A journey that started exactly one year ago, has come full swing! After "being asked to leave China", I have now come back to Shanghai! Many have asked me, how did I do it? Easy: From Pakse, Laos I took a night bus to Bangkok and flew AirAsia to Kuala Lumpur. I applied for a visa on April 30th, the day before China's May holiday. I paid extra to get the visa that same day. I went back to the Chinese consulate that afternoon, and with weak knees and quivering stomach, I was handed a 6 month, double entry, gateway to the middle kingdom.
Cartwheels ensued.
I bought a cheap flight that night from Kuala Lumpur to Hangzhou, a popular tourist destination a few hours southwest of Shanghai. The only potential problem was at the health check - they really wanted to make sure I had not been to the US in the last few weeks due to the swine flu scare. I did this instead of flying directly to Pudong/Shanghai for two reasons: I wanted to make sure there wold be no record of me at immigration, and the flight was much cheaper to Hangzhou. I didn't want to falsely claim "I'm coming to Shanghai!" before I was 100% sure I could get my visa and get through immigration, So I only told one person - Oulin.
OuLin met me with a friend's car at the airport and we spent the next few hours trying to navigate back to downtown Shanghai. The street signs here really don't make much sense to either of us (she learned to drive in the US). The first thing I did when we arrived was to hunt down my favorite JioaZi (dumpling) restaurant - ShanDong JiaoZi Wang (Shandong dumpling king)!
The next several days were spent catching up with friends! I was able to surprise most everybody! Nobody at my old company knew I was coming, so it was particularly exciting to see everybody's reaction when I showed up on the scene. Dan, my old boss, had kept my old bicycle for me...and I would be lying if I said I wasn't wondering if I would be able to use it the next few weeks during my stay in Shangahi.
Right now, I'm couch surfing at friend's places around the city. My "plans" are constantly changing. OuLin recently quit her job and is moving to the US after 5 year in Shanghai. On her way out of Asia, she will spend the next 8 months backpacking. I will accompany her for her two month trek through western China:
In July, I will dip down into Hong Kong (as I am limited to 90 day stays in China), see some friends, and either continue traveling SE Asia for a few months (Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Indonesia) or go back to Shanghai to consider settling down for a bit.
After all of my travels, returning Shanghai has felt the most like "home". My friends here have been so warm and welcoming, and the daily excitement and energy of being in Shanghai is still here. As I look back at the last year, an epic journey of both personal discovery and enlightenment, I wonder if it is now the right time to stay put for a while. That one week in jail in China led to more changes than I could have imagined.
In the last year, I have spent a week in Chinese jail, was forced to leave my home, friends, and girlfriend and left my job to bicycle mostly alone across the United States. I spent a month cutting down trees with a chainsaw and split them into firewood with my Father in New York. I wrote down a list of things I wanted to do and see and I spent the next few months doing them and blogging about it. I bought a one way ticket to Hong Kong and trained capoeira and experienced what it is like do be a fashion model for a short time. I reunited with my sister and her fiance in Bali and learned to surf together. I trekked jungles, up volcanoes, swam with whale sharks, slept in remote villages, and ate all kinds of incredible food (water buffalo brain anyone?). I spent a week on a motorcycle in the remote mountains in Laos. I experienced fine dining and luxury hotels in Manila and Kuala Lumpur. I have been sick, exhausted, lonely, excited, in love, awkward, burned, bitten, scared, high, low, and everything in between. I also took a LOT of photos!
No matter what the choices are, I know one thing: I want to continue to live an experience oriented life. I will live with passion.
Laos (pronounced /ˈlɑː.oʊs/, /ˈlaʊs/, or /ˈleɪ.ɒs/), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma (Myanmar) and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west. Laos traces its history to the Kingdom of Lan Xang or Land of a Million Elephants, which existed from the 14th to the 18th century.
After a period as a French protectorate, it gained independence in 1949. A long civil war ended officially when the communist Pathet Lao movement came to power in 1975, but the protesting between factions continued for several years.
After exhausting my one month Lao visa, I can honestly say that Laos has fulfilled my first ideas of a romantic and exotic Asia. It's like time travel. Dusty streets, slash and burn farming, no advertising, no market to advertise to, chinese made motorbikes, bamboo huts - this is like the wild west of Asia.
My desire to come to Laos was sparked by a small video shown on a iPhone screen in a dark underground bar in Shanghai. In it, I saw dirt bikes racing through dusty villages, ornate Buddhist temples, people swinging into rivers, and beautiful untouched natural vistas. I wanna go! My friend currently in Shangahi, Tim Franco used to live and work in Vientiane, the small capital city. We became friends shortly before my departure from Shanghai last May. We've been keeping in touch fairly well the last year, and last fall while I was still in New York, he invited me to join him on a week long dirt bike expedition of northern Laos, starting at Vientiane. This is it! Tim had to take off work for the 1st week of April, and I would fly to Bangkok, then to Udon Thani in northwest Thailand, hop an hour long bus to the boarder town of Nong Kai, after visa-on-arival and customs, across the MeKong on the Friendship Bridge, then another bus/taxi to Vientiane and viola, I'm at Papaya spa – a mid/high end spa owned by Tim's friend – an adventurous Frenchman who has been “in country” for almost 20 years.
Right, sounds simple enough....flight arrives at 8am in Udon, so if everything goes smoothly, I could be sipping tea to the tune of a de-kinking foot massage by 2pm. Perfect! Only one sliiiiight problem: I bought a one way ticket to Ubon Ratchathani, not Udon Thani. ****. I flew to the wrong freaking city!! Not only is this situation quite embarrassing, it's more than mildly inconvenient. After a humiliating phone call to Tim, I was on an 8 hour bus to Udon Thani. I was one of the last ones through the boarder that night, close call! Tim welcomed me on a 250cc Honda dirt bike and we dined at a slick French restaurant.
The next seven days were spent motorcycling on mostly dirt, and sometimes barely possible roads. We drove just fast enough not to kill ourselves. Zipping along tangled mountain terrain, missing roaring trucks by feet. We were greeted seemingly as liberators by the children of small mountain top villages, cut off from the developing world. I was in awe, and brought to tears by what I learned about the Secret War that the US waged upon the country just a few decades ago. A war still being fought today by the Hmong minority group, ex-CIA mercenaries. As I was driving through the mountaintop villages of Xieng Khouang province, I saw children with missing limbs as a result of the unexploded bombs dropped by American pilots. I thought, “hasn't every country had their dark times? Germany and Japan during WW2 for example.... But why hadn't I heard about the war crimes that the US commuted during the war? Why did I not know that this was the most bombed country on the planet per capita? And why isn't my country doing more to remove the bombs still in the land – live explosives that are keeping the Lao people in poverty and killing hundreds every year? Where is the restitution? And why hasn't learned from such horrid mistakes? Once again, maybe wikipeida says it best:
“The country of Laos has the dubious distinction of being the world's most heavily bombed nation. During the period of the American Vietnam War, over half-a-million bombing missions dropped more than 5 million tons of ordnance on Laos, most of it anti-personnel cluster bombs. Each cluster bomb shell contained hundreds of individual bomblets, "bombies", about the size of a tennis ball. An estimated 30% of these munitions did not detonate. Ten of the 18 Laotian provinces have been described as "severely contaminated" with artillery and mortar shells, mines, rockets, grenades, and other devices from various countries of origin. These munitions pose a continuing obstacle to agriculture and a special threat to children, who are attracted by the toy-like devices.”
I felt quite ashamed, and even a little bit guilty to be from the country that did this. (to be fair, it was my grandparents who funded the bombing of Laos...but wait, what war is my tax dollars funding?) The war has ended, but the death hasn't stopped. A little late to protest a war that has already ended. Good thing there is not a shortage of wars to protest.
I had a lot of time to think about the images and information of such tragedy. After such a sobering experience, it was a bit hard to unwind at beautiful VangVien. We didn't quite get our “tubing experience”, the quintessential SE Asia backpacker experience, as Tim's camera was stolen and we spent the afternoon chasing down the criminal. (got the camera back, check out the video of our 7 day trip: http://www.vimeo.com/4234036)
After the trip, Tim returned to Shanghai. I continued down south to a village on the Mekong close to the 4000 islands with Jean-Louis, the owner of the Papaya spa. He invited me to join him and his Lao-French family to the village where is wife grew up for the Lao new year. I spent one week with little electricity and no running water, completely cut off from the outside (and English speaking) world. I couldn't leave even if I wanted to (and at times I did!). There was one bus that pases by the village before 7am, and if you miss it, you're staying! I was ready to go after 5 days, but a rain had destroyed the road. I woke up every morning before 6am and was in bed by 9. There's not much to do after the sun sets when there's no electricity.
If I were to choose one word to describe the Lao people, it would be “chill”. Life moves slowly here when you're not speeding on a dirt bike. I enjoyed my stay here immensely. This was an experience unlike any other. When traveling, one often wants to get “off the beaten path”, to mingle with the locals...well, this was certainly just that! Lao food every meal, no English, and plenty of Lao Lao (cheap rice moonshine made from rice). The food was mostly all good - laap, the national dish, minced meat and herbs was one of my favorites. Other noteable dishes were grilled carabao brain and freshwater giant stingray form the Mekong...the latter being MUCH better than the former. During their new year celebrations, they love to drink and sing karaoke – loudly! They also went around and smeared baby powder in each other's faces after getting drunk. The drinking would start around sunrise. I hope I am never forced to drink shots of Lao Lao before breakfast ever, EVER again.
To see photos from my first week in Laos with Tim, click here. More photos of the next several weeks coming soon! Stay tuned!
Ah :) it feels so good to be back in Kuala Lumpur. It has been over a year since i've been here. I'm flooded with memories of my last Malaysia journey. I was with my friend Fabian from shanghai.
Bali, or the Island of the Gods, was a 3 week experiment for me. I had one major goal for my time in Bali: learn how to surf. Ever since I heard Asuka emote her passion for surfing, I have had it in my head to see what it's all about. In order for me to try surfing, I thought of 3 places to start: Bali, Australia, or Hawaii. Bali being the least expensive of the three, it seemed like a logical choice – plus, my sister wanted to check out the island. Bali is known in the surfer community for being a great place for both beginners to learn and pros to push themselves.
After my adventures in the Philippines, I met my sister and her fiancée, Jochen, in Bangkok. The next day we were on a cheap Air Asia flight to Bali. We decided we would stay for 3 weeks in a beautiful villa about 15 min from the beginner surfer beach. To get around, we rented motorbikes. This was an exciting challenge as vehicles drive on the left side of the road, and the traffic was a horrendous chaotic mess. To make things worse, at any moment there could be a huge pothole that would end your good health and fortune. I find that I drive very aggressively and as fast as the flow of motors would allow. I felt pure excitement flowing in between cars and motorbikes.
So far, in 2009, my time in Asia has been rattled with illness. Bali was no exception. I spent a week down and out with a fever. The skin on all of my body was very sensitive and painful to the touch. I'm not sure what I had, but I was more than ready to have my energy level back up. It was time to surf baby!!
Sarah's friends from Veitnam joined us, Jonny and Helen. Jonny is from Wales and has had the goal of becoming a pro surfer for a long time – this was also his time to learn. All four of us, Sarah, Jochen, Jonny and myself rented surfboards at Kuta beach – 20,000 Indonesian rupia (about $1.65) per hour. I found that I was most comfortable with a longboard – 8'2” long to be exact! I hurt myself multiple times already surfing – the back fin of the board swiped my foot by a crashing wave and left me limping for a few days. Various small bumps and bruises showed up over the weeks, but thankfully nothing major. We opted to get 2 hours of “surf lessons” for about $10. It was pretty simple, as the Balinese teachers were by no means pros, but their simple advice seemed to work out ok: “this is how you stand on the board”, “this is how you paddle” “this is how you catch a wave”, and so on. Once we were in the water everything broke down into a series of shouts: “PADDLE PADDLE! UP UP UP!”. All of us were able to stand up within the first hour. From there on out, it's just practice and getting better.
I would awake at 7:30 and jump on my scooter to meet Jonny at the beach after grabbing a scone and coffee breakfast. Same surfboard as the day before, and into the water. Excitement rushed through my body as the waves incrementally got larger as I long strokes took me away from the shore. There was no worry in the world as I gazed into the distance, calculating each potential wave. Everything was beautiful- The unrestrained potential cast by the morning sunlight, the surfboards to be rented under the palm tree groves on the beach, the volcano in the distance surrounded by clouds, and even the rainbow in the sky – not to mention the caffeine and adrenalin pumping through my veins. My final day in bali was spent in the ocean and on the board. My most successful and tiring day. I felt my aching tired back, chest and arms couldn't propel me fast enough to continue a successful ride to shore...but most of the time I was wrong. The sun started to drift into deep orange and violet hues. I gazed at the glistening horizon, alert and waiting for waves. As the last metallic orange sliver drifted into the indian ocean, the full moon was the only illumination against the silhouette of Kuta beach - I rode my last wave in. I had accomplished my goal. :) I now have a new desire – obtain a lifestyle where surfing will be a weekly possibility. Ah, would be so nice!
When I think of the Philippines, my mind is filled with vivid raw untouched nature, crystal clear ocean, calm nights filled with stars and crickets, polluted dirty impoverished city, jeepneys coughing out thick black exhaust, small stuffy buses lunging out of control on check-point roads, huge roadside rum and beer signs urging “slow down”, security guards with sub-machine guns and automatic shotguns, “little America” shopping centers, cheap tricycle rides, and endless fast food. My experiences here have been rich. A full range of emotion cycled through me. I was excited to see old friends from the old world in Shanghai and disappointed when travel plans to meet up didn't work as hoped. I stayed up two days straight to journey by plane, bus, and boat to a remote island. I fell asleep to crashing waves in a bungalow on a cliff above the ocean and awoke to the sound of the sea. I was bed-ridden for days and unable to eat for almost a week. I lost 2 kilos. I narrowly escaped having my head violently smashed from a chunk of lava tumbling down a lava flow. I climbed a volcano. I was horrified when I awoke to find my legs covered in a vibrant rash. I swam with huge bus-sized whale sharks and panicked when I realized their massive size. I road a small fishing boat up a river to see swarms of fireflies synchronize their flashes on a full moon night after the rain. I was stung by the largest jelly fish I have ever seen. I sprained my ankle by said volcano and was taken to the emergency room for a $20 x ray – just to be sure. I raced around in a wheelchair and induced laughter in a Manila hospital. I was a photographed specimen. I drank with the locals. I drank a ton of coffee and had the best two hour massage of my life. I was a driver in the adrenaline inducing traffic chaos of Manila and road-tripped to the sea. I felt alive. I wanted to stay longer. I want to go back.
When I first arrived in Hong Kong, I compared it to my life in Shanghai. This was a mistake. The cities are as different as night and day, not only that, but my situation couldn't be more polar opposite. I certainly don't want to say any experience was "better" or "worse". Such simple black and white illustrations don't accurately describe the range of experience that were had. Comparing cities is like comparing your children. Which one is "better"? Which one do you love more? I have been here for just under 3 months and have made incredible new friends. I have tried many new things and found new passion.
A few weeks after I arrived in Hong Kong, I met Jo on the ferry from HK island to Lamma island. Jo is a Brazilian capoeira contra mastre and lives in the same small village as me. According to Wikipedia, capoeira is:
"an Afro-Brazilian art form that makes a ritual of movements from martial arts, games, and dance."
I had first heard about capoeira several years ago and remember thinking it would be incredible to try. Well, I got my chance! I have been very passionate about leaning and playing capoeira - I have been going to class with Jo at least 3, sometimes more, times a week! Out of all of the new students that I see joining, on my first day, I was worse than all of them! I'm proud of how far I've come, as I've been working quite hard at it!
This is a video of me playing capoeira at the end of class. I'm already quite tired...so get ready for a laugh or too:
Everyone in the Hong Kong group is a beginner, so we're all just struggling to get the basics down. It's still so much fun, and a lot harder than it looks!!
This was taken on Tom's last class in Hong Kong. He's a great Dutchman traveling the world with his cousin for a year working as in intern for various financial institutions before he goes to university. You can view his blog here, which also happens to contain tons of photos.
This is my teacher, Jo, playing with a student from Switzerland:
Check out more capoeira videos here. I particually like this one. This will give more of an idea of what more advanced capoeira is.
I came here at a bad time for finding work of any kind - right after the financial crisis, during Christmas, and right before Chinese new year. Sill, I have been lucky and found a little bit of animation work while in Hong Kong. You can see some of the projects I've worked on here:
This is essentially a glorified power-point presentation. It was created for an internal presentation of Olaf Mueller's photo shoot for Miele, a German luxury home appliance company.
In between animation and capoeira, I've found a little work as a model:
The friends that I've made here have all been so wonderful. It's so hard to say goodbye, and I will certainly be missing them, but if it weren't for this incredible opportunity to travel and experience new things, I wouldn't have met them.
Taking a small fishing boat back home from Hong Kong, as the normal ferry doesn't make any trips from 12:30am to 6:30am.
My birthday at an Indian curry restaurant in TST. A friend from Shanghai was able to visit!
During my "birthday weekend", we took a friend's boat out around the island. It was quite cool that day, but we kept warm with hot apple cider.
Get together at a friend's house...sophisticated glasses look. yah!
So after Hong Kong, what is next? I will be leaving Hong Kong on January 25th to meet friends from Shanghai in the Philippines for two weeks! After that, I will travel to Thailand to finally met up with my sister and her fiance! From there, we will take a flight down to Bali, and work our way by land and sea through Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and finally back to Koh Tao, Thailand. I will leave them there while they continue to learn diving, and I will meet Tim, a good friend from Shanghai, and will drive motorcycles across Laos together. We will finish this at the end of March.
As always, for more photos, check out my flickr account here.
Lamma Island is to the southwest of Hong Kong Island. It is 13.55 square kilometres and an estimated population of 6,000. Lamma is, in contrast to Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, peaceful and tranquil, with relatively natural scenery.
I'm not sure what these plants are called...by to my enjoyment, they're everywhere. When I was living in Shangahi, I had one of these potted next to my window in my bedroom. It grew so big that sometimes when I awoke, it would be hovering over my head. Jungle fauna in my room. Lovely.
There you have it. That's where I am! So far, so good. The island is beautiful. I'm surrounded by beauty in fact. Waking up every morning is an experience in itself. I'm usually woken up by the first rays of sunlight stretching over the mountain. Then again by the birds. Then the dogs barking. People speaking loudly. They rush nosily to catch the ferry to Hong Kong island to work for the day. The fresh flowery perfumed air convinces me out of bed. Breakfast first, then a 5 minute walk to the beach.
Panorama of the roof of my apt:
Click the images for the full sizes. You can see a bunch more pics of the place here.
Just as dawn breaks over the Manhattan skyline I'll be sitting in a jet plane. 23 hours later I will be in Hong Kong. I have been dwelling on this moment (or a similar moment) since my deportation flight from Shanghai on May 17th. The last half year has been one of new experience, loneliness, determination, and sad endings - ending friendships, ending opportunity, ending life. So I rode my bicycle 2600km from South Dakota to New York. I kept busy in NY...working on odd jobs like cutting down trees and chopping them into firewood, built decks, dug big holes in the earth - you know, manly things that make you sweat and reward you with tired aches at the end of the day. Now that i've chopped my trees, it's time to head out and wander the earth.
What are my plans? oh, what loose plans I have. Most of my plans can be summarized by names of countries. Hong Kong, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Papua new guinea, hopefully India, Nepal and China, and then ending with Japan in May 2009...or beginning again with Japan depending on how you look at it.
To me, this is the next logical step to the life experience.
Abram Hodgens is an American designer/animator who specializes in motion graphic broadcast design and computer animation. After working in Shanghai, China for 2 years as creative director for Keyframe, he is now taking time to travel and focus on new experiences and opportunities.
New to the blog? Check out how this whole journey started here.
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