Who Pays What?

It was an unbelievable relief to see this sign at the entrance to Wat Phrathat Doi Sutep outside of Chiang Mai. Especially since I'd missed the opportunity to see both Journey and Styx a few weeks ago in Japan.

All kidding aside, signs like these have been somewhat common in my SE Asian travel. At many sites that are free or cheaper to locals, foreign tourists are charged entry fees from the nominal (20 Baht, about $0.75 US in this case) to the substantial.

For example, entry to the Taj Mahal in Agra, India costs resident Indians 20 Rupees (45 cents US) while the rest of us will pay 750 Rupees (about 17 bucks US) to see the same attraction.

The first time I encountered the difference (at the Taj Mahal) it was frustrating. I had traveled a long way at considerable expense to share culture and see places of great importance to many Indians. Should I have to pay more for the pleasure to do so?

Almost immediately, though, the entitlement gave way to feelings of guilt. One of my favorite things to do while traveling is to walk around in a new city -- even if it's difficult to do so (e.g., no sidewalks). I remembered my first afternoon in Hyderabad just a few weeks before that.

The conditions on the street weren't exactly squalid, but they were easily labeled unsanitary by my Midwestern standards. Passing a hospital during a rickshaw ride I resolved to do everything in my power to avoid having to go to a hospital during my time in India. (Again, these first impressions are coarse, emotional and often overlook truths like India's excellent facilities for training doctors).

During that initial walk, a group of scraggly young children came up tugging on my shorts asking me for five rupees. The guidebooks instruct you to say "no" which is what I did. The kids followed us for several blocks. No. No. No. All the way until an adult yelled something to the children that made them scatter.

What I had refused them, essentially, was a dime.

Through an accident of circumstance (quite literally in my case) I was born into a country of relative affluence, and they were born into poverty. I think everyone who encounters disparity like this is forced to confront their own feelings about equity.

For me, more exposure led to the replacement of guilt and entitlement with awareness.

At times there's an emotional component. (Unfair! ...to whom?) Sometimes my thoughts take over (with the increased fee as a percentage of GDP, we often still end up paying "relatively less").

Within the US, business travelers pay more for weekday airfares and hotel rooms. Municipal governments frequently tack on "out-of-towner" taxes to lodging and rental cars. These fee arrangements take advantage of the understanding that a willing traveler is on the way and in most cases 9% of financial pain won't keep them away.

These days, I don't get too worked up over such fees. Compared to what I've already spent to get to a place, they're usually minuscule.

Even if they're more than someone else has to pay.

How do you feel?

Crunching The Numbers

It's inexpensive to be in Thailand, and not just compared to the astronomical costs of Japan.

The following represents a pretty reasonable daily budget assuming a stay in a decent guesthouse and eating at local spots:

- Accommodation: 400฿
- 3 Meals: 150฿
- Water: 40฿
- Transportation: 60฿

Your grand total would clock in at about 650฿/day which at current exchange rates is about $20 US/day.

You could do it way cheaper than this if you actually lived here. I think you could get it below $300/month living quite comfortably.

Something to think about when that amount represents many American car payments.

Unexpectations - Real Men Wear Saffron

I'm sitting at the train station in Chiang Mai and have an hour to kill before my train to Lampang, the first stop on my trip toward Bangkok and a flight to Singapore.

To my right is a huge parking lot and at the far end of it about 50 people sit on plastic chairs dressed in varying shades of red tee shirts listening to a radio broadcast of the UDD protests from Bangkok.

At my side on the table, a Chang beer costing 40 baht (about $1.30 US, train station prices be damned).

But I'm not writing this to talk to you about my immediate surroundings, or the 150 baht Thai massage I'm considering from the booth next to the restaurant. I want to talk to you about expectations. And monks.

The Rough Guide to Thailand says this about monks:

Monks come just beneath the monarchy in social hierarchy, and they too are addressed and discussed in a special language. If there's a monk around, he'll always get a seat on the bus, usually right at the back. Theoretically, monks are forbidden to have any close contact with women which means, as a female, you musn't sit or stand next to a monk, or even brush against his robes; if it's essential to pass him something, put the object down so that he can then pick it up - never hand it over directly. Nuns, however, get treated like ordinary women.

Guidebooks are a crapshoot but also play this odd role in setting expectations with unfamiliar places. In the US, monks aren't generally easy to spot (they really do wear saffron robes in Thailand) and regardless I didn't have any direct experience to reconcile this against.

So you might imagine my initial surprise when I saw monks:

• Shopping at the gaudy tourist market on Khao San road
• Congregated at the UDD protests near Bangkok's Democracy Monument
• Riding motorbikes
• Texting on cellphones
• Goofing around with their 13-year-old lay friends at Wat Phrathat
  

Okay, not exactly the kind of behavior that causes fathers to lock up their daughters, but still completely unexpected to me.

The last location is a Buddhist temple high in the hills of Doi Suthep national park. On a motorbike, it's a 30-minute ride out of the inner walled city. As you motor along a four-lane road to the northeast, car dealerships, chain stores and shopping malls give way to the Chiang Mai University campus with an energy that only thousands of students can provide.

Soon, the zoo also passes into your mirror and you begin the climb inside the park. The road is steep and carrying two people even my 125cc motorbike has to think-it-can to make some of the tight uphill curves.

Legend has it that sacred white elephant made a similar climb up Doi Suthep with a Buddhist relic on its back. Almost to the top, it trumpeted three times before dying. And on the site of its death Wat Phrathat was erected.

After climbing the 300 dragon-flanked steps from the parking lot to the Wat I didn't feel the need to trumpet before keeling over, but I certainly had more appreciation for the burden of our coarse-skinned friend.

Inside the main temple hall a chorus of monks bellowed with throaty chants. The sound was piped through loudspeakers in the complex such that it took some looking to find the source. There, along with 20 or so orange robed monks were 4 Western students in simple white garments.

The sun was 30 minutes from setting and even with the haze of motorbike exhaust and burning crop fields, the view over the Chiang Mai valley was sublime.

I'm functionally aetheistic, but I can think of no other way to describe the site and its inhabitants other than "holy."

I put my shoes back on and made my way to the temple exit behind a group of 13-year-old boys who took great pleasure in ringing a series of large bronze bells despite a posted sign forbidding it.

These were kids screwing around. Being loud in a temple. Shadowboxing. And having a great time of it. Their playfulness was as infectious as the tranquility of the monks.

Soon they were joined by three other kids the same age. Identical in every respect save the wearing of saffron robes. Their friends were monks, and more than happy to join in the roughhousing.

Chiang Mai valley at night.

I wondered aloud if perhaps the monastery functions as a sort of Buddhist "military school." A place where frustrated parents threaten to send their children if they don't shape up. But that quickly gave way to a realization.

Monks are people.

As simple as that statement is, it had been strangely elusive.

I'm thankful for the many ways travel exposes our shared humanity.

On A Bullet Train From Kyoto to Tokyo

This is as close as I'll be getting to Mt. Fuji on this trip.

My Japanese Is Not So Easy To Understand

On the bullet train to Tokyo I asked the beverage girl "コカコーラ わ あります か," (koka kora wa arimasu ka) which the phrasebook assures me means "Do you have Coke?"

"No, I'm sorry," she answers me in perfect English. "We only have hot coffee, apple juice, water and Coke."

I will keep trying.

A Walk Through Akihabara

Akihabara is one of the main electronics areas in Tokyo. It's about a 15 minute walk from where I'm staying in Asakusabashi.

The area is anchored by the Yodobashi Akiba department store. Floors one through seven are crammed full of electronics and household appliances and the 8th floor features a food court of about a dozen different restaurants. I hesitate to use the phrase "food court" since the places aren't fast food like you'd find in an American mall.

Two other things Akihabara is known for are Anime and Maid Cafes. In the Anime shops you can find everything from Hayao Mizayaki works to both drawn and photographed porn. A detour on the latter -- a handful of these shops are stocked with DVDs of scantily glad girls. And when I say "girls," this is precisely what I mean. Young teenagers. To say it is uncomfortable and creepy to me would be a gross understatement.

I'd chalk the predilections of Japanese men up to cultural difference, though I don't know how accurate that would be. Even though the national age of consent is 12 (yep, 12) many prefectures, including Tokyo have officially raised this age to 18. To me this says that enough people in Japan share the Western notion that a relationship between a grown man and a child is repugnant. Nonetheless, there seems to be tacit indulgence of this appetite as judged by the proliferation of the material.

According to the guidebook it is not uncommon for Japanese men to pay high school-aged girls for "companionship." What companionship means was unstated though Lonely Planet implied that these relationships often skew sexual.



This fascination with youth and also fetish carries over into the idea of a Maid Cafe (you can see a girl advertising one at about 0:48 in the video). These cafes are like any other place you'd stop for a beer or coffee, with the exception that you are being served these items by a girl dressed in a French maid outfit. This type of practice has its origins in Geishas who would provide company (conversation, musical performance, singing) to guests of Ryokan (Japanese inns).

As the pastoral gave way to the urban this tradition was extended by Hostess Bars, where women provide patrons with their company sans the Geisha attire. From the best I can tell, Maid Cafes are the most recent (and probably not the last) update.

Don't let my discussion of these issues fool you into thinking this is all that goes on in Akihabara. Though they were certainly the most striking features to me, the area is by all measures a normal commercial district in Tokyo in which Manga/Hentai shops and Maid Cafes play a limited role.


Taito and Sega both have several multifloor arcades on the main street where you can play everything from claw/crane prize machines to the latest fighting and dance/music games. Most of the players are young (high school aged kids, or younger girls taking cheesy pictures in the photobooths) but you also see fully-suited people in their 20s and 30s.

The unexpected mix of people occupying every area of town is quickly becoming a source of joy for me and I hope that it continues.

Today I'm going to try my hand at walking to Roppongi from where I'm staying. I don't have a map exactly, just some notes from the Google directions I pulled:


View Larger Map

I'll have the afternoon to explore on my own before I meet up with Kiomi, someone that my friend Rawi in Sacramento arranged for me to meet.

Roppongi is supposed to be one of the more popular night spots, but I'm most interested in a chance to bounce a handful of the questions I have about life in Tokyo off of someone who lives here.

On Pre-Travel Handwringing

There are two main sources of my pretravel anxiety: language and metro systems.

I talk to myself before I travel. I talk to myself a lot. As soon as I have my hands on the travel phrase book I repeat words over and over again. Muttering to myself. I'm certain I look crazy, because I certainly feel crazy.

The funny thing is, this repetition doesn't actually do me much good. The words don't sink in when I get where I'm going. Inevitably amnesia strikes when I need to bust one of my crammed phrases out and I end up flipping open the phrase book anyway.

And this does nothing to address my lack of preparation for understanding the answer to my question to be delivered rapid fire in another tongue.

The only exception to this is Spanish, in which I consider myself semi-fluent. If there's a piece of vocabulary I need for a situation, I only need to repeat it a few times and am generally able to recall it since I already have the support of grammar and a pretty robust vocabulary.

Japanese presents a special challenge. Not only are there new sounds and grammar to learn, but there are different character sets. Three of them: hiragana, katakana and Kanji.

I'm sitting on the plane with about two and a half hours to go and though I know I'm supposed to take the Keisei line out of the airport toward my hostel, I'm almost certain the sign will be written like this 京成本線 and only because I looked up the symbol.

If I take the Keisei train bound for Ueno, I have to remember to stop at the Aoto station, and in either case once I get to the Oshiage station I have to transfer to the train toward Asakusa Bashi. It makes my mind race, and my stomach hurts a little bit thinking about it.

What will the ticket machines look like? Will I feel more pressure to navigate this all when the dreaded Tokyo rush hour strikes (a sea of humanity, I'm told, packed ass to elbow)? I actually took this last point into account when I booked my ticket -- there are only a certain number of flights a day into Narita from SFO, LAX and PDX and I took the one that would get me in at 3:30, hoping to have a fighting chance against the subway crowds.

San Francisco's BART system has 5 lines with 7 end destinations. From what I can tell, the Tokyo Metro has over 12 lines with dozens of endpoints. Then there is JR (Japan Rail) and a handful of private-owned rail services shuttling between various destinations.

There is no doubt an order to all of this, but my unfamiliarity makes it appear chaotic.

So what stops this from becoming a full-on freak out? Faith in humanity, in a few flavors:

First: metro system design. A metro system's value predicates itself on delivering thousands of daily passengers through its network. This requires a certain amount of intuitiveness in the design. If people can't figure out where they're going that means either lower revenues, higher costs (more information kiosks), or slower service due to clogging in stations.

Second: some international support. Though it's not always person-to-person I've yet to encounter a metro system (counterexamples and new travel destinations welcome) that hasn't made an attempt to include some degree of international support. Sometimes it's pictographic (a guy with an arrow pointing toward a box can be interpreted by most people as an exit sign). Sometimes its ticket kiosks that allow you to switch them between a variety of languages.

Third: People, people, people. If you stand in one spot looking lost for long enough, someone will eventually make an attempt to help you -- even if they don't speak your language. This one takes constant self-reminding because in my desire to look cool and keep my map stashed, I'm also missing out on one of the biggest flags that I'm in need of directional assistance -- the damn map. (American tourism-city dwellers take note: if you see someone with a map out, offer to help. You have the power to turn someone's trip around!). On this trip, I have the added bonus of being Caucasian -- there's no blending in to be had, so there's also no point in hiding the map. I'm not from here, and people will be instantly aware of this fact. Hopefully, to my directional benefit.

In some sense, this is the part of the ride where you're being towed up the first hill. Your mind is busy click-clacking as a lift chain sags and glides. You stomach gnurls as you look down, off to the side and the ride ahead. You bought your ticket. You stood in line for the ride. Yet somehow at this moment, you are forgetting how, exactly, you got your self into this mess.

If it's your first time on the ride, you have to take someone else's word. If you've done it before you can take your own: you only feel your stomach in your throat for a moment on that first drop before it's replaced with the exhilaration of the rest of the track. You are going to careen around with exhilarating ups, downs and bank turns that defy physics. Before you're ready, you'll be back to the place you left from. Wishing you could go around again.

It's going to be one hell of a ride.

From UA837, Seat 21F