Thursday, August 31, 2006

Wherein I Learn to Boil Water

Two days without coffee meant two days of headaches, and today I resolved to brew a pot. I dragged a French press from LA to Chennai and bought ground coffee on my second day in town. But I was flummoxed by the two-burner tabletop stove in my new apartment. I fiddled with the dials, kicked the red propane tank and gave up.

This morning I asked Sowmiya for help. Sowmiya is my hostess. I hesitate to call her landlady because she doesn’t refer to me as tenant. I am her “guest.”

Sowmiya opened a valve on the propane cylinder, turned and pressed a dial on the stove, pointed a lighter at the burner and -- phwoom! -- a hearty flame. I could almost taste the coffee.

Now, Indians drink coffee. It’s sold in restaurants and from pushcarts on every block. Gaggles of men sip it on sidewalks, spilling into the streets. But South Indian coffee doesn’t satisfy my addiction. It's served in cups no bigger than the rinse-and-spit variety at a dentist's office. They're one-fourth the size of a Starbucks Tall, and I'm a Grande sort of gal. I take my coffee black, which confounds the locals. Their milky concoction is the color of nougat and just as sweet. There are spoonfuls of sugar in every itty-bitty cup, and the last sip reveals a film of granules. In the lingo of my girlfriends back home, it's "Sashatized." (Sasha, you would soooo dig the coffee here.) It’s delicious stuff, but it's not the drug I crave.

The pots in my kitchen don’t have handles, so Sowmiya showed me how to lift them from the stove with pincers. It reminded me of camping. I asked if I should turn off the gas when the stove’s not in use.

“I think you have not too many rats,” she replied. “You close the windows, yes?”

Her response seemed like a non sequitur, so I repeated my question. Again, she brought up rats. It took a full two minutes for me to understand the connection. Rats gnaw on rubber hoses. There’s a rubber hose connecting the tank to the stove.

“If you smell gas, then you turn off, ok?”

Is that before or after I climb on top of the table?

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Barefoot

I’m not fond of “I’ve seen better” types. People who visit the Getty and grumble that it’s no Guggenheim. Folks who visit Malibu’s beaches and lament, “It’s nothing like Maui.”

So it’s with a great deal of sheepishness that I say this: Thailand didn’t knock my socks off.

It’s not that I didn’t like it. What’s not to like when days unfold like this:

0730 GAZE AT OCEAN
0800 READ BOOK
0807 GAZE AT OCEAN
0900 MAKE THREE TRIPS TO ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT BREAKFAST BUFFET (OK, four if you count the hoard-for-later bowl of cashews and banana bread.)
1100 BATHE IN ORCHID-LITTERED WATER
1300 ONE-HOUR FOOT MASSAGE
1500 EAT SMUGGLED NUTS AND BANANA BREAD
1700 MANICURE/PEDICURE

That’s Thailand for tourists. Sure, there were inconveniences. I had to peel the skin off fresh litchis and pinch the feet off shrimp before popping them in my mouth. Sipping herbal tea while having my right arm massaged presented a challenge. I overcame it.

My trouble with Thailand is that it’s too comfortable, too familiar. A lot of Thailand is a little like someplace else. The beaches are a little like Mexico’s. Bangkok’s Patpong, with its go-go bars and sex shows, is a little like Amsterdam’s red-light district. The portly Europeans with their teenage Thai “escorts” remind me of the Dominican Republic. I’m traveling to be jarred. I’m traveling to be awed. Thailand didn’t leave a mark. I fear my memories of the place will fade as quickly as the manicure. “How was Thailand?” the folks back home want to know. I respond the way I do when a friend solicits my impression of his mousy new girlfriend. “She’s nice.”

I’m in India now. It’s Day 3 of my indefinite stay. I came back here because it’s like no other place I’ve been. India overwhelms me. Some days I’m overwhelmed with awe; other days, frustration. Exhaustion, elation and fury have a part, too. It’s a good thing barefoot is de rigueur here because India knocks my socks off.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Beautiful

James Blunt is the sound of summer in Thailand. His “Beautiful” blasts in open-air markets, hotel lobbies and thatched-roof bars. Fortunately, I like the song. The summer I traveled in Russia, Ace of Base was all the rage. I still can’t think of the Hermitage without hearing all that she wants is another bay-be. I thought it was a kooky Russian thing until I returned to the States and heard the nauseating number on campus.

Thursday night we drank Prosecco and munched on strips of roasted coconut at Breezes, the hotel bar. The house band opened with Blunt’s hit. Then they asked for requests from the crowd, which was the three of us, two Swiss ladies and a honeymoon-ish couple.

It’s monsoon season in Thailand, which means cheaper hotel rates, beach chairs aplenty and hovering waiters in half-empty restaurants. It’s supposed to mean daily downpours, but we've been lucky. It barely rained in the five days we spent on the beach. The umbrellas and ponchos we packed went untouched.

We chose a particularly quiet island for our beach vacation. Koh Chang, unlike Phuket or Koh Samui, is largely undeveloped. There’s no Starbucks or Burger King. The only harbinger of commercialization is Seven-Eleven, which dots the road that rings the island. Gasoline is sold in glass bottles, lemonade-stand style.


Koh Chang is where Thais go to unwind. I first heard about it from my Thai masseuses in Los Angeles. The bellhop at our hotel in Bangkok looked astonished when I told him where we were headed. “Gooooood,” he said, bobbing his head in approval. We never met or heard another American there. Italians and Swiss, yes. A middle-aged couple from Melbourne now residing in New Delhi. A father and daughter from Austria now living in Tokyo. I didn't know how to respond when they asked where I'm from or where I live.

At first we were shy about making requests. We asked the band to play David Gray, whose music we’d heard over dinner. (Three albums competed for our attention throughout the meal, a hazard of dining in shoulder-to-shoulder stick houses.) David Gray wasn’t in their repertoire, and Coldplay was still in rehearsal. Tina Turner, though, they had down. “Simply the Best” brought the Swiss ladies to the dance floor. They twirled and gyrated unselfconsciously. They sat down when Tina gave way to U2, and we requested “I Will Survive” to see them dance again.

At poolside happy hour Friday, we spread the word about Breezes and its jukebox of a band. A British dad said he'd bring his two teenage daughters. A newlywed pair -- he of Ireland and she of Scotland -- promised to come, too.

For dinner we hopped in the back of a truck and rode to the southern tip of Koh Chang. The steep and twisty road, the huts strung with Christmas lights and the hum of the rainforest made the trip feel like a Disneyland attraction. We feasted on prawns and blue crabs on a dark pier, alone in the eatery save for waitstaff and two friendly cats. Then we returned to our resort and Breezes.

Our new friends were there already. The band greeted us from stage. The newlyweds asked for Eric Clapton and got “Wonderful Tonight,” which made everyone go "awwwww" and the groom blush. The Brits dedicated “Leaving on a Jet Plane” to us. Around midnight, when the singers ran out of requests, they launched into “Beautiful.”

Thursday, August 24, 2006

I'm With


Heather and Ioana

They braved 14 hours of flying to come to Thailand with me. (That's them liquid-loading at LAX.) One is West Coast public relations powerhouse/poker shark; the other, East Coast loan market analyst/burlesque queen. When I leave for India in a few days, they'll head to Hong Kong for two days of power shopping and then back home. I'll be on my own, with no one to remind me to take my Malarone. I'll miss you ladies.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Experiences in Life

We’re in Bangkok, in the back of a taxi. It took us three tries to find a driver who’d take us to our hotel for 100 baht, or about $3. The first asked for 650.

“Too much!” we cried. He let us walk away. We were outside Wat Pho, the oldest and biggest temple in Bangkok. It’s a cabbie’s market.

Our driver has the radio on, and my ears perk up when the music stops.

Learn English in 1 minute.

I’m intrigued. One minute? The proposal is both absurd and magnetic, like teasers in women’s magazines. Become Your Best Self in 17 Days. Get Fit in 5 Minutes. I’m curious to hear what handy phrases the radio voice imparts. Most Thais we encounter understand a smidgen of English. Their mistakes amuse us. A yellow bottle is labeled "musturd." A roadside sign reads "Drink Don't Drive."

Currencies

There’s a Thai translation, and then: Experiences in life cannot be bought by currencies.

Currencies

Remember to practice your English every day because practice makes perfect.

The minute ends, and so does the segment. Experiences in life, indeed.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

LAX After Midnight

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Breadline

I woke up this morning on Heather's pullout couch. It felt like a Saturday until she got dressed for work. Then it sunk in: I am unemployed.

Yesterday morning I came to work and talked to my boss. He talked to HR, HR talked to me, and by 10 a.m. I was out the door. The company doesn't let quitters stick around. I'll be paid through the end of the month, by which time I'll have traveled to three countries.

My belongings are scattered across Los Angeles. Andy's got my blue velour couch. Heather has two lamps, a pair of 8-pound dumbbells and the end table my grandmother gave me. The Buick is parked in her garage; the motorcycle is at Dan's. Clothes and books are in plastic bins stacked in Curtis's shed. The rest I sold on craigslist and a friend's front lawn.

It's after 11, and I'm still in my pajamas. I am unemployed and homeless. I like it.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Welcome

Your password will expire in 2 days. Do you want to change it now?

The question made me giddy. I've changed the password on my work PC dozens of times, nearly exhausting variations of "welcome." Welcome6. Welcome8. Welcome2thejungle. This morning I moved my cursor to the "no" button and clicked. I don't need a new password. Tomorrow morning I'm quitting my job of five years. Two days later I'll be in Bangkok. This is the last day I spend in front of a computer.

"How long will you be gone?" everyone wants to know. Six months is what I've been telling friends. But I'm not sure. Depends how much I enjoy the wanderin' life. Depends how long my savings last. The not knowing -- the up-in-the-air-ness of it all -- feels like my first game of spin the bottle. Thrilling. Scary. A little bit naughty.