More Like Singa-BORE (Sorry, Spoiler)/JAKARTA - SINGAPORE

Coming from East Timor, I have a layover in Indonesia for a night and a day. That girl in Brunei says Jakarta's the place to be, so let's give it a once-over. Unfortunately for her and all her countrymen, I've got a bad case of the grumps.

First I have to transfer at Denpasar airport in Bali, where they make me pick up my baggage to carry through. On top of that they won't let me check it for some reason, so off I go carrying my hulking backpack through no less than 3 security checkpoints. Why they have so many is a mystery, as one security officer doesn't even look up from her texting as my stuff goes through the metal detector. 

However, at the last security point my bag does get stopped. After all this baggage and security nonsense I'm running very late for my flight, which paradoxically makes me less inclined to be cooperative. The gentleman in charge has me put the backpack through again, and sure enough stops it once more. The culprit: my tiny Leatherman Micra, which normally is safely stowed in my checked luggage. They point its shape out to me on the x-ray and ask if I recognize it. I'm late and getting pissed off, so I claim ignorance. If you G-Men want my adorable little multitool, you're going to have to work for it.

After putting my pack through yet again, the man finally starts rummaging through the pockets. The thing is, I haven't hidden it; the Leatherman is simply floating around in the front pocket, but for some reason this guy never thinks to try the zipper staring him in the face. They run the bag through 2 more times, each time pulling out more of my stuff from the main pouch and setting it aside, and each time neglecting that front pocket. Finally, an announcement from my airline starts calling for people to board for Jakarta. I swear loud and desperate enough for the security guy to hear, and at last he relents. Defeated, he zips my shit back up, Leatherman untouched. That's right System, I win. I should do a little terrorism just to spite you. But I won't, because that's a serious issue with a lot of facets and I shouldn't joke about it so flippantly.

Now I'm at maximum-grump, plus my mp3 player won't charge so for the whole flight I'm left to just read Bukowski and practice my misanthropy. When we touch down, a little girl is in the aisle next to me, with tears in her eyes for some unknown reason. Good, I think, misanthropically.

I wait for the bus downtown to Blok M, backpacker central. The bus is full 3 times in a row as it comes by, and when I do finally manage to get on I ride it too far, missing my stop. I pay for a motorcycle to take me the rest of the way, and meet a couple Norwegian girls wielding a Lonely Planet and looking for a place to stay. They let me tag along, and together we find a place that has a couple rooms left for $13 apiece. I consider asking them if they want to split a big room with me and save money, but after they make a comment about how the completely fine accommodations at this hotel are the worst they've ever stayed in, it's apparent they're not ready to go full Into the Wild just yet.

A glimpse into the heart of darkness, apparently.

I unload my backpack, collapse onto the bed and try to think positive, but it's no use. I'm tired of it. The same pregnant dogs and cats everywhere, the same small talk locals make while trying to rip you off, the same broken glass on top of the walls. Everyone thinking I'm rich because I'm white, and the guilty sense of entitlement when I think anything negative ever. The constant irritation of getting in a taxi and not being able to trust the company, the meter, or the driver who never seems to know their city's own goddamn landmarks. I'm tired of not having had a solid bowel movement in 4 months. Tired of all these old geezers growing out their disgusting mole hairs. Tired of having to assume anyone who talks to me after sundown is a prostitute. The blood-stained towels and sheets. The lizards on the walls. And is it just me, or do all their cell phone ringtones sound like the theme to The Deer Hunter? I'm just so tired. And there's that sense of guilt flooding in. It's all just a vacation, really. Get over yourself. At least the weather's nice. It's not like the sun is our constant enemy.

There's a group of backpackers from all over Europe drinking outside the hotel, so I join them for a few beers. A couple French guys break off for dinner, and ask if I'd like to join. I say sure. For some reason I tell them they don't have to speak English on my account, because I'm kind of drunk and I've seen Amelie a couple times, so I'm basically fluent in their mother tongue. We eat. After an hour, it turns out that I in fact do not speak, nor understand, the French language. I pretend this is not the case for a good hour before we adjourn back to the hotel. More beers in pretend-and-nod-along-French, then bed. Is this a vacation? Is this how my brain wants me to relax? It doesn't feel like it.

With the rising sun comes a renewed sense of drive and optimism, but then a renewed sense of ennui to cancel that right the fuck out. I don't particularly want to go anywhere, so I stay in past checkout watching stand-up comedy on my netbook and then walk to a pancake joint.

They put cheese all over my pancake. I don't know if this is a specific recipe or a cultural thing or maybe something more widespread and this is actually how old traditional classic pancakes are supposed to be, and I don't care. Just Stop.

I buy a new toothbrush so I can feel productive (not at the pancake place, that'd be weird), and when I return to the hotel the guy very rightly points out that it's past checkout, so I need to pay more. Unfortunately for him, he's speaking to the Emperor of Frowns right now, so I'm gonna feel compelled to make that way more difficult than you ever wanted this business transaction to be. Never Back Down, son.

In the end, he's trying to charge me for a whole extra night, even though he's got a sign that says it's supposed to be 50% for overstaying. So I win, with him reinforcing the sort of shady shit that put me in this mood. And all I needed to do to avoid this was check out and take my backpack to the pancake house in the first place, since that's pretty much all I did with my day. Whoops.

I get a taxi to the airport, which takes a long time to show up, and then an even longer time to get to the terminal. Jakarta traffic is slower than a sloth riding a turtle in a world made of molasses, and yes I am basing that off my experience of one day. The long ride gives me some time to observe and reflect, and most importantly judge, my Jakarta experience. The city seems halfway on the sleaze scale between Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, and maybe deserves a second look. Putting down my Grump Goggles for a second, the city seems like it's got a unique life of its own, and the people so far have mostly been lovely. In fact, in just my brief time I received multiple CouchSurfing messages from Indonesian strangers asking if I wanted to hang out or chat, just like Puspita back in East Timor. Of course, in between the time of me going there and then writing this I've seen the documentary The Act of Killing, so...let's just say they've got some shit to work out.

Just like Tiger Air has to work out this huge line! Ha ha! Preferably through smarter organization, and not genocide.

The plane is delayed, and then delayed again after we board. At this point, I'm feeling worse for my CoushSurfing host in Singapore, Malcolm, who is presumably waiting up for me.

Singapore has the longest airport-based slide in the world. I don't have any context for this.

The plane gets into Singapore around midnight, then baggage takes another half hour to come out. Trains have long stopped running, so I find a pay phone to call Malcolm, who very reasonably suggests I get a taxi. This very reasonable taxi to Bedok ends up costing 25 bucks, which in my current delicate state sounds goddamn insane. I flip my frigging lid on this guy, convinced the meter was running fast or somesuch, but he keeps very reasonably pointing to a sign in his cab that says night-time rides cost an extra 50 percent. I'm so mad, I storm off forgetting my bag in the trunk until the driver I just cussed out reminds me, forcing me into the awkward position of continuing to frown and act as if him giving me my bags is a further inconvenience that he is using to spite me.

Malcolm, who I later find out had been waiting over an hour for me at the train station until it closed, lets me into the apartment he shares with his family. He's lovely, they're lovely, blah blah blah. Nice people, what's their deal. Really, I'm extremely gracious to him for opening his home to me. Time for a chill pill. Nay - a chill suppository. A chill IV drip. Need to stop trying to fight random service industry workers. Civilization is what I need, and the price of that taxi definitely smacked of civilization.

The morning brings riches indeed. Malcolm has taken me to a hawker food court.

It may not look like it, but that picture is why people should come to Singapore: the food scene will blow your tits off. I try "Singapore pad thai" as Malcolm calls it, and he gets chicken fried rice. Both are obscenely good.

This plate of greasy slop is better than your last dozen meals combined.

My enthusiasm must be written all over my face, because Malcolm comments with a smile, "We'll probably be eating most of your time here!" He tells me about how the government cracked down on the old style of food cart, moving them all into these food malls where they must also secure licenses and face further competition to up their game. I can't speak as to what their food traditions were before, but they're blowing me away now. Something about the confluence of Chinese, Southeast Asian, and Indian immigrants in Singapore has made this country extremely racist (did I not mention that?), and extremely open to delicious fusion recipes.

We finish the meal with some coffees (I'm sorry, "kopi"), served hyper-sweetened with condensed milk like in Vietnam. Malcolm informs me in the future to make sure to order "Kopi C" or "Kopi O", as these are less sweetened versions for dainty Western palates like mine. Apparently Singaporeans take their coffee pretty seriously, with an entire lexicon to match. Malcolm also picks up a soya milk with tapioca pearls, which is whatever. Can't really go wrong there.

So after we eat, we- alright, I tried to put this off as long as I could. There's nothing to fucking do in Singapore. Remember when I said 3 paragraphs ago that people should come to Singapore for the food? That is literally the only reason anyone should ever come to Singapore. Don't get me wrong, the food will make you want to call your parents for the first time in years to thank them for that one act of lovemaking that led to this meal, but Singapore ain't got nothing else going on. When Malcolm said we'd be eating most of our time here, he was making the best and only itinerary possible.

William Gibson has conveniently already summed this position up in his landmark Wired article Disneyland with The Death Penalty. While Gibson needn't have been so alarmist (I gleefully point out every bit of illegal gum stuck to the sidewalks, to which Malcolm less gleefully muses how he has to hear about the fucking gum from every foreigner he hosts), he wasn't wrong. All culture in the city/country seems to have been replaced by shopping malls. When I ask Malcolm what he recommends we do after our meal, he replies, "I guess we can see a movie?"

Which we do. We go to a mall and see Green Lantern with Ryan Reynolds, a movie which is not very good, no sir. Then he suggests we go swimming (Malcolm, not Ryan Reynolds), which we do, at the most eerily pristine swimming center I have ever seen:

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining II: Fun in the Sun!

And it's nice. Just like the mall was nice. Nice like your grandmother's couch that she won't take the plastic off of because you aren't to be trusted. Too nice. Disturbingly nice. Why are you so crazy about your couch, Grandma. Are you gonna fuck that couch? Did...did you see someone fucking a couch once, and vowed never again? Does this metaphor still work for the government? Stop thinking, just eat your damn impeccable food:

After what must have been our fifth meal together, I split off from Malcolm towards downtown. As a guy who's been known to finish a cocktail or two in his time, there's one last thing I'm interested in from this country: the Raffles Hotel, home to the original Singapore Sling. Also, it's 10:30 and this is all I have time for if I want to make it back to Malcolm's before the trains stop.

Why won't you be more cyberpunk, damn you! You have such potential!

Finding the famed Long Bar at Raffles is easy enough, just follow the scores of other tourists coming to have exactly one drink and leave.

I mean, who can bear staying a second longer in a dump like this.

What I find surprising is how old-school they've kept the place: while they no longer have quasi-slaves to fan you, they do have a mechanical setup with old timey-fans to provide the same experience. The bar's also got boxes of salted peanuts, of which it is both acceptable and expected to toss their shells on the floor, to be swept up by modern quasi-slaves. That's right, I went there SOCIETY. You can buy their peanuts at the hotel gift shop for extortionate prices afterwards, if that's the kind of person you've decided you want to be in your life.

Classy, with an emphasis on the assy.

The bar isn't anywhere near capacity, so I'm served fairly quickly. There's no sense to beat around the bush. He knows why I'm here, I know why I'm here. As I once said and then turned into a multi-billion dollar clothing empire, "No Fear".

"A Singapore Sling?" I purr. The bartender nods his head. "Of course, sir." Respect. Obsequience. Not what I normally receive from the kind of drinking establishments I frequent back home. I watch this guy in hungry anticipation, eager to see a master at work. What brands of brandy do they use? Are they the historical brands, or have they moved on? His technique was simpler: Grab a jug from a pre-stocked mini-fridge beneath the bar, slop the pre-mixed pink tipple into a highball glass, and top with pre-assembled garnish.

I see that jug, you goddamn monster.

He then promptly brings the receipt.

For everyone who is anti-illiterate (thus can't parse photos but instead can only read formatted text), the receipt was for an inhumane 30 dollars and 60 cents. Which, okay, might've been in Singapore Dollars so actually a little over 20 dollars USD, but that's still more than I would probably pay for a car. Probably, I don't really drive.

Admit it, this photo kind of makes you want to sit next to an old globe and say disdainful things about the colonies, followed by a long puff on your cigar and a furtive glance at the coat boy who meets your eyes with knowing interest, but you musn't ever let anyone know for such things are forbidden, why else did you come halfway around the world if not to escape the pain of these thoughts...

After eating way more salty nuts than I maybe should have just to make some sort of point, I return to Malcolm's not as a conquering hero, but...as a guy who had a drink that cost more than he thought it would and it tasted okay, but not worth anywhere near that, and at least if it tasted terrible there'd be more of a story from it. I think Camus once wrote something along those lines.

I manage to sneak a peek at the Singapore Flyer on the way back to Malcolm's, mostly so I can claim to have seen all of Singapore's sights before I leave this snooze-cruise. Back at my temporary digs I'm psyched to see that my download of the Game of Thrones finale has finished. I'm pretty sure that's the most exciting thing going on in this country, and I'm super chuffed that it was from an illegal torrent. Suck it, you gum-fearing fascists.

I wake up to find my computer has crashed, and Windows won't start. That hurts right in the hubris. Why I still bother with this thing...Oh right, I have a problem specific to my generation and I shall use that to deny all personal responsibility for my techno-priorities. After a shower, Malcolm takes me for a breakfast of kaya toast and eggs, which instantly becomes my new favorite breakfast. Runny eggs on kinda-sweet toast just presses all my weirdo taste buttons. Malcolm isn't finished though, no sir. That's followed by Laksa, a delicious spicy noodle soup, Which itself is then followed by a curry puff, the curry perfectly spiced and the pastry just the right kind of flaky. Bless you, couch host angel. My gastrointestinal tract may weep disgusting tears, but my heart sings.

I would later find that you can get kaya toast in a lot of Southeast Asian restaurants once you recognize it on the menus. Treat yourself.

Laksa and a curry puff, duh.

I do. I really do.

To prove Singapore isn't all delicious food and sterile nothingness everywhere else, Malcolm shows me this street of kind of interesting German architecture. Indeed, it's kinda interesting, although it looks as fake and empty as everything else in this city-state.

Singapore: It's great if you don't enjoy much in life!

It being my last day, I pack up my things, but Malcolm surprises me with a stop at the Singapore Flyer, where he happens to tend bar. Apparently, he wants me rate his Singapore Sling against that of the vaunted Raffles.

This is the Flyer. I decided against riding it because I always feel like the bigger the Ferris Wheel the more I should ride it, but then the longer it takes to get off the damn thing once I remember how fucking boring they are.

It's a nice bar though.

It's good! Pretty much the same thing I'd say, but the Raffles didn't exactly set a high bar for themselves with that whole pre-made jug business. His is a bit sweeter, but the Raffles one has a more boozy kick that I prefer. On the other hand, Malcolm's is also 10 bucks cheaper for more or less the same thing.

Winner.

Should I have spent a day's wages trying two of these mostly-similar not-really-great cocktails? Not like there's much else to do here!

Except for whatever this space cocoon I could see from the window is. You could probably do something in there, like hang out with Pauly Shore or foil an X-Files plot or something.

Malcolm and I take some pictures to commemorate our time together, which was incidentally the only time I was enjoying the country so I was happy to oblige.

He's a good 'un, this guy.

Apparently the Singapore airport is supposed to be some hot shit, but instead of enjoying the amenities I end up spending my whole time at the airport using the wifi and trying to get Windows on my netbook working again. I must've made quite the deal about this, because Malcolm wrote me a CouchSurfing comment in which he wished me a safe trip, and my computer a speedy recovery. What the fuck is wrong with me. I eat a McFlurry and get to the gate with 10 mins to spare, which is not intended to be related to the previous sentence, it is simply a timeline of events.

I've finished my Bukowski book, so I'm in a singular mood when I find that my mp3 player has run out of my battery, and I've put my other book in my checked baggage. Nothing to do but sketch drawings of some lady across the aisle like a fucking creeper and write in my stupid journal. I'm ready for the SE Asia backpacker trappings again. I can't take another mall, and I need to be thinking about something more interesting than how disappointing Lost was, and I can't believe I drained my mp3 player watching a water-cooler show years after it ended. Singapore has a lot of malls, honestly incredible food, and nothing else. Caning is still a punishment, if that's a draw for you. It does have Malcolm, which is something for sure, but I need that old uncertainty back, the dirt, the noise, the bad tattoos of a country bitterly reliant on drunk and disorderly foreigners. I need a life that's slightly to the left. Bring back the chaos and let it reign.

To that end, where am I headed now? Why, the city of Angeles in the Philippines, famed sex tourism destination according to some blogs I swear I read after I had already bought my ticket because that's where Air Asia flies out of. Now there's a town that I bet's gonna have some gum on their streets.

Minds Your Head/BAGAN

I wear my Moustache Brothers shirt to the airport in the morning, just to see if something happens. Maybe 'cause I haven't done anything reckless and stupid in too long, and I had a blog to write. I'm looking out for you guys. Unfortunately (?), nothing happened. I very coolly unclenched my buttocks and took my unassigned seat on the plane. Emergency exit seat again, as luck would have it. That has to be about one out of every three flights on this trip, not that it's foreshadowing anything. Really, it's not. Where was I? Oh yeah, right before this dude Chekhov let me hold his gun. But before that...

A taxi from the Bagan airport into Nyaung-U costs 5,000 ks, which leaves me with less than 100,000, or a little over 100 USD, for the next six days. Which should be fine, it's not like Myanmar doesn't have ATMs or any other way to get...oh. Time to hit the shoestring section of Lonely Planet harder than a silverback gorilla playing whack-a-mole in a middling New Yorker cartoon.

I price shop hostels like a person who is responsible with money, and still end up paying 7 USD, which is a little heftier than the $3 quoted in Lonely Planet. On the bright side, I meet a French couple who let me borrow their battery charger. It's for a different model, but if I shove it in haphazardly I can get the metal contacts to touch. On the non-bright side, I get all this done just in time for the electricity to be turned off for the afternoon. Which means no camera for the temples of Bagan, one of the most amazing sights in the world (maybe? doubtless with my luck). Something out there really just does not want me using consumer electronics.

Regardless, I'm going to use photos from when my camera did start working, just to break up this wall of text. If you're a dude who has "verisimilitude" tattooed across your chest in Olde Englishe font then I apologize, for this and a lot of things in general.

So you don't have to wait to look at this.

I'm late for a horse cart I arranged to meet earlier, but as I walk around looking for a new one, his brother stops and picks me up. We talk mostly about Korean movies and Korean girls. He thinks Korean girls are the hottest. Not a bad stance. I'm still curious about those Uzbeks, though.

Bagan is stunning. More than 2200 temples, monasteries, and pagodas crowd the dusty, clay-red landscape. Climbing to the tops of certain pagodas offers some of the most incredible views I've ever seen. And it's all barely regulated. Whereas similar sites in the world would have UNESCO crews fixing up everything, and barring entry in half the temples, the closed government here means you practically have free reign in the 13 x 8 km plains. Clambering through narrow, claustrophobic stone staircases and all over massive, decrepit stupas is the shit, and that same oppressive government meant I had all of it more or less to myself. There were touts outside all the major temples selling postcards and paintings and lacquerware, but other tourists were few and extremely far between. The entire experience can be boiled down to this: Feeling like Indiana Goddamn Jones. Few things get better than that.

Fuck lacquerware, the market here is wide open for fedoras and bullwhips.

One of the big stops on the horse cart circuit is Shwezigon Pagoda. Some women and children immediately beeline towards me an insist on giving me a tour, but I'm onto their game. I keep trying to split off before I'm pestered for money, but they're persistent, so I give in. They want to give me a tour, let's go. What's that, another Buddha? Careful, I'm not sure my heart can take much more excitement. They half-follow me and I half-follow them around the place, the women occasionally clucking and warning, "Minds your head!" They show me how to wash the Buddha heads, and rub the Buddha tummies. The cutest little girl pins a tiny paper butterfly to my shirt. Once they're done showing me around, the women ask for a "present". I tell 'em I've got nothing for 'em, and they see I mean business. They all stomp off, muttering angrily. The little girl unpins the paper butterfly from my shirt with great efficiency and solemnity, like I've just been dishonorably discharged from her adorable army. I'd be lying if I said it didn't sting a little.

Before breaking for lunch, we knock out a couple more temples, I see more Buddhas than Siddartha's mirror, and I disappoint even more vendors and touts.

Do you think they call Christmas lights "Buddha lights" here?

Regardless, they still all insist "Minds your head". I'm not sure if this means anything, but the one time someone tells me to minds my head without trying to sell me anything, next thing I do is bash my head in an especially narrow staircase. Probably doesn't mean anything.

This place does look like it's lousy with curses.

The horse driver takes me eat at a vegetarian restaurant called Be Kind of Animals, which pretty much nails the point. I get some tomato curry and tamarind juice, and an elderly Swiss gentleman at the next table orders orange sodas for his horse cart driver, before chatting me up. My first thought is he must be a rich prick, but it turns out he's a retiree building schools in rural Myanmar.

"I always come out to Bagan every few weeks, just to have a shower and an aircon. There is no electricity in the village I stay in. It takes eight hours for me to walk from the village to the road where taxis are, so I cannot come too often."

Fuck me. After he shows me some pictures of the school he's currently building, I mention my stuff stolen in Ko Tao so that I can futilely try to keep up in the hardship game. He insists that Burmese people could not have stolen my things, and it must've been the Thais. Apparently he regularly leaves around a bag of all his cash, thousands upon thousands of dollars, and even though all the villagers know where it is, none of them touch it, nor would they even think of touching it. I don't really know how to respond, so I ask what it is he used to do, and he tells me his work was mainly around Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Middle East. He says he built textile factories, but that's exactly what the world's most charming retired arms dealer would say. He goes on to say that he's been to the USA 50-60 times, and every state but Hawaii.  I ask if he's been to Seattle. He loved the fish tossing at Pike Place. Before he leaves, he regales me with a tale about his favorite place in America.

"I love Las Vegas! Do you play poker?" I reply that I know of Texas Hold 'Em, and that's about it.

"Texas Hold 'Em, that is poker for babies! I play Omaha Poker. It is the most difficult. One time I was in Las Vegas playing Omaha, and I was playing with the world champion, the 3rd best in the world, the 7th best, and 3 others. It was my greatest game. I was up 50,000 dollars, and I took it and walked away. I knew it would get no better, so I walked away. It was a good day."

No sir, I wouldn't mind being that guy for a a few years to a lifetime, even if he does remind me for some reason of one of those old Nazi war criminals who escaped to South America. But that's just me being an asshole, and why I'll never be that guy. Bummer.

Just as we finish the tour it starts to rain, so we start to head back to the guesthouse. Along the way, I run into Mathieu, and I'm a little surprised to actually see him. I know we said we might meet up, but it's still a pleasant event when it actually happens. Probably something to do with my insecurities. He's with Kim, a Dutch girl who was also at the Moustache Brothers show. We eat dinner together, and hear that tonight is the Full Moon Festival. According to Lonely Planet, this means a lot of drunken revelry. According to the horse cart driver, it means absolutely no drunken revelry, because it celebrates the day Buddha became...Buddha. And I guess he didn't like the sauce. We spy a parade cruising by, and it leads us to a local volleyball match next to a pagoda. We sit on a wall to watch, and are immediately beset by a mob of children asking our names, asking for money, asking for food, water, candy, high-fives, handshakes, photos, to be picked up, to be swung around...I play jankenpo and do some clapping games with some, while other children keep trying to smell and kiss my hands. One of the children is wearing a Nazi shirt. Kim takes a boatload of photos, and finally the volleyball match ends with a fight. We promise the children we'll come back the next day, which was a lie.

Feeling dusty and filthy, we split up to take showers. The shower stall at the guesthouse has a red lightbulb, for that special gas chamber ambiance that you want. Our night ends with a puppet show at Pyiwa, that just consists of a lot of manic puppet dancing. It's not bad. Kim is leaving the next day, so I arrange with Mathieu to move into the room they're sharing.

In the morning, I give back the camera battery charger I've borrowed, psyched to finally rent a bicycle and get some pictures of those temples. Of course, it's raining. After breakfast, I use a squatter toilet for the first time, IN MY LIFE. My thighs felt like hot, quivering jelly that had just lost a fight to a much stronger alpha-jelly. No wonder you see old Asian people wandering around parks at night, doing their little exercises. Gotta get shredded if you wanna poop.

The rain finally stops around 1pm, so I try to check out of my guesthouse. There's no one at the front desk, only a boy outside asleep. I wake him, but he doesn't speak English or know what "checkout" means. I point to my money, my bags, and my room key, but he's still clueless. He calls in some old guy, who notices that I'm supposed to stay 2 nights. He fucks me on the exchange rate from kyat to USD, but there's not a lot I can do about that.

At the other guesthouse, Golden Village, I ask for Mathieu's room. "What country?" "France." "Room 202." He greets me in the room and we meet Kim at a restaurant. There, I find out that Mathieu is into punk music. I ask him what bands he likes. "Rancid, Dead Kennedys, The Clash, Choking Victim..." It's like he's reading the handmade liner notes of one of my high school mix CDs.

Way too eagerly, I ask him, "Oh my god, 'Crack Rock Steady'?!"

"Are you ready to stop / The rotten blue menace, let's go kill us a cop!" Mathieu sings back.

In unison, we belt out the chorus: "Crack rock steady! Are you ready?! Living above the law!"

Kim looks on with what a fancy man might call "abject horror". I don't give a shit. I just found a new best friend for the day.

Before Kim leaves, she the two of us sign a friend journal that she keeps, which strikes me as a fantastic idea for traveling. We both write a little note in the book about meeting her and jot down some contact info, and read some of the notes other people have also left her. Then she packed her bags and took off, and it was just me and my new punk buddy.

It's now around 1pm, so we've got a decent amount of time to still hit the temples. We rent bicycles, and set out on a road picked at random, singing "500 Channels", "Ca Plane Pour Moi", "Danger! High Voltage", and anything else that has a dumb chorus you can sing loud enough to spook the locals.

It should come as no surprise when I say this, but the pictures I finally managed to take did not match the initial wonder I felt the day before.

Total bullshit.

The lighting was poorer, and the temples we saw a bit less magnificent. Yet...I was having immensely more fun. And it was all thanks to the music, because music matters to me. If I may, a moment about music:

I think most people would agree that good music feels like the greatest, coolest, most fun guy you'll ever meet. You love hanging out with him, can't wait to introduce him to all your friends, invite him around everywhere you go, get really excited when he shows up at the bar. He's life of the party. For me, I was a socially awkward kid for most of my life. I found I could protect myself and deflect attention with a pair of headphones. When I had few friends, or none at all, music was there for me. Music was love. For me, that great cool fun guy that everyone wants to hang out with, I had a not-so-secret crush on him. I was, and continue to be, enraptured by him. I want to know all about his friends, his parents, his children. I want to live inside him, have him always around, have him never leave my side. I want to introduce him to my girlfriend, and see where things go. I want to know his other lovers, and bicker and rejoice over his being.

Hence why having any sort of mp3 player on my trip at all times feels so vital. Hence why I nitpick over the songs that go on said mp3 player, and waste time at slow-as-molasses internet cafes downloading new ones. When I'm traveling, access to music can be more important than my passport. For me, singing punk songs with an agreeable Frenchman while biking through a rust-colored mythscape could be considered a transformative experience. A+, highly recommended, would bike again.

It could just be the sugarcane juice talking, though. I drank a lot of sugarcane juice.

Apparently these new, box-looking pagodas are built by all those corrupt government officials trying to buy their way into nirvana.

A guy on motorcycle stops and says he can "show good sunset". We take him at his word, and of course when we get there he turns out to be a painter and wants us to take a look at his paintings. Mathieu buys a small one of a monk. Still, he told no lie. It good sunset.

After we've headed back to our guesthouse, Mathieu asks if I've heard of the band Morning Glory. I say no, and he says the most French thing I've ever heard: "Tonight, you will fall in love." He may even have kissed his fingers "muah". They're a crust-punk band similar to Choking Victim, and he plays me their song "Gimme Heroin". I do fall in love, and in return turn him onto Aesop Rock and Dead Prez.

Mathieu also brings up something I said earlier about running out of money, and offers to loan me some money. I balk, but in time accept $25 from him. I need it. All in all, I've got about 64,000 KS (66 USD) now, and a heart that would put the post-holiday-terrorism Grinch to shame. My situation's still rough, but a little less blowjobs-in-the-near-future grim.