The rather more upscale transport to the Bamboo Train terminus

Unlike many other transportation devices that sport extravagant names bearing no relationship to their intended purpose (the Dodge Charger, the Honda Hurricane, and the Titanic jump to mind), the Bamboo Train’s nomenclature is refreshingly unadorned; it is just what it says it is, a bamboo platform about the size of a single bed, set atop a pair of axles with train wheels at either end. A small motorcycle engine powers the contraption (and there really is no other word for it than “contraption”) by means of a drive belt attached to one of the axles. Braking is largely non-existent, save for the friction between the pitted wheels and the rusty track. Suspension, ha—suspension is for sissies! There are two solid billet axles which serve only to keep the wheels the appropriate distance apart, and no springs of any sort to cushion your nether regions from the relentless pounding. It is rather amazing just how much jolt can be generated by two sections of track coming together scant millimeters off level from one another.

This takes "minimalist" to a whole new level...

The Bamboo Train provides an ad hoc solution to a rural transportation problem; it exists to  ferry passengers and cargo from Battambang out to the boondocks, places deep into the rice paddies where roads do not yet reach. It lacks speed, safety, and a schedule, but more than makes up for all that with its ingenious construction and its sheer usefulness. It goes only when it gets full, or, if you’re feeling flush, you can charter the whole train for an hour or so for $10. This includes the services of a driver, who cheerfully delivers a running commentary—all in Khmer, of course, but it is nonetheless endlessly entertaining.

Cue the "Indy Jones" theme music...

As there is only one set of tracks, occasionally there is the surprise of finding another Bamboo  Train coming in the other direction. Not to worry, though, for the specialty of the Bamboo Train lies in its feathery weight and the resultant maneuverability. The drivers and passengers simply hop off the train, lift the bamboo platform off the wheels, heft the tiny engine off to one side, and then shlep each set of wheels off the tracks. The whole process takes no more than a couple of  minutes. Thus, the train coming in the opposite direction can make it through unimpeded. Despite the fact that this is all much easier than it would be with, say, an Amtrak car, it is still a bit of an undertaking in the hot Cambodian sun, however. So it stands to reason that there is a pecking order as to which train moves out of the way, and which one gets to pass through. Basically, the train with the most passengers wins, although a motorcycle on board trumps even
a full complement of human freight.

Parallel parking, Cambodian style

Recent rumor has it that this will be the final year for the Bamboo Train, one more gloomy chorus to add to the Disappearing Railroad Blues. It will be deeply missed, by locals and travelers alike.

The “river steamer”, which looked for all the world like “The African Queen”,  turned out to be a diesel-powered craft; by the sound of it, it could have been Rudolf Diesel’s original prototype. It assaulted both the ears and the nose from some distance off (and the remaining senses as we got closer), and left a plume of oily black smoke in its wake as it made its way down the river and out onto Tonle Sap Lake. There were seats
inside, but it was quite a hot day, so we opted to travel on the roof of the boat. Twelve or fifteen of us staked out seating space on the fibreglass floor, only to discover that the boat was listing alarmingly to the starboard side; the captain’s aide came topside and quickly hustled a number of folks across the boat, thus adjusting the horizon back to its preferred horizontal orientation.

The scenery was as advertised by Lonely Planet: lush jungle, with brightly colored birds and chattering monkeys, punctuated by floating villages, long-tail fishing boats, and countless kids smiling and waving as we went by. I had one of those life-imitates-art-imitates-life moments when I made the observation that it was
rather like the jungle boat ride at Disneyland, the big differences being that the Disney ride lets you off at the designated time, the engine doesn’t catch fire en route and halt the ride for several hours, and it never (but never!) gets stuck on a sandbar, requiring assistance from myriad nearby fishermen. Despite all that, or perhaps because of it, the boat trip was one of the finest travel experiences I have ever had, one with National Geographic photo opportunities at every bend of the river, and I heartily recommend it if you should ever find yourself at loose ends in northwestern Cambodia.

We finally got into Battambang after a dozen hours or so; rumor has it that the boat trip typically takes eight hours, and you can do the parallel route by car in about three hours, tops, and in air-conditioned comfort as well. But where’s the fun in that? Our hotel had promised us a driver, and indeed one awaited us at the top of the stairs from the dock. He wore a slightly perplexed expression as he surveyed the scraggly bunch of travelers ascending the steps. In his hand was a hastily scrawled sign that read “Mr. Blues”. “That’s me,” I said, pointing at the card. I hefted our luggage into the tuk-tuk and off we went. He spoke virtually no English, so I felt entirely comfortable in saying (in a dreadful approximation of an upper-crust English accent) “Home, James, and don’t spare the whip!”

Move'm out!

Floating monks

The friendliest kids on the planet, more to come!

The penthouse suite of our intrepid craft...

A brief stop at a floating market...

Friendliest kids redux

Monks redux

The kitchenwares market...

2br, 1ba, boat parking for two

Sunday afternoon family drive...

Yet more charming kids...

And a couple more...

Saki's best picture of the trip...

Battambang at long last!

No idea what they were going for here...

Using only 100% Stinky Coconut Oil for Your Massage

Apparently the proofreaders were blind as well...

I quite like this one...

"Y'all don't be wearin' none of those 'very shorts'..."

Peach-Flavored Fruit Basket Toilet Tissue

...Also available in White Grape flavor!

Can there possibly be a better name for toilet paper?

Get Mikey to try it...

What do you suppose this device does?

In some cases, words are superfluous...

Cooked, but still "pecking"...

And finally, some t-shirts:

Tattoos: in my observation, there are few (okay, exactly zero) bodies improved upon by the addition of a tattoo. Chanteuse Bette Midler once commented that she had considered having an image of the Mona Lisa tattooed on one of her breasts; quite possibly, given the dimensions of the canvas in question, it could have been rendered life-size. She opted not to do it, however, citing the possibility that as she got older, gravity and its resultant tissue sag might render the portrait strongly reminiscent of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”. I think that was a very well-considered decision on her part; would that many of the scantily-clad tourists in Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia had exercised similar restraint. Tweety Bird and Snoopy are both charming in their original milieus, to be sure, but quantifiably less so on the hairy leg or pendulous breast of a tank-topped sunburnt holiday-maker. The same goes for Iron Man, Sailor Moon, and Hello Kitty, perhaps even more so. Let’s not forget the ubiquitous variations on the flying-wing theme, usually found in what is generally known as “the small of the back”, the area directly above “the large of the butt” (thanks, Laura, for pointing out that distinction!). My friend Eric tells me that in his homeland of Holland, this design is colloquially known as “arcshgeweih”, which translates in English to “ass antlers”; now, of course, I can never see this sort of tattoo without thinking of Bullwinkle.

Also, much in the way that Asians love to use English for its aesthetics rather than for its connotation, Westerners seem to love having Japanese kanji characters indelibly imprinted upon their skin, irrespective of what said character(s) might mean. Perhaps the tattoo that read “I am who” was simply a case of the artist running out of ink, or possibly the tattoo-ee hit his pain threshold before the thought could be completed, although I am frankly at something of a loss as to what the finishing phrase to “I am who…” might be.

It is probably fitting that I am writing this missive in the coastal Thailand town of Krabi (seriously), pronounced just as one might expect. I will be here for the next several days, so who knows what other things I may find to Krab about in the meantime?

“It is really quite extraordinary,” comments Sir Nigel Cuthbert-Hsiang, of the joint Exxon Anglo-Sino cultural anthropology team. “We seem to have chanced upon the largest known cache of third-generation Toyota Camrys in existence. And by far, the preponderance of them are finished in a deep shade of green. I have never seen anything like it. As most historians well know, the third-generation of Camry debuted in 1991, and continued basically unchanged until 1996. They were reputed to be exceptionally reliable, and indeed, after more than a thousand years, we were able to change the oil and spark plugs on a pair of well-preserved ones, and they started right up. In fact, we are using them as primary transportation around the archaeological site as we speak…”

“Nobody seems to know why there are so many green examples,” Cuthbert-Hsiang continues. “Of course, we have found a handful of silver ones, and a couple of black ones, but the green ones handily outnumber all of the other hues put together, perhaps by as much as ten-to-one. Oddly, although there are a few later examples, fourth-generation and beyond, by far the most common vehicle is the green ‘third-gen’ iteration. There has been much speculation in the archaeological community as to just why this might be, but nothing thus far approaching a definitive answer: a) Cambodians of the era simply preferred green automobiles; b) Cambodians assumed that green cars were more eco-friendly, or ‘green’; c) these were all decommissioned police vehicles or fleet cars of some sort, ordered and delivered in just the one color; or, more likely, d) some factor we haven’t even begun to consider.”

Editor’s note: Some representative photographs from the digital era are attached below. Please excuse the poor quality of the images, as at the time, of course, Tierneyan Holography was still several hundred years in the future.

We had two choices for transportation to Siem Reap, Cambodia, site of Angkor Wat, arguably the most amazing historical site on the planet. (I know, there are those of you who would disagree, citing the Great Wall, Petra, Ephesus or the Pyramids, but I would have to suggest respectfully that you are mistaken.) Anyway, back to the two choices: airplane, at a whopping $270 for a one-hour flight, or bus/taxi, which accomplished the same feat in seven hours, at a cost of only $21. When you factor in the hour-long ride to the airport in Bangkok, not to mention arriving two hours early for the international flight, the travel time difference is pretty minuscule, so we decided to take the bus, pocket the extra cash, and spend it on massages and souvenirs instead.

We had been warned, both by guidebooks and fellow travelers, to avoid the Thailand/Cambodia border at Poipet, as the Cambodian visa facilitators were reputed to be rapacious, often demanding double or
triple the $20 charge to secure the visa, and then, adding insult to injury, routing passengers to taxi drivers who charge double or triple the going rate for the ride from Poipet to Siem Reap. This, we were told, was done with the tacit cooperation of the government, which reputedly turned a blind eye to the doings of the local mafia dudes. I opted to get our visas in Bangkok ahead of time, and to book through transport to Siem Reap, thus skipping some of the most egregious shenanigans. All in all it worked pretty well: we made it to the border, and through immigration, in record time. We had to wait for some time for a taxi, and in the end it turned out to be a rather crowded minivan instead, but it did get us to Siem Reap without incident (although our sleepy driver came close to clipping a cow until I shouted at the last minute; we were never sure if he would have collected it as a distinctive hood ornament, but I was glad to have raised the alarm in any event).

When we got to Siem Reap, we were dropped off at a tuk-tuk stand (for the uninitiated, a tuk-tuk is a motorcycle/trailer affair, which holds a couple of folks and their luggage, pulled behind a 125cc scooter
of dubious lineage, and even more dubious condition). This was not on the itinerary, as we had been promised delivery to our hotel, but it wasn’t a huge deal, so we didn’t make a fuss about it. When we told the tuk-tuk driver where we wanted to go (the Mandalay Inn, which had been recommended by a fellow traveler on the Bangkok-Poipet run), he said “No, mister, you don’t want to go there; it is a long way out of town, and it has very unfriendly management; there is no restaurant; also, it is much too expensive.” I figured he was trying to steer us to a hotel from which he received a commission, so I
reiterated that the Mandalay was indeed where I wanted to go. After some more minor discussion, he agreed to take us there, for free, no less. All he asked was that if we should require the use of a tuk-tuk again while we were in Siem Reap, that we give him a call. That seemed fair enough, so we piled in, and off we went.

Soon we pulled up in front of a hotel which looked fairly reasonable, actually more modern than I had expected. I could not see the name Mandalay Inn anywhere, however; for that matter, I could not see any sign at all. So I asked the driver if this was indeed the Mandalay. “Yes, you should go inside and have a look at the room,” he replied, motioning hastily toward the entry door. “But is it the Mandalay?” I persisted. “Yes, just like the Mandalay,” he said, but there was just the tiniest hint of duplicity in his tone. I was a little bit irritated by now, but mildly amused nonetheless. “So, you mean it is just like the Mandalay, with unfriendly owners, a bad location, no restaurant, and too-high prices?” I asked. He looked more than a bit uncomfortable. “Whatever the case,” I continued, “the Mandalay is where I want to go. If you can take me there, great; if not, I will find another driver who can. Just let me know, because I want to go there now.” He sighed and kick-started the bike, and about two minutes later we arrived at the Mandalay, which proceeded to belie everything our driver had told us about the place: about a block from the center of town; lovely Burmese owners, and exceptionally attentive staff, smiling every step of the way; a restaurant that served up great Western-style breakfasts and tasty Cambodian fare in the evenings for something on the order of $2 per meal; teak furniture and polished marble floors throughout; and all this for $9 (that’s nine, as in the number before ten) per night! Oh, and a pair of great on-call tuk-tuk drivers who drove exceptionally safely, spoke English decently well, and were excellent guides to the Angkor Wat complex. Needless to say, we found no further reason to engage the services of our first driver.

By morning, the pain had subsided a bit, although I had what could only be described as an epic bruise, about the size of a saucer (if anything, I am under-exaggerating here), in shades of purple, pink and red that would have done justice to a Los Angeles sunset. Sorry, no pictures. Although I had planned to leave the island within the following couple of days, I decided to postpone my return to Bangkok until I felt a bit more up for an overnight bus trip, which is not something my posterior would welcome even at the best of times. In the event, I wound up securing a place on a luxo-bus with seats which reclined almost flat, so the trip was really pretty gentle, all things considered, and I arrived in Bangkok, if not in total comfort, at least not in screaming pain. Now, two weeks on, the bruise is still there, although only a shadow of its former self, its initial aubergine hue having faded to the muted chartreuse of, say, pea soup, with small bits of ham strewn here and there throughout. I can still feel a bit of tenderness from time to time, but I am basically back to about 98%, for which I am inordinately thankful. It could have been exponentially worse.

I wasn’t wearing a helmet, although it must be said that a helmet would not have helped much in this case; also, I have yet to see a helmet sized to fit my butt. Still, the down time has given me the opportunity to reconsider my long-held anti-helmet stance; while I still would not support a law requiring the use of a helmet, I will wear one from this point forward when riding a motorcycle. Close calls can often have that sort of “wake-up call” effect. Surprisingly, I had no other injuries, no dents, no dings, no road rash. Even my camera made it through intact. Remo, who was riding barefoot, suffered a few small scratches on his feet and ankles, but was otherwise unscathed. The bike was fine too, save for a few remnants of roadside vegetation poking out from fenders and wheels. So, all’s well that ends well, I guess, but next time I think I will stick to  my guns in opting out of riding a motorbike in SE Asia.

I will say at the front end that I haven’t any intention of divulging the location of this tiny idyllic island, which a determined hiker could walk around in a day, other than to say that it is reachable within twenty-four hours from Bangkok, schedules and weather permitting. Somehow, it has escaped the commercialization of similar enclaves throughout SE Asia, and I don’t want to be the one to change that. Even Lonely Planet barely mentions it, thereby essentially excluding the hordes of budget travelers who might otherwise overwhelm the place. There are tourists, to be sure, but the place survives just fine on fishing, rubber plantations, cashew groves, and the like, and it seems the locals like it that way just fine. There is an exceptionally fine French bakery, a handful of restaurants featuring local cuisine, and a couple more capable of rustling up a fair imitation of Euro favorites. In fact, the whole time I was there, I never had a meal that was less than excellent, and some were truly sublime. On the downside, name-brand razor blades cannot be found (and the off-brand ones on offer do the job about as well as, say, a fork with needle-sharp tines). Internet is slow and unreliable, in the few places where it is available at all. Transport is largely by foot, although if you are willing
to chance the roads in the company of tourists totally unfamiliar with the workings of two-wheeled conveyances, you can rent a scooter quite reasonably. Twenty bucks a day should see you through, including room, food and scooter rental. Beer would be extra, but not enough to break the bank.

There are probably dozens of other similar places up and down the Southeast Asian coastlines, but they are disappearing at an alarming rate; if the following pictures hold some earthy appeal for you, this would be the time to act on the impulse.

The aforementioned Otto and Ann

Concrete bungalows in lollipop colors

The view from inside...

Or how about a traditional wood bungalow, just ten meters from the high tide line?

White sand beaches with nary a soul in sight

My Mode-Off carryall bag, at low tide

I tend to read real paper-page books (as opposed to Kindle or pdf apps) when I am traveling by bus or train; I don’t know why, really, but it seems fitting and proper, a bit less digital in what is surely an analog-era mode of transportation. So, that said, I opened up my battered copy of Sightseeing at the beginning of the Bangkok-Ranong bus trip, a coast-to-coast all-nighter. I will say at the outset that I read the book in one sitting, although in truth I was something of a captive audience, as there was nothing to see out the window, and my seatmate had promptly kakked out for the duration.

The book is comprised of six short stories and a novelette, each a vignette about the ever-shifting relationships among Thais and their families, their friends, and the hordes of foreign visitors to their country. Two in particular resonated with me, the first titled Priscilla the Cambodian, in which two young Thai boys befriend a Cambodian refugee girl squatting in a shanty town adjacent to their housing development. Sensing the impending fall of Phnom Penh, the girl’s father, a dentist, had capped all of her teeth with pure gold, everything that was left of the family fortune: “When she smiled, it sometimes looked like that little girl had swallowed the sun.” When some of the local Thai men (including the boys’ fathers) torch the camp in a fit of xenophobia, Priscilla is left homeless, but nonetheless optimistic. It is not the first time, she reasons, and it likely won’t be the last. And even though she knows who burned her house to the ground, she offers up a most amazing act of kindness and friendship, working a loose tooth back and forth in her gums until it releases, wiping it clean on her pants, and offering it to the young boy who had befriended her.

In another, Don’t Let Me Die in This Place, a cantankerous American grandfather reluctantly comes to Bangkok to live with his expat son, the son’s Thai wife, and their two children (whom he calls “the
mongrels”). Grandpa has suffered a stroke, and he is decidedly unhappy about his lack of mobility, the heat, the food, the culture shock—pretty much everything. Each one of the family members makes accommodations (even the grandfather, albeit grudgingly), but things never seem to quite gel for them. And then a local fun fair takes place, the proceeds going to support a local temple, and the monk in charge of the bumper car ride somewhat inadvertently advances a meeting of minds and spirits that nobody, least of all the reader, could have foreseen.

If you are going to Thailand, you need to read this book. If you have been to Thailand, you need to read this book. If Thai culture resonates with you at all, you need to read this book. If you like to laugh out loud and are willing to allow yourself to be moved to tears, you need to read this book. I cannot imagine how it escaped my attention for all these years, and I am really curious to see what Rattawut Lapcharoensap comes up with next.