Somewhere between Vox & Hunter S. Thompson
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s1feat
I'm going to kick this post off with some history, and work my way up to the problem I almost had with the Bangladeshi police. It's going to be heavy on writing and light on pictures, so if that's okay with you, let's get started.
Waking up in Dhaka I hear the ringing of bells on rickshaws, people yelling, and dogs barking. I am staying on the 9th floor of an office building that rises high over the slums on Dhaka’s southwestern outskirts. I look out the window, and I can see a rainstorm blowing in from the south. The Muslim call to prayer eerily wafts over the half-finished buildings all around me from the local mosques.
Bagan is a pretty picturesque place, but for me, these 9th century Buddhist ruins, cool as there were, were only part of the story. The people of Bagan were also awesome to interact with, which is sort of a rarity for a traveler. If we’re being honest here, most local people who talk to you when you’re traveling are trying to sell you something. It’s pretty rare to travel in the developing world and have somebody talk to you with no ulterior motive. You have to get pretty far off the beaten path for that. That is what makes Burma so great.
When I got to the ticketing counter for Tiger Air, I told the woman at the counter that I was traveling to Yangon. She looked skeptical. “You’re traveling to Yangon? Really?” she said, squinting.
“Uhh… yes?” I replied groggily.
I was required to go through security twice before I got on my flight (the second time at the gate) and when I finally did, the plane was only about 1/3rd full. It was not a smooth flight, so while I’m white-knuckling my seat, let me fill you in on Burma really quick.
During one of my rainy days in Sa Pa, one of the hostel workers told me about an organization that had just been initiated that allowed foreigners the chance to have a question and answer session with former Viet Cong soldiers, and interact with children who were growing up with disabilities caused by Agent Orange. I was beyond excited to hear that such an organization existed. This was going to be the real deal.
Ba Vì Mountain is just a couple hours drive West of Hanoi. It’s supposed to be beautiful, so my roommate and I decided to make a motorbike trip of it. I’m going to tell you now – our first attempt was a miserable failure. It was not until our second attempt that we summited that S.O.B.
Thailand is known all over the world for, among other things, its food. And I wanted to try some authentic Thai food. “The weirder the better” I told my hosts. They were pretty amused with my antics and sent their maid to the market for some goodies. I would have liked to see the market but I ate all the food just the same. So let’s start the count down of strange foods. We’ll order these according to weirdness and save the weirdest for last.
Most of what happens to me in the classroom isn't enough to merit its own extended blog post. But as the Vietnamese school year comes to a close, I want to share a collection of stories from my classes. This is the first of 2 installments of the teaching 'story basket'. So without further adieu, here are 4 little windows into what class with Peter is like.
Hội An was a very important trading post of the old world. It was the opinion of most Chinese and Japanese merchants that Hội An was the best trading post in Southeast Asia, if not Asia at large. However, thanks to a treaty signed with the colonizing French, Đà Nẵng eventually became the port of choice in lieu of Hội An. Also, due to a build up of silt at the mouth of the river, Hội An became all but inaccessible to the large ships that used to frequent its docks. The effect of this was isolation. The ancient town of Hội An was all but forgotten about during Vietnam’s tumultuous next 200 years.
We sat on the deck of the boat eating our dinner together. Nobody was speaking. We were not in good spirits. Lightning flashed silently off in the distance in all directions with increasing frequency. The coast of Sumbawa sat calmly a few hundred meters away. I watched the lights twinkle from shore, wishing I was there instead of on this boat. With the wind picking up, we could all feel the storm coming.
