The Inner Ear

Please check out my new blog!

2008-12-17T04:47:00.000-08:00

I've started a new blog regarding my experiences with the deaf community here in Nepal.

The URL is: deafnepal.blogspot.com.

Please check it out!

2008-12-14T05:10:00.000-08:00

More on Langtang to come soon...

2008-11-05T02:29:00.000-08:00

For those of you wondering about Melissa and I's experiences in the Langtang Himalaya, I plan to catch up on this soon, and to include photos. We spent two and a half weeks in the mountains, visiting Tamang villages and meeting deaf people near 24,000 foot Langtang Lirung. We were within ten miles of the Tibetan border at one point, and with newfound Dutch and Nepali friends, I got as high as I've ever been in my life-- above 16,500 feet at the summit of Tserko Ri, deep in the heart of the Langtang Valley. There I tied a white prayer scarf for my father and had an awe-inspiring view of the Langtang Himal all around me. Afterwards, we visited the holy alpine lake of Gosainkund and crossed a 14,500 foot pass on our return to Kathmandu. It was a wonderful trip, and while I'm focusing on working with the deaf kids at the Naxal School for now, I'm looking forward to when my research will take me back into the mountains in a few months.

First day teaching at Naxal Deaf School

2008-11-05T02:24:00.000-08:00

Today I stepped into a classroom at the Naxal School for the first time. I was still jubilant from the Obama victory, and a little jittery from a few cups of tea. I've agreed to teach two afternoon art classes, to grades 2, 3, and 5. I'm still a novice at Nepali Sign Language, but the teachers are there to help me out, and the students are very enthusiastic and excited to have a deaf American teacher.

In Nepal, and elsewhere in Asia as well, it's typical to learn by rote, so my biggest goal will be encouraging creative thinking. This is harder than it sounds. In my first class, I asked the students to draw their favorite things from nature, and nearly everyone drew fishes and flowers, because they'd learned how to copy what the teacher drew on the board.

My first real challenge, though, is remembering names-- I have about 25 new sign names crammed into my head. I'll be teaching this class six days a week until the winter holiday in January.

Yes We Can!

2008-11-05T02:19:00.000-08:00

I spent the morning with several hundred other Americans at Phora Durbar, Kathmandu's American compound, watching the results of the elections come in. The crowd was very pro-Obama-- I think American expats tend to vote heavily blue. At around 10 am, much earlier than anyone expected, Obama was elected president, and a cheer went up into the room. Hopefully, a Fulbright celebration will be in order tonight!

I feel a new pride in being American that I haven't felt in a long time. Watching Obama's victory speech, it was clear that the speech wasn't just for America, but for the world. And it's quite clear that the whole world is cheering right now.

Preparing for Langtang

2008-10-12T05:33:00.000-07:00

In our backyard, the radishes and mustard greens are almost ready for the harvest. The autumnal light filters through our bedroom window in the mornings, and the Dasein holiday is almost over. The streets were quiet for the last week or so, and the thousands of goats trotting happily around the city a few weeks ago are no longer around. While we missed the ritual sacrifice of 108 goats in Basantapur Square, there were signs of the sacrifice all around us-- a goat pinned down on the street as its throat was cut, the blood spilling into a bowl, or the goat heads staring at us in horror from butcher shops.

We're leaving for the Langtang region tomorrow, an area of the Himalaya directly north of Kathmandu on the border with Tibet, and we'll be spending the next two or three weeks in the mountains-- first in traditional Tamang towns with a Tamang guide, and then hiking up to the holy alpine lake Gosainkund if the weather allows. I'll be gathering background for stories in the Tamang villages, as well as meeting with deaf people, and Gosainkund will provide further background and setting. We're catching a bus at 6:30 in the morning. Normally it goes direct to Dhunche, at the edge of Langtang National Park, but because of the monsoon the road has been closed by a landslide. So we'll take the bus to the landslide and then cross over to a waiting bus, which will take us into the heart of the valley.

On the Rim of the Valley

2008-09-26T22:05:00.000-07:00

For the past four or five days, we've been staying in Dhulikhel, a peaceful Newari town on the edge of the Kathmandu valley. I came up here to visit the deaf school in Banepa, but there's also been the opportunity to take a great day hike, work on our Nepali language skills, and meet some wonderful people.

The deaf school in Banepa is on the edge of town, facing a sea of rice paddies and forested hills. The school has about forty students, ranging from age 6 to 22, and when we arrived, a half dozen of the older schoolgirls were making candles for the upcoming Dasain holiday. These candles will be sold in town and then be used for the school's upkeep. The teachers and principal (five in all) were enthusiastic and dedicated, particularly impressive since they decided to split the two salaries that funding allowed between the five of them. The students cooked lunch on two decrepit oil burners-- Ananda (whose sign name means 'yawn' because he's always sleepy) appeared to nearly set himself on fire. A good portion of the afternoon was spent rolling flour into puris and frying them, and lunch was a modest but delicious chickpea and potato stew with chai and puris. It takes many of the students two hours to get to school each day, and for that reason, the school wants to build a hostel for the students and get a bus.

The students were also excited to show us some traditional Tamang and Newari dances that they'd learned as part of the school curriculum. The principal played the music on a small tape recorder and made gestures to indicate the students' cues, and the kids did a great job.

It's really incredible the level of education that deaf students are beginning to get here. There's still a real issue about this translating into jobs and opportunities, and deaf children in smaller villages, particularly in the mountains, often don't get an education. While we were sitting with the students, a sixty-year old man stood in the doorway, watching us. The students all knew him, and teasingly tolerated his presence, but he's a living example of a lost generation of Nepali deaf people. He knows very little sign, lives in absolute poverty, and made his wages by working on farms and carrying loads. Now he's looking from the outside in as a new generation of deaf children are becoming fluent in sign language, learning math and reading, and forming tight-knit circles. He lives near the school, and I hope to visit him some time.

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Our guesthouse is on the edge of Dhulikhel, overlooking a dense forest and surrounded by gorgeous flowers. The food is grown on cultivated plots by the guesthouse, and there are mandarin and persimmon trees brushing against the walls. We eat daal baat for dinner, with sides of potato curry and fresh squash greens. A family of goats lives just below us, and when we climb to the roof, we occasionally get tantalizing glimpses of the Himalaya, which are still covered with towering monsoon clouds. Yesterday we hiked up to Namobuddha, an important pilgrimage spot for Tibetans. It's a humble white-washed stupa streaming with prayer flags, a peaceful place where the Buddha (according to legend) took pity on a starving tigress and fed himself to her. All morning we climbed through mist, jungle and pine forest before the clouds cleared and we had sweeping views of the valley and brief views of the Himalaya. After Namobuddha, we descended steeply downward and passed through several small Newari villages on our way to Panauti. Our time here has been a welcome respite from the chaos and crowds of Kathmandu.

Indra Jatra and the Kumari

2008-09-18T02:46:00.001-07:00

I've heard there are more festivals in Nepal than days of the year, and this past Sunday, we went to Durbar Sqaure to see the Kumari, the living goddess of Kathmandu, wheeled around Basantapur. Thousands of people were crowded on the steps of Maju Deval and the surrounding temples, many of the women dressed in red like the Kumari. We spent several hours in a standing room only crowd, watching a procession of cars pull up to the Royal Palace, some with embassy flags, others with Nepali politicians. There was an army contingent facing the palace and saluting the top brass as they arrived, giving the event more of a political than a religious feel. The legend of Kumari originated with 18th-century Malla kings, and perhaps it was more political even then. Men wearing fearsome red and blue masks danced into the square, a strange contrast with the embassy cars. Finally, three huge chariots were pulled into the square, the last and largest reserved for the Kumari, a pre-pubescent girl who will lose her status and be replaced by another living goddess once she has her first period.

Indra Jatra marks the end of the monsoon season, and pays homage both to those who have died in the past year and to the coming harvest. The simultaneously horrifying and comical face of Seto Bhairab is unveiled in Basantapur Square for the three days of the festival, and remains covered for the rest of the year. His monstrous head is grimacing and blue, his red mouth full of fangs. We offered him a banana, and the Nepali attendant put the banana in Bhairab's mouth. I wanted to laugh-- that was the moment when he somehow became benevolent and humorous.

“I think he really wanted a banana,” Melissa said. It's true. He seemed happy somehow.

In Kathmandu

2008-09-18T02:46:00.000-07:00

We've been in Kathmandu for a week now, and we're just beginning to get settled in at our place in Handigaon, which is near the Krishna Mandir, a small temple with a huge tree rooted above it. There are no specific addresses in Kathmandu, and even at the bank, we were required to draw a map of where we lived as part of our paperwork. There's an outdoor market every evening just around the corner from where we live, blankets and tarps set out with pomegranates, guavas, eggplant, tomatoes and greens.

Kathmandu is much more chaotic and crowded than I remember, but seven years ago I spent most my time in Asan Tole, Durbar Square, the older parts of town, as well as Thamel, the tourist district. Taxis, trucks, motorcycles and pedestrians all share the narrow roads, passing within a few inches of each other and kicking up clouds of dust. Our lungs are tight, our noses burn at the pollution, and the lushly forested hills all around the city seem an endless distance away.

I thought it would take a month or so to acclimate and ease into my project, but things have been moving quickly, giving me a strong feeling that I'm meant to be doing this. My first full day here, I stumbled into a courtyard and saw two young girls in blue school uniforms signing to each other. They joined a crowd of deaf students, and I follwed them into the courtyard of the Naxal School for the Deaf, one of my Fulbright affiliations. I saw an older western man and two Nepalis walking together, and I introduced myself. The westerner was a member of the first class of Fulbrights to go from Germany to the U.S. in 1965, and he has been doing volunteer work in Nepal for many years.

Within a few days, I'd met many of the Naxal students, visited the hostel where they lived, and went to a meeting for the Kathmandu Association for the Deaf, where more than fifty people were gathered in a small, dimly lit room, eager to meet me. Melissa and I went to a deaf performance in Kirtipur, a small town just outside Kathmandu, which still has the feel of an old Newari village. I was dragged onstage in front of a standing-room only crowd in a community center, introduced myself as best as I could, and met Raghav Bir Joshi of the CPN-United Party, the only deaf member of the Constitution Assembly and one of the few deaf politicians in the world. Melissa and I were taken backstage to join in a simple and delicious meal served in woven reed baskets. I already feel so accepted and comfortable in the deaf community here.

I'm picking up Nepali Sign Language quickly, much faster than the spoken language, and already I've seen so many stories. Most of the deaf I've talked to lost their hearing at a young age due to sickness. Some have not seen their hearing families in many years. One 17-year old student was a soldier in the Maoist army before he escaped and went to the deaf school in Kathmandu. He's going back to his home village in the border of Tibet for Dasain. He hasn't been back in four years, and he needs to get his papers in order so he can compete in Kathmandu's deaf karate association.

There are deaf people everywhere here-- we only need to follow the signs-- a Tibetan with long hair in Thamel who works outside a gem shop, a family enjoying the Indra Jatra festival in Basantapur Square, students in uniforms walking along the narrow footpath by the Naxal School. A simple introduction and soon we have new friends. The Nepali people have been warm, accepting, and inviting, the deaf community particularly so.

T minus 12 hours

2008-09-07T20:52:00.000-07:00

It's almost time to go. This entry will hopefully mark a more or less regular return to this blog, under the auspices of my Fulbright experience in Nepal. These last few hours in the states have seemed a bit surreal, as I enjoyed one of the first crisp nights of fall in Boulder, a purple sunset descending over the Flatirons.

Denver to St. Paul to Tokyo to Bangkok to Kathmandu, 35 hours in all, 10,000 frequent flier miles one way. I set aside the temptation for a layover in Tokyo, much as I was enticed by the idea of spending a few nights in one of those plastic capsules. Same with Bangkok, where the monsoons are coming in.

It's been seven years since I've last been in Nepal, and I wonder what I'll remember and recognize, and what will seem different after these years of political upheaval. I can't help but imagine that our apartment in the Naxal area will be a few cinderblock rooms-- I'm keeping expectations low for now.

A few hours ago, at the bookstore on Pearl Street, the title that drew me in was Alan Weisman's latest work of non-fiction, which posits what the natural world will look like after humans die out. It's beautifully written but a bit dramatic, so I decided on a Buddhist magazine for my airport reading instead, settling on a lighter version of human transience.

Preparing for Nepal

2008-07-08T12:54:00.000-07:00

I first went to Nepal in November and December of 2001. I'd just spent a semester studying abroad in southern India. We weren't supposed to go to Nepal-- 9/11 had just happened, the U.S. had declared war on Afghanistan, and Nepal was in a state of emergency.

We went anyway. (I went with a former girlfriend, who is still a close friend of mine.) We took a train to Darjeeling via Kolkata. Our first night in Nepal, we saw a white light hovering above the mosquito netting, and we were convinced that a spirit had joined us.

On the elephant god Ganesha's birthday a few months earlier, I'd had a strange experience where I was convinced that my bedroom in Mysore was filled with chanting monks from the Himalayas.

While trekking in the Annapurnas, I saw what looked like a portal on the shimmering face of Dhaulaghiri, and imagined that another world lay beyond it. While hiking along the Tibetan plateau, we saw a wall of caves which seemed to be inhabited by the spirits of renunciants in deep meditation.

On that same trek, we visited the eternal flame of Muktinath. Saddhus walk from the southern tip of India to see this holy place, wearing nothing but sandals and orange robes (a fact that would deeply impress any ultra-light backpacker).

During a strange and somewhat ill-fated reiki retreat in the Shivapuri Nature Retreat north of Kathmandu, we met a Nepali boy named Raju who was blind in one eye.

When I left, I knew that I wanted to return to Nepal in some deeper capacity. I wanted to give something back to the community, and I also wanted more than just a superficial understanding of Nepali culture and customs. I also wanted to deepen my own spiritual practice.

Now, with the help of a Fulbright grant, Melissa and I are headed to Kathmandu in September. I plan to learn Nepali Sign Language, to get involved in the deaf community, and to write stories and hopefully a longer work based on my experiences. Over the next few months, we will be preparing for our trip, arranging visas and vaccinations, discussing our hopes and dreams, reminding ourselves that we must be flexible and open to what our experience brings us.

Now, as then, Nepal is facing political turmoil, though the prospects seem much brighter now. The Maoists have a significant role in the government, the monarchy was recently abolished, and while the peace is tenuous, the Maoists and Royal Army are no longer engaged in a war of attrition. The new government, while bulky and bureaucratic, has one of the largest representations of minorities and women in any government.

Now, as then, Nepal remains one of the poorest countries in the world. There are only a few fragile lifelines connecting Kathmandu to the outside world. Because Nepal is mainly mountainous and there isn't enough arable farmland to sustain its growing population, it relies on food and fuel imports from India. As one of the largest sources of potential hydroelectric power in the world, Nepal is literally caught between a rock and a hard place-- both China and India would like to exploit its resources.

Kathmandu lies on one of the world's most active fault lines, and a major earthquake happens approximately every 75 years. The last one happened in 1934. I had to laugh when I added 75 onto that, since Melissa and I will be there in 2008-09. But a major earthquake in Kathmandu would be no laughing matter. The Fulbright Orientation Manual predicts that there would be tremendous loss of life, 60% of the buildings in Kathmandu would be destroyed, and bridges and roads would collapse.

Nepal remains one of the most fragile and beautiful places in the world. The streets and orphanages are full of children like Raju, and as a deaf person myself, I hope that I can provide something unique to the deaf community.

Nepal is sometimes compared to a downtrodden Shangri La, long since discovered and trampled by backpackers (going all the way back to the hippie days of Freak Street). And yet to me, Nepal is still full of beyuls, Buddhism's hidden valleys. There are still spirits in caves and portals in mountains, even as Kathmandu and the country as a whole face the pressures of the 21st century.

Olympic NP

2008-07-08T12:36:00.000-07:00

A view of the Olympic range from Hurricane Ridge. The biggest challenge of this hike was "kick-stepping" my way down a steep snow slope, and then having to climb my footsteps back on the return.

A small island on Lake Angeles shrouded in mist. It looked like Avalon.

Most of the hikes along Hurricane Ridge were snowed in. One regular hiker told us there were more downed trees in the national park than there had been in the past sixty years. Because the Olympic Peninsula gets so much rain, even the biggest giants have shallow rooting systems, since most of the rain is near the surface. As a result, the forests are particularly sensitive to blow downs. Olympic NP is the epitome of a pacific northwest rain forest. Some of the biggest trees in the world are here, draped in thick coats of moss and lichen.

While the east side of the park is in the rain shadow of the Olympics, the west and southwest part of the park is particularly lush. There are some great hikes around Hoh and Quinault Rain Forests.

Glacier NP

2008-07-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

Swiftcurrent Lake at dusk. There's a short hike around the lake that leads to both the Grinnell Lake and the Grinnell Glacier trail. This was our first night at Many Glaciers, our favorite part of the park. Other great hikes we enjoyed included Cracker Lake (13 miles) and Iceberg Lake (12 miles), and I enjoyed a solo hike to Bullhead Lake (8 miles) at the base of Swiftcurrent Pass, which was snowed in.

Hiking in the snow to Iceberg Lake. It's 12 miles round trip to the lake. Lovely Ptarmigan Falls is a few miles in, and past that, it was mostly snow and steep slopes. The lake is in a glacial cirque, and there was evidence of avalanche falls all along the slopes above us. This is actually good news, since it means most of the avalanches had already happened. At the lake, a rushing torrent of meltwater had taken out the bridge and I used my poles to scout out a suitable snow crossing.

A view of Two Medicine Lake from Scenic Point, my most strenuous solo hike at Glacier. Though it's only about six miles roundtrip, the ridges are exposed and there's approximately 2000 feet of elevation gain. To the west you get this fabulous view, and to the east is a study in contrasts-- the great plains of Montana.

On the night of the summer solstice, near Avalanche Lake on the west side of the park. My mother and I did a lovely evening walk among old-growth cedars. We were both feeling inspired by the beautiful scenery and the solstice.

Back on the Blog

2008-07-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to return to this blog for a while now, but over the last two years, I've focused most of my writing energy towards short stories and longer works. I wanted to make the most of my two years in the Hopkins MFA program, and I had a quantitative goal of a thousand pages of new material over that time. It may seem ridiculous to quantify my work, but the entire process of writing, rewriting, revising and sending work out often feels like a two steps forward, one step back endeavor. Now that I'm finished with the program, and trying to make the most of my last ten days in Hampden's summer backwater, I find myself looking back on the last two years in a harsher light than I expected, or even think is warranted.

But as my stepmother astutely pointed out, "You didn't come here for the scenery."

I spent the better part of July going places for the scenery-- a week in Glacier National Park, another in Olympic National Park, before returning to Portland for the first time in two years. And in returning to Portland I also found something I lacked for the past two years: a supportive community, a commonality of interests. I came to Baltimore a little too naive and idealistic about what to expect from the program and from my classmates.

Ultimately, though, I remind myself of what I did find: two years of teaching experience, a place to work on my writing, a few good friends, moments of superlative advice in workshop. Most importantly, I see the improvement in my work over the last two years. Subtle things happened between the first and the thousandth page, things I can't quantify or qualify... and yet I feel I still have a long way to go.

For all its positives, the program encourages, without meaning to, an extreme degree of solipsism. Maybe this is just the nature of living in the ivory tower. Perhaps when a writer plays god, he finds himself giving into his fantasies and shortcomings, or falls in love with phrases or characters because of how pretty they look. And of course, it seems that our little agendas have to be veiled with the requisite ironies and inside jokes, dressed down so they don't appear too naive or sentimental. Our narrators must be 'in the know,' and their wisdom makes them a little world-weary, full of restraint.

World-weary, restrained, ironic... it's a formula we all have to learn to some extent, but I do find myself wondering if there's some way to break free of the rules that many literary magazines live by. I think my reasons for moving away from this formula are mainly personal. The life I live outside writing and reading isn't as meaningful when I adapt these stylistic strategies. I honestly believe that one must live John Gardner's "continuous dream" in order to write it; I'd like both my writing and my life to be authentic. I want my work to follow an invisible moral code, one that is not dogmatic but spiritual, one that chooses fresh eyes over irony. These are the fresh eyes I hope to find in Nepal.

A Perfect Day for Your Colon in New Mexico

2007-06-26T18:36:00.001-07:00

Anybody who has ever read a guidebook has seen those annoying "A Perfect Day" itineraries...

A PERFECT DAY FOR YOUR COLON IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO

1. Start your day with a colon-blackening beef brisket burrito at Sugar's on the low road between Taos and Santa Fe. We stopped here twice, once on the way to the Pecos Wilderness via Taos, and again on the way down to Ojo Caliente Hot Springs. The smokehouse advertises itself. The brisket spends two days in the smoker, accumulating enough tar to transform your colon into a hazardous waste site. Make sure to get a side of Sugar's sweet, slightly spicy sauce to go with the accompanying green chile sauce.

Me holding an imaginary brisket burrito in front of Sugar's. The burrito has already been vaporized, along with my colon. I made sure to get another burrito to go, since my digestive system had already become a demolition zone, anyway.

2. Purge and purify your colon with a detoxifying mudbath at Oyo Caliente Hot Springs. Douse yourself in in the iron, iron/arsenic, and soda pools to aid in the resurrection of your colon. Drink copious quantities of springwater from the Lithia spring to deal with the post-traumatic stress of finishing your second "to go" burrito.

Me at Oyo Caliente Hot Springs, with the sandstone cliffs rising behind the springs. What appears to be my body slathered in mud is actually the exploded remnants of my colon. Actually, it really is mud. My colon has never been so happy.

Backpacking the Santa Barbara Divide

2007-06-26T18:12:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Melissa and I did a 3-day, 25 mile backpacking trip into the Pecos Wilderness and the Sangre De Christo Mountains of northern New Mexico. It's a pristine landscape of spruce and aspen, with the Rio Santa Barbara, flush with snowmelt, rushing through the valleys. We camped at 10,000 feet and then took a dayhike to the Santa Barbara Divide, at 12,000 feet. On the second night I knelt before 13,000 foot El Chimayoso and the vast cosmos, enjoined in the usual wordless prayers I do when out in nature. Afterwards, I climbed into the tent to go to sleep and put my cochlear implant processor in its Advanced Bionics box. I can't really explain the strange, irreconcilable juxtaposition I felt. It was quite possibly one of the most powerful firsthand experiences of paradox I've ever had. It is what it is. Psychologically, the trip was important to me because it represents being back to "normal" after having cochlear implant surgery on May 7th.

Pumping it up by the Rio Santa Barbara. Every guy has experience with this hand motion.

A view of me hanging out with 13,000 foot Chimayoso from the sub-alpine meadow where we camped

The Truchas Peaks, including Chimayoso, from the Santa Barbara Divide

Ghost Ranch

2007-06-26T17:44:00.000-07:00

Last week Melissa and I camped at Ghost Ranch, where Georgia O'Keefe spent the last forty years of her life. The ranch is near Abiqui, New Mexico, and it's an otherworldly landscape similar to the one in Sedona-- cliffs layered in pastel-like reds and pinks.

View from Chimney Rock, above the ranch

Melissa up at Chimney Rock

Sunset at Chimney Rock
Last week, Melissa's dad told us how to dissolve clouds. Simply stare at the cloud, moving your eyes back and forth over its outline until it dissolves. I was skeptical, but it seemed to work.

Pictures from Sedona

2007-06-19T18:12:00.001-07:00

Devil's Bridge near Sedona with friends Carmen and Matthew. Melissa took this picture.

The view from the cliffs around Devil's Bridge.

View from the box canyon at the end of the Boynton Trail. This area is considered one of Sedona's vortex sites and has Anasazi ruins.

Paradigm shifts

2007-06-18T15:38:00.000-07:00

I arrived in New Mexico ten days ago, and I have not yet succumbed to the temptation to wear leather tassels, own a lowrider truck or purchase firearms. It feels great to be out of Baltimore, to be recovered from surgery, to take a break from teaching, writing, being hunched over my computer for too many hours at a time.

From Melissa's window I can see the Sandia Mountains rising above the desert. Agave and prickly pear are in bloom, and humming birds thrum furiously among the cacti. The brown Rio Grande meanders through Albuquerque, along with stands of diminishing cottonwood forests-- the bosque. The days are dry and hot, the nights sublimely cool. The cucharacha does its little roundabout dance in the midnight hours. There are flowering trees everywhere.

Last week we roadtripped to Sedona, Arizona, past black mesas, Indian outposts, rock shops. At a gas station an Indian man adjusted the lapels on his gray suit, which was much too small for him. There were flavored condoms for sale from vending machines in the men's bathroom. There were huge storm clouds rolling in.

On the periphery of Petrified Forest National Park, shops offered Baja blankets, meteorites, turquoise necklaces. A strip of black tarmac led endlessly away from the interstate, leading to what is supposedly one of the most preserved meteoric impact sites in the world. The veins of man on the desert are all right angles. Here in the flat almost wastelands there is nothing to stop a highway.

We drove on, we drove on. Sage and juniper and pinon. The black mesas giving away to red rock in Arizona, the mountains rising beyond Flagstaff, the ponderosa pine forest stretched over the highway as we descended into the canyon north of Sedona.

And then we were whirled into the vortex. Sedona is a postcard type of place. Take a picture at sunset and, provided that your finger isn't on the lens, you can tell your friends and family that you were in one of the sublimely beautiful places on earth, and then drive away in your RV.

The town is a strange mix of hippies, nature lovers, tourists. Pillars and domes of red rock rise around the city like ancient temples or decrepit gods. This is a holy place for the Anasazi, the Apache, and now the retiree. You don't have to go far to get beyond the two million dollar adobe homes. To see the bees drunk on agave nectar and smell the hot sage wind.

My favorite hike was deep into a box canyon where the red cliffs towered around us on all sides. It's one of Sedona's so-called vortex sites, where-- magnetism? energy fields? aliens? -- supposedly supercharge the earth and the hairless monkeys that tread it.

I felt super-charged.

Is there something to it?

If a computer chip can be inserted in my head, giving me a simulacra of hearing, if we can put men on the moon, if bees can communicate telepathically, if a bristlecone pine can live for 5000 years, well then, why not?

But the reason doesn't matter. It feels good to be away from Baltimore. This past year I've missed being out in nature. I've been hunched over a computer churning out pages, teaching freshmen, soaking in the Hopkins vibe... which in its own way seems almost monastic. After a year in the ivory tower it feels good to be back in the real world again. And I mean real the way it's been for millions of years, not real the way it's been this past century.

I didn't even realize how out of touch I was, how out of balance. How much of this past year I spent in my head living in fantasy fiction worlds, or worrying about my hearing, or agonizing about my ethical and spiritual issues regarding an implant. Obsessing over drafts, marking up workshop pieces, soaking up Welty and Nabokov, putting my faith into marks on paper.

Marks on paper that represent objects and thoughts and feelings and everything we value in this world. As writers we spend the years writing our own illuminated texts, bibles, korans, gitas... we put all our faith in what we're writing. Sometimes it seems as if the end-all is getting the story right or finishing the novel that threatens to consume us. Each paragraph is a psalm, each well-turned metaphor a reason to believe what we're doing really matters.

I've spent the last year taking what was already an obsession and becoming fanatical about it. I've always thought it's a beautiful thing to give up oneself for art. But there's danger in it, too. I'm a demagogue, a quack, or as John Gardner might put it, a monkey pounding away on a keyboard.

It's good to laugh at myself again. It's good to realize that none of it matters, in the best possible way. To be humbled. To look up at the red rocks towering above me and realize I'm just one tiny cog in the gears. The fears and doubts loomed too large last year. They were out of proportion of this container I inhabit... a six foot cylinder of flesh. As if I were trying to fit ten years of Thanksgiving dinners into a little Martha Stewart tupperware container.

Did I really think the world would seethe and bubble and the oceans would dissolve if I didn't complete the great American deaf novel by May? Or that the invisible gods would turn their backs on me and waterfalls change their course if I had a computer chip put in my head? Well, no, I didn't think any of that. But it was as if I did. Everything was out of proportion. I was just another guy stuck in my head.

My Name is Chip

2007-06-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

Hello, my name is Chip, and I am a fully functional, sentient cochlear implant. Franz is on vacation in New Mexico right now, and since he is more interested in exploring hot springs, ancient Indian ruins, eating, and having sex, and can't be bothered with his blog right now, I have volunteered to take his place for the afternoon. Some of you would probably like to know what Franz is doing, and I am here to tell you that. He just drank a chai shake at a coffee shop in Albuquerque, and he has second-hand smoked a pack of American Spirits in the last few hours.

But did I mention that I have sixteen independent power sources and CD-quality sound? Franz appears to have no power sources at all, or if he does, they aren't working very well. He is sitting on his ass, while I am doing gazillions of calculations every second.

I even have rechargeable batteries.

We are surrounded by men in cowboy hats, leather armlets and trucker caps. Everyonelooks like they're two months early for Burning Man. There's a guy with a blue Stetson, Nike leather gloves, a handlebar mustache, dogtags around his neck, and a huge belt buckle that says "bullshit." What appears to be a holster for his six-shooter actually holds a cell phone. He has a bandanna around his neck. He is wearing sneakers, not cowboy boots.

Pounding the Pavement, Catching Some Bass

2007-05-30T19:40:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I brought my first audiobook, a set of Bible-thumping sermons, since I've decided to convert. If I'm going to get a platinum chip put in my head, I might as well accept the Lord Jesus as my savior. Through a process known as the Immaculate Implantation, Jesus was born again as a little platinum child in my head. There were no drills inserted into me. My head is still virginal and intact.

Anyway, I actually got THE ROAD, Cormac McCarthy's latest novel, which beat out our beloved Alice McDermott's AFTER THIS for the Pulitzer Prize last year.

THE ROAD envisions a post-apocalyptic world where I wouldn't have batteries for my implant and I'd have a tough time updating this blog. Actually, more like a world where I already would have been starved or cannibalized. It seems like a fitting companion to BLOOD MERIDIAN, McCarthy's brutal novel of the Wild West. Anyway, the narrator has a Gregory Hayesesque low voice, except when he does the child's voice, which makes him sound like a gay man doing a voice-over for Santa's reindeer in a Christmas special. Okay, it's not that bad. He's actually a grat orator, and it's a pleasure to read along as part of my aural rehabilitation with the implant.

Voices are starting to sound a lot better, and the audiobook helps a lot. The narrator has the lowest voice of any I've yet heard with the implant, and he actually sounds fairly normal. Now that I'm getting into the lower frequencies, I'm beginning to yearn for the lowest of the low. Lawd Jizus couldn't keep me for long. That's Lucifer stabbing a pitchfork in my brain, old Light-bringer tripping my wire. So the lowest of the low. Where's the bass? Why does the beat of every song I listen to sound like high hats exploding in my head? Why do cars passing sound more like wind whispering through the trees?

I started tinkering with the EQs on my computer, trying to figure out which frequencies were coming in and which weren't. Each frequency stimulates a different electrode in my cochlea, and it's my brain's job to connect the dots and figure out the corresponding sound. It's not quite that simple, as Ryan, my audi, will adjust the program on the processor and turn up the electrical signal going to each electrode as necessary. There may be dead zones in my ear, or more likely, areas that need a higher threshold of stimulation. Right now, the electrodes are at a low simmer, just getting things warmed up. I can't go the big leagues without some practice first.

So where's the bass? I've always heard the low ranges better. I was starting to get a bit frustrated. Raging thoughts went out randomly, and I felt the sudden urge to throttle a particularly unlikable ear doctor I had 20 years ago, who wanted to give me a cochlear implant back then, at a time when that basically involved taking parts from the busted-up radios of El Rancheros, using a chisel to make the incision, etc. Today I wanted to implant the doc with a squeaky toy, even though I haven't seen him in 20 years and he really has nothing to do with anything. Thankfully I've spent the last twenty years wearing a portable phonograph behind my ear, winding in new sheet music on the hour.

And then tonight, lo... the bass. Not quite the gut-rumbling stuff that pours out of souped-up Corvettes and Gospel churches, but a couple thousand khz lower than what I heard yesterday. What happened? Willpower? The silky smooth bass of the guy narrating THE ROAD? The threats and cajoling I've been giving to this pouty little platinum child in my head? It's not quite the chest-thumping bass I'm used to, but it's a big improvement.

This is kind of fun. I get to be a big baby all over again, growing up and learning new sounds. I'm getting a first-hand lesson at neural plasticity and relearning the world from a phenomenological standpoint. It's fascinating.

Exercise for my Bionic Ear

2007-05-25T19:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my mom read to me. My dad was sitting at the desk in the corner of our living room, working on a poem. It was just like when I was a little kid. We started with Emily Dickinson and then moved onto Elizabeth Bishop. While I was reading along, all the words were clear in my head. My mom's voice even sounded almost natural. Particularly enjoyable were Bishop's Canadian poems.

Mom read me a story. I had no idea she was going to blind side me with James Baldwin's "Going to Meet the Man," a harrowing and riveting story about a lynching in the south. Mom, whatever happened to the Velveteen Rabbit and Corduroy Bear?

Last night I plugged the iPod into my head, resisting the urge to put in my hearing aid. Careless mechanics hacked away at my brain. But once again a strange thing happened. Somewhere in my head, ever so faintly, I began to hear the song I was listening to. Was I actually hearing it, or was I simply remembering it?

When I was in junior high, my friend Cort and I obsessively listened to UB40's "Red Red Wine." It was one of my first two or three reggae tapes, along with a few Marley albums. I went through my wanting to be black phase when I was twelve or thirteen. I wanted big dreadlocks and a Jamaican accent, but I was just an Iowa kid with a few tie-dye shirts and reggae tapes.

Anyway, I tried out "Red Red Wine" on the iPod, figuring that the only song I'd ever listened to twenty or thirty times in a row must be rattling around up there somewhere. Damn, it was. It's hard to come up with an analogy, but it was the hearing equivalent of seeing a ghost. It was there and it wasn't there. It sent a shiver through my head.

What It Looks Like

2007-05-23T09:23:00.000-07:00

This is what it looks like.

When it's on my head...

My hair normally coves the magnet part. I'm going to punch out the first person who asks me what kind of Bluetooth this is. Well, not really. It pretty much looks like a hearing aid.

This is what I look like in the morning when I put it on. It's not really visible from the front.

This is what I look like at the end of the day.

Other than the fact I now have a computer chip in my head, I feel normal and healthy again. I've got no good excuses to take more of those little white pills I so enjoyed a few weks ago. No longer dizzy, either. We've done some nice hikes in the Baltimore area this past week. I've been pleasantly surprised to find it's the greenest American city I've been to outside of the West Coast. There are some beautiful old growth deciduous areas.

What I Hear Now

2007-05-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

I hear birds! I hear voices from afar! I hear sibilant sounds!

But it's not an immediate success story. What I know I'm hearing and what it actually sounds like are two different things.

I hear squeaky toys! I hear power drills! Sounds are nuanced in the way that, say, chainsaws and mitre saws are nuanced.

Actually, there are moments when it sounds like someone is stabbing me in the head repeatedly. My brain is saying OMG and WTF in Morse code. Voices are still intermittent bursts of static. I recognize the beat of my favorite songs but can't hear anything else. I tried out a Felix Da Housecat electro-house song, thinking it might be comparatively easy listening. It sounded like the Tin Man doing kegels. Pardon my French, but a robot is shitting in my head.

Strangely enough, my brain is already making sense of all this chaos. I recognize my mom and dad's voices, though after two days, they are both still getting the Darth Vader effect. Even stranger, their voices seem almost normal when I'm lip-reading them. I hear the 'ssssssss' sound, which I can't remember ever hearing. Sparrows are shrieking in the bush by my front porch. A baby robin across the street has set off a fire alarm. A few things sound normal. The tapping of my computer keyboard, or flipping the pages of a book.

The loudest sound in the world is a paper bag being crinkled. Toilets flushing and helicopters are a close second. My guitar sounds interesting. Playing what should be simple, relaxing arpeggios, it sounds like Devo.

What It's Like to Wake Up

2007-05-23T07:58:00.000-07:00

This is a great artistic representation of what it feels like to put the cochlear implant on in the morning. And yes, things really do sound like that right now. My hope is that in three or six months down the road, I'll be having those rose petals falling on me, too.

I woke up, looked at my sexy little Harmony. As soon as I put it on, I feel like I'm getting electroshock therapy. Blasts of static shoot up into my head. I'm getting bludgeoned with some sound and I can't figure out what it is. It could be a car going by outside, or the Advil rattling on the table by the bed. Maybe someone farted downstairs. Anyway, it sounds like someone just hit me on the side of the head with a baseball bat.

Getting Turned On

2007-05-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

It's been two full days since I went in and got the external processor for my cochlear implant. It's called the Harmony and it's packaged in a box with all these nature pictures. There's a hummingbird on the front and a waterfall on the inside of the box. I think the pictures are meant to suggest that I will live happily ever after, in harmony with nature and the cosmos, and that as soon as my head was plugged into the computer I would achieve samadhi on the spot.

Actually, I was just hoping that the thing worked. Ryan, my audiologist, warned me not to expect too much. The processor was hooked onto my ear and the headpiece was attached to the side of my head via a small magnet. It seemed as innocuous as a barrette or hair clip.

"Do you hear anything?" he asked.
"No."
"Now do you hear anything?"
"No."

After a few minutes of this, I began to notice that the ringing in my left ear was getting worse. There was a clicking sound. My implant was speaking to me. I had voices in my head. They were speaking in Swahili, but they were voices. Why was my implant talking to my left ear when it was on the right side of my head?

After 27 years of hearing only in my left ear, my brain wasn't ready to accept that sound could come from the other side.

Each of the 16 electrodes in my cochlea were turned up to what I perceived to be a comfortable level. There was some variation in pitch but not much. Mostly it just sounded like clicks. When the processor was turned on, voices sounded like static. A lot of people say voices sound like Minnie Mouse on helium or Darth Vader, but everything I heard those first few hours was just static. It sounded like a radio station with bad reception. There was a vocal cadence to the static.

That night when I was at the bar, someone set off a ping pong ball lottery machine in my head. Rabid gerbils were spinning in their wheels. I turned my hearing aid on for a moment. A country western song was playing on the jukebox. I liked the gerbils better.

I'd be lying if I said this thing sounds good. It'll probably take months for things to start sounding normal. All the same, I feel like a guy with a $50,000 stereo installed in my head. I just pimped out my ride.

Thanks for your support

2007-05-09T17:29:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who has been giving me so much support since this past weekend... it's great hearing from all of you. Whether it's text messages, emails or letters, I've appreciated it all. It makes a huge difference.

Two days after

2007-05-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

I'm still dizzy but perked up on Percocet. Here are some lovely pictures of my new right ear. For those of you who don't know, I ended up implanting the right ear, not the left, after an eleventh hour email from my surgeon. Long story that I don't have the energy to tell right now, but I will update more later on that.

I look pretty normal from the front, just a little bit of swelling on the right side of my face. Plus I'm exhausted.

A nice side shot of my gorgeous new haircut. That's marker on my neck, not bruising... the surgeon draws an arrow pointing to my ear so he doesn't do the wrong one by mistake. And that gleaming patch on my scalp is not my new metallic interior, but just a bit of ointment gleaming in the sun.

The incision itself. Already healing nicely.

Before and after

2007-05-09T17:04:00.000-07:00

BEFORE

I used to be sad all the time...

AFTER

...but then a dump truck changed my life!

Yep. That's me, before and after surgery. In fact, that's me less than a half hour after the nurse woke me up from anesthesia. It felt like there was a piece of molten slag hanging from the side of my head.

Musical interlude

2007-04-13T09:56:00.000-07:00

My surgery date is official-- May 7th. From my correspondence with other deaf people and cochlear implantees, most people seem to be excited and impatient about their surgery and activation date.

I am neither excited or impatient.

I try to enjoy, as much as I can, the arrival of spring, my writing, my teaching. I listen to music even when I don't want to. I play guitar as much as possible. Every time I play guitar now, I end up crying.

Ten years ago, when my grandmother found out that I was taking guitar lessons, she acted as if it were the worst thing she'd ever heard. "That's awful," she said. "He can't hear." Nobody else said anything to that effect, but that comment stuck with me. She really had no idea of what I was able to hear. I was able to tune my guitar, and I understood the emotive nuances of the melodies. First I took folk guitar lessons, then classical guitar. I became interested in the Spanish guitar composers. I went through the staple pieces that all classical guitarists have in their repertoire; Tarrega, Bach, the anonymous "Romanza." I dabbled in jazz theory and eventually came up with my own style. And then I realized that's all I wanted in the first place-- the ability to express myself musically.

When living in north Portland, I took up singing. My voice was awful, and still is. I underwent a new and strange musical transformation. What music offers that other arts don't is a form of direct experience, and I realized that singing, humming, chanting and even moaning cut directly to the feeling I wanted all along. Catharsis. It was a kind of emotion I couldn't summon with a musical instrument.

My guitar playing deteriorated. It became more minimalist. As much as anything, it was merely a vehicle to induce a sort of trance, a state of being which I became addicted to. I probably sounded like someone dying when I sang, but then, I can't imagine getting any deeper into feeling than that.

Now it's a way for me to dredge up the feelings about my upcoming surgery. I played guitar last night. The sun was setting over the rowhomes beyond my window. The pigeons were doing their absurd mating dance. The little tree in my backyard has green leaves now. I played a few simple chords, I sang, I cried. I took a nap afterwards and in my dream I cried, too.

I try to be optimistic, but the doctors tell me I might not ever appreciate music again. To put it more honestly, they say the odds are against me. I have every intention of being the exception, not the norm. There are people with cochlear implants who are doing well with music, better than they ever did with hearing aids. Every night I hope I'll be one of those people.

Was this what my grandmother meant when she told me not to play guitar? Looking at the trajectory of my childhood, it was obvious that I would go completely deaf one day. And in retrospect, the fifteen years I went without losing more of my hearing was merely a grace period, one which I am grateful for. Playing guitar has been one of the great loves of my life. I would never have listened to my grandmother. It was always convenient to turn my hearing aid off with her.

My experience is really not that much difference from other people with progressive hearing losses. We never really think we'll lose it all. We remain optimistic that we'll keep what little hearing we still have. And it's devastating every time we lose more. I remind myself how lucky I am that I have this option.

Preparing for Changes; My Inner Voice

2007-03-07T13:41:00.000-08:00

It appears that I might finally have a date for one of the most significant moments of my life thus far. Two months from now, on May 7th, if all goes, well, I will be having cochlear implant surgery. This is something I've been wrestling over for the last six months, ever since the hearing in my left ear began to get progressively worse. I've wrestled whatever demons and angels have lived with me all this time, those little stick figures that take on added dimensions in moments of great clarity or sadness. And I've realized it's time. It's time to shift my frame of thoughts from the possible or probable to the inevitable.

In a way, I control my destiny. I've always lived in fear of an unknown date, the day on which I would completely and permanently lose the rest of my hearing. Even as I remained in denial about it, somewhere in the back of my mind it was only a matter of time. And if I have surgery on May 7th, I have taken upon myself the exact date on which I will become completely deaf. The surgery will destroy any remaining residual hearing I have.

I will be trading one illusion for another, a hearing aid for a cochlear implant. And yet there is something beyond that illusion which I will also lose, and I am both mourning and accepting that. In a quite literal sense, I will be losing my inner voice.

Without my hearing aid, you could shout in my ear and I wouldn't hear what you're saying. An ambulance could pass by and I wouldn't know it. There is only one thing I still hear with some clarity, and that is my own voice.

It is snowing today, a lovely surprise for early March in Baltimore. I walk the short distance from my rowhome in Hampden to the Hopkins campus, my breath misting in the cold, the world bouncing ever so subtly up and down. (A result of my vestibular system, which is still in the process of recalibrating itself-- when I move, the world moves with me.) I cross over a bridge on Remington Street. Below me lies a park with bare, snow-covered trees and a brown stream. For the duration of my time here, this is my wilderness. I am humming to myself. I am singing in my own tuneless voice. I am in the process of saying good-bye.

The metaphorical implications are not lost on me. I am trading in my inner voice for an outer voice which should be louder, clearer, and stronger. I hope this can also be a metaphor for my work, which for now is contained in my own mind and a small circle of friends, family and classmates. Getting an MFA is, ideally, the time when a writer hopes to trade the inner voice for the outer, when his or her work is moving towards being published and more widely disseminated. But those are wilder dreams for now. As I walk through the snow to my office and Gilman Hall (and later, Alice McDermott's short novel workshop), I am struggling with metaphors that will help me cope with losing a visceral and deeply-engrained part of myself.

I decide on the metaphor of relationships. My ears in their natural state have served me well enough for 27 years, but now it's time to move on. Much as I love them and the relationship I've formed with them, there's a new and shiny ear out there waiting to be romanced. These old ears are tired of dancing; like in a relationship that just isn't working out, they cease to listen. What is worn and familiar and comforting has become limiting and static. There's a shiny ear out there that wants to go to India and hear songs in a fresh way, and have a new dialogue with the world. There's a shiny ear out there that likes to dress up and even looks kind of sexy in that futuristic bondage kind of way. I can put clip-on accents on her so that the headpiece and hearing aid that make up the external part of the implant are downright colorful. This shiny ear is not afraid of being seen, not afraid to admit deafness, and yet she also refuses to accept the limitations and loneliness that being deaf inevitably impose. Break-ups are always hard, but this shiny new ear promises a future that is both exciting and terrifying. I've always liked change and adventure, and my task right now is to accept and look forward to the great unknown that will last from May 7th until quite likely my dying day.

Back By Popular Demand

2007-03-07T13:27:00.000-08:00

Enough people have asked me where the blog has gone that I've decided to resurrect it. Honestly, I was surprised that anybody cared, but really, I am flattered. I had some requests to encapsulate the weekend I spent in New York, so here it is. A pulp story in the making.

On a low rise above a T & A gas station, which always makes him think of Tits and Ass, not gas, he waits in a long overcoat that is not warm enough for the weather and a gray scarf that his mom made for him. This low hill has the dubious distinction of being part of the Baltimore Travel Plaza, a godforsaken land with a lovely view of I-95, which rises on concrete girders above the city as if it might ascend to some heavenly plane. I-95 leads to New York, and here the heavenly references must end. Heaven, though free of strip malls and cul-de-sacs, is tangential, merely a suburb of that great heathen city which waits to be submerged, once again, in a great biblical flood as the polar ice caps gush forth.

Let us return to our hero, who is out of place here. He looks like one of those pretentious Hopkins students who are always writing dissertations about the participal form as elucidated in Ulysses or the life cycles of squid. In fact, he is one of those fucking students, removed from his ivory tower only to go to that great heathen city in the hopes of meeting with other writers to pretend that his existence is not a mere gaudy bubble upon the surface of this beseiged planet.

He is taking the $20 Chinatown bus because he has better things to spend money on than Greyhound or Amtrak. For example, wine, drugs in abundance, overpriced avant-garde performance art, perhaps even a brief parlay with god at 3.99 a minute.

He arrives in Chinatown an hour late, and, because he is not good at reading maps and does not want to ask anybody for directions, wanders aimlessly in the vast reaches of the Lower East Side. He makes his way around bags of trash and porno shops and storefronts that are little more than garage doors pulled over faceless brick buildings. He finds a refrigerator box and gets to work, carving a small window on one side and then spreading the clothing he has brought for the weekend over the cardboard floor beneath him. This will be his bedding. Through his little window, he watches the great heathen city beyond him. At this point, the reader is wondering what nefarious gases might have been piped through him on the Chinatown bus or at the Tits & Ass gas station. In reality, his behavior can be quite clearly delineated.

He is a writer and he has recently read the first novel in Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, "City of Glass," a metaphysical pseudo-murder mystery in which the main character becomes homeless and crazed in his inadvertent search for the original language of god. And so our writer watches the world go by through his little window, and he waits for a sign.

****************

My weekend began with congee in the Lower East Side, an authentic Chinese rice porridge with fresh ginger and mushrooms, and ended with cream puffs in the Village. I had a great time with Meredith, a good friend of mine and a first year fiction student in Cornell's MFA program. We had a good time philosophizing, talking about fiction and literature, being crude and ridiculous, and talking shit. I met a lot of great people, including a brilliant pianist and composer, a dancer from Montana who is also an environmentalist, a guy who designs bondage jewelry, and one of the first year poets from Cornell. I went to the galleries in Chelsea and tried to figure out how the hell some of this art could sell for ten grand. We ate delicious food, we spent hours on the subway, we walked until our legs were tired stumps. We lay on the ground in Grand Central Station in the middle of the night, and I pointed out the artifiicial constellations to Meredith, who is blind, until a security guard shooed us away. We ate a half-eaten, abandoned bagel at a coffeeshop in Williamsburg. We had brunch in the Village. We met up with an old friend of mine from a writing circle in Portland who is now an editor at Picador. I watched people with insatiable hunger, whether they were beautiful women or madmen, artists or bricklayers. I should buy one of those tacky tee shirts that says I heart New York, but no amount of hipster irony can really summon that cliche turned hip turned cliche back from the dead. I wish I had remembered to bring along the shirt that Meredith got for me, which says: Nobody Knows I'm a Deaf Lesbian. That explains everything I'm feeling in a nutshell.

The Empire of Desire

2006-12-22T18:03:00.000-08:00

So I'm finally diving headfirst into a Pandora's box that I've been avoiding for a few years. Why have I been avoiding it? Simply because I've been too busy with my own writing to really help out with a project of this magnitude. Now I'm finally taking a hard look at The Empire of Desire, a novel that has been collecting dust on my dad's desk.

Well, not really collecting dust. He does dust it off frequently.

It's 550 pages of baby boomer epic, or at least, it was. Today we got it down to 430 pages, and I think we can shave it down a bit more. Now I'm excited to help him with it, and even to do my best to find an agent to represent him.

When I was in high school, I wanted nothing to do with this novel. I remember sitting in the kitchen, Coltrane or Sibelius playing in the background, the savory smells of my father's cooking filling the room.

"How was your day at school?" he'd ask.
"Oh, it was all right."
And then he'd put the tureen back in the copper pot, suddenly distracted from one of the many timing-related cooking things he did, and said:
"That reminds me of a scene from my novel." He'd take out his boxed manuscript, heavy enough to be a murder weapon, and insist on reading scenes aloud to me.
"Hey, wait a minute Dad, I'm deaf," I'd say, but nobody who knows me falls for that trick.

I understand that heady feeling of giving birth to a literary baby and wanting to show it to everybody, but for a few years everything reminded him of that novel. Then again, though, life had already taken on novelistic turns for both of us. We were living out our epics, building fictional trajectories. Maybe it's in the blood-- born escapists.

I imagine that one of the great writing epiphanies of his life, the kind that writers dream of, was the week he spent in the north woods in a frenzy of writing the finale of that novel, days in which he spent 14 hours writing and the rest of his waking hours cooking feasts for one over an open flame.

And I imagine too that feeling of delirious tangibility he must have had, that all of us writers have when we soar out of our doubts into moments of absolute faith about what we're doing. Yes, this will make it, we tell ourselves, it really will.

I've thought many times how this dream came to crosshairs with his life, with his resulting brain tumor, surgery and aphasia. A bloom of too many words, they were birthed in their season, but now it is the winter of his life. Not that the snow drifts aren't lovely, but they do tend to cover everything, to make our wheels spin out.

Which brings me to the present moment. I hope we can make this happen.

6.66 and eggnog

2006-12-17T13:45:00.000-08:00

So I'm done with the semester and most of my 'colleagues' have gone home for the holidays. I'll be taking the train back to the midwest tomorrow.

I figured I would send out a new round of manuscripts because I kinda like collecting rejection slips. Some of them even use different fonts. But anyway, six manuscripts at $1.11 each for postage came out to $6.66. I was hoping for something auspicious, but this? Was there some Faustian pact involved? Probably not but the lady at the post office gave me the raised-eyebrow look, asked me if I needed anything else.
"Well, uh, I think I better get some stamps."
And the look and smile she gave me seemed to say, you done been saved.

Which brings me to a totally irrelevant topic: eggnog, which is a delicious, creamy, and thoroughly unhealthy beverage. Yesterday I did the math and discovered I had consumed 1500 calories of eggnog alone. Happy holidays.

It's All Over

2006-12-10T09:35:00.000-08:00

For the semester, that is. Kind of over, anyway. I suppose I should be grading these final portfolios but instead I'm staring dreamlike at a stained glass unicorn in the Gilman Reading Room at Hopkins. What was simply a pulsing, existential hangover yesterday has turned into a pleasant melancholy, enough brainflip to think back over the last four months in Bmore. It's been aight, hon. I like it here now.

Friday night the Writing Sems had an end of semester celebration at the Hopkins Club, with a free open bar and Andre 3000 (his name was actually Chad but damn he looked like Andre 3000) serving up strong Cosmos and Chocolate Eggnog martinis. By the end of the night we basically just told him to pour whatever he wanted to into a martini glass.

I ate as much shrimp and crab and salmon and prime rib and mini tortes as I could, just like any boho grad student would, figuring it would take the edge off any hangover. We went to the Mount Royal afterwards, a MICA haunt (so this is where all the cute art students hang out-- damn, I'll be back here soon).

I'm feeling pretty good about things right now. A few weeks ago I had a little epiphany and was just about ready to get down on my hands and knees and say, "I want the machine!" Drill a hole in my head and give me lotsa Vicodin and maybe some old video games to play for a few weeks. Everything just opened up. Suddenly I realized who the %$&#^ cares if I have an implant or not? When it comes down to it, I'm going to hear better, be more social and be more myself than perhaps I've ever been. Am I going to be a freak with an electronic fridge magnet stuck to the side of my head? Yes, I will be a freak, but I already am a freak. Note for all fetishists out there, if you want to get it on with a Lobot, I'll be waiting for you.

The Inner Ear

2006-10-30T10:25:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I live my life holding on to the thread of the silver lining, the dark clouds rolling above and beneath me. I don't think I'm a depressed person by nature, but certain experiences have tested my disposition again and again. And if I seem particularly existential at times, it's because I've chosen to live in a world not fully my own-- a deaf man in a hearing world.

My father is having brain surgery today. The procedure is supposed to be relatively simple, at least compared to the 12-hour surgery he had four years ago to remove the malignant ependynoma that was swallowing up the language center of his brain. I often wonder about this bloom of words struggling to get in and out of both of us. And I wonder too how much longer he'll be with us. But this is something I can't write about right now, when he may well be in the operating room at this moment.

About two years ago I began to storyboard a novel called The Inner Ear. That title didn't actually come to me until after I'd finished a rough draft of the book. At that time it was still untitled, and while hosting a writing circle at my house in Portland, heady on wine and critiquing someone's short story, I suddenly saw the words illuminated in my mind, so absurdly simple and right that I could not believe I hadn't thought of it before. It felt like grace, that silver thread.

I try to compose my life of moments of grace and profound meaning. And this is where the existentialism comes in again-- the philosophy is simply about our attempt to find meaning in our own lives, which often seem inchoate, chaotic, beyond our control. And if you are one of those few who feel you have everything under control, give it time. Everything we know and love in this life will disappear, for some of us sooner, and for others, later.

The Inner Ear has in many ways been a process of self-discovery, of putting into words what I've always known about my own experience but haven't admitted, even to myself. And just as the novel was and is about a deaf man coming to terms with himself even as the aural world blurs and dims around him, it has also been the story of me coming to terms with myself and my father's illness.

When I went to SE Asia this past summer, knowing that my life would change completely when I returned-- leaving a city I loved, ending a 2-year relationship, and leaving my community behind, this novel was in a shambles. I returned from SE Asia with little clarity on who I was, with a sense that I once again had to pick up the pieces of myself. I still wear a red bracelet with five beads which a Burmese monk tied around my wrist in Kyaingtong. The world is suffering and impermanence, he told us. One strives for egolessness. And if I had been born in Burma, I too would have strived for the silver lining of the great beyond, an immoveable force on which the Tatdamaw (the Burmese army) has no control.

But I was lucky enough to be born an American, one of the few countries where a deaf person stands a chance. I came back to America, and within a month of moving to Baltimore and starting at Hopkins I lost more of my hearing. For all my despair, the silver lining was a renewed sense of purpose about my novel and my own spiritual self. My spirituality has always been tied to my deafness and my inner songs, the ethereal ringing that has accompanied me every day and every moment of my entire life. To me, tinnitus is my way of looking at the Buddhist concept of the unstruck sound, without beginning or ending, cause or effect. There are moments when I am almost breathless with a strange and beautiful melody I have never heard before.

Last week I workshopped the latest draft of my first chapter. I received a lot of good feedback, and I also had the amazing privilege of talking with Alice McDermott one on one for an hour afterwards. The first thing she said to me is "this is very good, I want you to move forward." We discussed the structure of the novel and she was incredibly helpful. After an hour, I left with my head swimming and a whole new range of structural and plotting issues to sort out, but I also felt a renewed sense of purpose. The hours, days, months I've struggled with this novel, at times wondering if I should give it up or whether it was any good.... the perseverance pays off at moments like this.

John Barth told us to invent new genres, and simply through my experience I hope to have that opportunity. The Deaf genre has yet to be explored, and I feel a strong sense of purpose in this, not just because it is my own experience, but because it is a perspective that has been silenced for so long in the hearing world. Will this work eventually get published? From a statistical standpoint, the odds are against me. I certainly hope it will. But for now, my own belief and sense of purpose is more than enough. There is nothing else that quite gives me that unique sense of ecstasy as being lost in my writing. A few hours of good writing becomes a high that lasts all day.

Good luck, Dad. This is nothing compared to what you've been through.

Readings

2006-10-28T10:15:00.001-07:00

I've fallen behind a bit on this blog, mainly because when I've been focusing most of my writing energy on my novel (which happens to have the same title as the blog). The last few weeks have been incredibly uplifting for me. My hearing is stable and I've been cleared for exercise again. I've been biking and now I'm interested in getting into tennis. One of my fiction classmates has done tennis instruction in the past.

Anyway, on the subject of readings. There have been several wonderful readings over the past three weeks-- Philip Levine, John Barth, and then our Graduate Writing Sems readings. I gave a reading for the first time in my life, for an audience of about 50 people. My mom was in town, which was nice, and we spent that weekend in Shenandoah National Park.

An interesting anecdote about the John Barth reading: Barth is basically the granddaddy of the Writing Sems. He taught at Hopkins for a long time, and he's about as post-modern and experimental as they come. Anyway, after all of the fiction writers got out of class that Thursday, we went down to the Hopkins Club, hoping to crash his reception. We weren't sure if we'd be able to get in-- we taught, but were we faculty? And after all, we hadn't exactly been invited. But as we were standing there uncertainly a car pulls up and John Barth steps out, waves us all in. He gave us a little talk in the Hopkins Club about inventing new genres, as we quaffed as much free wine and beer as we could in the hour before the reading. At the reading, he spun out a post-modern fantasy that included all manners of lechery-- imagine a 75 year old man throwing out everything from half-limp erections to yeast infections. Most of my students attended the reading, and they were shocked.

Philip Levine was absolutely wonderful as well. What a funny old guy. He spent the breaks between poems telling us jokes and trying to convince us that he was not a tormented, depressed poet, and then he read the most heart-breaking poems to us-- poems about war, his twin brother, a lonely waitress.

Beauty is Not Only Scan-Deep

2006-10-04T14:21:00.000-07:00

So I'm a month into the Writing Sems program at Hopkins, and at this point I couldn't imagine being anywhere else. Alice McDermott is the best writing teacher I've ever had. I was workshopped for the first time last week and I got ripped, just like everyone else has been. It's a good thing; I feel honored that my work is taken so seriously, and I don't take constructive criticism that personally. It's just part of getting to the next level.
Alice told us that we'll all be writing short novels with her next semester, and our workshop will be with Stephen Dixon, so I'm already looking forward to that. Next week I'll be giving my first ever reading as part of the Graduate Reading Series here. We had about fifty people for this week's reading. And get this-- we have our own librarian. We can go to her for any research questions, so if I need to know more about the Cambodian woman's perspective on prostitution in SE Asia, or need the answers to any of my more obscure questions about Mesopotamia, she'll do the research.

This week I'm teaching scansion and honestly, some of my students probably know more about it than I do. I'm not a poet, and I won't pretend to be. Which syllable is stressed, which one isn't? All I know is that I'm stressed. I could bang my head on a Mending Wall right now, which is what I'll be teaching tomorrow.

I've had conferences with my students the last few weeks, and I also graded my first major assignment-- memoirs. My favorite was about a Thai girl making spring rolls with her grandma in Bangkok. Teaching has been my biggest challenge so far, and I've really been enjoying it. I like my students, my students like me. And I kinda like how the Writing Sems people are considered pretty hip TAs.

A Fetish of the Machine

2006-10-04T14:08:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in the basement of the biomedical engineering building, following the movement of a red dot with my eyes. Leaned forward, my teeth clamped down a bite block, I have two wires attached to my eyes by way of two specially modified contacts. Each one of these contacts was made by hand, by one person, who retired last year. The wires are finer than thread, and break just as easily. Each one of these wires cost $300 to replace. My eyes have been numbed, and after the experiment, a dye is applied to make my cornea fluorescent under black lights. Satisfied that the wires haven't scratched my eyes, the doctor, a pregnant Thai lady, takes away my bite block and the contacts.

This isn't fiction. I just had a "scleral search coil" test, which measures measures the anterior, posterior and horizontal canals of my vestibular system. Earlier in the afternoon, my ears were filled with hot and then cold water, causing the room to spin, as if I'd achieved drunken samadhi. I'm participating in one of those before and after studies, in this case, on the effect of cochlear implants on the vestibular system. I haven't decided for sure whether I'm getting an implant yet; at the very least, the tests will determine any balance problems I might have as a result of losing some hearing a month ago. So far so good-- my balance function appears to be pretty normal.

First workshop with Alice

2006-09-14T08:07:00.000-07:00

I just finished teaching my Thursday class-- today we went over Eudora Welty's "June Recital," quite a behemoth to put on the shoulders of freshmen, even students as bright as the ones here. I'm really enjoying this challenge, and I'm optimistic that I may finally be finding a life's calling here. Then again, I feel pulled in so many different directions-- writing, the environmental community, the Deaf community, teaching. If I can find a way to ultimately integrate all of these things in my life (with love, a garden, and a nice little eco-friendly house), I will be a very happy man.

Tuesday afternoon we had our first workshop with Alice McDermott. She could blend in anywhere in America-- a middle-aged woman, perhaps suburban, someone you'd say hi to in the supermarket. She has a very down-to-earth quality, and a way of really grounding the workshop discussion. My first impression is that she's a great teacher and she really understands the essentials of writing.

Our workshops are pretty straightforward-- we begin the class with a discussion of the weekly story in The New Yorker (everyone, especially Alice, thought this week's story sucked). Then we move on to discussing the stories to be workshopped for the week. That's something I won't go into detail about, since this is our personal work here. Once again I found myself incredibly impressed by the way Alice hones the conversation and gets to the essence of the story. Will I have this kind of internal framework in thirty years? I hope so. It's amazing how much I've already grown my first month in Baltimore, in terms of the way I look at writing and reading. It's as if somebody opened my eyes and revealed the inner workings of the machine, something which I've always known intuitively how to run but not necessarily to fix and repair.

This is what really hit home about Alice, though. Later that evening, my roommate Danny and I were discussing the workshop and Danny asked if I'd read Alice's review. I didn't know what he was talking about. He told me there was a review of Alice's latest book in The New Yorker, and that it put her work in glowing terms. What are the chances that the first New Yorker we'd read for class would also contain a review of her book? And yet it didn't come up in the workshop. She didn't mention it. I can't pinpoint exactly what quality that is, but it just gives me tremendous respect for her.

Next week I'll be turning in my first story, and the week after that I'll be workshopped in class. That's something I'm really looking forward to, though I'm having a difficult time deciding what piece to put up. I'm very mindful that I want to make a good first impression-- not so much with the quality of my writing but with the kind of writer I am. Much of my work so far focuses three themes-- being Deaf, the environment, and traveling. Which side do I want to show first? Who am I really, and what stories do I have to give forth to the world that might actually have some value and benefit to readers?

On Teaching: The Last Post for the Day

2006-09-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

This is my fourth post today. I've done my best to sum up a transitional time that has been both amazing and difficult. This wouldn't be complete, though, without at least a brief mention of my first week of teaching. My class meets on Thursdays and Fridays from 9 am until 10:15. There are, for the time being, 16 students in my class, though that number is fluctuating as kids add and drop. I thought I would have a difficulty with names but I knew them all by name by the end of the first day.

The students here are phenomenal-- intelligent and earnest. My first week of teaching was wonderful. I felt very comfortable being up there, and I felt very comfortable telling them who I am. I have a speaker phone and laptop. Ostensibly, a captioner types what the students say and it comes up on my laptop, but so far it's not working. Instead, I have a circular discussion and I roam around the class during discussion. I haven't had any problems with lip-reading so far, even with the international students.

I'm amazed at how natural everything feels. I'm not afraid to make a fool out of myself. I feel a certain wonderful authority as I roam about asking my questions about Seamus Heaney and Eudora Welty. I love analyzing the reading and drawing answers out of the students. So far, I'm amazed at how much the students are participating. This was my big initial fear, but I think I'm asking the right questions and being engaging.

Don't get me wrong, I have a lot to learn. I have a lot of reading yet to do. For example, we'll be going over scansion in the fourth or fifth week of class, and I don't even really know what that is. I'm comfortable in the realm of fiction, but I have a long way to go with poetry. The amount of work and preparation necessary for each class is absolutely mind-boggling.

From the Outer to the Inner Ear

2006-09-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

Something unfortunate happened to me last week, though I've always been one to look at the silver lining in the clouds. On Sunday, after working out at the gym, I noticed a decline in my hearing over the next several days, accompanied with imbalance and ringing in my ears. It turned my view from the outer world to the inner, as I once again find myself grappling with my Deafness.

I was having a conversation with a few of the poets at a bar last week and one of them said I had this mysterious quality. The other said, I don't know about that, I think Franz is really open. I appreciated the observation from the first poet, and the compliment from the second. I think they are both true, and they both stem from being Deaf.

I'm certainly not a mysterious person by nature, but the nature of deafness and the inner ear, as well as the experiences and psychology that come with it, are mysteries that hearing people don't understand. I live in a bustling vibrant city on the edge of a great desert. I need only to look out a window when people are talking around me to see the desolation and the isolation that come with my condition.

I live in this vibrant city because deafness propels me to go outside of my comfort zone again and again. Because I do not want to be an abnormal person, I strive to be an exceptional person. Because I do not want to be downtrodden, I try to climb higher and further than others. I don't look at it as competition so much as compensation.

This hearing loss, whether permanent or temporary, is a strong wake-up call. I need to get back in touch with the Deaf community and focus on sign language. I've returned to writing a novel about the Deaf in Portland. And I am preparing for what may well be inevitable, a cochlear implant.

It may be overly dramatic, but I've always feared becoming a machine in this way. On the outside, a cochlear implant isn't much more noticeable than a hearing aid. A sound processor and microphone send signals to a dime sized internal processor placed just inside the ear. This internal processor is connected with several millimeter-thick wires inserted directly into the cochlea, which send sound signals directly to the brain.

I've been told since I was eight years old that I would hear better with an implant. In the twenty years since, my hearing has deteriorated more and the technology for the implant has improved dramatically. With an implant, I would hear much better than I've ever heard in my life.

So what stops me? (Well, the $50,000 price tag for one, but insurance should cover that.) What stops me is some deeper spiritual core that doesn't want to turn away from who I am, a Deaf man. I don't want my senses overrun with technology and computers. I don't want to be dependent on the subsidiary of a huge corporation. Ask many Deaf or otherwise disabled people what they would like and it's quite possible we'd all be in agreement. We simply want to be normal, endowed with the five senses that most have at birth. How nice it would be to have that breeziness that comes with the senses and the body's health being in intimate concord, a body so in tune that it forgets its limitations and mortality.

I already have a machine that helps me hear. I already have metal in my ear, a tiny wire that holds my eardrum in place, and which has done its job since I was eight years old. Most importantly, I have realized that finding my true potential lies in both an inner and outer world. I will always have that inner world, but to really share my abilities with the world at large, I will always be dependent on the wonders of modern technology.

My Community

2006-09-09T08:54:00.000-07:00

I've met so many people here these past three weeks. I already have a solid, exciting community. The writers here are an amazing group. Last Thursday, we were out until 3 am at Spirits Tavern in Fells Point, one of Baltimore's most historic and beautiful areas. Friday I went out to dinner with my new roommate Danny. Saturday I went to the farmer's market and then to lunch in Hampden with a few of the poets. Sunday we had a movie night. Monday there was an out of town Labor Day party near Monkton. We were out in a wooded area, and there were horses and two goats named Isaac on the property.
During my three day teaching orientation last week, I was amazed at how intelligent and unique all of my classmates are. As the head of the department said, we won't all make it, but some of us will, and this is a community we are forming for life. We have New Yorkers, southerners and midwesterners in abundance, a wide variety of minds and ideas even if they are mostly (and unfortunately) manifested in the bodies and experiences of white men. We would all like more racial and gender diversity, but then, this is such a smart and qualified group we can't really complain.

I've also had the chance to meet a lot of other people here, including B-morers and John Waters' type characters. I've met my neighbors, including an older woman who told me about the history of Hampden. I love being in a neighborhood with lots of elderly. I've finally realized what an ageist city that Portland is, much as I love it.

I've made friends through Red Emma's Coffeeshop, including an environmental activist. Her name, ironically enough, is Kate, and she's the first friend I made in Baltimore. A few weeks ago we went out for a hike at Gunpowder Falls State Park, which is absolutely gorgeous, and will become even more so with the fall colors. I'm realizing that B-more has its fair share of hipsters, creators, and the up and coming, but what has really grown on me is its unpretentious side. I have never been in a city with so many people who were so welcoming to strangers. Most people here who have had experiences with Portland found it to be a very unfriendly, clique-ish town. You can't imagine my surprise when I heard that! But then, compared to B-more, where the neighbors stop by and introduce themselves, and I can talk with people of all different backgrounds and races, yes, Portland is pretty exclusive and more than a little sullen, especially in winter.

I do really miss Portland, though! I'm back at work on a novel that takes place in Portland, down to the bridges, the streets, even the houses. Portland will always have a special place in my heart, and it may still be my home again some day.

At Home in B-More

2006-09-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

I've been in Baltimore almost three weeks now. I'm really growing to like the city, even to love it in some ways. For example, my neighborhood, Hampden. I've moved into a 2 bedroom rowhome with one of my fiction classmates. My neighbors range from Hopkins students to elderly to young hipsters. It's a neighborhood in the process of gentrification and change, but it's at an exciting phase right now, when it still has diversity instead of hipster homogeneity.
We live in a 1920's brick row home with hardwood floors. The walls of the long living room are painted red. The walls of my bedroom are painted yellow and purple. I can climb through the window and out onto an upper porch looking over the alley. The sun sets over the backs of the rowhomes, I see into little yards where neighbors are conversing, a hound is braying, and potted plants are in the full tangle of summer.
We also have the funkiest, most unique bathroom in Baltimore. The walls are painted green, the clawfoot tub has golden stars on it with a night background, and there's a skylight with gold cloth hanging from it.

I'm a ten-minute walk from the classroom where I teach, and also a ten-minute walk from The Avenue. This is B-more's answer to Portland's funky streets. I imagine it is like Hawthorne Street must have been in the 90's, with old, unique standbys such as the Bagdad Theater, a few boutiques moving in, but also still spiced with all the old school charms of a neighborhood. This is what Hampden's Avenue is like, and there are some great spots, such as Golden West and Holy Frijoles, both hipster diners.

Hopkins: the campus is beautiful, not quite Ivy but pretty close. My favorite spot there for the first few weeks was a wooded area near the gym with sculptures of different animals-- an owl, a squirrel, a bear with cubs. Here I tended to the emotional wounds of lost love and leaving the wild spaces of the northwest behind. I read my Eudora Welty and jotted notes down for short stories.

Our writing seminars classes are held just beneath the belltower in Gilman Hall, the central building of the Hopkins quad and the Homewood Campus. There are 12 foot tall windows and we are truly in the ivory tower here.

On the other side of campus is Charles Village, where I stayed my first two weeks in Baltimore. It's where a lot of the Hopkins students live, and just a few blocks over is a year-round farmer's market, where I went last week.

I've also had the chance to get out of town a few times-- a visit to the Appalachian Trail at Harper's Ferry, as well as several visits to beautiful state parks and wooded areas about 20 minutes outside of Baltimore. Maryland's very beautiful, and I love all the old historic buildings here.

From Bangkok to Baltimore

2006-08-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

It's been almost exactly a month since I last posted on this blog. Since flying back to the states from Bangkok, it's been a different sort of journey. I spent ten days in Portland saying my goodbyes, first and foremost to a girl I loved very much, but also Portland and the beautiful Pacific Northwest. It's only now that I am in Baltimore preparing for graduate school at Hopkins that I realize what I've lost, and what strength I will gain from these next two years. But I'll save that for later.

My mom and I drove myself across country, passing through Boise, the Grand Tetons, the midwest, and finally reaching Baltimore. Hiking in the Tetons was a fabulous and clarifying experience for me. It was also a goodbye from the wilderness of the west. We did a 13 mile hike through Cascade Canyon, past beautiful waterfalls, thimbleberry, and jagged 13,000 foot peaks.

I reconnected with friends in the midwest. I started in Columbia, MO., meeting up with John, Nicole and their baby Opal. They're good friends from my second year of AmeriCorps, and their daughter is named after the gorgeous Opal Creek natural area in Oregon. I began to learn the first lessons of the next stage of my life-- how I want to raise a kid, have a home, and the like.

Then it was onward to Iowa City, my hometown, where I felt a brief and intense period of being rooted. Whether I like it or not, I'm a child of the corn and the rolling fields, or rather, the liberal bastion of the state, the Peoples Republic of Iowa.

And then Baltimore, oh Baltimore. I was back in another country again, it seemed.

Leaving SE Asia

2006-07-22T23:51:00.000-07:00

Once again I find myself at the airport in Taipei. We have a ten hour layover here, and then another ten hour layover once we arrive in L.A. Originally, we were both set to return to the states on the 25th, but neither of us like Bangkok, and as a result, we moved our tickets up a few days.

It seems like the perfect time to reflect on the last three months, but for me at least, that will have to wait until I return to the states and go through my pictures. I'm excited to be going back to Portland, and now my mind is on preparing for school at Hopkins in the fall. Over the last three months, I've taken a break from my writing, and the hiatus has been good for me. On an active level, I haven't thought about my writing much, other than the ideas I have been generating on my travels. On a more subconscious level, I've been processing where I want my writing to go from here, and I've realized that the direction I'm going in is different than the one I was on before I started this trip.

A big part of that has been the sublimation of the ego and self that I've been feeling over the past three months. Perhaps the five beads I still wear on my wrist from Burma have turned me into a Buddhist after all. More likely, traveling has made me aware once again of the enormity of the world and the smallness of my own experience within the world.

Angkor Wat; Recovering

2006-07-19T03:54:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted. I haven't had the energy. Leaving Phnom Penh for Kratie last week, I was slammed by a nasty bug and I'm only now just about fully recovered from it. I slept the first 24 hours and most of the next 24 hours as well, with a Tylenol-laced reprieve to see Kratie's critically endangered Irawaddy freshwater dolphins.

That was an incredible experience. Pairs of the dolphins circled us on the Mekong, and there were cranes wheeling overhead. For the three hours I was out, I actually felt wonderful.

That didn't last long. Returning to Phnom Penh all the symptoms continued, plus a few more. I had headaches, eyeaches, chills, shits, dizziness, all-out exhaustion.

Three days ago we came up to Siem Reap and my first day here I just had to take it easy. I was in no shape to see Angkor Wat. I stepped off the bus and I had cramps in my calves from dehydration.

In the future, I'll take my chances with malaria before taking Doxycycline again. Because it's an antibiotic, it's knocked out any natural immunity my stomach has, and as a result, this sickness hit me harder than anything since before I was in college.

The last two days, however, I've been feeling much better. We've explored Ankor Wat as well as the other major temples of Angkor. It's quite overwhelming.

Anyway, I'm glad to be alive, and once again, well.

TS-21 and The Killing Fields

2006-07-12T03:09:00.000-07:00

TS-21 is the most infamous detention center in Cambodia, used by the Khmer Rouge during the years 1975-1979. Of the more than 10,000 people who were tortured there, including women and children, only seven survived. The rest were taken to the Killing Fields about 15 km out of Phnom Penh, where there is a monument stacked with the skulls of the executed. The cracks in the skulls clearly show that bullets were considered too precious to waste.

Tuol Sleng Prison was a high school before the Khmer Rouge revolution. It's one of those monstrous buildings that were built in the '50s and '60s and looks like Soviet Bloc architecture. In places, there are still bloodstains on the floor. One part of the exhibit shows the faces of thousands of TS-21 victims-- all were photographed and documented before they were tortured and killed. If one person was considered to be a traitor to the Khmer Rouge, it was customary for that person's entire family to be killed.

There is one room that has brief bios and portraits of the Khmer Rouge leaders, including Pol Pot and Ieng Sary. The remaining portraits have been so defaced by Khmer grafitti that the faces are no longer recognizable. There is no longer even a picture of Pol Pot on the wall. Most likely it was defaced to the point of being unusable. I found the grafitti to be a small but moving testament to how the Khmer people feel about these former dictators.

Perhaps the most meaningful part of the exhibit for me was a section of pictures and bios by a Cambodian photographer. He had photographed portraits of former Khmer Rouge soldiers and security guards in their present lives. Many did not want to work for the Khmer Rouge, but knew they would be killed otherwise. Indeed, even those who ended up working for the K.R. often fell out of favor and were tortured and killed.

There is talk of putting the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders on trial. This talk has been going on for quite a while, and honestly, it's getting too late in the day for that. Pol Pot and Ieng Sary are dead. Ta Mok will be dead soon. They all lived to be old and unprosecuted in their own country, where they are responsible for the deaths of 2-3 million of their people.

Now more than half the population is under 20. There are very few who survived the Khmer Rouge, and when I see older people, I cannot help but wonder what their memories are, and which side of the fence they'd been on. Had they survived by keeping quiet, or luck, or outright support of the Khmer Rouge?

From the Coast to Phnom Penh

2006-07-10T05:14:00.000-07:00

We just arrived in Phnom Penh a few hours ago, and the city's hectic pace is a big change from our time on the coast. Five star hotels alternate with run-down cinderblock buildings. What should be four lanes of traffic seems more like twelve.

The last few days we were on Rabbit Island, which is a few kilometers off the coast, near the former resort town of Kep. Rabbit Island is practically uninhabited, and is only 10 kilometers in diameter. There are a few rustic bamboo bungalows and that's it. It was a good place to decompress for a few days, and to recharge our batteries for the last two weeks of our trip.

I've been feeling a strong interest in Cambodian culture, much like the way both Zander and I feel about Burmese culture. It's just staggering to think of what Cambodia has gone through over the last 30 years (since the Khmer Rouge's "Year Zero"), and so far, the country's future doesn't seem particularly bright either. One of the saddest things I've noticed so far is the high rate of prostitution. In Sihanoukville, another beach town where we spent a few days, the going price for a girl is only $2. Not surprisingly, there's also an incredibly high rate of HIV. There's a certain level of physical contact in the culture that I haven't seen anywhere else on this trip. In its positive manifestation, it's a very affectionate energy, and the kids will come up and playfully jest as they try to sell bracelets. One boy even drew two dragons for my diary. On the negative side, there's an undercurrent of violence to the contact-- pushing, mock fighting, and the like. Physical abuse is all too common and I've already seen too many instances of it.

In a country where until recently more than 50% of the population was under the age of 15, the future really does lie in the hands of the kids.

Crossing Into Cambodia

2006-07-06T08:01:00.000-07:00

We've been in Cambodia for just over 24 hours and we've gone from one extreme to the other. Last night we crossed the border at Koh Kong, on the Gulf of Thailand. It was so flooded around Trat, on the Thailand side, that there were traffic jams of cars and scooters waiting to go through water that was axle-deep.

From the moment we reached the Cambodian border the hustle was on. The rain was coming down and men ran out of the shadows with umbrellas and questions. We'd arrived just before 8 pm, when the border closes, and when we crossed, I found myself holding two umbrellas and wondering what was going on. We somehow ended up in separate taxis with two different agendas. My driver was a madman. He was driving too fast and he hit a flooded patch of road and went into a yaw. The car did a 45 degree turn and almost went off a steep embankment, then went the other way and took us into a muddy strip on the other side of the road. Somehow he did manage to make it into town.

All the taxi drivers get commissions from guesthouses, so that will explain why the Angkor beer was on the house for my driver. He made it known that he could take care of any of my needs-- money-changing, hookers, drugs. I told him I was ready to go to bed.

In the morning Zander and I met up again at the pier for the "boat" to Sihanoukville. I say "boat" because it appeared to be a cross between a submarine and a UFO, except it was decrepit and made in Malaysia. I couldn't believe how many people they managed to stuff onto this thing, and then how many of them were throwing up once we hit the open sea. The water was rough and a grandma sitting two seats away couldn't hold things down. The little kids were peeing on the floor and the waves were hitting the windows of our boat, tilting us at a 40 degree angle back and forth.

Now we're in Sihanoukville, a resort town on the southern coast. We're about 4 hours away from Phnom Penh when we choose to go up there. First we'll head to Kep, another town further up the coast. The weather is gorgeous again, and it's very invigorating to be exploring a new culture. Still, I can't help but get the sense that this town is a little too free and easy, an illusion for us westerners.

Ko Chang

2006-07-03T05:20:00.000-07:00

My bungalow is on the edge of the ocean. It couldn't be any closer to the water without falling in the sea. Mists flow through the walls of the cabin, my mosquito net and me. It sounds like the end of the world. More than once I've woken up in the middle of the night with the sense that the ocean was about to swallow me.

Our first night here I walked ankle-deep in rain down the rutted track that led to the ocean, stumbling in the dark as the palm trees thrashed in the wind. The rain and ocean remind me of Oregon, though its palms and strangler figs I see, not Sitka spruce.

There is a swing outside my window hanging from the branches of a sprawling tree. It rides just above the high tide. When the tide is out there are shells swept up on the beach. There are shells of fantastic shapes and colors, many which must have once been home for hermit crabs and other creatures. There are also pieces of coral that have washed ashore and are bleached white as bone.

There are other islands around Ko Chang, all of them lushly forested. These islands make up Ko Chang National Park, and its heartening to see that efforts are being made to protect the area even as it is developing all too quickly. All along the road there are muddy desolate lots waiting for more resorts and shopping centers. Meanwhile, we are at Lonely Beach, where the lodgings are still rustic, there isn't too much shopping, and the happy shakes are both tasty and quite potent.

Leaving Laos

2006-06-28T06:49:00.000-07:00

Well, we just arrived in Ventiane, the capitol of Laos, after a 10 hour bus ride from Luang Prabang. We decided to skip touristy Vang Vieng altogether, and we're both feeling ready to leave the country. It's been an amazing time, particularly the boat ride and the trekking experiences. The mountainous scenery here is absolutely spectacular, and the ride between Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng in particular was gorgeous.

Yesterday, our last day in Luang Prabang, I went to Kwangsi Waterfall, which has numerous drops totalling about 300 feet. Lime-gray pools of water, trees growing from the rocks, the limestone warped into strange and beautiful shapes by the flow of water. It was exactly what I needed after a few soul-searching days in Luang Prabang. After being so off the beaten path with our boat ride, the amount of tourism in L.P. was quite a culture shock. It's fortunate that the town has so much charm and I enjoyed wandering around the city's temples and along the Mekong River.

Ventiane, on the other hand, is gritty and urban, at least for Laos. It's full of strange Communist propaganda, moldy motel rooms, and eclectic but interesting cuisine (we watched a beautiful sunset while eating at a Lao-Russian place on the Mekong).

We've been debating what to do next-- either crossing into Cambodia or going down to Ko Chang in Thailand. We'll spend the day in Ventiane tomorrow and then go from there. Spending some time at the beach is sounding appealing to both of us.

More on the Boat Ride

2006-06-25T06:56:00.000-07:00

When we were floating down the Mekong River yesterday, we almost passed up Luang Prabang altogether. Full of literary allusions and stories of old explorers, we expected to see the golden spire of Wat Chieng Meng and alight on the tip of the peninsula that forms the city. But by our fourth day on the river, and lots of paddling, we'd decided to have a few drinks of Laolao to celebrate finishing our trip. Our boat made pinwheels on the mighty Mekong, swaying in the current. We passed many golden spires before paddling hard through the current to shore, only to find ourselves to far downstream. We had to paddle against the current to dock against one of the Mekong freighters.

It was a fitting way to end our journey in a boat named "Seeker" in Sanskrit. Back in Nong Khiaw, we used Zander's knife to carve out the symbol and then christened it with a spray of Laolao.

Our boat was long, narrow and swift, and apparently a hot item now that the big rains are about to come. The fishing is going to get good and everyone wanted to buy our boat. Nobody could understand why two crazy farang would buy a fishing boat and take four days to paddle to Luang Prabang when we could have made the bus ride in 8 hours.

Our first day on the river, a motorboat pulled alongside us and an energetic young schoolteacher named Cham boarded our boat and insisted that we stay in his village. The people who live along the river are naturals at boating and fishing, and Cham could paddle faster with his sandals than we could with our oars.

My memories of that first night in his village: the game of takraw outlined in the dirt between bamboo huts, Cham's parents crouched by the cooking fire, twenty schoolkids and adults huddled by the light of a small kerosene lamp examining our pictures. We ate Lao family-style with Cham, his parents and his older brother. Bamboo soup, spicy jeow, sticky rice, boiled chicken and fried water buffalo, a real treat. Afterwards, a half dozen men stopped by to partake in the Laolao.

Our friend Marco in Nong Khiaw had strongly encouraged us to take the Laolao, and now I realize that it acts as a strong social lubricator. We all took our customary two shots, and afterwards, Cham took us by the local cinemas.

In a town this small, where very few people have electricity, there are three 'cinemas', houses with TVs where villagers pay a 500 kip (5 cent) entry fee to watch television.

The voices of Cham's family lulled me to sleep under the mosquito netting. I woke up in the witching hours needing to pee and found myself bewildered by the bamboo bars holding the front door shut. I finally managed to stumble out to a tree and then back to bed. For many, the undergrowth near the river is the local toilet.

Our first two nights on the river were homestays and it was a great way to stay with families and learn a little of the language. We've been incredibly fortunate to get off the beaten path in this way. It's very strange to be in Luang Prabang now. As beautiful as it is, even in low season all of the restaurants on the main street are full of farang and so are all the internet cafes.

Boating down to Luang Prabang

2006-06-24T06:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry to be so long in updating. I haven't been anywhere near internet in almost two weeks. Zander and I just arrived in Luang Prabang this afternoon. Four days ago, we bought a wooden fishing boat in Nong Khiaw, a little village about 120 km. upstream from here. The last four days we've been paddling down the Naam Ou and the Mekong River to Luang Prabang. It was an absolutely amazing trip. An American expat friend we made in Nong Khiaw helped us with the logistics, including a letter in Laotian to take to the village chief of the towns we stopped in. We had some amazing homestays as a result and Zander and I have both managed to pick up a little bit more Lao.

We spent about five days total in Nong Khiaw and another small town about one hour upstream by boat (there's no road there). The villages are surrounded by beautiful limestone karst cliffs and forests. We visited caves near both towns, including one that the Americans bombed heavily during the Vietnam War. We've been learning a lot about the Secret War, which happened parallel to the Vietnam War but remained highly confidential until recently. The American government actually dropped many more bombs on Laos than they did on Vietnam.

As for the boat ride, I wish I could go into more detail now but I'm way too tired. Suffice to say we began the journey with little more than pineapples, dried water buffalo meat, and a few plastic bottles of moonshine Laolao whiskey in the way of supplies, and we made it down here in one piece.

Reading Material and other thoughts about Burma

2006-06-12T04:41:00.000-07:00

Well, we're in Luang Nam Tha right now and it's a very very sleepy town. Nice to have a full meal, though, an actual shower, etc.

Speaking of food, the meals trekking were amazing. We ate traditional Khmu and Akha meals. Sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves, delicous broths, ferns and fresh greens gathered from the forest.

But the purpose of this posting is to mention reading material and a few more thoughts on Burma.

I just finished up Peter Carey's "My Life as a Fake". It's a very inventive and well-written book that takes place in Australia and Malaysia. It's already influencing the way I think about incorporating my travel experiences into writing.

Secondly, I'm reading "Secret Histories: Finding George Orwell in a Burmese Teashop", which Zander just finished. It's an incredible book and it's given us further insights into the nature of one of worst dictatorships on the face of the planet.

I mentioned in an earlier posting that I now believe that westerners should visit Burma despite the atrocious government policy. The reason is very simple. Before we visited Kyaingtong, we knew little about the situation and had nothing more than a simple curiosity about visiting. Now we're both very interested in the current political situation and want to learn more.

This is the penalty for saying anything detrimental about the government to a foreigner:

7 years in prison and possible torture.

All the same, there we had several opportunities to talk with Burmese in coded language about the Burmese government. These were not topics that we bought up ourselves. The Burmese people are so weary and discouraged by their government that they look at western tourists as a ray of hope.

I'll never forget being in a Burmese tea shop, waiting for a friend to write down a simple question that he would not dare voice. An informant came into the tea shop and as a result he became frightened and we all left shortly thereafter. This friend knew all the informants in town.

I'll never forget that we couldn't even explain that the United States has a president, a congress, and a house of representatives. Even that could get our friends in trouble.

I also won't forget a friend telling us that he believed it was good for foreigners to visit. He viewed it as one of the only catalysts for change.

I highly recommend reading "Secret Histories", and also learning more about the current situation in Burma. It is every bit as terrible and important an issue as Tibet.

Trekking in the Luang Nam Tha NPA

2006-06-12T04:20:00.000-07:00

While we were in the Vieng Poukha area, we did three days of trekking. The first day was a daytrip while the second and third days included backpacking and an overnight in an Akha village.

Our trekking was in the Luang Nam Tha NPA, which is a fairly recent development conservation-wise and just opened up to trekking a few years ago. On our first day, we hiked through old-growth rainforest and visited Kaorao Cave. We had local guides who showed us different medicinal plants-- one with roots good for treating malaria, another to make pregnant women stronger. According to a Khmu myth, one plant, which is highly poisonous, was once used as a poultice for the python's venom. As a result of its potency, the python lost its poison and the plant became poisonous in its place. During the day, we visited three caves and climbed over stunning limestone formations, picking leeches off our toes and hiking around huge strangler figs.

Kaorao Cave is so named because once three men went into the cave, and only Kaorao came back alive. It's said that a spirit haunts the cave-- this spirit has the ability to make one lose their sense of direction. As a result, we knelt before a small altar at the entrance and our guides said prayers to this spirit. We hiked several kilometers into the cathedral-like cave. It was full of fantastic stalactites and in places the walls shone with quartz. Bats flapped around overhead and there were strange bugs that lived in complete darkness.

As wonderful as our first day was, the second and third day were absolutely amazing. We hiked along an Akha footpath into the Luang Nam Tha NPA. These aren't well-designed trails like in the U.S. They go directly from Point A to Point B, and involve many steep ascents and descents. Since the rainy season is just beginning, we were slipping and sliding in the mud.

Over the three days of trekking, I had about a dozen leeches. More than once I'd find my sock soaked with blood or an oozing wound on my foot. In fact, on the third day, Akha villagers prepared a pungent poison which we'd paint on the leaches as they crawled eagerly towards us.

We spent the night in an Akha village high in the hills. The setting was absolutely beautiful. We were treated to a sizable amount of Akha moonshine, which it is considered impolite to refuse. This resulted in having shots of whiskey with the blacksmith at 7 am on our third day. One of my concerns about trekking is the gradual erosion of hill tribe culture, and I was worried that we might be contributing to alcoholism in the villages. Unfortunately, many hill tribesmen drink a considerable amount regardless.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the effects of conservation versus ecotourism, as well as the balance between culture and environment. The NPA is a patchwork of untouched forest and swidden fields (slash and burn agriculture). As a result of becoming an NPA, the slash and burn is being phased out, resulting in a major cultural change for hill tribes. Ecotourism is a potentially sustainable way to conserve the area and also pay the bills, but I wonder how positive our presence really is in these nearly "untouched" villages.

All the same, we both enjoyed both the cultural and natural aspects of the trip. Whether it was getting caught in a downpour, sweating profusely, or bathing in the same stream as Akha women, it truly felt like a rainforest. We forded rivers, heard the distinctive woodpecker-like sound of the 'tilok', and learned about many different species of mushrooms such as the aptly named 'dog penis'. Most of all, it was a small opportunity to see into a very different way of life. The trail was gruelling, and I can only imagine what it's like in the height of the rainy season. Akha women hike these trails everyday, often walking 30 kilometers or more into town with heavy baskets on their backs.

Vieng Poukha

2006-06-12T04:04:00.000-07:00

It's been four (or five?) days since arriving in Laos and the pace of life is very different here. It's so slow that I feel like a crazy New Yorker in comparison. The sense of time is completely different, and I'm slowly adjusting to the more relaxed pace.

We spent a lazy day in Huay Xai on the border before heading up to Vieng Poukha, a tiny town about halfway between the border and Luang Nam Tha in northern Laos. This town is barely a blip on the map, even in Laos. It's on what will someday become a major highway connecting China, Thailand and Laos, but for the time being it's a slurry of mud and a complete environmental nightmare. Considering that the Luang Nam Tha National Protected Area borders this soon-to-be highway, the issue of conservation and land management is very important. In addition to numerous hill tribes, the protected area is also home to black soprano gibbons, the most endangered species of monkey in the world.

In Vieng Poukha, we stayed in a trucker guesthouse with no electricity. Our shower was an outhouse with a faucet and a metal bowl. Nobody speaks English, with the exception of a few guides at the Ecotourism project here, and their English was not so good either.

We stopped in Vieng Poukha because we'd heard about this E.U. sponsored ecotourism project. Unlike the touristy and unsustainable trekking opportunities in northern Thailand, this one seemed much better.

A little more on Kyaingtong

2006-06-06T00:36:00.000-07:00

After a week in Kyaingtong, the dusty road between Harry's Guesthouse and the Independence Monument seemed like a route I had walked for my entire life. There was the Shan Church and the stands selling noodle soup. There was the monastery where we played takraw every other day, the court marked out in the sand, the monks bumming cigarettes even though they're not supposed to. Due to the largesse of one of the monks, I ate my first insect a few days ago-- a large salty locust. My head still hurts from whacking the rattan ball with my head.

Further down the road there is a beautiful temple in the middle of a traffic roundabout. Like many of the wats, it is painted red and painted golden with decorations of Burmese dragons and the Buddha's life. Nearby, there is also the monstrous Kyaingtong New Hotel. The government knocked down a historical palace to build this hotel, and fortunately, it doesn't appear to be doing much business.

It's not much further down the street to a row of sewing shops and tea shops. The taxi drivers sit on their scooters and Burmese men watch violent American movies at the tea house next to the taxi stand. Across the street is one of our favorite places-- a sweets shop run by a Nepali couple with four kids. This was where we went for cold yogurt drinks, baked goods and rotis with curry.

Continue on the road and you reach the Independence Monument (how ironic), and further down, the marketplace. Turn right and you reach the lake and high on a hill above you see the Standing Buddha, which is lit at night. Our first evening here I almost mistook its face for the moon.

At ten pm this is what you see from a high place in town-- the stars, because there is no light pollution, the lit golden stupa at the town's center, the radio towers, the standing Buddha, the police station, perhaps the homes of a few affluent families with generators.

On three separate days we headed north out of town. We can't go south because there's a military checkpoint. For a week, we didn't have our passports, just a pink piece of cardboard with our pictures on it.

We can go north ten miles out of town and that's it. There are many dirt roads leading to the hills, the rice paddies, and tribal villages. On one day we went up to Dragon Hill where a rather eccentric hermit monk lives only on fruit, water and boxes of Lactasoy. There's an astouding view of the valley below.

If we were to walk a day further up that ridge, we would reach Wa territory and risk being shot.

From Dragon Hill you can see some of the villages in the woods below-- the Shan village, the Lahu village with its ancient looking church. Further up in the hills there are Akha villages. In one we were treated to bitter mushroom tea, fresh papaya and lumps of animal fat.

On our third day in town, we were walking to an Akha village just outside the Kyaingtong gates. There was a half-built temple surrounded by scaffolding, and a monk hailed us from the grounds. This man was the Venerable Nyanavara, and in the mornings we meditated with him and he taught us about the five precepts of Buddhism and other principles.

Our first three days in town we didn't see any other westerners. Altogether, we saw about a dozen westerners during our entire week.

Here's a little story about why we wanted to go to Kyaingtong. In Nan, I met a New Zealander named Rob who had just come back from Myanmar. Rob had also visited Luang Prabang ten years ago.

Nowadays, Luang Prabang is full of tourists. It's on the beaten path through Laos. Ten years ago, though, Rob sat in the back of a lorry with three other westerners to brave the rugged dirt road from Vientiane to Luang Prabang. There were two machine-gunners in the truck because of Hmong rebels in the hills.

He reached Luang Prabang and he was in awe of this ancient town (now a UNESCO site). It was, at that time, still untouched by the west.

Rob said that Kyaingtong gave him the same feeling that Luang Prabang gave him ten years ago. Now I have a sense of what he meant, and I feel both honored and very lucky to have spent the last week there.

Kyaingtong

2006-06-05T23:53:00.000-07:00

Kyaingtong was absolutely amazing. We weren't sure how much time we'd spend there, but we loved it so much that we ended up spending seven full days there, and nine days in Myanmar altogether.

I don't even know where to begin, and since we are catching a bus to Chiang Kong and the Laotian border this afternoon, I'll have to keep it short.

The city is full of wats and crumbling colonial architecture. There is only electricity from 6 to 10 pm, and even then, many of the shops and windows are lit with candles in the evenings. The people are incredibly friendly and we made some wonderful contacts. There was a teacher from a nearby village who took us to a Lahu village where he had once taught. There was a monastery where we played takraw (basically a cross between hackysack and volleyball with a rattan ball). There was the Venerable Nyanavara, a Buddhist monk with which we have meditated the last five days. There was the Nepali sweets shop where we went almost everyday.

Unlike Thailand, which is very westernized, Myanmar is much more undeveloped. It's also very poor due to the policies of the current government. For the most part, we didn't talk politics because the punishment is severe for the Burmese if they are caught. However, we did get the opportunity to have some talks bordering on this subject, and they've quelled any reservations I once had about visiting Myanmar.

I will try to write more about Kyaingtong in a future post, and will also try to upload some pictures. For the time being, though, I'm still overwhelmed by all the things we experienced. I'm also feeling more culture shock at returning to Mae Sai than I did flying into Bangkok from the U.S. Kyaingtong is an altogether different world.

Uploaded more pictures

2006-05-28T02:28:00.000-07:00

9 new pictures, some with the new posts, some added to older posts.

On the Myanmar Border

2006-05-28T01:49:00.000-07:00

The photo above: monks crossing the bridge from Myanmar into Thailand.

We arrived in Mae Sai this morning, which is on the Myanmar border. Tomorrow Zander and I are heading into Myanmar and going up to Kengtung. We won't have any internet access when we're up there. In fact, internet access in general has been getting more sporadic. There were no places in Mae Salong, only one here in Mae Sai, and we don't expect there to be many in the more rural areas of Laos, where we're heading once we return from Myanmar.

Mae Sai is a strange place. The main road ends at immigration, and there's a bridge fording a small river to Myanmar. The river doesn't provide much of a barrier. We've been watching as Burmese wade across the river and kids strip down naked and swim across. There are little girls begging in the markets, their hair and dresses damp. There are signs warning us not to buy Burmese cigarettes or sleep with underage Burmese prostitutes. In the markets there are goods from Burma ranging from jade to antique figurines. Gem dealers are everywhere, sorting piles of tiny purple stones. We don't know if they're garnets or rubies. There are fresh roasted chestnuts in the streets, served hot in the bag.

As long as we don't have any problems with immigration, our visa will be good for two weeks. I imagine that we will stay for one week at most, and more likely a shorter period of time. However, don't worry if I don't email or update this for a couple of weeks. I'll make sure to resurface once we get back to Mae Sai.

Hitching Back to Town after Our Third Blowout

2006-05-28T01:44:00.000-07:00

We were about 5 miles out of Mae Salong when we blew our back tire. This is the third time it's happened, and we've had other mechanical problems as well. The bikes are poorly maintained and it's anybody's guess how long they'll last.

With the winding, steep roads around Mae Salong, we were a 20 minute drive and a couple of hours walk from Mae Salong.

We ended up hitching a ride on the back of a pick-up truck carrying ten full grown pigs. There were sections of bamboo holding in the pigs and we stood on the back bumper holding onto the bamboo slats as the pigs staged a miniature mutiny. They had motion sickness and they were throwing up on each other, and it was all we could do to avoid getting chewed on, thrown up on, or falling off the truck, especially when we were going up the steep hills. The pigs all got frightened and started wrestling with each other on a particularly steep slope, but somehow we made it back to town.

That must have been a funny sight to everybody by the side of the road. Two farangs wearing motorcycle helmets riding with ten pigs into town.

Visiting Hill Tribes Around Mae Salong

2006-05-28T01:15:00.000-07:00

We spent the better part of yesterday hiking and taking a motorbike to hill tribe villages near Mae Salong. Most of the villages we visited were Akha villages. The Akha are an animistic tribe originally from Tibet, and at the entrance to the villages there are carved wooden figures with huge phalluses as well as gates carved of wood and bamboo. These figures are supposed to ward off malevolent spirits, and I think the gate also represents the connection between the spiritual and the profane.

The Akha are very poor. It would be hard to romanticize their way of life. They live in bamboo huts and they are very resistant to integration into Thai culture, which also results in fewer opportunities. Walking through the Akha villages, I fully understood the reservations that some people have about trekking in hill tribe areas. In other situations, I feel a self-consciousness because I am the only farang, but for once, I actually felt too much a voyeur, like I shouldn't be here. The kids stared at us wide-eyed. The adults ignored us. And when we were a safe distance away, the kids shouted merrily, 'hello, hello, hello!' An older man watched us leave the village to make sure we didn't touch the totemic figures.

We also visited a Lisu village. The Lisu women wear colorful purple dresses and are known for their needlework. As we walked through the village, a woman with a plastic tarp over her shoulder followed us. Soon we had a group of women around us, their tarps unrolled to reveal homemade bracelets, hats and belts.

I didn't have any small money but Zander bargained for several bracelets. Because the Lisu don't speak Thai or English, this was the extent of our interactions. Using some basic sign language, they were able to convey prices and also the extent of their need. More than once a woman pointed at a swollen hand or her bad teeth. Some would use the sign for food and point at their bellies.

The best sign we received was when an old woman made a gesture as if wearing glasses. We had no idea what she meant but she led us down a dirt track to a beautiful vista of tea fields in the valley below. When she made the sign again, we knew exactly what she meant.

Going to Mae Salong

2006-05-28T01:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the hiatus on internet. After leaving Mae Hong Son, we spent a good chunk of the next two days taking the bus-- from Mae Hong Son to Chiang Mai the first day and then up to Mae Salong the next day. In Chiang Mai, we returned in time for the 2nd day of the Intakin Festival, which represents the beginning of the rains. There were festivities at Chedi Luang again, and it was nice to have something to ease me back into the rather abrasive urban reality of Chiang Mai.

On Friday we took a bus up to Chiang Rai and decided we weren't really interested in spending the night there. We took a bus north to Ban Basang and then a saegenaw into the mountains to Mae Salong, which is perhaps the most Chinese town in Thailand. There are tea fields all around the city, and tea leaves drying by the road. Everyone speaks Chinese, and very few people know Thai or English. It's another KMT town, and I even met an 84 year old man who had been a soldier fighting against the Burmese army.

Early in the morning we went to Mae Salong's tiny market. Members of hill tribes from the area sell greens and poultry. We saw Mien, Akha, Lisu and Lahu traders, and for breakfast many Chinese eat fried donuts (basically like fry bread) in hot soymilk.

Mae Hong Son

2006-05-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

The first two photos in this posting are from Bahn Rahk Thai. The third photo is Mae Hong Son from the wat on the hill.

It's almost 10 in the evening here, our second night in Mae Hong Son. Yesterday we took a four hour bus ride from Pai, winding our way through the hills between limestone cliffs studded with caves.

A few impressions of Pai that I didn't get a chance to put in my last post: like I said, I was expecting more farangs and tourism, but instead, found Pai to be an interesting crossroads for many different cultures. We saw Muslim women in burqahs speeding by on scooters, Lisu women in bright tribal dress walking through the town, and ate Shan cuisine at restaurants for farangs.

As beautiful as Pai is, I'm absolutely stunned by the area around Mae Hong Son. The town is situated on a tiny lake and ringed with green hills. Today, we took a motorbike out to Tham Pla National Park, the location of Fish Cave. Beautiful blue dace fish, which grow up to a meter long, swim in the cave and the pools around it. It's considered a very holy spot, and a lucky thing to feed the fish, which we did. On the other hand, it's very unlucky to eat the fish.

By the way, the word 'suoy' with a rising inflection means beautiful, while with a low inflection means unlucky.

While we were at the park it started pouring and we took refuge in a bamboo hut with two middle-aged Thai women. Zander had a phrasebook so we were able to have a rudimentary conversation.

After a contemplative hour in the rain, we headed towards the Myanmar border. We're not actually planning on crossing into Myanmar until next week. Instead, we were interested in exploring a tiny KMT town about 5 km. from the Burmese border. In the early '70s, KMT fighters were responsible for quelling Communist insurgents in northern Thailand and also fighting against the Burmese army. (They were also known for their involvement in the drug trade, but the Thai government turned a blind eye on this.) As a result of their aid, the tiny town on the border is known as Bahn Rak Thai (Thai-loving village). It's a peaceful town on a lake with Chinese influence, almost haunting in its calm. Red Chinese latterns hang from huts with clay walls and bamboo roofs. There's no sign of the old fighting, though it's possible to take a mule the last 5 km to the border to see where the KMT trenches were during the fighting. It's a dirt track, impassable by standard motorbike. In short, we'd reached the end of the road.

We had lunch at a little hut on the river and sampled the local oolong tea and wines-- lychee, pineapple, tamarind, and plum. The tea was most likely planted as crop substitution for the old crop, opium.

The road up to Bae Saw (the other name for this town), curved through tiny Shan villages and up in the mountains, where we were sometimes going up or down a 35 degree grade. The hills were lushly forested, and we stopped both at Pang Pong Palace and a waterfall on our return ride. There was old-growth bamboo and near the waterfall trees as big as any Doug Fir in the Pacific Northwest.

It's going to be hard to leave this town. Yesterday, when we arrived, we went up to a wat on the top of the nearby hill, which treated us to a lovely view of the city. We are almost in the clouds. At the top of the hills there is actually sub-alpine forest.

Tomorrow we will most likely be winding our way back towards Chiang Mai, spending the night in either Soppong or Pai. In the hills the buses stop at checkpoints and police with M-16s go through the papers of Thais on the bus. It's basically racial profiling; the Thai government doesn't want Burmese refugees and people from the hill tribes to move to the larger cities and take jobs.

Nobody checks our papers, which is a good thing, since they're in Chiang Mai.

We'll be getting back to Chiang Mai on Friday, picking up our passports, and then making our way to the northernmost tip of Thailand and the Burmese border, by way of Chiang Rai and Mae Sai.

Pai Paradise

2006-05-22T02:27:00.000-07:00

The first photo in this post in the hot springs near Pai. The second is a bamboo bridge in the town of Pai.

We got into Pai early afternoon yesterday (Sunday). The bus ride up was spectacular. A narrow winding road into the hills with stunning scenery, rain and mists. At the higher elevations there was the smell of pine. Basically pristine upland monsoon forest.

I was expecting Pai to be a tourist trap but all my expectations were upended. It's a beautiful little town that's popular with farangs for good reason. It's in a valley ringed by mountains. There are waterfalls, hot springs, and hill tribe villages nearby. We're staying in a teak bungalow by the river, and there's mango trees and beautiful flowers all around the bungalows.

That's where Zander ran into Seth, the older brother of one of his old middle school friends. Strange small world. Seth is married to a Thai woman and has a kid. He's a great guy, and we ended up going to a barbeque over at his house in the evening.

The highlight of the day though was taking a motorbike out to the hot springs, which are out in the jungle. Some of the springs are hot enough to boil eggs in, and Thais often do that. We had a good soak before finding that our motorbike had a flat. There was an inch long thorn in the tire, but thankfully, we got some help from some Thais at the park entrance. The ride back into Pai at twilight was as beautiful a stretch of scenery as any I've seen while I've been here.

Coincidences; A Travel Partner; Leaving Chiang Mai

2006-05-22T02:16:00.000-07:00

Sometimes quite a few circumstances conspire in strange ways.

When I originally got to Chiang Mai on Friday afternoon, I was thinking about leaving that day, but ended up staying on for the evening to do errands. I figured I would leave for Pai early Saturday morning. I stayed at the Smile House again, and ended up grabbing dinner with the person in the room next to me, a Puerto Rican girl named Mari Jose. Originally we were planning on going to a place she goes to regularly but then we ended up changing our minds and going to Aroon Rai, my favorite restaurant in Chiang Mai. While eating there, I saw the British girl I met in Nan passing by. It turned out that it was her birthday and she wanted to get some people together. Mari Jose suggested a bar called Roots Rock Reggae.

Back at the guesthouse, I invited a couple of other friends; a couple from Virginia and a photographer named Ryan who I met my first time around in Chiang Mai. So by the end of the evening, we had a lively crowd, and I ended up drinking one too many 50 baht mojitos. There was a Thai reggae band playing and the place was packed. The lead singer had a pile of dreadlocks on his head and they all had the Thai Rasta thing going.

I ended up staying out until three in the morning, and as a result I didn't go to Pai early like I'd planned. I woke up at 10:30 and found a note slipped under my door. Zander, who I met in Portland just before leaving town, had left the note at 10 and wanted to go to Pai together. He was staying at the guesthouse just across the street.

We met up and at the moment we're in Pai (I'll save this for the next post). We have plans to go towards Mae Hong Son, go up to Keungtong in Myanmar, and then to head onto Laos together.

So, if it hadn't been for this whole string of events, I would have been halfway to Pai by the time he stopped by. We would have ended up meeting up eventually, but I like this string of causality.

Chiang Mai has also really grown on me. It doesn't take long at all to meet a lot of people and get to know the town. Still, Zander and I were both excited to leave town on Sunday morning.

Back In Chiang Mai after Lampang and Phrae

2006-05-19T00:52:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Chiang Mai today and I feel about twenty pounds lighter-- that's what it feels like to be sans passport, which is getting mailed off to Bangkok for my Laos visa. It's a sensation that Kundera might call the "unbearable lightness of being"-- nothing official to identify me except a driver's license, a photocopy, and a receipt. I'll be getting back my passport next Wednesday.

I'm also in the process of planning a new wrinkle in my travels-- to Kengtung, Myanmar. That is, if the border isn't closed and/or being shelled due to ongoing tensions between Thailand and Myanmar. Chances are I will be traveling with one or two other people. I have lots more to say about this, but it will have to wait until a future post. Originally, I wasn't planning on going to Myanmar for political reasons, but I've since learned that a trip can be planned with minimal revenue going to the government, and also that locals want travelers to bring in their income and ideas. Anyway, more on that later...

Today the sun peeked out for the first time in five days. Two days drizzle in Nan, cloudiness and rain in the evening in Phrae, a sudden noontime rainstorm in Lampang. I saw a grand total of about ten farang in those three cities. Phrae and Lampang were both nice for their quiet alleys, riverine passageways, and old teak houses. And of course plenty of ancient wats, which are more commonplace than 7-11's here. Now that I'm back in Chiang Mai, I plan to get out of town as soon as possible-- today or tomorrow, most likely heading to Soppong by way of Pai.

Uploaded some pictures

2006-05-16T04:15:00.000-07:00

Just scroll down the page to see a few pictures that I've uploaded. It took forever, but it's raining out and the guesthouse has cheap internet.

In the Middle of Nan-Where?

2006-05-16T03:00:00.000-07:00

I took a six hour bus ride into Nan last night and apparently I've arrived in one of the last corners of Thailand as yet mostly untouched by farangs. I'm only about 20 miles away from the Laotian border. My intention was to head up to Pua an hour north of here and then east into one of the national parks, but the weather isn't cooperating.

The last two days there has been a fine cold drizzle and a slate gray sky. In other words, the weather has been EXACTLY like it is during a Portland February. Apparently a storm from the Gulf of China is doing a tango with a storm from the Phillipines, creating this unusual weather.

So I'll be heading to Phrae instead, and then most likely on to Lampang. However, if the weather gets better tomorrow, I'll head up to Pua and I might be off internet for a while.

Wandering around the streets of Nan you would think I'm wearing a spacesuit or carrying around bagpipes. School just got back in session for the kids and they all find me incredibly amusing as I pass by. It's not very often one sees a farang wandering around here, apparently.

I've been hanging out quite a bit with three other farangs at my guesthouse-- a New Zealander, a British girl who has been teaching in Bangkok, and, get this-- a guy from Portland, Oregon. That's Rob, Lis and Roger. Roger is actually starting a trekking business here in the fall.

Last night Lis and I got dinner at a rather seedy bar and after way too many Singhas a drunk Thai from Bangkok joined us and insisted we join him on his trip to Chiang Rai. He kept trying to buy us more beers and seemed insistent on spreading the love. I came back to the guesthouse to find the lock busted on my door but nothing missing. There's something just a little off-kilter about Nan, or maybe it's just me and the weather.

Sick, continued; meeting Thai Deaf people

2006-05-16T02:43:00.000-07:00

So the sickness went like this:
1 day fever and headache
1 day shits
And then I was better.
I can't believe that bush doctor wanted to dose me with Paramecetol.

Anyway, if there was anything good that came out of being under the weather, it kept me in Chiang Mai for the Sunday Market. Most of the main streets through the city were closed down and there were all kinds of fine arts and crafts for sale. I met two Thai Deaf women and I was amazed to find that the sign language they spoke is incredibly similar to American Sign Language. I ended up getting introduced to another half dozen Deaf people and spending the evening with them.

It started raining hard early in the evening so four of us waited in the shelter of a bar across the street. I wish I could say their names but there is no written translation for a name sign.

Pretty quickly it became obvious that one of the girls wanted to be my Thai girlfriend. She wanted to go to Pai together, talked about other farang boyfriends she had had, etc. All this despite the fact that I told her I had a girlfriend and no interest in having a Thai girlfriend.

I took the three of them out to eat at a place called Aroon's. It was pouring out. By the end of the meal the other two Deaf girls wanted me to get a room for the third girl to stay. Her family was in Phitsanulok, she didn't have a place to stay in Chiang Mai, etc. I had to say no and left her shivering in the rain, chagrined to find the limits of my generosity.

Buddha's birthday continued, getting sick

2006-05-13T03:38:00.000-07:00

In the evening I went to Wat Chedi Luang to participate in the festivities for Buddha's birthday. Chedi Luang is an ancient temple that has only been partially restored-- the crumbling ruin towered above the worshippers and the golden Buddhas in its niches were lit up and all afire. Just as earlier in the day, worshippers walked around the wat three times, holding an offering of flowers and incense in their hands and also carrying a lit candle. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. I would estimate that at one point there were 5 to 10 thousand people circling the wat. Huge fires had been lit and smoke poured into the sky. Once again there was chanting from the monks. Spools of cloth were unraveled and passed from hand to hand so that the thread attached hundreds of people. I was so excited to participate in the festival that I probably ended up walking around the wat five or six times with my offerings. I truly felt like I was part of a greater whole.

Later in the evening, I ended up staying up too late talking with an American couple. And in the middle of the night, I woke up sweaty and hot, only to find myself with a fever when I woke up in the morning.

*******

I had been planning to take the bus to Nan or Phrae this morning but those plans were derailed. At home I would have just had some soup and gone back to bed, but traveling alone, I knew I should go to a doctor and get it checked. I started by going to a small nearby clinic that catered mostly to Thais. The doctor was a real crackpot. He took my temperature with one of those forehead bands, which are notoriously inaccurate, and when he tried to convert my temperature to Farenheit he insisted I had a fever of 202 degrees. And after a five minute diagnosis, he said that maybe I had typhoid and that he wanted to prescribe Paramecetol, an antibiotic.

So I ended up going to McCormick Hospital on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, which was started by missionaries. I've heard that Thai health care is like American health care circa the 1950s. That seems to be pretty true, actually. It's not the squalor of Indian hospitals but it's none too impressive. I took a tuk-tuk out, feeling that existential combination of being sick and alone in a strange land. I ended waiting for a couple of hours in a room full of Thais. Again, I was the only farang. My fever was a more manageable 100.3, and they gave me a blood test to check for typhoid. I'd been hearing these horror stories about hospitals using dirty needles and I was prepared to walk out of there, but thankfully that wasn't true.

So apparently I have a viral infection, though the doctor didn't know what the cause was. He did, however, say that he didn't think it was serious, and ruled out dengue fever and malaria, thank god. I had to ask him to write down just about everything he said. It was one of those weird days where all communication breaks down and I felt as if I was on another planet. But now, after sleeping all day and taking some Tylenol, I'm feeling pretty good.

My total hospital bill was 320 baht, just under ten dollars. It seems so strange. Instead of feeling sick I feel like I went on a special cultural field trip.

I'll be in Chiang Mai for at least a couple more days fighting this off. It's good to get some R & R. I've been pushing things pretty hard this past week. If anything, I've been thinking about how such a thing can completely change the flow of my travels. Leaving two days later, the people I meet and the experiences I have will be completely different. Lately I've been feeling a deeper link to the casuality of events around me.

Buddha's Birthday; Fred and Tui

2006-05-12T01:54:00.000-07:00

Today is Buddha's birthday, at least in Thailand. It's the full moon day, and supposedly he was born, died, and found enlightenment all on this day. Thais are visiting the wats throughout Chiang Mai and giving offerings. At one of the wats I visited this morning the monks were chanting and I joined the worshippers in prayer. Lately I have been praying at all the wats, partly out of cultural respect, partly as I reaffirm a sense of spirituality that I haven't felt this strongly for some time.

I spent the good part of the day up at Doi Suthep Temple, which is in Doi Suthep National Park on the outskirts of Chiang Mai. It's a long winding road to the top by saegenaw, and there's a beautiful view of the city. To reach the temple, we climbed several hundred steps (by we I mean thousands of Thai worshippers and hundreds of farangs). It was quite a spectacle. In the outer sanctum there were at least three different traditional music groups playing, and kids were ringing the bells all around the temple. (I rang all the bells too, and there's probably fifty of them around the outer sanctum.) There were ceremonial dancers performing in the shade of a jackfruit tree with long tapering golden fingernails.

In the temple, I joined other worshippers in circling the central golden stupa three times, our hands held up in wai. The air smelled of sandalwood incense and jasmine flowers given in offering to golden statues. There were yellow candles and flowers of all kinds everywhere. At one of the shrines, people were crawling up to an orange-robed monk to have a short length of string tied around their wrists. I'm pretty sure this represents the underlying connectivity of everything, and I also had a piece of string tied around my wrist as we were sprinkled with holy water.

There's a legend behind Doi Suthep except it actually happened. About 800 years ago the rulers of Chiang Mai put a relic on the back of a white elephant. The white elephant was to choose the site of Doi Suthep. The elephant wandered up the mountainside and died at the spot where Doi Suthep was built.

*************************

Many of the wats in Chiang Mai have gardens where signposts hang from trees. There are words of wisdom about Dhamma in Thai and in bad English.

It was in one of these gardens that I met Somboon (whose nickname is Tui) and Fred. Tui is a retired school teacher from Lampang, and also has a law degree. He speaks English well but always wants to learn more. Fred is a retired sociology professor from California who was a Deadhead at Haight-Ashberry in the Summer of Love. I wonder how they know each other, but regardless, I ended up spending the better part of yesterday hanging out with the two of them.

Tui gave me a Thai lesson and I helped him with some more complex English idioms. To put things in perspective, his pension is about 1500 baht a month, which is about what I have budgeted for two days of travel (and I'm a budget traveler). He spends a lot of days baby-sitting his five year old grand-daughter and he looks about twenty years younger than he is. I had all kinds of questions: how did he feel about farangs and Thai women getting together? Had he ever been a monk? That kind of thing. I've been very curious about monastic practices in Thailand because apparently just about everybody is a monk at some point in their lives. In fact, Tui had spent a month in a monastery about five years ago.

Fred is quite a talker. He has decided to retire to Thailand. If you can prove you have 800,000 baht in the bank (about 20,000 dollars), you can get a non-immigrant visa and live in Thailand. Fred was born with a cleft palate and it was interesting to hear his perspective on growing up with a disability.

We all biked out of town to Wat U Mong together, which is in beautiful teak and tamarind woods. There are man-made caves where monks used to pray. It is a beautiful place and the repose I felt gave me a few moments of insight on how I want to live my life. It's the type of clarity I find in places like the Shivapuri Reserve north of Kathmandu, Breitenbush Hot Springs in Oregon, the redwoods of northern California. It's a life of calm and awareness and living in harmony with nature.

Later in the afternoon Fred and I biked to a waterfall at the base of Doi Suthep National Park. There was a rainbow over the city and kids swam in the many pools at the bottom of each falls.

After biking about 20 km I decided that it would be a good time to get my first Thai massage. I practically had all my limbs ripped out of their sockets, my head pulped, and I was walked on, stomped on, and elbowed extensively. For the most part it felt great.

In the evening I had the chance to meet lots of cool farangs at the guesthouse: Canadian, Irish, Swiss, a photographer, a masseur, etc. It's nice to meet other farangs and get a chance to chill out.

Last thing: the Night Market at Chiang Mai. What a tourist trap. I went there to get some street food and check out the scene. Fake designer handbags, bootleg cds and DVDs, tacky t-shirts, women from the Karen tribe walking around with trinkets. But it was the fact that it was almost impossible to find street food that convinced me that this market is geared for farangs, not Thais. In all the touristed areas of Chiang Mai, it's hard to find street food, and this is an essential aspect of Thai culture. I practically have to bike out of the old city to get sticky coconut rice wrapped in banana leaves.

Chiang Mai; Frowning Farangs

2006-05-10T05:35:00.000-07:00

If you had told me a couple of weeks ago that I would be in Chiang Mai the Wednesday after getting in Thailand, I wouldn't have believed you. But somehow it feels as if I've lived a lifetime each day in Ayuthaya, Lopburi, and Sukhothai.

I caught the bus to Chiang Mai this morning and a lot of the ride, especially the section between Lampang and Chiang Mai, was lush jungled hills and lots of up and downs on the road. I was excited to be getting into Chiang Mai but at the same time I had dampened down my expectations. I've considered Chiang Mai to be one of the cornerstones of my trip, particularly because I can use it as a base to explore Northern Thailand.

Well, where to start? I have mixed feelings about the city. I'll start with the good-- it's absolutely beautiful, there's green hills in the distance, and shimmering green water in the moat around the city. It's urban in a very approachable way, noisy in its busy streets and suddenly quiet on the side streets.

But Chiang Mai seems like the type of city I'd want to arrive in after two months of travel on the road. Like Thamel in Kathmandu, I would be excited to eat some falafel and meet other farangs and maybe have a taste of the west. In the area I'm in (and I've only explored a little bit so far), there are more farangs than Thais. I can't complain about farangs being here-- after all I'm one, too.

And first off, I'd like to start by saying there are lots of great traveling farangs, too-- people who are respectful and interested in the culture, and most importantly, who are good and kind and aware that we are very fortunate to have these adventures.

However, what's with the frowning farangs? So many of them look as if they have just been ripped off or as if they were forced to go to Thailand and get drunk by their parents. I see frowns and haughty expressions and it really annoys me. Particularly, I've been noticing the difference in my interactions with Thai people. Now, maybe Chiang Mai is just different, but when I was walking from the bus station on the outskirts of town, and I was in a farang-free environment, everyone was very friendly. As soon as I got to the old town and the travel agencies and the massage parlors and the western restaurants and the guesthouses and the endless farangs, no more smiles.

I went into a bookstore to look for a Laos guidebook and within a minute of going in a German girl was in there making a scene with the Thai owners. I could see that they were very embarrassed. She was talking about how she'd been ripped off on some books she was selling-- apparently she was getting 50 baht instead of a hundred baht. You would have thought that a buck fifty was her heart and soul.

If I were Thai, I would automatically charge frowning, haughty farangs double. And considering that Chiang Mai has been on the well-worn travel path since the 60's, that's a lot of frowning farangs over the years, so I would have raised my rates wholesale by now.

To these frowning farangs, I can only say one thing: smile, you're on vacation! You're in a beautiful land of beautiful people and hopefully you are experiencing things you've never experienced before. I see this aura of entitlement in the haughty frowns, and it really rubs me the wrong way.

Unless I can find a more low-key area of Chiang Mai, I will probably only be here a couple of days. Of course, I plan to be back, perhaps for longer. I actually think this would be a great place to take a month and write-- it's very accessible and easy to live in, and it is an absolutely beautiful city. I'm sure I'm going to meet some great travelers over the next few days, and since in the states I've had my fair share of frowns myself, I'll give these frowners the benefit of the doubt. I will say, however, that I've had a smile plastered on my face since I got here and my smile muscles have never been so exercised in my life.

Maybe all of these farangs just have very tired smiley muscles.

Rambling around the Ruins

2006-05-10T05:19:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I was up at my usual 5:30 AM and I biked around the Sukhothai ruins. I will try to figure out how to get some pictures up at some point. I decided to go to the ruins outside of town first, because I wanted to bike through the jungle while it was still cool. I was the only farang out there, which was nice, and mists were rising from the ground. Sukhothai is surrounded by these lovely lush hills.

I'll only give a few highlights of the day, but it was another of those days that felt like a lifetime. I went to Wat Chum as the sun was rising. It is a 45 foot tall Buddha in a square enclosure that faces the east, so that as the sun was rising its chakras appeared to be illuminated.

My favorite ruins were about 4 kilometers out of town. They were overgrown wats and chedis, ruins in the literal sense, but covered with lush plants. One involved hiking up an ancient stone path to the top of a hill, affording a beautiful view of the countryside.

At another of the ruins I saw beautiful birds with long plumes for tails and a moth that was bigger than a humming bird. As I was biking along the road, I heard this strange flute-like melody (dryads? Thai-ads?) which I actually think might have been the bugle call of the nearby Sukhothai Boy Scout camp.

The main ruins are in a beautiful manicured park, and I realized that I had been at Wat Mahatat during the monsoon-- it had seemed to be in the deep wild with branches falling and lightning clapping overhead. Mahatat is the main ruin so I realize how lucky I was to have the place to myself (this morning, I also had it to myself bright and early).

I also tried my first mangosteens, which are a reddish hard-shelled fruit with a milky fruit for an interior. It is very tart and also a little sweet, and I can't really describe the flavor other than that it tasted a bit like a banana, a pear, a lemon and a pineapple all in one, but not really.

Late in the day, I also got my first plastic baggie of soup. In the markets, the soup is ladled into plastic bags to take home. It was a green chicken curry, very spicy and like everything I've eaten, very tasty. Probably the best part was that everybody seemed so excited that I had a bag of soup. I got the impression that not many farangs eat the bags of soup.

And in the evening I met a Portuguese traveler named Rui, who had been traveling around India for the previous six months and is a psychologist back in Portugal. We shared a Beer Chang and talked about travel, philosophy, and spirituality. It was great to meet another friendly farang, which leads to my next post...

Old Sukhothai

2006-05-08T04:08:00.000-07:00

This will be the last post for the day. Sorry if I'm going on and on-- this blog is as much for myself as anybody, and though I'm also keeping a written journal, it's nice to express myself this way when I can.

I'm staying at a place called the Old Town Guesthouse in Old Sukhothai. I ventured out across the street to nearby ruins as ominous clouds moved in. I've been telling myself, "Let it rain, let it be hot, it's all fine." Really, it hasn't seemed that hot to me, though I am showering three times a day. It's a state of mind and by choosing to come here I've chosen to accept the weather as is. Yesterday I was even caught in the rain at Lopburi, and I simply put my camera and notebook in a Ziplock bag and put on my rain hat.

Well, today I got poured on. I walked through a beautiful, well-preserved wat before it started raining. There were twenty foot tall stone Buddhas and when it started raining I stood under the outstretched hands of one of the Buddhas. I like that poetic symbolism. Soon there were huge booms of thunder and lightning, including one that was practically on top of me. The coconut palms and bodhi trees were rocking back and forth. I got soaked as I ran to an old stone shelter and watched the storm. After a while, I realized it wasn't going to stop raining any time soon and I opened my umbrella, proceeding to get soaked on my return to the guesthouse. Well, I dried off quickly and it stopped raining an hour later, bringing in nice, cool weather and lush greenness.

Old Sukhothai is surrounded by green hills and I walked through the market before coming to this internet cafe. The power had gone out and under the covered awnings vendors were selling their wares by candlelight.

I am definitely going to be here for a few days, at least. I really like it here.

I wanted to do another post about street and train food, but I'll have to save it for another time. It's absolutely delicious.

Crazy German Farang on the Train; Phitsanulok

2006-05-08T03:56:00.000-07:00

Today has been a long day. I'm in Old Sukhothai right now, about five hours south of Chiang Mai, but that will have to wait until later. This morning I caught the 6 am train to Phitsanulok. I spent only one day in Lopburi but I felt like I lived a lifetime there.

About two hours into the train ride, a tall man with a straw hat and army rucksack climbed on the train. He looked and acted very strange-- he appeared to have some kind of skin condition that looked cancerous as well as some scabrous infection on his leg. Soon he came over and demanded to see my ticket. I was taken aback but showed it to him. He nodded abruptly (something he did about every five seconds) and then returned the ticket to me. He wanted to know where I was from and what religion I was. I said Oregon and cautiously said 'no religion'.

"I have one word for you," he said. "Utah."

I have no clue what he meant by that.

He went on to ask me if I'd been in Thailand before and how long I'd been there, and if I was traveling alone. Of course I lied. I had traveled abroad extensively in SE Asia, was going to visit Thai and American friends, etc.

India came up and he mentioned that he had spent two years there. Then he added, "But I can't remember where I was. One, two, three... I can't remember. You know why?" And then, after a dramatic pause, he addressed the train car at large: "Because I drink too much."

At other points in the conversation, he burst into a song about Heidelberg when I mentioned I had been there, and perhaps the crowning moment of his insanity was when he returned to his seat, and proceeded to dance in a circle hopping on one foot while singing. On several occasions he shouted at the ticket collector and generally frightened the Thais on the train. Later, he returned and out of the blue tried to explain an incomprehensible German concept to me-- this involved him drawing out 64 small squares on a paper and counting them meticulously, then returning the paper to me without explanation.

Needless to say, I didn't tell him my name is Franz.

The train ride to Phitsanalok was 5 hours, and I walked over to a temple there which is considered one of the holiest and Thailand. There I paid my dues before hopping a bus to New Sukhothai (one hour) and then a half-hour ride by saegnaw (glorified truck/bus) to Old Sukhothai. Phitsanulok was depressingly dusty and industrial, as was New Sukhothai, but Old Sukhothai is lovely.

Lopburi

2006-05-08T03:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I caught a 6 am train to Lopburi, known to westerners as the monkey town. I went for the monkeys, like anybody, but the best part of the day was meeting lots of different Thai people. I'm starting to feel more involved in the culture, eating the street food, feeling comfortable with my stock phrases, sign language, laughter and 'mai bpen rai'.

I checked into a rather dinghy place called the Nett Hotel, which is pretty convenient to the wats. I wandered around the old Royal Palace, which is monkey-free, but I did see a blue-headed lizard-- I've since seen more. As I was leaving the grounds, an old man waved me over and we started talking. He had lived in the states for a while, even getting a degree in Maryland (again, a small world). Prasit is from near Chiang Mai and worked as a doctor in Bangkok. He wanted to talk about Charles Dickens, Bernard Shaw and politics. Soon he offered to buy me a drink-- he actually offered to buy me lunch but I turned him down. We sat in a cafe drinking Lipton iced tea from bottles and hung out during the hot part of the day.

Afterwards, I went to Pram Sot, which is absolutely overrun with monkeys. There are two groups of monkeys-- the temple ones (I guess they're the non-secular, spiritual tribe), and the city monkeys, which have succumbed to the world's temptations. The latter hang from telephone wires, climb on cars, and generally make mischief. It was still the hot part of the day so many monkeys were huddled against the walls of the temple trying to stay cool, napping and picking bugs from each other and eating them.

Across the street at the Kala Temple, I was relaxing in the shade near a group of ceremonial dancers when I was again beckoned over. The group performs for families when they come to the shrine, and they were napping too. One of them spoke decent English and wanted to know why I didn't have a wedding ring. Single farang men get a lot of attention regarding this. I ended up just talking and relaxing with them for a while. Strangely enough, I haven't had too many difficulties understanding Thais. Well, that's not entirely true, but I think I'm doing just as well as anybody.

The Kala shrine is in the middle of a busy traffic circle and pretty soon a pick-up truck passed by with a live band playing in the back (complete with drums, guitar, etc.) Other trucks followed with dancing Thais. One of the dancers told me that this is a regular thing at the Kala Shrine, and happens every week. The celebrators go on to pray at the shrine, which was a spectacle in itself.

In the evening I went over to a park and there were about 20 Thais my age playing full court basketball. I ended up getting in a game-- sadly, I did not well represent my basketball playing abilities as befitting an American, other than one decent fade-away shot, but I had a great time hanging out with them for a few hours.

Meanwhile, other farangs get a Stevie Wonder thing going whenever I cross their paths. I find it quite amusing-- perhaps the sight of another westerner doesn't jive with their idyllic vacations.

Rambutan Revelry

2006-05-06T01:17:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in an internet cafe right now that is populated mainly by Thai kids-- the little girl next to me is dressing up virtal characters in natty dresses on myscene.com. It is incredibly hot right now-- it was already hotter at 8:30 this morning than it ever gets in Portland in the summer. Which means I'll be frequenting this air-conditioned cafe for a while.

I thought I'd be jet lagged or tired or something but I woke up at 5 AM ready to go. The weather is very pleasant in the early morning. I biked around the wats and chedis of Ayuthaya and saw a large group of elderly Thais in blue jumpsuits doing Tai Chi. I also engaged in my first real Thai-language "dialogue", which went something like this:

Me: A-roy mahk mahk. (This is delicious.)
Boy: A-rai? ("What?" Total incomprehension-- he calls someone else over to interpret)
Me: A-roy mahk mahk.
Girl: A-roy MAHK MAHK. (Nodding and smiling.)
Me: A-roy mahk mahk?
Girl: A-roy MAHK MAHK.
Finally I get it. "A-roy MAHK MAHK."

It took a while to place my order but fortunately I found a display case full of nifty looking food that I could just point at. I had some kind of fluffy rice pastry with spicy meat stuffing that was so good that I had to have another. ("Nueng. Nueng." Meaning one.) Then there was pork wrapped in cabbage with a fish sauce dip. As far as food goes I died and went to heaven.

Even the 3 baht tempura-esque thing that had probably been sitting in the hundred degree heat half the day, and also dipped in the ubiquitious fish sauce, was delicious. I ate it while careening around on my bike, wondering if it would be coming back up 30 seconds later. But it's still down there.

Which brings me to el RAMBUTAN!! (Or "ngaw", which took about 46 repetitions for me to even begin to say it correctly.) The rambutan looks like a cross between a deep-sea creature and a mutant from outer space. It's small, orange, and oblong with green spongy feelers snaking out of it. I gave the vendor my most questioning look and she peeled one, revealing a milky fruit beneath. It tastes like a coconut with a bit of pear thrown in.

However, I do not plan on eating the BBQ'ed bats I mentioned yesterday-- at the same vendor I saw gutted frogs and snakes (or eels?) A-roy MAHK MAHK.

I also had a chance to talk to the owner of my guesthouse for a while. He's traveled all over the states and got a masters in Maryland (ring up another strange coincidence there). He's also an architect and he showed me pictures of this amazing 60 million baht (about 2 million U.S.) house he designed. I love these wonderful surprises-- I never would have guessed at all the things he's done. He also let me know that the rainy season would be coming in a few weeks-- I'm not sure what to expect with that, but it should cool things off considerably.

Suwatdee Khrap from Ayuthaya

2006-05-05T05:29:00.000-07:00

Right now it's 7:30 in the evening and I'm sitting in a guesthouse on the river in Ayuthaya. It's a beautiful night out. The place is an old teak house full of antiques and whirring ceiling fans. I wish that Kate were here because she would love this place.

I landed in Bangkok at around noon and the first thing I did was change my ticket (sort of) at the China Airlines office. So now I'm planning on coming back to the states on July 25th. That is, I've changed about 90% of it, but I still have to figure out the L.A.-Portland leg.

The Don Muang train station platform was right by the airport and I only had to wait about half an hour for a train to Ayuthaya. It was raining and the air had the texture of soup, but it felt like a second skin. It felt like India again. It's strange-- my skin has been sticky all day but I've actually found this 90 degree weather to be very pleasant, therapeutic even. It didn't seem that hot to me at all.

The train ride was wonderful. I really do feel a lot of parallels to being in India. Vendors were selling cakes and sodas. All the windows were open and we sped by lush vegetation and shanties, huge ferns and banana trees and heaps of trash. It was only about an hour to Ayuthaya and I checked in at the guesthouse. I expected to be exhausted after only about 3-4 hours of sleep last night (or was it the night before? I've lost so many hours). Instead, I ended up walking through Ayuthaya's market, passing everything from barbequed bats to furry lychee-looking fruits to the infamous jackfruit filling the air with its stench. Heaps of curries and good luck charms and even two kids sitting cross-legged by a hunk of flayed meat playing their PS2 video games.

I ended up at the Ayuthaya Historical Park, which is full of these fantastic ruins. Streams run through the park and I crossed wooden footbridges to reach little islands with dilapidated wats and gold Buddhas. In one of the famous wats, monks had draped the Buddha statues in diaphanous orange cloths. The flowers are so incredibly fragrant in this heat. Birds were screeching and calling overhead-- it's rare that bird song is loud enough for me to hear it.

The food is great too. I ended up at a place right near the ruins where I had a shrimp and lemongrass dish and it would not be an exaggeration to say it was the best Thai food I've ever had. I never knew that this is what Thai food really tastes like. I had dinner with an Aussie and a Dutch girl-- the Aussie runs a backpacking hostel in Queeensland.

One more thing before I sign off, and this is just to show what a small world it is. While I was waiting in Taipei for my flight to Bangkok, I met five people. Three of them were from Portland and a fourth was from my mom's tiny hometown of Souix City, Iowa. On the plane to Bangkok, I sat next to a couple (Thai immigrants) who lived in Seattle. And when I was walking to the Don Muang platform I met two guys on their way to Laos who were also from Portland. How really very strange this is.... and I'm finding that language hasn't been much of a barrier. I'm already starting to get the hang of my few Thai phrases-- believe me, I've been corrected numerous times. All of the Thais I've met have been so incredibly friendly. Experiencing the famous Thai smile, wow... I even get it from people passing by on mopeds, buses, speeding trains.

And no culture shock, at least not yet. Everything has felt completely natural.

Last Post Stateside

2006-05-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a free day at SFMOMA so I spent the morning strolling through pop art, surrealists and Calder "Constellation" sculptures. I particularly enjoyed the building's architecture and the way light streams through the skylight above the 5th floor catwalk. Mostly, though, I realized how being in the museum made me feel distant from real lives being lived around me. Much of the art is conceptual or intellectualized and almost seems to negate the reality of human experience.

Contrast that with my afternoon wandering around Chinatown. My favorite part was a small park where groups of old men huddled around mah jong boards and gambled. At first I felt a little apprehensive about being the young white guy with a bandanna in a group of old Chinese men, but I reminded myself that to make the most of my experience abroad I have to set aside these fears.

Other than that I spent the day wandering around the city, enjoying the weather, and also battling the contradictory emotions within me-- excitement, apprehension, doubt. Mostly it's just sunk in that I already miss Kate. Yesterday I remembered so many travel realities-- aching feet, parched throat, hungry belly, endless walking. Muscles lengthening and becoming leaner, shoulders knotting up, skin bronzing and salty.

In the evening, Jeremy serenaded me with songs I remember from the Williams house-- old folk songs and Elliot Smith and Ryan Adams. We drank tall bottles of Kirin and listened to Elliot Smith's "From a Basement on the Hill," which I thought was brilliant. It was the first time I'd heard the album and underscored the fact that I will be without these American amenities for the next few months.

I'll be at the airport in less than 12 hours. Today I plan to rest up, be reflective and prepare mentally.

San Francisco

2006-05-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

I flew into San Francisco yesterday afternoon. Leaving Portland it felt as if all the floodgates in myself had opened up. It's a feeling I often have when embarking on a journey, and entails giving up the entrenchment and control of living rooted in one place. It is an exhilarating and liberating feeling.

It was a beautiful day in S.F. I met up with my friend Jeremy and we wandered the streets looking for cheap eats. The bodegas and corner stores were all closed in support of the immigration-related boycott. It seemed like the only places open in all of San Francisco were Thai and Vietnamese, and I plan to put off eating southeast Asian cuisine until Friday. Instead we found a nice little Indian restaurant and dined on veggie curries and Taj Mahal.

Jeremy is a good friend of mine-- we lived together in an old, rambling house in Portland with three others, which we fondly remember as the Williams house for the street of the same name. It was as close to a boho, "authentic" Portland experience as I've ever had. Jeremy and his girlfriend also were through-hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail this past summer, and their epic journey definitely inspired me to follow up on my own dream of backpacking in southeast Asia.

I wasn't planning on it, but I think I'll be a tourist today after all. Apparently the weather has been miserable the last few weeks and it just turned beautiful yesterday. I'll make sure to enjoy my last few days in the states.

Leaving tomorrow, haircut

2006-04-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful day in Portland and I've been finishing up my last odds and ends before leaving tomorrow. I'll be flying to San Francisco and hanging out with my old friend Jeremy for a few days. Then it will be off to Bangkok in the small hours of Thursday morning. I've been talking with another friend, Sheila, about traveling together in Cambodia and Thailand, and I hope it works out. As of this point, I'm pretty sure I'm going to try to extend my trip another two weeks-- until the last week of July. However, to get the return date changed for free, I have to wait until I get there.

Last but not least, I shaved off all the hair. The new haircut has had a reverse Samson effect. Sure, it may not be the most flatteriing haircut, but on some visceral level it means I'm letting go, at least for the time being, with preconceptions of how I should look, and even more importantly, with how my friends see me. I feel like a new man.

Why do I always look so sad and existential in these photos I post? It's because I look so damn goofy with a shaved head and a big grin on my face. I am, quite honestly, feeling exhilarated.

Last Thursday on Alberta and speaking Thai

2006-04-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

Last night I met up with a group of friends at Zaytoons on Alberta. It was Last Thursday, when all the galleries are open late, there's art in the streets, lots of people, dogs, carousing, and rabble-rousing. Costumed men on tall bikes rode down Alberta, slowing down traffic. The bars and restaurants were full. There was quirky, DIY art everywhere, Portland style. I've always thought of Last Thursday as the epitome of what I love about Portland, and it was fitting that we were having drinks on 23rd and Alberta. I caught up with old friends, though it seemed too brief and informal-- no surprise given only a couple of hours, a bar, and a dozen people. I took some pictures. I got sad about leaving Portland. In turn, I experienced yet another wave of gentle terror about my travels.

I spent yesterday afternoon learning Thai phrases. I can count to ten in Thai now. I can say hello and my name is... and please and thank you and what is your name? I can also say delicious, very good, I like spicy food, I love Thailand... as you can see, I am endeavoring to be as diplomatic as possible. I am learning what's up, I don't understand, I'm deaf, Can you speak more slowly, do you speak English, where is the bathroom, what time is it? I listened to internet sound files, trying to decipher the confusing pronunciations. The Thai language has five tones-- low, medium, high, rising and falling. There's an almost sing-song cadence to the words, and saying a syllable in the wrong tone distorts the meaning. On the other hand, there is no confusion with conjugations and declensions, offsetting the difficulties of learning the tones. Obviously, my pronunciation is off, and it will be much more difficult, if not impossible, for me to master these tonal differences. Still, I feel a certain sense of empowerment in knowing the meanings of these words. There is no better way to learn about a culture than to learn its language, and even my brief forays and stock phrases will give me an advantage that many other Westerners do not bother to have.

And then of course I've learned, "Mai bpen rai", the ubiquitious whatever/you're welcome/it's all good. I'm reminded of the ever-present and often vague side-to-side wag of the head in India. Gestural communication is so essential, and it has its own special telepathy. It is ancient and visceral in a way that spoken language can never be. I am just as excited to decipher these unspoken cues, and this will hopefully alleviate any difficulties with my otherwise Babelian dialogues. I will be saying "Phom nuuok, mai kao jai khrap" a lot: "I'm deaf, I don't understand." It'll be a good way to shake the touts, at least.

Missing Portland and sandals for a big boy

2006-04-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went down to the Sandy River with a few friends. We waded out to a small island and sat on the beach with Scots Broom and small cottonwoods as windbreak. It was a beautiful day, and there were hawks, osprey and turkey vultures wheeling overhead. It was Chad's birthday and he's California dreamin', so Hunter said. We've all got some form of travel on our minds. Hunter showed me photos from his SE Asia travels of two years ago, offering pointers and also further whetting my appetite. The current was fast from Mount Hood snowmelt, the water cold and refreshing. We had a beautiful view of the cliffs on the far side of the river.

In short, I'm going to miss Portland and the Pacific Northwest, though I'm excited to be going to Baltimore. When I visited the Hopkins campus, the magnolias and cherry blossoms had all bloomed with the first lustiness of spring. I allowed myself to believe, at least for a moment, that I could live without the lush year-round greenness of the Pacific Northwest.
Anyway, it should be plenty green in Thailand. I checked the ten day weather forecasts for Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Vientiane and Phnom Penh, and they were all about the same. Highs in the 90s and scattered T-storms everyday (I do think there was a sunny day projected for Phnom Penh about a week from now).

And I found a pair of sandals that actually fit me at Next Adventure today. Used Tevas and a very good deal overall, making up for the kiddie sandals I've got. Also on the supply front, I purchased another memory stick for my digital camera as well as NiMh rechargeable batteries and a charger. Something about packing these technological items seems deeply incongruous to me, though I can't say exactly why. I don't want to be dependent on modern amenities. I'm not going over there to watch TV or surf the web. And I'm even planning on avoiding air conditioning as much as possible. I'd rather be one with the weather, the world and me in a state of constant liquidity and 98.6 degrees.

Kiddie Sandals and Travel Reading

2006-04-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I picked up a couple of used travel tomes at Powells, an essential staple as important as malaria phophylaxis and underwear. The two titles could not be more diametrically opposite. The first is "Novel Without a Name" by Duong Thu Huong, a Vietnamese writer who was one of only three out of 40 to survive in her volunteer troop in the Vietnam War. I've read another book by her, "Beyond Illusions", which was excellent, and "Novel Without a Name" provides a Vietnamese perspective on the war. It's kind of ironic that I'm reading a Vietnamese author, as the bulk of my travels will be in Thailand and there is no love lost between the two countries. It's tiny Cambodia that acts as a buffer and gets beaten up by its two bigger neighbors on a regular basis.
The other book is Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer", a foul-mouthed but hopefully amusing invective which chronicles Miller's move to Paris as he aspires to be a published writer. He was 30 at the time. The only parallels I can think of between our lives-- two young aspiring writers go abroad for inspiration. In a way, "Tropic of Cancer" seems like requisite reading for me as a soon-to-be MFA student, especially when you consider the expansion of freedom of speech laws that were enacted as a direct result of this book.

On to my other mundane topic. I ordered a pair of used size 10 Teva sandals in the mail, via Ebay, and I was pleased at the sweet deal I got-- $10 including shipping & handling. Well, they came in the mail, and apparently I ordered a pair of kiddie sandals (at least they're size 10). If I were six years old, they'd be perfect. So much for being prepared for this trip... Maybe I'll get sandals over there.

A few words on being a Deaf traveller

2006-04-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was at the Portland farmer's market and there was a Thai lady selling hot sauces at one of the booths. She told me her husband was from northern Thailand and that the area around Chiang Mai was very friendly, as well as a reprieve from the heat of Bangkok.

Well, that's what I think she said, anyway.

For those of you who don't know, I was born deaf. Or mostly deaf, anyway. I have a hearing aid in one ear. I can't hear anything without it. When I wear it, the world crowds in all at once, everything blurring together-- voices, music, ambient noise, the breeze, engines rumbling by. Even when there's no background noise, sounds just don't have as much clarity or definition for me as they do for others. I rely on lip-reading and gestural communication. I like loud, theatrical people who enjoy repeating themselves. A little patience doesn't hurt, either.

You can imagine the difficulties with learning a foreign language. There are sounds I can't pronounce correctly, let alone hear. Many words are very similar, and unless I have context, it's hard to tell many words apart.

Context isn't something you have when you initiate a new conversation, and it's not something you have when entering a new culture with a completely different language structure. Many Thais know at least a smattering of English (to which I'm deeply appreciative-- not many Americans seem to have much respect for others learning our language). So I should be fine, right? Not really. It's particularly difficult for me to understand people with strong accents-- not only are words pronounced differently, but more importantly, people move their lips differently. Hence, a friend of mine who might be German still retains a manner of speaking native to her homeland, causing confusion on my part.

Then of course there's the matter of the hearing aid-- if it gets wet or damaged, which is certainly a possibility, I'm without hearing altogether. I wouldn't even hear a bus coming up behind me.

Some would look at this as a disability, but those of us who are part of Deaf culture would look at this as a different perspective and a unique challenge. Sure I'm not going to understand a lot of spoken language, but I'm better than most at picking up emotional and expressive cues. I've learned to rely more on my inner senses-- my gut, mind and heart all tangled together and sending their sometimes conflicted signals of what's going on around me. I hear the world differently, but as a result, I also see, smell, taste and feel the world differently. Like any deaf person, or anyone coping with a sensory "disability", I have to.

So this is the story of my life, more or less. It's been empowering, it's been frustrating. I can guarantee numerous miscommuncations while I'm on the road, but one advantage I have is that I'm used to that. LIke many Deaf, I've been practicing at being a foreigner in my own land for a long time. In a lot of ways, it's given me the courage and curiosity to travel.

An Itinerary for Your Amusement...

2006-04-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

Since I've had months to ruminate on the particulars of this trip, I've put together a loose itinerary of what I plan to do. When I get the wanderlust, I have the tendency to get into bull-headed, full-throttle ahead traveling mode. I get an idea of what I want to do and then I stick to it. In a lot of ways, this is the way I live my life as well, but the tradeoff is a lack of flexibility. I'll find myself spinning my wheels and standing my ground stubbornly if things don't work out. That's not what I want. I've just started doing yoga again and of course a big part of this trip is getting my brain to stretch more. If I end up following this itinerary, wonderful. If not, that's even better.

I'll be landing in Bangkok at noon on May 5th. The advantage of the daytime flight (most flights into Bangkok come in at night, I've heard) is that I can go directly to the train station and head to Ayuthaya, which is only a couple of hours north of Bangkok. I only just realized this last night, and I'm already doing some itinerary-tweaking. I'd rather save BKK's intense urban feel for last, and adjust to the inevitable culture shock in a more low-key place.

Ayuthaya, as well as Sukhothai further north, are on my list as must-sees. They are both UNESCO World Heritage sites-- the ancient Siamese kingdoms go back to the 1300's and are full of wats, temples and palaces. It's important for me to get the historical and cultural context of Thailand, and I have a fascination and a deep respect for the temples of the east after numerous amazing experiences in the temples of India and Nepal (while on the other hand, the likes of Notre Dame didn't quite have the same effect-- sorry, Europe).

North of Sukhothai I plan to go to Chiang Mai and use the city as a launching point to other northern Thai cities, such as Nan and Pai. I know a lot of people think beaches when they think Thailand, but I think of the jungles and mountainous regions of the north. After two or three weeks in that area, I hope to cross the border at Hong Xuai into Laos (see? I already said "hope"-- this itinerary is starting to get amorphous). There's a two day boat ride down the Mekong to Luang Prabang, another UNESCO site as well as an incredible backpacking destination in its own right. There are plenty of day-trips in the region to caves, small villages and the jungle. After Luang Prabang, I'll pass through Vang Vieng, which wouldn't interest me (it's so touristy now), except for the presence of an organic farm just north of town, where I just might volunteer for a week, depending on how my trip is going and whether they need me. Then it's south to Ventiane, the capital, where I'll spend a few days.

From there, I might continue south in Laos or I might cross back into Thailand and head to Cambodia for Angkor Wat and Phnom Penh. Also high on my list is Ko Chang, which is a national park and an island with beautiful beaches, thus satisfying a little bit of the beach vibe while allowing me to prove my sanity when I return to the states. (You didn't go to the beach? In Thailand?!! Are you crazy?)

There are a few other places I'd like to fit in-- more time in Cambodia, a side trip to Ho Chi Minh, a trip to Phetchaburi a few hours south of Bangkok, but I'll probably only get a chance to do the last of those three. I don't want this to be a whirlwind trip, and there's only so much I can see in 70 days. Well, feel free to laugh at this and disregard. I'm certainly very curious how my actual trip will play out.

2006-04-21T22:59:00.000-07:00

So now I've reached the ten day countdown for flying to Bangkok. I've been enjoying the fabulous weather in Portland over the last week. This city has become so familiar to me-- and after four years, I feel it is more my "hometown" than the actual place I was born and raised. I've purchased most of my remaining supplies for the trip. Hopefully, my final pack weight will
be around 25 pounds. The only thing that could really tip the scales is books. My Lonely Planet travel guide. A novel, which I still haven't decided on yet. And my black bound notebook, which will hopefully contain a much more thorough journal than similar notebooks chronicling past travel experiences. I've been thinking a lot about India. Returning to southeast Asia is also rekindling nostalgia for my experiences studying abroad in Mysore and travelling around south India and Nepal 4 years ago. I'm saddened by the latest clashes in Kathmandu because I vividly remember my time there. I also have several friends who will be going to India this summer. I find myself imagining them going through the similar experiences of intense culture shock-- the teeming masses, the poverty, the smells, the rich history and architecture and spiritual undercurrent that is India.

Culture shock-- I'm bracing for it now. I'm incredibly excited about going to Thailand, but sometimes I wake up a bit terrified and feeling more than a little crazy. I imagine the stifling heat, the language barrier, the loneliness, the simple fact that all of my material possessions make up only 1/6th of my total body weight. The fact that I'm a deaf guy doing this alone. My most important possessions, other than the requisite passport and plastic, are my hearing aid and glasses. In other words, my senses, my consciousness, my faculties, the things that make up, on the most basic level, my life and soul. That's all for tonight...

Franzi's Existential Musings...

2006-04-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

I've been in Portland, OR. for the last four years and that time is about to come to an end. Portland's fragrant cherry blossoms and lush greenness urge me to stay while the rain says we come and go. There are three avocadoes in the window of my girlfriend Kate's room, and the yellow overchair in the corner is piled with what amounts to my most valuable possessions for now. My immunization lists and itinerary and plane ticket for Bangkok. My paperwork for the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars where I'll be attending next year for an MFA in fiction. And to think two months ago I was staying up late in the nights with a dark beer, dark chocolate and dark thoughts about where I'd be when the rains ended.

Since I started the MFA application process more than six months ago, it's been an introspective and uncertain time. Soon it will be an extrospective and uncertain time. I purchased my ticket for 9 weeks solo travel in SE Asia, and it's been four years since I've been abroad. I've been working to allay the usual fears: tropical illness, misplaced luggage, feverish fugues in which I find myself in a longboat to Myanmar with no recollection of my name. At least I'm not taking Lariam, which kept me up nights in India as stone devas danced the tandali on my sleep-paralyzed form...

So I'm starting this blog. Ostensibly it'll be a way for friends and family to keep up with me as I travel. I've never been a big fan of those group emails anyway. We'll see how this bloggy thing works. Do I really want to spend hours in Luang Prabang holed up in an internet cafe? (The better question would be, is the internet cafe air-conditioned and a purveyor of ice-cold Beerlao?)

I'll be flying out of Portland May 1st, two weeks from now.

Note: below is my new profile picture, from March 2007, while a first year student in the MFA program at Johns Hopkins.