Mt. Rainier, Mt. St Helens, Crater Lake, Burning Man 2004, San Francisco, Canyonlands National Park

No matter how much I try to hold onto the present it always seems to slip off into the future. It’s hard to imagine that it’s been three months since my last update. I suppose when I decided to take a break from working on my book all other writing got left behind as well. Even my journal has been void of thoughts lately. Lots of things have happened in these past three months – let me catch you up.

I left Canada and headed south back into the continental United States. My first stop of note was Mt. Rainier National Park and its snow capped peak rising majestically out of the misty forests of the Pacific Northwest. This was my first visit to Rainier and when I came around a bend in the road and saw the mountain for the first time I was awe struck. I pulled over and sat awhile picking over its rocky crags and flowing glaciers with my eyes and allowing its form to settle into my mind like the face of a new friend. With the dog banned from the trails, I explored as much as I could from the road; the visit was well worth it but it only whetted my appetite for more. (more…)

Fairbanks, Dalton Highway, Dease Lake, Laird Hot Springs, Jasper, and Banff.

Leaving Denali I headed north to the city of Fairbanks. An eclectic town that feels young thanks to the proximity of the University of Alaska. I hung out here for a few days preparing for my trek up north. I went to a great folk music festival that went all day at a local park and featured many talented local musicians. Best of all, dogs were welcome and Coho made lots of doggie friends. It was a nice high for him, contrasted with the low of being neutered two days later. He came through it fine, and doesn’t seem to have any adverse effects.

From Fairbanks I journeyed up the Dalton Highway. Known simply as the ‘haul road’, it’s a winding strip of dirt and rock that leads 400 miles into the northern oblivion. It parallels the Alaskan Pipeline that runs south from the northern oil fields on the Arctic Ocean and the town of Deadhorse. One of the most beautiful stretches of roadway I have ever traveled. Massive granite mountains squat on the northern tundra, trees quickly give way to shrubs, and then the shrubs to moss and lichen. I hit the arctic circle and kept going, relentlessly rolling northward through towns with names like Wiseman and Coldfoot, lonely outposts carved out of the arctic landscape. I made it to Galbraith Lake, about 130 miles from Deadhorse. At this northern latitude on the eve of the summer solstice, the sun never sets. It was a profoundly beautiful spot, peaceful and serene; it was in this isolated location that I found the end of my book. Conventional wisdom says that after having traveled well over 5,000 miles from California that I would have pushed the final few to Deadhorse, but keeping true to my character, I bucked the typical and turned south instead making it back to Fairbanks with only one flat tire. (more…)

Valdez, Seward, Homer, Anchorage, Denali State Park and Coho

Let’s see, where did I last leave off? Oh, yes the belly of the ferry. The ferry spit me out in Haines where I stayed one night and not finding anything that sparked my interest I left and drove to Valdez. A great town set at the terminus of the Alaskan Pipeline and now infamous as the site of the worst oil spill in US history. Visible signs of the spill are mostly gone unless you dig down a few inches, but the long-term effects of the spill are still taking a toll on the local population of sea creatures. The town is ringed by towering peaks and sits on the north side of a protected bay with a narrow entrance. It’s hard not feel overcome with awe at the natural beauty of this spot. (more…)

Juneau, Sitka, and the Wilderness

On April 23^rd I packed my backpack, left the Van in Skagway, and jumped an overnight ferry heading south. I camped out on the floor in my sleeping bag, along with a bunch of other people that didn’t want to spring for a berth, we fell asleep and woke up in Juneau – the Capital of Alaska. It was 5AM and I found someone to share a cab downtown. I arrived at the Alaskan Hotel a classic two hundred year old building with eclectic rooms that make you feel like you stepped back in time to the gold rush days. Showing up at this early hour, I surprised the night manager along with the hookers he was hanging out with in the lobby. He practically fell over himself trying to get me a room and shuffle me upstairs.

Juneau is a beautiful town nestled between the water and snow-capped peaks. I met up with two locals Chris and Dru at a bar one night and we got to talking and they offered to take me out the next day and show me around. We checked out the Mendenhall Glacier an impressive site within spitting distance of Juneau. It has a one-and-a-half mile face that flows twelve miles into a lake where pieced of itself calve into the chilly waters. We drove north to the “end-of-the-road”, where the road, well, ends – Juneau being completely landlocked and all. We also visited the Shrine of St. Terese, a very cool Catholic chapel that sits on a small island connected to land by a small causeway. Large spruce trees cover the island and shelter the natural stone chapel that looks like it grew out of the ground by divine force rather then built by the hands of man. A spiritually harmonic place that leaves an indelible impression long after you’ve left its solitudenous shores. It was great to get the local take on things and hang out with a couple of super cool guys – Alaskans rock. (more…)

Driving the backwoods of Canada, Skagway, and Woody Harrelson

I crossed the border into Canada on April 13^th, the border officials searched my van for something incriminating, but came up empty; guess I looked like I was up to no good. I pointed the van north from the border and began the long trek through Canada to reach Alaska. It’s an interesting time of year to be in the Great White North. On the downside, most tourist sites and museums have not yet opened for the spring season. Parks, campgrounds and hiking trails are packed-in with deep snow, so unless you have a pair of snowshoes, and I don’t, there isn’t much to do.

On the plus side, the country is incredibly beautiful and I had the place pretty much to myself. Some favorite sights along the way included winding roads through pine-covered valleys, which sit in the shadows of snow-capped granite peaks. Watching Bald Eagles soar over frozen lakes, while I stood by the roadside lost in the immense silence of the place with no other cars within a hundred miles. Roads can be odd places when there isn’t any other traffic on them. They feel forgotten, and I could almost imagine that the world I knew so well has disappeared and I was journeying on some long lost track lost in time. (more…)

Redwood National Park, Siuslaw National Forest, and Olympia National Park

The journey continues, this time it’s a road trip to Alaska. For those of you out of the immediate loop, I sold my house in California this past January and bought a camper van that has become my home on the road. I circumnavigated the states during the winter months spending time with family and friends back east and Christmas at my parents in North Carolina. In my spare time, I have been writing as much as possible, working on a memoir about my journey through South East Asia. Still lots of writing left to do, but it’s coming along surprisingly well.

I left the Bay Area on April 7^th, crossing the Golden Gate and heading up the coast. My first major stop was Redwood National Park in the northwestern part of California. Walking through the towering spires of ancient redwoods, I found myself humbled by the magnitude of the woods. Near San Francisco, it’s possible to find small groves of old-growth redwoods, but they’re small and easily traversed in a few minutes of hiking. Here in Redwood National Park, there are miles and miles of old-growth forests and it’s possible to hike for hours without discovering their limits. Wonderful. There is a certain reverence and majesty to the redwood forest and as I wondered through their lofty heights, I felt as if I was walking through a great cathedral – surely, this is nature’s church. (more…)

Re-Entry & Burning Man

A few months have fled into history since my last update and in an effort to ward off any illusion or misconception that I am settling into a normal lifestyle I thought it best to get an adventure update out the door and set the record straight. Although I find myself in familiar surroundings it is not an indication that my adventures have come to a close – far from it – the journey continues, a new chapter unfolds, and amazing things can happen even under the veil of the familiar, you just have to be open to it…

I shifted back into life in the US fairly easily – I think it helped that I was not coming back to a job, able to take my time to adjust and relax, intently ease back into the relentless current of life in the States that can so often sweep us up and carry us along though life. It was surprisingly easy to be back at home, more so then I imagined, but there were subtle differences in my actions and attitudes that I noticed. First my diet, both mental and physical has shifted over the last six months. On the mental front television is off my consumption list, it no longer has the ability to hold my attention and after all that I have been through and seen, I find that TV is a thin shadow compared to true life experience and I would rather just head out to experience life rather then watching someone else’s on television. Physically I was surprised to learn that I had lost over 20 pounds on my trip – my diet has shifted more into the vegetarian realm, although I live by no hard and fast rule and still eat meat a few times a week – it’s more about being in tune with your body and figure out what it is asking for. I feel great and have lots of energy to invest in projects that spark my interest. (more…)

Cambodia – Siem Reap
Thailand – Bangkok, Koh Nangyuan

Moving west from Phnom Penh by bus and bumpy dirt road I reached the town of Siem Reap and the famed Temples of Angkor. This is one stop on a tour of South East Asia that is not to be missed. Ancient stone temples rising out of the ever-encroaching jungle certainly spark the imagination and bring up visions of a once great culture. Built mainly between the 9th and 14th centuries, the vast complex of temples around Siem Reap cover an area the size of Los Angeles. It is estimated that the city center contained over 150,000 people at its height, if you count the surrounding villages and lesser temple areas the population was an estimated 1.5 million people; all at a time when the population of London was a mere 30,000 people. I spent three full days riding around on the back of a motor bike, roaming from temple to temple. Walking through ancient doorways and corridors, scrambling up steep crumbling steps to platforms and towers that rise above the surrounding jungle, all the time trying to imagine what inspired these people to build such monuments; what life may have been like at that time. Some of my most favorite moments were watching the sunrise over Angkor Wat, and seeing it’s reflection in the ponds built for capturing the structure in their shimmering surface at the dawn of each new day. The temple of Bayon with its imposing 54 towers decorated with over 200 giant carved faces creates a very striking presence. And Thang Prom, a wonderful crumbling temple, which for the most part has been left to the slowly destructive forces of the jungle. Banyon trees grow right out of the tops of walls with roots twisting their way down to find soil, both destroying and hold together the walls all at the same time, a wondrous sight.

After Siem Reap, I braved the bus ride to Bangkok leaving Cambodia Behind. The bus only broke down twice, once with over heating and another with a flat tire – which by many accounts was on the low side of typical. It was nice to come back to Bangkok for a few days – my fifth arrival here, everything is familiar and the town feels more like home for me now then California. Spent a few nights out on the town, having fun and saying good by to some long term friends – Chris and Sabine a German couple that I have been hanging around with ever since Vietnam. Every town I went to, I would always run into them randomly and they have become good friends. Our last night out on the town together, Chris and I drank sufficient quantities of beer to brave a trip to the bug cart. The bug cart serves up various kind fried insects for your culinary pleasures. We started with the crickets – they look least imposing if that makes any sense – you peel off the ends of the legs, kind of like shrimp, and pop the whole sucker in your mouth – chew? – taste? – wow! – they were surprisingly good – we ordered more. It’s hard to compare the taste with anything, but I would have to put them in the category of perfect drinking snack right along side beer nuts. After a few bags of crickets we moved on to sample several different kinds of grubs which were equally tasty, but I drew the line with the water beetles. They were big and you had to pull the shells off of them before you could eat em’ – even with my beer induced bravery it was a little too much for me. (more…)

Vietnam – Dalat, Mui Ne, Saigon, Mekong Delta
Cambodia – Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville

Leaving Nha Trang behind, I traveled southwest and up into the mountains to the small mountain town of Dalat. Sitting at about 4,500 feet above sea level, I found a welcome relief from the heat – it even got cold enough at night to break out my sweatshirt – a first. I wanted to get out in the woods, so I hooked up with a local adventure tour company and did a few day trips. The first trip was canyoning; a rough and tumble adventure, not your normal tourist fare that I am still sporting a few scrapes and bruises from. We repelled down six different cliffs two of them directly over waterfalls in the middle of the falling water. Another the rope did not reach all the way down, so you had to free-fall the last 20 feet into a crystal clear pool of water below. We hiked down through a canyon located just out of town, wading or floating down the river more often then not, sliding down rocks, floating through water chutes – what a rush!! Because it had been raining the last couple of days the water was really flowing, and that kicked everything up just a notch. Very, very, fun! I went hiking to a nearby mountain top the following day with great views of the town and surrounding county side, although not long after we got to the top, the weather shifted and it started raining like there was no tomorrow. This made getting back down the mountain very tricky as the trail became one big mud slide, soaked, muddy and cold we threaded our way back down the mountain with lightning striking close by and thunder bombing in our ears. I found myself attacked by leaches, one on each foot, didn’t even know it until I looked down and one foot was covered with blood and the other one had a slimy slug attached completely bloated with my blood. Nice! I feel like I really earned those adventures and despite the damage to my body, I had the best time – life in it’s fullest… Yes!

From Dalat I headed to the seaside resort town of Mui Ne – just three hours north of Saigon. Mui Ne consists of a small fishing village along with a long stretch of beach were many resorts and bungalow guesthouses have set up shop. Really low key, there is not much to do here other then sit on the beach and stare out across your navel. Never the less I had a great time relaxing and checking out the local sand dunes. The dunes range from about twenty to two hundred feet high, and are spread out over quite a large area. The local kids hang around and rent out hard plastic sheet that you can sit on and sled-ride down the dunes – very, very fun – and a lot like sled riding in the snow when I was a kid. Nights were very laid back, but one of note had me sitting at a bar right on the beach, looking out over the sand, watching the lightning from thunderstorms out over the ocean, and large cockroaches fighting small crabs on the beach at my feet – nature can put on a good show if you pay attention. All and all – a really nice place to relax for a few days…

I don’t think I was mentally ready for the big city reality of Saigon after my quite days in Mui Ne, but I adjusted quickly after arrival taking it all in stride. Horns from motorbikes threading their way through traffic, neon lights of countless bars welcoming you in for a drink, shops decorated with posters of the latest bands selling pirated CD’s for $.60 each, music coming from restaurants with second floor internet cafes, the cyclo drivers pushing opium and pot, “hey mister, you want something?” the come-on from the working girls hanging out on the corner; “you want go boom, boom?” Ahhh the excitement of the city… Definitely a culture shock, and Pham Ngu Lao the local backpacker ghetto, is quickly becoming another Kao San Road in Bangkok. I really liked Saigon as a city, nice easy feel, not too much air pollution, good sites nearby – the War Crimes Museum is a very emotional place that documents human rights violations that occurred during the Vietnam war, sometimes in graphic detail. I also visited the Chu Chi Tunnels, which were used by the Vietcong so successfully to fight American troops during the war. You can’t help but be amazed by the ingenuity of the people here to fight in this manner, the elaborate network of small tunnels, winding around, sometime doubling back on themselves, loaded with booby traps, with multiple levels and exits some underwater into streams. The tunnels are small, which the smaller in stature Vietnamese could run through them somehow, but larger American troops would struggle to negotiate, as I did; they go on for miles and miles, incredibly fascinating and complex.

From Saigon, I headed south to the Mekong Delta for two days touring around the river and local industries in the area, saw a coconut candy factory where they did everything by hand, from boiling the coconut in iron kettles, forming and cutting, to wrapping the individual pieces of candy and packaging. Visited a local weaving village where women weave sarongs and towels by hand on a loom. Most interesting was a floating fish farm village where the government has a contract to supply an American company with catfish. Each floating house is about 30ft X 60ft and they build a fence under the house to the river bottom 30ft below to the river bottom to contain the catfish. They claim there are 10,000 fish under each of these homes, something I find hard to comprehend and the government funds over 10,000 of these homes on the river that individual Vietnamese families manage as part of the contract. Very interesting…

I continued up the Mekong and into Cambodia – interesting doing this via the river, as it was really impossible to discern any difference when moving between Vietnam and Cambodia, other then the passport stamps at the border; this section of the river is very remote, and the farms look the same in either country. The Mekong has been a constant companion through the whole journey winding it’s way through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam – interesting to see it’s many personalities – at the border it is nearly a mile wide, before splitting into nine main channels in Vietnam and seeking the Pacific Ocean. On another adventure I would like to visit it’s source in the mountains of Tibet.

I arrived in Phnom Penh via boat, the capitol of Cambodia and found it to be such an interesting place. One can easily imagine a once thriving city that is now working hard at a come back. Situated along a broad stretch of the Mekong River the city has a wonderful river front park with tree lined walkways lit at night by classic styled streetlamps, lined with sidewalk cafes with wicker furniture, serving up a wide range of delicious food and rounding things out with some low key live music. The whole place is very laid back; bars are fun – cool without trying to be. Generally a great place just to settle-in and relax; you can almost feel the city starting to come alive in a rebirth of the culture and economy. But there is a darker side that is not even under the surface, but right there in your face. The former Khmer Rouge government is recent history (late 1970s), but the genocide of two million Cambodians committed by them has not been swept under the rug. A trip to the S21 prison, a former school set in a residential neighborhood – now a museum – is like a raw wound, with many of the cells still containing chains, leg shackles, and various implements used to torture inmates complete with blood stains on the ceiling if you can believe it. There are many graphic photos of victims, some before and after they were tortured and I was struck by the same haunted look in all of their eyes – it’s the stuff nightmares are made from. After torture, most prisoners where taken out of town to the now dubbed “Killing Fields” for execution. Thousands of bodies have been disinterred from mass graves and the monument erected there is a chilling site. A fifteen-foot square tower rises a hundred feet in the air with glass sides and ten or twelve platforms inside which contain thousands of human skulls from the bodies they have recovered so far. Surrounding the monument is twenty or so depressions in the earth – the remnants of the mass graves. Heavy stuff. At first I felt that having the victim’s on display like th

at was disrespectful, but soon realized that it would be even more disrespectful to shield anyone who came here from the brutal reality of what occurred.

After about five days in Phnom Penh, I was ready to move on, so I headed south for the beach town of Sihanoukville where you can find beautiful white sand beaches, warm blue waters, and not much else – including other people. I mostly spent my days hanging out on the beach, catching some rays, and playing tick-tack-toe in the sand with local teenage girls who come around selling fruit. If you loose – you have to buy fruit from them – if you win, you get some free fruit – if you tie which is most often the case, you get some interesting conversation and play again. It’s raining most days now, definitely into the raining season, although it only last about 1-2 hours and does not impact the day too much. I am feeling ready to come home now – it’s hard to put my finger on why, more a feeling then anything else, but I know the time is drawing near, and I am just relaxing and enjoying my last few weeks.

I am back in Phnom Penh now – got some bad food somewhere along the way, the first time the whole trip and have been laid up in my hotel waiting to get better. On the mend now, and will be heading next to the amazing temples of Angkor next. Stay tuned…

Matt

Laos – Vientiane, Savannakhet
Vietnam – Dong Ha, Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang

Vientiane, the capital of Laos may well be the lowest key capital city in the world. It feels like a small town even when you are in the heart of the downtown area. My visit happened to coincide with the Laos New Year celebration, also known as the water festival. The whole city – as well as the rest of Laos – shuts down for three days and everyone, young and old get into a big water battle. No one is exempt, I found myself soaking wet for the better part of three days – hit by water balloons, mobbed by roving groups of children armed with super soaker squirt guns, buckets of water thrown from passing cars – it was impossible to escape. The only means of retaliation is to join in the fun and get a good squirt gun.

After the big water war, I moved on to Savannakhet a town right on the Mekong River, which acts as the border with Thailand. Savannakhet is a hub for trade between Thailand and Vietnam as route 9 runs straight through the middle of Laos and into Vietnam. Not lots to write home about regarding Savannakhet, it was mostly a stop over on my journey to Vietnam. I did get a great preview of Vietnamese cuisine at one of the local shops – a very tasty dish called Baw Ban. Made up of rice noodles mixed with chopped, fried spring rolls, barbecued strips of beef, bean sprouts and lettuce, covered in a sweet tangy sauce. Yum, Yum. You must time your arrival at the shop just right because the lady only makes so much everyday and when she sells out, she closes the shop. Typically she opens around 11AM and closes at Noon. Yes! It is that good. I can’t believe it’s already been almost a month since I entered Laos, my visa is running out and I’m bound for Vietnam.

I entered Vietnam by land at the Laos city of Lao Bo. The border crossing was very relaxed – just a couple of stamps on both sides and you are on your way. They were doing screening for SARS – just a simple questionnaire you fill out checking for any symptoms. Hanoi has been the only place in Vietnam with local transmission (and even that is under control now) but I decided to skip the north and only visit southern Vietnam, bypassing Hanoi just to be safe and not worry my Mother too much. Vietnam is more developed then Laos by far, close to Thailand, but not so over-run with tourists – possibly due to the SARS media scare. The drive from the border to Dong Ha was through a very beautiful river valley – with lush vegetation, banana and palm trees growing everywhere – very scenic. Overall the country is very lush and beautiful, much more so then Thailand and Laos – I guess all the best chemists in America’s war department can’t put mother earth down for long. The people are friendly, quick to strike up conversations, but also very aggressive about trying to sell you just about anything they may think you want; I was warned of this by fellow travelers, so no surprises.

Dong Ha is the first reasonable sized town you come to after crossing into Vietnam. Just an overnight stay here, but a good spot from which to explore some of the war sites in central Vietnam – mostly focused around the former Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the dividing line between north and south Vietnam during the war. I checked out a local day tour of a few former military bases and sites of battles. It’s more a history lesson then anything else, not much to see anymore since most visible traces of the war have been wiped clean, the highlight was the Vinh Moc tunnels just north of the DMZ. The 2km long tunnels have 18 different entrances and three levels (some opening up to the ocean). Farmers built the tunnels for protection after bombs from American B52’s raised their village. Inside they are really cramped, not more then five and a half feet high and a foot and a half wide, with little cubbyholes no bigger then a folding table carved out of the walls where whole families lived. I didn’t spend more then a fifteen minutes in these tunnels before the walls felt like they were closing in, hard to believe the villagers lived in them for six long years – Eighteen babies were born in the tunnels during this time.

From Dong Ha I headed to Hue, a really nice city that used to serve as the capitol of Vietnam for several centuries, prior to the communist era. The inner city sits cradled by a bend in the Perfume River and surrounded by a moat and stone fortifications. It has the feel of a capital city, kind of hard to put your finger on exactly what it is, but still there non-the-less. Tree lined avenues, bridges over the river that are lit at night, museums, and monuments give this city a really nice feel. I visited the Vietnam War museum and the citadel ruins – home to Emperors of the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945). Overall a nice stop for a few days; I found it was nice to get back to civilization after my Laos adventure – plenty of traveler-oriented services in Hue along with AC and satellite TV in my hotel – what a luxury!

After a few days in Hue, I beat a path to Hoi An – which by many accounts is the nicest place to visit along the central and southern coasts of Vietnam. The town is spread across a small grid of narrow streets, crammed with excellent restaurants, small bars, art galleries, book stores and more then anything else, tailor shops where they will make any kind of clothes you want, cheep and with a custom fit. The town presents lots of opportunities to spend some money and just linger around for a few days. I really enjoyed the art galleries and met one particular artist, Hoang Trong Tien, who I spent many hours getting to know, talking about art and life in general. I bought a couple of his paintings and they are riding around in a plastic tube in my backpack. Been spending most of my time hanging out with two Canadian guys and three gals from Ireland – you meet such good people out here traveling around, and you’re only alone when you want to be.

Nha Trang, next stop heading south, also my current location, is Vietnam’s quintessential seaside party town. The beaches are really nice here – broad stretches of sand, framed on either side by mountains and a blue sea. For a buck you can rent a wooden lounge on the beach under a grass roof umbrella (excellent for sleeping). Drinks and food will show up when you call for it and you have a great view of the islands off the coast where you can find Vietnam’s best diving. I have been out two days so far and really enjoyed the diving. Not as many fish here as Thailand, but the coral reefs are spectacular – over 300 different kinds of hard and soft coral – really, really nice.

Hard to believe it is May already, starting my fifth month on the road. Things are going well and I am happy, but thoughts of returning home come into my mind more and more these days. Another month or two may bring this adventure to a close, but if I have my way, there will be many others yet to come. Hope this update finds you all well.

Until we meet again!

Matt