Episode 1: YVR to LAX to KLA and beyond
May 26, 2003
1:30am
Finally in bed after tremendous joy sharing Kris + Kathryn's wedding and an evening of all-you-can-eat pasta and calamari and dancing with Asheya.
4:13am
Alarm. I say, "Let's start this thing," and crawl out of bed.
5:10am
Bid farewell to precious Luna and Nova. I know Luna will remember me when I get back, but I hope she thinks about me.
7:15am
Bid farewell to the love of my life, Asheya. I say, "What a stupid idea, to leave a person that I love so much." This was hard.
8:00am
US Customs takes my mandarin oranges but lets me keep my bananas and apples. I liked my oranges best.
8:30am
Boarded and chatting with my neighbours, LA natives. I am assured of how beautiful Vancouver is, but Victoria even more so. I know.
9:20am
Re-read 3 pages into Genesis. 1452 to go on this trip.
9:50am
Mind getting a little fuzy; takes a minute to decide if tomato juice, orange juice, or eggs are dairy. About to take my first of 120 antimalarial pills as I take a bite of buttered bun.
11:30am-8:00pm
LAX. Hop over to Santa Monica. Expansive beaches, packed with people (holiday today). A few km south of Vancouver, and the water is still quite chill. The mountains to the north could make this any Vancouver beach, on a hazy day, but the palm trees and Spanish belie this image. Great panini for lunch. Probably the best thin-crust pizza I have ever had for dinner--solid Italian community, much like Burnaby north.
8:10-9:00pm
Bernardo, laundromat maintainer and amateur chef from rural Mexico explained how to make a real burrito (as different from the Canada/US variety as NA pizza from Italian) and pole, a sweet and spicy gravy. Also gave me tips on how to discover the *real* Mexico.
10:30pm
Airport check-in. Meet Darren + Sharleen of Edmonton, en route to Sydney. Darren is in the RCMP. "Tough route to get in," I say, and he says, "Yeah, 10 years tough."
10:48pm
Raspberry smoothy from Haagen-Dazs Euro Coffee sooths my parched throat.
May 27
1:28pm
Slept on and off for 9 hours. Ivan was thoroughly impressed. He is Russian, studying at a Catholic college in Oregon. I have found the trick to moderate sleep: an inflatable neck rest pillow, waxed ear-plugs, a sleeping mask (thanks to British Airways years ago), and a courtesy pillow. A couple of grams for happiness. The inflight personal entertainment systems are neat little pieces of technology--except full of bugs! Creating technology is easy; making it flawless is a wholly seperate matter. I had a reminiscing game of Street Fighter II before bed.
~4:00pm
Taipei: masks are in style.
10:00pm
Kuala Lumpur; time to readjust my clock...
Instantly May 28, 1:00pm
Catch bus, train, 75km into the city. After meeting people, it feels odd to just leave, venturing alone into the wild unknown. In a way, it must be desire for a crutch--to divest absolute responsibility. Once parted, I feel even more alone. It's 30 deg and terribly humid, like a sauna. It only gets hotter from here. Francis, 79 years of age, all spent in KL, discovers me, and we search for my "hostel" together. He points out a favoured Indian tea hawker. My place is...well, a roof over my head. There is a squashed bug a little smaller than a Cadbury Creme Egg in the entrance, but my room is close to spotless. KL itself is a mix of sophisticated highrises and squalor (frequent wafts of stale sewage turn my stomach). I browse, curiously run into Ivan and part again, and settle in a well-needed central park. However, now I think I have an ant in my pants.
May 29
Finally on the plane to Hanoi. The plane is at 5-10% occupancy. I am in 1st class; my guess is this is my "reward" as a foreigner for being required to pay 2-3X more than residents of Vietnam for many things. Fair enough--I'm happy to transfer some Canadian wealth to this growing country. My cost of living will still be far below NA standards. Apparently I am not allowed to import "children's toys having negative effects on personality development". I guess I have to throw away my barbies.
Touchdown. Officials in army fatigues stamp "Quarantine" on my customs sheet. Uh-oh...but it's all cool.
At last...I can hardly believe it...good quality, inexpensive food! I sit in Little Havana--admittedly, not as raw as it gets. The tourist appeal is slightly evident, in as much as it is a decorated establishment with a door that can be closed, with very friendly hostesses, and confidence building cleanliness, but this is great for me as I want to break my stomach in gently. Eating in the fumes of the street does not yet appeal to me. Sauteed pork with mixed vegetables, jasmine rice, 10 spring rolls (each 1/2 size of Vancouver), 500mL local Tiger bia, ananas (as my new friends Pierre and Bernard call them in tasteful recommendation) for desert, and milk coffee (1 part condensed milk, 4 parts coffee in true Vietnamese style), 59000 dong, or 6 dollars, and that's probably 20-30% above average. Asheya & I will love this land! On the flip-side, it is tremendously capitalistic here, despite the society of the past. I hate shopping malls, and in a way I am now in one great shopping mall, where the employees sucker on to you and only release after many salted "no thank you"'s. I like to ask them about their lives. Soon I will retire to the countryside.
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So what am I doing here? Another e-mail may begin to explain..
Thank you tremendously to everyone who has already written me. Though I meet so many new people, they are passing like ghosts, and I cherish my living and constant circle of friends and family. Please accept my apologies for a probable lack of a personal reply until I get home in September. My time is cheap, and internet time cheaper (0.50 per hour), but my poor wrists are very, very expensive :(
I hope you feel connected to me through my stories, and continue to write me :)
A Long Second Episode
May 29, 2003 - Some late night reflections..
Chao anh, chao chi, chao em. Hello, older brother, older sister, younger sibling, as the informal greeting goes.
The Vietnamese language is quite thrilling to speak. There are six tones: low, mid, high, stopped, rising falling, and high broken. Thus one word can have many meanings, like ma: which, ghost, mother, tomb, horse, rice seedling.
My room is satisfying--top story, queen size bed, bathroom (even with a western style toilet, which is a little bonus--there are some cultural practices in this world I am less eager to adopt), $7 Canadian. In Hanoi, this is a good deal.
I am a little suprised by this city. The landscape on aerial entry was just as expected, and I was simply delighted. Similarly during the voyage into town, observing the rice-paddy workers with their livestock, and all the women wearing conical shaped thatched hats. As I eluded to in my last entry, the town is bustling--nowhere near the laid-back atmosphere I was led to believe ("laid-back", after all, is an entirely relative term). I have met many tens of people, all smiling and helpful, and, without exception, offering something for sale. I am sure time will reveal greater treasures, and I know that leaving the city will help.
Time for a clarification (skip if uninterested):
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What I try to present here is a full picture of my experiences and thoughts. Like marriage, every not so positive traveling experience is balanced by twenty or one hundred fantastic ones, which I think is a healthy ratio--that is what life is, and with a rounded perspective even the not so great experiences are developmental. I truly hope this comes through in my writing. And let me admit that these experiences are mine alone. I felt a little guilty when sharing Asheya and my rough time in Athens (for those who received the Europe travelogue) because I know it has much to offer, and others have experienced this. If I say it was a rough time, that is nothing more than a particular combination of factors for one traveler and the opinion of one individual. Take such words lightly, and like myself, enjoy the ride.
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I want to tell you what is so important that I would leave Asheya for up to three months. It's idealistic, but here it is...
- I want to learn from other cultures and religions all that they have to offer and that I am ready to receive
- I want to dedicate several months to God bereft of those distractions daily life presents
- I want to speed my growth into the person I want to become
- I want to set the stage for a life in internatonal development through first-hand experience in developing nations, in case that is the road I take
- I want to do something directly beneficial for some of the people in Nepal
- I want to help the Light Up The World Foundation in their work by continuing the development of my data logging equipment in the field (http://www.sfu.ca/mediapr/sfu_news/archives_2003/sfunews05150304.html--The National also wanted to do a story, but they don't have the budget to come to Nepal with me!)
- Selfishly, I seek adventure and the pleasures that travel offers
- All this being said, I want to keep my wants open to positive sculpting
Already, after only four days of travel, some of the people I have mentioned have shared very important things with me, even expressing suprise at having the opportunity to do so, and this makes me feel as though my asperations for this trip will not go entirely unfulfilled.
May 31
I imagine yesterday will be just about the lowest point of my trip, besides when I get sick (which happens to most people at some point). I had to break-in my metaphorical new traveling boots, getting a few blisters, which will heal, in the process. In culmination of the day I was approached by one of the ubiquitous postcard vendors while reading Leviticus beside Hoan Kiem Lake in the Old Quarter. We spoke for at least an hour, mostly about his life and the Bible, and when I offered to buy him a meal instead of his postcards, there were tears in his eyes. I honestly don't know if they were from the realization of another failed sale or something more significant. He is more than 20 years old, and has gone to jail for arms dealings and heroin transport (so the story goes). This is not the place to elaborate, but some of this encounter, and many other events that day, challenged me tremendously.
Today, however, was just the refreshment I required--I left the city and headed SW to the Perfume Pagoda, a collection of Buddhist temples, some set within expansive, mist filled natural caves. The only access is up a river, with two young women rowing (I felt like the royalty my name implies), and by foot into the hills.
The honking of the city was swiftly replaced with the hum and buzz of insects among the trees, and the soft gurgle of streams through the temples. I also met many travellers, including two spendid English girls, and had the opportunity to really get to know some new people. That night, some young Vietnamese cool cats entertained me at the one jazz club in Hanoi, after dinner in an enclosed patio, and I met two beautiful, kind, and sincere Canadian girls [who, though I couldn't know it at the time, were to play a large and meaningful role in my life over the next week]. To top off this day of rejuvenation, I had a date with a girl--my wife Asheya, online, at 10:00pm!
June 1
Now I am able to more fully enjoy the beautiful aspects of Hanoi--to take in the culture and beat of life in this interesting city. I can get a moto ride across town for a quarter the price I first paid. I saw the embalmed corpse of Ho Chi Minh, the most important figure in Vietnam of the last century. I attended Mass with almost 1000 others--the cathedral could not contain all of the citizens and so they filled the courtyard, singing and standing and kneeling, even though they could not see or hear most of the proceedings. The singing was such a solid yet supple flow of praise I could hear the meaning of the words even though I could not understand the words themselves.
Before mass I discussed the philisophical purpose of travel, a very important issue to travelers yet rarely considered, with one of my new friends while children competed by hurling their sandles at a crushed paint can. What's this Nintendo thing I hear about?
I shared the best Indian food I've ever had with my Canadian friends. I'm biased, but these are the most wonderful people I've so far met--I do appreciate our unique country and its people, and traveling is revealing this to me in yet another way.
June 3
Yesterday took me through touristy yet worthwhile Halong Bay, a collection of 3000 islands that thrust upwards from the Gulf of Tonkin, to Cat Ba island. Today takes me back to Hanoi.
Highlight: jumping into the water from the top of our classy wooden boat.
Lowlight: the butchered natural beauty of a particular cave, complete with technicolour lighting and water pumps. One of those paradoxes: often to enjoy something natural we destroy it in the process.
It is easiest to do this sort of thing as a "tour", booked through any guesthouse in Hanoi, as this often costs the same once you find independent transportation, lodging, etc. But my "touring" days are over. I'd rather pay the same amount, with exra work, then be vulnerable to the broken promise, which invariably is the reality to some extent, and despite any mental preparation, still manages to suprise.
In my experience over the years, travelers come in the following varieties:
1 male, 1 female: often the most difficult to get to know
2 males: easy to befriend given they are not of the stereotypical party mentality
1 or 3 males: more difficult
1 female: highly dependent on her personality
2 females: most open to friendship, least party-bound
June 4
Took an overnight train North to Sapa (Sa Pa). In the hills = cooler, wetter, more beautiful, tremendously peaceful. Spent the day walking through the terraced countryside with my 17 year old local minority Hmong tribe "guide" name Za, who looked no older than 13, as she pointed out corn, rice, sweet potatoes, ginger, indigo blue, and marijuana plants. She was delighted by one of my magic tricks with cards, and demolished me in the game of chance I taught her. Here I meditate for a time.
June 5
A note on money: consider what bargaining for an extra $0.50 means. 98% of us rich touists seem to engage in this, down to $0.10, can you imagine? $3000 for plane tickets, but not 10 cents for one in need.
June 6
Some moments in time:
- helping a young boy and girl push a cart of rocks up a hill
- playing the Vietnamese children's equivalent of hacky-sac in the street with some students from Ho Chi Minh City
- coaxing 4" wall geckos, 1 1/2" spiders, and 3" butterflies out of my bedroom at bedtime, on different occasions (don't be discouraged--the insect issue has really been very minor)
- sitting in the countryside in my glass room in Sapa, overlooking the mountains, reading from Deuteronomy to 2 Samuel
- sitting at the confluence of a copper river from the fields, a clear river from the mountains, and a waterfall from a village as hundreds of butterflies swirled in the mist
- watching scores of men reduce many piles of large rocks to many piles of smaller rocks...with hammers
- finding my guesthouse, outside of the town, at midnight, without a light, amidst the roaming dogs (*everything* shuts down at 9:00pm--oops)
- observing everybody in Sapa watch a soap opera dubbed using a single person's voice
- being invited to play an unfamiliar card game on the train in which no other player spoke English
- running into a Vietnamese and Swedish friend, independently, in Hanoi, both of whom I left in Sapa
- saying goodbye to my Canadian friends...sweet sorrow
Ahead? Laos!
Take care, everyone.
Episode 3: Shake and Float
June 7
Traveling has the mysterious power to change you in profound ways. Years ago, one hot Spanish night, somewhere along the eastern coast, I was transformed... I bought a refrigerated Sprite on a whim, it was placed in a tall glass, and after the clear liquid passed from the straw into my mouth, I have never looked at Sprite the same way. This is one of the few North American conceived purchases I occasionally make, searching, always searching, for that mystery of years gone by...
June 11
Travel can be wisdom's tool
or a fool's crutchJune 13
Laos...what to say of Laos? Laos is the sort of country that you get to and stop writing for a whole week. There is often an inverse relationship between one's frequency of pen-to-paper and one's level of contentedness. Perhaps this provides one explanation.
I love it here. If Asheya were beside me, I doubt we'd ever leave.
On the 8th I flew to Vientiane. Wide streets, no traffic, clean, quiet air. Got to the bus station 10:30am. Three delays and six hours later (4:30pm) I get on my bus to Vang Vieng. Welcome to Laos. I'm the only non-resident. 15 minutes and we stop to load 500lbs of cabbages on the roof.
Pause. As I sip my coconut "shake", a flatbed truck full of costumed individuals playing music on traditional instruments drives by and a boy with a mask runs up to me and invites me to the Royal Theatre. End pause.
For the next four hours, the only disruption to the drowsy countryside is us, careening through villages at a ridiculous speed for a bus half full of old ladies and cabbages. I doze with the local Top 20 blasting while my crew for the evening lights up and cracks open their newly acquired bottles of Beerlao. These cost less than a dollar and are only slightly smaller than wine bottles. The fellow to my right holding the AK-47 seems to be enjoying himself.
Vang Vieng, unbeknowst to me, is a "what" rather than a "where". It is the traveler's pursuit of pleasure, incarnate. It is North American rock & techno playing into the night. It is Hollywood movies flashing in every second restaurant. It is tasty, inexpensive food and torrents of fermented beverages. Don't get me wrong. I had fun, but that's just the point, and indeed, not the singular point of my trip, and thus I soon moved on.
Overall, this was a fairly lonely place, but I did meet Thomas from France (don't pronounce the "s"), and his long-term girlfriend Maria from Ireland, some of my kind of people, and to accompany me to Louang Prabang as well. Some moments to remember: swimming against the current into a deep cave through glowing water; floating down the Nam Song river in an innertube through the spectacular karst topography (though I did rip a button off my shirt in suprise with the discovery of a stowaway crawling about on me--the button prompty fell into the running water); visiting with the founder of an organic farm (+ humanitarian mission), sipping a mulberry shake and mulberry leave tea--mulberry leaves are the exclusive food of the on-premise silkworms.
I splurged and spent an extra dollar to take a tourist VIP bus further north to Louang Prabang. Remember the guy with the gun? He's a response to the two recent machine gunnings of the local bus between these two towns. Don't worry Mom & Dad--since you're reading this, it means I'm alive and relatively safe.
Yesterday, with the six people I put together to share the tuk-tuk expense, I climbed up beside the Kuang Si waterfalls to a suspended pool complete with a 4m high rope swing--it was a picture of paradise.
Today I visited with some student monks (novices), and an ex-monk showed me his paper-making shop. I am tempted to spend the rest of my time in Laos here, visiting with the beautiful people of this country, nicely situated between the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers.
Traveling is more about the places you know than the places you see. Plus, my first room here was so unpleasant that I'm hesitant to leave the great room that I now have and begin the search again.
For the curious:
My room costs less than $4.
My dinner costs less than $2.June 14
I spent much of today with the novices. When I show them a photo of Asheya with myself on our wedding day, they spend minutes examining us in the picture. "Handsome" and "Nam gnam" ("Beautiful"), they say.
This moment finds me with a banana yogurt shake--as my friends from Vietnam so rightly insisted, it is impossible to stick to a no ice rule in Laos. Shakes are an integral part of life here, and it's well accepted that ice is formed from purified water.
Earlier, I climbed to a temple on a hill in the heart of the city, and found refuge from a sudden violent thunderstorm in a cave, sharing Psalms with Buddha. Be cautious about letting any person or guidebook scare you about the time of year you visit SE Asia--I expected deadly heat and ceaseless rain, but overall it's been...simply marvellous.
June 16
Yesterday my dinner was accompanied by a mixed fruit shake with yogurt, a mixed fruit shake with ice, and a lemon shake ("shake" can involve milk, yogurt, ice, and/or sugar). Total drink cost: $1. It's just so wonderful to eat without pecuniary considerations! Asheya, I will make you some toothsome shakes when I get home.
So, why so shake-happy? To soothe my sunburnt arms & forehead--my first sunburn, as a result of an oversight: when driving a moto up the Mekong & into the hills at 60 km/h, it's impossible to wear a hat, and one's sleeves get pushed up one's arms. Oh well, it was fun anyways. Now it's a 2-day boat ride up the Mekong to Thailand. I'm into the prophets. Read, stretch, read, stretch, eat, read, sleep, eat, write, and here I am, in need of a stretch.
June 18
Thailand! I am struck by how much like home this place feels. It is the Western South East Asia--highly developed, even in some of the more remote northern regions. Case in point: lychee slurpees in 7-11. And especially after spending a night in the House of Evil in the Village of Creatures during my boat trip, I find Thailand mentally relaxing. I could not get straight to Pai from Chiang Kong/Chiang Rai, so I'll spend two nights in Chiang Mai.
Take care, all.
