Keith and Lacey

To recap, we left Bangkok around 8 am and it is now 6pm. 5 hours of driving to the border, 5 hours of standing in lines getting through the border.  Now we’re crammed into a small “bus,” like an airport shuttle bus, and we start driving down a road that is unbelievably poor.  It had downpoured a few times through the day so it was a big mess of mud and giant potholes.

The road was seriously just barely navigable.  We drove all over it back and forth to get through, all while working around other cars, both oncoming and not.  We were averaging about 25 km/h and it felt hairy at times even going that slow.  We drove for an hour and a half in this mess, 7:30pm and it’s pitch black. Richard (it sounded like that anyway) then got us off the bus and told us to only follow him because there are bandits who may try to lead us away.

So it’s pitch black and there are bandits and we have to try and follow Richard who we can barely see and there’s about 20 of us.  And we’re in Cambodia to boot.  IT WAS SO SWEET!  I was seriously stoked.  Danica was slightly afraid but she’s tough and of course I was there so what’s to worry?  We set off and Danica and I were at the very back.  But it was fend for yourself and people were already lagging and we weren’t about to part of that.

So we passed everyone and got directly behind Richard, not because we were scared but because we were smart.  We kept having to ask Richard to stop and wait for laggers and he wasn’t too keen on that.  If Richard didn’t want to stop, we knew there had to be a reason.  Amazingly enough everyone showed up in the end and no incidents.  But we passed a man carrying an AK-47 on his back and tons of guys milling around.

I should have said earlier the reason we had to hike is because the road was too bad so during this hike there were trucks and cars lined up the whole way stuck until the road could be fixed enough for them to pass, which seriously may be weeks I think.  So this whole time we hiked we were alongside vehicles with dark figures hanging around them, watching us go by.  And the road was of course muddy and rocky to walk on.  But we made it to the other side of the blocked cars where another bus was waiting for us to cart us off to Siem Reap.  Whew!  Once again, it was so so rad.

I really need to stop writing now and leave so I’ll pick up on the rest of the story here later.  Read Danica’s blog for a preview of what I’ll write about if you want.  Life over here rocks, we really really love Cambodia, the people here are awesome and it’s way fun.  If each day gets better and better I won’t know what to do but be in awe the rest of my life.  Later dudes and dudettes.

It can’t get much better than the front row seat of an air-con bus for a ~12 hour journey so we were pretty excited when we got on said bus Saturday morning.  The outside of the bus is hilarious with bright pictures of looney tunes.
We stowed our big packs on the bottom of the bus but we didn’t trust that they were secure until we started moving so I hung out by the side of the bus until the coordinator guy yells, “get on, we go now!”  So I followed orders and marched to the top story front of the bus where Danica was waiting happily, excited for a comfortable journey to Siem Reap.

People always talk about the chaotic driving habits over here but i find it very logical.  Instead of relying on governmental brainwashing via rules & regulations [1/31/2008: I now realize and understand that it's not our government forcing driving rules and regulations, it's that we the people have given the police the power to enforce the laws we the people have created], they use their brains to guide them simply where another car is not driving.  It’s awesome, if a car is passing the bus and there’s an oncoming car in that lane, the oncoming car just moves onto the shoulder and continues on, it’s great and it makes sense.  I was impressed with the condition of the large highway in thailand all the way from Bangkok to Aranya Prathet (the border town).

The air-con got weaker and weaker as we went but wasn’t that big of a deal, I mean we still had the 270-degree view out the front.  Plus we were the only ones in the bus with a big footrest thing in front so we were totally stretched out for about 3 hours.  We’d picked up an assortment of crackers in our Bangkok wanderings the night before so that satisfied our snacky cravings.  I really like the strawberry rose crackers we had but Danica says they remind her of a certain grand-progenitor so…

We arrived in Aranya Prathet in a slight sweat but nonetheless pretty dang comfortable.  We stopped there to get our Cambodian visas, which cost $30 USD.  The visa shop was one of several around town but the bus companies just take you to one assuming you’ll use that place, if you wanted to explore around and do it on your own you could but that would be inconvenient.  The other convenience is that the visa shop is also a cafe so you can get food.

I refused the convenience though and they said we had an hour so I wandered down a nearby sidestreet in search of street vendors.  On entering the sidestreet I was immediately off the main road and it was sweet.  After only a few blocks I came out on a street more a part of the real town instead of the interstate road.

So I bought a couple fried things, I don’t really know what they were, but one thing was sort of a fried spring roll kinda thing with some sort of rat, dog, cat, or meat.  The other thing was just potato I think, like a jojo.  I then bought some water and a chilled mocha coffee thing in a can.  My next food purchase was fried bananas dipped in something sugary [hot sweetened condensed milk?] and really good.  The bananas are chopped into like 3 chunks, fried, and then put on a stick, then she took a rolling pin and smashed the fried chunks and finally dipped them; the first one i ate was right out of the dip and was awesome, the next ones weren’t quite as good just because they were in a plastic sack and the sugary goodness dripped off a bit.  Finally I bought a Milo to try that out.  Danica talks about Milo in previous Malaysia posts, it’s malted barley and cocoa to make the chocolatey flavor.

So I wandered, bought some food, and got back to the visa place after about 1/2 hour.  I should have gone off for like 2 hours because it was at least that long before our visas all went through and they put us back on the bus.  We thought we might be able to then just slide on through and be on our way. way, way, way wrong.

One quick funny thing I did without realizing was knock on a shrine.  They have these little shrines all over in bright colors and I wanted to know what it was made of so I started knocking on it with my knuckles but luckily Danica stopped me before someone started shooting at me for disrespecting the shrine.

We drove for like 5 minutes and then they stopped.  We got back out of the bus and they started handing us our big packs.  Then they stickered us with different colored tape depending on whether we were going one way (that’s us, and we got green tape) or round trip.  Ahhh, poor round trip people. anyway, they stickered us and we stood around for a bit and then they led us over to the border crossing.

First, you have to go through the get-out-of-Thailand visa departure line and then through the get-into-Cambodia visa arrival line.  Long hot story short, it took 5 hours!  5 hours! of standing in crowded, hot lines. 

It wasn’t entirely boring though because we watched the Cambodian and Thai people crossing back and forth pushing carts and carrying stuff on their heads and basically looking poor and dirty.  I was in a pretty good mood however and Danica joined me (in the good mood) when a fan finally graced her presence.

After a quick and pleasant five hour line, they loaded us into tuk-tuks, which are motorcycles with a roofed trailer hitched to the back.  They hauled us down the road for about 5 minutes and then dropped us off on the other side of the road where we were to catch our Cambodian bus. 

Unfortunately, the only mistake we’ve made so far is here when we were convinced to exchange Thai baht for Cambodian riels beause we now realize we got ripped off.  They only gave us 70% of what we should have gotten.  Oh well, won’t do that again… probably for several reasons.

Remember the colored stickers?  The colors were to send groups off in order.  Purple went, they yelled at all us greenies to go inside instead of hanging around outside confusing everyone, then pink went, then some military guys showed up seemingly to calm us greeners, then we waited, then the guys running the store were trying to type “excuse me” into their cell phone for some reason and didn’t know how to spell it so they asked me to finish it on the phone which I screwed up so one guy had me write it on his hand (and then Danica tried to get them to write Danica on her hand in Thai but they just laughed/giggled and walked away, either becasue they misinterpreted her or had no idea what she said), and then we waited some more,

and finally Danica and I luckily overheard a couple other greenies say that the color process had just been thrown out the window and now it was be ready in front or lose out. So we casually wandered back outside up towards the front.  A bus came and we bolted to be like the first ones there.  We were both in tune at this point knowing it was either be a big dog or lose out so we were ready.

They started stacking, um more like piling, our packs in the front of the bus and lining up to get in.  They got our packs in and we jumped on towards the front since we were promised front row seats… but we now understood that was only for Thailand and the concept of aircon and front row had just died.

When D got in, she had the window seat and I had the aisle so she asked to switch, which we did.  About 30 seconds later she realized a seat fills in the aisle so there isn’t an aisle.  Haha, so I ended up with a comfy window while she was in the middle.  Poor poor danica and her flighty stomach she thought she might hurl but I don’t think she ended having any issues luckily.  At this point we were ready to depart and get on to Siem Riep, but then we got the news — the “drive” would take 10-11 hours, with a hike in the middle, and would put us into town around 3am.

A couple days go by and I find myself in Siam Riep, Cambodia and a fairly slow Internet Cafe, but that’s ok becuase it’s only a buck an hour.  I’m just going to spew stuff out from my notes because we don’t want to use more than an hour so we can explore maybe Tonle Sap Lake or something or other or else.  Probably the lake.

On the flight from Singapore to Bangkok I found something the stewardess said to be pretty funny.  She was reciting the rules and stuff and then she ended with “and remember, cell phones are a big no-no.”  It was especially funny because of her cool foreign accent.

The flight into Bangkok was more gorgeous (can I say gorgeous since i’m male?) than flying into Tokyo.  The rice fields are absolutely stunning, rows and rows of perfectly lined up shades-of-green fields.

The plane landed in BKK and we’re taxiing over to the terminals and I look over and there’s a car stopped at stoplight, waiting for the plane to pass through and have the light turn green.  I’ve never seen a road pass through an airport before.  Ha.

I waited a while for Danica at BKK and then realized I wasn’t waiting in the correct part of the airport so once I followed the signs that say, “meeting point,” I found her.  Woo hoo!  Off and running.

I’d read in LP about taking the train into downtown Bangkok and it’s only 10 Baht, which is 25 cents.  It was well worth taking, lots of poverty to behold, my first real sight of it, although Danica wasn’t impressed tooooo much because she’d just come from the Phillipines and they’re really really really poor there.  We ended up sitting in the food & drink car even though a lady in there initially said we couldn’t unless we got something.  Haha, food & drink car, probably not what you’re picturing.  It was dirty, run down, all the windows were open, very hot & humid, and the lady was sitting up top of the wooden bench filling little plastic sacks with what looked like some sort of alcohol.

We arrived at Hualamphong, the train depot after about 1/2 hour or so and started looking around.  We started talking to a tourist advisor of sorts and he directed us upstairs to this little tourist office.  The place was awesome, only because of the girl who helped us.  She was hilarious, we nicknamed her Giggly because she was cracking all these jokes and would then giggle and giggle and giggle.  Like, when we first walked in she said hi to Danica and I was paying more attention to try and circumnavigate all these backpacks lying all over, and she looked at me and goes, “hi, HI.”  I looked up and said, “oh, hi.”  And then she just started giggling.  Hehehehe, hehehehe, for no reason at all.  I honestly think she had a crush on me, heh heh, if only she could see my scruffy self now… the best joke I think was with a completely straight face, she goes, “Bus? No, airplane is much cheaper.”  And Danica goes, “Really?”  And then Giggly started giggling like crazy of course and says, “No, no, I’m joking.”  We asked another girl working there if she’s always that way and she said, “Yes, always.”  She was rad.

So we booked a bus ride from Bangkok to Siam Riep with Giggly that would leave at 8am Saturday and supposedly arrive at Siam Riep around 5 or 6pm.  More on that one later… much, much more.  But first, to keep it chronological, we dived into the chaos called Bangkok and worked our way over to a hotel pretty much right across the street from the station, which is in Chinatown.  The hotel rooms looked fine and they had hot shower water and they cost 550 Baht so we went for it.  I’ll fill in names and price conversions sometime, I’m keeping track so far… anyway, we tooled got in our room and then tooled around Chinatown looking for food… BECAUSE i still had not eaten!  I forgot that the cheap Tiger Air flight didn’t serve a free meal and i didn’t have any Singapore dollars so i went without. of course all the food and stuff was new to me on the streets so i couldn’t make up my mind.

Finally Danica pointed to some soupy thing and we split it.  We trucked around and found a noodly/vegatably dish and split that too.  I took off and found some much needed water, and ended getting a bottle of Coke too because it looked real good.  The place i got it from was like an open cafe kind-of place and probably about 15 guys were in there lounging and watching soccer.  There was one lady, who appeared to be the owner or at least runner of the place, who came over to help me.  I made it confusing because at first I said I wanted 3 and asked how much, but then I changed my mind and said 4, and then at the last minute I said I wanted the Coke too.  So I kind of had her going in circles and it was getting confusing so some of the guys started jumping up and offering help.  It was pretty funny and I had no idea what this one guy was saying for a long time but I finally figured out he was asking if I wanted the cap popped of and a straw.  For some his hand gestures looked more like calisthenics.

The coolest part of that night was when we started trying to find our way back to our hotel.  We came up to this park area (no grass, more like a Seattle Center type of thing) and these guys were playing this super-gnarly game.  It was volleyball except with a large brown wiffle ball thing (not too large, maybe halfway between a wiffle ball and a volleyball) and they were only there head and their FEET.  It was incredible, one guy would toss the ball up to his server and the server would smash the ball over the net with his foot above his head.  Then the returning side would kind of hacky-sack it back up in the air and then they’d spike it by just kicking it above their heads or actually putting their hands and the ground and kind of cartwheeling and spiking the ball.  It was amazing.

So we sat there for quite a while and ate mangosteins, which are a purplish fruit about the size of an apricot and you smush them until they crack open, which reveals a sweet white center that stains your clothes purple if you get it on them but tastes really good.

The next morning at train depot, we were waiting to get on our bus and a little before 8am some military personnel came out and stood below this very large portrait of I think the president.  At 8am on the dot, what must be their national anthem began playing and the officers were lined up and most everyone (except those sleeping) stood up and gave respect towards the portrait.  I should say that the train depot is a large open room with the 2nd stories just being on two ends of it.  Down below in the main open area are a bunch of seats with a bunch of Thais sitting and sleeping in them waiting for their train.

So now I’m up to the cool part, which unfortunately Danica’s beating me to.  But we have to go because our hour is up.  We plan to make another stop tonight for blogging so I’ll continue then.

After I posted my quickie blog to let Mom know I was still alive last night, er, really early this morning, I went downstairs and immediately had some dude offer me a taxi ride.  It felt fishy so I declined and said I wanted to wander the airport first, which was kind of true.  I wandered for like 2 minutes and then went outside and there were taxis lined up and this one guy yells right off at me.  I asked him if I needed Singapore money but he said he could swipe and he’d give me a receipt and everything would be peachy-keen so I jumped in and said I wanted to go to Chinatown, the place that the Singaporian man on the plane told me I should go.  I knew already that Singapore is a really safe place, because of harsh penalties like death to drug traffickers, and both of these men assured me I’d be totally fine wandering around in the middle of the night.  The ultra-friendly taxi driver talked my ear off and was quite animated but was really helpful in figuring out exactly where I should go.  I don’t think he ripped me off or anything either because the guy on the plane said it’d be about $25 and it was $25.03, which is Singapore dollars and the exchange rate is around 1 U.S. dollar to 1.65 Singapore dollar, so maybe around 15 dollars?  It would have been less too but there’s a required “late night” fee which makes it $1.50 for every $1.  And there’s also a tax for leaving from the airport.  Despite all the extra fees that would have been absent this morning coming back, I felt I could do better so I figured out that I could walk to an MRT, Mass Rapid Transit, station and ride it.  The only thing that runs from the airport at night are taxis so I was forced to take one.

The thing with the MRT though is that they only accept Singapore dollars or some local debit card thing called Nets.  I did have 40 cents because I’d bought a water sometime during the night (from 7-Eleven, the only 24 hour store I could find) with a U.S. dollar, but the ride to the airport from City Hall is $2.50 (but 1 dollar is a deposit so you get it back at the end of the ride).  I couldn’t find any 7-Elevens in the neighborhood of City Hall to buy more water and get change so I ended up asking some random chick if she’d take 2 U.S. dollars for 3 Singapore dollars.  She was happy to do it, maybe my generosity inspired her, like the 30 cents extra she got.

I skipped some stuff chronologically there but that’s because it was all the same subject.  First off, my first glimpse of Chinatown was AWESOME! I really don’t think words and barely pictures can do it justice.  Even though there were few people around and most everything was closed up, it was just sweet.  The taxi driver dropped me off on Eu Tong Sen/New Bridge and Smith, right by this late night eatery.  He told me I should eat there and then stroll.  I should have taken his advice to eat right then but I was still full from the 3 in-flight meals so I strolled first.  When I got back to that place, which I assumed was an all-nighter, it was closed, along with every eatery I had seen during my initial wandering.  So here I am, writing on my blog and I have still not eaten since my last meal on the plane!  Haha.  I refuse to eat at the likes of Burger King.  Hmm, I’m really hungry right now though and I think as soon as I’m done I’ma grab something small to tide me over until my flight to Bangkok.

Singapore is really really muggy, and that’s why my feet are blistering, because they’ve been wet ever since I stepped out of the airport.  My whole body has been wet in fact, and that was the middle of the night!  I’ve been inside the airport now since about 8:30 am so I don’t know if it’s becoming intolerable out there or not.  The sun comes up really late here, not until about 7 am.

Here are some notable observations:
In wandering through the Maxwell Road Hawker Centre, I noticed several signs advertising “fish ball noodles.”  Sounds tasty.

There are a couple of temples (Indian I think?) in Chinatown, Sri Mariamman and Thian Hock Keng.

The Sri one is only a couple blocks from my drop-off point but the the Thian one is a little further out.  I decided to walk over to the Thian at some point and I was hanging out in front of it trying to get a couple of pics.  After I got them I started walking away and this guy who had pulled up in car while I was photo-clicking, and was now out of his car, said something to me and came over asking me some questions.  He wasn’t scary or anything, just an average looking guy about my age, but I couldn’t understand him very well.  But when he said, “You know that this street is the gay & lesbian street?”  I heard him quite well. I said I had no idea and just wanted to see the temple; he seemed pretty disappointed when we parted ways.  I thought I was going to get hit on by hot women over here in Asia.

At 5 am this morning, there were guys all over Chinatown sleeping on benches and stuff.  One guy had his shirt up above his Buddha belly, pretty funny looking.  What I really wanted to say about 5 am this morning though is that people starting showing up to start preparing for the day’s ruckus, which unfortunately I’m missing out on because my feet “hurt real bad” and I couldn’t walk back down there, and I saw these two old ladies (wish I’d gotten a pic) totally hobbling down this ramp with their deformed bow-legged legs.  I mean really bow-legged.  I bet those two ladies walk down that ramp every morning on the brink of collapsing and then shuck corn, chop lettuce, skin potatos, and prepare a bunch of food.  Basically, work very hard with their limited bodies.  Um, glad I don’t have that job.

Around 5:30 am I decided I should probably give up on hanging at Chinatown for the markets to open since there was no sign of light and the people I asked said the sun rises at 7:30.  I wandered north towards an MRT station I located in Lonely Planet and walked into Raffles Landing, an area with ginormous skyscrapers and lighted bridges all surrounding (and going over) a big bulge in the Singapore river.  As far as man-made things go, it’s a really beautiful spot.  I was going to chill there and wait for sun-rise but I decided to walk around the area instead.  Apparently it’s a hot-spot for running in the morning because around 6 am I saw probably 10 or 15 different joggers doing their thing.  I was also about to climb some steps when I looked up and saw a pack of 15-20 roadies (like full on with the neon spandexy gear and everything, they appeared to be white people though, some of the very few I’ve actually seen here besides in the airport) go flying by.  That’s early to be riding, sweet time and place to do it though.

Well I’m finally back to the MRT.  First of all it was nice to get some aircon after 5 1/2 hours of walking in airy water.  The MRT is pretty quick and quite nice and modern.  In the short trip, I enjoyed spying on the people mostly.  They were mostly commuters with nothing to say to each other, just like I am back home.  The thing of interest though was how many had headphones, probably all connected to mp3 players.  That way they have an excuse not to talk!  While floating along, which is how it feels, I saw tons of apartment complexes, and they were littered with Singapore flags.  I asked this young hottie next to me if the flags were for normal or for an occasion and, I think she said they are for National Holiday on August 9th.  I’ll have to Google that sometime to confirm.  The last thing I noticed was the truly ginormous Singapore Expo center.  I don’t know what an Expo actually is but this one was gargantuan, I bet it spans at least 10 blocks.

I have to check in for my next flight now, BANGKOK, so I’ll holla again sometime later.  Ah yeah!  I’m so stoked to meet up with Danica.  I’m glad I got this little amount of time on my own too because that way I have some stories to tell her.  I was feeling pretty left out the other night when I looked at the photos her mom put on the Internet (go to D’s blog and find the SueMue7 link) and from reading D’s blogs.  It doesn’t matter now though, we’re off to see the wizard!

It’s only 9 am here but I’m back at good ol’ Changi Airport. My feet are blistering pretty bad so it feels good to sit. I walked all over Singapore through the night. I didn’t realize that 1:30 am to 9 am is a long time to stroll. So I’ve stuck a couple pieces of duct tape on my feet to thwart two extra painful spots.

Before I get to the Singapore stuff, I’ll start from the beginning. Yesterday sometime, let’s just say 11:45 am Wednesday the 27th in Portland, I boarded the Portland Max train to get to the airport. There are a couple of transfers from Jon’s house but no big deal. On entering the 2nd train there was a lady talking and gesturing a bunch… to the wall of the train. Then there was this one girl who could barely take her eyes off me for some reason, maybe a large green booger, but she smiled once and all four top front teeth were missing. Cha-ching.

Two interesting observations at the PDX. First, I could not find a single clock in the walkways. Is that normal? I remember Salt Lake City having one like every 10 feet. Second, my gate was at the very end of a terminal that had lost power. So there was no air conditioning and since there was no power to the terminal there was no power to the airplane, so it was at least 107 degrees inside. They wouldn’t let us on the plane with it that hot, which was fine, but it delayed the flight for an hour. Surprisingly, we still seemed to arrive in Tokyo on time.

If you’ve read my previous blogs, you may recall my lengthy discussion regarding my seating assignment. Well, I ended up sitting in a completely different seat, 31A instead of 13J, because I met Sovathana, a Cambodian girl who’s lived most of her life near Portland. She’s going to Cambodia to work for an organization, the name escapes my mind right now, that is working to remove landmines and improve living conditions and stuff like that. She also gets to visit some of her family who still live in Cambodia; I don’t think Danica and I will run into her but you never know. The reason I started talking to her in the first place is because she asked me how far along I was in the new Harry Potter book, which I was clutching in my hand as I walked by. I had just bought it at the airport and had only read a chapter but I told her I was going to try and read it all before I got to Singapore and then ditch it somewhere. By the time we were nearing Tokyo, however, I decided I should sleep from Tokyo to Singapore instead of read so I let her have it (because she was only 1/3 through it). It’s cool because I’ll probably get it back now once she gets back to Portland and it will have had a bunch of adventures! She has 10 days in Hawaii after she’s done working too so the book will have its own stories to tell, probably not any pictures though…

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any time in Tokyo at all, I had to just walk straight to the gate of the connecting flight. At the gate, they loaded us up in a bus and trucked us out to the plane. I think they ended up putting us right back on the same plane we just got off of. Not Sovathana though, she was headed straight to Bangkok from Tokyo. It was awesome flying in to Tokyo. There are tons and tons of rice fields. They’re very defined and green and pretty. In fact, the whole area seemed really green and pretty. I swear I saw like 5 amazing golf courses within miles of each other. The weird thing about Tokyo is how fast it got dark. When we arrived it was totally sunny and nice out and by the time I got to the gate and back on the plane it was gloomy and dark.

Here’s the scoop on drug trafficking in Singapore. The announcement over the speaker was fairly friendly and said drug trafficking is a “serious offence” and will result in “serious penalties.” But then they handed out these pieces of paper (kind of the shape and size of Scantrons) that foreigners have to fill out to get your temporary Visa. The information was really basic, like name and passport number and stuff like that. But in the lower left corner in bright red and caps it says:

The last thing I have to say before I get to the Singapore stuff is that the NWA on-demand movie/music/info screen thing is run on Linux. Something happened to it and they rebooted it and it showed Linux starting up doing it’s thing. Heh, that’s a paragraph for us computie-types.

And after a quick few hours of flying, I arrive in Singapore. I already started writing a blog at this free Internet station but then lost it all because it logged me out when my fifteen minutes expired. Anyway, it’s 1 am here and my flight to Bangkok is not until 12:50 this afternoon so I think I’ma take a taxi into town and “stroll,” as the nice Singaporian(?) man next to me on the plane said. He said the drive is about 25 minutes at this time of the morning but to be careful coming back because the traffic gets “crunched.” I have some things to write about already but I’ll do it later since I don’t have time on this machine. And I want to head into Chinatown and do some strollin’. Oh, I’m awake and feeling good because I was able to sleep a bunch on the flight from Tokyo.

I thought the drive to Portland was 7 hours, but that must be if you go through Seattle. It only took me 5 1/2, even with a few necessary stops for water. It was really hot and sunny so my sunroof and window were open with my limbs hanging out, well just one limb, my left arm. If I had not been tanning and been white like when Sweetwater and I went to SoCal, my arm would be very burnt.

The last water stop I made was at Grocery Outlet in The Dalles. The checkstands were filled with high class citizens with coupons and redeemable aluminum cans (5 cents a can in Oregon I think). But this one friendly checker picked me out of my line and said, “I can help you.” So I followed her over to her checkout stand but there was already a lady there with aluminum cans.  So I stood there with my one Dasani water watching them count the cans, move them into different plastic bags, discuss the one plastic bottle that was included, screw up the redemption process on the computer, call for a manager to come help, watch the lady behind me move to a different line, watch the people that were behind me in the other line leave the store, have the manager called again because when my water was rang up there were leftover errors from the can-lady, and finally get my 99 cent water, which I apparently saved 20 cents on compared to other stores. Woo hoo!

You know those fish symbols people put on the back of their car, generally referring to Darwin or something? I saw one in Portland that said, “Lutefisk.”

Another cool sign I saw was on the back of a semi. “Explosives.” A good vehicle to follow…

When I got to Portland I went and got an STA travel card, which I got a special deal on… and then I crashed Jon’s solo party at his place. We went and played ultimate frisbee for a couple hours with the kids here in Portland; it was good to do some running to contrast with my day of driving and the next day of flying.

Contrast. Lots of contrast to follow…

It’s time. Time to hit the road. And then the air. And then the southeast asian road. Before I start driving, here’s a couple things of analytical interest.

First, I weighed my fully loaded pack last night and it weighed in just shy of 17 pounds, and that includes a few items that will be distributed to Danica.

Second, since I laid out my flight schedule for the trip over there, I figured I should lay it out for the return flight as well. One interesting thing to note is that it only takes 8 hrs, 55 mins to get from Tokyo to Portland, versus 10 hrs, 25 mins to get from Portland to Tokyo. I wonder which way the wind blows? The other interesting thing to note is that I (we) leave Singapore at 6:00am and arrive in Portland at 8:15am, on the same day. That’s fast flyin!

Northwest Airlines Flight 0006
Depart: Singapore — 6:00am 8/25 | 3:00pm 8/24
Arrive: Tokyo, Japan — 2:15pm 8/25 | 10:15pm 8/24
Flight Time: 7 hrs, 15 mins
Flight Miles: 3,311
Meal Served: Breakfast
Airplane: Airbus A330-200
Cruising Speed: 545mph
Seating Capacity: 243
Business Class: 32
Coach Class: 211

Depart: Tokyo, Japan — 3:20pm 8/25 | 11:20pm 8/24
Arrive: Portland, OR — 8:15am 8/25 | 8:15am 8/25
Flight Time: 8 hrs, 55 mins
Flight Miles: 4,829
Meal Served: Dinner
Airplane: same

Total Flight Time: 16 hrs, 10 mins
Total Trip Time: 17 hrs, 15 mins
Total Flight Miles: 8,140

If you’ve read the D’s blog, you know that we met, we mucked, she flued, we drove, we Starbucked, we fireworked, we pita’d, and we planned. One thing you don’t know is while Danica flued, I mucked more. I don’t have the photos up yet from my two days of Yellowstone mucking because I don’t have enough space left on Webshots to put them all up. So I have to remove some photos to make room but I don’t want to simply remove them because I’ll lose their captions. What I need to do is figure out a way to archive Webshots photos with their captions on my own website. Easier said than done.

Do I actually have any real Asia-related content for this blog entry? Hmm, I know, I can talk about vaccinations.

Vaccinations: I’ve been getting the major ones, Danica is not getting any of ‘em. Another way to look at it is that I am now tainted, Danica is pure. Don’t dig too deep into that. Here are the immunizations I have clouded my body with along with some relevant information.

• Tetanus – A booster shot every 10 years is recommended because tetanus lives in dirt so you can get it by simply pricking your finger on a rose bush thorn and touching infected dirt. That’s the example the nurse gave me anyway.
• Hepatitis A – 2 shots, 6 months apart. I’ve gotten the first one and that’s all I’ll have for the trip. You get Hep A from infected food and water so as long we’re careful about what we consume we should be fine. Danica’s pretty careful about that anyway due to allergies so with her influence I may be able to refrain from eating too much crap, maybe literally.
• Hepatitis B – 3 shots, wait 1 month for the 2nd shot, 6 months from the 1st shot for the 3rd shot. I got this shot at the same time as Hep A, I’ll get the 2nd shot in a few days, and then I’ll get the last shot at the same time as the 2nd Hep A (5 months from now). You get Hep B from dirty needles, promiscuity, or open wounds. I’m planning on indulging in all three a lot so I really needed this immunization.
• Typhoid Fever – 1 shot or 3-4 oral doses (pills). To avoid another shot and since the pills are $30-40 cheaper, I decided to vaccinate myself orally. About a week before I leave, I’ll take a pill every other day until I’ve consumed all 4.
• Malaria Pills – Doxycycline taken daily starting the day I leave and continued for a month after I return. Now that I have the pills I wonder if I should have skipped this vaccination. While it won’t hurt and doxycycline is a good antibiotic for a lot of other illnesses besides malaria, it feels like overkill. But it would suck to get malaria so…

Costs: While the regional health district was recommended multiple times for cheaper vaccinations, it ended up being MUCH cheaper to do them through Group Health Cooperative, my health care provider from work. Tetanus is completely covered and Hep B is covered under preventive (don’t tell them it’s for traveling). Hep A used to be really expensive because it was shipped in large vials and few people get the shot so they’d have to throw away the extra vaccine because once the vial is opened it’s compromised. So they’d charge you for the whole vial instead of just your small dose. They now ship it in unit vials and all you have to pay is $11, which is the price of the medicine. The other option for Hep A and Hep B is called Twinrix, which is A/B combined in one shot and only the regional health district offers it. The price is pretty high though, $60 a shot and there’s 3 shots, so $180. Typhoid shots are only offered at the regional health district but I ordered the pills, which are $40. Lastly, I think the malaria pills are covered somehow. All of this price information is of course only relevant to my location. I haven’t gotten a bill yet but I think it’ll be something like:

• Tetanus – $0
• Hep A – $11 * 2 shots = $22
• Hep B – %20 of the medicine cost = ??
• Typhoid – $40
• Malaria Pills – %20 of the cost = ??
• TOTAL: I’ll guess about $100

Side Effects: The only side effects I’ve experienced from immunizing is a sore arm and maybe a little sleepiness. Tetanus was the worst. It didn’t really hurt but the spot on my arm where the shot was given kind of knotted up and my arm felt half-asleep for a about 3-4 days. I could lift it above my head but I was pretty content to just let it hang by my side because that’s what it seemed to want to do. And arms generally hang by your side most of the time anyway so we lived pretty harmoniously despite its griping. One of the Hep shots was worse than the other but I don’t know which one because I didn’t see which one went in which arm. Maybe I’ll be able to tell when I get the 2nd Hep B this week. I played basketball the day I got the first Hep shots and even though my arms were complaining a bit I was able to raise them over my head without much resistance. The tetanus arm definitely resisted.

Hopefully the preceding horde of information wasn’t too wordy and boring. It probably was but I tried my best and I want to be rewarded for my efforts, prefererably with a warm, freshly baked, chocolate chip cookie. Mmm. Chocolate chip cookies are a real man’s vaccine. They may not immunize the body but they definitely immunize the heart. And wouldn’t you rather immunize your heart than your body?

BUFF-A-LO!