This is why you shouldn't get extra passport pages

There are 2 reasons - and ONLY 2 reasons - why you SHOULD get extra passport pages. 

1. You want to save $28. 

$110 The cost of a new, standard-issue US passport (renewal).
$82 The cost of adding passport pages (26 or 52 - your choice, same price) added to your current passport. 

As a frequent backpacker, Couchsurfer, and a former dirty, broke Peace Corps Volunteer, there have been moments that I've been seriously hard up for cash - and $28 can go a LONG way in many of my favorite parts of the world. 

Things I have literally bought with $28:

• 4 whole lobsters (USA)
• 200 avocados, or 3 months' worth of chapati and beans (Kenya)
• 9 pints of beer (Korea)
• A hostel for 8 days (Laos)
• A domestic flight (Philippines)
• An international flight (Malaysia)

So I get it. You're broke. Get the extra pages, and buy yourself something $28 worth-of-nice. 

2. You must travel in the next 2 weeks. 

According to the State Department, 

Except in cases of genuine emergency requiring immediate travel, U.S. passports are produced in the United States and sent to our Embassies/Consulates overseas by express mail. 

This takes 2 weeks. And no, "I really need to get to the full moon party in Thailand on Friday" is not a 'genuine emergency' - at least, not according to the embassy. 

So if you're down to your last passport page and you've gotta hit the road tomorrow, opt for the extra pages. 

Here's why you SHOULDN'T get extra passport pages: 

1. Your passport will look like it was taped together by a 2nd-grader.

Exhibit 1-A: Standard Issue (www.twittertravels.com)

Exhibit 1-B: Jacked. Up. 

When I was in high school, a friend of mine submitted a semester-long project stapled inside of a cardboard box. I'm not certain that it wasn't him behind the desk at the embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Those are 52 extra pages, taped - yes, TAPED inside of the over-stretched binding of my standard-issue passport.

I'll admit, my passport was already pretty beat up - he was never going to win any beauty awards. But now he could barely get to first base with a Big Mac wrapper.

2. You could spend a mere $28 to get a shiny, brand-spanking new passport. 

No matter how cringe-worthy your last passport photo was, you can get it replaced.

3. You'll never fill your passport now, idiot. 

It's pretty much the dream of every traveler to retire a passport before it reaches expiration.

To accomplish that feat now, I have to cross approximately 250 borders in the next 5 years. Not that I won't try, but yesterday I was only 4 countries away...

Sites That Pay for Your Travel Writing

This is an update of a previous post on publishing travel articles in print and online. 

So, you think you're a writer, huh? Well, now, isn't that cute. Let me give you some advice.

Stop.

You're wasting your time: travel writing is dead.

Sleeping at Incheon Airport

If you've ever glanced out the window flying into Incheon Airport (ICN) before, you might have noticed that it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It is, in fact, on its own island. It takes at least an hour to travel to Seoul Station, and that's not even accounting for traffic.

If you have an early morning flight out of ICN - or a late-night arrival - you're probably on the hunt for accommodation close-by. And if you're on a tight schedule (and a budget!) there's no better bet for a quick night's sleep than the airport's own sauna and lounge.

Spa on Air (SOA)

For a mere 20,000 won (about 18USD) you can shower, soak, and sleep for the night in one of Korea's classiest sauna establishments.

[Note: if you don't want to spend the night, make sure you get to SOA before 8pm, when the price is only 15,000 won.]

Spa on Air is one of the most expensive saunas I've been to in Korea (most average around 7,000 won), but it's also one of the most regal. The individual semi-private showers with waterfall showerheads are a nice treat, and the all-granite interior lends a quiet elegance to the place.

SOA features gender-segregated bathhouses with hot and cold pools, dry and wet heat (steam) rooms, and individual shower stalls with frosted glass.


































After winding down, throw on shorts and a t-shirt (provided) and head into the lounge area where couches, lounge chairs or floor mats are available to crash on.

If you want more privacy (or are a loud and chronic snorer!) you can book a private sleeping room for an extra 15,000 won (35,000 total).

Family room (extra bedding available)

If you're traveling in a group, you can book one of two family rooms for 40,000 won (per 12 hours). Each room sleeps up to 5 people.

[Note: This is in addition to the admission cost per person to the sauna.]









The best part: it's actually INSIDE of the airport! (Though not located inside of the secure terminal area; you don't need to be flying to visit.)

TIP: If you're stuck inside of the secure terminal area for a few hours on a layover, there are FREE shower rooms for use. It's reasons like this why Incheon is consistently ranked as one of the world's top airports!

[Spa on Air is located on the East side of the basement (B1) in the Main Terminal, past Cold Stone Creamery and Starbucks.]

To make a reservation for a private room, or for more information, call Spa on Air at 032-743-7042. (For international calls dial +8232-743-7042.)



If you're in the market for a bit more luxury, there are a few hotels and guest-houses nearby ICN, and some of them are actually reasonably priced:

Best Western Premier Incheon Airport (from 115,000 won)
Hyatt Regency Incheon Airport (from 200,000 won)
Incheon Airport Guesthouse (from 50,000 won)
...and a bit further away:
Oceanside Hotel (from 90,000 won)

BURMA: Getting there

[June 2012 Update: Visa on arrival now available in Myanmar for citizens of 26 countries. For a full list of countries, and required documentation, visit the Myanmar government's website here.]

For a few months last year, entering Myanmar was a piece of cake. The government had decided to re-instate 'visa on arrival', which meant you could show up at the Yangon International Airport and pay $30 to get an instant visa. Then, overnight, visa on arrival was rescinded quietly. So quietly, in fact, that none of the airlines or passengers flying into Yangon the next day knew about the change. Hundreds of fresh-faced foreigners arrived at immigration with their passports open only to be turned around and told to wait (and pay) for the next available flight back to Bangkok.

Though there is speculation about whether visa on arrival will ever return, as of my visit (January 2011) it wasn't on the program. These days, getting into Myanmar can be something of a catch-22: You don't want to book a flight until you're sure you can get a visa - but you can't get a visa until you have booked a plane ticket. The Myanmar government requires a full itinerary, contact number, and proof of purchase of a round-trip plane ticket before they will issue a visa to enter their country.

When I told him that I wanted to come visit him in Yangon, my friend Ara told me that I'd have to fly into Bangkok and spend a day there in order to get a visa to visit Myanmar. I wouldn't be able to get one in Korea. I said "Ok, no problem" and then I promptly forgot about it.

Two weeks before my trip was scheduled to begin, the price of flights to Bankok had skyrocketed, hundreds of dollars more than I was prepared to pay. Air Asia flights to Kuala Lumpur, however, were still  reasonable. 

I had to find out for myself if I could get a Myanmar visa in Korea. I looked up the website for the Myanmar embassy in Seoul and called their office number. A nice Korean lady picked up immediately - the one with an automated voice who tells you when a number has been disconnected. I called the other number. Korean lady again. I sent them an email. (I'll give you one guess how that turned out.)

[UPDATE: The current working number of the Myanmar embassy is 02-790-3186. Thanks Fiona!]

Several days had passed. The longer I waited, the higher prices climbed. 

Eventually I found a travel agent in Seoul that specializes in group trips to Myanmar. (Koreans rarely travel unless they're in a group.) They had a couple of documents on their website about visa applications, so I called them on the off-chance that they would arrange a visa for a foreigner here. I spoke to a guy named Song who said yes - IF the Myanmar Embassy accepted my application, I would be able to get a visa.

So on a Monday morning, with everything riding on two little obnoxious letters, I bought my plane tickets to KL and Yangon, printed out a two-week trip itinerary, wired Song $50, and sent my passport off to Seoul. If everything went according to plan, the visa would be in my passport by 5pm Friday. 

I was cutting it close. My flight was scheduled for Saturday.

I must have texted or called Song every day for news of my visa. The second day he told me not to worry. "We haven't heard anything from the embassy," he said. That was apparently a good thing.

Friday afternoon at 3pm I finally got a text message from him, saying that he had my passport in hand. My visa was secure.

Saturday at 10am - the morning of the flight - I visited his office; a small, cramped room on the 10th floor of a large apartment building near Jongno tower. His secretary answered the door, smiled, and turned to point at a single blue passport sitting alone on a table in the middle of the room. Mine. 

Thanaka - Burma Rouge

One of the most striking things I noticed when I set out on my first day in Yangon for a stroll through the city was the women. Burmese women are beautiful, innocent and quite elegant. Their pressed blouses and the cut of their long skirts, hugging their hips tightly, exude a graceful sensuality that is lost among the low-cut tank tops and miniskirts of Western pop culture. Like people in most of the developing world, they don't leave the house unless they are well-dressed - according to conservative conventions - and wearing makeup.

Burmese makeup is unlike any I've ever seen. Many of the women - and small children, as well - paint a thick stripe of gold-colored paste in a wide stripe across their cheeks and sometimes their forehead. Thanaka - made from grinding the bark of the Thanaka tree into a powder -  is actually very beautiful if applied well, with a bright gold streak running down the cheek under the eye, fading as it reaches the ear. I found my glance lingering on the face of many a young woman as I passed, and my heart warmed when their bashful eyes met mine and they broke into a wide, inviting smile.



But thanaka is not merely makeup - it has a myriad of uses. It's also good for the skin, protects against sunburn, and its scent is intoxicating.

Or maybe that was all of the curry I never stopped eating...

Blogging in Burma

The first time I tried to log in to Blogger from a cyber cafe in Yangon, Burma's former political and current economic capital city, I got a message saying "Access has been denied." I got the same message for Gmail and Twitter, though Facebook appeared to be free from internet censorship.

There are ways around the censors, though, and the cyber cafe employees are always close by to help you get through to a blocked site. In my case, that involved a site called www.stupidcensorship.com, which re-routes the web address through a masked url. I'm sure there are others.

Get Travel Directions in Korea

I've seen some questions lately in Korea forums about getting directions.

If you don't know already, there is a FREE travel helpline for foreigners in Korea (in English, Chinese, and Japanese).

(Area code) + 1330

They can give you information from bus timetables to Mexican restaurant locations nearby, and in my experience they are generally on - or very close to - the money.

You MUST dial the local area code (02 for Seoul, 054 for Gyeongbuk, etc.) + 1330.

If you're dial the wrong area code, they won't be able to help you. If you're in Seoul and call 052-1330, they will tell you to hang up and call the Seoul extension.

Korea area codes

Seoul 02
Gyeonggi 031
Incheon 032
Gangwon 033
Busan 051
Daegu 053
Jeju 064
Daejeon 042
Ulsan 052
Gwangju 062
Gyeongnam 055
Gyeongbuk 054
Jeonnam 061
Jeonbuk 063
Chungnam 041
Chungbuk 043

Publish Your Travel Articles

You can find more places to publish travel writing in an updated post here. 

If you've ever considered publishing your travel writing but never knew how, here are some guidelines for magazines who want to publish your articles in print or online.

It's divided into three sections: General Travel, Asia Travel, and Korea.

Check back for updates.

General Travel

Matador Network
"The world's largest independent travel magazine" consists of 12 blogs, each with a different focus such as sports, traveling for change, and destination guides.

To contribute, read the full submission guidelines and upload an article on their contributors' page.

Draft guidelines:

1. Write an original draft that does not exceed 2,000 words.

Do not send an article that has already been published somewhere else, including any work that has been published as a blog.

2. Check your spelling, punctuation, grammar, and — important — facts. Submissions sent with numerous errors are unprofessional and will not be considered for publication.

3. Submissions received without all the accompanying information requested on the submission form will not be considered.

4. Do not include photos in your submission. If you have photos you’d like the editors to consider, please include a link to an online photo album in your draft. The same applies for photographers interested in submitting materials for a photo essay.

Matador Network pays $25 (Paypal) for published articles.

BootsnAll
A "one-stop indie travel guide," BootsnAll.com publishes 

• Feature Articles ($50)
• Expert Travel Articles ($30)
• Travel Essays ($20-40)

(Click on the links for guidelines specific to each.)


BootsnAll is looking for feature articles related to travel, which appeal to a wide audience (rather than an audience specific to people researching one destination). Articles can certainly be about one specific destination, as long as the theme or topic might interest a broad group of people. Large and famous cities and places do have some potential if your angle is really unique and attention-getting, but lesser-known places just don’t have a large enough audience on our site.

Feature Article Requirements & Rights Information

• Word Count: 1200-1600 words is preferred, though the word count will actually relate more to the topic of the article and to the number of points covered within it. We will generally accept anything from 1200-2800.
• Pay: $50 upon publication.
• Photos: One big, beautiful, eye-catching photo (that tells the same story as the text) is required for each item on your list. The photos don’t have to be yours - they just need to be Creative Commons licensed.
• Publication Rights: We are only interested in articles that aren’t yet published, and BootsnAll owns all future rights to the paid pieces you publish through us. If you prefer to maintain future rights, please submit your article through our unpaid articles program.

Asia Travel

Action Asia
"At the forefront of adventure travel since its inception in 1992, Action Asia is a 'must read' for outdoors types who want to do more with their time off than simply hang out on a crowded beach."

Action Asia does accept unsolicited submissions but please note the following points on the content:

• It should be based in Asia (though we stretch the definition to take in Australia, NZ, Siberia, Central Asia and even parts of the Middle East).
• It should be adventure-based - bikes and hikes not buses and trains; boarding in the surf not boarding a cruise.
• Great pictures are crucial. They need to be available as large files too. At 300dpi, a typical double-page spread pic is tens of Mb and even small spot pics are 1-2Mb minimum.
• It should be as edgy and off-the-beaten-track as possible eg. no general travelogues on the 'adventure' of discovering Thailand please. It has been discovered. Tell me how you biked the entire coastline or helped open up some new climbing routes. As a further pointer, places such as much of China and India, Central Asia, Papua New Guinea and the more remote Indonesian and Philipine islands would all make good subjects.

If you have a story that fits these requirements, send the text and some sample low res pics to Steve White (Editor-in-Chief) at aa@bluincmedia.com.


Action Asia typically pays $100 per page for a package of words & photographs.

Korea

10 Magazine

From their submissions page:

If you would like to become a contributor for 10 Magazine’s blog or website, just send an email to contribute@10magazine.asia, and tell us how you would like to contribute. Some ideas:

Article photography

Writing Articles

Blog entries

Website management

Vlogging

Video editing

Here are some additional guidelines from Assistant Editor David Carruth:

1) We prefer receiving a query first to establish the possibility of an article but will consider completed article submissions. However, interested writers should know that they may have to edit their article considerably to meet our standards and formatting requirements.

2) We're looking for anyone who is passionate about living in Korea and sharing their experiences and expertise with others.

3) Most of our feature articles are written by volunteers and freelancers. Other content is usually written by the staff.

4) As most of our writers and photographers are not legally able to be compensated for their submissions, 10 Magazine does not generally pay its contributors, though we do sometimes offer gift certificates of various kinds.

Article length depends on the content and its location in the magazine, but they generally accept pieces between 500 and 1500 words.

Celebrating the Sunrise

The traditional American celebration of each new year isn't too distant from your average Friday night frat party. People get drunk, dance, and try to find someone to make out with at midnight. Of course, this night tends to find people dressed better, drinking actual champagne instead of High Life (the champagne of beers!), and making haphazard "resolutions" attempting to correct all of the bad decisions that probably led them to the party in the first place. What it all really amounts to is just a more expensive hangover.

Of course, lots of Koreans celebrate in the same way. People in every culture like to find any excuse to get drunk and make out with the company secretary.

Many Koreans, however, like to plan their boozing around the rising of the first sun of the new year, at one of Korea's numerous Sunrise Festivals. These are usually organized in cities near the ocean with a strategic advantage for watching the sunrise. The most popular destinations, not surprisingly, are on the east coast, where they think the sun rises first.

Homigot [호미곶], Pohang

The easternmost point on mainland Korea.

I had thought about making the trek out to the Homigot Sunrise Festival, nearby Pohang, until my co-teacher told me that I would spend 3-4 hours in traffic just getting out there (it's usually a 30 minute drive). In the end, it was a moot point. The Homigot Sunrise Festival for 2010 is CANCELED due to the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

The cancelation may actually be a good thing, if you wanted to get a photo of the new year sun rising through the Hand of Harmony. No more crowds.

Seongsan Ilchulbong Sunrise Peak [성산일출봉], Jeju

A UNESCO Heritage Site on "the Hawaii of Korea"

God I love Jeju. I'm always looking for an excuse to go back. But flights are always booked solid months in advance of any sort of Korean holiday. I haven't even checked. Plus I don't like crowds.

Ulleung Island [울릉도]

The ACTUAL easternmost point in the country.

I couldn't find any info about sunrise festivals on this island, because it's tiny and mostly considered only as a stopover point to gaze at Dokdo or eat some squid. But Naesujeon Sunrise Observatory offers spectacular views of, predictably, the sunrise, from a platform high above the surrounding landscape. Even if all 10,000 island residents were there, it would probably still be the least crowded sunrise festival in Korea.

Jirisan National Park [지리산]

The highest point on the mainland.

Height matters, especially when it comes to catching the first rays of sunlight on New Year's Day. At 1,915 meters, Jirisan is actually the first place in South Korea to glimpse our golden ball of heat. Mountaingoers will tackle the trail around 2am to reach the peak for a sunrise champagne/soju toast. 

You'll find me on the trail. 

Happy 2012!

Roaming the world at will

A friend sent me a poem recently that resonated strongly with the way I often feel. It's quite sad, yet simultaneously heroic.

The Men Who Don't Fit In

by Robert W. Service

There's a race of men that don't fit in,

A race that can't stay still;

So they break the hearts of kith and kin,

And they roam the world at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood,

And they climb the mountain's crest;

Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,

And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;

They are strong and brave and true;

But they're always tired of the things that are,

And they want the strange and new.

They say: "Could I find my proper groove,

What a deep mark I would make!"

So they chop and change, and each fresh move

Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs

With a brilliant, fitful pace,

It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones

Who win in the lifelong race.

And each forgets that his youth has fled,

Forgets that his prime is past,

Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,

In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;

He has just done things by half.

Life's been a jolly good joke on him,

And now is the time to laugh.

Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;

He was never meant to win;

He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.

Everyone who resists or shuns the path in life prescribed for them by a society built on status, power, progress, and materialism will inevitably feel as if they "don't fit in" whenever they come back into contact with that culture. Money has a loud voice. But it's not the only voice that matters, and it's easy to forget that in a society where we are increasingly disconnected from the things that make life worth living.

This line especially makes my bones cringe:

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.

There is definitely an increasingly big part of me that wants to settle down, start a family, an help to build an honest community based on fairness and sustainability. But never does that image involve me being a "steady, quiet, plodding one."

For me, "winning" is building fulfilling relationships, trying new things, experiencing everything life has to offer - gain and loss, success AND failure - without fear or judgment.

Boryeong Mud Festival

If it's festivals you want, festivals you can get in Korea. There's a kimchi festival, bullfighting festival, mask festival, whale festival, fireworks festival, sunrise festival, ice fishing festival, film festival, ginseng festival, and a bodypainting festival - and that's just off the top of my head. On any given weekend there are a handful of festivals going on in various cities throughout the country.

Among the expat community in the country, however, no single festival garners nearly as much attention as the Boryeong Mud Festival. In a country as conservative as Korea - where beachgoers don't take off their shirts and shoulders are considered indecent - the Mud Festival is one place where naked flesh is not only expected, but required.

Boryeong mud is famous for its nutritive properties; it is used to make cosmetics, soaps, lotions, and other toiletries. During the Boryeong Mud Festival it is applied more, well, liberally.

The city trucks tons of mud from nearby mud flats onto the festival grounds, which abut the beach, and dumps it all onto inflated slides, obstacle courses, and mud wrestling pools. There are stations for painting your body with mud, stations for throwing mud at other festival-goers, even a "jail" station where festival staff will spray you down with mud (and for which you had to wait about an hour).

The Boryeong Mud Festival is about getting dirty, and for many people, in more ways than one. There are no (enforced) public drunkenness laws in Korea, and the prospect of getting drunk on the beach and smearing girls (or guys) in bikinis with mud is too much for a repressed population to resist. It attracts a wild crowd. Every third person is carrying a pitcher of beer in broad daylight, and perfect strangers indulge in public displays of affection without remorse.

This, not surprisingly, is the chief complaint of the abstaining portion of the foreign population, who refrain from attending because they "aren't really into spring break."

For the most part, though, the dirty, drunken foreigners carousing the streets of Boryeong are a peace-loving lot. Beyond that, Boryeong is good at confining the party atmosphere to a limited section of the town. And besides, you're not into it, the mud madness is not that hard to escape.

In fact, if getting muddy is your MO, the festival itself is not the first place you should go. As I mentioned before, Boryeong trucks all of the festival mud in from mud flats nearby. Interestingly, neither festival staff nor Boryeong city officials advertise this fact, and no one asks. Most festival-goers are content to wallow in the watered-down buckets of mud that Boryeong locals dump on them.

The mud flats (갯벌체험장) are actually less than 5km from Daecheon Beach (where the 2010 Boryeong Mud Festival was held), at the river delta near Daecheon Station. During low tide, the field of mud extends for hundreds of meters on either side of the river.

When my friends and I arrived on Sunday morning it was high tide, but the mud was only covered in ankle-deep water. I quickly stripped and covered my body in the dark, sticky muck beneath my feet. Aside from two Korean tourists and a handful of festival staff, the only sign of life around the mud flats were the seagulls, hunting for crabs. One member of the staff even helped to bury me in mud - he seemed so amused that I wondered if he had ever seen any foreign tourists out there.

Shortly before we left, the staff began setting up futsal goals for a tournament which would start in the early afternoon. Unfortunately we couldn't stay and watch - our group bus was scheduled to leave soon after it began. I cleaned off in a row of showers above the rocks and we caught a taxi back to our hotel.

The mud flats were the highlight of the festival for me, and I realized that I didn't even need to be at the festival to enjoy them - they're there all the time! (Although the showers may not be up year-round, and I doubt taxis would pick me up after frollicking in the muck.)

Dirty travels!

(Photos courtesy of Darin Novak (Boryeong Mud Fest 2009) and Nadia Hugo, one of the only other sober people awake at 8:30 on a Sunday)

If you're looking for more non-mud-related things to do during the Boryeong Mud Festival, here's a tourist map of the Boryeong environs:

Stories from the War in Laos

JT, of Finer Things in Vientiane, shared some of his father-in-law's stories as a guerrilla soldier during the Vietnam War, particularly during the CIA's secret bombing campaign during from 1964-1973. JT's wife, who was born in the caves in Vieng Xay during this time, busied herself about the store preparing tea while JT regaled us with these tales.

The Pathet Lao forces during these 9 years were hiding out in the caves in Vieng Xay, fighting the Royal Army as best they could while fending off the Americans' relentless bombing campaign. During this period, American planes dropped 2 million tons of bombs on the country, focusing on certain areas where the Pathet Lao were suspected to live. This was at a time when the entire population of the country was 2 million people - that's 2 tons of bombs per person, if your math skills are lacking.

The Pathet Lao weren't fools, though; they held off the dual attacking forces for 9 years, eventually taking over the government and control of the entire country.

The Americans were constantly bemused by the Pathet Lao's resistance and success against the odds. JT told us how his father's regiment worked for a time building (and re-building) the Ho Chi Minh trail. At times they would encounter a stretch of landscape that was unnavigable. Giant boulders, too big to move, would stand in their way. Rather than spend days, or explosives, tearing through it, they would simply build a few small huts around it. Within a day, American planes flying over, thinking the huts were part of a Pathet Lao hideout, would drop enough bombs on the "village" to incinerate a boulder of any size. The communist regiment could then continue with the trail construction.

Most of the time, however, the bombs weren't so helpful. They destroyed bridges and stretches of trail crucial to the movement of supplies. When bridges were eradicated, American forces were amazed to find that within 24 hours of being bombed they were back in operation again, having been rebuilt by 5,000 men, literally overnight. Given the scope of the bombing campaign, the US commanders were incredulous. They didn't believe it possible.

Sometimes, rather than rebuild oft-bombed bridges over and over, the Pathet Lao forces would simply camouflage the bridge by building it a few inches underwater. Planes flying overhead couldn't detect them, but bicycles and foot traffic could still walk across with ease, albeit wetly.

JT's father-in-law himself sounded like a rather fierce soldier, having been shot three times and surviving. He spoke of a time when he was almost captured by Royal Army forces, who, on a foot pursuit, had surrounded him in a field of tall grass. He lied down, but could hear the soldiers talking as they searched. He knew that if they burned down the field he would have nowhere to run. Luckily, dusk set in quickly, and the Royal Army forces disbanded their search as the sun set.

His stories all made the Americans look rather silly, as if the Pathet Lao forces could predict every move and were merely toying with them. They knew that the US didn't really understand Lao culture or the landscape, and that the pilots' orders were simply to bomb anything that looked like a village. They would build fake villages and roads not only to clear boulders, but also to lure pilots into low valleys, where the soldiers, hidden in the surrounding ridges, would "burn them" from above.

JT's father-in-law's stories were the stuff of legend, the kind of tale I expect small Lao children still hear around the kitchen fire. Surprisingly, though, the stories of Pathet bravery and Americans' incompetent brutality didn't turn many of the Lao people against Americans. JT, a native of Tennessee himself, said that his wife's aunt was the only family member who never quite warmed up to him. Even his wife's father, the Pathet Lao guerrilla soldier who fought against the Americans, accepted JT as his own son.

Laos - Vientiane II

Laos is famous (at least domestically!) for silk; its dozens of ethnic groups each produce silk weavings in their own style, color, and pattern. In Vientiane there are dozens of silk shops and innumerable street vendors hawking traditional Lao silks from different provinces, though many are actually produced in Chinese factories in the Lao style. At one store, however - called Finer Things - we were pleasantly surprised to meet a Laotian woman (I have since forgotten her name, because the business card she gave us ended up in the wash) who held nothing back about the products she sold. Some of the tapestries she sold, she informed us, were produced in China, or with artificial dyes - these products were invariably cheaper. Most of the weavings in the store, however, were woven by hand on a traditional Lao loom, and dyed with natural inks that are increasingly difficult and time-consuming to make. Although more expensive, none of the items she sold would break the bank; an 8-meter embroidered tapestry, the largest in the store, rang in around $150.

Silk aside, the woman and her family were interesting enough to keep us occupied for several hours by themselves. She was from the Hmong ethnic group, born in the cave hospital in Vieng Xay during the CIA's bombing campaign in the Vietnam war. Much later she met and married an English teacher named TJ from Tennessee in a wedding attended by over 1,000 people. He arrived at the store after some time and entertained us for an hour with animated stories of his history in Laos, his family and the cultural differences they had to overcome. TJ had spent 12 years in Laos, first arriving in the mid-90's to study the Lao language at the national university in Vientiane, which he described as an open concrete box overgrown with weeds. He commented that he was probably one of about four international students who had ever taken the Lao language program.

Though he did seem to genuinely love Laos, TJ's home for the majority of the time (his family periodically returns to the US to live in Tennessee when their children's English starts to fade), he was not without guarded criticism. Though the communist government got a bad rap for their alleged mistreatment (some would say persecution and/or torture) of the Hmong ethnic people, TJ said that most of the internet presence was dominated by Hmong expatriates abroad who had fled the country immediately following the Vietnam War, and so the online point of view was largely one-sided. In the government's defense, TJ stated that though there was a lot of bad press, they never spoke out publicly. He has seen a lot of the good they have done over the years.

Our conversation eventually turned to TJ's father-in-law, a communist rebel fighter during the insurgency and CIA bombing campaign of the 60's and 70's.

See Stories from the War in Laos

Laos - Vientiane I

We landed in Vientiane after dark on Christmas Day, and the landscape looked desolate from the window, and black. With a population of around 6 million, Laos is one of the world's least densely populated countries. Even the biggest cities - Vientiane, Luang Prabang - have the feel of another country's rural towns. The airport in the country's capital was small; we exited the plane from a staircase wheeled to the door. Two government officials sat behind plain, worn wooden desks to collect our passports and money for the visa. Neither wore a smile above their faded, drab olive, one-size-too-small military shirts, the kind of shirt that, when i was a kid, hung in the back of my dad's closet after 4 years of US army service in the 70's. Now they are the standard dress of 3rd world military regiments and low-level communist party officials.

The streets seemed deserted on the short walk to our guest house. Though the country-wide 11 o'clock curfew hadn't fallen yet, few people were about. One local bar still sounded quite lively, and closer to the center of town, just before the city abuts the Mekong, a handful of tourists glided past on bicycles and sipped Beer Lao on cafe patios. The night was quiet.

We booked a room at Saysouly Guesthouse for 90,000 kip (11USD at the time). From outside it was very ordinary looking, but walking into the upstairs interior felt like entering a hotel from the French colonial age. The dark chestnut paneling, deep mattresses, and heavy linens had the feel of old-world luxury and smell of history, something that first-world hotels always try to recreate but always destroy with sanitizers and air fresheners.

We wandered down the neighborhood street towards the river. The air was cool and a touch humid and made me wish I owned linen pants. There was a tex-mex restaurant on the corner with a balcony (I'm a HUGE sucker for balconies) and live music (sucker again) and enchiladas (sensing a trend?). The place was clearly made for us. We ordered two Beer Lao - our first of many - and listened to the solo Lao guitarist's crooning covers of Hotel California and other Western oldies, which were popular with the expat crowd.

Shortly after 11 the bar closed, and we returned to our guesthouse. Though most places observed the curfew religiously, others kept their doors open until 11:30 or sometimes 12, as if to test the limits. After two Beer Lao and a longer-than anticipated day of travel, however, we didn't feel like testing ours, and we were asleep before the city's final door was closed.

Uniquely, Laos

We arrived back in Pohang yesterday from a couple of weeks in the Laos People's Democratic Republic: Vientiane, Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang, Xam Neua and Vieng Xai.

Though Laos is not a destination I would ever have immediately considered, had you asked me where I would choose to spend a two week vacation - primarily because it is landlocked, I suppose, and whenever "vacation" registers in my mind a beach isn't far behind - it was a very eye-opening, very unique, adventure. I'll be writing about the trip over the next couple of days, so check back for the pictures and stories.

Some of the highlights (and a lowlight or two): bathing an elephant, playing petanque with some government workers, lighting paper hot air lanterns under the new year's full moon, drinking goat's blood mixed with lao-lao, exploring the caves which hid the communist party members during the CIA's 9-year secret bombing campaign (in which the US dropped 2 tons of bombs per person in Laos), herbal saunas and Laos massages, meditation with some Buddhist monks, a 40-hour bus trip which included some chalk outlines by the police, meeting a woman born in the caves and her husband from Tennessee...

Unfortunately, on the way to catch our return flight, we realized that we misplaced one of our cameras, which contained 2gbs of photos and all of the videos we had taken. Bummer.

Overboard

Royal Caribbean recently introduced a new cruise ship to their arsenal; the largest in the world. The environmental impact of cruises is often reviled, sometimes unnecessarily (cruise-goers would produce waste if they stayed home as well); but there are other potentially damaging effects. I wrote about them for MatadorChange.

Overboard? The Environmental & Cultural Impact of Cruises

Bulguksa and Seokguram in Gyeongju

A month ago Lisa and I went on a short road trip to Gyeongju with our friends Bruce and Susie (aka Suji). Gyeongju is well-known throughout Korea as a "museum without walls" - it remained relatively untouched by 16th century Japanese invasions and the destruction of the North Korean army during the Korean war, and many relics from its heyday as the capital of the Silla dynasty remain. It's a haven for UNESCO world cultural heritage. And though it is only a hop skip and a short 30 minute drive (or 1 hour bus ride) from Pohang, Lisa and I haven't really spent much time there. We had attended a templestay at Golgulsa, just outside of Gyeongju, during Buddha's birthday this year, but only spent an hour or so walking through the burial mounds and taking pictures of "asia's oldest observatory."

asia's oldest observatory

This time we went to visit Gyeongju's oldest temple, Bulguksa. It is both a UNESCO world heritage site and the Korean government's "Historic and Scenic site No 1". It doesn't get much more significant than that, huh? It was originally built in the 700's, and though its wooden buildings were burnt down by the Japanese during the late 1500's and rebuilt over the next 200 years, most of the stone structures are original. The stone foundation on which the temple buildings sit look ancient, their edges worn down slowly by a millenia or more of wind, rain, monks, and grubby fingered child tourists.

Bruce and I peered through crevices in the wall like said tourists, scanning for the torn brown edges of a scroll or other treasure slipped in the cracks by a monk a thousand years ago. All I found was a Japanese coin from 1970. I put it back, just in case the owner had left it as a prayer or blessing. I didn't want some Japanese family blaming me for their misfortunes.

It really is an impressive temple, very simple in its construction and layout. The main entrance to the temple is no longer used in order to preserve the ancient granite staircase that leads to the temple doors. Its 33 steps represent Buddhism's 33 heavens, each one carrying you further on your path towards enlightenment. Most of the stones in the steps and the bridge below are from the original temple construction in 750.

Two things impress me greatly about Korean artifacts such as Bogyeong temple. One is their dizzyingly old age. Nothing in the US comes close. Korean heritage sites are easily 1,000 years older than the oldest piece of history in America. The second is the freedom allowed to tourists. Though the main stairway was off-limits, it was protected by a metal fence that didn't even reach my knees. As I stood in front of it, gaping like a schoolboy, a child hopped over the little fence and sat on it for a picture. My immediate reaction was one of reproach - "That's off-limits!" I wanted to scold - but when I looked around I realized I was the only one who cared. I suppose when something is that old there's no real point in worrying about it. The stone has lasted through 1400 years filled with much worse.

The same artifacts in the US would be closely guarded, and shielded from the curiosity of the public - perhaps because our history is so shallow. We don't have thousands of historical gems that we can trust to survive beyond us. And maybe I've bought into the stereotype of the ugly American, but I imagine that, if given the chance, most of us would probably try to carve our names into a 1500 year old piece of granite rock.

Right, the temple. The weather was beautiful, and it was consequently quite crowded. The famous stupa Dabotap, which is featured on the 10 won coin (not that anyone even glances at that worthless piece of metal anymore), was under renovation and I didn't bother to climb to scaffolding to get a look around the canvas. There were other equally stunning moments, like the rusted dragon-head handles on faded red doors, or the sun-streaked field crowded with stone cairns. Life's pleasures are in the details, I say.




Nestled up in the hills above Bulguksa is Seokguram Grotto (Korea's 24th national treasure and another UNESCO heritage site), which houses a giant Buddha statue erected in the mid-700's. It was a 20 minute drive and 15 minute hike up to the site. There is also a hiking trail directly from Bulguksa that is supposed to take about an hour (it's a more direct path than the road).
Though I respected the request not to take pictures inside, clearly someone didn't, and you can see the picture here.

Weekend in Seoul

Lisa and I haven't spent much time in Seoul since arriving in Korea 7 months ago (numbers like that- 7! -have become surprisingly unimportant to me anymore), though I never really had an itch to go. Seoul seems so far away, crowded and polluted, that its charms and attractions never held much appeal for me. I think now I considered Seoul with disdain mostly because I didn't know what I was missing.

Bella, a friend of ours from Peace Corps in Kenya, flew into Seoul last week from San Francisco. We couldn't wait for her to come all the way out to Pohang to see her, so we flew into Seoul over the weekend instead. Tried to fly, that is. Flights from Pohang to Seoul are surprisingly cheap (around $100, not much more expensive than a round-trip bus or train ticket) and incredibly fast (1 hour, just enough time for the flight attendants to serve you a cup of coffee and throw it away) so it has become our preferred mode of travel to the city. Unfortunately, there is only one evening flight out of Pohang each day, and on Friday that flight happened to be canceled when the plane allegedly began smoking. It was difficult to get the full story, since everything was coming over the intercom in Korean. Luckily a Good Korean-Samaritan bystander filled us in, and made sure we got on one of Asian Air's (free!) Seoul-bound buses. Six hours later, at 2am, we collapsed into bar chairs in Insadong with Bella, Blake, Rob, and Jeane a sheet and a half to the wind already, having been forced to drink for us in our absence. We quickly caught up and stumbled into our hotel at 6am - 1 hour before Bella's scheduled DMZ tour.


The next day (while Bella was off on a still-drunk-and-then-very-hungover DMZ tour) we made for Itaewon, probably Seoul's most popular expat (and military...uhhh) hangout. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that foreigners outnumber Koreans in this neighborhood. WE were there for some of the same reasons as the other non-Asians: good international food (enchiladas, anyone??) and Whatthebook, Korea's most well-known (and only, for all I know) English bookstore. We made it back to Insadong in the early evening, several hours, and several paperback pounds, later.

After a glorious nap we set off on our pilgrimage to find a particular jazz bar that Jeane had discovered on the torn-off page of a free tourist guide book. We knew nothing about the bar except that it had "jazz" and "live" in the same sentence in the description, so we did not question the suggestion. The jaunt took us through Hongdae, the artsy neighborhood home to Honggik University, street vendors peddling everything from used sunglasses to homemade woven-yarn cell phone charms, a store called Condomania (yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like), and random cool art in random cool places.

The next morning we finally made it to the puer tea house that Rob & Jeane have been raving about (literally, they're quite mad about it), and Lisa and I (and Blake and Bella, too, I imagine) were instantly hooked. Looking at the pictures it's not hard to see why.

Legitimate puer tea is notoriously difficult to find - according to Kim Eun Joo, the woman who runs the place, only 5% of the puer tea market is real. That is, fermented naturally and not through a chemical process that speeds up the aging of the puer tea leaf. Authentic puer tea will be dried and fermented naturally over a period of 16-60 years. There are some purported health benefits to drinking the tea, but from what I can tell the main benefits are metaphysical. After several cups of well-brewed tea you begin to feel an overwhelming sensation of relaxation, and your body begins to tingle. Some old puer tea can get really expensive, and we asked Ms. Kim what the 8 million won (8,000USD) tea brick was like. "It's better than fantastic," she said. "You can forget all of your worries and troubles. You begin to feel extremely generous with everyone around you." Generous enough to give away 8 million won worth of tea, I asked? She laughed. "Not that generous."

Later in the day we attended one of Seoul's last shows of Rent the musical, featuring 3 of the original Broadway cast members. It was expensive (70,000 won - 40k seats were sold out) but utterly worth it. I've never seen a live show I enjoyed as much.

Luckily the trip back was much easier, thanks to an on-time flight to Pohang. Now we've got another free trip to Seoul in our pocket which, judging from the time we had this weekend, will be sooner than later.