Post 22: Surprises in Burma

If they’re going to have so many staff members standing around doing nothing in these airport lounges, why don’t they teach them massage? Of course, I’d rather they just pump neurotoxins into business class or pull a pistol on you when you check in, but there you go (and if I’m one of the offed, well, I earned it).

Day 25, evening. I arrive in Yangon and get the usual hustle into a cab, but my driver speaks good English and doesn’t seem sketchy, helps me with pronunciations of things, and so I ask him if he knows a place that’s better than the one I had from the book. He takes me to Beautyland II PIC, and they’re total Scheissters: they tell me there’s only an expensive room left, then I see other people check in later, and in the morning I hear the same line to another group. Can’t they just say that there’s a first-night charge and then you get the cheaper rate? Wouldn’t that be a bit more savory?

Day 26, evening. Ok, so I think that might have been the best day of my trip. I’m sitting in my room having a paan as I write (betel nut in a leaf with various bizarrities, to be chewed and spat in blood-colored whaps. The first time I saw a stairwell in India, I thought someone had been murdered in it, but it was just the dried sputa of years of paan chewers). The power just went off and I have no windows, so I’ll head down to the restaurant and type up the deets.

Well, it started beautifully, as I walked around and ultimately sat down at a place on the street because the rag-clad proprietors looked so surprised that I was interested in the food. It proved to be a combo dish: the young guy cut a crunchy fried crueller (sort of like the Chinese one at Noodletown but with chick peas in it) into bits, then put it over noodles with chili and cilantro etc, then poured broth over. So it was noodley, yet crunchy, spicy, fascinating, utterly delicious, and 27 cents (little did I know how indicative of much Burmese street food would this curious “soup” turn out). Here as everywhere else so far, there’s plenty of streetside eating, sitting on the tiny plastic stools that make my milk-fed Western knees bang on things, but the combinations clearly reflect the part-Southeast Asian, part-Indian, part-Chinese nature of the place. There are fried samosa-y things and fried unidentifiables galore, as well as the occasional waist-high mound of cracklings (and if you don’t know what that is, shame on you!). But there are also noodles everywhere, both Chinese-style and Vietnamese-y.

Quick rewind: On the plane on the way over, I wore the shirt, so a woman from the row in front of me starts talking to me, teasing that she’s stuck sitting with her mother, though it’s only a one-hour flight. She’s a bit older than I, born Burmese but living in Hong Kong, perfect English, clearly aristo, and with about 9 other members of her family in business class heading back for a big reunion. Well, she sees my language book and starts helping me, then asks where I’m staying, then insists that I come with her and her family to the swank hotel for the night and stay on at her cousin’s home from that point on. Of course I’m mortified with all this, but I have to say yes, knowing how much the insider thing will improve my experience. Well, mercifully the hotel is full, so we arrange to meet the next day at the posh Traders Hotel lounge at noon.

I’m early. I’m always early. And I’m hungry, another virtual always. So I stroll, and walking behind the hotel, I find an alley with what turns out to be one of the joys of Yangon: a curry stand with about 8 different options. You get a plate of rice, then you can order as many little dishes of curry to accompany as you want, all served with soup, a plate of veggies, a salty fish sauce, and a bowl of fried chili paste which I systematically decimate. I got two curries: shrimp (chinga), and fish (nameroo), both excellent, especially with the chili paste. I also ate the cucumber chunks, but as I was leaving saw a tub of water with a ton of cut-up cucumber floating in it and I got a seriously sinking feeling.

The hotel lobby lounge is literally a museum. Again, what better agent of artistic production than radical wealth imbalance? (Does the cultural elite, myself included, ever really consider the implications of this? Our relics are simply elaborate tombstones over enormous and anonymous mass graves.) Anyway, I’m getting more and more uncomfortable waiting for Lorena (and not because of the cucumber water), so I’m ultimately kind of relieved that she doesn’t show up (is a pity, though, as I would have had a pretty incredible level of access…)

So now it’s back to traveling my way. I go rebook my room at the proper rate ($9), then head to the streetfood. I skip everything that looks like anything else I’ve had elsewhere, and eventually I see some people eating what for me is a kind of culinary holy grail (as laab was in Laos): Burmese tea salad. It’s made with a special kind of wet shredded fermented tea leaf, mixed with an incredible mélange of flavors: thin strips of cabbage, lime, roasted peanuts, fried onions, dried chick peas, etc etc etc. It’s just over the moon, but what’s better is the ruckus I cause by ordering it and sitting down with the people on the street. It’s really sweet: the father is running the stand; the mom gives up breastfeeding to come over; she has a few words of English, then sees my Burmese phrasebook and starts reading it; then the bomb daughter and brother come over; they pick up my other pages, and all 4 are reading and standing around me as I eat. Eventually, the mom finds the word “salad” in my book and I recognize the word for tea (“lepet”), so now I’m armed with “lepet thote” – a phrase I will repeat to great effect many times in the next few days. Then she goes and brings me a tomato salad to try (also unreal); I roll a cambodian smoke and a betel-mouthed guy comes up, sees my Burmese book and asks what I’m smoking; I offer him some and he puts a pinch in with his paan. Now that’s bold!
The salad and unlimited tea ultimately costs 45 cents, so I give the dad double, say thank you and move on, where I pass the most glorious streetside tobacco girl who reciprocates my eye for 30 seconds (good god) as I walk to the river (more on her soon). There’s a No Foreigners area on the bank that seems inhabited, but I know this is a country not to fuck around with that stuff. So I quickly put my journal away, and head back, walking down a market street and turning into a sketchy alley where there are a lot of exceedingly dark storefronts with plates of food out front. I poke my nose into a few, then get semi-beckoned into one with a glassful of god-knows.

And now it begins. It’s a bar; I discover that when a voice says, Drink this, and hands me a glass. Of course I drink it; I can tell it’s alcoholic, but it seems maybe beerish/ciderish or a little stronger. So I go in, and a very tall (for Myanmar) and very very dark man with betel teeth insists that I sit down (I will ultimately learn that they call him Somali – as in Somalian -- because he’s so dark), and now I’m committed – though quite scared. The smattering of English among the all-male, all-dodgy bar patrons is a bit like words using only one row of keys on a typewriter (a lipogram, for the Oulipians among you). But I drinking heavily, and they love it; I cheers various people and we each drain our glasses. And soon they start bringing me food -- little plates of chicken blood cakes, roasted corn (which the man breaks off the cob with his thumb), Indian-style veggies. They are fascinated -- but terrified -- of the Cambodian tobacco (which admittedly has few friends). When I took it out to roll, the barman brought me some newsprint to roll it in – I remember seeing that in India. Then they ask me if I like marijuana (for safety reasons I vociferously say no), and on we go with the drinks. It’s completely hysterical. They are clearly here every night, the exact same reprobates, and I’m no doubt the biggest break in the monotony they’ve had in a while. We wrangle our way around various topics, and every new Burmese word I learn they find fantastic. I tire quickly (the “beer” I’ve been drinking turns out to be 50 proof applejack – Mandalay mamagee) but the next day will be the Myanmar independence day, so I promise to come back. And I know for a fact that they’ll all be here.

On my way toward my hotel I stop and ogle a mid-seventies Mercedes mini-limo in near mint condition parked on a side street. There’s a man near it who speaks good English; the car’s not his, but he works for an English-language school just there. On a whim, I volunteer to come do a conversation class for his students the next day.

This pic is obviously from my class (actually from the second day, as I go back three days in a row). It was fantastic. As you can see, there were 40 people packed into that filthy room (and this was a private school), half my students were monks, everyone was incredibly appreciative, the headmaster had me for typical Burmese lunch PIC, and I realized that this too should be a part of 3rd-world tourism: teach every day, give a little, have an impact, but also get much more access (one of the monks who was asking me political questions slipped me a piece of paper, saying, “This is a very good website. Sadly, checking it now – as I obviously didn’t try while still in Burma -- I can’t read his writing enough to find it. Pity). So when I left I told them all I hoped I’d be back in a year (which is true), and if so, I’ll be their teacher every day.

Later, back to the bar. Of course it’s exactly the same: same crew, same irate wives coming in now and then and berating their deadbeat spouses (who slink down in their chairs but don’t get up, then sit silently for a while after the women leave but keep drinking and eventually perk up), the same glazed eyes and room temperature liquor and amusement at my antics. When I use the word for chili pepper, they think I want some (or they use it as an excuse to fuck with me) and someone runs out and brings back two huge green ones, daring me to try. Ha, they dared the wrong man! I ate one whole and then held the other one out for whoever would follow. The guy that they only call Crazy Man finally took me up on the offer, washing it back with his half-mug of clear lightning, oft-refilled.

(it turns out that he and another of the most-hammered guys in here are bicycle rickshaw drivers – word to the wise!)

But the best incident of all was when I took out the remainder of a cheroot that I had started earlier in the day, put out, and brought with me. They all were looking at it funny; then the barman took it from me and said, “No good tobacco. No Myanma (they leave off the “r”) tobacco” and hands me another. I start to unwrap it and he takes it away too, pulls it out of its plastic, taps the wide end down on the table and ties it off with the plastic wrap just above the ring, and gives it to me to smoke. The only issue is: it’s backward! Or at least I think it is. The wide part is supposed to go in your mouth apparently, but that wasn’t how I smoked the last one (because to us, of course, conical smokes go narrow side in). And it’s got a built-in filter on the wide end, which means that I cremated and inhaled the entirety of the lung protector my first time around. No wonder they were starting at it!

And I have to say, smoking it the right direction, it was considerably more pleasant.

Okay, I haven’t spoken much yet about the food, and that’s a shame. I ate so much and so well, I’m tempted to say it was my favorite cuisine yet (though truthfully I have been blown away everywhere. One really can’t go wrong, unless you eat snakes).

The best food/cultural experience I had, though, was when I took a walk across the train tracks. (I would have made the trip across the river, but it was sealed off to foreigners). It didn’t take me long; after 15 or 20 minutes I was in an admittedly frighteningly poor part of Yangon (I was looking for two outlying markets that were on my map that didn’t prove to be in the indicated places, but no matter). It was interesting: as the streets turned from pavement to mere dust and the houses from plaster to corrugated metal sheets leaning together, I started getting a little nervous. But just as I’d think of turning back, I’d smile at someone and say Mingala-ba and they’d wave and nod and smile and all was clearly kosher.

I passed two young studly guys (scary), but then noticed that they were manning a string attached to something. I looked up and couldn’t make anything out, but they pointed toward where the moon would be and I saw the speck of their kite, up where the valkyries must wait and watch, and again I realized how easy it is to misread and misconjecture. Too busy kite-flying to mug me.

Then I heard drums. A rolling staccato, almost African (so of course I was in my element), and as I walked by, the players could see I was tapping air castanets (no wrist gyrations though, I promise), and they hooted at me, so I started drum clapping and foot stomping along, faster and faster (and they increased with me), and of course that drew the neighborhood out, and the rhythm kept increasing and getting louder, and it ended in mass cheering.

I’m still a little delirious from all that (and only half a block further down the street) when a woman grabs my hand, firmly. She speaks to me and I have no idea, and I try to keep walking but she stays with me, holding me so there’s no way I can get away. She keeps talking and I keep saying, No Myanma, but then she stops us and slowly starts singing to me (she seems pretty sauced), gives me a very mischievous grin, and begins swaying a bit like she’s prompting me to dance with her in the middle of the road.

Kind readers (if any of you have endured this far), forgive me: I failed you and me both. I didn’t dance. I smiled awkwardly; I slunk back; I eventually broke grip and high-tailed away, wuss that I am. Ach! Where does this bone-marrow instinctual No come from? I know that had I danced, I would have been roundly laughed at, but isn’t that much of the point? In India I danced for a huge group of local musicians, and it was one of the best days of my life (if you haven’t heard that story, I’d be happy to tell you). Why not give her a few spins? Sway a little of my curious childhood learning? (Granted, had she seemed a little less like a lunatic, it might have helped). But no, I wilted, again, as apparently no amount of roach-eating or muscle wine or tarantula is enough to shore up my masculinity into a ready Of Course. Sad, but hopefully alterable. Some day.

Well, I ultimately pass a ramshackle curry stand and stop to eat. I look under the potlids and pick one, then point to the rice, but then trying to get some tea, I can barely get a trickle out of the teapot. Predictably I had unscrewed the cap, but didn’t know to take the lid off, which was more or less to them like not knowing that you have to tear the sugar packet to get to it.

Had a nice fish curry, then what should probably be described as the limburger of fried little whole fish (called something like en achow) -- funky, but delicious. The man serving was wearing the dirtiest shirt ever I’ve ever seen on someone not coal-mining (except for when Mike used to come back from his summer job scraping the inside of boilers – wow). Total cost was a third of what it was at the place behind Traders, so it pays to go to the provinces.

Then I stopped by this contraption , called mote-le mia (means couple according to one person, cupcake according to another): little fried savory cups – unreal. I think these were my favorite food apart from the tea salad (though when I got them a second time in regular Yangon, she only gave me about a third as many and they weren’t anywhere near as good).

Oh, one other rival was the Burmese version of an Indian dish called aloo that I had under a bridge; that was incredible: PIC Aloo means potato, and this had both fried chips and boiled bits, then like 40 other flavors and textures, and all this would then have a flavorful soup poured on top (bro, it was the same trick more or less as your homemade potato chips with veal stew).

A few more Burmese notes: most of the men I met, especially the ones that approached me out of nowhere, asked rather quickly, Are you a bachelor? Is this code?

Had a few disappointing breakfasts: eggrolls cut up with sauce over, a mixed cold noodle, the traditional Burmese soup/noodle/mash. Harder to find a good breakfast here than elsewhere, though the rest of the meals were killer.

Opted not to eat at either Tokyo Donuts or Tokyo Fried Chicken.

Lunch with the headmaster by the way consisted of pan tribio: veg curry, Indian soup, chicken curry (hin), lemon sauce, and a spicy veg relish. Amazing.

Now I’m going to have to do a side piece on eros in Burma, because it was very different – and very pronounced. I think I’ll so it as one of my columns for that new magazine, so if you’re interested, let me know. I had a number of encounters (apart from those with the men) that were very charged, and I think made more charged by the repression and restraint of this culture. The number of obstacles put in the way of having any actual encounter (no guests in the hotel, no privacy anywhere, no PDA allowed at all, etc) had, I must say, a surprisingly potent ability to facilitate daydreaming. I found it intensely stimulating (sorry bro; I know you hate to hear about girls).

Ok, sorry about the drop in stylistic flair these past few posts. I haven’t been able to keep the same groove I had at the beginning. But I still appreciate your attention, and I hope they haven’t been boring.

Post 21: In which your protagonist does his best imitation of a village octogenarian

hello again, didn't mean to leave you hanging for the gripping New Years Eve finale, so here goes (and burma posts to follow soon):

Well, much as I’d like to blame the village water or my Phnom sausage, I suspect that my shyness was once again the culprit: I went to be at 9. Yes, 9, and not a minute past, and slept well till I heard the kids come in at 12:30 (the two girls parting from the two boys, by the way; I doubt it would have differed for me), then slept again till 6:30 when my alarm went off. No dogs, no roosters, just the sleep of the 170-lb male who had only eaten a sandwich bag of sticky rice and 4 oranges the whole day.

Day 24: I wake feeling pretty damn good, surprisingly. Apparently, my microbial boarders were on a transit visa, happy to return to the next fool who bikes himself beyond the paleface pale. It was clearly a good idea to wait the extra day before undertaking the 24-hour, 3rd-world bus adventure over roads that from above must look like a mongrel with mange, and from the ground turn us each into tuning forks of nausea.

I still don’t really feel like eating, so for breakfast I only have a grilled liver sandwich (good re-entry food), but as a result, each time the bus stops for people to sit down to a meal or buy some victuals, I act like the village poor man, shuffling around the bus, rolling dubious smokes, nibbling from a bag of sticky rice dipping only in gao. It ultimately looks so bad that a concerned Lao man asks if I’ve taken lunch, and I say that I brought some with me and go hide.

It’s a full day, night, and morn of bus travel through mountainous Laos, so of course my journal pages fill and fill. Again the scenery is staggering, and I can see the payoff to the 2-day river trip to Luang Prabang (only the halfway point to Vientiane): a single jutting knob of a peak, 270-ed at the base by the Mekong, blinking its apex through intermittent clouds. From the river that must have been stunning, though unlikely to have been worth the 48 hours of tourist hell to get through; we made it in 12, and the view from beside was pretty fantastic in its own.

Culturally, again we see a wide range of ethnic villages, practices, and garb (with various old ladies having tied up their hair with cloth in such odd – to me -- shapes that they look like extras from the Star Wars bar scene). These village kids smile, but they don’t run down from the hills to wave at us as they did in the more remote zones. But were one to do only this trip and the morning market in Namtha, I think it would be adequate to feel like one had seen the northern Lao people; my river trip, plus bus, plus bus feels a little redundant.

One new element, though, is how much the people seem to pee. The bus stops literally every 2 hours, and almost everyone clears out to whizz. I keep trying to, thinking that we must be stopping since we won’t be able to for another 6 or 8 hours, but two hours later, sure enough, over we pull at any old flat spot with brush. The guy next to me, let’s call him Dr. Squirmy (as he keeps moving around bumping me, leaning against me, brushing my foot, shifting, and being a nuisance), goes out and goes every time. I can’t imagine how. One time when he rests his head on my shoulder -- _well_ across the line! – I nudge with elbow and give the WTF sign. From then on he’s a little better behaved. Eventually I offer him a lao lao; he sniffs it and makes the most pinched pained face I may have ever seen, and turns away in disgust. Eventually we reach the terminus; I ask Ventiane? and he says no. Love it.

Day 25: So I shook what I have of a tail feather to get to the airport for the earlier flight to Bangkok, hoping for the earlier connection to Yangon (Rangoon). Sadly, that flight only operates a few days a week, so I’ve now got almost 5 hours on my hands, only a dollar of local money left, and I’m at the airport. So of course I do the old heel-toe out to the main drag and go in search of breakfast. The options don’t look great: grilled meats which are delicious but expensive and not filling (and after two days of monking it, I really have my appetite back). I see a few places with the Lao version of congee: Chinese rice porridge that can be yummy but a 3-meat version can also be gotten on Chrystie street for $2.25, with tea (I once took a first date there -- oops). After taking in the sights and smog of a half mile or so, I gave up and went back to the closer of the congees. It had blood cakes in it, so that (in my new understanding) boded well.

Of course it was the best I’ve ever had (no photo, I’m afraid; camera too deeply packed). – By the way, I’m writing this in the business lounge in Vientiane, and a very attractive hostess woman just walked by, then into the women’s room, where I hear her hucking up loogies. What a continent. –
So I have to try the other one now, even though I’m feeling pretty full, and it was different but perhaps equally good. In both cases, only men were eating, but both times one of them started up conversation with me in English, liked that I spoke a bit of Lao, and of course it was a total blast. At the second place the lady even offered to refill my bowl for free, which I sadly couldn’t manage, having gone from Gandhi to Gael Greene in but a few hours. The moral is as it’s always been: go where you’re not expected to be, eat, and you will triumph. Jeremy, I hope you and your colon are listening.

From the lounge: Am I nearing the age where I’m supposed to be wearing one of those fishing vests when I travel abroad? Pop, do you have a closet full of those things I don’t know about?

How delightful is sweet tamarind? Like a date with an attitude, and I mean that in both senses (of date). Marvelous. Plus the incredible crackle snap of the outer “shell” – more life a wafer crust – then the inside looks like a giant ant and you ultimately spit out chestnut jewels. Bro, the kids would love these. I’ll buy some for them at the bodega.

The Bangkok biz lounge allows you to mix your own drinks, and they have the makings of negronis, so of course I’m in trouble. Three weeks of lao lao and the like makes the palate a wee bit jonesy for something a little more nuanced (and Italian). It’s weird though how bad the food is in these places. Are they catering to brits? It’s a lot of “pies” and the like; almost everything the serve is in puff pastry. Egads. In laos the summer rolls were worse than the pizza. How is that possible? In Thailand the most attractive thing is the beef stew pie. That’s like saying Renee Zellwegger (I know that’s not spelled right) is your best option for a lead actress. I thought this was Hollywood?!

Now a thing I’ve never learned how to do (as you all know) is to say no to free food or drink. This can get one in trouble. I don’t have my brother’s capacities (as we’ve noticed from the relative merits of our posts), so Herr Doktor Wuss-Ass really shouldn’t be negroni-ing mid-afternoon. (A guy just came out with a chef’s hat on – he should be in federal relocation.)
But what’s a former grad student to do? You show us crudite (by the way, how do you make a fucking egu in windows? It’s not a key command – that I can find – and it’s not a g-d “insert symbol” so WTF????) and cheese balls, and we think it’s a feast. And it will always be this way -- at least for me. That’s why my 1-drink-a-night policy in New York the last few months had an escape hatch if the drinks were free or if the 24-oz can cost the same as the 16-oz. I have rules, but I have _rules_.

Erratum (and what do I pen that won’t be an erratum later): the “Vietnamese” Mekong whiskey I alluded to in an earlier post is Thai. I kinda thought it was when I said it. Still stinks.

The other great specialite (no egu) of these lounges is the tuna sandwich, de-crusted. Now _that_ will make me go first class every time!

I’m going to say it right now: wealth is an obscenity, and I can’t endorse it -- for myself at least. So if I ultimately do well, I’ll have to capitulate and spend what’s necessary to support the lifestyle of my wife and kids (assuming). But if I’m alone, no way will I spend more than 100k per (in today’s dollars – and that’s a ton), and if I do, call me on it. Meanwhile, while they’re single, my kids will be entitled to whatever in their day is the equivalent of 30k-now a year (obviously once they’re married and breeding, they get more). So if they want to fingerpaint all day and can drink PBR, that’s their choice, but if they have higher standards, they must earn. All extras pass down the line. I don’t mind siring a line of dreamers and drifters and hippies, as long as they’re not too spoiled and have some sense of things. And they will _always_ be funded 5 grand whenever they want to spend a year in Asia – but just 5 grand.

A number of you commented on the apparent nudity in the rat video. I was wearing a towel, but I guess that wasn’t clear, and I honestly didn’t think it would come across as weird being shirtless in SE Asia. Sorry about that. But one of my burgeoning you-write-for-me-now-let’s-be-friends since I started back at Nerve, Elizabeth Manus, asked if I was a “introvert exhibitionist.” At first I pooh-poohed this, but then I felt the nail strike deeper and deeper. It makes a certain sense, though: the introvert suddenly and miraculously becomes a bit hopeful, saying, Wait, I might be noticed if only I try? So, yes, I will put myself out there, always with fingers crossed, virtually always stung and disappointed by response unequal to my hopes. And such, they say, is the nature of…

I believe this day of drinking is positioning me perfectly for an evening in Yangon (Rangoon) spent snacking and cherooting at the tea shops (where the eating is good), then crashing hard. After Captain Squirmoid’s antics and the psoriasitic road last night, that might just be ideal.

Post 19: In hopes of making up for 18, I send this and 20 and holiday wishes

note: this too is a double post, though they move chronologically. post 20 is a little more than halfway down...

Dearies,

My life has been significantly affected by chickens. Many of you know the Fred Jameson’s house chicken story (either in my telling or Linz’s highly apocryphal and ever-metastasizing version); some of you know my travails this summer with the so-called Maui rooster (with all the windows closed -- despite having no AC -- and with earplugs in, I was still regularly awakened by crowing at 3:30 a.m – and not for the first time. It turns out the fucker was literally on the other side of my bedroom window. So I got up and went outside and, I kid you not, he gave me a sheepish, yeah I know I shouldn’t be squawking 3 hours before sunrise look before sulking away). Well, things that look a hell of a lot like the Maui rooster abound in Laos as well, and seem in similar lack of possession of a Farmer’s Almanac. Add to this an apparent community alarm clock of dogs fighting (normally around 6 or before) and the fact that when a door closes in the most of these guest houses, it sounds like the slamming of the portal of Ugolino’s tower of hunger, and you will understand why I haven’t exactly been sleeping in. As a result, my bedtimes have been getting earlier and earlier. When 9 rolls around now, I’m pretty much down for the count.

Some Westerners just came in and asked my landlady if there was hot water. She just giggled. Love that. A few minutes later I offered her a lao lao and she laughed again, only this time a bit more trepidatously.

An incredibly long, unbelievably slender dragonfly (my favorite of all animal groups) just landed on the rim of my whiskey glass. Clearly not everyone in Laos is afraid of lao lao. You’d think that since the name for it is just the country name said twice that it would be a little more popular. Addendum: my new friend (more on her in a second) tells me that in many of the villages, the men drink it morning to night, and don’t allow themselves – or anyone – to stop on an odd-number of glasses full, so you’d better be prepared to roll…

Day 20: So I came up here to rent a bike and see some hill villages; well, instead I buy a beer and meet a Dutch woman. Unlike the village women, she is not wearing her wealth in silver coins and buttons stitched onto elaborate headscarves and vests, she does not have a near-toothless mouth slicked from the inside with crimson (if that’s betel they’re chewing, they must have a quarter pound of it in there); she is not wearing shinguards of denim (very fashion forward) or long necklaces of beads or shells; her head is not wrapped nor under a triangled straw hat or colored headdress, and she would state her height American style by starting with a 6, not a 4. She biked herself up here from Namtha; she is exceptionally fit, might outweigh, and could almost certainly outlift me. Her name is Paola; she proves to be delightful company.

Day 21: But when day comes, the sun is pretty brutal; I see dozens of women of various villages at the market (including a line of 20 or so of them each selling her hooch from truck oil jugs or old Wesson bottles); and I conclude that that’s probably enough, and what I really want to do is get back to Namtha, go online, connect, relax, and get my bearings again. Paola is biking back down today as well, and wants me to then accompany her to the northwest corner of Laos (we are currently in northernmost central). Where she’s going is all but Yunnan China (which I will save for another trip), plus it will take two days to arrive and I would have to just turn around again to make it all the way back to Vientiane to catch my fancy flight to Burma. Oh well. I’m also beginning to feel ready to move on – I recognize the signs now: feeling like I’ve eaten all the different foods at the market, that I’ve gone as far as I can power myself from wherever my base is, that I’ve learned as many phrases as I’m going to learn and will never make the jump to anything substantial, and that I’ve seen a few too many of the white faces more than once, and it’s time to skedaddle. So I’m seeing Paula this evening; tomorrow I’ll bike one final direction to a few more villages, do the postponed homestay overnight and guided daytrek; then I’ll come back Wednesday evening for the new years festivities, whatever they’ll consist of, and Thursday I’ll take the 19-hr bus to Vientiane. Friday I fly. A northern Laos tripped boxed nicely and tied with a bow.

Day 22: You might think I’d have had a bad day: Paola left early this morning; my homestay excursion proved to be a 50-km mountainous trip just to have lunch (I got to the village and there was no government tourism office as I had been told there’d be, nor anyone who spoke even a word of English as I was told there’d be, so I had a bowl of noodles with a local woman and her mother – who told me she’s had 8 children – bought a little of her lao lao and then rode back.); I drank the village water by mistake (it looked very much like tea – eeks); and the water buffalo I took a photo of (for its simply prodigious hornrack) gave me a highly convincing I-might-charge look. This is not the first time I’ve been stared down by an animal that clearly saw I was yellow. I backed away like a good pansy.

But instead today’s been great. On my bike trip back from the homestay debacle, I pulled over when I saw an old village woman toting tons of stuff on her head and back while walking on the main road. I sign-asked her if she wanted a lift, and she gave me the most hysterical shy, no-no-no, red-cavern smile. God knows how many decades she’s been toting that burden up and down the mountain, but I suspect I was the only falang on a bike to try to pick her up. So hysterical. I love it when really old ladies get super girlish.

I also raced some schoolboys on their bikes and let them win, saw some stunning scenery (with many of the stilted hunter’s shacks along the mountainsides, so lovely), had earlier been invited into the home by the old lady with 8 kids (and she gave me some of her what I think is shredded palm and chili salad – smoking!); and I prior to that I had breakfasted on the only dish yet to challenge the gorgeous laab lady’s gorgeous laab (more on her soon): it was a banana-leaf wrapped thing with chicken in it, but mostly it was just an incredibly layered almost soupy sauce for sticky rice balls, detailed in the extreme and completely mystifying. It did have these inedible wood bits that I believe come from these very hairy sticks I’ve seen the village women selling; I’ll have to get those at the IGA when I get back and make the dish for you. (Hairy sticks? Aisle eleven)

I’ve been asking the names of all the foods, and one I need to look up (if I can get the transliteration at all correct) is de mon (day’ mon) PIC. I had a bite this morning; are these fried maggots? Can I get a ruling on this from someone? (Postscript: turns out they are grubs, which I’ve eaten before). They were not very good, and not identifiable as vegetable or meat. I really don’t know. The women at the market now all know that I buy lots of stuff, so they let me taste everything. Very nice, even when you end up with a mouthful of grubs.

Some random notes: the top speed of those crazy trucks seems to be 15mph, but it doesn’t seem to matter how loaded they are or how steep the climb is, they make it.

Meanwhile the vans shaped to look a bit dragonish with Thai temple kinds of lines to them (and with spoilers on the back) are a very bad idea.

At the market, I see two beasts for sale, still furred, that seem equal part rat, hare, and baby deer. God knows. Perhaps they gave up the ghost for the mystery jerky I had a 2 days ago. Yum.

Many of the village women have big wicker baskets that they turn into backpacks; that would go over well at UArts. But I still prefer the ones who tote their bags by draping the strap over their foreheads and going hands-free. I’d try that with my messenger bag but my brother sees evidence that my hairline has already seen its high tide.

There’s a Pekingese dog in town that only barks at village people, not Lao or whites.

Judging from the evidence I’ve seen live of here dogs and on television of recorded rhinoceri, female mammalia do not seem to want to copulate, nor to enjoy it when it’s “thrust upon them.”

The math and commerce senses here are even worse than I imagined. I had a bus fare of 22,000 kip so I have the girl a 2,000 note and a 50,000 note, which I wanted to get rid of. She looked at it like I had given her a flounder. I finally just took it back and gave her two tens. Then later I bought 1,000 kip worth of mia and the girl had no change for a 2,000. These are as small of notes as they use, but for the 500 (6 cents). And everything she sells is 1,000! Turns out that Paola taught at a school in Thailand for a month and said that there is literally no learning whatsoever, that the teachers go on vacation all the time, there are no tests, they never try to give the students more than 5 minutes of focused teaching at a time, no one does their homework and it doesn’t matter, etc. When she asked the headmaster if maybe they should do something differently, he said, “Talk to the government.”

Old ladies here are very good burpers. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever gotten more out of a belch at the poker table than I’ve heard a number of these belles dames manage. I haven’t heard any other people burp – just them.

I don’t know if there’s some genetic continuum that passes from grouse to wild turkey, but if there is, every shade of that spectrum is present here. I can no longer tell what’s what: the borders of the species blur so, there are innumerable size and color variations (I finally gave up trying to photograph them). The chickens do seem to be the croakers; the turkeys do their warbling thing (but in tones unfamiliar to me); the grouse or whatever they are (tasty looking) scuttle and squeak, and they all seem to breed and breed. Then line the roadsides, fill the villages, and occasionally are tied in bundles with broken necks either at the market or to the back of someone’s scooter. Oh, and you can buy them all live (sitting under weighted baskets) at the market.

In the village today there was also an incredibly massive black sow with an enormous teat sack and ten or so tiny piglets running after. I didn’t take a picture because I didn’t want to show up camera-happy for my homestay, but the piglets were really adorable and the mam something of a sublime of the gigantic and the ridiculous all at once.

The local bottled whiskey here is called Red Lion, and it assures you on the label that it was distilled under the supervision of an expert from Australia. Australian whiskey? That guy must have done a selling job like the 18yr-old Orson Welles convincing the Irish he was as a young “famous American actor” and landing a lead. And why, while we’re at it, do Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and America each have a whiskey of their own, but England no (nor Australia or NZ to my knowledge)? Did the brits think they’d done well enough with gin? Odd.

There are a lot of photos I don’t take, obviously. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I don’t tend to photograph people at all. I just don’t feel comfortable; it feels too anthropologically gawky or something. And I don’t photograph the food either unless I’ve bought some of it; then I ask. The one time I broke my rule was today when I asked if I could photograph a rat in the market (since I only did video of mine – idiot), and she said no and made the thumb-and-forefinger-cricketing money sign (which I had not known was universal). She clearly felt gawked at, and I felt awful (nor did I know how to say, But I’m not just a poser! I just ate one of those last week!).

On a brighter note, I finally told the laab lady that she’s beautiful. I had just bought another one and she clearly remembered me, for I heard her saying “laab, laab” as I got closer. She’s probably close to 30, tall with a long regal face and moviestar mouth so that when she smiles it spreads to expose one more tooth on either side than the non-Julia Robertses among us can show. And her teeth are perfect and very white, which is a little uncommon here (though the Laos are nowhere near as bad as the Chinese I’ve seen. My hotel room had some Chinese “toothpaste” and it was actually wood-pulp colored). She could easily be an abducted asian Bond princess or the lead one of those empty Chinese artsy films for export only (like that stupid Lantern one).

So anyway, as I’m leaving, having told her that her laab is delicious, I lean in just a touch and say “nam” – which means beautiful – and point to her. I thought I did it pretty subtly, and she didn’t seem to catch it, but the woman next to her then laughs and says, “Nam” a bit more loudly. Now the laab lady understands; out flash the teeth – so many – even as she’s raising a hand to her face mid-blush, but I can see her radiate more than a little. I of course hurry away, feeling very good.

Post 20: In which our hero’s GI lining proves mortal

Day 22, evening: I gave in and walked to the honkie restaurant to have a beer and type as a sort of prelude to tomorrow night (everyone seems to have picked this one joint, as we tend to do. By bike today I noticed a few mansions being built on the edge of town. Now I know whose making enough to build them). My thinking is that if I’m seen here now, maybe I will have an easier time talking to or being talked to by other people when the party starts manana. It’s a little grim: they’re all eating; I heard the guy next to me pay for he and his girlfriend’s 2 beers, French fries, and spaghetti -- literally. Across the street is the night market, the Calypso of laab, and all its other treats, and here they are, en masse. And here I am. Is there a little gravity to our own kind that I’m feeling? I remember in the 45 days spent on the greyhound that the seat next to me was always the last one taken, and I suspected it was because each new entrant could imagine a kinship more easily in someone else they saw sitting instead of with me (I would always choose to sit next to old people, so that tells you about my kinship radar). And now I feel the pocking of my haughty armor, the pinging sound of unexpected rains, but even so, I still have a strong suspicion that I’ll be going to be tomorrow before the chiming even of 11.

In any case, my social fort-da game will soon be ending (a major question, of course, is whether Paola made me feel less lonely or more). I’ll be in India in a week, traveling with Jeremy (one of the two official members of my parish) and perhaps meeting up with my friend Jyl (a kind of outreach), and there’s even been talk of crossing vectors with Mick and Martin, who continue to send plaintive emails about the abjection of their meals without me. (sidenote: just saw some girls posing for a trip photo and have to give a shout-out to Rufus, who spotted his son Declan’s first face-making for the camera and did a little video ode about the slippery slope from there. Too true, too true.).

I’m glad they serve Malibu spiced rum here. That’s vital.

Just saw ice for the first time in Laos. In Vietnam and Cambodia, ice was almost an obsession (you could barely have a beer without them slipping in cubes). But here, no. One can only imagine a local village kid having the Aureliano Buendia experience were he to hoof his way into town and trade his brace of grouse for a glass of grog.

I believe many of you, my mom especially, will be pleased to know my eating or drinking finally caught up to me (hey, even Sandy Koufax gave up a run every once in a while, right? And Jeremy, the fact that the greatest pitcher in baseball history was Jewish must give you some hope for your tennis game). I ended up spending the latter part of yesterday evening in bed feeling on the verge of some civil unrest, either north or south of the Mason Dixon. It was as if a golfball was doing the Neptune thing of being swirled with poisonous gasses and had lodged itself just below my belly button (I tend to call this “pickling” myself, which my Mother loves – though she claims not to – because it’s somehow the world’s bacterial backlash to my hubris).

So, yes, I’m pickled, and the likely culprit is the village “tea,” though I also had eaten a bit of some Cambodian dried sausage that had been riding around in my bag for a week, and had wolfed down all the nicely spiced “giblets” in the village soup. God knows (could it have just been the bar company?). I end up not being able to eat the laab I bought and ultimately liberate myself Vesuvially of the ill-fated social beer and all other remnants. Post which, I felt rather decent.

Day 23: New Years Eve. Perhaps not the best time to wake still feeling kind of dodgy, but oh well. The question for me is whether to concede that I won’t make it to midnight nor make any headway with the 3 swedish girls who took the room next to mine and just get on the bus to Vientiane now. I’m very tempted – in part to see what the Lao celebration of the new year amid a 19-hr bus trip would be -- but the thought of the tremors the mountain roads will put the bus through make me a little anxious.

Turns out there’s no bus till tomorrow, which is no surprise I guess because the banks were closed yesterday and will be till the 2nd. (and, to keep with this gripe, a girl today couldn’t add 35 and 40, nor could she subtract 75 from 80. and even when I tell them the results, it doesn’t click, and they have to take out the calculator. Incredible)

So I’ve laid low most of the day. I did some shopping (presents!), ate some sticky rice and a few oranges, drank water and a little iced coffee and rested up. I did brick the groundwork for company for this evening by going outside and offering my Laos guide to some people who just arrived (the Swedish girls checked out this morning, tragically). That got us talking, then I brought out the mia, and now I have friends for the evening. (The whole smoking thing is really a life-saver, ironically, because it puts people outside in ready circulation and you can nab them). Since I’ve been in bed three quarters of today, I might even make midnight.

By the way, I should mention that I’ll be thinking very much of all of you tomorrow on my bus trip. At noon my time new york will be lowering the ball and most of you will be hugging and kissing people that I wish were me. I’ll still be aboard for the subsequent time zones too, so my friends in California and Alaska, I’ll try to raise a glass of lao lao to you as well. Maybe if I can get the people on board celebrating the various new years with me, it will be quite a party.

Ok, it’s a short second half to a double post, but I think I’ll go ahead and get it up. Enjoy yourselves, all, and when you can see again through the haze and pain, I will probably have written and posted a little something from the biz lounge in Vientiane or Bangkok. If not, hopefully within a few days, as I think Myanmar is allowing internet, as long as I don’t mention the putsch.

Much love, undiminished despite wide-spreading

xxx

Post 18: I fear somewhat lame after the last

Day 18: So after the disappointing river trip and the scheissig border town, I took the public bus back to Luang Namtha, an 8-hour journey through the mountain tops, occasionally looking down on the river from which I had earlier looked up at the road. The scenery was nicer from this altitude: incredibly lush, very jungle-y, green peaks insinuating themselves into clouds, deep drop-offs from the road’s edge, and some climbs that the bus could only do at about half my normal walking pace (and the sound of the driver changing gears was like an elephant stepping down onto pasta pots covered with quahog shells. Various tribeswomen came onboard with their moppets; nor did they worry about seating or personal space, so at one point I had a boy on my lap while the mother pushed against me holding one daughter as the other daughter puked into a sack while sitting on 100lb rice bags in the aisle while the elder son watched from the next bag. Most of the trip I felt like the teacher at a one-room gradeschool. Later we picked up a teenaged girl in make up (rare) and the guys lifted her motoscooter and tied onto the top of the bus. Suffice it to say that I was thrilled. Much better than the soporific river.

Day 19: Today I had planned on biking out to a village and doing a homestay, but I realized this morning I needed a little stasis to chill out and perhaps even get some writing done. I’ve been eating very well, including a majestic bacony-jerky that came with a pure chili dipping sauce, a papaya salad with eggplant and a kind of tongue-numbingly-sour guava, and some kind of conical thing with a spike at the end that looked and tasted like a cross between a bamboo shoot, a palm heart, and an artichoke. (the village food, by the way, was not exceptional, though I love the fact that everything was served with sticky rice that you roll into little balls then use to dip and grab everything else, plus they serve guo, a kind of roasted chili compote, with every meal – yum). Of course I’ve been eating laab/laap with nearly every day (and various versions of the greens every other), and went ahead and got an uncooked one for old time’s sake. I’m holding to my opinion that cooked is better, but glad I reconfirmed. Saw a woman selling a string of tiny baby frogs. Also found a woman selling from a ton of different unmarked bottles of moonshine -- and filling them from plastic gallon oil jugs (new principle, bro?). I asked about the prices of each and settled on the clear one (which cost double what the cheapest did). If you don’t bring your own bottle, they pour it into a plastic bag and rubber band off the top. Love that.

I fear I failed to mention where I’m staying and the rather compromising story behind it. Remember the local guys singing karaoke in the background in the internet café from a post or two ago? Well, I had been spending so much time trying to upload the latest video that I befriended the young proprietor and he asked me back for a beer with them. I happened to be toting the bottle of Chinese hooch, so I went back and did my best to pass it around. They were all terrified of it; I meanwhile was terrified to sing (the only time I ever tried karaoke, I think I was either too nervous or the song was out of my range or both, as no sound came out of my mouth – a flailing my brother still mocks me for). So I said that if they would each drink the whiskey, I’d sing a song in English. Well, they eventually did, so I had to (I didn’t even know the song), and my karaoke cherry got broken, of all places, in what my brother would call a backroom Lao swordfest. How odd.

Anyway, one of the guys’ fathers owns a cheap (but nice) hotel here, so he offered to put me up for free if I’d fix the English on their brochure. Done and done. (it would be nice except there was no cold water this morning, so I had to on/off on/off with the scalding – not pleasant -- and today the electric went out. Oh well).

Just had a 2nd go at "mia" -- the narcotic leaf (I bought some more, as I left the first bag of it with my elder lady friend). I didn’t have the add-ins, so I used the chili dipping sauce that came with the jerky and rolled a smoke with some Lao tobacco I got at the market for a dime. Yum! Honestly, the leaf/chili thing is utterly over the moon. I kept saying wow wow wow while sucking on it. So, so good (and actually I think it goes even better with the pipe tobacco – will try that later).

I’ve decided to stay here for new years eve. There are only a few restaurants on the strip that cater to falang, so it might be a nice focused party. We’ll see. Also it seems like I really did need this day of immobility; I don’t think I was quite aware of how uprooted I can feel. (In retrospect, I arrived in Saigon and never left, went straight to Siem Reap and stayed there 5 days not one, came directly here and will end up spending 6 days not 3 – clearly I like to root. I should keep this in mind with future itineraries.)

So it turns out that the power is out all over town, and with the blackout comes surprisingly limited action, which bodes poorly for new years eve in Namtha. There are a few foreigners milling, but somehow the town stays sleepy; I’m not sure what everybody can be doing; I’m in about the only bar that has its own generator running, but clearly it’s not going to be like the New York brown-out (very good times). I end up talking to a 22yr-old lesbian UGa grad. Sadly, she never had the Andrew Experience.

Day 20: I took a ride today up to a tiny town near the Chinese border. It was rather interesting, as I was the one cracker of the 17 – yes 17 – people in the Toyota van (thus no pictures; I couldn’t reach to my pocket). Saw a few interesting things in addition to some gorgeous scenery: a man sleeping on the road (dogs do that here all the time, equally unaccountably -- is it really that much warmer?); a man flag down the bus by waving at us with a squirrel (upon closer inspection, it was exceptionally furry, with a red belly, and had been snared. One of my river mates explained to me that the reason there are so few birds and wildlife in Asian forests is that they’ve eaten everything); some downed power lines that a large group of men were moving off the road; and lots of hill tribe people in their funky hats/headdresses and polychrome garb (why is it that many of the world’s poorest people wear the most intricately colored and patterned clothes? I realize that having no TV or books leaves a lot of time for weaving, but still…); some hogs with stocks around their heads walking down the side of the road – not sure what the stocks were for. Anyone?

Upon arriving, I get a little frustrated because it’s Sunday, nothing is open, I can’t rent a bike, and, worst of all, no one seems to be eating and there are no stands or stores with covered bowls out front (nice for me because I ask for one then discover what it is after). I don’t want to have to negotiate a menu in Lao, and if they have an English version then I don’t want to eat there (any club that would have me…), so I simply don’t eat. I chew more mia, smoke my pipe, nibble on the leftover papaya salad I brought with me, and wait. Hours of this later, I finally set off on foot, hoping to find something somewhere on the outskirts of town or in the nearby countryside.

Leaving town, within minutes I find another 12-cent noodle (quite odd: a pho with a pink liquid poured over; then you add chili paste and salt; and finally you have the option to add a green liquid too. No idea what any of it was, nor was I so impressed – and why do they overcook the noodles?). Soon thereafter though, the gods grace me and I find a big market where I make quite a scene by sampling and then buying some home-made whiskey with red wood-looking chips sitting at the bottom. Another of the vendors signs “drink that you’ll soon be asleep” to me, and I do a fake stagger walk and everybody’s happy. Then I buy some beautifully bound tea, what I think is a sticky rice that turns out to be grilled pork, another sticky rice that turns out to be some paste with wild mushrooms in it, and a skewer of tiny, grilled, decapitated but otherwise whole birds, wonderfully seasoned, that the woman assures me are chicken hatchlings . I also bend down to sniff some kind of dried grayish vermiginous looking thing that was sitting next to a few bottles homemade whiskey. Everyone started laughing and I now know why: whatever it was, it is not something I will soon be able to un-smell. Eeks.

The pork is super yummy; the mushroom paste less winning; and the birdling poppers not especially crunchy – though with a nice resistance – and positively scrumptious. I return to this market the next day too and get a laab with the black, hairy -on-one-side tripe that I’ve only seen in one other place (anyone?), some outstanding pork jerkey, and then a mystery jerky from a woman who was also selling a grilled rat and one of the super furry squirrels. It cost three times what the other jerkies have cost, so I suspect it must be of something netted or trapped. It’s yummy, but not quite as gamey as I was hoping for. Any guesses?

Post 17 and 16: Pushing the pushed envelope

quick note: somehow the one i posted yesterday seems not to have gone up, so this is now a double post. you'll see part way down where post 16 starts. sorry.

Cormac McCarthy loves to say that when it can’t get any worse, it does. Well, with the business-card-sized roach I thought I had reached the furthest limit of the edible, but Asia always keeps a few tricks up her sleeve.

So I made another video, and this one I won’t pre-announce (and the lighting is much better – one learns).



I have to say, this took another serious gut-check, and I almost failed. It took me two passes to go back to the old lady and negotiate, and then, putting it in my messenger bag, I had a bit of genuine nausea (speaking of which, the young proprietor of this internet café and his friends are singing karaoke right now – not a good thing). How funny to be flying straight into the teeth of my revulsion. I always assumed aversions to be mental, but I had no idea just how mental until I had to overcome a few (in pretty convenient circumstances, I should add). The roach was a serious struggle, as was this, but in both cases once I made up my mind, I got a little pumped up (that’s why I ate them at such strange times of day – I just had to run with the energy before I wimped out).

With the spider, the roach and this, every time I finished eating the damned things, I felt a kind of euphoria, like I had willed myself over something that I ordinarily would cower in front of. I’m not a bold person; I still can’t talk to strangers in bars or assert myself in certain situations, but I have found that I can decide to do something and then do it (like skydiving or breaking in to the sports complex in Florence – long story). With the food, there were many stages: I really had no desire whatsoever to eat the things; I kept thinking, Do I really need to do this? Yes, precisely because you don’t want to, you have to (like therapy). Then I had to get over the fear of even touching the things, much less putting them in my mouth and chewing. The spider wasn’t so bad (even when the little girl put the live one on me), but the roach, with the sticky juices it had released into the bag and its ungodly proportions, was a struggle. But then, it was like everything dominoed a little – and that’s what I think is interesting and liberating about all this – I was able to pick it up; I was able to conceive of doing it; I could double dare myself; I could imagine the shame I would feel if I backed away; I thought again how I’d be able to tell stories about it later; and suddenly I got a little bit excited to try. It became clear to me that I could choose, that there was no real barrier but association (as opposed to cute girls in bars who I’m positive would really prefer to be ignored all night), and I could just do it. Once I could latch onto that sense, then it wasn’t that hard to bite the head off the roach. I had overcome. Will I be able to apply this in non-entymo-zoological domains? I’m not sure. But it was a rush, and I think part of the thrill was the suspicion in the back of my mind that in the future I just might be able to.

One further note of clarification: people really do eat these things. The place I bought the thing in was sufficiently out of the way that I don’t think it was intended for tourists (plus, the old lady was in permanent squat over a lot of other kind of hopeless shit at the far end of the market – one should always seek out the margins, n’est pas Jacques?). She was the only one who had them, and I haven’t seen one since (nor has she been back – perhaps too busy sewer-hunting). I actually think this might be a delicacy – and she was wise enough to charge me 5 times the probable price.

Another conclusion that I’m coming to is that when it comes to eating dicey food is that there’s a very useful rule of thumb: if it’s fried or grilled, you’re pretty safe. The things to worry about are if it’s raw (like the laab that one time, though still tasty) or, worse, if it’s fermented. I can speak now with authority and say the funkiest, most gnarly, inedible thing I’ve ever come across was a simple fermented tofu out of an earthenware crock bought in Chinatown (on sale) for a dollar. As I removed the chunks, they looked like they had blood clots attached to them, they stunk to cloud 30, and they were truly unspeakably heinous. And somehow the Norwegian buried fermented fish that Krista tells me about – or Chinese versions of same -- strike me as similarly dubious, though at this point I guess I’d have to try them, as long as someone was filming.
So regarding that maggot-shaped toolio Andrew Zimmer, when he eats some Rotsfisk – I think that’s close to the name; will check with Krista -- then I’ll be impressed. Until then, I hope he enjoys his rocky mountain oysters or scorpions. Whatevah…

Oh, by the way, I followed my principle and got a soup just as I was leaving Cambodia that had blood cakes in it (and have had another since I’ve been here), and this time I ate them and thought they were quite good. The only occasion in which I had had them before was on a date with a native Taiwanese woman who discussed in Chinese with our waiter in Chinatown (as they weren’t on the menu), then had them brought, and by them, I mean about 20, each the size of a half-depth Klondike bar, and they were very florid and odd, and daunting in their middle-of-the-table hillock. I concluded I didn’t like them, but as long as they are warm and in manageable quantities and don’t taste like they were infused with a Glade air freshener, then they seem to be okay.

Third thought: my language book doesn’t say how to say “delicious” or “good,” nor does Lonely Planet. And the latter doesn’t tell you how to say “sorry.” And under food, it leaves out all the markets and lists places with pancakes. They can suck a fucking toss rag.

One thing here that breaks my heart is that hill village women come into town and then stand outside the internet café for a while the way I do at mixers, unwilling or able to come up and ask anyone anything. They’re trying to sell some ware, but if no one acknowledges them, they ultimately just slink off. Ugh. I want to give them each money, but then you encourage begging and that creates problems. It just sucks all around.

Post 16: In which nostalgia rears its ugly, and curious leaves are chewed in curious company

all,

sorry this is coming in a day later than announced; the power went out for a day, and i went to a village up by the chinese border that didn't have connectivity. and sorry too about there being so few photos; i'll try to put up a few more from the gazillion that i took, if there's bandwidth.

and back tomorrow with the next video, which i hope is what you've all been waiting for.

much love, and missing you all (i'm starting to feel very sentimental writing these because i can feel you all very close. oh my...)

Day 14: Arrive in Laos.

Laos, like Illinois, has a silent “s”; you would think that would help me get it right.

First meal and it utterly blows me away, not unlike the first time I ate Lao food, which was in Providence, at an extremely dingy spot I stumbled upon called Asia Place. -- RECYCLED STORY ALERT – 4 PARAGRAPHS -- Asia Place was funny; it was up the street (on Federal hill) from a bar I’d occasionally schlep to because they had a 3 burgers and beans special that came with a stack of white bread and cocktails were $1. At the time I was working at Louie’s, a notorious greasiest-of-spoons by campus, and my boss happened to own the building Asia Place was in. “You eat there?” he asked incredulously. “That place is way too filthy for me.” This from the owner of a place where one of my patrons found a 5-inch rusty nail under her omelette (no exaggeration), and Louie wouldn’t give her her breakfast for free, he was just going to make another one (that’s when I quit). It was sad to go; they took me in as one of theirs (even though I was over 5’6”). I had endeared myself to the family by jumping into the trash barrel on my first day, holding it by both sides and pogoing up and down to mash everything to the bottom – a trick I had learned at my last job.

Anyway, Asia Place never had any patrons, or at least never anyone eating; every once in a while, a small group of young Southeast Asian mobsters would come in and drink Heinekens (see!) or egg creams (for real). The place was run by a mother and her two daughters, each of whom had butt length hair with curlicue wavelets curled in. They wore a lot of makeup and were very pretty, and one time the mother asked if I had ever been to South East Asia. I said I had been to Thailand on route to India. She said, “No, you went for the girls.” I said, no, it was a stopover for 2 days because I was flying the wrong way around the world (this when I was 18). She said, no, you went for the girls, and I couldn’t convince her otherwise, snow-white lamb though I was at the time.

The other amusing thing about Asia Place is that the menu had names and explanations for most things, but then it just said Laab, $5. I didn’t even bother asking, I just ordered it, and that’s when I was first asked cooked or uncooked. Trying to be cool, I said cooked, like I had any idea what I was getting. It came; I couldn’t identify it; it was some kind of meat salad with lettuce and a few chilis. I proceeded to go back and eat it the next eight nights in a row, getting it raw on the last. This was before the internet, so it wasn’t easy to find out what the very thin slices of seemingly filter-y meat were; I thought maybe fish maw (something I had read about but never seen, and the stuff on my plate looked like it could strain plankton). Finally, after eating it raw (and being both compelled and alarmed), I asked what it was: beef stomach sliced so thin you couldn’t tell. Utterly incredible. But better get it cooked, every time but once.

The woman there enjoyed toying with me, not just with the Thai girl joke. The first time I ate the laab, I left the plate spotless and the stem of the lone fresh Thai chili in the center to show that I had eaten it. The next night, I left the two stems. The night after, four. I like to do the powers of two in my head to calm myself; I knew how quickly this could get out of hand. The fourth night I gave up. _She_ knew I was white – and how to break me.

BACK TO LAOS: So sauntering to the night market, I honestly had no idea what I’d find. There are quite a few honkies here, all preparing for boat trips or treks, and I feared seeing waffles and spaghetti. But no, there was laab! (though I think most books spell it laap.) On my first night! And just as good as I remembered! (I haven’t been to providence in 10 years). Plus an astonishingly good mound of mixed greens, then a less dazzling noodle (called elau, iilau, not sure how to spell it -- pronounced ee-lao) made by pouring a liquid on a screen over boiling water, steaming it, then rolling it on a stick (a little like the shrimp noodle that ron, lindz, my brother and I all love in chinatown where they pour it on a hot metal surface then scrape it into a steamed roll). That was more cool than tasty. The laab and greens though annihilated anything I’ve had yet in Asia. (Sorry, ron, maybe I didn’t give Cambodian food a chance, but if you’re competing with laab, the cards are stacked against you…)

The town I’m in is called Luang Namtha (I dropped $100 and flew straight here in an hour upon arriving at the capital instead of taking the when-all-goes-well 19-hour bus for $20). The 2007 guidebooks all said there was only generator-driven power, and only from 6-9:30 p.m. Well, I think they had a good 2008, because there are power lines everywhere, my room has a plug, plus a flush toilet and shower (it seems it can’t be escaped, at least not without going to the cheapest place listed in Lonely Planet and good luck getting a room).

Now that I’m up here, I’m reluctant to just take a boat all the way back down as planned; I think I’m going to rent a bike instead and go visit a bunch of hill villages of various Lao ethnic minorities (the Hmong among them – had to say it). They’ll all be ready for me when I get there, but maybe I can still eat some funky things and make some children laugh. And then I can come home to laab (and the laab lady – uh oh, I might be smitten again! –RECYCLED STORY ALERT – REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH -- I will confess to historically being captivated by any number of women whom I referred to as the insert food name here lady. My favorite was the produce lady in Florence – a young Sophia Loren meets La Cucinotta – good god it’s hard even to type the words!!! -- who called me “cipolla” because I’d go in every day and buy a single onion just to have the chance to see her. Oh, yes, then there was the rural cheese lady in Paris with the gap between her front teeth who would bring her masterpieces in sitting on maple leaves and threatening either to ooze over the edge or collapse in on themselves with mold. And so on…).

Clearly there is a disadvantage to flying, because all I can really talk about so far is that if you first saw the earth from above Laos you’d think we were all living on a giant head of broccoli rabe. I guess I can also say that so far it looks like Cambodia, but as busses they drive these pickupy things with two rows of seats bolted into the bed called sawngthaews, and there’s also a super crazy truck with a leafblower engine strapped out front powering the thing PIC. (Or I could tell you about clouds, but don’t get me started. I LOVE clouds viewed from a plane…). So, yes, if I fly, then you’re stuck hearing ossified food stories from the past. My bad. I’ll try to stick to the program and go ground from now on.

Day 15: My first day here I rent a bike and go out to see some villages. Quickly one of my suspicions was confirmed, namely, that if you don’t eat the local food, you really don’t interact with the populace. As I was biking by, saying hi to everyone, they were like “Fuck you, whatever.” But the minute I sat down to eat both a 12-cent noodle thing (PIC) and another noodle thing (PIC) – the latter at an end-of-the-road village where I couldn’t ford the river -- suddenly crowds formed, we all tried speaking to each other, and all kinds of stuff happened. One can waterbug the surface of a culture, but to pierce the meniscus, you have to eat.

Or drink. As it turns out, I bought two different local rice whiskeys, and a Chinese one (by mistake). The first because I rode by a stand at a somewhat remote village and there were small bags of liquid with rather high prices on them (close to a buck), one clearish, one reddish brown (slightly more expensive). The proprietor was asleep, and I’m not sure how I would have asked him anyway, so I concluded they must be booze, woke him up, and bought the latter (go high in low-end). It turned out to be half a liter of really smooth 40% eau de vie-like stuff, tasting a bit like the Chinese preserved-plum-infused vodka that I make at home, only smoother. Very nice.

The second I bought because I kept riding by stands that had unmarked bottles of clear or green liquid on them, stoppered with rag bits and rubber-banded. At first I thought they might be petrol, as in Cambodia, but I concluded that no, maybe not. So I pulled into one of the stands, made the universal I-can-imbibe-this-without-dying sign, got a nod back, and bought half a liter. (you had to bring your own bottle, so I took my water bottle out of its bike cage, drained it, and handed it to her – classy). I opted for the light green one, which proved also to be quite tasty. A bit less smooth, but good.

The third was a minor mistake. I had meant to try the clear one that I had seen elsewhere, but I had no empty bottle any more. Next to it, at one of the stands, they had little glass bottles of 250ml that they said were 40 cents, so I got one, only to look at it later and realize that it had Chinese written on it. Still tasty, but not local. I’m getting on the boat tomorrow, so it won’t be bad to have excess liquor – and also for the truck ride back. I’m sure the driver will appreciate it.

I did feel I got a little local cred today when hiking up to a supremely disappointing “waterfall” by turning my flipflops into Tevas with strung-together rubber bands, creating a little back resistance and stability. It worked great (I conceived of it last night in bed), and made hiking in those god-forsaken things actually doable. Plus, lots of people stared at them, at least with a little appreciation.

Day 16: So I came all the way up here because I had booked a trip with court along what was supposed to be the last unused river in Laos, deep into the remote North. Well, my supposed “jungle adventure” proved to be a near bust. The river was rarely narrower than 50 yards; there were villages alongside it every couple of miles (whose children waved at us but whose adults didn’t give a shit); the boat had an engine that wasn’t especially quiet or peaceful; and after about an hour, one got to know the scenery and it didn’t change much for the next 14 hours spent on the boat over two days. The boat, apart from the motor, was an authentic pieced-together wooden fantail, which meant it was highly uncomfortable to sit in the bottom of, as we did, and looked like a single termite could Titanic us at will. There were good parts: we stopped over in one village where everyone came out to see us . Plus, we spent the night in the young boat pilot’s village, and that proved to be the best part of the trip (and almost made it worth it).

Day 16, evening: First village overnight: So there were tons of interesting details about staying in the village, and when I can finally post pictures, you’ll see, among other things, the water buffalo, the green pumpkins they grow for pig feed, the bamboo shoot hanging in bags under the stilted huts, the stilted huts, the silk spinning apparatus and intricate looms, the kids, the cookfires, the cookpots, and the cooking (the cook wouldn’t let me take her picture).

Now of course we’re herded in there as falang (whities), so everyone starts coming around to sell us sarongs and scarves, which annoys me. But eventually things mellow out, and that’s when I pull out the lao lao whiskey I had bought in the village near Luang Namtha. It soon becomes clear that this makes me very popular among the men, especially the old men (though the one who I thought was probably 70 tells me he’s only 53 – eeks. Hard living, as in real work: it catches up fast.).

But I had also brought a bag of some leaves in liquid that I saw at another village. These my guide said were to be rolled with ginger, salt, and hot chilis, then sucked on while smoking, as a kind of stimulant. A stimulant to go with a stimulant, hell yeah! So with the whiskey, I pull out the (what at first I assume are coca leaves), and attract the super old lady’s attention (I think she’s pushing ninety but she says she’s 60-something, and has the teeth one seeks in a food vendor). She’s been chewing on a unlit cheroot or big beedie of some kind (like ones I’ve seen from Indonesia), and starts making drinking signs too, so I hand her a glass of whiskey, see her take a swig, then lean all the way to the ground and blow it all through a crack in the floorboards. She hated it! But then she takes a Carlton Fisk wad of the leaves and fires up her Clint Eastwood special, flashes me her crenellated grin, and now we’re fast friends.

It was kind of sad, as if the other 3 falang just faded from the room. We’re drinking and chewing and smoking (I pulled out my pipe and fired up some nice Dunhill 505), and the whole scene becomes _very_ convivial. (the leaves, by the way, taste almost olive-y, and the combo of leaf, salt, chili, ginger is delicious on its own, but does an Aufhebung into something utterly magical with the synergism of the tobacco). Soon enough the old lady asks if I’m married and I say no, and yes, indeed, she suggests her youngest, only 19, the sweet-faced cook who wouldn’t let me take her picture (but I did get one of her hair later in the boat).

So I end with an addendum to the summer-toothed-old-lady-soup principle: whenever one can drink, smoke, and chew narcotic leaves with said ancienne, one must.

Post 16: In which nostalgia rears its ugly, and curious leaves are chewed in curious company

Post 16: In which nostalgia rears its ugly, and curious leaves are chewed in curious company

all,

sorry this is coming in a day later than announced; the power went out for a day, and i went to a village up by the chinese border that didn't have connectivity. and sorry too about there being so few photos; i'll try to put up a few more from the gazillion that i took, if there's bandwidth.

and back tomorrow with the next video, which i hope is what you've all been waiting for.

much love, and missing you all (i'm starting to feel very sentimental writing these because i can feel you all very close. oh my...)

Day 14: Arrive in Laos.

Laos, like Illinois, has a silent “s”; you would think that would help me get it right.

First meal and it utterly blows me away, not unlike the first time I ate Lao food, which was in Providence, at an extremely dingy spot I stumbled upon called Asia Place. -- RECYCLED STORY ALERT – 4 PARAGRAPHS -- Asia Place was funny; it was up the street (on Federal hill) from a bar I’d occasionally schlep to because they had a 3 burgers and beans special that came with a stack of white bread and cocktails were $1. At the time I was working at Louie’s, a notorious greasiest-of-spoons by campus, and my boss happened to own the building Asia Place was in. “You eat there?” he asked incredulously. “That place is way too filthy for me.” This from the owner of a place where one of my patrons found a 5-inch rusty nail under her omelette (no exaggeration), and Louie wouldn’t give her her breakfast for free, he was just going to make another one (that’s when I quit). It was sad to go; they took me in as one of theirs (even though I was over 5’6”). I had endeared myself to the family by jumping into the trash barrel on my first day, holding it by both sides and pogoing up and down to mash everything to the bottom – a trick I had learned at my last job.

Anyway, Asia Place never had any patrons, or at least never anyone eating; every once in a while, a small group of young Southeast Asian mobsters would come in and drink Heinekens (see!) or egg creams (for real). The place was run by a mother and her two daughters, each of whom had butt length hair with curlicue wavelets curled in. They wore a lot of makeup and were very pretty, and one time the mother asked if I had ever been to South East Asia. I said I had been to Thailand on route to India. She said, “No, you went for the girls.” I said, no, it was a stopover for 2 days because I was flying the wrong way around the world (this when I was 18). She said, no, you went for the girls, and I couldn’t convince her otherwise, snow-white lamb though I was at the time.

The other amusing thing about Asia Place is that the menu had names and explanations for most things, but then it just said Laab, $5. I didn’t even bother asking, I just ordered it, and that’s when I was first asked cooked or uncooked. Trying to be cool, I said cooked, like I had any idea what I was getting. It came; I couldn’t identify it; it was some kind of meat salad with lettuce and a few chilis. I proceeded to go back and eat it the next eight nights in a row, getting it raw on the last. This was before the internet, so it wasn’t easy to find out what the very thin slices of seemingly filter-y meat were; I thought maybe fish maw (something I had read about but never seen, and the stuff on my plate looked like it could strain plankton). Finally, after eating it raw (and being both compelled and alarmed), I asked what it was: beef stomach sliced so thin you couldn’t tell. Utterly incredible. But better get it cooked, every time but once.

The woman there enjoyed toying with me, not just with the Thai girl joke. The first time I ate the laab, I left the plate spotless and the stem of the lone fresh Thai chili in the center to show that I had eaten it. The next night, I left the two stems. The night after, four. I like to do the powers of two in my head to calm myself; I knew how quickly this could get out of hand. The fourth night I gave up. _She_ knew I was white – and how to break me.

BACK TO LAOS: So sauntering to the night market, I honestly had no idea what I’d find. There are quite a few honkies here, all preparing for boat trips or treks, and I feared seeing waffles and spaghetti. But no, there was laab! (though I think most books spell it laap.) On my first night! And just as good as I remembered! (I haven’t been to providence in 10 years). Plus an astonishingly good mound of mixed greens, then a less dazzling noodle (called elau, iilau, not sure how to spell it -- pronounced ee-lao) made by pouring a liquid on a screen over boiling water, steaming it, then rolling it on a stick (a little like the shrimp noodle that ron, lindz, my brother and I all love in chinatown where they pour it on a hot metal surface then scrape it into a steamed roll). That was more cool than tasty. The laab and greens though annihilated anything I’ve had yet in Asia. (Sorry, ron, maybe I didn’t give Cambodian food a chance, but if you’re competing with laab, the cards are stacked against you…)

The town I’m in is called Luang Namtha (I dropped $100 and flew straight here in an hour upon arriving at the capital instead of taking the when-all-goes-well 19-hour bus for $20). The 2007 guidebooks all said there was only generator-driven power, and only from 6-9:30 p.m. Well, I think they had a good 2008, because there are power lines everywhere, my room has a plug, plus a flush toilet and shower (it seems it can’t be escaped, at least not without going to the cheapest place listed in Lonely Planet and good luck getting a room).

Now that I’m up here, I’m reluctant to just take a boat all the way back down as planned; I think I’m going to rent a bike instead and go visit a bunch of hill villages of various Lao ethnic minorities (the Hmong among them – had to say it). They’ll all be ready for me when I get there, but maybe I can still eat some funky things and make some children laugh. And then I can come home to laab (and the laab lady – uh oh, I might be smitten again! –RECYCLED STORY ALERT – REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH -- I will confess to historically being captivated by any number of women whom I referred to as the insert food name here lady. My favorite was the produce lady in Florence – a young Sophia Loren meets La Cucinotta – good god it’s hard even to type the words!!! -- who called me “cipolla” because I’d go in every day and buy a single onion just to have the chance to see her. Oh, yes, then there was the rural cheese lady in Paris with the gap between her front teeth who would bring her masterpieces in sitting on maple leaves and threatening either to ooze over the edge or collapse in on themselves with mold. And so on…).

Clearly there is a disadvantage to flying, because all I can really talk about so far is that if you first saw the earth from above Laos you’d think we were all living on a giant head of broccoli rabe. I guess I can also say that so far it looks like Cambodia, but as busses they drive these pickupy things with two rows of seats bolted into the bed called sawngthaews, and there’s also a super crazy truck with a leafblower engine strapped out front powering the thing PIC. (Or I could tell you about clouds, but don’t get me started. I LOVE clouds viewed from a plane…). So, yes, if I fly, then you’re stuck hearing ossified food stories from the past. My bad. I’ll try to stick to the program and go ground from now on.

Day 15: My first day here I rent a bike and go out to see some villages. Quickly one of my suspicions was confirmed, namely, that if you don’t eat the local food, you really don’t interact with the populace. As I was biking by, saying hi to everyone, they were like “Fuck you, whatever.” But the minute I sat down to eat both a 12-cent noodle thing (PIC) and another noodle thing (PIC) – the latter at an end-of-the-road village where I couldn’t ford the river -- suddenly crowds formed, we all tried speaking to each other, and all kinds of stuff happened. One can waterbug the surface of a culture, but to pierce the meniscus, you have to eat.

Or drink. As it turns out, I bought two different local rice whiskeys, and a Chinese one (by mistake). The first because I rode by a stand at a somewhat remote village and there were small bags of liquid with rather high prices on them (close to a buck), one clearish, one reddish brown (slightly more expensive). The proprietor was asleep, and I’m not sure how I would have asked him anyway, so I concluded they must be booze, woke him up, and bought the latter (go high in low-end). It turned out to be half a liter of really smooth 40% eau de vie-like stuff, tasting a bit like the Chinese preserved-plum-infused vodka that I make at home, only smoother. Very nice.

The second I bought because I kept riding by stands that had unmarked bottles of clear or green liquid on them, stoppered with rag bits and rubber-banded. At first I thought they might be petrol, as in Cambodia, but I concluded that no, maybe not. So I pulled into one of the stands, made the universal I-can-imbibe-this-without-dying sign, got a nod back, and bought half a liter. (you had to bring your own bottle, so I took my water bottle out of its bike cage, drained it, and handed it to her – classy). I opted for the light green one, which proved also to be quite tasty. A bit less smooth, but good.

The third was a minor mistake. I had meant to try the clear one that I had seen elsewhere, but I had no empty bottle any more. Next to it, at one of the stands, they had little glass bottles of 250ml that they said were 40 cents, so I got one, only to look at it later and realize that it had Chinese written on it. Still tasty, but not local. I’m getting on the boat tomorrow, so it won’t be bad to have excess liquor – and also for the truck ride back. I’m sure the driver will appreciate it.

I did feel I got a little local cred today when hiking up to a supremely disappointing “waterfall” by turning my flipflops into Tevas with strung-together rubber bands, creating a little back resistance and stability. It worked great (I conceived of it last night in bed), and made hiking in those god-forsaken things actually doable. Plus, lots of people stared at them, at least with a little appreciation.

Day 16: So I came all the way up here because I had booked a trip with court along what was supposed to be the last unused river in Laos, deep into the remote North. Well, my supposed “jungle adventure” proved to be a near bust. The river was rarely narrower than 50 yards; there were villages alongside it every couple of miles (whose children waved at us but whose adults didn’t give a shit); the boat had an engine that wasn’t especially quiet or peaceful; and after about an hour, one got to know the scenery and it didn’t change much for the next 14 hours spent on the boat over two days. The boat, apart from the motor, was an authentic pieced-together wooden fantail, which meant it was highly uncomfortable to sit in the bottom of, as we did, and looked like a single termite could Titanic us at will. There were good parts: we stopped over in one village where everyone came out to see us . Plus, we spent the night in the young boat pilot’s village, and that proved to be the best part of the trip (and almost made it worth it).

Day 16, evening: First village overnight: So there were tons of interesting details about staying in the village, and when I can finally post pictures, you’ll see, among other things, the water buffalo, the green pumpkins they grow for pig feed, the bamboo shoot hanging in bags under the stilted huts, the stilted huts, the silk spinning apparatus and intricate looms, the kids, the cookfires, the cookpots, and the cooking (the cook wouldn’t let me take her picture).

Now of course we’re herded in there as falang (whities), so everyone starts coming around to sell us sarongs and scarves, which annoys me. But eventually things mellow out, and that’s when I pull out the lao lao whiskey I had bought in the village near Luang Namtha. It soon becomes clear that this makes me very popular among the men, especially the old men (though the one who I thought was probably 70 tells me he’s only 53 – eeks. Hard living, as in real work: it catches up fast.).

But I had also brought a bag of some leaves in liquid that I saw at another village. These my guide said were to be rolled with ginger, salt, and hot chilis, then sucked on while smoking, as a kind of stimulant. A stimulant to go with a stimulant, hell yeah! So with the whiskey, I pull out the (what at first I assume are coca leaves), and attract the super old lady’s attention (I think she’s pushing ninety but she says she’s 60-something, and has the teeth one seeks in a food vendor). She’s been chewing on a unlit cheroot or big beedie of some kind (like ones I’ve seen from Indonesia), and starts making drinking signs too, so I hand her a glass of whiskey, see her take a swig, then lean all the way to the ground and blow it all through a crack in the floorboards. She hated it! But then she takes a Carlton Fisk wad of the leaves and fires up her Clint Eastwood special, flashes me her crenellated grin, and now we’re fast friends.

It was kind of sad, as if the other 3 falang just faded from the room. We’re drinking and chewing and smoking (I pulled out my pipe and fired up some nice Dunhill 505), and the whole scene becomes _very_ convivial. (the leaves, by the way, taste almost olive-y, and the combo of leaf, salt, chili, ginger is delicious on its own, but does an Aufhebung into something utterly magical with the synergism of the tobacco). Soon enough the old lady asks if I’m married and I say no, and yes, indeed, she suggests her youngest, only 19, the sweet-faced cook who wouldn’t let me take her picture (but I did get one of her hair later in the boat).

So I end with an addendum to the summer-toothed-old-lady-soup principle: whenever one can drink, smoke, and chew narcotic leaves with said ancienne, one must.