Postscript

I never did make it to San Francisco, at least not this time. Instead, I found a job in my field in Bangkok, Thailand, a city you will be familiar with from the Hi-Tech Knapsack. So I will submit my visa application from the States, and then go to my hometown Toronto to schmooze with family and old friends, and also go through all my boxes to prepare a shipment.

And that's it. Skye Frontier was meant to be about India, Middle East politics, Bollywood, and the internal journey that coincided with the gathering of stamps in my passport. When next a new theme comes to me, return here for the appropriate link.

Until then, a very warm and special thank you to my loyal and beloved readership. It's all been for you!

Jodhaa Akbar in Dubai

Dubai was my final stop. I had always wanted to see that particular super-rich Gulf state, and to fly Emirates Airlines. Regarding the latter, it now occupies the Number One position for favorite airlines. Jet Airways is still on the list, too. Singapore Airlines has fallen a notch.

After an all-night flight, I arrived in a rather groggy state and the taxi driver I found was none other than Hassan-bhai from Bombay. He dropped me at my (outrageously overpriced) hotel, and offered me a city tour. I accepted. My day started in Hindi, and was about to continue in that vein pretty much for the duration of my short sojourn in the United Arab Emirates. I had parothas and massala chai for breakfast. Later on, Hassan-bhai picked me up with his friend Atif, who hailed from Pakistan. They took me around to see part of the waterfront, variously themed malls (including one with indoor skiing), carpet merchants, the world’s only 7-star hotel, and a perfectly coiffed beach.

We had a whale of a time. There are lots of Hindi music radio stations, and we cranked up the volume and hit the highway, singing and dancing as much as one can in a car, and generally having lots of fun together.

At some point, our conversation turned to interreligious marriage. The boys asserted that if a Hindu girl were to marry a Muslim man, that would be OK. But if a Muslim girl married a Hindu, that would be pretty much grounds for an honor killing. As I don’t quite agree with that stance, I recounted a brief anecdote to make my point as tactfully as possible.

Nearly half a century ago, when people were even more traditional than nowadays, there was a young woman from a small town in Kansas, Christian by birth, but with ideas of her own, who decided to study far from home in Hawaii. There she met a (lapsed) Muslim man from Kenya, Africa. They fell in love and married. Needless to say, there was consternation on the part of all the parents. But nobody contemplated knocking off either the bride or the groom to save besmirched honor. A son was born of this union. And he is about to become the next President of the United States of America.

For good measure, I just had to add that this difference in mentality is one of the reasons that India and Pakistan are and will remain poor countries. This is not a case of imposing foreign values, heaven forefend. People should be able to follow their own beliefs and traditions. Stay poor if you want if that’s the collective will.

Later on, I went to the Mall of the Emirates (the one with indoor downhill skiing) with a really nice Filipino chap I hooked up with. There was a cinema. And you will never guess what movie was playing: Jodhaa Akbar!! This was the first movie I was in upon arriving in Bombay! I couldn’t believe my luck. It was with Arabic and English subtitles. I bought two tickets for the next show.

Here I was at the end of my trip, reliving the happiest moment of all, which occurred at the beginning. It was like coming full circle. The crowning glory.

Hritik Roshan plays Laluddin Mohammed, the just Mughal emperor. He calculates that he can solidify Mughal rule over all of India by marrying the Rajput princess, Jodhaa (Aishwarya Rai), cementing an indispensible political alliance. Princess Jodhaa agrees to the union on two conditions: that not only must she keep her Hindu religion, but also have a shrine to Krishna, of whom she is a devotee, in her quarters. Laluddin Mohammed agrees, they marry, she becomes Empress, and both make a genuine effort to respect and even participate in each other’s rituals and traditions.

This could only come out of Bollywood. In fact, this is what I love the most about the genre. The intelligent and sensitive manner in which they approach issues of tolerance and modernization. It was also wonderfully poignant to see it in an Arab country. The subtext is clear. India was finally united as a political entity when Muslims and Hindus got together in respect, tolerance and love.

But that’s not all. To win her over completely and demonstrate his sincerity, he abolishes a pilgrimage tax on Hindus. In the speech he makes before his court to announce this momentous decision, we get not one, but several, rather clear shots, although at a slight distance, of yours truly, Skye Frontier, in full Mughal courtier regalia. Following the scene is the catchiest song in the movie, hailing the great emperor for his magnanimity and wisdom.

I set out with a dream. It came true. I saw it with my very own eyes and felt it in my beating heart. It has all been worth it.

And so concludes my journey. Jai Hind! Bollywood Zindabad!

It’s not the fall that hurts…

It’s when you hit the ground.

Phnom Penh’s answer to bhang lassi is a neat little recipe known as Happy Pizza. It is that old Italian favorite, with lots of green stuff sprinkled on top. It smartly does the trick for many hours of contented confusion, and I do need to pull the mental eject lever a bit more than usual these days.

So this is it. Two more days. And a sense of foreboding. Suddenly my optimism has all but vanished.

San Francisco is supposed to be my American Dream. With some help, I managed to get to an advanced stage in the recruitment process as Director of Technical Publications in a rather prestigious Silicon Valley firm. And it was only on a technicality that I didn’t get the actual job – the sitting director decided not to vacate the post after all. Who could blame her? As the economy goes south, people are understandably not so keen on job hunting.

It has been three months now, and what is all the more worrying is that all the jobs I’ve applied to on my own have responded to my application with either stony silence or a brief missive to the effect of “thanks but no thanks”. The only bright spot is a major air carrier has approached me for a rather less than senior post, but it is now the only thing on offer. The upside is that the biggest perk is free air tickets. However, it is far from a sure thing.

Nevertheless, I continue to submit my résumé just about everywhere that I have a reasonable chance. If you throw enough spaghetti up against a wall, some of it is bound to stick eventually. Yet I can’t help but confront the ghosts of my last sojourn in the U.S. ten years ago, when the sum of all my fears came to pass, and basically resulted in a financial train wreck and the crushing of my self-confidence. Older and more resilient as I am, it isn’t easy to face a prospect like that head-on, once again.

Add to this mix the sense of termination of one of the greatest years of my life. Those of you who have dedicatedly followed these pages bear witness to the endless adventures, the happiest moments, and the carefree existence, which of course, is all untenable over the longer term, and that starts right about now. My memory is constantly jogged into conjuring up images of amazing places, fantastic people, and no end to the untroubled fun. I can’t help but feeling a tinge of sadness and nostalgia.

There is an escape hatch. A former colleague put my name forward for a reasonably good technical writing position based in Bangkok. As time goes on, it seems more and more attractive, like the city itself. You know you shouldn’t, but deep down, you really want to surrender to it. It wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of my American Dream, just a postponement, until Silicon Valley’s prospects brighten somewhat. And I could continue doing the expat thing, which I enjoy immensely.

Nevertheless, I’m just wary that I’ll let so many people down, after trumpeting my imminent arrival Stateside for the better part of a year. And I will go. My flight is next week. I’ll at least touch base. And I will make every effort to get that airline job. But in the absence of even a single other U.S. prospect, if the Bangkok job does go through, despite all this hand-wringing, I reckon I’ll take it.

Angkor Wat

I did finally manage to have a successful date in Phnom Penh, a feat more difficult than it sounds. But the following morning, lazing around in bed, I was oblivious to the fact that I was supposed to check out of the hotel and make my way to Cambodia’s second city, Siem Reap, with the goal of seeing the amazing Angkor Wat temple complex. Well, suffice it to say that with fifteen minutes to spare, there was an instant, amusing, and hurried flurry of activity. No breakfast of course, and, more icky given the previous night, no shower. But I piled myself onto the bus in the nick of time and made my way northward.

Cambodia is poor. The parts I’ve seen aren’t quite a destitute as, say, Hampi, but things are pretty basic. As the country was pretty much totally destroyed, even from a low starting point, by instability, genocide, and ongoing civil war, remarkably and admirably, the world community stepped up to the plate and has taken a keen interest in the development and construction of the nation. The international aid and NGO community is here in greater force than perhaps even Aceh. So, during the bus ride, there wasn’t really a lot to see out the window, other than some pleasant bucolic scenery.

It had becoming harder for me to keep my mind on what I’m doing here. The job search is going a lot slower than I’d like, and I find myself giving self-directed pep talks and soliciting more from whoever I think will be convincing. I really am ready to move to San Francisco, on all sorts of levels. First of all, I want to be closer to my blood relatives. Second of all, I want to right the disastrous experience of the last time I live in the US, if only to prove to myself that I can. It helps that the jobs in my area of expertise are almost all located in Silicon Valley. And I really think that to reach for the stars career-wise, that is the most logical place to be. OK, so the weather isn’t perfect, but it’s not so bad, either. Kind of like an eternal cool spring. I can deal with that.

I suppose it was naïve to think that I could step of the plane, basically as a new immigrant (US passport notwithstanding) and sit right down in the Director’s chair. New countries require a minimum of a year to get established. The upcoming recession doesn’t help my case, either. But the more I think about it (and I have plenty of time to do just that) the more I realize that this really is the path to take. None of the alternatives will get me where I ultimately want and need to go.

With all this on my mind, it was a welcome respite to get to some and real exercise walking around the huge Angkor and nearby temple complexes. I covered all the territory, took the requisite photographs, had a nice lunch, and then went back to Angkor Wat itself in the afternoon for a more leisurely discovery session. Even though there were tourists all over the place, I managed to find an enclave where the Angkor kings used to be placed to lie in state before there funerals. I had it all to myself, with a striking view of the grounds, and was able to meditate, in a most suitable environment. The conclusion I came to is that the slower the job search process goes, the greater choice I will eventually have. So, calm down, chill out, and enjoy what remains of this incredible journey. I ended the day by taking some pretty spectacular sunset photos with Angkor Wat as the backdrop.

Check out the recent photos:
• Around Phnom Penh City
• Oudong
• Wats around Angkor
• And of course Angkor Wat – the Real McCoy

Best of Everything

Looking back on almost a year of travels, I have been reflecting on my most poignant experiences. Here are a few.

• Happiest moment: On the set of Jodha Akbar
• Most beautiful sites: Bali
• Best lover: James
• Biggest disappointment: Mikael
• Anthem: Love Comes Again (DJ Tiesto)
• Most poignant lesson learned: I am a Leader
• Best meals: (1) Vietnamese restaurant on 7th floor of MBK Bangkok; (2) Nina's birthday (all tiger prawns)
• Best local food: Saigon
• Best book: Shame, Salman Rushdie
• Best English movie: Hairspray

• Best Hindi movie: Shootout at Lokhandwala
  

• Most seminal experience: Vipassana meditation course
• City of Enlightenment: Pushkar
• Must go back: Dharamsala
• Best urban experience: Singapore
• Most liberating moment: Pondicherry, grieving and bringing closure to Ariel
• Biggest surprise: Refuge is not home
• Best human connection: Gabi
• Best Asian TV channel: ZoomTV (India)
• Most insipid TV programming anywhere: Indonesia (across the board)

When You Think of Cambodia

Just what comes to mind?


Well, let's start with the genocide of the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge regime. An unspeakable atrocity, with some 2 million murdered, roughly a third of the population at the time. It wasn't exactly a party for those who survived, either.


Instability followed the 1979 Vietnamese invasion, until the mid 90s, when strongman Hun Sen was able to fully assert control over the political life of this country. So stability is relatively recent. And by and large, it remains something of a backwater, certainly seeming so to me after arriving from go-go sophisticated Saigon.


The visa regime here is liberal to say the least. While the world community has taken Cambodia's stability and development quite seriously, with all sorts of NGOs, volunteers and other do-gooders setting up shop, the fact that pretty much anyone can come and stay, in a country beset by staggering poverty, is basically an invitation for all sorts of nefarious types as well.


It should be obvious that such was not the intention. More than any other place I've visited, Cambodia welcomes outsiders. Other places are like, "Hello, hope you like it and spend some money; enjoy your stay". Cambodia is: "Welcome - come and share this beautiful country with us". Really. It is quite heart-warming. People are genuinely friendly, and between that and the rather large and permanent community of expats, it has been wonderfully easy to meet and make friends.


But I had to get the genocide stuff out of the way first. I visited the infamous S21 interrogation prison, which, most cynically, was a converted secondary school. The same day, I also went to Choeung Ek Memorial, the so-called Killing Fields, which was basically an extermination center. There was a tower with skulls of victims, where you can pay your respects, and around the grounds, there were a series of pits where victims were buried in shallow graves. A few mass graves remain as well. It was eerie and gruesome.


Then I went to the king's palace. Not as spiffy as the one in Thailand, at least it was more cheerful than the genocide stuff.


US dollars are the de facto legal tender in Cambodia, and prices are most reasonable. Phnom Penh has the feel of a provincial capital, with only one mall and no high rises. Filled with classical and neo-classical Khmer architecture, it exudes no small amount of charm.


Cambodia is my last country, before Dubai and America. I'm content to just chill and reflect on an amazing year of travels.

Karaoke Queen

Miss Saigon turned out to be an insufferable attitude queen, so I ditched her after about a week, and went over to James. Somewhat less pretty, but with a singing voice to die for (what a tenor!), and finally a man strong enough to slake several months of pent up lust, he deservedly wins the award for best lover of this trip. Our first evenings in Saigon were spent at a gay karaoke club, where he would bring the house down, and I, after a couple of beers, would take the microphone, and with luck would not have tomatoes thrown at me.

As I wanted to see a bit more of Vietnam, but a trip to the north was ruled out due to cold January weather, we decided to hit the beach at Nha Trang (photos here). Admittedly, after the Andamans, Pattaya, Kovalam, Bali and Pulau Weh, I’m kind of beached out. But hey, it was beautiful, with fine white sand and set against a backdrop of green mountains jutting out of the calm bay. We went by first class train, and after suffering through the rolling stock of Indian Railways, it was a veritable pleasure in comparison.

One fine day we hired a boat and went on a tour of the neighboring islands. For lunch, we went to a fish farm plus restaurant, where we chose our own tiger prawns and fish, and they cooked it up. Overpriced as it was, it must be said that it was truly delicious, and although there was enough food for four, we managed to finish it ourselves. Overeating is a constant risk in Vietnam. The food is just so amazing that you can’t help but gorge yourself at every sitting. And Saigon must rank as the best city in the world for eating, if you are rating local fare. Another memorable meal was at the Lac Canh restaurant, where we ordered raw beef, pork and goat and barbequed it ourselves at the table on the portable hibachi they so graciously provided.

Another day trip was to Vinpearl Park, which promised to be something like Sentosa à la vietnamienne. Well, same same, but different. There were a few amusement park rides, a game arcade that was kind of fun, and a water park. Beside the water park was a perfectly coiffed beach, where I sat down and enjoyed myself, although it was rather windy and the water was cold, so I had to be contented with the chaise longue.

Throughout, I have kept up my job search in Silicon Valley, which is now in full swing. Round One didn’t net me the post I wanted, but only on a technicality, so all in all, it is going well, even from so far. I suspect Round Two will actually net me a real job. For all those who are envious of all my comings and goings and adventures, I have to say that I really want to get back into a normal routine and life. At the beginning of this trip, I was ambivalent about San Francisco. It was more of a default option, if none of my fantasies worked out. Of course they didn’t, but shattering all those myths was actually a liberating experience, as I was also able to throw off any number of other addictions and compulsions in the process. Now I am quite ready to face the big corporate world on my terms and win at the game, about which I find myself far more sanguine than when I last left that fast-paced lifestyle. And instead of being rich in a poor country, how about being rich in a rich country?!

And soon it is off to Cambodia, the last real country on my itinerary. I haven’t even bought the Lonely Planet. I’m just going to chill in Phnom Penh and play it by ear. Of course I have to see the Killing Fields and Angkor Wat, but beyond that, I’m really just biding my time.

Miss Saigon

Although my preference in musicals slants more towards Bollywood than Broadway, Miss Saigon does seem an appropriate title for this chapter. Indeed, life is like a movie: you are the director and main actor. Disregard the plot of the Broadway production. This is Skye Frontier’s Adventures in Indochina.

First of all, if you haven’t yet seen my pictures of this booming and cosmopolitan metropolis, now’s the time to do so. The first thing you notice is the traffic. Chaos the likes of this I have never seen. This is Scooter City. Driving in all directions is the norm. While in India, honking is just to announce your presence as is more or less constant, here it is only to narrowly avoid a head-on collision. Given that drivers and riders completely disregard traffic directions and signals, this occurs several times on any given trip. Then there’s the sheer volume of vehicles. And yet, it flows. No gridlock. That in itself is remarkable.

The food in Ho Chi Minh City (or HCMC for short) is scrumptious beyond all description. I’ve eaten some pretty good grub in my perambulations, and while I’m (only slightly) hesitant about awarding Vietnam the ultimate culinary crown, it would at very least have to rate in the top three cuisines anywhere and of all time. Everything is so fresh and delicious and creative and well presented. I find myself looking forward to each meal, and it’s a challenge not to stuff myself. I’ve hooked up with Bau, who also happens to be a foodie, and fortunately for me in so many ways, is also a fitness buff. Daily trips to the gym have gotten me back into shape and are ensuring that all this food doesn’t go to the wrong places. Indeed, having unsurprisingly lost weight in India, the daily workouts have produced the flattest tummy I’ve have every sported. So there.

Bau kindly made reservations for the first hotel, but it was only for one night, since I happened to arrive at the tail-end of high season. Although very nice, I had to seek alternative accommodation the very next morning. Being stupidly precipitous, I took the first room I found, which of course was cheap, but unbeknownst to me, was located right next to a nightclub. And it was Friday night. And up three flights of stairs. The following day, although quite disoriented from three consecutive nights of sleep deprivation (my flight to Jakarta was delayed, allowing me barely four hours of shut-eye before arriving in the Socialist Republic), I resolved to find the best value I could, with silence as the primary consideration. Lac Vien, on a quiet side street just off the main tourist drag, fit the bill, and while more expensive than other hotels and guest houses I’ve stayed in throughout my journey, if truth be told, it was time for hot showers and a constant fast internet connection. And it’s a great value for the money. OK, I admit it. I’m officially tired of traveling. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve held gainful employment. And I’ve got shpilkes for some semblance of constancy. I want my own bed. I most definitely want my own kitchen. I want to see the same friends day in and day out. And I most definitely want a car, preferably an Audi A4 convertible.

I decided in the early days to check out the museums and sites of note in the downtown area. Certainly the most arresting was the War Remnants Museum. The shocking photos of victims of Agent Orange and Napalm filled me with revulsion over US hypocrisy regarding the current idiotic rhetoric about chemical and biological weapons. This was a massive deployment of WMDs by the US military, paid for at taxpayer expense! Another cool venue was the Independence Palace, seat of government of the Republic of South Vietnam. Truly and architectural wonder, and perfectly preserved, it stands as an achievement of the Vietnamese people in regaining their sovereignty.

This country was destroyed by the Vietnam war. Ten percent of the population perished. The economy lay in ruins (and ham-handed socialism afterwards certainly didn’t help matters either). You have got to see Saigon today. Everything is rebuilt to even greater glory than before. The economy of Vietnam is the second-fastest growing in Asia, after China, and the fastest in Southeast Asia, clocking in annual spurts of some 8%. In short, it’s booming. There has also been a generational shift, with a majority of the population having been born after Reunification. It seems, at least on the surface, that they’ve put the past behind them. And boy have they moved on. You just gotta admire the Vietnamese.

The other such venue I saw was the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Museum. The greatest work of art was the building itself (although the Main Post Office is rather grand, too). As art galleries go, I had a good browse around and rather enjoyed a number of the works.

Currently heavily involved in a job search, it seems prudent to stay put and stay organized. What’s more, Têt, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year is right around the corner, falling on February 7^th this year. As such, the plan is to stick around until then, and watch events play themselves out, on all fronts. The scenario sort of reminds me of Bangalore, but with a much higher quality of just about everything. I moved on from there, after three weeks, feeling that I had truly seen what there was to see and done what there was to do, with no regrets. I’ll bide my time a bit longer here, with no lack for entertainment and things to do and achieve.

Boring Banda

You know you’re in a one-horse town when the chief draws are mosques and as yet unrebuilt tsunami sites. Had a really eerie feeling visiting mass graves, one with 14,000 buried, another with 46,000. Here are the photos.

I spent the first two days in Banda Aceh with Maxim and Nabil, two Arab guys from Quebec City studying at Laval, whom I had met on Pulau Weh. They’re cycling down the length of Sumatra, taking a month to do it. Quite cool, actually, and it was nice to spend the time with them. Nabil was helpful in pointing out that Pulau Weh is Kilometer Zero, i.e. the northernmost point in Indonesia. It serves as an interesting experience of contrast to chalk up, especially after having visited Kanyakumari, the southernmost point in India (and another major tsunami site in its own right).

New Years Eve was spent in the Country Steak House, one of the few places in town where you can get beer. But they closed at 10 PM, so it wasn’t exactly a blow-out. New Years Day was spent with a nice Sino-Indonesia girl from the hotel, who took me around in an SUV packed with female relatives and tons of kids, to do the rounds of greetings with friends and family around town. First time I ever celebrated New Year’s on the day itself, rather than the night before.

Indonesia as a country is a culinary wasteland, too, and I’ve found myself constantly hungry for the last month. Anyway, the star attraction is yet to come: Big City Saigon. After this, it will be all fun, all the time. And eating my fill!