Crashing on the UN's Couch/DILI

I thought I was being very cool negotiating with that random motorcycle driver to pick me up in the morning. Making deals, improvising, international man of the people shit. Then it's 10 minutes past our arranged meeting time, and I'm forced to ask myself: why did I expect some random motorcycle driver to show up? I should've remembered my life is less fast-paced thriller, and more impenetrable Eastern European comedy of manners. It's not like I paid him in advance or anything, so he must just have a work ethic modeled after my own. I get another driver on the street, no big deal, and watch episodes of Treme at the Bali airport on my netbook, easy as you like.

With a few minutes to kill before boarding, I notice there's a cafe here serving Luwak coffee. The Luwak (the Indonesian name for the Asian palm civet), is an ugly opossum-looking tree critter that is fed coffee beans so that they can be pooped out and brewed after its particular digestive juices have worked some sort of voodoo magic on the bean. Needless to say, this coffee is very expensive, and breathtakingly trendy. It costs me $15 USD for a cup. I feel hipper than Zaphod Beeblebrox as I prepare to take my first sip. The coffee is certainly very smooth, and you can sense the underlying quality of the bean, but ultimately it was prepared badly and a burnt-tasting letdown. 

At least, I hope that's why it was gritty.

I've already secured a CouchSurfing host, Marcio, since East Timor seems a little more rough and unknowable than any of the previous countries I've visited, save Myanmar. East Timor is the newest country in the world, after all, and they almost certainly didn't get that way by asking politely. Might be good to have a home base. Marcio, who is in fact a Brazilian UN worker, picks me up at the airport and takes me to lunch before driving me back to his place.

Many of the buildings we pass are bombed-out husks, and Australian military personnel patrol everywhere.

Don't forget the slash-and-burn crop fires!

I think Marcio said the president lives here? Like, the president of the country? With a handful of bored armed dudes just sort of milling about outside.

All in all, nice place.

Pulling up to his house, Marcio points out two men in his yard wielding assault rifles and lounging in the sun as his UN-appointed bodyguards. Whoa. He gives me a short tour of the house, which is unremarkably house-ish, and then we have what was perhaps the most heavily guarded Young Indiana Jones DVD watching session in history.

The UN seems alright with me.

We go to dinner at a seafood buffet, which is way out of my price range. At the restaurant, we run into his scuba instructor who invites me to go diving tomorrow, which is way, way out of my price range. Fuck it. Money's just, like...a concept, man. After dinner, Marcio reveals that the only internet access in his house is through his iPad's 3G connection, which, if you've ever tried to use an iPad to connect to satellites in space from goddamn East Timor, you'll know is less than ideal.

This will be good for me. That's what Mom and Dad would say, and I've obviously followed all their life instructions to the letter. MOM AND DAD DON'T READ THIS.

I wake up early to dive with Dive Timor at a couple popular spots, Dirt Track and Bob's Rock.

Just once I would love to dive somewhere that Lars von Trier or David Lynch had named, like The Obscene Pinnacle or Screaming Gutter Reef.

These are reached by a shore dive, which is where rather than jumping from a boat you walk straight into the water from the beach, waddling awkwardly in your flippers and gear like some sort of British comedy sketch figure. The dives are fantastic. Beneath the surface sprawls rich, ragged beds of coral, blooming in sharp technicolor spires. Because the divers I'm with aren't using the hand signals I was taught to point out sealife, I nearly shove my face into a scorpionfish trying to figure out what a fellow diver is so excited about. Now, I'm no diving expert, but I can guess by the name "scorpionfish" that headbutting one would probably not be a great move for my face.

For lunch, we have fresh local fish from the villagers, eaten whole off the stick, plus some truly delicious coconut rice, biscuits, and cans of coke.

No joke, it's really good.

While we eat, wild pigs and goats come out sniffing for scraps.

What's up, wilderness buddies? You got this diving spot straight locked down.

During conversation, I discover one woman in our dive group doesn't know the children part of the Pied Piper story. You know, the end and entire point of the story. She just thought he cleared the rats out, and that was nice of him. Guess again, lady. I blew her mind with some stone-cold truth bombs.

It's barely noon when we get back to the dive center, so I'm left with a lot of time on my hands to check out what few attractions there are in Dili. There's a retrospective on the independence of East Timor at the library, but I can't find it, so I walk around town like an overly confident Alzheimer's patient. That is, lost and confused and a little scared, but damned if I'm going to let one of these strangers help me. There's also a boat you can take to see some other, cool island, but boats cost money. Take a word from Uncle Jamie: wandering aimlessly around a bunch of embassies is one free savings tip you can take to the bank.

This is a bombed-out church with what I hope aren't human bones tangled in their wall's rusted barbed wire.

Free Savings Tip #2: Sometimes people leave burned Vista install disc in front of Norwegian embassies. JACKPOT.

I hit up a bakery mentioned on wikitravel for my second lunch (or one of those meals that the British aristocracy/hobbits eat), and order some $5 pizza and a drink I've never heard of, "licar veiras". You might think I can't afford to be day-drinking, but I must repeat: it's a liquor I have not had before. If I'm not traveling to experience new things, what is even the point?

Whatever licar verias may be, delicious it is not.

With nothing else to do, I fuck around playing games on my mp3 player for a few hours, and walk back while listening to Morning Glory and Star Fucking Hipsters, another band Mathieu recommended. Unfortunately, it's getting dark, and soon none of the streets look familiar. A guy on a motorcycle stops and asks where I'm going. Fantastic, maybe he can give me a ride. I don't have a lot of money, but I feel lucky.

"Hi, where are you going?" he asks.

I tell him the street I'm looking for, but he doesn't know it.

Undeterred, he asks:"Do you want to go around with me?" What the fuck does that even mean, you...Oh no. He has a nervous yet expectant smile. God DAMMIT. What do I look like, one of those bendy sex monsters from Aeon Flux? East Timor was supposed to be different. I don't know what it is about me that screams vulnerable gay hitchhiker, but I would like it to stop please.

Maybe he was just a nice weirdo offering a ride, you might be thinking. You're free to think that. You're free to think that all the way into your own awkward sex nightmare. That's your right. As for me, I'm taking my genitals and going home. To Marcio's home. Once I stop being so stupid and lost.

A taxi stops for me, but he wants a stupid amount of money, and he doesn't even seem confident on knowing where the street is. This country the size of the Pizza Hut half of a combination Pizza Hut-Taco Bell franchise can't have more than six streets, yet no one seems to knows the one I'm staying on. Maybe they hate Whitey. They've probably seen some shit. I should've gone to that library, so I could be more sensitive to their plight.

I'm able to find the general area where I remember the house being, but it's dark now and figuring out exactly which back alley leads there has me going around in circles. It seems like every house in Dili has a guard dog, and they are all super fucking pissed that I'm sneaking around their yards in the night. It occurs to me these people may have some problems with crime. It continues to occur to me that I'm lost in what could be a very dangerous place, and it just keeps getting later, and even if I'm not attacked by criminals I could be attacked by people thinking I'm a criminal and those dogs just keep barking and I wonder what their gun laws are here and hey I keep passing some real shady characters playing cards in the street and since I'm lost I seem to keep passing them and MAYBE I should ask for help. Wow that took awhile to occur to me.

There's a teenage girl watching TV in her garage nearby, so I walk up as non-threateningly as possible and ask if she has a phone I can use. She does. YES. I call Marcio. He doesn't pick up. DANG. THANK YOU FOR LENDING ME YOUR PHONE THOUGH, STRANGE GIRL. I KNOW I'M A LITTLE STRANGE, IT'S BECAUSE OF MY FEAR.

I'm gonna blow your mind with what happens next: things turn out okay. Wait, I'll back up: I keep walking and trying new streets and eventually a guy notices I'm lost and points me in the direction of "one of those UN houses". It's Marcio's house! His guard doesn't bat an eye as I walk up and inside. Marcio comes out, having just woken up. Apparently he thought I was already home and asleep, so he went to bed and didn't hear his phone. Oh well!

I wake up at 2 pm the next day, after the 3 Xanax I took to help me sleep worked a little too well.

Not that I need them, surrounded by such comforts and fineries known only by the highest of the Emperor's concubines.

I've got what Sarah calls a xanax hangover and Marcio's gone, but at least I've got the cockroaches in the kitchen and the lizards in the shower for company. I make some instant mie goreng for breakfast and watch Young Indiana Jones for further nourishment. The water in the shower ran out, so I have to wash using the bucket method, just like that Swiss-German guy in Burma. It's cold as hell, but oddly reminds me of my mom washing my hair in the bath when I was young. In other words, I have no idea what I'm doing and I just want it to be over and hair is stupid anyways who cares.

I do eventually leave the house, because I am ostensibly traveling here, and have myself some coffee and cocktails around town. Listen to more punk music. There are a whole bunch of roosters around the houses, which Marcio later informs me are all for cockfighting, at least the ones being well taken care of. There are copious betel stains on the ground, but I don't see it being sold anywhere.

When Marcio comes home, we eat some more instant mie goreng and watch more Young Indiana Jones. Turns out Marcio's an Evangelion fan, and we have a chat about all that entails. Being a cool dude, he gives me a copy of Murakami's Kafka on the Shore, so now I have something new to read. I drink some Heineken and take more xanax. Look at me travel.

I only sleep in till 10 this time, and try to find the library exhibition again. I do not succeed. The days here are becoming monotonous: walk Dili Beach, punk music, drink a disappointing mocha, use the internet until it becomes so slow as to be pointless. At least tonight is Marcio's farewell party, so that's different. Dinner's at a Thai/Lebanese place (there's a niche for you), then a Brazilian cafe for the actual party. I get a ride with one of Marcio's coworkers to the cafe, but before we leave I have to help her check behind her tires for nails. She says kids here like to blow out tires for fun. Another coworker tells me about the time he and a bunch of others came out from eating at a hotel, with a walled, guarded parking lot, only to find every one of their cars with the tires slashed. Boys will be boys, snips and snails, they're the future...I have nothing to weigh in on this with, except an overabundance of white guilt, which almost always does not help.

Being the new guy in town, I have a lot of drinks bought for me, and I eventually leave Marcio to go with a couple guys to an after-party at someone's house. One of these guys mentions how he's seen both Pavement and the Pixies live, twice, so I know they're good people. I tell them the Brunei story, drink too much, and throw up in the bathroom. I cab it back to Marcio's (look at Mr. Moneybags when he's drunk!), but I don't have a key. I have to bang on the window for about 10 minutes before he wakes up and lets me in. I don't see the guard anywhere.

This may surprise you, but I feel like stale horseshit when I wake up. It sure surprised me; the Southeast Asia hangover buffer must be wearing off. Or I was wrong about some random Asian subregion conferring mystical drinking properties, but that seems less likely. Today's docket: sleep till physically impossible to continue doing so, pizza, coffee, mountain pilgrimage. The last one was not my idea.

No, it's dumb ol' Marcio who points out that Dili has their own Christ the Redeemer-like statue on an Eastern hilltop (I'm sorry Marcio, you're not dumb and I like you). At 27 meters tall, the statue isn't nearly as grandiose, but Marcio insists the view is stunning, and it's one of the premier (re: only) sights to see around here.

It's like Brazil's, only not as big or famous.

The walking path to the top takes less than an hour, and is punctuated by altars showing scenes from The Passion, or "Jesus and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

:(

It's nice! Again, this is like 50% of what there is to do in the whole country.

Just joshin' with the big J.

After hiking back down, we watch the sunset on the beach, which would be stunning if not for the cloud cover hiding the sun.

UGH gross

Marcio asks if I wouldn't mind tagging along to his UN office so he can finish some paperwork, and I gladly accompany him not only to print out some of my airline tickets, but also to see what this operation looks like. Turns out it looks like a bunch of barbed wire fences surrounding a drab collection of square buildings, trailers, and portables, not unlike a heavily-armed elementary school book fair.

This is inside the restroom trailer. The progressive UN not only provides condoms for their employees, but the sizes offered are very tactfully chosen.

We return to the beach where it's someone's birthday, but after last night I don't feel like talking to anyone, so I drink a cup of sangria by myself like...I got nothing. Just a guy drinking sangria alone on the beach. I feel like that's a pretty clear picture I've painted for you with my mind brush, no need for funny comparisons. One woman interrupts my solitude to talk about how lobster here is so cheap that at a previous birthday party, the host bought every guest their own lobster for dinner. Wow, that does sound like a better time than the one we're having!

The party eventually moves to the appropriately named One More Bar, where there's a house band doing surf covers, including a pretty good "Paint It Black." On offer is a $20 seafood buffet and awful orange juice. We move on, next is an expat joint that goes by Castaway. They have open mic, and some bearded asshole is playing "I Will Follow You Into the Dark." He dedicates it to his girlfriend, and I hate him. When he is done she runs up and kisses him, and people cheer. I want to take the stage and play acoustic punk covers as a punishment to this crowd for having different taste than me. It's possible that I am the asshole here. Whoa.

As I mull over which Dead Kennedys song to scream so as to elevate the crowd's taste/make them the most miserable, I notice that the guitar keeps going back and forth between the same two guys, Bearded Asshole 1 and Shaved Asshole 2. We're all assholes. Them, me. everyone everywhere forever. Marcio and I leave for home and together watch the last Young Indiana Jones episode. Emptiness overcomes me. Marcio's not an asshole.

In the morning my toothbrush breaks, so I tape it up while feeling something of that ingenuity-in-the-face-of-oblivion they must have felt in Stalingrad. Every morning, there are children screaming and babies crying right outside the window, or maybe I'm just noticing now that I've reached the double day hangover combo multiplier. Spirits aren't exactly high over here, I guess is what I'm getting at.

I do manage to pull myself out of my infinite ennui long enough to go scuba diving. On the drive there we get a flat tire, and then once in the water it turns out my regulator has busted fittings and leaks air, and ohfuckit none of my problems are real problems. It's nice and lovely and I see a big humphead wrasse and a titan triggerfish and they're just so neat you don't even KNOW. At this one spot we're given the choice to go left or right, and I go right, but this photographer went left so he also saw a peacock mantis shrimp and a cuttlefish, so I kind of hate that guy, but mostly because I wish I was him.

Our diving group grabs some beers together afterwards, and what a motley crew this is. There's an old metalhead from Baltimore, a Norwegian backpacker girl about my age, and a freaking Minister of Finance from somewhere else in Europe. The Norwegian girl says a guy in her hostel sounds like that Swiss-German builder-of-schools I met in Burma. I'm finding that lots of people seem to know a guy like him. Really, the only thing that could make a rich philanthropist like him more interesting is if he was an international con man traveling under the guise of a rich philanthropist. I think about meeting back up with Marcio, but the metalhead buys anther round, so I stay on this carousel for one more turn.

Hungry, we try to order some nachos, but the kitchen says they're out of chips. Adam, our divemaster, proves himself an advanced thinker by swapping the nacho chips for french fries. This move baffles and titillates the non-Americans at the table, but me and Baltimore exchange wise, knowing nods. The waitstaff is unsure when taking the order, until after talking to the kitchen they're convinced it's just crazy enough to work. When the creation comes out, it tastes about how you'd expect. Either you're American, and you can imagine what chili cheese fries with a few extra fixin's taste like, or else your country needs a Jack-in-the-Box, and you probably haven't understood how my whole Southeast Asia trip is a metaphor for Cinnabon, in which case you should know the Un-Americans loved the fries. They, whose poor fingers have clearly never been orange with Cheeto dust. They deserve not our pity, but our sympathy.

Uncomfortably full, I finally meet Marcio at Castaway for some last drinks, as I fly to Jakarta tomorrow. We drink some large Bintangs and talk about Evangelion. Once hungry enough (again, this is not my first nacho fries rodeo), we break for food at this restaurant called K-4 where a young local boy watches us eat. His face is prematurely aged by the sun, and his giant smile makes him look like a Timorese version of one of those demon children in the "Come to Daddy" Aphex Twin video. These aren't the kind of thoughts you have before a hangover-free morning, no sir. You're in for a dark hangover, full of terrors.

Children scream in the morning. No sleep. Marcio drives me to the airport at 10:30. The plane is delayed till 4, and one child in the lobby occupies himself by pushing a plastic chair around the gate lobby, which makes the most exquisite racket. I log into my email to find that my CouchSurfing host in Jakarta bailed. There is also no drinking water in the terminal, because this is hell. This is hell, and I was sent here because I was too good-looking and smart and charming for this world. If I could take ten years off that chair-pushing child's life and get rid of this hangover, I would.

We're fed in the airport at a quarter to 4, which is some small relief (not least because it comes with a tiny cup of precious, life-giving agua) right before my mp3 player runs out of battery, and then refuses to charge, likely out of sympathetic spite.

No.

Whatever it was that was preventing hangovers before, please I would like you to come back. I am undiscerning and open to any creeds or messiahs or animal blood rituals. Maybe travel fatigue is finally getting to me. It was only a matter of time. Only 3 countries left now, anyway.

I distract myself by reading Women, the Bukowski book Sarah gave me. It's the first time I've ever read Bukowski, and I'm 99% convinced I'm the only person who has ever understood him.

You know what? I actually didn't take any drugs here, and these last few mornings notwithstanding my drinking cooled quite a bit. All it took was the looming specter of bankruptcy, and literally the watchful eye of a UN representative. And now I feel horrible. The solution is clear: must flood body with lovely toxins once again. What's my next stop after a night in Jakarta- Singapore? They definitely sound like they party.

As I depart, I feel like I haven't delved very deep into the culture here, in the blog or the country itself. Still, I think there should be some sort of final word on my experience, so in my opinion they're good people, because of that one girl who let me borrow her phone. A+, would approach in moment of need again. The diving's good, and the Jesus statue is pretty big, as far as they go. Plan your vacation now!

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.