I’ve been thinking a lot about value.
I have held a few “sales” positions before, ranging from Laila Rowe costume jewelry in the Danbury Fair Mall (what up Ridgefield, what up ‘05) to New Business roles for marketing and consulting companies. In those roles, the prices of goods sold were determined by someone other than me. The prices were likely determined based on a set of factors: cost of goods, cost of other operating costs e.g. rent and employees, and perceived “value” - how much something is determined to be “worth.” But what makes something more valuable, and therefore worth a higher price? From the customer’s perspective, some factors in the value equation might include emotional connection to a good or service, uniqueness (e.g. it’s one of a kind), usefulness or cost per wear, and level of labor required to make the thing. Of course there are many other factors.
For the first time, I’m selling something for which I determine the price tag. As I navigate this territory I’m finding myself frequently at the intersection of value and values. An example: of course any business owner wants the cost of goods (cost to the owner, that is) to be as low as possible. So when buying product from the artisans, I want to know I’m getting the best price. At the same time, the values on which I started the company hold me to a different standard of operating - paying the most fair price. But who’s to say what a fair price is, in any market? Whether it’s smart from a business standpoint or not, I’ve been buying from Sunny and the artisans at the price that makes us both happy. It’s not the cheapest price I could find. But it’s the most fair, in my opinion. Again, whether this makes good business sense we’ll all have to see.
Then I consider how to price goods for my own customers. I think I’m operating at a fair price point ($28 for an anklet, $48 for a necklace) relative to the market and in fact I may even be below market. From one angle, $28/anklet might seem high. From another angle, $28 for something 100% handmade, of extremely high quality and durability, isn’t much at all. And from a third angle, I could target the more premium market and sell for $98! A powerful story (hi Ty + co) - and lucky for me, reign_wala’s happens to be a very authentic one – can sell anything. (Ty Montague, my former boss at co:collective and still my mentor, used to always talk about this journalist who wanted to prove that people buy stories, not objects. So to make this point, he bought a bunch of stuff at a yard sale, spending no more than $1 per item. For example, a mini Hellmann's Mayonnaise jar. Then, he wrote elaborate stories about each item and sold them on eBay. Some items sold for over 70x their original value. Because people were buying the stories, not the objects.)
I never want my customers to feel ripped off. I also never want the artisans to feel cheated. I also need to feel stable (eventually), because this is officially NOT a hobby and so it needs to support me! How to arrive at the price tag that creates the perfect equation between maker + customer + me? This has been one of the biggest challenges yet. So far, I think customers feel pricing is fair (very open to all POVs so def shoot me a message if you have thoughts on current pricing) and I know the artisans are happy. I’m stressed AF. I’m in investment mode, putting money in and not yet profitable with no clear timeline for profitability... but this is the world I knew I’d have to live in for a little while if I wanted to walk the walk instead of just talking the talk for the past three years.
Anyway, the point is, the most important thing to me and to reign_wala is that we hold our values close and never let them go. I mean if I have learned one fucking thing from co: and my other gigs it’s that actions that don’t align with a company’s supposed values may as well be death sentences for those companies. The best companies in the world have created value through strict adherence to values. And I want reign_wala to be one of those companies, even if we are a teeny fraction of the size. I’ve been told my idealist mindset may not serve me well in business. That the reality is, if I want this to be sustainable, I should be “fleecing the rich” (read as: pricing much higher) and not feeling bad about it, because the rich have done the same thing and that’s how they’ve become rich. Of course there is a part of me that wants to sell for as high a price as possible! And I do genuinely feel the value of each piece is greater than my current price point. But I’m also not going to triple the price just because I can. I respect my customers too much (again I’ve been told this is too idealist to garner business success). So yeah, the pricing thing has been one of the tougher aspects of business to navigate, but this is for sure: I don’t know that I have found the perfect value=values equation, but I will continue to strive for balance and transparency ongoing.
Anyway, I’ve been collecting the questions I get from friends and fam for the past few months with the intention of doing this Q&A-style post to cover the many aspects of building reign_wala. There may be some new reign_wala customers reading who signed up for the mailing list… if you’re reading, hello, I’m thrilled you made it here. OK here goes!
Question: Who are the artisans? / How many people are making the stuff?
Answer: I’m learning more about Sunny’s system every day. Essentially, Sunny is the guru (boss, teacher). He is also the designer of the various macrame pieces, lighters and hair sticks. All of those designs and concepts are his. He has trained 12 different people to make various things for him. These people are both boys and girls, and they range in age from 12 years old to 26(ish) years old. At any given time, about 4 of the artisans will be working full time for Sunny. Some of them hold other jobs in Pushkar or they’re in school during the day. None of them make macrame, lighters or hair sticks for other gurus – ONLY for Sunny. This is important, because Sunny’s techniques lead to higher quality products and some other artisans have started to copy his designs. Like I’ve said before, there is other macrame out there, and it may look similar to Sunny’s but there is nothing like Sunny’s. I can always tell when the technique is sloppier and the materials are less durable. So once you join Sunny’s team, it’s sort of understood that you’re in his secret club now and you will not work for another guru. Sunny treats these people very, very well (many of them he’s known since childhood in Pushkar) both by paying them fairly (relative to market standards) and also by being a beacon of generosity. For example when he visits Pushkar he’ll treat many of these people to dinner, or on various occasions he’s made significant loans to them for personal needs that were not business related. Also, as westerners we may have a negative perception of a 13 year old girl working for Sunny. Both because of her age and her gender. But in India, this is anything but negative! Many people start working as young as ten years old, and making macrame in the home after school is a great way to earn money. The alternatives for someone this age would be cafes, farms, factories or sadly in the worst case scenario walking the streets or the beach and begging. Macrame is empowering and most importantly, safe.
Question: How much are you paying the artisans? / How does the profit sharing work?
Answer: Here’s how it works. I buy the pieces from Sunny at a wholesale price that he determines. He determines this price based on what he pays to his artisans, plus the profit he wants to make from me. So when I buy from Sunny, the artisans have already been paid to make those pieces and Sunny’s profit is already built in. Then, when I sell a piece, I take from my own margin to pay the artisan again. The amount I pay them is not a percentage of the sale price. It’s a flat rate per piece. The rate per piece is approximately the same as what they are paid to make the piece for Sunny. So basically they’re getting paid twice. They get paid once to make the piece, and then again when the piece is sold. reign_wala doubles their wage / creates a 100% pay increase. Sunny’s does not get the flat fee per piece, because he is already making profit from me. This was his idea. Originally I wanted to pay him too but he felt this didn’t make sense because he is already profiting and the artisans need the money more. Of course, we are going to need to test and learn from this model. This upcoming profit delivery will be 4000 INR / $55.50 USD. Sunny and I discussed the best way to distribute this across 12 artisans and instead of doing that, we’re going maximize impact by giving the entire lump sum to a few of the girls. They will all share it amongst themselves and with their families. Next round of profit, we’ll give to one of the other artisans. I will be documenting this process next week as I head up to Pushkar so follow @reign_wala for that!!! Also, FWIW, I didn’t sell all of the pieces I bought so the 4000 INR represents only about a third of the potential profit from this first collection. I will continue to deliver profit quarterly as pieces are sold! In the meantime, for context, here are some things you can do with 4000 INR:
Rent a motorbike for a month
Buy groceries for almost two months
Buy a year’s worth of phone credit including ~1GB data per day
Save 20% - 30% toward an inexpensive laptop (12,000 - 20,000 INR)
Question: How much money did you make at the market?
Answer: LOL, none. This does have the potential to be a high-margin, highly profitable business (I hope?), but it isn’t one yet. Let me explain. I collected revenue. I did not make a profit. Why? Because I had a number of first-time/one-time/upstart costs, for example the cost of building a custom display. So, product sales helped me make back just about half of what I invested (if we’re talking about my investment in this pop-up specifically. If we’re talking about supporting myself while building this thing for the past few months, I made back like, 20%). I sold just about exactly the number of pieces I thought I would sell. Of course there was a part of me that wanted to exceed my own expectations and sell out of everything. That did not happen. I did not make back the cost of my flight or my daily living expenses in NYC. But the pop-up did well enough to achieve proof of concept. Well enough to give me the confidence that I should keep doing this. And I see the remainder not as a loss but as an investment. I paid to learn how to do some very important things: move product across continents, create packaging, pop up a physical retail experience, garner customer reactions to products and prices, and more.
Question: How did you know THIS was the artisan you wanted to work with?
Answer: I met Sunny in 2015. I had never seen macrame like his. And I loved the vibe of his shop. His design sensibility stuck with me. Sunny appreciates form and quality in all things. And he has this reserved energy where he’s not like other shopkeepers. He doesn’t jump out of his chair to lure you into his shop. His shop lures you. He really takes the time to get to know his customers. But really ultimately it was the design, quality and originality of his pieces that made me want to collect those specific products and it was Sunny as a human that made me want to work with him as a business partner. He is such a solid human, creates welcoming and humble vibes wherever he goes and is radically honest (save for the fact that he didn’t tell me he had a wife or baby until 2 months after the fact, which I’m still getting over).
Question: What was the most surprising to you from the last few weeks in New York -- business and general?
Answer: Here’s my list of things that surprised me:
How much I DON’T know how to sell. Like, wow, I don’t know how to sell AT ALL! If my best friend Lisa (who is Louis Vuitton’s top seller for like, five years straight and now part of their corporate sales training team) wasn’t there with me on Day One to tell me what the fuck to do, I would have been lost. She helped me with everything from organizing the stock to closing sales. I didn’t want to be too pushy and Lisa was like, dude, no, this is how you do retail. You need to open up that bracelet and put it ON THEIR WRIST. Walk them over to the mirror. Then put ANOTHER one on ‘em and show ‘em how to stack. The truth is, you really do have to do those things with this kind of product. Lisa also told me I was getting a little too technical, jumping right into how the product is made and how the profit-sharing works. She encouraged me to try sharing more about the artisans themselves, or the story of how I founded the business. That also worked much better, and I’d save the technical stuff for people who asked specifically. Thank goodness for Lisa. Lisa I love you <3
How many GUYS bought stuff! For real, we made a few unisex pieces just to have them on hand in case guys did want to buy something. At the end of Day One as it started slowing down, I was like hmm I need to attract more customers, so when guys would walk by I’d say “hey, we have some stuff for guys too if you’re interested!” and surprisingly almost every single one was interested. In fact, there were only 2-3 guys that tried something on and didn’t buy it. I think the male market is underserved. I also think macrame is a casual, friendly way for guys who don’t already wear jewelry to try it out. It’s not bling bling like gold or silver. It doesn’t feel like it’s trying too hard, and yet it’s got a lil swag factor.
How many expensive pieces sold. I expected I’d only sell a few of the $48 pieces, because that’s almost $50 and especially because some of them (like The Handdress) are a bit eccentric. But actually I almost sold out of pieces at this price point. My guess is that, although $48 is higher than $28, it’s also perceived as a fair price to pay for something that feels high quality and very unique.
The importance of IRL and URL. My hypothesis when starting this business was that I would be selling primarily online, and occasionally popping up in physical spaces. Now having done the pop-up at Artists & Fleas, I think the opposite. I learned a lot from Lisa about what it takes to close a sale and the best environment for this – in particular for a first time customer – seems to be IRL. They need to see it, touch it, try it on. Hear the story. Look me in the eye as I swear to them that I am going to fucking Pushkar to deliver this profit IN CASH to artisans that I will personally meet! Maybe second- and third-time purchases will happen online once the customer has seen the quality and knows what to expect from the materials, etc... but building those relationships with customers for the first time is probably most often going to happen in real life. I’m currently working on re-distributing my budget to accommodate more opportunities for IRL sales.
How much I had to recruit customers. Guys, I thought the display looked awesome. I’m gonna self-congratulate and just say that, okay? I thought people would see it from far away and like, run over to it and start touching and trying everything. No. Every single person who walked by – and I mean every single person – I had to greet them and encourage them to come inside my little area. Other booth owners/workers at A&F would literally not say a word as customers walked by, meanwhile I did not let someone walk by without acknowledging them. I was working for it. I was greeting these flea market fleas like my life depended on them because, like, it kinda does! Once inside they were engaged… but it was exhausting trying to recruit customers for 9 hours straight. Also obviously not everyone comes inside when greeted so you deal with a lot of rejection.
How irritated I was by having to schlep all over NYC. I got spoiled by Arambol. I walk or jump on a bike and I’m anywhere I need to be in 5 minutes. You know I am such a mover and shaker in NY, there is no neighborhood I won’t venture to. But I started getting crotchety (wow look at that, real word) with the walking 7 minutes to the subway, then sitting on the train for 20 minutes, then walking AGAIN, it’s like ugh are we there yet? And especially because I had NO disposable income, taxis and ubers just weren’t an option. It’s ironic because we think of NYC as so contained to other cities and there I was feeling like grrrr why is everything so spread out.
The fact that NYC still does have it all. I don’t like to admit this, although I’ve definitely said it to some of you, but I got kinda jaded in the past couple of years in New York. I started feeling like in the most unpredictable city in the world, things were becoming predictable. Like even the super freaky weird shit in NY wasn’t cool or weird anymore. I was pushing myself into the furthest corners of the city I could find and I was still feeling kinda meh. No new feelings. But while I was home, Sunny wanted to me to find a very specific feather that he can’t get in India. I tried to order on Amazon, but quantities were extremely limited. Sunny does so much for me here in Arambol, I felt like coming back to India without those feathers was just not an option. Also, Sunny is very easygoing about everything, and when I told him I couldn’t find enough feathers I could see in his face that he was upset. So he’s like Allie, maybe you have some store in NYC selling only feathers? And I’m a pretty crafty person so I’m like Sunny I really don’t think we have that… but then I figured arite let me Google it and, of course, we have a store in NYC selling only feathers. It’s called The Feather Place and it’s pretty much feathen on earth (LOL AM I KIDDING WITH THAT HORRENDOUS JOKE!?). Anyway, bottom line… there’s nothing you can’t do or get in NYC. I’ve been hard on NYC lately, and I’ll take this opportunity to acknowledge that even through my jadedness, I heart NY.
How impressive the Artists & Fleas people are. Williamsburg Artists & Fleas was kind of like Toy Story where the toys start talking as soon as the kids leave the room. In our case, we got into the building at 9am to set up and as soon as the clock struck 10 and people started coming inside it was like we all came alive. I am so incredibly impressed by the other makers. Such interesting products and some impeccable displays. And these people… they’re just kinda nonconformist and I like it. They have a different definition of success. The maker life is like the totally other life and community that exists in New York that I was never a part of.
How much I enjoyed being a maker, even when it hurt. In preparation for this market, both in India leading up to the flight and in NY once I landed, I felt like I did get to be a maker, finally. Just the little things like sorting and organizing the inventory, finding and assembling packaging, making the hang-tags for the bags using a custom stamp, painting a wooden sign, staple-gunning burlap to the wooden displays, loading and unloading, hammering nails to the displays to hold the pieces... just using my hands and producing physical outputs and not staring at a computer. Felt so good. Except I clearly love the torture of a computer screen as I’ve been sitting here for 6 hours now writing this.
Question: What challenges have you faced building reign_wala?
Answer: These are a few of the challenges, and there obv many more.
Inventory management, both physical and digital. First, I had to name the pieces (Sunny calls them “small black one” or “medium thick one with stone”) so I could account for them. Then I had to create a spreadsheet to document how many pieces I bought, in which colors, at what price. Then I had to input this information into Squarespace, the platform on which my website is built. But then I had to input it again into Square, the point-of-sale system I had to use at the market. And those two point-of-sales systems don’t talk to each other, so after the market I would have to recount my inventory and make sure it was up to date on the site. I am constantly checking and cross-checking the inventory between my actual stock, the counts on the website and the counts in my mobile POS system.
Product photography. It is tedious photographing every piece in every color, using my phone because I don’t have a real camera. I can’t afford a photographer at the moment. My neck and back hurt a lot after I do the shoots. And then I have all the photos on my phone, which I then need to download to my machine, and name, and organize, and then upload to the site. It’s such a process and photography is so important for this kind of thing!
Order fulfillment. Many ecommerce sites use drop shippers to fulfill orders. This means they have all of their inventory sent – “dropped” – to one central fulfillment center and when an order is placed, the center is responsible for pulling the inventory and shipping it out. You can literally travel the world and have a drop shipper manage all of your fulfillment for you and never have to worry about sending out an order. Drop shippers can also manage returns. I can’t afford this service yet. So I am fulfilling all orders myself. This means I need to have all inventory with me at all times, so that if an order comes through, I am prepared to ship the piece. So I am traveling with all of my inventory, and for example when I go to Pushkar I’ll have to schlep everything with me. Right now the inventory takes up so little real estate that it’s manageable for me to backpack with it, but at some point I’m not gonna be able to do that. And if I just ship it back and forth to wherever I am, that’s gonna increase my costs. This is where drop shipping might come in handy and I hope to be lucky enough to have this problem in the future.
Managing, meeting and exceeding customer expectations. On every level, this is what keeps me up at night. The logistical stuff I’ll figure out. Everything else will fall into place. But exceeding customers’ expectations is what I have been preaching my entire career and it is so important to me to live up to that standard. For example, this is kind of a small thing but also kind of a big thing: as you know, every single reign_wala piece is handmade. For certain styles, like The Chalo headband, this means there are slight variations from one piece to another, even though the style is the same. For The Chalo headband specifically, I have 3 pieces in the Caramel color, but the stone in each piece is just slightly different. Or I have 8 hair sticks that have a kinda-pointy blue agate stone, but the shape and shade of the stones are just slightly different from one hair stick to the next. This is the beauty and authenticity of creating things by hand. This is what makes every single piece so special, and truly one of a kind! But this is also quite stressful when it comes to managing customer expectations. I can’t show something online with a white stone and then ship the customer an off-white stone. One way to solve for that would be to photograph each and every piece individually, instead of photographing one piece in that style. This is not impossible, it’s just really really tedious. Because if I have 12 total pieces – 3 pieces in each color, 4 different colors – ideally I’d photograph one piece in each other and use that photograph to represent the style. So, 4 photo shoots for me to do. But to photograph individually to capture the variance in stone, I have to do 12 photo shoots. 3x the work. For this reason, I’ve been saving the pieces that have these kinds of variations for IRL environments so customers can just choose… but I’ll need to figure out the URL solve for this eventually. Also on the topic of meeting customer expectations… when it comes to online sales I am limited to products that have a high likelihood of being loved by their buyer. Like, jewelry is gonna fit everyone. What you see is what you get and hopefully it’s even better in person! But I can’t sell silk pants online because I can’t offer returns or exchanges, so if they don’t fit that’ll be a terrible customer experience. Are you a customer? Are you watching from the sidelines? Please help! I want your honest feedback.
Self promotion. I’m certain my insta will give you the opposite impression, but I really hate self promoting. To be clear, I love sharing stories and updates on life, but I do not love constantly shouting “look at reign_wala! reign_wala this! reign_wala that! Please everyone, come to my pop-up! Look at my website!” Unfortunately I have to promote myself because who else will? I hate flooding my personal friends/followers with brand stuff but that’s also where my audience is. I’m having a pretty hard time finding the balance with this one. I try to post updates at a healthy cadence and with candor and authenticity but a lot of the time when I post I feel like a self-promoting idiot.
Asking for help. I’m always trying to prove that I can do shit on my own. And I hate feeling like I’m inconveniencing other people. But my gd, I need to stop with the “I can do it” thing. First I told Lisa that I didn’t want her to work with me on the first day because I needed to learn to do it myself and also because it was my brand so it would be weird if other people were also working. She actually didn’t give me a choice, she was like shut up Dietzek you need me and I’m working with you. Again, thank G for that. Then, when it was time to load out, both my parents and sisters called me to ask if I needed help and I was like nah I’m good. Well, I ran over the unloading window by a full hour and got lucky that there was some night meeting at A&F so they were still open anyway. But yeah, I had to lift four 6-foot-tall wooden displays myself, load them into the trunk of my car, make 6 more trips to the car to carry lamps / packaging / inventory / power strips / etc and this shit was heavy. Then I got uptown to my apartment and had to do it all over again to get the stuff into my place! My entire body was aching. And then drove around for an hour finding parking. The two things I did ask for help with (custom wooden displays and some printed brand materials) turned out so beautifully (credits below!!) and I felt so supported knowing I had friends invested in the outcomes for both things. Lesson learned… it’s okay to let people help me sometimes.
Being a team of one. I do miss coming into an office every day and shooting the shit. I miss having a shared vision with a team. And gut checking decisions and ideas with other people. And being surrounded by smart people with more experience than me from whom I can learn. And being a mentor to people with less experience than me to whom I can inspire and from whom I can learn to be a better manager. It can be a little lonely doing everything myself. It’s also a challenge because, since it’s just me, it feels like the brand is me. Like I am reign_wala. But I am not reign_wala. reign_wala is a concept that is much bigger than me.
Finding utility services that are truly global. Things like banking and connectivity have been challenging. Everything in Arambol is done in cash, and I get screwed with ATM fees. I wish I could pay one annual fee to be able to withdraw from any ATM anywhere in the world without getting charged per withdrawal. My debit card has been suspended multiple times for security purposes even though I put a travel notice on it. I’m paying Verizon even though I don’t use their cell towers or data plan – I’m paying just to keep my phone number connected. There’s no option to just freeze my number so I’m paying like $80 USD for the minimum plan so that I don’t lose it and so that I have phone number while I’m in the US. I’ve also had it forever and it’s part of my identity (second shout-out to ‘05!!). But I need a phone plan that lets me call anywhere anytime without roaming. WhatsApp is great but it requires that the person on the other side also has WhatsApp (so it’s not great for business purposes). Google Hangouts is also good but I can only use it for outgoing calls, I can’t receive calls on Hangouts. I think more and more people are living this kind of life and hope more global services will emerge to serve them.
Question: Do you ever get lonely?
Answer: In the business sense, yes, as in the spiel above. But in the social sense, I don’t really get lonely when traveling. When I’m in New York, I get these days every now and then – maybe once every few months? – where a feeling will come over me that I can’t describe. It’s like a pit in my stomach, and it comes with a sense of anxiety, and I don’t know what it could be other than to assume it’s the physiological manifestation of loneliness. I don’t feel lonely with my head or my heart, but I do get this pit in my stomach and I think it’s my body manifesting loneliness that maybe my head and heart are suppressing. I say this because the same thing happens to me with stress and fear. When something big is looming in my future, I really don’t feel stressed or scared with my head or heart. In fact, I won’t even register the feelings of stress or fear… and then I’ll get heartburn or an ulcer right before this big thing is about to happen. My stress and fear manifest physiologically and maybe my loneliness does too. Except when it’s the loneliness, it does kinda creep up from my stomach into my heart a little bit. It never lasts for more than a day, and it doesn’t happen that often, but when it happens there is nothing that can cure it (not running, not watching tv, not meeting up with a friend) except time. So far, I haven’t experienced the pit feeling while traveling. I miss my friends and family a lot, but it isn’t loneliness. I do kinda get this anxious feeling when I’m moving to a new place where I don’t know anyone, but it’s more a fear of being lonely than actually being lonely.
Question: Is this your job now?
Answer: Yes. In addition to reign_wala, since I make my own schedule now, I am open to freelance gigs and can/will be in the US if needed to accommodate on-site freelance needs. Freelance gigs give me an opportunity to see friends and family, earn money so I can continue building reign_wala, and stay connected to the industry community I came from. If you know of any gigs I can easily be on a plane, don’t count me out! :)
Question: Why do you need to be in India to do this? / Why can’t you do this from New York?
Answer: Because I can’t afford to live in NY without income. I have lots of things to still figure out before the business will be generating steady income. I can’t afford the time it takes to figure those things out in NY. India affords me the opportunity to both do sourcing AND figure these things out at a lower cost-per-day.
Question: What do your parents think?
Answer: Hi Mommy and Daddyyyy. Allow me to paraphrase your reactions from the past year…
We think it’s amazing that she’s doing what she’s doing. We also, understandably, have Nice Jewish Parents (slash Any Parents) concerns. We are very proud of her bravery, but, ya know, we just hope it works. We hope if it doesn’t work that she can get another job somehow. Ya know who’s gonna want to hire her after she’s been off the market for so long? And ya know, we don’t love her living in India... it’s not exactly the safest or healthiest place. And we miss her. And there is a big part of us that thinks, like, come on Allie, don’t you want to live a normal life? And like, have friends? And how are you gonna meet someone if you’re always moving from place to place? Don’t you want to have a family? But we believe in Allie and we know anything she puts her mind to will be great. Just going for it is already a success and we are very, very proud of her. But also, we are totally fine with her quitting this any time.
Question: Couldn’t you just manage an Etsy page for Sunny?
Answer: Etsy is very strict about sellers themselves being the makers. I am not the maker. Sunny and his people are the makers. If I pretend I am the maker I am exploiting them. I could make a page in Sunny’s name and manage it for him, but then as I expanded to other artisans I would end up managing a bunch of people’s Etsy pages. And many of them don’t read or write so I’d have to be monitoring content and fulfillment pretty closely. Actually sounds like a great business… managing local artisans’ Etsy pages and just taking a percentage of their sales in return for providing that service. Kinda like how Seamless got all the restaurants online and just takes a percentage of every transaction but it’s okay because they’ve exponentially increased the number of transactions. Hmmmmmmm. Wasn’t my ethos at all but I’ll think about it.
Closing remarks.
Any other questions about about anything, I’m down to answer. Oh, this was enough Q&A for you? You’re good for now? You’re still reading!?!?! Thank you.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the words of encouragement as I keep at it. Every little pat on the back means so much to me and you know I am a corn ball. These affirmations – the calls, the texts (thanks for bearing with my WhatsApp life), the DMs, the double taps, the hangs even though way too brief, the participation – these little “you-can-do-its” are what keep me going. And to my friends and family in the New York area who were able to visit the market, with the L train down one of the weekends, no less!!, I appreciate you soOoOoOo so much. I am so glad I got to see you and I was really proud to be able to show you what I’ve been working on.
THE END.
Dear Diary aka you guys.
Why is it always so hard to write the first sentence? Like I just get stuck in struggle city for ten minutes every time I sit down to write.
I’ve been so consumed with building and marketing reign_wala that I feel like I haven’t really explained life in India since arriving here back in September. There were a few IGTV videos so you know there were some challenges but there is much richer detail to share. I’m really excited to unpack all that right now. In particular I’m going to spend some time on my Rajasthani brothers and their lifestyle since they have been such a big part of my experience here.
So back in September, I landed in Goa around 2pm and was in Arambol (the town in Goa where I live) by 4pm. I booked myself into a hostel called Happy Panda with the intention of staying a few nights until I figured out a longer term living situation.
By 7pm I was at Sunny’s shop, seeing him again for the first time since we met three years earlier in north India. I sent him a voice note like, “Sunny where’s the shop?” and he’s like “across from Shiv Krupa General Store.” Which is not on Google Maps. So I was just driving around Arambol asking people if they knew it. Finally when I got close enough to it, somebody did. Shiv Krupa General Store is also Sunny’s address - it’s where he receives all of his parcels. (When my mom asked me my address here, I told her Shiv Krupa, and she was like so what if I needed to send you something? And I was like, you send it to the general store. I’ll get it. The General Store is my address, okay? G-D, MOM.) Anyway, Sunny is in Arambol now because it’s tourist season and he can sell very well here (whereas it’s freezing in the north where I met him).
After just a couple of hours catching up in the shop I was feeling really good and right about the decision to come to Goa. It was like no time had passed, and Sunny was psyched about the business. Well, two days later, Sunny tells me he has to go to his hometown, Pushkar, in the state of Rajasthan, for 15 days. He tells me he has to go for business, to pick up some product and bring it back here. He felt so awful that he had to leave Goa because he knew he was the reason I came here and I really didn’t know another soul. And I was pretty frustrated by this because once I get it in my head that I’m doing something, I get stuck on it. So this felt like a MAYJAH slow-down. So Sunny told me he would introduce to me to his two best friends from childhood, Mohan and Krishna (aka Anil -- I’ll explain this later), who are also living in Goa and have a clothing shop just two shops down from Sunny’s. He tells me Mohan and Krishna are going to look out for me while he is in Pushkar.
Quick detour to explain a few things. First, Goa is a state. The town in Goa where I live is called Arambol. It’s known for its more relaxed, hippie vibe. During high season (which “officially” starts November 15) there are parties almost every night but even the crazy parties aren’t the craziest in Goa. But we have techno, house, psy trance, reggae, hip hop, chillout, live music, open mic… whatever you want, it’s here. There are regular drum circles on the beach. Lots of people have circus-y skills like hula hooping / juggling / light stick dancing / poi / slacklining / fire dancing and music-y skills like singing / drums of all sorts / sitar / guitar / ukulele / clarinet. Many people are here for 200-hour yoga teacher training courses. And Goa in general has western influences in many ways. For example, there are vegan spots. Juice bars. Places with western toilets. You can get pizza and pasta at many restaurants. Two places even have AMERICANO COFFEE. Most people speak English relatively well.
Rajasthan, on the other hand, is a state in northern India, and it’s pretty much what you think of when you think of “India.” Deserts, big white temples, the camel fair, bright colors and it’s a total mecca for handicrafts. Pushkar is the specific city in Rajasthan where Sunny, Mohan and Krishna are from. I haven’t been yet, but I’m going with Mohan in a week and I CANNOT WAIT.
Now back to the story. So Sunny walks me down to Mohan and Krishna’s shop and introduces me. Sunny tells me “Allie these guys will take care of you. You come to their shop any time, okay? You have dinner with them at night, okay?” And I’m like, yup, sounds good. I’m happy to know some locals. Even though I’ll probably just do my own thing. But the next day Sunny leaves and I go over to Mohan and Krishna’s shop to say hello, and Mohan is like, “you come for dinner tonight.” And I’m like, “no, it’s okay, cause I’m gonna eat on the beach tonight!” And he’s like, “NO. You come for dinner our room.” And I’m like “no really it’s--” and he’s like, “NO. Tonight, you eat OUR ROOM.” OK then.
So I meet Mohan and Krishna at their shop at 8:30pm. For the next 15 minutes Krishna closes up the shop and then we take the scooter back to the room that Krishna, Mohan and Sunny share.
This is the room, which you may have already seen on insta:
Mohan sleeps on the wire bed. Sunny and Krish sleep on the floor. The tin containers on the floor are the Indian version of tupperware.
The kitchen. The walls are stained from cooking but make no mistake, this room is extremely clean, especially the kitchen. Mohan is hardcore about it.
Mohan cooks while Krishna hands him ingredients and washes the dishes as they go. I offer to wash my own dishes, they tell me “beto, beto.” (Sit, sit). We sit in a circle on the floor and eat dinner. It is from this point forward that I begin to become immersed in their routine and start to learn their codes and ways and dynamics. From this night on, I ate dinner with this little family of mine every single night. It was assumed I’d be there unless I “called out” to let them know I wouldn’t be joining.
Before I go further, let me give you a visual reference so you can have these guys in your head because they are essential! As you will see, these three could not be more different from each other.
This is Mohan. Mohan is probably 35. (He doesn’t know his age, more on this later). He has had many jobs. First he was a carpenter. During that job he had an accident in which he lost the tips of two of his fingers (middle and ring on his left hand). He then got a job in Pushkar designing and building one of the top 3 hotels there. It is literally a palace. He decided to transfer from carpentry/designing to cooking, and eventually became the head chef in the hotel’s kitchen. In total he was at this hotel for 16 years before leaving to see if he could set up his own restaurant in Goa. He came to Arambol in Season 2017, had his own restaurant for the season, and ultimately decided that he wanted to be in Goa but that a clothing shop would bring better business than a restaurant. So 2018 is his first foray into “retail.” The shop has silk and cotton clothing. Mohan’s older brother Manoj owns a silk factory in Rajasthan and his tailors make most of what Mohan and Krishna sell in the shop. Mohan knows many words in English from 16 years of working in a fancy hotel but he does not try and really just prefers to speak his local language. I have to beg him to speak English during dinner time. Also, Mohan is very serious. Just a serious guy, in general. This is understandable as he is the owner of the shop and has a grown family to provide for back in Rajasthan but it’s also just his personality.
This is Anil. (Sunny is driving). Anil is Krishna. Krishna is Anil. Same person. I learned that Anil has been called Krishna since he’s a little kid. (Krishna is one of the many gods in the Hindu religion). He introduces himself using this alias. I finally caught on that his name was Anil when I realized Mohan and Sunny were never calling him Krishna and then they explained, Anil is for close friends only. To everyone else –– like customers in the shop –– he is Krishna. But I will refer to him from here on as Anil.
Anil is somewhere between 22 and 25 (like Mohan, he doesn’t know his age). He is insanely hardworking but is also super chill, easygoing, fun and hilarious. Anil has had even more jobs than Mohan. Here’s his story, which he has told me 20 times and I have now memorized: he went to school in Pushkar until 5th grade, but he failed five times, so he stopped going to school and started working. He was doing camel safaris in Rajasthan with his family’s camel which is named Lucky. Then he started working at his family’s little chai stand, Lucky Cafe. Then he started working at Umbrella Cafe — which must always be pronounced YOOMbrella Cafe –– in Pushkar. Then he become a bike mechanic. Then he started doing bike rentals instead of being the mechanic. While living in Pushkar, he would go up to Brahma Temple every morning. It’s on a small hill, and there is a cable car, but he chose to walk. 11 minutes up, 7 minutes down. Every morning. Then he decided to try living in Goa, because his family was pressuring him to get married and he wanted to escape that. So he came to Arambol in Season 2012 and got a job working in a shop (“not Mohan, different guy”). This is now his sixth season in Arambol, but first time working with Mohan even though they have known each other since they are kids. Anil knows how to say “hello, how are you, come to my shop” and a number of other important phrases in about 15 different languages (English, Hindi, Russian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, German and Hebrew to name a few). He is pretty fluent in English and likes to speak it as much as possible. He is hilarious in English so I know he’s even funnier in his own language. Sometimes I wish so much that I could understand him in his local language because during dinner time he will make jokes that make the boys actually cry from laughing!! Sometimes I laugh just from seeing how hard they’re laughing but I have no idea what’s going on.
This is Sunny in his Arambol shop making some feather earrings with feathers I brought from NY. I met Sunny in 2015 in Manali, India. He had a shop there at the time, which has since moved around to other places in India (e.g. now it’s in Arambol). Sunny is kind of the leader of the three (although Mohan is the boss of certain things, like food). Sunny has been making macrame for 15 years and has built a successful business but currently the macramé has become sort of a side thing, because it is extremely labor intensive and time consuming, so he started to wholesale all sorts of jewelry in silver/gold (not real) and brass and now has a pretty formidable export business in motion. When I met him in 2015, he was hand making every macramé piece himself and the shop was only macrame. Today, he has a small team of artisans that he has trained to make the macramé. They are all in Pushkar. Sunny’s role is managing those people from afar and taking care of his shop in Arambol which now has a broader variety of goods (like dreamcatchers). Sunny used to be a “cowboy,” riding a Royal Enfield motorcycle between cities and villages in north India. During that time he wore a macramé cowboy hat that he made. He can speak English pretty fluently, but he cannot read or write, so we communicate in voice notes. Sunny’s voice and way of speaking is superrrrrr chiiiillllll. Like, he whispers. Like, our voices are opposites.
Alrighty, now you know who everyone is.
So I’m living at Happy Panda hostel and having dinner with the boys aka my Rajasthani brothers every night. I needed to find my own room because the hostel environment was distracting and I had so much work to do. After a few nights of dinner with the boys, I realize that I want whatever place I get to be just like theirs. Not a guest house or a hostel, but just a room in a family’s home. In a proper little village behind the main road where the shop is. The family lives downstairs, the boys live upstairs and have a separate entrance with their own kitchen. I find out the room on the other side of their wall is free, and you all know that story already. I didn’t really inspect it, moved in, really couldn’t handle it with the bugs and the burning plastic every night. So even though I had that room and all my stuff was there, I would end up sleeping in the boys’ room every night instead. Dinner would be over and I would just be like, guys, I can’t go back there. So I slept on the floor with Anil (Sunny was still in Rajasthan). This went on for almost two weeks and then I moved myself back into Happy Panda hostel temporarily so I could search for new homes. (Side note, Kartik and Sourabh who are the co-owners of Happy Panda are my other family here in Arambol). I found a home just two minutes walking from the sea, in a quieter area of Arambol, and stayed there for the rest of my time in Arambol before going back to NY for the markets. I still went to the boys’ room for dinner every night. Dinner got later and later as the season started picking up. It went from 8:30 to 9:30 to 11:30 and soon we were eating at like 1am. This is because they had to keep the shop open for potential customers, so Anil would stay in the shop and Mohan would go back to the room and start cooking. Then Anil and Sunny would close their shops and we would meet Mohan in the room where dinner would be ready to eat.
Some more about life with my Rajasthani boys and life here in general:
1. One night my friends Laura and Daniel rented a little villa here. Laura is from Germany and Daniel is from Australia and I met Daniel at the hostel and coincidentally met Laura at Sunny’s shop. They have been dating one year. They were in Arambol and it was their last few days together before having to be apart for a little while so they rented this SICK three-story villa with an indoor bedroom, outdoor bedroom, sauna, AIR CONDITIONING and a meditation room. The meditation room was extra dope and even a little creepy. Circular room, entirely upholstered with black cloth, with no light and just a few black cushions on the floor. One night a small crew of us went over to the villa for a little dance party. Here’s a clip of the footage.
2. The boys call me Allie Chellie. Chellie means student. As in, they are my teachers and I am the student. They kinda say my name “Ellie,” so it rhymes. Ellie Chellie. Sometimes they call me Allie Gannv Pahele (pronounced Ellie Gam Pellie) which means “village first” and loosely translates to a revered person in the village. How freaking cute is that? Also on occasion they call me Madame.
3. I learned that between Mohan and Anil, Mohan is the boss and Anil is the helper. It took me a full three weeks to catch on to this dynamic. Every night at dinner I would offer to do the dishes and I’d be told to sit down. I thought they were just being polite so I would go above and beyond to prove I could hang by begging to do the dishes. Until one day I finally realized it was Anil’s job. Essentially, Mohan pays the full rent for the shop and purchased all of the product. So Anil does everything else. He is responsible for opening the shop every morning, closing the shop every night, and helping all customers during the day. He hangs, folds, re-hangs and re-folds. He is the bookkeeper. He makes chai 4 times a day (he goes back to the room, makes the chai, brings it to the shop and serves it to Mohan, and then brings and serves it to Sunny). He cleans the shop and the apartment. He is Mohan’s helper during dinner. He washes all dishes. He goes and gets clean water from Auntie downstairs. He fetches the 50 pound gas tank from Auntie. He does literally everything. He does not have an hour off. He does not have a day off. Ever. But, in exchange for all of this work, Mohan splits the profit from the shop with Anil 50/50. This kind of profit split is unheard of between guru (boss) and helper.
4. Mohan cooks dinner every single night. Sunny will sometimes make the chapati (bread) but Mohan does the heavy lifting because he used to be a chef and is very particular about food. Sometimes I am responsible for getting vegetables from the market or I pick up dessert as a treat. I make sure to have the vegetable man in the shop double check my pickings because Mohan will not tolerate shitty vegetables. I was also allowed to cook once! I made Indian food. The boys said it was really good! I have not been allowed to cook since.
5. The boys have a bluetooth speaker. We watch Indian movies and music videos on one of their phones and they lean it up against the speaker. I love this one Hindi movie called Old Is Gold, about a swaggy Indian man who accidentally schedules 3 dates with 3 different Indian women on the same day. It doesn’t have subtitles but it takes place in Goa so it’s fun to hear the characters referencing the different beaches.
6. One night I was hanging in a slightly-lesser-known area of Arambol called Girkarwada (main naighborhood is called Khalsawada). I found a cafe there called Titu’s. Great food, even better vibes and perhaps most importantly it has the strongest WiFi in Arambol so I go there when I need to GETSHITDONE. This is a clip from when the power went out there (not ideal for getting shit done).
7. For Anil, closing the shop consists of bringing the outside clothing inside, then pulling down a tarp which has to get tied to a cement wall on both sides. The tarp has loopholes which run vertically along the left and right sides, and a little piece of rope ties the tarp to a vertical set of hook-eyes on the cement wall. Once the ropes are tied, five rocks/bricks are laid along the bottom of the tarp to keep it against the ground.
8. I kinda became famous in Arambol. For the first six weeks here I was one of, like, five tourists. I stuck out like a sore thumb and I would walk the same routes every day so all of the shopkeepers and restaurant workers started to know who I was.
9. One day Sunny and I were talking and I was like, dude, you should come to the US. You could really have an amazing shop there. You could make so much money. You know what Sunny said? He said, “I don’t want to go there. If I go there, I am not free. Here I am free.” Counterintuitive as it may seem, he could not be more right.
10. My phone is confused. Me giving voice commands in English. Me asking for translations in Hindi. The boys picking up my phone and giving voice commands in English. And also in Hindi. She’s Google, so she’s always listening, and she hears English people speaking English, Hindi people speaking Hindi, English people speaking Hindi and Hindi people speaking English. She doesn’t know what search results to give me and in particular she doesn’t know how to process my voice commands anymore. She used to be so good at this. I would give orders to Google Lady all day long and she would get almost all of them right (set an alarm, look up xyz, give me directions to xyz, what song is this?). Now she doesn’t know if I’m speaking English with an Indian accent or Hindi with an English accent. I use speech commands and wait as she outputs results that flicker back and forth between English and Hindi, like an old-school train schedule board, until eventually she decides on a final result and it’s always wrong. [Note: anyone thinking “that’s because you have a Google Phone” can just… no. Siri has NOTHING on the Google Assistant. I’m sure Google Assistant doesn’t encounter this problem often and she’s adapting fast. Siri does not even compare in plain English. So shh. #teampixel]
11. I moved back and forth between the dark backside of the village and the bright, tourist-laden cafes of main Arambol Beach. The difference was remarkable. Anil and Mohan have been living by the beach for 2 months and Mohan just went to the beach for the first time. Many tourists don’t even know that the villages behind the shops and cafes even exist. Kartik and Sourabh on the other hand, the co-owners of Happy Panda, are from a really nice place called Pune and have engineering degrees. They have a completely different lifestyle than my Rajasthani brothers. They go to restaurants and order food in. They buy clothes on the internet. When I was having room issues, I pretty much barged into Kartik’s room crying and he understood my plight. In some ways (not all, but many), his upbringing was closer to mine than to a Rajasthani villager’s.
12. I’m on an every-five-or-six-days makeup cadence. Sometimes I just want that feeling that only wearing mascara can bring. :)
13. I have learned to be mindful of interrupting. We're so used to being like "hey do you have a sec" but these guys are like, no, one minute, I’m doing something, wait.
14. After so many months on the road (I’ve been traveling since June), it can become exhausting explaining your story. You know how in New York (maybe all of the US?) there is a standard line of questioning when you meet someone new? It’s like, “so what do you do? Where do you live in the city? Where are you originally from?” Well, the standard line of questioning for backpackers is, “So how long have you been in [name of town we are in]? Is this your first time in India? How long will you be here for? What are you doing here?” Having to explain the same thing every day can be tiring, especially as the backstory gets longer and longer.
15. Anil accidentally spilled the beans to me on two occasions. First, he accidentally told me that Sunny didn’t go to Rajasthan for business, he went because his wife was giving birth. Then he accidentally showed me a picture of Mohan’s son, who is TWELVE years old, and I did not know Mohan had a son! Finding out Sunny and Mohan have wives and kids was shocking but beyond that I was kinda pissed they hadn’t told me themselves. When I confronted them they laughed and apologized but also explained that they live a different life here and that tourists misunderstand their marriages and therefore judge them for being in Goa while their families are in Rajasthan, so they don’t tell people. Both marriages are arranged marriages and both Mohan and Sunny have solid relationships with their wives but they’ve been in this situation since they are fifteen years old and they’re not really love marriages. They are arrangements which they continue to honor, more like tradition. They use Facebook and WhatsApp video calling to stay in touch. When I go to Pushkar in a week, I’m going with Mohan, and I will meet the boys’ entire families!!! Their brothers and sisters, parents (Mohan’s dad has passed away, Sunny’s mom has passed away) and Mohan’s two sons.
16. There is something so special about female friendships. I’ve written about this before at various times while traveling and it continues to be a conundrum for me: I really miss having cool girls around when I’m on the road. I do meet female travelers, but we are definitely outnumbered by men and most of my friends here are guys. Most of the time I don’t mind, I love them all!!!, but sometimes, like… Girls Just Wanna Have Girl Talk.
17. I found out the boys don’t know how old they are. Can you imagine how disorienting that would be? Except here, it really isn’t. But in the US, so many things depend on age –– like school, driver’s licenses, drinking legally. But in India, many births happen sort of “unofficially” and then the parents don’t “register” their children until they are forced to when they need identification in order to start school… at which point their parents sort of need to fib about their age to make them seem younger than they are. So the year on the boys’ ID cards is not the year they were born. And I know you’re thinking, “don’t their parents know when they had them?” And for some reason the answer is kinda, no. Like they have a rough idea, but not exact. I asked Mohan “but when do you celebrate your birthday?” and he said “Madame my birthday DIWALI.” And I said “but Diwali is like 2 weeks long so when exactly is it?” and he said “Madame I don’t know, my mama say Mohan your birthday DIWALI so madame my birthday DIWALI.” I have tried really hard to understand why their moms don’t know their birthdays but haven’t got to the bottom of whether it’s (1) just not as important so they don’t make as bold a mental note, or (2) there is some other reason, or (3) the boys just don’t understand what I’m asking (but I think they do).
18. It's fascinating what you can learn about a culture through the phone screens of its people. My Translation people know what I'm talking about :) For example, the way their contacts are named. Or how the boys read Pushkar news every day on their phones. It comes via WhatsApp, from a group titled I Love You Pushkar followed by like 10 emojis. And this is actually an official news source, registered as a media company, and their medium is WhatsApp. (I found out that in India if you have a certain number of members in a WhatsApp group, you have to register as a media company). Anyway, it is through I Love You Pushkar that I found out about Prime Minister Modhi’s visit to Pushkar where he announced free electricity for farmers. I’ve also learned about a recent train accident in north India, and a young Indian boy now called Google Boy who has such extensive knowledge that he has outsmarted India’s most popular trivia game and he’s like 4 years old. Watch here. How freakin cute.
19. That one time I was cooking for the boys, I took a little slurp from the cooking spoon to taste the sauce and got yelled at. I barely touched my mouth to the spoon, guys. I was supposed to do what they do, which is, pour a tiny bit of the sauce into my left hand and slurp off my hand. Don’t use the cooking spoon. Like how am I getting yelled at for slurping when this is India and there’s literally cow shit everywhere and we eat off of newspaper? But the boys are extremely scrupulous when it comes to hygiene. Sunny also told me that one time Anil didn’t eat the candy I brought for him because we were sitting on the floor and I pushed it over to him using my foot. Guys it was IN A WRAPPER. He didn’t eat it! And there is never any eating off of each others’ plates (so Dietzek family, you wouldn’t survive a minute here).
20. ((LOL can we just acknowledge I’m on number 20? This is such a long post.)) Sometimes at dinner, I make up stories in my head about what the boys are talking about. Because they’ll start in English with me, and then they’ll just go down a Hindi rabbit hole for 10 minutes at a time and I just sit there trying to keep track but I can’t catch everything. So every few words I’ll understand something and I’ll string these context clues together into a story that kinda makes sense? And I’ll just go with that for a while and then they’ll say something that makes me realize I have absolutely no clue what’s going on.
21. Twice I have been to the top of Arambol Mountain. It’s barely 45 minutes to the very top but you have to hike through a jungle, the trail is not exposed. It’s disorienting when you get up there and it’s a plateau. Or at least for me it was, cause I was expecting a sweeping sea view. Here’s footage from one of the hikes.
22. I’ve been wearing more American clothing and not caring. I used to avoid things like denim or plaid or prints that looked too much like they came from the western world. This time I don’t care. I like looking New York. It helps me maintain that part of my identity. And trust me with all this macrame all over me I’m looking plenty Arambol. I have my shredded jean jacket with me and every local is like WTF is that thing. You buy that thing? But, for real, all those rips make it very breathable.
23. When you stay somewhere long enough you can feel the difference between the days of the week. It’s cool when you start to be able to feel what's a Monday versus what's a Sunday.
24. Last night there was open mic at this place called Twice in Nature. I think I’m gonna do open mic. I don’t play an instrument but I’ll sing and maybe someone with an instrument can back me up. Talent show dreams come true.
25. I feel so lucky to be a native English speaker. We should not take for granted how easy it is for us to just express ourselves freely in our native language and be understood by others. For many travelers, even if they do speak English it can still be exhausting to mentally translate while speaking or not have exactly the right words to describe your thoughts and feelings. We get to be lazy.
26. While I spend lots of time with my Rajis, I also meet lots of backpackers every day and have had delightful adventures with them. It’s a bit harder on that front from a schedule standpoint because they all want to go have fun during the day and I usually have work to do. Whereas my Rajis are also working during the day so our schedules are more in sync. But I have met some amazing backpackers and it’s always nice when they’re sticking around Arambol a while. Life here is all about the fun jungle hikes, daytime beach cafe hangs, nighttime trance parties and classic Arambol sunsets. It can be tough at times being in a place where everyone is on vacation when I’m really not on vacation. I am working my ass off every day. Other backpackers sometimes get irritated by this or say things to me like “Allie you’re always so busy” and “it’s the busy New York girl who always has something to do” or “Allie you need to just relax, don’t worry so much about working” and I’m like mmkay I’m not worried I’m just not on vaca like you are… but that won’t go over well with this crowd so I just laugh along. :)
27. While in New York I realized I was doing reverse currency calculations. Meaning, instead of thinking to myself “300 rupees, okay so about $5 USD,” I would think to myself, “$14 USD… okay so 1000 rupees.” And then be like, wait, 1000 rupees? I barely spend than on anything in India. Like, there is nothing in my day to day life that would cost 1000 rupees (maybe a WEEK on a motorbike) so why would I mindlessly spend that on a glass of wine in NYC.
28. For real, it takes so long to write these posts. This one, especially. It took me almost 20 hours to write (spread out over 3 days for the actual writing). Then I had to comb through all of my pics, download them to my machine, name and organize them so they’d be usable for this purpose and then upload and caption them. For the videos I had to download them to my machine, then upload them to YouTube so they’d be embeddable here, and then embed them. I’m done with everything except this bullet point which I am coming back to add and then I swear to G I am pressing publish on this thing and I’ll fix any cracks later. And I haven’t even gotten to the market yet!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Arite, lemme show ya more pics and videos from adventures around this place:
Moving from the hostel into my new place back in September. Awful photo of me but had to show this moment. Yes I did put my helmet on immediately after this was taken.
The bottom right corner is my room – the one I got after I moved out of the place next to the boys. I loved this place and might try to get it again when I get back from Pushkar but it will probably be double the price now due to high season.
This is the pathway that leads to the red house in the last picture. That red building is behind the yellow building you can see here. Sometimes I would have to ride my scooter on this TINY path! The only way to do it is FAST.
One of my favorite photos EVER. From the time I got kidnapped by some Aunties on the train and dressed in one of their sarees.
This white bull being a total gangster in the backfields of Arambol.
India Post mailbox.
Sourabh (left), me, and Kartik (right) at Happy Panda hostel. Unflattering pic of all three of us but I love these guys and the vibe they have created at this place. They quit their engineering jobs to make this place a reality. Their parents said all the same things American parents would say.
Dinner at the boys’ one night. Me, Anil, Laura (my friend from the UK who has also been here a while - what up Laura), Mohan and Sunny.
In Goa we have this awful “city,” more like a junction, called Mapusa. There is nothing fun in Mapusa. You go there to get things you NEED, not things you want. Anything you can’t find in Arambol is there. So for home furnishings, essentials like underwear and bras, computer repairs and other random necessities, you make a 40-minute motorbike journey to Mapusa. Usually you go with two people, so you have helping hands for the journey back with the goods. I’ve been both the driver and the passenger a few times. On this occasion, Sunny was going with our other friend Norat. This was my shopping list for him, in preparation for the NY market. You can see he made some notes in Hindi for the stuff he couldn’t read in English. :) The circles refer to embroidery circles, which Sunny taught me how to make, which we use to the display the hair sticks.
Videochatting with Kartik (co-owner of Happy Panda hostel). Not sure why as we were both in Arambol? But this was fun.
This is the main road in the most popular area of Arambol. On the right is Anil and Mohan’s shop. The green dress on the mannequin in the very far right is theirs. And you can see a pair of pink leggings, too - that’s where you walk inside. See where the road curves to the right? Sunny’s shop is right on the other side of that curve, also on the right hand side of the street. This photo is facing north, and the sea is on the left (if you were to walk behind those shops on the left, in about 3-4 minutes you’d get down to the beach).
Above is a back road, the one that goes from the main area to my red house in Girkarwara. (Also called Girkarwada with a D at the end. There are 2-3 spellings for everything. And I actually get this now which is whack).
Me and Laura, from the UK, who has also been here a while. (She’s also in the dinner pic in the boys’ room).
Guys… I think I’m just now accepting for the first time that I live in two places. That New York is home and India is also home. That I will be back and forth for the foreseeable future, with homes and families and communities in both places. My friends were asking me in New York, “is it so weird to be back?” and I’m like, actually no. And upon landing in India, “is it so weird to be back?” Also, no. But is it so weird to feel like I’m “home” in New York ALSO feel like I’m “home” in India? To realize that I LIVE in both places, just at different times? And that, whichever direction I’m going in, whether it’s NY to India or India to NY, I’m going home? Yeah. Yeah, that’s weird.
And that’s a wrap.
Much love,
ALZ
]]>The following post was written Friday, September 7 at 10PM and contains deleted scenes from Portugal and France, including the moment that led me back to India.
Since I got back from India in 2015, I have thought about it every single day, and I’m not exaggerating. Sometimes more than once a day. I would remember a funny moment, or a ritual, or a person, or a huge ass plate of paneer makhani, or how much more I liked myself during the months I spent there, and I would wish I were back there. I have always known in my gut that I would return. And here I am, on a flight to Goa.
When I left New York in June, I knew I would spend some time backpacking around and visiting friends. I also wanted to test whether I could earn a living building my own dream after years of helping to build someone else’s dream. I had a few ideas about how that could work and intended to use this on-the-road time to test one or some of them. (Quick recap: I started in Australia and then spent a month in Vietnam before flying to Portugal to meet my family. I was unsure of exactly where I’d be going post-Portugal, but I knew it needed to be somewhere I could afford to live while figuring out the business thing. But first, Portugal.)
Well, I landed in Lisbon one day before my family and stayed in a hostel because I didn’t want to pay for my own night in the hotel where we would be staying. All of the backpackers in the hostel were obviously on the Europe circuit so it was a little hard to relate because my story was like, yeah, I just got here from Australia, and then Vietnam, here for a family vacation, but I’ve been backpacking… in Asia… and then I’m gonna keep backpacking…but not in Europe…?
The next morning, with my big pack on my back and my small pack on my front like a baby bjorn, I did the 20 minute walk over to the hotel to meet my family. It was such a great reunion when everyone arrived!!!
Happenings in Portugal:
1. We rented a Nissan SUV to drive around the country. It was a stick shift and my dad drove the whole time. We made it to Lisbon, Lagos, Coimbra, Porto, Cascais, Sintra and back to Lisbon. We wanted a way to stay entertained in the car, so we started looking into podcasts. Someone (not me) found some podcast called The Teacher’s Pet, which is a 13-episode true story about this Australian scandal where a teacher was having an affair with his high school student and then his wife mysteriously went missing / was murdered. This happened 30 years ago and they never convicted the teacher because they couldn’t prove it was him who murdered his wife (to get rid of her so he could continue his affair with this student) but now they are re-opening the case. Honestly, this was the absolute weirdest thing we could have ever chosen to listen to, but we listened to 13 episodes of this. Needless to say, given we were listening to this Australian narrator tell us this story for hours during each car ride, we just could not restrain ourselves from speaking in absolutely horrible Australian accents to each other for at least 80% of the trip. Spoiler alert, Chris Dawson *probably* murdered his wife.
2. My family made fun of me the entire trip for blogging and dressing like a complete backpacking hippie. Lizzie was calling me Steve Irwin the whole time because of my crossbody multi-pocket toolbelt of a “purse.”
3. We tried Tiger Prawns, aka enormous shrimp. Never seen or had these anywhere else. Each prawn was the size of a banana, maybe bigger!
It is September 14. I’ve been in Goa, India for six days. I flew Air India from Paris so the second I stepped onto the plane I was slapped in the face with the smell of India which made me so giddy and happy that I was like, cheesily smiling with my eyes at the other passengers as if to say, I know, isn’t this the best!?!? We made it! We’re going to INDIA!
In 2015 I was in Goa for a month. I loved it enough to stay for a month but it still wasn’t my favorite. I’d have to give that title to the hill stations of the Himalayas up north. But this time, it’s creeping into my soul in a totally different way. It’s low season, so although Goa can be pretty “full power” as we say here in India, there are almost no tourists here now and 80% of the shops and cafes aren’t even open. I’m making a huge effort to learn Hindi (thank you Ashish for being my teacher!) and I’m picking it up quickly. And this time, I’ve returned with a purpose. A purpose that has led me specifically to Goa. A purpose that has been three years in the making. (Wait, is purpose a really weird word or did I just say it too many times so it turned into one?)
The purpose is this:
To create a more sustainable artisanal economy that helps the local artisan reign supreme.
To do this, I am partnering with local artisans in underdeveloped countries to bring their handmade and custom goods to customers who can and will pay a more fair price than the artisans can command in their home countries. To truly foster sustainability, and to demonstrate my commitment to the artisans themselves, I will be sharing profits with the artisans when goods are sold.
Why am I doing this?
There are artisans all over the world making the most beautiful and thoughtful things with their own two hands. They spend hours upon hours making. Their handiwork is their livelihood. But particularly in underdeveloped countries like India, these artisans are at the mercy of the bargain-hungry tourists who, when in India – even if they can afford to pay more, and would pay more back ‘home’ – want to pay India prices. They negotiate like crazy, suggesting they’ll walk away from the sale if the artisan doesn’t reduce the price by another dollar. And we’re talking about the difference between like, three dollars and four dollars here. On the flip side we have the big retailers of the world, who send scouts around the globe searching for trends and unique techniques frequently found in artisanal shops. They’ll spot something in India, have it mass-produced in a factory in Asia for even cheaper than the Indian shop price, and then sell it in a US store at a 1000% markup. Customers appreciate and even fawn over the novelty (duh, because the designs are usually awesome!), so they’re happy to pay the price retailers command. Artisanal trends make their way onto the wrists and shoulders of customers around the world… but unfortunately, you know who sees no benefit from this system? The artisan.
And I, myself was guilty of relentless bargaining during my first India trip. Early in my trip I remember one time I was buying something from a shop and I was haggling to no end. We got to a point where the seller wanted 300 INR (Indian Rupees) and I wanted to pay 250 INR. At the time, and on my budget, saving 50 rupees seemed significant. And while in India, I’m living on INR (not USD) and it’s natural to want the best price. In my mind, she would be lucky to make the sale. Well, I knew if I threatened to walk away, she would cave. So I started to walk away and sure enough, she did cave. But in the moment of transaction, as I handed her the 250, I caught a look in her eyes that made my stomach drop. She was not happy to have made the sale. She was instead sad to have had to make the sale. She had no choice but to agree to my price. If she hadn’t, she’d have been left with nothing. She couldn’t afford to be left with nothing. So she agreed to a price that undervalued her hard work so that she could at least gain something. Meanwhile I would have paid ten times the price for the same thing back home in New York without batting an eyelash. Here I had ‘won’ the negotiation but the equation was all wrong. In such a transaction, shouldn’t everyone win? We don’t want to be ripped off, but we also don’t want to rip someone else off, do we? From then on, my goal when negotiating with artisans would be for both parties to be happy. I wanted to walk away from every negotiation feeling great about the price I’d paid and I wanted the artisan to feel great about what he or she had earned for his or her work. That’s why profit-sharing with the artisans is such a critical part of this idea. Everyone wins!
You may be wondering, ‘can’t the artisans just sell by themselves on Etsy or eBay so they can reach customers in the US?’ and the answer is, sadly, not really. As I’ve asked those same questions I’ve learned there are significant barriers to getting artisans online. Some of these barriers include: lack of computer, lack of reliable internet access, frequent lack of electricity/power, lack of business savvy and perhaps most critically, inability to read and/or write in English.
For example, Sunny, the first artisan I’ll be working with, can speak English relatively well but he cannot read or write. He does not know the letters of the alphabet or the written symbols we use to represent those letters (like Aa, Bb, Cc). Sunny and I communicate using voice notes on WhatsApp. Even that can sometimes be difficult because we can’t see each others’ hand or face expressions which play a HUGE role in our ability to understand each other. Mostly I try to just go sit in the shop with him to do planning stuff.
Here are some pics to give you a break from reading:
cooking bhati for dinner in sunny’s apartment last night. (sunny is actually not in this photo, he had to make a quick trip to Rajasthan where he is originally from.)
beachside shacks temporarily abandoned during low season in goa.
view from a restaurant on the main beach in arambol. the only strip of proper restaurants open right now. in high season it will be POPPIN (“full power”).
my friend brad getting a beard trim, an edge and a scalp massage “like the best one i’ve had in a long time, it was completely awesome” (brad dictated that to me)
on the wall at the hostel where i’m staying until my other room is ready. mayyyjah shout-out to kartik and sourabh who run this place and are the most sound human beings! (jessie & patrice did i use it right?)
So, we haven’t built the sustainable artisanal economy yet and it’s time! We all know I’m quite the shopper and consumer myself and I am in no way blaming consumers for the status quo. And business is business. I understand that we all need to make a living so I’m not hating on the big retailers either. In fact I’m acknowledging that customers have great taste and the scouts at places like Anthropologie have a great eye. I just feel really passionately about finding a way to help everybody win. I’m sure I’m not the first person to think about solving this problem and I definitely won’t be the last. But it is officially my mission to try.
And for real… as scared as I am to be taking this leap… I am so, SO pumped!!! I so believe this model can work and when I think about the long-term impact of its success – the quality of life and the opportunities it can create for local artisans everywhere – I just want to jump up and down with joy.
And it’s fun for me as well because I’m so passionate about handicrafts. I have ALWAYS loved spending time in markets. I don’t go anywhere without spending time in the respective local market. I’m kinda tooting my own horn here but it’s true: I have developed a really sharp eye for techniques, textiles, patterns and provenances. I can walk into a market almost anywhere in the world and tell you where each of the products came from and how they were made. It’s kinda my superpower. This will be imperative both for sharing product stories and also for qualifying that each piece is 100% handmade.
So, Sunny is the first artisan I’ll be working with. Sunny and I met in 2015 in Manali, India which is in the Himalayas. But like many Indians, Sunny spends half his time in the north and half in the south, so now he is in Goa preparing for high season here. Sunny’s specialty is handmade macrame jewelry – in particular, anklets, headbands and hair lulu’s (kinda like hair wraps) – and I absolutely love his pieces. They are so well made, so thoughtfully designed and surprisingly durable! They’re bohemian, but not too out-there. They’re feminine, easy to wear and they just feel special. I’ve been wearing one bracelet for 3 years through oceans, showers, weddings and more and it’s still in excellent condition. I’ve searched many places both IRL and URL and I’ve never found anything like Sunny’s pieces. Similar, yes – but not exactly the same and definitely not as great. And I am so excited to bring to life the experience of Sunny’s shop. It is covered in macrame and other handmade jewelry from floor to ceiling. The energy is so lovely – shoes off at the door, sitting on the floor, drinking chai tea, with incense burning, hindi music playing and Sunny making. I bought 10 things from him during my last visit to India and regretted not buying 100. We’ve stayed in touch and it has been truly surreal to be reunited with him here.
Don’t even get me started on all of the questions that need to be answered in order to make this work. Where will the products be sold IRL and online? Do I need to partner with local retailers or is direct-to-consumer better? What should be the price of each product? How will I find customers? What’s the deal with shipping internationally? Can Sunny make enough pieces? How long will each piece take? And about a thousand other questions related to product development, marketing, sales, legal, budget and more. The good news is that I’ve identified the questions and am busting ass to answer them.
One thing I do know is that this thing will have to launch in phases, as I won’t have the perfect e-commerce site or beautiful product photography for quite some time. Phase One aka Soft Launch will be mostly for friends and family, and will most likely rely on connecting a payments processor to an existing platform like Instagram. Items will be made to order until there is enough demand for me take on inventory at quantity. The first items for sale will be macrame anklets, macrame headbands (they double as chokers or double-wrapped bracelets) and hair sticks. These hair sticks have changed my life… I swear to G they make ANY hair day a good (or at least MUCH better) hair day!! I’ll share photos ASAP.
And guys… I am willing to do anything to make this work. It is super important to me that prices are fair for customers. I am investing all of my own money. I’m here during off season (it picks up in November) and I’m not even staying in a guest house. I’m in a hostel for the next week until I move into a room which is part of a Goan family’s home. I will have no hot water and no WiFi. Guys, no hot water. For at least a month. I will sleep on a wooden bed with a mat laid on top. I will stay in Goa for as much of my visa validity (six months) as I can afford. Lucky for me I embrace this kind of experience but for what it’s worth, I am making these choices in order redirect that money (which would otherwise be spent on myself) to the business.
Okay a few more pics to give you another break from reading:
my dear friend Ashish at Paradise Beach, about 10km north of Arambol where I live. Ashish and I met in Rishikesh in 2015 (same place we both met Mike, who I stayed with in Australia when I first left NY a couple of months ago). I also stayed with Ashish for a couple of days in New Delhi at some point during my last trip. I was boarding my flight to India when I texted Ashish that I was en route to Goa and next thing I know he’s on a train here. He got to Arambol like 4 hours after I did. What a way to land, seeing old friends immediately!!
Post-breakfast church chillin
Scoping out some of the techniques at another shop in Arambol (this one is not Sunny’s shop)
When you go to change the settings on your friend’s phone but get this from the drop-down menu…
Finally, the name! This endeavor is called reign_wala.
Wala is a Hindi word, kind of an informal slang word, that means “the guy/girl who makes/sells the [fill in the blank].” It’s kinda like ‘smith,’ as in locksmith or silversmith. In India we have the fruit wala up the road selling apples and the chai wala making ten cups of chai. Sometimes Sunny calls himself a “malawala” because “mala” means necklace and he makes lots of macrame necklaces. For all intents and purposes it’s interchangeable with “artisan.” Sunny says that wala also means “famous,” as in, the guy who’s famous for the thing. The concept behind this name is of course that with this model, we help the wala – the artisan, the maker – reign supreme.
So, thank you in advance for sharing this journey with me, from wherever you are in the world. I have shared this idea with so many of you over the past three years and I can’t believe I’m now in building mode. Starting a business is really, really frightening and anxiety-producing. I mean for one thing, I don’t have an income right now. Imagine you have a pile of money from which cash only goes out, it does not come in. Ever. And I’m staring at a Google Spreadsheet with 110 (literally) action items and questions to answer and I am responsible for every single one of them. I’m embarrassed about self-promotion which is necessary for exposure. Awkward things are gonna happen on social media, like changing my Instagram handle to represent the name of the business. I’m scared to fail both practically because it would cost me my entire savings and emotionally it would be embarrassing and shameful. But deep down, the thing I am most scared of is not giving this a real shot and wishing that I had. Some of my friends whom I admire tremendously have started businesses and have been coaching me all along (Hi Laura <3). I’ll take all the help I can get so if you’re a founder and want to share pointers I’m all ears! Another silver lining: as I’m posting this, it happens to be the first day of Ganesha Chaturthi, an Indian festival honoring Ganesha, son of Shiva and Paravati and God of Abundance and Prosperity. Everyone in Goa is making celebrations in the home. I think it’s a wonderful day to “launch” this business. :) So at the risk of inducing the dreaded eye-roll… if you’re down for the cause, help a sister out and follow on Instagram (@alz5) for updates and soft launch. And puh-lease share this site and idea with anyone you think will appreciate! THANK YOU.
Much much love, respect and prosperity to all, and may the artisan reign supreme!
PS: Deleted scenes from Portugal and France leading up to India, coming soon. :)
Cao Bang is Jurassic Park. It's like the geography of Thailand beaches, but instead of rock formations bursting off of flat ocean water, they're bursting off of flat, bright green grassland and rice fields. Our homestay was located in a little village called Khuoi Ky (pronounced Koh-eye Kee). The home was made of stone, two hundred years old, with wooden floors inside. It had a lovely outdoor stone patio and was surrounded by 5 or 6 other stone homes in the village. A small pathway made of cobbled stone ran between the homes and led to a small bridge which crossed over a river. On the other side of the river there was a dirt road which led to the main road a few hundred meters down.
Just a couple of kilometers from the village, there is an epic natural wonder called Ban Gioc Waterfall. The waterfall itself is epic, with six or seven giant falls of crisp, cascading white water. One side of the fall is Vietnam and the other side is China. (So like, we probably didn't need to bike to China that day in Bac Ha.)
View from one of the high points in Cao Bang.
Ban Gioc Waterfall 2km from our village in Cao Bang. We are standing on the Vietnam side. Other side is China. Pics really don't do it justice.
Me at Ban Gioc.
Our time in Cao Bang was spent mostly riding around on the motorbike. We'd hop on and just drive until we found a road that looked intriguing, turn down that road and kinda get lost – but not really, because there aren't that many roads, so we always kinda knew where we were even when we were a couple of hours from our village. We spent a ton of time with locals around Cao Bang, whom we'd encounter whenever we needed to stop for something (snacks, petrol, cover from the rain). One thing worth noting about Vietnam (in fact, many places in Asia), particularly in the areas outside the big cities, is that many local business also serve as homes. Meaning, many people eat and sleep in the back of the shop they own. For example, a roadside shop that sells snacks and toiletries will typically do business in the front where the goods face the road, but have a bedroom/kitchen/etc in the back where the owning family lives. This is true of gas stations, restaurants and almost every other kind of business I can think of. So, if we were driving around and wanted to stop for a snack, we'd pull up to a roadside shop and the person helping us would be a member of the family that lived in and owned that shop. There might be kids hanging out or watching a TV in the shop or in a room just behind the goods for sale. There might be a mother cooking dinner over a stove just next to the rack where the chips are merchandised. We would usually make conversation with whomever we encountered.
One morning I took the bike out alone to grab some coffee. I wanted this cold canned coffee called Birdy and I knew a shop on the main road was selling it.
The bike was a semi-automatic, so there was no clutch but there were four gears. I had practiced driving it the day before, and I did drive a stickshift in high school and college (although I'm sure anyone that has been in the car with me is laughing over my SHIT DRIVING). So I take the bike and I needed to pick up shampoo so I first stop at a little shop in our village. The woman/mother in the shop was helping someone, so I sat on a plastic stool and waited. As I waited I noticed a twin-sized bed in the back of the shop, enclosed by a mosquito net, with four kids playing inside. When they see me, they jump out, run over to me and all shout "hello!!! hello!!!"
(This is another joyous thing about the villages of Vietnam. When you get outside the cities, every local wants to say hello to you. When you ride a bike through the village you cannot pass another human without shouting "hello!!!" to each other. This is sometimes followed by "What Is Your Name?" or "How Long In Vietnam?")
So these kids are standing in front of me, smiling and staring. They range in age from maybe four to eight years old. After a few minutes of this silent smiling and staring, I thought it would be cute to throw my hands up and make some kind of ROAR noise to break the silence and get a rise out of them. So I did that and three of them started squealing with delight and laughing... but one of them was so terrified by me that she started screaming at the top of her lungs and then burst into tears for the next five minutes. I tried to comfort her, like, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" while extending my hand out to her to show that I came in peace, but she cowered away from me, genuinely afraid. Guys I felt like an actual monster. I apologized to her mother, who was laughing. I paid for my shampoo while continuing to apologize profusely and left while waving goodbye to the kids, three of them waving back with huge smiles and the other one still looking at me stonefaced.
Then I hit the main road to grab the coffee. While parking the bike, I'm not sure exactly what happened but I got in a little accident... with myself. I think what happened was, I was trying to put the kickstand down, but I still had my right hand on the gas. (The right handlebar of the bike is the gas – you pull it toward you to accelerate). I meant to brake, but I accidentally revved on the gas, so the bike jolted forward and the kickstand dug into my calf. And then I just kinda lost it and the bike was falling over on me and I accidentally revved again and then me and the bike both just fell down. I think the kickstand dug into my leg pretty hard. I did not tell Alex because I knew he would make fun of me and not let me drive in future. Two weeks later in Portugal I still have this bruise.
More from Cao Bang…
1. One afternoon we go for a ride on the bike around 3 or 4pm. Our family says dinner is at 7:30pm, so we’re like okay cool we’ll just ride around until then. After a couple of hours, as always, it started to pour so we pull over to seek cover at this little shop with an overhang. Inside we can see the family doing their thing. They had asked us if we needed anything but we said we were good so they continued doing their thing while we hung outside. We’re sitting under the overhang talking for like a half hour while it pours, and then the father comes over to us and he’s waving us in, like, “okay, dinnertime!” Well, we had not expected dinner but we weren’t going to be rude when we’ve just been sitting in their front area for a half hour. So we go inside and have dinner with this family. They must have been pretty well off, because about half way through dinner I realized that the mother was not the cook. Another woman was cooking in the kitchen and bringing everything over to us. The family did not speak a word of English, so there wasn’t much talking during dinner. The food was delicious. We graciously thanked them and started to head out because we had to be home by 7:30 for dinner number two and still had an hour to ride. On the ride home we were imagining how the dad of this family would have described this scenario to his friends. Like, “Yeah so we were making dinner when these two white tourists roll up to our house and just like, sit in the front in our shop. They didn’t leave for 30 minutes and it was pouring rain and we felt bad so we just told them to come inside and eat with us. We couldn’t understand a fucking word they were saying but they seemed harmless. Their bike was a piece of shit.”
Views from riding around Cao Bang.
Cao Bang roads.
View from riding around Cao Bang.
View from riding around Cao Bang.
2. Dieu, the mother of the family we stayed with, was frustrated one day because she couldn’t get her listing up on Agoda.com. (We had found her on Facebook). She asked me if I could help her, so we sat together and started to figure it out. Dieu doesn't speak English, and for some reason Google Chrome was not translating the site to English, so we had a few hiccups. Dieu couldn’t remember her Agoda password (she had previously started to create a listing). We had a temp password sent to her via email and then she couldn’t remember her gmail password either. All of this was happening in Vietnamese on Google Chrome so we were using Google Translate every 20 seconds. It was a PROCESS. At one point we couldn't log in to the necessary accounts and it felt like we weren’t going to make it work. Dieu started crying. I felt so helpless. Can you imagine how important this is for her family's livelihood? I rubbed her back and typed into Google Translate "Dieu, we are going to make this work no matter what." We spent the next hour figuring it out and there is finally a complete, working Agoda listing.
Yen Nhi homestay in Khuoi Ky village outside Cao Bang.
Khuoi Ky village outside Cao Bang, where Yen Nhi homestay is.
3. We explored a cave near our village. Nothing crazy happened but, caves are weird.
4. A couple stayed at our homestay with their two kids who were 13 and 16. I could not believe they were traveling to freakin Khuoi Ky village with their teenage kids staying in a homestay. So badass. Fam goals. One of the kids got leeches in the river one day.
5. I used conditioner for the first time in 3 weeks and it was AMAZING.
6. We used Google Translate A LOT. Even with this incredible tool, we can never be sure we’re communicating to the degree of exactness we intend. Here’s some of the best of Google Translate:
7. We found a snack called Custas. The first one or two little cakes we tried were not good. And then suddenly they became really fucking good. We bought these everywhere we could find them from then on.
8. Alex said I make him feel like he never has to grow up. (He is a few years younger than me). Some people might interpret this as unflattering. It is one of the best compliments I have ever received.
9. I wanted to pet the cows but they are just not down. In India, you can hang with the cows. In Vietnam, you cannot really hang with the cows.
After five or six days in Cao Bang, Alex and I headed back to Hanoi. Alex’s visa was up and he was going to Australia to find a job in Perth. It was around 7am when our bus arrived in the city. In the taxi en route from the bus station in Hanoi to our hostel, I noticed for the first time the collective use of Hanoi’s public spaces. There were about 50 people doing a yoga class in some park. There were men playing early morning tennis on the public tennis courts. I loved witnessing this, because it demonstrated the context of the city that these locals share with each other. A bunch of strangers sharing the best of what their city had to offer. For the first time in Hanoi I experienced the shared identity of being a Hanoian.
On Alex’s last day in Hanoi, we went back to the bar where the 70’s dance party had happened for some daytime hang time. Then we walked around the lake and played games with the locals – some kind of cricket/badminton game, some kind of hackeysack game. We ate banh my 3 times throughout the day. And sugared dough balls from the streets. And then the next morning, it was time for Alex to go to the airport. Eric, our friend from Zim’s House (hostel) who had come for the good shower and stayed for two months and was now teaching English, offered to drive Alex to the airport on his motorbike. I thought to myself that this was the best way to leave the country: to be driven by a friend. Alex and I had huge hugs but did not make too big a deal of leaving each other. It was kinda like, see you soon some time some place in the world. I could have sobbed (cause I’m a mush), but I didn’t. I’ve said this before about backpacking: it’s a gift to be able to meet new people every single day, but damn does it suck to always be saying goodbye.
Locals playing games in the park. This one was some take on Badminton, I think.
Me and Alex on some bus ride.
Alex leaving Vietnam was definitely bittersweet. We had traveled together for 3 weeks which in backpacker time might as well have been 3 years, so I missed him immediately. I was like hmm, what will I do in Hanoi today without my adventure buddy!? At the same time, I felt a sense of optimism and possibility about rolling solo again. A healthy dose of fear of the unknown. I had met a couple of new people at the hostel and explored with them for a bit. I made plans to head to Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay early the next morning and woke up feeling like “let’s go get the world, baby.”
My accommodation on Cat Ba Island was called Woodstock Beach Camp. It was exactly that. Dorms and bungalows on the beach. Volleyball. Slackline. Hammocks in the sand. Hammocks on the main porch. Picnic tables for communal dining. Smoothies. Fire ceremonies at night. Some ring-toss kinda game. Music playing over the speakers all day. A little bar that turned on around 8pm and went until around 1am. A pool table. A shipwreck parked in the water (hi Captain Brian). And just about anything and everything else you can imagine would be going down at a place called Woodstock. It. was. heaven. Even better than the perfect design and vibe of this compound was that I felt like I had found my people. Many dreads. Few shirts. And most people were around my age – it was a slightly more mature crowd. I knew pretty quickly that I would get stuck here if I had more time, but I only had 3 days before I had to get back to Hanoi to fly to meet my family in Portugal.
View from Woodstock.
Night view of the beach at Woodstock, taken from the beach hammock.
My dorm at Woodstock. Top right bunk.
Adventures on Cat Ba Island:
1. One morning I met Mike from the UK (what up Shropshire!) and Joe from Atlanta. They were going to ride to a "secret beach" (obviously people know about the beach) and invited me to tag along. The directions to this place were absurd. Literally: Drive on XYZ road for about 10km. Make a right when you see XYZ landmark. You will pull up to a home with a big scary guard dog on a chain leash. Park there. The dog will bark at you – keep it moving and follow the path down the hill. At the bottom of the hill, pass the crocodile farm on your right. (TF is a crocodile farm? It is a fenced-in pond housing 30-50 crocodiles.) After the crocodiles, follow the path past the local fishermen on the left. Then continue for 1km on the path. The directions did not mention that parts of the path were swampland. We took off our shoes and waded through swamp. After another kilometer or so, the swampy grassland opened up into a white sand beach. It was between one and two thousand degrees outside. The only other people on the beach were three young Vietnamese boys, playing in a boat. They were about ten years old. We were of course greeted with the usual “hello!!!” We went swimming in the water (which was not the ocean, but rather some cove of Halong Bay) and I felt safe knowing these kids were around. Cause ya know, the kids always know what’s kosher and not kosher, and they’re not afraid to tell you. They’re on your side. You start swimming in a part of the water where the current gets really strong? Kids are gonna scream after you, like “not safe! not safe!." Adults on the other hand… adults are gonna be watching from the sidelines laughing to each other, like, “look at the tourists swimming out there!… should we wait here and see what happens?”
It was a great day. Later that night we were all hanging and Mike and I were like, wait, did we meet THIS MORNING?????? WHAT!!!
The beginning of the path to secret beach.
Croc farm en route to secret beach.
2. A bunch of us went for a ride to the Green Ladder, which has been affixed to the side of some small peak and when you climb to the top you can see a beautiful view of some of the islands in Halong Bay. It takes about 25 minutes to climb to the top. I wore hiking boots which was way too aggressive for this climb. On the ride to the ladder, we encountered a monster flood in the road. Knee-high water. Buses and cars were driving right through it. Locals were driving their bikes through. We took our shoes off, got off our bikes and walked them through.
Brian, Daniel and me in the middle of the flood, aka forging the river on the Oregon Trail. (Hi guys!!!)
Climbed about 10 flights of these.
View from the top of the Green Ladder.
3. One night after showering over in my dorm (I was in the beachfront dorm and the main reception area / dining area was just across the road) I walked across the road to meet everyone for dinner and whatever evening adventure would be happening that night. I saw some familiar and some unfamiliar faces sitting at one of the picnic-style tables. There was one spot open on the bench and I sat down. I did not know the girl sitting next to me so I said, “Hi!” and she threw her arms around me like we had known each other for years. She was like, “Look at you! Where did you come from! You're so cute!” It was literally like Cher taking Tai under wing in Clueless. She introduces herself. Her name is Ags, short for Agata. She is Polish. We proceed to identify a number of coincidences: 1) We have very similar eyes. 2) We have very similar long, wavy hair. 3) We are exactly the same height. 4) There is a fancy grocery store around the corner from my apartment in the city called Agata & Valentina. This is one of my favorite places in New York. 5) We are both Polish. I’m not sure how Polish I am, but at least 25%. 6) We both had incidents where we accidentally ripped out a few of our eyelashes while using an eyelash curler. Mine occurred a few years ago. Ags’ occurred a few nights ago. I hated to break it to her but mine never really grew back. 7) We had both been traveling in Nepal in 2015. 8) We had both been eating Vietnamese food for weeks and really, really wanted pizza that night. We rounded everyone up to ride into town for some pizza. After crushing my own pizza I realize I have not eaten cheese in a month. For the next couple of days, people would come up to one of us and say “there’s someone else here who looks just like you.” On the day I had to leave Cat Ba, Ags happened to be hanging in the main area and we said our goodbyes. We jump on Ags’ phone and send me a friend request on Facebook. We exchange big hugs. Later, on the bus, I go on Facebook and accept Ags’ request. Who are our mutual friends? All of the staff from Secret Garden Guest House in Kathmandu, Nepal. I had lived there for a month!! So had Ags.
4. The ride into town to get pizza is about 25 minutes. We had rounded everyone up but some of our friends had been drinking (I'm looking at you, Joe) so we doubled up on the bikes. Joe, a United States Marine, who in any other circumstance would have driven himself, rode on the back of my bike. I'm a really slow driver, so we started to trail behind everyone. And then we ran out of gas, totally my bad. So the bike stops, it's pitch black and we're like hmmm what to do. We both have dead phones so we have no way of telling the others, who are already way ahead. We wave down a local who says gas is up the road about 600 meters. I jump onto the local's bike and I'm like, Joe, I'll be back for you – wait right here with the bike! Joe insists on pushing the bike 600m to the petrol station and I'm like dude, I'll go get it and come back. We agree he will start to push the bike, I'll go with the local to pick up a bottle of petrol and eventually we should find each other. We both have dead phones. So I'm off with the local and unfortunately the petrol station is closed. So now we are biking almost ten minutes and I'm like, shit, this is not good. Joe is probably wondering where I am. I finally get petrol and ride back to Joe. On the way I see the crew pulled over on the side of the road and I'm like – from the back of the local's bike – "hey guys!! We ran out of gas! I'm bringing petrol back to Joe! We'll meet you at the restaurant!" I get back to Joe, and he has pushed the bike 600 meters up a hill to the original petrol station that didn't have gas. Local drives off. I tell him to please apologize to his girlfriend who has been waiting for him while he helps us. We fill up the bike, but it turns out something else is wrong. Bike won't start. Now we're really f'd. But then by some miracle, the dude who runs the motorbike rental at Woodstock drives past us. He's like, guys, you can have my bike and I'll wait here with yours. We take his bike and ride to pizza.
4. In the main town, about 25 minutes by motorbike from Woodstock, there are four floating restaurants. I had never seen anything like this before. Each restaurant had a big neon sign with its name and phone number. You call the phone number and water taxi comes to get you.
Floating restaurants in Cat Ba Town.
Me in Cat Ba town.
5. I was reminded of how much I appreciate using cash while traveling. Yeah, credit cards and Venmo are cool, but have you ever just paid your part using cash and been done with it? Whenever splitting the bill we’d each just throw in what we owed. You don’t pay for anything you didn’t order and there are rarely issues with having proper change or figuring out who owes what. Cash is king. Of course, when you travel with someone for long enough you do start to do the whole “oh can you just spot me this $VND10,000 because I only have big bills” and then you start having to keep a tally of the shit you owe each other. Alex, you actually owe me a balance of $VND65,000...............
6. On the day I was leaving Cat Ba, I was waiting for the bus at Woodstock. When the bus arrived I went to find my flip flops. No shoes allowed inside so everyone's shoes are piled up at the entrance. I do not see my flip flops anywhere but I do see a pair that are almost identical to mine. Gold Havaianas, exactly my size, but they have a rhinestone on them and mine do not. When I still cannot find mine, I realize someone has mistaken my shoes for theirs. The bus arrives and I have no choice but to take the available rhinestone pair. These are now my shoes.
After a few days I had to leave Cat Ba to meet my family in Portugal for a family vacation. The bus back to Hanoi had a big TV with Vietnamese techno music videos playing the whole time. This is pretty customary on buses and in public spaces and I obviously love the techno.
On the way to the airport, sitting in the back of the taxi, I jumped on my phone. When I finally looked up from my phone I realized I'd been scrolling through Facebook for like 30 minutes. Couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that. I did, however, download a Chrome extension that allows me to watch The Bachelorette on abc.go.com from anywhere in the world and I am not ashamed to admit I’ve been hawking that shit.
So, one month in Vietnam over. (Six weeks of travel, including Australia beforehand). I was excited to see my family and also really, really sad to leave Vietnam. I hadn’t even made it south of Hanoi! I had unfinished business in this country.
Everything I just wrote was written from the back seat of the car we rented to drive between cities in Portugal. The reunion with the fam has been great so far. And Portugal as a country is awesome. It has been nice to have two towels for showering and I have enjoyed the relief from the heat that only sweet, sweet air conditioning can provide. I have not particularly enjoyed the abundance of [full length] mirrors or the absence of "hello!!!"' exchanges with every passing local.
I am also a little overwhelmed by the impending decision ahead of me: where to, after Portugal? I will continue to be abroad for as long as possible. As it stands, that’s looking like another few months. I have a healthy travel budget, but ideally it will be offset by earning local money and I want the experience of being employed abroad. The scenario I’d like to create is one where I’m posted up in one place – a place that is inexpensive – where I'm working a few days a week (at a hostel or teaching English, for example) and spending the remaining time figuring out how to get my own business off the ground. What that business is I do not yet know and that’s why I am taking this time to sort it out. It is a tremendous privilege to have the opportunity to earn NYC money – a privilege that has afforded me the opportunity to travel this way. But, as I figure out how to make money independently, it does not make sense financially for me to try to do this from New York. I cannot live day to day in NY without predictable income, and if I sign up for a full time salaried job in NY then I am abandoning the ambition of starting my own business. So, next stop is not about being on vacation and fucking around all day. It’s about settling down, earning local money to cover the short term and creating something sustainable for the long term.
As of now there are 3 attractive possibilities for post-Portugal:
1) back to Cat Ba Island in Vietnam
2) back to India. I would probably go to Srinagar which is the capital of Kashmir. I have friends who live in Srinagar (hi Bilal!!) but I met them in another part of India and I never made it to Srinagar last time.
3) Koh Pha Ngan in Thailand. I have been to Thailand, but not to this island. One particular accommodation has been recommended to me as a place that would be conducive to my goals for this next chapter.
I am kinda leaning toward Cat Ba.
Before I go anywhere, I will be making a pit stop in Lyon, France for a little friendBNB visit to Chantal and Nico. Chantal and I worked together at co: and she and her husband Nico moved to France earlier this year. While I’m in Europe, gotta go check out this new French life she’s living!
Finally, before I end this post I want to say this: some of you have reached out to me and I cannot thank you enough for the encouragement regarding this blog (ughh that word) aka story website (lolz). It means more to me than you know. It takes a long ass time – like, many many hours – to write these posts and sort/upload the photos. Hearing that you enjoy reading these posts is huge and it's why I keep doing this. I mean, I'm literally posting my diary on the internet.
I'm curious to hear if there is anything you'd like more of or less of? Or if you have questions that I could be answering in these posts? Thank you. I sincerely love and appreciate all of you.
Okay, heading out to explore Porto.
Big love from Portugal,
allie
Although the town is small and relatively random, there is one thing that drew me in about Bac Ha and once I’d learned of it, I couldn’t turn back: The Bac Ha Market. People come from all over Vietnam, both locals and tourists (mostly locals) to visit Bac Ha Market which happens only on Sundays. Gets set up the night before and broken down on Sunday evening. You know I luvvv a market, so this was a must. I told Alex I was getting up at 7am to get there when it starts. When I got to the market they were selling harem-ish style pants with embroidery from local tribeswomen. I tried on a bunch of pairs to find the right one. They were all pretty loose (so F you, tiny Hanoi clothes!) but this one pair that I really loved was kinda small. I try them on, and the lady at the stall is like (via body language, she doesn’t speak English), “they will get bigger! Just squat and they will get looser.” And I’m like (again, in body language), “no, they’re really small, I’m gonna rip them if I do that” and she’s like “No, no, please – squat! They will fit!” and I’m like “okayyy….” at which point I squat and the pants split right down the crotch. I am mortified. She is laughing. The other women from the other stalls are looking over and laughing. Later when I got over the fact that I split the pants, I bought a pair.
Local embroidery for sale at Bac Ha market.
One local woman dressed me up in this local garb from from her stall. I felt it would be borderline cultural appropriation to buy this whole get-up but I'm not gonna lie: I thought it looked kinda good.
Only the best tobacco for sale at Bac Ha market. Don't forget to try before you buy. ;)
As seen in the photo above, tobacco is pretty huge in Vietnam. There are many varieties, and there is a pipe (like the ones pictured above) at just about every home, accommodation, restaurant and shop. Roll up pretty much anywhere and there will be a pipe sitting outside in a bucket for your tobacco-smoking pleasure.
There isn’t much else in Bac Ha beside the market, so Alex and I decided to borrow the guest house owner’s motorbike and go ride around. We get about 10km up the main road and see a white girl on a bike pulled over. We stop to make sure she is okay. She says she’s fine, she’s trying to get to a little town on the border of China called Si Ma Cai. I was relatively familiar with the geography of Vietnam but I hadn’t realized we were THAT close to China. When I hear this, I’m like Alex, we have nowhere else to be, we’re going to China. So we ride for another 15km or so and reach the town. There is nothing there. Not even a Banh My for us to eat. (Yes it is mostly spelled with a Y in Vietnam). I look on Google maps and see that we’re still not exactly on the border line. I'm wondering, can we get to the actual border? So I drop a pin on the border and it tells me we’re 12km away. I’m like Alex, I wanna see that fucking blue Google Maps dot on the BORDER OF CHINA, let’s go. He’s a huge adrenaline junkie so he’s down. So we’re following Google Maps which tells us to turn onto this unknown road. We follow it and basically ride the winding road through a steep mountainside. When we first get on the road, we’re at the top of the mountain. The road snakes down the mountain to what is presumably the bottom, where there should be a river, but we cannot see it yet. We follow it for as long as we can, until it starts getting really steep and narrow and muddy and I go “Alex I’m scared” and he’s like okay fine let’s just climb this really steep mountain-peak off-shoot thing instead. So we drive down this muddy ass side road to get to the peak Alex is referring to (it’s like an offshoot of the mountain itself. Not sure what the proper term is for something like that). We can barely get the bike through the mud. Flip flops are falling off and getting stuck in the swamp that is the road, but we finally park. Alex climbs first while I freak out that it’s too dangerous. Then once he’s made it to the top I have FOMO and decide I’m joining. The climb was not particularly long, maybe only 10 minutes, just kinda dangerous. Like this: 5 feet of muddy uphill to get to the tiny path within a corn field. Then wade through 6-foot-tall corn stalks for about 50 feet, flat terrain. Then, about 10 feet of muddy uphill. Then, about 10 feet of tall-grassy-thorny-kinda-uphill. Chill at the top. Epic views. We can see the river that divides Vietnam and China. WE MADE IT. Come back down. As I'm coming down the muddy part, about to wade through the corn, some ENORMOUS flying bug approaches me at eye level. It is the size of a large wasp and it is bright red like an almost-ripe cherry. And I swear to god this thing had fangs and claws and six eyes and it was hovering in front of my face like in Honey I Shrunk The Kids when the bees are huge and hairy and just fucking dominating everything. It's bzzzzing at me and I start screaming and flailing and running through the corn like I have no idea where I’m even putting my feet, I could take a wrong step and slide at any time but it’s fight or flight and I’m just bolting the hell out of there. Alex was already back and the bike and I tell him I just had a face-off with this red fanged flying monster bug and he's like "that sounds awesome!" Like, no.
THEN we have to ride the bike back through the mud, this time uphill. It's scary only because when bikes go through mud they lose traction and slip unpredictably which is not ideal on a narrow mountain road. So the bike is sliding everywhere, we can't ride it. Alex had get off and walk the bike uphill, except it was so steep he had to turn the bike on and kinda "drive" it uphill while walking next to it for control. 100 meters of this. It was heroic. And then we rode out of there. Every local we passed on the way back up the unknown road was looking at us like ummmm whatcha doin here?
Where we were when we discovered it was only another 12km to the China border // river that separates China and Vietnam.
What the road looked like on Google Maps.
What the road looked like IRL. (This photo taken from the top of the little peak we climbed.)
A view from the ride to the border.
When we got back on the main road, it got dark quickly. We had an hour long journey ahead of us so we decided to stop for food somewhere along the way. We pull over at a roadside joint. The peeps hanging there speak zero English. We try to communicate that I don’t eat meat and Alex does eat ALL of the meat. They go grab a chicken from the back, hold it down and cut its neck right in front of us. It starts bleeding out from the neck. I’m looking at Alex like dude that’s your dinner. He's like "I literally just felt the energy from the chicken disappear." Turns out that chicken was for these other locals who just showed up in a group of five or six and had ordered the full chicken special. Alex got the shiesty chicken left over from before. Other than the shiesty chicken the food was vaaary good.
Also in Bac Ha: One night Alex and I refuse to eat western food but that is all we can find. We want proper Vietnamese food but every restaurant seemed to be catered to tourists, which was weird because it isn't even a touristy town. We will not settle so we walk up this road and eventually see a place with a few locals inside having dinner together. They wave us in to come sit with them. Older men and one woman. They’re toward the end of their meal. They want us to try all their food. Alex eats DOG. Yes you read that correctly. Not just one bite of dog. Three different parts of dog, prepared three different ways. He said it was just okay. Then the locals want us to drink rice wine with them. They keep filling up our shot glasses every time we look away. Then they insist we smoke tobacco out of the two pipes behind us. (Sorry Mom and Dad... it was just one rip!) After about 5 more shots, the locals are like (via body language, they don’t speak English) “hey we gotta bounce, the rest of the food is for you guys and we’ve already paid the bill. And you can have the bottle of rice wine.” We kill the food. No, dude, of course I didn’t eat dog. I'm pescatarian. Muahahaha. We bring the wine back to our guest house and Alex makes everyone drink as if we are in college – including the family who runs our guest house. They are totally down for this, getting a huge kick out of it. They were still finishing dinner and we all just kinda started drunkenly picking at their food while taking rice wine shots together. I don’t remember going to bed.
The full table of food that the locals fed us / left us.
Chukaaaa shots with our people back at our guest house in Bac Ha. On the table you will notice the delicacy that is chicken feet.
Me, before going to bed on this crazy chuka night, declaring that I love the decor in this guest house (those are Vietnamese skirts fanned out on the wall) and I must have a photo shoot with it.
There is one thing in particular that made it easy for Alex and I to travel together: we both have local motives. We just love the locals more than anything and we believe they hold the key to the best experiences you can have while traveling. For this reason, we go out of our way often to find the locals and spend time with them. We meet them at roadside shops and chat them up. We meet them in restaurants. Wherever. This takes us far outside our comfort zones (ahem, remember the chicken slaughter from earlier). Sometimes when Alex would go for a ride alone I would actually get localFOMO cause I would know he was chatting up some Vietnamese person and I didn't want him to one-up me with any fun local experiences!!!
We carried on these local motives as we moved from Bac Ha to our next stop: Cao Bang. Except before we could go to Cao Bang, for a number of logistical reasons, we had to first stop back in Hanoi. And in order to stop back in Hanoi, we had to first stop on the way in Lao Cai. So we go to Lao Cai by bus. Side note, we played every game you can imagine on these bus rides. The games would go like this: I would teach Alex a game, and then he would beat me at it. Then, I would choose the game I enjoyed losing at the most and we would play that game. Taught him the Four Letter Word Game and he was pretty good at it, especially with English as a second language. Taught him Squares, where you have to close the most boxes (HI HANNAH). And Scattergories. And games like "let's go back and forth naming every US state until we can't anymore" (we got 48) and "let's go back and forth naming every retail brand we can think of" which was SO DUMB and was Alex's idea. (Not kidding, I know you all think it was my idea. It wasn't.)
Okay so we take the bus to Lao Cai. We arrive in the early afternoon. Plan was to leave Lao Cai in the morning to go to Hanoi so we can catch the bus from there to Cao Bang. We realize Alex left the ring from Mama Sa at the hotel in Sapa Town. We call the hotel and at first they say they can't find it but we give them vaaary specific instructions (it is in the herbal bath room, on top of the towel rack) and they find it. It's 65km from Lao Cai to Sapa so we're like fuck it, let's get a bike and go get this ring. Keep in mind this ring is worth MAYBE one penny, but it had emotional value. We rent a motorbike and start driving around 4pm. It starts raining on the way so we stop at a roadside shop where they cut up some plastic bags for us so we can stay dry. Like this:
We get to the hotel, get the ring, eat some banh my, and hit the road for the 65km drive back to Lao Cai. At this point guys I am so comfortable on the back of the bike that I'm fully, like, looking up hostels on Agoda and Hostelworld, seeing what flights to Portugal are the cheapest, taking photos, taking videos... I am straight chillin back there!
So we start driving and about 15km into the ride, we run out of gas. Like we're coming down a hill and the bike just turns off. We totally forgot to think about gas. So we pull over and wave down a local driving by. He says there is gas up the road – we had just passed it. He tells us (via body language) to jump on his bike. His daughter is also on the bike. We leave our bike on the side of the road and the four of us ride up to the gas station, get petrol in a plastic bottle, and then ride back down to our bike and rock on. (We tried to give him $VND 10,000 which is equivalent to throwing someone a fiver in this situation but he refused.)
The next morning in Lao Cai, I take the lead on making arrangements for the bus to Hanoi. As I'm trying to book the bus through our hotel, we're having trouble communicating. A woman kinda overhears this and comes over. She is around my age. She lives just across the street and teaches English at a school in Lao Cai. She communicates very well. After helping confirm the bus for later that day, she says to me, "I would like to take you to the local market, you can pick some food, and I will make lunch for you at my home." So I'm like, um, YEAH. So I grab Alex and we go to the market and pick out some FISH, which we haven't eaten in far too long. Then we go back to Huong's house and hang out while she prepares a FEAST.
Heeey what up fam!
I’m writing from….. the flight to Portugal. Meeting my family for vacation.
Eeeek, a month in Vietnam really blew by. Can't believe it's already over. I wanted to write throughout, but I kept feeling like writing was taking me away from being entirely in the moment. So now that I'm stuck on a plane, I’m gonna cover a month's worth of shit right here. I feel like I’m writing a final paper the night before it’s due... which is how I write all literal and metaphorical final papers so this is perfect.
Well lots happened in Vietnam. My stop-by-stop route looked like this:
Hanoi Round 1—> Sapa (city center) —> Hau Thao (village 30 km from Sapa) —> Bac Ha —> Lao Cai —> quick 5-hour roundtrip motorbike from Sapa (city center) back to Lao Cai to recover a forgotten item —> Hanoi Round 2 —> Khoui Ky (village 2 hours north of Cao Bang) —> Cao Bang (city center) —> Hanoi Round 3 —> Cat Ba Island (in Halong Bay) —> Hanoi Round 4 —> Hanoi to DXB to LISBON.
Google wouldn't let me add more stops but the last leg was Cat Ba Island, one of the islands in Halong Bay off of Hai Phong on the east coast.
After the previously recounted hiccup with China Airlines, I flew directly from Sydney to Hanoi. I could feel the chaos in Hanoi upon landing. It’s a pretty massive city with many southeast-Asian tendencies: motorbikes, cars, trucks and pedestrians compete for the right of way on every street and at every intersection. The symphony of car/bus/motorbike beeps is the soundtrack to the chaos. As I was sitting in the back of the taxi en route to my hostel, I noticed there was a couple on a motorbike riding alongside us and they were clearly backpackers so my first thought was, “ah fuck, I hope it’s not the cool thing to ride motorbikes in Hanoi because this shit looks crazy and I don’t need that pressure.” (Turned out most travelers do not ride bikes in the city but definitely ride them outside the city). Once I got into the city, the chaos heightened. From the back of my taxi I watched pedestrian tourists dodging all sorts of moving vehicles. It was clear which tourists had been in Hanoi a few days and which ones were Day One In Asia. I recalled a time in Bangkok when it took me and Jenny Kenny a solid 5 minutes to cross the street. And another time in Nepal when my New Yorker came out and I tried to cross a four way intersection and got stuck in the middle without a median (top five scariest moments of my life). This chaos was not new to me but it was a light, loving slap in the face after almost three years. It actually kinda gave me butterflies. I got over it pretty quick and employed an important principle I learned when I first started riding a bike in NYC: be predictable.
In Hanoi, I stayed at a hostel in Old Quarter. Not trying to be a hater at all but I gotta be real, this hostel was #BasicAF. It was super nice in terms of amenities (showers, towels, beds) but most people seemed entirely too.... clean? Just... unweathered. (Although I probably shouldn’t have been one to talk seeing as I had just rocked up from Sydney of all places). People seemed to be on strict touring schedules. And they wanted to do the all inclusive Halong Bay two-night party cruise. And eat pizza at tourist joints on the same street as the hostel. And hang out in groups of 10. I wasn’t mad at it (hey, everyone’s gotta start their journey somewhere) but I realized that my favorite kinds of accommodations are the ones where some people get stuck there for a little while. I just love when it’s like, oops!, that guy came for the good shower but accidentally stayed three weeks. I switched hostels the next time I returned to Hanoi. With that said, I did meet a few soul buddies at this first spot.
I spent 4-5 days in Hanoi before heading out to the mountains. The first couple of days were repetitive. I felt like every street looked the same and the same elephant-pants-clad tourists were meandering in the streets everywhere I went. The city is expansive, with tourists commandeering the Old Quarter and local city dwellers sprawling far beyond that, so I pushed myself to get out there and that’s when I started to gain a new respect for Hanoi as a city. I started to appreciate that the hustle begins early and ends never. That all things are possible. There are hundreds of places to get coffee, drink beer and eat noodles. You’ve got laundry service, spas for manicures/pedicures, any kind of mechanical or electrical part you might need replaced. Like a true city, there is really nothing you can’t do in Hanoi.
Highlights and happenings from Hanoi Round 1:
1. I confirmed the hypothesis that coffee will be essential to my happiness and detrimental to my budget. It is my vice. My drink here is cà phê đá (traditional Vietnamese filter coffee) with condensed milk. OMFG the condensed milk is so sweet and so good.
2. Now I’m not skin and bones these days like I was post-India, but I’m relatively fit, and I could not fit in to one single fucking thing in Hanoi. Every time I went into a shop I’d be like “Big size? Big size?” and the shopkeeper would be like, “Yes! Yes! This one XXL!” And then I’d try it on and be sweating monster bullets trying to get in/out of it and then once I was done dripping sweat and had my own clothes back on I’d have to shamefully hand the XXL back to the shopkeeper like “yeah, too small."
3. One of the recreational activities of choice in Hanoi is the nitrous oxide balloon. I have no idea how this is okay, but they’re everywhere. People just love to huff that shit. In every club there’s a "buy two beers and get a free balloon” special. People are actually passing out at times because they’re huffing nitrous oxide all night. I obviously tried one, because, When In Rome. Immediately remembered why I haven’t done that shiz since I’m sixteen.
4. I took a phone interview from the rooftop of my hostel at 8pm in Hanoi. Why I thought this was a good idea is beyond me. When I scheduled the call I thought to myself, I’ll find a quiet room in my hostel or remote corner of the city so I have a quiet space. Like, huh?!?! I should've known that neither of those scenarios would be possible, LOLZ. So I go to the roof of my hostel where there is shitty WiFi which is not ideal as I’ve suggested we do the call via WhatsApp. While I was on the phone a girl had come upstairs and heard the end of the interview. She was like, “that sounded official, hey?” and I was like “yeahhhh I’m not gonna take phone interviews from rooftop hostels anymore” and we started laughing and she turned out to be the funniest fucking person I have met in a long time. Her name is Jessie. HI JESSIE!!! Jessie is Irish. She is an artist. She drinks like beer is an endangered species. One night Jessie and I were out at a bar and met another girl, Patrise, who turns out to be from Jessie’s hometown, Cork. Cork is pretty small as far as hometowns go, so Jessie and Patrise had a love fest over their shared Corkiness. Patrise turned out to be EVEN FUNNIER than Jessie (sorry Jessie, you know it’s true though) and we laughed so hard we cried for the next three days straight. One of those days was spent at a Bia Hoi. Bia Hoi is a draught beer that is brewed daily in Vietnam and since no preservatives are used to keep it fresh, it must be drunk that same day it’s brewed. For that reason, one glass is about a quarter of the price of bottled beer. Locals sit on plastic or wooden step stools on the sidewalk and refill from the keg whenever needed.
Patrise (left) and Jessie (right) at a Bia Hoi in Hanoi
Bia Hoi!
So you kinda just sit there all day and watch Hanoi go by. I’m not the biggest beer drinker but I really do love a good beer drunk every now and then. Jessie and Patrise on the other hand, I swear these two broads had 20 glasses of beer each. At one point it started to pour and since the Bia Hoi is essentially on the sidewalk it was impossible to stay dry. We didn’t want to care about being soaking wet so we passed the time drinking more beer and exchanging puke stories from past travels. When we ran out of puke stories it was still pouring so we surrendered our footwear and walked home barefoot in the street. These two taught me the Irish slang “sound.” As in, “yeah I know her, she’s pure sound.” Means, like, “solid.” I love this word. Can’t wait until I can use it and not sound like a huge tool.
5. One day while getting a manicure I met another Irish girl and her boyfriend. We started talking and Donald Trump came up. We ended up talking for almost two hours about the state of the US. They had many questions about how and why he got elected and what it’s like now that he’s in office. I did my best to share my POV and also share whatever Trump-supporter perspective I’ve been able to piece together over the past couple of years. It got me thinking that I’ve only heard the Trump Supporter’s POV as it pertains to America One Way vs. America Another Way. So now I’m wondering, how would Trump supporters explain their support to the rest of the world? How do they see Trump’s presidency as impacting the rest of the world? Why are they supportive of said impact? These are not rhetorical questions. If you voted for and continue to support Trump, I am keen to understand how you would break it down for foreigners!
6. I tried a local dessert-type food called nuoc sau. It’s like iced tea, but with sticky rice and other fun stuff inside. A 17-year-old girl who was also ordering started explaining everything to me. Her English was on point. She told me she’s been learning in school but also learning by watching YouTube videos in English. She loves Zombies.
7. Tried egg coffee. I’m actually not sure what exactly this is or how it’s made but it tastes like a latte. Loved it.
8. One evening I just needed a few minutes of respite from the insanity of Hanoi. I discovered there was a TV Room in the hostel so I went to go hang in there. A few people were hanging out with the lights off, watching Life narrated by David Attenborough. No matter where in the world you’re from, everyone can relate to that moment on the steep cliffside when the baby deer escapes the predatory fox! We all gasped in unison.
9. I watched the World Cup in Vietnamese. For the second to last game I was still in Hanoi. Every single place – corner shops, hotels, coffee shops, bars, even clothing shops – had a TV showing the game, narrated in Vietnamese. I watched from a cafe on the corner that is normally not open past 6pm but they got a huge projector screen, stayed open late and served canned beer. It was packed with Vietnamese people of all ages. Most people were rooting for Belgium.
10. At my hostel I met a guy named Mathew who is Australian, traveled to Vietnam a few months ago and decided to stay. He’s now working at the hostel (see, I was trying to find the Mathews). We talked about many things and it just felt like we were so spiritually aligned. We even talked about one of my favorite books of all time, The Alchemist. Turns out to also be one of Mathew’s favorite books. We couldn’t believe all the things we had in common. But wanna know what the icing on the cake was? After all this talk, I find out Dude has a GOOGLE PIXEL!!! #teampixel #ad #JK
11. I did not drive or ride on a motorbike in Hanoi.
12. Just like in NYC, everyone everywhere was on Facebook or Instagram while working. All the shopkeepers, waiters, everyone! You go into any place and the person working there gives you the look of like, hold on lemme just read this last post, okay yes hi how can I help you. It’s a super interesting phenomenon because it exemplifies the distance between the physical infrastructure of Vietnam and the digital infrastructure of Vietnam. In many places in Vietnam the physical infrastructure would be considered underdeveloped by western standards. The construction of the buildings and homes, the hygiene in some areas, the physical ways in which things get done like shlepping insanely heavy shit on a bicycle from one place to another. But the digital infrastructure… now we’re cooking with gas. Every single millimeter of the country has WiFi, and it’s fast. Including every bus. GRAB offers on-demand cars, taxis and motorbikes, and in fact just bought Uber’s southeast-Asia operation a few months ago. FOODY combines Yelp and Seamless to offer location-based pickup and delivery food-ordering (17-year-old gave me this tip). From a digital standpoint there’s really nothing you can’t do in Vietnam. Same foundation, same apps and tools and systems built on top of it. It will be absolutely amazing to see the role digital infrastructure plays in the development of these lesser-developed countries over time.
From Hanoi, I headed to Sapa. Sapa is a region in the northwest mountains of Vietnam. The bus ride to Sapa was like, hell yes, this is what I came for. Lush green mountains in bounds. I always knew when I decided on Vietnam that I would need to get to the mountains – where I tend to feel most whole. My plan was to get off the bus in Sapa Town, the main hub of the region, and then find a homestay in a nearby village. I was approached by a few local women (the mothers of the homestay households) and found one I liked. Her name was Mama Sa. I agreed to go to her village, Hau Thao, 40km from Sapa Town. She had to leave me in town to coordinate something with her husband and told me to hang at a cafe for a couple hours til she was ready to go to the village. We exchanged Facebook info so we could communicate. Turns out Mama Sa cannot read or write English but she can speak it. So I was actually messaging with her 20-year-old son back in the village, who was then calling Mama Sa’s phone to relay all of the messages. When it was time to go, Mama Sa escorted me to a motorbike that a 70-something-year-old man was driving. He would be my chauffeur and Mama Sa would go with her husband on another bike. It was around 6pm at this point, starting to get dark, and starting to rain. This would be my first moto ride in Vietnam and my first time on a motorbike since India. I was a little nervous so when I jumped on the back of the bike I put both my hands on the 70-something-year-old driver’s shoulders. After about 5 minutes of driving the winding roads of Sapa in the dark in the rain, the driver took my hands and re-placed them onto his pecs. So I'm just reaching around from behind grabbing this guy's pecs. It was kind of hilarious. He wasn’t being creepy at all – guys he’s 70. And I felt safer. About 40 minutes later I am drenched and we are rocking up to Mama Sa’s homestay. Mama Sa is leading me up the path to the house when she points to a fist-sized multi-legged crawling thing on the ground and says, “look!” Because it’s night time and I can’t see, I think it’s the largest and fastest spider I’ve ever seen and start to have a panic attack. I’m like “Mama Sa is that a spider??? Mama Sa did that come from the mountain??? Or did it come from the river???” I’m thinking, okay, if there are spiders like this out here then maybe these mountains actually aren’t for me. Ya’ll know I can get rugged AF but I have an uncontrollable reaction to spiders of a certain size and texture. Sooo, back to Sapa Town? Can someone drive me there or is that unlikely since it’s dark and still pouring? MAMA SA CAN YOU PLEASE CONFIRM IF THAT WAS A SPIDER. And then somehow, with me on the verge of tears because I’m an arachnophobic wimp ass biatch, we established that it was a crab.
Mama Sa’s homestay is like this: imagine a camp bunk. One side of the camp bunk is where Mama Sa and her family live. It’s Mama Sa, her husband, her 20-year-old son Su, Su’s 15-year-old-wife Pang, a 7-year-old son named Ba (it might have been Bao) and a 4-year-old son named Chong. Walking into Mama Sa's side of the home sort of feels like walking into a garage because it's mostly concrete. On this side of the house there is a small room for eating (where the family eats their meals when they’re not entertaining guests), an area room for cooking and storing food, an area where a laptop is set up so the kids can watch stuff, and a sleeping area. There is no second floor but there is a sort of lofted storage area. There is random stuff in every corner – sets of tools for tending to the land, wires, ropes, cold-weather clothing, a cabinet (unrefrigerated) where leftover food is stored. No refrigerator or freezer. It's an ethnic village on a Vietnamese mountainside. The first time I saw the cabinet for the food, a flash of sickness came over me. It didn’t seem hygienic and it almost felt like I wasn’t supposed to see it, either. But, the food was so good every night that I never thought about the cabinet again until right now. Also, now that I AM thinking about the cabinet, I don't think it's so bad at all. Like, do leafy sauteed greens really go bad if they sit at room temp for 12 hours? I think we're fine.
Outside, a large porch with hammocks and chairs and a table spans the entire front of the home.
The other side of the bunk is mostly made of wood, and that’s where guests stay. This side of the home has two stories – you can see in the pic below that it's a little taller (the right side). Downstairs there is an area for eating, where dinner is served each night (Mama Sa and her family eat with us every night). Upstairs there are tiny rooms – like, 9x9 each. Each room has a wooden bed frame with what is basically a yoga mat laid over it. It is rock hard. Zero cush. Zero fluff. Zero snuggle. ZERO! There is a big, warm blanket... but with the rock hard bed it's not very snuggly. And there is a mosquito net.
Mama Sa Homestay – the best!!! Mama Sa's family stays on the right side, guests stay on the left side. Mama Sa's family built this home with their own hands 25 years ago.
One of the views from Mama Sa's.
Hangin on Mama Sa's porch. The view looks fake!
I didn’t count but I think Mama Sa can host 10 or 12 people in her home. The most crowded night we had was 8 people, and one night it was just two of us, me and Alex.
I met Alex on the first night I got to Mama Sa. He had been traveling since January and had been staying there two weeks already. He was starting to run out of money and had worked out a deal with Mama Sa to teach English to the kids every day if he could sleep for free. Mama Sa told the whole village that Alex was teaching English, so every day there would be like 8 kids showing up for the lesson. The kids ranged from 4 years old to 12 years old. Alex was an awesome teacher and the kids LOVED him. Every time someone got something right, Alex would give them a high five and say “veeery good.” Alex speaks English really well, but because he is German and still kinda has an accent, it sounded more like “vaaary good.” I found this vaaary funny for some reason. Anyway, Alex and I just got along. We both love house music, games and traveling, obvz. And we both kinda got stuck at Mama Sa. How it's supposed to BE!
Me and Alex at Mama Sa.
So what else happened in Hau Thao village...
1. On the first night in Hau Thao I got the major jitters about the bugs. After the crab/spider scare, I was on edge. There were 8 guests the night I arrived and we were all hanging on the porch. When you've got bright lights on a dark night, creatures are gonna come hang out. Bee-like things the size of birds. Unpredictable, flapping moths. All sorts of crawlies creeping everywhere. We had great music going, and the vibe was otherwise perfect, but I was so jumpy about the bugs that I just couldn’t muster the courage to go upstairs to my room and go to sleep. I stayed up until 3am on the porch. When I finally went up to my room and got inside my mosquito net I was just super freaked out. I kept thinking I was gonna wake up with a tarantula on me or being eaten alive by gargantuan moths. I was texting with both Molly and Lisa, like, “guys I can’t sleep, I’m surrounded by jungle bugs. Something’s gonna get me!!!” When I woke up the next morning I was back to chillin. I realized this has been a pattern: Whenever I’m staying in the mountains, it takes me one night to sink in. I learn where the bugs hang out and what their escape routes are (and mine). I learn where to duck my head so I don't wear a giant spider web as a hat. Once I get my bearings, I’m good. And then I get stuck for a week.
2. Mama Sa’s house was definitely the “cool” house. Everyone from the village hung out there – there were people of all ages showing up at all hours of the day.
3. Ba (7-year-old son) taught me how to count to 100. I fucking CRUSHED IT. With any local I met in the village, if they started asking me questions about how long I'd been in Vietnam or if I would like to buy something I just started counting to 100 and they'd be like waaaoouuuuu. However, I later learned this was a local language and not Vietnamese so when I got back to Hanoi and started counting to 100 like it was a magic trick, no one had a clue what I was saying.
4. Su (20-year-old son) was always right about the rain. On 3 separate occasions he told me not to go down the hill to the shop (12 minute trek from the house) because big rain is coming. I did not listen. 3 times I came home drenched.
5. One night at dinner Su told us the story of how he and Pang (his wife, who is 15) met. Normally Su’s English isn’t bad – we can communicate about the basics like whether it will rain or what time we will do the English lesson. When he told this particular story, though, he was struggling a bit. I so admired how hard he was trying, and I paid extremely close attention to follow along. Here’s what I got: Su and Pang knew each others’ faces because she lives in a different village 2km away. One day Su started talking to her and they exchanged Facebook deets. They proceeded to have a Facebook relationship even though they weren’t hanging out in person. One day Su suggested they meet up in Sapa Town because Pang was going there to do something with a guest she was hosting. They didn’t catch each other in Sapa Town. They tried again another time, and then within a couple of months Su asked Pang over Messenger if she would marry him. She said she didn’t know but then eventually she said yes. Su’s whole family went to Pang’s house to meet. Now Pang lives with Su’s family. They have been together 5 months but the actual wedding hasn’t happened yet. Mama Sa said it will be a party at their house. There is no ring. I heard something about the slaughtering of a water buffalo… but I am not clear about this part.
6. I helped Alex teach English a couple of times (I know Alex you did not NEED my help but you enjoyed it and so did the kids). It was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had and it has confirmed for me that I need to get TOEFL certified and teach at some point in the near future. Ba was special because he stood up to answer every question. Alex would be like, “Ba, what color is your shirt?” and Ba would stand up, say “green!” and then sit back down. "Ba, how old are you?" Ba would stand up, say "seven," and sit down. We learned colors, numbers, I/me/he/she/we/they, feelings, and some other stuff. We had a 2x3 chalkboard. That was it. Alex invented some games, like, first person to touch the thing in the room that is RED may be dismissed.
7. Ba and Chong would absolutely ABUSE the dogs. They had just got two new puppies, and this was actually not okay. One day Chong was tying the puppy’s arms together with a hair tie. Another day they were rolling up wet balls of tissue and pelting the dogs with them. The dogs seemed okay, but like…
8. Mama Sa’s homestay included 3 meals each day. Breakfast was a pancake (closer to Indian roti) with bananas and some eggs, lunch was usually a noodle soup or rice, and dinner was a feast. At dinner, everyone gets a bowl of rice, and then there are like 10 other plates of stuff on the table. You’ve got morning glory which is a leafy and stemmy green, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, tofu, meat of all kinds, spring rolls with rice noodles inside (DELICIOUS) and some other stuff. You just use your chopsticks to grab stuff off whatever plate, put it in your rice bowl and eat up. I already miss Mama Sa’s voice, forcing us to eat everything. “More eating! Eating everything! You no eating, big rain is coming. You eating everything!”
Lunch at Mama Sa's.
One night when Alex and I were the only two guests, we were invited to eat dinner on Mama Sa's side of the house. (Normally they would come to the guest side). Mama Sa is on my left with the silver piece in her hair.
9. In many homes in Vietnam they ferment their own rice wine. Mama Sa calls it Happy Water. It tastes like Sake and Vodka had a baby. Meaning, it’s disgusting. It's drunk from shot glasses. Each shot is called a CHUKA (pronounced CHOO-KAH) and every time you take one, you cheers and say "Chukaaaaa!" It's a fun little buzz and the hangover isn’t bad. One night I was in Mama Sa’s side of the house and I saw a Poland Spring-style water jug filled with… something. It looked like mold. Like someone had cut up sponges and soaked them in this jug to turn to rot. I’m thinking yiiikes, wtf is that. Mama Sa sees me see the jug and goes, “Happy Water!” Oh, like what I’ve been drinking for five nights now.
After that first night at Mama Sa's, I just felt home. I am sure it was the lush green mountains that I had been missing for so long. Or the daily trekking. Or the kids always being around. Or the daily walks to the shop down the hill getting drenched in the rain every fucking time and just not caring because I had a line to hang my wet clothes on and a chair to sit on and most importantly good people to spend time with. Or it could have been that I had made it there alone. When I arrived at Mama Sa's I had come solo from Hanoi. I found her place on my own and arrived on my own and so it felt in some way like it was mine before I even got there. Like my destiny in that village was my own to write. When it turned out to be even better than I had imagined, I felt accomplished – without any recommendations or internets, I had found home. Alone.
Over the course of a week, new people came through Mama Sa each day. Most stayed 1-2 nights. All were sound humans (see what I did there). Since my arrival I was the only person who had stayed a week (besides Alex). I was ready to hit up another mountain region. Alex had 3 weeks left on his visa and wanted to see more of Vietnam so he came with me. Mama Sa and her husband drove us in their 4WD to Sapa Town so we could catch the bus the next morning. When she dropped us off, Mama Sa gave me a bracelet and Alex a ring. We had big hugs. Alex and I stayed one night in Sapa Town. The next morning we would catch the bus to Bac Ha, a little town about 3 hours away.
Hey hey from Hanoi oi where the time is 5:19pm. I'm staying at a little hostel called Cocoon, in a 10 person dorm room. I had forgotten how smelly backpackers are. I did not forget how awesome they are and it's already been a blast meeting all these new peeps. Spent the day roaming around Hanoi. Crazy, hectic city. Motorbikes driving in every direction everywhere. People everywhere at all hours of the day and night. Beeping and shouting and selling and eating and drinking all around. I ate lunch at a super local joint... we're talking like, lady sitting on the sidewalk grilling on an open barbecue. No door, open to the street like a garage, and people are sitting on plastic step stools, eating off of individual plastic tables which are also actually step stools but taller step stools. I had fried tofu with soy sauce and a side of cucumber and it was BOMB.
(Everything after this point was written on the 10 hour plane ride from Sydney to Hanoi.)
Rewind to Saturday, June 30th, 2018. I landed in Sydney, where I reconnected with Mike (we met in India in 2015). Mike lives with an engaged couple, Nick and Priya. They are awesome. Priya is Fijian Indian, so we had lots to talk about there. Together the three of them live in Manly Beach and their pad is sweet. As a New York City resident it is not lost on me what a luxury it is to have a place like this to stay for free while traveling.
On my second day in Sydney, we took a trip up to Bondi Beach which is about an hour from Manly. This would be like going from the Upper West Side to Park Slope, in New York terms. Mike, Nick and Priya had a baby shower to go to while I met up with my old colleague, Renee. Renee is from Australia, moved to NYC for a few years (we worked together at co:) and then moved back to Sydney. It was so great to see her (hi Renee!). We sat on the beach and chatted over coffee. Then I shopped around Bondi, but didn’t buy anything. I was in the mood to cop some hippie beach swag but I just couldn’t bring myself to spend. When I packed for this trip, I knew I’d have to ship some stuff back to NYC before moving on from Australia. It’s winter in AUS right now, so I needed warm clothing, but everywhere else I could imagine going is HOT. Like, 80-100 degrees hot. I was less impulsive about buying stuff because I had strict criteria. It had to be 1) light enough / small enough to travel with me after AUS, or 2) amazing enough that I was willing to pay for both the item itself and the cost of the additional weight it would add to my ship-back-to-NYC total.
After a few days in Sydney, Mike and I flew to Melbourne. Melbourne is the shit. Tall buildings, gritty neighborhoods. Urgency and hustle, but with an air of Australian chill. The city is very much a canvas, like New York. Graffiti and posters everywhere. Restaurant and café culture that could easily rival NYC. Dare I say BETTER?! One night, Mike had a work event so I took myself to dinner at a restaurant called Lucy Liu.
I sat alone at the bar overlooking an open kitchen which was mesmerizing. I realized that while traveling I frequently eat alone and enjoy it, but when I’m in NY I never do this. Why?
Other things that happened in Australia:
In the end, I bought nothing in Australia. Not a single thing. I shipped back a pair of combat boots and a bunch of sweaters/long sleeves/jeans, weighing a total of 7.6 Kilos [[covert to pounds]] and costing $80 USD. This will end up being one of the bigger ticket items of my journey, but it had to be done and I budgeted for it in advance. My backpack is now ridiculously light. Upon checking it for Hanoi it weighed in at 14.3 Kilos [[convert to pounds]]! While moving through India and Nepal I was always picking up lightweight clothing along the way. It makes sense to roll this way because the clothing you find locally is perfectly designed for the local climate and culture in terms of materials, colors, styles, et cetera. In India I started to require a “one in, one out” policy in my backpack, so this time I packed almost nothing for the post-Australia part of the trip with the intention of picking up in Vietnam and beyond. This approach also gives me good reason to spend lots of time in the local markets. Boy do I love a market. I just absolutely love to see what people make with their hands and offer to their cities and villages. Wherever I go, I spend hours at the markets. I inspect every material, every texture, every style of needlework and beadwork and detail of the local craftsmanship. And it brings me a huge amount of joy when back in NY to have a closet curated from markets around the world.
Some more pics from Australia:
At the Melbourne Storm game in Melbourne
Street Art in Melbourne
Sunset over Manly Beach in Sydney
Bridge Climb in Sydney. Cheesin!
And an important part of my time in Melbourne happened at a little café called The Quarter on Flinders Lane when I met up with Sarah Moh for the first time since we met in 2015.
This is Sarah:
Sarah Moh and I at the Mexican restaurant in Melbourne where she's been working for the past year and a half
Sarah and I met in Hampi, India.
Just before Hampi, I had been staying in Jungle Hostel in Goa, India for roughly three weeks. Quick detour: It was at Jungle Hostel that I met Callum and Henry, two wonderful fucking humans both from the UK. We had many, many delightful times together in Goa but one day stands out as just epic. You know how you have those days – like, full days – that just stand out in your memory as one of the very best days of your life? Callum and Henry and I had one of those in Goa. Earlier this year (December 2017), I needed to get out of New York and I messaged the two of them. I was like, I’m coming to live with you for five days. I flew to Callum in London and Henry drove in from an hour outside London to meet us. The three of us stayed in Callum’s tiny room together for five days straight. Fuck, we laughed so hard. And Callum made us listen to Rapper's Delight at least 49 times. There was no other music, only Rapper's Delight. JK, we had a dance party in Callum’s kitchen every single night, but it always started with Rapper's Delight.
Okay, back to Sarah! So we’re back in November 2015 now. Both Callum and Henry had left from Jungle, and a few other people who I’d been hanging with at the hostel were headed to Hampi (about 10 hours from Goa by bus) so I made the journey with that crew. When we got to the bus stop to catch the bus, we started figuring out who would be rooming with who in each hut. Sarah appeared. She had come from somewhere else in India, I can’t remember where. I didn’t have a hut-mate yet, and she wanted to stay at the same guest house, so we discussed rooming together. I remember at the time thinking, like, “ugh, she might not be as cool and fun as the other people I’ve been hanging with. She’s kinda the new girl. Do I wanna live with her?” Hilarious, because I am the least clique-y person and I was dolphinately not down for any cliqueyness while backpacking! Cliqueyness is the opposite of the backpackers’ manifesto! But I’m being honest. Well, we ended up sharing a hut, and guess what. Sarah was cooler than all those other mofo’s. (JK, love you all). She’s French, worked in sports psychology and had taken a year off to travel around Asia. We met during the first three weeks of her trip. She is a Slackline extraordinaire, had and carried her Slackline gear with her everywhere she went. This shit weighed like 7 kilos and she had it rigged to her backpack. And she traveled with a hula hoop. I called her the traveling circus. I remember distinctly one day in Hampi we hiked up a boulder mountain to watch sunset and talked for a long, long time about many things. I also remember another day on which we rode our scooters to the lake and, while sunbathing, got into a deep conversation about religion. Sarah is Muslim, but not practicing. I am Jewish. We talked at length about the extreme sects of religion and how they are the source of many conflicts on small and large scales. Then, she asked whether it was important to me that I marry a Jew and I said that it was. She asked why, and I remember finding it really difficult to make sense of myself, let alone explain. She listened, challenged me, and ultimately accepted my rationale even though it’s unlikely it made any sense to her.
We stayed in Hampi for a couple of weeks and then it was time for me to travel south to Kerala, a state in South India. At that point, I was heading south alone. Sarah said she would eventually get to Kerala but had a couple stops to make first. We said we’d meet up in Alleppy, the backwaters of south India. You can imagine I was pretty psyched when I arrived in Alleppy and Sarah messaged me to say she was on her way. We explored the backwaters together and then took an overnight bus to Munnar, a tea plantation village in south India. On the bus, we met Alice. I’ll get back to Alice in a second.
Fast forward to July 3, 2018. Just landed in Melbourne. I know Sarah’s been living there. She traveled for a year after India and then posted up in Australia to work at a Mexican restaurant and earn money to travel again. I hit her up, she comes to the cafe where I’m hanging, and we have an epic reunion. This fucking girl!!! It was so incredible to see her again. She looked exactly the same, except sans hula hoop and with mascara and blowdried hair. We hung out for a couple of hours catching up. I saw her again the next day, and the next day. It was like no time had passed. And her English was even more on point, even though it was kinda Australian English. My little Frenchie!
Guess who also now lives in Melbourne? Alice, from the bus. Saw her too for lunch at a place called Lentils As Everything. It’s a co-op that offers pay-what-you-wish meals for those in need and the general population of Melbourne as well. Wonderful little spot.
But the run-ins don’t stop there. One night, Mike and I go to this restaurant called Hawker Hall in the South Yarra neighborhood of Melbourne. It’s one of those trendy restaurants where you put your name down and wait forever for a table. We got seated pretty immediately, but as we were walking in I saw a guy waiting with his crew outside and in my head I’m like, I know that guy. I’m pretty sure it’s Myles, a guy I met in a hostel in Cuzco, Peru in 2013. We kept in touch lightly for a little while after that, and when he visited NYC a few years ago we met for beers at the Standard for like an hour. I remember I dragged a friend with me… Lisa was that you? Anyway, I’m like, no way that was Myles. All Australian guys are tall with blonde hair and amazing jaw lines. But the next day I just had to be sure, so I messaged him. Yup, it was him. We didn’t end up meeting up, but like… WHAT!?
In Nepal in September 2015, I met a French girl named Laeti:
Laeti and I riding on top of a bus in Nepal in 2015.
Laeti’s English was good, but not awesome. And yet somehow we managed to communicate and laugh our asses off all day every day. She was one of the most significant friends I made on that trip. We lived in the same guest house for almost a month. We traveled from Nepal back to India together – to Varanasi, where she was actually living and working as a volunteer nurse. We hung out every day in Varanasi. I even met her mom when she came to visit. In 2017, Laeti moved back to the South of France. She bought a caravan and parked it in the woods in between two vineyards twenty minutes outside Saint Tropez. Girl works as an emergency room nurse at Saint Tropez hospital, in perhaps the fanciest town on earth, 3 days a week. She is a complete hippie the other four days. About a year ago in August 2017, I decide to take a short vaca to France before starting a new job. I stay with Laeti in the caravan. I will most likely visit her again on this journey before I head back to NY (Laeti if you ever connect to WiFi you will see that I am coming for you).
Other friendbnb bookings:
The world is big. The world is small.
There is a Maya Angelou quote that I love:
It is for that exact reason that we can make friends with people all over the world, spend only a few hours or days with them, and then crash on their couches or invite them to crash on ours as if no time has passed. As if they are not strangers. It is because of they way they made us feel. They made us feel safe. Accepted. Understood. Appreciated. Loved. If we make it a priority in our relationships to make each other feel this way – whether we meet each other in passing through hostels or we know each other for years – we will have open arms into which to run wherever in the world we are.
Huggin ya from Hanoi,
ALZ.
Greetings from the Sydney airport, where the time is 6:48am (Wednesday) and my flight to Hanoi is apparently now at 2:15pm (Wednesday). I'm here 8 hours early.
I was originally booked on flight departing Sydney on Tuesday at 10:10pm. My itinerary was booked as: SYD --> 3 hour layover in TAIPEI (TAIWAN) --> HANOI (VIETNAM).
Some of you may have heard that Typhoon Maria is hitting Taiwan at the moment. I've learned a decent amount about climate and natural weather phenomena from traveling. For example, I learned the actual definition of a monsoon while in India. Did you know the only thing that distinguishes a typhoon from a hurricane is the region in the world in which it occurs? But yeah, Typhoon Maria is supposed to be pretty bad.
So I wake up Tuesday morning at like 6am – the day of my flight – to an email notification. Email subject line: "Flight Alert." In quotations. I'm like hmm okay, what is this "flight alert" we speak of. I learn the first leg of my flight was rescheduled from 22:10 (10:10pm) Tuesday night to 07:00 Wednesday morning. I check the rest of the itinerary, and the second leg from Taipei to Hanoi has not been re-booked. I jump on China Airlines' website and alerts are popping up in my face like "Hey! Your second leg takes off before your first leg lands! Modify your itinerary ASAP!" and yet zero buttons to modify said itinerary. I download the China Airlines app. It redirects me to the website where there are again zero buttons to rebook my itinerary and I continue to be targeted with pop-up alerts like "Warning! You have -7.45 hours between your flights!" So I call China Airlines. I am greeted by a recording that says "Thank you for calling China Airlines. To speak with a representative, please call back during our convenient business hours of 9am-5pm." Like, wuuuuut??? You're an AIRLINE! I can't wait until 9am to call you, I gotta re-book this shit ASAP!
I had wanted to spend the day in Surry Hills, a neighborhood of Sydney I hadn't yet explored. I headed there and by the time I did, it was 9am. I posted up on a stoop to make a quick call to China Airlines.
"Thank you for calling China Airlines. All our representatives are busy helping other customers. Please wait on the line and we will be with you shortly."
And then, the same message repeated in Chinese: "感谢您致电中国航空公司。 我们所有的代表都在忙着帮助其他客户。 请稍等,我们会尽快与您联系。" // "Gǎnxiè nín zhìdiàn zhōngguó hángkōng gōngsī. Wǒmen suǒyǒu de dàibiǎo dōu zài mángzhe bāngzhù qítā kèhù. Qǐng shāo děng, wǒmen huì jǐnkuài yǔ nín liánxì."
Over, and over, and over, and over.
Guys. Still on hold two hours later, I know how to say "Please wait on the line" in Chinese.
It's now close to noon. I know I have a flight to Taipei, but I don't know how I'm getting out of Taipei once I land there. I'm sitting on this stoop, wasting the day, with 8% phone battery, feeling like I have no resources to get this sorted. I begin to get frustrated to the point of near-tears. Something I've learned about myself: I don't cry often, but almost always when I do it's a result of frustration. I'm just about to hang up when a human picks up. He tells me my second leg has not been re-booked yet, but it totally will be, I just need to go to the airport at 4am before Leg 1 of my flight and sort it out at the China Airlines counter. This is absolutely in no way ideal, but I can live with this.
I set my alarm for 3am this morning. I'm fully packed so I'll be out the door at 3:15 and at the airport by 4.
I wake up. It's 5:16am. I'm like fuuuuuuck. I slept through my alarm. I'll get to the airport 6:30 AT BEST and will not make my 7am flight. This is going to make things harder, since now I'm the one at fault.
I arrive at the airport. China Airlines counter lady tells me "sorry, we've just closed the flight." I explain that I don't even know what the second leg of my itinerary is, I've been calling and searching for non-existent "modify your flight" website buttons, and as of ten minutes ago I got an alert that this leg of flight was delayed again by an hour so I should be able to get on, yeah? But that if I can't get on this one, and I need to be re-booked at my own expense, I'd prefer not to fly through Taipei given the typhoon. But of course, I'll be happy to just get on a flight, seeing as I've just missed the one I was scheduled for. So she's like, okay, let's take a look.
It as this point that I learn I have been re-booked entirely, courtesy of the airline, on a direct flight from SYD to Hanoi. My new flight departs in 8 hours.
Do I need to kill 8 hours at the airport? Yes. Thank G-d I have a BLOG! Or should I say STORY WEBSITE, per this text brought to you by one of my best friends, Lisa:
I know you're all like, why does your phone screen look so weird, right, because it's not an iPhone, it's a Google Pixel, and I LOVE IT, #teampixel, MOLLY SIMON I'm looking at you.
I'm in blogging denial!!! But also kinda in blogging heaven. And I could not be happier about this new flight scenario. And I could not be luckier.
I have this feeling frequently: I am so lucky.
As in, I feel as though the universe conspires in my favor.
Not all the time. I mean, yesterday when I learned I was scheduled to layover in a typhoon-impacted city I was definitely not thinking "wow, how exciting." And yes, I endured a few hours of may-jah frustration waiting for the universe to align. But I directed all my positive energy (<-- LOLLL UGHH SORRYYYY) toward hoping that it would... and it did. I swear the optimism actually matters. And that kindness really does win. I can have a mean ass attitude and it does come out sometimes (hi Mom) but my default mode is assuming positive intent and I swear to G it works. And importantly, it feels better. In the rare instances where an attitude-y approach has worked to achieve the desired outcome, I've still been left feeling like I lost. It's like, cool, I got what I wanted, but why am I THE WORST? So particularly in environments when lots can go wrong (#backpacking)... optimism. Everybody wins.
AnywayzZz, now the real backpacking begins! I hope to see lots of Vietnam, but with only ~3.5 weeks (I'm meeting my family in Portugal on August 9) I'm not sure how much I'll cover. Here's a high level map of the country:
Hanoi, where I'm flying into, is the main city in the north. From what I understand it's really more of a hub for exploring other places in the north. A few hours northwest of Hanoi we have the Sa Pa region... something tells me I'm gonna get stuck there. :) And then a few hours east of Hanoi we have Halong Bay. About half way down the eastern coast of Vietnam we have Hoi An, which is supposed to be a lively little city with an abundance of tailors who can construct absolutely anything. Near Hoi An there is a lesser-traveled-to city called Da Nang. A Vietnamese woman who gave me a manicure in Melbourne told me this is where I should go if I want to see a part of Vietnam with fewer tourists. As we make our way south we have Ho Chi Minh City (aka HCMC, formerly Saigon) and then just south of that, the Mekong Delta which is a region of Vietnam permeated by endless canals and the villages that rest on their banks.
I'm hoping to make my way from all the way North to all the way South, but that's a lot to cover! I don't want to rush. Wanna sink in and get under the skin of these places. I thought about starting in HCMC (since it's closer to Sydney and I'll pass it on the way to Hanoi) but then I recalled something from a past journey. At some point a few years ago, someone told me that whenever traveling it's best to start in the north and move south. Something along the lines of starting at the head, and moving down to the feet – not vice versa. I don't know why this makes sense to me, but it does.
So as of now, the plan is to end up in the South and fly out of HCMC to meet my family in Portugal. But, we all know how plans go :)
Okay, I'm gonna hit "post" on this one. In between posts I'm trying to be active on Insta with pics and stories. And I'm gonna spend the next few hours on another post with stories about Australia. I'm gonna write that one in an Australian accent. The accent will definitely not be as good as my sister Danielle's Australian accent but will definitely be better than my sister Lizzie's because hers is awful.
I've sort of been thinking of these posts as chapters. Which got me thinking, are there other examples of written content that gets released episodically? Magazines are a relatively analogous example but I think that distribution model only applies to the print versions (correct me if I'm wrong). Also, magazines are self-contained volumes and don't really build on each other. Are there books that get released chapter by chapter? Would that be cool? I'm thinking something like, each post is a chapter or 'episode' and is released at a scheduled time each week. Could that work? Yes? No? I don't even know if I'm into that... thinking on it. Hit me with your thoughts!? Maybe like, in the comments section here or on Facebook. I hated typing that :)
xoALZ
Aaand we're LIVE!
Um, wow, making this website has been one of the most torturous and also liberating things I've ever done. So much freedom to create, so many options for customization. If you know me, you know I'm sweating every font and header style and color. Let's treat this site as permanently in beta because we can be sure I'm going to be finagling with things ongoing.
I'm writing from Ned's Cafe in the South Yarra neighborhood of Melbourne, Australia. I've been in Australia for one week and will be traveling from here until the money runs out. I expect that'll be in 2-3 months but it depends on where I go.
When I did my India/Nepal trip, my intention was to fling myself into the universe and see what happened. That's exactly what I did. In doing that, I discovered (remembered?) how much I enjoy telling stories, particularly in written form. Remember my MO in the weeks before I left for that trip? People were asking me whether I'd write a blog and I was like, FUCK no! Never will I ever. Yeah, well. If we were to play a hypothetical game of "Never Have I Ever" and the prompt was "written a blog,".... I'd have a finger going down preeeetty fast.
I never meant to blog. I mean I literally cringe when I say the word blog and I am especially nauseated by the word blogger. But I have always, always loved telling stories and I've always loved writing. During my India trip, my second grade teacher (whom i'm friends with on Facebook – Hi, Ms. Haas! I know, you're married now and I should call you Mrs. Abramson but you're always Ms. Haas to me, okay?) reached out to me to reminisce about the stories I used to write as a kid. She was like, "so great to see you writing, Allie! You've always loved writing!" Apparently I wrote a number of stories about some twins who were just crushing life? they were called the Tilden Twins, because, guess what: I've also always loved alliteration. Anyway, I digress. The point is, I love telling stories, particularly stories about what happens when I'm traveling – because when I'm traveling, I'm really just plopping myself into the center of the human experiment, and every factor in the experiment is a variable except for ME. I am the only control factor. When everything is a variable except for me, shit gets interesting.
I'm excited for this round of experimentation because this time, I'm writing more intentionally, with the goal of becoming a better author and ultimately determining whether this is a viable career path (or at least a viable side hustle). Having a real website not only holds me to a new standard (I'm paying for Squarespace versus using a free blogging template), it also provides the tools for better trans- and multi-media storytelling because I can link out, use larger photos, have more control over photo placement, et cetera. With the site, I can combine long form stories here with other places where I'm documenting the journey (Instagram, Facebook, blah blah blah.)
In the next few days I'll get into what has happened since India and what I've been up to in Australia over the past week. In the mean time, meet Mike!
One Michael Minihane, at the summit of our waterfall hike in Dharamsala, India. 2015.
Photo credit: ME.
Mike and I met in 2015 in Rishikesh, India. Mike is originally from San Francisco, but moved to Sydney after college to work for Salesforce. He's still with Salesforce, crushing it. When we met, we became instant friends. We traveled together from Rishikesh to Dharamsala, which Mike to this day cannot pronounce to save his life (correct = dah-rahm-shah-lah // mike = dur-mur-shah-lah). Our transportation package was sold as a 10-hour VIP bus ride. Accurate, with the exception of 10 hours being 15 hours, VIP being a lie, and bus being an 8-person van into which we were crammed with 13 people. Also, we had a brake failure issue mid-way. Guess that's where the bonding happened. Since then, Mike and I have kept in touch, so when I decided to come over to this part of the world I hit him up. I flew to Sydney, where he lives, and crashed on his couch in Manly Beach for 3 nights. Mike had to come to Melbourne for a work trip, so I tagged along and here we are. Side note: while in Dharamsala, Mike and I spent hours in a Tibetan woman's shop admiring her hand-painted artwork. Mike spent FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY US DOLLARS on this ridiculous piece that was so large he literally didn't have a wall big enough for it when he first got back to Sydney. When I arrived at his place last week, it was finally framed and hanging. Epic moment.
Tomorrow (Sunday) Mike and I are heading back to sydney. My family is taking a vacation in Portugal in August and I'll be meeting them in Lisbon on August 9th. Until then, I'm on my own. Although I'm living out of a backpack, it's pretty cushy in AUS. The real roughin' it will start on Tuesday... i've got a one way to Hanoi, Vietnam.
As I said, stories from the road coming soon. Also thinking of developing the following posts at some point:
1. FAQ (examples include: "did you ever feel scared while you were traveling alone in india?", "where did you stay?", "were you afraid you wouldn't get a job when you got back?", and "not to be rude, but, how much money did you need?")
2. THE BACKPACK. An in-depth look at the pack itself, what's inside and how it's all organized to enable life on the road.
Yeah? Are those interesting? What else?
Much love from Melbourne,
ALZ.
On a beautiful sunshine-filled day, I took a walk by myself to Kappil Beach. I swear on the map it was 5km from Varkala, but it turned out to be 10km. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal if I hadn’t purposely NOT eaten anything, expecting to encounter many beach restaurants at Kappil but instead arrived sunburned and famished to find a completely empty, never-ending coastline.
I exited the beach to see what I could find in the town which wasn’t actually a town. I did find a little street hut where I grabbed some chai and a banana and hitched a ride on a local’s motorbike back to Varkala.
A woman on the beach sold pineapple daily. This woman was re-lentless! She’d walk from person to person with a full pineapple and a machete singing the catchiest marketing jingle of all time, which was, “eat eat eat, yummy yummy yummy, mm mm mm”…. over and over.
I hung out with an Italian guy named Mickey, who for the last seven years has spent summers earning cash in New York City bars and living the rest of the year in Varkala. People, it is possible.
(Unfortunately you can’t see the re-merch because it’s on the other side) and I wanted to send it to her but she could not afford enough phone credit to accept picture messages. I took her phone number so that I could call her. I told her that I could email her the picture instead, and that using Gmail she could create a FREE account. But she said that having email wouldn’t matter, because she cannot read or write in English OR Hindi… and also because she does not have access to the internet. This whole experience was the final nudge I needed to commit to starting the aforementioned company I just founded. Again more on that in a future post coming soon.
The first person I saw when I walked up to the Lenox House was my doorman Robert. He is about 80 years old so he is my stand-in grandpa because I don’t have grandparents. (And he has been a doorman in NYC for over fifty years, so he knows what’s up. Always.) Robert’s face lit up when he saw me, and seeing his face nearly brought me to tears. After a few minutes of catching up with him, I went up to my apartment where my sister (and room mate) Danielle was there to give me a huge, long hug. And two days later, I saw my sister Lizzie, my mom and my dad, and my entire extended family at my cousin Amanda’s wedding in Philly. Jetlagged as I was, it was absolutely wonderful.
At a stall in the Union Square holiday market, I met Beggy, a total freakin hippie selling handicrafts from all over the world. He had a sign in the corner that read, Need help. Shining happy people who love life. “Hello!” I said. “I’m a happy shining person who loves life, what kind of help do you need?” “Ohhhh… yeahhhhh…” said Beggy. “...uhhh....I forgot I put that sign there! I already found someone... But come here.” Beggy then proceeded to hug me, full arms around me, for what seemed like two full minutes. And then he whispered in my ear, “I’m here with you, Allie. I’m here. Peace and love.” This was over the top hippieness even for me but I found it incredibly amusing, said “peace and love” back to him, and took off. When I went to visit Beggy a few days later, he told me he had lost the piece of paper I had given him with my contact info, but that his partner in another stall in USQ was looking for help. I applied for the position and I am waiting for my call back. I would LOVE to work the holiday market this year. Fingers crossed.
Also while walking through the Union Square holiday market, I noticed some jewelry that I was certain came from south India. I spent a ton of time in markets and shops there, so I honed my eye for the design and craftwork. So I asked, and it turned out all of the jewelry was brought here from Mysore, a city in south India. I was afraid to look at the prices for fear that I’d be sickened by the profit margins (knowing how cheap the stuff sells for in India), but it also turned out that the dude working the stall - though he looked more north-east Asian than Indian - grew up in Kerala. And I know that means he’s sending money back home. He also told me his aunt has a Tibetan shop in the East Village. You really can find everything here in NYC, can’t you.
During my new babysitting gig (the gig that guarantees me cash while I get my new thing up and running), I was asked to take two-year-old *M* (we'll protect her privacy and use this instead of her full name) to music class using her stroller. Sounds easy… except that the stroller was like a freakin spaceship. I had no idea how to work this thing. I didn’t want to admit to the mother that I had never used a stroller before because that wouldn’t make me a very experienced babysitter now would it. So I futzed around with it until I finally managed to unlock the brake, get this diaper-clad toddler into position, and off we…! Wait, no. The door. How am I going to hold the door open and push the stroller through at the same time? This was pretty much impossible and I just wanna give a shout out to all the moms and soon-to-be moms out there for making this work on a daily basis. When we got to the address, there were three different doors with the number 48 on them. Which one was music class? So I asked *M*, “Miss *M*, is this your music class?” “Yeah!” So we go inside, but we’re in a tiny vestibule at the top of a flight of steps. How to confirm whether music class is at the bottom?! I can’t get the stroller down the steps and I can’t leave the baby in the stroller at the top of the steps. So I take *M* out, carry her downstairs while the stroller waits alone upstairs, and ask someone behind a desk about music class. They tell me it’s two doors down. (Maybe don’t ask the toddler next time?) Well, music class turned out to be, like, really fun. The kids are in a circle, and Miss Stephanie leads a series of play-along activities. Song and dance combinations using real instruments for each kid. The thing that did freak me out was when it was cello time and each TWO YEAR OLD got their own two-year-old-sized cello. Like, toddlers sitting on step stools with real cellos, not plastic cellos, between their baby-fat-laden legs, unmethodically and completely unrhythmically making contact between bow and strings. I was like umm, is this necessary? Does every child need their own cello? They are TWO. But each time *M* had to go put her instrument back on the shelf at the front of the class, she would come run-waddling back to me in her little toddler outfit with her little diaper butt and big naive smile and that was kind of the best.
To get back to JFK for my best friend Chanel’s wedding in Turks and Caicos this past weekend, I took the 6 to the E to the AirTrain. I had to do this at 3:50AM to get there on time for a 6:59am flight. I felt more spooked by the NYC subway than I ever felt in India or Nepal. I couldn’t put my finger on why.
I have continued to be a pescatarian (vegetarian + fish, but no meat) and have become obsessed with knowing where my food comes from. This is a complete 180 from the way I've been eating my whole life. Never cared at all. Now, partly for control reasons and partly for budget reasons, I have been cooking every meal and it’s been super satisfying. One of the meals I cooked last week was Tomato Fry! Sometimes called Tomato Thakkali. That’s a south Indian tomato curry dish and it actually tasted like such. I cooked rice to go with it and ate it with my hands.
I have continued to not drink alcohol. Alcohol wasn’t a big thing in the villages of India and I really enjoyed life without it. Red wine and tequila will still always be my vices, but… well, there is no but.
My closet has become incredibly overwhelming. I am something of a clothing “collector,” to put it kindly, and I have always enjoyed the creativity that getting dressed brings out in me. Each day is like a blank canvas. But actually, I found it to be even more fun of a challenge to be creative when I only had ten articles of clothing to work with. To keep it from being boring without having the option of just buying more. Now I have four bins of stuff ready to sell. I have already packed and schlepped two suitcases to Buffalo Exchange. Rounds two and three will have to happen over the next couple of weeks. Or I was thinking if any of you out there would be interested, I'd be down to just sell stuff direct. Figured I'd keep the pricing easy: all items are either $5 or $10... or $20 if I bought it for over $100. If you'd be into this, message me?
I have found myself being more empathetic and helpful. I am sure this was brought out by the relationship backpackers have with each other. Most of us were traveling solo. We were always looking out for each other. Always making sure we all made it on the bus okay. Connecting each other to places and people. Taking care of those around us, with a karmic sensibility and hopefulness that those around us will take care of us in return. Here I have found myself exercising this newfound helpfulness by doing things like taking the time to make sure that old lady can get up the subway stairs okay or even just holding the door for a mom with a stroller (like, ESPECIALLY since that babysitting episode.)
I realized that I didn’t actually miss anything about ‘first world’ living except for air conditioning.
I was a bridesmaid in my best friend Chanel's wedding in Turks and Caicos this past weekend. Chanel was so happy and looked so beautiful. Seeing her so radiant like that was worth being there for and I am so glad I came back to see her glow with my own eyes. There are certain moments in which we have the opportunity to define our friendships -- to prove that we are the 'best friend' we say we are. Chanel's wedding only happens once and I meant it when I said I wouldn't miss it -- literally -- for the world.
I had coffee with Ranjitha, my old co-worker whose mother-in-law is Vallika, my ‘Indian mom.’ Catching up with Ranj was so great - she knows all the places I’ve been. And I’ve slept in her brother-in-law’s bed! After coffee, she dragged me up to the co: office where I worked for five amazing years before leaving for India. You may not know that I was co:’s first employee. When the founders needed help getting the company up and running, I joined the team and stayed a while. I learned so much about myself both personally and professionally over those years. I wore many hats, held many roles, worked on countless awesome projects and made friends with some of my favorite people. Co: became my home and my family. It was such a big part of who I was and is still a huge part of who I am. When I stepped into the office at 7pm, a few workaholics were still around. It was so weird and awesome to see everyone but later that evening it hit me - like, really hit me - that I don’t work there anymore. That that office wasn’t my office anymore. That there were newbies in the company who knew more about it in that moment than I did. This was kind of a sad feeling, but also oddly a happy feeling. The place I helped build, the place I gave everything to for five years, was still standing, its projects and culture and people still in tact, all without me. You give what you can and you hope that it is meaningful, and if you’re lucky, it is well received and the world goes on. And this got me thinking about another thing that I’m grateful for. I am grateful that I grew up in a country and landed a job where, by working really hard, and keeping my intentions positive, I was able to earn and save enough money to make my lifelong dream of traveling-without-a-plan a reality. The majority of people in this world live in a place, or are in a situation, where no matter how hard they work, no matter how many hours they put in or how much they sweat out, they will never ever have enough money - or the cultural flexibility, or the familial support - to do the things they dream of doing. #Gratitude.
Above: silk is being prepared to be woven.
4. One night, a man was hand-chiseling a statue of Ghandi. Dude was literally carving Ghandi!
5. Laeti’s mom came to visit from France and we all went out to dinner together. After dinner, Laeti and I had to hang out at Laeti’s place instead of my place because her mom didn’t want her walking home alone at night. Her mom said when she’s in France and she can’t see what’s going on, she doesn’t worry. But she wouldn’t have been able to sleep knowing Laeti was out after dark. Human Universal: worrying mothers.
6. I bathed in the Ganga River. I bathed in cremations. Yes, yes I did. I am terrified of death and I didn't even feel weird about it. Everyone who lives in Varanasi bathes in the Ganga daily and it considered normal and even holy. Still can't really say WTFN for this one because there are many (formerly living) reasons WN but it was just one of those now or never things.
7. I met my first other New Yorker. HI VINCE! Vince is a Chinese American, and he is in fact not from New York, he is from Seattle, but he worked at Microsoft and went to NYU and lived in Brooklyn for six years so I think it counts. When he told me he was from New York I squealed and got up and hugged him. I am sure in that moment he thought I was nutso but then we went to an absurd magic show together (see #8) that was so beyond nutso it made my NY reaction seem normal.
8. Vince and I went to a magic show together, because, WTFN? When I arrived in Varanasi I saw these neon posters all over the city. The writing was in Hindi but the graphics were really cool and I was like, whatever that is, I’m going
to it. So I asked around and found out a magician called O.P. SHARMA was doing his thing in Varanasi on a nightly basis. I got really excited about this because 1) magic shows are cool 2) the theater experience must be so different here 3) there are probably no tourists at this thing. Vince was totally down, so we got tickets. Oh my goodness, SO MUCH STRANGE. The theater was simple, just one floor, but guys were selling popcorn and magic sets which was of course reminiscent of the theater experience we’re used to. The ushers put us in the front row even though we didn’t pay for front row tickets. There were two magicians, father and son, one was like sixty-five and the other one thirty-five. Both their faces were caked in make-up. Their outfits were ridiculous, like head to toe glitter jumpsuits.
So many outfit changes. So many pairs of earrings on their ears. The magic was somewhat entertaining but really it was just the way they rolled that was so hilarious. Their sound effects were pure cheese. Boing!s and whooosh's and ding!s. They had a cast of about ten people, guys and girls, all wearing gaudy costumes. Kinda promiscuous, actually, these costumes. Bellies and boobies out. There was this trick where O.P. pulled like ten multi-colored birds out of a hat… but then the birds were not collected and brought backstage. Instead they just flew around the theater and wandered on the stage for the remaining 90 minutes of the show. Then, the same trick with bunnies… and just the same, wandering bunnies. We were in the front row so the birds kept coming over to us and walking on our feet. And then of course we get asked if we want to meet the magician during intermission… so we did… and he was mostly mute except for asking me to take a selfie with him. I made Vince get in it with me. As Vince put it, the whole thing was just “absolute kitsch.” One of my favorite parts of the experience though was the little Indian girl sitting in the row behind us with her mom. Her name was Jahnvee. She was so frikkin cah-YOOT. At one point, one of the female cast members did a solo dance to a Hindi song and this little girl knew all the words. She was lip syncing and dancing along in her seat. After the show I asked her how old she was and she held up four fingers. And then I asked how old she thought I was, and she said seven. I think probably because she doesn't yet know how to count past seven. Either way, her "seven" plus the schoolboys' "fifty" puts me at an average of 28.5 years old, which turns out to be exactly accurate, if anything a few months younger than my 28.75 years! So it's alllll good.
9. I learned how to say “look, look!” (Deko, deko!). I tested this out while buying a SIM card. The guy asked me if I knew any Hindi so I pointed across the street, shouted “deko, deko!” and pretended to steal a phone while he was looking in the opposite direction.
10. I watched Laetitia clean and dress wounds for an hour or so. The patients were so appreciative of her help. Almost every one of them, young and old, gave her a hug before leaving.
11. Laetitia introduced me to Suresh, a handicrafts shop owner who had become her close friend in Varanasi. He was just a ball of fire — always singing, blasting La Bamba in the shop and hollering at tourists on the street even though he knows that tactic doesn’t work. He’s just entertaining himself.
12. Probably because I was meeting so many people every day at the hostel, I remembered that you only have one chance to make a first impression. Sometimes we are less considerate about the impressions we make on people because we believe we are somewhat anonymous to those people -- like people who we think we may never see again. Maybe we think we are anonymous to the person walking past us on the street, the person making our sandwich at the deli or the person driving our Uber. But we are making impressions on everyone whose paths we cross. And when I am introducing myself twenty times a day, and when everyone is potentially a friend, the value of a good first impression is ever more apparent.
13. While walking through a park (read as: large patch of grass in the middle of Varanasi), two little girls were staring at me like I was an animal in the zoo they'd never seen before. I waved at them and they giggled to each other. Then they came to grab my hand and started leading me across the park. I didn't know what they were leading me toward and they didn't speak English but I obviously followed them (because, WTFN). Well, where they led me was somewhat anticlimactic as it was just their baby brother lying on his back in the grass sleeping, but it was so adorable and hilarious how excited they were as they pointed at him and showed him off to me. "Babu!! Babu!!" (Means baby.) And then we took this selfie together, which, not gonna lie, this time I instigated ;)
Tomorrow I'm heading to Goa, which is on the central west coast of India. It is the place I have been most excited about since leaving New York. So curious to see what an Indian beach looks like! And Goa is home to beaches like Anjuna Beach, of Anjunadeep_Mixtape fame. I haven't really been 'partying,' per se... there isn't much of a sloppy drinking culture here in India. But I've heard that in Goa, the party is ON. Chelo!!! (Hindi for Let's go!!!)
]]>In fact I've been having a very interesting time in Kathmandu, so I am glad to have had the extra time. One day, I made a morning journey to Harati Devi Temple, which is the tallest point in Kathmandu and is lovingly nicknamed Monkey Temple for all its primate inhabitants. It is reached by a steep set of stairs set into the side of the mountain. It was a long, complicated walk from my guest house and I cheated and used Google Maps, which -- surprisingly -- correctly led me down a series of dirt roads and right to the entrance of Harati Devi. (Cannot believe those paths were on Google Maps! PS how are we all liking Google's new logo... I'm down...).
When I got to the top of Harati Devi, it was like a light switch was flipped on Kathmandu. For the first time in my five or six days here, I could see that the city was massive! Buildings and buildings as far as I could see, with the mountain backdrop, as always. I hadn't realized or felt like Kathmandu was a huge city. I had been staying in a neighborhood called Thamel (which felt like a tiny Times Square, except the buildings are only five stories high and the roads are really windy) and it felt like I was passing the same things every day. Shop | Shop | Shop | Shop | Shop . No I do not want taxi. No I do not want rickshaw. No I do not want banana. No I do not want marijuana. Same faces and places. But seeing Kathmandu from above, I realized how expansive it was. Swarming with the potential for adventure. Whereas from Thamel it felt more like I'd been posted up in one neighborhood of Manhattan. Maybe Saint Marks. Not hating on Saint Marks. But you know, 24/7 after a week...
So I spent the next few days in a new neighborhood called Kaldhara, just next to Thamel. I have met the most interesting people here. They are farmers and volunteers and managers and builders. I've gotta hand it to my fellow backpackers. They're pretty incredible and I decided to cheese out in their honor here.
Some other odds and ends from in and around Kathmandu:
1. While at the Monkey Temple, a monkey snatched my water bottle right out of my hands. It was half full and super humid so I didn't really want my water stolen. Like okay cute you're a monkey, but you can't just have my water...
He gnawned at it ferociously and couldn't get it open for 10 minutes and never did end up getting it open.
2. Berto was my Spanish room mate in my guest house in Thamel and we had the best time. We had this hilarious joke where he couldn't get on WiFi and was getting so frustrated and like, probing his phone in the air to find signal, so I was being a news reporter (news reporter voice now), reporting live from the rooftop of Yeti Guest House ladies and gentlemen, where a 29 year old Berto from Valencia, Spain has been unable to get WiFi for a full ten minutes! Ladies and gentlemen Berto is what we call a WiFi addict - he'll do anything for that WiFi! BERTO, show us how you're searching for the WiFi! -- Cut to Berto waving his phone under the bed and up to the fan and pretending to be the WiFi version of a metal-detecting beachcomber with his phone, glancing up from the (imaginary) beach floor to look at the (imaginary) news camera like a starved WiFi junkie.......
(Reporter voice) Ladies and gentleman he just cannot find that WiFi!
...Oh wait, I forgot the best part of the joke! It was all in Spanish!!!
3. There are some solo female travelers, but it's more rarely that I encounter them. Sure, sometimes. But much harder to find. I've met so many great guys, but I'm missin my girls.
4. There are people who have everything and give nothing.
There are people who have nothing and give everything.
Somehow, with as little as they have, they offer food, they offer shelter... they offer up a chair for you to sit in -- you should be comfortable.
5. Our first night of the trek on the mountain, before I had to come down, I allowed a 60-something year old man named Bardo perform reflexology on my feet. First time doing Reflexology. What an odd sensation! It was extremely relaxing though. Later that night we also danced around with the family that runs the guest house. The fifteen year old daughter was so good, she was schooling me! Traditional Nepali music but this girl had moves. And then Gangnam Style came on out of nowhere and she knew the entire dance.
6. It seems that mens' relationships with each other are very similar in both India and Nepal. Men are very openly affectionate with one another. Almost a proud, childlike affection. Men of all ages, nestling their heads in each others' necks. Walking with their arms around each other. Laying on each other's shoulders. It's quite sweet, really. I've also seen them bicker like hell ;) But the sweetness always comes back.
7. Not earning money is beginning to get to me. Just a teensy bit, but I can feel it. There are many options for bartering. For example, I could work in a guest house in exchange for my accommodation and potentially sometimes free food. But that feels more like saving money, to me. I am getting the itch to earn spendable capital. Not because I am strapped for cash. But because it feels good to earn.
8. The simple comfort and convenience of having even a tiny ledge in the bathroom to rest my soap on while I wash my face has been sorely missed over the past few weeks.
9. I think I need to learn Hindi. When I'm done reading The Goldfinch, which should be in the next day or two, I'm going to pick up a beginner Hindi language book.
10. I'm learning English. While reading The Goldfinch, I wrote down 13 words to look up and then looked each one up on my Dictionary app while I was waiting to see the doctor at Teku Hospital this morning. I think the monkey may have scratched me when he grabbed my water bottle and I wanted to get the little cut checked out. Turned out to be nothing. But I did get to experience the local bus... which again reinforced how big a city Kathmandu is. Did you know there are one million people in Kathmandu? It is 29 square miles.
I'm going to have to jet in the next couple of days to get back to India. My visa is ready, 3 months granted. I'll apply for the ten-year from the U.S. :)
Psyched to get back to India is an understatement. I'm like a flower floating through Nepal and India. I plant roots via the people I meet and the contexts in which I meet them. And as those relationships grow, so deeper do my roots in that city. Here in Kathmandu, I feel like I've only just started planting... speaking of which, I need to be watered, as it's one hundred degrees and I'm schvitzing.
zooni, out...!
]]>The trek got off to a great start. Luk and I were making a great team. We set ground rules for our shared bedroom each night (closing the bathroom door was important to him; closing any door through which an insect or animal could enter was important to me) and we stocked up on snacks together. We were crushing it. But on our first night on the mountain, once again I got some sort of either altitude sickness or food poisoning. It was unclear which one, but I was vomiting and dry heaving all night. The next morning was no better. We continued on, because I wanted to push through it, but after a few hours of climbing I was feeling so sick I had to stop. Dry heaving and all the other fun stuff that altitude sickness and food poisoning bring.
Because of the nature of the trekking route, I had to make a go/no-go decision in that moment. If we waited in that spot for the sickness to potentially pass, we would lose a day of the trek and not make it to base camp. If I continued on, there would be no future option to come down. Not only was I feeling horrible in that moment, but also I have some pre-existing stomach issues which I was really concerned the vomiting would exacerbate. In the moment I could think only of my health and I decided to go back down the mountain. Five hours of trekking downhill, a two hour jeep, a 90 minute car ride, and a six hour bus ride to get back to where I am now.
Upon returning to base, I could feel nothing except relief. Relief that the sickness seemed to be getting better and a hospital visit was not necessary. Relief that I was at a point on the mountain from which getting back down was an option. But after a few hours of resting, suddenly feelings of disappointment and regret hit me like a fucking ton of bricks. I became so upset with myself that I could think about nothing except the fact that I didn’t complete the trek. The weight of this feeling was so heavy that I could not be around other people. I locked myself up in my room and didn’t even know what to do. It felt like the shame would never, ever go away.
I’m disappointed for so many reasons. There are the obvious reasons, like losing all of the money I paid, not accomplishing my goal of completing an extended trek, and of course not getting to see Annapurna base camp and everything on the way. But the most excruciating feelings of disappointment are rooted in something else: how my decision affected others. Leaving Luk to continue on his own. Dragging our guide Yadav down the mountain with me (company’s choice, not mine, but the reality of the situation regardless) to ensure my safety. From this unbearably deep canyon of regret it is impossible for me to remember what I was feeling up on the mountain that made me choose ‘down.’ I know that my mind was not clear and that I was feeling awful and panicking about my health. But how could I not push myself harder? How could I give up so easily? How could I let Luk go on alone? What the f*ck is wrong with me? What kind of person am I?
It may seem to some that I’m being too hard on myself. Blaming myself for a situation I couldn’t control. I have spoken to my family and a couple of close friends. Of course they are telling me I did the right thing. “Your health is the most important thing.” “It’s not your fault that you got sick.” “You made the right decision.” But I can’t help but feel like I didn’t. And in order to understand why I’m being so hard on myself, I guess we have to back up for a minute. See the thing is, of course I couldn’t help that I got sick. Which is why that’s not the point. The point is, everybody gets sick. There is not a human being who goes on a 9 day trek and doesn’t get sick at some point. And I knew that full well going in. I knew I was going to get sick. And in my head I was going to get sick and power through it! That’s what happens on a 9 day trek. And so in signing up, I made an unspoken commitment to myself and to Luk that I would get sick and power through it. So my guilt and disappointment are coming from my inability to keep that commitment to myself and to Luk. And from having made a poor decision to sign up for something in the first place — to commit to something — that maybe I wasn't totally prepared to commit to. Because in the moment, when presented with the obstacle, I wimped out and I tarnished the trek for everyone. So it’s not that I’m mad at myself for putting my health first in that moment. Coming down was the right decision — the experience is not worth my life. It’s that maybe I should have made a different decision about the trek in the first place. Like chosen something shorter that I was positive I could stick to. And one more thing: when I left my job, the amazing leadership of co: bought me a Go Pro for my trip. Such a meaningful gift. And co peeps, this is going to seem silly, but you can’t imagine how much pressure I have been putting on myself to make a video that is worthy of sharing with you guys. Like, can’t just be a video of anything, you know? I’ve been feeling like it has to be the most epic, bold and badass video. And so even though I have been using the Go Pro a ton, I had been saving up for a moment on the trek when I could make a video that I deemed co-worthy. And of course, I now didn’t do the bold thing, the badass thing, the one thing that I was totally set on doing here. For the rest of my life I will look back on my trek in the Himalayas and my story will be that I didn’t make it. I got sick. This is one of the most terrible feelings I’ve ever had and I really, really hope it passes soon.
This journey was bound to teach me something about myself. I wish I hadn’t let myself and the others down like this but now that all is said and done, the most important thing is that I learn something from this experience. What I have learned is that the decisions I make are not reversible. To be a person with integrity, you must always — not sometimes, always — keep your word. To keep your word is to fully think through and understand the subsequent and implied commitments you will need to keep as a result of making any given decision. And then making the decision accordingly. Kinda like the ol’ saying, ‘don’t make promises you can’t keep.’ I’ve always taken pride in my integrity when it comes to my word, so this experience rocked me because it kinda made me go, whoa, maybe I don’t always keep my word. Have I done this before? Thankfully I cannot think of any other glaring examples and all I can say is that I will take my decisions and my commitments more seriously from this moment forward. My word is my bond.
I have been trying with all my might to find the silver lining and I am grateful to have found one thing, which is that I will now be on flat land (or more likely on a bus or train) for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and will have the opportunity to observe the holy days properly, somewhere in Nepal or India, which will be an experience in itself.
So there you have it, the good, the bad and the ugly.
Although I was initially a major hater, this blogging thing has actually felt kinda good and normal. …Until I found myself having to share something that I really wished I could just skip over.
And sure, I could have just shared, “I got sick on the mountain and had to come down” and let that be it. But if I didn’t keep it real, if I didn’t share the epiphany, then WTF is this blog for?
Anyway… moving forward now more than ever as a woman of my word.
]]>The bad news: I missed my opportunity to trek in Leh, because I only had four days there due to visa situation.
The good news: I kept my word with myself, which was that I would stay in a place (in this case it was Manali) as long as it made me happy and leave when I was ready to leave.
The result: trekking in the Himalayas in Nepal instead :)
When I arrived in Nepal, I spent a couple of days in Thamel, a neighborhood in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu. One morning I was roaming around, decided to grab a coffee from a street stand and saw two guys sitting on a nearby stoop drinking their own coffees. Asked if I could join. We started talking and it turned out one guy, Luk, was from Singapore and had just booked a 9-day trek to Annapurna Base Camp. (At 8091m, Annapurna is the tenth highest mountain the world.) The other guy -- Mountain Ram -- was the owner of the trekking company. After a few minutes and a firm handshake, I had joined the trek.
So good morning from the Fishtail Villa in Pokhara, Nepal, where the houses are hot pink and have full wraparound balconies on every floor, the sun is blazing hot and the backpacks sold on the street are made of THC-free hemp. We're about 6 hours northwest of Kathmandu. (The bus ride was so much better than India. The bus had velour seats and seatbelts, and the cliffs actually had some large cinder-block barriers forming makeshift guardrails). I like Pokhara better than Kathmandu. With its banana leaf plants and bright orange sunrises it's got sort of a Key West vibe about it.
In an hour, we'll drive another 90 minutes to the base where we'll begin Day One of our trek. Me, Luk, Yadav (our guide) and Mahess (our porter). Yadav and Mahess are da bomb. We had lunch all together yesterday and we were able to understand each others' humor and have a really awesome time. And I'm really glad Luk and I crossed paths when we did.
To be clear we are not fully climbing Annapurna -- you need a special permit and a letter of recommendation to go beyond a certain elevation (those people are pretty badass, right?) -- but we are climbing to the point on the mountain where those badass people begin their journey up to Annapurna's peak. Our highest elevation will be 4,440m. Each night we'll be staying in 'tea houses' where locals will welcome us in from the day's climb and feed us whatever's on the menu for that night.
It will be a challenge and an experience for sure. Though trekking for up to 8 hours each day will be physically exhausting, I am not particularly concerned about the technicality of this trek... but I am pretty nervous about spending these next 9 days:
- with the same people 24/7
- without warm water
- in some places without running water at all
- without clean clothing
One thing I've learned about myself is that I get very anxious if I don't feel like I have a 'way out.' It's not exactly claustrophobia... but I guess I like to have an exit strategy at all times :) It's about having the option.
I am now being summoned for breakfast... dal bhat, to get us energized. Dal Bhat is like a combo platter plate: loads of rice, lentil soup, mixed vegetables, a tablespoon of some sauce that looks like runny peanut butter but isn't and I can't figure out what it actually does taste like, and hopefully we're getting some pakoda too (Nepali version of tempura)... and of course milk coffee, which I drink every morning.
And after breakfast... off to da hills!
Cue THE CLIMB by Miley Cyrus. JK don't. Okay do. Come on who doesn't love that chorus!?!
]]>I am just 24 hours away from an expired Indian visa. What that means is that I needed to be out of India and into to another country where I can reapply for a longer term Indian visa.
Why am I in this situation? Well, I was so busy in New York leading up to my departure for India that I opted for the easiest, most convenient visa application: 30 days. The 30 day visa is the only visa that can be granted online and does not require an embassy visit. At the time, 30 days in India seemed like more than enough. I figured Delhi would be meh. Figured I'd see a couple of cities in India, check em off the list, and bounce to Myanmar and to the rest of SEA for the real party to get started. But then I landed in India and within three days I knew I was stuck here. There is so much to see, there are so many micro-cultures and geographies. Of course there have been stomach-twisting bus rides and the terrifying trek situations but besides those life-threatening little blips I have had such good experiences... I just can't leave! It's got to be India all the way.
So... Must. Get. Self. Back. Into. India.
Some popular nearby countries for 're-applying for your visa and traveling there during the week it takes to prepare the new visa' are Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. I was already in the north of India so I've chosen Nepal. I had originally booked this journey over land via trains and buses to the Sunauli/Nepali border (42 hours of travel time, 4 modes of transpo, $22 USD), but then felt given the circumstances it would be better to suck it up and pay for reliability -- transpo I could depend on for timeliness and accuracy -- so I flew from Delhi to Kathmandu (1 hour 45 minutes, $85 USD) this morning. It pained me to buy that flight. It cost at least one week of living.
In any case, here in Nepal I'll apply for a new Indian visa, explore for a couple of weeks while my application is processed, and then return to the visa office and hope I've been granted re-entry.
It's a good problem to have, having to post up in Nepal. Perhaps it has even forced me to get to Nepal whereas I hadn't planned it this way myself.
As an American, I will have the privilege of applying for a ten-year multiple-entry Indian visa. A month ago I didn't think I'd like India, now I'm begging for the ten year unlimited access plan. (Starting with Rishikesh reunion 2016... Clark/Mike/Emily/Sally/Cauê/Ashish amiright?!)
There is no reason my visa shouldn't get approved but I guess the possibility of being shut out of India just got real. I feel a little helpless, you know? Of all the tickets for entry I've ever wanted -- the opening night movie ticket, the sold out festival ticket, the too-expensive plane ticket, maybe even college!, I have never wanted one this badly. And this one money can't buy. Sure there's a fee, but there's no schtooping (Yiddish word for "paying off") the visa office to guarantee approval.
If I can't get back to India, I will be devastated. Wherever I end up I know I'll make the most of it, and maybe tomorrow I'll be like uh oh I'm in love with Nepal!, but right now India is the prize. Fingers crossed for crossing borders!
]]>I spent afternoons at outdoor cafes. I particularly loved Sunshine Cafe and spent hours talking to Suny and his older brother, the co-owners of the place. They are from Nepal, they run the show, and most importantly they run the music, tag-teaming as they DJ the tracks all afternoon into nighttime. I also met lots of other travelers there. But my time in Manali was spent primarily with locals. The Sunshine boys. And Sajid, who owns and works at a silver shop in Old Manali. These local guys are responsible for some of the most fulfilling moments I had in Manali. But if you talked to enough people (spoiler alert: I did), you found the crazies. Locals and travelers-cum-local alike. It was very dark at night and had an eerie-ness that Dharamsala and Rishikesh didn't. But there was some mystery about it and day after day I just couldn't leave.
Things that happened in Manali:
1. A man named Sanny in a jewelry shop (not to be confused with Suny at Sunshine Cafe) gave me lulus in my hair -- those long string things with beads. I walked into this shop and there was gold-and-macrame jewelry covering every inch of the place. Bracelets, anklets, necklaces, stones, chains, string, beads. Sanny made each and every thing right there in that shop. I chose my lulus from piles and piles of different colors and bead combinations. Because of my long hair it took almost an hour to install these bad boys but it was good fun. I had been walking around sweating all day but Sanny made me feel beautiful and I walked out of his shop feeling like a million rupees. ($15,873 USD.)
2. I saw my natural nails for the first time since 2009. I removed the black nail polish I had been wearing for three weeks (Molly it was looking chipped and horrendous as you advised it would) and gave myself a manicure using tools from the general store. You may or may not know that I have manicured and polished nails always. I am getting used to my natural nails. So backpacker.
3. An Israeli guy played lots of John Mayer and Jack Johnson songs on his guitar at Rendez Vous cafe one night, and he forgot the words to one of the verses, and I knew them, so I started singing for him so he wouldn't be left hanging out to dry. Jogged his memory immediately and we sang a bunch more songs together.
4. We summited and descended a mountain in one day. Patalsu mountain peak in the Solang range (part of the Himalayas) which is one of the ranges that encloses Manali. The peak is 4700m, of which you climb 2500m from Manali. I was dying to do a long trek but it was hard to get a crew together. Diwan, the guide who I'd been talking to about organizing the trek, invited me to join another group doing this one-day summit.
The climb was challenging. We didn't pass any other trekkers on the mountain. Narrow ridges. Geography like I have never seen before. It was pretty incredible on the way up to see shepherds living in the hills, herding horses and cows and buffalo, hundreds of meters above the village of Manali. Later, looking back at the mountain range from the town of Manali, it was fun to mentally point to a spot on the mountain and know that there are shepherds living there.
There were four of us hiking, plus our guide Diwan who was a total beast and master of the mountain. The other trekkers were a British student and her two guy friends. The British girl decided to attack this day in TOMS shoes. Co: peeps: though no fault of the TOMS Shoes company, due to the following events my image of our beloved StoryDoer will sadly never be the same. These events were Go-Pro worthy though and I do have videos to post for you as soon as connection is strong enough!
So after 7 hours uphill we get to the very top which is essentially just slabs of rock and this girl is slipping and sliding everywhere. She is miserable. When we reach the summit, we sit to take a break. We are on a cliff in the clouds and cannot see more than 15 feet in front of us. Girl goes to get something out of her backpack and -- all of a sudden -- the backpack starts rolling. No no no. No no no. No no no. Tumbling down the hill and... right off the cliff.
Girl starts crying immediately. I feel horrible for about 30 seconds... and then I just can't stop laughing, not at all in a malicious way, but can we acknowledge that your backpack just fell off a mountain!?!? But of course this is not funny for her nor would it be for me in her position and Diwan can tell this is baaad news (L8R cash, L8R passport) so he looks at us and without really saying anything, descends off the cliff into the clouds.
We wait. Five minutes. Fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes. And then Diwan emerges from the clouds like the mountain man that he is, wearing the backpack on his front side. DIWAN!!! DIWANNNN WTF and FTW!!! We are bugging out. Heroic!!!
From our rest at the summit, we can see snow on the caps and in the ridges of many of the surrounding peaks. It is so frozen that it almost doesn't look like snow and I tell Diwan I think it's actually lightly colored rock. To which he says, teasingly, "no it is not rock! It is snow! We are in the Himalayas! Maybe you have altitude sickness." He throws a slab of rock at a nearby patch to prove me wrong. Sure enough upon impact there is a poof of white flurries. I smile, happily defeated.
We sat at the summit for a few more minutes in complete silence. I found myself replaying the little snow poof over and over in my head. It was a happy little blast, but it led to a sudden pang of sadness within me. Because just as soon as I thought about how vast, how untouched, how healthy and how infinite the earth around me seemed... so massive, so alive with opportunity... I realized it was exactly the opposite. Finite. Endangered. How much we take for granted the resources on this Spaceship Earth that is our shared home. How incredibly sad and tragic it would be for this living, breathing earth to be anything other than exactly that... and yet how glaringly realistic that outcome is. We need the #truth campaign of environmentalism. We need it to be so fucking uncool to be wasteful, so fucking uncool to use harmful materials/ingredients/whathaveyou, that it is socially unacceptable to participate in earth-damaging activities of any kind. We need the best and brightest people and companies in the world to be solving this problem like it's their number one priority. I personally have been insanely inspired by this challenge. There is saying, 'if you don't have your health, you don't have anything.' This is especially true for our Mama Earth.
Anyway thanks for joining me on that preachy detour, let's now get back to the part where we are loving the scenery and enjoying our chill sesh at the summit and very proud of ourselves for summiting this baby in one day. Okay are we back there now? Great. So obviously this is where shit gets ugly. We begin our descent around 4PM and TOMSGirl88 (her AIM screen name that I just made up for her -- right DaniGirl14 ahem I mean SummerChick724?) is mizzz because she is slipping and sliding everywhere. We have to keep stopping to wait for her. I don't really mind waiting, like it's no sweat for me that she's sliding... until I realize that every time we stop, we are wasting sunlight. And it starts getting dark. And by 5:30PM it's pitch black. And then it starts raining. And we can't see an inch in front of us and we have a 2000m descent ahead of us.
For the next two hours, we are descending this mountain using the flashlights on our phones which do absolutely nothing (but they were totes better than nothing) and we are sopping wet (recurring theme in India) and we keep having to stop and wait for this girl. An hour or so later we hit a point where the path downward is unclear. Diwan directs us toward a sketchy looking route -- pretty technical -- and we can't really see. This would not be happening in daylight. I am freezing, wet and irritated and it's dark. I want to be off this mountain. Another hour. I feel like we are no closer to the bottom. It's around 9PM. We are on a pretty steep ridge when TOMSGirl88 slips, and this time, she slips right off the ridge. I see this girl vanish over the edge and fall what must have been 20 or 30 feet. Her friend grabs me and looks at me like he thinks TOMS just died. We all scream for her, she screams back that she is okay, and Diwan goes to rescue her. When Diwan and TOMSGirl88 return, Diwan seems to think this is kind of funny, like what an adventure! And my New Yorker starts to show like in a major way. I'm like Diwan, you have one fucking job right now, and it's to get us off this mountain as soon as humanly possible. And he's like Allie, I love such fun adventures like this! And I'm like cool well TOMSGirl88 almost just died, so, I'll laugh at the bottom but right now I'm gonna be a mayjah bee-yotch. And then I had to explain bee-yotch to Diwan so we end up laughing anyway. And then we abandon trails and just go in the direction "downhill" any and every way possible. Walking through rivers up to our shins, wading through fields of wet plants up to our shoulders.
We got to base at 10:45PM and home at 11:30PM. We did laugh at the bottom. I suffered minor hypothermia for a couple of hours (read as: an exaggeration, more like just strong feelings of coldness and a sour mood) before deciding to go out in Manali (read as: go to Sunshine for a late dinner and tell them how insane that day was). My left knee was hurting for two full days...
5. I became friends with Sajid in the silver shop. He is from Kashmir. We'd hang out in the silver shop all day and just play music and talk to whoever came in. Sajid had some friends living in Manali, also Kashmiri, and they invited me to cook dinner one night. It was eight of us. We cooked at Sajid's friend Weer's apartment. Weer did almost all of the cooking. Rice. Vegetables. Paneer. Pressure cooker. Lamb on the bone. (Not my thing, but I was so into this experience it didn't matter.)
The apartment was a square. One wall was the gas/electric/stove unit, one wall nothing, the other two walls taken up by the two sides of Weer's square, floor-level bed which also doubled as a couch and which all of the food was served on and which all eight of us sat on as we ate dinner. There were a few pairs of utensils (I got a pair) but almost everyone ate with their hands. Now, I've actually been mastering the Indian-food-with-hands thing. Multiple Indians have told me I'm killin it! (Ranjitha you would be proud - Vallika even said on Day 3 I was doing great). But that's when we're using some kind of bread as our scooper. For some reason I felt uncomfortable as I watched one of the boys use his hands to make mounds of rice and then shovel them into his mouth, hands covered in rice and dal. It seemed dirty, for his hands to be covered in food like that. I felt sad, like he shouldn't have to eat that way. And if I'm being brutally honest, I felt a little bit disgusted. I was surprised by my own reaction and when I looked around at everyone else, none of their expressions hinted at pity or disgust. In fact it was exactly the opposite. All of their faces were lit up with the delight of a very successful dinner-with-friends. So, I just went with it, and avoided watching that particular boy eat, and lost myself in the moment ironically as one of the other boys skipped tracks from some religious Indian song to "LOSE YOURSELF" by Eminem.
The next night I was invited to Weer's again and we did exactly the same thing -- eight of us, dinner, music, Weer doing most of the cooking -- except this time, I stared at how perfect the boy's hand-made rice mounds were and thought, hell yeah.
6. I laughed about the fact that my Indian friends have unlimited data wherever they go. We'll get to a cafe and I'll ask for the WiFi password. The connection will be shitty and I'll give up, easily over it. But they'll be texting and internet-ing up a storm. Proper toilets? No. But 3G everywhere? Yes.
7. I observed a flower garden for a full ten minutes, watching all the different bees and bugs pollenate the perfectly designed flowers. Cue 'Circle of Life' from The Lion King....
8. The reality that a everything I own but don't actually need to survive is living in a bedroom in New York made me feel weird.
9. Suny did a house/trance night at Sunshine cafe and he was soOoOo good, I was like, holy shit, Suny needs to come to New York and DJ at Output! So I talked to him about it. I was like Suny, you could come to Brooklyn and rock this one club -- this is exactly the kind of music everyone there loves! You would be amazing and you'd make so much money in just one night! Suny's response was the best: "I don't want to leave Manali. I don't want New York. I don't want to be DJ! This is my hobby." Touché.
10. Two dogs got in a fight with a cow. The cow was screaming. The cow ran away.
11. I boiled myself in hot springs four times.
12. I got a haircut at a beauty shop. The girl next to me was getting her full head of dreads untangled.
While I was in Manali, I FaceTimed with my parents to tell them I was very scared of the journey from Manali to Leh. Leh is in the state of Ladakh, which belongs to Jammu and Kashmir. It is very far north and it's only open 3-4 months of the year, because the only two roads in to Leh (read as: mountain passes) are too dangerous to drive otherwise. You can take a one day 18 hour bus or a two day bus with an overnight camp in the middle. Literally up and down the sides of mountains. I must say as much as I love India -- which is a whole lot -- the roads make me deeply nervous. It is very hard for me to spend 18 hours on a bus thinking our bus is going to fall off a cliff the entire time. So I was hoping my parents would say, "honey that sounds really unsafe, you should definitely NOT go to Leh" and then I could be like, my parents really didn't want me to go... but instead they said, "well maybe the two day trip is better so at least you know the driver slept overnight." So, I took the two day bus. I got brutal altitude sickness at the overnight campsite which was actually at a higher altitude than Leh (4700m at campsite versus 3500m or so in Leh). Ten times I had to crawl out of my tent, look up at a sky full of stars, and then puke my brains out uncontrollably. Great times.
But, as all of the travelers before me promised, Leh is beautiful and unique. It's high-altitude 'city' in the Indian Himalayan mountains. The sun is boiling hot but the breeze is cool. We are surrounded by layers and layers of mountains on all sides. Many of them look like desert mountains. One layer is snowcapped. It has an odd complexion, though, Leh does. It is at once one of the most natural places in the world and one of the most manufactured places in the world. The geography is natural but the city itself is almost imported... the trees are brought in from other places. There is a ton of construction (concrete and bamboo) and I predict that in just a couple of years this place will be the new Switzerland or something.
Things that happened in Leh:
1. Sajid's friends who work at a guest house in Leh met me as soon as I arrived, and became my local friends instantly. Blue, Bilal and Asif. These three kids!!! Ugh. Love them. They're also Kashmiri but are living and working in Leh for the summer. They gave me a Kashmiri name: ZOONI. Rhymes with looney. It means moon. Guys, you really can't imagine how much I love being Zooni. All day they are calling me Zooni. Zooni Dietzek! And with their accents it is just the BEST. At night when the moon is full, we look up and yell "ZOOOOONI!!!!!!!" Because that is obviously what you do when your name is Zooni and there is a full moon in the sky.
2. I truly felt -- after three weeks and 5 places including Leh -- like a Himalayan mountain girl (to the extent possible given I am a New York City girl). I have been living on the bare minimum. Washing my hair once or twice a week at best and not even feeling dirty about it. Actually feeling great about it. Understanding the geography of the Himalayas and the region of the world I'm in. Genuinely not knowing what day of the week it is (humble brag, forgive me, it's a BFD for me). Carrying just one very small bag -- the stuff I need on my person at all times (passport, cash, notebook, sunglasses, chapstick, toilet paper) -- rather than a purse full of loads and loads of stuff I may or may not need on any given day. Walking up and down hills to get anywhere and everywhere. Giving up on WiFi. Drinking tap water. Eating fruits and vegetables of all kinds. Climbing everything. Wearing the same clothes two days in a row. Doing yoga overlooking the mountains. Saying hi to everyone whose path I cross -- we are all making our way through the Himalayas. Learning how to tie my scarf on my head in about seventeen new ways and the way I choose each day is pretty much my outfit differentiator.
3. I met up with Clark, my friend from Rishikesh, who happened to also now be in Leh. Clark is from St. Louis and is insanely brilliant. It's crazy how he and I spent five days together in Rishikesh, but how seeing him here he felt like an old friend. Clark left Leh yesterday morning to climb nearby Stowk Kangri mountain. It is the highest peak you can see in Leh. It is covered in snow. I will be gone from Leh by the time he returns. Clark doesn't like when I get cheesy when we say goodbye. But I guess some things about me will never change. I gave him a huge hug and wished him luck and told him how much I would miss him... he was like yea yea let's not do this :) Couldn't help it. I guess that's one paradox I do face on an almost daily basis: I love traveling alone, but it means I'm always making and then leaving friends. I don't think I'll ever be someone who doesn't develop real attachments in my relationships and it hurts me every time to say goodbye.
4. We threw a Sunday day party at some campground location somewhere outside Leh. It was literally a desert patch in the middle of nowhere. We had a tent, food, a DJ, bongos, a digireedoo, a crystal clear river with rapids, and a view of both desert and snowcapped mountains. Just got back.
5. Bilal, Asif, Blue and I went to Shanti Stupa (a shrine high up on a hill) and a man was retouching the facade of the shrine. I asked him if I could paint some and he said sure. We painted together. We were so high up and I was perched on a ledge, I felt like I couldn't even hold my paintbrush straight, but it was one of the coolest things I've ever done. After, we just sat on a pile of ruins about 500m above the city of Leh, and I don't even know if it even makes sense but I wrote this in my little notebook:
"I have sat in many places in India now and just soaked in the moment, as I am doing right now from the top of Shanti Stupa looking over Leh. When I sit in one place in India, I feel all of India inside me. It's a weird and maybe naive thing to say because I haven't been to all of India yet. But I feel India's power, all of it, contributing to my experience of the moment. It feels as if I am in a snowglobe. I am anchored to one place in the North -- and the South is both distant and still unknown -- but I am hugged warmly by the full body and breath of life India."
Zooni, out!
]]>Spoiler alert: everything* everyone told me about India was right.
When I was in Gurgaon everything was easy breezy. Was actually thinking everything everyone told me about India was wrong. It doesn’t smell, it’s not THAT loud or crowded, I’m smashing fruit left and right and I'm not getting sick. Yeah well, life out in the suburbs is a cake walk. Home cooked meals every night. Solo walks through the gated community. And then, I booked my overnight bus to Rishikesh. I had heard lovely things about Rishikesh, a more remote town on the Ganga river. This would be the real start of my backpacking. And that’s when “holy shit” began. (Jeremy Lubman and Jarred Mait if you’re reading this I hope it gives you a good laugh.)
Vallika put me in an auto rickshaw to the metro station at around 7:45pm, where I’d ride for about 40 minutes to get to the bus departure point. As soon as I get in the rickshaw it starts pouring. You know how we’ll throw around the term “monsoon” when it rains a lot in New York? Yeah. We know nothing about monsoons. The Indian monsoon is a literal force of nature. It had been five minutes in the rickshaw and when I’m dropped at the metro station, I’m soaking, my backpack is on my back and it's also soaking. I see the entire entrance to the metro station is flooded. The inside of the station is a thick brick wall of people as hundreds (yes, it is that crowded) of Delhi-ites coming home from work are waiting inside for the rain to slow. But I’m outside with no awning over my head and ahead of me lies a flood. I’m not exactly sure how deep it is, but it's the size of a square New York City block. Rain is crashing down on me, and I need to make a move into the station like, immediately, but I don’t know how to forge the flood. I cannot get on a 12 hour bus ride with sopping wet shoes. I have no more than ten seconds to think about it so I just do it — I take off my favorite sneakers (my oatmeal colored Vans) and clutch them for dear life as I wade through the flood barefoot. Oh cool — it’s above my ankles. Me, drenched, wading through a monsoon.
I am the only tourist in sight. The Delhi-ites crowded at the entrance, mostly men, stare at me as I make my way through the insanely filthy water. Some are laughing, some have a look of empathy in their eyes. I get up to the train platform and put my Vans back on, and they're just as drenched as if I'd worn them through the riverflood. So uncomfortable. I wait at the crowded train platform and I am just one person dealing with the monsoon. My own little world, a girl en route to Rishikesh, everyone else with their own missions and monsoon manias. I think to myself, “Ah. I get it now,” and I literally start laughing to myself. Like, did that just happen?! I smile to myself and think, "Okay, yeah. India. Got it.
Turns out that was the easy part.
I arrive at the bus departure spot at 9PM and it is complete and absolute chaos. The driver and other people are shouting at each other — but not arguing, just speaking really loudly. I cannot understand anything going on. Everyone is speaking Hindi. What are they shouting about? Is there a problem? I step onto the bus and my luxury air-conditioned sleeper bed is actually essentially one mattress smaller than a twin bed, shared by me and an Indian woman with two broken ankles, on the upper level of the bus. Like where you would put luggage on a train. That part was turned into beds. Innovative, right? The sleeping-with-a-stranger thing was weird but I was like hey I did this to myself and her husband was also on the bus which for some reason made me feel safe. But I wasn't really feeling the the center of gravity sitchu on the upper level. I’m crunched up against the window of the bus, 15 feet or so above ground. Lucky for me I was exhausted so I actually passed out within ten seconds of boarding. But when I woke up over two hours later, we were in the same spot. Everyone still shouting, cars around us on the main road still honking, people still standing outside the bus! I assume they are waiting to get on but I still can’t be sure exactly what’s going on. I do not feel endangered — just extremely, extremely out of my element. (Weisman and Dion if you guys are reading this, just imagine I’m thinking I can handle anything after that overnight bus to Prague where we actually disembarked from the bus and then we — along with our bus — boarded a ferry at 3AM… and then got back on the bus…and we were like isss this supposed to be happening?… but yeah it was more chaotic than that.) About four hours later, we’re in the mountains. The road is so bumpy, I can’t believe this is a main road because I feel like a pair of sneakers in a washing machine to the point that I am glad the 'sneakers in a washing machine' analogy exists because that is exactly what the eff I feel like. Still I do not feel endangered necessarily (besides that like, I am nervous the bus might tip over?). Perhaps the most frustrating thing is the honking.
Let’s take a moment to understand the honking. In India, every vehicle is honking. All day every day. It took me a couple of days to get this, but many of the vehicles do not have turning signals and directional rules are rarely followed, so the honking is sort of a language here. People, cows, rickshaws, motorbikes, taxis and personal cars are all converging in the streets, so they honk at each other. They honk to say “I’m on your right” or “I’m on your left,” they honk to say “hey I’m here in the neighborhood,” and they honk to say “get the f*%k out of the way!”
The cows are the best. The cows just chill in the middle of the street like, “go around me, brah.”
So back to the bus… incessant honking. For 12 hours. If you have a moment right now (lolz, I’m sure you don’t but if you want the full effect) open ‘Sounds’ on your iPhone and listen to ‘Horn.’ It’s that sound. Nonstop. Every - EVERY - other vehicle we pass, we honk at. Every - EVERY - vehicle that passes us honks at us. At first I kind of drowned it out. By hour 8 I’m so irritated by this honking that I truly want to cry. I don’t want to be upset by it, I want to embrace it… and I feel sad and bad for hating it. But it’s such an irritating sound and it’s so repetitive I just… literally can’t even? I think back to Delhi when I imagined getting on the bus and meeting lots of backpackers and handsome Indian men (right Jen? ugh) and instead I am too cold from the one-freezing-temperature-fits-all AC vent, crunched up in a ball, bumping around in the middle of the night for hours and hours. I think a thought to myself that I really, really do not want to think: do I not like the real India?
A few hours later I wake, around 7am, to see that there is a huge festival in Rishikesh. Hundreds of Indians, mostly men, mostly barefoot, are walking on the side of the road. Many of them walk all the way from their home towns to the temple in Rishikesh, carrying water from the Ganga river. This scene is so foreign to me I can’t even describe. It is religious, but it is not solemn, and you can tell these people have prepared, they way we would prepare to camp at a festival. They have props and gear and works of art and are marching along by the hundreds in the rain.
Finally I get off at Rishikesh (the only person to exit here) and get into an auto rickshaw. It’s still monsooning by the way and at this point I’ve given up on being dry. About 6 miles through winding backroads in the mountains and then I am dropped at the top of a hill in an area of Rishikesh called Laxman Jhula. Everything is hazy and wet and the massive mountains in the distance are deep green. All of the people who have marched from the main road are now here. 8am or so. Hundreds and hundreds of people in the streets, all moving in the same direction, apparently toward the bridge. Rishikesh has two sides - it is divided by the Ganga river. Driver tells me it’s a five minute walk to my hostel - just go down hill, down the steps, and over the bridge and the hostel will be there. Okay. I start walking… through crowds of hundreds of pilgrimage-makers of all ages. Children and grandparents. Chanting non stop. I am li-ter-a-lly the only person not attending/observing this holiday. Two Indian boys using a giant map as a cape-slash-poncho come up behind me and cover me. They don’t speak English but we can communicate that they are 18 years old. They then proceed to cover me the entire way - in the pouring rain - down the hill, down the stone steps, over the bridge. 20 minutes. Their friends behind them are cooing and whistling. I can’t understand what they’re saying but I know they’re teasing each other and I know they’re kinda making fun of their friends for covering me. But the boys don’t mind - they tease right back and stick with me. We cross the footbridge with hundreds of people and we can feel it swaying.
...And then I arrive at my hostel in the heart of Rishikesh, up a side street of the main road, drenched like I just submerged myself in water, with 18 kilos of shit on my back, and oh. my. god. I. am. in. heaven. An 11 year old boy checks me in (read as: gets bossed around by his older brother to check me in) and immediately the stress of the journey goes away and I dissolve into the rhythm of Rishikesh. Other backpackers. Cafes. Yoga. Meditation. 100 degrees. The fucking Ganga river in all it’s holy rushing glory. Joints. Handicraft shops. Monkeys. Cows. Hundreds and hundreds of Indians all here for the pilgrimage to the temple. Shouting and honking… but almost a peaceful shouting and honking. I shove my backpack in my locker and head to a cafe with my new friend Amy from the hostel and feel instantly (Lizzie and Danielle - instantaneously? what’s the difference anyway?) relaxed. It's a bit of an odd feeling, being in a place where your company has no context for you at all. But everyone is sitting on cushions on the floor around low tables and I'm into it. I can just stretch in the middle of the cafe which is great because who doesn’t love a good chai tea and a stretch.
It probably sounds pretty gloomy from what I've described, but Rishikesh is like, holy bongos.
Yesterday at 4pm I spilled chai tea on my t-shirt (which by the way was really effing hot) and just like, didn't care. Wore it on the 9 hour bus to Manali. Arrived in Manali at 5am and slept in it. Then wore it all day today and am sleeping in it tonight. Overshare?
(It's been almost two weeks since I've had solid internet, so... over the course of the past two weeks, I did write a post which ended up being very, very long... I finished it about a week ago, but never got to post it because Internet is not a thing here. If you have 15 minutes and you want to travel back in time one week with me, here it is :) )
So. Some tiny 'stories' from the road.
1. India is unearthly. It has gotten inside my soul in a way that no other place ever really has. I appreciate the things India makes me think about and care about. I like sitting on the floor everywhere we go. I like being enveloped by mountains and rivers and the nicest locals I've ever met (with the exception of Adithep Chaisiri and Amann Tanhemnayu in Phuket <3). I have adopted the priorities of India. More on this in future.
2. I have now been to Delhi, Rishikesh and Dharamsala and I'm currently in Manali. The music in Manali is bangin. Manali is an edgy little town tucked in the mountains. The scenery is too good to be true. Yesterday we hiked to a pretty big river. I feel so healthy spending my time walking or hiking for hours and earning such stunning views. In India, I hike to waterfalls and rivers almost daily. Here's one in Dharamsala:
3. In Dharamsala, Mike, Cauê and I spent almost three hours in Mitthu's shop, while she told us story after story about her family's Tibetan Buddhist artwork. We all bought pieces. Some of the detailing is so fine it is done with just one horse hair. These pieces can take up to three and a half months to make, with three people working on them at the same time! (Hi Mike.)
Me and Mitthu in her shop:
8. Talk about lessons in budgeting. All I can think about is how to travel for longer. I reconciled my budget last night after a couple of weeks... this is possible. Uh oh ;)
There is a daddy long legs in the bathroom. He's been in there for the past 3 days. He is well within my reach but I don't have the heart to kill him. So each time before I enter the bathroom, I just scan the room for him so I know where he is (versus he accidentally crawls on me and I freak out and kill him). And then I basically stare at him the entire time I'm in the bathroom and just make sure he isn't suddenly on me. When I get creeped out by the fact that he's in the house I just remind myself that I have commuted to work amongst about four hundred rats for the past six years.
Here are some pics of this lovely place:
Home sweet home in Gurgaon (suburb of Delhi), 11AM
Street view in our community in Gurgaon
The best part about staying with Vallika and Sada (Vallika's husband) is that I'm not rushing around to lots of sites. I just get to be a part of their normal daily routine. Well, their normal daily routine when they have an American visitor who wants to see at least some stuff in Delhi.
This morning we drank coffee around 8AM. Vallika bought me South Indian coffee because I tried it at a restaurant and loved it. We relaxed and read and chatted for a bit. I asked about the conflict between India and Pakistan and Vallika explained some of the history to me. Then she took me to the most amazing market, where there are over 150 stalls and each stall's goods are authentic to a particular state in India. (Fact: there are 27 states in India.) Vallika bought me a scarf that is
light blue, yellow and pink (yes I just did that color highlighting, I just went there) because the print is almost exactly like the one on the cushion in the idyllic spot from yesterday's post and I was in love with it because I know it will remind me of that spot forever. I wanted to pay and I insisted but so did she. I did buy a beautiful, kinda-fancy Kashmiri scarf/skirt thingie. It's handmade, embroidered with navy, light blue, red and a touch of yellow (yep did it again) and has some tiny mirrors in some places. And I bought some loose harem-style knockaround pants. Light pink and olive green color blocked. So hot right now. Remember that post I once wrote about not buying stuff? Should I delete that?
Anyway, the market was called Dilli Haat. The entire morning -- until we got to the market and I saw the sign -- I thought Vallika was saying Delhi Heart. Like, the market is the heart of Delhi...........
Being here is starting to sink in. As in, I had to put about 15 apps in a folder called 'USA.' Goodbye Seamless and Venmo. You have been replaced by HostelWorld, Booking.com (booking.yeah!) and FlightStats... Although we did just see a commercial on TV for the new app FoodPanda: the Seamless of Delhi.
Meanwhile, Vallika has cooked me at least five Indian meals. The meals have similar basics but vary in vegetables and seasonings. And so many bread-like objects that fall into the category of 'meal-accompanying carbohydrates.' Tonight we had pumpkin szabzi and Vallika was very impressed that I knew what szabzi was. (Chantal I obviously didn't say it was because you order the Spicy Szabzi salad at sweetgreen). In India, it is customary to eat only with your right hand. It's hard for me. Ripping bread with one hand is pretty challenging. I do my best and try not to look like the huge rook that I am.
The fruit here is same same but different. [[side note: fruit are? fruit is? is fruit one of those mass nouns, like sheep? why do I not know this? i googled it. was unsatisfied by results.]] It looks like our fruit, and kinda even tastes like our fruit? But isn't exactly our fruit. I was warned not to eat any fruit with too thin a skin, as an extra precaution against getting sick. I kinda forgot on day one so now I'm over it and let's all hope for the best.
Every day at 6:45pm Vallika and her two friends in the neighborhood take a walk. Two laps around the perimeter of the community. About 3km / 1.5miles. I went with them. On our walk, Vallika explained that in India, it is one of the four golden rules to treat your guest like a God.
1. Mother is God.
2. Father is God.
3. Teacher is God.
4. A guest in your home is God.
The way these people have taken care of me is actually inspiring. I can't wait to be this kind of host to someone in New York.
]]>
So I guess it's been a tiring six years since college because I managed to sleep throughout the entire 10-hour flight to Moscow and then again for the entire 6-hour flight to Delhi. Picture above taken during my 4 waking hours in the Moscow airport. And then I slept a full night's sleep only 3 hours after landing. But yea, feelin good! I still cannot believe I am in India and that this is happening. Is this happening? This is happening.
So with that, good evening from Gurgaon, a 'suburb' of Delhi. Ranjitha, my friend from co:, connected me with her in-laws in Gurgaon and they have taken me in as their guest for the next few days. (Hi Ranjitha!!! Your mother-in-law is amazing.)
It has been a great day. Vallika, Ranjitha's mother-in-law, took me into Delhi to a handicrafts emporium. (She obviously got the hint that I love a good market). In the auto rickshaw on the way to the train station we passed cows and pigs roaming free on the street. People wheeling carts stacked high with vegetables and other goods. When we saw a car with a Purdue University sticker on the rear window, I was like, say whaaat!? And Vallika said, "a lot of us send our kids to school in the US. We'll starve, but we'll do anything for a good education."
The handicrafts emporium was filled with handmade everything: furniture, clothing, boxes and housewares of all kinds, jewelry, incense, toys. Each and every item had a description of the materials from which it was made and the city it was made in. (Chanel Shapiro you would have loved this market). I didn't buy anything because here's the thing: I have about negative ten square inches of free real estate in my backpack and whatever I buy I'll need to carry with me. So the decision-making process for buying stuff will henceforth go like this:
1. Do I love this thing?
2. Does this thing love me back?
3. Will this thing fit in my backpack?
4. Does this thing deserve to fit in my backpack as much as or more than all of the other things I will accumulate that will also need to fit in my backpack?
I did strongly consider buying a beautiful handmade hair clip to hold up my hair in the 105-degree weather. (Mom you would have loved this clip. Gold, handmade, very sparkly.)
Then witnessed a bit of the Indian monsoon season. Downpour. Relentless.
We just got back from Delhi and Vallika is making chai tea for us. I'm chillin and reading in this spot, which is seriously the best spot ever (Ranjitha and Sid tell me you love this spot):
Love sitting here, Indian style (literally?), close to the ground. So relaxing. And the print on the cushion cover makes me happy.
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