Cambodia-Siem Reap

The bus ride to Siem Reap wasn't that bad, and took about 5 hours.  Once there we found a nice guest house for a decent price, organized a tuk-tuk driver to tour us around Angkor Wat the next day, and went to sleep.  

Angkor Wat, for those who are unfamiliar, is a massive temple complex constructed at the height of the Khmer empires power in the 12th century.  They controlled most of what is now Laos, Thailand, and central Vietnam (and of course Cambodia).  The size of the temple complex is impressive, but what is much more impressive is the detail of every bit of the stone.  All of it, and I mean damn near ALL of it, is etched with reliefs of scenes from the Rama Yana, historical battles, devas (gods), nagas(river serpent spirit guardians), ghandarvas(angels), heros, asuras(demon/giants), women with gravity defying breasts, and other hindu or buddhist  images.  It must have taken a lot of manpower.  Here is just a sample:

 

There are also numerous other temple and structure sites around Angkor Wat, many people taking as much as three days to check them all out.  We did it in an afternoon because we have powers of perception greater than those people.  

Other than Angkor Wat, Siem Reap is just an awesome town to hang out in.  GREAT restaurants and bars here.  Everything is cheap, there's great variety, and of high quality.  We went to a silk-farm one day and got to see the whole process of how silk is made and the woven, which was a good afternoon trip.  I had a very pleasant foot massage the next day, and we ate at a restaurant that has live crocodiles and ducks inside of it, its called the "Dead Fish" restaurant. I ate ostrich, snake, and crocodile meat here.  I could have had kangaroo, but was full.  It was all pretty good, but I'm a bovine meat kind of guy in the end.

After Siem Reap, we were back to Thailand, to the beaches of Hua Hin. 

Cambodia - Phnom Penh

We crossed the Vietnam border by land on a bus, and the border crossing was pretty chaotic.  We all handed over our passports to the official, and waited in a big mob.   From across the room another official started handing the visa processed passports back, calling out the names.  Anita and I were in the back of the mob, so we didn't hear the faint voiced and heavily accented callings very well; Did he just say "swan boar"?  Hmmm... thats not my name.  Anita claimed to hear my name called once, but I heard "Crom Fred".  At the end the mob thinned a bit and we got our passports back. Phnom Penh is  an okay city, but nothing to write home about. 

We saw Tuol Sleng genocide museum there even more disturbing than the Vietnam one.  Formerly a highschool, it was turned into S-21, a prison for torture and execution for the infamous Khmer Rouge, and finally a museum left mostly unchanged since its prison days.  The rusty bed frames they had the prisoners to remained, as did the shells of car batteries, sharp farming tools, twisted ropes, clubs, and other torture devices.  They elicited confessions from the prisoners about their misdeeds using these and other methods (water boarding being very common).  One thing I was surprised by was how many of the ruling parties own members were sent there.  Near the end of the regime it seemed like most of the prisoners were people that helped bring the party into power in the first place.   

 The most impressive feature was the multitude of cafe/bars that line the riverbank with very comfy chairs.   Comfy chairs are a highly desired sight when you are traveling for 6 months, since there are many days you spend entirely seated in one of those chairs reading a book.  Vietnam had them in short supply, making for some very long search missions, but Phnom Penh had dozens.  For a couple of days we read books and enjoyed 50 cent draft beer in those seats.   Then, we were off to see Angkor Wat in Siem Reap.

Ho Chi Minh City (AKA Saigon)

After the intensity of Hanoi, we were scared to enter Saigon a bit, but it turned out to be less hectic than the more Northern metropolis. We spent a lot of time walking around touring the various sites, the most impressive of which was the Vietnam war museum. They had relics of war machines, like a Huey with a tri-barrel gatling and a few others. They also had all the personal weapons people carried on both sides, as well as the ammo. Then they followed up with pictures and first hand accounts of what those weapons can do. Being the first war that had such intensive coverage by journalists there was no shortage of graphic photos. A special section lists all the war journalists who died, and it numbers in the dozens, I was quite suprised. Another section that I enjoyed was an account of the "Thanh Phong Massacre" from one of the people actually involved in it, senator Bob Kerry. It was a "minor" event in the war, only 14 died, but they were all the elderly, women, and children, and had no weapons, and the first few were killed with knives (since they had no weapons and weren't a danger, no need to waste ammo). The left one girl as a survivor. Kerry admits his squad was told to kill ANYONE they came across, no matter who. He received a bronze star for this mission, for the kills of 14 "viet kong", and feels pretty shitty about it, so he came out publicly in 2001 to tell the truth. He must have lots of courage to do that. Anyway, I really appreciate when people tell the truth about things like this, since no one would believe things like this unless the people saying it were the guilty ones. After this we saw the agent orange (another little gem from Monsanto company) and napalm section of the museum, obviously the stuff of nightmares with the photos to prove it. As far as the allied forces go, South Koreans got it the worst, being stationed in areas heavily dosed with dioxin. War really is hell, for everyone involved. Im not sure I'd have the courage or state of mind to fight in a war unless the stakes were REALLY high. WWII style. After that museum trip we really wanted to go to a Happy Rainbow Puppy museum, but none were to be found. I think theres a business niche there, one should open across the street.

Hue/Hoi An/Nha Trang

After checking out Hanoi area we went over to Hue. It used to be the capital, but shifted to Hanoi once geographically strategic defense took a second seat to being a center of economy. What makes the city cool are the tombs of the former monarchs, and the old royal Citadel. The citadel was impressively large and the grounds were huge, but many of the structures appeared to be in disrepair and crumbling. I guess the structure isn't old enough to get the funding it needs to be properly maintained and restored, but in a few hundred years Im sure it will look pristine. :) It has the classic city wall lined with watchtowers, cannons, and a moat, and looked quite difficult to invade without modern artillary and airpower.

We also checked out the three most impressive tombs. They are palaces unto themselves, two of them spanning areas over a km. The first one was the largest, comprised of several buildings seperated by scenic gardens and algae filled pools. It had the feel of a park. The second one was the most architecturally brilliant, a single building with three terraced levels, the walls lined with reliefs and the grounds filled with statues of dragons and soldiers. At the top of the tomb was a room even more impressive room with beautiful mosaics made up of broken pottery being cemented in the wall to create some impressive scenes. It must have taken forever. I really enjoyed the irony of one part of a mosaic, an image of a pot made of of pieces of a broken pot. The third tomb looked like it was an amazing place to live at one time, but had fallen into a state of cracked stones and moss covered dissaray, which lent it a still pleasing aesthetic. With a little imagination you could picture the old aristocrats and courtesans walking around the pathways.

After Hue, we went to Hoi An. This was a very laid back city, a huge change from the madness that was Hanoi. The food here was fantastic, and they had excellent bakeries, a rarity in Asia. We spent a couple of days here walking around being propositioned by tailors who wanted to make us things. I probably should have got something made, but carrying a backpack makes me want to be even more minimalist than usual.

After Hoi An we checked out Nha Trang, a beach city. It rained the whole time. It was dissapointing, and the book read there, "Cities in Flight" was equally dissapointing. Apparently Miss Universe comes from there, but we didn't see her, she is probably off with the Silver Surfer saving the galaxy.

Next, off to Ho Chi Min city!

Vietnam - Hanoi area

Entering Hanoi and seeing the roads, I learned the true nature of bad driving and how Nash's Equilibrium theory does not always hold up when applied to traffic. They are crazy drivers in Vietnam. More crazy than any other country in the world I have visited (which is about 30). It is a mad house out there, and walking in the street can be quite harrowing. As my friend Janel described it, you don't just observe Vietnam, it actually comes out at you. In between being incessantly propositioned by tuk tuk drivers, and walking between densely packed crowds of people on a road filled with speeding scooters, it really drains you.

We spent a coupe of days in Hanoi, and walking around the lake in the old city is the nicest part of it, and feels like Vietnamese/French colonial fusion. Its the only place we saw that didn't put us in traffic fight-or-flight, and had some decent eateries and coffee shops. We saw a mediocre water puppet show, and checked out a couple of historical sights.

From Hanoi we checked out Halong bay and Thamkok, which were pretty awesome. In Thamkok we saw a couple of impressive historical buildings and went on a 2 hour boat ride, powered by 2 old ladies who paddled. The tranquil water was nice and we paddled under some impressive caves an past some cool looking karsts. In Halong bay we went on a two-day junk ride to check out some more natural cave formations and just enjoy the amazing scenery of the sea with hundreds of beautiful karsts rizing from them. There were about 10 other people on the junk with us, and it was nice to talk to some other people for a change. One of them was a geek from Austrailia, so that was nice. We both had books written by Greg Bear in our bags, which was a pretty cool coincidence. Geeks are the same the world over. Even though our mini-van played chicken several times with heavy trucks on the way back to town, after some relaxation breathing techniques we were mostly fine.

Laos

We entered Laos, Vientiane, in good spirits and our first night was spent in a wonderful hotel. My stomach was still a bit off, but we had a tastey meal comprised of local fare, and spent the rest of the evening reading books, as we were exhausted. Laos is very much like Thailand on valium, similar cultural feel but much less hectic, I would even describe it as sleepy. The next day we obtained visas for our forthcoming entry into Vietnam, and then found a wicked awesome bakery/coffee shop and enjoyed the delight of true european pastries for the first time in what seemed like forever, and Anita read 1984 while I read metaphysics. A subdued day to match the atmosphere. Theres really not much to do other than that in Vientiane.

After the Vientiane experience we were off on a 5 hour ride to Veng Viang on a cramped tour bus, not fun, but have honed our zen travel meditation to an art in the previous months, making this an easyish trip.

Wow, this town was something out of the twilight zone, but in a good way. It had the same laid back feeling of Vientiane, but WAY more restaurants, cafes, bars and other places. There was one common thread that tied all these tourist venues together; Friends. I don't mean people you have bonded with and love, I mean the t.v. show. Thats right, pretty much every place in Veng Viang had episodes of friends blaring at maximum volume from multiple tv screens. Scores of tourists were layed out on cushions sipping beer or coffee and silently taking in the 90s sitcom. No idea how this started, or caught on, but it sure enough it is the norm there.

One extremely fun thing to do in this town is to go tubing. There is a calm river that runs along side the town that had beautiful views of a mountain coming out of a forest on the otherside. Tourists started taking an inner-tube from 7km upstream and float calmly back into the town over the next 2 hours, usually drinking from beer cans kept cold from being in a net in the river. At some point a local came up with the great idea of building an open roof bamboo bar on the riverside with a platform and zip line that extended into the river, to people could get boozed up and jump into the river from up high. Then another bar was built further down the river with another zipline jump. Then another. And another, etc...

So we went tubing and had a great time. We had a few beer, but we didn't do any of the zip line jumps, even though the river was deep, because we had heard of accidental deaths from previous years. So we floated sublimely down the river, carried by the current, occassionally becoming clustered with a few other tubers for short conversations but largely it was just the two of us. It was an excellent way to spend the afternoon once we had learned how to relieve ourselves in the river by dipping slightly lower in the tube. One of the highlights of our vacation so far (the tubing, not the urinating in the river specifically). After some Friends watching from a hammock in a bamboo hut, we hit the sack and prepared for the following day's travels to Luang Prabang (a 5 hour bus ride).

Luang Prabang is a UNESCO world heritage sight, so there are a few special qualities in this town. One of them is a 12:00 curfew, which is fine by me, since I have regularly been getting up at around 8:30 am for the first time in my life anyway. It makes it a wonderful sleep experience when there are no noisy vehicles and honking which is so characteristic in other parts of Asia. Again, in true Laos fashion, Luang Prabang is a relaxed, slow pace kind of town. Once in the city, no transportation is need beyond your own two feet. One of the cool things about the temples here is that they all have gleeming carvings of Nagas (river spirits, serpents) as hand rails for the staircases. The temple landscaping was beautiful and the silver and gold nagas just added to it.

One night we had a wonderful meal of water buffalo BBQ. It is similar to the Japanese/Korean Shabu-Shabu with a few quirks. A gently sloped conical metal "hat" is placed over some open flames. The edges of the cone flatten out for a few inches and then raise to house a moat of broth that surrounds the rest of the sloped cone. Chili, garlic, noodles, and various vegetables are placed in the broth and the water buffalo meat (very lean, chewy, and delicious) is placed on the slopes of the cone itself. There was a tamarind sauce to dip the BBQed meat in. It was delicious and probably the healthiest meal we had eaten on our whole trip. Other than relaxing and enjoying food and literature, we did very little in Luang Prabang.

One unusual thing that happened was waking up at 4:00 am to a man singing "I just called to say I love you" over and over again. Not the whole song mind you, just that one line. Over and over again. It sounded like it was coming from the floor above us. He may have been drunk, heart sick, or just crazy. It lasted for about 5 minutes, perhaps longer thant he song itself.

Leaving Thailand

We left Chiang Mai by plane to Bangkok to go meet my brother and his wife Ana. It was good to see him and finally meet Ana, and long overdue. After a fun evening with them eating by the river and having a few drinks (purchased by them), I felt unusually bloated and full. This wasn't that unusual as I consumed a copious amount of food and beer, but something was different about this feeling. When I got into the taxi on the way home I started sweating profusely (even more profusely than usual) and felt dizzy. By then end of the taxi ride I was doing all I could to not belch forth whatever demons were in my stomach (something i'm pretty good at; both the holding in of, and expulsion of stomach demons).

We made it to our hostel, and I went straight to the lavatory. I prayed to the porcelin god for a few minutes, but none were answered, so I grabbed the rubber-maid trash bin on the way out and took it to my room. Moments after, I began a chorus of contrapuntal convulsions, likely looking like a cat coughing up a hair ball, but sounding much more violent and loud. Luckily the trash bin had a plastic bag lining. The next 6 hours were spent in the bathroom, alternating between oral and anal explosions. Anita felt fine. Good times.

The next day I felt much better, but my appetite for food was destroyed. Best diet ever. We caught the train to Vientianne, Laos, that evening. The train itself was something that was probably state of the art 50 years ago. It was very well put together but seemed shabby with age and the lack of newer facilities. It was comfortable in a Russian sub kind of way. It was a 14 hour journey, but we had sleeper seats (I had bottom bunk) so it wasn't too bad. At the border we received our visa, took a 30 minute taxi to Vientianne, and checked in. No a bad trip considering I was recovering from a stomach flu and it was 14 hours.

Finished in Chiang Mai

Anita just finished her 5 week massage course, and we are off to Pai now.

The cool things I did in Chiang Mai:

- Lit some latern baloons. These light paper lanterns capture the hot gases from the candle until they are bouyent enough to take off into the sky. It looks very cool to see something take flight from only hot air, and I have never seen it on such a small scale before. Once it takes off, it looks quite nice as it rises into the night sky, an orange dot against the blue black. There will be a festival where hundreds of them are released in a few days, so that will be good to check out.

- Finally finished a demo for my RPG book, Plutocracy 2060. It ended up being 203 pages long. I printed out 10 copies, and am looking into some E-publishing. Now it's on to the truly massive amount of spelling and grammar mistakes.

- Went to a fish spa. Garra rufa is a tiny fish species that eats away at the dead skin on your body. So, a fish spa is a place where you put your legs (or your whole body) into a pool filled with the little suckers and they immediately begin to nibble away all your detritis. It's extremely bizarre seeing scores of these things surrounding your legs, giving you an extremely intense tickling feeling. Anita and I sat there laughing for about 15 minutes until we got used to it for the last 30 mintues. Pretty cool experiance.

- Went to an herbal steam bath. Very hot, hard to breath, and somewhat uncomfortable. Felt nice and clean when I was done though.

Thats about all the touristy things we have done there, since Anita wanted to rest on the weekends and I was more than happy to plug away at my RPG. Now, its back to backpacking for a while.

Chang Mai

Life has been very low key and relaxing since we have come to Chang Mai. We found an awesome guest house that only charged 200 dollars a month, and I worked out a deal where I get unlimited access to their computer room for the month for 20 dollars (which is a SUPER good deal as its the nicest cybercafe I've seen here).

Anita is taking a 5 week massage course here, and she is pretty stoked about it. I'm happy to as it has given me a chance to finish the RPG book I've been working on for about 7 years now.

My days here are always the same, so I'll talk about the routine I've been following for the past four weeks.

8:30-9:30 -I wake up. Anita has gone to school, and I begin my day by showering usually. Though lately I have been so excited about getting my ideas about the book into words I skip the shower 50% of the time.

9:30-10:00 - I eat a delicious breakfast. Its either bacon, eggs, toast, and tea, green curry soup, chicken masala, or red curry vegetables and rice. It usually costs about 4$. Then I go to a juice vender that sells freshly squeezed orange juice and I buy a 500ml bottle for one dollar. Freshly squeezed orange juice is fan-bloody-tastic. I get it in the morning, an hour or so after it has been squeezed. I love how cheap it is here.

10:00-4:00 - I work on my RPG book, Plutocracy 2060. Thats right. I spend 5 or 6 hours a day typing out ideas and rules concerning the RPG game. I've been a writing fiend lately. In the past 4 weeks, I have spent about 150 hours working on the game.

4:30-5:00 - I watch the end of "Grey's Anatomy". Its a show about doctors who act like teenagers.

5:00 -10:00 I go for an early supper with Anita. In the evening we either go for a movie, watch T.V. that I have downloaded, or go exploring.

10:00 - bed time

It may sound boring, but I have been having an awesome time.

Kanchanaburi

We set off from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi in a moderately pleasant bus. The 2.5 hour trip went by fast and we got an overweight lady to take us to our hotel in her bicycle taxi. Its amazing that she could be overweight with that job, pulling an extra 200kg or so more than what one normally has when biking, and doing it many times throughout the day.

After a 10 minute ride we arrived at our hostel. It looked very small from the street, but discovered that it went about 250 meters in, all the way to the river. After descending some stairs we walked across a long walk way 2 meters above swampy algae and weed filled water. On either side of the walk way were 2 levels of bamboo bungalows, Swiss Family Robinson style. Ours was at the very end of the walkway facing the river, which was nice. It was very private and had a definite "I'm in Thailand!" feel. We had a nice porch were we could sit and watch the river while having a drink. It was late, so we didn't do much that night, we just ate and read books. That night Anita became very concerned about largish creepy crawlies shuffling about room so she couldn't sleep, but I didn't hear much and slept fine.

The Next day we went to a 1-day Thai cooking course we signed up for. The lady spoke very expressively, which helped us get through any poor English quite easily. There were 6 people in total in our group, a young British man, an older Aussie, and a young couple people from the Netherlands. First, we went to the traditional market to look at ingrediants. It was a very raw place, with things like skinned frogs, but nothing we were not prepared for. After we got to the kitchen we made pad thai, green curry chicken, spicy chicken salad, thai fried rice, and tom yam (spicy soup). We kicked ass at making all the dishes, but of course she held our hand while making them and we will likely screw them up when we try to replicate them at home. Our green curry in particular was awesome. I scalded my mouth quite badly when trying to taste it, leaving a painful burn in my left inner cheek for the next week or so.

The next day was animal day, dubbed such because we were going on an elephant ride trek, and to go to the tiger temple (yes, a temple with many tigers). The elephant ride was awesome. We had a huge elephant and a very experianced elephant trainer who let me ride atop the head of the elephant. It was even more fun when the elephants went for a bath in a clear river, with us atop of them. Whenever the elephants dunked, we went under as well. We soaped up and scrubbed their heads with rough brushes before other dunkings. It was good fun. Later in the day we went to a Buddhist temple where they have been taking care of orphaned tigers for decades. Now, just as Buddha would have wanted, the are used to draw in hundreds of tourists every day to take robotically calculated photos while touching them. It was fun touch them for a couple of seconds before being escourted to the next 10 second photo op. All in all, the elephant ride was much better, as it was less crowded and more personal.

The next day we departed on a 13 hour journey to Chang Mai (and we saw a huge iguana just outside of our bungalow on the walkway when we awoke early that morning, probably 1.5 meters head to tail, it scurried away when it saw us).

Thailand part I - Bangkok

We flew into Bangkok from KL and landed without incident. There was the usual crowd of transportation services ready to take you into town for inflated prices, but we bargained one of them down to less than 1/2 his original asking price, which felt good.

Our hostel was a nice place, a midrange hostel with aircon (we are addicted to it) and hot water. It provided internet service and boasted a pleasant garden and pond outside, as well as an ashtray in the shape of "predator's" head, which I appreciated despite not using it.

Also good was the location. The street is famous for food stalls and sold some delicious curries and other traditional Thai dishes for about 1 dollar.

On one day there we checked out all the traditional Buddhist temples and statues, including the largest Buddha in the world. It was enjoyable despite the heat, and we got some good exercise and culture out of it. We wanted to end the day with a forensic museum whose claim to fame is the possession of a bloody shirt of a man who was stabbed to death with a dildo, but couldn't find it after looking for it for a long time, so we ate dinner instead.

On another day we went to see "Bangkok Dangerous", a terrible movie. The most entertaining part was Nicolas Cage's absurd hair. It was an excellent time. Why you ask? Because we reclined in very comfortable electronically controlled lazy boys under blankets. Yep, its the only way to watch movies I am now convinced.

After a couple of more days of checking out the sights, reading books, watching movies, and drinking expensive coffees we decided to go see a Muay Thai fight.

Muay Thai is perhaps the most vicious of all striking martial arts. It allows knees and head butts as well as punching and kicking, making the moves much more unpredictable. We went all out and got some ringside tickets, so we could taste the blood spatter more discerningly. I started downing beers to enjoy a little of the ol' ultra-violence with my glossy globes. The music played is dis harmonic and comes from what sounds to be some wind instrument. If you've seen a Thai fight on TV then you know what I'm talking about. It really gives you an anxious hyper feeling which lends to violent behavior. The first few fights were very light weight, but that didn't stop the crowd from shouting their bets with raised fists and crescendoing "Owwww"s every time a hit was landed. The best fight of the night was very evenly fought. One fighter won because he lacerated his opponents eyebrow with a vicious elbow, causing him to leak everywhere which each additional hit. Over the next few minutes the sanguine fluid was spattered across the mat and his back like Nosferatu's Pollack painting.

All in all our time in Bangkok was good, but I would say its not marketed towards couples as much as groups of rabid men.

Books I've read recently

I've read more books in the last 1.5 months than I have in the last 3 years, so I figured that I would mention them and my opinions of them, since they have been on my mind a lot as I travel.

In order of reading:

"Does Anything Eat Wasps?" Mick O'Hare
This is an interesting book for those who like to say "Did you know that blah blah blah...". I often like to do that, and its alienated me with strangers (especially girls) many many times. Anyway, the book is full of obscure scientific trivia and I enjoyed it.

"A Short History of Nearly Everything", Bill Bryson
This is another good book for trivia, and follows a brief history of scientific development, paying particular attention to the egos who developed the theories. A good book but a bit too biographical for me. I wanted more on the theories, but didn't need quite as much biographical and historical context. Still good book though.

"Permutation City", Greg Egan
A book about "mind downloading" and the nature of consciousness and reality. Very good book, though the last bits were less interesting than the first parts for me and seemed to have a couple of incoherent ideas (I won't include spoilers). It maybe bit off more than it can chew by including too many grand themes. Great writing and contains an almost intimidating amount of hard science and philosophy (typical of Greg Egan's work). In any case, an fascinating book I would recommend to almost all of my friends.

"The End of Faith", Sam Harris
A very well argued book, and I find it hard to disagree with almost all of his points (though there's a few bits in consciousness and his hard consequentialist ethics I find difficult to accept). Also, though he clearly acknowledges that there may be faith based secular societies that can have disastrous effects, he focuses much more narrowly on specific religions. In my mind a few short pages are not enough to describe historical disastors of faith based secular societies such as Pol Pot's, Kim Jung Il's, Hitler's, Stalin's, etc... It would have made him more immune to criticism I think to include more writing on this. However, his points are no less true or resounding, despite his focus on religion.

"1984", George Orwell
I've finally got around to reading it. What hasn't been said about this book already? Great book, and shows a sobering picture of society where big brother has completely overridden civil liberties. Recently reading that Fox News edits their own transcripts to correct mistakes that were actually made sickened me all the more, as it was one of the most horrifying aspects of 1984 (for example, when O'Reilly reverses the account of the Malmandy Massacre on TV twice, but the transcript doesn't reflect this, or their repeated attempts to manipulate Wikipedia on a variety of issues). It takes some serious "doublethink" to support those kinds of things.

"Blood Music", Greg Bear
Amazing book, one of my favorites. I can't believe it was written in 1984. Its one of the first "Grey Goo" sci-fi books that were written regarding nanites. Great writing and a great exploration of biotechnology and physics. I've made a mental note to read more Greg Bear books.

"Fairyland", Paul J. McAuley
This book has some very cool ideas. Its plot centers on the creation of bioengineered humans that end up resembling the mythical fae of European ilk in a variety of ways. Its an idea book, but I found the character's to be lacking depth and for that reason I can't say its an excellent book. Though after reading George R. Martin, most other author's characters seem a little less defined.

"The Electric Church", Jeff Somers
A pretty cool cyberpunk book involving a lot of action and gritty descriptions. A nice change of pace from the "hard sci-fi" I have been reading, but I have to say it was a little pulpy. An enjoyable read, but not one of my favs, and doesn't delve too deep.

"50 Philosophy Ideas you Really Need to Know", Ben Dupre
After not reading any philosophy for a while, I needed a relatively light and comprehensive fix. Its a great run down on many of the major ideas and problems out there in philosophy and a good reference or spring board to look up more specific or in depth books on topics and questions that interest you. Its all available online of course, but having a paper book in your hands is easier. Good stuff.

"Metaphysics: The Big Questions" Van Inwagen & Zimmerman
A metaphysics anthology used in university classes. Its the first time in my life I've been reading a university textbook outside of university. It takes much longer to read this than other books, as it involves a lot of re-reading and underlining, etc... Philosophers love their jargon. Seems like a great anthology and I've finished one section (personal identity/mind-body relationship). Here are the essays Ive read so far:
-"Holes", Lewis
-"On What there is", Quine
-"Beyond Being and Non-Being", Chisholm
-"Universals", Russell
-"Universals as Attributes", Armstrong
-"Which Physical Thing am I?", Chisholm
-"Personal Identity: A Materialist Account", Shoemaker
-"An Argument for Animalism", Olson
-"Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons", Parfit
-"Personal Identity: The Dualist Theory", Swinburne
-"The Causal Theory of Mind", Armstrong
-"The Puzzle of Conscious Experience", Chalmers
-"Neutral Monism", Russell

They were all good reads, and all seemed to make pretty good points, but without going into too much detail, there were always some thought experiment or other that made most of them problematic.

The most entertaining one, "Which Physical Thing am I?" by Chisholm, claims our identity lies in an indivisible subatomic particle. Hehe. And yep, its at least logically possible, and escapes some of the problems other accounts for identity have. I think its partially tongue in cheek.

To me, the exception is Parfit's account, which seems unassailable, but has a much weaker account of personal identity by espousing the materialist "bundles of thought" account, similar to Hume, and near identical to a central idea in Buddhism, the "empty self". However, this is not a desireable account of personal identity for many, as it tries to eliminate ego from the picture.

Swinburne's argument for dualism almost left me angry, for it seems to leave out some very important justifications that I think he needs to make in order for his premises to be true. In the end, unless I'm missing something, he seems to say that the logical possibility of dualism entails the reality of dualism, which seems pretty fucking dumbass to me for a variety of reasons (the most obvious of which are that the logical possibility for materialism or idealism are also true). Also, he completely misunderstands Parfit's account of personal identity as far as I understand Parfit. He makes good points along the way, but his conclusion seems to come out of no where. I'll have to read it again, I must have missed something (or he is a christian and NEEDS dualism to be true, so he argues from his conclusion backwards....).


"Axiomatic", Greg Egan
An amazing collection of his short stories, each exploring on perplexing problem or implication in science or philosophy. One of the best short stories I have ever read is contained within, called "Learning to be Me". Truly inspirational and I highly recommend anyone to read it.

"Good Omens", Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Very funny and entertaining book that takes the piss out of the revelations section of the bible. Its about the apocalypse, angels, demons, and humans. Good book.

Malaysia

We entered Malaysia via bus from Singapore and were surprised at how fast the trip was. After spending over 24 hours aboard buses and vans in Indonesia it was pleasant to find we could go from one country to the next in a mere 5 hours. The bus company we took made much publicity that Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) took the bus at some point in history, and they had photos to prove it.

Kuala Lumpur is a great city, and out of all of the "big cities" i've visited so far, its right up at the top. It has an even more multi-cultural feel than Singapore and despite being a Muslim nation, there appeared to be no harsh judgement towards any type of behavior or style of dress. On the same street you'd see a woman in a ninja-style black burkha walking a few feet from a Chinese woman in Daisy Dukes, heels and a tight belly shirt, an Indian Siek with a turban and a business suit, followed by an emo kid wearing the latest fashions, sporting a lip ring and hair combed over one eye. Those are merely a few of many customes and styles you could see walking down the street. Also, their Hindu and Buddhist roots were celebrated (as they were in Indonesia as well) , a practice not exactly encouraged by literal Islam. It was refreshing to get a dose of such tolerant Muslim culture.

The food there was fantastic, and we ate at a great restaurant that was close to our hostel nearly every day. It served up huge portions of tasty Malaysian, Indian and Chinese food (we mostly got Indian food) for around 2.50$ a plate. One of my favorite restaurants of all time for sure.

In the city we checked out the butterfly park (very cool, and got to see a praying mantis devour a huge butterfly), the petronas towers (buildings formerly known as the biggest), the Batu Caves (home to Hindu temples and statues), and a couple of very very large shopping malls.

After a few days in KL we set off the the Cameron highlands, an area sporting wonderful natural scenery and freaky insect wildlife. After a swervy high speed bus ride we arrived and checked into our hotel. The climate in the highlands was very different than any other place we had been to in Asia, it was much coller. It was very nice to finally have some cool weather, as I was beggining to regret packing my long sleeve shirt and jeans.

In the highlands we went to a tea plantation and factory. The plantation looked rather breath taking, the rolling hills of the highlands looked tucked in by a gigantic green blanket of tea trees. I have never seen inanimate earth look so cozy. We also went to a strawberry farm and enjoyed some nice tarts and a strawberry lassi. Another fun place was an insect and reptile zoo that displayed some of the local flora and fauna. The highlands have those cool walking-stick and leaf insects that blend in so well, so we spent some enjoyable minutes trying to spot all of them in a glass encased habitat. I also got a cool pic with a snake stretching quite vertically atop my head. We went for a short trek into the jungle as well, but could see any of the giant millipedes or tarantulas, so Anita was happy about that. After a quiet and comfortable few days in the highlands, we set off for Thailand, Bangkok.

ATM scammers

During our stop over in Singapore on the way to Malaysia I phoned it in that my bank card had been lost (see Bali entry) and needed to be issued a new card. I told them the date that I had lost the card (August 19th) and where I had lost it.

I was a little shocked to find out that the card was used twice more after I had used it, at the same terminal, mere minutes after I had left. Thank god for daily limits.... I lost around 300$ due to this. the man on the Royal Bank Service line was friendly, and told me to report it when I get back to Canada and I may get my money back, but I'm not sure.

Now, I had known about ATM machine scams, and from what I had read about them they involved devices protruding from the ATM. I had been warned not to use such ATMs and to only stick with ATMs associated with actual banks. Well, the bank machine that I was at in Bali had no visible device, and it was an ATM linked to a particular bank.

The machine asked me for my PIN, gave me the money, a receipt, and the window said "Thank You - Have a nice day!"

I was conditioned by every other bank machine our there to think that it gives you money, receipt, says thank you, that's the end of the transaction. The card is always spit back to you before that, even beeping if you don't pick it up right away. However, this one had somehow been hacked to say thank you and keep the card in....

I know this is the case because the same thing happened to Anita in Yogyakarta at a mall ATM except we noticed it kept the card. We actually had to hit the "cancel" button to make the "Thank you, have a nice day" message go away. When we did, it brought us to the "would you like to make another transaction?" screen.... Scammers.

They must camp out by the ATMs waiting for people to leave and then immediately go to the machine before anyone else does. Mine was hit up mere minutes after I left according the the Royal Bank phone service.

Well, now I know to be extra careful at ATMs. That guy better have needed the money bad...

Indonesia part III - Yoyakarta

After the nightmare of Probo Lingo, things could only get better. We took a 10 hour minivan ride to Yoyakarta, it was unremarkable. We found our hotel at around 5:00 a.m. and settled in. It had aircon, as was sealed from mosquitos. It was divine. The next few days we spent in a much needed relaxing fashion. We ate good food, had coffee, read some fiction, and generally took it easy.

During this time I reflected on how much focus was placed on the idea of "transport" in Indonesia. Every single Indonesian related to tourism asks you "Hello! Where are you going? Transport?"
I have heard "where are you going?" enough times to last a lifetime. The food vendors are for some reason passive, but anyone related to transportation are very enthused about getting your business.

We went on a tour to see some famous Hindu ruins and a very large buddhist temple one day. To describe them whould take too many words, but we took pictures worth tens of thousands. It was a good experience. It was the first tour I had been on, and it was pretty good. It saved on stress for finding our own transportation. I don't think tours are always the right way to go, but in that case it was.


Our last day there we went to a government school of artwork to pick up some "batik" art. It is a very complex dying process and the end result are elaborate pictures on thin fabric. When put on a window to catch sunlight some of them are quite pretty. We picked up a few of them, and Anita got an expensive one. Our last night we saw the Hindu opera "Ramayana", a heroic romance play. It was okay but didn't hold a candle to the one we saw in Ubud on Bali. Its interesting to see how dated the ethics are in the play. In the last scene, the "princess" was rescued from her captors, however our fair prince Rama was not sure of her purity. He thought she might had got it on with her captor and didn't want used goods. So, she threw herself into a fire. Luckily, the god Brahma knew she was pure, so put out the fire. And they lived happily ever after. Hehe.

After Indonesia we spent a day in Singapore, then took a bus to Kuala Lumpur.

Indonesia part II - Probo Lingo Sucks

From Ubud we started off to Probo Lingo to see the famous Mt. Bromo. I won't lie, it was a shitty trip. We took a 1.5 hour mini-van ride full of high speed swerves to Kuta. For the first time in my life I actually got motion sickness (at least I think that is what it was). While we waited for the bus to depart to Probo Lingo I mostly closed my eyes and rested my head on the table, feeling nauseated.

The bus ride itself sucked. We were positioned at the very back of the bus, next to a very well behaved rooster in what appeared to be a bowling ball bag. His tail stuck out and he gave an occasional cluck but that was all. We were also next to the lavatory, sadly, and occasionally smells eminating from it made it our way. It was an 8 hour journey, my longest bus ride ever. Lukily the seats reclined and we had blankets. At least for the first couple of hours. After that we picked up a family that stayed behind us (yes, we had the back seats, and the family was behind us). It must have been an unofficial pay bump for the driver, and seemed like a common practice. Sadly, we were unable to recline as we had to make room for the vagrants. So the remaing hours were rather uncomfortable, except for the delightful tickle I received from the occasional cockroach crawling on my lower back. At least they were relatively small ones.

We got to Probo Lingo around 2:00 a.m., were hustled into an office who wanted us to book an overpriced tour to mt. Bromo at 5:00 a.m. We did the math and figured waiting for 3 hours to take a 2 hour hike after being on a bus for 8 hours didn't seem like fun, so we skipped the whole volcano sunrise idea. Of course the travel agent assured us there were not any hotels nearby. No hotels near a bus station... We later found out he was lying (suprise). We found a cheap hotel, slept for a few hours, and woke up. ANOTHER tour guide greeted us at the hotel, told us many many lies, but seemed to offer a decent price for a ride to Yogyakarta, our next destination. So we bought a ticket from him. However because of his lies, and our willingness to believe a couple of them out of the many, we didn't go see Bromo that day either. We had a miserable day in a shitty town. The hotel lacked windows, so mosquitos butchered me, there were no restaurants or bars for many km any direction, and it had no air con. The town sucked. Sucked more than any town I have ever been in EVER. So, after 2 nights at this shitty hotel in a shitty town we were even more exhausted than when we first came off the 8 hour bus ride 1.5 days earlier. I was covered in mosquito bites, tired, sick (I had a cold) and annoyed at being lied to by what seemed to be every person we met over the last couple of days. With that attitude, we set of for Bromo.

It was nice. We walked through an hours worth of volcanic silt and climbed the 250 steps, and reached the sulphur smelling summit. It was a nice view and I got to see the first active volcano of my life (it killed some people in 2004). However, in the end, I'm just not a mountain kind of guy. Maybe its the Saskatchewan in me. I am much more impressed by living nature than by inanimate rock. The size of it doesn't make that much of an impact either, 1 beautiful tree is better than the view enourmous mountain as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, despite that it did look cool. I was told the practice was to buy some flowers and throw them into the volcano and make a wish. I bought some flowers, threw them into the caldera, and made a wish: A pox on Probo Lingo.

Indonesia part I - Bali

As we exited the airport in Bali, Indonesia (after doggedly and stupidly sticking to the slowest immigration line out of the 6 offered) we set out to find a hotel. We were immediately bombarded with offers of taxis and hotels by a variety of people. We settled on a 20$ hotel for the first night. It looked like it had formerly been lavish and sported basic rooms with balconies and entrances facing the indoor pool, but it also looked like it was sorely in need of some maintenance.

The main street in Kuta was lined with hotels, restaurants and bars and had a lively touristy kind of energy. Every now and then a local would whisper in your ear, offering you illegal drugs, but since its an drug offense= execution kind of country, very bad idea. The same is true of Philippines and signs at the airport reminded you of this surreal fact (though not as surreal as Afghanistan current government's execution punishment for distribution of women's rights materials. Thank god we got rid of that nasty taliban.

The next day we got an even cheaper room, 7$ a night, very good bargain. Even though we decided not to go into the water, we went for a walk along the beach. It wasn't nearly as nice as boracays beach, and more crowded, but it was nicer than Jeju do's. I was amazed at how many buff bodies were there. It made me feel like a Pillsbury Dough Geek. Yes there were the normal people as well, but a disproportionate number of "tv land" mutants. I was also amazed to remember how many more "S" line (Korean slang for curvy) women there are from European descent, likely creating for a completely different bra industry across continents. Epitomes of mammals.

The next day I awoke and we went to go withdraw some money for our next stop. I discovered my bank card was disturbingly absent. Anita and I spent the next day retracing our steps to see where I could have lost it. We completely accounted for our whereabouts the entire day and no place seemed like a place where I would have had it out of my wallet. Nevertheless we went to each of these locations asking if they had found a derelict bank card. None of them had. Our best theory was that I had only put it in my pocket, not my wallet, and when I later reached to pull my wallet out the card had been pulled out with it and fallen to the ground. It sucked... More on that later.

After Kuta we went to Ubud, definitely my favorite city of Indonesia. It was beautiful surroundings, in the middle of forest. Our guest house was on the second floor and had an attractive garden to look at from the two chairs outside of our door, where we enjoyed sipping coffee or a beer.

While there we took in what I consider to be the best live performance I have ever seen in my life. It was a traditional Balinese dance show, with three different stories in it. It took place at a former royal palace so the ambiance was quite traditional and apt. Although it was raining, when the performance began I was entranced. A huge chorus of gambang (Balinese xylophones) chimed in strange harmonies, complete saturating the air with sound and making my hairs stand on end. The music made my senses dance, and that was impressive enough even without the dance. Then, a dancer appeared in the royal archway atop of some steps. She was dressed in an elaborate costume and make-up and began a hypnotic dance in unison with the music. The dance, for those who have never seen it, places a great emphasis on eyes and hands. The legs and body move very little but the movements of the eyes and hands together is very beautiful. Unfortunately the rain REALLY picked up at that point and the performance had to be moved, shattering the moment of zen I was in. The rest of the show, while very impressive, didn't have the same mystique as the first dance. I thought the aspect of the show I would be most impressed by was the Barong (weird dog/dragon beast thing) costume dance, but it didn't compare to the first part.

The next day we went to the monkey sanctuary, a forested area full of Hindu statues and temples. And wow, were there a lot of monkeys. At any given time we could see about 10 of them. They had free access to yams, but seemed to vastly prefer the bananas given by the tourists (purchased for a moderate price). Unfortunately most tourists were unprepared for the monkey thieves that stole whole bunches from them rather than the one offered, and people were generally afraid to attempt to get them back. It was a beautiful area, and as always the Hindu architecture didn't disappoint. For some reason I've always loved mossy stones, statues in particular and Ubud is full of them.

Another amazing thing we noticed there was that the monkey society didn't seem homogeneous. There were the monkeys at the entrance level, but up a flight of stairs seemed to be a different monkey clan. When ones from the lower area tried to climb up, all of the monkeys in the higher area seemed to stop what they were doing to chase off the lower ones. At least so we observed a couple of times. Another interesting thing we noticed about the upper level monkeys is that they seemed to be the "scientists" of the monkey sanctuary. I took videos and pictures of this one monkey who had found two stones that were roughly square shaped. He took these stones and banged them together, rolled them both into a banana leaf and the hit them, rolled them into dirt, banged one of them on a bottle, tried to fit one of them in a bottle or into a water spout, etc... Without trying to anthropomorphize them it really looked like experimentation with objects, and numerous studies show how monkey's and other primates teach learned behavior from one to another, so its not that far a stretch. I think Anita posted one of the videos, but this little guy and the rest on the upper part of the sanctuary seemed to be doing all sorts of solitary behaviors with objects that didn't seem to relate to food gathering, socializing or mating.

After Bali we went on to the island of Java, and the nightmare of Probo Lingo...

Time in Singapore

After an tiresome and uncomfortable wait in the Cebu airport, we took flight and entered Singapore. Our hostel was clean, air conditioned, included hot water, but had a shared bathroom. However, since it was called the "Dragon Inn" it made up for any shortcomings.

Upon walking around Singapore I was immediately struck by how much safer it seemed than the Philippines. No gun toting guards at every business (such as the pizzeria guard we encountered the day earlier in Philippines) or bag checks at malls. We started off the day going into the Muslim district, passing by a block entirely dedicated to beautiful textiles. Later in the day we checked out little India and ate some fantastic Indian food for 5$ each. Its about the cheapest option there is for eating over there. The outward structures of Hindu temples were also quite amazing, incorporating countless statues and carvings of deities and heroes in the polished and dyed exterior.

I also noticed that jaywalking is the norm there. Now I've always said this about my hometown, P.A., but Singapore beats P.A. hands down in the jaywalking department. Walk lights are completely and utterly a convenience, the exception for walking not the norm.

It was pretty cool seeing the fusion of Arab, Indian and Chinese cultures mix in Singapore, and the next day we also saw where all the whities hang. We went to Orchard road, a very long street lined with shopping malls, coffee shops and department stores. It was clear that we had entered "expensive land" and brands that I would never conceive of purchasing in a million years were presented to us at every angle. Named like Gucci, Loui Vitton, Dolche and Gabana, etc... are just "tv land" words to me. There is a diminishing gains effect that happens in clothes, and I don't need to pay ten times as much money for an extra 10% gain in quality. Those kind of stores literally boggle my mind when I think of how much better the money could be spent than there...

While in Singapore I woke up one day and felt the usual semi-hardened lump of mucous from Asian air in the back of my throat. I applied the proper suction from swallowing but it didn't budge. That happens sometimes when the phlegm is particularly bonded with the flesh, so I swallowed again, creating more suction... Hm..., no dice. I tried again and this time it hurt. Something was up. I started to believe that this "mucous" was not mucous at all. I looked in the mirror and said "ahhh". My uvula had became intensely swollen and elongated to the point where it rested on the back of my tongue. This became highly annoying as it constantly triggered my swallow response throughout the following days.

Later in Singapore there was some unknown event among little India, since as we were walking around we noticed something strange. The streets were completely filled with swarms and swarms of Indians. Not just Indians, only Indian men. Not just Indian men, only Indian men with mustaches. Now we had always noticed a prevalence for mustaches among Indian men but I was awestruck by the sheer mustache-fest among the men there. The choked sidewalks and streets were teeming with mustache more than any 70s porno could ever dream of. Anyway, it was a weird vibe. About 90% or more of the people sported them.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable and polished kind of city, but a tad expensive.

A Change to a Fictional World

In the fictional world I'm working on, I have a devastating plague that kills roughly 10% of the world's population. Also in this world is a proliferation of "braincomputer" technology a fusion of computer abilities immediately accessible directly through consciousness. I think a more interesting turn would be to combine these two elements, and make braincomputers a near universal phenomenon by making them an endogenous retrovirus DNA computer.

DNA computing works on the concept that its better to have millions of brains than one brain. Rather than one computer doing the problem, billions of different DNA stands compute different parts of the problem simultaneously and then a CPU reports the finished product. In reality people have working models of DNA computers that can solve the "burnt pancake problem" right now, but only with 2 pancakes. I figure around 50 years or so this technology will see some serious improvement, as it is only 15 years old or so as a theory.

Anyway, in this fictional world I want to have such a technology really take off and see mass production. As this technology proliferates a researcher wants to incorporate the idea with another emerging technology, braincomputers. The researcher envisions running an OS within the human body by introducing a tailored ERV. Billions of cells would circulate throughout the body, and would communicate with each other and use the human brain and nervous system as the CPU. The effect would be having a dispersed internal computer. You could interact with hardware and the internet in your field of vision or your mind's eye. I haven't worked out the details of the origin yet, as such a technology would likely be met with stiff opposition. I may pull a "Frankenstein" and have a researcher obsessed with the idea finish the project himself. In any case, the end result would be that the virus becomes airborne and infects nearly everyone in the world over then next couple of decades, providing everyone with an internal computer.

Since I already have a killer plague born from a mistake in biotechnology in my game, fusing these two ideas to make the viral computer kill loads of people seems like a decent idea. Alternatively, I thought of naturalists who hate the idea of being infected with a computer (though it does no harm) concoct vaccine to kill the viral computer to return to a natural state of humanity, however it ends up mutating and constitutes the plague. I kinda like the poetic irony of the latter, though it is more convoluted.

Regardless of the origins, between two individuals with such computers inside them, programs like Skype and MSN messenger could function like telepathy, using wireless networks to communicate. Unfortunately, computer hacking tacks on a far more dangerous form in such a world. Since the computer's OS has essentially become an aspect of your consciousness, your mind could be hacked. Spyware would become tracking 0r voyeur programs. Even more serious is that puppeteer hacks, memory implants or wipes, or even brain damage could be effects of malignant hacks. These effects are essentially psychic powers, since everyone on the planet has one of these internal computers, so hackers become psionicists. In any case, by 2080 nearly everyone on the planet could be considered a post human because of this.

A second change I will be making will change the date of the world from 2060 to 2080 to allow for a more realistic time line, specifically regarding the spread of this braincomputer virus and to allow technology and cultural sensibilities changed enough for transgenic humans to occur. I'd always felt it was a little tight to squeeze transgenic soldiers, and their children, by 2060.

As usual, just recording some thoughts to make em easier to collect later.

On to Philippines

Well, after Taiwan we went to the Philippines. A kiwi guy from our hostel in Taiwan named Sean was also going to Manila on the same flight so we chatted with him and he ended up staying at the same hostel as is in Manila as well. It was very bare bones, but it had a restaurant and lounge downstairs and cost only about 15$.

Anita was feeling tired, so Sean and I went out for a few drinks around the hotel. At once it became apparent that everyone was out to get our money in a very aggressive way. The managers of the bars sat outside the entrances trying to coax us in. A quick walk down the street gave us the impression that each bar was the same as the next. We were also accosted by swarms of dirty children trying to shove their hands in our pockets as bar salesmen tried to get us to enter their establishment. We settled on the first bar we saw on the street, since it was closest to our hotel and we wanted to escape the plebs. We had a few beers and watched some go go dancers perform. We were the only customers in the place, and even though it was dirt cheap somehow the place could afford its rent, to employ about 10 dancers, and 5 various other types of staff.

The next day Anita and I took the ferry to Puerto Galera. We had a nice day there despite seeing a gigantic cockroach in the bathroom. Unfortunately we got very sunburned, since my sun cream application skill is low. The beach there was nice, and relatively quiet despite the plethora of hawkers of goods and services. We left on our way to Boracay a few days later at around 8 in the morinng and it was quite the trip. We took a motorbike sidecar journey for 30 minutes, a jeepney ride for about 2 hours, a minibus ride for about 4 hours and then we waited in a shitehole of a town called Roxas for another 4 hours until it was around 7:00. Then we took a 3 hour ferry to a forgettable port town (I forgot its name). It was pouring rain, but the good news is that a local hostel with closet sized rooms was happy to overprice us for refuge. We got up early, took a 30 minute ferry to Boracay.

Boracay was awesome. We stayed a a reasonably posh hotel about 30 seconds walk from the beach for about 40$ a night. Several other hotels that looked nice offered rooms for about 25$. but we were so exhausted after our previous days trip, we splurged.

Although its a bit touristy and has the usual hawkers, the atmosphere was wonderful there. The sand was fine, soft and white and there were many options to enjoy the cliche of tropical drinks while watching the sunset on the beach. Its too bad we cooked our skin a few days earlier and couldn't fully enjoy it. The food was amazing, with an international diversity. We ate great Mexican, Indian, Western food, but the restaurant that stole the show was an all you can eat with unlimited drinks Mongolian BBQ they cook up fresh for you, for 5$.

I wanted to take some scuba lessons, or other coastal experiences but Anita is afraid of the water, so I figured I'd wait until she's busy with massage courses in Thailand and do it there.

First Entry - Taiwan

Well, since I'm travelling around Asia and feel I should somehow chronicle the journey, I'm going to see if I can keep up a blog. Don't expect great writing skills, this is essentially a place where I can puke up words on a keyboard. Maybe my skills will increase with time.

So far its been a good trip. We started off in Taiwan. Pretty cool there. coming from Korea I was utterly amazed at the organization there. People actually waited in line, and on the subway they let people get off before trying to cram in. In Korea in both elevators and subway entrances they seem not to understand that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, and tried to push in before other people had left.

There was good shopping in Taiwan, and the overall atmosphere was very modern, but had a sort of cultural flavor that Korea seemed to lack for me. One of the coolest things about Taiwan were these special book businesses. They functioned as a fusion between Internet cafe/library/restaurant and coffee shop. You paid by the hour, and could have as many drinks as you like for free. Also, you have unlimited access to their computers and a large variety of magazines and books. The food there was good and cheap. It seemed like the place to hang out for studying students.

One weird experience I had there was going to see Batman 2. Man, what a freakin' awesome movie. The Joker was so damn crazy. Anyway, Anita and I were waiting in line to see the show. We showed up about 15 minutes before it started, and we already had our tickets so no problem. The waiting room started to fill up with people so there was barely any room to breathe. We sat there waiting uncomfortably for a number of minutes, then at last the doors to our particular theatre opened. As we followed the stream of people pouring into the very dark room I noticed the previews were well underway, which was weird as the doors had just opened. Our seats were "H9 and H 10" or something like that, and although the letter for the rows were labeled, the seats were not. So we had to count our way in. Just as we sit down the movie starts, however only about 1/2 the people are seated. The last wave of people finally settles in about 5-10 minutes into the movie. When the movie ended we were all rushed out of this tiny bottleneck staircase that screamed fire hazard. Weird way to do things.

While in Taiwan I read "Does anything Eat Wasps?". Essentially a bunch of questions that were mailed to scientists about everyday curiosities. My kind of book. And yes, many things eat wasps, such as the Asiatic Fraggle.

So, some final evaluations on Taiwan. Good food at reasonable prices. I tried a variety of Chinese fare and some wonderful Indian food. The pollution in Taiwan also seemed more tolerable than Korea, but that could have merely been the season that I visited it in. Overall, I'd recommend a trip there if you happen to be in the area.