Author: luke

As I exited the plane doors in Bangkok, Thailand, I realized I was probably the most unprepared I had ever been for any of my travels. I was armed with a small backpack that would last me two months, several stories from a few friends about places to go and how to get mugged and lose all my cash, and a Lonely Planet book ‘Southeast Asia on a Shoestring’ which is intended to get you around to all the countries in the region and thus only provides few details of each country and adds a few kilograms to any backpack. While in the customs line getting hassled for my passport and being sent to the back of the line for some reason I will never know, I befriended an English guy named Johnny who had reservations at a hostel somewhere so I followed him with his permission. My first few days in Thailand were in Bangkok and I thought I would be lazy and quote from my journal from the time of these days as it is not the intended story of this entry and then I will get to the point.

From the journal…

July 10th at Big John’s hostel on Sukhumvit in Bangkok. Apparently Sukhumvit is the longest road in the world leading into Cambodia from here. Could be a lie.

Got duped by a guy in a golden Buddhist temple as he warmed us with talk of the ‘middle way’ and then moved on to talk of Knoglee suits which apparently are the best. Then we get taken to this suit place which looked the same as the rest. Didn’t buy any but got a free Pepsi out of it. But seriously, recruiting tourists at a Buddhist temple?

Have befriended an English chap and we plan to move up north. I have no cover for my bag and my mosquito repellent isn’t strong enough by at least 32.5%. Malaria can’t be that bad.

Only a few nights here and saw the same tuk-tuk guy, Tony, and same cheating little thumb wrestling kid. Tony let me drive the tuk-tuk which I almost crashed but I was the fastest on the road.

Saw the entire town by boat. Maybe too much. A lot of walking. As expected.

Saw some girls open a Pepsi bottle with their pussy and then pull 20 feet of rope out of that same pussy, amongst other things. I even stuffed a ping pong ball into a girl’s vagina, it smelled like rubbing alcohol. She was going to shoot it into my mouth but I pussed out, no pun intended. Got a few drinks out of it and a few dick grabs.

Red Bull out here is definitely full of speed. I want to try 3 all at once and see what happens.

I am fed up with Bangkok. It reminds me too much of Tijuana. Tonight we ride a sleeper train up north. Hopefully I am not robbed and can find a cheap bottle of wine. Can’t wait until Ko Tao. Now where are my socks? Oh right, the night of Muay Thai fighting, the long walk there, met some English, got drunk, Burger King and 5 people in a tuk-tuk to sum up the night.

It is likely that if you go to Bangkok you will do all these things whether you want to or not. So then Johnny and I got on this sleeper train to Phitsanulok which he had convinced me to go to. I had no idea what was there but he told me there were some wonderful ruins and temples there and it was not as well-touristed as other places so I agreed as I rarely say no to anything. A sleeper train, I have alluded to before in other entries, but these are 30-car trains that have bunks up and down each side that move very slowly through the countryside and stop a hundred times throughout the night and your main fear is that a herd of small children do not run onto the train at one of these stops wielding clay knives sharp enough to rake an eye out and slit backpacks while they release chickens in the air to promote confusion. I am not overly tall at about 1.8 meters but these beds are designed for Thai people. It would be one thing if I was much taller but my bed was only about 10 centimeters shorter than I was so I was forced to sleep in a very awkward position which kept my legs bent and half leaned over while my back was twisted and one of my arms hugging my bottle of wine and backpack at the same time. At 4:30am I was abruptly woken up by Johnny and we got off at our town with only two other people who were not very friendly. I immediately had this incredibly debilitating limp and all I could think of was that I had slept on my hip funny. I struggled on as it is the backpacker code to leave the wounded and slow behind. The town we had come to, Phitsanulok, was not a tourist town at all, in fact it was barely a town. There was no one out to rob us or say anything to and we basically wandered in a direction looking for accommodation. Ghost town. We found a place, paid our $1.75 for a double room and immediately both laid down to go to bed. And here is where my night began…

The hostel itself was lovely and very well decorated. All sorts of drapes with dragons on it and Buddhist symbols and knick-knacks. The room was the same and had one large double bed with a large floor-to-ceiling window with a small patio that hung over onto the alley outside. This alley must have been the main through-way for the town because even at 4:45 in the morning, people were flying up and down this alley and like all good countries outside of the U.S., no one uses mufflers. Johnny went to sleep immediately but I just laid there sweating in the 40+ degree heat wincing in pain as my aching hip would go from severely hurting to intolerably hurting. In this sort of heat you must have the window open which invited mosquitoes. I covered myself several times in repellent but I would lay still and feel it start to melt and then freak out as I thought it was a mosquito. That buzz you hear as one approaches your ear is bone-rattling. I would watch in the shadows as one would land on Johnny, spend a good five minutes sucking his blood, and then struggle to fly off and I couldn’t understand how he was not affected. Here was my journal entry during this time…

From the journal…

July 12th. At London hostel giving up on sleep in Phitsanulok.

I don’t know if I have insomnia but when it is this hot, with a hard bed, and a window to the road, it just is not possible. Currently have 1 hour of sleep in 38 hours. Geckos crawl all around me and mosquitoes just wait for the lotion to be sweated off. Very good sting on left thigh right now, wonder if I now have malaria? My leg hurts bad and I don’t know why and my throat is really sore. No wonder those punk kids in Bangkok were trying to make me buy Halls medicine. Now who’s laughing, Luke? 2 hours until air-conditioned seats. I will try my hardest to guarantee an air-con room from now on, why not?

I am sure this sounds negative but the learning moves on. I wish I could dream an unconscious dream right now. So thirsty…

I would get up and try to keep myself busy by taking some really nasty trips to the bathroom. The Thais have the bathroom sorted out. It is always a hole in the ground with foot holds on the side, you sit down and let loose. Your butt cheeks are in optimal position to not receive any particulate and that position promotes the body to get rid of more than you would sitting on a toilet. The toilets there always have a fancy way of providing water into a bucket that you use to flush. Water will trickle off the roof collected from cow sweat, hit a bamboo bucket held up by a monkey used only for this reason, who tips the bucket into a beaker lighting a torch which pops a balloon, that then scares a bird to fly over and hit a domino that cascades into others as it turns some faucet on to fill up your bucket. That night, I watched all that happen maybe 5 times. Be sure to bring toilet paper to Thailand if that is your thing.

I tried to go back to bed and lay there. I harnessed my chi and allowed for any movement on my skin to just go on and I succumbed to malaria if that was my fate. My hip hurt so bad that I had to whimper. I know that sounds rather wimpy, but I had no alternative. I felt depression for the first time in my life and there was nothing I could do about it. The time was moving in reverse and I saw no end in sight. It was too hot, I was hurting too much, and I was in a place I did not want to be. And on top of it I had to watch Johnny sleep happily and listen to him snore to make sure if my sleep was to happen, it would be with more noise than the raging vehicles outside.

In the end I never slept, I wiped my tears and limped the next two days and then my hip was magically restored just in time for some intense Takraw action. I did find out that the fan had two more speed settings which would have helped immensely and I also believe that this night was the first night that caused my hip problems that I have today which I will have to write about in another entry.

Charlie, this story is dedicated to you as I can half sympathize with your nights in Istanbul. Thanks again for the good times in Turkey!

I find that being extremely inquisitive is one of the most rewarding things about being a person. By taking on this attribute, you can learn until your brain explodes. You are only limited by the vastness of your creativity which is the key to extract the information you are thirsting for. Sometimes, I have found, inquisitivity can be very disconcerting for certain people around you as you dive deeper and deeper into subjects that might make someone uncomfortable. For myself, however, I am just enjoying the lesson I am receiving by watching that person squirm. Sometimes people will think I am challenging them and ‘taking the piss’ but almost always I am very genuine. I will say that I am observant of someone who is bothered by my questions and I do enjoy testing the limits. So moving on to the point… for various reasons, I do not have too many fat friends and I would like to play out half of one of these conversations that might make someone squirm. I think many of these questions are for the extremely large people that need to live life a little differently than the rest due to their condition.

I must have this answered because I have heard one solution that I am not so sure seems to make sense. How do you have sex? I can understand the liberal use of toys and all that but that can only last for so long. Eventually you are going to try and make the natural connection. Someone told me that you can use a sturdy piece of wood to move the skin out of the way however my concern with this solution is friction and keeping it in the right place all the time. I hope you are getting it sorted out because sex is a really good thing.

When you sit in a chair that you are wider than, do you notice the handles digging into your skin? Like on an airplane, you don’t have a choice, so you just squeeze in, but what I wonder is, are you really “squeezing” or does the feeling just not register since it is really fatty skin? I would think you feel it but are just forced to deal with the situation.

Are you aware of how wide you are? Do you frequently knock cups and things off tables walking around? Reminds me of a cat. Their whiskers will always grow as long as the cat is wide to make sure they don’t stick their head inside things that the rest of the body won’t fit through. Do you have an equivalent? I think whiskers are also used for balance as well which brings to mind the idea of whether you have a consistent shifting of weight or would you say it is more reminiscent of a fluid going back and forth. Imagine a ball half filled with water and you were trying to roll it around.

I am no doctor, but I am almost positive that the asshole should not grow proportionately with your weight. Are your shits extra long or large to accommodate the extra food? Does it drag along your ass skin as it drops into the toilet? Would you prefer a big-basined toilet bowl to help allow yourself to spread your butt cheeks apart? Do you have an arm extension to be able to wipe your ass? Sort of a trash picker-upper thing but with a double bend in it is what comes to mind. Guess this could double as a back scratcher as well.

Do you get random chafing on parts of your body from skin rubbing next to each other? And how do you stop this? Probably just use small bits of lotion or Vaseline in the high-friction areas.

Can you apply deodorant in an armpit with the same arm if the other one doesn’t reach over? I think an easy solution to this would be a deodorant stick but not the kind of stick that is advertised on TV. I am thinking of a stick with an adapter to put any type of deodorant on the end and it sticks about 3 feet up in the air so you can just walk over to it and apply to each arm by rubbing down on it with your arm in the air and the other arm free to do whatever.

Is it more comfortable to sleep on your front or back?

Are you proportionately strong?

Do you agree that you should pay more for your clothing since you are using much more material than a smaller person? They are doing this in England but with bras.

Have you ever been to the top of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona?

Is it hard to swim? I am thinking that it would be but maybe it is easier to float.

I can think of more but I am sure I have offended a lot of people especially considering that a third of the American population is considered clinically overweight. However this is not my intention and I would really love some honest straight answers to my very honest and sincere questions. The English like making fun of me because us Americans are fat, according to them, which may be half true, but it doesn’t help that they say this to someone who is almost always skinnier than they are, and they have such lovely foods like eggs wrapped in bacon and then deep fried, or deep-fried fish and chips served in a whole newspaper to absorb the grease, or desserts covered in triple cream, or milk with an inch of cream at the top of the bottle before you open it for the first time. Just get your heart rate above 160 for 30 minutes a day people and you can eat whatever you want. Salud!

A while back I wrote about an interesting story of how, with the help of my fresh-off-the-boat Swedish roommate, we effectively gave a cat an abortion, which according to some, she did not want. I wanted to revive this story so I can respond and defend myself because although it may not be clear from my original post, I love cats and I feel I am getting a bad reputation from that post.

First I would like to say that I am pro-choice when it comes to human abortions. How dare you impose your beliefs on anyone else. If I imposed many of my beliefs on you, you would freak out and want to write some nasty comments like some of the people on my original post. I understand the argument of late-term abortions, in fact YouTube can be very helpful on explaining how they actually do this. I watched one that was a cartoon that actually showed the cartoon baby make a wincing face as they stuck the needle in the back of its neck/head. Having said that, the mother needs to be educated about her situation and make her own decision. Maybe give her this cartoon flip book or something, but at least it’s better than these stories you hear of babies left in dumpsters.

Growing up I was around many animals and especially cats thanks to my mother. I had a crow that ran away because it could not fly and one day it was gone. I had an African grey parrot that mimicked the sliding glass door opening in the middle of the night and the phone ringing and hated men. I had a cage full of ring-neck doves that my cat could figure out how to get into on occasion and close the door behind him. I had a three-legged cat we got at a garage sale. I had a cat that I specially fed to make it very large. I had a horse that would scale vertical walls while you held onto her tail as she pulled you up. I had a white cat which I loved tremendously and after taking her to a vet to remove the cancer in her ears, which brought her back with a shaved head and no ears (quite the spectacle), she violently shook in my arms and died looking at me as if I had done something wrong from the medicine they had given her. At one point we were breeding ragdoll cats, famous for being completely double-jointed and outrageously stupid. If you have ever dealt with pure-bred animals and their breeding process, you might know that on occasion the babies are not normal. I have seen kittens being born, completely joyous on seeing the outside world, but half their innards were hanging out of their stomach as it had not closed entirely. I hate to think what the haters of my previous post would say if they knew that these kittens were held under water until their suffering was ended. In this case, would abortion be acceptable? I am all for pre-birth analysis with X-ray and DNA tests and all that but please allow me to send the bill your way.

There is a reason cats have litters. Litter being a bunch of kittens, sometimes 2 sometimes 8. It is because for whatever reason, it is tough for cats to get to the age of procreation whether it be cars, coyotes, people named nuthead, early pregnancy, cannibalism, feet, or whatever. On top of that, a cat can have a litter every 2-3 months and is happy to take the demanding sex life to accommodate this. The other day I was walking to these ruins in Ephesus, Turkey. On the way there, the path was filled with thousands of little frogs hopping only 2 or 3 times before they got tired. This made for a very treacherous walk as I do not like to step on baby little frogs. However, there must be a reason that one little frog birthed hundreds of babies. Because they die easily. By the end of the day when I was walking back, there were tons of dried up frogs that could not get over the curb or some freshly squished ones.

To Jennifer who wrote “you’re a murderer of poor helpless innocent kittens… and you’re smug about it.” …Yes the kittens were innocent but they were not able to move too much to really be able to do anything that would make them guilty. They were not poor. I am not smug, I am being straightforward and honest. I am sure if you asked Mussolini if she thought her still-developing vagina and womb could accommodate 4 kittens, she would have said no.

To Alysha, I really hope you keep googling cat abortions or however you found this blog the first time and see this response. Please don’t use capital letters, it does not emphasize your point, I can assure you. All it does is bring a hilarious image to my mind of you stomping away at your keyboard with one finger as you hold the shift key since you likely do not know about caps lock. My cat was a whore and the whole neighborhood knew it. Neighborhood, I am sorry for the weeks of torturous cat moans that you had to endure while she gallivanted around. If you look up the word neutered on Wikipedia, you can see the definition to be “Neutering, from the Latin neuter (of neither sex), is the removal of an animal’s reproductive organ…” So Alysha, for that, go neuter yourself.

To Kourosh, Johan and I were acting on the instructions of certified veterinarians. Johan does and says weird things but he is not at fault in any way in this situation.

To Steve, thank you for understanding and I hope your situation was as equally hilarious and emotional as mine.

OK, with that done, I would like to admit the following. The cat was obviously emotionally altered after this incident and it was clear she knew what had happened. For that, Mussolini, I am truly sorry. The problem with a feral cat is that they must have babies, that is in their genetic programming. Mussolini was a pro-lifer and unfortunately for her, I don’t agree with her philosophy and more importantly, I was paying the bills and buying her food.

So in the end, I am arguing for education for all women around the world and for all species as well as prenatal tests that can eliminate unwanted pregnancies and genetic deficiencies.

My family in England is so good about sending letters and disappointingly I have never reciprocated their efforts. I have always opted to use electronic methods which I argue allow me to convey a lot more information. But just like those elementary school Valentine’s Days when you were so happy to receive a handwritten valentine from the cute girl in the class, I can’t help but be ecstatic every time I get a handwritten letter in the mail. Especially since nowadays the mail generally only brings bad news of debts and bills and opportunities for trips to Vegas for “free” or get another credit card.

Well I was particularly touched recently when my dear cousin Jak, in bloody old England, sent me an email with an attachment in it. The attachment was a digitally transcribed handwritten letter from Jak’s brother Rob. The digital transcription was provided with Jak’s Livescribe pen that I had bought him in the States and then shipped to him since it wasn’t possible to purchase in England and ultimately cost Jak some $400 for a freakin’ pen. He likes writing. Cool gadget though to get your writings into your computer. Anyway, here is the letter.

Well Rob, thank you very much! I have purchased your request although I highly doubt I will fit a 5kg bag of mate in my bag. I refuse to send it in the mail so I will be in England after June 1st when I get back from Turkey. I have used it a few times though, you know, break it in. And the bombilla is different but there we are.

If anyone else cares to write to me I will be happy to consider any requests.

I am not a huge concert goer but I do thoroughly enjoy good music as well as putting myself into situations I will likely never be in again. A Radiohead concert in Buenos Aires seemed to fit the bill. I really had no expectations going into this and in fact was prepared to fly solo up until a few weeks ago when I found out that an ex-classmate of mine also had tickets.

I arrived at Adam’s house around 3pm with my ticket in hand and a classic looking outfit of light blue and white including a light blue headband to hold back the burgeoning hair. We made some quick calculations in the bus guide and determined that we would need to take bus 59 down Libertadores to get to Club Ciudad which was on the complete other side of the city. Truth be told it is impossible to make “quick calculations” in the Guia T bus guide. Buenos Aires is absolutely enormous and buses (colectivos) are the main source of transportation for most of the city. The Guia T is a small pocket book that is the definitive guide to tell you how to go wherever you need to go in the city by bus. However, unless you have 34 fingers to keep track of pages, a magnifying glass, a chalkboard with green chalk, and several friends hovering over you suggesting alternative routes or methods of transportation, it can be very difficult.

We decided to head to the Alamo figuring the high ticket cost ($100 US) would promote a large foreigner gathering and the Alamo is supposedly for the foreigner. We found no one but ourselves but happily drank our 4-litre bucket of beer and chatted with the owner who taught us about DirecTV ambassadorships and the way to make money was to rob the keg trucks since they only operate in cash. We also learned that the extremely young (18) bartender was being agitated by the noise-making device that was placed outside to keep teenagers away. I refrained from making any comparisons to dog whistles to this somewhat attractive barmaid.

After 4 litres of beer it was decided to abandon our sober preparations and use the subte which would leave us with a 12-block walk afterwards. En route we purchased another litre of beer each and Adam purchased a small glass flask of whisky. We had heard there would be no booze sold in the stadium (which turned out to be true) and he reasoned with me that if he turned sober halfway through a concert he was liable to go haywire and start screaming curse words in his newly learned language to the Argentinian teenagers. He told me that he would put it in his shoe to which I replied that he should get two flasks so his weird-looking gait would be equalised. He only bought one.

We joined the growing herd of people obviously taking the same route as we were. On the way, while Adam urinated, I made friends with a Uruguayan who was kind enough to share his mate with us which could not have been better at this time and place. He did not have tickets but enjoyed being among the crowds and chatting to people like us. I shook his hand, kissed his cheek, thanked him for his kindness, and wished him luck in life.

I did not bring my camera as it said not to bring cameras on the ticket, as well as the fact I had heard stories of the recent Manu Chao concert where everyone left the place with their underwear missing and cameras on display in the shops across the street before the show was done. Although I did have my phone on me which did have a camera. Adam had followed suit but was also sporting a gnarly cerebral palsy limp as we walked through security which turned out to be a bunch of drunk locals wearing yellow jackets. Unfortunately for Adam, the walk to the concert area was maybe 300 yards and his absurd walking posture was getting worse by the moment. He pleaded to stop but I convinced him it would not be a good idea at this point since no one else was stopping and there really isn’t any better way to draw attention to yourself than to act like a severely handicapped person and then fall down or require assistance only to have your helpers realise you are sneaking in $2 whisky. In hindsight I wish I had brought the camera and I am sure Adam wished he had listened to my advice to get two flasks.

The venue was a giant flat field with a main stage far in front and 5 big screens dotted around. We had met up with a few of Adam’s friends and decided to plant ourselves far in the back in front of one of the screens as the front had filled up already. There were two opening bands but we had missed the first. The second was Kraftwerk, which I had heard of from Coachella. I arrived to their song “Tour de France” which basically is some sort of promo they did for the Tour and it brought my excitement to a new level. I was transfixed to the screen and was at a loss for words. I realised then that at some point I needed to improve my cycling to the point that I could race in that race.

Adam foolishly decides he needs to go to the bathroom. That was the last I saw of him until after the show. I remained with his friends for the rest of Kraftwerk and then we decided Adam was a lost cause and decided to head in further to get closer. I thought this was a bad idea as we had claimed a great spot in front of this screen but in the end it was the right decision as the entire place would soon fill to ludicrously above fire-code capacity levels. The three of us followed each other through the crowd battling to move forward. We would take turns being in the lead trying to pry through couples and groups with a leading shoulder and a goofy smile on your face which was supposed to explain to the people you were harassing that you knew what you were doing was ridiculous but you were going to try and go forward anyway. Every now and then you would hit a jam and could not move any more and you could just feel the hatred of the people around you who were thinking “who the fuck is this guy making my 10-inch square of personal space now only 8 inches?” The Argentines are very comfortable with touching and being in close quarters and this crowd proved it. You could see multiple streams of through ways through the masses trying to worm their way closer. I caught sight of a train of guys guarding a group of girls moving forward with some speed and decided to ditch Adam’s friends, knowing that a lone crowd-sneaker is much more effective. At that point I decided that I was going front row. It took me almost three quarters of the show but I made it to within 15 feet of the front rails and it was all worth it. My hands were locked in front of my chest and my movement was dictated by the collective consciousness of the mob. Every now and then there would be a strong heave from the back and I do remember thinking that I might not make it out of this. Fortunately for me I tend to be taller than many people in this country and at 15 feet I could make eye contact with the band and make sure my completely soaked armpits were smashing into the face of some guy to my right. The heat in this type of crowd is incredible and was likely the motivation for the energy theory in the Matrix movies. Everyone was completely soaked as well and it was all sweat, I hope. After 20 minutes you just don’t care.

The stage reminded me of a reverse Bellagio fountains. They had these hanging crystals above the stage that would change colours with the music. Amazingly effective. It made me wonder what bands are out there that have musicians as well as visual artists in the band because the visuals were as tantalising as the music.

The music itself was second to none. They played every song you would want to hear from Radiohead and the Argentines knew every one of them. My friend Pat was explaining to me when he was at the Obama inauguration, he was overwhelmed with the feeling that everyone there was concentrating on the same thing and having the same wavelength of thought amongst millions of people. I have also heard this from a Muslim guy I met on a Barcelona beach one night who made the same point with reference to every Muslim on earth pointing in the same direction and praying every day. Well, although on a smaller scale, it feels amazing to be in a heaving crowd who are all focusing and thinking and singing the same thing. Gives you the chills.

There must have been at least 20 guitars and all were used, each tuned in some magical way that made every song sound better than you knew it from the recordings. Thom Yorke is obviously an impressive musician and demonstrated his prowess on a piano, guitar, and bass. At one point I saw a guitar being played with a violin bow which was expertly done. At one point they also did this really cool thing where Yorke would sing something and they would somehow instantly record and then mix that over and over — I think someone told me this is called a chaos loop or something. But it sounded great and was being done using the pedals as one of the guys was on his knees playing the pedals with his hands. These guys are experts at what they do and there was no doubting that.

After 4 intense encore sessions that were initiated by some enthusiastic chanting, the show was over. The crowd calmly left the stadium and we walked for about 45 minutes until we found an available taxi. There might be 50,000 cabs in this city and none of them think to go to the stadium, especially the stadium that is far away, to make some good cash. I really liked Radiohead before this concert but now they are top of my list. Thank you Quilmes, although how stupid is it not to serve beer at your own concert?