Dealing with the Side Effects of Long Term Travel: A Failure's Guide


I was in the bathroom this morning getting ready to go to the supermarket with Ricky. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and some slide-on shoes. My hair went into a ponytail, with a headband to keep back the flyaways. I slapped on some mascara and some deodorant and was ready to go.

And then it hit me.

Nothing has changed.

During the nine months we were traveling I looked pretty much the same—ponytail (when my hair was long enough), t-shirt, simple shoes, tiny bit of makeup, and looking barely presentable to go into public. 

I realized that I was living the side effects of long term travel. They are unavoidable.  Sometimes I find myself forgetting to change clothes after a couple of days.  I have to remind myself to change my shirt. I forget that I can do laundry when I want, and I have enough clothes to wear while I wait for other ones to dry.

And days like today I forget that I’m not traveling anymore and I can actually take a little bit of time to style my hair (though I’m getting close to chopping it all off again), or put on some makeup, or even make better clothing choices.

One thing that Ricky and I both suffer with as a side effect of traveling is that we’ve forgotten the value of money. We’ve used so many different currencies while constantly mentally changing it over to dollars or Euros that we forget what things are actually worth. That resulted in a lot of stupid purchases when we first got to Beijing. We spent 1200 rmb for curtains and 550 for a rug. That’s about $300 dollars that we actually needed to spend on things we, you know, need. 

And it’s a constant thing.  Our priorities are pretty messed up right now, because what we valued while we were traveling (the occasional ice cream, a nice meal to keep us sane after days of fried rice), isn’t what we should value now. We spend too much money on McDonald’s because we can, when we really don’t want to spend any more money than we have to for dog food.

Basically we are terrible people with imaginary money to burn.

 So hopefully we’ll get a handle on this real-people thing we call life and I might actually put on some make up or do something with my hair.



Super Domesticity Girl to the Rescue, Or My Transition from Vagabond to Martha Stewart


Just a couple of months ago, I was on the road. I was hanging out with macaques, eating cobra, and having my arm covered in giant black scorpions. I was riding a motorbike through Vietnamese mountains and taking pictures with endangered species. I was snorkeling in Thailand and wandering through ancient temples. So, with all this in mind, my question is this:

When did I become so damn domestic?

It hit me the other day that things have changed dramatically in my life. I was so proud of my productive morning: I walked the dog, did the laundry and the dishes, and baked homemade bread. And I liked it (well, aside from the dishes part). What the hell happened in my life??

Ricky and I ended our travels because we were a bit traveled out. We were at the point where we just wanted to wear real-people clothes, and be able to shower every day, and sleep in the same bed every night, and not have to live out of a backpack. We were just ready to settle down a bit.

But I had no clue I would enjoy it so much. Since we have arrived, I have loved cooking in my own kitchen, and taking care of the dog, and sitting in my huge armchair in the evenings and watching some TV.  It just feels right, right now. After nine months of traveling, it’s just nice to take a break.

In the beginning of our travels, though, I didn’t think I would need a break. I felt like I could wander the world forever without stopping. I had heard of those permanent vagabonds that somehow manage to hitchhike their way across continents and I thought “I could totally do that! I never want to settle down! I have everything I could ever need, right here on my back!”

However, after 6 months, I was just about ready to call it a day. Granted, 6 months is a dang long time, but I didn’t expect to feel that way so soon. But the stress of travel was getting to me. We weren’t on holiday anymore. I was enjoying it, but it was rough some days.

Even then, it’s a little strange to me that I am enjoying normal life so much. I have a job, I’ll be starting school in a month, and I make homemade pancakes. It’s weird, and it’s not. It feels good and normal. And until Lady Wanderlust calls me again, I think I’ll just enjoy it, because, really, I make some awesome pancakes.

Happy Family: Pets and Apartments (Also, a shoutout for adoption)

So, we're pretty much settled in. We have our TV and our bikes, but we can't really get some of the other things we would like, since our paycheck wasn't for a full month. Ah well.

Here are a few pics of the apartment.

Me, cooking the first meal in our kitchen that was apparently made for elves or something.

Handsome Ricky cleaning the windows. He even did the outside. We're 17 storeys up.

Not the cleanest living room. But at least there are comfy chairs, even though they are so far apart. And look at our classy dining table!

So there's that.

But also, our beautiful little lady dog. We adopted her from a local shelter. They guess she was abandoned by her owners when she got pregnant. She's affectionate and house-trained (huzzah!).

We called her Gimley, but no, she is not a red-headed stubborn dwarf. She's got white hair and blue eyes and so much energy. Here are some pics.

The second time I met li'l Gimley. She immediately jumped into my lab, probably to escape the other 40-something dogs at the shelter.

Chilling on our new carpet. 

Hanging out together after our respective showers. 

So adorable! Or is it totes adorbs? Something like that.

Her new favorite spot, sitting right above my head. She sometimes sneaks me ear kisses when I'm not paying attention.


Like I said, she's really affectionate, though more so with me than with Ricky, so far. I do most of the walking and feeding and bathing and stuff (which we had agreed upon a while before we got her), and I actually quite enjoy it. I love that she loves me so much, even when I have to put her out on the balcony during the day or have to wash her. She's quick to forgive. 

Now for the good part. ADOPT!!! Adopt a pet if you're looking for one! My first pet was a mutt we adopted from the pound, and she was a happy puppy and led a nice, long life. I loved her so much, and was devastated when my dad told me she passed away around Christmas time of 2011. 

It makes me so happy to see how happy Gimley is, and what a good life we can give her. They treated her and all the other dogs very well at the shelter, but it's not the same as having family. 

If you are looking for a pet, there are so many ready for adoption. And don't rule out the older dogs. Gimley is about 2 we think, and it's nice not to have to worry about housetraining or general puppy destruction. Just take your time to hang out with a few dogs and find one that suits you and your lifestyle, and you could end up with a new happy member of your family.

Making a Home and Other News

So, we're basically settled in Beijing. Except for...well lots of things really.

See, we spent a lot of our leftover travel money on things to help us settle in and feel like home. I mentioned before that our apartment is oh-so-small, but we're doing our best to fix it up. So far, we've purchased curtains, a carpet, 2 folding chairs, some tupperwares, plates, cups, bowls, some Ikea storage drawers, and a few trashcans.

But we still have a lot on our plates to do. We had hoped to get a little more into the Beijing thing, but we pretty much have to wait til payday to get things started. Here's our to-do/get list:

Tv
X-box
Gym memberships
Oven
Electronics to be fixed (camera, e-reader)
Guitar amp
A dog (getting closer!)
Routine!
Picture frames

That's all I can think of at the moment but I know that there's got to be more.  I just know it.

But in other news, do you realize how cool Beijing is! There is no shortage of things to do. This week, for example is the Beijing International Film Festival. Unfortunately we just discovered it yesterday, and the closing ceremony will be held the day after tomorrow. But we're planning on going tonight to check out the scene, and find out how we can get to the closing ceremony because wouldn't it be great to hang out with Keanu Reeves, Jackie Chan, and the cast of Iron Man?

Getting Ready for a New Addition to the Family

Well, we have decided it's time to expand. We feel good in our apartment (you know, with wi-fi and new curtains and all that), and it only makes sense to bring someone else in to enjoy it with us.

And so, we are awaiting the arrival of dear little Wicket:

Watering cans are the new Gucci handbag.

See, we've been wanting a pet. Well, I"VE been really wanting a pet. I miss my pets back home, who all died of old age about a year ago, all within a couple months of each other. 2 dogs and a cat.  And I want something to take care of, something that will give me some cuddles while I read on my chair. Ricky's fine and all, but just a tad too large to sit on my lap.

So I was looking at pet adoption websites for places in Beijing. Our apartment is quite small, so I figured a cat would be the best option. They don't need a ton of running-around space, and taking care of them is pretty easy.  But they are actually quite expensive to adopt (weird, right?). When I talked to Ricky about it, he said he would prefer a dog, but it's even more expensive to get a dog (higher adoption price, required registration, etc).

Yesterday, I was browsing thebeijinger.com, a magazine for foreigners in Beijing. I found a lady trying to get rid of a couple of Yorkshire Terriers, which honestly aren't my favorite breed, but they're small and cute. I contacted her and she's pretty much giving the things away, along with all their crates and toys and AKC/quarantine/vet/passport papers. The catch is that she is in Thailand, so we have to pay for the transportation costs. At $140 it's already cheaper than adopting a dog here in Beijing.

So we hope he arrives soon. It'll be great to have a little animal companion around here. Until then, we'll stock up on carpet cleaner, because even little tiny terrier poops can be a disaster.

Home Sweet Home: Getting Set Up in Beijing

Well, we made it. We're in Beijing, and it was kind of a wild ride.

We got picked up from the airport at 2 in the morning by our new boss and after going to the wrong apartment complex first, found our way into our own 17th floor apartment. It was a short visit, however, because of the extreme cold, no heating, and lack of any bedclothes. So we took off for a hotel and were on our way to Jinzhou the next day.

For those of you that don't know, Jinzhou is where we both started teaching English and where we met (awww!). It's also where most of our stuff was hanging out since it was a bit impractical to take our giant suitcases and winter clothes with us to tromp around Southeast Asia. 

So, we hung out with our good ol' buddies, had some delicious food, and enjoyed putting on jeans for the first time in months. It was nice to remember that I actually had legs. Shoes are a different story, since every pair I wear kill my feet, and it's too cold for the old Keanes.

After a week of bumming around and Ricky being very sick with an intense cold, it was time to head back to Beijing with all of our stuff. It was a nerve-wracking few hours, getting our 3 very big suitcases and 5 smaller bags (backpacks, duffels, etc.) onto the train when it only stopped at the platform for about a minute, and then back off when we got to Beijing. But we survived, and all of our things ended up at the apartment.

Speaking of, the apartment is nice, but incredibly small. We have all of the essentials--bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, living room--and even a nice enclosed balcony that we want to make a nice greenhouse-breakfast area.  I took some pictures of the place, but the camera's not working on the work computer, so I'll get those to you later. 

Also, we can see the Great Wall from the balcony, but today, Beijing being Beijing, the smog was too thick to take a picture of it. 

But we're making it feel like home. The landlord brought in a couple of nice armchairs and a microwave, and I have the kitchen stocked with the necessities (pots, pans, spatula), but none of the fun stuff (blender, oven). The bed is dressed, our clothes are hung up, and we even bought a carpet to cover the terrible, lumpy linoleum floor, and curtains are being made as we speak. 

It's starting to feel like home. All we need now is a TV. And a cat.

The End of an Era: Headed Home

Well, folks, this is the last blog post of our travels. We have been on the road for nearly 9 months. We've been to 7 countries. We've eaten amazing foods, seen incredible things, and met wonderful people.

It's weird to think about all of this being over. We've been living out of backpacks for so long that it is such a strange thought to actually be able to live out of closets again. But we're ready for it.

 It's been a long hard road and an amazing journey. We've learned so much and grown in ways we had never imagined. We have our little tiffs but for the most part, we have grown together and learned so much about each other. I consider myself very lucky to have had these experiences with Ricky.

Tonight we fly back to Beijing. We'll spend a night in our new, mostly-furnished apartment. Then, we'll take a train back to our old city, Jinzhou, to meet up with some friends and pick up the rest of our stuff. Then it's time to rejoin the work force and the world of duty.

We're pretty excited about it. We've already planned out some things, the really important things. Like what size TV we need, and what kind of kitchen gadgets to get. Oh and work...

But don't despair, dear readers. No, we will continue to blog to our hearts' content. Expect  to hear about the sometimes frustrating life in China, weekend trips, the upcoming visit to Ireland where I meet Ricky's family and friends (wish me luck!), my adventures in grad school, and general observations on life and every aspect of it.

We look forward to our future adventures and what they will help us accomplish. We hope you continue to join us on our journey!







Dinner of Champions: Fresh Cobra--Every Bit of It!






Well, it’s been a while since we experienced this insane dinner, so it’s high time we wrote about it.

Let me start at the beginning. Ricky and I are big fans of Top Gear. For all you ‘Mericans and others who may not be familiar with it, the show is a BBC production. It  features three middle-aged men mocking each other’s hair, racing cars against men wearing jet-packs, and occasionally giving consumer advice. A few seasons ago they did a “Vietnam Special” where they bought 3 motorbikes and traversed the country from south to north. This inspired our motorbike trip. Our mistake was starting in the north, though, which wasn’t all that enjoyable. 

Well, on their trip, they stopped in the city of Dalat and had a unique dinner—Cobra. Real, live (at first) hissing cobra. Well, we decided to go to Dalat just to eat there. We didn’t have much information to go on, so we just started by asking people if they new of a restaurant that served snake. We mostly got strange looks. This wasn’t working.

After a couple days of this, Ricky got the brilliant idea of pulling up the video of the episode to see if there was a sign in front of the restaurant. It was pretty hard to see, but we started showing it to people every couple of blocks or so and got slowly guided to the right direction. Eventually we ran into a young guy that spoke English very well. He deciphered the sign perfectly and told us exactly where to go. So we headed there, and saw a sign with the same name, but it definitely wasn’t the same number on the street, and it was a different sign. And it was closed, so there was that. There was a group of people outside so we showed them our terrible ipod picture and they said it was the same restaurant.  They couldn’t do snake that night because they had a church thing to go to, so we set a reservation for the next night.

I could tell you exactly what happened, but I’m going to let the videos and pictures do the talking. It began like this:




Then this happened:



And then I had a tasty treat:



And we got ready for a drink:



After all the excitement of that, we sat down and waited for our meal: a spicy salad with vermicelli and snake organs, and hot pot with the rest of the snake meat, noodles, and veggies.

Snake innards salad

I got the tail!

Ricky prepares for a glass of blood. He doesn't look thrilled.

Snake tastes good, but look at all those tiny ribs!

Our new buddy, the champ that cut the heart out.

It was a great meal, and the family that run the place are so kind and friendly. If anyone wants to be adventurous and go there, we can help you find it. And if you're lucky, you might get a nice souvenir...


The Remnants of War: I Just Don't Understand

WARNING: Some graphic content


I’m going to admit, I had a really hard time yesterday, emotionally. Ricky and I visited the War Remnants Museum here in Saigon. The outside of the building mostly met what I expected—a bunch of leftover American planes and tanks and unexploded bombs.  I expected more of the same inside, because we had seen so much of this type of museum before.

What I got was something I wasn’t really prepared for.

See, it wasn’t really “war remnants” the way that rusty tanks left in the jungle are war remnants. No, these remnants of war were a lot more intense.

First we walked around and saw a lot of war propaganda posters and books and things. There were hundreds of photographs of protests throughout the world against the US’s involvement in Vietnam. We read stories of attempted peace talks and Ho Chi Minh’s letters to leaders of countries thanking them for their support.

We walked upstairs and my mind was filled with that neverending sense of “I don’t really understand” that I always get when faced with the atrocities of war. But I was not prepared for what would meet us on the second floor.

The first room we entered showed photographs taken of certain areas of Vietnam during the war, after being heavily attacked with bombs from American war-planes. The after pictures—of current day Vietnam—clearly showed the bomb craters dotting the land like chicken pox. These remnants of war would take a long time to be forgotten.

We then entered the Agent Orange room, the walls painted a ghastly and oddly suitable orange color. The first photographs to greet us upon entering were those of children with deformities due to AO contamination. The thing is, though, is that a few of these kids were born within the last 15 years or so. Let me explain.

American soldiers, in a brutal act against all laws of war, utilized powerful defoliants (plant-killing chemicals) like Agent Orange that contained a chemical called dioxin, which has been identified as the most toxic chemical  currently known to man (a few grams of the stuff can wipe out an entire city of millions).  American soldiers used chemical grenades and sprays from planes to kill the jungles and forests where the Vietnamese may have been hiding and hopefully kill a few in the process. This chemical, however, did more damage than expected. Contact with dioxin causes malformations in the DNA and can lead to numerous types of cancer and physical deformations. Because the change takes place in the DNA, a man that was in contact with the chemical will most likely pass on those DNA mutations to his children, and they (if having children is a physical possibility) to theirs.

So as we walked around the room, we read of children born with no limbs, with hydroencephalitis, with various types of cancer, mental retardation, and of stranger problems, such as one girl who has to live her life locked in a cage because anything she can get her hands on she will chew up and swallow, or a boy whose arms have to be tied behind his back to protect himself and those around him as he cannot control the constant flailing.

At one point, as we looked at pictures that would break anyone’s heart, Ricky looked toward me and pointed to something. As I took a closer look I realized, with horror, that it was a large glass box filled with liquid. Inside the two compartments were preserved fetuses affected by AO. There was a set of malformed Siamese twins and another fetus that was missing part of its face.  It was gruesome. And that’s when I started to lose it.



From that point on I was fighting back tears—angry, sad, frustrated tears. How the hell did anyone do this?  Who felt ok about what they were doing? What was the point of all of this? People are still suffering because of this.

I could tell others felt the same way. I stood and read the stories of three men in the US that performed self-immolaation (that is, burning oneself alive) in front of government buildings in protest of the war and the use of AO. As I read, a girl about my age stood in front of me, slightly shaking her head as she read.  Her shaking got more intense as she read through news reports and saw pictures of other AO victims (including US soldiers). We were both in unbelief. None of it made any sense.

Still fighting back emotion, we entered into the Crimes of War room. The first thing we saw upon entering was the preamble to the US Declaration of Independence:


“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I only lasted about 5 minutes in that room before I had to leave.

Being faced with those “self-evident” truths and then seeing how the US obliterated them, I kind of lost it.  There, I was faced with statements like this:

Not shown is the photograph of a ditch filled with hundreds of bodies of men, women, and children.


...and photographs like this:

An American GI holds up the remains of a Vietnamese soldier killed by a grenade.


I left immediately and waited outside for Ricky to finish walking through.

We’ve written a lot about war and tragedy on the blog, because frankly it’s not something you can avoid when traveling in this part of the world. But this museum gave me a whole new perspective on it. It made me wonder if I had been alive back then, what would I have done?

I think I can honestly say that I’d have been one of the thousands at Washington, with signs and flowers, and the whole hippy thing because the war was a mistake, something the US should never have taken part in, and it would be nice to hear more sentiments like this:

The plaque at the top left states: The the people of a united Vietnam, I was wrong..I am sorry.

Xtreme Travel!




One of the issues that I think a lot of people don’t like about travel is that it can be hard to go to a place where people haven’t already amassed, and when you get there, people tell you that another place is better.

As Talia and I continue inland in Vietnam, we were thinking and discussing how in every place you go there are people who have been to another place which surpasses the place you are in in every way, which can get a little frustrating.

Everywhere there are other travelers who have seen bigger, better, faster, older, purer renditions of what you are currently looking at. For Talia and me this doesn’t take away from the uniqueness of whatever we are looking at, as I suppose is the intention of the naysayers, but we take it all at face value, a lesson we have learned from our travels.

Hardly a day goes by when we don’t overhear a traveler, for example on a bus, saying how their souvenir is more authentic and unique because an old lady made it in her hut or whatever.

Understandably everyone takes away from an experience whatever they put into it and if something is special to you for one reason or another then good for you. But the necessity to always work in superlatives is adolescent at best. I have come to learn that I have not explored a fraction of the world and its wonders nor met enough people to really know what the ultimate experience is, so the search goes on.

We met one young French guy in Laos who was intent on being the “real” traveler, while everyone else (as he told them to their faces, including ours) was merely a tourist with a big Nikon.

But ask yourself, how many superlatives can you REALLY adhere to? I mean, there are factual superlatives and opinionated superlatives and learning the difference can matter! Just earlier today we heard a girl proclaim how the guys who drive Cruiser motorbikes and do one-on-one tours are so incredibly nicer and, I quote, “better” than the usual motorbike taxi drivers who shout at you as they drive past (though just today I would say we got more “HEY YOU”s from the cruiser riding riders).

Granted she was only speaking in the comparative, but the notion remains the same. How can one be any different to another when the only difference, the ONLY difference is one drives a smaller bike than the other?!

I’m sure we all do it from time to time (I was known as “The Topper” in my job in China) but this is my public service announcement to the people of the 2feetoutthedoor world, as a person who speaks from experience, and annoyance:


1.
Better and best are only comparative terms based on contextual personal preference, therefore making them in themselves null and void outside of the realm of your opinion until proven otherwise by fact.

2.
Even if yours is bigger, just shut your loud mouth about it.

Growing Old on the Road


A lot of changes have been happening lately. We mentioned a few posts ago that the time has come to wrap up the traveling—for now. We obviously don’t intend on ever leaving traveling behind for good. So stay tuned for the next 60 years as we take on the world!

We’ve recently accepted a job in Beijing teaching English. We’re a little nervous about it, living in such a big, crowded, and potentially expensive city. I’ve also applied to a Master’s program that I’m waiting to hear back from (send good feelings this way so I can get in!)

All these changes and the prospect of actually settling down a bit has got Ricky and me to thinking about the past 7-ish months we’ve spent traveling.  The consensus is that we’ve really “grown up” on this trip.  Obviously, we were already adults who had done adult-y things. We’d both lived away from home, had jobs (though I’d say that Ricky’s job as an assistant manager at a hotel was probably more adult than my custodian gig at college), paid rent, all that. But this kind of long term travel has aged us in ways we didn’t expect.

As a lot of you know, we were affected greatly by tragedies that have happened in so many places. Seeing the remnants of war has given us new views on what we’d only vaguely heard about before. We came to see that what we only sort of hear about on the news has much more far reaching effects on people worlds away. 

This kind of thing ages you. Seeing what war does to people—how it tears apart civilians who didn’t ask for that sort of thing to happen, how they try to adapt and survive, how a city will never be the same—that kind of thing makes you old. That kind of thing makes you think about things that the average 20-something might not be inclined to ponder. It gives you whole new ideas on right and wrong, the value of life, morality, ethics, and loss.

War isn’t the only thing to have changed us. No, every aspect of life in the countries we’ve visited has changed us. The poverty, food and lack of it, community, tribal life, the moments of kindness that have been given to us, and the ones we attempt to give back—there is no way that being in the midst of these things can leave you emotionally or mentally static.

I know that most people throughout their lifetimes experience certain things that help them learn what we have learned, but our process was a sort of high-speed evolution to a certain maturity, a certain understanding of how places outside of our homes really are.  Living it is more than what a documentary on National Geographic can prepare you for.

But it’s not all war and local life that’s given us that adult feeling. We’ve grown in other ways that otherwise would have taken us ages. For example, Ricky, who I like to refer to as Map Brain at certain times, does indeed have a brain like a map. He can navigate us through an unknown city to the section where most of the low-priced hostels are, or find our way back after roaming the town looking for some decent food. I’ve never been so good, but my skills in navigation and recognition of landmarks and directions has definitely improved.

We’ve both gotten better at negotiating prices and being unashamed at doing so. This was a talent I had hoped to work on upon my arrival in China, and I did ok, but I feel like I have mastered the skill as we have haggled for everything from hotel rooms to bottled water. We usually are pretty confident that we get the best price (at least the best prices white faces like ours are allowed). This skill has come in handy as we have interviewed for jobs and negotiated prices and benefits to our advantage.

I’ve never really been good at talking to people. Making chit-chat is my idea of one of the outer rings of Hell.  I often feel I have nothing to say and small talk with strangers is strained and awkward. Well, after being on the road with someone, being with him 24/7 for this long, no matter how much I love him, I (both of us, actually) have craved conversation with other people. Ricky often makes the first move, but I usually have no problem joining in with the conversation any more. I have things to say, newfound opinions, experiences to share, and advice to give. I can contribute. And what’s more adult than having a heated conversation about gun laws where actual facts and statistics are used, as opposed to simply shouting your political preference?

Now, armed with all of our new knowledge, experience, and skills, Ricky and I are ready to begin the next phase of true adulthood. We’re getting ready to sign contracts, rent an apartment, and pay some bills.

Wait..how do I push rewind? I don’t know if I’m ready for this! 

Chasing the Dragon




I heard somewhere, I think it was when I was in College, that when a person takes heroin for the first time, they get a certain kind of high. What makes this specific high unique, apart from it being the first time, is that it is the greatest most amazing feeling and can only be felt exactly like that once.

Once the user becomes an addict and starts to abuse the drug on a regular basis, the high that the user felt the first time seems to go further and further out of grasp. That first high was an amazing feeling and becomes impossible to match no matter how much the user tries.

This, in drug terms, is called "chasing the dragon".

I tell you this because Talia and I have been chasing a different type of proverbial dragon since we were young. This is one of the main things that we have in common and brings us together.

When we started in China and we saw some of the most amazing things like the giant Buddha at LeShan and the last bastion for giant pandas in the panda reserve in Chengdu, we got a little sliver of flavor for what we wanted to experience. We had a taste test for travel in Asia. When our time in China came to an end and we entered Laos in August last year our expectations were almost non- existent and we were fresh and open to new experiences.

As it turned out, we loved Laos. We loved the hell out of Laos. In fact, we loved it so much that if I had a million dollars I would open a small noodle shop, only open when I felt like it and live my days away in what we thought was the most amazing, beautiful, bountiful country in the world that we have seen.

The people of Laos are very happy, despite having very few material goods. They don’t know much about the outside world and they don’t feel the need to learn much about it. Life in Laos is slow and simple and can be therapeutic and relaxing to the extreme. Children play beside the road, followed by dogs and chickens while huge buffalo laze in shallow pools of muddy water. Places like the Monkey Forest show off the astounding fertility of the land as new mothers carry their infants through the trees in a small forest surrounded by bright green rice fields. There is a life and vitality in Laos that we hadn’t experienced elsewhere.

This was our dragon.

We had been in living in China for so long that when we began to travel, some of the novelty had already worn off. But when we left and entered Laos we felt a rush, an exhilaration of sorts. This was new and different and unfamiliar, almost like a dream.  We were experiencing it together and we both fell into a sort of trance; we were mesmerized by the land and people. I think somehow, deep down, we knew that nothing could be better than this.


After Laos we visited Cambodia, which I was excited about. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to expectations (I know it’s hard to generalize an entire country but any urban centre in Cambodia just seemed to be filled with corruption and greed, though once we found a secluded beach we were happy enough!)

After Cambodia, we went to Thailand, then Laos again and now Vietnam. Though we haven’t really given Thailand a good run (we were only there for two weeks), we still haven’t felt that “buzz” Laos gave us.

In Laos, there aren’t that many huge sights to see like the Great Wall of China. It’s landlocked so there are no beaches like Cambodia or Thailand, the food is pretty average and unexciting, most people don’t even have electricity. But there’s just something about that place. Something inexplicable, something supernatural like our own Bali’ Hai.

I know after I settle down for another year in China, and I start to travel once more thereafter in other continents and other parts of Asia, I will find a new dragon to chase. I know if I buy a minivan and drive around Europe for a few months I will find a new Bali’ Hai which I will love unconditionally for reasons I can’t explain, but for now, Laos is where my heart lies.

Laos is my south-east Asian oriental Dragon which many places will have difficulty living up to.

Here Comes the Sun: Happiness in Hoi An

Well, first of all, we'd like to apologize for slacking on the blog. The next phase of our journey together is drawing near, and we have been busy looking for teaching jobs in China. We had an interview yesterday and are ready for another one tomorrow.

But the more exciting thing is that we finally made it to warmth! Remember how we were in the north of Vietnam so long, freezing our butts off on the motorbikes? Well a few days ago we reached Hoi An and we couldn't be happier. It has been sunshiney and warm, something we desperately needed. The other day we rented bicycles and went to the beach. The water was a bit cold, but lying there on the sand in the warm sun was heavenly. Also, this happened.

I was relaxing and Ricky gets bored easily.




Also, Hoi An is known for a couple things: food, and tailored clothes/shoes. Let me address the former.

Ah the food! It's been so long since I've eaten pho, and I couldn't be happier! Now, I quite enjoy a good bowl of pho, but after eating it twice a day for over a month...well, it gets tiresome. Instead, we've feasted on a few of the local specialties like fried won-tons covered with sauteed veggies (definitely not like won-tons you're used to, but incredibly delicious!), rice paper pancakes, and especially cao lau. I'm going to take a cooking class in a couple of days to learn how to make a couple of these dishes.

Aside from the local food, there are quite a few Western options. However, as we've seen in other towns, the portions are pitiful and expensive. We've all but given up trying to get a hamburger or pasta to satisfy cravings, because by the time we've finished, we're still hungry, and broke.  So now, we eat a couple bowls of cheap cao lau (as low as a dollar a bowl) and then treat ourselves to a nice ice cream.

Now, the other thing Hoi An is famous for--custom tailored clothes. It seems as if every other shop on every street in town is a tailor shop. But not only do they do clothes, they also make custom shoes. On our first night here, Ricky decided to take full advantage of the opportunity. He has a hard time finding shoes that fit, especially in Asia, so we sat in a shop, looking at different shoes and materials, finding just the right combination.

Behold the glory!

Sunglasses not included.

Represent.


A perfect fit, and a splash of personality!

I'm looking at having a dress and maybe a pair of shorts made here, but it's Tet time (Vietnamese New Year) so prices have gone up. In a couple of days when things settle down, I'll give it another go. $20 for a dress is pretty good, but no way am I paying $30 for a pair of shorts! I'm sure once the holidays are over, prices will go back down, and haggling will be easier.

So that's what we've been up to lately, and I promise we'll try to make future posts a little more philosophical and/or interesting. Until then, take another look at how great Ricky's shoes are.

Setting an Example: West Meets East



Yes, it is true that Talia and I are getting a little worn and tired. We are almost seven months living out of bags and the strain is starting to become a little too much. We spent ten days in one city, eight of those we barely left the hotel room. I got a cold and then after two days’ sightseeing we both got food poisoning (for the first time since we started really, which is very lucky) which left us in bed for two whole days.

We are continuing along and we still have six and a half weeks in Vietnam before we beach bum for a month in Cambodia again (because we loved it so much the first time!!) and then off to China for another year.

Continuing is certainly not easy either, though. Considering how tired we are. We have been eating from local food stalls and restaurants for so long that our well being is starting to slow us down. We sleep more and find ourselves pretty lethargic even on the best of days.

And driving a motorbike can be difficult too. We don’t have the option of saying “let’s take the bus this time,” because how does the bike get there?

Right now we are in a national park called Cuc Phoung, and I arrived here a little shaken up. While driving a motorbike has way more liberties and is a lot more enjoyable for us than public transport, it has its negative moments too, one of which Talia told you guys about before when we were in Sapa, another when we were in Laos and Talia came close to having a serious accident, and today was another.

We only had to drive a short distance today, around 50km or so from Ninh Binh to Cuc Phoung and all I wanted was an uneventful spin to our destination. As we drove along the road northbound, I was looking for our left turn to take us to the national park. While all of this looking for non-existent signs, Vietnam traffic and making sure Talia is behind me stresses me out, it doesn’t help when you look ahead and see a crowd of people standing around what is obviously an accident.

While in a western country a crowd of people would signify a fender bender, in Vietnam there are no fender benders. Almost everyone rides a motorbike, so when you see bikes whizzing around trucks on a main road of about the same quality as a road a westerner would be more accustomed to seeing at the bottom of a quarry, you can be sure there has been a serious accident.

I looked across and could clearly see two policemen in their beige uniforms standing over the body of a man, wrapped around what was left of his motorbike. The man was face down with his helmet still on, lying in an awkward position with one leg under the twisted ruin that was his Honda Dream. The seat of the motorbike was jutting off to the side and just as I passed two men moved the corpse’s leg off the bike and had to roll the bike over it’s front wheel just to get it free from the earth and body.

I saw it as we rolled past slowly and thought it best not to point this out to Talia, I kinda regretted seeing it myself considering I, too, was riding a two wheeler through the same traffic the empty vessel on the ground just was.

As I drove onward I was having a little freakout of my own about having an accident. It’s not uncommon for my emotions to surface and for me to speak my mind but, today, I had a little freakout.

As I drove along with two bikes in front of me in single file, the bike in the middle began to overtake. “Great!” I thought, so I followed behind the overtaking bike. Suddenly the overtaker hits the brakes, with me behind, and slows down to have a chat with the overtakee, leaving me slamming on my brakes and boxed in with traffic coming towards me from the other side of the road.

I held out my fist and got ready to teach a lesson to the rider of the bike as I was passing, and shouted “YOU STUPID F*CK*NG C*NT” as I passed and just grabbed onto my handle bars with a dead man’s grip out of pure anger. Anger at how, not five minutes after I see a lifeless body on the road, I am almost in a road accident myself. A road accident that would have probably left the foreigner taking the blame, could have got someone badly hurt or killed, but worst of all, an accident that could have been easily avoided.

I thought to myself “If I am coming off this motorbike it will be on my terms and not because of someone else who shouldn’t be in control of a hula hoop, never mind a motorbike.”

We made it to our destination with a couple more shouting matches in our trail and I thought it was time to calm down. One of the weird things about the whole experience, the mangled body, the twisted wreck, my anger, reminded me of something.

It reminded me of a time when I was in Jinzhou and I was cycling to work with my flatmate Matt. We both cycled along, me in front, crossing the bridge over the river when I spotted a small dog, in the middle of the four lane bridge. The dog was stuck and the drivers couldn’t see it through all of the traffic which meant it didn’t have much longer to live.

I remember shouting “SH*T NO” and pointed the scene out to Matt, who didn’t know what was happening. I stood there in my stupefied state not knowing what to do after hopping off my bike to see if the dog would make it or not, when Matt, in all his dog-loving glory, jumped off his bike –while it was still moving full speed- ran without hesitation to the middle of the road, through the traffic and somehow scared the dog to the other side of the road, almost causing a very bad accident for himself.

I remember seeing Matt do this but today I realized why I remember it so well. It’s not the act of saving the dog that matters, It’s the act of a foreigner saving the dog. The fact that the white man in the sea of yellow risked serious injury to help, not just a stranger, but a dog. Something which is a lesser commodity than an inanimate object in most Asian countries.

The whole thing reminded me of how we are all ambassadors to our own countries when we travel. We are all people who represent who we are, where we come from and what we stand for. It’s our reactions to what we see and what others say that makes us who we are.

I may not be the epitome of international ambassadors--in fact I have a long way to go--but on a good day, when I don’t have a freakout, I try to do my best.

The fact is I don’t want to westernize the east, but I also don’t like to see death and heartache for no good reason when it can be avoided. For one person, when I shout at bad drivers it’s out of my own arrogance, which I can understand. But regardless of the expression, the sentiment of trying to prevent an accident is the focal point and can’t be lost behind an idiotic veil of pleasantries.

Honestly, I do regret shouting at that man today, but maybe if enough people shout at him he won’t end up wrapped around HIS Honda Dream in the next week, or cause a bad accident for someone else.

I’m not saying everyone should visit foreign countries and shout every time something happens that is different from the way it happens back home. For me, personally, I try to set a good example by not littering, by smiling, learning the local language and culture etc. For Matt, his idea of setting a good example (whether consciously or sub-consciously) was doing what no Chinese person would do to save the life of a mere stray.

I may have lost control today in a small fit of anger, but as an ambassador for my country I may have made someone pay more attention to the road in future.

Or just made someone racist, who knows….







On Wanderlust




There’s this thing called Restless Leg Syndrome. My mom, her sisters, and my grandmother all have it, as far as a self-diagnosis can let you have it. I’ve got it too. If you don’t know what it is, then you’re very lucky. But let me explain it to you.

It usually happens at night, or when you’re tired. For me, it starts in my thighs—a weird tingling sensation. Well, less a tingling than a sort of wiggling feeling, like a bunch of mice are running around in there. I have to stand up, walk around, do some stretches, punch myself in the thigh—anything to make the restless feeling stop. Usually, there’s nothing to do but go to bed, stretch out, and hope I’m tired enough to fall asleep before the mice chew their way out of my calves. 

As you can imagine, it’s a very uncomfortable feeling.

But what happens when you get Restless Leg syndrome in your soul?  What do you do when your very being needs to get up and move, to stretch out before you go insane?

Welcome to wanderlust, my friends.

I’ve been stricken with wanderlust, and bad. It started when I was getting ready to graduate high school and knew I had to get away from my quick-sand small town. So I went to Hawaii for college.  After that, I found myself in Argentina for a year and a half. Then Utah to finish college (which I admit isn’t the most wanderlust-y place I could have gone, but it was still a place that I’d never lived in long-term before).  After the (let’s just call it what it was) blandness of 2 years in Utah (which, granted, was interrupted by a study abroad in the UK, a tour in Ireland, and a couple random trips to California and Vegas), my legs were restless. I needed to be on the move again.

So I ended up in China. For a year. And now, traveling in Asia for the last 6 months. I’m stretching my soul, giving myself a few hops to ease the restlessness.

But why does it happen? Why does it happen to some people and not others? I know several people, friends and family, who have barely left their hometown, who may have never left their country, or heaven forbid, their state. It astounds me. Why don’t some people have the desire to just go?

Well, let’s take a look at the word. Wanderlust. Wander. To wander. It’s a word that implies aimlessness, perhaps confusion, or being lost. People wander around when they aren’t really sure where they’re going or what they’re looking for.

But just in case you thought this timeless cliché of a quote was going to escape this post: Not all who wander are lost.

Sometimes, people just wander. Sometimes, we don’t need to have a goal or an endpoint in mind. Sometimes we just want to walk around and see what we find, despite not really looking for anything.

I’m a wanderer. I can spend hours wandering a supermarket or a shopping mall or a busy street, not looking for anything, not trying to get anywhere, but just seeing. The way people walk, how things are organized, where things come from—these are the things I like to see. I’m a browser, and not just for products.

But what about the people who don’t wander? What about those that don’t feel the need to walk the aisles or people watch or just take a walk?  Often, they’re goal oriented—get a degree, get a job, score that promotion, buy a new hairbrush. Whatever it is, they go for it, point A to point B, no room for browsing. Or they don’t. Sometimes it’s the people with no goal that don’t wander. They’re comfortable where they are, with what they have. They don’t deviate from the tried-and-true, the solid foundation of proven success (or failure).  Maybe never leaving home means security. Maybe staying in your hometown means comfort and a sense of belonging.

And maybe wandering means just a bit more complications.

But what about the second part? Lust. What a loaded word. Fire, passion, sex—these are the words of lust. Danger. Risk.  This is what lust has to offer.

So why not?

Why not indulge in the lust of wandering? Why not delve into the risks, the challenges, the potential dangers of wanderlust? 

I can think of no reason not to. If you have the passion for it, you can make it happen, regardless of the risks.  Sure, there is no security in wandering, true wandering. There is no fail-safe plan, no insurance. But that does not mean that it is impossible, implausible, improbable.

The passion for wandering is a passion that is strong and difficult to quench. To lust after the wandering experience is to lust after a phantom that is always just out of your grasp. The more you chase her, the more you want her, and the further she is away from you.

Until the chase has satisfied you. Because it’s not the ghost you want, but the hunt.

And what do you do then, when your world-wandering has been sated, when your restless legs have been stretched and kneaded into tranquility?

You wait. You wait because wanderlust is an addiction. The cravings will come again, stronger than before, and won’t be satisfied until you get up and go.  They will be there whether you are ready for them or not, so be prepared.

I’ve been traveling for a long time. I feel like I’ve been on the move for years. I settle down for a year or two at a time, but it’s never permanent. And I like it that way. 

Now, as Ricky and I are a third of the way through our Vietnam motorbike tour, so far over 6 months of traveling, we feel that our wanderlust is being sated for the time being.  Following our trip here, we will be looking for work in China, and a little stability.  Our lady wanderlust has left us dirty, bearded (Ricky, at least), hairy legged (the both of us), and generally unkempt. We’re slightly ill, unhygienic, and sore. But mostly we’re happy.

Wanderlust is a fickle mistress.

So in March, we’ll let her go for a while.

But she’ll come back. She always does.

Ch-ch-ch Changes?



Talia and I sit here in a cafĂ© in North central Vietnam. I have a small cold and we haven’t been able to see any sights or do anything interesting because of it.

I haven’t blogged in a while and while there are many reasons why, I decided to write a little today and share my thoughts.

A lot of the people we speak to don’t really know what we are doing here, in Asia. We heard from Talia’s brother at Christmas that some people seem to think that we are on an Indiana Jones style adventure which, while untrue, would be quite pleasant. No, we aren’t running through caves with huge boulders rolling behind us. We have been to a few tribal villages but they haven’t chased us or tried to eat or sacrifice us…

So what have we been doing? Well… I have no idea. I have no clue. One of the reasons I haven’t written in a while is because I have been doing a little soul searching, trying to find what it is that I am doing.

I am in a very small community of people (just me and my girlfriend, about as small as a community can get) and though we share everything, I spend a lot of time in my solitary shell. Just thinking to myself about … well….. myself.

What am I doing? Am I doing more than the other average traveler? Is that what I want to do? But most importantly, how does it affect ME? So while most people we meet are doing something similar to us, though usually on shorter schedules and quite often more touristic, is that me too?

Am I just an ecologically negative force on my surroundings, taking the same photographs of the same stuff as everyone else? Sometimes I wonder if the money I saved for this trip could have been spent on a nice new Audi, or a deposit for a nice two bedroom apartment overlooking suburbia.

No.

I’m doing this for me.

I am travelling and seeing and doing for the sake of myself and how it will affect me as a person.

All of the time I spend reflecting and thinking about my past, all of the mistakes I made and the trouble I caused. All of the apologies I owe and mistakes, mistakes, mistakes. While I’m sure that because I spend so much time here in my solitary shell thinking about my past while living my present, everything I think is expanded and grows to a gargantuan psychological force that I must over-power and come out the other side a better person.

I saw a movie recently,  a Dreamworks cartoon, but the parallels suffice. The movie was “Bee Movie” and in one of the first scenes there are two bees conversing over their summer experiences. One bee says he was glad he spent the summer travelling around the bee hive, the other bee says “yeah, you really came back different.”

Different?! Will anyone ever comment on my difference when I return to the world? Will others complement my “differences” when I return, the differences in my expectations, personality, wants, intelligence, etc. Will I be different to the one who made all of those mistakes? Or has all of this just been a dream where when I wake up I still don’t talk to certain people because of a mistake I made in my past that in their eyes I am still to be held accountable for?

Will I be able to sit at the adult table at the next family wedding or will I once again be pushed to play kids games at the kids table because I didn’t grow up and get a real job yet, because I haven’t paid into my pension fund like some other people in my life who chose successful work over world travel?

I guess the closest analogy I can make is if I see myself as a shining light, and as I pass through a pane of glass, how do I come out the other side? Will I come out the same as before, just with a fistful of photographs and a boastful ego? Perhaps I come out the other side a completely different colour, as if the glass is stained. But has it stained me for the better or the worse?

I look around and picture Vietnam, in fact all of South East Asia, or even East Asia, with it’s rice paddies and conical straw hats, the stilted houses, and everything that all of this could ever entail. I see all of this as two things, one being amazing experiences, experiences unique to me which I get to enjoy the way I want. And secondly as my pane of glass.  All of this is my shot at redemption. My chance to mentally right my own wrongs on my own terms and come to realize my own faults so I can better myself for the good of primarily myself and secondarily the people around me, especially those close to me.

Who am I? I’m a work in progress.

To Tour or Not to Tour: Get a Guide or Do it Solo?





When we travel, we generally prefer our freedom. We like to go our own way and do our own thing. That’s one reason we love having the motorbikes so much—we don’t even have to rely on public transportation. We are on our schedule, and with a map, a compass, and some basic language skills, we can get to where we need to go.

Once in a while though, we take an organized tour. Sometimes we’re a little disappointed with the result, but sometimes it works out just fine. So here’s a little of our opinions on touring.

One of the reasons we usually don’t take tours is that they are often pretty expensive.  They definitely cost more than doing it on your own. But sometimes, you just can’t do it on your own. For example, in
Cambodia, we took a tour to see a floating village. It was $12 per person, which was a bit pricy, but included seeing a crocodile farm and sunset over the lake. We didn’t know if we could get there and just organize our own boat, and since we didn’t have our bikes, we’d have to take a tuk-tuk anyway.

Just recently, we took a 24 hour boat tour through Halong Bay. It was also fairly pricy at $70 a head, but included 4 meals and entrance to caves and a floating village.  We didn’t know if there was a better way to see the bay, so we decided to do it.

First things first: Do some shopping. For both of these tours we pretty much just took the first offer we saw.  It can be time-consuming and somewhat of a hassle to visit all the tour companies and offices, but it might be worth it. For example, a few others on the same Halong Bay tour as us paid only $45 each. I think we could have gotten a better deal if we had taken our time and shopped around for better prices.

And another thing, consider what is included, and subtract about 20%. There are always mishaps, mistakes, and problems. For the Cambodia tour, a bus was supposed to pick us up at our guesthouse at a set time. Well it didn’t come, and it didn’t come, and it didn’t come.  We ended up walking to the tour office only to find a ton of other people waiting.  The time was getting late, and we were worried we wouldn’t get to see the sunset. It turns out they overbooked the tour, the bus had gone with a load of people, and they were waiting on a couple of tuk-tuks to take the rest of us.

Setting off for the village, hoping we make it there before the sun sinks.
By the time we got to the village, it was nearly sunset, which meant we didn’t get to see the crocodile farm or much of the village in daylight.  

Except for this floating church.


When we left, we didn’t really feel like the tour was worth it, and many of our companions weren’t pleased either.


So the tour wasn't responsible for the cloud...but still.

 \
But we did get to see these kids with snakes.

 As for the Halong Bay cruise, it mostly went ok. Lunch and dinner were tasty, if a little meager (good thing we brought Pringles and Oreos to fill in the gap!), and the sights were nice. We even had a nice room and bathroom with hot water. Breakfast was a disappointment with 4 slices of white bread, a quarter of a 1-egg omelet and a slice of pear. 

The most important meal of the day.


Once again, thanks to Pringles we survived. More unfortunately, however, was the absence of lunch. Ricky and I were promised it as part of the tour, but apparently it only went for those traveling back to Hanoi by bus, so we were out a meal.

So, in all, it often seems that the tours are more expensive than what they are physically worth—meaning food, transportation, all that stuff is usually on the cheap side, and you could do much better on your own. But then you have to consider the fact that some of the experiences had make up for that, even if it is only a good story, or a warning to other travelers (take heed!)

Our beautiful cruise ship.


The Halong Bay cruise was fun and I am very glad we did it, despite the price. We met other amazing travelers, learned a new card game, had great laughs, and got to see some beautiful scenery, and get more information about what we were seeing from our English-speaking guide. Ricky got to kayak under a national emblem and I was serenaded by an elderly man as he rowed our bamboo boat through the floating village. 
That rock there in front, that's the national emblem. It's on the 200,000 dong note.


 We finished the tour by basking on top of the boat under a sun we hadn’t seen in weeks, enjoying the warmth on our faces. 

In short, for all you travelers out there, consider your options for experiencing a new place. If, like us, you have more time than money, try to spend a lot of that time on your own, seeing things your own way. It’s cheaper, and often more fun. On the other hand, if you have limited time and want to see everything, tours are a good way to go. They take you to all the big things to see, and you rarely have to worry about the details.

And we're so happy! 
We’re probably done with organized tours for now, though we are planning on getting a guide for our romp through a national park later this week.  With the bikes, it’s a lot easier to do things on our own, and we like it that way.

What do you travelers think? Is it better to tour or do it on your own?

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