Time to Go Elsewhere

Truth be told, I'm really only writing this post to show off a sampling of what I believe to be fantastic photographs of my last two weeks working on a boat.  One of the crew members actually had a half-decent camera, and the results (compared to my own camera's paltry offerings) are rather pleasing to the eye.  And what's the point of a blog if the readers' eyes aren't pleased?

I've spent the last handful of days doing some major research.  I've grown a little bored of my traveling routine, feeling much more like a tourist than pleases me, so I set out to find a remedy to that.  My solution, after debating with myself all forms of volunteering, working, and general time-killing, is to pursue work-exchange programs.  These programs generally function by working on someone's farm/estate/business/boat/etc for four to six hours a day in return for free room and board.  While WWOOF, the popular organic farm volunteering network, falls under this category, I will also be utilizing other resources that offer opportunities beyond farming.  I have found a number of useful and reputable resources for locating available work exchanges and have already located a plethora of enticing opportunities in just about every country I could ever want to visit.  The most notable benefit to this mode of traveling is cost.  As it stands, I would estimate that food and lodging comprise at least three quarters of my expenditures.  In many other parts of the world (Europe in particular), those costs are far too great for my meager budget to accommodate.  However, once those expenses are eliminated, the only significant fee becomes transportation, which is mild in contrast.  As such, my dreams of traveling through North Africa and even into southern Europe may now be fully realized.

Furthermore, I will finally be doing something.  Be it farming, construction, maintenance, or even just cleaning, I'll be using my hands and gaining experiences living in a local environment.  I may miss out on some of the guidebook "sights," but I feel pretty damned sight-ed out by now.  That's not to say that I feel these last three months have been a waste-- quite the contrary.  The experiences I've had thus far, in addition to the time I've had to gather my wits, have been invaluable.  However, now I'm ready for something more and look forward to my shift into becoming a working traveler with great zeal.

I am a man of preparation.  I tend to follow the old adage, "measure twice and cut once."  I always check all of my equipment many times over before going out on a camping trip, scuba diving, rock climbing, you name it.  Even before I go for a drive I have a habit of checking all the basic systems of the vehicle.  I'm trained in multiple forms of emergency rescue.  I know how to land a small airplane in an emergency.  Likewise, I read a lot.  I research everything I may need to know about an upcoming experience, be it a purchase, a class selection, or my next destination.  Thus, after talking to countless souls and reading an immeasurable amount of text on traveling to Thailand I was mortified to find myself caught off-guard upon encountering a major, nay, an essential fact about this country that every one of my sources had neglected to reveal: they drive on the left-hand side of the road.

Imagine now, if you will, my utmost fear upon getting off of the border-crossing bus in Nong Khai and attempting to cross the street.  I look to the left, see that all is clear and step off the curb.  As I turn my head to the right to check the next lane of traffic, my gaze is suddenly met by an all-too-near van coming right at me, horn blaring.  "Fucking idiot!," I think as the Thai driver swerves around me but returns to the left-hand side of the road.  Then I notice the orientation of all of the parked cars.  As a new stream of left-handed traffic passes by my paralyzed form, it dawns on me that I have been defeated.  Wrong-sided traffic has eluded all of my detection systems and breached my perimeter of preparedness.  Congratulations Thailand, you and your incorrect road rules have forced me to submit to you, the victor.  Here is my sword, my gun and badge, my white flag.  That said, you have my word that this will never happen again.  You have been warned, Alderney, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bermuda, Bhutan, Botswana, Brunei, Caymans, Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, Cook Islands, Cyprus, Dominica, East Timor, Falkland Islands, Fiji, Grenada, Guernsey, Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Isle of Man, Jamaica, Japan, Jersey, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Macau, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Motserrat, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk Island, North Korea, Pakistan, Papau New Guinea, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, Cunha, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Seychelles, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Tokelau, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Kingdom, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Today I was vomited on.  I knew something of this sort would happen eventually along my travels, and in all likelihood it will happen again.  In fact, it wasn't all that bad-- as far as getting puked on goes, at least.  More than anything, it was downright bizarre.  I found myself unable to be upset as I was simply overwhelmed by confusion.

The tale starts off like most other accounts of misery; on a bus.  Actually, it was a van, but the two are often interchangeable around Southeast Asia.  The only difference being that a van rather restricts your individual mobility, which is key for the story at hand.  Anyhow, the van sets out in the morning through the breathtaking mountains of northern Laos.  For the first half of the eight-hour trip, the roads are treacherously rough and the ride is a violent, jerky, and painful one.  It is a ride requiring constant bracing to prevent your teeth from bashing against the seat ahead and your head from cracking the window.  Oblivious to this, the local girl sitting packed next to me insists on trying to sleep.  Deciding my shoulder is her best bet, she repeatedly nods off on top of me, only to almost immediately be violently jarred awake by the hopping of the van causing my shoulder to almost knock her teeth out.  Yet like a hermit crab reaching its eye sockets back from under its shell, within seconds she resumes her slumber atop my volatile shoulder.  This process repeats itself many hundred times over the next four or five hours.

Ah, lazy Laos.  Never before have I found a sword as double-edged as this one.  The Lao lifestyle is a relaxed one to the extreme.  So relaxed, in fact, that something as simple as ordering a beer can take ages to be accomplished.  While beers are usually located in a refrigerator no more than twenty feet away, the server must first go chat with his/her sibling, maybe have a smoke, pass by the fridge to pet the dog, pass back by the fridge to go see who just arrived on a motorbike, stand around pointing at things with that person, walk past your table on the way to take a nap only to be rudely interrupted by you reminding about the beer order.  Then, and only then, may your request be fulfilled.  Needless to say, life runs at a much slower pace in Laos.

Time flies when you're dodging chaotic traffic and demanding vendors.  Already I've been travelling for two months and I'd hardly know the difference but for the stamps in my passport.  But I'll be damned if I haven't learned a thing or two.  I'd like to take the time to muse on some of the things I've learned thus far about Southeast Asia and perhaps life in general.

I have learned that there is a discounted price, a regular price, a sucker price, and a tourist price.  That with any luck you'll manage to pay the regular price every once in a while, though settling for the sucker price often suffices.  That haggling can be a way of life.  That the more someone tries to sell you something, the less it is worth buying.  That there's always another stand selling all the same shit to try getting a better price at.  That you are a walking wallet and to convince anyone otherwise is futile.  That if there is an opportunity to extort, you will be extorted.  That if they don't have a gun, and with a little cunning, you can eventually bypass the bribe.  That arguments of reason are usually cut short by declarations of location.  That ten minutes may describe a duration anywhere from negative twenty minutes to positive three hours.  That foreigners are given the worst seating so as to provide amusement for the locals.  That it requires an average of three people to operate a bus.  That karaoke videos are the apex of in-flight entertainment, though breakdowns are a close second.  That a bus driver may find opportunity to sleep in between potholes.  That the horn is an adequate replacement for the brake pedal.  That the existence of other souls on the road are a mere nuisance whose presence is easily dealt with by the aforementioned horn.  That crossing any street at any location is possible (and often unavoidable) with a steady pace and an iron will.  That the sidewalk is no safer than the street.  That finding the best food is as easy as finding the place with the fewest people shouting for you to eat there.  That getting a table is many orders of magnitude easier than getting a check.  That reading a menu is a chaperoned activity.  That when receiving the wrong food, you are in fact receiving the right food.  That chocolate, no matter how poor in quality and overpriced, is something that just absolutely most be located every now and then.  That beer drinking is the greatest test of one's skill as a consumer in a free market.  That when you are at a lack for what to do in a new place, go have a beer.  That the better stories are heard over beers, but the better travel companions met over breakfast.  That two dollars can mean the difference between a mat on the floor and a full bed with a private bathroom.  That saving said two dollars is always more expensive in the end.  That "wi-fi" is a relative term.  That no matter how warm it is outside, a hot shower will always leave you more satisfied than a cold one.  That as the bugs get bigger, the locals get friendlier.  That patience is a virtue as much as it is a vulnerability (though I still refuse to barge my way to the front of a line as seems to be the custom).  That cows and water buffalo have the right away, but only barely.  That a pet is only worth as much as the meat on its bones, and to treat it with any higher regard is perplexing.  That a handful of words and phrases in the local tongue serves as a ring of keys heavy enough to drag down the Hindenburg.  That keeping time is overrated; the sun and your stomach do a fine job on their own.  That expats are the developing world's primary supply of modern philosophy.  That there is a reason all expats left their Western home, and it's rarely a flattering one.  That the farther away from your homeland you are, the more you miss it, but the more you marvel at your surroundings.  That there's a whole lot of world out there, and I'll be damned if I'm going to miss out on it.

There's most certainly a good deal more, but that seems like a solid summary of what I've gleaned these past two months.  Thanks for reading, all of you who do.  Now onto the next two months and beyond.

Looks half-full if you ask me.  Better get back to it.

As is probably evident by the deceleration of my blog posts, I've found myself slowing down as I travel deeper into the backwoods of Cambodia.  Something of a perfect storm between there being less to do, the way of life being more laid back, and me trying to get the most out of my 30-day visa, I've been spending more time idly wandering backstreets and meandering through farmland on a bicycle.  I find it to be one of the best ways to explore a countryside, but it doesn't offer as dense a concentration of easily summarized stories like my rapid-fire journey through Vietnam did.

Siem Reap's a lot like Vietnam's Hoi An.  If any of y'all have the attention span to recall, Hoi An takes what has some historical significance and charm and turns it into an excuse to sell thousands of locally-made-in-China trinkets for about a hundred times their value.  It's an essential experience for any tourist, but one the wears you out pretty fast.  Luckily these destinations also feature damn cheap beer.  But Siem Reap has something that Hoi An and all the other bracelet-peddling-children-infested traps don't: a metric shitton of ancient temples.  That's a lot of ruins, in case you're rusty on your SI conversions.

 

Phnom Penh was rad, or at least all of the movies I watched in my hotel room were.  Once my throat could handle some food I booked it to Sihanoukville, the Cambodian beach paradise.  This is the place you dream about, people.  This is the place with quiet stretches of beach, warm water lapping against the soft sand, and hammocks abound.  Sure, the main beaches of the town are pretty tourist-ed out and full of club resorts and illicit product pushers.  But Otres Beach, the particular stretch of sand I found myself at, lays a few kilometers out from town and offers nothing but a stretch of dirt road and a handful of bar/restaurant/bungalows.  Nothing much else one needs, if you ask me.

It's been a bit longer than usual since I last posted, mostly due to my being sick for the last week or so.  Had tonsils the size of golf balls!  What started out the night I arrived in Saigon as a mild headache and a stiff neck ended up being one of the worst sore throats I ever remember experiencing.  So bad that swallowing saliva would violently wake me up.  Ended up on a liquid diet for most of the time, though not much at that.  I just had my first full meal in almost a week tonight, and man was it delicious.  It was a helluva way to experience the Mekong Delta, and not something I'd recommend to others.

They should lock me up for my murderous crimes, because I'm killing it with these rhymes!  I'm really just working towards my dream of being the world's best headline writer.  For now, I'll just enjoy the respite from the Vietnamese heat and humidity that the cool central highland getaway Da Lat offers.  There's pine trees here, for goodness sake!  However, without further ado, here is tonight's feature presentation: