SOUTHEAST ASIA-- COMPILATION
After 29 hotel rooms, 15 flights, 6 busses, 6 boats, and one miserable train,
we’re leaving Southeast Asia.  Each country was exciting and fascinating in
its own way, and the trip has been fantastic so far.  Tomorrow, we fly to
Columbo, Sri Lanka, for a whole new experience.  
Favorite Places:  Phnom Penh, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Saigon, Hanoi.  
Most struck by: The happiness of the people here.  Around 80% of the population in Cambodia and Laos, 70% of
Vietnam’s population, and 60% of Thailand’s population live on under $2 per day (World Bank figures).  I'd be
unhappy on that budget.  Yet seemingly-happy people are everywhere: children running barefoot down the street,
smiling and cheerfully yelling “hello,” a group of cyclo drivers on a break laughing raucously over a card game,
street vendors or restaurant staff laughing and joking with each other,  parents playing with their children, etc.  
They may live eight people to a room, share one putrid bathroom, and be uncertain as to their ability to sustain that
lifestyle, but this doesn’t seem to stop them from enjoying life.  
Most annoying national habit:  The Vietnamese Hover.  After bringing the menu, the waiter hovers directly over
you while you peruse the menu.  When the bill comes, he’ll stand a foot away from you until you fish out your wallet
and pay.  Worst of all, when you are on the computer, at least one (and sometimes as many as three) people will
come over and peer over your shoulder, their face no more than two inches from your own, looking at the screen
and glancing back at you from time to time.  They even hover at the beach.  
Most useful items I packed: Tevas, my computer, laser pointers.  
Most useless items: dress shoes, anything with sleeves.  
Beggars:  Beggars are the biggest exception to the “happy people” rule, and one has to feel bad for them.  
Beggars here would switch places with the Santa Monica homeless in a heartbeat, and one must assume they’ve
had far fewer opportunities.  So I give them some coins, blatantly defying the Lonely Planet’s directive to give
money only directly to reputable charities.  Just be judicious—you don't want to give a haggard-looking beggar all
your coins, only to be immediately confronted by a desperate double amputee with a puppy.
I got some strong feedback on these photos.  Apparently you find them either cute or sickening.  No
middle ground.  
Travel tip: If a stranger on the street says “Hi” and extends his hand, don’t shake it.  Better to
immediately offend etiquette than to be forced to extricate oneself (and one’s hand) from the sales pitch
(once they have your hand, they don’t let go easily).  
Best display of economic savvy:
Vanvieng, Laos locals.  Lazy
backpackers float down your rivers on
inner tubes, so you the rural
entrepreneur open a “bar” with nothing
more than a cooler full of Beerlao and a
bamboo pole with which to pull tubers to
shore.  Brand differentiation takes
place, and fancier bars offer rope
swings and rickety bamboo diving
platforms (Because when you have
nothing and your country has no real civil
legal system, hey, what’s a little legal
liability?).  -JYD
Most appalling lack of economic
savvy: Lao hilltribe chief.  You don’t
need to understand the finer points of
inelastic demand to know that the five
dirty and tired backpackers spending
the night in your hut with no power or
running water might value your bottles of
sticky rice whisky at more than $0.40.    
-JYD  
Books read
  • A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry.  Set in 1970-s India.  Award-winning, unbelievably good and insightful
    novel.  Impossible to forget this book, especially the ending.  
  • Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden.  Also an excellent book.  Someone please tell me if it is a true story or
    not.  
  • The Da Vinci Codes, by Dan Brown (interesting, engaging page-turner).  
  • Winter Moon, by Dean Koontz.  Stephen King’s younger, less-gruesome literary brother.  Relatively entertaining.  
  • Inconceivable, by Ben Elton (I received this British book from Prash, and it’s my favorite book so far.  Hilarious,
    laugh-out-loud page turner that ends up being much than just a comedy.  If you read one book on this list, it
    should be this).
  • Popcorn, also by Ben Elton.  Also very clever.  
  • Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole.  Hilarious, though-provoking.
  • The Beach, by Alex Garland.  Interesting read, especially for someone who had just come fro Ko Samui and Ko
    Phag-nan.
  • Total Control, by David Baldacci.  A fun thriller.  Someone should make a movie out of it.  

Amazing how much one can read once torn away from the T.V.  Another benefit of traveling.  
Things I miss
Besides several people and dogs, I have missed the following:
  • The baked yellowtail sushi, eel sushi, and Tokyo Nacho Deelite at the California Sushi Roll Factory
    on Santa Monica and Barry Avenue.  
  • Watching NFL playoffs.  
  • In certain places, hot showers and electricity.