The World At Large
Previously: I returned to the United States with hopes that I could find a job with relative ease to save up for a new adventure. Upon returning I did not look as hard as I should have and as the US economy slide further into it’s recession I could not find even the most basic of employment. My friend Jason was in the same situation and now having nothing left for either of us in North Carolina we began to talk of getting out. Getting out, making an epic roadtrip west and staying there. Around the middle of February we set this critical date as March 1st 2009.
G.K. Chesterton once said: “The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” That is exactly what I did last September. I had been away just long enough, and been living such a different life that arriving back here was nearly as foreign as any country I had visited on my way around the world. And of all the countries I had visited I unfortunately found it to be one of the least agreeable, and with less freedom than I was now accustomed to. Some people will undoubtedly be dumbfounded by those last couple of words so let me give you a small example.
Upon returning I had just run out of disposable contacts. Previously I had always bought them online and, for reasons unknown to me, if you had a military address you didn’t need to provide a doctor’s information to get them. I had enough boxes remaining after I left the military to last me until Thailand where I bought them freely from optical shops. I give them my lens power and my money and they give me a box of contacts. The end. When I returned to the states however, things took a turn. I was running out of contacts so I went about trying to buy a new box. My prescription still worked fine and hadn’t changed in years, so I didn’t need an exam, but I had long since lost my previous written prescriptions. Since I knew my contact lens prescription by heart, I naively thought that I could go to an optical center, give them money and they would give me a box. In fact this concept seemed utterly absurd to every person at every store I visited. This is because what I wanted to do was actually illegal, as it were.
It had been mandated by my government that, to purchase contact lenses, it should require basically the same procedures as the purchase of oxycontin or percoset. That is to say, you visit a doctor, he writes you a prescription, you produce said prescription and are allowed to purchase drugs. In the United States of America, for me to be able to see—to function, I am legally required to visit an eye doctor, pay him upwards of 60 dollars to tell me something that I already know and to write this something on a piece of paper. Then I must produce this piece of paper to a clerk at Lenscrafters or what have you and I am then allowed to buy something that I utterly require. I am allowed to see. Well gee thanks Uncle Sam. That sure is mighty kind of you. Boss.
Luckily if you go online and provide a doctor’s info, however old your records at that office may be (I hadn’t visited mine in 6 years) , they will still ship your contacts. At least they did for me. I could, very literally, score cocaine faster, easier and probably cheaper than contact lenses bought legally in this country. What possible reason could they have for placing such restrictions on contact lenses? What business is it of theirs if I want to have fuzzy vision or headaches by buying the wrong kind? Can you overdose on them? The only reason I can come up with is that eye doctors really like that little bit of extra income that they get for selling me a piece of paper with their signature on it for 60 bucks. I don’t really want to believe that even eye doctors have lobbyists for this kind of thing, but would it really be that surprising? No. And that’s the problem. Lady Liberty is draped in red tape.
I’ve tried to readjust to this “American” way, but I’m afraid I may no longer be able to live what is so widely considered a “normal” life here. Not with the knowledge that so much more exists out in the world. Having tasted such real freedom, simply knowing that it exists and that it is indeed attainable… it changes things. It feels like the best I can do now is “play along” and pretend that I understand why people accept these things. Pretend to understand why people can’t stop watching their televisions or buying useless crap. Because not understanding seems to make me very odd indeed.
Admittedly, though, I haven’t seen as much of my own country as I have the rest of the world. Perhaps I’m not qualified to make such sweeping judgments. This is about to change though as I now find myself standing on the cusp of a new adventure: The Great American Roadtrip. This time my journey is on entirely different terms. Terms I’m not all that comfortable with; in fact in other situations I probably would not have accepted them. Over the past few years I’ve become extremely independent, possibly even to a fault and the thought of having to depend on someone else for anything makes me very anxious. I positively hate the feeling of not being able to do something for myself. It can frustrate me into a sort of depression. I’ve never been in debt and I don’t like the idea of owing anyone anything, especially money, but desperate times require desperate measures and these times are desperate indeed.
Even so, I am excited as I am before any adventure. I can’t deny that the thought of returning to a life where I can’t know what the next day will bring is exciting regardless of circumstance. Even if it is only for a while. And thus this blog turns once again to a travel documentary. The aim this time is the great American road trip. My friend and I are going to criss cross the USA and end in the west hopefully with a new place to call home. Where exactly that will be is anyone’s guess. I’m just glad to be moving again.
-Tyler
“Ice age heat wave can’t complain
if the world’s at large why should I remain?
walked away to another plan
gonna find another place
maybe one I can stand”
-Modest Mouse
I know what you’re thinking: “Wait… this isn’t current. Your roadtrip is already over.” True, but its time to play catch up and start telling the story of what happened on this trip since I wasn’t able to while it was in progress. Better late than never. The stories and updates are coming and to help keep you tuned, I’ll give you some statistics: We drove over 12,500 miles, crossed 32 states and 2 provinces of canada and our car was searched 3 times by various authorities. We met good people, scary people and thoroughly insane people. We gained new perspective on our native land and slowly, day by day, we realized that it was perhaps time to leave it behind…
There is a War going on
For one year and one month I lived a life of absolute freedom. Freedom to live on my own terms however I saw fit. Freedom from worry and responsibility, but most importantly free from fear itself. I traveled far and dove to great depths learning along the way how far my own mental limits could be pushed. When I learned that I was going to be returning to the States I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to readjust to “normalcy”, but the longer I stay here the more I come to realize just how absurd it is to call this “normal.”
This time I return to gas shortage, economic crisis, government bailouts of private companies with taxpayer dollars and presidential race that is the stuff of Saturday morning cartoons. Much like a construction project, most people here see a progression so gradual that it is almost unnoticeable. They ask “How did it come to this?” I was born and raised in the United States, but I haven’t lived here for more than 1 or 2 months at a time since 2002. I come back briefly every year from wherever I happen to be and have found things in an ever-worsening state each time. Just as I suddenly see buildings where none used to be, I see sudden jumps in the state of degradation that our system currently propagates. Idly by, we sit.
Recently in Bangkok the people had a problem with their prime minister’s corruption. They took to the streets by the thousands, young and old, and they surrounded the capitol building. They closed the airport in Phuket and they shut down train travel within the country in protest. They took action and relatively mild action, given the region. Yet here, where your utterly corrupt government walks all over you, smiling and lining their pockets and their friends’ pockets with your money all the while, you do nothing. You complain in passing conversation before going home to sit in front of your television, mesmerized by the sensationalist media and empty promises that our next president will fix things. McCain is a horrifying joke of a candidate, but likewise if you truly believe Obama can change things within a system so far gone then I believe your naivety is boundless. May I remind you that two parties is just one more than a Dictatorship. Normal, you say.
This media has you distracted, striving for an impossible goal. Groping for the bigger house, the better car, the more possessions. Buy this, spend on that. After all, isn’t that what life is about? Stuff? I’m not sure you understand how disturbingly materialistic this society has become. Or maybe its just me that has changed. In Thailand I lived in a small bungalow where you could see light coming through the cracks in the boards on the floor and the walls. My toilet flushed by pouring a bucket of water into the bowl to wash everything down and my showers were cold because I had no hot water. I had no television nor stereo and the electricity was weak, cutting out regularly. But, the more things I got rid of, the more I realized how little I needed to be perfectly happy. Creature comforts are nice, I love having a computer for music, entertainment, writing and sharing, but in the end I didn’t need it. Having it didn’t make me any happier, it was just convenient.
It was to the point that I didn’t even realize just how austere I was living until I returned home and putting on tennis shoes felt like a new experience. Consistent electricity and hot water feels like utter luxury. But I can’t stand watching television anymore. A friend of mine tried to show me a program called America’s Best Dance Crew and when one of the judges opened her mouth it felt like my braincells were euthanizing each other. The “news” is depressing, biased and feels designed to make people afraid. I feel very out of place here now and I don’t know how to readjust.
I don’t know if I can, but moreover… I don’t know if I want to.
-Tyler
“There is a war going on for your mind
if you are thinking you are winning
resistance is victory
defeat is impossible
your weapons are already in hand
reach within you
and find the means with which to gain your freedom
fight with tools
your fate and that of everyone you know depends on it.”
Statesward Bound
So my laptop was a lost cause and I returned to the island empty handed. My luck has failed to improve since… so much for karma. I’m presently trying to claim the computer and camera on my travel insurance, but I place about as much faith in insurers as I do pixie dust and unicorns. The downside of not having a computer is pretty much everything. My t-shirt designs and writing are on hold, I can’t sort through any pictures I’ll take in the meantime and it was the only form of entertainment at my house. I have no TV nor dvd player, no stereo, nada. The upside to all this, which is always good to look for, is that I’ve started reading more. A lot more. I’ve downed 4 books in 10 days because when I’m not diving I hardly have anything else to do.
First I read Into Thin Air for no particular reason. It is the firsthand account by Jon Krakauer of the disaster that unfolded around him on Mt. Everest in 1996. Quite incredible. Then I read a stinker called Last Light, some thriller about a hired mercenary in Panama. To make up for I then read the very tiring Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau. Actually I’m still reading it in the background of all the others because its taking me so long. So far he has some incredible things to say on many subjects, but curiously a few points of striking ignorance as well. “I have lived some 30 years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of value or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing and probably cannot tell me anything”, he says. Bullshit says I. The verdict is still out on Walden, what I have read is much more good than bad, but I can understand where Bill Bryson is coming from when he calls Thoreau “inestimably priggish and tiresome” in the next book I picked up: A Walk in the Woods. This is Bryson’s comical and throughly entertaining account of his attempt to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. Its also peppered with lots of trail history, botany and the life; not really my bag, but the rest is grand and I would recommend it. Thus concludes this episode of the Tyler Capps book club.
Another up/downside of my smashed laptop is that I have to actually “write.” You know, with a pencil and this old stuff people are calling “paper.” I bought myself a little notepad to write my entries (or whatever you want to call them) and record thoughts and things that pop up whenever and that’s nice. I can foresee it becoming just as indispensable as my camera, but the problem is this: My typing is nearly fast enough to keep pace with my thinking, but my handwriting is utterly hopeless. My hand has to scribble as fast as it possibly can to keep up with my head and I still have to stop and let it catch up. This leads to my speedy scribbles being hard for even myself to transcribe unless what I have just written is still fresh in my mind. God forbid anyone else ever has to try to read this notebook.
With the loss of my computer and my ever-dwindling money supply the time has come for me to return to the States, if only for a while. With the slow season on the island approaching many people are leaving and I could probably walk into a job pretty much anywhere, but it is so slow that I wouldn’t be able to sustain myself regardless. With the riots in Bangkok making international headlines people, sheepish as they are, are canceling their trips to Thailand. 90%, in fact, of the people traveling to Thailand have canceled and this is going to amplify the quietness here until things fall eerily silent on the island. The sad part is that Bangkok is completely traversable with hardly any other areas of the country being affected. Why must people in the modern world let the media hold such sway over their fears?
I have to say, though, I’m rather looking forward to going back at this point. I miss my family, I miss cold weather and mountains and snow. I’d like to stay over the winter and save as much money as I can, do some hiking and skiing with my brother and perhaps make a trip out West for some real skiing before I depart on my next adventure. What that adventure will be, I’m not too sure yet. Right now my thinking points me towards South America. All of it.
-Tyler
Karma Police
I am about as far from superstitious as one can be. I believe in science, sound theories and provable facts. Sometimes, though, things happen that beg me to reconsider my stance on things like karma.
About a week ago now I was driving back to my bungalow around 9:30pm. There is a particularly steep hill just before my house and I was driving up fairly slowly in first gear just as I normally do. About half way up on the steepest section the bike popped out of gear into neutral and I began to roll backwards. The speed gained up as I tried in vain to shift back into first and gained more before I was able to apply the brakes. I was going too fast and swung sideways flipping the bike. After I was thrown from the scooter there was a split second as I flew through the air that I knew things were coming to an end. I hit the pavement on my right side and the bag containing my laptop landed with a mortifying crunch next to me. The momentum forced me to roll over it once, crushing the screen and my small Olympus camera along with it.
All was quiet. The wind was knocked from me and I sat bleeding in the road for a moment getting my bearings. I looked up the road at my overturned bike lit only by rays of moonlight leaking through the palm trees and I was alone. There was no one there to help me, no one to talk to for comfort. Just me, my pain and two newly christened paperweights. I picked myself up, hauled my bike back onto its tires and roll-started it down the hill. Once the engine was running I turned it around and went back up the hill to my house. Given the accident my injuries were minor. Just a sore neck, a few bruises, cuts and scrapes that I was able to clean and patch myself with first aid supplies from my pack. After tending to myself I reviewed the damage to my electronics. Given the durable nature of the olympus camera I expected it to survive, but the LCD display was crushed. The laptop’s screen was shattered and it wasn’t powering on. Thoughts of all the information that I may have lost rushed through my head in a panic. I sat down for a moment, but I couldn’t stay still. I knew there was nothing I could do that night, but I had to move. I drove back down to the beach and tried to call a couple of people, but no one was answering. I sat down in front of a dive shop alone trying to figure out what I was going to do.
Money was already tight and I needed the laptop if I was going to film anymore. I spent the next day running down answers. I extracted the hard drive and opened the computer up to see the internal damage. Everything looked surprisingly intact. I took it to one of the computer guys on the island, but the only thing he could do was suggest I take it to Pantip Plaza in Bangkok to see if it could be salvaged. Which is what I did. I left the next day taking a ferry to the mainland and an overnight bus into Bangkok. I arrived sleepless around 4:30am and caught a cab to my guest house. My room wasn’t available until 1pm and there wasn’t any place for me to sleep so I killed a couple of hours on the internet and wandered the streets until Pantip plaza opened at 10am. I scoured the massive electronics complex for the right shop to take my computer to and eventually settled on one. The man gave it a once over and said a screen replacement may be all it needed. I watched him as he installed a new screen for 8500baht and shockingly the machine powered on and seemed to be working. Exhausted, but relieved I made the long walk back to my guest house, stopping for lunch along the way. It seemed my streak of bad luck had finally been curbed. As I sat eating, a young Thai woman sat down in front of me and silently slid me a card. It was asking for a donation to the Deaf, Blind and Mute by buying a small handycraft for 60 baht. Wary of Bangkok scams, I politely declined and she left. Immediately afterward I felt very cold hearted and regretted the decision. I did my best to put it out of my mind and continued back to the guest house to get my room. It was 1:30pm, 31 hours without sleep. I sat down on the bed and thought about taking a nap, but before I let myself crash I booted up my laptop to make sure everything was still working. As I was checking through everything with pleasing results I heard a faint “pop” and the machine flicked off. It wouldn’t turn back on.
I rushed it back to the shop in the plaza where the man told me the motherboard had shorted and would need to be replaced. It was at this point, combined with the cost of the screen, that repairing the machine became more expensive than buying a new one. Except I couldn’t really afford one. After wandering around trying again to figure out what to do I asked the man if I could give the screen back and at least save that money. He would only give me 6000baht for it. I tried to get more at other shops, but no one was buying. At this point it had been 37 hours since I had slept and my attempts to bargain and haggle with the man in my state were pitiful at best. I ended up taking the 6000 and as I staggered out of the plaza utterly defeated at 8pm it began to pour rain. In my haste I had forgotten my rain jacket. I couldn’t seem to get a cab to stop and had to settle with a tuk tuk to get back to my room. Needless to say I was drenched by the time I arrived. I finally slept.
I got up the next morning and spent all day searching for a laptop that met my needs and I could afford, but after looking at my bank account and weighing prices I decided that I couldn’t really even afford a cheaper one. That afternoon I booked my ticket back to the island and went back the guest house to relax. I watched TV for an hour or two and left at 7pm to get dinner in a different part of the city. As I sat slowly picking away at my dinner I thought back to the girl who asked for a donation the day before and everything that had happened since. Then the very same girl sat down in front of me and with a look that would suggest she knew more than she possibly could, slid me the card again. This time it said 100baht. I paid her, she thanked me in sign language and disappeared into the crowd outside.
I am about as far from superstitious as one can be. I believe in science, sound theories and provable facts. Sometimes, though, things happen that beg me to reconsider my stance on things like karma.
-Tyler
Speechless
I don’t advertise this site to most people I meet. I think maybe I should start. It has been mentioned a few times recently that I am much less talkative than the average person and since it is such a persistent problem for me I thought I would try to explain. “Try”, being the operative word there.
If you have met me in person at almost any stage of my life you’ll already know what I’m talking about. Or not, as it were. Basically I don’t say much, regardless of how much I have to say. Its never been a secret that I am a much better writer than I am a talker, but why is that? I can think of two reasons. The slightly smaller reason being old social hang-ups that I haven’t been able to truly shake since I moved to North Carolina when I was 13. Long story short, I was a very awkward kid. I was shorter, pudgier, I had just gotten glasses, had a bad haircut and my self esteem was around -5 on the 1 to 10 scale. Everyone at the school had already known eachother since kindergarten and I couldn’t find any place to fit. I didn’t adjust well. There’s a lot more to be said on the matter, but this isn’t the place. It gradually got better toward the end of school, but even to this day that part of me is still there. Even after all that’s happened and how hard I’ve tried to change, somewhere in the back alleys of my mind I’m still that awkward kid who can’t image why anyone would like him. That’s why I have trouble making really close friends, that’s part of the reason I don’t talk so much and still struggle with self-confidence issues. This combined with the other reason I’m about go into, works to all but extinguish my social life which. And [i]that[/i] is why I find myself so alone so often.
This other reason being my thought process. I’m not sure I’ll be able to explain it well enough for your understanding, but I’ll give it a shot. When I say that my head is a mess, I mean it in a very literal way. Have you ever seen me staring off at nothing with a blank look on my face? Of course you have. I do it all the time. My brain is always churning away at something. It never stops and as it constantly moves from one line of thinking to another everything gets… scattered. Words become harder to find in the debris. When I’m talking to someone the conversation can grind to a halt not really because I don’t have anything to say, but because picking out my thoughts and arranging them into words with everything else going on can be a real challenge for me. Its like a jigsaw puzzle. I have to dig around in the pile of pieces to find the right ones that fit together and form the full picture. It takes me time. A few people over the years have mentioned that I always look like I’m struggling to find the words and that’s because I am. Some days its much better, some days its a little worse. This is why I love so much the things that allow me to concentrate on something singular. Surfing, skiing, kung fu, videogames, fire poi etc. And to a certain extent writing as well. Writing allows me to sit back, focus and organize my thoughts into something expressible. And when I can do that the words pour out like rain.
So much so, in fact, that I have taken the suggestions of a few people and begun writing a book. Its official. The working title for it as of now is “When it Rains” and I’ll tell you a little more about the project in the coming days. In the meantime I hope this helps those that know me understand why I am how I am sometimes.
-Tyler
One Thirteen Millionth
Today I’m going to do something a little different. Being a lover of photography in all it’s forms, I thought I would show some of my nerdy colors and present to you the single most important image ever captured by the human race. I’ve known about this image myself for about 3 years and for such an important picture that was taken about 4 years ago, I find that most people still have not heard about it or seen it. Or if they have, they do not really understand it’s implications. It is called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. It was taken by the Hubble space telescope in September of 2003 - January 2004. The team at NASA found a section of the night sky that was completely black, devoid of stars to even the most powerful land-based telescopes. They pointed the Hubble into this black area, opened the shutter and kept it open. After hundreds of exposures taking in as much light as it possibly could, this is the image that resulted from the apparent nothingness:
click for full version, but be warned it is HUGE.
You are not looking at stars. Every single point of light on this image is an entire galaxy. There are about 10,000 on this image alone and each one contains anywhere from 10 million to 1 trillion stars. The average star is 1 million times the size of earth and each of these stars has the possibility of planets in their orbit. Now for the real kicker. The fraction of night sky that this image covers: 1/13,000,000th. Let me put that into a slightly more imaginable context. If you took the full moon as seen from earth by the naked eye and shrunk it’s diameter to 1/10th of its size that is roughly how large the patch of sky that this image covers is. Now extrapolate that across the entire visible sky and you’ll begin to understand.
I did some math for you. That means that when you look up into the sky at night there are at the very least 130 billion galaxies looking back at you. Each one with a trillion stars that are 1 million times the size of your whole planet. And that’s just what we can see. Now ask yourself, knowing how incomprehensibly massive the universe really is, what are the real chances that we are the sole life that inhabits it? Have aliens been here? No, that’s kind of silly. But, do they exist? The odds are undeniable.
How important does your neighbor’s lawn seem now?
To be continued…
-Tyler
Touching the Flame
There is a very distinct sound produced when wind meets flame and for a few moments it is all that you hear. The crowd fades, the ocean quiets and all that you see is fire. All that you hear is the roar as it passes around you.
Its called Fire Poi. Two chains (one for each hand) with a weighted end wrapped in kevlar or cotton, soaked in fuel, set on fire and spun around in weaves and patterns. It is an art form that started sans-fire with the Maori people of New Zealand and has since spread to every corner of the world. From the rainy streets of Ireland, to the beaches of Vietnam you will find it. Here on the island many of the local Thais practice it on the beach outside of restaurants or bars to attract patrons. For them it is all about flash; they spin as hard and as fast as they can and since this more commercial version was the form I was most familiar with it never really had any draw for me.
About a month ago one of the Thai diving instructors that I work with here named Off was having his birthday party on the beach outside the dive shop. Eventually he started playing with the fire chains and absolutely blew me away. It was slower and rhythmic with an extreme technical difficulty. The way he moved the fire around him was nothing short of artwork. His girlfriend Sussi went after him and was just as impressive. It was so hypnotically beautiful that it gave me a new respect for the practice and inspired me to try it. I bought a very cheap pair of chains to practice with and on and off over the course of a few weeks I worked through the most basic maneuvers on my own. Eventually, after enough smacks taken to anywhere the chains would reach, my left hand begrudgingly excepted it’s new more complicated tasks. Last night on the beach in front of a crowd with Off and Sussi I lit them up for the first time.
There is a very distinct sound produced when wind meets flame and for a few moments it is all that you hear. The crowd fades, the ocean quiets and all that you see is fire. All that you hear is the roar as it passes around you. And in this moment I learned that there is a very real calm to be found in so much controlled pandemonium. The flames focus your attention so singularly on the motions that there is nothing else. The rest of your mind is allowed to breath and you can forget everything, living only in the moment.
There were a few inevitable mistakes that broke things up and when my fire was almost done I spun them out. There were a few black residue marks on my arms from the hits and my pants smelled of fuel, but I was unscathed.
So I did it again.
-Tyler
Starting Fresh
As you’ll notice the frontpage is now clear of that massive block of entries and pictures that took so long to load. I’m still looking for a way to display it elsewhere, but I’ll have to figure that out later. I wanted to start fresh with a plain old news update.
I’m still on the island of Koh Tao in the gulf of Thailand and I am well on my way to finishing my dive master course. It looks now that I will be here through August despite my flimsy plans to be moving on. This means that I will be heading back to Malaysia early next month to get a new visa for Thailand and hopefully when I get back I will be able to find work as a dive master and do filming work on the side for extra cash. Then I’ve also got a t-shirt project underway that could provide additional income, but you’ll hear more about that later.
With all of this I can hopefully start to at least sustain myself completely here if not save a bit of money. Its going to be extremely tight and there is no question that next month [i]will[/i] make or break my existence here. If things don’t play out exactly right I could be making that dreaded Statesward journey back to job hunting and $4.10 gas. I’m going to do everything I can to prevent that, but should it be inevitable I suppose I can take comfort in the fact that I was able to drag this thing out for a full year per my original intentions. And what a year its been…
But speaking of “inevitable”…
Before and after, about 19 years.
-Tyler
Options, Lack Of
It has happened. The inevitable is upon me and it has come a bit sooner than I expected. This island has a very tangible pull to it and one of the things that makes it so unique is that you will not find one foreigner living here, literally not a single one, that came to this place with the intention of staying. The lifestyle is simply too attractive for some people to pass up, myself included. I hunkered down, got a little too comfortable and stopped watching my account balance as closely as I usually do. I had an imaginary “caution-line” drawn that once my funds dipped below I was to start making contingency plans should I not be able to continue my traveling. They have dipped. My situation is far from dire; I still have enough money to get me through the next couple of months, finish my dive master certification and then some, but unless I find actual “gainful” employment soon after that is finished then I’m afraid I’ll have to make a difficult choice. There are two options that I can see:
A: After two months time I press on with my travels and bank on finding solid work in Oz or NZ. This one is particularly risky because my funds will already be tight and if that work never comes about or isn’t enough to let me save money I could end up in a bad situation that lands me back in the states without much left. Although, if the work does pan out that means I could continue on with this wonderful little world wandering thing I’ve got going.
B: After two months time I cut my losses and return to the states with enough cash to keep me floating until I find a job and start saving for the next trip. I have to admit that a part of me sees going back to the states as a sort of failure. I was hoping I could keep extending this trip for some time and if I had been a little wiser with my money it certainly could’ve been a bit longer, but a full year isn’t bad. I do really miss my family and friends and I wouldn’t mind doing the “normal” thing for a little while as long as I can find a job that isn’t too awful.
So far option B has the edge, but obviously nothing is set in stone at this point. I still have a couple of months to feel out where things are heading. But, for the first time in a long time I can actually see an end to this trip on the horizon and my mind seems to be having trouble accepting that. I think my new goal is to find a way to perpetuate these travels long enough to stop calling them “trips” and start calling them “life” because this is most certainly a large part of who I am now. Also on a slightly related note, I believe I have found the official title of my dream job (something I never really bothered to pin down until recently): Professional Travel Photographer. So obvious it hurts. While its nice to actually have the name of what I aspire to, its somewhat depressing for reasons I will discuss in the next post.
For now, what can I do other than keep moving forward. While there is some uncertainty in my path I take comfort in knowing that I’ll make the best of whatever happens and no matter what that is I won’t be off the road for long.
-Tyler
Delivered
Every year around this time for me comes a certain trifecta of holidays. Starting with Mother’s Day in May followed later that month by my father’s birthday and capped off with Father’s Day this month. It is with this in mind that I find now a fitting time to address a few thoughts and realizations I’ve had recently.
It is with a sober and humbled heart that I dedicate the following to my mother and father:
The transition from child to adult is a gradual one. There is no single day where you awake and suddenly feel grown up and responsible; ready to make your way in this harsh new realm. I do suspect, though, that there comes a point in every person’s life when they fully comprehend the final product of their childhood lost. For it is only when you can stand outside of your youth that you begin to understand it fully.
I remember my childhood with an overwhelming fondness and looking back at it I think its safe to say that mine was quite adventurous compared to most. Taking a glance at the amount of things I was exposed to from birth to around age 12 I find it glaringly obvious what has shaped my adventurous nature. There was swimming, scuba diving, hiking, camping, rollerblading, skiing, snowboarding, climbing, whitewater rafting, dirtbikes, and two international trips by the time I was 8. This list will sound familiar to my father because they were mostly all his own endeavors and I was just lucky enough to tag (or be dragged) along. As the story so often goes, I didn’t appreciate them so much at the time and my younger self had a bad habit of writing these things off as a sort of “perpetual mid-life crisis.” Now, I can’t look back with anything but gratitude. After all, who would I be without these undertakings and my mother’s unending well of love and support for us all.
Where would I be had I not been introduced to these things and the inherent danger they contain at such an early age? I certainly wouldn’t be out here bordering on a dive master certification. I don’t think I would be out here period. I think all of you reading this know how highly I speak of the past 10 months of my traveling. I have learned, seen and experienced more than you could ever place a dollar value on and I would not be seeing the world as I am now without this expeditionary disposition that my parents instilled in me, knowingly or otherwise. It is a rare parent indeed who would not only approve, but encourage their son to throw on a backpack and head out into places unknown. To suppress that natural instinct to protect your children and support them as they stride off alone into the world; to know that it is the right thing to do, I believe takes more strength than I’ve ever known. Today I appreciate their efforts on a new level and for the first time in my life I think I now truly understand that my mother and father not only delivered me into this world, they turned around and delivered this world to me.
And for that… I haven’t the words.
Thank you Mom and Dad, for your endless support of all that I do. It means everything to me.
I love you.
-Tyler
The Clock’s Move Freely
Let it first be said that I like this island. I like it a lot. I like my job, I like the people I work for/with and I certainly like the lifestyle. That should be fairly obvious given that I was meant to be here one week and the six month marker is now speeding toward me. Relentlessly. For some time now I’ve been grappling with whether or not I should stay longer or get back to traveling. At present the people I work for have offered to train me up as a dive master as well as put me through the extensive underwater photography course we’re launching—each of which usually cost about $900—for free and there are a number of potentially very very good things on the horizon for the company. There are articles on us and what my boss is doing coming out in a handful of diving magazines, one of which (Fathom) he shot the cover photo for. My boss has also been invited to Hawaii to help film a 3D IMAX film about the islands and there are whispers of a new contact in Zimbabwe who could help us sort out filming on the African Savannah. There are documentaries and television pilots scheduled to be shot in the coming months. Indeed it seems I may have stumbled into something pretty great, but if all this sounds a little too good to be true… that’s because it probably is.
The key word in that last paragraph was “potentially.” There are more “if”s, “but”s, “when”s and “maybe”s going on behind those descriptions to keep me from holding out any real hope of it actually going down, much less my being involved in it. I don’t think my luck stretches quite that far. Regardless I think I’d like to stick around a bit longer to see where things go. For the moment my job still consists of plugging away at our daily video work, but even that is not so simple. I work on commission here, meaning I get paid depending on how many dvds of my filming that I sell. I was out of the water for about a week with a cold that made diving impossible (equalization issues) and today on my first day back I nearly broke my foot on the side of a boat knocking me out of the water for yet another few days.
When I check my account balance I don’t look at it in terms of what I can buy or even cash really. I look at it like a clock; a countdown to uncertainty slowly ticking away. Sometimes I have a good week and it stops ticking entirely… sometimes, as now, it ticks faster. So to help stave off this temporal leak I’ve been thinking of other things I could do on the island and indeed I think there is a market for my particular skill set in graphic design and illustration. Of course there is a hitch. My boss does a lot of graphic design work for a wide variety of shops and people on the island. Any of the graphic work that comes into the shop goes directly to him; its “his thing” as it were. And as long as he can handle the load I won’t get any work in that area from within the company even though—to be uncharacteristically bold—I’m better at it. Going into direct competition with the guy I work for and expecting to retain a job isn’t the silliest idea I’ve had (when I was 5 I tried turning a robe into an invisibility cloak by tying a D battery to the waist strap), but it’s close. My hands are tied. The clock’s move freely.
I haven’t been this torn in a long while and as time and money grow shorter I grow more anxious over my indecision. I feel like good things could happen for me here eventually, but how far away “eventually” is, I have no idea. I could travel on and come back later, but there is no guarantee that I will find more work in the interim to save up the money to do so as I would like. A tricky situation, this. Were it a movie I would be expecting a deus ex machina any minute.
If only.
-Tyler
“Confusion never stops closing walls and ticking clocks”The Unexpected
So I left the island of Koh Tao, Thailand for my usual day-and-a-half visa run into Burma and back. Four days later I’m sitting in a guest house in Penang, Malaysia making a mental note of how every article of clothing I’m wearing is from a different country. My glasses are from Thailand, my shoes were bought in the states, my socks in Athens, my pants are from Prague, my belt is Hungarian and I picked up this shirt at a mall here yesterday. But I digress…
I had been told that I could make three trips into Burma before having to worry about getting a proper visa. This run was meant to be my third, but in my most epically dumb oversight to date I didn’t consider something much more important. It was explained to me as I arrived at the Thai border and handed the agent my passport. She flipped through the pages and concernedly remarked: “I think you no go to Burma today.” To which I replied, “Umm… No, I’m pretty sure I need to.” She then pulled out a scratch sheet of paper and went thorugh all the dates on the Thai stamps in my passport and added up the number of days I had been there. You see, on a US passport one is allowed up to 90 days in Thailand without a visa and I was staring down in awe at a scribbled total of “88.” Even if I did cross into Burma and back I would still have to get myself to the nearest foreign major city of Penang, Malaysia within the next two days to apply for a visa. I phoned work: “Hey uh, Heather? Yeah, I’ve got some bad news.”
After I explained the situation she recommended a place to stay in Penang and I sat around waiting for the bus back to Chumporn where I would be able to catch the overnight train to the Malaysian border. Chief among my thoughts was the fact that I was now going to have to stretch a week’s worth of wear out of a day’s worth of clothes and how happy I was that I decided to bring my laptop with me this time. The bus took me back to Chumporn, but the overnight train was booked full… For the next two days. I decided to stay in Chumporn that night and worry about getting to the border in the morning. When I got up I walked down to the local does-everything-travel agent-resturant-bar-internet-guest house-shop thing where I was greeted by the kind of guys who hang out at foreigner bars at 10 in the morning. Luckily I know that these are also the kind of people with experience in getting in and out this country in a rush so I struck up a conversation. I had my travel plans worked out and was on a bus to Hat Yai within the hour. The bus took about 8 hours, pulling into the station around 7pm and I was instantly mobbed by the usual array of room renters, taxi drivers, minibus runners etc. There were no proper buses across to Malaysia so I eventually entered one of the many travel agents across from the station.
I was told that I could either take a taxi across at 4am or a minibus at 8:30am. The man had a thin mustache and a thick gold medallion necklace; a fast talker trying to push things on me, which I never enjoy, but know how to deal with. Eventually I settled on the minibus and he tried to get me to stay in one of the “cheap room” he had upstairs. As usual I said I would have to see the room before I agreed to anything and he had one of the ladies that worked for him lead me upstairs. Most situations like what follows are genuinely harmless—as this one probably was—but I think its very important to listen to that feeling in your gut when it says things aren’t right. As I followed her up the stairs it got darker and darker toward the third floor where the lights were off. The walls of the stairwell were cold unpainted concrete and it was unsettlingly obvious that I was the only one there. I was becoming more uncomfortable with every step and when the dim lights flickered on and I saw the hallway I made the decision to bail. The doors to the rooms were made of plywood with numbers haphazardly painted on them corresponding to the key in my hand, but I quickly noticed we were on the 4th floor and that my key was for the 3rd. I motioned that I had to go down a floor and left the lady as I descended. I skipped right past that 3rd floor and pulled out my cellphone before reaching the ground floor. As I shuffled quickly past the man handing him the key and saying that I would be back, I pretended to be on the phone so he couldn’t argue and made a quick, clean exit.
As I said, it was probably harmless—rooms like that aren’t uncommon around these parts. But bad vibes like that are, so when I get them I tend to take heed. I went back to the same place the next morning to catch that minibus and everything went smoothly. On the bus there were two older Thai men, an older American, a Dutch girl and 3 guys from Somalia, one of which we left at the Malaysian border because he couldn’t get through. Upon exiting Thailand the American man noticed my passport and asked where I was from. I told him NC and he explained how he lived in SC when he was young. Turns out he was only a couple of counties away from where I grew up. As the trip went on our conversation continued and it turned out we had a few more things in common. His name was Charlie and if I had to guess his age I’d say late 50s. I asked “so what do you do back in the states?” and he only answered “Get ready to go somewhere else.” Like myself he was also ex-navy stationed in Japan, but the generational gap became glaringly obvious when the conversation shifted to women in the military. He mentioned that there were no women on ships when he was in the service and I noted in a negative tone that they still weren’t allowed on submarines. He said “Good, they shouldn’t be allowed on any ships. They shouldn’t be on the police force either.” I gave him a deservingly awkward look and he said “Think about it, if someone breaks into your home which would you rather show up: A little lady or big guy named Bubba?” I answered, “First off, I don’t think you’ve met some of the women I have… Second: Either one’s going to have a gun ya know.” “Hell, I have a gun.” “Then what do you need Bubba for?” Realizing that the exchange would go nowhere he ended with “Well, we’re obviously from different generations, like I’m a republican and you’re probably a democrat…” We found common ground again when I explained that I would rather not be associated with either party at the moment given the state of things. It seems that out of all the other Americans I’ve met traveling, no matter how different we may be, we can all agree on one thing: Our current system and government are complete trash.
The car ferry pulled into port at Penang and we drove into town. The driver pulled over at the last stop and I got out, said goodbye to Charlie and walked over to the place that was recommended to me. I was told that they could also do all of the paperwork necessary for my Thai visa right from the guest house which was true… except I was about 30 minutes too late to get my stuff submitted before the immigration office closed for the weekend. I got settled into my room and took a walk to the local super-huge mall to pick up some socks, a couple of shirts and some various other bare essentials to hold me over on this little Malaysian misadventure.
People who know me know I’m not a braggart, but all in all I have to say I’m rather impressed with myself right now. A few days ago shit kind of hit the fan and much like a front row spectator at a Gallagher show, I had a garbage bag ready to pull over my head. I was ready and that makes me feel pretty good—like I passed some sort of test or something. Also there’s the fact that I’ve been away on this “trip” for over 6 full months now. Over 180 days I’ve crossed 17 countries by foot, scooters, buses, trains, cars, trucks and planes. I have taken well over 4000 photographs accompanied by nearly 40 pages of text. I’m accomplishing what I set out to do and I’ve found one of the things I think I was looking for:
A way of life. One that I’m good at
-Tyler
Q&A Time
Talking with friends and strangers alike throughout my travels has yielded more questions about my adventure than I can possibly recount. Some of you might remember the tips video I made a few months back recommending things to bring on a backpacking trip in Europe and I was planning to do another addressing such questions. But, since I have no real visual aids as I did for the first one, I figured I might as well just write them. I’m better at that anyway by my—and no doubt others’—estimations. As I was asked these questions I kept a running list in a notepad file on my computer which I’m now referencing as I write. Some are simple, some are silly, some are personal, a lot have to do with money and all will be addressed. Perhaps not this time, but eventually.
How often do you do laundry?
A fair question since I gave a precise count of the clothes I had with me in the aforementioned video. On average I’d say once a week or as needed. Though the opportunity doesn’t always present itself when I need it to and I end up stretching that time-line and enacting an emergency “If it smells clean…” policy. The first day I was in Paris I strolled into a nearby, but somewhat shady laundromat to do some much needed washing. I was greeted by three Romanian guys stripped to their briefs sitting in front of the dryers. They were watching everything they’d been wearing that day—including shoes—dry. Once it was finished they got dressed and strolled out, one texting on his cellphone, as if this happened pretty regularly. I never figured out what kind of almost-certainly-wacky circumstances lead to their situation, but I really wish I had because my imagination has been working through possibilities ever since.
Has your world-view changed since you left?
I put mayonnaise of my french fries now. If that doesn’t signify a change in world-view, I just don’t know what ever will. Of course it has changed. How could it not? For one, there are infinitely more good people left in the world than I ever would have imagined 6 months ago. Genuinely caring, honest, good natured people who are more than willing to help a stranger without expecting anything in return. You will find them in abundance no matter what country you happen to be in. It seems to me that people all over the world are generally looking for the same thing. But I’m not sure which I find more frustrating: That the people who would drive between us such petty wedges as religion and ethnicity happen to be the ones in power or that the good people keep them in power out of ignorance.
How do you handle many different currencies?
A big wallet and organizational prowess. Usually before I leave a country who’s currency I know I will not be needing again I exchange all but a small amount of that cash into the next country’s money. I have at least one piece of currency from every country I’ve ever visited as a souvenir. Note: There is not a single place in the whole of Thailand to exchange Turkish Lira. Apparently.
How do you deal with Language barriers?
I once negotiated a cab ride by drawing numbers in sand. A few local phrases combined with hand signals go a long long way. And some things are just universal. Like when you really need to use the bathroom you would be surprised how clear your body language makes this fact to pretty much anyone in the world.
What is your favorite city?
That’s like asking me my favorite movie. I’ve seen so many great ones that I can’t ever really decide. But, as with movies when I am pressed to name a single favorite I will concede with Amelie, so too with places I must answer with Paris. Touristy as much of it is and cliché as it may sound: I. Love. Paris. But, there are many other places which I would place on an equal list of favorites. Galway, Istanbul, Krakow, Cesky Krumlov, Koh Tao, just to rattle off a few. I recently filled out a map of all the places I have ever been and it ended up being something like 75 cities in 21 countries. Sometimes it feels as though I am in love with the world as a whole.
I shall end with the question I get most often and on which I will spend the most time deflecting:
How much does this cost/How much have you spent?
Apparently it is no longer rude to inquire as to one’s personal finances because I get this question more than any other, by far. A sign of the times perhaps. Now I can only assume that people ask this because they wish to estimate how much a trip like mine would cost them. The thing you have to understand, though, is that how much I have spent has absolutely nothing to do with how much you would spend. I have gone places and spent money on things that you probably wouldn’t and you would spend on things and go places that I haven’t. The variables are virtually infinite and it becomes impossible to base your estimation on my costs. Thus the question itself becomes moot, lest you really are just that curious and/or prying. So to whom then must you direct your monetary queries? Find a mirror.
How long do you want to be gone? Where do you want to go? Are you traveling alone? How will you get around? Can you rough it a little? Are you willing to work? couchsurf? Farmstay? Your answers to these questions will help you to gauge your cash requirements far better than I. I am not by any means recommending that you plan everything in advance. If you’ll recall, my plans consisted of a one-way flight and single hostel booking. I did, however, do a considerable amount of reading—both online and off—before I left and this gave me a very clear general understanding of what I was getting myself into. And that—for my money—is the single most important thing to have when preparing for any trip.
-Tyler
Shark Diving on Christmas Eve
It is now safe to say that I will soon have a job here on the island of Koh Tao where I have been for about a month now. I’m now staying in a simple fan-cooled room in a quiet spot away from the beach. Its spacious with a big double bed, hot water, a fridge and a TV. I swim in the ocean everyday and watch the sunset on the beach every night. Life is good.
On the last two dives of my open water course we were accompanied by a videographer who filmed us as we finished our course. As I watched her work, I thought to myself: “that seems like it would be a cool job…” and I made a note to ask her how she got into it. Later that day we gathered at Big Blue’s bar to watch our video and after it was over I talked to her a bit and found out that she had gone through a course with Ace Marine Images on the island and then stayed to do an internship with them and ending up working for them full time. I read up on the course and it sounded quite good. I stayed on at Big Blue to do my advanced certification and as I did that I went in and talked to the people at Ace about doing the video course. It was on the expensive side, but I had a good feeling and splurged on it. It consisted of an on land photography course and 8 dives with a camera and housing. As this went on I moved from Big Blue to the place I am now and spent time hanging out with the German friends I made from my open water named Chris and Tina. We rented scooters and accidentally took the back way to one of the other beaches. The dirt roads where in terrible shape and it was my first time riding a scooter, but we pressed on anyway. That was one way to learn I guess. The scooters were returned miraculously unscathed after our off-road adventures. Having learned our lesson, the next time we decided to go across the mountainous interior of the island we rented ATVs, which I have a bit more experience with. We hit almost every beach on the opposite, much less developed, side of the island via these primitive dirt roads. We even had to turn around once when we found a section so steep and sandy that I could tell our 4-wheelers wouldn’t be able to bring us back up if we went down. We also found an incredible view looking out across the island on top of a rock accessed by a makeshift bamboo ladder. After a few days hanging out with them and others we met, they left for Bangkok on their way back to Germany.
Shooting video underwater was admittedly harder than I expected, but over the dives I got better at it and when I finished they invited me to stay on for the internship. After much thought I decided that I would like to stick around for a while and give it a shot, so I did. The past week or so I have been out diving with the other videographers at different dive shops to get a feel for the job, what to shoot, when to shoot, when to get set up etc. The guys at Ace were really great and lent me dive gear when I needed it. Eventually I got my own setup for relatively cheap.
Around lunch time on the 19th I looked at the stamp in my passport and realized I was supposed to be out of the country that very day. Most every foreigner in Thailand has to do “Visa Runs” which means leaving the country and coming back in to get a new stamp and hence, more time. I frantically called Heather from Ace wondering how I was going to make it off the island that day, much less out of the country. She directed me to a travel office where I sorted out one of these visa runs. I wasn’t going to make it out that day, but my boat to the mainland left at 10am the next morning and I was on it. Fun fact: This was also the first day I had worn socks in about two weeks. It was a nice, fast, air conditioned boat and I arrived in Chumpon around 12:30pm. The boat pulled in slowly passing lines of fishing boats and ports on either side along the way. Once I left the boat I was greeted by the bus driver holding a sign that said “visa run.” Myself and 6 others who were doing the same thing, piled into the van and started on our way to Burma. We dropped everyone off at the Thai port for a place called the “Andaman Club” across the way in Myanmar, but because I had overstayed by one day I had to pay a fine in a different place across town. The van took me to the right place and they made copies of my passport while I filled out a police report about overstaying and payed my 500Baht fine. Lesson learned. I got back to the port just after 4pm and the bus back to Chumpon was leaving at 5pm. I had less than an our to get my paperwork through, get across the bay, get stamped and get back in time. I was in Burma, literally, for 5 minutes and I made it back right on time. The bus dropped me and the other 2 who where taking the night boat back to Koh Tao off at a cafe while we waited for a taxi (pick up truck) to the boat a few hours later. I had dinner and used the internet to kill the time. I had heard stories of how uncomfortable this particular night ferry was and I have no trouble admitting that I downed a few beers to help soften the blow and get some sleep. And it turned out to be the best decision I made all week. Once the pick up arrived me and the two British girls hopped in the back a got to chatting. The truck stopped and picked up two South Africans and we met two Australians when we arrived at the port. We all gathered around and cracked jokes about the boat we were about to get on. The 7 of us were the only foreigners on this boat and when we boarded we found out why. It was easily the oldest vessel I’ve been on and our place to sleep consisted of thin mattresses laid out on the floor and the shelf just above it, like two huge uninterrupted bunkbeds with a good number of locals already sleeping. I snatched an open place on the floor along with the two Brits. Maybe it was my sense of adventure or maybe it was just the alcohol, but I was actually pretty comfortable with the situation. The boat was loud, but the seas were calm and I slept surprisingly well throughout the night after watching us sail away under a full moon. The boat pulled in around 5:30 in the AM and I bid the others goodbye as I hopped on my scooter and zipped back to my room to catch a few more hours of sleep.
I ended up feeling good enough to dive that afternoon, so I went out and did more following. We went to a site I hadn’t been to yet that had caves you could swim through which was quite an awesome experience, made even more interesting by my fogging mask which I had to keep clearing in the cramped space. Yesterday morning I woke up early and went out to a beach called Shark Bay do some snorkeling.
Today is Christmas Eve and I got up around 5:30am to follow Heather out on a couple of dives, but this time with a camera back in my hands. The first site was a place called Chumphon Pinnacle which I have dived many times before, but the conditions there were the best I’ve seen yet. 30 meters down you could still see light at the surface. Also 30 meters down is where the sharks tend to be. Nothing wakes you up in the morning quite like turning around and find yourself face to face with a Reef Shark not much smaller than yourself. Not to mention the Great Barracuda that also patrol the area. It was an incredible dive and I got some good footage. The next dive was also quite good, but less eventful. Did I mention everyone was diving in Santa Hats?
Its hard to believe Christmas has already come so quickly and being in a country that doesn’t ‘officially’ celebrate it is interesting… and refreshing. There are no lines backed out of superstores, no extra traffic, no holiday hordes wrapped up in the consuming frenzy that Christmas has become. There is only celebration. My Christmas day will consist of a BBQ on the beach, swimming and laying in the sun. It should be an interesting change from the cold I’m used to. More later
-Tyler
Of Travelers and Tourists
I feel I should take a moment to elaborate on my definitions of “tourists” and “travelers.” To me a “tourist” is someone who buys a package vacation or tour and rides around on a tour bus seeing the same major sites that everyone else sees and skipping everything in between. You see them everywhere around the main attractions of any city being lead around like sheep by a guide with a raised umbrella or stick etc. Travelers on the other hand are more independent and tend to spend more time digging into the local culture rather than only visiting the touristy spots. In other words, tourists are in a speedboat skimming across the surface while travelers are going for a swim. And in places like Turkey that can make all the difference in the world…
Istanbul is an incredible place and I enjoyed the experience thoroughly. Walking around the city is quite different to most places I am used to. Shop and restaurant owners constantly beckon tourists into their various establishments by asking where they are from and making small talk, many times claiming they are very special because they are the first customer of the day, when in reality the only thing special about them is that they are about to be taken for a ride. Such shops are often ludicrously overpriced and they get away with it because of uninformed visitors who just don’t know any better. For instance some people… we’ll call them “salesmen” may approach you with watches to sell and they will ask 300 Lira for them. Some people may just pay that thinking it is the price, when in reality they could be talked down to about 5 Lira. It is my experience that once these shop owners and hawkers realize that you know what you’re doing and that you’re not “just another tourist” they generally leave you alone and actually show you a bit more respect. I spent a few days wandering the city, seeing the sights, getting lost in the bazaars, eating the local kebabs and woken up by the call to prayer thundering over loudspeakers throughout the city.
Later, I made the leap and purchased what was my second one-way plane ticket of this trip: from Istanbul, Turkey to Bangkok, Thailand with a quick layover in Bahrain. I gave myself the better part of the week to see more of Turkey and I used that to bus it out to the very center of the country to an area known as Cappadocia (Kappadokya). I left on an overnight bus with two New Zealanders from my hostel room in Istanbul. Every time I take an overnight bus or flight, I seem to forget just how terrible they can be. I can never sleep sitting up and with an aisle seat there is no place to lean so it always ends up being a restless drawn out night that leaves me exhausted the next day. Nonetheless after a long night of riding the sun rose to reveal a desert-like landscape that soon gave way to the strangest area I have ever found myself in. Again, my vocabulary and descriptive skills fail me when thinking of how to explain a place like this, save to say it looks like another planet. The people that lived here long ago carved their homes and churches directly out of the mountainside’s soft rock and a good number of them are still in use by local residents and renters who used them to accommodate travellers. We stayed in the town of Goreme, which is overlooked on most sides by such mountains and indeed we stayed in cave rooms carved directly out of the rock for our time there. Granted they were modernized with bathrooms, heat and electricity.
The day we arrived it was rather cold and the weather was not cooperating so I took a nap for a couple of hours while the rain cleared before heading out to the open-air museum east of town. The open-air museum in Goreme is another UNESCO site and it features an array of small churches carved out of the rocks. The entrances to the churches are quite modest, but once inside you realize that the carved pillars, arches, domes and vaulted ceilings directly from the rock and covered them with frescoes. Though small, the craftsmanship is more than impressive. However extraordinary the museum was, it paled in comparison to the following day. I woke up around 9:30am and had breakfast before picking up some water and stocking up on a few apples at the local fruit market for my walk. I set out back towards the museum, but took a trail leading away from the road and up a hill toward the edge of a valley.
I passed a stray dog along the way and once I neared the top of the hill I looked back and found that it was following me. I don’t know why… I didn’t feed it, or pet it or call it… she just decided to tag along. I would stop to take photos and she would lay down just behind me and once I started moving on she would trail along. Eventually she caught up and laid down at my feet so, I pet her a bit while I rested. This small female german shepard ended up walking along with me for the entire 6 hours I was out hiking. I tried to give her some of my water and attempted to share one of my apples, but she would have none of it. I started off on the trail, but strayed off of it into the countryside as I worked my way around valleys and across fields before finding a marked trail that lead down into a small canyon and eventually to one of the places I was looking for called Rose Valley. Its name comes from the pink color of the rocks that line the gorge. Every time I would pass other people, the dog would stick right by my side. Sometimes she would track ahead on the trail and disappear around a corner and I would round it to find her waiting on me to catch up, but nearing the end of my walk on the way back towards the town I came to a crossroads. I needed to go left, but the dog apparently was headed right. We walked in our opposite directions and I never saw her again. It was the strangest thing.
The next day I went on a walk with the two Kiwis around a separate equally interesting section of the area and we got back a bit after lunch. We hung around the town and got our things packed for the overnight bus back to Istanbul before having dinner. The bus was about usual except this one had satellite TV on board and there was a soccer game on. Turkey was playing Norway in a qualifying match for next year’s european playoffs and the whole bus was really getting into it. Clapping a cheers would erupt after a goal and gasps for near misses. Turkey won the match 2-1. The rest of the bus ride was per usual and we checked back into the same hostel we left from around 8am and I took a nap. I spent the rest of that day organizing some last minute details for my trip to Thailand and went to be early. I was set to catch the 7:20am shuttle to the airport the next morning… I was awoken at 7:30 by the bus driver who had others on the bus waiting for me and I snapped into scramble mode and was out of bed and in the bus by 7:40. I got to the airport with ample time which was good since there were 2 security checkpoints (one right as you enter the airport and another at your gate) to go through, plus passport control. And the security checks are picky, you have to remove your belt, shoes, etc. They even scanned my watch. Are terrorists really that inventive these days? I mean, these airports seem to think you can fashion a bomb out of shampoo and a tray table…
After my layover in Bahrain I landed safely in Bangkok. I knew I would be heading back through the city later anyway and I decided that I wanted to head straight for the southern islands, so I went through immigration and found a really cheap flight to Surat Thani, the port where you can catch ferries to Ko Samui, Pha Ngang, and Tau. I landed and hopped a bus to the port. The balmy heat hits first as you exit the plane. Looking out the bus window the landscape reminded me, oddly, of Vietnam. But only in the sense that, if you watched a film about the war it would be set in this type of environment. Forests of palm trees, flooded low grasslands, makeshift towns on the banks of muddy rivers and cows wandering across the street as they please… As I got closer and closer to the pier I couldn’t help but realize: This is a whole new ballgame.
At the pier I found a Thai woman offering beach hut accommodation on the island of Ko Pha Ngang. The price was reasonable and I was exhausted and I didn’t want to haggle when I got to the islands so I took her up on it and caught the ferry out. It was dark when we arrived and the owner of the huts was there to meet me and a few others at the port. I jumped into the “free taxi” which was the back of his truck and he drove us off the main roads and through what I would almost call a jungle on one of the roughest dirt roads I’ve ever seen. Soon enough, though we arrived at the little complex which included a resturant and a few huts right near the beach. They lead me to mine and put my things down. It was exactly what I expected and what I was looking for. A little fan-cooled hut on a secluded beach… but it wasn’t $8. It was $9.50. High season, you see.
The hut was about as basic as it could get. Just one big double bed, a fan, a bathroom with a cold shower and a toilet with a flusher that consisted of a bucket of water and a sprayer. It was basically a shed… but a shed, quite literally in paradise. I have to imagine that when most people picture paradise in their heads it doesn’t look too much different than this island. After I got settled in, I went up to the open-air restaurant and ordered some food, which I found to be quite good. I turned in early and slept until about noon the next day, catching up on my sleep and nursing my jet lag. After a few days there the weather wasn’t holding up so I decided to move on to Ko Tau and find a place to do my scuba certification as planned.
The day I checked out of the hut I hopped into the back of the owner’s truck once again as he drove me back to the port where I caught the ferry to Ko Tau in a nick of time. It was an express ferry which cut through the waves like a dull hatchet would a tree and the engine quit twice, but it got me there in good time nonetheless. Once arriving at the port there were a multitude of dive companies waiting to greet us with their information paphlets and what not, but I chose to skip by them so I could check out a few different places on my own and see the place first hand before I made a decision. I caught yet another back-of-the-truck taxi to the far end of the main beach and began walking down, passing all of the dive resorts along the way. In the end I settled with Big Blue Diving. The course was cheaper than I thought, plus after some negotiations I scored a free room and PADI book along with it. Not to mention that their operation seemed solid… which I turned out to be right about. So over the past few days I’ve been doing the course and its bringing back a lot of memories just as I suspected it would, since my parents used to own a dive shop when I was a kid. With the smell of wetsuits, the taste of regulators and the sound air tanks clanging together come fond recollections of a time that I’ve always been partial to. It reminds me of home…
Its 11pm and I have to be up by 6:30 for the last dive of the course so I suppose I should wrap here. I’m not sure how long I will be on Ko Tau as I’m seriously considering staying to do my advanced certification after this and then there are many places around the island that offer special courses in underwater photography… which seems up my alley. I’m sure its a bit pricey though, so we’ll see.
So far my impression of Thailand is one of the most positive I’ve had of a country so far. The people are incredibly friendly which I find to be such a refreshing change from eastern Europe and it is about as gorgeous as gorgeous gets here. I finally understand why there are so many expats in this country.
Pictures are coming…
-Tyler
Turning the Page
It’s about 3am in the morning and this trip that has been brewing in my head for over a year will begin in about 4 hours. I’ve never been able to sleep before big trips and this is by far the biggest I’ve ever undertaken… so here I am. In this odd pre-trip purgatory between night and morning I will be nervous, anxious, worried, frantic, awe struck that this time has come so quickly, my mind will race circles around itself going over every detail, and I will be terrified. It happens every time, but by the morning I will be ready.
At 7am I will leave for the Atlanta airport where my first flight leaves at 3pm. After a few layovers I will eventually find myself alone in Shannon, Ireland the next morning. Many people have asked me “How did you choose Ireland for your first stop?” The answer is embarrassingly simple: It was the cheapest place in Europe to fly to. However, after acquiring my ticket a few months ago, I began reading and researching Ireland and found myself more and more grateful to chance that this should be my first stop. It is to the point now that I can’t believe I was thinking of not going there. From Shannon, I take the bus to the Aille River Hostel in the small town of Doolin (situated conveniently near the Aran Islands and Cliffs of Moher) and this is where my “plan” ends. Exactly where I go from there is a mystery even to me. It may come down to a coin toss, but that’s the way I want it. That’s the very heart of this trip: true and complete freedom.
Many of my friends joke that I may never come back, but really it’s not too hard to imagine. If I find a place that I can belong and a way to stay there… I just may. And I have to admit that in the back of my mind, I hope I do because there is nothing really keeping me here anymore. Everyone I know is so used to me being gone that my leaving again is hardly a deal at all. If anything it is a return to what is now normal for them. I don’t really have a place here anymore, it doesn’t feel like home. But neither does anywhere else. Its an odd feeling… and not a pleasant one, I must say. So, off I go. Out into the world in search of something I can’t name. If I find it, I’ll let you know.
In the meantime I will be taking pictures every step of the way in hopes of building a solid portfolio while I’m on the road to shop around when I get back (or maybe also as I go. high-five, internet). Hopefully that works out. I figure life is too short not to follow your dreams and do what you love, so I’m going to try.
And so this is where things switch up a bit… This page is now moving into “Travel Journal” mode and will be used primarily to document my more notable adventures(/misadventures) throughout the course of my wandering. Pictures will, of course, be included.
Change is coming. I can see it on the horizon and I welcome it with open arms.
“These things you keep You’d better throw them away You wanna turn your back On your soulless days Once you were tethered But, now you are free That was the river And this is the sea.”
-The Waterboys
Its time to go. Wish me luck.
-Tyler
Closing a Chapter
I have now been in the US Navy for nearly 4 years. I lived in Japan for about 3 and a half of those. Now that I’ve left that country without expectation that I will ever return I can’t help but glance back in wonder over the entire experience. It can easily be very clearly divided into two sections. The Japan part, and the military part. The good and the bad. The video above obviously deals with the former.
I will, without doubt, miss Japan. Its quirks, its people, its cities, its landscape… It will have a special place in my heart for the rest of my life. It has played host to some of my best and worst moments. Joyus occasions, intense frustrations, perfect days and long heartaches. True, much happened to me over my time there. More than most know. More than I could explain to those that don’t. And I didn’t get to see absolutely everything I would have liked to, but I left more than satisfied with all I had been able to do. I walked countless miles along its streets exploring its cities, both new and old. I learned to fit cars into places I didn’t think physically possible and I was crammed into trains that I thought would burst at their bolted seams. I watched the cherry blossoms bloom and fall around temples built long before my own country. I tasted more kinds of sea life than I’d care to recount. I skiied its mountains in the winter, I surfed its oceans in the summer and I watched the sunrise from its highest peak. Indeed, when reading these summarized memories my time there seems to have been quite nice, adventurous even. And parts of it were, but unfortunately these parts were a minority… Small points of light scattered in darkness.
In truth the majority of my time there was spent behind a computer, working 12 hour shifts, relentlessly switching from days to nights every two weeks. A menial a job where, in the course of my day and in all of my work, I accomplished close to nothing while serving a government and system that I have come to truly despise. When not at work, the immediate environment in which I found myself reminded me of a twisted, unbearable, version of highschool with immaturity, ignorance and hypocrisy reigning supreme. If I have learned one thing from all of this, it is that I do not belong anywhere near, much less in, the US military and that I cannot put it in my rear-view fast enough. And nothing confirms this more than the treatment I am now receiving as I finally check out of the Navy at a base in Washington State. I served my 4 years honorably and I did so better than most… yet now as I am on my way out the door I am treated with a certain harshness as if I have done something wrong. The people in charge here make it feel as though I am being punished for leaving the Navy, a slap in the face in return for a fulfilled four year commitment. Should I really have expected anything different?
None of this really matters though, because in a week’s time it will all just be a confusing memory. Despite all of my gripes and bitterness I am more anxious than anything else. Anxious for this coming Friday (or Monday) when I will sign the piece of paper that makes me a civilian and sends me speeding back towards the place where this began. Anxious to spend time reconnecting with the people I have missed so much. Anxious to move on and begin to really live my life. This chapter is closing, the last page is nearly turned and I don’t know what lies in the pages ahead, but I get the feeling that its going to be very, very good. I have much to look forward to and, as usual, I know a song that says it much better than I ever could:
“Its a new dawnIts a new day
Its a new life
for me And I’m feelin’ good.”
-Nina Simone