Cam t'Asia

The slow boat along the Mekong

2018-09-28T21:01:00.002+07:00

Day 0, 7:00am:
I wake up, grab my stuff, and head out to eat breakfast. I'm excited to take the two day slow boat that travels upstream along the Mekong river from Luang Prabang to the Laos-Thailand border. I've heard from many people that it's one of the most pleasant journeys they've taken in southeast Asia, and it sure as hell beats another long bus ride.

Day 0, 7:30am:
Lori emerges from our dorm. We discuss whether or not we still have time to catch the boat. It leaves at 8:30, and we opted not to buy advance tickets from a travel agency in town to save a bit of money ($4), so we're supposed to get to the pier early. I figure we're cutting it close, but it's low season so we might be alright.

Day 0, 7:50am:
Another girl from the hostel, Esmee, is taking the boat today, but she has a ticket so she is waiting for the tuktuk to pick her up from the hostel and take her to the pier. We ask Bram, one of the hostel employees, if we can ride in the tuktuk with her since it's coming here anyway, and buy a boat ticket at the pier when we get there. Bram calls to find out.

Day 0, 7:55am:
Bram gets off the phone. "No boats today," he shrugs. "Don't know why. The guy's English was limited. He says 'tomorrow'." Okay then. Glad we didn't go all the way to the pier to find that out. We extend another night at the hostel and get ready to do this again tomorrow morning. I decide to spend a few extra dollars and buy a ticket at the hostel to make my life easier, since I now have to go to the ATM anyway.

Day 1, 7:30am:
The tuktuk guy is here but there's no sign of Lori. She hasn't bought a ticket so we're not sure if she's coming. I run to the dorm to see where she is, because I'm pretty sure she still wants to come.

Day 1, 7:35am:
Lori comes out front, quickly buys a ticket from Bram, and the three of us are off with a tuktuk driver we've already managed to mildly upset.

Day 1, 8:00am:
We get to the pier and Lori and I realize we both forgot our water in our haste back at the hostel. We buy some overpriced small bottles and some snacks from a stall nearby, go down to the dock, and board the boat.

Day 1, 8:30am:
We are the only tourists on the boat, aside from a Chinese guy, which means we are instant celebrities. No pair of eyes has been on anything but us for the past 20 minutes. We play cards with the weirdest deck of cards I've ever seen. They are Swiss cards from the early 20th century. They've been passed down for 2 generations in Lori's family. Awesome.

Day 1, 8:45am:
We're off! It's a beautiful day: white, fluffy clouds, blue sky, and green, hilly landscape. It's going to be a nice ride.

Day 1, 10:00am:
We leave the main seating area to sit on a bench outside on the front of the boat. A few local guys come out every so often to admire the scenery with us. We see some local people on fishing boats and drive past some small villages, but mostly it's just us and the surrounding nature.

Day 1, 11:00am:
We head toward a cluster of small docked boats near the shore and start to slow down. Some teenage boys come out front, each with three bags in tow. A man comes out, grabs one of the three large bamboo poles slotted in on the boat's bow, and uses it to steer us closer. The boys step off our boat onto another, and the man hands them the bags one by one. They go from boat to boat to get to land as we drive away.

Day 1, 11:30am:
We drive halfway into a bush. Bamboo man is helping us avoid obstacles. Another man leaps off the boat onto a nearby rock and he and Bamboo man hold the boat steady long enough for more teenage boys with more shopping bags to disembark and disappear into the bush. Jumping man climbs back onto the boat, and we're away again.

Day 1, 11:45am:
We steer toward another cluster of boats, which look like they have people living on them. There are a few men on the roof of one of them. More boys with more bags climb onto the railing of our boat, as it's moving, and step onto the roof of the other boat.

Day 1, 12:45pm:
A man in a small boat paddles up to us and collects one of our passengers.

Day 1, 1:15pm:
A toddler who is wearing no pants shits on the floor inside, near where I am sitting. His sister pulls him up halfway through, and drags him to the toilet on the back of the boat.

Day 1, 1:18pm:
The sister returns, carrying the boy. They walk right past his poop. The sister ignores it. The boy points at it. Even he knows it shouldn't be there. They sit back down 20 feet away and she pretends it didn't happen.

Day 1, 1:25pm:
A man steps in the poop.

Day 1, 1:30pm:
An old local man reads over my shoulder as I type. I look at him, smile, and say, "Sabaidee" ("hello"). He gives me a big almost-toothless grin in return, inspects my laptop for a few seconds, and walks away.

Day 1, 1:35pm:
A boat employee starts talking to the little boy's sister. It seems like she's asking her to clean up the poop. Other passengers look at it, and her, some in obvious disgust. The sister walks over and scoops it up with a scarf.

Day 1, 2:35pm:
The little boy is screaming bloody murder, possibly because he now has pants on. At least the pants might prevent more floor poops.

Day 1, 6:30pm:
We arrive in Pakbeng, our stop for the night. A man climbs onto the front of the boat as soon as we park, touting his guesthouse to us. We go with him, eat way too much food, take an ice cold shower, and pass out.

Day 2, 7:00am:
There is an aggressive knock on our door telling us to wake up for the boat. Didn't know this place did wake up calls.

Day 2, 8:00am:
We grab our packed lunch and take the guesthouse's tuktuk to the pier, which is 100m away (we thought it was farther). Esmee falls in the mud as we walk toward the boat. Good start to the day. This boat is worse than yesterday's: no tables and no bench at the front, only old car seats. Oh well. It leaves shortly after we board. Looks like another beautiful day.

Day 2, 8:30am:
The Chinese guy from yesterday is on this boat too. He speaks no English, but is able to talk to us through a translation app on his phone. Technology is neat. He's only going to Thailand because the road he was supposed to take in Laos back to China was destroyed.

Day 2, 10:45am:
We pick up some young guys who were standing on a random tiny bank on the river which is surrounded by hills and trees.

Day 2, 6:00pm:
We arrive in Huay Xai, the border town in Laos. There are no instructions when we get off the boat about where to go to cross the border, only local people staring at us. We ascend a staircase toward the ticket booth for the slow boat heading the other way, hoping there will be someone at the desk who can help us. The man at the ticket booth tells us we have to take a tuktuk 6km to the border.

Day 2, 7:00pm:
We cross the border into Thailand with relatively little difficulty. We are outside a town called Chiang Khong. The buses to Chiang Rai, our destination, are finished for the night. We can charter a minibus for $30 apiece or stay in Chiang Khong for the night and take the local bus tomorrow for $2.50. We opt for the latter.

Day 2, 7:30pm:
We check into one of the only hostels in town and head to the bar across the street for several much needed drinks, our first Thai curry, and a night of YouTube karaoke.

Day 2, 11:30pm:
JUST A SMALL TOWN GIRL...

Chill days

2018-09-27T11:25:00.000+07:00

"You have to do X while you're here." I can't count the number of times I've heard that, from other travelers or people touting tours on the street. You can't come to this city and not go to this museum, or this waterfall, or this temple. Yeah? Watch me. The reality is, my travels are my own, and I don't have to answer to anyone or live by anyone else's itinerary. I can't spend two or three days in each city I visit, or do 29 countries in 29 days. It's not fun for me. I need chill days. Sometimes, I even need chill weeks.

Don't get me wrong, I do love doing the touristy stuff and visiting the "must-sees" most of the time. But for me, it's way more important to take my time. If there are a few attractions that are each several kilometres away from where I'm staying, I'll take a whole day to visit each of them and walk, rather than get a tuktuk to cart me around to all of them in one day. As a result, I tend to spend much longer in some places than a lot of people, since I usually intersperse some rest days where I sit on a beach or a bench and read a book, or even just hang out at my accommodation because I'm doing laundry.

I decided early on that I wanted to try to spend at least a week in each place I chose to go. This became a nice rule of thumb to live by, as it constrained me to pick the few places in each country where I most wanted to visit, instead of trying to cram a bunch of cool-sounding places in. Of course, if I got to a place and decided it wasn't really for me, I would spend less time there, and, contrarily, if I really liked it, I would spend longer. The latter happened early on in Koh Tao, Thailand. I had planned to do a bit of "island hopping" to get some beach time early on in my trip, but once I learned how to dive, I really enjoyed the laid back atmosphere of the first island and made some friends, so I ended up staying for a week and a half, about twice as long as I had planned. I didn't even end up visiting the other islands in the area. It happened many other times during my trip as well, including my last stop, Chiang Mai. Most backpackers visit Chiang Mai and then take the three hour trip to Pai for a few days, but I was enjoying Chiang Mai and wasn't keen to add two more travel days in my final few weeks out here, so I thought, "Why not just stay?"

As a result, I got some incredulous looks from fellow travelers sometimes when I told them how long I had stayed in some places, and all the things I hadn't done. "You were in Hoi An for a week and you didn't even go to My Son or the caves?" Nope, I just loved the atmosphere. "Wow, you spent 10 days in place X? I was there for one night and found it boring." I even spoke with a few fellow travelers who hadn't spent longer than 3 days in any one destination in months of traveling, and were clearly exhausted. Most of the time, others were envious that I was spending so long in each place: "You're so lucky. I was only there for 3 nights but I loved it. I wish I had stayed longer but I only have two weeks here so I had already booked a flight/train/bus to my next destination." It reminded me how fortunate I am to have enough time out here to try to get to know some of these places at least a little bit - long enough to have some shop or restaurant owners recognize me, sometimes even know my order, and to get to know the staff at the hostel where I'm staying, and long enough to know for sure that I want to come back one day.

One of the nicest parts of traveling on my own was that I could have chill days whenever I wanted, without disappointing a friend or feeling guilty about it. If I wanted to spend a beautiful afternoon reading a book, getting a massage, or laying on the beach with a smoothie, instead of really "seizing the day" and going to a "must-do" tourist attraction, I could. It also taught me to just slow down in general, and not try to cram so many activities into a little bit of time, which is what I do at home a lot. I learned to enjoy getting a haircut instead of seeing it as a chore, of just wandering around for hours with no particular destination until realizing the sun was almost setting and I hadn't eaten lunch yet, of getting lost in a novel or a conversation and completely ignoring my to-do list for the day. Hopefully, I'll remember these lessons when I get back to the hustle-bustle back home, and once in a while remember to take it slow and relax.

Who wouldn't want to spend all day here? (Besides Casey.)

Or here?

It's dangerous to go alone!

2018-09-26T12:30:00.000+07:00

"My husband is with me. Honey! Come here. He and I are just here for a few weeks..."
"Yeah, we've been best friends since we were children, so we decided to travel together after university..."
"We actually met on an app for people looking for travel buddies..."

"...are you here alone?"

One of the most common questions I've gotten over the course of my time here (other than, "What's your favourite place?") is if I'm traveling alone. Some people ask it with a sense of wonder, others with concern, others with a mixture of surprise and pity. After talking with other solo travelers about it, it's not uncommon - we all get asked this question, with these tones, and most of us have the same response: an enthusiastic "Yep!"

This is the first time I've traveled by myself, and I've loved it. I make my own schedule, and I don't have to answer to or worry about disappointing anyone else. I take chill days when I'm feeling lazy, I have crazy busy days when I feel like sightseeing, I go for full day hikes when I'm feeling energetic. I spend as much time as I want in each place I go, and I change my plans dozens of times on a whim or based on information from local people or other travelers. This kind of freedom and lack of responsibility has been a really nice break from life back home.

"But aren't you lonely?"

Nope. I ride the line between introvert and extrovert, so being alone allows me to withdraw inward with a book for a whole day when I don't feel like being social, and grabbing a beer and sitting down at a table full of people I've never met in the hostel common area when I do. I can make friends and travel with them for weeks, or separate from them for an afternoon, a day, or forever if we have different plans - no feelings hurt, nothing taken personally. Being alone has allowed to me to connect with people from many different places and backgrounds, and helped me become more outgoing (not that I was shy before).

Of course, I do miss everyone I love back home. I've rarely been homesick while I've been out here, but I think one reason for that is I've been able to talk to Kris everyday, Mom and Dad once a week, and friends every once in a while. It's been great to maintain that connection back home while I've been away. I've also been lucky enough to travel with several friends and loved ones for a few months cumulatively while I've been out here, and I was always borderline giddy to meet up with anyone from back home. Maybe I would have a slightly different opinion on solo traveling for this long had that not been the case.

"But isn't it dangerous?"

Based on my experience, and that of others I've talked to, nope. Of course, you have to have your wits about you, especially when no one is there to watch your back. It's not a particularly good idea to stumble home drunk at 4:00am down dark back alleys where gangs are known to hang out. But you wouldn't do that at home, either. Yes, you do need to watch out for scams, or thieves on motorbikes who try to snatch your bag or phone as they drive by, or sketchy dudes following you around trying to get you to accompany them somewhere, or other similar petty crimes and dangers, but it's really just a matter of learning the ropes of each place you visit, especially if it's a big city or a tourist hub. Most of the warnings we hear back home are just fear mongering. Funnily enough, tourism agencies and some scammers thrive on that fear mongering, telling you it's dangerous to go wherever you're going and that you should take their organized tour or hop in their tuktuk instead (which just ends up costing you way more money for no reason). In general, most places have people who will try to steal your money by deception, but rarely by force. Assaulting tourists generally isn't a good idea in countries that thrive on tourism.

"Wow, I don't think I could that."

Sure, you can. I wasn't sure I could, either. But doing this has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life: it's made me more comfortable in my own skin, and more much willing to spend some time by myself, whether it's a solo hike, a movie, or just spending some time reflecting a bit. I wouldn't hesitate to do it again, and I'm excited for my next adventure, whether I have company or not.

Breakfast at Isabella's

2018-09-25T12:30:00.000+07:00

One of the weirder places on my mom's tour through Sri Lanka was a three day stop in Beruwala, on the west coast about 60km south of Colombo. It's a beach town, so stopping there makes sense in theory. However, we were there in June, which is the rainy season in the west and the south of the island, which meant it was low season. And it was really low season there: there was almost no one around, and I got questioned several times about why I was there at all, especially in low season.

Of course, the double edged sword of being somewhere in low season is that with not many other tourists around, prices are lower and there aren't hundreds of people trying to take selfies with Buddha everywhere. There were no hostels here, so I splurged for a nice guest house called Isabella's. The owners here were German but they weren't there in low season, so a few local ladies ran the place in their absence. The most notable thing about Isabella's was the breakfast, which was included in the price of the accommodation. Every morning, I sat at the family-sized kitchen table and was served enough plates to cover almost the entire table. This easily could have fed several people, but I was the only the one there, so it was all for me. I had fresh fruit (mango, pineapple, rambutan), eggs, toast, string hoppers with dhal and coconut sambol, local snacks (vegetable roti and wade), tea, and coffee. It was so much food that I never had to eat lunch.

This was the last stop on my mom's whirlwind two week tour of the country, so they were shacked up in a swanky all-inclusive resort with a big pool and beach access to unwind. I had been trying to get Mom and Linda out to see some local places with me, but had largely been unsuccessful thus far. The only place where we had gotten a chance to do this was near Sigiriya, when we walked through a tiny town near my mom's hotel and got some kottu for lunch. However, we were fortunate to be in Beruwala on a Monday, which was the day of the big local market in town, so Mom and I had planned to go. Her tour had organized other optional events for that day, and the guide made sure to warn them all that if they did any exploring on their own, they wouldn't be covered under insurance if anything happened. Some nice fear mongering. Our tuktuk driver, upon arriving to the market, then insisted on accompanying us as we walked through, because the hotel had instructed him to do so. This was fear mongering on another level, to the point where I wondered if the place actually might be a bit sketchy. Nothing I had read had mentioned anything to worry about regarding the market, though. Furthermore, the resorts in the area were advising people not to go to the beach and swim, even though local people were laughing and having a great time doing exactly that about 5 metres away. So I was pretty confident that it was bullshit, and I politely declined the driver's offer.

It turns out, other than having to evade an annoying dude who was following us for about 20 minutes trying to get us to go to his jewelry shop, we had a fun time walking around the market, and an even better time at a temple nearby. The temple boasted the largest sitting Buddha in the world (~50m tall), and it was definitely impressive. The inside of the temple was arguably even better: it was wall-to-wall vibrant images of Buddhist stories and symbols, and its different levels and staircases almost seemed inspired by Escher. Best of all, we had the entire temple to ourselves for most of our time there, which meant we could spend it poring over the images, pointing out repeating symbols and motifs to each other, hypothesizing what they might mean, and just generally taking our time and examining every nook and cranny. This was novel for me, as normally there are dozens or hundreds of people snapping pictures and walking around, so the privacy and feeling of isolation and solitude was a welcome change. It was novel for Mom as well, who had been quickly herded through most of the attractions with her tour group, so she relished the opportunity to take her time and explore with me.

Beruwala is definitely not on the typical backpacker trail in Sri Lanka, especially in the low season, so I was curious if there would be much to do beyond hanging out on the beach and at my mom's resort. However, it unexpectedly gave both Mom and I some of our most fun memories of our time there, and was a great way to cap off her two week tour and our time together.

Animals being jerks

2018-09-24T00:00:00.000+07:00

I've been asked several times if I had any scary experiences while traveling. There haven't been many, but two of the most memorable ones involved animals. There were tons of times that creepy insects or lizards scared the hell out of me, but those were just jump scares that lasted a few seconds and subsided when doors were slammed, sinks were blocked, or, if necessary, guts were sprayed on the floor. However, there were two standout experiences involving animals that were slightly larger.

The first time was in Indonesia, on the island of Lombok. I had a nice routine of walking an hour to a beautiful white sand beach in the morning, getting some lunch, and spending the afternoon reading and swimming there. One day, I was en route and I spotted a macaque monkey about 50m away from where I was walking. I had seen many macaques before, some up close and personal on the river safari with Osman, but usually they were just doing their thing and minding their own business. This guy looked like he was staring at me, which was unusual. I continued to walk, and he continued to stare, and a few seconds later, he broke into a sprint toward me. I stopped in my tracks, trying to figure out if I should run or stand still, but I wasn't sure if he was actually running at me, or just toward me. Yeah, it was at me. When he got a few metres from me I was panicking a bit, wondering what was about to happen and hoping there was a place where I could get a rabies shot somewhere near by. He finally leapt at me, and latched onto... my water bottle that I was carrying. He was hanging off it, growling and holding on for dear life while I played tug of war with him. A few seconds later, another one came out of nowhere from behind me and jumped onto the bottle too, at which point I let go. You guys can have it. I watched them as I walked away, and one of them deftly poked a hole in the bottom of the bottle, held it above his head, and drank from the stream pouring down. The other one eventually grabbed it and did the same. I was definitely not the first mark of these bastard monkey thieves. However, I was ultimately pretty relieved because it definitely could have ended a lot worse.

The other scary animal experience was about a month later, in Sigiriya, Sri Lanka. I was coming home relatively late after spending the evening with Mom and Linda at their hotel, and my tuktuk driver didn't understand English very well. He dropped me off at the end of the street where my guesthouse was, either not understanding or ignoring my request to drive me all the way there. Oh well, only a five minute walk. My guesthouse wasn't on a main street, though, and Sigiriya is not a very populated town, so the street was pitch black. I took my phone out and used its flashlight to light my way, which got the attention of some of the local dogs. I was used to dogs barking at me as I passed by - this happened almost everywhere when I walked through a local area, especially at night. Sometimes, if they were outside, they would even walk down the driveway growling at me to make sure I stayed on the road and didn't venture into their territory. So I didn't think much of this at first, until they started following me. First one, then two and three, then a half dozen, then almost ten, Barking, snarling, growling, baring their teeth. Again, I didn't think running would be a great idea here, as they would surely outrun me in my flip-flops and I would be basically confirming I was a threat and inviting them to attack me. Instead, I decided to just pick up my pace, keep looking back to make sure they were always a few metres behind me, and have a chat with them as I walked down the street. Eventually, they started to slow their pace, and little by little they peeled off from the pack and returned to home base to continue their patrol. They were definitely effective guard dogs if they could manage to freak out someone as unafraid of dogs as me. Good boys.

Less threatening dog at less scary time of day

Cheeky little shits

Japanese food: successes

2018-09-23T23:30:00.000+07:00

A while back, I wrote about some memorable fails from our experience trying out many different foods in Japan. Here are some dining experiences that turned out a little bit better:

We ate a lot of sushi
Japan is, of course, known for sushi. While I've enjoyed stuffing my face with sushi at the all-you-can-eat places back home, I was excited to try the "real thing" in Japan. Just like back home, there are places that range from relatively cheap to pretty extravagant. The cheap ones tend to be the "conveyor belt" sushi places, or kaiten. Here, there's one large bar with a small conveyor belt that everyone sits around, and moving along it are plates containing a few pieces of sushi each. The plates are differently coloured, with a code on the wall matching colours to prices. If you go for the cheapest ones, you can eat 20 pieces of sushi for around $10 - not bad. We tried to mix it up between some of the cheaper, plainer options, like tilapia and some mystery whitefish, and the nicer options like salmon and eel.

We wandered into two pricier places, where we were able to sit at the chef's counter, looking and pointing at the selection of fish behind the glass. The chefs didn't speak much English, but they did recognize some words for different fish (salmon and tuna were pretty reliable ones). We were able to point and communicate for the most part, but we also asked the chefs to let us try some of their catch that we didn't recognize. Two of the more interesting ones were sea urchin and pickled herring roe, both of which no one particularly liked. Some turned out to be things we had in fact tried before, like octopus and calamari, but just looked a little different. Some were totally new and either the chefs didn't know the English words for them, or we forgot what they were a few minutes after he told us. Whatever we had, there was no mistaking the quality of all of it, and we certainly paid for what we got. Both times, we tried to guess the price of what we had eaten, and we underestimated pretty significantly each time. We even roped an unsuspecting hostel roommate into joining us and shelling out $40 for dinner, which was more than his entire daily budget. Oops. (Worth it.)

We had weird things for breakfast
Most Asian countries don't eat western breakfasts, and if they do it's usually different somehow. However, some hostels serve free breakfast, where you can get usual western staples like eggs and toast. When we didn't get a free breakfast, we had to find something local, which was often an adventure. Most of the time there was a noodle soup to be had somewhere, which is pretty typical in several Asian countries, but we had some pretty heavy, unusual things a few times. Some of the most memorable were a giant plate of delicious tempura (shrimp and vegetables), and pork curry with rice. The one that took the top prize though, was one morning around 10:00-11:00am when we were heading out to catch a train, and couldn't for the life of us find a place that was open and served food (because restaurants just aren't open from 6:00am-noon or 10:00am-midnight here). Finally, we happened upon a fast food place called Mos Burger, which Jordan had been wanting to try for days, and the two of us convinced Casey to go. We were the only ones in there, but damned if those brunch beef burgers topped with tomato, mozzarella, and marinara sauce weren't tasty. The onion rings weren't bad either. Breakfast of champions.

We ate at 7-eleven
Since Japan is relatively expensive (basically Canadian prices), we tried to save money where we could. Going out for drinks and food at night was expensive, so we frequented the 7-eleven to stock up on sake, beer, wine, and weird chips to take back to our hostel and share over chats or games of kaboo. The best snacks were the pizza chips, which were legendary. Instead of getting a bag of pizza chips and a few new ones to try, by the end of the week we were just getting two or three bags of pizza chips and decimating them.

7-eleven also had sushi, usually eaten on the go in the form of nigiri. Nigiri are large triangular shaped clumps of rice with different types of fish in the middle, wrapped in seaweed. They are about $1 each and two of them easily fill you up for lunch (or just one for a snack or light lunch(. I wish I had tried them before my last days there, as they were one of the more affordable options for lunch. 7-eleven also had pretty great single-dish dinners, which I ate almost every night after Casey and Jordan left. These were large bowls of noodles, meat, and sauce for about $4-5, and they actually tasted really good after they were heated in the microwave. I wouldn't have believed it or tried it if so many people hadn't told me about it, and when I saw many local people buying them I figured they had to be good.

We went to unique restaurants
In addition to the aforementioned sushi places, there were three unique standout restaurant experiences during my short stay in Japan.

In Tokyo, Casey, Jordan and I were taken out for a fun night by my friend Chad, who I worked with 10 years ago at Mac. His girlfriend, Nao, also came, as did her friend who was visiting. Chad has been living in Tokyo for several years since he graduated from Mac, so after a chat on Facebook, we organized dinner together. We went to Torikizoku, a chain restaurant in the Tokyo area which is very popular with locals. We had to wait for a little while to get a table, but once we did, we enjoyed dish after dish of delicious comfort food. The chain specializes in all things chicken, so we ate things like fried chicken cartilage and chicken liver, in addition to more "usual" dishes. Everything was 298 yen (a little over $3), which is very cheap for Japan, and ordering was done through an iPad at the table, so it was easy to keep the food coming. All in all, the five of us ate for about $20 apiece, which was amazing value considering we'd also had several beers each. It was a really fun night and the travelers were super grateful to get shown around by some locals. Thanks, Chad and Nao!

After Casey and Jordan left, I met up with Wes, another friend and former housemate from Mac who I hadn't seen since graduation, after I found out he was living in Tokyo as well. I was late getting to the train station to meet him after I got confused with train lines and unwittingly cheated the Japanese metro system out of $2, but once I found him, we rushed down some narrow streets and alleys of Shimokitazawa to a bustling upscale izakaya. The way this place worked, which I learned is typical of traditional izakayas, is that you pay $40 for a multi-course meal and unlimited alcohol for an hour and a half. We immediately got a bottle of sake in an elaborate bamboo bottle and some beers, and were soon enjoying everything from soups to sashimi to grilled food to dessert. We left much more full and much less sober than we had been a few hours prior. At most izakayas, rather than the usual language barrier, there is a notorious language stonewall, so it's very rare to see tourists there. I was really lucky that Wes spoke enough Japanese to communicate for both of us and take me out for a night on the town. Thanks, Wes!

The last memorable dinner was in Fujiyoshida, where we found a place called Shuju one night, which was so far in the middle of nowhere that we thought our map was lying and it was some sort of trap. Sure enough, though, when we found it, we were enthusiastically greeted and invited to sit down at the chef's counter. We were the only ones there. The thing to do there was to order the "chef's choice", which meant you pay about $17 apiece and the chef, Masahiro, makes whatever he wants for you. We had done something like this a few times already by asking servers to "order for us", so it was a welcome change that this time it was actually an option on the menu. The chef and owner was an eccentric guy who chatted with us in broken English as he cooked, and shared some sake with us. We ate a natto bean salad (which Casey was forced to finish), grilled meats and veggies, an egg-based dish that had to be scraped off the pan a certain way with a certain tool, a cabbage pancake, and dessert, among other things I'm probably forgetting. After dinner, Casey pointed to the guitar behind the counter and asked, "Do you play?", which he took to mean, "Can you play for us right now?", and he enthusiastically answered yes. He grabbed the guitar and played a few songs for us, then showed us the one music video his old punk band had on YouTube. He was one of the most entertaining hosts and chefs and easily made our night.

Although we had some lots of weird food in Japan, some of which wasn't very palatable, we had way more positive experiences and were lucky to enjoy lots of amazing, unique dishes with great people, making some of my favourite memories from my time there.

Sushi, obvi

Tonkatsu (deep fried pork)

Giant sushi boats. Not pictured: Jordan's tiny plate of noodles

4 interesting aspects of Japanese culture

2018-09-22T15:34:00.000+07:00

I was only in Japan for 10 days, half of which were spent in Tokyo, the other half in the north chasing cherry blossoms. However, in those 10 days, I noticed four distinct aspects of the culture there:

Nerd culture is everywhere

This was very evident in Tokyo, and I'd hazard a guess that it is in other parts of the country as well (e.g. Kyoto, where Nintendo headquarters is located). There is an entire district in the middle of Tokyo called Akihabara, or Akiba, that is dedicated to all things nerdy, which here is mostly anime, electronics, and video games. At night, "electric town" looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie - neon lights, tall buildings, and giant anime characters everywhere. There are huge 8 floor buildings dedicated solely to manga, whether it's the comics themselves or action figures derived from them, and grown men in suits browse these places just as (or more) often than the younger people you would expect. Other electronics shops and action figure stalls are found down some of the many labyrinthine networks of alleys in the area, which are fun to get lost in. One of my most fun hours in Akiba was perusing Super Potato, a 3-floor Nintendo-themed shop with everything from old games (which were being played on 20-30 year old TVs) to stuffed animals.

Everything is extremely efficient, and orderly

Most people tease me about how polite I must be when I tell them I'm Canadian, but I don't think we hold a candle to Japanese people. Between the bowing and the many "arigato"s we doled out, I really hope we didn't offend anyone too badly over the course of our short time there, but sometimes it was hard to figure out exactly what we were supposed to do to be polite. For example, apparently you are absolutely not supposed to jaywalk under any circumstances. If it's 3:00am and there are no cars for miles in either direction, you still wait until that little man turns white to signal that you're allowed to walk. Coming from Nepal, whose streets look like someone took thousands of cars and pedestrians and somehow tied them all into a knot together, I was used to just playing Frogger whenever I wanted to get to the opposite side of the road, so Casey and Jordan had to tell me about this rule. An interesting example of the orderliness was at the metro, which is famous for being absurdly on time (and actually apologized for leaving 25 seconds early a few months before we got there, and again a few months after - more on that below). Surely one of the reasons that it is so efficiently run is that there are designated lines to stand in as you wait to get onto the train. It stops in the exact same place every time it comes to the platform, so the doors open such that people can file out of the train and easily walk between the others queued up to get on. It was actually kind of magical to see, especially when I compared it to my experience riding a crowded TTC train, where people arrange themselves in disorderly clumps around the doors as the train pulls up and half-try to let most of the commuters out before jamming themselves in all at once.

...which is juxtaposed with being unabashedly sexual

Contrary to the politeness and reservedness is the often strange sexual undertones of the culture. While there are some outright obvious sex-themed places, like the giant 7-floor sex department store in the middle of Akiba, usually it's a bit more under the surface. Nowhere is this more obvious than at the famous maid cafes, also found in Akihabara. I had heard vague things about these from Kris, but didn't know what to expect until I convinced Casey and Jordan to go. It turns out, these are multi-floor cafes, mostly focused on "cute"-themed dessert and drinks, where you are served by young Japanese women dressed as maids. But it's so much more interesting than that: some cafes allow you to select the maid who will serve you; you ask them to come over by ringing a little bell; they call you master; you are immediately given a membership card which lets you accumulate loyalty points, and the loyalty points get you more favourable service, like delighted high-pitched squealing when you come in; you can pay to take pictures with the maids, or even play games with them. It was definitely unique.

On the surface, there was nothing shady about the place, at least not the one we visited - no suggestive touching, sketchy backrooms, or anything like that. But the clientele was almost all single men, chatting and taking pictures with the servers, and enjoying their, ahem, cuteness. In fairness, there were some couples on dates, too, and a few families with young children enjoying cat-shaped cakes. Actually, surprisingly, almost everyone there was local - this definitely wasn't a tourist trap. However, there was an undeniable weirdness to the place - definitely not a fully wholesome vibe. A really memorable experience, though, and successfully made Casey uncomfortable, so worth it just for that.

Strict working hours which extend until very late at night

We saw evidence of the very demanding work culture many times, mostly in Tokyo. We learned that the reason why there is a public apology when trains leave slightly early is that many people missed that train because they were there a few seconds too late (but normally would have been on time), forcing them to take the next train a few minutes later, and as a result, being late for work by that few minutes. Apparently, strolling in at 9:02am when you are supposed to be there at 9:00 is a big no-no, trains be damned, so a lot of people actually got scolded for this by their superiors.

Not only do people have to be extremely punctual for work, but they also work long hours. My first night in Tokyo, I saw several men in suits standing out on the street chatting, with a drink in one hand and a briefcase in the other. They had definitely just gotten off work, but this was after 10:00pm. I noticed more of these men on the subway. Apparently this is a normal thing: they are called, in English, "salarymen", and most of them work 12-14 hour days and then go get drunk with their coworkers. Sometimes they don't even go home before going back to work the next day - they just find a place to sleep nearby. The famous pod hotels in Japan are mostly filled with salarymen and, as a result, cost $50-60/night, about double the price of a hostel dorm (and way outside my budget, unfortunately, since I hoped to stay in one). If they don't want to pay for a bed, they will sometimes rent a karaoke room to practice their karaoke (yep, that's a thing) and sleep there, because it's cheaper. If these men have families, they barely ever see their kids. The suicide rates among them are relatively high - there was even a famous place near where we stayed in Fujiyoshida called the "suicide forest", where lots of people go to kill themselves. We thought about going while we were in the area but decided that it was too eerie.

And there you have it. Japan certainly has one of the most unique cultures in any place I've ever visited, and although not all of it is positive, it's a fascinating place and I can't wait to return.

How temples feel

2018-09-21T12:20:00.000+07:00

If you go to southeast Asia, odds are you'll go to many temples. Most of the temples are Buddhist, some Tao, some Hindu, and probably some others. The temples are, by and large, beautiful: ornate trims, packed with symbolism; Buddhas in many different positions, which all mean something different; the smell of incense in the air; stories depicted on the walls through elaborate images; gold and gems reflecting brightly.

One thing I wasn't expecting, however, is how it feels to walk through these places. I'm not religious or spiritual, but there's been an unmistakable "bigger than you" feeling as I've explored these places. The air feels almost thicker to walk through, like there's some ethereal presence there. I get a slight pit in my stomach. The high ceilings and the Buddhas and other statues towering over me make me feel small. My footsteps seem louder. The best example of this was the rock temple in Dambulla, Sri Lanka. I was lucky enough to walk through this one with Mom and Linda and their tour group, so we all got to experience the feeling together.

I was excited to explore the temples of Angkor in Cambodia with Kris, because I had described this feeling to him and wondered what he'd make of it. We first went to Angkor Wat, which is the best known and largest of the temples, but it felt much different. It was imposing and intimidating, all grey stone rather than jade dragons. The walls of its outer halls were all carved with extremely intricate depictions of old wars involving deities and common men. Stones on the ground in the corner pavilions were overturned and crooked, meaning you had to watch where you stepped. It was, as Kris put it aptly, like stepping into a video game. Rather than encouraging introspection, this temple lended itself to being explored, to finding some nook or cranny somewhere that no one had ever seen before, to discover some secret buried for hundreds of years.

Many of the other temples of Angkor were similar: Ta Prohm, the "Tomb Raider" temple, had been purposely left to age rather than being restored, so tree roots grew around it and through it. This was an exercise in restraint, as it begged to be explored, but visitors had to stay on a marked path. Ta Keo was a simple few steep staircases to a small room at the top, where we looked out on the surrounding area. The only place where I got a tinge of the familiar Buddhist temple feelings was at the Bayon, its many faces staring at me everywhere I went. It wasn't quite the same, however. It was actually an interesting mix of the exploration and awe from Angkor Wat and the introspective, spiritual feeling from most Buddhist temples I'd seen. It was my favourite of the temples we visited.

Some people get "templed out" while they're here, and I can understand why - there are, after all, a lot of temples, in Angkor and generally in southeast Asia. However, the feelings they evoke are unlike anything I've ever experienced. Whether they're more spiritual, quiet temples meant for meditation, or sprawling, wild temples meant for exploration, visiting them will no doubt be one of my lasting memories from the trip out here.

Sometimes they're not trying to scam you

2018-09-20T12:19:00.000+07:00

Travelling alone makes you more of a target for scams, especially here in southeast Asia, so after a few months on the road, I was used to this and just assumed most people were trying to scam me in some way. Usually, this was true... but sometimes it wasn't.

One of the first rules to live by out here is to always ask the price of something before you agree to it. Often in the case of transportation, someone will ask you where you are going and then, once you tell them, herd you onto a nearby vehicle without another word. Especially in the case of taxis or tuktuks, this is dangerous, because if you don't know the price beforehand, the driver can make up basically anything they want when you arrive at your destination, and you have no choice but to pay - it's not like you can say no and walk away at that point, like you can before you get in.

I had a minor slip up in Colombo when I asked the price of a bus before I boarded it at the station. The driver told me, but for whatever reason I was in autopilot and did my usual routine when I was trying to haggle the price. I got a very dirty look, and then he looked like he was spitting venom when he started to talk to one of his colleagues nearby about me. When I boarded the bus then got off a few minutes later to try to put my bag in the rear luggage compartment, he full on yelled at me to get back on and sit down. Oops.

I made a much worse mistake in Kandy with a taxi driver. I used an app similar to Uber to get a taxi to my mom's hotel. The streets in the hills of Kandy are a labyrinth and this guy didn't know where he was going. His excuse was that his "map was broken", even though he got to my pick up point just fine. Pretty suspicious. It was a metered taxi, so his lack of knowledge was costing me money and time. Prior to this, I had read that taxi drivers in Kandy do this on purpose to drive up the cost on the meter, so I was getting annoyed that he was probably faking this whole thing and tried to direct him using the map on my phone. After stopping for directions three times and making several wrong turns, we eventually got there, but by that point he had run the meter up an extra 100 rupees ($1.25). The extra money wasn't a big deal, but in my infinite wisdom, I decided I should teach him a lesson so he thought twice before screwing with other tourists. I handed over 100 rupees less than what the fare said, and told him he didn't know where he was going so he shouldn't collect the full fare. He was not impressed, and we ended up causing a big scene at my mom's nice 5 star hotel, before I finally agreed to give him the fare 10 minutes later.

After telling Mom and Linda and their friends what happened, I was pretty smug, thinking that I'd gotten my point across pretty well. At the suggestion of one of the hotel staff, I wrote a complaint about him in the app as part of my rating for him, basically accusing him of pretending to not know where he was going. As we left the lobby area, the same hotel staff member ran up to me, and told me that the driver had just returned to the hotel. He handed me my locker key from my hostel, and said that the driver brought it back for me because I forgot it in the cab. I was pretty speechless. I was basically being an asshole to this guy because I thought he was trying to scam me, and it turns out he probably wasn't at all. And even if he was, he still went through the trouble of bringing back my key when he could have thrown it in a nearby bush and I would have never known. Not to mention, losing that key might have screwed me over for the next day because I was supposed to check out early in the morning before any staff were working at my hostel, and therefore wouldn't have been able to get my valuables from my locker (and probably would have had to pay the hostel for losing the key).

I immediately opened the app back up and wrote a reply to my own complaint asking them to ignore everything it said.

Being an accidental celebrity

2018-09-19T11:54:00.000+07:00

The journey from Malaysian Borneo to Indonesia was not as straightforward as Dana and I had hoped. We were in Semporna, a port town in the southeast corner of the province, in hopes that we could catch a boat to Bali after doing some diving. The journey turned out to be a lot more convoluted than that, with many stopovers in "less travelled" places.

Semporna is where we discovered how famous we were. Most divers elect to stay on nearby Mabul island to get to the famous Sipadan dive site, but we chose to stay ashore in Semporna and make a longer journey by boat to do our day of diving. As a result, everyone from shopkeepers to fishmongers hooted things at us as we walked by, whether we were heading to dive in the morning or looking for a place to eat dinner at night. They spoke amongst each other and pointed at us, sometimes with an excited tone, sometimes with a mocking one. Dana is tall, blonde, and Belgian, so she got most of the attention - generally people couldn't have cared less that I was there. Still, it was the first time I'd felt like I really didn't belong somewhere.

Staring and attention followed us to nearby Tawau, where we were going to take a boat to the Indonesian side of the island. The pictures also started there: people just approached us with their phones and (usually) asked to take selfies with us. I think I had more fun with this than Dana did. Street vendors wanted to memorialize us eating their food. When we got to Indonesian Borneo, we spent a day on a local beach as we waited for our flight, and were apparently the talk of the town as we lay half naked in the sand reading. We took a few pictures with various people, but the funniest was the couple who approached us and asked us to hold a large banner for the picture. I stood on one side, Dana on the other, and several people stood with us and in between. After the picture was done, we asked what the banner said. "Football!", someone answered. We had apparently just endorsed a local soccer team in our bathing suits.

After Dana and I parted ways, the attention waned. As I suspected, she was the key to my fame. However, I did have one group of people recognize me in Colombo. I was sitting on a bench in a park, taking a break from my morning walk and looking at the map on my phone to decide which route I wanted to take back to my hostel. I saw many pairs of legs in my peripheral vision all of a sudden, and looked up to find a dozen people staring at me, all around my age or slightly younger. A heavyset guy sat on the bench beside me and smiled as one of the girls pulled out her phone. Alright then, I guess we're taking pictures. Since they didn't ask, and the guy looked a bit uncomfortable, I decided to make it as awkward as possible by aggressively putting my arm around him and pulling him toward me. After that picture was done, he got up and two more sat down, flanking me this time. Okay, there is no chance in hell I'm sitting here while all of these people take turns taking pictures of me. I sprang off the bench after the second picture, smiled and quickly waved goodbye, and walked away as the girls all giggled.

Aside from a few other pictures here and there, that was it for my fifteen minutes of fame. After talking with other backpackers for the past few months, it seems like many of us are celebrities down here. Personally, I'll miss the spotlight when I get back, but I'm glad my legacy will live on in the Facebook accounts of 50 random Asian people.

Borneo's dark side

2018-09-18T11:50:00.000+07:00

I went to Borneo because I pictured it to be lush and green, wild and untamed, teeming with rare birds and mammals. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, at least not in the province of Sabah on the Malaysian side, where I decided to spend my time. It /was/ mostly green, but for a different reason: acres upon acres of palm tree plantations. Palm trees has always been a pleasant sight for me: they meant tropical weather, beaches, and coconuts. Here, though, seeing the organized mass production of them was a total eyesore.

The reason why there are so many of them, I learned, is because palm oil is the biggest export in Malaysia. The country actually pays its debts in palm oil instead of money. People make relatively good money working in the palm oil industry, and even more if they agree to grow palm trees on their own land. However, a huge cost of this industry is that it endangers the amazing wildlife that used to thrive here.

The Kinabatangan river is a great spot to do river safaris because of the density of wildlife along the river. I was very fortunate to see many amazing animals: several species of monkeys, including wild orangutans and the proboscis (long-nose) monkey that can only be found here; beautiful birds like herons and dozens of hornbills, flying in a cluster to their mating ground; and pygmy elephants, the smallest elephants in the world, just to name a few. There are also leopards, crocodiles, and many different lizards to be found here. Osman was an extremely talented guide so could spot wildlife hidden in trees from hundreds of metres away. He had great instincts and knew the area like the back of his hand. It was an incredible few days on the water that I won't soon forget.

There was a dark side of this, however. We learned from Osman that the reason the wildlife is so dense along the river is because the animals have nowhere else to go. Osman and several other local people who care about the environment managed to convince the Malaysian government to spare a thin patch of forest along the river so that the animals weren't completely driven out. It was so thin in spots that we could see through the trees to where the palm plantations began.

It was pretty heartbreaking to see the destruction of this once beautiful place, and to learn how quickly it happened, in the name of palm oil. Many of the local people hate the industry, but some still have to take jobs in it in order to survive. Others take those jobs to get rich. Unfortunately, Osman informed us that there isn't much we can do back home to avoid palm oil. It's ubiquitous: it's found in everything from shampoos to potato chips. However, I'll still try to favour products that are palm oil free when I have the opportunity. Although it was depressing at times, I'm thankful I got to visit this island before it becomes a complete palm tree wasteland.

Osman's tantrum

2018-09-17T11:48:00.000+07:00

One of the cooler things to do in the Sabah province of Malaysian Borneo is a safari along the Kinabatangan river. At the suggestion of a group of 4 Germans I befriended near Kinabalu national park, I contacted a man named Osman, who ran a homestay and did two daily river safaris. They had seen some amazing sights on his safaris: pygmy elephants, tons of monkeys, even a clouded leopard eating a proboscis monkey in a tree (which is basically once in a lifetime). Osman allegedly took David Attenborough out on the river, was an extremely talented guide, and had a very nice family. However, I read some reviews of his homestay on TripAdvisor and there were several pretty alarming ones about his temper. The Germans had said he was a bit crazy, but didn't mention anything about a fiery temper. I decided to go anyway on their recommendation, and the assumption that the reviews were being a bit dramatic.

After contacting his wife, Yanti, through WhatsApp, I boarded a few local buses to get to Sukau, a village on the river. The bus came to a boat launch and Osman was waiting for me in his small speedboat, wearing a poncho as it was pouring. I hadn't been on a boat in a while, so I was all smiles for the ride even though my raincoat was buried in my backpack and I was getting soaked. When we got to his homestay, we had some tea and talked about safaris. Pretty good first impression - the guy seemed like he had his head on straight.

Then the rest of our party showed up. I had kept in touch with Tim and Laura, a Dutch couple who I had also met at Kinabalu park, as we had agreed to do the safari together. They arrived with more girls they had met, Bebe and Dana. Tim, Laura and I greeted each other with waves and smiles, and chatted while the four of them unloaded their bags onto the porch and took off their wet ponchos. A few minutes later, Osman asked us to gather on the porch, and proceeded to, out of nowhere (to me), completely chew Bebe out. It was an angry tirade about disrespect and condescension. Spit was flying, feet were stomping. Bebe was crying and yelling back at him. I was standing there completely dumbfounded and at a loss for words, wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. It ended with Bebe and Osman both storming off in opposite directions.

Osman and I had a pretty friendly first interaction, so sometime later, he pulled me into the kitchen and sat me down. Apparently Bebe had been rude to the driver who brought them to the pier, a friend of Osman's, chiding him in English after he mistakenly gave her incorrect change. She then dramatically demanded to be helped down the ramp and onto the boat, and refused to carry her own bags, as she had hurt her ankle recently. He asked me to talk to her about respect, which I politely refused to do, because there was no way in hell I was getting in the middle of this weird argument I knew nothing about.

Eventually they had a chat and agreed to let bygones be bygones. Thankfully, that was the only tantrum we witnessed while staying with Osman's family - after that, we just had to deal with his weird jokes about monkeys having sex.

The Ha Giang loop

2018-08-30T17:38:00.003+07:00

"Are you doing the loop today?" he asked me.

Half an hour later, I was on the back of his motorbike and we were off.

The Ha Giang loop is a slightly-off-the-beaten-track road trip in the northernmost province of Vietnam. Most people do in 3-5 days, but I had planned to be there at least a week. I arrived on a bus from Hanoi planning to do the loop by public transit, but when I met Sam that morning at the hostel, we decided to go together, at least for part of it.

Almost as soon as we got out of Ha Giang city, the landscape began to change. We were in the much wilder mountains and hills of the north, driving up switchbacks to beautiful viewpoints, down cliffside roads, past trucks and other bikes and local people walking with large full baskets of corn or rice or other plants. The first day took us to Yen Minh, via two mountain passes to the Heaven's Gate viewpoint, and a two hour stopover to hike the longest, hottest kilometer of my life to some neat caves. We stayed in a homestay which was mostly run by the 12-year-old daughter of the homeowner, who was very charismatic and spoke impeccable English. We had a big traditional family dinner there that night with the family and the other dozen tourists who had also stopped there, and tried some corn wine.

The second day took us to Dong Van, the biggest city in the province after Ha Giang, via Lung Cu, where we went to the northernmost point in Vietnam and stopped at the Chinese border. The road to Lung Cu and the northernmost viewpoint was absolutely breathtaking. Some of the blogs I had read didn't really put much emphasis on going there, which I think is a shame as it was one of my favourite drives we did.

On the third day, Sam left on the bike. He only had three days to do the loop, so he was heading back to Ha Giang. I had much more time and Dong Van seemed like a good base, so I stayed for a few nights. After I hiked a peaceful, quiet mountain road one afternoon, I had a fun experience at a local restaurant. The place was run by a husband and wife, and had a 3 or 4 long tables in the back and an open "kitchen" at the front. It served local fare: a noodle soup called bun suon mang, and some wet noodle wrap dishes (bahn cuon and gia le). I ordered bahn cuon to start, and the husband gave me a bit of a nervous nod, then peeked out on the street to look for his wife. When he couldn't find her, he fired up the appliance used to make the wet noodle dishes: a large drum with a thin, paper-like cooking surface on top. Cooking the dish involves spooning some of the liquid mixture onto the drum, waiting until it cooks, putting the filling on top, and wrapping it up. His wife had made the dish for Sam and me when we were there the previous night, and it was obvious that she was the one who usually made it, as he completely messed it up a few times when trying to make it for me. He was laughing about it and I think some of the other customers were making fun of him. After that, I asked for a noodle soup (much easier to make), and two local guys invited me to eat it with them. One of them fetched me a beer and I raised my can up for us to knock them together before we drank. One of the guys must have really enjoyed that because he did it every time he took a drink after that. No one in there spoke a lick of English, but it was still really fun to eat with local people.

The next day, I hiked what was purported to be the most beautiful mountain pass in Vietnam: the 20km Ma Pi Leng pass between Dong Van and Meo Vac. One of the main reasons why I wanted to come here was for this. Most people do this pass on their bike as well, but I didn't have one, so I walked it. I met and chatted with a few local people along the way, and when I saw a sign for something called the "Sky Path", I knew that had to be my route. Sure enough, it took me several hundred metres above the main road, through rice fields, to lookout points and along narrow cliffside paths. It probably set me back by an hour or two, but it was easily worth it. Unfortunately, when it rejoined with the main road, I was 3km past the cafe where I had planned to stop for lunch, so rather than backtrack and add 6km to my day, I soldiered on for the final 8km to Meo Vac. It was a tiring but awesome day, and a clear highlight of the loop for me.

The loop was easily my favourite thing I did in Vietnam. The scenery was amazing and the people were the friendliest in the country, in my experience. Almost everyone smiled, waved, and said hello, and people seemed genuinely glad (and sometimes surprised) to see me. I even chatted with a teenage girl for almost half an hour about life in Canada, as she translated for her mother, while I was on a hike in Ha Giang city. It was a week of unique experiences, and I hope it stays just as great when more tourists inevitably catch wind of it.

The long bus ride from Hanoi to Luang Prabang

2018-08-29T21:45:00.000+07:00

I took a bus from Hanoi, Vietnam, to Luang Prabang, Laos. It was supposed to be a 26 hour journey and drive through beautiful landscapes in Laos after crossing the border. One of those things was true. I took it because it was a third of the price of a flight (which would have taken an hour), and, being in the last month of traveling and incurring some unexpected expenses back home, I'm trying to save money wherever I can. Anyway, here's what happened:

5:00pm
I was waiting in my hostel lobby to get picked up, when a man on a motorbike rides up in front and starts flailing his arms motioning for me to come out. He will henceforth be known as Dampe. I grab my bags and walk out the door. Not the minibus I was expecting, but I wasn't fazed. "Luang Prabang?" I ask. "Yes yes yes," Dampe replies as he takes my day pack from my hands to put between his legs. I barely had time to get on the bike before we were off.

5:05pm
We arrive at a tourism office and Dampe asks me for my passport. He flips to the page with my Vietnamese visa on it, nods, and gives it back to me. He gets back on the bike and tells me to follow him on foot. So I start to follow him as he speeds down the street, accompanied by George, the other backpacker we've just met up with. We follow Dampe through the crazy, crowded Old Quarter streets, picking up other confused backpackers along the way. Eventually he leads us to a bus stop at the side of a main road, tells us to wait, and drives away. A few minutes later, a minibus shows up, and we climb in.

5:45pm
After driving through the crazy Hanoi traffic for a while, we're on a major 8-lane road. Suddenly, while driving, the bus doors open and Dampe wheels up beside us, with a Japanese girl on the back of his bike, along with her huge suitcase. He seems to be trying to tell her to somehow get on the bus while it's moving. James Bond shit. She is not having it. Eventually the bus stops for about 10 seconds for her to heave the giant suitcase on board and climb in after it. I googled "Japanese Bond girl" and Aki from You Only Live Twice was the first hit, so she'll be referred to as Aki.

6:30pm
We're out of the busy rush hour traffic and into some random sidestreets and alleys. The minibus stops, the driver starts yelling "Luang Prabang!", and the doors open. Dampe appears again out of nowhere and repeats that people heading to Luang Prabang should get off, via more yelling and pointing at another bus. A few of us disembark and head toward the other bus, which promptly starts reversing and almost runs Aki over. We save her life and get on the bus. Our ragtag gang is four: myself, George, Aki, and a new girl, Lori.

8:30pm
We are barely outside Hanoi. We stop for dinner. I buy cheap apples for breakfast.

10:30pm
George has a small guitar. Lori also plays, and sings, so they take turns. We have an impromptu jam session. A few local guys join us, request some songs, and get finger-snapping lessons.

4:50am
After being in and out of consciousness for the past 4-5 hours, I wake up as the bus is violently struggling to get up a hill. It stalls several times and shuts off, and labours more and more to restart. We are in the middle of nowhere and it's storming, so breaking down here wouldn't be ideal. The driver idles us for a few minutes and tries again, and this time it works. I breathe a sigh of relief.

5:50am
A Vietnamese woman on the bus is yelling for no reason.

7:30am
We stop for the first time in 10 hours as my bladder is about to burst. I pee into a trough in a gas station bathroom. It occurs to me that it might not be a urinal, but I confirm afterward that I was at least in the men's bathroom, so there's a pretty good chance it was.

7:45am
As we're driving through a small town, the driver slams on his brakes. We then pull over and stop for an hour and a half. People eating nearby seem to be talking about the bus, and the driver keeps leaving and coming back. No one knows what's going on. We probably killed someone. I eat the apples from yesterday.

9:30am
We stop for breakfast. I have a bowl of pho.

11:00am
We've reached the Vietnamese border, about 4 hours behind schedule. The building is almost empty, so we wait for a few minutes in the hall for an agent to open the door to the passport office. He stamps us out and we get back on the bus to drive to the border to enter Laos.

12:00pm
We're still waiting to leave for the Laos border. No one knows why. The driver and some other local people seem to be having lunch and a restaurant outside the border control office.

1:15pm
The cafe has closed up shop and after stopping for two hours longer than we needed to, we drive the 5 minutes to the Laos border. We could have walked there and taken less time.

1:30pm
We go through border control. It functions like a McDonald's drive-thru, where we have to walk from window to window, except each window has a fee associated with it. At the first window, I pay $42 USD for the visa, which I was prepared for. As I move along to the different windows, I have to pay a $5 photo fee, a $2 visa processing fee, a $2 tourism fee, a 10000 kip stamp fee, and a 5000 kip temperature fee. Yes, at the last window, there was a man who took my temperature by aiming some sort of temperature ray gun at my forehead, then charged me money. There were no ATMs there, so I couldn't pay in kip because I had none. Not to worry, though: they accepted USD instead of kip at an outrageous exchange rate. I left with a visa and lighter pockets. As we wait for George to finish getting shot with the temperature gun, the bus driver yells at us to hurry up. Apparently we're in a rush now after that 2 hour lunch stop.

2:15pm
We all get into Laos without a problem, and we start to drive through the beautiful, impossibly green hills of the Phongsaly province. I enjoy the views and my book for the rest of the afternoon.

7:15pm
We arrive at a bus station and the driver shouts, "Luang Prabang!" We've been picking various people up and dropping them off since we got into Laos, and the four tourists are the only ones left at this point. I check my map and see that we are 200km away from Luang Prabang, so I'm confused. We get out to see our bags already being loaded onto the roof of a minibus nearby. The driver says "Only two hour." Yeah, okay. Unless this bus sprouts fucking wings, we're not getting there in two hours. But this guy isn't taking us any farther, so we get on to a packed bus full of local people and much less comfortable seating.

7:30pm
I am showered with some sort of cold coffee as a local man tries to throw his drink across my body and out the window. I now somehow smell worse than I did before.

7:45pm
An entire family enters the bus. There are two empty seats, so I am curious how this will play out. It turns out, only two of the young boys are staying on for the trip. They get strapped into one seat and Mom, Dad, and Grandpa disembark after having a conversation with another passenger in the back of the bus, which was hopefully a discussion about where the boys should go when the bus stops, but probably not. The youngest boy is wearing pants that say ANARCHY in large letters. He is 6 years old. He immediately makes a pillow and blanket fort on the platform between his seat and the driver and passes out. I am jealous.

9:20pm
The young girl beside me wakes up and vomits into a plastic bag.

10:30pm
We stop for a snack. Since the bowl of pho 13 hours ago, I've eaten half a tin of candied peanuts and a few bite-size cookies. I pay $2.50 for a bunch of bananas. Aki found some spicy ham in a banana leaf for $2, so I buy one too. It turns out to be 15g of ham. I eat it in one bite, then eat five bananas.

11:45pm
The music has changed from Laotian classic rock, to adult contemporary, to some sort of Asian Weeknd who sang partly in English ("Kiss me, kiss me, do me now"), but for the last hour has been the standard minibus soundtrack of hardcore, ear-splitting, head-grinding, techno and dubstep remixes. Still better than hearing Ed Sheeran or Bruno Mars for the 48-millionth time in the last 8 months. I start nodding off and headbutt Aki a few times accidentally.

1:30am
Over 32 hours after leaving my hostel in Hanoi, we arrive at the bus station in Luang Prabang. We're 2.5km away from our hostel. George, Lori and I are staying in the same place, and Aki is staying up the road. We prepare to walk it but when a tuktuk driver offers us a ride, we gratefully take it (after haggling him down to a third of his original price). He drops us off near our hostel, but refuses to take Aki to hers.

1:45am
We eventually find our hostel down a network of alleys, but the gate is locked. We find a way in and Lori and George look for reception while Aki and I look for WiFi so she can figure out how to get to her guesthouse. We're all successful: we check in and Aki gets directions. Apparently, there was still a receptionist working despite the gate being locked. We get our room keys and beds and I walk Aki to her guesthouse nearby.

3:00am
George, Lori and I unwind with a beer and a game of cards while my phone charges in my bed.

3:30am
I probably wake all of my roommates up climbing into my bunk, tell Kris I'm alive and chat briefly, and finally pass out.

Chasing mantas

2018-06-29T01:12:00.000+07:00

After spending a few days on Bali and drinking too many Bintangs, Dana and I headed to Nusa Penida for a bit of a quieter time. We reached our accommodation mid-morning after taking a few boats and short ride on the back of a scooter taxi when we got to the island's port. We waited for two hours to check in to find out that the dorm was out of commission due to bed bugs the night before, so we could get an upgrade to a bungalow or find somewhere else to stay. We had had a hard enough time booking this place, so we elected to take the discounted bungalow. We paranoiacally checked our own beds for the nasty little roaches, thankfully finding none.

We explored the island on a scooter. Lucky for me, Dana was well experienced with one, so I could ride on the back of hers. Our first day there, we tried to go to Atuh beach. We failed to find it, instead hiking to a nice viewpoint and then down to a rocky beach, where I stupidly tried to swim and cut my hand on some coral. The coastal ride there was breathtaking, and we got to do the same ride back at sunset and low tide, which was very rewarding. The next day, we went to Kelingking (or, colloquially, T-rex) beach. This was one of the highlights of the island for me. I did the arduous but fun 200m hike down to the beach from the top, navigating sketchy bamboo and rock "stairs", while Dana stayed up top and went to a temple. The beach at the bottom was soft, deep, pristine sand, and not very busy, most people electing to skip the trek down. I could have stayed there all day, but instead only hung around for less than an hour, since I had to meet Dana back up top to head out. However, I was there long enough to get pummeled by the strong waves and relax in the calmer waters beyond them, and enjoy a brief rest on the beach before I headed back up.

The whole island was beautiful and exploring it was fun, but the main draw for me was the chance to swim with manta rays, something that's been on my far-fetched bucket list for years. We had seen the gentle giants from our vantage point on several cliffs, the crystal clear water below making easy to spot them even from hundreds of metres up. Seeing them swim around like that was cool enough, but I was hoping to get in the water with them. There were a few snorkeling excursions organized by the dive shops in the area and our accommodation, but they were expensive and didn't have an explicit goal of finding mantas, so they weren't very attractive to us. We had read that we could charter a small boat from Crystal Bay, so we took our scooter over there midday and were happy to find several shacks that did custom snorkeling trips. We asked to go find some mantas, and 10 minutes later we were on a private boat on the hunt. We drove around Manta Bay for a few minutes before the captain shouted "Manta! Manta!" and we hurriedly jumped in after it.

We saw the one he referenced, but it was gone in a flash. We spent the next ten minutes swimming around having a look for more, which was a challenge as it was high tide and the water was really choppy. Our captain would shout to us every few minutes when he saw more from the boat, and we would clumsily swim toward him, trying to catch a glimpse before they disappeared again. I lingered in a small area for a few minutes, going back and forth between looking underwater and coming up to see if the captain or Dana had spotted anything. I was starting to lose hope that we would get any up close and personal time with them when I dipped my head in for another look and couldn't believe my eyes.

I could have reached out and touched the manta, it was so close. It had its white, spotted belly to me as it swam by. And then another. And another. A train of at least five of them, right next to me. I came up and yelled to Dana, but she was too far away. I later learned that the same train had swum right by her, and she got some spectacular pictures with her underwater camera. In the moment, though, I realized she wouldn't be able to catch up, so I started to chase them.

Despite moving gracefully and languidly, they were damn fast. Although I was sprinting and wore fins, I was barely able to keep up with the slowest one in the train. It only lasted for a few minutes, but it seemed like hours to me. Every so often, I would have to slam on the brakes as they had stopped dead in their tracks. They would swim around each other when they stopped - it almost seemed like they were playing, or the largest one was taking a head count and making sure everybody was still there. Once, he started to swim right at me. Whether he thought I was a member of the family or he was trying to intimidate me, I'm not sure, but he soon turned sharply away from me and continued his game or head count.

After about three iterations of this, I was exhausted and I knew we were nearing the edge of the bay. I couldn't keep up any longer, so I had to let them go. The captain called us back in, and we headed back to the bay. On the way back, Dana and I compared notes and we got our first look at her amazing photos. I'm glad we have some photos so we can share what we saw, but definitely won't need them for to help my memory: the experience was one of the most exhilarating of my life, and not something I'm likely to forget anytime soon.

Uninvited bedroom guests

2018-06-29T01:11:00.002+07:00

I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and there it was, sitting in the sink: a giant roach, several inches long and meaty. This was the second one I had to deal with in a few nights. The last one had found its way onto the top of my bed canopy, inside the mosquito netting, to greet me as I was lying down and looking up. He was tricky to get rid of, but the random electric tennis racket bug zapper I found in the room helped. This time I was on my own - there wasn't even any toilet paper in here.

I went outside to grab my flip flop to kill it, and returned to the bathroom to find worse news: it was gone. I frantically looked around, searching the floor, the walls and the ceiling. Nothing. I noticed the door to my room had a huge gap in the bottom of it, so I went in and searched my room as well, but no sign of him.

I was getting ready for bed, so I continued where I left off. After I brushed my teeth, as I was rinsing my mouth, I saw legs and a head poke out from the sink pipe - he was back. I started trying to splash him with water from my bottle, wasting all of it, but it was no use. He was too fast. He climbed out of the sink and started running in haphazard patterns around the floor, and before I could grab another weapon he made his way for the door to my bedroom. Nope. I had no choice at that point so I lifted my right foot over top of him and smashed him between it and the floor. Phew, it was over.

But it wasn't.

I looked over to the sink and saw something else climbing out of the pipe. No no no no. Was I about to get swarmed by a family of massive, huge roaches? I turned the sink on to try to flush it down but it was no use, it was already halfway out. When it did climb fully out, it was a lot smaller, and not a roach at all. It was a small frog. What. The fuck.

This guy seemed pretty freaked out so he wasn't trying to escape the sink at first, but when I grabbed the bum gun and started shooting him, trying to get him back down the pipe, he tried to climb out of the basin as fast as his little legs would carry him. Eventually I got him down there and closed the sink stopper. Now it was over.

But it wasn't.

Apparently the stopper wasn't airtight, so this fool somehow managed to squeeze his way through the tiny gap it left and back into the basin. Alright, bitch, let's dance. I wielded the bum gun again and turned the tap on full blast. I knew he'd be finished if I could just get him under there and flush him down. He deftly escaped the water blasts for a few seconds, but the water coming from all directions was too much for him. He succumbed to his possible doom and got washed down the pipe. I left the tap on full blast and continued to spray the bum gun down the pipe for a good minute before I put the stopper down, holstered the bum gun, went back into my room, and put a towel across the gap in the door to block any intruders.

As I head to sleep, I'm wondering if they're gathering all their strength to ambush me when I go for my morning pee tomorrow. If they do, I'll be armed and ready.

Japanese food: fails

2018-06-29T00:54:00.001+07:00

Japanese food is weird and mostly amazing, but we had our share of food-related fails in our time there. My first real taste of the strange and varied food there was when I met up with Casey and Jordan in Yamagata: not a typical tourist destination, but we were there to chase cherry blossoms. After having some delicious Yamagata beef the night before, we had a day straight out of a fairy tale: we walked in parks with the trees' small pink and white petals falling all around us, and once we found a comfy tree to sit under, we watched local people having picnics, eating food from the nearby food stalls and drinking sake from large bottles that they brought from home. We were feeling hungry, so we decided to visit the food stalls and get a snack. Many food stalls were selling the same thing, and we had seen dozens of people walking around eating it: a small ball-shaped snack called konnyaku, which kind of looked like a glazed meatball. It came in threes, on a skewer, with a tiny dollop of mustard on each ball. We bought some, figuring if everyone was eating it, it couldn't be too terrible. Turns out, it was. It is apparently potato, but it tasted like something gelatinous and flavourless with a texture I couldn't handle. I felt like a toddler, but I had to spit mine out. I watched in horror as Casey and Jordan continued to chew theirs and laboured to swallow it. I was glad I got rid of mine, because Casey could still taste hers hours later.

Aside from festivals at parks like this, there isn't really much of a "street food" culture in Japan, so we ate at restaurants most of the time. Ordering food from restaurants was always interesting. Many of them don't have English text on their menu, and none of us read Japanese, so in a la carte places, we tried to go by pictures, if they were present on the menu, or find a server who spoke enough English to tell us whether something was chicken or beef, noodles or rice, raw or cooked. Of course, the pictures couldn't always be trusted. In a restaurant in Sendai, Casey and I ordered a sushi boat, and Jordan ordered a plate of noodles. They looked roughly the same size from the pictures on the menu, but when they came, we could barely see over the massive pirate ship boats delivered to us, while Jordan finished his noodles in three bites and watched us eat.

Sometimes, just finding an open restaurant was difficult enough. A recurring theme (and joke) with our time there was that everything was closed: from palaces and temples to amusement parks, and once an entire town, it was a struggle to find something that was actually open to us sometimes. This included places to eat. We were eager to find a place for dinner and a drink in Sendai, so we went to a district called Kokubuncho, which apparently boasted thousands of bars and places to eat. First, we tried an Aladdin-themed place. The door was locked, and it was a strip club. Next, we tried a superhero-themed place, whose door was also locked. That one was probably a strip club, too. There was a Beatles-themed bar that was completely abandoned. After almost an hour of locked doors, dashed hopes, and rumbling stomachs, Jordan had high hopes for a place called TANK DUMP. We tried the door, expecting it to be closed, but to our surprise, it opened and a smiling man appeared, inviting us in. Finally. Jordan was a few steps in when the host saw Casey and said: "Oh, uh, no women. Gay only." After briefly considering leaving Casey to fend for herself while we ate and drank, we decided to stick together and moped away.

When we did find places to eat that were open, sometimes menus were all in Japanese with no pictures, and no restaurant employee who could speak English. In such circumstances, we consulted Casey and Jordan's Japanese book and said: "Please order for us". This yielded mostly great results, but of course there were a few questionable dishes as well. In one such instance, one of the sushi chefs spoke a bit of English, so he was asking us if we wanted to try certain things, to which we always answered yes. He laughed when we said yes to one particular dish: natto. He pulled it out to show it to us, and we understood why he was laughing: it looked like a giant, light brown, spoiled rice krispie treat in its container, and when he pulled some of it out, it has a saliva-like substance that stretched along with it, no doubt tying it back to its mother brain to receive more alien commands. After trying it in a maki roll, we found out it was actually just fermented soybeans. We had it again a few nights later in a salad. Casey was happy when the chef took her salad bowl away when it was still half full of the beans, but when the chef realized he had taken it away "too soon", he promptly handed it back and she begrudgingly finished the beans as Jordan and I egged her on. She washed it down with some sake and forgot all about it.

There were a few more fails along the way at sushi counters (sea urchin and herring roe sushi), but the vast majority of the food we ate in Japan was incredibly delicious. And even when it wasn't, we were having too much fun to care.

Things I miss, and things I don't

2018-06-29T00:53:00.001+07:00

Hi, there! It's been a while. I'm several months behind in my posts at this point, so I decided that rather than try to keep writing posts in chronological order and keep dates accurate, I'm just going to start writing reflective posts interleaved with random events that have happened over the past two months, in no particular order. I might fix the dates later. For the first reflective-style post, since I'm a little over halfway through my trip, I started thinking about things I miss from home, and things I don't.

Don't miss: TV

I enjoy TV shows arguably more than the average person my age, so I thought it would be pretty hard to be abroad while some of my favourite shows aired their new seasons. Oddly, however, I just don't really care. It will be nice to watch some of these shows when I get back home, but it's not going to be first or even probably twentieth on my list of things to do. I wouldn't even say I'm really "looking forward to it". It's more just a "oh yeah, that'll be fun when I get around to it". My takeaway from this is that I definitely don't need to watch as much TV as I was watching at home. Sometimes I'd complain that there were just too many good shows, and not enough time to watch them all. It's definitely true that there is not enough time to watch them all, so I think I'm going to start being extra choosy with what I spend my time watching. I'm sure I'll still have my lazy days binging every once in a while, but hopefully not too often. I'm really glad that Game of Thrones isn't airing its final season until 2019, though, because I would have scoured cities for the best WiFi spot to stream that shit every Monday.

Don't miss: music

I also thought it would be torture to read about new albums getting released and not being able to listen to them. But it really hasn't been a big deal. Rather than checking critic sites daily or weekly for new content, I think I'll start to batch update my playlists every few months by quickly checking the top albums from that time period, which should save me some time. Or maybe I'll finally join the current century and subscribe to a streaming service, so I don't have to spend as much effort seeking out new tunes. Surprisingly, the only times I've really missed music in general have been on long bus rides when I get a headache from reading. I've learned to appreciate silence and ambient noise more, and to take in the world around me or get lost in thought, rather than an album, sometimes. I think I used music as a distraction, to drown out what was going on around me. Of course, I still plan to blast my favourite tunes most of the time when I get back in the driver's seat of a car back home.

Don't miss: concerts

In the same vein, I don't miss going to concerts. At least, not as many as I've been attending for the past 5 years or so (about 1 every month). I realized that sometimes I would just go for something to do, and that I wasn't as excited about them as I used to be. There are still bands that I will try to see every time they come to town, but I think in general I'm going to start being a bit more selective with them, because it's hard to justify spending so much money and time on something that I'm not even going to get excited about.

Don't miss: Canadian food

I've run into a few people whose travels are coming to an end, and inevitably at some point the conversation becomes about what they're going to do when they go home. Most people say they're not going to eat rice or noodles for months, and they can't wait to binge on burgers, pizza, steak, meat pies, or some other food that means "home" to them. I'm the opposite. I'm keeping a list of all the interesting foods I'm eating out here because I can't wait to get home to try to make them myself. I'll almost certainly be eating more rice than I used to. I don't need to have western food once in a while to "take a break" from Asian food. In fact, aside from a few meals, the only times I've eaten western food in the past 4 months have been on travel days, because when it's 6am, you're half asleep, and you're trying to navigate an unknown airport to catch a 9 hour flight, it's just easier to grab an Egg McMuffin.

One exception to this one: I do miss Canadian beer.

Miss: cooking

Although I don't miss eating Canadian food, I am looking forward to cooking again, whether it's making my kitchen staples or one of the meals on my mile-long food idea list I alluded to above. Frankly, this one was a surprise for me. I always knew I enjoyed cooking, but I never realized how much I enjoy it. In particular, I miss, and am looking forward to, cooking for other people. It will be fun to host a bunch of people and make them a meal entirely comprising things they've never tried or, probably, heard of before. I took a cooking class today and it was so much fun that not only did it remind me how much I enjoy being in the kitchen, I also learned a lot and took away many ideas from it. I definitely plan to do at least one more class in Thailand before I come home, and maybe one in Vietnam as well.

Don't miss: board games

My friends and I have gotten together for biweekly board game nights over the past few years, although they've been more like bimonthly or even less often now that we're all pairing up. I also play board games with my coworkers every once in a while. There are many excellent board games that are being released every month, if not every week, these days, and one of my favourite pastimes over the past few years has been going to my friendly local game shop and browsing the new selection every week or two. I limited myself to buying one game every month or less, because I found that I was picking up too many - so many of them just sounded so good. I thought that while I was away, I would miss playing these games, but I don't. I realized that I don't constantly need new games, because they're really just an excuse to hang out with people I love, and fun ways to pass the time when we do hang out. Speaking of which...

Miss: people I love

This one is kind of a no-brainer and pretty self-explanatory, but I'd feel like a bit of a dick if I didn't include it.

Miss: playing sports

This one was the opposite of the board game one. I don't really miss the activity of playing board games; I miss the people I play them with. Conversely, I just miss playing sports, regardless of who it's with. Of course, playing with friends enhances any activity, but in this case, I miss the activity itself. I had been looking for a volleyball game to join for months, but no one was playing on any of the beaches I visited. Sometimes there were nets set up, but they looked so lonely in the sand with no one to play with. Today, I joined a bunch of local guys playing a game of pick up on the beach, and I was absolutely elated afterward. I decided to stay in Trinco for an extra few days right after I played, hoping to play again a few more times before I left.

Don't miss: routine

Lastly, I don't miss the routine of being at home. I don't miss sleeping in the same bed every night, or my condo in general. I don't miss doing mostly the same stuff everyday. It's exciting to be somewhere new, and to experience different cultures and ways of life. This is by far the longest I've been away from home, and I'm only halfway done. I wasn't sure if I would enjoy being away for so long, and while of course it has its drawbacks (some of which I mentioned above), and I've been homesick once or twice, I know now that I'm definitely cut out for it. I think I've changed quite a bit already, and I'm sure I'll have learned more and changed more by the time I'm home again, so it's going to be very interesting to go back to "the grind" after this time away.

An otter home

2018-05-22T22:10:00.001+07:00

When I remember it now, it seems like everything happened fast. I only remember little tidbits, truth be told. But when I was living it, when I thought I was going to die, time seemed to tick by so slowly.

It began like any other day. I awoke with the sun, but it felt later than usual. I hoped that meant that there would still be plenty of breakfast left. There was no one else around - they must already be at the water. I scurried down there, but there was no one around. Where were they? I wondered, not thinking much of it. I was glad to scavenge some food after getting such a late start to the day - there hadn't been much around yesterday. I was so busy stuffing my face that I didn't notice the smell at first, but after a few moments I was filled with a sense of dread as I realized what it was. Blood. Nearby.

Things get blurry after that. Barred teeth. Sharp claws. Growls. I took off as fast as my feet could carry me. I ran and swam. I hoped everyone else got away, but I feared the worst. I ran and swam some more. I outsmarted it, whatever it was, or I just made it grow impatient enough to give up on such a small prize. But when it left, and I had time to catch my breath, I realized that the trees weren't familiar here, and I left the water behind a long time ago. I tried to call, but it was no use. No one answered. I was hopelessly lost, and too young to find my way back home. I did what I could to survive, but I could not adapt fast enough. I couldn't find much food here, and I was getting weaker by the day. After what seemed like an eternity, I remember finally going to sleep one day, knowing I wouldn't wake up.

Then, a hand. I just wanted to go peacefully. But it was soft and gentle. Maybe even friendly. It didn't matter - I was too weak to oppose whatever it was, if its intent was malicious. I was barely conscious, but aware enough to soon realize that it wasn't going to hurt me. Soon, there was water, and then food. I was being taken somewhere. Back home, maybe. Or to meet Mother and Father, and my brothers and sisters, wherever they ended up.

It turns out, it was neither. It was to a strange new place, surrounded by strange new friends. I had seen them a few times before, and Mother taught me to be wary of them, for their intentions were always unclear. Humans, she called them. I am not sure if all their kin are my friends, but I know that these ones are. They make sure that I have food and water everyday, and there's a place to swim nearby. There are cats here, too, but they are afraid of me. I don't know why. Sometimes the humans swim in the water with me, but mostly they just sit and lay around it, drinking from glass bottles and listening to music. Most of them still frighten me, but I like the ones with beards the best.

I don't know how I came to be here, or why I was chosen to be rescued. I don't know where Mother and Father are, or if I'll ever see them again. I don't know how far away I am from home, or what lies beyond the walls here. I don't know if I'll ever see anything other than this place for the rest of my life. But I do know that, at least for now, this is home.

...and its abrupt end

2018-04-03T12:20:00.000+07:00

Just over a week into our Himalayan trek, I had a bad night. I was awake and in the bathroom every hour throughout the night, so I didn't sleep much. Constantly leaving and coming back into the room woke Jon and Heather up, and I took some medication at their behest. In the morning, I didn't feel any better, so we decided to spend an additional day resting in Yak Kharka. I stayed in bed most of the day, only emerging from the bedroom to try to eat.

One of the toughest parts about the trek was the cold. During the day, the cold wasn't a big deal when we were hiking. In fact, I was hiking in a t-shirt when we were 3500-4000m up. However, it got cold fast if we were in a shady spot or if we stood still for too long. The teahouses had small fireplaces for heat, but they only put fires on at night, so during the day there was no way to get warm. This was amplified tenfold when I was sick. I was in bed under several blankets with most of my clothes layered on, but it was still difficult to get warm, and any time I had to get up to go to the bathroom (which was often), I had to start the process of warming myself up all over again.

Jon and Heather had climbed Kilimanjaro a few years prior, and Heather had gotten altitude sickness. We thought I might have it too, which would almost certainly mean I would have to descend as soon as I could. When Jon and Heather asked a guide at the teahouse to check my oxygen levels, however, everything looked fine. This was good news, because it meant that hopefully I had just had a problem with some food and would be fine the next day. So, we played the waiting game, which, of course, sucked.

The next day brought worse news. Not only was I not feeling up to hiking, but Jon came down with similar symptoms to mine, only worse. Not only did he have the same stomach problems, he was also suffering from headaches and a bloody nose, which meant he almost certainly had altitude sickness as well. He was also struggling with the cold more than I was - he was completely unable to get warm. Heather therefore decided that he should get down the mountain as soon as possible. There were two ways to get down from Yak Kharka: we could hike 5-6 hours back to Manang, the way we came, and then take a 10-12 hour rough Jeep ride; or, we could take a helicopter. There was no way Jon could hike an entire day and then take a Jeep, so the helicopter was our only option.

It arrived promptly after we called it. We said goodbye to Matt, Krista, and Gus, who were going to continue the trek without us, as well as a bunch of random onlookers who had gathered to watch us take off. It took an hour to get to Kathmandu, after a brief stop in Manang to refuel. None of us had been in a helicopter before, and Jon spent all of it leaned against the window with his eyes closed. Despite the circumstances, Heather and I tried to enjoy the scenery, as it was probably a once in a lifetime experience. We flew between mountains through rain, giving us a unique perspective on the region that we weren't able to get from the ground. Eventually, we started to fly over shorter and shorter hills, then over trees and buildings, and finally touched down at Kathmandu airport.

When we got there, an ambulance was waiting for us. Jon lay in a bed in the back with a nurse, who was asking him questions and trying to see if he was alright. Heather and I sat in the front with the driver, who spent half of the trip to the hospital on the wrong side of the road, dodging oncoming traffic. Apparently, people don't really get out of the way for ambulances in Kathmandu, even less so in midday gridlock. We were glad Jon couldn't see what was going on. After a nerve-wracking half hour, we arrived at a privately owned hospital, where Jon was put on an IV and seen by a few nurses and doctors.

Thankfully, after a few days in the hospital and a few more in a hotel, Jon was starting to feel better. Heather was able to change their flights, which meant that they could go home earlier and he could recover properly. After we saw each other a few more times, they were off. In the meantime, I went back to my hostel from a few weeks prior and spent those same days recovering in bed, feeling homesick for the first time. I was sad to see Jon and Heather go, and we were all bummed that we weren't able to finish the trek. On the bright side, we were able to live vicariously through Krista, Matt, and Gus, who crossed the pass successfully and made it back in one piece. We also got a week of amazing trekking, and a unique helicopter ride to cap it off. If we're lucky, maybe one day we'll be able to come back to finish what we started.

The Himalayan trek...

2018-04-01T11:14:00.000+07:00

The Annapurna circuit is one of the most popular treks in Nepal, after Everest base camp. The plan was to follow a river upstream for about 10 days, go over one of the highest mountain passes in the world (~5400m), and then come back down and, at some point on the way down, grab a bus back to Pokhara. I had never done anything like this, and was excited to start. I met up with Jon, Heather, his cousin, Krista, and her boyfriend, Matt, in Besisahar after a fun morning on the bus. From there, we set out on the trek after a quick lunch, en route to Bhulbhule, our first stop.

There was a road from Besisahar all the way to Manang at ~3500m, so we had the option of taking a Jeep or another vehicle to shave a few days off the start, but opted not to. We were very glad we chose to walk the whole way, as every day was different, gorgeous scenery, and climbing gradually not only helped us acclimatize, it also helped get our legs into shape. We did have to walk the road sometimes, and other times we chose to, but for the most part we were hiking beautiful wilderness trails.

We hiked 15km on average every day. Our longest day was almost double that, about 28km, with an overall altitude increase of over 1km. That one was rough. Most days, we would wake up around 6-7am, have breakfast at our accommodation, get dressed for hiking, pack up, hike for 4-6 hours, stop in a village for lunch, hike 2-4 more hours, find accommodation for the night, eat dinner, and go to bed around 9-10pm. The hikes involved many breaks for Snickers and other snacks, and we ordered a pot of hot tea at almost every meal. I ate like a rabid animal but could never manage to feel full.

We expected "rustic" accommodation, but were met with a surprise. On the first day, we arrived at our teahouse in Bhulbhule and, after a brief rest, wandered into the kitchen and asked for "five dinners, please!" We got a quizzical look from the lady in the kitchen, who then asked us: "...what would you like to eat?" as she handed us a full menu. The menus included traditional Nepali dishes (dal bhat), as well as more western fare (spaghetti, eggs). In addition to the variety of food, the accommodations boasted mostly comfortable beds in dorm-style bedrooms, and bathrooms with showers (which were even hot, most of the time), and squat toilets.

As we journeyed up the river, we got closer to the mountains. At first we could see them peeking through hills along the horizon, one peak at a time. But after four or five days of heading north along the edge of the Annapurna conservation area, we finally turned and headed into the mountains to the west. Over the next few days, the scenery began to change: lush greenery and rice paddies were replaced with more desolate shrubbery and rocky terrain. There was still the odd forest here and there as we climbed, but as the temperature dropped, we began to see more white and grey than green.

The wildlife changed, too. Early on, we passed a herd of about 100 goats of all ages, lead by a few people and some dogs, which became about a 10 minute photo op for Heather and Krista. Yaks became much more common as we ascended; cows and goats, less so. To the girls' delight, there were dogs everywhere, though. We routinely walked right beside horses and donkeys, who served as porters to the locals walking the trails, carrying food and other materials back home.

While some things changed, however, others stayed the same. The people we met along the way were, on the whole, extremely friendly and hospitable. We were greeted with smiles and "Namaste!" no matter where we went by local people of all ages. Jon lead the group most of the time, using his new 3 pounds of pure muscle power that he packed on prior to the trip to haul an enormous 30 pound bag along the trail. Our group of five became six after a few days, when we met a 20 year old Swedish solo traveler named Gus and adopted him. He would stay with us for the rest of the trek, except when he decided to literally run down some of the mountains.

We had a good rhythm going into day 8. Everyone was feeling good. We were two days from the Thorong La mountain pass, and we were all eager to get there. But then, things changed...

Lots of waterfalls early on

GOATS

Rice paddies

Suspension bridge selfie

The local bus

2018-03-26T17:55:00.000+07:00

After hanging out in Pokhara for a few days, I was anxious to start the Annapurna circuit trek. A few days before we started, I went to my hostel reception desk to ask about the buses to Besisahar, the starting location of the trek. I was told that they left every half hour. This was perfect, as I was expecting to have to leave very early in the morning and wait in Besisahar for a few hours before Jon, Heather, Matt, and Krista showed up. I went back the following night to book my ticket on a bus for the next morning, and found out that the local buses were the ones that left every half hour, not the more comfortable tourist buses. I decided to ride the local bus, which I figured would be cheaper and a unique experience. I was right.

I took a cab to the bus station in the morning. When we got there, the cab driver asked me if I wanted a bus or a microbus. I had no idea what the difference was, besides guessing that the microbus was smaller, so I told him I didn't care as long as they were a similar price and took a similar amount of time. He proceeded to pull over on the side of the road and yell across the street at a guy standing beside a white van: "Dumre?" he called, pointing at me. Van guy nodded. The cab driver turned to me and nodded, like I was supposed to know what the hell was going on. Apparently, that was my bus.

There were two guys running the bus: the driver and the recruiter, who was responsible for getting more passengers off the side of the road as we drove along. I got in after making sure with the recruiter the cost was what I expected. There was one seat left in the back corner, so I apologized to everyone I had to step past with my large backpack as I made my way to it. Soon after I sat down and we started driving, the guy sitting beside me, slightly younger than me and dressed noticeably posh with holey jeans and styled hair, pointed at my bag and asked if I wanted to put it up. I looked up - there were no racks or nets or anything, and no other bags up there. Then I realized he meant on the roof. Awesome. The next time the van stopped, I reluctantly passed my bag forward and as it made its way to the recruiter at the door, I prayed that it would be strapped down well enough not to fly off. Posh guy asked me where I was from, and when I said Canada, his eyes lit up: "Justin Bieber!". I laughed and nodded. He grilled me for the next hour about all things Biebs. Along the way, our van stopped several times to pick more people up. I thought I had the last seat, but I was wrong - when we picked someone else up, the recruiter just jammed pieces of wood in between seats where there were supposed to be aisles, slapped a pillow down, and voila - new seats.

Eventually, we came to a dead stop for a while. Construction. On the only road. Along with all of the other vehicles, we were forced to turn around and detour via a farm "road", which was a narrow path composed of large stones and boulders. It was less than one lane wide, weaved between grassy and gravelly hills, and had 5 foot high banks. We were barely big enough to fit on this road as a large van, but much larger tourist buses and jeeps were also forced to take it, some driving on both banks instead of the road. I was convinced that one of the vehicles, our overcrowded van or another, was going to break down and block everyone else, but thankfully that didn't happen. We spent about an hour on this road, pulling over onto the ridge occassionally to let other vehicles by and slowly chugging along ourselves, and as we got back to the paved road, the Biebs fan, myself, and the rest of the passengers breathed a sigh of relief.

After a little while longer, we came to Dumre, which was where I had to transfer to another bus to go to Besisahar. I literally got dropped off on the side of the road in the middle of the town with no instructions (instead of an area with some buses, like I was expecting), so I asked the recruiter guy: "Besisahar?" He made a hook motion with his arm and hand and the bus drove away. I asked a few other people as I walked through the town, and everyone did the same hook motion. Perfect. I interpreted this as my having to make a u-turn somewhere, so I turned down the first side street I saw and then again down a main street. Sure enough, soon I heard a recruiter for Besisahar, and followed him to a bright pink bus that had to have been from the 70s.

After another bumpy ride for two hours, first sitting beside a man and the affectionate pug on his lap, then a woman with a curious toddler who pawed at my backpack and hiking equipment with her Cheeto hands, I finally arrived in Besisahar. Of course, I got dropped off on the opposite side of town. It was the final taunt of the trip, but I didn't care - I was eager to see Jon and Heather, meet Krista and Matt, and finally start the trek. After a half hour walk, excited greetings, and a quick veg curry, we were off!

A typical day in Thamel, Kathmandu

2018-03-20T17:47:00.000+07:00

Thamel is a small loop district in Kathmandu. I spent two weeks here, one of which was unplanned. Most tourists hang out here because there are a lot of hotels, restaurants, bars, and shops for trekking gear and souvenirs. However, there were a lot of locals here as well. After breakfast at my hostel, I'd typically take my first walk into the area for the day. My hostel was about 5 minutes north of Thamel, which was nice because it made night time a bit quieter. I had to cross a busy street to get there, and to cross the street in Kathmandu, you literally just walk into traffic. This took some getting used to - I was pretty tentative for the first few days and, more often than not, just watched for locals crossing nearby so I could tag along with them. One time, while I stood on the side of the road tentatively putting one foot on the road and then retracting it back to safety on the sidewalk, a badass old lady of about 75 years old approached, holding a large full basket on her head and smoking a cigarette. I could practically hear her thinking "pansy tourist" as she crossed without hesitation and I half-jogged along to keep up.

Once I got into Thamel, I was greeted by narrow streets with endless shops lining both sides. In addition to the shopkeepers standing outside inviting me in, there were also many carts selling food, taxi and rickshaw drivers, and drug dealers, who were all constantly trying to attract foreigners. I learned to say a quick "no thanks" under my breath and keep walking, because any other form of communication (eye contact, a smile, etc.) would usually be an invitation for them to follow me for a few minutes and learn my life story before convincing me to buy some local art or hash. In addition to dodging them, I also had to constantly dodge local people walking in all directions, with their surgeon masks to protect them from the dust and the accompanying "Kathmandu cough", usually draped over their friends chatting and laughing; and cars, vans, and scooters, which drove the narrow streets often despite there being very little room for them, and simply honked their horns loudly when they wanted people to get out of their way. The motorcycle drivers in particular were crazy: most of the time they would barely slow down as they rode down the street at breakneck pace, weaving between people, vehicles, and other obstacles.

I had to do more shopping than I typically like to while I was in Kathmandu (I typically like to do none, so this threshold was easy to pass), but most of the time I had fun doing it. Due to the abundance of shops in Thamel, most selling similar things, I could find reasonable deals and quickly figure out when shops were overpriced or trying to hustle me. Shopkeepers were all very nice, greeting me as I came in, and usually watching me uncomfortably intently as I looked at their merchandise, in case I had questions. Some would ask where I was from, which trek I was doing, etc., sometimes because they were genuinely interested, other times because they obviously thought it would make me more likely to buy something. When I did want to buy something, I had to learn the art of bartering with the shopkeeper first. The bartering was interesting because most shopkeepers had a fixed lowest price for their merchandise and would watch me walk out of their store if I went the slightest bit below it, even if it was only 10-20% below their asking price. This happened to me several times, to my surprise. Others happily bartered to 50-70% below their original asking price. The most fun part about the process was that they bartered with a smile and were never offended or upset at anything I offered - if it was too low, they just smiled or laughed and said "not possible, sir", and then half the time agreed to it minutes later. Some shopkeepers were extremely knowledgeable about the treks in the area and actually told me specifically not to buy particular items because I wouldn't need them for my trek. This was surprising and refreshing, and made me want to spend money with them more, so it ended up being worth their while. I'm sure I made some good deals and some bad ones, but I definitely came out of it with some improved haggling skills.

Shopping and bartering, like most things, made me hungry. I had a couple of go-to lunch spots in Thamel: a kebab stand in the northwest corner and a hole-in-the-wall curry place off the main drag. The kebab place was usually packed because it was rated the #1 food in Thamel by TripAdvisor. I don't agree with that, but I did enjoy it several times for lunch. The guy running the place was also super nice - he came out to chat with me a few times when I was the only one there, and told me about what Kathmandu life is like. When I didn't feel like a kebab, the curry place came highly recommended on the web and by several people I met in the area. The place resembled an unpainted garage and only had about ten tables, so typically I ate with strangers. There was a proper tandoori oven for naan and the chana masala was the best I've ever had: thick and spicy, and definitely inspiring me to perfect my own version when I get home. There were some nice dinner spots in Kathmandu, but my lunch places were definitely my favourite.

Nighttime was surprisingly quiet, considering how bustling the area was during the day. Most of the shops closed early, so the only places that were somewhat lively at night were the districts with lots of restaurants and bars. I typically ventured out in the late afternoon for a bit more shopping and some dinner, then went back to my hostel afterward. As I walked home, the shopkeepers that were closing up for the night would be outside beating their merchandise with large dust brooms so they looked their best the next day, or throwing water on the street for reasons I didn't understand. As fun as the area was, after dinner I was always happy to be back at my hostel for the evening, usually promptly collapsing on my bed until bed time.

The streets of Thamel

The Boudhanath stupa, a short taxi ride away from Thamel

Navigating the Kathmandu airport

2018-03-18T17:35:00.000+07:00

I got off the plane at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan airport, the smallest (and, I'd bet, one of the weirdest) international airports in the world, and was immediately herded onto a bus that was already jam packed. We waited a few minutes, then drove 50 feet, and everyone got off and funneled into the nearest building. This building looked like a high school. It was apparently the main (and only) terminal. I walked down a few hallways and came to an open room with lots of stuff going on and no instructions. There were machines on my left, a counter in front of me (past the machines), and more counters further away on my right. I went to one of the free machines first, and quickly discovered it was free because it didn't work, and then noticed that half of the machines in the room didn't work. I lined up behind a lady who was filling out some information on a working machine. She got a slip of paper and headed to the near counter, and I took over the machine. I started filling in my information when another guy who had also just arrived approached me and asked what the machine was for. "I have no fucking idea, but I think it's for the visa application." He laughed and lined up behind me. Once I completed this step, I copied what the lady in front of me did and took the ticket to the counter nearby, where I was asked for it, and some money, in exchange for some coloured receipts. I then took those receipts to the other counter across the room and exchanged one of them for my actual visa.

Now that I had my visa, the next step was figuring out how to get the hell out of the airport. I followed the hallway and came to an inexplicable carry-on baggage security checkpoint, because apparently my bags can be safe enough to travel on a plane but maybe not safe enough to take into Kathmandu afterward. I put them through the machine and moved on. The next room was where people were getting their checked luggage. I was immediately grateful that I had none, because this room was like Black Friday at Best Buy. I lined up behind a bunch of people who had trolleys full of large electronics to check at customs. When I got to the front the customs guy was incredulous that I had no bags other than my carry-on luggage and told me to go ahead, as if I wasn't supposed to have waited in that line. At the time I didn't see how I could have avoided it other than literally shoving my way through, but after having been in Nepal for a month, I know now that's probably what I was actually supposed to do.

I finally got to the arrival hall and was swarmed by people asking me where I was going and if I needed a taxi or a hotel. One guy was particularly insistent and, after leading me to the ATM, tried to suggest I ride in a taxi with him and his friends to Thamel, the tourist district where my hostel was. I politely declined. He told me not to ride in a local taxi because although they're cheaper than the airport taxis, the drivers try to scam you and take you to the wrong location. I knew this was bullshit, so once I got rid of him, I tried to find the local taxis he was telling me to avoid. I walked a few minutes past the chaotic cluster of people coming out and going into the airport to find a sea of white taxis, but these were the airport ones. I kept walking for a few minutes, but when it quickly got dark and quiet and I started to pass people who were giving me weird "where are you going?" looks, I knew I wasn't going in the right direction. I decided to turn back and settle for paying an extra few hundred rupees for an airport taxi. On the way out, the driver pointed out to me where the regular taxis were, and I wouldn't have found it at that time of night even at my most stubborn and persistent. In the end, I had no regrets paying a few extra dollars to get me to my hostel promptly.

All in all, it was a strange, confusing, and, now that I've gotten to know it a bit better, entirely appropriate introduction to Kathmandu and Nepal.

Silence and visions

2018-03-12T17:19:00.000+07:00

I alluded to some of the rules of the Suan Mokkh meditation retreat in my last post, but I didn't talk much about arguably the most important one: the silence. For a bit longer than 10 days, everyone at the retreat stayed mostly silent, which meant that in addition to not speaking to each other, we also didn't communicate through gesturing of any kind. We were allowed to smile at each other, but that's about it. The idea behind this was to encourage us to remain inside our heads as much as possible, and to take the time to digest and question the material presented to us in our minds rather than out loud to the volunteers and instructors.

Our days started at 4am with the sound of a bell ringing for about 10 minutes. We reported to the main meditation hall for a reading from my favourite volunteer, a Thai woman with slightly spiky short grey hair; glasses; a clear, soothing voice; and a bright, radiant smile. Her name was Khun Tai. I'm not sure whether or not she chose the readings, but I often found them very insightful and appreciated that she would add some of her own points as she read. As a result, this was, shockingly, one of my favourite times of the day. From there, the day generally switched back and forth between listening to talks about Buddhism, dharma and meditation, and actually practicing meditation, which we did for about 6 hours every day. There were a few exceptions to this: yoga and tai chi every morning; chanting and loving kindness meditation in the evening; our two daily vegan meals, breakfast and lunch; our evening tea; daily chores; hot springs; and some free time for bathing, laundry, naps, reflection, etc. If none of this sounds fun, it's because it wasn't. But I wasn't here for fun, I was here to learn and try something new.

I learned a lot during the 10 days of the retreat. I learned about meditation, of course, but also a lot about Theravada Buddhism, which I discovered has many principles that are close to ones I was already aspiring to live by. I won't get into them much here, but the main concept we were taught was the Buddha's belief that human suffering is caused by us clinging to impermanent phenomena, binding them to our sense of identity and carrying them with us as burdens. Instead, we should live in the moment, letting thoughts and feelings go as they come up. In fact, that's why we practice meditation. When we meditate, we try to concentrate on our breath, and when our mind inevitably wanders and we catch it in the act, we acknowledge the thought, let it go, and come back to our breath. Over time, this is supposed to help with focus and concentration, as well as encourage us to always be mindful of our actions in the present moment. As a result, it is supposed to help conditions like depression, where you tend to be focused on your past; and anxiety, where you tend to be focused on your future.

Spending that much time with yourself inevitably brings to the surface many things that you don't think about very often. I reflected on parts of myself that I liked, and parts that I wanted to change. Some days were pleasant and euphoric; others were long and depressing. I discovered that although I thought I was pretty good at living in the moment, I found it difficult and exhausting to stop my mind from wandering all the time. By the nighttime meditation sessions, I was usually tired enough that I couldn't concentrate at all and had to just let my mind wander. Interestingly, I was often not thinking of my past or my distant future, but my near future. What I might write in this blog article. If I was going to have any trouble getting to the airport after the retreat was over. Excitement for the trek and Nepal, and getting to spend time with Jon and Heather. The funny thing about this was that when I thought back to the week prior, when I was on Koh Tao, I realized I had spent a lot of time being excited about experiencing the retreat, i.e. for moments like the one I was currently living. So I asked myself: what's the point in doing all of these awesome things if most of the time I'm barely there mentally, too busy thinking about the next moment? How much am I missing by not paying attention? The talks and meditation sessions gave me many tidbits such as these to reflect on.

Overall, the retreat was a difficult, enlightening, insightful experience for me. I would do something similar again, but not any time soon. It has given me enough to think about for a while. An excerpt from one of the readings that resonated with me was: "our life is the creation of our mind." I'm going to try my best to make sure this mind creates a great life for me, and lets the rest go.