Thursday, June 16, 2005

new ball of dirt entries

i've started filling in the end, and i think i'll work my way backwards. go to the very end for bangalore entries.

http://www.ballofdirt.com/journeys/5262.html

my new home

i moved into my furnished bangalore apartment today, the place i'll be living for the next 4 months or so. i splurged, shelling out the big bucks for a huge place smack dab in the center of town. the best restaurants & bars are all easily reachable on foot, as is the office. if you could see the traffic jams here, you'd know how important this is. most of my office mates spend 1-2 hours a day commuting.
i also have a maid who comes daily; she does my laundry and dishes as well. i might as well live it up at these prices.

Thursday, June 02, 2005

bangkok yet again

one of my goals of this trip was to avoid passing through bangkok. and sure enough i have failed. i'm here getting my indian visa so i can work in bangalore for a few months.

my ankle is definitely getting better, but i still hobble around a bit. i am certainly not ready for the trekking i wanted to do in malaysia.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

4 new journal entries

http://www.ballofdirt.com/journeys/5262.html

see the last 4

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

my 5th country

i'm in malaysia, my 5th country on this trip, thanks to tiny singapore being the 4th. this is my first visit to an islamic country. i can't keep pork in the fridge at my guesthouse.

my ankle doesn't seem to be getting any better, but i use it too much.

today, malacca. tomorrow, kuala lumpur.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

a shocking second opinion

i combined a visit to the indian consulate with a trip to a western clinic this morning, just to let them have a quick look at my crappy cast and my ankle and tell me how things looked. they x-rayed my ankle several times and decided that they don't think my ankle is broken at all. yes, according to them, my break was misdiagnosed, or at least they're 95% sure. how do you look at an x-ray and declare a break where there isn't one? and the other doctor seemed so sure. i'm not sure who to believe. perhaps they were both right and i have superhuman healing powers.

anyway they've removed the cast, which they declared the worst cast they've ever seen. walking still results in pain and my foot is still badly swollen, but i guess i'll see how the next few days go. oh and thanks to the cast, i now have additional bruises on my foot as well.

interesting facts:

my charges at the filthy vietnamese hospital:

exam, x-rays, cast: 140,000 dong, or about $9.

at the clean, air-conditioned western clinic:

exam, x-rays (they only charged me for one of the several), cast removal, a few ankle supports (stiff socks really): 1,200,000 dong or about $75.

and i assume the price at home would go up one order of magnitude.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

more rotten luck

i tried to reach singapore today, but a tropical storm delayed my flight from phu quoc island to siagon by 2+ hours and i missed the connecting flight to singapore. attempting to purchase a flight on the spot increased my $6 flight to well over $300. i balked at that price and headed into the city to reevaluate how best to get to bangalore. all the old familiar hustlers and street urchins remember me and seem happy for the second opportunity to sell me their wares, while sharing their curiosity and concern over my leg of course. i found this strangely comforting.

i wonder if i should call hong or my other siagonese contacts.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

new post

http://www.ballofdirt.com/entries/5262/46861.html

Monday, May 09, 2005

bangalore or bust

thanks everyone for the concern. i fly to singapore tomorrow, where medical care is on par with the west. there i'll probably have my leg checked again just to be sure things are ok. my cast is already falling apart anyway, and i need to buy some proper crutches.

as much as i'll miss hong, it's looking like i'm going to go with the bangalore option, so i'll be working with some of you again shortly, just a bit indirectly.
i'm not sure how long it will take to arrange the visa.

perhaps my indian fiends can give me some advice on how best to set up life in bangalore.

Friday, May 06, 2005

what the hell do i do now?

i broke my ankle. my leg from knee to toes is encased in a shoddy vietnamese cast and according to my "doctor", it will need to remain on my leg for a month. i hope it heals correctly given the shoddy medical care in these parts. it took me two more days to find some tiny and uncomfortable crutches, but now i can finally get around.

i spent yesterday sitting on the porch of my beach bungalow staring at the sea and mulling over my options.

1. go home - this would be the obvious choice, but is complicated by the fact that i have no home. and do i resume my trip at some point?
2. go to bangalore and work from my company's office there for a month or so, and resume my trip afterwards. i'd need to see if my company would be willing to let me do this.
3. go back to saigon and enlist my vietnamese girlfriend, Hong, to assist in my convalescence (i haven't told this story yet).
4. go to cu chi (home of the infamous vc tunnels) and stay with the kind elderly woman who has declared herself my "vc guerilla mother" (i haven't told this story yet).
5. continue on my trip, maybe staying put in a few comfortable places for a while.

3 & 4 are probably bad ideas.

i need to look into what my travel insurance policy pays for...

Friday, April 29, 2005

a preview

tommorrow i head into the mekong delta for 3-5 days. then i grab a boat to pho quoc island, the still largely undeveloped vietnamese island paradise, where i'll be taking a 1 week vacation from my travels.

on the 11th, i fly to signapore and from there my malaysian oddessy begins.

how's this for a slick deal: i found a flight from saigon to singapore for $6. i rule.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

photos

yes, i've finally started attaching photos. more over the next few days...

more posts

ok, i'm really working hard today. a few more entries. just go to the index.

i hope someone is still reading these. please leave your comments here.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

an obscenely long new entry

http://www.ballofdirt.com/entries/5262/45179.html

meta blog

ok, i've finally figured out what to do with this site, at least for now.

this site will be the "real time" site, where i'll post things that aren't simply retellings of each days events, as well as links to new ballofdirt entries as they become available (which is becoming more important given my erratic posting schedule). thus it makes more sense to visit this site rather than the ball of dirt site. and people can leave comments on this site related to the corresponding journal entries on ballofdirt.

and by the way, i'm in saigon (or ho chi minh city for you commies) now. the 30th is the 30th anniversary of the fall of saigon, and the entire city is being prepared for this massive event. the only problem is that a good portion of the saigonese population lament this event, to say the least. in the words of one of my motorbike taxi drivers: "i hate the fucking communists". another told me of his 8 years in a re-education camp and the continued discrimination against him today.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

connected again in hanoi

finally a chance to fix this blog.

china was blocking this site due to its no holds barred political commentary, hence no activity when my trip began. i then moved on to the remotest parts of laos. since i was staying in places where the locals would sometimes mistake me for a bad spirit (i'm not making this up), and where electricity is a newfangled thing fancy people use, you can bet there weren't a lot of opportunities to connect.

my blog was moved to

http://www.ballofdirt.com/journeys/5262.html

but now that i'm in vietnam, and ballofdirt doesn't allow comments and seems to be down a lot (like now), i'm probably gonna move back here.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

my other blog

while hunting for a blog home, i almost went with www.ballofdirt.com. i even tested them out by journaling the first few days of my last trip to s.e. asia. i was surprised how vividly i remembered it, since i often can't remember what i did the day before.

the adventures of pepe lucho

ballofdirt has some cool features, only there's no option to leave comments, so i went with blogger. maybe i'll use ballofdirt as the post-trip archival site.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

goodbye home

i am leaving my current home forever. i'll miss the view.

view from my house

that's the golden gate bridge and san francisco across the bay

view from my house

view from my house

Monday, January 17, 2005

the plan

this trip focuses on asia & the indian subcontinent (which, though part of asia, always gets its own mention, and who am i to fight this convention). duration: one year, give or take.

i have a one way ticket from san francisco to beijing on feb 16th. i wanted to leave on the 14th so when people ask me "when do you leave?" i would say, with solemn conviction, "valentines day", leading the inquisitor to assume there's some meaning behind the date--that maybe i'm fleeing a woman who has spurned me or betrayed me or has otherwise broken my heart. in reality i'm only really fleeing work and responsibility and drudgery and the bush administration. but i plan on being spurned sometime during the trip, so stay tuned for that. it's really just a question of what nationality she'll be. i'm thinking french. built in panache. "curse you claudette, you heartless tart!" i'll come up with something better when the time comes, i promise.

the plan, which is almost entirely subject to change, looks like this:

china: mid feb-mid march
northern laos: march
vietnam: april
malaysia/indonesia: may-august
nepal: sept
india: oct-feb

other possibilities along the way include: burma, east timor, papua new guinea

this itenerary avoids the most extreme heat/cold as well as the various monsoon seasons. the exception will be beijing, where i will freeze my ass off for about a week before heading into more temperate southern china. the picture in my guidebook of the great wall covered in snow looks pleasant enough, and the crowds should be light.