One thing I forgot to mention in the last blog was that the night of the full moon was also the lunar eclipse. As we were eating some food and hanging out, the eclipse started and it seemed to take forever. Isn’t the moon only supposed to be completely covered for a matter of minutes if not seconds? Well, this moon stayed an orangeish color for quite a while. Maybe there were clouds in the way, who knows.
Anyway, the four of us loaded into the back of the pickup taxi along with two German girls and two French girls. We started chatting with them and luckily they were nice because the ride to Haat Rim was about 45 minutes. We drove up and down steep hills as the lights from hotels and houses flashed by. But we knew we were there when we slowed down and I saw what looked somewhat similar to Duval St. in Key West. Lots of bars, restaurants, 7-Elevens, tattoos shops, T-shirt vendors, and our personal favorite: buckets of alcohol vendors. We were still hanging out with the French and German girls so we decided to get two small buckets and roll with that for the time being.
We walked around until we got to the entrance to the proper boardwalk and paid our 100 baht (about 3 bucks) to get in. I was a little opposed at first to paying the entrance fee as I thought it was just another way to rip some money out of us but I read earlier that the money from that goes almost entirely to security and cleaning up the beach the next day. And oh, that beach cleaning was needed.
Let me take a step back and say that I’ve never been to Cancun or anywhere else in Mexico for Spring Break, but the Full Moon Party is pretty much how I imagined it if there were simply more Europeans and less Americans. Most of the guys weren’t wearing shirts, lots of girls were only wearing bikinis, there was day-glo paint on probably 75% of people. The music was a mix of anything poppy and in a club from the last couple years (lots of LMFAO, Pitbull, and Duck Sauce), and the alcohol was flowing like water.
We got to the beach and the German girls took off and walked a different way. Had enough of us, I guess. After a few minutes, Henry also said he needed to walk around a bit. I think all of the lights and people were getting to him, a bit of a culture shock having come from Cameroon and all. Well, that was the last I saw of him that night, as it was a bit hard to keep track of your group when there’s around 8,000 people there.
So we were down to five (including the French girls, Lauren and Pauline) and we walked around the beach for a while, watched some fire dancers, and stared in amazement at how this place was so incredibly terrible, but at the same time so much fun.
Around midnight, Lauren and Pauline said they wanted to get a drink so we followed them up to a bar overlooking the beach. Well, I was right behind them and when we got to the bar, I turned around and couldn’t see Joey or Paul. I found out later that they thought we were going to a different bar, lost us, and then kept wandering around. Well, I tried to call Henry at this point to see where he was and, of course, he had left his phone in his room at the hotel.
So now we were down to three. The girls got their drinks and we continued to wander around, lazily looking for Paul, Joey, and Henry, and occasionally having impromptu three-person dance parties when a good song would come on.
We came across a giant flaming jump rope in the middle of a huge circle of people. It was held on either end from two people on stands about 6 feet off the ground. After watching for a bit, I knew I had to do it. So I ran into the middle where there was already one person and then started jumping. We got about twice around before he caught the rope and we both tumbled, furiously crawling away from the flaming rope. No burns!
There was also a slide from the top of a building that went down onto the beach and that was pretty fun. Somebody told me the next day that Joey was all about that slide. Kind of weird we didn’t run into each other then, ain’t it?
Around 3:30 am the three of us decided it was time to head back to the hotel so we went and found a pickup taxi and took the long ride back to our hotel. I had tried to call Henry a number of times, as I still didn’t know that he had forgotten his phone. Also in the pickup were two Dutch people (not very talkative) and two Swedes (very talkative). The Swedes were pretty surprised to hear me speaking French with the French girls, and I even tutored them a little bit on the particulars of Cameroonian French. (C’est comment mon frère? Tu es là? Prochainement!) Unfortunately, I think that I have officially forgotten all of my Swedish because I could literally only think of a few words in Swedish.
Well, when we got back to the hotel, I said goodnight to the French girls and went back to my room, wondering if Joey and Paul would be there, or Henry for that matter. Nobody was, but my spirits raised quite a bit when I realized that I in fact had the key in my pocket, not Paul. We had spent almost 24 hours straight travelling and then followed it with the biggest beach party in the world. I was exhausted and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow…
…And then was awoken at 7 when Joey and Paul stumbled in. Well, naturally I got up and we all started exchanging stories from what happened. Apparently they’d found Henry at some point wandering by himself (he had decided almost immediately after he left us to turn around and find us but wasn’t able to) and he had also seen me at one point from afar and then tailed me for a while before losing me in the crowd again. Like I said, Joey tore up the slide and they also said they were hanging around the flaming jump rope. They’d gotten back at around 5 and then slept in the hammocks outside of our little cabins and then woke me up when the sun became too bright. Well, I was awake at this point, fresh off my two solid hours so I woke Patrick and Henry up and the three of us spent most of the day playing cards, swimming, and using the internet. Patrick and I were also able to negotiate the price of our rooms down a bit. Each room was now only about 8$ per night. A pretty good deal considering it was right on the ocean with an amazing view. Paul and Joey woke up quite a bit later.
I also noticed a little after I woke up that I couldn’t locate my phone. I think what happened was after I tried to call Henry for the last time the night before somebody must have swiped it from my pocket as we were walking through the big crowd to find a taxi. It was only the first time I’ve ever been pick pocketed, so I guess it had to happen sometime.
At one point, though, we swam across the little bay to the island across from us and walked around there a bit. I guess swam is a little misleading. At lowish tide we waded over the sandbar, though the water was about to our waists and the rip tide was incredibly strong, especially on the way back. The island, though, was pretty bizarre. It was a resort of some sort, though it’s been abandoned. There were still mattresses in the rooms, though most of the doors have fallen off and the mattresses were pretty nice. It made me wonder if the place was a popular place for squatters or campers. Henry was convinced the whole time that we were going to find dead bodies around the next corner.
We had dinner at a restaurant next to the hotel (not too good and pretty overpriced), and then hung out with Pauline and Lauren. We played some cards and listened to music fairly late into the night. Paul tried to go for a swim at one point but didn’t walk to the beach we’d been at earlier in the day and ended up getting a few punctures on his feet from coral. They didn’t look too bad but, then again, what do I know about cuts from broken pieces of coral.
Pauline and Lauren left the next day and headed off to the island of Ko Tao. We had thought of going here for a bit, particularly as it’s the easiest island to hop to from Ko Phangan. In the end we decided against it because the main thing to do there is get your Diving License and do some scuba diving. The only person really interested in that was Patrick and he didn’t want to shell out all the cash for it.
That day we rented motorcycles at around noon (5 bucks for 24 hours!) and drove all over the island. We stopped at this nice little roadside shack and some pretty good fried noodle dishes. For my money, this was one of the best meals on the island. After a few hours on the bikes we realized we were getting pretty close to Haat Rim again, the town with the Full Moon Party, so we decided to turn around, take a break, and get something to drink at a bar. Well, the first bar we found was called Lady Bar and we stopped there and each got a Coke.
The place seemed pretty nice, with comfortable chairs and a pool table. After about five minutes a woman came over and sat down with us and tried to start a conversation. From what I’ve seen, any woman in a developing country who comes and sits and talks to a group of foreign men is generally a prostitute, though a polite prostitute who will generally leave you alone once it’s clear you’re not interested. Well, she talked for a little while with us—or rather: at us—before I realized a little something on her upper lip. Was that the hint of a 5 o’clock shadow? Was this the first Thai Ladyboy I’d spoken too? I believe it was. She was sassy and commented to Henry once that her friends behind the counter thought that he was handsome. After a few minutes she wished us a good day, I think realizing that her charm wasn’t working too well on us. As we were leaving, though, Henry refused to believe that she was a prostitute or a lady boy. “I think she was just nice guys, and she knows a handsome man when she sees one.” Sure Henry, sure.
The next day we used up the rest of our time with the motos and turned them in around noon. We spent most of the day using the internet, playing cards, and eating. Behind our hotel was a little bakery that had just opened up and was being run by a French guy and his French girlfriend, though I can’t remember their names. They were super nice and Patrick and I each got a pizza from them for dinner.
That night after every one else went to sleep, Henry and I crossed the sandbar and went to the island across from us to explore. The tide was completely down and we were able to walk across without getting more than our ankles wet. The island was quite spooky at night and we felt a little bit like we were in Scooby Doo. I picked up a big long bamboo stick to use for protection and Henry picked up a spiked palm frond. We tip toed around a bit and at one point I picked up a rock and gently tossed it nearby. Henry jumped in the air just like in a cartoon and I nearly died laughing. We came to a house, though, that looked like it had some weird shadows in it. Upon a closer inspection those shadows were just caused by the moon, though we saw some dark shapes on one of the mattresses. Was it a person? No idea. Either way, though, we dropped our stuff and booked it back to our hotel.
The next day we packed everything up and took off. The ferry ride was pretty uneventful, we just played cards and relaxed. There were two European girls on it though that just looked like a mess. They were falling asleep almost everywhere and could barely stand up straight. Partying too hard the night before hardly seems like an adequate description.
Anyway, we eventually made it to Surat Thani, a town a little bit inland where we could either catch the train or a bus. We opted to stay for a night, though there wasn’t too much to see or do here, and then catch a bus in the morning. It might have been one of the best decisions of the trip because we had a fantastic night.
We found a hotel and then relaxed for a little bit before going over to the night market. Definitely the best night market I’ve been to so far on this trip. We sport ate our way through it. I had some sausage, sushi, a kiwi-strawberry shake, and the best Pad Thai ever. I learned something from Patrick this night which is how we found the Pad Thai. When he’s at a food market he goes to wherever all the locals are and just gets whatever they’re getting. We didn’t even know it was Pad Thai at first (and it was so good and had some differences that maybe it wasn’t even bad Thai) but he got one and once I saw his I went back and got another.
Anyway, as we were eating these two British girls came up and approached us and we talked with them for quite a while. They’d just spent a few weeks on Ko Phagnan at this hippy retreat and were heading off to Cambodia next. I think before that they’d been in Indonesia and South Africa. Very cool girls and we jokingly said maybe we’d see them in Angkor Wat.
We went back to the hotel and watched music videos on Joey’s computer for quite a while when all of a sudden we hear a knock on the door. We opened and saw another British woman who we initially thought was going to ask us to keep it down. Instead, she asked us if we could wake her up in the morning when we woke up (she was in the room next to mine) because she had to be at work early. She didn’t really give us a straight forward reason why she couldn’t get up herself but I assumed she was partying a bit hard that night. After a minute or two of talking to her, I realized that she had something white on her upper lip and her pupils were pretty dilated. Joey had noticed this too and told us after she left that a lot of expats, tourists, and travelers around SE Asia get really into a ground up mixture of meth and heroin. That seems like a pretty serious thing to do casually when you’re working (or travelling, for that matter) in a foreign country, and especially one with such strict drug laws like Thailand.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Kao San Road sucks, and other stories
We woke up around 10ish again on the 8th and had some good noodle soup for breakfast. Nice and spicy with fish balls and a bit of pork. Delicious. We tried to figure out a plan for the day and the only things we really had to do was Joey wanted to sell some books over in the backpacker neighborhood of Bangkok (Kao San Road), Henry needed to go to the UPS store to pick up his ATM card which apparently hadn’t made it all the way to Citi Bank the day before, and then late at night we were planning on meeting up with this Peace Corps Volunteer named Tracy who was coming in that night and offered to show us around a bit.
Well, I wanted to check out Kao San Road (or KSR as it’s known in the travelling communities) and Paul was down too. Patrick didn’t really feel like going to UPS with Henry so the three of us all tagged along with Joey. We asked the guy at our hotel how to get there and he told us to take the elevated train (BTS) all the way to the end and then from there to take a bus. So we hopped on the BTS and took it to a stop called Mo Chit and then from there wandered around a bit looking for a bus. Well, we couldn’t find one but eventually found a map and realized that we’d travelled quite a distance and we were still the same distance from KSR as from when we started.
We decided to hop on the MRT—the subway—which we started calling the Mr. T. We took that for a few stops because it looked like it would get us a bit closer to KSR. Finally once we got there, we found a taxi who didn’t seem to keen on taking us and instead offered to drop us at one of the canals where we could have taken a boat. By that point, though, we were frustrated with all of our misguided transportation advice and asked him just to take us to KSR. Well, he did it and ended up being a really nice guy. His English was very good and he told us that he’d even lived for a number of years in Brunei. Henry tried to call us at some point after he’d gotten his card and we told him to just take a cab over if he wanted to meet up with us because the transportation was just ridiculous to get there.
Once we finally got to KSR, we were horrified by what we saw. A few images: loose tanktops, pizzas and mojitos, dreadlocks, McDonald’s, Jimmy Buffet, really shitty street food. But these images don’t really do it justice. KSR is kind of revered in a lot of travelling circles for being this almost Mecca for people backpacking through SE Asia. The funny thing is, though, aside from the fact that it’s located in Thailand, there’ absolutely nothing Thai about it. There’s a McDonald’s, a Burger King and a KFC on one side of the street with another McDonald’s a little further down. People are pedaling shitty trinkets, sunglasses, shirts with pictures of Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes peeing on things. It really just seemed like a place for where foreigners went in Bangkok if they wanted to get trashed and hang out with other foreigners. The only, and I mean only, redeeming quality was that the prices for rooms were incredibly low (less than half of what we were paying).
Anyway, we walked around KSR a bit looking for this bookshop Joey wanted to find and eventually we ran across it after some searching. I sold a book I’d brought with me but which I’d realized was too big, bulky, and heavy and another one which I’d started and didn’t like. In exchange, I got an Asimov book and a Rough Guide to Laos. I only ended up paying about 3 bucks. Sweet! Henry called us again while Joey was still in the bookstore and said he was at Mo Chit and what to do now. Apparently he hadn’t taken our advice and instead had listened to the same guy from the hotel who’d told us to take the BTS to that station and then a bus. Well, we told him KSR was pretty shitty and he decided to just walk around a bit near Mo Chit and that he’d meet up with us back at the hotel later.
We were pretty much finished with KSR before we even got out of the cab so nobody was too pissed when we decided to leave after we were done with the book store. We walked back out to the main road but the taxi drivers were trying to screw us on prices like they can probably do to the usual KSR crowd. Well, we walked a bit down and then caught a cab back to the hotel.
Back there, we relaxed a bit, played some cards and then decided to go looking for a couple brewpubs that Henry had heard of. One was supposed to be pretty close to our hotel in a mall but when we got there we couldn’t find it. Oh well. So then we took the BTS a little ways away and found the other brewpub. Once we walked in, though, we realized that it was super expensive, like US prices. Instead, we turned around and walked back to this Irish/English pub (there weren’t too many distinguishing characteristics making it lean one way or the other) where we had a couple pints of some various Asian beers.
Around 9 PM we headed back to the hotel and relaxed outside while we waited for Tracy. Eventually she showed up and we sat around talking for quite a while. The original plan was that she was going to meet up with us and then take us to an island about 4 hours to the east. I was not aware of this, though, and had assumed we were going to head down to the southern part of the country where there are a lot more options as far as islands go. Turns out, though, that Tracy was a bit broke at the time and she had wanted to go with another volunteer who was supposed to be coming back from vacation the next morning. She ended up deciding not to go with us which may have been for the best because then we were able to change our plans and head down south instead.
The next morning, Tracy went with us to the train station and we found out that the train heading down south to Surat Thani—where we would need to disembark to go to any number of islands—didn’t leave until 7:30 that night. Bummer. We pretty much just hung out at the train station all day, walking around a bit, playing some Settlers, eating some street food, and Henry and I poured a bunch of baht into this PS2 system that was set up and played each other in soccer a bunch of times. I think at our final tally we were tied at 2 games apiece and when time ran out, the 5th game was also tied.
We got a bit more food and then loaded up on the train. We were taking third class which wasn’t too bad to be honest. Sure beat second class in Cameroon. The seats were basically just benches with straight upright backs. We weren’t too sure about how the seating worked out so we just stretched out over a bunch of seats that were facing each other and relaxed. Patrick and I had bought a big piece of grilled chicken before we left so we slowly munched on that throughout the trip. The trip was fairly uneventful. We took turns watching stuff on Joey’s and my computers, and I think around 1ish I stretched out on one of the benches and had a pretty rough sleep. I didn’t sleep that well but it was a bit odd because every time I woke up I didn’t seem to mind too much.
Sometime before dawn on the 10th I woke up. I was pretty tired but managed to stay awake for another few hours until we got to the station (around 9). Right away we decided to go across the street and get some food and I think I got some spicy fried pork over rice. It was pretty good if I remember correctly.
When we emerged from the restaurant, we didn’t see any more of the buses that would take us to Don Sak (or Dog Sack as we called it), a town around 60 kilometers to the east where the ferry terminal was. The buses had left almost immediately when we got there and so we had to take a bus to the town center/bus station, and then from there we got a shared taxi to Don Sak. And by Shared taxi, I mean a pickup truck with a covered back and three rows of benches going length wise. It would go along the highway and periodically stop to pick people up who would then hang off the back for a while and then drop others off. It rained a bit while for the hour long ride to Don Sak and the mist coming up from the back tires made my pants pretty wet as I was the one sitting closest to the back.
We had decided to go to the island of Ko Phangan in the Andaman Gulf (eastern coast of the peninsula). I’d read about a bunch of different islands that were possible to go to but most either sounded incredibly touristy or pretty difficult to get to. Ko Phangan had been described as somewhere in between. Yes, it was big on backpacker circuits but it didn’t seem to have the extravagant resorts and deluxe dining options that some places like Phuket, Ko Phi Phi, or even neighboring Ko Samui had. So we chose Ko Phangan and caught a ferry just in time to make it there. The ride was a little over two hours and we passed the time by napping and playing cards.
We got in to the port town and once there everyone was trying to rip us off to hop back into the share pickup taxis and so after a bit of try to haggle we did what would become our go to move when in a new town on this trip: walk away from the port/bus station/etc., find a place to sit down and have a beer. That way we could relax a bit, pull out the guidebook, and even ask some of the locals around about what to do in our situation. Around the corner from the little corner store we were sitting at was a weird shack with a TV and loads of Thai guys watching it. I think that on the TV was Thai boxing, but it could have been any of a number of martial arts. I didn’t see any money out, but I got the impression this might have been some sort of underground betting place. It was also the only place selling beers so I bought one for each of us (a bit pricey) and talked with the guy who was running it a bit. His English was pretty shaky but he seemed pretty chill and somewhat confused by what I was doing buying beer and trying to start a conversation from him. After a couple minutes of trying, I gave up and walked back to the corner store.
One woman who was riding by in a food cart attached to a moto stopped to see if we wanted anything to eat. We politely declined but then she asked us where we were staying. We told her and she said something like “Oh, that’s far.” We asked her how much it should be, if she knew if hotels sent cars to pick people up, etc. She offered, though to call the hotel for us to ask what to do. She talked with them and then said they were holding two rooms for us and the price of a shared pickup. She was super nice, so I bought a beer from her and then gave it to her as a present.
We got the share taxi to the hotel, which was quite a ways away, and the price was only about half of what they had been asking earlier. Joey and I stood at the back of the pickup so we could see the scenery and talk a bit more. It was really good catching up with him. He and I have had our differences in the past but I’m really glad we’ve gotten past them and that he came to meet up with us in Thailand. Anyway, the ride was gorgeous. I’d been expecting a pretty small island but this place was really big. It took around 45 minutes to get all the way to our hotel and we were driving through small mountains, dense forests, a bit along the coast, up really steep hills and zipping around corners so we had to hold on tight to not get thrown. It was great.
We got to our hotel and the scenery again was amazing. It was right on the beach on the northeastern part of the island and it was situated in a little bay with another island a little ways off that you could walk to on a sandbar at low tide. (The hotel’s called the Royal Orchid, by the way.) We checked in and got each room for around 6 dollars a night. I found the place to be really nice and charming but somebody made the comment that in the states (or many other places) a hotel like this could be considered roughing it. Our rooms didn’t have A/C or hot water and consisted really of just a bed, a fan, a bathroom, and a porch with a hammock. To be honest, though, I couldn’t have asked for more.
We got settled and ate a little supper there: overpriced and underspiced—I guess I could have asked for one thing more. We talked a little with a couple Germans who were also staying there but then at 9:30 our share pickup came to take us to the Full Moon Party across the island. Patrick opted not to go as he was too tired, and didn’t think he’d enjoy it but Joey, Henry, Paul and I all decided to suck it up and do it. You’ll have to wait for the next post to hear about that debauchery and nonsense.
Well, I wanted to check out Kao San Road (or KSR as it’s known in the travelling communities) and Paul was down too. Patrick didn’t really feel like going to UPS with Henry so the three of us all tagged along with Joey. We asked the guy at our hotel how to get there and he told us to take the elevated train (BTS) all the way to the end and then from there to take a bus. So we hopped on the BTS and took it to a stop called Mo Chit and then from there wandered around a bit looking for a bus. Well, we couldn’t find one but eventually found a map and realized that we’d travelled quite a distance and we were still the same distance from KSR as from when we started.
We decided to hop on the MRT—the subway—which we started calling the Mr. T. We took that for a few stops because it looked like it would get us a bit closer to KSR. Finally once we got there, we found a taxi who didn’t seem to keen on taking us and instead offered to drop us at one of the canals where we could have taken a boat. By that point, though, we were frustrated with all of our misguided transportation advice and asked him just to take us to KSR. Well, he did it and ended up being a really nice guy. His English was very good and he told us that he’d even lived for a number of years in Brunei. Henry tried to call us at some point after he’d gotten his card and we told him to just take a cab over if he wanted to meet up with us because the transportation was just ridiculous to get there.
Once we finally got to KSR, we were horrified by what we saw. A few images: loose tanktops, pizzas and mojitos, dreadlocks, McDonald’s, Jimmy Buffet, really shitty street food. But these images don’t really do it justice. KSR is kind of revered in a lot of travelling circles for being this almost Mecca for people backpacking through SE Asia. The funny thing is, though, aside from the fact that it’s located in Thailand, there’ absolutely nothing Thai about it. There’s a McDonald’s, a Burger King and a KFC on one side of the street with another McDonald’s a little further down. People are pedaling shitty trinkets, sunglasses, shirts with pictures of Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes peeing on things. It really just seemed like a place for where foreigners went in Bangkok if they wanted to get trashed and hang out with other foreigners. The only, and I mean only, redeeming quality was that the prices for rooms were incredibly low (less than half of what we were paying).
Anyway, we walked around KSR a bit looking for this bookshop Joey wanted to find and eventually we ran across it after some searching. I sold a book I’d brought with me but which I’d realized was too big, bulky, and heavy and another one which I’d started and didn’t like. In exchange, I got an Asimov book and a Rough Guide to Laos. I only ended up paying about 3 bucks. Sweet! Henry called us again while Joey was still in the bookstore and said he was at Mo Chit and what to do now. Apparently he hadn’t taken our advice and instead had listened to the same guy from the hotel who’d told us to take the BTS to that station and then a bus. Well, we told him KSR was pretty shitty and he decided to just walk around a bit near Mo Chit and that he’d meet up with us back at the hotel later.
We were pretty much finished with KSR before we even got out of the cab so nobody was too pissed when we decided to leave after we were done with the book store. We walked back out to the main road but the taxi drivers were trying to screw us on prices like they can probably do to the usual KSR crowd. Well, we walked a bit down and then caught a cab back to the hotel.
Back there, we relaxed a bit, played some cards and then decided to go looking for a couple brewpubs that Henry had heard of. One was supposed to be pretty close to our hotel in a mall but when we got there we couldn’t find it. Oh well. So then we took the BTS a little ways away and found the other brewpub. Once we walked in, though, we realized that it was super expensive, like US prices. Instead, we turned around and walked back to this Irish/English pub (there weren’t too many distinguishing characteristics making it lean one way or the other) where we had a couple pints of some various Asian beers.
Around 9 PM we headed back to the hotel and relaxed outside while we waited for Tracy. Eventually she showed up and we sat around talking for quite a while. The original plan was that she was going to meet up with us and then take us to an island about 4 hours to the east. I was not aware of this, though, and had assumed we were going to head down to the southern part of the country where there are a lot more options as far as islands go. Turns out, though, that Tracy was a bit broke at the time and she had wanted to go with another volunteer who was supposed to be coming back from vacation the next morning. She ended up deciding not to go with us which may have been for the best because then we were able to change our plans and head down south instead.
The next morning, Tracy went with us to the train station and we found out that the train heading down south to Surat Thani—where we would need to disembark to go to any number of islands—didn’t leave until 7:30 that night. Bummer. We pretty much just hung out at the train station all day, walking around a bit, playing some Settlers, eating some street food, and Henry and I poured a bunch of baht into this PS2 system that was set up and played each other in soccer a bunch of times. I think at our final tally we were tied at 2 games apiece and when time ran out, the 5th game was also tied.
We got a bit more food and then loaded up on the train. We were taking third class which wasn’t too bad to be honest. Sure beat second class in Cameroon. The seats were basically just benches with straight upright backs. We weren’t too sure about how the seating worked out so we just stretched out over a bunch of seats that were facing each other and relaxed. Patrick and I had bought a big piece of grilled chicken before we left so we slowly munched on that throughout the trip. The trip was fairly uneventful. We took turns watching stuff on Joey’s and my computers, and I think around 1ish I stretched out on one of the benches and had a pretty rough sleep. I didn’t sleep that well but it was a bit odd because every time I woke up I didn’t seem to mind too much.
Sometime before dawn on the 10th I woke up. I was pretty tired but managed to stay awake for another few hours until we got to the station (around 9). Right away we decided to go across the street and get some food and I think I got some spicy fried pork over rice. It was pretty good if I remember correctly.
When we emerged from the restaurant, we didn’t see any more of the buses that would take us to Don Sak (or Dog Sack as we called it), a town around 60 kilometers to the east where the ferry terminal was. The buses had left almost immediately when we got there and so we had to take a bus to the town center/bus station, and then from there we got a shared taxi to Don Sak. And by Shared taxi, I mean a pickup truck with a covered back and three rows of benches going length wise. It would go along the highway and periodically stop to pick people up who would then hang off the back for a while and then drop others off. It rained a bit while for the hour long ride to Don Sak and the mist coming up from the back tires made my pants pretty wet as I was the one sitting closest to the back.
We had decided to go to the island of Ko Phangan in the Andaman Gulf (eastern coast of the peninsula). I’d read about a bunch of different islands that were possible to go to but most either sounded incredibly touristy or pretty difficult to get to. Ko Phangan had been described as somewhere in between. Yes, it was big on backpacker circuits but it didn’t seem to have the extravagant resorts and deluxe dining options that some places like Phuket, Ko Phi Phi, or even neighboring Ko Samui had. So we chose Ko Phangan and caught a ferry just in time to make it there. The ride was a little over two hours and we passed the time by napping and playing cards.
We got in to the port town and once there everyone was trying to rip us off to hop back into the share pickup taxis and so after a bit of try to haggle we did what would become our go to move when in a new town on this trip: walk away from the port/bus station/etc., find a place to sit down and have a beer. That way we could relax a bit, pull out the guidebook, and even ask some of the locals around about what to do in our situation. Around the corner from the little corner store we were sitting at was a weird shack with a TV and loads of Thai guys watching it. I think that on the TV was Thai boxing, but it could have been any of a number of martial arts. I didn’t see any money out, but I got the impression this might have been some sort of underground betting place. It was also the only place selling beers so I bought one for each of us (a bit pricey) and talked with the guy who was running it a bit. His English was pretty shaky but he seemed pretty chill and somewhat confused by what I was doing buying beer and trying to start a conversation from him. After a couple minutes of trying, I gave up and walked back to the corner store.
One woman who was riding by in a food cart attached to a moto stopped to see if we wanted anything to eat. We politely declined but then she asked us where we were staying. We told her and she said something like “Oh, that’s far.” We asked her how much it should be, if she knew if hotels sent cars to pick people up, etc. She offered, though to call the hotel for us to ask what to do. She talked with them and then said they were holding two rooms for us and the price of a shared pickup. She was super nice, so I bought a beer from her and then gave it to her as a present.
We got the share taxi to the hotel, which was quite a ways away, and the price was only about half of what they had been asking earlier. Joey and I stood at the back of the pickup so we could see the scenery and talk a bit more. It was really good catching up with him. He and I have had our differences in the past but I’m really glad we’ve gotten past them and that he came to meet up with us in Thailand. Anyway, the ride was gorgeous. I’d been expecting a pretty small island but this place was really big. It took around 45 minutes to get all the way to our hotel and we were driving through small mountains, dense forests, a bit along the coast, up really steep hills and zipping around corners so we had to hold on tight to not get thrown. It was great.
We got to our hotel and the scenery again was amazing. It was right on the beach on the northeastern part of the island and it was situated in a little bay with another island a little ways off that you could walk to on a sandbar at low tide. (The hotel’s called the Royal Orchid, by the way.) We checked in and got each room for around 6 dollars a night. I found the place to be really nice and charming but somebody made the comment that in the states (or many other places) a hotel like this could be considered roughing it. Our rooms didn’t have A/C or hot water and consisted really of just a bed, a fan, a bathroom, and a porch with a hammock. To be honest, though, I couldn’t have asked for more.
We got settled and ate a little supper there: overpriced and underspiced—I guess I could have asked for one thing more. We talked a little with a couple Germans who were also staying there but then at 9:30 our share pickup came to take us to the Full Moon Party across the island. Patrick opted not to go as he was too tired, and didn’t think he’d enjoy it but Joey, Henry, Paul and I all decided to suck it up and do it. You’ll have to wait for the next post to hear about that debauchery and nonsense.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Welcome to Thailand: hello, change of scenery
Paul, Henry, and I arrived in Bangkok mid-afternoon on December 6th by way of Nairobi. Flying into Bangkok was a bit of a head trip. For one, we could see a bit of the evidence of the recent flooding on the outskirts of town. I read that Bangkok was spared most of the damage of the flooding because the government diverted the water and flooded a lot of suburbs and cities nearby instead. We didn’t see too much water and, to be honest, some of that could easily have just been rice farms, but whatever the case I saw a lot more water around a huge metropolitan city than I would have expected somewhere else.
On that subject of huge metropolitan cities: Bangkok is gigantic. I’m not sure of the exact population but it might be the biggest city I’ve ever been to—and I’m including New York in that list. It’s like a mixture of the tall buildings everywhere from New York mixed with the spread-out-ness and car culture of LA, all wrapped with an Asian flair. Oh yeah, and they drive on the left side of the street too. Who still does that?!
Anyway, the three of us arrived and waited around near the baggage claim for Patrick who was on a different flight from Addis Ababa which arrived only a short while after us. We met up with him and then took the sky train into the heart of town. It was when we were on the sky train that the level of development really hit home for me. We were flying through at speeds of probably close to 100 km/h and from the windows we saw ten-lane highways, huge condominiums, shopping malls seemingly every twenty seconds, and (my personal favorite) Manchester United billboards all over the place. (MU has a big following in Asia and many companies are official sponsors so they use MU logos and images in their ads.)
Well, we got to the heart of town and rather than try to figure out the elevated train, we decided to walk what looked on the map to be just a few blocks. Well, it was a bit more than a few blocks but we made it and found a hotel to check in to. Patrick went and bought a SIM card for his cell phone and we ate our first Thai dishes. I got a Pad Thai (a bit cliché, I know) and it was fantastic. I had a few more Pad Thais from this women over the next couple weeks but this was definitely the best one. I think it was so good because it was my first meal in Thailand as well as my first taste of Thai food in about two and a half years.
After we ate, we decided to walk around some and retraced our steps a bit back towards the sky train as we’d seen some cool eateries and bars near a canal that was a few blocks that way. Well, we got there and the food stand was just that: a little stand with some ingredients, a few tables, and a few coolers filled with soda and beer. Well, we pulled a table out behind the stand near the canal. We ordered another plate of food, a few beers, and started playing some euker (a card game I picked up from other PCVs in Cameroon). Well, the light was getting pretty dim so we moved back closer to the stand and snagged a table there under a light. We saw an older white man sitting at another table chatting with the women there in Thai and sipping on a beer himself.
Well, we continued our game of euker and the woman from the stand came over at one point and looked on a little incredulously. Then, she started laughing and rattled something off in Thai towards us and went back to cooking. The white dude behind us laughed a bit and told us that she thought we were gambling. We asked him to explain to her that we weren’t gambling but merely playing a game. He shrugged it off and said it didn’t really matter because the police wouldn’t bother this woman. I did a bit of a double-take and asked something like, “Why would the police care if we played cards?” To which he responded, “Well, gambling is illegal here and if the police wanted to they could come up and arrest you or extort a big bribe from you for gambling because how are you going to prove you weren’t?” He really shrugged it off when we asked if we should quit playing or not which later made me wonder if playing cards was really such a big offense. (Note, however, I still have not seen anyone else playing cards in Thailand—foreigner or otherwise.)
About that time my buddy Joey from college called Patrick’s phone (I’d left the number at the hotel) telling me he was waiting for me at the hotel. Sweet! Joey has been travelling for over a year now and was most recently in India. I told him a while back that I’d be in Thailand in December so he decided to meet up with us for a bit. Well, he dropped his stuff off in Paul’s and my room and then we headed back to the bar/eaterie. By the time we got back the white guy was sitting at our table (stole my seat!) and was giving Paul and Patrick loads of advice and tips about Thai culture, customs, laws, etc. I found out his name was John and he was Australian, but he’d been living in Thailand for a very long time, he wouldn’t really say how long, only that he was on his third Thai wife. Some of his advice for us was pretty bizarre, though. For example, “don’t insult a ladybody, she’s much more beautiful and stronger than you are,” and “don’t rip, throw, or kick the Thai money, because the king’s face is on it!” Well shucks, I sure do love just kicking money.
After a while of talking with John we decided to head back to the hotel and turn in for the night. Paul and I split a room with Joey crashing on our floor and then Patrick and Henry split the other room.
****
The next day, I was the first awake at about 10. Jet lag will do that to you but luckily this was about the worst we got of it. We ate some grub and then went to the Citibank Bangkok office because Henry needed to pick up his new ATM card which he’d arranged to have sent there for him. Well, it wasn’t there and they just told him to call the US hotline and ask what to do. So we walked around a bit and I was incredibly tempted to hit up a Starbucks, though it was on the other side of the 8-lane street. Passed. We found a really cool outdoor market and basically sport-ate our way through it. Some of the things I remember eating: sushi, Thai sausages, grilled chicken, mangoes. We wandered around this sprawling market for a while, got lost, and when we came out the other side we just kept on walking. I think we walked for a ways through one of the financial districts before finding some noodle soup to snack on.
Eventually we found our way back to the elevated train and took it back to the hotel where we grabbed a couple beers, played some Settlers of Catan and relaxed. We started chatting with a French guy named Julian who was also staying at the hotel and he was at the tail end of a month-long trip that took him through Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.
After chilling for a while we started hearing a faint cheering sound which was to be the main part of our night’s entertainment: Thai boxing. At one of the mall’s near our hotel they set up a rink and have Thai boxing matches every Wednesday. So we walked over and looked down on it from the platform of the elevated train. It was some pretty cool stuff and an American woman was even one of the participants. She lost, though, I think she took a few too many kicks to the guy. We started getting bets going about who would win each match: either the red trunks or the blue trunks. We also stipulated that we had to chose our corner before the match actually started, so we were basing the majority of our judgment on physical appearance, coolness of name, and how well they performed their dance before the match. Oh yeah, I had it down to a science as the players I supported won almost every time.
After a bit of that, we walked around and found some more food. I was being restless and kept looking for different food and ended up walking quite a ways. Finally we found a place that looked decent but as soon as we approached these shirtless guys sitting outside near our table were trying to get us to buy the food there. We kept asking them how much the dishes were and the prices were fluctuating incredibly. I mean, c’mon. If you’re going to scam us, at least be smart and consistent about it. We ended up leaving and going back towards the hotel and found something to eat around there. We talked with Julian a bit more and then found out that he had to wake up at 4 to catch a cab to the airport. Well, it was almost 1 at this point so we all decided it’d be a good idea to crash. (Un?)Fortunately, Joey and I weren’t that tired so we decided it’d be a good idea to call a bunch of our friends from back in Seattle and Phoenix using Gmail Call (1 cent a minute!). Eventually ,we got tired enough to go to sleep and Patrick told us the next day that they’d heard us giggling from the next room until about 3 am. It’s still hard for me to tell whether this was jetlag or just Joey and I whenever we get together. Probably both.
On that subject of huge metropolitan cities: Bangkok is gigantic. I’m not sure of the exact population but it might be the biggest city I’ve ever been to—and I’m including New York in that list. It’s like a mixture of the tall buildings everywhere from New York mixed with the spread-out-ness and car culture of LA, all wrapped with an Asian flair. Oh yeah, and they drive on the left side of the street too. Who still does that?!
Anyway, the three of us arrived and waited around near the baggage claim for Patrick who was on a different flight from Addis Ababa which arrived only a short while after us. We met up with him and then took the sky train into the heart of town. It was when we were on the sky train that the level of development really hit home for me. We were flying through at speeds of probably close to 100 km/h and from the windows we saw ten-lane highways, huge condominiums, shopping malls seemingly every twenty seconds, and (my personal favorite) Manchester United billboards all over the place. (MU has a big following in Asia and many companies are official sponsors so they use MU logos and images in their ads.)
Well, we got to the heart of town and rather than try to figure out the elevated train, we decided to walk what looked on the map to be just a few blocks. Well, it was a bit more than a few blocks but we made it and found a hotel to check in to. Patrick went and bought a SIM card for his cell phone and we ate our first Thai dishes. I got a Pad Thai (a bit cliché, I know) and it was fantastic. I had a few more Pad Thais from this women over the next couple weeks but this was definitely the best one. I think it was so good because it was my first meal in Thailand as well as my first taste of Thai food in about two and a half years.
After we ate, we decided to walk around some and retraced our steps a bit back towards the sky train as we’d seen some cool eateries and bars near a canal that was a few blocks that way. Well, we got there and the food stand was just that: a little stand with some ingredients, a few tables, and a few coolers filled with soda and beer. Well, we pulled a table out behind the stand near the canal. We ordered another plate of food, a few beers, and started playing some euker (a card game I picked up from other PCVs in Cameroon). Well, the light was getting pretty dim so we moved back closer to the stand and snagged a table there under a light. We saw an older white man sitting at another table chatting with the women there in Thai and sipping on a beer himself.
Well, we continued our game of euker and the woman from the stand came over at one point and looked on a little incredulously. Then, she started laughing and rattled something off in Thai towards us and went back to cooking. The white dude behind us laughed a bit and told us that she thought we were gambling. We asked him to explain to her that we weren’t gambling but merely playing a game. He shrugged it off and said it didn’t really matter because the police wouldn’t bother this woman. I did a bit of a double-take and asked something like, “Why would the police care if we played cards?” To which he responded, “Well, gambling is illegal here and if the police wanted to they could come up and arrest you or extort a big bribe from you for gambling because how are you going to prove you weren’t?” He really shrugged it off when we asked if we should quit playing or not which later made me wonder if playing cards was really such a big offense. (Note, however, I still have not seen anyone else playing cards in Thailand—foreigner or otherwise.)
About that time my buddy Joey from college called Patrick’s phone (I’d left the number at the hotel) telling me he was waiting for me at the hotel. Sweet! Joey has been travelling for over a year now and was most recently in India. I told him a while back that I’d be in Thailand in December so he decided to meet up with us for a bit. Well, he dropped his stuff off in Paul’s and my room and then we headed back to the bar/eaterie. By the time we got back the white guy was sitting at our table (stole my seat!) and was giving Paul and Patrick loads of advice and tips about Thai culture, customs, laws, etc. I found out his name was John and he was Australian, but he’d been living in Thailand for a very long time, he wouldn’t really say how long, only that he was on his third Thai wife. Some of his advice for us was pretty bizarre, though. For example, “don’t insult a ladybody, she’s much more beautiful and stronger than you are,” and “don’t rip, throw, or kick the Thai money, because the king’s face is on it!” Well shucks, I sure do love just kicking money.
After a while of talking with John we decided to head back to the hotel and turn in for the night. Paul and I split a room with Joey crashing on our floor and then Patrick and Henry split the other room.
****
The next day, I was the first awake at about 10. Jet lag will do that to you but luckily this was about the worst we got of it. We ate some grub and then went to the Citibank Bangkok office because Henry needed to pick up his new ATM card which he’d arranged to have sent there for him. Well, it wasn’t there and they just told him to call the US hotline and ask what to do. So we walked around a bit and I was incredibly tempted to hit up a Starbucks, though it was on the other side of the 8-lane street. Passed. We found a really cool outdoor market and basically sport-ate our way through it. Some of the things I remember eating: sushi, Thai sausages, grilled chicken, mangoes. We wandered around this sprawling market for a while, got lost, and when we came out the other side we just kept on walking. I think we walked for a ways through one of the financial districts before finding some noodle soup to snack on.
Eventually we found our way back to the elevated train and took it back to the hotel where we grabbed a couple beers, played some Settlers of Catan and relaxed. We started chatting with a French guy named Julian who was also staying at the hotel and he was at the tail end of a month-long trip that took him through Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.
After chilling for a while we started hearing a faint cheering sound which was to be the main part of our night’s entertainment: Thai boxing. At one of the mall’s near our hotel they set up a rink and have Thai boxing matches every Wednesday. So we walked over and looked down on it from the platform of the elevated train. It was some pretty cool stuff and an American woman was even one of the participants. She lost, though, I think she took a few too many kicks to the guy. We started getting bets going about who would win each match: either the red trunks or the blue trunks. We also stipulated that we had to chose our corner before the match actually started, so we were basing the majority of our judgment on physical appearance, coolness of name, and how well they performed their dance before the match. Oh yeah, I had it down to a science as the players I supported won almost every time.
After a bit of that, we walked around and found some more food. I was being restless and kept looking for different food and ended up walking quite a ways. Finally we found a place that looked decent but as soon as we approached these shirtless guys sitting outside near our table were trying to get us to buy the food there. We kept asking them how much the dishes were and the prices were fluctuating incredibly. I mean, c’mon. If you’re going to scam us, at least be smart and consistent about it. We ended up leaving and going back towards the hotel and found something to eat around there. We talked with Julian a bit more and then found out that he had to wake up at 4 to catch a cab to the airport. Well, it was almost 1 at this point so we all decided it’d be a good idea to crash. (Un?)Fortunately, Joey and I weren’t that tired so we decided it’d be a good idea to call a bunch of our friends from back in Seattle and Phoenix using Gmail Call (1 cent a minute!). Eventually ,we got tired enough to go to sleep and Patrick told us the next day that they’d heard us giggling from the next room until about 3 am. It’s still hard for me to tell whether this was jetlag or just Joey and I whenever we get together. Probably both.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Au Revoir
Well, my time here in Cameroon is coming to a close. In less than a week I will be out of Ngong and on my way. It’s been a terribly interesting experience here, both with Peace Corps and Cameroon. Some other volunteers have had their problems with PC and the Cameroonians they work and live with but the vast majority of my experiences have been very positive. If you’re thinking of joining the Peace Corps, I strongly suggest it—but only if you’re open enough and flexible enough to do it. I'll be doing some traveling in the coming months, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to or want to continue blogging. If I do continue, it'll be here on this site. Anyway, I don’t really know how to say goodbye on a blog or anything so instead I’ll just make a list of a few observations I’ve made and experiences I’ve had here…
Malaria sucks. There’s no other way around it, I’ve never felt that sick in my life.
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, soccer is actually pretty cool.
No matter how awkward anyone is at dancing, Cameroonians love it. One of my favorite things about this country is that in almost any social situation, somebody can stand up and just start dancing (with or without a dance floor, usually the latter) and nobody thinks anything of it.
From everything I’ve seen, corruption and aid money are the two biggest deterrents for actual development.
Big 66 cl beers are far superior to small 33 cl beers.
Traditional wine—like bilbil or palm wine—is awesome, but don’t expect your bowels to agree with that statement.
Moto accidents suck. I’ve been in two but luckily neither of them was that bad.
Some people are just small-minded assholes. I sat at a restaurant in Yaounde once talking with somebody for an hour who accused me of being a spy. At the end of that hour, he still wouldn’t shake my hand. I’ve also seen volunteers berate Cameroonians for not being open to new things and then refuse to even try a meal that a friend prepared for them.
People can survive in 120 degree weather. But they don’t have to like it.
“Africa” by Toto, in all its kitschy glory, is actually a fantastic soundtrack to my life here.
Who knew grown men would follow Brazilian soap operas that are dubbed (poorly) in French?
The more it happened, the more it pissed me off when people would call me “white man” 40 times a day. I thought I would have gotten used to it. A good response, though, is “villageois”. Kinda like just calling someone ignorant or a redneck.
Cameroonian food can be amazing. With the right ingredients and spices it can be some of the best food I’ve ever had. Without those two things, though, it can be some of the most boring food I’ve ever had.
Having a cell phone that plays music is actual quite handy when packed into a bus and the only music playing is an auto-tuned woman singing in Hausa about cows.
I’ve gotten really comfortable being uncomfortable.
Malaria sucks. There’s no other way around it, I’ve never felt that sick in my life.
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, soccer is actually pretty cool.
No matter how awkward anyone is at dancing, Cameroonians love it. One of my favorite things about this country is that in almost any social situation, somebody can stand up and just start dancing (with or without a dance floor, usually the latter) and nobody thinks anything of it.
From everything I’ve seen, corruption and aid money are the two biggest deterrents for actual development.
Big 66 cl beers are far superior to small 33 cl beers.
Traditional wine—like bilbil or palm wine—is awesome, but don’t expect your bowels to agree with that statement.
Moto accidents suck. I’ve been in two but luckily neither of them was that bad.
Some people are just small-minded assholes. I sat at a restaurant in Yaounde once talking with somebody for an hour who accused me of being a spy. At the end of that hour, he still wouldn’t shake my hand. I’ve also seen volunteers berate Cameroonians for not being open to new things and then refuse to even try a meal that a friend prepared for them.
People can survive in 120 degree weather. But they don’t have to like it.
“Africa” by Toto, in all its kitschy glory, is actually a fantastic soundtrack to my life here.
Who knew grown men would follow Brazilian soap operas that are dubbed (poorly) in French?
The more it happened, the more it pissed me off when people would call me “white man” 40 times a day. I thought I would have gotten used to it. A good response, though, is “villageois”. Kinda like just calling someone ignorant or a redneck.
Cameroonian food can be amazing. With the right ingredients and spices it can be some of the best food I’ve ever had. Without those two things, though, it can be some of the most boring food I’ve ever had.
Having a cell phone that plays music is actual quite handy when packed into a bus and the only music playing is an auto-tuned woman singing in Hausa about cows.
I’ve gotten really comfortable being uncomfortable.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Time
Time is something here that’s taken me a bit of getting used to. The Cameroonian (dare I saw “African”? I’m not sure it’s similar continent-wide) way of looking at time is incredibly different than my western, American way. I’ll try to describe some of the differences.
Well, for starters, people here are almost always late. I don’t mean like a number of people are consistently showing up 5 minutes late to meetings, I mean people don’t even start showing up most of the time until 45 minutes after it was supposed to start. I’m usually about 10-15 minutes late every Saturday for soccer practice and most of the time I’m one of the first five people to arrive. Another time, I was trying to hold a food security workshop for local women in community groups. It was supposed to be at a conference room at the mayor’s office and was also supposed to start at 8:30. Well, we told everyone to get there at 8 o’clock sharp and, sure enough, by 8:30 there was only 3 people there. (That turned out lucky, though, because my collaborator couldn’t show up until much later.) Finally around 10 we started, though most people had shown up by around 9:30.
I have a running joke with the doctor at the hospital about time. When he tells me a time to meet him somewhere I always immediately ask him, “Is that WMT or BMT?” Those acronyms stand for White Man Time and Black Man Time. White man time invariably means that if you show up one minute late: you’re late. Black man time means that you can show up sometime in the general vicinity of the given time, usually about 30 minutes late. (Side note: Those two phrases aren’t nearly as racist as everyone in the US ais probably thinking. Nope. In Cameroonian English and culture they don’t refer to Americans or Europeans as foreigners that often, instead we become “white man”—even the women—and any African is “black man.”)
The doctor frequently asks me if we can make our time “more elastic” when he’s running late, which is something I got a bit frustrated with at first. “Why tell me to be here at 7:30 if we won’t leave until 9?” I’d think. Eventually, though, I just learned to be patient. I’d shrug my shoulders, sit down, and people watch while waiting for him. I mean, most of the time I had nothing else to do, so why should I be rushed?
When I first arrived here, I didn’t really understand why people are so habitually late. Is it because of laziness? Is it because nobody wants to waste their time when everyone else is going to be late as well? Is it because nobody respects other people’s time? I think all of these reasons have potentially some degree of validity, but I also think it goes deeper than that. I believe now that Cameroonians just have a vastly different outlook on time and, consequently, life than most Americans.
In our western worldview, we tend to look at time as something fixed, as something that exists and, to a large extent, we follow. We tell people we’ll see them at a certain time, we want to watch a particular TV show at another time, we have to be at work no later than yet another time. In doing this, we kind of let time control us. Sure, we can make a decision to do something at a specific time, but then we pretty much have to plan everything else around it and be held captive or simply blow it off with the full knowledge that we missed out on something or inconvenienced somebody else.
Cameroonians look at time in a different way. Instead of being controlled by time, they look at it as something that you control, or something to disregard. Meeting at 4? Well, I’m not going to drop everything to go to it. I’ll finish what I’m doing, take care of myself and then show up when I show up. Will it be a bother to somebody if I’m not there at the time we agreed upon? Probably not, he’s probably doing the same thing. Instead of living by the clock like many Americans do, Cameroonians just live and act how they want to and often look at the time as an afterthought.
Well, for starters, people here are almost always late. I don’t mean like a number of people are consistently showing up 5 minutes late to meetings, I mean people don’t even start showing up most of the time until 45 minutes after it was supposed to start. I’m usually about 10-15 minutes late every Saturday for soccer practice and most of the time I’m one of the first five people to arrive. Another time, I was trying to hold a food security workshop for local women in community groups. It was supposed to be at a conference room at the mayor’s office and was also supposed to start at 8:30. Well, we told everyone to get there at 8 o’clock sharp and, sure enough, by 8:30 there was only 3 people there. (That turned out lucky, though, because my collaborator couldn’t show up until much later.) Finally around 10 we started, though most people had shown up by around 9:30.
I have a running joke with the doctor at the hospital about time. When he tells me a time to meet him somewhere I always immediately ask him, “Is that WMT or BMT?” Those acronyms stand for White Man Time and Black Man Time. White man time invariably means that if you show up one minute late: you’re late. Black man time means that you can show up sometime in the general vicinity of the given time, usually about 30 minutes late. (Side note: Those two phrases aren’t nearly as racist as everyone in the US ais probably thinking. Nope. In Cameroonian English and culture they don’t refer to Americans or Europeans as foreigners that often, instead we become “white man”—even the women—and any African is “black man.”)
The doctor frequently asks me if we can make our time “more elastic” when he’s running late, which is something I got a bit frustrated with at first. “Why tell me to be here at 7:30 if we won’t leave until 9?” I’d think. Eventually, though, I just learned to be patient. I’d shrug my shoulders, sit down, and people watch while waiting for him. I mean, most of the time I had nothing else to do, so why should I be rushed?
When I first arrived here, I didn’t really understand why people are so habitually late. Is it because of laziness? Is it because nobody wants to waste their time when everyone else is going to be late as well? Is it because nobody respects other people’s time? I think all of these reasons have potentially some degree of validity, but I also think it goes deeper than that. I believe now that Cameroonians just have a vastly different outlook on time and, consequently, life than most Americans.
In our western worldview, we tend to look at time as something fixed, as something that exists and, to a large extent, we follow. We tell people we’ll see them at a certain time, we want to watch a particular TV show at another time, we have to be at work no later than yet another time. In doing this, we kind of let time control us. Sure, we can make a decision to do something at a specific time, but then we pretty much have to plan everything else around it and be held captive or simply blow it off with the full knowledge that we missed out on something or inconvenienced somebody else.
Cameroonians look at time in a different way. Instead of being controlled by time, they look at it as something that you control, or something to disregard. Meeting at 4? Well, I’m not going to drop everything to go to it. I’ll finish what I’m doing, take care of myself and then show up when I show up. Will it be a bother to somebody if I’m not there at the time we agreed upon? Probably not, he’s probably doing the same thing. Instead of living by the clock like many Americans do, Cameroonians just live and act how they want to and often look at the time as an afterthought.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Haggling 101
Here is a brief, introductory guide for how to haggle for goods and services at a market in Cameroon. I have compiled and perfected the method after many months (years, even) of trial and error until eventually it’s more of a game than actually an exchange of goods. Take note, and enjoy.
Step one: Walking through the market and greeting people
While strolling through the market, you should first and foremost wander as close to the middle of the street as possible. (I use the word street because it’s easiest. Other interchangeable words could include: alley, passageway, aisle, or human parking lot.) If you see a friend of yours walking the other way, step off to the side, shake their hand, and exchange greetings. How is the family? The house? How are your kids? By asking these important questions, the vendors in the market will realize that you are not a foreigner here and know the community enough to at least ask an acquaintance how they are doing. This will help later on when the haggling for a price actually starts. After a minute or so of discussing, bid your friend a good day, step back into the middle of the street, and continue on your way. If you are friends with any boutique owners, do the same with them.
Step two: Concealing desire or need
After you’ve been walking through the market for a short time, and after having greeted several people, you can ease up and start looking around for whatever it is you came here for. Whether it be mangoes, soccer jerseys, powdered milk, or a new machete, it is very important to not seem over anxious. Maintain a relaxed countenance—wearing sunglasses helps. Once you spot something you are interested in, leisurely make your way over to the shop (or stand or ground space as the case may be). If the proprietor was not already calling you over and was possibly busy with somebody else, wait until he acknowledges you. If this is perhaps a market in the southern part of Cameroon, or in a bigger city in the north, chances are people were shouting at you from half a block away to come to their shop and buy soap, bouillon cube, or bicycle parts. Unless there are no other options, ignore these shop owners. They know you are a foreigner and will be difficult to argue with.
Back to the first type of shop owner. Greet this man. Shake his hand. Say at least a few words in his dialect and, if you are capable, go through all the greetings and then even ask him for what you want in the local language. Ideally, he will be grateful that you learned the local language, but he will also know that you know a bit about the culture and will not be duped so easily. This is also why it helps to be spotted greeting friends or acquaintances of yours in the market. If vendors see that you know people around they will also be less likely to try to milk a few extra pennies from you. Once you have told him what you wanted, the real test begins.
Step three: Make a game out of it
The owner of the boutique will likely start at a price that is far too high. How high the price is depends on several factors: how many foreigners come through the market (more=much higher), how well you followed the previous two steps, and how well you know the owner—or rather how well he knows you. If the original price the owner gives is the actual price (or something very close to it), try not to be surprised. This has happened roughly eight times in the last thirty years, so don’t count on it. If you are lucky enough to experience the ninth time, however, buy the good under question at once, thank the man a lot, and also offer to buy him a cup of tea or a mango if there is a kid walking around selling either of them. This way, the owner will always give you the correct price right off the bat, and that will save you money and time.
Most of the time, though, you will be given a price that is ridiculously high. The first thing you do is act like you didn’t quite understand the person. Repeat the price in either the dialect or in French, with a big question mark at the end. Act incredulous: start laughing, and looking around to see if other people are noticing. If they are, ask them if the man you are talking to is a comedian or if he is crazy. The owner will probably be asking you what you want to pay for it at that time and trying to shut down the outside conversation. He will try to regain control over the situation. Don’t let him, make him wait. Talk to other vendors and people walking by and joke around with them that you didn’t know a new comedian was around, and maybe you should take him to (insert closest big city) to perform his act and maybe even go on television.
After some time discrediting the original price, ask the man if he needs to go to the hospital. Sometimes they will not understand what you mean by this. Explain that because of the crazy price you know that he is either one of two things: a very funny man who should be using his talents across the country to make people laugh, or a crazy man who has escaped from a psychiatric clinic and you’d like to take him back. He may be starting to tire from the joking around so now it is your turn to offer a counter price.
Step four: The counter offer
If the man started you off with an incredibly high price, it is 100% okay to low ball him that way. If he’s insulting your cultural intelligence with a stupid price, insult his back. But don’t be mean or vengeful about it. Always have a smile on your face that says “Don’t treat me like that, I know what I’m doing.” If the price wasn’t too astronomically high, though, it is proper to give a counter offer in the same ball park. Make sure to keep it as a game. Nobody likes when tensions rise, and keep in mind that the person is usually not trying to insult you or take advantage of you being a foreigner, they’re just trying to make a living.
Sometimes they will shake their heads if you’re counter offer is pretty low. They will start to put the shirt or goat back. This is when you put your hand on their shoulder in a friendly way and say “what is this, we don’t argue in a market?” Maybe they’ll pout and say something like “not like that” or “it doesn’t leave the house like that.” Well, you tell them that it’s the market and they should then come down to their next price.
Step five: The negotiation
You will go back and forth several times with the prices. Sometimes the vendor will tell you that even he didn’t buy the goods for that price. 99% of the time, this is a lie. I know this because I have gotten good for far under what some people have said they bought it for.
If the person is jerking you around and not coming down enough, one thing you can do is to stick with your price and tell him you won’t go any higher. Maybe they’ll get angry. Keep your cool. If the person is really not going to change their shifty ways and won’t give you a good price on something, come up a little more (maybe 200-500 cfa) and then say that’s your last price. When you say it’s your last price they will either do one of two things: they’ll stare at you and then place the goods back on the shelf (sometimes a bluff), or they’ll start dropping their price immensely, though still trying to get you to dish out a little more money. Whatever you do, stick to your price after you state your final price. If you come up from that, they know you can come up some more.
Step six: The purchase, or walking away
Once you have come to an agreement, give the man your money while they put the dried fish or tupperware in a plastic bag, and many times double or even triple-bag it. Never try to tell somebody that you don’t want a plastic bag because you either have so many at the house or because they are wasteful and bad for the environment. This is poor judgment on your part because the vendor will think you are crazy for not wanting a plastic bag, thereby possibly raising the price they will charge you next time.
If you haven’t come to an agreement, though, reiterate your last price one more time and walk away. You have to be prepared to lose it, though, or to start the negotiation somewhere else with somebody else. Because if the vendor does not call you back (which sometimes they will do as you are halfway across the market) and you come back to buy the goods from him, he will charge you even more than he said he was before, because he knows you want and need it.
Step one: Walking through the market and greeting people
While strolling through the market, you should first and foremost wander as close to the middle of the street as possible. (I use the word street because it’s easiest. Other interchangeable words could include: alley, passageway, aisle, or human parking lot.) If you see a friend of yours walking the other way, step off to the side, shake their hand, and exchange greetings. How is the family? The house? How are your kids? By asking these important questions, the vendors in the market will realize that you are not a foreigner here and know the community enough to at least ask an acquaintance how they are doing. This will help later on when the haggling for a price actually starts. After a minute or so of discussing, bid your friend a good day, step back into the middle of the street, and continue on your way. If you are friends with any boutique owners, do the same with them.
Step two: Concealing desire or need
After you’ve been walking through the market for a short time, and after having greeted several people, you can ease up and start looking around for whatever it is you came here for. Whether it be mangoes, soccer jerseys, powdered milk, or a new machete, it is very important to not seem over anxious. Maintain a relaxed countenance—wearing sunglasses helps. Once you spot something you are interested in, leisurely make your way over to the shop (or stand or ground space as the case may be). If the proprietor was not already calling you over and was possibly busy with somebody else, wait until he acknowledges you. If this is perhaps a market in the southern part of Cameroon, or in a bigger city in the north, chances are people were shouting at you from half a block away to come to their shop and buy soap, bouillon cube, or bicycle parts. Unless there are no other options, ignore these shop owners. They know you are a foreigner and will be difficult to argue with.
Back to the first type of shop owner. Greet this man. Shake his hand. Say at least a few words in his dialect and, if you are capable, go through all the greetings and then even ask him for what you want in the local language. Ideally, he will be grateful that you learned the local language, but he will also know that you know a bit about the culture and will not be duped so easily. This is also why it helps to be spotted greeting friends or acquaintances of yours in the market. If vendors see that you know people around they will also be less likely to try to milk a few extra pennies from you. Once you have told him what you wanted, the real test begins.
Step three: Make a game out of it
The owner of the boutique will likely start at a price that is far too high. How high the price is depends on several factors: how many foreigners come through the market (more=much higher), how well you followed the previous two steps, and how well you know the owner—or rather how well he knows you. If the original price the owner gives is the actual price (or something very close to it), try not to be surprised. This has happened roughly eight times in the last thirty years, so don’t count on it. If you are lucky enough to experience the ninth time, however, buy the good under question at once, thank the man a lot, and also offer to buy him a cup of tea or a mango if there is a kid walking around selling either of them. This way, the owner will always give you the correct price right off the bat, and that will save you money and time.
Most of the time, though, you will be given a price that is ridiculously high. The first thing you do is act like you didn’t quite understand the person. Repeat the price in either the dialect or in French, with a big question mark at the end. Act incredulous: start laughing, and looking around to see if other people are noticing. If they are, ask them if the man you are talking to is a comedian or if he is crazy. The owner will probably be asking you what you want to pay for it at that time and trying to shut down the outside conversation. He will try to regain control over the situation. Don’t let him, make him wait. Talk to other vendors and people walking by and joke around with them that you didn’t know a new comedian was around, and maybe you should take him to (insert closest big city) to perform his act and maybe even go on television.
After some time discrediting the original price, ask the man if he needs to go to the hospital. Sometimes they will not understand what you mean by this. Explain that because of the crazy price you know that he is either one of two things: a very funny man who should be using his talents across the country to make people laugh, or a crazy man who has escaped from a psychiatric clinic and you’d like to take him back. He may be starting to tire from the joking around so now it is your turn to offer a counter price.
Step four: The counter offer
If the man started you off with an incredibly high price, it is 100% okay to low ball him that way. If he’s insulting your cultural intelligence with a stupid price, insult his back. But don’t be mean or vengeful about it. Always have a smile on your face that says “Don’t treat me like that, I know what I’m doing.” If the price wasn’t too astronomically high, though, it is proper to give a counter offer in the same ball park. Make sure to keep it as a game. Nobody likes when tensions rise, and keep in mind that the person is usually not trying to insult you or take advantage of you being a foreigner, they’re just trying to make a living.
Sometimes they will shake their heads if you’re counter offer is pretty low. They will start to put the shirt or goat back. This is when you put your hand on their shoulder in a friendly way and say “what is this, we don’t argue in a market?” Maybe they’ll pout and say something like “not like that” or “it doesn’t leave the house like that.” Well, you tell them that it’s the market and they should then come down to their next price.
Step five: The negotiation
You will go back and forth several times with the prices. Sometimes the vendor will tell you that even he didn’t buy the goods for that price. 99% of the time, this is a lie. I know this because I have gotten good for far under what some people have said they bought it for.
If the person is jerking you around and not coming down enough, one thing you can do is to stick with your price and tell him you won’t go any higher. Maybe they’ll get angry. Keep your cool. If the person is really not going to change their shifty ways and won’t give you a good price on something, come up a little more (maybe 200-500 cfa) and then say that’s your last price. When you say it’s your last price they will either do one of two things: they’ll stare at you and then place the goods back on the shelf (sometimes a bluff), or they’ll start dropping their price immensely, though still trying to get you to dish out a little more money. Whatever you do, stick to your price after you state your final price. If you come up from that, they know you can come up some more.
Step six: The purchase, or walking away
Once you have come to an agreement, give the man your money while they put the dried fish or tupperware in a plastic bag, and many times double or even triple-bag it. Never try to tell somebody that you don’t want a plastic bag because you either have so many at the house or because they are wasteful and bad for the environment. This is poor judgment on your part because the vendor will think you are crazy for not wanting a plastic bag, thereby possibly raising the price they will charge you next time.
If you haven’t come to an agreement, though, reiterate your last price one more time and walk away. You have to be prepared to lose it, though, or to start the negotiation somewhere else with somebody else. Because if the vendor does not call you back (which sometimes they will do as you are halfway across the market) and you come back to buy the goods from him, he will charge you even more than he said he was before, because he knows you want and need it.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
High time for a post
Well, it certainly has been a minute since my last post. (Sorry about the video not uploading, too. I'm not sure I know a way to do so, any advice is welcome.) Things have been going pretty smooth as of late. I survived another hot season and this one was a bit rougher than the last. I was in a three day conference in Garoua during March that literally made me sick to my stomach. After lunch one day I almost got up to excuse myself because I thought I was going to be sick. I've got a few ideas as to why it might have been worse. The first is that I remember last year feeling like "hey, this is really hot but I'm not dying or anything." I don't know that it was any hotter this year than last year, but I think remembering it as not too bad last year was my first mistake. Also, I spend a good chunk of time in the grand south last April, at the height of the heat. Furthermore, we had a huge dust storm that rolled through last year and cooled everything off for about 10-14 days. This dust storm was so big and strong that some cities in the Far North region actually had to shut down business for several days because people couldn't see 5 feet in front of themselves. Lastly, people said this year that the hot season started earlier than last year. That point is debatable, though, as I remember it being pretty hot early on last year, and I also remember people saying last year that the hot season was early. My guess is that the hot season never comes late enough.
At the end of April this year I went down to Yaounde for a couple days for a committee meeting and then went to the West and Northwest to hang out with a few volunteer friends. It was a pretty sweet gig as I got to visit my buddy Henry in his pretty small village in the West and then I went up to Kumbo in the Anglophone Northwest. Kumbo is a fantastic city of around 150,000 making it the Northwest's second city. While there I had a great time eating some good Soya (like shishkabob beef) drinking beer at a bar with a second story balcony, and then also eating of the best chickens of my life at a restaurant called "Casa Blanca." The owner, Casa, is a Nigerian who makes a special variety of the Northwestern dish Chicken Didji, which is like boiled Chicken that is then fried with carrots, onions, garlic, and Casa's secret ingredient: loads of curry. Fantastic meal. Patrick, Jake, and I also went to a pretty awesome death celebration for this former big man in the government. Loads of dancing, shot guns being fired off, palm wine, and traditional masks and clothing.
Due to some transportation problems, I also stopped in Bamenda, the capital of the Northwest, on the way back to Yaounde. Saw a bunch of the volunteers in the area then and also had the closest imitation I've had to a cafe latte since being in Denmark last summer.
Since I got back to the North, I've been mostly focusing on trying to get some projects off the ground, and also saying goodbye to a good number of the volunteers who are peaceing out. The projects I've been working on are getting some Soy/tofu cooking classes going, HIV/AIDS testing, a food security conference scheduled for the first weekend in August, and I was also trying to do some work treating malnutrition for a while. Though that last project kind of fell apart as the hospital in Ngong never received the necessary supplements to give to the pregnant women we found who were at risk of being malnourished.
I also got a pretty wicked case of Malaria a couple weeks ago. I was laid out for a good two days and still pretty tired and sore for a few more days after that. Luckily, it was only my first one here (the French guy in my town has had it like at least 10 times) and it will hopefully be my last. No need to worry now, though, as I'm all better. I even scored a goal in our weekly soccer game on Saturday. So, maybe, the malaria made me get into even better form....
At the end of April this year I went down to Yaounde for a couple days for a committee meeting and then went to the West and Northwest to hang out with a few volunteer friends. It was a pretty sweet gig as I got to visit my buddy Henry in his pretty small village in the West and then I went up to Kumbo in the Anglophone Northwest. Kumbo is a fantastic city of around 150,000 making it the Northwest's second city. While there I had a great time eating some good Soya (like shishkabob beef) drinking beer at a bar with a second story balcony, and then also eating of the best chickens of my life at a restaurant called "Casa Blanca." The owner, Casa, is a Nigerian who makes a special variety of the Northwestern dish Chicken Didji, which is like boiled Chicken that is then fried with carrots, onions, garlic, and Casa's secret ingredient: loads of curry. Fantastic meal. Patrick, Jake, and I also went to a pretty awesome death celebration for this former big man in the government. Loads of dancing, shot guns being fired off, palm wine, and traditional masks and clothing.
Due to some transportation problems, I also stopped in Bamenda, the capital of the Northwest, on the way back to Yaounde. Saw a bunch of the volunteers in the area then and also had the closest imitation I've had to a cafe latte since being in Denmark last summer.
Since I got back to the North, I've been mostly focusing on trying to get some projects off the ground, and also saying goodbye to a good number of the volunteers who are peaceing out. The projects I've been working on are getting some Soy/tofu cooking classes going, HIV/AIDS testing, a food security conference scheduled for the first weekend in August, and I was also trying to do some work treating malnutrition for a while. Though that last project kind of fell apart as the hospital in Ngong never received the necessary supplements to give to the pregnant women we found who were at risk of being malnourished.
I also got a pretty wicked case of Malaria a couple weeks ago. I was laid out for a good two days and still pretty tired and sore for a few more days after that. Luckily, it was only my first one here (the French guy in my town has had it like at least 10 times) and it will hopefully be my last. No need to worry now, though, as I'm all better. I even scored a goal in our weekly soccer game on Saturday. So, maybe, the malaria made me get into even better form....
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