It’s over… or is it? No wait its over

So I’m back… but what is back. Was it when I flew into LA or when I got to Santa Cruz where I haven’t lived for 3 years? While I haven’t really dealt with culture shock, I have definitely been questioning what the concept of home means. It’s always seemed like such a definite tangible thing in life, which is no longer the case.

It’s really wonderful to be back where my life was before I left traveling. A number of people have contacted me to welcome me back, which is a, exceptionally nice feeling. The last seven months already feel like a dream, and I find that people who kept up with the blog have to remind me about things that happened. There were so many crazy adventures, and so little time to process them, that many seem to have been shoved to the back of my mind as I traveled.

This is my last post, number 98. Its funny to think that I will just miss 100. This adventure is in fact over, and it seems fitting to end my blog here seeing that my day-to-day life is shockingly boring in comparison.

I will be traveling cross-country for 2 months starting in about 3 weeks. Anyone who wants a digital slideshow and storytelling hour need only to put me up for one or two nights and I will stop by while traveling around the US.

There doesn’t seem to be any “right” way to end this blog entry because in a lot of ways it feels like the last nail in the coffin for this trip. So I think I’ll just leave with a list of what I learned from my travels.

What I learned from messing up a whole bunch:

I can now understand enough Mandarin to roughly maneuver around China.
I have learned how to say hello, goodbye, and thank you in Chinese, Uyger, Tibetan, Thai, Hindi, and Urdu.
I can now ignore powerfully bad smells.
I have newfound survival and coping skills for going without a shower for weeks.
I understand the logistics of a bathroom experience absent of toilet paper.
I have mad bargaining skills.
I can now identify and avoid touts.
I have a basic grasp of Muslim culture.
Central Asia is less of an amorphous blob of misinformation for me.
I can calculate specific exchange rates faster than superman folds laundry.
I now know how to travel long distances on bicycle.
I can convert to metric.
I know how to travel light.
I learned how to not plan excessively.
I learned how to let chance and fate dictate the direction of my life.
I can now ride a motorcycle, and have basic repair skills.
I learned how to live without knowing where I would be sleeping each night.
I learned to live on trains and buses.
Border crossing are now comfortable, no stress, situations for me.
I know how to take vacations while traveling.
I learned how to love reading again.
I know my limits now, including the length of time its take me to adjust to altitudes over 4000 meters.
I know how to hostel.
I learned how much my friends and family mean to me.
I learned firsthand how wonderful the freedoms we have in this country are even if some of them are slipping through our fingers at the moment.
I learned how to live day to day in a foreign environment with little information, and a lot of improvising, which is how I traveled.

Thanks for keeping up with my trip. Remember if you want to see my photos and hear the stories that were left out of my blog, just tap your heels together and e-mail me:

destroyallculture@yahoo.com

Bye for now.

Whaaaaaaaa?

So I've had a couple of conversations with Thai locals about the dogs wearing t-shirts thing. The first explanation I was giving seemed completely purposterous in my mind, but the story has now been confirmed by multiple people. Dogs wear shirts and jerseys in Thailand to stay warm during winter months. Why is this so ludicrous you ask, because I would be shocked if it ever drops below 50 degrees on the coldest part of the coldest night of the year here.

This actually was the root of an argument I had with manager of the hotel I'm staying at. He was telling me how a couple of nights ago it was absolutely frigid outside and he was under 2 blankets just to stay warm. I've only been half covered by a towel, and I've still woken up sweating almost every night and I can garentee you this has nothing to do with me being sick.

I take this as a perefect example of how each person is shaped by the world they live in and know.

So the answer is: People seem to think that its confort giving service, and fasionable (the only other reason given), for stray dogs to wear shirts.

My pool of data was only three people deep, but I also found an article on the internet that gave the same answer. If anyone hears differently please share it with me.

I fly to LA tommarow. It's good.

No worse for ....

The sinus infection fog has begun to clear. I beleive that I had a simple cold when this whole thing started, but due to some poor circumstances, it evolved into an intense sinus infection. At the worst of it, I couldn't taste, smell, think, or even really move. Anyways, its been a week and I'm finally to the point where focusing on writing something more than a paragraph doesn't seem like an insurmountable task. I'll fill you in from way back when I first arrived in Thailand.

I flew into Thailand and after a little work met up with Sara and Noah (my cousins). We were all a little destroyed from traveling and so it was decided that we would rest a day or two in Bangkok before we went exploring. The couple of days stretched out to be a little longer for a number of reasons. One was the absolutely amazing shopping here. I'm not one driven by shopping, so its a pretty big deal for me to say I was compeled to explore and buy a number of things here. One complex was all electronics, illegal DVDs/software, and everything else evenly remotely related to the tech industry. Sara and I almost lost Noah there, and by the time we had found him he had purchased a digital camera. Soon afterwards Noah and I lost Sara at the weekend clothes market which was a spralling cluster of stalls that seemed to go on forever. the clothes were hip, artistic, and packed in so tightly that I imagine you could spend a month there and not see everything.

After the shopping had been confronted we started to make plans to head out to Ko Chang, which is the largest island of the coast of Thailand and extremely close to the Cambodian border. We also celebrated Christmas Eve and Noah's birthday. This included a surreal experience in which Noah read the night before Christmas, we sang happy birthday, ate a donald duck cake with an unlit candle in it, and opened some small presents in our hotel room. The next day, before we left for Ko Chang, Noah alerted us to some discomfort he had been experiencing. It worried him enough to go to the hospital. Sara and I accompanied him there and were all in complete shock at what we found. The hospital we went to was the nicest medical facility I've ever seen. Everybody was extremely nice, and it felt more like we were in an exspensive hotel rather than a hospital. Even that weird hospital smell wasn't there. Its difficult to describe because I don't think there is really anything like it in the US. Noah said the experience was quick and pleasant... except for the fact it turned out he had shingles. Sara and I had both had chicken poxs so we weren't in danger of catching anything. This was also when Noah was coming down with a cold. He assured us he was still up to going to Ko Chang so no plans were changed. That night Sara and I went to a Thai drag show which was fun, but not the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

Ko Chang was good, but not fantastic. The lonely planet guide seemed to be pretty off. It described where we were headed as secluded, with only a couple of small hotels. This was not in fact the case. We all rented scooters to move around the island and found that the entire area was very developed with 7-11s and internet cafes everywhere. Noah started to get better, and I started to get sick. We had a bad nights sleep in a co-co hut, and then when we left the island we traveled more than I think I should have. By the time we got back to the hotel in Bangkok I was feeling pretty messed up. The next day and a half before Sara and Noah left is kind of a blur because I slept a lot and was falling into the deeper parts of the sinus infection. I missed New Years, and was just barely able to find a hotel for myself the next day before I collapsed. Everyday since I've been trying to pull myself back together. I beleive that by the time I get back to the US I'll be 100% better, or close enough. I've lost too much time to illness to really travel around, and Bangkok is starting to get really boring. I'm back to reading a lot and counting the days until I get home.

I still don't know why dogs wear t-shirts and jerseys here, but I promise to dig deeper.

This is what ________ sounds like

In Thailand stray dogs wear t-shirts. No, really. Sometimes its basketball jerseys, but for the most part they wear t-shirts. I'm not sure why, but hopefully I'll know before I leave this country.

I'm sick. It started with my cousin Noah, and then worked its way to me. I think his immune system handled it better than mine. It has made traveling over the last couple of days difficult. Sara, Noah, and myself went to one of the largest islands off the coast of Thailand. It was nice, but a little crowded. There is much more of a tourist industry in this country than anywhere else I've been on this trip.

Thailand has been a pleasant shock in a number of different ways. American movies, toilet paper, price tags, western brand names, drinkable water, soft beds, real pillows, the customer is always right, fast reliable internet, easy access to medicine, excellent hospitals, sane drivers, etc. are all in abundance here. I think ending my trip here will help soften the blow of culture shock when I get home.

I'm not quite up to writting anymore, but as soon as I'm feeling better I'll give some more in depth accounts of recent events.

Happy New Years.

Business as usual

I'm really suprised that my last blog entry was as coherant as it was seeing that I was functioning on so little sleep.

It has been truly bizzare over the last two days seeing Sara and Noah (my cousins). Traveling for 7 months with no real connection to my life became so normalized, that it was shocking to suddenly have evidence in front of me that I have an on going life somwhere else. Talking with people who's first language is english, who understand my sense of humor, my cultural references, and my family has put me into a state of hyper-euphoria. What makes it weird though is that I'm still traveleing. Everything is still foreign and different, but my life flew out to visit me. I think this will be the best thing to ease me back into western culture though. If I had traveled from India to LA, the case of cultural Bendz could have been truly debilitating.

Thailand is a shock in itself. It is by far the most western country I've visited, and Bangkok is almost indesernable from parts of some American cities. It's earily confortable to be here even though its not quite my kind of place.

Yesterday we went shopping for knock-off clothes and dvds. We went to a huge complex and lost almost the whole day just walking around looking at everything. After 5 hours I hadn't even seen what was on the top two floors of the building we were in. It was extremely overwhelming.

I think that tommarow we may head off from Bangkok for a large island along the coast. Elephant rides and snorkeling seem to be in the not to distant future.

Sorry, no crazy near death experience to awe you with.

Title

Well, I'm in Thailand, and I have to say it's quite a relief. Looking immediatly back at India, I feel it was an overall good experience, but by the end there were some aspects of Indian cultural, which had started to painfully dig into me. Beyond just a cultual rift between me and the people I was around, I had become very tired of being some rare animal on display for peoples amusment. People treated me in ways they would never treat another Indian. This is not somthing I saw to the same extent in Pakistan or China.

When I got on the airplane they confiscated my 4 inch mini-monkey-wrench from me. When I pressed them about why they were confiscating it, they told me it could be used as a weapon. I started to argue that it was much less dangerous than the pens I was carrying, and then thought better of it.

I like Bangkok. Its odd, but it reminds me of China. The big difference seems to be that the aspects of China I had trouble with are either watered down, or completely removed in here. I can imagine relaxing in a country like this.

I would write more, but I havent slept in 30 hours, and I'm no good without sleep. I'll meet up with my cousins Sara and Noah after a nap, and when I have a better feel for things I'll post some more.

Tiger Biscuits

A Short (Neglected) Story

A couple of weeks ago I was taking a break from traveling. I had stopped at Agonda Beach in Goa. Agonda was a small town and beach with no more than 1000 residents, and a great place to relax. My time was completely occupied with fishing, swimming, sleeping, and eating. One day while I walked on the main road towards my favorite resturant for lunch, I began to pass the one road that intersected with it. This intersection was where the rare bus would stop and unload a passenger or two. For this reason, it wasn't uncommon to find one or two people hocking somthing in this area. As I passed this section of the town I walked by a man standing on the side of the road. He was Indian, wearing western clothes, looking around nervously, but otherwise non-descript. As I got parrelell to him I heard him say something in a low hushed voice. Having traveled a while, I've been able to hone my skills of ignoring the constant badgering of tuk tuck drivers, people selling maps/sunglasses, etc. This is especially true when it sounds like a person is trying to be covert, because it means they are most likely trying to sell something illegal. Keeping my gaze forward, I didn't slow down as I passed the stranger, but I hadn't taken more than three steps when it finally registered what the man had said. "Pepsi?" was what had distinctly come from the mans mouth. I decided I must have misheard him, and that he had probably said taxi. So I turned around and said "what?". The man, trying to look non-chalant, peered both directions up and down the street as if an ambush was waiting for anyone carrying the merchandise he had. Then, he very distinctly, in the same low hushed voice said "Pespi?". I was feeling truly confused, and I'm sure this was well reflected in the perplexed look I had. I finally, realized I should answer the man, so I said no thank you, and turned to continue on my way. I hadn't taken more than a couple steps when in the same low hushed voice I hear the man say "Coke?".

Today I leave Kunyakimari(the southern tip of India). I am very ready to do so. As Christmas gets closer the huge catholic church gets more and more rowdy. The church, which towers over the surrounding neighborhood, has become more christmas light than building. At night its pulsates with so many lights that it's sometimes hard to tell wheather or not its on fire. This is accompanied by more than 12 giants speakers that blast Indian music almost 24 hours a day. The speakers are old and worn which greatly effects the qaulity of the sounds they produce. The music blankets the town with half screeching, half Bollywood musical soundtracks, from 7am until 11:30pm everyday. Getting good sleep has been difficult.

I got into my first argument, in a very long time, about religion. I was on the train going to Trivandum when a middle aged man came and sat down beside me. He immeiatly drilled me with the normal questions, where are you from, how old are you, are you married, but his religion question was slightly different than usual. He asked whether I was Christan or Catholic. I hesitated for a moment and then told him I was niether. Shocked, may not really sum up the look that was on his face. He started pressing me until I finally told him I had no religion at all. For moment I thought he might faint, and then a steadfast resolve washed over him, or at least I beleive that what it was, because from that moment on he took upon himself to convert me to Catholisism. Over the next 20 minutes he pulled out all the old arguments in favor of accepting Jesus Christ as my lord and savior. He even related an event where he had crashed his motorcycle and walked away unharmed, which, without a doubt proved that there was a god. I was patient and walked him through why he wasn't changing my mind, until, frustrated he said "you are selfish, your just living for yourself, and you obviously don't care about anybody". In response I told him he didn't know me, and that I was through talking with him. The situation escalated until he finally stormed out of compartment I was seated in. I feel kind of stupid for rising for that one, but oh well, it helped make the train ride go quicker.