10 days of an eternity

That first night I got my initial taste of what the next 240 hours of my life was going to be like.  There is a main Dhamma Hall, where both the men and women retreaters congregate for each sitting.  We all gathered at 6 pm that evening and sat, awaiting.  A man dressed in white robs walked in and sat on a raised cushion at the front of the hall, seated towards us.  With little to no instruction we were expected to sit quietly and meditate.  No instruction.  Like he didn’t say anything.  I caught on to what I was supposed to do but I wondered what others were thinking especially if this was their first exposure to the practice.  I know that there were some that hadn’t meditated before from conversations I’d had earlier that day.  I’m sure they were wondering what the hell was going on and what they were supposed to be thinking about or not thinking about and how they were supposed to be sitting and what if they had to sneeze and change position and what if, heaven forbid, they have to pee all of a sudden.  I didn’t know too much more about what was expected so I just used my what I already knew to get me through that first horrendously long hour.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, a gong rang out marking the end of the session.  In a quiet, staggered voice he first spoke in Hindi and then the same directions in english telling us to move into a different hall for our first discourse, whatever the hell that was.  The hindi speakers stayed in the hall and the english speakers went to a smaller, stuffier hall to watch a talk given by Goenka on an old TV, kinda like the  TV I got to play Nintendo on when I was little.  He introduced himself and explained what the next day was going to look like for the students, what to expect and how to overcome the inevitable hardships of the first full day of meditation.

What he really focused on were the precepts that all students vowed to observe in their ten day stay at the Lumbini Vipassana Centre.  He went in quite a lot of depth behind all of them and had some very entertaining and profound anecdotes to go along with each one but here they are in simple form:

1. To abstain from killing any living creature;

2. To abstain from stealing;

3. To abstain from all sexual activity;

4. To abstain from telling lies;

5. To abstain from all intoxicants;

6. To abstain from sensual entertainment and bodily decorations;

7. To abstain from using high or luxurious beds;

8. To abstain from eating after midday (only for returning students)

The last “law” that we were to observe is what they call Noble Silence.  For the entire duration of the course, no one is allowed to talk.  No verbal, written or signed language.  No body language.  No gestures.  You are to create a world for yourself in this center so you are living with just you and your thoughts, regardless of the people around you..

Daily Schedule:

4am – Morning gong wake up call

4:30-6:30am – Meditation in the hall

6:30-8am – Breakfast

8-9am – Group Meditation in hall

9-11am – Meditation in hall

11-12pm – Lunch

12-1pm – Rest and interviews with teacher

1-2:30pm Meditation in hall

2:30-3:30pm – Group meditation in hall

3:30-5pm – Meditation in hall

5-6pm Tea

6-7pm – Group meditation in hall

7-8:30pm – Discourse from Goenka

8:30-9pm – Meditation in hall

9pm – Bed/lights out

That is the gist of ten days of my life recently.  The few outsiders that I’ve discussed it with have commented on how utterly boring and dull it sounds and they wondered what the hell I did with myself in my precious moments of rest.   I’m like, “what rest? You try concentrating on nothingness for 10.5 hours a day and see if you can find any rest.”  The truth is, so much happens during those meditation sessions that it often seemed like they should have allowed more time for mulling over any big ideas, hangups, emotions or whatever else that comes up while trying to focus the mind for so long.  It sometimes felt like I was sitting in a rainstorm, each drop an idea, thought or emotion about one thing or someone and then all of a sudden a flash flood rushed through all the cavities and crevasses of my mind, engulfing me in an emotion or thought, perspective so precise that I couldn’t tell if I had it all figured out or if I was slowly drowning.  I know it sounds like an over the top way to describe what I felt and I admit that those moments were brief and fleeting but when they hit they always left an impression on my brain that I’m still trying to sort through, coming on two week after the retreat.

The first real day of meditating was tough.  We were instructed to practice anapana which is at the simplest form of just following your breath.  In and out.  For you readers, take 2 minutes right now and try and focus your mind on your inhales and exhales, leaving all other thoughts alone and really concentrate just on that.  I bet you can’t keep your train of thought for more than 10 or 20 seconds before you wander.  10.5 hours of this seems like a lot for the first day and it was.  Now think of doing it sitting on the ground, cross legged with a straight back and good posture.  The meditation was one thing.  The posture and numb legs were something completely different.  Sitting has never been painful for me.  It can be uncomfortable at times but when you try to focus your mind while battling intense sensations all over your body was pure misery.  The breaks were not enough.  I didn’t need the time to think and mull over my discoveries of the day, I could do that at the end of the retreat.  I needed the breaks to lie down and give my legs and back a break.  That first real day lasted the whole ten days in my mind.  It would never end.  It finally did and I had this empowering feeling that I just accomplished something so big, so earth shattering that I was smiling for an hour while trying to get to sleep.

Then the gong sounded at 4am the next morning and I realized that I was merely 1/10 the way through the course.  I felt lucky.  I had been practicing this before I came here.  Not in such long intervals but I had experience.  I estimate that before the retreat I had maybe sat with anapana for 80+ hours but that was over 8 months.  Day 2 was slightly easier.  My back was still constantly on fire.  My legs begged for relief.  My head was still strong.  I made it through and thought that this may not be so bad.  At this point if you needed to shift position you were allowed to, very quietly not to disturb your neighbors.

        Day 3 followed the same pattern.  I was getting it, I was feeling good.  I had three or four real discoveries about myself, priorities that I’d taken for granted for so long that I realized were more important in my life.   This is going to work!  The first three days we were instructed to focus on the area of your nostrils that the air comes in and then exits.  We were to focus on any sensations that we might have in that area.  Day 2 and 3 the area of focus got smaller.

        Day four we began the real practice of Vipassana meditation.  It’s a method of body scanning from the top of your head down to your feet.  As you move down you focus on quarter sized sections, spaced 3-4 inches apart.  If you don’t feel anything then you remain, focusing hard until something arises.  If nothing comes then you can note the temperature of the air on your skin or the feel of cloth from your shirt or pants.  And down you go.  Again and again.  I felt like a total idiot.  My body doesn’t have sensations everywhere!  But up and down, up and down you move.  Again, again, again.

        Day 5 was better.  I began noticing that I have lots of what I would call a tingling sensation in most parts of my body and I could follow them down.  Until I got to my legs.  Then, well, the tingling turned into fiery pulsings that begged me to move.  This was the day that during the one hour group sessions it was mandatory that you do not move your legs, arms or open your eyes.  One hour, three times a day that you have to sit with your misery, no matter how severe.

        After day 6 I almost threw in the towel.  I couldn’t take it.  The more I thought about my legs the worse the feeling became.  I told myself once the day was over I was packing up my stuff and demanding my passport.  I’m done.  Then in the nightly discourse Goenka, almost as if he knew exactly what I was going through and what I was wanting to do explained that this is the most crucial part in learning the practice of Vipassana.  It is not just one person feeling these terrible sensations.  Everyone was.  The last step in truly understanding the path of enlightenment is to not become attached to any one sensation, good or bad.  If you have a pleasant sensation it doesn’t matter, it will pass.  If you have an unpleasant sensation it doesn’t matter, it will pass.  Everything in life is impermanent.  They key to ending the suffering of our lives is to observe each and every sensation that we have and not react to them.  Just observe.  Just observe.  Just observe.  Don’t react.  Just observe.  So I stayed.

        On day 7 I tried really hard to just notice each and everything that I felt during my sittings.  Yes, my back still ached like crazy.  Yes, my legs screamed at me to move.  The more I just observed the pain and then moved on to other parts of my body, the less those sensations controlled me.  The rest of the retreat was me working on this technique.  I had plenty of moments of pain and agony as I listened to the clock’s tick tick tick, seconds hitting hard.  But I also had sittings where I sat down, did my thing  and before I had thought of my legs the gong rang, releasing us from the session.

        No day went  quickly.  No night’s sleep was long enough.  Due to the schedule I wasn’t able to see a sunrise or a sunset for 10 days.  Breaks were never long enough.  It sounds terrible at face value.  Along the way you somehow develop this sense of acceptance as your routine pushes on.  The gong would ring into my room at that early hour and my eyes would open.  At some point along the way I stopped the knee jerk reaction of automatically moaning that I’m having to get up at such an ungodly hour.  I began to like it.  They give you 30 minutes to wake up and get moving so I began to use that time.

        At first I would just lie in bed and dread the second bell telling me that it was for real and time to move.  The gong would sound, my eyes would open, I’d rollover and sit up.  I’d undo my bug netting around my mattress and drop into some stretching.  Yoga during the retreat is forbidden for some idiotic reason that was beyond me so my stretching just so happened to have a sequence to it… but I was just stretching.  Then I’d move into rolling out some scar tissue in my lower back from a ski injury long ago with a cricket ball I picked up in Kathmandu.  Brush my teeth, wash my face… by the time that second gong hit I was awake, fresh and ready for the day and ready for two hours of deep concentration or sometimes no concentration at all.  My brain fluctuated and I am no Buddha.  This routine would have never happened a year ago when the first and only thing I could accomplish in the morning was making coffee and then drinking said coffee.

        The 10th day after our first group sitting the Noble Silence was lifted and we could finally talk.  It was one of the strangest interactions I’ve ever had with a group of people.  First off, my voice was hoarse like I’d been yelling at a ballgame since my vocal chords hadn’t seen any action for so long.  Finally being able to make conversation with people was easy.  We had all become close over the last 10 days.  We knew each other’s mannerisms.  We knew who was happy, who was talkative, quiet, funny, sad or serious.  It’s amazing how much you can infer from someone just based on their body language.  That’s one of the lessons I’m taking away from the experience.  Body language is a much larger force of communication that people give credit.

        The bond was incredible.  I think I hugged just about each and every guy in the retreat, most were Nepali men that don’t often have physical contact with foreigners.  We still had a full day left for meditation but we acted like we just bagged a Himalayan peak together.  Each person went through their own form of determination.  Some shared how they were getting over divorce, others losing a job, some death.  The man that sat behind me in the hall everyday was learning how to live a life after he lost his leg in last year’s earthquake.  I befriended an English fellow before the start of the course and he was working through losing his dad last spring after 5 separate battles with cancer, moving his mom into his home with advanced Parkinson’s that just showed her first signs of dementia, getting out of a 10 year relationship, leaving him 38, single and without a clue about how to tackle this next part of his life.

        We all had our own demons in this thing.  We all had to work through things that other’s couldn’t necessarily relate to.  But I think the common ground that we all found is that in leaving Lumbini, we all have a new tool to wield, sometimes as a sword, sometimes as a shield but a tool nevertheless that will be impossible for us to be without, as long as we remember to be mindful.  I’m certainly not enlightened, nor do I feel like I’m on the path to becoming enlightened.  But I at least have a new skill that could help me through both the good and the bad times in my future.  I’m really proud and surprised that I did it.  It wasn’t perfect but it’s not supposed to be.  I’m not sure if Vipassana is something that I will stick with but I do know that if I have the willpower and determination, I will stick with some form of meditation.  Yes, it’s that good.  I dare you, try it.  I bet you’ll find it’s more sensible than you ever thought.

        ***Sad update but a reality that we were warned about.  During one of the discourses Goenka talked about how going so deep into the mind, opening old wounds can be a dangerous thing.  He cautioned us that there may be some dark thoughts that rise to the surface and it’s our job to navigate through them.  Some have it harder than others but we were all in this together.  A Nepali woman I befriended on our last day emailed me the other day and let me know that an American girl in the retreat called her from Pokhara and needed help.  So she got her on a bus back to Kathmandu.  Long story short she tried to commit suicide twice while being helped by my friend Anu.  She’s hospitalized right now, not sure of her condition.  They won’t let her fly on her own so someone from her family has to come to Kathmandu to get her.

I had breakfast with a group after the retreat was over and the American girl sat across the table from me.  I didn’t talk to her much but I do remember that she put a napkin over my bowl of fruit to keep the flies off it.  We all are fighting our own battles.  She was obviously fighting some big things.  I feel really grateful for her kind gesture and I wish I was thoughtful enough to talk to her more, I missed an opportunity to help someone who needed a friend.  You never know who needs help.  Some people scream silently.  I will try to be kind to those people sitting across the table from me.  Maybe ask how they’re doing.  And really ask, not just for formalities sake.

Gates to hell... or heaven? Juries out.

A part of me feels I was just released from a beautiful sanctuary.  Another part of me feels like I just walked through the gates of a prison, into the warm and blinding sun.  My mind and emotions are completely torn, shattered between appreciation and exhaustion.  Deep in my mind I know that this experience was wonderfully beneficial.  My ping pong brain is having a hard time seeing the real benefit like it’s just out of reach.  I know I’m supposed to feel hyper aware and deeply connected to my unconsciousness and I do but the term tip of the iceberg hovers like a lazy grey cloud.  It’s not threatening any storm but it is blocking some of those golden rays from reaching me and the earth under my feet.  I want those golden rays damnit!

Let’s back up.  I just completed my first Vipassana meditation retreat.  It has been a goal of mine to do one of these 10 day retreat for the last 6 months of my wanderings.  It never had to be a Vipassana course; there are countless techniques in meditation.  By luck of the draw I looked on Dhamma.org at the right time and saw that there was to be a course that worked perfectly with my schedule in Nepal.  I quickly applied while I was in Bangkok and was accepted the next day.  “Ok… I’m actually doing this.  Shit, what did I just agree to put myself through?”

Let’s back up farther.  I began dabbling in meditation 8 months ago  after watching a TEDTalk by Andy Puddicombe.  He was an average UK university student when a number of tragic and equally traumatic events unfolded in front of him.  Without finding a way to cope with the onslaught of emotions in conventional ways, Andy chose to quit university and move to the Himalaya to ordain as a Buddhist monk.  Some might say extreme but it makes a great story.  After ten years of dedicating himself to meditation he was encouraged by his master to return to the west and offer what he had learned to help others.  After his ten years of monkhood his only other option was ordaining permanently for life.  After some time, a semi-ironical meditation smartphone app was produced called Headspace.  I’ve heard tons of criticism about this and the other few apps available today.  Mark my words people, meditation and mindfulness is going to travel a similar same path that western yoga has gone down in the last 10-15 years.

So Headspace started it all for me.  I began with a simple ten minutes every morning.  I won’t sugar coat it.  Sitting down, trying to focus my pinball brain to just think about my breath was extremely difficult.  Along with the practice comes purposeful non judgement, thank god.  Some sittings I’m thinking about to-do lists 95% of the time and that’s ok.  It’s the actual practice that is important.  I worked up from there to 20 minutes in the morning.  Then to another 20 minutes in the afternoon/evening which proved to be much harder and more piecemeal.  I started seeing progress.  I felt better.  I was sharper.  I smiled more.  A had a positivity about daily bullshit that I hadn’t seen for a while.  No night and day transformation but I started noticing things.  I could stay on task longer.  Emotional triggers were kept in check a bit more.  My brain stayed tuned into conversations without wandering so much.

I began making some small attempts to talk to those close to me about what I was experiencing.  No dice.  Not a single person had time in their day for ten minutes.  Not one.  Other’s seemed to automatically label it as new-agey and a fad.  It didn’t sway me.  I soon found out how many influential and important people in our society have been practicing mediation daily for years and name it as one of the reasons for their continued success and steady performance at high levels under pressure.  These are people like Rupert Murdoch, Russell Simmons, Oprah Winfrey, Arianna Huffington, Clint Eastwood, Ray Dalio (founder and co-CIO of Bridgewater Associates) and my personal two favorites Tim Ferriss and Chase Jarvis.  The list is huge.  And that’s just a sample.  I took comfort in knowing that these highly successful people who were consistently operating in peak performance were crediting some of their success to mindfulness.  So my friends and family didn’t take to it like I hoped, oh well, I was still in the company of lots of influential people.

The practice became something that was deeply important to me.  Leading up to my trip work was becoming more difficult to show up to for a variety of reasons.  A number of relationships were proving more challenging than rewarding.  The stress of planning and preparing for such a large event was really beginning to weigh down on my mind.  I didn’t handle everything the way I would have liked but I know that without finding time for that 20 to 40 minutes everyday it would have been different.  It probably would have been more negative, I would have been more reactionary, emotions would have gotten the better of me or more than they had.  And there were days that I missed my practice.  Though no exaggeration, there was a difference.  The difference alone was enough to keep me at it.

After a long awaited period of searching I found the Vipassana course held on March 15-26 in Lumbini, Nepal.  I think a little background here might help clarify this endeavor.  Vipassana is the technique taught by the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama.  It was his path to become enlightened.  After his death the technique was all but lost in India, the stronghold for his teachings.  Monks in Burma (Myanmar) held on to the tradition and for 2000+ years and it remained in incubation before it was reintroduced back into the world.  My teacher, S.N. Goenka is the man responsible for spreading the teaching of Vipassana, just at the Buddha taught to India.  He passed in 2013 so I sat with an assistant teacher that was appointed by Goenka before he died and was able to listen to seminars from Goenka in the evenings through video recordings.

That’s a super brief explanation but it’s super interesting if anyone wants to look into it more.  I think it’s important to just say right now that the course, the teachings of Goenka is all nonsectarian, pragmatic and non discriminatory to anyone person looking to pursue mindfulness.  Goenka and even the Buddha wanted to it to be used as a tool to end suffering for all people, no matter race, religion, sexuality or political views.

Back to the retreat.  After one very long over night bus from Kathmandu to Lumbini I arrive at the center.  Lumbini is the birthplace of the Buddha so the religious and cultural significance does have a striking effect on the surrounding area.  All of the countries from Asia with Buddhist influence have temples, monuments, headquarters, public lands and military presence.  Yes, everyone wants to own the land where he was born.  Ring any bells?

I checked in, was asked to turn my stuff over and sign a paper saying that the volunteers were allowed to keep my passport until the course reached its completion. They said that they required all valuables be kept in the locked office to prevent any theft but this also included anything sensorily stimulating.  All reading material, writing material, any and all electronics, and anything else they deemed distracting.  Basically they want you to have no escape from your mind and whatever may changes that might come… if you do the work.  I knew what that meant.  The compound covering no more than 2-3 acres was completely walled in and a large iron gate was the only entrance and exit.  That evening before the first sitting began I walked past that gate and sure enough there was a large iron lock very fittingly attached and secured to the black iron gate.

Welcome to prison.

That was the moment it hit me that I just voluntarily entered 10 days of something I was completely unsure that I was ready for.  Ya, I’d been practicing.  Solo traveling taught me time and time again that I’m up for far bigger challenges in life than I give myself credit for and my self determination had skyrocketed since October 2015.  There wasn’t an option to turn back now so I had to learn some acceptance.  I know nothing of meditation.  I have everything to gain.

“If your mind is empty, it is ready for anything.  In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.” – Shunryu Suzuki

Part 2 to come…

More Laos adventure and then back to Thailand

I was lucky enough to visit an Akha village named Pongkok that’s 7 km down muddy, muddy rural roads weaving through rice patties and rubber tree plantations.  I found out that I was about 20 years too late for the Golden Triangle of SE Asia.  Instead of growing poppies for opium, farmers have been encouraged/forced to grow rubber trees instead.  I’m sure somewhere there are huge plantations of poppies still going strong.  I was happy and relieved to see that the culture hasn’t changed along with their crops.  I arrived to Pongkok after slogging through mud for two hours, mud on my shoes, mud on my pants, mud on my back after my feet skated out from under me in a particularly slippery section.

Stilted, wooden homes.  Doors open… or no doors in some cases.  It was the most surreal experience.  There I was, way way way outside my comfort zone.  I was two hours from my backpack and home base of Muang Sing where no one speaks English.  I’m not a betting man but if I was I wouldn’t put my money on there being a village translator.  My best bet was some drugged out hippy of old got stuck in a smokey, numb haze and never left.  Nope.

I felt like I was in a western film.  Me, the outlaw, had just arrived to town and everyone just stared in silence, wondering if there was going to be a shootout with the sheriff.  The night before my Mom asked if there were any cannibals in Laos.  I reassured her there weren’t any like there were in Indonesia (something I casually didn’t mention to her at the time).  I kind of regretted not double checking that fact.

Then up ahead some young men were all working on cutting up some kind of body.  I’ll admit, there was that half a second where my imagination got the best of me before ridiculously unlikely that would be.  So, it turned out to be a pig.  It can be awkward walking up to people who live so remotely that they barely just got limited electricity for a couple hours in the evenings.  It’s so easy though.  All you have to do is smile.  English might be the official international language but grinning like an idiot is the world’s unofficial one.

I stared into a crowd of warm smiles, some toothy, some not so toothy.  I automatically felt at home.  So I just went for it.  Held up my camera with raised eyebrows to see if I could hang in the back and snap some photos and watch.  They loved it.  But being in the back wasn’t on the table.  They insisted that I got super close and get photos as they took turns getting carnal with the pig.

Oh ya, I forgot to mention, it was the Akha New Years in a couple days so they were having their town’s celebration early before all the villages congregated in theirs’ for the party.  The pig was for the feast they were preparing that night.  Their party was already starting.

“Lao lao!” I look up and all these guys were up on a rooftop raising glasses in the air.  Before I know it I’m drunk.  I’m pretty good at throwing them back but my glass was never empty.  Getting lots of attention meant my glass also got lots of attention and they all wanted to cheers me individually.

Sidenote… they do this weird thing that after you clink your glass with someone you have to stare them in the eyes while you drink.  It was slightly creepy.  And the drunker they got the less of their eyes I could see so it kind of looked like they were glaring at me or like they knew they had just poisoned my glass and wanted to watch me drink to my death.  I let that thought pass.

      These guys were awesome.  Not a lick of english and I speak maybe a dozen words in Lao when I’m sober.  I learned many, many words in Lao while I was up there… which I would remember for about 10 seconds and then I’d learn a new one.  It was a lot of fun but it was like language etch a sketch on my brain.  Didn’t matter.  I learned it quick in Indonesia.  You don’t need to break through the language barrier to have fun with people.

      There is one decision of that day I would change if I could though.  I didn’t stay for the feast.  I was invited but walking 7 k’s down a dark muddy road with wild dogs lurking everywhere didn’t seem that awesome at the time.  I should have stayed.  But in the end there is not a thing I can complain about with my experience.  It’s got to be one of the coolest things I’ve experienced in my short 27 years.   It’s hard to explain but those are the things that reignite that travel fire.  The Akha celebration was very cool too, I’m not going to go into it too much.  There were speeches and dancing and traditional music and it was amazing as well but my intimate afternoon with just Pongkok was definitely the highlight.  If anyone is following me on Instagram you can get a better idea with some photos I posted.

      On from Muang Sing I had a four days in the party capital of Vang Viene.  They are slightly fuzzy looking back on it.  I blame the special shakes that are sold everywhere.  They have these cafes on every street that sell fruit shakes that tend to make people lie around all day on floor cushions while they play “Friends” reruns all day, every day.  Don’t ask me why but “Friends is having a huge comeback in Vang Viene.

      Then on down to an area called the 4,000 Islands.  The Mekong river widens at the very southern tip of Laos and it’s dotted with islands, most tiny but some a few kilometers around.  I went to Don Dhet where I chilled out in a hammock.  It was really nice.  I had a simple bungalow right on the river bank with surprisingly good wifi, which was super convenient.

      I’ve really enjoyed SE Asia for what it has to offer but the tourism bullshit can get on my nerves at times.  I enjoy going to wats and seeing waterfalls and visiting coffee plantations but there is this undertone that I haven’t been able to shake.  I came here with what I would call a somewhat naive idea of what the area was going to be like.  Most people are coming to the area from the western world with a limited number of days and want to pack as many attractions into their vacation that they can.  I don’t blame them.  I would do the same.  But with choosing to spend a considerable amount of time wandering around, looking to dig a little deeper into the culture, I’m not as interested in seeing every major attraction each area has to offer.  I don’t want to come off as arrogant or something and I hope I don’t but often times I don’t relate with the quick and dirty tourists.  The people I tend to connect with the most are the people with a slower approach to travel and of course the locals, when possible language-wise.

      I’ve decided to mix up my travel plans a little.  I bought a plane ticket to Nepal for the beginning of March.  I know the tourism industry is alive and kicking there too but throwing down some big bucks to see some even bigger mountains seems a much better buy than another damn waterfall or temple.  Plus one of my bucket list items for my trip was to get involved and give back with some volunteer work.  For those that are reading this and don’t know or maybe don’t remember, that country got turned upside down last spring with back to back 7.8 and 7.4 earthquakes.  Kathmandu is a mess.  Schools are demolished.  Wiki just told me that it caused 5 billion dollars in damage, which is 25% of the nation’s GDP.

      So, I’m hoping that I can get my hands dirty and do whatever I can to help.  I’m giving myself a month to volunteer and then afterwards a month for trekking.  I’m kind of throwing myself into this blind so I hope I’m not being naïve now but it feels like the right move.  I’m knowingly passing on some countries in this area that I know I would love but this is an instinctive decision.  I’ve learned to really trust my instincts and this one definitely feels right.

      Getting back to that good wifi in Don Dhet, I used my few days lounging to coordinate a climate change.  Luckily I have a friend that’s better than I deserve to crawl up into my parents attic back in Boise to retrieve my gear list for high elevation.   Not a small task considering everything that I still own back in the States in smashed into boxes in a dark, claustrophobic attic in the middle of winter.

      For now I’m back in the heat.  Back in Thailand.  My visa ran out in Laos so I was forced to vacate.  I’m sitting on a third story terrace in Ubon Ratchathani writing this.  I’ve got a nice view of the Moon River, a local morning market across the street where I try new food everyday and a hostel host that has adopted me as her traveling son.  I’ve lost track of time.  Can’t remember when I got here but it’s been over a week.  I’m doing what I like doing best.  I’m slowly digging into the local scene.  Ubon is for the most part off the maps for what’s referred to as the Banana Pancake Trail.  Other than my Finnish neighbor with an absurdly thick accent I’m the only white person that I see most days.  That means the tourism attitude really hasn’t hit the area either.  People are curious again like on Java.  Not that I’m a person that has ever really enjoyed being the center of attention but the interaction has changed.  I think the people appreciate me exploring their city, which is a major Buddhist hub of Thailand.

      I got the chance to visit Wat Pa Nana Chat where I prepared food, prayed and ate breakfast with the monks.  It’s a forest monastery near the city and every morning the monks come to town around 5 am to collect Alms, or donations from the people here.  I think I’ve talked about it before but the huge buffet of food that I helped prepare that day was all donated by Ubon residents.  I’m not interested in becoming Buddhist but the religion is beautiful and I’m grateful to get such a close look at what the monks lives are like.  It’s basically two words: prayer and meditation.  Simple but complex.  I think I would go insane if I tried to sit with them for more than a week.  I got lots of respect for these guys.

      I plan on staying here for another week or so before making my way west to Bangkok to fly to Kathmandu on March 4th.  I’ve got some friends to reunite with and I think I’m going to spend a few days at a different monastery that is more educational based for curious westerners looking into meditation and/or Buddhism.  The longer I stay in one place the easier it is to live off of 20 bucks each day.  I’ve actually limited myself to $15 to pay for my plane ticket.

      I spend my days taking care of loose ends for visas and other travel things, working on some self improvement and hanging out with my roommate, Masashi.  He’s a 70 year old widower from Japan that got a second chance on life after a massive heart attack and wants to see what the world is all about.  He’s definitely one of the most inspiring people I’ve met on my trail thus far.  He’s got this Zen Buddhist curiosity about everything.  Before his heart attack he told me that he was angry, impatient and frustrated easily but once he almost lost his life he consciously changed his attitude.  Now he’s calm, quiet, curious and, without a better word for it, adorable.  If I needed any help or wisdom for a lonely Valentines day all I had to do was consider this guy.  His outlook on the life that he has left is beautiful.

      So that’s it guys.  I skipped a bunch but the things that make the biggest impression on me are worth sharing online.  The rest is good beer drinking material when I come back.  Not sure who is reading this anymore but if it’s just you, Mom, Dad and Erik… I’ll buy the beer and share it anyway :)

And as far as pictures go, I’ve taken a bunch.  Some of the better ones I take the time to throw up on Instagram but as far as keeping my face out of a screen, photo editing can wait until I come back.

      Much love from SE Asia.

Laos and laolao

Laos, a country of beautiful forested mountains, lush river valleys, I would say slightly grumpy people and temperamental weather.  I crossed the Thai border to board a longboat to meander slowly  down the Mekong River river for two days.  Yep, it’s brown, like I thought it was going to be.  Yep, kids were swimming around in it naked, women washing their clothes.  It’s not hard to imagine the cause of the murky waters though.  It starts up in China along large swaths of farmland.  Just like with any place that has a lot of farming, there is going to be tons of run off.  China doesn’t have the pesticide and herbicide restrictions that the States does though so going for a dip didn’t even cross my mind.

The longboat wasn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be.  Sure enough, the boat was long.  But I imagined dangling my feet over the side, moving from one side of the boat to the other to see all the beautiful scenery.  Instead, they had filled it full of car seats and benches so full that leg room wasn’t an issue.  It was nonexistent.  To be honest, I kind of felt like an idiot for being among all the tourists and travelers wanting that romantic drift down the famous Mekong, to find out that these boat owners didn’t care about the experience of their live cargo.  We could have been cows for all they cared.  And if they could squeeze a couple more cows into the back corner, assuming the cows were paying money for the trip, sure enough they would squish them in.

It took me a bit to get that thought out of my head and appreciate it for what it was.  There were locals riding with us as well.  They were in the very back of the boat in the engine room.  They actually had more room to even lie down and take a nap.  Their only downfall was the thundering roar of the massive engine, in fact I don’t think they were allowed to sit up front with the white people.  I don’t think any of them were wanting to pull a Rosa Parks though, they had their families and their water bottles filled with laolao, the homemade rice whiskey of Laos and playing cards.  They were doing just fine.

I thought the coolest part about the trip for me was the boat would stop at villages along the way and the locals with load the nose of the boat full of bags of goods and then we’d stop again at the next village and drop them off.  They had developed a trading business with these boat operators to exchange produce they grow or whatever else was in those burlap sacks.  Every few hundred meters you’d see a bamboo rod with some fishing line protruding from the rocks, some were straight and others were sagging, waiting for the villagers to come collect the days catch.

I arrived in Luang Prabang on the second day (10 km from town so we were forced to hire the tuktuk drivers waiting for us to actually get us to town… bastards).  I found a nice guesthouse with a dorm room that I shared with and English woman named Rachel.  She had been there for coming up on a month.  I could see why.  Luang Prabang is a happening place.  They have night markets every night.  There are good restaurants.  Street food everywhere.  Monks walk every morning at 5:30 for Alms where villagers offer food to them to feed the monks for the day.  They have this tradition so the monks stay connected and dependent on the community which, in turn, keeps the community connected to Buddhism.

After a few days, a long bus ride took me to a small village on the Ou River called Nong Khiaw.  This is one of the most gorgeous, insanely gorgeous, places I have ever been to.  The town is divided by a long bridge over the river and there are crazy sunsets in the evening and low lying, misty clouds hiding the cliffs and mountains all around the town in the morning.

        Besides the views, three great things really sealed the deal for me.  I was reunited with my friend Josie, who I’d traveled with in Thailand for a week.  There was an Indian restaurant that I ate at 7 times in 4 days. And Josie surprised me by buying us a day trek up river to visit Muang Ngoy, a village only accessible by the river.  We walked around the village and interacted with the locals, the kids were a blast.  We hiked up to an ice cold waterfall.  I think I was one out of 4 people that just had to jump in the pool below the falls.  The rest of the twelve or so just watched, thinking we were crazy.  Worth it.  It’s worth it every time.  I remember my first time jumping into water that takes your breathe away.  It was up at the lake with the uncles.  Dick, Tom, Fred, thanks for starting this tradition of mine.  Every alpine lake I come to… It’s just got to be done.   Afterwords, Josie and I kayaked in a two man boat for a few hours back to Nong Khiaw to get some more Indian food.  Correction, I kayaked for a few hours… Josie just kind of flopped around in back making us zig zag all the way home.  Josie, if you’re reading this, I will give you shit forever about this :)

After a couple uneventful nights I am in Muang Sing.  About 10 km from China and 50 km from Burma.  The reason why I came here is because there are dozens of tribal villages up here around the town and a great way to explore them and meet the people is to rent a mountain bike and just kind of wander around, making damn well sure you don’t accidentally cross an unmanned border.  I don’t think I would enjoy a Chinese or a Burmese prison very much.  Alas, its f*#king arctic up here.  Right now I’m wearing four pairs of pants, the only two pairs of socks I’ve got, four shirts, two scarves, two headbands and my only two jackets… and I’m under the covers in bed.  It’s barely getting above 40 degrees with the windchill and non stop rain.  Now, I know that doesn’t sound terrible for people actually getting a winter but my body was possibly, slightly, just maybe adjusting to the death heat/humidity of SE Asia and now my world has been flipped upside down.

So, me being as stubborn as I am, I want to see these tribal villages that supposedly haven’t changed their way of life for the last 100 years or so.  I’m pent up in my frigid room.  I do have a tv! But I can stand listening to Laos television for about five minutes before I want to smash the thing.  So, I have a bamboo shoot of sticky rice and three oranges I bought from the morning market earlier day, half a beer I was too cold to drink last night and a water bottle full of laolao and 12 oz of water.  I figure I can make it a couple days of rationing to wait for the skies to clear and the temps to rise back up to the 60s or hopefully the 70s.  That’s how cold I am, normally the 70s are my comfort limit back in the states but I would even take 80 degrees at this point.  I swear I’m meant to live in Seattle or something.  At least if I was there I would have the boatload of North Face gear I’ve collected over the years to sit outside and drink a cappuccino during their “winters”.

In the end, I’m laughing at myself because I’ve been missing the mountain winters so much while I’m over here sweating my ass off.  And then I’m exposed to just above freezing weather and I realize that to be in those cold conditions, you gotta be prepared.  Irony,  you son of a bitch…

Malaysia and Beyond!

2015 has now come and gone.  I’ve had a chance to think back on this last year in the last week or so and I have to say, it has been a great year.  It wasn’t a year of pure joy and pleasure, I would probably say I’ve had to put more effort into the last 365 days than I can remember from years before.  There were lots of emotions, ideas, successes and plenty of failures but I’ve adapted recently to look at everyone of those situations as an opportunity to learn something.  It doesn’t have to be a big something, but at least something.  This last year is the reason that I decided that I needed to broaden my horizons and get way outside my comfort zone.  I’ve been running around with some common themes for a number of years that I’ve not be able to shake while in Boise so new perspective seemed like an appropriate decision.  And it’s definitely paid off.  I still have troubles and thoughts looming over me sometimes, just like the next guy, but I think that moving into 2016 I’ve developed a more positive way of looking at every situation.  I’m ready for a year full of things that have never been.

*****

Over the last month or month and a half I’ve been winding my way up the SE Asian peninsula.  I began in Kuala Lumpur, where I stayed over Thanksgiving and had a “BBQ” at my hostel (they were serving hotdogs).  I did a quick weekend in a coastal town down south from KL called Melaka which reminded me a lot of some kind of strange Disney World themed UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It was Chinese touristville that weekend.  I tend to try not to generalize but damnit those Chinese people move so slow when you group a ton of them in tightly packed Chinatown streets.  Since then I have seen a Chinese lady power walking so I know it’s not all people from China, hopefully just the ones I shared Melaka with that weekend.

From Melaka I rode a bus 5 hours north to a city named Ipoh.  I was just there for a night so I booked a really cheap hostel called the Reggae House.  It was cheap... really cheap.  The guys working were completely stereotypical of that establishment’s name and I would be surprised if they are still listed on booking.com a year from now.  I would recommend people look elsewhere if you’d like to stay in Ipoh, unless you want bedbugs and have them lock you out of the hostel while you get dinner for two hours.  But Ipoh was the launching point for the Cameron Highlands so it will still be a warm memory.

       The Cameron Highlands, what a wonderful place.  If anyone reading this goes to Malaysia and doesn’t visit the tea leafed hills of Tanah Rata you are failing.  I spent a week in the blissful 70 degree weather with no humidity, fewer crowds and wonderfully friendly local people.  Everyone was just happy.  And I see why.  It very well could be that I’m biased from being sticky and uncomfortable for the last two months but that place is magical.  Storms roll in every afternoon and dump unreal amounts of rain in 15 minutes to an occasional couple of hours.  In the mornings I would sit outside with a cup of coffee and a jacket.  A jacket!  I knew there was a reason I’ve been hauling that thing around this whole time, squished in the bottom of my bag until that week.

       Next was Geogetown, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, although less Disneyish.  I honestly can’t recall too much of this weekend besides seeing some churches and eating at a really good food market at night.  I think it was one of those situations like when a friend tells you that the movie you’re about to see is the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen and you get let down because of your high expectations.

       I crossed into Thailand and took a minibus to an island called Koh Lanta.  I was aware that I was approaching Christmas and I had heard about the swarms of people that flock to the southern islands of Thailand so I picked one of the more laid back islands to get some beach time.  I stayed at a guesthouse run by a muslim Thai family.  Southern Thailand has an interesting history of terrible events towards the muslims, including massacres.  Nevertheless, they seemed happy enough to me (as I’ve moved north they’ve seemed to become happier as my latitude climbs).  Koh Lanta treated me well.  I got to talk to a lot of people, mostly families that were taking their holiday.  One Canadian lady resparked my interest in going to grad school in Vancouver, B.C.  She made it seem so perfect for my style and reinforced this feeling by describing all the climbing, backpacking, skiing, biking and fishing to be had… No brainer, right?

        I moved farther north to the coastal town of Krabi.  It is really just a base for island hopping the southern islands but I thought it had a really nice feel to it.  There is a large river that flows at its edge and lots of street food and a few temples that weren’t busy.  I had some time to relax and figure out my game plan.  I really wanted to go more west to the tourist islands of Koh Phi Phi and as well as Railay beach but I was repeated warned from fellow travelers that they were infested with out of control white people on their holiday and rooms were twice what they usually go for.  I wanted to go to both of those areas for some world renowned limestone climbing.  I really, really wanted to go.  But I think my traveling beginnings on the non touristed island of Java has given me a certain attitude towards the popular places.  Frankly, I’m ok with this.  I came here for a cultural experience.  Meeting rich Europeans and Australians is just a plus and not something I seek out.

       So I decided to leave for Bangkok, my climbing lust left unsatisfied.  Everything works out in one way or another it seems.  I met three energetic and friendly Spaniards on the night train to Bangkok.  We snuck some bottles of Thai whiskey on with us and had quite the night.  One of them didn’t speak any english and I speak barely any Spanish but at the end of our three days of exploring Bangkok, the two of us could communicate fairly well as both of our second languages improved.  On an unrelated note, Spaniards can party!  Those guys kept me up until 6, 7 a.m. the nights I spent with them.  Bangkok is a blast.  Khao San Road is nothing of what I imagined.  It’s least to say that the streets are packed with people until the sun comes up.  Platters of scorpions and grasshoppers walking around.  Balloons of nitrous oxide.  Tuk tuk drivers offering anything you want, anything.  If it was truly once a hippy backpacker hangout, those days are long gone to make room for huge bars, towers of beer and extremely intoxicated tourists.

       I was dropped off at the train station with hugs and smiles as they didn’t fly back to Barcelona for a few more days.  I arrived five hours early to get a night train ticket.  Damn was I naïve and I completely paid for it.  I should have bought my ticket days before.  The only thing available for the night train was a seat in the cheap car.  I was shooting for the sleeper cabin where you have a bed, there actually really fun to experience and I highly recommend it.  I sat on a 3 foot wide bench with another guy and two people on the same bench facing us with only a few feet in between the benches.  For 14 hours.  It was living in a 1.5x1.5 foot box for over half a day.  I knew I could do it, that’s why I bought the ticket but let’s just say I was a little cranky when the doors opened to Chiang Mai.

       Chiang Mai, the city where I’m writing this.  I’ve been here for almost two weeks.  I had no intentions of spending this much time here.  There’s something about this place though.  It’s got food, interesting culture, hopping nightlife and probably the most incredibly unique New Years Eve I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing.  It’s the city known for the lantern festival.  I was slightly bummed because I missed the festival in November but I am completely satisfied now.  I had no idea that it was going to happen but I’m happy to say that I was witness to thousands of lantern launches over a beautiful few hours.  I don’t think I’ve seen anything as beautiful on December 31.  People were drinking but no one was out of control or even rowdy like back home.  People were so friendly and happy as they lit their lantern.  You’re supposed to let something go from the last year as you let your lantern go.  Then in the morning there are these grey ghosts that landed all over the city.  I’ve never experienced anything like it.

       So, I’m sitting here on January 2nd, I have until the 9th before my visa expires and I have to leave Thailand.  This is a country where a month is just not enough.  Now that my folks have committed to visiting me somewhere in the world before I come home I have a time limit but I plan on returning to Thailand after Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.  I have my eyes set on a 10 day silent meditation retreat.  I’ve heard so much about these retreats that I don’t think I could leave the region before experiencing one.  Some people can’t handle it and leave well before it’s over but I think that I will benefit significantly.  Or I could be completely wrong and be the guy in the back of the room having a mental breakdown.  Either way.

       That’s my plan everyone, there are a couple more countries in the works before the overseas family reunion but I’ll save that for later.  I hope ya’ll had a rockin’ New Years and are working for an even better 2016!