Time Travel

Seaview, Washington

Back in the U.S. after more than a year, it's like we've stepped off a time machine. The more we live this nomadic life, the more all travel feels like time travel. Life doesn't feel linear; it's like something I'm swimming in, a dreamy substance that infuses me.

When we left China, we traveled in Thailand and Indonesia for three months. Was that yesterday? Last year? Ten years ago? Or is it still happening?

time and space blend...

When I look at Dave's pictures and write about the oraguntans and komodo dragons, the Gili islands and Amed,  Anais Nin's words come to me:

Writers taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.

Visceral recollections sweep through me: My arms wrapped around Dave on a motorbike, up hills with blue sea vistas, gliding past palm trees, winding through traffic.

My job is to hold on and loosen up. Alert relaxation, like a meditation. At times I close my eyes, feel the tropical air touching my skin, my heart pressed to Dave's back.

Phuket, Thailand

In Ubud, I walk morning streets, incense and flowers perfuming the air, dogs sniffing at offerings placed on the streets, kites and birds floating in the sky, swaths of green rice fields glowing in the sun, ancient temples wedged between stores.

Stairs to yoga.

Intuitive Flow...like doing yoga in a tree house.

There are so many incredible women everywhere: in yoga, in a goddess workshop, in cafes. We talk: Not what do you do? But who are you, what matters to you, what is your life? I'm giddy. I'm in awe. How is it that we collided here on the planet at this place and time?

Marilyn, in her 70s, has lived in Ubud many years with her Balinese "family."

Coco Wayan...we greet each other every day, and I buy coconuts from her.

Eliska and Christie, getting in touch with our inner goddesses.

The young women at the hotel in Flores call me "Mama Kate."

Embraced by friendship: Nancy (center) and Cynthia who met up with us at the writing retreat.

Music plays in my mind, the vibration that runs through the body, the heart, as our friends Paul (from Liverpool) and Daria (from Russia) play. They have come from China to meet up with us in Nusa Dua, Bali. We are together again, connected through rhythms and voices...

Throughout Indonesia, we experience music, dance, bodies telling stories.

Uluwatu, Bali

Ubud Jazz Festival

Jimbaran, Bali

Two months in Indonesia and we're off to Thailand. Did I really co-host a writing retreat on the island of Koh Phangan? Something I'd dreamed about doing for long time...and after all the months of planning and prepping and there we were, writers together, having journeyed on airplanes, trains, boats to converge in this rarefied little corner of the world.

Although I risk cliche, I will say it: we laughed, we cried, we wrote our hearts out.

Writers at work... 

...and play.

And all the water, the water...my body floats there now.

Flores, Indonesia with Fran and Paul

Koh Phangan, Thailand writers

Nai Harn Beach in Phuket, where we spent our last 2 weeks.

Leaving Southeast Asia after more than a year, we travel for 24 hours and land in the dream of Hawaii. When we arrive at the waterfront home of our friend Candis, we throw off our clothes and jump naked into the warm Pacific.

We're on the other side of the world. And again we're in the ocean, in our most natural state, afloat in the Earth's amniotic fluid.

Lanikai, Oahu

Everywhere go, it seems, I am sent messages.

Found in Thailand

Found in Ubud.

Life, I am listening.

Indonesia Part 1: Gili Islands and Amed

Cooling off the horse in Gili Trawangan

Flying out of Nanning, China--where we'd lived for a year--was familiar since we'd traveled a lot during my breaks at the university. Yet it was surreal, knowing we weren't returning. At least not in the near future. Our first stop (after an overnight layover in Kuala Lumpur) was the magical Gili islands. Let me cut to the chase: Of all the places I've traveled, this is one I want to return to one day.

Because there are no motor vehicles, on the three Gilis (Trawangan, Air and Meno) you get around on foot, bike, and small horse-drawn carriages.


We spent half a day riding bikes around the whole island, stopping at will for swimming and food.

On Gili T, we woke each morning to the haunting call to prayer blasting on a loudspeaker and fell asleep each night to the heartbeat of distant party music. This compelling juxtaposition of religious devotion and secular indulgence was evident throughout Indonesia.

Shrooms are as available as fresh fish.

One morning at breakfast in our comfy family-owned B&B, I heard a young couple speaking English with American accents. Most travelers we'd encountered in the past year in S.E. Asia were Europeans, Indians, and Australians. And of course in China, we met few Americans. I couldn't help myself. I had to ask them where they were from. Chicagoites, Danielle and Evan were on their honeymoon.

Danielle and me

The four of us spent the day on a boat that took us to three snorkel spots. In most places in S.E. Asia it's almost the same price (and much more comfortable) to hire your own boat than to take one with lots of other tourists.

Snorkeling, we saw lots of healthy, multicolored coral and fish--and best of all, turtles. One day Dave and I snorkeled off the beach on Gili T and were instantly surrounded by five or six large turtles. It's sublime floating in warm, quiet water with these prehistoric creatures.

That day, we had lunch on Gili Air, which is known for being quieter than Gili T. (In the Sasak language, "air" means "water" and "gili" means island.) I loved Gili Air's maze-like streets.

As in many places throughout S.E. Asia, on Gili T there was a lively night market with foods that looked (and were) delicious--and a few that frankly frightened me. Those were mostly along the line of insects. Another similarity to many places we'd been, including China, was the adorable babies.

We had made our plan to spend two months in Indonesia before we'd discovered that Americans are granted one-month visas upon entering the country. We asked around about extending our visas and were told to see the "guy with the mustache" at a travel booth on the main, dusty road. Dealing with bureaucracy everywhere is a challenge--and even more so in a place where the rules seem, well...flexible, and you don't know the language or the culture. Handing over cash and your passport to "the guy with the mustache" is a pure act of faith.

the ferry

To finalize the visa extensions, we took a crammed ferry (more like a fishing boat) to Lombok's passport and immigration office. We'd been told the ferry would leave "about" 9 a.m. It finally took off at 10:30. Hanging out on a beach with a coconut isn't the worst way to wait for a ride.

To get to the Gilis, we took a boat from Sanur (south of Padangbai).

We had vague instructions about how to meet up with the guy who would drive us from the pier to a an inland city. We'd thought we'd already paid for the transport, but the driver insisted we hadn't...so maybe we got bilked a few bucks. I re-reminded myself that a few dollars is not a big deal for us but probably is for him.

The rest of the visa-procuring experience went relatively smoothly. And our driver showed us around a little, including taking us to see this pretty mosque:

and monkeys in the mountains.

monkey junk

We could have easily spent another week or two on the Gilis. But it was time to move on. Our morning fast-boat ride out to the Gilis had been extremely rough, with waves crashing over the boat. That happens periodically. It's the government, not the boat owners, who decide when the seas become too unsafe--and after our ride over, the boats had been cancelled for a few days. (We were incredibly lucky to not have to deal with delays or cancellations of boats, planes or buses during our three months of post-China travel...which included 16 flights.)

Our ride from the Gilis to Amed--the easternmost point of Bali--was bumpy but not as rough as the ride out. Disembarking from the boat meant stepping from a wobbly boat onto an even wobblier, floating, slippery "pier" with no handrails that was being buffeted by large waves. Our S.E. Asia mantra: There is no OSHA here.

Blue Star Bungalows...right on the beach.

We stayed a week at the Blue Star Bungalows in Amed on Jemeluk Beach. Iluh, the owner, told me I could remember her name with the acronym, "I Love You, Honey."

And I did--love her, her small hotel, and Amed. Iluh told us that tourism didn't come to Amed until relatively recently. When her husband was growing up there, everyone was poor. No one had electricity and most kids didn't go to school. Things were changing but still, children wandered the beaches, trying to sell bracelets and other small items to tourists. Iluh suggested we buy only from adults and give kids school supplies instead. So we bought colorful pens for the children.

cuties

The kids try to hook you with the few words of English they know, starting with, "Hi, what's your name?" One girl, probably around eight years old, came by day after day as I sat on the beach. One day when she asked me my name, I pouted and said, "Really? You don't remember?" She smiled. I invited her to sit with me. She pulled out a little notebook and asked me to write down my name. We spent half an hour together in an impromptu English lesson, writing new words accompanied by pictures, her little hand perched on my thigh. I have been teaching for many years, and this was one of my favorite teaching moments of all time.

 

Jemeluk Bay

It's incredible to be able to walk right out into the water on Blue Star's beach and experience world-class snorkeling. Evenings, we ambled into the little town for dinner. We shared a few meals with a wonderful German couple we met. He's a filmmaker, she runs an NGO that promotes equality for women in developing nations.

nueu freunde

Meeting new people is one of the greatest pleasures of traveling. It's also sweet to travel with longtime friends...which is what we did when we left Amed to see more of Indonesia. I write about that next...stay tuned!
 

Goodbye and Thank You, China

Semester is over!

These past few hot and rainy weeks in Nanning, we've been preparing to leave. I have finished final exams, and most of our stuff--from lamps and cushions to blender and bikes--has new owners. Our friends will come to retrieve those things and say goodbye Friday morning before we head out to the airport.

Ten months we've been in China. It's the longest we've lived in one abode since launching our nomadic life 4 years ago. Life here has been charming and challenging. Sweet and soul-stretching. Exciting and unnerving.

campus lotus pond

If we were planning to stay here longer, I would embark on an immersion course in the language. The little bit of language study Dave and I did before coming wasn't nearly enough. At first it wasn't a problem. I am teaching in a university program that focuses on English, so we were surrounded by English-speaking Chinese people and ex-pats. Also, I made liberal use of my translation app.



You never know what you'll see when you're taking a stroll.

However, to be able to deeply connect to people--and to move around with ease--knowing more Chinese feels crucial. It got old relying on others to do some of the simplest things for us, like order take-out or buy a ticket to the movies.

Another challenge has been the food. While at first I fell in love with it, if I never see another dumpling, noodle or rice dish in my life I don't care! There is not enough variety in the diet for my taste. Well...there is variety if you're willing to eat mystery meat, duck feet, and organs. As Lee, Dave's 11-year-old tutee said, the Chinese eat everything.

Farmer's market butcher: you know it's fresh when...

We did enjoy our outings to the campus farmers market, a great place to buy fresh eggs, fruit and veggies at cheap prices. And we have found a few restaurants we like a lot...although our absolutely favorite one just closed down, perhaps a sign that our leave-taking is good timing.

The "egg lady" kindly posed for a picture.

Another sign may be the state of our apartment. It's a beautiful place with large rooms and bay windows (albeit barred) that look out over a lotus pond. And the ease of the 5-minute walk to class cannot be understated. However, Dave has named our bathroom "Little Shop of Horrors" because unidentified goop seeps from the ceiling down the walls. Sometimes we hear rats scurrying up there. And now when you run the water in the sink, it leaks onto the floor. Also, for months, water has been seeping through a wall in the office space. A maintenance crew came to look at it a few times, but apparently there is no remedy.

E-bike wackiness

This acceptance of things that my Western, middle-class culture might not endure has been part of the challenge and charm of China. There's a laid-back quality that's appealing. You even see it in the traffic. It might look chaotic, but generally people go quite slowly and weave around each other like a choreographed dance. That e-bike might be cutting off a bike or pedestrian, but everyone just sways one way or the other and doesn't change their pace. One move like that in California, and someone is likely to pull out a middle finger, if not a gun.

They take the afternoon siesta seriously here.

Today (Sunday) I was notified of a graduation ceremony Tuesday morning I'm required to attend. Two days notification of a major event would send many people I know into a tizzy. Here, two days is quite a bit of advance notice. I can't say I always go with the flow, but China has been teaching me to notice when I don't and what that says about me.

Popular in China!

Teaching in China has reached extremes of charm and challenge. The challenges have come with the bureaucratic minutia that I've alluded to in other entries and won't rehash here. Another challenge has been preparing lessons that build enough background knowledge of American culture so students can understand the material. In the course of teaching the book and film Wild, for example, I introduced the students to Adrienne Rich, Jerry Garcia, "therapist," Pacific Crest Trail, Minnesota, the term "beacon" as a light and a metaphor for a guidepost, and a few of Simon and Garfunkel's songs. There are always moments when I have to decide if I'm going to introduce a new term, drill down on one idea, or keep moving forward.

Whose name is whose?

For the most part, the students have been very patient with me! And I with them. We learn a lot from each other. And the notion that Chinese students are not "creative," I can now say with assurance, is bunk. They wrote some of the most wonderful poetry and memoir pieces. They created videos, sang songs, played music, and shared their visual art.

The student-created class magazine.

It's not that Chinese students aren't creative. It's that their middle school and high school years are drenched in study, with an eye to getting a good score on the gao kow, the 9-hour college entrance exam. Not many are encouraged in creative pursuits. But the human spirit being what it is, the students retain the impulse to create, to express their unique voices.

Students love these wacky phone apps!

Some admitted to me that they would like to pursue dancing, singing, acting and other arts but that their parents insisted they major in Economics or Engineering. I told these students that everyone has extra time: "Some play video games. Some play sports. You can use that time to write or dance or whatever it is you love." I gave the example of Khaled Hosseini who wrote The Kite Runner while working as a doctor, and William Carlos Williams who was also a doctor and a well-known poet.

One student last semester told me he wanted to be a filmmaker but his parents were making him become an accountant. After offering him the both/and spiel, I emphasized how lucky he is that today's technology makes filmmaking easier and cheaper than ever before. A few weeks ago, he sped up to me on his e-bike proclaiming, "Kate! Kate! I want to tell you, I'm making a movie! A full-length film. My friends and I wrote the screenplay." His eyes were alive with joy. If that's a mark I leave behind, what more could I ask?

Tina and me with smoothies, post-yoga.

China has left its mark on me, an impact that I probably won't fully process for a while. The biggest one has been my connection with Tina, our student assistant whom--as you know if you've been reading this blog--has become like a daughter to us. Leaving her is going to be rough. We have asked her to join us next month for a week in Bali. I'm praying her parents will allow it so we will squeeze out a bit more time together.

Dave and I would have loved to have traveled more in China while we were here. However, my breaks fell on Chinese holidays, which would mean traveling with crowds of millions. Also, there was the language issue as well as the fact that traveling in China is more expensive than traveling in S.E. Asia, which is deliriously cheap.

On my last break we slipped away for a few days to a resort in Malaysia.

Sepang, Malaysia

When we embarked on our experiment of living nomadically, I could not have foreseen all the incredible things we've experienced this year. Now we are headed for 2 months of travel in Indonesia and a month in Thailand, where I will run a writing retreat.

Thank you, China. I have a feeling we will return one day to explore more of what you have to offer.