Paradise Has Bugs

We are living in a penthouse in Penang, Malaysia, overlooking the sea. The living room's sliding glass wall opens up to the sky. 

living room view

We can see birds floating by below us.

Oh, and it's possible to get attacked by an acid-spewing insect called a rove beetle that scorches human skin. 

"I got burned on my testicles," casually said Ralph, the homeowner, from the paradise of his balcony. We were spending a day together getting oriented before he and his wife Junnie left on vacation. 

"And my armpit," he continued. "The burn transferred to my inner arm. Lasted for weeks. So painful. If one lands on you, don't swat it. Blow on it so it will float away."

I hope this glimpse from Google is the only siting I'll have.

Okay, that wasn't in the Trusted Housesitters description. Junnie taught Dave how to spray the balcony plants to discourage the pests. And we were instructed to keep the windows closed at night, since these menaces are drawn to light.

A week later we have yet to see one. We hope to keep it that way. This morning, Oscie the dog woke us up by barfing next to the bed.

Who me?

Such is the glamour of housesitting. 

Then there's the fact that this condo is on the 28th floor. Thus the view. And the elevator. Not my favorite mode of transportation. Funny how I can travel the world virtually fear-free but I step into an elevator and it's hard to breathe.

I used to have paralyzing claustrophobia. And it seemed to be getting worse. Hypnotherapy helped a lot. So did a variety of other visualization practices. I learned that escaping uncomfortable situations makes it worse. So I've continually put myself in the backs of cars, crowded vans, middle airplane seats and the like, acclimating and calming myself with various techniques--to the point that I rarely feel claustrophobia's clench anymore. 

Except on elevators. Over the years, my avoidance method has been to take the stairs. However, 28 floors is a bit much. So being here for a month is giving me the opportunity to dust off any lingering particles of enclosure anxiety. 

This must be the wisdom of no escape these Buddhists keep talking about. 

Before Malaysia, we spent a month in Thailand, by way of a one-day stop-over in Singapore.

A bit of the Singapore we saw.

Returning to S.E. Asia hadn't been in our thoughts until we were invited to our friend Mark's 60th birthday party on Koh Phangan, an island in Thailand. We love Mark and we love that island, so we put a pin in it and other plans unfolded. 

Our first stop was Koh Samui, a Thai island a short ferry ride from Koh Phangan. We stayed on south Lamai Beach, far enough away from the throngs for privacy but close enough for easy access to cool stuff. Most days I walked down the beach then up hilly streets--past a golden temple where people prayed and a muay thai studio where people beat the shit out of each other--to an open-air yoga class. 

Lamai Beach

After yoga, I'd eat a delectable smoothie bowl, write in my journal, and read. Then I'd walk back, dipping in the ocean along the way.

Dave spent much of his time doing his advanced diving certification. He did well choosing Koh Samui. It's not a big diving destination, which meant his dives were uncrowded.

Renting a motorbike and getting around was easy. We fell in love with green coconut curry and Thai massage, especially the massage on the beach near our bungalow, overlooking Grandmother and Grandfather rocks.

Pooch near Grandmother/Grandfather rocks.

Something we saw on a bike ride.

We had guessed that after leaving Mexico, packing up in California, and flying internationally it would be a good move to rest up before Mark's party. How right we were. Mark's event had morphed into a week-long Burning Man, a 24/7 extravaganza of art, workshops, ecstatic dance, yoga, live music jam camp, thump-thump-thump electronica, and people from all over the world. 

It was the kind of you place you let your hair down and did things like posing nude with a panda head on. Four of Dave's fraternity buddies were there, so it was also a reunion of sorts.

Mark, Craig, Wade, Bill, Dave

I was lucky to be able to teach yoga in the mornings--amazed that people who danced and partied all night showed up.

It was epic. And exhausting. I ended up with an ear infection. Over-the-counter antibiotics (that cost $15) quickly fixed me up.

flying to Phuket

Next we hopped over to Phuket, on the other side of Thailand, with Dave's college buddy Craig. We'd been there before and spent a few days showing our favorite things to Craig: a sweet resort with an herbal steam room and killer breakfast, the Big Buddha, Nai Harn and Karon beaches, temples...and this view reached on motorbikes.

Kata Noi in the background

Another draw of the area was that a family we'd met in Mexico had recently moved to Phuket. So after Craig left, we headed north and spent a few days at Nadia and Rob's home. Rob, who does international peace-relations work, was on assignment in Kenya. But Nadia (who trains humanitarian workers) welcomed us with open arms, even though we'd met her only once before. 

Phuket

We also got to spend time with their daugthers: a 14-year-old who just returned from teaching art therapy to children and HIV+ women in prison in Africa, and a 17-year old who recently developed and implemented a school project to build roads for a poor community in northern Thailand. I just had to put that out there because, yes, they are incredible people.  

Nadia took us shopping at the local market:

...took us to a gibbon rehab center and on a waterfall hike:

With Nadia and her friend Peggy

...and introduced us to amazing Thai food.

Dave and I also bicycled through the National Park along Nai Yang beach.

All of this was great--but the best part was talking with Nadia. We conversed intimately about our pasts, our travels, our inner explorations. We all inspired each other.

And now after that month in Thailand, we are in Malaysia, rooted 28 floors up. Our days are filled with everything from editing books (me), to photography (Dave). And we do yoga, swim, walk the dog, read--cook, clean, shop, you know, the usual stuff. This improvisational life is not quite vacation and not quite your conventional existence. We are creating it as we go, bugs and all.

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.

 

 

Chiang Mai & Kuala Lumpur

Getting this close to an elephant in an open space, not a zoo, was like a dream. But I was wide awake. It happened at northern Thailand's Elephant Nature Park, "an elephant rescue and rehabilitation center." Better name? Elephant heaven.

Some of these elephants limp on a foot mangled by a landmine. A number are blind due to--get this--tourist flashbulbs in zoos and circuses. Many have other problems as a result of being "broken" in order to be ridden. This is a brutal practice. Nothing like breaking a horse. It involves ripping the babies away from their mothers, beating them, inducing pain in a variety of ways... Google it, if you can stomach it. Now that I'm aware, I would never ride an elephant.
 

We got in the water with them!

I did, however, caress a few that are used to humans. And it was divine. Elephants are walking paradoxes: Gentle giants. Rough skin, tender heart. We have a lot to learn from them--for example, not demonizing one group for the abject behavior of a few.

Most of the mahouts who work with elephants are born into mahout families. The control of elephants through abuse is a tradition. And a vocation. Elephant Nature Park re-trains mahouts and gives them jobs. These guys do a ton of work around the park (along with armies of volunteers), and can even build relationships with the unruly bulls tourists are not allowed to get near. The mahouts learn how to use food, not pain, to coerce the animals to move to the watering hole or feeding platform.



I swear these sweet beasts are thrilled to be living on this beautiful property. They smile. They playfully throw dirt into the air. They roll in the mud and prance in the river. Finally, they are free. No more cages, no more abuse, no more isolation, no more chains.

We got to the elephants from Chiang Mai, a groovy, ex-pat friendly, yoga-fied city filled with beautiful parks, temples, and street food galore. My former SJSU student, Sarah, now lives and teaches there. She landed in Chiang Mai after a year of travel throughout India and S.E. Asia. We have in common the travel-the-world-and-write gene.

Hanging with Sarah at a temple.

Chiang Mai street food

Sunday market...hard to see the wares it was so crowded.

Evidence of Chinese New Year in Chiang Mai.

As much as I enjoyed exploring the city, I was having island withdrawals. A little city goes a long way. And there was more to come: Kuala Lumpur, or KL, for the last few days before we had to wing back to Nanning.

Speaking of wings...our first KL stop was the Bird Park--a public aviary that was much groovier than I'd imagined such a place could be.

Someone wants my coconut.

I'm not a fan of seeing birds in cages, so what a delight to experience free-rangers of all shapes, colors and sizes.

 

Thousands of birds in the trees, walking along the grounds, floating in the various bodies of water.  A few were in pens, notably the ostriches. When we got close to feed them through a slice in the fence, the fierce way they grabbed the greens, coupled with their I-could-slice-you-up clawed feet, made it clear why they couldn't be running around terrorizing tourists. Ideally they would be out on the range in Africa terrorizing the lizards they eat.

KL has a hop-on, hop-off bus. Pay one price and you can tour around the city, lingering wherever you like and climbing back on when the next bus comes every 30 minutes. We checked out Chinatown (not worth your time unless you want to buy a fake brand-name watch or shirt), Little India (lots of color, nice vibe), the Petronas Towers (the tallest twin towers in the world), and a lot of other interesting architecture.

 

 

 

Our hotel was just a couple of blocks from a massive night street food scene. We waded through thousands of people, checking out stalls and open air restaurants with gargantuan menus representing food of many SE Asian nations. My favorite treat: deep fried banana.

We were also close to a pub street that, at night, rolled back its sidewalks to Vegas-esque pandemonium. We found a street corner café and enjoyed floating on a local trio's sweet three-part harmonies. Our last night we stumbled across, of all things, a fantastic German restaurant. Eating a luscious salad and potato pancakes, soaked in a magical ambiance, I had a feeling we could be in anywhere in the world. Every so often that surreal feeling of transcending time and space envelopes me while traveling. In this case it was aided by a German beer the size of a toddler.

I write this four weeks later, buried in my second semester of teaching in China. Whether or not we will stay here for another year is central to our conversations these days. The university has sent me a contract and is nudging me to sign it. I have yet to take up my pen.

This trip reinforced for me what I love best about travel: experiencing new things. That may sound self-evident. But it took me into my fifth decade to live the nomadic existence I always dreamed of. I'm not sure I'm ready to stay in one place longer than a year. A zillion possibilities are swirling about, shining like the universe's bling.