It just so happens that I woke up at the beach the other day and the words, “What is Julie doing in Asia?” popped in my head. I had mentioned that I would be working in Thailand and I’m not. Later in the day at the beach I spoke on the phone with Pamela, who said that she had gotten together with a group of our mutual friends in New York the night before when someone asked, “What is Julie doing in Asia? Finding herself?”
Today is March 18th, the day I was SUPPOSED to go back to the United States before I extended my ticket. The original precursor for the extension was “working” or volunteerism. The former ambassador to Thailand worked at the think tank in Washington, DC where I was interning and he helped me get a connection with an NGO here. My first conversation with the director of the IRC in Bangkok was promising. He said, “I have three different opportunities lined up for you. But how long are you staying? A month at each place would be ideal.” “Oh, I better extend my ticket,” we both agreed.
We planned to talk over the details in Chiang Mai. But once I got there, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that he was avoiding me, not returning my calls, and when I saw him at the night market he avoided looking at me and treated me with suspicion. (Really! It’s true! I’m not just being a drama queen, and by the way, there also was really a dead body floating in the Mekong river next to our slow boat, to answer a couple of your doubts.)
When I eventually spoke to the director of the NGO, he spoke about unforeseen bureaucracy, messy politics with their partner organizations. He said I could wait indefinitely for a meeting to happen between some NGO directors who were then out of town, but I told him that I wuzn’t gunna stick around to wait for something that might never happen. So instead I’ve just been embracing my life as a traveler.
One of the things I liked best about my time in Nicaragua while serving in the Peace Corps was hanging out with kids, climbing trees, picking fruit, dancing, singing, and spending time outside. In Laos one evening I was sitting at a wat (temple) when a girl sat down next to me and began to give me travel advice since she seemed to have been everywhere in the world. Her mother was home schooling her for a year abroad. She was having an alternative 7th grade: instead of spending an awkward year of middle school in New Mexico, she was spending it in The Middle East, Europe, and Asia. She was one of the wisest 12 year olds, or people of any age, that I have ever met.
Today is March 18th, the day I was SUPPOSED to go back to the United States before I extended my ticket. The original precursor for the extension was “working” or volunteerism. The former ambassador to Thailand worked at the think tank in Washington, DC where I was interning and he helped me get a connection with an NGO here. My first conversation with the director of the IRC in Bangkok was promising. He said, “I have three different opportunities lined up for you. But how long are you staying? A month at each place would be ideal.” “Oh, I better extend my ticket,” we both agreed.
We planned to talk over the details in Chiang Mai. But once I got there, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that he was avoiding me, not returning my calls, and when I saw him at the night market he avoided looking at me and treated me with suspicion. (Really! It’s true! I’m not just being a drama queen, and by the way, there also was really a dead body floating in the Mekong river next to our slow boat, to answer a couple of your doubts.)
When I eventually spoke to the director of the NGO, he spoke about unforeseen bureaucracy, messy politics with their partner organizations. He said I could wait indefinitely for a meeting to happen between some NGO directors who were then out of town, but I told him that I wuzn’t gunna stick around to wait for something that might never happen. So instead I’ve just been embracing my life as a traveler.
One of the things I liked best about my time in Nicaragua while serving in the Peace Corps was hanging out with kids, climbing trees, picking fruit, dancing, singing, and spending time outside. In Laos one evening I was sitting at a wat (temple) when a girl sat down next to me and began to give me travel advice since she seemed to have been everywhere in the world. Her mother was home schooling her for a year abroad. She was having an alternative 7th grade: instead of spending an awkward year of middle school in New Mexico, she was spending it in The Middle East, Europe, and Asia. She was one of the wisest 12 year olds, or people of any age, that I have ever met.
She was also a helluvalot of fun to spend time with. We climbed many a tree, enlisted some Laotian kids to have a contest on the street of who could jump the farthest. These were the kids who had previously been trying to sell us things and Bela made them put down their souvenirs to play for a little bit. She encouraged me to conquer my adult fears and do the tarzan swing into the beautiful water falls. (I sucked at it and only worked up the courage to do it once instead of repeatedly like her and her mom) Everyone needs a Bela in their lives, I think.
After coming back from Laos, I spent a bit too much time in the noisy city of Bangkok. My friend from New York, Molly, came to visit me for the Jewish holiday of Purim to try my cousin’s hamantashen. They were quite interesting varieties of the triangular cookies with exotic filling like orange peel, dates and golden raisins. Molly and I went to the beach afterwards, and I have been island hopping since, at Koh Phangan, Koh Tao, and Koh Sammet. My friend Manali who I met in Laos was taking a diving course at Koh Tao and I went to go meet her there. We went snorkeling at “Sharks bay” where you actually see little sharks pass you by under the water. “They’re nice sharks,” they reassured me, and I took their word for it. When the motorboat picked us up to bring us back to the less pristine beach where we were staying, there was a German dude in it who had just been diving and saw an actual whale shark! I felt the excitement of my former first grade students from the inner cities of Brooklyn, asking questions about the baleen in this harmless whale’s mouth that filters through the ocean water for food. I couldn’t believe that he had just seen a real one instead of just a picture in a book!
Another great thing about this whole travel bit is getting to know people from different countries who I’d never otherwise bond with. I met a Pakistani guy on the ferry ride to Koh Phangan whose father had been in the army his whole life. He had never finished an entire grade growing up in the same school because he moved around so much. He didn’t realize that I was Jewish until the middle of our dinner conversation that night, but he took it well and told me that I was the fifth Jew he had ever met (the rest of them were other people from this trip to Thailand.) Before leaving the island, I gave him a bottle of Israeli wine that my cousin’s rabbi had given to us as a gift at Purim. He said that he had never tried wine before (he drank beer and other alcohol -- I wasn’t trying to pervert the poor fellow and he was happy to try it, even though Muslims aren’t supposed to drink.) I thought it was cool that the first wine he ever tasted would be Israeli kosher wine with Hebrew letters printed on it.
My Swiss friend who I had met on the train in India just lent me the book Shantaram, which has been occupying my days recently. It’s an obsession, actually. Anyone who’s read it understands what I mean. That book is amazing. It makes me really excited to go back to India and try to surrender to the madness a little more. Thailand was a very easy country to get around in, well- mapped out for a tourist. India is not. Since I had my extended trip in Asia to fill with non-volunteerism, I bought a return ticket to go to India again and try myself out to see how much I could surrender this time around.
My first stop after flying into the city of Calcutta will be a good test: we’re taking a train to Varanasi from the airport where cremations take place along the Ganges, and I heard that anything could happen. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Another great thing about this whole travel bit is getting to know people from different countries who I’d never otherwise bond with. I met a Pakistani guy on the ferry ride to Koh Phangan whose father had been in the army his whole life. He had never finished an entire grade growing up in the same school because he moved around so much. He didn’t realize that I was Jewish until the middle of our dinner conversation that night, but he took it well and told me that I was the fifth Jew he had ever met (the rest of them were other people from this trip to Thailand.) Before leaving the island, I gave him a bottle of Israeli wine that my cousin’s rabbi had given to us as a gift at Purim. He said that he had never tried wine before (he drank beer and other alcohol -- I wasn’t trying to pervert the poor fellow and he was happy to try it, even though Muslims aren’t supposed to drink.) I thought it was cool that the first wine he ever tasted would be Israeli kosher wine with Hebrew letters printed on it.
My Swiss friend who I had met on the train in India just lent me the book Shantaram, which has been occupying my days recently. It’s an obsession, actually. Anyone who’s read it understands what I mean. That book is amazing. It makes me really excited to go back to India and try to surrender to the madness a little more. Thailand was a very easy country to get around in, well- mapped out for a tourist. India is not. Since I had my extended trip in Asia to fill with non-volunteerism, I bought a return ticket to go to India again and try myself out to see how much I could surrender this time around.
My first stop after flying into the city of Calcutta will be a good test: we’re taking a train to Varanasi from the airport where cremations take place along the Ganges, and I heard that anything could happen. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Take care of Ben. He owes me money.
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