One Hell of a Hail Mary Thru SE Asia
Cyrus and company in Bangkok
Seoul, South Korea
I always dreamt about living my life carefree, footloose, drifting with the wind, and letting the gods of whimsy dictate my course, spontaneously riffing poetic moments together. That time finally came for me. Albeit, a little later than I had hoped. But it did come. So, that's something to take partial ownership of. It came after my life fell apart. My unemployment ran out, this after my two and 1/2 year union carpentry apprenticeship with the Pacific Northwest Council of Carpenters came to a grinding halt because of the economic recession around 2007. My girl of four long years also broke up with me and began dating my sworn enemy. Nice, huh? Anyway, all this to say that I landed in Asia around my 32nd birthday beginning a new sojourn as an expat English teacher and itinerant traveler; a sojourn that would lead me to many exotic locations over the course of the next decade.
The Suspects
It was a last minute decision, which is the way I usually conduct my affairs. Somehow I've made procrastination into a lifestyle. It's not the best means of getting things done, but somehow I've always made it work for me. I guess I need that pressure to perform or act with urgency and purpose. Not sure what that says about me, and not sure that I really care. Anyway, the last minute decision was a trip through Southeast Asia with a friend of mine, also teaching in Korea, Thiago "the one minute man Brazilian George Castanza" Nunez and my brother from back stateside in Portland, Oregon who decided to fly out and meet us. It was a vacation that I had romantically daydreamed about for many years prior; now finally here. And so it began, a crazy wacky and wild hail Mary through Southeast Asia.
The Itinerary
The itinerary that we set was a grueling one. Looking back, we bit off a little more than we could chew, but everyone agreed that they wanted to cover a lot of ground and not be stationary at a beach cabana sipping fruit cocktails and attending nightclubs blaring Top 40 music. Instead we set a course that would take us to four SE Asian countries over the course of 3 weeks: Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and finally to Malaysia. Ambitious, huh? It was. It was also an exercise in dealing on the fly with complicated schedule rubrics and timetables, crooked Bangkok tuk-tuk drivers, barely legitimate bus rides across borders, the banal every-man tourist traps, smog choked metropolitan streets, inept travel agents, belligerent hostel concierges, sideways taxi drivers, unsavory salesmen, pickpockets, general tourist douchery, etc. We came home ready for a relaxing vacation. I'm being facetious, but barely.
Seoul to Saigon
Leaving Seoul, South Korea we boarded our flight for a nowhere China layover on our way to our starting destination of the historically shady, creepily Asian eyed, shadowy metropolis that is known post-Vietnam war era as Ho Chi Minh City, but to those who have been and to those who really know her, as the Asian vixen harlot of a metropolis that will give you everything that you want and stand by with a compassionate Buddhist disattachment while you kill yourself in hedonistic excess: Saigon.
Airport Arrival and Customs Counter Currency Debacle
After a long customs debacle in a nowhere Chinese airport, a last minute plane change on the tarmac, a 1 a.m. flight filled with violent turbulence; and arrived with no hotel or hostel booked and only a vague idea of how to pronounce the district that we were heading to in the central section of the city: Pham-ga-lau. We indeed were in for an interesting start. Oh, and don't let me forget the currency exchange bank counter before leaving the HCMC Tan Son Nhat International Airport that, without any hesitation, or quivering moral qualm, tried to take us for American tourist chumps and rape us on the exchange rate. Luckily for us, this dumb-ass tourist bought a Lonely Planet guidebook before leaving Seoul and actually read portions of it on the plane, particularly the parts dealing with exchange rates that would be "reasonable" to expect. This particular offer in front of us was not even close. Without any trepidation I balked at the asinine conversion rate the criminally straight-faced Vietnamese teller was showing me on his old ass calculator. Incredulous in my response, I immediately countered with a scoff and a more advantageous rate, albeit, still not as favorable as the guidebook had suggested. My
counter offer wasn't even acknowledged; dismissed before leaving my lips. I remarked angrily that this was a fucking asinine, illegitimate and borderline criminal way to conduct affairs inside of an international airport. He remained Zen-like in his criminal air, steadfastly hiding behind his stoic demeanor and barely looking bureaucratic counter facade and sign. Fucker. We left.
Now to find a taxi. . .
Taxi Haggling at 1 a.m.
Outside of the airport were what seemed like way too many people (hundred or more?) waiting just outside the arrival doors. Trying not to look to touristy, which somehow is always how you feel, trying to be smooth and nonchalant and not confused, disoriented, desperate, and the like. As we were working on our Brandoesque type posturing we were confronted by the first of a few brazen, smarmy taxi drivers with opulent jewelry and nice gold watches. Hey man, taxi? Hey bro, taxi? Hey! Good price for you friend! We inquired, with an understated toughness, how much. Where you go? We stoically replied, "Pham Ga Lau." 20. "20? Dong?" Dollars. "20 to Pham Ga Lau!? Nah." We walked. Not more than 10 strides away to his loss of a sale, same taxi man approaches from behind again and says agreeably, "Okay, 20." Somehow, this got our business. No one else was approaching, we really needed a couple of beers and he really wanted the sale. We didn't feel like haggling for a $5 dollar discount, and so we went with the driver that gave us the one and only allegedly discounted yet same originally priced ride that was overpriced into the city proper, pretending as if he had agreed to a discount. Welcome to Vietnam and Southeast Asia.
Welcome to Vietnam
As we drove in his bus taxi, not knowing if he was going to take us to the destination we had asked for or to an abandoned warehouse space and torture us with old Vietcong tactics until we gave up our credit and debit cards with passwords, we were catching up and bantering in the way close friends do after long periods of time spent apart. In fact, ours was a little more laced harnessed giddy excitement, being that we were brothers and finally realizing our epic trip through the more exotic parts of Asia, as we had so romanticized about for years and years prior. As we drove, we were enamored by the still copious amount of scooter traffic that was zooming by and around us at every roundabout. 1:00 a.m. and Saigon was still whiz banging like a frenetic piston. The taxi driver finally pulled onto a main thoroughfare and immediately recognized the area as I had been once before the summer prior. We thanked taxi man in English, begrudgingly coughed up his overpriced fare, and exited into the urban jungle of Saigon at about 1:30 am. We immediately dodged scooter traffic and walked past the sideways growing palms into the Go Go2 Bar that sits right there holding court on the corner of the main tourist strip in Pham Ga Lau. We saddled up to the bar, dropped the bags, and ordered two Saigon beers; beautiful.
Bar Girls
As we took our first decompression breaths, we noticed that the bar was littered with go-go girls in skimpy attire, all courting the attention of the male patrons, mostly whom were tourists, or expats washed ashore and who had yet to leave the easy East. My brother was faithful and steadfast as he had a girlfriend, as did I. But, we couldn't help but notice the availability and ease at which we could have gone sideways with any number of these harlots. We drank another. We rapped about life, future telos', women, and whatnot. Still these girls were intent to get our attention. Vietnamese women have a snake like charm and eroticism that will slither stealthily and seductively across the room, into any available bar seat in the proximity, endearingly oblige you to buy drinks for two, then somehow easily enter your lap, your trousers, and your bed, and somehow leave you feeling blessed the morning after. Anyway. . . We never let the night go there, but it was easy to envision the debauchery and fornication that could have easily been had.
Last Call
Having another of many Saigon beers at a table out on the street corner under a mess of telecom wires, and jungle palms, amidst a ravenous drunken clientele, one of whom, a bar girl, I mistakenly fixed my eyes on for a half-second too long, beelines over to me, as if that was a solicitation and briefly begins to flirt in an obnoxiously obvious drunken manner with me before literally collapsing into my lap and narcoleptically nods off completely. Hilarious to witness. The girl, obviously on the clock, spent the entire night hustling to solicit business and after one last hurrah into my lap, came up empty handed. I was the last ditch effort to secure a paycheck for the evening. I let her lie for a good 5 minutes before the two of us picked her limp ass petite brown body up and placed her on an available seat at a table just adjacent to us. The wait staff and security staff also found this rather humorous but were also taken with the altruistic gesture given the myriad of things we or anyone else could have done with her at that point.
