Afterthoughts

The Marquesas

I’m writing this résumé one year after the end of my around-the-world trip.  And after nine months living alone in my small Ann Arbor home, due to covid.  During these 9 months, I’ve gone  to the large grocery store once a month to stock up.  Aside from that, there have been occasional - very occasional - errands, always with mask on and hand sanitizer in the car.  It’s a far cry from circling the globe last year on my own (except for China with National Geographic) with only a carry-on suitcase.

I put a lot of thought into this trip.  Into what could go wrong.  What I’d need.  I ended up not needing the Stain Pen all-purpose stain remover.  But I did need the spare pair of glasses that I’d brought along, thinking “What’s the use of going around the world to see its wonders if you can’t SEE them?”  I’d removed my glasses to read in bed... and then rolled over on them.  The metal frame bent and the lens popped out.  Lucky for me that Siem Reap has an optician... who even refused to be paid for putting the lens back in.  “It was nothing,” he told me.

Kinkakuji, Japan

There were high points during my trip - a long series of them - and only one low point, which would be Agra, where the guide took me to places he was obviously being paid to bring fresh bodies and fresh money, plus the smog, plus a bad hotel location, plus the disappointing revelation that no photos could be taken inside the Taj Mahal.

Great Wall of China

The awful parts of my trip were the two long Point-A-to-Point-B travel days:  the Marquesas to Japan via Tahiti and Hawai’i; and especially the awful transit from Angkor Wat to Delhi via... Shanghai!  (Look on a map; Shanghai’s not even in the right direction!)  Both were long and tedious, and all airports look much the same anywhere on the planet.  (But at least I brought back a wonderful blue T-shirt from the Honolulu airport.)

The most amazing site was probably Angkor Wat, because it’s so intricate, with so many parts... plus the other places that were part of that day’s tour:  Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm and lesser visited sites invaded by trees putting down finger-like roots from the tops of walls.

There were other amazing sites.  The place I’d wanted to see since childhood:  the Great Wall of China.  And the clay warriors near Xi’an.  And the endearing giant pandas.  Temples in Kyoto.  Mount Everest in Nepal.  And yes, even the Taj Mahal.

Strangely enough for someone who was in college during the Vietnam War years, the place where I felt the most free was in... Hanoi.  I walked around the city without problems, without getting run over, and in a city whose central area is walkable, kilometer-wise. And what to say about the amazing three-dimensional island mosaic of Halong Bay? Plus for someone brought up on the water like me... heaven.

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Taj Mahal

Everyone was kind to me, everywhere, but with cultural differences specific to each place.  There was deference and warm efficiency in Kyoto.  There was the Cambodian who insisted upon driving me to the oculist so I could get my glasses fixed... and that optician who wouldn’t take any money for a job that was nothing to him but everything to me.  There were check-out ladies who let me stay after check-out time so I could rest before a long day’s travel.  There were the two guides in Nepal - especially Rup - who treated me, not like a tourist, but like a visiting guest with whom they wanted to share their heritage.  And of course there was Stanley for those two weeks in China.  I haven’t been able to contact him by e-mail since - perhaps because he’s too busy, perhaps because of a Chinese blockade of social networking to overseas addresses.  But I immediately thought of him and his stock of Snickers he gave out daily on the bus when I heard this comment the other day: “Whenever I try to eat healthy, a chocolate bar looks at me and Snickers”.

Ashok stupa, Nepal

There’s a song that says “It’s very nice to go trav'ling / But it's oh so nice to come home.”  I reached that point somewhere in India.

But to all those who made my trip so very personable and enjoyable, thank you.  Māuruuru (Tahitian).  Vaie’e (Marquesan).  Arigato (Japanese).  Xiexie (pronounced “shay shay”) (Chinese).  Gah mun (Vietnamese).  Awkun (Cambodian).  Dhanyavaad (Hindi) and the highly similar Dhanyabaad (Nepali).

To all of you, I will never forget you.

Mt. Everest aka Sagarmatha