worldli.

Spotted Seal + Solitaire

I just got back from spending a week in La Mision, Baja, Mexico, to help my friend Rob with a video. The video was a flashmob dance intended to promote tourism in Baja, because lets face it - no one is going to Mexico anymore. And we just don’t understand why! Its safe, fun, cheap and the people are very friendly. Just use your commons sense and you will be fine!

Anyhow, on my last day in Baja, two amazing things happened: I won at Solitaire and I saved a baby seal’s life (hopefully). As we were all sitting around the kitchen table, waiting for Rob to cook up a delicious breakfast of eggs, aguacate, chorizo and bacon, I decided to try my hand at Solitaire. I could never get past the first few moments - each time the cards were against me. “Two minutes,” Rob announced. I had two more minutes, enough time to lay out one more hand. I moved fast, slamming the cards down, scanning the options, moving the cards to their rightful spots, putting cards from the deck down. Card by card, it was flowing smoothly. I was making it happen. I didn’t get my hopes up, but as I got the fourth ace and started placing the number cards down it was looking good. Faster. Plates were put down on the table. Five of spades onto the ace of spades pile. The smell of bacon tantalizes my nose. Placemats are down. Only a few more cards now. Everyone is at the table laughing - I won!! I won at Solitaire. Ahhh, how satisfying. And then Ralph showed me the true way to see if you won - cut the deck exactly in half and then put each card down one by one. They will seperate according to number and suit…magic!

After breakfast, Rob and I took a walk on the beach. He went boogie boarding and I went for a run. Some of the local gringos were ahead; their dogs were barking and they appeared to be yelling. I saw some movement in the sand, which riled the dogs up more. I jogged over to see what was going on. It was a baby spotted seal, with a hook in its side. The dogs were viciously attacking this unknown creature, as their owners screamed at them to stop and tried to use the leash to scare them away. The screaming intensified as the seal made it to the water and the gringos could no long protect the seal from the dogs because they were in jeans and trainers. Just as one of the dogs sank his teeth into the small seal, I ran into the cold and started splashing. The dogs were so excited and barking - but backed off as I splashed them. The two dogs circled me, still trying to get at the seal. I held them off until the little creature finally got to deep enough water where it could swim away. Sigh. Between the Mexicans with their hooks and the gringos with their animals, I am surprised that there is any sealife left!

2 days ago

"Public Enemies" advance screening, LA style

One of the reasons that I love Los Angeles is because everything here seems so surreal - its as if the entire town is straight out of a movie.  Everything that happens seems so perfectly constructed and cinematic.

So when I arrived into Los Angeles and found myself parachuted into an advanced screening of Johnny Depp’s latest movie, “Public Enemies,” I was hardly surprised.  It made perfect sense that this was what I was doing within an hour of being back in LA.  I was heading to an advanced private screening of a new Hollywood film at the Academy of Arts and Sciences theater (the group that does the Oscars).  I was with my friends Robert, Kristen and Lauren, and we were running a little late.  The confirmation said to be there by 6:15, and we were at the stoplight in front of the theater at 6:15. There was a line that went around the corner - “Phew,” we thought, “the line isn’t too bad.”  But as we inched forward through the left turn line, the line kept going. “It’s going around the block,” we all screamed.  Now we were nervous that we weren’t going to get in.

Parking in the parking deck was also such an LA experience - as we drove in a woman was standing there swiping cards to let visitors in.  ”Take a left,” she said with a thick foreign accent.  I felt like we were going into an exclusive party, driving into the secret location garage on our way down into the depths of cool-ness.  I put on my Ray-Bans and banged my head to the beat.  We all laughed.

The parking garage was so organized - only in LA could there be such a system.  Cars get parked, then double-parked and triple-parked.  Cars are jam-packed in there, organized by a crew of fast workers, because they know that absolutely no one is walking or riding a bike there.  Oh LA, sigh.

As we join the line it only gets more intense from there. There are large black security guards with Bluetooth headsets on.  There are skinny white dudes in suits yelling instructions and business-fierce women handing out forms to fill out.  ”You cannot bring any phones with a camera function into the theater. Please wait to get your blue ticket and then take them back to the car.”  I was handing a form and a pen.  NAME. GENDER. ADDRESS. SHOE SIZE. SIGNATURE. FAVORITE SEXUAL FETISH.  I felt so violated! Now Obama is going to know what movie I saw as well?!?!?!?

This was such an operation, Hollywood in action.  The company was called “The Screen Exchange” and I can only imagine how much money they make from doing this kind of thing.  ”Public Enemies” had a reported budget of $80 million; if this company is in charge of doing market research and promoting the film, even a one percent chunk of that is $800,000.  So these people weren’t messing around.

The line was also so LA - people were only talking about the movie business.  ”Bob is working on this…Susie just got a role…I cant believe [insert latest gossip here]”  Then I found myself dropping into old habits, talking about this shoot I am going down to Baja for, as well as my first commercial producing/directing gig that I just got.  I was just part of the scene, man!

And of course, this being LA, everyone was super attractive.  T-shirts everywhere, pretty dresses, well-made up faces.  The houses on the block were cute, the lawns were perfectly manicured, the shadows danced lazily on the buildings.  There was an energy in the line, a feeling that we were special and part of something that no one else was.  We are about to see a big-new-talked-about movie one week before anyone else! We. Are. So. In.  Its hard not to get excited when you are about to see a movie that you actually want to see, that no one else has seen, for free.

Things continue to become even more surreal-LA.  A handsome twenty-something makes a paper airplane. After sticking it in the mouth he flies it across a lawn and it wedges nicely in a drainpipe coming down from a house’s gutter. A woman comes out of her house on her cordless phone, she’s in home-chic in a bandanna and sweatpants, but looks hot.  People keep driving by asking what the line is for. “Grand opening of a 99 cent store,” one guy responds. The line cracks up. I crack up because as I was walking down Mission in San Francisco this morning, there was a sign outside one of the theaters, “Grand Opening June 26” - and it was a 99 cent store.  

A tween-age girl lowers the window of her mother’s shiny black Lexus SUV as they slowly drive by. “What’s the line for,” she asks.  No one responds, as the SUV creeps further towards Wilshire. “What’s the line for,” she asks more insistently.  Nothing.  ”Whats the line for,” she asks almost pleadingly. Its as if this is the first time no one has ever answered her on the first try in her entire life. Things might be collapsing for her - I could see it in her eyes.  Finally some one tells her, and she rolls up her window and continues on.

We. Are. So. In.

Finally we get to the entrance of the Academy building and we have to go through security - give numbered blue ticket, empty pockets, go through metal detector, gather belongings, join heard of people going into theater.  Because we arrived on-time, we are some of the last people to get into the theater and they are hurrying us in.  They want to get this show on the road.

A man appears at the front of the theater.  Well-cut blazer, balanced black frames on his face, he exudes Mr. Hollywood. “Welcome,” his voice booms. I wonder if this is the guy who does the previews. “We are so excited to have you here tonight, and thank you for coming.  You are some of the first people to see the movie!”  Cheers and applause. “There’s not much we can say about the picture, so let’s get this show started!”  Yes, he said “picture.”  The two giant Oscars at each side of the theater stage glisten under dedicated spotlights.  I could have sworn that they gleamed even brighter right when the Hollywood Man said “picture.”

The picture was good. I thought that Johnny Depp did a great job portraying Dillinger sympathetically, although a) Im not sure why Americans always identify with the outlaw, and b) I could not understand anything he said.  What’s with all the mumbling JD?  Or maybe it was because we were so close to the screen in the second row that I was distracted by his giant pores or the hairs above his moustache that that hair/MU Department neglected to trim.  Heads are going to roll for whoever let those hairs slip - seeing one rogue Depp whisker is so damn distracting when that whisker is 6 inches long on the big screen!

Seriously though, the movie was pure Michael Mann. Shootouts came a dime a dozen and there are some classic car chase scenes with men hanging out of windows with fire-breathing tommy guns.  The movie might be a tad trite and romanticized, but it is well worth it.  It makes you wonder what would have happened had J Edgar Hoover not started to embrace science in the pursuit of criminals - Dillinger was one of the last popular outlaws before the government employed science to change everything.

Movie ends, credits roll, curtain falls.  Another LA moment as we arrive at the parking deck to find that all cars have been turned around by the super-efficient garage staff, so that every car is now facing the right direction for exit.  Chaos, and great gobs of COs, still reins as we wait 20 minutes for hundreds of cars to right themselves and get out of the deck.  

Only in LA folks, only in LA.

1 week ago

Iran

Its hard not to get caught up in the giddy elation of tech-purists at how Twitter and Facebook are empowering Iranians to fight back against voter fraud and their conservative, repressive regime.  I sit there gaping at the videos on YouTube, watching protestors throwing tear gas canisters back at riot police…and I cant help but wonder what the world is going to look like in 20 years.  Already the past five have brought YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, the very tools that are reshaping politics around the world.  If this is what accelerated technology is bringing us, I cannot imagine what’s next.

Will information truly be free flowing? Will this be a democratic utopia, where everyone’s voice is heard and we are all equal under the machine? What happens when we become the machines?  What happens if Woody Allen’s Sleeper comes true (LOVE that movie by the way)?

These are excellent questions that can be debated all night.  It is important that we all consider our own relation and interaction with technology however, for day-by-day it gets easier to become the ghost in the machine.

1 week ago

RIP Annie

I got the phone call from my mother this morning that I have been expecting: “I have some news about Annie. And I think you know what that means.”  My cat was put to sleep yesterday morning. She was 22.  And while I knew this was coming as she had been losing health lately, it is still a strange feeling to know that a living being that has been in my life since I was 5 is dead.  Twenty two years is a long time.  And with Annie’s death it seems as if a chapter has closed and I am moving onto the next story.  The next stage.

Strangely it is as if I am finally emerging into adulthood. I am 26 years old, trying to make my way in the world.  Struggling to pay rent, to buy food and figure out how I want to fit into this big place.  That cat was the last thing that regularly reminded me of my childhood, the last vestige of something precious that I can barely remember.  She represented a lot more than just my cat - she was my tenuous link with so much that had passed and been forgotten. So many fleeting moments as well as many serious ones.  She presided over a the majority of my life in ways that my parents did not - I talked to her, I told her my secrets, I cuddled with her, I played with her.  She was always my best friend because she was unconditional - there was never any moodiness and she never talked back.  She just was.

And I will miss her. I am so blessed to have had her alive for such a long life.  She had a fantastic life up until the last three months, and for that I am glad.  I would not change a thing, and while it hurts to say that Annie is dead, she is still so very much alive in my mind.

1 week ago

Mongolia - Revisited

Mongolia was one of my favortie countries - it is the least densely populated country in the world, and as such is so humbling.  Mongolia just has this staggering beauty that slams you in the stomach.

—-

7-days in the Gobi Desert with 6 other people in a Soviet van-jeep is plenty, let me tell you! I think that traveling with so many people has reminded me why it is that I travel alone..it..s very hard to get such a big-beast moving! And while we wasted much more time than a traveling Vivion normally would, and did not have much access to true Mongolian culture given our group..s size, it was still a legendary experience. A legendary bumpy and shaky experience..the roads in Mongolia are not made for many vehicles so they are just kind of haphazardly placed around the countryside, created by those who regularly drive them. Not even gravel, the roads are just ruts in the ground. No signs, with only the mountains to guide you, I truly felt like I was in the middle of nowhere.

Mongolia is the least densely populated country in the world, with only 2.1 people per square kilometer. So not only did I feel like I was in the middle of nowhere, I actually WAS. The 8 of us, including our driver, quadrupled the average population of each square kilometer that we traveled .. that is simply astounding. And we did indeed go for hours without seeing another soul. Not a car, not a camel, not a horse, nothing. Just our own dust cloud. I loved it! I relished the opportunity to get away from the crazy cities that I had been in since the beginning of my travels, and I took the time to think about where I..ve been and where I..m going. My head was working furiously away, using the surrounding vast emptiness to analyze anything and everthing. In the end, I was happy to get home just to shut it up. I am ready to be distracted by vibrant city life again, because I was seriously thinking far too much.



Also, my brain ached from the bumpy jeep ride. When I mean bumpy, I mean seismic, earth-shattering bumps. We were in the jeep for 6 days out of the 7, and every second of each ride was painful. You would put your head back to sleep and then SLAM, a bump would snap your neck forward and your head would follow with a violent snap backwards into the headrest. Or you would be trying to lean your head against the window and then your head would hit the window with such a force that you could feel it resound through the rest of your body. So it was a wonderful escape from urban life, but was extremely taxing mentally and physically. I also got to ride a camel when we visited the largest sand dunes in Asia .. never don..t that before! Like I had heard from others, it was actually the most miserable feeling ever. My ass was aching and bruised the next day! And camels aren..t exactly the most sanitary creatures..lots of fecal matter was caked all over them. But I..m glad I did it! Just to know that it is not something I necessarily need to do again.

The sand dunes were amazing. It was extremely tiring to get to the top of them, but the view was amazing. It was windy, sandy and beautiful. You could just see these dunes stretching out before you on both sides, seemingly endless. And when you looked up to the peak, it was a perfectly symmetrical line between the two sides. You could also watch as the sand moved with the wind. It was magical! When I came down from the dunes, I decided to walk back to where we were staying. I got stranded in the middle of this marsh and seriously thought I was going to starve in the desert. I made my way so far on little hills, but once those hills ran out it was like I was on a deserted island .. no where to go! So I got a little muddy in my desperate attempt to not starve to death in the middle of the Gobi desert..yet another example of Nick trying to be different and getting into a pickle. But it was an adventure and I didn..t end up starving to death I am proud to say!

We spent every night but one staying in a traditional Mongolian ger. These are round tents made out of some sort of felt that comes from sheep fur. Most of them are extremely well insulated and hold in heat very well. Only one that we stayed in was leaky .. that was the one where mice got in at night and ended up nibbling off part of the wind-sleeve for my microphone! Other than that, it was quite comfortable even if sleeping on the hard surfaces was a little difficult. The worst part for me was the smoke. Each ger had a stove that was used to cook and heat the ger. We used either wood or dried manure as fuel; each let off a certain amount of smoke. And since the gers were generally well insulated, most of that smoke remained inside. By the end of the journey my throat was simply tore up from all that smoke. I already have overactive and sensitive sinuses; by the end, my sinuses had no idea what to do. So today I am ill, typical sore throat, cold and flu-ish aches. I am glad to have a few days in UB to just hang out and recover.

When we returned last night, it felt like I was coming home from vacation: I had to shower, organize my life, get everything straightened out after being gone for a week. I found this feeling amusing, since I am on a year-long vacation-of-sorts..I went traveling in the desert to take a break from traveling around the world! Slightly ridiculous, but at this point I am used to it..Also I began referring to returning to Ulanbaatar as ..going home,.. and one of the girls in the group, Erin from Florida, just kind of laughed at me. ..So you..re calling it home already?.. I didn..t really know how to respond, because it seemed extremely logical to me since I am traveling around the world for a year (and since I basically have many places that I consider home .. something she might not understand), so I just said, ..Home is where my pack is…

Once I began to consider these words, they began to ring truer and truer to me. This motto, ..Home is where my pack is,.. has been mine for as long as I can remember. Having moved around so much and traveled so much, I can instantly feel at home someplace. All I have to do is BE there and I can feel like I BELONG there. Especially on this trip, home has to be wherever my pack is .. that is where I am living, that is where my life is based, that pack contains my entire life. And I don..t have the luxury of NOT considering these places home, because I do not want to be a tourist. I don..t even really want to be a traveler. I want to live, feel and exist like a local. That is why I love staying with people who live in the towns and countries I visit; I am able to feel like I belong there, to bite off a slice of what life would be like if I actually DID live there.

2 weeks ago

Thailand Saga - Revisited

There was a bit of a nightmare that I went through as I tried to cross over into Thailand from China - on a river boat.  False information coupled with language barriers made for a frustrating time.  Hilarious looking back however!

—-

Saturday, December 9, 2006, 20:59, Guan Lei, Yunnan Province, China

BLAH! So I arrived into the wee town of Guan Lei this afternoon at around 1:30. I had been in the little minibus since 7:45am! It was a bumpy ride, all through the hills of southern China. Going through all these villages and vast banana plantations, it was gorgeous. The van kept letting people off and icking people up .. with all their things, cigarettes and other random things, it was a hoot! When I finally got dropped off, however, my pack had 3 holes in it from being bounced around in the back..shitty! I guess now I have some reasons to get patches. Although I have no idea how to sew, so I don..t know how useful they will be! I just don..t want the stuff to get wet inside.

Chinese Martime Customs have passed a new ..law.. that bars cargo ships from picking up passengers. I had been in contact with a guy in Jinghong (town to the north here) that had done that before; I checked here with the Immigration Officials and they said this was a new law. Which is bull because there were clearly other Chinese people on these cargo boats! The rule only allows passengers to be carried by passenger ships .. which of course cost more than twice as much as the 300 RMB that Walter told me he paid. I knew that it sounded too good to be true! And I even met a couple early this morning who were on their way to the Lao border .. a sign indeed! Our paths crossed, and I think for a moment I considered going to Laos instead of the unknown boat. But part of traveling is to try things, forge into the unknown and see what works out. This one didn..t work it, at least not completely. I could still take the expensive tourist boat, which would be cool because I would still get the river ride. But the kicker is that theres no banks here, so I would have to take a mini-bus to the town in between here and Jinghong. In this town I can also get another mini-bus to the town near the Laos border. From there, I can get a ride on a motorcycle or something and cross the border on my own. A visa costs $40 and is available at the border, although I know there are two border crossings and I..m not sure which one I would go to. So the question is: do I get cash in Mengla and return to Guan Lei for the fast boat to Thailand on Monday or do I try to make my way across the Laos border where there are no guarantees? I have 4 days to get to Bangkok; it would take one day to get to the border, one day to cross and get to Vientiane and then one night bus straight to Bangkok. I have no info on what this all would cost as there is no internet here; I assume it would be cheaper than the 700 RMB that I would have to pay for the fast boat. The question comes down to time and availability of seats. These are the moments when having a guidebook would be invaluable! I want to call Walter again but I don..t want to be a pest..hes already helped me out so much! The other unknown is if the border is going to be open..I read somewhere that there have been reports of isolated border shutdowns with Thailand after the coup. I really don..t want to get into a situation where I miss Cory..s arrival..

One minute ago, before I started writing, I had decided to go to Laos. Now that I am thinking about the myriad of possibilities for things going wrong: the border not being open, the bus/train to Vientienae not arriving, the lack of possibilities to get to Bangkok..it seems so risky but would indeed save some money. But if the border is closed on Monday, that would mean it would be very hard to get to Bangkok by Wednesday. Its probably wiser to just go get money (even if it costs $6 to get there and back) and take the guaranteed thing at this point. This is what happens when time becomes a factor .. you can..t afford the luxury of just going and hoping that it will all work out! It would also be comforting to have another traveler at this point, someone to bounce ideas off. That..s why I want to call Walter without being a huge ass. Or why I need the internet, dammit! Maybe there will be an internet café in Mengla that can help me make my decision. I don..t want to take too long or else my decision will be made for me!

I am going to get up, take the 8am bus to Mengla. Then I will do two things: check and see when the next bus is to the Laos border, and how much it cost, then see if there is a bank. If there..s no bank, its either back to Jinghong to take the fast boat from there (800 RMB) or to the Laos border where I can change money.

Sunday, December 10, 2006, 22:58, Mo Han, on the China-Laos border

Wow. That is the only word that I can use to describe the intensity of this journey to Bangkok. CSer Michael Sutherland told me to leave at least a week for an overland journey to BK and he was right. I will have traveled for at least 6 hours each day of the past 4 days, as well as the next 3. I have NEVER been in motion like this in my entire life .. an epic journey indeed!

As I read over my comments from last night, I wish I would have thought them over more thoroughly! Here is the story about what happened in my Travel Life today.

Woke up at 7am in order to get out of the hotel and down to the ..bus stop.. on the main street by 8am. I managed to do this just fine; even had some time for a tea and oatmeal using the hot water that they so generously provide in Chinese hotels. I arrived down the street just as a second bus was paralleling parking; there was a bus in front of it but had no driver. I approached the driver of the second bus as he switched the ignition off, and asked, ..Meng La?.. (pronounced mung-la). He said yes in Chinese, then motioned for me to put my bag in. Then he made motions of moving his hand to his mouth .. he was going to go eat breakfast. Lucky him, I thought. As I was waiting around it occurred to me that the first bus might be leaving sooner, although I was not sure if it was going to the same place. A woman tout from that first bus came up to me and started to motion for me to get in her bus; she nodded when I said Meng La. However since she was being more aggressive I was reluctant. Also her bus was full and I had the a seat by the window in the 2nd bus where I could control the flow of air (Chinese men SMOKE) and stretch out. So I declined. And of course, that bus left first. The woman was most probably trying to explain that her bus was leaving first. And it left FIRST. My bus didn..t leave until a FULL HOUR after the first bus. I was standing outside the bus, hating myself for not getting on the first bus even if it would have been a miserable experience.

I was still stressing about the whole boat thing. I was not sure how long it took to get to Meng La, and did not know if I would get there too late to take another bus back to Guan Lei where I would catch the fast passenger boat to Thailand. I had no information; and my Internet-addled brain could not handle it. I was almost exploding with the rage of uncertainty and doubt. I did my yoga breathing and stress chant and chilled out. I knew I had to just go with the flow on this one.

And the flow was going to take me into even more adventurous territories. The bus ride to Meng La was the most magnificent bus ride of my life. Skirting the Xinshibanna Nature Preserve (in southern Yunnan province) the views of a meandering river and landscape were awesome. It was worth every penny, that ride was! On a side note, this minibuses are a unique experience. Used by locals who just flag them down wherever, it is interesting to see the types of cargo they carry: chickens, birds in basket-cages, food, clothes, babies. Peasants with hoes and colorful clothes; ..city.. girls in high heels..everyone is welcome! It..s a hodge-podge insight into rural Chinese life.

After leaving Guan Lei at 9am, I arrived in Meng La at around 1:30pm. On the way, we stopped in another larger town where there was a bank; I ran swiftly to the ATM there only to discover that there was no response when it tried to verify my card. Bad sign ..1. Bad sign ..2: the banks, while open on Sunday in China, have limited hours. The bank would not be open until 3pm so I would have to wait to change dollars. Or try my luck at the ATM, which would become Bad sign ..3: none of the 3 ATMs (from the same bank) would take my card. There was just an endless ..please wait.. sign and then it would reject my card. Shit. I was broke and did not have the money to get the boat to Thailand.

My final chance was changing most of my emergency US$ money into Chinese RMB, which would allow me to pay the steep 700 RMB ($92) for the tourist boat to Thailand. At 3 pm, I pulled my pack on and walked to the nearest branch from the bus station. He pointed down the road, where the other branch was. He motioned me to go there. Upon arriving, 10 minutes later and 1 pound of sweat heavier (its tropical here!), there was a line twelve deep at each of the three open counters. Waiting for 30 minutes with a bunch of Chinese people pushing your pack as they move is quite trying, not to mention the HEAT. (I cant imagine what its like here in the summer!) I finally make it to the counter……….let the suspense build..

She told me to come back on Monday; they only chance US dollars on Monday.

No money, no problems? I tried everything to get myself to Thailand guaranteed for Cory..s arrival on Wednesday and nothing panned out. In the end, the Travel Gods chose my path for me: I..m goin.. to Laos! And hopefully I will only actually set foot in the country as I cross over the border going in and out..I want to just fly through that country the quickest way possible!

So I trudge back to the bus station to get my minivan ticket to the Chinese border town of Mo Han. I splurge and buy some peach juice, some cold, wonderfully synthetic peach juice. It was the most refreshing thing that has ever flowed past my lips; I was sweating all the way through my T-shirt. In fact, the T-shirt (says ..Lewisburge Baseball.. on it, you remember that one Tata?) is yellow with my sweat and black with exhaust fumes. I have been wearing it since I left Yangshuo on Wednesday.

The minivan to Mo Han was a packed affair, with me pretzeled in the back. Again a beautiful countryside experience .. unbelievable the landscape that is Yunnan province in China. This ride was a bit shorter; but coupled with my 6 hour ride in the morning, I had been bouncing about rural China for 8 hours. In fact, I have been traveling for at least 6 hours a day since Thursday: 20 hour train ride Thursday to Friday, 12 hour bus ride Friday night, 6 hour mini-bus ride Saturday.

And let the epic continue: I am now holed up in a quaintly shabby hotel in the laid-back calm serenity that is the border village of Mo Han. The pace is slower, the people more friendly. There are lots of smiles here. In fact, I met the most helpful person of my entire trip within my first 5 minutes here. The mini-bus drives you all the way up to the border to Laos, which was a relief. I thought I was going to have to take another bus to the border; I will just be able to walk up there tomorrow morning and go to Laos! I was talking with the driver, then to the immigration people about when the border is open. They have very strange times, open only for a few hours in the morning and then the evening. I knew that I was going to have to stay the night here so that I would be able to find adequate transportation once across. But it was still surreal just to stand there, and Laos is just ten feet away. And the only thing marking it is one long gate .. nothing fancy. That..s when I realized that after 6 weeks, today would be my last day in China. And what a day to remember .. just like in Russia, these Communist countries don..t let you leave without throwing a few curve balls.

I walked 10 feet past the immigration office, looked up and saw a sign indicating that there was a travel agency inside. I walked in, and I heard some very good English coming from the man behind the desk. This man, whos name turns out to be (are you ready?) Jankerson, doesn..t even work at this agency. He is a young businessman who just happens to be here for a few weeks for his company. Fate has worked out in my favor! I must mention here, that there have been many indications throughout the day that I should go to Mo Han and get to Bangkok overland: first, as I was waiting for the bank to open, the tout at the bus station kept thinking I was waiting for the Mo Han minivan and kept trying to get me on it. Second, as I was walking to the further bank branch to change money I ran into another foreigner, a stranger English man with many twitches who was also, in a few days, heading to Laos via Mo Han. He was able to answer many of my questions about traveling overland through Laos. So I knew from lunchtime that I was bound for Mo Han, but had to try everything I could for the guaranteed entry into Thailand.

Jankerson turned out to be a mountain of information. He had a friend who took a bus from Kunming all the way to Vientiane, the capital of Laos that is right on the Thailand border. This bus stops in Mo Han for immigration; he says that if I am lucky there will be a spot on this 9:30am bus. Score! That would be perfect; 24 hours later I will be right near the Thai border, almost at the same time I would have been if I had taken the ship! Then I can just take a motorbike to the border 12 miles away, cross into Thailand and take the night train into Bangkok arriving on Wednesday morning..so if all goes well that is what I am going to do!

Jankerson and his friend were very interested in hanging out with a foreigner and practicing English; jankerson works for a company in the UK and is considering a move there. Or to the US. So they took me out to dinner! Which was the most wonderfully kind thing on my trip to date because I hadn..t eaten anything but peanuts, peach juice and one small cup of oatmeal that I had in my pack. I wasn..t sure if I was going to have enough money to make it, so I didn..t want to buy anything else lest I get deeper into money-less-ness. We had a huge meal, and when I asked for some ice cream (its hard to find a geletaria or any sort of fresh ice cream in China, but this place had it!) they obliged. So I had my dessert too..what an excellent and reassuring way to spend my last evening in China!

So now I lay here on my exceptionally hard bed in my increasingly smelly room (my clothes, mixed with the general sewage stench that comes from most Chinese bathroom squatter toilets) feeling guardedly optimistic about the days to come. Of course, once you read this, you will know what has happened. But this will give you a mid-epic insight into how difficult this particular Travel Setback is becoming. Just have to do it in baby steps, one leg at a time. Eventually I will make it to BK, the question is only when.

Jankerson is a little strange; I think he may be gay. There was some small talk about girls, but mostly geeky things since he is a skinny, average Chinese dude with glasses. When we went back to the travel agency in order for him to ask his friend a few more questions for me, he asked if he could take a picture of me. At first, I thought he just wanted to document his new Western friend (he kept offering to help me out with whatever I needed, including a website..!) ..You are very handsome,.. he continued. But it wasn..t in a creepy or flirty voice. It was just a simple statement. It is one of those statements that might be ok in Chinese, then taken far out of context if spoken in English. I just smiled and obliged .. at this point, after this many days traveling and my pants starting to turn black with dirt, a compliment like that goes a long way. I feel like I got run over, so if I can look good to some random Chinese people like this, then I..ve got it made!

Squatter toilet moment: all Chinese cheaper hotels, hostels and many houses do not have Western toilets. And some squatter toilets do not have very strong plumbing. This si the case with the hotel that I am currently staying in: I took a shit and it just wouldn..t go down. I flushed 4 times, still not moving. So I grabbed the shower head (in China the shower and toilet are often open, right next to each other) and started to spray. It began to break up in little chunks but the principal wing, if you will, of the shit still would not budge. I switched off flushing and showering the shit, wasting all of the precious water of this village, and nothing. I left it and came back, watered some more. Stubborn shit. I looked in the trash, found an empty soapbox and pushed that shit down the hole. Now it is just floating there, in the squatter toilet hole, resisting going down each time I flush. Ahhh, the joys of traveling in developing countries! Your life are filled with moments that you could never enjoy in your normal, Western life..

BOY WITH FRANZIA BOX: walking back to the travel agency, a kid on some stairs was playing with an empty box of Franzia. He was knowing at the cardboard, seemingly like he was a drunk who needed his fix. He was having a great time, and all I could think was, ..Pike in the making… I snapped a shot and wished I would have gotten video. Best Travel Moment indeed.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006, 21:47, Chiang Mai, Thailand

And I am finally here, I finally made it!! After waiting for 2 hours for the express bus that was supposed to come to Mo Han to drive to Vientiane (Laos capital), a Frenchman arrived coming into China from Laos. He began to explain a much shorter route to the Thai border, saying that I might be able to make it in 2 days if I was lucky with the bus schedules. I was also hearing that the Express Bus might not be so Express after all: could take up to 48 hours. I made a snap decision, grabbed my pack and walked across the border. I looked over at the travel agent who came to help me get a tuk-tuk to Nam Tha (nearest village where I could catch the bus to Huaysai on the Thai border) and said, ..I am finally leaving China. This is a huge moment for me you know?.. He just looked at me.

After organizing an expensive ..private.. tuk-tuk ride to Nam Tha ($15 one way), I felt better about it all. I was in LAOS!! What a gorgeous country, poor but beautiful. I loved just to be there an experience it all. It took one hour to get to Nam Tha. And to my dismay, there was only one bus a day that left to Huaysai: leaving at 9:30, it might take up to 10 hours to get there since they were rebuilding the roads. I had heard about this in China, but it didn..t occur to me that it would also slow down the bus. This meant that I would still not get to the Thai border until Wednesday morning, since I would arrive in Huaysai too late to cross. I started asking around about private rides to the border: $120, $100..I was feeling pretty desperate. I thought, ..Shit I should have just waited another 20 minutes for the bus to Vientiane, at least I would know when I would get in… Then a guy came up to me and told me his friend was going there with two Thais that wanted to get there today as well. He started at $100, then I got him down to $40. Somehow I ended up paying him $50. I still cannot recall how that happened, but he was a slick Lao that..s for sure.

Once I put my bags in the pickup and climbed inside, I felt good. Then that feeling of accomplishment deteriorated rapidly as I realized that I only had $15 left. Period. No more emergency money and no ATMs in undeveloped Laos. Shit. I tried not to stress, just to go with the flow. It was a 5 hour ride and money was not just going to appear. I still stressed, wondering if now I was just going to be stranded on the Lao/Thai border rather than the China/Lao border. 5 hours of dust, bumbs and bulldozers all around us. I could hardly breathe. But at least I was getting someplace.

The driver was fast, and after he tried to drop us off far away from the border, we yelled at him and he brought us right to the river (which is the border). I hopped out and looked at the clock: 5pm. Still one hour to cross the border! Wicked, this means I..ll save some money on accommodation. Everywhere there were signs advertising minibuses to Chiang Mai .. even better! I had no idea it would be this touristy here! The first place I tried was full, but it was only $10..meaning that I would have enough money to get to Chiang Mai where there would be ATMs! I was going to make it!

I wandered down towards the river, passing a large group of backpackers. Being the good solo traveler that I am I befriended them, asking where they were headed. ..Chian Mai,.. they replied. It was a large group, and I wasn..t sure if they were in a package tour. ..Y..all have space for anyone else?.. I asked. ..I think there..s one more spot…. one girl told me. I almost leapt for joy, if my pack wasn..t so damn heavy! I was going to make it to Chiang Mai .. TONIGHT! From China to Thailand in just one day..overland..I did it! So I paid and jumped on the boat across to Thailand with the biggest smile, lightest heart and emptiest mind that I had experienced in more time than I could recall. After all this hell, I felt invincible.

Until we got a flat tire one hour into our minibus trip from the border to Chiang Mai. No joke: ..Pop! Pssst..thunk, thunk, thunk…. A flat tire. The only other time I had gotten a flat tire was within an hour of arriving into Russia from Estonia, when our bus had to stop and I took a Lada into the city. Bad news! We had to wait for another van to come because our driver had no idea how to fix the flat ..he managed to break all the tools that he had in the back. 2 hours later, we were on our way again. Only 4 more hours to Chiang Mai..

We arrived at 2:30am. Guesthouse were full and I could not afford a room to myself. I begged 3 of the other travelers to let me sleep on the floor of their room. Thankfully, they agreed. For $3 I had a place to sleep. The next morning I was at the front counter asking about bus tickets to Bangkok. The woman was awesome, answering all kinds of questions. As she was leaving, she asked if I wanted a ride halfway to the station since that was where her house was. I declined, as I wanted to check my email to see if the CouchSurfer could host me for tonight. As I was checking the CSers profile, scanning for a cell phone number, my eyes hit the profile picture and I could not believe it: this was the woman who had JUST been helping me and offered me a ride! I got her cell phone number and called her..she came back to pick me up and now I have a host for the evening! And not just any host, I got HOOKED UP: she owns the Ping River Palace, a restaurant and guest house overlooking the river. My couch is a private room with canopy bed and ensuite bathroom. My kitchen is her restaurant: I am welcome to eat anything and everything that I want: free dinner, vodka, drinks, whatever. She also took me out for a lunch with her family and a friend from California (who..s daughter is James Cameron..s assistant .. I knew this trip would pay off!!!). The Travel Hell has, in the end, been worth every moment. Cory arrives tomorrow; I am living like a king for a day in Thailand; the weather is perfect; the people are calm, gentle and absolutely nothing like the cruder Chinese. I am in heaven and feeling good. Finally.

Next stop, BKK baby! 2 weeks ago

Australia- Revisited

I am going through the process of bringing together all of my old writings into one place. Here.

This is Australia, revisited.

—-

It took us 6 days to travel the 2,500 kilometers from Darwin, in Australia’s Northern Territory, to Townsville, on the east coast. Why did it take us so long, you ask? For one, we wanted to enjoy the scenery and relax. But the real reason, apart from driving slowly to save on petrol, was that it was an Eventful Journey. Like most Eventful Journeys, there were numerous moments of intrigue, humor, fright and randomness.

The journey begins as three travelers, Jiska from the Netherlands, Chris from Switzerland and myself from the USA, pile into a bright yellow Nissan Pintara station wagon named Carhu. Three travelers from very different countries, with very different personalities, with very different expectations: this was going to be an ADVENTURE! Chris has been traveling from Melbourne all the way around Australia for the past 3 months so is very familiar with the country. Jiska and I have both just arrived into Darwin and are looking forward to our very first exposure to Oz. And what better way to do it then driving straight through the Nothingness that is the Outback?

As we backed out of the driveway at my CS host’s place, it started to rain. And not just normal rain, but rainy-season-in-the-tropics rain. “It’s the Wet, mate,” my host Justin had told me the night I arrived. “Does that mean it rains a lot?” Justin laughs. “Heaps,” he responded. [I must note here that “heaps” is a much better word for “lots” – use it!] I had no idea what to expect, but over the next few days I was introduced to some of the wettest rain I have ever experienced, rain so strong that you can barely see in front of your face. I am used to storms, lightning, thunder…here is just rain. And wind. I had no idea, as I usually go wherever is the most convenient for me without regard to “The Best Time to Go There.” Suffice it to say I was excited to head for the Outback.

The tropical-stlye rain continued well into the first hours of our journey. We were heading first to Australia’s biggest and most legendary national park, Kakadu. Of course, with the rain I was worried we would miss out on this wonderful opportunity. Thankfully the rain let up and allowed me the first opportunity to observe the stunning scenery that was flying by my window: large trees, lush green grasses, red soil, flowing creekbeds (there are CROCODILES in there somewhere!!), an amazing variety of birds, and…SMASH! From my vantage point in the front passenger seat, all I saw was a small brown-fur ball streak across the road from my right. The sickening thud followed a moment later. As the brakes locked and Chris kept the car moving forward – which is what you need to do if you want to survive hitting an animal – and we fishtailed down the road for one hundred feet. We slammed to a stop, breathless, wondering what it was that we hit. “A kangaroo,” Chris said. We all piled out of the car to inspect any damage. Well, to be honest, I just wanted to see if there were any gruesome ‘roo remains plastered all over the bumper of the car!

Luckily, nothing was damaged. We couldn’t even find the spot where we hit the hapless creature; there is no doubt that he was hit though. That was one loud THUD! I looked back down the road but did not see any half-dead animal crawling around. In fact, I didn’t see a dead animal either – could this wallaby have survived? We disovered that Kakadu doesn’t have kangaroos, but wallabies, which are classified as anything too small to be a ‘roo. So we ran over a wallaby, the first wallaby that Chris has hit during his 3 month road-trip around Oz – can you believe it? And it happens in the first hours of our grand Outback adventure! Brilliant!

Kakadu was simply amazing. Even though we were only able to access a few trails due to the Wet, stunning views awaiting us at every turn. There are hundreds of Aboriginal rock paintings throughout the park, and the diverse plants and lifeforms (bugs!) is incomparable. No snake bites here, but we did see a wallaby run past us as we were bush-walking. We spent two days absorbing Kakadu and the weather was fantastic.

The next afternoon we were driving out of Kakadu, heading south to meet up with our highway towards Townsville, when we turned a corner and were greeted by a man in an orange vest waving his hands over his head. A black bag was strung over his shoulder; a helmet hung loosely from the bag. I was immediately suspicious, as you have to be quite careful on these deserted roads. While the others in the car did not agree and thought I might be over-suspicious, I have an over-active imagination fed by my filmmaking and a healthy diet of horro films, so I was on-guard. Seconds later, as we passed by him, we realized that there was a late-model gray sedan behind him. It was completely demolished: roof caved in, all the windows busted out. The bumper, glass and personal effects were littered around the car. Shit! We stopped down the road to see what had happened. As we approached the man, who was towering over me at 6 foot 6, I noticed thick black skidmarks on the road.
“What happened, mate?”
“A kangaroo, I hit a kangaroo,” the man said, shaking. He looked really out of it, and by the looks of the car, he was lucky to be alive. The car had definitely flipped several times and had narrowly missed a tree.
“Can you remember what happened? Were you upside down?” Jiska was checking to see if he had any memory-loss that might indicate a serious medical condition. At least that’s what she told me afterwards.
“I was upside down, for sure. I was driving along, turned the corner and bam, there it was.” This conversation went on for awhile as we decided that we would bring him to the Ranger Station to get some help and call family. The man was mining safety inspector at a mine in the park. This area of Australia is widely known as one of the most uranium-rich places on Earth and this is the fella that makes sure it is all done safely. Apparently he was on his way to give a safety talk in town, was late and was speeding to get there in time! Ha! I think he was a bit embarrassed and concerned about his job because he did not want to get anyone else involved. He immediately wanted to call his family and have them take care of it rather than tell his employer. Not to mention that it was his mother’s car – I’m sure she wont be happy!

A little shook up, we left him there and continued on our way. We drove much slower from that point on. After much debate about the moral implications of leaving a man with a possible concussion alone at an empty Ranger Station, we eventually agreed to stop at the next roadhouse to tell them what had happened and where we left the guy. That way he would have help should he have collapsed there by himself. No idea what happened to the guy, but I am glad that we came by when we did.

That evening we did not make as much progress, so we stopped to camp soon after leaving the National Park, where it is legal to just camp off the road. Its free, its convenient and its fun! We sat up after dinner watching an enormous lightning storm, of the sort that I was used to from my Kansas City days. So much lightning, and we could see the streaks clearly. It was the most entertained I have ever been by lightning – I stayed up for an hour after the others because I was so enthralled. At 5am, I woke up to see the same lightning overhead. Since the tent was so hot, we had decided to forego the rain cover in favor of what little cross-ventilation we could encourage. “Rain!” I shook Jiska awake violently, verging on a panic since I already felt a little rain on me. She woke up with a start and I went outside to put the tarp over the tent. Unfortunately, the ground was too hard for the stakes. They just would NOT go in! We had set some heavy rocks around the tent to use for a situation like this; I placed the rocks in the loops and hoped it would hold.

It didn’t. Within 10 minutes, the tropical deluge began. You could not see one inch in front of your face. And this was inside the tent! The raincover had come loose from the stones and was now flapping in the wind. The wind was so strong that it began to loosen the knots that held the raincover to the poles. The tent was not a shelter anymore and all of our things were soaking. So I jumped ship: I took some of my things (a.k.a only my fleece) and splashed to the car, leaving Jiska to carry the rest! I was not thinking logically at that time in the morning, but since she had a poncho and I was in my boardshorts, I figured she would be much more equipped to handle the situation. Plus I was scared of floating away! While I sat in the car, I became even more afraid of the lightning. A car is metal, I thought. Doesn’t that mean it conducts electricity? I’m going to die if I get hit by lightning!!! I worked myself up into a fervor over this, and began to stare at the clock in the hopes of time flying by. I almost even got my camera out to film My Final Moments. Within 15 minutes, the storm was calmer and Jiska arrived in the car with all our belongings. We sat, soaking wet in the car, and tried to get another hour of sleep before sunrise.

The next morning, I opened my door to look at the tent. It was completely collapsed, with the poles sticking out at odd angles. Jiska was not too happy with me for leaving her alone in the tent to take care of our things. Chris wanted to know with an grin what the hell had happened to us last night. Everything was wet, I was tired, but I was ECSTATIC that I didn’t get fried like toast in the metal-toaster that is Carhu!

Wednesday went by beautifully; we went swimming in thermal river, did some moderate driving, found a wicked spot to camp and unwind. It was heaven. We woke up at 7am the next morning to get going; this was our first big day of driving. After a PB+J breakfast, Carhu was packed up and rolling south on the Stuart Highway by 8:05 am.

By 8:15am we were stopped in front of a large “ROAD CLOSED” barrier talking to a policeman. A road-train (an 18-wheeler that pulls 3 trailers!) had flipped over LAST WEEK, spilling small pellets of cyanide (of all things) all over the highway. The HazMat crews have been working this entire time, picking each pellet up by hand in order to neutralize it. No one can go through until 8pm, when the road opens because the daylight is gone. Shit. We had heard about this road closure, but all the travelers telling us about it spoke int eh past tense so we figured it had already been cleared up. The kicker is that we camped 10 minutes from this closure; if we had keep going Wednesday night we could have gone straight through.

Oh well, while my hopes of arriving in Townsville on Saturday were dashed, we had a wicked wonderful day hanging out at the Renner Springs Desert Hotel, where they had bathrooms, a shower, and….and…a…POOL! One hot day in the Outback sun and now I’m tan as a rabbit. A brown rabbit. It was a very chill day, allowing us all to recuperate and relax for a bit before driving onwards. Who cares if I’ll be a day late – I got to work on my tan!

Road-trippin’ the Outback is one Eventful Journey. Two days and 1,500 km later, we drove into Townsville, relatively unscathed. Dirty, tired and cranky, but alive. I was grateful for that, and I was excited to be in a new place near the ocean. But I already miss seeing the sunrise everyday, following it until sunset and then sitting under the vast star-scape, amazed at the abundance of the universe. I really dug the Outback, being isolated, alone. Gives you an insane amount of perspective, reinforcing your insignificance in the grand scheme of things. This Emptiness, this OUTBACK, really forces you to think, to reconsider, to grow. It was a quasi-religious experience; a spiritual awakening surrounded by bountiful nature, if you will.

My presence on the East Coast means that I am close to heading south towards Australia’s bigger cities, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, and I am excited to explore more. I don’t know if I would do that drive again, especially during the Wet, but it was one helluva experience. Australia is a land of extremes: extreme distances, extreme sports, extreme animals, extreme weather…forget about Texas, everything is bigger in Australia!

2 weeks ago

The One Thing

The one thing that I tell myself to do everyday, the one thing that I never remember to do, the one thing that if only I did it I would be happy, the one thing that is the mostest, the one thing that is the strongest, the one thing that is the hopefulest, the one thing that is the realest, the one thing that’s invisible, the one thing that is collectively scorned, the one thing that would make my life complete if only I knew what it was, the one thing that would complete my collection, the one thing that brings happiness, the One Thing that is supreme, the one thing that is nothing, the one thing that is something, the one thinf that is everything, the one thing that is You, the one thing that is Me, the one thing that I forget forgot forgit, the one thing that is not the cat nor the moon, the one thing that is good, the one thing that is above all, the one memory that escapes the old grandfather as he looks at the boy in front of him, the one thing that is not really a thing.

If only I could remember that One Thing, my life would be perfect.

2 weeks ago