Forgotten Love

Sitting on the banks of the Chao Phraya waiting for the ferry to whisk me downriver, an awkward Dutch couple approached me about the ferry schedule. In all fairness to these two, this particular pier is through a small market with three separate small piers from which to board. There really is no signage and dozens of smaller private ferry-taxis whipping around the river. After a quick "just follow me", they began asking me a series of arbitrary questions about Bangkok and how I feel like it's changed or hasn't.

While I think it has changed since I was last here, I think I've changed more. I'm more interested in the city, less in the "sights". Traveling is less bases on temples and museums and more so on food and wandering aimlessly.

But this is what I'll call : "Things I forgot I loved about Thailand and the things I forgot I loved to hate".

Somehow, I forgot how much I LOVE Street Food. Sri Lanka had absolutely little to no options for a delightful meal on a flimsy plastic stool or from a metal cart on wheels.

Particularly special items include the fried chicken pictured above, spicy crab papaya salad, Thai Iced Coffee (which typically comes in a handy travel baggy) and....

Salt fish. Lemon grass stuff, salt rubbed, grilled. doused in green chili sauce and preferably enjoyed with a bottle of cheap whiskey. Life is complete. I forgot how much I love whole salt fish.

Paragon, "The Pride of Bangkok", shopping mall housing Hermes, D&G, Chanel, Prada, Feragamo and Versace sits across the street from MBK. Where for pennies on the dollar you can buy replicas of all the overpriced things featured in Paragon. Okay, not quite all. But the proximity of this wealth juxtaposition is fascinating to me. I am unsure if this is a forgot I loved or forgot I loved to hate moment, likely the later.

I am templed out. I have to admit. I like to think I'm a big culture traveler and will always appreciate the subtle nuances of difference temples, WRONG. I am templed out. They're all the same to me. It's sad in some ways but it gets to the point that once you seen a couple good ones, ya done. But I will admit, I forgot how much I love Wat Phrakeaw, The Temple of the Emerald Buddha which adjoins to the old royal palace in Bangkok. This place is breathtaking. And will spoil you for anything you see in the future. Maybe, I'm just a girl who loves shiny things, if so, so be it!

I forgot how much I hate Khao San Road. Ugh. It cannot be emphasized enough. There is nothing more wrong with the world and humanity than a bunch of dreadlocked backpackers dressed-alike and thinking they are experiencing Thai culture while sitting on a street full of western tourists getting drunk and eating crappy Pad Thai and banana pancakes. Save the world, bomb KSR

I forgot how much I LOVE how easy it is to take a poop on one of these!

This is f**king awesome.

This song (or at least what I call it) has become the unofficial theme song to my last week in Bangkok. It's actually called Thrift Shop by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and is by no means indicative of my taste in music. But the phrase has become synonymous with my weekend of Songkran in Bangkok.

I was hesitant to be in the city for Songkran. Thinking I'm not really the kind of person for a massive street party and large crowds. Not really my cup of tea. Despite the fact that I'm moving to New Orleans in a few short months, Mardi Gras... has really never grasped my attention.

Songkran is the Thai New Year. Despite my many trips to this country, I've never been around for it. Thai's (and other Buddhists) calculate the calendar year based on the death of the Buddha; NOT the birth/death of Jesus. Another example of American ethnocentricity: it don't all revolve around us. According to Thai calendars, the Buddha passed away 543 years before Jesus making this year 2556. Although the dates are now "set" (April 13-15), it is a solar holiday celebrating the movement of the sun into Aries.

Songkran is a New Years celebration. It falls in the hottest time of year the year so it is about summer and starting fresh and cleansing, starting a new. Families are encouraged to spend time together. Buddhist visit their temple/wat and perform ceremonial washings of the Buddha statues.

Outside the temples, the insanity begins.

Imagine every person you've ever met with a super soaker/bucket of water/jar of white "blessing" chalk/paint. Now, multiply those 50 people you can name by 10x to 20x easily and that's Silom Road in downtown Bangkok. Not to mention there are festivities at RCA, Khao San and numerous other hot spots around the city, oh and country. Because frankly, BKK is not the place to be for Songkran, Chiang Mai is what you want. Oh well. Because if this was a second or third class celebration than I don't think I'm cool enough to handle a first class party.

My partner-in-crime, Kate, and I managed to find bunny sun glasses as exhibited above. As the day turned into night, my sunglasses, complete with dangling whiskers, turned into evening personality glasses. But frankly I can't imagine a better day/evening/night than acting like a child, spraying people with water, 'blessing' others with well-wishes, eating amazing street food and frankly, drinking cheap beer. Life is truly good.

The bunny glasses are definitely coming home with me. Undoubtably.

It's not all fun and games though, and I was mildly disturbed by the risk associated with this entire day/weekend/week. Large crowds make me anxious. The opportunity for theft. The drunk in-citable crowds. The disaster waiting to happen. And happen it does. The Thai Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department estimated that 218 people died during the first four days of the festival nationwide, including related traffic accidents which as of the 15th of April numbered over 2,000. Last year, over 250 people died nation wide during Songkran according to the Bangkok Post. I mean ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Yes, realize we're dealing with a smaller population.

However, last year in 2012 the National Safety Council in the US estimated 173 Fourth of July related traffic fatalities. Seems comparable, except... we have a population 4.5 times larger than Thailand and the statistics from any source are hard to confirm and attribute to the presence of a holiday. Strangely I will probably learn how to better isolate and analyze these variables while at Tulane.

The point being, can you imagine a festival in the US completely defined by a massive water-fight for young and old? At the end of the day, and throughout it, I came to a serious dilemma : a massive crowd of people, an IV line of beer, and being drenched in water.... what could the problem be?! Oh yeah, peeing. On day 1, I did what any white girl would do : sought out restaurants/guesthouses/bars with toilets for 5-10baht a squat. On day 2, my skirt seemed.... freeing. And as the fire hoses literally rained down on me, I decided "What the fuck, I'm soaking wet and you're about to spray me with a hose. There's probably not toilet paper at that bar. Plus, standing is way more comfortable than squatting."

For Mature Eyes Only

The first time I visited Bangkok, I was barely 18yo and completely green to the world of travel and especially backpacking. Turning the corner onto Sukhumvit Soi 4, aka Nana Plaza, looking from the window when I saw her/him/her. My first kathoey, Thai ladyboy. I didn't fully comprehend it at the time, Nana plaza is one of Bangkok's many red-light districts. And ironically, for a young 18yo American, it is also the red-light district that predominantly caters to Western and American sex tourists.

After that trip, Nana was not a place I sought out on following trips to Bangkok. However, having returned for the sixth time and also the first time in almost six years, I find myself revisiting old haunts.

I came to Bangkok to link up with a friend who was in town. The idea of seeing a familiar face seemed fun (can you really blame me given the influx of German couples in Sri Lanka?). I walked along Sukhumvit (a major avenue in downtown Bangkok) to meet him at his hotel on Soi 4 : The Woraburi. Of course, I found myself recognizing shops, restaurants, and bits. The 711 where I first bought disposable underwear and discovered the anomaly of deodorant with whiting agents in it (Cathay Pacific lost our baggage on this particular occasion). The bars where sad looking middle aged men (okay, some younger... others much older ugh) vied and ponied up for the attention of young Thai waitresses and sex workers. Back in 2005, I think I didn't get it or was too naive to fully form my opinions on the bars and brothels lining this street. But in 2013, on I walked. Completely aware that this strip represents such a minute aspect of the sex industry in this country (it's said that western men represent less than 2% of 'Johns' in Thailand. I have a hard time believing this figure which was only recently given to me. Also, data on the sex industry is unreliable at best).

As I pass the vast majority of the strip, I knew my hotel from back in 2005 had to be coming up soon. I thought I saw it. Yellow, open air restaurant... they'd made some changes but it seemed right. I laughed. And 200 yards on, as I approached the Woraburi, I laughed harder. They hadn't made changes, not one. The Woraburi, where I was to meet my friend in 2013, was the exact hotel I had stayed in back in 2005. The exact location I first saw a 60-something man ascend the stairs with not one but two paid companions. My skin crawled then. But evolved, 2013 me, still seemed to be lacking empathy or any emotional response.

Obviously, I didn't hit up the bars back in '05. A freshman at Fordham, I don't think the idea would have crossed my mind even if drinking on the Global Outreach trip was allowed. '13 Denise, in the company of two grown men (one un-interested in the scene, the other an admitted frequenter) decided it was time to get to the bottom of Nana. This shouldn't have been a big deal. I've been to the clubs of Patpong, inside brothels in Thailand and Cambodia was skeezier than anything that exists even on Soi Cowboy. But the idea still fascinated me because this is where looking around the bar, the men could be my uncle, my dad, my brother, a boyfriend, a co-worker. Plucked from the streets of mainstream America, I wanted to "get it".

I'm not saying I condone the sex tourism/prostitution industry. I'm just saying that even after years of traveling in Asia (not to say its the only place in the world with high occurrences of sex tourism) and writing an entire undergraduate thesis on it, I'm still fascinated. But the fascination has shifted. Younger Denise was fascinated by the girls : how to help them. Initiatives to combat trafficking by focusing on these 'poor helpless young women'. How patronizingly American of me. This approach is called supply side solutions; an idea and mindset I had completely abandoned before the ink dried on my bullshit thesis I submitted for graduation.

Demand, that's where it's at. That's what fascinates me. Not the girls. There will always be women in Thailand, South Korea, Macedonia, the US or really any country willing to sell their bodies voluntarily or not. Demand, the men. They're the fuel. They're what keeps it going. They're why I found myself drawn into some stupid social experiment of hanging out in a bar where American men go to pick up sex workers for the night. And on a practical level, their prosecution is thought to be one of the only ways to truly combat illegal sex tourism and trafficking.

I think going to a bar in Nana falls into the train-wreck mentality. As abhorrent, disgusting or unsettling as it seems at first glance, you can't seem to draw yourself away because there is something all encompassing and fascinating about a sixty-something man paying for the companionship of a younger woman. We played "what's his story." Watching guys passing by, or sipping beers. We'd guess : married? career? nationality? kids? Performance anxiety? Kinky fantasy his wife would never fulfill? ED? Socially inept?

The list of pretend identities and traits could go on in my imagination and would surely cross into something dark and inappropriate. But what it really comes down to, what I think I'll never fully comprehend is what drives men to seek out and pay for sex. Can you really get off knowing that likely somewhere in her, she despises you? Are you really gratified by this business transaction? Is your life that lack-luster that you resort to paying for companionship and sex?

Again, it's all a very narrow representation of a multi-billion dollar industry. An industry I wrote 90+ pages of bullshit on to graduate from my elite undergraduate university. Ridden with minute nuances, numerous economic actors, and a plethora of experiences and stories.

But walking down Soi 'Memory', I'm just stuck on that one idea : what drives these guys. Someone should write a book on it. A psychological analysis of male mind and sex tourism. Perhaps it's already out there. But I can promise you, if it's not, it won't be me writing it.

On Lessons Learned

My last day in Sri Lanka. I'm flying to Bangkok tonight to see a friend and then spend the week in Thailand for the Songkran festival before heading south to Malaysia. With four weeks completed here, I like to reflect. Not necessarily on one cohesive theme but random observations, lessons learned, tallies, mishaps, etcetera.

Sri Lanka has been brilliant, colorful and fascinating. A country rocked by civil war. Stricken by a tsunami that took over 48,000 lives in 20 minutes. A country as small as Ireland but with a population 4.5 times large (it's said to be like having the entire population of Australia live in Tasmania!!). So how could you expect it to be anything but fascinating, colorful, diverse and challenging.

Four weeks in Sri Lanka and I've taken :
1 Taxi
1 Train
3 motorcycles
5 Tuk-Tuks (including the one to the airport tonight)
7 pushbikes
19 buses
and countless kilometers walking.

* I could live off Kottu Roti *

Driving :
Honking a precise art : one must always honk one's horn when preparing to pass a bicyclist, pedestrian or really any vehicle smaller than your own. The timing, length and intensity of one's honk indicates how quickly the other party must jerk to the left. Occasionally, this amounts to the other part ending up in a dirt patch on the side of the road.... likely a safer alternative to the road itself. Honking can also be used when approaching any intersection as a form of "Watch out biotches, I'm coming through."
Alternatively : honk at your friend at the road side stall, in the passing bus or just saying hey. Of course, this isn't confusing with the previous necessary reasons to honk at all.
Overtaking (passing in it's most aggressive form) : if you have 100m between you and an oncoming Tata dump truck, you have plenty of time to pass a scooter, public bus and tuk-tuk. No problem. A heavy lurch to the left and a series of aggressive honks should aid in your endeavor.
Comparison: it should be noted that while the "largest vehicle wins" rule still prevails in Sri Lanka, I'll take driving here over India or South Korea any day.

On Questions :
Interested in gathering the entire male population of a town? Get into a car accident. Interested in playing a riveting game of twenty-questions? Walk down the street.

Sri Lankans (I should specify particularly men) rapid fire off a seemingly pre-set list of questions. "What your name? What your country? You want tuk-tuk? Why not? Where are you going? Sri Lanka good? Where you stay? You want banana? Why no banana? You married? Why no married? No babies? Where you going?"
I took the liberty of inserting my own Shinglish (Shinalese English). The questions come rapid fire, one after another often with little room for answers. I'm well practiced in each of three arts of response : A. Rapid fire honest answers. B. Complete and udder avoidance. C. Fun. I've been English. Spanish. Japanese. Allergic to bananas. Walking to India. Jennifer, Alisha, Rebecca and Trixie. The options are endless.

I've learned:
- That if you turn of the power to an electrical outlet (there's a switch for each in SL), you can trick the three prong circuit to only working with two prongs by sticking a pen in the third. Guess the lessons your mother taught you about not putting anything in the electrical outlet just don't hold up these days!
- Sri Lankans do not get "going for a walk"! Say you ask, how do I get to 'x' waterfall. Your answer will likely be : "take a tuk-tuk top. Tuk-tuk wait. You swim. Tuk-tuk drive you back." When you correct, that you would prefer to walk, the look of confusion envelopes and overwhelms them.

Self Reflection :

I am completely desensitized. Ironically, my mother always told me this, with special regard to movies, television, really anything exhibiting gore or violence. I always loved horror films even as a little girl. But in my "adulthood" (quotations as it feels to be a false assertion of some non-existent reality), it has gone a step further. I am desensitized to the world is seems; its pleasures, pains, poverty, shocking scenes, and stunning sunsets unfold around me without so much as a pause in my quick pace down the road.

Perhaps this is merely years of sensory overload brought on by a crippling desire to do and see more. But now, I find nothing overwhelms me, surprises me, or even more sadly, ever truly consumes me as to evoke some emotional response.
Today, as has been typical per my experience in Sri Lanka, I found myself wandering along a canal. In my midst are homes destroyed, in some state of disrepair, to most's standards unfit to live in. And yet I find myself numb, not outraged or saddened by lives lost, dreams shattere or hardships endured even in the midst of a country recently shocked by not only a three decade long civil war and a devastating tsunami.

I love that I can go anwhere and be comfortable and confident in my ability to adapt, unafraid, unshaken, ready and aching for exploration. Bu now in years gone by, I see I've lost sight of something in my travels. Empathy. The drive for a connection. An emotion undering that fuels the search beneath the facade or the surface to something... more.

In moving on, I'm looking forward to:
- Street food. There's a upsetting lack of street food, much less wonderful street food, in Sri Lanka.
- Penang Curry. No justification necessary.
- The longest Thai massage of my life. Caress me down. I'm so excited.

Dreams Deferred

Ever since getting my first dive certification in 2006, I toyed with giving up the "rat race" at my young age and living the island life. Getting my dive masters and instructors license always seemed like the perfect way to permanently defer the real world and adulthood. Well, I think after tearing my ear drum today for the sixth time in seven years, I may finally have to concede my future may not lie thirty meters below sea level.

Just to clarify, tearing your ear drum is a bit different than rupturing it (which I've never done thank god). A normal person might rupture (or pop) their ear drum while diving or other activities causing excruciating pain and potential hearing damage. My issues are brought on by having tubes in my ears as a small child from repeat ear infections. The tubes left a lot of scar tissue on my ear drums which in addition to making it at times quite hard and painful to equalize my ear pressure while descending on a dive, it also makes it a lot easier to cause tiny perforations in scar tissue. The result is pretty intense pain after completing a dive and a general feeling of drunkenness and poor coordination. Alas, might have to become a sky dive instructor instead.

Up until this moment (where I am actually drinking a beer in hopes of reversing the "drunk" effect), my time in the South has been quite lovely. I've spent the past bit skirting along the southern coast from Tangalla to Mirissa and now Unawantuna. The highlight so far being my four days staying at Dewmini Rotti Shop in Mirissa with Gayani and her lovely family. A Sri Lankan rotti is in many ways like a thinner version of a crepe, which can also be either sweet or savory. The owner of this little shop and guesthouse is a goddess. One of the kindest women I've met in my entire life and an absolutely phenomenal chef! I had the opportunity to spend the afternoon in the kitchen with her. In addition to being scolded when she learned I never wash my rice at home, I learned four vegetable curries, chicken curry, potato sambol and a few other odds and ends. Please don't expect reproductions at home, I'm an awful student.

Over the past couple weeks I've been pretty active outdoors and hiking. Made a cameo for an early morning safari at Udawalawe national park, home to more than 500 Asian Elephants. Pretty amazing, considering the last time I went to see wildlife in Asia, enter Chitwan national park in Nepal, a morning of trekking and an afternoon of driving in a jeep amounted to one lousy elephant from a distance and only on "up close" asiatic rhino.

Uda was a whole 'nother story. You could trip over the elephants in this place. It almost became like the buffalo in Yellowstone, at first they're so exciting and by the end, you just want them to get out of the way on the road!

Nonetheless, the babies were especially adorable! We also saw a lot of water buffalo, eagles, tons of peacocks, crocodiles, a fox-like creature whose name is escaping me, and a myriad of other birds and snakes. All in all a pretty successful wildlife viewing day. Nearby Yala park, offered opportunities to see wild leopards but reports from fellow travelers described it as a caravan of jeeps chasing one elusive cat, eventually scaring away any other wildlife nearby.

I did a fair bit of hiking around the hill country. Intentionally skipped the landmark hike of Sri Lanka : Adam's Peak. A perfect pinnacle mountain that is by Christian's believed to be the first spot Adam stepped foot on earth. By Buddhists believed to be the footprint of Buddha. Blah blah blah. You wake up at 2am and hike till sunrise, mostly up a set of stairs behind dozens to hundreds of pilgrims. Not my cup of tea. However, the less spiritually rewarding hikes I did around Ella especially were quite rewarding.

Some trails are marked better than others. I made it to Ella rock (above) via an adorable hand drawn map by my guesthouse in town!

To come full circle if you've read thus far, one dream deferred a different one granted. I have officially accepted admission to Tulane's MSc in Disaster Resilience and Leadership. Classes start August 26 and I guess I'll be moving to New Orleans sometime shortly before that.