Brett v World round 6: running on empty

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Well, after approximately 60 odd bus rides, countless train excursions, a few airplane adventures, and plenty of ripoff taxi rides later, I have found myself sick as a dead dog located in the beach town of Sihanoukville, Cambodia. I've come to a bitter realization that while traveling for seven months is certainly a feat, every month from here out will be even more difficult, mostly mentally and maybe physically, unless my digestive track decides to resume its original anatomical functions. And since I'm beginning this long overdue blog in such a brilliantly negative fashion, why not start off by making fun of people- one of my all-time favorite pretentious blogging techniques. And when I say making fun of people, I mean everypeople (it's a word, shut up).

Dear Cambodians, I don't care if I'm in your country and I am supposed to act culturally sensitive to your 'traditional' Khmer customs that mostly revolve around the shittiest of pop music, laziness, thievery, unsubstantiated cocky swagger towards tourists (the people, as sad as it may sound, providing you with an income) and karaoke bars that unfortunately go hand-in-hand with the aforementioned shitty pop music. Astoundingly, an estimated 40% of the Cambodian population is under the age of 15, but I would argue nearly 90% are actually prepubescent British girls that just got refused a new pony for their half birthday. (don't worry I have nice things to say in the future, I'm just venting)

Dear Hippy Bohemian travelers, just because you lounge around one specific English-speaking area of an underdeveloped southeast Asian country while living off your disappointed CEO Dad's trust fund does not indicate that you are 'one with the culture' or allow you to get stupid Asian stick & poke tattoos that more than anything label your sheer ineptitude among locals and foreigners alike. My advice? Stuff your stupid gypsy trinkets, fancy puffy Thai pants, absurd hair-dos, and overall ridiculous fake free-lance demeanor into your brand new REI backpack that you bought with Grandma's gift card you received last Christmas-- yes the same REI pack that you've cleverly disguised with carefully placed patches of countries that you bought at the airport to prove that you've "been there,"-- and try actually traveling outside of the 1 mile vicinity encompassing the backpacker ghetto. Unlike the foreigners who will only surreptitiously laugh at you or include you as a comedic device to arouse a few laughs in an otherwise mundane blog, the locals will openly laugh their asses off at you. You're not special hippy travelers, we all like drugs.

Dear party-team travelers, just because you travel in a rowdy group of 10+ people and refuse to allow anyone else to appear to be having more fun than you, does not make you fun. In fact, usually these gigantor crews of party tourists are so individually insecure that one-on-one conversations run as smoothly as speaking to a Vietnamese child (how old are you? whats your name? where are you from?) and mind you, this is while they are highly intoxicated and at full liquid swagger status. I guess in a certain way its OK- all the otherwise individually social inept 'bros and hos' have discovered each other and successfully diverted the attention and time of all other travelers who can actually get drunk and hold conversations without embarrassing themselves (to some degree).

Dear expat English teachers *except for Casey*, although you may think you are saving the world one student at a time by teaching them English-- presumably so they can work in the tourism industry and attempt to sell bracelets or tuk-tuk rides to white people-- keep in mind that you are simply the ultimate hippy backpacker in the sense that you have failed to leave one specific spot and/or see the rest of the country. Most of these profound teachers who pay thousands of dollars just to have some company tell them where to go and give them a western-style home full of fellow suckers who all look down upon the hedonistic backpackers who 'takeover' their western English-speaking bar that is conveniently located amidst the backpacker ghetto. Solution? learn the native language and go to actual local bars. Of course this is out of the question since teachers only take courses on teaching English and not learning the local language. (Casey speaks awesome Vietnamese and is exempt from this whole rant)

Dear old fat white sex tourists, you are all despicable human beings and I don't care if the Asian girl is legal at the age of 18. I sincerely wish I could roam the countryside murdering these rich pigs and donating all their money to the prevention of sex tourism-- and the Cambodian government probably wouldn't mind either.

Dear American 'semester-at-sea'rs, I can't believe that Asian cities still allow 1000 drunken college kids to takeover their country for two days. I've encountered these 'student' hordes on several occasions and it is like watching a bunch of 5th graders on a zoo field trip- the guys are too preoccupied with attempting to out-funny each other and do something more crraaazzyyy because nothing says 'party' like the Cambodian S21 prison camp museum from the Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile the girls are all gossiping about which Cambodian pharmacies sell the best diet pills and which drunk frat boy they're going to fuck back on their cruise ship that night.

Dear cling-on travelers, figure your shit out. And stop following me around Asia just because I know how to read a map, book a hostel, figure out a bus schedule, and interact with people. Nuff said.



(exhale)


Hello Everyone!
Sorry for the serious intro-rant and please take everything I said with a grain of Cambodian salt (which I'm pretty sure isn't salt at all). I've had a rough past few days with the stomach flu. And please feel free to write a similar asshole declamation towards me, it will make me feel like less of a butthead (pardon my French).

Anyway, after plenty of visa complications, airline ticket mix-ups, and the overall sentimentalism of leaving Shanghai, I arrived unscathed in Hanoi, Vietnam, which marks the beginning of my Southeast Asia escapades. Vietnam was my first introduction to a whole new realm of English-speaking locals who attempt to sell you just about everything and have no discernment for the words 'no thank you' (or the words 'fuck off' depending on how long they follow you). However, smiles flow like the Mekong river among locals and it wasn't difficult to get used to walking around everywhere with a smile plastered to your face. Little kids running up next to you find saying 'hello' in a sweet little Vietnamese accent to be the funniest joke of all time, and its actually one of the cutest and heart-warming encounters to be had (see I told you I can be nice).

Hanoi was a zany, chaotic city bustling with motorbikes that all seem to magically avoid each other despite the absence of any street markings or overall traffic regulation. If Hanoi did ever have a city planner I can only imagine some drugged-out Vietnamese dude sloppily outlining a mangled network of streets/sidewalks that compose what some would call transportation infrastructure. However, after a few days of exploring Buddhist temples, Vietnamese museums, and copious marketplaces, crossing the street became an act of confidence as opposed to a blind leap of faith. Apparently motorbikes will just sort of veer around you, especially if you stick your hand out in a forbidding 'stop please' manner which grants invulnerable street-crossing immunity (although as a tourist, some bikers see this hand gesture as target practice).

Hanoi was a great place to meet other backpackers, and I ended up meeting three Aussies that I traveled on and off with for the rest of Vietnam and some of Cambodia. A trip out to the beautiful Halong Bay proved to be worth every penny and a relaxing boat-ride thru cerulean, crystal-clear waters surrounded by limestone karst islands left my camera's memory card with significantly less capacity by the end of the two day excursion. By nightfall Hanoi Beers began flowing like the salmon of Capistrona (it makes sense, don't worry about it) and our ship transformed into a full-blown party vessel that involved 25 drunk nearly naked backpackers jumping into the dark waters from the third floor deck. We each had our own bunk room and bed, however passing out in such an epic party atmosphere was deemed unacceptable by drunk partyboy Brett and I battled on through the morning until I was nearly the last person awake. I subsequently missed breakfast.

Aside from Halong Bay, Hanoi was a great introduction to the style of travel in southeast Asia that I would be participating in for the following 3-4 months. Frankly, traveling in this region is extremely easy; most everyone speaks English and there are heaps of other travelers to team up with, even if only for a night...
Travel here is starkly different to Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe requires much more travel sense and is not simply Australia's playground or the place where England sends all their 18 year old packs of freshly graduated high school girls (not that I'm complaining). Not to sound pretentious, but I don't think many of these southeast Asian backpackers would fare very well in Eastern Europe, where English isn't ubiquitous, bus & train stations don't pick you up from your hostel, and tour agencies don't monopolize every facet of any potential adventure. On the other hand, I didn't have to use mosquito nets, roads were actually... well roads, toilets actually flushed, and cockroaches didn't invade my backpack in Eastern Europe, so I suppose its a trade-off.

After regaining my travel integrity in Hanoi-- which involved re-acclimating myself to the transient life of constantly calling a different bed 'home' and someone I met at the bar the night before a 'friend'-- I took a miserably uncomfortable night bus down to the middle of Vietnam to a town called Hue. Holy crapola! (pardon my french) Hue was my first awakening to the blistering heat of hot dry season in southeast Asia (my climate season planning was impeccably non-existent). It was insanely hot and aside from an occasional fan or the lucky shop with an air-conditioner, shade was my only friend. And no, swimming in the river, while tempting, was not an option. However, despite the blazing heat, I forced my sweaty body onto a bicycle and rode all over the city visiting the major temples and the central citadel that represents Hue's primary tourist charm. The locals were exuberantly friendly in this town and unlike the big city travel hubs, this friendliness was not dependent on the Vietnamese Dong in my pocket... (dong = currency). When I was coming home one night from the bars, one Vietnamese guy even let me ride him around in his cycle rickshaw and was surprisingly unfazed after I nearly crashed twice, in front of the bar I had left 5 minutes earlier mind you.

After Hue, I moved on to Hoi An which is the textile tailoring capital of Vietnam and really all of southeast Asia. In the world of fashion, anything and everything is possible in Hoi An and your imagination is really the only boundary between you and say... a fully tailored business suit made entirely out of swimsuit fabric, with full swimability (a guy actually did get this entertainingly literal version of a swim 'suit' made- he claimed he always wanted to go swimming with a full suit on). I was even on the cusp of getting a fully tailored suit made entirely out of denim, but I chickened out and got an all yellow suit with bright green lining that looks somewhat like Jim Carrey's getup in 'the Mask'. I also tailored a normal professional-looking suit for when I apply for that hedge fund CEO job when I get home and also an all white suit that makes me look like a drug-dealer (which will be my fallback job in case the CEO job falls through). All three beautifully tailored suits ran me 200 buckeroos. Not too shabby.

Outside of Hoi An's passion for fashion, the small town also hosted an exquisite white sand beach that stretched for miles and was just barely developed enough to offer the necessities- beer, water, food, bracelets(?). There was no shortage of beach partying either, with buckets of booze to lubricate the sandy spectacle into the wee hours of the night. Our hotel had a pool as well which provided a splendid after-party to the dismay of the poor Vietnamese security guard who couldn't muster up the authoritative strength to deny 6 drunk tourists a late night skinny dip. I stayed in Hoi An for a solid 6 days and would recommend it to anyone, both beach bums and fashion-privy Mugatu models alike.

However, the next town proved to be the real Vietnamese beach bum outpost, Nha Trang. Bars, beaches, bar beaches, and beach bars all sum up the sun burnt theme of this nifty little town. My gang of Aussie adventurers grew by 2 more English blokes and we comprised a full-blown biker gang once we rented bicycles and raced around the sandy streets of Nha Trang. We took a day trip out to the mythical hot spring mud baths, which involved bathing in warm mud that is supposedly healthy for your skin (though I doubt any Vietnamese dermatologists have ever verified this... or that there even are any Vietnamese dermatologists). Despite the dubious healing powers, it was a pretty radical experience and we hung out and bathed in the normal hot spring waters for the rest of the day before treating ourselves to some delicious pho bo and a cold brewsky.

As in most Asian places, plenty of temples absorbed our time and attention during the day. At night, we partied until someone usually got hurt, which seemed to be the general party paradigm of our crew; although one night our young Aussie teammate Liz ended up at the hospital because she fell over in the bathroom of the bar and ripped the sink off the wall. It was rather entertaining attempting to balance stopping her hands from bleeding out while escaping from the angry Vietnamese bartenders who demanded we pay for their sink. Everything turned out OK in the end and the hospital seemed to find our drunken presence there so routine that they didn't even bother attempting to charge us. Hmmm... what else? Well Nha Trang was my first encounter with the wonderful world of Vietnamese women hanging around outside latenight bars, waiting for drunken stumbling tourists to accept a free hand job in return for their obliviousness to the thefty disappearance of their wallet. Of course even drunk Brett knows that hand jobs generally aren't free unless its DIY, so my privy sense of the woman's suspicious intentions dissuaded any further activity (I still counted it as a hand job in my book).

After the beachbum madness of Nha Trang came to an end, we took a bus out to the less touristy mountain town of Dalat. While relaxation was the main ingredient to experiencing this unique little cheap Vietnamese town, we did dedicate one night to revel in the boisterous festivities of the nightlife. After downing plenty of vodka in our hotel room we schemed a cross-dressing game that involved dressing each other up with whatever clothes we deemed (in)appropriate. Of course I ended up in a dress, along with my English friend Sam, and we hit the town ready to be either ridiculed or killed. Well despite a serious lack of nightlife, we were eventually directed to a cheesy Vietnamese nightclub in which it just so happened to be 'ladies night'. Well fortunately, I was indeed dressed up like a lady, and despite the strictly enforced dress code to the upscale venue, my white skin was apparently enough to get me in, especially since we were the only westerners there. Well I was immediately bombarded with free drinks from nearly everyone in the club who seemed to think we were the funniest and certainly craziest people they had ever encountered. So of course we obliged and drank tequila shots until at one point I flat out threw up in the middle of the goddam club, with everyone watching. Possibly one of my most embarrassing moments of the trip: me standing in a dress in a Vietnamese nightclub having just vomited on myself and the floor with everyone transfixed on what my next move will be and how I will regain 'face'. Well for some reason, I guess they have a 'one puke only' policy for foreigners and instead of directing me to the exit, they kindly guided me to the (men's) bathroom to clean myself up and continue providing entertainment to all the locals. Like I said, nothin but class.

OK this blog is almost ready to be concluded and relieve you of your blog boredom coma. However, I will say that although my blogging 'thrillers' revolve mostly around alcohol consumption and subsequent inebriation, that much of my trip has been spent site-seeing, relaxing, and other non-alcohol related adventures (this disclaimer blurb is strictly for my Mom, don't worry Mom- I'm only trying to keep the stories interesting). Moving on to the grand finale of my Vietnam experience.

Some of you readers (that have made it this far into this tiresome cacophony of carefully selected words) may or may not know a young man named Casey Temanson. Well, Casey currently lives in Saigon and gets paid to throw down some English skillz on Vietnamese dudes and chics in a classroom setting. He is pretty dam Vietnamese at this point, and I was lucky enough to visit and share a bed with this Asian form of Casebot for one remarkable week. At the time, Casey had a Vietnamese girlfriend who could just barely speak English (Casey's Vietnamese was better than her English), he motorbiked around the clusterfuck of traffic in Ho Chi Minh City like a pro, and I believe he was even campaigning to become the next communist leader of the country- although I'm not sure how effective campaigns are in non-democratic societies (I didn't want to break the news to him and burst his bubble). Anyway, Casey has lived there for something like 7 months now which is quite impressive.

It was nice to finally arrive to a new city and have someone actually show you around and 'be the leader'. Although Casey worked quite a bit, I found plenty of time to cruise around the massive city and check out the zoo, the Vietnam War museum (which was extremely interesting), the Chu Chi Tunnels which were used by the Vietcong during the war, and plenty of other odds and ends. About 6 of us ventured out to the waterpark one afternoon and between having white skin and a few tattoos, I felt like a mixture between a zoo exhibit animal and a celebrity. I met Casey's expat teacher crew, who while more transient than Chase's Chinese crew, were all great people. During my week stay there, I even became a 'regular' at Casey's favorite bar which just so happened to have all sorts of Denver Broncos paraphernalia- yet more proof that the Broncos are also Vietnam's favorite team.

It was sad to leave early that last morning with my Aussie friend Liz, but I had a pretty good feeling that I would be seeing Casey at some point during the rest of my Southeast Asian travels. Thanks for the hospitality buddy.

Anyway, that about sums up this blog- although I have plenty more on the way covering Cambodia and now Laos (I've moved locations since beginning this overdue blog). I hope everyone had a rockin Easter, a holiday that probably confuses the shit out of Asian people (and probably real bunny rabbits as well...). I really do miss everyone more than I can articulate and I really appreciate everyone who has sent me an email or message, no matter how brief. It really helps maintain my sanity out here when I hear from friends and family back home and chances are, if you send me a message I'll be thinking about you all day long (and who doesn't want that!?). Also, after reviewing/revising what I have just written, I would like to say that while my writing style certainly adopts a somewhat sardonic and sarcastic voice to it, I really do love all the experiences that I've had over the last 7 months and all the lovely locals and their respective countries. Thank you for welcoming me to your countries.

I suppose I will conclude this blog similar to every other shitty episode of the X-files...

to be continued...