Please Feed The Cats While I'm Out

“I came here for two weeks…that was six years ago.”

– Robin, Wharariki Beach Holiday Park

“I came here for a week’s vacation…that was about five years ago.”

– Roland, Coronet Peak Ski Resort, Queenstown

“I visited for a couple weeks fifteen years ago. I went home, packed, came back, got a job, and I never left.”

– Patron at The Ballarat, Queenstown

*This post was edited and published after my return to the U.S.*

I’d had another long layover – the downside of budget travel – spending the night sleeping on a wood and metal bench in the brightly lit, cold, and desolate terminal of the Melbourne International Airport. It was after 11PM and there was just one other traveler, asleep on a nearby bench, and only the occasional worker walking by. I had on my longsleeve shirt and the EMS windbreaker my brother Steven had gifted me at the beginning of my yearlong journey. Knit hat on, hood up and pulled down over my eyes. I wedged my backpack between my bench and the glass outer wall, and used my daypack as a pillow. Not exactly memory foam, but I’d gotten used to giving up so many of my creature comforts by now. It wasn’t the best sleep I’d ever had, but it also wasn’t the worst. I’d spent one night in the hedges in the UK ferry town of Portsmouth, after all.

When I woke for good, around 4AM, the benches and floor along the windowed walls were full of waiting travelers, some entire families. I repacked my gear and walked to the nearest restroom to brush my teeth, splash some water on my face, and wait half an hour to check in for my flight to Christchurch, New Zealand, the final foreign country of this amazing adventure. When I finally reached an agent, I discovered I was not only in the wrong line, I was in the wrong wing of the terminal.

Not a great start.

When I finally reached an agent in the correct line of the correct wing, I was asked for proof of departure from New Zealand.

“I don’t have a ticket out yet,” I said without worry. If this has been a year ago, I would have been panicked. Better yet – I would have been prepared. By now, though, I’d reverted to dealing with being entirely unprepared with the same concern as that of a lazy teen.

“Well I’m sorry, but you’ll need one in order to board the plane,” he replied.

Fuck.

The challenge for travelers on trips like mine is we don’t always know how long we’re going to stay in any particular town, never mind country. A week. Maybe a month. Who knows. And New Zealand is a country that allows visa-on-arrival, so I’d gambled I wouldn’t be asked for proof of departure, and if I did, eh, whatever, I’d figure it out. The old me wouldn’t have dared leave something like that to chance, fearing the rubber hose treatment and weeks in solitary eating goulash. But now? Now I was a man who needed to do math to know if it was time to change his underwear, so worrying about a departure ticket from a country in which I had no idea how long I’d be staying was like preparing my taxes months in advance.

Luckily, I’d also learned about companies like onewayfly.com. For around fifteen bucks you can get a very real reservation on a very real flight, a ticket that checks out even when searched online by an airline agent. Your reservation is good for 48 hours, and then it disappears. You get to fly, and the airline still gets to sell the seat. Win-win.

Five minutes later, despite the agent looking at me and my business class international airline ticket with deserved suspicion, I had my boarding pass in hand.

As smoothly as that wrinkle was ironed out, however, I still couldn’t shake the feeling I’d made a terrible mistake. Indonesia had been paradise. I could have extended my visa and stayed another month, even more. I could have searched out those wild orangutans. I could have gotten dive certified. I could have done nothing more than snorkel coral reefs, swim with endangered turtles, and drink $2 Bintangs all day. But I’d left, and Australia had been a bit of a bust, not to mention a pain in my wallet. I’d just spent the night sleeping on a bench like a hobo. I was bone cold. I was hungry. I was tired. And now I was flying to equally expensive New Zealand. Sure, it was July, but in New Zealand that’s not just the dead of winter, it was the dead of a La Niña winter, and I would be living out of an Astrovan for the entire month.

My arrival wouldn’t go much smoother. Despite reservations and payment in full, my van wasn’t there. I didn’t have a SIM card to make phone calls or send texts to the crappy, shitty, awful rental agency, Spaceships, Limited (that’s a quote from my Yelp! review). And the only time they replied to my email – in which I told them I had no phone service – was to tell me to call their office. I might have just walked the couple miles to the rental agency if not for the raw, cold rain.

Fuck. Again.

I’d been remarkably lucky, really, over the past year. I’d grown very accustomed to inconveniences like these. I’d even learned to find the silver linings. Every negative, every glitch, every little bump in the road had led to something new and unexpected, things I wouldn’t have otherwise experienced. My immediate reaction to plans gone awry used to be frustration and expletives only Ernie and Hadley would hear, but over the past several months I’d learned to simply take things as they came. Everything works out, after all. It always does. I still hadn’t lost this new, positive perspective, but something deep inside me was being poked. My inner curmudgeon was being awakened, perhaps.

“This was a mistake. Goddammit. I never should have left Bali,” I suddenly found myself muttering.

And then something remarkable happened. A miracle, really. A final gift from Dad, perhaps. Standing in the middle of the terminal, frustrated, defeated, I looked up from my email and there it was: a payphone.

To some of a certain age, finding a payphone is hardly worthy of being called miraculous. But when you consider that many more are likely asking, “What the hell is a payphone?” you might understand where one could see the divine.

While Perth, Australia, is literally the farthest place on Earth from Narragansett, Rhode Island – for me, New Zealand was its figurative. It was the destination after which, every mile east would be one step closer to home. It was the one place I knew that if they hadn’t lifted their covid restrictions just in the nick of time, I would very likely never get the chance to return. And shaky start aside, I was actually here, after all. I’d done it. The final bucket list box for this trip was checked. And just like that, thanks in no small part to an antiquated piece of technology, my head and heart were suddenly back in the game.

Life on the inside of a prison hostel isn’t easy. I remember one time during my single night stretch I was lying in my top bunk streaming Netflix, probably something violent and manly – definitely not a period piece – while enjoying a bottle of toilet Cabernet. It was late, and one of my nine roommates had come in and taken the bunk below. Soon after I corked the bottle and placed it in my daypack at the foot of my bunk, I heard a clank, a slide, and a clunk – the bottle had slipped out of the pack and down the wall to the bunk below. It didn’t sound like it hit the floor, and the guy below had already begun to snore. I would lie there for a moment, thinking, “Okay, well, this is awkward, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do…,” so I did what any man would do – I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

In the morning I would have to wake my downbunk neighbor to say “Sorry man, but I need to lean over you for a sec,” grabbing the wedged bottle from between his bunk and the wall. A short time later I would use fine espresso coffee grounds to draw a teardrop tattoo upon my face, forever marking the darkest moment of my time on the inside.

Time served, I did what any newly freed man would do – I bought a box of warm supermarket fried chicken and ate it on front seat of my Astrovan while sitting in a mall parking garage before heading into KMart to buy some discount winter clothes.

Now I was ready to begin my final adventure.

Tinkerbell would serve me well. She had no heating system for camping, but she did have a comfortable mattress, clean linens, curtains, a fridge, sink, gas stove – she even had a portable toilet, though I made the executive decision that it would be reserved only for the most dire of situations.

I’d drive northwest from Christchurch, crossing the frosted Southern Alps, through Lewis Pass at an altitude just shy of 3,000 feet, to get to The Barn Cabins & Camp and the Abel Tasman Coast Track, at the southern island’s northern point. The hostel campground had a community cabin with kitchen and appliances, a wood stove, clean bathrooms and showers. It was a comfortable place to test my mettle in the evening’s 30 degree temps. I started the van to run the heat before bed, and slept just fine, but stepping out into the morning cold took some getting used to.

Despite plans to begin driving south along the west coast, I decided to drive even farther north, along the hairpin mountain roads leading to the hip, hippy town of Takaka, then farther along to Puponga, the northernmost spit of land, in search of Wharariki Beach. I changed plans on the impassioned advice of Julie, a fellow traveler I met at The Barn – and my lord, was she right.

Holy Sheep (video)

Beach (low tide) panorama video

From Greymouth, I actually backtracked a bit, having bypassed the northern coastal route to Punakaiki the night before due to a rockslide. Heavy rains had been wreaking havoc in recent weeks, and while I’d driven through my fair share of wet weather, the timing and duration of the rains had mostly worked in my favor. Backtracking proved worthwhile…

My ride from Punakaiki to Franz Josef would take me along the coast via Route 6, The Great West Coast Road, picture-postcard after picture-postcard. In fact, the coastline and inlets around the entire Southern Island, West and East, were stunning…

…and at times, adorable…

After a freezing cold, rainy night in Orange Sheep Campervan Park in Franz Josef, during which I woke and started the engine at least once to heat the van, I decided it was time for a warm bed at Glow Worm Hostel. I’d get a private room for a couple of nights, crank the heat, buy some cold beer, and make myself at home by the common area wood stove with views of Mount Muller, Mount Burster, and other snowcapped peaks.

It was here that I met Alex, a 20-something German woman, and her partner, a 65-year-old, bearded, overweight, shoeless, limping bundle of laughter and talk named Milton. Milton had spent the night sleeping in the car, he told me, an electric that had run out of juice just 10km from the hostel. They’d flagged down a passing couple, and Alex came to the hostel while Milton stayed behind. Not for lack of money, he assured me – earlier in the day he’d used a sizable inheritance to pay off his and his kids’ mortgages, with plenty left over – he was just more comfortable sleeping out there than in here.

A storyteller, Milton eventually got around to the fact he’d cut his entire left hand off with a power saw some thirty years ago. It was hanging by a flap of skin, he said. The surgeons were on strike at the time, but there was one young man still on duty, fresh out of University. He’d just spent nine hours in the operating room, and was napping “under the stairs” when he got the call to work on Milton, to whom he would later say, “Thank you for your hand – most surgeons spend their entire careers waiting for such an opportunity.” The young doctor would reattach Milton’s hand during 16 hours of surgery – far from the last he would need. But seven hours after the initial surgery, Milton had movement in his fingertips. Today he has the grip of a bear, and can even play piano, writing and singing an original song after the loss of his wife, Teena. He couldn’t have been happier when I asked if he had it on video, and asked only that I “like it” on YouTube if I thought it was worthy. I did, and hope you do too:  

I mentioned the fantastic maintenance and signage on even the most remote trails, but sometimes, well….

The ride on Wednesday was gorgeous. I would stop at Lake Matheson, hike to Jetty Viewpoint, then drive the World Heritage Highway to Knight’s Point, Fantail Falls, and finally, to Ahuriri Bridge Conservation Area for the night. It was very cold, but clear, the constellations ablaze. I could see “Milky Street,” reminding me of Indonesia, of how far I’d come, all I’d seen, everyone I’d met along the way, and that my adventure – this one, anyway – was drawing to a close. Did I really even imagine I’d make it this far? During Covid? With so many potential pitfalls? And was I ready to be done and go home? That last question would be answered emphatically, first thing the next morning.

There was only one other group in the campground, and they would be gone when I awoke, leaving me to enjoy this gorgeous sunrise on my own…

Video

I would hop aboard Milford Haven for a two hour tour of the sound, which, ironically, isn’t a “sound” at all – it’s a fiord, but that’s for another day… There were only twelve of us aboard a boat that could carry several times that number, and that suited me just fine. In fact, it was worthy of a toast.

It took only a minute or two before a half dozen porpoises appeared and stayed alongside for the entire ride out. We also saw two Fjordland Crested Penguins, and a handful of seals.

Porpoise video? Of course!

A Half-hearted Hello

Sea Lions of Sandfly Bay (video)

A Sea Lion Rebuffed! (video)

Fur Seal comes ashore at Oamaru Penguin Colony (video)

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The next night I found myself back in Christchurch, at Urbanz Backpackers.

I was so close to being home, this amazing journey so close to being over, that I was finally feeling ready. I was tired, and I was looking forward to seeing Mom, my brothers and sister, nieces and nephews. My friends, my house, and of course, Ernie and Hadley.

From here I would be flying to Auckland, and then to Hawaii. All of my connections went through Honolulu, and I discovered that it was actually cheaper for me to buy two separate tickets to get home to Rhode Island, rather than have a couple hour layover before continuing on – so what the heck, why not spend a couple days in the Hawaiian sun? I mean, seeing the world is exhausting, and who deserved a little vacation more than me, ammiright?!?

Hello??

Well, anyway, I’d just spent a cold and wet winter month in a van, and I could use a couple days of warm sun and sand, not to mention a little color.

I rested in Christchurch for a couple of days. I found a nearby Irish bar for a pint or two one night. I cleaned Tinkerbell. I organized my gear. I washed my clothes. I wrote.

I arose at five the morning of my flight. No one else was up, the hostel quiet. I left my extra propane, water, food, and a couple of beers in the kitchen for my fellow travelers.

On the way down the hall toward the stairwell, I stopped at the door of a family – a mother, father, grandmother, and three young children. They were refugees from Afghanistan, living here at the hostel. I quietly left a bag at their door. My hoodie, flannel, fleece vest, socks, winter hat, gloves, a deck of cards for the kids. Then I continued on and out into the brisk morning air.

I drove to the rental agency and dropped off Tinkerbell, the van that had been my home for the better part of the past month. I dropped the keys in the lockbox, and pulled out my phone to call for a ride to the airport, just over a mile-and-a-half away. But then I looked at my watch. I was early, and I had time. I lifted my packs, and walked off into the darkness of the crisp New Zealand morning, toward my final international flight, homeward bound.

33: Australia*

Crikey

* This entry was edited and posted after my return to America.

G’day from the home of vegemite and road-ragin’ ‘roos, Ernie and Hads! The land down undah – Australia! Aussieland! OZZZZ! Well, I’ve got a new name for it, ya mongrels, and that name is, well, meh.

That’s right. Meh.

Now don’t get me wrong, ya *****. Under different ‘stancies, some ace plannin’, a few more lobstahs in me purse, and maybe a legless rootrat or two, I imagine the land of crocs and barbies would be worth a frothy piss-up with some of me closest brucies. But this visit? Well, if I’m being dinkum, mates, this visit left me feelin’ like I got a stingah t’me goolies.

Eesh, okay, sorry about that, guys. Normal English is hard enough for the two of you, never mind when it’s turned into incessantly annoying slang. Also, it was amusing for the first 10 minutes of Crocodile Dundee – in 1986 – but by the 11th minute it felt as forced as a five-foot-nothin’, 135-lb Australian waif with leathery progeria playing a romantic lead who takes over the mean streets of New York. And yet, for me, Paul Hogan might still be the most likable thing about the continent.

To be fair, some of this was my fault. I did arrive in Cairns without much of a plan beyond three bucket-list destinations: The Great Barrier Reef, Uluru-Kata, and Sydney. I’d already been to over 25 countries on this journey alone, and had been able to get around pretty well on the fly. But Australia proved to be a different animal, guys. It’s enormous, for one, and getting around ain’t easy. In fact, on a backpacker’s budget and limited time, it’s next to impossible without a helluva lot of advance planning.

To begin with, Cairns is a crazy expensive seaside tourist town where breakfast alone costs more than my private, two-story, waterfront villa in Amed, Indonesia. It’s a place where even clown car rentals cost $150 per day. A place where I walked three-and-a-half miles from the airport with backpacks on because I couldn’t justify a $25 cab for such a short ride. Of course, had I known I’d spend the next 10 hours walking those streets in the scorching sun, unsuccessfully trying to find an available room in its many hostels, homestays, inns, and motels, I would have ponied up. The only available rooms I could find were in hotels, but they began at four hundred bucks a night.

To add to my woes, I hadn’t eaten a thing since dinner on Seminyak Beach in Bali the night before, and since JetStart Airlines doesn’t allow passengers to board even with bottled water bought in the terminal, I was dehydrated by the time our wheels touched terra firma.

In other words, the recipe for disaster was coming along just fine.

By lunch, I’d exhausted myself to the point of nausea, and despite my hunger (there don’t seem to be any sandwich joints in Cairns), I couldn’t even stomach the thought of eating anything that smelled remotely like actual food. In fact, at the Cairns Mall, where I’d gone for the air conditioning, a SIM card, and to power my phone, the only thing that kept me from going into the mens room to vomit was my sympathy for the janitor who’d walked in just seconds before. Sure, cleaning public bathrooms is the poor bastard’s job, but it seemed like puking while he was standing at the sink, staring into the abyss of his own reflection and wondering where it all went wrong, might have been enough to crush his very soul.

While I would manage to force down a protein shake, it would be 6PM before I’d find a room – a $41 bed in a four-person, ensuite dorm at Gilligan’s Hostel, a huge and legendary party place. I’d tried them earlier in the day and was scouting their hedges as a possible bed for the night when I discovered they’d had a last minute cancellation. I’ve never been so deliriously happy to share a small room with three complete strangers – young Louis from New Zealand, young Susie from the UK, and Big Frank from Tonga, age indeterminate. Concerned my roomies would think I had Covid instead of a simple case of life-threatening heat exhaustion, dangerously low blood sugar, and severe dehydration, I discovered I had a hidden talent I call the stealth vomit (DM me for deets), the sound of which is exactly opposite of the one Ernie makes when coughing up a half-digested field mouse at 2AM.

Sure, I would check my bucket-list box on the Great Barrier Reef, but at the risk of sounding like an entitled, spoiled little tool, I paid $125 for a two-hour boat ride with forty-nine other folks to snorkel reefs that were pretty similar to those I’d reached from the beach in front of my villas in Amed and Gili Air. Those only cost three bucks a day for mask and snorkel, and I could walk in and out of the water at my leisure and have a cold Bintang in my hand in less than a minute. The reefs of Indonesia aren’t nearly as big, that’s true, nor are the fish, but they were just as colorful and plentiful, with more turtles to boot. If I’d never been to Indonesia, then sure, the Great Barrier Reef would have been the bomb, and it was still pretty goddamn cool, but so far, it wasn’t making me forget Katja, Bianca, Fari, and Adrian in Indo. But then, I still had Uluru-Kata.

Or did I?

I’d soon discover that getting to Uluru-Kata in central Australia wasn’t going to be easy, however. One-way flights from Cairns were $400+. Driving would take 29 hours – which to me seemed like a fun adventure in itself – but there were no cars available, even if rentals had been within my budget. Buses weren’t going there, and hitchhiking in Queensland is illegal, or at least it’s posted as such. I was less concerned about the popo than I was being stuck somewhere in the middle of the outback with the sun setting and the dingos downwind. I tried online rideshare apps, Facebook travel groups, and even walked to the nearby hostels all over again, checking and adding to their message boards, offering to share expenses for a spare seat. This was as close as I’d come…

I would soon discover that even if I could get there, the only rooms near Uluru-Kata were well over $300 a night. I had no gear for the campgrounds – no sleeping bag, and no tent, the latter of which is essential in a country filled with crocs, cattle-eating snakes, and spiders whose gross, furry black bodies could blot out the morning sun if they crawled atop my sleeping face to lay their eggs (I’m no Arachnologist, but I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what they do). I’d begun to sour, with the lure of Uluru-Kata quickly deteriorating from an intriguing UNESCO World Heritage Site to nothing more than Australia’s version of a land-based iceberg. In other words, a fucking rock.

I had limited options even for local enjoyment. Getting to the nearby hills for hiking required a rental car or taxi, and a later roommate, Kevin, from France, found the local trails to be more concrete than dirt. Truth be told, by then I was so resigned to my fate that I was having more trouble with the fact that I’d just met a Frenchman from Paris named “Kevin.”

Kevin? It doesn’t exactly conjure poetic verses from the musical, Les Miserables…

“And so Javert you see it’s true, this man bears no more guilt than youuuuu. Who am I? Who am I? I am Keviiinnnnnnn.”

At the nearby beach, crocodile warning signs pushed all the sun worshippers back to the grassy park, where grabbing a spot to casually eye the bikini-clad European girls lying about seemed decidedly more creepy than doing so on a sandy beach. On the other hand, the local brewery – Hemingway’s – held some promise…

…until I discovered they were out of IPA, XPA, most of their lagers, and their large tee-shirts.

“Jesus H. Christ,” I suddenly heard Dad’s voice say inside my head.

And that meant only one thing – it was time to cut my losses and head for Sydney.

At the risk of sounding like a whiny little wallaby, things didn’t get a whole helluva lot better, guys. While the sun blazed in Cairns, Sydney was in the cold, wet grasp of a La Niña winter. They’d had something like, I don’t know, 500 straight days of rain, which is admittedly a rough estimate, but one with which I’m sure most Sydneyans would agree. Cold, gray, wet, and raw – and by now I was not only in full curmudgeon mode, I also had nothing but clothes for the sunny blue skies of Bali.

Ohh, Bali, can you ever forgive me for walking out on you?

I’d see the Opera House, The Sydney Bridge, St. Mary’s Cathedral, a couple of museums. I’d have a happy hour pint or two at Harry’s Bar in Surry Hills, and on Saturday afternoon I’d walk the historic Rocks neighborhood, watch singers entertaining outdoor diners at restaurants I couldn’t afford, and eventually find the packed Fortune of War, Sydney’s oldest pub, with live music and tipsy locals singing along to Piano Man and Bohemian Rhapsody.

One of the highlights in Sydney was a roommate in my even smaller, four-bed, $50 per night dorm at Wake Up! hostel. David was closer to my age, while our other two roommates came and went and slept as you’d expect from twenty-somethings on holiday.

David Antony Gerard was staying and working at the hostel while awaiting his new apartment to become available, and he didn’t hesitate to share stories and drop names. He grew up a child of The Brethren, a cult in which men cannot wear ties and women cannot cut their hair, to name just a couple of their less-creepy rules. He escaped its grasp in his mid-teens and set off on his own. His brother and father would be ex-communicated from the cult, his late-teens brother for cavorting with women before marriage, his dad for being caught innocently socializing after work with non-Brethren coworkers from his dental practice. The marriage of his parents disintegrated when mother and father were forced to live separately in their own home. Drugs and alcohol and depression would ravage each of them before their time, leaving only David today.

“Each death led to the next broken heart,” he told me.

A highly educated intellectual, David said he was a classmate and social acquaintance of Hugh Grant at Oxford. He tutored children of The Royal Family, and did work with the grandmother of Helena Bonham Carter, befriending Helena in the process. He was friends with Jackie and Joan Collins when he lived in L.A., and also Chelsea Clinton, not to mention his connections to The Pope and the Archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, to namedrop just a few. He’d recently gone back to school to study film, and his 4-month class project, Alessandra, had won awards. He would ask me to critique two different, edited versions of the film. David talked enough to make me feel like a mute, which for any who know me, is saying something. But the conversations were fascinating, his life autobiography-worthy.

And this brings me to the Australian people themselves, their pace of life, and the forebodings of my impending return home to America.

I’d admittedly gotten used to a much slower life pace, having spent a few months in Africa, where time is measured by sunrise and sunset, and in Southeast Asia, where every question became a genuinely kind conversation. The priorities of those I met had changed as well, beginning somewhere around Slovenia, where farms and cattle and mountain trails dominated the stunning Lake Bohinj landscape, where one café, which doubled as a bar, was more than enough. Where my AirBnB hostess of maybe 80 years welcomed me with homemade cookies, fresh eggs, and a shot of booze. Europe is very western, sure, but they take their personal and vacation time seriously. The Italians are a bit crazed, but about love and family and wine and food and singing aloud in public. Lunches and dinners in Greece took all the time they needed, far more than for the eating itself, the delicious food simply a reason to spend more time with family and friends. In Turkey, the hotel manager gave me his personal cell number and told me to call him if I had any difficulty anywhere in his country. In Jordan, Mohammed, the owner of the hotel in which I stayed, left it in the hands of his young daughters for an entire day in order to drive me 90 minutes, one way, joining me for a tour of the red sand desert of Wadi Rum. No charge. Nothing in return. Just conversation, tea, and stories of his life as a military officer, husband, father, and devout Muslim, the tenets of which were on full display when he cooked the most amazing meal for me and a family from Italy so we wouldn’t feel so far from our loved ones on Christmas Day. In Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Indonesia, the only social competitiveness was in seeing who could get in the last bowed thank you.

But things changed abruptly in Australia, and I was entirely unprepared.

I’d arrived early on a Sunday, and on my walk to town at 7AM was taken aback to see a woman whiz by in a matching spandex jogging suit, pushing a $1000 stroller. It suddenly seemed absurd. Unless you’re a pro, form-fitting spandex is little more than a fashionable luxury (I know, I know, cue all you defenders with your lists of why those outfits are so much more than that, blah blah pffft). I’d also gotten so used to seeing infants being carried around in little more than a kanga, that a luxurious stroller with four-wheel independent suspension seemed otherworldly. Sure, kangas don’t come with a cooling cushioned mattress made of the same material NASA astronauts use to help them sleep comfortably in a tin can floating in space, no, but they do keep babies close to their mother’s skin, her warmth, her heartbeat. I don’t think I saw a single stroller in Africa, Thailand, or Indonesia, as a matter of fact. But you know what else I didn’t see? A single kid with peanut allergies or ADHD.

The majority of automobiles here were shiny pickups and SUVs, decked out to survive the outback should their drivers take a wrong turn on the way to brunch or the mall. Even on a Sunday morning, cars flew down the streets, racing to somewhere that was anywhere but where they were at that very moment. Whenever I dared jaywalk an otherwise empty intersection, lone, distant drivers would step on the gas to make sure they closed what had been a comfortably safe gap. Making me pick up my pace for those last few steps would certainly show me who’s boss, I supposed.

The people weren’t unkind, no, but they weren’t exactly kind, either. And I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Sure, they answered my questions – Is there a message board in this hostel? Do you know where a hobo can get a sandwich? What the fuck is a wallaby?

But the answers were short, the people curt. “There, mate,” someone might say, motioning with a head-nod before turning and walking away. Small-talk with a decidedly unbusy bartender was met with a disinterested glance, a plunked down pint, and a turned back more than once. An inquiry about whether a hostel had rideshare postings was met with a simple “no” more than once as well, without a why, without further inquiry. I held a door for an older woman at a market and she turned and said “Thank you, there aren’t a lot of people who do that anymore.” Her words were kind, but disheartening.

Not all of my interactions were bad, to be fair. Upon leaving Cairns, my uber driver, Grant, after hearing about my travels over the prior many months, refused to take my tip.

“Buy yourself a beer, mate,” he said.

But Grant was in the minority. I realized that I’d been spoiled for some time, of course. In Thailand, if I asked where I could get some lunch, a man might walk out from behind his own counter and walk me down the street to a local restaurant before we engaged in a contest to see who could be the last to bow our thanks to one another. This sort of kindness also wasn’t uncommon in many of the other countries I’d visited.

But was that being spoiled, or is that the way it’s supposed to be? It’s not that hard, after all. It takes such little effort. And everyone is happier at the end of such an exchange.

It was then that I realized Australia reminded me very much of another country. My own. America, where people are polite enough, but not always so nice – and too often, neither – especially when it costs their time, in a place where we’re all taught that time is money.

Money. Career. Real life. It was all suddenly looming.

I sat next to two women on the boat out to the Great Barrier Reef. Their conversations began as most do, talking about their careers, both painting glorious pictures of their titles and responsibilities, the amazing things their companies do in their respective industries. But with two hours out, and two more back, their conversation inevitably turned to truths. Their poor life-work balance, the pressures of attending conventions and board meetings and preparing budgets and giving presentations, tales of incompetent leadership, bloated management, looming cuts to staffing and resources, and how they knew goddamn well how to fix the problems their leadership didn’t, while also knowing they’d just be banging their heads against figurative walls if ever given the chance.

It’s all bullshit. A glorious sham. They know it. I know it. You know it. Life is about more than that, isn’t it? It’s about what I’ve experienced in the past year, the places I’ve been, the things I’ve seen, and the people I’ve met. People with nothing, who don’t hesitate to give what little they have, be it food and shelter, or time and kindness.

It was here, in Australia, guys, that the reality of abnormal life once again began to loom large. I miss the two of you, Mom, family and friends, but I suddenly don’t think I want to go back. I don’t want all of this to become little more than framed memories of a single year from my life. I want this to be my life. Well, not this, not Australia, because if I’m being dinkum, mates, Australia was just kind of meh.

32: Indonesia

I was beginning to lose faith, if I’m being honest. I’d started in the beach party town of Seminyak, then drove north to Ubud, famed for its laid back yoga vibe, its Sacred Monkey Forest, its destination rice terraces. I’d continued on to the mountains of Kintamani, with hopes of watching sunrise from atop Mount Batur. I hadn’t even planned on going to Amed, the reviews of which had been somewhat underwhelming. But there I found myself, searching for respite from the crowds, the cars, the locals starved for tourist dollars – searching for that still-elusive paradise in beautiful Bali.

Even Amed got off to a sideways start, my first room too close to the only road in this beachfront town, with locals racing by at all hours on scooters and motorbikes powered largely by loud, two-stroke engines. At my wit’s end, the next morning I would check into Lily’s Beach Bungalow, a little villa I’d noticed the night before when dodging a trio flying by on the unlit road. Lily’s, it turns out, was a little oasis between Ketut Natih Road and the Bali Sea, flowering gardens and mango trees inside its quaint walls. I would have a second floor, two-story bungalow with a private patio and sea views. At home, a place like this would cost me a grand per night. Here? Just nineteen dollars. But even without the price, Lily’s opened the door to the Indonesian paradise for which I’d been looking – and that was even before Katja walked in.

She was bone thin, loaded down with a pack that looked heavier than she, and she spoke with an Austrian accent – Vienna to be exact. We wouldn’t exchange hellos just then, but I already knew we’d be seeing more of one another. After so many months meeting travelers along the way, it almost becomes a sixth sense. Within twenty-four hours, and with surprisingly little fanfare, it was not only a forgone conclusion that we would be spending the next several days exploring Amed together, we would rarely be apart over the coming three weeks.

To be clear, this wasn’t a romance, despite the many people we met assuming we were a couple, husband and wife. As beautiful as she is, and as devastatingly handsome as I’m told I am by so many people who definitely aren’t also my Mom, this was about being kindred spirits. The same energy and taste for adventure, food, movies, and more. I would discover that Austrians and I have a similar temperament. But most wonderfully, she understood my humor – even when wrapped in my curmudgeonly sarcasm – and I hers. When she agreed with a laugh to see who could come up with the most absurd answer the oft-asked question of how we’d met, I knew it was kismet.

It wouldn’t be long before our twosome expanded. Adrian’s addition had an inauspicious beginning, we finding him somewhat lost and exhausted after navigating a treacherous “shortcut” on his scooter that both Katja and I had also just barely survived unscathed. A short time later I would lead both of them along a dark mountain road and inadvertently through the largest pothole in all of Bali at around 50 kilometers per hour. I would make it through, as would Katja. Adrian wouldn’t be so lucky, but his laugh-screaming through the pain as a doctor treated his injuries at a roadside medical clinic – while asking us if we thought Lily’s might have an available bungalow for him – pretty much sealed the deal on his addition to our duo.

The three of us would run into Fari and Keena atop Lahangan Sweet mountaintop a few days later as we watched gale-blown clouds repeatedly cover-and-reveal the sunset-silhouetted top of nearby Mount Agung. Katja and I had exchanged passing hellos with them while watching a local reggae band a few nights earlier, and she would happen upon them again in the coming days. Together, she and I would follow them to the island of Gili Air. Adrian was getting dive certified in Amed, delayed a few days to give his cuts and scrapes time to heal, but it wouldn’t be the last we’d see of the always smiling young man who’d become our “adopted son” in the ever-more-absurd stories of how we’d met.

It was in Gili Air that we would meet the bubbly, charismatic Bianca, while she and I stood watching three islanders trying to coax a white horse off of a colorfully painted boat with the Bali Sea and Mount Rinjani in the background. Ten minutes later Bianca was joining us for morning coffee, and from then on, we too were inseparable.

After Gili Air, Keena’s time in Indonesia would come to an end, and she would return to Germany ahead of Fari, who would round out our family of five. Fari’s amazing story, incredible personal strength, and hunger for life’s adventures belie her humble spirit and sparkling smile.

We would watch stunning sunrises and sunsets, and sit under the stars and “Milky Street” at night, the skies so crisp and bright at times that that it felt as if we were witness to the secrets of the universe itself. We would drive treacherous mountain roads to palaces and temples and ancient villages. We would snorkel gorgeous coral reefs and wrecks teeming with fish the shapes and color of our imaginations. We would swim alongside Hawksbill and Green turtles for as long as we cared, coming ashore to sip Radlers and lunch on freshly caught tuna. In the early evenings we would watch skies ablaze in yellows and oranges and reds and purples while sipping drinks until fires took over for the resting sun. We would meet still more new friends for dinners and watch live bands and drink espresso martinis and dance to DJs until the early morning hours, and sometimes just sit in hammocks or beanbag beach chairs and let time drift slowly by. We would witness amazing, never-ending rainbows, and hike mountain forests to stunning waterfalls, and walk rice farms where we would come upon locals who would invite us to sit, eat, smoke, drink, and sing. We would surf the waves of Padang Padang and attend a Kecak Fire Dance, share million dollar villas (for a backpackers price), swim in our private pools, cook together, and every now and then treat ourselves to dinner out under a bright moon and stars.

Throughout it all we were treated like family by locals, greeted with smiles and waves and hellos as we passed, whether on foot or two wheels. And during this far too short time, we became a family, each of us forming a bond that we hope and expect will last forever.

I had an opportunity to skip my next destination and stay a little longer in Indonesia. But Adrian had left us. Then Katja. Bianca next. The night I left for the airport and said goodbye to Fari on Seminyak Beach, we’d met another traveler, a young man from the UK. That’s how it is sometimes. Friends overlap for a bit, then some move on, and we travel along with others still. Sometimes it’s easy. Sometimes it’s even welcome. But the thought of staying longer and driving along winding mountain roads and pulling over to take in some new, stunning view, without my new friends to share it with, well suddenly it didn’t seem so inviting. That hadn’t happened since Paris, the opportunity to stay on after Margot and Brooksy had returned home to the States. I decided then, as I did now, that I’d rather leave wanting more, than stay, wanting more…

I’d only just recently discovered an answer to the question of what my favorite country was so far on this adventure, and Thailand had set the bar very high – stunning landscapes and sunsets, mountains and seas, forests and coral reefs. But just a few short weeks later and I had a very clear new favorite. Part of that answer is most certainly due to the unexplored Indonesian islands I left behind. So many more places to drive and hike and swim. So many volcanoes to climb. So much wildlife still to see. I never even saw the orangutans.

But time and time again the thing that has made the most incredible places even more indelible, has been the people with whom I’ve spent time while there, the once-in-a-lifetime experiences we’ve shared together. When you find the right people along your journey, something magical happens. Julia in The Faroe Islands. Margot and Brooksy in Paris. Eric in Prague. Sophie and Peter in Kenya. Lisa and Elliott in Malawi. Poppy in Thailand. My own, truly amazing family in America, who have been present in every step I’ve taken, and for whom I am blessed so many times over. And in Indonesia, my new friends, dear friends I consider to be family.

I’ll return one day. We’ve all promised to return. Some of us are planning to get together this coming Christmas in New York, hopefully to talk about how we’ll all be back there, together again. I can only hope, because I finally found paradise, and I’m not ready to give them up just yet.

31: Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Phi Phi, Krabi

Chiyo from Thailand, Ernie and Hads!

I don’t know where to begin with Thailand, guys, except to say that I promise promise promise to try to make this the shortest written entry in some time – hell, maybe ever. The fact is, if I wanted to tell you how I really feel about Thailand, it’d take two of your lives at least, maybe three of Ernie’s with those arteries of his.

As you’re both well aware from asking me week in and week out, the most difficult question to answer – for me and nearly every traveler I’ve met – has been “What is your favorite country so far?”

It’s an almost impossible question for far too many reasons to list. Or it was. Sometime around late Africa, maybe in Zambia, I finally got my first answer. And then my second. And third…and fourth. In no particular order those answers were Thailand, Thailand, Thailand, and Thailand.

It only took a week or so in this stunning country before those answers began to make a helluva lot more sense, guys. The weather, the people, the food, the welcome – not to mention the countless gorgeous sunsets, beaches, mountains, and temples.

Bangkok’s Grand Palace, Chinatown, Lumphini Park, the gritty and outrageous madness of Sukhumvit Alley, Nana’s, and the infamous “backpacker slum” known as Khao San Road. It was a lively and intriguing start, indeed!

A train would then take me to the peaceful, serene, ancient temple city of Ayutthaya, followed by the gorgeous city of Chiang Mai, a nearly perfect mix of historic, spiritual, urban, mountain, and jungle.

A $50 flight from Chiang Mai dropped me in the quaint Old Town of Phuket, its main street shops reminding me of Stonington Borough. A couple days later, a short GrabTaxi ride would drop me in the town of Karon, where the Andaman Sea meets the Malacca Straight, with that stop followed by the beachy madness of Phuket’s Bangla Road, which is possibly more Bourbon Street than Bourbon Street itself – no paddles needed for ping pong here, guys.

I would then find relief from my exhaustingly immature ways on the stunning island of Phi Phi…Well, sort of. Sure, Phi Phi is an outdoor lover’s playground by day – jungle and forest hikes, kayaking, snorkeling, and more, but by night its beaches become a fire-juggling-techno-dance-club-party-under-the-stars-and-moon.

Phi Phi was tough to leave, but I would eventually take a scenic ferry ride north to Krabi, with its own stunning beaches, bath-warm waters, lush green forests, beckoning mountain peaks, jungle trails, and great live music scene. Krabi offered something new around each and every corner.

And did I mention the food? My lord. This country is the home of Pad Thai, guys, THE. HOME. And no, Hads, that’s not all I ate. I ate everything. I ate like a champion. I ate like I was going to the electric chair. I ate, well, like Ernie. I ate a lot is what I’m saying.

And every Thai horizon – morning, noon, and night – was gorgeous and dramatic, every sunset leaving me more and more convinced that Buddha might actually be “the” one, guys, rewarding his believers with gloriously painted skies each and every evening.

But always, always making the difference between memorable and unforgettable, no matter where I’ve traveled, were the amazingly kind and welcoming and beautiful people of Thailand. Whether on a beach or boat, at a temple or on a trail, on a corner or in a café, conversation and smiles were more than casual, more than simply being polite, they were sincere and personal and full of appreciation for the moment.

But I feel like I’m forgetting something…

Oh, right, THE CATS!

This is your Mecca, Ernie and Hads. Thailand, but especially the island of Phi Phi. Now, I know what you’re thinking, probably something like “Whoa-whoa-whoa, slow your roll there, Pops, we already live in paradise here on Lakeview Drive in Narragansett. No jobs. Free food. You fill feeders to attract birds for us to pounce and bat around. You give peanuts to squirrels so we can chase them the hell back outta the yard. You pick bloated ticks off us, and then brush us smooooth so we look good for those 2AM romantic interludes outside your bedroom window. You literally pick our poop out of the sandbox with a little plastic spoon, like some sort of indentured servant, whenever we simply don’t feel like walking our lazy asses outside. You buy us weed for god’s sake – we’re already living in Mecca, baby, WOOOOO!”

True. True. And I’d be even more appreciative if you actually uttered those words one day, but without the snark. But then, you’re cats. And even if you could, you wouldn’t. Because you’re fucking cats. And cats can be dicks sometimes.

But then, that’s on me, because I took you in. And really, when you think about it, we’re kind of the same.

Bangkok

Ayutthaya

Chiang Mai

Phuket

Well, more mature, anyway. And I have proof I did one or two other things as well, though for the life of me I don’t remember being at any of these places…

Phi Phi

Krabi

So, guys, it didn’t take me long to discover why Thailand was suddenly the popular backpacker answer to “Which is your favorite country?” And I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t become my answer too – for now, anyway. But with only three country’s left on this yearlong adventure before we’re all together again, it’s gonna take something pretty goddamn special to beat this water, these views, and these sunsets…

Until next time, be good, and nap well.

30: Phnom Penh & Siem Reap

“With our thoughts, we make the world.”

– Buddha

Buddhism. So peaceful and inviting and, on its surface, so much more appealing to me than most other religions. Their idols always have a little smile, like they’ve finally found that elusive enlightenment. Many are presented in a state of peaceful meditation – something we could all use a little more of, especially in these dark days of America’s backwards-ass re-canoodling of Church-and-State. The fat ones are most often depicted as jolly. An outdated stereotype, sure, and an admittedly heavy weight for the heavily-weighted to bear, but when it comes to problematic stereotyping, at least this one isn’t racist. A lot of the lady Buddhas are portrayed as chilled out, lying down, looking blissful. While it’s wonderful to see women in history depicted as sitting upon thrones of gold, in positions of great power, revered and worshipped, I’m willing to bet a certain percentage of the ladies out there would trade that throne for a few hours of peace and quiet, the husband out, the kids away, a comfy daybed, a spot in the sun. The only thing that could make those idols more appealing is if they were also holding a cup of froyo. If they’d done that from the start, Buddhism’s popularity would probably dwarf both Christianity and Islam put together. Then there’s Ganesh – “the remover of obstacles and bringer of good luck” – as if being an adorable little elephant wasn’t already enough.

Meanwhile, the imagery of so many other religions is a comparative bummer, a barrage of human sacrifice and death and torture and other horrible fates that await those of us who use our God-given brains to choose the “wrong” path.

But be honest, if you had no prior knowledge of any religion, and had to choose one based on idols alone, are you more likely to get on board with “Fun Bobby,” the well-fed jolly dude who looks like he just ate a weed gummy and downed a couple craft beers, or the bone-thin guy nailed to a cross, with a spear-wound in his ribcage, who’s bleeding from his head because he’s wearing the world’s least fashionable hat?

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

And that’s pretty much what I was thinking about as I began scootering the 90 minutes home from Phnom Kulen National Park to Siem Reap, along rutty, gravelly mountain roads at false dusk in the rain. The colorful fruit and vegetable stands I’d passed on the way in now sitting empty under the dark and waterlogged forest canopy. The Rangers I’d exchanged helloes with so many hours before, long gone home.

My religious contemplations were merely a diversion, however, a distraction from the primary concern at hand, that being how to handle the fact that while one of my scooter mirrors simply wouldn’t stay in a set position, slowly ticking downward every time I angled it to see the fast-approaching motos and trucks, my other mirror was sitting in the storage pocket of the scooter itself, completely disconnected, it’s lonely stick of an arm pointing toward the heavens like an NFL’er thanking God for letting him score that last touchdown.

I’d lost it on a long, empty pathway, if you can call a rocky, bouldered, dirt and puddled trail a pathway. But that’s where Rung Bror Cheav – the Bat Cave – was located. I’d gotten lost not long before, ending up in a small little village in the mountain forest, a village that seemed to exist simply for its random collection of ornate, disparate temples. A monk and two women had helped put me back on track. But Rung Bror Cheav was still 2 kilometers away, a short distance by most standards, but a long way off when you’re pretending to be Travis Pastrana in a Gazoo helmet on a bone-rattling, bottoming-out scooter with the afternoon getting a bit long in the tooth.

I’d actually made the responsible choice at the time, having done the math and deciding it was best to turn back. I had no spare tire, no tools, and no cell coverage should something go wrong on this remote, empty, and unforgiving mountain trail. I could make it back to the village on foot and spend the night with the monk and women, I supposed, which would have made for a much more interesting entry than this, but I still wanted to see The Thousand Lingas and swim under the Kulen Waterfall.

And then, in an instant of adult self-sabotage – one of the stories of my life – I decided it would be funny to send my brothers – Steven and Jon – and our famous author friend, Jeff Hull (Pale Morning Done, Broken Field, and the soon-to-be summer blockbuster movie based on the soon-to-be NYTimes best selling novel, The Incredible Adventures of Pud), a video of that kooky trail. While I rode down it. Throttling and braking with one hand. Filming with the other.

It didn’t go as planned, but it did go exactly as expected (watch?).

And right about then, just as I was ephiphanizing about the world’s religions to distract from thinking about how much I would be charged for breaking the scooter – fifty dollars? A hundred? – trying to remember what the rental contract said, if it said anything at all, and where I’d even put it – well, right about then is when the bug hit me square in my open eyeball.

And stuck there.

And began to sting.

And then burn.

I started slowing down while desperately digging fingers into my eye, but the stinging and burning made me squeeze that brake a little harder, harder, and harder still, until, as one might expect from a tourist on a rented moped in a foreign land, I laid that sucker down.

For the second time.

My left calf and knee and elbow and hand took the brunt of the physical damage, my ego taking the rest. I jumped up almost as quickly as I’d gone down, looking around to discover that no one, save for a stray mountain dog, bore witness to my glorious fail. I wiped the embedded wet gravel from my palm and leg, my shorts and sleeve. My shoe and the scooter itself were speckled with muddy sand too, but I left that for the rain to wash off, thankful I hadn’t broken anything more, be it more scooter or bones.

I could have lied, I suppose. Well, more than suppose – lying was actually something I contemplated for much of the rest of the ride home. I was already 0-5 on the list of Buddhist precepts, lying being one, so I didn’t feel like it’d damage my chances of joining the faith any more than they already were. I could use the epoxy in my room, bought to reattach the soles of the leather sandals I’d purchased for $10 from a Masai in Zanzibar. I could just glue the mirror back on, and then ease the scooter over the curbing of the rental place upon my return.

But then, what if it fell off right then and there, with epoxy residue turning an awkward moment into a despicable one? But maybe it would work, I countered, just long enough for me to leave Siem Reap and travel on. What then? Well, it might fall off in a day or two, for one, and what if I ended up sticking some poor college kid on a $25-a-day budget with a hundred dollar repair bill?

“Oh don’t worry, these mirrors just fall off for no reason all the time,” the girl who ran the shop might say, with a hint of Cambodian sarcasm, before telling him he’d get his passport back only after he forked over the cash.

Or it might fall off when the boy, her younger brother, washed the scooter down with the hose the next morning. By then I’d already be on the road to Bangkok, impossible to find, entirely free and clear. But still, they’d know. And more importantly, I’d know. And just because I spent most Sunday mornings at St. Augustine’s Church sitting in the back row, chewing gum bought with money Dad had given me for the coffers while daydreaming about endless acts of personal heroism, that doesn’t mean I’d avoided my baptismal religion’s greatest gift – Catholic Guilt.

And this was a nice and kind family, simply trying to eke out a living. Covid left everyone here in Cambodia, in Vietnam, across Africa and beyond, with no income and zero government assistance for over two years. And I broke the damn bike, after all, while acting like a jackass, no less. And I’d already started acting responsibly today – right before acting utterly irresponsibly, sure, but for me that still counts as being on a sort of roll.

I’d motor the rest of the way home, without incident, pondering the fate of my soul and the scooter damage done. How much would it cost? A hundred dollars didn’t seem out of the question. Sure, a mirror probably doesn’t cost that much here, but it’s a rental, and the scooter would be out of commission, and there’s the general inconvenience, not to mention an entirely acceptable penalty for simply being an idiot. A hundred wouldn’t break my bank, but when that’s your total daily budget, the thought still stings a bit, especially when you have an hour or so over which to ponder.

Do the right thing, the voice inside my head insisted, even if you do get gouged for the damage. They’re nice people and they’re just trying to make a living. Sure, they probably have a pile of spare mirrors out back, a graveyard of scooter parts from idiots past. The kid will probably have it replaced in five minutes, too, the bike not missing a single goddamn rental rotation, I thought with a grimace as I rode roads of picturesque rice paddies surrounded by glorious mountains, the irony of my curmudgeonly cynicism – a gift from Dad as powerful as anything with which the Vatican could burden me – rearing its ugly head.

But even if I do get gouged, the money wouldn’t be going to frivolous things, I countered my counter.

I do this a lot, arguing with myself over moral quandaries, willingly going down that bottomless rabbit hole.

It’d more likely go to food. Or bills. Or into the bank to help them get through the world’s next, seemingly inevitable pandemic.

And besides, Dad might have gifted me his cynicism, and he probably would have laughed hysterically at my retelling of how the mirror fell off just as I was telling the young woman what a pleasant and uneventful time I had on their scooter. But at the end of the day, Dad was guided by morality and ethics. And unlike his youngest, at least, he was a devout Irish Catholic. He would have insisted I do the right thing. And maybe he was doing just that. Maybe his was the voice in my head.

I would arrive in trafficky darkness, shower, then grab a drink at my hostel bar before facing the music and my financial comeuppance. They’d closed early, so I had to WhatsApp the shop to open for me, sharing in writing that “I might have broken the mirror.”

No turning back now.

“So what’s wrong with the mirror?” the girl asked when I rolled up the curb and through the open gate.

“Well…,” I said, lifting the mirror from the pocket of the scooter and holding it near the broken arm onto which it was formerly attached. “To begin with, this should be connected to the end of that thing,” hoping a little levity might help my cause.

Nothing.

Shit.

I cut to the chase. “What do I need to pay for the damage?”

She looked at me, then at the mirror in my hand, and then asked me to wait a moment, taking out her phone and making a call.

Ahhh, the old “call my manager” shtick, I thought, that classic American car salesman tactic, allowing them to deflect the blame for the inevitable bad news about to come. “I’m sorry,” she would say any minute now. “I think it’s a lot too, but that’s the price the owner gave me.”

She spoke in Khmer, yet another language of which I’ve failed to learn even the most basics pleasantries. How convenient, I thought. I’m about to get ssooo screwed. Half a minute later, she hung up. Here it comes.

“My mother said it will cost five dollars.”

“What?”

“Five dollars. Is that okay?”

“Five dollars? Uhmm, yeah, that…that seems fair,” I said, handing her a 50,000 riel bill. “Do you have change?”

I walked back to my hostel, the relief at my fortune turning to guilt for my cynicism, my lack of faith in humanity, in this nice family, and the misguided internal debates that had dominated my thoughts the past few hours.

“With our thoughts, we make the world,” Buddha said.

If that’s true, what kind of world do I think we live in? What kind of world do I live in? What kind of world do I want to live in?

I should have told her to keep the change, I suddenly thought. Should I have, though? Would that have been kindness? Or guilt, perhaps. It might have been seen as pity, maybe even insulting?

I didn’t have an immediate answer to that question. And luckily, I didn’t need one. Not right then, anyway. I had a six-hour shuttle ride to Bangkok ahead of me, plenty of time to fully engage my next moral quandary, journey down the next bottomless rabbit hole. Just me. And Dad too, perhaps. Time to think not simply about whether a few dollars would have been seen as kindness or pity, but to create the world in which I want to live from that moment forward.

Cambodia hadn’t actually been on my itinerary. But more than a few friends, old and new, thought it crazy that I fly over, from Vietnam to Thailand, instead of traveling by land to see Siem Reap and Angkor Wat along the way. They were right, of course. My time there wasn’t long enough, but it was time well spent, and I would certainly go back, the sights, the history, the food – and the Cambodian people themselves – all part of a world in which I am quite thankful to live.

29: Hanoi, Cat Ba, Hoi An, Danang, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

This ain’t your father’s father’s Vietnam.

Xin Chào, Ernie and Hadley!

Well, guys, I think we can all agree that India was a bit of a ginormous bummer. I wanted out so badly I flew with a concussion, a gashed hand, injured ribs, and maybe worst of all, only one goddamn cocktail all day. I left my hostel in Delhi at 10:30AM and didn’t arrive in Hanoi until 5 the next morning. I wanted out so badly that I didn’t even care my that arrival was smack dab in the middle of Vietnam’s Reunification Day celebration. What’s that, you ask? Excellent question, Ern. Reunification Day is the celebration of Vietnam’s victory in The American War and the reunification of North and South Vietnam, so what better day for a 55-year-old pasty-white middle-class American guy to be walking through the streets of Hanoi in his hiking shoes, cargo shorts, baseball cap, and fancy little Osprey backpack?

I should take a moment to point out that even at my ripe old age, I’d never once heard it referred to as The American War. I mean, of course it would be, right? The Vietnamese aren’t calling their war with America The Vietnam War – that’d be cuckoo, and yet I was no less dumbfounded the first time I heard it. Never too old to learn, as they say.

I had no real intention of coming here, as you both know. Sure, there’s always at least one person who says “My god you just HAVE to go to yada-yada place,” like when Margot said I simply had to go to India, ranting and raving and insisting it be on my itinerary – right up until the minute my post recounting what a living nightmare it was went live, and she simply wrote, “Right!?!?!?”

“No-no -no, I never said I loved it, Peter,” she defended. “I simply said you had to experience it firsthand.”

SEMANTICS, MARGOT! GODDAMN SEMANTICS!

But when it came to Vietnam, I probably had half a dozen people tell me I needed to visit, not to mention Hoi An coming in at #34 on Lonely Planet’s Top 500 must-see places in the world.

I don’t know exactly what I was expecting. Terraced rice paddies? Probably. Those funny little bamboo hats? Most definitely. People standing in front of street food joints with wiggling squid tentacles being slurped between their lips? I could only hope.

In my defense, most Americans my age and older know just one Vietnam, thanks to being alive while it was still raging, and to that 400-hour series from Ken Burns, not to mention a catchy Broadway musical about a bunch of hard-to-like GIs, and endless 3AM viewings of Platoon and Full Metal Jacket during those late-night Newport years with Erik, Davey, Gusman, and Tope. And “Vietnam” is still such a stain on the memory of America that I rarely come across anything celebrating its modernity, amazing culture, or lively social scene.

And besides – they’re stinkin’ commies, ammiright!?

Interesting note – it turns out they’re also socialists. True fact. And it hurt my brain trying to figure out exactly how that works. I have enough trouble putting the specific differences between Communism and Socialism into words without trying to comprehend The Socialist Republic of Vietnam under the rule of a communist government. I’ve read about it four times now and still can’t tell you how it actually works. So instead of putting my head down and trying to actually learn something, I did what I did all through high school and college, and that was to simply enjoy the ride – and enjoy it I most certainly did.

The thing I enjoyed the most, however, doesn’t appear in the photos below, and that was the gentle spirit and kindness of the people themselves. A communist government can force its citizens to keep a clean storefront and follow rules of law and order, sure. It did seem like Hanoi suddenly became midday active and industrious with the flip of a switch at 7AM, even on a Sunday. But no one can force people to smile sincerely, chat with neighbors, greet one another with laughs, pleasantries, and flowers, and you can’t fake wrinkles, man – the face don’t lie. If you’re a frowner, unhappy, defeated, beaten down, your true self shows in lines your resting face simply can’t hide. In Hanoi in particular, the people looked and seemed truly and sincerely happy and content. Keep that in context, guys. I arrived during a festival, and I’m not pretending life here is all bliss. I was also told that the demeanor of the people is markedly different in the south due to the political history of the country, but even as far as Ho Chi Minh City it was relatively the same (even if most of the locals I met there were the ladyboys of Bui Vien trying to get me to buy them drinks). I’m simply saying that the people and vibe in the small part of Vietnam that I experienced was one of contented happiness and welcome in the context of life that is hard to live all over the goddamn world.

Or maybe India had just fucked me up more than I realized.

_________________________________________________

Hanoi

Hanoi’s Old Town blends the traditional with the modern, maintaining its historic charm while providing plenty of American and European creature comforts. There’s a perfect amount of grit to remind you you’re in a country half a world away, mixed with an obvious pride in presentation – so while scooters are parked on the sidewalks, they’re in perfect order. While everyone sits outside eating and drinking at little kid-sized tables in kid-sized chairs, and food is prepared and cooked in open kitchens, the sidewalks – even though they’re so crowded with motos and tables and shop-wares that you can’t walk on most of them – are swept spotless, and food safety at least feels like it could possibly be a thing. There are quaint shops and cafés, hip bars, nightclubs, and a wide array of restaurants, all with colorful lights and lanterns and flags adorning almost every tree-lined street. It was really quite nice.

Cat Ba

Cat Ba – and no, it’s not named after you two – is a gorgeous island about two hours east of Hanoi, located in the Bay of Tonkin, in northeastern Vietnam, and it was going to allow me a chance to get back into nature, from its plentiful beaches to the mountains of its national park. My stay coincided with another festival, this one celebrating something-something that no one seemed able to explain – not because of any language barrier, but simply because they actually didn’t know. Some hotel and hostel owners were even surprised to learn there was a massive waterfront stage being constructed at the end of their street. If Hanoi made me (mostly) forget I was in a communist governed country, this festival would be a stone cold reminder, with the masses turning out to celebrate something something something…

Hoi An

The ancient trading port of Hoi An is the location that brought me to Vietnam, coming in at #34 in Lonely Planet’s Top 500. Whether this UNESCO World Heritage Site should come in that high is up for debate – much like Slovenia’s Lake Bled – but it sure is a quaint and beautiful city with wonderful history and tradition.

Danang

With origins dating back to 192 AD, Danang is Vietnam’s fifth largest city and also one of its most important trade ports. Modern hotels line its beautiful and active South China Sea coastline, with ancient temples, caves, and scenic national park hiking routes all within a short scooter ride.

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

I would end my visit here in bustling “Saigon,” the largest city in Vietnam, an unplanned transfer point to my next destination – but I’m glad I did. If not just for its historical significance, depicted so often in movies and novels and broadway musicals, then for its own little version of Bourbon Street, Bui Vien.

Until next time, Ernie and Hads, be good and kind to Jason, Rachel, and Grayson – and coming soon, a place where cats are king!

27: Holy Shiva

It’s not the heat, it’s the humanity.

Namaste, Ernie and Hadley!

It’s been far too long since I dropped you cats a note, and I send this with hopes that real Spring is finally in the air, allowing you both to shed those winter coats anywhere you damn well please – after all, it’s Jason and Rachelle’s problem now, woohoooo!

Speaking of Spring, it most certainly isn’t in the air in India. Apathy, sadness, destitution, illness, inequality, despair, pollution, trash – ungodly heat, sure. But Spring? Most definitely not. 

I began writing this from Delhi airport at the end of a long day. Long because I’d taken a digger earlier that morning on the marble stairs of my hostel lobby. And before you even make that face, Hadley, no, I wasn’t drunk, though I wish I had been. At least that way I’d have an excuse beyond just being an old guy whose flip-flopped-feet shot out from under him for seemingly no reason, resulting in an epic fail on his way to have poached eggs. 

If there’s any good news, it’s that there were no witnesses to my grave indignity – but maybe more important, my injuries didn’t require a journey into the belly of the beast – that of a Delhi ER – though that wasn’t entirely clear right away. Nothing was entirely clear, if I’m being honest, as I was sitting there on the floor, more than a bit dazed, my list of injuries absolutely including a mild concussion. In fact, one of the first things I did when I returned to my room – after overcoming my overwhelming desire to vomit and pass out – was google “is it safe to fly with a concussion?” Short of reading “your brain will most definitely explode,” little else was going to stop me from getting to the airport, getting onto my plane, and getting the hell out of this godforsaken country. Not a concussion. Not the open gash on my hand that our famous author friend, Jeff Hull (Pale Morning Done, Broken Field, and the soon-to-be-released, Pulitzer-winning Pud, Shit Happens) insisted would absolutely result in some sort of horrible infection. And not what I was sure were broken ribs, a pain so intense it was difficult to breathe, sit, stand, lie down, get up, cough, sneeze, sob like a wee little baby, never mind carry two full packs for the 24 hours of travel that lay ahead. 

But don’t let my whining color your view of India. Let’s let a local do that instead.

While I was in the airport, trying to down my first and only cocktail of the day before boarding my plane (nearly ten hours after arriving, mind you, the only pain meds I’d had since taking human flight), I overheard a born-and-raised Delhian, now living in the US, talking to another traveler about his homeland… 

“All of us,” he said. “Me. My sister who lives in Australia. My brother in the UK. Whenever we get together here, we all just shake our heads and agree, ‘this place just ain’t right.'”

Truer words have never been spoken, guys. This place. India. It just ain’t.

What is and ain’t right about India is complex – a long, complicated, and at-times overlapping list. I’m sure my take on it will upset some of the Hindustan dreamers out there, those kama sutra lovers, you downwith doggers (props to Ernie for that phrasing) – hell, even I fell victim to the quirky romanticism of Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited – so let me add my one and only disclaimer here, the caveat that will allow some of our yogis-next-door (I’m talking you, Boo, Margot, and Joanie) to keep their India joneses alive:

I only visited four places in this truly enormous country – Agra, Jaipur, Sawai Madhopur, and Delhi.

I didn’t make it to Rishikesh, not only the home of yoga, but also of the Beatles introduction to Transcendental Meditation (now I know why both were invented here – it was the only means of escape for those of lesser means). I didn’t make it to Mumbai, even though I could have attended a two-day Indian wedding with my friend Agustina had I stayed for just one week more. I didn’t visit the chilled-out southern beaches of Goa. And I didn’t even take a ride on Anderson’s iconic train, which still runs an eight-hour route in the Himalayas. 

And you know what? 

I won’t. 

And I never will. 

And I don’t care. 

Before I go all scorched earth, I should note it wasn’t all bad. I ate several amazing, home cooked Indian meals. I went to the Taj Mahal during the day – my reason for being here in the first place – and saw the sun set along its riverbanks in the evening. I went on two tiger safaris in Ranthambore National Park, and reveled in the legendary madness of Indian transportation, on trains, in Tuk Tuks, and even as a solo bicyclist. And despite how the rest of this might read, I met several, truly wonderful people.

So what exactly ain’t right?

To begin, India is a country that assaults every human sense, the promise of which, I must admit, was intoxicating at first.

But…

This noise is truly incessant, and far too often, entirely unnecessary. I once read that even Vishnu himself had scribbled in one of his early journals, “If one beeps at everything…does one really beep at anything at all?” It didn’t really catch on at the time, and was met with confusion and even derision by his early fans and critics – but it might be a text some Hindus want to revisit today. 

One might expect this kind of noise in metropolitan Delhi and Agra, sure, but even tractor drivers in the little village of Sawai Madhopur chugged past my room at The Village Heart Hotel each morning at 5AM with club music cranking from its speakers. By my last day there I had to fight the urge to run outside and hand him every last rupee I had to at least buy himself some serviceable subwoofers. 

Even in this remote Rajasthanian town you could be the only person walking along an empty stretch of roadway (an Indian unicorn in itself) and a moto driver coming at you on the other side of the road, visible for a half mile, will still beep several times as he passes, reminding you of the fact that peace and quiet belong to no man. 

Smells, Ernie? India has odors that would make your litter box – if unemptied for the entire length of my year abroad – smell like a bed of roses. 

Pollution in Delhi is so thick you can chew it.

There is so much dust and dirt in the air that when doing laundry at Zostel Hostel in Delhi, they had to wash my clothes twice (The good news? It still only cost three bucks).  

Trash is, well, everywhere. Piles of it. Disintegrating garbage bags of it. Bottles and cans and wrappers and packaging just dropped to the ground wherever and whenever its purpose is no longer served – out of train windows and Tuk Tuks by adults, by young kids walking down the street holding dad’s hand, it even makes up the riverbanks of the Taj itself.

The heat? My god, the heat. I used to enjoy quoting the movie, Biloxi Blues, referring to any oppressive heat as “Africa hot.” Well, I rode a bike for eight hours my very first day in India, visiting the Taj Mahal and Red Fort in Agra, and the temps that day topped out at 111 degrees.

One.

Hundred.

Eleven.

Degrees.

And I was riding a bike.

I’d just spent three and a half months in Africa, and India made the worst of that continent feel like the Bahamas, which I’m pretty sure I hallucinated I was biking through by mid-afternoon.

And last but not least, of course, are the Indians themselves. Oh, the humanity. That insanely suffocating crush, so many people that there are literal foot-traffic-jams in some areas of Delhi – never mind actual traffic jams – where there is no such thing as personal space. It makes total sense on one hand – there are nearly one-and-a-half billion people in this country, so even the concept of personal space is something of which dreams are made. But then, less understandably, so it seems is the concept of common courtesy, where far too many of the people here seem to be aware of nothing beyond their immediate selves. Squeeze between me and the counter while I’m literally still completing a purchase isn’t about personal space – it’s simply about you being a dick. Lines? Lines be damned, unapologetically wedging yourself in front of me to put your bags onto the x-ray conveyor at the railway station, even as I’m extending my arms to lay down my own – when there’s no rush, no train about to leave you behind? Purposely gassing that Tuk Tuk to close the gap between bumpers so I quite literally cannot fit a leg between while trying to cross that clogged roadway in the heat and dust? Push me aside to cut in front while we’re all ambling like cattle through the crowded streets of Old Town, when getting in front of me gets you nowhere but one person closer to…what, exactly? Zero acknowledgement when I say “Please, you first,” or when I help you with your bag, hold a door (a literal foreign concept my friend Abhay said took some time getting used to when he worked in the States), or move aside to let you pass because you appear to be in a rush?

Yeah, I know, I’m sounding like an old man shaking an angry fist at those pesky neighborhood kids, and you’re both probably begging me to get to pictures of dogs suffering heatstroke, but these are just a couple instances in what was an honestly ceaseless, never-ending onslaught of sensory assault. Short of locking myself in my room, it never, ever ended – walk out that door, and I was immediately in the midst of the fray. At first, it was fun – become the water, I’d been telling myself. Go with the flow. But after a few days, I began telling myself, Y’know what, Pete? Fuck the flow.

India is a country where the caste system is built upon the very idea of human inequality. Where fellow human beings, simply by birthright, are matter-of-factly deemed “latrine cleaners,” their miserable fate predetermined by some shittily arbitrary luck-of-the-draw.

India is a country where women are subservient and discriminated against simply for being female, where having daughters instead of sons is often considered misfortune. 

India is a country where marrying below your caste still brings actionable shame upon your family. 

India is a country where many elderly parents, too burdensome and expensive to care for, are dropped off by their children to live – and die – on the streets of its major cities. 

Where homeless teen boys, filthy beyond comprehension, sleep atop one another on the sidewalks in the scorching sun. 

Where someone at every single corner begs for rupees for food or drink, the very old and the far too young, pleading with filthy fingers to their mouths, mimicking their hunger. A place where this is so overwhelming, so incessant, that you eventually have no choice but to avert your eyes, say no with a hand held up, and walk on. Like everyone else here does, no one stopping to help their own countrymen and women, no one extending that hand downward to help the elderly man who is lying half in the gutter, mouth agape in the life-draining heat and humidity, staring into nothingness as if begging for sweet release. 

And yet, this is a place where cows are considered sacred. But are they, really?

I saw people feeding cows more often than I saw anyone feed a fellow human being, that’s true (actually, I saw no one feeding another human being). Many families feed bread to stray cows each morning. But there’s an important thing to note here – they’re strays, and these strays roam everywhere. The highways, side streets, sidewalks, yards, fields, train tracks, because once they can no longer produce milk, they’re set free to fend for themselves. I saw them in the middle of busy roadways struggling to eat discarded naan from the blacktop as cars and Tuk Tuks and motos sped around and past. I saw them atop trash piles, scavenging with mangy stray dogs, birds, and ducks. I saw injured cows and sickly cows, some with ropes still tied around their heads and necks. Not eating them might be considered a sacred act, but abandoning them to fend for themselves once they’re no longer useful to you is something less than sacred – and less than humane. 

Elephants here are still used to ferry tourists up and down scorching tarmac roads and cobblestoned walkways to see old fort ruins, despite the documented fact it wears the pads on their feet flat, causing excruciating pain. The argument by locals was that their livelihood depends on the money from said tourists – and it worked. Even in the elephant sanctuaries, such as the popular “Elefantastic,” tourists can still clamber up to ride and paint – yes, paint – these magnificent animals. Apparently, the only way the mistreatment will end is for the tourists to end it themselves. 

I could go on and on – as if I haven’t already – from how they dispose of their dead to the vastly underestimated number of covid victims to the flaunting of common sense public health regulations, but you can read about that on your own, and besides, Ernie is probably already on his back, legs splayed, lost in cat unconsciousness.

And maybe the saddest part of this entry? I actually intended to make this a funny one, guys, I really did, as the last time Elle-B said one of my updates made her laugh out loud might have been when I almost beat up Francois, the Parisian midget. Now all I get from her are automatic messages saying “Your blog was read.”

But truth is, India made being funny very hard. In fairness to its fans and dreamers, my exposure was very limited, sure, seen from just one lens, one that certainly might have narrowed the more disillusioned I allowed myself to become. Maybe it simply wasn’t my cup of tea. But in fairness to me, I’ve been to other places that didn’t quite tickle my fancy, but my reaction was nowhere near as visceral. I’m well aware that in a country this large, there can be worlds of difference a few hundred kilometers down the road, and every country has its challenges – hell, the U.S. has Detroit and the entire state of Florida! But the overriding culture, caste system, openly accepted inequity (and yes, I’m well aware of the inequities in America), the systemically-demanded corruption, and what I cannot stop thinking of as a widespread, cultural lack of empathy, goes well beyond regional boundaries. Maybe I’d understand better if I’d stayed a while longer, within or without the madness. But the fact is, I didn’t want to. Going white-water-rafting in Rishikesh wasn’t going to magically erase what happens to females in this country, or to those with the misfortune of being born into a lower caste. And getting hippy high on the beaches of Goa would provide nothing more than a momentary escape from the realities that await those “burdensome” elderly, and these oh-so-sacred cows. 

Despite it all, however, I’m happy I went to India, I really am, and I’ll never forget it or regret it. I saw the Taj Mahal. I came within 15 feet of a massive, free-roaming, LSU Bengal Tiger. I had a wonderful homestay with Moses and his amazing family in Agra, where I ate delicious, traditional, home-cooked Indian meals, and enjoyed more of the same with Gulshan and his family in Sawai Madhupor. Sawai is a relatively destitute village town, with plenty of trash and even open sewage, but it is less crowded, simpler, more my speed, where smiling and giggling and adorable kids would follow me as I meandered through its streets, and where men and women, young and old alike, would come outside, stare for a moment, then break into shy grins and waves of hello. 

I got to see India firsthand, something I never imagined I would experience in my lifetime. But I don’t need to go farther North or South or East or West to dissect its layers and understand its nuance – humanity cannot be defined by nuance, after all. When a traveler needs to go to a different part of a country to witness moments of empathy and equality and lawfulness, the problem doesn’t lie in coordinates on a map, and the solution requires more than a train ticket to a more agreeable locale. So I’ll remain unapologetic about my take on my visit to India, maybe only until I come face to face with my friend Ashu, or maybe Abhay, sure, and maybe then I’ll offer a humbled apology for insulting their homeland. But the truth is, I’ve had plenty of time to think about this one, and my apologies will ring hollow, as they should. And besides, if any apologies are due, I really don’t think they should be coming from me.

Goodbye for now, guys. Be good, sleep well.

Next up: Vietnam.

26: Cape Town

“Someday you’ll leave this world behind, so live a life you will remember.”

– The Nights, by Michael and Robert Silverman

The morning I left Malawi, I’d been drying my washed clothes on the thatched roof of my hut at Mabuya Camp in Lilongwe. They dried just in time for the skies to open up in a rare deluge. I and Savannah, a fellow American finishing up a couple of weeks of environmental research, left the muddied, pouring compound in a shared taxi for the tiny Lilongwe International Airport, the type of place where the security guard searching my bags kindly asked if he could have the pen he found in one of the pockets – for his son – and the terminal restaurant is a $5 plate of rice and chicken offered from a hot food station by the windows. So to say it was a bit of culture shock to suddenly find myself enjoying free wifi and a large Cappuccino in a ceramic mug along with a mushroom, spinach and cheese omelet on the sun-dappled patio of a happening and hip Cape Town café is, well, a major understatement.

I’d been told by many who’d been here before me that Cape Town isn’t “Africa,” per se, that it’s more like a European city – and they were right. And yet, as nice and comfortable and familiar as this suddenly was, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t having mixed feelings. I’d longed for fancy coffee and more of my traditional foods, not to mention being able to brush my teeth with actual tap water, but this would be the last country on my extended tour of this amazing continent, and I already missed the Baobab trees and villagers of Chembe, the barefoot kids waving to me throughout the day, and taking pleasure in simpler things – watching the fishermen go and come with their daily catch, the women washing clothes and pots and pans at the shoreline, the children singing in the street each evening. We wore no watches. We had no place to be. We told time by the sunrise and sunset. If it was adventure we sought, we could find it as easily on the roads of Chembe as we might in the National Park – or even just sitting together over a beer at the lodge.

Little did I know at the time that the next couple of weeks would be filled with natural beauty, incredible adventure, and memories I will cherish forever, memories that are uniquely South Africa.

I like a reasonable amount of adventure, more than some, less than many, and I’m generally okay with heights. I hot-air ballooned in Cappadoccia, and flew over Victoria Falls in a microlight plane, powered by little more than an industrial fan and kept secure by a single-buckle seatbelt, the likes of which aren’t even allowed in most American cars these days. My daredevil Mom and I share the amazing memory of going on a glorious glider ride over Newport many years ago, and I went skydiving with Erik Hanna and Dave Wight in Lincoln – finding that to be such a thrill that I went again a year later.

You don’t have that “falling” sensation when skydiving. It’s quite the opposite, actually. But bungee jumping? It’s nothing but that falling sensation, and maybe being eaten alive by a pack of hyena or accidentally set ablaze while grilling my world famous wings are the only other ways I’d rather not shake my mortal coil.

In Zambia, there’s a famous bungee bridge right by Victoria Falls, and the only way I avoided jumping there was because I opted for the microlight.

“And besides,” I told Nathan, who had told me about his jump in South Africa – “If I’m gonna jump, it’s going to be from the world’s highest bungee bridge.”

At the time, it was little more than a delay tactic, if I’m being honest. I’d kind of counted on something coming up between that and this moment, when I found myself looking out at the tiny little dots in the distance that were people jumping and falling…and falling…falling an extraordinarily long, long way before that glorified elastic band even began to stretch taut.

“Can I just walk out and watch from the bridge?” I asked one the members of the Face Adrenaline jump team.

“Of course, but once you’re there, you’re going to want to jump, my friend.”

Damn you.

My famous author friend, Jeff Hull (Pale Morning Done, Broken Field, and the forthcoming NYTimes Bestseller, Pud), talked of the sense of freedom and exhilaration he felt once he stepped off terrafirma, bungee jumping from an abandoned overpass in Detroit, I think it was. I did not feel that. Instead, I kind of felt like I’d been pushed off the world’s highest bungee bridge and was plummeting to my death for roughly eleven minutes.

Next Stop: India

25: Malawi

“It is foolish and hazardous not to dance in Africa.”

– Dan Eldon

In Zambia, children wrote songs about me, and Peter Dodd Day was just announced by Youth For Green Environment & Sustainable Development. Both of those things are true, Mom, I swear.

So raise your hand if you’re at all surprised that I would also go on to become a music video dancing sensation in Malawi, followed through the streets of Cape Maclear by throngs of children like some modern day Pied Piper. 

Really? That many? You bastards…

Okay, fine, whatever.

Sure, it’s possible that I was only invited to dance on tape for a little irrhythmic humor. And maybe the kids following me through the village streets only did so because word had gotten out that I just might be packin’ lollipops. But the only fact that really matters right now is that I am forever a legend in both countries, and if I play my cards right, I will never have to pay for dollar Castels in either place ever again. #winning!

My rise to fame came about because I’d gone on a solo hike through Lake Malawi National Park, out to Otter Point, a famously scenic spot for sunsets. The hike took me down dirt roads, past curious baboons, and through dense forest trails, eventually leading me to a rocky, bouldery point, with glass calm waters, blue skies, puffy white clouds, and brightly colored fish that came to me when I slapped the water’s surface. It was like a dream, a paradise within paradise. I sat, completely alone, soaking in the serenity. I’d brought water and snacks and a couple of Castels, planning to call my friend Julia from Germany. We’d met in the Faroe Islands at the beginning of my travels, and she was hesitantly planning her next adventure. I figured that sharing the beauty of the spot I was sitting in at that moment might be just the push she needed.

And that’s when I heard the voices.

No, not those voices.

At first I thought it might be a couple of hikers making their way to the point. But they weren’t hikers, nor tourists. A local man of about twenty-five came first, in shorts and a tee. Then a woman in a red top and a skirt, with a suitcase on her head. Then another woman, a man, a couple of teenagers, a woman with an infant in a chitenge, all carrying bags and suitcases and bundles, none dressed for the woods or a bouldery shoreline. In the end there would be twenty-five in all, my serenity and solitude going from one extreme to an absurd opposite in a matter of minutes.

It turns out they were a choir group from Monkey Bay, here to shoot a music video, and for the next two hours the women, men, and children alike danced to the same song but in different groupings, formations, and costumes, while fishermen rode past, catcalling and dancing and laughing from their boats, while still others stopped by on paddleboards to watch and dance and swim and leap from the rocky tops.

I would spend my time watching and filming and talking to the young man who had led the group, Promise, from Chembe Village. At the end of the two-hour video shoot, Promise turned and said, “They are asking me to ask you to please dance with them.”

“What? Me?” I asked. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, they would very much like you to dance.”

At that moment two things popped into my head, the first being a quote by an inspiration of mine, Dan Eldon, who once wrote in his journals, “It is foolish and hazardous not to dance in Africa,” and the second being an earlier regret I had for not dancing with the villagers of Mukuni, in Zambia.

So, of course, I would be honored to dance with the choir from Monkey Bay.

As I climbed down the boulders, my anxiety rising, another man approached, a man I’d seen earlier, joyously cradling and playing with one of the babies when he wasn’t dancing.

“Wait, wait,” he said, as he reached into a bag and pulled out a set of clothes, one of the outfits he’d worn for the shoot. It was a bright red shirt and equally bright blue pants, both soaking wet from the sweat of having danced for hours in the unforgiving Malawi sun.

“Please, put these on,” he said.

Eesh. Y’know what…fuck it, Peter, I thought. You only live once.

I put on the pants and shirt, then tie, cufflinks, and even the shoes he had insisted upon, and took my place between two other men, the entirety of the choir now sitting on the boulders as audience, smiling, phones out.

I can confidently say now that they very likely expected my moves to be more amusing than socks-knocking-off-amazing, but once the music started and the cameras started rolling, well let me tell you that I shocked the entire entertainment world that day. The men would walk away feeling defeated by my moves (I presume), their spots taken by two women who likely believed they were more up to the challenge. They too would succumb, though they played it off quite well, feigning indifference. But I knew. They knew. We all knew. Something magical had just happened.

A couple of days later I would be back at Mgoza Lodge, having a beer and talking with Lisa and Elliott, when Jack, one of our amazing lodge hosts, called to me from the desk. 

“Mistah Petah, can you come for a second?” he asked with a wide grin. 

When I reached the desk, he turned his phone to me.

“Is this you?”

And it was. In all of my dancing glory, my stint as an Otter Point Dancer having gone viral, the fate of my fame forever etched into the history of Chembe Village, of Cape Maclear, of Malawi itself.

I Was. I Am. Forever. Legend.

Watch Now: Peter Dodd, The Dancing God

It hadn’t taken me and Michigan Lisa long to discover that our nightmarish travel adventure just to get to Cape Maclear in the first place had been worth all of the effort. We’d arrived at night, a couple of days before I’d become the darling mzungu son of Chembe. We arrived during the remnant rains and blowing winds of Cyclone Gombe. The dirt road outside Mgoza Lodge had been dark and windy and wet, the indoor reception area dimly lit, with windowless windows and doorless doors open to the dampness blowing in from the shoreline of Lake Malawi, a lake usually flat calm, but that night its waves could be heard crashing just beyond the darkness. 

We dropped our bags on the floor, immediately ordered drinks from our host that evening, Chikku, sat ourselves down on cushioned chairs, looked at each other, and immediately, we knew – our troubles had finally come to an end.

Lisa’s plan was to spend three or four days here before taking a ferry up-lake to Ncharta Bay. Elliott, who we would meet the next day, was to be there a couple nights more. As for me, I figured five nights, tops, and then on to Cape Town, South Africa. Or Mozambique. Or maybe Namibia. I hadn’t figured out the where, but I knew the when. Or at least I thought I had.

The three of us would end up spending the better part of the next 11 nights together at Mgoza Lodge, eating, drinking, hiking, kayaking, adventuring, sometimes just watching the world go by, the young kids swimming in the lake just feet from the front door of our huts, the older kids bathing in it, the women of the village washing clothes and dishes in it, the men setting out to fish in it each morning, returning to dry their catch in the afternoon sun. We showered little, though I did have my clothes washed in the lake, the same water that was pumped to our showers and taps.

Yes, we faced many of the same pressures as in Zambia and Tanzania, each of us being worked over by tourism-starved locals, fake forms for donations for school books or football teams, sales pitches for bracelets, wood carvings, boat tours, hiking tours, handmade clothes – even Malawi ganj