One Night (Okay, a Few Nights) in Bangkok

Hello All!


It's been over a month since I last blogged, and although you may not have missed me, I have definitely missed you! Since you last heard from your intrepid explorer Sue, I have seen Bangkok and Borneo, flown home to the USA, seen my sister graduate, see my dear friend Cara graduate, and celebrated Tom's birthday! I have been in four states, and I've got a few more to see before the end of the month. I've hit the ground running back here in the US, which has helped to distract me from missing my high-flying life over in Asia. But, gosh, it's good to be home!


So, rewind back to a month ago. I had just finished school (HOORAY! Still processing that one.) and had a lovely weekend getaway to Indonesia with Lisa and co. I was off to one of my three must-sees in SE Asia, BANGKOK!!! I had prepared by listening to Murray Head singing "One Night in Bangkok" on a loop, much to the dismay of my roomie. (If you have not seen this music video, youtube it RIGHT NOW. Seriously.) I was pretty wiped out from the marathon that was finals, but I was going with a friend, Mei, who a)was a law student in the same horrible boat, and b)I had traveled with before. So I knew things would be cool.


Ah, Bangkok! Every writer's dream, city of a million sights, sounds, and secrets. I loved your spicy food, your dazzling temples, your grubby steet beggars, and your slimy underbelly. You tried to rip me off at every turn, yet you served me with unfailing courtesy and that famous Thai smile. Your days were sizzling hot and your nights even hotter. We only knew each other for a short time, Bangkok, but I will never forget you.


Mei and I stayed in this cute hostel near Khao San road, Backpacker's paradise. Bangkok is maddeningly laid out sans a city center and is thus difficult to navigate on foot. We ended up taking the river taxis for most of our travel. Cabs were cheap and neon pink, but driven by madmen and resistant to following speed limits and local traffic ordinances. Thus, we traveled with care.


Khao San road was our first stop, and it was a doozy. It is a long, narrow road crammed with shops selling everything you might possibly need (and many things you don't). There were discounted (likely stolen) electronics, drug paraphernalia, Thai massages, local liquors, sunglasses, gauzy sundresses, travel books, backpacks, and souvenirs of every kind. After a while, it all begins to look alike. The upside was the food sold from carts along the way. Pad thai, made right in front of you, for 30B ($1). Some people don't like street food. I am not one of those people. We ate so cheaply while in Thailand, and so very well. I became addicted to Thai iced tea. Mmmm...I wish I was eating Thai food right now, instead of munching on a granola bar. If only there were a good Thai restaurant in Boston...

Thailand is a big tourist attraction. I saw more Westerners there than in the rest of SE Asia COMBINED. It was weird seeing so many white people after living in a sea of Asians. And with tourists come tourist traps. Scam artists abound, promising "nice price for you" and "special tours". I felt less safe in Thailand than anywhere else in Asia, even though it's the most "touristy" place I visited. Seems like danger follows money.


Anyway, it is so worth it to suffer through endless souvenir shops, the cries of hawkers and hustlers, and the oppressive, gritty heat, because Bangkok is the real deal. It is at once both modern and ancient-a city of sleek skyscrapers and shopping malls as well as mystical temples. I took this photo out of a window in Siam Paragon, the luxury mall in Bangkok (think Hermes, Coach, Louis Vuitton) and I think it sums up Bangkok pretty well (except for the fact that is was cloudy. We had a brief period of rain, but otherwise it was dismally hot).

Thai shopping puts Singaporean shopping to shame, and that is no mean feat. Thais enjoy the same high-end brands that the Singaporeans do, but they also have the cut-rate and off-brand. Malls are teeming with life-the average Thai teen spends more time at the mall than at school. There are restaurants every five feet so you can refuel for...more shopping! It's an endurance sport, like cross-country skiing. Mei and I wondered through endless racks of things we would never need, and things we could only wonder at. Thais love their bling. This love is reflected in their clothing, their jewelry, their cell phone cases (seriously you guys you have no idea) and their temples. Everything sparkled. But not all that glitters is gold, and nowhere is that more true than Bangkok.


After a day of being forced to shop due to bad weather, we ventured to the Red Light District, made famous by American GIs during the Vietnam war. The whole area has been cleaned up a bit (purportedly) and it's hard to imagine how sleazy it must have been back then. There are a lot of bars, scantily clad women, and of course, people trying to sell you tickets to "ping pong show". DO NOT google ping pong show. Repeat, do not google ping pong show. For real. Needless to say, we did not go, and I got pretty offended when I was repeatedly asked. Do I look like somebody interested in a ping pong show? There are also people there selling porn dvds, and I smiled gratefully at the men who withdrew their extended arms full of porn when I walked by. That's right, I'm a lady! We beat a hasty retreat, sadder by wiser, and returned to Khao San road for some more pad thai. Day one=success.

The next day, we went out to see the famous temples, thankfully all relatively close to one another. Let me tell you, Bangkok is not lying about their temples. They deliver. It's hard to reconcile the image of a Buddhist monk begging for food with these glimmering temples, but apparently that's how they roll.  Frankly, I like the idea of saving the jewels for the deities and living a simple life. In any case, the Thais are not kidding around with their temples. They look like they've been bedazzled by a meth addict, but they are like nothing you've ever seen. Here are a few of the thousands of shots I snapped at the Grand Palace:

Crazy right? I know. Far from being overwhelmed, Mei and I (after a brief ice cream stop) went to Wat Pho, just across the way, where we saw The Coolest Thing I Saw In SE Asia. This would be the Giant Golden Buddha. When I heard giant buddha, I thought, no big, I've seen some cool buddhas. I was thinking, six, seven feet tall, tops. Wrong. So wrong. This sucker is the length of a building. It's dazzling, just dazzling. I literally gasped, and after a few months in SE Asia, that's hard to make me do. Here are some pics of the Big Guy:



THE GIANT BUDDHA!!!




After that, we were so worn out that we had to...go back to Khao San Rd for some more pad thai. And thai iced tea. And mango and sweet sticky rice. Mmmm....so hungry....

The next day, our last in BKK, we went to Dusit Park Palace, the summer home of King Rama V, aka The Prince in "The King and I" (you know, the one who makes the decree that there is to be no more bowing on the floor to the King? See, history through musicals! It can happen!!) Rama V is the hero of the Thais. There are statues of him all over. The Thais love their monarchs and hate their government, mostly because the monarchs don't actually do anything but smile, wave, and occasionally visit a school.

Rama V spent some of his twenties touring Europe, and apparently, when you're a King, the countries you visit give you a ton of stuff. So Dusit Park Palace is basically his souvenir closet, except unlike my souvenir closet, which houses a few postcards and some shot glasses, this one is full of priceless treasures from around the world. A whole freakin houseful. It's very, very cool. The mansion was a summer palace for the King and his family and is decorated as such, with awkward family pictures and everything. I giggled when I realized tha even the crown prince of Thailand has to wear fugly matching outfits with his siblings and pose for pictures. Some things are universal.

you can only take pictures outside, since apparently souvenirs are a state secret. Whatever.


After that, we visited the local zoo, the Royal Elephant Museum (not nearly as cool as it sounds), and just roamed around for a while until I had to go to the airport. Bangkok, I won't be coming back soon, but I will always remember you fondly.

BABY MONKS! they were on a field trip to the zoo.

Full Moon-ing

Hi All!

TWO posts in ONE day? You deserve it, dear readers! (And I want to get caught up before I go to Bangkok in a few hours.)

The weekend after I went to Tioman, the virgin paradise, I took a trip to Koh Phangan, a decidedly un-virgin…well, everything. KP is the home of the monthly “Full Moon Party”, a wild, uncensored bacchanal that’s one part burning man and two parts spring break cancun. It is, quite simply, a bit of a trainwreck. Why, you ask, did sensible, circumspect Sue venture to this island of iniquity? Well, mostly because sometimes I get tired of being sensible and circumspect. I like to do what “the cool kids” are doing sometimes just for the sake of doing that, to prove to myself that I could live that life, if I so chose. Every time I try it, I remember that I don’t like hard partying, and not because it’s scary, but because I just don’t enjoy it. However, every few months, I forget that fact and I try it again. Hence Koh Phangan. Plus, the full moon party is a big deal: it’s sort of quintessential SE Asia. And I didn’t want to be the whole way here and miss it. So, I went.

Well, it was…interesting. I can say that much. Just getting out to the island is an adventure. I flew into Phuket, where I met my friend Maleeka. We then took a bus to Surat thani, and caught the overnight ferry to Koh Phangan. I have to put a picture of the ferry in here, because I had a hard time shaking the feeling that I was on a slave ship. I tried to convince myself it was more like a pirate ship, but honestly, sleeping on a straw pallet, clutching my belongings beneath me to prevent theft, I was less than pleased. I reasoned that when I was older, I would not do something like this, and it is good that I did it now. Good story to tell the grandkids and all that. That thought got me through most of the weekend.

We docked at KP in the early just-before-dawn, which I admitted was lovely, in spite of myself. I had a grudging respect for Thailand’s beaches, which are rumored to be among the best in the world. In the rosy twilight, they were certainly striking. Maleeka and I hopped in the back of a pickup and told the driver the name of our hostel. We were meeting friends who were already there. Once we arrived though, right about 6am, we realized that we had no idea what room our friends were in, and also that there was no reception area to point us in the right direction. I was about two seconds from a hysterical meltdown when our friends, returning just then from a night of revelry, rolled in. We all embraced and went to the cabin. It was jam-packed with sixteen people in two beds. It reeked of booze, sweat, and sunscreen. I took one look and wanted to bolt. Sheena, the trip organizer, told us that there was another room somewhere that had been paid for but was not in use. Maleeka, two dudes from our trip, and I set out to find said room. After trying a few doorknobs unsuccessfully, we spotted it. The treehouse. Yes, there was an honest-to-God treehouse, right there on the sand. We climbed the rickety stairs and discovered a bed and air-conditioning. Shrugging, we all laid down sardine style. It was a great nap.

After awakening in a tree house, I was not sure my day could get much better. I was mostly right. As soon as I got outside, it started raining. (Sensing a theme here? ) Most of my party was congregated under the verandah/hut/lobby, either hungover or actively getting drunk/high. Given that it was raining, the populace demanded a movie. Their choice? Avatar. Those who know me well know that Avatar is not, to put it kindly, my favorite film. Here I was on a gorgeous beach in Thailand with a bunch of stoners, watching Avatar. I was less than amused. If I wanted to be annoyed with drunk people, I could have stayed in DC! So, that was not too fun.

Anyway, we went into town and did some shopping. I met a totally cool new friend, Jayne from the US. We bonded over bikinis and became fast friends. I bought a hot pink full-moon shirt to wear to the party that night. The name of the game, apparently, was day-glo and body paint. In the end, we all looked a bit like the lost boys from Peter Pan. It was sort of sad to me, honestly. Like, not pathetic, but actually sad, to see us all painted up and gyrating on the beach. It reminded me of something out of Kerouac.

We pre-drank at our hostel, which was actually a little bit fun. They do this thing called a bucket, which is like 7 shots of Thai whiskey and redbull. It’s foul, just foul. You share with tons of people (I know, date rape city). I held onto the one me and my girls were sharing and watched it VERY carefully.  I chatted with people from all over, renewed old friendships and made some new ones. People liked me, and I felt normal. It was all a bit hazy in the glow of the alcohol, but I did have a few moments of connection with people where we got past the bullshit. To me, that’s what drinking is for-a lowering of the defenses among friends, to be able to share your heart without being laughed at. And, it happened that night. So, not a total loss. I can actually be quite fun when I’ve a mind to J

Next, we made it to the actual party. I have a wristband to prove it. What transpired after we arrived was a montage out of a bad lifetime movie, complete with a trip to the hospital, me carrying someone in my arms across the sand, tears, emotional speeches, and lessons learned. I will leave it at that. No, I was not the one who needed hospitalization. But the Thai nurse was extra nice to us, and she duly admired my engagement ring when my friend drew it to her attention.

Next day, we all rallied and headed out. Maleeka and I went to Koh Tao, supposedly one of the prettier islands. We stayed at a cute resort that had a pool they taught people to scuba dive in. Their mascot was a giant starfish wearing a snorkel mask. I was sold. We had a nice dinner, got Thai massages (these are GREAT! Why did no one tell me this? It’s very scary sometimes, when you’re not sure you can bend that way and they just PULL, not unlike a trip to the chairopractor, but you have to trust the process. And in the end, I felt terrifically relaxed. And it was like $6, so that was nice, too.) and went for a sunset walk along the beach. A very relaxing day after the revels of the previous evening.

I went home the next day, and, apart from one lovely sunkissed ferry ride seated on the side of the boat, it was a long, unpleasant, eventful journey back to Phuket. I will spare you the gory details, but let me just say that if I was doubting the wisdom of coming to KP before, I definitely was feeling that way after this journey.  I realized how quickly things could go from fun to unsafe, and I thanked God that I had been spared anything bad. I have been extra careful and safe, sure, but sometimes bad things happen anyway, and nothing more awful than a few bug bites has happened to me. I have been very blessed while on exchange! God, it turns out, was definitely on my side, because at the hotel in Phuket (since I was alone, I splurged on a hotel room instead of a hostel) LAW AND ORDER was on TV!! I was unspeakably relieved to enjoy something from home. Next morning I left Thailand, glad I came but not eager to return. Well, until I came back to go to Bangkok. But that’s a whole different story…

Well, y’all, I need to get some sleep if I am actually to MAKE it to Thailand tomorrow. But, until I get back, sayonara suckers! Love,

Singapore Sue

Bali Hai-jinks!!

Hi All!

Sorry that it has been a dreadful amount of time since I last blogged, those of you who are still reading. Several things have transpired that made blogging difficult.

#1-I AM DONE WITH LAW SCHOOL! I had to write four exams in a week, which was….urgh. The less said about that, the better. I became nocturnal, pulling more all-nighters than I care to recall. But, it’s done. It’s all done. Provided I pass all my exams, which seems likely, my formal education is over. And that feels…good. I am proud of course, but mostly eternally grateful. Grateful for the opportunity, grateful for the people who made it easier,  grateful that I survived.

Law school was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Not only academically, but emotionally too. I was pushed, and I didn’t like it very much. Many of the walls I had to take down were ones I’d built myself, but that didn’t make it any easier. I was overextended, I was pulled in too many directions, I was tested, taxed, pummeled, ridiculed, and beaten. But not defeated. I came through it, bloodied but intact, and for that I am grateful. Now that it’s over, I have some perspective and see what a great gift I’ve been given, what an opportunity. I tried to take advantage of it, I really tried. I didn’t do everything that I wanted to do, and my grades were not as good as they could have been, but God, I gave it my all. That feeling, of knowing you’ve well and truly given it all you had, is a good one. I’m exhausted but at peace.

Other than that, my parents were here and we hung out a lot (so no blogging), and my laptop has been 41 flavors of broken. Long story short, it’s fixed-for now. I think I need a new one but I am trying mightily not to buy one, since I won’t need one going forward and just have to tough it through the summer. Anyway, here I am. I am back. And ready to blog my face off because starting tomorrow, I am traveling straight up until I come home to USA!

Tioman. Wow, that was a long time ago. But, I will try to summon up the memories. Perhaps putting on the soundtrack of “South Pacific” will help. Why? Because TIOMAN ISLAND is where the movie SOUTH PACIFIC was filmed! Yes, the 1958 gem starring Mitzi Gaynor. As in, The Movie I Watched 600 Times Before Age Five. So, when my friend Paige offered a weekend jaunt out to Tioman, I said YES enthusiastically.

Paige, Verity and I took a bus from here to Meursing, a small, quaint port town in Malaysia, then a ferry to Tioman. When we were on the ferry, the pristine day was shattered by rain. Hard rain. Rain that made the waves and our moods choppy. Tioman, virtually unspoiled, has two things to do-swimming and surfing (and surfing is only on one coast). Neither were going to happen in this rain. Foolishly we believed that the rain would stop. However, a quick glance outside revealed that this was pouring-for-days weather. But what could we do? We were already several hours into the trip, and our return ferry was not for two days. So, when the ferry docked, we three intrepid travelers grimly shouldered our backpacks and made a break for it.

Five seconds into our dash to the dock, it was apparent we had made a huge mistake. This mistake was exacerbated as we trekked from hostel to hostel and learned that each was booked up (there is no internet on Tioman, so no reservations either. We decided to try our luck. It seemed our luck had run out). Within fifteen minutes, we were soaked. Like wet to the bone, everything in my backpack needs wrung out, I will never be dry again soaked. And we had nowhere to go. We soldiered on, determined to find a hostel somewhere along the coast where we could sleep (or at least dry out). As we neared the end of the beach, I bravely fought tears. Here we were, literally stranded in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain. I have never been anywhere in the world where I felt so desolately alone, with the exception of maybe the Panamanian rainforest. It was that bad.

A pickup truck pulled up, and a local girl rolled down her window. She told us to hop in the back and that she would take us to a hostel in Juara, on the other side of the island. Since we had seen every single hostel on this side, we jumped in. Zura turned out to be an angel, delivering us directly to a cheap, clean hostel. She promised to come pick us up on Sunday and take us back to the ferry. Dripping and weary, we arrived at the surf shack Juara.

It wasn’t much to look at, but I blamed that on the rain. It turned out, it wasn’t much to look at. What it was, however, was directly on the beach. It was  a few cold-water (but it had running water, which was a plus) one room shacks on one of the most gorgeous coastlines I’ve ever seen. Even in the rain, it was just lovely. So unspoiled and pretty-just like a postcard. I know that my photos never do things justice, but these are REALLY bad, even for me. We stayed for two days: caroused, read, gossiped, swam (a little), drank, and enjoyed the area. We were cooped up inside the shack (jokingly called a ‘chalet’) for hours at a time, and we all really bonded as a result. It was just a good time.

One morning, Paige and I got up to see the sunrise. It had miraculously stopped raining, and for a few moments, the sky was pink. I didn’t take any pictures because I didn’t want to spoil the moment. There I was: 25, newly engaged, and sitting cross-legged and barefoot in the sand, gazing in wonderment at the rosy dawn. It was very, very special. One of those moments you go back to when things are just a bit too hectic and you can’t hear yourself think. This semester has had many of those moments, and for that, among many other things, I am grateful.

note the hammock. Best. Shack. Ever.

Until next time, sayonara suckers! Love you all.

Singapore Sue

Angkor What?

Hi All,


Two posts in two days? It could only be a flurry of activity brought on by the imminent arrival of MOM and DAD on Sunday! Yay! Also, sorry for the downer of a post yesterday. I didn't like writing it, you didn't like reading it. It was like Death of a Salesman: attention must be paid. But on to other, cheerier things.


After the laugh-attack that was PP, we were all rather eager to get to Siem Reap, home of the temples at Angkor, a WONDER OF THE WORLD! (my Dad said to imagine a trumpet sound effect after saying the previous sentence. I think it works pretty well.) The bus ride over to Siem Reap was another 10 hours. I swear, no matter where you're going in all of SE Asia, it's a ten hour bus ride. Next town? Three countries away? Ten hours. Once we arrived, we were descended upon by what can only be described as a paparazzi-like swarm of tuk-tuk (like a taxi) drivers. They tugged on our bags, they touched our arms, and they shouted at us. I felt like Jesus in the crowd of lepers in "Jesus Christ Superstar". It was overwhelming and not cool at all. We all lost our cool a bit, shouting and getting angry with the drivers. Our hotel was supposed to pick us up, but they didn't show, thus the fare wars. See, tuk-tuks get a huge commission from a hotel when they get you to book there. It's not uncommon at all to get into a tuk-tuk, ask them to take you somewhere, and then arrive somewhere else (the hotel they work for). You have to kindly but firmly request they take you to the originally agreed upon location. It's a generally harrowing process, but the horde at Siem Reap station was the worst I'd ever seen. The bus driver ended up taking us out to our hotel for free because he felt bad for us. One thing to say for Cambodia-the people are hospitable. Despite their relentless heckling to buy their wares, they are a kind and warm people. I was continually surprised by people going out of their way to help us here.


Anyway, we arrived at our hostel, which was an oasis of calm after the bus station. The man at the front desk spoke great English and helped us book all the things we wanted to do while we were there very quickly. First stop was sunset over the temples. Siem Reap is all very spread out and not at all easy to navigate. You have to hire a tuk-tuk driver to take you pretty much everywhere. Our hotel had some that they trusted/used regularly, and we ended up with Pehab, a smiling man in his late twenties. For the whopping fee of $4, he drove us out to the temple to see the sunset, and to the night market to get our fill of souvenirs. When I say, drove us to the temple, I mean drove us to the foot of the temple. We had to do a long-ass hike up a hill to get to the temple, then climb an infinite stretch of stairs to get up the temple. I was beginning to worry a bit about our full day of temple-seeing the following day. The sunset, sad to say, was less than spectactular. It was very cloudy. It was very cool to be at the top of the temple, though. The ruins are amazing-it's just otherworldly to be walking paths that were laid centuries ago. Could the Khmer empire have envisioned the lasting legacy of their temples? Once the sun went down, it cooled off a lot, which was nice. We tucked into bed early, as we had a wakeup call 4:30 AM for sunrise over the temples, followed by a long day of temple-trekking. I was very excited about seeing the temples, something I've wanted to do for as long as I can remember. Would it live up to my expectations?


In a word: yes. Oh, yes! The alarm clock went off at o'dark thirty, and I serenaded my roommates with a little Aerosmith. To say that excitement was high was an understatement. :) We met the faithful Pehab and our English speaking tourguide, Vanna (a man). Off we zipped in our tuk-tuk (it's basically a bench strapped to a motorcycle. It's open-air, very nifty way of traveling, provided of course that you don't fall out) to the temples. They're spread out all over the area. And there are tons of them! If I had honestly known how hot it was going to get and how much walking I was going to do that day, I would have been less cheerful, but in the predawn chill, things were looking good. We watched sunrise over Angkor Wat, the biggest temple. It was, like sunset the night before, a bit lackluster, but we were all so pumped to be there that it didn't matter.


Once the sun was up, we grabbed some breakfast and started touring in earnest. Vanna clearly spoke English but it was heavily accented and he was very hard to understand. He also repeated things about 7 or 8 times, which was a bit frustrating. However, we did learn a lot about the temples! He was a friendly, knowledgable guide. We started at Angkor Thom and worked our way around, seeing countless temples. I finally got to achieve a lifelong goal of an ELEPHANT RIDE! It was the bomb. Mei and I rode one around Angkor Thom, viewing it as the kings of antiquity would have. It was so super cool and I was giggling like a schoolgirl the entire time.


Off we went, traipsing over kilometers of land, overwhelmed with amazing sight after amazing sight. I grew tired of snapping photos yet could not seem to stop. It is all just totally awe inspiring. I want you to see the photos without explanation-just soak up the wonder. Imagine how they might have looked centuries ago and marvel that they are still standing today.


That night, we had our farewell spring break dinner at a local restaurant that had Apsara dancers, a traditional Khmer form of dance. We met up with some friends, who a)complained the whole time and b)didn't use chopsticks. We girls all felt a bit superior after listening to all their moaning and observing their inability to absorb any culture. It was nice to feel good at something after such a challenging week.


Our guide, Vanna, told us about his family's escape from the Khmer Rouge. It was a brutal, sad story and he told it like it had happened yesterday. It is amazing, the resiliency of these people. How could someone live that life and then just go on, leading tours of foreigners through temples? I left Cambodia with tons of bugbites, a large quantity of sorrow, and even more respect for this mystical, strange country. What a week!

Well, there you finally have my spring break trip. Tune in next time for Tioman Islands and Phuket! Sayonara suckers, and love you all!