Flashback : The Magic Cave

There I was in Laos, a karstic country studded with breathtaking caves, hoping to visit some. I love caves. It's one of the things I search for on the internet when I know I'm going to see a new country, the others being Earth Sandwich-ableness, coordinates of gravity hills, and mountains and highpoints to climb.

With the exception of a few caves I visited with my brothers and dad back in Florida, this new-found love of caves started in France on a hitchhiking, hiking, and camping trip on the Mediterranean coast. That trip led us to the Magic Cave.

La Ciotat

One morning, a group of Montpellierans hitchhiked east to the town of La Ciotat, which in Provencal colorfully means "the city." It's known as the birthplace of petanque, a Southern French version of boules and bocci balls. "The city" also lies along the calanques, which are, superficially speaking, French fjords. Junko, my hitchhiking partner, and I caught a truck going all the way from Montpellier to La Ciotat, known in my hitchhiking world as a hole in one. In town, we and the other groups of hitchhikers couchsurfed, swam, and Tai-chi'ed with an older Danish-French couple living there. The following day we started hiking back west in the direction of Cassis and Marseille across the calanques. Upon leaving, Jorgen, the Danish half of the couple, mentioned that there may be a cave in the calanques where we could spend the night, but he wasn't sure exactly where it was. So our group sent Sofia, the circus student, to climb down the various cliffs looking for a cavern. By dusk, we were losing hope of finding the cave and started looking for camping spots. Within moments, we spied a narrow steep trail heading down the cliff toward the sea. So down we went, too. And there it was, an opaque entrance looking out onto the Med. Heck yeah !

On the cliffs looking down.

The cave consisted of one large rectangularish room with a long table and a chimney. We were not the first visitors. In the middle of our joy, our true situation dawned on us. This was one of our first hiking trips and one of the most hastily-planned : we had three or four small headlamps, a few matches, a bottle of wine and a bottle of water. I don't really remember if we had any food to speak of. And it was cold in the cave, nearly freezing. We played some card games by headlamplight, but we were all dreaming of a fire and some food.

Mouth of the cave.

That's when we heard a rustling. And a swishing. From outside. Then the rustling became a bustling, and the swishing a stirring. Then came the whispering. Oh shit, who are these guys ? We started to get worried. Then we saw lights flickering at the mouth of the cave, and then two young - obviously French - men burst into the cave, carrying...firewood and potatoes. Welcome to our dark abode !

Our bottle of wine disappeared before our visitors arrived, and while we were introducing ourselves, the collective mind of the Montpellierans was now dreaming and hoping that Dionysus might just drop in. We got the next best thing : more French people entered the cave carrying backpacks full of wine bottles. The fire raging, the potatoes steaming, the wine flowing, the cave party had begun. All we were missing was a bit of musi---and here come two more francais carrying guitars. Someone else must have been thinking of some pot because that showed up a few minutes later. Within an hour, our motley group of Canadians, a Moroccan, a Japanese, a Spaniard, a Swede, an American, and a howling dog went from hungry and bored to well-satiated and raucous. Thanks to the Magic Cave.

From then on, we sought out all the caves we could in southern France...and they were all mostly amazing, but not quite as magical as that first cave. Not sure why. Did I mention that we found a monkey's paw on the route to the magic cave ?

Slices of Cambodia

It's the end of April, and we'll be leaving Asia soon, so I figure it's a good idea to start writing about our early adventures and experiences and observations. Our first stop was in Cambodia, a diverse place with nice beaches and islands, the mega ruins of the fallen Angkor civilization, a long winding stretch of the Mekong River with jumping Irrawaddy dolphins, and, sadly,a tragic period of social upheaval and genocide.

1) In less than hour
We arrived in Phnom Penh in the late morning. After a very long New Year's Day that lasted more than 30 hours, we were famished. We took a tuk-tuk straight to the hostel. I have no idea about any of the meals I've eaten since then, but I am sure that for that brunch, I had a coriander pumpkin soup. It cost $2.50. And in within an hour of arrival, my meal surpassed anything that we ingested in South America. No disrespect to the good cooks (90% of the great dishes came from about five people) in South America and lots of culinary disrespect for everyone else, this soup was on another level.

2) Crossing Traffic
Phnom Penh seems like a big city at first glance for those unaccustomed to Asian mega-cities. In retrospect, the city's rather tame. But it was our first time in Southeast Asia, and the six lanes of cars and motos and bicycles whizzing around the roundabouts and down the streets were downright scary. After ten minutes waiting at the curb for an opening, we saw another more-experienced traveler reach the same curb as us. We waited ten seconds then waded out into the sea of traffic. Like a goddamn Moses, that sea went around him. He walked in a straight line, never altering his pace. So like the Jews, we followed Moses across the sea. Motos, cars, and bikes Bernoulli'ed around us, creating a small envelope, until we reached the opposite curb of safety. Then Moses turned left and left us.

3) Ewwwww ! How beautiful !
During the Khmer Rouge regime, more than 95% of the population were farmers. Today, that percentage is much smaller but still a majority. In many cultures, beauty is often defined as an opposing physical response to the masses : In the West, chubby was beautiful at a time when people were hungry; Today it's the opposite. In Cambodia, the "beautiful" people set themselves apart from the lowly farmers by bleaching their skin and, bizarrely, by growing some of their fingernails to appalling lengths. We were glad to learn that handshaking is not part of the culture, a short bow helps you to keep your distance from all of those Khmer Edward Scissorhands. Taking odd to new heights, these same beauties will allow, nay !, encourage their mole hairs to extend several inches from the point of origin (usually the face) as a sort of wispy, off-center, three-haired beard. Sexy.

4) Cure for Myopia
In our month in Cambodia, we saw no more than three people were eyeglasses, far fewer than anywhere else that I've visited in the world. Within a week or so of our trip, we made that eyewearlessness realization and immediately, we made another realization : almost every eyeglass-wearer was murdered during the Khmer Rouge's regime in the late 70's because glasses were a symbol of education and learning. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.


5) iMonk

Sa Rith

The town of Battambang is known for two things : French buildings (shutters everywhere) and the bamboo train (literally a bamboo raft, big enough for five people, laying on two train axles with a small motor). But one of the more memorable events was at a monastery, where we met Sa Rith, a Buddhist monk. One of the first questions he asked was, "Are you a student or a teacher ?" For me, it was seemingly easy to answer, but I detected a trick. I imagined that all monks carried a few thought-provoking questions written on index cards somewhere in a secret pocket in their robes, such as "What is the sound of one-hand clapping ?" and "Which is better : real heaven or pie heaven ?"

Sa Rith asked to take a photo with us, and we were astonished when he grabbed an iPad from his room. But it just didn't jibe with my vague notions of monkhood. Shaved head, dressed in robes, barefoot or sandaled, eat only food given freely, play Angry Birds....hmmm. We had learned earlier that monks (always male) can never touch a woman. Because they have cooties, of course. But they can Cut the Rope, no problem.

Tuk-tuk ride between Kampot and Kep

6) Pepperland
We spent one of our last, and certainly most absurd, evenings in Cambodia in Kep, a seaside town spread around a small peninsula. The region, near Vietnam, is famous for its peppercorns, red, green, black, and white. So it was while watching the sun set, that we were invited by five drunk men with an air of authority to come join them. Four of the five spoke no English. The fifth translated as best he could the commands of the others, "drink this Black panther beer" as one of the others poured glasses for us, "he's a general" pointing at the biggest drunk, and he mumbled something about them being "bodyguards of the prime minister".

The crab of Kep

The general gave us his take on the state of the world using his best Khmerglish while his companions each took turns to pee in the sea. "Russia !" he exclaimed. "No ! Syria ! No !" The general and wordsmith was sitting cross-legged and kept his hand flat in the air at the level of his knee. Then he raised his voice even further, "Cambodia ! Sabai, sabai !" as he raised his hand above his head. for the next 30 minutes we learned that China, Afghanistan, and Ukraine each deserved a resounding, "no !" But each time, Cambodia was "sabai, sabai !" with a hand high in the air.

Then the general wanted some photos with us. The general, political scientist, bodyguard to the prime minister, and drunk then wanted to get even closer with us : he started sniffing my hand and cupping Justin's butt during the photo shoot. Like Borat, though, he wouldn't touch the girls. Time to leave Pepperland.

January 2nd : Dear Diary

On New Year's Day, Pauline and I left South America after three years of backpacking, working, and backpacking some more. By the evening, we had left LAX, our first stopover, on our way to Asia, a continental first for Pauline, and my first time back since my ignominious crawl through Beijing's airport ten years earlier.

While not as exciting an entrance as my previous exit, our trip did have a short moment of interest in the middle. Right in the middle. Right around midnight, we crossed over that quiet, oft-forgotten, crooked little line called the International Date Line. And so, the 1st of January in a blink became the 3rd. The 2nd vanished, never to be reclaimed.

I was never really partial to the 2nd of January as a day. No holidays or birthdays come to mind. It's generally a lazy day falling between the holidays and the beginning of work or school. But like the newly robbed, blind, or amputated, you appreciate those things much more after they're taken from you. Granted, my yearning for the 2nd of January was never as strong nor as long-lasted as the limbless'. It lingered about a week into January and faded. Come on, who really cares about the 2nd of January, even if it is excised from your year by the cold and Pacific date line ?

Hey...! You ?

We're spoiled in English. Whether you are my friend or enemy, a man or a woman, young or old, you're always going to be, well, you to me.  Even if you are part of a group, you are still you, except in the South where you might be y'all, or in pirates' caves in Oregon, where you would be hey you guuuyyyssss. Grammatically, I don't even have to try, really. Subject or object, still you. Too easy.

But it wasn't always that way, you know. We, the English-speakers of the past (including William Shakespeare and Guy Fawkes, God and Charleton Heston), used to have thou and thee and ye and you, and some special pronouns for the nobility and royalty such as your grace, your highness, your majesty, or perhaps even your sumptuousness. It's this latter group of Early Modern English second person pronouns that I think of when hearing Spanish in South America

Iberian Spanish has just three you's, according to Edu, the Spanish guy sitting in front of me, in the objective form : tu, usted, and vosotros, which anyone who's studied the language can probably recall, vaguely. In Latin America, it's slightly different : tu, usted, and ustedes. And vos, which is like vosotros but for one person only. And su merced. That's right, they say your mercy. Or your grace. Su merced ! It's the year 2014, we've gone to the moon, eradicated smallpox, elected a black man president of America, decided that the year's best book title is "How to Poo on a Date", yet some sad saps in Boyaca or Bogota are still calling their "betters", your grace ! WTF ?