Aloha & Mahalo

My family has a convenient way of living in beautiful places, so my arm didn't have to be twisted too hard to make Hawaii my last stop. From Manila, I flew direct to Oahu, where my aunt and uncle live.

I was reminded almost immediately of the modern conveniences the U.S. has when I walked into the first public restroom. Actual toilets with toilet seats and (very Western US) toilet seat covers. I have to say I was a little overwhelmed.

But anyways...

Visiting Hawaii always correlates with eating and drinking well. Almost immediately, we were seated at the Ala Moana, a beautiful hotel right on the beach, tropical drinks in hand, listening to the live Hawaiian music while watching the sun set. I don't think it gets much better than that when paired with conversation about what the family's been up to.

Throughout the week, we got a good variety of food, from French to Japanese to Korean (very ono, or delicious in Hawaiian). We took the traditional Hamada island tour, stopping at the beach to look for beached sea turtles, stopping at Matsumato's for our requisite shave ice over ice cream, and passing through the beautiful Byodo-In temple, where I had ample opportunities to take pictures of the coy.

And.. this is why I need to write sooner about what I've done, I'm already forgetting bits of what we did. But the whole week was a lot of fun - hiking, shopping, and enjoying the island from different vantage points.

Well it's not going to be nearly as interesting now that I'm back home, but since I'm stilling taking photos and want to start learning how to enhance them, I started a new blog: http://prettyphotosandsomewords.wordpress.com/


I guess I now have to admit that my turtle year's over! A week out and it's still hitting me just how much everything (including myself) has changed. The lack of avocado tree on the front lawn when we pulled into the driveway was just a prelude for the many other changes I've been encountering. I'm now being filled in on nine months of my friends' lives, housing projects on the street are now done (and new ones started), and American politics... well, are still the same.

As for me, certainly I feel older and more mature, but nothing that can be concluded with "a nice pretty bow" as my friend said, referring to Eat Pray Love. Because, as with the meditation practice, there are good days and bad days, and while there are lasting changes, those are variable as well.

I've gotten better perspective on the world, but traveling more has made me realize that there are always so many more places to visit and things to learn. And there are so many more ways to grow.

Last two weeks in Asia

Whizzing across the Philippines on a jeepney, I saw a quote painted on a school that said “the difference between wealth and poverty is education”. Singapore is a marvel of engineering intellect, prompting friends I met up with there to exclaim “it’s the future!” every time they came across a new innovation. The same card is used for the metro, parking fees, and even entrance fees some places. The tallest, most prominent building, Marina Bay Sands, is actually a cantilever, the top deck grounded to one stand but only resting on the other two; right next to it is the world's first & longest DNA bridge. There is a general air of efficiency with marked bus lines, designated taxi wait areas, and high rises.

The Philippines is something else entirely. Whereas you get the impression after a while that every major project in Singapore is geared toward tourism (the ubiquitous shopping malls, preserved natural areas turned into paid-entry parks), tourism isn't a huge market in the Philippines - so it seemed like the best way to see the islands is by using transportation.

After flying into Bohol, my cousin Tina and I took a bus to the Chocolate Hills, an area with several thousand eery hills in the middle of the island. With my bag, there was absolutely no way I was walking up the hill the hotel was on, but after getting off the bus, it looked like our only option was... a motorcycle. Straddling my 45-pound bag, the driver slowly putted up the hill, me and Tina behind him, holding on for dear life. Thank goodness it was a 5-minute ride.

In Cebu City, we used primarily jeepneys, trucks where the riders sit on seats on the truck bed under an overhang. On Bohol, we dealt with a stubborn tricycle driver, who insisted on a 20-peso ride and mentioned after arrival that it was 20 per person (we came to find out that that's a pretty typical ploy). Ferries ranged from car-shipping boats to push boats. As annoyingly cumbersome as my bag was, it brought out the best in everyone we met, from those that helped bring my bag into congested buses, to those that moved over to give me a bit more space, smiling all the while.

From the vantage point of buses, jeepneys, and ferries, we saw dense tropical forests, towns celebrating their annual festivals, amazing views of beaches, and plenty of parents pointing out to their kids the strange-looking foreigners. That took getting used to!

Eating was always an experience, although (fortunately) not the kind I had the first time I went to the Manila airport. Our first meal in the Philippines was.. pizza. There were all the typical American chains and somehow we managed to frequent a lot of them: McDonald's (we had to try the spaghetti), California Pizza Kitchen, Pizza Hut. There were bakeries in even the small towns, serving all kinds of things that couldn't often be described in English.

"Vegetarian" seems to be a flexible word in the Philippines. The vegetarian part of the menu usually included such dishes as "crabmeat with stir-fried vegetables", and dishes that sounded meat-free would come with gratuitous pieces of chicken or pork. So getting traditional dishes, like chicken adobo and squid, was the most predictable way to go.

Food was a lot more straight-forward in Singapore, prepared with the advertised ingredients, but different enough to push my culinary limits. Since I was there for a little over 2 days, my friend Esther's family was convinced that I had to try all the available varieties of food in that timeframe. Somehow we managed to eat pork rolls for breakfast, dim sum, Indian food, Malaysian-influenced food, sting ray, and all sorts of brightly-colored gelatinous desserts. So pretty much all the weight I lost in the temple in Thailand came creeping back. But it was delicious.

Both countries, though, as polar opposite as they are, were amazing in their own ways. Singapore's botanical gardens highlighted a number of amazing plant species, especially orchids (which, of course, they created their own varieties of); Esther (who took the photography class with me at Cornell) and I enjoyed honing our macro shots on all the orchid varieties. The Philippines was a great place to jump around and soak up the last bit of my adventures in Asia, and the spa time we got at the end was the perfect treat after the craziness of traveling.

I'm now enjoying the beautiful weather and amazing food in Hawaii with my aunt & uncle before I head back to the States on July 2!

Applicant Must Leave the Kingdom

I was told that in the first 7 days after the meditation retreat in Chom Thong, I would feel the effects of the practice. And what a week it's been.

Instantly I was overwhelmed by the frenetic pace of the traffic just outside the temple. Motorcycles and drivers whizzing by in a country where pedestrians definitely don't have the right of way. Market stalls set up in the temple parking lot selling food and clothes and knock-off goods. A fair just opposite the small marketplace full of bumper cars and games. Life in the temple is certainly slower paced!

One of the skills I've been honing in Thailand is the ability to bargain, which seems to be one part disinterest and another part downplaying. The tuk-tuk drivers constantly over-bid the routes I came to know in Chiang Mai, and a mix of laughing at the price and suggesting I’d walk instead seemed to be enough to get the price down. But then again, I’d realize that I was getting a 100 baht ride for 80 baht, a savings of about 60 cents.

I remembered back to when I was reading Shantaram, when the author talks about negotiating in India, an time-consuming task that often results in heated arguments and severed ties, with little won in the end. Sure enough, sometimes paying extra – especially in a country where extra is not comparably much – has its benefits. The tuk-tuk drivers who overpriced rides to the train station were more patient when I took my time deciding on when I’d head down to Bangkok again, and were more likely to reveal that ubiquitous Thai smile. The travel agent who offered “special price for you” on the trip I took to the Chiang Rai province was the same one who called around when I asked how to get to Chom Thong.

And it was the travel agent, after a discussion of the overwhelming number of temples in Chiang Mai, who recommended visiting Wat U Mong. Built as a sanctuary for monks to study Buddhism, it is an other-worldly retreat just 4 km outside the city, covered by bamboo and dotted with small temples. The maddening traffic just outside the gates was hardly audible as I walked past moss-covered sculptures and bilingual signs claiming that “today is better than two tomorrows”.

Of course, as I found out, a fair amount of skepticism is also necessary. After meeting up in Bangkok, my friend Esther and I headed to the train station to get overnight tickets down southern Thailand. On arrival, we learned from the information desk that the 7:30 train was full and the 11:30 train would arrive at the transfer point too late to grab the morning bus to Phuket, where our plane leaving Thailand would take off. We were directed to a travel agent to get bus tickets that not only would be faster than the train, but would get us to Phuket more directly.

Night trains are bearable, with their fold-down beds and pillows, but sleeping in the “VIP” bus left a lot to be desired. While there was air-conditioning as promised, the fold-down seats hardly got to 45̊ and there were no blankets available. Sitting in the only space in front of the toilet were two buckets full of hand-washing water, making an already ungainly trip to the bathroom that much more difficult.

We arrived at the change-over point in Surat Thani at 5 am, and our bus finally arrived at 7 am. On our way through the city, we stopped at a travel agency, where we were told to wait for our bus to Phuket, arriving at 8:30. Confused, we talked to the agent, who said that, no, of course we wouldn’t be arriving in Phuket at 10 am, since it takes 5 hours to get there – only the direct bus from Bangkok reaches Phuket that early. There was a direct bus?

As the bus pulled in front, we were called into the office. Where would we like to be dropped off? They recommended staying outside of Phuket Town, preferring other areas of the island. We showed an interest in Karon, a small beach town on the Andaman Sea, and the travel agent types in her calculator: 400 baht. But isn’t it more cost-effective to get a bus or taxi to the smaller towns from Phuket Town? Oh, the buses don’t go that way anymore and the private taxis are even more expensive. Exhausted and fed-up, we paid and got on the bus.

Karon on the island of Phuket is a small beach town with little to do and little energy to do it because of the heat and humidity. This translated to a lot of walking on the beach but stopping partway to enjoy the shade, pausing for ice cream, and chatting over cool drinks. After the craziness of transportation, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

The night before leaving, we had the full Thai experience. First we got Thai massages, and my masseuse must've had a bad day because I ended up being twisted and cracked with great force. Afterward, we went to a popular local restaurant and ordered a "medium spicy" meal of a pad thai-like dish and green curry, which prompted us in the first few bites to order water and rice.

At this point, my extended visa in Thailand is expired, with a friendly stamp in my passport that says "APPLICANT MUST LEAVE THE KINGDOM NOT LATER THAN 15 JUN 2011". So onward to Singapore.

Vipassana Meditation at the Wat Phrathat Sri Chom Tong temple

4 am: Wake-up

In the early hours of the morning, the temple bells chime, the dogs howl along, and, gradually, the roosters pick up on the fragments of daylight. There is something sacred about doing the meditation practice in the morning, knowing that monks, nuns, fellow meditators, and even the 88-year-old enlightened head monk, Ajahn Tong, are all drowsily following the same rituals.

There are 8 moral precepts (rules of conduct) that each yogi agrees to in the opening ceremony, guiding behavior during the meditative period. My favorite, #8: “I undertake the precept to refrain from lying on high or luxurious sleeping beds.” Sure enough, the mattress on the floor was stiff and far from luxurious, but with 6 hours of sleep, I never had an issue with it.

One of the ideas behind the meditative experience is that there are a lot of things we grow dependent on, creating a need out of a want. Alcohol, electronics, reading, and music, it is viewed, help distract us from what we don’t want to face (all those, too, were covered by the precepts); they help achieve a different state of mind that’s not the present moment and postpone the feelings that will inevitably surface. Vipassana meditation promotes awareness, so the temple proactively removes those "obstacles".

6 am: Breakfast

There’s nothing stranger than sitting in a cafeteria, everyone in all white slowly – mindfully – eating their food (talking is discouraged because it takes away from the present moment of food-eating). It’s the kind of situation where you’d expect Nurse Ratched to walk through, or perhaps Willow Smith.

Listed on the wall is the prayer for food. Like with all the prostrating and vows, I just went along with it, and there was always something that stuck out as well-put or fascinating. In the food prayer, there's a line that says “I will use this food to get rid of the old feeling [hunger] while avoiding a new feeling [overeating]”, amusingly-put but realistic way of looking at it. And so I enjoyed my morning soup one slow slurp at a time.

7 am: Meditation practice

Vipassana is essentially mindfulness meditation, a method of gaining insight about yourself and learning to be content in the present. It’s hard to remember a time when I’ve been fully present, always distracted by random memories or plans, emails or books. But the idea behind Vipassana is that all we really have is the here and now: the past contracts to biased impressions and fragments of experiences and the future is uncertain, so the only thing that’s real is our current state of mind and body.

Each of the three parts involves slowly repeating 3 times the thought, action, or description that comes to mind. For the walking part, it can be “standing, standing, standing” or “lifting, lifting, lifting”; similarly, it could be “hearing, hearing, hearing” or “anxious, anxious, anxious”. Later, I had to repeat intention, such as “intention to move” (3x) before walking. The sitting part is similar, but with more of a focus on the “rise, fall” of the breath.

The mind, it turns out, is rather fickle. Sometimes it focuses too much on one topic or feeling which leads, generally, to frustration. But more often than not, it just forgets. Within a 10-minute period, mine skipped from calm to anger to disappointment to resolve. Or sometimes a bird would start chirping, and since the practice promotes awareness, after naming “hearing”, I’d completely forget the topic I was so focused on. Go figure.

11 am: Lunch time

Despite the modest nature of nunhood, Thai Buddhist nuns still love their spice. Of the 3 lunch dishes, there was always one with a substantial kick. Sometimes it was obvious, like red pepper flakes. But sometimes that green bean turns out to be a mouse-shit chili (read: painful). One meal, all of the dishes were especially spicy – one of the nun-cooks must’ve been having a particularly bad day – and I tried in vain to hide my shock, only to hear a number of Thai yogis sniffling, too.

I couldn’t always decipher what I was eating, and it was probably for the better. I ate more eggplant and mushrooms than in my entire life – I generally avoid both, since eggplant usually turns out soggy and I have an irrational fear of mushrooms. Communal dining eradicated that fear, as well as my newer fear of rambutans (straight out of Monsters, Inc., I swear). I also got to try lotus seeds and cactus fruit, more of the Dr. Seuss-like plants that Thailand seems to be full of.

12 pm: Meditation practice

This was usually the worst practice of the day: trying to practice on a full stomach during 90-degree heat is a recipe for disaster. Usually it translated into me getting really flustered or nodding off.

3 pm: Small snack break

The precept I was originally the most concerned about was #6: “I undertake the precept to refrain from eating at the wrong time”, which essentially means after 12 pm. Anyone who’s gone afternoon shopping with me or has traveled with me can attest to the fact that I get insanely cranky without at least a snack to tide me over (I guess I got Grandpa Ben’s sugar-low gene).

Fortunately, the rule only applies to solid food. Soy milk and chocolate (allowed since it melts in your mouth) became my best friends.

6 pm: More meditation practice or the occasional distraction

I really enjoyed practicing in the meditation hall at this time for whatever reason. The red carpets faded to maroon as the sun went down, and there was always a calmer energy in the room, everyone’s enthusiasm fading to resolve.

Buddha Day falls once a week, a date marked on Thai calendars with a little Buddha head in the corner. As would be expected, it’s a big deal in the temple. Everyone gathers to one of the meditation halls and proceeds to repeat Pali verses after the monks, prostrating countless times in between. After listening to a monk give his speech, we all headed out to the main temple area, a bouquet of flowers, candles, and incense in hand.

The tradition goes that you walk around the temple three times, repeating a wish for someone. We circled in silence, deep in thought, our faces lit from the candles below, the golden temple from above. Setting the offering in front of the temple, we returned to the meditation hall to meditate en groupe, which somehow added to the already communal feeling of the evening.

Thai people can be overwhelmingly generous, donating significant portions of their money to the temple in hope of good karma. At the end of the ceremony, we were greeted by nuns serving warm soy milk, one of the many donations. Drinks in hand, we all walked back solemnly to our housing in the jasmine-scented night.

10 pm: Sleep (finally!)

Well, most nights. But the last two nights I was instructed to reduce my sleep. I was dreading the 4 hours of sleep the final night, but was resolved to get a final practice in. It was the strangest feeling that night, being so intensely present in the moment, aware of the crickets chirping outside while the cows mooed in triads, the placement of all my things in the room, the lightness of my steps, and my complete lack of anxiety. And right then, I was completely accepting of everything about myself and with how things are.

The most lasting concepts of Vipassana are anatta and anicha. The first describes how we can’t have complete control over everything, while anicha is the idea that everything changes – and trying to control change leads to dukkha, or suffering. Similar to the biblical idea of “this too shall change”, happiness, like sadness, is temporary. The best we can do is achieve contentedness, the “middle way”, as Buddhism teaches. So one good practice doesn’t ensure good ones to follow, but at least indicates the possibility.

As my teacher said, meditation doesn’t require a huge leap of faith, just one thoughtful step at a time. Intending to move, intending to move, intending to move.

Oh my Buddha!

I can never get over how well night train compartments are put together. After a few hours, the attendant comes through and in about 5 minutes - top bed down, sheets made, pillows fluffed - both bunks are ready to go. Curtains with bed numbers on them, reading light behind the cushions, and cup holders - just so well-designed. Now if I could just figure out how to brush my teeth without falling over...

After spending some time lazing around and journaling in Chiang Mai (the weather is not a great incentive for activity), I enrolled in a cooking course. Someone should've warned me to avoid eating breakfast before I got in because, between 9 and 4, I was in for a longer progressive meal than Christmas day. These photos are just part of it:

My 3-day trip to Samoeng seemed like some sort of Tom Sawyer childhood I never had, set in northern Thailand. Hiking through the hills, with the smell of fermenting mangos in the air. Eating fresh, tart lychee off the trees. Swimming in the lake and sitting around chatting with other hikers afterward, enjoying the breeze and the spray of the waterfall. White-water rafting, then floating down the river on a bamboo raft, with the rower's occasional response of "oh my Buddha!"

Not bad for something I signed up for without knowing much about it.

As seems to be the theme with my hiking experiences (or perhaps all hiking?), the first day was spent scaling a rather large hill jutting out of the jungle. But, as always, the end justifies the means. After watching the gorgeous sunset over the mountains and eating stir fry for dinner, we hikers got to sit back and watch the local children sing and dance for us (yes, a contrived tourist gimmick, but those kids were just so cute).

After a second day of treking, we arrived at the elephant camp. When we woke up the next morning, the elephants were coming in for our ride. My elephant du jour was Mae Bun Tung, a fiesty balding elephant that realized I'd feed her bananas if she stuck her trunk back and breathed out, spewing me with elephant snot. Such an effective trick, she realized, that she would stop every 20 feet to negotiate another.

Tomorrow morning I'm off to Chom Tong, in another part of my trip that resembles "Eat Pray Love": a 10-day Vipassana meditation course at the Wat Phradhatu Sri Chomtong temple. Which will involve getting up super early, wearing white all day and night, very little talking, no use of electronics (so no internet), and no reading or journaling. Not sure how this is going to work, but it should be a cool experience.

Those fabulous places where we long to be...

I have a tendency to arrive somewhere new and wonder why I’m so tired by midday.  Then I check out the weather and realize that it’s not just super humid, but also 95̊ º.

Sooo many tourists!

In light of this, I got up at 6 am on Thursday to beat the tourist crowds and sweltering heat of Bangkok, especially after realizing that this meant long pants and closed-toe shoes.  Of course, everything’s closed until 8:30 am, when massive crowds of Chinese tourists pile out of tour buses.

The crowds and the wait were well worth it to see the Grand Palace and the many buildings around it, all shimmering in gold paint and intricate stonework.  Thinking about just how many man-hours it must have taken to construct all these buildings without today’s manufacturing methods boggles my mind almost as much as the fact that the universe is constantly expanding (into what??).

Reclining Buddha

And then to think that the royalty needed to reaffirm its Buddhist values by building the huge Reclining Buddha.  At around 43 m long, it’s the same in length as the height of the Kawarau Bridge in New Zealand that I bungeed off of.  It couldn’t fit in one photo, let alone the room they placed it in (or built around it, I’d like to think) – the head ornament even hits where the wall meets the ceiling.

I also had to admit to myself that I need air-conditioning.  After the first long night of watching the small ceiling fan circulate the hot air, I moved over to an area much more accustomed to tourists – which I discovered makes me uncomfortable.  I’m halfway around the world, only to find myself in an area overwhelmingly white.

It’s here that I’ve discovered a new varietal of the classic Ugly American.  Instead of the less-than-classy tourists I’ve seen in France who fill entire sidewalks and complain loudly about how rude their waiter is in a crowded restaurant, now it’s the party-minded college-student variety.  I know that every major city has its share of these, but it’s more incongruous when early-morning drinkers walk alongside Thai monks and Caucasian tourists show up to temples in hobo chic right behind devout, modestly-dressed Buddhists.

 

Lotus flower

But, tourists aside, Bangkok is itself a hodge-podge of conflicting ideas.  The streets have the typical big-city smell, with spurts of curry, freshly-cut fruit, and flowers coming from the sidewalk stalls.  The water taxi that criss-crosses the river connects the temples with Chinatown and immaculate shopping centers, while passing by ramshackle huts on stilts over the water, held up by who-knows-what force.  The Grand Palace, images of the royal couple that litter the city, and a twice-daily broadcast of the national anthem remind everyone of the royalty’s power, but it’s too easy to forget the political uproar of the city just a year ago.

This pretty much sums up the tuk tuk experience

It’s been so much fun so far exploring each completely different area of town, from the flower markets in Chinatown with stall upon stall of carefully put-together flower arrangements, to the old city center with its plethora of temples and Buddha statues.  The food has been absolutely amazing, like the crab curry dish and fried prawns (another first!) I got with a Cornell friend last night.  And I’ve been enjoying the variety of transportation methods, from water taxis to the Skytrain and tuk tuks.

More Buddhas

Tonight I’m heading off to Chiang Mai, a city known for its massage schools, cooking classes, and nearby mountains that are excellent for hikes – a perfect place to relax for a while!

I hope everyone is doing well back at home!