Sunset in La Candelaria, Bogota on my first evening in Colombia

No one asks you why you want to go to places like Thailand, Peru, or anywhere in Western Europe. Everyone asks you why you want to go to Colombia. Even more so when you specifically come to Colombia rather than combining a visit with a larger trip in South America. Sometimes it’s asked with shock as Colombia’s reputation has yet to catch up with the progress it’s made, other times it’s asked simply out of curiosity.

Aside from the fact that Colombia was one of the more affordable places to fly abroad from San Francisco, these are the things that inspired me to come here:

An attraction to misunderstood places

Often people latch onto ideas about countries in Latin America based solely on stories from specific eras, about specific places, or about a specific group of people and apply their ideas to the whole country even if the issues are only in certain regions or the country has changed dramatically. This is often the case with Colombia and I wanted to explore what the country is now. Culturally and visually, I sensed that it would contain elements of many of my favorite places in Latin America—many of which are also misunderstood—with a unique a atmosphere of its own.

Afro-Colombian culture

I love the vibrant Afro-Latin cultures I’ve encountered in places like Salvador da Bahia and Cuba. Typically, it’s the music that attracts me first, but beyond that, I find cultures that I can relate to where people are far from their African roots but inextricably linked to them. Afro-Colombian culture is not very apparent inland where I have been so far, but I am looking forward to getting to the coast where it is concentrated and I’m hoping to visit an Afro-Colombian community near Cartagena that was originally founded by escaped slaves.

Variation of scenery

Colombia has huge cities, little colonial villages, plenty of agriculture, and nature for days. Within these categories, there are countless subcategories: coffee farms, tropical cities, Andean cities, jungle coastlines, geological desert formations, and the list goes on. I’m not strictly a nature or city girl and I wanted to come to a place where I could get a bit of everything.

A place to be rather than just see

While Colombia has many places to visit, it doesn’t have one well known attraction that people obsess about such as trekking to Machu Picchu or hanging out on a beach in Rio. Not to say that it lacks great places or activities, but they don’t have the same “must-see” air about them and that’s what I wanted. It’s nice to experience being in another place and pick up on local vibes without feeling like you have to rush around and see everything.

Spanish language

Spanish is a language I’ve felt like I should learn for awhile given my passion for Latin America and because I live in part of the United States where it is spoken widely. As I was reading about Colombia, there were many reports that this is good spot to learn Spanish because people speak clearly and hardly anyone speaks English so you can’t fall back on it all the time. I took crash course in Spanish and I am finding that I know a decent amount of words, but I struggle with verbs and to putting together complete sentences. I have a lot of work to do and won’t come close to becoming fluent while I am here, but feel like the combination of getting the basics and being in a place where I can practice is a good start.

Original article: Why Colombia?

©2013 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

Laos slightly edged out Cambodia to become my favorite stop in Southeast Asia, but I didn’t take very many pictures there. As I was exploring the Pha That Luang stupa in Vientiane, my memory card gave up. I freaked out.

Unsure of the fate of the hundreds of pictures I’d taken thus far, I had to put my camera away for the rest of Vientiane and through Vang Vieng until I was able to find a shop in Luang Prabang where I bought a new memory card. When I got home, I took the defunct memory card to a camera shop where they miraculously salvaged most of my pictures.

You never want to have your picture taking system fail on you while you’re on the road, but considering I was able to get back most of my pictures in the end, if it was going to happen somewhere, I’m glad it happened in Laos. The country exudes such genuine calm that wraps itself around travelers and encourages them to embrace it. As I was caught up in the serene present, I didn’t think about taking pictures as much and it tempered my worry about the fate of all my pictures.

While much of my Laos experience had to be stored in my own memory, I did manage to get a few snapshots while I was there:

Original article: Photo Essay: Snapshots from Laos

©2013 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

In a struggle between curiosity and exhaustion, my desire to know where I am wins. I lift my heavy eyelids to see land that is saturated with the brilliant greens of flooded rice paddies and perfect rows of tea bushes that curve and climb up the mountainsides. Gray mist hugs the limestone karsts that jut out from both land and water, smoothing the transition between mountains and sky. Here in the countryside, Hanoi is far behind me, and I’m happier this way.

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Back in Hanoi, I’d woken up feeling like I had just gone to bed. Before dawn, seven of us piled into a van and began the journey to the border of Vietnam and Laos. I knew we’d have a full day of driving, just how long, I wasn’t sure. But never mind the time of day or the long road ahead, I was anxious to get out of the place that had begun to trample on my traveling spirit.

In the beginning, Vietnam had been pleasant and promising. When I arrived in southern part of the country, the warmth and hospitality I encountered was a welcome surprise. In the markets, people would call out to me just to ask me where I was from without a sales pitch afterward. Walking around town, I’d feel a hand on my arm and think a friend was trying to get my attention, then I’d turn around and see an elderly local woman rubbing my arm and smiling at me. Everyone seemed to want to chat or be helpful in some way.

As I traveled north, the hospitality faded. Locals would walk by, point at me, and then burst into laughter. They held none of the friendliness of the southern countryside. Out of everyone in my group of various ages and sizes, this behavior was reserved for me, the sole person of African descent. It happened in Nha Trang, Hue, and Hanoi — not in the rural outskirts, but right in the heart of these more developed and educated cities that have heavy foreign tourist traffic.

On my last day in Hanoi, I wandered around the Museum of Ethnology, marveling at the different homes and lifestyles of the various ethnic groups in Vietnam. A group of school children took notice of me and decided to play a game revolving around me. They’d run up to see who could get closest to me, but before they’d get too close, they’d run away screaming. Adult chaperones were with them, watching the kids act as if I was a fearsome monster, but they didn’t say anything to them.

The museum was awash with foreigners, but again, I was the only one attracting this kind of attention. The general honesty of kids and what had likely influenced their actions disheartened me. I could only imagine what kind of media or discussions the kids had been exposed to that would lead them to act like I was a sub-human presence to be scared of and mocked so openly, simply because of my appearance.

As Vietnam had become more challenging, I would remind myself daily of how wonderful it was to be on this adventure and indeed, it was. But in Hanoi, I could no longer pretend that the way people reacted to me didn’t bother me. I recognized my privilege in being able to travel there and that I had made the decision to go there. But despite any of that, it was not okay to be singled out the way I was.

As a black traveler, you don’t always have the prior experience of someone who looks like you to draw from and on the road, you rarely find people who can completely understand your experience. Quite often, “Maybe it’s just a cultural thing!” or “They’re just not used to you and it doesn’t mean anything!” are the upbeat assessments you hear from fellow travelers who see how everyone reacts to you, but don’t have to deal with it themselves. Culture or not, it’s a learned habit in which it’s okay to overtly single someone out simply because they are who they are and that’s different from you. Most of the world will react when they see someone who looks unfamiliar to them, but not every place in the world thinks its okay to turn that into a one-way joke and chooses who the joke is on according to race.

Never before had I been so eager to leave a place. The country had gotten tiring and its physical beauty wasn’t enough anymore after the welcoming introduction in the South had faded.

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Here in the Vietnamese countryside, my negative feelings are beginning to dissipate in the fog. I feel my tension easing as we move toward a new place. But we still have a bit of hectic Hanoi with us — our two drivers. The one who speaks English comes across as something of a Lothario. He seems well-versed in telling people what they want to hear. We instinctively don’t trust him.

As we begin to wake up, we all find that we can use some food, coffee, and a bathroom break. Our smooth-talking driver promises us that we will stop in one hour to get coffee.

For miles, all we see are rice paddies. There are a few workers wearing wide cone-shaped hats, hunched over and picking rice in the knee deep water of the fields. Every so often we see a water buffalo plowing the fields. In the seemingly endless countryside, we lose track of time.

As we notice that much more than an hour has passed, we remind the drivers that it’s beyond time to stop. They seem frustrated that we remembered.

We find a restaurant, and no one reacts to me as we walk up. The people we encounter here are not friendly, but I much prefer a chilly nonchalance to the Hanoi experience.

We sit down at long plastic tables on flimsy plastic chairs in the open air makeshift cafe. Our drivers ensure us that we will be stopping for a fantastic lunch soon if we just hold out for it. All we have eaten that day are some airy pastries from the hotel and we are wary of our drivers. But this restaurant doesn’t look like it has much food anyway, so we just order coffee. The only kind they have is slow drip and the water is lukewarm. We relax and watch the weak brew slowly fill up our clear mugs. Our drivers watch us with impatience.

I could stay here for another hour or two in this pastoral calm, but our drivers are ready to go. Along the drive, they stop briefly from time to time to switch places. We have a bathroom break in which they park on the side of a road where there are no buildings in sight. When I ask where to use the bathroom, they point towards the cliff. After few weeks in Southeast Asia, I know this is actually a better option than a public squat toilet so it isn’t a problem.

We walk down the hill to some small bushes where we think we’ll have a little privacy. We are secluded from each other, but when we look across the fields, we see a group of little kids watching us, clearly entertained by a group of foreigners making a toilet out of a hill.

Back in the van, the drivers drive right past Vinh, the town where we are supposed to stop for our fantastic lunch. Now they tell us we will find an amazing lunch at the border. It has become clear that their biggest concern is getting us to the border quickly so they can get back to Hanoi, and they will continue to say anything to appease us.

The Shady Border

We arrive at the border in the middle of the afternoon. The shadiness in the atmosphere is palpable. The only other people are an abundance of men in military uniforms. There is also a monkey in the corner.

At the border restaurant, we sit at a table next to some military men while our driver finds out what’s available to eat. We observe the intriguing meals the military men are enjoying and it actually looks promising. Then our driver returns to let us know our options: Beef noodle soup. Nothing else.

After the number of lies he’s told us throughout the day, we are suspicious of him. I don’t bother asking him why that’s the only dish available to us, but I am curious to know if it will actually be beef in the soup. He responds emphatically, “It’s beef! Not chicken, not pork, not dog. Beef!”

Soon, a waitress comes by with the saddest bowls of lukewarm, watered down ramen soup with bits of meat that sure don’t look like beef. I attempt to avoid the mystery meat and try the noodles. It’s as awful as it looks. We come across a small convenience store after lunch and we stock up on little packets of peanuts to try to appease our stomachs.

In the building where we go to get stamped out of Vietnam, the floor is inexplicably wet and the dubious ambiance is amplified. We are approached by a border official who wants something from us. We can’t understand what he wants, so he starts to draw it. Guessing games at the border!

I figure out that he wants — an American two dollar bill. In makeshift traveler’s sign language, I explain that I don’t have a two dollar bill, but I am happy to give him a dollar or two or the Vietnamese dong equivalent.

After two border crossings in Southeast Asia, I’d witnessed some mild corruption and extremely invasive bag searches. I was keen on bypassing any potential issues or delays. As a traveler, it’s amazing how quickly you can acquiesce to a questionable system in order to avoid the tricky combination of language barriers and trouble with a person who has a small amount of power. Sometimes you preemptively do what you can just to move on with your day.

We fill in the rest of the group on the border agent’s request and everyone hands over the equivalent of one to two US dollars. I don’t know what would happen if we didn’t give him money, but I’m not interested in finding out. He looks happy and I’m happy to not have trouble at the border. Getting stamped out is a breeze and we walk across no man’s land to Laos. The shadiness carries over to other side. Once again, the border official wants a dollar “convenience fee” and we oblige. And then we are officially in Laos.

As we head up a hill to meet our new driver, I notice an awful smell. Then I hear whimpering. I eventually see the source, a large truck full of dogs. We all look at each other, shocked, knowing that these dogs will end up as food. We’ve grown up in places where dogs are pets and eating them is wrong. Hearing chickens squawking is normal but the unaddressed whimpering of dogs is jarring because we think of them as companions to humans, not food.

It is terrible to see the dogs in these small cages and the stench is troubling. But as someone who does eat meat, I know I cannot judge what other people determine to be edible.

As my head is spinning with thoughts about the ways in which where you live dictates morality, the men in the dog truck grin and a wave to me as I walk by. There is no moral dilemma for them; it’s just business as usual.

Into the Laotian Sun

Our new driver is lovely. He smiles warmly as we approach the bus. We are relieved as we finally exit the border area and the sun suddenly shines upon us. It’s the first time we’ve seen it in days.

We twist and turn on a mountain road and we see no other cars or people. These wild mountains with tropical flowers blooming from the trees feel like a gorgeous secret.

We pass through villages that seem lively and mellow at the same time. Everyone is outdoors socializing or playing soccer and groups of children hang out, still wearing their school uniforms. A sense of community emanates from these villages.

Our driver is keen on taking us places just for the sake of sightseeing. He stops so we can walk along a bridge over a wide river. On the other side of the bridge is a small village and I see the look of shock in people’s eyes as they see me. But then they quickly return to their activities, and I am relieved. We next go to the Phou Hin Boun limestone forest where we watch the sun set behind rows of jagged peaks before continuing on the road. Our driver is proud of his country’s natural offerings and we are happy to have him share these places with us.

At dusk, we can see that the big satellite dishes we’d noticed outside people’s huts are being put to use. People leave their front doors wide open, and inside their dwellings, we can see large families sitting on the floor crowded around one TV. Electricity is strung from hut to hut and a fluorescent light hangs in front of each home.

After 15 hours on the road, we finally arrive at our destination and it’s as dark as when we left. We pull into a parking lot and the neon sign reads “Paksan Ho” because the “tel” has run out of juice. We settle into our rooms and go to the hotel restaurant to at last have a real meal.

The restaurant is outside on the bank of the Nam Xan River. The waitress gives us just one menu because that’s all they have. I order tom yum soup with chicken. I am served tom yuck with chicken bones. Disgusting soup-2, me-0. But somehow this incredible calm and contentedness has settled in my soul since we arrived in Laos. If I can’t enjoy the food, I can enjoy this wonderful night and the company and the tranquility until the storm rolls in.

We head up to our rooms when it starts to pour. As I get ready for bed, I think about the highs and lows of my experiences in Southeast Asia. In addition to an overstuffed backpack, I feel like I’ve been carrying the weight of representing an entire race. It’s not a completely new feeling to me, but I’d never experienced that feeling so intensely before I arrived in Southeast Asia. I haven’t purposely signed up to be a pioneer, but indirectly, I have.

I’m not sure what the rest Laos will bring, but I get a sense that the hardest part of my trip is behind me. I turn off the light and pause for a moment at the window to watch the thunderstorm raging on outside. Then I climb into bed and drift peacefully to sleep.

Original article: Letting Go in the Mist and Crossing a Border Into the Sun

©2013 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

I woke up before dawn, unaware that the day would bring definitive moments to my life as a solo traveler. A few of us had decided to leave Cat Ba early to spend a little more time in Hanoi and I had opted to do the journey on my own.

I took a walk along the waterfront and had breakfast with a few travel companions before saying a temporary goodbye to them. When I was ready to go, I went to the place where I’d gotten my ticket and waited. All I knew was that my ticket was supposed to get me back to Hanoi and the first step was a bus ride. After that, I wasn’t sure.

I’d gotten there early, nervous about catching the bus on time. As my departure time passed, there was still no bus. I spotted another traveler standing in front of the tourism office next door and he looked as anxious as I felt. I asked him if he was heading to Hanoi at the the same time as me. He was, and I was relieved that I wasn’t going to be the only foreigner.

This was the first time I learned that if you’re traveling alone and confused about how you’re going to get from one place to another, it always helps to befriend other travelers, even if they’re just as confused as you are. Many of these types of friendships I’ve had have been transient, but I always think of these people fondly as travel saviors who helped turn moments of panic into the adventures they were meant to be.

This traveler and his wife were from France. They had taken a Halong Bay tour that included a night on Cat Ba Island. Rather than leaving early as I was, they had decided to stay longer on Cat Ba and had to get back to Hanoi on their own.

We kept on waiting and the bus finally showed up. It took us all over the island and continued to pick up passengers. It was nice way to see how lush and green the island was after spending a night on the developed waterfront area. After an hour or so, we made it to a dock. Not everyone got off the bus, but the French couple got off and I did too knowing we might as well stick together even if we were equally ignorant.

We got on a ferry which took us to another dock where there was a van waiting to pick us up. The van wasn’t big enough for everyone and we were able to gather that another one would come shortly. I hoped so. I had to go to the bathroom so I asked the French couple not to leave without me while I booked it across a wobbly dock to a dirty bathroom on a boat. I made it back just in time for the second van. I was crammed up front with the French couple and we drove on a bumpy unpaved road through an industrial area. Eventually the road was paved and we reached the city of Haiphong. Everyone got off the van, but the driver told us foreigners to stay on.

He drove a little bit longer before stopping without saying a word. We wondered what was next. He pointed to a bus driving down the street in the other direction and we figured we were supposed to get on it. We gathered our stuff and crossed the street to the bus and the driver didn’t stop. A bus attendant with laughing eyes stood in the doorway as the bus drove by and motioned for us to hurry up and get on the moving bus. We were shocked that the bus driver wouldn’t stop, but we didn’t have much time to think about it. Ungracefully with our gigantic backpacks, we ran alongside the bus and got on board.

We learned that this was our last vehicle and it would take us to a station in Hanoi. We spread out in the back of the empty bus and relaxed in our seats now that we no longer had to pay attention to making transfers. When we arrived in Hanoi, the French couple and I shared a taxi to the center of town and said our farewells and exchanged one last knowing look as we approached my hotel.

After about 5.5 hours of travel by bus, ferry, van, bus, and taxi, I had made it back to Hanoi. It was the end of that particular journey, but the beginning of a much larger one. This haphazard trip from a Vietnamese island to the mainland awoke the independent adventurer in me and sparked the courage that continues to propel me forward to new adventures even though underneath, I’m probably just as scared of traveling solo as anyone else. But all it takes is one experience to understand that despite your reservations, you can find your way around the most foreign of places and kind people will help you along the way. It just takes one experience to know the elation that bubbles up inside you when you simply reach Point B, having taken on the world one small corner at a time.

Original article: Escape from Cat Ba

©2013 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

The weather in Southeast Asia has been clear skies and only short bursts of rain until the day we reach a persistently gloomy Halong Bay. As we descend the precarious steps to our junk boat, we know we will not be seeing the sparkling bay we had envisioned, but we are eager to embrace serenity and muted tones and a slow day on the water.

Aboard our junk boat, we sail amongst enormous limestone rocks that rise impossibly out of the sea and little villages that float in between them. We sail beyond all the other tourist boats that are out there that day and much of the time, we are the only ones in this watery world. There are moments when it feels surreal; that if there was such a thing as the edge of the earth, we’ve reached it and it won’t be long until we enter nothingness.

As we get closer to Cat Ba Island, we see more floating villages where people make their living off of fish farming. It’s remarkable to see people living directly on the water so far away from the mainland. Children of the water villages wave to us as they row small boats home after a day of school on Cat Ba.

After hours on the water, we reach Cat Ba, the largest island in Halong Bay. As night begins to devour what little light has escaped through the clouds, we say goodbye our beautifully misty and somber day.

Original article: Photo Essay: Sailing Halong Bay in Black and White

©2013 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

In a pleasant departure from Vietnamese overnight trains, we travel from Hoi An to Hue by bus. We stop at the Marble Mountains to walk to the top of Thuy Son for panoramic views and quiet moments in gardens and grottoes. We continue on to Hue on the Hai Van Pass, a stunning coastal section of Vietnam’s Highway 1 which rivals California’s highway of the same name.

We’ve found out that Hue is pronounced “way” and all sorts of puns have ensued, but we still aren’t quite sure what there is to do or see there when we arrive. By now we know that in this scenario, it never hurts to explore by boat or motorcycle, so a few of us arrange to take a motorcycle tour. We’ve already had a spectacular day so it’s hard to imagine that the day can get better, but it does.

Moments after we set out from our hotel, our moto drivers ditch the city streets for paths that lead us through woods and quaint neighborhoods. I realize that without knowing it, this is what I’ve been craving—normalcy and detour from the tourist trail.

We stop in a forest and we assume we are there to explore nature, but our guides tell us we are not quite there yet. They lead us through a gate and we discover that tucked away in the woods is the Tu Hieu Temple. We head in the direction of the beautiful sounds we hear and see that we have arrived in time for the monks’ afternoon chanting ceremony.

We sit for awhile and watch the ceremony, mesmerized and engulfed in serene contentment. One by one, we are eventually able to pull ourselves away to explore the rest of the gorgeous grounds of the monastery.

We learn that this this is where the notable Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh once studied. If peace can be extreme, Tu Hieu could be an emblem of that and it’s not difficult to see how a strong and steadfast peace activist could have emerged from this place.

Our next stop is obviously a shopping stop. We visit an out of the way artisan market where we seem to be the only visitors. Vendors are selling cone hats, artwork, and abundance of incense. Incense is of little interest to me as it has been making me sneeze throughout Vietnam, but I like how artfully it is presented in colorful fanned out bundles or laid out on the side of the street. We poke around and a few people try rolling incense but we don’t stick around too long before we’re off to our next destination.

We speed up a hill  through a grove of small pines to a vista overlooking the Perfume River. Our guides show us around and we learn that it is not only a viewpoint, it is also the strategically located site of former American military bunkers. Being in the middle of Vietnam near the DMZ, but officially part of Southern Vietnam, Hue was hit extremely hard by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army during the Vietnam-American War. It’s hard to reconcile Hue’s perilous history with tranquility around us, but without the museum-style experiences of Saigon and the Cu Chi Tunnels, the remnants of war feel very present here.

To reach our final destination, we zigzag along a narrow path that cuts through flooded rice paddies where the smallest  error could send us flying into the fields. It’s a thrill being so close to the rice fields and inches away from danger.

Our last stop is Ho Quyen, a former tiger and elephant fighting arena that was built in 1830 and used until 1904. The fights held there were staged by the emperors who had the tigers’ teeth and claws removed. Elephants were thought to represent royalty, and with the matches rigged, they won every time. We walk up to the top where the royal family and their subjects once stood and watched the matches and we circle the grass covered perimeter of the crumbling arena, reflecting on power and time.

We head back to the center of Hue as the sun sets over the Perfume River. We feel as though we have explored Hue and its surroundings in the same way we would if we were visiting friends who took us to fascinating local spots that are not listed in the guidebooks. Moreover, in getting from place to place we have experienced Vietnam as is, and the afternoon has been grand in its simplicity.

Original article: Photo Essay: Show Me the Hue

©2013 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

I don’t think there was one aha! moment where I transformed from a picky eater to a more open one, but travel certainly expedited the transition. Over time, I found that new worlds opened up to me when I tried unfamiliar foods and that food was often an entryway into the history and psyche of a place.

Southeast Asia came at the right time in my food awakening and my newfound appreciation for Southeast Asian cuisine played a role in picking it as a destination. While I looped my way around the region, I didn’t strive to be Andrew Zimmern, but I made a concerted effort to be more adventurous with my meals. Of course, I could never get enough pad thai, but the foods that lingered on my taste buds long after my trip was over were the ones with new and unfamiliar flavors:

Durian and Assorted Fruit

I tried durian on my second night in Bangkok. After all the stories I’d heard about it, I didn’t think it was bad at all. It didn’t smell foul and it had a nutty and buttery flavor. It seems that Thai people prefer to eat their durian at a less ripe stage, so perhaps the one I tried was milder and less offensive. But I think durian is like cilantro— some people think it tastes repulsive like soap and others can’t imagine life without it. Beyond durian, any time I ordered a side of unspecified fruit, it was an adventure. Some of the new fruits I tried included longan, rambutan, sapodilla, and dragon fruit.

Amok in Siem Reap, Cambodia

Amok is fish mousse and that may not sound very appetizing, but it was one of the most delicious things I ate in Southeast Asia. For this dish, fish is mixed with coconut cream and spices and then steamed inside a banana leaf. The end result is a wonderful surprise; it’s delicate, full of flavor, and the coconut adds a wonderful creaminess that pairs well with the fish.

Cambodian BBQ in Siem Reap, Cambodia

The Cambodian BBQ has undertones of gimmickiness, but nevertheless, it’s a great place to sample meats you would not otherwise try. On a menu that also included snake and kangaroo, we chose crocodile and ostrich. As a backup, we also ordered chicken. Uncooked meat was brought to us in containers with a little picture of the animal so we would know what it was. We barbecued the meat ourselves on a dome-shaped contraption that had boiling broth at its base. We added noodles and veggies to the soup along with with the meat to complete our meal. In the end we loved the crocodile which tasted like a combination of chicken and fish and the ostrich which had a flavor akin to beef cooked in red wine. The chicken ended up being everyone’s least favorite because it tasted so boring compared to the other two.

Cao Lau in Hoi An

On my first day in Hoi An, I noticed that the menus had a few dishes I hadn’t seen in Southern Vietnam. I decided to try cao lau, a local specialty. It’s a noodle soup with a five spice flavored broth, pork, and greens and it’s topped off with bits of crispy fried dough. In Vietnam, I’d felt that flavors were muted and the eater was often expected to add his or her own spice, but this was flavorful and thoroughly enjoyable without having to dump a lot of chili sauce in it. Much of Hoi An’s unique vibe comes from its history as trading port, and the amalgamation of cultural influences in this soup make it a fitting dish for the city.

Lao Coffee in Luang Prabang, Laos

By the time I arrived in Laos, I had accepted the fact that I’d most likely find a pool of sweetened condensed milk at the bottom of my coffee as long as I was in Southeast Asia. But Laos was where I finally learned to enjoy it. In Laos, the coffee itself tasted different, it was thick and rustic. It made sense in the setting and Lao coffee kind of charms people in the same way that Laos does. Some of my fondest memories in Luang Prabang are of sitting on the sidewalk, drinking Lao coffee from a little glass cup, and chatting with locals and fellow travelers.

Khao Soi in Chang Mai, Thailand

When I arrived at a street food plaza in Chiang Mai, I was hungry and didn’t know what anything was, so I just pointed at a random dish on the menu. What I got turned out to be one of the top meals of my life. It took a lot of Googling when I got home to figure out what it was, but eventually I learned that it was called khao soi, a dish that is rarely on the menu at Thai restaurants in the States. It’s a noodle soup with a coconut curry broth and my bowl that night was served with shrimp and just the right amount of spice. Years later, I can still picture myself smiling widely as I slurped down that delicious soup at the night market.

Thai Wonton Soup in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Thailand

I’ve had wonton soup countless times at Chinese restaurants, but I was blown away by the Thai version. I tried it at street food stalls in both Chiang Mai and Bangkok and couldn’t pinpoint what exactly was different about the broth, but it was very, very tasty.

Non-profit restaurants run by local youth

Throughout Southeast Asia, there are several inviting restaurants that are operated by non-profit organizations which train and employ underserved youth or benefit the local community in some way. I enjoyed fresh salads, curries, my very first bahn mi sandwich, and many more tasty meals at these spots:

- Romdeng in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia
- Friends in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia
- Sozo in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- Baguette & Chocolat in Hanoi, Vietnam
- Organic Farm Cafe in Vang Vieng, Laos

Original article: Eating in Southeast Asia: The Most Memorable Foods I Tried

©2013 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

If you can peel yourself away from the tailor shops for long enough, Hoi An is a wonderful town to stroll through aimlessly. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is decidedly touristy, but you don’t have to wander too far away from the Old Town section to understand why Hoi An translates to “peaceful meeting place”.

The streets of Hoi An are lined with simple charms, and its vehicle limitations make it a really easy place to walk everywhere without fearing for your life (which is apt to happen on the chaotic streets of major Vietnamese cities). Here are some scenes from the charming streets of Hoi An, Vietnam:

Motorcyclists and bicyclists ride under a sign celebrating Lunar New Year.

A “floating dragon” in the middle of the Thu Bon River.

The Cantonese Assembly Hall gate.

Aside from its innumerable custom clothing shops, Hoi An is also know for colorful handmade silk lanterns.

This sign made my day and inspired the title of this post.

A view of the Japanese Bridge from across the Thu Bon river.

There were many public art sculptures both in and alongside the river.

The quiet shores of the Thu Bon.

I especially enjoyed walking through the even more slow-paced part of town across the river from the main tourist sections of Hoi An.

I asked this woman if I could take a picture of her. She nodded yes, and then immediately lit a cigarette…

…before turning to look at the camera.

Fishing boats.

Original article: Photo Essay: Hoi An, The Town for Walkers and Primitive Vehicle Users

©2013 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
– Jack Kerouac

There are some countries you leave with indifference. In others, you want to sprint to the border because you’re so ready to get out. And some—maybe most—you’ll leave reluctantly, feeling that you connected with the country, and wishing you had the time and funds to spend on that never ending dig to the core of a place.

Cambodia was solidly scenario number three. Wistful was the word of the day as we made our long and bumpy but beautiful drive to the border. Cambodia was rough around the edges for sure, but it felt like it had heaps of determination and a tremendous sense of humor to keep it moving forward. I hadn’t anticipated how magnetic it would be. Despite Cambodia’s pull, our van carried on to the border.

At the border town, Phnom Den, it was hot, hot, hot. Hot. It was a slow process getting stamped out because there was just one border agent at work who understandably moved slowly in his humid office with no air-conditioning and no computers. Once we were officially released from Cambodia, we had a long walk through no man’s land. As I trudged along, I was hunched over by the weight of my overstuffed backpack, dripping with sweat, and learning all sorts of hands-on lessons about not packing more than I could carry.

We felt relieved when we reached the Vietnam side, only to realize we were not at all done. Dubious border agents claimed the x-ray machine was broken and they wanted to search everyone’s bags by hand. They were exceedingly thorough in their search, even pawing through one of my fellow traveler’s underwear and waving in the air to observe it. They also confiscated a harmless wood carving that a honeymooning couple had purchased in another part of Asia. Noting their overzealousness, a few of us stealthily added our bags to the pile of luggage that had already been checked and continued on, sans violation by shady border officials.

As we left the border area, the excitement about being in a new country settled in. As with my first Southeast Asia border crossing, I was surprised to see how different it was immediately after entering a new country. In the heat of March in Cambodia, the country had been parched,  but Vietnam was various shades of green with its irrigated fields.

We barely had time to throw our bags down at our hotel in Chau Doc before five of us set out on a motorcycle tour of the town. I had never ridden a motorcycle and had no idea what there was to see in Chau Doc, I but I knew I wanted to experience Vietnam’s most popular form of motorized transportation. This trip had been all about saying yes and sampling things I never imagined I would try, and it had served me well so far. Yes to tasting crocodile, ostrich, and some unknown delicious dish I pointed to on the menu at the Thai border. Yes to getting on a little boat bound for some random island that turned out to be lovely. Now, yes to motorcycle tours.

We didn’t pick our drivers, they picked us. I was picked by a driver I’d eventually come to know as Mr. Speedy. As soon as I had my helmet on, we were off. We zipped through traffic and ahead of the others in the group. I gripped onto the driver, terrified at first and probably cutting off his circulation until I got past the initial shock and relaxed. I saw that when I let go a little, I felt safer as I moved in the natural way the motorcycle rocked me as the roads turned.

We zoomed up the side of a mountain and it was thrilling. It was all sharp curves and steep cliffs and I had a huge smile on my face the whole time, a combination of fear and exhilaration. It didn’t take long to understand the appeal of motorcycles. There’s a rush of adrenaline and freedom that courses through your body as you ride with no barriers to the world and you feel the speed in such a palpable way as the wind strokes your skin.

Another pair reached the top of Sam Mountain right after us, but the other three were far behind. As we waited for them, a group of moto taxi drivers tried to get my attention and kept eagerly pointing at something. Eventually I saw what they were trying to tell me: I had a 10,000 dong bill (worth less than $1 at the time) precariously hanging out of my pocket. I put it back in and they all smiled and gave me thumbs up. The simplest gestures speak volumes about a place, and this set the tone for southern Vietnam where I encountered many genuinely friendly people. Things would get harder in Vietnam, but I always look back fondly at the time I spent in the Mekong Delta area of the country.

When the rest of the group arrived, one of the drivers shared some facts about the mountain and explained that it was an important pilgrimage site. We walked around the top to the western side and we understood the drivers’ sense of urgency when we’d  arranged the tour. We had come to see the most epic sunset of our lives. We were going to watch the sun set over Cambodia, literally and metaphorically. It would be our last look at Cambodia before making our way north through Vietnam.

We looked westward at the sun and at a border that exists on maps that was just meters away. Unlike during the drive across, looking down from the mountain, there seemed to be no difference between Cambodia and Vietnam and the unfenced borderland was almost confusing in its normalcy. But our drivers assured us that the land below had a line through it. So we stood atop a Vietnamese mountain, looking over Cambodia as the clouds engulfed the sun, setting both countries and their shared skies aglow with a hazy, heavenly light.

Original article: When in Vietnam…

©2013 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

“Get ready to travel in your own country,” my friend says cheerfully as she opens the gate for me. “You can blog about this!”

Indeed, I step into a new world as I enter the yard. A collector’s world. There are several cars, some functioning, others clearly not. An old Mercedes has its hood propped up and the rusty engine inside makes me think that the hood has been open for a while. There are appliances and sheet metal and all sorts of unrecognizable stuff scattered around the large yard in a semi-organized fashion. Beyond the junk is a mini farm.

Inside the house, there’s a lot of clutter, but I am relieved to see that it’s not completely jampacked. There are quite a few chotskies, a wood-burning oven in the center of the living room, mismatched dining room furniture, and some requisite Bob Marley posters among other artwork on the walls. It’s the ultimate Central California Coast hippie homestead and there are no dull corners in here.

I am a little disoriented in this wacky house in the country, but I’m thrown right into the mix. I meet the eccentric landlord who built the house himself. He grew up in East Germany and Croatia. He is the kind of person who eschews most formalities and gets right into discussing all kinds of topics: city life versus country life, school lunches, his childhood in Croatia. He must have noticed me looking around the house with amused curiosity and he tells me that a lot of houses in Croatia are like this, full of sentimental knick-knacks and clutter.

My friend and her boyfriend make arepas, delicious little South American corn cakes which I imagine I’ll be eating a lot this summer on my travels. We go out to one of the patios in the back to have dinner as twilight dwindles. Another one of the of the roommates is barbecuing chicken by the light of a headlamp and he offers some to those of us who eat meat. Later as we are getting ready to head out, the landlord insists on giving us various kinds of chocolates. It’s a strange and overloaded house, but it’s also one of the most welcoming and generous spaces I’ve been in.

I ask my friend’s boyfriend how he found it, assuming this was not the kind of place you would see listed online. “Craigslist,” he replies, and I wonder what that listing would have looked like.

After dinner, we head back up Highway 1 to Santa Cruz for a hip hop show. I’ve never lived in Santa Cruz, but I’ve been going to shows and hanging out with friends there on and off for almost a decade, so it’s awash with a warm homey feeling every time I return. The crowd at the show is everything you would expect a Santa Cruz concert to be regardless of the music genre: skater and surfer types, university students, neo-hippies, and old school hippies who probably experienced the Summer of Love. We came to the show to dance, so that’s what we do until the music stops.

As we head back to countryside hippie homestead, my friend excitedly tells me that they have a bag of carrots and other vegetables to make a delicious breakfast with tomorrow. This amuses me as a bag of carrots is not something I usually associate with a tasty Sunday breakfast.

We get up in the late morning for coffee and a breakfast of carrots, broccoli and sweet potatoes cooked with garlic and topped with cheese and dash of hot sauce. It is surprisingly tasty. I’m not a huge meat eater, but I am not a vegetarian, so I often find that I am impressed with what people can do with vegetables after years of not eating meat.

When it’s time to go, I say my goodbyes to the household and take one last walk through the yard of clutter. I head away from the hippie house and the road that winds through hills becomes a farmland road that haphazardly curves through a flat expanse of crops and crosses over train tracks. Bright red strawberries that look ready to pick dot some of the fields. There are no other cars joining me on this stretch of road and there are just a few houses and clumps of RVs among the farms.

I stop for gas in Pajaro, a small town with a population of a little over 3,000 people who are 94% Latino. Inside the station, most customers are greeted immediately with Spanish and familiarity. Pajaro sounds like ranchera and cumbia and Spanish, and for my brief stop there, I feel like I am traveling in Mexico again.

I leave Pajaro and head north, reflecting on the past day which had unexpectedly been a charming exercise in cross-cultural exploration just a little under two hours south of home. As I merge onto Highway 1, I think to myself, “I should blog about this.”

Original article: Those Places You Find in Your Own Backyard

©2013 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.