Travel Candy

Back in Bangkok

magdef — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:08:00 GMT

Here I am again, floating through this world that never sleeps (though somehow I do). Today I woke up to a loud noise and jumped up with a start assuming it was already morning. It wasn't. Not what any sane person would consider morning anyway, as the sun was not yet up. Downstairs, the music was still blasting and in the rooms around me I could hear the thumps and bumps of the Bangkok night. Its pretty crazy here, and I am spending a bit longer than I had initially intended. In fact, India has now been all but deleted from my itinerary, due to a bit of a problem in gettting my visa (ahem... I forgot... ahem). But the upside is that I really get to experience Bangkok, kind of.

Right now I'm near the Indian Embassy, where I have come for the second time in three days only to realize that my presence here was completely unnecessary, as I will be in India for less than 24 hours and will not even be leaving the airport, and so do not require a visa. But such is life. Que sera sera, whatever will be will be...

Koh Tao was incredible, and the first place on this whole trip where I didn't take a single photograph. I didn't want to leave. Part of me still wishes I hadn't, as I don't think I have ever expereinced such a totally mellow and laid back lifestyle before. On Koh Tao, it was as though NOTHING existed outside of the world of the island, and the truth is that I didn't even get out to explore the island too much at all, as every available moment was spent in the water levitating and breathing whilst submerged. I loved it. Made some good friends while there as well, so the combination of the paradise of the island and the diver lifestyle and being surrounded by good people put me in an all around feel good mood. It would have been wonderful to have Kanae there with me also, but being alone on this trip has forced me to put myself out there and as a result I have met some wonderful people.

We were pretty lucky while I was on the Island, as it was wonderful weather almost the entire time, but just as we were leaving, a storm rolled in. The boat ride back was super intense, with probably 2/3rds of the passengers vomitting and everyone else getting really seasick. I was not affected, however. i'm not sure why, but I think that part of the reason is that I put on some crazy Japanese Jazz and danced in time with the rocking of the boat in my seat there. It was incredible, how the waves pushed our catamaran back and forth, bringing us almost vertical so that i was literally almost sitting directly above the passengers on the left of the boat, and then as we tilted the other way they were nearly above me. What started out for me as a really cool ride gradually got more and more intense until at the very end, just before we got out of the storm, I started to feel a bit ill and was only able to maintain my equilibrium by sitting crosslegged, closing my eyes, and meditating in my seat.

In the beginning of the trip a girl from across the boat looked over at me and saw how much I was enjoying the ride and gave me the "surfs up dude" sign. She waw wearing a pirate bandanna on her head and was obviously a hardcore punkrock kind of chick. I smiled back at her and turned to look out the window. When I looked back over at her after about a half hour she was throwing up into a bag. I pretended not to notice.

After we landed and everyone was planting their feet on hard land again, I started talking to her. She is from Germany and her goal is to be a treasure diver. "Allright," I thought, "this girl kicks ass." So we got to chatting and really hit it off. (Don't worry baby, half of our conversations were about our bf/gf.) The attraction we had was more of a recognition of the other person as an individual rather than a sexual interest. So that was fun.

And then I have been hanging out at Brett's place and have had a number of great converstaions with him and his gf Maya. They are awesome, and I'm glad we are finally getting the chance to really spend time together, as in japan i always wanted to chill with them more but never really did. And then tonight J gets into town and he doesn't know that I am still in Bangkok, so I think for my last night and J's first night here we will probably go out and hit it pretty hard! Well, I think i have resorted to rambling at this point and you probably all have things to do, but the next time I write on here will be from the comfort of my childhood home in Tampa. So i'll see a lot of you reeeeel soon.

Much love. signing off,

magdef

Bangkok, beer, and damn good noodles

magdef — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 20:06:00 GMT

Well hello again everyone,

Things are going well on my end (healthy, happy, and learning a lot) and I have now finished with Cambodia and I'm hanging out in Bangkok for another hour or so before I hop on another overnight bus to head down to Ko Tau, which is supposed to be the best dive spot in Thailand for this season. I've booked a PADI Open Water Certification course which takes 4 days and includes hotel and food and drink while on the boat, as well as about 10 dives for 300$ US. Not a bad deal, hey?

Bangkok is pretty intense, and to be honest, I think I might prefer Hanoi. There is just this massive tourist area here that screams "scam the foriegners for all they're worth," and while it would have been a fun place to come fresh out of high school, I kind of feel like its a little bit too much of a 'round the clock party town for me. That being said, the first night here I didn't get back to my hotel room until some where around 3 or 4 am. But it seems to me that Bangkok is kind of like Europe's Cancun, as this place is definitely geared towards the younger crowd, whith a number of places displaying signs out front that explicitly state "we don't check ids", "Buckets of alcohol; Buy one get one free!", and of course, my favorite "Fucking Good Beer!"

Yep, this is the land that law forgot, and you can walk into a shop with a picture of yourself and walk out with an ID, certificate of authenticity, GRE, pedigree, clean bill of health, or MD for a couple hundred bhat. I'm not sure how much it would help in a time of need, like say when you see a man impaled with a shovel and, remembering the degree you have framed on the wall, rush to his aid, only to have the realization that you were drunk at the time you recieved your "MD" as you are trying to "pump start" the man's heart by squeezing whatever organ you were able to grab through the open wound. Maybe its better NOT to get that piece of paper after all.

I know I'm planning on heading back home to finish up my schoolbook lernin, but I could just spend that cash on beer at this place for two years and then buy my degree when I leave. What a bunch of suckers! Actually studying! Ha! What do you guys think?

So that's Bangkok, and surprisingly enough, the yogi who read my palm this morning and wanted to squeeze a hundred bucks outta me might have been wrong when he said I would return here in a couple of years. At least not to spend any amount of time at Kao Sahn road.

I did , however, go to the palace today and saw the massive reclining Buddah as well as the national museum, both of which were pretty awesome, and then I wandered around the back alleys for a little while, taking in the sights and smells of fish, herbs, peppers, and just about everything else under the sun drying... under the sun.

And I must admit that the food here is the best so far on this trip. I can only imagine that it might be trumped when I go to India, but its gonna be a tough one to beat. Today I had an awesome red coconut curry at about midmorning, to be followed up a bit later by some kind of rice noodle soup that I ate just because the place was packed with Thai people and there were no other foreigners in the joint. It was DAMN good, and so far, I haven't gotten any kind of stomach bug beyond the basic "five second movement that fills the bowl". (Isn't that a Chopin?) Sorry I know you don't want to hear about my daily squats, but I figure if I'm gonna describe the expereince, you might as well get all of it. And I've been eating at some pretty "local" places. Its cheaper, and the food is generally tastier with more fixins, so I feel lucky not to have gotten too bad a case of the "Bangkok belly".

Which actually reminds me of the place I went to on my second day at Ankor (the noodles, not the belly) , which was this noodle joint on the way to this far out temple (literally; far. out.) that my moto dr iver told me was the place all the locals go if they ever pass by it as it had the best noodles in town. And they were possibly the best noodles I have ever eaten before in my life. As I was munching down, my moto driver walked over to me and took the plastic wrap off this potted plant that was growing on the table, ripped off about 3 (massive) sprigs of leaves and told me to put it in my soup. They were, to put it mildly, scrumtrulescent.

So thats where I'm at, and what I've been up to. Yesterday I didn't do too much at all, just hung around the touristy area and took the bus to this massive market where I bought nothing, but marveled at all the thousands of stalls and the millions of options for different things that you never needed in the first place, but find yourself drifting back to and nearly purchasing just because you know how much more expensive they would be in your home country (alot). And I kept running into this Israeli guy who I met on the bus, and who has been here a number of times and swears that its the best place ever. He also says that this Chinese girl he had sex with put his sperm in the freezer when they were finished because she wanted babies with light skin. He's a suiter!

And with that nugget of wisdom I leave you for the night, on my way to the white sand beaches and turqoise waters of Ko Tau, to chill out on the beach for a few days, spend some time breathing underwater, and generally have a w onderful time at it. I know I still haven't written about Tiger Leaping gorge, but I will do that at some point. Other than that, I think i've written a blog about pretty much everywhere I've been so far. As far as pictures go, it takes a REALLY long time to upload them from most of the places I've been using the net, so I am planning on posting a bunch of pics when I get back to the US.

Much love to you all.

Martin

Cambodia

magdef — Sun, 1 Jun 2008 22:30:00 GMT

Hello all,

I'm writing this from a bar upstairs in the hostel I'm staying at now with no hot water or air conditioning, but which is only costing me 3.50 US a night. Because I'm in the bar and the internet is free, I think I'll make it a quick one and fill you all in on the details later.

In the past two days I have gone through quite a broad spectrum of experiences, all of which seem to contradict each other and yet are somehow connected, all of which have definitely changed the way I think (particularly about Cambodia, but also about human interaction and humanity in general).

I've been travelling with a group of three Brazilians who I've become pretty good friends with and I will be sorry to see them leave tomorrow, as they are only doing one day at Ankor while I will stay here for at least one more day and possibly two.

Yesterday we were in Phnom Phen in the morning and spent the day learning about Cambodia"s recent history filled with terror and genocide. We went to the killing fields and to the school that was converted into a jail and is now a museum, both of which were really difficult to see, but such a huge and vivid part of Cambodia's history that it seemed a necessary stop. I will write more about it later. Then on the bus on the way over here we hit a buffalo and drove off, while out the window we could see the beast shaking, a kind of green liquid leaking from its mouth and mixing with the blood on the pavement. After a day spent looking at pictures of torture and death it was a really intense way to finish up the day and prepare us for the glory of Ankor.

Then today we woke up to see the sun rise over Ankor and spent the day riding around in a tuk tuk and stopping at all the temples, walking around, and being offered tourist junk. Ankor, as you probably know, is what is left of the massive kingdom of Cambodia's past, and it is really breathtaking. Pictures and more words to come. But for now I'm worried that i'm keeping other people from being able to use the internet so I'm going to sign off.

Hope all is well with everyone.

Martin

Nha Trang

magdef — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Well hello again everyone. After going to a number of cafes with WIFI and even signing on to a few of the networks to no avail, I have finally bitten the bullet and entered one of the many internet cafes scattered about this touristy beach town of Nha Trang. Its only a dollar for 3 hours so I really don't know why I spent so much of the day surveying the different cafes looking for a connection that would actually allow me to sign on using my own computer. One thing is for sure, however; the next time I do an international backpacking trip I will be packing only my hard drive rather than my laptop as it seems internet access is now available anywhere and everywhere, even the remote hill tribes in Sapa offered internet at reasonable prices.

So here's whats up: I've spent the last two nights on a sleeper bus, the first one from Hanoi to Hue, where I had about 3 hours to check out the Citadel, which was a really incredible place, a crumbling relic of a once mighty empire. Well, almost. I'm sure Ankor Wat will put things into perspective, as this complex of buildings and the massive wall that surrounds it are all merely 200 years old, and the architecture appears rather western in nature. I still enjoyed wandering its empty streets in the overbearing heat, pausing often to shoot a photograph or to sit under the shade of one of the many banyan trees to enjoy a cold drink or a chat with one of the locals selling their wares.

The citadel consists of three major areas, each one encircling the next, with the forbidden purple city in the middle. Sounds enchanting doesn"t it? The forbidden city is the place where the royal concubines were kept, where the only men allowed were eunuchs so that the relative chastity of the fair maidens that lay within could be kept for the emperor alone to do with as he pleased. Fortunately, things have changed and I was not required to leave my testicles at the gate. The buildings inside, however, were much the same as the rest of the citadel, with what appeared to be squatters living within the ruins. A number of times I would walk through a door to find a lone man laying on the floor, one leg bent with the other crossed over it like a mix between the reclining Buddha and the contemplative Buddha with one leg resting on the other, parallel to the ground. Rather than stir them from their meditative slumber, I quietly backed away from the doorway and moved on to the next ruin.

But the overall vibe of the place was truly that of decay, with the once brightly painted yellow walls flaking and even crumbling in places, the majesty all but ground to dust and taken away by the wind and the heat.

Then, three hours later it was time to head back to the bus station, where the first cyclo driver I passed by offered me a ride at ten times the normal price. I smiled at him knowingly and continued walking, without even granting him a response. Immediately he dropped it to half of his normal offer. Again, I smiled and gave him the universal motion with my fingers that means "Thanks, I"ll walk." This went on for a couple more minutes until finally I offered him 10, 000 dong, a number that appears to be immense at first glance but actually equals out to less than a dollar. We settled at 15 and rode off across the bridge where I jumed immediately on the bus that was to bring me to Saigon.

The first part of the bus ride was in daylight, and while the other passengers dozed off or listened to music, I put my ear buds in and listend to a couple of poetry readings I had downloaded by Robert Hass and Ted Kooser, and was then inspired enough to write a few pages in my moleskine and watch Vietnam pass me by in the window, with its chickens and yellow houses, its beaches and mountains dropping off into the ocean. We stopped at Hoi An, where most of the travellers from the first leg of the journey got off and a wave of new faces appeared. Hoi An is the place to go for cheap tailored suits and silk shirts, and appeared to be quite a nice little laid back tourist town as well. The group that got on the bus appeared to have already gotten quite friendly with each other and sat just in front of me chatting away until after the lights were turned off.

A quick note about the sleeper buses here. There are beds, and the nicer ones can be lifted up into a seat or reclined almost fully so that the ride is quite comfortable. But last night, a combination of bad roads and steep hills, and of course the "anything goes" system of driving here actually jolted me awake a couple of times throughout the night and I prayed to my guardian angels who I had not thought about since childhood. People here are all over the road, often zooming around cars in front of them, laying their hands on the horn and then somehow sliding back into a space that has miraculously opened up in traffic just nanoseconds before the truck screaming in our direction at full speed passes us by with an audible and immense burst of air that shakes the bus not to mention the bowels of the passengers up like a bottle of champagne after the tournament has been won. But experiencing this, if nothing more, at least makes one appreciate the quite times, the times like today where you can sit on the beach under the shade of a palm tree and read a book, drink beer and munch on a baguette with fried egg and meatballs that alltogether cost about a dollar and a quarter. Yes, the breakneck speeds and fear invoking rides lead in the end to a quiet spot of beach, a nice breeze, and perhaps a group of young kids in the distance splashing around and enjoying (though they don't yet realize it) that time before responsiblity hits when they will be pushed out from under the wings of their parents and reqired to fend for themselves.

Which brings me to the present moment; I myself not much more than a little bird still staring at the sun from time to time and waiting for its light to be blocked by the head of what was for so long the only god I knew, but the head does not come anymore, rather it is there constantly, and grows translucent; allows me the option of where I choose to focus my vision. And then I remember having left the nest, having taken flight; the double edged sword of lonliness and respnsiblity, that first leap which brings with it the empty road and the houses that line it, the laughter and wailing that emenate from the families who live inside.

After getting into the beach town of Nha Trang at about 5:30 AM And finding a hotel where I could have a shower and talk with my beautiful girlfriend Kanae for an hour online, I headed back to the bus station where I dropped off my pack and then began wandering the streets of Nha Trang, a name I had heard about only in movies about war and betrayal.

The Nah Trang of today, however, seems as though it could be Beachtown Anywhere; cafes line the street where red faced tourists talk excitedly with one another about the dive they just finished over beers that cost more than triple what the locals pay around the corner. For me, I prefer the quieter islands, the places as of yet untouched by the greedy fingers of tourism, which is of course an exaggeration; as tourism has had its hand up everyone's skirts at least once, as it is both a blessing and a curse in this nation where people still make homes of leaky ruins and die from simple illnesses. Toursim brings money, and money brings medicine, food, shelter.

But something is lost in the eyes of the people here, rather, I find myself projecting loss into them, for perhaps it is only that we like to see ourselves in a better light than those around us. Perhaps this infatuation I have with the grit and decay of these places deals more with the knowledge that at the end of the day I can walk away from it all and head back to my soft mattress, my warm showers and if anything serious were to happen, my hospitals with clean white sheets, with doctors who wear gloves and don't spit on the floor, that unlike the old man I saw in Hue yesterday, little more than flesh hanging loosely to his bones as he lay on the bed there in the middle of the tourist office, as his family busied themselves with package tours and bus tickets, waiting for him to quietly slip away, that unlike that man I have the luxury of western medicine and the false sense of security that comes with it.

So this is Vietnam, a place where men die on cots in tourist offices and foreigners come to watch the sun go down over the water, a place where one can share a motorbike cab with the town butchers who smile kindly at you one minute and beat the sacks of whimpering dogs that lay at their feet the next, a place where you can barter with the locals as a kind of game, while each dollar you talk them out of could feed their families for a week or give thier children a new pair of shoes for the upcoming school year. But Vietnam is also a place where you can lose yourself, a place where the setting sun shimmering off the ocean illuminates those massive karsts that rise up like dragons and blisters your face in a momentary, eternal state of bliss.

And now the sun is at its zenith, and I have no desire to leave this cafe and wander the streets until my bus comes in a few hours, so I will sit here in this quiet internet cafe where I am the only customer and the owner has pointed the only fan towards me so that it whirs away, visibly toiling in this immense heat. Sit here and watch as the locals across the street gaze out at the cars passing by, at the street which itself seems to be plodding of to somewhere cooler, one wave at a time.

Still in Hanoi

magdef — Sat, 24 May 2008 15:34:00 GMT

I was planning on taking the night train to Hue last night and spending the day in Hue today, but after walking out onto the streets of Hanoi on Friday night, I immediately changed my mind and decided to see what the night life is like here. I've still been hanging out with Barry and Raph, who I feel very lucky to have befriended, not only for the fact that a room split 3 ways is 1/3rd the cost, but also because we have had a number of interesting conversations about everything from managing financial investments (Barry works for some kind of financial investment firm) to the metaphysics of poetry.

So last night we hit the streets and wandered around the marketplace for a while before heading over to the place where three streets meet and on every corner there is a bia hoi joint. Bia hoi basically means microbrewed draft beer and you can get a decent glass of it for 3000 dong. now 16000 dong is one dollar so you can feasibly drink 5 draft beers for a buck. And its actually good beer. If there's a cheaper place to drink good beer in the world, I'm going there at some point.

And if all of that isn't good enough, right next to the beer vendors, there is a guy who sells kebabs for a dollar. Beer drinkers paradise. After putting down about a dollars worth of the sweet sweet nectar, we decided to head over to the bar district and ended up in some swanky new bar with a laser light show and a roaring expat community. So I chatted with a few expats about this and that, nothing more than small talk really, but I was surprised at how similar the community here is to that in Japan. Also at this bar we got some advice from the manager about a good club to go to, so we jumped in a cab (under 2 bucks) and headed to this club that was literally floating on the river.

While there I started to get into the roove and danced for a bit when some Vietnamese guy came up and started chatting with me. Turns out he lived in Japan for about 10 years and he was fluent in Japanese, even though his English was only so so. So we hit it off, both of us equally surprised that the other was able to speak Japanese even though our native languages were totally different and he gave me his card and said that if I ever get into any kind of trouble at all in Vietnam I should call him and he could sort it all out for me.

By then it was about 2 or so and Barry had been tired of the club scene for a while and was outside reading so we all decided it was time to go. So we walked out the doors of the club, across the makeshift bridge and onto dry land, past all the taxis and motos and people trying to sell us drugs and into the dark street that led to the highway.

As we were walking along three mopeds with two girls on them apiece passed us and then turned around, sensing that three guys and six girls could be a very lucrative evening for them. So they got off their bikes and started following us even though we continually shooed them away until I literally had a girl on each side, two behind me and one in front, gripping at my arms and my clothes like hungry ghosts. The woman in front kept reaching for my crotch and I was walking away from them but at the same time getting quite a kick out of the whole experience. I guess everyone likes to be wanted (though something tells me they only wanted what was in my pants. ahem. money. ahem.)

But as we neared the highway, and I was turned away from it three of the girls whose faces were turned toward the highway started screaming and their faces all contorted. It was a very surreal experience, as just as this happened one of the women had managed to snake her arms around mine and had her hand firmly planted on my crotch.

I turned to see what the other girls were looking at and a motorbike with three people on it was stuck under a truck which was still spinning around a bit from the impact. I ran over and helped pull the motorbike off the two fireigners who were trapped underneath, and noticed that there was blook coming from the blond girls nose and that her hand was also blood splattered. Her pants were ripped a bit and at first it seemed as though nobody had been seriously injured. Then she moved her hand away from her leg and we could see that the flesh of her leg had been split open and looked like a papaya that had been opened with a spoon.

The man she was with told her to keep her and on it and apply pressure as much as he could and I asked the bystanders if anyone had a cellphone and if they had called the police or the hospital. I remembered from Psychology 101 that in an accident with a lot of bystanders everyone assumes that an ambulancehas already been called, and so I made sure tha one of the women there called an ambualnce. Then there was nothing to do but wait and listen to the moans of pain from the blond girl who was shaing uncontrolably at this point and kept repeating over and over, "Oh god, look at my leg. Get me to a hospital. Look at my leg." And a number of people went close to her to try and pick her up and bring her to the cab but everytime one of the locals approached her all the foreigners said NO NO NO as we all knew that you are not supposed to move an injured person. Eventually the ambulance got there and we walked home thinking about how quickly a life can change.

Tonight I really will be on the night train to Hue. I hope all is well with all of you and that you are not driving drunk.

Gallery: Kunming

magdef — Sat, 24 May 2008 15:03:00 GMT

Kunming. And Henrik and Gertrud

Hanoi, Cai Rong, and the quiet island of Quan Lan

magdef — Fri, 23 May 2008 20:05:00 GMT

Well hello there ladies and gentlemen (though considering there proably aren"t that many people actually reading this, it could be comprised of only one gender or the other at any one moment in time. Likely even.)

I'm back in Hanoi again. Yes, thats right. Again. I actually headed here for a one night stay direct from Sapa and met up with a couple of guys who shared the bus from the hotel in Sapa to the Train Station. One is an AMerican guy who was born and is now living in China, named Barry, and the other guy is a Belgian fella who goes by the name of Raphael. Both of them are fellow couchsurfers so we hit it off immediately and decided to travel together for a few days.

We had been discussing a guided tour to the very heavily travelled Halong Bay, but after a bit of internet research and a bit of coaxing from Raph (who prefers the "off the beaten path" method of travelling) we decided to go instead to the bay north of Halong, known as Hai Tu Long Bay. And that has made all the difference.

It was about a five hour bus trip (in which we got slightly hussled in that the final price turned out to be a bit more than the agreed upon price befor getting on the bus... this actually happened to us 3 times in one day that day between food, bus, and boat, but we soon got over it) that deposited us after a number of unknown transfers and chaotic moments in a sleepy beach town known as Cai Rong (pronounced Cai Zhong).

The plan was to get into Cai Rong by 1 so that we could catch the 1:30 ferry out to Quan Lan Island and stay there overnight, but we didn't get into Cai Rong till about 2:30. So we found a hotel, which at 2 dollars per person per night really broke the banks, and went out to grab a bite to eat and sit on the beach, admiring the tranquility of the ocean, which was filled with all of these massive rock formations called Karsts rising out like slowly awakening dragons. Actually there is a legend about Halong and Bai Tu Long Bay.

"There is a legend about the archipelago that in the old days when the Vietnam was attacked by foreign invaders, the God sent a mother dragon and its babies to support the Vietnamese people. The dragons immediately blew out myriad pearls and gems that turned into grand rock mountains as a solid citadel to protect the Vietnam. After the foreign invaders were pushed away, the mother dragon and its babies did not return to the heaven but stayed in the lower world. The land where the mother dragon landed was then called Ha Long, and where the baby dragons landed called Bai Tu Long. The area where the dragon tails lashed was called Long Vi, nowadays Tra Co Peninsula, which consists of many long and smooth sand banks."

The island was incredible. On the first day we walked around a bit and then jumped in a tuk tuk filled with junior high students which took us to the other side of the island. They kept looking at us and giggling on the way out there and then we were all dropped off at this kind of kids hangout in the woods, perhaps an abandoned school that had been taken over by the kids of the island. The walls were grafittied with the kind of crude sex drawings so often found in places where puberty dawns, in any country. We hung around with the kids for a while and tried our best at some basic communication but after a while decided to ignore their invitation to stay and went off in search of the perfect beach.

Two f the more mature girls seemed to understand that we were looking for the ocean and agreed to take us there, which was incredibly kind of them as they ended up walking with us for a good 15 or 20 minutes until we got to the beach. Finally we found what we thought might be "the beach" written about in the Lonely Planet, but it was filled with trash and there were so many bugs and crabs that we really had a bit of trouble enjoying ourselves fully. Raph took a swim and Barry and I just read and lounged for a bit before we decided to head back into town to find some food.

So we went to the pier where the tuk tuk drivers hang out and we were told to wait a few minutes by the only guy who was there. Then we heard dogs barking, squealing, howling from one of the houses at the end of the pier where the tuktuk was parked. After about 30 minutes or so we were told with hand signals that it was time to go and so we headed off up the pier to where the tuk tuk lay waiting. There was another couple who we had met earlier on the island who were smiling and had a couple of bags at their feet. And off we went.

Riding along in the tuk tuk was incredible. We could feel the wind on our face, the sun hanging low over the ocean with the mountains of rock rising from out of the sea put us all at such a sense of peace that it was one of those moments where it seems that nothing can shake you from your sense of joy. Unless the bags at your feet start yelping and squirming and barking. Thats right, barking. And then the man who had been smiling so broadly took off his fliop flop and began puymmeling the bag with it in a futile attmept to get the dogs which were apparently meant for supper to shut up. I felt terrible. I wanted to tell him to stop, wanted to pay him to release the dogs and let them go live their lives chasing rats and lounging in the sun. I wanted to at least put my hand on the bag and reassure the frightened animals inside that it was ok, that we were not there to harm them. But I couldn't. It wasn't. We were.

We made a brief stop at one of the houses on the way home and the couple got out and yelled inside to the house. Someone came out with a contraption with a hook at one end and some kind of heavy metal ball at the other. The man took one of the desperately squirming dogs and walked it over to the man with the metal torture looking device. I closed my eyes for a second, expecting to hear the squeal of a dog being impaled with a rusty hook. There was no such sound. The first man had attached the hook at the place where the bag was tied and was adjusting the metal ball to determine the weight of the dogs. He appeared to be satisfied with his purchase, and so we all piled back into the tuk tuk and headed back to the hotel, after dropping off the couple and their packages. That night, I did not sleep well, and dreampt strange dreams of places where life is not as forgiving.

The next morning we woke up and decided to rent motorbikes, so that we could better explore the island of course, but also so that we could be spared the gruesome ride with the dogs and their executioners again. Getting motorbikes was the best thing we could have done, as it opened up the whole island to us. With the freedom of these machines under our feet, we went from being trapped on this place with its mediochre beaches and heartless butchers, to being the kings of the island. On bikes, the villagers looked at us differently. They stopped what hey were doing as we vroomed past. They looked up. They waved. Smiled even.

With the assistance of bikes we were free to discover the island. We found abandoned houses, untouched beaches with sand that was so fine it vibratted when you held it in your hands, water that was turquoise and not another soul on the beach. We even found a half built structure that we were able to turn into a makeshift sade tent by laying a tarp over it. What we found with those bikes was more than just the dirt roads to the beaches beyond the construction sight past the forest outside of town. What we found with those motorbikes was paradise.

Then we got hungry again. And so we saddled our trusty steeds (ahem. bikes. ahem) and zoomed off into the dying light in search of a restaurant that served something other than pho. (A brief note on pho- Pho is a deliscious, soupy ric-noodel seasoned with everything from steak to cilantro to chili sauce, and is deliscious. Pho has also been a part of at least one meal a day since I crossed the border into Vietnam. When asking at a restaurant if they have food, often the reaction is a "Pho? Yeah, sure we"ve got Pho!" Perhaps it is simply that "pho" and "food" sound similar to the untrained ear. But I suspect it is an attempt to seperate us from our dong as cheaply as possible.)

And find a restaurant we did. A comprehensive menu, including Pho, of course, as well as a number of other things we did not understand but were quite eager to try, and so we sauntered in there, still feeling a bit of the ego from riding fast on motorbikes all day and sat down. And who walks up to our table and smiles but the women who yesterday was responsible for the murder of Lady and the Tramp. Maybe better not to try those things we couldn't understand. We studk with fried rice, and you guessed it. Pho.

And that brings me back to Hanoi, where I now sit here at the cafe and write to you all about the trip. Of course there is more to tell. Even the downtime here is filled with new and often crazy experiences, but for now my time is running out and I still have some other things to do before I head to the station to catch the sleeper to Hue.

Hope all is well with all of you. Until next time, I'll be eating Pho.

Martin

Sapa

magdef — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:19:00 GMT

North Vietnam is nothing like I expected it to be. Perhaps it is only that Sapa (a small village known for its good trekking and mountain tribe women dressed in traditional clothing and selling hand made crafts) is the exception to the rule for this country, but after being in China for a few days I have trouble seeing how anyone can say that Vietnam is louder, more crass, or greedier than its larger neighbor to the north. Everyone here smiles constantly. Well, of course that is a bit of an exaggeration, but certainly I have been pleasantly surprised with the number of upturned corners of lips being displayed.

A few of the mountain tribe women have already remembered my name, and when I ran into one of them while exploring the road that leads into the village, she recognized me immediately and called out "Mathen! Mathen!" from across the road. We chatted for a second before I headed off as I was on my way back to the hotel to write and take a bit of a nap (even now as I write my eyes are heavy from lack of sleep last night, but all around me is the BANG BANG BANGing of the current construction project on the hotel, and on every building nearby so napping might be out of the question).

Last night I was again on an overnight sleeper bus heading from Kunming to Hekou, which is the town that borders Vietnam. The border is literally a river, and crossing from China over into Vietnam is done by walking across the bridge. Funny, that the guys in China peered over every detail of my passport, finding an apparent problem, telling me it was a problem, and then after I had squirmed just a bit, deciding that it was an acceptable problem and moving on before finally letting me pass through the gates. Vietnam, on the other hand, didn’t even seem to mind that I had accidentally written the wrong date on the card. But I’m getting ahead of myself again. I’m still on the China side of the river, after having been dropped off by the overnight bus that led me through rural China, which becomes more and more tropical the further south you go. The people also seem to wear less and less, so that by the time I neared the border town young children were standing on the side of the road naked from the waist down (something I have found to be quite common in Vietnam as well).

It is strange to look across the river and know that you are looking at a completely different culture, a different way of life with different food, different language, different sense of humor and sadness, all separated by one measly little river. As I mentioned a number of times already, I love China. I definitely plan to go back there at some point and I feel lucky to have been there during this period of change, but already I have the feeling I might like Vietnam even more.

I passed through the border gates and then I was standing in Vietnam, actually standing in this place that has been the catalyst for so many war movies of my childhood, in this place that shaped for a long time the image of what war is, and I was struck by the fact that a number of these old men might have been in hand to hand combat with someone that looked at the time quite a bit like I do now, and it sent a bit of a shiver down my spine. But the shiver didn’t last for long, because after getting in the minibus to Sapa valley we stopped to pick up some other people heading there as well.

The one man in the group jumped in the back and immediately threw his arm around me and before I knew it we were bouncing along the bumpy roads conversing as though we had planned to meet on this very minibus sometime long ago. His name is Tihga (kind of like Tiger) and he runs a car company in Ho Chi Minh. And his English was phenomenal, save the one or two times his pronunciation got in the way of my understanding him. Every time the conversation lets up for a bit I stare out the window at old men gambling in the street and women cooking Pho on the roadside, at children playing and dogs scrounging for scraps. And the whole time his arm is around me and he’s sitting closer than I’m used to, until towards the end he falls asleep and I look out the window until we reach the Town. Of course as he gets off he tells me I must fly directly to Ho Chi Minh to teach English there, because with my voice I would get a job very quickly, and I thank him but tell him I have plans back home.

And that brings me to the town of Sapa, where everyone seems to be happy and it seems that bartering is kind of a game. I found a hotel immediately and decided to splurge for the 8 dollar a night room (not realizing of course that there would be constant construction going on) and after dropping off my bags I went to the restaurant that the Lonely Planet picked as a favorite. For breakfast/lunch I had a delicious chicken and lemongrass plate with rice and tomatos and cucumbers and a beer which set me back about 3.50$ total, and then I went outside to explore.

What at first was endearing has become annoying as the Mountain Tribe women pester me to buy their wares. "Please buy for me," they beg, following you down the street. One woman followed me for about 7 minutes telling me in her pigeon English that she was hungry and she had no money so would I please buy something. The irony is that at that point I had not yet used the ATM and so I, too, was quite literally out of cash.

Eventually I made my way to the road that leads into the "forest area" which is a large expanse of mountains that have all been terraced for farming, and there are also a number of villages amongst all the mountains. I have signed up for a two day trek which leaves tomorrow morning and finishes Sunday evening, so we will see how much I enjoy it. I have trouble believing that it will compare with Tiger Leaping Gorge. Part of this is just because it is a guided tour rather than something done on my own, but for 25 dollars including food and lodging at a home in one of the Mountain tribes, I decided to go ahead and give it a try.

One more thing of interest today, while I was walking along the path, I passed three young boys. The first, about 8, was carrying a handful of dead land crabs that he had been collecting. The second, who was around 5, was carrying a dead chick, not so much cradling it as carrying it with a kind of gentle curiosity, and the last, who was about 4 or so, was carrying a large piece of bamboo which had been turned into a makeshift spear.

The next blog will be about my adventures on the trek (or misadventures), so be sure to check in in a couple of days.

A couple of other things have happened since I wrote this on my cpu in the hotel and I am posting it now. First of all, all the power went off, as well as a number of other things, but I wrote a lot in my moleskine so I guess I will post that stuff later. What an exciting night! One day in Vietnam and already I love it!

Gallery: Shanghai

magdef — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:08:00 GMT

Shanghai

Kunming

magdef — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:15:00 GMT

After saying goodbye to Xie I got my bags together and headed downstairs to pick up the taxi that she had arranged for me to take me to the airport. It was incredible to me that I had only to leave the money for my plane ticket at Xie’s house and the travel agency could go there to pick it up sometime well after I had already flown into Kunming. Communism, hey.

I slept most of the flight and got into Kunming pretty early and headed from the terminal outside. I was accosted by a number of van services flashing cards at me and heading me off before I got to the real taxis and I foolishly accepted a ride and climbed into a van. I showed them the paper on which I had written the address for Henrik and Gertrud and we took off. The driver kept looking back at me in the rear view mirror and he had that kind of creepy vacant look in his eyes, but also like he was constantly nervous I would do something. I had a pretty sketchy feeling about it the whole ride, and kept imagining in my head that they would turn down some back alley somewhere and bring me to their gangster lair of evil. Turns out I was not too far off the mark. They dropped me off at War-Ma (Wal Mart).

“Great” I thought to myself, “drop the foreigner off at Wal Mart and he’s happy, right?” I had read about the taxi scams a number of times in the lonely planet and other books, but I was foolish enough to take an unmarked cab anyway. Fortunately, they didn’t kill me, but I was pretty doubtful that my Swedish friends who had stayed with me in Kyoto were actually living in the Wal Mart. So I did what any first time traveler would do in that situation. I wandered around like a drunken idiot until a better solution presented itself.

Then I remembered that I had a phone number for Henrik and Gertrud so I decided to find a phone. Easier said than done. Communicating with the War-Ma staff in English is like extracting teeth from a duck. I doubt it would be much better in Chinese. At one point in War Ma I saw one of the star employees sawing a blue basket that had gotten stuck in the escalator. That’s right, with a hand saw. I love China.

Anyways, after about 45 minutes of finding the phone and calling the numbers and them not connecting and then walking back and forth in front of the War Ma with two very lovely police officers who offered me their assistance and them asking about 5 different people who asked about 10 other people, eventually in the end we determined that my friends did, in fact, live in the War-Ma. Which is to say they are in the same building as the War Ma, albeit on a much higher floor and in a place that does not consistently stink of dog, vegetables, and armpit. When I finally knocked on their door I felt as though it was the end of a long and arduous journey. But it was only the beginning.

(Side note: I am writing this from Hanoi, where I am sitting outside on the balcony of my 4 dollar a night hostel and watching the street play out its unchanging drama below. It is hot here. Extremely hot, but as I was sitting here and writing and watching people just now, there was the sudden sound of plump rain drops hitting the tin roofs and within two seconds the skies had turned from blue to grey. It was a momentary deluge, enough to coat the ground with rainwater, enough that all the old women rushed outside to take in their laundry that is hung up so colorfully all around the town. And now again it is hot. It is hot and the rain has stopped and the skies are once again the color of a blond baby’s iris. But the relief of those 30 or 40 seconds of heavy rain must be what keeps people from drowning in their own sweat. That brief respite from the heat was nothing short of heavensent.

And now back to your regularly scheduled program.)

Stepping through Henrik and Gertrud’s doorway and taking off my pack was like being back on dry land after months of floating on a coconut. It was so wonderful to see them, and even though we had met on couchsurfing and were technically “couchsurfing friends” I felt all that melt away as soon as I saw them again. They were wonderful hosts, feeding me mango and special Chinese Puar tea within seconds of my arrival. And it just felt like home. For the first time since leaving my own house 3 weeks prior, I felt completely relaxed.

We talked, we remembered, we laughed loudly and often, and the whole time it was almost as though we had been friends since the dawn of time, as though they had never really come to stay with me in Kyoto, nor I with them in China, but simply that we were together, that somewhere and sometime, on some level we are always visiting each other in one of our various strewn about domiciles.

It was then that I brought up the possibility of heading out to Li Jiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge and they had actually been thinking about going there with me as well, but my initial plans did not give me enough time because I was planning on taking the 40 hour train ride. We agreed to do that together, and then walked around Kunming for a while.

Kunming as a city is not a bad place. It is known as the city where it is always spring, so it has that going for it, but other than that it seemed to me to be a bit drab. Of course it does have all the necessities, and the apartment that Henrik and Gertrud were staying in was quite nice, but as a city, Kunming does not rank too high on my list. Its like Diet Coke. I’d take it if it was the only thing left in the fridge, but wouldn’t buy a case of it. That being said, Henrik and Gertrud are doing wonderfully there. It definitely seems like a great place to settle down for a few months, just not the best tourism destination.

The next day we went to the lake and hiked a ways up to this gate called Dragon Gate or something along those lines. This was actually quite a nice hike and we stopped at a temple along the way as well where I took about a million photographs. It is interesting how many elements are similar between Chinese and Japanese architecture and yet how vastly different they are. Just like the two cultures, which at heart are quite tuned into the same things, have become so completely different from each other.

I have posted some of the pictures I took that day and hope you enjoy them. And now, its time for me to start packing up my bags because I need to get ready to get on another sleeper bus from Hanoi to Hue. The next blog will be about my Trip to Li Jiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge, which was amazing.

Shanghai

magdef — Sat, 10 May 2008 14:26:00 GMT

Shanghai

We got in to Shanghai at about 9 AM and got all our things packed up and said our goodbyes and good lucks to each other, only to pass through customs and find that we were all beginning our journey in at least relatively the same direction, with the exception of Brandon from New Zealand, who needed to get his skis at customs, and so took longer to pass through than we did. After standing outside of the customs area (which was not much more than a glorified garage) in the rain for a good twenty minutes trying to gain our bearings and soak in the scenery (literally soak, in the scenery), we decided it was high time to find the subway. I was keen to split a cab with the two girls rather than walk in the rain, and we were just about to do so when Nikko, Antonio, and Andreas (who had been living in Beijing for a while) assured us that the station was quite close and that we would be able to find it easily if we only asked a few people. Unfortunately, they did not know how to say “station” in Chinese. And so my first Chinese word outside of “Thank you” and “Hello” was born of necessity.

We began walking down the main street with some kind of vague idea of which way we were supposed to be going, the rain coming down on us, bouncing off of the sexy purple umbrellas we had received from the Ferry Company upon our arrival in Shanghai. And as we walked, I was looking around gurgling and wide eyed, suddenly an infant again in this world I did not know, where one must cross the street even when cars rush zooming past, where men and women show their wealth by hawking up giant loogies on the street, sounding out a cacophony of phlegm before releasing the final expectoration (in a land where many are poor, it appears as though the ability to spit noisily is held in the highest esteem), where old women cook up glorious smells in woks on the sidewalk under the gaze of massive skyscrapers, which seem to point up and up, showing us all the direction China is headed.

Shanghai, even from the port, is an impressive city. The architecture that rises above the city is beautiful, modern, and impressive, but still the streets and the people are dirty, with poverty rearing its grimy little head out from most alleyways and street corners. But most of all, I noticed that people were smiling, that strangers were joking with each other and patting each other on the back, that couples screamed at one another with the zest of honeymooners making love, smacking each other with great bravado while grinning ear to ear, as though this was the way to show the world they were still in love even after the toil of children, after leaving the farm and moving to the noise and the rush of the city.

Coming from Japan, where joy is a more private affair, where the people are clean and well behaved, but noiseless, faceless, often appearing on the surface to not even contain the ability to be spontaneous; yes, coming from this place and landing in China was like leaving the Kansas to discover a world of color. I am not saying that I like China any more than Japan, of course. I love Japan. I love the quiet, the rigorous contemplation, the respect and reverence for those around you and for nature, but China is the proverbial yin to Japan’s yang. If Japan is the ocean, calm and noiseless save the occasional eruption of storm, China is the earth, quaking and tumultuous. And both of these Eastern giants (Japan in its wealth and China in its diversity) have found a place inside of me that resonate like the singing bowls and gongs which both countries employ in their religious rites.

Eventually the girls, Lucy and Lauren, broke out the Lonely Planet phrase book and we were able to get to the station. We figured out the Subway ticket machine and got on the train, all of us heading in generally the same direction. (Thanks baby for giving me the RNB that was left from your trip last month. I didn’t see anywhere to change money at the port and without that cash in hand I would have been in a bit of trouble.) As the train went on, all of the others got off until I was the only one left, riding the subway on my own, with nothing more than a name, a phone number, and some scribbled directions of how to get to my couchsurfing host’s house. I got to the station and called her, and in her curt, honest Chinese way, she told me I was late without asking how my trip had been or if I had found the place without trouble.

“Yeah sorry about that,” I said, “It took a bit longer to pass through customs than I expected. How do I get to your house?” And she told me which way to turn as I left the station and where to go, but only after hanging up and walking for a few blocks did I realize that I had not asked the number of her apartment or even the name of her building. So I get to the corner where she instructed me to go and I find another phone, and after another curt conversation where I get the feeling that she is annoyed with me for existing, finally I am riding up the elevator on my way to meet Xie Jing, who will be a wonderful host for my two nights in Shanghai, with whom I will have fascinating conversations over incredible, inexpensive meals, and who will time and time again tell me not to be so polite, that it is not a part of the Chinese culture to be polite and that I need to be more crass from time to time.

I tried, over the course of those few days, to acquiesce to her demands but coming from me, the occasional “What took you so long?”, “Your apartment is so small!”, or even the “Damn you have a fat ass!” sounded hollow and tinny, like a little toy dog trying to express emotion with the only “Woof” programmed into his circuitry. (Ok, truth be told, I never once told her she had a fat ass, as that would have not only been beyond my ability in terms of rudeness technique, it would also have been quite untrue, as Xie, like most Chinese women, was quite thin and may I add beautiful… don’t worry Kanae, we never once even considered stepping outside the borders of friendship, but rather talked with each other about the difficult realities of being in a long term relationship.)

So I dropped my bags off at her apartment after a brief conversation and a few recommendations from her as to where I should go, and I was off. I negotiated the subway again and found myself on the other side of the river, across from The Bund, which is the term for the area where an outcropping of 19^th century European buildings stand like underbrush amongst the massive skyline. This area, north of the old walled city of Shanghai was actually developed in the 1800s by various financial institutions from all over the world and most of the buildings from that time still stand, creating a fascinating dichotomy of West and East. Around the turn of the century the Bund was one of the major financial cities of the Eastern world. Of course, with the Communist victory in the 50s, most of these banks were put out of business or forced to move. At the Shanghai museum I was actually able to see many of the early foreign bills used here in Shanghai. At night, the Bund is lit up and is quite beautiful in front of the modern day skyscrapers. Definitely worth a visit if you find yourself in Shanghai.

After walking around the city for a while and going to a very interesting sex museum about the sexual practices of ancient China as well as an “aquarium” with a few tanks and then a massive collection of sea life taxidermy, including a number of Giant Sea Turtles with money placed all around them, which were to be touched for good luck, and a massive Sturgeon as the main exhibit, I passed through the biggest waste of cash so far on this trip. It was this passageway under the river with a lot of lights and a laser show and just a really hokey cheesy ride, which I was the only one foolish enough to pay for. But the Sex museum was also billed together on the same ticket, and that was very interesting, so I guess it was worth the money. The sea life exhibit was quite sad, though, and reeked like formaldehyde.

Then after passing under the river I walked along the Bund and was constantly hassled by people wanting to sell me watches, bags, and all kinds of other things. “Bu Yao!” I said, smiling at them. “I don’t need it!”

By the time I had walked through the Bund and taken a lot of pictures it was time to meet Xie and a couple of other couch surfers at a Sezchuan restaurant which was about a half hour walk away. The other couchsurfers names were Jen and Jay and they turned out to be quite influential in the course my travels would take, as they convinced me to fly to Kunming rather than to take the two day long train ride so that I could go to an ancient town known as Li Jiang and do a trek through the Leaping tiger Gorge. In fact, they might have saved me more than just the time I would have spent in the train, as while I was in the Gorge, the massive earthquake struck, and I may have still been on the train had I not changed my plans. But that is all for another blog, when I tell you about my experiences in the mountains of Yunnan province, and hearing the thunderous earthquake which was stopped by the mountains we were surrounded by.

After dinner, which was incredible and cheap, we went to a Jazz bar, where the music was excellent, but the beers were a bit pricey (about 5 dollars) still less than a beer at a bar in Japan. Then it was back to Xie’s place where we chatted for a little while before passing out. More on Shanghai in the net blog. Sorry I have written so much again, but I hope you are enjoying reading about my experiences.

Shanghai 2

magdef — Fri, 9 May 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Well, again I am writing this a bit after the fact but there were a couple of other things that happened to me while I was in Shanghai that I wanted to write about.

On the second morning I woke up and headed out of Xie's place at about 9:30 or so. I was planning on going to the Museum and walking around downtown a bit more, and walking down her street I put in my iPod and negotiated the subway tickets with ease and a real sense of confidence.
"I could live here," I thought to myself as the subway zoomed along eventually depositing me at my destination near the museum.

I got out and found the museum which was incredible, and best of all completely free. You are actually allowed to take photographs inside the museums in China and in much of Asia so I was pretty delighted to bring in my camera and of course the light in museums is always excellent. I did notice a small amount of very subtle propaganda concerning Tibetans compared with other indegenous, or "minority" cultures, mostly in the sense that they portrayed the Tibetans as a very violent and war torn culture. For example, in the exhibit where the minority clothes were displayed, Tibet was the only outfit which included swords (two of them) and skulls creating this very agressive looking character. Ahhh China and its imagination.

After the Museum I wandered around a bit and as I walked past a couple of students they smiled at me and we began talking. They told me that they were art students and they were holding an exhibit of their art and that it was their job to share their work with foreigners and wouldI please come with them to their gallery.

I agreed, and decided to go with them but I definitely got a bit of a strange vibe so I decided to stay as alert as possible. A number of times I almost decided to turn back but they were all very nice and kept urging me on with them. I decided that if they led me into a dark alley I would certainly turn and get out of there, but we came to a large buisness looking building with a big sign outside that said "Gallery Something or other" and it all looked pretty legit so I decided to go with them and we got into the elevator and went up to the 23rd floor. It was all quite eerie as there was no one else in the building and I was reminded a bit of Kafka's "The Trial."

So we get to the door and I walk inside but the gallery is comprised of a number of very small rooms and cooridoors so that it was set up like a maze of some kind, and the entire experience began feeling more and more surreal, and I became more and more on edge, as the students I was with kept dissappearing as I was looking at the art and then reappearing from some other entrance from the one they had left. I kept expecting someone to be waiting just behind the next wall with a knife or a cake or something, but the fact that this tension was never broken made it even more surreal.

Finally we got to the last room where there was a table set up with a lot of artwork on the table and they sat me down and told me that the work on the table was thiers and the work on the walls was that of thier teachers. The asked if I might be interested in looking at their own work, and I agreed, knowing that they were going to try and sell it to me, but going along for the ride anyway so as not to be rude to them. And I was also genuinely interested in seeing their artwork.

So we look at all of it which was quite mediochre to be honest and then they kept pressuring me to buy. The whole scam was set up so perfectly and they were really such endearing people that I was nearing the breaking point when this muscular Chinese guy burst in the room with a bag of lunch and a very aggro demeanor and kind of approached me from behind my back. I stood up and told the students that it was time for me to go.

So we went back through the maze and out into the empty hallway which was empty accept for the Chinese guy who was waiting for an elevator and motioned for me to go in before him. I motioned for him to go in first and then afterwards I waited for another elevator. The whole experience was very intense.

After that I walked around the Bund a bit more and then went for a really nice dinner with Xie with an incredible view and amazing food that would have cost 50 dollars a piece in the US and we paid 20 for the two of us. All around, I think Shanghai is a very livable city and a wonderful place to visit as long as you can avoid the scams.

Gallery: Slow Boat to China

magdef — Thu, 8 May 2008 01:10:00 GMT

A lot of pictures of a Boat. Thats about it.

Slow Boat to China: Part 2

magdef — Thu, 8 May 2008 00:48:00 GMT

Again, I am writing this from Kunming. It is now well after the time I actually wrote the following journal. If you are reading this travel blog looking only for information about traveling, I'll save you some time and let you know that the following blog is nothing more than the incoherent mumblings of a man at sea. There is no advice or information about traveling here. For those of you reading to see what kind of crazy ramblings I have come up with this time, feel free to continue. And your comments are welcome. Especially if they are intended to berate me.

Day two:

Another day spent at sea. On the purely intellectual level I can understand Sartre’s concept in No Exit that hell is other people, but when it comes right down to it, I love people too much to take much faith in it. I’ve only known the people on this boat for just over 24 hours, and already I feel sad that tomorrow morning we will all be getting off the ship and going on our separate ways. I have met a number of wonderful people here; two girls from England who are on a 7 month trip around the world, two Italians and a guy from Sweden who are studying business at a University in Beijing, and a New Zealander who has been a ski instructor in Japan for the past few seasons who is on his way to his brother’s wedding in China.

Today was a day of playing scrabble and card drinking games, of lounging about the boat and reading, of writing in the late hours of the night and of course constantly thinking about Kanae, as well as what lies ahead. It is starting to sink in that I have left Japan for good, and that I am standing at the Gates of the road that leads to the rest of my life. Today was a strange day; strange in both how quickly and how slowly time passes with only the company of other people as distraction.

And while I found myself secretly wishing for the boat to run aground so I could have the opportunity to spend more time with these people, I also recognize that after a number of hours or weeks or years we would begin to despise each other, to hold each other responsible for our shared isolation, and thus, to wish for nothing more than a moment alone.

Fortunately I was able to get that tonight, standing on the bow of the ship and watching the stars while underneath my feet the ocean of sound droned on. Today was, in a way, not worth much mention. But perhaps in a deeper, more profound way, today taught me that insanity is not a separate entity; not a creature that lurks outside of ourselves, but perhaps, like the sea, insanity is simply a constant. And this could be the truth behind No Exit; that even though the tagline seems to be “Hell is other people,” the truth behind it is that Hell is oneself, or rather how one chooses to look at the world. And so perhaps insanity, or Hell is something that is always there, as is its opposite, but something we must choose to accept, if not to pass if we are to cross from this plane to the next.

The reason for all of this boring pseudo-philosophical garbage deals with some kind of hallucination I had at sea, really more of an optical illusion, a mere trick of the eyes, but something that set me to thinking nonetheless. Today I watched the stains on the green of our deck spiral into themselves and attempt to swallow themselves whole, only to return to the place they had been before gaining the capability of locomotion in the first place. It answered the questions I have had so many times before this (mostly while bumbling along on some plane of existence parallel to our own, similar, but not quite exactly the world we are used to). “Is it possible for the human eye to experience this kind of inexplicable movement,” I used to wonder. Basically, “Do people hallucinate who are not either on drugs or schizophrenic?” Is it only a dream, or are the molecules of this piece of solid mass actually swimming? Is it the object that is changing, or are the instruments of my eyes faulty?

These are only some of the things that an expanse of water coupled with a steady rocking of the boat and a few beers after the sun goes down can lead to. I don’t have too much to say tonight and so I find that I am talking again without saying much of anything so for tonight I will bid you adieu. Tomorrow: Shanghai.

Slow Boat to China

magdef — Wed, 7 May 2008 23:01:00 GMT

Hello all! and thanks for checking in to the first installment of this travel blog I plan to keep for my month and a half trip from Shanghai, China down through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and then a final jump up to India, where I will fly from Delhi back across the great blue ocean to my next adventure, which will be studying poetry at New York University.

Today I'm going to include the journals I wrote on the ferry from Osaka to Shanghai. They are long. Quite long. Quite a bit longer I should add than most of my blogs will be. But I was on a boat and it was the middle of the night and I had had a few beers and I could not sleep and I am a writer (because I am a writer I am allowed to use that many "ands" in one sentence. Don't jump out of your britches to go and call the MLA. Its ohhhhhhhh keeeeeeeh. Just sit back, relax, and by all means keep reading.)

Obviously it has taken me a while to get these online, as it is now the 14th and I left Japan on the 6th. I apologize for the tardiness of said first blog, but on the boat there was no internet access and since landing in Shanghai I have been moving pretty much nonstop, with no time to sit down and write, much less figure out the inner workings of the travel blog. But now it seems I have it all under control as well as a quiet moment (it is overcast and rainy here in Kunming) so I will take an hour or two to try and catch up with the journal. Funny that "catching up" really means getting my lazy ass off the ground and taking that first step.

Overall, I had a wonderful experience on the ferry, and I would recommend this trip to anyone with the time. Its a lot cheaper than flying (especially during Golden Week when Japanese travel prices double or triple) and beyond that, I made a lot of new friends, got to know people well beyond the simple 2-4 hour plane trip conversation and it was nice to take the time to be completely unplugged for a little while. Spent a lot of time on the deck reading and played a lot of different card games, as well as some travel scrabble with a couple of English girls travelling the world for 7 months. All in all, a total success. Heres what I wrote the first night:

Day One: Slow boat to China

As much as I hate to admit weakness, I have to relinquish the fact that I am writing this with a marshland of tears in my eyes; thinking of all I am leaving has broken me down to the point where I could perhaps allow a salty drop to roll down my cheek, only if a sudden wave were to rock the boat and break this soggy meniscus of lonliness.

"Enough of this melodrama" I hear you saying. "Get on with it fruitcake! Grrrgh Argh! Harumph, Harrumph!!" But, alas, the reason for my sorrow lies in the fact that I am leaving behind not only nearly four years of ups and downs, but also a beautiful maiden who I have grown to love more than even the night sky which glares down on me unblinkingly. Well, yes, of course the stars have been said to "blink" from time to time, but the sky itself stares on, eternally. Give me a break here guys.

What wonderful experiences I have had here in Japan ! What friends I have made! Oh thousand undeserved kindnesses! Oh monsoon of unreturned favors! Oh eternity of bills left unpaid! ... er... uhm... lets forget about that last one shall we? Anyway, by now I'm sure you get the drift. I'm leaving a lot behind to go into the great unknown, to travel the lands and tongues I no knot. Ahem. Know not.

But in the here and now, Ben Harper is singing “Walk Away” on my Ipod, and on the TV in the ship’s lobby a Chinese kung-fu movie is distracting me, occasionally erupting with a fight scene or some easy slapstick humor. A man steps on a pig. There is an explosion. And overneath all of it (I know its not a real word, but you gotta admit its a pretty good mistake) Ben Harper's sad, lonely voice sets the soundtrack. So it is under the most inexplicable of emotional states that I give you my first blog. I’m on a slow boat to China, and all around me the world goes on. Somewhere in Japan, the girl I love is sleeping soundly, dreaming of the day when we can be together again. And now I must go join her in that sleep which brings us together across the ocean. Good night, and thank you for reading.