One Hundred and Twenty Hours

More chaos reigned in five days than it has in any given five years of my life (though USMC Officer Candidate School several years back is a pretty competitive runner-up.) In one hundred and twenty hours, I've been to five countries, been on five flights, missed a flight, been broke, been hungry, and lost my luggage. In other words, it's been an adventure.

April 21 - Tuesday.

Tuesday was my last full day in Thailand, and, being about fifty miles from the border of Myanmar (Burma), I decided to venture in. I admit to feeling slightly on edge as I entered customs... Burma has a reputation, and for good reason. It's home to the world's largest child army, and the grisly scenes of Rambo IV are far from exaggeration. Burma is legitimately one of the worst places on earth.

I entered anyway. The Thai town of Mai Sai ended at a muddy creek which served as the countries' border, and continued on the other side, where it was known as Tha Chalek. The moment I stepped onto Burmese soil, I was assaulted by dozens of dirty, half-clad children chattering away in their local language (none of which I understood) and demonstrating their hunger by miming eating. I'd been told most of the kids in these sorts of crowds were owned by adults looking to make some money off of soft-hearted foreigners, but I couldn't resist, and distributed a handful of Baht.

Those kinds of conditions really make you think... how many screaming brats with Gameboys have it so much better, but still complain, back home? I saw a kid, no older than thirteen, sitting on a brick wall with a machine gun resting on his dangling legs. When I was thirteen, I was playing Donkey Kong. Seeing how the other half lives is sobering.

April 22 - Wednesday.

Off to Vietnam. I left on a flight from Chiang Rai to Bangkok noting that, strangely enough, I'd miss the place. I'd slept on a bench there, starved for three days, lived off my guitar, survived through a week of aqua-mayhem during the Songkran festival, and gotten a nasty stomach bug... not exactly a collection of Kodak moments. But I had overcome stacked odds and made it out alive, and for that alone I will remember it with a bit of fondness.

I landed in Bangkok, strategically wearing a neatral-colored shirt... the political tension in the region was far from over. In Chiang Mai I'd accidentally wandered into the middle of a political demonstration wearing a red shirt - the color of choice for the party trying to oust Thailand's current prime minister. My white collared shirt drew no interest, and I boarded my flight for Hanoi with no trouble at all.

Once landing in Vietnam, I got another strange feeling, similar to the one I'd gotten in Burma. Hanoi was plenty safe, having turned into a major tourism hub in the forty years since the end of America's involvment in the Vietnam Conflict. But to me it was a forbidden territory - all my knowledge of the region had previously come directly through the lense of the war. I'd studied texts, read books, watched films - I even completed my undergraduate thesis on the subject - and Hanoi was the home of the bad guys. No U.S. forces had made it that far north, and never would, unless they returned as noncombatants after 1973.

Walking through Hanoi's Old City district was particularly odd... gazing over it from my seventh-story hotel window yielded a view that was probably only slightly different from forty years ago. Even stranger was the fact that every guy over sixty walking around had almost certainly served during the war. It was oddly surreal. I was sad to have to leave the next day; the geek in my drooled at museums, historical sights, an old MiG fighter mounted on a display along the road. I knew I'd have to return one day.

April 23 - Thursday.

Familiarity is rare when traveling alone, but Malaysia afforded me a small bit of it... I'd been in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport almost exactly a month previously on my way from Australia to Thailand. I wandered the terminal, knowing where everything was, ate at the same Burger King, and relaxed. My flight to Manila didn't leave until the next morning, and I didn't have the money to head into town to stay the night (a special thanks to Visa here for not sending my credit card to me after I requested it, and a special thanks for my sister wiring me money to Manila so I'd be able to eat.) I crashed on an airport seat for the night, eagerly anticipating arriving in the Philippines.

April 24 - Friday.

Disaster greeted me with a big slobbery kiss. My flight had originated in Hanoi - Kuala Lumpur was just a connector - and nobody there told me there'd be a problem with my flight. They were so sure of this that they routed my bag to Manila, so I could pick it up there instead of having to find it in Malaysia and load it again. Such was not the case.

"Where's your ticket out of Philippines?" asked the check-in lady. My heart sank like a stone. Not again... I'd encountered the same problem heading into Thailand, but I didn't expect any problems. I explained that Hanoi had informed me everything was ok. Everything was not.

"You'll miss your flight. Sorry."

She didn't sound very sorry.

A four hundred dollar ticket was down the drain. If luck was a person I'd have broken both his arms. How freakin hard IS it to just have a normal trip? Desparate, I signed onto the internet at a kiosk in the terminal and started researching ticket prices. My original plan had been to make stops in Okinawa and Japan before heading home; the loss of my ticket effectively ended the duration of my trip at the Philippines. I'd have to head home.

Thanks to my sister's efforts in helping, I secured passage to Manila for the next day, as well as a ticket from Manila to Los Angeles. I'll return home on May 14.

April 25 - Saturday.

After hours of flight delays, I finally landed in Manila where, stupidly, there were no Western Union services. I had just enough Malasian Ringitt to exchange into enough Philippino Pisos for a ride to a guesthouse, where they allowed me to pay my bill when I picked up the money.

I have since picked up the money, paid my bill, and now I'm planning my last seventeen days abroad. If they're anything like the first eighty-four, I'm in for an adventure.