Ding Dong Dunk and Other Reasons I’ll Never Drink Lao Khao Again.

Thailand: They called it “Thai rice whiskey”. They insisted it was a must-try. My first gulp unveiled the cruelty of our new friends. My tongue swelled, my lips puckered and burnt, my nostrils convulsed, my neck kinked, my cheeks filled with spit. I felt a thickness where mouth becomes throat, and I gargled some Chang to wash away the horror. As my sinuses began to drain, I felt her in my belly, a warm, evil puddle.

Lao Khao, a potent rice whiskey made from distilled sahtoh, is the most apocalyptic of liquors. It makes you scream the things that common courtesy locks in the subconscious creases of your brain. It makes you act on the impulses that legal disincentives and social inhibitions usually curb. It is the devil on your shoulder banishing the angel to the harsh light of sobriety. She is an evil, evil mistress. She is the summation of everything that is tasteless, the total of all that is cruel and unkind. She is cheap, she is easy, and she’ll ensure you won’t forget her with the promise of an eyeball-pounding hangover. She’ll pain you to the point of suicide, and she’ll make you wish you were never born.

” Wilai, why is that man over there just standing on the road and not going anywhere?”

” I ask aunt same before. She speak he ding dong (a little crazy) and dunk (drunk). He like dink (drink) Lao Khao too much”. (from thaisabai.org)

Today, cheap Lao Khao is not only sold at virtually every small store in Thailand, it is also the pin on the blue-collar lapel – hawked at bars frequented by the local working man: places where buildings are fashioned from bamboo, roofs from palm fronds, and barstools from trunks of palm trees. The most widely-known and accessible variety is Mekhong. For only 40 Baht, she will accompany you on your travels in a 1-litre glass bottle big enough to get the whole village inebriated.

Some have tried to tame her with Coca Cola or copious amounts of soda water. Another, more interesting technique is to soak special ingredients in the Lao Khao using cheesecloth. After a few days of soaking, the infused liquid is ladled into shot glasses and enjoyed as Lao Yadong. The process is not unlike the one employed in the West to change mediocre hard liquor into expensive liqueurs.

One of these special Lao Yadongs mixes Lao Khao with snake blood, usually a cobra’s. Aficionados believe the blood turns the drink into an aphrodisiac. Mmm, mmm. For those of you who feel your batteries need recharging and just can’t wait to quaff a little cobra blood, it can be found in Bangkok’s Klong Toey Market.

But be warned – if someone offers you a clear shot of the local favourite, make sure you have nothing else planned for the rest of the evening. And good luck to you, my friend.

Jo chasing the Khao with oj.

Overland from Singapore to Malaysia – A Race Againgst Time with Totally Inappropriate Girl, First Time Squatter, Blue Ticket Bus Queen, and Saviour Man

The Perhentians: Malaysia’s postcard islands. We’d heard about them from our Malaysian friend who we’d met in Seoul and crossed paths with in Singapore… she’s awesome. She said if we were looking for relaxing on an island whilst in Malaysia, the Perhentians were it.

So we decide to take a night bus up the coast (the Perhentians are on the northeast part of Malaysia, way up near the border with Thailand). To get there, we have to cross the Singapore/Malaysia border. Our bus is at 9pm and we have all day to get there. No problem, right?

We pack our bags and leave our Beary Good Hostel. We head for the Singapore Zoo, because we hear that this zoo is one of the best in the world (most of the animals get free roam, and a couple of times we were walking the pathways and had monkeys jumping around the trees over our heads, rather nonchalantly). I, myself, had a few heart palpitations… that Balinese ape from Indonesia has made me rather skeptical of monkeys of late.

Anyway. We finish at the zoo, and we sort of sluggishly decide to start making our way to Malaysia. So we leave and board a bus for the Malaysian border (Bus 950 from Woodlands on the Singapore MRT – yes, the abbreviation for this is S-M-R-T, and no, it doesn’t get much more awesome than that). We’re given these tissue-paper thin Blue Tickets that I’m pretty certain I immediately throw away because nothing that insubstantial can be worth anything substantial, right? By the time we get to Woodlands, it’s about 6:30pm. We’re already worried we’re running a little tight on time.

We get off 950 at the border. Upstairs to customs. Wait in line, passport stamp, we depart Singapore successfully. Back downstairs to find a bus, the place is a zoo, we stand in the Yellow Bus line bound for Johor Bahtu for awhile because it looks like it’s the line that most people have chosen to stand in, and to be honest we have no idea whatsoever where we’re supposed to be, so we may as well wait somewhere and at least look like we know what we’re doing.

Melis leaves her bag and goes to ask someone, comes back 15 minutes later and tells us we’re in the wrong line and we better find those flimsy blue tissue-paper-thin tickets we were given on the Singapore side of the border, because we’ll need those Blue Tickets again to board the 950 bus, which apparently we have to do one more time. We leave the Yellow Bus line that we’ve now spent almost ½ hour waiting in, and when the 950 bus comes, Jo and I have to pay again, because obviously we threw away those stupid tickets, while Blue Ticket Bus Queen walks on for free… smart bitch.

On the 950 for 10 minutes as it brings us to the Malaysian side of the border. We go upstairs again and get in line for immigration (there are 2 sides to this border crossing, and it’s cutting into our time rather unpleasantly, thank you very much). This line is moving slower than the Singapore one did, and when we finally get to the front, the immigration officer asks us, “where is white paper?” And points back to where we came from.

Out of line again. Off to fill out our white papers. Running now. Sweating almost.

Complete the papers. Back in line. Stamped successfully. Downstairs to find a bus that will take us to Laikan, which is where we’re supposed to catch another bus to Kota Bahtu (which will take us to the Perhentians, or at least we hope). It’s an overnight bus and we’re seriously running out of time now.

Ask a nice lady we pass while running down the escalator what bus we’re supposed to take. She directs us to Bus 170. We need to pay the bus driver in Malaysian Ringgit, AWESOME, all we have are Singaporean Dollars.

It’s 8:15pm. We have 45 minutes to get all the way to Laikan, find the bus we want, buy a ticket, and board. And to do each of these things, we’re going to need Malaysian Ringgit.

I drop my backpack and leave it with the girls, then book it as fast as I can towards somewhere, anywhere, away from here that might have an ATM.

I’m told there are NO ATM’s anywhere nearby. Only money changers, who are still far away, but I don’t have a choice and I’m running again, all the way back to where we came from, back to the passport stamping area and down to “City Centre”, past tons of slow-walking Muslims who I’m sure are judging me because I’m wearing a tank top, showing my shoulders and probably far too much cleavage than is appropriate, considering I’m running and sweating and at the best of times it’s hard to keep those things under control. Really wishing I was wearing a normal t-shirt about now, but there’s no time for wishful thinking. We need to catch this bus.

Here I am, Totally Inappropriate, and I get lost. I have no idea where I’m going, but I’ve been sprinting now for 10 minutes and where I am is starting to look less and less like an immigration control and more and more like a Muslim city. Then I end up in a huge mall, escalators everywhere, bright lights, people staring.

“The bank machine? Level B2.” Where the fuck is level B2?

Booking it down the escalators because I have to choose a direction and ‘down’ seems appropriate. Top speed, elbowing people out of my way as I run blindly down the escalators, literally blind for the sweat in my eyes.

At the bottom level, ask another random stranger “where the hell is the bank machine!?” and he tells Totally Inappropriate to go straight, all the way to the end, past the elevators and down a small corridor, out on the other side and you’ll find a Maybank, he starts to spell it for me but I don’t have time, I hear him yelling after me, “yellow colour!”.

Through the hallway of elevators and down a narrow passage I never would have seen, I find Maybank.

What a huge relief.

I get to the machine, throw my card in…

And realize I have no idea how much a Malaysian Ringgit is.

Do I take out 5 Ringgit, or 50,000 Ringgit?

I ask the guy next to me and he’s a Quiet Talker and I don’t understand a thing he’s trying to say, I’m about to punch him in the face.

I settle on 1,000 Ringgit. Hit enter. And a massive wad of cash is dispensed into my shaking fingers. I try and stuff my huge stack of money into my wallet but it barely fits, and there are a ton of Malaysians staring at me and my money and now I’m not only Totally Inappropriate, I’m also Totally Rich and Totally Freaked Out.

So I turn on my heel and sprint out of the bank. Now it’s a race against time as I try to navigate my way back… running as fast as I can, back up through the mall, up to the top floor by accident, back down, past the cab drivers, back to the immigration building that looks like a casino, and all of a sudden, a lineup with a baggage scanner and a sign:

“Welcome to Singapore”

Awesome! Ahh!

I try to bypass. I’m yelled at. I’m definitely panting at this point, and I can’t see at all now for the sweat in my eyes. Not sure what words manage to escape my mouth, but it probably sounded something like this:

“I.. with the.. needed money.. bank machine.. bus! (tap my invisible watch) – no time! already here.. ahh!”

I suppose I was able to communicate some level of panic because they saw my passport briefly and let me go –

Back up the escalators on the immigration side, another official-looking lady is trying to stop me, in retrospect she was probably trying to help me but I DON’T HAVE TIME, doesn’t she understand I’m out of time?!

She lets me go, back to Bus 170, the girls are waiting, there’s a nice Malaysian man standing with them – when I tell them where I went he can’t believe it – shakes his head a bit, there are no bank machines anywhere nearby, haha.

Apparently we’d missed 3 buses while I ran.

It’s 8:40pm.

Nice Saviour of a Man says he can drive us to Laikan!

And we’re off, dodging cars and bikes over 8 lane highways and busy overpasses, walking on the shoulder of the road as vehicles rip by, inches from our feet.. Saviour says “wait here, I’ll get the car and meet you – I can run faster. You rest.”

And he’s off, and he shows up in his little car and we pile in, he’s driving fast and we’re there! 8:55pm and we’re at Laikan! He parks and we run, some officials are trying to yell at us as we run to where the tickets are, but Saviour Man redirects us and tells the men to be quiet, says to us “not that way, this way safer”.

And we’re running to the Transsnational Bus Ticket window and a million men are trying to sell us tickets, and Saviour Man tells them in Bahasa Malay to shut up, we’re not interested! They leave us alone.

At the ticket window, Saviour gets our tickets for us (the lady doesn’t speak any English, it’s a miracle we have Saviour there to help).. he pays an extra few Ringgit out of his own pocket in order to give the lady exact change..

The ticket printer “is broken”, it’s 9pm now.. we have no choice but to wait.. Saviour heads with Melis and Jo to the bathroom – it’s Jo’s first squatter toilet experience and she’s got her giant backpack on and she’s on her rag, doesn’t know what to do, can’t balance, we’re in a hurry, ha!

Meanwhile I’m standing with the bags, am approached while waiting by guys trying to sell me tickets, Saviour shows up and tells them to get lost.

Finally the printer works, we have our tickets, and now we’re sprinting to our bus, it’s well after 9pm. The bus is still there! Bus driver looks at our tickets and shakes his head, we have no idea what he’s saying because he’s speaking Malay.. Saviour to the rescue – “you have to get off bus before destination stop – you must alight at Jertes after 10 hours”. Hugs for Saviour and he won’t accept money – we wanted to show our appreciation! – more hugs for Saviour – on the bus, wave goodbye.

We made it.

We fucking made it.

Welcome to Malaysia.

Chogi Issoyo & the Creepy Girl in the Coffee Shop.

Since returning from a year of living in Asia, I’ve started playing a “guess the ethnicity” game with myself. Before I moved to Korea, I will admit, I could not tell you if someone was Indonesian or Chinese, and that’s pretty bad. I’m not much better now, except that I can usually tell who the Koreans are in the bunch.

So I’m sitting here in one of Vancouver’s coffee shops, enjoying my americano and whiling away my Monday with caffeine and a guidebook, because I’m sort-of-kind-of-trying-to-get-an-idea of the places I’ll be visiting in the next few months. Anyway. In walk a couple of 20-something Asian guys.

Success! Game-on.

Everything I was doing is no longer important. My fingers fall back into my lap. My back straightens. I stare at them. I weigh their every movement. I watch for any indication of a Korean gesture, and I ogle their clothes. Korean fashion is something that I was always in awe of when I was over there, so I look for things that might pull me back to Seoul. But most of all, I try to listen. I crane my neck in their direction and I shift my position on the bench so I’m more directly within their earshot. Language is the best indicator. If I can catch a word or two, I’m golden. So here I am, craning my neck and staring at them. I am, quite literally, that creepy girl in the coffee shop.

One of them looks up at me. He has died blonde hair, and he’s sporting a Giordano “Cheer you up shirt” which I totally recognize from Seoul. In fact, I own a hoodie of the same brand. And I’m trying to look at his face and see if he looks Korean, and I think he does, and I convince myself that he does, though I have no idea if he actually does or not. And then I hear it – chogi issoyo – and, bam! it’s like music to my ears.

I have no idea what he was talking about. All I know is that he was talking about something that exists “over there”. Maybe he meant that their coffees were ready over there. Maybe he meant there’s a creepy foreign girl staring at him over there. Maybe he meant “we’re Korean, and we’re over here!”. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I won. In this retarded little game that I play with myself, I emerged victorious.

Great success! Koreans exist over there.

I am that smart. I am really, very smart.

Football fever in Korea: 대한민국!

Dae han min guk!

대한민국

As the sun falls in the sky, ladies adorned in red shirts and devil horns set up folding tables on the sidewalks. Men with Korean flags draped over their backs and girls with blushing faces painted red white and blue pass over the cooling concrete, swarming the streets in a mass migration to the big screens at Coex mall. The city is alive with chants of “Dae han min guk!”, as the people of Seoul prepare to stay up all night in support of South Korea’s 3rd, and possibly final, world cup match against Nigeria.

It’s 8pm on Tuesday, June 22nd. The game starts at 3:30am (that’s right, in the middle of the night), and the streets are alive as if the game were at noon on a Saturday. Football fever is everywhere in Korea, and the fans are devoted like nothing I’ve seen since Kim Yu-Na skated for them in the 2010 Olympics (and I’m not even sure they’re over that yet).

South Korea played their first 2010 world cup match against Greece on Saturday June 12th. My parents happened to be in Korea, and the three of us happened to be in Busan for the weekend. My mom happened to book an amazing hotel on Haeundae beach, which just happened to be 20 meters away from a huge screen on the beach. In perfect Korean randomness, the world cup match was to be shown on the same screen as an Opera, immediately after the opera finished. So what we had was an opera crowd surrounded by football fans, which couldn’t be more awkward, or more hilarious.

Needless to say, the opera was cut short as the football fans crowded the area prematurely, devil horns ablaze in the twilight. My parents and I had purchased a small blanket and had camped out there with a bucket of chicken and a couple bottles of wine for the better part of the evening (classy right?), so not only did we get a nice complementary opera performance, we also had perfect real estate for when the football match began. And I’ve gotta say, there is nearly nothing comparable to watching a world cup game on the beach in a country with 500,000 passionate fans. Nothing, perhaps, aside from being on Berlin’s Fan Mile during the 2006 world cup, and then again the only difference is that I was standing on a picnic table instead of sitting on a beach and eating bratwurst instead of fried chicken. Oh, and my loyalty shirt was a different colour. 😉

South Korea won the game (!!) and all of a sudden the three of us were celebrities. Everyone wanted a picture with the supportive foreigners, especially my dad. I don’t think he was complaining. 😉

Korea’s second match was against Argentina last Thursday night. My parents had since returned back to Vancouver, but I went with a few friends to watch the game at Coex mall, just a quick bike ride from my apartment. The outcome was less favourable for the red devils, and moving from one area to another was like navigating through a sauna of sardines with elbows, but that’s half the fun.

It’s anyone’s guess what will happen tonight. If I weren’t sick and feeling sorry for myself, I’d be out there too, camped out by the big screen on the Han river with 500,000 other fans. But if the swarms of people I witnessed congregating in Gangnam 4 hours ago are any indication, I’ll probably be able to hear the outcome without even leaving my apartment. 😉

DAE HAN MIN GUK!

Happening upon the Unexpected: Anime Day in Hangnyeoul

“Read the directions and directly you

will be directed in the right direction.”

– The Doorknob, from Alice in Wonderland

One of the most incredible things about living in a completely foreign country is the increased likelihood that you will encounter something bizarre, something unfamiliar to your otherwise oblivious eyes.

A few weekends ago, on our venture to find a field to kick the soccer ball around on, we happened on one of the most bizarre chance events this side of Hallowe’en: Cosplay.

As we exited the subway station in Hangnyeoul, we started to notice a few strangely dressed individuals, some wearing wigs, a couple wielding weapons. As we progressed further up the stairs and into the daylight, we began to feel as though we were walking into the pages of a comic book. There was a lot of blue hair, a lot of magical-looking weapons, and a lot of strange looks in our direction. As if we were the oddities at this spectacle. 😉

Cosplay is short for “costume play”. It’s a performance art where participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Most of the characters we saw were dressed as anime characters or characters from comic books, and though none of us had much of an idea of who, exactly, they were supposed to be, they all looked awesome. So much effort was obviously put into their costumes. And they loved to pose in pictures for us.

These girls were so cute ^^

And these guys were my favourite : )

Oh, and differences in taste definitely exist across cultures. I’m talking about cosplay in Korea vs. cosplay in North America. Or, at least I think they do. Because some costumes worn in Hangnyeoul without hesitation would probably be avoided like the plague by Western cosplayers. And of this I’m talking about the Nazi uniforms. There were 2 men we saw dressed up as Nazi-officers. And I’ll admit it: I didn’t take pictures because I may have been slightly afraid. Can you blame me? ; )

Monkey Bites in Paradise: Or, the Rabid Monkeys of Ubud

“You do not travel if you are afraid of the unknown, you travel for the unknown.” – Ella Maillart

Have you ever been thankful for an experience you would never wish to repeat? One of my favourite things about travel is how, regardless of where you go and how much you plan for it, the unpredictable always happens. And often times, it can be more than a little unpleasant.

These are the times when you kick yourself, wondering how on earth you managed to get yourself into such a situation. These are the unpredictable stories that have you immediately regretting the decisions that led you up to the moment, wishing you’d checked your itinerary one more time, or wishing you’d never talked to “so-and-so who recommended this place”, or eaten that questionable street food your gut was telling you to avoid. Such stories can be painful, shameful, or downright expensive. These are the stories that make you want to scream. They are the ones that really get you panicking. They are the stories where I start to believe that maybe the unknown is better left unknown.

But the truth of the matter is this: when it’s over, it almost always makes for a good story. For all the discomfort and stress, your experience is rich. You emerge enlightened; just a little bit the wiser.

My situation is this: I went to Indonesia for Christmas. I visited the monkey forest in Ubud. I bought some bananas. I took some in my hand, and put the rest in my bag. I sat down on the steps. The monkeys came. I fed them.

I ran out of bananas. The monkeys were crawling all over me. One of them looked at me and cocked his head. I told him I had no more bananas (though I had plenty left in my backpack). I shrugged, “sorry.”

He turned as if to walk away, and I started to get up. In two seconds he flung himself around and took a bite out of my left arm.

And then he was gone. Back into the jungle.

As he didn’t break the skin, I figured I was fine. I even laughed about it. But I didn’t wash the wound, and I’m sure I probably touched it and then put my fingers in my eyes or something similarly stupid. And then I read this, at 3am six days later:

“Rabies: Still a common problem in most parts of SE Asia, this uniformly fatal disease is spread by the bite or lick of an infected animal, most commonly a dog or monkey. You should seek medical advice immediately after any animal bite and commence postexposure treatment.” -Lonely Planet

This monkey has singlehandedly cost me upwards of $250 dollars.

But I emerged enlightened; just a little bit the wiser? How so? I learned an invaluable lesson.

Never, ever, lie to a monkey.