Hey

One Year PT I: Reflections and Revelations

2007-03-17T12:43:00.001+07:00

When I say that we've been home for about a year, I always feel shocked. It's so strange that the passage of a year can go so fast. Traveling, time went slower – but it didn't feel slow, it felt right. It felt like a lifetime, but in a good way. And now that I'm home, and I'm back to the "real world' of my life, things are fast... and consequently short. One year here is the equivalent to a few months on the road. It's still hard to get used to.

Since coming home, Benjamin and I have looked upon the calendar in a whole new light. Instead of seeing 'June', we saw 'our second month in China', and instead of seeing 'March', we see 'the last month of our trip'. And in this way, the trip has lived on and on, long after the official end, when we boarded a plane on April 5 (2006) from Bangkok to LA. I like this, the unexpected continuation of the grand adventure – the fact that we can place ourselves somewhere else 'a year ago' means that we can live vicariously through those experiences in some remote way... a bit like living in the past I suppose, but sometimes that's not a bad thing.

So here we are, on the brink of the year anniversary of our return home. From this point on, we can't say refer to an amazing foreign experience of the year before, but one from home... and unfortunately, those experiences seem so mundane in comparison. I feel like this is REALLY the end of our trip. It's not actually the date that we returned home, but instead, it's the date that we can no longer look back on the previous year with the eyes of a traveler. It means that our year abroad ended longer ago than it feels, because as I stated before, time here is lightening speed. And it also means that I am farther and farther away from the thing that makes me feel truly alive.

Back on the Road

2006-10-03T23:40:00.000+07:00

Yay, we're traveling again! We're off to China tonight to promote the book we just published: www.menospeak.com

It's funny how during our 13 months on the road, the act of traveling became so much a part of daily life... so normal... that it felt like second nature.

Now that we've been home for some months, the excitement and anxieties of travel have surfaced – these feelings so long forgotten – and it reminds me that one of the best things about travel is the period of time before you actually leave. From the moment the idea pops into your head, there is research and planning and dreaming about the places you'll go... It's a trip in and of itself. And I'm happy to be enjoying the romance of it all again.

Packing my bag, though, brought the daily ins-and-outs of travel back to mind quickly. It's like riding a bike: everything has a place and I automatically put things in the places they belong. Although I must say, my bag has much more exra space than the last time we left for Asia. It brings back memories of the manic packing and repacking of my bag when we first arrived in India. Oh, how I've learned...

We'll be on the road for one month this time, traveling in the Southern half of China, from Hong Kong to Chengdu, up the Yangtse to Wuhan, over to Shanghai, and then back to Hong Kong. Perhaps this trip is more organized in a way, in that we have a rough plan of where we'll go ahead of time. But true to the moniker of DestinationTBD, you never know where we'll end up.

Cultural Jetlag

2006-09-15T22:17:00.000+07:00

I can't belive it's been so long since I've posted here. There's been many times, many days, that I've thought about writing up an insight, a memory, a revelation... but I haven't because I don't have time.

I know it's not 'realistic', the way I was living while traveling. While I don't consider it a vacation, it was a 'vacation' from life. Meaning: no work, no to-dos, no schedules, etc... There was time to do whatever I wished. Sometimes there was too much time – I'm speaking of nights when I was bored but didn't feel like doing anything; an uncomfortable state of mind. But I'm not complaining –

Lately, I've been thinking about the slow pace I got used to in Asia: it's physical, mental, spiritual. And I miss it. I feel rushed to do things, to think of things. I feel like I'm running through the weeks instead of strolling. It's not because I choose to; I'm forced to in the society here, to keep up.

ReIntegration

2006-05-28T00:44:00.000+07:00

Well, we've been back long enough to really 'be' back. You have to be adaptable on the road, waking in one country and going to sleep later that day in another... Likewise, you adjust to home -- I've said it before on this blog: humans are adaptable. It's amazing to discover the small and uncomfortable spaces you can put your body (and deal without too much suffering).

So we've been home over a month, my skin is turning white, and I'm amazed at how quickly the last year has faded to memory -- it almost seems like it never happened or if it was a dream. This is exactly what I was afriad of: the experience becoming memory... still accessible, but blurred. But, life goes on... I know this. You can't live in the past. Well, not if you want to have any friends...

I knew I was 100% back when I paid $5.00 for a salad and thought to myself, "wow, what a good deal!". That's an extravagant price to pay for a meal in Asia and sticker shock was the hardest thing to get over on return. Perhaps I do live more frugally now; we go out to dinner less often (aside from the $$, the portions are too damn huge). We dropped 70 bucks at a sushi place the other day. I nearly fell off my chair when the bill came. That's 3 days (accomodation, food, etc) on the road and I ate it in less than two hours. I've just gotten used to living with a constant eye on my budget so now it's difficult to live without making such comparisons. I'm sure this will disappear in time. It annoys me, so I'm betting it annoys you...

But, whatever. I would still be shocked by the prices if I never even left. San Francisco ain't cheap.

I'm back.

The Return Home: Entry #4

2006-05-09T00:59:00.000+07:00

Random Thoughts:

We have collected a giant ball of plastic shopping bags... if we took them apart at the seams and sewed them together, the resulting mess would rival a circus tent

I'm still shocked by the impatience of people. The pace at which they move... and talk. People seem aggressive. I never noticed it before I left for Asia becuase it was normal to me. Learning about Asian cultures, you hear that Westerners often make the people feel intimidated with their fast-talking, loud, and direct ways. Now I understand that notion.

I still feel foreign, like an outsider looking in... alien. I'm wondering when I'll fit in again, if I'll fit in again. I'm not sure people will understand me anymore... just like in Asia I felt like the locals didn't and couldn't truly understand me b/c of cultural differences, I'm back home and feeling similar disconnects.

I have a hard time constructing full sentences with sales people. I'm used to saying, "I don't pay high price." Now I have to say, "Really? That candle is $20.00 -- way too expensive for me. Do you have anything cheaper?"

And the bargaining... I miss that. It's fun and you are really shopping when you can haggle the price. I have the urge to say, "How about if I give you $12 for the candle Or give me 2 for $20"

And then if they say, "no," I can walk away knowing they will chase after me yelling, "OK, OK" because they're still making a profit even though I've nearly cut the price in half.

Transactions here take forever. Buying a computer monitor, it took the guy longer to type up the invoice/receipt than it took Benjamin to research the product, find parking downtown, find the product in the store and find a sales person (all lengthy activities in SF and at Comp USA)... the computerized system is a big waste of time. Technology is supposed to make life easier, but even an old-fashioned punch resgister from the early 1900s would be faster. Why are we wasting so much time (hey, you see, now I'm becoming impatient...).

Shopping: we find ourselves walking through stores, looking, almost waiting for STUFF to make itself known to our needs that we didn't know we had. We're trying not to have extra stuff, lots of stuff... we are anti-stuff. So here we find ourselves caught up in the aisle-surfing activity. Ah, the retail store: designed to suck consumers into making unnecessary purchases. Yes, added convenience (maybe), but not needed. Forget the trick of putting last-minute stuff at the register, the entire store is designed that way.

I'm surprised at how lazy I've become. I can spend a day sitting on my butt in front of my computer or the couch whereas in Asia, I was constantly on-the-go. A shitty hotel room is the last place you want to spend your time! On the other hand, the thought of jumping out of bed each morning (and every morning) and striking out into SF to explore all the city has to offer seems really tiring. How did we do it for a whole year? Who knows, but it was easy.

I miss my camera. In fact I almost forgot about it until I dug it out of the cabinet the other day. It's been there since we got home and being that it's only been several weeks, that may not seem like a long time. But to me, it's eternal. I'm used to taking it with me everywhere for 13 months. I'm used to charging batteries and cleaning the lens and downloading, organizing, and editing pictures on a daily basis. Honestly, the camera was an albatross around my neck on the journey. I hated toting it everywhere in the heat (it's very large and heavy). On the other hand, I couldn't step out the door without it in hand just in case I saw something interesting. The lack of its daily presence in my life, somehow, speaks the loudest about how different life is for me now that I'm home...

The Return Home, Entry #3

2006-05-05T07:31:00.000+07:00

It's interesting to watch all the immigration stuff going on in the U.S. at the moment. Having been gone for so long, I can view the goings on with a fresh perspective. Or maybe a fresher perspective. OK, certainly a new perspective -- you're the judge about whether it's fresh or not.

When I arrived to LAX, at the immigration counters, I was intrigued by the array of nationalities and races working there. I smiled inside, thinking 'This is the Unites Sates. This. The variety of people'. This is something I love about the United States. This is something, in my opinion, that really makes us different -- and unique -- as far as the rest of the world goes. This is our appeal. This is our greatest attribute.

We don't have a corner on democracy. There are plenty of democratic countries in the world (and more to come if we have our way). We don't have a corner on the marketplace -- sure we're the biggest consumers of everything in the world (OK, that's unique), but look how we import so many things with stickers that read 'made in China' on the bottom...

What I'm saying is that of all the things America IS or DOES, our population is what makes us stand apart from the crowd. After traveling in countries where there is no such diversity, or if there is diversity it's very minimal, I am asounted to see the mix we have here, especially in SF. I guess I was used to it before leaving home and so it was invisible.

I did miss it while traveling. In restaurants, on the bus, on the street, looking out at a sea of all black hair was a disconcerting experience. Everyone was the same. It's like eating plain oatmeal instead of the kind with brown sugar, raisins, honey, and bananas in it. What they say is true, "Variety is the spice of life." This comes from William Cowper's poem, “The Task” (1785): “Variety is the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.”

Obviously, we was onto something. No one's ever heard of William Cowper. He's not exactly a household name, but everyone knows the line from his poem.

So. America: you're beautiful because of the many faces in your crowds. Another perk: the menu. In India, I ate Indian food. I love Indian food, but after a few months, I missed the variety of choices I had back home. I'll eat Italian one night, Indian the next, Mexican after that... maybe a little Spanish or French here and there. Because of our country's diversity, our taste buds get to travel the planet whenever they like.

Variety IS the spice of life.

Now, I write this from San Francisco, a place known for its diversity. I know that in Ohio, where I grew up, things are much different. Or maybe just more subtle. Maybe you don't have the numbers of Asian or Mexican communities we have... But you do have Germans, Irish, Polish people (and lots of jokes to go with them). They look the same, so perhaps are not thought of as 'foreingers' like many other immigrants. In fact, Asian Americans I know get upset when people look at them and say, "Wow, you speak such good English." Their reply, "Well, I was born and raised in Illinois so maybe that has something to do with it, you idiot."

I have to admit, when I was IN Asia, I was always taken aback when I heard an Asian person speak with a perfect American accent. It never surprised me before traveling. I never even thought about it. But on the road, when everyone with a similar appearance is speaking a foreingn language, it started to surprise me. And I was surprised that I was surprised.

In China, I saw a group of Chinese Americans being led on a tour through the streets of Lijiang. Their Chinese guide was speaking to them in English. They are Chinese but don't speak Chinese. This was always surprising to the people of China. They didn't understand why the Chinese Americans didn't understand them.

But back to the subject...

Here we have this immigration thing going on. It's complex because people are marching for immigrant rights and people are also marching for illegal immigrant rights. To me, these are two separate issues... now they are all tangled up in each other and complicating things.

I can't think of any country that welcomes illegal immigrants. From recent experience in Thailand, they are constantly checking ID cards at roadblocks, looking for people (workers) from Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. I heard from Dutch, French, English, and Spanish travelers about the problems in their own countries to do with immigrants & integration, legal or not.

If I secretly moved to Thailand and then got into trouble, I would have no rights as a foreign national in Thailand illegally. So, do the illegal immigrants in America have rights? I'll leave that one open.

My opinion on the matter: separate the issues -- keep our many faces -- make my taste buds happy

The Return Home, Entry #2

2006-05-05T07:04:00.000+07:00

I've had more time to settle in and notice a change in my perception of this strange place called 'home'. Different things surprise me, make me uneasy, make it hard to feel reintegrated.

I'm still shocked by the pace and the assertive manner in which things get done. Why can't it be like the post office? I went there today to mail a few souvenirs off to contributors. The employees there don't move quickly; they're not concerned about lines. They do things in their own sweet time. It used to drive me nuts, but I am in league with the postal employees now: slow and leisurly. But one thing is to be said for the fast-moving world in the U.S., shit gets done. The phrase, "Make it happen," seems to be burned into everyone's psyche.

Not that things didn't get done in Asia. Often, I found myself marveling that amidst all the confusion, things did get done... anything. Looking to hire a car & driver? Looking for a beat up motorcycle to rent? Looking for a shoe shine, a single banana to buy, an escort for the night? You didn't have to look far or hard for someone to do something for you, take you someplace, or refer you to at least 50 others who could. All you have to do is stand on the street corner.

Maybe the difference is the way things get done -- here there is more pressure. And perhaps its because at home, I have a different role in society. I am a 'do-er' instead of a 'do-ee'. Meaning, people come to me to get shit done, whereas while traveling, I was always the employer. I had no responsibilities, no job to do. People dindn't want anything from (well, except for my tourist dollar).

---

I ventured out to the financial district at lunch time yesterday. I hadn't really been out a lot since coming back. Yes, I've been to many of our 'super stores', but they are generic experiences and don't count. I've been around my neighborhood (and the Haight is so preposterous, it doesn't count either).

I was surprised by the darkness. Everyone dressed in dull, monochromatic clothing. I, myself, have a wardrobe of mostly black. As I unpacked a few weeks back, I was surprised to pull black shirt after black shirt after black shirt out of the box. Black jeans, black socks, black jackets, black sweaters. It reminded how once a friend told me he thought I was cool, "because your wardrobe is all black." And here I thought it was a witty sense of humor or intelligent advice or something like that. But no, he thought I was cool because I bought black clothes. Lots of them.

I looked into the sidewalk windows of fancy restaurants and saw business people, serious business people, talking over 20 dollar sandwhiches, or silver platters of oysters fanned out on beds of shaved ice, or hunks of rare ahi tuna plated with a fancy side dish with a strange name. Everyone solemn, everyone 'getting shit done'.

This is when I felt my most foreign, being home. I didn't really fit into the business world before my trip. The design agencies where I've worked are one step up from hanging out with friends to work on a hobby. But now I feel even more foreign -- not having spent a lot of time on the road in urban business centers, it's like going to another planet. A boring planet. A black, pin-striped planet full of acronyms and people 'doing lunch'.

I am struggling with the pace, the work world, the things I left that are now re-entering my life. When rocks come flying into our atmosphere from outer space, they fire up. That's how it feels inside my head now. A little fuse has been lit. It's flaring. And using oxygen.

The Return Home, Entry #1

2006-04-25T03:11:00.000+07:00

Now that we've been back for a few weeks, and our apartment is 90% back in place, I have a few minutes to start recording my thoughts on returning home. I better start now before I forget -- for new things enter my head with a frequency that threatens to push other things out before I've written them down...

Flying into LAX, just as the sun was setting, I looked out the window of the plane and perceived a strange landscape of asphalt and giant box-like buildiings with even larger parking lots surrounding them. Bits of green –– a yard here, a tree there -- seemed like afterthoughts to the paved landscape. The ground below looked like a train model, an imitation of reality. Clean, orderly, efficient and methodical.

This sense of un-reality continued as we drove along on the streets. There were no street vendors or open markets and food stalls lining every street. Everyone, single individuals, stuck in their own worlds, their own cars as they pulled up obediantly to stop lights. Houses were spaced widely apart. There was no-one on the sidewalks. I was struck by a feeling of boredom with my surroundings and a sensation of isolation. My very first impression of landing back in the U.S.: people are disconnected from each other, cloistered in their own private spaces, out of contact with the rest of humanity: their neighbors, communities... they live in orderly grids and wide boulevards, and quiet streets. There is no room for the chaos and commotion that define street scenes in Asia. This pained me -- life seemed dull.

But people seem happy in their isolation I've noticed. There are no smiles and 'hello's to strangers on the street (and there are only a few strangers on the street in comparison to foot traffic in Asia). People just don't seem interested in each other. Or maybe they're too busy. The pace of life in the U.S. is frenetic. People seem panicked. Rushing, impatient, frenzied. That's the irony: in Asia, the streets may be crazy and hectic and bustling with life, but the people are relaxed, mellow; they do things in their time. Here the streets are dull and lifeless yet the people are hectic and manic: in their goings and comings, in conversation... they move at the speed of light. And they are impatient, waving their fists in the air if they have to wait too long at a stop sign. I was seriously stressed out placing an order for a sandwich during the lunch rush hour the other day -- the counter clerk was in such a frenzy I felt like I'd been plowed down by a giant speeding truck after placing my order. There is no time to think, to pause, to consider one's options in the sandwich line.

Of course there are the usual things that are 'different' in the U.S.: the cool weather, the high prices, the large people (even cats look like giants compared to their counterparts in Asia), the high-profile signage of chain stores, chain restaurants, and chain superstores from the freeway. I was surprised by the number of SUVs on the streets, especially in light of the gas crisis... in Asia, motorbikes are the standard method of transport. I'd forgotten about the miles and miles of smooth and efficient multiple-lane highways. I'd forgotten about stop lights and stop signs and driving rules (what's a speed limit?).

People look different: their dress, their hair styles... they look foreign to me yet they are "my people". I don't know what it is... it's one of those indescribable yet evident things -- they look different than everyone I've seen in the past 13 months: Asians and European travelers alike. I know, now, how easy it is to spot an American... I just can't tell you how it's done. And walking down the street or browsing in a superstore or standing in line at a sandwich shop, people sound different. I mean no offense, but a lot of them sound dumb -- they remind me of yellow lab puppies: eager and a little dopey, but well meaning.

I'm amazed by the wealth I see. People dropping hundreds of dollars on groceries and housewares. People in Asia think in the U.S., money grows on trees. Perhaps it does. The other day at Costco (one of the very first superstores I visited in the 'big move in' process), the cashier told the woman in front of me that her total was four hundred and some odd dollars. I was shocked but she didn't blink an eye. Entire families live on similar sums for months on end, if not an entire year in Asia. I understand there is context to this money thing. As I traveled, I was constantly reminded by locals how rich and lucky I was (am). To them I'm a millionaire, but at home I get by. Obviously I get by well enough to take off and travel so far away for so long, but in the grand context of things, I am just a regular person in the U.S. Not rich, but not poor either. Our standards of wealth are on a different scale (on many different scales), that's for sure.

In Myanmar, for example, I had a conversation in my hotel room with a woman employed by the hotel as a cleaning lady. She told me I am lucky to be American: it's such a wealthy country. We have it easy. Somehow the conversation turned to food. She thought our food must be very, very cheap. But when I told her 4 chicken breasts cost about nine dollars, she was amazed. This sum was more than half of her monthly income ($16.00). She, on the other hand, probably has chickens in her yard. And fresh produce is a fraction of the cost than in the U.S. My talk with her reminded me that everything is relative. We may make more money in the U.S., but we spend more, too. And we've made our lives complicated with our fast pace and to-do lists and stress (there is no road rage in Myanmar). Perhaps she is the wealthy one -- forgetting about money. She knows her family members well (they all live together, three generations in (possibly) one room). She lives a less complicated life. But one thing is for sure: we all face the same challenges in life, whether we're from the first or third world. We're all just trying to survive.

One of the hardest things for me, reintegrating, is the expense in moving back into our place. We've bought things, we've painted, we're making our space a comfortable place to be. But after months of living on twenty bucks a day, spending hundreds seems insane. I've gotten used to living on a small budget, and thinking about that budget every day: with every meal, every purchase, every rupee or kip or dong or baht spent. When I was traveling, thinking about the budget almost bordered on obsession (but this is not because of frugality or stinginess... this is the traveler's modus operandi). It's been hard to refurbish our apartment or do the grocery shopping with this engrained mindest.

I'm also not used to having a phone. It was nice not having one for so long -- I just got a cell phone and it seems like a strange and alien object. I have a reticense to learn the multitude of features and functions. I find myself lax in memorizing my number.

I can't get used to the concept of weekdays and weekends. I nearly scald myself in the shower with the abundance and intensity of hot water coursing through good plumbing. I feel strange accepting or giving things from/to others with my left hand (a big no no in Asia) and seeing people with shoes on indoors. I'm not used to leaving my passport at home -- after carrying it around with me every day for so long, it's become a part of me in a strange way. I am bowled over by the size of a large coffee (and I used to drink several of them in the morning). I get excited by the convenience of simple machinery: washing machines and dryers, microwaves. And after 8 countries and 8 currencies, I feel no familiarity to U.S. money; I cannot get used to the new design (coins in particular). This was, oddly, a big letdown. Like it or not, people identify with money and my home currency no longer feels like 'home'.

I have indulged myself in all things I missed: red wine, cheese, mexican food, lazy days on the couch (OK, only one). There is much more to do in this arena... though I find the things I missed on the road are not as good in reality as they were in my mind at the time. Perhaps this is the biggest lesson in my return -- maybe this realization will help me "let go" of thoughts about my freedom and the adventure of life on the road. I am here now and I need to be here... I know I won't be happy if my thoughts revolve around 'there' and 'then'. For now, my happiness is found in thinking about 'next time'.

Kanchanaburi

2006-04-03T12:33:00.000+07:00

We've just returned from Kanchanaburi, only 2 hours from Bangkok but worlds apart. Kanchanaburi is slow and scenic: a countryside edged by lumpy mountians with valleys full of sugar cane, rivers full of reeds and flowering lilly pads, caves and waterfalls and jungle. Kanchanaburi is the site of the 'Bridge over the River Kwai', with much history on display at museums throughout town. The place is like a time capsule from 1942/3, when the Japanese forced POWs to build the 'Death Railway' to aid their movement and the passage of supplies through Burma, towards India.

In Kanchanaburi, the river is lazy and the peaceful twitter of birds is only disturbed by the occasional THUMP THUMP THUMP of a bassline in the passing of a floating disco -- the people of Kanchanaburi don't waste real esate -- our bungalow was actually on a floating raft, anchored to the shore, bobbing with the waves on the River Kwai.

Maybe I like Kanchanaburi because it's sort of kitschy: floating discos and bungalows on rafts are just the start. The town is famous for the nearby Tiger Temple, where tourists can get up close and personal with rescued tigers. I heard once a lady's arm was bitten off, but no-one really talks about her or the potential danger. People assume the monks have tamed them, but they're monks, not animal trainers (on second thought...). There are rumors that the tigers are drugged -- sedated -- so when Gustav puts his face next to the tiger's head for his photo, the tiger seems not to care. Personally, I didn't want to be the next tourist-who-gets-bitten-but-nobody-talks-about-it AND the skies were black with rain the day we stopped to visit, so we skipped the tiger temple and road home to safety from teeth and rain.

There's also a monkey training school. We saw pig tailed macaques ride a tricycle, play basketball, swim, count to 10 (pointing at signs), and sell us 'white monkey holding peach balm' (similar to tiger balm -- they probably sell that at the tiger temple). The most alluring attraction and biggest letdown, though, was the floating nun. She was said to do yoga positions while 'hovering' on the surface of the water. It was a miraculous scene, according to some sources. For 100 Baht ($2.50), we got to see an obese woman float in a tub of water. Yes, she did some mudras with her hand... but she floated because she was fat and anyway, floating is not hovering. But what did I expect? No-one can really walk (or do yoga) on water...

There's also a mini lightshow reenactment of the allied troops blowing up the bridge (over the River Kwai) during WWII. We skipped this, having visited numerous 'Death Railway' museums in the previous days and frankly, we didn't need to see a model blown up to get the jist of the story. While I am a fan of this type of entertainement, at 300 Baht ($7.50), I couldn't do it.

While Kanchanaburi is a bit kitsch, and the expats who live there are no different, it is also a sobering place. Especially felt when visiting the war cemetery in town, where the corpses of British and Australian POWs were moved when the war was over (they were moved there from cemeteries in the jungle near their work camps). Rows of small headstones, all alike, are inscribed with messages from loved ones so sad I felt like crying. Most of the men were in their 20s and most of them died in the year 1943. What a bad year for so many -- looking at the graves I was overwhelmed by the number of men who died in that one year and realizing I was only seeing a fraction of the men who died that year, or in the war as a whole, I again felt like crying. Not necesearily for the men who died, but for the people they left behind.

Despite my bad feelings about war, I am fascinated by war stories... and a visit to Kanchanaburi was a great history lesson.

Destination TBD: The Final Count Down

2006-04-02T18:59:00.000+07:00

The count down has begun: as I write this, we have three nights left before we return home. Nerves are frazzled, temperaments are testy, the calendar (all of a sudden) has taken the center stage. The Big Trip, as I liked to call it, is over (this one at least). Those who like to "debate" about such things might say, "Now, don't say that, think of it as a detour on the winding road of life." I'm not one of those people, not unless I've had a little wine and find myself in one of those moods where everyone is your best friend and quoting spiritually inclined bumper stickers passes for wisdom. No,no... this chapter has ended. Hell, the book is nearly finished. But what does the appendix hold?

We will return home like brand new cars: without scratches and dents, rust or dings... we will return home like flowers before they have been cut and picked and shoved into an arrangement pleasing to another's eye. Somehow in the last year, without phones and schedules and appointments and bills and anything -- any word -- that ends with 'ility'... somehow we have become like new again. Babies with attitude, if you will (I say attitude because we can wear funky shoes and hold a conversation with multi-syllable cuss words).

We are like babies: with open minds and open hearts, carefree & unconcerned, curious, and wise. Yes, wise... wise in a way that can only be found when there is nothing to worry about, because gossip and stress and disappointment no longer exist. Perhaps traveling through Buddhist lands has had some effect on our outlook: when you rise above all of that shit, happiness can be found (note: this is not a direct quotation). Perhaps we have been affected by the freedom from all the things that distract us back home. It's a great feeling, I can tell you that: a clean mind.

We have already felt the effects of what life will be like upon our return: little things here and there. We've talked about the lack of closet space in our apartment (and felt annoyed); I've pondered which cell phone company I should sign up with (and felt like cutting out my tongue so I can't use a cell phone); we've discussed the increased price of public transportation in the city (and seethed in anger so long forgotten); we've argued about what color the new bedspread should be (actually I made that one up, but you get the point). It's so stupid and silly to get affected by these things, but it happens. I am remembering it all now as if it was only yesterday... and this is what Benjamin and I fear the most: losing our clean minds.

At least we know what to do, though, when we come home pissed off because someone with road rage called us names. We'll know what to do when the cable goes out for a day and we're still billed for static. We'll know what to do when the neighbors leave banana peels on the sidewalk in front of the house. We'll know what to do when the mail man just can't remember to put our mail in our box. We'll know what to do when the bus driver pulls away from the curb after we've run 4 blocks to catch up. We'll know what to do with all the stuff that's annoying and ultimately distracting: we'll remind ourselves how it feels to have a 'clean mind'. Or maybe we'll just hop on a plane to detox: we're already saving for dTBD II.

The Year in Review

2006-03-07T16:11:00.000+07:00

It's hard to believe one year ago (now a little more) we landed in India with 12 months of unknown adventure ahead of us. India was the perfect place to get started with our trip -- you learn how to spot scams and cons; how to bargain prices (Indians are hard bargainers); and sit in crowded and blazing hot busses for hours on end... These are skills that have come in handy throughout the year, on a regular basis. Same goes for the rationing of precious toilet paper; skill with cleansing one's self with hose sprayers or ladles of water (for the TP-less bathroom visits); the ability to balance on the edge of a bobbing boat as you step into another during off-shore boat transfers (there have been many boats during this trip, they are like busses in many places); the ability to find sound sleep in a bungalow visited by rats, frogs, roaches, gigantic spiders, and mosquitoes.

But most of all, on this trip, we have learned to abandon control: you would have a hard time traveling as a control freak -- you almost never know what's going on or when it's going to happen. Questions are answered, "No problem," or, "Don't worry..." I have learned to put my 'need to know' on the back burner. Somehow, you always end up where you wanted to be -- perhaps a few hours later than planned, but what are plans when you have all the time in the world? And, somehow, there is always someone that points you in the right way, transfers you to a different bus, or at least tells you, "Get off here." It might appear you're in the middle of nowhere, but no time will be wasted -- someone will arrive shortly to get you to the next place (with the exception of India, at times).

The year has flown by and it almost seems surreal, the places we've been and the sights we've seen. We've slept on the crest of a sand dune in India's Thar Desert (with our transport, camels, nearby but not within spitting range); we've hiked the Great Wall and ridden horses in China's version of the wild west (camping under thunderstorms while sleeping on boughs of pine needles and using stinky saddles as pillows); we've traversed Vietnam's Central Highlands by motorcycle on the Ho Chi Minh Highway; explored the glory of Angkor Wat (for the 2nd time) and volunteered with orphans in Cambodia -- in fact, we've become sponsors for one little boy, Sayorn; we've soaked up sun and sea in Bali and Lombok; lived in a 150-meter high treehouse in Laos; explored the temples and hill tribes of the enigmatic Myanmar; learned the ancient art of traditional Thai massage in Chiang Mai and discovered the art of doing nothing (also ancient) on the islands and beaches of Thailand... And this is only the short list... perhaps things that jumped to mind because they are among my favorite experiences, now memories.

In the last year, I have discovered my 1st (OK... 2nd, 3rd, and possibly 4th) gray hairs; celebrated my 34th birthday -- Benjamin his 36th and (soon) 37th; we've missed Easter, July 4, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Xmas, New Years Eve and Day... Friends have gotten married and babies have been born; my little brother graduated university and my retired father has returned there; friends have quit jobs and started businesses. We've missed the changing of the seasons, holidays and birthdays, the Super Bowl, Olympics, and the Oscars...

Along the way we have met people from all over the world: Africa, Australia, Europe, North America (and of course Asia). We've shared many a beer and conversation with -- literally -- hundreds of people. I've met and befriended more 'new' people on the road than during several years combined at home. Some of our friendships are fleeting -- they may last only one evening. But a surprising amount of people are now in my address book, my inbox, and in a filed email folder marked 'travel friends'. We have friends to visit the world wide: England, France, Australia, Singapore...

Along the way we have seen relics from the past -- ancient temples, colonization, war... It's amazing how long the effects of a war linger. The Vietnam War (or American War depending on who you are) is still visible in many SE Asian countries. Laos still struggles with Hmong guerrillas (American trained) and hidden land mines; Cambodia still suffers from KR years (a genocide helped along by its own political instability paired with fighting along/within its border with Vietnam and American bombing campaigns); Thailand's sex tourism industry flourishes -- the seeds of which were planted before the war, but watered and fertilized and cultivated by GIs on R&R (ha ha, what a great metaphor when you think of it).

Yes, wars continue long after they're fought, long after the bomb craters fill in and napalmed forests grow back and people greet the 'enemy' with kindness because they were 'enemies' before their time. Even once all these things happen, the war goes on because people have been affected -- familes have been ruined -- I've met several women from France, for example, for whom the tragedies of war continue and these women are my age. Their families were refugees, their parents are from another place, another culture and don't understand their daughters' Western ideas about life, marriage, independence. Their families are somewhat broken, even now, even in a different country.

Europe's need to colonize Asia, even older than this recent war, is seen everywhere: architecture, food, language. The Brits had India and Myanmar; the French had Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia (formerly known as Indochina); the Dutch had Indonesia... what are the effects? Pilfered resources for one (i.e. Teak forests in Myanmar have been decimated)... Communist politics itself -- in a unified effort to break from foreign rule, political affiliations were born from a need for independence, or at least a change. On the plus side (for me), French bread and imported cheese can occasionally be found... It's ironic that the colonial days, like the war, have impact on society and government today. I've met English, Dutch, and French who complain about the immigrants, or 'asylum seekers' as some call them. These are people from former colonies, hence one-time citizens, who have moved in or are currently on the 'mother' country's doorstep and who are not completely wanted. Seems to me the consumerism of Western societies is not a recent event: there is a long history of using something up, spoiling it, throwing it away and then repulsion that the trash stinks.

I see the beauty of the world -- the coral-fringed coastlines and soaring cliffs, rolling plains and mountain vistas, thick forests and crystal lakes -- and I no longer see boundaries of ownership... we all "own" the earth. But then I catch a glimpse of the news now and then and it's all death and violence over ownership of land, resources, 'correct' morals... it's saddening to live so peacefully and to see the immense beauty of our planet only to be transported back into a world of anger and stress and outrage with the flick 'on' of someone's remote (this, by the way, is one reason I'm dreading our return to the U.S. -- my mental state will surely decline and ignoring the news completely is not the answer). When we were in Bali/Lombok during the second terrorist attack in Kuta, the news was passed by word of mouth on the tiny island 'Gili Air' and I heard about it at night and wrote in my journal: I look up at the vast, starry sky and it seems so innocent, so pure, untouched... while meanwhile there is killing happening beneath its gaze. A small, inconsequential planet is so full of hate and anger and little ants of people are killing other little ants over a crumb or land or a personal belief: no good reasons. There can never be a good reason...

During our travels we have been followed around by Bush. As Americans, we are seen as The Ones Who Elected Him. Everyone wants to know, "Why?" Some are kind in their questioning, open-minded, curious... intelligent enough to know that governments don't always represent the governed. But others are combative and argumentative: sometimes being American is like having a disease no one wants to catch. I've not met one non-American who has a positive word to say about our president... and I've thought about how little I know about their leaders to even remark (we Americans are self-centered and sheltered... take a look at our news -- not many foreign stories unless we're involved in war). "Why?" they ask, "Why did Americans elect Bush?" It's an awesome responsibility we have, as Americans; our president is not only America's leader, but the leader of the world. We ought to be more intelligent about our decisions and that means knowing things about the rest of the world. Those of you who are now angry with me, please vent your feelings in the 'comments' that follow this post -- it will be handy for me to reference when people ask me 'Why?'

There has been much kindness shown to us by total strangers this past year -- simple things -- but a redeeming kindness that proves the world is not as bad as it seems at times: people sharing food on long bus journeys; locals looking after broken motorbikes, pride, and bloody wounds; good samaritans who notice furrowed brows and a lack of direction and guide us the right way -- sometimes leading us for blocks to the right street; wedding invitations, shared meals, roadtrips, and presents -- we've gotten them all from kind souls who don't see us as foreigners but as people.

I will be happy, once home, to abandon the label of 'foreigner' that accompanies us wherever we go. The very word implies a certain sort of alienation, 'you are not one of us'. The Chinese and Thais and others have special words for foreigners that translate, directly (and simply), to 'foreigner' and while it's obvious that we are what we're called, sometimes I don't feel the need to have it pointed out in form of address. However, I will miss the naivete I may claim as being a foreigner, "Oh, sorry, I didn't understand..."

Once home I will indulge in all the comforts missed on the road: a place to kick back on a lazy day (a couch!), Mexican food, friends and family, TV (yes, I'm not ashamed), holiday celebrations, phoning in an order for pizza delivery (extra cheese, please), a language I always understand (although it's easier to drown out 'chatter' in public when you don't understand a word).

I know once I'm home I'll tire of the routine that comes with 'real life' (though is this not 'real life', too?): working, bills, housework (I haven't had to wash a single dish this whole year). I'll look at photos and my journal and think wistfully about this year in Asia: the absolute freedom I've had on a daily basis -- only dictated by the expiration of a visa when you have to make a determined move. I'll pine for the barrage of foreign sites, sounds, smells, tastes, textures... I'll even miss the feelings of utter confusion and unknowing -- you feel the most alive when you're not all that comfortable. I'll miss the lack of rules and regulations, agreements and releases: there is no threat of free-for-all law suits here to curtail your fun. I'll remember the friendly community spirit -- the Asian tendency to hold conversations with strangers, the easy smiles, the informality. I plan to bring it all home with me but I had a dream the other night that after one week there, I'd lost it already.

Before leaving on this trip I went through several stages of fear: supporting myself without working for 1+ year, leaving employment, the safety of the 'known'... that was all dealt with over a period of months while planning the trip and then the fear switched to being a couple of people in a foreign land who have only themselves to rely upon... "What happens if?" became a concern. And then: fear of the unknown... I actually didn't feel nervous until our final layover in Bangkok on the way to Kolkata, India. I had the butterflies -- not the pretty ones, the poisonous kind.

Now that we're coming home, I have a whole new set of fears. Odd. I didn't think I'd feel anything but mild depression that comes when something ends. I fear the feeling of strangeness -- the culture shock of being back home. Although I have contradictory fears: the fear that it soon won't be strange, that I will be back as I was as if nothing ever happened. I fear the day that it's all a distant memory. However, by that time, I hope to be back on the road: not Asia -- I want to see the whole world.

Vacation Land

2006-02-23T17:09:00.000+07:00

Southern Thailand is the vacation spot. It hardly feels Thai at all in comparison to the North. People were worried tourists would stay away because of last year's tsunami but they are here. Oh, are they here - sunbathing and swimming, sucking alcohol through straws stuck in buckets of coke and rum, watching fire dancers on the beach and dancing all night at full moon, half moon, and black moon parties (Any excuse, right? There are even 'no moon' parties). Southern Thailand is nothing if not a hedonist's dream.

We are moving south, to more remote islands and beaches... less tourists, more nature. Traveling the Andaman Coast, we are voyaging on water that a year ago sucked itself up into a giant wave killing thousands... it's hard not to look at the crystalline water and the seafoam stirred up by boats and not think of all the lives lost, the bodies the ocean claimed. In most respects, you can hardly tell such devastation happened here. Things have been cleaned up. If we hadn't been to Koh Phi Phi before, we would not have known that the low-lying palm trees have all been swept clean from the sand and that the stretch of beach between its mountains was once full of bungalows and hotels that now cease to exist. Now there are new trees planted, but not enough to replace the dense coconut grove that's now gone. And there are a few makeshift buildings and huts for villagers, but everything looks temporary and quickly constructed.

We are now on Koh Lanta, an island at the edge of the 'tourist zone'... there are much fewer people here and the vibe is more relaxed. At the southern end of Koh Lanta, there are long stretches of beach nestled in a series of beautiful bays that have, to date, been spared over development. Most of southern Lanta is unspoiled - the paved road becomes dirt here and any place that still has a main road of dirt is a good place in my book. The road is not lined with hotels and shops and restaurants, ugly concrete constructions with corrugated tin roofs and a haphazard placement of signage (Koh Samui)... it's not packed with tourists and touts (Koh Phi Phi).

Sadly, Koh Lanta will probably change to be like the others, it's only a matter of time... For now, there is plenty of woodland and jungle and clear water that's sometimes the color of emeralds, and others the color of sapphires... there are plenty of places where you'll find yourself alone on a beach too beautiful to remain so secluded in developers' eyes.

There's a national marine park at the southern tip of the island, which includes several islands far off from the shore - we traveled to one of them, Koh Rok, and by speedboat, it took one hour. There we found amazing coral reefs with all sorts of colorful fish, giant clams, moray eels... snorkeling here was, aside from Bali and Lombok, the best ever. On shore, huge monitor lizards live in the forest.

Tomorrow we head farther south. We will leave Thailand for several minutes and then re-enter (not for fun, our visas run out). From Satun, we'll head out to the Koh Tarutao National Marine Park... Reality TV buffs might recognize the name; Survivor Thailand was filmed here. In the past, Tarutao was used as a prison island, chosen for an inhospitable environment of malarial mosquitoes, crocodiles, and predatory sharks. As part of the park, Koh Tarutao is totally unspoiled and I hope to see the langurs, sea otters, fishing cats, and tree pythons (OK, maybe not them). Another boat ride will take us to Koh Lipe... perhaps we'll learn to scuba dive...

From Tarutao, we'll head back north to the islands off Trang and then make our way further north towards Bangkok for (drum roll please) our flight home. We have a few ideas in mind... side steps from our beach vacation... we'll see how it goes. I have a feeling you won't hear from me for a while. We are heading to remote places... but you never know where we'll end up! Destinations are all TBD.

Tonsai Dreamin'

2006-02-23T16:34:00.000+07:00

On Tonsai Beach, the locals spend their time following their dreams. One man explores uninhabited islands cataloging rare species of tropical birds and monkeys. Another climbs Krabi's immense and vertical rock walls, without ropes or harness, despite the fact that he's an amputee (right arm). A young boy is constructing a giant butterfly collection to, one day, be entered in the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest of its kind. You may be thinking, 'what an amazing bunch of people', and they are... in their dreams... for the people here spend most of their day sleeping. And since I am here I'm doing as the locals do: sleeping, daydreaming, vegging out.

I watch the passing clouds and see rare and unknown animals: rabbits with elephant trunks and serpents with riders who sit upon their camel-like humps. I see faces of old women and wise men - even monsters - in the shadows on the rock walls surrounding the beach. I see kayakers approaching and imagine them to be pirates so brave and bold they come to plunder in broad daylight. Bikini-clad women are mermaids from the sea, given legs upon land by the grace of the shadow-crones in the limestone cliffs. The enormous spiders in the forest are spirits of shipwrecked sailors. And the sailboats in the bay are all mine, each and every one of them, waiting to sail me around the Indian Ocean in search of a secret island known to the sea creatures as heaven. Ah, if only it were all real. Sometimes a good imagination can be devastating. I'm a daydreamer here and what is the beach if not the perfect place to entertain fantasies?

The "real" Tonsai, in comparison to the surrounding tourist hot spots like Ao Nang and Railay Beach, is a lost tropical paradise. I say 'lost' because it is more like a pirate ship than a luxury liner; it's more backpack than suitcase; it's hand painted signs versus glossy brochures; it's fisherman pants instead of 20-pocket khakis. There are no high rise buildings or asphalt roadways... no souvenir shops strung together like the shell necklaces they sell... no tourists promenading in newly acquired vacation attire. It is only accessible by boat. The beach is not superb - in fact at low tide the water retreats so far from the shore there is nothing left in the bay but mucky rocks. At high tide it's much more scenic, but still too shallow and rocky for swimming. And here in lies Tonsai's greatest asset: a shitty beach (when compared to others). I don't think it's shitty myself, it's just not 'ideal' and most tourists head for the ideal and consequently spoil it. Not on Tonsai.

It's a favorite of rock climbers, but you don't have to be Spiderman to enjoy this place. Scuba and kayaking and snorkeling trips can fill days. A quick trip by longtail boat takes you to unpopulated islands - limestone outcroppings that jut out of the sea and appear to 'drip' rock... stalagtites cling to vertical walls and resemble a dripping candle that has hardened into something bizarre and beautiful.

At night, bonfires light the beach, fire dancers spin flaming batons and people lounge on bamboo mats laid out on the sand, a reggae beat here... dance music there... It's surprising, really, to see a crowded restaurant at night. In the daylight hours it's as if hardly anyone is there at all... perhaps they're all too high up to notice, scaling the rock walls. Or perhaps they are all below the sea. Or perhaps they are like me, off daydreaming somewhere no-one but them may go.

Tonsai Arrival

2006-02-23T14:58:00.000+07:00

I was feeling blase when we arrived –– the changes we saw in Ao Nang: more tourists, more buildings, higher prices got me down, and the chore of looking for yet another 'home' in the baking heat, hauling 15 kilos of weight on my back (that's over 30 pounds) is not the picture culled in fantasies about arriving somewhere tropical and beautiful...

My mood was lifted when, as we waited for a longtail boat to ferry us over to Tonsai beach, we saw friends from Samui and Chiang Mai on Ao Nang's beach. John and Nyla were returning from Tonsai -- we were just going there. How serendipitous to run into them, how unfortunate to have missed them. It's a small world, where 2 Americans can accidentally meet 2 Brits on a beach in Thailand after having parted ways over 1 month prior without contact since.

Another chance encounter once we reached Tonsai: we came upon a small coffee shack on the lonely end of the beach. It was run by a man named Dam (pronounced Dom), whom we'd befriended 4 years earlier when we stayed in Ao Nang. Benjamin and he'd kept in touch through email over the years but had fallen out of contact in the last several. After the tsunami last year, Benjamin was dead set to find him when we returned to Southern Thailand. We didn't know where he was, or if he had survived, and voila! There he is. Even if you don't believe in 'signs', you must be thinking that all of this has to mean something. I did, and as we relaxed on the beach at Dam's coffee shop (drinking beer), a feeling of contentment washed over me as I took in the surroundings: monkeys taunting boatmen on the beach; a little boy pulling a brick tied to a string across the sand; rock climbers looking like ants on the enormous walls of limestone rock surrounding the beach; turquoise water sparkling in the sun...

I realized that on arrival, it was just one more arrival in many over the last year: they have become inconsequential. Such a shame! Having seen so many beautiful places and fascinating things packed so tightly together in such a short span of time, you become immune to the wonderment of the places you go. They lose their 'spark in the gut'... But I could see, once I settled in, how amazing it was, the place I'd just arrived. It's odd, that when you travel for a long period of time, the 'oohs and aaahs' that are normal upon arrival during shorter trips become reversed. On shorter trips, you stand agog in the place you have just arrived and then, after some time, it becomes 'ordinary'. You take the scenery for granted. But with long term travel, you take the scenery for granted at first and then, after time to settle in to the place, the 'oohs and aaaahs' come.

I watched the sun sink behind the last ocean wave visible and in a state of total happiness, I felt like time didn't exist. Damn the sun and the moon for reminding me that it does.

Beach Bums

2006-02-09T14:40:00.000+07:00

We've finally left the North and are sweating and sunning in Southern Thailand -- for the new few months... SO, don't get concerned with infrequent postings... think of it as our last hurrah before heading home: our last vacation for a long, long while... the beach and the internet don't go well together anyway.

We're currently in Krabi, on Tonsai beach and plan to go South, island hopping the more remote of Thailand's beaches (well, less touristed anyway). While I may not be writing with any frequency, you never know... so don't forget to check our site now and again!

The Gibbon Experience

2006-01-27T12:22:00.000+07:00

I am hundreds of feet above the ground, looking out from a perch on the branches of a massive tree, and the forest takes on a new perspective: the ragged lines of tree-lined mountains march into the horizon -- green fades to white in tinted bands, from dark to light -- I am so high up, only the distant atmosphere obstructs a view to infinity. Here and there the sun creates shadows and illuminates patches of leaves, creating, on my forest canvas, a palette of a million shades of green and even more textures. Only the symphony of a thousand birds competes with the woodland medley before me. I'd be happy enough to see this view of the rainforest for only several minutes, but lucky for me, this will be my home (and my view) for a few days. I am living in the forest canopy -- in a treehouse cradled in the protective embrace of a towering Strangler Fig -- in the Bokeo Forest in Laos. Welcome to the Gibbon Experience.

It's not an easy journey to the top of a tree. We left the border town of Huay Xai early in the morning and traveled along a rough dirt road in the back of a pickup for three hours. Everything on the sides of the road was painted brown from dust kicked up by passing vehicles. I licked my lips and tasted soil; grains of dirt crunched between my teeth; my skin turned the color of dark rouge worn by old women with poor eyesight. Our truck crossed a river and eventually dropped us in a clearing surrounded by the thatch huts of a village. From there, we walked through corn fields, waded through streams, and entered the shadowy darkness of the forest: huge palm leaves, dense bamboo groves, hanging vines. One hour later, at the summit of a steep climb, we came upon a small wooden structure and were handed harnesses for the final leg of our journey into the forest canopy... We made our grand entrance -- sailing in the air, suspended over the forest floor on a cable -- to our home, our treehouse. For the next 2-1/2 days, we will spend more time in the air than on the ground, cable gliding through the Bokeo Forest, sleeping in the boughs of its trees, watching and hearing the jungle below.

Despite how it sounds, the Gibbon Experience is not an adventure travel destination; it's not a tour or trek; it's not your typical ecotourism destination. It's a means to an end: a fresh approach to forest conservation dreamed up by local villagers with the help of a French man known, simply, as Jeff. Together, they created the Gibbon Experience as a way to combat poaching and illegal logging; the forest, their environment, was changing. Village life faces increased difficulty -- with lower rice revenue and higher living costs, people have turned to the forest and her inhabitants for profit. A diminishing population of wildlife alerted the locals that something must be done. While the Laos government protects the forest from the outside, it has no funds for protection from within and thus, the Gibbon Experience was born as a way to earn money to protect the forest where the government cannot. Funds from the project pay the salaries of forest guards who track and arrest poachers and loggers. More than that, the project provides locals with a self-reliant, sustainable way to earn a living while preserving their natural resources.

The Gibbon Experience is named for the Black-cheeked Crested Gibbons that live in the forest; they were once thought to be extinct and are considered the 4th most endangered gibbon species in the world. In fact, they are only found in northern Laos, southern China and northern Vietnam. They live in family groups and are famous for their singing, which can last up to 30 minutes; partners sing duets as carefully orchestrated as an operatic ballad. Within the first 1/2 hour of our arrival to the treehouse, Benjamin spotted several Gibbons playing in the distant trees. We were told it was a special moment; visitors to the Gibbon Experience don't often see the apes and are lucky just to hear them sing. Perhaps the name of the project is a misnomer in this regard, but nonetheless, the money earned by the project serves to protect them as well as the multitude of animals that live in the forest: tigers, hornbills, barking deer, wild boar, and hundreds of others. During a quiet day in the treehouse, Benjamin and I observed a Blue Throated Barbet -- a beauty of a bird unlike any I've ever seen -- with a red, purple, blue, and black pattern on its head and two-tone green body. We also saw a pair of giant squirrel-like animals with black fur on their backs and white underneath (they must have been 6 feet in length and sadly, their Western name is not known and I forget the Laos name for the creature).

Currently the Gibbon Experience sleeps 12 in three treehouses that were built by three villages, but plans are in the works to expand to 10 treehouses, involving 10 villages and encompassing the entirety of the forest. "Zip lines are the most environmentally friendly way of getting around," we were told. In the mountainous forest, it's also the quickest and least tiring way of getting from one place to another. There are 12 cables up to 150 meters above the ground (that's almost 500 feet) that serve as the primary means of transport for people, supplies, and food. Cable gliding at these heights is a thrill hard to match as you propel yourself from a wooden platform and sail through the forest; the views are stupendous -- you can see for miles; the wind rushes against your cheek; the tallest treetops brush against your feet; the winding noise of the cable goes Zzwimmm....

Tree life was nothing but comfortable. We were provided with a cozy place to sleep, an endless supply of tea and coffee, and were encouraged to snack at will on nuts, sweets, and fruits stored in the treehouse. There was clean running water, supplied by an underground spring and a bathroom complete with a shower, albeit cold water only, and squat toilet. Everything about the treehouses was built with the environment in mind -- only biodegradable waste makes its way to the forest floor (read leftover food and human waste, no TP). At the base of 'Treehouse One' lives a pig that consumes anything and everything that makes its way out of the treehouse. We were dismayed to find out he had no name and lacking any sort of creativity, we called him 'pig pen'.

The people who run the project are a passionate bunch, consisting of local villagers and a small group of foreigners from France, Holland, and England. The goal is that in the future, the project will be entirely run by the locals, but for now foreign workers and volunteers are on hand to teach the Laos villagers English and to serve as 'translators' for visitors. Liz and Lara, two women who have been working with the project for a period of time, were quick to tell us that they do not run the show; rather, it is the villagers who do everything. They guide glides and hikes and cook the food -- it is their creativity with which the project is sustained.

Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the project is the freedom of purpose laid out to visitors. "This is your experience," Liz told us on arrival, "...use your time as you like." The options are unlimited and flexible and the guides are there to help, but not direct... and certainly not impose. There are no scheduled activities as such, unless we wanted it that way. There are no 'to-dos' or meetings or forced excursions. You can be lazy and quiet in the treehouse or you can cable glide around the forest or you can fetch a guide and take a hike: it's all up to you. Here, your time is truly yours... in any way you want to use it to experience the forest, the choice is completely up to you. It's a refreshing approach, built on respect for the people who visit the forest and on behalf of the forest itself: it has much to offer.

All who visit this place say they have reclaimed their childhood. Zip lines and treehouses and nothing but free time have 'childhood' written all over them. And besides all of that, in the quiet hours that come without electricity and radios and tvs, the joy of insects is rediscovered; we spent hours watching death battles between ants and gasping at the sight of giant spiders feeding on moths at night. "When was the last time you were content -- no, had the time -- to watch insects?" I asked a Swedish couple who were bunking in Treehouse One with us. At dusk, the bird calls increased, a fine musical backdrop for our evening meal by candle light. And in the darkness, when we went to bed, the hooting sounds of owls and the soft chatter of insects lulled us to sleep... Rockabye baby, on the treetop... This lullaby ran through my mind as I drifted into slumber, but I had no fear of wind and breaking boughs: our tree was mammoth.

As a tourist, it is an uncommon experience, a privilege to be part of the project. Witnessing the conservation efforts, creativity, and dedication of the local people is inspiring and I left the Gibbon Experience happy to have been a part of it and to have seen and lived so closely with the animals and the trees. And cable gliding was icing on the cake.

Thai Massage

2006-01-21T11:42:00.000+07:00

Benjamin and I finished our Thai massage course yesterday. The beauty of taking the course is that not only did we learn this ancient tradition, but we were massaged every day. Granted, our massages were given by our fellow students during practice hours, but 2 consecutive weeks of massage does something for the old bod. 60 hours and a lot of sore muscles later, we are now as flexible as pretzels and can give a traditional Thai massage -- in fact, the first 3 people in the Bay Area who write a poem about why they need a Thai massage will get one when we return home (write your poem in the comments section that follows this text). But be warned: Thai massage is not the gentle kneading of muscles we're used to in the West... read on...

"When any person is sick in Siam he begins with causing his whole body to be moulded by one who is skillful herein, who gets upon the body of the sick person and tramples him under his feet." ~Simon de la Loubere, French liaison to the Thai Royal Court, 1690

The roots of Thai massage actually lie in India -- the founder of the art, a doctor known as Jivaka Kumar Bhaccha, was a contemporary of the Buddha and personal physician to the Magadha King Bimbisara over 2,500 years ago. Although he is believed to be the father of Thai massage, the origins of the practice remain obscure: in the old days, knowledge was passed by oral tradition and that which was written down, on palm leaves in the Pali language, was destroyed when the Burmese invaded and plundered Thailand's ancient capital city, Ayutthia. What remained of the medical scriptures was collected and pieced together and carved in stones placed in the walls of Bangkok's famous Wat Pho. These carvings remain the only original depictions of the ancient theories behind Thai massage.

Thai massage is based on the belief that invisible energy lines and acupressure points influence the body and its functioning. There are thousands of 'sen', or energy lines, but Thai massage focuses primarily on 10. The background of this belief is Indian in origin, based on the yoga philosophy that life energy, or prana, is absorbed in the air we breath and food we ingest. The Prana Nadis, or network of energy lines, supplies humans with vital energy. Thai massage removes blockages from these lines and thus improves health. This may all sound like hogwash to the Western mind, but scientists have recognized, although with confusion, that the lines and acupressure points do have some validity. Get a Thai massage and you will feel energized and light... Benjamin always says he 'cannot feel his body'... you feel light and free from stress, heavy limbs, fatigue.

I'm not one who goes in for the heady and mystical rantings of those heavily into 'spirituality', and I'm not referring to religion when I use the term. I'm referring to people who say things like, "Experience and actualize your untapped potential, your horizons of awareness expanded to all levels of consciousness..." or use phrases like, 'harmonize your energy flow', 'find your purity balance', 'discover your True Being that exists beyond 3-dimensional reality'. No, I'm not into that stuff -- even if these things do exist, I'd be much more receptive if people just used common language. The color purple and images of crystals and light beams and women wearing colorful moo moos who dream of communion with dolphins is a big turn-off for me. Men who wear loose tunics and reek of patchouli and smile that too-sweet and silly smile of the 'ultra-blissed-out' and get off on holding hands and just 'relating' to others send me running for the hills. Fortunately, Thai massage is none of these things and while working with energy lines does stand on a narrow fence of the 'grounded' and the 'spiritual hippies', the practice is more about healing the body through stretching muscles and breaking blockades that lead to sickness and pain.

Thai massage is, by nature, hard and 'tough' -- the practitioner uses her feet, hands, elbows, thumbs, and body weight to work the muscles and energy lines of the receiver. Many people call Thai massage 'yoga massage' because of all the stretching involved -- many of the positions and exercises are similar to yoga positions. It's very physical work, takes place on the floor, and as a practitioners, Benjamin and I were constantly on our knees or squatting, flowing from one position to the next while balancing on our toes... Our teacher described the technique as a dance, moving from one position into the next with grace so that the receiver (or patient or victim) is barely aware of your presence. It was a lot of fun, and requires serious concentration (in fact, practitioners are supposed to be in a meditative mood while giving a massage). In total, we learned over 100 techniques to work the entire body... a typical Thai massage takes 2 hours.

In Thailand, you can pay 200 Baht (or around 5 bucks) for a 2-hour massage. In the States, we've looked it up, a similar massage will run $120.00. We can't legally practice Thai massage back home, not without training from Western massage schools and licensing by the city/state. We won't be making the big bucks by practicing massage at home -- but no matter, the two of us will have our own private masseur and anyway, according to the 'rules of a good Thai masseur', we are not to hope for 'any gains... material profit nor glory or fame.'

His Majesty, The King

2006-01-16T17:18:00.000+07:00

The Thai people sure do love their King. Travelers are advised in guidebooks to not say anything negative or in jest about the King (and the royal family for that matter) -- it is deeply insulting. All over Thailand, in small towns and busy cities, there are larger-than-life framed portraits of the King and the Queen erected on the roadside and in the middle of traffic circles (in fact, I think the traffic circles were built specially for this purpose). Sometimes there are huge archways spanning roads and highways with a collage of royal people and royal acts of kindness, the backdrop for an oval-shaped portrait of a smiling (and young) Queen or a pensive (and young) King.

At movie theaters, after the trailers and advertising but before the feature presentation, a similar collage springs to life in motion on the screen. The national anthem plays while still images of the King fade in and out in time. You see him visiting hill tribes and helping the handicapped... breaking ground and cutting ribbons... Most memorable is the scene of a dry, parched earth, the kind of earth that is so arid, there are cracks in the ground that look like a special glaze on a piece of fine china. Upon this thirsty land, a farmer stands in vain with hoe in hand, looking towards the sky in despondent hope. Cut to the King and back to the wilted landscape and you see, miraculously, a fine storm fill the skies... rain pours from the clouds... the land becomes fertile and the farmer raises his fist in the air in victory. The King, apparently, holds court with the gods of the sky. Back to the movie theater: the audience stands for this royal interlude. They put down their popcorn and softdrinks and rise in tribute to the King. Only then can the show go on... (and by the way, falang (foreigners) in Thailand are expected to do the same. Stand up or risk getting boo-d out of the theater).

There's a Sunday market held each week in Chiang Mai. It's ginormous. Imagine the busiest shopping day of the year in the States... at a mall... with thousands of distracted people purveying and purusing goods and edibles for sale. You know the confusion, the noise, the hustle and bustle of the crowd... That's what the Sunday market is like come early evening. And that's when the national anthem is played over loud speakers across the blocks upon blocks of city streets that have been closed to everything but pedestrians, shopping. Suddenly, everyone stops what they're doing and if they're sitting, they stand. No-one moves a muscle or utters a sound. Manic noise and motion dies to silence. The national anthem plays on in complete stillness. And when the last note of the anthem grows faint, there is a split second of absolute quiet before thousands of people -- all at once -- pick up where they left off a minute or so before. Like an orchestra going from a soundless pause to a full crescendo, bustle returns and the air is full of noise as if nothing happened. It's amazing -- a-m-a-z-i-n-g -- to still such a large amount of people, each individual doing his or her own thing... to still them all at the same time. I felt like I was in one of the movies where someone has acquired the ability to stop time and everyone around them freezes in place. It's like that, but it's the national anthem that freezes the people, not a super-hero talent.

Thailand changes when the King or Queen has a birthday, an event. On the King's birthday, everything closes, shuts down. People stay home. Right now, in Chiang Mai, they haved ripped up roads and are installing new ones to honor the King's 60th coronation. Every so often, the King grants amnesty to prisoners in jail, cutting their sentences in half -- maybe it's the Queen's birthday... or maybe he's just feeling generous.

He is King Bhumibol and he rose to the throne in 1946 at the age of 18 with no training for the job. His promise: to "reign with righteousness for the benefit and happiness of the Siamese people." And I'd say he's doing a damn fine job. People don't love their King without reason. And considering most of the countries that border Thailand are 20 -50 years behind in terms of development, the guy is obviously doing something right. According to a source on the internet, "the response he gets from his people in rural Thailand today is almost beyond the understanding of the Western mind: Thai villagers lay down handkerchiefs for him to walk on and then they save the scraps of cloth with his footprint in shrines at their homes."

According to Asiaweek magazine: "It is probably safe to say that no monarch in the world is as popular as King Bhumibol. Or so revered. Or so present. His portrait hangs in virtually every home and office in the land, a kind of benevolent father watching over his children. Every night all TV channels run footage of royal family members attending official functions. Some, such as visits by foreign heads of state, are clearly significant; others would make little television sense anywhere else. But, as former premier Anand Panyarachun says, over the years the King has earned the admiration of his people in a manner that cannot be fully comprehended by foreigners."

TGIF

2006-01-13T16:25:00.000+07:00

For the first time in a long while, I am reminded of the glory, the satisfaction, the relief (O! the relief!), and the feelings of freedom and abandon that come with Fridays, the finest day of the week. Did you know the name 'Friday' comes from the Old English word 'frigedaeg', meaning the day of the 'Frige'... or the Norse god of beauty? And what a beautiful day it is. 'Thank God it's Friday!'

TGIF! -- oh how we love acronyms. We love this one so much, it's also used as shorthand for: 'Teen Girls in Faith', 'Thank God I'm Female', and for the mentally challenged, 'This Goes In Front' and 'Toes Go In First'. Can you imagine a pair of trousers with 'TGIF' printed on the crotch or a pair of socks labeled 'TGIF' as instructional aids? Just like plastic bags that are labeled to denounce their use as toys and proclaim the danger of asphyxiation if, say, someone put the bag on his head and closed off the open end... All of these things, stupid 'TGIF' acronyms included, should be outlawed. Mother nature intended that the 'fittest' should survive and the weak... well, the weak aren't good for the collective gene pool. If a person wants to tie a plastic bag onto his head, I say let him. Especially if it's a Friday; we could make up an acronym for him, 'That Guy Is Finished'.

But seriously...

Today it's Friday and right now that means 2 days of rest are to follow -- we've been taking a Thai massage course all week, 6 hours per day, and we begin another week on Monday. We have 2 days of rest! Thinking -- no, rejoicing -- in this, I was reminded of home. I haven't felt such elation for a Friday since we hit the road. Huh.

Not only that, having a schedule reminds me about how, at home, we chop our time up into bits -- bite sized bits, king sized bits -- morning and afternoon, evening and night; week days and weekends and months... semesters, quarters, years. I've completely forgotten how it is to live by this structure since I've been traveling. There are no bookends to the week, like Mondays and Fridays, and bookends to the weekends, like Friday afternoons and Sunday nights (and aren't Sunday nights depressing?). On the road I have no schedule -- often I don't even know what day of the week it is -- I have no structure. I have ditched the calendar. I have unshackeled myself from its little boxes and grids and numbers. Time does not 'march on'; it flows, it glides, it rolls. I feel free; like a collar has been removed from my neck, like a chain has been unlocked from my leg.

Now that I'm reminded of weeks and weekends, calendars and schedules... It gets me thinking about our return home, wondering how I'll cope with the Monday-through-Friday workaday life... it won't be ideal, but I know it will be OK. Humans can adapt to anything (a big lesson learned through traveling). And at least I'll have Fridays to look forward to. TGIF.

Potty Talk

2006-01-09T20:27:00.000+07:00

Benjamin and I are taking a 2-week massage course here in Chiang Mai. I have plenty of time to tell you more about all of that, but first I must digress on a childish tangent because I have discovered the best, all-time, piece of trivia. In the bathroom. On the back of the stall's door, a sign told me that I was in the wrong bathroom. Yes, I was in the ladies' room, but I was in the stall with the western-style toilet. The sign was there to inform me on the virtues of using a squat toilet: it's better for the digestive organs, it's cleaner (you don't really need toilet paper), blahditty-blah-blah...

The most interesting information on the sign was in regards to the history of the western toilet -- this object of ridicule in the stall, at least according to all that blather about being the 'wrong' toilet. Apparently, a Mr. Thomas Crapper invented the toilet. I was sitting (ok -- hovering) about 3 feet away from the sign at the time and did a double-take to make sure I read correctly. Sometimes, in certain situations, I have a tendency to read a word wrong -- a comical error when, say, you're in Thailand and you see 'whole sale' and read 'whore sale'.

But back to Mr. Crapper: he certainly was a man with 'his work cut out for him' so to speak – with a name like Crapper, your options in life are pretty clear, are they not? You either have to sell diaper products or build toilets or possess an unfortunate problem with continence and henceforth be nicknamed as such. And besides... back in the day, Shoemakers made shoes; Smiths were blacksmiths; a Crapper invented crappers.

However, and sadly so, research on the internet has proven this to be an urban legend -- an unanswered question -- the fact that Thomas Crapper invented the toilet is, well, apparently full of crap. You might find it interesting to know that there are people out there in this big, busy world who have devoted much of their time standing up for the guy and his so-called invention. According to one site, these people have made it their life's work to prove Crapper was the man behind the machine. One of these guys is the historian of the 'International Thomas Crapper Society' (can you believe this?) and the other is writing a book on Crapper's life. Bathroom reading material, for sure.

Crapper was an English plumber born -- hey, guess what? -- the day after me (January 17), although a few years earlier (1836). The interesting thing about his birthday is that it's now known as 'Thomas Crapper Day' according to a book that's deemed, 'the authoritative book for listing special dates and events'. I know what I'll be doing with my hangover the day after my birthday this year: what do they call it? Praying to the porcelain god? How apropos, to honor Thomas Crapper on his birthday, on Thomas Crapper Day, by kneeling before the gleaming white bowl.

Aside from the ultimate question: did TC invent the toilet or not, Crapper's fans argue about things like the date of his death. In one book called, 'Flushed with Pride,' the author writes that he died on January 27, 1910. In fact, the correct date is presumed to be some 10 days off. Hmmm. Perhaps in regards to moving on, the 'ole Crapper was just constipated...

There's really no proof Crapper invented the commode; he held 9 patents for things like drains and manhole covers, but no patents for an actual toilet. Some feel Crapper was riding on the shirt-tail of a Mr. Giblin who did invent some useful toilet technology. They think Crapper got the credit because he bought the patent rights from Giblin and marketed the product. But we're not talking about the 'first toilet ever' in this scenario, we're talking about the "silent valveless water waste preventer" (patent no. 814), which basically just allowed a toilet to flush effectively when the cistern was only half full. Big deal.

The premiere toilet, the first ever, made its debut all the way back in 1596. Sir John Harington, godson to Queen Elizabeth, made what he called a 'necessary' -- one for her and one for him. Apparently he was ridiculed for the invention and never built any more. 200 years later, the idea took off and a series of inventors (who named their calling 'sanitary science') took on the toilet bowl and evolved the idea into what we know today. Along the way, there were some fun names assigned to what we (snore) call the toilet. My favorites: the pneumatic closet, the plunger closet, the three-pipe siphonic closet, and the jet siphon closet. But even more than those, I love the names given to technologies that were meant to improve the toilet -- pardon me, I mean the jet siphon closet -- technologies named: the backflow preventer, a blow-out arrangement, and reverse trap toilets.

Seems to me the 'backflow preventer' and the 'blow-out arrangement' are more suitable as technological improvements for the human body than the toilet, but we can't change the plumbing Mother Nature endowed us with... too bad because I've already got names picked out for my inventions: the 'sphincter-schminkter', the 'alimentary canal cork', the 'comfort station', and the 'waste not, want not' travel accessories.

Well, I guess that's about it for the history of toilets. I'm disappointed that I've been given false information in regards to the origins of said device (I'll make a note on the back of the bathroom door at the massage school)... Mostly, I am disappointed that a man named 'Crapper' did not come up with the invention after all... How beautiful a thing it would have been -- like stars and diseases named for the men who discovered them, why shouldn't the toilet be named after its inventor? Personally, I would be fine calling the toilet the 'Harington', named after the first human to invent such a fine device... And the name would work well at cocktail parties, too. "Excuse me, dahlink, but can you tell me where to find the Harington?" How civilized we would all sound!

2006, Day One: Recovery

2006-01-02T10:59:00.000+07:00

I always loved (still do) the way Star Trek began with Captain Kirk saying, in a dispassionate yet earnest voice, something like, "Captain's log, stardate 6002.0. I have underestimated the power of a stiff Sangsom and Coke: toxic, potent, heavy... duty. We have all succumbed... to the... incredible, ferocious... and... inebriating forces of Thai... whiskey". And in faster, clipped -- more dramatic -- diction, "Today, we shall pay the price."

That's what Captain Kirk would say if he were me and he awoke, as I did, with a dull throbbing in his head, a scratch under his right eye, and exoskeletal matter in between his teeth.

I did eat the cockroach on New Year's Eve and I'm happy that it happened after enough alcohol was consumed to keep the memory of it blurry and fuzzy, like a dream. I have video evidence and as all videos of one's self are, it doesn't seem like it's "real". I mean, I remember doing it, yes I do. I remember sticking the huge, shiny, brown vermin in between my teeth for a photo. I remember tearing the legs and wings off the roach after that -- no need to mess about with the legs and wings -- John and I agreed that we would also tear off the head. Even with the removal of all those bits (should I call them bits? They were huge, afterall...) Even with the removal of all that stuff so necessary in life : legs, head... so necessary in life but no longer so when you've become a midnight snack. The roach was still gigantic, at least 3 inches in length. And when I tore off the head, I was so glad we decided to do so because it would have broken a tooth. The part of the roach where the head connects to the body is as strong as a nail - hard - almost unbreakable. I tossed the head into the gutter, 'toasted' John with my roach/snack, and then... down the hatch. It was chewy. I gagged. It was tough. I gagged again. But I got it down and throughout the night, I found bits of hard stuff, roach pieces, in my mouth -- you know how popcorn kernels get stuck in your teeth? It was like that, but more disturbing.

After that, a Thai woman stuck a grasshopper in my mouth. But that was nothing. That skinny little grasshopper... that vegetarian of an insect. That was nothing compared to eating an arthropod the dictionary describes as a 'scavenger', a 'pest', a 'beetle-like insect with long antennae and legs'.

In 2006, within the first hour, I achieved greatness in this way: the kind of greatness that comes with having done something out of the ordinary, something requiring guts (even if it means the ingestion of guts); the kind of greatness that comes with doing something repulsive and foul -- in short, the kind of greatness that 4th grade boys would honor and respect. I am their queen.

A friend suggested that perhaps the eating of a roach would somehow, in some twisted way of thinking and logic, put an end to the spate of bad luck I have written about in the past month or two. In a primitive and barbaric way, I would gain power from the roach: dominance over the bad things that happen like motorbike crashes and dog bites and visitation by ghosts. Like savages who eat the hearts of their battle victims, I would take on the powers of the roach: tough, formidable, able to survive anything, including nuclear attack. But it's not so. Later that night, I was a victim (as was Benjamin, John, and Nyla) of a bar fight; an unprovoked attack by a gang of English hooligans who complained that we were taking too long to play our game of pool. This is where Captain Kirk, in his opening remarks, would recount the story behind the scratch under his right eye.

We were coaxed into a bar with the promise of '2 for 1' drinks. It was late, 2:00 a.m. -- or should I say it was early? We entered the bar, ordered 4 beers, and debated the price with the bartender. It was not '2 for 1' except for a certain selection of drinks, and I'm pretty sure the list of those is determined after you've placed your order; a changing list, devised at whim, based upon things not ordered and not-to-be ordered. This is how it is, the way it goes -- I've gotten used to it. When you travel, especially in Asia, information does not play by the rules of science: physical properties (such as time, description of services, and -- in this case -- price) constantly change; information is flexible and unstable.

So we have our drinks and we decide to play a game of pool. There's one other pool table in the bar and its occupied by 4 Europeans (note that I do not wish to list the entire EU so will, to the consternation of a certain British girl, use the generalized term for people of that continent). Over in the corner by the door, a table of people... people I hadn't noticed before, seethe and simmer. They claim they'd been waiting for our pool table for an hour and are pissed that now they must sit through what looks-to-be an interminably long pool game played by incompetents.

We relate to them the story of our arrival: the pool table was empty, sitting there all alone under the illumination of billiard lights... no-one playing, no-one waiting to play, no-one even thinking about playing. In the time it took us to sort out the price of our '2 for 1' drinks with the barkeep, they certainly could have claimed the table if, in fact, they'd wanted it. There was no-one else around -- no-one in the bar but the 4 Europeans already playing. How could they have been waiting for the table for an hour, in an empty bar? And supposing the place was packed and had emptied entirely, just before we arrived, how come they didn't take the table in all the time -- 10 minutes -- it took us to even consider getting started? It was bull shit. They were just looking for tension.

It was a Thai girl who started the whole argument, unusual in that Thai people (women especially) aren't generally aggressive -- Thai people, like many Asians, don't express emotion or even argue in public (or private)... Perhaps it's all the 'bottling up' of aggravation and frustration and anger that got this girl going. Once a Thai let's it go, puts the concept of 'face' to the side, they can be violent. They'll kick the shit out of you -- years of pent up emotions do that to people -- it's kind of like 'going postal'. But its unusual. For some reason, this girl was hanging out with a bunch of British fucks, the type who get into fights all the time back home... not just soccer-hooligan-mother-f'ers... but people who fight for fun. One of them was almost 7 feet tall. He took a swing at Benjamin for no reason. They approached us angrily, unprovoked by nothing more than our inept and lengthy pool playing and started throwing punches. The giant guy was so tall that his punches were almost inconsequential, almost completely clearing the top of Benjamin's head...

After the first punch was thrown, everything gets chaotic and nothing makes sense. "What the fuck is happening?" the question streaked through my mind in terror and disbelief. I couldn't believe people could be so stupid as they -- but it doesn't make sense to try understanding low-lifes who get their kicks out of... well, kicking people.

Benjamin is on the ground now and there must be at least 10 of these fuckers. I use my pool cue as a lance: poking, jabbing, daring the fuckers to come closer. They do, so I use it as a shield, a barricade... staving off a group of sneering, raging... someone has climbed onto the table and taken my pool cue away. I turn around. Benjamin is covered with people as if he were a crumb at a picnic laid out on an anthill. I see the Thai bitch going for his eyes. She is trying to claw out his eyes. I cannot even see Benjamin with all the people on top of him. I must be yelling... "What the f--..." I punch the back of her head. Holy shit, I've never hit anyone before in my life... I put my arm around her neck from behind her back... I squeeze at my elbow and lift her up... just like Uma Thurman in 'Kill Bill' (volume 1)... I want to squeeze the evil air out of her throat and leave her gasping in the gutter... like the roach head... I want to snap her head off and toss it into the gutter where it belongs. Someone behind me strikes my spine with the pool cue or was it their fist? It hurts... the wind is knocked out of me... I can't believe someone did that, the mother.... people are piled on top of each other... suddenly we are walking to the door... how did Benjamin get up and away from the mob? Someone must have come to help us... they came to even the numbers out so they're fair... now we are close to the exit and I am really pissed... the giant 7-foot asshole is there, trying to get in more punches as we leave... fucker! I grab his crotch... I will squeeze his testicles until they pop... but wait, there's nothing there... I keep trying... reaching in between people who seem to be blocking them from us... I keep trying -- who cares if I'm jostled and elbowed and hit in the head... I want to make this jerk pay... but... I'm out the door... on the sidewalk... we're all outside now and they're all inside... we're safe but angry... no-one cares.... "Hey you, are you the owner? What the fuck kind of place is this?" we yell... He ignores us. Ignores us! The bastard. He doesn't care. He doesn't care that we are the victims and he's favoring the perpetrators. We look for police. There are no police. We ask other people to call the police. No-one will call the police. They tell us the police will not care. They won't come.

So that was it. We went home shortly thereafter. I promised to smear the name of the bar where the owners don't care about people victimized and attacked on their premises. I know the English thugs who attacked us are the ones who are really to blame, but they are probably on their way back to their blue collar jobs in English slums, dreaming of future fights at pubs in their own neighborhood. Apparently, in Thailand, problems with violence are all due to foreigners, not Thais. A sad state of affairs...

The bar: Sharkey's (or Sharky's or Sharkies)... on Moon Muang Road, Chiang Mai.

It's time to wrap this thing up... there was harsh language used... there was violence... there was scary content for parental eyes. I apologize. We are fine so don't worry mom(s) and dad(s). And though it may sound tactless, at least our new year, 2006, got off with a 'bang' -- and as I said to Benjamin when we got home that night, the worst part about the whole thing is that my moment of greatness, the eating of the roach, was overshadowed by the brawl. This feat, this moment of ultimate distinction, was lost in the shuffle of feet and swinging of fists.

On the Precipice of a New Year

2005-12-31T11:02:00.000+07:00

We've been here in Chiang Mai for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so it makes sense that we'll usher in the new year here as well. It is our home-away-from-home as I've mentioned before... a place where orchids sit upon trees like crazy hairstyles on portly girls; where women running the cash register at 7-11 turn out to be men with 5 o'clock shadows and red bows in long hair (and the kicker is, here it's OK); where a walk through a market attacks the nostrils with the pungent and not altogether pleasing scent of fish: dried fish, fish sauce, fish paste and where the smell of sweet corn reminds me of summers in the midwest; where everyone wears flipflops and women, when not wearing flipflops, operate motorbikes in spiky, strappy sandals; where, with an artistic perspective, temple spires pierce clouds in the sky: be careful if they pop, confetti may spill out...

Tonight, lights from bridges will twinkle on the river; lit lanterns will intermingle with stars in the sky; fireworks will light up the night in colors of the rainbow; the pop and bang of hand-thrown firecrackers will damage ear drums; the smell of gunpowder from battles with wick and flame will fill the air...

We'll be celebrating with our friends John and Nyla -- we met them a few months ago in Koh Samui and we've reunited here in Chiang Mai for the drunk-fest known as New Year's Eve. And what is New Year's Eve, if not a time to get wasted or remain sober and watch Dick Clark's ball drop while eating frozen appetizers heated in an oven? It's not like time knows that it's marching on... the calendar is a human invention. If it wasn't for us and our habit of organizing time into days and weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia (and what comes after millennia?)... if it wasn't for our habit in doing this, New Year's eve and day would be like any other. But we use this event as a reason to change our ways -- shed bad habits -- make a change in our lives... This year, I haven't come up with any resolutions... A few years ago, I wrote a little essay about just this thing. Here it is:

-----

To bring in the New Year, I did my spring cleaning... last year's. It prompted me to consider my New Years' resolutions more carefully. Obviously I need to add time management to the list. Literally. Since I didn't follow through on 2003's resolutions, all I have to do in 2004 is find last year's list (possible, thanks to the spring cleaning) and pencil in 'improve time management'. The words follow a considerable record of failed or forgotten endeavors that follow me from year to year: lose weight, dress more stylishly, remember to send birthday cards, learn how to break-dance, discover the cure for cellulite, win the lottery. Several years ago I began to add ridiculous resolutions to the roster because in reality, even the every-day items are improbable considering nothing ever comes of them. My listing of resolutions has become more of a wish list than something to take action on.

Almost everyone makes New Year's resolutions, but hardly anyone I know keeps them. Joe, the guy down at the corner store, grimaced when I asked him about his. He already knows he won't keep up his weight loss program, one that simply entails eating dinner before 8 p.m., and it's only January 2. I, myself, have already considered breaking a few of my pledges - after all, bad habits are hard to shed. And anyway, there's always tomorrow... or next year.

In addition to adding 'improve time management' to this year's list, I'm also considering 'cease making new years resolutions'. But how could I stop following a tradition that's been around 4000 years, since the ancient days of the Babylonians? Their lists of resolutions were probably short and sweet, as they'd have to painstakingly chip them out of stone tablets. I've read that their most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment. Now that's a resolution even I could keep (that is, if I lived anywhere near grass).

The Babylonians were onto something. They gave themselves achievable goals. Maybe we should keep our lists simple and clutter-free. Perhaps we'd actually be able to achieve something written on them. If we have only one goal to pursue, how could we go wrong? We can throw our full weight at the problem without distractions from other pesky aspirations and the guilt that comes with ignoring them.

Committing my self-improvement objectives to a list makes them scary. They leave the happy place in the back of my mind and become real. I must feed and nurture them or they will die and mock me in the process. I've made ambitious proclamations about losing weight over the years, only to meekly admit failure when I'm asked how things are going. It's a cycle of embarrassment I can count on from year to year. I don't like to make my life more complicated than needed and would rather not make resolutions in the first place. Still, every New Year's day I bring out my tattered list once again, if for no other reason than habit. I know that ultimately, the list doesn't matter. I am not the only one to quickly stow her list away, back to its home in the subconscious, before week's end.

As for 2004, I've decided to maintain the tradition set forth by the Babylonians. I will continue to make New Year's resolutions, but this year, I won't set myself up for failure. I will add 'improve time management' to the inventory but my resolution is simply to keep my list in mind beyond the month of January - possibly, even, the entire year.

-----

The only thing I've lined up to bring in 2006 is the eating of a cockroach. Yes, you read right. I shall eat a cockroach (maybe... maybe I won't, but I did promise to do so). They sell fried insects as snacks here in Thailand and the other night, while out with John and Nyla, we were all drunk enough to try a cricket and some of us (me and John), a fat, white grub. At the time, I was too sober to eat a cockroach, they're 3-inchers I might add, but I was drunk enough to promise John that along with him, I shall ingest a roach on New Year's Eve. Perhaps, if I'm crafty, I can convince John that I've made a New Year's resolution to not eat insects and I can worm (pun intended) out of my commitment to join him in the midnight feast.

Happy New Year, 2006

Myanmar: Yangon

2005-12-30T11:16:00.000+07:00

December 23rd {notes from journal}

Yangon used to be called Rangoon. Before the ruling military junta took over, Myanmar used to be called Burma. Names change with political will. Perhaps renaming a place is the ultimate symbol of power -- it shows people who's who. In Vietnam, Saigon is now Ho Chi Minh City. In India, Calcutta is Kolkata and Bombay is Mumbai.

Yangon is unlike any other city we visited in Myanmar. It's the capital city and until recently, it was the location for Myanmar's central government (and incidentally, its the home of Aung San Suu Kyi). Just this month, the government started relocating to a remote mountainous 'hideaway', a place called Pyinmana, 320 kilometers north of Yangon. No-one knows why -- including the government employees who have been relocated to what has been called a 'backwater' full of poisonous snakes and malaria -- there is no explanation given. Many are leaving their families behind in Yangon, which means added expense. And it's against the law to 'quit' a government job. Permission must be given. There is speculation that the government is moving farther inland due to fears of a US attack (noting the war with Iraq). The other theory is that the chairman, Than Shwe, is simply heeding the advice of astrologers. When we were waiting for so long to get our visas last month, people mentioned, "there must be something going on there," so apparently this was it -- the relocation was announced in November. People must have been busy.

Yangon is a busy place, especially in the evening, with people and cars and motorbikes and bicycles clogging the streets -- sidewalk cafes with tiny tables and low stools clot the sidewalks. With the black-streak-stained buildings, and colonial architecture from the British days, I was reminded a bit of India, England's neighboring colony of bygone days. Compared with the rest of Myanmar, Yangon felt 10 years ahead in terms of development and consumerism, but still decades behind the rest of the world. There are shops selling appliances, electronics and clothes. There are put-together restaurants and, even, fast food places called (creatively) MacBurger. The main attraction for tourists in Yangon is The Shwedagon Pagoda, a giant golden temple visible from many parts of the city. We could see the spire glowing in the afternoon sun from our hotel room, bigger than any building in our field of vision (there are no skyscrapers in Myanmar but Yangon has plenty of monolithic colonial-era buildings about).

Originally, we hadn't planned to visit Yangon. But to get back to Chaing Mai, we had to fly there from Mandalay. There are no return flights from Mandalay to Chiang Mai. By the time we arrived in Yangon, we were running ragged -- ready to do nothing for a few days after several weeks of jam-packed-sight-seeing. We checked ourselves into a 'mid-range' hotel -- the budget options are all concrete boxes without windows according the guidebook. And, despite my embarrassment to admit this, we spent a lot of time laying in bed with a remote control in hand. The hotel had satellite TV and having been on the road for so long, TV is something of a novelty for us -- even if the satellite only returns two watchable stations, at least one of them was HBO!

After weeks of sunshine, the skies were again the color of lead with thick clouds so low, it felt as if a blanket had been pulled over the city. Just as when we arrived in Mandalay several weeks prior. Although gray skies depress me, at least our arrival and departure had symmetry -- like a pair of bookends protecting and supporting everything that happened in between. And like bookends, in contrast to the books they contain, we felt ambivalent about the cities of Mandalay and Yangon but everything in-between? Fabulous.

Myanmar: Inle

2005-12-29T15:29:00.000+07:00

December 18th {notes from journal}

Fisherman with cone shaped nets and baskets on long handles; a market with a flotilla of boats as parking lot; temples with trained cats and Buddhas so gilded with gold leaf they appear as blobs; floating vegetable gardens; and demonstrations of local handicrafts: silversmiths make earrings and men pound out iron swords, women make paper with designs formed by flowers, cigars are rolled by delicate female hands, silk made from the lotus plant is woven on looms... this is Inle, a lake in the Shan State, 22 km long and 11 wide, with mountains on either side and villages upon its waves.

Along with Bagan, Inle is Myanmar's top tourist destination. A day-long boat trip aboard a vessel with comfortable chairs and cushions is the best way to see the lake and its way of life -- children fly kites from canoes tied up outside homes built over the water on stilts; men row boats with their legs; women do the laundry in the water outside their front door; reflections on the glassy surface of the lake tease the mind and trick the eyes. The reflections are the most beautiful I've ever seen, casting the images of neighborhoods and people and temples and flowering plants and blue skies with billowing clouds into the water.

It's a tiring day, under the sun on a boat... and, at times, a bit frustrating. At the Phaung Daw U Paya, the holiest religious site of the Southern Shan state, the 5 Buddha images (blobs) covered in gold leaf are somewhat off limits to women. "Ladies not permitted," sings state on steps leading to the altar. It's a bit annoying to be deemed less of a person than a man -- there is no other reason to deny us entrance to the altar. In Myanmar, they believe a male birth comes with higher merit; women can never reach nibbana (nirvana). If you ask me, women should be the ones allowed to the altar, to swath the Buddhas in gold... women need the merit having been born with less than men, no?

The other frustrating thing: there were no jumping cats at the 'Jumping Cat Monastery'. We wanted to see felines jump through hoops held in the hands of laughing monks. When we got there, cats and monks... everyone but the souvenir salesmen were sleeping. And finally, it was frustrating to go from one handicraft demonstration to the next, as if we were mindless sightseers on a package tour... It's not our style.

All that said, Inle is an interesting place. It's peaceful. It's beautiful. And at the end of the day, you can feed seagulls that soar above as you skim along reflective water as the sun makes its descent behind the mountains.

Myanmar: Ghosts and Revelations

2005-12-29T12:15:00.000+07:00

Ghost stories are usually told in the dim hours of night, when they have more power, when the darkness and shadows and things-under-the-bed come alive. But alas, my story must be told through words not spoken but typed... in a place not dark, but bright. My story is not meant to chill but to enlighten... because I have, for the first and only time in my life, seen a ghost and in its wake, I dreamt of spirit possession and learned the secrets of the afterlife.

Some of you might think I'm loony, or that I was tricked by an unusual play of shadows and an active imagination. But I am not one who easily falls for tales of magic and superstition. I am more of a skeptic than a believer in faith. And I am not an author of fiction... So with that disclaimer having been said, I shall tell my ghost story.

December 15th ~ a Tuaung-yo village in Myanmar

The space was dimly lit by a low wattage bulb hanging from the family's Buddha altar. It cast a yellow light on the six figures lying below on the floor: a couple from Belgium, a couple from Singapore (Jason and Samantha) and us: Benjamin and myself. We were overnighting in the home of a village family, tucked away behind a smattering of trees upon a hill. We were each bundled up in a heap of blankets -- the night time temperatures dipped when the sun went down and it was promising to be a very cold night. Earlier in the evening, our hosts laid out our beds -- reed mats on the floor -- all in a line against the wall. And now, having stumbled into bed after a long day of walking, our hosts came around with more blankets before retiring to the kitchen to chat with our guides. As the bustle of movement moved into the other room, I closed my eyes and waited for sleep as voices and laughter drifted in from the kitchen, reminding me of light chatter of my parents and their friends at the end of a dinner party as I went to bed in childhood. It was, somehow, a comforting sound... but not conducive to sleep.

Soon the chit-chat died down, a few rustles of blankets as the 'adults' went to bed, and all was quiet... I laid under the weight of my many blankets for what seemed like hours, unable to sleep, but peacefully so. It was not the hard wood floor that kept me awake -- or the snoring coming from the other side of the room -- or the light coming from Buddha's altar. I was simply restless. It happens to me at home -- insomnia -- the brain won't turn off, the sand man forgets my address, dreams play hard to get. To my left, Benjamin had caught his dreams; to my right, Samantha slumbered on.

After a while, I heard a whisper of movement in the room. Had our hosts come back, in the middle of the night, with more blankets? Has one of the other guests decided to take a midnight stroll? Out of insomniac boredom, with nothing better to do, I opened my eyes to find out.

There, behind Samantha -- who was restful and asleep on her side, facing me -- lay a young woman, also on her side, facing me, with head propped up on her hand, elbow propped up on the floor. At first I thought it was one of the family's two daughters. But why would one of the girls leave the warmth of her bed in the middle of a frigid night to lay down between strange foreigners? Why would she come out here and take a place on the floor without blankets, with bare feet? It didn't make sense and besides, the young lady was too womanly to be the either of the two daughters. I lay there for a few minutes (or were they seconds?) in a confused state, trying to work out who this 7th person was, this newcomer, this trespasser of our collective bedroom.

I didn't notice her clothes, aside from the fact that they seemed to have no color but a faint beige, the color of an antique photograph, faded sepia. On her head she wore a turban of the same non-color (most of the hilltribe women do) and on her face, the same color again (but a tinge more yellow): many people in Myanmar wear a yellowish paste on their faces made with the ground bark of the Thanakha tree. It's used as sunblock, to whiten skin, for decoration.

She was rubbing her thumb against her fingertips, her right hand. Other than that, she was completely motionless, probably 12 inches behind Samantha, face visible beyond Samantha's shoulder... and as I ran my eyes again from her toes to her head, trying to make out who she was, my gaze, finally, settled on her face and she was watching me with her black eyes. Yellow paste on her cheeks and forehead and nose... yellow light from the dim lightbulb overhead... she watched me as if she were studying me. It's a creepy feeling, when someone stares at you without expression. Especially creepy in the middle of the night. Even more creepy when the person is a strange and unexplained intruder. And really creepy when the person is a... is a... ghost!

I flipped over to put my back to her fierce gaze. I pretended not to have seen her -- like when you see a person you dislike on the street and look away quickly to avoid conversation, hoping they didn't notice your recognition of them, even if they saw you look. My heart was beating. My brain was whirling. In her eyes, my confusion vanished -- her eyes answered my questions about her odd presence: she was a ghost. Ghosts, I learned, are similar to the kind of things people refer to, obliquely, when they say, "you'll know it when you see it."

I must have lain there for hours like that, with my back to the ghost gazing at me from behind Samantha's shoulder. I wondered if, perhaps, a strange play of shadows from the folds of Jason's blankets (who was on the other side of Samantha) tricked me. I wondered if she was still there. Finally, I worked up the courage to take a glimpse. I sucked in my breath and clenched my fists and tensed by legs and turned my head. She was gone. There was nothing there but empty space between Samantha and Jason... and... and... there were no tricky shadows capable of forming themselves into the image of a woman, a solid woman (apparently not all ghosts are transparent), and there were no patterns or designs on blankets capable of turning themselves into eyes black as coal, recognizable as things that 'you know when you see'.

"Holy shit, I saw a ghost," I thought to myself as I finally answered the Sandman's call to sleep. I drifted off, barely able to contain the news. I wanted to wake Benjamin when I first saw her, but I couldn't: I was pretending she didn't exist and I was frozen in fear. And then I wanted to wake him once she'd gone, but why disrupt his dreams when the news could wait until morning.

{the following is an account of my dreams the rest of the night}

There's a spirit in the room, I know it. I had a Polaroid camera to prove it. Snapping photos in the pitch black room, one resulted in an image. As the image developed in my hand, to my horror, the face of a demon emerged: a skull with burning eyes that must have been only inches from my lens -- meaning, it had been only inches from me. Aaaaaggghh! I screamed and ran from the place.

I ran into the arms of someone there to comfort me. I don't know him. Never seen him before in my life. But he is there, waiting for me, to tell me about the spirits. He tells me not to worry about the demon. While it may be true that the demon wanted into my head, all I have to do is block him with my mind. He tells me that at times -- and there is no rhyme or reason for the coming of these times, when people are more 'open'... more receptive to spirit's calls... He told me that we can let them in if we choose, and we can deny them if we wish. He suggested it's best to deny the ones with scary skull faces. I agreed.

And then this man, who I have come to think of as my dreamscape guardian angel, went on to explain the afterlife. This, in answer to my question, "Who are you, anyway?" He explained that he's a spirit, not unlike the skull faced demon (except he was a good spirit of course), and was sent to explain things to me, to calm me from my fright of possession. He and the other spirits (skull face included) have one main job in the afterlife. They usher the dead to the other side. Each of us living persons, we have a spirit 'assigned' to us for this journey (he, by the way was not mine). The 'guardian angel' told me that the ease with which you transition from life to death is all based on who your guide is. If you have a 'nice' guide, the voyage could be over in a snap. It could be blissful. Perhaps this is heaven. But if you've got a 'nasty' guide (like skull face), your voyage may be tormented and hideous and gruesome and painful. Perhaps this is hell.

It's all up to the guide, you see -- the ease or hardship with which you go to the other side, the time it takes to get there, even, when death happens itself (you know people who have 5 heart attacks and keep on ticking? Their guides are lazy. You know people who die from choking on a teaspoon of water? Their guides are restless). Once we, the living, are on the other side, we become guides. All of us, our destiny... to guide spirits to the afterlife and in the event we have time on our hands? I guess we haunt people and reveal the secrets of the afterlife to others in dreams...

-----

When I told Benjamin about all of this the next day, he asked if I'd read about Nats in the guidbook. I hadn't. I found the perfect opportunity on a bus ride. What I learned, to my astonishment: Nats (or what we call ghosts) 'come home' on nights with a full moon (and the night I saw the ghost, it was a full moon). Almost all traditional Burmese songs are designed to attract Nats (and one of the family's daughters performed a traditional dance for us after dinner that night). Nats are known to take possession of people for periods of time (and I dreamt of spirit possession and learned the secrets thereof).

With my revelation of the afterlife, Benjamin has more advice: it's time I start my own religion, he says.