Isaac Fitzgerald

After the serenity of Bhutan Bangkok was hell. Without directions and only partial maps in Thai it took Mac and I an entire day to navigate our way out of the city. The sun was setting when we finally found the highway we were searching for. The suburb we were in looked like Thailand’s take on New Jersey.

We stayed at the only place we could find: the New Friend Hotel. The New Friend was obviously made with trysts in mind given its name, hourly rates, lack of windows, and remarkably dull adult channels. Escaping the atmosphere of the low end hideaway we walked out our motorbike-induced backaches and sore asses. We couldn’t help but notice that the entire town smelt of dog food.

The next day we made our way south. The industrial yards around Bangkok slowly turned into the beautiful hills and picturesque rice patties that we were used to seeing. Despite the scenery though some drivers seemed pretty hell bent on killing us. I didn’t take my eyes off the road often.

As we got further down the peninsula we were once again close to the Burmese border. But, despite it’s proximity, the conflict in Burma couldn’t have seemed farther away. While Burmese intelligence assassinated Karen leader P’Doh Mahn Shar in Mae Sot and the Junta insulted the international community’s intelligence by announcing that they would hold democratic elections in 2010 Mac and I were griping about the fact that towels cost more in southern Thailand than they do in San Francisco. If the suburbs of Bangkok are Thailand’s take on New Jersey than the beaches of the south are the country’s impression of the Jersey shore. Except with big red Danes looking to ride elephants.

But southern Thailand was just a price we had to pay. We were shipping out to the Andaman Sea, a hard thing to achieve from the landlocked Chiang Mai or Mae Sot. Mac, a long time scuba diver, had decided that it would be fun to submerge me in about one hundred feet of shark infested water. I, a longtime lover of boats but also of Earth’s convenient atmosphere, decided to disregard the latter for the chance to stare down an octopus. And there weren’t any scuba instructors in Mae Sot. Or octopi.

The four days we spent at sea were incredible. Scuba diving surpassed sky diving as the closest I’ve ever come to flying(sky diving is much more like falling). The scenery on the ocean’s floor around richelieu rock made up for all the sites I missed while on the road. On top of a leopard shark, sea turtles, and many other creatures I got to stare down not one, but two, octopi. Considering that I left and they’re still in the ocean I’d say they won.

But while on the boat I couldn’t help thinking about everything I had learned about Burma while working in Chiang Mai. I missed it. I missed driving medical supplies to the border. I missed playing with children in villages and IDP camps. I missed feeling like I was actually helping people.

But it’s something I am going to have to get used to for now. After Mac and I docked on dry land we headed back stateside. We’re currently back in San Francisco safe and sound. It’s great to be in the city by the bay. But I can’t help looking in the Chronicle’s classifieds every now and again hoping to come across someone thats looking for a border jumping medical supply smuggler. So far nothing, but I’ll let you know.

The drive to Bangkok from Mae Sot was over 5oo kilometers long. The dark clouds above never made good on their threats though, and the Dream was running strong. Mac and I covered the distance in a day (albeit with a brief run in with some of Thailand’s finest).

The reason we were on a time constraint was that we had a plane to catch. Druk Air is the only airline that flies to Bhutan and, with only two planes in its fleet, it only flies out of Bangkok once a day. In December, before leaving for Thailand, I had written an email to a friend of mine who I went to high school with ten years ago. Actually, I wrote the email to one of his secretaries. My friend is Jigme Wangchuck. When we went to school together he was the Crown Prince of Bhutan. Last year he became the King.

When I wrote the email I wasn’t sure if Jigme would even remember me. Sure we used to go on runs together and cut into the woods to spend our afternoons talking and smoking cigarettes. But we had lost touch soon after he graduated. Since he had gone on to get his undergraduate and master’s at Oxford, studied at the Institute for Defense in New Delhi, not to mention become the world’s youngest head of state. The only crowning achievements I had in the past decade were that I quit smoking and kept myself out of prison. Still, when we were in school together he told me that someday I should visit his home. Given that I would be in Southeast Asia, I figured it was worth a shot.

After many back and forth emails with different workers in the Royal Secretariat over the past months I had all but given up. I was too broke to afford a trip to Bhutan anyways, I firmly told myself. But the day Mac and I left for Mae Sot we received word that we were both invited to the reclusive country as guests of the government. Our flight left Bangkok at 6 the next morning.

Flying towards Bhutan I was a little worried about personal hygiene. Given the day on the motorbike and the early departure Mac and I barely had time to shower, let alone wash our dirty jeans and t-shirts or buy attire worthy of meeting with the leader of a country. As we made our decent into Paro International Airport though I was distracted from my vanity issues by a much more present danger. Landing in an airplane amongst the Himalayas is like flying down a narrow high-school hallway in an old shopping cart. Except instead of being surrounded by metal lockers you’re surrounded by mountainy death.

In spite of my fears we landed safely. We were greeted at the airport by Sonam, a childhood friend of Jigme’s who was apparently on white people duty for the next four days. He took an immediate strong dislike to my beard, but after a discussion on the merits of Meat Loaf and the international acceptance of Led Zeppelin’s greatness we quickly got started on what would become a quickly formed friendship. Or, if you want Mac’s side of the story, a “barely concealed man love.”

Over the next four days we saw all the sites of Thimpu, sang karaoke with the editor of one of the free press newspapers, were taught about Bhutanese history (which involves deities and a drunken Buddhist Saint named Drupka Kunley), were fashioned in a gho and a kira respectively, celebrated the New Year (which Mac was sure to tell everyone was also my birthday), and met many times with my old high school friend.

We were lucky to be visiting during the New Year. With the first elections in Bhutan’s history the month before, and the elections for the rest of the Parliament being held the next month, Jigme was (and is) extremely busy. Yet even when transitioning a country to democracy one gets the first two days of the New Year off. His Majesty was able to take the time to meet with Mac and I to discuss the changes taking place in Bhutan, Jigme’s commitment to his father’s idea of Gross National Happiness, and the challenges of modernization.

Mac and I are working on an article about our visit and all that we learned. Safe to say though, my worries were misplaced. On the evening after our arrival Jigme greeted me with a hug and quickly befriended Mac. Upon our departure he made it clear that we both had a second home in Bhutan. More importantly, as a birthday gift, Jigme gave me a sword. Just yesterday I used it to open a water bottle.

A week ago my girlfriend, Mac, arrived in Chiang Mai.

As to missing last week’s post, now that you know about Mac’s arrival I’ll leave you to fill in whatever excuse you feel comfortable with here:_____________________________________________________.

Moving on.

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Mac is the reason I know about the trouble in Burma as well as the plight of the Karen and other ethnicities. In the summer of 2006 she lived in the border town of Mae Sot, a place known as much for it’s black market and the characters it attracts as it is for it’s ethnic and religious diversity. There she stayed in a house with a fluctuating number of illegal Karen refugees. All of the guys were her students, and many of them became her friends. As Mac worked to help improve her housemates’ English, they worked on the other side of the border to document human rights abuses inside.

Mac flew into Chiang Mai on the 26th. After a couple of days of jet lag recovery and introducing her to my friends and co-workers, we made out for Mae Sot. Mac was in touch with a couple of her old students, and I had never been to the seediest of the border towns.

When we discussed the best way to travel we had joked about making the trip on my little Honda Dream. The joke quickly became an actual option and, after considering our economic restraints (larger bikes, cars, and trucks are much more expensive to rent per month) and safety concerns (bus drivers in Thailand are notorious amphetamine abusers), the logical choice.

Most of my co-workers looked at us as if we were crazy, which we expected. When we took the bike out for a test run (our bags attached with bungee cords) though, we found that most Thai people looked at us the same way. This was worrisome, as we had both assumed that it would only be white people thinking we’d lost it. On top of that Mac was also concerned about a clicking sound coming from the Dream’s back wheel, but I was sure it was nothing.

—

On Monday, despite unseasonal “mango” rains, we took to the highways. The bike rode low, with my pack strapped to the front and Mac’s strapped between my knees. After we had been driving for only 5 kilometers the rain intensified, and we pulled over to wrap ourselves, our gear, and the Dream in trash bags. At a slow and steady pace of 40 kilometers an hour we headed south, our thin plastic covers noisily flapping in the wind.

Maybe it was when we pulled over the first time to stretch our soaking legs, or maybe it was when we followed signs and our curiosity to a roadside elephant hospital, but somewhere outside of Lampang we noticed that the small clicking noise was no longer small or clicking. It was better described as a loud and clanking.

We decided that we would go no further than Lampang. The rain wasn’t giving up and the day’s light didn’t look like it would last long. Neither, we feared, would the Dream. At a gas station I checked the oil hoping for an easy fix. No dice. The head attendant knew foreigners in trouble when he saw them pointed us in the direction of a garage.

The shop was small, as was the mechanic who owned it. As he stared at us it quickly became evident that English wasn’t an option. I pointed at the Dream’s back tire and did my best impression of the horrible noise. The man instantly swooped on the bike.

Despite his small stature the mechanic made the bike seem like it didn’t weigh a thing. With our bags still strapped to the Dream he rolled it onto a lift and quickly had the back tire at eye level. After rotating the tire a few times, which seemed more a show for us than a necessity for him, he deftly freed the tire from the body of the machine. But there the finesse ended. Tire in hand the man walked out into the rain and started slamming it against the pavement of the road. Metal scraps and ball bearings fell into the street.

Back inside the mechanic used a ball-peen hammer and a long metal screw to knock out the rest of the metal residue. Wincing at his effective but rough methods I went to the restroom. When I returned the man had put the tire back on the bike and was changing our oil. Judging that we were on a trip and probably thinking we were somewhat insane he seemed to be making sure everything else was in tip top shape, as our minds obviously weren’t. I was so touched by his concern that I decided not to make a big deal of the fact that while I was in the bathroom Mac had witnessed him stuffing rolled up pieces of paper in with the new ball bearing.

—

The next day we had better luck. After a breakfast of coconut yogurt and red peanuts we headed toward Mae Sot. The ride was beautiful, and with the rain gone and the roads dry we made much better time.

Since reaching the border town we have met with many of Mac’s old students, gone inside with friends of mine to celebrate a Karen holiday, walked across (another) “Friendship Bridge” into Burma to renew our visas, and heard the stories of a charming ex-special forces Vietnam vet who now volunteers as a jungle dentist. Tomorrow we will meet Dr. Cynthia, an illegal Karen immigrant who has been offering free health care at her clinic on the Thai side of the border since 1989. Dr. Cynthia is an extremely busy woman, but the magazine that Mac works for is interested in doing a piece on her and her good work and she has agreed to sit down with Mac for a quick interview. After the meeting we will make our way out of town and head further south. Mae Sot has lived up to it’s reputation as a border town in more than a physical sense. And the Dream, in fine form, is just getting started.

(continued..) With an almost empty wallet and a totally empty canteen I walked into Tachilek, “City of the Golden Triangle.” The first thing that struck me were the not so subtle signs (pun intended) of a government that likes to tell it’s civilians what to do. Some of the government orders were hospitable:

…though the only thing a group of guys with bike taxis seemed to want to assist me with was finding a prostitute. Other signs were a little more blatant in their propagandizing:

Ditching the taxi pimps by crossing a busy intersection I quickly tried to put some distance between myself and the border crossing. Vendors and open storefronts packed the side of the road. Anything one could think of was for sale. Animal skulls sat on the racks next to namebrand makeup. Army fatigues hung side by side with dried fish on a stick. Men walked in the crowd selling cigars and cigarettes, but would flip over their boxes to reveal small scale pharmacies if they caught your eye.

“Viagra. You want?”

Every other business, though, sold only one thing: Western media in Chinese packaging. I have no idea how they all stayed open, selling the same DVDs and CDs just feet from one another. But the combined selection in the Tachilek day market would put amazon.com to shame. Every movie, album, or television series seemed to be for sale. Before making my escape I almost bought a large box-set that boasted every winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture in history. Luckily poverty kept me from compulsive shopping.

As I made my way out of town I followed a street lined with anti-drug slogans. Given the SPDC’s tapping of the drug trade in order to help keep their regime afloat, and their signing a cease fire agreement with the United Wa State Army that included a cut of the drug industry, I didn’t take the signs to heart. (Sidenote: I highly recommend Andrew Marshall’s “The Trouser People” to anyone looking for more depth on this subject than my single paragraph and a few wikipedia links allow).

After half an hour of walking, the road had gone from paved, to dirt, to barely a road at all. There were still propaganda warnings every couple hundred meters, though, written in both English and Burmese. I took the bilingual signs as indicators that I hadn’t yet crossed out of the area I was allowed to be in (which was mapped out on the back of my visitor’s papers). But I figured I was getting close. Knowing that I was no use to anyone detained in Burma, and growing more aware of my hunger with every step, I was about to head back when I happened upon what I can only imagine is the best roadside restaurant in Tachilek.

The shop was just a roof and a few logs in a circle. An old woman was cooking while a younger woman fed ice to a crying baby. Thanks to the ice the baby calmed and the women looked up as I approached. I used my universal sign for “can I buy food?”: scooping air into my mouth while shrugging my shoulders. The older woman smiled and offered me a log to sit on.

While the old woman cooked and the young woman rocked the now silent infant a man sat down beside me and ordered food. I was a bit surprised when he turned to me and said “hello.” I responded in Thai out of reflex, and then in English. He insisted that his English was not that good, but was able to correct me when I asked if he was Burmese or Karen. The man told me that he, as well as the women, were Shan, a large ethnic group found mainly in northern Burma and northwestern Thailand. The Shan have their own resistance in Burma against the SPDC: The Shan State Army. Unlike the Karen, the Shan resistance holds only extremely small pockets of territory on the Thai/Burma border. The rest of their land, Shan State, is occupied by the Burmese Army. The soldiers of the SSA use guerrilla tacticts in order to fight the regime. The old woman, perhaps knowing our conversation was inappropriate, distracted us with two bowls of delicious noodle soup and pieces of fried tofu. I now believe, when it comes to eating tofu, deep fried is the only way to go.

Before I had time to ask him any more questions the man paid for his food and said goodbye. I paid my bill as well, bought a couple of cheroots, waved to the now sleeping baby, and headed back towards the border. I puffed on one of the terrible little cigars as I walked, hoping that it would keep the late afternoon mosquitoes at bay. I had no idea that the next week would find me on a medical mission for the orphans protected at Loi Tai Leng: the seat of the Shan resistance.

Please click this link before reading my latest update below.

January 8th was the Karen New Year. It was also four days after my tourist visa expired. I’m not very good at details or paper work.

In order to renew my visa I had to head to the border town of Mae Sai, cross the Thai/Burmese border into Tachilek, and then cross back. I also had to remember my passport, which I almost didn’t do (see above). But after a thoughtful reminder from a few folks who’ve been ex-pats for a bit longer than I have I, and my passport, were heading to the border.

The drive up was easy; a stretch of open road that crossed through the northern hills . Wats dotted the landscape. They began to shimmer as the warmth of morning turned into the heat of early afternoon. I followed the directions given to me: “just follow the road till it ends.” They were spot on.

As I came into Mae Sai I was not moved. Buses clogged the main street, which was lined with golden posts and over the top banners. The crossing is a well worn way to renew ones visa, and it shows that the place is often visited by many tourists who are not looking to stick around.

I parked the Jungle Chicken outside of a stand selling low quality gems and jade. The heat was visible as it rose off the concrete and metal. I watched a couple of dogs for a moment as they moved from shadow to shadow, looking for relief. Then I marched towards the “Friendship Bridge.”

“What’s there to do in Tachilek?” I asked my friends before driving up.

“Buy DVDs. Outside of that I’d recommend getting your passport stamped, crossing the bridge, and then crossing right back.”

I was convinced that I’d find more in the Burmese border town. But had brought some extra money just in case any DVDs struck my fancy.

As I approached the border check I was a little anxious. I knew I was a few days over on my visa and wasn’t sure what they were going to say. I stepped up to the counter and handed over my passport.

The uniformed woman behind the glass, unfazed, didn’t even look up.

“Late. 2,000 baht.”

I was about to counter with a 1,000 baht offer. The fact that I was half a second away from haggling with a border control officer still strikes my friends back in Chiang Mai as very funny. I noticed a sign that read “Late: 500 baht per day” just in time to shut my mouth, smile, and hand over my DVD money.

The woman stamped my passport like she was hitting a child and handed it back to me. I made my way down the barbed wire walkway and out onto the bridge. I was in “no man’s land.” The place where you are actually in the border, not on either side of it.

The bridge was covered by people selling fruit and dried fish, as well as Burmese children begging for baht from the wealthy tourists. I, always the sucker, handed a 10 piece to a ragamuffin looking youth who immediately rolled his eyes at me and went after the better dressed German family behind me.

I took a few photos of the small river, noticing that there were a few folks crossing that probably hadn’t bothered to register with the border police, and then made my way towards Burma.

Thailand drives on the left side of the road (see last post), but Burma drives on the right side. This means that the flow of comers and goers have to zig-zag half way across the bridge between Mai Sai and Tachilek. I had forgotten this fact (details) and managed to upset a couple of Burmese soldiers as I walked into oncoming foot traffic. They quickly hustled me across the street and into what could have been a poor grandmother’s living room.

The wood paneling and drab carpet where not improved by the three soldiers in brown who sat behind dusty computers. Apathy does nothing to describe their faces. I figured that given the decor, and amount of annoying people such as myself, it made for a pretty bad job.

I handed my passport to one of the soldiers who asked me to sit after relieving me of 500 more baht. I knew about this charge and, though mildly infuriated at the idea of giving money to the Burmese government, knew it was a necessary evil. The soldier took a photo of my disheveled face, printed out a temporary passport (they keep yours at the border in case you decide to start some craziness) and I was walking into Burma.

To be continued…

“There’s no way those water buffalo are going to come onto the road.”

It’s thoughts like this that get me into the most trouble in Southeast Asia. Despite being half way around the world I still, from time to time, interact with my environment as if I’m back in the States.

A group of people were going inside, along with supplies that I had spent the last week gathering. Given my knowledge of Thai (hello, don’t sweat it, I’m sorry, and thank you) my supply gathering usually consists of a lot of drawing and pantomime. And laughter. Have I mentioned that I get laughed at a lot here?

I was driving one of two diesel trucks heading to the border. Both machines are giant white Toyotas, capable of careening through the jungle and equipped with rooftop exhaust pipes just in case one of the things ever gets submerged in a river. They have 800,000 kilometers traveled between them.

“Come on Jungle Chicken,” I coaxed the aptly named machine as we roared up a hill, passing a teak laden flatbed. The herd of water buffalo was keeping pace with us to my right. I could have reached out and touched one, had I wanted to play petting zoo at 40 kilometers an hour.

The mistake I make the most when driving on this side of the Pacific is due to the controls on the sides of the steering wheel being reversed. Every time I turn, I flick on the windshield wipers instead of the blinkers. I had done this three times already on this trip alone, much to the amusement of my passengers. The two men, French documenters who make films about the conflict in Karen State, had both fallen asleep once we got into the hills.

In the past month I have made at least one border run a week; usually alone. I take my time and drive as slowly as possible while doing my best not to annoy everyone else on the road. This cautious approach was reinforced the first time I came upon a missing section of road. The concrete had been washed into the ravine below.

Today, though, given the group and large shipment of medical supplies there were two trucks. The whole trip I had been struggling to keep up with the other, much more experienced, driver.

The difference between driving in Asia and driving in the States is that, in the former, defensive driving goes right out the window. Instead of driving with the assumption that what can go wrong will go wrong, locals here drive as if everyone is the best driver in the world. And, for the most part, it works. I am amazed every time my boss, who has been here for nine years, is behind the wheel. When she’s driving we become part of a weaving flow of traffic that seems to have no lanes or stopping. Just the go-go-go of fast forward motion.

On the other hand, when I drive it’s like watching a rock in the middle of a racing river. I am a constant hindrance to the motorists of Thailand. For example, it took me a while to learn that breaking for pedestrians is something you just don’t do. The first time I stopped for an old lady who was waiting to cross the street, not only did the drivers behind me start causing a ruckus, but the woman herself gave me a look that said, “you, sir, are being ridiculous.”

But today I’d been doing alright. The local at the wheel of the other truck had never gotten too far ahead of us, and I had managed to keep the Jungle Chicken on the road.

“Watch yourself.”

One of the filmmakers had woken up. I was glancing at the water buffalo right when it inexplicably decided to cut us off. For a moment I pictured its large curved horns crashing into the side of the truck. We would drive into the vehicle on my left. The large wood trunks would spill out and smash on top of us. A monument of water buffalo, medical supplies, teak, and twisted metal would be instantly erected.

I down shifted and swung hard to the left. The flatbed rambled on up the hill as the herd of buffalo galloped across the road in front of us. They crossed into an adjacent field, kindly clearing the road as quickly as they blocked it.

The other filmmaker awoke and readjusted himself, taking the time to mutter “Idiot. You forgot to turn on your wipers,” before immediately falling back to sleep.

I went to an IDP camp on the other side of the Salween last weekend. The camp was started after the recent SPDC offensive against the Karen in 2005. We conducted vision tests for two days, giving out all the reading glasses we brought in with us and getting 60 prescriptions, which will be made in the States and sent next month. Upon my return I decided to post the pictures from the trip on Flickr. I know the whole “pictures are worth a thousand words” thing is a cop-out, I promise a longer post later this week. Till then, happy holidays.

Apparently Chiang Mai is immune to the global franchising efforts of McDonald’s, as well as the endless marketing campaigns of a certain bubbly beverage. Perhaps immune is putting it strongly, but those are definitely not the foremost spokespersons for corporatocracy in this valley town. No, the flagships of westernization around here are 7-Eleven and Johnnie Walker.

Pushed in between brick pagodas and flimsy food carts the green and orange coat of arms of convenience seem to be everywhere. On the block by my house alone there is one on each corner, with another in the middle of the block on the opposite side of the street. And it’s not just in distribution that these guys have their American cousins beat. The Chiang Mai 7-Eleven’s take one stop shopping to a whole new level. Here you can find anything to go along with your 74 ounce frozen drink, from discount DVDs (Chinese Die Hard 4 anyone?) to ready to eat fried balls of fish meat.

Why do I know this? Surely I didn’t fly half way around the world to shop and shelter myself in a western style corner store? What kind of politically correct, educated in the ’90s traveler am I? What am I doing going into a 7-Eleven?

The answer: 7-Eleven has got the cheapest water.

In order for you to fully appreciate this I must make one thing clear: I have always gotten my drinking water from the tap. Water bottles, Brita filters, etc. all seemed like marketing schemes to me. A little iron in the water? Good for the bones.

But in Chiang Mai even the locals don’t drink from the sink. I’m pretty stubborn, but when I was told that “don’t drink the water” was a rule of thumb for everyone, not just the farang, I erred on the side of caution and started buying bottled water. Being that I’m living on an extremely tight budget I choose to shop at 7-Eleven for water, buy my food from the street carts, and ask forgiveness for backing a corporate conglomerate at the wats (I know, but the guilt that comes with a Catholic upbringing isn’t negated after a couple of weeks in a Buddhist city).

Still, the big 7 has got nothing on Johnnie Walker. For every 7-Eleven store there are 50 signs promoting that ever popular scotch from Ayrshire. It seems to me that the Striding Man is second only to pictures of elephants when it comes to advertising here Chiang Mai.

I haven’t spent enough time out on the town to see if the advertising campaign is working, but given the Thai taxes on alcohol, even 7-Eleven can’t sell the scotch for cheap. In fact, as far as prices versus the US goes, drinking is probably the most expensive pastime here in Thailand.

Luckily for me I don’t have to buy fresh Johnnie Walker Red to brush my teeth with.

Chiang Mai.

The evening I arrived I enjoyed a meal with members, family, and friends of the organization that I will be working with. After some delicious food and a whirlwind of introductions I was brought to the house in which I will be staying for the next three months.

The house is made up of a few spacious rooms, most of which are filled with donations for Burma’s IDPs. Clothes, tools, toothbrushes, and small toys for displaced children sit in boxes and rice sacks that line the walls. The kitchen has a working refrigerator and stove, but neither look like they’re used very often. Same goes for the dining table, which holds stacks of empty camera boxes.

Next to the table is a metal chair. The chair has no legs, but it is welded to a giant propeller with a gas tank. There’s a seatbelt. Once I’ve got it figured out I’ll let you know. As for the house, I love the place.

I spend my first couple of days in Chiang Mai proof-reading info material and gathering supplies for the organization. The city is beautiful. The sky is almost always clear and most of the buildings aren’t more than a few stories high. More than once I find myself with views of not so distant bright green hills from the middle of bustling urban intersections. I think of San Francisco often.

Still, the differences are more abundant than the similarities. A fact hard to ignore while I’m bouncing around the back of a songthaew past a golden Buddhist temple in a city where I don’t speak the language and downtown is still surrounded by a corroding defensive wall with a moat.

I am in Chaing Mai, safe and sound.

It was a good trip. Thanks to being seated in an otherwise empty row (albeit between some bathrooms and an emergency exit) I got to lay down and sleep my way across the Pacific. When I awoke I received some damn good food. I can’t remember the last time I got a meal on a flight.

After eating I did my best to distract myself from the Tim Allen movie playing on five giant screens. Too reclined to reach for my carry-on luggage, I turned to everyone’s favorite seat pouch readers: Sky Mall and the air safety card.

Sky Mall was nothing special. Your usual overpriced perfume and ridiculous Sharper Image rejects. But the safety card… perfect. Gone were the faceless figures who are just going through the safety motions a’la American safety cards. China Airline’s characters do not phone in their performances and it shows.

For example:

What’s that kid doing? Chewing on a wire? Pulling off a leech? Flossing? I have no idea; but whatever it is he’s not supposed to be doing it, and you can tell he’s starting to figure that out.

Once on the ground in Taipei the warnings were a little less detailed but a lot more to the point. I spent my layover sitting beneath a sign that read “Drug trafficking is punishable by death in the R.O.C.” There wasn’t a picture.

The fundraiser at Amnesia last Friday night made for an excellent evening. A good time was had, raffle prizes were won, and I was encouraged to leave town more often by a number of friends. Thank you to everyone that made Friday night such a successful sendoff.

In other news, I’m still gathering any and all information I can about the political and cultural history of Burma. Luckily my buddy Jack brought a recent Foreign Affairs article by Michael Green and Derek Mitchell to my attention. The authors’ argue that it is (about damn) time the international community reassess their conflicting policies towards Burma. China and other countries in Southeast Asia have been (in my opinion, at best) encouraging the junta to reform while the US has been using sanctions and a strategy of isolation. Both approaches have failed. “If anything, Burma has evolved from being an antidemocratic embarrassment and humanitarian disaster to being a serious threat to the security of its neighbors.” Dictatorships do not improve with age, and the SPDC is no exception. I encourage everyone to read Asia’s Forgotten Crisis, it’s worth your attention.

Every day brings me closer to Asia, and my anticipation is finally outshining my anxieties. That being said I am still wary of my lack of knowledge. The last few days have found me cramming facts and reading personal histories like an undergrad who just realized that there’s going to be a test. While picking up statistics from the CIA World Fact Book (be careful, the spooks have the wrong city listed as the current capital), and checking information from wikipedia against a friend’s experience based expertise, I came across a quick mention of Burma in the San Francisco Chronicle.

It would seem the Lanna Action for Burma Committee has come up with an interesting way to protest against the SPDC: The Panty Power Campaign. It is exactly what it sounds like, a global call for underwear action. Women all over the world are encouraged to send their undergarments to Burmese Embassies. The reasoning behind the seemingly prankish protest is that the junta leaders are incredibly superstitious, and believe that when a man touches a woman’s unmentionables he loses his power. For those of you looking to get rid of some intimate things, let the dictatorship know what you think of the regime through the use of disapproving panty packages.

Please join me from 6pm to 8pm for my going away party/fundraiser this Friday, Nov. 30th, at Amnesia. A special thanks to Andy Wright for designing and printing the best flier in existence:

I will be leaving to volunteer with an international aid organization (feel free to contact me for more information) in Chiang Mai early next month. To help finance my effort I am having a fundraising party in San Francisco at Amnesia on November 30th. The next day, December 1st, I will be selling most of my belongings in at a yard sale on the corner of 20th and Valencia. If you can make either event I’d love to see you there.

This was actually posted on June 8, 2008. I just needed to set the date early so that this post appeared at the top of the page. As always, I’m sure there was a better way.

From December 2007 to March 2008 I volunteered with the Free Burma Rangers (for more information please visit www.freeburmarangers.org). During my time with FBR I kept a blog in hopes to share (and raise funds for) my philanthropic smuggling adventures. Much of what I experienced I ended up not posting out of respect for the group’s privacy, but the stories I did decide to share are archived below. Thank you to everyone who supported me while I was abroad, and a very special thank you to all my friends at FBR.