Thursday, March 31, 2016

Curry for Breakfast


Jan. 29
I’m starting this around 9:30 a.m. Bangkok time, and so for most of you reading this, it’s 9:30 p.m. on the East Coast.
I traveled somewhere between 7,000 and 93 million miles and I don’t have to reset my watch. Is that great or what?
I’m using wifi in the lobby because I can’t get it in the room, and there is a Thai pop music show on television in the background. I know I’m somewhere else.
The hot water supply, although still mercurial, seems to be holding up.
It could be the result of jet lag, when my system can’t feel the difference between day and night, or it may be that curry for breakfast is more fitting than the average farang may expect.
The breakfast buffet has the usual Euro-American fare: eggs, toast, bacon, ham, etc. But yesterday there was red curry and today green. Also rice, papaya, pineapple, cauliflower with broccoli.
Life is good. So is the curry.
Also cheap—in the good sense.
An expensive draft beer in this neighborhood costs about $3 American.

Yesterday we got back on the BTS Skytrain and retraced our route to the station called Saphan Taksin where we met Larry for dinner the other night. This time we were bound for the Central Pier. We got onto a water taxi, a boat full of seats, and went to the royal palace.

Sights on the bank make the ride alone worth the trip.

Whenever you get to the palace, guys hawking tuk-tuk tours tell you it’s closed, but they’ll give you a ride for 100 or 200 baht and bring you back when the gates reopen. The itineraries usually include a shopping stop.
We bid a guy down to 50 baht to go to the Standing Buddha and the Lucky Buddha. That’s $1.50 for a ride of several (maybe four or five) kilometers.

He got us to the Standing Buddha, where we stayed for maybe half an hour. As we were promised, it’s big—about 150 feet high. A man was stringing saffron drapes over Buddha’s shoulders. There was incense, along with recorded chanting, but it was a real church. People were down on their knees lighting incense and offering flower buds.
There was a cat wearing a cape sleeping at the Buddha’s feet.  Just so you don’t have to take my word for it, that’s the photo of the day.

On the way out, the driver pulls the tuk-tuk over so fast that he hits the curb. “I want to take you to a Thai factory.”
I used to visit factories for a living. They can actually be fun, but not today. He shows me his wrist watch, as if that’s going to be an incentive.
I don’t want to buy anything. I don’t want to look at clothes or rubies or watches. I show him on the map where I want to go. He can’t take me to the Lucky Buddha unless we go to the factory. 
OK. It’s back to the palace.
The palace was, in fact, closed. But that’s all right. The palace is semi-boring. The place I wanted to see is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The Emerald Buddha sits on a golden pillar on a shining golden altar, adorned with such intricacy that I can’t imagine all that is worked into it—vines and demons and saints, I guess. 
The effigy of Buddha itself looks to be about a foot and a half high.
It is indeed green. If it is covered truly covered in emeralds,  that is pretty impressive even if it is on the same scale as the Infant of Prague. (Editor’s note: The Emerald Buddha is named for its color. The figure is 66 cm high and is made of jasper.)
There were tour groups shoving us aside and blocking the walks on the way to the place, but the temple was not as crowded as I feared. We stood in the back for a couple of minutes. Joanna was underwhelmed.
It was hot outside by New Jersey standards. The cold snap was ending. It was in the mid-80s Wednesday and a bit cold for the locals. Thursday hit 90 or so, still mild for the Thai, but for the farang standing in the sun was a bitch. Even Joanna was feeling the heat, and that surprised her because she’s from Hong Kong.
We had some fruit juice and hid in the shade, then tried to hire a tuk-tuk to carry us three blocks to the Reclining Buddha, which is in a temple complex next to the palace. The first guy wanted 80 or 100 baht. The second guy asked for 60 and took 50.
We spent more time stuck in traffic than riding, but it was worth it for the break. 

They charge 100 baht for a ticket to the complex. I normally resist paying an admittance fee to enter a church, but have done it a few times before. Compared with Westminster Abbey, $3 to see the Sleeping Buddha is a real bargain. You don’t get royal tombs, but you do get a free bottle of water.
The Buddha is huge and brassy yellow, except for the eyes, which are white with black pupils. The feet are huge and symmetrical. We couldn’t see the writing on the underside. They were screened from view, and a sign said the Buddha’s feet were under reconstruction, out for half soles and lifts.
The things that impressed Joanna the most were the decorative motifs on many of the pagodas and buildings. They were stylized florals set piece by piece. Some of these buildings are more than 200 years old. 
She was amazed. How did they do it? How long did it take? There’s not a piece missing. What kind of adhesive did they use? What an achievement of maintenance.
They are impressive, and not only for their age. The variety of colors blends into a harmonious whole. But then, that may be the point. After all, these are the creations of Buddhists.
The outside walls facing the street take more punishment, it seems. There were many spots filled in with cement where the original mosaic pieces had been lost. A few stone flower petals had fallen onto the sill at the foot of the wall. “I take it all back,” she said.
We had stepped off at Pier 9 for the palace, but the Sleeping Buddha is closer to Pier 8. To get there, we took a detour through a cavernous warehouse complex and down a lane where people store things like their portable cooking carts for street food and their personal possessions. There are signs that people may live there.
We found our way to a pier, stood in line in the heat for a boat, and finally got back to Saphan Taksin at rush hour. We were exhausted from walking in the heat, and really needed to get back to the hotel. But it wasn’t as bad as I feared. We were able to board the first train at Saphan Taksin and also at the transfer station, Siam.
When we got back to the hotel, Joanna took a nap and I checked e-mail.
We went to the American Bar and Grill, about 100 paces from the hotel, for dinner. I had meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Joanna had a Philly-style cheese steak made with Australian beef. 
When we ordered a side of asparagus, Tom, the owner of the bar told us that the kitchen uses only locally grown vegetables delivered three times a week from a specific market in his end of town. We had met Tom the night before, when we stopped in for a few late beers. Tom is an ex-pat from New England, who has a Thai wife, as many ex-pats do, and home schools his children.
That cheese steak might count as exotic for Joanna. The first time she tasted one was only a few years ago, when we were in Philadelphia. She has had maybe one or two others since then.
As exotic, certainly as curry for breakfast.
Be well, all.




Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Back in Bangkok




January 25, 2016

We have about 10 minutes before United starts boarding our plane. I am about to become a temporary ex-pat. Just to prove that indeed I am retired, I booked us for about seven weeks in Thailand and Cambodia.

Joanna has not been to either country. I am returning to Thailand after about four years or five mainly to live for a few weeks in Chiang Mai, one of the most charming cities I have visited so far. I have been missing the place, with its ex-patriate bars and golden temples.

I have not been to Cambodia before. I hear that Phnom Penh is an exciting place, so we'll go there to find out. Then we'll go to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat, which is next door.

We'll be coming back to the States on March 12. 

We'll be at the S6 Sukhumvit Hotel in Bangkok (Soi 6, Khlong Toei, Bangkok 10110, Thailand, +66 2 253 5672) for a week and from Feb. 4 will be at the Boonthavon in Chiang Mai (39 Rajchadumnern Rd., Soi 1 A.Muang Chiangmai, Mueang Chiang Mai District, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand, +66 53 226 778).

Gotta run now. 

More later.


January 27

We dodged not a bullet but a cannonball back home—28 inches of snow on Saturday and we leave on Monday. Things were pretty much back to normal by the time we got to the airport. Normal for Newark, that is. 

The plane was about 45 minutes late, for unexplained reasons, getting out of Newark. Given all the snow on the ground, I was half expecting a delay of a day or two. 

We got to the hotel around 1:30 in the morning. 

This is the first time I've been outside the United States since October 2014. God, I love it.

I booked us in a hotel called the S6 Sukhumvit. We walk out of our street and turn right for the commercial district, with tailor shops, souvenir stores, McDonald's, banks, etc. The other way is a red light district. 

We got here about 1:30 in the morning and ran into heavy traffic. The cab was creeping past the bars and the hookers. I told Joanna that we'd have to come back this way if we could find it. I had no idea that we'd be staying in the middle of it.

The first plane ride was long, about 14 hours, but brightened by free beer. I expected to settle for American-brewed Heineken, but United was also carrying Goose Island IPA. I've had it on draft before--at Kabooz, the bar in Penn Station, and at Nelly Spillane's, for instance.

We had plenty of time to change planes in Tokyo so the delay in getting started was negligible.

We had a small adventure there. The attendant at the United counter in Newark told us that we would have to get our bags and transfer them ourselves at Narita. I've changed planes at that airport a half-dozen times, every flight I've taken to and from Asia, and didn't remember doing that before. 

After a couple of tries at breaking the language barrier at the security checkpoint, I went to the ANA information desk. 

Duh. It's where I should have gone first. The lady there confirmed that our bags had already been transferred. 

Fantastic. Now I could have a few beers in peace. Once you get to Asia, the beer selection gets pretty narrow. It's mostly lagers. 

A word of caution: You don't drink the Guinness here because it is not the real thing. It's a nasty drink called "Export Extra." They label it export because the Irish won't drink it. It's sweet and syrupy thick. It usually runs about 7 percent alcohol but even that can't redeem it. You can buy it in the States, too, under the name “Extra Stout” if you're not careful.

There was a black brew on tap, but it was surprising short of flavor and fragrance. The regular Asahi was much better.

Joanna got some wonton soup, white rice, and fried dumplings, which we shared.

The plane left pretty much on time, and we were in the Thai immigration line by midnight. It was about 25 hours of travel and layover time, but with the time zone difference, it was a day and a half on the clock.

There is a problem with hot water at the hotel, so we had them move us to a different room. It isn't entirely reliable in the new room. The hot tap runs cold from time to time. Not a good way to shower, so we have worked a way around it: Run hot water in the tub as long as the tap runs hot, and then shut it off for a few minutes when it turns cold.

It's not a real shower, but a sprayer on the end of a hose, so sitting in the tub is required anyway.

The next morning we slept in and headed out around noon or so.

A tuk-tuk driver came up to us when we were waiting to cross a street and showed us a map of the area. He offered to give us a two-hour tour for 50 baht, but we had ridden enough the day before, so we were in need of a walk. 

We found a shop called Doilanka specializing in local coffee, which is mostly grown up in the north, near where we are headed next week.

Delicious stuff. I was late to the breakfast buffet at the hotel and so could only get tea. This was the first coffee I had in a couple of days.


I started with espresso, followed that with French press, and then latte. Joanna had a drink of coconut mixed with white chocolate served with foamed milk.

Before we left, the owner, who said his name is Bam, was taking our picture, having his photo taken with us, and introducing us to the illustrator who was making signs for the windows. The shop has been open for three or four months, Bam said. 


He used to be an importer, and still brings beans in. He showed us a jar of unroasted beans, and then set out a sample of the beans he had roasted--in a little hand-cranked device over a gas burner.

The beans are transformed by roasting. Completely different color and aroma. You can eat the roasted beans, which he and I did. I had a caffeine high like none in a long while.

On the way back to the hotel, Joanna wanted to buy a pair of flip-flops. That's why we went into a store called Pink Pussy. There are magenta and pink cartoon cat's heads on some of the displays, just so you won't get the wrong idea. It sells shiny costume jewelry, plastic wallets, rhinestone purses, and cell phone covers with pictures of the Saudi royal family and of a man wearing a g-string shaped like a hand.

No flip-flops, though. We found some a few doors down. Joanna had the man snap off the little duck heads on the straps.

I was still buzzed from caffeine when we met Larry for dinner. 

He took us to Beer Corner, which is attached to a food court, not unlike the hawker centers in Singapore. We ordered some sauteed kale and pork mai pet (not spicy) for Joanna and got red curry with pork for ourselves. 

We also got something called morning glories (but probably not the flower) also supposed to be mai pet. It showed up with a few slices of red chili mixed with the greens. 

"Sweet pepper," the lady said. I wasn't so sure. I tried one. Sweet for the Thai, maybe, but hot as hell even for me. I enjoyed it, but followed it with white rice and a couple of long swigs of San Miguel.

Live music started shortly after we got there. Joanna suggested we tip the singer 200 baht so he would stop. 

We finished the food and went to another stand a block away. 

It was a school night for Larry, so he took off after a couple of beers more. We made our way back to the neighborhood by way of the Skytrain. I always feel so sophisticated when I don't get lost on a foreign city's train service.

Joanna's back from the nail salon. It's half past ten in the morning here. We have to take the Skytrain to the water taxi for the trip to the royal palace. No, I'm not kidding. 







Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Eagle Eyes



July 5

In West Virginia, The ridges are alive with the rotors of windmills.

I passed a gorgeous row of them and then a while later thought I had been going in circles. There were the windmills again coming up on my left. But then I looked right, and there they were again. And again.

Of course, I was in central Pennsylvania when I woke up on the fifth. Interstate 80 is a beeline home. I’ve done that beeline many times to and from Clearfield. This time, though, I decided to take a byway. U.S. 220 joins 80 and then veers north about an hour from Clearfield.

I wonder what’s up there.

I was barreling along, listening to some nice classical music from the Penn State radio station. The ride was so free and easy that I had to keep an eye on the speedometer. Time and again, it would get away from me and the car would be doing 80. That risks a ticket. Unless there’s somebody else passing you. Then you’re likely to be OK.

The exit to 220 was easy to find. So was the sign for Bald Eagle State Park. Wow, what if they have real bald eagles there?

But when I got to the first intersection, I had to guess which way to turn to find the eagles. That’s how I wound up in Lock Haven, a couple of miles up the road.

It’s one of those beautiful little towns you find everywhere I’ve been on the Eastern Seaboard. Steeples, small stores, a town square with a soldiers and sailors monument for the Civil War. They even have a time capsule to be opened in 2032.


This monument didn’t have anything as colorful as a quote from Mussolini on it. It did have Lincoln’s “with malice toward none,” but I don’t put Lincoln into the same class with Mussolini, who is a bit more on the exotic side for me.



But there seems to be a distinction about this monument. I got as close to the base as I could manage without trampling the town’s flowers. Unless it is the strangest carved 9 I ever saw, the dedication read 1808, which is more than 50 years before the Civil War started. Is it possible that the people of Lock Haven were that prescient? Or had I found a monument with a typo? Either way is pretty cool, gang.



Once I had the name of the town (very easy to get since I parked in front of the town hall) I could get my bearings.

As I expected I had taken the wrong direction and just had to take the same road back the other way a few miles. So far, so good. I stopped at a couple of gas stations but they had no public rest rooms, so I decided to fuel the car elsewhere.

The park is right off Pennsylvania highway 150. And yes, one of the rangers at the office said, they have bald eagles. They have to have bald eagles there, another said, because of the name of the park. If these leave, they have to bring others in.

A lady said the park isn’t named for the birds, but for Chief Bald Eagle. Lies, more lies, and who knows what. My kind of place.

I didn’t see any eagles. It was very hot and they were either already at the beach or were hiding out in air-conditioned aeries. Nothing was flying that afternoon, not even clouds. The sky was a perfect blue.


This was apparently Iroquois country. There was a rest stop with a marker about the Warriors’ Path. Sounded a lot like the Interstate Highway system. Only they did it on foot.


After leaving the park, I had a couple of chocolate chip cookies for lunch and headed home.

The traffic grew heavier, as it always does, as I moved east. But there was no punishing delay. It did keep my speed in the no-ticket range. So maybe that’s an upside.

Anyhow, as you can tell, I got home just fine.

Be well, all.







Saturday, March 19, 2016

City of Ice


July 4
Gibbie’s bar had been ridiculously noisy on Thursday night. They were just finishing up quiz night. The last question was something like “What doll appeared on a U.S. postage stamp series about the 1980s?” Then they put music on so loud that nobody would be able to think of a proper answer.
I was screaming at the barkeeper: “DO YOU HAVE HALF PINTS?” I love half pints in a good bar because I get to try more taps.
She screamed back something that sounded like “Yes.”
“I’ll have a half pint of the IPA.”
There must have been a soft passage in the background music, because she said, “We don’t have half pints, only 16 and 20 ounces.”
The answer, by the way, which everyone got right in spite of the noise, was the Cabbage Patch Kid. Remember them? People used to rush to buy every one that came out because they were convinced the things would increase in value. Investment toys.
They were made in Canada, where they weren’t selling at inflated prices. Before that trade went bust, people were restricted in the number of Cabbage Patch dolls they could carry across the border into the States.
I didn’t get to bed till about 3:30, but managed to get up in time to have breakfast and check out by 11.

Getting to the car took me past something that I hadn’t noticed the night before. Maybe because I was thirsty and bent on getting to Gibbie’s. Anyhow, on a glance it looked like a strange business, City of Ice Quip Men. Fantastic. Where is the City of Ice? Or are they ice quip men? Like Henny Youngman impersonators with nerves of steel?
But I didn’t have time to find out. I had to make plans.
I opened the map in the car. OK, where to go next? Should I look at more West Virginia? or go to Pennsylvania, where the food and the beer are marginally better?
What decided for me were two small marks on the map at Moundsville, W.Va., which is on the Ohio River. That’s good. I get to see the Ohio River and think about Mike Fink. What’s more, if I keep my eyes open for the turnoffs, I’ll get to see not only the Palace of Gold, but also the “Grave Cr. Mound N.H.S.”
All right, mound, national historical site. I’m going to see some remaining Indian influences on the land. Wonder what the Palace of Gold is.
This was the Fourth of July, remember, so when I saw this, I knew I had a picture of the day. I had to go down the highway a mile or so before I could find a safe place to turn around. You’re not going to do a K-turn on the highway out here. The sight distances are too short.

The house is right by the roadside. Wind had blown the tin roofing back to expose stripes of rust and white. I guess somebody saw what I saw and added the plastic stool to complete the illusion. Either that or it was blown up there by the same storm.
I had a Stephen King moment not far from Moundsville. There was a rough stone obelisk about three feet high painted with the house number and the name “Korngiver.” Is this He Who Walks in the Rows?
I came around a bend and just in time saw a sign pointing down a side road to the Palace of Gold.
I followed the road and met the most laid-back peahen I’ve ever seen. She was walking down the middle of the road. Originally I thought it was pheasant.
I hit a pheasant once on a county highway between New Berlin and Norwich, N.Y. It was walking with determination out a field and crossing. Traffic be damned. I hit the brake and almost managed to stop in time. I bumped into its wing.
The bird took two steps sideways from impact, gave me a stare like a pissed-off New Yorker, and continued across the road.
The peahen was just cool. That’s all. She stepped out of the way and then all I could see was the comb on top of her head. I expected her to take off when I got out of the car, but no. She couldn’t care less.
My camera battery was dead. I got a new one from my duffel bag in the trunk, and she was still there.

The Palace of Gold, I learned shortly after my peahen encounter, has nothing to do with the Mounds in Moundsville, but it most certainly is an Indian influence on the land. It is a complex that includes shrine, temple, lodge, meeting room, picnic ground, and other stuff for the Hare Krishnas. In West Virginia of all places.

There must have been a couple of hundred people, or maybe a million (I’m not good at estimating crowds), all out saying their prayers, taking a tour of the shrine, and lining up for the vegetarian lunch. Most of the crowd was clearly Indian, even though the Hare Krishna movement is American. That surprised me for some reason. I don’t know why.
I hiked up the hill (always hills because it’s West Virginia) from the parking lot to the shrine. You stand on the porch of the place and look out at wooded mountains, like something out of a Davy Crockett movie, and then you turn around to find gilded domes and stupas.

I got into a chat with an American lady, who had the mark of Rama drawn on her forehead and was selling tour tickets at the shrine. I didn’t feel like taking a tour, but she was very nice. She asked me where I was from, and it turns out that she was in New York, not far from Montclair, a few weeks earlier.
She lives in Mexico, but went to the Hare Krishna headquarters in New York for some event and while she was there got a tattoo, which is apparently on her ribs and hidden by her sari. She pointed in that direction, but didn’t show it to me, so I’m not sure.
Then she came to West Virginia to play the Palace. She said the complex has been here for a while. It opened in 1972 or ’3.

The mounds, or actually mound, was easier and harder to find at the same time. The map made me think there was a cutoff to the site outside of town. I didn’t see any sign and wound up buying gasoline at a convenience store in the middle of a commercial stretch in Moundsville
I asked a lady inside the store about the mounds. “They’re right up this street,” she said, pointing the way. “You can see them from the window. I drove uphill a block and sure enough, there it was, the Grave Creek Mound Archeological Complex.

Maybe when the museum is open you can get inside the fence. It was closed for the Fourth, so I can’t tell.
There’s something spooky about Neolithic monuments. This was built by a people who did not work with metals. The structures, at least in North America, that they left standing are made of rocks and earth. 


Some time in the first half of the last century explorers bored holes into the mound and found a couple of burial chambers. Who built this thing? Why so big? What were they thinking? It’s like the Old Judy Church: Some things are just mysteries.
It’s fun, too, that the mound is directly across the street from a state pen. This is a long  building made to look like a fairy tale castle. I wonder if that’s so the prisoners wouldn’t feel too sad. The guys celled on this side of the pen got to see the mound, too. I wonder if that kind of novelty was an incentive for a life of crime.

There is a church down the street where maybe they could go to reform.
I crossed at Moundsville into Ohio.
I was winging it in Ohio, following a highway up the river. I expected to run into U.S. 30, the Lincoln Highway, but instead I came to U.S. 22.
My internet connection had conked out in the morning, so I wasn’t able to look up Pretty Boy Floyd. But I crossed into Ohio anyway. I knew that he had been shot in a field in southeastern Ohio, but couldn’t remember where.
I had been on the road for a couple of days and had come across nothing involving a former Public Enemy No. 1 or Stonewall Jackson, so I was starting to have withdrawal symptoms.
I found out later that I had come within perhaps an hour of the place. Floyd was shot—perhaps by Melvin Purvis, who led the dispatching of Dillinger four months earlier—just off Sprucevale Road near an Ohio hamlet called Clarkson, not far north of East Liverpool, Ohio, which you can find on Google Maps. All right. Now I have another road trip planned. Maybe it will include Dillinger’s grave in Indianapolis.
Anyway, I took 22 back into West Virginia for a short time and then into Pennsylvania. the bonus for going that way is that it took me across a cable-stayed bridge. These are the bridges with the fans of cables spreading from central arch.

The route took me past Pittsburgh, which looks like Baltimore or Houston or maybe like almost all cities that have a central core dating from the late 20th century. The old city appears to be decaying around a few prosperous areas built within the past 50 or 60 years.
I wound up in Clearfield, Pa. That’s the home of Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub, and I had a yen for red ale and elk. With the help of the GPS, I checked into a Super 8, and then headed up the hill to Denny’s. Which was closed. What? Another national institution closed for Independence Day.
The GPS failed me this time. My second choice was somebody’s pub and grill. The GPS took me to a Sheetz gas station and convenience store.
But down the block was a place that was open.
No elk, no red ale. No ale at all, for that matter. But there was Guinness. In the bottle.
I ordered a pork chop, but word came back from the kitchen that they were out of it. So I had chicken marsala instead. Clearfield is in the middle of Pennsylvania and so, regardless what your teacher may have told you, is in the Midwest. The Midwest begins somewhere around Morristown, N.J.
I think the marsala part may have been prepackaged. It wasn’t bad, but wasn’t great.
A group of people were sitting at the far end of the bar. One guy described his plan for solving the problem of illegal immigration at the Mexican border. He was particularly concerned about marijuana mules.
The idea is to buy a perimeter at the border and move the military bases there. Then they use the borderline as an artillery ground. Shoot explosives there all day. You’re going to do that anyway for practice. Nobody is coming across.
If that’s what scares you, then it makes sense.
I went back to Super 8, and that was it.
Good night, all.