6 Months in Asia - A Summary

I'm about to conclude a full six months of traveling in Asia - Nepal, India, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The cliche is that time flies when you're having fun. Well, it feels like it's been six months. But that's definitely not for lack of fun. It's just so much. There have been so many experiences in this relatively short amount of time that I easily forget even events that were life-changing at the time. I'm chilling in Ho Chi Minh City for a day while I wait for my flight to Dubai, so I thought this would be a good time to take stock of where I've been and how far I've come. I keep a detailed journal, but I rarely go back and read it. What follows are several highlights from my journey so far, as well as some thoughts now that there's some distance between me and the events.

The first big event of my trip, and one I still think about often, was the vipassana meditation retreat in Kathmandu. There is a week-long gap in my journal here. All I have regarding those several days is in another blog entry. In retrospect, after some time in India, and some conversations with friends more familiar than myself with that culture, I'm convinced that whole fiasco with being denied leave was a big cultural misunderstanding. To me, from where I was coming from, they were denying my freedom of movement by withholding my money, passport, and luggage, which is a big deal in 'Murica. I later learned they were being so insistent that I stay because they strongly believe I could be seriously harmed psychologically by leaving mid-program. Meditating so long each day puts you in a vulnerable state, and they wanted to make sure I was taken care of. Admittedly, there were flaws since a couple workers were emotionally abusive in their attempt to make me stay. But humans have flaws. Despite that, I plan on giving the program another shot as soon as I can. It's a challenge I really want to succeed at. If 3-4 days could have such a strong impact on my view on life, I can't wait to experience the full 10.

I'm convinced that the two best things in the world are: 1. Love, and 2. Riding motorcycles on backroads in foreign countries.

Can't forget about Annapurna!

During the first couple months, I really struggled with giving up a few heavily conditioned habits or states of mind. I was still in the school/research mindset, so I spent some time doing some readings related to all that, and took notes, brainstorming what I wanted to do when I got back. There was a lot of stress about not being good enough for the program, planning to work my ass off when I returned. It took a long time to get over those artificial plans and perceived expectations. I'm still a bit anxious about what returning will be like, but I'm less concerned now. All these experiences have given me some perspective. There's a lot more to life than getting a PhD, publishing articles and getting tenure. I've met so many people who just teach English abroad and travel all the time. That life looks a lot more appealing than it used to. I'm privileged to know that will always be an option, for any of us really. We are incredibly lucky to have things so easy. If you don't believe me, visit India.

India. It's a toss up between India and Nepal for my favorite country. But I lean towards India, mainly because of the sheer rawness I was forced to confront. You are a target because you're white. You are a walking $. Get used to it fast, and become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Scams left and right. You experience all types of persuasion and coercion. Walk with purpose and don't look anyone in the eye you don't want following you for the next several blocks. I'm speaking of the areas Westerners frequent. There were some great places away from the tourist circuit where people were genuine.

Rawness. One thing I really wanted to see in India was the Hindu tradition of burning dead bodies, right on the Ganges River. It may sound morbid, but I'm not sure there's anything more profound or more humbling than watching a human body - which a day ago exhibited life and contained a soul - slowly disintegrate into ash. "From dust we came and to dust we shall return." We spend so much time denying death; maybe not consciously, but in all the small actions we take during a day. We live without awareness of our own mortality. Watching everything that person ever was being consumed in flame reminded me that I will go the same way some day. As the Buddha said on his death bed, "All the constituents of being are transitory; work out your salvation with diligence." Life and death - and the in between - are so present in India. Everything is considered, nothing denied; everything is celebrated.

My month long yoga teacher's retreat was in India, but it was a bubble. I'm very happy with what I learned, though it only fueled my desire to learn more. I've learned enough to know how ignorant I am. I need a lot more practice before I teach yoga professionally, if I ever decide to do that. I'm excited to get back and compare what I've learned to more Western practices. I still think (generally) US yoga is often addressing superficial issues and needs to go deeper. That's not a judgmental statement, but rather is based on knowledge of how much more satisfied we can be with ourselves the further we explore the practice.

September 30:  The first (but not the last) night I dreamed of Chipotle burritos.

Reading Walt Whitman on sand dunes behind a slum, overlooking the city of Jaipur.

I found out my grandma passed away while I was in India. To some extent, it still doesn't feel real. We had become more distant over the years, mainly because of me living far away, traveling, and not calling as much as I should have, not being as open as I could have been. I was in a place where I could pray for her in my own way, when I found out. I can't imagine what it will be like to come home and her not be in her house, or at our family gatherings. Watching an anonymous body burn on a funeral pyre in India is one thing; it's accepting the deaths of those close to us that is the real challenge. Life goes on, but it's not the same. Change is the only constant, and we just have to be joyful for what we have been given and move forward doing our best to share as much love with others as we can in the short time we have.

"I was married to a state of mind and I divorced it."

When I get back to Seattle, instead of going out, one night every week or two I want to spend the money we would have spent on beer on kiva.org. we give microloans to entrepreneurs in developing countries rather than getting buzzed.

"I find that somehow by shifting the focus of attention I become the very thing I look at... I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness love."

Throughout the whole trip - reflecting my life thus far - love and desire were always on the forefront of my mind. Something about being in constant awe of my surroundings and experiences translates to a passion for sharing that feeling with another person. I've wanted to share the profundity of it all with a partner. Traveling alone can be tough. It has also led to insecurity in this area, and grasping rather than freely giving and accepting what is given. Attachment is the near cousin to love, but not one you want around for long. There have been a couple rough spots along the way. One of the liberating but also harsh realities of travel is learning a lot more about yourself, and about others. Sometimes things don't work out. But if there's one thing this trip has taught me, it's that perhaps our greatest purpose in life is to constantly die to our current self and be reborn into new, enlightened understanding. In other words, we suffer so that we can observe the nature of our suffering and learn from it, and then grow. I've still got a lot of growing to do, but I feel I'm headed in the right direction.

After India, Thailand might as well have been the US. It had every luxury I could have wanted, had I wanted it. I took the opportunity to do a couple things I didn't think I would have had the chance to do before I started the trip. I lifted weights and did some rock climbing, two things I do a lot back home. I had lost about 20lbs, and that bothered me. I didn't realize until then how much I cared about my own body image. It was unnerving and I realized it was a problem, but I did it anyway. I'm more ok with it now, and I'm the thinnest and physically weakest I've been since high school. There's something liberating about watching something you've cared about for so long slowly waste away, and not be able to or care enough anymore to try and change it. It's made me question how I define myself and what I consider important in my life.

It's true:  the universe provides everything exactly when you need it, provided you're willing to open your eyes. Sometimes it comes as a stolen and then returned bag of valuables, sometimes in a friend who teaches you a valuable lesson, and sometimes in a friend to whom you can be of value. Chiang Mai was all of these things, and more. Looking at you, Mike and Smita!

"Throw yourself from comfort into experience so that you can find yourself again."

Of course, it was wonderful to get to see my parents after several months of travel. And it was great to see them have a fun time exploring a new culture (though my mom had done some business in Thailand before).

I mentioned in a previous entry my scuba experience. I didn't complete the training, mainly because I had a scare at about 30ft underwater and after that, couldn't bring myself to take off my mask and oxygen at 40ft as part of the training. I've always loved swimming and never had a fear of drowning. After that, I can tell I've become more conscious of my breathing, a little afraid of doing scuba again (though I want to), and even a little claustrophobic. Hopefully that won't last.

Played some pick-up bball in Bangkok with random Thai guys I met. I happened to be walking by and started watching, they asked if I wanted to join. Turns out, Chaco sandals are not the best athletic equipment for agility and jumping. Sorry America, I let you down.

The Killing Fields of Cambodia and the remnants of the Vietnam War here in Vietnam hit me pretty hard. I'm lucky to say I don't personally know anyone I'm close to who has suffered through either, but seeing the results of both was still incredibly challenging. I'm not sure I'll ever really understand how people can be ok subjecting others to such terrible suffering. I don't think anyone would, if they really knew what it felt like themselves. I considered myself relatively pacifistic before, and now that's even more so.

"Whatever a person frequently thinks and reflects on, that will become the inclination of their mind."

Well, that was Asia in a nutshell. I covered 142 pages in my journal, about 50 are left to fill. Shouldn't be hard. I'm excited to say my best childhood friends are coming to visit when I'm in Jordan and Turkey. It's the first time we've ever traveled together outside of Indiana and Chicago. Should be interesting :-)

Turning mass violence into profit

In the past two weeks, I've visited two sites where mass violence has taken place. First, the Killing Fields of Cambodia and the related Genocide Museum (Khmer Rouge violence). Second, the Cuchi Tunnels (where much violence happened during the Vietnam War) here near Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. The two had very different effects on me, specifically on account of how they were presented. In particular, I came back today from the Cuchi Tunnels extremely frustrated by what seemed to me as exploitation and misrepresentation of history, in a way that does an extreme disservice to the people involved.

The Killing Fields had an underlying narrative, a purpose to showing the sites of mass graves, of the terrible violence that occurred. It acknowledged the pain and suffering of those who died in the genocide, as well as those who survived to live torn lives. Repeating the slogan you'll hear if you go to any Holocaust museum, concentration camp, or other similar sites of mass violence, this site declared "Never Again." Never again should anything like this occur. And educating the world-wide public, through tourism, is one way to prevent future genocide and mass violence.

On the other hand, my experience of the guided Cuchi Tunnels tour was one which not only had no underlying narrative - no greater purpose to being in this place that echoed such recent, terrible memories - but seemed to glorify and even promote the type of violence that had occurred here nearly 40 years ago. Rather than providing an educational experience that could encourage us to learn about a topic many of us know little about (we really learn squat in the US about the Vietnam War), the tour encouraged us to laugh at men having their legs blown off by bombs fitted into empty Coke cans, they sold necklaces with empty bullet cartridges used in local battles, and even offered us the chance to shoot AK-47s, high caliber machine guns, and basically any gun of your choosing that was used in the conflict - at a price.

At this site, about 1/3 of the way through a tour of tunnels where countless soldiers on either side were burned alive, buried alive, impaled by bamboo sticks, shot full of bullets, or killed in various other ways, we were offered the chance - by excited Vietnamese workers - to fire the same guns which killed these people. And yes, quite a few tourists were excited to give it a go. I felt sick, incredibly disgusted, and pissed off. I still don't understand how you could be learning about the horrors of war, seeing the realities of the painful deaths people experienced, and then pick up a gun and shoot it for fun on the same ground.

But that's what was morbidly fascinating about this location, about the way these tours are conducted. The realities of what occurred are completely separated from your experience as a tourist. You don't learn any of the history here, or get any personal stories about individuals who suffered or died. You just see the "cool," terrifying traps the soldiers used to ambush the enemy; take a crawl through the underground tunnels where you know terrible events took place, but you aren't told what; or pose in front of a broken down US tank, whose occupants' bodies probably still lie somewhere nearby.

So, somewhat out of spite, but also out of a fascination of how people could be so unthinkingly inhuman, I started taking pictures of other tourists' smiling poses in front of real torture machines, weapons that have ended many lives, and sites which indicate the difficult experiences of the people who once were here.

Here, we crowd around a small hole, an entrance to the vast underground network of tunnels which the Vietnamese guerrillas used as homes, shelter from US bombs, and ambush points. The atmosphere was jovial as nearly half of these people got in to have a smiling (or faux "scared") expression for a photo which will surely then be shared on Facebook as "look at the fun time I had in Vietnam!" Jokes were made about an overweight guy who wouldn't be able to fit.

Here, most of the group took their turn getting individual and group pictures in front of a broken down US tank, smiles all around. Nothing was said about why it was here, who once occupied it, etc.

And here, close to a dozen people were in line to go shoot some guns. Smiling and laughing at the opportunity to do something so unique.

Yet here, amid the sounds of nearby gunfire, a young child cries loudly and persistently. In my opinion, he was one of the few sane people present.

This may be one big rant, but I'm having some trouble with bigger issues here. It may be wrong of me to come here and just straight up say, "What you Vietnamese are doing here, in your own country, with your own history, is plain wrong." Incredibly condescending, not to mention potentially colonialist when viewed from particular lenses. What surprised me is how OK the Vietnamese here were with all this. Obviously, since they run the place. My own guide was a soldier who fought and was shot twice - he showed us the wounds to prove it. Yet here he was, guiding us around without any contextualization for what we were seeing. And he's been doing this for 23 years.

Things get complicated because of stories like his. After the war, Vietnam was not in a good place socially or economically. It was hard to find work, and therefore hard to feed yourself and your family. My guide became a barber for 10 years, before this site opened up and he became a guide. He said he earns more $ in a day here than in a month as a barber. And that's a trend - they do it for the $. Can you blame them? If there is a demand for something, they'll supply it. Especially when it's from Westerners who have a ton of $ to throw around, and they do. Even if it means selling bullets and allowing us to shoot the very guns used to kill their friends and family. While many American Vietnam vets experience PTSD and try to separate themselves from these types of memories, here is this guy purposefully immersing himself in it. I genuinely wonder how much of it is for him - for his own personal goals - and how much is driven by money.

Ultimately, I don't know what this says about the Vietnamese involved. It's impossible for me to judge without coming from their perspective, which I just don't know. But I think it says something about us, about tourist culture. Some of it is absolutely sick. It's sick because we often go to these places in complete ignorance of the context. Either we just don't care enough to learn, or we know and don't care.

I've seen this all over Asia, with tourists paying to get in cages with medically sedated and abused elephants and tigers, paying to feed live ducks and other animals to crocodiles at a shoddy "zoo," to those in Cambodia paying quite a bit of money to blow up a live cow with an RPG. No shit, that actually happens - I know a guy who did it, and said immediately afterwards it was a huge mistake. Apparently they completely disintegrate. I'm not even going to touch sex tourism, which is so ubiquitous here it's become normal. People just don't care enough to not be purposefully ignorant of the consequences of their actions. It's incredibly disheartening.

I wonder if all this is why this dude is on his fifth beer before noon?