Almost Meeting Princesses

An
American in Asia:

His Quest for Cosmic Truth

(or at least a Decent Espresso)

I went to Penang last weekend to get a visa thing taken care of. One of the beaurocratic hassles of Thailand is that you cna't get a visa in the country. You have to leave and do it at one of the embassies abroad. Penang is a small city or a big town on an island off the west coast of northernmost Malaysia. Like another northwesty town that I'm too familiar with, it is an old English colony, in fact the first English colony in Malaysia. As such it is crowded with English architecture, either a dirty cream or painted in a cacophony of tropical colors. It is eerily like my little hometown of Bellingham, Washington, but everyone is just a bit more Asian.

Very Bellingham.

Wisely or not, I took the train down there, a twenty hour ride from Bangkok. It was my first time on an overnight train. I just love trains and can stare out the window at things going by for hours (and did). In the morning I had the pleasure of waking up to breakfast in bed before a moving panorama of South Thailand jungle. Every so often we'd stop somewhere small and virtually uninhabited and food sellers would march up and down the aisles selling fried rice, fruit and snickers bars. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone pressed for time, but it suited me quite nicely. I had two days on the train and two days in Penang. Penang is small enough that two days suffices.

A mosque. Not so Bellingham.

I am ashamed to admit that I passed up an undoubtedly interesting experience. My first day in town I wandered around the market area. They had the usual stuff. Nothing I couldn't get in Bangkok for less money. I went off in a search for Nasi Lemak, a traditional Malay rice dish where the rice is cooked in coconut milk. It comes with a really funky shrimp paste, chicken, cucumbers and other super delicious stuff. It must be a Kuala Lumpur thing because I couldn't find it in Penang. I was so disappointed because it's my favorite thing about Malaysia.

The main market where you can get some pretty groovy fabrics.

What I did eventually find was a little Reggae bar with the rattiest pool table I've ever had the pleasure to play on. I got on well with the owner and despite the pool table, had a great time. Even this little bar reminded me of something I would find in my Bellingham. I had a few drinks with the owner's friends and as I was leaving, he told me that I could join him for a party with some rookies on the Penang police force later. A police party!

I was totally shagged from my 20 hour train ride and I had to be at the Thai consulate the next morning, so I bowed out ungracefully. It would have been something great to write about here, but instead I just have to write about how I wimped out. If you're ever in Penang, go to Chulia Street, just off of Penang Street and visit the Hard Life Cafe. If you're nice, the owner might take you to the police. For drinks.

So the reason I had to do this visa junk is that I've stumbled into quite the honey of a job. I am the roving reporter for TTG Asia Magazine. In this capacity I am expected to travel around Thailand a few times a month, stay in nice hotels, explore the area around them and write all about it. I've started already and just yesterday I had one of the odder conversations I ever expected to hear.

Boss: Jeffrey, do you own a dinner jacket? Because there is a birthday party for the Princess of Thailand in Pattaya and I'd like you to go if you don' t mind.

Me (kicking myself): No. I don't have a dinner jacket.

The fete was last night and I'll probably be hearing about it on Monday. I guess I'll just have to meet the Princess next time. As consolation I got to go to the opening of a new riverside restaurant at an independent hotel along the Chao Phraya. It was a lovely fete as fetes go and I had the odd experience of being recognized by strangers. When I walked in the front doors of the hotel, the PR woman waltzed up to me and said, "Are you Jeffrey? Welcome to the hotel." I wonder how they knew out of 500 guests, which one was me. Granted I'm the tallest. The other thing I wondered at was that they should immediately usher me into the presence of the vice president and the owner who broke off conversations with other guests to talk to me. I got to do reporter things like take their mug shots and ask questions. I even got to say the words, "off the record...," on my first assignment. Wow. At dinner I met a bunch of folks in the media and was snubbed by a guy from a competing journal sitting next to me. That was neat. You have to be cool to qualify for being snubbed.

This all should result in some rollicking fun and good material for this site. Of course I am legally barred from writing about stories I am working on for the magazine, but you can just read them at the magazine's site if you're really interested in the Thai tourist industry.

Jeffrey Studebaker has been (in no particular order) a SE Asian correspondent for a Singaporean travel magazine, a teacher, consultant and translator in Japan, a guitarist with the band, Swoon 23 in every city of the US of A, a coffee roaster in Seattle, a bike messenger in Portland, a marine fire system repairman in Seattle, an osteoporosis clinic researcher in Providence, a mental ward counsellor on the night shift in Portland, a brief success in New York, and he has now returned to the US after nearly a decade in Asia to pursue a publishing career.