-Aryan peoples, and the larger Indo-European group of which they are a part, tend to rule wherever they are found. This occurs so frequently to the point that others must take a backseat and wait in line, while those Indo-Aryans get first dibs on the land’s bounty, as cultivated by those same lower castes who must wait in line to eat. The purpose of this trip was to help rural poor disadvantaged children. But in fact, poor impoverished Indo-Aryans are at the core of Nepal’s existence, as best exemplified by the Gurkhas, famed for their expertise in battle, as evidenced by their status in the British armed forces, where they have their own battalions and are renowned for their fierceness and bravery. They are at the heart of Nepal’s existence, and yet they were never really more than peaceful village people—except in battle. The British found that out the hard way, more than 200 years ago. Their motto is “Better to die than be a coward.” Sound familiar? Yes, they’d be right at home in America, “Live free or die.” Any many, in fact, do live now in the UK, after a long hard struggle to gain the same rights as the native-born British soldiers that they have fought with over the years. Most recently they were noted for their ‘cultural affinities’ with the Afghan soldiers where they were stationed, and this goes straight to the point that I want to make. They’re related. And so are we, most Americans, and Europeans, that is. So, a lot of these random similarities are not so random at all, since we have a common history not so long ago, apparently, in the Yamnaya Horizon some 4-6000 years ago, AND (cue drum-roll)… This has been proven genetically for at least five-ten years now, that we all share a genome, specifically haplogroup R (y-DNA), R1a predominating in East Europe, parts of Central Asia, and north India, R1b in West Europe (and Armenia). If you don’t believe me, just ask David Reich at Harvard. So, my biggest surprise at meeting some of the poorest most disadvantaged kids in the Nepalese region of Sindhupalchok was that not only were they not pockets of remote tribal Tibetans or aboriginal Austronesians, but in fact they looked very similar to anyone on the streets of Kabul, Kathmandu—or Keokuk. And not only that, but these pure-blood Indo-Aryan Nepalis are shudra by caste, the lowest caste of menial laborers. How did that happen? In the Vedas the original Aryans in the Rg Veda were transformed into Brahmins in the later Atharvaveda, so why did these outback Aryans miss the boat and descend the ladder to the status as menial laborers and worse. Worse? Yes, it gets worse, at least in the case of Sindhupalchok. Because this is the region of Nepal famed for its women—trafficked. Apparently, these girls often end up in big cities of the region as prostitutes, though I’ve never seen a local girl on the streets of KTM (Kathmandu) with a foreigner, at least not in broad daylight. So, life can be hard in one of the world’s poorest countries, and it’s not always because of racial disadvantages. Often, it’s just because of circumstances, and the lack of access to the fruits of modernity, particularly education and job opportunities. So, girls still get sold so that her family can eat, and another light is extinguished in the wilderness of civilization. Is this simply one of the perks of city life? Maybe, but that need not be the case in the age of Internet. Light can shine on remote villages even where transportation is almost impossible. So, if you thought that this was something only found in Thailand and Cambodia, think again, because these are our kin. But besides the dark back story the main town of Melamchi is pleasant enough, even if the ride to get there from KTM is not for the faint of heart. The ravages of 2021’s flood here are still painfully evident, also. It’s only a few hours away, but the road is rough, though it’s better than it used to be, apparently. Soon the outback towns that are not suitable for trekking may at least become suitable for exploration by public transport, and for me that’s an interesting development indeed. Because I’m not particularly interested in trekking, at least not the organized kind, but I am interested in remote villages and the culture that sustains them. If you’re interested in helping them, let's talk. Finally, back in KTM, I enjoyed the spring weather and awaited my flight back to Europe, then Colombia, then Mexico. Yes, that was the cheapest route. 3

Buddha Talk: A Buddhist Theory of Knowledge...

Buddha Talk#0: Emptiness...

You can have infinity, i.e. endlessness, with no boundaries, but it’s empty. Or you can have things, but only a limited number of them. You can’t have both. Infinite stuff is a fool’s dream. But that’s exactly what many Christians believe, or buy into, I should say. Because it ties directly into the capitalism that accompanies so much Christianity, especially the Protestant sort, which by no accident came into existence at almost exactly the same time as capitalism, maybe even preceding it by a bit, thereby giving the lie to any idea of mutual causation, in fact maybe a direct cause. And many of those Christian values get carried into Buddhism by the same Christians who gave up their worldly ambitions in the process, at the same time that they cast piercing glances at the senior monks over the status of women in the ranks of the ordained. The meaning of the hallowed Buddhist concept of ‘Emptiness’, i.e. ‘shunyata’, is also up for grabs. Because, while shunya is the Sanskrit word for ‘zero’ and dates from right around the same time as the invention of the zero (yes), and may very well have originally been a philosophical concept long before becoming a mathematical one, that doesn’t stop certain westerners from frowning upon the concept. Because ‘Emptiness’ has a very negative, and strong, Western psychological connotation as the cause of depression and unhappiness, this in a culture that rewards engagement above all else. I see it every day as a digital creator on social media, with no seeming recognition that such engagement is exactly what drives many people away from such media. Apparently driving sales is more important. So, I let many comments go unanswered, not because I agree or disagree with the viewpoint expressed, but simply because that uncertainty is fine, and often not worth fanning the flames of dispute, since the only certainty is negation. Then there’s spiritual bypassing, but that’s for another day. Be kind.

Buddha Talk: the Karma of Intent...

If Buddhism is an open doctrine, it needs to be updated frequently. If it’s a closed doctrine, then it loses relevance over time. All of which is to say that the Buddha was a real person, with real thoughts and feelings, not just some otherworldly manifestation emanating from above in some transcendental livestream, as some of the Mahayanists might prefer it, they with bills to pay and demons to slay and Taoists just nipping at their heels waiting for the price of real estate to stabilize. But dharma practice doesn’t have to be hard and cold. It can be soft and warm and still non-clinging. People think of something often referred to as ‘the law’ as something written in stone and cruel in its intentions. But that is not the case with Buddhism. Buddhism is a philosophy, and one that is measured by its results, not just its intentions. And those results are palpable, from the ‘calm abiding’ produced by meditation to the long-term mindfulness produced by ongoing practice. If you’re in it for the bliss, then good luck with that, because it’s a bit uncertain and a bit difficult to measure subjectively or objectively. Personally, I prefer the increased certainty of lesser expectations that accompany devotion to the Middle Path that defines Buddhism. Because that is not a cheap shortcut designed to increase the coffers while padding the rolls. No, that is intrinsic to that which is Buddhism and which is honest to a fault. To avoid extremes is to avoid mistakes. The only certainty is negation, but that is not always a viable approach to a situation that needs action, karma, honest effort.

Buddha Talk: the Sounds of Silence...

Sometimes silence is the best way to celebrate. Not that celebration is necessary, ever, for any reason, but if it is desired, for some reason, then silence is not a bad way to go about it. Because our lives in this world have advanced beyond the simple survival of the individual and by extension the species, to the point where we are at the point of destroying everything we’ve accomplished by the fact that we have over-produced and over-reproduced. Our individual lives are no longer in imminent danger. But the lives of the species are in terrible danger. And the well-being of the individual is similarly impacted, if no longer in immediate danger of destruction. Still, we have been very successful over the course of our existence, and if that calls for celebration, then let it be silent. Because silence is Buddhism’s secret weapon, best seen in the practice of meditation. And if we need to celebrate in order to propagate, then let it be here, in silence, not in the screaming of flesh. The path is not always straight or easy. It often seems to go in circles. Patience is the key that unlocks the door to freedom. But this is not an absolute freedom in the Western sense, the freedom to do this and that. That’s a boy’s dream. Girls have responsibilities to fate and the future. That requires discipline and diligence, karma in the truest sense of actions and reactions. That requires little or no flash or flare, just dedication to the cause of righteousness–truth, beauty, and goodness. That is the Middle Path.

El Viejo Viajero in Angeles City, PH...

Hi, y’all, welcome to the 4th episode of the ‘Viejo Viajero’ segment of my Hardie Karges YouTube channel, in which we’re visiting some local places in the Philippines. Today we’ll go to Angeles City. If Baguio is the city that America once built, then Angeles City is the city that Amerika built twice. Because this city is also known as Clark, from the previous Air Force base, as much as it is Angeles, from the previous Spanish. No, this ain’t LA, but I have heard it pronounced that way, the Spanish way, i.e. AN-hay-lays. So, the two are something of a twin city, the Clark Freeport Zone, and the city proper. And even then, that ‘city proper’ is a smattering and scattering of a healthy handful of independent towns and even more barangays thinly glued into a single metropolitan area, all independent of Clark. Or are they? Even though Angeles was once the nation’s capital, in 1899, the first year post-Spanish, I’d assume that was heavily influenced by the nearby military presence. And, if you take the bus from Baguio, you’ll get off the bus at the ‘old terminal’ at Dau, a barangay in Malabacat, which is closer to the famed Fields Avenue than Angeles itself. Yes, that’s the famous Fields Avenue, technically part of the Balibago Barangay, that stands for entertainment here in the Phils in the same way that Las Vegas stands for it in the good ‘ol USA. Or should I say “lies down for it?” because it’s no secret that this is Ground Zero for prostitution here in the same way that Pattaya does the dirty deed for Thailand. Almost everybody is in on the action. Still, that does make for some interesting bedfellows, pun intended, so, that means that Korea has carved out a little piece of the pie for itself here, and I suspect Japan the same, even if less obvious. The Chinese are ubiquitous all over Asia, of course, but they deserve their own consideration, given their historical prominence and dominance, not to mention their massive population. That means that their presence in the business community is larger than their actual population numbers would indicate, and that includes the modern-day scam centers which they specialize in these days and which they have exported to almost every country in SE Asia. They’re summarily executed for those activities in the mother country, but only deported here, and Myanmar, and Cambodia, and... you know. But for the average westerner, particularly American, Angeles—and Clark Airport—are a convenient alternative to Manila’s Aquino Airport, if your final destination is north of the Big City. Because Manila Airport is shambolic, where Angeles’ Clark Airport is more like Shangrila. That means that Manila’s airport is spread out over three disconnected smaller airports, while Clark is all to be found in only one. But, I know what you’re thinking; and the prices are the same. Cebu Pacific flies here for the same prices that they fly to Manila, and that includes international as well as domestic flight, to the best of my knowledge. So, if you’re coming down from Baguio, you can disembark at the airport and save any futher taxi fare, which would be about the same from any point in Angeles Metro area and only a few hours difference. Most of the worst traffic is in the Manila area, of course, with its 10M+ population, compared to Angeles’s cool half mil. Or you can take the bus all the way to Dau barangay from Baguio, for easiest access to the Fields Street entertainment district, also now known as ‘Red Street’; I wonder why, haha. If it’s any consolation, the Fields Street district is much calmer than Thailand’s Pattaya or almost any serious red-light district in Thailand. This ain’t Soi Cowboy or Nana, either, maybe more like Chiang Mai, with a mix of food and flesh on offer. But I prefer vegetarian. With Epstein in the news, the age of some of these girls is up to serious question. The claim could be made, of course, that the Philippines is trying to escape poverty the same way that Thailand once escaped poverty. And if that means blurring the lines of morality, then so be it. But I’m not sure about that. There are other ways to get kids off the street and into nice homes, and I don’t think prostitution is the way to do it. I prefer education, birth control and family planning. So, I spend more time walking to Koreatown and Clark Air Force Cemetery than lurking around Fields Street. They have some good malls, too, if that’s your thing, almost as Filipino as jeepneys now. They’ll keep you cool. But the real chill deal is to use Clark Airport as the jumping-off point to head north into the hills at Banaue and Sagada, where traditional culture lives on, or even Vigan, where colonial culture is king. It’s pretty nice, too, I’ll have to say. The guidebook disses and dismisses the town of Banaue itself as short on “ooh…aah” moments, but for my money I’d probably prefer it over Sagada. For one thing, it’s not so bad. For another, Sagada’s not so great. The rusty tin roofs that invite such scorn are present in both. Sagada I guess is groovier—with its reggae bars and yoghurt parlors and such—but that’s not why I’m here. Sagada also is a little pricier. Of course there’s no yogurt there in Banaue and the coffee sucks, too, so it’s a trade-off. Only the hotels gouge. How do you spell “authentic?” More importantly, though, the people in Banaue seem friendlier, downright effusive I’d say, though the people in Sagada are hardly sullen or surly. Sometimes these things are just cultural inheritances, Ingorot vs. Ifugao in this case I believe. The landscape is the big attraction after the caves, and it is nice. There are karst rock formations in addition to the wet rice paddies that are surrealistically beautiful, whether terraced or not, especially in sunlight. So the hippies and backpackers once again find a diamond in the rough and then put the word out that there’s a cool new place, and next thing you know, the leisure tourists are “discovering” it, after the backpackers have helped hone some of the rough edges and shown the locals what we white folk like. I’ve seen it over and over again. Quite a bit of the old Spanish architecture is still there in Vigan, but there’s more than that, because the old colonial culture is somehow embedded into the collective consciousness, too. They even have empanadas, albeit something of their own style. Other than that the cuisine follows themes present elsewhere in the Philippines. Maybe this is where there remain some Spanish speakers left over from the old days. Except for the “pero…pero…pero (but…but)” that punctuate modern spoken Pilipino/Tagalog, you might not know just how full of Spanish the language actually is. But like mitochondrial DNA, it’s there, floating without a nucleus down through history through the female lineage. That’s a metaphor. Spanish mostly occupies that middle level of the language that is not necessarily essential, but highly useful, the artifacts of culture, especially cuisine, but also including names dates and the hours of the day. It’s immediately obvious in the written language, albeit with some spelling changes. With cuisine, though, the original spellings tend to remain intact, more or less. So I had arrozcaldo for supper last night, good as any rice soup I’ve had anywhere in Asia or my own kitchen, and pandesal is a staple for continental-style breakfasts. Adobo is the national dish, but I’m not sure who copied whom. But that has nothing to do with the presyo dyaryo of rice. Everyone has Spanish surnamesm, though, with the possible exception of the Chinese. I guess you could get some interesting combinations there, maybe Wong-Garcia, or even Fong-Torres ... use your imagination. At one time Spanish must’ve played a role similar to that of English in the present. In fact I suspect even within my lifetime you could once have honestly said that “everyone in the Philippines knows Spanish.” But you can’t say that any more. I’ve heard tell of a group of speakers hanging on precariously somewhere in the archipelago, but I’m not sure if that’s current info. Will English eventually suffer the same fate? It probably depends on the evolution of their own national language. The more it develops as an educational medium, the less the need for English. Is edukasyon the solusyon, or would it kill the Philippines greatest asset? The Chinese are equally present in the Filipino cuisine, with such staples as sio pao and sio mai on every corner, and chau fan and lumpia in almost every restaurant. In general, though, the native culinary approach doesn’t differ much from that of up-country Thai, if not Thai restaurants abroad, meat and veggies in creative combinations over rice. They’ve even got sticky rice in very similar forms to that of the Thai. Too bad they don’t have brown rice in the restaurants. They have it in stores. Noodles play less of a role, though, as alternatives to rice. Here they always eat rice with noodles. Then there’s quail eggs, fried pork skins, coconut-based concoctions, even fried chicken skins! It all seems so familiar… everything but the temples. So, is Angeles worth it? If you have time to go to the hills, then it certainly is. Locally Koreatown isn’t much, and Clark is just a dead museum, but the tribal people are always worth checking on. Other than that, it’s mostly just an airport, with benefits.

#13 Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Chennai, Bengaluru SRI LANKA: Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians, Oh My! (and Tamils, too; they're Hindu) Maybe the nicest part of the Indian sub-continent is not India at all, but that southern neighbor composed of erstwhile immigrants, coming from both north and south, back in times erst, looking for liebensraum or maybe just a living room, or a kitchen, looking for turf or maybe just booty, and instead found bounty, like the latter-day Portuguese or maybe their nemeses doubly Dutch, twice removed, once by the Portuguese and then by the Brits, on one of their infamous booty-calls that turned out historic... A stepping stone placed by Ganesha, it is said, perched cock-eyed cattywampus off India's southern coast, like Taiwan to India's China, an afterthought to continents, and just a stone's throw across the old strait and narrow, lies the nation, Sri Lanka, by some accident of history and fate, geological and psychological, the migrations of peoples part of what it means to be human, part of what it means to be mortal part of what it means to be a creature of the dust on Planeta Tierra... They all came from India, both north and south, but I don't know but what I like it better than the mother country itself, a version of India that finally gets it right kinda sorta maybe more or less on a good day, without all the clutter and the cowsh*t, without all the badgering and the bullsh*t, a country with radio, sidewalks, grocery stores, ATM's that work, and power that doesn't go out, people eating with utensils (usually), and you can even drink the (tap) water, just like any civilized country in the world, and maybe more so than most... Southeast Asia starts here: a Buddhist country, where people smile for no special reason, are friendly for no special cause, a certain passivity nice for a change, passivity without the passion, passivity without even the prostitution, not much anyway, hell of a concept I figure: passivity as a way of life, the cradle of Buddhism, old-school Theravada, from which it spread to all of Southeast Asia—food religion script and canonical language conquering hearts where warriors rarely succeeded in claiming turf... Colombo is bigger, massive and sprawling, but Kandy is sweeter, perched up on one of the middle rungs of the highlands, centered around a lake of its own design, the better for good views, the better for the good news, that the civil war is long over, and the country is ripe for tourism, but the war never really ends here, between immigrant locals and southern Indian interlopers, bad for bizniz bad for bucks bad for banks... And then there's the accoms: I don't usually fall in love with my room, more likely to take a cheap dig at my cheap digs, but this one's the exception, ten dollars here worth a thousand to me elsewhere, for no other reason than esthetics, straight out of a Van Gogh painting, just waiting for a signature, straight out of the 1850's and the Dutch incursions, straight out of a woodworker's daydream, hardwood polished by decades and jackboots, walls of ship-lap clinker-built and whitewashed, anterooms from broad suites partitioned off for modern-day backpackers and flashpackers, characters wanted and welcomed at the Olde Empire... European women firmly but gently fellate slim-line Gauloises Blondes cigs on the upstairs balcony with pooched-out lips—no tongues—careful not to smear lipstick and hardly even a hand-job lest a rogue nicotine stain find its way on to pearly white digits (what are long fingernails for, anyway?), while their men chew on Marlboros and pose for tourist photos in cowboy boots and Stetson hats and bad-guy bad-ass looks straight out of Universal City halfway to north Hollywood on the metro red line, hundred-dollar ticket good for a year... Net-workers shoot up in the WiFi'd resto-bar down below, playing at FaceBook and drinking overpriced coffee, while men in skirts akin to kilts lungyis and sarongs do the bidding for not-so-rich foreign tourists in this enclave of accommodation, lost in space and time and the vicissitudes of trade-winds, old-fashioned backpackers with more books than bookings, maintaining the old ways, walk-in only, lost in this day and age of online everything and digital download dance moves just fill in the blanks and go... The old ways are dying but not here in Sri Lanka, even the English language is from another era likely Victorian where hotels are restaurants and hostels are dormitories and egg rolls even have egg, where gods reside in ancient ruins at Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura and Sigiriya, beckoning tourists in waves and droves, with cameras and sport-cams, waiting for the time to be right to make their return on to the main stage, saving up money from over-priced entry fees the ultimate revenge on latter-day cash-cows wearing Bermuda shorts and push-up brassieres, Russians and Chinese and other commies first in line... SRI LANKA, part 2: In Search of a City in Search of a Beach Sunday finally comes and I haven't been to church since February 2012, in Majuro FSM, back when I figured I might be dying pick a cancer any cancer must've worked 'cause I certainly don't feel like I'm dying now never felt more alive in fact, death now on back burner status indefinite hiatus waiting for a call-back and options on future rights plus a more prominent role in the sequel, agents negotiating furiously... So I figure now's a good time, put on my best Muslim shirt—white muslin—and go look for a Christian church, Baptist is too small don't wanna' be noticed, Methodist too hot there on the sunny side of the street, so today I'm Catholic with high arches and cool temps and the canonical language mostly in English, God knowing I'm glad to be Buddhist so that I can do whatever I want as long as it hurts nobody and even quaff a brew or mount racy steed if I have a thirst and a need and fertile soil begging seed, no matter what any guy with a book or a beard has to say about it... The pubs in Kandy are for locals, sounds like a missed opportunity to me, or maybe zoning strictures, putting all the pubs on the warehouse side of town shorter walk for the stevedores I suppose, but hardly known to the tourists, buck a brew and men lining walls in various stages of consciousness or lack thereof, sometimes you just want a drink, but try to tell that to the hash dealers up by the lake getting the tourists 'what they want' as if anybody really knows what tourists want I certainly don't... Cherry blossoms are fine, but the big draw for most tourists is the Beach, and lakes won't do for that, so you have to go southbound to Galle or thereabouts, Hikkaduwa or something such, purpose-built for foreign tastes and tours, I suppose, don't really know haven't been there, where beaches are for bikinis and cocktails not Muslim mocktails or Hindu coattails and the water is pure and pristine enough to swim in... I wouldn't recommend that in Colombo north or south, Negombo or Mt. Lavinia, the beaches too close to the city to trust the water, last time I did that had to get an expensive shot and take antibiotics for a week to keep my genitals from rotting and falling off, still a beach is a beach if you just want the sand and the scenery... There's Negombo with its cheap 50's motels and the smell of rotting fruit and drying fish, or Mt. Lavinia with its murky B&B's and the smell of musty old wealth, and strangest thing of all: a railroad runs through it, so every time you try to get romantic a train whistle blows, could be new grist for the Pavlovian mill, but no matter, I don't need to get all romantic I always get lucky alone... Colombo itself is a case unto itself, monster with tentacles spreading, cut from the same Madras cloth as Kolkata, washed and left to dry under hot blazing relentless Indian sun, people breeding like mice going forth and multiplying, the ghosts of previous foreign masters left to ponder the results of their handiwork, the English and their business instincts the Dutch and their government the Portuguese and their bastard offspring, all gathered together under the flag of Christianity, the cross and the sword, the book and the word... And then there's Puttalam, Jaffna, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, and Matara, on the coast; Matale, Kegalla, Ratnapura, Badulla, and Kurunegalla in the interior; names on the map, people of the four corners all awaiting further exploration: Buddhists, Christians, Muslim, Hindus, and others all sharing the same space, 20 million in all, elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder... Sure it's congested, and the drivers are maniacs, but cool heads and cool hearts tend to prevail. A country inoculated with Buddhism will ultimately be vaccinated by Buddhism, regardless of who's on the morning loudspeaker. It's the people who make the place, mate, feels like home to me, so C U there. #Male' #Maldives: Caffeine in the Clubs, Muslims on the Beach The Maldives are a string of pearls posing as islands floating gracefully over the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, 1192 nuggets—1000 of them unpopulated—not simply strewn higgeldy-piggledy atoll, but arranged in a double helix and organized into garlands and necklaces and defined by water level as footprints over the ocean surface, any higher the water and they cease to exist as a landmass, demoted like Pluto by science, thereafter to live their life as a mere underwater ridge threatening ships and subs, number three on the international extinction list in fact highest point not much higher than an NBA starting center... The Maldives must sound like a dream to anyone in Central Asia: Muslims—or me—high up on the hills in the 'stans or the Kush on the steppes in the bush—cold barren steps to righteousness rewards guaranteed only in Heaven and I'd hedge my bets on that if I were you, where virgins must be bound and chained to maintain ritual purity and you need sheesha, shawarma and shish-kebabs to stay warm, curries lacking punch and pungency for lack of spices, so might as well forget them altogether, get your bellyful of gusto from a goat slowly roasting over charcoal and incense... The Maldives must have been the Islamic paradigm for paradise, pristine waters warm and wonderful, perfectly azure going to like them, gently throbbing surf and all the fish you can eat, French fries and hush-puppies optional, palms gently swaying coconuts bananas and mango for the picking, and a handsome gentle populace, smiles free and willing and a warm island welcome for the tired weary traveler, like Ibn Battutah, the Muslim Marco Polo, way back in the 1300's, he and his four local wives, not counting slaves, blogging it for the future and trying to civilize the natives, trying to get the women to wear clothes... That's no problem today boohoo many wearing full burqa head to toe, others toeing the line of holy writ with fashion scarves and pseudo-veils still others naked-faced and unafraid sucking face in parks with boyfriends just like back home, but some even wearing full burqa in the surf as custom permits if hubby requires it rules and regulations getting tougher all the time... No one would take a second glance but me and any lifeguard forced to rescue such dead textile weight from the surf, I wonder if they even remove the burqa to copulate and populate, got an eye slit up top should have a pink slit down under for those intimate moments when nothing else will do, most men in the world having never seen their wives naked in the first place, could easily fake it with silicone and lipstick who'd know the difference anyway... But the modern nation is a beachy sun-bleachy 'Muslim Lite' to be sure, for the most part, thinly veiled women allowed to ride motorbikes and move freely on road and beach, while thinly veiled Rasta-men, cigs dangling from tender lips sip caffeinated drinks in the pubs and clubs, Red Bull instead of Red Hook, the better to stay awake during prayers, yeah right, uh huh, fortunately the Rastas have other sacraments, too, I bet, the better to transmit the DNA of island culture from Caribbean to South Pacific all the way to here, God's little GMO people half-African half-Indian half-Arabian... Still though she may sell seashells in the Seychelles, he is more likely to be selling them here, managing the women by managing the money, too bad, hawking the same cheap 50's curio crap that used to be sold in a million souvenir shops, as they're still called here, from Daytona to Durban to Copacabana to Capetown to here, a guaranteed catch for lackadaisical beachcombers with fewer hairs to comb even than beaches, more tall tales to tell than true travels... Most tourists go to the fancy resorts, of course, couple hundred bucks a night and up, sipping the pricey drinks that are forbidden to locals, prices so high already no one knows the difference, but I don't do any of that, I content to be a vulcha in search of kulcha, settling for rice and noodles greased up in the same island way that passes for local in the Caribbean and Pacific, the better to weigh you down in the hot sun and steamy skies, tuna this tuna that fresh from the boat nothing Star-Kist on these starry starry nights, sorry Charlie, we want tuna that tastes good... You can circumnavigate the entire main island in an hour or so, walking at a moderate pace with time for sight-seeing, the pint-sized capital of Male' is that small, dodging motorbike maniacs, cafes and boutiques lining streets called 'magu' with a distinct nasal accent in my mind's ear, enterprises ranging from distinct downscale but trending up... One hour of walking and you're drenched must shower and start all over again, temps almost constant all day all year no more than 5c/10f variation from low to high, but the night is a different world come alive with heavy metal playing in the park, halogen and benzene, motorbikes backed out into the street like Ramadan at midnight waiting to fill and before the sun comes up... It almost reminds me of Montego or Bali planes surfing in low onto airstrip promontories, here the airstrip bigger than the big city itself and rickety ferries take you to fragile landmasses still it's all good fun and unique if not always cheap but that's all relative, isn't it? If we can't be family, then at least we can be friends, that's the island way, mon, but it's truly strange to think that some day not long from now this could all be gone, submerged, covered with water and left for future archeologists to pick up the pieces, try to make sense of it all... 2024 Fast forward a decade and I’m back in the region, but not as a tourist, or even a traveler or adventurer. I’m here as a writer, looking to get my book published in India, since it’s partially about India, as well as China and environs. It’s called ‘My Travels with Fa Hien (Fa Xian),’ and it’s for sale you-know-where. So when an Indian friend suggested that I do it there, I went for it. That meant meeting the publisher in Chennai, and then meeting my friend’s brother in Bangalore (Bangaluru), to do some map illustrations for the book. Thus began and ended my so-far only foray into the far southeast of India, so close to Sri Lanka, hence the reason for its inclusion here, as a possible trip comprising both regions. And it was a revelation, too, if only for the glimpse of India’s ‘Silicon Valley’ tech district, which is what Bangalore represents. So, if India once represented a dichotomy between the spirituality of its northern realms and the simultaneous slumminess of the same areas, then now I can add to it the lighter brighter tech feel of the far south. But Chennai is the more traditional of the two, formerly known as Madras and once famous for a certain style of plaid cloth which mad the name famous back in the nineteen sixties, right before paisley and bell bottoms gave it the old heave-ho. So, I played up that theme by staying in the venerable Broadlands guest house and dive in Trincomale before moving on to the central railway station a couple nights later. This is after I had to fight with my airport taxi at midnight because they wanted to drop me far from my guesthouse rather than navigate some narrow alleys due to road work, as if I could walk to my destination where I’d never been before—at midnight. Welcome to India. I refused to get out of the car. The area is not bad, though, and walkable to the beach, I think, if you’re so inclined. The train station is more central, though, so I tentatively made my deal with my publisher, and then moved on. But Bangalore is the brighter later envisaged by the tech industry and something of a true revelation for a country known for its Vedic roots up north and its Goa-inspired chill scene along the west coast. I stayed at Jayanagar to start, and then moved to Indiranagar for the long wait, of which both were quite nice, if Jayanagar the more techie and Indiranagar the more central. If nothing else, it’s nice to finally be somewhere in India where the WiFi always works and the temps are a tad bit cooler than the hot sweaty coast. Check it out. A flight from Chennai to Sri Lanka is only a little more than $100usd.

El Viejo Viajero Goes to Baguio City, Philippines

Baguio is the only bump in a long ride up the coast from Manila to the far reaches of north Luzon Island. I’m sure there’s a route that hugs the coast the entire way, but I wanted to stop at Baguio first, before continuing on. Manila is only 150mi/250km away from Baguio, but after a seven-hour bus ride, seems much farther. That’s because the going is so slow through town after congested town full of motorbikes and three-wheelers putt-putting around and clogging up the main road, that it’s almost impossible to travel more than 40m/60k per hour. Factor in rest stops and it’s a slow go. It’s worth it, though. I was skeptical up until the last hour that Baguio was truly a “mountain” town, but sure enough, we finally start climbing, and the scenery immediately becomes more interesting and the roadsides full of wood-carvings and furniture made from the local forests. This region is called the “Cordillera (mountain range),” sure, but without any real connection to the Spanish language other than through the past, terms are subject to change over time. It’s been noted over and again that language proceeds exactly like biological evolution, for some strange reason, some innate law that has yet to be firmly and finally articulated. Baguio’s cool, and I don’t just mean the weather, though that’s significant at this altitude of some 1400 meters, around 4500 feet. It’s a nice place also, a true garden city in every sense of the term, complete with “orchidarium,” a term I was heretofore unfamiliar with. The markets are replete with broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, beans, and all kinds of greens, a fact reflected in the local cuisine, too, with quite a few more vegetarian options than seemed readily available in Manila, or even Vigan, ironically. Baguio is the “summer capital” of the Philippines, where all the wealthy lowlanders come when the sweltering and sweat become too much to bear. It’s the kind of place that I like, too, as a traveler, a mid-size city, something like Montego Bay to Jamaica’s Kingston, big enough to allow for plenty of diversity, without being so big that it’s overwhelming and crime-ridden. Sure, there’s some petty crime, but here it’s mostly good clean fun, bars with more guitars than girls, song-and-dance shows instead of dog-and-pony shows. Long walks are the order of the day, and the scenery is nothing short of splendid. All in all, it’s pretty darn delightful. By some quirk of fate, I seem to be staying in one of the town’s leading hotels, its ads plastered all over the roadside on the way up. In fact, it’s about the only place I could book online through my normal sites, same as Vigan. This is not a situation I normally find myself in. That says something important about the reasonable prices in Philippines, and also about my desire for Wi-Fi, whenever and wherever possible. Of course, the room sucks. I can’t stay in a room without a window. Why do they do this to me, unless they want to see claw marks in plaster? That little patch of blue is my wormhole to another dimension! Okay, I guess translucent glass bricks are better than nothing, but not much. I’ve already booked a different place for the return from Vigan. And room discounting is heavy here as well as Manila, special rates by the hour, by the half day, after midnight, walk-in only, locals only, you name it. I’ve never seen anything like it. Those reasonable prices can be downright dirt cheap when you walk in unannounced. If the best hotel in town is only $40-50 to begin with, then maybe it’s as little as half that without a res. The amazing thing is that I seem to be almost the only tourist wherever I go, only Western tourist at least. Thailand—with nothing more than this on offer—has Westerners they can’t get rid of! There they’re already in the blood lines like an infection that’ll just have to run its course. So on my return to Baguio I’ve booked a room for less than thirty bucks US, with similar amenities. It can’t be any worse than the first place. I stayed there two nights, and on the second night they called at 10 p.m. and asked if I needed my room made up, 10 p.m., mind you. The predominant local folk art here, as elsewhere in the Philippines, are the colorful jeepneys—local transport—adorned and styled to taste. Smaller cities such as Vigan may be the exception, with their smaller three-wheelers similarly adorned and dominating local transport need … or that may just be Vigan. Other towns along the road tend to limit their creativity to color selection, to which they all conform within each town, so that scattered along the way there are green towns, yellow towns, pink towns, and so forth. You don’t see that every day! The kids loved it. But my big project for the return to Baguio is to continue my investigation into the culinary genome of chop suey. It’s a familiar dish in the US’s old-timey Chinese restaurants that date from the railroad era—but not the new ones—and there are various similar names and versions that I’ve seen and tried in such varied places as Chile and Indonesia. Now here it is in the Philippines, spelled the same way as the US version. Now the Philippines get most of their Chinese references straight from the source, not from the US. They don’t eat spring rolls; they eat lumpia. They don’t eat “Chinese hamburgers;” they eat sio pao. So this could be the definitive test. After hearing on TV yesterday that some Jewish guy in San Francisco invented egg fu yung, this exercise takes on renewed importance, especially since I know there’s a dish in Indonesia called fu yung hai, served on all the same menus that include cap cai. Sundays are not to be believed here, not that everyone is in church, mind you, quite the opposite. No, they’re everywhere, filling the streets and filling the parks, making the smallest stroll difficult, if you’re in a hurry. It seems everybody’s got a babe in arms, if not a couple in tow, if not a little tribe of pot-bellied poopers spread out following in wing formation like ducks on a pond. This seems like nothing so much as a nation of teenagers, learning their multiplication tables in bed at night under cover of darkness. Baguio is the city we built, we Americans, that is. So I’m staying right across from Burnham Park, which includes a lake with paddle boats and kiddie playgrounds, the whole amusement park feel. It’s been a long time since Clark Air Force base closed, of course, and longer still since the colonial days. But the American influence lives on here. I guess that’s why it took me so long to come. It was always too closely associated with America in my mind, so not exotic. Too bad that influence never crossed over to the supermarkets, which look like a Chinese Ma and Pa store got bigger without getting any better. They’re pretty shabby, and no brown rice either. That’s too bad. Otherwise, Filipino food is pretty good, and the breakfasts are the stuff of Filipino lumberjack legend. I don’t even want to know what’s in the mystery meat. My hotel left a newspaper outside my door this morning. Don’t they know I’m a backpacker? I’m not used to treatment like this. Abuse me! Insult me! Question my native intelligence or I might develop an ego complex! Or worse even still, I might lose street cred with you, my faithful readers. I don’t want that. I need you. So, when the day dawns cloudy and gray, I decide to stay another day. But I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t need any surgery, or any dental work, or computer repairs, so I get some passport photos made. They’ll come in handy. Then I go to the big new mall up the hill. They still have mall rats here! Does anyone still go to the malls in the US? It’s certainly not the paradigm that it used to be. Internet is. The rainy day depresses me, and the windowless cubicle doesn’t help. Fortunately the Net’s up at least half the time, like flickering consciousness, so that has to suffice as my little patch of blue on a day like today. Hopefully the sun will be out tomorrow, so I can get out and see some landscape. That’s my porn, and my Bible, and most everything in-between. 2026 Update This was all written thirteen years ago, and it’s interesting to see what’s changed. Answer: not much. Bottom line: there really isn’t all that much to do in Baguio City, though it’s certainly nice enough, especially its mile high perch over the lowlands. They’re fighting for their lives to keep the developers at bay, and their market free and funky, but their efforts may or may not bear fruit. So I occupy my time with brisk walks through confusing maps, with little hope of finding a pattern in it all. I did stay on the opposite side of town this time, near the bus station, so that’s totally different. For one thing, it’s far from the main business district. That makes it cheaper and in many ways better, even if more distant. Enjoy.