Month: April 2017

wan bao dan*

I try to take a picture of every spot where I write postcards, just in case my missives arrive intact and the recipients are curious. This tree house in the jungle comes complete with a gangly pup in his afternoon loll.

I have always thought of being a turtle when it comes to postcards. I’m a slow-moving person overall and have always been. (Notable exceptions: catching busses, falling in love, and, occasionally, work stuff.) I even include this information in my OKCupid profile: “I move slowly and I like myself that way, so you should too,” cuz this is not something I will suffer any shit for. I would rather not eat than shovel food down, and if you need to go I can eat alone. I am simply not to be rushed.

Postcards are small pieces of my silliest heart sent through unknown channels for pennies in the hopes that they’ll arrive at the door of a loved one, someday. (I’ve had about an 80% success rate at this, though if I include unwritten blanks it’s probably more like 40%.) In this way I am a mother turtle, settling gently into the sand to leave a small gift, then packing it up and leaving it be, and trusting the world to deliver it in due time. These little messes of crappy handwriting and half-thunk thoughts work just as slowly as anything I’ve done. Sometimes they take months; almost always they arrive well after I’ve returned from adventure. They are my turtle babies, developing and traveling on their own after I’ve left them. They arrive to the ocean fully alive from their journey, unrecognizable from when I left them; I even sometimes imagine them earnest to be held after everything they’ve endured. The recipients of these small gifts will usually let me know of their successful delivery, and I almost appreciate that more than whether anybody cares what I wrote on them.

There’s that fucking trite phrase about “it’s not the destination, but the journey”, you know? It’s mostly annoying cuz shut up and let me enjoy whatever I choose to. In this case especially, the destination is it. And these aren’t actually sentient little turtle pups so there’s really no reason to care about their journey unless you’re a stamp collector or other type of postal service nerd. These hatchlings are all about destination.

* One of the choicest naughty words I know in Mandarin is the one for “bastard”: wan bao dan. It literally means “turtle egg” because the little things are alone in the world from the moment they’re born. 

What better way to hope for the successful arrival of little pictures and truncated sentiments from faraway places?

But anyway…

We came closer than I’d like to staying in a place called The Mad Monkey, a known Western party spot with a bar and pool on the edge of the Cambodian town of Kampot. Thankfully we ended up at a super calm Khmer-run hotel at which I’m comfortable and happy. Tonight we opted for a sunset boat ride that was also pretty chill until a separate boatload of drunk westerners told us we were losing some competition and shouted obscenities as they tore past our boat down the river. They were a hot mess; we all had a polite giggle when not a one of our passengers engaged with them. But the river is just a river and we had no choice but to see them again–The (now eye-roll-inducing) Mad Monkey Boat. Again, none of our boat bothered to respond to their weird, unsolicited taunting. Nobody likes a bully, especially not in paradise. The last we saw of them The Mad Monkey Boat was cruising into the sunset with an acoustic guitar, everyone engaged in a rousing rendition of “Wonderwall.” I wish I was kidding. Dave stood watching them go stoically: “I would jump off that boat with my phone in my pocket.”

NOT invitations: an elementary list

  • short skirt
  • unfamiliar skin tone
  • beard,
  • locks, tresses,
  • or really, hair of any kind
  • tattoos
  • any other body mods, chosen and not
  • an idea of beauty or lack thereof
  • belly with baby (or not)
  • actual baby, child, or other kept animal
  • being alone

    Culture may allow for conversation, however annoying, with strangers about some of these things. It should be universally understood though, that touching without prior permission is never, not ever, okay. In both cases, we need more empowerment of children, POC, and women to say “no”. Let’s train our bitches to bite.

    could use some cuticle oil though

    I think it’s cool that I’ve had to cut my nails in several countries. That means that multiple times I’ve been gone long enough to require a basic tune up. Something couldn’t “wait til I get home”. Maybe you’d think the same for haircuts, but those can go more easily ignored for longer. I love to eschew basic “maintenance”–see: my armpits and legs–but nails get grody and fast. Anyway I think it’s neat that I’ve seen to that chore in a bunch of places.

    Some may wonder if I’m writing this while procrastinating before a nail cut. That may be assumed correct.

    Dusk in the dust, dawn in the sand, and the tiny hand

    It was illustrated in our boogers and the number of times we had to use eyedrops. There were my feet: they could have been sporting a warm, ruddy tan, until I rubbed them, and once I even made little mud cakes mixing my sweat for a perfect consistency of “lol yuck”. It was the fact that we’d both finally opted for face masks whilst traveling by tuk-tuk. It is dry season in Siem Reap.  These were decidedly the dustiest three days either Dave or I had ever experienced. Sweating at 9pm, we boarded an overnight bus out of Siem Reap to Sinhoukville, where at 7AM our dizzy heads collaborated to transfer to a ferry to Koh Rong Sanloem, where I now write from a white sand beach complete with… waves. There isn’t even shitty pop music coming from anywhere. And the thunder in the distance is as welcome as any sound could be.

    The overnight bus was pretty rad, if difficult to sleep on. Here’s a pic of Dave hanging out with a baby hand that kept crashing our party.

    At one point I gave the tiny hand a brownie wrapper that the little fingers seemed glad to grab on to. Then I realized it had been a “happy” brownie and quickly snatched it back from the tiny hand, which seemed neither disappointed nor daunted by this exchange; it continued to make guest appearances for a while before its owner probably fell asleep.

    “Sleep” would be a generous word to describe what happened for me on this bus. Fitful napping may be more accurate. Truly though, if not for our proximity to a loud driving team and the bucket-plumbing onboard toilet, a happy sleep may have actually occurred. The adventure was there, and I could see the stars. (Dave didn’t quite fit in the cabin so his is probably a different story, which necessarily would involve aggressively snugzing me into a corner to better serve his diagonal lie.)

    The rain has arrived on our peaceful beach and nobody is disappointed. 

    hot bananas

    If I ever come back to Indonesia the first phrase I’ll practice saying is: “Don’t put cheese on my banana.”

    Fried banana dessert featuring chocolate and shredded cheese. Banana pancakes, famous on Bali in particular, are also dressed this way.

    “people of color” used to be a derogatory term

    Have you ever heard of a successful slave revolt? Did you know that white men and the American Civil War were not the only occasions of emancipation for slaves in North America? Did any of your expensive, limited, America-centric curriculums ever allow you to believe for a second that there were stolen Africans, native people, and mulatto-born who fought and reclaimed their birthright to freedom?

    Look up Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Martinique. Marvel that while these successful slave-led revolts coincided with Harriet Tubman’s epic heroics, we were not taught of them. Wonder if it’s because Tubman needed the help of the white man. Wonder now, how racism thrives.

    sympathy for the devil

    You can find lots of animals doing their animal business all the time in the countrysides of Asia. My personal least favorite might be dogs barking incessantly to themselves. One such pup was really pitching a fit the other day, the little yappy jerk. It was late afternoon and I wondered what the fuss was about. When I spied the little doggo, he was bathed in the glow before sunset, anxiously bounding about the base of a shrine facing east. He was very much alone, and insistent. For the first time in my life I felt sympathy for a tiny dog’s incessant noise-making. Who doesn’t want to yell at the gods sometimes?

    pineapples dressed for success 

    As we scooted along the narrow, meandering roads from Gaosiung to Fo Guang Shan Monastery in the south of Taiwan, we passed fields and fields of pineapples. If you’ve not seen them before, these sweets grow one at a time and slowly, right in the middle of what looks to be a palm tree top set neatly on the ground. At first I thought the extensive fields were strewn with paper trash, as so many fields in Asia sadly can be, but these were beautifully tended otherwise. Taiwan is all about pineapple cakes–singly wrapped, bite-sized delights that are slightly dense, pineappley sweet and not too sugary. The paper mess was a mystery! We stopped once or twice near these fields because they were also devoid of street markers. While Taylor and Dave examined the map, I realized that the young spiked tops of these growing piñas were deliberately punched through newspaper as their fruits grew below, “These pineapples are wearing clothes!” The guys didn’t care as much as I did, since directions weren’t exactly easy, but later Taylor did some research. It turns out that the southern Taiwan sun doesn’t only burn fair-skinned humans, but sweet fruits as well. The pineapples are dressed in paper to shade from sunburn as they grow.

    au revoir

    I heard a guy leaving our hostel say, “Maybe I forgot something. I will have to return for it sometime.” Our host replied, “I will keep it safe for you.”

    This exchange occurred so naturally that it seemed perhaps a local colloquiallism, and indeed a fond gesture of hope for an unlikely reunion. I thought this may be the most beautiful farewell I’ve ever heard.

    unplugged and bored

    And then the day comes when you’re finally disconnected; finally free of Facebook and social media. There’s so much reading and writing to be done! Crossword puzzles need solving and the world is calling. Our map is by memory, or advice from our hosts: “on the right at the strawberry monument”, “in the middle of the traditional market”, and “after the big corn”. The birds seem louder here without a phone in my hands. They are too sticky from peeling fruit, anyway.

    These days are easier. I left DC dreaming that on this trip I might experience some level of boredom. To me, yawning and whining about there being nothing exciting sounds like such a magnificent privilege. Since trip plans began I wondered how I would sneak in some restless days of unreasonable complaints. It has been six weeks non-stop, or stopping only for a day at a time. Now, accidentally and abruptly unplugged in Bedugul, the Bali capital of fruit–and, apparently, broken WiFi promises–I have sat still. I have woken up to bird calls, few of which are roosters, and written my own songs to go along. Maybe I watch the sky for hours, just listening. Maybe Dave drives us nowhere on the scooter for a while. We eat the same homemade homestay breakfast every day, and visit the tiny market on the corner for dinner each night. Bedtime is nightfall, our alarm is daybreak, and every boring moment is a bit brighter without a screen near my face.

    After listening to a bit of our “where we’ve been and where we’re going”, as you do in hostel life, one of our particularly fantastic  Jogja roommates asked in some kind of wonderment, “Do you two have scheduled days off?” We just kind of looked at each other before Dave shrugged, “Well, they happen.”

    Yes, yes they do.

    what day is it, chicken little? And other tiring glories

    I know you know the answer to this question of time about as well as I do, but for very different reasons. Time zones and probably some ignorance of where I am are your genuine excuse. Mine is more in the realm of “caught a sunrise, slept an hour here and two there, there was a boat and a delayed flight, then we checked into a new city and made friends and drank beer, maybe there was another nap and somebody in the dorm grinding their teeth, and we got a 3:30AM (By somebody’s watch? Mine has been packed at the bottom of somewhere for weeks.) van to a temple and there was another sunrise and I’m grateful we had food” but I still have no idea what day or time it is.

    Okay yeah, my excuse may be better than yours. We ditched Nusa Penida, which we loved and I will write about eventually, yesterday, perhaps Wednesday, around 7:30AM via a crowded ferry–giant speedboat, more like–on which a quiet baby tugged at Dave’s sleeves incessantly. The Bali Sea was calm and the breeze enjoyable throughout the trip, just shy of an hour. We whiled away some time at a cafe on the beach in Sanur before heading to the airport just in time to have our flight delayed a couple of hours. This has happened on all of our domestic flights in Indonesia. (I love airports so I don’t usually mind, but Surabaya was a real test when we first arrived.) Happily, gentrified tourism does have some serious benefits, not the least of which is that the Bali airport is cozy as fuck and they give you gross sugary cakes to apologize for the wait.

    We arrived in Yogyakarta/Jogjakarta/Yogya/Jogja (Yep, just pick one and you’re good. I’ve no explanation for this. I’m gonna run with Jogja for now.) just in time to share dinner and ample laughs with some great folk who left today, and to get no sleep before sunrise at Borobudor.

    Borobudur is very easy to google but here’s the essentials: it was first built in the 9th century and went through some iterations before being abandoned, raided by thieves of Buddha heads (who does that?), carpeted more than once in volcanic ash, and attacked with bombs also at least once. Only about 40 years ago (!) UNESCO rescued and began restoring Borobudur after rediscovering it, aka the largest Buddhist monument in the world. Today it reigns as Indonesia’s most visited attraction (The streets of Ubud, Bali do seem terribly crowded given this fact, but they were already terribly crowded so…).

    Honestly Borobudur is pretty neat but I would’ve been disappointed had the sunrise not been involved. Nature and its related heavenly forces are the real artists, always and forever. The whole panorama was mist and cloud-filled, also dark enough that some casual travelers needed torches/flashlights when we arrived around 5AM. Flashlights pocketed, we hustled up the many steps to grab a little ledge space and settled in for a real aural and visual feast. Borobudur sits in a jungle landscape and overlooks some pretty hills, but the real surprise for me (I did almost zero research but I swear it could still be surprising) were the giant volcanoes that appeared in the distance as the clouds lightened and the roosters sang.

    Side note about roosters: I fucking love chickens. I don’t know who said roosters were only supposed to crow at dawn but I’m sure glad that’s not the case. I love that one rooster crowing will encourage neighboring cocks to doodle-doo. Or rickie-ri, si’l te plais. Like dogs in a city, they encourage each other’s idiocy. I love all the ways there are to make fun of chickens and that they have no idea. I am delighted the most by chickens who look busy: maybe they are crossing just as you’re scooting through, or running in a field when nothing is chasing them. I love a chicken on a mission, partly because it’s usually pointless; they are just chickening.

    As the sun rose behind Mount Merapi, queen stunner of the volcanoes in sight from our perch, the bats were headed to bed. Pink hues graced the sky and the peepers sounded some dawn alarm I haven’t heard in a while. The jungle was alive all around us as the fog slowly lifted from the green expanse that surrounds Borobudur. The morning birds were snatching breakfast bugs and the roosters, as always, were relentless. It was a quiet delight, a hushed appreciation, shared by all in attendance. Likely in no small part because we were all dead tired.

    No matter our fatigue, Dave and I were more determined to see the next sight at any cost. And cost us it did. The Chicken Church was up a steep hill. Keep in mind that we’d slept little and already trekked to the top of the largest Buddhist monument on Earth. Our poor legs haven’t taken a beating like that in a while, never before 8AM, and bonus!–we had to rush or we’d miss our transport home. Thanks to the kindness of our driver and the size of the attraction itself, this wasn’t as dire as say, our Kelingking Beach fiasco could have been. That said, I did a lot more huffing and puffing at Chicken Church than clucking and cheeping. It was a weird little place and I’m still not sure what to make of it, but the Wikipedia link I posted is the most succinctly detailed account.

    Safely now we have returned to our hostel and I’ve written this ramble. I still can’t be sure of the date or time, but I am happy.

    by popular demand

    Dave did some math just now. On day three of week six I gave in and began this blog. Some few of you may recognize the title. For those who don’t, it’s an ode to my favorite quotation, thanks to Kurt Vonnegut: 

    I don’t know about you, but I practice a disorganized religion. I belong to an unholy disorder. We call ourselves Our Lady of the Perpetual Astonishment.

    This has and ever will be, thanks to some time under the tattoo gun, my sole religious devotion. Herein I suppose I’ll write the details, both delightful and not, of my personal astonishment.

    I have no expectations for this blog but that it brings a smile to a loved one’s face, and allows me to travel just a bit lighter. I am optimistic that some loved ones may comment, and that my writing might improve.

    Lastly, while my latinx, queerness, anarchism, non-monogamy, and pot-smoking will absolutely show themselves and often, I’ve no criticism to make of other peaceful cultures, choices, and lifestyles. (Unless you refer to Cheeto Voldemort as an American President, in which case I would like you to fuck off, genuinely and forever.) I tend to speak and write strongly on these subjects because I feel things pretty damn hard, but not because I wouldn’t welcome a different perspective (as long as it appears with kindness).

    Thank you for asking this of me; I needed the push. Thanks for being here; I love sharing with you already.