Effortless

It feels like forever since I last got to write anything. All of the pens that I brought with me on the trip have run out of ink and when I was at the market today and tried to buy just two pens instead of the entire canister, the women shooed me away and mumbled something to themselves. Probably along the lines of, "Crazy foreigner. What good does selling 2 pens do us?" Who knows what they said, though whatever it was I'm hoping it sounded ruder than it really was. To be honest, they kind of scared me with their intense reaction. That aside, I haven't been able to write in about four days or so and I have got to find myself a pen tomorrow. On the other hand, it feels good to get back on my blog and post a little something about what I've been experiencing.

I finished reading "The Celestine Prophecy" a few days ago and one of the nine spiritual insights that the main character of the book is attempting to discover has to do with examining the coincidences that occur in your life and also of equal importance, to examine why certain people come into your lives at certain times. The premise is to keep your mind open to the knowledge or insights that they have to offer you.

My first day in Hanoi, I was eatting breakfast at a cafe when this girl who was by herself walked by. As she passed, she happened to glance in my direction and we exchanged a smile. I honestly had an intuition that I was going to have another encounter with her at some point. About 5 minutes later, she came back, stopped in front of the menu stand and read it for a brief moment before walking into the cafe. Again, as she walked passed me we exchanged a smile and then she came back and almost simultaneously she asked if she could join me and I motioned for her to come sit down. She happened to be from Austria and unfortunately I know that the language barrier kept us from experiencing each other's full personalities, but we spent the day together going to some parts of Hanoi away from the tourist district. It was good hanging out with her, but at the end of the day, I definitely felt a need to get away and be on my own again. I didn't really think about her much until today when I went out to look for a tour of Halong Bay. Trying to find a trip around here is like taking a huge gamble. Half the time you don't really know if you will be getting what the tour agency advertises. When I met with her she told me about this agency called Ocean Tours and I happened to walk by them today when I was thinking about Halong Bay. I stopped in and they were really great. I think this bit of information was what I needed to learn from Karen.

Yesterday, I took a day trip out to the Perfume Pagoda. It's this super sacred Buddhist place where tons of Vietnamese go to this temple that is located inside a cave and they ask for an abundant year. On the trip there was an American couple and while we were walking back to the boat to take us back (you have to take a one hour boat ride on the river to get there) I ended up talking to Courtney about her bargaining strategies. They live in Thailand so I figured that they would have a lot of experience with these things. Bargaining is one of those skills that was simply lost on me. For the most part, I might as well have a sign on my head that says, "I am a sucker and will give up really easily." In fact, the other day, I went to buy a pork bun and the women told me it was 1000 dong more than I had paid the day before, but I was too lazy to say anything. Well, today, I actually had fun bargaining and think I was fairly successful. The original price quote I got was 150,000 and I ended up paying 60,000. Thanks Courtney for the information.

Lastly, a man whose identity is still unknown to me gave me one of the greatest insights so far. I was riding a motorbike taxi back from the museum and we pulled up to a stop light. The man next to us was wearing a sweatshirt that said, "Buffalo Tours. Inspirational Travel" on the back. I was quite familiar with Buffalo Tours as I had actually had quite a bit of interest in potentially taking one of their trips which encompassed Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam and was unique in the fact that their were these really cool volunteer projects in each place. The whole philosophy of the organization is to give back when traveling and it was started by a Vietnamese guy, so it is all local and all the profits and salaries benefit the people who live here. I hadn't thought about looking them up once I got here, but I had thought many times over the course of this trip that I wished there was something I could do to make a difference. Anyhow, I thought that if I had time today I would try to find out where their office was and go talk to them. But I got to wandering all over the old quarter and other parts of Hanoi and pretty much forgot about it when I turned down one street on my way to find some old house and there was the Buffalo Tours office. I walked in, told them I was interested in trying to find an organization in Hanoi that I could perhaps volunteer at for a day or to and then make a monetary donation. The women set me up with a place called Morning Star Center which is a school for children with intellectual disabilities. They rely solely on private funding and they often help students integrate into regular schools and teach independant living skills. I'm staying in Hanoi now rather than try to see the Northwest part of the country, which is supposed to be beautiful, but I know that I am right where I want to be.

Losing my patience

I just wrote this super long posting and then it got deleted from the computer. I guess it was only meant for myself and not to be read by anyone else. I'll just say that I made it through the motorcycle journey and hopefully tomorrow I can write more.

Butterfly kisses

I have somehow come to find myself on a six day motorcycle journey through the Central Highlands of Vietnam, from Nha Trang to Hoi An to be specific. Never in my wildest dreams would have I imagined this experience. Prior to coming here, I had only ever had two fairly short motorcycle rides courtesy of Michele. This trip just sort of found me. I was walking to the beach in Nha Trang with the plan of hanging out there in the morning, returning to my hotel before noon to shower and pack my things, check out of my hotel, and take the night bus around 7 pm to Hoi An.

On my way to the beach, I was stopped by Mr. Hiep and offered a ride within the town. I quickly turned him down because I was only going a short way and didn't want to even look the slightest bit interested for fear of being hassled. He asked me where I was from and when I answered, he pulled his bike up alongside mine and asked if I had ever heard of the Easy Riders. I told him no, although I briefly recalled my friend Primavera mentioning something of the sort and when I was looking up some stuff online while still in the U.S. I had bookmarked a page with some information about how you can hire motorcycle riders to take you out into the country and act as your guide. He pulled out his book of previous customers rave reviews and we were off to a cafe so that he could show me his pictures and talk to me about the trip.

Going with my letting experiences come to me mentality, it sounded like a cool idea, I had been wanting to get out to the parts of Vietnam where having transportation is necessary, and I previously heard of these bike riders, so I signed up for the trip. I signed up for the trip knowing that it was a bit longer than I wanted to spend, but the shorter trips go South and I needed to go North, so I thought why stress about it and simply look at it as an adventure.

Today is the end of the third day and I am really starting to enjoy myself. The first two days, for some reason, I was focusing more on the negative aspects of the trip rather than looking deeper and trying to find the beauty. For one thing, while there has been plenty of beautiful scenary, I wouldn't say that anything has been over the top spectacular. I couldn't help comparing the beauty to other places I had been or to some previously conceived belief about what the scenery would look like on this trip. Additionally, Mr. Hiep, nice as can be, simply does not understand English very well. I would say that he speaks better than he can understand, but I think that this has come over years of saying pretty much the same things to all the tourists. At first, this was quite challenging for me because I wanted to engage him and not to simply listen to him tell me the same thing time after time; I really struggled to maintain my personality because he could not understand when I was trying to joke around and be silly.

On the ride today, as we drove through a series of villages, all of a sudden the sky was filled with swarms of yellow butterflies. There was not a direction I could look without seeing these butterflies. It was a surreal and magical experience, I couldn't help but to have a huge smile permanently attached to my face as we rode through the towns. The thoughts in my head (riding on the back of a bike gives the mind much time for thinking) told me, "How wonderous is this that in the midst of this trip that is about a soulful rebirth of sorts, I would be surrounded by butterflies - themselves the very symbol of change?" Also, at this time, I was hoping to change my perspective about the trip. Instead of viewing Mr. Hiep's lack of English as a nuisance, I began to see it as funny and entertaining. He has Hiepisms which are absolutely hysterical and I know that whenever I remember him in the future I will remember these. "Why not. If you never try, you never know" he always says. "Fucking cool man." or "We drink little beer. You drink little beer, you make sleep. No drink little beer, no make sleep." and "You make picture. Come on, make picture."

The thrill and feel of fredom from riding on the bike is hard to recreate in any other activity that I had done. And whether or not the scenary is the most eye catching in the world, passing by the towns and watching all the kids run towards the bike with huge smiles on their faces and their hands waving furiously back and forth is an image to truly remember. Any time I have gotten to thinkomg too much in my head, as soon as I see the children a huge smile finds its way to my face and I am brought back to the moment and to the beauty of this world. Beauty doesn't always have to be wrapped up in a nice package for it to still exist. We just have to look at the packaging in a different way. Thanks butterflies.

Getting spiritual in Vietnam

Some of you may know that I left for a 24 day journey in Vietnam on March 13th. Today being March 18th then this is my fifth day of travel. There was absolutely no planning involved in this trip, all I knew was that I would fly into Saigon and stay with my friend Primavera and then follow my instincts and desires until at least making it to Hanoi in order to fly home on April 6th. This journey is kind of a spiritual rebirth of sorts. The last five years of my life have truly been the most difficult and yet perhaps most important years of my life. However, roughly two weeks prior to this trip, I experienced a rejuvenation of spirit. I came to life again as I like to call it. The purging of emotional pains and the exploration and discovery of a new love for myself have driven a newfound excitement and peace regarding this journey of life. I told a friend that I felt "like I am allowing myself to live again." As soon as I began to feel this way, amazing things began to happen in my life.

One of these things happens to be this trip to Vietnam. For some reason or other I have always wanted to come here, but didn't know when it would happen. I definitely know that it happened now for a reason. With the rebirth of my love for life also came back my sense of spiritually, of some greater force (perhaps indescribable and undefinable) at play in the universe and in my life. I began to "what I call listen to the universe" and to take moments of brief meditation in order to center myself and stay in the moment. In this manner, I am traveling around Vietnam. I am simply trying to stay aware of connections as they occur and to remain flexible and willing to follow them. This is definitely not always easy. But, something happened yesterday which is one such connection.

I just got into a new town called Nha Trang (it's the largest beach resort in Vietnam) and I wasn't exactly in the best of moods. I had spent the last two days in the Mekong Delta on this completely unorganized tour where I had to grapple with my feelings about watching a bunch of western tourists point cameras in people's faces because they live in a way much different than our experiences. And I not only travled from the Delta back to Saigon, but then spent the night aboard a sleeper bus from Saigon to Nha Trang where I had to listen to my ipod the entire time because the bus driver would not stop constantly honking his horn. Through all this, I had managed to stay positive and write in my journal about the learning experience and such. When I left my hotel to explore Nha Trang, I felt irritated that I didn't have a car or motor bike to get around to places of peace and serenity. I thought that I wanted to try to make it to this secluded beach called Jungle Beach but didn't feel comfortable getting there on my own. As I was walking along the road feeling that this town really was not where I wanted to be, a motor bike driver stopped in front of me calling out, "Hey, what are you doing now?" When I turned to see him, I found out that he was the very same motor bike driver that I had ridden around Saigon with. He took me to a bunch of temples and other sites and it was a very good tour. This could not have been a mere coincidence in my mind, so I told him that I was trying to get to Jungle Beach. He said that he would take me there and off we went. Well, turns out he wasn't going to take me to Jungle Beach at all, but I completely let go of any expectations and thought that wherever he takes me is where I need to go. He took me to a Pagoda where I marveled at the power of the feminine as it was a shrine to a Goddess. This was important because I have been wrestling lately with what it means to be female and seeing strong depctions of women goddesses carved into stone gave me a peace of mind that femininity is much more all encompassing than modern societies filters have allowed.

Next, he took me to a buddist monastary and temple. As soon as I got there I was approached by a woman wanting me to buy some postcards to support the orphans that lived at the monastary. She told me that 18 orphans lived there and they needed the money to help them live. I really, really wanted to give her money but I didn't have much with me and I had to save what I had for the motor bike driver. I began to climb up the steps to reach this giant white Buddha at the top of the hill. Along the way, there were multiple people asking for money. When I got to the big Buddha, there was a group of kids playing cards and I suspected that they were some of the orphans that lived there. I felt an intense swelling of compassion for these children and wished that there was something with a more permanent effect that I could do other than give a few dollars. I walked up to the Buddha and there was a shrine inside. I took off my shoes, gave a bow and approached the altar. I stood in front of it with my eyes closed trying to take in my feelings and emotions. Before I knew what hit me, I began to cry. I felt overwhelmed at the positive changes that have taken place in my life as well as a desire to make a difference. I made a vow to myself that I would try to figure out a way at some point in my life to actually be able to come somewhere not for vacation and not only to volunteer to have a cool experience, but to do something to make a lasting impression. As a few tears trickled down my face, an old man sitting in the temple lit a stick of incense and brought it over to me. I then placed it in the urn and watched it burn. This experience was so powerful to me. And to think that when I left my hotel room that morning I simply thought that I wanted to go find a cool beach and that the temples around here were nothing special and relaxing was more important. Well, I guess this was the reason the motor bike rider reappeared for me. Thanks universe is all I can say.