1-Year Lockdown

Food Martyrs

Since most of us can’t leave the compound, we love to complain about the food. Even more, we love to complain about the people who complain that the food is too expensive. Sure, $2.50 is so much to pay for breakfast when they have to bring it all in under sanitary conditions and hire Filipinos so that Osama bin Laden isn’t cooking for us. Sometimes, the mess hall shows sparks of greatness. Everyone remembers the day they had rainbow trout with garlic butter. But mostly, it is what a friend calls “food martyring”.

Food martyring is basically this: You go to the mess hall and look everything over. You don’t want to eat any of it, but at the same time there is no other option, and you have to eat. So you order the grilled cheese sandwich with purple Gatorade… again.

This being a government compound, we also love our acronyms. My current favorite is CAFÉ, also known as Hoochville. CAFÉ stands for Compound Across From the Embassy. I don’t know if I’m more tickled that they felt they needed an acronym for “across the street” or that they added the accent aigu.

Gurkha Porn

So I’m sitting here in my shipping container home (lovingly referred to as a hooch), and the internet is out so this will get posted later. I’ve got my Wii, but I’m stuck on the water temple in Zelda and I need to get to the walkthrough, which requires the Internet. I keep getting 10 copies of each text message that comes in but I can’t turn off the phone because the hooch has no other alarm clock. I’m eating a can of salted cashews I bought yesterday because the PX is closed for inventory, even though the sign on the door says the stock check was supposed to be tomorrow. Somehow, I broke my iPod in transit.

But this is all whinging. The hooch has AC, hot water, and a refrigerator. There might be only two places to eat, but they are cheap and have a decent selection for Kabul. I’ve got a small TV with Discovery, the History channel, and AFN even if the DVD player is missing and so is the remote. As someone said this morning, “at least it’s a nice prison.”

So while I hardly ever mention my job in these posts, it’s all I have here. I can’t leave the compound. Tomorrow, I’ll have some pictures of my hooch. But on to the topic of the day: Gurkha porn. As you can tell, Kabul is one of those places without much to do. We (or rather our contractor) hire Gurkha guards, and they are great at their jobs. But they are also smart enough to figure that our filtering software can’t recognize Nepali. But we do get reports at who is using the most bandwidth, and we go after those people because our links are slow enough as it is. HoochNet, which is our Internet-only network for the residences, has no such restrictions. So my day consisted of cleaning workstations that had illicit downloads.

Fished Out

I went diving on Green Island in February 2006 and was struck by the lack of sealife. I assumed that in the summer things would be better. I can now say definitively that it is not. The only fish left in Taiwan are those small enough to swim through a net. It's disappointing to see overfishing on this scale, and I'm not convinced anyone will wake up in time to save what is left.

Lanyu (Orchid Island) is the larger but lesser-known of the two inhabited islands off the Southeast coast of Taiwan. Six of us went down for a three-day weekend to see what it was all about. There are no direct flights into either Green Island or Orchid Island. One must fly to Taitung and then either take a 25 minute flight on a turboprop or a ferry. It is a 1.5 hour ferry ride to Green Island and 3 hours to Orchid Island. We took the flight, arriving at 1:30 on Saturday. It was too late to schedule any diving, so we had lunch and rode scooters around the island. The island itself is beautiful, with lush green mountains and a rocky coast. That same rocky coast makes for great visibility when diving, with little silt or runoff to cloud the water.

The first dive we did on Sunday morning was a shore dive with a nice swim-though cavern. I bought a new underwater camera housing and flash so I took pictures of almost anything trying to get it dialed in. The other four members of our group are not certified and did an introductory dive, with varying results. Sunny and her boyfriend Pity went first, with Pity being a natural. Michelle had problems equalizing, and Iris took a while to get comfortable. We went back to the guest house for lunch and Vera and I got ready for our afternoon boat dives, during which I got thoroughly sunburned.

The dive sites themselves were fantastic. Nice hard and soft corals, interesting geography, a good combination of pinnacles, walls, and a few wrecks although we didn't have time to do any wreck diving. Unfortunately, the sea life is so depleted that there isn't much to see other than small reef fish, and I think my photos demonstrate that. Taiwan really needs to set up a massive no fishing zone around Green Island and Orchid Island if they ever want to attract foreign tourists. With no fishing, it will still take 10-15 years to recover. Even if they did, who knows if they would enforce a ban? As we returned to port, a local fishing boat was returning. They had caught maybe a dozen fish big enough to sell, and 2 dozen that were undersized. Rather than throw the small fish back, they kept them to eat themselves. No wonder.

Back to Manila

This is my favorite restaurant sign at the Taipei airport. As Gene said, "I don't know how else you would translate it. Gruel is pretty close. But I guess, little girls eat porridge, prisoners eat gruel." It actually translates to congee.

I'm back in Manila for some training, but today is Election Day in the Philippines and everything is closed, so I'm staying in and doing some work from the hotel. Speaking of training, I saw an advertisement for a flight training school where I could get licensed to fly the Airbus A320. It was out of the former Clark Air Base in Angeles City. Regardless of how good the program is, would you ever want to get on a plane with a pilot that learned to fly in Angeles? I know for me, that answer is "Hell no", unless my option is a pilot trained in China, where commercial pilots are those that were forced out of the military flight program and a good landing is anything you can walk away from.

OK, back to uploading pictures. Balut pictures are up, diving pictures are being uploaded, and I'll have Vietnam pictures as soon as I get Vera's memory card.

Update

Vera and I just got back from Vietnam this Sunday after doing the whole Halong Bay, Hanoi, Perfume Pagoda thing. I'm still trying to recover from the kind of scratchy throat that only comes from developing country air pollution. If you don't know it, it can sneak up on you like this one did to me, or it can hit hard in a Shenzhen kind of way. Vietnam didn't get me until the last day, and I still felt pretty good even if my voice is as scratchy as Harvey Fierstein's.

Hopefully I'll have some pictures up soon, but since I have some catching up to do, answer me this:

• Should I post photos from the Philippines?
• If so, should I post the photos/video of me eating Balut?
• If you Googled "balut" because you didn't know what it is, do you regret it?

Good Times

Always a favorite topic of mine, it seems we have two new statue proposals for the former Yugoslavia. Mostar's Bruce Lee statue is old news. We have two new contenders.

First, Zitiste wants to rid itself of bad luck by erecting a statue of Rocky Balboa. Medja thought that was a great idea, so they are planning a statue of Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan). I think Zitiste could get a discount on Philidelphia's original Rocky statue since the officials at the Museum of Art detest it so much. Apparently it's in storage.

And as a warning for those who believe Internet polling is a good way to judge public sentiment, I give you Budapest's Chuck Norris bridge.

Poland - Part 1

I'm going to skip right past Berlin and Poznan. I caught a mild flu or something on the plane and it had me pretty laid up for the first couple of days I was in Europe. Luckily, the hotel had a soft bed and a nice bathroom. I did get out and do the sights, but I was working on three-hour bursts with long naps in between. I left Berlin for Poznan on Wednesday morning, and that trip took significantly longer than anticipated due to road construction. Luckily, the last renter of my diesel Fiat Croma failed to return it with the GPS navigation CD so I was able to enjoy the countryside at a leisurely pace.

GPS aside, the Croma is a sweet ride. It's surprisingly quick, good on fuel, and diesel is about %15 cheaper than unleaded. If it had an Aux jack for my iPod it would be complete. As it is, my radio adapter works fine.

Poznan is a nice city - not fantastic - but it has a nice town center and churches. It also has a totally adequate brewpub called Brovaria that makes a decent Wheat and Helles. However, one night was going to be enough. Due to my early night, jet lag, and room that faced the tram line, I was up early and on my way. I decided to take the scenic route through the country towards Katowice, figuring that with the traffic and what not it would take me the better part of the day. I actually made it there in time for a late lunch, and that was with stops to look around some of the smaller towns. Only one construction delay for a total of 10 minutes.

This was fortunate for me, because during my lunch I decided I really didn't want to stay in Katowice - it was heavily industrial and there wasn't much to see. I figured since it was early I'd take the scenic road towards Krakow and find a place along the way. Apparently taking a wrong turn I found myself 5km from Oswiecim. I had planned to come here to do the Auschwitz and Berkenau tours, but decided to stop now while the weather was so accommodating. Enough has been said about both these places, and while Auschwitz is tragic in its brutality, the shear scope of the extermination camp at Berkenau is shocking. Even when you know exactly what you are going to see, until you walk down the road from the rail entrance to the gas chambers you can't get a sense of its scale. It takes at least twenty minutes to walk there from the front gates, past the rows of barracks and guard towers - down the wide gravel road where the SS selected which out of the arriving trainloads of Jews would work in the camp and which would march straight to the gas chambers (about 70%).

After all that, I figured I'd just head to Krakow since I didn't have a reason to go back out to Oswiecim. Old town Krakow is beautiful. While it's got its share of people hawking cheap crap, it's not annoying to the level of taking something away, like Prague. So, to sum up: This morning I walked around and did some of the castle, this afternoon I did an organized walking tour. Saw many churches and Miss Universe contestants, which I guess is here soon because they are having events all around town.

More to come.

This Post Goes Nowhere

I just arrived in Bangkok, which will be my last flight ever into the old Don Muang airport. Normally, I wouldn't be so happy about this but since I arrived here from Hong Kong, it's a big deal.

Hong Kong by itself is a really great city, and if it's famous for two things that would be food and shopping. Most of the Chinese food you get in the U.S. is Shizhuan or Cantonese style, and it's a good thing too - no one would eat Chinese food if it was Taiwanese style. I had some good sweet-and-sour meat (maybe beef), and then hit the markets. I was looking at a Nikon digital SLR (the D70s) which I could have for $200 less than in the US. The problem is that any camera I buy needs an underwater housing, and for the D70s those start at $750. I got a bitchin' pair of shades to replace the three I managed to lose at Green Island recently at a night market, even if it did cost me $2 more than in Cambodia.

Oh, right - so why I'm glad to be gone... Even though it rained the whole time I was there, breathing hurt. I mean, you take a deep breath and it burns. I understand this is from the factories in Shenzhen, but no matter, it sucks. I thought I was sick - even buying vitamin C - until I got off the plane in Bangkok as was better by the time I got to the hotel. God forbid I ever get assigned to Guangzhou or Shenyang.

Anyway, so as I'm talking to some friends from Taiwan that are discussing ABCs (American-born Chinese), one of them calls them bananas, just like black people call others who grow up in the 'burbs Oreos. I kept laughing at that the whole night, although I had to explain the Oreos connection for it to be funny for them. Then they tried to claim it wasn't derogatory because bananas were natural while Oreos are not. Whatever.

Oh, I fly to Berlin on Monday.

Morning Flights

So I'm on my way back tomorrow, but not directly. I plan on spending about two weeks in Europe - mostly Poland, the Czech Republic, and Germany. Or so the plan goes. I fly into Berlin via Hong Kong and Bangkok (thankfully the last time at the old airport), then I'm renting a car and taking it to Munich for Oktoberfest. Sorry I've been so bad on updates, but it's been all work leading up to this. I'll try to have regular updates from the road.

For tomorrow, I plan to meet Oliver and Darlene for lunch in Hong Kong. Oliver is a German expat who lives in Taiwan, and his mother found me my hotel in Munich. 

..and anyone up for Vegoose, drop me a line. I'm staying at the MGM Grand.

Diving Army Camp

That's how Laurie described it. He and his family were there for 2 weeks so they should know. I only wish I had the chance to stay that long. Regimented? Yes, but for a purpose. If you weren't diving you would have gone to 100 other resorts around Borneo that were easier to get to and offered activities for non-divers. There are certainly plenty of them around Kota Kinabalu, which would have cut our travel time by more than half. But we took another flight to Tawau, a bus, and finally a short speedboat trip out to Mabul. Yes, Julian would have made it there for less than $15, but we didn't have time to hitchhike on palm oil trucks.

There are no dive resorts on Sipadan anymore. In April 2000, Abu Sayyaf kidnapped 20 people from the island. Afterwards, the government of Malaysia decided to make the island a park and keep the tourists at the closer and more defensible Mabul and Kalapai. They also capped the number of divers that could go each day. Mabul has a reputation as a place for seeing small stuff while the big creatures are out at Sipadan. That may be so, but we enjoyed our dives on Mabul as much as those on the world famous Sipadan.

But that is the reason for the structure: to fit in as many dives as you can safely do in a day. It means getting up early and grabbing a snack before the first boats leave at 7:00, coming back for lunch and a short break, and going back out in the afternoon. Then, the optional sunset and night dives. We chose to do additional dives before dinner and have our evenings free. The night dive groups seemed pretty large, and the Japanese divers can be pretty aggressive with the cameras.