Mexico Photoglut: Sorry, I Only Eat Ham in Discotheques

Oh, internet, I have tricked you once again! In preparation for my trip to Mexico, I went on a writing spree and pre-posted 4(!) different jewels of blogging splendour to be released into the wilds as I stuffed my face with quesadillas and low-grade tequila for 100 pesos a bottle. Even as I appeared to be rhapsodizing about my entry into India and regaling you with my fascinating anecdotes and bon mots, I was in the wind, as I often am.

Why did I go to Mexico? Why, to reward myself for all of my hard work in unemployment! But seriously, there were a few reasons. Some of my best friends currently live there. I had been to Mexico once before, but on a cruise when I was 17, and barely for a day, to the point that I barely count it as a notch on my travel belt. I had been feeling down from the job hunt, which has involved 5 months of continuous resume-ing and cover letter-ing all across the globe. Also there was that chance that I could have won that free trip but I totally lost and felt bad about myself, and nothing perks me up like a big frivolous money-hemorrhage in another country!

What was I saying? Something about Mexico. Avocados? I swear I had something for this. You get the idea. Let’s go!

India Photoglut Pt.1: Don’t Milk the Mountain Goat

Friends, we have arrived, at last, in India. India: land of cows. Land of curry. Land of Kolkata. Other things beginning with a percussive /k/. Fully one-half of our Big Wild Asia Megasojourn occurred within India, and I have lots and lots to say about its ups, its downs, and its soggy, curd-filled middles. But before we get to that, let us now, as we always must, sit through a round of Michael’s photography. Don’t think you can just traipse in here and scoop up only the words. Sometimes you need to endure my other hobbies, so that I can give the old word-grinder (that’s what I call my brain) a rest.

India: let’s look at it.

I Am In Some Chinese Tourist’s Vacation Highlights Reel

This was around photo number 43.

We have circumnavigated the great moat around the Golden Temple and are simply basking in the atmosphere. The sounds of tablas echo over loudspeaker while deep inside Harmandir Sahib, old men sing verses in quavering voices.  Pilgrims are everywhere: bathing in the holy waters, sharing in the communal langar, bringing offerings into the temple. Sikhs come from around the world to pray and join together here, in Amritsar. It is calm and still, and the white marble is cool below thousands of bare feet.

A man approaches us, throws his arms around Ty and I, and smiles wide for a camera held by his wife. They take five photos with enormous grins. There is no preamble or permission, though he thanks us and his son sweetly tries out some of his English on us. Not that it’s a big deal. It’s about the fifth picture we’ve had taken of us today.

Another time, we are splashing about in a waterfall outside of Luang Prabang. There is a rope swing and a perfect place to take a leap into the water, which I do after nervously vetting the pool below for jagged rocks that I might eviscerate myself upon. A tour bus lets out, and a crowd of Chinese tourists begins to pass in one great orbit, but they are caught, as though stuck in some gravity well. Ty and Faith are inching along a tree branch to a rope swing, he enormously tall, and Faith blonde and sporting a pretty serious leg tattoo. We are weird looking, probably, but we are not quite prepared for the wave of excitement that overtakes the crowd, as they shoot hundreds of photos of us leaping into the water (though we do not perish, which would have probably made the photos a lot more interesting). Several of the tourists later approach Ty and happily share the photos with him, which he admits are immaculately shot and make him look pretty adventurous.

Vietnam Photoglut: Bay of Descending Pretty Things

And thus we have reached Vietnam, dear travellers. Having already been to righteous ‘Nam before, I was excited to return: to see new cities, to explore new sites, and to eat so much soup that my belly grows distended, pops, and floods a low-rent hostel room with local beef and vermicelli. We hoofed around the north, the south, and that middle part, and all of it was very pretty. When I returned to Canada, I learned how to use my copy of photoshop starting with these very pictures! (Interesting sidenote: the main photo my friend used to teach me photoshop is not included here. We chose this photo because it included a pony, and also an enormous pony boner which she spent careful time removing and replacing with with sky or grass or whatever was behind the horse. Scrubbing the photo of that equine erection helped to illustrate the majority of the tools I wanted to learn how to use anyway. This file is still saved on my computer, under the filename “horsedong.jpg”. Don’t ever use my computer.)

What was I talking about? Oh. Vietnam sure is great!

Laos Photoglut: Monk River and Abandoned Buddhist Statuary

Friends, we have come once again to the borderlands, to the threshold of another strange country. New roads, new mountains, new forests. New soups. As always, I have battalions of words doing Civil War re-enactments in my brain, fighting towards the frontline of my keyboard. What do I want to tell you about first? Monk boys leaping into a quick-flowing river on a hazy summer day? A hidden forest atop a magical waterfall? The looming spectre of dozens of dead Australians, wrecked by crystal methamphetamine and poorly placed rope swings? The words fall over themselves attempting to get out, I am strangled and left silent by having just too many anecdotes. In lieu: the fine art of photosmithing. Bask.

Mid-Thailand Elephant Extravaganza

Prepare for elephant time.

Jan Peng is eighty years old and has a marigold wound through her ear. She is blind in one eye, a wound from an old handler when she reacted to some slight or another. She is enormous and still strong, and grows cautiously used to our presence, mostly because our presence necessarily includes all the watermelon and banana she can eat.

Most of the elephants here have seen hard lives. They’ve been broken and worked from a young age, either used for logging or corralled into the tourism industry. There are broken bones, ruined limbs, blind eyes. They are mighty creatures, but that has not meant safety from cruelty. Still, the park is safe. The mountain is safe. They have this forest, and this river, and this field.

Thailand Photoglut: Imagine Some Dumb Pun on “Phuket”

Well, dear friends, it’s that time again. The tumult of words I have for you to describe my vacation is virtually endless, and yet those words still take time to percolate. To simmer. To stew. I must add delightful verbal spices and boil off my various grammatical cul-de-sacs before I can present you your fresh, steaming pile of sweet, sweet essays. And so, let us bask in pictures of Thailand which, as you may already know, is a very beautiful place. Elephants! Golden temples! Stunning beaches! Fire-breathing dragons, perhaps! It’s a land of wonder. Let’s go.

Malaysia Photoglut: Do You Want to Break Free?

During the few times where we were not sitting in food courts being entranced by mostly-Mandarin karaoke singing (but for one charming Chinese-Malaysian nymph that sang a bunch of Queen, but we’ll save those stories for another time), we occasionally went sight-seeing. Sight-seeing! Us! Doin’ things in another country! Malaysia is a country of fairly interesting and harmonious triarchal multiculturalism, resulting in wicked-cool temples and mosques and mandirs wedged in all over the place. It also does good things for their cuisine. They are also maybe the nicest people on the entire planet.

But you didn’t come here for my stupid words, or my dum-dum observations of Malaysian culture. Those are for next Tuesday. No, today, you are here for the pictures! Lubricate your eyeballs with vaseline and get ready to look at things!

Taipei Photoglut: Liver Delivery

As I am currently fending off a particularly noxious strain of fever and insomnia, my ability to cogently string together human communicative fragments into your beloved, bourgeoisie “sentences” has declined. It took me three tries to write that sentence, and I’m relatively confident it was in English. If not, take the various constituent parts and construct, if you will, a hilarious insight about me, the world, or the human condition. I know you can do it.

While I convalesce, here are some vacation photos from Taipei, a quaint little burg in northern Taiwan, with some mad dumpling skillz. Watch and read and maybe don’t expect a lot in the way of interstitial commentary.

Bali Photoglut: I Can’t Wait For Egging Season

Oh, what a deceitful writer I am. You see, while I seemed to be plugging away in the word mines, gaily chipping at verbiage ore to polish and refine and bring to you, my doleful consumers, I was actually not here. I mined all these glorious gems of literary spew weeks ago! Really, I was in Indonesia and Taiwan for the past two weeks while the internet aided me with my gentle ruse. Though you thought me sweating profusely over my keyboard, furiously slamming my worn, calloused digits into the letters, I was actually drunk on a beach somewhere, which is really my natural state. Will you forgive me? I imagine you will when you cast your eyes on this here photographia.

Did you know Bali was mad pretty? Let’s talk about it.