It's slowly sinking in: we're going to spend Christmas here.
I'm not going to feign enthusiasm--it sucks. Southeast Asian culture mixed with American culture produces a very ugly mutt: it's Christmas lights in all the wrong places, Celine Dion and Pavorotti singing Christmas carols on a continuous loop, and new Canto-pop (Cantonese-Chinese pop music) songs like "It's Christmas, So Let's Dance".
Buddha and Santa Claus don't mix. Cover your child's eyes! No human being, especially young ones, should be exposed to this. It's tragically all wrong!
We anxiously await the arrival of Krista's friends. We are planning to attend their wedding here and then go for a jungle trek in between Christmas and New Year's Day. Meanwhile, we "stimulate" our brains by reading books like Michael Moore's Stupid White Men and Guns, Girls, and Ganga (a profile of Westerners in Cambodia).
Our to do list (not necessarily in order of priority):
1) Find a new pair of sunglasses. I lost them at a wat over a month ago last time I was in Thailand. I'd like to imagine that there's a really cool looking monk somewhere wearing them.
2) Get laundry done. Numerous articles of my clothing have been tainted by loose stool and barf. (I was sick while traveling over the last few days. I handled it like a Navy Seal in training. I'd go to the squat toilet outhouse in the middle of the freezing cold night and squirt my toxins everywhere. Luckily the place was tiled and it had a hose with a strong sprayer. I was able to hose most of the muck down and pick the large pieces up and put them into the toilet. On the bus ride from the Thai-Laos border I puked over 1 pound of stomach contents into a shopping bag. It stunk up the whole bus. Fellow riders followed my act with their own retching and the slathering of tiger balm under their noses. At a short stop, I placed the heavy bag of puke in my gray bandanna and threw the sack behind a car repair shop where somebody's clean clothes were drying in the sun. Krista pukes a couple of time each week and has a battle with her bowels on a daily basis. I, on the other hand, get very sick, very fast and then it's done. It rarely stops either of us from traveling: you vomit, you squirt, you wipe the appropriate end and climb on the bus like a true warrior.)
3) Find a method to exercise. My body is withering away and I'm gaining possibly irreversible back fat. The local food here is both tremendously delicious and cheap--a brutal combination for the sedentary traveler. Maybe there is a pool nearby. I am really becoming a good swimmer after the time spent on the island, the Singapore YMCA, and the Nam Song river back in Laos.
4) Move. We are presently located at a guesthouse that is slightly over our budgets and the neighborhood looks more American than San Francisco's China Town. Consequently, I call the area where we are currently at Fisherman's Wharf. Now, if I can only find the wax museum.
That's it. That's my life right now. Hope you are enjoying the season back home.
I'm not going to feign enthusiasm--it sucks. Southeast Asian culture mixed with American culture produces a very ugly mutt: it's Christmas lights in all the wrong places, Celine Dion and Pavorotti singing Christmas carols on a continuous loop, and new Canto-pop (Cantonese-Chinese pop music) songs like "It's Christmas, So Let's Dance".
Buddha and Santa Claus don't mix. Cover your child's eyes! No human being, especially young ones, should be exposed to this. It's tragically all wrong!
We anxiously await the arrival of Krista's friends. We are planning to attend their wedding here and then go for a jungle trek in between Christmas and New Year's Day. Meanwhile, we "stimulate" our brains by reading books like Michael Moore's Stupid White Men and Guns, Girls, and Ganga (a profile of Westerners in Cambodia).
Our to do list (not necessarily in order of priority):
1) Find a new pair of sunglasses. I lost them at a wat over a month ago last time I was in Thailand. I'd like to imagine that there's a really cool looking monk somewhere wearing them.
2) Get laundry done. Numerous articles of my clothing have been tainted by loose stool and barf. (I was sick while traveling over the last few days. I handled it like a Navy Seal in training. I'd go to the squat toilet outhouse in the middle of the freezing cold night and squirt my toxins everywhere. Luckily the place was tiled and it had a hose with a strong sprayer. I was able to hose most of the muck down and pick the large pieces up and put them into the toilet. On the bus ride from the Thai-Laos border I puked over 1 pound of stomach contents into a shopping bag. It stunk up the whole bus. Fellow riders followed my act with their own retching and the slathering of tiger balm under their noses. At a short stop, I placed the heavy bag of puke in my gray bandanna and threw the sack behind a car repair shop where somebody's clean clothes were drying in the sun. Krista pukes a couple of time each week and has a battle with her bowels on a daily basis. I, on the other hand, get very sick, very fast and then it's done. It rarely stops either of us from traveling: you vomit, you squirt, you wipe the appropriate end and climb on the bus like a true warrior.)
3) Find a method to exercise. My body is withering away and I'm gaining possibly irreversible back fat. The local food here is both tremendously delicious and cheap--a brutal combination for the sedentary traveler. Maybe there is a pool nearby. I am really becoming a good swimmer after the time spent on the island, the Singapore YMCA, and the Nam Song river back in Laos.
4) Move. We are presently located at a guesthouse that is slightly over our budgets and the neighborhood looks more American than San Francisco's China Town. Consequently, I call the area where we are currently at Fisherman's Wharf. Now, if I can only find the wax museum.
That's it. That's my life right now. Hope you are enjoying the season back home.
posted by c. @ 1:20 AM
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