Summertime Storms

Vietnamese Summer Holiday kicks in at the beginning of June, and with it come hoards upon hoards of local tourists. Although our trips remain largely unaffected by the influx, the number of junk boats on the bay increases drastically. It’s always easy to spot those carrying Chinese and Vietnamese tourists– they’re marked by dozens of girls in strapless sundresses, wide straw hats and jeweled stilettos posing with selfie sticks while men wear swim shorts revealing way more upper leg than I ever wanted to see.

The entire atmosphere of the islands has changed. Motorbikes swarm the streets and propaganda blares from loudspeakers. Christmas music covered by children screams on repeat from mini-marts while carousels add ABC’s to the cacophony. Electric tour carts weave through crowds, carrying people who’ve elected not to walk home. Dozens of little plastic chairs pop up around tables filled with tacky U-paint plaster tigers and fire trucks. Ladies post up on corners with scales and massive baskets, selling lychees by the kilo.

The noise never stops.

Although the main influx of island tourists is Vietnamese, we also see a rise in Westerners. Many of them bring confirmation to the idea that travelers are, in essence, ambassadors for their countries. Although by working in the tourism industry I interact with a miniscule portion of a nation’s citizens, those individuals form my overall perception and opinion of their countrymen. Undoubtedly they influence my initial judgment and behavior toward those I work with in the future.

They teach me that people from some countries will generally be happy to hang out and talk, interested in why I’m here and what my passions are, treating me with respect for my abilities as a guide and my knowledge of the area where I live and work. These are the nationalities I enjoy seeing on my register when I enter the shop before a morning trip.

They teach me that people from one country will come off as self-entitled and arrogant, while those of another nation will without fail be high-maintenance and stingy. These are the people for whom I put up mental shields as soon as they walk into the office; who I expect to treat me as though I’m below them.

The atmosphere can be utterly overwhelming for an introvert like myself after a long day working around people. The refuge of home, just across the peninsula in Ben Beo Harbor, has become crucial. Here, I can lay back atop the roof on a slackline as generators shut down for the night in the bay, watching lightning flash overhead… and what a show it is.

Electric storms come two or three times a week now, preceded by choppy seas, massive swell, soaring temperatures and air so thick it feels like I breathe more water than oxygen. Thunderheads blot out stars, heralded by furious wind and blinding sheets of water. Lightning blazes through the sky every second or two for hours on end. Thunder peals and cracks, reverberating amongst islands, shaking buildings and shattering the world around me.

Late in July, the weather turns weird. Strong gusting wind one afternoon on the bay signals the arrival of a storm and we wrap the trip early. The boat crew cuts our engine every few meters as we top massive choppy swell after swell through the channel leading back to harbor. We ferry customers, guides and gear to land on basket boats through deepening dusk and rain so our big boat doesn’t crash and break against the pier.

For the next week life on the island comes to a standstill. The sea churns, water colored deep brown with sand and silt. Swell crashes into small islands, sending spray hundreds of feet into the sky to soar over jungle cliffs. Wind whips as rain batters trees and windows. Water cascades down hillsides, sweeping rocks and mud into gutters and overflowing into streets to obliterate new-laid pavement. Hillsides collapse, sloughing truck-size rocks into roads. Signs rip from trees and posts, branches sprawl across the waterfront and downed power lines lie coiled in puddles.

Transport to and from the island halts and the island empties of Vietnamese tourists as news comes of villages flooding, fishing boats flipping and people dying. As cranky Westerners come into the shop to gripe about delayed travel plans, statistics name the present storm as the heaviest rain in a condensed period in over forty years. Apparently, compared to the next province north, Cat Ba has had it easy.

When storms break, the bay calms once more. Sun shines and water settles, the sea’s surface turning glossy smooth. Waterfalls of runoff and seepage form veils amongst mineral tufas, tumbling from overhung rock into the sea. Wildlife re-emerges. In the cathedral of my favorite hidden lagoon up north, langurs appear to lounge amongst shrubbery and trees as they cling to plunging circular walls. Giant black and white owls swoop around us in circles before disappearing in the jungle and squirrels race down rock streaked black with moisture to feed on fresh vegetation as once again, new life begins emerges in the wake of sustained chaos.

Seven Days in July

Returning to Cat Ba is really, really hard. Ultimately a result of little things piling up, it’s the first time I’ve experienced culture shock on any scale since arriving in Southeast Asia.

The spiral begins at 3:00 in the morning in the KL airport. A Vietnamese lady pushing a trolley piled high with bags, three kids in tow, shoves ahead of me in the check-in line. The act highlights the stark difference between general demeanors I’ve encountered from strangers walking the streets of Malaysia and Vietnam. A simple courtesy and willingness to point me in the right direction from Malaysians stands strong against the blatant disregard I tend to receive from Vietnamese. My general invisibility lasts until someone wants something from me, at which point incessant hounding ensues with a selective deafness to the word “NO.”

Upon arrival in Hanoi I hand documents to the officials behind the airport’s visa counter and settle down to wait for my visa to be processed, printed and signed. A wait usually spanning 15 minutes stretches over two hours before I’m even able to step into the day’s hideously long immigration line.

I exit the airport and head toward a platform to catch a public bus into the city. A man shoes me toward a waiting van instead. “You go to hotel? I take you to hotel for five dollars!” A cab would set me back $25, and a bus/motorbike taxi would cost $3.50 with a lot more time and hassle. I bite.

I spend the next 30 minutes crunched into a minivan while our driver nabs more people than the vehicle has seats and crams luggage into every inch of space around us, effectively eliminating any time I might have saved by skipping the public bus.

___

The next morning I wake to catch a 5:20 bus, early enough to return to Cat Ba in time for my shift that aftenoon. I wander into the street in search of a motorbike taxi (xe om). A guy calls me over to his bike. “Where you go?” Luong Yen, I tell him. “What?” Luong Yen. Bus station. “Ahhhh, ok, ok, get on.”

I hold back. How much? Fifty thousand dong, he tells me.

Considering it’s still pretty stupid early in the morning I talk him down to 40,000 VND. Price agreed, he drives me 30 seconds’ ride. To a building surrounded by rail tracks. I’m not an idiot, this isn’t Luong Yen Bus Station, and I’m sure as hell not paying 40,000 VND for that. In case you hadn’t noticed, dear sir, this is a train station.

The xe-om driver calls over a guy from across the street. “Where you go?” he asks. Luong Yen Bus Station. The guy turns to my driver. “Luong Yen,” he says. I hear absolutely no difference between what this random Vietnamese guy has just said and the phrase I repeated over 20 times in the last ten minutes. My driver looks at me, throws his hands in the air and begins to curse.

He demands an extra charge when we arrive at the bus station. I hand him 40,000 VND and walk into Luong Yen.

Communication here can be so unbelievably frustrating at times– I learn how to say a word or phrase, spending hours practicing pronunciation. When I try to repeat it in context with a stranger I receive blank, uncomprehending looks. For the most part people simply don’t seem to care that I’ve attempted to learn the language. It’s a “what the hell, you’re an idiot” response that sometimes makes me wonder why I even try. The reaction is worlds away from the cranky ladies in KL bazaars whose entire demeanor changed to surprised smiles tinged with pride when I began throwing out numbers in Malay. (Given, even I was surprised I knew those numbers, but that’s beside the point.)

____

The journey to Cat Ba is, as usual, overfilled. As usual, it’s full of people yammering at each other and talking at full-volume into cell phones. And, as usual, women and girls my age rush to cram onto the next bus at transfers, utilizing knockoff handbags to save seats for friends.

What are we, in kindergarten?

I return to a different community than I left. From a company of 15 employees, three have moved on from Cat Ba Island while I was away. Ross, our previous bookings manager whose role I’m now filling, has left with a former staff member and volunteer to travel Vietnam by motorbike before continuing to Australia.

And Liz is gone. Liz, who, during her short tenure on staff, I connected with like two or three other people in my life. Our easy camaraderie drew on parallel personalities and backgrounds coupled with willingness to acknowledge the more negative sides of our human selves to each other, even as together we reveled in shared and individual triumphs.

Liz, whose odd background and perspective, like mine, mixes meandering dirtbag climber with a clear view forward. Liz, who belayed me with the uttermost patient support, my life in her hands as I navigated one of the scariest pitches I remember. Liz, who threw me straight back to high school as we edited each others’ blogs, opening pieces of our souls to each other for commentary. Liz, with whom I shared long and passionate discussions about trust and judgment in climbing and pretty much every other aspect of life, unafraid to stand up for herself or voice her beliefs and stand firmly behind them.

Liz, with whom I sang along to Taylor Swift and traded chick flicks after work, and with whom I shared insecurities and frustrations and failures and triumphs and dreams. Liz’s departure wrenches me harder than anyone who’s come through the island, again demonstrating in stark clarity the transient lifestyle of everyone whose path I cross. Were I too traveling, the situation would feel natural. Instead I feel like I'm trapped in an eddy as I watch travelers come and continue on, leaving me behind over and over and over again.

On top of everything new, I’ve been absolutely stir-crazy since I woke one morning a month ago with a massively swollen elbow after a particularly hairy kayak shift. The slow healing process has kept me off rock and rope since that day and the situation is making me cranky as all getup.

And, I realize, I desperately miss big mountains. The type where you reach the top and look around, and all you see is snow and ice and rock and trees. The Church of Higher Elevation, a good friend called them. I miss letting my soul soar.

I return to work with apathy. I’ve managed to pick up some sort of virus on the bus from Hanoi, sapping any energy I might have retained traveling back from Malaysia. It amplifies everything I feel, leaving me emotionally spent and utterly uncaring, wanting to be somewhere– anywhere– but here. In all honesty I’m ready to call it. My commitment to see the year through currently stands as the only factor holding me in Cat Ba.

I have a long chat with Chris, my manager, a couple days later. It’s more of a monologue on his side, delivered from personal experience with compassion and empathy while I stare at my pillow. Somehow he manages to hit on every crazed and over-exaggerated emotion I’ve felt in the past three days. He points out why we’re here, how I’ve grown and the people I still have. He lays out potential paths moving forward. Most importantly he emphasizes, contract or not, if I truly want to leave he will not keep me here.

I spend the majority of the following hour crying into Chris’s arms.

I wake the next day feeling better about things as a whole, beginning to break down walls I’ve built between myself and my coworkers and the world around me since my return from Malaysia. I find focus in beginning to connect with new staff members and getting my feet back under me, once again picking up agent bookings and contracts and custom trips and inflation rates and projections and everything else that keeps my mind busy.

A week after flying in, I return to Hanoi in higher spirits. I freak out a bit when the driver of my minibus decides on a whim he doesn’t feel like finishing his route, dropping me on the side of a road an hour from the city amongst no one with whom I can communicate. I take a breath and locate a city bus stop, and some time later I arrive at Luong Yen Bus Station once more.

Time Travel in a Modern World

My second visa run lands me in Kuala Lumpur, the visually striking capital of SE Asia’s first real trade center. Time-worn architecture sits next to colonial Dutch buildings, which in turn give way to the most modern posh highrises, across the street from cramped, low-budget concrete housing. Although most of peninsular Malaysia has been sown with palm plantations, KL is astonishingly green– patches of jungle fill city parks, line high-speed railways and blanket hillsides.

I enter a world of traffic signage and signals, well-maintained roads, ubiquitous coffee shops, megamalls and fast food. The airport contains a mall (or several). KL Sentral, the city’s main transit hub amongst several varieties of train and dozens of bus lines, contains a modern mall– situated beneath the train’s elevated tracks– and a direct connection through to yet another. I drink fancy Starbucks coffee with relish and scan railway tokens and cards with computer chips for the first time in well over a year.

It’s astonishingly comforting to find myself surrounded by a phonetic language for the first time since leaving home. Even though I don’t understand people around me, I can read signs and pronounce words correctly. I pick up phrases without worrying that intonation will change simple food into derogatory curses, a few syllables allowing me to connect more easily with strangers on the street than I have in months.

As I wander into Bazaars throughout my few days in KL, I realize that I understand what people are saying around me. Although I’ve trained martial arts based in the region at home and used Indonesian words and phrases for over a decade, I never expected the languages to be so similar. In a way, it feels oddly like an unexpected visit home.

I think Malaysia is also the first predominantly Muslim country I’ve visited. The vast majority of women wear headscarves. Almost every restaurant I enter is Halal certified. I never encounter pork on menus or in street food. Instead of Vietnam’s political propaganda, prayers sound five times daily from loudspeakers located throughout the city. Commuter trains have “Ladies- only” coaches and the more religious men I encounter take care not to touch me.

As a whole, everyone I meet is overwhelmingly kind and eager to point me in the right direction. I think it’s a testament to human character, that such overreaching kindness can hold prevalent in a country rife with racial tension. For a place known worldwide as a cultural mixing pot, tension certainly runs throughout– between Muslims and Christians, ethnic Malaysians and Indians… For the most part, people seem to largely not care that I’m Jewish. It’s somewhat surprising, given that Israelis aren’t even allowed into the country and Judaism has been all but obliterated within Malaysia’s borders. One of my cousin Gideon’s friends mentions stumbling unintentionally into an underground Jewish community of sorts after spotting a menorah in a shop window. Apparently the people she met were guarded at best and surprised she understood the object’s significance.

Terence, a friend of Gideon’s through his life coaching program and former competitive climber, welcomes me into his apartment while I’m in the city. My first evening we drive to the city center and step into the Central Market, a hub of regional handicrafts and souvenir trinkets by day, all but deserted by night. We wander halls laid with 19^th-century tile, stopping to dip my feet into a tank of tiny minnows that rush to the task of nibbling off dead skin. We emerge into an alley of historic Dutch buildings, weathered facades housing such modern entities as KFC and Canon.

We stop to sample skewers of lamb, beef and chicken with peanut sauce, and at Gideon’s insistence– Whatsapp has him throwing suggestions to Terence from DC in real time– I manage to swallow a few bites of durian. While jackfruit’s little brother with the texture of spreadable cheese and the taste of rotten sulfur may be one of Gideon’s favorites, I’m more than happy to toss the pit and declare “Been there, done that.”

We duck into Petaling Street, KL’s Chinatown night market, where men roast chestnuts by the barrel and I sample tofu soup and fried noodles under rows upon rows of glowing red lanterns.

Before heading back to Terence’s place we swing into downtown, passing the KL Communications Tower and the city’s twin towers, glass tiers lit and blazing into the night sky above rows of palm trees in front of a full moon.

The next day I wander. I take a train into the middle of the city, crossing the river on a pedestrian skybridge that lands me in the old train station. Still utilized as a commuter station today, the building’s white latticed windows, spiral staircases and towers present a classic convergence of Dutch and Muslim architecture as they stand stark against the gray glass of KL’s surrounding highrises.

I cross through a tunnel and follow a narrow road into KL’s city park, an expanse of jungle dotted with official city attractions. Beyond a butterfly garden I find the edge of the city’s Bird Park, a vast expanse of green draped in netting, proclaimed to be the world’s largest free-flight aviary. At present, a family of macaques has turned the netting into a playground, clambering to the top of its support poles and butt-sliding all the way back down to the road.

Rather than paying the Bird Park’s western tourist entrance fee I eat lunch in the park’s cafe on a balcony overlooking the jungle. Egrets surround me while a massive hornbill hops amongst tree branches, causing water to cascade off leaves onto unsuspecting visitors below. The meal’s only glitch comes when a Russian family enters the restaurant and takes particular offense at some item on the menu… because if watching mega giant tropical birds preen amongst massive trees in the middle of a tropical rainforest in the middle of a megacity isn’t enough to nix the family travel grouch, I don’t know what is.

I spend some time after lunch in an orchid garden before following the road as it loops back down toward the city (Monkey crossing signs, anyone?), arriving at the National Mosque. As I set aside my shoes and the nice little lady helps me into a burka, she asks: “Are you Muslim? You look Muslim.” Although I’ve been told that with a tan I can pass as Mediterranean, or South American, or Middle-Eastern, being assumed Muslim is a wholly new experience for me.

The mosque is simple in its grace, white columns supporting ceilings over open rooms around an open sanctuary designed for capacity. Pillars holding delicate mosaics give way to white walls blanketed in patterned imprints and relatively simple stained-glass windows allow light to enter through the room’s domed roof. A keyhole door at the front of the sanctuary faces Mecca, much as a synagogue’s ark points our way to Jerusalem.

A man standing at the sanctuary’s door with a flip book in his hands draws us into a conversation about Islam. Somehow the well-meaning man manages to turn the conversation into a campaign convincing me that I simply haven’t recognized Muhammed as my true Prophet. Upon realizing that in the space of 20 minutes I’ve gone from lone American tourist to assumed Muslim to Judaism-Islam conversion project, I beg out of the conversation and make my exit.

Friday I wake early, arriving at KL’s southern bus terminal through a convoluted mess of trains. Bersepadu Selatan might as well be an airport terminal– crowds queue by the dozen at ticket counters and hand over ID for verification and monster reader boards announce departure times and locations. Busses board through specified gates throughout the building.

Two hours later I arrive in the historic city of Melaka, one of SE Asia’s first true trade centers. The city’s ancient mashup clusters in winding rows of buildings and alleys and roads, following the river’s curve to encircle its core. Ancient and modern architecture merge as rows of expertly restored oriental facades share street corners and alleys with modgepodges of trendy murals. While the front of my guesthouse throws me several hundred years back in time, the back door opens onto a river walkway blazing with color.

I spend the afternoon exploring aimlessly, ducking into shops as they catch my eye. Just past a mosque I find a textile shop run by a man from Kashmir who moved to Melaka a decade ago. He likes Americans, he tells me, because we love to have conversations and listen. 20 minutes later I’m yet to formulate a polite exit strategy.

Two doors down sits a ceramic studio run by a couple from Japan. Hundreds of spherical lanterns covered in geometric botanical cutouts sit in the forward display room. Further back I a hall opens onto an airy workshop where an older man forms base shapes and his wife carves intricate designs while his children work their own lumps of clay at a side table.

Another ten yards’ walk brings me to a coffee shop I’d expect to find on Hawthorne Boulevard. A bright orange VW van covered in daisies displaying binders of coffee art holds the espresso machine, opposite a wall holding row upon row of empty cans. A barber’s pole points the way to the bathroom from behind scattered tables painted as bulls' eyes. 

I step into an old antiques shop where a Chinese lady admonishes me to watch my purse more closely as we begin a conversation about being in the service industry. We talk about how people of different nationalities act and how travelers truly are ambassadors for their home countries, for better or worse. The conversation draws to a close as she concludes that the reason I’m so polite must be because I’m Jewish and my mother raised me well. I assure her I’ll pass on the compliment.

Before the block ends I find the oldest Chinese temple in Southeast Asia.

I pick up a couple pairs of comfy flip flops and a trucker hat as I cross back through the neighborhood’s party street. (Note to self: head to Malaysia for $3.50 Burton knockoffs… do they even know what Burton is around here??) A short river bridge lands me in the old Dutch portion of town, complete with massive water wheel and an ochre colonial-style church. Constructed entirely of imported brick, it sits behind a courtyard where dozens of rickshaws smothered in stuffed animals and dead-eyed dolls surround flower beds and monuments and a street market selling electronics and Hello Kitty pastries occupies any spare corner.

Just around the corner I find an old motorcycle parked in front of an unassuming tea shop. The  older Chinese shopkeeper with a palpable love for his trade welcomes me, taking a break from his ledgers to make and serve tea, traditional style, half-finished beer set close to his right hand. As we chat he mentions that even though his shop is shop is situated on the edge of Melaka’s tourist district, he’s catered primarily to the local population for the last 20 years.

I return to KL the following day, taking an hour to get lost in a megamall– and eating my first Krispy Kreme since college. That afternoon I connect with Catherine, a KL native who introduces me to an old tea house hidden three stories up a rickety elevator behind an unmarked door in China town. Maintained these days primarily as a tribute to the founders, the shop’s sunset view of the city’s high rises is obscured by thousands of signatures and notes scrawled across ancient window panes.

On the walk to dinner we shortcut through (Catherine tells me) the less-fancy of the city’s ultra-posh megamalls. The thing fits right into my imagination of a presidential hotel, live band in tuxedos playing beneath five floors of swooping accented banisters lined with plants. Monster chandeliers throw soft light on hallways and waiters in a chocolate shop snub their noses at me while serving customers in armchairs that probably cost several months of my salary…. Each. The crystal-strewn walls of the massive Dior shop, lit even after close, strongly concur that this is definitely not my comfort zone.

We eat dinner with Catherine’s roommate, Cornelia, at a middle-eastern restaurant on a downtown rooftop. The two feed off each others’ energy, unwavering zeal and love for life brightening the atmosphere as we bask amongst the wafting smell of hooka, palm trees and pita and gaze up to the KL Tower, lit high above us.

The morning of my last full day in Kuala Lumpur finds me at Batu Caves, a massive natural limestone complex filled with little Hindu shrines (also apparently a massive rock climbing destination. Too bad all my gear was left in Vietnam.). A massive gold statue of the god Murugan  keeps watch forward from the base of a staircase leading to the caves’ entrance. Although climbing 272 stairs isn’t hard, monkeys complicate the ascent. Macaques- the notoriously aggressive and disease-infected bane of my existence, swarm the brightly painted staircase. They chase each other. They grab backpacks. They bare teeth, snarling and screaming. One monkey provides a solid ten minutes’ entertainment when it snatches a pack of newly-bought chopsticks from a plump Chinese lady, climbing atop a pillar to claim its prize. She dances below, offering an upturned sunhat as she asks the monkey to drop her souvenir. When she finally pulls out a candy to offer in trade, the monkey tosses her chopsticks out of reach over the staircase’s far wall before claiming the candy from her hand.

The temples scattered through the caves, lit with dozens of strands of lights, prove somewhat downtrodden. The caves themselves, however, are spectacular. Stalactites cascade from walls hundreds of feet high, dips and swirls spiraling up to tunneled light high above.

Later I meet up with Catherine in Little India, wandering though shops filled with tens of thousands of bangles and aisle upon aisle of sari fabric and eating piles of veggies and rice off of massive banana leaves.

We return to the apartment in the evening, finding our way to the 40^th floor rooftop infinity pool and Jacuzzis to watch the sun set over Kuala Lumpur’s skyline one final time.