My New Kitchen

I have a stove now. Before anyone feels inclined to harbor enraged jealousy I should point out that I also now have a kitchen sink. It is not actually in the kitchen, but I feel no need to meddle with semantics.

About a year ago I decided to get my own apartment. My employers own the house in which I have been living the past two years. While paying no rent is nice, there are inconveniences to having my job, home, transportation and most of my translation services controlled by the same people, ranging from mild to just plain irritating. One day I casually decided that it was time to branch out.

Finding a place to live in a tiny, racist farm community that distrusts educators in general and foreigners in particular and where I can speak five words of the language is not as easy as it sounds. I thought it might be wise to enlist the assistance of Boss Lady, but she was personally offended that I wanted to move off of her property. The foreign teacher whom I replaced lived here (for a full few months before quitting), as did his predecessor. Every foreign teacher this school has ever had has lived here, except the school’s first teacher who lived with the bosses in their house. I can only imagine what a living hell that must have been. That teacher quit after two months.  

Boss Lady could not understand why I would want to live elsewhere. So I gave her a list. Probably not the smartest move. One of my complaints was that this house has no real kitchen. There is a room that I like to call a kitchen, but other than a refrigerator there was no way to identify it as a kitchen. It had no sink, stove, or little black roach motels. I have a small electric hot plate, but only one pan can be heated at a time and it takes about a year to boil an egg. I am a foreigner. I have met Phil Collins. I deserve a kitchen. My quest soon became to find a place with a kitchen.

A little known fact about this town is that there are no apartments. It is not that there are no apartments available. Apartments simply do not exist here. But there are houses. Lots of them. I recently found out from a moderately reliable source that the population of my town is 2,000, including all the outlying farms that seem to just go on endlessly. Not only do all of those people live in houses, but many people who originated here and now live in larger cities still own houses here. Many of those houses are empty. It is customary to own property in one’s hometown regardless of where one now lives or even if one never intends to set one’s foot in the dump again. Curiously, people who own houses here do not generally like the idea of renting it out to a foreigner who could trash the place and then skip the country at any time.

During my practically yearlong quest to find a kitchen with a house attached I looked at all three of the properties available for rent. The first was entirely too quaint for my tastes. It was a farmhouse without the farm, designed in turn of the century farmhouse style. Which century I have no idea. The rent was appallingly cheap, but so was the foundation. It was a small house. Not that I need much room, but this was a small house. The doorways were just over four feet high. The roof was slanted. The highest point was satisfactorily high, but the lowest point would have made that guy who sat in the R2D2 suit uncomfortable. In what I suppose was the bedroom was a tiny bed, probably the perfect fit for a 10 year old. I know that Chinese people are not famous for their height, but this was taking that stereotype a little too far. I would have tossed the bed anyway. I have my own and ordinarily I do not like my bed swarming with lower life forms unless they buy me dinner first. The bathroom was appalling. True, it could be cleaned. But the fact that it was outdoors and not attached to the house in any way would have been harder to fix. The one saving grace was that this house had a kitchen.

The second house looked more like every other house in the country. I do not even know if it is Chinese style. Most of the houses I have seen in Thailand, Korea and Japan share similar traits, though Japanese houses are much cleaner and have better roofs. The house where I live now is the same style. But the important thing was that this house had a kitchen. The rest of the house was a desolate shithole, but there was indeed a kitchen. After looking at the house and only vaguely concealing my disgust I was told that the stove, sink, air conditioner (an absolute must around here) and several parts I really did not care about were the property of the people who had just moved out and that they would be taking these things as well. So it was a shithole soon to be without a kitchen.

House number three had no air conditioner, no stove, no refrigerator and no washing machine. But it had a kitchen sink and was about a five minute walk from my school. Boss Lady, who was originally so opposed to the idea of my moving but now encouraged it, thought I should take this house. I pointed out that it had no air conditioner, stove, refrigerator or washing machine. She said that if I renewed my contract for another year she would buy all of those things. An interesting offer, but at the time it would have meant agreeing to stay on an additional 18 months, since I was only halfway through my current contract. At any given time I am never sure that I want to stay here another week, let alone 18 more months. After I thought about it and decided that sanity was fleeting anyway, she tried to make the necessary arrangements with the house’s owner. This proved to be difficult. For about three months Boss Lady and Pi Chi both made near daily attempts to contact this person. I had decided that this meant that the owner was no longer interested, but my translators said that all was well and they would keep trying to reach her. Eventually Boss Lady was able to contact the owner and, even though I had reservations about renting a house from someone who could not be found for three months, we started to negotiate. The house owner said that she needed a six month deposit. I said never mind.

The next day while Boss Lady was trying to encourage me to take this house she told me that a six month deposit was necessary since the owner needed the money to buy an air conditioner, et al. I expressed my confusion since Boss Lady said that she would be buying these items. She then explained that somewhere along the line she convinced the house owner to shell out the big bucks for said improvements. Although I said nothing I decided that this released me from any obligation to sign a new contract. My concern now was when or how I could ever get this enormous deposit back (about US$900). Boss Lady explained that it was not a deposit in the dictionary sense of the word. I was supposed to pay the first six month’s rent in advance. Since the house was dirt cheap and this new arrangement allowed me to delay any decisions about the new contract I accepted this offer and a completely non-binding oral agreement was made.

The following weekend Pi Chi was finally able to contact the house owner who said that the house was still available. This annoyed me somewhat, so I had Pi Chi arrange to see the house as a prospective tenant. The house owner never mentioned to Pi Chi that someone else (me) had already made a deal to rent the place. Originally we were going to have Pi Chi look at the house to see if she liked it and also to see if the rent would be different to someone without a white face. But then I decided that I wanted to accompany her since I had only seen the house at night and figured it might be nice to see it in the harsh glare of daylight. The house owner did not recognize me. She assumed that I was simply some other foreigner, which is an odd assumption in a town that only has one foreigner in it at any given time.

Pi Chi hated the house. That was no surprise since she is city folk and this town is definitely rural. She is also surprisingly snobbish for someone so poor. What mildly surprised me was how much I hated the house in the daylight. Either it really fell apart in the three months since I had seen it last or that blinding sun makes an enormous difference. The first time I looked at the house I did not notice all the holes in the walls or the broken window. I could tell that the paint was bad, but I did not see all those wires hanging out of outlets and from the ceiling. There also seemed to be far fewer living things in it the first time. Pi Chi and I left the house without giving the owner any answer in either direction. The next day Boss Lady told me that the house was no longer available. I still do not know if the owner preferred to rent it to me than me, or if she merely did not want to rent it to either of us. Either way it was no great loss.

Some time later Boss Lady decided to install a stove and kitchen sink in my house. She said that she would put them in if I decided to stay another year, but since she already bought them and they were ready to go I used my two greatest strengths, obstinance and vagueness, to avoid any direct answer to that question.

Since there are no gas lines in this house my new stove is attached to a tank of some kind of gas. No one can tell me exactly what it is. While this might seem dangerous any concerns I might have had were assuaged when the possibly trained technician who installed the gas tank never once removed the cigarette from his mouth while dealing with such a highly flammable device. In as little as four hours my new stove was up and running. Since the burners are of some weird ass design that no one else on the entire planet uses none of my pots or pans fit on this stove, but that was easily solved with a quick 60k drive to the nearest store that sells pots and pans. Now I can actually cook more than one item at a time and boil water in less than 45 minutes. I have to turn on the gas every time I use the stove and it makes a peculiar noise when I turn it on, but I have two hands should one be violently torn from my body in the inevitable explosion.

Photographs Of Bangkok

Phra Mondop
Wat Phra Kaew
Grand Palace, Phra Nakhon

Prasat Phra Debidorn
Wat Phra Kaew

Phra Mondop & Hor Phra Naga
Wat Phra Kaew

“Trident of Shiva” prang
Wat Arun, Bangkok Yai

Expressways near my cheap and relatively horrible hotel
Taken from Baiyoke Tower

Phra Maha chedi
Wat Pho, Phra Nakhon

Clarence, Wat Pho

Where the Buddha naps
Wat Pho

The large imposing statues make sure that no one messes with the garbage
Wat Pho

Ratchadamri
The colors are a combination of a brilliant sunset blocked by clouds
and accidentally using the night setting on my camera

Bangkok, Thailand

About a week after I was diagnosed with meningitis by Chinese doctors, I was on a plane to Thailand. Most of my travels require flying with an Asian airline. That is just one of the hardships of life in Asia. But I flew to Bangkok on KLM, a European airline based in my favorite European city. If Europe is the whipped cream, Holland is the cherry on top. I had forgotten what efficient service was like. Many international airlines will use local crews on short distance flights outside of the airline’s regional hub. Airlines from this continent are always affiliated with airlines from that continent in one way or another. When I boarded the plane and saw all those shiny white faces I knew this was going to be different. Ordinarily I prefer not to be surrounded by white people. They tend to give me the creeps. But a crew from Holland is better than a crew from any non-Japanese Asian country in every possible way. For those unfamiliar with the Asian concept of customer service, the easiest explanation is that most non-Japanese Asians have no concept of customer service. At least this broad generalization is my experience every day of my life.

On the plane something happened that really does not occur as often as it should. A hot blond babe sat down next to me. I thought she was from Holland at first, and I imagined that hearing that accent for the next four hours would test my allegial limits. Then she spoke and I immediately recognized the grating howl of an American voice. Truly none of us is perfect. She was an American teaching English to spoiled Chinese children, not unlike myself. She was also a Christian Republican from Texas. Very much unlike myself. Another interesting difference between us was that she was dumber than a sack of papaya. Arguable as that may be. She explained that this trip to Bangkok was her visa run. Foreigners living here on visitor visas must leave the country every few months to get a new visa, depending on their home country. Some people do this for years. The only reason anyone with a job would remain on a visitor visa is if they are working illegally or they are dumber than a sack of papaya. She told me that this was her second visa run and that the government makes it difficult to get any other kind of visa. She said that the entire process was just too cumbersome and bureaucentric, I am paraphrasing. I think she said icky and poopoorific. I have never been on a visa run. I got a legal job before my visitor visa expired (although not really) and have been living on a resident visa ever since. But then, perhaps I am not dumber than a sack of papaya. Arguable as that may be.

Britney (for obvious reasons) spoke about how exciting it was to live in a foreign land and experience a different culture. She went on about the food and the people, and I wondered if my previous blind stereotyping assessment of her intelligence had not been overly optimistic or if perhaps I was closing myself to some aspect of my own experience. Probably a little of both. But she was pretty dim.

Ordinarily all in-flight announcements are made in English and whatever languages are spoken in the departure and arrival countries. Sometimes that can make for a litany of international prattle. But since this crew was entirely European all of the announcements were in English and Nederlands. This was probably strange for all the Chinese and Thai on the plane, but also for me since I have grown accustomed to tuning out announcements in Chinese. To be fair, Europeans are not well known for their fluency of Chinese and Thai. Their butchery of those languages would have only caused confusion. During the fine dinning portion of the evening a flight attendant attempted to ask the Chinese passenger sitting next to Britney whether he wanted noodles or rice. The passenger said, “Yes”. Being the great humanitarian I am, I asked said passenger in Chinese if he wanted noodles or rice. Not that I formed a complete sentence, but I can say “noodles or rice”. Not that the Chinese ever form complete sentences (by English standards). I then gave the flight attendant a half-assed lesson in Chinese. At the next row he asked another Chinese passenger what I could only assume was supposed to mean “noodles or rice”, but I could not understand a word.

The first passenger chose 麵.

People have asked me why I say Nederlander instead of “Dutch”. One person has only ever asked, really. A person from Holland and/or the Netherlands is a Nederlander. The language they speak is Nederlands. “Dutch” is a bastardized version of “Deutsch”, created by British people who did not know the difference. Ironically, British people call the Deutsche “German”. To some Dutch, the word Dutch is insulting, like when you call the Inuit “Eskimo” or Hillbillies “Inbred Tractor Monkeys”. But most Nederlander are too polite to tell you not to call them Dutch, or they have been beaten into submission, like Americans who really believe that the Runaway Bride was the most important news event that day. More importantly, Dutch chicks are much better looking than Eskimo chicks, so it never hurts to score some extra points.

Ratchadamri Rd on an unusually empty day

My first impression of Bangkok was that the airport was impressively empty for the third largest hub in Asia. But then, it was somewhere between 1am and 3am. I never bothered to figure out the time difference before I left. Whenever I let Boss Lady arrange my flights I end up leaving in the late afternoon, which is convenient since I do not have to bother waking up before noon. The only problem with leaving late in the afternoon is that I usually arrive very late at night. Someone more intelligent than I might resolve this situation by arranging the flights themselves. A valid point, except that this particular trip was paid for entirely by Boss Lady. It seemed only fair to let her do all the work as long as she was picking up the tab. Part of my bonus package when I renewed my contract seven months prior was a free trip to Bangkok. I was finally collecting.

My forty fifth impression of Bangkok was that it was unbearably hot and humid. I had just come from a place that is unbearably hot and humid 10 months out of the year, but the unbearable heat and humidity always seems worse on the other side of the hai.

Ratchadamri Rd, below Baiyoki

Whenever I tell anyone that I have been to Amsterdam or Bangkok the first question they ask always seems to be about the whores. Both cities have a rich history of culture, art, science, and food. Although “Dutch” food blows. But people seem to care more about whether the rumors are true than they care about Rembrandt’s kick ass charcoal sketches or that weird looking monkey thing at Phra Kaeo. I read some article in the National Review (or Penthouse Forum; it is all the same) by some idiot who said that the best thing about his trip to Amsterdam was the Red Light District. It is an amusing area to stroll through while nipping at an ice cream cone, but a trip to Amsterdam without the Rijksmuseum is a waste of perfectly expensive jet fuel. I could spend entire minutes in Amsterdam without even considering that prostitution is legal. I have always been amazed that such a vibrant and historic city can be so easily reduced by repressed people to a depot for hookers and pot. It is easily one of the best cities in the world, including the thousands of cities I will never see.

Bangkok is nice, too.

Of course, while in Bangkok I did go to a sex show. When in Rome, do as the Thai do. Technically it was a “look show”, which almost has to be better than a smell show. A walk through Patpong will elicit an endless assault of invitations and bargain rates from pimps and other icky people (special thanks to Britney). Patpong is the place to go if you want cheap food, cheap alcohol, cheap bootleg DVDs, cheap imitation jewelry, cheap counterfeit designer clothes, cheap hookers, or cheap sex shows. It is truly a shopping paradise for those with no discerning taste. It can be amusing at first. Some of the peddlers are women (although only those not attractive enough to be $5 hookers), and as I walked passed one woman she held out the same menu that they all seem to have and said, “Pussy, fuck, fuck.” I suppose if you are only going to learn two words in English there are worse choices, depending on your chosen vocation. One male pimp was barking the usual sales pitch in broken English as I walked toward his general direction. Once I got as close as I was ever going to get he practically whispered, “(Something unintelligible) for weed?” Narcotics possession and even prostitution are illegal in Thailand. The prostitution is largely ignored by the authorities. Most of those fat, bald American vets would not visit Bangkok every year if they could not relieve their syphillatic glory days. But like most Southeast Asian countries that prefer to export drugs rather than import, there are some serious penalties for those who want to trot the white pony around Sala Daeng.

While being led up a dark and narrow staircase I thought to myself what is the worst that could happen, other than being kidnapped, tortured, disemboweled and beheaded. The venue appeared as any other low rent stripclub. Or so I have heard. There was a small stage on which a few young girls stood and vaguely swayed to the loud music. The audience was mostly white and middle aged. The atmosphere was dark and smelled like cheap alcohol and despair. I was escorted to my chair. I saw Lola dancing there. But I was immediately accosted not once, not twice, not thrice, but more than whatever is more than thrice by girls who all seemed to think I was the most interesting person in the world. I am convinced this had more to do with my winning personality than the fact that to them I was a rich foreigner who could easily give them a year’s salary with a simple flick of the wrist. As much as I enjoy being surrounded by contagious young women who will do anything without emotion for spare change, I did want to see the show, and the constant begging for money was a distraction. They were not literally begging me for money, but my money was their obvious goal. I think they would have been shocked and even angry had they known just how little money I actually had on me at the time.

When I left my fans and took a different seat much closer to the stage I got to watch the show for about a minute before more girls wanted to convince me that I was endlessly fascinating. The basic routine on stage was that one girl wore a bikini, one was topless, one was completely naked, and one performed some kind of gynecological circus act. They would occasionally rotate and switch positions, and sometimes a new girl would climb onstage as a replacement. When they switched positions it struck me as odd that the nude girl would then put on a bikini. It seemed as though the horse was already out of the barn on that one. Of course, the highlight of the show was the bizarre “sex act”, which had nothing to do with sex. In between fending off the girls offstage I saw a girl onstage play a small toy horn nowhere near her mouth, and the infamous ping pong ball act. The one that surprised me was the girl who popped balloons by shooting small darts out of her naughty bits. I would imagine that takes some practice. I also saw the dreaded string of razor blades. That is something most people can live without ever seeing. I have no idea who, how or why someone invented these little parlor tricks, but certainly the razor blade piece must have come from the mind of a man. At any point in history, in any country in the world, men are pretty fucked up.

Aside from the annoyance of constantly being harassed by all the drink whores, my general impression of the entire experience was that it was all as far from erotic as it could have possibly been. The girls onstage performed their routines with absolutely no enthusiasm and seemed as though they would rather be scrubbing toilets than doing what they were doing. The girls offstage showed more interest, but they were only interested in money and drinks. I have met plenty of women like that who speak my language, so the hand signal variation did nothing for me. And when I say “girls”, I do not mean it in any condescending way. All of these female people were young, and some of them could have easily been feloniously young. Child advocacy groups check these places from time to time, but how reliable can that be.

Which brings me to an interesting point. Pi Chi did not accompany me on this trip.

I have always preferred to travel alone. It is easier to arrange a trip for one, and it is much easier to see and do whatever I want without having to compromise and visit the world’s largest quilt when I would rather see the Grand Canyon. But somewhere along the line something has changed. It occurred to me early on that this trip would have been much better with Pi Chi. I certainly would have missed the ping pong show, but being splashed by the filthy water of Chao Phraya during the “canal cruise” might have been more romantic if the driver and I were not the only people on the boat. I think Pi Chi would have enjoyed all those large, ornate temples. Chinese temples are pretty weak compared to elaborate Thai temples. And there is the shopping. Pi Chi likes to shop, and Bangkok is a great place to buy a wide variety of cheap crap.

Pi Chi would have loved Wat Phra Kaeo. It sits on the grounds of the Grand Palace and is easily the largest temple in Thailand. It used to be the private temple of the royal family, and even today only the King is allowed to touch the large Emerald Buddha, which he dresses in ceremonial costumes three times a year to reflect the current season. There are, of course, only three seasons per year: rainy season, summer and winter. I went during the rainy season. Though it did not rain much at all.

I ordinarily visit such tourist attractions on my own, but my hotel was offering some “limited time” special deal where a guided tour was cheaper than the taxi ride alone would have been, so I let Kehatanee authorized tour guide Napaporn Phurattanakornkul show me around. Her English was terrible, but I have become quite adept at deciphering broken English. The main benefit to the services of Ms Phurattanakornkul was that she was either intimately familiar with the history and culture of Wat Phra Kaeo or she was very good at making shit up. On my own it would have taken all day to wander around, and I probably still would not have seen it all. With Napaporn I am reasonably sure that I saw everything worth seeing, and it only took several hours. And yes, her name was indeed Napaporn. And it is pronounced the way you think it is.





Wat Phra Kaew is actually a series of temples, consisting of the Royal Monastery of the Emerald Buddha, as well as Phra Siratana Chedi (right), Hor Phra Naga (the mausoleum of the royal family), Phra Wiharn Yod (a repository of numerous Buddhist images), Phra Mondop (left, a repository for sacred scriptures inscribed on palm leaves), Hor Phra Monthian Dharma (the scripture library), Hor Phra Rajkoramanusorn (which holds Buddha images dedicated to kings of the Ayuthaya Dynasty), Hor Phra Rajphongsanusorn (which holds Buddha images dedicated to kings of the present dynasty), Prasat Phra Dhepbidorn (which holds statues of the Chakri Dynasty), and Hor Phra Gandhararat. All of these are within the Grand Palace, which also houses Borom Phiman Mansion (currently the royal guest house), Buddha Ratana Starn, Amarindra Winitchai, Paisal Taksin (the coronation hall), Chakraphat Phiman (where the new king spends his first night after coronation), Mahisorn Prasat, Hor Phra Sulalai Phiman, the Rajruedi, Chakri Maha Prasat and Rajkaranyasapha. There will be an oral test later.

One of the more interesting aspects of international travel is finding out just how much the locals mispronounce their words compared to the proper way that we pronounce them. Siam, for example, is called see-ahm and not Sy am, and it was never what they called their country. Probably because Thai names are generally 48 letters long and largely unpronounceable. The way they pronounce Bangkok sounds far less pornographic. Those crappy little motorcycles with shells for passengers are tuk tuks, pronounced dook dook. I grew up pronouncing Hiroshima with the emphasis on the third syllable while the Japanese mistakenly emphasize the second. The Chinese think their country is called Zhongguo. In Holland, Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij is pronounced Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij. Another similarity between Amsterdam and Bangkok is that while their words may look easy to pronounce, when they are actually spoken they tend to sound nothing like their spelling.

Wat Phra Kaew

Bangkok is louder, filthier, and more crowded than where I live. The only way to cross one of the larger streets is via one of the scarce walkways that are elevated high above the pavement. There are entirely too many steps to climb to the top, and entirely too many steps from the intersection where I want to cross and the middle of the block where the walkway is located. We have similar walkways here (along with the underground variation), but they are not as necessary since it is actually possible to cross most of the streets. Crossing a busy intersection in Bangkok is suicidal. People exaggerate about how bad the traffic is everywhere, but in Bangkok it is not hyperbole. There are simply too many cars on too narrow roads. The city recently installed the new BTS (SkyTrain), which is an entirely elevated mass transit system. Since it is never underground or at street level there are always good views (assuming you are near a window), but it does not actually go anywhere. There are only two lines and they cover a small fraction of the city. It does go to Siam Square and one or two other shopping areas, but it does not go anywhere near a single temple or any place of cultural interest.

But I liked Bangkok because the city was alive. The people seemed more vibrant than they ever do at home. Chinese cities often seem as though they are populated by those slow moving zombies. Only instead of eating human brains they wander the countryside looking for duck brains. The denizens of Bangkok probably eat all manner of brains, but they move much faster. A simple analogy that I just made up is that Bangkok is an old house that the owners are constantly renovating and adding on to, while (any Chinese city) is one of those post-war urban flight prefabricated houses that all look alike with loud, garish furniture draped with plastic covers. There are better analogies, but it is past my bedtime.

Angor Wat at Wat Phra Kaew
When Thailand controlled Cambodia, King Mongkut (Rama IV) wanted to move Angor Wat to Thailand
When his engineers finally convinced him that it would be impossible, he had this scale model built

A few helpful tips for the traveler

Although not too terribly big, it takes some time to get from one end of Bangkok to the other. That is because walking is slow, there is no useful mass transit system, and if you do find a reliable taxi it will be stuck in traffic for days. Taxis are fun. Some are marked “Taxi Meter” and some are not. Those that are not have drivers who are not known for their honesty and ethical business practices. Supposedly, “metered taxis” always use the meter and the fare is whatever it should be. In reality those drivers can be just as bad as the others. Half of the metered taxis I entered had “broken” meters. Apparently there is a broken meter epidemic in Bangkok. I quickly learned to ask if it was indeed a metered taxi when I entered, regardless of what that sign on top said. I entered one metered taxi to get from my hotel to Wat Pho and the driver told me it would cost 1,000 Baht (about US$30). I eventually found a metered taxi that actually used the meter and the metered fare was 55 Baht.

Another taxi option is the motorcycle taxi. Bangkok is littered with tiny motorcycles. It seems as though every major Asian city has more motorcycles, bicycles, or scooters than cars. The benefit of a motorcycle taxi is that the driver can dart recklessly through traffic at dangerous speeds. The downside is that the driver darts recklessly through traffic at dangerous speeds. If you have no regard for your own life you can identify a motorcycle taxi by the orange vest that all of the drivers wear. Strictly for tourists is the tuk tuk. The government is trying to discourage their use since they are louder, uglier, and vomit out more pollution than Ann Coulter. But tourists like them since tourists like loud, ugly, dirty things. I guess that also explains book sales. Tuk tuks also have no meters and can be very expensive for people who do not realize that a ride on one of the overcrowded and slow buses would have cost them one thousandth of what that tuk tuk ride cost.

Phloenchit Rd

On the flight home the nightmare that haunts my every waking moment came true. Some fat guy sat next to me. I have nothing more against the gravitationally challenged than I do Asians, Whitey, or people who say “um” before every sentence. But the seats in economy class (the airline euphemism for dirtshit poor) have precious little room as is without some stranger’s lifetime dependency on twinkies and Yoohoo billowing its way into my personal space.

Happily, this fat guy was one of those happy fat guys, and not one of those depressed fat guys. Um, as we all know those are the only two options. He was an American teaching English in Bangkok (and probably still is). Meeting Americans on both flights is extremely rare for me. I like it that way. My sense of adequacy gets a certain satisfaction out of being the only delusionally adequate person from the world’s most delusionally adequate country around. Say that to a Chinese person and he will think you believe it. Say it to an American and he will believe it. This particular American was on his way to a holiday in my country while I was on my way home from a holiday in his country. We found that amusing for a good second. We compared our lives as babysitters in foreign countries. I would say I got the longer end of the stick. His stories seemed to be centered more on chasing tail than teaching children. He apparently had much of his success at a time and place I would refer to as “last call”. Sweet as that is, I was much more interested to hear about the working conditions than the working women’s contagions. If Chinese villagers ever come to my door with torches and pitchforks I should probably have an escape route. Japan would be my first choice, but apparently they want their teachers to be actual teachers. Backward heathens.

Something new on the flight home was a sheet of paper that we are apparently supposed to fill out during the ten days following arrival. The government would like everyone who has been abroad to check their temperature and record it on a form that no government employee will ever see. This is a reactionary measure from the recent and distant outbreaks of bird flu, SARS, avian-bovine crosspollinatory myopia, and lame duck disease. I felt fortunate that this form did not need to be filled out during the ten days before I left. The reason I went to the quack who diagnosed me with meningitis in the first place was because my 40 degree temperature and appearance of death after a Jerry Lewis telethon alarmed my employers enough to shell out the $1.50 to pay his fee. The doctor prescribed (handed me in an unmarked bag) a variety of pills. I took none of them because Pi Chi told me not to. I will accept pretty much any excuse to ignore a doctor. In about two days I felt much better on my own. I guess it was that 48 hour meningitis.

Photographs Of Amsterdam

Westertoren
Prinsengracht at Westermarkt
Nieuwezijde

Keizersgracht at Westermarkt
Nieuwezijde

Foguangshan He Hua Temple
Zeedijk at Geldersekade
Oudezijde

Westerkerk
Prinsengracht at Bloemgracht
Nieuwezijde

Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen at Weteringschans
Grachtengordel

Anne Frank House and Westertoren
Prinsengracht at Leliegracht
Nieuwezijde

Nieuwmarkt at Geldersekade
Oudezijde

Harer Majesteit Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, koningin der Nederlanden, prinses van Oranje-Nassau, prinses van Lippe-Biesterfeld, markiezin van Veere, Vlissingen, gravin van Buren, Culemborg, Leerdam, Dietz, Katzenelnbogen, Spiegelberg, Vianden, burggravin van Antwerp, baronin van Breda, Cranendonck, Cuijk, Eindhoven, Grave, Ijsselstein, Liesveld, Diest, Herstal, Warneton, Beilstein, Arlay, Nozeroy, Lord van Baarn, Borculo, Bredevoort, Daasburg, Geertruidenberg, Hooge en Lage Zwaluwe, Klundert, Lichtenvoorde, 't Loo, Naaldwijk, Niervaart, Polanen, Steenbergen, Sint Maartensdijk, Soest, Ter Eem, Willemstad, Zevenbergen, Bütgenbach, Sankt Vith, Turnhout, Besançon, Montfort.

She signs her name “Beatrix”.

This photograph was taken at Dam 20, 1012 NP Amsterdam

Amsterdam, Holland

I had never had any real desire to visit the land of my ancestors, but I had always wanted to go to Scandinavia. Denmark and Sweden appeal to me for some reason. While I was working at an airline the opportunity to go to Sweden came up and I jumped on it. The company had only recently installed a new flight scheduling system and the powers that be determined that it would be best to have those who actually used it (my department) visit the regional operations centers that would rely on it the most and train them. But being practical (cheap), and having a few dozen OPS throughout the world they thought it best to tackle the project one city at a time and decide later if any further trips would be necessary. Stockholm OPS was chosen as the first since that was where the company that created the software was based and it was a relatively minor leg on a relatively minor pairing.

I was selected by the SEDSUP (my immediate supervisor) and the OPSVP (vice president of operations) to be the IX (instructor) since I knew the system better than anyone else in the WORLD (Western Hemisphere, north of Mexico). We were the only airline in the world to actually use this system. It was almost a combination of ROC and RM, but as long as you knew SITA you would be fine. At the time most of the people in my department were still using the old system (ROC) and I had been a temp working almost exclusively on the new system (CMS) before I was hired, so I had much more experience with it than anyone. I was currently training all but one of the people in my department so it seemed only logical that I could IX the Swedes. The one person I was not training had been considered the expert before I arrived (she had used it a few times in the week or so they had it before I got there) and she did not feel that she needed any assistance. She was wrong, of course, but she had a bit of an attitude toward everyone and was not especially popular. I had no problem with her avoidance of me since it meant that I did not have to spend any time with her. This was the kind of job where co-workers actually had to communicate with each other and she had a habit of leaving out pertinent information, which made other people’s jobs harder. I find that most people do not like that.

A few days before I was supposed to go to Stockholm someone in HR (human resources) was kind enough to point out that I had been at the company for less than 90 (ninety) days (not including my period of temporary employment) and that company rules prohibited probationary employees (problees? They problee work here. We do not know) from riding company aircraft SA (space available). Much to everyone’s chagrin Ms Attitude was chosen to take my place since she was the only other person both willing and able to go on such short notice. They could have just flown me commercially, but why spend money when you’ve got your own planes already going there.

After she got back from Stockholm they reported problems with the system daily and her career at this particular airline, which was already tenuous, was given the last rights. Within a month or so she was relegated to backlogged paperwork and within a few weeks none of us ever saw her again. But before her timely demise they decided to send someone to Buenos Aires OPS, despite the complete failure of Stockholm. I was still within the 90 day period, so someone who really did not want to go to Brazil was chosen. We quickly reminded him that Buenos Aires is not in Brazil and, more importantly (although less frightening) he spent the next week with me in intensive system training. Which just meant more donuts for me. I was once again screwed out of a free trip, but I got a lot of double time. Plus the guy who went was more enthusiastic about cheap booze and even cheaper whores, so he had a good time. He was only marginally successful, so the bosses decided to scrap the whole idea.

Many months later I was trying to get the OPSVP to authorize my SOUTHPAC. This would have taken me Los Angeles – Honolulu – Fiji – Sydney – Tokyo – Anchorage – Los Angeles, and was the longest and least popular pairing we had. Once upon a time this particular OPSDIR had envisioned a world where the people in my department would PAX with various crews to various stops and see what life as a CX entails. Due to that annoying reality this had never happened and I was pushing to make it so. Not so much for educational purposes, but because I wanted the free trips. He then told me that if I wanted to travel I should just go to Amsterdam OPS. I had no idea this was an option. Apparently the training program had been tentatively revitalized. I never found out why. Suddenly almost everyone wanted to go. I think because of the cheap hash and even cheaper whores. But since I was now well beyond the 90 day period and I was the undisputed CMS king I was finally authorized to leave the building. The irony was that since the London – Amsterdam leg had been temporarily discarded I flew to Amsterdam commercially. The company spent about the same amount of money sending me to Amsterdam that they would have spent on Stockholm months earlier and everyone could have been fully trained sooner and better. Such is corporate America.

My mission was a resounding success and the company was planning OPS visits to London, Osaka, New York, São Paulo, Melbourne, Copenhagen, Helsinki, and even Cairo. Although no one expected that one to ever happen. Regrettably, they had also just bought a dozen 404s (at about $150 million each) as well as updated MX and WX equipment and were in the beginnings of bankruptcy. But at least I went to Amsterdam first.

The tension mounting between the Nederland and Frisian protestants and the Spanish catholics became intolerable by the middle 1500s. When King Philip II of Spain sent the Inquisition to torture and murder as many infidels as possible it was the finger that broke the dyke’s crack. Under the banner of Willem van Oranje the people of Holland, with the assistance of Frysland, Utrecht, Limburg, and a few Gelderlanders won their independence. Twenty years later. You know how those Gelderlanders are. Previously isolated regions, these Netherlands became allies, although Holland has always been the dominant province within this United Kingdom. Queen Beatrix van Oranje Nassau is from Holland, as were all her forebears. Unlike Britain’s Helen Mirren, who is linked to Normandy’s William the Conquistador by many twisted and tangled branches, Beatrix’s lineage is directly descended from Holland’s Willem the Silent.

Thanks to the impressively adaptable port cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, Holland quickly became the center of the universe. At least that is what some drunk guy in Amsterdam told me. Artists like Rembrandt van Rijn made the place as intellectually impressive as it was culturally diverse. The 18th Century saw wars with pretty much every major European power until that troublemaker Napoleon took the place over and, nepotism being all the rage, replaced Willem V with his own brother Louis. On the plus side, the weak cheese-eating regions of Belgium and Luxembourg were added to the Netherlands, fitting in nicely alongside Limburg, Gouda and the obscure Processed Foodlike province. The down side was that this union was not to last.

Sometime after that Tchaikovsky overture Willem I van Oranje (not to be confused with Willem van Oranje), son of Willem V, was crowned the first king of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. But soon the Belgians, being Belgian, became uppity and revolted. The Luxembourgers said what everyone says at some point in their lives. If the Belgians can do it, so can we. Thirty five years later they too were an independent state. Eventually Holland (at one point the dominant navy in the world) lost or abandoned its territories in what are now Indonesia, Malaysia, Mauritius, South Africa, Botswana, Angola, Liberia, Benin, Ghana, Guyana, Suriname, St Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Tonga, East Timor, Taiwan, and the United States. Aruba and the Antilles are still Nederland territories, but under their own administrations.

Things remained relatively stable until two small nations no one has ever given a shit about started the first War to End All Wars. Holland pulled a Switzerland, as it tried to do when Germany invaded another country no one has ever really cared about and started the second War to End All Wars. Lamentably, Germany invaded Holland on its way to completely sinking the indestructible Maginot Line. There is some value to bringing the French down to size, but blitzing the schitz out of Rotterdam was simply not necessary. Holland’s subsequent resistance movement was far more impressive than France’s, but de Gaulle had always been a more flagrant self-promoter than Wilhelmina, so people still talk about all those chain smokers in berets singing along to Edith Piaf. Thus is history.

When the United States eventually got around to helping out its oldest continuous ally Holland followed the trend of the day and changed its familiar orange flag (as in Haus van Oranje) to the less original red, white and blue that it has today, and Queen Wilhelmina started the curious custom of abdicating in favor of her heir. Her daughter Juliana (who recently died) became Queen in 1948 and abdicated for her daughter Beatrix in 1980. Prince Willem is waiting to become Willem IV, but like England’s Charles, he has a stubborn and popular mother who refuses to step down.

Meeting The Family

A week or two ago, or maybe more I met Pi Chi’s family. When you work six days a week in a country where most foreigners work four the days all just blend together. She had been after me to meet them for some time and I had been putting it off as much as possible. My reasons were selfish and practical. I knew that once I met them I would be expected to participate in more family activities, and I have never known that not to be a gigantic pain in the ass. I also knew that I would only have one chance to make that first impression and no matter what I did or said later on they would always know me as whomever they decided I was when we first met.  

This becomes more important when you live in a place where the foreigners have a deserved reputation for banging the young locals and skipping town and country. These people love our overpriced products and inferior cars, but they tend to be a little suspicious when some slacker who works two hours a day and dresses like a Venice (CA) surfer dude with one of those idiotic goatees is knocking boots with their daughter. When your daughter is dating a foreigner you will face one of two outcomes. He will either use her and throw her away, possibly with child, or worse, marry her. Like most racist people Chinese parents want their daughters to marry one of their own kind. The goal is to find a young Chinese man with a good job and a reputable family. If he drinks too much and stays out at KTV all night and slaps her around a little that is ok. Tradition is tradition.

Pi Chi’s father was a career soldier. He spent his entire adult life in the military. His two oldest daughters are married to Chinese men with stable jobs and reputable families. They own their own houses, cars and children. His youngest daughter (who recently received her PhD in chemical engineering) is engaged to an “astronomer”. They have bought a house together and are waiting for it to be built before they get married. His youngest child, and only son, recently entered the military. Pi Chi is the middle child. Having five children is extremely rare around here and a source of pride for the father. As the head ICU nurse at a very large and possibly famous hospital she has already broken with tradition to choose a career over a husband. Her younger sister will probably continue with her career when she is married, but Pi Chi was the trailblazer. She is already a bit of a rebel, but bringing me into the fold cannot make her parents happy.

Or so I thought.

Her mother likes me. She said I am handsome. She is older and, like almost all Chinese, has poor eyesight. And to be fair she is likely comparing me to all the Chinese men her daughters brought home. She speaks no English, but has been friendlier to me than any mother of any woman I have ever dated. Most of them did not care for me all that much. And the fathers usually wanted to see me roasting on an open flame with a spit up my ass and a shiny pinch of Washington apple between my cheek and gums.  

I had already met Pi Chi’s younger sister so I knew that she was friendly, although usually pretty busy as chemical engineers are for all I know. This particular family gathering was to celebrate her birthday. I had intended to score some major points by offering to pay for the entire lunch, which would have been a generous offer since this was a fancy restaurant in a large building overlooking the river. What made it more expensive was the fact that these people ate like the government was going to ban food tomorrow. Having been to two Chinese weddings I have seen how they eat at celebrations, but those occasions were a ritual fast compared to this. The food just kept coming and the family just kept shoving it into their pie holes. After two hours of constant eating we all left the restaurant and went to the parents’ house for birthday cake and more food. Amazingly none of these people are grotesquely obese. The way they eat they should all look like Americans.

I did not pay for the prodigious meal because, as I was told, it is tradition that the person with the birthday pays for everything. That worked out well for me since there was such an endless parade of food. I have no idea what it all finally cost, but it must have been considerably more than the egg sandwich I get in my town. I just have to remember not to let them invite me out to eat on my birthday.

Most of Pi Chi’s family do not speak any English, which should really cut down on banal conversations about the weather. It is hot and humid. It was hot and humid yesterday. It will be hot and humid tomorrow. It is always hot and humid. Her father made no effort to say anything to me, but I really did not see it as a personal slight. He was old and tired and barely spoke to anyone the entire afternoon. Her younger sister speaks rudimentary English; advanced by local standards. Her oldest sister’s husband speaks some English, but he cannot tell the difference between a gerund and the Grand Canyon. I found him amusing anyway. I was sitting between him and Pi Chi. He is the kind of person who likes to take charge of a situation, so he was the self-appointed welcome wagon. He could easily be an American car or insurance or car insurance salesman. He was very proactive, and his motivational paradigm was clearly outside of the box. If such business babel exists in Chinese I am sure he uses it. He also said that I was attractive, although I chose to assume that he meant it in the most heterosexual way possible. Separately, and through my interpreter (Pi Chi), both of Pi Chi’s older sisters said I was attractive, making a total of four such observations in a two hour period.

Further proof that the Chinese are batshit insane.

Photographs Of Bali

Pura Tanah Lot
Tabanan, Bali

The Wife at Tanah Lot

Puri Saren Agung
Gianyar, Bali

Self portrait in Seminyak

Ubud Monkey Forest

Pura Dalem Agung Padangtegal
Ubud, Bali

Bali, Indonesia

“Get a total privacy without heading the crowds and let your family get their own dreams to the reality. Traveling with the family include your kids with no doubt of the children when you want to spend moments away from the kids.” - Villa advertisement

Ever since I arrived at my school I have been hearing about what a great tropical paradise Bali is. Boss Lady loves the place so much that they have been there more often than anywhere else. They would rather go to Bali than Europe any day. From what they and other people have told me, Bali has calm weather, clear skies, wide beaches, excellent hotels, exceptional scenery, the finest food, friendly people, and is inexpensive as far as tropical paradises go. Various people had been selling me on this place for well over a year. With all the hype, and my last trip out of the country having been to Africa, my expectations were high.

Bali never stood a chance.

A scenic Bali cove

The original plan was to take a nice relaxing vacation at a private villa on Bali. When you do not have to fly halfway around the world it really is not all that expensive. Although Bali has plenty of hotels, a private villa is the way to go. Most villas have private swimming pools and private courtyards. Kitchens and bathrooms tend to be outdoors, with usually only the bedroom and living room indoors. With an all year tropical climate, having a villa that is mostly outdoors makes sense. A good villa is surrounded with enough walls and landscaping to ensure complete privacy.

A scenic Bali temple

This was going to be my first relaxing vacation in ten years. Most of the time I go to some busy city or someplace where I have to wake up at dawn to do whatever one is supposed to do, and more often than not I travel to multiple destinations within the trip. Bali was supposed to be easy. You fly in, hang out until you have to go home, then go home. In between one can take a dip in one’s private pool and maybe have a nubile nymph or two give one a number five. The kitchen was an important amenity to me. I do not have a real kitchen at home and I miss cooking the way I used to in the real world. But the most important thing to me was the pool. After not entering a pool in years I went swimming again in Africa and have been jonesing for it ever since. This was a good plan.

A scenic Bali palace

Life generally does not adhere to the original plan. If it did we would all be cowboys and princesses. I wanted to be neither, but I once said that if I had the money I would buy an industrial size refrigerator that dispensed unlimited chocolate milk. This is no longer a priority for me. I have not had milk of any flavor in about 100 years.

My first mistake was having Pi Chi make all the travel arrangements. She speaks the language and is more suited to dealing with the local agencies that have all the great package deals. The Chinese love to go to Bali and every travel agent in the country has several packages available at any given time. Unlike me, Pi Chi actually works for a living, usually well over ten hours each day. When she is wrestling a patient from the gelid grip of death it is somewhat inconvenient to return phone calls and look over itineraries. She also has a tendency to change her mind after something has been booked. Not that I am complaining. Combined with the fact that the local travel agents are generally pretty lazy and love to do everything at the last minute this made for an unrewarding trip planning experience.

Circumstances and convenience led us to choose a five day stay at what appeared on their website to be a really nice villa resort. This meant that we would have a few days left over that I really did not want to spend at home. My job is neither hard nor terribly time consuming, but it does require my presence six days a week, which means if I want to actually go anywhere I have to do so during the breaks. Wasting any part of a break at home is not an appealing option.

Given Bali’s location I figured spending the remainder of days in Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur would be a good idea. I would like to see the Petronas Towers before they become average sized buildings. However, all of the package deals we were looking into included direct flights from Pi Chi’s city to Bali, as any good package would. Changing the return flight would be phenomenally expensive even though the cities in question are very close and more or less on the way. The cheapest option would be to fly home as per the package and then take an additional flight back down to Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur. This seemed pretty stupid to me. The only reason I chose those two cities was because they are near Bali. If I have to fly home and take a separate flight elsewhere I might as well go somewhere I would rather go.

This is where Mickey Mouse comes in. Pi Chi and I had previously discussed taking a trip to Disney World in Florida some day. This is one of those distant plans that will most likely never happen. We talked about both California Disneyland and Disney World. I prefer Disney World since I have been to Disneyland far more often, and as long as we would have to fly halfway around the world an extra 4000 kilometers would make no difference. During the month or more it actually took to put the Bali trip together Pi Chi saw some advertisement somewhere that mentioned very good discounts to Tokyo. Going to Tokyo for three days seemed like a waste. But then it occurred to us that Tokyo also has a Disneyland. We could fly to Japan for the sole purpose of visiting Mickey and friends. We had both been to Japan on more traditional trips, so why not.

The scenic Bali coast

Originally we were scheduled to go to Bali first and Tokyo afterward. One of the many changes reversed that. Overall this was a good idea, but it meant the loss of a very nice villa resort to which I really wanted to go. This resort was pretty much what sold me on the idea of going to Bali in the first place. The resort we settled on was not nearly as good.

The scenic Bali view from Ubud

As is usually the case my last day of work before the break was entirely too long. I will not mention how many hours I normally work because it is just sickening, but this day was almost three times longer. It was the longest day I have ever worked here and the longest day I have worked since my fourteen hour per shift airline job. You should not need a calculator to figure out that I do not currently work what anyone considers full time hours. An abnormally long day here (typical day in the real world) would not have been such a bad thing had I not had to be at the airport by 5am the next day. When you consider that the train that took me to the town where I spent the night got in at 1am, this meant very little sleep before dealing with all the long lines and security hassles that are the joy of international travel. By the time we actually settled into our Tokyo hotel I had been awake for 26 hours. This seems to be the case most of the time I travel, so I was not at all surprised. The difference was that this was my first trip abroad with Pi Chi. Had I been alone I would have gone to sleep immediately, but she dragged me out on the town to do some shopping. At the time I was bottling up a few litres of resentment, but I got over it. She does not go to Tokyo every day and it was pretty much her only chance to do any non-Disney shopping on this trip.

What made going to Tokyo before Bali the right choice was that it was a pretty hectic trip. Bali was relaxing, despite the utter ineptitude of the resort staff. Bali itself is a pretty scenic island. There are too many tourist traps and far too many tourists, especially Australians, but the sky and ocean are the appropriate shades of blue and green. Getting away from the tourists is easy, especially if one has a private villa. If it takes an hour or more to get somewhere via a decimated dirt road it is probably not big on the tourist agenda. If it is near the beach and has a Hard Rock Café, odds are there might be a tourist or two about.


Scenic Bali waves

When it became obvious that my expectations for this trip were higher than Pi Chi’s we agreed not to complain about any negative aspects that would inevitably arise once we were there. So I will do all my complaining here.

The pool was the biggest disappointment. The private pools in the villa we originally booked were most likely exactly what I wanted. The resort we went to was new and had clearly not worked out all the details yet. The pool was not actually a pool, but a large bathtub with only cold water. Bali is a tropical island, but it is never so hot that one would be willing to swim in frigid water. It was large enough, as bathtub pools go, but it was entirely too cold.

All the other problems with the villa were pretty minor as far as I was concerned. A lot of things broke. We had to call the front desk about the main door handle, the bathtub knob (both of which they fixed immediately), the bathroom door (they never got around to that), the pool (they could not fix that), the refrigerator (I figured it out on my own), and the various light bulbs that burned out daily. On our second day, housekeeping turned the refrigerator down all the way, ruining some of our food. I put a stop to that practice with a few choice words. Whenever we wanted a taxi it took quite some time for one to arrive. As a new resort, none of the drivers had any idea where it was, and the resort’s car service was far more expensive. I had been told by someone who has been to Bali several times that one can hire a car and driver for about NT1000 per day. We tried to do this through the resort and their rate was closer to NT9000 per day. Realizing that any resort would have excessive rates we asked various drivers what they would charge. No one came close to NT1000. Eventually we had a taxi driver shuttle us around with an informal agreement that he would turn off the meter while we were at some site. In return he got what the locals consider a pretty good tip each time I paid him the fare for each leg of our journey. In the end he probably cost us about NT4000 for the day.

Our kitchen did not have as many cooking implements as it could have, but I got the chance to cook like I have not cooked in years. The resort usually has one of its chefs prepare breakfast for the guests in their villa, but I wanted to do my own cooking. I had them just bring the food and leave, which caused no small amount of confusion. Plus Pi Chi comes from a culture where the woman does all the cooking and the man sits around waiting to be served, not that she has any desire to cook for me. My wacky foreigner ways may have jostled everyone else, but it worked for me.

Our scenic Bali kitchen
Look at that scenic oven
There is nothing like that at home

And there is the matter of massages. Bali is known to some as a haven for massage. The island is littered with spas of varying quality and cleanliness. I got the number five after all, but a nubile nymph in a predominantly Muslim country is not the same as in Europe or Japan. Mine was neither nubile nor a nymph, and for some reason was unwilling to oil her bare breasts and rub them all over my body. The only thing bare or oiled were her hands. Apparently this is what they mean by “legitimate” massage. Pi Chi’s masseuse was equally aged (late 20s to early 30s) and neither of us was impressed by the massage. She went to a spa later in the trip by herself and said that it was much better. Her two or three hours away were the only time we spent apart the entire trip. It was pure heaven. [Note to me: Delete that if she reads this].

Scenic Bali rice paddies in Ubud

Overall I have mixed views of Bali. It looks great on film, and some of the beaches “allow” topless sunbathing. More or less. But this particular resort really made a bad impression. If I ever go back I will definitely go to the original resort. But I doubt I will ever go back.

Appropriately, Indonesia has a few thousand other islands.


Scenic Bali palace architecture

This trip highlighted yet another difference between Western and Chinese thinking. Pi Chi keeps her expectations low. That way if things go wrong she is not too terribly surprised or disappointed. This certainly explains what she is doing with me. I expect a certain level of competency and ass kissing commensurate with the amount of money I am paying. The Chinese sit back and take a great deal of crap from whoever happens to be dishing it out. After five thousand years of emperors and dictators it is their natural attitude. As an American I will inevitably take a great deal of crap, but I will bitch and moan about it every step of the way.

Looking back on this trip it occurs to me just how petty all my complaints are. There are billions of people who would love the opportunity to experience the pain and suffering of our broken villa. As I was writing the paragraph about having to work an actual shift and catch a plane the next day I was thinking about how many people would gladly take a flight with little or no sleep if it meant going to some tropical island. When I was in Africa I had a moment of complete contentment unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life. Just to be able to reach that point should make it difficult to whine about broken doorknobs and other crap that has no significance long after the entire experience becomes a faded memory.

But that pool still could have been better.

The scenic Bali coast