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10/23/09
First thing we noticed upon arriving in Ho Chi Minh City: No one calls it Ho Chi Minh City. It’s Saigon, no matter what the commies tried to change it to in 1976. (So there. The war wasn’t pointless after all.) The people in the city, many of whom fled the country during the communist takeover—then returned—refuse to give Uncle Ho the credit for...
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10/09/09
1. An alarming number of Cambodian babies are born with scars that look like bullet holes. It’s generally accepted that these babies are reincarnated victims of the Khmer Rouge.
2. Angelina Jolie is a goddess in Cambodia. They let her film Tomb Raider in the holiest temples of Siem Reap, and gave her Cambodian citizenship in 2005...
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09/25/09
I’m sure Cambodia’s got fascinating history and stunning sites and lovely people, but man, we have a shitload of laundry to contend with. And though I love my daughter fiercely, she has pooped on 90 percent of the stuff we brought with us and we got to get the stank out. Sorry, poo trumps history...
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06/22/09
As one last insult, Thailand charges you 500 baht ($14.64) to leave the country. I liked Thailand a lot—fascinating country—but frankly, I was ready to pay their strangely reasonable blackmail fee and go. Sarah and Hannah, on the other hand, were ready to apply for citizenship, living out a life of passive-aggressive Buddhas and chilies, and let me travel on to Cambodia alone. Luckily, I’ve got the Passports.
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06/05/09
Some guy standing next to the River Kwai started cooing at Hannah and convinced us to get into his long-tailed boat and go for a ride. At the time, it seemed perfectly reasonable, and off we floated. In typical Thai fashion, he never made our destination clear, or if we even had one. We didn’t ask. Half a mile down the riverbank, we came...
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05/08/09
We’re now in Kanchanaburi, a mellow riverside town in western Thailand that backpackers love for a reason that may or may not have something to do with pot. It is also, as you surely know, the birthplace of the Buddhist monk Phrabhavanaviriyakhun. (Luang Phaw Dattajeevo, for short.) But Kanchanaburi is perhaps best known for...
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03/27/09
Is it possible for every person within a particular 200,000 square miles to be passive-aggressive? Yes, it is, and that area is called Thailand. All the natives we’ve met have been deferential and polite and outwardly wonderful while silently giving the impression that they’d prefer to see us eviscerated by a pack of rabid dogs. They’re genetically gifted at making you feel guilty, usually through...
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03/16/09
We went to an Elephant Camp today, which is basically a part of a jungle where industrious Thais have trained unlucky elephants to cozy up to tourists. Or at least not kill them. Apparently, these Dumbos have been domesticated enough to dull their natural instinct to trample us to death, and they all look vaguely depressed about their fate—though not enough to...
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02/27/09
The air conditioner in our hotel room turned on us at some point in the middle of the night and began blasting us with painfully cold air. We were so tired we slept through it, which meant I woke up with no feeling in my feet and Arctic boogers clogging my nose. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Sarah’s frosty breath filling the air. We had to take Hannah outside to thaw her out before changing her diaper...
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02/13/09
So Sarah’s all, “Let’s take cooking classes while we’re in Thailand,” and I must have agreed, because now we’re shopping for ingredients in a Chiang Mai food market with a chef and a gaggle of Australians, Norwegians, Welsh, and Swiss. The highlight of the tour was watching a dour woman bludgeon a...
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