colonialism at its . . .finest?

Luang Prabang is the old French administrative capital in Laos, and I'd heard from scores of people that it is an amazing place to relax for a while -- good food, good strolling, good everything. And I love Marguerite Duras' "The Lover," a story set in 19th century French Indochina that was strikingly beautiful. So I was looking forward to spending some time here. I'll admit, it's stunning -- they did a great job of preserving the old French colonial architecture, and the crumbling buildings set amidst all the overgrown foliage are so romantic. The evenings here are warm and humid and seductive. LPB still has the smoke and street food and motorbikes that all Laotian towns have, and it adds to the sort of romance and adventure of it all. But it's all very . . .French. And it's been stirring my shit up ever since I got here.



This is the first real colonial town I've ever been to. I've been to the Philippines, which was a Spanish colony for 300 years, but it doesn't feel like Spain at all. And perhaps because the Filipinos embraced the Spanish more than you'd expect (dance, music, food, religion, and pretty much every Filipino has a little Spanish in them), it doesn't seem like . . .that big of a deal? And India was a British colony, but you'd hardly know it except for everyone speaking English. It feels like India everywhere you go, and that is the main allure of it. I guess the thing that threw me off about LPB is that everyone enjoys it because of its colonial influence. Laos is a total backwater, all one-road towns and dirt roads and tiny villages filled with shacks, yet here is LPB, a total anomaly in the country. LPB isn't Laos, it's a gorgeous, tropical 19th century French town; a French friend even told me that LPB has better baguettes than Paris. Couples walk arm-in-arm revelling in the beauty of it all, but I just feel like an asshole. It feels too wistful for something that was, in every other respect, horrible. It's pretty hard to reconcile the romantic in me that loves LPB's aesthetic, with the guilt-ridden historian in me that wonders what joy can be found in colonialism. I don't understand how I'm supposed to forget that the French barged in with total disregard for the Laotians, never integrated into the culture, and created LPB, an unnatural town that was ground zero for their claims to superiority, let alone think that it's all so romantic. Beauty is only skin-deep here.

note: this isn't a post to rag on the French, or imply anything about French people. colonialism wasn't limited to the French, and anyway every world power does horrible things. I mean, come on, I'm from the U.S.! this is purely about ethics, and nothing more.

"oh I miss new york, I can't wait to . . .mmm, is that pad thai?"

I've really been missing NYC, but I have to admit, Thailand is probably one of the best places on earth to forget your woes and distract yourself by means of delicious food. Think of your favorite thai restaurant, then imagine a world where you can find your favorite dishes on every corner, steaming hot and made fresh in about 3 minutes, for about $1. and the best part is that there's great hygiene here, so you're probably not going to get sick (ahem, India). seriously, everytime I think about hopping on a plane back home, I pass a noodle stall and, well, obviously I'm still here.

I swear, every street has some sort of setup that looks like this. how am I supposed to moan and pout about being away from home when there are so many curry stalls to be conquered?

home sweet home

Long-term backpackers are a really cool, interesting bunch. in the same way that I started seeing NYC from a new perspective after being away for so long, I think that being jolted back into the travelling world after a month in my old routine has gotten me thinking about what the common denominator is. I've had the "travelling conversation" (ie where are you from? where have you been? where are you going? why did you leave? etc) with hundreds of people, and the number of stories out there is staggering. but everyone left family, friends and everything else they love and are familiar with, and regardless of the story, it takes a special kind of balls to do that. so they must be searching for something that is, at least temporarily, more urgent. I used to believe I was above all this and that I was just travelling because it was the natural break in my life, but after a month and a half back home in NYC, I think the majority of travellers, including myself, are looking for a place to fit in. a home, or enough time away to be reminded of how great home really is. not that I think people are necessarily aware of this. I only realized that it was home I was truly searching for after I actually came back home to NYC only to leave it again a month and a half later, one of the more painful things I've ever had to do.

I've always raved about NYC to anyone who would listen, but I never really appreciated my life there until I left for places that were completely different, and met people who were on a totally different wavelength. I thought this year would be a scouting trip of sorts, a time to find cities where Michael and I might want to live abroad one day. well, it turns out that I didn't fit in anywhere, and while there are a few places that are so cool I'd definitely live there for a couple of years tops, none of them would ever feel like home. I never achieved "blessed, blessed anonymity" (to quote a friend from India, Matt), and everywhere I went, I felt like an other. in Asia, sometimes I'd get mistaken for Indian or Chinese or Thai and I'd think ahh finally, I'll get treated like a local, but when I started speaking I'd get treated like a tourist anyway. even in the Philippines, my own motherland, I still couldn't blend in like everyone else -- I'd speak the local language and I still couldn't get a break because my accent was all wrong.* I was stoked for Europe, the new melting pot where at least I wouldn't be hassled if I wanted a taxi or went to the market, but I found that there were still issues. Cultural attitudes were pretty disparate from mine, and I was even more aware of how "American" I was. not that anyone's attitude was a bad thing, but you know. I was just different.

so after feeling like a total wandering vagrant without a community for 6 months, mildly distrustful right off the bat and grizzled from getting ripped off/hassled so often, I was pretty apprehensive about getting back to the city I'd originally thought was my home -- after how I'd been treated everywhere else, who knew? but it took exactly an hour for me to get over that apprehension. I was going through NYC passport control, and the border officer was rifling through the pages. He asked me where I'd been, told me that he and his wife had loved Berlin (small talk?! wow!), gave me a big grin (an unnecessary smile?! soo American!), and said, "Welcome home." and in the following 6 weeks that I had in NYC, I was half local, half traveller rediscovering it all. home means something different to everyone, but the combination of Michael, community, Brooklyn, vibe, excitement, food and parties was everything I wanted in a happy life. the city just seemed shinier this time around.

then I left, to finish up travelling. 3 months is a drop in the bucket compared to the year I was away from NYC, but somehow this is more painful. if you feel your home, you know what I'm talking about -- you think about it constantly whenever you're not there and can't wait to get back. I had to take a detour through 12 countries to find my way back home, but better late than never.

*(I understand that in these developing countries, the way locals treat tourists is often a matter of necessity. everyone has a family to support, and whatever they're overcharging me is tiny relative to my western dollar. but still, it was hard to reconcile that with a gut feeling that had been instilled in me as a child: treat others the way you'd like to be treated, and everyone should be treated equally.)


aww, Brooklyn. I don't live in any of these houses, but I wish I did.

broke and bipolar

During my time in europe, I have been so careful about not spending too much money, since I still have 4 months of travel ahead of me and europe is unbelievably expensive -- I pretty much live on street food like doner kebabs, dunplings, pierogies, etc., and I couchsurfed in cities where I´d be spending more than 2 days so I could cut down on costs. I've bought a couple of souvenirs for Michael, but that's it. I decided not to go to the taj mahal because it was $25 to get in; similarly, I bypassed the kremlin in moscow because I deemed it too expensive. not to mention the tv tower and jewish museum in berlin, wawel cathedral in krakow, the list goes on and on. granted, I didn´t particularly care about going into these places -- the whole, 'if you've seen one castle, you've seen them all' and 'I'll see them next time' mentality -- but still, I caught a lot of flack for not seeing some of these cultural icons. unfortunately, all of my penny-pinching was blown in about an hour of shopping at 4 of brussels finest chocolatiers and biscuteries.

Belgium is perhaps the chocolate capital of the world, so Michael and I agreed that I should buy a few bars of chocolate for us to try together when we reunite. 'A few bars of chocolate' turned into:
9 mini bars of chocolate in assorted flavors from Neuhaus, the legendary belgian chocolatier;
2 huge bars of chocolate in milk and dark, a pot of praline sauce, and a small box of truffles from Wittemer, the best chocolatier in Brussels as reported by the two belgians who worked at my hostel;
250g of chocolate covered spice cookies, 250g of chocolate almond biscuits, and 100g of florentines from Dandoy, a little biscuterie with awards plastered all around the walls;
2 bars of chocolate in dark and mille feuilles, 2 tubes of chocolate covered pralines in milk and dark, and a small box of assorted chocolate covered pralines from Galler, a trendy boutique chocolatier.

Total for impulsive chocolate binge: €95. the exchange rate is $1.60 to the euro, I think you can do the math.

what went through my mind as I was spending more on chocolate than some families make in a few months? well, nothing, until I had just stepped out of Neuhaus -- it was the 3rd of 4 stops, and afterward I suddenly thought, shit, I think I've already spent €70 on chocolate. my next thought? 'oh but I told michael I'd go to 3 chocolatiers and that biscuiterie didn't count. so far I have Neuhaus as a control, but only one other brand of chocolate to compare it to. onward to Galler!' where I proceeded to blow an additional €25 on chocolate.

when I finally realized the insanity of what I' d done, I called Michael in near-hysterics, alternately flaggelating myself for how foolish I was, lamenting how he couldn't possibly want to marry someone who could spend that much on artesanal chocolate, and scolding him for not being here to stop me from such lapses in judgment.

the lesson here? don't bring your credit card to the chocolate shops of belgium.

(I almost took a picture to post on this blog, but considering how much money I spent, the chocolate takes up embarrassingly little space. tear.)

Auschwitz

I was in Krakow for a couple of days, and I initially thought that I would try to avoid Auschwitz, which is only an hour and a half away. I've been to the Holocaust Museum in DC, so I know what happened and I've seen all of the sad family photographs and personal effects of people who died. and I wasn't sure I'd want to see an actual concentration camp and retrace the footsteps of so many people who suffered - does it get any more depressing than that? but in the end, I was convinced by my roommates at the hostel that, really, it's my duty to go once in life. so I went, and even though I'm glad I did, I never, ever want to go back.

everyone knows about Auschwitz, so I won't bother rehashing the history of the place. and I hope you've seen Schindler's List or something, because I didn't have the heart to take pictures. but the first thing you notice about Auschwitz is that it is huge. logically it should be, but I guess I never thought about the scale of the operation when I learned about it. but it's at least a kilometer long and wide.

the second thing you notice is how quiet it is. Poland is a beautifully green and fertile country that oozes with life, and even on the bus ride to Auschwitz, I was surprised to see how many thriving communities we passed -- I just assumed that everyone would be too freaked out to live anywhere near it, but no, life went on. when you get to Auschwitz, you're dropped off at Auschwitz-I, which has been converted to a museum; to get to Birkenau, the actual concentration camp, you have to either wait for an hourly bus or walk 3km. I walked the 3km and it was one of the quietest walks of my life, despite the fact I was walking on a main road with the occasional car passing by. I just assumed that I was imagining how quiet it was because I was feeling really solemn, but I figured out what it was once I got to Birkenau. Birkenau is, hands-down, the quietest place I've ever been. don't get me wrong, I've been to deserted islands and I was just in mongolia, which is one of the most remote places you can go. I know what quiet sounds like. but what I realized at Birkenau is that life has sound, even if one never stops to notice. It's only once you get to a place as lifeless and awful and unforgiving as Birkenau that you notice how much more quiet a place can get.

for me, it wasn't seeing the old barracks or even the ruins of the crematoriums that finally pounded in the devastation of what happened. it was all of the smaller details that are overlooked in textbooks and museums. like I would walk down a gravel path, and there would be a sign informing me that Jews who were chosen to be sent to the gas chamber immediately upon arrival would be herded down this path. or you can still see a lot of scratchings on the barrack walls made by the prisoners. or the one that really got to me -- Auschwitz has no shade, and it was a pretty hot day, so I veered off the path into the trees to cool off a bit. at one point, I came across a sign saying that when crematoriums were full, women and children used to wait among the trees for their turn to die.

I won't bother trying to analyze Auschwitz any further -- it's a personal experience that is different for everyone, and honestly I think it will take a long, long time to deconstruct everything I felt there. there's not much more to say about Auschwitz except that you should go once in your life, not only to honor the dead, but also to gain a new appreciation on the life you have.

"Uncle!"

I grew up in Chicago, land of slaughterhouses, polish sausages and deep-dish pizzas so unhealthy they will make you cry uncle. and I was raised in a Filipino household, which is all about meat, meat and more meat, with rice to weigh it down in your stomach and vegetables served sort of as an overstewed afterthought. and I love to bake, so much so that I often bake too much and keep the leftovers in the freezer to eat for breakfast. so I like to think that I can hold my own when it comes to fatty, carb-heavy cuisines that lead to obesity and heart disease. however, Lithuanian cuisine has humbled me and my arteries.

I read about these kepta duona in the Lonely Planet, and they described them as "fried bread sticks oozing garlic." so I was envisioning some sort of pan-fried garlic bread, like when you grill a cheese sandwich. well, not really.



not only were they deep-fried so thoroughly that my jaw started hurting from all the chewing, but come on. does it really need to be smothered in cheese? even someone from Wisconsin wouldn't have the nerve to do something so gratuitous. since these are considered beer snacks, I was curious to see what the main courses were like.



this is the infamous zeppelin -- people at my hostel warned me that I would shorten my lifespan considerably if I ate one, and now I see why. it is basically a potato stuffed with minced meat and cream, and then doused in sour cream, butter and bacon bits. now these are all ingredients that I consider ideal in most circumstances, but in these quantities? do Lithuanians have no shame? I don't know if you can tell, but there is a layer of what I think is straight-up lard covering the plate. unbelievably, one zeppelin is considered a half-order -- I nearly threw up watching the woman at the next table eating a full order.

white nights = best insomnia ever

the White Nights are something everyone in st. petersburg looks forward to -- after a long winter where the sun rises at 9am and sets at 2pm, everyone is jonesing for some sun. well, 'some' sun is a bit of an understatement -- when I was there, the sun sort of set for about 2 hours before coming back up again at 3am, and apparently around the summer solstice, the sun stays on the horizon all night long. it's really neat, as long as you have some sleeping pills or nyquil handy -- my circadian rhythms were completely thrown off, and judging by the amount of people strolling the promenades and sitting in cafes, so was everyone else's.


11:45pm, the canals off nevsky prospect


12:15am, the rostral columns


12:30am, the museums across the neva river