The Wow of Laos
Laos exceeded all expectations. It was at once bustling but authentic, comfortable but unspoiled. I thank my lucky stars to have stumbled into this wonderful country right at the crux of Now, before our tourist demands overshadow years-old traditions, but also after certain travel conveniences have been installed. Now is the time to see Laos.
Accepting Different for Different
Always I want to qualify things and I have not yet left behind a childish oversimplification in distinction: there is Good and Bad in the world. Easy. Gray in judgment leaves me feeling unfinished. Even after 11 years of Travel I still find myself reverting to classifying all I trip upon with much deliberation but little variation of adjectives.
Most Different equaled Good to a younger me, bored of the Midwest and certain that something more exciting lay just beyond the river bend (Pocahontas reference intentional). Strange, Weird, Confusing all made it into the Good category by their sheer otherness. Then some Different became Good by virtue of confusion. That which discomforted my previously unquestioned suburban ethics was exalted rather than inspected too harshly. In other words, anything done by any sort of formerly oppressed peoples, no matter how seemingly strange, must be Good at its core; nonsensical only because of my ignorant failures. Long live imperialists’ Noble Savage! It made everything easier. And in the heart of my backpacking social scene thinking Good of others meant others thinking Good of you; only the narrow-minded dare condemn otherwise.
Oh by Golly Have a Holly Jolly Bali Holiday
Some places make you happy. Some even make you downright giddy. Bali is such a place. It refuses to be anything less than an annoyingly cliché travel brochure of sunshine pictures that make you smile.
Although I claimed to have no expectation for visiting Bali, I secretly did. In fact, it was the number one place I wanted to see when I moved to Asia. Bali is just so…Balinese. It always looked like it had it all – volcanoes, rice terraces, jungle, gorgeous water, culture and that infamous architecture I’d seen glimpses of in every yoga studio ever designed. So while I didn’t quite know where we’d we go or what we’d do in Bali, I figured it’d be good.
It was. In fact, it was incredible.
A Trip Out of Bounds
Boundary Waters is the world’s most welcoming and laid back border crossing. Instead of guards and guns are seemingly endless, slow lapping lakes, rivers and bays decorated in the wonderful rarity of complete isolation. Here you are among only a handful of adventurers allowed in each day. You pack out your own rubbish, make plans only when the weather tells you that you can, and do whatever you need to do right in the bushes. Here showers are freezing swims and all food becomes property of the surrounding co-op, cheeky chipmunks welcome.
More than Meets the Mitten
Michigan is the best place in the USA.* While the Midwest is easy to describe in corn fields and mud boggin’ red necks, Michigan has more going on than what first meets the mitten.
Michigan has more coastline than the entire eastern seaboard of the USA. I’ll say it again, this time in all caps, MICHIGAN HAS MORE…you get the idea. But really, think about that for just a sec. That’s a whole lot of moody rocky shore, white sand stretches and Normandy-esq coastal towns that seem to specialize in strange art and microbrew beer. It’s intense.
Nestled within the world’s largest fresh water source, that just happens cozy up next to Michigan, are countless islands blessed with even more coast and pines.
Michigan has so much forest that we rebuilt Chicago. All of it. Trees are in no short supply, which creates nearly unlimited opportunities to camp everywhere, all the where and roast marshmallows a-plenty.
We have had have cars but have learned from recent events to diversify. Alongside hubcaps and mufflers we also have home-grown wine, home brewed coffee, co-op produced clothes and Petoskey jewelry. We have a force–to-be-reckoned with Revive Detroit movement that’s producing the coolest designs, bicycles and dog tag inspired necklaces. Who knew? We have authors, musicians, corrupt politicians and education reformers. We’re so good at sports that we’ve even managed to make ridiculous camp counselor-style necklaces cool in our take-me-out-to-the-ball-game passion.
Here’s where to visit along the west side of the state.
Help with Sunscreen
Living overseas finds sneaky ways of making regular distance relationships into long distance, even if only temporarily. Travel for work, to visit family, to be in friends’ weddings is that much farther and, therefore, warrants time apart for that much longer. With JD gone for a few weeks I am once again in Vietnam by myself. My sad, little self. All by lonesome, just like when I first arrived.
Only not. Unlike when I first moved to Vietnam by myself, this time I am not alone.
Whoppin’ Big Hong Kong
It hit me the moment I found myself wedged between an orangutan and an American flamingo in the middle of the Hong Kong botanical gardens: this is a city unlike any other. To sum up Hong Kong in one word it is Big. Huge. Humungous. Enormous. Colossal. Take your pick of fancy words that equal “big”. Is it overwhelming? Of course, but when you embrace this floaty sense of being overwhelmed it is absolutely incredible. Hong Kong is the definition of Big City.
12 Reasons Why Living in Vietnam is Like Living in a Frat House
You Wear Pyjamas All Day Long
They are, after all, comfortable. Can you really blame the slouchy 20-year-old frat boys or the 70-year-old Vietnamese women for wanting to wear them day in and day out? The only difference is that frat boys know they’re being lazy. Vietnamese grannies think they look quite nice. Matching top and pants? How convenient! Who cares if they have snoozing elephants printed all over them?
- You Eat Strange Things for Breakfast
In college it was cold pizza and the occasional mouldy Chinese take away from your roommate’s half of the fridge. Now it’s beef and noodle soup, chicken pate sandwiches or an entire coffee pot’s worth of caffeine in one small sip of Vietnamese coffee. It’s all good for you.
East Meets West SmackDown: Welcome to Singapore
East doesn’t meet West nicely in Singapore. It’s more of a WWF smackdown that leaves you confused amidst the metal botanical gardens next to the famous ship on a hotel. Singapore is a lesson in wonderfully strange.
In a city state that seems to be equally proud of its bright shutters past as of its steel minimalist present, it seemed only right to add an unreasonable time restriction. JD and I had 36 hours to “do” Singapore in a glorified layover on our way to Bali. In just over one day we were meant to explore, analyze and report back on a place whose leading export is Strangeness. We were up for the challenge.
Finding Normal in the Strange
Our news headlines are from the wrong era. Girls are being kidnapped for trying to get an education. We can’t, or won’t, find a plane. A whole plane. Russia’s moving in on Eastern Europe and China’s pushing down on Vietnam. What strange time warp are we in? Surely our technology, our global politics and our human rights have evolved beyond all this. I begin to wonder just how (un)advanced we actually are.
I travel seeking the unusual. I look for what is different from my norm; different people, different cultures, different landscapes and languages. I travel with the idea that my life is the status quo for human existence and the different I encounter is the strange.
Then Travel shakes its head at me. When will I finally learn that my world is not the world?
beyonddisneytraveltips 