Week Three

Greetings,

Yes, it's always about starting over as I travel the planet.

"Make it new day by day, make it new," said a wandering Chinese monk sitting in a green garden as light shafted through bamboo leaves. Practicing calligraphy.

Winding down small gifts given to Indonesians; orange, green, red, blue, and purple Tibetan silk khata scarves. Long, filled with eight auspicious symbols. Delicate and light.

I arrived three weeks ago on a thirty-day tourist visa. Stayed in an Old Quarter hotel for 2.5 weeks. Submitted my passport and $95 bones for a six-month visa extension. It came through this week.

I turned my attention to finding a room. The New Hanoian provides information on events, groups, classifieds, housing and jobs. Alyssa, a teacher friend from our China university days teaching in Nha Trang sent it along while I was in Indonesia. An excellent resource.

I'm in a new room in a new house in a new neighborhood near Lenin Park filled with your typical narrow twisted alleys, dead ends, byways, rusty gates, spilling bougainvillaea foliage, curious kids, workers pulling wheeled carts filled with discarded bricks and mud, slender looming homes (narrow for land tax reasons with 4-5 floors the max) of Ha Noi.

Sequestered inside intimate homes, palm trees, small ponds, it's a respite from the street, noise and gentle wind. A 4th floor balcony offers views of scattered red tiled and metal sheeted roofs, jumbled balconies, distant flashing red light towers, clouds and sky. New garden potentials. Delightful. It's an excellent base for my work, travels and future teaching opportunities.

Discovering new paths, the price of tomatoes and fresh greens. After a daily show up the women give me a fair price. 

Two laid back roommates, a Frenchman working for a privately owned agricultural farm three hours north and a Vietnamese speaking Canadian teaching English and playing music with his band of wandering minstrels.

Metta.

Waterproofing a new bamboo hat for a customer.

Pack your humor

Greetings,

Travelers need to remember when packing for adventures like going to the grocery store down on the corner or to the eye doctor to see clearly, or across town when they need to see friends, neighbors, strangers, aliens and relatives, to whisper goodbye, "I'm off to join the circus!" perhaps for the final time (one never knows if they'll return) to pack their sense of humor.

Many travelers forget to pack their sense of humor. Perhaps they don't consider their sense of humor important or valuable or a life saver on their super serious adventures into foreign worlds. Worlds filled with humans, languages, smells, sights, sounds, - sense data - dirt, dust, sweat, being lost in dire straits, wandering without a GPS or compass.

Strange. You'd think they'd remember to keep it light, stay calm, focused, let go of expectations and perceived outcomes and enjoy their travails, I mean travels, with a sense of humor. Packing a sense of humor means less baggage and less fear.

Before you swim past a wand man/woman at security you don't have to put your sense of humor in the plastic box so it can roll through the x-ray machine. You don't see many travelers collecting their sense of humor after passing through security. Some kept it with them, others forgot it at Home Sweet Home.

After you pack everything cut it in half. Except your sense of humor.

After clearing immigration keep laughing when you have NOTHING TO DECLARE.

Metta.