Since it’s that time of year again, and my wonderful job of teaching at a university in Korea allows me a very generous vacation, I have decided to embark on yet another travel photography expedition. This time, however, my itinerary is set for Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand for a total of 37 days.

As you may remember, last break during the summer I managed to backpack over 3,000 km in four weeks – some hitchin’, some mashrootka (the Russian minivan taxi where once I experienced being one of twenty-four stuffed inside like sardines in a tin can); the bukhanka (literally translated as loaf of bread, you’ll know what I mean by clicking here), and of course, the Tran-Siberian, Trans-Mongolian rail. This time I’ll probably be bussing it around more, from city to city, with only a very basic itinerary and over 40GB of memory on my cameras to fill.

I’m hoping to do more trekking in the jungle amidst ancient ruins (Angkor Wat); see the killing fields, French colonial towns, whole families riding on a single motorbike; cu-chi tunnels, punji traps, tuk-tuks, shot down planes. I hope to hear the sweets sounds of the đàn nhị, see snakes hanging off vines and primates of all sorts brachiating. I’m hoping to capture paddies and rice hats and water buffalo sludging around in rice terraces; of course, the resilient and resourceful people of Indochina who have persisted for centuries through wars, genocides; famine and disease not to mention, to capture the Buddhist traditions in the remotest places on the planet.

 

My past trips, particularly my Baltics to Balkans adventure in 2010 where I drove around Europe, app. 4,500 km, in a ’94 Opel, produced in me a very malleable-type traveler, forging the curves of my body to naturally be able to sleep in box-sized, coffin-like compartments, as over the folded out seats in the station wagon or being obediently squeezed between two zaftig Latvian babooshkas on an overnight train. My past experiences of sleeping in huts on wooden floors, in oven-heated gers, in orthodox churches as well as outside at their entrances…under trees, in tents, in the desert plains, in the Mongolian steppes, in strangers’ houses – were all such places where I could ‘step’ my ear to the ground (like the Spanish say pisar la oreja) and to practice in making myself easily compact or to learn how to become accustomed to certain conditions, essentially to rough it out and refrain from complaining for having a boxspring for a bed, or that I should practice the art of not squirming about when a mouse or other infestation happens onto me at night, scuttling around, as such things happened to me in the Philippines.

Of course, I’m hoping the physical changes my body underwent were equally matched with my physiological ones, too. Preparing my hardly steadfast immune system, my not-so-much bacteria exposed entrails were the snails, the scorpions and other street food matter I ate back in China; the mutton, the sheep gonads from Mongolia; the endless platter of pork in hospitable homes in Russia and from the Philippines, boiled chick called, Balut. I suppose eating Korean food for a whole year has also tempered my organs to prevent any sort of organ-type malfunction (knocking on wood!).

On the matter of spiritual changes, I suppose you could read previous posts which I was lucky enough to get published in travel mags. My travel piece, “Siberia: Not To Be Learned From Books” seems to be getting me some attention.

So, rather basically, here is a picture of my Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand itinerary:

So, if something should happen to me, well, I guess I’m on my own then. I have been getting feedback from readers and they’re wanting to see how much this all costs. Here is a breakdown of major pre-departure expenses, so far:

- Flight, one-way: Seoul >>>Ho Chi Minh, China Southern Airlines, $293.29

- Flight, one-way: Bangkok>>>Seoul, Air China, $230.00

- VISA: Cambodia, $25; Vietnam, 125$, Thailand, no VISA

- typhoid, tetanus, diptheria shots: $16

At first I was not convinced. I had never been interested in horse riding at all, nor did I even plan on mounting a sturdy white mare upon arrival to Mongolia’s Gorkhi-Terelj National Park. And despite everyone indulging me with horse maxims like, “to ride a horse is like to ride the wind,” or “no hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle,”  I still associated the pastime with priggish bourgeois social classes and the boring equestrian events of the Summer Olympics. Even as a boy I was thoroughly bored with Wild West and Cowboys and Indians movies; and need I even mention the dancing Lipizzaner Stallions of the Spanish Riding school in Austria, which to me, are parodied of their true abilities and groomed to look like pearly “My Little Pony” toys for children.

you can read more on INTRAVELMAG.COM by clicking here

I opened my eyes, looked over my dawn-filled hut, and was immediately struck with fear. I jolted up from bed and bumped my head into an…upper bunk? I grabbed my head to rub out the pain and right when I was about to unleash a string of curse words I became distracted in remembering if I even had an upper bunk. A pestilential reek also lingered about of which I failed in pinpointing its yesterday and, as all my senses were now regrettably stimulated, I failed to remember where I was, or even where I laid my head the night before.

I saw cobwebs of hoarfrost hanging in the ceiling corners and a broken window near the bed. The window had a build-up of ice a few fingers thick and the pane was so old that its rough splintery surface could have looked like iron filings standing on a magnet’s end. The window’s shutter was at the wind’s mercy beating violently against the pane, permitting a shrilly, gelid draught to enter and circulate the hut. The draught blew in some flakes of snow. For some reason, this reminded me of man named, Anton. I didn’t know who Anton was, but somehow, Anton’s words stuck in my conscience from a conversation in a cafeteria line-up…

you can read more on TRAVELMAG.CO.UK by clicking here

There comes that time in your life when your views and perceptions of people become finally tempered, either generalizing and expounding that “all people are shit and garbage.”

This was proclaimed to me recently by a cuckolded friend, in his vitriol launched at his ex in the form of words stripped down to the bare bones of humorous vulgarity; or, that “all people are the same” so there’s no point to really stress about it because we’ll always cause each other and ourselves a never-ending pain and suffering regardless of the colors of moods we put on every day. As what Sartre once said, “people are hell,” right?

This is the blah p.o.v which comes out against the fellow human after a particular event of marital dismissal or breakup, compelling you to say – “I will now practice the Art of Zen and I don’t give a fuck.”

Nonetheless, this uncaused cause of interpersonal turmoil can trigger a healthy mind-revolution. In my case, it came in the form of travelling alone…

you can read more on HACKWRITERS.COM by clicking here