The Great Escape

It's not jet lag; it's nocturnal insomnia with features of daytime haziness.

My whirlwind walkabout halfway across the globe is over, but it's going to take at least another month to edit the photos and debrief before I can post a true travel entry. Signs of a good trip: legs are covered in unknown bruises; that flip flop gash between big toe and [less than royal] second toe; awkward tan lines from partial adherence to societal modesty pressures.

A few days shy of 3 weeks in Southeast Asia, this was the longest consecutive travel since backpacking through Europe in the early Spring of 2005 [grossly under-prepared then for the Napoleonic winter, living in the same pair of jeans for 6 weeks]. A shame it's taken that long to accrue the funds and leave to undertake such a far-flinging.

The shrinking/sameness of the world over the last 12 years surprised me. Foolishly shelled out 300,000 dong to NOT unlock my old phone, but the widespread availability of WIFI made communication home instantaneous; much less sacred than nights in internet cafes of questionable intent. I spoke only English [minus a few words for the Vietnamese New Year], unlike the "Where's the bathroom" linguistics homework my siblings and I had before our first international family vacation. The assignment also included an [mercifully suppressed in memory] one-act play that was less Royal Tenenbaums and more [gag-reflex] Our Town. Never exchanged for Cambodian currency; they only wanted the almighty American dollar [and it went a long way]. I used an outlet converter once [in Hong Kong, the bulky British 3-prong style oppressive and antiquated]. The masochist in me regrets how easy it all was, that I didn't get irrevocably lost or have to use gestures or desperately try to read a map of incomprehensible symbols.

My unbroken-in, preternaturally fluourescent blue, brand-name something-liter outdoors-woman backpack [specifically fit to my stump torso] betrayed the lie. The frail attempt to appear free-spirited and chill. When in fact I was tightly scheduled and over-prepared. Despite a longstanding personal luggage policy of carry-on only, intensive research on packing strategy, and the desperate refrain that "Missing items can always be purchased later!", I packed too much and felt the weight of my mistake squarely on my shoulders every day. Between 10 and 12 kg, enough to give up all decorum and fasten the mortifying hip strap to offload. The first of many parallels to the novel I chose as my travel companion [Wild]. Thank GOD I didn't lose any toenails. Attempted to channel the spirit of the Katherine Hepburn/safari chic [sans all things khaki], ended up with unsalvageable crumpled oxford button-ups and gravitated to the same pair of capri leggings, washed and hung nightly. Ultimately gave in and bought those crazy thai pants for the merciless humidity and strictly enforced Angkor dress-code [nothing like the shame of an actual whistleblower calling attention to exposed shoulders and removing you from the grounds]. Coerced my conspiratorial sister-in-law to join me in the crazy print bottoms, which she did unquestionably.

Trading trains for planes and hostels for homestays seemed like the adulting, short-skirt-long-jacket upgrade. But in reality it was quiet and lonely among throngs of boisterous gwai lo clogging the streets screaming unfamiliar exclamations for Australia Day. Especially in Vietnam during the family-oriented holiday season, I was an intruder rather than guest* to the homestay proprietors. A voyeur to sidewalk markets boasting banana-leaf-wrapped-mysteries and gigantic potted kumquat trees nimbly bungied to the backs of overloaded scooters, weaving through streets of pure anarchy. The Tết festivities did kind of screw up things for the latter half of my Vietnam exploration. Many recommendations from my brother and Lonely Planet were closed. The price of food and beer went way up at markets before they shuttered, which trickled down to high end restaurants, tiny plastic-chair sidewalk eats, and beer halls. Don't talk to me about your 33 cent bia hoi, mine was almost a dollar [22,500 dong]!

To say the overwhelming mega-cities of SE Asia were not my style is an understatement. Los Angeles was a breezy a dream in comparison. Noise, humidity, smells, stampedes of people and vehicles, block after block of faceless identical high-rises. The hot days made hotter by steaming pots of broths lining the streets. Of course there was beauty in the din as well. The delicate ballet of roundabout traffic. The green mini-mountains popping out of the clouds in Hong Kong [quickly buried by a blanket of fog beckoning me back to Washington]. The knots and snarls of power lines buzzing around overhead. The flower displays for the lunar new year brightening up even the most humble storefronts. The shady balcony hideaways, oases from the agoraphobia in which to quietly imbibe and observe the mania.

I preferred to escape. To ancient ruins in jungles ruled by monkeys and water buffalo. To quiet canal towns surrounded by saturated green rice paddies. To serene seas with rock dragons popping out from the waters. To get lost in the moments that seemed to illude photography. Loitering on crumbling limestones while a steady stream of butterflies permeated through Angkor Wat. Driving down a red dirt road past a man who had a gigantic hog, maybe 400 lbs, feet up on the back of his motorbike [unknown live or dead status]. Kayaking while the red ball of a sun touched down between two pointy rocks. Flipping the perfect shrimp pancake [Bánh xèo] in a bamboo kitchen. Warming my soaked bones during a downpour with an egg coffee and a twitterpating long-distance singing telegram [in the form of a spotify mixtape].

I suppose I fear that once the thousands of photos are edited, the events collated, and my illegible travel journal compiled into an organized thought, the magic of the journey will dissipate. That my words will be a sad sterile echo. Because there is no substitution for throwing yourself into unfamiliar chaos. Daring yourself to detach from the leeches of day-to-day life. Testing the limits of your personal mind-over-matter [or how to talk yourself through the squishy crunchy sensations inherent in eating larvae]. Finding comfort in not knowing exactly where you are on the map. Feeling aimless but not hopeless.


* I was only invited to that midnight Tết countdown aboard a junk boat in Halong Bay because all the tourists were, the ratio of girls on the boat was heavily in my favor, and the scrappy crew was blasting an Abba mega-mix that would have woken the dead.