01/30/09
 We’re currently staying in a Chiang Mai hotel called the Riverview. The charm of any locale that calls itself “Riverview” is directly proportional, of course, to the charm of the river it views, and this one—a Liquid-Plumr backup called the Ping—is so green it makes the Chicago River look like the Caribbean. A quibble, though. We’re well positioned to take in Chiang Mai, the second-largest city in Thailand, and enjoying the...
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01/16/09
 Bangkok’s reputation as one big, nocturnal XXX sex show full of tattooed pole dancers and post-op ladyboys beckoning with flesh and degradation? It’s obviously still out there, but we’re too blinded by diapers and Elmo books to see it. Besides, we go to bed at 8. Tonight, though, we kept Hannah up late and met some friends for dinner at one of Bangkok’s many night markets. I wondered if I would if I would see some...
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01/09/09
 "All the sidewalks in Bangkok are cracked," I recall thinking just before I stepped in a hole near the National Museum and heard my right ankle snap like a Village beatnik circa 1954. As I hopped around in agony on my one good foot, my daughter began clapping, assuming this was some funny impromptu dance for her entertainment. It may as well have been. Once the pain subsided enough for my wife to examine my ankle, we realized I hadn't broken it, just twisted it unnaturally, and everyone but me lost interest...
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11/18/08
During my travels abroad, I was obsessed with supermarkets. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t shake my deep-seated Ugly American tendencies, making the names of products on shelves endlessly amusing. I got so carried away that a suspicious security guard in Hanoi escorted me and my camera out the door. Eventually, Sarah forbade me to bring the camera in, and I was forced to do actual shopping rather than snicker at the tiny cultural differences that bring out the 19-year-old boy in me...
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10/21/08
You know how they say everything's big in Texas? Mofos ain't never been to Thailand.
New York never sleeps? Bangkokers make Manhattanites look like my grandmother after an afternoon mahjong game.
This city is bigger and hotter and more crowded than everywhere else combined, and the throngs of humanity everywhere make virtually every moment claustrophobic. Half the people seem to be street performers, which in Bangkok leans to legless men paddling around on skateboards singing into a microphone...
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09/16/08
An elephant walked past me on the sidewalk today. He was just strolling down the street, looking kind of bored, like he was on his way to the 7-Eleven on the corner for a Slurpee, when our cab passed him.
"Did you see that?" I asked Sarah, who was busy looking out the opposite window at lines of old women skewering chickens on the sidewalk, sending unruly streams of smoke into the air...
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08/26/08
Ever hear of Eileen and Tom Lonergan? They were a couple from Baton Rouge who went scuba diving off the coast of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 1998, and accidentally got left behind due to a faulty head count taken by the boat crew. No one noticed they were gone until their bags were found in the boat two days later. A vast search followed, but they were gone. Eventually their empty wet suits, tanks, and dive jackets washed ashore. Most likely they met a shark or...
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08/19/08
Good parenting, as anyone will tell you, is all about flexibility. And bribery. And Cheerios. Yes, that's it: flexibility, bribery, and Cheerios. Am I forgetting anything here? Oh, yeah, mindless repetition. If you haven't the ability to listen to the same mind-numbing song, read the same stupid Elmo book, or feed the baby the same icky goop over and over again without...
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08/13/08
While sitting at our private table on our private island, sipping cold drinks under our private umbrella, our toes in the warm private sand that no one else's toes are allowed to touch, I had a terrible thought. This is not paradise I find myself in. It's hell.
OK, stick with me here. I'm going to go off on a navel-gazing existential rant—which makes no sense given the fact that...
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08/05/08
The Great Barrier Reef. You hear a lot about it, but what do you really know? It's in Australia and it's visible from outer space: that's about the extent of it for me. I always associated the reef with sharks and scuba divers, two species that don't terribly interest me. As we were taking a ferry from Cairns, the city nearest the reef, to some island resort where Sarah had made reservations, a refrain from the Old 97's entered my head: "What's so great about the Barrier Reef?" I sang it repeatedly to Sarah, who finally told me to shut up...
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55.0F
