It's all one world

My bus pulled up for a WC break on the way to Phuong Nha, Vietnam. A man drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany. Thousands of miles apart, but it’s all one world. And lately it feels like it’s all going to shit.

But it’s not. And Vietnam has reminded me of that.

Found these in an overgrown lot in Hue. Not on anyone's Things to See List.

When my demographic thinks “Vietnam” we think of pho (soup), Vietnamese friends, stories heard or told of travel’s beauty here. And probably those movies about someone else’s war. I arrived knowing little about it beyond what Oliver Stone told me and it’s entirely possible I could have left without learning much more.

The possibility is both troubling and beautiful. Troubling, because visitors, especially Americans, should know about what happened here during the twenty morally reprehensible years of war my country inflicted on this region in order to take away their freedom and advance our economic interests.

But beautiful because of the way the people here have talked to me about the war. 40 years is long enough to fade from America’s awareness but not to erase the memories from those who saw it firsthand. Trauma like that stays with an individual and a society, whether you fought or not, your village burned or not, your family died or not.

Yet when my bus pulled in for that bathroom break and I got to chatting with the driver in words and gestures, he communicated the same thing I’ve heard again and again in this wonderful country (if I bring it up).

Would it matter where she's from? How
she worships? No. You'd protect her too

“You say ‘I from America’ and” he made that relaxed shoulder shrug gesture of peacefulness. “No problem! America, Vietnam, friend friend! War is over. Friend friend!” He wanted me to know that even if his father was in the war, even if we were about to drive over Hien Luong Bridge that divided North and South, even if these towns watched their children die and the very land burned bare by toxins dropped without conscience, that’s in the past, and he holds no grudge. Feels no separation between us. And that’s what I’m holding on to today.

Because there are people trying to pull us apart. They are small in number and vast in influence. They want this religion to blame that religion. This nationality to hate that nationality. These people at peace to distrust those people fleeing war. Our division is their gain. Our fear is their advantage. And our misplaced antipathy is our own destruction.

Because Berlin is Phuong Nha is Damascus is San Francisco. It’s all one world. We’re all one people. And if my Vietnamese bus driver, whose father was killed by a US bomb, can pat me on the shoulder and share his food then we are brothers, no matter what came before. And my German friends, regardless of what faced our grandparents, are all family on this sad day. As are my Syrian friends, grieving kin as bombs murder the entire city of Aleppo, feeling our anger but united in hope for a better future for us all.

That's exactly it. Vietnamese kid in a New York shirt,
and it's the peace sign for everyone.

So yes, lately it feels like it’s all going to shit. And in some ways damn right it is. But then again, maybe it always feels like it’s going that way, every year’s “lately.” But the fact I cling to, the firsthand observation I trust, is that even if some other guy drove a truck into a market today, my guy drove our bus to a moment of friendship. And the latter is more common by far. The latter is the majority, the hope, and the future.

Yes it’s all one world. And no it’s not all going to shit.

Empathy

Should I add horse carts to that list? Gotta love Cuba

I think about it every time I almost get run over by a car. “If that driver knew what it was like to be a cyclist, they’d be more aware of us.” And then when I drive, and some biker is being unnecessarily disruptive, I think “Get out of the way! Don’t you know how impatient and hobbled it can feel to drive in traffic?”

And it’s obvious when some driver pushes through the crosswalk that he’s a jerkwad, right? Except when I rode with my college friend whose medical condition kept him from walking, and there was an unending line of pedestrians, he had a class to get to too.

We all need to experience the other point of view periodically to retain our empathy and shared experience. Gotta wear their shoes, man!

Amazing kids in that Pretoria orphanage, unsurprisingly

I remember the shoes of the kids in the South African orphanage, hanging in red dust off the benches where they knelt to do a craft project. After seeing their faces I would read an African news story and instead of thinking “Man, that part of the world is screwed” I’d think “There are incredible people doing amazing work to improve each other’s lives there” and on good days “Maybe I can help somehow.”

And the orderly lines of Bay Area traffic look different after you’ve sat in Nepali gridlock where cars butting into each other’s way have written a self-fulfilling prophecy that nobody’s going anywhere. “The world works better with cooperation, fellas” you understand immediately. A nice antidote to the dictatorial individualism of the United States, me first.

The tuktuks of Cambodia actually understood fast lanes
surprisingly well. Compared to highway 101 anyway.

But spend some time on European freeways, where everyone understands what a fast lane is, only moving left while actively passing then immediately shifting back right again, and suddenly our freeways are a top notch clusterfuckery of dunces. Or maybe it’s just me. (It’s not just me.)

And if the power goes out in a winter storm, I don’t rage at the electric company for it (they’re despicable for other reasons), instead I remember the unelectrified silence of Myanmar and appreciate that when I plug in my electronics and come back a few hours later, they’re charged, not fried.

A little different relationship to the grocery store

Yes, we should all spend time on a bicycle and our own two feet in addition to behind the wheel. But to really add perspective and empathy for the human experience, you can’t beat travel. Go somewhere else and see what else life can be, then come back to appreciate, and perhaps improve, what you had before.

But you already knew that.

So when does your next flight leave?

Chi Phat, Cambodia. It ain't New York or Miami.

Of course we would see Angkor Wat and the Killing Fields. Of course. But that list reminded me of “I’ve seen America. I went to New York and Miami.” Ssssure, those are part of the country, but hardly a representative sample. So where could we see something more….everyday Cambodian? Quotidian Khmer.

That’s when well-traveled friends come in handy. My Malaysian friend, born and raised in England, wrote “I spent a few days trekking at Chi Phat, through a community-based tourism project where we stayed with a family in the village. It’s a bit of an effort to get to, but worth it - trekking through farmland and jungle, staying in the forest and getting a waterfall all to yourself.” That sounded mighty fine.

And then the community’s website added “Trek, cycle, kayak or boat in the Cardamon Mountains to discover the real, peaceful Cambodia, far from the crowds. Guides, once poachers, lead you on jungle treks to waterfalls, grasslands and mountains that they know well, but few others have seen. ” We bought our bus tickets immediately.

In a world where traditional tourism seems so corrosive to its destinations, community tourism is a beacon of something better. We clicked the “Let the community decide where we homestay” option, loving the implication that our money would go to a deserving, Cambodian recipient, not Best Western Incorporated.

Carrying as few preconceptions as possible, we arrived in Chi Phat after a two hour boat ride where everyone waved back (I love Cambodians!) and followed our host to her home. It was a traditional Khmer house, a single large space roughly 4x6 meters, partitioned into three rooms by interior walls, and an exterior storage closet, all raised two meters on stilts. The elevation provides protection from floods, a shady space for livestock or living, and natural ventilation that keeps the house cool in this hot country. (We ate dinner with the family down there, rice, vegetables, and fried eggs from the ducks at our feet.) Ventilation is further assisted by a handsbreadth gap all the way around between the walls and the roof, and the thick spaces between floorboards.

The young couple and their two year old son shared the other bedroom, while grandmother slept in the main room with the Buddha shrine and TV. I’m not sure if we stole grandmother’s bed, or if the grains of dry rice liberally scattered across the mattress meant it was normally storage.

After the urban hubbub of Phnom Penh, we were looking forward to our peaceful nights in the country. The first night’s soundtrack was the periodic wailing of a two year old, though he quieted quickly each time the father spoke to him. That, combined with the surprising cold and hard bed meant we didn’t sleep much, and judging by the utter absence of conversation and haggard eyes around the pre-trek tourist breakfast table the next morning, we weren’t the only ones.

We spent the day trekking to a waterfall, learning scattered Khmer phrases (my favorite was bamboo, which sounded like “Russai tnga” with a nice nasal “a” after the velar nasal “ng”). Our guide was an older gentleman, whose kind eyes and easy laugh were communication enough. I couldn’t ask if he had been a poacher, but he certainly isn’t one now. His wife waved to us from the porch in the middle of a banana plantation.

That night the door to the storage closet came open, and a succession of jungle beasts came exploring. This incensed the dogs, who could hear, smell, maybe see, but not reach the intruders. I’m not sure what breed these demonic canines were, but their unexpected small-dog yapping had an undercurrent of tortured metal that scraped the ear drums and shredded sanity. The father was normally responsible for quieting them, but he had gone out of town that night, so I found myself asking the question “Would it be culturally insensitive if I killed your dogs?”

Despite the sleepless nights, and the 8 hour walk that harvested the nails from both of Lydia’s big toes, we absolutely loved our time in Chi Phat. One of the things we’d looked forward to were mealtimes with the family. We had a slew of questions for them. “How do you feel about tourism in your community? How has it changed things?” And maybe “May we ask you about the Khmer Rouge?”

But the family didn’t speak much English, so conversation was limited to pointing at the food, smiling, and rubbing our stomachs appreciatively. (“Delicious” is something like “Chnaing nah”, which was our ace conversation piece, quickly exhausted.) At first we were a little disappointed by this lack of communication, but then I thought about it a different way.

Of course they didn’t speak English! (And I, unfortunately, do not speak Khmer.) That’s because these were not professional hosts with degrees in Tourism, where they’d learned how to accommodate foreigners. Nor did they live in a fully globalized world of Friends reruns. These were normal, “real” people, going about their normal, “real” Cambodian lives.

And that’s exactly what we had been looking for.

Why Cambodia? Why anywhere?

Yeah, why would anyone come here?

“Cambodia? Why would you want to go there?” asked a surprising number of people. The question baffled me at first, after all, one need not know very much about the country to understand its appeal. I assumed that was the answer, that the people asking the question had somehow never heard of Angkor Wat, or the Khmer Rouge, each a blazing demand to be witnessed, albeit on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum.

But even without its chapter heading draws, Cambodia would still be undeniably worth visiting. Because it’s a place. They’re all worth visiting. (Okay fine, except Fresno.) So that’s the question they’re really asking. “Travel? Why would you do that?”

Reading list on a Phnom Penh street

This is a perennial question to the vagabond castes, and one I’ve mentioned before. But that’s fine because there are endless reasons, endless answers. Travel means different things to people at different times, and often simultaneously, to ever have a standardized rationale.

Last month was hard. Old burdens of childhood pain showed up for the holidays as they always do, their customary anxiety now equipped with the depression of too much time alone in my silent apartment, often in a queasy sauce of purposelessness, as the dream occupation of last year continues to offer me nothing but rejection, and the newer dream occupation 2.0 wavers in the face of extremist violence. I’m left with a desire to punch everything in the face, balanced by a fatigue that just wants to sleep, but is scared to try.

So a trip to Anywhere sounded pretty fucking fantastic to me.

Change of pace

Travel can be an escape. A refugee flight. I’m well aware of that. That’s what it was for me, for a long time, though I resisted admitting it. I have to laugh at the odds that I’m repeating that denial in the next sentence….but I really don’t think so…

Because I don’t think this was that. I wasn’t running away in Cambodia. But I did happily take a break. A change of scenery, temperature, and temperament. I gratefully lay back in the easy purpose of choosing where to go and making it happen.

But I came back. Fleeing one’s life takes longer than 11 days, and this ticket was round-trip from the get-go.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I don’t have a tidy conclusion. Those are in short supply these days, when my inner landscape is rather roiled, and the world at large seems dominated by deterioration, where the intelligent voices are defining the problems, but the responses seem dominated by the asinine braying of lunatics and extremists.

Ready to go anywhere, I started listing countries, and when both y’all illustrious readers and Lydia jumped on Cambodia, I bought the ticket without pause. Was I driven by intuition, wisdom, or cowardice? I had to go to find out.

What does "authentic" mean? And pupusas!

I was still in love with El Cielito Lindo, but on my last day in Ataco I had to obey the part of my Traveler’s Creed that demands to try as many new things and places as possible, so when I found another pupuseria tucked into the porch/courtyard of a house on the other edge of town, I waited until their single table was free, then went in.

A typical pupuseria I went to in San
Salvador. The yellow bowl is curtido.

This place was a contrast to El Cielito. Instead of the solid wood furniture topped with a local burlap sack, they had the sort of one-piece plastic table-and-bench with a chipped yellow plastic top that you’d find in the bargain taqueria/burger/Chinese/kebab/noodle shop across from the bus station.

There was no menu, the large woman with the spatula just asked if I wanted cheese or pork, and the beverage options were coke or beer. She turned to the table opposite the grill, lifted a fly-speckled towel, and continued hacking apart a chicken for her family’s almuerzo. When she finished the bird, she reached down with shiny fingers and grabbed my coke.

An old dog slept under the grill, a toddler wandered around without pants on, and an older man was spreading grout with a trowel for the heavy paving stones stacked next to my table.

This place wouldn’t make it into the guidebooks.

But the people who’d been at the table before me were pure Salvadoreños, two men on their way home who leaned their well-worn machetes against the wall while they ate. Cielito had enough tables to accommodate an entire busload of visitors, while this place had one table next to the grill.

It was scrupulously clean (other than the salmonella) and without any detail or decoration that might smack of deliberate “Salvadoranness”. Suddenly the burlap tablecloths in El Cielito looked a tad contrived. Still local, still recycled/repurposed, and still aesthetically pleasing, but contrived.

“Authentic” is a problematic word. We all go looking for it, but what does it mean? The horchata I had at Cielito is a traditional drink of this area, specific to the region, and beloved of the populace...who normally drink coke.

So which drink is more “authentic”?

Hint: if the menu has "typical Salvadoran food" on it,
for $11 (when the table-groaning load of food in the
first pic was about $2.50) it's probably not authentic

Cielito’s ample menu of options was impressive, and spanned a variety of ingredients that are absolutely used every day by Salvadoran people...but most places offer the Big Three, only. Which is more authentic?

The good thing, the bad thing, the entertaining and eternally interesting thing, is that it’s up to every individual to decide, every individual time they do any individual act. One day, Cielito’s wide breadth of native ingredients might sing true, while the next, only a familiar three-option pupuseria will do.

Where would you like to eat tonight?

6 Ways to be Better at my Secret Aspiration

Want to know a secret? I’d love to try being a tour guide. Sssh! Don’t tell!

My prior experience with tour guides was when they would glower at me, suspecting me of eavesdropping on their spiel about the Coliseum/temple/painting, or of being poised to purloin the pockets, purses, and possessions of their flock. As fun as it is to play Spy, I’d politely move away.

But that role, stockpiling information about a place, managing the distracted peregrinations of a population, and hopefully, somehow enhancing their travel experience? That looked...worthwhile. Challenging. Fun.

Had to dig deep into the files for this one.

I’ve fallen into something similar a couple times in the past, most memorably in Morocco, when I made travel arrangements for a dozen British university students who wanted to come with me into the Sahara, but didn’t know how to go about it.

Maybe it’s my WASPy, Victorian English-American upbringing, that yearns for connection but doesn’t always know how to get there, but I enjoy the finite closeness of a group of people bonded to me by some external factor. When I was a property manager, I felt I was just the right level of friends with most of my tenants, and in that accidental guide position, I felt a similar ease; these people needed me for something, which I was able to provide, and if they happened to like me..? .That’s what I call job satisfaction

Mint tea within sight of
the Algerian border

As the sun set into the Saharan dunes where laughing Liverpudlians sand-boarded, I took satisfaction in their shouts, and the words of thanks when we parted ways in Marrakech were even sweeter than the mint tea.

Cuba was the first time I've been in a formal flock, and our shepherd was an encyclopedia with legs and a fedora named Joel. I periodically pulled my attention from the sights, tastes, culture and culos of Cuba to watch how he did it.

For example, when we found ourselves with an extra hour, Jeff, Joel’s US counterpart, suggested an old cemetery on the edge of town. “No problem” said Joel, “I know the place, let's go.”

Inside the grand arch

Moments after walking under the grand arch, Jeff got a dubious look on his face. “This isn't the place I meant.” With no time to head to the other cemetery, what do we do? Get back on the bus in defeat?

“This cemetery is veerrry important” Joel assured us, and started the tour. Cuban leaders, businessmen, and landowners occupied places of honor near the entrance...and when Joel saw our eyes glazing over at the unfamiliar names, he moved right along.

“That big monument there, those are troops who died in South Africa fighting against....how do you say 'apartheid' in English?” We all nodded, murmuring “I had no idea Cubans fought against apartheid” and soberly read the names.

“Joel, what's the deal with these tiny tombstones?”

“In Cuba, people are usually buried, but after a couple years, when most of the body is gone, the bones are removed and cremated, and these are placed on the family tomb. Why? Because there is just not enough space for everybody.”

Direct sun turned markers into pizza stones, but under the pines and palms the air had the dry warmth that feels like falling asleep on an old book on an August afternoon. It's a comfortable feeling...a sleepy feeling...

“Did I ever tell you about the two lifelong friends?” Joel asked as our steps started to slog. “They were friends from childhood, playing baseball in the street of their barrio. As they got older, they made a deal: whoever died first would come back to tell the other one what heaven was like.

“So one day, one of them, he died. The other was very sad, he missed his friend, but that night, you know what? His friend came back to tell him about heaven. 'What is it like?' he asked him.

“'Well, I have good news, and bad news. The good news is we have baseball!' The living friend was very happy to hear this, because being Cuban, he loved baseball. 'And the bad news?'

'You're the starting pitcher in tomorrow's game.'”

We all groaned (as you do with jokes) and shook our heads, conveniently knocking some of the sleep out, and Joel’s tour moved on.

That hour Joel demonstrated six only slightly demanding rules:

1. Know every possible destination for every possible city, and how to get there.

2. Be able to talk up a location's importance.

3. Adapt instantly and effectively.

4. If using another language, have 99.9% of your lexicon listo, only words like “apartheid” get a pass.

5. Have the answer to every question.

6. Keep an awful joke on hand to make people groan themselves awake.

That's six, anything else I need to know before you'd take my tour?

What good or bad guides have you had?

(For a great story of the latter, check out this story from Iran on the wonderful Where To Next? blog.)

Aurora Borealis makin' me crazy

Aaaaaaarggghhh! I am tearing my hair out on this one. Aurora Borealis. A combination of the Roman goddess of the dawn/sunrise and the Greek god of the wind, the name conjures sweeping colors, crackling cold, and the very soul of Odin looking down at you through the ages...and the experience delivers!

But the weird thing about the aurora, it’s the only incidence I can think of where the camera records it better than the human eye. Normally our eyes trumps the living bejeezus out of any equipment (really, they are amazing), but a camera’s ability to withhold perception for thirty seconds comes in handy with the aurora, slow, subtle, and faint as it often is.

So when we spent a few frigid nights watching muted colors caress the underbellies of the stars, and I looked down (with fully night-adjusted eyes) to see beautiful colors on my magic little view screen… I had high hopes.

So today, trying to get them to look the way they did when I was there….

aaaaaaaaaaarrrrgggghhhh! Why you no wanna werk wif me, stoopid image?

Blaming one’s equipment is a lame excuse at best, if not outright verboden, and I can already see at least one setting I should have changed. And if I was better at editing, I’m sure I could enhance these more effectively. But at the end of the day, it was damn fun to be out there, scrambling around in the dark, nabbing what I could. And I’ll take the learning experience.

We had pessimistic forecasts every day, “solid cloud cover and low aurora activity” the screens would declare, but for the first couple nights, and one towards the end, we had enough clarity and enough activity to marvel at the green glow of ionic mysticism.

The first night was crouching on the ice cubes piled up beside the lake in Þingvellir National Park (Thingvellir), where I, being a complete space cadet, had forgotten to bring my tripod, so rested my camera on the ground.

The second night was an improvement in equipment, my tripod splayed by the road back from Akranes, but the wind was being petulant, and even in the relative calm next to the car, a sharp image escaped me.

The last night was spent overlooking Jökulsarlon, the glacial lagoon that anchors my love of Iceland. I clambered down the gravel hillside and sat alone in the dark, listening to the crunch of icebergs, and the occasional splashes and air-blasts of seals close at hand in the darkness.

The images might not look as good as I’d hoped, but the memories are gorgeous.

Passion, danger, guns and roses in Soyapango

El Salvador uses the US dollar, and since going to the ATM is always a good opportunity for robbery (by thugs, or even worse: the banks) and/or excessive “I'm Jason Bourne” playtime, I decided to stock up on one, five, and ten dollar bills before heading down there.

The bank teller found this an odd request, but paused before giving in to irritation to ask why I wanted so many small bills. At my response, she had two immediate reactions: “I'm from there!” and “Be careful, it's dangerous! In particular, stay away from...” she listed several neighborhoods. Unconvinced by my polite nod, she flipped my receipt over and grabbed a pen. “These two are the worst, Ilopango and Soyapango, stay out of those.” She underlined the latter on the paper three times.

I remembered that interaction my first day in El Salvador, as we drove to: Soyapango.

Salvadoran law prohibits campaigning in the three days prior to voting, so this was the last day candidates could actively seek votes, and we were headed to the FMLN's closing rally, where the presidential candidate would make his final speech before the election.

I was a few yards behind him, and pictures of the back of someone's head are rarely interesting, so I pushed forward for a better spot. People were packed in like crayons crammed in the box by a toddler, but I gradually forced my way into the sea of red shirts, waving flags, and air horns blasting a steady percussion of support. I squeezed like toothpaste through the gap between the stage and the speakers, but that proximity threatened permanent hearing loss, so I kept going.

My skull finally stopped rattling when I got to the back of the VIP seats, in front of the barricades holding back the masses. I paced around back there for awhile, as the candidate delivered a long and varied monologue about...everything. It was distinct from a US speech. There were no concise talking points or crafted phrases, he was just up there, shouting and waving his arms, Latin American passion. A bit rambling.

The First Lady wasn't quite as enthusiastic as the crowd

The current First Lady sat behind him, looking more bored than any human I've ever seen. It made me respect the tireless performances of US First Ladies, who gaze in unfailing adoration as their heroic husbands deliver the same speech for the 628^th time. Granted, she's married to the current president, not the candidate, but did she really have to look at her watch that often?

Then he was done, and the lady with lungs like bagpipes was howling out the party's anthem. I wandered up onto the side of the stage for awhile until a self-important functionary objected to my presence and had the guards throw me out. Politely of course, since they had no idea if I'm important or not.

That was the best part.

Back at the entrance I found my host, who nearly fainted when she saw me. “There he is! Oh thank god! This is gangland central, you can't just walk around! You scared me to death!” Seeing the panic on her face, I felt bad, and could only offer a lame “Um...sorry.”

Reputation or not, I had felt safe at the rally, where everyone was focused on the stage in universal and monochromatic enthusiasm. It wasn't until we climbed back into the van, and our bodyguard drove off at his customary NASCAR speed that I felt unsafe. Maybe a desire to calm us informed his musical selections, because to me, Soyapango is a dangerous place of gangs, political rallies, and November Rain, Total Eclipse of the Heart, (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, and Bon Jovi's Always.

Interesting places, imminent culture, and an inexplicable soundtrack.

I love traveling.