Life Imitates Art

I've been reminded recently of an episode of the sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" which is one of those shows that has wound up so heavily in syndication that virtually every American who's ever turned on a TV set in the last decade has probably seen at least one episode, if not the entire series run.  In this episode, an older woman shows up at the door of the Barone house. She speaks no English, but presents a letter, announcing herself as a family member from Italy, come for a visit.  No one in the house was expecting such a visit, but they DO have family in Italy, so this must be a long lost relative who's managed to track them down.  Despite the fact that they speak only a couple words of Italian, they manage to have one of the best weeks of their lives entertaining the sweet older woman, and getting along better with one another as a result. When Ray's parents manage to dig up a box of old family photos, however, the woman doesn't recognize anyone in the pictures, and the family realizes that their new favorite relative isn't actually a relative at all... she's just landed at the wrong house. 

It's a plot that I feel has been done before, though I can't pinpoint which show it may have been; but what probably hasn't been done is to tell this story from the perspective of the unexpected guest who has arrived in a foreign country where she speaks not a bit of the local language, and accidentally finds herself at the wrong home.  I can tell you from personal experience how that would probably go... sort of...

When I first planned this trip to Southeast Asia I knew that I had to include Vietnam in my itinerary. Not only is it meant to be a beautiful and unique country, but my cousin's wife is Vietnamese and she has family still in the country, so there was the possibility of having a local to show me around certain areas, and maybe even a place to stay. When I arrived in country, she put me in touch via Facebook with  her aunt in Florida, who then put me in touch with a large networking group of friends and family scattered all around southern Vietnam.  They were all super nice, and quick to dispense advice in the form of group messaging about where to go and what to see. When I got to Da Nang, I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon motorbiking all over the city with one of the group members who lived in town. She was a lovely host, and it was great to get to see the city from a local's perspective.

My lovely tour guide in Da Nang

Da Nang's Dragon Bridge (it actually spits fire!)

As I was approaching Nha Trang, group messages began to fly back and forth (some in English but mostly in Vietnamese) arranging for me to stay at my cousin's wife's family home while I was in town. I received instructions from the Aunt in Florida giving me an address and two names to ask for when I got there. Okay, sounds easy enough.

I arrived ridiculously early in the morning after a super uncomfortable night spent on a "sleeper bus".  After killing a couple hours at a breakfast café I made my way to the address and presented the hostess of the café that rents the front of the building with the two names I was given.  This woman spoke a few words of English, but not really enough to have any sort of meaningful conversation. She understood that I was looking to stay there for two nights, and then introduced me to another woman who spoke not a word of English, but who I interpreted to belong to one of the two names I had been given.  She seemed to have absolutely no clue who I was or why I was there and I had not a clue who she was or how exactly she might be related to my cousin's wife.  If you've never tried to explain through a language barrier that your cousin is married to.... someone in this family... and you were sent here by... someone else in this family... with nothing to help you along except a list of previously downloaded half English and half Vietnamese Facebook messages because your phone only works when connected to WiFi and the WiFi there isn't working... well, you're missing out. 

Here's where my story differs from the sitcom plot. I KNOW that I am, in fact, at the right house. I had an address, and I was also provided with the name of the café that rents out the front of the house and that checked out.  I know that this woman who's now hosting me is someone connected with my cousin's wife, but I have no way of figuring out how, or explaining who I am and how I came to be here... the WiFi STILL isn't working!  Despite that knowledge, I can't help but feel like I know exactly what that confused old lady from Italy felt like during her week with her phony family in New Jersey.  My hostess went on to prepare me a huge and delicious lunch, and we sat and smiled at one another as I enjoyed it, unable to do much more. I started to feel more than a bit bad that she was going to such trouble to put me up and make me food and she didn't seem to have a clue who I was, or maybe she did...I had no way of finding out. Finally, she picked up her cell phone and made a call.  After a few minutes she handed the phone to me and a voice spoke to me in broken English... she'd found a translator! Hallelujah! The woman on the phone proceeded to tell me that my hostess was going to bring me down to the beach, where she rents an apartment in one of the nicer hotels on the strip, and I could spend the afternoon with her.

We got to the beach and I met my new friend, who spoke pretty decent English but was much more fluent in French, so whenever we hit a stumbling block in our English conversations I would make the jump over to French to clarify... quite the linguistic gymnastics routine after being out of practice in French for so many years, but we made it work. Plus, the hotel had WiFi! Finally I could pull up the Facebook photos of my cousin and his wife, and I had a translator to explain the convoluted connection I had to her. When my hostess nodded in understanding, I felt a million times better! Later that evening I got a message from my cousin's wife, explaining who my hostess was and her connection to the family. Turns out she is one of three children born to my cousin's wife's grandmother's maid and my cousin's wife's grandmother basically raised her and her two siblings after their mother died. I had made a lot of guesses as to how my hostess might have fit into the family, but "grandmother's maid's child" was definitely not one of them.

Al Fresco dining at my homestay

Nha Trang beach

I spent the next day and a half scuttling back and forth between the beach (where I swam in the sea for the first time in years, based on repeated assurances in French that "il n'y a pas des requins" in these crystal blue waters) and my homestay, where I continued to experience incredible hospitality and was offered enough food to feed a small army.  Despite the initial confusion, it turned out to be a really nice stop, and it couldn't have come at a better time.  I had been growing a bit weary of the constant "hustling" that went on between Vietnamese locals and tourists. It was beginning to feel as though every nice or helpful gesture was nothing more than an opening to try and sell you something.. In Thailand, I actually had to learn to let my guard down a bit and accept that the bright smiles and offers of help from the locals were (at least sometimes) genuine.  I felt bad on more than one occasion for initially dismissing or trying to ignore someone who turned out to be actually looking out for my best interest.  In Vietnam, I learned quickly that I had to put the walls back up and I wasn't thrilled about it. I could feel myself becoming more and more jaded and defensive.  My day in Da Nang and this experience in Nha Trang were great respites from the tour agencies and moto drivers and other various touts out to cash in on the American tourist.  It was so nice to be able to let the walls down again and really get to know some locals and experience their way of life, and their incredible hospitality and kindness... even when a foreign stranger shows up at their door unannounced.
 

Gooooood Morning, Vietnam!!

Here's a fun little story for you. It's called: How I nearly died on a mountain in Vietnam... Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but I was most definitely in WAY over my head on this one... and here's how I got there...

I spent my first few days in country in the capital city of Hanoi which, while it does have some fascinating architecture and a very unique sort of vibe to it, is mostly a noisy, chaotic mess of a city.  This is particularly true in the Old Quarter, which is where basically all of the city's tourists wind up locating themselves, for one reason or another.   The streets are far narrower here than they ought to be to accommodate the insane amount of motorbike and car traffic that overloads them throughout the day, and with the sidewalks being used as either motorbike parking or dining areas with patrons sat in plastic chairs sized appropriately for a one-year-old child, this leaves pedestrians no choice but to fend for themselves in the street with the automotive riff-raff.  The result is it's nearly impossible to look around at any of the various shops or cafés that line the streets as you're often too busy making sure you're not about to be mowed down. (NOTE: I have no photos of the Old Quarter, because I was too busy trying not to die.) Nonetheless, I followed the herd and wound up at a decent low budget hotel with an admittedly VERY friendly and hospitable host who spoke very good English and remembered all the guests by name.  Unfortunately, the building was plagued with strange, unidentifiable mechanical-sounding noise issues (which only seemed to show up in the ungodly hours of the night) that kept me up all night long on my first night there.  A request to change rooms was accommodated first thing the following morning, where the mechanical noises were reduced to a dull hum beneath the cacophony of sound coming from the busy street below. Not perfect, but the random street noise was much easier for me to sleep through than the maddeningly repetitive mystery buzz/hum/whir that literally shook the walls of my former room.  So already not off to the best start in Hanoi.

I took it in stride, though, and eventually managed to become a little more adept at making my way through the mess that is the Old Quarter, though it was such an exhausting effort I found myself venturing out pretty quickly to other neighborhoods with larger streets, crosswalks, and proper sidewalks designed for pedestrians.  The French Quarter was kind of enchanting with its colonial style buildings and wide avenues reminiscent of Paris.  I found a lovely park with a giant lake that provided a relatively quiet safe haven for a couple of hours, after a full day of walking aimlessly around from neighborhood to neighborhood. I was particularly impressed with the Temple of Literature, which also felt like a welcome bit of calm sanctuary.

A Rare Quiet Street in Hanoi

Motorbikes!

A Bit of Peace and Quiet

Inside the Temple of Literature

Also in the Temple

I also met a German transplant who has been living in Hanoi for the past five years, who was quick to give me all sorts of handy tips not only about the city, but about the surrounding areas, and this is how I decided to book a two-day trekking excursion in Sapa.

I had heard of Sapa before, but had written off the idea of going there as I didn't think I really had enough time to explore it properly.  My new German friend assured me that two days was plenty, and that the scenery was well worth the trip.  Having had just about enough of the chaos in Hanoi, I was ready for a little peace and quiet again.  The package offered by my hotel, which included transfer from the hotel to an overnight sleeper train up to Loi Cao, a bus transfer from there to Sapa, a guide, two full days worth of trekking, a homestay in a local village, two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners, and the same bus/sleeper train transport back to Hanoi for a mere $80 sealed the deal.  What my new German friend did not tell me, and what I failed to properly research myself, is that when the Vietnamese say "trekking", what they mean is something akin to the Norwegian definition of "hiking".  Our first day was to take us 10km from Sapa to the village of Loi Chai, where we were to have lunch. Okay, sure. 10km. Not a big deal... right?

Wrong! The very first kilometer consisted of making our way down a nearly sheer mountainside.  Sure there was a bit of a "trail" we were following, but mostly it was just loose dirt peppered with the occasional puddle of extremely slippery mud.  Suddenly, we understood why the massive group of local women who had joined in with us seemingly out of nowhere (with huge baskets strapped to their backs and wearing flip flops, like they were out for a Sunday stroll in the park) were there. They were our sherpas, and boy did we need them. They held our hands through the particularly dodgy parts, trying to keep us as safe as possible, but regardless we foreigners toppled like dominoes all the way down that mountain.  I landed on my ass five times, and once nearly took the woman who was trying to keep me upright off the mountain with me. By the time I made it safely to the bottom I knew I was in trouble.  My dodgy knees were already screaming at me, threatening to give way if I put them through any more abuse like that. On top of that, the new sneakers I had purchased the day before in Hanoi (after my own well-traveled and well-loved sneakers finally gave way in Laos) were turning out to be just a TINY bit too small in the toe area, resulting in what I was sure were about to become nasty blisters. Well, too bad, knees.  Too bad, toes.  We've got another 9km to go before lunch!

The scenery WAS beautiful, and we took a great many rest breaks during which I actually had a chance to appreciate some of it, and even snap a few photos, but for the most part, it was two days of torture peppered with moments of sheer panic when faced with particularly steep descents.  By the time we got to the little village cafe that was our end point on the second day (which came at the end of a 1km long steep ascent up a mountain) I was moments away from breaking down into tears.  Tears of frustration with the limitations of my terrible, terrible joints?  Tears of relief?  Tears of mental and physical exhaustion? I don't know, but a welcome sit-down, a wet-wipe "shower", and a Pepsi turned out to be enough to keep them at bay.

Mountains

Mountains

And More Mountains

I hate to make it sound like it was all terrible.  I do feel pretty damned accomplished, in hindsight, for having made it through what everyone in our group unanimously deemed to be an "exceptionally hard trek" with joints as bad as mine without incurring serious injury.  I didn't even have my knee brace! Besides that, I DID also legitimately enjoy all of the non-trekking moments: the quality company of the other tourists, the homestay with an ample supply of homemade "rice wine" that helped to dull some of the pain, the delicious food (which, to my delight is much easier on my system than the local fare in Laos and Thailand was).  I even bought a couple of very lovely hand-made purses from the woman who had helped me through the second day of hiking. I'm sure I paid entirely too much for them, but considering this woman had basically saved my life in the mountains, I thought it was more than fair.  She also threw in a bracelet for free. 

So the lesson here, coupled with what I learned this summer in Norway, seems to be that I do not mix well with hiking in mountains.  Got it. No bikes, no mountains, and most DEFINITELY no mountain bikes! This does put a bit of a damper on my dream to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro... though by all accounts the various paths up that mountain are much more straightforward and level than the ones I encountered here.  I left the ill-fitting shoes in Sapa, where they will hopefully find themselves a good home, and I made a new trip rule: if it can't be done in flip flops, it won't be done!

After a restless night aboard the train, followed by another three hour train ride from Hanoi early this morning, I find myself now in the little paradise of Ninh Binh, at what is easily the best "hotel" I've ever stayed at in my life. It's not a hotel so much as a series of bamboo huts situated along a quiet river tucked inside a semi-circle of rocky mountains.  My hut has four separate hammocks, two inside, and two outside, where I have sat my broken body for the better part of the afternoon, listening to the ducks, the fish, the birds, and maybe even some monkeys singing in the nearby jungle. It's so beautiful and peaceful here that part of me is wondering if I didn't actually die on that mountain in Sapa and somehow managed to blag my way into Heaven.  The searing pain in my quads and my calves every time I move, on the other hand, assures me that I'm still very much alive. Anyway, I couldn't have picked a better spot to recover both physically and mentally from the weekend.  Winning!

Paradise!

It only has three walls!

Best. Bungalow. Ever.

 

Cleaning out the Closet

Having hit my 30 day expiration date in Thailand, I have now jumped ship (literally, aboard a two-day "slow boat") for Laos, the country that I very morbidly joked marks the beginning of what I should call the "apology tour" of Southeast Asia.  Even the least worldly of Americans is aware of the disaster that was the Vietnam War, but I wonder how many are familiar with the Secret War waged on Laos and Cambodia that went on during that same time period.  I was familiar enough to know that we had dropped bombs on both countries that caused massive devastation and helped to set the stage for the takeover of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, but with talk of Henry Kissinger back in the news of late thanks to the circus that is our current presidential election, and finding myself actually in Laos, I decided to do a little more reading up on the subject. It was two hours of some of the most depressing reading I've done in a long time. 

To say the US dropped bombs on Laos, in particular, is a massive understatement. From 1964 to 1973 we dropped more than two million tons of bombs on Laos over the course of 580,000 bombing missions. That's equivalent to one planeload of bombs every eight minutes, day and night, for nine years.  For those keeping score, that's more than double the amount of bombs dropped on Germany and Japan in the whole of WWII, and a whopping 210 million more bombs than we dropped on Iraq in 1991, 1998, and 2006 combined! Thanks to us, Laos now has the unfortunate honor of being the most heavily bombed country in the world, per capita, and through it all most of the locals had absolutely no idea what was happening or why. The official excuse, concocted by Nixon and Kissinger (who had dreamt up the whole plan and executed it without consent from Congress), was that we were targeting known Viet Cong bases and supply routes running through the country, despite the fact that the bombs were being dropped from heights that made it physically impossible to target specific sites.  The truth, I think, speaks to a general disregard for human life in the name of preserving a political legacy.  Nixon and Kissinger were heavily invested in preventing a tide of communist takeovers in Southeast Asia during their tenure, and so as much as they may have been targeting Viet Cong bases, they were also "supporting" the Royal Lao Government against the communist Pathet Lao, even if that meant leveling the entire country in the process.  In addition to the bombings, the CIA recruited members of the native Hmong tribes to fight a ground war against the Pathet Lao, acting as agents of the United States. When the bombing ended and the Pathet Lao wound up in power anyway, these Hmong "soldiers" and their families were forced to flee the country to avoid persecution.  Many of them still remain in exile. 

As if all this isn't bad enough, consider the fact that up to a third of the bombs dropped on Lao during that time period didn't explode, leaving the country contaminated with massive amounts of unexploded ordinance (UXO).  Over 20,000 people have been killed or injured by UXO in the years since the bombings stopped.  Farmers out plowing their fields. Builders attempting to clear a site for new development.  Children playing with what looks to be a shiny yellow ball buried in the dirt.  Nearly 40 years later, only 1% of this UXO has been destroyed, with the US contributing a relatively paltry $51million over 16 years toward the effort.  That's as much as we spent in just three days dropping the bombs in the first place. 

To read about the devastation the US caused here is shocking, and it gives me tremendous respect for the Lao people, who have been nothing but kind and hospitable during my time here.  How easy would it be for them, even after so many years, to harbor hostility toward the US for the completely senseless destruction of their country (which has contributed heavily to making them the poorest country in Southeast Asia) and loss of life?  If such hostility exists, I've seen no sign of it.  Even after confirming that I'm American I've been met with warm smiles, polite conversation, and some delicious home cooking! Sure, they rely heavily on tourist dollars to prop up their struggling economy, which means that we wind up paying more for busses, hotels, food, and tour packages than they're probably worth, but considering the havoc we wreaked here for nearly a decade, paying an extra couple dollars for a sandwich seems like more than a fair trade-off. 

I've spent just over a week in Laos now and I've been massively impressed not only with the people, but with the sheer rugged beauty of the place that was far too great to succumb to destruction.  I've trekked through jungles, kayaked rivers, homestayed in tiny villages, and explored the bigger "cities" and through it all one thing is clear:  There's a spirit of peace and happiness here that stands in contrast to the country's dark history, and I think it provides a valuable lesson in forgiveness, tolerance, and understanding.

 

 

 

 

On Travel and Digestion

It's nearly noon on a bright and sunny Thursday afternoon and I find myself in one of the nicer hotels I've stayed at on this trip in the "new city" of Sukhothai.  Looking out from my private balcony (which is carpeted, interestingly, in fake grass) I'm trying to muster up the strength to go out and join in the bustling city scene below me.  Ordinarily I would have happily left the hotel hours ago, but today I find myself on the tail end of a rather nasty stomach virus that took me completely out of commission for a solid day and a half back in Ayutthaya.  Sparing too many gory details, suffice it to say it took the form of your typical wellspring of yuck, spewing forth from every direction for a good solid 10 hours, followed by general weakness and slowly attempted rehydration. TMI? Maybe, but that's how I roll. Anyway, by yesterday it had cleared up enough that a couple preemptive Imodium pills were enough to get me through a full day of transit to Sukhothai:  from a songthaew to a train, to a pit stop in a city overrun with crazed monkeys, to another train, to another songthaew, to a minibus, to a motorbike taxi.  Whew! By the time I got to my hotel, I was exhausted, and starving after two days of nothing but a bit of toast and water.  A good sign, I thought.  Not wanting to overdo it on the first day out I stuck with some yogurt, a few "cereal cookies" I got on the train, a packet of crisps (for some much needed salt), and a bit of iced tea before calling it an early night.

I awoke this morning still not feeling great.  Oddly enough, though, this feeling was different than the last couple of days, and it was all too familiar.  Sluggish, weakened, burdened by the feeling that you're lugging around the equivalent of a large brick that's lodged somewhere in your lower intestines.  In fact, the exact OPPOSITE of what was going on two days ago. But how can this be? I've barely eaten anything in the past two days, and anything I ate before then was surely evacuated during that 10 hour stretch.  I don't have an answer. I don't get it, but it's incredibly frustrating and it's got me thinking about the challenges of traveling with a digestive system as... interesting as mine.

As I understand it, I have been cursed pretty much from the get-go with a digestive system that just does not want to play ball. When I was a kid I can't say I really noticed, but as I've gotten older, the list of foods I've had to put on the no-fly list has grown bigger and bigger with each passing year. My love affair with coffee ended abruptly 15 years ago when, out of nowhere, it began to destroy my insides so badly that the pain far outweighed the pleasure of drinking it.  Indian food was the next to go. All of it. This one hurt (emotionally, that is) even more than the coffee, because I'm pretty sure it's just one or two ingredients that don't agree with me, but I don't know what they are and so have no choice but to avoid it all... did I mention I LOVE Indian food?  Carbonated beverages of any kind are kept to a bare minimum so as to avoid blowing up like a balloon.  This makes drinking exceptionally difficult as it eliminates beer and significantly narrows my choice of mixers for hard liquor.  Hummus? Yea, same thing there.  The foods I love, one by one, all seem to be turning against me, though some of them I will still indulge in from time to time, accepting the inevitable punishment that awaits me on the other side.  When I'm at home, it's a mostly manageable annoyance, but when I'm on the road in a brand new country full of exciting and oh-so-tempting culinary delights, it's downright torture!  I spent a month in India, for example, surrounded by all the Indian dishes I used to love so much plus so many more new and exciting things to try.  I ate a lot of bland rice and Chinese noodles.  Of course I did give in to temptation on several occasions and order an Indian dish (which were all delicious) and while I didn't get sick the same way I had back in the states, those meals did almost always result in a feeling of sweaty dizziness that forced me to lie down for a good 20 minutes to recover.  It could have been worse... but it could have been so much better, too. 

Thailand, I've found, is not too dissimilar to India, culinarily speaking.  Street carts abound offering up bounties of delicious smelling noodle bowls; unidentifiable marinated meats on sticks; battered, fried vegetables; artfully designed sugary confections; and all manner of things rolled into balls.  The flavors are sweet, sour, and spicy as hell... anything but bland. 

 

 

I dove in with the kind of reckless abandon reserved for people with a much stronger digestive constitution than I (after all, I had eaten plenty of Thai food in the States and never had a problem) and I'm thinking now that I might be paying the price for it. I ate from street carts in Bangkok.  I ordered things off menus strictly based on photos. During my week at Elephants World I ate nothing but the catered meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner which featured exclusively Thai dishes (save some eggs and toast at breakfast).  They were all delicious, but as I've never eaten Thai food with that much consistency before, I'm wondering if I didn't send my fragile and very finicky system into some sort of shock that provided an opening for that vicious little stomach bug to take hold in the first place, and now is plaguing me in more of the usual way.  I don't know for sure, but I do know that it's left me hesitant to jump back into eating the local fare, no matter how tempting the sights and smells may be.

And so this is my own personal bit of hell.  Food is such an important aspect of travel (Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Zimmern, Adam Richman, et al. can certainly attest to that) and it's one that I feel like I'll never really be able to explore as fully as I would like to.  For every delicious new dish I try, I risk missing out other experiences for having to lie down and "sleep off" the consequences. Best case scenario, I find myself more easily exhausted and sluggish in general while on the road, simply from the change of diet that accompanies it. Even in a place like England or Scandinavia, where the dishes are much more subdued and  closer to what I would find back home, my body still tends to protest.  I wish I could fix it, but short of a complete elimination diet to really narrow down what I can and can't safely eat, I'm not sure how.  So I suck it up and I move on. I may have already lost a good half of my day sat here whining about my insides, but I think the rest has done me some good and now the late hour will make the temperature that much cooler when I do go out. Silver lining! I may not jump back into Thai dishes just yet (though there's a night market literally next door to my hotel that's been on my mind all day) but I'll get back to it soon enough.  I'm nothing if not stubborn, and I'll be damned if I'm going to be one of those American tourists who flies halfway around the world to eat sandwiches and hamburgers and French fries. Quelle horreurr!

 

The Elephant in the Room

Upon deciding to come to Thailand, there was one thing that was on the very top of my absolute "MUST-DO's", and that was to spend some time with elephants.  Elephants are ubiquitous in Thailand (they're the country's national animal) but unfortunately they've more often been used and abused by humans here rather than revered and protected.  In the days of Alexander the Great, they were used as instruments of war, carrying soldiers into battle.  In the 1930's and 40's, elephants became popular in the logging industry, lifting and carrying fallen trees in areas that modern machinery wasn't able to reach. When logging was banned by the Thai government in 1989, Thai elephants and their mahouts turned to the tourism industry as a means of survival, with elephants often found "begging" on the streets or trekking tourists around the jungle.  The result of all of this abuse has been a significant decline in the amount of elephants left in Thailand, with the number of domesticated elephants down from 100,000 in 1850 to about 2,700 today. Wild elephants have fared no better, with their numbers estimated to be between 2,0000 - 3,000 today.  The tide is turning though, albeit slowly, and more people here are becoming focused on conservation, and protecting the well-being of these amazing animals.  Street begging is now illegal, and all locals and tourists are encouraged to report any incidents they may observe to Thai authorities, or to a local conservation group.  Trekking camps do, unfortunately, still exist throughout the country, and do continue to profit from tourists uneducated about the harsh conditions that exist for the elephants in this sort of environment.  Not only are the elephants frequently overworked and underfed in camps like these, but the actual act of carrying a heavy metal "seat" plus the weight of multiple people on their backs is painful and damaging to the elephant, as well. Despite their size, an elephant's back is actually the most fragile part of its body, and isn't able to comfortably support more weight than one small-ish human being.  I've been surprised at the number of western tourists I've met here that had no idea about this fact.  I've talked more than a few out of doing a trek, in favor of visiting a sanctuary instead. 

Now, that being said, not all sanctuaries in Thailand are created equal.  Some do still offer "rides" (shorter than a trek, but no less painful or abusive), some keep the elephants chained for a majority of the day, some allow the free use of bull-hooks by the mahouts which, while they can be used as a gentle "guide" to help handle the elephant, are more often wielded as weapons.  I was in the market for a sanctuary that was truly dedicated to the health and well-being of the elephants over the financial gain provided by the tourism industry.  In my research, I hit upon three consistently reputable sanctuaries. Near Chiang Mai there was Elephant Nature Park, and Boon Lott Elephant Sanctuary, the former being the much larger organization of the two.  Each park offers day trips as well as programs that allow volunteers to work at the park with the elephants for periods of a week or more.  Unfortunately, these programs often fill up months in advance, and I didn't get my spot locked down quickly enough.  A little further digging led me to my third option: a sanctuary outside Kanchanaburi called Elephant's World.  While much lesser-known than the other two, my research uncovered nothing but glowing reviews from visitors, and a philosophy that I could really get behind: "Where we work for the elephants, and not the elephants for us".  They also had an opening in their Mahout Program, which was a bit different to programs offered by the other two parks.  In the Mahout Program, the volunteer is paired with one elephant and his/her mahout for one to four weeks, to learn about that elephant's daily life, and the relationship between the elephant and his/her Mahout.  It was a chance to spend a week working side-by-side with an elephant, and I jumped at it.

I could probably fill a novel with the experiences I had during that one week, but what I really took away from it all was the beauty of these animals, and how similar to human beings they really are.  Elephants are the only species of mammal other than humans to mourn and bury their dead.  They exhibit characteristics of altruism, compassion, self-awareness, and grief.  They can suffer from PTSD brought on by abusive conditions in the past.  They use tools, solve problems, and appreciate art and music.  They are so close to human beings in so many different ways that I wonder how anyone could consider treating them so poorly. 

I was paired with Aum Pan (Amber) and her mahout, Nato, who has taken very good care of her for the past year.  At 80 years old, Aum Pan is the oldest elephant at the sanctuary, and one look into her beautiful brown eyes is enough to tell you that while she may be old, she's not lost her spirit.  I was the first mahout trainee that Aum Pan ever had, and while she can be stubborn when she wants to be (a forceful "thwack!" of her trunk against the ground means she's had just about enough of you telling her what to do, thank you very much!) by the end of the week she would willingly follow me throughout the park, adhering to my commands to "come here" or "back up" (when she was a little too eager while waiting for her sticky rice balls to be made in the afternoons) sometimes more so than she did with Nato.  We walked together, we bathed in the river together.  She got to know me, and what's more, she came to trust me.  Aum Pan has a bit of a history of being picked on by some of the younger elephants in the sanctuary, and as she's gotten older and her vision has started to decline (she's completely blind in her right eye already) she often becomes nervous when there is a lot of elephant activity going on around her.  My response if she got anxious was to stroke her trunk and gently tell her "it's ok, you're ok", while looking right into her good left eye.  On my last day at the sanctuary, she looked straight back into my eyes and she gently but firmly leaned her trunk into me, as if to acknowledge that she knew what I was doing and to say "thank you". 

Elephants World is a sanctuary that most definitely has its heart in the right place, though there are still some challenges I think they need to overcome to really make it the kind of place they would like it to be.  They are currently raising money to buy more land so that they have more room to plant bana grass and banana trees and melons for the elephants food. This new land would also allow them to create proper places for the elephants to sleep at night, as opposed to being tethered to an area (by a 20 meter long chain, so not super restrictive) outside the actual park.  While I found many of the mahouts to be caring and attentive, some others I observed were less-so, and so I think a better policing system may need to be put in place in the future in that regard.  I didn't witness any incidents of outright abuse or injury (bull-hooks are allowed but only for leading the elephants. If mahouts are caught using them as weapons they are taken away. Nato never used one with Aum Pan.) but I did see a bit more bullying and/or neglect than I would have liked from certain mahouts.  This is where I think the Mahout Program is beneficial, in that it puts an extra set of watchful eyes out in the field to observe the interactions between mahouts and their elephants.  All told, it was a wonderful week that flew by way too fast.  It was harder than I would have thought to say goodbye to Aum Pan, Nato, and the volunteers I had worked with over the week, and even now two days later I still miss my "baby girl" and her one elephant friend at the sanctuary, Tangmo, (AKA the watermelon thief) who I also got to know as the pair would often be together.  It's an experience I'll never forget, and one that I highly recommend to anyone interested in getting up close and personal with these fascinating animals.  And now, the photos:

After lunch mud bath

Waiting for her sticky rice

Follow the leader

Elephant selfie!

Tangmo & Aum Pan: BFFS

Tangmo wants her breakfast

Bath time!

 

Tangmo and the neverending quest for more food

 

Aum Pan: Keepin' it OG

 

Exceeding Expectation

When I decided to make Thailand the first  stop on this next leg of my adventures around the world, I really didn't have much of an idea what I was in for. I planned on hot weather, spicy food, cheap prices, and elephants (more on this last one later). What I've found in the week and a half I've been here is a solo traveler's paradise! Not only is everything outrageously inexpensive (it's amazing how quickly you find yourself becoming insulted at the idea of paying the extortionate price of $20 a night for a hotel room, or $8 for a skirt) but the locals are lovely and extremely friendly and helpful, and it is literally teeming with solo travelers. You may arrive in Thailand alone, but rest assured you won't stay that way for long. Over my couple nights in Bangkok I met and spent time with an Englishman and two Americans (who had just met one another hours earlier), a Thai local, an Indian man, and a Finnish woman.  Then I continued on to Kanchanaburi, where I met a Spaniard, two Brits, and a German all on the bus to Erawan Falls. The five of us (all solo travelers) spent the day together and compared notes about our upcoming travel plans. Whatever trepidation I may have had about setting off on my own once more, vanished pretty quickly upon arrival.

The beauty of Erawan Falls

What also vanished upon arrival was any rememberance of what it felt like to NOT be a big sweaty mess. January is allegedly one of the months that holds the "best" weather in Thailand, as the winter season means cooler temperatures and very little rain. All I was able to think as I trudged around Bangkok looking as though I'd just come out of a swimming pool was: if this is "cool", I don't ever want to see "hot"! Walking the few blocks from the cab to my hotel after arriving close to midnight and realizing that even at this late hour it was a stifling 80 degrees (and humid!) I knew I was screwed. I also knew that the jeans I was currently wearing would likely not see the outside of my bag again for the rest of the trip. I was told by friends in the know before I left not to overpack, as anything I needed could be bought in Thailand cheaper than in the US. With this in mind, I did scale down to the smallest pack I own (20 liters), plus an even smaller pack for trekking/carting home souvenirs.  Still, if I had it to do over, I would have gone even more extreme: wear one outfit on the plane, and buy the rest on arrival. The clothes you find here, in addition to being inexpensive, are also better suited to the weather conditions than anything they could dream up in Washington state. I bought a pair of pants (for $4) almost immediately that are now the most favorite thing I own, and will be worn until they literally fall apart. Furher clothing purchases are sure to follow in the coming weeks.

So, scorching hot weather: check! Insanely cheap prices: check! This brings us to the food, which is delicious. I may never eat Thai food in the states again, if only because I won't be able to rationalize the price, knowing that a typical meal out in Thailand (a main dish, spring rolls, and a drink) costs an average of $5.  Whereas a lot of the dishes I've had here have been remarkably similar to their counterparts in US Thai restaurants, the more traditional dishes ARE notoriously spicy; so much so that the menus often contain a "warning" to us farang (foreigners) or a reassurance that they can make it less spicy, if we wish. For the most part it's been far too hot for me to consider trying one of these dishes...I've been sweating enough as it is.

In short, I'd say Thailand is a country that knows how to make one hell of a good first impression. So far, it's lived up to my expectations and then some, and I'm eager to see what other surprises it has in store. I'm also eager to move on to what I think could be the highlight of this Southeast Asia experience...spending a week with the elephants! 

Nightmare at 30,000 Ft

Confession time: I hate to fly. I hate it! There's nothing like the idea of strapping myself into a big metal tube and ascending 30,000+ft into the air with absolutely no control over my own fate to instill me with completely irrational abject terror.  It wasn't always like this.  When I was younger there was never any sort of fear associated with plane travel. Just mind-numbing boredom and a complete inability to stay comfortable in those tiny coach seats.  For some inexplicable reason, though, at some point in time (and I can't even pinpoint exactly WHEN this occurred) my brain decided to switch from boredom to panic mode and from there it never looked back. So, needless to say, the 18 hours total flying time it was going to take to get me from Los Angeles to Bangkok has been a source of some anxiety. My previous record for longest flight was 12 hours between LA and Beijing, which happened long before this maddening flight anxiety had worked its way into my brain.  The first leg of this trip, from LA to Guangzhou, China was going to smash that record by three hours.  I had a mild panic attack the day I booked the ticket, just thinking about getting through (or potentially NOT getting through) such a long flight across the Pacific.  To make matters worse, I had failed in my mission to acquire some Xanax while in LA.  I was going into this one drug-free. 

I spent a good chunk of the evening before the flight looking up statistics online to feed the rational side of my brain, hoping that it might override the irrational, fear-mongering side.  It helped enough that I was able to sleep, but not enough to make me a pleasant companion on the drive to LAX the next morning (apologies to my friend who did his best to try to cheer me up).  By the time we arrived at the terminal I was ready to throw up, and entertaining thoughts of canning the whole trip; convinced, however irrationally, that stepping onto that plane was equivalent to signing my death warrant.  But I didn't back out. I kept going because travel is one of the great joys in my life, and I knew that the minute I let unfounded fear keep me from getting on a plane is the minute I set a precedent that loses me the ability to do what I love.  By the time I got through security the nausea had subsided (dealing with airport bureaucracy is mind-numbing enough to quell even the most extreme anxiety) and after pounding a couple quick vodka cranberries at the bar I made my way on to the plane. I'm a seasoned enough traveler that I'm quite good at hiding my anxiety.  I'm pretty certain that most other passengers around me would never suspect the kind of crazy thoughts that are swimming around in my head during a flight but anyway, they're there, interspersed with moments of calm that seem to show up only because sustaining such a high level of anxiety for such a long period of time is physically impossible.  When I finally did arrive in Bangkok all those hours later I was physically and emotionally exhausted, but nonetheless alive and well. I knew everything would be fine, ha-ha.

Why am I sharing all of this? Because statistically (yup, some of that research did sink in) 40% of airline passengers have some form of anxiety about flying, despite the fact that it is, also statistically, the safest mode of transportation.  If you're reading this and nodding your head, recognizing all of the feelings I've described, know you're not alone. If you're putting off a trip you'd really like to take because it involves a long flight, don't put it off any longer. Face your fear. Stand up to irrational anxiety.  The chances of being killed in a plane crash are 1 in 7 million.  The chances of having an amazing experience while traveling that you'll remember for the rest of your life are pretty much guaranteed.  I'll take those odds.

Back in Buisiness

Well hello again. Long time, no blog. I had every intention when I set out on my cross-country "Farewell (For Now) Tour" of America to continue my blogging throughout the journey, but for a few reasons, that didn't end up happening. Firstly, the nature of a one-woman road trip across the country and back meant that I spent an inordinate amount of time in my car... alone. While this sort of situation is very conducive to thinking, it's not particularly effective for being able to write any of those thoughts down.  At the end of a 10 or 12 hour slog, the last thing I wanted to do was whip out the tablet and go to town, especially knowing I was going to be doing the same thing the very next day.  More than that, though, in the midst of all that thinking I was doing, I realized that I'm still not entirely happy with the direction that this blog has taken over the months... or rather, lack of direction. 

Ever since I first concocted the idea of signing up for the Mongol Rally, the most common directive I've received from just about anyone and everyone I've ever talked to has been: "you should write a book!".  Generally, my response is a dismissive wave of the hand followed by an "oh, I don't know". While writing has traditionally kind of been my "thing" in one form or another, I've always felt that there are so many people out there in the world doing so many wonderful, crazy things (many of them far crazier and more entertaining than the things I've gotten up to) that if I were to throw my hat in that ring as some sort of adventure travel writer, I really needed to make sure that I had something unique to say.  Diary entries are fine if your audience is composed of family and friends who know you and have reason to care about your general day-to-day activities, but if I wanted to reach farther than that I knew I needed some sort of an angle; something that would give a complete stranger a reason to want to read what I've written down.  Sure, I've got a host of ridiculous stories from my various trips that never fail to entertain at parties, but those kind of lightning in a bottle moments just don't happen often enough to sustain any sort of lengthy narrative.  So what's my niche? Where do I fit in? How do I stand out? I went round and round with these questions for ages before finally deciding on a new methodology: Build it, and they will come.

Writers, when faced with blockages, or the kind of crippling self-doubt that drives so many of them ultimately to the bottle (or at least that's my theory, anyway) are often advised simply to write. Something. Anything. Every day. Just keep writing, and eventually inspiration will strike. This blog is the product of my decision to follow that advice and now, nearly nine months in, I'd say it remains a work-in-progress. I'd like to say that taking a break from it while I was back in the homeland helped to give me a new perspective, or some fresh insight into exactly what I want this blog to become, but the truth is I'm still down that same rabbit hole of ambiguity I've been in from the start. Now, however, I find myself in Bangkok, on the cusp of another adventure set to take me across four countries in three months, and so the blogs will continue.  Will there be esoteric diary entries? Probably. Will there be useful, practical information in the mix? Hopefully. Will there be entertaining and ridiculous "lighting in a bottle" moments? Definitely. Will my photography skills improve? Maybe.  Will I finally find that bit of inspiration I need to figure out where exactly I fit in this crazy world of adventure travel writing? Only time will tell. For now I promise only to write, for better or worse... but hopefully more better than worse.