by Chris Tharp
THE WORST MOTORCYCLE IN LAOS
Rough Travels in Asia
By Chris Tharp
Praise for The Worst Motorcycle in Laos:
In The Worst Motorcycle in Laos, Tharp takes us on a wild ride from the neon streets of Tokyo to the dirt tracks of Indochina. The essays are insightful, humorous, and unflinching. A great read for the active and armchair traveler alike.
- Michael Breen, author of The Koreans
Tharp’s done it again. He’s got a knack for finding himself in, shall we say, interesting places and situations: from fake flowers and monks to persistent touts, these are the stories few can experience for themselves. Make no mistake, Tharp makes life happen on his own terms.
- Chris Backe, travel blogger at One Weird Globe (www.oneweirdglobe.com)
The Worst Motorcycle in Laos is a thoughtful rampage through the backwaters of Asia. Tharp writes about his travels with a refreshing, humble honesty, unafraid of exploring the gritty and the grimy, the seedy and the sublime. Witty, poignant and at times even disturbing, this is a great read for both the seasoned journeyer and those content to enjoy from the comfort of home.
- Brandon W. Jones, author of All Woman and Springtime
THE WORST MOTORCYCLE IN LAOS
Rough Travels in Asia
By Chris Tharp
Signal 8 Press
Hong Kong
The Worst Motorcycle in Laos: Rough Travels in Asia
By Chris Tharp
Published by Signal 8 Press
An imprint of Typhoon Media Ltd
Copyright 2014 Chris Tharp
eISBN: 978-988-12196-7-1
Typhoon Media Ltd:
Signal 8 Press | Distribution | Consultancy
Hong Kong
www.typhoon-media.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except for brief citation or review, without written permission from Typhoon Media Ltd.
Cover design: Madalena Ng (Protein Creative)
CONTENTS
Dokdo!
Cobra
The Other Side
The Hills of Jinhong
House of Rose
Into the Wild West
90% Norway, 10% Bangladesh
Glimpses of Sumatra
Goldfish in Their Zoos
Big in Japan
The Worst Motorcycle in Laos
Moscow on the South China Sea
Smokin’ Joe
For Minhee
INTRODUCTION
In the fall of 2003, I moved to Chicago at the behest of a friend, who was reforming his industrial rock band with his old musical partner. They needed someone to play guitar and I had little else going on at the time, so I bade adieu to Seattle, packed a bag, and jumped on a plane to O’Hare, where I was soon supplying crunchy guitar riffs to the band’s driving, electronic-based music. It was an easy gig. My chief duties were playing the same three or four chords and stomping about the stage. There were no solos, ever. I got the impression that they didn’t want a guitarist who was too good out of fear he’d quickly grow bored, so I guess I fit the bill.
We played a couple of local warm-up gigs and then went on a month-long tour of mostly empty, hole-in-the-wall clubs throughout the Midwest and East Coast. The tour took us through a load of cities and states that I—a fully formed denizen of the West—had never actually seen before, places like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Philly, Baltimore, DC, Richmond, North Carolina, Tampa, and Ypsilanti, Michigan. We were traveling. Touring in a rock band had long been a dream of mine, so I was determined to document the whole thing. I took extensive notes and wrote an ongoing travelogue, which, ignorant of the then-new concept of blogging, I published in a series of emails to friends and family. The response was quite positive, which was nice, since the band’s shows were generally met with sighs, shrugs, and that one weird guy who would get down with the songs just a bit too much. By the tour’s end I had reached an epiphany: I realized that I enjoyed writing about the band’s moving adventures much more than actually playing the music. A travel writer was born.
My friend who had lured me to Chicago suffered a mental breakdown not long after we returned to the Windy City, and quickly skedaddled back to our hometown of Olympia, Washington to convalesce with his parents, leaving me and a pile of bills behind. His partner was determined to go on with the band, only with a brand new lineup: I was summarily relieved of my rockin’ duties. I now found myself broke and friendless in the big cold city, living alone in an apartment that I could not afford. So I took a job at a call center and found a cheaper room on Craigslist—a sublet in a three bedroom place from a guy who planned to backpack through Europe for a couple of months. While he traipsed around the Continent, I toiled and congealed in the biting Chicago winter, plotting what to do with the next chapter of my life.
When I wasn’t interviewing potential 7-Eleven cashiers at the call center (a recruiting agency for low-level jobs), I spent my time wandering around the spectacular town that I found myself now trapped in, taking in the architecture, drinking beer at one of the innumerable neighborhood taverns, catching bands, eating Italian beef sandwiches, performing at the odd comedy open mike, watching movies at the second run theater around the corner from my apartment, and most importantly: reading. I exclusively read travel books checked out from the library. I quickly became acquainted with the term “armchair traveler,” as I’d pass the evenings and weekends in the cramped room of my sublet, transported to myriad spots across the globe by such writers as Paul Theroux, Pico Iyer, Jeff Greenwald, Graham Greene, Tim Cahill, and of course, the granddaddy of them all, Mark Twain. I read every travel tome I could get my hands on, devouring books in the course of a single night. Chicago was a wonderful city and I was soaking it up to a point, but being in America would just no longer do. The piles of books I read convinced me that it was now time for me to see the rest of the world. After all, if these guys could do it and write about it, why couldn’t I?
I returned to my hometown that spring, and by late July I had taken a job teaching in South Korea, which I viewed as an ideal jumping off point to other destinations in Asia. I arrived in Korea on a sticky night in early August, and fell in love at once. For the first six months I would have recurring nightmares of going home. I had a decent job, a clean apartment, a crew of new friends, and the rest of Asia at my fingertips. I was mesmerized by this new land and all it offered up--the dizzying choices of food, the shops and the bars, the buzzing markets and constant street life, the challenging language, the beautiful women, as well as an ancient culture that seemed to take on the pulsing glow of modernity with more ease and panache than my own. If this was Asia, I didn’t just want to stay: I wanted to see it all.
A decade later, I’m still here, and while I certainly haven’t seen it all, I can say that I’ve made a healthy stab. In addition to much of Korea, I’ve visited Japan, China and Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Burma (briefly), and New Zealand. All but the latter are featured in this book. Many have proven so seductive that I’ve returned several times. This can prove distracting, as some countries’ charms are so overwhelming that it’s difficult to resist the urge to come back again and again, sacrificing the experience of seeing a new land in order to deepen the love and understanding that you’ve already established for the old one. This is certainly the case with a country such as Laos. I’ve been four times now and am further transfixed each time I visit. I just can’t stop falling in love with the place.
I live in a continually shifting community of expatriates, all of whom are travelers by definition. And though I am thrilled by travel and live to write about it,
I have friends whose traveling exploits in Asia make mine shrivel by comparison. I have seen much of Southeast and East Asia, but am a virgin when it comes to the real exotic heart of Asia: the ‘stans (Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, etc.). I have only tasted Indonesia, despite having spent a month there. I have also yet to visit the Indian subcontinent. A couple of adventuresome friends recently toured Bangladesh, a place so bereft of visitors that I am told it’s impossible to buy a single postcard.
This book is by no means exhaustive, nor am I attempting to show off my traveler’s stripes, which are less than mighty when compared to many others. I do believe it’s possible to take a day trip to your neighboring county in Missouri and write a compelling travel piece about it. It’s been said many times before, but good travel writing is about the writer’s personal journey, rather than the external trip itself. That said, many people seek out travel writing as a way to escape the mundane. I certainly did. Crazy experiences such as a jeep wreck, a knife fight, or a dinner of roasted sheep’s heads washed down with herbal hallucinogenic tea can do wonders to spice things up for the armchair traveler. We do like a taste of the exotic in travel stories, and I hope I can deliver on this front.
This collection of essays is as much about me as the varying locales, which may not be to everyone’s taste. By placing the reporter smack dab in the middle of the story, the late great Hunter S. Thompson invented “gonzo journalism.” I suspect it was travel writing that inspired him to take this bold step. In fact, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas could be considered one of the finest travelogues of the 20th century, and while I fervently hope to avoid aping his much-copied style, it would be a lie to deny the influence: I too place myself smack dab in the middle of the story, whether it takes place in a Filipino guesthouse, a comic book shop in Japan, or on a bus rumbling through the Cambodian countryside. Unlike the good Doctor, however, I cannot write high.
This book is true, in that all of the events have actually happened as they are described. A few minor details have been altered for the sake of storytelling and in some cases the chronology has been rearranged. Some people’s names have been changed and other people who were with me have been omitted from certain sequences. In one case a major character is actually a composite of three different people I have known and traveled with. I have taken a few liberties, but at no point am I just making events up. I have actually been to every spot in the book and done the things described.
It’s no secret that Asia—especially Southeast Asia—attracts sex tourists, who are, more often than not, middle-aged men. This theme pops up a few times in the book and is impossible to ignore when writing about the region, though I realize it may make some readers uncomfortable. I’ve come across many such men in my travels and describe a particularly loathsome group that I’ve twice encountered in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in the essay, “Goldfish in Their Zoos.” The language I use may be shocking and even horrifying for some, but these guys are really out there, and I feel an obligation to include it in the story.
So, kick back and enjoy the essays that make up this book, which range from the cities of Japan, the jungles of Sumatra, and the deserts of far Western China. I hope you too are transported, just as I was during that cold, lonely winter in Chicago. Perhaps, like me, you’ll be inspired to see more of this big, crazy world. Who knows, maybe we’ll run into each other somewhere along the way. If so, the first drink is on me.
Chris Tharp
Busan, Korea, 2014
DOKDO!
South Korea, 2014
The old man on the other side of the fence had a message for us all, one so important that it required the use of visuals. The sign in his left hand—thrust aloft by a long stick—reminded us that the only way to salvation was to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He voiced this mantra, the battery-powered megaphone in his right hand amplifying his rote, histrionic delivery. This harangue almost betrayed our surroundings: though we were solidly in the South, his dramatic tone and fervor sounded North Korean. The words reverberated around the expanse of pavement and ricocheted off of the huge metal hull of the Sunflower, the white, red, and blue passenger ferry moored just meters away.
My fellow travelers ignored the diatribe as they jostled for position and attempted to queue up in the sticky morning air. They were dressed in neon hiking gear, bright scarves, floral-print pants, floppy hats, and visors-aplenty. Most were over the age of sixty. They cackled and clamored as they scurried up the narrow ramp and disappeared into the guts of the boat. Most carried backpacks, bags, and boxes stuffed with ramen, pepper paste, boiled eggs, dried fish, huge plastic jugs of soju, and of course, kimchee. These folks had come prepared. After all, who knew what items would be available once we reached the island, and if so, at what cost? Prices off the mainland were notoriously dear, so it was best to bring some of your own stuff.
In no hurry, and wary of getting elbowed by old ladies half my size, I left the chaos of the boarding mob and walked across the concrete strip toward the fence. A wet breeze flittered in from the harbor. The July sky hung low in a grey haze and I looked up, wondering if it was going to rain. This was the monsoon season, so anything was possible, but the relative brightness of the clouds made me think that the weather just might hold. I approached the old man on the other side of the chain-link fence, who continued with his proselytizing. I dug out my smartphone and fumbled with the touch screen until I managed to bring up the camera function. I snapped a few photos as the man rambled on. He wore a blue sun hat, a white button-up shirt, and blue pants, along with a red vest with a large white cross emblazoned on the back. The Korean letters on his white sign were written in red and blue, the same colors as the big boat in front of him. I wondered if this was on purpose. Did he come here every day?
As I lowered my phone camera, the old man suddenly switched to English: “DO YOU BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST?”
“Sure!” I shouted back, flashing him a thumbs-up. My actual beliefs are none so set, but I was in no mood for a debate.
His face lit up. “VERY GOOD!” He seemed relieved. “GOD BLESS YOU!” He then went back to the thankless task of convincing his countrymen to repent.
The man’s message rang in my mind as I boarded the boat. I was at no risk of being saved, but rather wondered just why he had picked the embarkation point of a ferry for his personal mission to help redeem our souls. And then it struck me: just a few months before, the Sewol ferry sank off the island of Jindo, en route to Korea’s vacation hotspot of Jeju Island; 307 passengers died. Most of the victims were high school students out on a school trip, and the tragedy shook the nation to its core. The disaster unmasked a host of deep, ugly problems in modern Korean society, especially the corruption, graft, and greed that is so widespread, not to mention the incompetence that these things breed. Those kids died on their parents’ watch, and the country spent the ensuing weeks and months both pointing fingers and steeping in a miserable, collective guilt. The sinking of the Sewol was the most traumatic event I’d witnessed in my nearly ten years in Korea. The disaster laid bare a basic disregard for public safety throughout the country. No one could step on a boat afterwards without thinking, Is this thing really sound? Are emergency procedures in place in case the boat goes down? The nation was still reeling, yet there I was, with hundreds of others, climbing aboard another ship. Mortality had to be on everyone’s minds that morning, and the old Christian man knew it. What better time to drive home the issue of salvation?
I settled into my seat as the boat chugged out of the steel town of Pohang’s harbor toward Ulleungdo, an island formed by a now-extinct volcano rising sharply from the sea, situated some 120 kilometers east of the Korean peninsula. Ulleungdo is a popular vacation destination, and the nearly full boat reflected this. People head there to relax, sightsee, fish, hike up and down its steep volcanic ridges, and eat its famous raw fish, mussels, and squid. But Ulleungdo also draws visitors for another reason, one that surely resonated deeply with most every passenger on boar
d: it serves as the jumping-off point for visiting Dokdo, the disputed islets lying between Korea and Japan that inflame extreme passions all over the peninsula. For many Koreans, a visit to Dokdo is a pilgrimage of sorts, a kind of patriotic hajj. It’s a must-do before you die, which probably accounted for the preponderance of grey hair, canes, wrinkles, and bent backs on the boat that day.
I sweated in my seat as the safety video played on the screen above. Pay attention, everyone. I sat in the back section of the boat’s second level, far from any air-conditioning vent or windows. The cabin was dark, stuffy, and hot. I sipped from a bottle of water and scratched several mosquito bites burning on my ankle and lower leg. I had been ravaged by the beasts in my cheap, moldy motel room the night before. As the video played on, the Sunflower plowed through the waves, but the going was smooth, overall. The boat was large enough that I didn’t feel the direct effects of the swells below. For this I was thankful: I am, at times, an acute sufferer of seasickness. And when it’s on, it’s on: my malady is one that neither pills nor ear patches can alleviate. Inland waters and calm seas are fine, but the open, rolling ocean is not my friend but a merciless force capable of making me miserably ill. But this was not going to be one of those trips. Just ten minutes in, I knew that it was going to be all right. I exhaled a sigh of relief, sat back, and smiled.
A member of the crew arrived in front of our section. He held a large orange inflatable life jacket, and proceeded to give a detailed demonstration on how to use the thing, including the attached flashlight and emergency whistle. I watched as he took us through each step, explaining the details in speed-of-light Korean. I leaned forward and nodded along, struggling to understand his rapid-fire spiel. I probably got about every fifth word. He noticed my attempt and made deep, intense eye contact with me every few seconds, at one point stopping his demonstration to address me directly, in English:
