Mind Your "Phi"'s and Queue's

Hello, again.

I hope this post finds you swimmingly: relaxing, content after a long day of school work (or work-work), sipping on a glass of wine (or, if you are Sam or Robbie, a bottle . . .), with perhaps the blue lights of the television flickering gently from behind your computer screen. Or music. Or candles. Regardless of your situation, I hope that your blood pressure is riding closer to a flatline, as I fear the following tale will punt said blood pressure through the happy ceiling of Calm and into the stratosphere of Stress. I, for one, am still recovering.

Actually, before I launch into this cautionary account of what never to do while visiting, well, anywhere, really, I must insert that I just spent an incredible weekend in Krabi, Thailand. We also visited Phi Phi Island while there, which was about a 1.5 hour ferry ride away from Aonang Beach, where we were staying. Both places were overwhelmingly beautiful. I really could not list a single complaint about our four days, at all. Here are a few photos:

However, I did promise to first toy with the general public's anxiety levels like a puppet master, so I'll tug those strings now!

First, the numbers: 3 American girls (2 crying), 3 plane tickets back to Singapore, 40 minutes until our flight departure, 1 functioning yet moneyless debit card, 60 Baht on hand total (about $1.84 USD), 1 un-amused cab driver, 0 ability to get to the airport.

Confused? Concerned? Me too. 3 days later.

There we were, our final morning in Krabi, gleaming (at about 8 am) due to the great memories of the weekend, patiently awaiting our cab which was to take us to the airport and to our plane, which would then whisk us back to our home base in Singapore. Then 9 am arrived. Our cab got there on time, but of course, had no intention of actually driving us until we had paid. Which is where Pandemonium took us in her chokehold.

To give the following situation some context, I'll add that the three of us (Abbey, Emma, and Me) arrived in Krabi completely unaware of a rather inconventient fact: for whatever reason, some of the ATMs in Southeast Asia have decided to revolt and/or abort all duties when it comes to providing cash . . . which as far as I'm concerned, is their only job (*cue shudders over visions of robotic ATMs wreaking havoc on a town of innocent bystanders after an Eagle-Eye-like takeover*). Because of this, two of us could not retrieve our own money for the entirety of the weekend, and thus relied on Abbey to fund our stay (thank you sweet Abbner, again). However, also because of this, by day 4, we were (collectively) completely broke. As in, between the three of us, we had $1.84 USD. We couldn't have even purchased a diet coke. (Gasp!)

We had made the false assumption that we could make one last withdrawal for the mere task of getting to the airport, but oh, how false this assumption was! With dread, I watched as the ATM smugly denied us the small sum of 500 Baht once, then twice, then three times. Enter panic, widespread.

At this point, we had officially 45 minutes to get to the airport until our flight literally took off the ground, including the 20 minute drive. Desperately, the three of us took off in separate directions, asking people on the street if we could buy them something with a credit card in exchange for cash. Seeing as 0 places take credit cards, you can imagine how well this worked out. Our cab driver kept looking at me and motioning toward the ATM, as if to say, "have you tried that yet?" "Wait...those provide cash?!???" I was tempted to say, dripping with disdain, but withheld from snapping at the confused soul. Instead, I took off running again.

Envision three distraught tourists with streams of tears pouring down their faces, hair astray, radiating desperation as they run from stall to stall, pedestrian to pedestrian, essentially begging with crazed looks in their eyes. For upwards of 15 minutes.

That was us.

Finally, (fiiiiinally) an Australian man ran up to us and pushed cash into our hands, shaking his head as he said "I just can't watch this anymore. Take the money. And go."

Our hero!

We caught his name and fully intend on sending him an edible arrangement/ potentially will name our firstborns after him (male or female, Matthew has a nice ring to it), and leapt into the cab.

We arrived at the airport with, I kid you not, 15 minutes until departure time. The lords of time/ karma/ every universal force imaginable were on our side as we sprinted through checking, security, and through the gate with 3 minutes to spare. Just 3 minutes slower and we could have been stranded, beggars in Thailand rationing our $1.84 across the days, relying on single grains of rice to sustain our desolate lives to come. (Alternatively, we could have booked another flight home, but the agony of money wasted would have pained me for weeks).

Upon arriving back in Singapore, the lords of time again smiled upon me as we left the airport and immediately caught a cab, which delivered me to my school building just 4 minutes past class time.

I walked into class, sat down, and nodded my head at the lecturing professor, hoping my expression read, "wow, fascinating," rather than "holy s*** I was in Thailand two hours ago and I may or may not be undergoing cardiac arrest."

I have never, not once, felt such rolling nausea + stress and then such sweet relief + disbelief within a window of time as small as this one was, but for now, I think I'll just chalk it up to, "when in Asia."

"When in Asia," I've found, can be applied a medley of experiences, like, say, discovering an entire stall's worth of "friendship bracelets" hosting phrases such as "Sex Lady Boy" or "F*** Salad." (Excuse the expletives).

"When in Asia" applies to the time I was given lessons on the formation and meaning of various Buddhist hand gestures from an art shop owner named Khim. He taught me how to position my hands symbolically. I learned "demon expulsion" (quiet cayote, basically), "healing" (pinch your forefinger and thumb together and hold the rest straight into the air), and "extreme balance" (weave your fingers together and hold them like a basket in front of your waist). The latter, I found, did not help me when I fell down the front stairs of a club recently (sober), much to the embarrassment of both myself and the crowd of business men looking on. But I digress.

"When in Asia," it seems, also held true when I entered a toy-shop last Sunday with the intention of merely looking around -- only to be ushered into a mock movie set created in the tiny courtyard out back. The shop owner had made it himself, I assume, and it was complete with a motorcycle, a side-car, a microphone, and a Parisian looking "dinner for two". This man pushed me toward the bike, barked "strike a pose," (cue uncomfortable smile), and then took nearly 50 pictures, repositioning me this way and that until he was satisfied with the reel of photos. Which he was taking on my phone, fortunately. He made me "recline" with a bottle of fake coke, made me "sing" at the microphone, and even made me climb into the side-car, sans driver, and smile as if I was "someone's sidekick." Seeing as I was alone, he spared me the opportunity to take photos as I pitifully "dined" at the romantic table for two, solo, but he did not spare me from the laughing and ogling of other shoppers, watching the spectacle from the giant window in front of the "set."

I hate this ---> with a burning passion.

The rest can be seen in the "Photos" section (well, only about 5 of the 50 taken, but I think that's plenty enough. I'm grimacing even looking at them).

It seems Singapore will never relent as far as oddities go, but the rest of my days here have been far less exciting.

They have not been excite-less, but I have managed to assume a bit more of a routine here. That said, last night I did go to a salsa club, which was unusual (for me). It was really fun because the people there were all incredible dancers and were not shy to teach us, the lowly plebians. I even made plans to take regular lessons, but who knows how that will pan out. Otherwise, I've been just plugging along, going to class, meeting people, ambling around the city, etc.

In fact, the other day (the same day as these photos, actually), I was sitting in a little outdoor cafe (still alone) when a few Brazilians sitting next to me struck up a conversation. Turns out, one of them had studied abroad in Ohio, and while there, just so happened to have visited Virginia, with only one stop: "a tiny town called . . . Charlottesville?" Of course my jaw semi-dropped, but upon further probing I learned that he had not only struck the lawn while there but also had gone to Foxfield. It's a small world, indeed!

Now, I really have to pay Thailand its fair due.

Though we were only there for four days, the weekend was jam packed. We went swimming, kayaking, cliff diving, hiking (small hike up to a vista above Phi Phi islands), elephant riding, went to hot springs, got Thai massages, and ventured to the top of the Tiger Cave Temple, which had stunning views. We went out on Phi Phi, where we covered everything from sneaking onto the taxi boats to dancing with fire dancers on the beach. We also watched Muay Thai boxing, a traditional form of entertainment in Thailand. Two of the guys with whom I traveled even got to box one another on the suspended platform, which was fun to watch. (If you look closely, you can see my head right above the stage in the bottom left!)

Another view I loved was that from the Tiger Cave Temple. This climb might have been my favorite thing, aside from the baby elephant that tried to eat my leg (see "Photos" or Facebook), as the view was so(oooooo) breathtaking.

To me, it looks as though someone took a bunch of cardboard, cut it into these shapes, and then just staggered them on a piece of flat paper. They don't even look 3D, somehow. I am still wondering what kinds of people have wandered through those valleys, and why, and what they were thinking as they traversed the region. Needless to say, I stared at this for a while.

Otherwise, while in Krabi/ Ko Phi Phi, I strangely found myself in a lot of places that I imagine Smeagol would inhabit.

That same Tiger Cave Temple has a series of smaller shrines set up in various caves and outcroppings throughout the mountain side (gollum), and back at the beach, we explored a different series of caves from our kayaks. I didn't take a phone or camera for this little excursion, but the crevices and smaller pools that we found were so, so cool. A simple google search produced this photo, and I've drawn red lines to indicate where we actually adventured.

The blue line points to my new suitor, Klaus.

Kidding, of course. I have no idea who that is.

We swam in and out of these ledges, climbed atop them, jumped off, and then watched the sun as it set over the water. It was picturesque, and like so many times lately, I remained in utter shock that I am actually experiencing these things myself.

Thailand, in all, was awesome. Awe-some in terms of the scenery, the people, the variety in activities and productions, everything. Did I mention I'm going back tomorrow? (We're going to a little town called Pai, in Northern Thailand just outside of Chiang Mai).

I'm also extremely excited about the hat collection I am slowly building, with purchases from the steps of the Krabi beach and Little India, in Singapore, thus far. I'm hoping to buy one in every new place, (and tHAT's a fact!)

Finally, (though this is a complete change of subject), I want to discuss the Singaporean government. For those who are unaware (as I was, before arriving), Singapore is run by a single party, the People's Action Party, which has been in power since independence (1965). Upon independence, the party leader (Lee Kuan Yew, who maintained his position for 36 years) declared that in order to bring Singapore into economic, political, and social stability, he would take back some of the people's rights until future notice. Now, in 2015, Singapore still exists under an authoritative, surveilling government with strict rules and even stricter punishments. It's weird to look up in any given place and find a camera to your left, your right, behind you, and directly above your head. (Right after I wrote that, I went to the bathroom and checked all around. I could not say 100% whether or not cameras were hidden there, too). As a Western, capitalistic, democratically raised student (prior to my Global Development Class discussions), upon reading this, I would just shake my head and say, nope, no way. No way that works. But it does. It absolutely does. In the United States this same "nanny-state" does not fly (as evidenced with recent public opinion/NSA exposure), but in Singapore, the public is wholly accepting of these conditions. Protesting is not even legal, unless one has submitted a request form to -- go figure -- the government. They then have the ability to deny or grant permission, and even when permission is granted, the protests are typically small and limited in scope, locality, and influence. We've talked about this law extensively in my classes, and more than anything I find the Singaporean student response to be incredibly interesting.

(Below is a photo of the only park typically freqented by protesters, Hong Lim Park.)

"Why doesn't this law anger you?" they've been asked.

"I want to get a good job when I'm older."

"We don't have enough time to protest."

"What would we even protest?"

These are literal responses I've heard in these classes, and often, I am aghast. Given the recent activity at UVA (post National Panhellenic Conference mandate that kept sorority girls from attending a specific night of parties) -- given the petitions, the rallies, the medley of outspoken students standing on their soapboxes for their rights (rightfully so) -- I simply cannot inhabit the mind of a population that simply doesn't believe in the power of the People. Or at least, not in the same way. They are an incredibly patriotic, welcoming, unprejudiced group of people, but the --for lack of a better word-- complacence I've encountered as far as political matters is concerned astounds me.

And then I consider the success of "the People" in the United States in the past year. Petitions left unanswered, rallies with little -- if any -- governmental reaction. Unecessary brutalities, a polarized constituency.

So now I'm just left wondering, how different are these two situations? I'm not trying to make some conspiratorial, passionately uninformed blanket statement. Nor am I trying to be particularly incendiary. But I don't feel that I can live in Singapore, which is so drastically different from the West in so many ways -- yet attempting to emulate them in financial / social matters (sometimes) -- without commenting on that which I've observed. I'm not fully sure that I know what to make of all of these observations and conversations, yet, but I thought I'd share them with you, in case you were interested.

**Last note: I titled this post as I did because of a) Phi Phi (obviously) but b) because Singaporeans "queue" for EVERYTHING. They line up, sometimes tens of people long, for any and every object, sale, food counter -- everything -- that they perceive to be good or novel or exciting or unusual in any way. Were "deep fried bull testicles" suddenly anticipated to be a "trendy dish", I guarantee you there would be a queue. This doesn't evoke any sort of emotional response besides annoyance/ amusement in me, but I didn't think I could describe Singapore without mentioning this practice at least once. Plus, it fit in the pun.

Sorry about the extensive length of this one, but I hope to add more about my "Thaimes" here post-weekend getaway number 2!

In conclusion, I'll share the "pneumonic" my art teacher shared with us, to help us remember the 10 lives of the Buddha more "easily":

Tay-Cha-Su-Nay-Mah-Phu-Nah-Can-Hoo-San

....

To me, this is like saying, "oh, you want to memorize all the books in the Bible? Just think of this!"

"phee phoo pha dur re la ma lay to gee gaa go ho he ha!"

By the time I manage to string my teacher's "helpful syllables" together in the right order, with the right pronunciation, I might as well have developed my own language, and a new alphabet at that.

"Noolagorafet!"

(This means "Bye" in my new language).

And here's a cool picture of a boat (credit Abbey).