Worst Present Ever

Since it was my birthday and I had been walking around town all day, I decide that I needed a massage (a legit one if that’s what you’re thinking).  I found a nice-looking place not too far from the hotel and decided that it looked safe enough.  I went in and noticed that the price was almost 5x what it was in Indonesia, but I figured that Singapore is most definitely not Indonesia.  I went into the room and in walks this older lady – not exactly what I was hoping for, but she looked like she had been massaging for decades.  She started on my feet and poked around my ankle and told me to let her know when I feel pain.  I start to hurt and tell her that spot was painful.  She says, “OK,” and then preceded to go at the pain with everything she had: fingers, knuckles, and elbows.  It was excruciating, and I begged her to go softer. 

Her: This good for you.

Me:  Why are you hurting me?

Her: You’ll be fine after.

Me: But I want to be fine now.  Stop grinding your knuckles into my bone.

Her: Haha, you’ll be fine.

She continued to inflict massive amounts on pain onto my back and shoulders – areas that didn’t even hurt before.  She had this amazing ability to find tender areas and completely fuck me over.  After possibly the longest hour of my life, I headed out and noticed that there were quotes all over the walls of the place.  “This is not for the weak of spirit.  They will work out knots that you didn’t even know you had.” “Be prepared for the most intense experience of you’re life.”  Why the hell do I not read stuff??  I went to leave and the receptionist warns me: the areas that hurt during the massage will be sore tomorrow.  Awesome…exactly what I needed.

In Which Our Hero Overcomes Hardships

On my way to the cultural “heart” of Bali, Ubud, I took a taxi from the south of the island to a bus stop in Kuta, the beach/party area.  About five minutes after I leave the taxi, I realized that I don’t have my phone.  Fuck me.  I must have left it in the taxi.  Now I’m freaking out, not so much about the phone, but about the stuff that’s on it.  You don’t realize how dependent you’ve become on something until you lose it.  Not knowing what to do and still carrying a heavy backpack, I did the obvious: I went to The Coffee Bean.  I retold my sob story to the barista, all the while knowing that I’m an asshole for complaining about my lost iPhone to a guy who’s probably making $2 an hour.  The guy ignored my asshole-ness and let me use their phone to call the taxi company.  This is how that went:

Me: Hi.  I think I left my iPhone in one of you taxis.

Them:  Do you know the taxi number?

Me: The taxis have numbers?  No, I do not.

Them: Where were you picked up.

Me: At my hotel near Uluwatu.

Them: What is the name of the hotel?

Me: Uhhh…I don’t know.

Them: Where is it near.

Me: There was like a Thai restaurant near there and maybe a 7-11?

Them: That does not help.  I will keep an eye out and contact you if we find anything.

At this point, I gave him my email address and began to realize that I’m probably never going to see that phone again. 

Holding out for a glimmer of hope, I take a taxi to Kuta beach and find a place to stay.  I run into a Dutch guy (different guy from the Dutch guys on death hike -- Dutch guys seem to always find me, but I digress) that I met a couple of days earlier.  He said he was going to take pictures in the rice fields and asked if I wanted to come along.  Needing to take my mind off things, I agreed.  He had rented a scooter, and now, I’m riding on the back through the rice fields of Bali.  Fifteen minutes into our trip, we get pulled over by a cop (of course).  He took us to his “station,” which was a concrete shack by the side of the road.  Here’s how that went:

Dutchy: What did I do?

Cop: Do you have an international drivers license?

(Clarification: everybody on that fucking island rents scooters and about 1% of them actually have international drivers licenses.)

Dutchy: No, I don’t.

Cop: You also ran a red light out there.  Do you want to take care of it here or go to court?
Dutchy: I don’t want to go to court.

Cop: In court you’ll pay 500,000 Rupiah (~$50US), but if you want to settle it here, I will let you go for 300,000 Rupiah.

Dutchy: Really?  So I give you 300,000 Rupiah and you let me go even though you’re citing me for not having an international driver’s license?

Cop: I will give you a warning for the license.  The 300,000 Rupiah is for the red light.

The Dutch guy gave him the money, and the cop gave him 50,000 Rupiah back, since he’s a “nice guy.”  WTF indeed.  We were let go and went about our picture taking.  I get back to the hotel and check my email.  This is what I got:

Dear Moty Keovisai

Trust you Have been well,

Regarding your report lost iPhone, we had information from our department lost and found, that he found iPhone with a black one color, and still kept in our office, could you to find out that iPhone for your check accordingly.

our office address and phone number is written on below email.

Holt Shit!  What are the chances that I get this phone back in the middle of Indonesia?  I take a taxi to the main office, where the do have my phone.  I get back into the taxi disproportionally happy, and I think the driver could tell.  He asks if I wanted to go get seafood at this place he knows.  “Good price.”  In a good mood, I said, “sure, let’s go!”  He takes me to his restaurant right on the beach.  I look at the prices and they’re crazy expensive (for Indonesia). I was stuck there, so I order some prawns that I get to pick out myself.  Maybe I should be a little more squeamish about picking out live animals that will become my meal, but I am not.  I get my giant prawns, and I’m sitting at a table right on the beach – I had sand beneath my feet and could see the waves crashing on the shore.  Then it hits me that this place is sickly romantic, and I was just sitting here alone scarfing down prawns, which were now extra salty because of the tears*.  Seemed like a fitting end to another crazy day.

*Yes, I’m trying to get sympathy for eating amazing fresh seafood on the beach in paradise (see above re: asshole).

Death March or How I keep Making Increasingly Poor Decisions

I met a couple of guys from Holland who invited me to join them on a “short hike up a volcano nearby.”  Not having any other plans, I booked the guided hike through the hostel.  I asked the front desk about the tour and was told, “you will get picked up at 10pm, stay in a tent and hike up the volcano in time to catch the sunrise,” which sounded awesome.  It was not. 

Our driver arrived right at 10pm, and we were told to bring warm clothes because it can get “chilly” on the volcano.  I took the only things I had: track pants and a light pullover (going to SE Asia during the hot season, one does not expect to need jackets).  I asked the driver what the plan was, and was told, “hike start at 1am, it take three to four hours.”  I laugh at his funny joke.  He does not.

Two hours later, we arrived at the base of the volcano.  Since there was no light, it was hard to gauge its height, which I later find out is a comical 2930km (1.85mi).  We met our guide, a short man in his mid-fifties, wearing what looked like rain boots, who promptly smoked two cigarettes before we even leave for the hike.  This was one non-fuck giving dude.

One hour later, I was out of breath, my legs hurt, the tiny bottle of water I brought was almost empty, it was pitch black save for the guide’s small flashlight, and the temperature dropped below 60ºF with a gusting wind.  It was the most strenuous physical activity I ever remember trying, including that one night that we all agreed to never talk about...At this point, I hated my life and cursed myself for months of eating fatty European food and sitting on my ass.  We were a quarter of the way there.

 Hour three of the death march: we reached the plateau before the top.  I was beyond exhausted, my legs gave up on me and started to cramp up, it was still pitch black, I was out of water and starving after eating the only thing I brought with me: a small pastry, the temperature dropped below 50ºF, and the wind cut through my thin pullover like locals in line for a sale in Hong Kong.  To be fair, all three of us were unprepared for this “short hike up a volcano.”  The difference was that I was barely in shape to walk 3km on flat ground let alone ascend that distance on a sketchy path, loaded with slippery rocks in the dark.  At this point, I did the first reasonable thing all night: I gave up.  I told the others to go on, and that I’d wait for them at the plateau.  The guide, while smoking his eighth cigarette of the night, looked at me in disgust.  The Dutch guys gave me a few words of encouragement since we were so close to the top, but they could see that I was defeated. 

After they went ahead, I struggled to get back down to the plateau area only guided by the dim pre-dawn light.  It was cold as fuck (that’s the proper scientific term), so I looked for a large rock to shield me from the wind.  I was now balled up behind a rock, 2.5km up a volcano in the middle of Indonesia at 5am, with no food or water, and had been up for over 24 hours – not the vacation I had been envisioning.

I did get to see the sunrise, and it was pretty amazing.  I also ran into another group of stragglers who did not make it all the way to the top and decided to go with their guide back down the volcano.  Another fun-filled two hours later, I’m finally close to the bottom.  I have nothing on me and am now carrying a makeshift walking stick while slowly descending to avoid sliding on the rocks.  There is nothing more disheartening than to go through the night I just had and almost reaching the bottom only to have to step aside while a seventy year old woman, carrying 20lbs of hay, runs right by you…

Would I do this again? Absolutely not.  Was the sunrise worth the hike.  No, not at all.  In hindsight, am I glad I did it?  No.  I'm very happy not climbing anything.  Did I learn anything from the experience?  Yes!  Always find out the details before agreeing to do anything.  Also, volcanos are stupid.

I'm not sure what just happened

I was walking along the street Yogyakarta – a city I didn’t know existed until a week ago – and decided that I wanted to get some coffee as I have been known to do.  I walk into this (suspiciously) nice-looking coffee shop.  The interior of the place looked super clean, even by western standards – for comparison, I had lunch a couple of hours earlier sitting on a plastic stool at a place with no door.  There were black marble tables and each one had a computer.  Also strange: there didn’t seem to be an espresso maker or even a regular coffee machine.  The place was empty except for two men talking quietly in a dark corner and four (suspiciously) well-dress servers.  Now, at this point, the smart thing to do would probably have been to leave, so naturally, I walked up to the counter and looked at the menu.  The menu had maybe 10 things on it; all of which cost less than a dollar, which made me question why they had multiple signs up saying they accept all major credit cards since 95% of the places I’ve been to in Indonesia don’t accept credit cards at all.  As the server nervously waited, I ordered a coffee with milk.  I sit down at a table for a good 10 minutes as the servers busied themselves with work unrelated to making my coffee when a guy walks in from outside with a black plastic bag that looked like it contained a cup of some sort.  A couple of minutes after the guy bought the bag behind the counter, a server magically appears with a coffee.  I slowly sip the strange-tasting coffee and scanned the room.  A little while later a woman walks in holding a slip of paper that she hands over to the cashier, who in turn hands her a tightly wrapped box.  The woman then leaves and gives me a strange look as she walks out (maybe she’s never seen anyone drinking coffee there before?).  I finish the strange-tasting coffee because I like to make poor decisions and leave the place as confused as ever.

Impressions of Indonesia

• The people are really nice – after Morocco, I expected the worst
• A guy did take me on a tour of a site without asking me first if wanted one, and when it was time for him to shake me down for money (something I like to call the “Moroccan Special”), he shook my hand, wished me well and just walked away.
 • You know traffic is bad when your taxi drive pulls out a newspaper and starts reading it in the middle of your ride and you don’t even mind
• The food isn’t as good as in Thailand or Laos – I may be biased…
• Cold beer + cheap food = happiness

Tales from the Road

This is a true story -- names have been changed to protect the pathetic.

e and i were in hiroshima peace park, which is a really touching and sad place, checking out chicks. there was a group of three japanese girls (mid-twenties) in particular that caught our attention, so we watch as this loser australian guy tries to hit on them for a good 15 mins. it was pathetic; he was taking pictures of/with them and trying to get them to kiss him on the cheek. i'm not one to be superficial, but this dude was ugly. anyways, we leave them to check out the other exhibits. after walking around for half an hour, we see the same group of girls sitting down on a park bench. we casually approach and the weirdest thing happens: out of nowhere, they say hi to us. being the ladies-men that we are, we did the only logical thing: we kind of say hi back and walk sheepishly past them. after about ten steps -- with the girls watching us the whole time -- we stop and look at each other.

"oh my god, what the hell just happened," i said.

"i have no idea, what do we do now?" was the response.

we stand there for a while trying to find some semblance of game. after much debate and confusion, we decide to go ask them where they're from. as soon as we turn around to walk back, we get stopped by this group of ten elementary school kids. they were doing a school project and needed to ask foreigners some questions. now this brought up a tough moral dilemma: should we help out the little kids with their peace project or blow them off to chase after girls? in the end, we did the only thing we knew we could do successfully, the kids got their peace message, and we got a cool picture with them. by this time, the girls had completely lost interest in us and start walking away. we had finished with the kids and were damn sure we weren't going to waste this opportunity, so we started walking in the same direction -- this is not stalking by the way since the direction was towards the museum, where we intended to go anyways. but alas, it wasn't meant to be because as soon as we got moving again, we were stopped by these two junior high girls who were also doing a school thing. after cursing a school system that would allow so many of its students to wander around a park on a tuesday afternoon, i filled out their questionnaire, which was ridiculously complicated and required essays to properly answer the questions. it was a bit of a workout answering "what can japan do to promote peace?" turning an answer that would involve the changing geo-political climate, socio-economic factors, and accountability for atrocities such as the rape of nanking to "just keep doing what you've been doing." i guess i can sleep better at night knowing that i made a difference in some children's lives by helping them quickly complete a mundane assignment so that they can enjoy their time away from class, even though i'd be sleeping alone -- no more than 5 feet from a guy who likes to "backspoon."

stupid grad students...

FYI, I was NOT at the Cal/USC game, so for once, that's not on me. Unfortunately, I was at the 49ers/Cardinals MNF game, so my curse has now gone pro.

Anyways, I was talking to my sister the other day and asked her what she was doing. Here was the answer: "I'm eating uncooked ramen out of the bag and drinking beer imported from a third world country that I'm pretty sure is expired. My roommate's drinking warm Coke from a two litter bottle that I found somewhere and eating 10 hard boiled eggs. We're watching this week's 'Real Chance of Love' for the third time because it makes us feel better since we just had office hours and the stupid kids keep showing up." I felt a mix of nostalgia and disgust that I hadn't felt since I watched the premiere of the new 90210. It seems that the Asian American Studies graduate department at UCLA is almost as selective about whom they let in as the Mech. E. department. I told her to get back to me when she's stealing a car during finals in order to tape a cardboard spoiler to the trunk.