Posts
February 14, 2010
Hong Kong
That is, except when you and your gangster cronies take it from me and make it yours.
Chinese New Year coincided with Valentines Day this year, and Hong Kong was ablaze with hearts and flowers and young kissing couples as well as lanterns, dragons, firecrackers, babies dressed in red, kids with furry tiger hats and lots and lots of people out for the holiday. Perhaps most crowded were the malls. Hong Kong is littered with malls: multi-level, on top floors of high rises, in the subway. Food courts are a cheap and easy way to feed the masses, and man, do the locals congregate there.
One such mall was the passageway supposedly leading to the metro stop near the famed Peninsula hotel. On the first day of the new year, we had walked down to the southern part of Kowloon, near the water, to scope out a spot for the evening's parade. Streets were blocked off with barricades along the route, which made crossing particularly challenging. One thing to be said of the Chinese – these folks don't have much concept of personal space and they have no qualms about pushing and shoving to get wherever it is they are going. I was getting used to it, so I thought nothing of it when a group of well dressed young thugs got in our way at a crosswalk. Their rudeness was maybe a notch higher than the norm, but I just assumed they were being obnoxious idiots, as packs of teenage boys often are. The crossing of that intersection led not to the subway, but into an underground shopping center maze, whereby we stopped to watch an impromptu lion dance. I spotted the boys from the street also watching the dance, and assumed they were tourists just like us. Quickly realizing that this mall did not, in fact, lead to the tube stop, we ascended the stairs. Lo and behold, the same group of boys were again seemingly going the same way we were. I know one of us got shoved walking up the stairs and we were all commenting under our breath about what brazen assholes these kids were. 20 seconds later, we were on the street and my little purse had been de-velcroed and unzipped and my blackberry was gone. My friend's bag was also unzipped, but nothing had been taken. The luck of the tiger was with her. He obviously forgot about me.
In that instant I wanted to run down the street with a machete chopping off the faces of anyone with spiky hair, and had rage fantasies of finding and kicking in the teeth of each of those 4 little shits. In fact, if I think about it long enough I still hope they all get run over by a bus or stabbed in the throat. Save for a bug net in Thailand, I've never been robbed before. It is an awful feeling. Hopefully the Mongkok Acid Man gets them (incidentally, there is a madman running around the area of town we stayed in throwing acid on people from the high rises above).
But of course, they were long gone before I could do anything about it. So a day that had started off with some exquisite dim sum and a great mood detoured into the Tsim Sha Tsui police station. I assume this kind of thing happens often as there was a designated theft desk. Not only did the police not need to see my passport (I didn't have it with me, so that was a good thing), they didn't even ask for a description of the culprits. 15 minutes later and I was less one Blackberry, out of all my contacts and personal information, and in possession of a Hong Kong police report. Funny how an hour earlier I was commenting about that being one part of the city I hoped never to see. Not as auspicious of a start to this trip as I'd hoped. In fact, quite the opposite.
Hopefully my insurance will cover the loss of the phone. The years of contacts and lack of technology unfortunately cannot be so easily replaced. (I'm writing this in Vietnam, where Facebook is illegal. If I had my blackberry, I'd be able to access it. No such luck on a laptop.) Somewhere out there, somebody in Hong Kong has a list of all my friends and colleagues. If they are looking for even a little retribution, they have my blessing to start by prank calling Dave Mustaine.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
VACATION, ALL I EVER WANTED
How does one embark on a four month trip around the Asian continent? In my case, the answer is this: with a blizzard. Following a week of loose ends, tipsy goodbyes and frantic last minute packing, the departure date for my grand adventure coincided with a healthy dose of February snow. Naturally, since my travel plans were at stake, this was no meager dusting. Instead the weather gods (though I personally blame Al Roker, just because I can't stand his post gastric bypass face) decided to unleash a massive nor'easter, complete with blizzard conditions and hurricane force winds.
News of this storm broke on Monday, with my flight scheduled to leave on Wednesday afternoon, the predicted thick of it. By midday Tuesday, Bloomberg had closed NYC schools. The UN shut down. Newark Airport closed. Airlines were canceling flights left and right at JFK. My friends' flights were already canceled and rebooked for the next day. Cathay Pacific, however, merely bumped my flight by 2 hours and left it on the boards for a Wednesday 16:00 departure.
It was a curious predicament, but over the river and through the slushy Belt parkway to JFK we drove. The airport was a veritable ghost town, with only 3 flights scheduled for takeoff that day. Checked in, hugs exchanged, security screened, snacks purchased, celebrity flight companions noted (NJ hip hoppers Naughty by Nature), and it was time for boarding. The snow was so thick we could barely detect an outline of the 777 behemoth from the window, but onto the Jetway abyss we all marched, got situated in our seats and waited to pull back from the gate.
4PM departure time came and went. We waited for an announcement. My watch read 4:45 when we were told the pilots were “trying to figure out their options.” We waited a bit longer for clarification of that statement, though I suspected that just maybe the raging blizzard outside could possibly be a factor. We were shown dinner menus and given some water, and still we waited. 'Round about 5:45, we were told there was a fuel issue and something about the JFK grounds crew being ill prepared. We waited more, somewhat befuddled, in silence after that masterful tidbit of nebulousness. 6:30 rolled around and we were informed we did not have enough fuel to reach Hong Kong and would now be diverting to South Korea (!), where we'd refuel and get a new crew. That flight time would be about 13 hours, plus 2-3 on the ground (during which we were forbidden to disembark the aircraft) and there was no set departure scheduled from Seoul to Hong Kong. Speculations began on the fuel scenario (I found it highly suspect), babies began to cry, I tore into my salami and provolone sandwich and wrestled with a piece of fat lodged between my two front teeth for a bit. Some apple juice surfaced from the rear of the plane, the Naughty by Nature dudes in coach ran interference with Treach (NBN frontman and star) up in business class, but in all we were just relieved to know we'd be getting away from the gate and up in the air.
At 7:20 or so, the pilot told us that the delay had been caused by negotiating the airspace fees with Russia and North Korea, but assured us it had been settled and there was but one bit of paperwork to go. We pulled back from the gate and the deicing of the plane started, which should have lasted 20 minutes. After an hour and deicing completed, we were stopped yet again by an unruly passenger who wished to deboard due to inclement and unsafe weather. (Guess he was in a blind coma when he left his house, drove to the airport and boarded the plane in said inclement weather.) Pilot made a generic “weather is safe to fly in” announcement, copilot soothed the surly traveler and we were just...about...off...
But then we weren't.
Cathay fed us some more bullshit about China (now I know Hong Kong is still technically autonomous and likes us Americans, but Cathay flies all over mainland China every day.) rejecting our request to fly over their airspace AND JFK closing the necessary runway due to snow (snow? Really?) AND the crew having exceeded their workable hours limit. All at once. It was after 9PM. We had been sitting on the plane for over 5 hours.
They held us lowly coach people on the plane for at least another half hour, while preferential treatment was given to the folks up front. They were vacated from the terminal before we even deplaned. A minor uprising was narrowly averted when the crew tried to get the NBN posse out from the back of economy class before the rest of us. Sorry boys, but we were down with NO P.P. by then.
One stale turkey sandwich and treacherous bus ride back into Manhattan later, and I was sitting in a room at the Grand Hyatt with no info on my rescheduled flight at 1:30 AM. The traveler in me was understandably cranky and frustrated. The hotel bar was closed. So, instead of braving the streets around Grand Central in the middle of the night to find a martini bar, the publicist in me perked up. I called the news.
Today during flight check in, I gave the NY Post a story and got my fellow travelers to dish as well. You can read it all here. (Now I know how my artists have felt all these years when they called me freaking out “I was on the phone for 20 minutes and they ran one line!” ) Genius word twisters, maybe, but hey, at least I caused the airline some embarrassment and hopefully some hefty fines. More importantly, I kept my temper in check long enough to chronicle my first day of adventure while cruising over the polar ice cap at 37,000 feet, onto what I hope proves to be a most auspicious start of the year of the tiger.
News of this storm broke on Monday, with my flight scheduled to leave on Wednesday afternoon, the predicted thick of it. By midday Tuesday, Bloomberg had closed NYC schools. The UN shut down. Newark Airport closed. Airlines were canceling flights left and right at JFK. My friends' flights were already canceled and rebooked for the next day. Cathay Pacific, however, merely bumped my flight by 2 hours and left it on the boards for a Wednesday 16:00 departure.
It was a curious predicament, but over the river and through the slushy Belt parkway to JFK we drove. The airport was a veritable ghost town, with only 3 flights scheduled for takeoff that day. Checked in, hugs exchanged, security screened, snacks purchased, celebrity flight companions noted (NJ hip hoppers Naughty by Nature), and it was time for boarding. The snow was so thick we could barely detect an outline of the 777 behemoth from the window, but onto the Jetway abyss we all marched, got situated in our seats and waited to pull back from the gate.
4PM departure time came and went. We waited for an announcement. My watch read 4:45 when we were told the pilots were “trying to figure out their options.” We waited a bit longer for clarification of that statement, though I suspected that just maybe the raging blizzard outside could possibly be a factor. We were shown dinner menus and given some water, and still we waited. 'Round about 5:45, we were told there was a fuel issue and something about the JFK grounds crew being ill prepared. We waited more, somewhat befuddled, in silence after that masterful tidbit of nebulousness. 6:30 rolled around and we were informed we did not have enough fuel to reach Hong Kong and would now be diverting to South Korea (!), where we'd refuel and get a new crew. That flight time would be about 13 hours, plus 2-3 on the ground (during which we were forbidden to disembark the aircraft) and there was no set departure scheduled from Seoul to Hong Kong. Speculations began on the fuel scenario (I found it highly suspect), babies began to cry, I tore into my salami and provolone sandwich and wrestled with a piece of fat lodged between my two front teeth for a bit. Some apple juice surfaced from the rear of the plane, the Naughty by Nature dudes in coach ran interference with Treach (NBN frontman and star) up in business class, but in all we were just relieved to know we'd be getting away from the gate and up in the air.
At 7:20 or so, the pilot told us that the delay had been caused by negotiating the airspace fees with Russia and North Korea, but assured us it had been settled and there was but one bit of paperwork to go. We pulled back from the gate and the deicing of the plane started, which should have lasted 20 minutes. After an hour and deicing completed, we were stopped yet again by an unruly passenger who wished to deboard due to inclement and unsafe weather. (Guess he was in a blind coma when he left his house, drove to the airport and boarded the plane in said inclement weather.) Pilot made a generic “weather is safe to fly in” announcement, copilot soothed the surly traveler and we were just...about...off...
But then we weren't.
Cathay fed us some more bullshit about China (now I know Hong Kong is still technically autonomous and likes us Americans, but Cathay flies all over mainland China every day.) rejecting our request to fly over their airspace AND JFK closing the necessary runway due to snow (snow? Really?) AND the crew having exceeded their workable hours limit. All at once. It was after 9PM. We had been sitting on the plane for over 5 hours.
They held us lowly coach people on the plane for at least another half hour, while preferential treatment was given to the folks up front. They were vacated from the terminal before we even deplaned. A minor uprising was narrowly averted when the crew tried to get the NBN posse out from the back of economy class before the rest of us. Sorry boys, but we were down with NO P.P. by then.
One stale turkey sandwich and treacherous bus ride back into Manhattan later, and I was sitting in a room at the Grand Hyatt with no info on my rescheduled flight at 1:30 AM. The traveler in me was understandably cranky and frustrated. The hotel bar was closed. So, instead of braving the streets around Grand Central in the middle of the night to find a martini bar, the publicist in me perked up. I called the news.
Today during flight check in, I gave the NY Post a story and got my fellow travelers to dish as well. You can read it all here. (Now I know how my artists have felt all these years when they called me freaking out “I was on the phone for 20 minutes and they ran one line!” ) Genius word twisters, maybe, but hey, at least I caused the airline some embarrassment and hopefully some hefty fines. More importantly, I kept my temper in check long enough to chronicle my first day of adventure while cruising over the polar ice cap at 37,000 feet, onto what I hope proves to be a most auspicious start of the year of the tiger.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Isn't She Pretty In Pink
The temples of Angkor are nothing short of spectacular, breathtaking, magnificent, stupendous, awe inspiring and any other adjective you'd think would fit here. They cover a pretty large area outside of Siem Reap, though the big ones (Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Phrom)are relatively close together. Lonely Planet said that one of the farthest from town, Bantey Srei was not to be missed. So today I checked it out.
My tuk tuk driver for the past 3 days, Prik (no joke) picked me up in the morning and said "no problem" when I told him where to start. He said it was far but that was okay. I think it's about 35 km outside of town. He decided, however, to take the highway there for a few miles...where we were almost run off the road a couple of times by trucks carrying grain, fruit, motorcycles, chickens, fuel and about 15 cambodians (all on the same pick up truck of course). The ride took about an hour and went through some fairly scenic, albeit extremely poor farmland. I noticed that there were no power lines running anywhere and noted that we had to be headed back to town by 3:30 in case we broke down. Still enough daylight to hitch a ride or walk if I had to. All par for the course in this country, I suppose.
Bantey Srei is small by comparison to most of the other temples (Angkor Wat is the single biggest man made religious structure on earth) and it's hindu. It was commissioned at the end of the first century and is the Temple of Athena Nike of Angkorian art (whereas Angkor Wat would be the Parthenon). While all the other temples were commissioned by kings, this one was not; it was likely a scholar, cousin/tutor of the king. Smart man, as Bantey Srei translates to "Citadel of the Women." First noticable difference from all the other temples i've seen: it's pink. It is stellar in its preservation, covered inch for inch with some of the most ornate carving I've ever seen - the temple is dedicated to Shiva so the reliefs all relate to him. There are varying stories, but legend has it this temple was built by women as no man could carve something so elaborate. Indeed. There were even hot pink lotus flowers blooming in the moat.
There are two other temples in the general vacinity of Bantey Srei which most people see. You're pretty far outside town, so why not make a day out of it is the mentality. I was thinking about it - until we passed the Landmine Museum. Some of these temples are dangerously close to many of the thousands of landmines that still exist here. I was far enough into the sticks already. Didnt want to run the risk of falling out of a temple into the wrong place or Prik getting run off the road.
By far Bayon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayon)was my favorite - with over 200 gigantic faces staring at you from every angle. I think I spent 4 hours there yesterday. There are too many to mention, all amazing in individual ways. So long as you can get past the two biggest annoyances here: kids trying to sell you shit everywhere you turn(I lost my temper with one of them yesterday who spoke surprisingly good english and told me that I said I'd buy something from her and kept pulling at my shorts. Poor or not, kids can still be brats and this little girl rubbed me the wrong way)and the goddam japanese tour groups. I swear if they were removed from this place there would be half - maybe 3/4 the amount of people here. It's astounding and has ruined many a photo opportunity for me. But after awhile I just stopped taking pictures. It's too overwhelming and my normal-size lens point and shoot would never do any of these monuments justice. I still can't figure out how to upload photos here, or I would. I'm mastering the art of the self portrait with background.
New Year's Eve came and went without my even knowing. My guest house, run by an Australian man and his Thai wife, is on a quiet dirt road off the main strip. I had dinner in town and got back to the guest house around 9, hoping there would be some other guests there. Instead it was the owner and his wife and 1 other person at the bar. I had 2 beers and could barely keep my eyes open. They'd obviously been drinking all day long and werent making much sense. I was in bed by 10. Christmas and New Years were pretty much an afterthought this year, but 2007 definitely ended in a good place.
Tomorrow I leave Cambodia and fly back to Bangkok (my original plan was to take a boat to Battambang then go over land, but the more I talked to people and read about the over-land journey, I learned that it could take anywhere from 7-13 hours, busses break down, the Thai border police at Poipet are awful and the children theives are worse. At 150 bucks it's a ripoff for a plane ticket, but it's saving me a big hassle and a sore ass. Worth it, I hope.
My tuk tuk driver for the past 3 days, Prik (no joke) picked me up in the morning and said "no problem" when I told him where to start. He said it was far but that was okay. I think it's about 35 km outside of town. He decided, however, to take the highway there for a few miles...where we were almost run off the road a couple of times by trucks carrying grain, fruit, motorcycles, chickens, fuel and about 15 cambodians (all on the same pick up truck of course). The ride took about an hour and went through some fairly scenic, albeit extremely poor farmland. I noticed that there were no power lines running anywhere and noted that we had to be headed back to town by 3:30 in case we broke down. Still enough daylight to hitch a ride or walk if I had to. All par for the course in this country, I suppose.
Bantey Srei is small by comparison to most of the other temples (Angkor Wat is the single biggest man made religious structure on earth) and it's hindu. It was commissioned at the end of the first century and is the Temple of Athena Nike of Angkorian art (whereas Angkor Wat would be the Parthenon). While all the other temples were commissioned by kings, this one was not; it was likely a scholar, cousin/tutor of the king. Smart man, as Bantey Srei translates to "Citadel of the Women." First noticable difference from all the other temples i've seen: it's pink. It is stellar in its preservation, covered inch for inch with some of the most ornate carving I've ever seen - the temple is dedicated to Shiva so the reliefs all relate to him. There are varying stories, but legend has it this temple was built by women as no man could carve something so elaborate. Indeed. There were even hot pink lotus flowers blooming in the moat.
There are two other temples in the general vacinity of Bantey Srei which most people see. You're pretty far outside town, so why not make a day out of it is the mentality. I was thinking about it - until we passed the Landmine Museum. Some of these temples are dangerously close to many of the thousands of landmines that still exist here. I was far enough into the sticks already. Didnt want to run the risk of falling out of a temple into the wrong place or Prik getting run off the road.
By far Bayon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayon)was my favorite - with over 200 gigantic faces staring at you from every angle. I think I spent 4 hours there yesterday. There are too many to mention, all amazing in individual ways. So long as you can get past the two biggest annoyances here: kids trying to sell you shit everywhere you turn(I lost my temper with one of them yesterday who spoke surprisingly good english and told me that I said I'd buy something from her and kept pulling at my shorts. Poor or not, kids can still be brats and this little girl rubbed me the wrong way)and the goddam japanese tour groups. I swear if they were removed from this place there would be half - maybe 3/4 the amount of people here. It's astounding and has ruined many a photo opportunity for me. But after awhile I just stopped taking pictures. It's too overwhelming and my normal-size lens point and shoot would never do any of these monuments justice. I still can't figure out how to upload photos here, or I would. I'm mastering the art of the self portrait with background.
New Year's Eve came and went without my even knowing. My guest house, run by an Australian man and his Thai wife, is on a quiet dirt road off the main strip. I had dinner in town and got back to the guest house around 9, hoping there would be some other guests there. Instead it was the owner and his wife and 1 other person at the bar. I had 2 beers and could barely keep my eyes open. They'd obviously been drinking all day long and werent making much sense. I was in bed by 10. Christmas and New Years were pretty much an afterthought this year, but 2007 definitely ended in a good place.
Tomorrow I leave Cambodia and fly back to Bangkok (my original plan was to take a boat to Battambang then go over land, but the more I talked to people and read about the over-land journey, I learned that it could take anywhere from 7-13 hours, busses break down, the Thai border police at Poipet are awful and the children theives are worse. At 150 bucks it's a ripoff for a plane ticket, but it's saving me a big hassle and a sore ass. Worth it, I hope.
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