Reflections on My SE Asia Diary

from a cafe in Kuala Lumpur

In 6 months in SE Asia, I was determined to write every single day.

No exceptions. I didn’t realize how ambitious my goal was until I began the trip. Finding time to write was not the biggest challenge. There was plenty of time on buses, trains, waiting for flights, and at the end of a long day on the bed of my hotel room. After all, I didn’t work. I wasn’t studying. Time was all I had.

But it was so incredibly difficult to write.

Why?

Because I didn’t know what to say. I would sit in front of my laptop and completely blank. It wasn’t a matter of writing for the public, it was about writing for myself. I always hoped to have something thoughtful  and profound, but many days nothing would inspire me.

Still, I know it would be a great waste if I didn’t keep a consistent diary abroad, so I decided to change my tactic. Instead of sitting down to write a “diary” entry, I began intervening myself.

“Describe where you are,” was the first prompt. I as not in the same place every day. Even when I was, the place was always different with new people, new music, new conversations, and new sunlight. It was never the same place as the day before.

At first this seemed tedious. After all, I can just takes pictures of the place and have a visual record that will last longer than memory. But the camera cannot hear, cannot smell, cannot feel. My descriptions are more valuable than my photos because my own experiences inform them.

In Vietnam I wrote that the winter sky was the “Hanoi sky was a sunless grey, the color of a pearl, the color of the inside of an oyster shell.”

In Malaysia I wrote that Penang’s sudden rain showers “sounded like a burst of applause from an eager audience.” I wrote that the low cloud of Kuching “seemed to drop on the city like a theater curtain.”

After descriptions, the next prompt I would give myself was this: “Tell me how you feel.” I wrote in my diary, “forgetting starts when the feeling stops.”

Thinking about, and then writing out my feelings at that precise moment was a way of bringing myself into the present. First I built awareness of my surroundings in the descriptions, then I built awareness of myself. The feelings did not need to be profound, sometimes – oftentimes – they were just rants of any present frustrations.

“I am always too hot, too tired, or too busy to connect with my feelings.

Distraction. Stimulation. Disorientation,” I wrote from Bali, on the fifth day or travel

“I don’t think I am a failed traveler just because I'm getting melancholy on this trip. Just like I wasn’t a failed ex-pat when I got melancholy in Japan. Perhaps my only real mistake is that I didn’t expect this,” I wrote from a café in Bangkok.

This approaches work, and with the exception of only a few days, I was able to write every something every single day in Asia. Now that I’ve covered the qualitative analysis of my writing pattern in Asia, I would also like to look at some metrics. Here are some curious statistics I’ve uncovered:

Total number of words: 103,173

Average entry: 819 words

Longest entry:

11/27 Chiang Mai, Thailand  at 2,406 words

That day I wrote 3 times, beginning just after midnight at 12:03am, then again from a café at 1:10pm, and from another café 9:07pm. It was a big long philosophical rant about my life.

11/2 Yangon, Myanmar 2,255 words

The second runner up was in Yangon, where I dictated my descriptions from the train into my iphone. The train was far too shaky for me to write, so I spoke my diary entry into my phone and transcribed them into my diary while on a boat in another part of Myanmar.

Shortest entry:

10/23 Hua Hin, Thailand at 65 words

I had a small breakdown in Hua Hin, where I felt the most depressed and miserable I had since the trip started – and I wasn’t even a month into it!

The entry in its entirety:

“On a short vacation, I can reflect on what I experienced once I go home. But here, moving from place to place, I am tired.  I can’t reflect on the last place because I am trying to absorb the current place.

As my mom would say,

‘Put the roast in the oven, lite a cigarette and stare at the sink.’

That’s how I feel now. “

I wrote the most in border crossings from Thailand to Laos – specifically Chiang Rai (1518) and Houay Xai (1211). In both cases, I was only in each place for one day waiting for the next mode of transportation to take me to my next place.

A close runner up was again Yangon,  Myanmar where I wrote an average of 1,052 words per day. That city inspired me so much, I never had a shortage of things to say about it.

I wrote the least in Jahor Bahru, another border crossing taking me from Singapore into Malaysia. I wrote precisely 0 words in Jahor Bahu and I remember detesting it and being eager to get out.

As close runner up was the city of Mandalay in Myanmar, where I wrote only 221 words per day because I got sick and felt depressed. 

Honestly, when I analyzed these statistics they surprised me. I had thought expected Chaing Mai to be the place I wrote the most per day since I returned there for a month at the end of my trip for the express purpose of writing. I was also surprised by the average length of my entries. Apparently I did have a lot to say about my surrounding and my feelings. In memory, my diary was just a long ramble of useless thoughts and observations, but when I went to re-read it, two years after travel, I was struck by its poignancy and specificity. Most of the entries read like a narrative, shifting between external and internal observations.

This diary has been pure gold to me. It my favorite and most valuable souvenir. It’s depth and breadth far outweigh anything captured by my photographs or other archiving techniques.

Lessons Learned: Post-Travel Reflections

After spending 6 months in SE Asia, I learned a lot about myself as a traveler and as a person. Some things I anticipated, others were a surprise. I have a few regrets, but I don’t dwell on them. There are many things I would have done differently, but the only way I would have known to do them differently is to possess the information I have now. Overall, I did a lot of things right, and a few things wrong, but here is what I learned the way I travel.

I need to be in a city. And not just any city. The city must have these three elements:

1. Options

If a place is too small or limiting, I get nervous. In smaller towns in Vietnam, I could find no place to buy a latte – only Vietnamese coffee. That bothered me. There were many places in Myanmar where food options where limited to basically local cafes or expensive Western restaurants, and that bothered me.

2. A solid middle class

Any place with only extreme poverty and wealth is not a comfortable place for me to be. I grew up poor in America, but that doesn’t compare to the poverty in Asia. I am not able to live like a poor local  in Asia or even a thrifty backpacker.  At the same time, I am uncomfortable being served and catered to. I don’t want doors held open for me, I don’t want to be called ma’am, I don’t want to be treated as superior simply because I have money. In these societies, I occupy an ambiguous space being that I am neither poor like the local people, but not rich like the wealthy elite.

3. Jobs that don't revolve around the tourism industry

In Luang Prabang, I felt like just about every Lao person in that town was there to make money from me. Their livelihood depended upon me buying souvenirs from them, getting rides from them, paying them to see their temples and use their bathrooms. I hate feeling like a walking wallet. Contrast this to the capital of Vientiane, where a number of local people make their living from trade, banking, real estate, business ventures, etc. They don’t care how I chose to spend my money on a daily basis, and I like this. 

Overall, I don’t like tourist towns  such as Luang Prabang,  Laos; Hoi An, Vietnam; Ubud, Bali; Hua Hin, Thailand; and Bagan, Myanmar. These places feel like recreations of something that was once authentically beautiful, like the beauty of these places has been preserved in plastic and wrapped into  something pocketable. There is no authentic way to experience it, because the place itself is not authentic.

I am not staying in hotels anymore. Only apartments. If I am to stay anywhere longer than two nights, it’s worth it to find a good apartment. I need my own space. I need privacy. I dread the knock of the hotel maid in the morning, and having to leave my key at the reception desk. Having the hotel staff try to sell me day tours and ask where I'm going. No more!

I never want to hop from city to city again. I want to stay in one place for a least a few weeks before moving on. This makes shorts trips more difficult, but it’s worth it. I never get much from being in a place only a few days. 5-6 is my new minimum.

Regrets: What I would have done differently:

• I would have stayed 6 days in Seim Reap and 3 in Phnom Penh (6 days in Phnom Penh was far too long and 3 days in Siem Reap was far too short). I will probably have to go back to Siem Reap one day. I loved Angkor Park so much and there was still a lot I didn’t get to explore. I want to go during the rainy season, when there are less tourists and everything is lush and green. I won’t mind the rain. I'm from Portland.
• No days in Mandalay, Kuala Lumpur, Kuta, Hua Hin, or Hue. I hated those places.
• I could have done Bagan, Myanmar better. I slept in late everyday but the last day. I should have rented a horse carriage to take me to the major temples. I should have explored the old town more thoroughly.
• I wish I learned that the beach isn’t all about swimming. I didn’t figure out how fun it was to simply lounge on the beach and read a book, or walk down the shore at night, until I was in Nha Trang, Vietnam. If I had known this sooner, I would have enjoyed my time in Hua Hin, Thailand or Kuta, Bali more

Reliefs: What I would do exactly the same:

• Keeping a narrative diary and forcing myself to journal every day. The memories are all too fleeting. There is so much to experience and absorb each day and you will lose it quickly if you don't write it down. Most people these days rely on photographs to do the preserving, but a photograph cannot preserve your thoughts or feelings. Now a year post-travel, I have found myself turning to my SE Asia journal many times to relive my experiences. 
•  Advance planning and research. I am so glad I planned all of the major logistics before leaving. Wifi cannot be trusted and I saved a lot of time and stress knowing where I would stay and how I would get there well in advance. However, in terms of day-to-day planning, that’s not worth doing too far in advance, and I need to schedule in time to do research before each new city or country.
• Hauling my partner along. Not to diss the solo travelers - I also love traveling on my own, but now that I am happily coupled I think I would miss my significant other too much to go long without him. It was wonderful to have an extra set of eyes and ears to interpret our surroundings and debrief them. It was such a relief to have someone to talk to all the time, which is one thing I was so desperately missing in Japan.
• Packing lite. It really does make all the difference. I managed to refrain from buying so many things, and you know what - I don't regret it. My house is just as full without those objects collecting dust on the shelf. Because I had to carry my belongings for six months, I was so careful about what I bought. 

Overall this trip was an amazing learning experience. I'm not sure how I could have gained this insight without experience and let this be a lesson to myself in all future trips. 

The second time is better: Why we came back to Chiang Mai

Here’s the scene. We’re crouched down on small wooden stools eating off a coffee table where we are having pad thai and beer at one of our favorite restaurants in Chiang Mai. Though it is nearly midnight, the place is packed. Every seat is taken and the young couples standing along the walls are eyes the seated customers jealously. It takes a long time for our food to arrive at this place. That’s why we are here. While we slowly nurse to beers we stay heavily occupied with serious conversation.  

When my partner and I took off for 6 months in SE Asia, we only had 5 months planned. We assumed we would figure out the last month enroute. At the time of sitting on those wooden stools, we four months into our trip. The calendar just 30 days out was blank. To some people this would be exciting, but to obsessive planners like us, it was maddening.

At first we were going to go to India, but I had no time to plan that part of the trip before we left. Then once we were on we decided that we might want to return to our favorite place in SE Asia, or go somewhere different like New Zealand. But the cost of traveling to New Zealand would have been quadruple that of our entire trip to SE Asia, and we didn’t have any of the gear we needed to hike there. Then my partner had an epiphany:

“Let’s just come back to Thailand.”

By Thailand, he meant Chiang Mai. Not Bangkok. Not Phuket. Not island hopping or traveling around the country. Just coming back to Chiang Mai and staying put in one place for a long, long time.

Honestly, to me, it seemed boring as hell. I have a whole month to travel anywhere in the world. Why would I go back to a place I had already been? I wanted to go somewhere new. I wanted to have another adventure. But I also wanted a purpose. I also wanted to get shit done and work on my novel and blog. I also wanted to be in a place long enough to make friends. Long enough to bump into someone I know accidentally. Long enough to be recognized in a crowd. 

So we came back to Chiang Mai. It was easy. We knew the ropes at that point and didn't have to plan a thing. We took rock-climbing classes and photography workshops. We spent hours writing in cafes and trying new restaurants. It wasn't long until we started running in to people we knew on the streets, before we started hearing our names called from a crowd.

Funeral in Saigon

Outside my gate

I heard the funeral procession go by in the morning, just before the sun tore holes in the canopy of clouds and punctured us all with its searing gold rods of light. I didn’t know the person who died and I wasn’t supposed to. I had only moved to the neighborhood five days ago and knew not one thing beyond my four mint-colored walls. Only when the music and the voices breached my pale green box did I become aware of the outside world’s existence. 

That night there was music to signal the end of a three-day mourning period. The sounds of a brass band seeped through my thick curtains and when I went outside I found that the band was right down the alley beside my house. I  watched from a distance, standing near a graffiti-embellished tree. 

Apparently in Vietnam,  when a person dies a band of musicians is hired to play traditional funeral music for two days. The deceased person’s sons, daughters, and daughters-in-law  wear sheer white tunics and veils. The tunics cover the whole body, like giant bridal veils, though they reminded me more of the white burqas I saw in Pakistan. The deceased person’s other family members wear mourning turbans, which are pieces of white clothes tied around the head like a bandanna. Most people were wearing these. 

When I felt that I was lingering too long I began walking around the back alleys. I looked up at the purple Saigon sky and could make out the dim lights of Orion. So stars are visible in the city after all, I thought. The images I absorbed walking through that  alley after dark  still haunt me. Those stoic concrete walls, lit up in white light, with sky-purple draperies overheard, and the faint sound of funeral music wafting through the air, potent as a smell.  A woman eating a bowl of noodles in her kitchen, her silhouette framed by the edges of a glass-less window. Maybe these were the impressions Graham Greene had when he wrote about Saigon. Though they look different in the twenty-first century, they still exist.

- January 15, 2015