Generosity

I was in the outskirts of Medan, Indonesia, when I tried to make my way to my hotel by local transportation. They use these minivans and pack as many people into them, not unlike the micros in Nepal, and songthaews in Thailand.

I asked the driver in my slow ESL manner, “Medan downtown?” Confusion. “Medan center?” Nothing. Then the affirmative nod, “Medan, Medan!” OK, not too reassuring, but I think I’ll at least get closer to my destination. That’s why I allow for plenty of daylight to counter such uncertainties.

I hop aboard and interrogate the passengers, passing around the screenshot on my phone of the hotel and address. Some comments, some nods, some discussion. No English. I point toward my chest, then down toward the minivan transmission. “OK?”

One points yonder, “Taxi.”

I point to my pocket, “Expensive.” Yeah, but where’s the adventure in that? It would be the most direct, but my rule of thumb is private drivers usually cost at least 10x the public fare.

“Stay.” She uses the palm down, calm down gesture. All right I’m in good hands.

I receive some warm and knowing smiles during the ride. I’m guessing they’re wondering who the heck is this guy? They may have hypothesized poor Thai guy, looking down at my Thai massage school tote bag.

Suddenly, one of them said, “Come come!” Two university students in hijabs beckoned me to follow them off the bus. Ok ok. First rule of improv is to say yes.

I take out money and ask how much, but they proceed to pay for me. “No. No.” Smile. I’m exasperated. “How much? I pay!”

Ignoring me they quickly call over a tuk tuk from across the street. They haggle with the weathered driver, shove him some bills and tell me to get on. Wait! “How much? I pay. I pay!”

No. No. Smile.

I zoom off. It all happened too fast! I peer back to the smiling students. And they’re gone.

How generous they were to me. I reflected. If someone asked for directions in my country, I would help point out the way, tell them how much it would cost, but I wouldn’t go that far out of my way to pay for him!

Moments like these make me marvel at people’s generosity and how much I have yet to learn in this life.

A small exercise in gratitude

And keep on trucking!

As I embarrassingly scraped the cracked remnants of my half dozen eggs off the cold tiled floor under the unyielding glare of the clerks (no exchange policy FTW) at Canggu Deli, Bali, I felt pretty down. Small things like this can add up during travel. The mind seems to always need things to dwell on.

On the walk back to the apartment, I switched gears and started playing a game I like to call, “Complete the following: I am effing _______!!!”

-in Bali, Indonesia!!!
-surfing like a doggone n00b!!!
-on the effing internet!!!
-getting cash from a machine by shoving in a plastic card!!! And it works!!!
-using another plastic card to swipe for groceries!!! And it works yet again!!!
-using an effing kitchen to fire up a ribeye steak dinner!!! What what!?
-listening to a climbing podcast, Enormocast!!!
-walking around barefoot!!!
-wearing a skirt!!! (Refer back to “how to rock a skirt” entry and don’t look at me funny)
-reading from a rectangular device that holds over 300 books!!!
-writing blog posts on an effing cell phone!!!

Anyway, I could continue adding to this list of “mundane” miracles. I haven’t even mentioned the more substantial things like being thankful for health and loved ones, but you guys all know that 🙂

Cheers to the underappreciated little things.

PS read this awesome article that hits closer to home, literally.

How to rock a skirt

The brave day I broke my skirt virginity was July 11th, 2014.

Longyi are worn by at least 50% of the men in urban Myanmar, and around 90% in rural. They’re cylindrical garments tied into a bun below the belly button. The learning curve to tie it neatly was similar to that of a necktie. Quite hipster I might add. I don’t anticipate the prerequisite courage to don the garment beyond the confines of this country, so in the spirit of light backpacking, I’ll multipurpose it as any of the following:

1. Bedsheet
2. Blanket
3. Beach towel
4. Changing room
5. Pillowcase
6. Protective wrap around my backpack
7. Turban

And finally…

8. Baby sling

I’ll let you know if it works out 🙂

Make, Do

I’m a peculiar traveler. I try to exclusively engage in things that fall under these 2 categories:

1. Make.
2. Do.

This is the messenger bag I made.

Materials

Liner – Angry Birds bag I used for teaching at the rural Siem Reap school, Cambodia.

Outer layer – polka dotted 1 meter cloth from Ho Chi Minh City central market, Vietnam.

Side panels – table mats from Bangkok department store, Thailand.

Skills learned

Sewing by hand, particularly the backstitch (stronger).

Patience.

A benefit of slow travel is the relaxed time to do such ridiculous things 🙂

Just put yourself out there

In an episode of This American Life, a guy reported success in applying a “good guy discount” on his purchases. It goes “Hey, can you give me a good guy discount on these shoes? I mean, you’re a good guy, I’m a good guy, so can we work something out here?”
I haven’t acquired the linguistic flair to pull this off during my travels, but I’ve been able to get benefits using other playful means.

Show interest
I was thirsty for tea in Hanoi one night and saw that a tour office had hot water going. I went in, inquired about tours and enjoyed a couple cups. I learned more about the country, planned out travel routes, and I gave them hope that they’d sell me a tour. Everyone was happy (OK, maybe they weren’t that thrilled when I didn’t put down any dong, which is their fun currency name, not a euphemism for anything :).

Parlay
I’ve traveled slowly and have been able to eat at restaurants or stay at guest houses for multiple days at a time. By establishing a track record and some rapport, I’ve usually been able to express genuine gratitude for their services and receive great recommendations on additional things. For example, in Hoi An I went to the same lovely restaurant for multiple meals and the owner gave me recommendations on good beach spots and helped ask for discounts at a hotel for me.

Make a sincere effort
It literally pays to invest the energy to learn the language. At a Bangkok street food vendor, I rehearsed and delivered “how much does this cost?” Now having just learned the number system, I excitedly counted aloud on my fingers (nueng, saang, saam,..) trying to figure out what she just demanded. Then when I correctly gave her 80 baht she returned me 5! Effort = 5 baht saving! High five!

In our travels it’s easy to look and feel like walking dollar signs, especially in the tourist-dense areas. Instead of resigning to that status, I’ve found that it pays off to become likeable. Take the effort to make a human connection. You never know what you’ll get.

Clothing care

Unless you like traveling dirty, the issue with having just 3 sets of clothes is they require a lot of hands on TLC. This is my 3 part system (version 1.0) for keeping it all together.

Problem: Paying for laundry costs at least $1/kg (!?), and their turnover is usually >24hr. Not good enough.

Solution: Hand wash everyday. Usually that’s a pair of socks, boxers, and T-shirt. Guest houses provide soap and, if you’re lucky, shampoo. I use them to scrub down my clothes after I shower. If you’re lazy, focus on the bacteria-philic parts, i.e. crotch, armpits, and neckline.

Problem: It’s difficult to dry clothes in a time and space efficient manner, especially in humid places.

Solution: Use the “California roll” (Figure 1). The key is to use your own towel to dry off and use the large towels that the hotel provides for roll-drying your clothes. Afterward, don’t hang your clothes to dry in the damp bathroom. Hang them in front of the fan or AC (Figure 2). Your clothes will be dry in no time!

Problem: Your clothes have holes in them.

Solution: Patch them and bombproof them. Needles, thread, discarded cloth, and shoulder pads (stay tuned for a backpack improvement project!) cost me 50 cents in Vietnam. The parts that first start to go are pants (Figure 3), backpack, and socks (Figure 4). Go online. Learn. Try. At the very worst you muck up everything and have to replace your socks for a buck or your pants for 2. Travel slowly. You have time to perfect your art.

Figure 4. Sewing technique. A. Smartwool sock over Nalgene bottle. B. Sewing patch. C. Reinforcement complete. D. Good to go!