Contextless Quotes

I recently came across my old travel journal from my nine-month backpacking trip through Japan, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, India, Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon. Reading through it left me very, very amused. From it, here are some quotes for your enjoyment, taken completely out of their original context:

‘I’ve got the shits and I’m tired of traveling: Why I’m not cut out for this’

‘That was a terrible, terrible idea.’

‘My hotel (read: rooftop littered with rubbish costing a whopping $10 to lay a mattress on) is a dump but it’s all I could find.’

‘She was driving me crazy. Hopefully that thought will be a comfort once the solitude starts getting to me.’

‘The highlight of the night was probably me trying to say in Arabic, “My dear, you are so beautiful!” Instead, I managed to say, “My dear, you are so beautiful and big!” Ktiir vs. Kbiir. God…’

‘Loon was our raft captain who seemed either perplexed or offended when I tried to explain that he shares his name with our state bird.’

‘I’ll write more later about the moral conundrum going through my head at that moment.’

‘I met an 82 year old woman today who has been a Peace Corps volunteer three times – all after retirement. At one point she was the oldest current volunteer on the planet.’

“I just had a psychosomatic stress reaction to the Lao music coming from the bungalow next to mine.’

“Phnom Penh’s been great – almost too much fun, seeing as how a large part of our time was spent at a genocide museum.’

‘The hammock: I believe I’ve found my soulmate.’

‘I asked the weird Chinese girl in our hostel if she still had the tarantulas in the plastic bag up in her room. “Uh, I think so!” was her response.’

‘Suddenly serious, she told me, “Walking this path made me believe in God for the first time. It’s too beautiful, too incredible.”‘

‘I woke up at 4:30am to the sound of an explosion muffled by earplugs and a quick shake of the building.’

‘We danced to horrible techno music and took a “hard man” shot (snort salt, take tequila shot, squeeze lime into your eye).’

‘There’s something profoundly tragic about a people fighting justly to get back what was stolen from them even as there is little to no hope of success…It saddened me immensely, that rally. I walked away with a heavy heart and a bruised faith.’

‘”Are those nunchucks you got there?” I said absentmindedly toward, but not to, a rather pudgy but bulldoggish man on a sidewalk near Beirut’s waterfront. His posture snapped up immediately, as if he had been strolling along, just daring some ignorant fool to comment on his ‘chuks. “Yes,” he said. “Because I am master.”‘

‘I’m so lucky to be doing what I’m doing. It’s amazing, really.’

Paavo Lanto From Lappland

I finally arrived back in the States last Tuesday. After an incredible few days in New York City, I made my way to Charlotte, North Carolina, where my parents recently relocated. There, I came across my travel journal from the first leg of my two-year journey. In it I found this story, copied here nearly exactly as it was written.

February 4th, 2009

I met a writer today, named Paavo Lanto. He’s from a country I’ve never heard of called Lappland, which I learned is actually a semi-autonomous part of Finland. He’s authored two books, which, according to him, are doing well in Lappland and Finland. In his fifties, he had very harsh features – piercing, vampirish eyes, sharp cheekbones that almost make him look emaciated, a receding hairline with a razor-sharp widow’s peak, and a tall and spindly build. He had a strong and deep voice that, combined with his thick Finnish accent, reminded me of an Eastern European dictator. He learned English from an engineering school, so his vocabulary and grammar is often slightly unwieldy (‘Raindeer meat is without as many negatives than all other meats!’).  I told him in passing that I love writing and I’ve always thought about becoming a writer. He immediately launched into an assault of advice.

‘Don’t write for critics ever! Critics are failed writers who know only to criticize.’

‘Just start!’

Find your own voice, your own style. Never imitate!’

After 20 minutes of his admonitions, I was charmed. Two hours later, I was annoyed and embarassed. Here’s an example of our conversation:

‘Have you ever read Mika Waltari?’

‘No, I haven’t. Is he…[interrupted]‘

‘You must read Sinuhak the Egyptian. Its one of the best books ever wrote.’

‘Yeah, I’ll have to check that…[interrupted]‘

‘Most writers, I say writers because I don’t like the term authors, it’s too culture, imitate. Never imitate [yelling now]! Mika Waltari was original!’

‘I’ll keep my eye out for it. [I sigh after finally being allowed to finish a sentence].’

In the midst of this, we’re sitting at a bar with young people all around and I’m stuck with Paavo Lanto from Lappland. It being my first night on the island, I was hoping to meet a nice girl or at least a fun group of people, but all I got was him. I made the mistake of mentioning at the beginning of our conversation that I didn’t have any plans for the night. My difficulty in exiting the conversation was made all the more difficult by the fact that his bungalow was three meters away from mine.

After a minute or two of awkward silence, he cut me off again.

‘So what languages do…’

‘Finland was the only country in the world to stop the Red Army! Ask him [pointing to the Danish bartender]! Ask him. [He asks for me] Did you know that?’

[The bartender] ‘Know what?’

‘Finland was the one country to halt the Red Army [yelling again, and he wasn't drunk]!’

‘Okay.’ [Looking both amused and exasperated].

‘You didn’t know that?’

‘No, but I know now.’

‘Yes… [continues on and on about Finland stopping the Red Army.]‘

‘Okay.’ [Just exasperation now].

After I foolishly mentioned my latent writing aspirations, Paavo Lanto from Lappland became convinced that I was going to be the next Hemingway. And made it his mission to tell anyone who would listen.

‘Do you think he will be a great writer?’ he asked the barman.

I look away, embarassed.

‘Uh, I don’t know. Time will tell.’ He’s moved from exasperation to avoidance now.

‘I think he will be. He has the sensitivity [with an emphasis on every syllable of that word] to be a great writer. And he’s a thinking person. Writers must be thinking people [yelling again]!’

‘Okay.’ The bartender moves to another part of the counter.

Though the conversation kept me thoroughly amused, I began to look for an excuse to leave early. He wasn’t having it.

‘I will tell story now.’

‘O… [interrupted].’

‘A Lapish man lives one kilometer up the river from his friend. He sees a tree fall one day and begin to move with the water. The man wants this tree so he runs to the house of his friend and says “The tree is mine! It fell on my land and was carried away to your land by the river!” His friend says, “No, the tree is mine! If the rivers wants to bring me a tree, how can I refuse?” [He pauses and stares at me with his beady dracula eyes for extra added effect]. The man up the river replies, “So tell me, if my brother dies while drunk and falls into the river and is drowned, when he arrives on your land, is he your brother or mine?’

Paavo Lanto from Lappland pauses again. His face has been getting redder for the last few sentences and he’s been leaning in more and more. He delivers the last sentence with percussive gusto: ‘is he YOur BRoTher or… MINE?’ but doesn’t say it in a way that definitively ends the tale. I wait, confused as to whether I should laugh, nod knowingly, or continue listening.

And then it comes. ‘HA HA HA HA HA HA!’ Louder than everyone else in the bar combined, he guffaws like a buffoon. Realizing it’s the end of the story and apparently quite funny, I laugh tentatively.

‘Ha…..ha….ha…. Wow, that’s a funny story.’

‘The Canadians love that story [yelling again]!’

‘Yeah? Do you meet… [interrupted again]‘

‘Yes, they love it! And they are very easy to understand.’

I look down for the hundredth time, resigning myself to the fact that I’ll have to wait for him to finish his beer before I can get out of there.

‘Have I told you about Finland in World War Two?’

‘Yes, you… [interrupted]‘

‘Ask him! Ask the barman!’

‘We already asked him.’

At this point, Bob Dylan’s version of ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ comes on. Paavo immediately thrusts his hands into air guitar position and starts the worst (and most hilarious) unasked for karaoke rendition of it I’ve ever seen.

The conversation continued like that, including an encore performance of Dylan’s song, until he finally finished his beer and I was able to say ‘Oh, no, I’m very tired so I don’t think I’ll go to the party at the Treehouse bar.’ Before I finally got rid of him, he told me (notice he didn’t ask) that he would be taking me out on his motorbike the next morning. I left quietly at 7am for another beach on the other side of the island.

Two Months Down, Many More to Go

Back in Bangkok for a few days before I fly out to Nepal, I’ve got some time to kill. I tried to put together a little map to show those of you who are geographically challenged where I’ve been so far but google maps isn’t cooperating. My count is twenty one cities visited.  Like me, you might find this figure hard to believe but even with my conservative estimates of travel time, it looks like I’ve spent 128 hours on planes, boats, buses, and vans in the last two months. That’s almost five and a half days in transit!

I fly to Kathmandu, Nepal in two days. I’m very excited.

I realized today that I never followed up my posts about the Australia decision. I made my choice after a lot of figuring and soul searching. I’m not going to Australia for now. There are a lot of reasons I made that decision but the overarching one is simply that it didn’t feel right. I went with my gut (like Amber told me to) and I feel good about it. I’ll make it there someday, just not this year.

Do Nothing in Pai

Pai, a city nestled in the mountains of northeast Thailand, has developed over the years into a somewhat improbable place.  Stunningly beautiful, the town lies in a broad river valley and is surrounded by leafy-green, tree covered mountains. After the chaos of Bangkok and Chiang Mai, being in Pai is such a welcome relief.  There is a substantial tourist presence here, owing to its reputation as an artist’s enclave despite how out of the way it is. The tourists that come here, however, aren’t the types that I often saw in the islands of the south, meaning they’re not obnoxious, arrogant jerkoffs that travel to thailand only to do exactly what they do at home, namely, get drunk and sit around complaining.

The road to Pai from Chiang Mai has 762 curves (I know this from the dozens of shirts sold on Pai’s street market advertising this fact), many of them switchbacks on the way up and down several mountains.  It’s a gorgeous drive but even with my strong stomach, left me a tad bit nauseous.

Foreigners and Thais who come here as tourists tend to keep extending their stay here until they finally decide to stay. I met an incredibly talented blues musician from California yesterday who did exactly that. He’s been here for 6 months now and has no plans to leave, helped immensely by a nightly paid gig at a jazz cafe and such cheap living costs. It’s interesting that Pai means ‘go’ in Thai but so many people seem to be unable to do that once they get here. I’m also extending my stay here but I’ll have to move on to Laos eventually.

Mike commented on my last post, quoting a NYT article talking about the upheaval in Thailand this past year:

“It has been a rough year in Thailand, with revolving governments and restless mobs, Tourists have been frightened away from the country, which keeps calling itself the land of smiles. No matter. For the first week of the year highway policemen will wear a bright red goofy grin painted on their white anti-pollution masks “to life the mood of motorists.”

I’ve definitely seen evidence of the unrest’s effect on the tourist industry on some places, especially in Bangkok, that seem to be nowhere near full capacity but at the same time in the southern islands and here in the north, things are relatively lively. I didn’t see any of the red goofy grins, unfortunately. I’ve had relatively shallow interaction with Thais so far so I could be off, but people here seem to be very positive and hopeful about the future despite such huge events negatively impacting their image and economy.

Next time, photos!

All the Photos Fit to Post So Far

Back in Bangkok after a truly horrible 13 hour night bus experience, I’ve got a few hours and cheap internet to post photos that a lack of time kept me from posting before. I won’t complain about it anymore after this, but suffice it to say that it wasn’t fun to spend 13 hours in a cramped, nonreclining seat with an Irish fartsack next to me blaring his death metal so loud that I could hear it even with my ipod on. I think I’ll stick with sleeper trains from now on.

Anyway, on to some photos:

Don't let the pretty scenery fool you; Ko Phi Phi, while beautiful, is an island to be avoided at all costs unless you want to meet the worst kinds of tourists imaginable and a lot of jaded Thais.

Hanging over a cave I found during my hike to a dissapointing waterfall on Ko Lanta, this tree amazed me with its root system, which even broke through the rock roof of the cave to reach the dirt below.

Elephants graze near the beginning of my hike to the waterfall. A local family does 'elephant trekking' to the waterfall.

A tree sits atop a tiny bay on Ko Lanta.

Rocky outcrop at the bottom of the cliff my bungalow sat on.

Me looking like a doofus as I watch the sunset from my bungalow's restaurant.

This vain monkey preened himself in front of the mirror like this for about 10 minutes.

The first of many monkey visits on Ko Lanta.

Claire and I reeeeally enjoyed the ice cream at this place.

Back to Japan, this is one of my favorite photos from the Tsukiji fish market. Yummm!

Handpainted kimono textiles on display, Kyoto.

Slightly blurry shot of Miwa, my friend and Tokyo guide for two days, and me.

That’s it for now. There’ll be more to come as my adventure continues!