Stop Press!

Trying to finish Cyprus trip. Four new videos uploaded into previous posts.

After trotting around Southeast Asia over the summer, I'm now back in the UK - Cambridge to be exact. Am trying my best to update as frequently as my clinical course will allow.

Entries on Italy and France two winters ago have been put on hold indefinitely. Read: possibly never. But we shall see.

Entries on Greece and Turkey last winter have also been put on hold for the time being.

Posted:
Don Det (Laos), Don Khone

Places yet to blog about:
Ban Nakasang, Champasak, Pakse, Tha Kaek, Vientienne, Vang Vien, Ban Phoudindaeng, Luang Prabang, Khon Kaen (Thailand), Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), London (England), Cambridge

Friday 30 July 2010

Guatemala was

nice. I'm writing this almost a week after to avoid the influence of exhaustion and disappointment but this is the best I can come up with. Even I'm surprised!

I realize that making weekend excursions - even three- or four-day ones - simply isn't economical: you spend most of your time getting to and from a place. The limited budget hasn't helped either.

Then there are the tourists. And with them come the tourist commodities, the raised prices as well as the touts. It seemed as if Guatemala was very touristy although the places I visited were hardly off-the-beaten-track.

It's weird though because I was really looking forward to going somewhere touristy: I was dying for a decent conversation in English. And when it was just two people, I'd willingly strike up a conversation. But any more than that, I tended to avoid them. It's something I'm still struggling to understand about myself. And so, I found myself wanting to leave a place as soon as I'd gotten there.

Then again, there have been moments when I've been at ease with everything around me. For example sitting in a bus full of locals and watching the sights play on the windows. Or waiting for a bus at the square of a transit town and letting the sounds and noises wash over me. Or simply being out and about Antigua and Santiago de Atitlan at 6:00 am. That's when the world comes alive with a distinct clarity that makes me feel thankful to be alive.

And that is how, I suppose, Guatemala is nice.

Tuesday 13 July 2010

$2.66

It is now 6:30 pm on Tuesday, the 13th of July and I have just returned home (having missed the stop at San Luis on the way back from Terminal de Occidente and having to follow the bus on its route back). I started with $100. Now, I only have $2.66 to last me till tomorrow when I can get more cash from the bank.

I believe I left the house at 7:30 am on Saturday the 10th and since then, I have been to La Palma, San Ignacio and El Poy in El Salvador as well as Nueva Ocotopeque, La Entrada and Copan Ruinas in Honduras.

It was just this morning I was breathing in the clean fresh air of Cerro El Pital, the highest peak in El Salvador and shaking from the cold at that altitude. Now I'm back in this furnace that is San Salvador; breathing in the fumes of its clogged up roads.

Sunday 11 July 2010

Chase

Chase and I stayed up late into the night talking. He was a 25 year-old Mormon who had done two years of missionary work in Mexico. I was interested in Mormonism: its faith, the lifestyle and what it was like to do missionary work.

During his stint in Mexico, he became disillusioned with his faith: he began to think (thinking tends to do that), disagreed with Scripture, tried to reconcile it with his own beliefs on how religion should really be, and failed. The Guilt Factor (the Trump Card of religion) didn't help very much either.

But when you think about it, morality - this notion of Good and Evil - becomes subjective; changing on a case-by-case basis. So what I think is Right or Wrong may very well be different from what you think is Right or Wrong; deing dependent on upbringing and education as well as culture and beliefs.

So now, he's trying to start afresh. But how does one turn his back on something that his entire life has been built on? His family, his social circle, his upbringing, his values and lifestyle. Then again, now that I think about it, sure, it might be difficult; but hardly impossible - look where I'm at now.

Of the many things we spoke of, one other thing made me think and that was his take on death. Although his approach is similar to mine, he deconstructs the emotions surrounding death into two: what I call the 'loss' and 'miss' emotions. And whilst I don't feel the former, I certainly do the latter and this has put into words what I've been trying to do since I started thinking about it.

Thursday 8 July 2010

Big 'G'

No water again today - that's twice in two weeks. Possibly even more, given that I've always showered at 7:00 am and on both occasions, I showered late - today, after I'd done my laundry (for which there was still water). That's twice I've had to bathe outside at the stone basin - I had some leftover water from the washing.

***
Before we had a maid, mother used to send me to a babysitter: Mrs. Lie (most likely Lai) I think her name was. I have only this one memory of it so it must've been some time way back. As far as I can remember, we've always had a maid; but this must've been whilst I was still in kindergarten.

I always had to bathe outside. When the heat of the day gave way to the cool of the evening, her son would lead me outside to a walled-in part of the frontyard. I would undress; he would hose me down and soap me up (in a non-homoerotic way).

And then we would play this game of his (I think he came up with it): he would turn me around to face the wall with my back to him. And as I stared at the punched-out floral motifs of the white wall, he would write alphabets on my soapy back. And under the gentle evening sun, I'd have to guess if it was a "big 'G'" or a "small 'a'".

That's where the memory ends.
***

Of course, there are many interesting aspects about this memory and its significance. For one, why was I never allowed to bathe upstairs? Does it say anything about our different social status?

But what I'm most intrigued by is *why* this memory? They say we remember events that are emotionally charged but the funny thing is, I can't even conjure up the emotion that is associated with it.

So why this memory?