Welcome Back/TAIPEI - UBUD

After my unintended and mostly awful night in Taiwan's capital, I was feeling self-destructive and decided to take a strange bus route back to the airport, different from the one I had used before. Despite my sporting attempt at confused self-defeat, I was able to (just) make my plane to Bali, and had a completely unremarkable flight besides watching both Robocop and The Jerk for the first time ever, on my netbook. Actually, I guess that would make it a pretty remarkable flight.


The in-flight movies were a little more confused and off-putting.

If you want to get jazzed up for international travel...there are better ways to do it, but I'll be damned if those combined films didn't make some kind of impact on my psyche.

And thus I entered into the Bali airport. Naive. Ill-prepared. I noticed lines queuing up for visas, and the people in said line had in their hands a lot of carefully filled out paperwork that looked worryingly official. I had no paperwork, official or otherwise. Even worse, I didn't see any place to get these papers, and it was becoming more and more obvious (and alarming) that people had already been equipped with these forms when they arrived. Now, I'd had a brief glance at the wikitravel page for Bali, and didn't see anywhere about needing extra visa preparation before arrival. It seemed for the first time in history, a person had been led astray by a publicly-edited website.

Right when I was about to find a desk to ask if I could pretty please just get back on the plane and see where that takes us, one of the airport workers stepped forward and asked if I needed help. I mumbled something about needing an ATM, thinking at the very least I might be able to bribe, and maybe cry, my way through, but it turns out that wasn't necessary. I mean, money was definitely necessary, but the second I had cash-in-hand this airport worker was taking me straight to the front of every line in the place.

Before I knew it, my passport was all visaed up, and as I would find, cost me 10 dollars extra. I was angry at myself for giving in so quickly to the scams, but then I looked back at all the travelers still stuck in that monster of a visa queue, and realized no one had even looked at my customs declaration form (the only actual form I had on me), and things felt pretty okay. That is, until another airport worker offered to carry my bag, and then demanded another 10 dollars after lugging it a whole 20 yards, knowing that new arrivals would only have big bills. Welcome back to Southeast Fucking Asia.

I didn't yet have to deal with the headache of airport taxis (spoiler alert: fuck airport taxis), since one of the very few things I had done in preparation for the trip was booking a guesthouse in Ubud, which included airport pick-up. So that was nice, and I was able to relax for the ride north. Until, you know, our car was rear-ended.

Truthfully, things could have been going better. Such were my thoughts as I watched a couple women smile-yell at my driver for about 10 minutes, which he returned in kind.


Angry smiles at the ready.

There were also some more panicky thoughts when we got back on the road, and I spotted a motorcycle driver ahead of us with some manner of automatic rifle strapped to his back, but what can you do.


Seriously.

These things...they are definitely there, and are things.

After checking into my guesthouse and generally feeling relieved that my driver didn't also try to hit me up for money (instead, I would later find out his fees had been tacked onto my room bill), I met my neighbors: a pair of German girls on their way to the nearby Monkey Sanctuary. Would I be interested in joining them, they asked? If you like, you can recreate in your head the moment I decided to book a guesthouse in Ubud, instead of the more popular Kuta: it was exactly when I read there was a nearby Monkey Sanctuary.

Of course, after a single photo of these damn monkeys, my camera died. MOTHERFUCKER. I know, right? Eff that ess. So if you'll excuse the anachronism, I'd like to present some photos AND VIDEOS of goddamn monkeys that I took the following day, with camera fully charged and monkeys continuing to do wacky monkey things:


Like, hanging out.


And hanging out next to people.


And hanging out next to water.


And going fucking insane in the water.


And being adorable and also kind of sad.


And this one was my favorite: he was chewing on a (lit) incense stick that he stole from an offering box, and it looked like he was smoking.


Which was, of course, hilarious.


This was not what it looked like. Probably.

Yeah, that'll do. After we gave the sanctuary a moderate exploration, the girls and I part ways, leaving me to nap and eat alone like a leper, and them to, I don't know, go live lives separate from mine, never to be seen again. Somehow it snuck up on me how brief backpacker connections can be.


It is way too early days to already be feeling crushing loneliness. You gotta tighten up, Jamie. Also maybe keep the talking to yourself to a minimum.

I was also to learn that almost the entirety of Ubud closes by 10pm, leaving no nightlife, and me with nothing to do except watch old episodes of Rescue Me on the netbook and watch the lizards crawl around on my ceiling. Which is a thing in Southeast Asia.


Indeed, nothing but the Art FuckTory seemed to be open.

Welcome back.

A Careful and Thorough Preparation/SEATTLE - TAIPEI(!)

If this were a movie, here would be a series of smash cuts depicting the different injuries I've sustained, the various gray states of consciousness I've had to operate in, and the surprising lack of vomit throughout the whole affair. But this isn't a movie, so let's be a little more conventional and background-heavy. In late 2010 I somehow managed to finish a teaching contract in Korea without being fired, and in doing so saved a good amount of money. With no job, debts, romantic relationships, or any real responsibilities, I found myself suddenly with the perfect opportunity to get my travel on, in the way I had dreamed of as a weird kid with social problems. A true balls-out, months-long backpacking trek that would test me physically, psychically, and emotionally, but not so much financially because I would be mostly in Southeast Asia, which isn't a region typically known for wallet-busting.

Though I'm usually resentful of planning and research and other standard requirements before a massive international trip, I nonetheless had this much figured out before I left: on March 7th of 2011 I would take off for Bali, then head to Australia where I would meet my long-time friend Jessie, then to Vietnam, Laos, and China with a different friend and coworker, Sarah, from my time in Korea. After China, it was up in the air. I had secured a double-entry visa, and I was entertaining the possibilities of either doing a tour of North Korea, or riding the Transsiberian out of Beijing. That is, until I emailed a North Korean tour agency, and they told me I needed a job to get the necessary visa. Of all the things that would have potentially kept me out of the DPRK, I did not see that one coming. I briefly entertained the notion of making up some job credentials, but North Korea seemed like the one country I did not want questioning the validity of my visa. So that was out.

With my prospective tour date (Kim il-Song's birthday) now free, I instead opted for the chance to return to Thailand, and this time I would finally see that full moon party in Koh Phan Ngan. Going to one of the world's biggest parties without someone there to look out for me if (ha!) things get crazy? This plan was already looking pretty good.

My only limitation? Money, and a friend's wedding in mid-July I would need to be back for. Whichever came first.

So by the 6th, it's one day before my flight, I've purchased about half of the flight tickets I need, and the only room I've booked is for the full moon party, which won't be for another month. Instead, I go to Emerald City Comic Con, get a haircut, smoke a large amount of salvia and marijuana, and finish Dead Space 2. Priorities. I also find that my 80 dollar headphones have stopped working, now that it's too late to replace them. Not a good sign, but not a crucial problem either. If this is the worst the universe can muster up for me, then color me unimpressed.

The 7th. Day of. I finish the book I had been reading (Hell's Angels, which should tell you the frame of mind I had put myself in before the trip), buy a pair of swim trunks, and fancy new shoes. The shoes were Puma Faas 300s, and are by far the lightest and most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. I then meet some friends for happy hour, where I enjoyed the shit out of $4.50 kobe beef sliders, knowing in a matter of hours I would be facing down the mean end of 8 buck airport food. About an hour before I need to be at the airport, it dawns on me that packing might be a good idea, as well as getting a place to stay in Bali. I manage both with about as much efficiency and dexterity as possible under the circumstances, and head to the airport, cool as a cucumber.

Until I find out there's been a little mixup. See, on the way to Bali I was supposed to have a layover in Taipei for a couple hours, no big deal. Instead, as the Taiwanese man behind the counter informs me, my dates have been changed so I now have to spend a night in Taipei. Without telling me. Dang.

Well, how hard could it be to find a hostel or love motel to stay the night in, I ask myself with shaking confidence. It's not like any other step of my journey is much more planned out, so this will just be an extra, unexpected, irritating-as-hell extra leg for the trip. There was briefly a tiny voice inside me saying I maybe probably could have confirmed my travel dates before getting to the airport, but as quickly as possible I found that voice inside me and murdered it dead. I locate an internet station in the airport and send off optimistic emails to my guesthouse in Bali and my Komodo Island tour group, requesting postponements all around. Oh, did I not mention I would be going to Komodo Island? Yeah, that is something that would be happening. Horrible poisonous lizard attacks...maybe also something that would be happening. Time, as they say, would tell.

In the meantime, I guess I was supposed to be hanging out in Taipei, Taiwan. With my nerves prematurely jangled, I had hoped the flight over at least might provide some respite, but my luck decided to instead provide me with a mentally handicapped Taiwanese boy who somehow managed to be in front of me in all lines and needed to change his underpants. I was also given an emergency exit seat, which can never be good. Of course, an airplane crash would prevent me from having to figure out my Taipei situation, and thus we landed safely and I was free to wonder exactly what the fuck I was going to do upon leaving immigration.


Left or right.

I decide to catch a bus to the city center, and see me some of that Tower 101 that has probably been featured in some movie or other.


Be warned that Taiwanese buses have unusually draconian bird policies.


I also got a sneak peek of the insane scooter traffic I would be contending with.

Now, seeing as I was carrying a giant backpack and needed to find lodging, I didn't actually go inside the tower. I'm told it has a big mall, and the fastest elevator in the world. In my defense, speedy verticality wasn't what I needed at the moment.


As far as towers go, this one was definitely vertical.

After walking for hours, I still hadn't found any cheap accommodations, hostel or otherwise.


I did however see the contender for the Most Cyberpunk Name For A Bank Award.


And this aged rebel, sticking it to the man while I ate Peeps from a park bench.

Finally, I used some place or other's wifi to look up a list of available hostels in Taipei, and cross-referenced the addresses of each one with a list of streets I kind-of-sort-of remembered seeing. One in particular sounded close by, so I hopped on a subway to the general area where it might be, leaving the question of whether I can even get a bed there for later. Exiting the subway station, I walk for another couple hours, unable to find the place, and I'm finally reduced to hiding out in the upstairs of a Starbucks, leaving optimistic email inquiries about their vacancies for the night, and looking up more detailed directions.

I do end up finding the place, an innocuous door that I must have passed a dozen times in my search, and only found after I had bashed my head going up a narrow staircase next to it. Still, score.

After being buzzed in, I said I was the one who had left the email. They hadn't even checked their email, and had no idea who I was. But they had a vacancy! Double score! It was one bed in a shared 8-person dormitory, but there seemed to be no other lodgers for the night, so I had the room to myself. That is, except for the girl working there and changing the beds, who tied me up in conversation for a good half hour planning out a thorough itinerary for me, which would allow me to see a good amount of sights in my one night, which I promptly ignored and instead fell asleep till about 2am. So, no night market or snake market for me. According to the girl, the snake market was where they used to kill live snakes in front of shoppers, but the spectacle had now been replaced by prerecorded videos around the market. I felt bad for tossing aside her advice, but believe you me. This isn't the last you're going to hear of me and snakes.

So I was awake at 2 a.m. and feeling generally shitty for already avoiding Recommended Tourist Destinations so early into my trip, when I heard a disturbance through the wall. It was a girl on her phone in the womens' dormitory, clearly in training for the Olympic yelling team.



And that was my entertainment for the night. With everything closed (because Taiwanese nightlife is apparently a contradiction in terms,) my only options are tinkering with my new netbook, listening to the banshee next door scream into the void, and buying snacks and Taiwan Beer from the local 7-11.


She just got better and better.

I find solace in the irony that I ended up spending my time in Taipei, famous for its cuisine, eating a freezer-dried Tuna sandwich. Pretty sure I got the gist though. TAIWAN: B+