Ted Lerner's "The Traveler and the Gate Checkers"
Sex...Death...Life... on the road in Asia

Publisher:
Book of Dreams Verlag 2003
Author: Ted Lerner
Front cover illustration:
Vicky R. Villanueva

Format:
Paperback
256 pages
14 illustrations
Dimensions in mm:
140 x 215 x 18

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$14,95 + $ 8.50 worldwide shipping

Back cover text:

For most people, life comes down to a daily chore of pile management. But for a traveler like Ted Lerner, life often revolves around dealing with gate checkers. Gate checkers? Yes, those people given a badge, a stamp and the authority to stop you from getting where you want to go.

In this his second book, the American author of the hilarious Philippine adventure, “Hey, Joe,” takes to the road in the gate checker capital of the world, Asia. No matter the obstacles, though, Lerner never fails to uncover the juicy stories and one-of-a-kind experiences which can only be found in the world’s largest and most populated continent.

From the sheer madness, and brilliance, of tortuously crowded India, to the wildly popular and barbaric realm of Japanese professional wrestling, to high class Hong Kong and its notorious, low down landmark, to jaded Thailand and untouched Laos and, finally, revisiting the teeming and seedy heart of Manila, this collection of five original travel tales will bring you decidedly off the beaten path, roaming as few foreigners dare, on journeys as unique as the countries themselves.

Part travelogue, part reportage, part outrageously good fun, with everything from sex to death and all the colorful life in between, Ted Lerner’s The Traveler and the Gate Checkers presents a fresh and unusual version of Asia. So open your heart and mind and get ready for the ride. But remember; watch out for those gate checkers!

   Ted Lerner originally hails from Allentown, Pennsylvania in the USA. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Communications. He first traveled to the Philippines from his home in Hawaii on a lark in 1991 and has lived there since 1994. His column, "Hey, Joe" first appeared in 1995. Besides frequently being on the road, he also does ring announcing and television commentary for professional boxing shows.
   This is his second book. To view and order his first book, "Hey, Joe," click here.
For more infos, see Ted Lerner's website:
www.hey-joe.net

Excerpt: Can't have one without the other

The bench next to track number two in the Jhansi railway station may not, upon first description, seem like a place any “normal” person would want to be. Yes, the station smells like urine. The tortuous heat of the early evening just before sunset lies like a thick blanket over our filthy bodies. Garbage is strewn in every crevice within eyesight. Several piles of human shit smolder between the unused tracks. Grimy looking people are everywhere walking or laying on the floor of the station. Several cows stand around checking out the scene.
But “normal” in India is starting to seem like an extremely subjective word. The six hour bus ride back from Khajuraho was another crazed battle of wills, this time mostly standing up with my forearm jammed against an old man’s head. The furnace like heat completely sapped my energy. The outright rudeness that daily life in India brings out in people had my mind doing cartwheels. I wanted to kill somebody but the madness of the situation also me made me laugh. And so I put up with it and sucked down Bisleri water by the crate.
But once we reached this bench, things couldn’t have been better. I buy several bottles of cold, fresh flavored cows milk from the milk bar on the platform. As that sacred sweet succor cools my mouth and throat, I kick back and think of what has been and what is to come.
By starting in Calcutta we have literally been traveling backwards in time through Indian history. And for the last week we have been exploring ancient cultures where love and sex were proudly and unabashedly proclaimed for all the world to see. And now, bodies tired, dirty and thirsty, we wait for the next part: The Kalinga-Utkal express that will shoot us directly east across India two days away and even further back in history to Puri, one of the four holy cities of India. This seaside town is also home every July to the Jagannath festival, a major colorful event that is sure to attract millions of the devout to greet the Hindu Gods as they come out of the temple for a weeklong holiday.
The Taj, the sex temples and now the Gods by the seaside. It seems so fitting a next stop. And so does the method of travel. In India you can simply hop on a train and get out of Dodge and, a few days later, find yourself in another colorful world, another brilliant scene where the living is cheap and the history is measured in thousands of years. This is the perfect travel scenario and we are right where we want to be; a quiet bench in a nondescript hellhole of a train depot, our way station in the middle of the universe waiting for a train to take us to the sea and a meeting with the Gods. Can it get any better than this?

“What time is it?” I say with a startled voice grabbing Au’s wrist. “8:35? I thought the train was supposed to leave at 8:20? It’s not even here yet.” I walk down the platform to the milk bar where an Indian railways ticket man stands draining a bottle of milk.
“What happened to the Kalinga-Utkal Express?” I ask.
“It already left,” he says.
“Left?!” I shout. “What do you mean left? This is track number 2, right? At the ticket counter they told us track number 2. There was never even any train here.”
“No, no that train left on track number 8.”
“Eight?!” I’m getting frantic.
“Yes it left 15 minutes ago.”
“But it’s supposed to be track number 2, right?.”
“No they changed the track. You better go see the stationmaster. You can take the next train.”
“When’s that?”
“Tomorrow.”

“I just missed the train,” I yell as we storm in to the stationmaster’s office, “because your employees told me the wrong track!”
“Oh I am sorry sir,” he says, sounding deeply concerned. He goes to talk to some men in the other office. Suddenly my anger leaves and I feel relaxed. He doesn’t seem like a typical rubber stamp wielding Indian gate checker and I feel he is going to help me. Then he returns and tells me that they had indeed changed the track, but they forgot to announce the change in English, as they normally do. “Well, there’s another train tomorrow,” he says casually with a smile, as if he has just solved my problem. “You can take that one.”
“Then I want you to pay for my hotel.”
“I am sorry. We are not authorized to do that.” My anger returns.
“But it’s your fault!”
“How can it be our fault,” he says maintaining his cool. “We are here to promote Hindi. Hindi is our national language, not English.” I want to tell him what I think of his national language but I stop myself. An insulted gate checker can cause you serious headaches. He takes our tickets and returns 15 minutes later with two new bookings for the very same train tomorrow night.

Being stuck in Jhansi doesn’t turn out all that badly. A rickshaw finds us a clean and cheap air con hotel with a restaurant specializing in tandoori chicken. The Delhi tandooried husband seems like a distant memory so we dive right in. With a couple of tall Kingfisher beers these finely roasted chicken body parts go down like sweet butter. Although I can’t help but wonder how they slaughtered the chicken. I think they starved it to death.
The next day, with nothing to do but wait for that night’s train, we walk around the main part of town and visit the market. It is in the town center that I am witness to something that one could only see in India. I see a cow directing traffic.
It is 2:30 in the afternoon and the temperature hovers near 110 degrees F. Obviously it is too hot for the policeman, who must be around the corner napping in the shade. So there she is, mother cow—that’s the moniker she goes by in India—standing in the traffic circle where the cop should be as bicycles, rickshaws, cars and other cows cruise by under her watchful eye.
Because of the tremendous slack given to cows in India, you often see them doing the oddest things. Throughout India you can see cows standing inside Hindu temples, coolly walking out of people’s homes, waiting patiently at the bus stand. Cows lay in the middle of the busiest street in town casually chewing grass, staring out in to the distance, as laid back as if they are sunning themselves on a sandy beach. Meanwhile all the automobiles and motorcycles go right around them. Nobody gets angry. No policeman comes to roust them and tells them to get lost.
In the overcrowded madness that is Indian daily life, cows are treated better than people. Nobody tries to cheat a cow. Nobody argues with a cow, or plays games with her head. The cow in India does as she pleases, roams wherever she wants, thinks whatever thoughts she likes. All this and nobody says a word. The Indian cow is the freest creature on earth. In India, the cow is God.