Yerdaddy of Arabia

[Yerdaddy]

Hello all you RFneters. I'm in an internet cafe in Amman, Jordan and thought it was time to check in. It's been a hell of a month. I'm having a great time in the Middle East. I've seen some incredible shit! In some ways it's what I expected and in others it's nothing like I expected. Mostly it's just a fucking great adventure. As for safety - I feel safer here than I did in America. I'm not going to completely put my guard down - I'll keep my eyes open for Bin Laden-looking fuckers - but basically it would be unconscionable for a Jordanian or an Egyptian to assault a foreigner in any way. In Egypt you start to feel like a walking wallet, but in Jordan, most of the people wouldn't think of ripping off a tourist. Instead it really is a constant string of "welcome!" This is all repetitive of what I've sent out in email dispatches so I'll just post the ones I've sent out so far. I'll ask one of the people on the board to shrink down the pics I've sent out and post them with the captions if it's convenient - I've found it easier to think of stories when I'm going through my pictures (I've taken almost 1,500 so far). Keep in mind these dispatches have been going to friends AND family (including my grandmother), so they may sound a little lame, (even if they're shocking a few of my family members. I've been meaning to come up with rated R and G dispatches but it's too much work. The pics, if they get posted, should be far more interesting than my descriptions. If anyone actually wants on my email and photo list PM me.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. I think I'll be spending New Years in an Irish pub here in Amman, although I'll be looking in my guide book tonight for a better idea. After this the plan is to go to Syria, then down to Yemen and spend a few months at a language school learning Arabic, then spend a few more months travelling. I'm travelling with an Australian who went to the school in Yemen for a month and he can hold a conversation pretty well. He spent $500 for four hours a day of one-on-one instruction. If I spend six months with two hours a day I should leave there pretty much fluent. So that's the plan. By then I should know Arabic for sssssssseeyuh!

EDIT: Oh yeah - I paid .90 for a pack of Marlboros, suckers!

12/4/04

Well I made it here safe - at 11pm. It was frustrating the first night - the cabbie took me to the hotel that paid him the most instead of the one I asked for - the most common scam in Cairo apparently. It was a shithole but it was cheap and I was tired to I took it for the night and found the right one, 3 blocks away, the next day. I'm right in the middle of downtown, (in the 3rd most populous city in the world), so the place is crazy, but the people are unbelievably nice. When I walk down the street people will yell "Welcome to Cairo" at me. Not everybody, mind you, but enough to take away the nervousness. Today I walked about 7 miles from the hotel through "Islamic Cairo" (Dad - look it up in that guidebook I left you), into the "Northern Cemetary," around the Citadel, and back into downtown. I saw the poorest people I've ever met and they welcomed me and offered me tea. It's the complete opposite of what people were afraid of.

It's not perfect, mind you. In central downtown there are guys called "touts" who's job it is to befriend tourists and drink coffee with them then take them into perfume and papyrus shops or travel agencies to sell them stuff. They're not all aggressive, and that's what makes them a challenge - they're nice and that's where the pressure comes from. The first one got $5 off me for something I didn't need, (I won't say what since it will of course be a gift for one of you), but I haven't caved in since. The thing is people will just start talking to you and take you to coffee, so it's hard to tell the touts from regular people. Last night a tout called a guy over from a travel agency and instead of trying to sell me a tour we talked politics for two hours. Right now my biggest fear is I'll never get any alone-time, which I need. In a few days I'll ge

[Freakshow]

Awesome.

Watch out for those pommies, though.

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[mdr55]

Got any pics of the women there??

[Hottub]

Good to hear from you. Can't wait for the pix. Sounds like a real adventure. Stay safe.

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[Reephdweller]

YD it's good to see you're okay and having a great time.

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[LordJezo]

You are pretty intense.

But yeah, what everyone wants to know is how are the women over there?

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[FUNKMAN]

glad to hear you are doing well. have a Happy New Years!

Politics Forum hasn't been the same since you left...

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[mdr55]

I'll keep my eyes open for Bin Laden-looking fuckers

So you're trying to collect that reward are you. Good luck.

[Yerdaddy]

Oddly enough, given the otherwise moderate and generally secular history of the country, I barely saw any Egyptian women. I saw that the men were fairly aggressive in macking on travellers, and I've heard that it's generally just a pain in the ass for Egyptian women to walk around, but I don't think that entirely explains it. I'll be looking into that question when I get the chance.

Jordanian women are fucking hot! Incredible eyes! They're out in the streets as much as the men here. They go out covered up in the full range of covered all but the eyes, to just the headscarf to full western wear with the hair and makeup done up to the nines. Being covered up doesn't seem to be involuntary, but there's no way for me to really know with the full garb, but I can see the women in the head scarves walking and talking and laughing and shopping for western clothes or whatever.

I sent out a pic I took of the Arabic MTV that plays constantly in many public places like restaurants, coffee shops, (ahwas), and stores, and it's non-stop Arabic hotties. They played a montage of about 5 of Brittney Spears videos yesterday, but their own videos are hot enough. I took about 6 pics of various videos - if I can I'll send some of them out for posting. Smoking! The several video channels come out of Lebanon, apparently.

At Petra I got hit on by two Bedouin girls. They had gorgeous features, but they were like 16. I thnk this American passport is like walking around with a giant Robert Plant bulge in my pants.

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[Yerdaddy]

My next dispatch will be all about the food. Fucking wesome and dirt cheap.

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[mdr55]

At Petra I got hit on by two Bedouin girls. They had gorgeous features, but they were like 16. I thnk this American passport is like walking around with a giant Robert Plant bulge in my pants.


You got picks??? 16 is legal there right? Don't they get married there around that age?



Do they got strip joints there....or hookers?? After all it's the world's oldest profession.

[angrymissy]

Would you consider Cairo dangerous for an American woman to visit? My sister and I are dying to go, but everyone is telling us we'll get kidnapped or some shit.

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[keithy_19]

Politics Forum hasn't been the same since you left...


I agree. It's never been better. :p

I'm glad you are having a great time. I want to go to Israel when I get older. The only thing is I'd be afraid to be in a bus or a cafe at the wrong time.

http://64.177.177.182/katylina/keithy.gif

[whoopsy]

Yerdaddy,

great post. Forget Iran and do Lebanon if you get the chance (not as many photo ops as a Syria but big on Western style night life, amazing women, and great food). post pics when you can

<img src='http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=whoobsy'>

[curtoid]

Ok, I know others on here have gotten some pictures, so I want them to share them too...I'll get two posted to prove that YD is really over there...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v64/curtoid/wackydaddy.jpg

I sent out a pic I took of the Arabic MTV that plays constantly in many public places like restaurants, coffee shops, (ahwas), and stores, and it's non-stop Arabic hotties.

Here's that pic he sent...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v64/curtoid/jordarianvideo.jpg

Would you consider Cairo dangerous for an American woman to visit? My sister and I are dying to go, but everyone is telling us we'll get kidnapped or some shit.

I had a friend who went to Cairo, then made the trek to Jordan last summer, who did it all by herself. She had a blast, but (at 35) she's experienced bouncing around the globe. All of her friends and family, however, were nuts while she was gone.

[ChickenHawk]

I had a friend who went to Cairo, then made the trek to Jordan last summer
Not bad...

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[NewYorkDragons80]

Fuckin awesome. I'm a Middle East Studies major and I really want to study abroad in Amman. I hear it's one of the most hospitable cities in the world. Arab hospitality + resource poor nation = generous hospitality. Petra must be incredible. From the pictures I've seen, it puts Rome to shame. Any plans to go to Aqaba? I hear scuba diving is great there. How difficult/dangerous would it be to go to an occupied city like Jerusalem or Bethlehem?

Tell me everything.

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This message was edited by NewYorkDragons80 on 12-30-04 @ 8:25 PM

[HBox]

If I ever went to the Middle East, I don't think I could resist the urge to go down the street with a cowboy hat, a George W. Bush T-shirt, red white and blue zubaz pants, and cowboy boots just to see how long it would take me to get the shit kicked out of me. I think I'd even throw a fanny pack on there for good measure.



Who lives in a body bag under the sea?

[stickyfingers]

Yerdaddy,

you are doing things that I can only wish I ever get the chance to do. I like hearing stories like this. Post as much about your trip as you can. I'll read read every word.



<img src=http://img18.photobucket.com/albums/v53/monster6sixty6/guests/sf2_sig.jpg>

[Yerdaddy]

Would you consider Cairo dangerous for an American woman to visit? My sister and I are dying to go, but everyone is telling us we'll get kidnapped or some shit.

Not dangerous at all. I walked into some seriously shitty neighborhoods at night and couldn't have been safer. As a pair of women you'll get more attention than you would want, but then every tourist does. You would want to stay in public places at night, but with 15 million people it would actually take work to find a dangerous place. The main thing I'd suggest is don't stay in the downtown area that Lonely Planet describes as the "backpacker ghetto." It's not dangerous but it's the worst place for touts and it's got nothing there but papyrus shops and perfume shops that the touts are paid commission to con tourists into. Seriously, it's a running joke among travellers around the ME about Egypt and its fucking papyrus and perfume shops. Everyone's been dragged into at least a half dozen and it's a game to go out for a meal or the ATM without ending up in another one. Stay in a cheap hotel in Zamalek, it's only a few minutes walk from the downtown area, it's going to be $6 a night instead of $5, but it's where the US Embassy and American University Cairo are so there aren't the touts and the hassle you'd get downtown. It would be less of a shock to the system.

Egypt is different than other places in the ME and there's an art to getting by there. It's cheap and has great sites, and is definitely worth the hassle, but it can be a big pain in the arse. If you do decide to do it, let me know beforehand and I'll give you all the tricks I learned to deal with it. I definitely reccommend it.

Fuckin awesome.
Yep.
I'm a Middle East Studies major and I really want to study abroad in Amman. I hear it's one of the most hospitable cities in the world. Arab hospitality + resource poor nation = generous hospitality.
Amman is a big, smelly, noisy city and there's not a whole lot to do. There's nightlife and what-not, but there's only a couple of historic sites and they're not that impressive. It's only a day trip to Umm Qeis, a couple of Crusader castles and Jerash, which I did today, (Jerash was realy nice and I got some really good photos), but that's still one day. Jordanians are very cool people, but moreso outside the city. Aqaba had a much better atmosphere. People on the street will welcome you out of the blue, it's got some nice beaches and I had nothing but great food. The scuba diving is good, I hear, but it's much cheaper in Dahab in the Sinai. For $300 I could have got certified for two levels and taken 8 dives in different locations, most of which I hear are great. The only advantage to Aqaba is that it gets a fraction of the divers so it's more unique an experience than others get. For school, I don't know about Amman. I looked into American University in Cairo and Lebanon and they seemed like great opportunities, (forget about the one in Saudi Arabia for now). If I get into Syria I should be able to get to Lebanon too so I can tell you more.

Petra must be incredible. From the pictures I've seen, it puts Rome to shame.
It was incredible, but I hear it will get competition in Syria.

How difficult/dangerous would it be to go to an occupied city like Jerusalem or Bethlehem?
I hear it's a pain in the ass, but it's definitely doable. I hear Jerusalem is well worth it. My feelings about safety in Israel is simply that the odds are still in my favor - and less than the risks of living in DC. The only reason I'm going to pass is the risk that they might stamp my passport - which would make a shitload of countries off limits until I could replace the passport - Yemen, Syria, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, and others. You can get them to stamp a separate piece of paper but they give you at least an hour more of hassle and there's still a risk they'll stamp it anyway just to be dicks. That's the only reason I'm passing. After Arabic school I'll do some more travelling in the ME and I'l

[torker]

YOU ARE HERE:



http://www.egy.com/P/maps/zamalek1.jpg

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[HBox]

Now that I think about it, I'd probably get the shit kicked out of me in any major American city if I dressed like that. That gives me something to do next week!



Who lives in a body bag under the sea?

[NewYorkDragons80]

There's nightlife and what-not, but there's only a couple of historic sites and they're not that impressive. It's only a day trip to Umm Qeis, a couple of Crusader castles and Jerash, which I did today, (Jerash was realy nice and I got some really good photos), but that's still one day. Jordanians are very cool people, but moreso outside the city.
Aqaba had a much better atmosphere. People on the street will welcome you out of the blue, it's got some nice beaches and I had nothing but great food.
Are any of the Jordanian royal palaces open for any kind of tours? For a religious person like myself, there is the site where Jesus was baptized as well as the alleged location of Sodom and Gomorrah. Have you visited any sites with religious connotations? Is Amman less hospitable than Aqaba? Do you find the Jordanians to be more hostile toward American policy compared to Egyptians? more in agreement?

For school, I don't know about Amman. I looked into American University in Cairo and Lebanon and they seemed like great opportunities, (forget about the one in Saudi Arabia for now). If I get into Syria I should be able to get to Lebanon too so I can tell you more.
That's been the reaction I'm getting from people. AU in Beirut seems to be the destination, but I'm just not sure about the whole Syrian occupation thing. Again, I'm really interested in the Hashemites so that's the main appeal of Jordan. The current Centcom commander was an Olmsted scholar at the University of Jordan in Amman, so it can't be that bad.

Petra must be incredible. From the pictures I've seen, it puts Rome to shame.
It was incredible, but I hear it will get competition in Syria.
You wanna talk Crusader castles? T.E. Lawrence wrote an entire book on Syrian crusader castles alone. Jordanian crusader castles, sad to say, literally look like rubble compared to Syrian castles.

Republicans just don't travel here, so they still have the ability to separate the policies they don't like from the Americans they meet. I've been told some things that lead me to think the last election has closed that gap somewhat.
What would you say to a Republican like myself who plans to travel to the area? Should I keep the political conversations on social issues? :)

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This message was edited by NewYorkDragons80 on 1-2-05 @ 3:32 AM

[Yerdaddy]

Are any of the Jordanian royal palaces open for any kind of tours? For a religious person like myself, there is the site where Jesus was baptized as well as the alleged location of Sodom and Gomorrah.

I've been pretty much sticking to the main tourist sites that other travellers reccommend, and in northern Jordan and Amman I've just been working on getting into Syria. Apparently the Bethany in Jordan, (there's another site that is supposed to be Bethany that is in Israeli territory), is accessible to tourists I hear. Check out <a href="http://www.see-jordan.com/" target="_blank">the Jordanian Tourism Board's website</a> for details. Should have the royal sites as well. I hear the royal sites are accessible. I don't have a guidebook for Jordan so I don't know all the details.

Have you visited any sites with religious connotations?
I saw the Sea of Galilee(sp?) and the Golan Heights from a Roman Ruins site in Umm Qeis yesterday. You're going to find religious/Biblical sites all over Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. In the Sinai I passed on climbing Mt. Sinai, where Moses found the Burning Bush, because in the middle of winter it's supposed to be bite-ass cold - like thermal underwear and multiple jackets cold.

Unless they're in some disputed territory like Palestine, the Biblical sites are going to be accessible. These countries get a big chunk of their GDP from tourism and they make a huge effort to get tourists there. Also, the Bible is one of the core books of Islam, so it's not any kind of religious opposition to take care of them.

Is Amman less hospitable than Aqaba?
The only difference between Amman and Aqaba in that sense is that Amman is a big city and Aqaba is small. That makes Amman more bustling and dirty, but not inhostpitable at all. No place in Jordan that I've seen is inhospitable unless you get sick of hearing "welcome to Jordan." Read the introductions to the Middle East countries on Lonely Planet's website for how friendly and honest each of the countries' people are. Even I'm surprised.

Do you find the Jordanians to be more hostile toward American policy compared to Egyptians? more in agreement?
About the same. First of all they still separate the American people from American policies. They often start political conversations by clarifying that point. For the most part they don't like Bush's policies. They are threatened by the idea that the US is occupying a neighboring country. They don't know what it's true intentions are, (but then I'm not too sure myself), and they assume that it's not the interests of themselves or democracy or freedom and all that. They're not buying that at all. They buy the various conspiracy theories instead: oil, Israel, control the Middle East, etc. One thing, however, that I haven't heard except once in Egypt, is that Bin Laden is a good guy or that he wasn't responsible for 9-11. Instead I've heard almost universal condemnation of Bin Laden - that he is anti-Muslim for attacking civilians and wanting to impose fundamentalism, that he's an "animal", a "crazy man", and even an "asshole." Instead, most everyone who has addressed that subject describes Islam as more of a personal religion, like most American Christians. They describe it as an individual relationship with "Allah" - you don't kill anyone for any reason, you help the poor, you welcome guests to your country and your home, etc. That kind of description is near universal in my experience so far.

There are exceptions, like the man who runs the internet cafe I'm in right now is viruently anti-Muslim. He's an atheist who looks over his shoulder a lot when he's talking with me about this stuff. He supports Bush and Iraq and the tough talk about Iran and Syria because he feels Islam teaches fundamentalism. But at the same time, when I ask him what happens if the US fails to create a stable Iraq, he says it would be terrible for the entire region for decades in terms of increased fundamentalism and terrorism.

So to get back to your

[A.J.]

Sounds like you are having a great time. I'm glad to see you are being treated so courteously: I would have thought an American in the Middle East would be treated like an Arab in a Red State.

When you were in Amman did you go to a place called Options?

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A Skidmark/canofsoup15 production.

Red Sox Nation

[Yerdaddy]

Where da rest a da pics, suckas? I'd figure out how to host them myself if I wasn't paying by the hour for sub-dial-up web speed and keyboards gummed up with hummus at every cafe. Help a brother out!

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[LordJezo]

Super easy free image hosting here (http://www.imageshack.us/)

If you just want to put a few pics up quickly for everyone that's the place to go.

As long as the pictures are not super huge it shouldn't be a problem to use that site.

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[Yerdaddy]

Thanks, Jezo. That is an easy website to host shit on. I can stop being a big baby now.

Some from the last batch I sent out. These are of Petra, in Jordan.

http://img29.exs.cx/img29/3706/10009234ti.jpg
The entrance to the ruins of Petra is a long, narrow, winding canyon of colorful sandstone. It has some caves with brilliant natural patterns of minerals on walls and ceilings. There are Nabetenean and Roman irrigation canals cut into either side of the walls for the length of the canyon. The walk alternates with quiet solitude and horse-drawn carriages ferrying lazier tourists through the canyon. We spent two full days touring Petra, (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day), the first day was completely overcast and the second day it rained all day. These pictures don't begin to capture the colors of the rocks and ruins of the place.

http://img67.exs.cx/img67/5130/10009752xq.jpg
"The Treasury" of Petra. The first thing you see coming out of the canyon walk is the giant Treasury carved into the sandstone face of a canyon wall, (as featured in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." Unlike the movie, however, the place is relatively Nazi-free. It was dark inside but I only saw a large, empty room inside the Treasury, but maybe the protruding giant spinning saw-blades and bottomless caverns of peril were around the back somewhere. Even without the Nazis and peril this is an amazing building and well-preserved by it's location inside the steep narrow canyon.

http://img21.exs.cx/img21/3056/10010569gw.jpg
After the Treasury you go through another canyon and come out on a valley of steep sandstone mountains with a seemingly endless number of great carved temples, tombs and other ruins and other canyons leading to more ruins. There are also some Roman ruins like the Ampitheater across from these buildings, the Tombs of the Nobles. There are smaller caves and homes dug in the rocks. The mountains themselves are a geological masterpiece that are as incredible as the archeological masterpieces that in two days we only began to explore. I took over 200 photos on the first day before my battery went dead around noon. We had climbed up to the top of the mountains above the Tombs of the Nobles and along until we were above and opposite the Treasury building looking down on it. I had taken a picture of some sheep along the tops of the mountains and when we finally came to the spot above the Treasury my camera battery was dead. That night I had shwarma, (gyro), for dinner.

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Columns of the Uneishu Tomb, (I think), from inside a cave.

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The Monastary. About 5km from the entrance and up to cloud level is this great Monastary, larger and almost as well-preserved as the more famous Treasury. It is a magnificent and dignified testament to a once-great civilization. I'm doing the "running man".

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[Yerdaddy]

I tried to shrink these down with this crazy ass software, but now I don't know which ones worked and which ones didn't. Sorry moddies. Looks like I lost a lot of quality too. I stink!

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[Yerdaddy]

http://img46.exs.cx/img46/5905/10011704xr.jpg
After Petra we spent a day and night touring the desert of Wadi Rum with a Bedouin guide. This was as the sun was just poking out through the clouds about 8am.

http://img41.exs.cx/img41/5642/10011710kz.jpg
Some of my group at "Lawrence Spring." On the ledge at the top of the picture is a spring that Lawrence of Arabia "allegedly" used to drink when he lived in Wadi Rum. They ran a couple of hoses down to the ground level so the tourists could drink from it. About half of the sites we saw that day were named after Lawrence. Much of the movie was also filmed here.

http://img6.exs.cx/img6/8426/10012214nw.jpg
Wild camels, (real small at the bottom).

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One that got away.

http://img58.exs.cx/img58/6738/10012704xh.jpg
Natural bridge.

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Cindy who? What the hell is wrong with me?

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Bedouin guide. Apparently the reception in a wadi is excellent.

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Sunset at the overnight Bedouin camp.

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Sunrise with the moon and ice on the desert floor.

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[Yerdaddy]

More of the Arabic video hotties. Taking pics of the TV is a bitch, but for you guys it was worth the pain. This is one day in a hotel with one station. The music and the storylines of the videos suck ass, but every video has hot chicks in them like it's Koranic law or something.

http://img113.exs.cx/img113/1360/10013576rm.jpg

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<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[Yerdaddy]

These are some earlier pics that I no longer have the original emails I sent them out in, so if one of you who recieved the original emails feels like posting the original captions that would be out of sight. Mainly for things I've forgotten, like the story behind the Al-Hakim Mosque. Whatever.

http://img113.exs.cx/img113/3865/10000890of.jpg
The original Comedy Pyramid.

http://img58.exs.cx/img58/8467/10002221zh.jpg
Sunset over the Comedy Pyramids.

http://img23.exs.cx/img23/91/10000629xa.jpg
Al-Hakim Mosque, Islamic Cairo.

http://img71.exs.cx/img71/8148/10000674zr.jpg
Same mosque.

http://img11.exs.cx/img11/8287/10000696aq.jpg
In the Northern Cemetary in Cairo the graves were disigned for relatives to come from far away and actually make camp on the grave sights for a night or two. Over the last few decades the population of Cairo has soared and people have built homes, (some rather nicely designed), in the cemetary leading it to now be known as the City of the Dead. Many of the houses had satellite dishes, but these were certainly poor people.

http://img39.exs.cx/img39/9302/10000703kq.jpg
I tried to sneak this picture with the family chilling on the front porch but I think they caught on and were actually smiling for the picture. I was told by an Egyptian friend that as an Egyptian he wouldn't walk through the cemetaries because of the crime and drugs, but as a tourist I was perfectly safe. Of course he told me this after I strolled through the place snapping pics like it was the Cairo Museum. I was mobbed by kids wanting to speak English to a westerner, and some men asked me to sit for tea and refused to accept 2 pounds for it when the price was only 1.

http://img54.exs.cx/img54/816/10003334ss.jpg
Faluccas on the Nile from my hotel room in Aswan.

http://img67.exs.cx/img67/1113/10004952vj.jpg
Nighttime on the two-night falucca trip from Aswan to Esna. OK, I'm just showing off my falucca-Nile pics:

http://img21.exs.cx/img21/7595/10005061qf.jpg

http://img76.exs.cx/img76/5595/10005163eb.jpg

http://img14.exs.cx/img14/3554/10005374my.jpg
On the way to the new Edfu McDonald's.

http://img46.exs.cx/img46/6269/10014542jb.jpg
This got us looking for great sign names in Aqaba, Jordan.

http://img41.exs.cx/img41/853/10014884qn.jpg
Roman ruins at Umm Cais, Jordan. I think you can still see the Sea of Galilee and Tiberias, Israel, in the background, and the Golan Heights to the rear right.

More Roman ruins at Jerash, Jordan:
http://img6.exs.cx/img6/4641/10015184jr.jpg

http://img113.exs.cx/img113/1937/10015779lo.jpg


http://img58.exs.cx/img58/5154/10016948zc.jpg
Back at Petra, this is the only 20 minutes of sun I saw in three days of trying. This is a view of a small part of the Tombs of the Nobles from the top of one of the opposite cliffs - at the High Place of Sacrafice is, (where Aaron, Moses' brother and my namesake is thought to be burried).

http://img54.exs.cx/img54/3723/10017622iv.jpg
16 year-old Bedouin girl at Petra. She spoke better English than I did, had better teeth and is studying to be a nurse. HOT! She had a really nice ass too.

http://img67.exs.cx/img67/3982/10017638co.jpg
The buffet at the Valentine Inn near Pera. It was about twice that size on Christmas Eve and Day when I was there. Outstanding food - for $3.

http://img21.exs.cx/img21/6898/10017860ef.jpg
We got snowed in in Petra last week.

http://img46.exs.cx/img46/4305/10018489nx.jpg
Parking lot, Wadi Rum, Jordan.




I WAS TALKING ABOUT THE DONKEY!!!!!1


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This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 1-8-05 @ 5:54 PM

[A.J.]

Nice pics Bro.

I'd like to see Petra some day.

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[mdr55]

Do they got strip joints over there?? or Prostitutes???


Take some more pics of the local hotties?? If it's allowed.

[Yerdaddy]

I'd like to see Petra some day.
Get your own gimmick though. The running man's mine! Maybe cabbage patch, or the robot?

Do they got strip joints over there?? or Prostitutes???


Take some more pics of the local hotties?? If it's allowed.
I'm sure they've got ho's somewhere, oldest profession and all, and AJ gave me a tip on some Russian slut joint that I haven't figured out how to follow up on. If I'm still in Amman on Friday I'll be partying with some ex-pats who would be able to point the way.

It's hard to get pics of local women. I've tried to make like I'm taking a pic of the city but I wasn't able to get the hotties in time. I also don't think I was fooling anyone. Just know I'm working on it.

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Fuck it from behind.

[mdr55]

It's hard to get pics of local women. I've tried to make like I'm taking a pic of the city but I wasn't able to get the hotties in time. I also don't think I was fooling anyone. Just know I'm working on it.


Just make sure if you do take a pic of them, make sure you don't have to marry them because of the pics. You never know strange foreign customs. "I went to the Middle East for vacation and came back with a wife!";)

[Yerdaddy]

More photos:

http://img150.exs.cx/img150/2122/10000526dc.jpg
View from my Cairo hotel room with Mosque and Coptic Christian church side-by side. The 5am call to prayer took some serious getting used to. Coptic Christians make up about 10% of Egypt's population.

http://img132.exs.cx/img132/787/10001334kz.jpg
The Egyptian Eric Estrada. There are strict rules against taking photos of cops, military personnel or facilities and the Suez Canal, but I had to sneak a photo of a cop on a camel. Later he struck a pose and told us to take a photo, but by then we knew that copper wants some baksheesh.

http://img133.exs.cx/img133/1221/10001177nz.jpg
The view from inside the cab we hired to take us to the pyramids around Cairo for the day. Notice the little square snowglobe on top of the meter? Its of the Ka'bah - the holiest shrine of Islam inside the Great Mosque of Mecca to which all Muslims turn towards to pray - and it's a cool snowglobe. Cabbie was cool. For a little less money we could have rented that other guy's donkey for the tour, but we splurged.

http://img144.exs.cx/img144/2645/10006935si.jpg
Some templey thing in Luxor. I'm just showing of my cool photography skills.

http://img143.exs.cx/img143/981/10007589xp.jpg
Someone else's girlfriend in front of the Colossi of Memnon. These guys (there's two of them) have been chilling along the side of a street across the Nile from Luxor since about 1350 B.C. I think they're a little bitter that they're probably the only free tourist attraction in the country.

http://img104.exs.cx/img104/793/10007554pz.jpg
Another shot of both Colossi of Ramses.

http://img156.exs.cx/img156/5200/10007603qz.jpg
One of Ramses hotties.

Caption for photos of the The Al-Hakim Mosque, posted above
The Al-Hakim Mosque in Islamic Cairo. The building was started in the 11th century by the current ruler who ruled from age 11 to 35. Apparently the kid was a bit of a prick (he evicerated his tutor for nicknaming him "Little Lizard") and after he was gone the mosque fell out of use as a place of worship. Instead it has been used as a prison, a horse stable and an insane assylum. I think the fact that it's not an active mosque has something to do with the fact that the people now running it screwed me out of about 80 Egyptian Pounds! They got me for 20 to get in, 20 to take pictures, then once inside the 'guide' hit me up for 35 baksheesh (a tip or a con-job - very little difference in this country, also the first Arabic word most tourists learn), then they got me for another 5 to get my shoes back. Had this not been one of my first excursions out I would have caught on that I was being taken. In fact had I gone into any of the working mosques in the city I would have only paid a voluntary contribution of maybe 5 pounds! I did get some nice pictures though.

http://img24.exs.cx/img24/6836/10001683ak.jpg
A house on the road between Saqqara and Giza. This is an example of how my camera is smarter than me. We were driving in the cab about 45 miles an hour and I was playing with my camera. From the side of this house I could only see vines and white outer wall. But when the front of the house came into view I thought "what a cool house" and stuck the camera out the window and clicked as we passed. The front of the house was framed perfectly and wasn't blurry at all. I didn't even see the child in the doorway until I looked at the pic. Many of my best pictures are just lucky shots like this one.

http://img127.exs.cx/img127/3705/10001140zi.jpg
Girl selling bread on the road to Saqqara from Cairo.

http://img112.exs.cx/img112/5512/10002143yi.jpg
Detail of the Pyramid of Khafre, Giza.

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Fuck it from behind.

This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 1-15-05 @ 5:25 PM

[Yerdaddy]

Some objects from the Luxor Musem:

http://img104.exs.cx/img104/6177/10008037hj.jpg
King Tut's wheels.

http://img119.exs.cx/img119/4023/10008099pt.jpg
What King Tut and Ted Nugent have in common.

http://img64.exs.cx/img64/605/10008706zb.jpg
Apparently it used to be much colder in Egypt.

http://img141.exs.cx/img141/669/10007820jq.jpg

http://img80.exs.cx/img80/595/10007937fp.jpg
Crock be pimpin'!

http://img139.exs.cx/img139/3813/10007952em.jpg

http://img139.exs.cx/img139/6025/10008022ab.jpg

http://img55.exs.cx/img55/8611/10008279je.jpg

http://img22.exs.cx/img22/2069/10008074kt.jpg

http://img22.exs.cx/img22/4360/10008448qw.jpg

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Fuck it from behind.

[mdr55]

Are you lost in the desert??

[Yerdaddy]

Sort of. I landed in Yemen four days ago and started Arabic lessons the next day. That's two hours a day. The rest of the time I've been wandering around the city, lost, with the worst fucking Lonely Planet map in their history. And that's saying something. They have every location on the map wrong - literally every location! The "Great Mosque" in Old Sana'a - the main landmark in the city - listed as the Hill Town Hotel and Restaurant. Dicks. This is one of those places with the narrow-ass streets that some cars can't even fit down - but they still try - and they all look the same, so I've barely even eaten a full meal a day since I got here. Luckily an American living upstairs took me to a full-sized grocery store on the other side of town the first night I was here and I loaded up on Chips Ahoy, Cup-A-Soups and Snack-Ems. Another guy taking a year off from some NY law school showed me a great restaurant today where I got a half chicken (best in the ME so far), rice, bread, this salsa-like stuff and grilled vegetables and a Coke for $2. Tonight I'm getting a tour of the Ethiopian restaurants nearby - hoowah!

This is a beautiful city, but it's weird. Half the population is under 15 so it's very Lord of the Flies. Half the time I go into a little grocery store it's being run by an 8 year old. Ever try to haggle over a can of tomato paste with an 8 year old and get jobbed? It's a crusher, let me tell you. All Yemeni women are covered head to toe here except some of the hoowahs. They get rocks thrown at them by Piggy and the Littluns, but I hear that will be happening to me sooner or later. I've got some nice pointy ones and a packet of gravel to throw back. If my arm is as bad as it was when I was in little league then I guess I'll be wearing the hijab in the rest of my pictures here. At least it will give me a chance to wear some of my sexier numbers underneath.

I suspect this place is going to get on my nerves after a month or two so I'll do some studying and see the country and split back up to Damascus for the rest of my Arabic lessons. For some reason I didn't know until I got here that Syria was one of the most modern and religiously liberal countries in the Middle East. And I was right next door a week ago. I'll learn something about conservative Islamic countries while I'm here at least. The people are generally nice here. I just start to feel like W.C. Fields around all these fucking kids. I like kids fine as long as they're cooked properly.

Internet here's suddenly too slow for pictures, so next time.

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Fuck it from behind.

[A.J.]

They get rocks thrown at them by Piggy and the Littluns, but I hear that will be happening to me sooner or later. I've got some nice pointy ones and a packet of gravel to throw back.

Don't do that. Just preach the teachings of Jesus -- they'll love it!

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[NewYorkDragons80]

How religiously liberal is Jordan?

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[Yerdaddy]

Jordan's pretty liberal. I hear not as much as Syria, but I haven't actually been to Syria yet so I can't vouch for that statement.

I'm not exactly sure how to measure religiousness except by my experiences - things I've seen and people I talked to when I was there. I assume one way is the level of cover that women wear. In Aqaba and Wadi Musa, (Petra), I'd say about 30% of women wear western clothes and no head covering; about 40% wear the head scarf; and the other 20% wear the full ninja suit, (don't know how many are actual ninjas - I was afraid to ask). From what I've been told by women who have lived in the Middle East for a long time and Arab men in Jordan, the trend of women covering in Jordan, Syria, Iraq and some other ME countries, is a recent phenomenon - ie: the last 30 years and especially since the Iraq war. It's predominately the choice of the women themselves and is a reassertion of their religious and cultural heritage as a response to the feeling that Islam is under attack. Yemen is different - the rules are enforced by the society and I'd say 95% of women here are straight ninja, (as opposed to the colorful shuttlecock/beekeeper look that was enforced in Afghanistan).

In the old downtown Amman, where I spent most of the three weeks I was waiting to get here, there's slightly more covering of the women, and in the other newer parts of Amman there was noticably less covering. Again, I didn't get the impression that women were being forced to cover, and there weren't any other restrictions other than the tradition of local women generally not going into bars and coffee shops - in old Amman, that is - although we did meet with a couple of Jordanian women at a popular coffee shop once - a few men don't like it and stare, the rest are cool with it and stare also. I was staring too. On New Year's Eve I was in an Irish pub in old Amman and the place was crawling with Jordanian hotties dressed no different than American women, (I got one picture that came out -

<a href="http://img145.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img145&image=10016089ok.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img145.exs.cx/img145/9399/10016089ok.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>
The two girls dancing in jeans on the left are Jordanian, the rest are travelers.

(By comparison, Yemen is basically a segregated society. Women are almost all ninjas, and many facilities like restaurants are men only, some have women and men's sections - I hear the women's sections are nasty - and a growing few have separate sections for families. This fact is bugging the shit out of me and is why I'm considering leaving at the end of the month.)

As for the conversations I had with Jordanians about religion - I didn't notice any difference in their views toward Islam than most Americans have toward Christianity. Most of them had their own personal views, mainly that it was a personal thing between Allah and them, it guides the way they live their lives, with a focus on morality, treating people with respect and abstaining from violence, infidelity and other sins, (some of them gave more weight to not drinking or fucking, some of them said those kinds of sins weren't important). I saw no trace of the western notions of Muslim tendencies toward violent jihad, or anti-Christian or "infidels" or any of that shit. A couple of guys had some hard feelings toward Jews. They thought that Jews ran American politics and media and bought into those sorts of conspiracy theories. Those things came up in political conversations, not religious.

So that's my experience so far. My take is that Jordan is nearly as liberal religiously as the US. If it weren't for the 5am call to prayer blasting from every mosque in every city in the ME, including Egypt and Jordan, I'd probably call Jordan and the US about even. But at least in the US you have to turn on UHF stations to be annoyed by someone else's sermons.

On a side note, I just got an offer to travel for a few weeks in Rwanda, the Congo and Uganda with a good friend who is scouting out h

[Yerdaddy]

Couple images of the mosaics at Madaba, Jordan:
<a href="http://img221.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img221&image=10018881lf.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img221.exs.cx/img221/3634/10018881lf.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> <a href="http://img221.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img221&image=10018984la.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img221.exs.cx/img221/4800/10018984la.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> <a href="http://img228.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img228&image=10019024ij.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img228.exs.cx/img228/5083/10019024ij.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

Did someone say religious sites? Does the spot where Moses spotted the Promised Land (allegedly) count? Mount Nebo:

<a href="http://img225.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img225&image=10019122rs.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img225.exs.cx/img225/7538/10019122rs.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> New and interesting statue at the entrance of the Moses Memorial Church.

<a href="http://img234.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img234&image=10019367ir.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img234.exs.cx/img234/8817/10019367ir.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> The church. According to Lonely Planet most of the church was built in the 6th century, but obviously there's been recent restoration of the outside. The inside was full of nice mosaics and some stained glass windows and altars. If the internet here was actually powered by little transformers attatched to the jaws of all the men sitting around chewing qat then it would be fast enough to host those pictures too. On request I can try to post more of these, or any particular site, later.

<a href="http://img203.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img203&image=10019157of.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img203.exs.cx/img203/2656/10019157of.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> View of the "Promised Land" from the top of Mt. Nebo.

<a href="http://img229.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img229&image=10019199ls.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img229.exs.cx/img229/3664/10019199ls.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> Rod-iron statue looking over the view of Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, etc.

<a href="http://img237.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img237&image=10019585tt.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img237.exs.cx/img237/8035/10019585tt.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> Two of my travel mates floating in the Dead Sea - the lowest point on Earth. Swimming in this muck was really weird, in a good way. It's 33% solids so you float more than swim. Actually the hardest thing to do was to get your feet under you like you were treading water.

Back in Amman I met a Dutch girl who wanted to hitchike around East of Amman and see the "Desert Castles." Ah hells yeah! Hitchiking turned out the be the way to go. No problem getting rides. Took a little longer than the organized taxi trip, but instead of about $35 for the day I spent $5. We saw three different castles (Qala', Qusayr, or Qasra, in Arabic) - the three best of the 10 or 20 in NE Jordan.

<a href="http://img155.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img155&image=10019859ng.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img155.exs.cx/img155/2050/10019859ng.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> <a href="http://img203.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img203&image=10019842xl.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img203.exs.cx/img203/8343/10019842xl.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> Qala' al-Azraq - In its present form it was built in the 13th century. Two higher stories of the thing were destroyed in an earthquake in 1927. T.E. Lawrence used the castle during the Arab Revolt in WWI and the room here is the room he lived in, (allegedly). Biggest but least preserved and least interesting of the three castles we saw.

<a href="http://img237.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img237&image=10020471io.jpg" target="

[Yerdaddy]

YEMEN:

<a href="http://img163.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img163&image=10020906zb.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img163.exs.cx/img163/6388/10020906zb.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> My room on the

fifth floor of a 7 story house in Old Sana'a. Kind of reminds me of Van Gogh's room in the assylum, but with toilet paper and Cup-O-Noodles. I'm paying $100 per month. Cheap, you say? If I were staying past this month I could negotiate it down to $50 based on what the others in the building are paying.

<a href="http://img233.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img233&image=10020985ej.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img233.exs.cx/img233/3390/10020985ej.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img193.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img193&image=10021005dd.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img193.exs.cx/img193/9393/10021005dd.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>
View from my window on my first night in the joint, and the next morning. Old Sana'a is one of the oldest Medinas (walled cities) in the Arab world. It's probably the best preserved and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The building I live in is about 350 years old, but the top three floors are 70 or 80 years old. I'm afriad of earthquakes for the first time ever - and I lived in California for about 20 years.

<a href="http://img225.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img225&image=10021366aq.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img225.exs.cx/img225/2755/10021366aq.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>
The outside of the building. Not bad for 350 years old.

Internet is slowing down. Qat-chewers must be on a spit-break. More later.

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Fuck it from behind.

This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 2-5-05 @ 11:31 AM

[Yerdaddy]

Views from the roof of my building:

<a href="http://img163.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img163&image=10021267in.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img163.exs.cx/img163/3299/10021267in.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img238.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img238&image=10021509ss.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img238.exs.cx/img238/3544/10021509ss.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img233.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img233&image=10021558pg.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img233.exs.cx/img233/5489/10021558pg.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img205.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img205&image=10021870ql.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img205.exs.cx/img205/5045/10021870ql.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img126.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img126&image=10021483hq.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img126.exs.cx/img126/8246/10021483hq.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> Here's me chewing qat with the Yemeni Minister of Poetry and Art. He wasn't amused that I wanted to chew the stems instead of the leaves. Apparently I'll be meeting the mayor of Sana'a and other important people living where I do. They have low standards of who they mingle with.

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This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 2-7-05 @ 7:33 AM

[A.J.]

Cool pics. Hope you're having fun.

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[Yerdaddy]

Yemeni Lunch Today:

<a href="http://img206.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img206&image=10022018hv.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img206.exs.cx/img206/8120/10022018hv.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> FISH! Mmmmmmm!

<a href="http://img141.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img141&image=10022031op.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img141.exs.cx/img141/1403/10022031op.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> Get mad at dem damn fish!

<a href="http://img238.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img238&image=10022081gn.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img238.exs.cx/img238/5149/10022081gn.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> Hey! Daddy likey!

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Fuck it from behind.

[Yerdaddy]

Have I mentioned yet that it's like 75 - 80 degrees here. EVERY FUCKING DAY! Or that cigs are 60 cents a pack? Yeah.

Food generally is hit and miss here. Some of it really sucks balls. But I found a great Pakistani restaurant on the other side of town. Been there three times in four days. You guys should really try it. Email me for directions.

I talked to some Yemeni women the other day. I know! Holy shit! I was asked to talk to some English classes at a Canadian business school. They had the women on one side and men on the other and they got to ask me questions, (native English speaker - you get the idea.) In one class most of the women were professionals - a doctor, two dentitsts, teachers, etc. The men were all shiftless fuckers: "I, uh, am taking this class because I don't want to get a job..." Tool! The women had personalities too, which were wasted on the men. Anyway, after not talking to Yemeni women for my first two weeks here, yes I got a boner talking to classrooms full of them. It's getting like that. If I catch a glimpse of a wrist or an ankle on the street I get wood. It's like whatever you can't see or do with a woman, that's what you get horny for when you finally get a little.

I get the impression that this country's future is going to be in the hands of the women here. 60% of the college students are women, and 100% of the worthless sacks lying on the street with a fat wad of qat in their mouth looking like Billy Staples six hours after Red Bank, are men. When that half of the country under 15 hits adulthood, the men running this place better turn them loose to do the work because this place is fucked without them. A Saudi-American friend is going to meet the Yemeni Minister of Human Rights this week and she said she'd try and take me. That would be interesting. I'm trying not to get involved in the politics with this place but I don't think it's any secret that I'm obsessed with politics and this place is like a free buffet with only a slim chance, as a westerner, of ending up in the political prison. Yes, they have a separate prison for them.

Arabic sucks! It's like, these people have a different word for EVERYTHING! (I got four fish heads for whoever gets that reference.) Every verb has 10 different conjugations. Sucks! Apparently the language at least sticks to its rules better than English seems to. I'm making progress though. Enshalla.

I can't upload any pics today but I sent out a dispatch a couple days ago. It's pretty redundant with the shit I've posted here already. But for what it's worth, here's my last email dispatch:

It's been awhile since I've sent off a dispatch. So where do I start? Where am I? Oh yeah. I'm in Yemen. Last I remember, I was in Amman, after having Christmas at Petra. Don't remember if I talked about New Years Eve, but I spent it at an Irish pub in Amman, Jordan with some people I had been traveling with and a few others from the hotel. Actually it was a large group of us. The bar was just like any bar you'd find in the US - same atmosphere, same styles of dress, drinking, dancing, some making out in the corner, music too loud to actually have a conversation so you make like you understand other people and yell "hell yeah!" at everything anyone says, - the only difference is half the people didn't speak the language of the person next to them, which, given the volume, was completely irrelevant. I spent most of the night avoiding the dance floor, and talking politics to people who showed about as much interest as the people do when they can hear me. I was eventually tricked onto the dancefloor by Sue, who convinced me there was a Congressional hearing in the middle of the floor and next thing I knew it I was doing the cabbage patch like it was 1987. I had been watching Sue most of the day during the trip to Umm Cais, Jerash, and some castly thing inbetween. I hadn't talked to her, of course, because I've got about as much game as a Trekkie with a hairlip, but here I was dancing with her at midnight. Needless to say, she had low enough standards to take

[Yerdaddy]

Photos now - captions later.

<a href="http://img188.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img188&image=10022864nh.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img188.exs.cx/img188/9052/10022864nh.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img78.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img78&image=10022579ln.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img78.exs.cx/img78/491/10022579ln.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img210.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img210&image=10022859va.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img210.exs.cx/img210/5365/10022859va.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img16.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img16&image=1002256b1qn.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img16.exs.cx/img16/2307/1002256b1qn.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img210.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img210&image=10022431cp.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img210.exs.cx/img210/1558/10022431cp.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>



<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[Yerdaddy]

I chewed qat the other day. I first heard about qat in two books about Africa a few years ago. In "Black Hawk Down" and "We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" the Somali and Rwanda militias who were destroying their countries and committing genocide were described as "hopped up on qat." So at the time that my friend Alex told me that everyone chews qat in Yemen my idea of the drug was that it made people want to shove a tire through their earlobe and hack their neighbor to death with a machete. It gave me second thoughts about coming here. But I came anyway. My taxi ride home from the airport was on a Friday, the weekend and a big qat day, and I was watching Yemeni men speeding by on motorcycles with one cheek bigger than their helmets, (Yemenis don't wear helmets for safety - only to indicate that they are a taxi service. Passengers who rent the back of the seat are not given the helmet - or goggles in case the driver's qat is accidentally dislodged in the wind.)

I didn't notice anything unsusual in the behavior of people with qat in their mouths here and eventually I got used to the sight of half the men on the street looking like they've got a cartoon toothache. Eventually, after talking with people who do it and wrestling with the whole addictive nature of it and my alcoholism/recovery thing, I decided to try it. Once, at least and three times at most, (it apparently takes a few times to even notice the effects so I'll give it three tries and that's it.)

We made a big ordeal out of it. That's what the Yemenis do. I started off to the qat souk, (open-air market just for qat), with Bjorn, a Danish friend and qat connoisseur, around noon. Bought the stuff - the good stuff, then headed back toward home. We stopped at a Yemeni restaurant for some "salta" - the traditional pre-qat meal, which is also something like the unofficial official food of Yemen. Salta had been built up to be some crazy food to intimidate foreigners, like habaneros in Mexico. When I was talking to English language students at a local business school the mere suggestion that I try it provoked laughter. It is nicknamed "the volcano." It only looked the part. We sat down at the metal bench table in the back o the restaurant and the 15-ish year-old waiter brought out a large cast-iron pot that had been filled with the salta from the bathtub-sized cauldron that was raised up above a giant masonry fire pit in the front of the restaurant. The salta was boiling and steaming, looking very much the part of a witches' brew of frogs' eyes and lizards' testicles. The Yemeni gigglers had been right about this stuff looking like lava. But we didn't even have to wait to let it cool. It wasn't that hot - just the pot, apparently. We just started tearing off pieces of pita bread and scooping the stuff into our mouths. It had a nice flavor actually - like chili but with a unique flavor and less spicy. It was kind of a disappointment. Salta is ground beef, tomato sauce, some vegetables, beans, egg, and fenugreek, (whatever that is). There was a ton of it. With a couple of cokes the meal cost $2 for the two of us.

With our guts full the rest of the preparation for qat chewing consisted of getting drinks for the rest of the day, (Yemenis apparently favor water and cherry Canada Dry), and find a place to relax for the session. We went to the mufrage, (the top floor of most Yemeni houses - that can afford it - is reserved for sitting on specially designed floor cushions and chewing qat), at the school. Unlike most mufrages, the school's mufrage has a satellite dish with about 350 channels, the best being the Saudi and Emirate movie channels and the Lebanese music video channels. On the Saudi station we caught the tail end of The Magnificent Seven then started Mel Brooks' Dracula: Dead and Loving it until the first half hour convinced us it stunk.

So we're sitting there with two big sandwich bags full of leaves we're about to start chewing on. Bjorn shows me how to tell the old leaves from the young ones, (the "good" ones), an

[TheMojoPin]

What happened to Mr. Incognito?

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=TheMojoPin">
1979 << I love my drug buddy... >> "You can tell some lies about the good times we've had, but I've kissed your mother twice...and now I'm working on your dad..."

[Freakshow]

<img src=http://figures.nohomers.net/Customs/Custom_Guy_Incognito.JPG>



<center><img width=300 src=http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=Freakshow>
Thanks SatCam and Reefdweller<br>We don't need a cure we need a final solution</center>

[Yerdaddy]

What happened to Mr. Incognito?

This is incognito! <a href="http://img188.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img188&image=10022864nh.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img188.exs.cx/img188/9052/10022864nh.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>


Update posted above, for anyone interested.

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[A.J.]

http://img78.exs.cx/img78/491/10022579ln.th.jpg

No wonder you've been having the shits. Eat some schwarma -- it's binding!

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A Skidmark/canofsoup15 production.

Red Sox Nation

[Ndugu]

wow, thats the whitest whitey i have ever seen




"my comments dont speak well of my ability to debate, or my overall intellectual curiosity"

[furie]

FYI:
qat (also spelt khat) is illegal in the US. Those little beagles at the airport'll stop you in a second.

I know a few people who brew a tea like supstaance from khat.



<img src="http://homepage.mac.com/furie1335/.Pictures/rfsigs/roll_the_bones.jpg">

<a href="http://fallingtowardsapotheosis.blogspot.com/">mental vomit</a>

[Yerdaddy]

qat (also spelt khat) is illegal in the US. Those little beagles at the airport'll stop you in a second.
"The Truth About Qats and Dogs?"

A few crappy recent photos.

<a href="http://img32.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img32&image=10022292zk.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img32.exs.cx/img32/3529/10022292zk.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> This country is so poor that it's gangs can't even afford to throw whole shoes over the power lines - only laces.

<a href="http://img24.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img24&image=10022324jk.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img24.exs.cx/img24/3844/10022324jk.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img32.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img32&image=10022347fa.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img32.exs.cx/img32/3137/10022347fa.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img222.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img222&image=10022359ex.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img222.exs.cx/img222/4568/10022359ex.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img68.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img68&image=10022419ds.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img68.exs.cx/img68/9686/10022419ds.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img201.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img201&image=10022488jt.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img201.exs.cx/img201/1936/10022488jt.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img94.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img94&image=10022761uy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img94.exs.cx/img94/9125/10022761uy.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img218.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img218&image=10022919yr.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img218.exs.cx/img218/6443/10022919yr.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> There's a cat in there somewhere.

<a href="http://img168.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img168&image=10022922sz.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img168.exs.cx/img168/8818/10022922sz.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img139.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img139&image=10022953me.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img139.exs.cx/img139/1285/10022953me.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 3-6-05 @ 1:50 PM

[Yerdaddy]

An incredible sky tonight:

<a href="http://img236.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img236&image=10023451vk.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img236.exs.cx/img236/672/10023451vk.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img12.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img12&image=10023573xe.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img12.exs.cx/img12/4441/10023573xe.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img185.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img185&image=10023536dt.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img185.exs.cx/img185/3386/10023536dt.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img29.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img29&image=10023415hl.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img29.exs.cx/img29/4153/10023415hl.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img135.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img135&image=10023562tr.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img135.exs.cx/img135/3527/10023562tr.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img228.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img228&image=10023489ey.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img228.exs.cx/img228/4701/10023489ey.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img97.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img97&image=10023259mv.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img97.exs.cx/img97/7632/10023259mv.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> Here's the view out my bathroom window; exactly what I see when I'm hovering over the squat-hole every morning. Not bad, eh?

<a href="http://img8.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img8&image=10023262xo.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img8.exs.cx/img8/82/10023262xo.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img224.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img224&image=10023316hc.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img224.exs.cx/img224/1195/10023316hc.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> Street scene with ninjas.

<a href="http://img136.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img136&image=10023177jx.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img136.exs.cx/img136/3079/10023177jx.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> This has become the most disturbing aspect of this place: a woman doing her family's laundry on the roof with normal, (western), clothes but with the hijaab and the nikob on, just in case some man might be on a nearby roof and see her face. OK, I was on a nearby roof and would have seen it, but still... This is what separates Yemen from almost all of the rest of the Muslim world - almost all women go to absolutely every length possible to enforce Islam's edicts about the separation of the sexes and the aversion to sexual attraction outside of marriage. What tears me up here is that I have no idea how many Yemeni women would rather not cover and how many cover by choice. As it stands right now, there's no way for me to know the answer to that question. I do assume that there are at least a portion of younger, educated women who would rather not, but the social enforcement is too much to oppose. I'm trying to get some contacts in women's organizations to learn more about the issue and see if there's anything I can do to help, or even if my help is needed. It's hard enough just trying to sneak pictures that may tell something about the lives of women here. If I was a chick it would be different. Maybe they make a ninja suit that would fit me...

<a href="http://img26.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img26&image=10022948ve.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img26.exs.cx/img26/568/10022948ve.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

<a href="http://img88.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img88&image=10023510jq.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img88.exs.cx/img88/1555/10023510jq.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a> Daddy's got a new look - bald and skinny. Where the fuck are my shoulders?! I have the head of Ed Norton in

[Yerdaddy]

Here's my latest email, messageboard, <a href="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/worst_blog_ever/" target="_blank">blog</a> dispatch, dedicated to all you lucky bastards who get to ignore me in three different internet forms now:

?? ????. ?? ???? ??? ????? ????????

"Please, do you know where the Djibouti embassy is?" This was my first real sentence in Arabic used to get me something - to the Djibouti embassy. I had to use it about a dozen times and it took me about an hour and a half to get there - an hour after it closed - but I got there. And I didn't get that confused puppy look from the locals, which I usually get when I'm trying to use my Arabic around town. It was a good feeling. I put the sentence together on the bus, double-checking the words out in in the little notebook full of useful, (mostly), words in Arabic I keep in my back pocket at all times. but I was at least familiar with all the words and the grammar of the sentence so I felt confident throwing it around at anyone in the vicinity of where I thought the embassy was and who looked least likely to point me in the wrong direction just for fun. It worked too well, in fact, as most people I asked it of started right off yammering away in Arabic like I was just a lost Yemeni from Aden in town for a Friar's convention. So I was giving them the confused puppy look since I know about as many Arabic words as a puppy knows English. But I watched the hand signals and caught a few words and got closer to the embassy each time I asked my question.

The Yemenis were great. First I had to get to the Ethiopian embassy. I got out of the minibus, (most buses here are tiny, beat up little vans that hold six people at a time and cost 15YR [Yemeni Ryals], or about $0.09 - and I can guarantee you you get every penny's worth in safety and comfort), and used my question on the nearest shop owner. He starts jabbering in Arabic but soon notices the deer in headlights look I'm giving him, so he calmly walks me outside so he can at least point for me. We played a couple games of charades on the street, but he seemed more than happy to do it. I think he could figure out that I was struggling with his language and treated me like the proud father of a kid who just accidentally bunted his first base hit with his eyes closed. See, when a westerner in Yemen knows Arabic really well, like many of my friends here, Yemenis are nice but a little suspicious, I think. It seems like they think you just might be a spy, or an embassy staffer, or an oil worker, and they treat you fairly indifferently. Not like you're a threat or something - they just seem to assume you're only here because you're on the clock. Now, if you know zilch for Arabic they pretty much assume you're a tourist. Toursts don't get any respect. Oh, they get help if they ask, and often when they don't. But a tourist, to the locals, is like a nice couple doing a walk-through at a an open house, but that the locals are only renting. They're nice and everything, but their hearts just aren't in it. But I think the point that I'm getting to right now - learning the language but just making a mess of it - is just where the Yemenis will like me the most. They know I'm making an effort, wrestling with their language, in their country, talking like a toddler and trusting them not to fuck with me just for chuckles. They seem to like that. I'm in the high chair, covered in pudding, bowl on my head, big dumb grin on my face, but I got some of it in my tummy so I'm a good boy! That's how I get treated most of the time.

So anyhoo, the shopkeeper points me down a street, (the wrong street, since nobody really knows where their African embassies are - do you?) and I found an embassy there. I ask a cop there, in Arabic, if it's the Ethiopian embassy and he says no, then a bunch of other stuff that I could only assume was Arabic. Once he sees my pie-eyes he just takes me by the hand, (did I mention that men hold hands here?) and takes me to the guard shack where he asks his

[TheMojoPin]

"Please, do you know where the Djibouti embassy is?"

Tell them I love their mustard.

And we're not ignoring you...these posts kick ass. So much so, I can't WAIT to hold your hand when you get back.

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=TheMojoPin">
1979 << On the streets of your town... >> "You can tell some lies about the good times we've had, but I've kissed your mother twice...and now I'm working on your dad..."

[silera]

Make sure to get a manicure to take care of your callouses before he returns.



<center>http://hometown.aol.com/bonedaddy5/images/silerass.jpg
<font size="3" color="red">AND WHAT?</font></center><font color="FBF2F7">

[CaptClown]

Great post Yerdaddy.

Director of the C.Y.A. Society.
Field Marshal of the K.I.S.S. Army
Poison Clan rocks the world

[JustJon]

And we're not ignoring you...these posts kick ass. So much so, I can't WAIT to hold your hand when you get back.


The posts don't leave alot of room for discussion, but alot of people are reading them. Keep going, it's really interesting, even if we don't comment after each one.

<img src="http://www.chaoticconcepts.com/bans/rfjustjon11.gif"><BR><A href="http://www.chaoticconcepts.com">Chaotic Concepts</a>

[A.J.]

You know, I've met more people who said Yemen is one of the best places they've visited. From Yerdaddy's pics, I can see why -- the architecture is straight out of the Middle Ages. Apparently, the country has only recently "modernized". It's a living museum of the ancient Middle East.

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A Skidmark/canofsoup15 production.

Red Sox Nation

[Yerdaddy]

<P>I'm not sensitive to how many people read my crap, it's just sort of a self-pity shtick I was playing in my last dispatch. But it got you suckers to admit you read this thread. Ha!</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<P>Quick update: I'm in Kigale, Rwanda. Seeyuh!</P>

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[CaptClown]

<P>I'm not sensitive to how many people read my crap, it's just sort of a self-pity shtick I was playing in my last dispatch. But it got you suckers to admit you read this thread. Ha!</P>
<P>Damn, hornswaggled again!!</P>

Director of the C.Y.A. Society.
Field Marshal of the K.I.S.S. Army
Poison Clan rocks the world

[Yerdaddy]

<font size="2"><p>Kigale, Rwanda is hard to describe. Every place I've been to has been at first, but this place is more difficult than others. It really is a range from the expected extreme poverty to slow modernization, together in this small capital city. Of course the world knows Rwanda best for it's 1994 genocide, and, to a lesser degree, as the best place to view the last few remaining silverback gorillas, (this is where Dian Fossey lived with them until she was murdered in 1985). It's been 11 years and it's safe again ,but you can still see signs of the genocide. Every few blocks you pass people with missing legs or hands, birth defects, machete scars, or just very very poor families. It's very difficult to cope with. But this does not define the place. The vast majority of people here are living normal lives; they range from obviously proffessional businesspeople, to working middle-class, to working poor - the many who sell everything from clothes and sunglasses to African crafts and postcards and cigarettes on the street. The downtown area has 8- or 10-story modern banks, insurance agencies, hotels, surrounded by smaller businesses like bookstores, cafes, and travel agencies. For some reason the most common business seems to be office supply stores. On the hills surrounding the downtown area, (Rwanda is known as the &quot;Land of a Thousand Hills&quot;), you can see shantytowns surrounding middle-class neighborhoods, surrounding high-rise modern building complexes and hotels. So the only way to easily define this place is to say that it can't be easily defined. I can only describe what I see.</p><p>Yesterday we went to the Hotel des Mille Collines to see the hotel itself and to use the internet cafe inside. I'm here with a good friend who is here working on her doctoral in conflict so she's an expert on Rwanda. I've read several books on the genocide years ago, so the visit was more of an important experience for us than a tourist attraction. The movie wasn't released yet when I left so I haven't seen it.&nbsp;Mary says while it's factually inaccurate, it is a good portrayal of a very sensitive subject. The hotel looks like any other of the luxury hotels in town, (the internet was surprisingly slower than the others I use), but it does invoke the story of courage and survival that it is known for. </p><p>Will be joining&nbsp;Mary in meetings with local and international NGO's that deal with the myriad social issues here in Rwanda, so this will be an educational vacation. We're still deciding whether we have the time or money to see the gorillas. But we do have a meeting very soon, so I'm out of here for now.</p></font><img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5" border="0" /> Fuck it from behind.

<font color=black>This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 4-7-05 @ 12:44 PM</font>

[Yerdaddy]

<P>Went to the genocide memorial in Gisoze, a suburb of Kigale. It's a nice, modern building surrounded by very nice gardens. The display inside is what you'd expect in terms of displaying and informing about the tradgedy. It's tasteful and informative, of course, but not much more infomation than you'd get in a long magazine article. The heavy parts are 1) the kids' memorial - photos, personal information, and the means of death of some of the children, and 2) the fact that the gardens outside are decorating mass graves that house the over 250,000 Rwandans who died in Kigale alone. </P><BR>
<P>Rwanda Memorials Website (sponsored by The UK Holocaust Memorial Trust) (http://www.rwandafund.org/sections/projects/keysites/2.htm)</P>
<P><IMG src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5"> <BR>Fuck it from behind</P>

<font color=black>This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 3-31-05 @ 10:58 AM</font>

[mdr55]

Where are the pics of the hot women at???

[Yerdaddy]

<p>Fuck me! Un-FUCKing believable! <img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/rwanda/100_3328.JPG" border="0" /> </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>It's still sinking in what I've seen so far in Rwanda, and&nbsp;I may not get a full dispatch together until I get back home to Yemen next week. In the mean time I'm getting about a picture up on my <a title="blog site Rwanda album" href="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/rwanda/" target="_blank">blog site</a> a day. Fucking incredible!</p><p><img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5" border="0" /> Fuck it from behind.</p>

<font color=black>This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 4-5-05 @ 12:07 PM</font>

[TheMojoPin]

How the hell did you manage THAT? You're really just at a safari park, aren't you?&nbsp; ADMIT IT!!!

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=TheMojoPin">
1979 << On the streets of your town... >> "You can tell some lies about the good times we've had, but I've kissed your mother twice...and now I'm working on your dad..."

[Yerdaddy]

<p>Volcanoes National Park BABY! Google it! Who wants to hold my hand now, bitches? Mojo always did. </p><p>The videos I took crush the photos, but there's no way I'll be able to get them up on the web on this Third World internet I've been using. I'll be sending a copy home on a CD with a friend, if anyone has advice on hosting them - they're .MOV format and range from 1 to 10mb each?</p><p><img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5" border="0" /> Fuck it from behind.</p>

<font color=black>This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 4-5-05 @ 12:24 PM</font>

[A.J.]

<font face="Verdana" style="font-size:9px;">quote:<hr color="cococo" align="left"></font><p>Fuck me! Un-FUCKing believable! <img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/rwanda/100_3328.JPG" border="0" /> </p><p>ÿ</p><p>It's still sinking in what I've seen so far in Rwanda, andÿI may not get a full dispatch together until I get back home to Yemen next week. In the mean time I'm getting about a picture up on my <a title="blog site Rwanda album" href="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/rwanda/" target="_blank">blog site</a> a day. Fucking incredible!</p><p><img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5" border="0" /> Fuck it from behind.</p>

<font color=black>This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 4-5-05 @ 12:07 PM</font><hr color="cococo" align="left"><br>

Indeed! A gorilla engaging in autoerotic activity! Cool! :)

Seriously, that must have been an incredible sight.

<img src=http://img40.photobucket.com/albums/v124/Canofsoup15/Sigs/AJinDC-Sig.jpg>

A Skidmark/canofsoup15 production.

Red Sox Nation

[Yerdaddy]

Indeed! A gorilla engaging in autoerotic activity! Cool! <img src=http://www.ronfez.net/messageboard/images/smile.gif>

Seriously, that must have been an incredible sight.

<center><img src=http://img40.photobucket.com/albums/v124/Canofsoup15/Sigs/AJinDC-Sig.jpg>

A Skidmark/canofsoup15 production.</center>

<center><font color=Red><B>Red Sox Nation</B></font></center><hr color="cococo" align="left"><br>
A gorilla road hummer! Why didn't I think of that?

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[A.J.]

So.&nbsp; Anything new to report?

<img src=http://img40.photobucket.com/albums/v124/Canofsoup15/Sigs/AJinDC-Sig.jpg>

A Skidmark/canofsoup15 production.

Red Sox Nation

[Yerdaddy]

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: tahoma">I'm a published writer... sort of.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: tahoma">I had my first article published in the Yemeni newspaper I'm working for here [ <a href="http://www.yobserver.com/">www.yobserver.com</a> ]. It's not up on the website yet but it's in the print version. It's not actually journalism though; I didn't do any interviews for it. All I did was write what was happening on the internet outside of </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: tahoma">Yemen</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: tahoma">. It's more of a summary of what other people had written with additional background on human rights and Yemen, that I thought was important for Yemenis to understand - since this story is being viewed here, somewhat, as an example of outsiders, (do-gooders), interfering in Yemen's internal affairs. But my editor, while uncomfortable in some ways about the story, apparently liked it overall and wanted it in - with minor edits. </span></p><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: tahoma">So here's how the article came about: My job is to edit the paper - articles are submitted to me from the Yemeni journalists, and I edit them for language and structure before they're printed. On, I think, the 30th of last month we got a story about this case. We, the other editor, Jon and I, read it and thought it was an important story - hopefully for reasons obvious in the story I wrote - and it should go on the front page. So we asked the lady journalist who submitted it to us, why it's in the Culture section. She said she didn't know and asked why we thought it shouldn't be. We made our points and she went off to ask the managing editor if it could go on the front page. She came back 47 seconds later and said words to the effect of &quot;no dice.&quot; Jon and I struggled with this point - do we fight for the story? Would we be willing to walk away from the paper if we lost? Yes - we get paid a bowl of beans and hummus a month for our work. So we sat around talking about going to the editor for the next couple hours without actually doing it. Later, we heard it was going on the front page. We were heroes. But the story, and our interest in it, were becoming a source of office talk and journalists were coming to us wanting to know what the big deal was. We made our point - that this is going to be a major international human rights case centered in Yemen; that Yemen stands to suffer a serious setback in its reputation as a human rights reformer; it was going to set back Yemen's progress in the rule of law; and THE GIRL WAS JUST A CHILD, FOR ALLAH'S SAKE! AND SHE'S BEEN GETTING SHAT ON FOR HER ENTIRE LIFE! It was really disturbing to us that those last points just didn't seem to be registering with the crowd of journalists. One even pulled a quote off the top of his head of some justice ministry person stating that the girl was 18 all along and don't worry about it. Trust us - in effect. I have no idea if the quote was real or not. We also said that the execution was supposed to happen in a month - it was actually three days away.</span> <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: tahoma">So the paper comes out a couple days later. It's buried. It's in there, at least, but it's buried. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: tahoma; mso-ascii-font-family: verdana; mso-hansi-font-family: verdana"><p><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: tahoma">I decide to spend my free time researching the story - googling it. First night I turn up nothing except an alert put out by an Italian human rights group that I think was translated from Italian to English by babblefish.com or some other program. Oddly en

[Yerdaddy]

<font style="font-size: 9px" face="Verdana">quote: </font>So.&nbsp; Anything new to report? <img src="http://img40.photobucket.com/albums/v124/Canofsoup15/Sigs/AJinDC-Sig.jpg" border="0" /> A Skidmark/canofsoup15 production.<font color="#ff0000"><strong>Red Sox Nation</strong></font><p><br />I haven't posted in weeks and somehow you managed to beat me to the thread by 3 minutes??</p><p>Sometimes you give me the piss-shivers, man!</p>

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[Yerdaddy]

<p>Still lagging on the full, (babbling), blog entries, but I do have a fair amount of new photos on the blog. I've taken a couple of trips - to Aden and Shahara - and got some nice pics of Yemen in the process.</p><p><a href="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/">http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/</a></p><p>Samples:</p><p><img height="666" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen/100_3758.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen/100_3728.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>Yemen tour guides:</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen/100_3619.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>There's always a bit of trouble somewhere in te northwest of Yemen - usually some sort of Hatfield and McCoy tribal feud thing, or the occaisional tourist kidnapping - so you need an army escort to go into the area. This was ours: an army&quot;technical&quot; - a machine gun-mounted light truck - full of soldiers hopped up on qat. They were a swell bunch of fellas who let us ride in their truck for part of the trip and take photos of them (technically illegal in Yemen). Their price: we had to buy their qat and their salta for lunch, for a total cost of about $15 split six ways. One of the guys who was required to stay with us during the whole trip, (the&nbsp;one in the foreground&nbsp;here), let us take pictures of him stealing qat on the way down the mountain and wearing a little girl's bonnet that someone had bought. And he giggled like a little girl the whole time. Now, I ask you, is there anything more adorable than a Yemeni soldier?</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen/100_3571.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>Now you want the surah, don't you Whitey?</p><p><img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen/100_3737.JPG" border="0" /></p><p>Honestly, what's cuter than a 7 year-old boy with an AK-47 pointed at your crotch?</p><p>Every kid in these mountain villages wants you to take their picture - &quot;Surah! Qalem! Surah! Qalem!&quot; - and they want pens. Eventually you run out of pens and you tell the kids you don't have a camera, (they never believe you, of course). Well this kid asked me for a &quot;surah&quot; and when I said no he knew just what to do - he grabbed his brother's gun, (brother was probably 12), and stood in front of this tourist-attraction bridge. Oh yeah... I'm all over that surah! It was even worth the fact that the whole time he was carrying that damn machine gun the barrel had missile lock on my groin area. Isn't he cute?</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen/100_3577.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5" border="0" /> Fuck it from behind.

<font color=black>This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 6-21-05 @ 6:43 AM</font>

[Bulldogcakes]

<p>I know those guards look tough, but will they actually risk their
lives for $15 split up between them? Or or someone shoots at you will
they shriek like little girls and run away? Cause I could do that
myself, and save the $15.</p><p>And I'm jealous of the kid. When I was
7, I used to play Army, too. But our guns were made of plastic and
didn't really shoot. But I had the misfortune of being born in America.
<br />
</p>


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v303/Kevin2700/cakescopy.jpg

My brand spankin new site Bully Baby (http://bulldogcakes.tripod.com/index.html)


Do Siamese twins have to file seperate tax returns? Or do they file jointly?

[Yerdaddy]

Let me put it this way: In Yemen, for another <font color="#cc0000"><strong>$15 worth of qat and salta </strong></font><font color="#000000">we could have had them shooting other cars off the road for our amusement. </font>

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">
Fuck it from behind.

[Yerdaddy]

<p>Quick update for anyone who catches this on the news... which is unlkely. Special thanks to Recyclerz for reading the news and checking up on me. <br /></p><p>Dear friends, family and others who got suckered onto this email list,<br />&nbsp;<br />In case anyone should somehow get word of some sort of a scuffle here in Yemen and worry about me, here's a dispatch to (sort-of) ease your minds. Over the last few days the country's been swept with mass demonstrations and riots after the government lifted subsidies on gas and some other commodities a few days ago. The international press is reporting &quot;dozens&quot; dead across the country, but, honestly, it's got to be more than that. But anyhoo, I'm fine, no thanks to me. I'm sitting here chewing qat in the same internet cafe that two days ago I was locked into as police chased protesters past the door firing machine guns into the air. But now everything's more or less back to normal. I'm certainly safe. If I wasn't calling myself a journalist now I would have been perfectly safe staying at the school watching TV while everything was happening a couple days ago. I did, however, go out and try to get a story, and wasn't exactly safe - but I was pretty safe. I'll kind of tell the story below, but just keep in mind, if anything else breaks out here, the worst thing that realistically will happen is I'll be arrested for being a journalist and let go in a few hours. The main thing to keep in mind is that, as a &quot;westerner&quot; I'm pretty much the safest guy around this city regardless of what I do.<br />&nbsp;<br />Anyway, here's a link to what I'm talking about, [ <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4707145.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4707145.stm</a> ], and a brief description of part of my experience that I sent a friend a few minutes ago:<br />&nbsp;<br />Truth is I was trying not to keep my head down but the Yemenis wouldn't let me! I was following a big protest around for an hour or so and was a couple blocks behind it talking to some people when the machine gunfire started up. My first thought was to go into the middle of the street to see if I could get some pictures but the cops weren't too keen on that and pulled me off the street. I put up a fuss, wanting to get the story - and, really wanting to see what this sort of thing looks like for real - but then the rest of the regular Yemenis joined in telling me to get behind the buildings where it would be safe. Now, the streets were lined with people at that time and most of them were going to wait til the last minute to get clear, but none of them were willing to let anything happen to me. I had a large crowd walking me off the street. Once I was down the alley and around the corner, and mosf them went back to watch, I listened to the soldiers/police pass by where I was firing into the air. I can't deny I was scared shitless at that point, but the Yemenis just laughed at me. After 15 or 20 minutes they let me back on the street. There were no dead bodies or anything and I went about my business of trying to see what I could see around the city. It was a really strange day. There was gunfire all over the city all day, but mostly cops firing into the air because they just don't know any other way to deal with crowds here. But, the raining bullets aside, I was safer than any Yemeni in the city was. There's a number of reasons for that, and I'll be writing about it - and trying to make sense out of it - this week. I need to find an angle that I can get published because IRIN is going to go with the story written by the Yemeni journalist here because he's actually got sources of information for stuff like this. I think he might be the main source of the death toll for the international press on this, in fact. So for the next few days I'm going to try to find an angle on this story that I can get published. When I get the chance I'll put my actual story into words and post my photos on my blog. (I know I've said that about a lot of things in the past, like my love/heartbreak story, but I pr

[Yerdaddy]

<p>...promises, promises. </p><p>While I may still stink at updating the blog and remembering to take my camera into every bathroom I go into, I have&nbsp;at least captioned what photos I've taken for <a href="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/squatholes_of_yemen/index.html" target="_blank">Squatholes of Yemen</a>, and I've been pretty good about at least uploading photos to the <a href="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen/index.html" target="_blank">Yemen</a> album - captions are hit and miss. You can hover over a thumbnail to see if it's got one. Or not. When I do caption photos I find it easier to remember little stories that relate to them, so some of the captions are little nuggets of travel adventures. Others are nuggets of something else.&nbsp;Help yourselves. One of these albums has a shit-load of photos, the other has photos of shit-loads! Har!</p><p><img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5" border="0" /> </p><p>Fuck it from behind!</p>

<font color=black>This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 1-18-06 @ 9:26 AM</font>

[Ndugu]

i see you managed to find a long john silver's to partake in some yummy fish!

[Yerdaddy]

<p>Dear Ndugu, </p><p>Who knew the head's the best part?</p><p>&nbsp;<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5" border="0" /> </p><p>Fuck it from behind!</p>

<font color=black>This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 1-18-06 @ 9:37 AM</font>

[mendyweiss]

<p>So, how well would a Yid be received in Jordan?</p>

I say sweeping the pockets of the Dutchman was not Mob business!

[Yerdaddy]

<p>How Yiddy do you look? No, while they can probaly tell the difference, I met a few Israelis in the Sinai and Jordan. Along tourist routes you're going to get Arabs who want to show off the fact that they accept Jews and Israelis. In fact you might get too much love&nbsp;- that's the most annoying part of being in the ME: being a celebrity. </p><p>If you don't look the part, it's irrelevant. I have a few Jewish friends, (<a href="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen/100_3713.html" target="_blank">for example</a>),&nbsp;I met in Yemen and they can't tell the difference. In Jordan, they will be better at telling, but they're most likely to just ignore it.</p><p>Another thing to keep in mind is that, really, the feelings people have are very much dependent on the political situation at the time. Before the intefada, parts of the Sinai and Jordan were playgrounds for Israelis. Now, it ebbs and flows with what's happening on the news - is the level of violence high or low right now? I wouldn't want to be in Yemen when the US hit a truck full of suspected al-Qaeda in Marib, Yemen in 2002. Now, that's the only place I've been to in the country that I didn't feel entirely comfortable in. </p><p>Keep in mind also that, after the al-Qaeda hotel bombings in Amman, public opinion in Jordan has shifted strongly back away from extremism and terrorism. They were turning pretty whacked out for&nbsp;a while there, but one hit close to home seems to have snapped them back to normal again. </p><p>But, frankly, it depends on how you look. Oh, and Arabs are generally horny as hell for western women - serious pent-up sexual frustration. You could probably go around wearing a t-shirt with Sharon and Bush making sweet love and they'd never know because, in their minds, there is no shirt. </p><p><img height="119" src="http://www.duke.edu/~dh9/no%20spoon%202.jpg" width="179" border="0" /></p><p>If you're serious though, and you want me to get a general opinion of people who have been here much longer than I have, PM me.</p>

<img src="http://scripts.cgispy.com/image.cgi?u=bonedaddy5">

Fuck it from behind!

[Yerdaddy]

<p>Just so everyone knows I'm using my time productively, I've got a couple new soon-to-be-disgustingly-popular-as-coffee-table-books photo albums up on the stupid blog. <a href="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/candy/index.html" target="_blank">Hey! You Got Your Big One in my Nut Milk!</a>&nbsp;is my Arabic candy wrapper collection, most of which is in the photo below. It's a collection that should grow pretty well as poorly as these silly Arabs manage English names for shit. <a href="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/shirts/index.html" target="_blank">Silly-Ass Shirts of Yemen</a>&nbsp;is the collection of awesome clothing I've acquired over the last year. I've got about five more to add to that album, and there's a neverending supply of jibberish English and western world leftovers. I'm most happy that Fat Albert has been rcruited into the battle for hearts and minds by exporting his &quot;Junkyard Express&quot; t-shirts. &quot;Heeeey! Heeeey! Heeeey! I'm on da frontline o da war on da terr!&quot;</p><p><img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/shirts/instructor.JPG" border="0" /></p><p>This is a beaut I just found. It's a legit training t-shirt; there must have been some international counter-terrorism training organization here training the security forces here, and somehow the free shirts ended up on the streets of Sana'a - along with 23 terrorists recently. Nice work, boys!</p><p>For you DC area peeps: </p><p><img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/shirts/100_5811.JPG" border="0" /></p><p>...anyone go to Camp Deep Creek in Onancock, VA? If so, I found your t-shirt.</p><p>The candy:</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/candy/ass_ortment.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p>

[A.J.]

<p>I miss the gulf already.&nbsp;</p><p>Those candy wrappers are better than what we had in Saudi. However, the best was going to the Tamimi (the Saudi Stop and Shop) and seeing &quot;Lamb Balls&quot; in the meat section.&nbsp; No, they weren't meatballs made out of lamb -- they were the lamb's nuts.</p>

[Yerdaddy]

<p>I still stink at updates here and on the blog -it's all sort of normal life for me now -&nbsp;but here's some photo updates of shit that's been going on: </p><p><img title="Tornado close to home." height="375" alt="Tornado close to home." src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/p1000030.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>Tornado in Sana'a.</p><p><img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/haram.jpg" border="0" /></p><p>New Years Eve at the Russian Club.</p><p><img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6033.JPG" border="0" /></p><p>White Trash Night of hot dogs (beef, of course), chips, beer, chile, baked beans, and &quot;Blazing Saddles.&quot;</p><p><img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6047.JPG" border="0" /></p><p>Bowling in Yemen.</p><p><img height="666" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/old_marib_01a.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>Poor conservative Muslims.</p><p><img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/img_0107.jpg" border="0" /></p><p>NRA Heaven!!</p><p><img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6150.JPG" border="0" /></p><p>Chicks too!</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/p1000179.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>Trips to the beach - sportin' the farmer's tan.</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/p1000195.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>alot of good fucking fish!</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6282.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>First fucking steak in a year and a half - and it was fucking tits, Baby!!!!</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6295.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>I was seriously almost run over by this baby. He was car-pooling to work!</p><p><img height="666" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6310.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>We've been eating this shark on the right, but on the coast we bought one of the ones on the left and had it cooked up - $7 for three people and it was goooooood.</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6395.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>Rare opportunity to actually enter a working&nbsp;mosque and photograph the &quot;call-to-prayor.&quot; (And I took a shitty picture, naturally.)</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6389.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>Visit to Zabid - one of the hottest places on earth, and were disappointed by perfect weather. </p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6303.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>The colonol on the right kept us from being thrown in a Yemeni jail. I was disappointed, really.</p>

[Yerdaddy]

<a href="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/" target="_blank">More: and with new squatholes!</a>

[A.J.]

<p>First fucking steak in a year and a half - and it was fucking tits, Baby!!!!</p><p>That wasn't a cow.</p>

[DarkHippie]

Who's that chick that keeps showing up in your pics?&nbsp; You hittin that?

[A.J.]

<p>Who is this?&nbsp; Muhammad bin Kevin Al-Federline?</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6295.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p>

[Bulldogcakes]

<p>Yemen suffered far less damage than the worst affected countries such
Indonesia or Sri Lanka with just two confirmed deaths and damage
estimated to be in the region of $1 to $2 million.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Oh come on, you could buy the whole damn country for about 10 million. Only problem is, then you'd own Yemen. &nbsp;</p>

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>A.J.</strong> wrote:<br /><p>&nbsp;</p>First fucking steak in a year and a half - and it was fucking tits, Baby!!!! <p>&nbsp;</p><p>That wasn't a cow.</p><p>Jesus! I was hoping he was just mispronouncing <strong><em>pepper</em></strong> steak!</p>

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>DarkHippie</strong> wrote:<br />Who's that chick that keeps showing up in your pics?&nbsp; You hittin that? <p>Which one? Because if you're talking about the one in the really pretty skirt, then that's me. And, yes, I'm hitting that! Hard. Bazaaaaaoow!!!</p>

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>Bulldogcakes</strong> wrote:<br /><p>&nbsp;</p>Yemen suffered far less damage than the worst affected countries such Indonesia or Sri Lanka with just two confirmed deaths and damage estimated to be in the region of $1 to $2 million. &nbsp; <p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Oh come on, you could buy the whole damn country for about 10 million. Only problem is, then you'd own Yemen. &nbsp;</p><p>It's a fixer-upper. Dude! You're still reading that old stuff? I want you!</p>

[Yerdaddy]

<p>This is fucking beautiful! Most of Yemen gets it's DVDs from Maylasia, where they're bootlegged and sold on every street for a buck or two. Sometimes quality is shit, sometimes it's as good as the real deal. But lately I've been seeing some of the bootleggers going out on their own with the marketting strategies - mainly, adding hot chicks in bikinis or spandex to movie covers. These two will never be topped. </p><p><img height="537" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/candy/100_6454.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>&quot;CAPOTE: In Cold Blood and Hot Asses!&quot; Just throw a shot of hot bikini models in front of the movie poster and you'll sell shitloads more to horny Third World teenagers. </p><p><img height="609" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/candy/100_6451.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>&quot;CAPOTE:&nbsp;Asses&nbsp;of Vengence!&quot; This guy took the time to add the 80's chick, baground disasters, video game car crash, AND Photoshop the gun into Hoffman's hand. Genius!</p>

[A.J.]

They're &quot;just friends&quot;.

[Yerdaddy]

<p>More fun with guns! There's a new guy in town and he's an ex-British marine working on his master's degree and looking for good clean macho fun. He's a great guy - a big kid, really - and the Yemenis love him because he spends most of him time sitting in the Old City making friends with all the kids and old men. The first thing he wanted to do when he got here was go to this gun market outside of Sana'a that I had heard about but thought was off-limits to foreigners. (Yemen has 20 million people and 60 million guns - mostly Klashnikovs.)&nbsp;Well, he met the right guy who arranged a trip for us out to the town, Johanana, to play with guns.&nbsp;And that's how I spent my morning.</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6524.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>After a long day of being a journalist in a third world authoritarian regime that likes to kick the shit out of journalists, you just want to come home, relax, and blow shit up. Which we didn't actually do because nobody brought enough cash - $40. But, we've got friends up there now, and next time we'll actually shoot this badboy at something. A goat would cost us about $15, (I asked),&nbsp;but I'm&nbsp;not quite&nbsp;sure I could do that.&nbsp;Any suggestions?</p><p><img height="666" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6532.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>Charlie is wearing a dazzling sweater from the Ned Flanders collection while he decides which goat to blow up with his RPG.</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6499.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>This time we actually bought enough bullets to fire the Klashnikov on automatic. Fucking sweet!</p><p>Anybody ever hear of this band who'se shirt I found on the streets here? Moe? Anybody a big &quot;Savatage&quot; fan?</p><p><img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6484.JPG" border="0" /></p><p>Like your typical tourist trap, the locals want to make you feel like you're one of them. So as soon as we show up at the first gun store they just grab this big bastard of a gun and throw it in Kyle's hands and tell us to start taking pictures. Anyone know what the hell this is? Like a .30 cal? Would have cost us about a buck a bullet to shoot this baby. Charlie's going to take a bunch of money up there on his Birthday and we're shooting everything. Put a gun in Charlie's hand and he's like a kid in a candy store. Best thing is, so are all the Yemenis up there. It's all fun and games until someone gets shot in the thigh.</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6488.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>That's less than half of one of the shops that that make up about half of the buildings in Johana. It's a true blue &quot;Klashnikov culture.&quot;</p>

[Furtherman]

WOW.&nbsp; I'd pay $140 to shoot that RPG!!!

[mendyweiss]

Enjoy these pictures !!

[A.J.]

<p>I know NRA guys who would cream their jeans if they saw this pic.</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6488.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>I'm bummed.&nbsp; I never got to go shootin' in Saudi.&nbsp; I was in the wrong Gulf country I guess!</p>

[JustJon]

<p>Now I wanna go out there just to fire off an RPG for $40.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Cool pics, Yerdaddy.</p><p>And a friend of mine in college was a big Savatage fan.&nbsp; They're just a cheesy metal band.&nbsp;</p>

[Bulldogcakes]

<p><img border="0" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6524.JPG" /></p><p>You know, even holding a RPG somehow you still dont scare me. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Kinda reminds me of Dukakis in 88. <br /></p><p><img border="0" src="http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9gnMiCcVKREKD4Ay.6jzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTA4NDgyNWN 0BHNlYwNwcm9m/SIG=12bj8s22n/EXP=1151706652/**http%3a//www.freespeech.com/archives/Dukakis%2520Tank.gif" />&nbsp;</p>

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>Bulldogcakes</strong> wrote:<br /><p><img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/100_6524.JPG" border="0" /></p><p>You know, even holding a RPG somehow you still dont scare me. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Kinda reminds me of Dukakis in 88. <br /></p><p><img src="http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9gnMiCcVKREKD4Ay.6jzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTA4NDgyNWN 0BHNlYwNwcm9m/SIG=12bj8s22n/EXP=1151706652/**http%3a//www.freespeech.com/archives/Dukakis%2520Tank.gif" border="0" />&nbsp;</p><p>I was thinking more of George Kennedy with the dildo attatched to the leaf-blower in the Naked Gun.</p>

[Furtherman]

<p>Question for Yerdaddy!</p><p>What are your thoughts on KHAT?</p><p><a href="http://www.amny.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-khat-smuggling,0,2480586.story" target="_blank">Federal agents say they have broken up a smuggling ring responsible for most of the U.S. distribution of a leafy stimulant called khat, which is illegal here but commonly used in East Africa and parts of the Arabian peninsula.</a> </p><p>I'm not looking to get any, it's just that one the one hand it's common where you are (I think) and on the other we're being told it has &quot;devastating effects&quot; on its users.</p><p>So... are there just Khat chewers roaming the streets over there?&nbsp; Or do people live their lives chewing on this stuff with no problem?</p><p>Or could our taxes be spent on something better?</p>

[A.J.]

Political rallies in Yemen: <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=86576&d=15&m=9&y=2006" target="_self">hazardous to your health</a>?

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>Furtherman</strong> wrote:<br /><p>Question for Yerdaddy!</p><p>What are your thoughts on KHAT?</p><p><a href="http://www.amny.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-khat-smuggling,0,2480586.story" target="_blank">Federal agents say they have broken up a smuggling ring responsible for most of the U.S. distribution of a leafy stimulant called khat, which is illegal here but commonly used in East Africa and parts of the Arabian peninsula.</a> </p><p>I'm not looking to get any, it's just that one the one hand it's common where you are (I think) and on the other we're being told it has &quot;devastating effects&quot; on its users.</p><p>So... are there just Khat chewers roaming the streets over there?&nbsp; Or do people live their lives chewing on this stuff with no problem?</p><p>Or could our taxes be spent on something better?</p><p>Sorry for not seeing this earlier. Was probably chewing qat.</p><p>Complete waste of taxpayer dollars. I think I posted my blog entry on qat earlier in this thread. I wrote it after the first time I chewed. I was told it was funny and slightly racist, and someone replied to it: &quot;didn't you say your grandmother was on this email list, you sick bastard!?&quot; </p><p>As a drug it's quite lame. The effects are about what you'd get if you had basic cable and suddenly the Picasso porn you were watching suddenly cleared up for a few seconds. It is pretty addicting - assuming you live in a place it's available and you don't have any other drugs or alcohol available within hundreds of miles. It's got some health effects - I always get the &quot;burnin urines&quot; for the rest of the day, and shrinkage in a big way - but the worst effects probably come from all that DDT that we shipped overseas when we outlawed it in the west. </p><p>The amount of qat confiscated in the States makes me think that we've got all those other pesky social and political problems taken care of. All ham to Allah!</p><p>BTW I'm chewing some really nice stuff right now.</p><p>Political rallies in Yemen: <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=86576&d=15&m=9&y=2006" target="_self">hazardous to your health</a>? </p><p>The 51 or more killed the other day were mostly children and teenagers bused to the rally by the government/ruling party. Now, I know what you're thinking: &quot;children and teenagers can't vote!&quot; That's where you're wrong! <strong>Everybody</strong> can vote for the ruling party! </p>

[Yerdaddy]

<p>Found some new candy the other day</p><p><img height="375" src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/candy/100_6620.JPG" width="500" border="0" /></p><p>Surprisingly good! Hopefully, like the cocaine in the original Coke, there's very little of the namesake ingredient.</p><p>Some of you - two - may see on the news today that it's election day in Yemen. So far, about 5pm, no violence was reported. However, the head of the US elections observer mission did tell me last month that she does fear violence as this is the first time the president has faced a genuine opposition candidate. If the country erupts, I guess it will be sometime after the polls close tonight at 11pm. Could get interesting here. </p><p><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B104740E-CFB9-4D12-8FA7-CC4E54D7F581.htm" target="_blank">Here's an article written by a friend of mine,</a> and one of the smartest people I know. I'm hoping to be able to&nbsp;chew qat with&nbsp;this singer before I leave in a couple of weeks. He's become a friend of a friend.</p><p><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/685820E4-6EF2-48F2-ABB0-6FB4DB2ABEF6.htm" target="_blank">An article on the cheating going on in the election so far.</a> Here's a shot of the national election authority, a supposedly independent organization that's supposed to supervize the elections to make sure they're fair. Those are the president's campaign posters covering the outside wall next to the main gate. It's a blatant violation of elections laws, but I'm sure they're up there because when the president shows up for a press conference he'd be pissed if he didn't see his face all over the outside walls. </p><p>Yesterday the ruling party sent out text messages to millions of people here claiming that one of the al-Qaeda suspects captured here a couple days ago in a gun and grenade battle in Sana'a was a bodyguard for the oppisition candidate. Extremely unlikely, since the candidate was famous for the last 15 years for alternately taking government jobs, like Oil Minister, and quitting them in protest of corruption. The slight possibility is, however, that the guard was involved in attacks recently only because the head of the Islamist University here - where several recent extremists involved in political murders have come from - is also alternately the co-founder of the main opposition party, Islah, and a close ally of the president. He's also on the State Dpt and UN sponsor of terrorism list. So, the party is supporting the opposition, but it's leaders are supporting the president. Politics here is fascinating. And often similar to American politics! They're accusing each other of symathising with terrorism! The thing to keep in mind, for those of you who hold that all Muslims are extremists, is that accusing your opponent of being linked to terrorism here <strong>makes that person lose support of the electorate.</strong> In case anyone missed that irony.</p><p>Some photos of the election propaganda and the stupid things I've been up to lately&nbsp;can be seen <a href="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/yemen_2006_or_is_it_1606/index.html" target="_blank">here.</a></p><p>My plans from now are this: At the end of the month I'm fucking off to Cairo, where I'll hang out for a couple days then take a bus to the beach paradise of Dahab. I'll sit on the beach there, take diving lessons and&nbsp;bang tourists until I get bored with that. Then, I'm off to Damascus, Syria. Funny thing is I was telling my father I might go to Thailand instead. He begged me to go there because he assumed it would be so much safer than Syria. Oops.</p>

[A.J.]

<strong>Yerdaddy</strong> wrote:<br /><p>Some of you - two - may see on the news today that it's election day in Yemen. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Yeah -- and President Salih is arresting&nbsp;terrorists: <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=86838&d=20&m=9&y=2006" target="_self">in his rival's security detail</a>.</p><p>Syria, huh?&nbsp; How long do you plan to stay there?</p>

[mendyweiss]

Need more pics,bro

[A.J.]

<br /><strong>Yerdaddy</strong> wrote:<br /><p>Some of you - two - may see on the news today that it's election day in Yemen. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>And Salih wins again!</p>

[A.J.]

Read about Yerdaddy's adopted home of <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=87522&d=2&m=10&y=2006" target="_self">Yemen</a>.

[Yerdaddy]

<p>Not for long. I leave Yemen for Cairo tonight. Couple days there and on to Dahab, sun, fun, and drunken tourist chicks. Hoping to get there by the 14th so I can be sure to get what I want for my birthday: someone else's regret. </p><p>I changed my avitar... just in case.</p>

[A.J.]

Smart-ass motherfucker!

[Yerdaddy]

<p>Your date's here to pick you up.</p><p><img src="http://www.michaelgruberlibrary.com/Cats/CatsStage/Images/CatsCast2.jpg" border="0" /></p><p>Sitting in a hotel in Cairo, bored out of my skull. This place was so much more exciting when I first dropped down here two years ago. It was totally intimidating then, with the constant harrassment by guys trying to trick me into perfume and papyrus shops or take me to some shitty hotel that will pay them commission if I check in. Now I'm not afraid to tell them to fuck off. Problem is, I'm used to telling tiny little malnourished Yemenis to fuck off. Cairenes are much bigger. I might get my ass beaten with sweet-smelling rolls of cheap papyrus. Be a good story though.</p><p>Cairo feels like worlds away from Yemen.&nbsp;Most people don't even fast during Ramadan. In Yemen I couldn't even smoke a cigarette in public during the day because Yemenis get offended if anyone, even a non-Muslim, doesn't obey the fast. Street life shifts to night so they only have to actually fast a few hours before the sun goes down. None of that here. Only way you'd know it was Ramadan in Cairo is you get invited to share people's dinner. </p><p>Can't wear the skirt anymore. Cairenes wear western clothes apart from a few old men wearing thobes, or&nbsp;jalabiyyas, and I'm told they'd think I'm a homosexual if I'm seen walking around in my mawaz. Sonsabitches wouldn't know style if it hit them with its purse!</p><p>My Arabic is nearly useless here. Many&nbsp;words, grammer rules and pronounciation are different in Egypt than in Yemen. To me Egyptians sound like drunk deaf Philipinos. I might have wasted a year-and-a-half of studying.</p><p>Food here has flavor, all-ham-to-allah! Looking forward to having my first Big Mac in two years tonight and&nbsp;my first&nbsp;Big Crap tomorrow morning.</p><p>Going to the massive Egyptian Museum today, then meeting a friend from Yemen tonight. Probably spend my birthday with her then take the 10 hour bus to Dahab. Diving lessons should cost me about $300 for 13 dives over two weeks. Probably end up having to buy perfume and papyrus from some Egyptian fucking shark. Bastards!</p>

<span class=post_edited>This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 10-12-06 @ 5:51 AM</span>

[spoon]

Your posts are hurting my eyes!!!&nbsp; What time is it over there?&nbsp; 27 o'clock?

[Yerdaddy]

It's like noon. What are you doing up? You ain't got no job!

[Yerdaddy]

<p>I have a huge boner with a Big Mac on the end of it and I've never been happier. First Big Mac in two years tastes just as delicious as the first one I had in like 1974. And it tastes exactly the same. One difference though: I think in 1979 Anwar Sadat demanded in the Camp David Accords that, in order to recognize Israel's right to exist, a Quarter Pounder has to actually have a quarter of a pound of meat. Seriously! This thing is huge! The meat is acually hanging off the bun for the whole circumfrance of the bun! Never seen this before in my entire life. Out-fucking-standing! </p><p>I need a nap.</p>

[A.J.]

<p>I have a huge boner with a Big Mac on the end of it and I've never been happier. </p><p>Is it covered with the &quot;special sauce&quot;?</p>

[Yerdaddy]

<p>I heard something yesterday that kind of changed my stay here in Dahab. Some New Zealand friends I met who have been travelling around the world, snorkelling and diving told me that the Red Sea coast, where I'm at, because it is the world's second saltiest water behind the Dead Sea, has some of the best coral reefs and thus some of the best snorkelling in the world. Fuck. And I sat around for a week without even bothering to get in the water. What a jackass! So now I figure, if I ever snorkel again it'll probably never be as good as it is now, and if i never do it again, at least i saw about the best shit i could. So now I'm going in every day. And today was the best day yet.</p><p>I got in the water late - about 11am - and the water was unbelievably clear. You could see the bottom about 50 feet down, and out for about another 40 feet. The coral reef I was on - which I pretty much had to myself because it's in front of the hotels and people, I guess, assume that there's nothing there, when it's actually about as good a reef as the places you have to pay to get to around here. It was so clear and there were so many fish that I had to tear myself out of the water to go buy a disposable underwater camera. I burned most of the roll of 27 in about a half an hour, then saved a few just in case i saw some unusual shit. Burned those last few off within the hour. If these photos come out I'll fucking batch. The fish love man batter. That first roll might be just for figuring out what kinds of underwater photos come out. I got great shots of this gigantic diverse reef, full of tons of crazy-ass fish, from above, from below... getting a little turned on again. Sorry. </p><p>After I ran out of film I learned a little trick. There's a type of black fish with colored stripes about the size of a dinner plate and that swim around the reef in big schools. Today I started following them around. They'd swim away scared, but not very far, so I just kept following them slowly so as not to scare them. (Listen up boys, this is also how I pick up the foxes. Oh... yeah!) Eventually, they stopped freaking out and let me swim with them. That was cool as shit so for about an hour i just swam along this long reef with my new posse. What's more, when we passed by all the other fish - the ones who would fuck off when i tried to come near them, they'd just keep on keepin on, and i could get close to all the other fish this way. So that's how you do it! Fucking sweet. I've got reef cred now. Cuz I'm hangin with the brothers. Thas' what i'm talkin bout! Boyeeeeee! I'm retarded.</p><p>So tomorrow, if any of these pics I took today came out, I'll be taking the sweet-ass fish photos with my new homies. </p>

[A.J.]

<strong>Yerdaddy</strong> wrote:<br /><p>I heard something yesterday that kind of changed my stay here in Dahab. Some New Zealand friends I met who have been travelling around the world, snorkelling and diving told me that the Red Sea coast, where I'm at, because it is the world's second saltiest water behind the Dead Sea, has some of the best coral reefs and thus some of the best snorkelling in the world. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I worked with some avid divers during my time in Riyadh and they said that diving off Jeddah was some of the best diving they ever had...<em>and they've had it all over the world</em>!</p><p>Because the only people that come to Saudi Arabia come for religious pilgrimages, nobody knows about the diving.&nbsp; Now the Saudi government is trying to promote tourism and will no doubt be using this as a lure.</p>

[Yerdaddy]

I'm looking across the sea at Saudi right now, so Jedda's got to be just south of here on the other side. Probably that side is just like this side but without all the middle-aged Italian tourists in speedos running over you in the water with their packages like what happened to me twice the other day. Greasy sonsabitches! You should now kick yourself for not doing it when you were there.

[A.J.]

<p>I would have liked to have seen Jeddah but I'm more upset I never got to <a href="http://nabataea.net/medain.html" target="_self">Madain Salih</a>:</p><p><img height="219" src="http://www.clubjed.com/images/madain/madain3.jpg" width="300" border="0" /></p><p><img height="351" src="http://www.mbifoundation.com/images/Madain-Saleh.jpg" width="400" border="0" /></p>

<span class=post_edited>This message was edited by A.J. on 11-1-06 @ 11:12 AM</span>

[Yerdaddy]

<p>Continued from <a href="http://www.ronfez.net/messageboard/viewmessages.cfm/forum/52/topic/54580" target="_blank">some other thread</a>.</p><p>[To pre-empt of the argument that I'm making too big a deal out of this video I'll emphasize what I said in my first post: this video is trivial. It is a tiny sliver of information that will be seen by a few people and merely confirm what they already believe: that America is not in Iraq to &quot;liberate&quot; or &quot;democratize&quot; Iraq. It will be forgotten the next day when the newspapers will carry pictures of more dead Iraqis. The reason I'm about to go hog wild with my political mumbo-jumbo is that, in returning to Egypt after two years, I'm much more pessimistic about the future of America and the world.]</p><p>It's not like they loved us before.</p><p>We are already hated. This didn't help at all.</p><p>I'll use these two quotes to illustrate my point. They both say &quot;they hated us&quot;. Not too specific - the statements could be true or false depending on how you define &quot;they&quot; and &quot;us&quot;. The difference is that the second statement is followed by, essentially, &quot;this increases the hatred&quot;. A little bit, or alot - who cares? The act influences the opinion. That's the principle that the second statement includes and the first one doesn't, and that's the principle that we have ignored as a country, in what we've done in Iraq over the last three years. And we've fucked ourselves.</p><p>So I started this little trip in Cairo just over two years ago. Before I started the trip I told myself &quot;I gotta stop myself from talking politics or I'm going to get myself killed.&quot; Turns out I was clueless about just how little the risk of physical harm here for an American really was. Within 24 hours in Cairo I was sitting in tea shops talking about the war and American-Middle East relations all fucking night long pretty much. The guys I met, (I'll call them friends for the sake of simplicity - you're welcome), had a pretty good idea about what was going on, I thought. They didn't say we were there to kill Muslims, or even necessarily to hurt Iraq, but to get control of the oil. They figured we thought it would be easy and there wouldn't be too much bloodshed, but that we kept fucking up and things were getting worse. They aknowledged that Saddam was a bad guy. They were pissed that we did it because it's none of our business to be occupying other countries, especially Arab/Muslim ones - and one that's right next door. The conversation inevitably got to 9-11 and the Egyptian opinions were almost always exactly the same: Bin Laden is not a Muslim. In Islam it is stated very clearly that &quot;to kill one person is like to kill all of humanity.&quot; This statement was implored on me. Even when I was finishing the sentence with them it was always accompanied by &quot;please understand...&quot; They would say &quot;Bin Laden is shit! He is an animal!&quot; The sincerity was more like pleading. I could tell they had been aching for a chance to get the word to the people of America that they hated Bin Laden. That they were ashamed of what he had done. There was little or no criticism of us going into Afghanistan. It was rarely brought up - like a tacit acceptance that we HAD to go in there and get Bin Laden.</p><p>This is a generalization. There were subtle differences of opinion, and one or two opposing opinions. But, generally, this was the opinion of Egyptians and Jordanians two years ago. </p><p>Now it's different. Now it's, &quot;Bin Laden didn't do it. Bush did.&quot; One of the Egyptians that described this opinion is one that described the other one two years ago. But, nearly universally this time the Egyptians I've talked with the last two months believe that Bush did it in order to justify the war in Afghanistan for the pipeline, and Iraq for control of the second largest oil reserves in the world. One very well-read

[Furtherman]

<p>Yerdaddy, you could be a great teacher for anyone left who still thinks the Iraq war was a good idea.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>XM should give you a show.</p>

[johnniewalker]

<p>I really like what you said about how people debate. When people start having different beliefs of what truly is the news and what they believe, it is really destructive to the debate. Not saying that one belief is wrong, but how can two people debate when one believes bush was behind 9-11 and the other doesn't. I hate how cynical people are getting, and it's not their fault for feeling that way. Maybe i'm a tool who believes what's being told to me, but I think on some level we have to see the world the same way. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>By the way you have the coolest pics. I'm very envious. My dream job is still to be a writer. </p>

<span class=post_edited>This message was edited by johnniewalker on 12-14-06 @ 4:41 PM</span>

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>Furtherman</strong> wrote:<br /><p>Yerdaddy, you could be a great teacher for anyone left who still thinks the Iraq war was a good idea.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>XM should give you a show.</p><p>You know, I don't really think my years of bullshit has meant shit to anyone. I'm just jerking off because I can't just shut the fuck up and let shit happen. I'm really surprised that my experiences in the Middle East I've generally been alot less depressed than ever before. For awhile I even forgot I ever got depressed. This shit I'm seeing in Egypt - just the differences - what's the fucking point? The New and Improved Crusades is coming. And we could have prevented it if we weren't so goddamn stupid. Even if we went to Baghdad and didn't fuck up everything afterwards we'd be looking alright in the eyes of these people. Now we've fucking blown it. Some day some&nbsp;scumbag here is going be looking for payback for Iraq - maybe some Iraqi who's lost his whole family and has shit else to live for, and he'll blow himself&nbsp;up in America and Americans won't be happy until we've got another Iraq. And it'll be all their fault. If we kill shitloads&nbsp;of them it's always&nbsp;a well-intentioned mistake, isn't it.&nbsp;It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Maybe I should have stayed home and been a sports fan.</p><p>Oh, and I know, newbies:&nbsp;&quot;You're always blaming America. Blah blah blah.&quot; Whatever.</p>

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>johnniewalker</strong> wrote:<br /><p>I really like what you said about how people debate. When people start having different beliefs of what truly is the news and what they believe, it is really destructive to the debate. Not saying that one belief is wrong, but how can two people debate when one believes bush was behind 9-11 and the other doesn't. I hate how cynical people are getting, and it's not their fault for feeling that way. Maybe i'm a tool who believes what's being told to me, but I think on some level we have to see the world the same way. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>By the way you have the coolest pics. I'm very envious. My dream job is still to be a writer. </p><span class="post_edited">This message was edited by johnniewalker on 12-14-06 @ 4:41 PM</span> <p>Not saying one belief is wrong</p><p>MOST beliefs are wrong. You could say all beliefs are wrong in some way or another. There are no magic 8 balls in life. Show me the infallable word of God and I'll show you some crazy-ass ideas in it. </p><p>But some beliefs are more wrong than others. You know what the difference is between right ones and wrong ones? The guy who got it&nbsp;right usually TRIED to get it right. </p><p>I think we've got a huge general misconception in America. I think we've come to love free speech so much that we've turned it into some bastardization of &quot;we're all entitled to our own opinion&quot; into &quot;all opinions are of equal value&quot; and even &quot;opinions are more imortant than facts&quot;. </p><p>But all opinions are not equal. I'm confident that I've done enough work researching to say that Bush had nothing to do with 9-11. And I always tell people here that - even if it gets me into an all day argument. But where did he get it from? From an AMERICAN WEBSITE! Some crazy fucking liberal wants to believe so bad that America is evil that he's buzying himself trying to convince himself and others that America is responsible for ALL evil in the world. And those conspiracy theory websites are all the result of alot of work to make themselves look thoughtful and professional and with big, self-contained convincing arguments - served up special for those who are willing to use them alone to base their beliefs upon. </p><p>It never fails that along with the arguments I hear &quot;I learned it from an AMERICAN website.&quot; FUCK! Now I gotta go through the whole speech about how there are plenty of Americans looking to prove that America is bad because they hate their parents and can't afford to shop at the Nordstrom Goth Rack. Chomsky is the source of alot of anti-American conspiracy theories here. </p><p>AND, at the same time, they're pulling op-eds off Fox News and other right-wing websites that have non-stop Muslim-bashing and they use that to prove that America hates Muslims and that the War on Terror is a War on Islam.</p><p>So, here's the deal: </p><p>1. <strong>What we do</strong> matters <strong>infinitely more</strong> than <strong>what we say</strong> in deterining IF they hate us and to what degree.</p><p>2. Emotions and a lack of better sources of information are going to drive the people of the Muslim world to sources that will confirm what they FEEL.</p><p>3. American IDEOLOGUES of BOTH SIDES are supplying them with the information to justify their suspicions about our intentions. </p><p>The belief that it was a known fact, proven by the intelligence community of the US and other countries, that Saddam had WMD and operational links to al-Qaeda and was a threat to the United States, was a BAD belief to have prior to the war. It was ideology that drove that belief by misrepresenting the available evidence. Simply by reading the mainstream print media one could have, and some few did, see that what was being presented to us as the opinion of the intelligence community was a series of half-truths and distortions. To cite just one example, me and others here on the board even were pointing out that

[Yerdaddy]

<p>Some random photos of recent.</p><p><img src="http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/5415/1016914vp7.jpg" border="0" width="517" height="388" /></p><p>This is what's become of rickshaws - motorized trikes with sleazy little drivers that whisper &quot;boom boom&quot; or &quot;ping pong' as you walk by. Oddly enough they seem to ask more when I'm walking with a woman than alone. never figured that one out. </p><p>Serpico is everywhere here. Bangkok&nbsp;has a huge t-shirt industry with all kinds of old films - Taxi Driver, Clockwork Orange, Apocalypse Now, but also Amele and they had a sweet Mr. T one that I should have bought. But Serpico has managed to go from t-shirt to backpack patch to Mexican Jesus candle. He's everywhere, watching, watching, watching. It's really cool.</p><p><img src="http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/4576/1006922ud1.jpg" border="0" width="519" height="692" /></p><p>COMMONDO. US military t-shirts are really popular with the Thais. Not sure why. </p><p><img src="http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/1226/1006950nk8.jpg" border="0" width="506" height="675" /></p><p>Hey look! I'm a tourist on an elephant! Elephants are pretty cool though. At least until their friends see them with a bench full of tourists seatbelted onto&nbsp;their backs that is. </p><p><img src="http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/1933/1006990bf0.jpg" border="0" width="519" height="692" /></p><p>Thailand's beautiful. Who knew? It' always been beautiful...</p><p><img src="http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/1820/1047064mf6.jpg" border="0" width="528" height="704" /></p><p>... but now it's HAWT!!!!!!!! Because it's got man-tits. And a farmer's tan. I'm basically a big ladyboy. Like fezjr. Well mine are real anyway!</p><p><img src="http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/2550/1047066zh1.jpg" border="0" width="704" height="528" /></p><p>The French Girls Over the River Kwai. And a famous bridge of some sorts. I met thest three at my hotel and they were cool as hell so I invited myself along on their package tour the next day and we had a great time the next couple of days.&nbsp;I hit it off with one and spent the next few days sittng around the hotel by myself pissed off I keep meeting great girls a couple days before they leave the country instead of when they've still got a month or two left. Bah!</p><p>The Bridge over the River Kwai is so touristy you wouldn't believe it. You can buy a snow globe with little emaciated Allied soldiers working themselves to death. Made in Japan of course.</p><p><img src="http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/1910/1027034ro7.jpg" border="0" width="519" height="692" /></p><p>&quot;So anyway, I'm throwin it in this broad like it was laundry day, Yo!&quot; </p><p><img src="http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7277/1027035zx6.jpg" border="0" width="519" height="692" /></p><p>I call this one &quot;Buddhist Temple With French Girl.&quot;</p><p><img src="http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/1910/1027034ro7.jpg" border="0" width="519" height="692" /></p><p>&quot;Yo Dog check out dis Frenchie comin up here! I'm unna tap dat, wit de ole 'I need to break my vow of celibacy wit chew, Baby!' and <em>she</em> gonna be goin 'Oooooohhhhhhhhmmmmmmygod!' Word.&quot;</p><p><img src="http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/5024/1047090fh9.jpg" border="0" width="555" height="740" /></p><p>Yeah, that was my girl. She's a medical intern with a year left before she becomes a doctor and goes to Africa with Doctors Without Borders. How perfect is that? </p><p><img src="http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/8994/1047119ot8.jpg" border="0" width="576" height="432" /></p><p>There's my backpack rolling down the freeway because the tour companies are like little mafias and the rule in Thailand is: if shit happens and you're a tourist... it's your fault! Not too much damage. Lucky I didn't buy that laptop in Bangkok. </p><p>OK, Random images of Kuala Lumpur which really is a beautiful city but I've been kind of bored since I got here a couple days ago.</p><p><

[ralphbxny]

Pics are cool as shit! Any disentary on the trip?

[Hottub]

<p>As usual, you put up some nice pix. Thanks for sharing.</p><p>And meeting all these women a day before they are going to leave?</p><p>I'm guessing you are suffing from a serious backflow of NutMilk!</p>

[Gvac]

<p>Hey Yerdaddy...bring me back a wife.</p><p>German, French, Thai...I don't give a shit. </p><p>Thanks. &nbsp;</p>

[Don Stugots]

thanks for sharing the pics.&nbsp; very nice and very cool.

[Chigworthy]

Nice pics!&nbsp; That Thai rickshaw looks like a mini Phillipino jeepney.

[Bulldogcakes]

<p>Ahh the long awaited Yerdaddy of Thailand. Nice work. </p><p>No full page posts on life in Thailand? I guess this is why we really fight. Paradise just bores the shit ut of us. &nbsp;</p>

[Marc with a c]

i have a boring life

[reeshy]

How's brux spreingsteein doing?????

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>Gvac</strong> wrote:<br /><p>Hey Yerdaddy...bring me back a wife.</p><p>German, French, Thai...I don't give a shit. </p><p>Thanks. &nbsp;</p><p>No problem. Would you like her with the pup or the taco?</p><p><img src="http://www.rogerwendell.com/images/pnt/pnt_pup_n_taco_hand_puppets.jpg" border="0" width="375" height="387" /></p>

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>ralphbxny</strong> wrote:<br />Pics are cool as shit! Any disentary on the trip? <p>How do you think I lost 35 pounds the first five months?</p>

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>Hottub</strong> wrote:<br /><p>As usual, you put up some nice pix. Thanks for sharing.</p><p>And meeting all these women a day before they are going to leave?</p><p>I'm guessing you are suffing from a serious backflow of NutMilk!</p><p>Four of the last five were Geman chicks for some reason. The Germans are all over me. I feel like Poland!</p>

[reeshy]

Shit I beat you....I lost 60 LBS when I first went overseas to the grand land of Viet Nam!!!!

[Yerdaddy]

<p>Today I got up at 7:30 am in order to get the free ticket to go up into the Petronas Towers - the landmark buildings of Kuala Lumpur. What a pain in the ass that was. You have to get there by 9am, the hotel manager says, or they run out of the 1000 tickets they give out each day. Wrong! They were still giving them out at noon. But I get there at 9, wait in a half hour line and get a ticket for 11:45 am. I kill a couple hours in the Starbucks in the 5 story shopping mall attatched to this thing, then check in. They herd us around like cattle into two lines, through security checks and into a small theater where we have to watch this 20 minute commercial about how wonderful and benevolent Petronas - the Malaysian national oil company - is, then more lines and finally the elevator ride to the Sky Bridge. Which, by the way, is only halfway up - the 41st floor! What a gyp! I get out of there at about 1. Cool building though.</p><p>I took a couple pics from the cab ride over. The whole city is full of phenomenal architecture, like Chicago.</p><p><img src="http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/7745/1047166yi6.jpg" border="0" width="518" height="691" /></p><p><img src="http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/2315/1047167cc5.jpg" border="0" width="518" height="691" /></p><p><img src="http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/5228/1047171uz1.jpg" border="0" width="576" height="432" /></p><p>Here's the entrance to Petronas. </p><p><img src="http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/5124/1047191sp7.jpg" border="0" width="518" height="691" />&nbsp;</p><p>I'm stalling for dramatic effect you can tell.</p><p><img src="http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/9306/1047184or0.jpg" border="0" width="590" height="787" /></p><p>Pretty impressive eh? One vibrates, the other one spins and it's ribbed for her pleasure. Shock and awe, Baby! Shock and awe!</p><p><img src="http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/5088/1047190xo5.jpg" border="0" width="691" height="518" /></p><p>From taint level.</p><p><img src="http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/3333/1047197rk1.jpg" border="0" width="518" height="691" /></p><p>Here's looking down from the walkway.</p><p><img src="http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/7418/1047200ov2.jpg" border="0" width="518" height="691" /></p><p>Here's looking up.</p><p><img src="http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/4017/1047203hh0.jpg" border="0" width="518" height="691" /></p><p>Here's this guy's girlfriend with a phenomenal ass. Wow she was hot!</p><p><img src="http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/6711/1047199kh1.jpg" border="0" width="576" height="432" /></p><p>Part of Kuala Lumpur.</p><p><img src="http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/squatholes_of_yemen/squathole_sheesha.jpg" border="0" width="480" height="640" /></p><p>I thought the bathrooms were a bit shocking for such a nice building.</p><p><img src="http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/9444/1047179ow5.jpg" border="0" width="570" height="447" /></p><p>From the park around the towers.</p><p>Random shots on the walk home:</p><p><img src="http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/9272/1047177qe0.jpg" border="0" width="576" height="432" /></p><p><img src="http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/787/1047185zj8.jpg" border="0" width="518" height="691" /></p><p><img src="http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/1448/1047186bm4.jpg" border="0" width="518" height="691" /></p><p><img src="http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/5055/1047209ot8.jpg" border="0" width="576" height="432" /></p><p><img src="http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/4809/1047210hj9.jpg" border="0" width="518" height="691" /></p><p><img src="http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/1771/1047211bq3.jpg" border="0" width="447" height="596" /></p><p>Alright I got a few more, but I'll put em up later because some douchebag Indian dude wants to use the computer. </p>

<span class=post_edited>This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 3-6-07 @ 5:50 AM</span>

[sr71blackbird]

Wow, what a nice looking city!&nbsp; No grafiti or garbage.&nbsp; I wish I could see that bathroom pic though.&nbsp; What is disentary?&nbsp; Is it like diareah?<br />Im glad your having a good time.&nbsp; Why are you traveling around like this though?&nbsp; Get back here before all the good jobs are gone bro!

[sailor]

<strong>Yerdaddy</strong> wrote:<br /><br /><p>So, here's the deal: </p><p>1. <strong>What we do</strong> matters <strong>infinitely more</strong> than <strong>what we say</strong> in deterining IF they hate us and to what degree.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><font size="2">ok, my only question is why do THEY never have to worry about why WE hate them?&nbsp; i think you're doing the liberal put-down of the arabs.&nbsp; &quot;THEY don't know better&quot;</font> </p>

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>sailor</strong> wrote:<br /><strong>Yerdaddy</strong> wrote:<br /><br /><p>So, here's the deal: </p><p>1. <strong>What we do</strong> matters <strong>infinitely more</strong> than <strong>what we say</strong> in deterining IF they hate us and to what degree.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><font size="2">ok, my only question is why do THEY never have to worry about why WE hate them?&nbsp; i think you're doing the liberal put-down of the arabs.&nbsp; &quot;THEY don't know better&quot;</font> </p><p>I don't see how this question fits the statement in the context of what I wrote. If you're just saying I should be appealing to &quot;them&quot;, meaning Arabs and Muslims, to be responsible for &quot;their&quot; own actions too, then the answer is that I do appeal to them on a regular basis. Furthermore I appeal to both Americans and Arabs to learn to tell the difference between the guilty and innocent and not to judge whole groups by the actions of a fraction of that group. I'd say I have about equal success with both. And yet I do hold Americans to a higher standard. And I find that really disheartening.</p>

[Don Stugots]

<strong>Marc with a c</strong> wrote:<br />i have a boring life <p>dont feel bad, so do i.&nbsp; atleast we have the chiller theater next month. </p>

[sailor]

<strong>Yerdaddy</strong> wrote:<br /><strong>sailor</strong> wrote:<br /><strong>Yerdaddy</strong> wrote:<br /><br /><p>So, here's the deal: </p><p>1. <strong>What we do</strong> matters <strong>infinitely more</strong> than <strong>what we say</strong> in deterining IF they hate us and to what degree.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><font size="2">ok, my only question is why do THEY never have to worry about why WE hate them? i think you're doing the liberal put-down of the arabs. &quot;THEY don't know better&quot;</font> </p><p>I don't see how this question fits the statement in the context of what I wrote. If you're just saying I should be appealing to &quot;them&quot;, meaning Arabs and Muslims, to be responsible for &quot;their&quot; own actions too, then the answer is that I do appeal to them on a regular basis. Furthermore I appeal to both Americans and Arabs to learn to tell the difference between the guilty and innocent and not to judge whole groups by the actions of a fraction of that group. I'd say I have about equal success with both. And yet I do hold Americans to a higher standard. And I find that really disheartening.</p><p>&nbsp;<font size="2">fair enough.<br /></font></p>

[Aggie]

<p>Shirtless Yerdaddy pics!? Damn those French/German chicks...I wouldn't have left after two days. </p><p>I love that building but it sucks you had to go through all of that and only get half way up. I'd be pissed. </p>

[JerseyRich]

Any of those broads available via mail order?

[RoseBlood]

<p>Wow! Just Wow!</p><p>Those pics are amazing, every last one of them, especially the ones from Thailand. An old professor of mine goes there every summer.</p>

[A.J.]

<p>Daddy -- when were you in Kuala Lumpur?&nbsp; I'm posting from the KL airport lounge right now.&nbsp; Sorry my bidness didn't take me up to Bangkok.</p>

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>A.J.</strong> wrote:<br /><p>Daddy -- when were you in Kuala Lumpur?&nbsp; I'm posting from the KL airport lounge right now.&nbsp; Sorry my bidness didn't take me up to Bangkok.</p><p>I'm in KL now. If you're just arriving call me at my hotel - 03-2031-3546 / 03-2031-6873. Backpackers Travellers Home, in Chinatown near the National Mosque.</p>

[A.J.]

I just left but may be returning this weekend.&nbsp; How long are you gonna be in KL?

[Yerdaddy]

I just found out i need three or four days to get a 60-day visa to indonesia so i'll be here at least that long. When I leave I'll be heading to Bali for a while.

[suggums]

ronfez.net kuala lumpur bar night anyone?

[Marc with a c]

man i wanna be like yerdaddy when i grow up, but with better food, and less ladyboys.

[Yerdaddy]

Bad food and ladyboys IS my life!

[Marc with a c]

yeah but you go lotsa places

[Midkiff]

<font size="3">WTF? Is Yerdaddy a friggin millionaire, or what? How is it you travel the world all your life? I'm jealous as hell.</font>

[reeshy]

It;s called a job...you anus!!!!!

[Midkiff]

<font size="4">Yeah? Well still, WTF? What kind of job comes with that much constant travel? I'll switch careers right f**king now!</font>

[Yerdaddy]

<strong>reeshy</strong> wrote:<br />It;s called a job...you anus!!!!! <p>I'm a model</p><p><img src="http://img54.exs.cx/img54/4545/10012899yo.jpg" border="0" width="667" height="500" /></p><p>Actually I'm doing what you should be doing, Gramps - I'm spending my retirement.</p>

[A.J.]

<p>My extension has been canx'd and I head back to CONUS tomorrow instead of going back to KL. Dammit - I wish I knew you were in KL when I was there.&nbsp; We could have had an A.J.-Yerdaddy ASEAN Summit!</p><p>If you're flying Indonesian Air to Bali, please pay close attention to the emergency procedures.</p>

[Jujubees2]

<p><font size="2">Yerdaddy,</font></p><p><font size="2">Thanks for the pics.&nbsp; They&nbsp;remind me of a Christmas trip I took with my wife's (then fiancee) family in 1992.&nbsp; We started in Hong Kong, went to Singapore for Christmas&nbsp;(it's true about chewinig gum),&nbsp;road the train up through Malaysia and into Bangkok.&nbsp; Spent New Year's eve in Bangkok and then went north to Chiang Mai to&nbsp;ride the elephants and back to Bangkok to fly&nbsp;back to Hong Kong.&nbsp; That train ride from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok was one of the most crowded trains&nbsp;I have ever been on.&nbsp; There were people on top of the train car!&nbsp; I'd have to say that Thailand was my favorite (except for the bathrooms which were a little more than a&nbsp;hole in the floor).&nbsp; The exchange rate was great.&nbsp; We stayed in a four-star hotel for about $90 a night!</font></p>

<span class=post_edited>This message was edited by Jujubees2 on 3-9-07 @ 6:46 PM</span>

[Bulldogcakes]

<strong>jdmidkiff</strong> wrote:<br /><font size="3">WTF? Is Yerdaddy a friggin millionaire, or what? How is it you travel the world all your life? I'm jealous as hell.</font><p>You should be. </p><p>But if you've seen any of the squatholes he's lived in, you dont need to be a millionaire. </p>

[Snacks]

<strong>Bulldogcakes</strong> wrote:<br /><strong>jdmidkiff</strong> wrote:<br /><font size="3">WTF? Is Yerdaddy a friggin millionaire, or what? How is it you travel the world all your life? I'm jealous as hell.</font> <p>You should be. </p><p>But if you've seen any of the squatholes he's lived in, you dont need to be a millionaire. </p><p>yeah but you need some kind of money to be able to travel around the world for 3 years without coming home. I would love to know how much this entire life experience costs? I would think atleast 100k for the 3 years? Thats just my guess, I wonder if they have ATM's out there? </p>

[ralphbxny]

<strong>Yerdaddy</strong> wrote: <p><img src="http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/9306/1047184or0.jpg" border="0" width="590" height="787" /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>What action movie was this building in? Was it a bond movie?</p>

[Jujubees2]

<p><font size="2">Ralph, </font></p><p><font size="2">I believ it was Entrapment.&nbsp; Wasn't a Bond flick but did star Sean Connery.</font></p><p><img src="http://ia.ec.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/99/87/06m.jpg" border="0" width="98" height="140" /></p>

[ralphbxny]

<strong>Jujubees2</strong> wrote:<br /><p><font size="2">Ralph, </font></p><p><font size="2">I believ it was Entrapment.&nbsp; Wasn't a Bond flick but did star Sean Connery.</font></p><p><img src="http://ia.ec.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/99/87/06m.jpg" border="0" width="98" height="140" /></p><p>Very good. I travel the world through my movies.</p>

[NewYorkDragons80]

<br /><strong>reeshy</strong> wrote:<br />It;s called a job...you anus!!!!!<p>&nbsp;<img src="http://www.tvhit.dk/billeder/may04/16004thaiI3.jpg" border="0" width="225" height="194" /></p><p>Yeah, she calls it &quot;a rimjob for you anus&quot;.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Yerdaddy, I consider Jordan to have the most stable government in the Arab world, but much has been made of King Abdullah II's legitimacy as a ruler and a few have speculated he could be overthrown at some point, with some predicting he would be replaced with his brother Hamzah and others saying the monarchy would be abolished altogether.&nbsp; Based on your experiences, how popular is Abdullah himself, and is the monarchy as an institution respected enough that is transcends an individual ruler such as Abdullah? </p>

[Yerdaddy]

Been in Bali almost a week now. I'm in a place in the mountains called Ubud. It's a very quiet art and Yoga freak town. Despite that it's quite nice. I met an old friend who found the greatest deal on a hotel room in history. I'm paying $5.50 per night for a giant room with two big beds, assorted furniture, hot shower, gorgeous view of rice paddies and the neighboring hotel's pool, (nice when there's hotties, not so nice when there's old Germans), and free breakfast. I'll stick around here and use the room to get work done for the next week or so then I'll fuck off for the beach for a week. Bali is paradise. I was skeptical at first, but damn! Food is outstanding and cheap. DVDs are a buck a piece and so far I found: Apocalypse Now, Miller's Crossing, Ikiru, Orgazmo, Meaning of Life, Sarah Silverman's Jesus is Life, [something] & McCabe (a 1971 Robert Altman flick I've never seen), first season of Black Adder, and the usual new releases. Everything here is cheap. All I need now is to get laid. Here's random photos:

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/8909/monster02smtx2.jpg

http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/5539/balihotelsmallkr9.jpg
View from my hotel room.

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/9546/statuessmsy3.jpg

http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/7948/lindymonkeysmlm4.jpg
These little bastards are so much harder to stack naked than Iraqis.

Gotta wrap it up. Cafe with the wireless is closing.

[Yerdaddy]

Penises are everywhere in Bali!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/6749/flyingpenises01smallwv9.jpg

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/235/flyingpenises02smxv0.jpg

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/2046/flyingpenises03smbr5.jpg

http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/2749/penisespenisesah6.jpg

[cupcakelove]

http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/7948/lindymonkeysmlm4.jpg



Nice dress, hahaha, lololol!!!@!@#!@ Just kidding, the pics are amazing, how did you get whatever job it is you have that allows you to travel like this?

[Fat_Sunny]

Hmmm...It Wears A Pretty Skirt And Is Obsessed With Penises.

Much Has Been Explained Today.

[A.J.]

http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/2749/penisespenisesah6.jpg

How can the white ones be bigger than the black ones?

[Yerdaddy]

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/7632/balimonkeys5qg5.jpg

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/2793/balimonkeys9as6.jpg

http://img458.imageshack.us/img458/148/balimonkeys1di3.jpg
Just barely caught this one - monkey stealing Russian woman's bag. They're little bastards! The monkeys too.

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/781/balimonkeys10lp9.jpg

Missed photo of the day: I was with my friend Andrea and I heard her calling me from across this pond and when I looked up, inbetween us was one monkey giving it to another monkey in the old standing shower-sex position with Andrea and this 12 year-old American kid watching and laughing their asses off in the background. But the monkeys broke it up before I could get my camera raised.

[cupcakelove]

http://img458.imageshack.us/img458/148/balimonkeys1di3.jpg
Just barely caught this one - monkey stealing Russian woman's bag. They're little bastards! The monkeys too.


A monkey stealing a purse...

There's a lot of really bad jokes that could be made, but I can't bring myself to do it.

[Yerdaddy]

http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/102/balisculpture08kf0.jpg
This and the next one are large sculptures that stand in the middle of intersections in the city here. This town exists for art.

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/562/balisculpture07vx2.jpg

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/549/balisculpture05sr0.jpg

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/6747/balisculpture01nn4.jpg

[Yerdaddy]

How can the white ones be bigger than the black ones?

Shhhhh! If they don't know, I'm not gonna tell them.

[Yerdaddy]

Apparently there are places in Bangkok where you can see some kind of not-so-wholesome entertainment. Who knew??

http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/thailand/super_pussy.jpg

http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/thailand/pussy_collection.jpg

http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/thailand/binladen_bush.jpg

Here's something I first saw when I got to Bangkok. My first reaction when I saw Bin Laden T-Shirts was nausea. But when I looked closer I saw the ambiguous message of one shirt with just Bin Laden's face next to one with his face with cross-hairs, and one with a mock movie poster with Bush and Bin Laden in a Face/Off like story of evil vs evil. The fact that these shirts are only sold in the tourist areas, (alongside A-Team, Serpico and Trainspotting T-shirts and faux designer jeans, fake student IDs and college diplomas, and of course Thai women and ladyboys), and the fact that they disparage both the East and West's villains leads me to believe that the Thais mostly view the Wurr on Turr as some otherworldly media event for them to turn a profit off rather than pick a side in. More than anything it's a rejection of the "with us or against us" ultimatum put forth by both men. Which I think now might be the healthiest attitude for a country like Thailand.

http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/thailand/tuk_tuk_at_night.jpg

http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/thailand/diana_n_me.jpg

My companion for the evening was the beautiful Diana who is just one more example reinforcing my discovery that Eastern European women who have migrated to Western Europe are the greatest women in the world. She's orgininally Croatian, raised in Germany. She's a tough businesswoman, funny, smart, down-to-earh and she's got no time for the bullshit games of macho men like those of her native culture play. She's an awesome person and her Kate Blanchett-like beauty just gets better and better as you get to know her.

[Bulldogcakes]

http://idontreadyourblog.blogs.friendster.com/photos/thailand/diana_n_me.jpg

My companion for the evening was the beautiful Diana who is just one more example reinforcing my discovery that Eastern European women who have migrated to Western Europe are the greatest women in the world. She's originally Croatian, raised in Germany. She's a tough businesswoman, funny, smart, down-to-earth and she's got no time for the bullshit games of macho men like those of her native culture play. She's an awesome person and her Kate Blanchett-like beauty just gets better and better as you get to know her.

Before I even read what you wrote, I could see in your eyes that you were smitten with your companion. She looks happy too. Kor hai chok dee! (I looked it up)

[Yerdaddy]

Before I even read what you wrote, I could see in your eyes that you were smitten with your companion. She looks happy too. Kor hai chok dee! (I looked it up)

You mean because one pupil is dialated and the other is wandering around the tuk tuk like a loose screw? You're very wise. But I've been smitten with every Eastern European woman I've met travelling that doesn't have a price tag on her ass. But alas we had the usual 48 hours from the time we met til the time she flew home and it was only enough time for us to spend "quality time" together. (I think we all know what that's code for - I didn't get any.) Ah but to be smitten for a couple days is reward enough in Bangkok when the risk of dicks and/or disease makes meeting a nice girl an extreme sport.

[Yerdaddy]

Well I'm ditching Bangkok and heading to Cambodia in the morning. I was going to stick around here for another month before heading back to Yemen because I was so bored I was actually getting some work done. But the visa rules of Thailand are just as retarded as they are in Yemen. Technically you're allowed three months in the country in a six month period without a visa. You get a stamp on arrival that allows you 30 days, then you have to leave the country and come back to get a new stamp. That sets up a whole sector of the tourism industry for "border-runs" - taking people to the border and back from wherever you are in the country. Well I did a month in the country, did a border run, left after a month to Malaysia and Bali, then I've been here another month. Normally I could do another border run simply because the officials at borders aren't too thorough, (or too bright for that matter), and the stamps are burried under the dirty socks and pizza crusts that is my passport. So I was going to do a great border run operated by a golf tour company whose all-inclusive border runs include luxury buses with big screen TVs and free massages in the border casinos while you wait for their boy to take care of all that annoying stamp business. (Yes with a happy ending! Where do you people think I am? I went to McDonalds the other day and instead of "super-size that?" they asked if I wanted a happy ending with my meal.) But the day before the trip I called to confirm a space and they told me I needed an airplane ticket out of the country in order to get the stamp. This is to prove that I'm truly leaving after the 30 days. Why the fuck would Thailand want me to truly leave? They hate my money I guess! It's the stupidest thing ever, but that's the new rule. Now I'm not buying a plane ticket because I don't know when and how I'm going to get back to Yemen. I may have to go somewhere else - I don't know. My other option is to get an actual Thai visa. No problem. But you can't get one in the country; you can only get them at Thai embassies in foreign countries. Genius. That means I would have to go to Vientien, the capital city of Laos and sit there for two days while they process the thing then come back. And I'd have to pay about $190 to do it in style with the golf guys. Otherwise I'd have to deal with the nightmares associated of getting to Vientien on my own - with stoned bus drivers, (one of them killed himself and broke up a bunch of tourists' necks and backs last week), crooked and half-retarded border officials, crooked taxi and tuk-tuk drivers, hotel touts, shit hotels and shit food, shit embassy officials then do the whole thing in reverse. So the easiest thing for me to do is to get the fuck out of Thailand. And Cambodia is closest, so why not?

I don't know why I've been reluctant to go to Cambodia anyway. Many people I've met have said it's their favorite place they've been to. I think it just sounds chaotic and I'm just not in the mood for chaos lately. Bangkok is chaotic, but I'm well familiar with the Bangkok chaos so I can just be a spectator to other travellers dealing with it. But I'm sure it will be lovely chaos and I'll have a nice time getting ripped off every four minutes.

I went on a shopping spree before my trip. I went down Kao San Road - the heart of the beast that is touristy Thialand - and bought myself the bus ticket to Siam Riep - over the border and all the way to the temples of Angkor Wat - $9. A new $27 knock-off Lowe Alpine backpack to replace the $6 North Face knock-off I bought in Bali that is already in tatters after a month. A 1-gig flash memory card to replace the one I lost for $20. A fake student ID card for $7 that will save me that much in entry fees at my first Cambodian temple. A fake international drivers license for $25 that will allow me to rent scooters without corrupt cops shaking me down every five minutes, (happened in Bali and I expect it in Cambodia and Laos). It's also good til 2011 and may come in handy even though I haven't driven a car since 2004. What else? Oh yeah, I couldn't find my prescription here so I'm looking forward to playing pharmaceutical roulette by buying my selective-serotonin-reuptake-inhibitors in a Cambodian pharmacy. Excited about that! That's about it. Now I'm ready to travel. Now that I'm a 38 year-old frat boy with a drivers license all I need is a little college hippie chick to bang behind one of the temples and I'm set. Wish me luck!

[reeshy]

Do you shave your legs????

[Yerdaddy]

[Preface: I think the ladyboys generally operate on the same principles as the women; as many, if not most Thai ladyboys become women at an early age and Thais generally don't really give a shit about gender or sexuality. Also, despite the common perception that the ladyboy phenomenon is a recent result of the world famous Thai sex industry looking to provide markets for all fetishes, I think it's got more to do with the particular style of Buddhism practiced in Thailand that teaches that all people are reincarnated as men and women at some point. I had some friends who were staying in a very remote village in Laos that had no sex tourism industry and barely saw foreigners at all, but the village had a little fat kid about 14 or 15 years old who was a ladyboy. I think the common reaction of a father who's son comes home and says he wants to be a ladyboy is "Shit! Now we've got to buy you all new clothes!"

I'm also surprised by the number of western guys I've met who have no problem banging ladyboys and in fact seek them out for one reason or another. You will see normal-looking western guys with hot young ladyboy girlfriends. On the main tourist strip of Kao San - where the most popular tourist bars are legally required to purge themselves of drunks at various times of the night - 1am, 2am, ect. - it is almost entirely ladyboys waiting outside with open legs for the hip young drunken college boys to stagger out too drunk to see an Adam's apple or man-hands. They do a brisk trade in oral and backdoor sex on Kao San although getting punched in the face is a professional hazzard. The little homophobes do, I think and hope, learn the fact that the ladyboys are the Bloods and Crips of Thailand, wielding straght razors and watching each others' backs and in some places just straight up mugging tourists on a regular basis. Which of course only validates the wise advise of our own cornholeally-challenged sage, IrishAlkey, to just "FUCK IT FROM BEHIND!"]

The main thing is this: women are available by the bushel in Bangkok. And like a nudie bar, it’s their job to come to you. They’re generally young and generally good looking. In fact, one of the remarkable things about Bangkok women is that, while they’re very conscious of their own appearance, they have absolutely no standards regarding western men. You can look like Newman from Seinfeld and pull the hottest chick in Bangkok. I’ve seen it happen. You want an Asian girl with an ass? They got all kinds and plenty with bubble-butts to ghetto booty.

The trick to this place though is to know the game. There are several different ways to play the woman game. Different girls play it different ways. How they play is up to them and depending on what game you want to play you’ll go about it different ways.

First of all there are the straight up prostitutes. Young girls, older girls and ladyboys ply the Kao San tourist area from about 10 o’clock at night to about 6 o’clock in the morning working it. You know them when you see them; if they don’t approach you you simply make eye contact and the deal is all but done except for the haggling. Now a prostitute is a pretty good option here; depending on how long you’re here for and what you’re looking for. But remember what Chef told us a prostitute is: she’s not someone you pay to have sex with – she’s someone you pay to leave afterwards. And always before you go to sleep! Never fall asleep with a girl in the room if you’ve already paid her. She’ll rob you and check for unlocked doors in your hotel room and rob anyone else who doesn’t know to lock their own doors. As for price you can pay as little as $15 for a decent looking girl. Maybe less, I’m not sure. I haven’t actually taken this option mainly because I’m on a budget. But it’s really common and really cheap for really hot girls if you know the game.

Next up is the “bar girls”. These girls approach you in bars and chat you up just like we’re supposed to do back home. You take them home and they’ll fuck you six ways from Sunday and they don’t generally ask you for money. You just buy their drinks and food and put them up in your hotel – most places either don’t allow Thais in the rooms or they charge an extra fee if you bring one home – until you’re done with them. Now this is a game and they’re playing to win, so the trick is to be straight up with them. If you want to stay with the girl for a long time she’ll be down. If you want to trade for a different model in a few days then it’s best to be straight up. They’re going to go off and find another dude maybe three seconds after you’re gone. And if you go somewhere else in the country for a week or a few days, they’re going to tell you they’ll be faithful and they’ll have another dude two seconds after you’re gone. If you go to the store to get cigarettes they will have fucked at least three other guys before you get back. If you look down to look at your dinner bill – that’s another guy they’ve fucked. These girls fuck. That’s what they do. It’s their job. They’re good at it. If they don’t know who they’re fucking next they’re on the next closest western guy like some super dryer static electricity thing. But they won’t tell you this. They’re going to bullshit you about being only interested in you because that’s what they figure you want to hear, but also they want to keep their options open for the possible promotion to the next category of girl who’s looking for the big jackpot from you – the ring and the passport and the little farangs in the babymaker. Also, they want to keep you as long as they can because they’re feeding off you and the bullshit makes it harder to get rid of them. You need to come up with ways of playing this game with as little drama as possible – either by being straight up about it from the beginning, or being cold, or whatever suits you.

The next category doesn’t have a name that I know of but it’s got a lot of books written about it floating all over this tourist area like used condoms. These are the girls that you meet in nice bars and clubs and wherever they might make themselves available for you to “find” them. These encounters start out just like meeting a girl in the West, only much much easier. They’re cool as shit and hot and hip and have at least pretty good English; they’ve got money; they’ve usually got a pretty good job or even a really good job and they’ll actually often pay for your drinks and taxis and even pay your rent if you need that done, (there’s quite a few broke-ass farang in Thailand. (“Farang” is the Thai term for an American or European person. It’s both derogatory and in common usage. If you’re a farang there’s no reason to be offended by it. You’re a farang, for crying out loud.) These girls don’t want anything except to be your girlfriend and fuck the living shit out of you at every available moment. They DO NOT want to get you to marry them, or take care of them or take them to America or anything like that! They don’t need anyone to take care of them; they can take care of themselves! Again, they say they don’t want it because they do. This is a whole class of women who are seeking the status symbol and economic security of a western husband. Tons of them achieve that goal. But until they achieve it they go through tons of western boyfriends playing this game and trying to get each one to fall in love with her before he leaves. If he falls in love with her then he either stays in Thailand and they get married and live unhappily ever after – much of the time anyway – or he leaves and sends her money until he returns and while she’s fucking anyone and everyone who might be another prospect.

So, from what I’ve gathered in my three months or so I’ve been in Thailand all together, and they’ve all got a different set of rules that you’ll need to learn.

Now, this sounds like I’m saying these girls are all whores in one way or another and the guys who come here and fucking them are just coming here to fuck them. That’s what I hear sometimes from western women who see so many white guys with so many Thai women and get catty and indignant because they would never do that and aren’t the guys pathetic and blah blah blah. Bullshit! Parts of the Middle East, Europe, Latin America and others are Dick Paradise for women and they wallow in it like pigs in shit just like we do. However, my usual response to women is not this, but: “It’s because they’re tired of putting up with your shit.” That usually gets the same stunned, not sure whether to be offended look while they wait for the explanation. The fact is that western women demand insane things from men. They want us to be nice and caring and nurturing and all that shit, but they demand that we be “bad boys”. We have to be all these contradictory things to women or we’re not attractive to them and they know they’ve got us jumping through hoops for them and so now there’s a whole class of men living their lives in the “Friend Zone” and women know better than we do that very few men ever get out of the Friend Zone. Bangkok is the Promised Land for citizens of the Friend Zone. It’s the land of beautiful women desperate for men who can offer them a better life both economically and personally, (I am convinced that most Thai men do treat women like shit). Sure they’re hooking up with plenty of “bad boys” here. Most of the guys banging Thai women aren’t just “bad boys” buy bad people. The difference is that these smoking hot, often well-educated, professional, self-reliant nice Thai women will not throw a nice guy out of bed for not eating crackers and will marry that summbitch first chance she gets. So you see tons of western-Thai couples here. The children of these couples make up a whole social class in Thailand. At first it can look a bit creepy, these older, balding, fat, ugly men with young beautiful Thai women walking hand in hand pushing a stroller or whatever. Alright, they’re not all like that, you just always notice these guys everywhere. But the one thing that all of these guys have in common – and I can tell because I have the same passport – they are all citizens of the Friend Zone. But not anymore.

When I’ve given that explanation to a half dozen or so western women they’ve all bought it. Believe that? That’s because they all know their own games they play and that it’s rigged in their favor. And if they were in our shoes they’d do the same damn thing.

Anyway, I’m not exactly sure what you’re looking for, but whatever it is I’m pretty sure it’s here in Bangkok. On top of that there’s tons of western women with lowered self-image from the sudden sense of disadvantage from the increased competition from the Thai girls. That’s what I’m doing here – taking advantage of the lack of competition to meet cool hot western chicks. So far so good. I’m not getting laid every night or even every week, but that’s not what I want. I actually want to meet women I can have a conversation with and shag rotten if the mood so strikes us. And that’s what I’m finding here. It’s a good place for that amongst all the sex and partying and fighting and stealing and generally Hunter S. Thompson novel feel to this place. This place has it all.

Sailor sent me this great article from Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2163104/entry/2163105/) by a guy who came to Bangkok to write about the things Bangkok is famous for: sex, martial arts and food. It’s a really great read and I don’t think much of travel writing. I get the feeling most of it is geared towards an audience that probably won’t actually go to the place so you don’t really have to capture a place. This is a really entertaining and funny article, but it also actually captures three key aspects of Bangkok.

[Fat_Sunny]

Yo, Yerdaddy, F_S Does Not Dislike You, And, In Fact, Has Come To Have A Certain Admiration For The Traveling 38-Year-Old-Man-Boy.

So Please Take This In The Spirit In Which It Is Offered. The Above Post Is Very Interesting, But Fat Can't Get Through It All. He Bets That Only A Shut-In Or Retired Person Could Get Through The Whole Thing.

So That People Will Read It, And Future Reports Like It, Can You Think About Splitting A Post Like That Into 4 Daily Installments? That Way, People Will Read And Appreciate What You Have To Say.

When You Have A Really Long Post Like That, The Sad Truth Is That On A Fast-Paced Internet Site People Just Won't Read It, And That Is Too Bad.

Regards,

Fat_Sunny

[Marc with a c]

i rarely read long posts, but i find yerdaddy and his travel/sex/diet tips fascinating

[Fat_Sunny]

i rarely read long posts, but i find yerdaddy and his travel/sex/diet tips fascinating

So Does Fat, And So Would More People If The Posts Were Shorter. It Is Just A Sad Fact That People Have A Short Attention Span. It's A Shame To Have Him Go To All That Work And Write Posts That Are Really Interesting, Only To Have 2 Or 3 People Read The Whole Thing. This Is Just Advice And Not A Personal Criticism.

[A.J.]

By popular demand: Yerdaddy’s guide to banging in Bangkok..

I was hoping for pictures.

[Marc with a c]

So Does Fat, And So Would More People If The Posts Were Shorter. It Is Just A Sad Fact That People Have A Short Attention Span. It's A Shame To Have Him Go To All That Work And Write Posts That Are Really Interesting, Only To Have 2 Or 3 People Read The Whole Thing. This Is Just Advice And Not A Personal Criticism.

you should cliff note it for those people.

[Yerdaddy]

Yo, Yerdaddy, F_S Does Not Dislike You, And, In Fact, Has Come To Have A Certain Admiration For The Traveling 38-Year-Old-Man-Boy.

So Please Take This In The Spirit In Which It Is Offered. The Above Post Is Very Interesting, But Fat Can't Get Through It All. He Bets That Only A Shut-In Or Retired Person Could Get Through The Whole Thing.

So That People Will Read It, And Future Reports Like It, Can You Think About Splitting A Post Like That Into 4 Daily Installments? That Way, People Will Read And Appreciate What You Have To Say.

When You Have A Really Long Post Like That, The Sad Truth Is That On A Fast-Paced Internet Site People Just Won't Read It, And That Is Too Bad.

Regards,

Fat_Sunny

Thanks for not disliking me. I treasure your friendship too.

I think what you're trying to tell me is that the post needs photos. I agree. Problems is if you ask a Thai girl for a photo you've pretty much agreed to live in a civil union with her for the duration of your stay. Or you pay her a dollar and tell her you're Israeli - Thais really don't like Israelis. Not for any political or cultural reason - they just don't like to haggle and many young Israelis go to Thailand after a stint in the military and act like asshats. So it's really the only thing that would disuade a Thai girl from hooking up with you. If you say "I have AIDS" she's likely to say "Me too!" If you say you're gay she'll whip out her cock or call her "sister". So, sorry, no photos that I haven't already posted.

[Dougie Brootal]

i only read long posts from certain board members, yerdaddy being one of them. and you only get on that list by having consistantley entertaining and fun to read or intelligent thoughtful long posts.

[mendyweiss]

O.k any RonFEz bar night that moves to Bankok, I'm there.!

[Dougie Brootal]

O.k any RonFEz bar night that moves to Bankok, I'm there.!

yeah, im not gay or anything...but some of those ladyboys....ummmmmmmm ill just stop right there.:unsure:

[ralphbxny]

Lovin the pics daddy ( I feel like Dusty Rhodes).

[Yerdaddy]

I finally went to Angkor Wat - paid the $40 to go for the last three straight days actually. I'm exhausted so I'll throw up some semi random photos from the almost 900 I took and then hit the sack.

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/2575/1008529wd7.jpg

That's Angkor Wat the most famous temple of the dozens in the area.

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/9112/1008515ju7.jpg

An interior of Angkor Wat during the storm that hit today.

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/6299/1008568anx2.jpg

Monkeys fucking for horrified tourists. Humorless tourists actually. These two monkeys were sitting in the middle of this staircase doing nothing, (one of them was playing with a dead frog), until anyone walked up the steps. Then the male would pick up the chick's tail, stick his finger in her butt and then climb on and fuck her until the people reached the top of the stairs. Must be imported from Bangkok.

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/782/1007921tq5.jpg

Getting from middle level to top.

[Yerdaddy]

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/9143/1008424yq4.jpg

Bayon, the main temple of the Angkor Thom complex with gaggle of Japanese tourists.

http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/8384/1008440sh0.jpg

Some of the hundreds of giant faces of Bayon.

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/2659/1008001be7.jpg

My lovely assistant Karen demonstrating the hideous phenomenon of the clueless Japanese tourist ruining other people's photos.

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/2971/1008461hz3.jpg

PHACE!

[Fat_Sunny]

What's The Next Stop After Thailand? Will There Be A Book Coming Out Of Your Travels?

Fat Enjoys The Pictures!

[Yerdaddy]

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/921/1008063ue6.jpg

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/8044/1008058hs9.jpg

My lovely assistant Karen demonstrating the endless hassle from kids to buy their worthless crap. Some are adorable, some are almost hostile, all are relentless. it's the kind of thing you have to learn to have fun with or it'll drive you nuts. This place is the only place that compares to the Pyramids for the onslaught of touts.

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/2117/1008199pz9.jpg

Amputees from landmines are intrinsic part of Cambodia. Over 60,000 people have been killed or injured by them since 1970. They're literally everywhere you look. The numbers of victims are dropping thanks to some great NGOs, but you still see plenty of young kids with missing limbs begging in the tourist areas. I hope I can get to the landmine museum while I'm here and I'll be photographing them (for money of course) and find out which organizations are doing the best work.

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/8753/1008385dv7.jpg

[Yerdaddy]

What's The Next Stop After Thailand? Will There Be A Book Coming Out Of Your Travels?

Fat Enjoys The Pictures!

This is Cambodia now. I'll be in Cambodia and maybe Laos for a month or so then probably back to Yemen. Don't really know for sure.

[Bulldogcakes]

[QUOTE=Yerdaddy;1330712]http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/9143/1008424yq4.jpg

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/6/61/300px-Statue_of_liberty_in_planet_of_the_apes.jpg

"You maniacs! You blew it up! DAMN YOU!! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELLLLLLLL!!!"


That pic just reminded me of that scene. As always, nice work and much appreciated Daddy-o. Keep em coming.

And BTW-I HAVE been reading your monster length posts, even if some people around here haven't.

[Yerdaddy]

[QUOTE=Yerdaddy;1330712]http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/9143/1008424yq4.jpg

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/6/61/300px-Statue_of_liberty_in_planet_of_the_apes.jpg

"You maniacs! You blew it up! DAMN YOU!! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELLLLLLLL!!!"


That pic just reminded me of that scene. As always, nice work and much appreciated Daddy-o. Keep em coming.

And BTW-I HAVE been reading your monster length posts, even if some people around here haven't.

I was going to say it's hard to tell from a shrunken pic how much of this temple is preserved and how much is weathered, but I clicked on the photo and it turns out I forgot to shrink this pic before I uploaded so you can actually see the detail. The top peak is so worn that there aren't any intact faces left, but almost all of the smaller peaks are remarkably well preservered. It's also hard to tell the size of this thing because of the level of intricacy that was built into it. There are about 200 of these giant faces remaining and there's no way to tell how many there once were. There were as many as 49 towers, most containing 4 faces. There are 37 towers today. The faces are about 3 to 5 feet tall from chin to forehead and each one is subtly different from the rest.

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/83/1008439sm7.jpg

Virtually every inch of the temple is carved with some detail - either reliefs or intricate patterns - at varying levels of preservation, but considering this thing was first built 800 years ago. There's hundreds of topless dancers carved into almost all of the Khmer temples at Angkor. This little stoner chick from Bayon is one of my favorites.

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/6863/1008458we3.jpg

I learned to look for steaming puddles of mosquito debauchery for this generic but fancy form of tourist photography - the mirror image shot. Here's Bayon:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/222/1008462hs3.jpg

The puddle shots also remind me to constantly reapply mosquito repellant, which is kind of important since Cambodia is currently in the midst of a "dengue hemorrhagic fever" epidemic. Like dengue fever isn't bad enough - they've actually got dengue fever with hemorraging thrown in for shits and giggles! If there is a God he's a fucking prick to create shit like this. Anyway, here's Daddy giving blood at the local children's hospital:

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1628/1007838uz4.jpg

I'm not sure if I'm looking at the nurse's needlework or her ass. The other one was much hotter.

[Bulldogcakes]

[QUOTE=Bulldogcakes;1330986]

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1628/1007838uz4.jpg

I'm not sure if I'm looking at the nurse's needlework or her ass. The other one was much hotter.

Are Cambodian women like Philipinas? They look 15 and they're actually 33?

[Yerdaddy]

[QUOTE=Yerdaddy;1331310]

Are Cambodian women like Philipinas? They look 15 and they're actually 33?

Hard to say as I haven't asked many their ages. But that's probably the case as it is with most Asian women. I'm sure they can guess the ages of their neighbors better than we can. But, yes they generally hold up well.

This nurse isn't representative of Cambodian women though. They generally have longer faces with the high, but smooth cheekbones, full lips pulled down at the ends like contemplative frowns, slightly flatish noses and big eyes that are often slightly angled upwards, bronze-hued skin tones, (I'm examining the half-dozen waitresses in this cafe and they're all hoping I'm going to marry them and take take them home to America now. Maybe I'll get better service from now on.) I think they're much better looking than Thai women. They have much smoother features and very intelligent appearances. They look more regal. Their ladyboys are even more feminine too. I think one of the waitresses might be a ladyboy and she's scary hot.

Of course I don't have many pics of women, but these two are pretty representative although the one is made up a little more than most. They're both in their late 40s.

http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/2353/1007820zl8.jpg

Here's a mother-daughter combo for you. I don't know how old Mom is but the daughter's 27:

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/1042/1007808ns2.jpg

Hope that answers your question BD.

[Yerdaddy]

It's time for your favorite and mine: random photos with few words! (Fat chance!)

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/3893/watfishermanuh2.jpg

http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/3915/1008280pv1.jpg

Here's a problem common to just about every archeological site of it's kind: theiving bastards have made off with anything that wasn't nailed down and some stuff that was. As recently as the time of the Killing Fields ('75-'79), when the Khmer Rouge murdered all but two of the Cambodian staff of the restoration project, the place was left unprotected from looters and they knocked the faces off many of the carvings to sell to international dealers. Just one more reason to lament the fact that Pol Pot died of old age.

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7929/1008290gg8.jpg

http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/5082/cimg1808us2.jpg

After Angkor was abandoned in the 15th century the temples were simply eaten by the jungle. Some of the giant snakelike trees have been left to continue crushing parts of the temples - usually only on outer complex walls - for good tourist photos. Good photo, isn't it?

[Yerdaddy]

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/4803/1008423ze9.jpg

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/1330/1008388ee3.jpg

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/6167/1008391tr6.jpg

http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/4134/1008365mf4.jpg

[Don Stugots]

great looking pics.

[Yerdaddy]

http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/5371/1008355mx4.jpg

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/1686/1008358nf9.jpg

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/9041/1008359nk0.jpg

http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/9311/cimg1821xu0.jpg

[Yerdaddy]

great looking pics.

Thank you.

Now I break my promise. Words, words, words...

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/2208/cimg1831di0.jpg

As Karen and I entered one of the temples this police officer, who was literally hiding inside the door, let her pass through then jammed this fake police badge into my hand and asked me to buy it from him. I was offended for a second when he guaranteed me it was real, but he put on such a pathetic look on his face, slouched his whole body and literally whined to me to buy it. Twenty dollars was the first price! Bah ha ha! I had to laugh, in part to let him know I didn’t step straight from my sheltered Western life through this temple door. It had no effect. It wasn’t a bad replica of his real badge and it came with the billfold and everything, so I offered him $4 for it. He moaned “oooooohhh!” and slouched even lower. “No. Pleeeease buy. Twenty. Pleeeease.” It was horrifying to see this guy humiliate himself so much, and in uniform no less, but I knew somehow it was an act. All I could do though was watch in awe. He was hunched over so far I thought he was going to start kissing my hand and he looked up into my eyes and said with the most agonized face “no money. Pleeeease.” “Alright!” I said, “You’re a cop. You aren’t that poor, you have your arms and legs, and a job. You weren’t driven to some faraway village.” He probably did the driving, but I didn’t go that far. He didn’t react. Eventually I offered him as high as $7 for the badge and he kept holding out for eight and wailing his “oooooohhhhh!” until I walked off. It’s really hard to sort out what’s going on in these situations. Frankly, Cambodia isn’t that poor. The per capita GDP is about $2,500. By comparison it’s about $550 for Yemenis. This guy has a job as a police officer. But he’s literally crying and prostrating himself in front of me. It’s possible he’s in desperate circumstances with a sick relative or child. I think he’s putting on an act, but if I had seen a real tear I think I would have caved. As it was I had no business offering $7 for a toy badge, but I just found myself in that position. His shtick was working even on a hardened traveler like myself. But as I was holding out for seven and trying to join Karen and see this temple and this guy would step in front of my view and agreeing to my price his spell broke. I said “you know what? No. I’m not buying it. I’m seeing the temple. Goodbye.” He looked horrified for a second and let out the granddaddy of all moans and started grabbing at my arms looking for a hand to kiss. I held fast until I said “maybe”, but only if he left me alone and waiting at the front of the temple. He finally fell back and followed us at a distance holding the badge out for me to see what I’ve purchased. I saw nothing of the front half of the temple. When we reached the back and started back he was there waiting to cry me to the front in a last-ditched effort of insisting that I promised him I’d buy it. Karen thought the whole thing was funny, (as she should), and before she ditched both of us I promised her I’d be rid of him by the front door. She laughed hard, having no confidence in me. I told the guy “No. I told you to wait at the front and let me see the temple. I saw half!” and I waived my arm to demonstrate what I’d missed. Halfway forward he was slinking at my heels crying without tears: “ooooh-ho-ho-ho-hoooo!” like a child. I’d try to ignore him to look at the temple but he’d walk in front of me. Finally, at a quarter of the way to the front I stopped, turned to him and begged: “Please. Please please please. Please. Please please please please please please please please please. Please. Leave me alone. Please. Stay. Do not follow me. Please.” I couldn’t tell myself if I was mocking him or had become so frustrated I was actually begging him now! We stood there, two crybabies having a cry-off. Then I saw in his eyes he caught the irony of my own pleading and he smiled a bit. “Ha!” I screamed, pointing at his smile. “You’ve been full of shit the whole time! ‘No money my ass! Now you stay here. I walk. You stay. Got it?” And he stayed, standing straight up and quietly talking to me like a normal person, but in Khmer. As I reached Karen at the front door I looked back and he was swaggering towards some tourists in the back. Suddenly he walked like a cop. Karen asked me how I actually got rid of him. “How do you think? I begged.”

It’s really hard to describe the feelings of frustration of being in this situation. But I suspect reading this boring story with no pay-off is pretty close.

http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/5571/cimg1839kl4.jpg

Some of the hundreds of children who do the same thing, only less pathetic.

[Don Stugots]

speechless (but i did read it)

[FUNKMAN]

[QUOTE=Yerdaddy;1339063]Thank you.

Now I break my promise. Words, words, words...

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/2208/cimg1831di0.jpg


It’s really hard to describe the feelings of frustration of being in this situation. But I suspect reading this boring story with no pay-off is pretty close.


i'm just curious why your nipples were hard? :tongue:

i enjoyed the story! it somewhat reminded me of the timesharing sales guys in Cancun

[Yerdaddy]

[QUOTE=Yerdaddy;1339063]Thank you.

Now I break my promise. Words, words, words...

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/2208/cimg1831di0.jpg


It’s really hard to describe the feelings of frustration of being in this situation. But I suspect reading this boring story with no pay-off is pretty close.


i'm just curious why your nipples were hard? :tongue:

i enjoyed the story! it somewhat reminded me of the timesharing sales guys in Cancun

It's dark in some of those temples!

[Yerdaddy]

The ferry arrived at Koh Kong on time and I was the last one off. A moto taxi driver had come inside the boat to get a jump on my fare and he actually didn’t seem too annoying so I entertained his offer. “You go to Thailand?” he asked. I asked him how far the border was and he told me 15 kilometers. I asked how much and he said $3. I figured he was probably lying about the distance and I just paid $2 for a 10km trip the day before so I held to $2 and he agreed. I would have tried for lower but I knew the border closes at 5:00 and my mobile said it was 4:18 already. There was also, of course, a mob of other drivers outside when we sealed the deal.

I got onboard his scooter and we wound out of the dirt lot for a dock and onto a bridge over the channel the ferry had parked in. At one end of the bridge was a sign that said the border post was 8km away; exactly what I figured. At the other end of the bridge a row of toll booths were waiting for us. Just before we reached a booth he asks: “You pay the toll?” I suppose if he had just declared, “You pay the toll”, like that’s the way it’s done I would have just paid it. But obviously that wasn’t the way it was done, and he was just trying to squeeze that bit more out of me. So I said no. He looked back at me with an angry cow-eye as he stopped the moto with me lined up in front of the attendant and him just past him. He told me to pay again and I said no and looked at the scenery. He trashed me to the attendant in Khmer so I gave the guy a “fuck it” smile and he stuck his head back in so only I could see him return the same smile. The driver threatened to take me back to the dock and I said “let’s go”. I was bluffing. I didn’t have the time. But also I finally looked at the sign and saw the toll was only 1,200 riel. Alright, now I’m just being cheap, I thought and was about to reach back for my wallet when the driver handed over the money and took off. I figured I’d pay him $2.50 for the tolls. What’s it to me. But then he turns his head back and says “You pay three now.” “I pay two”, I said. He said something about tolls and petrol and 15km and I busted in. I told him I saw the sign. I asked him why he didn’t tell me about the tolls when we agreed to the price. He shut up for the rest of the ride and only grumbled to himself about me and cow-eyed me a couple times.

Once there I paid him 2 and he demanded 3 and I walked away with him in tow trying to make a scene. Finally I spun around on him and asked him angrily in front of his moto friends again why he didn’t tell me about the toll. When he didn’t think of anything for a couple of beats I blurted out “That’s right! We’re done!” and walked on. I heard him yell “Fuck…!” at me and I figured he forgot what the second word of that epithet was. So when I approached the departures window I was grinning at that but I also was thinking the tactics that just worked with this guy may come in handy with the generals inside.

And sure enough inside the window was a room full of generals and one little fat guy with a too tight undershirt apparently working as a gopher. “Here we go!” I thought to myself, already psyched up for round 2. The general just inside the window was writing in a big book and looking half asleep for effect - to let me know how important he was while he ignored me. Without looking at me he finally took my passport, opened it right to the page with the departure card and gave it back saying, “Fill it out.” Then he went back to his book. I figured this guy knows his job well and I’m going to have no shot at weaseling out of any of the scams he’s got up his sleeve. I gave it back and he ignored me for another minute before taking it and going through a graceful bunch of motions with my passport and stamps and ledgers and then closes my passport and hands it back to me. No fines? He didn’t ask me for the penalty, I thought to myself. Is that possible? But before I could stop myself I smiled and said “that’s it?” He got this confused look on his face and gestured for the passport back. I slowly handed it back trying to think of a way not to while not betraying that I know something’s wrong. He thumbs back and fort through the passport then reads it cover to cover – forwards and backwards - like he just discovered porno. Finally he looks at me and says “you overstayed”, but unsure of himself, like he’s asking me, not telling me. This is high-stakes poker now and I’m playing dumb. “I don’t think so,” I said, leaning towards the passport like I can will it into my hand like a Jedi’s light saber. He looked down at it again and this time said with certainty, “you overstayed” and waved me into the building. ‘“That’s it?”’!?!? Goddammitt! Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut! I almost got out of there without paying a red cent!

Inside the big shoe box of an office, without looking at me he sits me down next to himself at his desk. He’s looking at the passport, then the calendar on the wall, then at a chart of penalties below it, then at the two different dates on the two different pages of my passport. I can see he’s figuring out what the problem is, which is good, but he’s also figuring out how much money is at stake, which is not good. I’m waiting for him to take a posture with me so I can tell whether to fight or to give up the dough. He points to the date on my visa and says “this is when you came into the country?” Good. I can fight because he’s actually going to acknowledge the evidence rather than see that he can take money from me without an argument if he wants. I lean in over the page and say “Yes” with confidence. He’s stuck for a second because he sees the visa is perfectly clear – it’s an official visa sticker that takes up a full page of my passport with elaborate national symbols and decorations, the price of the visa, ($20), my details and two clearly defined dates: “date of issue: 14 May, 2007” and “date of expiration: 14 August, 2007”. It contains no other information specifying time allowed in the country, when it must be used by, or specifying the length of time I’m allowed in the country other than the issue to expiration dates. I know he’s going to argue that somehow all of those conditions apply and that I should have known this… somehow. Surprisingly he’s actually seeing my case in the document, but accepting it would mean he doesn’t get a cut of my money he would get if he forces me to pay. Suddenly he flops two pages back to the stamp that was put on there at the same time as the visa, with a departure slip stapled over it and folded over once to fit inside. The stamp says “Republic of Cambodia” and the dates, 14 May, 2007 and 14 June, 2007, and some crap in Khmer. He points and says I had to leave by that date. Encouraged, I flipped the passport back to the visa page, pointed, looked him in the eye, making like I’m surprised at what he’s saying, and launched into the script I’d been practicing for days: “This is a visa, right? I got it at the border and it says ‘issued on May 14’ and ‘expires on August 14’ and in every country in the world that’s a three-month visa. Now what you’re saying is that a stamp that was put two pages away and under a piece of paper and only says the word “Cambodia” and two dates on it should tell me that this visa does not mean what it says and I only have one month in the country. How is it possible that I can know that this is what that means? ...and would you know that this is what that means if you were me and this was your passport?”

I had him dead to rights and for a second he understood this. But it didn’t produce the effect I had hoped for. He started to boil. He slid the passport behind him along the desk and looked at me with white hot rage in his eyes. I wished I had learned more from the self-deprecating manipulation of the peasant heroes of Chinese literature instead of the smart-ass comedian heroes of 1980s cinema. “You came into my country,” he spat at me, “and you overstay your time and now you must pay!” I lost. I knew that. But as I saw it I still had this golden opportunity to speak truth to power; to let him know that he’s winning the argument because he’s wearing the uniform of a corrupt military and not because he’s right. This idea always works out well, doesn’t it? “Your country gave me a three month visa. You are not calling it a one month visa and asking me for money,” I asserted. I pointed at my passport. “You saw where I’ve been. Those countries never did this to me,” I lied.

I stood quiet and waited while small vapors of smoke rose from under his collar and off the top of his bald head. His eyes turned yellow and the pupils turned into narrow vertical ellipses. The other generals looked on in confusion, fear and anticipation. The little guy in the undershirt stood in a back doorway smirking, impressed with my pending martyrdom. Although he never spoke I’m sure he was the only other Khmer in the room who spoke any English. My opponent, however, had now forgotten his English. He yelled a series of sentences that I didn’t understand at all. I asked, “What? I can’t understand you now.” He repeated it louder and less intelligibly. I looked at Undershirt, who turned to look busy. “I don’t know what you’re saying,” I said, vaguely thinking he had said something like “pay plenty” with something like “go back”. Now he was shouting something entirely different, of which I only understood “cancel your passport,” “Phnom Penh,” and “Ministry of something-or-other.” That first bit conjured up in my head the words “Property of the United States of America” and I groped around in there for a way to threaten my embassy’s involvement. Fortunately my past experiences were milling around in there chain smoking like expected fathers and they looked up at me and said “You’re fucking kidding, right?” I decided to try lying again. It seemed to me it worked once before. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Department of Immigration, and the American embassy all told me the government made a mistake…” I was going to say: “and that you would fix it for me” but that would have been seen as crazy talk by both of us. His whole head was red and he was shaking. So was I. “Pay plenty or go back Phnom Penh!” he screamed into my face. I didn’t know if he was bluffing or not. He might have actually been afraid of me raising a stink and I had heard that border post had been in trouble for imposing illegal fines in the past. But I knew I had been bluffing all along. I knew I would almost definitely be paying about $200 in overstay penalties regardless, and had been warned that this border has been hitting up overstays with a made-up $35 charge on top of the legit penalty. That scam hadn’t even come up so I decided to fold up shop and pay. “How much?” I asked. He spun around, tossing my passport in front of the general behind him, barked something in Khmer, stomped over to a corner desk and began writing in a ledger.

The second general looked at me with the pity of an executioner and began stamping and writing in my passport. He wasn’t looking at the calendar or the penalty chart and when I saw him grab and use the “CANCEL” stamp I knew I was fucked. “Hey!” I yelled at nobody in particular. “What are you doing? I said ‘how much?’ I said I’d pay!” He looked at me like a dog that had just been shown a card trick. To general #1 I pleaded, “I said I’d pay!” He didn’t look - only throbbed the veins on his forehead at me. Knowing I had no hope in Phnom Penh and would only pay another $6 a day until I did manage to escape, I ordered loud and slow: “I said I’d pay!” I should have checked earlier if the generals wore sidearms. I checked now. They didn’t. He looked at me like he wished they did. I felt general #2 take me gently by the inside of my elbow and lead me back to his desk. He finished a couple more stamps and waved my passport in the direction of Phnom Penh before handing it back to me and pointing at the exit. Undershirt was holding the doorknob and pleading with his eyes for me to escape with him. “Come with me if you want to live,” he was saying. I knew I should leave if only to cool the situation.

Just as I was walking through the door, Undershirt pointed towards the Thai border instead of the Capital. “Run Forrest! Ruuun!” he seemed to be saying now. I was sure I had a cancelled visa and shouldn’t be allowed though the checkpoint, but it was worth a shot, I thought and walked towards the box next to the hole in the roadblock where people were walking through.

Two soldiers were lying on big boulders spacing out on the tree above them. Another guard sat in a plastic chair inside the box with his elbows on his knees, fingers locked together and his eyes watching the shoes of the Thais and Khmers passing through the gate in both directions. Mine he noticed coming from Immigration and he looked up with half-open eyes as I approached. I faked sharing a bored smile with him, pointed through the exit without stopping and said “Thailand, yes?” He smiled back and nodded but didn’t reach out for my passport. An orchestra and two choirs in my heart belted out the “Ode to Joy”. “I’m free!” my brain shrieked like a gay guy in a locker room. He sighed and reached out his hand for my passport. The tuba player was the last to notice and shut up.

Back inside the office I crossed the room to the bald general asking, calmer now: “Why did you cancel my visa when I said I’d pay?” He stared at me still angry but tired while I asked the question twice more. He asked, “You want to pay now?” “Yes,” I said, begging myself not to be a smartass anymore. He slowly got up and took my passport. He walked it over and dropped it in front of #2, gave him a quiet instruction, walked back past me without looking at me and went back to work.

Like the stunned survivor surveying the wreckage of his home after the storm has passed I watched #2 working the stamps and pens and ledgers over my passport. He looked up at the calendar on the wall then at the chart of fines below it. He turned to me and said “fi’ dollah”, held up his index finger and finished, “day.” “OK,” I replied, looking disappointed. “Dumbasses!” I finished the reply to myself.

Everyone else I told about this visa situation told me the fines go up to $6 a day after 30 days. Here are the guys who actually get to spend the money on expensive champagne and cheap hookers and they don’t even know the system. As the guy is miscalculating my punishment it’s dawning on me that my biggest mistake was letting on that I was the smartest guy in the room, with the possible exception of Undershirt. Don’t get me wrong. I knew I was only smarter because I didn’t have a uniform on. If they’d have just issued me one I’d have cut them all a share of my bank accounts and gone right out and picked up a couple of hookers to celebrate my good fortune with me. These guys actually pay to get the jobs at the borders because they get to keep the money they take in. That’s the way these countries are run – you have a uniform – you get to take money from anyone without one. You win every argument, and nobody tells you the truth. They tell you what you want to hear. Over time you’re the dumbest guy in any room. Power corrupts but it also lobotomizes.

Undershirt knew this and at that moment I realized he had been trying to tell it to me with his eyes for the last hour. He knew I had a shot at passing by the empty uniform at the roadblock if I’d have only ignored my ego long enough to recognize what I was dealing with – men who would gladly trade in all their stolen wealth to keep their stolen senses of self-worth. I was only the second smartest guy in the room and second place cost me a pretty penny.

I quickly paid the $170 and collected my passport without saying a word to anyone until I said “thank you” to Undershirt outside the door.

I said nothing as the gate-keeper opened my passport for half a second, (probably to the wrong page), and waved me through.

Expecting and receiving the same bumbling abuse at Thai Immigration, I kept my mouth shut and played the humble peasant, deferentially poking the situation to my favor. This time the frog-faced bureaucrat in his official yellow polo shirt insisted I was only entitled to 48 hours in the country because he knew that July was only five months past January because you have to count from the zero month before it. (You’re only allowed 90 days in Thailand in a six month period. I cleared this by three weeks.) I resisted explaining counting and time and instead interjected “seven months” into the gaps in his calculations until he compromised between the two wrong answers to six months, with the help of two other officials, and gave me my 30-day stamp. All it cost me this time was a half hour of humility and I struggled to pay even that.

Now came the real challenge of getting a fair price from a shared taxi driver for a ride to my destination, the town of Trat. All the other travelers having moved on already I had to entertain the offer of the only driver left in town. He said the ride would cost $3 so I went to his van with him ready to relax and space out for the two hour ride. When we got there the van was empty save for one Thai person in the front passenger seat. I asked if we were waiting for the van to fill up before leaving and he said, “No. We go now,” and gestured hurriedly towards the side door. I asked who pays for the empty seats, having fallen for the old empty shared taxi gag once back in Yemen. “You pay 900 Baht ($27) for 9 seats. Come. We leave now,” he said, pulling on my arm but careful not to betray the absurdity of my part in the deal. “Nice try,” I told him as I pulled away and walked towards the empty main street of this tiny border town. I glanced back and saw him lean on his van and light a cigarette knowing that with no more tourists coming through the closed border and no hotels in the town his was literally the only deal in town. Once again I was fucked and I knew it. And the few old women and kids I asked about hotels and other modes of transportation out of the place knew it too.

My saviors came in the form of handsome Russian family pulling out of the town parking lot - where the taxi driver was still waiting and watching – in a new silver minivan. I managed to knock on the window as they passed me and ask if they knew anything about getting out of this place. Only the wife spoke a little bit of English and rather than sort out how to explain my lack of options she just said, “We take you. Get in.” I didn’t get a look back at the taxi driver. A quiet two hours of middle class family life I had completely forgotten existed later and they reluctantly dropped me off outside of Trat with the reassurance that I could easily get a moto taxi anywhere in the country. I was wrong. I walked the 5 kilometers to the guest houses with the help of some friendly locals and a vicious dog blocking the wrong way I wanted to take. By 9:00 PM I was safely back in my guest house life, free to live life as I please for the next 30 days.

[Crispy123]

Your posts are massive and quite entertaining. I've done my fair share of traveling, not in Asia but I know your pain with customs and border officials. It made me laugh to see you get up on the taxi driver only to f*ck it all up with the Border Guards :laugh:
Good luck, hope you make it back out and have fun playing the game. :thumbup:

[jetdog]

great pics and stories.
You might find this (http://www.postcards.blogs.com/) interesting. It's stories from the lead singer of one of my favorite bands (Firewater), who took of across the middle and far east, for a few years, India, Pakistan, Thailand, etc.
I really enjoyed the story about the dead rat and the trouble he had getting into Israel after having been in Pakistan. I think you might find some of these stories quite familiar.

[Jughead]

Yerdaddy..I just want ya to know how much I enjoy your post....It is some of the only reading I do..:tongue:..You must be a great typer....:thumbup:..Where are you now???And where are you going next??? Jug.......... from the Hoosier State:tongue:

[Crispy123]

Yerdaddy..I just want ya to know how much I enjoy your post....It is some of the only reading I do..:tongue:..You must be a great typer....:thumbup:..Where are you now???And where are you going next??? Jug.......... from the Hoosier State:tongue:

That last volume of YD's work related to his trip from Cambodia to Thailand....Im guessing he's still in Thailand.

[Yerdaddy]

Thanks guys. I'm in Thailand again. Not sure why or where to next. Will check out the blog jetdog. I need to get into keeping up my own because I really need the writing practice.

I'll put this picture up because I keep forgetting to put up a couple of recent photo shoots. Hopefully it'll remind me to put the rest up when I get back to Bangkok where the fucking internet isn't $2.50 an hour.

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/8062/1008807dz4.jpg

[A.J.]

When are you coming back to Yemen?

[Yerdaddy]

I decided to journal through a bus ride across Cambodia a few months ago. I'm just getting around to puting it on my stupid blog. If I can get imageshack to work I'll add some photos afterwards.

15 June, 2007. 8:11am

I’m on my second bus of the morning, headed for Phnom Penh after stagnating in Siem Reap for two weeks too long.

This isn’t such a bad bus. It reeks of communist mimicry of Western comforts – like a time machine fashioned out of an 8-track player and it’s eating the tape of the space-time continuum. It’s got the big bulging hexagonal shape of 1970s Soviet-era vehicles – the inspired designs of central planning. The design gives it a cavernous feel but all the extra space is in the ceiling. I’ve still got as much elbow room in a mosh pit. The color scheme is dull dirty beige like it was upholstered with a hundred rolls of masking tape. Seats are the shiny grey of Dirty Harry’s sport coat. Curtains are cherry red. Blood red. It’s got the ambiance of a welfare office on wheels. A DVD player is mounted in the dash and connected to a 17-inch commercial NEC TV over the driver’s head so the front three rows of the bus has been watching a half hour of opening credits of a Cambodian movie. A digital alarm clock mounted next to the TV tells how much of your sentence you’ve served. But it’s not such a bad bus.

Like every bus in every developing country the driver has mounted on the passenger side sun visor a print of his favorite deity or spiritual guru. This time it’s one I don’t recognize but it appears to be some sort of Buddhist superhero – a lean, good-looking guy with red skin and red robes, a walking staff and wearing some sort of white feathered skullcap drawing down to a point between his eyes. He’s some sort of bird-man, I think. His superpower is to barf out half-digested worms at bad guys. A more useful bus-God would be Geckoman as the bus is full of enough mosquitoes to have scrapped the Panama Canal.

The squat young Cambodian woman sitting next to me and who helped me jam my small water bottle into the too-small pocket in front of me has curled herself into a ball with her ass taking up a quarter of my seat and went to sleep. She’s readjusted now and has her head buried in my armpit like a puppy.

Two seats up and across the aisle is an intriguing young goth-lite woman. Her entire getup – from her hair to her clothes to her leather bag – is brown instead of black. She’s got full sleeve tattoos on both arms. They’re nice work too – with life-like Asian faces tangled up in a soft tribal pattern. [My seatmate has readjusted again and now her ass cheeks are biting my thigh again.] She’s got full bangs and a ponytail. Hot. Like every other girl with this particular style, (which I don’t know how to identify because I’m too old and too lame), she’s got big brown eyes and a biggish sharpish nose and thin bird-like face. It’s a look I find beyond beautiful – I find it fascinating. But the women with this look never find me fascinating. She’s probably unusually intelligent, creative, and charmingly cynical and would be bored with me before I finished my first sentence. I did, however, muster the balls to touch her arm and say “I like your ink” when I went outside for a cigarette. We’re both surrounded by locals who don’t apparently speak English and have nobody to talk to. So close and yet… God I’m lame.

This “movie” turns out to be some sort of Cambodian “Hee Haw”. It’s a live audience variety show with people talking, telling jokes and singing awful songs. Right now there’s an older woman lecturing a young man and woman on a small set of bleachers next to a wagon wheel prop. She’s very stern and sometimes angry with the man but the audience is laughing. I assume she’s telling him he sucks at dealing with the woman. That’s always and everywhere a crowd pleaser. Now they’re doing a skit in front of a backdrop of wood plank houses and the actors are carrying their microphones and acting a scene in Hawaiian shirts – the same thing as country western plaid in Asia – and there’s a beautiful young woman in a formal party dress scolding the men and flirting with them at the same time. Now she’s broke out into song. The two women across from me are loving this. Oh shit! The middle aged woman is back on the stage and she’s rapping in Khmer. The horror! Now the men are angry and depressed because of something to do with the young beautiful women. Universal truths. I’m waiting for the fence to swing up and smack one of the men in the ass for making a bad joke.

These hard seats are making my ass sore and it’s only 9:41 according to the digital alarm clock.

We just had to swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid the two fattest oxen I’ve ever seen. I want to lean forward and take some pressure off my ass but I’m afraid I’ll put it back down on my neighbor’s head. They passed out barf bags at the start of the trip. I haven’t seen that since Yemen. In Yemen though, somebody would have used theirs by now. I think we’re stopping for food. Praise Jesus!

No food for me. I bought a miniature Red Bull and lit up a cigarette and notice Inky wandering in my direction. Not sure, I moved to heard her off. Sure enough she came up to bum a cigarette off me. She seemed a bit younger and more innocent than my previous assumptions. She got the ink done in Seattle. She moved around a lot and when she goes home in a month she’ll be living in San Francisco. She’s been working as a dive master in Thailand the last three months and is just making a quick trip through Cambodia before going back home. She’s homesick, I determined and told her when she seemed reluctant to find a way to make a living and stay overseas. But maybe the truth is she’s as lazy as I am, if it’s possible. She said she’s “not ready” for the commitment of studying to be a diving instructor.

The breakfast stop turned out to be more of a bathroom break. We finished our cigarettes and noticed the other passengers herding back on the bus in a hurry. All I could do is look back at the concrete pen of the roadside restaurant – exactly like those in every other country I’ve seen – and get back on the bus in mid-conversation. Inky and I gave each other “Hey. Whattayagonnado?” looks and took our seats two rows and and aisles apart. I’m left staring at the solemn Asian face staring at me from her tricep. She’s stuck next to a young Cambodian guy who nervously stares at alternating parts of her, (much as I’m doing), but doesn’t have the English to actually talk to her. I’ve still got the restless napper who’s now going through the fourth course of the meal she just bought. The fruit she just offered me a piece of was horrendous. It’s had its skin removed but the fruit inside tastes just like orange peel.

What I thought were long-running opening credits for a movie was actually a really boring music video with subtitles for karaoke sing-alongs. For the first time this bus ride scares me – imagining a five hour mobile karaoke sing-along!

We just came about a foot from killing a guy on the other side of the highway. All the way on the other side.

These bigger towns we pass through alongside the highway could be in Yemen, in Egypt, Jordan or any other country I’ve been through. With their packed markets full of fruit and cheap electronics, three-story colonial storefronts and hotels, perpetual stagnant puddles, huge packs of bored motorcycle taxis drivers, all operating on a thick carpet of trash. These anonymous towns are at once intimidating and intriguing to me like an old west town. I’ve always wanted to explore one, but I just know I’d find only trouble.

She’s sleeping off her meals in my armpit now. I’m glad I collected her barf bag for her.

Passing another market town a 12 year-old Cambodian kid in a Spiderman t-shirt had someone put blond highlights in his hair. Globalization at work.

If we make it to Phnom Penh without killing somebody I’ll punch myself in the face for how much I hate this driver. Maybe it’s not his fault. Maybe nobody told him the bus has breaks. Maybe he has to fantasize that he’s Mad Max in order to keep the karaoke music dripping sweet like cheap honey from the TV above his head from putting him in a diabetic coma. But with his camouflage cap, gold-rimmed black aviators and the way his horn unmistakably translates as “move or die” I’m assuming he’s just an ex-military asshat with less regard for human life than he has desire to get to Phnom Penh early enough to hate-fuck his favorite bus station hooker before the return trip.

I’ll use “PS” to represent a picturesque scene seen out the window.

PS – A downed palm tree curving into and out a small green pond in front of a driftwood hut.

PS – White ox grazing in a pond full of lily pad.

PS – Someone fenced their property with stacks of used tires and two teenage boys sitting shirtless on the stilted porch talking.

PS – Just the backs, noses and horns of 8 black oxen on the surface of a duck pond.

PS – Boys up to their armpits in a lily pad pond. Why? Are they in there for work or for play? Are they bathing? Does the warm life-giving water of the pond feel like escaping to another world free of the dangers and pain of their own? I shall never know. I am on a bus. So why ask? What do you mean? Why ask such dumb questions if you’re just a guy on a bus? I’m just journaling my thoughts. No you weren’t. You were trying to sound clever and deep by pondering the thoughts of some kids in a pond like some rich hippy douche bag making pretentious art films about the beauty of a plastic bag dancing with you high on peyote and wine coolers. Fuck off. It’s my journal. I was writing my thoughts to myself. Bull-shit! You already decided an hour ago that this bus ride diary is just so awesomely clever that you want to put it on your blog and show everyone who reads it (no one!) how awesomely clever you are. So what’s wrong with that? Nothing, until you veered into the art-douche voiceover shit. You’re lucky I didn’t just shank your ass. Yeah. Uh… thanks.

Who the hell are you anyway? Huh? I’m writing in my journal and all of a sudden you’re here giving me shit. Who are you? I don’t know what you mean. You don’t know… I’m writing in my journal. You’re writing in my journal WITH THE SAME FUCKING HAND! How does that work? Oh. I see your point. I don’t know. Maybe I’m a voice in your head? I don’t have voices in my head. Oh, you don’t? So who picked out those underwear you put on this morning? Is she hot? OK! Ixnay on the antiespay!

So what’s with the dialogue without punctuation or paragraphing? What? You showed up in my journal – blog – whatever. You showed up as dialogue but you don’t use quote marks or separate your speech from mine with paragraphs. What’s your point? It’s a cool style. If you’re Cormac McCarthy it is. Are you Cormac McCarthy? If I was, I wouldn’t be hanging around in YOUR head now would I? It’s a clean well-lighted place and all. Good acoustics. But it ain’t exactly the New York Public Library, if you know what I mean. Good one. But you’ve never even read Cormac McCarthy. Who says? You’re in my head. You only saw that that was his style when I was checking out his Wikipedia page the other day. You ripped off his style and you’ve never even read any of his books. What’s your point? Art-douche. Watch your ass, Holmes. What are you going to do, Huggy Bear? Shiv me? … Oh. It’s cool. Write your journal.

It’s 11:24 and my neighbor’s face and my armpit are starting to sweat on each other. She doesn’t seem to mind.

OK, she does. She put her face back in the curtains and her ass cheeks around my thigh. I still feel there’s a bond of trust growing between us though. Something about how comfortable she is with some tourist who she can’t speak a word to makes me think she’s going to make someone an excellent wife.

Flying by the window is a green blur of countless species of palm trees, grasses and sex pools for swinging mosquitoes, navy blue and white school uniforms on bicycles, other bicycles being used to haul farm products to market, huts and shacks raised on stilts to heights according to the optimism of their owners, ducks and geese, oxen and cows, goats and communist party headquarter buildings about every 500 meters – all of them fortunate not to have been creamed by my piece of shit driver.

We’ve stopped to let people out and there’s a woman offering bags of that awful orange peel fruit along side one offering cooked crickets or grasshoppers from a big metal tub. I can’t decide which one I’d start with.

Every so often I see the driver twitching in his mirror.

Another stop. Another cig with Inky. This time she abruptly ditched me and got back on the bus.

Kids are hard-selling to us the things we might buy – pineapple and mango. Women ignored us who were offering tubs of huge fat crickets and tarantulas deep fried in oil and the orange peel fruit of course. I think they only pick them to help sell the fried arthropods. I had some fun with the little girls and their bucket of live tarantulas next to the platter of fried ones.

I bought a jar of Jacker – a Pringles knock-off I used to buy in Yemen. It took the vendor a couple minutes to come up with the price – so I knew I was about to be jacked. I threw out “one dollar”, the going rate in the cities, just to keep him from asking for four. Just as he said “two” an eight year-old kid came up behind him and demanded three. I tried to use this to seem offended and ask for one again but the man forgot his English numbers at that moment and just stared at me. I gave him two. Of course he’s had that can on the counter there since Angkor Wat was under construction and they’re horrible.

These curtains are Communist Red. And Sleepy closed them now and I can’t look out the window any more except the barest sliver.

The kid pushing the pineapple on me the whole last stop was wearing a Ray Mysterio t-shirt. He would put this awful pout on his face when he said “two thousand” (50 cents) and held the bag of skinned pineapple up at us. I bought one from a little girl already but he kept trying to sell us another one. We’d refuse and he’d stand there smiling and waiting to get in on our conversation. Then he’d pout all pitiful and say “two thousand” again. I asked him who’s on his t-shirt and he smiled big and said proudly: “Ray Mysterio!” I asked who’s that, (I had no idea but I could see from the shirt he was a pro wrestler). “He’s a wrestler!” he said proudly in good English. A pause. Then he switched to the pout again, held up the pineapple and whined “two thousaaaaand”. I laughed at him for his obvious shtick and he laughed back. A pause. He put the pout back on and repeated his line. I pouted back and said the price making him laugh again. After that I’d just mock him and make him laugh each time he’d do his thing. Even so, every time I saw that forced pout it tugged at some string inside me. Not necessarily my heart or I would have bought another pineapple, but some string. It’s more economical to be jaded here but I’m not sure it’s justified. A very skinny old woman approached me pleading and pointing at her three teeth. I refused her twice while she held onto my bicep and pointed. I knew I was going to give her two thousand right away, and I did eventually, but you can’t give to everyone and you get an instinctive resistance. You have to. Sometimes there’s someone who destroys all doubt immediately and you just say “Oh yes, of course. Here you go.”

I wonder if the driver’s Bird-God flies over his enemies and craps on their windshields. I wonder if that’s why he drives like he does – he knows his Bird-God is angry with him and he’s trying to outrun him? Twitchy just twitched again. I’m pretty sure he’s on speed. I wish I hadn’t read that Wikipedia page listing the worst auto accidents in the world. I think about 1 in 10 was a bus accident in SE Asia that killed 20 or 30. Then there was the article in the Bangkok Post about the prevalence of methamphetamine among bus drivers. I miss qat.

Sleepy is swapping sweat again with my armpit.

We just passed a row of brick factories so I know there’s a low child unemployment rate in this region.

Inky’s got a hell of a tan to go with her pants. It looks good on her. I wish I was the guy next to her so I could stare at more of her parts. She’s got a thick two-inch scar on her forearm that looks good on her too.

“Thanks for the cigarette,” Inky said as she ditched me. I’m not sure if I bored her, creeped her out or a little bit of both. Is it possible to do both at the same time? Well if anyone can, I can goddammit! If we stop again I should try to work a third type of repulsion into my repertoire. Let’s see… what else have I got in my personality arsenal? Anger? No. I don’t think I inspire that so much.

Jesus! Someone just had a real nice boat in their front yard! Somebody pulled off an American business-class luxury item like that in this neighborhood?

1:13 – I can’t confirm any kills but I’m going to assume there were two or three school kids I didn’t see.

I don’t know how I’m going to read this little exercise seeing as I’m writing on a moving target and I can’t read my own writing when I’m stationary.

Despite the bus’s air conditioning I’m starting to sweat all over – especially my right thigh. And I just got really sleepy.

Crossing over the Mekong River (I think) now. I should have taken the boat here. I could have taken pictures instead of scribbling my nonsense all over these perfectly good pages of my overpriced notepad. If I’d have met another tattooed love girl I could have actually sat next to her for 11 hours and possibly driven her overboard. That photo would be my all-time favorite.

[Yerdaddy]

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/3414/1008990ba6.jpg

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/407/1008988kp8.jpg

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/6743/1008992ib9.jpg

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/6057/1008993ht9.jpg

[Yerdaddy]

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/4065/1008985ii3.jpg

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/935/1009035sz9.jpg

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/9732/1009038kq5.jpg

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/8828/1009043bns9.jpg

"Luxury"

[Yerdaddy]

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/854/1007746ij8.jpg

NSFW?

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/8494/1008760uw2.jpg

Here's Inky when we went to the zoo together later. She was cool but I think she was terrified that I was going to hit on her at any moment. We were probably perfect for each other but we're both so neurotic we just weirded each other out.

[TheMojoPin]

*Sniffles*

Memories...

[Bulldogcakes]

Here's Inky when we went to the zoo together later. She was cool but I think she was terrified that I was going to hit on her at any moment. We were probably perfect for each other but we're both so neurotic we just weirded each other out.

That was my impression exactly. You worry too much.

BTW-Read every word. this was my favorite part



PS – Boys up to their armpits in a lily pad pond. Why? Are they in there for work or for play? Are they bathing? Does the warm life-giving water of the pond feel like escaping to another world free of the dangers and pain of their own? I shall never know. I am on a bus. So why ask? What do you mean? Why ask such dumb questions if you’re just a guy on a bus? I’m just journaling my thoughts. No you weren’t. You were trying to sound clever and deep by pondering the thoughts of some kids in a pond like some rich hippy douche bag making pretentious art films about the beauty of a plastic bag dancing with you high on peyote and wine coolers. Fuck off. It’s my journal. I was writing my thoughts to myself. Bull-shit! You already decided an hour ago that this bus ride diary is just so awesomely clever that you want to put it on your blog and show everyone who reads it (no one!) how awesomely clever you are. So what’s wrong with that? Nothing, until you veered into the art-douche voiceover shit. You’re lucky I didn’t just shank your ass. Yeah. Uh… thanks.

[A.J.]

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/8494/1008760uw2.jpg

Here's Inky when we went to the zoo together later. She was cool but I think she was terrified that I was going to hit on her at any moment. We were probably perfect for each other but we're both so neurotic we just weirded each other out.

You passed up on THAT?

"Why hell, you're just a goddamned coward! I ought shoot you myself you snivelling bastard!"

http://hated-it.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/patton_slap1.jpg

[TheMojoPin]

You passed up on THAT?

"Why hell, you're just a goddamned coward! I ought shoot you myself you snivelling bastard!"

http://hated-it.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/patton_slap1.jpg

Seriously.

This is unacceptable, ladyboy.

[Yerdaddy]

You passed up on THAT?

"Why hell, you're just a goddamned coward! I ought shoot you myself you snivelling bastard!"

http://hated-it.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/patton_slap1.jpg

No. THAT passed up on ME. I don't know why. I offered her two tickets to the Gun Show.

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/6803/anchorman106er5.jpg

I'm guessing lezbo.

[Ritalin]

No. THAT passed up on ME. I don't know why. I offered her two tickets to the tunjuk kekuatan.

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/6803/anchorman106er5.jpg

I'm guessing lezbo.

Fixed it.

[FUNKMAN]

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/8494/1008760uw2.jpg

Here's Inky when we went to the zoo together later. .

at first glance i could have sworn that was TooCute...

[ralphbxny]

at first glance i could have sworn that was TooCute...

She is too cute...even if she aint.

[Freakshow]

When are you coming back to Yemen?

I don't think Yemen is safe anymore. Volcano epidemic...

[hunnerbun]

Yeah it's been all over the news here. HMCS Toronto went in to rescue some ppl. Found some bodies in the ocean. One guy from the Yemeni Navy, i think. He was found alive, had been in the water over 20 hrs. Good thing its warm there. Wouldn't have lasted that long in the North Atlantic.

[A.J.]

I don't think Yemen is safe anymore. Volcano epidemic...

Volcanoes are the least of Yemen's problems.

[Bulldogcakes]

Any updates? Where are you these days anyway?

[scottinnj]

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/8494/1008760uw2.jpg

Here's Inky when we went to the zoo together later. She was cool but I think she was terrified that I was going to hit on her at any moment. We were probably perfect for each other but we're both so neurotic we just weirded each other out.


Oh I get it. She was cock-blocking your moves on her scooter's driver, right?

[furie]

..

[Furtherman]

It's going on two years

Last Activity: 06-08-2009 09:09 PM

[Aggie]

I miss him so much. :sad:

[~Katja~]

..

thanks for bumping this thread today. great read and incredible pictures...

[A.J.]

I saw him last year in Phnom Penh. He seemed fine then. But now I think he went deep in the jungle and is being revered as a god like Brando in Apocalypse Now.