Arrival in Perth and a Job, and then not a Job

For my last night in Bali I was a solo traveller once again. Usually that circumstance means I go to a local bar or restaurant and try to be friendly with some people who might turn into my friends for the next three days or so. This is the 20-questions game solo travellers play, which is a) unavoidable, b) uninteresting and c) unnoying (play on words, win!). So I decided not to do that, and I treated myself to a 20 dollar three course meal, and wallowed in my anxiety about heading to a first-world, western country for the first time in one year.

These sorts of anxieties are pretty normal while traveling, especially when crossing borders and hopping between very different cultures. But OZ would have a few new circumstances: First, I would no longer be a celebrity among the locals (either for money, hair color or eye color), the cost of living would be much higher so I'd definitely have to find a job for the first time in over a year, and since I was flying for the first time since leaving South Korea, I was thinking of my family and friends from home, who I'd love to see if only for a week or two.

So I was glad that I had a friend picking me up from the airport in Perth. My plane took off at 2am, and I arrived around 5:40am without sleeping the entire flight. Morose and exhausted I waited through immigration and customs, expecting to get interrogated -- at least in comparison to the border "control" process in Southeast Asia -- but it was a breeze except for the amount of time I spent queuing (aka "waiting in line" for any Americans reading).

As I emerged, I saw my friend Chris waiting at the gate with a coffee and already Perth felt a little more homely than I imagined it a few hours before. She gave me a drive-by tour of Perth on our way to her house in North Fremantle, where I got a small cot on a wood floor -- as good as any Asian hostel. Then she helped me figure out the train into the city and I got a SIM card. Then I worked on my resume and looked for jobs and apartments in Perth. A few more days passed and I managed to open a bank account, apply for a tax file number, and get a metro card (I guess that isn't exceptional), and damn, I'm basically mayor now.

In the few days that it took me to write my resume, I decided that I wanted to live somewhere on the Fremantle train line where it is easy to get into the city while still living in a suburban area. I wasn't inclined to push myself too hard in doing this and to be honest, the thought of working again seemed daunting. I've become accustom to my available free time during the day being basically 100%, but a job would probably push it down to meager 40%. *Sigh* I tried to procrastinate, but one day Chris force marched me on a parallel path to the train line while pointing out all the decent restaurants, shops and stores for where I should/must hand in my resume. Did I wear out my welcome already? (Actually, she told me she masochistically used to do this to her younger brother, and enjoyed the same enjoyment with me out of nostalgia).

The last place I walked into was a posh seaside restaurant called The Naked Fig. A head chef of a sister restaurant, The Pickled Fig, interviewed me and told me he was looking for a "kitchen hand" to fill in odd jobs inside his kitchen and develop as a chef. That sounded pretty cool. They were desperate, since they were understaffed and their staff overworked, so they asked if I could start the next day. Sure.

I got a ride to the restaurant from the head chef. When I asked him what is in store for the day, he told me, "Basically, just roll with it." In the kitchen I meet two other chefs finishing up cooking and serving the lunch and breakfast shift, and in another part of the kitchen, a pile of dishes, cutlery, pots and pans the size of a small elephant. As the head chef left me standing in the kitchen uninstructed, I felt a strong sense that I should "roll" into cleaning the dishes. Fortunately, the dishwasher was recently repaired, so I assured myself I'd make quick work of it and then I could work on the "kitchen" part of my training. But the dishwasher stopped functioning on wash number two, and thus began the time consuming and zen-like art of hand washing.

Flashback: I once spent an high school summer at the Dune's Restaurant in Rye, NH washing dishes. Half of that time the dishwasher didn't work at all, and the other half it only worked as a steam sanitizer. That was a miserable job. Revert to present.

Somewhere in the first half hour of cleaning dishes at the Pickled Fig, I remembered how much I hated that job in Rye: how my feet always hurt from standing all day, my back hurt from leaning over a sink for 10+ hours a shift, my hands always pruned and swollen, or dry and cracked afterward, and how I never had an evening or Friday/Saturday free since the weekends are the biggest nights. I saw all things fun in Perth being squandered by this job for the next few months, and it replayed in my mind a few times and I shuttered.

It took me one hour to conclude that kitchen work, especially a glorified dishwasher / "kitchen hand", is not worth the hard work in relation to its pay -- at least for me. I didn't go to college and get a 150K degree that says I'm a chemical engineer to work hard as a dishwasher and get paid jack. If I'm going to work hard, I'm going to do it as a chemical engineer and get paid for it.  At the end of the second hour, I told this to my boss without any malice. I said I'd finish the shift and for a free meal and a ride home, I'd call it even.

That's pretty much what happened. At the end of the night, around 1am, the manager said he appreciated the hard work I put in especially without a dish washing machine, and appreciated my honesty about not staying on, and he wanted to pay me my wages in appreciation. So my first job in Perth lasted 12 hours but I learned something which will help me narrow down my job search in Perth in the future: Find a job that is easy and pays jack.

One final point to share. The head chef kept talking about food as being sexy, which I just don't get and usually apply a whole different set of adjectives to the subject (except for "hot"), but he made some delicious food that I had a chance to sample. He told me a few of the recipes and here are the two that I intend to try sometime in the future. He made a "honeycomb" (which is basically carmelized sugar, maple syrup and baking soda, causing the carmel to foam up before it solidifies) which he put into the center of a chocolate souffle. For our dinner, he made sandwiches with slices of a cheap cut of braised beef topped with an English mustard-mayo on artisan bread. It terms of the meat alone, it may have been the best beef sandwich I've ever tasted. 

A Reflection on a Year in Asia

I started my trip in South Korea with a brand new Osprey backpack. It was so immaculate that, in the beginning, as it became worn and stained I knew the cause of each spot and where and how it happened. I would sit in long, uncomfortable bus rides inspecting my pack for new blemishes so that I could remember them by the circumstances and place. Ultimately, these spots, stains, and fraying edges on my pack told a story of where it'd been, and by association, where I'd been.

But today, nearly one year to the day when I woke up in my sister's Boston apartment at four in the morning to catch a taxi, operated by a Hungarian immigrant, for a 6:30am departure bound for Seoul, South Korea, there is so much wear and tear on my pack, all the stories have become one bigger, less detailed story. And the detailed stories I remember are muddled and sometimes reinvented out of a desperation to believe I haven't forgotten. So now when I look over my backpack, I no longer see a chronology of where I've been in Asia and what I've done, but just a dingy backpack.

Bodies tell stories in a similar way. A scar on the back of each of my hands reminds me of a family vacation, along with my friend Chad and my sister's friend Kristin, in Conway, NH. Chad and I drove there separately in my maroon 1987 5-cylinder Audi 5000S -- gifted to me by my father around my 16th birthday -- while playing a mix tape Chad made of the most excellent retro hits of the 1980s. Songs like Wall of Voodoo's Mexican Radio, Duran Duran's Hungry Like a Wolf, Simple Minds' Don't You (Forget About Me), Dead or Alive's You Spin Me Round (Like a Record), Gary Numan's Cars, Dexys Midnight Runners' Come On Eileen, English Beat's Mirror in the Bathroom, and no 80s mix is complete without A-Ha's Take on Me. As a relatively new driver I experienced my first can't-see-shit-out-the-window we're-all-gonna-die downpour, as I started hydroplaning towards the cement median before regaining control. But the scars on the back of my hands came during a swimming contest as I attempted to complete the most laps underwater in one breath. Without goggles, and too chicken to ever open my eyes underwater, I blindly went too deep and scrapped my hands along the gritty bottom of the pool, unfolding two fingernail sized chunks of open skin. For the next several months the wounds didn't heal because that summer I worked in the "Lobster Pool" at Little Jack's Seafood Restaurant, where the constant use of latex gloves filled with water or perspiration, and caused the supple scabs to keep peeling off. Now the scars are relics of a really good summer vacation where I was young, innocent, and life was simpler, so it seemed.

There used to be a time when I could recount with a story nearly all the noticable scars on my body (or at least I imagined I could). But that's not the case these days. The raised scar on my right wrist is hard to find and story-less; the method I received the cut under my chin where hair doesn't grow has been forgotten -- but I believe it was from a jumping-on-the-bed miscalculation where my chin landed on the foot board. There are many more that are a mystery to me. Of the youngest memories I have as a child, I sometimes think they were invented from stories I've heard from my parents, or photos I've seen in albums. So my mental faculties are waning or filling up with more important stuff, the small events that make up the big events are being forgotten, and some of the memories I have are second hand. I'm starting to worry that I'm going the way of my backpack. That's life, I guess.

This year I earned a scar on the top of my left foot after unknowingly scratching it against a rusty step while returning to the junk boat I had just jumped off of in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. (Thankfully, I had a tetanus shot a few months prior). Coincidentally, another traveler unknowingly fell victim to the vicious step, and back on board someone followed the trails of blood to notify the owners. But only wearing sandals throughout Southeast Asia meant the scar has become sunburned on many occasions, leaving it pink and uncomfortable and taking longer to heal. So what should have been a forgettable cut now is a white dot of scar tissue on my foot for a lifetime, and one day I might not remember how it got there.

I could summarize my trip in Asia in a lot of ways, telling different stories with various themes or trains of consciousness. I don't believe that the stories of my scars are that interesting to you, dear reader, but it is an interesting way to think of our bodies, and its an idea I like. We are adorned with memories both physical and mental that are encrypted from the stranger or from the friend that wasn't there. Maybe if we were privy to the code, we could read each other like books, these journeys through life, and understand each other better than we often times express through language.

But we ain't books, so that's not possible. I don't think we can know each other much more than our shared experiences and a collective consciousness about existence. Stories are one of the ways we share experiences, and here I am trying to tell you a story about my year in Asia, but finding that making a list of superlatives is contentious and thinking its been done before by anyone with a travel blog; the most absurd and funny things of interest seem too outrageous for a semi-public blog; my memories with friends and friendly faces (it isn't called facebook for nothing) seem in infinite supply yet all blurred together in the recesses of my mind; finding a profound "conclusion" is especially contentious and perhaps there isn't one there; and if I tried to narrate a story where I let the reader live vicariously through my experience to see what I've done and how it changed me, if at all -- well, its way too complex, and uninteresting to anyone but me.

Very early in my trip, I was given some kernel of travel knowledge by an amazing Nunavutian world traveler while on Jeju Island, South Korea. Her advice, more like a warning, was about returning home, as she was finishing up a half year traveling solo through the "Stans" of Asia, minus Afghanistan and Pakistan. She said that wherever I go next after traveling, home or elsewhere, there will be few people, if any, that care much about my previous travel experiences. She related going home after traveling as if it was all a series of newly developed pictures: after an initial brief review by friends and family, these pictures soon get put into a box and packed away. They are only occasionally brought out to reminisce with the people who were there in the picture with you. I remember thinking at the time, "How will it feel to travel for a year, 1/29 of my life, and after only a week, feel that no one cares about it?" I guess that is human nature: we live in the present or for the future, while our stories of the past make us who we are in the present -- without having to explain how or why we came to be. In that sense, there's no story to tell.

So I leave Asia without a nice and neat blog post summarizing my trip in Asia, though the blog will continue from Australia if the stories are interesting enough to share. But remember that our stories are implicit in who we are, and when I meet you next, you are indirectly experiencing those stories. For those many great people who were here to share it, I hope I cross paths with you again so that I can reminisce about the stories that aren't interesting to those that weren't there. And regardless of who you are, I'd be glad to listen to your stories, and share my own over a wine at a sunset, a soju over a game of cards, a beer at a bar, or a shot of vodka on a train. I think we'll both like that better than writing or reading a blog. 

A Boat and Komodo Dragons

After an extended stay on Gili Trawangan, I finally managed to stop at one of myriad tourist agents on the main line (which I passed daily for nearly two weeks) so that I could book a boat ticket for the island of Flores. Along with three meals a day, the boat would stop at various locations for snorkeling and afford a trip to Komodo National Park. Seeing Komodo Dragons was one of the things I had planned to accomplish in Indonesia (Sailing, Active Volcano, Komodo Dragons, Orangutan) but after hearing uninspired accounts of the reptiles, I had lost interest in making the journey until I started talking to people about the diving in the area.

The ticket I purchased promised four days and four nights, about 500 kilometers, with about 20 people sleeping on the deck of a small 20 meter boat.  Knowing this I had no illusions that it was going to be a luxury cruise, and prepared for the worst instead of dealing with disappointment later – a valuable skill that makes any overhyped tourist attraction more enjoyable.

Loading up the boat in Lombok.

Early in the morning, the tour agents at the Gili T pier silently herded travelers into their respective standing areas like obedient sheep dogs.  This is a routine I’ve become accustomed to in Southeast Asia, and I went about it without resistance or question. A German couple stood next to me, and seemed eager to double check that they’d been placed correctly. As more travelers arrived though, it was obvious we were in the “Boat to Flores” line. And soon enough we were placed on a longboat bound for Lombok, then a donkey-taxi ride to a bus terminal, then a two hour bus ride to the harbor, and finally all aboard our house boat for the next four nights.   

On the boat, there were three crew members and an English speaking Indonesian guide, Vick, along with 20 travelers, including me: Alessandro from Italy, Claudio from Italy, Luis and Silvia from Spain, Milos from the Czech Republic and Zvezda from Bulgaria, Ines from Bosnia, Agnes and Warren from Canada, Emma from England, Ben from England, Laura from Switzerland, Fabian from Sweden, Maik from Germany, Sebastian from Germany, Monica and Johannes from Germany, and Leah and Janet from Virginia Beach, USA! We were a surprisingly eclectic smattering of countries considering the dominance of French and Dutch travelers in Indonesia.  

Some tight quarters for sleeping on the deck.

From early on in the boat trip, it was obvious I was traveling with a great group of travelers. A comfortable social dynamic settled in quickly (perhaps not a miracle considering the circumstances), and though it wasn’t a luxury cruise, it was one in spirit. Perhaps on another boat with different people the trip would have been less sociable, if not duller.

Chilling and watching the sunset from the bow of a boat.

In fact, the ease of it all made me ponder why and how it is so easy to feel comfortable around new friends as I travel? Is it because travelers are kindred spirits of sorts? Or is it human nature to form social bonds when in a dynamic environment? (And perhaps travelling is perpetually dynamic). Am I sentimental or romanticizing when I feel that had time been longer, a traveler I’ve known for three days might be a great friend in a more permanent lifestyle?

These questions aren’t that profound unless you start thinking of making a clean slate – picking up a life and making friends elsewhere. It might not be as hard as we perceive when the question is first asked from the perspective of one settled into a routine of habits and friends. On the other hand, traveling is a transitory lifestyle, and the mentality of the people around are open to the spontaneous social bonds traveling afford – while a more static life style lends itself to more selective (or isolated, or even elitist) social groups.

So in the meantime, I saw the coral reefs, and played on a pink sand beach (the color is due to the red coral the fish eat, and then shit out; “sounds like a shitty beach” a friend of mine said when I explained this to her). After some rough seas, the boat finally arrived in Komodo National Park. Here I played my game of expecting the worst. I told myself, “These animals will be nothing like the vicious beasts highlighted on Discovery Channel”. This, unfortunately, was mostly true.

A stately Komodo Dragon posing the camera.

I’d been told that it is typical to visit the park and only see the larger Komodo Dragons around the local kitchen. Our group was lucky to find a two meter long lounge lizard chilling out by a (manmade) watering hole in the forest, when a lumbering giant Komodo (two and a half meters or more in length) came romping out of the forest to have a tiff over who got the shady spot. A dragon hissing match ensued, like the sound of a cornered cat, and eventually the littler guy relented, about-faced, and then, as a champion for gay rights in the Animal Kingdom (of God, with liberty, and justice for all), the victor promptly mounted the loser. (Fun fact, although I have no idea what it all means: male Komodo Dragons have two penises. One long penis, and one small “aggressive penis”, as our guide informed us). In this case, I think it was platonic love with a little bit of locker-room mischief.

These dragons voted "Yes" for Proposition 8.

Soon enough, the four days and four nights were over, and the whole group had one last night together in Labuanbajo, Flores before each of us headed to our next destination. We headed to a restaurant called Mediterraneo for an unbeatable deal of free Italian buffet with the purchase of a beer or cocktail. Win!

We all woke up in the morning on the boat for the last time, groggy from the night before, and feeling reluctant in saying the sentimental goodbyes to strangers that felt like good friends by then. I was sticking around for diving and without a schedule, so I hung around longer to let the others filter out – though I find goodbyes are always easier if I leave first. After that, I started the process of finding a cheap room in the peak season and a scuba diving outfitter in town. As I write this, the diving has been done, and I’ll post pictures whenever an internet connection can handle it – probably from Perth, Australia in about a week!   

Haircut Abyss

Here’s a half-truth for you: Hair grows back and I’m not especially vain.  Fortunately, as Ethan pointed out when we first met up in Korea, “The difference between a bad haircut and a normal haircut for men is about two weeks.”

I’ve had a handful of haircuts while travelling over the last year. Generally speaking, no one has shaved my eyebrows when I wanted my neck line cleaned up, but I still get that feeling of dread when I walk into a barbershop or salon in Asia: Unsure of the cutter's English proficiency; unsure of my phrasing and pointing expressiveness; unsure of their avant-garde tendencies. I’m referring to the haircut abyss, as Kierkegaard probably once experienced.

More "soccer" than checkerboard haircut.

My most noteworthy haircut was the “checkerboard” shaved into my head in China just because I could. Perhaps we can always get stupid haircuts if we want, and don’t we grow up hearing and then repeating the adage that we shouldn't judge a book by its cover? But anyone with life experience knows that that simply isn’t true: For the sake of efficiency in discriminating what we want from what we don’t our sight is the first sense to take action. (Hopefully, we keep an open mind to revise these judgements later). Anyway, not as well-known is the addendum to the adage that goes, “But if it looks stupid, you can still laugh out loud at it, especially if it isn't looking directly at you.” The people in Asia seem to be much more familiar with that part of the adage than Americans.

The “China” haircut wasn’t that bad, until I made a bet with a traveler in Vietnam about three weeks later during trivia night, exclaiming in disbelief that “There is no fucking way Brasilia is the capital of Brazil. How would I have forgotten that?” Well apparently, there is a fucking way, and she got to shave another patch into the one area on my head missing a square – my forehead – at a way shorter length then the rest of my square patches.

The look of a man who doesn't know the capital of Brazil is Brasilia. 

Ethan’s trivia partner that night, a really sarcastic, dry, and entertaining lady from Australia (bless her damn heart), thought my haircut was hilarious. So hilarious that at the bar she kept yelling from afar, regardless of my company, “Oh my god, do you have AIDS?!”  Have you ever tried to appear intriguing to the opposite sex when someone is asking if you have AIDS? It’s difficult.

After an unmemorable night and a half day on a train, Ethan and I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City around 4am, about 12 hours earlier than expected due to some shoddy maths (as the British say), and at around 7am I shaved my head bald. As a consequence, I think I got more stares than before, probably of sympathy – perhaps assuming my pale scalp was exposed as a consequence of chemotherapy.

Scarred from the self-inflicted trauma of the whole event, it’s been nearly seven months since I had a real appearance-changing haircut. That is until today. There is nothing noteworthy about the five-minute haircut I got, except that I paid a special tourist price of 10 dollars. My long flowing locks and lion-like neck mane have been cut down so that the gusts of wind won’t pick me off my feet. Before I saw the end result, the haircut abyss hovered above the mirror as I pondered the end result: How short will she cut? Did she understand that I didn't want the top cut? Gee-willikers, how is she cutting my hair without looking at my head? But all is well. I have a normal haircut. Although I might say it's a little Justin Bieber-y. My question now is, does that mean in two more weeks I’ll have a good haircut?

A Rundown of Gili T Island

I'm on Gili Trawangan, Gili T for the lazy or unsure, or GT for the brain damaged.

Gili T is one of three islands on the north east part of Lombok, which is just east of Bali, which is in the middle of the Indonesia archipelago, which is in the southern most portion of Southeast Asia (SEA for short), which is on planet Earth, which is revolving around the sun in an eight planet solar system (sorry Pluto), which is one of billions of solar systems in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is merely one galaxy of probably trillions all racing around in an unfathomably expansive, potentially limitless, universe. Picture it. It's nice. (I wish this paragraph had a purpose, 'cause it took a good amount of time to write, and now you've read it, and it still doesn't have a purpose).

In the course of traveling, sometimes I happen upon tiny paradises where I take vacations from traveling. (Ugh, as if traveling is very stressful, so I don't kid myself that I need a vacation from anything. But I don't have any problems indulging -- I seem to be pretty good at it really). Gili T is one of these places. Olhkon Island in Russia, most of Mongolia, Yangshuo in China, Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, 4000 Islands in Laos, and Tonsai Beach and Pai  in Thailand are other examples. All of these places have a slower pace of life, exhibit a beautiful scenery, and often attract a certain type of traveler that I get along well with. Perhaps that's why I subjectively label these places "paradises".

The most notable thing to do in Gili T is scuba diving, as the nutrient rich currents support the flourishing coral reefs and sea flora and fauna. The diving here is great if you can wake up without a hangover, since quite literally Gili T moonlights as a chill party island. Today, as I write this, Ramadan starts, and things quiet down considerably, which hopefully gives me some relief from the night life.

Being a party island also means that Gilians frequently ask if you want marijuana, and bars openly advertise the availability of "fucking crazy, shoot you to the moon" magic mushrooms. To be honest, that is nothing out of the ordinary for a remote party island in Southeast Asia.

As I walked back to my room the other evening, every Indonesian guy on a bicycle pedalling past offered up the obligatory, "Hello, weed?". To which I often reflexively say, "No, thanks," before checking myself on the silliness of it. As if someone trying to sell me drugs should be politely told "No" in a country where government signs say "Using illegal drugs is punished with the death penalty". Maybe I'm just bitter I haven't received a "You're welcome" back.

The island is governed by a village chief, and there aren't any permanent police on the island, although some sort of police/military presence occasionally visits the island. As for the locals using drugs, people turn a blind eye as along as the users aren't affecting the experiences of the tourist community. Apparently a "three strikes and you're out" rule of law is in effect for any locals breaking this rule.

Unfortunately, for turning a blind eye to drugs (crystal meth being the major villain), a few Indonesians have significantly diminished their collective brain cell count. These are the "street crazies", as travel author Jack Parkinson calls them. I've seen a few fights between locals while strolling back from the bar and I'm not sure if they started out of boredom or cracked out states of mind or petty arguments over who will creep out the Western girl at the bar. So maybe that is why I always say "No" politely to the guys selling drugs -- I'm feigning mutual respect and get to carry on my way in peace.  All I'm saying is that I'd rather be polite than punched in the face. Call it economics.

Anyway, sometimes I can't help but take the liberty to laugh at the crazier things I've seen these street crazies do. As I ate lunch the other day, a guy did some trance-like jig on the beach then climbed a tree and started meowing like a stranded cat. A family with two young kids watched in awe, and I saw the look on their mother's face contemplating how she was going explain that behavior to her nine year old children. Nothing like a real life example to show kids the consequences drug abuse can bring.

As for me, I'm going to focus on diving and snorkelling for a few days and give my liver time to recover. I did my first 30 meter dive the other day, also my first drift dive. The current was frighteningly fast compared to the dives I've done previously, and I've been told that it can get a lot worse. If I muster up the funds ($40 USD!?), I'll rent a camera on one of the dives and post pictures of the psychedelic other-worldly drug-free landscapes.