One Thousand Eight Hundred Ninety-One Dollars And Thirty Two Cents

"D.B. asked me what I thought about all this stuff I finished telling you about. I didn't know what the hell to say. If you want to know the truth, I don't know what I think about it. I'm sorry I told so many people about it.  All I know is, I sort of miss everybody I told about....Don't ever tell anybody anything.  If you do, you'll start missing everybody."    -from The Catcher In The Rye 


My passport has run out of usable pages.  My remaining clothes are torn and stained beyond recognition.  My pack is in need of repair.  My copy of Siddhartha is being held together by packing tape and faith.  My sleep schedule is a mess.  I'm sitting on a comfortable leather chair sipping a perfect double-espresso.  I'm back in the United States of America.  In all honesty, it feels pretty good.

There is the fact that everyone speaks English and I can understand the conversations of nearby strangers and I'm understood when I ask where the tofu is, and there's the odd single-color currency, and there's the outrageous prices for everything and my barely-suppressed horror in the face of pervasive consumerism.  Of course in a few weeks or months I suspect that none of that will seem strange anymore.  But as I scan the internet for employment and read job descriptions that use the word "vacation" and ponder the notion of travel, not as a lifestyle, but as a short break before returning to a well-defined collection of constants, part of my consciousness rebells and I realize that I already miss the road and I wonder if that feeling will ever go away. Or if I want it to.

That's all I'm going to tell you about.  The balance will continue to decline but I assume I will find a job before it reaches zero.  In any case, my travels are over and so this journal is finished.  It's been fun.  Thanks for reading.                        



    

Hornets! Hornets!

Three days ago I attacked a nest of wasps.  I was hacking out a trench between two mounded planting beds that, by appearance, hadn’t been attended to in several seasons, when the world suddenly receded to the distant background and what can only be described as a sting, bright and urgent, flashed through the muscle between my thumb and forefinger.  For a few seconds there was only me and the hand, which insisted on my undivided attention.  I never saw my attacker.  I responded by voicing a randomly selected profanity, stepping away from my work, and rubbing some mud on the painful spot.  Then I stupidly went back to hacking at the same location.  Ten seconds later, I simultaneously saw at least 5 wasps fly out of the brush, felt another intense sting explode on my cheekbone near my ear, and another on my calf near my knee.  I looked down and swatted one of the combatants away from my leg while clumsily jumping out of the trench and through the mud, away from the source of the pain.  I stayed away from that trench thereafter and spent the next thirty minutes flinching away from dragonflies.  About two hours later, my hand looked like the hand of a giant baby; pudgy and lacking knuckles, and I had difficulty making a fist.  The hand continued to look ridiculous for two solid days and it still doesn’t look the same as the other one.

     

Today, after one more day of work on the farm, I’ll pack my bags, get some dinner and try to sleep for awhile; then at 2am I’ll get into The Captain’s Honda, where I’ll ride as a passenger to Bangkok Airport, from whence I’ll take a series of flights that, over the course of 32 hours, will chase the sun, bringing me to Boston on the same calendar day that I left Bangkok.   It will be my first time on U.S. soil since July of 2009. 

Several travelers have asked how I feel in anticipation of this event and after answering vaguely a few times, I have come to realize that I look forward to it without reservation.  After almost two years in Dubai and almost a year on the road, it feels like an adventure of sorts to return to the homeland for an extended period.  I am anxious to see friends and family and I am equally anxious to see how it feels to be there, to examine myself and notice subtle or dramatic shifts between my current self and the self that left, or possibly to find that I’m still exactly the same.  Although I doubt the latter.   

See You Soon Nice Tomorrow

I am a man and Nui is a woman and so of course I drove the motorcycle home, in spite of the fact that she knew the way, I didn’t, it was dark, and she didn’t speak much English.  Later she told the group about how “sloowwwly sloooowwly” I drove and that I flinched when the dog jumped out of a blind corner, barking furiously.   She pantomimed the whole trip in an exaggerated fashion, and everyone laughed and then they poured me another shot of Thai whiskey.

I was up with the sun and had finished my first cup of coffee, made, as always, with a packet of heavily-sugared Nescafe, so with breakfast still a distant prospect and plenty of packets available, I had another.  Toon walked into the dining area, looked from me to my cup, raised his eyebrows and held up two fingers.  I said, “Yep.  This is two.”  He said my name, laughed and used his thumb and forefingers to make “open wide” motions around his eyes.  The next morning, when we ran out of coffee, Nui was all over it.  “Stanleee!  Twooo!”  I told her that was yesterday, but she insisted, with gestures, that it was both days.  I told her, half with gestures, that I believed it was she who had taken two and she laughed.  This became a running joke which we repeated every morning. 

Nui asked if she could come with me to America.  I showed her my wallet and told her I had no money.  She tried to give me 60 baht (2USD) and then she stuck out her lower lip and pouted when I told her it wasn’t enough.   She was joking, of course, but then again not completely. 

Toon asked, with some difficulty, if I would transfer some music onto a flash-drive.  The drive in question was only 1GB so I gave him about 20 songs that DJ Nik had sent me.  He plugged it into the DVD player and soon Ida Maria was belting out “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked”, loud and clear from the formidable speaker system.  Toon and a few of his Thai companions busted out a few dance steps.  A moment of embarrassment passed before I glanced over at the 13 year-old girl in her Sex Pistols T-shirt nodding along with the rhythm while she studied English and I realized no one present could understand one word of the lyrics. 

Sowing Seeds

For the last two days I have planted rice, first in my host’s fields and then in the field of his friend.   I have been walking barefoot, calf-deep in the mud and water, employing the technique I had been taught:  Using my right hand, I’d extract two rice stalks, along with their roots, from a densely packed hunk of sod that I carried in my left hand, and then use my thumb to press the stalks into the soil.  After I had adequately mastered this technique, there were still a variety of subtleties that my Thai companions in the field did their best to illustrate:  One should position one’s hand with fingers pointing down when separating the stalks so as not to necessitate turning the stalk to utilize the thumb-press planting method.  One must be ever mindful of the entirety of the row, remembering the line between two points is always straight but the line between one hundred points can meander embarrassingly.  One must try to keep one’s steps between the lines where rice will be planted; remembering rice planted in a footprint will likely be underwater. 

After the field was fully sown, I sat beside Toon, my Thai co-worker, on a pile of coconuts in the back of a speeding pickup, both of us sweaty and covered in a fine layer of dirt in spite of our attempted ablutions, and I watched the farms and the city streets roll by while the wind beat against my face and I wondered why this moment felt so normal.

   

New Farm

I loitered in Chang Mai for almost a week; wandering between one-dollar-eateries, indulging in the occasional banana shake, and repeatedly sitting down for a few beers with girls that always, frustratingly, turned out to be nineteen, before I finally took the advice of my friend and constant inspiration (Micah) and contacted Daruna Farm.  “The Captain” emailed me back right away saying he had abundant room and work.  I carefully reviewed my finances, trying to figure out how my visa run (required between the 21^st and the 24^th) and the Full Moon Party (Ko Pagnan on the 23^rd) worked into the equation.  I finally turned to Microsoft Excel, taking a few moments to chart my expenses in four scenarios, and decided that my most frugal course of action was to leave for the farm immediately, do the visa run to Cambodia, and decide later about The FMP. 

I had some difficulty getting here.  I missed my train connection, tried to inform The Captain by phone but got, “The number is not available.”, ended up on a packed local bus along with 6 giggly American college students, still couldn’t reach The Captain, couldn’t convince the conductor that I sincerely wanted to get off in Bang Phra, was forced to backtrack by tuk-tuk, became convinced I’d written down the wrong phone number, found the train station, walked around asking people for the white guy who has a farm, gave up and hitched a free ride back to the main road, found an internet café where I established that I had written the number correctly, and received a reply email from The Captain that he had given me the wrong number and he was on his way. 

The farm is pleasant, even if it’s not as idyllic as the last one.  There are buffalos and chickens and although I’m the only WWOOFer at the moment, The Captain is a great deal more talkative than my previous host, so the solitude is not overwhelming.  This morning I stuffed myself with a huge breakfast then spent the next two hours in a nuanced debate of the practical applications of US foreign policy.  I worked for a couple of hours digging ditches, and then took a three-hour lunch break, once again ending up chatting with The Captain.  The man likes to take his time with a story, making sure I have every possible detail.  The exposition always meanders along until he has all but convinced me that it that has nothing to do with the stated topic, but he always gets there eventually.  “I’ve had two run-ins with the police.” He told me at lunch. “The first one was in 1987.  I was walking down by the river and saw some logs that looked like they had been gnawed by beavers, and I was surprised because I didn’t think there were beavers that close to the city.  Then I was walking there another day and I actually saw the beaver….”  I smiled a little; thinking of Grandpa Simpson, (“I was wearing an onion on my belt…which was the style at the time.”) then I leaned back and waited.  This kind of conversational inefficiency irks me at times, as does The Captain’s intermittent tendency to portray himself heroically, but those are minor complaints.  And it’s good to be back on a farm.    

Chrometophobia

After two weeks on the farm it was clearly time to go.  When I arrived I was greeted by a total of 4 WWOOFers and I had expected that number to grow, but after one day the number dwindled to 1 and then four days later I was all alone.  Team Germany stayed only two nights and the expected reinforcements did not show up.  I was alone again for two days, digging up banana trees then planting them in new locations.  The work was not unpleasant and I managed to enjoy those days, but it seemed to be time to find something new.  I left the farm two days ago at 5 am and found 3.22 USD per night accommodations in Chang Mai, a city I know fairly well from my lingering with Sophie back in April. I’ve sent emails to a few other WWOOF hosts and I’m waiting to see where the next few days take me.   

I’m anxious about the future, it seems.  On the road, peace of mind is easy.  The answer to my worries is always in the next destination, or lack of one.  But maybe I’m already finished traveling.  I have become tentative and watchful, suddenly worried that if I make new friends, then I’ll end up buying beers I can’t afford.  I find I have little interest in squandering too much of my precious remaining Balance on visiting another beautiful beach.  And every few nights I wake up from varied but thematically connected dreams, each featuring a new, catastrophic miscalculation of my resources and time.  

I notice that I am checking into a guesthouse in Kathmandu and become concerned, knowing that I must get back to Bangkok before my flight leaves.  I check my accounts and find them all empty and realize I must have forgotten to “carry the one”.  I am being lead by a stranger through the winding streets of an unknown city  and I don’t know where we’re going, but I know I’m lost and that I’ll never find my way back.  

Dirty

The farm is still the farm, but things have changed since March.  Pets have died and been replaced, projects have been abandoned, and torrential rains have brought growth and destruction.  The man in charge is almost the same as before; still stomping around the fields with a smirking grouchiness that does little to hide his love for the dirty joys of owning a farm, but now his bad back occasionally forces him to the sidelines, a position he clearly hates.  The WWOOFing crowd is thinner, seldom more than 4 deep and prone to three day stints rather than the former seven day minimum.  I’ve was alone for two days before a German mother-daughter team showed up last night, and it looks like I’ll be alone again tomorrow, hopefully building a large trellis out of bamboo or digging up banana trees rather than the tedious alternative of pulling weeds for six hours. 

I still like it though.  The air is fresh and wet and the clouds are rolling over the distant hills and yesterday I sat on top of a ladder after hammering nails into bamboo and I looked out over the bright, brilliant green and my hands felt tired and strong and I breathed as deeply as I could and then I let it out slowly.  

Transition

On my last night on Bali, Gabriel, my Spanish friend from China showed up.  He had a new job and with it financial security, so he brought a liter of Johnny Walker Black with him.  I've sworn off the purchase of such extravagances until such time as my travel-values begin their inexorable change back to working-values, but that doesn't mean I could possibly refuse to enjoy one of the worlds finest upper-middle-price-bracket blended scotch whiskeys.  And enjoy it I did.  Oh lord.  

After two flights and a twelve hour bus ride, I'm in Chang Mai now, waiting for a ride out to the farm.  I feel like I need a break from the easy holiday of Bali life and the farm is a perfect solution.  I'm find myself looking forward to shoveling chicken shit and building callouses.   It's been too long.     

This Is Your Burning Hand

Back in Nepal, at the meditation center, during those times when the pain of extended sitting was pretty well under control, my assigned task turned to "labeling" my thoughts, observing them, and trying to "understand their nature."  The effort required to do this was almost more frustrating than the pain of sitting, due in no small part to my mistaken belief that since it was, after all, my own mind I was dealing with, it should be easy enough for me to, if not control it, then at least organize it.  It was disturbing for me to be made aware of the relative independence of my thoughts and the apparent contradiction that goes along with that fact; how can my thoughts be independent from me?  If I am not running the show, then who the hell is?  As I sat there, eyes closed, cross-legged on a pile of pillows in front of a golden statue of Buddha, I would attempt to focus on the rise and fall of my breathing, but my mind constantly turned to the future. I’ll get out of here on Friday, stay in Lumbini at Garden Lodge, catch the bus to Pokhara, check my email, move back to The States, get a job in Thailand, take a motorcycle journey from Boston to Portland, learn to speak Chinese, re-read Gravity’s Rainbow….. Somewhere in this stream I would stop, label the action, “planning”, observe it, try to know its nature, and return my attention to the rise and fall of breath.  But by Day Three my mind had gotten used to this trick and discovered that it wasn’t necessary to wait long before getting back to planning; it could start again the instant I finished labeling.  I mentioned this maddening frustration to The Monk during our brief, daily meeting, and as always, he responded as if he expected the question and had heard it quite often, which were both most likely true.  “First, your desire for success, and the associated frustration, is itself an object, which you should label, observe, and know its nature.  Next, do not be concerned if you are planning.  Simply label it each time.  If you must label it one thousand times in an hour, then do so.  Don’t try to wrestle your mind for control, just observe the most dominant object, whatever it may be.”  As always, The Monk’s advice had a profound simplicity that I thought was both obvious and wise.  I endeavored to follow his advice, and found a small measure of success, but still my mind rebelled, and again and again I would find myself floating with my stream of thoughts, completely without awareness, planning some inconsequential part of the next hour, or day, or year.  The struggle against Planning, along with its less persistent cousin, Remembering, filled my entire world during the second half of my week at the Panditarama Meditation Center.  By the time my last day arrived I was exhausted and couldn’t wait to walk out the door and finally let my mind do as it pleased.

These last days in Indonesia, I am planning again.  My mind is in the future; a day, a week, a month, a year, five years.  Yesterday I sat on my hotel bed and tried to focus my mind in the way I had practiced nine months ago, but I lasted only eleven minutes before it all fell apart.  I am aware that having a plan is necessary, but also that this type of mental itch-scratching is useless and even counter-productive; and still my awareness of this futility does nothing to slow down my mind, and I find myself again wondering about this conflict between me and my thoughts.  I wrestle with the problem on and off throughout the day, until I realize, thankfully, that I’m not a monk.  So I will plan to walk up the ridge to look at the rice fields today and then I’ll have a beer with a new friend tonight and then I’ll work on the farm in Thailand and I'll fly to Boston and then Portland and I’ll find a job and I’ll take a deep breath and try to relax and let those moments come.    

Slide

I can’t see how I could have avoided it.  Maybe I don’t know enough about operating a motorbike or maybe the conditions were such that the tumble and the resulting minor injuries were inevitable, but either way, I cannot see how I could have acted differently - coming down a steep gravel road (a wrong turn, we would later find out), carrying my friend, her fully-loaded pack, and my fully-loaded day-pack, saying aloud, “I thought this road was supposed to be paved?” at the same instant as the brakes locked and the bike kept skidding forward, the back wheel slowly sliding to the left - to prevent  myself and my passenger from ending up lying in the dust next to the bike, both anxiously checking the severity of our wounds.  I reached this conclusion in the immediate aftermath, as my unscathed passenger found and made use of the first-aid kit that she had conveniently brought along, and I looked with curiosity at my shaking hands, a side-effect of adrenaline for me that has also been known to manifest itself when I win a big hand at Texas Hold-Em.

I tore the skin off of the tip of the big toe on my right foot, sustained some minor scrapes and cuts on my right shin and right elbow, and scraped enough skin off of my right palm to compel me to compulsively turn over the hand and stare at the wound during any idle moment.  My passenger, apparently as a result of careful planning and visualization, had thrown her feet and hands in the air and come to a soft landing squarely on her sizable pack, escaping without even drawing blood.      

The Sound of Inevitability

Expenses continue to run high here in my rarified little corner of paradise and try as I might I can’t find the willpower to put a halt to it.  Although my friend has come to believe in the divine power of nasi campur with almost the same fervor as I do and thus we have shared some one dollar meals that caused us both to question the merits of the entire restaurant industry, the fact that we both love to drink a beer in the afternoon and another in the evening, or perhaps even a (more expensive) cocktail, especially if there is a table and a panoramic view of the ocean where said drinks can be brought to us, has sent my daily budget up to and over the 20 USD mark more times than I am comfortable with.   That being said, I’m having a fantastic time, while struggling mightily to avoid thinking about the ramifications of that time. 

Perhaps part of the reason why I have felt able to loosen the proverbial purse strings in the last few weeks is that the end of my travels is starting to become visible on the horizon.  I’ve bought my ticket back to the United States, and as the man says, all that is left to do is to take the ride.  I’ll sojourn briefly in Thailand, revisiting the farm, saving some money, and shedding the layer of physical softness that has grown in direct proportion to The Balance’s rate of decline.   The plan is not yet complete and there are many more decisions to be made, but the fact of my return to the world of day-to-day work and responsibility is more or less certain.  I find myself intensely aware that the money I spend now directly impacts my remaining period of freedom, but nonetheless, I know for sure that I will not be destitute, that I will manage, and so another beer with a friend in a beautiful setting is manageable, even if it is not necessarily prudent.         

Things We Own: Part Three

"Have you lost your riches?" said Govinda.

Sidhartha answered, "I have lost them, or they have lost me.  I am not sure.  The wheel of appearances revolves quickly...The transitory soon changes."  Herman Hesse - Siddhartha

Since I lost my phone in a taxi in China, I have taken to carrying my iPod in situations where I feel the need for a time keeping device, in addition to the usual situation where I just want to hear some music. There is a degree of paranoia that comes with carrying my most expensive possession and I find myself often checking and rechecking for it, confirming it's place in my zipped pocket, especially when I'm riding the motorcycle.  But somewhere along the road I lost this habit, or at least cut down its frequency, and some time after that I dismounted the bike, wandered down yet another dark alley in search of a vacant guesthouse, wondered about the time and, in reaching for the iPod to check, found my pocket unzipped and the device absent.  

As faithful readers know, I have experienced the dread of losing this possession before, in Nepal, early in my travels.  At that time, the combination of its newness and the prospect of my entire remaining trip without music broke my heart, all the way up until I discovered it hidden in the pocket of the pants I was wearing.  This time, there will be no moment of salvation, but I am more prepared for the loss, can tell myself that it was just a thing, not something that is a part of me, but an object, transitory, meaningless.  Still, there is a part of my mind that tries to prevent the loss, that seems unaware that the ship has sailed, retroactively correcting the mistake; zipping my pocket, checking more frequently during the ride from Padangbai to Ubud, slipping it into my pack on the ferry, noticing it dropping as I climbed on or off the bike somewhere; trying to solve the problem like it's a Zen Koan, except without the peace that comes from the lack of an answer.  

My travels have been fairly painless so far.  I have lost an old, cheap phone, a towel, a t-shirt, a flashlight, and a 160GB iPod packed with playlists and music that I am irrationally fond of.  I can tell myself, intellectually, that possessions are of little value, that they end up owning me and I should examine my attachment to them rather than mourn their loss; but there is still a part of me that is wounded by the missing item, and perhaps more by my carelessness in allowing it to slip away.  There is a metaphor there somewhere that applies to my not too-distant past, but I will ignore that for the moment and focus on the task of forgetting my silly little toy.    

Backdrifts

A friend from Dubai is here and life is slipping into the old familiar territory of excess as I attempt to cling to my frugality.  I tried my best to bring her to my side ("I know there is good in you!") and show her the beauty of 60 cent meals in rickety looking shacks but she is on holiday and she will have her Starbucks Latte in the morning and her glass of wine in the afternoon, price be damned.  And, well, I am not made of stone.  I love to drink gin and tonic on the beach with a friend in the presence of a spectacular sunset.  And so the budget suffers, calling to me with a wounded, accusing voice, asking what it has done to deserve this abuse.    

We're on Gili Air at the moment; an unimaginable island paradise surrounded by water of a blue, fantasy-color that I thought only existed in postcards.  The island has a diameter of about a kilometer, no motor vehicles are allowed, the restaurants and hotels are generally overpriced (by 8KUSD standards, at least), and there are magic mushrooms available for sale at various, openly advertised locations.  I walk around in a daze, not quite believing the evidence of my senses, wondering where I am and if I am really the same guy who washed his clothes in a bucket during his weekly shower in the rural hills of Nepal, or if I am perhaps some different guy, vaguely related but not at all the same.  With some difficulty I find a way shrug off these considerations and tentatively order another cocktail from a seat in a softly lit cabana, watching the sky change colors over the ocean.  

My Own Private Medewi

I'm stuck at the moment.  I don't have enough money to pay my hotel bill until my ATM card is unblocked so I'm lingering in the tiny surfer town of Medewi, using my last 22 USD of cash on meal after 60-cent meal of delicious, satisfying, healthy nasi campur (Rice with "odds and ends" according to LP. Fantastic.).  My hotel has a view of the ocean, comes with coffee and breakfast, and at the current rate I can eat well, plus use the internet, for eight more days without going bust, hence I'm not all that worried about the money situation.  It'll get sorted soon enough.  In the meantime, I'm making use of the beautiful stretch of black-sand beach in front of my hotel on which I am usually the sole human presence.  I'm virtually alone here and I kind of like it that way.  Just for the moment.

Trying To Catch Me Riding Dirty

We were now rolling four deep on the Bali blacktop; Belgium, Holland, The UK and The States all represented.  We came to an intersection, engaged in some debate on the subject of which way to turn, and looked up to find a police officer standing at the opposite side of the traffic signal and waiving us forward.  He motioned us through the light and had us pull over.  He asked Belgium where we were going, leading us to believe that he wanted to help us.  Then he asked for our driver’s licenses.  Belgium and Holland produced their home licenses, UK and I told him ours were back at the hotel.  He also asked to see Belgium’s registration on the bike, and then held on to the registration while telling us we were all in trouble for not carrying an International License and also for driving through the traffic signal.   At his request we followed him across the street to a small office where another officer was waiting.  He opened a book with a list of fines.  Belgium and I looked on as he flipped through it, saw numbers from 150 USD and up, and became gradually certain that this was a hustle, just as he was getting around to telling us that our oversights were, in fact, criminal offenses.  Belgium was the first to act, reaching for his registration and pulling it gently from the officer’s hand. “Let’s just go.  Get on the bikes and ride.”   I couldn’t have agreed more.  We moved as a group, making it a difficult task to stand in our way.  With the officer barking behind us, we waived farewell and crossed the street with our hearts pounding.  Belgium and I fired up the bikes and took off, but Holland couldn’t get her bike started.  UK sat with his motor running behind her, looking anxiously across the street at the police, “You gotta be shitting me.”   Finally the bike started and they quickly joined Belgium and I a few blocks up the street.  To our relief no one followed us.      

Easy Rider

I found my way to Ubud after 3 nights on Java.  It was more expensive than it should have been to get here, largely due to a rookie mistake (failing to inquire diligently enough on the availability of cheaper train tickets) that I should have been veteran enough to avoid.  Determined not to overspend again, I hunted relentlessly for the cheapest hotel in town, then with equal determination for a month-long scooter rental.  I found both, the scooter for a bargain 50 USD for 31 days.

Since acquiring the bike I have seen more of this island than I would have thought possible.  Petrol is cheap, the roads are decent and the scenery is mind-blowing.  One can supposedly circle the entire island in one long day of driving, but so far I've been content with four to six hours per day, up and down volcanoes and around most of the eastern coast, each day returning to my pleasant home in Ubud.  After the first 3 days I picked up a companion, a young Belgian man who had never ridden a two-wheel, gas-powered vehicle before.  He took to it with all the certainty of immortality that comes with youth and by our 3rd day riding together I was having difficulty keeping up with him.  With my compass hanging from my key-chain and a torn map page from Lonely Planet to guide us, we covered 722 kilometers, stopped for 31 photo opportunities, got lost 5 times, asked directions from non-English speakers 26 times, survived 2 torrential rainstorms, 1 suicidal dog, 1 homicidal pig, and a flat tire.  After 7 days of high-speed wandering, my forearms are sunburned, my ass is sore, and I think the helmet is contributing to my thinning hair, but I'm not planning on stopping anytime soon.  

Forty-Eight Twenty-One and Eight-Six Cents

Quickly then…I got off the bus from Lily’s place, checked into my dorm-room, tried without success to reserve a hostel in Jakarta via Skype, met some travelers, secured a recommendation for a likely punk-rock venue, failed to generate interest among potential companions in the face of the eminent World Cup matches, took two subway trains and a 15 minute walk to get to the overpriced club, drank an overpriced beer, watched a Chinese version of Wilco play a pretty decent set that contained none of the insane, hard-core energy I’d hoped for, caught the subway halfway back to the guesthouse before the trains stopped running, joined a couple of possibly-intoxicated Chinese youths in a somewhat foolish scamper across 10 high-speed lanes of traffic, each of us laughing with relief when we reached safety on the other side, found a taxi, found my hostel, found late-night chicken skewers, and climbed into my bunk. 

The next morning I woke up, took two subway trains to the airport, checked in without incident, took off and transferred in Guangzhou without incident, landed in Jakarta at 10pm, spent a few nerve wracking moments realizing I was two dollars short of the visa fee and that they don’t take credit cards and my ATM card could very well be blocked, before (CHING!) the machine made me a Rupiah millionaire, ignored the taxi touts, found the right bus was still running, met a friendly Indonesian girl who got off at the same stop and asked me to join her for a short taxi ride to the main guesthouse street, thought I might be getting hustled until we exchanged emails and she insisted on paying for the taxi, found the first 10 hostels full and the first 3 hotels far too expensive, checked in at 1am, sweating and jittery, to an 8 USD per night, mosquito-swarmed shithole called Rick’s, dropped my pack off, found a convenience store, grabbed a beer and a bottle of water, and headed back to the room to sit in front of the fan and read Narcissus and Goldmund and swat mosquitoes and wait for a fitful sleep to find me.   

"If You Ever Get Close To A Human...."

...you'd better be ready to get confused."

I spent four nights in Lily’s guestroom, sleeping in moderate comfort on a plywood mattress, my back aching to a lesser degree after I accepted my weakness and secretly requisitioned a few cushions from a nearby chair.   Each day I rode the bus and the subway into and around central Beijing, saw the required sights, and each evening returned to revise Lily’s English essays and watch the World Cup matches.

As a free-lance interior designer and graphic artist, Lily was seldom required to leave home for any reason other than purchasing groceries.    Her flat was almost undecorated and the few concessions to individuality were hung asymmetrically on her white walls: two small, plastic-framed photos (both of Lily, alone) and one wood-framed, cartoon drawing of a corny off-color joke (Sigmund Freud: What’s On a Man’s Mind).   She was a self-taught English speaker and what she lacked in pronunciation, grammar, and listening skills, she made up for in vocabulary, regularly pulling out words like “detest” or “conducive”, but often unable to understand my carefully enunciated responses.   She dressed in a shapeless thigh-length brown dress at all times, except when she went out for groceries, at which time she would change into a fashionable jeans and T-shirt combo, which would be promptly abandoned in favor of the brown dress when she returned.  She told me she detested parties because of the superficial conversation, detested bars because drinking was a tacit admission of life’s emptiness, and detested being set up on dates because she felt love should be organic.  When I asked if she had a boyfriend she told me it was complicated, then spilled out the saga of a bizarre, on and off relationship with a German businessman; a relationship that spanned 10 years of infrequent meetings; a relationship she began doubting when several previous Chinese lovers were discovered (apparently because they wrote about the gentleman in question on their blogs), which she finally ended with an SMS exchange that took place over a year ago.  Two beer bottles displayed on a shelf in the kitchen stood as a monument to his last visit.   

I had planned on staying three nights then heading to a guesthouse and finding a social scene for my final two nights in China, but Lily asked me to stay one more so she could prepare us Peking duck for lunch the following day.   I agreed, we enjoyed an excellent lunch, I did the dishes, and then we sat down with coffee to practice for her exam.  When the time came, I advised her of my intention to leave, not right at that moment, but pretty soon, and she slowly began to cry.   She said she didn’t know why she was crying.  She said she would “close” her couchsurfing profile.  Finally she laughed a little and said, “I’m sorry.  I’m a little crazy.”  I tried to keep a cheerful tone, making small talk, telling her everyone’s a little crazy.  The tears subsided, threatened to break free again, then finally stopped.  Not knowing what else to do, I shouldered my pack, thanked her, and walked to the bus stop.

Mistakes Were Made

Pingyao was an impulse; a choice based more on wanting to visit one more town before I left China than on any desire to see anything that the town contained.  I was in Xi’an and was flying out of Beijing and Pingyao was on the way, about halfway between, so it seemed to make sense to stop there.  It was billed as a nice quiet town, a little touristy but at least small and quaint.  The problem was that I planned nothing.  I found out there were buses approximately hourly, but I didn’t check the prices on tickets, just packed my bags, checked out of my hotel and hopped on a local bus down to the station.  I was a little horrified when they quoted me a price of 22 USD for the 7 hour ride, knowing a train to Beijing was only about 30 USD, but I was already “pot committed” so I bought the ticket and took the ride, the only Westerner on the bus. 

They dropped me off at a crossroads about 4 kilometers from Pingyao.  The driver’s English-speaking assistant gave me a slightly staccato, speech, “ThankyoufortravelingwithYangBusLines.   Wehopeyouenjoyedyourtrip.  Wewishyougoodluckonyourjourney.”  Then she paused and added, “GET OUT!”   After haggling a decent price from a taxi, I managed to find an acceptably priced dorm room and book a two night stay.   From there I found that cheap food (i.e. something that is not geared towards tourists) required a 30 minute walk,  the only train option to Beijing was “Overnight, Standing” class (which is exactly what it sounds like), and the buses were absurdly expensive.   It’s safe to say I regretted my trip to the admittedly quaint city of Pingyao even before I became the victim of theft for the first time  in my 6 ½ months of travel (not counting crimes that take place in my imagination).  Yes, that’s right…wait for it…someone stole my towel.  

Complicating matters was the fact that I had arranged to couchsurf in Beijing with a friendly Chinese woman named Lily and I was determined not to delay.  For those unfamiliar with the bizarre, egalitarian social experiment that is Couchsurfing.org, it’s basically a network of people who don’t mind if travelers crash at their place.  There is no money involved.  You set up a profile and send out requests to hosts who have a “couch”.  The host replies, saying yes or no, and eventually you end up staying with a stranger in a strange land for free.   This was going to be my first “couch” and I wanted it to go well.  Lily had sent me an endearing message, asking if perhaps I would be her “lucky star” and help her prepare for an upcoming English test.  She also added the vaguely disconcerting signoff, “Oh, and of course you will pay attention to hygiene?”  So it was clear she was a nice woman.   If she hadn’t been so nice I probably would have found a cheaper option than the bus and high-speed train combination that cost me 28 USD but was the only way to get to Beijing by date that I had promised Lily. 

The Beautiful People

I stayed my first night in Xi’an in a beautiful, air-conditioned dorm room for 6 USD per night.   It was my second choice due to the price and after a few hours looking around I marked it down as further evidence in favor of my continuing theory: The number of Friendly Travelers in a guesthouse is inversely proportional to the price.  The guests were mainly couples and I found little in the way of conversation so in the morning I moved on, lugging my pack 5 blocks to the low-budget option up the street: Shuyuan Youth Hostel; 4.50 USD for bed, a marginally functional A/C unit, and a free beer with each night’s stay.  I stayed at SYH for five days.  Everyone was going in the opposite direction as me, coming from where I’m headed and going to where I’ve been, and few stayed longer than 2 nights.  For some reason, this situation created a smooth, steady flow of interesting company.  

Meeting people is beginning to be one of the primary joys of travel for me.  I’m not naturally outgoing and I have often found it awkward to get beyond the superficial with someone I’ve just met, but when everyone has travel in common it suddenly seems so simple.  “Where are you from and where are you going?” often seems to be all it takes to start to acquire a new friend.   In my experience this has been strikingly true in China, perhaps because everyone feels a little lost occasionally, more so than anywhere else I’ve been so far.  There is a prevailing sense that we must stick together, that no one should be alone.  At SYH this inclusiveness was taken to another level.  Without warning strangers became close friends, confidants, mentors.   Over five days I rotated through dozens of relationships, some shallow, some embarrassingly deep; groups of companions overlapping and recombining as new arrivals joined the madness and another forty-eight hour friend said goodbye.     

Bouncing along in these swirling connections, I paused one day and found myself hopelessly spellbound by a pair of confident, enthusiastic, achingly beautiful, ultimately untouchable French-Canadians.  I said hello to them, and then let myself float in the wake of a collection of strangers - some hopeful suitors, most just friendly - that the girls pulled gently behind them; a group that contained men and women from a handful of nations and grew from four to six to ten, none of us particularly sober by the time the sun set.  The group solidified and each of us in turn performed the familiar rites of introduction, then drank beer and rice liquor, and finally set out to roam the early morning streets.  We were denied entrance at a posh nightclub for our inappropriate attire and moped momentarily on the sidewalk before finding a perfectly raucous working class establishment where the crowd danced in a weird, tentative, Chinese-style frenzy and our flip-flops were not an issue.  The lovely Quebecois drifted in and out of our midst while we reveled in our cheaply-bought celebrity status and tried without success to hold conversations, or failing that, a couple of dance steps with the few locals bold and curious enough to approach us.  As the standard dictates in Chinese clubs, by virtue of our Westernness, an unseen benefactor purchased all of our drinks.  By the time we tumbled out of the club with the sky beginning to show signs of the approaching morning, I felt a love for my new friends that is perhaps only possible when one knows that they’ll be gone tomorrow.   And perhaps it helps when one has been drinking a little. 

I’m in Pingyao now; a town of 40,000 souls.  It’s quiet and crumbling and beautiful and expensive and I’m the only Westerner in my guesthouse.          

The Good Times Are Killing Me

“Money’s just something you throw from the back of a train.”  - Tom Waits

China is eating away at The Balance.  On the plus side, the food is cheap and I don’t feel I’m overstating things to say that I have mastered the art of eating well for under 3 USD per day.  On the other side of the coin, I’m staying in dorms for what I paid for an air conditioned single room in Vietnam and the transportation costs are sucking my lifeblood.  An 8 hour bus ride is about 12-16 USD, which wouldn’t be so bad if this country weren't enormous.  I’ve taken 6 of these buses (and one train) already and I’ve only been here two weeks.  When it came time to buy my ticket for the 15 hour train from Chengdu to Xi’an I panicked a little when they told me the “Hard Sleeper” class was 34 USD.  I asked for “Hard Seat” for 15 USD, knowing full well that this was an overnight train, 9pm to 12:45pm, and that I would be considering suicide by the time 3am rolled around.  The ticket agent was horrified.  “Haarrd seeeeat?!  It’s FIFTEEN HOURS?!”  I told her I could take it.  She shook her head, “You are very strong!”  I paid, walked up to my room, stood by my bunk for awhile, turned around, walked back down to the desk and told her I’d like to change that to sleeper, if possible.       

Hot-Pot

It was my last night traveling with the Spaniards.  Gabriel and I had been looking for genuine set-your-head-on-fire Sichuan cuisine ever since we arrived in this fine province and although we had enjoyed several fine meals, we had yet to experience anything particularly incendiary.  We felt it was time to look in the guidebook, rather than just wandering into random locations and pointing, so we took an LP reference and wandered out into the darkening streets of Chengdu.  Naturally we couldn’t find the place, but on the way we were intrigued by a crowded establishment furnished with boiling bowls of chilies and oil set into tables, each table surrounded by cases of beers and men with no shirts.  The chilies made our eyes water and throats itch just walking past the door.  We decided without much debate that this was the place, checked with the host, and waited for a table while the other diners bought us tea and ice-cream and asked to have their pictures taken with us. 

We got a little carried away.  Ordinarily Gabriel and I spend between 1 and 2 dollars on dinner, but when they brought us the menu with all manner of strange pictures of food, each intended to be thrown into the chili oil…well…we just kept on pointing at things, running up our tab to a shocking 7 USD each.  We had more food than we could possibly eat sitting before us when the courteous staff brought the huge, two-chamber hot-pot to a rolling boil and helped us to dump our feast into the appropriate concoctions.   

The food did what we asked of it.  Special, round “mouth numbing” chilies set the stage for the roaring taste-bud-fire that was to follow.  We boiled the beef and meatballs and mushrooms and greens and we ate and ate, sweating and coughing and throwing new food into the caldrons until we could take no more.   We paid our ransom and headed back to our hotel, buzzing off chilies and beer and the weirdness of China.   

The Spaniards have gone south now, as is their wont, and I am catching a train north to Xi’an.  We traded email addresses and hugs and music from our iPods and promises that each of us, respectively, has a place to crash in London, Barcelona, and wherever I end up.   Tonight I’ll be catching the train alone, but it doesn’t feel bad.  Short friendships are part of “this thing of ours” and freedom to part ways is the best part of traveling alone.  There seems to be a unique solidarity among travelers in China and I’m looking forward more than ever to the next batch of friends in the next crazy metropolis.  

Hang On Saint Christopher

"I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right." - Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

China is a blur. I don't know whether I've been here 3 days or 10. I see flashes of activity that I have difficulty connecting in my memory. Two blond girls, one American and one Dutch, with whom I shared two, separate, intimate conversations on a rooftop bar while surrounded by revelry seem relevant (although the details of the
conversations bleed together), as does a movie discussion with an American who has taken on the extra challenge of living outdoors during most of his travels. There seems to be an image of a Chinese Michael Jackson impersonator singing in an unbearably loud, but deliciously weird club while the Dutch girl sat across from me awkwardly. I know for sure there was a serendipitous meeting of Spaniards along with a Canadian Of Chinese Heritage and some wandering the streets of a metropolis together, each unsure where we were, each asking strangers to look at our maps and repeatedly getting conflicting advice in the form of directional pointing. I tend to doubt my recollection of the Canadian sobbing in our shared-for-price-not-romance two-bed hotel room after I advised her (since she asked), at 1am after a few drinks, to end her two-year, long-distance relationship with a Frenchman - who in spite of her desperate pleading has stated that he doesn't want to marry her - knowing as she did, with painful clarity, that this advice was obvious and she should have done it already but now, at age 37, she was terrified of being alone. I am almost certain that the one of the lesbians, the one who spoke Mandarin, and the same one who beat the Spaniards and I at Texas Hold 'Em, declared that she had a crush on me when Regina Spektor, The Shins, and Joni Mitchel came up consecutively on a playlist I had made. I am painfully sure that I vomited in my bed that same night, managing at least to lean out and deposit my half-processed soup and hideous Chinese liquor on the floor rather than the sheets, although I have no recollection of the act. A man named Ray may have sang a rock song in Chinese in front of a glowing fireplace in a town called Shangri-La. I know I have climbed mountains (or perhaps hills) with my head throbbing from the elevation. I have helped to turn the largest prayer wheel I have ever seen. I have exited a bus in fog and rain, stepping into a muddy mountain highway, 4 hours from anywhere, because the driver was uncertain if he could both get the bus moving and keep its four wheels in contact with the precarious ledge while it was loaded with passengers. All these things most likely happened, but I can't help feeling there is a strange momentum at play here that has packed this short time with moments which I can barely accept as reality, much less make into any coherent sense. But I love it all. I know that much.

Off The Grid, Again

Off the Grid, Again
Today I'm in Dali; another medium sized city, part smoggy industrial
center, part rural farmland, part recently manufactured tourist
attraction. The city is split into "Old" and "New" sections; the
"New" being the standard ugly offices and manufacturing centers; the
"Old" being guesthouses, handicraft shops, and elaborate gates, all
built in the traditional Chinese style sometime within the last couple
of years. The impression the "Old Dali" gives is one of manufactured
charm, which is not to say it's unpleasant. The city surrounded by
rolling hills and sits on the edge of a massive lake, which my Spanish
and Canadian companions (with whom I have remained loosely affiliated
since our meeting on the bus to Kunming) and I spent the day observing
from the seats of rented bicycles.

When we returned to town "Gabriel" and I went for a bite to eat at a
local restaurant. While we were going through the familiar but
nonetheless arduous ritual of placing our order with gestures, we
heard Mandarin being spoken and turned around to find a couple of
white girls, one of whom was, against all odds, fluent in Mandarin.
We immediately asked her for a little help, which she gave happily,
and invited them to join us for lunch. While we ate, we received a
peculiar travel suggestion, which as Mr. Vonnegut tells us, is a
dancing lesson from god. The girls (Americans who I am all but
certain are a lesbian couple) were going off the beaten track, taking
local buses then renting a van to get to the spectacular geography of
Southwest China, planning to seek shelter in some small villages and
do some trekking in places that do not appear on my Lonely Planet map.
They said we were welcome to join them and share costs. I asked them
if they were serious. They said that they were. I told them that if
they were serious, I was in. We're leaving tomorrow. Gabriel has to
ask his traveling companion, "Emilio" and get back to us. I'll be off
the grid for a week at least.

Welcome to China

Kunming is a gleaming metropolis. A medium sized city of 5 million
souls. I checked into a pristine dorm room bed in "The Hump
Guesthouse" sold to me for 7 USD per night along with a Canadian woman
and two Spanish guys that I met on the bus. We were partners in
confusion getting here. My Mandarin was satisfying to use in
inquiries with locals about exactly where we were, but it was
ultimately no help, perhaps in part because my Lonely Planet is 5
years old. A lot changes in 5 years in China including, apparently,
the location of the bus station. On our second night, a Monday, we
hit the clubs a little along with the cadre of random revelers we met
at The Hump. Chinese people apparently don't ever take a night off
because the town was alive with strange dancing and drinking well into
the wee hours of the morning. I couldn't connect with Yang Yang, my
kind Couchsurfing host, apparently due to a cell phone malfunction, so
I'll have to delay my first CS experience until a later town. So far
China is as strange and wonderful as I had hoped in ways that I never
expected.

Busted Flat - Update #2

Crisis averted. After 7 penniless hours I am once again carrying the
local currency. Money never looked so good coming out of an ATM. I
had to postpone my couchsurfing (www.couchsurfing.org) by one day and
I'm hoping my host doesn't think I'm crazy as this is the second time
I've delayed my arrival. The hotel man is paid and I never had to
explain myself to him. Life is pretty good.

Even now that I have the money, I am beginning to realize how
difficult China is going to be compared to my other stops. When the
taxi drivers don't understand "bus station" you know you are not in a
place set up for tourism. Still, there's something refreshing about
nobody calling to me from shops or following me down the street trying
to push trinkets into my hand. I strolled into a local eatery today,
pointed at some things, and felt pretty sure the 75 cents I paid for
my gigantic bowl of pork noodle soup was not adjusted for my
complexion. I think China is going to be fun.

Busted Flat - Update

After a walk around Hekou I've established that there are a variety of
mouthwatering street-food options. There are also several grocery
stores. However, none of them take my visa card. I think I may be
fasting tonight.

Busted Flat

(China apparently blocks Blogger. I will try to find a workaround,
but until then please forgive the format.)

I'm in China. I took a 40 minute bus ride from Sa Pa to the border
town of Lau Cai, then spent my last dollar's worth of Vietnamese
currency on a delicious bowl of Pho Pork Soup. This was actually the
last of any form of negotiable legal tender I possessed, although I do
still have 50 USD worth of almost useless Nepalese Rupees and 3.50 USD
worth of Cambodian Reil. From there is was either get more VND out of
the ATM machine, for which I would pay a service charge and then
another charge to convert to Chinese currency, or just walk the 3
kilometers to the border. I chose the latter, sweating buckets in
heat and humidity that I had almost forgotten in the mountains of Sa
Pa. I crossed the border without incident and went searching for an
ATM, successfully using my first Mandarin phrase (Where is? Tsi
naaarrr?), and locating a street full of banks. The first machine
didn't work. Neither did the second. The third and fourth made more
noise but were also a bust. I tried the fifth and sixth just because
I couldn't think of anything else to do. Then I tried hopelessly to
use my credit card to withdraw money at a bank. There was really no
chance of that working but my options were running thin. Finally I
succumbed to the heat, the weight of my pack, and the lack of any
readily available Wifi options and checked into a hotel for 9 dollars
per night. The man asked for the money up front, to which I replied,
"I'll get it later..." hoping desperately that I was not lying. He
seemed OK with this.

that was about 30 minutes ago. At the moment I have been unable to
reach the person who can solve my problem in Dubai and I'm feeling a
little strange about being almost completely without resources, going
over the choices that brought me here, saying "Yes, I should have
probably done that a little differently...". My first Couchsurfing
host is expecting me tomorrow morning in Kunming. I really don't want
to cancel that, but as the minutes turn to hours it looks like I will
at least have to tell her there will be some delay.

In the end though, this is a minor hiccup; the natural byproduct of
not carrying all of my cash with me at once. In the future I will try
to carry more US currency, like I did at the start of the trip.
Before today, the cost associated with getting it here made me
hesitate. Now I can see the downside of relying on ATMs and I'm back
to being a believer in carrying a 3 months worth of dollars strapped
to my waste. For now, I'm stuck...waiting on an email that will solve
my problems. I really hope it comes soon...

In The Misty Mountains

Sa Pa is a city in the northern mountains of Vietnam populated by tourists and the elaborately-dressed local ethnic minorities.  I arrived here yesterday morning, took a short hike with a new friend, sampled the local variety of dirt-cheap beer and moderately priced food, and settled into the relaxing chill of this misty hill-station.   

Today my new friend and I rented a motorcycle and after very little research decided on north as our direction of choice.   It was the right call.  After about ten minutes of city and village, we headed through a muddy patch of ongoing roadwork and onto a curvy, relatively smooth highway winding its way through mountains that are dramatic, green and occasionally patched with farms planted at seemingly impossible inclines. After pausing at several vistas for photo opportunities only to return to the bike, round the next curve and be presented with another heart-stopping panorama, we finally gave up on stopping and accepted that the whole ride was going to be transcendently beautiful.   It was the finally the Vietnam that I’d seen in movies and I couldn’t get over my amazement.  I’ve seen some beautiful scenery in the last five months, but at the moment I’m not sure any of it topped that 40 kilometers of highway.  

Waiting

Up until I arrived in Hanoi, I would have said I loved Vietnam without reservation.  I suppose it's true that one shouldn't judge an entire nation by a few cities, but on the other hand jumping to conclusions is a real time-saver. In HCMC I reveled in the frantic friendliness of the nation's largest city.  In Nha Trang I watched in confused wonder as hundreds of local kite enthusiasts, their eyes turned anxiously skyward, acted as anchors for the neon squadron that hovered daily, high above the South China Sea.  In Hoi An I had time to relax, letting the hours drift gently away, a pork sandwich and a 16 cent draft beer the only companionship I really needed.  After those cities I couldn't imagine a better place to travel.

But now it's Hanoi.  Regarding tourists, the mission statement of the nation's capital, agreed to by near unanimous vote sometime before I arrived, reads as follows: "Take what you can. Give nothing back.".  It's a policy that creates a disorienting contrast.  In previous towns, I had become accustomed to enjoying a cup of deliciously strong iced coffee for about 30 cents which was served on every street corner.  In Hanoi I approach a coffee vendor serving  locals seated in low plastic chairs. I pointed to the iced coffee and indicated my desire for one.  She shook her head and told me to go next door.  I went next door, a standard looking cafe, checked the menu, found the coffee priced at 1.25 USD, and returned to request a plastic chair and a cheap cup of coffee, only to be refused again.  Although I have managed to find several delightful exceptions, this strategy is quite common.  Restaurants, hotels, travel agents and shoe salesmen would all rather see me go elsewhere than let me take advantage of the prices that locals pay.  I watched a local man pay 1.50 USD for a large meal.  I asked about the same meal and was told it was 5 USD.  My bus ticket from Hoi An to Hanoi was 13 USD.  I asked about going back and was quoted 29 USD.  When I walk away there is rarely an attempt to bargain, just a quiet confidence that the conspiracy is intact and I will find no better price.  And even when the purchase is made, even when the price is agreed without bargaining, there are few smiles to be pulled from the exhausted looking staff at the restaurants, and I often get the sense that they would be a little happier if I had chosen another travel destination.

Still I love Vietnam.  Even in Hanoi there are friendly people (most of them seem to work at my hotel) and the food is mostly excellent.  And I love having the opportunity to settle in, even in my least favorite city so far, and get to know the neighborhood, my hotel staff and my favorite local restaurants.  It has been a recurring theme that the longer I stay in a city the more I like it, and Hanoi is no exception. It's just that if money were no object, I'd probably spend these days of waiting somewhere else.

On Pairing Up

Somewhere on the 12 hour bus ride from Hoi An to Hanoi I managed to acquire a roommate.  She was a forty year-old American woman who claimed to have been traveling for six years (I would later start to question the veracity of this statement). We chatted over dinner when we both ended up at the same local restaurant across the street from the expensive tourist-trap at which the bus had made a commission-stop and when we arrived in Hanoi she asked me about sharing a room to cut costs. The funny thing is, I was repelled by her from the moment we met, marking her as a showoff, a desperate seeker of attention and validation; which is to say that she was a glaring funhouse reflection of my flaws, a carnival caricature that highlighted and augmented my worst attributes.  But this town has expensive hotels and the prospect of cutting my lodging costs in half was tempting enough to push my reservations aside and tell myself that this was another "peculiar travel suggestion", an opportunity to welcome a little oddness into my world and see where it takes me, and so I accepted her offer.  


After two nights I bid her farewell again. It wasn't only because of her insistence on arguing with locals over everything, from a bottle of water to directions, or her dismissing my general sense of security in my travels as naiveté.  It wasn't just that she almost stormed off when I questioned the details of a story she told; an absurd claim to insider knowledge of a vast conspiracy taking place in the United States with the goal of perpetuating the illusion of democracy, culminating in the election of President Obama; a story wherein she failed, as the pathological often do, to make a shred of sense and yet still managed to be deeply wounded by my skepticism.  It wasn't even when I realized later that the story conflicted with her travel timeline.  Those might have been enough, but the deal-breaker was something else.  As I wandered the streets that morning I started to doubt my motives, becoming concerned that my choice to spend time with this woman was a symptom of my own need for acceptance, a product of road-weariness and perhaps a fear of being alone.  So I told her I needed to be on my own for awhile, checked out of our hotel and checked into a new one.  


I've now managed to stay unattached for two full days and life feels normal again.  This is not to say I won't still wander the bars and seek conversation with fellow travelers, but I certainly won't be as quick to take on a partner. On my own I'm more productive. I'm working out more often, studying Mandarin Chinese with renewed diligence and, in spite of a higher hotel bill, spending less money.  My visa granting me entrance to the PRC (143.00 USD, 30 days. Ouch.) should be arriving by the 20th which gives me ample time to settle in and explore this town.  So far the locals are less friendly than in the south which could have something to do with a conflict a few decades ago.  There also seems to be two menus with distinctly different prices for white people and Asians.  But apart from those small issues it's a lovely town and I feel just fine about being stuck here for awhile.                                  

Six Thousand Forty Dollars and Seventy Nine Cents

“Siddhartha began to speak and said, ‘Well, Govinda, are we on the right road?  Are we gaining knowledge?  Are we approaching salvation?  Or are we perhaps going in circles – we who thought to escape from the cycle?”  - Herman Hesse, Siddhartha 

I arrived in Hoi An yesterday, a quaint, dusty little tourist town on the central coast, and found out after several hours of patient searching that it would be the most expensive place I’ve yet stayed, the cheapest hotel providing me accommodation for not a penny less than 7.40 USD per night.  But the food and beer are ridiculously cheap and after a night’s sleep and a scenic bike ride up the river to the deliciously cold, royal-blue ocean, Hoi An is growing on me; not enough to stay a week, but enough to say it’s worth a visit. 

Tonight, in a small café near my hotel, I met a French woman who has been traveling two years and has recently bought her ticket back to Paris, scheduled for June.   She is 30 years old, retirement age for this life, and it was a small relief for both of us to talk to someone who’s not “taking a break from uni”.   We watched the motorcycles splash through the rainy streets, ordered beers, rolled joints, and talked late into the evening about traveling and what it teaches you; the things she had hoped to discover and the mysteries that still confound her.  She hasn’t figured everything out in two years, but she knows enough not to be disappointed by that.   

  

It has been five months since I set out on this journey and it may be that that constitutes “halfway”.   The original plan was long term enough, and my departure abrupt enough, that it has always felt like more than a long holiday, more than just a vacation where I take in the sights and pose for a lot of pictures and return refreshed to the routine of the same life that I left behind.  Still, it’s hard to say what I hoped to gain when I set out and I have, at times, found myself at a loss when I’m asked this question by the occasional, precocious traveler. I dimly recall something about using distance to get perspective and perhaps there was also something about challenging myself to become a better person, and of course simplifying my life, but the decision itself was an impulsive one, some might even say rash, and when it was finally finished there were few goals stated clearly other than leaving.  Those first days in Nepal had my blood rushing with the shock of leaving my old life behind and the promise of what felt like unlimited time and choices.  There were certainly moments, particularly around Christmas, when I wanted to go home, but there have been many more times when staying in motion was clearly the path of least resistance.  Now, as the end of the line comes closer even as I push it further into the distance, as I find the frequency of lessons and insights diminishing as living out of a backpack gets more comfortable, as the road gradually becomes an end unto itself, I have to ask myself that same question: “What do you hope to get out of this?”.  It’s possible I know part of the answer.  Other parts elude me, but I cling to the hope that they are waiting.  It’s my plan to find those parts and add them to what I have, using them to build something that I hope will be worth keeping.  “If it’s not worth keeping, if it’s not enough…” the quiet, persistent voice of doubt asks,”What then?”  Then I hope I’ll be wise enough, like the woman in the café, to count myself lucky, treasure the memories, and move on.  But already I feel it has been worth it.  And it continues to be worth it.   And I’m still a long way from stopping.               

Aufiederzein

Sophie invited me to join her on a diving expedition, springing for my passage on an island tour, where I snorkeled in crystal clear waters while she practiced diving skills with various instructors.  They served us coffee, pineapples, pork chops, and cake.  It was an unimaginable luxury.  Sophie will have a chance, in exchange for a little work and a little money, to repeat this experience six days a week for the next month or two.

After forty-three days and three countries it’s time to say goodbye.  Sophie will stay behind in the pleasantly bustling coastal city of Nah Trang to finish her training as a Dive Master while I head north, up the sparkling blue coast to Hoi An.  It’s been fun having a companion, especially one so inclined toward random adventures, but although we hope to travel together again someday; it’s a pleasant parting for both of us.  Even as we find comfort and security in our partnership, as well as the convenience of splitting a few expenses, we both bristle equally at compromise and recognize, perhaps too acutely for our own good, the freedom that we trade for this friendship.   If I’ve had one insight on this journey, one gut-level realization, it would have to be that one can live whatever type of lives one wants, the vast world of possibilities is wide open, but with the limiting clause that every attachment shrinks those options, forces concessions.   So I’ll say goodbye to my friend Sophie and be happy that I know her and take a deep breath as my day to day range of possibilities expands back to its original dimensions.                  

One Place Or Another

"I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion."  - Jack Kerouac

Sophie has had hitchhiking on the brain ever since we met.  She knows it’s not prudent for her, as a young woman, to do it alone, so she feels my companionship gives her an opportunity she can’t pass up. Hence, when we found out that it was going to be 16 USD apiece to take the bus a mere 4 hours from the beaches of Sihanoukville to the Vietnam border, she started beating the hitchhiking drum right away.  Unlike Thailand, where we had met reasonable people who had successfully found rides, Cambodia was uncharted territory and I needed some convincing.  In the end we decided to take the 5 USD bus to the in-between town of Kampot, about 2 hours away, see if we felt like staying and if we didn’t, then try to hitch the rest of the way.   Of course when we got to Kampot it was an ugly little town that didn’t seem worth a second glance, so after a passable noodle lunch in the market we shouldered our packs, headed east, checked the map along with a couple of road-signs and stuck out our arms, waving to the ground in the suggested Asian hitchhiker manner.

Our first mistake came early.  We knew the name of the town that we wanted to reach in Vietnam, we knew the names of two towns between Kampot and there, but we did not know the name of the town (Prek Chek) where we planned to cross the border until after we said goodbye to the first of what would turn out to be seven different groups of Cambodians, each of whom, for reasons still obscure to me, was willing to convey us from one point to another.  We later agreed it was possible that the truck driver who was kind enough to give us our first lift was in fact going all the way to the mercurial town of Prek Chek, but not knowing this we counted ourselves winners when we saw a road sign for one of the middle towns and asked to be dropped off, giddy at how far we’d come. 

From there confusion was the only consistency.  Many vehicles stopped, most were kind, but no one understood where we wanted to go.   Our maps had only Roman characters and were completely useless as communication aids.  After failing over and over again to pronounce “Prek Chek” and receive anything other than confused stares, we lowered our expectations and got in with a trucker going to Pnom Penh with the understanding that he would drop us where the road split.  Our spirits rose again as we saw signs to Prek Chek and gestured to our generous chauffer that we would like to go there.  “Vietnam?” He asked.  We nodded our agreement and thirty minutes later he dropped us off at an unmarked dirt road splitting off from the main highway just as the spectacular thunderstorm that we had watched approaching finally cracked open over our heads.  We took shelter from the grapefruit sized rain-drops in a darkened roadside shack, along with a few locals for whom we were an irresistible curiosity, ordered two glasses of a sweet, delicious iced-tea and coffee mixture, and watched with some skepticism as only two vehicles took the dirt road turn during our thirty minute stay.   When the clouds cleared we shouldered our packs again and asked “Prek Chek?”  Nothing.  “Vietnam?”  Yep. Down that dirt road.  “Ok then.”   It took us 20 minutes walking to catch our first lift on the back of a truck which unfortunately was stopping at a wedding somewhere in the middle, compelling us to negotiate a painful motorcycle ride (1.00 USD), three deep, packs hanging off our arms, to carry us within sight of the border.  

Our excitement at finally reaching Vietnam was short lived.  The border guards, a ragged looking group in an unmarked shack, explained that we cannot receive a passport stamp at this lonely outpost; for that we would have to go to Prek Chek.  “We’re not in Prek Chek?”  HaHa.  No.   A young man offered to take us there on his motorcycle for 20 USD.  We passed, opting to turn around and catch a lift back up the dirt road, turning back onto the main highway, now tracing the same path of the driver who had taken us to this odd little corner of nowhere.   A friendly Cambodian man in the back of this truck could speak enough English to ask about our ages and professions, but was clueless as to the location of Prek Chek.  As the sun set over the jungle, we were dropped off in a unknown town twenty minutes further up the highway, bidding farewell to our most recent hosts in some confusion, wondering where we were now and what we should do.

A couple of young men graciously took us to a guesthouse on their motorcycles where we dropped off our bags and then went back to the street, stopping occasionally to ask random shop owners where we were and if they had ever heard of Prek Chek, to which the reply was always some smiling, Khmer variation of, “I don’t speak English, you idiot.  Where do you think you are?”  After a cheap dinner and an epic banana shake served in a giant plastic bag, we found someone who spoke English.  Since he was heavily intoxicated, we decided to join him for beers in front of his shop.   For reasons known only to him he kept kissing my hand and telling me he loved us, but between kisses we managed to find out that we had been pronouncing Prek Chek wrong and that it was just up the road. 

The next morning found us walking up the road and waiving our arms again, confident this time that even if we failed to make ourselves understood, we would see the sign for the turnoff.    After a couple aborted attempts, we were picked up by a middle aged man in a tiny Nissan, uncertain where he was going but happy to be on the road.  The kilometers flew by and one hour turned to two as our confidence waned, both of us gradually reaching the realization that (a) there would be no road signs, and (b) we must have passed Prek Chek somewhere in the last hour, but (c) we had no way of knowing exactly where.   From there a debate of indecision began (“I’m not making the decision.”… “Well I don’t want to either…”) between getting out immediately and going back the way we came, or riding this out until our assumed destination of Pnom Penn.   Somewhere in the middle of this debate we arrived in Pnom Penn.

The driver wanted about 2 USD for his services, which we paid and began a new debate.  Sophie was a little dejected, convinced that the bus would be even more expensive from here and hating the frantic, dirty hustle of this metropolis.  I don’t hate cities like she does, but I knew where she was coming from.  It all felt like too much to cope with; too many failures, too much money that we would be forced to spend in our attempt to avoid spending money and on top of everything, we were not in the tourist part of town which meant that we would have to pay a taxi to take us to a travel agent.  But when all seemed lost and our bags seemed to be taking on both additional weight and heat, we stumbled right into a travel agency billboard offering tickets to Ho Chi Minh City for 12 USD each.   This would put us a good distance north of our original destination but since we had planned on stopping in HCMC anyway, it would ultimately save us time and money.   Six hours later we crossed the border.  Two hours after that we had a room in a back-alley guesthouse, a Styrofoam container filled with pork dumplings, and a love-at-first-sight kind of feeling about HCMC.   

I stayed out late that night, saying goodnight to Sophie early then wandering the bars, bullshitting with backpackers and volunteers, drinking cheap beer then overpaying for cocktails, trying without success to explain to strangers what I found so instantly appealing about this city.   I know it can’t just be the avocado shakes on every corner, or the beef noodle soup stalls, or the odd way the local spots seem shuffled in with the tourist traps.  It’s possible my love for this place has more to do with how I got here; the certainty and comfort of city life after the confusion and limitations of the countryside, the surprise and excitement of being here after planning to be someplace else.  

  

Flashpacking

Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, have in recent years become a fashionable travel destination for affluent, college-aged Westerners.  I was dimly aware of this fact before my first trip to Thailand, but it came into sharp focus the first time I wandered, confused (Thailand? Right?), through the jungle of white faces that is Bangkok’s Khao San Road.  This group, with tans that are too even, hair that’s too well maintained, and sunglasses that are not fake, is one that I try to avoid.    Maybe I’m a class warrior and maybe I’m judging books by covers, assuming that if a man wears Gucci sandals then I have little in common with him, but when I do sit down with this segment of the traveling population (I’ve been calling them Springbreakers,  Sophie calls them Flashpackers.), they always seem to get a little too drunk, laugh a little too loudly, and talk in tones that betray too much intensity, or not enough.  If I have to choose, and I often do, I tend to gravitate toward the hippies, or occasionally the French, who are apparently immune from this phenomenon.       

       

In Thailand I was under the impression, for some reason, despite taking note of the numerous T-shirts proudly worn by golden-skinned, freshly-manicured revelers which advertised that the wearer had indeed been to an impoverished Asian nation or two (you know, just in case it didn’t come up in conversation organically), that maybe the Flashpacker set wouldn’t be as prevalent in Cambodia.   As it turns out, they’re everywhere, wearing too little clothing, overpaying for everything, stumbling down the moonlit beach in a haze of Mai-Tais and weed smoke.   But then again perhaps their numbers are distorted in my mind.  It could just be that they stand out when viewed in contrast with the poverty here in a way that they did not in wealthier Thailand, and they seem to disturb me in direct proportion to that degree of contrast.     

The truth is, as much as I rebel against the idea, I have a great deal in common with the Springbreakers.  I have enough money to swing through a suffering nation, see the sights, and return, undisturbed, to my comfortable life.  It’s an unfortunate reality for me that whenever I follow the trail of my disdain back to its source, I always seem to find it’s the reflection of my own privilege and apathy that I can’t stomach, that causes me to roll my eyes in contempt at the blond college student with the shaved chest who sits down next to me at the beech bar and orders the same beer as we look out onto the same ocean, brushing off the overtures of the same beggars, as I hope desperately that I’m not really like him.   But even as I sit pondering our mutual need for salvation, I hear him speak a little Khmer (Cambodian) and when I look over, I see him smiling and joking with the children selling beads and suddenly I think maybe neither of us is beyond redemption yet.   Travel changes us, even if we resist it, and however bankrupt our lives were before we left, no matter what soulless occupation we plan to go back to, we will carry with us a lingering awareness of a world that is larger and more complicated than the one we see on MTV-Cribs.   And so with a shrug and a smile I raise my glass to the smooth-chested stranger and silently toast our mutual opportunity to leave this beautiful country a little wiser than we came.             

Touristing

Sophie sorted out her passport issues with greater efficiency than either of us expected and so it worked out that I had company on my journey to the must-see Temples of Angkor.  Everyone else was taking a tuk-tuk.  I wanted to take a tuk-tuk.  I insisted it was quite far.  But Sophie has a habit, or perhaps a policy, of avoiding the conventional way of doing things, and I am not particularly difficult to convince, so while all of the other tourists were catching tuk-tuks and being shuffled from one temple to the next at their leisure, we negotiated a couple of reasonably functional bicycles and headed off for the 40 kilometer round trip. Right away we managed to take the wrong route, using my trusty compass to determine a heading that took us straight for the temples, but managed to miss the ticket booth by 4 kilometers.

The Temples are remarkable, well worth the painful 20 USD price of admission that had me skeptical at first. They are intricate and massive and mysterious; almost rivaling Machu Picchu in their
other-worldly strangeness, hinting at the collective will of ancient and powerful people working at purposes far beyond my comprehension. I loved it. I loved playing the tourist; posing, taking photos that captured nothing, cycling from temple to temple, shaking off tour guides and drink-sellers. When my legs, which are apparently far from cycle-ready, started cramping horribly, I barely minded that we were still 15k from home. We managed to make it to the last temple on our rout in time for what turned out to be an unrestrained fiery spectacle of a sunset, then find our way, exhausted and uncertain, through the darkened streets of Siem Reap, back to our 8 USD guesthouse; an upgrade made just for one night, complete with the cherished extravagance of A/C. I started to love Cambodia a little that day.

Today I'm on a beach. The water is turquoise and luke-warm. The sand is white. Everyone wants to sell me fake Ray-Bans and beaded necklaces and hashish. It's another tourist town, like any other, but I don't mind it for now. Sitting in a beach-side bar, listening to the sound of waves breaking makes up for the lack of authenticity, for the lack of any real experiential connection with the culture or people of Cambodia. I wanted the beach and so here I am, and it's a pretty nice place to be.