It isn't all bad

Yeah, I can whine about Bangkok. I watched this today, though. Beautiful.


Under this huge, traditional swing, a woman fed the pigeons.


She gave me a warm smile when I walked up.


Who's flying?


The Thai's do this prayer-like salute called a 'wai'. She held the bread between her hands and wai'ed before every broadcast.


Happy birds and a happy bird feeder.

Phewww . . . Bangkok

Tomorrow we finally leave this city. Including our visits last December, we've spent almost four weeks in Bangkok in the last ten months. I can honestly say, there is little I will miss about it. A comparably dubious honor belongs to only one other city in this region, Saigon. Let it be known: the two huge commercial/population centers of SE Asia are not for me.

This isn't to say you can't have fun here or that Bangkok doesn't have its highlights. You can and it does, but they come at a high cost. First and worst is the pollution from vehicles. In this case I'd have to rank smog and sound as equally damning.



Bangkok is a black sinus town. Spend only a day walking around and you'll see what I mean. I notice that I unconsciously draw the shallowest of breaths crossing intersections. Waiting for the bus I stand as far back from the curb as possible.



Bangkok has its back alleys and, because Tami and I love to walk, we find and use many of them. The alleys inevitably end, though, dumping you back out on some clogged artery. If you're a walker, you're going to spend too much time scuttling along the edges of big, flowing rivers of smoke-belching steel. Even the all-too-rare green spaces are little islands buffered by little more than fences.



Motor vehicles have an equivalently negative impact on your ears. It's very tough to escape the cacophony. The main road fronting the block where our hotel sits is a huge boulevard, Ratchadamnoen Avenue - 12 lanes of buses, taxis, tuk-tuks, motos, cars, pickups and whatever else can be piloted to race from one stop-lighted intersection to another. Not only is there the raw physical threat to your body from merely trying to cross, the fumes here are especially tortuous. In minutes, my eyes burn. Just looking across a couple-hundred feet of air space you can clearly perceive the haze. The cumulative and non-stop roar of the traffic is like an industrial grand prix. Ratchadamnoen has become as much a psychological barrier as it has a physical one.

As I say, I won't miss much about this town. One sadly ironic inevitability though, is, if you're going to spend any significant time in southeast Asia, you're going to pass through Bangkok. And, because it's so huge and such and inertial sink, your to get stuck here for longer than you'd like. Oooof...

Burma? Myanamar? Call it what you want. It's bad either way.

Bangkok -

The news from across the border to the west of here is grim. Yesterday I read that troops in support of the military Junta that's ruled the country since 1988, opened fire on crowds with automatic weapons. Most of those in the streets peacefully protesting are Buddhist monks. The Guardian, of London, reports that less and less news is getting out of the country as the authoritarian regime is desperately trying to shut down all internet, cell-phone and international phone contact. One blogger, an exiled Burmese living in London has been blogging and posting photos sent to him from people inside the country: His Blog





This is big news here. There are an estimated million or more Burmese refugees living in Thailand. More chaos there translates into even more refugees here. Tami and I spent a week along the Thai/Burma border ten hours north of Bangkok. On one songthaew (a simple pickup truck taxi)ride, we spoke with a young guy who had not seen his father in 17 years. He said he'd led a union march in the capital in 1990. Afterward, soldiers came to their house, took him away. He's been in jail since. The only person allowed to see him has been the wife. The young man we spoke to had to leave Burma two years ago. He also had joined a peaceful protest. The police/army came to their home shortly after and he had to flee out the back of their house. He made it to Thailand and has been here since.

I'd like to be optimistic that Burma could see something like what happened in the Philippines toppling Ferdinand Marcos, South Africa with Apartheid or in countries in the former Soviet Bloc. Burma has a very popular, democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi , a Nobel Peace Prize recipient who's party won 58% of the vote in a nationwide 1990 election. The military rulers refused to hand over power, nullified the election and placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, where she remains.

Durian - My New Love

Money in hand and eyes on the prize.

Some time ago I wrote about "firsts" and how they come less and less frequently as you grow older. Food offers lots of opportunities for firsts because there are so many freaking cuisines prepared around this world. Take out the preparation part, though, and food in its natural state is much more limited in scope. If you then subtract the animal kingdom - things like fried tarantulas, dog, beating snake heart, monkey brains, etc. - you're limited to grains, leaves, fruit or any other edible parts of plants. You can sample many of hundreds of kinds of mango, for instance, but even if they vary wildly in quality and character, they're still mangos. Discovering truly new and interesting food as a vegetarian isn't easy.

Negotiating for a Little Globe of Heaven

About eight months ago, when we were first in Cambodia, we tried, just for the heck of it, the fruit called durian. I'd heard about durian for at least twenty years. I say "just for the heck of it" because the first thing people remark upon when describing the fruit is the smell. It was supposed to be a sulfury, sweet aroma that many people find unpleasant. Many places, notoriously Singapore, don't allow Durian on buses, trains or in many public places simply because of its aroma.

Recently, Tami and I were told by staff and other passengers on a bus to stop eating the durian we'd brought along for the ride. Novice mistake. Once you taste it, though, and especially if you fall for it the way we have, you'll understand how we might have wanted to take it everywhere.

People get obsessed about durian. When we first arrived in Bangkok, there were two Australians going on and on . . . and on, sheesh . . . about durian. They'd just arrived and couldn't wait to find some to eat. I thought the woman was going to break into an erotic dance just talking about it. It was weird. The guy said he'd sometimes eat two a day when he had access to them.

That kind of behavior is not uncommon. Check out this guy's website: Durian Palace There are lots of sites out there like this.

Now, after getting familar with the fruit, I have repented and can understand why. I didn't even know something with such a complex and powerful flavor existed in an uprocessed state in nature. Like many new and challenging experiences, when we first tried it I wasn't sure I liked it. It's like the first time you try blue cheese or a single malt Scotch or the first time you heard Kid A by Radiohead. You weren't sure what to expect but what you got was like nothing you'd ever had.

For reasons we have yet to fully discern, durian seems to stir a certain kind of sinful indulgence. Vendors set up on roadsides and sell almost exclusively at night - often late into it when most all other vendors close. It isn't so cheap, either. We typically pay between 25 and 40 Thai Baht for a kilo - about a US buck a pound - but more than half the weight is waste. At the above stand, I met three women who had driven AN HOUR to get a rare variety of durian. Apparently it was pretty special. It cost 280 Baht a kilo - stratospheric in these parts!

We first sampled it a couple times in shakes. I'd walk along afterward thinking, "That was different. But, do I like it?" I'd wake up the a day or two later wanting to try it one more time just to see. Curiosity got the best of us and we bought our first whole fruit. Our room was filled with the sweet, fecund aroma. We cut into it and, for the next hour, tasted and mused on what other foods compared to it and what other foods it might combine with it to make new recipies. We thought about naming a restaurant after it and using a sillouhette of the fruit as the logo. We'd have durian dishes never seen before on the menu.

The fruit itself? The outside rind is covered in tough, sharp spines. Cutting into them is a craft in itself. The fruit's texture is kind of like an avocado crossed with a soft artichoke heart. It has a butterscotch flavor (especially when it's more ripe), some vanilla, some kind of subtle nut and (here's the part that most people would get sqeamish about, but it's the best reference I have) liverwurst. I know . . . . it sounds crazy but somehow it works. I am officially obsessed. It's hard to imagine not having access to this food once we leave. As I understand it, the US doesn't allow import of durian unless it's been frozen - and subsequently, completely ruined. I don't know, if it weren't for the fact that I want to go home to see my mother, we'd buy a house here and open a restaurant called Durian.

Only In America.....(unless you're not there)

Celebrating Burning Man 2007 at Si Satchanalai, Thailand


For the ten years prior to coming on this journey, the end of every August found me making my way out to the Black Rock Desert ninety miles northeast of Reno, Nevada to participate in Burning Man. I never really had a doubt that the gathering was special. I'd never come across an event where so many people chose willingly to subject themselves to so much. If you want to attend, you face inclement weather, hard work, lack of sleep, usually significant out of pocket expenses among other discomforts.

Burning Man might not be for everyone, but it's come to be the social center of gravity for me and many of my best friends in San Francisco and further afield. Now, after being a spectator of two "Burns" from outside the United States, I see Burning Man in a context I couldn't have appreciated before - and I can see, more clearly than ever, how unique it is and how lucky are the folks who attend. There simply is nothing like it going on anywhere else.

Tami and the Man, flanked by two Buddhas

The obvious distinguishing factor is that the large majority of the people on this planet simply don't have the discretionary wealth to spend on something like Burning Man. If you've attended, you know how much it can cost. When you're out there, you can see how much infrastructure and how much material and labor go into the art, to setting up the city and the large camps. The RV's many people drive to the Playa are far more luxurious and spacious than many family "homes" on this planet. What many camping Burners think of as adventurous outdoor survival for their week in the desert would be normal living conditions for hundreds of millions of people. How about time off from work? A majority of people on this planet don't have firsthand experience of what vacation time is, either. "A week in the desert to dance round the clock and look at art? Right..."

Ariel View of Black Rock City (Eric Bong - 2004)

In addition to all the time we've spent in "developing" countries, we've also met a great number of traveling Europeans, Australians, Japanese and other people from industrialized countries. They have the wealth but they don't have anything like Burning Man happening. I'm not sure why. Few countries have the open space; especially publicly-owned open space the use of which is codified in law.

One disquieting difference we've noticed is that many countries don't allow their citizens the freedom to even conceive of such a collective, participatory and counter-cultural freak show. I put special emphasis on freedom. I bash the politics and governance of the US a lot but, the Patriot Act and the other encroachments foisted on us since 9/11 notwithstanding, Americans have been endowed with civil rights that are still the envy of many people on this planet. Go to a country like Laos or China and try to pull off a Burning Man event. The authorities would, without accountability to anyone but themselves say, "Ummm, I don't think so." And that would be the end of the discussion. If it wasn't people would get hurt.

The "Belgian Waffle" (Nightshade 2006)

From afar, I also have come to recognize that Burning Man owes a specific debt to the colorful history of northern California and maybe San Francisco, in particular. Starting with some curious explorers (Sir Frances Drake comes to mind) and loads of fortune seekers, a lot of freaks have settled there over the years. Northern California has long been a haven for those who stand out because they look, think or behave differently. Extend that propensity for oddity out to an extreme and you can see something like Burning Man taking root.

We've covered a lot of miles and spent almost two full years in lands that fly many flags. Apart from maybe the citizens of India, I think if you dropped a typical person from most any country down in the middle of Black Rock City, they'd honestly think they were on another planet and have a breakdown

Of course until the nearest well-mannered Burners took them under their wing and helped them get sorted out. :)

Anyway, the whys and wherefores matter little. Burning Man happens. That it does is something anyone who's come to appreciate it should cherish. People do join in from all over the world. With luck, the whole lovely experiment will grow and spread.