Tag Archives: Travel Journal

Journal entries from my travels, whether they be by bicycle, train, plane, or automobile.

Version 0.61 (The Heat, Daydreaming, and A Cave Tour)

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05/02/19

Kinda thinking I don’t want to be on this island anymore. Two and a half days and I’m already done with the heat and the tropical sun. The sun, the sun.

THE SUN.

I don’t know what to say about it. From the confines of an air conditioned building it appears a thing of beauty and magnanimity, shining its light, illuminating the world, playing with the waves of the ocean, the leaves of the palm, pushing shadows slowly across the world as we spin around our axis, and the animals of the world moving in time to its rhythm. But we humans are stupid animals because we insist on being out and active even when the sun is at its zenith, and the temperatures are at their highest, stumbling and sweating through a hell of our own making. We’ve learned to combat this through fans and air-conditioning so that we may stick to the societal and cultural rhythm of our nine-to-five, or morning-straight-through-to-evening activities. Of course this is particularly true on vacation when one must wander out in all weathers and all temperatures because we must SEE things because otherwise whats the point of plotting out a time on one’s calendar and going on a vacation in a foreign land?

So, anyway, I am done with the heat, and the sweating through my clothing, and the being dirty, and the stinking, and being a stupid animal. All the same, while I’m here I should embrace being the stupid animal that I am and appreciate this opportunity. Besides, there’s no beating this opponent, and I certainly won’t be outsmarting him.

I’m day dreaming about traveling in the U.S. now, with Huyen, of showing her some of my favorite places during a summer. A cross country journey. D.C. and NYC of course, but also various places in Michigan: Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, but most importanly Leelanau County and its peninsula, including Traverse City, Sleeping Bear Dunes, wine tasting at various vineyards, the many and secret beaches along Lake Michigan, and the many other smaller lakes. And then a few days in Chicago, several days in Milwaukee, and then there is a big gap until Colorado, then California with a drive down the coast from Washington state.

It’s too easy to day dream about cooler climates than it is to focus on the goings on here. I have a little bit of work with Claudio later this afternoon, and still have to do some photography around the hostel for him. I’ve been vacillating between wanting to leave early, and staying for the full week here. But the best thing I think is to just let everything go to plan. It’s sort of like trading; I don’t like to meddle with a trade once I’ve determined a setup and entered into that trade, though often it is very tempting.

Went on a cave tour yesterday. I was the only one, strangely enough, and was quite surprised the man even bothered to take me out. After the tour and at intervals during it I had intermittent convesation with my guide about his life. Simple stuff. How long have you lived here? Do you enjoy guiding? How long have you guided? The differences between here and the other islands? His life is of such a simple purity. Watching him walk through the forest and up the hill to the cave I observed such an ease and comfort in him, and a surefootedness, the balance of a cat, the familiarity with a place, a path, from having trod it so many hundreds of times. Something I don’t ever see in the denizens of a city, most of whom are usually in a rush to get somewhere. Occasionally he would pause after a particularly steep climb, the sweat beaded up on his forehead. He would just stand statue-like but for the expansion and contraction of his chest and his head turning, listening, peering into the jungle. Maybe he would ask a question of me, or point something out, like a cicada carapace, or a honey bee hive through the branches and leaves high up in a tree, hanging there like a curtain. On our way down after leaving the cave he lit up a cigarette and began smoking as we walked down the hill back to the village, not in a hurried way, but in a manner that was aligned with all of his actions up to this point, like he was reclining lazily in a porch-chair smoking easily, watching the world unfurl itself as it continually does, minute after minute, day after day, year after year, but all those moments just one singular moment always going going going, rolling into and out of itself and my tour guide simultaneously part of it but also beyond it, simply observing it. The double helix of a strand of DNA—life on one side, death on the other, inseparable, together all the time and for all time.

Version 0.60 (Simple, Life)

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05/01/19

Why should life be more complicated than what the birds make of it?

This, a thought that has come to me watching a thumb-size one flit along the branches of a tree in the yard of a cafe I am enjoying a breakfast and coffee at.

Bananas in a bunch hang from a palm. How crazy and marvellous this world is for life, food, sustenance to display itself like it does. What a show! What a temptation! They actually don’t so much hang like one sees them displayed in the supermarket, but rather they stand erect, curved upwards like stacked umbrellas flipped on their heads, creating multiple tiers of cups around a central pole.

But that erectness!—one can’t get it out of his head, especially after glancing around the rest of the garden that is glowing, nay!, vibrating and shimmering with life. In a corner is a large shrub with four cylindrical, pointed, phallic looking flowers (not yet open) protruding from the tops of four stems, just begging for it. How everything seems to be sex. The whole natural world. Everything wet, damp, dripping, lush, conical or rod-shaped (even the leaves of certain plants), or open, inviting, softly curved and sensuous. All around me the stuff of life is asking for it, or doing it, or has recently done it.

A small beetle flies by, from shade into sunlight, vanishing back into shadow again. The theatre of life and death.

Perhaps life doesn’t need to be more complicated than the birds make it. Perhaps it really is as simple as nature makes it out to be. Sex, food, play. And because life is everywhere, so then is sex everywhere.*

Enjoyment. Enjoy it.

Amor.

 

 

*what came first, life, or sex? (this is rhetorical, of course, but comments will be happily read)

Version 0.59 (Day 1, Koh Lanta, Looking and Thinking)

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04/30/19, Koh Lanta

I’m sitting at a small, round table inlaid with mosaic, on the patio of a cafe, sipping a cappuccino and nibbling the densest chocolate croissant I have ever had. I wanted to journal on the drive here in the mini-bus, exhausted and in a semi-comatoes state, but even had I been able to gather and coordinate my thoughts in a coherent manner, the near constant bouncing and banging around on the seat would have made it impossible.

It’s begun to rain in spurts, but that’s no surprise as we are on the cusp of the rainy season, if it has not already begun. Seems a poor time to be on Koh Lanta, but little could be done in that regard as I made work exchange plans: I’m receiving free accomodation for photographing the hostel I’m staying at. That’s a hard deal to turn down for someone trying to stay to a fairly tight, if undetermined, budget. So here I am writing a bunch of nothing and daydreaming.

Wanting to write. No brain function. Nothing to write. Just watching the happenings on the poorly paved street from the porch. Mainly just scooter traffic up and down, back and forth. Some people walking. Two guys in a scooter/jeep sort of contraption shouting at pedestrians, primarily women, asking or saying I have no idea what. Maybe looking to drive them around? Perhaps it’s some sort of taxi. By their appearance, though, one would not judge them as  particularly savory characters. Best to be avoided.

I am surprised by the number of muslims down here, though I suppose I ought not be considering the proximity to Malaysia. Claudio says they make better business partners than the Buddhists. Something about them being more practical-minded. I wouldn’t know anything about that, but I suppose he has more experience with it than I, being as he’s lived here for quite a long time now.

I brought my poncho with me in case the rain really decides to come down. So far it has been unnecessary, which is how being prepared works.

I was on a train last night which left Bangkok and arrived in Trang this morning. I went through my usual mental bout of what the fuck am I doing this for, writing a bit about it, but ultimately being stymied by the time of day (late evening) and the fact that the lights refused to work. Part of those misgivings I had I can blame on simply over-thinking things. The other part was missing Mozzie, while simultaneously wondering why I should bother persuing a relationship with someone off the American continent anyway, while also being annoyed by this relationship we have in the first place, however it may be defined, because it’s fucked my rather vague travel plans (I really should have just flown to Japan) and has caused me this stress (yet I wouldn’t change a thing).

Version 0.58 (Travel by Train for the “Experience”)

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04/29/19

The train is bouncing along it’s track, swaying back and forth like a drunk struggling to stay upright. I’m finally leaving Bangkok, but it’s been almost an hour and we’re still not out of the city, and the air conditioning has stopped for some reason. And the fans too. I just looked at an older Thai gentleman the next sleeper bed over; he had removed his overshirt and gestured to a friend about the warmth and lack of a/c. The lights are out as well, and I can hardly see to write. It’s beginning to get quite stifling in here. Didn’t pay extra for an air conditioned car to not have one. Well, anyway in about fourteen or fifteen hours I’ll be in Trang (I hope). From there I take a mini-bus to Koh Lanta, another two or three hours further. Perhaps I should have just flown to Krabi; I’d likely be in Koh Lanta by this point.

The strange things we humans do for an “experience,” or to save some money….

Well at this point I can barely see to write, So far not a great experience, and far inferior to Vietnam. There may not have been AC outlets (for plugging in a laptop), but at least there were USB outlets so one could charge his phone or tablet. Not that I can’t go without…. The design of the sleeper cars is in my opinion preferable to that of the Thai trains too. They lent to a different, and for me preferable, kind of privacy, because even though I might share a room with up to three strangers, the room has a door, and is closed off to the rest of the train. Here it’s just bunks lining each side of a train car with a curtain as one’s only privacy feature. Sure, you don’t have to look at anyone else once you pull your curtain to, buttttt it’s just a curtain. For me, I prefer a room with a door. And now somebody is smoking. And I’m sweating. And the purpose of journaling was not to complain but this is beyond agravating.

[Later]
Watching an old man who boarded the train fifteen minutes ago. This frail old fellow, mummy-like, skin tight over his old bones so that he looks like an over-cooked turkey pulled out of an oven, his skin like something one could peel in flakes off of his flesh, probably in his eighties ambled on with his son. He reminds one of a little sparrow he’s so frail and tiny—thin arms and legs, large bulbous knuckles like pearl onions, a gold ring on one hand, a silver watch on the other large enough that, looking at him, one must wonder how he lifts his arm. His reaction to the car and the bed, or the bed having already been made seemed to be one of confusion or incomprehension. His phone went off earlier in his bag and his son had to alert him to this fact. The old man fumbles around in its pocket and pulls out pills, batteries to something like a medical device, and a comb, before finally getting to his phone—a very basic, black Nokia, which his son decrypted for him. He’s lying down now, a blanket pulled over him and the curtain drawn. It’s too easy to imagine in the morning his son pulling back the curtain only to find the old man dead….

However, it’s scenes like these that make taking a train or some other form of public transportation preferable to flying.

Version 0.57 (Just Looking out the Window)

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04/24/19

Sitting in the lobby of the hostel, at a long table set against the large windows that look out onto the little square where this hostel and another, several restaurants, and the karaoke bar next door are situated. It is a quiet morning, late, nearly noon. A woman sits on a bench beneath the awning of a Korean bbq spot playing with her phone. Occasionally someone passes through the square: a tortured soul stumbling along the shores of hell, submitting to some past life’s sins. Creatures forced to endure these temperatures for eternity. The heat out here is incredible, and the humidity nearly so as well, and yet all the Thais are seen in jeans or long pants. The woman across the way even has on a denim jacket.

I’m amazed.

Though, if one were to drag them to the north or central U.S. during a winter they would not be able to put on enough layers to keep warm.

A cat has just crawled out from beneath a car. It looks a lot like the cat, Chibi, at the other hostel, Kamin Bird House, which I actually miss a bit. A lovely Japanese name for a cat. I like it very much. It is common practice that if you own a cat here you have its tail docked. Unless these cats are bred this way. I’m not sure what the reasoning would be (for the former, not so much the latter), so I suspect perhaps it it a particular breed.

I have just finished breakfast: simple “food” consisting of toast, bananas, and instant coffee. No plans for the day. Real coffee somewhere eventually, and “work”, and take a wander through Chinatown perhaps. A fruit seller has just setup shop in in a parking spot in front of the bbq joint. Immediately the woman under the awning gets up and purchases a bag of papaya or watermelon, and an employee of the restaurant makes a purchase as well. And just that quickly the fruit seller moves on. I though I might get a bag of something. Well, the city is full of these guys. I’ll find one later.

The woman at the check-in desk is watching a Thai soap opera. In it a woman is speaking while a melancholy guitar is plucked in the background. When I see people watching these things sometimes I wonder if they’re reliving a time in their past. An incident, maybe. Or a relationship. What is the draw to these shows that are so heavy with contrived drama? My mother used to watch this sort of programming when I was a child. All My Children, As the World Turns… I believe there were a few others, all with the same general premise, all quite dark, and dripping with an over-the-top drama and phoniness that one wonders how they could be taken seriously. Yet they all had their followings, and were all quite popular for a while.

Version 0.56 (What Does it Mean to Have “Seen” a Place?)

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04/22/19

Fresh crisis today? I don’t know.

That’s not exactly how I wanted to start this journal—so dramatically—though it was bound to be on something about feeling a bit lost, a bit without purpose (how many times have I written about purpose now?).

What the fuck am I doing in Bangkok? Honest to God I truly don’t want to be here. Maybe I really need to embrace some of the more touristic things, and head into the older part of the city and the areas near the river? Maybe I’ll be more inspired and motivated to photograph there? The heat makes any time spent outside miserable, though. It doesn’t help that in some sense I feel that what I am doing is a waste of time, that my photography is not appreciated, will never be appreciated, is unimportant, doesn’t matter (though why should it?). I have been feeling like an absolute trash photographer lately. The lowest of the low. I am a coward, too scared to face someone on the street and take his/her picture (not that that is a new feeling, but the intensity of it is). I feel like the dumb, white tourist offending the “exotic” locals by photographing them; every glance in my direction is discouragement. Maybe I just need a change of scenery in the city. Maybe I just need a change of head-space, a change of head, a change of brains. a change of self perception. Having moved hostel locations should help with that. The biggest problem here, though, is purpose, as I wrote in my third sentence. I have no purpose. The purpose of the whole trip is travel, and I’m not doing much of that. I take some sort of vehicular transport from spot to spot, mosey around the place, then move on. Can I really say that I’ve visited Thailand when I haven’t left the city of Bangkok? What does it mean to “see” a place, anyway? How much of a city or country does one have to explore to qualify as a person who may say he has seen it?

I’m writing all this in a smallish hall within which numerous food vendors are set up by the Thong Lo BTS stop. I’m at a bright, canary yellow table, sitting on a metal stool. All around me is a rush of people swooshing to and fro: vendors running out food and drinks, and visitors looking for an empty or near-empty table, or searching for a food stall that looks appealing. It’s all metal and plastic stools here, as it seemingly is at all street food stalls throughout Asia; and colorfully painted square metal tables; and white tile floor, definitely not right now very white. The aroma of food cooked or cooking or raw suffuses the space, and all those smells and aromas mingle together into one homogeneous scent of food unless someone walks by with a plate of something, which has a tendency to waft up right beneath one’s nose as it is brought past. Right now I smell cucumber or papaya, and some sort of meat sizzling on a grill, and I hear distinctly something crackling in a wok, mingling with the voices of those behind the counter. Mostly the space is a rumble of conversation pierced periodically by a passing scooter, the gait of a woman walking in heels, the bright high voice of a child, the tinking of silverware, the stacking of plastic plates and bowls, the low almost imperceptible rumble of a bus (or is that the sky train?) Fans and iced drinks are the only means of keeping cool in here, though occasionally there is a draft from outside that blows pleasantly into the complex. A couple sits at a table and laughs out loud together. He has just arrived, and brought her something, but their relationship I don’t think is what that statement might immediately cause one to think, and she walks out from behind a stall to chit-chat at a table and look through what he has brought. I like this place. It is for all peoples: westerner, easterner, and Thai alike. It’s not for the rich, it’s not for the poor. It’s for anyone who comes hungry, no matter what his or her place on the rungs of the social ladder.

Version 0.55 (Feeling Uneven, the Virtues of a Swamp, and More)

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04/21/19

I guess it’s Easter Sunday back home, soon. I’m living in another world now and have forgotten all but very little it seems. I live a very basic existence consisting mainly of eating, drinking coffee, sweating, sweating profusely, sweating through my shirt, looking for cafes to escape from the heat and the constant sweating, photographing, and trying to stay atop trades in crypto and analyzing forex charts. I feel lost much of the time here. I think largely because I am so far from busier parts of the city where there is more to do. A large part of my day is spent just moving from spot to spot. Much too much time, and so I feel like I’m not gaining enough from my time here, and thus I am disillusioned with the city. The suffocating heat isn’t helping. Haven’t yet decided if I move to a new hostel for a few days after my time at Kamin Bird House is up, or if I just pack up and move south. I would, I think, prefer to give Bangkok a bit more of a chance. It’s too easy to be disappointed by something after a couple of days of dissatisfaction, develop too quickly a poor opinion of the place, and then throw in the towel on it. Making hasty decisions is one of the worst things one can do for himself in developing an opinion on something. Give it time, and realize that it’s not going to change for you, and if you expect it to you’re only going to continue to be disillusioned, disappointed, and frustrated.

Pretty certain I’m lonely. Is this good or bad? What can I learn from it? I’m in love with being alive, but I feel less than alive right now. I feel beat down and uncertain. Why am I here in Bangkok? What am I doing? Truly and frankly I’m not doing anything. What am I supposed to do? I don’t even know that. I could be having a good time with a friend or certain other person. but again, and I’ve covered this ground before, I’m not traveling and I’m not accomplishing anything either. I’m unhappy with my photography and so I’ve lost the desire to shoot, and I’m sick of spending more time traveling to areas I want to visit and photograph than actually spending time in those places I’m visiting. I’ve had certain periods of brightness and they make this all worth it (it’s amazing the crap that a photographer will put up with for a single, satisfying image), but I’m stagnating right now. Can this be a good thing? I think yes. I KNOW yes, and I know yes simply because I’m honest and conscious enough to ask that question.

The swamp of my soul… this phrase has been flipping over in my mind for the past few minutes, I suppose because I am writing of stagnation. The world equates a swamp with negativity, with filth, stink, rot. Yet swamps are beautiful. They’re teeming with life, no less so, and often more so, than other ecosystems. So why the negativity? Many people talk, and have talked for centuries, of draining them and filling them in (and many people have done so; several of America’s large cities rest on what was once swampland). Very few say “this swamp is beautiful, a masterpiece of evolution.” A swamp is life disguised as death (a rather poor disguise in my opinion, but it has obviously fooled a great many people), which is a tremendous trick—many animals “play dead” as a way to fool predators. Unfortunately, in this case the predator is man who plays the role of scavenger and so has at it at the swamp anyway, destroying it completely. Humankind has no respect for the swamp. It doesn’t shine. It doesn’t glow. It doesn’t maintain a dry and comfortable temperature of 20-25 degrees celsius. It is often much hotter, with a humidity to match. It is impossible, or near so, to build on. In short it is inconvenient, and provides nothing of “value”, therefore it must be destroyed.

So, is my soul a swamp? Do I find it disgusting, repulsive? I think perhaps right now comparing my soul to a swamp is doing the swamp a disservice. I think a swamp right now is much fuller of life and beauty than my soul currently is. My soul though, right now, is waiting. It is a fertile field with the attendant nutrients and minerals needed for it to support life. It is merely waiting for a seed, hundreds of them, thousands, tens of hundreds of thousands; and a bit of rain (something else people like to complain about) before it may begin to blossom and proliferate with plant life, and become a habitat for other living beings, creatures small and large, fragile and delicate, beautiful and winged; and then it will bear fruit which it may then provide to others that they may do the same in turn, that we all may live more productively, fruitfully, satisfyingly, gratefully. But until then it is waiting with no less than a touch of stoicism, but not without a certain turmoil either.

Version 0.54 (Satisfaction for Now)

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04/17/19

Oh, my! It has been ages! (it is always ages these days.) Hopefully I will journal more now that I have no friends.

I am in Bangkok. This is unexpected because I had absolutely no plans to visit Thailand (well, that’s not true, obviously, but I had planned to do so in a different manner than I have—due to a holiday in Vietnam on the weekend of my visa expiration I was unable to book a bus to Laos, so a flight to Bangkok from Da Nang suggested itself as a prudent Plan B.).

I’m staying at a cheap hostel a few miles outside of the city center, away from anywhere tourists would visit and most expats would live. I’m doing this mainly because the hostel is near a cafe, Lonely Barista, the owner of which I’ve been following for at least two years on Instagram (yes, strangely, the owner’s Instagram and not the cafe’s Instagram).

So, what are my plans? Currently I do not have any. Just a few ideas. 1) Find a cheap bicyle and ride south to Kuala Lumpur, 2) work exchange at a hostel for a month, 3) walk and hitchhike south, or, 4) take a train.

In truth I have very little of interest to write here. Nothing since my last journal has left itself on me, has affected me or struck me in such a way that I feel I must put it on paper in order to explore it more deeply. I no longer wonder why I’m traveling, for it is merely living, and I do not wonder why I am alive, I accept that I am and find as much joy as possible in the being so; joy in joy, joy in sadness, joy in frustration, joy in anger, joy in pain, but joy in all things. I no longer wonder how will I get from this place to that place, or which place should I go next because all places are great places, so no matter where I go I know it is the best place for me then, and no matter how I get there it will have been the right way to get there.

I am excited for the future. I am content with the present. And I look back with happiness and satisfaction on my past. There is no better place for me to be.

Version 0.53 (Thinking Forward, Looking Back)

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04/11/19

Off to Hue for a few days with Huyen before departing for Laos. I’m not too sad to leave, but instead am happy to be seeing Huyen one last time, for it’ll be a couple months before I return to Vietnam. I am going to take a southerly route through Laos from Savannakhet to Si Phan Don, before entering Cambodia, then into Thailand, and onward to Kuala Lumpur for a work exchange, hopefully. Funny though—the sole thing that served as impetus, at first, to visit KL was a certain cafe, Merchant’s Lane, that I found on Instagram. Perhaps a silly reason for visiting a city, but I suspect Kuala Lumpur will have much to entertain me with in regard to the life of its people, subject matter for photography, and other cafes to explore.*

Anyway, my time in Da Nang has been an enriching experience. I’ve met some truly lovely people, and made a pretty good friend unexpectedly. I’ve certainly eaten a greater variety of food here than in Hanoi, and have also grown more comfortable being a foreigner not able to communicate with locals easily.

[Later]
I have just realized that I left my suit in a cafe in Da Nang and I am now on the train to Hue. I don’t know what to say for myself…..

Well, anyway (once again always thinking or saying or writing “anyway”), I’m on the train. There’s no changing that. The windows across the aisle from me open on to a vista nearly colorless. The horizon is a line so well blended and smudged that the division between sky and ocean seems almost nonexistent, as if all of us in the train are peering out into that void from which all life springs eternally. It’s what one might imagine parts of heaven to be like, but filled with a sense of deep tranquility and joy instead of trepidation over the fate of a suit. In an hour or so I’ll be in Hue searching for food, maybe, or just checking into the homestay and awaiting Huyen’s arrival.

*Perhaps it’s not such a silly reason, for everywhere that is a place, and anywhere, which is contained in everywhere, must be a place, must have something interesting contained within. I often think that I could throw a dart at a map and go to that place and find myself fascinated by it.

Furthermore, one’s “silly” reason for traveling somewhere could unbeknownst to that person open up a whole undiscovered world to him/her, and, after all, isn’t that half, if not most of, the point of travel? One’s reason for going somewhere isn’t important so much as the act of going is what is important.

This isn’t typically a blog that engages with its readers (few that it has), but what reasons have you had for traveling to a place? Have you ever thought them silly or ridiculous? Like no sensible person would ever travel hundreds or more miles to see or do this one thing?

Version 0.52 (Ten Minutes of a Morning)

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04/07/19

From the hostel this morning I watched a guy deliver large sacks of ice on a scooter to a restaurant across the street. Anything and everything is transported and delivered by scooter here: potted and unpotted plants, jugs of water, bundles of sticks, chickens in cages, songbirds in cages, propane tanks, furniture, cats, dogs, children, mail, tools, crates (which may be filled with anything imaginable). For most of this stuff one would think a car would be necessary at a minimum, but a pick-up truck or delivery van much more appropriate, but here, no. Anything can be strapped or some other way anchored to a scooter, and nothing beats a scooter for maneuverability, and no one beats the Vietnamese for their industriousness and ingenuity. Anyway, this guy delivers his sack to the restaurant, dropping it in a large cooler out front while the proprietor looks on. After this skinny little Vietnamese guy, with not an inconsiderable amount of effort, drops off his ice the proprietor fellow comes to the decision that he would prefer the other sack of ice, so of course they had to be switched. For what earthly reason that is, besides feeling like swinging his big dick around and popping his “BIG EGO” pin onto his shirt and giving it a good polish with his sleeve, I don’t know.

But as well, this proprietor had a couple of these little bird cages hanging from the canopy out front. These much-too-small cages, in which the single bird leaps back and forth from cage to perch to cage again with not even enough space to open its wings, like a mad man in a nut house. He’s not the only one, and it’s mostly the older generation, but it just seems another example of his hubris, or ego.