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Be Still, My Heart
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes is coming in Sept next year! Every Calvin and Hobbes comic in one volume. US$95 for hardcover. But... oh my god. Damn my poverty. 
(And I already _have_ every Calvin and Hobbes comic. It doesn't matter.)
Tsunami Update + Links for donations
Wikipedia link for people living under a rock (Most donation links are already available at Wikipedia. As usual, Wikipedia is absolutely first class.) Death toll at time of writing: 26,000 After the epidemics break out and all the uncontactable areas of the world report figures, don't be surprised if the death toll hits 100,000. Links from SomethingAwful. Good collection of links from MSNBC Thai Red Cross Singapore Red Cross hoping to raise S$1,000,000 From AFP correspondent Cisoux, a letter from the Sri Lanka High Commission: On behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka, the Sri Lanka High Commission in Singapore is launching an appeal for emergency aids for the Sri Lankan people affected by the tsunami that hit the country on 26 December 2004 where the death toll has now reached more than 12,000 and over a million people have been displaced. (Own note: According to BBC, Sri Lankan govt has said death toll could rise to 20,000) The items requested by the Government of Sri Lanka are: 1. Tents 2. Food (pre-cooked or ready to eat meal packs) 3. Water purification tablets 4. Wheat flour, rice, other staples 5. Paracetomol, antibiotics, wound dressings, suture material, disposable syringes, vitamins 6. Intravenous infusions (saline and dextrose) 7. Portable generators Donations of the above items can be made at the High Commission during office hours (Monday to Friday - 9.00am to 5.00pm, Saturday - 9.00am to 12.00pm) at: Sri Lanka High Commission #13-07/12, Goldhill Plaza 51 Newton Road Singapore 308900
Laos Day Two Part Four
As we unloaded our luggage from the bus, a taxi driver came up to us obvious foreigners to advertise his services. Burdened, weary and wary of the dark, we took the offer, and enjoyed a five-minute ride to our hotel, called the Mary 2, presumably after the famous ocean liner. A signboard erected by its gate advertised: BEERLAO. Beyond the fence, there was a club, playing cheesy Thai techno, and further in, a two-storey building, our abode for the night. Breathless after climbing up the stairs, an architectural standby the Laotians never seem to have mastered because of what I presume to be their natural agility and therefore quite treacherous, I found my room to be magnificent: flushing toilet, TV, air-conditioning. Naturally, Cisoux would have one of her worse nights in Laos in this hotel. Still, even I found the large twin bed, and single blanket, in the room I was to share with Reza to be a not-good thing. I prefer to snuggle with people of the opposite sex. I was also worried that he may beat the shit out of me if I approach too near; I tend to flail about when I sleep. The last time I was forced on a single bed with a man was in New York, with James. Apparently he punched me several times when I mounted him like a crazed chihuahua. Luckily I don't remember a thing, having no cognition when asleep, and he hits like a girlie-man with Down's Syndrome. As I unpacked, I made comments that could be seen as homosexual solicitations to Reza. He threatened me with death. When everyone was ready, we grabbed our torchlights, and went out for dinner. We found a nice-looking BBQ restaurant, once again, ringed by BEERLAO posters, and sat down. In Singapore, a restaurant like this would be quite expensive to eat at. As it was, it cost each of us less than a cheap coffeeshop meal. The food was quite delicious, and I got to try BEERLAO, which Time declared the best beer in Asia recently. It was horrible, and the dinner was silent, punctuated only by pathetic attempts at conversation. The culprit: pork. The Muslims on the table had ordered the seafood meal, and Xai had told the waiters to not put pork, but the waiters forgot, leaving large, tasty-looking slabs on top of some of the fish. Us filthy kufr took the pork slabs, which were supposed to grease the BBQ, and proceeded with embarassment. Our friends didn't proceed at all. They had only dry biscuits to look forward to, or damnation with the rest of us. Xai looked like he felt guilty, or blamed, and mumbled, "In Laos, where to find eating place that doesn't sell pork?" We trudged back to the hotel, colder, stopping at a convenience store to procure some provisions for the night. Later, as the documentary team discussed their project in their room, Cisoux came to mine and we wrote in our journals together. She was visibly unhappy, and I could not console her, tainted as I was. Scribbling, at least, is therapeutic. After she returned to her room, I went to sleep. When I woke up in the morning the next day, I realised I had missed something important on my handphone. At around 1am, Cisoux had messaged me. She was cold.
Massive Wave Strikes SE Asia, India, Sri Lanka
Since it's all over the news, won't bother posting link. Late, because I was not in during day. Will say: Fuck, 9,500 dead reported by Reuters at time of writing, in countries all around mine. Didn't even feel the quake. Scary. Was in Thailand less than a month ago, was in Penang around the same time (before Christmas) two years ago. Could have gone in a blink. FUN THOUGHTS Thinking like a Fundy, Day after Christmas, 2003: More than 30,000 killed in Iran earthquake. Day after Christmas, 2004: Close to 10,000 killed in SE Asia, India. You know the meme will spread soon, that Jesus hates Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus (in that order). "Coincidence? I think not!" Hell, people find fate-changing patterns in tea leaves and other assorted scriptura, so. Condolences to all. Only just spent time reading about it and looking at pictures and feeling horrified and sad at the death count; no, not just the death count, at the proximity of it. God Bless Sumatra. Good night. Will resume travelogue soon, I hope.
Sin City
I interrupt my Laos travelogue for an important announcement: THE SIN CITY TRAILER I've only read the one with Marv in it, and I have a major hard on for this movie. The Elijah Wood shot was simply awesome. (The glowing spectacles scene.) I wonder if he is physically up for playing one of the biggest badasses I've ever encountered in my (decidedly pathetic) comic-reading history?
Laos Day Two Part Three
My memory is fading. The realisation that the Thais indeed hated us came about when, of the seven at the table, only Cis and I weren't served. The topping of emptying glasses of drink and plates of rice were privileges for whom the waitresses deemed us undeserving, unlike the others. Cis theorised that they must have caught my quite unfair observation that Thai women seemed rather subservient, a most appealing trait to many white people, whose bulging pockets must be rather attractive too. I thought maybe they just hated short people. Despite my disappointing intake of Coca-Cola, I went to use the washroom, where, standing by the urinal, I found I could stare right into the kitchen through ventilation holes in the wall, and the cooks could stare right back. Such fantastic architecture. The trip to Chongmek was otherwise uninteresting. At one point we passed a dam, which the crew was supposed to shoot, but didn't, because they didn't know they had passed it, and we couldn't stop for fear of getting shot. At the border town Chongmek, we made plans with Tata Young so that we were ensured of a ride back to Ubon. Navigating customs was less of a pain in the neck than expected. Crossing into Laos didn't quite have the whole trumpets-blaring fanfare sort of effect on me but it did feel different from the country we arrived from, with it being obviously poorer and more chaotic. At the Laos customs we had to remind the official that Singaporeans needed no visa to enter. Singaporeans must be a rather rare breed in this place. We changed our money to Kip (we were instant millionaires), and the first thing I did with the money was pay for entering a washroom. There was no tap I could find, so I used an instant sanitising foam to clean my hands, which I called "WL's Magical Handwashing Thing" because WL bought it and it bubbled. Walking on the dusty roads, which weren't so much dusty as that they were made of dust, we were waylaid by a woman looking for passengers for her bus. Our destination was Pakse, the largest city in the south of Laos, second in size in all of Laos to Vientiane itself, which means it is scarcely more populous than Tuas. We followed until, under a rickety shelter by an open space, we saw a single vehicle filled with people inside and luggage on top, a pregnant turtle of a bus, and we thought, maybe we should wait for the next one. She was insistent though, and became even more insistent when a pair of enterprising and opportunistic taxi drivers offered their services. We were about to take the taxi option when passengers spilled out of the bus... to make way for us. "No, no, no! Get them back on!" my friends shouted. Xai was pissed off. He had told me he found Laos to be chaotic as hell when we lounged on the balcony of our guestroom, even compared to Thailand, and he hated it. This was why. "Fucking hell," I said. "I feel like an imperialist!" And because we wanted the third world experience, and because we didn't want the poor folks who got off to get back on, because we hate them, we took the bus. The bus, like the buses in Thailand, was a little bit like a mini-lorry with a cover, with two benches by the side of the vehicle. Another bench was lined in the middle, to maximise passengers and minimise comfort. I sat on the side, flanked by Reza to my left, and breathed in deeply humanity. Huddled together the women clutched their acquired produce, which included a damned busful of cucumbers, which meant I had no real place to put my feet. Then the bus started and we were off. At a checkpoint suspicious-looking and dishevelled policemen made us all get off the bus, and I was worried we'd need to bribe them. They collected many of the cucumbers. Xai said they bought it, but I wonder. One of them was chatting up one of the woman passengers, and even patted her bum, the sleazy bastard. Xai said maybe they knew each other. I didn't like how they looked, and how they talked to Xai. But Xai said they recognised him and was just making idle banter, and they let us go without much ado, so I suppose they weren't that bad. Quite a few people got off, but even more got on here. I couldn't help feeling relieved when we moved on again. The day was darkening quickly into night, and fires were flaring up in the settlements on the long, straight, dust road to Pakse. Everyone was a silhouette. I tried to stretch my legs under the middle bench over the remaining cucumbers, but feet were in the way. And because there were so many people on board I had to sit with my thighs close against each other, which meant my testicles were being constrained in a manner which was sweaty and uncomfortable. And whenever I tried to adjust my posture Reza, who was equally cramped and on the brink of pushing a man off the vehicle, would threaten to kill me. Later he shifted to the middle, and a man moved in beside me. "Where are you from?" he asked me in Mandarin, unexpectedly. "Singapore," I told him. "Where are you from?" "China. I am here on business, you?" he replied. "Pleasure, I think," I said. "I could tell you guys weren't local," he said. We were on the edge of Pakse. "This is where I get off. Always good to see fellow Chinese. Happy to meet you," he said. We shook hands. A few minutes later, we got off too.
Interruption
But things just get so crazy living life gets hard to do. M5
Laos Day Two (Dec 3 2004) Part Two
Contrary to what you may have been expecting, Tata Young was a tattooed, buff, middle-aged man with a missing chunk of bicep. Wearing sunglasses, he was standing in front of a big-ass SUV parked just outside the hotel. When I saw Xai talking to him as I laboured beneath my luggage climbing down the stairs I thought Tata was a gangster, or an ex-soldier. Maybe in Thailand there's little difference. The original plan devised by Xai to get to Chongmek from Ubon was convoluted and we would have had to change buses a lot (how he expected us to have actually made it to Chongmek to Ubon by ourselves, without a single Thai-speaker among us, if he had failed to get across the Lao border, is beyond me). Fortunately, Tata Young offered an alternative. For a thousand Baht (about S$40), he would drive us to Chongmek in his wheeled monster, and even show us some sights along the way. We agreed, but that was because, being students in Communications, we have no number skills, and miscalculated a thousand Baht as just four Singapore dollars. This is particularly disturbing because one of us is in Communications research. (*cough* Reza) Although we were initially worried that a tour would delay us too much, Tata Young took us to some nice-looking places anyway. As we travelled, two people had to sit at the back with the luggage. I hadn't the fortune of being one of them. From where I sat, the first thing I noticed was that the dashboard area was adorned with a myriad of Buddhist paraphenalia and a shotglass half-filled with some semi-transparent, grey-white fluid, for what purpose I try not to think about. Inside, for the benefit of his English-speaking passengers, our dear driver-cum-tour-guide had a special treat: authentic Thai music. Once in a while it still plays in my head: I believe, I believe in love and all the skies above oh I believe I believe I believe I believe in you and that our love is true oh I believe I believe He had only one tape in English, and it had only the Thai Britney Spears mauling the adage that music soothes (or at least should soothe!) the wild beast. So it was on repeat. That's why we called him Tata Young. It was perhaps fitting that our first stop was a Buddhist temple of unverifiable history (Xai: "The background of this temple? Uh. I don't know. It's old!" Eh. thanks bud.) for supplication for deliverance from Thai teenyboppers. The temple's scaled walls had the texture and colour of a sunburnt reptile, which wasn't particularly Buddhist. It reeked of Hinduism. Once South-East Asia must have been a bastion of Hinduism, before Buddhism, Islam, and more recently, Nike, displaced it as the region's spiritual focus. We had to remove our shoes to walk up the steps to the temple, which was quiet but not amazing. It's difficult to feel connection to places if you don't know what they represent. But I enjoyed being there nonetheless; I like temples and gaudy places. The next stop was the junction between the Moon and Mekong Rivers, known as the Two-Colours' River. My memory is very foggy here. We didn't actually see where the rivers intersected, but we did shop. As usual, the documentary team navigated the rocky and dangerous riverbank like Laotian monkeys with visual equipment strapped to their heads, while Cisoux and I walked around and looked at uninteresting shops. Then we had lunch. We ate at a little restaurant which sold seafood, which is an odd thing to call fish from rivers. At the restaurant, Cisoux and I had an unpleasant realisation: Thai people hate the two of us.
Laos Day Two (December 3, 2004) Part One
(Note: Cisoux also has a travelogue.) At 6.45 am I woke, barely rested but feeling enthusiastic, though slightly confused at how bright the room already was. In Singapore it would still have been gloomy. Time flows differently in different places. By the end of the trip time would have lost all meaning. But for now the morning sun proved invigorating, and after washing up we decided to go down to Moon River for a walk. The hawkers we bought our suppers from were replaced by vendors selling vegetables, and their customers walking around with baskets. Chatter and the zip of motorcycle engines mingled with loud Thai music, the cacophony of morning life. The film crew had brought their camera along and in the day the river seemed smaller. I stood by the parapet looking at the sun reflect in the water. Behind me was the market and to my right a bridge with vehicles streaming across, rolling up dust and dirt and noise. To my left on the river a lone fisherman sat rod-straight on his boat, an oasis of calm. Such coexistence of worlds! While Xai and the rest of the documentary team sprung about taking shots, I enjoyed the cold morning air. Shivering a bit, I put on my sweater, only it wasn't actually mine, it was Reza's, and he had been trying to tell me I had taken his all morning. Also, I had put it on inside out. Naturally, mirth ensued. 
Sixian, fascinated by the fact I have a crotch. Chat on the left. Afterwards we took a bus out for breakfast, except that buses there are nothing like the large, air-conditioned, double-deckers of Singapore. They looked just like the famous Thai tuk-tuks, except it had two wheels in front except of one. There were no designated stops which meant people could get off anywhere. The group of us squeezed inside, while Xai and Weeliang stood on a small ledge outside the bus proper. Ubon looked grey and drab where I stood, my head bowed to the low ceiling. An old lady tried talking to Chat. I vaguely recall making many xenophobic jokes but I can't remember what they were. It wasn't a long ride anyway. Our destination was in stark contrast to the grit of Thai travel. We were going to shop at Tesco. When we arrived, Tesco, this mammoth herald of globalisation, had not opened, and I felt rather stupid waiting for a damned shopping mall to open. There were a few Thais milling about, and I wondered if they felt just as stupid. It felt so Singaporean. I remembered just a few days ago my friend KK was planning to queue up early in the morning at 7am for a shop that would open at 11am so that he would have a crack at a Nokia phone being sold for a special low price, that day only. We cracked jokes about how maybe the first 50 customers would all get cars, or something. 
We had to cross an overhead bridge to get to Tesco. When we finally entered, it felt like a hospital, except with lots of imitation Barbies and magazines of hot cow-on-cow action (gotta love these agricultural countries). The supermarket was very, very white, and very, very clean. It practically smelled of bleach. Sixian bought some big-ass shorts after we ate breakfast. For some reason you had to buy a cashcard at the canteen, then pay with it for your food, and I didn't see the point; why not let us just pay cash directly? Those wacky Thais. After, we went to shit, because the toilets were very clean, because we were worried that the conditions of the toilets on the rest of our trip could be terrifying. Yes, I am very preoccupied with shit, shitting and toilets. The shopping mall sucked. We took a bus back, but got off earlier because we wanted to enjoy the sights, so we walked on undulating pavement, flanked by traffic on on the right and shops on the left. You couldn't walk in a straight line because the sidewalk always had either hawkers or signboards or potted plants in the way. Back at the hotel we packed, went downstairs and checked out. There, we met Tata Young.
Laos Day One (December 2, 2004)
(I am recalling this in my head so if I get anything wrong feel free to correct me. I may edit this post to correct errors because some parts are really murky already. Too lazy to write a draft. This is the draft. It gets more interesting, I hope.) THE DAY BEFORE LAOS In the morning I woke up thinking of diarrhoea and assorted diseases, yet I was brimming with anticipation for my trip to Laos, possibly the least developed country in Indochina (Indochina is French for "a collection of shitty third world countries"). My father was awake when I hoisted my hardy backpack on my shoulders and stomped out of the house, having packed the night before, or rather, my mother did, since she ripped everything out and re-packed everything in the way she wanted. My dad was standing in the sunshine looking at birds that morning. Since he wasn't the type of man to be concerned with trivial matters like sons, he was surprised that I was carrying a bag that looked like it was twice as heavy as I was. "Going to Thailand?" he said, misremembering. "Yeah, sort of. It's on the way to Laos," I replied. "Laos? Why Laos?" he said, looking genuinely puzzled. "There's nothing in Laos." I shrugged. Sort of. My shoulders moved maybe a milimetre against the crushing weight it bore. I took a cab to Cisoux's house, where I was to help carry some of her things. Details are unimportant, but I gave her an early birthday gift (it was too heavy to carry to Laos, where she would have spent her birthday) and she seemed suitably impressed, much to my relief, and after doing some last-minute preparations, we left for Changi airport, where we met our comrades. I managed to vaguely annoy Cisoux with my lack of mindfulness over the contents of my luggage, but otherwise it turned out well. Everyone was scared and worried. The LionAir crash was talked about a lot. I mean, of course a budget airline's passenger plane had to crash the day before we were to take Thai Air Asia to Bangkok, from which we were to take another flight to Ubon, where we were to meet Xai, our Laotian operative, and stay the night. In the morning, we would take a bus to Chongmek, a border town, then to Pakse, the capital of the Champasak province of Laos. We must have looked a motley crew. Every race of Singapore was represented in some way. First there were the three of us hangers-on, Cisoux, Reza and I, who weren't part of the film crew. They were going to shoot a documentary on the effects building dams would have on the livelihoods of Laotians who live by the Mekong River. Cis was Malay, with a touch of Japanese; Reza was either Arab, Malay or Indian; I was Chinese to the core. The film crew of four was this: Xai, as mentioned previously, was Lao; Chat-Moyen was half-Indian, half-Chinese, but mostly feline; SX was Chinese in looks but really kawaii in his fetishization of giant attack robots from space; and WL was Yao Ming minus the basketball talent. With us were friends to see us off, Adrian and ZW, so inevitably when we strolled through the customs, high from the consumption of malaria pills, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth.* The moment I stepped through the xenophobia began. If only I could remember what I said. After spending about half an hour making phone calls to Mindef (pretty much the military headquarters of Singapore) to inform them that we, the men, were leaving the country, we checked in and waited for Air Asia to arrive. Everyone was upbeat, even Cisoux, who had been hammering me with her apprehension about the trip and whether she could handle all the bullshit assorted with backwater horrors like Laos. Then the Air Asia plane arrived, which looked pathetically tiny, and when we boarded I sat beside Cisoux, who was taking a plane for the first time since she was seven. Somehow, I was more scared at take-off than she was. She was gasping in wonder while I was clutching my seat whispering in my head "OH GOD DON'T CRASH OH GOD DON'T CRASH!" Finally we landed at Bangkok, where I gawked at Thai women and wondered whether they were really women or men who had become women, so gentle were they regardless of gender ("They are above such concepts," said Cisoux with a toss of her head.) We had to take a bus from the International part of the airport to the Domestic, where we ate at Burger King. It would be the last time we encounter fast food for the week, and it was shit. Opposite Burger King was the Smoking Pub, which had a sign that all of us, and I swear this was simultaneous, mistook for as Fucking Club. Haha, those wacky Thais. 
Then we flew to Ubon. The most interesting thing about the flight was that Cisoux had airsickness. But she still looked hot anyway. Then we touched down and we had to walk down a staircase to the little airport in the evening, which looked like night in Singapore, the wind gustling, and I felt quite heroic. When we tried to take a photo of ourselves, a stewardess harried us. Possibly she was worried we would be run over by an errant plane, or something. At this point Cisoux and Chat were overcome by the resemblance to the reality show Amazing Race, and the moment we got our luggage Cisoux pulled my hand, and we ran towards Xai, she shouting: "FIRST TEAM TO ARRIVE!" Xai laughed. Chat and WL (I think) came up next, then the rest, and we took a taxi to New Sri Isan (sp?) hotel, where we were to stay for the night. It was located behind Sri Isan Hotel, and it didn't look newer, it just looked shittier. It was a low, beige building with great big, red, tacky lanterns hanging outside, and it was next to a temple filled with dogs. For the room, Xai did all the talking since they spoke spoke no English and we spoke no Thai. A gnarled Laotian man gave us our keys. I shared a room with Reza. It looked horrible, yet still better than I expected, though when you turned on the fan there was a loud creaky noise. There was an attached toilet with no flush, you had to pour water to get your shit to go away. You could also hear people in other rooms talking. Cis and Chat shared a room, being girls, while the remaining guys shared one. "Want to go for a smoke?" asked Reza, even though he knew I didn't smoke, and I said OK. Everyone smokes in places like this. The air is so filthy cigarette smoke is your only chance of imbibing oxygen. The roof of the two-storey hotel was a balcony where clothes were hung and had benches where we could chill. In the bristling wind, huddled in jackets we lit our Marlboros and looked at the sky, the stars obscured by city lights like at home. We saw Xai, Reza gestured to him to join us, and we talked. It was a lonely experience being alone in Laos, Xai said, even though he met many of his old friends, mostly from behind mugs of beer. It was eerie how much had changed in a few years. Many of his friends, his age, merely 26, were dead. His family wasn't doing too well and he could do nothing. I extinguished my cigarette and told him that he could do really great with his talent. Reza said he ought to work for a few years in Singapore where the money was better. Xai nodded. It was rather quiet after that. Later we left the hotel for supper, at some hawker stores by Moon River, where for the first time in years I had coke in a glass bottle. Others had ridiculously sweetened ovaltine and a suspicious looking green drink that tasted delicious. We ate some, then walked in the darkness, through the city, which slumbered, for a 7-11. We asked some men who were sitting around a table in front of a shop in the crummy streets for directions. They then asked where we were going and where we were staying. Xai remarked that in the past people would ask where foreigners were from, but now they asked this. Something had changed. I didn't know what that meant. Inside 7-11, there was a security guard. I didn't know what that meant either. With our products we returned to the hotel where we showered. The water was fucking cold and I screamed like a girl in the shower and everyone could hear me, and of course they mocked me relentlessly, but I didn't care, it was COLD man. Later I got Cis to come with me to the balcony where we watched stars and talked about how charming Thailand and Laos was and how fucking bourgeois it was to say that. Cis told me she still couldn't wrap her head around the fact that she was in a really foreign third world country. I wanted to hug her but Reza came out to take photographs of the sky and I was bashful. That night, the fan creaked. At around 3am Reza woke up and kicked the switch for the fan. The creaking stopped because violence works. Sleep was fitful. *a lie
Home
The trip to Laos was awesome, splendid, and too goddamned short. Changi reminded me that Singapore is sterile and uninteresting and oh so dull. Now that I am back I want to leave again. Maybe I will go back to Indochina sometime. Some of my friends want to learn Thai. Maybe I should too. There were times which I was so happy I didn't think I could be so happy. I love Laos and Cis and all the other people I went with who made it wonderful. Xai, WL, SX and Chat are still there, in a village with no running water or electricity, for two more weeks. How lucky they are! A travelogue may be forthcoming. For now, here's me with the boys at Wat Phu, a Khmer ruin: 
Left to right: X, Wiffle, Reza, WL, SX
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