Marmalade Daydreams

Well, I pulled into Kunming yesterday morning after a near fiasco at the airport (let's just say that the same Laotian ingenuity that has a cash-only departure tax but no ATM at the country's international airport sufficiently delayed my flight that i was able to get back to town and back, pay the tax, and still have to wait a bit to board), and though I've been slightly overwhelmed by going from sweet undeveloped Laos to Chinese cities and markets, I haven't been able to get my pictures online -- slightly ironic that travellers can access higher-speed internet in one of the world's poorest countries than in its preeminent "emerging economy". But, then again, I am comparing relative backwaters to Laos' main drag.

I am now in Dali, a city between a mountain range and an enormous lake, with over a thousand years of modern history (i.e. battles betweeen different groups trying to control this strategic stronghold). It's hard to tell who's won, whether the ethnic Bai people who are native to the region (and who continue to wear the vivid traditional dress, including, improbably, teenage girls, who sport foot-high pink & white headdresses) or the laowei (foreigners) who clog the streets, photographing locals with abandon, whose cuisines dominate the Old City's downtown, and who inexplicably buy tons of souveniers when they're trying to reduce the size of their backpacks to get in some serious hiking.

Oh, wait. That might just be me. Yes, for reasons unknown, after telling myself that I wasn't going to buy anything at the market that i couldn't eat in the next couple of days, I ended up dropping close to fity bucks on any number of things that Lord knows I (or whoever I end up gifting them to) don't need, and now i need to go to the post office to send a package. Well, at least I got a really cool set of magnifying lenses to use with my class this year, and I did save $1.50 by taking local buses to the market instead of taking a packaged minibus, which had the side benefit of sharing the bus with a big bagful of ducks and another of roosters. Also giant eggplants, which were a bit more sedate than the poultry.

Trying to figure out how I want to spend the next three weeks. I know it will involve some multi-night treks, most probably with guides who will arrange village homestays along the trail, but there's too many options. Return to Tiger Leaping Gorge, which awed me last summer and is said to be in danger of damming soon, and continue on another couple of nights to an alpine village and a series of limestone terraces? Onward to Deqin, amongst the glaciers just below of one of Tibet's holiest mountains, said to be incredibly beautiful? Should I get a horse in the Tagong grasslands, and ride out to a Buddhist nunnery in the steppes? Or perhaps trek down to the monastery below Gongga Shan, whose 26,000 foot peak looms large above the other Sichuan monsters? As they say, these are the troubles we should be lucky enough to have -- which amazing place to enjoy this summer?

Today, as I sat in the back of a bus for ten hours travelling down Laos's beautiful if windy Route 13 from Luang Prabang back to Vientienne, working our way through the massively convoluted geography that characterizes this region, through the odd karst limestone peaks that loom over the immense river valleys like the ghosts of reefs past lording above the ancient sea beds, and finally down to the floodplains, whose terraced rice paddies reflect the hills and peaks in their still muddy waters like a memory; as I sat by the mighty Mekong, whose waters sparkled in the sunset with crimson, lavender, and gold, belying the clay-colored filthy liquid that generally laps the banks of Vientienne where barbecue beer gardens proliferate (and where this evening I sat nibbling on rib tips and sticky rice, sipping rice whisky below the darkening sky); I could not help but reflect on the two weeks I've spent in this remarkable place, less than two-thirds of NYC's population spread throughout a country roughly the size of Britain, primarily in undeveloped villages, and marvel at my experiences.

When we last left off, I had pulled into Vang Vien, a beautiful village (indeed, when we pulled into the bus depot, I had been frantically and unsuccessfully been attempting to photograph the local karst peaks from the bus window -- I was pleasantly surprised to hear that these mountains were to be the background for my enxt few days), that has, for better or worse, been taken over by the backpacker economy. Guesthouses, Internet cafes, and banana pancake vendors are in abundanc, yet I managed to spend my days interacting with the stunning physical environment, not spaced out in front of a television like many chilled-out tourists, reliving their favorite Friends episodes over strong coffee and various intoxicants. It was in the caves around Vang Vien that I discovered my new passion -- spelunking.

Over the last 10 days, I have been in five caves, two of which entailed tight squeezes, two of which required significant climbs to reach isolated chambers, and despite indelibly staining some of my favorite T-shirts with mud, I have a new favorite pastime. I'm not sure I can completely explain why I feel such a calm and enthusiasm for descending into the Earth -- partly the continual delving deeper into the unknown, partly the wonderous geologic formations that can lie around the next corner, partly the deep silence and calm that no doubt drew the holy men of ages past into caves to meditate on the shadowy walls -- but I know now a new way to seek adventure and marvel at the immense mystery that is our home, planet Earth.

Two days after I arrived in Vang Vien, the river flooded. It was amazing to watch the Nam Song rise, to return to places I'd been the day before, completely transformed, to watch trees float by the bridge where the previous day carefree farang were chilling in innertubes, BeersLao in hand. The two following pictures, seperated by 36 hours, show a bungalow where my friends stayed. I heard that on the island in the river, bamboo bungalows were floating away in the flood waters. Sheesh. That day I'd hiked downriver to a nearby cave and spring; on the way back, the road was gone, replaced by a knee-deep pond through which I waded home.

Bottom line, I've had a great time, met some amazing people. In addition to doing some amazing caving (freaking myself out by going alone into deep dark tunnels, following underground rivers through branching hallways), I tubed the Nam Song, jumped from a thirty-foot rope swing into the river (with a lifejacket, of course, mom...), climbed up some beautiful waterfalls (where a snake fell on my friend's head, thoroughly freaking everybody out for a bit) where we swam in pale turquoise waters and were joined by monks in their saffron robes, paddled for a day of whitewater kayaking (capsized my boat in the very first rapids -- did better further downriver with waves breaking over my head), and, most recently, spent two days in a riverside bamboo bungalow in Muong Ngoi, a riverside village with no road access, where, after the consumption of much rice whisky, my travelling companion Danni left me in the middle of the night for a one-armed Laotian (if that doesn't make for a good blues lyric, I don't know what does) who had taken us on the most bootleg trek earlier that day (basically following an irrigation canal to a river and following that river up through the jungle until we couldn't proceed any further -- a lot of fun, but Danni and I both accumulated a number of thirsty leeches in the river...).

As is evident, I've had a great time this summer to date. After having weighed my options, I decided to forgo the forty hours of bus between Nong Khiow and Kunming (hence my return to Vientienne), and I fly at 6:30 am to Yunnan Province (China), where my adventures will doubtless continue. Because I'm not sure that I have enough money to get to the airport tomorrow, and because of my early departure time, I'm putting off uploading my picture page for another few days. For now, content youselves with this last photo -- two village boys who had been screaming with joy until I interrupted them briefly to snap this photo. Apparently they had just decapitated this snake with that big stick, and now the boy on the right was whipping the boy on the left with the headless serpent. Oh, that we could all again enjoy such innocent pleasures...

Well, for now, as my brain is a bit fuzzy from lack of sleep and hours spent in boats and the back of a truck, indulge me in just a few snapshots in prose until tomorrow when I'll take some time and actually post some pics and tell some stories. But for now, some indelible images i was unable to photograph:

kids this morning in a rural village throwing roosters at each other

wrinkled old man, all bones, on the side of the side of the road, leaning on a stick. a former monk, the pali sutras tatooed all over his body rise and fall over his convoluted skin.

thatched roof over a billiards table in a tiny hill village.

ten-year-old girl, impervious to bargaining, managing our guesthouse while her mom is out all night.

crowds spellbound by petanque in the dusky twilight on the banks of the mekong.

lastly, this sign, written by someone with either an immensely profound sense of irony if not by someone with none at all.

more tomorrow after some good Lao coffee.

Yes, poor worried readers, fret not. When a few days elapse between blog postings, it means not that I am in grave danger, waylaid by the perils that can beset solo travellers in this distant land. It usually means that, despite my love of long-winded posts and sharing my pictures, I'm simply having too much of a good time to justify sitting in an Internet cafe when I'm in such an amazing place, meeting wonderful people.

Currently back in Vientienne to retrieve my forgotten hiking shoes, without which my feet have suffered greatly this week, and I shudder to think of approaching the 26,000 feet of Gonga Shan in flipflops, and about to hop on a local bus back to Vang Vien to retrieve my forgotten iPod charger (I'm doing well), and praying that I'm going to sit next to a woman with a garbage bag full of coriander again (oh, that glorious scent), but that this time the lady with a bucket full of clams doesn't get on at the next stop, but I just wanted to express how the last few hours combined everything I love about Laos.

Wonderful kayaking trip today: I capsized the boat in the very first rapid, despite sharing the craft with our guide -- he suggested that I take it easy on the oars in the whitewater and pay more attention to leaning into the waves -- but that notwithstanding, a greatly enjoyable afternoon paddling through tropical forest. Our guide was Pan, very sweet, very professional (he had been trained extensively for river rescues) but also very playful (he began the vicious splashing wars that characterized a good part of the trip, threw me out of the boat when we got to some flatwater, and followed me by doing a backflip), and we enjoyed an excellent barbeque lunch over a makeshift charcoal grill on the riverside (pictures to come).

After we pulled out of the river, the farang from our trip piled into the back of a songthaew (pickup truck with benches in the bed) with farang from another trip for a classic Lao transportation experience: twenty people in a standard-sized pickup truck, two of whom were hanging onto the rear of the vehicle for the two-hour journey, the driver continually pulling over to sell these tiny trussed up bats (in another example of the famously catholic Laotian diet, tiny bats are eaten whole, wings and all) to people on the roadside; as we approached the city limits, he stashed a sign under our bench in the back (possibly revealing the illicity of his bat sales?), made the hangers-on squeeze inside with everybody else, and pulled curtains, ostensibly to conceal the number of people pressed inside the vehicle.

Two minutes later I had liberated my poor shoes from their dusty rack; as the R.D. Guesthouse is a very laid-back place even for this exceeding laid-back country (once, I was returning from the shower to realize I locked myself out of my room -- I had to stand for nearly twenty minutes in the lobby, dripping wet in only a towel, to wait for the clerk to return from wherever he'd gone), I wasn't too concerned for their well-being: I knew they were being properly neglected. Two minutes after that, I was sitting in my favorite patissiere, enjoying a little tarte in celebration of my reunion with the blessed Merrills (happy feet are swinging back and forth as I type, like a dog's wagging tail), and now I conclude this post to run over to the bus station, and head back up north. Probably, I am bound for Luang Prabang tomorrow morning and, once there, I will tell some more stories and update my photo page. Next week, the Himalaya. Until then, I'm looking forward to eating my banana leaf full of fried rice on the bus.

In which our hero bikes to hell, heaven, and not quite back, is assisted by mere children, and ends up that ass on the bus who would be taking up three seats but for Laotian ingenuity.

Well, I must say: after a good night's sleep, another walk down to the Mekong to chuckle at the aerobics class and eat longan fruit (the poor man's lychee) discarding the skins and seeds along the riverbank, and having just enjoyed a fantastic pain au chocolate, it all seems like some fantastic dream, dressed in organdy, but no; all you are about to read is the Buddha-honest truth.

I suppose it all began a couple of days ago, when Ian, a wild-haired, wild-eyed ex-pat of Northern Ireland, told me of Xieng Khuan, the Buddha Park, over our noodle soup breakfast at the Thai-Laotian border. He described a bizarre garden full of oversized statuary created in the '50s by a former drug addict turned charismatic religious leader who preached a unique blend of Buddhism and Hinduism. "You've got to see it, man. It's mad." He told me that it was an terrific bike ride -- about 25 flat kilometers alongside the Mekong on a bike path through villages and such, with the kids waving and all, and I figured that just about planned my day for me.

I guess I should have been more wary about renting a girl's bike. It wasn't until later, popping the chain back on the gears for the umpteenth time, that I realized that the bike was a "Fairy Turbo". I don't know if the name alone would have dissuaded me from the bike ride, but maybe I would have shopped around a little more.

I certainly should have been more discerning when renting the bike. The guy asked me if it was okay, so I hopped on it and rode down the street -- sure the brakes screeched, but they worked fine. I didn't look closely at the chain, so who's to say if any of the links were broken before I rented it, or if I snapped through the metal with solely the power of my quadriceps and my near-complete ignorance of the workings of bicycle mechanisms.

The day started pleasant enough -- a good breakfast, seeing the golden stupa that is the symbol of Laos, supposedly a stylized lotus bud but more closely resembling a device for interplanetary communication, chatting with a fellow New Yorker on the pleasurable absurdities that plague travellers in the region -- yes, all was going just dandy. As I biked out of town, though, a strange chunking noise began in the gears. On my bike at home, that sometimes happens when I shift gears and it doesn't catch properly, but this bike didn't have a gearshift. Regardless, I stuck to my general strategy of bike riding -- pumping my legs and not knowing much about what exactly is propelling me forward.

Once I turned off onto the bike trail, I could see why Ian had recommended it -- despite being unpaved, so a bit harder pedalling than the main drag, I passed innumerable families who were delighted to see me, and a grin crept across my face as I began exchanging the "Sabadii" greetings that meet the traveller all across this friendly nation. Goats without a goatherd, an enormous teak houseboat, happy dogs, children running after me, all was great until... my pedals start spinning tensionless. No problem -- I pop the kickstand, flounder for a minute with the chain until two local dudes on a motorbike, convinced I have no clue what I'm doing, come over and show me a real easy way to get the chain back on. Sweet, I learned something new. That's what travelling is all about.

Well, I got real good at it, because it began popping off every five minutes or so. I decided to get back on the main road, despite the traffic and the lack of ambiance, because it was a smoother ride, which helped the chain stay on for about ten minutes at a time. I passed many many rice patties, as well as the immense Beerlao facility (the country's only beer, brewed by the state -- gotta hand it to communism for doing it right and eliminating the competition, though I disagree from most kowtowing backpackers and think the beer is rather crap). My bell was disabled in the sense that I could not ring it, but it rang out every time I went over a bump (which was fairly often, as even the paved roads in Laos are in an equivalent state of disrepair as those in East New York), and as a ding-donging fool cruising down the main drag on a girl's bike, I was continuously being waved over by folks who wanted to hang out with a sweaty goofy-looking farang in a cowboy hat, and I gave a few the pleasure.

At one point, the chain was caught between the namby-pamby metal plate that was supposed to be guarding it from mishaps and a screw protruding from the kickstand, and I was having a really hard time getting it out. To my rescue came a group of kids, maybe from about five to seven years old, and with their dextrous little fingers, they got it out, however, not without blood being shed. The oldest had set himself up on pedal duty, and he neglected to ensure his little brother's digits were clear of the gears before vigorously cranking. I wowed them, though, with an alcohol wipe and a band-aid, and all were satisfied. Then I bought a green mango, of which you dip slices into a salt-sugar-chili mixture, and all rejoiced.

I stopped at a mechanic at this point (which I think most reasonable people would have done about an hour earlier, as I biked for a good hour under these conditions), who replaced the broken link and tightened the chain (I think this may have been the problem from the get-go), and it was all systems go. Amazing how much more quickly I moved once I no longer had to stop continuously. However, I had made a vow to stop the next time I saw someone with green coconuts, whose innards are tasty, hydrating, and are said to aid digestion, and so I did, delighting the family with photos of New York and my students, who were the same age as their daughter, who, being raised without bovine growth hormone (and probably without a whole lot of protein), was more the size that you'd expect a twelve-year old to be, as opposed to some of the Godzillas that I teach.

Anyway, it was as I pulled away from their roadside stand, waving my hat in the air and mustering my best "Yii-haw!", that the rains began. Thankfully nothing like the downpour of the previous day's jungle meditation, but enough of a rain to get me drenched and elicit even bigger grins as it washed off the grime, cooled me off, and, I suspect, made me look like even more of a freakshow as I became even more popular with the roadside crowds.

Amazingly, the final drops fell and the sun emerged just as I pulled up to the fabled Xieng Khuan, my destination, hours after I'd left the city, and before going in I decided to grab a drink at a stand and chat with a pretty Dutch girl who was sitting there. She laughed at my soaked hat and shirt, that I'd ridden up on a bicycle when anyone with any sense had taken a motobike for the 25km journey, and asked if I'd been in the garden yet. When I replied in the negative, she said, "Oh, you must! There's a big pumpkin, and you can climb in it, and up it, and even on the top, though I wouldn't..." I didn't quite know what to make of this, but I knew that the journey had been well worth it.

This blog entry has gotten fairly long, as I am fairly longwinded, and I'm not sure my words will do this place much justice, so do yourself a favor and, once you've finished reading this paragraph (or any other time in the near future), click here and it will take you to my new flickr account. click on the "vientianne" slideshow on the right to see the pictures in the proper order. Anyway once you climb inside the mouth of the "pumpkin", you are inside an immense depiction of the three worlds, penetrated by the axis mundi, filled with demons, gods, other crazy beings being tormented, delighted, or just going about their day. You must see the pictures to find out what happens when you emerge from the pumpkin's head...

Anyway, I wax on. Long story short, it began to rain again, the chain broke again, and, after some initial forays into the world of being a bike mechanic (I'm staying with my day job) finally a bus agreed to pick me up, bicycle and all, and drive me back to town. It was a deja vu-ish experience, recallign one of my most impressionable experiences from my first trip to Laos -- riding in the back of a pickup truck carrying 26 people, two busted up motorcycles (we'd come across an accident and took on the victims and their vehicles), a pig and some chickens (in wicker baskets, of course), except this time there were only 23 of us, the vehicle was a bit larger, so no one had to ride on the roof, and it was the lone farang who had the assed-out vehicle being taken back to town.

What a day, and I'm tired of writing. Next stop, Vang Vien, with spectacular karst orbs rising improbably from the ground, limestone caves to explore, and the such. Now that I'm getting better at the whole photo thing, it should be more fun to check the site, so tune in, and post some comments. That's part of the fun of this for me.

DISCLAIMER: This post was written when I had spent less than 24 hours in the city. I inadviseably use the word sleepy (a favorite of the villainous Lonely Planet writer Joe Cummings) twice in the same paragraph. And, while I do not dispute my initial claim, that the depth of Vientienne's slumber far exceeds that of any other Asian capital (for who could possibly compete, except maybe one of the smaller former Soviet republics?), let it be known that last night, in the span of one block, I was offered two different smokable narcotics and was approached by two different prostitutes, which brings up an aside -- why is it that in every Asian city, after you turn down one vendor or service (whether a tuk-tuk ride or sex for pay), another person, offering exactly the same thing, who undoubtedly heard you reject the prior offer, approaches? It's just unconscionable. END DISCLAIMER.

Vientienne must be Asia's sleepiest capital city. Four years ago, when I was in the south of Laos, I though that Pakxe and Savannakhet, though relatively large cities for this sparsely populated nation (a population smaller than New York's outer boroughs dispersed in a country about the size of Britain), were just sleepy provincial capitals and that the north, with the country's most developed urban centers, must be more bustling. Hey, to err is human.

Not that I'm complaining. After a couple of late nights in Bangkok (reunited with my buddy "Jack" from last year, danced at a hip-hop club until, well, the break of dawn), and the most sleepless sleeper train I've ever experienced (how can even the trains here be so bouncy? don't the tracks have to be fairly flat?), I was flat out exhausted yesterday. After checking into a cheap guesthouse and wandering around a few of the temples which saturate the city center by the Mekong, I read in my guidebook that there was a vipassana meditation class, open to the public, every Saturday afternoon at a forested temple on the edge of the city.

Just as I decided that was would be my destination for the day, the skies opened -- no, not the Rapture... The downpour of monsoon rains. As my last experience being in a pagoda druing a monsoon (two days ago, during a two-hour massage on a poolside rooftop) was extremely relaxing, I figured the rain should not deter me from the path of mindfulness, and caught a tuk-tuk. It was the right decision: wandering through the rainy forest's red muddy paths, beautifully contrasting the dark broadleafed undergrowth and the emerald canopy above, I was directed by smiling laypeople and a toothless nun, wrapped in white, to a sweet pavilion where an two saffron-robed monks led about forty of us, mostly international, but some locals, in sitting and walking meditation amidst the sounds of falling rain and birdsong. Shanti shanti.

I was up early, as I'd passed out shortly after sundown, and decided to go check out the banks of the muddy Mekong, half a block from my guesthouse -- as I rounded the corner at about 6:30 am, expecting total silence but the buzzing of insect wings and the shrill cry of morning birds, I was amazed. Was that Cyndi Lauper blaring? Not just Cyndi Lauper, but some house remix thereof? Indeed, the most happening scene in the city seems to be the Sunday morning aerobics class in an open-air riverfront warehouse-like pavilion. At least 50 Laotians of all ages, mostly women, were out in their spandex, sweating to the eighties. I had to laugh. Further upriver I came across some more traditional chigong practitioners, but they didn't look like they were having nearly as much fun.

So, I'm very happy, having just had some excellent jok, rice porridge sassed up with some chicken sauteed in garlic, scallions, little crunchy things that the cook assured me were not shrimp, and big old chunks of what I assume were beef liver. Sitting in the food court of the morning market, just starting up, the tarp-covered space filled with the delectable savory aroma of grilled meats highlighted by the herbal overtones of lemongrass, coriander, and mint in the noodle soups, I was very happy to eat my noodle soup while completing the first puzzle in my book of crosswords. That's the way I want to start every day. However, it seems like that, outside of the riverside aerobics and the market, this town is dead. Maybe I'll rent a bike and go down to see the enormous Buddhas said to be doing whatever it is that giant Buddhas do (recline? ward off spirits?) outside of town. Later I'll try to upload some pictures. But maybe I'll take a nap first, you know, to fit in.

Well, now that I'm back in Bangkok after nearly twenty-four hours in transit (thank Buddha for Margaret Atwood's Blind Assassin), I feel that my reservations about leaving my Brooklyn community were fairly unwarrented. To arrive in the middle of the night, yet be able to sit with a group of backpackers from four continents on a rattan mat in the street behind the temple drinking Beer Chang amid the rattling of tuk-tuks until the roosters heralded the impending dawn, to emerge into the morning market and its symphony of smells from mouth-watering (wok-fried chilis) to fetid (rotting rat on the banks of the canal), the floral aromas emenating from booths of ladies stringing blossom bracelets for spirit offerings, overwhelmed by diesel fumes, I feel home.

And though some things are different (the 7-11 by the river is gone, my friends from Kanchanaburi seem to have gone home), there's something about running into the same honey salesman that I've been buying from since 2002 and drinking that sweet raw nectar out of the 8 oz. glass Pepsi bottle that suggests that this place will always be a familiar port. True, New York's Chinatown, especially in the early A.M. hours of the weekend, has a wonderous stench that is comparable to any of the redolent concoctions of Asia, but where in New York can you stumble around a corner and be confronted by piles of durian and dragonfruit? Coupled with the genuine friendliness of the people (as I have yet to reconstruct my animosity toward fledgling speakers practicing their English, I've had any number of basic directionless "conversations" this morning), the low costs of high living, the gustatory delights, the animism, and a low level of background ludicrousness that pervades (it was pointed out to me last night that, while Beer Chang's label simply claims a "minimum alcohol content" of 6.4% by volume -- have they not yet standardized the brewing process? Do they not posess a hydrometer?), I'm as enamored to be here now as ever.

But I'm getting out. Soon. I am wholly aware of the stickiness that this place holds for me, and I'm not simply talking humidity, though I'm sure the tropical climate has influenced my history of getting stuck in this town. Having limited time this summer, I am eager to immerse myself in some new surroundings rather than simply indulge in the simplicity of Khao San hedonism. Tomorrow night I continue my stretch of overly time-consuming transits, and board a sleeper train to Vientianne, Laos. While I've been to southern Lao (from what I gather, the country isn't organized or uptight enough to figure out whether it prefers being Lao or Laos, which is just fine with me), which is fairly untravelled, rural, and extremely poor, over the next couple of weeks I'm going to follow the Mekong up the tourist trail of Vientianne, Vang Vien, and Louang Prabang, for I hear that this tourist trail is well-justified, what with wild limestone formations and 600-year old teakwood temples and all.

Oh, and extra thanks to Zachary and Katya, for making San Fran extra special. For anyone planning a trip to the Bay Area, mind that Mark Twain quotation, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

Today is my final day stateside until the end of August, but before beginning final preparations, I'd like to record some of the amazing week and feelings I've had since last I wrote. I've been having a fantastic time in San Francisco, staying with my old friend Zach and meeting up with my newer friend Kathyrn, hiking through the mists of eucalyptus forests, marveling at massive figures composed of sculpted driftwood, and eating spectacularly, whether dining on dosas or picnicking in the midst of thousands of Europeans screaming at a gigantic video screen on which men fought over kicking a white ball, but for a proper narrative, let's back up to the time of my last post.

July 4th in Montreal was a simply beautiful day. The Jazz Festival performed an Homage de Paul Simon that night, and I was able to enjoy the sound check while I breakfasted on crepes in the Place des Arts. I have been told to be more goal-oriented, so I set the McAuslen Brewery and its canal-side terrace as a directed target. but both my host and guidebook had neglected to mention (Daniel claims ignorance; Moon Guide -- what's your excuse?) that the canal is quite long (evidently it was once used to transport goods), and that the walk from the Plateau would take in excess of two hours. As it was a pleasant day, I got to soak up some architecture, from the twisting and turning grey stone-carved canyons that are the Old City's cobbled streets to the behemoth silos of the post-industrial canal, which, slowly rusting, provide a backdrop of strange aesthetics to the waterfront park, exposition centers, and bike path, along which I walked until, at long last I reached my destination. The beers were excellent, and, as a bonus, there was a nearby gourmet market with all sorts of delectable comestibles for the discerning shopper. Mmmm.... comestibles.

That night, standing in the midst of tens of thousands of Canadians while Elvis Costello and Allan Toussaint sang Paul Simon's "American Tune", an ineffable feeling arose in me that I have yet to completely shake; somewhat between nostalgic melancholy and pride, I feel it is a reaction to growing older in this ever-changing world of which each of us is a citizen. It made me want to stay at home this summer, to play handball with the kids in my neighborhood, to spend my days reading library books beneath Prospect Park's stately shade trees, my nights celebrating being a teacher on summer vacation with friends and family, dancing to live music and laughing, full of life, until the dawn. Yet, I had planned an amazing journey into breathtaking lands to which I had desired to return since last I was there -- why the ambivalence? I am unsure. Love of Brooklyn, a sense that I have a real community there on which I turn my back for a significant portion of each year. Maybe I should just suck it up and get air conditioning and stop pawning off my sweatbox on hapless subletters for the hottest months of the year.

So here I am, 24 hours before heading to San Francisco International Airport to participate in the combustion of a small portion of the Earth's ever-diminishing supply of jet fuel to explore some of the planet's most amazing regions, geologically and culturally, poignantly aware that my mother country is full of geologic wonders, that our continent, nay, my hometown is home to flourishing cultures very different from my own, and I wonder if this might not be my last trip overseas for some time.

So I am prepared to soak it up once more, to simply enjoy being out there, to meet fantastic people and rely on pantomime to acquire the necessities of life, to eat incredibly well for pennies, and by losing the responsibilities of home, wiping the slate clean, so to speak, hopefully to gain the ability to discern in its reflection some faint forms, a path, some wisdom with which to return and apply to Brooklyn life. If you want a postcard, you'd better email me.

I must say, I have overlooked Canada for years. While I have largely seen our neighbor to the north as the source of an amusing accent, a place where eighteen year olds can drink, and a repository of natural resources that would grow rich off of America and China once the rest of the world had depleted its timber and bauxite, that has all changed. “Only 59 kilometers to Ottawa,” a phrase that until recently would be worthy of ridicule because it seems to have a poor sense of what is to be desired, this turned out to be the key in my conversion, a phrase I do not use lightly. I ask myself, why fly halfway around the world to meet nice people, eat great food, be surrounded by interesting architecture and beautiful landscapes, when this wonderland of civility, culinary delight, and used record stores lies just across the state border?

Oh, yeah. It’s because I probably couldn’t afford to support my traveler lifestyle for very long in a first world economy. Well, when I get rich off of the New York City taxpayers, Canadia shall suffer my loud American ways, from the Maritime Provinces to Nunuvit. Yes, someday they shall suffer.

So school’s out for summer – the last week or so was kind of a joke. Although I had some cool activities to demonstrate the astounding crushing mechanism of molecular weight we call air pressure, who am I to compete with the antics of predictable Hollywood comedies that exploit our all too human fascination with intergenerational or interracial culture clashes with such aplomb, including Daddy Day Care or Bringing Down the House. For the teachers, these films afford a more degenerate form of fascination: we gaze transfixed at the car wrecks of yesteryear’s groundbreaking comedians retreading this worn fare, and shudder, subconsciously wondering if Sarah Silverman and Stephen Colbert are destined for the same downward spiral, a symbol of our own mortality. Or maybe that was just me.

Anyway, as soon as I could, I got the heck out of the sweltering city, my gallant steed being the Adirondack Trailways bus to Montreal, most assuredly the most comfortable bus ride I will take this summer. It was a successful journey; I served pro bono as a translator between a Quebecquois lady and a Slavic cashier to acquire a fried fish sandwich for the woman, and purchased a liter of Kentucky bourbon at bargain basement prices at the border. A friend from college, one Dan “Canada” Reitman, lives a stone’s throw from the bus terminal on the Plateau de Mont-Royal, a neighborhood blessed with great restaurants and bars, affordable housing, and tons of used bookstores. Fine, so the books are in French; why must you be so critical? Just enjoy the cheese curd gravy cheese fries and smoked meat sandwich and don’t ask so many questions.

Saturday being Canada Day, a holiday celebrating England’s renunciation of sovereignty over this beautiful land (kind of a crap move by Britain if you think about it, but that just shows the character of these north country folk – you just look into their sweet faces and say, dammit, I’ll give you the better part of a continent without a bloody revolution, and they say, well, thank you Queen, we’re really flattered, eh, can we keep referring to your reverentially as if you were a demigod and keep you on our currency for the next couple of centuries, and you say, yes, yes, I’d rather fancy that), we took a road trip to Ottawa, the capital of this fine country (which I wouldn’t have known if their hockey team wasn’t called the Senators), and it was super-cool. Rolling three Americans deep, we invited ourselves to a party that is such a Canadian institution that the people who throw it every July 1 no longer live in the house, but have a stipulation in the lease that they will return with a hundred friends and barbeque and booze and jump in the pool (although we were whisked away, somewhat prematurely in retrospect, by a schoolbus to the downtown mobs of provincial folk wearing funny red mapleleaf paraphernalia before the intoxicated started diving off of the roof or performing acts of public nudity, which we were assured were perennial hallmarks of this party).

Alright, three parenthetical asides later, all I’m trying to say is that I had a right good time on Canada Day, so much so that I was delighted to curl up with my rainsoaked towel on a set of marble stairs to catch some shuteye before another kind Canadian let me, a derelict-looking stranger, into her apartment building where my friends could not hear the squealing buzzer through the substantial barrier of drunken sleep. Stay tuned, gentle readers. Enjoy your celebrations of American independence, and take a lesson from my late-night angel – the drunk sleeping in your stairwell may indeed, like the beasts and paupers of fairy tales, be a prince in disguise. Go on and give him a kiss.