Month: June 2017

Awake at 6AM again. It could be jetlag, or the restless cat who sqwaks as I stumble to pee. (Toilet paper in the toilet, deliberately now. We flush toilet paper here.) Back in my mother’s bed I tuck into sheets that were pale blue last night. The dawn would probably be coloring my cozy world grey even without the pattering rain, but there is water falling from clouds out there. I wonder how long it has been just as I notice the birds singing. Morning is morning and it is come, from so many voices. The pushy cat purrs under my sleepy hand. She is content as long as my fingers are moving through her fur. Outside in the weather, the small North American leaves are as excitable now as yesterday they had been in the morning breeze. Everything outside is playing a “telephone” game of song and dance. My favorite, the chickadee, I imagine may sing more and harder than the rest. She is brave, a resilient little thing who doesn’t mind inclement weather; she is a year-round kind of bold. This pattering is gentle at best, hardly a downpour. Perhaps the birds and leaves love this weather most, like a watering can beneath which they perform while bathing. The cat rests. The sun persists. As the sheets adopt their blue again, I consider something hackneyed, something about not avoiding the storm, about dancing in the rain, a life motto. I remember a childhood of learning from excitable leaves, of listening to relentless birds. I have come round the world. Again, and my backyard still holds lessons. The rain has settled now. The leaves dance still, shining, as the birds chatter on. Everything undaunted, everything alive.

Kao Sahn Girl and Morning Glory

Small, pretends to be shy, adores attention. The market rages and whirls around her, she surrounded by family and neighbors. This is her home, where she is most comfortable playing:  flitting from stall to stall, twirling and dancing. Someone she knows is making my dinner. I could watch the morning glory wilt in the wok among the spices–I ask always for “a little” which to my delight is always nice and spicy–or I could smile at her. She might feign distraction as she makes sure I am watching. We are both grinning loudly, small children surrounded by chaos. People everywhere and noise–music, yelling, laughter–a din impressive. We giggle at each other, silently among the sounds our bellies jiggle. We are the winking eye of a storm, until my dinner is made. I briefly hesitate to leave her, but this is her home. She will not quite distinguish one smiling foreigner from another, I suppose. I take my place among the throng and smile a farewell. She is already bouncing away. My food is delicious.

stats + superlatives (this adventure only)

Disclaimer: This list is nearly exhaustive regarding one person’s experience with her partner over four months only. I’ve no aim to make sweeping statements, only to record events as they happened.

Countries & Time Spent Taiwan: 30 days, Indonesia: 20 days, Cambodia: 10 days, Vietnam: 29 days, Laos: 14 days, Thailand: 14 days

Total number of places we slept, or tried 40 (including two nights on busses, two camping, and one in an airport) plus two 16 hour flights

Motorbikes 15

Busses 14

Trains 5

Flights 14

Boats 15

New fruits durian, two kinds of passion fruit, mangosteen, jackfruit, snake fruit, rambutan, lychee, tiny fat bananas, and one that looked like quenepas but was decidedly not quenepas

Best Fruit yellow passion fruit

Most Polarizing Fruit durian

Most Difficult Fruit mangosteen, with red passion fruit coming in second

Best Animal Experiences 1. happy elephants in Thailand 2. frog invasion evening 3. the monkey that sat on Dave’s face 4. the silver kitten who loved attention 5. Reilly’s pet rat, Ratsypatatsy

All Time Good Animal Experiences busy animals doing stuff–dogs wandering neighborhoods, chickens crossing roads, buffalo in rivers, goats jumping around mountainsides

Scariest Animal Experiences 1. chased by wild dogs in Taiwan 2. elephant stampede in Thailand 3. angry monkeys 4. bedbugs 5. bazillionapede in the bedroom

Yuckiest Animal Experiences 1. bedbugs 2. cow boner 3. jungle spider on the trail 4. dog pooping in mud we were driving through 4. mosquitoes 

Most Polarizing Animal monkeys

I’m sorry for stepping on three snails. They were each a terrible accident and I tried to save them.

Lifetime Achievement Award for Worst Animal solid tie mosquitos and bedbugs

Second Funniest Animal Moment (see previous post on frogs for #1) On a fairly busy jungle trail, something large fell out of a tree and smacked the ground. Like six people witnessed it and one woman immediately took off screaming. The rest of us wondered if it was part of the tree but then the realization swept us all together: snake. It slithered right back up the tree while we weren’t reacting.

Bathroom Wins squatty potties and bum guns forever

Bathroom Losses shoes off, toilet seats off

Still the Most Important Advice always carry toilet paper

Newest Pro-Tip every TSA will let you bring an empty water bottle and every airport has water fountains past security

Lost items t-shirt, bikini top, pair of glasses 

Broken items two pairs of sunglasses, two new but cheap coats and one pair of pants already falling apart, Dave’s adventure pants that wore too thin and were twice mended, one dinged up Kindle screen

Boxes sent home 2, from Taipei and Hanoi, respectively

Postcards sent 18 from Cambodia (there is reason to believe that most of these are lost, sadly. Please speak up if you’ve received one), 10 from Hanoi, 10 from Bangkok

Best Night Markets Overall Taiwan

Best Local Night Market 60 Road, Siem Reap 

Best Tourist Night Markets Chiang Mai 

Only country where there seemed to be no bargaining, and honest pricing Laos

Country most clearly drawing lines between local and foreign customers Vietnam

Total books I read 14

Books I learned from (in no particular order) Conquistadora, Men Explain Things to Me, I Am Not Your Negro, Sex At Dawn, Between the World and Me, Be Love Now, Living My Life 

Books I really should have put down The Inheritance Trilogy (yeah, all three), Mansfield Park

Came highly recommended but found utterly loathsome Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Book Store

Most Helpful (and probably a children’s book) From The Zulu, Mary McLeod Bethune to Timbuktu: Black History Facts From Around the Globe

Best Sandwiches Hoi An

Best Dessert mango sticky rice (duh) in Thailand

Best Breakfast Huê: baguettes with egg, mayo and spicy sauce, fresh cut pineapple, dragon fruit, watermelon and mango, and Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk

Best Dinner homestay home cooked dinner on Nusa Penida. Honorable mention: home cooked homestay dinner with many new friends on Phu Quoc 

Best Single Meal Sunday dinner at TC’s house

Favorite New Condiment Sambal  (Indonesia)

Favorite Strangers 1. every local splashing whoever was nearby in Laotian rivers  2. every tourist cheering at Laotian swimming holes 3. the phó family outside of Huê 4. the driver who made sure we got to Chicken Church 5. all the Taiwanese ladies who sassed me in Chinese

Where to get swindled by locals Huê, Vietnam

Where to get swindled by expats Siem Reap, Cambodia

Where to get swindled by cops Chiang Mai, Thailand

Worthwhile Undersold Ruins My Son, Vietnam 

Most Overrated Phu Quoc, Vietnam 

Most Underrated Cambodian islands

Most Like a Theme Park Ubud, Bali. Very close second: HoiAn, Vietnam

Best hosts (after friends) 1) Nita in Bedugul, Bali 2) Lily in Phu Quoc, Vietnam 3) Yao in Huê, Vietnam 4) Yo, Huay Xai, Laos 5) the whole team at Bhumi Hostel, Yogyakarta, Indonesia 

Haircuts by Dave 3 (Ubud, Kep, Chiang Mai)

Haircut by professional/Cat Toc 1 (Hoi An)

Most Fun on a Bus overnight from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville (10 hours)

Most Comfortable Bus Ride surprisingly, Hanoi to Vientiane (22 hours)

Strangest Border Crossing Vietnam to Laos, where we all had to walk like a half kilometer from one country to the other at 7AM 

Most Polite High Volume Rush Hour Taipei, closely followed by Chiang Mai 

Most Horns Per Minute at Any Time Vietnam

Best Sleeping friends’ homes. A most honorable mention:  having friends nearby on the adventure.

Worst Sleeping the floor of the Kuala Lumpur Airport with everybody else who had similar shitty layovers

Most Overtly Religious Bali

Most Cultural Dogma Thailand 

Most Temples Per Capita Taiwan

Most Interested in American Politics people from the UK and Taiwan 

Best Place to Get Drunk Hanoi

Cheapest Living Chiang Mai, Thailand

Most Bang for Your Buck Bali 

Not Favorite Fellow Travelers The Real Vacationers of Bali who seemed all money and misery, tied with the barefoot backpackers of Thailand who not only rode motorbikes shoeless but also brought their dirty feet into places where taking shoes off is customary

Favorite Fellow Travelers anyone who’d rather ask questions/try than remain ignorant (of anything), anyone who smiled at strangers, all the people who’d notice others taking pictures and offer to help or get out of the way, and Taylor

Cheapest/Easiest Visas Taiwan and Thailand, landing visas free for 30 days

Sleepiest Town Pak Beng, Laos

Dumpiest Town Dong Gang, Taiwan

Most Reliable Towns for Good Eats Hanoi, Vietnam and Chiang Mai, Thailand

Most Lame Town for Travel Vientiane, Laos

Most Endearing City HuaLien, Taiwan 

Most Endearing Town Bedugul, Bali

Islands Visited Nine: Taiwan, Xiao Liu Qiu (Taiwan), Bali, Nusa Penida (Bali), Java (Indonesia), Koh Rong Sanloem (Cambodia), Phu Quoc (Vietnam), the tiny island where we stayed in Hoi An (Vietnam), Cat Ba (Vietnam)

Best/Worst Weather Chiang Mai in June/Taipei in March

Favorite Beach Koh Rong Sanloem, Cambodia 

Recommended for adventure-traveling 1) Laos 2) Cambodian islands and Kampot

Recommended for a gorgeous, relaxing vacation Bali

Recommended for Starting a New Life (with an international liscense) 1) Chiang Mai  2) Taipei 3) Hanoi

Favorite Motorbike Rides 1) muddy on a semi-automatic outside of Luang Prabang, Laos 2) off the beaten path all over Nusa Penida, Bali 3) Chiang Mai, Thailand mountainsides (via back roads) 4) Cat Ba, Vietnam sunset 5) through the rain in the East of Taiwan and Taroko Gorge 

Most Likely to Visit Again Laos and Taiwan

#bopo

First and foremost, I will not use this hashtag outside this post for many reasons. I refuse to encroach on the space of courgawgeous (okay, auto correct did that to “courageous”–I use “gawgeous” a lot–but I’m keeping it) people who regularly fight and are winning against institutionalized body norms. I am using the hashtag now because you should look for the real #bopo heroes and read their words, but I understand that as a white-passing, able-bodied, small, cis-gendered woman I am simply an ally. (Don’t ask me what “BoPo” means. Go find it. Maybe after you read the rest of this.)

That is not to say that I don’t fight. The first picture below–the quotation, and it’s beautiful vehicle–hit me right where it counts today. I’ve been having a lot of conversations recently regarding personal scope. Biggest, simplest example is the kind of insulated, majority culture that might lead an otherwise well-meaning–and usually white–person to say “I don’t date [a certain race of] people.” This painful illustration of ignorance is somewhat arguably innocent. So too, with the good (cis) man’s perspective on women.

When I say “somewhat arguably innocent” what I really mean is “presumed innocent by otherwise well-meaning–and usually white–people”. We often don’t take the time to dissect how actually destructive these things can be when we are safe from that destruction, even if we otherwise ally or belong to marginalized groups. Part of my mission in my 31st year is to focus on my ignorance, blinders, and yes, even complicity in the destructive forces of the white, able-bodied, heteronormative, cis-normative patriarchy. Admit the issue, dissect it, destroy it, and replace it with stronger humanity. I’m more aware now than ever that this will take a lifetime, mostly because my societally acceptable physical parts have shielded me so well. Excepting, perhaps, the whole “female” thing.

Among my most ignorant ideas, nestled behind the deepest, coziest of blinders is the insane compliance involved in prescribing to society’s definitions of womanhood and beauty. Holy shit.

Women (all y’all) friends, I do not need to espouse on any of the:

  • critical nitpicking
  • painstaking assessing
  • mirror-loathing
  • analyzing
  • questioning
  • doing, redoing
  • shaming
  • comparing
  • obsessing
  • researching
  • fearing
  • and all other attempts at control

of our precious bodies. And that’s just an abbreviated list of what we do to ourselves.

Men friends: I think you need to hear this. By no fault of your own–we do all we can to keep these things secret–you do not know how real (and truncated) this list is. How many lies your women friends have swallowed. How much fucking WORK we do. How much unlearning we’ve yet to do.

The second photo had me seething, then rueful. I know a good man who’s raising girls and posted that kind of quotation on his instagram. I didn’t know how to talk to him about it, so I pissed him off. We’re chill now but I would love to revisit this. I think I stand to learn a lot about representing my cause; it’s important that his girls know exactly how beautiful they are (the most, obviously) regardless of hair choices. I attached this photo not to put him on blast but to ask: is this a thing you do, too? Do you know why it’s no good? I am not asking to be patronizing. I believe there’s genuine discord here and I want to dissect it. I still shave some parts, so I understand preferences… about my own body. I think lots of people cis/trans/hetero/queer have preferences about the way a partner looks. It just seems painfully, cruelly similar to the above example of well-meaning racsim. Where’s the line here?

I can only speak for my own experiences, but I know for sure that when it comes to expectations of people who call themselves women, body stuff is just the tip of the iceberg.

If any of this writing or either of these photos leaves you with questions, I am available. I’m not a spokesperson by any means, but I am a woman on a mission. Let’s talk about ridding ourselves of the ignorance that has fostered a society whose politicians discuss wombs as if they were natural resources, how to be better gangs of girls aggressively supporting other girls, and how feminism is, literally, for everybody.

.

Shoutout @lorelei.tyce whose instafeed has 12 more of these, all of which are hard-hitting.