The only thing to worry about now was scheduling meals for all the comfort foods we’d been dearly missing. As much as we love and missed our family and friends, so many of our homecoming fantasies centered on the renewed availability of fresh, clean, American cuisine. We had a timeline all planned out and immediately got to checking things off on Thanksgiving the next day. Mmmm. Home for the holidays.

As we cool things down from constant traveling and ramp things up on the job trail, we’re taking this time to reflect and reconnect with friends. We’re really glad to have met up with many of you already. Ann Arbor keeps calling us back, so we have been taking any excuse to get down there. The annual Friars concert brought us in to give Nick and Julie a proper, sorely belated cheers on their 21st birthdays. And Katie’s family helped us make sure Zingerman’s sandwiches still taste as marvelous as they are expensive. South campus is almost completely unrecognizable from our tenure; the last time we were in the Big House was over two years ago, so seeing its transformation from modest steel to massive brick was striking.

But mostly we’ve spent a lot of time at home, alternately relaxing and stressing over the uncertainty of our future. For so long we worked off an itinerary—or at least a flight schedule—that the open-endedness now facing us feels a little foreign. But wherever it takes us next, we’re excited to begin the next chapter of Our Blue Life.

Also, you may have noticed the website is a little revamped. (I apologize if there are any glitches; it looks best in Firefox.) There are a few improvements, like nice, high-quality photos that you can now comment on individually and an ostensibly better overall look and feel. I started the design from scratch back in Korea, and we’re re-launching the site now to coincide with one journey just completed and another just begun.

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon—do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your heart does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive here is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let if last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would never have set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

—Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933)

When Doctor Sanjay Gupta (not that Sanjay Gupta, but apparently a distant relative) paid us a house call in the morning, he suggested we immediately check into the hospital. Which is how I found myself in the intensive care unit, hooked up to an IV drip (for severe dehydration), all sorts of wires and machines (x-rays, EKG, etc.) and surrounded by about twenty nurses who gawked at this crazy foreigner who couldn’t handle India.

The night-shift nurse, in particular, took quite a liking to me and I felt like I was getting a bit more attention than everyone else in the ward. He literally spent the entire night next to my bed, shaking me every once in awhile to ask in broken English if I was sleeping and if I needed anything. For the record, yes, I was sleeping; and no, I’m fine. Just as fine as I was when you checked twenty minutes ago. When Greg came to visit in the morning, this nurse mysteriously disappeared, but promptly returned after visiting hours were over to ask if he could take my picture (hospital gown and all) and to give me his phone number, telling me to contact him if I was ever in Delhi. Despite centuries of colonial rule and contact with the West, foreigners are still a bit of a novelty in some places.

After one day in the ICU, I was feeling much stronger so they moved me to a regular private room where, thankfully, Greg could stay too. But it would be two more days of bad hospital food, comical miscommunication, and a futile search for soap before we could leave. Three days in an Indian hospital.

Ajmer

When we finally broke out of there we had an auto-rickshaw drop us off in the center of Ajmer and then commenced the long and arduous search for a place to sleep. There weren’t many options available, so we finally settled on a cheapie called Hotel Lovely—which was decidedly not. And while we were in no mood to be picky, we were a bit concerned about the basic cleanliness of the place, especially after the following exchange:

Us

“We’ll take the room, but we’d like the sheets changed please.”

Manager

“What’s wrong with the sheets?”

Us

“Oh….well…They’re dirty and have a few holes in them; we’d just feel better with a fresh set if that’s okay.”

Manager

“Fine, but we’ve had the same sheets on the bed for two weeks now and nobody else has complained!”

Ahhhh, India. Okay, so maybe things didn’t happen exactly like this, but it’s a pretty good approximation of our experience with Indian hotels. Our standards have fallen drastically in the fifteen months we’ve spent in Asia.

Not keen on spending a lot of time in the hotel room and badly in need of some decent food, we walked to the bus stand to catch a ride back to Pushkar for dinner. The thirty-minute ride took us back over the glowing hills and into the colorful town, while on the way there we met a family and played games with their two little girls, who had us in stitches with their giggles and toothless grins.

We would meet the family on the ride back when, by coincidence, we ended up on the same bus again. This time the little one had a newly shaved head (a religious practice for Hindus) and the older one was making light work of an ice cream cone. We chatted to the parents in English about our travels until the older girl—about six years old—popped up from her seat, pointed to my forehead where there should have been a bindi and exclaimed in sparkling English “You are not Hindi?!!”

I was so surprised to hear this clever little girl speaking in another language that I nearly fell out of my seat, but I didn’t have time before she jumped down and shimmied her way into the empty spot beside Greg. For the rest of the way, she and Greg chatted happily in English, discussing important topics like cartoons and ice cream flavors and generally ignoring me. This girl was obviously a bit smitten with my husband as she batted her eyelashes and flashed her toothless smile as if to say “That girl you’re with; you don’t need her. Look how cute I am.” But I’m used to this by now; Greg has already charmed the Mickey-Mouse-socks off of kids on two continents.

The next day was no different, either. At one point as we wandered the town of Ajmer, I left Greg with our backpacks for about twenty minutes to visit the local Sufi shrine. When I returned, I found him surrounded by a gaggle of boys, laughing and joking about boy things like cricket and Spiderman. While Greg went to explore the shrine for himself, I made friends with these kids and a few other curious, young onlookers who listened to everything I had to say and then tried to teach me some Hindi words, laughing at my clumsy tongue.

After the weekend we had in the hospital—and the disappointment we felt about not seeing more of Rajasthan—it was so nice to spend time with these kids. Ajmer didn’t have the spectacular sites of Jodhpur or Jaisalmer, but the people we met there were so kind and helpful that we were feeling much better about the world. The kids in particular were bright and inquisitive, and in the end just like kids anywhere else in the world: they don’t see difference as a bad thing, but merely an opportunity to learn, to ask questions, to explore, without letting a little thing like lacking a common language get in the way.

Agra

After two days in Ajmer, we resumed our travels by catching an early train to Agra, home to a big old white building that some guy built for this girl a while ago. I don’t remember what it’s name was, but we heard it might be worth checking out.

Actually, there’s not much one can explain about the Taj Mahal and it doesn’t need much explanation. It is simply magnificent. The world’s greatest building.

Delhi

And then finally, finally, finally we were in Delhi. The last stop—it’s almost unbelievable—on this adventure (and sometimes misadventure) that we’ve been on for fifteen months. Finally. All that was left now was to spend our last days exploring Delhi’s sprawling districts.

We wandered the tree-lined streets of GK-II, ate in an Italian restaurant, and then retreated into the relative quiet of our clean and comfortable guesthouse. Then the next day we lazed around Lodi Gardens, which is a little like Central Park, if Central Park had 15th-century Afghan tombs and bright green parrots everywhere. We grabbed an auto-rickshaw bound for teeming Old Delhi to catch sunset at India’s largest mosque and then ate some of the best chicken we’ve ever had in one of Chadni Chowk’s back-alley restaurants. Then it was time to head back. It took several hours, three different drivers, and a couple of threats (for good measure) to get us all the way from Old Delhi to GK-II.

It was a long journey, but not as long as the next one will be. We are going home.

Just when we thought we’ve seen it all in the airport department, we’re hit with two of the world’s worst on the same flight. Leaving Kathmandu, we passed the ordinary X-ray security procedure—separated by gender of course; “his and hers” metal detectors, if you will—only to find they were manually screening every pocket of every bag for every passenger. Needless to say, this took a long time, but was no biggie for us since our flight was almost two hours delayed anyway. The worst, though, was lining up on the tarmac when our bags were thoroughly checked again before boarding. All this for a measly 30-minute flight.

Varanasi Airport turned out to be even worse. As the passengers from our large A320 jet lined up with their standard H1N1 forms, we were met with the full brunt of the Indian bureaucracy. Too cramped to properly queue, we had no less than five checkpoints to clear (along for a weak excuse for a baggage conveyor and customs inspection) in a space not much larger than my parents’ living room. The new terminal under construction next door is sorely needed, but it looks like they’re using red tape instead of concrete.

Varanasi बनारस

Once we did finally get to Varanasi, there was no denying we had arrived in India. With bicycles cruising all around, cows roaming the streets, and the alternating smells of curry and sewage in the air, we had made it to the country where two ancient religions were born and to the city where its people come to die. Early the next morning, as we were paddled down the holy Ganges river, we saw hundred crowd its banks to pray, bathe, dump garbage, do laundry, and cremate their relatives. If this water was indeed purifying, it could only be in the spiritual sense—your couldn’t pay me to swim there, let alone drink a glass of the stuff.

It was particularly chilling to see bones and larger bits of human remains bobbing in our wake, silhouetted against the sunrise. Before coming here, I imagined something more akin to scattering ashes at sea than the waterlogged human barbecue that left us feeling a little sick. Thank Brahma for that sunrise, then, because only something that beautiful could keep our minds and stomachs at ease. The warm glow slowly bathed the long line of ghats as people crowded their massive front steps for a dip and boatloads of spectators floated by under power of men whose size clearly belies their strength. Drifting along, we found each ghat clearly distinct in its color and style, but all had people who impressed us with the intensity of their devotion. From skinny young children to skinny old men, everyone prayed and bathed with a deep spiritual intensity that made you both remember and forget what lied beneath the surface.

Khajuraho खजुराहो

Escaping the crowds, touts, and chaos of Varanasi was a welcome change in Khajuraho. It’s a small village in population and in size, which allowed us to wander freely amidst its eleventh-century Hindu temples. Here, it’s clear where the Khmers got their inspiration for Angkor. But while they went all out in terms of size, the Indians put into their carved decorations a level of detail that goes way beyond anything else we’ve seen. Although it was a bit odd to see the kamasutra laid out in such explicit relief all over these holy buildings. Somehow, we couldn’t picture the same on a Catholic church.

After an excellent all-you-can-eat thali—Indian cuisine is giving Chinese a run for its money—we befriended a couple schoolboys who showed us around town for a bit in exchange for a little language practice. As far as we’ve traveled, we’re still surprised at the level of English people can pick up just by chit-chatting with tourists, so we were glad to hold up our end of the deal.

Orchha ओरछा

We didn’t want to pony up for a taxi, so we took a public bus North to Orchha and almost missed our stop trying to get our bags out and off, the thing was so crowded with passengers and cargo. We had enough time to take in a couple Mahals and get a bird’s-eye view of a huge temple with a serious avian infestation. It had your standard pigeons, of course, plus an owl of two, but also dozens of bright green parrots and a handful of real, live vultures. The key-keeper was happy to show us around for a few rupees, and to throw rocks to get those big birds to fly. Though he had good posture, he kind of reminded me of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, opening locks and beckoning us ever higher (“C’mon! This way!”) in his own little cathedral.

Jaipur जयपुर and Pushkar पुष्कर

Jaipur may be known as the pink city, but to us it seemed a little more like burnt sienna. Getting there gave us our first glimpse of India’s rail network, and we found it pretty nice in our cushy 3-tier air-conditioned carriage. But given the speed of these trains—more tortoise than hare—and the distance they cover, we couldn’t imagine spending twenty hours or more back on the second-class hard seats. Gratefully, we arrived less than two hours behind schedule, which is pretty good from what we’ve heard.

Unfortunately, our arrival coincided with a minor weather system to our South, which dampened our visit for a couple days, but not before we were about to get out and see a couple palaces, at least. Katie also came to the marvelous realization that anise seeds, coupled with rock sugar, have a taste exactly like her favorite Good ‘N Plenty. And ever since, she’s been unusually excited after meals when they bring out trays of the green stuff and a small spoon which may or may not have ever been washed.

Further into Rajasthan, we paid visit to Pushkar, home to a beautiful and formerly wet lake. Recent years of drought have left the lakebed completely dry, save for the ghats’ holy (hose-fed) ponds. That hasn’t deterred visitors, though, who come to Pushkar seeking a little enlightenment in its temples and lax marijuana laws. For a nominal fee, a brahmin was happy to lead us through the ritual prayers that were supped to give us good luck and fortune in the future.

Given what happened in the next few hours, we want our money back.

Down from the border

But lets go back to the beginning; how did we get here? Our last night in Tibet was spent in Zhangmu, a small border town clinging to the side of a hill (a mountain really, but in comparison…). The town is not so much at the border, as on top of it, looking out over a vast gorge, Tibet on the left and Nepal on the right. For us, it was reminiscent of Sapa and its easy to imagine how the H’mong people we met in Vietnam and Northern Thailand originally called this place home.

In the morning we hopped into our Land Cruiser and descended the final few hundred meters to the Friendship bridge-the official border crossing between China and Nepal. While we handed over the last of our US dollars in cash for our last Visa ( we already had one for India) we said goodbye to Tashi and hello to Raj, who was going to take us to Kathmandu.

From Kodari (in Nepal) it was another four hour drive into the Kathmandu valley. I found myself plastered to the window while we drove up and down green hills with the ghostly white peaks of the HImalayas floating in the distance. In Tibet, it was difficult to comprehend just how big these mountains are; as humbling as it was staring Everest in the face, when you are already 5,000m high an 8,000m mountain hardly looks like a record-breaker. But down here these peaks reveal their true selves: epic, colossal,monstrous, magnificent.

Kathmandu

Upon arriving in Kathmandu, we checked into a lovely hotel in the busy Thamel district and then we were out for the night. This has become a routine for us on the last leg of the trip: check-in and crash. The next morning, perhaps because we slept so much the day before—or maybe because of the 2 hour and 15 minute (?!) time difference with Tibet—we were up bright and early. We ate our breakfast in the hotel’s garden which provided a quiet respite from the chaos already swirling around us. While clogged alleyways, swerving motorcycles, and traffic pollution were largely absent from our lives in Tibet, down in Kathmandu the kamikaze motorists were back with a vengeance. All we could do was hug the closest wall and try to stay out of the way.

Despite the traffic, Kathmandu is a remarkable city. Whatever you might think it is or expect it to be, it’s not that. Instead it reveals itself as a nonsensical potpourri of disparate geographies and time periods: sometimes we imagined it like 1930s New York, and sometimes like Elizabethan England with the brick townhouses and wooden beams. At other times it felt purely Indian: all rose petals and marigold garlands, saffron and turmeric, ritual and chaos. There is a shrine, stupa, or statue to Buddha, Ganesh or Vishnu in every courtyard. Cows wander everywhere like they know they’re holy. Orange clad sadhus—devotees of Shiva—squat in narrow doorways, from which the throbbing rhythms of tabla drift and reverberate someplace between your gut and your heart.

But then there is the cool Himalayan wind that scatters the prayers of Buddhist flags in every direction. And those looming mountains again. And you remember that this is Nepal—like no place else on earth. We may have arrived with no idea what to expect, but when we left Nepal after only a few days it certainly left us with a strong impression.

Chengdu

14237But before arriving in Tibet, we had to stop in Chengdu to pick up the necessary paperwork for our flight. Our day spent there can be pretty much summed up as follows: pandas, pandas, Sofitel, pandas.

Lhasa region

13629The Chinese government requires all foreign travelers in Tibet to be part of a tour group, even if that group has only one member. Ours had three and came with a driver and guide to show us the way (and handle the endless paperwork, required for every place we visited).

Our first several days in Tibet can be best described as a monastery-a-thon that got us up to speed on Tibetan buddhism. The temples here could not be more different from those we saw in Southeast Asia; the only thing they have in common is a reverence for Buddha himself. The Tibetans have taken that concept and applied it to the hundreds of lamas, kings, protector demons, and “other” buddhas to make their chapels incomparable with those elsewhere. Marco Polo—in his 13th-century wisdom—called these people “idolators”, and we can almost see why. Each monastery is adorned with thousands of statues, murals, and paintings to which pilgrims offer alms of money, grain, and especially yak butter in hopes of good fortune. The yak butter candles, mixed with incense, create a unique smell we won’t soon forget.

In many ways, yak butter is is the Tibetan’s all-purpose duct tape; It can be purchased anywhere (and in bulk) at all hours of the day, serving as a source of food, fuel, and spiritual devotion, as well as an industrial building material. Okay, so maybe nobody eats or worships with duct tape, which just means yak butter is even more versatile. Before concrete, the traditional way of leveling and sealing Tibetan floors was (and in some places, still is) a rhythmic dance of pounding sand and gravel flat while singing together with a dozen others. Yak butter is the secret ingredient: they pile on 6 inches of the stuff and let it soak in for the final seal. To this day, rookie monks are hard at work maintaining theses floors, which ironically involves scraping off drips of yak butter left behind by pilgrims, who move quickly from one image to the next with their thermoses of the melted good stuff.

In the chapels, one image notably absent is any of the current, 14th Dalai Lama. In His Holiness’ place on thrones and in shrines is a painting of Compassion Buddha, of whom the Tibetans believe he is a manifestation. We frequently felt grateful and guilty to have seen him speak in person on campus a couple years ago, while these devout people have been waiting 40 years to hear what he has to say. With this prohibition, countless security cameras, and—reportedly—spies dressed as pilgrims, it’s clear the government is still keeping a close watch on the Tibetans. Our guide, though, was willing to discuss politics with us in the safety of our Land Cruiser and shared how several of his friends have been imprisoned for even the appearance of protest.

The Friendship Highway

13857As we broke out of the Lhasa region and into the Himalayas, we had a lot of time on the open road, and were often thankful to be equipped with such a large SUV given the condition of some mountain passes. If there’s one place in the world where such a vehicle is appropriate it is here, and almost every truck we saw was the same make and model. I would wager that Toyota sells more Land Cruisers here than even in America. In Tibet, it seems, you have two choices: Land Cruiser or pony-cart.

Given the altitude, we were expecting a few more snow-capped peaks, but unlike on the Karakoram Highway, here you really do drive over the mountains. At first, altitude sickness was less of a problem than the surprising difficulty of even the simplest physical feats like walking up half a flight of stairs. Climbing onto the roofs of monasteries and up hills on the high mountain passes left us breathless in more ways than one.

Until day 8, when we broke 5000 m (about 16,400 ft), and Sandra—the Swedish third member of our group—succumbed to a nasty bout of altitude sickness. Dizzy, vomiting, and miserable, she had to be taken down to the Nepali border in the dead of night. That morning, she was completely fine and we were all convinced that Acute Mountain Sickness was a psychological problem, but by that afternoon we were pulling over frequently and it was clear Sandra wasn’t going to make it any higher. Our guide and driver rushed her to the nearest hospital (which wasn’t exactly around the corner), and after consulting with doctors and her family in Sweden, they decided to put her on oxygen and get her down as quickly as possible. We waited the next day for news of her condition, agonizing over every stomach grumble or twinge of headache and worrying if we ourselves would be able to continue on to Everest Base Camp the following day.

Everest

14127Any nerves we had about climbing higher were immediately erase when we caught our first glimpse of Qomolangma—the highest point on Earth—early the next morning. Swerving up and over one more mountain pass, suddenly we had five of the world’s tallest peaks staring us in the face, all over 8000 m in height, covered in ice, and glistening in the morning sun. It’s a good thing we had a fresh memory card, because our camera’s shutter button was down almost continuously over the next several hours. At 5200 m, we didn’t think our lungs had any more air to give, but that view honestly took our breath away.

Our driver earned his dues on the “road” leading to the foot of Everest, but we decided to hike the last several kilometers from Rongbuk Monastery up to Base Camp. We didn’t know what to expect when we got there; part of me envisioned it like a ski lodge with hot chocolate and marshmallows, and part of me thought it would be a tourist trap with tons of postcard vendors and souvenir stalls. Both parts were dead wrong. Gasping for air—this high, the air pressure is barely half that of sea level— we discovered that Base Camp wasn’t much of a camp at all; the place was completely deserted, in fact, and dead silent save for the flapping of prayer flags in the wind. In late spring, the area is packed with tents as climbers—and their guides and cooks and doctors and Sherpas and yaks and yak tenders—make ready to mount an expedition. By Halloween, no one was around to appreciate the landscape except the government officers ensuring our papers were in order and checking our sleeves for Tibetan flags. If not for the wind and the cold, we could have stood there all day, gazing in awe of the most fierce place on Earth.

In many ways, everything was downhill from there. As we eased down the Himalayan valleys towards the Nepali border, the ice melted and tress sprung up again. The air got thicker and, reinvigorated, we felt maybe strong enough to run a marathon and definitely ready for our home stretch on the Indian subcontinent.

Urumqi—the capital of Xinjiang—has made it into the international news lately (The New York Times is, oddly, not blocked by China’s firewall) because of riots that have broken out between the Uighurs—who have called Xinjiang home since before Kublai Khan—and the newly arrived Han Chinese—who are bussed in by the thousands and are generally viewed as an occupying force. When we finally made it to Kashgar, the reality of the situation in Xinjiang became clear: Every few hours, green army tanks would roll through the streets filled with glaring Han soldiers and their assault rifles, while men driving ox- and donkey-carts followed at a safe distance. When the trucks passed, additional troupes of soldiers would march by and Uighur men would stop and stare apprehensively, probably knowing that dozens of men and children have disappeared from Xinjiang in the last few months. But they only know what trickles through by word-of-mouth. There is no internet in Xinjiang, we were told: the government shut it off months ago.

Indeed, the Party’s enforcement of its world view is absolute in Xinjiang. For example, Beijing’s single timezone policy extends to all its borders, even to Kashgar 4000 kilometers from the capital. And the government has had some success taming the clouds lately, they can’t move the sun; 9 a.m. in Kashgar is still as black as midnight.

The Karakoram Highway شاہراہ قراقرم 中巴公路

13205China is often baffling, infuriating, and frustrating, but it is also fascinating in it utter vastness. Growing tired of all things Han Chinese (military procession, propaganda posters, internet firewalls, false benevolence) we decided to get as far away from it all as we could while still remaining within China’s borders. So on our first full day in Kashgar we hired a taxi to take us 200 km over the Pamir Plateau on the Karakoram Highway, heading toward Pakistan and some of the most desolate and stunning landscapes we have ever seen.

This piece of Earth is just unbelievably, jaw-droppingly beautiful. We often wondered if we had somehow landed on the moon as we gazed over rocky terrain, sand dunes, and sky high craggy peaks. If you had told us this was the Sea of Tranquility rather than the Karakorams, we might have believed you until we passed the earth and rock homes that dotted the roadside, looking like they had been ripped from newspaper photographs of some war-torn Central Asian country.

About four hours after leaving Kashgar, we finally made it to our destination: Karakul Lake, a shimmering alpine lake at the foot of 7,546-meter-high Muztagh Ata. We spent the late afternoon and early evening hiking around the lake’s clear, icy waters before camping out with a Kyrgyz family who filled our stomachs with yak milk tea and then buried us beneath a mountain of blankets.

All those blankets it turned out, were entirely necessary, as the yak dung burned out in the stove and the temperature plummeted. But there were about a million stars outside our window and the cold made everything still—so quiet and peaceful.

At dawn (10 a.m. Beijing time), we awoke to the rising sun and the sounds of mountain life stirring: rooster crows, yak growls, and people beginning the business of the day. Emerging from the yurt, we were greeted with a scene that was even more beautiful than we remembered from the day before, as if that was possible. The sun, still low in the sky, bathed everything in a warm yellow glow while a fresh layer of snow and ice glittered on the peaks above us.

After breakfast (more yak milk tea and frozen bread), we said our goodbyes and climbed back in our little green taxi. It was bittersweet, leaving. We were dirty, exhausted and freezing cold, but we felt alive and so thankful to have seen this place. Perhaps only a few times in an entire life does one get to experience something like this, something so monumental, so spectacular that it touches your soul: evidence of work by the hand of God.

Kashgar قەشقەر 喀什

13359Returning to Kashgar, it was easy to imagine how Marco Polo passed through here on his way down the silk roads. In some places it probably doesn’t look, feel, taste, or smell much different than it did 800 years ago. People still live in earthen homes or ger tents, they make their living shepherding sheep, goats and yaks, and—yes— many still travel the region on the backs of camels. This is a place that I thought only existed in my imagination, the mysterious nothingness of Central Asia, and yet here it was: the end of the earth, except that it really is the center.

Unfortunately, like elsewhere in China, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has done its very best to demolish the culture of the Uighurs. Old homes, markets, and mosques are often labeled “cultural relics”, a linguistic maneuver that dismisses the living history of these places and buries them (literally) beneath the “progress” of a unified China.

Yet the CCP has not been entirely successful in its attempts, often violent, to enforce conformity. For now, there is a fragile peace within which the Central Asian culture of Xinjiang still flourishes. Here, the people hold fast to their way of life and especially their languages: Uighur, Kazakh, Tajik, and Kyrgyz. Stepping into the old neighborhoods can feel like stepping into a page from Aladdin and the Forty Thieves and the livestock and sunday markets still teem with humanity buying everything under the sun—from carpets to cows—just as they have for a thousand years.

Perhaps we are just trying to rationalize our own invasion of these places (camera in hand), but we hope that for all its flaws, tourism might save Kashgar and other cities like it from the bulldozers and the bullets. But if not, we are grateful to have seen it while we could.

Yangshuo 阳朔县

12985Having already seen Shanghai and Beijing, this time around we started in the more rural Yangshuo are, which is famous for its natural beauty. The innumerable limestone karsts here have featured prominently in Chinese art for millennia, and we found the foggy landscape along the Li river breathtaking at every turn. Before starting our lazy river cruise we did have one more bus-related incident, although this one was more about saving face than saving skin. Road workers—seeing perfectly well that our bus was passing—decided to dump a huge pile of boulders directly in our path, which led to about 45 minutes of angry Mandarin yelling and most of the passengers choosing to walk the last several kilometers. Finally, reason prevailed and they allowed the bus and lots of backed-up traffic to pass.

Most of our travels find us climbing something, and Yangshuo was no exception. Near our hotel, on of the karsts had formed a natural arch the locals call Yuèliàng Shān (月亮山) or Moon Hill. What’s another 1300 steps between friends? We hadn’t had our fill of cycling yet, either, so the following day we embarked on what would become our second, even more epic inadvertent ride of this trip. Our goal was to head downriver to the small town of Fuli, where Chinese fans are hand-painted the old fashioned way and exported to the world. We did finally make it there, but only after uncountably many wrong turns and bad directions along the way. What’s more, we only had about an hour of daylight left for the ride back (it had taken us nearly seven to get there). With renewed resolve and endurance we didn’t know we had, we made good time over the last 25 kilometers despite only the occasional headlight to guide us towards the end. Once again, the sights en route were worth the pain, as we got a real glimpse into rural Chinese life—a view of this country invisible from Beijing and Shanghai.

Xian 西安

13123Our next stop was the central-Chinese city of Xian, which was once the imperial capital, but is today the thoroughly modern, third-largest metropolis in China. But what brought us here (and thousands more) was the famous army of terracotta warriors, dating back to the third century B.C. and one eternally paranoid First Emperor. The Discovery Channel had taught us that each soldier was unique—down to the tread of their shoes—and on site we learned that the army provides a study of ancient military tactics. This crazy Qin Shi Huang even had terracotta reserve forces on hand for when the front lines went down in the ethereal fracas. Historians were not kind to this guy, so the most grandiose tomb outside Giza went completely unknown until some peasants decided to dig a well in 1974. I’m not sure where archaeology fit in with Mao’s Great Leap Forward…

The city of Xian itself provided a few interesting experiences, including a chance bus ride with a very eager Chinese man who filled us in on his life story and career plans in America. We weren’t sure of his motives at first—traveling has made us cynical—but it was interesting listening to how he chose a second child over his government job and had taken a young American under his wing in exchange for help learning English. Th the last stop, we finally got a word in to say goodbye and wish him luck on his five-point plan for making it in America.

Xian also boasts a vibrant community of muslim Chinese (the Hui), including on of the biggest mosques in China. We had a great time eating our way through the city’s muslim quarter, gorging on all sorts of breads, soups, noodles, pastries, and candies. We had to roll ourselves out of there, but it was cool to see a totally different side of Han China.

Luang Prabang

12333We know we are not the first people to say it, but Laos makes Cambodia look like a fully industrialized nation. While both countries are classified by the UN Development Index as “least developed nations,” Laos is clearly lagging behind with barely a handful of ATMs and not a single fast-food restaurant (as if the number of KFCs is an important indicator of economic progress). We found a more potent example of growth and development in the houses across Southeast Asia. The homes in Cambodia were ramshackle affairs, but most had metal roofs and televisions (powered by car battery), but in Laos we saw very little evidence of the slow rise of modernity outside the cities. Instead we found stilt houses with thatched roofs and not a hint of indoor plumbing or satellite dish.

Even the steady and inevitable encroachment of tourism is happening at a slower pace in Laos (their ancient capital doesn’t yet draw the same crowds as Siem Reap or Phnom Penh), although you wouldn’t know it walking the streets of Luang Prabang. It is a beautiful little town, but we kind of felt like it has turned into a UNESCO Disney version of what it probably once was. Perhaps it was how every house had a fresh coat of paint or how the streets were so clean and the gardens so well tended, we just felt altogether too comfortable there, like we had stepped onto the set of a French Colonial period film. Even the monks’ saffron robes seemed excessively bright and well laundered as they walked barefoot through the town collecting their morning alms.

That isn’t to say we didn’t enjoy Luang Prabang. It really does have some of the most beautiful and interesting architecture we’ve seen: vibrant tile mosaics, brightly painted elephants, golden nagas, and swooping eaves. The town also has one of the highest concentrations of working Wats anywhere in Southeast Asia and the number of monks wandering the streets nearly outnumber the number of tourists and locals.

We only had a few days in Northern Laos—not nearly enough—but we tried to make the best of it and soak in this country that often seems forgotten by the rest of the world. We wandered through Wats and floated down the Mekong. We watched the monks from our hotel balcony as they collected clumps of rice for their only meal early every morning. We pondered the legacy of the French as we ate baguettes and chocolate crepes at sidewalk stalls, and we watched the world drift by as we drank a toast to better luck in Laos. Beer Lao, of course.

Vientiane

12533A few days after our arrival in Laos, a tiny prop plane brought us down to Vientiane, the modern capital, for a quick stopover on our way down South. Vientiane, in contrast to everything else we’ve seen in this country, was a strong testament to the fact that, however slow change comes, no sleepy backwater, no quiet corner of the earth can resist it, not even in Laos. The oldest temple in town, Wat Si Saket, is less than 200 years old, a flash in the pan for a region that embraces the world’s oldest religions.

One side note: until now, we’d never met a city willing to disparage its own [not-quite-historical] landmarks so strongly; but a sign at the Victory Gate (Laos’ Arc de Triomphe) reads “From a closer distance, it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete.” Well, fair enough. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but we enjoyed the view of the city, and especially liked watching the young monks climb over each other to get a better look. It was a good day.

By nightfall however, we were on a sleeper bus headed for the southern province of Champasak. And when I say, “sleeper bus” I don’t just mean it runs at night. In place of seats, this bus was filled with about 12 sets of bunk beds. Think the night bus in Harry Potter, and the driver kind of drove like Stan Shunpike, too. This trip was to be a test of our nerve after our recent bad luck with buses and lets just say we failed miserably. Sharing a top bunk we could feel every small twist, turn and tiny bump in the road. Tears were shed, prayers were said and after many sleepless hours we finally arrived in Pakse.

Pakse and Champasak

12621We stumbled off the bus, groggy but relieved, and were met with the usual crowd of touts and scammers as well as gray skies and a light drizzle. Our plan had us continuing on to the tiny town of Champasak, even further down the Mekong, and so we began the long and arduous process of haggling for information. The thing with these communist-cum-capitalist countries is that sometimes it is difficult to get directions without the person expecting something in return. Generally, nobody knows which way is north or whether you should turn right or left to get where you are going, but they are always willing to take you there for ten times the fair price. In Asia, there is no such thing as free information. Finally after spending about three hours standing in the rain trying to figure out where we were, where we were going, what time we would get there, and how much it would cost, we gave up.

And its a good thing we did because about 12 hours later, the weakened-but-not-beaten remnants of Typhoon Ketsana made landfall in Da Nang almost directly to our east. A few hours after that it was in southern Laos. We spent the next 36 hours holed up in our hotel room, eating junk food and watching old episodes of The West Wing. Kind of like a vacation from our vacation. I guess we could have done the same thing in Champasak, but at least in Pakse we had air conditioning and CNN.

When there was finally a break in the rain, we were able to do a little sightseeing, taking a songthaew out to see a local tea plantation and walking perilously close to the edge of Tad Yeung waterfall. We did eventually make to Champasak, but we’re glad we only stayed one night at the $3 hotel we found. It was fun, though, to get back on a motorcycle for a ride out to see the pre-Angkor ruins at Wat Phu, although my feet and some giant red spider-ants would have been happier if we’d stuck around town. Ah, the curse of the Khmers strikes again.

For his birthday, Greg decided that all he wanted was a return to semi-civilization so we took off early for Thailand. The border city of UBON Ratchatani greeted us with a warm bed and plenty of 7-11 franchises before our flight into Bangkok.

Bangkok

Back at Christmas, we spent a wonderful week with my family on the beaches of Southern Thailand. This time our itinerary had us visiting two cities in the north: Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

Somehow, we managed to miss Bangkok entirely on our first foray into Siam, but now we were ready to tackle it’s noisy, smoggy, crowded modern streets and maybe see a few palaces and wats for good measure.

12791On our first night there, we decided to take advantage of the mostly-developed world and took a taxi out to Siam Square to catch a movie. Siam Plaza felt much less like being back home than being back in Korea, with it’s multileveled movie theatres, expensive designer stores, and vast gourmet food court in the basement, but we had a good night sitting in a dark theater, watching the latest from Hollywood and sipping on a jumbo-sized diet coke.

And just in case you don’t believe catching a flick in a shopping mall is a cultural experience, consider this: in place of the usual “no cell phones, no talking” PSA before every movie, theaters in Thailand play the King’s anthem while everyone stands in tribute. This of course comes after all the previews for Thai horror movies and gory action flicks, and while our initial impulse was to scoff, it was actually a very moving piece. Images of smiling Thais harvesting rice, teaching children, tending to the sick, or carrying sandbags to the beaches of the Andaman flashed across the screen while a children’s choir sang the official hymn “We Love the King”. Propaganda perhaps, but beautifully executed, terribly effective propaganda.

The next day we did the grand tour of Bangkok’s major sites. First up was the impressive Wat Phraew Kaew with its emerald Buddha (stolen from the eponymous temple in Vientiane), and miniature scale Angkor Wat. Looking like someone dumped a gargantuan bag of sequins all over its walls, it was definitely one of the most colorful temples we’ve seen and while it shares similarities with other temples in Laos and Cambodia we appreciate the subtle stylistic differences between Wats across southeast Asia.

Next, we made our way through the Royal Palace, humming songs from “The King and I” and then ran down the road to Wat Pho to see the giant reclining Buddha. We’ve seen some big Buddhas before, but this one beats them all.

Heading for the water, we decided to take one of the river taxis to our next destination. We ended up getting off at the wrong stop, but everything turned out alright. We wandered through an amulet market where local taxi drivers buy good-luck charms to display in their windows and picked out one for ourselves (we need all the help we can get). Then we grabbed some food from a local stall (noodles with pork and a waffle sandwich) before making a beeline for the hotel pool.

Having had our fill of Wats and palaces, our second day in Bangkok was all about the modern city. Our first visit was to Jim Thompson’s house. To be honest, neither of us had any idea who Jim Thompson was before coming to Bangkok, but after learning of his interesting and tragic life, we were intrigued. Also, his traditional Thai house has one of the best collections of Thai art in the city.

After taking the official tour, we walked around the peaceful gardens for a bit, pondering what this place must have been like in the 1960s. Today, the urban jungle engulfs the little house in noise and smog, but forty years ago there was only forest and slow moving canals. It must have been a wonderful place.

The rest of our day was spent wandering rather aimlessly around the city. We visited a college campus and watched the uniformed students go to and from class. We rode the skytrain for an hour without any destination in mind. We ate ice cream and kebabs from whatever food stall we found along the way. We kept our eyes down and our pace brisk through the night market in the red light district and then walked down the famous (or infamous) Khao San Road on our way home. In the morning we had a plane to catch.

Chiang Mai

12897Almost unbelievable, we had made it to our last destination in Southeast Asia: Chiang Mai. After this there would be no more lazy river boat trips, no more colorful wats, no more nagas, no more coconut curries, fresh squeezed lemon juice, banana pancakes, juicy mangoes, tuk-tuks or motorbikes. We were particularly sad about this last fact, as the motorbike had become our preferred mode of transportation in Southeast Asia (it just felt safer than a bus). So after taking yet another day off to nurse a head cold, we jumped back on the bike and headed for the hills.

Of of the things left on our Southeast Asia to-do list was to swim beneath a waterfall; check. After that, we headed deeper into the jungle where the road quickly became narrow, uneven and unpaved. It was quite a test for Greg’s new motorcycle skills, but he did wonderfully until it started raining and the drive suddenly became a slow and messy mud fight. To get out of the rain, we stopped at a local coffee plantation for a quick pick me up and an even better view. It was absolutely stunning, perched on the hill side overlooking swaths of green jungle and rows of coffee plants.

The drive was worth it, though, because when the rain let up and we finally made it to the out-of-the-way Hmong village at the end of the road, it seemed like we were the only foreign visitors they had seen in weeks.

And with that, our six weeks in Southeast Asia were over and we were on our way back to the Middle Kingdom. But we did have one last bit of bad kharma before taking off: we missed our flight! Au revoir, Indochine!

Phnom Penh

11393History has not been kind to Cambodia. At the height of the French Colonial Period, Phnom Penh enjoyed its status as the ‘Pearl of Asia’ and around 500,000 people called the capitol city home. During the civil war in the 1970s, the population soared to over 2 million. But, in April 1975 when the Khmer Rouge took power, that number was reduced to none. The city became a ghost town as all its inhabitants were either murdered or forced into labour camps around the country. Today, however, the city is infused with the excitement of a whole generation born after year zero. The boulevards of Phnom Penh are broad and smooth, palaces and monuments gleam with fresh gold paint, shops are open and business is booming. In the evenings, public spaces pulse with music as throngs of people, young and old, dance to Thai pop, disco and the macarena and sidewalk restaurants are packed with laughing patrons, sitting in red plastic chairs, drinking Angkor beer by the barrel.

But the new energy of Phnom Penh belies a bloody history that is always just beneath the surface. Those years are written on the curved backs and lined faces of the elderly khmer. Bullet holes still decorate some buildings and every tuk tuk driver, who makes a living carting tourists to the security prisons and killing fields of the khmer rouge, can tell you stories about how his family survived the dark period—or didn’t—if only you would ask.

Kep and Kampot

11563In the South, we found a little escape in the abandoned French resort town of Kep, itself still slowly rebuilding. They don’t ship in white sand any more, but we did find paradise in a rustic, private hillside bungalow with only the lizards to keep us company (and the bugs at bay). We felt like the only foreigners in town, and enjoyed a nice day on a mostly deserted beach on nearby Rabbit Island, until the weather reminded us why most people plan their visits for the winter dry season.

The next day we were feeling adventurous so we rented a motorbike with a $5 deposit and a lie. Sure, we know how to drive a motorbike. Who doesn’t? We had an awesome day riding the 48km to and from Kampot and somehow made it back mostly in one piece. The only mishap happened when Katie got off the bike on the wrong side and ended up with a pretty bad burn on her leg from the exhaust pipe. Perhaps that was a warning shot.

After a few days of peace and quiet, it was time to flag down the bus back to Phnom Penh. High off the white knuckle thrill of not killing ourselves on the motorcycle, we should have expected the winds to change.

The crash

11811As with any developing country, there are certain things Cambodia lacks, and among them are quality roads and experienced bus drivers. One minute, we were enjoying the beautiful scenery, and the next we were upside down with our faces in the mud, a surge of adrenaline telling us to get the hell out in case the vehicle explodes. The bus had swerved right, then skidded left, and—despite our mental pleas—rolled over and slid a few hundred feet with its wheels in the air and roof in the ditch on the wrong side the road. Being inside was like something from a movie; I only remember looking down the aisle as the world turned around us, grabbing the armrest as firmly as possible, and wondering if and when it was all going to stop.

Apparently someone was looking out for us, as we and the rest of the passengers made it out mostly unharmed, including the small children sitting in front of us. The whole thing is even more amazing when you consider that nobody was using a seat belt, and the bus had only just missed hitting a line of trees head-on. The first few minutes of the aftermath were a frenzy of checking for injuries, searching for luggage, and trying to stay calm as we figured out how to proceed. My immediate instinct was to find the driver and punch him square in the face, but he was smartly out of sight. We have no doubt that if he had taken even a little caution in driving around the curves of that slippery, barely one-lane road we wouldn’t be still, weeks later, terrified of moving over 25 miles per hour.

The bus company (G.S.T. Express) told us the next day that if the driver wanted to “try again,” he could get back behind the wheel immediately; no extra training, safety notice, or public acknowledgment of any kind was forthcoming. Game Over: try again? We basically had to strong arm them into giving back the money we paid for our tickets and they seemed bewildered and annoyed that we would even ask about it. Their handling of our complaint, and the casual attitude of the other passengers—all Khmer—speak to the reality of living in the developing world: accidents like this are just a part of life in Cambodia. And it’s really no surprise, when we see vans piled with dozens of people inside and on top flying down terrible dirt roads at autobahn speeds. Our bus may have flipped, but we had it easy compared to what many people here face in their daily commutes. Get over it, white guy.

Battambang

11829Given our most recent experiences with local methods of transportation, we were quite pleased with our decision to shell out for a private car to take us to Battambang. We could and did ask the driver many times if he would kindly slow the f— down.

In Battambang (Cambodia’s second largest city), we spent a full day shaking off our recent misadventures. We visited some of the local Wats and pre-Angkorian ruins, wandered around rural backroads, met a few families who sold us yummy bamboo-cooked sticky rice and taught us how to wrap banana leaves, and befriended a couple of kids/temple guards who chatted happily with us and then tried to extort us for money.

Back in town, feeling like our luck had changed, we stopped in at the market as the vendors began closing down their stalls and made plans for dinner. After a good day in a new city we really felt much better about ourselves and the world. That is, until I fell into a hole a meter deep and sprained my ankle. C’est la vie.

Siem Reap and Angkor

11981Using my broomstick cane, it was a little difficult getting on and off the boat that took us across the Tonle Sap to Siem Reap. It’s the biggest lake in Southeast Asia and by the end of the rainy season it had tripled in size, engulfing much of the surrounding countryside. It was a bit odd keeping a lookout for errant branches as we passed full-size trees in their swim trunks ( sorry).

We couldn’t wait to see the ruins at Angkor—one of the most popular sights on the subcontinent—but first we had to stop at the nearest hospital for a quick X-ray. The Aussie in the bed next to mine had the same problem, so all we had to do was point and say “Same, Same” and we were out of there lickity-split. There must be some kind of sidewalk curse on this country, eh? I left with crutches and an ankle brace which made climbing on the crumbled temples difficult over the next few days, but thankfully we had a great place to stay in town.

A young guy named Sony runs the Golden Mango Inn, and to anyone reaching this blog from a Google search, we can’t recommend it highly enough. Sony is one of a few business owners we met on this trip who didn’t see us as walking dollar signs, and genuinely did his best to help make us comfortable. He not only advised and arranged drivers and guides for us, he personally drove us to the hospital when we arrived, free of charge (!). He mentioned on more than one occasion how seeing us together made him miss his girlfriend in Singapore and he frequently asked us how to improve his business, which stumped us since this place would have been a bargain at twice the price. I guess that’s where his crocodile breeding business on the side—or, more accurately, in the back—comes into play. (Seriously, he raises crocodiles in the backyard.) Too bad our airfare was nonrefundable, or we would have stayed another week or twelve.

Believe it or not, we didn’t just come to Siem Reap for the lovely hotel. Siem Reap is the base from which visitors explore the many temples of Angkor. We had four days to cover it all, but we probably could have spent a year and not seen everything there is to see. The star of the show is, of course, Angkor Wat, and as the largest religious building in the world it is impressive. But we were much more taken with some of the smaller, quieter, and less visited temples. Among our favorites were Pre Rup, Preah Khan and Ta Som.

Pre Rup was built in the same style as Angkor Wat, although it is actually much older. From afar, Pre Rup was underwhelming and sad; the temple is slowly wearing away with age, and it looked almost as if its ancient towers were melting in the intense afternoon heat. But as we got closer, the temple began to work its strange magic on us and as the sun sank low over the flooded plains of Angkor, we climbed the vertical stairs and felt the ominous and imposing regality of this place.

Preah Khan and Ta Som are two small temples losing the fight against time and gravity, the battle between nature and architecture. Like the more popular “Tomb Raider” temple, Ta Prohm, they are truly beautiful ruins, with massive strangler trees entwining themselves around piles of ancient sandstone blocks. The imagination runs wild in these haunted temples; they play tricks on the mind, and for a few hours we lost ourselves within the maze of narrow corridors while the mischievous faces of Apsara looked on.

Walking/hobbling over the aging temples of Angkor was a once in a lifetime experience; we are blessed to have seen them inside and out, but we couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for contributing to their deterioration. Clearly, tourism brings in a lot of money to help with preservation, but the tourists themselves can sometimes cause more harm than good. Nature and war are enough to contend with for these ruins without busloads of tour groups adding to the strain. We did our best to tread lightly (I, for one, only walked on one foot), but we wonder how this place will hold up in the years to come.