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.

Memorable Hoi An

Charming streets of Hoi An

One reason we were enticed to move to Nanning, Guangxi is that, just 100 miles from the Vietnam border, it's the Chinese gateway to Southeast Asia.

Due to a national holiday, I had a few days off from my teaching job at the beginning of October. So we decided to travel to Hoi An, Vietnam, to meet up with our friends Karen and Widi. Happily, they were headed there during a break from their teaching jobs in India. It had been three years since we last saw them in Chennai.

Dave and I flew from Hanoi into Danang, where at the airport he posed for this picture:

"Danang" is a song by the Radiators, a band he has followed for years. Here, his passion for music and travel collided. (As did his love of friends and community when he posted this picture on a fan website and received many fun responses.)

The Danang airport is small, so it was easy to connect with Karen and Widi when their plane landed. A car provided by our Airbnb was waiting to zip us down to Hoi An, an hour drive.

friends reunite

Before coming to China, we spent a couple of weeks in Vietnam, in cities and the countryside. Hoi An provided us with another side of Vietnam: a gorgeous beach and a quaint, ancient village. Having survived modernization and war, Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

It's definitely set up for tourists. We were approached by more people trying to sell us things than anywhere else in Vietnam. However, they weren't terribly aggressive--and many had things worth buying. Talented seamstresses are everywhere in the town. It's a great place to buy custom clothes at good prices.

On our day spent exploring the town, we sat in a small, crowded theater for a sweet hour of music and dance.

Then we explored some historical sites. At one time, Hoi An was a port city filled with not only Vietnamese but Chinese and Japanese families, which influenced the architecture.

Japanese bridge

Chinese assembly hall.

The day was hot. Cold fruit drinks, fresh fruit and spring rolls helped us re-energize.

Everywhere we went, people were fascinated with Widi. Because he speaks their language, they were convinced he was Vietnamese. He's actually Indonesian. He learned the language when he taught English in a Vietnamese refugee camp in Sumatra. That's where he and Karen met almost 30 years ago.

street food

The next day, we hopped on bikes and rode to Hidden Beach.

It lives up to its name: not overly developed and not crowded. But with lounge chairs, umbrellas, and good food. Oh, and one of the best massages I've ever had (for only about $7). They were able to massage all four of us at one time, while an ocean breeze blew over our bodies.

Dave and Widi getting their Tai Chi on at Hidden Beach.

At the end of the day, Dave and I were both a bit sunburned. We'd neglected to reapply sunscreen after lounging in the warm water. The whole experience had been so heavenly, it was easy to forget. Fortunately, aloe vera gel from the pharmacy came to the rescue.

We took the trip back all in one day, which involved an exhausting mélange of taxis, flights, airport waiting and a confusing transfer. When we hit the Nanning airport, a Vietnamese-American woman at the taxi stand asked if we might be able to help her. The taxi driver didn't know where her hotel was--and she didn't know how to say it, as it was written in Chinese on a piece of paper. Dave had her get in our taxi and said perhaps a taxi driver at the university gate would know, since the university is close to downtown. His genius plan worked.

In the cab, we soon learned we all used to live in San Jose! And when she heard I'm a writing coach, she said she wants my help writing a book about her family's journey from Vietnam to America. Just my kind of gig.

That experience was like an exclamation point on the week of the divine rendezvous. How sweet it was to have a travel experience with friends, making Hoi An even more memorable.
 

Exploring South Vietnam and Cambodia

I think this is an ox. Or maybe it's just a cow.

Now that we've been in China for two weeks, our travels through Vietnam and Cambodia feel like a dream. Carrying only backpacks for a month, we took 10 flights, several boats, innumerable tuk tuks and taxis, and ox. Okay, we didn't really ride the ox, but we saw a lot of them.

We started out in Vietnam with a few days in Saigon (locals don't call it Ho Chi Minh City). My first reaction to Saigon was: where are all these people going? The vast number of vehicles--mostly motorbikes--is an incredible site (and sound). People weave around and through each other in seemingly impossible ways, their bikes stacked high with goods and passengers, defying gravity. No one is moving especially fast. The flow feels organic, albeit crazy, like salmon during the height of spawning season.

This sense of so many people (and goods) on the move has stayed with me throughout our travels in Asia, in both the rural and urban areas.

We traveled up into the mountains to the charming town of Da Lat, where we attended the wedding of my former student, Au-Co, at the groom's home. Incense was burned, prayers said to the ancestors, gifts given, snacks eaten. A hotel reception followed with insanely delicious food, and a musical program featuring Au-Co's mother on the violin.

Reception...one of the many incidents of fantastic Vietnamese food.

Unfortunately after the wedding, I developed a sore throat, that segued into a cold and cough that lasted a couple of weeks. I engaged my "all is well" and "I am a healing machine" mantras, which helped me to relax and not push against the idea of being sick. The cold lingered, but my mind helped me to continue to enjoy our adventure.

Silkworm farmer.

In Da Lat, we met James, an American who has lived in Vietnam for years. He toured us around in his Russian jeep, taking us through beautiful vistas where coffee is grown. We also happened upon a woman on the side of the road who was tending to her silkworms.

Dave and James sampling local coffee.

One of the most amazing things we did was to take a four-day boat trip up the Mekong Delta from Vietnam into Cambodia. The boat had four cabins...but we were the only guests aboard! The crew of five treated us like royalty. This is one reason to travel in Southeast Asia during rainy season: fewer tourists. It didn't rain every day. And when it did, the rain usually fell at night or in the afternoon for short bursts...a relief from the heat and humidity.



Our cabin

What a treat to sit on board watching the rural world roll by. People washing their clothes, soaking their cattle, swimming, or just hanging out at the water's edge waved at us.

 

During the days, the boat docked and we disembarked with Thuy, our guide. We walked and rode bikes through small towns and countryside amidst vast, green rice fields and people's homes and small businesses. At one point, we stopped to watch a family pull dragon fruit from a tall tree. A woman walked over and with a grin on her face, handed one to me. Then she came back with a second one for Dave.

One of my favorite moments.

We also traveled in one of these small boats down byways of the Delta.

Floating market.

It's amazing to see the ways in which people live along the water.

We spent a few days in Phnom Penh, a vibrant city where we were hounded by tuk tuk drivers who wanted a fare. That's understandable, given their need to make money in a poor country, but it became a bit overwhelming to constantly be called out to and approached when we just wanted to walk around. Eventually, Dave discovered that dealing with them as buddies was a great approach. For instance, there was one guy we saw often, and Dave would joke with him in an Australian accent. Soon, they'd both be cracking up.


Most tuk-tuks are pulled by motorbikes, but we took one short trip
powered by these guys on bikes.

We flew to Siem Reap, an area famous for its World Heritage 10th-12th century temples, the most famous of which is Angkor Wat. It's popular to see the sunrise there, but we wanted to avoid the madhouse crowds (which are thick even during rainy season). So we went at dawn, when most people had already left for breakfast after sunrise, and had the place almost to ourselves.

dawn

Around the temples, there are children begging. The NGOs advise not giving them money because that the kids are being used by adults who take the funds. So I brought small toys to give to the children, which were a big hit.

If you go to Siem Reap, don't see just Angkor Wat. It's spectacular--but to us, some of the other temples were more awe-inspiring.

Bayon at Angkor Thom



Ta Prohm

Next we headed to Lonely Beach on a Cambodian island, Koh Rong. We'd been looking forward to it as a quiet place to relax after our jumping-around itinerary--especially after reading about its "paradise status" on Trip Advisor.

Well...one person's paradise isn't necessarily another's. I wrote about this faulty notion of finding paradise in my memoir...but I guess we have to learn the most important lessons over and over.


This is paradise for me: snuggling with someone's baby.
A Cambodian woman handed her daughter over to me when I was coveting her.
 

The boat ride to Lonely Beach was three hours...and when we saw the boat--an old fishing boat with bench seats--we almost bailed. Instead, we prayed for calm seas. Our prayers were not answered. Being on a bucking bronco of a boat, with waves splashing over the sides and rain pouring down in sheets, was, to put it mildly, unnerving. Especially since the captain was chain-smoking with huge containers of gasoline at his feet.

I did my best to reframe it as an "adventure." I also thought about all the refugees who have suffered such conditions for days and weeks. In comparison, we were cosy and safe.

Finally calm seas as we approach the island. These women
(from Paris, Barcelona, and Florence) were on holiday together.



Our cabin on Lonely Beach.

.

In many ways, Lonely Beach is amazing: It's on a strip of isolated beach plopped in a rainforest. The people who run it are wonderful, and the food is delicious. However, the cabins are extremely rustic--which normally wouldn't be a problem, but this meant no AC or even a fan. At night it was so hot and stuffy I felt like I was suffocating beneath the mosquito net.

 

 

Rainforest friend on our porch.

I enjoyed hearing all of the creatures loudly singing, croaking, chirping and hissing at night. But because of the rain, the ground was very muddy and slippery, so walking the paths from cabins to lodge, especially at night, was dicey.

 

We were going to spend a week there, but we left after three days; a storm was approaching, and there was no guarantee we'd be able to get out in time to catch our plane. As evidenced by our wild boat ride there and back, the seas are unpredictable. Perhaps a foray to Koh Rong is best saved for the dry season. That's also, apparently, when the water is crystal-clear blue. In the rainy season, it's brown and gray but still warm enough to swim in.

 

We ended up spending our last days in Cambodia at Otres Beach in Sihanoukville. For only $19 a night, we had a huge, air-conditioned room at a hotel with a pool, walking distance to the sweet beach that is lined with feet-in-the-sand restaurants.

 

Fun with Cambodian friends!

 

Otres Beach

We realized that our "sweet spot" is a 3-star experience. Taking along carry-on backpacks instead of suitcases made the journey easier. However, we aren't backpackers in our twenties and have no interest in staying in hostels--and we don't need (and don't want to pay for) 5-star luxury.

We enjoy our middle-of-the road travel, especially our moments of people-watching, people-connecting, and exploring the marvels of nature and human creations. Vietnam and Cambodia delivered it all.