Month: July 2009

For the last three years, it has been interesting to tell people that asked (in Egypt and elsewhere we have traveled) that we are from the USA.

We have received a lot of

America good, Bush bad.

And then Obama won and it was

Obama good man, muslim!

So that was fun.

Now traveling, the questions in Southeast Asia are a little different.

How old are you?

How many children do you have

Which are a little odd..

And then there is the

Where are you from

Now here, the response from that we are from the US elicits a desire on the part of the questioner to discuss everything they “know” about the US. Which, while more than the average American knows about SE Asia, is still limited to what they have seen on TV.

Which means either the movies, or the news.

[I am not even going to talk about the whole “Washington D.C. vs Washington state, oh there is 2 of them” bit. Nope.]

I have been asked if I have guns. [my usual reply is “not with me, they are in the hotel safe” which always make people a little nervous]

If I have a harley (sigh). Or if I have a horse. We usually tell people we live “near California” and then they talk about Hollywood stars and the latest “happenings” in that sphere of influence. [Which we never followed when we were in the US..]

The most recent discussion was about Mexico and how there are all these terrible drug problems and the fighting between the militias and the police and how all the killings are terrible.

[This discussion took place in Cambodia, literally across the street from the Tuol Sleng prison. And where I had, moments before, been offered marijuana and opium.]

He wanted to talk all about America. Which is fine up to a point. The first dozen or so times it happens in a day. But after spending a day visiting the Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng prison, we had ducked into a shady garden restaurant to give our battered psyches a chance to recover from what we had seen that day.

After we extricated ourselves from the discussion, probably a little rudely, we decided that the next time we were asked we would tell people we were from Canada. Toronto is asked.

Nobody really wants to talk to Canadians.

So we have purchased some stuff to take home. Tshirts, small wall textiles, and some clothes we had made in Hoi An.

It was approx 7.5 kilos in weight.

So we had a dialog with the nice folks at the front desk of our hotel:

Is the post office open today? (it is saturday)

Yes until 9pm.

Is it far from here.

Oh no, only about 2 minutes by scooter.

Oh. We are walking, can you give us directions.

Oh no! You wait here. we call them, they come here.

That had to be repeated before I grokked in fullness.

They called the post office and we went upstairs to gather up the booty to be shipped home.

About 10 minutes later, two women pulled up on a scooter. They had boxes, bubble wrap, tape, a post office scale, forms and bar code stickers.

They gave us the forms to fill out to itemize the shipment and shipping labels.

She wrapped it all up and cut a box to size, taped it all up.

Pulled out a full size desktop scale, and weighed.

We paid them, they put barcode stickers on all copies of the forms (carbon paper!) and on the box and our receipt.

And they bundled everything up and rode off on their scooter, our box under an arm.

Elapsed time from the time the desk called to the time they pulled away: 30 minutes.

Gotta love it.

We are about half way through our vacation. It has been a lot of fun and challenges.

The challenges revolve around the weather. It has been very warm and humid. The heat we are used to. It is hotter on a regular basis in Cairo, but this humidity it a killer. The worst yet was 98degF with 80% humidity.

We decided against 2 side trips we were going to do: Halong bay and the Mekong delta tours because of heavy rains. It isn’t raining all day, but it is raining hard for a good 2-4 hours/day every day.

And kaddee and I have each had “a day”. A day where one or the other of us was just out of it from the heat/humidity and just sat around drinking water and staring slack jawed into space.

But this post is really a reminder of the “half way home” thoughts.

Most vacations, even longer ones, are different than this one. At the end of most vacations, you go home to your normal lives and pick up where you left off.

At the end of this vacation we are returning to seattle after being away for 3 years. There is much to look forward to at the end of this vacation.

• Good friends
• good beer
• Bacon
• “stuff” just works

But there is also much to dread. (you know me, mister happy sunshine)

• We both have to re-integrate into our jobs.
• We have to reintegrate into life in a “civilized” country.
• We have to buy furniture to re-fill our house.
• We have to buy a car.
• We have to get the motorcycles road worthy.
• We have to get auto/motorcycle insurance.
• We have to make the rounds of the doctors (dentists, dermatalogists etc).
• We have to unpack our shipment within 7 days of its arrival (in order to make any claims for damages/loss).
• We have to relearn how to drive.
• We have to relearn how to shop. (what do you mean I can get everything in one store? What do you mean the prices are negotiable?)

So as I contemplate the half way mark, I look forward to the end. And I dread it.