Indian Love Stories

Our first sleeper, to Varanasi: 12 or 13 hours in a rowdy train car packed with Indians, rambling westward through the night. The sleeper cars are lined three high with plastic bunk beds, and the windows have steel bars instead of glass. It's a real adventure! Also a real test in patience and fortitude-- it gets really cold at night, and there are one thousand and one noises happening at once: people talking, laughing, arguing, snoring loudly, testing cellphone ring tones, playing high pitched Indian pop music, hocking horrible loogies through the window grates... The first night was the worst night, but we stepped out bleary-eyed into the hazy sun of Varanasi alive and with all our limbs intact.

Varanasi was not, however, the holy refuge from New Delhi that we might have been expecting... It was just as busy, only a bit smaller and had a ton of cow shit deposited in every secret alleyway and open space. Apparently if you die or are cremated on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi, your soul is lifted from the cycle of reincarnation and you go straight to wherever Hindus dream of going when they die. Subsequently, there is a lot of holy (and unholy) activity going on at all hours of the day and night, on the steps of the giant ghats lining the riverside. People bathing ceremoniously, washing clothes, praying, splashing around, drinking and eating, washing dishes, washing their water buffaloes, selling boat rides, tossing garbage, going to the bathroom, burying their dead... It's an unbelievable sight and just a lot to take in all at once.

On the cremation ghats: At any given time throughout the city, the feint sound of chanting rises in some faraway corner and gets louder and louder until a group of men march by, enthusiastically shouting in unison and carrying on bamboo sticks a colorfully decorated and bedazzled human corpse. Hello sir or madam! They squeeze past passersby in the narrow streets that lead to the cremation ghats, where there are bundles of wood (sandalwood is the most expensive) and specific pyres upon which members of different castes are burned. I almost lost my lunch at the sight of it-- a real burning woman-- and at the smell of it. Once roasted, they are all tossed into the river and bid a final adieu. How anyone can then drink that water is unfathomable to me, but they do. A scruffy kid took us on a boat ride at dawn and proudly explained how only real Indians could drink the Ganges water, and tourists can't because they get sick. Good for you, I thought.

Some highlights: J got a class-A shave right on the Ganges, and now wears a dapper little mustache like everyone else. We had the best lassies in India, and saw a baby monkey electrocuted on haphazard wires above-- and then spring back to life amidst a crowd of cheers! I saw an old man gathering tiny puppies in a hectic alley and tossing them lovingly into a hole in the wall, out of harm's way. India is an intense place-- sometimes little moments like this make a big difference.

From there, we went to Khajuraho and saw those famously erotic temples-- the only ones of their kind to have survived the destruction of Muslim conquerers, who apparently did not appreciate graphic depictions of people doin' it. It had been a tiny dream of mine to someday see those temples in person, instead of in an art history textbook; being there, standing in their long shadows, one hot day in rural India... It was pretty good! We journeyed on to Agra and saw yet another expression of love set in stone: the Taaaaaj Mahaaaal. What a thing of beauty. They call it a "teardrop on the cheek of eternity". Its creator said that "the moon and sun shed tears from their eyes when they saw it". All true! We were expecting a cheesy tourist trap, and were pleasantly blown away. It's so huge, and so mathematically perfect, and in the same pristine condition as the day it was built. It's actually a mausoleum built by a heartbroken king after his favorite wife died giving birth to their 14th child. It took over 20 years to build, and shortly after its completion, the king's son overthrew him and forced him to live in a sort of exile in Agra Fort, where he was able to gaze wistfully at the Taj from a tiny window across the river... For 8 long years. When he died, his tomb was placed next to that of his wife and remains to this day the only asymmetrical component of the whole big thing. An Indian love story for sure

That's enough writing for now. We're rolling on to Rajasthan, the Land of Kings: where mustachioed men in white turbans will sit high on embroidered cushions, exhaling deep plumes of hookah smoke and laughing at our whiteness and our western shoes.

10:00AM
Jodphur, India

J getting Hepatitis 

wet sari

this

Life on the Ganges

Just three weeks in India feels like.. Three months. What have I been up to? Intrepidly exploring the culinary secrets of New Delhi street food, practicing yoga in the Himalayan foothills, meditating in the chilly morning hours before dawn, making new and international friends, singing 'kumbaya' around a hippie dippy bonfire, reading and writing, unexpectedly having the time of my life...

For real! I was so nervous about going solo around India, being a lone female in a sea of men, having to figure out where to go and how to get there, but things are never as dire as they first seem; time alone turned into a happy, cathartic adventure and now I just feel like a brand new Galen.

So, a few days in an ashram and a few doing yoga. At the ashram, a naturopathic healer was in town lecturing on the magic of nature and ways to live a long, healthy life-- the secrets of mud, sunlight, salt and water were revealed at long last! This healer-- 70 years old, snappy old turtle of an Indian lady, vice prez of the Int'l Naturopathy Association, the Indian prime minister's doctor AND the singer Jewel's personal doctor on the Pieces of You Tour!!! What a woman, and what a message too. I made a resolution to live very differently when I get home-- more raw foods, less meat, more mindfulness, less medication, less coffee, etc. I met a 104 year old swami who was the picture of good health-- all his teeth in tact, fit as a fiddle-- who started living naturally in 1927. There's something to it I think! Somebody remind me of this when I come home to the land of the cheeseburger.

I also ran into some people in and around Rishikesh that were a total joy to spend time with -- a French Canadian girl, a Brit on her way to a new life in San Diego, an Alaskan firefighter, an Indonesian Californian, a bearded Burning Man musician.. Together we laughed and played, sang songs and shared stories, hung out on the Ganges and enjoyed getting to know one another. We went to THE original ashram where the Beatles stayed in 1968 (now abandoned, overgrown and run by monkeys) and sipped on the (reputedly) best chai in India. It was nice hanging with girls for a change (traveling with boys all the time can be a real drag) and especially nice finding my kind of people so far away from home. They're not hard to find! You just have to look!

So, I came back from Rishikesh refreshed, rejuvenated, reenergized, reorganized and ready to meet J and start our next big adventure. He met me in New Delhi right off his mountain retreat to the top of Mt. Kinabalu in Borneo, so he was of a similar mindset. It felt good to spend a little time apart, and good to reunite again happy and new. Plus, I took him around New Delhi like a total pro and booked our train tickets and knew all the ins and outs of India according to our guide book and the internet. What else do you really need? Two of us, our backpacks light and essential, new shoes, postcards and packages mailed, parents phoned, bottle of water, list of places to go... Varanasi, Khajuraho, Agra, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodphur, Udaipur, Goa, Mumbai, Hampi, Kerala: we're ready to paint them all red! There will be blood...

7:16 PM
Varanasi, India

PS: up in Rishikesh, where it's cleaner and colder, I swam ceremoniously in the Ganges River! I dunked three times and washed my sins away! What a world :)

Lord Shiva 

swami

Beatles Ashram

A Sea of Moustaches

New Delhi is, hands down, the craziest city I have ever been in. How can I even describe it?! It's noisy, filthy, dusty, colorful, smelly, and teeming with more Indian people than I have ever seen in my life. It's a sea of moustaches. There are 20 million of them here, and it seems as though all of them have at some point asked me what my name is, where I am from, where I am staying, how long I will be in India, etc. It's a real exercise in willpower to refrain from responding politely to every tug on your sleeve, but if I didn't ignore it I'd be locked in conversation (or someone's dodgy scheme) from morning til night.

Some things here are nice-- people are generally courteous (hello madam thank you madam) and the weather is sunny and temperate. I'm staying in a great big bazaar, so I went out and bought all sorts of special treats for unfathomably low prices. For example: sending an international postcard costs... 15 cents. Everything under the sun is for sale and it is all super cheap. Silk saris, car batteries, bushels of bananas, sticks of incense, bags of herbs and spices, bootlegged DVD's, monkey leather handbags, hashpipes and wallets and brassieres and vegetables and big glasses of milk and every single other thing one could ever imagine. I indulged in some comfortable shoes, a pair of sunglasses, some conservative clothing (sounds like the perfect disguise). It's important to wear long pants and keep your shoulders covered here, and my skinny jeans and tank tops weren't cutting it. Now I can go out into the light of day again!

Other things about New Delhi are decidedly not nice. The pollution is god-awful and the sunlight just sort hangs in the air in a smoggy, stinking haze. They weren't kidding about all the homeless little kids mingling around; it's really hard to say no to a hungry four year old, but there are just so many of them and there's only so much you can give. The common street scene in general just isn't all that pleasant: cars, scooters, and rickshaws barreling through crowds of people, kids running through the legs of cows carrying loads of bricks, lopsided cripples, people thrusting wristwatches and zipdrives into your face, women begging with nude babies in their arms, men urinating in a sidewalk urinal, food being cooked and eaten on the ground, lots of shouting and talking and laughing, stray dogs sleeping or dying right in the middle of it all... It's a sight to behold and a hard thing to get used to. This is India!

Actually not true; I keep running into other travelers that all say that New Delhi is the worst of it, and that it's a completely different experience than the rest of the country. With that in mind, I've decided to take a trip north for a week to Rishikesh, a town at the base of the Himalayas and on the banks of the Ganges River. Apparently, it's a very holy pitstop for Hindus who make a pilgrimage to the mountains. For me, there are assorted ashrams where I can stay for a week and do yoga, meditate, read and write, work on my inner yogi, etc. The Beatles went there in 1968 and loved it! I thought I'd give it a try, since J isn't coming for another two weeks (much to my great annoyance) and I don't want to spend all that time waiting for him in this dense shithole of a city. There are way more men than women out in public; at any given time, I'm surrounded by men, and most of them are staring at me. Being a woman alone here has been a little more daunting than I expected, and I imagine it will be easier once I get out of the urban sprawl. My mom is somewhat miffed about the whole situation, but I've been skyping her nightly to let her know that everything will be alright, and I'm feeling better about it every day. I miss J, but it feels good to miss him, and I'm looking forward to the day when he comes to New Delhi and we resolve our differences and kiss and make up and begin our Indian odyssey together.

Until then... Who knows what the days will bring! It's good to be alive!

7:36PM
New Delhi, India

Up In the Air

Several days before leaving Bali, J and I got into a minor motorbike accident. We hit an enormous pothole going down the slope of this mountain, and we flew and tumbled and hit the ground hard. I've got some road rash, and J thinks he might have broken his collarbone, but it's a miracle nothing worse happened. The bike was fine, we were both wearing helmets, and we rode home a little shaken--but all in one piece.

I feel like that is the point where things really soured. We (me and J) have been having some problems getting along and the accident just sort of set things in motion. I won't get into details of our disputes, as they are numerous and trivial. Wa wa wa.

So we left Bali-- it was an amazing island. We arrived in Singapore and spent our time with the sisters Woon and their family, who were all gracious and super cool people. I think we got caught up in the activity of planning our next moves (booking tickets, buying supplies) and making decisions, because we (me and J) evidently offended them bigtime by overstaying our welcome in their home, an oversight for which I am truly sorry.

In the end, I decided not to join them on their trip to Borneo, and instead to just hightail it to India. J and I probably need some time to be apart, I didn't want to hang with his friend Claude anymore, and mostly I just didn't want to spend a week in Borneo feeling angry and hurt and unresolved with J and a bunch of strangers. I hope they have a good time.

So that's it. I got on a plane, spent a long and very sad night awake at the international airport in Kuala Lumpur, then boarded a flight to New Delhi the next morning.

I never thought I'd be alone in India, but here I am.

4:07PM
New Delhi, India

Bali Bali Bali

What's not to love about Bali? We got here a week and a half ago and it's been one happy, silly adventure thus far; upon arriving, we met up with J's friend Claude and his friends Vic and Caroline, two sublime Singaporean sisters he had been traveling with in weeks prior. They went home and we took Claude, and together the three of us have been rolling along our Indonesian odyssey in the highest of spirits. It's a little more fun with three, I think-- more stories, more laughs, more fart sounds, etc. Claude is funny and interesting, so it's been extra nice traveling with him and hearing his take on the whole lot.

Bali is... Amazing! We rented someone's car for a week and we've been cruising all over the island-- to the southern coast, rife with obnoxious Australian tourists and surfer-dude culture; to lush and leafy Ubud, where vicious monkeys beg for bananas and beautiful Balinese women peddle handicrafts and suckling pig; to the mountains, to the dry and rocky western coast, where the mountains loom over the ocean and the scuba diving is world-class... We went everywhere and got lost everywhere and it was all a gas. The landscape changed so drastically along our course, especially for such a small island. One minute we were up along the green edge of a volcanic crater, looking out and over endless slopes of idyllic rice paddies and stretches of jungle.. And then half an hour later, all the trees disappeared and there were kilometers of arid grassland and burning piles of leaves and black volcanic rock. J taught Claude how to drive stickshift on the left side of the road (just like he taught me in the land down under!) and even that was fun, until Claude got behind the wheel, when it became a death ride in this poor random guy's personal vehicle (I can just hear J now: "It's okay! If we lose the car, we lose the car!") Practice makes perfect, Cloudy!

We put our new AOW scuba licenses to good use in Tulemban, and saw every single amazing sea creature in the Java Sea-- rays, turtles, sharks, big bumphead parrotfish and cute little box fish and funny little shrimps that cleaned your cuticles and climbed into your mouth and cleaned your teeth if you let them. What a strange delight! We dove at night in the USS Liberty shipwreck (originally beached after WWII, but sunk officially to sea in the great eruption of 1963) which was eerie and bad ass in every way.

What else may be said? They call Bali the "island of the gods" and they're not far off their mark. People here are so warm and friendly and quick to smile, and the women and girls are all beautiful and radiant with their natural allure. Nudity's not a big deal here (the rest of Indonesia is predominantly Muslim, and naturally nude=lewd) so we've had the pleasure of seeing lots of brown bodies in all their glory. Old ladies walk down the road with baskets of fruit on their heads and wrinkly bare breasts to their navals, all skin and toothless grins... We went rafting down a winding river, and around every corner there were nude men and women just bathing and splashing and having fun. Near the end, our boat was ambushed by a large group of maybe 15 nude little boys who scrambled aboard and nearly overthrew our guide-- probably somebody's big brother. Hearing their peals of laughter, seeing their joyous leaps into the water and watching them climb over the stone walls and scamper around with their little wieners bouncing like cashew fruits against their sleek brown bodies... It was a sight to behold, hysterically funny and heart warming in every way.

Bali has been a major highlight of our big trip, and I feel so lucky to have seen so much of it, to have found Claude along the way, to have had such an easy and happy go of it here... We're figuring out our next move this week, and it looks like we're going to join Claude and the Sisters Woon on a journey to Borneo, Malaysia. I'd like to spend more time exploring other parts of Indonesia, but that requires a more expensive visa and besides that, Borneo has some of the most dense and colorfully populated rainforests in the world, and the boys really want to spend time with some orangutans. Can you blame them?

6:42PM
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

KL

We chose Kuala Lumpur because it was close enough to bus to, and because flights to Indonesia were way cheaper than they would have been from the now-flooded city of Bangkok (their international airport has since been shut down). It took us about 12 hours to get in, and the whole time I was reading this grueling Steven King story about a group of boys walking hundreds of miles without resting to win a great prize or die trying (The Long Walk, when he was writing as Richard Bachman) and it made the whole drive seem that much longer.

Kuala Lumpur is described as a clean, modern, melting pot of a city-- Singapore's more authentic sister, gleaming and proud, carved right out of the oldest jungle on earth. It had, for a slim period of time, some of the world's tallest buildings, and beautiful government buildings and rail stations and mosques, a hopping arts district, scrumptious delicacies of one hundred different cuisines wafting through the air...

But, expectations are the blue prints for disappointment (words of wisdom ala PT!) We got into that foreign city at two in the morning (the bus driver tried to let us off on the side of the highway, but luckily this Malay kid on board told him how to get to the station) and it was pouring rain. We searched for about an hour before we settled on a tiny room in Chinatown, and felt grateful just to have a bed.

I was glad to only spend a few days in Kuala Lumpur, because it's almost as expensive as Singapore and definitely not as nice as they would have you believe. Garbage is piled high in every alley way, on windowsills and rooftops, in deep trenches by the roadside, and it stinks. It rained quite a bit, and the water steeped all sorts of different smells-- people, stray animals, trash, urine, cooking food, car exhaust-- into a thick stench that rose from the ground and hung at nose level in the heat of the day.

Going from neighborhood to neighborhood was fun, since the ethnic groups that inhabit each section are so different from one another. Burkas and halal food in the Moslem section, fast Cantonese and roasted hanging ducks in Chinatown, high pitched music coming from every single store front in Little India--a sea of little dark mustaches and the sickly sweet mixture of incense and curry.

We busied ourselves writing postcards and reading books. We visited a bird sanctuary and the KL tower (just another phallus on the landscape, I thought). We spent an afternoon in a panicky scramble after we discovered our tickets to Indonesia had been cancelled without warning; always good to check and make sure!

We spent the rest of our time meandering around and getting lost in what turned out to be, more or less, just another big, dirty city in Southeast Asia. Here's a funny thing about sidewalks in KL- they're tiled like a bathroom floor (maybe to look cleaner?) and they're slippery as all hell when they're wet. I never had a spill (J ate it down a flight of stairs in a park, not as hilarious as it sounds) but there were many moments spent almost slipping-- camera in your hand, heart in your throat, crowd of people standing by.. Who the hell tiles the sidewalk in a city where it rains once a day?

On one particularly awful night, in a sketchy hostel where the mattress didn't even come with a sheet, and where construction noises screeched endlessly from morning til night, J awoke to the sound of a woman being hustled against her will into some dark room across the hall. She kept on shouting "No! No! No!" and then there was the sound of many locks clicking shut on the door, and then two men standing guard, just shooting the shit. What could we do? Go out and try to help her, and get knifed and robbed, or worse? It was just sickening and heart breaking, and probably not that unusual. This was when we decided we didn't like Kuala Lumpur.

We left on a Sunday and spent seven restless hours waiting at the airport for our delayed flight, itching to be in Indonesia already. The whole time in KL felt like a long game of waiting. How many days were we there? Four? Five? What did we do that whole time? I have a Malaysian stamp in my passport, but that's about it. Time spent getting from one place to another can feel so dreamlike and vaguely uncomfortable. I wonder how people do those lightning stints of travel-- "Europe in one month!" or "3 weeks, 6 countries, see all of Asia!" We met folks along the way who had it all figured out; maybe they had purchased a big tourist package, or they were still high on the thrills of their last adventure in Cambodia, or they were gearing up for a big jump to Australia.. Seemed like they left very little time to be present and to reflect, which is maybe why we needed a layover in Kuala Lumpur. In-between travel time is good for that -- musing on the move. We weren't alone; there were scraggly backpackers, making their lazy way to the next island, anonymous bodies lying on the floor of a dark night ferry, speeding moped riders with their faces hidden, weaving through traffic and swerving past stray dogs, so many people in transient circumstances-- and us, moving through all of it, trying to get from one place to another and collecting little pieces along the way.

And trying not to lose any of them!


10:29PM
Bali, Indonesia

Leaving Thailand

So, with our minds made up and our bags packed, we set out on a long journey from Koh Tao to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The night ferry left at 10 and it was packed with a hundred salty, sunburned travelers like ourselves. It was a seven hour trip to the port city of Chumphon and we spent that time fitfully sleeping shoulder to shoulder on a hundred sticky plastic mattress pads lining the floor of the ferry. Foot stink, varied snores and breathing patterns, low murmurings in different languages, the rumble of the engine and the deep sway of the ocean... It was dank and dirty and when the boat pulled into Chumphon, that city was also dank and dirty, and mostly deserted at 5 in the morning. A fat, pushy Thai woman at the bus station insisted to Jeff that we would need Malaysian money at the border, for visas or something, and in the haze of dawn and sleeplessness we exchanged our baht for ringgits and lost some money in the transaction-- undoubtedly part of her early morning traveller scam. It was disheartening to say the least, to have it happen again because our guards were down, to be taken advantage of by another Thai person with a trick up her sleeve.

We had planned to spend a little more time in Thailand-- go up north and see beautiful Chiangmai, maybe catch a boxing match in Bangkok.. but the monsoons really tore heavily through the northern provinces this year and it felt like it was time to leave. We might return to before we fly out to India, but it seems far away enough to put it out of mind for now.

Some thoughts on Thailand upon our departure: a lot of people used skin whitening cream, and smeared it on their faces every day, like white guano. Men, women, and so many little girls and even infants. They sold it in 7 11's, grocery stores, street vendors and markets. Familiar name brands that sell anti aging products in the US have special products like "pearl whiteness cream" and "lightening serum" and "magic beauty advanced bleaching moisturizer" and all sorts of horrible gimmicky names like that. I took a class in college about the politics of skin color (which I've always taken for granted, being light-skinned and all) and it was sad to see it so naturally incorporated into the culture in Thailand, where all of the magazine covers feature stone white Asian faces and even the photos of political figures are touched up to look lighter. During our time on Sairee Beach, the cutest little toddler girl near our place was scampering about the sand and singing little Thai songs, smiling and giggling all the while with big splotchy patches of dried white cream on her cheeks. Didn't anyone think she was perfect and beautiful just the way she was?

Another thing: I think that Thai women really resent western women coming around with their outspokenness and brazen attitudes, and they don't do much to hide their disdain. I read a book about the culture and politics of Thailand, and it talked a lot about national values and the place of women. Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia to never have accepted foreign occupation (minus the Kmer regime) and they hold onto a tough mistrust of the dreaded farang (western person). Their economy depends on western tourism, and Thai women are in a unique position to take advantage of that unique group of men who come to Thailand especially for them. Old white men every where (Australian, Englishmen mostly) had teeny Thai girlfriends at their sides, tottering around on high heels with an air of pride and confidence. These women are the sole breadwinners of their families back north; they pay for their siblings' schooling, put food on the table, pay off the lien on the family farm. It's a hard pill to swallow, and the only other option is some shitty factory job for 12 hours a day.

Then I ride into town on my high white horse with my prized white boyfriend, and I buy a bikini and a Mai Tai with a big wad of western money, and I'm so young and unburdened by the difficulties of Thai life, and I guess it all just seems unfair. Hippy dippy western feminism tells you that all women are "spiritually connected" by that "internal bond" of womanhood, but with the smoldering looks from Thai women and the contempt that sneaks through their broken English, I've never felt so estranged from the sisterhood, sotospeak. It's sad and completely understandable. I guess it's just a mighty big world we live in.

So, goodbye Thailand, and tuk tuks and long boats, beautiful limestone karst formations on the horizon, banana shakes and pad Thai. Goodbye roadside beer bottles full of gasoline for sale, scuba friends and the Thai beers we shared, little hut by the beach where we nested beneath a mosquito net and dreamed of our next adventure. An archipelago called Indonesia...

8:02PM
KL, Malaysia

Koh Tao

It took a while, but we made it to Koh Tao, or "turtle island", far off the eastern coast of southern Thailand. From the moment we stumbled off the night ferry, bleary-eyed at first daylight, ragged from travel and days of rain.. It's been paradise.

Like, literally paradise: white sandy beaches, clear blue waters lapping at the shore, palm trees and coconuts and barbecues on a deck overlooking the sunset, cold Thai beers and fire dancers on the beach, frogs croaking peacefully at night... Whereas the rest of Thailand is currently flooded under several meters of rain water in a record monsoon season, Koh Tao has been the opposite: blissfully rainless, sunny and hot and slightly breezy since we arrived one week ago. Yay!

We haven't been sipping coconuts and lounging on the beach all day, however. We hit the books, went back to class, studied and practiced and became PADI Certified Advanced Open Water Divers! We can tell you all about it now: setting up your equipment, doing your checks, monitoring your gauges, using an underwater compass, understanding your dive computer, navigating the depths... We did a total of nine dives-- to different reefs around the island, to depths of 30 meters, to a real a shipwreck off the coast... We even did a night dive, which was far-out. Being down in complete darkness and seeing all the plankton shimmer and glow, watching the stingrays ripple across the sand, swimming right next to a great big barracuda on the hunt, oh man! We did it all and it was all amazing.

I had previously dived once, with my mom in St. John. It's such an amazing feeling-- being completely weightless and free, twirling through a school of fish, looking down and seeing the most beautiful and complex creature, looking up at the distant glimmering surface, silent and miles away...I've always, always wanted to get certified, so this has been a major life accomplishment for both me and J. Now we can go diving anywhere in the whole world, all on our own. We can search for treasure, explore unbelievable ecosystems, tour shipwrecks, swim with sharks, study rare species, dive down to every beautiful corner of the whole world. To top it off, Koh Tao is one of the very best places to learn (calm and warm waters, abundant wildlife, super cheap, etc) and we had a great time with our dive school, which put us up free of charge in their beautiful resort all week. Not a bad deal!

Besides diving twice a day and learning all about the aquatic life in the gulf of Thailand, we've done a little exploring around the island, some snorkeling, enjoying delicious Thai food and beach barbecues and movies on English TV channels, which have all been supreme luxuries. We rented scooters and scooted all over the island on dirt roads that were more like obstacle courses-- very dangerous but also thrilling (as long as you've got a helmet on). We found secluded little corners, booze-fueled parties on the beach, bays and nooks that were quiet and peaceful, gigantic limestone boulders, perfect for high jumping into the clearest waters 40 feet below...

It doesn't get a whole lot better than this. I keep saying how lucky we are, and so blessed to be on this wonderful island. I'm almost afraid to leave-- everywhere else in Thailand is being ravaged by rain (Bangkok is even preparing for an evacuation) so our plans are kind of up in the air. Do we take our chances going up to Chiangmai, even if the roads are washed out? Do we cut our losses and skip over to Indonesia for a few weeks? Today is our day to sit down at an Internet cafe (on the beach) and figure out our next move, buy some plane tickets, doodle down some definitive plans, etc. We could easily stay here for a month and every day would be the same, happy routine of sunshine and fruit smoothies.

Sounds nice, but we're in it for the adventure! Gotta keep on moving on, as always.

8:26AM
Koh Tao, Thailand

Advanced Open Water Divers!

amazing Korean barbeque

our secret cove

Rai Leh

The good thing about staying in Krabi (probably the only good thing) is its proximity to other desirable little nooks along the Andaman Coast. They have these boats called "longtails", which are basically traditional Thai fishing boats refitted with obnoxious motors, and for a reasonable fee (100 baht, about three bucks) they'll take you across the high seas to nearby island destinations. Our dreams of island hopping were washed away by the rain (all day every day, unfortunately) but we DID get to check out the coastal town of Rai Leh, which is isolated by giant limestone karst formations and accessible only by boat.

Once there, (and after waiting out a flash of monsoon weather) we found beaches, swathes of green jungle, and amazing limestone cliffs ascending from the bluest waters. There was a cave tucked into one end of the eastern shore called "phranang cave", after the princess who (according to local lore) was killed by jealous fishermen. Inside the cave, a shrine had been built in her honor, and now fishermen come from all over to ask for luck, good fortune and fertility. For this supposed reason, there are hundreds ad hundreds of hand-carved, red-tipped wooden phalluses strewn all over the whole cave-- I guess as gifts for the princess? Big ones, little ones, some carved into the stumps of wood on the beach... After all the statues of the Buddha around these parts, it was nice to see a little variety!

We also did a little rock climbing, down to a deep, hidden lagoon in the jungle. What a dangerous and totally awesome time this was! It was wet and slippery and muddy, and the mud was bright red and clay-like in consistency. It was so steep in some places that we had to lower ourselves down (and climb back up!) on a series of slimy, knotted ropes that someone had set up there. It was a little scary, since I've never done that sort of thing before and the conditions were so extreme. By the time we got to the bottom, both of us were streaked all over with red clay, like war paint, feeling very badass and accomplished. The lagoon was so still and silent, light blue (too murky to take a dip, I thought) with walls of stalagmites and green foliage looming up and around a circle of daylight above us. No ripples in the water, and only the sounds of our voices echoing around the walls. It felt so prehistoric and awesome being down there, like we had fallen into the land of the lost and were suddenly the only people on an ancient and wild planet.

Other than our awesome adventure at Rai Leh (the only sun we've had all week) things in Krabi have been pretty quiet. We rented a moped and scooted all over the place, to different corners of the providence and back to the sea. We climbed up to the Temple of the Tiger, which sits atop of a 1,237 step flight of stairs up the side of a big mountain. Those stairs were pretty rough, but after Yosemite I feel like we can handle anything. On top of the mountain there was an enormous statue of the Buddha, which looked across the landscape and out to sea-- very windswept and romantic.

Up there, I said a little prayer that we would have better weather this week. Rather than tempt the fates, however, we've decided this morning to hightail it out of Krabi in search of a little sunshine-- on the eastern gulf coast island of Koh Tao, to where we are currently en route. At the very least, it'll be a change of scenery... Krabi-town is all played out.

5:27PM
Surat Thani, Thailand

How did they get it all the way up there?

J

Phranang Cave

...and Penis Shrine

A Secret Lagoon

Bangkok

Bangkok is a big, weird, dirty, confusing place. We landed last week and immediately became dizzy and disoriented; whereas the public transportation in Singapore was super efficient and easy to use and labeled in many languages, directing its diverse constituents around a clean and modern city... Bangkok was more or less the exact opposite. ALL signs in squiggly Thai, totally confusing layout, dirty and crowded and noisy as hell. To top it off, most people don't speak English here, so it's hard to know who to turn to for help.

[sidenote: the language barrier is fine by us-- it's a little imperialistic to expect English out of everyone, and anyway J has been brushing up on his Thai with a handy phrasebook, so mostly we're okay. It was interesting, though, coming from Singapore-- where everyone speaks several languages and they even have public service billboards asking, "How well does your child speak English?" with a cute Malay kid next to an empty speech bubble. It just doesn't appear that the language barrier is a big concern here, for so many reasons-- variety of ethnic groups and economic classes, perceived differences between urban and provincial Thais, anti-western sentiments in the media and the government, who knows what else. I'm reading a great book right now called "Thailand Unhinged" about all this stuff.]

What makes it even harder to get around-- the people who DO speak any bit of English are the ones trying to bamboozle you! The very second we stepped out of the train station, a man came up to us out of nowhere and offered a veritable fountain of information-- he even took our map and circled all the temples and interesting sights, where to get something to eat, where to stay in the city, where the "government tourism agency" was, etc. He said that Banglampur (the neighborhood where we were headed) was flooded, and that people were leaving in droves to stay in other parts of the city. He sent us on a sort of wild goose chase, and in the end we discovered that our 'hood was not flooded, that people were not fleeing, and that he had just been trying to sell us some ridiculous vacation package. If that sounds frustrating, imagine that it happened four or five more times, mostly with tuk-tuk drivers (a tuk-tuk is a gassy, sputtering three-wheeled motorcycle taxi found all over Thailand. The drivers harangue you incessantly with "Hey you! Where you go!" over and over again) who will basically tell you anything so that you'll hop on for the ride. We were inadvertently taken to tailor shops and coerced into having suits made (somehow we resisted..) taken to temples that were only open to westerners for "government holiday", told to go south, told to go north, told all sorts of untruths and misled in every direction. It's a little disheartening, being in a new and unfamiliar place and feeling like you can't trust anyone you meet.

In the end, we bought (and overpaid for) bus tickets to Krabi, on the southern Andaman Coast. The lady who sold us the tickets also convinced us to book two weeks at a little bungalow stay in this tiny beach town, which was unwise of us to agree upon because it's been raining more or less every day we've been here and there isn't a whole lot to do but wait it out.

We'll try to figure out somewhere else to go, if the rain doesn't let up. Missing my family, missing my friends, trying to keep a chin up, even in the rain..

11:49AM
Ao Nang, Thailand

PS - In other news, Amanda Knox was just released! I don't know if anybody else has been following that story but I just saw the verdict and shed a happy little tear for her... You go girl!

Strange Dreams in Singapore

Singapore is the stepping stone to Southeast Asia, they say. It's clean, urban, user-friendly, English-speaking, and easy to connect to other countries in the surrounding area. And it was the cheapest flight we could find out of SFO, so we decided to wing it over here and lay over for a few days before going to Bangkok.

We found that Singapore was indeed exactly as described, more expensive than we thought, and not all that special. We stayed in the neighborhood of Little India, which was pungent and colorful and filled with Indian sights and smells: garish gold costume jewelry for sale, heady curries, men holding hands in friendship.. The hostels we stayed in ranged in cleanliness and modernity but rarely in price (S$18-30, or about $15-25 a night, per bed). It was Formula 1 race car week (? who cares ?) so a lot of foreign people were in town for that. I had a lot of dreams every night, some unpleasant and some just strange.

Singapore is a tiny little country, and I would say we made the most of it. The public transit system was super efficient and clean, so we were able to zip around and see a lot. One day we wandered through the botanical gardens, and saw amazing little bonsai trees and wild orchids. Another day we hiked through the Bukit Timah rainforest nature reserve north of the city, where we met the cutest little monkeys and learned all sorts of interesting rainforest facts. One of the best parts of Singapore life was the street food, which was sold by one hundred tiny little vendors all lined up in great big "hawker centres" around the city. These places were super cheap and hectic and nitty-gritty, but delicious nonetheless and wholly memorable. Every kind of Asian and Indian delicacy was available here, from delicate dim sum and mango salad to enormous vats of chicken biriyani and whole legs of fresh mutton. Old folks, hip young teens, Indians and Chinese and southeast Asian people all mingled together for a snack and discussion of weather, gossip, who knows what else. The smells of seafood and Indian spices and ripening fruit and iron-rich raw meat made me dizzy (and sometimes queasy) but it was nice to sit with J and sip on two mugs of cold Tiger beer and watch it all come together.

We bought tickets for Bangkok and promptly regretted it upon discovering that it is rainy season all over Thailand (we could have easily avoided this by heading first to Indonesia, then to Thailand in November) but we'll make the best of it, as we always do.

This final bit on Singapore: for our last night, we bought a camping permit (for free..) and slept in a public pavilion on the beach (beneath a "no camping" sign, oops), resting on top of our packs and resolving to leave early in the morning for the airport. We closed our eyes and promptly fell asleep, but were woken up maybe half an hour later by this huge procession of people dressed entirely in white, banging cymbals and blaring music and generally celebrating something as loud as possible. It was the weirdest, funniest thing: we woke up, heard them coming from afar and saw all their colorful lights in the distance, and within about a minute and a half they were practically on top of us, clanging and clapping and confusing the hell out of us; one of those enormous gilded paper dragons came undulating up (carried underneath by about 17 teenaged boys dressed to be the dragon's legs) and rested right there in the pavilion! Talk about a wake up call. Apparently it was some sort of Chinese "welcoming the emperor" ceremony, and they all walked down to the beach and lit incense and left offerings of oranges and animal vertebrae, sang and danced some more, and then took the whole procession elsewhere. It happened so fast, I hardly had time to rub the sleep out of my eyes and grab my camera. If not for those few photos I would swear that the whole thing happened in a strange Singaporean dream. Did it?

11:54AM
In-flight to Bangkok, Thailand

It's natural

These signs were EVERYWHERE. Rough translation: "Don't Mess With Singapore"

Strange Dream

Westbound

We laid low in San Francisco for a few days, gearing up for our big move west. The weather was so sunny and warm and beautiful, and we enjoyed the last bit of San Francisco (and some killer bluegrass) with our friends. We said goodbye to Mike and Doug, who were brave enough to make the move across country, and who we may not see for a long time. It's good to have friends in different places, but it made me a little melancholic to think of the distance between those boys and their homes, their families, their pets... Will I ever be brave enough for that one way ticket?

At the airport, further worries ensued, at least for me. I thought about all the things I'm going to miss while being so far away-- birthdays, Christmas, a new year with my closest friends, watching movies with my little sister, with Birdie at the foot of my bed, laughing with my mom.. And all in exchange for this unknowable chunk of time we've cut out of our future, to pass through strange new lands and weave in and out of so many strangers' lives. I find it all a little overwhelming.

The prospect of doing it all with J is also daunting, sometimes. Sleeping together, eating together, riding the same buses and trains and getting lost together. Sharing maps, beers, friends, expenses, good fortunes, disasters, the constant compromise. He can be such a pill! So bossy and snarky and quick to bite. Sometimes I just wanna walk away in the opposite direction, and then I remember that J is all I've got out here, the only familiar thing for thousands of miles. I'm no peach either- he'll be the first to tell you. It's a real lesson in patience and tolerance, for both of us.

J and I have been dating for about four and a half years, and we've traveled to all sorts of places together-- Australia, Spain, Morocco, the USVI... We're a good team, for the most part, and at this point I'd trust this guy with my life (he's gotten a lot better about losing things) but still. It's not easy..

2:00PM
Singapore

Yosemite

We were a little desperate to leave Reno, so we splurged on a rental car with the intention of driving back to San Francisco by way of Yosemite National Park!

What a good idea that turned out to be. We camped out in the Sierra Nevadas right near Buckeye Hotsprings (hot springs: my new thing) and drove up and into the park early the next morning. Very abruptly, the lazy rolling desert in the rearview disappeared into the shadows of the mountains. Giant granite cliffs loomed over us and dropped off into deep forested valleys. In some areas, wildfires burned across the hills and left in their wake the skeletons of tall, solitary pines. It was a long and winding drive, and the whole morning the moon was still high in in the sky, dodging in and out of sight but following us all the while. Reminded me of that famous Ansel Adams photograph, only more beautiful. Despite the throngs of tourists and disneyland-like appeal of the major sites and hundreds of RVs rumbling everywhere (all this felt wholly American to me) It was clear to
us that Yosemite is a special, sacred kind of place.

We learned all about the Paiute Natives who lived in the area for thousands of years, until the gold rush of 1849 brought sloughs of settlers and their subsequent territorial disputes. We learned about Galen Clark, the park's first caretaker and the man responsible for it's preservation under the authority of President Lincoln. We learned about the mountain lions and muledeer, the peregrine falcons and gray wolves. Gosh, we learned about it all! Each day we were there, we took day-long hikes to the remotest places: Unicorn Peak, where we found our own secret valley with rivers and lakes unspoiled by the masses; Yosemite Point, where we hiked to the very top and took an icy dip in the tallest waterfall in North America. The temperature dropped to a low 35 degrees at night, and I abandoned our tent to sleep fitfully in the backseat of the car. It was an exhausting time; we bickered a bit, and slept and ate so little, and hiked so much. But every vista was worth the climb, and every morning we woke up stiff and sore, we were greeted by the majesty of our surroundings and reminded what a beautiful world we live in. Historically, people have always been wowed and a little mystified by Yosemite-- John Muir, Ansel Adams, my dad... But every cheesy thing that's ever been said about it is true-- it really is an incredible place.

8:14AM
Oakland, California

View from the top: Unicorn Peak

More photos after the jump?

Biggest Little Shitty On Earth

Why Reno? Because we didn't feel like going back to San Francisco to spend another week bothering Doug and Mike and sleeping on their crappy air mattresses. Because we thought it would be too expensive to rent a car out of Truckee. Because we scored two free nights at the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino, and why the hell not!

I had never been to a casino before, so the whole experience was a little bewildering for me. First off, the place was huge--and designed to disorient people so that they stay there forever, gambling their money away. Inside it was neither day or night, and there were no clocks anywhere-- just glowing numbers and a mechanical, musical din coming from hundreds of slot machines. Aging waitresses (it was Reno, after all) weaved in and out periodically, bringing free drinks to everyone on the floor. We had all sorts of cocktails on the house, and spent a while betting pennies on the slots. I found out that I do not like gambling-- makes me feel really anxious. It was eerie and uncomfortable being there in that environment, especially seeing so many elderly people sitting at those machines for hours, whittling away their life savings. When we left at eight o'clock in the morning, they were already there, slumped over in front of the slots being served coffee. I think all the flashing lights and music and frenzied activity distracts them from the loneliness of old age. Still, pretty sad and disturbing social construct we came up with-- casinos. I was glad when we left that place.

1:22PM
Sierra Nevadas, California

Truckee

Our stay in Truckee with Mary and all of her friends was such a fun and wonderful treat. We spent the whole weekend paddle-boarding on the lake and camping in the woods, enjoying delicious foods and tasty beers with good company in this little town nestled righti beside Lake Tahoe. Some nights we shacked up with Mary's friends Steve and Charity and their beautiful 3 month old daughter Bella. We slept in a neat RV on the side of their house, and it was fun to hole up in there and play house for a bit. They gave us invaluable advice regarding our pending departure to Southeast Asia (such as: take a cooking class in Chiangmai. Purchase travel insurance for our expensive camera...) and let us spend time with their teeny baby girl, who was a just a delight to be with. It's not every day that you get to hold a just-born person in your arms and count all those perfect little fingers and toes. J even learned how to change a diaper!

Other than that, it was just nice to be with Marybird in her element. She moved out here a few years ago and only comes back to the east coast two or three times a year, so I don't get to see her very often. I'm glad that we got to hang out in this big, beautiful place she's been talking about for years- and I understand now why she decided to stay. Her friends were so awesome and fun to be around too, and it felt nice to know that she's surrounded herself with good folks. We parted ways early Monday morning- her to Park City, Utah (where she works for some months) and us to Reno, Nevada- the biggest little shitty on earth.

Many, many thanks-- to Steve, Charity, badass Mallory with her new machete and badder Travis with his new knee-- for taking us in, for sharing stories and advice, and for showing us an awesome time in Truckee :)

10:00AM
Reno, Nevada

the old gang!

beautiful Lake Tahoe

Humboldt Fog

Thinking we would take a break from hitchhiking and ride sharing, J and I rented a car and spent 2 days driving from Portland to San Francisco. We took route 101 all the way down and drove along the Pacific coast to Humboldt Redwood National Forest- the largest old-growth redwood forest in the world. Anybody who has seen these trees can attest to their great and monumental beauty; this was my first time in Humboldt (I've been to Muir Woods, but that's just a patch of Sequoias, not 52,000 acres of Redwoods looming over the coast and sprawling inland across the state) and it was hard to wrap my head around the notion of these prehistoric creatures- unmoving, undisturbed for centuries, quietly growing for hundreds and hundreds of years up to this very day! They're still alive! We put our hands on a cross section of one of them and felt their rings. I thought, here is when the Moors took control of the Iberian Peninsula. Here is where Jan Van Eyck became the father of the northern renaissance. Here is where we dropped the bombs. Here is where I was born (the very last sliver of wood). It's a strange thing, to conceive of these trees on the timeline of human development; we've been creating and destroying our world like ants on an anthill, and these trees have been there for it all, steadily living through and past all of it. Standing next to one of those big suckers is a very humbling thing.

Upon getting into San Francisco, we met up with our friends Mike and Doug (recent transplants from the east coast) and Joey, who was visiting. We've been crashing with them and exploring the city together, generally enjoying the company of old friends. And on the note of old friends, we left this morning for Lake Tahoe, where we will spend the next few days with my dear friend Marybird! Camping, swimming, bar-be-queing, meeting her people and having fun in the sun.

Looks like Tahoe is going to be our last stop before going west. This weekend we're going to buckle down and purchase a pair of tickets to... Bangkok? Jakarta? Singapore? Da moon??

11:00 AM
Greyhound bus to Truckee, CA

The Pacific!

J and some big trees

Portlandia

Now that I've graduated college and have a more or less open-ended chapter ahead of me, I like to imagine what my life would be like in every new place I travel to. Could I live here or there? What is the weather like year-round? Who lives here anyway, and what do they do for work and play? I've been living in New York for so long now that it's sometimes refreshing to wonder about life in British Colombia (boring) or life in Seattle (rainy) or a beautiful life in Portland, Oregon.

We stayed in Portland for a few days with some awesome friends of J's sister, in a lovely home in a fun little part of town. Portland feels like one big, happy neighborhood: green plants and vines and flowers of every kind crowd the sidewalks and front yards- fragrant rose bushes and gigantic sunflowers and thick, thorny blackberry patches - growing happily in the sunshine and warm weather. Doesn't snow, never gets too cold, and in the winter it just rains a lot. There are one hundred organic coffee shops and rare book stores and antique shops and co ops and unique food vendors. Everybody was so nice- smiling at passers by, walking their dogs, strolling arm in arm with their honeys, composting and gardening and riding their bicycles to work.. It seemed like a place I would really like to live.

The folks we stayed with really sealed the deal for me, as far as the joys of Portland are concerned. Cargo and American and their band of lady musicians and traveling boys were all so cool and interesting and easy to laugh with. They played great music for us and told us the best places to check out around the city and shared their stories and listened to ours. For me, having lived my whole adult life in a gigantic anonymous metropolis, it felt so nice connecting with good people right away in a new and unfamiliar city. We landed in a place that felt sort of like home to me, and it really made me feel like I could have a happy and wonderful life out here.

Thanks to Cargo and company for taking us in and showing us a great time in Portland. Thanks also to J's sister, who hooked it all up for us. BA, you've got good taste in friends :)

12:03 PM
Portland, OR

3B waffles: bacon, basil & brie

and berries

Mt Hood!

This pretty much sums up Portland

Surviving the AlCan

By Jove, we made it! And after two and a half days of epic road tripping through Alaska, Yukon Territory and British Columbia we feel particularly blessed to have arrived unscathed in the beautiful city of Portland, Oregon.

The Trip: Early Saturday afternoon, we set out walking to the highway to get picked up by this potential Craigslist rideshare, who spoke really fast over the phone and sounded really hippy dippy - a farmer/massage therapist/burner/etc named Alannah. She had just driven to the Arctic Circle, she had fallen in love with a guy on a boat, she was trying to drive straight through to Burning Man... when we met up with her on the side of the road, things got even wackier. She arrived in a beat-up, mud-covered Dodge Dakota pickup truck with a covered back, where she had been living since June with her friendly, 80lb black lab named Kaya. The truck was filled with camping gear, massage pillows, sleeping bags, bags of clothing, boots, sneakers, books, boxes of paperwork, three spare tires, motor oil, handfuls of rhubarb and turnips and other root vegetables, dog food, snow shoes... She said that she intended for us to alternate between driving and napping in the back, so that we "wouldn't have to even turn the ignition off the whole way down". When we were done throwing our packs back there, there was hardly enough room for the dog. "we'll just figure it out later, we'll manifest it.." she kept saying. Me and J were a little iffy about the whole situation, but it was too late to figure something else out, so we took a leap of faith and piled into the teeny cab and rolled off towards the horizon.

Other things about her Dakota: it had been given to her free by some good samaritan a few months back. The driver's side door didn't open. The gas meter didn't work (we'd have to eye ball it based on the odometer) the gear shifter didn't work either, and the breaks and power steering were on their way out. The suspension was blown, so the whole truck would rock back and forth after 50mph and anybody stuck in the back would risk getting sea sick with all that motion. Other than that it was a pretty solid machine!

It was long and hard, driving through all kinds of weather and terrain. Sometimes it was scary- especially at night driving around the mountain bends and nearly hitting bison and elk and moose (almost totaled the car that way). Mostly it was amazing, seeing far away mountain ranges loom in the distance and then driving through and past them, past so many forests and rivers and wide open valleys. We talked and laughed and enjoyed getting to know one another- me and J and this light and colorful girl flying by the seat of our pants. We stopped off in Wrangle/St. Elias National Park, home to the 2nd largest mountain in North America (also home to endless wild blueberry thickets). We stopped at Laird Hot Springs in British Columbia, punctuating our 60 hour drive by soaking in some steamy natural mineral waters. It was my first time in a natural hotspring, so I was especially thrilled. What's nicer than a giant earthy bathtub with hot waterfalls and smooth stones and lush green beds of moss and ferns? Nothing, that's what!

We also saw the northern lights, which were a rare and memorable treat. Late night driving out of rural Alaska, and all of a sudden they just opened up above us from horizon to horizon - these mercurial bands of green, silvery light, weaving in and out of each other in a great swath across the sky. Outside the air was cold and dark and silent, and they shimmered and shape-shifted high up in the ether. The whole experience just knocked me out, it was so other-worldly and insanely beautiful. It was one of those moments where you witness firsthand "the wonder of it all". Definitely something I'll never forget.

We woke up in the back of the parked truck at nine in the morning, barefoot and strung out from driving and no inkling of where we were and no sign of Alannah. Turns out we had arrived in Portland, Oregon! It's as far as she was going, and we parted ways that afternoon- us to go stay with some friends of J's sister, and her to Black Rock Desert, NV in a car that by that time was a pothole away from breaking down. I said a little prayer that she would make it all the way, and that was it. Bye Alannah and Kaya! Thanks for the wild ride!

2:42PM
Portland, Oregon

J 

Wrangle

G

Laird Hotsprings with Alannah

Eastbound and Down

After spending a few days in Seward, we headed back to Anchorage to lay low and figure out our next big move. An awesome moose hunter named Bela from Couchsurfing was nice enough to let us crash for a few days in his rustic man-cave loft-space, and we hung there with him and shared adventure stories and made our plans.

Our next destination is San Francisco CA, and we wanna get there sooner rather than later so we can make time to see all of our friends in the bay area and beyond. We've been hitchhiking different places (sorry Mom) and it's been pretty easy to catch a ride, but the drive down to the lower 48 is a three day ramble down the Alcan Highway, through miles of stone cold wilderness in the Yukon. Gas stations, truck stops and other signs of civilization are few and far in between, and it's apparently not a fun or safe place to be stuck on the side of the road for a long time.

SO instead we opted for the next best and cheapest route south- a kooky Craigslist rideshare! After some Internet scouring, we found a cool sounding gal and her dog who were leaving from Palmer/Wasilla- home to Sarah Palin and even better, the Alaska State Fair going on THIS weekend! Of course we had to go, so again we packed up and said farewell to Bela the moose hunter and hopped on a bus heading north.

PALMER: A few weeks ago we ran into a weird old Canadian guy who described the state fair as (in heavy Canadian accent) "Just a buncha fat people eatin' all sortsa things... Halibut, tempura, hotdogs, corn on the cob, ho-hos, French fries, popcorn, fried chicken, fried dough, all sortsa fried things..."

The 75th Annual State Fair was all that and more! There was a lumberjack championship, a demolition derby, native crafts and dance demonstration, adorable lambs and calves and goats and squealing little piglets. There was all sorts of live music- country and folk and native and heavy metal (headlining this event were such bands as Chevelle and Staind and Queensryche..) and good bluegrass. My favorite scene at the fair was the prize vegetable show, with a 97 lb cabbage and just every kind of delicious vegetable under the sun, lovingly grown and beautifully presented. I imagined how proud I would be to get a blue ribbon for a strawberry rhubarb pie or a jar of pickled watermelon rinds. Someday!

Camping at the state fair was only 5 dollars a night and very wild. All the drunken degenerates of Alaska came out to see those heavy metal bands and wasted no time pitching ramshackle tents and getting high and making a general ruckus late into the night. They were at it bright and early the next day, smashing empty beer cans on their foreheads and probably smoking meth inside their tents. We were warned that all our stuff might get stolen, so we decided to camp at another place outside of town, near the Matanuska River, and wait a few days for our ride. There, we met an Israeli girl going solo all over Alaska, and together we hitch hiked and climbed Lazy Mountain (not lazy at all) and camped and enjoyed eachother. There were nights of roasting salmon and buttery noodles, of sizzling bratwurst on sticks and steaming perogies, of delicious barleywine and beer. We've been living the good life thus far, it would seem. We wake up and get out of our tents and we're surrounded in every direction by snow capped mountains in the distance, as far as the eye can see.

This morning we're supposed to meet up with our girl and her dog, and then I guess it's back to the continental US for us. Will she turn out to be a terrible axe-wielding lunatic?! Will we collide with a 1200lb moose on a steep cliffside highway?! Will crazy Yukon hill people lure us into their tourist deathtrap?! Only time will tell! See you in California!

1:41 PM
Palmer, Alaska

Big Cabbage

G + J 

The Last Frontier

So I kissed my parents goodbye and flew to Alaska. A week later, I'm still here in the last frontier, traveling all over with my boy and seeing what there is to see. I didn't know it could get so rainy here (we've had just three days of sunshine) but I figured out that you can have fun in any weather as long as you've got the right gear. Plastic tarp covers for our packs, rain jackets and shoes, wool socks and gloves and hats... I only vaguely considered the possibility of rainy weather when I was packing, but J is an every-scenario kind of guy (he packed his own rape horn, for example, in case of a bear attack) so he made sure we'd be prepared for anything. We've been hosteling, camping, and couchsurfing in Anchorage and Seward, a tiny fishing town along the southern coast and also the endpoint of the Iditarod. The landscape here is so romantic and wild, even more so in the rain and wind. We took the train down to the coast and passed through mountains with glaciers, thick spruce forests, rivers teeming with brightly colored spawning salmon, big bodies of water milky blue with glacial till (crushed rock silt flowing out from under the ice). Everything I ever heard about Alaska is true.

More in Seward. I had my first White Russian (thought about The Dude). We cooked and ate all sorts of freshly caught fish: fried halibut, halibut sandwiches, grilled salmon, salmon on the campfire, more salmon... They have this thing in Seward called the Silver Salmon Derby, where folks line up shoulder to shoulder along every fishable dock and shoreline to try to catch the biggest coho salmon (the winner this year was 19 and change, big deal). It would seem that there's no limit to the amount of fish in the waters here; even just walking down the highway, J and I spotted a runoff stream with trout in it the length of my thigh bone. It's thrilling, but also kind of foreboding. J's dad says the fishing in New York State was just as bountiful when he was a kid, and people just fished it all up. Big game hunting and fishing is part of the Alaskan lifestyle, it would seem, but who knows for how long?

Other friendly critters we ran into this week: moose with gigantic antlers, mountain goats, bears, porpoises and otters in the Kenai Fjords, pesky squirrels that ransacked our food supply... We've been doing all sorts of physical outdoorsy things- hikes and bike trails and what not, and trekking these backpacks everywhere is an olympic event in itself. Best thing so far has been a 6 hour hike up to the Harding Icefield- thousands of acres of solid ice that feed all the glaciers in the Kenai Mountain range. At the crest, the weather was freezing rainy and the landscape looked like the surface of another planet. I had never seen a glacier before- or climbed that high in any mountain range really, so the whole experience really blew me away.

No accidents or catastrophes just yet. We had a minor setback our last day in Seward when J left his backpack in the backseat of some kids' truck when they were kind enough to give us a lift into town from the campground at Miller's Landing. Luckily, we knew one of the guys worked on the boats there, so we were able to a.) postpone our train trip back to Anchorage at no extra cost, b.) figure out another place to stay in Seward and c.) play phone tag with a bunch of irritated strangers to locate the truck and retrieve said backpack, which contained (among other things) J's cellphone and several pounds of salmon... Those who know J understand that misplacing and/or losing important items while traveling is just part of his mystique. Keep 'em guessing, J!


11:00AM
Anchorage, Alaska

G

J

Behind us, miles of ice

Goodbye

I'm home now, in Closter.  It rained a lot all weekend. In the city it's pretty unpleasant, since my apartment is still hot and stuffy and all of the bad city smells are amplified by the humidity: wet garbage on the street, stinky car exhaust, cat food, the metallic smell of hot tar roofs steaming under the rainwater.. Everything here in Closter is so fragrant and peaceful. No car horns or parties, just the crickets and the quiet hum of the street lights; here the air is cool and thick with the smell of earth and green plants growing. I took Birdie for a walk in my bare feet and we both reveled in the beauty of this lush suburban night.

Months of working and meandering have zoomed up to today, the day before I leave. My apartment has been vacated of my belongings (packed safely away now at my parents') and is all ready for the subletter, a fun and very beautiful Australian girl with a work visa (thank you Craigslist). My backpack is craftily stuffed with everything one could think to bring on a 6 month journey. I took a long bath today, just to get extra clean. It feels like I spent all this time stressing out about all the loose ends (Sorry J- not your style) and now there's nothing to think about but the task at hand.

Hardest part about leaving? Leaving everybody behind. I have this sick thought that my grandparents will die while I'm gone, or that J's family house will be blown away by a tornado. That my friends' lives will collapse without my loving support and sage advise. That my parents' home will continue to accumulate other people's crap until it looks like "Hoarders: Special Edition". That TJ will decide to get married while I'm gone instead of next summer. That my little sister will grow up and turn into a nasty teenager and I won't recognize her. That I'll come back and New York will be a pile of rubble, etc etc etc..

When I step outside the funhouse of my brain, it turns out that most of those worst case scenarios aren't going to happen- and if they do, there probably isn't much I could have done to stop them in the first place. But.. it's so hard for me to let go. I think that's what I really want to work on, these next few months.

Anyway. J has been exploring Alaska on his own these past few days, catching salmon with his bear hands (not kidding) and howling with the wolves at night. I haven't seen him in two or three weeks and I'm so excited to start this big thing with him. My guy- tough, adventurous, clear-eyed and open-minded, super goofy... I don't know anybody else I'd rather travel around the world with. Do you? I feel so nervous and lucky.

That's it. Sayonara, suckers. See you in the future

12:39 AM

Closter, New Jersey