Travel Log: Final Notes

And that, boys and girls, is where we get the term "working girl."

A couple final travel notes, and we'll mercifully put an end to me complaining about how awesome my life is.

First, the roads in Vietnam and Cambodia have fewer potholes than the roads in LA.  America is dying.

Second, the Vietnamese fucking love to work.  The whole trip, on every main street, down every alley, in every rice field, Vietnamese can be found toiling away in awesome conical hats.  They don't look miserable or pissed off; they seem to take pride in getting shit done, and are the complete opposite of lazy.  Of course, one could argue that in order to sustain a half-decent quality of life there, the residents have to work non-stop, and that's why you see 70-year-old women lugging impossibly heavy amounts of cargo over their shoulders through the crowded streets of Hanoi and Saigon.  But I say, bullocks!  You're being difficult.  They love it.  And here's proof:

My buddy and I were laughing about how every Vietnamese person we met worked so enthusiastically, when one of our Vietnamese tour guides started telling us about how he was getting excited for Tet, the Chinese/Vietnamese New Year.  We asked him what people do to celebrate, and he said, "Well, it is, eh, quite fun.  We take three days off, yes?..."  So my friend and I looked at each other like, finally, some vacation for these guys!  And then the tour guide went on, "...And we clean all the rooms, and plant the garden, and paint the house..." and I turned to my friend and said, "So they work."  Unbelievable!

Anyway, here are a handful of pictures I took while on the trip, that me and my life partner managed to not be in, should you care to take a gander:

Travel Log Part VIII: Whores

How much?

Before our trip to Southeast Asia, my buddy and I were all like, "Dude, we're gonna hook up with tons of hot Asian chicks!"  No we're not.  They don't speak English.  And the ones who don't care about verbal communication of any kind and are still willing to sleep with you, are whores.  Literally.  We're morons.  (Re: whores, I wrote this before we left for Vietnam: http://iamthecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2010/12/slipper-slopes.html .)

But it's okay, because once we realized this, we put our brilliant minds together and formulated an ingenious backup plan: hook up with lonely, horny travelers!  Right?  Am I right?!  . . . Nope.  Hot girls don't travel to Vietnam and Cambodia alone.  They get taken to exotic beach islands where they get tanner and hotter.  They don't give a shit about ancient temples and propaganda museums.  Oh, you do care about temples?  You're offended by this?  Then you're not hot.  Hot girls don't read.  They don't have to.

Anyway, by, like, day three we were saying things like, "This is a mature trip; we'll learn a lot."

Travel Log Part VII: Gayness

I'm the one on the right...

I took this Southeast Asia trip I've been referencing with my best friend of over 20 years, and we were laughing about how everyone who sees us traveling together, just the two of us, probably assumes we're gay, especially given how close we are...and how we posed for a million pictures in matching, bright-colored hoodies while staying at a honeymoon-type resort in Koh Samui.  Whatever.  Shut up.  It was beautiful.  Anyway, we're laughing about it and he goes, "We're so not gay."  Then he pauses and gets serious,  "...We're not gay, right?"  What an idiot.

Travel Log Part VI: Dong

What a vibrant dong!

Vietnamese currency is the dong.  This is good for endless fun.  Here are a few examples from our trip:

--"Whip out your dong."

--"I'll be paying with dong."

--"Pull your dong out of your jeans."

--"That's a huge wad of dong."

--"Can I hold your dong in my pocket?"

--"That girl just touched your dong."

--"I don't know how I'm gonna fit all this dong in my pants."

--"What color is your dong?"

--"Give that chick your dong."

--"That guy was so excited when I gave him my dong."

You get the idea.  Like I said, endless...

Travel Log Part V: Fortunate Son

"It ain't me, it ain't meeee!..."

I gotta say, as the plane was coming into Vietnam for a landing, I was very disappointed that they didn't play any Creedence Clearwater...

Travel Log Part IV: Manners



"Allow me...to look up your skirt."

 On the first leg of my flight to Southeast Asia, they played a couple short animated videos before the plane took off.  One was of a guy sneezing on another passenger, and the other was of a maniac child ruining everyone's flight.  At the end of each ad, this appeared on the screen, "Beautiful manners make you smile."  I knew it was gonna be a good trip (video):

Travel Log Part III: Simply the Best!

The best mantra...

The aforementioned family trip was to Israel.  I love a lot of things about my motherland, but they are seriously insecure over there.  That's right; I said it!  You've never heard an entire population say that everything is "the best" as much as you do in Israel.  "I know a place that has the best hummus."  "You have to go here for the best shawarma."  "You never seen an apartment like this in America; these are the best apartments."

But my favorite was when my father's lawyer there tried to tell me that Israel was the best at being the worst!  He was talking about the problem of the increasing gap between rich and poor in Israel, and I said, yeah, we're having the same problem in the U.S. right now.  And he said,  "No.  Not like here.  Here it is the most."  And I argued, because I have an issue with not being able to just let things go, but you get the idea.  It's an entire country of one-uppers.  Israel is the best at being the best... Just ask them.

Travel Log Part II: Suffocation

"I feel smothered..."

I wrote this upon my return from a family trip to Israel...

I just got back from a family vacation that I couldn't afford and didn't want to take in the first place.  Let me preface this tirade by saying, I love my family . . . but, I don't think you understand the degree of suffocation imposed by them.  Imagine every time you leave a room, being asked, by three people, where you're going.  Imagine then being asked where you were and what you were doing, every time you enter a room, again, three different times, by three different people.  And this is all within the confines of a small three-bedroom apartment.

Also, imagine having someone knock on the door every time you go to the bathroom!  Seriously.  Even if you did just say, "I'm going to the bathroom," during your "exit interview" in the room you previously occupied.

And finally, imagine, that on the rarer-than-a-dodo-bird occasion you actually get to sneak away for a meal, or a walk, alone, or even with just your brothers, you get multiple phone calls checking in!

My little brother and I left a day before our parents, and I'm not kidding when I say, that when dropping us off at the airport, they parked so they could come inside and literally fucking stare at us from across the room for 25 minutes while we waited in line to check our bags!

Did I mention that I got called fat like a dozen times?  I put on a solid 10 pounds before this trip because, in order to take this "vacation" that I never wanted to take in the first place, I had to work seven days a week for several weeks prior in order to make up for the time I was going to lose while away, and that didn't leave much free time for basketball.  Last.  Family.  Vacation.  For.  A.  While.

Oh, and I got sick when I got back because I didn't sleep the entire trip because my big bro was sick in the large bed, and I had to share a room with little bro, in which we had beds that were so narrow I was forced to sleep on my side...because I'm fat...

Travel Log

"Snooki want smush smush!"

Alright, so I know I've been neglecting my Curmudgeonly duties of late, but for the four of you who may have actually missed me, I'm gonna try to force in some entries over the next few days...much akin to how Snooki forces her sloppy meatball body into human clothing.

At the end of last year, I got a chance to do some traveling, some for pleasure, some not-so-much, so for a change of pace, I think I'm going to do a brief series on those travels.  I was in Israel, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand (man, my life looks good from a distance), and I took a few (very few; don't get too excited) notes while I was away.  Should be interesting to look back.  I'll start now, with my first note, from LAX...

Airports are breeding grounds for passive-aggressive behavior.  People cutting in lines, trying to squeeze past other people in aisle ways, violently putting seats back, digging knees into violently thrust-back seatbacks, forcing luggage into overheads with complete disregard for others' property...  It's awful...and hilarious. 

(I've touched on this before, but I obviously felt so strongly about it that I needed to make another note about just months after the original post: http://iamthecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2010/03/worst-in-flight.html .)