Thirty on a Camel: Stories From Afar

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Thirty on a Camel s t o r i e s f r o m af a r

jennifer shepard

It is nine months into a trip around the world, and I am pouring sweat over a plate of cheap falafel in an outdoor café in Nazareth, Israel. Joined by an affable Irish priest, we exchange travel stories. Later that evening, I retire to the convent where my husband and I have rented a room. The next morning, the priest informs us he stayed up late into the night hooked into the convent’s wireless network, perusing our blog on his iPhone®. He informs me I absolutely must write a book. I think, why not? It must be divine.

thirty on a camel

A backpack, a year, a little piece of the world.

Thirty On A Camel

Thirty on a Camel

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Jennifer Shepard

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photography: Mark Shepard

Thirty On A Camel

Her husband, Mark Shepard, works as an information technology consultant. He almost cried when his favorite Leica lens (50mm f/1.4) broke in Turkey, ten months into the year-long trip that inspired this book.

Additional stories and photographs at GalleryQ.com.

Front Cover: Bikaner Camel Festival in Bikaner, Rajasthan, India Previous Page: Northern Laos, a few days’ hike from Muang Sing Right: Jiuzhaigou Valley, Sichuan, China Back Cover: Desert dunes outside Khuri, Rajasthan, India

Copyright © 2008 by Jennifer Shepard.

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or quoted in whole or in part by any means whatsoever without written permission from: Jennifer Shepard, 465 Pearl St, Denver, Colorado, 80203 Permission is never granted for commercial purposes.

Printed on 80% recycled stock using environmentally friendly and sustainable print practices in Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

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ISBN: 978-0-615-26815-6

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Jennifer Shepard teaches high school English in Denver, Colorado when she isn’t traveling to far off and random places.

Thirty On A Camel

Thirty On A Camel

T hir t y on a Camel Introduction • Denver, Colorado • 04

Crossing A Street Is Like... • Hanoi, Vietnam • 54

One Year Before • Huaraz, Peru • 06

Part #1 - Trekking With The Akha • Muang Sing, Laos • 56

A Gateway to Asia • Singapore • 08

Part #2 - A Happy Hmong New Year! • Muang Sing, Laos • 58

15 Million People + Us • Beijing, China • 10 Natural Beauty • Jiuzhaigou, China • 12 Monks On Motorcycles • Ganzi, China • 14 A Not-So-Cool Hotpot • Chengdu, China • 16 Rivers of Hairy Rice • Longsheng, China • 18

How To Buy A Dead Cat • Luang Prabang, Laos • 60 Borderlands • Mae Hong Son, Thailand • 62 New Year’s Eve • Bangkok, Thailand • 64 Intense • Kolkata, India • 66 Eee Ghats! • Varanasi, India • 68

The Chinese Version of My Father • Zhangjiajie, China • 20

A Man Once So Loved A Woman... • Agra, India • 70

Teacups of Temptation • Hangzhou, China • 22

The Princess I Should Rightly Be • Jaipur, India • 72

The Sweet Smell of Burning Yak Dung • Gokyo, Nepal • 24 An Advertisement For Dramamine ® • Langtang, Nepal • 28 Shots of Life • Langtang, Nepal • 30 Clutching To Dreams • Annapurna, Nepal • 34 A Nepali Night • Kathmandu, Nepal • 36 One Year And Counting • Kathmandu, Nepal • 38 Two Days Turns To Six... • Ko Phi Phi, Thailand • 40 Things I Didn’t Know About My Wife • Ko Phi Phi • 42 Tuk-Tuks, Taxis, & A Tout • Siem Reap, Cambodia • 44 Part #1 - The Beauty • Kampong Thom, Cambodia • 46 Part #2 - The Heartbreak • Siem Reap & Phnom Penh, Cambodia • 48 “Go Look, See Fish” • Mekong Delta, Vietnam • 50

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contents

How Vietnam Made Me Fat • Halong Bay, Vietnam • 52 3

Fire Dance • Bikaner, India • 74 Thirty On A Camel • Jaisalmer, India • 76 “Hakuna Matata” • Lushoto, Tanzania • 78 Lions, Tigers, & ...Wildebeests? Oh My! • Serengeti,

Tanzania • 80 Special Topics In Calamity Fishing • Zanzibar, Tanzania • 82 Twenty Years Later • Cairo, Egypt •.84 Wandering In The Desert • Sinai, Egypt • 86 A Holy Easter Week • Jerusalem, Israel • 88 Israel or Palestine? • Jerusalem • 90-91 Walking Into Life • Lycian Way, Turkey • 92 A Big Fat Turkish Wedding • Selçuk, Turkey • 94 Trekking Toward Home • Corfu Trail, Greece • 96 Two Travelers And Benevolent BUD • The World • 98-99

introduction Denver, Colorado On a rainy day in a basin of wildflowers in the Colorado wilderness, Mark pulled a book out of his backpack and said, “I have a present for you.” It was the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. He took my hand, looked me in the eye, and said, “Come travel the world with me.”

And I said yes.

We married two months later. At the end of the school year, I quit my teaching position and Mark resigned from his job as a business consultant. We left our church and our home. We sold the condos and the cars, moved our furniture and my dog to my parents, and left for a year to see the world.

Although traveling is ingrained in us, we had a difficult time identifying a reason, a goal, a purpose for this trip.

Why? We both had good jobs that we loved, we were deeply connected to our family and friends, we loved Denver, and we already traveled more often than most.

Why leave for a year? We asked ourselves this question many times and still we had no answer. At times, we doubted going.

But something greater than ourselves compelled us to go. And so we did.

Our reason for traveling was not

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to “save the world.” After earning our undergraduate degrees, both Mark and I separately spent “idealistic” times in Central and South America respectively.

Mark went to Guatemala for two months and stayed for two years; the children at the orphanage where he played house dad captivated him. He then spent a third year teaching seventh grade at a bilingual school on the island of Roatán, Honduras. Similarly, I taught high school English at an international school in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and volunteered weekly at a local foster home for girls whose parents were in prison. While we came ready to give to others, we were the ones who left changed. These experiences not only solidified our desires to travel throughout the remainder of our lives, but they also ignited a dream inside us to do something similar in our futures.

Unfortunately, America swept us into its blinding clutches and our passion for our futures, once so vivid in Central and South America, buried itself inside steady paychecks, three year business plans, and unchecked cups of coffee.

Our reason for traveling was not to heal from a stabbing past hurt or to seek some divine light. We merely wanted to see the great cultures of the world that

Mark & Jen, Cordillera Huayhuash, Peru

neither of us had ever experienced— Asia, Africa, and the Mediterranean— whether they were on or off the coined “beaten path.”

Our reason for traveling was not to “find ourselves.” Yet, ironically, we did.

It took us four months away from all that is comfortable in order to remember the dreams we once had. And it took another two months to start that dreaming again.

This book is a journey. It is a journey for me as a writer and Mark as a photographer. It is a journey to places of the world we knew very little about, of people we never knew existed, and of history we long ago left closed inside textbooks. It is journey of our bodies, of our spirits, and of our hearts. And it is also a journey toward remembering what it was that once sparked our own imaginations.

We found our dreams again. We wish the same for you.

Thirty On A Camel

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Changed: “US Embassay and Peruvian Immigration” to “US Embassy and Office of Peruvian Immigration” Changed: “We piddle” to “Piddling around the city for awhile, we eat a long lunch” (try to get away from too many we + verb)

Question: for the last “Estas enamorado” -- can you use something other than ‘says’ --- maybe “declares”?

Changed: “avoid at all costs US Embassies” -- “avoid, at all costs, US Embassies” Question: Does this mean we should tell that Thailand lost passport story?? It would fit well under this theme.

Thoughts: I likey. Well done!

5 Thame, Nepal

Thirty On A Camel

One Year Before...

Huaraz, Peru

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“Ah, estás enamorado,” she says with a teasing smile.

“You are in love.”

“What? No…” Mark refuses to believe this little bit of a woman at the US Embassy in Lima, Peru. She instinctively identifies the source of Mark’s troubles—me.

“Sí,” she says. “Estás enamorado.” She hands Mark his new passport, stamped for the next ten years with the scarlet “Replacement for Stolen Passport.” He shakes his head as we walk away, a bit scarlet himself. *** One week before, we were finishing a twelve-day trek through the Cordillera Huayhuash outside Huaraz, Peru.

Mark—at the start—confidently informed our friends accompanying us, “Stick with me. I’ve traveled a lot, so no problem.” He proceeded to pay our donkey driver, stand up, naïvely leave his money belt, passport, and cash on the table, and walk away.

A local village woman took it upon herself to act as Mark’s personal police vigilante. Skirts and black braids flying behind her, she marched back to the little tienda and demanded an immediate reappearance of the missing money belt. Everyone innocently and unsurprisingly claimed ignorance; the money belt was gone. *** So while our two friends enjoy a week traveling to infamous Macchu Picchu, I travel with Mark to the eyeburning, wheezing, brown-cloud capital of Lima to spend

a week waiting in line at the US Embassy and Office of Peruvian Immigration.

We arrive at the embassy early in the morning, wait in line, tell our story, and turn in all the necessary paperwork. The official gives Mark a receipt and tells him to come back that afternoon.

Piddling around the city for a little while, we eat a long lunch, and then walk back to the embassy. At the first security checkpoint, Mark shows his receipt for entrance, empties his pockets into the tub on the x-ray conveyor belt, walks through, collects his things, and proceeds to the second security checkpoint.

“Can I see your receipt, please,” the guard asks. Mark fumbles in his pockets and comes up with nothing.

“I swear I just had it….” He looks befuddled.

“Sí,” she says, “You had it to get in the gate.”

“I know…. I just don’t know where it is now.” I roll my eyes as we walk back to the first checkpoint. Mark pleads his case with the first security guard.

“But you had it to get in here; I saw it,” she insists.

“I know, but I don’t have it now.”

She laughs at him as they search the area, and then finds the paper at the bottom of the plastic tub. She hands it to Mark, smiles at me, and declares authoritatively to Mark, “Ah, estás enamorado.”

Mark, head hung low in full traveler’s humility, returns to the second security checkpoint and hands the guard his receipt. She too laughs at him and allows him to enter to retrieve his passport. She smiles as we walk through the gate, and in an unbelievable repeat of the first guard, says “Ah, estás enamorado.”

And so begins our story... an unconscious effort to establish a long-lasting relationship, to rectify dashed reputations, and to avoid, at all costs, US Embassies around the world.

Thirty On A Camel

PROOF PROOF 7 Cordillera Huayhuash, Peru

Thirty On A Camel

A Gateway to Asia Singapore

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Singapore is a fusion of sensations. Perfectly picturepostcard, it is an incredible amalgamation of Asian cultures, food, and people. This island/country/city is bustling with the vibrancy of nearby China and India, all crammed into an incredibly tiny space. High rise after high rise line the streets. The schools themselves are at least seven stories high. Islamic mosques call noon prayer, Buddhist and Hindu temples release incense from their altars, and Anglican cathedrals ring with bells.

Singapore has a no-spitting law. It also has a nourinating-in-public-places law, a no- chewing- gum law, a keep-your-shirt-over-your-stomach law, and a no-littering law. Any eating or drinking in the spotless subway is prohibited. In Singapore, all bodily habits that Western cultures find appalling are strictly forbidden.

Thus, to our naïve pleasure, the city is immaculate.

While clean it is, cool it is not. The hotel rooms are sweltering, the sidewalk cafes are sizzling, and even the shade under the trees is oppressively muggy. It is boiling when slurping down a bowl of fiery Indonesian noodles swimming in spices. The sweat drips down each slurping body’s back with the first searing mouthful. It is no wonder that Singapore’s fame rests in its shopping districts—air-conditioning.

Nikon and Canon need to look for no further market than their Singapore clientèle. On every street corner, an

Asian tourist sports one, if not multiple, class-conscious cameras. Un-phased by his heavy burden, the average tourist leaves the hotel for each outing with thousands of dollars in a camera (or two), lenses (or ten), and a camcorder—all swinging un-cased from his neck. If he is truly serious, over his shoulder or in the arms of his loving wife, this man also lugs a full-size, high-end tripod.

Everything is a photo—Chinatown’s red and gold dragons, Little India’s vibrant colors, and Sentosa Island’s brilliantly-lit fountains. A traditional fishing village on Pulau Ubin is a photo. The sign over the city’s central park, the blooming azalea bushes on the side of an office building, and the bumboats gliding smoothly through the Singapore River are all photo-worthy. At the National Orchid Gardens, a symbol of beauty for Singapore, the smallest leaf, the most delicate blossom, and the running waterfall curtained with greenery are also coveted photographs. The queue for a quick snap at such a spot can begin without notice. But for the true aspiring photographer, the small fern tucked in the corner of the men’s restroom is an excellent occasion to set up the tripod and snap away.

Five days in Singapore is sufficient to pique my curiosity to travel around Asia for the next seven months. Plus, the store clerks basking in their alluring air-conditioning are on to me; I never buy, only “peruse.”

I think I must move on.

On our final evening in this sophisticated city of Asian proportions, Mark and I dine along the Singapore River in an outside café, savoring the long-awaited coolness. We are surrounded by the lights of the city, fireworks from a nearby parade, boats hung with paper lanterns gliding through the water, and jazz filtering from the next door club. Over our glasses of chilled, white, Australian wine, we toast to whatever is to come....

Thirty On A Camel

PROOF PROOF 9 Singapore

Streets of Singapore

Thirty On A Camel

15 Million People + Us Beijing, China One day in Beijing is equivalent to smoking seventy cigarettes.

For five days in Beijing (350 cigarettes), we push and bump and exchange sweat with what feels like a million people. Frustration levels rise. It is like walking through a crowd at a parade that never stops. Or like walking through a cloud of haze and pollution while playing Frogger with people, taxis, buses, bikes, and tri-shaws.

Our guidebook recommends renting a bicycle; one glance at the thronging city streets and I change my mind instantly.

Finally, four days into our visit, I decide we must escape the city. A visit to the Great Wall is on our agenda today. But a swirling mass of tourists, both Western and Chinese alike, repels me. And a coffee at Starbucks or a snack at McDonald’s, both strategically located at the most famous of Wall spots, just does not appeal to me. So with everything I can, I gather the courage to try and maneuver public transport to a little-visited spot outside of town.

It is pouring rain at the bus station. Mark manages to haggle two used-looking umbrellas from a greedy vendor. I stare at our guide book: “Bus number 13.” My God, I think, everything is in characters. Dread creeps in.

Umbrellas in hand, we move from one bus to the next.

Finally, we see it. In clear, Western script, the window proudly displays the otherwise unlucky number “13.”

Relief.

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I sit down as Mark somehow manages to communicate to the driver our stop. “Huairou,” I hear Mark repeat himself at least five times.

“Huairou?” The driver repeats back, seemingly unsure.

“Yes, Huairou,” Mark tries again.

“Ah, Huairou!” I have no idea.

At Huairou, our next step is to secure a taxi to Huanghua and the Great Wall. Remarkably, there are at least thirty cabs proffering their services as soon as we emerge from the bus. The winner is a persistent lady who, as we grab coffee, follows us with the English words, “Huanghua. No problem.”

Next, we must learn how long the taxi will wait while we visit the Wall. Feeling a bit more confident, Mark studies the Mandarin phrase book. He turns to the driver, the persistent lady’s husband, and asks with bravado, “What time does the plane take off?” The driver laughs and laughs and laughs, but somehow makes us understand that he will wait three hours. Mark shrugs off failure and attempting to show off again by saying “1, 2, 3” he instead says “1, 3, 2.” The driver and his wife enjoy his, albeit unintended, humor.

The clouds clear and the sun emerges just as we step out of the cab. Before us, the Great Wall stretches endlessly over the mountains. Besides a young man and his girlfriend walking down the stone steps in fashionably-heeled shoes, we are alone. Silence.

The bus ride back to Beijing feels much easier. I breathe with relief (minus the ascending cloud of cigarette smoke).

Here in this country where most people don’t speak English and I don’t speak Mandarin, I feel like a small child again, rubbing my stomach to show hunger or pointing to a dish to try to order it. I cannot read street signs and I cannot follow directions. All I can do is try to match what to me is an incomprehensible symbol from a book to a sign. It is certainly a helpless feeling; I am now the student.

Tomorrow, my goal is to learn the character for “women’s toilet.”

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Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China

Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China

Thirty On A Camel

Natural Beauty Jiuzhaigou, China

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The fifteen lines are a hundred people deep. Ticket in hand, thousands of Chinese high-end tourists anxiously await the opening of the gates. Shuttle buses putter to life on just the other side in anticipation of the rush for a seat.

It is 7:00 a.m. outside the entrance gate to Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve, tucked remotely in the mountains of Sichuan Province, and I cannot escape the thought that I must instead be at the entrance to Disneyland. Vendors on either side offer a plethora of goodies: tea to ice cream to fried chicken to slices of watermelon to fried rice and the ubiquitous bowl of instant noodles. There are T-shirt vendors, key chain vendors, and instant-photo vendors. All vie for the mighty yuan. *** When Mark and I arrived after a thirteen-hour, psychotic, cliff-hanger bus ride, fully convinced that we might finally be somewhere in China “off the beaten track,” much to our shock the entire town was alight with neonflashing signs. Somewhat akin to Las Vegas—casinos and karaoke bars included—the streets are lined with hotels.

Only then did we realize the enormous popularity of this park. In some forward thinking move, the government built accommodation for 20,000 people. Then, as these hotels and the park itself began to fill to the brink of capacity, the government raised the ticket prices to nearly the equivalent of forty-five dollars US, hoping to deter the rapid popularity.

But still the Chinese come. ***

Without announcement, the entrance gates open and the tourists stream inside and load onto the shuttle buses.

Mark and I opt to take the bus only to the top and then walk down. In front of us on the eco-friendly planked trail, a group of student-age friends chat and laugh louder than a school lunchroom as they meander along. The morning air is crisp and alive, and the emerald lake below us is stunning. A girl finishes a candy bar and then tosses the wrapper aside. Her friend does the same with her plastic water bottle. Not ten feet in front of us is a trash can. I try to suppress the environmental tugging of my conscious.

Yet the park is immaculate. A simple woman in a worker’s vest appears from behind and picks up the wrapper and bottle with a metal hook. Undoubtedly, the high price of our ticket goes directly toward employing this army of workers to pick up all the trash that visitors still leave behind.

We stop at a lake for a rest and an incredible mountain view. A middle-aged woman and her friend arrive, gasping in awe at the site before her. With faces alive with joy and excitement, she speaks to her friend in rapid Mandarin, gesturing and pointing to the peaks and the forests beyond.

She, too, is entranced by the beauty of the park.

Later that evening, I recline in the café of our log cabin hostel and try to process this “natural” experience.

Theme park and nightlife aside, the park is truly beautiful.

With a fast-growing middle class with greater access to transportation, the Chinese are flocking to their Yellowstone.

It may be some years before the wrappers and bottles make their own way to the trash cans, but the environmental message is clear. Coming from cities of millions of people, having only seen mud-colored, trash-ridden rivers, and then stepping off a bus to see blue skies, pristine rivers and lakes, and peaks heavily forested with vibrant-green trees, it is breathtaking. I can’t help but wonder what the biggest draw of this park really is – the clear skies, the clear water, or simply the paths clear of trash.

Thirty On A Camel

PROOF PROOF 13 Giant Panda Research Base, Chengdu, Sichuan, China

Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China

Thirty On A Camel

Monks on Motorcycles Ganzi & Tagong, China

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Am I still in China? I cannot help but ask myself time and again as we travel along the Northern SichuanTibetan Highway. After two days on a bone-jarring, butt-numbing bumper bus, we arrive in Ganzi, China, elevation 3700 meters. Along the way, we cross a 4700 meter pass; faithful Buddhists scribble a hurried prayer on a card, fold it up, and then toss it out the window of the bus. The hillside is “littered” with such prayers, blowing along in the wind in the currents of destiny.

A Tibetan town, although technically outside of Tibet proper, Ganzi is nestled along a river between jarring peaks. For us, it is a respite from busy, cranecovered, and often impersonal China. Before now, China has been enormously crowded cities, stark, box-like buildings, and a jam of elbows and umbrellas along bustling sidewalks. Just last week, one little girl coveting a “photo with the foreigner” threw an earpiercing tantrum until mom and dad appeased her with a plea to me for help. My hair plastered to the side of my face with the summer’s sweat, I reluctantly agreed to the photo. But here upon the Tibetan plateau, the tantrums fade into the cool, crisp air. Almost everyone on the streets greets us with a “tashi dele”—“hello”— and a smile. We, too, smile in unprecedented ease.

Early in the morning, we stand awkwardly in front of a street vendor’s bread stand. The delictable aroma of yak butter and garden herbs has caused an abrupt

pause in our walk. Mark points with a smile as toothy as a child in a sweet shop. The man hands us a piece of this saliva-inducing Tibetan flatbread; just out of the oven, the newsprint holding it warms the palms of our hands.

We climb into the hills. The peaks tower above us. Horses graze undisturbed among the pastures of green-covered hills. Below us, the Yalong River snakes into the horizon. The only person we meet is a man taking a smoke break from a walk to a distant village, carrying an entire armoire on his back, straight uphill.

Ganzi is also home to a monastery of four hundred to five hundred Buddhist monks. My Western TVdefined view of a prostrating Buddhist monk comes crashing down and I smile at the ridiculousness of my preconceptions. A paradox of ancient tradition and modern lifestyles—in town, we see monks on motorcycles, monks chatting on cell phones, and monks bantering flirtatiously with the local shop girls.

Gorkha cowboys saddle up next to their motorcycles lined up on main street like horses in a corral. Old women creep along the temple at sunset; their hunched steps and muttered prayers mingle with the whirl of the prayer wheels as the light fades over the vanishing traditions of Buddhism.

Two days from Chengdu in another butt-numbing bus, Ganzi is a part of China well off the typical tourist route. Just as visiting Mobile, Alabama provides a different glimpse into American culture than merely New York or LA, so does Ganzi deepen our visit to China. While other travelers we meet speak of the eerily hushed silence and rapidly waning cultures of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, our visit to this remote town is a striking crossroads of past traditions and current change, blurred together in a memory of beauty.

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PROOF PROOF 15 Kangding, Sichuan, China

Garbage Truck: Ganzi, Sichuan, China

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A Not-So-Cool Hotpot Chengdu, China

—Put the kebabs in the oil. Bubble, bubble, bubble.

—Take a bite of the “meat” and decide two things: (a) it is some animal intestine and (b) it is spicier than hell.

—Shit, shit, shit—get some water quick.

In order to appear “cool,” we decide to try a typical and popular Sichuan hotpot restaurant. Enormous and open on two sides to allow the steaming spiciness to escape and the outside air to flow in, the room is packed in popularity this Sunday evening. Our experience goes something like this: —Point, point, point, nod, nod, yell across the restaurant, a hundred turning heads, and we are led to a table with a vat of oil.

—Mark goes into the kebab room and comes back with meat (or so we think), veggies, and potatoes.

—Wait, wait, wait—nothing happens—no boiling pot.

—We steal glances at the tables around us.

—A group of students point, point, point, talk to a bus boy, who fiddles with the propane, and we wait some more.

—Finally, some bubbles in the oil. A fish head pops up to the surface, staring straight at us.

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—Bubble, bubble, bubble—oil pops into Mark’s eye and he is now doubly crying.

—Giggle, giggle, giggle—the whole restaurant is watching us.

—We want to pay and leave.

—“How much is it?” The waitress says a hundred word sentence and walks to the back.

—“How much is it?” The drink lady runs away.

—Rice is served to our table.

—“How much is it?” The bus boy finally grabs our empty skewers, counts them, and says a fifty word sentence.

—“How much is it?” We point to a list of numbers in our phrase book. The bus boy runs to the back, and then after five minutes, returns with some random number.

—We don’t argue. Almost two hours after first entering the restaurant, we hand over the money, walk past the hundred stares and twitters, and jet toward the “fresh” outside air.

—We go to McDonald’s for dinner.

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PROOF PROOF 17 Noodle Pulling: Datong, Shanxi, China

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Rivers of Hairy Rice Longsheng & Ping’an, China The drizzle of rain suddenly stops; the clouds lift and I am surrounded by a sculpted green so intense I think I must be in a postcard. Waves of mist shoot up and out of deep valleys, whirling and swirling the air. We quickly grab our daypack and escape the hotel.

As far as the horizon and as tall as the top of the Dragon’s Backbone Mountain, expertly carved rice terraces layer one on top of another. They coil like the tail of a dragon himself around deep gorges and gentle streams. Built between the 1200s and 1600s by the local Zhuang people and still in use today, these terraces are a feat of engineering. Every inch of earth contains rice. Little water troughs carved out of hollow tree branches connect each level of terrace in a complex irrigation design; as I stand still, I can hear the trickle and gurgle of countless little paddies eagerly accepting the streams. A frog croaks in the distance.

We hike along a ridge toward a distant valley. An old woman bends over a patch of red chilies. Mark pantomimes a request to take a photo of her nearly-full basket of peppers. She looks a bit confused—the basket is merely her day’s labor—but she consents with a toothy grin. I point to the peppers and then grab my throat and act as if I am guzzling a glass of water, and she laughs with understanding.

Soon a few village women approach us on the trail.

They block our path, chanting “long hair, long hair.” These are the Yao village women whose culture prides itself on the

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length of their hair. They begin to unwrap the coils on their head until the tresses tumble the length of their bodies, skimming the surface of the earth. “Foooto, foooto,” they chant again.

“Ahh, no thank you,” we smile in answer. A photo never comes free.

The women are persistent. “Foto, foto, long hair,” they insist vehemently. We smile and pass and try to continue on our way. The women follow, still chanting in hope that we will be the good tourists they know we can be and give them a lot of money for a photo of their hair.

I am uncomfortable perpetuating such a cycle. I am also uncomfortable with the realization that the tourists are sadly the only means to improve their livelihood. I wonder if these women, too, are as uncomfortable as we are. Their silky hair, for centuries a symbol of beauty of status in their communities, is now a tourist side-show for change.

We turn around again and again and motion no thank you, but they will not relent. Finally, we resign to ignore them and keep walking, all the while being tracked like the prey we are. Their system must certainly work on many tourists, because it takes the women at least thirty minutes of walking in our footsteps before they finally concede to find someone else.

A few hours into our hike, the sky opens up again and, as one British tourist later says, “It pissed buckets.”

We quickly throw our “Made-In-China” ponchos over ourselves, but the plastic as thin as a supermarket vegetable bag can do nothing against the torrents of rain. We slosh through the ankle-deep water running down the trail until we reach a little restaurant. Shaking ourselves from our plastered ponchos, we sit over a cup of tea, a plate of veggies and rice, and wait out the storm. Soon, the rain stops, the clouds lift again, and the endless summer’s green rice fields sparkle in the emerging sun.

Thirty On A Camel

PROOF PROOF 19 Longsheng Rice Terraces: Ping’an, Guangxi, China

Thirty On A Camel

The Chinese Version of My Father Zhangjiajie/Wulingyuan, China It only takes two days–one thirty minute hike out of Lonsheng to the nearest road, five buses, a train, and a taxi—to reach this UNESCO recognized site. But the New York Times hails that “at every twist and turn of the road there is a view to make one gasp,”1 so we have to go!

We are not at our hotel more than thirty minutes before a little man toting a bag of information and a wealth of enthusiasm knocks on our door: “I Mr. Bing. Many foreign guest soon come to Zhangjiajie,” he states with an enormous smile. “I prepare.” And prepared he is. He offers us his ready-made business plan: for a minimal price, he will guide us for three days and in return, he can practice his piecemeal English. We have no information in English on this park, no map, no idea. So we think, why not? He beams.

“Nee hao!” Mr. Bing deafeningly greets us on our first morning. His Napoleonic body bobs up and down with enthusiasm. We smile to each other as he leads us down the trail like the Pied Piper himself. “Nee hao!” he calls to the park security guard, to the ticket man, to the orange juice lady. A rapid exchange of vowel-intensive syllables and a nod to the two of us in tow ensues with each passerby.

The day continues with the same unceasing energy. And ever so slowly, I begin to realize that this Mr. Bing is the Chinese personality of my own father.

Like my father’s personal knowledge of seventy-five

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1 Winchester, Simon. The New York Times. “China’s Ancient Skyline.” 15 July 2007.

percent of all 7-11 clerks in the Denver-metro area, Mr. Bing knows the intimate details of absolutely everyone we encounter on the trails, in the shops, and at the restaurants.

And if he doesn’t know someone, it takes him less than two minutes to learn where he is from and what his recent paycheck reads.

This little man tickles random babies nestled contentedly in their mother’s arms, and he twirls the dangling ponytails of young, bored-looking school-girls. He sings popsongs at the top of his lungs and screams echoes across the canyons. Flashbacks of my dad, the mall, adolescence, and opera blare across my visual and audible memory. My spine cringes with the remaining twinges of teenage embarrassment my doting dad dished out daily to his darling daughter.

On our second evening, Mr. Bing pulls aside a group of Chinese tourists who have no guide (an anomaly in this country!), and through his vivacious friendliness, forces them to join us for sunset, and then brings them to dinner with us at the “cheap, good restaurant.” Like my father—the more the merrier, the cheaper the better.

Darkness descends and Mark pulls out his head lamp to shine our way back to the hotel. Mr. Bing pounces on him in unrestrained cat-like curiosity. Pulling the straps over his round little head, he prances in front of the group in a skipping gait, and disappears around the bend. We laugh outright.

Wulingyuan is beautiful. We see much more in three days than we would ever have on our own. We have incredible views of sandstone crags, pillars, and karsts, tuckedaway villages, and scurrying lizards. The only Western foreigners we see is a brief trail-passing of three Fins. I am not quite certain how much English Mr. Bing actually learns in between his friendly chat sessions, or how much of our fee will actually make it home to his wife. But what Mark and I will undoubtably remember most from this jaunt is the random, you-never-know-what-you’re-going-to-get, indiscriminate, amiable, and Father-Bob-esque Mr. Bing.

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Wulingyuan Scenic Area: Zhangjiajie, Hunan, China

21 Lushan, Jiangxi, China

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Teacups of Temptation Hangzhou & Shanghai, China

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On a train one day, a university student asks me, “You don’t speak Mandarin? What are you doing in China?”

I answer almost immediately, “Sometimes, I have no idea.”

She is more astute than she realizes. Mark and I have practiced our phrases and we have studied our characters. But undoubtedly, no one ever understands us; we feel constantly and unavoidably lost. My only conversation is with Mark. Romantic, yes, but also lacking in variety.

I have begun to anticipate each meal with a slight groan. We work tirelessly to order at local restaurants.

Nothing ever seems to come out as we order. The pork comes out as beef, the steamed rice comes out as fried, or the vegetables come out . . . not at all. At one restaurant, a young waiter excitedly delivers whipped eggs sprinkled with anchovies. I try to muster a smile as my stomach groans audibly.

So when we arrive in Hangzhou and Shanghai, I find their Western temptations absolutely tantalizing.

We are unashamedly touristy. In Hangzhou, we go to the silk museum and learn everything there is to know about silk. Then we go to the silk market; I may or may not now own a pashmina. We then go to the tea museum and learn everything there is to know about tea. I may or may not have written this story from a tea house.

We happen upon Oriole Singing in the Willows Teahouse, right on the shores of West Lake. Surrounded by sculpted gardens, regal pagodas, deep goldfish ponds, lovely walking paths, and swaying weeping willow trees, the teahouse sits in prime relaxing real estate. For three hours, we sip our unending cups of Jasmine tea; we stare romantically across the serene waters of West Lake; we visit and re-visit the buffet line of fresh fruits and veggies and meats and cakes; and we simply observe “tea house life.”

The two ladies at the opposite table return to the buffet a total of eight times (we count). They drain endless cups of tea and then promptly fall asleep, heads on the table. A group of eight young college students empty almost the entire buffet onto their two tables, munch away, then clear everything off for a lively game of cards and cracking sunflower seeds. Two groups of elderly people to our right stare transfixed at their game of Mahjong. Not looking up once, they subconsciously sip their bottomless cups of tea. Mark and I pour ourselves another cup, sit back, and try to cope with this new, stressful life we are now leading.

In Shanghai, I again meet temptations of Western life and succumb accordingly. Our first morning, we arise early to take a walk and photos in the morning light. A French bakery on the corner is unavoidable; the menu is in English. We instantly stop for croissants and coffee, no matter the price. Munching away while reading the news on the computer, we then finally manage to get ourselves together for the day. For some strange reason, these small, homey comforts of Western goodies do not seem so sinful; they are earned.

Two-and-a-half months of eating every meal together, getting frustrated with each other, sharing the same fifty square feet of a room together, and floundering together, I love this man more than I could have ever fathomed.

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PROOF PROOF 23 Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

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The Sweet Smell of Burning Yak Dung Everest/Gokyo, Nepal “So remember that time when we were trapped in a snowstorm for three days in the Himalayas?”

We’ve always wanted this line as a conversation starter, and now we have it.

These three weeks in the Everest region have been an epic journey of physical, cultural, and spiritual proportions.

We have absolutely gorgeous weather the first week. Our alarm beeps loudly at 5:45 a.m. when we roll in our sleeping bags to the window of our lodge to peer out at another jawdropping view. Quickly bundling up, we clamor outside to watch the sun slowly light up the surrounding snowcovered peaks. A mug of steaming tea in our hands and the promise of a greasy omelet, waking up each day in such a surreal world grows more and more unbelievable.

We hike for a few hours as the clouds creep up the valleys around ten in the morning, obscuring most of the peaks. Stopping for tea, we then trek a bit more until we arrive at our lodge. We order our meal (a rotation of carbohydrates—potatoes, rice, or noodles), and read while the kitchen prepares it. After a rest, we hike up for another hour or two, acclimatize, and then return.

A round of cards with Dawa (our guide) and Pasang (our porter and Dawa’s brother) ensues. The object is, while drawing from your neighbor’s hand, to avoid the solitary Jack at all costs. English is unnecessary for this game of dramatics. Pasang violently revolts at the mere thought of drawing the Jack and we all laugh at his incredibly poor luck, every time.

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Another starchy meal, and then to bed by nine. We secretly admit that this has been one of the most relaxing “camping” trips we have ever experienced. We do not have to cook, clean dishes, set up or break down camp, or carry more than our daypack. As a result, we both spend a lot of time in reflection and prayer for what our future might entail.

Six days later, we arrive at Gokyo Lake, 15,583 feet, ready to gaze at the top of the world. Alas, we pass three days stuck in a lodge while a freak, early Himalayan snowstorm continues non-stop outside. Warming our fingers and toes next to the stove of burning yak dung, we finish our thousand-page books (thank you Dostoevsky), play endless games of cards, and sip yet more hot tea. A group of five gregarious Slovakian men play a marathon game of the teenage card game, Uno. Lacking oxygen, at night I dream I am a princess. Mark and Dawa build a snowman. We bide our time.

On the third day, as cabin fever settles in, we attempt to walk around Gokyo Lake. Above the hovering clouds, we hear boom after boom of crashing avalanches from the peaks above; we abandon our exercise and return directly to the lodge. Crossing 17,800 foot Cho La pass is out of the question; our itinerary changes to include only the Gokyo region.

On the fourth day, the clouds finally and slowly part. Four days of cooped up energy, four days of bottled frustration, and four days of vainly resisting the overly-priced Snickers bars staring at me from the glass display case, I am ready.

At three in the morning we painstakingly trudge our way up Gokyo Ri (17,575ft). From the summit, the sun rises over the stunning Himalayan panorama—from Cho Oyo (26,906ft) to Everest (29,029ft) to Thamserku (21,729ft). An Israeli father, also on the summit this long-awaited morning, waves one hand over the all-encompassing viewpoints while slowly stroking his speckled beard with the other; he softly proclaims to his son, “How can one not believe in God amidst all this beauty?”

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PROOF PROOF 25 Drying yak dung: Dhole, Nepal

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Full page spread

26 26 (top) from left to right: Annapurna South (23,684ft), Machapuchare (“Fishtail”, 22,943ft)

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PROOF PROOF 27 27

(bottom) View from Gokyo Ri (17,585ft): Gokyo, Nepal

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An Advertisement for Dramamine® Langtang, Nepal Dust covers every pore of my body and backpack as I step off the bus at Syabrubesi, Nepal. Ten-and-a-half hours to travel one hundredseventy kilometers (an average of a lovely ten miles an hour) over a dust-ridden, one-lane, four-wheel drive road.

We are the lucky ones—we have seats. People cram the aisles, children wriggle on laps, mothers hold crying babies in their arms. And on the roof of the bus, still more—at least twenty-five people and their bags have the privilege of “free air-conditioning” and a 360-degree view. My legs do not fit in front of me, so I sit turned to the left. I think, “This hurts; when will it stop?” It doesn’t, so I turn to the right and think, “This hurts; when will it stop?” I quickly learn to take advantage of every available inch—I move my foot for one second and someone else shoves his own foot in the space. It is a constant fight for survival.

Other buses have been the tourist buses— one person per seat, semi-working shocks, and temperamental air-conditioning. But no such luck for us to Langtang; our only option, short of hiring an expensive private jeep, is to travel Nepali-style. Mark decides to drug his lovely wife with Dramamine® in hopes of preventing our honeymoon saga all over again 28

(Hawaii, seven hour boat ride, me green and hanging over the edge). I drift in and out of consciousness the whole day. During moments of lucidity, I open my eyes. The girl in front of me is heaving out the window.

I close my eyes and sleep.

I open them again and someone is throwing up all over the floor, a kid, and someone’s bag. Vomit flows slowly down the windshield and side windows from the passengers on top. The smell causes me to gag, but somehow I doze off again before anything else happens.

Again I awaken. We are stopped at a waterfall rushing over the road. Passengers throw water on the bus, futilely trying to wash away the drying vomit and accompanying stench. All the while, the driver cranks his one cassette tape of frantic Nepali music, adding to the utter chaos.

This bus is of the “stop-and-pick-up-more-people” variety. Every twenty feet, it seems, the driver stops and people get off and on and rearrange and barter for space. Twenty more feet and repeat. The concept of one bus stop per village seems entirely foreign.

At one point, the bus halts for good—“too dangerous—landslide.” We all get out, luggage in tow, and walk (I stagger) thirty minutes over the washedout road. I peer down and see a truck at the bottom smashed to bits. Mark holds my arm in hopes of preventing me from joining the truck below. We board another bus on the other side and continue on.

My butt is numb. My mucus is black. My throat is parched. But for some sadistic reason, I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything—except maybe for the feeling in my butt to return.

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PROOF PROOF 29 En route to Langtang, Nepal

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Shots of Life Langtang, Nepal We hike up and up and up, following along the Langtang River. The river is gorgeous: milky green, surrounded by jungle and birds and monkeys, roaring, powerful, and completely un-photographable in its beauty.

Langtang is Nepal’s first National Park, and as a result, many people still live within its borders. They are descendants from Tibet in every way—homes, clothing, and culture.

Mark wakes up at 3:00 a.m. on our rest day and climbs a peak for yet another sunrise photo shoot. The day before, our guide pointed to the hill we were to climb—two hours up. Mark looked at the one behind it, the taller one capped with snow: “How about that one?”

“Maybe five hours,” our guide hesitates to answer.

“Let’s do it!” Mark proposes, enthusiastically.

After a deep breath, our guide agrees. “Okay.”

I sleep in. For my last days in Nepal, all I want is a cup of tea, a book, and the incredible mountain views spread before me. I am completely at peace with myself, the world, and God. The roaring clip of a helicopter suddenly booms up the valley. People jump up instantly and shout to one another as the entire village makes an Olympic dash to the landing site. Kitchens are emptied, wash is left sopping wet in the buckets, a plate of peeled garlic abandoned in the sun. A three-year-old boy comes running behind the group, desperately attempting to hold his too-large pants

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over his butt, tripping over the long material, fearful of missing the day’s entertainment.

The helicopter circles once, then lands. It is huge and full of freight. Organized chaos ensues. Boxes of Coke and plastic chairs and bags of rice climb out; duffle bags and paying passengers climb in. Dust envelops as the helicopter barely lifts off the ground and flies away. Life returns to normal. I write, sipping my tea, and smile.

A mother scoots her six-year-old boy and a bucket of warm water to the sunny grass. He takes off his T-shirt; she commands something to him and walks back inside. My translation: “You better use all that water to wash that head of yours,” because the boy grudgingly proceeds to dump carefully the entire bucket, cup-by-cup, over his bent head.

The water trickles down his dusty back, sending small shivers through his body. The soap next to the bucket?

Barely touched but for a swipe. But the entire bucket gets emptied!

A large group of men gather around in a circle—guides, porters, and locals. Shouts, groans, and cheers erupt from the gambling game in the middle. A woman walks to the community water tap near the men with her bucket of wash. She yells something toward the group, and a twelveyear-old-looking boy watching intently from the outside turns sullenly toward her. My translation: “What are you doing? Get over here and help me!” She hands him a ten rupee note and waves him off. “Go buy me some washing powder.” It’s amazing how natural my translation ability has become.

Bill in hand, he turns toward the men, turns toward the shop up the hill, turns toward the men...and sulks away.

Five minutes later he returns. No washing powder. Mom yells. My translation: “So what are you thinking? Go to the other place!” The boy looks again toward the men, and then proceeds to kick the bill through the grass and scattered yak dung and disappears behind a building.

I smile to myself, finish my tea, and return to my book.

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PROOF PROOF 31 Ama Dablam (22,493ft), Nepal

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PROOF PROOF 33 Sunrise: Annapurna Basin, Nepal

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Clutching to Dreams Annapurna, Nepal

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We wake up groggily in the dark of Annapurna Base Camp. The night’s sky is spectacular. In the comfort of our down parkas, we climb a vertical hill to watch the sun light up the Annapurna basin as if it was the fourth day of Creation all over again. The view is 360 degrees of towering 7,000-and 8,000-meter peaks—a gorgeous morning.

A lovely Australian couple on a similar world trip join us, along with another of Dawa’s brothers, Lakhpa. At twenty-one, Lakhpa supports his wife and new baby boy by lugging tourists’ gear through the rugged mountains.

He taunts his brothers, tussles their hair, and then runs on up ahead, still dangling a 30-kilo bag from his forehead down the length of his back. His English is minimal, but even through his limited vocabulary, he manages to exude humor. While fixing my constantly broken trekking poles, he chants in a sing-song voice, “Made in China, Made in China.” We laugh at his sincere mockery.

Mark attempts to wash his shirt in the water tap outside. Lakhpa laughs at his gingerly scrub, snatches the shirt from Mark, and proceeds to beat it unceasingly against a rock. The shirt now hangs off Mark like an old, extra-large sweatshirt from middle school; it will never be the same again.

On our return home, Pasang, our own porter, shines through his usual unforgettable self. He bounces up-anddown on every single seat in the bus, testing them for their comfort level. He declares this bus “not comfortable” and

wants us to take the later one.

We smile, since every bus is the same—barely bearable—and reassure Pasang, “It’s okay, we can take this one.”

He plays the part of the ticket boy, slapping the side of the bus to tell the driver everyone is ready to go; the driver wisely ignores him. He joyfully calls to the driver to “get going” when we stop for some guy to pick a house plant from the mountainside to take home. And he waves and smiles, calling to all the children and women and old men sitting by the side of the road watching life pass them by.

We absolutely love Pasang and are going to miss him.

He never stops smiling, never stops laughing, never stops singing. His heart is completely selfless. He wipes the dirt off Mark’s butt when he slips, he forcibly takes my snot rag and washes it for me, and he always remembers something we forget. At the lodges, he hauls water for the women in the kitchen, he collects yak dung in the snow for the fire, and he plays “waiter” for the other trekkers at mealtime. For a nineteen-year-old with a third-grade education and five words of English, he truly is an example of a generous spirit, one which inspires me to love others with such generosity.

One day, we ask Dawa what he and his brothers dream about. He doesn’t seem to understand the question.

“No, really,” Mark insists. “If you could do anything, be anything, what would you do?”

“I don’t know,” is Dawa’s honest answer. “I don’t think most Nepali’s dream big. They don’t want to be disappointed. I just want my son to have a good education.”

How ironically heartbreaking that a selfless porter and a trip halfway around the world to a land of stunning beauty inspires our own dreams again; yet, the vast majority of Nepali people have too many daily worries to bother dreaming for themselves.

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PROOF PROOF 35 Pokhara, Nepal

Ascending to Annapurna Base Camp, Nepal

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A Nepali Night Kathmandu, Nepal

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Our guide, Dawa Sherpa, possesses a soul of the Himalayas and a heart of business. He quickly becomes more friend than guide. We learn from him not only about the proper way to acclimatize (“hike high, sleep low”), the names of the endless incredible peaks surrounding us, and the correct way to eat dal bhat (the Nepal staple of lentils and rice), but we also learn about Nepali life and culture. The Sherpa people originally came over the mountains from Tibet, and while modern-day Tibet is experiencing a cultural rape, the Sherpa culture is still flourishing in the villages of the Himalayas. To be a Sherpa is to be Buddhist—it is so ingrained within everyday life that one cannot separate the religion from the culture. Life itself, Dawa tells us, is a spiritual journey. We find that difficult to argue.

During one rest/ laundry/ Internet/ cinnamon roll day, Dawa escorts us across Kathmandu to the Hindu neighborhood of Pashupatinath. Scarlet silk sarees flutter softly in the afternoon breeze. Hundreds and hundreds of Nepali women congregate at Teej Brata, a festival to celebrate the “day of women.” They are free this day to return to their own families to visit. And so they celebrate this freedom together: they wear their red wedding sarees, they seek a tika blessing in the temple for their husbands and families, they gossip with their sisters and mothers and friends, and they sing and dance together in groups of friendship. A number of men look on as the women dance in circles of unrestrained happiness.

For what man wouldn’t enjoy attending a festival with so much beauty to behold?

To celebrate the end of six weeks of trekking, we taxi to Dawa’s home to accept a dinner invitation. Situated in the Buddhist/Sherpa section of Kathmandu, the Hindu sarees fade into jeans and T-shirts. Women light candles outside the Swayambunath Stupa as scarlet-robed monks spin the prayer wheels in never-ending circles. Loitering teenagers hook arms and steal glances at others around them. Monkeys scamper, boys tease one another, and merchants tout their temple trinkets.

Inside Dawa’s home, we meet his wife, Doma, and his five-year-old son. Dawa serves us dish after dish of Nepali food “the way it should be.” His son repeatedly shoves his finger in a jar of cocoa powder and steals away to suck on his stolen sweet. Laughter rings all around as we feel more like friends than clients. He tops off our beers in the Nepali custom never to have a partially empty glass, so much so that we soon lose count of how much we actually drink.

Later that night, Dawa’s borrowed, rusty taxi drops us at the edge of Thamel in central Kathmandu. We pick our way down a dark dirt road lined with piles of broken sidewalk. I lift my skirt, trying not to drag it in the deep puddles of mud as rickshaws, motorcycles, and bicycles buzz by us. The electricity in this part of the city shuts off in a strategy of load-sharing. Immediately, generators roar to life and deafen the night as an eerie calm settles on the city. With only headlights and single shop light bulbs to illuminate the broken sidewalk, we feel our way down a side alley to our hotel, candles visible in the window.

Nepal’s hospitable arms have drawn us into an experience of colorful culture. We leave with so many ideas in our minds of what we want our own future to look like, swirling around like the smooth silk of a saree.

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PROOF PROOF 37 Too close to the public bathrooms: Kathmandu, Nepal

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One Year and Counting Langtang, Nepal

(Mark)

Jen and I celebrate our one-year anniversary in Kathmandu. While Nepal isn’t necessarily known for its cuisine (you won’t find a single entry in Zagat’s), I stumble upon Krishnarkan Restaurant at Dwarika’s Hotel, promising “the finest” in Nepali culinary delights.

We sit down, cross-legged, to menus printed with our names on them and enjoy a nine-course Nepali meal replete with famous Nepali rice wine (raksi); quickly discovering even good rice wine is still terrible and ill fit for a romantic dinner, we supplement our otherwise 100% Nepalese meal with a bottle of Australian Shiraz.

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We toast to a wonderful, simple evening, free for a few moments of the insanity that is Kathmandu, look at each other in the eyes, and smile—is there a better way to begin a marriage?

From the moment I met Jen in Denver (when she refused my attempt to woo her over cheap coffee and bagels) to now (as I woo her with cheap, gag-inducing rice wine), the last one and a half years have been the most fulfilling and inspiring in my life. To have someone with whom to dream and pray about the future, share the hysterical and maddening moments of life and travel, fight over rations of parasite/bacteria/amoeba/ allergy/malaria medicine; to have someone who is wonderfully secure in herself and yet crazy enough to say ‘yes’ to a proposal of marriage seven months into a relationship, agree to get married two months later, quit her job, and then leave on a whirlwind, year-long “around the world” tour—I dare say I am truly and wonderfully blessed to have such an amazing woman at my side.

I could neither ask nor dream for more.

PROOF

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DONE

PROOF PROOF 39 (left) Rooftop kite ying: Bhaktapur, Nepal

(above) Streets of Kathmandu, Nepal

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Ko Phi Phi, Thailand

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Time seems to be slipping away. Our rattan-latticed bungalow, the white sand, the clear blue-green water, the fresh barracuda and white snapper from the morning’s spear-fishing trip, and the wooden long-tail boats puttering back and forth....

We originally say we will stay here on Ko Phi Phi island two days. Two becomes three, then four, then five, then six. A traveler looks up from her diary-writing in the open-air café: “What day is it?” Heads rise; we look at each other in puzzlement. A debate ensues: The 6th? The 7th?

The 8th?

Tsong, the owner’s cousin, finally goes behind the counter and grabs the calendar. “The 7th,” he concludes.

“Ahh...,” we say and return to our books and fruit lassis.

We sea-kayak over to Mosquito Island and a beach all to ourselves. We snorkel amidst vibrant tropical fish, multi-colored coral, pods of dolphin, and schools of flying fish. The trip to Ton Sai village is a 30-minute boat ride or a 45-minute hike through the jungle, which we undertake one day to use the Internet and then see no reason to return. Electricity turns on via generator only from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. The pungently sweet smoke from the mosquito coils swirls gently around our feet. I stare across the open water and listen the waves lightly lap against the sand. I lose all sense of place and time.

We must leave tomorrow or I, too, will become another Thailand traveler statistic.

PROOF

Two Days Turns to Six...

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PROOF PROOF 41 (left) Ko Phi Phi, Thailand / (above) Mae Hong Son, Thailand

Krabi, Thailand

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Things I Didn’t Know About My Wife Ko Phi Phi, Thailand

(Mark)

We spend six days at a fifteen-dollars-a-night bungalow on an island in southern Thailand.

Now, even in Thailand, a $15/night bungalow ten feet from the ocean implies some lack of luxury; true enough, we discover the bungalow is shared—not with another tourist or even an itinerant local, but with a larger-than-life, Thai-sized rat.

For the first two nights, Jen doesn’t see the rat. We just encounter the overwhelming evidence. We leave for dinner and return to a wet spot and a pile of rat drippings in the middle of our bed. His territory has been marked. Jen wakes up in the middle of the night, wide-eyed, sure it is on the ceiling, running across the pillows, in her hair. And this is only the beginning.

It all changes once she sees the rat. The nightly trip to the bathroom (five feet from the bed) now proceeds as follows: stomp, stomp, “booga booga booga,” pounding on the walls, stomp, stomp, “booga booga booga,” loud sigh, whimper, more pounding on the walls (this is Jen, not the rat), more chants, squatting with her foot in her crotch in a futile last ditch effort to avoid the bathroom, and then when she 42

possibly cannot hold it a second longer, she darts in and quickly out of the bathroom, and returns to bed exhausted.

We mention to the owner about the rat. I feel we are judged as unworthy backpackers, not willing to put up with what she sees as a simple, harmless, jungle amenity. She sighs and responds, “Oh, no worry. I have cookies.” As she disappears into the back, I try to explain I think cookies might exacerbate the problem.

Smiling, she hands me a handful of cookies. Ah, I think. Those kind of cookies....

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PROOF PROOF DONE

43 Ko Phi Phi, Thailand

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Tuk-Tuks, Taxis, & a Tout Siem Reap, Cambodia

(Mark)

Eight modes of transport, twenty-nine hours, two countries.

Krabi, Thailand [3pm] - I find our passports. Let me digress. Jen, having maybe her first lapse of good judgment since we got married, allowed me to hold our important documents for 24 hours. In that time, I managed to lose everything (again, if you have read the introduction). A plea for assistance on an Internet forum (yes, I was desperate) led me to a woman in Krabi named Sow who suggested I try the local post office, where three days after “the incident” I found, in a small plastic bag on the sorting table in the back room, our passports, credit/ ATM cards, and even photos of our families. God is good (and merciful).

Krabi [4pm] - We take a sawngthaew to the local bus station to catch the night bus for Bangkok.

Bangkok [6am] - We’re dropped off in the middle of a highway, groggy and bleary eyed from a sleepless night. Of the dozen taxis waiting our arrival, all the meters are “broken.”

Dodging traffic, we walk a few blocks (where mysteriously the meters are all working again) and hire a taxi for the forty-fiveminute trip to the northern bus station.

Bangkok [9:30am] - Our bus leaves for the border.

Aranya Prathet [1:30pm] - We hire a tuk-tuk for the remaining 7km to the Thai-Cambodia border. I mistakenly bargain the tuk-tuk driver’s price up instead of down. To the driver’s chagrin, Jen jumps in and bargains the other direction.

Aranya Prathet [2pm] - We’ve been told to ignore all touts and make our way to the Cambodian border. Our driver tries to stop at a “Cambodian Visa” shop. We wave him on. A

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dozen people tell us we need special papers, visas, stamps and cold water. We ignore everyone (even though I am parched) and keep walking. We make it through Thai customs. Step 1 complete.

Poipet, Cambodia [2:30pm] - We continue to ignore everyone, except those in uniforms with guns. We make it to the real Cambodian visa office. Despite the sign above him stating the visa is US$20, the immigration officer informs me it is $30. I point to the sign. “Old sign,” he says. “You pay $30.”

I ask to see the new sign. He smiles, but produces nothing. A smile is a beginning to bargaining, I think. I again offer $20. He counters with $25 or 1,000 Thai baht ($31—he is testing me). I inform him we just went up again. And again he smiles. Fifteen minutes later, we finally settle on $21.50 each, since (a) it is very hot and (b) he works very hard. We’re on our way.

Poipet [3:15pm] - We walk to the next line. Sweat drips down our backs. The power goes out briefly. Computers reboot, we wait. We inch forward and finally have our passports stamped, stamped, and then—yes, stamped again.

Poipet [4pm] - The “government bus” (replete with taxi tout) takes us to the taxi station. He tells us taxis to Siem Reap, our destination, are $60. More bargaining. We pair up with a few more travelers and settle on a total of $40 for the three and a half hour drive. With A/C. Cambodia is hot. Really hot.

Siem Reap [7:30pm] - Our taxi driver informs as we near the town he’s not allowed to drive into the city (unlicensed?), so a tuk-tuk will take us from there (for free, he promises).

Nothing is free, I think. The tuk-tuk to the hotel includes a tout, who wants us to come his hotel, to take his tuk-tuk for our visit to Angkor Wat, and on and on: “You take my tuk-tuk tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow we sleep,” we inform him.

“Whole day?” he asks.

“Yes,” we respond simultaneously. He must have seen by the weariness in our eyes that we weren’t lying; after a few more half-hearted attempts he realizes this is one deal he is not going to close. We arrive at our guesthouse without further hassle. He gives us his number in case we can’t find a tuk-tuk when we are done sleeping. (We see a dozen outside the hotel.)

Siem Reap [8:30pm] - Sound asleep.

Thirty On A Camel

PROOF PROOF 45 Kampong Thom, Cambodia

Thirty On A Camel

Part #1 - The Beauty Kampong Thom, Cambodia

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The moment we enter Cambodia, racing through the countryside in our taxi, the sun begins to set behind the miles and miles of endless rice fields. Our taxi driver to Siem Reap is a NASCAR racer barreling along a pot-holed dirt road, weaving in and out of motorbikes, bicycles, buses, trucks, dogs, chickens, cows, and water buffalo. Jeff Gordon would be impressed.

The clay turns a vibrant red. Mud-crusted bicycles sit abandoned on the side of the road as young boys in their underwear wade through the water, fishing for dinner.

The enormous orange and yellow clouds reflect in the water-filled rice paddies so that for one, brief moment, the earth and sky engulf us in a papaya-pink world. Stunning.

A few days later we stop for the night in Kampong Thom, an itinerant town, just because. Mark and I pay a tuk-tuk driver to take us around the Cambodian countryside. The cool respite of the clouds enables many of the people to work in their rice fields for the day, plowing and harvesting their crops. Yoked oxen turn the dirt; ladies in cone-shaped hats bend to cut the stalks. Hundreds of school kids in their white and navy uniforms fill the road as they bike to and from school. Naked toddlers chase each other in the dirt.

Young women with babies on their hips stand gossiping at their fences, passing the boredom of their day together.

And the watery fields of rice continue without end.

The dirt road ends at a river, low in its banks during dry season. The driver stops and says we can walk along

and see the boats on the river. Instantly, twenty children emerge from their homes and begin to follow us, as if we are the Pied Piper himself. Whispers behind hands and stolen glances at the barong emit giggles and twitters. “No tourists come here,” our driver explains. “This where I lived. Long time ago.”

The boys work up enough courage to ask a question, which our driver translates: “Where you from?”

“The United States,” I answer.

Blank stares.

“America,” I try again.

A round of “Ohhhs.” “How you come here?”

“By airplane,” we say. “It is very far to swim.” The kids laugh to each other.

A final question: “How much it cost to come here?”

“Oh, many, many bags of rice,” I answer seriously to the boy. He looks at his friends and they all nod to each other with adult-like understanding.

The girls are shy and hide behind the boys. I smile at one girl, shirtless in her six-year-old comfort, and she ducks her head into her sister’s arm. I wonder why none of the children are in school.

With pleasant surprise, not one kid asks us for a candy, a yummy, a sweet, a lolli, a pencil, or a dollar. Not one adult asks us to buy anything from their little shop. Not one driver asks us, “Where you go?” Just pure, untainted life.

As we drive back, I joke with Mark that I feel like royalty riding in my chariot; almost every child, woman, and man stops whatever they are doing to look up and then immediately wave. Brilliant white teeth flash even from the most remote field. We wave in return and maintain our perma-grins until my jaw aches from smiling. It is hard work to be a good tourist.

Thirty On A Camel

PROOF PROOF 47 Road from Poipet to Siem Reap, Cambodia

Thirty On A Camel

Part #2 - The Heartbreak Siem Reap & Phnom Penh, Cambodia I am so ignorant.

1.7 million people perished under the reign of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979. The Vietnamese, the Thai, the Chinese, the Americans—all were involved to some extent. Pol Pot, the mastermind behind the reign of terror, died in 1998 before he ever came to trial. To his dying day, he declared his conscience was clear. Thirty years later, the tribunals have only just begun.

In Phnom Penh, we tour Tuol Sleng prison, a former high school, where the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed thousands of Cambodian men, women, and children. I had no idea. A solitary metal bed frame sits in the center of a yellowing room. Dark stains paint circles of stories on the weathered tiles below. A chain rests on the post of the bed.

An entire wing of the school houses photo after photo of the victims. Old men in their emaciated bones, young women barely older than school-girls, and children as young as five stare back through my reflection in the glass.

We visit the Killing Fields where even today not all of the mass graves have been unearthed. I have no words for my heartache. A memorial to the victims sits near the edge of the field, surrounded by offerings of flowers. The glass case inside is its only explanation—four stories of skulls, of bones, and of discarded clothes. Bullet holes in the foreheads of the skulls speak louder than any history book.

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I am bothered that local children at the fences of the fields sing nursery rhymes for sweets. But they don’t understand. I am bothered that the Cambodian government sold the fields to the Japanese for profit. I am bothered that the Japanese do not secure the site enough to prevent the field from becoming a dump. And I am greatly disturbed that the Jewish Holocaust was not enough for us to learn— across the world, millions continue to perish needlessly. I am left wondering how many more genocidal memorials the world will have to erect.

In Siem Reap, Mark and I visit the Cambodia Land Mine Museum; Cambodia ranks third in the world for land mine deaths, only after Iraq and Afghanistan. Many countries in Africa follow closely behind. In conjunction with a Canadian NGO, this museum is run by a local man who, as a child soldier under the Khmer Rouge, planted tens of thousands of land mines; he now dedicates his life to removing them. He runs this little museum, school, orphanage, and living facilities for victims of land mines.

Here we learn that the US (along with Russia, India, and China) has not signed the Ottawa Treaty,1 which prohibits the production and use of land mines. I speak to an elderly tourist with a Canadian patch on his bag: “Canada is doing great things for this museum and for Cambodia. You must be very proud to be connected with something so good. “ He smiles and says, “Yes, I am.”

“I wish I could say the same about mine,” I respond.

“Maybe your country will change,” he smiles in return.

I only hope so.

The solution seems so simple. In my head I understand the logic behind the complexities and bureaucracies of US foreign policy.2 But when I see so many men, women, and children with missing legs and arms and hands, my heart is ashamed.

1 “Ottawa Treaty.” Wikipedia.org.

2 “US Land Mine Policy...” http://tinyurl.com/6jlwax. 22 Sept 2006.

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PROOF PROOF 49 Tuol Sleng Prison (former high school), used by Khmer Rouge (1975-79): Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Thirty On A Camel

“Go Look, See Fish” Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Cruising down the enormous, muddy Mekong River, we cross the border from Cambodia to Vietnam. Although politically the Mekong Delta is Vietnam, the area was once and still is ethnically Cambodia—a point many Cambodians like to clarify.

In Cantho, we crawl out of bed at five in the morning to witness the famous floating markets along the river.

Endless numbers of boats crawl up and down the river carting whatever your heart’s desire. In the mood for coconuts? There are three boats laden with the fuzzyfilled shells just off to the left. Is it butchered meat you are after? Row to the right. Perhaps your boat’s motor is a little sluggish? A boat carrying jugs and Coke-bottles filled with gasoline is a moment’s sputter away. Or perhaps it is you who is in need of some fuel for this early-morning haggle? Just snap your fingers and the coffee and Fanta boat will serve you up fast, maybe with a plate of rice or noodles to boot.

Somehow, in the gulf of our language barrier, we acquire a rowboat along with a lady on a mission to buy oranges. She adjusts the fat of her stomach and the rolls of her sweater. Pushing up her sleeves, she points ahead like a captain in her confidence. We putter to each boat of bright, citrus smelling oranges. She nonchalantly plucks an orange from one boat, peels it, tastes it, throws it to the water, and waves us away. At the next boat, she repeats the same. She grunts her dissatisfaction. After taste-

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testing every single boat of oranges, she decides with a triumphant, authoritative wave: the first boat is the best.

Our boat and the orange boat meet at the dock, where our shopping companion successfully procures thousands, or in more technical terms, a “boat-load” of oranges.

In Chau Doc, a sixteen-year-old kid approaches us.

His laminated card in English lists all the exciting places around the floating villages we can see; all we have to do is hire him to row us around. For a few dollars an hour, plus tip, we accept his smiling proposal. He leads us proudly down to his boat. The other men lounging around their coffees jealously jest at the boy’s entrepreneurship. But he ignores them as he carefully holds the boat steady as we step in.

This boy knows his key English phrases to a tee. He exclaims excitedly, “go village, go village.”

“Yes,” I say. “We will go to a village.”

“Madam, look! See fish!” He points desperately like a school-kid eagerly raising his hand to answer a question.

I comply and look. Hundreds of fish thrash vainly in a netted holding pen on the side of a fisherman’s floating house.

“I see,” I smile in return. The boy attempts to ask me a question, which I unsurprisingly do not understand.

Instead, I simply smile and nod my head. The boy immediately paddles over to the fisherman; I have apparently purchased a barrel of fish. He seems so disappointed when I try to explain that no, I do not in fact want the fish. They might smell up my bag.

Flashbacks of vainly trying to teach many of my former students how to navigate the complexities of the English language come flooding back; I cannot help but smile to myself as I recollect images of our classroom in my head— their faces, their voices, and us laughing together while trying to learn. Even on the other side of the world, the ever-present reminders of home appear unannounced.

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PROOF PROOF 51 Chau Doc, Vietnam

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Halong Bay, Vietnam

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M    M    . We have upgraded from cheap backpackers to budget “flashpackers.” Thus our Halong Bay experience.

We decide to pay a little extra for a reputable company to take us on this famous, must-do cruise. By a stroke of sheer luck, we receive more than we could have imagined.

We are alone on a sixteen passenger “junk” boat that turns out to be a three-story, refurbished cruiser full of charm and character— our own private yacht. Captain, cook, and deckhands wait on us along with our own personal tour guide, Tinh. “You just stick with me, babe,” Mark jokes, “and I’ll take care of you.”

We cruise for three days through the magnifique Halong Bay. Dotted with thousands of limestone karst islands, the placid aqua-marine water shimmers in the afternoon sun. Floating houses clustered in small villages set up their fishing nets along the water. Boats dart back and forth. After watching the sun sink behind the water and the jagged peaks, we dine over an artistically prepared dinner of fresh tuna, squid, shrimp, veggies, spring rolls, and soup. Lights from nearby boats twinkle in the darkness as Mark and I share a romantic moment atop the boat’s solitary deck.

Multiple indulgent meals later, we are begrudgingly five pounds heavier and gastronomically fulfilled. In a country of incredibly skinny people, their unending culinary delights stand out as paradoxically puzzling.

PROOF

How Vietnam Made Me Fat

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PROOF PROOF 53 (left & above) Halong Bay, Vietnam

Thirty On A Camel

Crossing a Street is Like...

Hanoi, Vietnam

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I contemplate crossing the six-lane road for a full five minutes.

Motorbikes in front of me, motorbikes behind me, motorbikes to the left and to the right of me; motorbikes coming at me from every geometric angle conceivable.

Crossing a street in Vietnam is like trying to teach my English language learners in the computer lab. Instead of thirty-five hands raised and a chorus of “MIIIISSSSS” demanding my attention all at the same time, there are thirty-five touts screaming “Madam!”, “Motorbike?”, “You buy from me!”, “Where you go?”, “MADAM!” I am on sensory overload. I stare at the oncoming motorbikes in an attempt to time my zigzag path to the middle of the street. If I can just make it half-way... My peripheral periscopes are on full alert. I cannot back down, I cannot hesitate. If I slow or pause for one milisecond, then the motorbikes falter in their own timing of trying to avoid me, and we all lose.

A motorbike with a refrigerator bungee-corded to the back zooms in front of me.

Vietnam is a motorbike on steroids. The voice of a pint-sized Saigon tour guide flashes through my head.

“After war,” I hear him nasally lecture, “Vietnamese farmers take all shrapnel in fields and sell to Koreans and Japanese. Then they make motorbike. Sell to Vietnamese.

Now too much traffic in Saigon.”

“You follow me,” I can hear him screaming to our group of fifteen over the roar and honks of the traffic. “I cannot remember all of you. You all look same to me.”

Crossing the street in Vietnam is like putting your mouth over the exhaust pipe of a motorbike and taking a slow, deep breath.

I cautiously take one step off the curb and then draw back. A man across the street pushes his ice cream cart in front of him and comes toward me without looking, without stopping, without flinching for one moment.

And miraculously, the motorbikes part as if this simple vendor is Moses himself; although it seems to me the bikes come within inches of hitting him, the man nonchalantly reaches the curb by my side and continues on his way.

Crossing the street in Vietnam is like playing a live game of Frogger with only one life to spare.

A family of four, parents and two children, ride together on one bike to my right. They turn the corner and all lean simultaneously together through the turn.

An old, bent-over woman appears on my right flank, intent on the same purpose as I. She raises her arm at a high forty-five degree angle, as if she is saluting the enemy before charging ahead. She then plows straight forward without stopping or looking. I am flabbergasted.

I seize my opportunity and jump next to her, cowering in the shadow of her power. Her outstretched arm commands the parting of the motorbikes and for the thirty seconds it takes for her to cross, she is in complete command. The world is hers. Young dandies, smart business women, police men and fruit vendors alike, all bow to her power.

As we reach the other side, she turns and sees me. I smile, bow, and thank her profusely over and over again.

Her aged eyes sparkle with laughter as she smiles in return and then carries on her way.

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PROOF PROOF 55 Hoi An, Vietnam

Thirty On A Camel

Part #1 - Trekking With The Akha Muang Sing, Laos “Sabadee, sabadee” —“hello, hello”— half-naked children chant as we enter the collection of thatched huts and frolicking animals. A barebreasted woman feeds her baby as she pumps water from the community tap. An old woman weaves cotton outside her home. A few men chop firewood, while others return sporadically from their fields or from hunting. A beautiful but shy young woman dries tea leaves over an open fire.

Children chase tires and bottles down the dirt-laden path. Other children carry their younger brothers or sisters slung across their backs. Boys with slingshots run rampant. And I have the creeping sensation of being the tourist walking around to take photos of the “natives.”

We, in the company of a Dutch couple, are on a threeday trek among the Akha and Hmong mountain villages.

Our guide, Sai, is a local teacher who guides on the weekends to supplement his $30/month salary. We pass through the verdant Lao jungle, vast land cleared for rice and rubber trees, and sprawling sugar cane fields. In the distance, the Laos mountains roll across the horizon.

After dinner, four women and a number of their children appear in the dark candlelight of our assigned hut to give us a traditional Akha welcoming massage.

We lie face down, and I feel a bit awkward again, like the privileged tourist I try so hard not to be. The women’s chapped hands, dried and cracked from endless days of scrubbing clothes, sweeping floors, tending fires,

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chopping vegetables, and digging in the earth, begin a haphazard series of pushes, pulls, pinches, yanks, and tweaks. I hear more voices and look up. A group of men have entered our now communal hut; they sit in a circle on the floor while the village head passes around what smells undoubtedly like the fiery Lao-Lao alcohol. A few more women gossip off to the side as they spool cotton from a pile on the floor. Smoke from cheap cigarettes and burning wood fills the room; we politely and awkwardly endure.

The woman lightly slaps my butt and exclaims, “Oooohhh... (something, something, something).”

I whisper to Mark, “Does she think my butt is big?”

“Uh...” Mark answers, not quickly enough.

Little fingers and little hands tickle my feet and legs. The children join mom and try their own hand at “touching the tourist.” The women crack every toe and finger on our bodies as we yowl in response. The noise gets louder, the drinking gets heavier, and the four of us look at each other, trying to digest this most culturally interesting massage experience.

The spiritism of the Akha people has most impressed Mark and myself. Never since our respective times in Guatemala and Bolivia have we experienced such indigenous culture. Twins are bad omens, men have more than one wife, and only if a young girl bears a man a son will he marry her. Across the top of the village gate we see a recently skinned dog hung as an invitation to the spirits; the Akha believe that their spirits inhabit animals, and in particular, dogs.

Our Western, Christian concepts of the world cannot begin to comprehend the intricacies of the Akha’s culture and faith. This experience has stirred something spiritually inside both of us. It has reminded us of the joy we find in our own relationships with God and further strengthened our desire to pursue our own beliefs.

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PROOF PROOF 57 A few days’ hike outside Muang Sing, Laos

Thirty On A Camel

Part #2 - A Happy Hmong New Year!

Muang Sing, Laos

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It started as a simple trek and ended as probably one of the most awkwardly wonderful experiences in six months of traveling. A few days after the unforgettable massage in the Akha village, we arrive in a Hmong village just in time to celebrate their new year. “You drink, good luck. No drink, bad luck!” And so begins our celebration of Hmong New Year in the home of a village farmer.

Guest after guest files inside the large room of our guide’s friend. I feel awkwardly voyeuristic, but our host reassures us that we are most welcome. A farmer by trade, this man also occasionally guides to make a little extra income. “I am so happy you come to our home,” he greets us with a smile. “You will have good year.”

From the corner of the room, cauldron-sized pots boil to the brim as the women set up table after table for the forty people in the room. They place bowls of peanuts, sticky rice, tofu, fried pork, and fish soup (whole fish swimming around—heads, scales, tails, and all). “No vegetables today, because this is celebration! We eat all meat today!”

People fill the pint-sized chairs, but according to Laos custom, no one eats. Sandi, the secretary from the tourism office, proclaims, “In Laos, no eat until after drink!” So begins Laos Culture 101.

The host pours half a glass of Lao Beer and hands it to the first person; he drinks it in one gulp, returns the glass, which is refilled and passed to the next guest. And so on and

so forth until all have had round one. And then round two.

For round three Lao-Lao, a hellacious rice wine, replaces the beer. I try to refuse but am immediately vetoed. “You drink, make me happy,” Sandi says slowly with her singsong voice and captivating smile. I gag as it burns down my throat. I am feeling much more relaxed now.

After another round, our host makes a speech and the eating begins. We decide to hell with our stomachs and join the feast. The communal, endless glass of Lao-Lao makes its rounds again. When Mark raises the glass and toasts our tuk-tuk driver, I fear the worst. A few hours later, I cross my fingers, pile into the back of the tuk-tuk with the rest of the “happy” Muang Sing Tourism Office.

(To my students: I am not the example here.) Bouncing down the rutted dirt road back to town, hands extend to grab oversized pea pods hanging from the passing trees.

“Head no hurt tomorrow. Eat many,” our guide implores.

That evening, we accept Sandi’s invitation to continue the celebration with dinner at her friend’s restaurant. A table set with all the makings of Laos-style lettuce wraps awaits our arrival. Sandi is already there passing the communal beer glass around. “I drink first,” she laughs and gulps down the beer, “and you drink second,” handing it to the nearest taker.

Moments later, her boss from the tourism office stumbles in. “I drunk little bit,” he confesses, and the tables erupt in laughter. For the rest of the evening, while singing (somehow in tune and with almost perfect English) the lyrics to U2’s Beautiful Day, this boss meticulously proceeds to form a number of lettuce rolls and handfeed them to the nearest person, much of the time being unfortunate Mark.

We eat, we drink, we talk, and we laugh until we are all exhausted. Judging by the headache a bit later, I think we will have a very lucky Hmong New Year!

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PROOF PROOF 59 A few days’ hike outside Muang Sing, Laos

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Luang Nam Tha, Laos

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(Mark)

Ten hours in a public bus from Luang Prabang to Luang Nam Tha in northern Laos is luxurious travel when compared to our Langtang experience in Nepal. There are a few seats to spare (no one in our laps, no one on the roof ), we stop only once per village to pick up and off load passengers (instead of every ten feet), and the inventory of unpaid passengers includes just one chicken behind us. As if to indicate this is to be our lucky day, only one person vomits. A real first-class experience.

Piling off midway to use the restroom, I can’t help but walk toward a stall selling what appears to be dried and flayed rats, stacked by the dozen and covered with flies.

If that isn’t enough to ruin any appetite, watching the purchase of the dead cat displayed next to the dried rats most certainly is.

In case you’re interested in purchasing a dead cat, here’s how to look like a local: poke and prod the dead cat with your finger, as if you’re trying to prove this dead cat is of unbearably low quality (contorting your face seems to help greatly); walk away, but on second thought, return and lift up the cat by the tail and inspect it thoroughly (again, more contorting of the face seems to play into the final price); finally, motion to the vendor of the dead cat, haggle on a price per kilo, weigh the cat, hand over a few thousand Laos kip, throw your proud purchase into a plastic bag, and you’re on your way.

Just remember not to let the cat out of the bag—well, at least before dinner.

PROOF

How to Buy a Dead Cat

Thirty On A Camel

PROOF PROOF 61 (left) Bus driver’s daughter: Muang Sing, Laos

(above) Waiting to give alms to the monks at sunrise: Luang Prabang, Laos

Thirty On A Camel

Borderlands

Mae Hong Son, Thailand What is life like for 20,000 Burmese refugees living in just one of nine camps along the western Thai border? They cannot return to Burma1 or they will be killed; they cannot legally enter Thailand; they cannot attain refugee status and relocate to places such as the US or Europe because Thailand has not signed the UN Geneva Convention; thus the people are not recognized globally as refugees. These “refugees” include the Hmong, Karen, and Karenni peoples. And if these refugees happen to be under twenty-years-old, they most likely were born in the camp, have never seen outside the camp, and seem to have little hope of ever leaving the camp.

One hundred kilometers from the eastern Thai border lives a camp of Hmong refugees from Laos.

The Laos government is reported to be hunting them to punish their fathers and grandfathers for aiding the US in the Vietnam War.2 They cannot return to Laos or they will be killed; the Thai government does not want them in Thailand. They have nowhere to

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go.3,4 I have to wonder at the dichotomy between what I the tourist see and what actually occurs beneath the glossy surface. I can travel on the tourist buses, eat at the tourist restaurants, join the touristy tours and visit the tourist places. I can even sleep in an Akha village and play with their children, celebrate and drink to the New Year with the Hmong, and cook and visit on a trek with the Karen. And I am so comfortable.

But if I reach even further off the so-called “beaten path” and tread in the deeper and darker recesses of a country, I the tourist will still never fully grasp the enormity of the south-eastern Asia life.

As a gross generalization, the Laos government would like the Hmong problem to disappear. Like the Thai government would like for the Burmese refugees.

Like Burma would like for its hill-tribe rebels. Like the Han Chinese would like for the Tibetans. Like group after group in this ethnically diverse part of the world wished at one time for one another. And like group after group in the rest of the world have also wished upon one another—in Darfur, in Rwanda, in former Yugoslavia, and as I am reminded, in the United States, where whites once wished for the eradication of all Native Americans. In the end, I have to wonder what makes my history any different from the history here.

Thank you to Kim working in Mae Hong Son and Ricky at Care Corner Orphanage in Chiang Mai for sharing your wealth of first-hand experiences.

1 the English version was changed in 1989 to the “Union of Myanmar” by the military junta; the name Myanmar is still not recognized by many Western countries

3 Hamid, Ruhi. “Hunted Like Animals.” Video: http://tinyurl. com/5s39xb; Updates: http://tinyurl.com/52b3s7 12 Jan 2007.

2 Weiner, Tim. The New York Times Magazine. “Gen. Vang Pao’s Last War.” http://tinyurl.com/4dqora 11 May 2008.

4 Hamid, Ruhi. “BBC: Wires from the front line: Laos.” http://tinyurl.com/5p7elg 18 May 2004.

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PROOF PROOF 63 Dinner Time: outside Mae Hong Son, Thailand

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Bangkok, Thailand

I confess. We indulge. We use the last of Mark’s platinum status (leftover from his old job) at the Marriott to live in a little luxury. Yes, we do manage to leave our comfy king-sized bed to visit the famous Grand Palace/Emerald Buddha, walk down the infamous Khao San Road, wander through the Jim Thompson Silk Museum, and chill at a local jazz club. We even attempt jogging and swimming at the hotel’s health club. But mostly, we gaze out our 16th story sky-line view with a glass of complimentary wine and reflect on it all.

These past two months in Southeast Asia have been a living history, culture, and spiritual course for both Mark and myself. At times we just skim the surface of understanding; at other times we learn more than we would like. Through it all, we have grown closer to God, to one another, and toward having the faith and courage to change our own little sphere of the world once we return.

As the minutes tick toward midnight on New Year’s Eve, we look out of our 16th story window over the lights and life of Bangkok below. Mark takes a slow slip of wine and observes, “Six months into this trip, I can finally see the reality of our dreams in my head.” He pauses, and I let him finish. “I fear that returning home, surrounded by everything familiar and things that don’t really matter, I’ll lose the inspiration to continue dreaming.”

“And,” I smile, “to realize these dreams.”

So on New Year’s Day, while waiting for our flight to India, we begin researching possible opportunities....

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PROOF

New Year’s Eve

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PROOF PROOF 65 Hoi An, Vietnam

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Intense Kolkata, India

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Deep breath. I can do this.

1950’s yellow taxis; a labyrinth of unmarked streets; dirty guesthouse, hair ball in the sink, brown carpet and walls that were originally blue, an unidentifiable smell like diesel, me almost losing it upon arrival, the “floor boy” futilely waxing the tiled floor in the hallway; insane traffic, drivers speeding up to hit me, locals making mad dashes across the streets, ignoring green lights; filthy streets—trash, trash, and more trash; tree leaves caked in so much dirt I don’t know how they can breathe; my black mucus; men in business suits walking to and from appointments; middle-class women on saree shopping sprees, bags and purses in hand, their own bright silk sarees fluttering elegantly in the breeze; school children chasing each other; old men and boys lathering up in their shorts at the public water pump on the sidewalk; people bathing and washing clothes in the polluted brown river; a Bollywood film in Hindi complete with “dramatic” acting, spontaneous song, flirtatious dance, loud guffaws all around us, the random words in English like “problem solved” or the disparaging curse from one man to the next—“You George W. Bush!”—and the man next to me laughing out loud and then looking immediately at me to gauge my reaction, me laughing in return; a Domino’s Pizza surrounded by starving street kids; hawkers and their wares everywhere; crippled men begging desperately; street kids as filthy as the open

latrines; despondent women cooking over a fire under a ragged tarp against a wall—their home; trying to eat an orange while a woman holds out her hand, giving her a remaining orange and then putting mine away; a begging child grabbing my leg, unwilling to let go, and leaving a streak of black fingerprints on my pant leg; a deaf man stumbling after me with his listless leg dragging on the pavement, imploring “money, money, money”; a poisonous smell, only to find I am standing in raw sewage; kids living on train station platforms, huddled in a circle playing cards, inhaling glue-soaked rags stuffed in their mouths, brains fried beyond repair; street programs trying to help these kids but way in over their heads—it’s more than they can bear; people passing it all by; me passing it all by, not knowing my place here, trying to understand; a man unloading luggage bags from a truck, losing hold and the stack of bags falling over, three people in front of us walking by, Mark leaning down and picking up the bags to move to the side (merely to clear the walk so we can pass), the man looking up and beaming at Mark and pumping his hand over and over in a series of “thank you’s”; a crazy old woman yelling at us and waving what looks like a hypodermic needle as we walk down the sidewalk, a passing woman intervening and herding the old woman out of our way, us smiling and saying “thank you” to our intercessor and she smiling back; visiting Mother Teresa’s Motherhouse where she lived and died here in Kolkata, learning about how she didn’t care what others thought or did—she just felt this intense stirring up inside her heart to do something for the poorest of the poor here and she did it, even during what she called the time of her “darkness” when she felt so far from God’s presence, even when the Church questioned her, and even when some Indian gentry denied the reality she tried to show them.

Feeling better.

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PROOF PROOF 67 Kolkata (Calcutta), India

Thirty On A Camel

Eee Ghats!

Varanasi, India

Mark shines our torch1 along the narrow stone alley as we pick our way through the dark; we try not to step in the cow dung, trash, betel root spit, and discarded terra-cotta chai cups. It is 6:00 a.m and we are heading toward a sunrise row along the Ganges River. In the distance we hear the ringing of bells, singing, and chanting.

I must have slept through the “Religions of the World” unit in high school history class, because I feel terribly ignorant when it comes to Hinduism. Our guide secures us a boat and we push out onto the holy Ganges River. Just as the sun peeks up over the horizon, hundreds of people shout their prayers, ring bells and blow horns, and dive into the water of enlightenment. It is an eerie, almost surreal feeling of being witness to such devoted ritual.

The ghats2 along the river teem with life. Families congregate together along the shore. The men and boys strip down to their underwear and plunge into the mud-crusted water. Another family says their good-byes to a departed member as the pyre burns the body to dust. Solemnly, they sprinkle the ash along the waves of the water.

A line of flickering candles blanketed with saffron marigolds float silently through the water. As their paper boats slowly absorb the holy water, the candles sink beneath 1 headlamp for us Americans

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2 banks

the surface until their prayers are released to the water below.

Men lug a load of laundry to the shore. Beating the clothes in an incessant rhythm, they hand the purified clothing to their wives, who then drape the dripping cloth of the sarees over the stone steps to dry in the sun.

“As our nervous system, so are the streets of Varanasi,” quothe our guide. I heartily concur. The alleyways—narrow enough to fit you and one languid cow, you and one hornscreeching motorcycle or bell-ringing bicycle, or you and one man’s fine display of tourist trinkets—wind their way in a haphazard labyrinth of turns and stairs and corners and dead ends. Those born here must have a street map ingrained within their chromosomes.

Mark and I become lost a total of... every time we step outside our guest house. As dusk settles, a helpless feeling creeps stealthily upon me, like a Bengali Tiger stalking an unsuspecting fisherman. For a full ten minutes, I try to deny this crouching fear; I swear to myself I will recognize a landmark just around the next corner. Finally, I stop, mid-stride, vendors and cows and bicycles passing me by. I resign, defeated. My pride of possessing such an acute sense of direction is dashed as our guide’s quote resounds—my nerves are shot.

I would like to expand on this aphorism: Just as the streets of Varanasi are an unending labyrinth, so are the tenants of Hinduism. “Trying to define Hinduism is like trying to grasp the air—it cannot be done”—guide epigram number two.

And whether listening to a sitar player at a cozy restaurant, gazing out from our river-side balcony upon the ebb and flow of life along the Ganges below, looking up and seeing a hundred kites dotting the sky, or absorbing the holiness of the lighted candles/prayers slowly floating along with the current before subtly sinking into the water, we cannot help but hold in awe the ceremony and tradition before us. From the ghats of Varanasi, Hinduism flows into India.

Thirty On A Camel

PROOF PROOF 69 Sunrise along the Ganges: Varanasi, India

Thirty On A Camel

A Man Once So Loved A Woman Agra, India

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As the pink hues of approaching dawn creep through the dark sky, tourists from every place imaginable line up to capture the perfect, one-ofa-kind, never-been-done-before, the best-of-themall, Taj Mahal photo. Mark and I stand together facing the monument, wrapped in our fleeces this chilly winter morning. This moment, this picture, is perfect.

Suddenly, a rather burly and brusque tourist pushes his way between Mark and myself. He squats right in front of Mark, pushing him backward with his hand. He pulls out his camera from around his neck and starts snapping away, oblivious to his invasion of personal space and intimate moments.

“Are you kidding me?” Mark says to the man. “Sir, please if you don’t mind, my wife and I were standing here.”

“The Taj isn’t going anywhere, buddy,” the man snaps back, scooting his bum even further into Mark. “Step aside.”

I can feel Mark tense up immediately. He wants to deck the guy, but knows he shouldn’t. He just shakes his head and tries his best to ignore him. A few minutes later, the man scoots away, rudely pushing through the tourists without a word of excuse. But at least he has his photo.

Later, we see the same man pushing more people out of the way as he vies for some close-up shots. Behind him, a young Indian boy staggers under the weight of various cameras, lenses, and tripods; the man turns and yells at the

boy to keep up.

The hoards of tourists who visit each day testify to the illustrious reputation of the Taj Mahal, as everyone vies for his one chance for his one photo. I try to push the rudeness of the uncouth tourist out of my mind as we wander the grounds.

In the stillness of the morning and in the quiet surroundings of groomed flower beds, Mark and I try to spend a solitary moment together on a bench. But his growing sore throat and my gnawing hunger, the rude tourists, the frigid air—all threaten to spoil the romanticism that is the Taj Mahal. It is a story of a simple man and a simple woman.

This man once loved a woman so intensely, so passionately, that upon her death, his grief was insurmountable. He was devastated. As an expression of his infinite love for her, he began to erect a memorial that captured the essence of his love. He spent the next twenty-two years doing just that.

The Taj Mahal is architecturally perfect and artistically divine. The semi-precious in-laid stones radiate the beauty of his wife’s spirit. Even the carved marble lattice-work is perfect and unbroken. White and flawless, like Empress Mumtaz Mahal’s skin, and shaped like Emperor Shah Jahan’s own tears, he could gaze upon his wife, if only in a representative form, for as long as he lived. And with his death, he left the world this same memorial so that, like a line of poetry, Empress Mumtaz Mahal will never truly die.

I find it ironic that in an Eastern culture of arranged marriages and sexual repression, and considering the Western world’s unending adultery and divorce-rate, an emblem of one man’s great passion—his wife—holds so much fame and honor throughout the world. Perhaps it is for this same reason that the Taj is iconic—it is the ideal love which all secretly desire. And yet, sitting here on this bench amidst the threat of a ruined experience, Mark quietly grabs my hand and holds it tight. Slowly, I relax. This morning may not be the idyllic experience I so envisioned when I dreamt of visiting the Taj; instead, it is an realistic, genuine memory of authentic life—and love.

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PROOF PROOF 71 (left & right) Taj Mahal: Agra, India

Thirty On A Camel

My silky salwar kameez1 flutters lightly around my hips as I turn slow circles in the enormous ballroom, staring up at the intricately painted ceiling above. I am standing in Jaipur’s City Palace in Rajasthan—the “Land of Kings”—still used by the maharaja today. Sparkling chandeliers, gold brocade crown moulding, painted murals, rich Persian carpets, elaborately carved parapets, and laced ivory doorways all signify the grand elegance of the state’s royals. Inside the armory, hundreds of guns and knives display reminders of the maharajas’ long-ago victories. After fifteen minutes, I have to pull Mark away, drool still pooled in the corners of his mouth, and convince him not to buy a replica for our not-even-two-year-old nephew.

At Amber Fort, I glide across the marble floors of the numerous palace rooms. Carved stone screens surround the audience halls below, enabling the palace’s women the opportunity of observing life below without breaking the social purdah codes—being seen by men not of their family. Through these tiny holes, the women watched the vendors selling their spices and milk and vegetables.

They observed their men chatting together with chai in hand; they witnessed parades of soldiers going to and from battle; they oversaw the school children running back and forth. It was a life of looking without the hope of participating. Hidden from the world, I can only imagine

the whispered gossip that passed behind veiled eyes and fingers.

To top off our brush with Indian royalty, it is off to the Rajasthan Polo Club to experience a club match of this “rich man’s” sport. Since I am hiding my true royal calling, I decide not to sit in the tiered stone stands with the dignitaries; instead, I maintain my layman cover by standing on the sidelines with Jaipur’s rickshaw drivers, vegetable cart men, and local eccentrics. I am the only woman.

Horses kick up clods of grass and dirt as their riders jab their flanks in a dash toward the goal. Closer and closer our testosterone-charged group moves toward the action on the field; the referees pay no mind. A man selling puffed bread weaves in and out of the crowd. A photographer for the local paper sneaks up and takes my photo in a rapid series of shutter clicks. I hold out my hand and jokingly ask for five rupees; he looks befuddled and scurries away, his prized photo of me in hand.

Suddenly—run. The ball comes spiraling toward us; we have crossed well over the lines of the field. Behind the ball, the horses are in full pursuit and full gallop. We make a mad dash to the edge of the field for safety as the horses kick the desert dust into a swirling cloud. And as soon as the players move away, our group rushes back toward the sidelines, chasing the perfect view.

The breeze catches the fabric of my dupatta2 and lifts it up in a feminine swirl. I smile to myself, feeling the beauty of this country embedding itself inside of me.

And even though I have not had a true shower in a few weeks (besides small buckets of lukewarm water) and my clothes just don’t come clean and I’ve given up the point of wearing make-up, here in these palaces I cannot help but feel like a princess. Maybe, somewhere in the depths of Jaipur’s newsstands, I will be famous.

1 tunic-like dress worn over pants

2 long scarf

The Princess I Should Rightly Be Jaipur, India

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Thirty On A Camel

PROOF PROOF 73 Spices: Jaipur, India

Thirty On A Camel

Fire Dance Bikaner, India

“Hold tight, hold tight!” The camel driver yells words of warning as my camel takes a dive down the sand dune.

And hold tight I do!

In addition to dodging cows and dogs and vegetable cart men and bicycles and motorcycles and rickshaws along the roadway, we now must dodge the occasional camel and his cart. Or rather, we must jump quickly out of the way as the camel runs at full speed down the street, bells jangling, cart wheels spinning, and harness-driver screeching. This is the Indian desert, a hundred kilometers or so away from the Pakistani border.

We have come for the Bikaner Camel Festival, held in a village just outside town. There are camel decorating contests, fur cutting contests, and of course, the camel races. Grown men even challenge each other in feats of strength as they wrestle in the sand. But the highlight of the event is the fire dance. As drum beats sound in the night sky, surrounded by dune after dune, a club of older men in a recreation of a rite-of-passage ceremony, walk barefoot over glowing, hot coals. As I watch entranced, a man places the fiery embers in his mouth and then breathes the shooting sparks into the darkness.

After the festival, we embark upon a two-day jeep/camel safari, led by the affable and knowledgeable Jitu Solanki,1 into the sand and scrub of the desert hills. We see gazelles

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1 http://www.geocities.com/vinayakguesthouse

bounding along, a desert fox slinking away, vultures circling in the air, and of course, camels. Two hours on the back of a camel, as one tourist puts it, is “just enough time to enjoy yourself and leave still liking camels.” Waddling down the street two days later, I most heartily agree.

In the evening, we huddle with the men of the village around a fire in the chilly winter air under the brilliant desert stars. A small boy returns again and again with thorny brush to feed the fire; we smile our thanks as the chill slowly leaves our feet. As a token of thanks, I pass him a little candy I have in my pocket. His eyes light up as he scurries away. Minutes later, he returns again, more thorny brush in hand, and throws it on the fire. The men laugh at him, but he shrugs it off, slips away, and returns with yet another armful. I say thank you again and pass him my last candy.

It is only at the end that we learn he had been “borrowing” his parents’ nearby fence to burn for us. I can only imagine the happiness of mom and dad in the morning. And to think I had been rewarding his thievery with little caramel candies. As the fire burns out, we retire in the chilly desert air to a hut made of mud and cow dung. I curl up in my blankets surrounded by snoring men and smoky embers.

The people of the Rajasthani desert lead difficult lives. Miles and miles of nothingness abound. A variety of food is scarce, water even scarcer. Children run barefoot on the cold winter sand, holding themselves around their lightweight T-shirts and shorts in feeble attempts to control their shivering. They attend school only if the government provides a meal, and as we are told, lately that hasn’t happened. The simplicity of the desert people’s oneroom mud homes contrast sharply with the maharajas’ ornamental palaces and extravagant lifestyles. From a Mahal to a mud hut, our visit to Rajasthan—the land of kings—has been a living glimpse of royalty and peasantry, both past and present.

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PROOF PROOF 75 A few hours outside Bikaner, India

Thirty On A Camel

Thirty on a Camel Jaisalmer, India

“Where can I buy a chocolate cake here in town?” We have just arrived from our camel adventure, sore legs and sore bums, and Mark is short on time. The hotel manager hardly pauses before answering Mark’s question: “Why, Ravi’s of course.”

“Ah, good,” Mark answers, “it’s my wife’s birthday.”

The manager pauses, eyebrows knit in serious contemplation.

He presses his finger to his lips and then looks up at Mark in a genuine “Aha” moment: “Then you will need to make sure it is an egg-less cake.”

“Egg-less?” Mark asks, confused. “Why?” “Because my brother and I are vegetarians. And do you want all of the rooftop restaurant?” Realization slowly dawns on Mark. “When my wife has a birthday, we invite the whole neighborhood.”

At the bakery, having ignored the manager’s up-sell, Mark tries to buy a chocolate cake. In the display cases are a number of cakes completely smothered in icing, drowning in fluffy, sugary swirls of flowers and spirals. After numerous attempts at convincing the baker that he wants an only chocolate cake with just a little icing, the baker finally acquiesces. “This is a surprise for your wife?” the baker nods. “Then you want this big!” he says, forming what looks to be an enormous sheet-sized cake with his hands.

“No, no,” Mark tries again, “just a little one.” The baker looks a little disappointed in Mark, but this sugar-sweet fellow is still eager to help Mark act the romantic husband he knows he should be.

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“You want a heart for your wife, then, don’t you?” Mark pauses, knowing that I am not necessarily a heart kind of gal; but

he cannot argue this up-sell without looking like a jerk and so concedes. “Okay,” the infamous Ravi smiles in agreement, “here’s my cell-phone number. You call if any problems. You come back and will have the best birthday cake in all Rajasthan.”

Mark takes me to an atmospheric restaurant inside the walls of the Jaisalmer Fort. Silky pillows and cushions embroidered with swirls of sequins and shining mirrors surround the Indianstyle tables. Regal-red tapestries cover the walls, candles flutter on the tables, and the small portico-sized windows gaze out from the wall of the fort to the town below. I would love to say we dined over a delicate array of Indian curries and spices, but...as both our stomachs have been over-curried in the past few days, we order Italian pasta, Indian style. After dinner, Mark excuses himself and returns shortly with a dazzling chocolate-iced cake in the perfect shape of a heart. He slices through, and while we find that there is minimal icing on the outside, the amount of sugary cream on the inside out-sugars any Mexican tres leches cake. And the chocolate? Maybe an order of gulab jamun would have been better.

On our way back to the hotel, we stop by the shop to appease the request of the baker: “I must meet your wife!” Huge smiles light up his face as the whole street stops to listen to the goras.

“How you like the cake?” he asks.

“Oh, I loved it!” I praise him. “It was the best chocolate birthday cake in all Rajasthan!” (Probably a true statement.)

“Of, course,” Ravi smiles back, his eyes absolutely beaming.

Passers-by nod in agreement.

I think this is what we are loving about India—the heart: the smile on the lassi-man’s face as he slams down his specialty on our table, the delight in the eyes of the cook when we say “acha”— very good, the eagerness in the question of the hotel owners when they ask how we liked our stay, the pride in the voice of our guide when he explains the intricacies of India, the pleasure on the face of the telephone man when we say “thank you,” and the warmth in the handshake of the man at the Bikaner Camel Festival when he says, “Thank you for coming to our India.” Indians we meet are so proud of their country and their livelihood. They always ask, “How you like India?” People genuinely want us to love what they too love—the heart of their land.

And I do. Turning thirty—I think the timing is perfect.

Thirty On A Camel

PROOF 77 Bikaner Camel Festival: Bikaner, India

Thirty On A Camel

“Hakuna Matata” Lushoto, Tanzania

In some countries, you must go shopping. But in other countries, the shopping comes to you. A local bus ride to Lushoto, Tanzania, nestled snuggly in the Usambara Mountains, is one such continual market. A woman in the seat in front us accomplishes her entire weekly shopping, in the course of eight hours, out the window of the bus. At the weigh station, she purchases a few kilos of various vegetables, a tree-sized bunch of green bananas, and a stalk of grilled corn for a snack.

During a unexpected radiator repair, she window shops (literally) for various teacups, wooden stools, candlesticks, wooden spoons and combs, and baskets held up high in the air; she settles on a mortar/pestle, passed upward through the windows. Meanwhile, I diligently study my Swahili greetings and learn, much to my own chagrin and ignorance, that The Lion King’s “Hakuna Matata (no worries)” is in fact Swahili. I had no idea.

In an effort to speed our acquisition of Swahili phrases not in a Disney movie, we hire a guide for a day trek to a nearby waterfall. Amani, meaning “peace” in Swahili, spends the entire day teaching us about Tanzanian culture.

His favorite topic is the steady interest the government is taking in tourism, even by establishing websites for the local hotels. “You have to feed the cow before you milk it,” Amani smiles in response to their aid.

Of course, my pressing question is, “How long to the falls?”

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“Oh, maybe four hours,” he replies. “But this is Africa!

So polé polé (slowly, slowly)!” Ahhh. My first lesson in Tanzanian culture...

Women meander along the brick-red track, gossiping as they go. Brightly colored cloths wrap their bodies in a swirl of hip-swinging lightness. Baskets from the morning market rest atop their heads as they saunter along, small bottles of cooking oil, cabbages, red-ripe tomatoes, bright-green bell peppers, deep-orange carrots, and bursting bags of cassava flour spilling out from the top. We follow one threesome of women for a few kilometers. Every so often they meet another woman coming along; the group stops near a smoldering mud brick kiln and passes along what must be a thrilling, scandalous tale, and then they move along again toward the next approaching woman, passing us by each time.

An over-ripe avocado falls from the tree above, barely missing my head. A few black and white monkeys bound from tree to tree. An enormous snail inches his way across the track. Detailed lines of worker red ants march a crisscross pattern along the way, guarded diligently by the larger soldier ants. Vibrant butterflies flutter in and out of the flowers. In the distance, bullfrogs begin to sing a guttural chorus to announce the approaching rain. And polé polé, we too soak in the land and the people and the air that is Africa.

As we re-enter the town, an ominous gloom descends from the surrounding mountains. We pick up the pace. Ten minutes from our hotel, a drop falls, and then another and another. The few people walking along the track promptly begin running. Mark and I look at each other and say simultaneously, “What don’t we know?” Suddenly, whomp! The sky falls out of the clouds, drenching us before we can even pull our tattered “Made-In-China” umbrellas out of our bag. We arrive back drenched anyway, baptized African-style. Hakuna Matata.

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PROOF PROOF 79 Lushoto, Tanzania

Thirty On A Camel

Lions, Tigers, & ...

Wildebeests? Oh My! Serengeti, Tanzania

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Polé polé (slowly, slowly) we drive through the long grasses of the Serengeti, the engine of our jeep a low purr. Mark stands through the pop-up roof scanning the vast savanna for any slight twitch of an ear or flick of a tail. It is day four of our African safari and Mark has yet to see his self-imposed nemesis: the leopard.

I monotonously pick my fingernails in an effort to prevent myself from dozing off in the blazing heat. Suddenly, Maluta, our driver/guide, slams on the brakes and turns off the engine. “Binoculars,” he summons, like a surgeon calling for his scalpel. He sits up from what I had assumed was just another “drive in the park” and cranes his neck out the window. “There,” he points.

“Where? What?”

“A leopard,” he smiles. Our eyes follow the line of his finger to the V of a yellow acacia tree. There, resting lazily along the curve of a limb, natural in its absolute wildness, is a spotted leopard.

Mark’s voice turns into a kid at his first day at the zoo: “Yes, there,” he points. I look, and there it is indeed.

The sleek head perks up as he catches our scent. Slowly, he rises, looks at us fully for a minute, then leaps to the ground and disappears among the tall, disguising grasses.

We exhale and turn to each other with ice-cream grins.

“Sweet!”

Our list of animal and bird sightings from the first four days is endless. There is the pride of lionesses and cubs soaking in the dewy morning grass, or the family

of cheetahs digesting their recent gazelle kill, panting languidly in the mid-day sun as soporific as a Thanksgiving afternoon. Mark single-handedly spots a serval cat tracking its prey. Our adrenalin pumps in the feral danger of playing stalker.

We see zebras and giraffes galore, as well as an enormous herd of wildebeest and all their recently birthed calves. We see hippos and water buffalo, impalas and dik diks, jackals and hyenas, and mongooses and warthogs.

We see red-butt baboons and thieving vervet monkeys. A bush baby uses our tent as a trampoline in the middle of the night. A herd of elephants saunters seriously through the tall grasses. Overhead, we see nesting ospreys and circling vultures; down below, storks and flamingos tiptoe across the shallow water as ostriches scamper in the distance. Starlings and songbirds twitter their melodies.

On day six, we creep along the bottom of Ngorongoro Crater. The sun just begins to peak up over the rim, casting a sparkling light on the dewy grass. A group of zebras and wildebeests graze in the distance. We are following the elusive and endangered black rhino as he prepares for his morning nap. Suddenly, the CB radio crackles alive; Maluta grabs the receiver as a slew of Swahili passes back and forth. “Ah-rroy-yo. Roger,” he answers, pressing the gas to the floor, kicking up a cloud of dusty rock in our wake. We bounce through the savanna at whip-lash speed.

And then we see them: a pride of lions feasting on their morning buffalo kill.

The male lion munches and rips. He looks up at our car not ten feet away with wild, bloody whiskers and a piece of torn hide hanging from his teeth. We watch, mesmerized.

Eventually, the male laboriously ambles away; it is now the female and cubs’ turn. In the distance, hyenas greedily creep forward and little jackals dart back and forth, all hungrily awaiting any leftover scraps.

The tiny lion cubs tumble along behind their mother, playfully yelping, full and content. The end of one life sustains another.

Thirty On A Camel

PROOF PROOF 81 Wildebeests & Volcano: Serengeti, Tanzania

Thirty On A Camel

Special Topics in Calamity Fishing1 Zanzibar, Tanzania A mass of people wait in a semi-semblance of a line to board the ferry to Zanzibar Island. I bend down to secure my bag, when out of nowhere, a man ducks under me and stands up, slamming into my face. Crack. He looks dazed and walks away in little circles; meanwhile, my sunglasses have carved a canyon into my right eyebrow and blood begins to drip down into my eye. I swear I am a walking calamity.1 My plans to snorkel off the atolls of Zanzibar slowly erode with each drop of blood falling to the pavement. I fear the mask will damage my vanity by sucking my skin apart and leaving a permanent scar across my eyebrow. As I sink into the depths of disappointment, Mark suggests fishing.

Near our hotel, we inquire about the price of deep-sea fishing—way over our budget. As we walk away, Solomon, the resident fishing-guy, offers, “What about local fishing?”

Intrigued, we turn back around.

“Is it on a sail boat?” we ask.

“Oh no,” he replies. “You have motor. Without motor, you sail out no problem, but maybe not come back.” Motor it is.

“Will we go with you?” we ask.

“Oh no, you go with Assistant Captain Jacob.” We stifle a smile at the overstatement. After ten minutes of haggling, Mark finally proposes $40 for the fishing and an extra $10 if we catch something. A serious Swahili conversation via mobile phone ensues, we presume revolving around how to make certain we catch something. Solomon hangs up: “Assistant Captain Jacob agrees. Come tomorrow. Don’t forget.”

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1 Pessl, Marisha. Special Topics in Calamity Physics. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Mark smiles, “We won’t forget. Fishing is our only job tomorrow.”

The next morning, we putter out to sea in Assistant Captain Jacob’s small motorboat. Fishing line, hooks, and pieces of dead fish for bait in hand, we are ready for a calamity-free day. Wrapping the line around our hands, we lower hooks into the water and wait. And wait. And wait.

And at some point I notice my feet are soaked—maybe it is not the motor (or lack thereof ) that should have concerned us during our negotiations.

“Does your boat leak?” I ask Assistant Captain Jacob.

“Oh, just small amount,” he replies nonchalantly. “That’s why we have Joseph.”

Until this point, we had assumed the unknown extra on the boat was merely tagging along for a free fishing trip–he had long ago secured the ends of his three fishing lines to his toes, stretched out, and settled at the front of our now slowly sinking boat. As if realizing his cue, Joseph slowly sits up, stretches, and pulls out a small plastic coffee cup. Bailing commences, one very small cup at a time.

Lucky for us, I get seasick. A few very small fish later (enough to ensure Assistant Captain Jacob’s extra $10) and fearful the hole in the boat is larger and more determined than Joseph’s coffee cup, we turn toward land. Mark queries the price of the fish we have caught –two hundred shillings at the local market ($0.17).

Two days later on our return ferry to the mainland, the air conditioning breaks—calamity number three. Two hundredfifty people, including us, crammed into the sweltering hull agonizingly suffer through penetrating body odors and dripping backs. Muslim women chat through their veils. A Maasai warrior in his traditional garb plays Titanic off the bow of the ferry, his machete thankfully checked with the captain. Boys play together in a circle. And I think, if only the world could exist so peacefully as this calamitous ferry–Masaai, Muslims, Christians, and a handful of Western tourists crammed into a stifling, overcrowded ship, enduring together.

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PROOF PROOF 83 Zanzibar, Tanzania

Thirty On A Camel

Twenty Years Later Cairo, Egypt

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It’s like being a kid again....think back to your fifth grade teacher and the really cool unit you did on Egypt. What is it about this country that so fascinated us as kids? Was it the ancient hieroglyphic language, like a secret code that we wrote to our friends and our parents didn’t know what we were saying? Or was it the fun art project when we made our own papyrus paper? Or was it the cool, bandaged mummies that we believed could jump out of their sarcophagus at any time, run around the room, and chase us? (Or was that my dad one Halloween when I was six?)

Could it be the alluring beauty of Queen Nefertiti in her flattering linens, beautiful cat-black hair, and her pounds of hammered gold that dangled around her neck and wrists? Wasn’t she just gorgeous? Didn’t every little girl want to dress like her, walk like her, and command like her? Or was it the powerful Ramses the Great who controlled the fate of the entire Nile valley with the wave of his hand, who had slaves waving palm leaves and popping grapes into his mouth and who could receive anything he commanded? What little girl or boy wouldn’t want to be an Egyptian of old?

Twenty-five hundred years later, the hieroglyphic story of Queen Hatshepsut’s divine conception still covers the walls of her temple. She ruled in a man’s world, donning the dress and posture of the mighty male Pharaohs before her. Interestingly enough, it was this same woman who, as a young girl, found and raised Moses from the reeds of

the Nile. And it was her jealous successor who not only defaced her story on the temple walls, but who also drove Moses into the desert for fear that Moses would usurp his “mother’s” place on the throne.

Warring Ramses III commanded his military victories to be carved into his own temple. His story shows numerous conquests of foreign lands, piles of hands and heads and genitals indicating the numbers of his defeated. In one pictograph, he reaches down with his sword over the cowering people below him, daring anyone who observes such a scene to defy his power.

At the Temple of Karnak (termed “prodigiously opulent” by one cheeky British tour guide), the massive ruins display evidence of gallant attempts the pharaohs made to improve upon the legacies of their predecessors.

“No, no,” I imagine one pharaoh saying to a slave with a pompous dismissal of the hand, “that is the statue of myself? I said colossal; that’s queen-sized. Bring me another.”

I am enjoying remembering back to being ten again, reminiscing about school and field trips to the Natural History Museum. I think I still have in a box somewhere a copper-looking plate of King Tut that I just had to have from the museum shop. Twenty years later, a little older and a little wiser, I am now connecting the dots of history and culture and religion. Everything in this world is intertwined, interconnected, interrelated. One conquers another, influences another, and leaves one another a little bit of himself in the process.

In the still silence of the sand, I crawl down into the Pyramid of Teti, the tomb of an obscure court scribe, and open my eyes to the stunning array of completely preserved hieroglyphics that tell a story along the walls.

Their perfection is breathtaking. Suddenly, I am ten again.

Gazing in awe at a long ago time, so beautifully evoked, I lose myself for just a moment.

Thirty On A Camel

PROOF 85 Pyramid of Chephren: outside Cairo, Egypt

Thirty On A Camel

Wandering in the Desert Sinai, Egypt

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The Israelites wandered in the Sinai desert for forty years after escaping from their slavery in Egypt; we choose the four day option.

And for four days, Mark and I wander through the sands and canyons and mountains of the Sinai wilderness.

The nighttime stars in the clear and cool desert air are absolutely brilliant. The land is beautifully desolate; even the wind is silent. The Israelites’ necessary reliance on God’s daily provision of manna (unleavened bread) seems obvious in this harsh landscape. As we load Shilah, our stubborn hired camel, with enough water for our trek, I wonder how two million people ever quenched their thirst.

While the Israelites had their manna, we have our bread baked under the hot sand and ashes of the campfire (complete with a bit of teeth-grinding grit), Egyptian fuul (refried beans and tomatoes), and random cans of peas, okra, tuna, and sardines that look like they were donated to a food bank back in 1980. To make life even more interesting, our guide turns out to be a Bedouin pothead.

He burns through a lighter a day, and only Shilah knows how much “Bedouin tobacco” (as he calls it). Ahmed is the Egyptian version of Yoda—it takes us many difficult attempts to decipher his English: “Me thinks good; me cooks now.” Every task begins with, “You okay? Good. We go/eat/pack soon. Me smoke first.” Miraculously, after he smokes a joint, his communication becomes uncannily clearer.

We hike Bedouin-style: Just a little bit of walking and a whole lot of puttering around. Unsatisfied with our measly three hours of walking each day, Mark and I take a few side-hikes to pass our own time. Wandering around through the endless sands, we have nothing to do but to be. No computer. No Internet. No TV. And no book unless I sit and second-handedly join Ahmed in his umpteenth smoke of the day.

Our minds whirl. We brainstorm possible ventures upon return to life; we throw out ideas and then throw them out again. “What about this or what about that?”

Pros and cons weigh their sides. For four days, Mark and I dream and refine and dream again of whatever will be.

By the end, our excitement grows over the possibilities until we feel like kids again in anticipation of a far-off birthday.

On our fifth day in the Sinai, we awake at two a.m. and climb Mt. Sinai to see the sun rise over the land.

Unlike our previous four days of solitude, a few thousand other pilgrims have the same idea as us this morning. The sun peeks over the horizon in brilliant hues of oranges and yellows. Here, Moses had the terrifying pleasure of speaking face-to-face with God; he returned with the Ten Commandments. Elijah too sought solace on this mountain in an escape from Jezebel; God sustained him through food brought by ravens. And on this brisk, clear morning, Jews, Christians of every denomination, and the simply curious seek a defining moment with God. Languages from all over the world fade in and out of the breeze—French, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, multiple Eastern European dialects, Russian, Korean, and English.

After the sun rises and as we slowly make our way down the bottlenecked steps, an enormous group of Nigerian Christian pilgrims heartily sing a series African call-andanswer hymns, moving in and out of English and one of their 521 languages. I look around, and every person is smiling.

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PROOF PROOF 87 Sunrise from Mount Sinai, Egypt

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A Holy Easter Week Jerusalem, Israel

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The sun rises over the Garden Tomb as we join an international crowd to celebrate Easter day. Christians and the curious from all over Europe and Russia, from Indonesia and Nigeria, from North and South America, and from Israel and Palestine converge in a beautiful garden surrounding one supposed location of Jesus’ crucifixion and tomb. As one Catholic priest reportedly remarked, “If the Garden Tomb is not the true site of the Lord’s death and resurrection, it should have been.” It is true. The place defines peace itself. And standing there amidst the rock and the flowers, Mark and I are touched by being a part of something so much greater than ourselves.

Jerusalem has been a dive into the Biblical stories we have heard since we were children. We explore the remains of King David’s City during the First Temple Period (10th century BC); donning our water sandals and head lamps, we explore the depths of King Hezekiah’s water tunnels (700 BC, II Chronicles 32:3) under the city, ending at the Pool of Siloam where Jesus healed a blind man. Above ground, we meander through the Temple Mount, the place where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac and where the First and Second Temples were built and subsequently destroyed. We explore Jericho, the first city Joshua conquered to attain the Promised Land. In the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, remains of the old city walls and cisterns from these ancient times still exist—you could easily pass them by without a second

glance. And just as the sun sets along the 2000-year-old Western Wall, we observe hundreds of enraptured Jews, both Orthodox and not, usher in the Sabbath through their devoted prayers at the place where they believe God’s divine presence has never left, even throughout the destruction of their temples and the capture and recapture of their city.

Fast-forwarding to Jesus’ day, Mark and I visit Bethlehem, Jesus’ place of birth. We walk on Temptation Mountain, where Jesus held his 40 day fast and was tempted by Satan to prove himself God. We step inside the Upper Room where Jesus held the Last Supper. We walk in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus fervently prayed for a way to escape what was to come. We visit Herod’s palace where Pontius Pilate sentenced Jesus to be crucified. And we too walk the Via Dolorosa, the uphill path that Jesus Himself walked, carrying his own cross past the jeering crowds, past his crying mother, and past his stunned disciples. At the end, we stand inside the Holy Sepulchre Church, which Helena of Rome declared around 300 AD to be the place where Jesus was crucified and buried. Around us, people light candles before an altar of the cross. Women bend over in humble prostration, kissing the stone where it is believed Jesus’ body was lain. And grown men bend over themselves in humble prayers of devotion. I have no words to describe the feeling of walking on such holy ground. The emotion is so instant, so intense, so consuming.

As Mark and I sit amidst the international and interdenominational crowd at the Garden Tomb on Easter morning, we culminate a week in the Promised Land.

The peacefulness of the garden, the devotion of the people, and the words of the Easter-morning hymns move both of us. Mark’s tears flow freely into a pool at his feet. The trees move in the morning breeze and the swallows glide overhead. And in the background, the rocky tomb stands open . . . and empty.

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PROOF PROOF 89 (left & right) Old City Jerusalem, Israel

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Israel or Palestine?

Jerusalem

(Mark)

Jen and I have come across a few good nobrainer business opportunities since we started traveling nine months ago. By far the best was in China: with the incessant construction, we envisioned ourselves gloriously rich operating a business in cranes and scaffolding. In Israel, it seems the same is true of fencing, security perimeters, barbed wire, and concrete walls.

A short history for those unfamiliar: in 1516 the Ottomans captured Jerusalem from the remaining Crusaders. For four hundred years, Arabs built homes and mosques, planted their fields, raised their children. In 1917, Britain entered and Jews began moving to Jerusalem.

And then in 1948, the British left and Israelis won their state in the Arab-Israeli War. Four hundred years of Arab rule abruptly ended.

The city of Jerusalem was divided into western (mostly Jewish) and eastern (mostly Muslim) areas. Subsequently, Israel annexed East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War. (This is still the source of much contention, as most Palestinians view East Jerusalem as the potential capital of the Palestinian state. In addition, Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem has not been recognized by the international community.)

Fast forward to today, and it isn’t too hard to read between the lines—Israel is making a valiant attempt to portray a peaceful Jerusalem for the would-be tourist

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(us). It is our second day in the city, and upon returning to our hotel, we are blockaded from entering the Old City by dozens of police. A helicopter circles overhead. Multiple locals inform us it is simply routine security for a visiting diplomat. We later learn a Jewish rabbi was stabbed in the neck by an unknown assailant, in broad daylight.

This is only a few days after a deadly shooting at a Jewish seminary.

What about “the other side” of the story? We participate in a tour of East Jerusalem, led by a Palestinian, Abu Hassan,1 visiting portions of the separation barrier (the Israeli term is “security wall”; many Palestinians refer to it as the “annexation wall”) being built by Israel—a move Israel contends is necessary for national security. If the wall is indeed for security, Abu points out, why does the wall annex forty-six percent of the West Bank (wouldbe Palestine) and why it is often erected through the middle of Arab neighborhoods, separating families from families instead of Israelis from Palestinians? In the most egregious example, the wall makes a ninety degree turn at the home of an American woman, goes behind her house, turns again, and then continues unabated up the street.

Abu tells us she had sufficient connections with the US Embassy to ensure her house (and property value) didn’t end up, quite literally, on the wrong side of the fence.

I think again and again of the parallels to the Berlin Wall. But, this wall is three times as long and twice as high. It meanders, mostly ignoring the Green Line from the 1949 Armistice, even snaking to ensure wells stay on the Israeli side. (As a side note, Israel currently controls the majority of would-be Palestine’s water—Abu points out you can easily identify Palestinian settlements by looking for the black water tanks on the roofs, a telling sign of water scarcity.)

We stop along the wall of one Palestinian community.

The entrance is blocked. Flowing out from under it through 1 http://www.alternativetours.ps

PROOF large drainpipes is a stream of sewage. Abu explains, “Last week, the gate was slightly open—just enough to squeeze through. Now, they’ve closed it—to test us, see what we will do. People can only cross through the drainpipes now.

In a tour yesterday, we saw a woman coming through the drainpipe carrying a child. She stumbled and fell in the filth. As she rose and tore off her soiled coat, she cursed life and God and Israel and her ruined dress. It is humiliating.”

“Just imagine if this happened in your city and your home,” Abu repeatedly asks. “How would you feel if someone came, took your land, and bulldozed your home? Made it nearly impossible to go to work everyday?

Took your pride and humiliated you at every checkpoint?

Would you too become angry?”

We travel to Bethlehem (Palestine), which involves taking a short bus ride from Jerusalem, disembarking, walking through a checkpoint, and then continuing in a separate bus on the Palestinian side. On our return, we

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chat with a Palestinian gentleman on his way to Jerusalem for work. As he walks forward, his demeanor stiffens. He stands silent and uneasy as his paperwork is scrutinized, after which he is electronically fingerprinted (as he is everyday). Meanwhile, the same guard waves the two of us through without so much as a cursory glance—we barely flash our unopened passports. How is it that two people who live half a world away can travel more freely in a country than someone who lives a stone’s throw down the road?

It is clear to me I will never understand the quiet subtleties or the complex immensity of this conflict.

Leaving Israel, I realize the enormous spectrum of grays that color both sides; yet, so many hold out and push for a black and white solution. At the end of our tour, I ask Abu what he sees as an answer. Somberly, he replies, “We either learn to live together, or we die together.” Judging by his tone, I wonder if he has not already made up his mind. Yet, maybe naïvely, I still find myself praying it is peace that somehow prevails.

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Walking Into Life Lycian Way, Turkey

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When you walk, you experience life at the pace of a Turkish tortoise. Without a bus, without a boat, without a car, or without a plane, the world slows down— and you cannot help but slow down with it.

When you walk, you see the fuzzy buds on the spring tree, the tiniest flower that grows out of the crag of a rock, the spotted lizard that scurries away to his hideout “just in time”—as if his greatest fear of the day is the threat of your presence. Down below the cliff in the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean, you pause to watch transfixed as two sea turtles chase each other along the translucent surface.

The placid waters barely lap upon the rocks. Above, you hear the loud whir of the bees in the flowering tree tops pollinating for the coming season. A donkey brays his concerns in the distance. The frenzied flap of the pheasant is a little bit louder, a little more sudden, and a little more surprising when you walk.

An old woman bends over the greens of her garden.

Her patterned scarf hides the wispy hairs of her head. She looks up, smiles a hello, and then bends over again.

When you walk, you cannot avoid the old shepherd passing time in the grassy fields. Cigarette in hand and the only company his sheep, he eagerly moves in a limping gait toward our approaching figures: “Merhaba”—“hello”—we exchange greetings back and forth.

He points to Mark’s camera: “Picture?”

“Okay,” we say hesitantly, not wanting to be intrusive.

The man grins broadly; he immediately throws his arm over my shoulder, takes my hat off, and poses like a dignitary for his photo. Mark laughs, takes the shot, and then shows the shepherd. The man pinches his fingers together in an “O” of pleasure and presses them to his heart. He is delighted.

He takes our hands and leads us to the opening in the fence where the trail continues. We wave good-bye.

“Güle güle,” he calls back, “may you go with a smile.”

An older man and his wife sit outside their stone home, basking in the shade of the sunny day. A small wooden sign advertising a pension hangs above their door. We pass and they wave a hello. We are sweaty and hot, so stop for a moment to buy some water. “Deutsch?” the man questions?

“Ah, no,” we answer. “English.” He looks disappointed.

“Guten Tag!” Mark says enthusiastically. The man’s face lights up in recognition.

“Ich liebe dich,” I try in the only German I know. The couple emits a roar of laughter at the absurdity of my humble “I love you.” They wave us to sit down as the man scurries inside to bring us a cool bottle of water.

The woman rocks back and forth. Her flower-printed pants flutter around her legs in the slight breeze. The man pantomimes a question of our marriage, pointing to our ring fingers and then back to his and his wife’s own hands.

We smile and nod an assent, and then inquire with similar charades whether they have any children. Two, his fingers indicate. He points to us. No, we shake our heads, and then motion—next year. He laughs and slaps Mark on the back. We finish our water, pay our single lira, and wave good-bye. They both return our gesture. The man takes our glasses inside. The woman continues to rock slowly back and forth.

When you walk, the subtleties of life creep slowly through the needles of the pine trees until you cannot help but—stop.

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PROOF PROOF 93 (p91) Israel/Palestine separation wall graďŹƒti

(above) Along the Lycian Way, Turkey

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A Big Fat Turkish Wedding Selçuk/Ephesus, Turkey

(Mark)

Travel Rule Number Two: always say Yes if your first reaction is to say No. The more awkward you feel the situation might turn out, the more imperative it is that you answer in the affirmative. (Rule Number One, of course, is to always, always carry extra toilet paper.)

For example, if a local invites you to a Turkish wedding reception, you might think to yourself: “Wait, I don’t know the bride, groom, or, for that matter, anyone.

In fact, I just met the person inviting me, and how can I know he was invited?” Under normal circumstances, these would be great reasons to turn down any invitation. I beg of you — don’t do it.

After you agree, you may have further doubts. “What will I wear? My nicest zip-off pants, baggy from being washed and beaten over rocks for the past ten months?

My one collared T-shirt? Will they notice the Thai curry stain on the sleeve? The faded Indian curry stain across the front? The splashes of noodle grease from our disastrous hot pot meal?” Again, good questions, but try to ignore them as you roll on a few extra coats of cheap Egyptian deodorant, zip on the legs to your shorts, slip on your flip-flops, and head out the door.

Arriving, you may continue to question your companion— “Is my present of a box of Turkish Delight really appropriate? Or am I the butt of an ever growing Turkish joke? And, oh God, why is everyone staring?”

Ah, don’t worry. The fun hasn’t even begun.

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You might try to disappear by taking a table in the far corner. And you might be surprised to find yourself—zip-off pants, stained shirt, and all—broadcast on the screen in the center of the room. Yes, the hired cameraman has found you (let’s face it, you stick out) and is transmitting your pixilated, choppy (but rather fashionable in a grungy sort of way) image for everyone who couldn’t see into the dark recesses of the room. You will forever be referred to as “that random white guy” when the couple (whom you still have not met) watches their wedding video.

But, when the music starts, you may just realize there’s a bit of repressed Turk in you. And as the arms rise on the dance floor, the fingers snap to the varied Turkish beat, the hips begin to sway, and the smiles broaden, you may even try to coax your wife out of her seat to join in the festivities. An hour later, the coaxing having finally succeeded, you might find yourself in the middle of the dance floor, hands raised in the air (to your wife’s horror, but convinced that when in Rome...), dancing the night away to music you can’t sing along to, rhythms you can’t ever seem to pinpoint, and dance steps that are seemingly created on a whim out of the thin Turkish air.

As you head toward home, ears still buzzing from the Turkish techno, you might find yourself saying: “This was my kind of party. My kind of dancing. My kind of people.”

You just might fall asleep still smiling. And you just might wake up the next morning looking for the next chance, the next opportunity to say Yes when you know life would be simpler, but infinitely more boring, if you didn’t.

(The bride and groom, along with the entire extended family, welcomed us with open arms. We felt honored to be a bit Turkish for the evening.)

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PROOF PROOF 95 View of the Mediterranean along the Lycian Way, Turkey

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Trekking Toward Home Corfu Trail, Greece

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Odysseus’ last stop before he sailed home to the island of Ithica, and the island home for Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Corfu is the most verdant of Greece’s islands. Sage green olive groves dotted with tall, conical cypress trees smother the rolling hills of the island until the land ends abruptly in the emerald waters of the Ionian Sea. The English love it, the Germans crave it, and the Italians practically live here. But Corfu is also home to numerous Greek villagers of its own.

For eight days, we walk along the Corfu Trail, traversing the length of the island from south to north. Our path takes us through olive grove after olive grove and village after village, like connecting the dots of a jagged puzzle. In fact, I spend the entire first day thinking I am walking on thousands of goat turds, but then I realize… they are olives. We enter a village square and rest under the shade of an oak tree. At its only café, a group of men lounge for hours over single glasses of beer. They wave us over to sit and take a rest; we comply.

Later, an old woman riding side-saddle on a donkey startles us as we rest under the shade of an olive tree. The woman’s gypsy-like dress and her donkey draped in a multicolored striped blanket are straight out of Zorba the Greek.

Immediately, she begins yelling at us in Greek and waving us off the road. We look confused…. She continues yelling, so we stand up and back up a little out her way. She kicks her donkey and he creeps forward, skirting our very presence.

She leaves without another word.

Another day, a man working in his olive groves educates us in Greek-accented Italian about the price of olive oil. We follow him somewhat through our intermediate Spanish.

“Two ducats a bottle here, five at the store,” he says. He then shows us how the olives fall from the trees into his nets, which he then presses into oil. “Elsewhere in Greece,” he says in my loose translation, “they shake their trees. But here, we let the olives fall naturally.”

On Sunday, we pass through yet another small village when suddenly, a church procession surprises us in our tracks.

Wearing irreligious T-shirts and shorts, backpacks on, sweat dripping down our foreheads and faces, we can do nothing but stop. It is the church’s name day. The elders carry the icon of the saint as the church processes slowly behind it. The choir, dressed in traditional red-and-black Grecian village dress, sings hymns of worship. The orthodox priest swings incense back and forth and stops the procession directly in front of us to pray at a shrine, five feet from Mark. We shift in our boots and try to appear solemn and holy. As soon as the priest moves the group on, we scurry toward the trail.

When we are hungry, we sit under the shade of an olive tree and open our pack. Earlier in the morning, we had picked up a loaf of freshly made bread, crusty on the outside and soft and moist on the inside. We slice a fresh tomato and then layer on a bit of local cheese and some salami. For dessert, there are the oranges picked from a tree along the way.

There are no easy camping opportunities on the island of Corfu. So we reluctantly resign ourselves to a hot showers, comfortable beds, satellite TV’s, and jacuzzis at local hotels.

I throw open the Venetian windows overlooking the beach below and breathe deeply the sea air. For dinner, we stop at a local taverna. Over a carafe of homemade wine, we toast to our tzatziki, calamari, stuffed vine leaves, fresh salads topped with pungent olives, and slices of warm, fresh bread.

On our last day in Corfu, my mind begins to wander toward the concept of home. The local villagers of Corfu share their island home each season with the influx of sunbathing tourists. They share their olive oil and their wine, their culture and their music. And as I relax in our smart-looking, rented vacation apartment overlooking the Kalami Bay, I too long to be able to share my home with others. I feel comfortable and at peace about the forthcoming end to our year of travels. I am ready to come home.

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PROOF PROOF 97 Olive Grove: Corfu, Greece

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Two Travelers and Benevolent BUD The World The Bus, The Driver, The Vulnerability, The Dream– A Metaphor Of A Year On The Road…

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My watch reads 6:00 a.m. The greyness of the sky is just beginning to lift. This is the coldest part of the day, just at dawn, as the crispness of the morning breeze slowly creeps through my fleece. I shift in my chair, impatient. I am anxious to go.

Around me at the bus station, people begin to appear from the thinness of the morning. Toting enormous plaid market bags, duffel bags, corded boxes, or bundles of tied cloth, they lug their provisions toward the bus. An old woman hobbles forward on the arm of her daughter, her granddaughter dancing behind. A bony, scraggly stray dog darts from person to person in hopeful expectation. The station manager gives him a kick and shout, and the dog scurries away to the periphery, still in hope of a morning snack. Somewhere in a field, a rooster continues to announce the day.

And then he appears... the man for whom all have waited, the man who controls the lives of each person of this twelve hour day, the man who holds the power of life and death in the turn of wrist, a man of omniscience and generosity... a paper cup of steaming tea in one hand, and a cigarette in the other, The Bus Driver (bud) slowly saunters toward his coach.

With extreme particularity and the drama of a royal procedure, he unlocks the door to the bus. Instantly, people swarm forward, provisions in hand, in a racing mass toward the door. Indifferent to the chaos, bud backs away and waves a hand to his assistant, cigarette still resting languidly between

his fingertips. The young boy, perhaps in his late teens, begins to pack the roof of the bus with luggage. In an expertise only acquired through experience, bud shouts directions to the boy above. “Tie down the motorbike!” he yells. “Secure the TV!” The boy struggles with his ropes and tarp to comply.

Boxes are everywhere. People yell. The smell of a nondescript farm animal wafts in my direction. Unfettered by those around me, I scramble hurriedly aboard in search of the perfect seat, or for that matter, any seat. The daughter, keeping the crowd away with her elbows, helps her old mother slowly climb the steps above.

Luggage stowed, the assistant begins collecting fares. bud sits regally in his seat, overseeing all through his mirror above. Any arguments, any mis-payments, any manipulations, and bud will know. I walk to the front to communicate our vague destination. “No problem, no problem,” he says. “I know. You sit. No problem.” I smile and nod in response, a feeling of relief inside.

The daughter embraces her elderly mother with a few tears in her eyes as the old woman places a kiss on each cheek.

The daughter takes the hand of her little girl and steps down out of the bus; they stand together just outside the grandmother’s window. As bud starts the engine, the daughter and the little girl wave and wave as the bus slowly turns out of the station. We are on our way.

A handful of open seats remain. An empty seat equals an empty pocket. Creeping down the main road at the pace of a leisurely tortoise, bud waits for the expected wave and shout of a last minute rider running desperately toward his escaping ride. The assistant hangs outside the open door, shouting the day’s destination over and over in a song of his own composure. I groan with the sluggishness of the trip—some days I feel like all I do is sit and wait. bud stops and a woman with her load of vegetables climbs aboard. He stands up and helps her heave the heavy potatoes to the floor, stowing them out of the way. He continues on. A man and his son scurry from the opposite side of the road, and bud stops again. A few feet later, bud opens his door

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to the flagging of a young woman carrying two children and bag of clothes. He yells at a man in front to move, and then situates her in his seat. She smiles her gratitude. Further on an old man flags the bus down; a lengthy conversation ensues regarding his intended destination. bud shakes his head in negation, steps down from the bus, and points the old man in the appropriate direction. A man of compassion, strength, and a sage of directional information, bud is the impervious guidebook and undaunted guru to whom all turn.

The hours slowly pass as the sun creeps higher in the sky.

Sweat forms in little droplets on my neck, under my legs, under my shirt. I am never clean. I shift and feel it slowly slide down my spine. People open windows to breathe. bud, in his own effort to remain cool, merely lights another cigarette.

I drink too much water. I know I will have to pee, but I am hot. The processed, cardboard biscuits I swallowed for breakfast have turned my mouth to a cottony paste. I am thirsty, but my bladder is pressing resolutely against my side, unrelenting in its insistence. I shift again in my seat. bud continues.

A man scurries forward. I cannot hear his proposition over the rattling in my ears, but suddenly bud and his Olympian bladder begrudgingly pull to the side of the road. Us mere mortals jump to our feet. To the right, the men form a single long line of relief, smiles of satisfaction slowly spreading across their faces. I can do this, I repeat to myself.

I look to those around me to judge what to do; women scramble to the left, looking desperately for a tree or a bush or some tall grass—anywhere. Two sisters turn off the road, and I follow close behind. bud honks his horn in a series of announcements, checks his mirror to ensure all his flock has returned, and waits patiently for the old woman to return.

Every so often, bud comes to a brake-squealing stop next to a remote house or shop. He swings the door wide open and jumps out for a hello and a handshake, a friendly slap on the shoulder, or a quick shot of hot tea. He delivers a package and receives another for later. He is a man of his people, knowledgeable, capable, prevailing. Uninvited, we wait patiently, merely spectators of this world.

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A few more hours pass. My biscuits and banana are long eaten. I shift in and out of sleep. Outside my window, the land drops dramatically below. The bus speeds around one mountainous curve and then the next. Life and death of fifty passengers and the assistant are in the hands of this one man.

Commander of the road, captain of curves, bud appears confident. I only hope he values his own life as much as I value mine. Next to me, a lady groans as she presses a plastic bag to her mouth. A baby behind me cries. bud and our year speed on.

Just as we turn yet another corner, I catch my breath in the beauty of the view before me. The forested, snow-spotted peaks line the horizon beyond. Below, homes and fields paint a postcard pattern across the land. Life moves. There is no other place I would rather be.

The ride continues in the same unceasing manner until the sun sinks again behind the distant hill. The lights of the houses flicker in the darkness. And just when I cannot sit another minute in my hopeless repose, when I cannot tolerate another day of submission, and when I cannot endure bud’s insouciant reign over my life and bladder any further, he pulls into our destination amid a flurry of taxis in a paparazzi pursuit.

I step off this final bus in a frenzy of people and luggage and pause to catch my balance. The old grandmother, the young woman and her two children, the dogs, the chickens and the vegetables, the noise and the serenity—they are all vital pieces of this world once so foreign to me. Without them and without bud, I never would have had the courage to take this step, either on or off this bus. A little more patient, a little more flexible, and a little bit wiser, I am now a composition of culture.

Time has passed so slowly, yet so quickly. bud’s reassuring nod has pacified my nervousness time and time again. We have arrived—with both our luggage and a story. Oblivious to his metaphor of my world, bud lights another cigarette and walks away into the darkness. Fighting my way to my bag and swinging it over my shoulder, I too turn toward home—prepared to drive our dream forward.

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Thank you to all who have helped with revisions of this book: Marlaine Beratta, Carrie Cooper, Tim Denison, Adam and Megan Evans, Chris Jacquin, Julie McEldowney, Julie Kelly, Bill and Janie Shepard, and Meagan Taylor. A huge thank you to Jenise Rosa for her multiple, endless revisions. And again to Megan Evans, who expertly designed the cover and format of the book.

Thank you to Grandpa Jones for a dedicated and methodical collecting and cataloging of each and every blog article we wrote and photo we took of our trip, which formed the basis of this book. And to Grandma Tutu, we thank you for implanting in us the belief that writing a book was possible.

Thank you to our parents—Bob and Debbie Berwick and Bill and Janie Shepard—who endured infrequent phone calls, random emails, and prolonged silences from their children. Your constant encouragement, surprise notes of support, and plethora of storage space empowered us more than you will know.

To our two nephews, Lukas and Ethan, may you learn to love this world and all the people in it.

And we thank above all, God, who in His infinite humor, chooses to humble us in so many ways, yet continues to push us further than we ever thought possible.

100 Yangshuo, Guangxi, China

PROOF

acknowledgments

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PROOF 101 Tagong, Sichuan, China