Maybe surrounded by a million people I still feel alone. I just wanna go home
March 4, 2004. This was a very interesting day in my life, and, to be honest, one of the longest days. Actually not the longest, literally, as that was the next day of my life, March 5, 2004. March 4 lasted the requisite 24 hours, whereas in my world, March 5 was about 36 hours long. Literally. See, on March 5, 2004, I took a plane from Bangkok to Korea and from Korea to Chicago and from Chicago to Pittsburgh. And the date never changed, even though I traveled about 26 hours, and still had 7 ½ hours of the day left when I finally arrived in Pittsburgh. But March 4 was a lot of travel on ground and sea to get to the air travel.
I started out on March 4 on the isle of Koh Mak in the Gulf of Thailand. I woke up early, about 5:30 am, and made sure I was packed. Then I spent an hour walking around the beach, watching all the travelers who were leaving before me, just taking it all in. Then Eltee & I took the truck to the pier, where we took a 2 hour ferry ride across the gulf to the port. From there, we took a 30 minute ride to Trat in a tsongtau, which is a pick-up truck with two benches on it, and many people hanging out the back (I also saw school kids sitting on top of a very full tsongtau the week prior.) From there, Eltee & I had lunch, and I finished the last of my shopping, and I was taking everything in I could, as I knew I wouldn’t be back to Thailand for a while. Then Eltee saw me onto my bus and we parted ways.
It was weird, as it was the first time I’d seen Eltee outside of Edmonton. I had known him for 6 years, but always for one week in Edmonton during the year, and then e-mails the rest of the year. And here we were, a different continent from where we were both from, parting after two weeks together, and it was very cool to realize that I had such a good friend, a man who was willing to be my tour guide, translator (limited) and even procured my room before I showed up. That makes Eltee incredibly awesome in my book. I don’t think I can explain it without sounding like some goofy fuckwad, so I won’t. And I don’t think he reads this anyway, so it’s not like I’m ass kissing. Eltee wouldn’t care anyway, so ass kissing probably wouldn’t work with him. I was thinking of how great the previous 2 weeks had been for me. I did this for the first few miles of the trip. And then I noticed the guy who was in the seat next to me.
A tall skinny guy in those baggy, multi-pocketed shorts that had been repaired may times by at least three different colors of thread. And glasses. And a huge Adam’s apple. And hairy, muscular legs. And I thought he was HOT! Oh, and when I started talking to him, he was British, which just seemed to make him hotter.
I figured we had a 6 hour bus ride (it turned into almost 8 with the traffic once we got near Bangkok) so I might as well engage him in conversation. He was from England but had gone to Australia to work 3 years prior, and after working for a few months, decided he didn’t want to do that for a living, so he decided to travel in Southeast Asia. Sometimes he’d go back to Australia to work construction for a few months, then head back out on the road. He said he loved hiking (explained the nice legs) and traveling and drinking. And I thought the whole time he was telling me of his trips “I love traveling and I love drinking, how come I don’t do this?”
He had the courage to leave what sounded to me like a nice life in England, where he seemed to be from middle income family, and has lived on his own in completely foreign countries, not even like just going to Australia or Canada or the USA where we speak the same language. He has traveled through Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, all through Southeast Asia, and even got up to Korea once. He showed me pictures on his digital camera of his trips (one was a quick video of him and a friend throwing a grenade in Cambodia where I guess more well-to-do Westerners with expendable income can pay to do that.) And he had CD’s filled with these pictures that he said he’d one day show his kids and grandkids.
And I kept thinking of how different people react to different life situations. He kept talking about the things he’d seen, and we talked for hours on the trip and got to know each other. He had what he considered a girlfriend in Bangkok (where he complained about how he brought his condoms in from Australia as the Thai condoms were, of course, too small. I never found that out on my own, but OK, good to know.) I found it a fascinating ride, but as the trip went on and on, I found myself becoming jealous.
And it isn’t that I wanted his life specifically. I didn’t want to drop out and just travel through Southeast Asia for 3 or 4 years. I didn’t want to own 2 pair of shorts, and have to keep repairing them to save money. I didn’t want to be thousands of miles away from home all the time. And this is where I sound like an idiot.
I wanted to feel like it was a possibility that I could do it, like I could’ve said throughout this trip “Yeah, I considered dropping out and just following my own wanderlust, but I decided to become a lackey for the insurance industry for shits and giggles,” and deep down, I knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t do any of it.
Two weeks away from home seems to be my limit, maybe three weeks at one time, but I want to come home and curl into the same bed and prepare my own food and see my family and pet my cats and have choices on what clothes I was going to wear that day, not just choose which pair of shorts from the two pair I owned were clean enough for that day.
Even my friend Eltee. He tells me about how sometime in the 90’s, when he was in his mid 40’s, he got off the plane from teaching in Asia for many years and decided he wasn’t going to work anymore. And he doesn’t anymore. He has pared down his life to the necessities with few extras thrown in, but it really looks like he has beat the system and doesn’t work. And he spends 5+ months every year in Southeast Asia. And no real job.
I can’t imagine a time when I won’t be working. I don’t have the courage to live more on the edge. Now, if something should happen and I lose my job, I will go out and find a new one. And I will try to make ends meet. I don’t think I could ever just say “Fuck it” and try to live job to job while traveling in a foreign country.
And the more I think about that part, it is just a part of me. I grew up poor, and I never want to be poor. I bought a home last year about 3 miles from where I was born, though the hospital I was born in is no longer in existence. My parents live less than a mile away, my sister lives about 4 miles away, my second job is where I work with my mother and my nephew.
And I wonder if I am just gutless or cowardly. Or, worse yet, settled and old.
I started out on March 4 on the isle of Koh Mak in the Gulf of Thailand. I woke up early, about 5:30 am, and made sure I was packed. Then I spent an hour walking around the beach, watching all the travelers who were leaving before me, just taking it all in. Then Eltee & I took the truck to the pier, where we took a 2 hour ferry ride across the gulf to the port. From there, we took a 30 minute ride to Trat in a tsongtau, which is a pick-up truck with two benches on it, and many people hanging out the back (I also saw school kids sitting on top of a very full tsongtau the week prior.) From there, Eltee & I had lunch, and I finished the last of my shopping, and I was taking everything in I could, as I knew I wouldn’t be back to Thailand for a while. Then Eltee saw me onto my bus and we parted ways.
It was weird, as it was the first time I’d seen Eltee outside of Edmonton. I had known him for 6 years, but always for one week in Edmonton during the year, and then e-mails the rest of the year. And here we were, a different continent from where we were both from, parting after two weeks together, and it was very cool to realize that I had such a good friend, a man who was willing to be my tour guide, translator (limited) and even procured my room before I showed up. That makes Eltee incredibly awesome in my book. I don’t think I can explain it without sounding like some goofy fuckwad, so I won’t. And I don’t think he reads this anyway, so it’s not like I’m ass kissing. Eltee wouldn’t care anyway, so ass kissing probably wouldn’t work with him. I was thinking of how great the previous 2 weeks had been for me. I did this for the first few miles of the trip. And then I noticed the guy who was in the seat next to me.
A tall skinny guy in those baggy, multi-pocketed shorts that had been repaired may times by at least three different colors of thread. And glasses. And a huge Adam’s apple. And hairy, muscular legs. And I thought he was HOT! Oh, and when I started talking to him, he was British, which just seemed to make him hotter.
I figured we had a 6 hour bus ride (it turned into almost 8 with the traffic once we got near Bangkok) so I might as well engage him in conversation. He was from England but had gone to Australia to work 3 years prior, and after working for a few months, decided he didn’t want to do that for a living, so he decided to travel in Southeast Asia. Sometimes he’d go back to Australia to work construction for a few months, then head back out on the road. He said he loved hiking (explained the nice legs) and traveling and drinking. And I thought the whole time he was telling me of his trips “I love traveling and I love drinking, how come I don’t do this?”
He had the courage to leave what sounded to me like a nice life in England, where he seemed to be from middle income family, and has lived on his own in completely foreign countries, not even like just going to Australia or Canada or the USA where we speak the same language. He has traveled through Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, all through Southeast Asia, and even got up to Korea once. He showed me pictures on his digital camera of his trips (one was a quick video of him and a friend throwing a grenade in Cambodia where I guess more well-to-do Westerners with expendable income can pay to do that.) And he had CD’s filled with these pictures that he said he’d one day show his kids and grandkids.
And I kept thinking of how different people react to different life situations. He kept talking about the things he’d seen, and we talked for hours on the trip and got to know each other. He had what he considered a girlfriend in Bangkok (where he complained about how he brought his condoms in from Australia as the Thai condoms were, of course, too small. I never found that out on my own, but OK, good to know.) I found it a fascinating ride, but as the trip went on and on, I found myself becoming jealous.
And it isn’t that I wanted his life specifically. I didn’t want to drop out and just travel through Southeast Asia for 3 or 4 years. I didn’t want to own 2 pair of shorts, and have to keep repairing them to save money. I didn’t want to be thousands of miles away from home all the time. And this is where I sound like an idiot.
I wanted to feel like it was a possibility that I could do it, like I could’ve said throughout this trip “Yeah, I considered dropping out and just following my own wanderlust, but I decided to become a lackey for the insurance industry for shits and giggles,” and deep down, I knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t do any of it.
Two weeks away from home seems to be my limit, maybe three weeks at one time, but I want to come home and curl into the same bed and prepare my own food and see my family and pet my cats and have choices on what clothes I was going to wear that day, not just choose which pair of shorts from the two pair I owned were clean enough for that day.
Even my friend Eltee. He tells me about how sometime in the 90’s, when he was in his mid 40’s, he got off the plane from teaching in Asia for many years and decided he wasn’t going to work anymore. And he doesn’t anymore. He has pared down his life to the necessities with few extras thrown in, but it really looks like he has beat the system and doesn’t work. And he spends 5+ months every year in Southeast Asia. And no real job.
I can’t imagine a time when I won’t be working. I don’t have the courage to live more on the edge. Now, if something should happen and I lose my job, I will go out and find a new one. And I will try to make ends meet. I don’t think I could ever just say “Fuck it” and try to live job to job while traveling in a foreign country.
And the more I think about that part, it is just a part of me. I grew up poor, and I never want to be poor. I bought a home last year about 3 miles from where I was born, though the hospital I was born in is no longer in existence. My parents live less than a mile away, my sister lives about 4 miles away, my second job is where I work with my mother and my nephew.
And I wonder if I am just gutless or cowardly. Or, worse yet, settled and old.
posted by Mike at 2:09 PM
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