why i travel

singapore

less than a week ago, i'm walking through little india in penang. from one of the video store's speakers comes gayatri mantra, a hindi chant that i recognized from my time in india a few years ago. i'm not sure exactly where i heard it, maybe the rooftop in jodhpur or one of the ganga aarti ceremonies in rishikesh or just after sunset in delhi. i am certain that it was a poignant moment. that song. it was one of those moments when the world seems to pause for you alone. it's like everything is conspiring to tell you that there's something intangibly real all around you, and it's all good. i heard it then and wanted to know its name. the other day, i walked into the video store and found out.

what i remember most vividly about that moment in india is that it was one that i wanted to put into my pocket. i wanted to saran wrap that baby and stow it away for a rainy day. it was one of those break-glass-in-case-of-emergency-need-for-inspiration memories that get us out of the emotional tunnels of the daily grind.

and then i got home and that momentum seemed to vanish a la sonny bono on a ski slope. to be honest, i started writing a novel, so much of that was self-inflicted and worthwhile in the long run. but hearing that mantra the other day was a poignant reminder. i could call it something like serendipity or destiny, but i like to keep it a bit more plausible. after all, the odds are not exactly astronomical that indian music would be playing in a part of town called little india. i think it best contextualized as a reminder of how good i feel and how great i've been to myself; how i don't have to let it slip away.

this is not a three month trip. departure to arrival, sure. but it really goes back to about one year ago, when i decided that i would travel. it goes back to every time i bit my tongue at a shitty job that allowed me to save; every time i denied myself a short-term diversion so i could be gone for a longer spell. it reaches back to every time i heard the mosquito buzz in my life that told me that something had to be swatted, something had to be itched, something had to be done.

mostly, though, it goes forward. it will be there in the spring in my step and lightness of being. it will be there in my ability to separate what matters from what is just noise. i've made some decisions about my path going forward and at least one of them involves major change. i would not have the strength to do so without these past few months.

if you want the cold, hard facts to support my reasoning for travel, i'm afraid that's as you're gonna get outta me. that may prove unsatisfactory for many out there, those that believe in tangibles and weighing them out like justice. but, dear, there ain't evidence and this is no courtroom. it's a far more important venue that i refer to as life.

if you still need the evidence, still need the play-by-play, then consider this an adumbrated attempt at appeasement. i present my reasons for why i travel:

to be bicycling in angkor wat and have to debate whether to overtake the elephant in front of me

to have to ask what day it is

to learn that it's also called the american war

to be stumbling and sweating after climbing liang biang and receive an introduction to lat barbecue and muoi ot chanh

for the only item on the daily agenda to be sunset

to see conical hats in the rice paddies

because i hear what you have to say about careers, but i remain thoroughly unconvinced

to be here, now

to be now, here

how can i be entirely sure it exists if i don't see it for myself?

to make new friends, on facebook and otherwise

for fan mail

to grab a little khe sanh soil to sprinkle in d.c.

to read matterhorn in vietnam

to feel proud to be out of my 20s

to stare at palm trees for a half-hour and think about life; to continue staring at them for another ten minutes thinking about palm trees

to spot the irrawaddy dolphin

to make solid friendships stronger

to learn the translation for 'no problem' in four languages

because i know why the caged bird sings

to watch an australian open final between a serb and a spaniard while smoking filipino hash with a german in vietnam

to go from exploring my options to optioning to explore

so that when someone asks if i'm canadian, i can reply, "hell no"

to make peace

for the slow boat

to leave it cleaner than i found it

to respect the ladyboy

for thai smiles

because for this bus ride/trek/sunset/walk/coffee/meal/beer/railway ticket queue/swim/dive/song/spectacle, we can be friends

to give myself a little credit for once

because my generation will not be able to retire

for cheap massages

to take life seriously

for strawberry shakes

for ringside seats to muay thai fights

to swim with the barracudas

to pursue that thing called happiness

for street food

to take 1400 pictures and then put the camera away for a little bit

for those 1400 pictures

for endearingly terrible lao karaoke

to follow through on that promise with the eight ball and the corner pocket

to put a face to the name

for reggae bars

to empty my life's spam folder

to arrive in tokyo and kuala lumpur at night

to be the guy riding my motobike through the hoi an pedestrian market

to say chul muouy with the fellas

to be the generation that forgives

but, again, if you have to ask, you'll never understand.


if you followed along on my journey: thank you. i appreciated the company. i'm already looking forward to having more to share in the (hopefully) not too distant future.

and to the great people of these great lands: i simply don't have the words. in their stead, i'll simply say arigato gozaimasu, khawp khun khrap, aw kohn, cam on, khawp jai lai lai, terima kasih, and thank you with perfect pronunciation and my head bowed, palms fused in front of my chest until i'm blue in the face and these tears dry up. i will very soon be gone, and you will never be forgotten.

coming home

melaka, malaysia

with regard to 'proper travel', i believe that one mentally prepares to be away for the exact amount of time they will be gone. they set an internal alarm clock, as it were. there is the initial honeymoon phase where the accumulated baggage from life over there is unpacked. one can make sweet, blissful love to the distance they've put between their stress and their self. toward the end, there is the preparation for reintegration phase where one rearms both defensively and offensively. were i to use a simile or metaphor here, it would be football and/or battle related. in between these phases, there is this thing called living.

the theory states that if you tell yourself you'll return in three months, you'll be ready to return a little bit before that point. over- or under-staying that time frame feels exactly as such. there grows the sensation that you're missing out, be that at home or on the road, case depending. it is my own theory, and according to it, i am ready to come home right about now.

i'm not. sure, okay, i really want to see some people. i miss my family. i can't wait to receive hugs from so many great friends. one of the greatest thrills in life is seeing someone's face light up when they're genuinely excited, and i mean excited, to see you after a prolonged absence. i foresee several instances of that in the coming month and that feels very good.

i miss americans. what a far cry from several years back, but i've determined that we are the funniest and most fun people to be around. i want to hear some new music and spend hours watching and rewatching every vietnam movie. i want to take my time in a great bookstore, catch a baseball game, drink a fat tire, and overdose on mexican food. the friends and family deserve another mention. and another.

but it's not lost on me that i'm closer to jakarta than new york. ditto yangon. shanghai. dhaka. lhasa. geographically, at least, and if i really press two fingers to my spirit's pulse, there are a few other senses as well. a lot of that you would already know. i travel and i write on a blog about how i like to travel; you get it. it's probably lost on nobody that i enjoy seeing new places. but it's bigger than just some desire to take some more photos, collect some more sun, challenge my gastrointestinal system with some new street food. the reason is that i'm good at this. some guys can throw a baseball, others have the patience to care for the infirm, i have talent for travel. they don't keep score on bus ride tolerance, map reading, tuk tuk bargaining, food finding, local experience locating, and they don't have target practice for kindness killing. these are skills, i tell you, and i have them.

in the west, we have personality tests and buy self-help books; we attend seminars and shadow people who are "in the field." we are supposed to add value to some supply chain and be grateful we don't have it as bad as the other guy. i've done that and i am grateful for everything i've got, but it's getting to where i don't see the point. finding a job after traveling is like casually dating after being in love. eating stouffers for dinner after a five-star brunch. it's like that ex-ballplayer in the broadcast booth or selling cars. there's somewhere we'd all rather be and we've been there before. and we were really, really good at it. we are the living, breathing, ruined for everything after.

the after, for me, for now, comes soon. before the after, come the realizations and the bargaining. the anticipations, good and bad, and the nearer i get to that 747, the worse they get. i don't want to perform solidly at a job i'm apathetic about and i don't want to politic. i don't want to spend hours on query letters and be all "professional and shit" around some literary agent. i want to network like my ass wants teeth. i don't want to get into a routine and i don't want to accept things as they are, simply because they are. and, yes, frankly, there are some things about america that i'm less than excited for. i don't want to be asked fifty times in a day about how i am doing and have none but a handful mean it. i don't want to eat across from someone on their cell phone and i really don't want to witness aggravated entitlement. i don't want to hear romney and santorum try to out-cro-magnon one another in their high-wire act for low-lying fruit.

if you're telling me to grow up, you're partially correct. this is all par for the course and one that must be navigated, even if we have to plug our noses for a stretch every now and then. and there is something really beautiful about a normal life. dorothy was right: there is no place like home. it's just that for some of us, saying those magic words and clicking the heels of the ruby slippers is a nice journey that soon has us looking for the songthaew back to oz.

so that's what it shall be: home for now and a "hello kansas i missed you so." appreciate the small stuff, spend some time with auntie em and uncle henry and remember to never take a precious moment with a great person for granted. i'll take toto for a couple spins on the bike, lend a hand on the farm, and make sure i've got my backpack on standby: it might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but there will be another twister.

pulau penang

penang, malaysia

there is an inherent dissonance between an applebee's commercial and the actual dining experience. as it appears on television, we show up with loose neck ties after a great day at the office to find all our smiling friends of variegated ethnicities gathered around and making merry. a waitress with perky tits and great teeth delivers a couple tall beers and sizzling fajitas, adding an innocuous rejoinder to whatever you said upon entering camera left. your friends all laugh at your expense and you join in after feigning objection. she really got you there, jim. she sure did.

in reality, you're likely to be one of three customers in the entire place. it's mid-afternoon and you're alone at the bar, almost entirely ignored by a bartender riveted by a game of angry birds. you stare down at a plate full of stale mozzarella sticks and think about how the only reason you took the highway off-ramp was because you wanted a clean place to take a dump. this place is far from a neighborhood, and you're definitely not "eating good."

an exaggeration, of course, but once i decided to leave koh tao, i realized that this was close to the sentiment i was feeling. my experience on the island closely resembled the plot of forgetting sarah marshall, without the humor, sadness, or dramatic tension. everything was like a postcard: the views were stunning, but it was two-dimensional and there wasn't much beneath it. there were thai people, but they could have been stage props brought in by the island's management. my lost tribe of merry pranksters was nowhere to be found.

the problem i found in koh tao is similar to the problem i found with thailand in general. in a few words, amateur hour. bush league. off-off-off-off-off broadway. not the thai people, of course. any fault i attribute to them is the fact that their wonderful nature created a troubling predicament. like mexico, thailand suffers from a perfect storm of perfection that bleeps big on the sonar of the less sophisticated. i am referring to bros, bro. the country has a major international airport, fantastic beaches, cheap prices, great food, easy transport, a lax policy to alcohol consumption, and super friendly people. it is, with great reason, a fantastic travel destination, and the shame of it all is that this has not gone unnoticed.

i am trying not to sound like i'm drinking perrier, using a silk kerchief to clear caviar from my beard and scoffing at the proletariat. what i'm trying to articulate is that there is a certain type of traveler, a type i became accustomed to traveling with over the years. this person does nothing extraordinary; they simply store some basic local language greetings in their head and visit a couple local places. they smile and/or acknowledge the other human beings in their presence. they do and behave in a manner commensurate with that which one would reasonably define as "nice." basically, that whole when-in-rome thing. there are those in thailand, for sure, but there was an overwhelming feeling that i was a visitor at the sigma chi house's annual thai fiesta (because they would call it that.) you take your beverage in a bucket and make sure your muscles are flexed as you drink it to better showcase your tribal tattoos. there is a full-moon party tonight in koh phangan, don't dare ask me if i'm going.

so it was a relief when my travel plans were diverted to singapore and an even greater relief to arrive in malaysia. i hadn't really given the country much consideration and after half a day i am already scheming on how to get back. i am walking around an island that is the love-child of every major eastern and western naval power of the past millenium. i had dim sum for breakfast, will have indian for lunch, and then hit two or three street carts offering a melange of tastes for dinner. and the best part? it's all local. i have already had three endearing, genuine conversations with locals and foresee several more in the days remaining.

so i know i'm contradicting everything i wrote two posts ago. i swear i thought i was telling the truth. i thought i wanted to drop my pack for good. i thought i was fine with spending us$15 on lodging, sitting still or alternating my position beneath the palm trees depending on the whim for sun or shade. i thought i was ready for unapologetic relaxation. turns out, i was relaxed enough.

i will say that the spirit of that post remains intact. one should conclude their trip doing what they want and, if i may dare say so, what makes them happy. for me, that will include three days of five-plus hour train trips with the days in between dedicated to walking with my camera, pausing for street food. if it must be reduced: eating good, in the neighborhood.

standby

chumphon, thailand

of a myriad of childhood influences, the fact that my mom worked for a major airline may have been the greatest. the job, from my vantage point, was far from great. the commute was long, management sounded to be aloof at best, and humanity rarely gets uglier than when someone is upset at an airport (if you want to see an asshole personified, look no further than the customers queued at an airline kiosk next time there's a delay.) of course, i didn't have to endure any of that. i just got to enjoy a perk that makes the company car look like, well, peanuts (sorry for the obvious in-flight reference.)

i am speaking of free or extremely reduced-cost air travel, but i'm sure you already picked up on that. after the paying passengers have boarded, there will typically be a handful of empty seats distributed to the standby list, the end of which is comprised of airline employees and their companions. usually, there are enough leftover seats that you will get to where you want to go. it may not be the first flight and may entail an out-of-the-way connection (or four), but the odds are in your favor.

because of this benefit, we had season tickets to university of washington football, even though we lived in denver. more than once, we flew into lax in the morning, spent the day at disneyland, and flew back at night. when a good friend moved to cleveland, i could visit him for a week every summer. for one long weekend holiday my senior year, mom took me to australia for a few days. i also saw my grandparents as frequently as if they were neighbors, even though they lived in seattle.

it was as great as it sounds, but it also instilled some heavy doses of humility. it didn't matter if we had a week marked off the calendar and hotel reservations; if flights to honolulu were full, we weren't going. we had to dress well and sit upright and be on our best behavior, otherwise "our" seats could be passed on to someone down the list (though i think my mom exaggerated that part.) it takes two hands to count the number of times i have slept inside chicago o'hare's airport and there have been multiple holidays that were this close to being spent in a food court.

the big takeaway, as far as i see it, is that my modus operandi was entirely molded on the concourses of this great world's airports: the world is yours, so long as you'll fit. or: you can go anywhere you want to go, just don't be a dick about it. however you wish to phrase it, i owe an astronomical debt to the cosmos for granting access to the globe and front-row seats at seminars on patience, hard work, entitlement, and humility at the school of hard knocks. the end result may not be receiving any awards, but, hey, i'm in thailand right now. and i'm not being a dick about it.

this present trip is a result of several serendipitous blessings, none greater than the reinstatement of flight priveleges this year. you probably don't want to hear what the flight portion does or does not cost, and you certainly don't want to hear that i went over the water both times in business class. what is more relevant is that the time to return is nearing and my eyes in the sky have suggested that bangkok is looking a little tough to get out of. there's one flight a day and it looks to be a photo finish each and every one. what could happen? i could catch the first flight out. i could also spend a week riding back and forth on the sky train on polar ends of unsuccessful attempts to fly the friendly skies.

so i'm going to singapore. flights are looking pretty good for early next week and since i'm only a few train rides away from the bottom of the peninsula, i reckon i'll just take the rails down. i'll get a malaysia stamp in the passport and introduce some new street food to the system. vacation was nice and lovely, but i've got to catch a flight in about a week. until then, the world is still mine.

vacation

koh tao, thailand

there is a stark difference between travel and vacation. the former is the thinking (wo)man's foray into the foreign, a search within and without for some sort of meaning. vacation is putting on the blinders to all the stresses and worries of the world over there, a chance to forget and recharge. the participants in both activities, like it or not, are tourists.

a traveler will tell you that someone on vacation is entirely oblivious of their surroundings and only looking to massage their id. the average person on vacation does not know who a traveler is or what they do, only that they do not want them near. the traveler is typically identified by wearing pants or shorts that look like they were cut from some sort of florid, indigenous tapestry. the vacationer typically sports a tank top with a logo or cartoon strip advertising that they do, in fact, enjoy drinking alcohol. the advantage of the traveler, and i would add obligation, is to end their wanderings with a vacation. i am doing so right now.

if the key to travel is a submission to spontaneity, the secret sauce in a vacation is advanced planning and rigid inertia during the period in question. i have known all along that i would vacation in southern thailand and had the benefit of traveling in the same region. most of the farang on the banana pancake trail have come from here or are likewise on their way, so there has been no shortage of advice over the past few months. there were a few who recommended koh tao, sure. more important were the endorsements of other islands and beaches along the way. at the risk of sounding as i am, which in this case is extremely judgmental, i have to say that an understanding of the messenger was vital in understanding the message. i admit that there have been numerous occasions where i've asked an unsuspecting twenty-something which places they or their kind enjoy going so that i can cross it off my list. this process, more scientific and kind that it sounds, brought me to koh tao.

i've got a few days of diving under the belt. my allegiance to inactivity has kept me on the main strip in town, sairee beach, spelling breaks from spy novels by cooling off in the sea or quick jaunts to order coffee shakes. at sunset, i have several options for restaurants with padded seating and a chillout soundtrack. after washing off the day's accumulated salt, i hit one of a handful of trusty pad thai carts and log some critical people-watching time. once dinner is through, i could go to any number of the bars associated with the flyers i've accumulated in my evening walk. for no reason in particular, i've preferred a leisurely stroll back and an earlier hour for sleep.

part of that is to say that sairee beach was good for my diving oxygen supply but has not been quite as aligned with my spirit. not that it is a bad place, just one that suggests that i could find better on this island. so i will, tomorrow. i will rent an eyesore of a motorbike and ride around the hills and peninsulas of this island until i find that eden worthy of my final days. there will be sand to dig in my toes, a modest hill for climbing, and something soft to lean on or swing in for the three hours i will dedicate to the sunset. and the right guest house will announce itself to me clearly. no sooner than i step off my motorbike will a pair of bearded gentlemen with the potential for good conversation relieve me of my heavy bag and take it directly to my modestly-priced bungalow, the last vacancy remaining. two sylphlike local women will hand me a cold chang and a kebab with large, freshly grilled prawns and lead me arm-in-arm down to a large bonfire on the beach below. upon my arrival, the small, friendly congregation will break out, in unison, "it's about time. we've been waiting for you."

and i will not think about my return, my reintegration, my acquiescence to wearing shoes and a belt. i will just be here, now, and be now, here. i will do all that a proper vacation entails, and not a damn thing more.