More Than You Imagined

I was on Skype the other day with the Brazilian Princess and I couldn’t help but feel jealous.

‘Julie, I can’t really talk right now,’ she whispered, stifling a giggle. ‘I just got back to the dorm room and everyone’s sleeping.’

‘Hey, keep it down!’ somebody grumbled. There was a lot of rustling and it sounded like she ran into a bunk bed before the line died.

‘Oops! Sorry, I lost you there. It’s 5 a.m. here… but I’m still a little tipsy from last night – tee hee! – and I don’t know how it happened, but I’m standing here with my bra in my hand…’

See, that’s the kind of life I’ve grown accustomed to. For twelve consecutive months, my bra mysteriously undid itself in exotic locales around the globe. It’s unsettling, but hardly unusual. And I miss it.

While BP is still on her world tour, playing strip poker and beer pong with diplomats in Mozambique, I have been back in the United States for two months.

Playing house in a McMansion.

With my brother.

And his three cats.

I hate those cats. Not only do they make me sneezy, wheezy and teary, but every morning when I step out of my Pepto Bismol room – painted saccharine pink by the former tenants whose taste in décor clearly modeled a My Little Pony advert – I have to scan for barf.

The Pepto Room is a CFZ (Cat-Free Zone), but B’s ‘little buddies’ periodically leave me presents outside my door in the form of coagulated fish kibble, fur balls and green-blue bile that smells exactly like the contents of one’s innards should: bad.

I know they want in - I suspect the Pepto color eases acid reflux. I can’t prove it, but I swear they’re burrowing tunnels into the CFZ at night, planning an all-out projectile vomit party designed to gross me out of their territory.

While I avoid the cats, B worships them. He is an old cat lady in golf shoes, driving a Beemer and refusing to drink tap water.

‘Then what would be the point of having bottled water?’

Sometimes, we see things differently.

When he comes home, he says something chatty to me like, ‘Hey.’

When he sees the cats, it goes something more like this:

‘Ohh, hey Sam! Hey little buddy! Were you a good boy today? Ohhh, I bet you were my cool little man! Oh, yes, you are such a good little kitty, yes mister, yes yes yes you are!’

My 38-year-old brother then proceeds to rub the cat’s belly on his head, nuzzling its neck with his nose, kissing its feet and generally freaking me out because I just watched that cat upchuck congealed tunafish behind the couch 20 minutes earlier.

The neighborhood is a ‘planned community’ – planned so that the trailer park is concealed at the bottom of the hill while Stepford enjoys its own elementary school, Starbucks, tanning salon and bus line, not that anyone here takes public transportation.

It’s a conservative area. Republicans drive.

The local grocery store has an entire section of its news aisle devoted to gun glossies. Next to that is personal defense, which is above exotic game hunting.


(In case you’re wondering, American Handgunner has the most comprehensive glock reviews this month, while I enjoyed Personal & Home DEFENSE’s exposé on 9mm vs. .223 entitled ‘Got Enough Gun?’ The answer is always no.)

Frankly, I for one am reassured to know my neighbors are well educated on violent weaponry should an albino zebra happen to walk through the gates and stomp up the ornamental fountain grass.

My favorite part of B’s neighborhood is the rock lights. See, there are these yard lamps very cleverly disguised as rocks. And these rocks sit in various parts of the garden in to theatrically light important things like wrought-iron deer.

It is so sneaky – you’re just on your run through the woodsy path of concrete, enjoying the natural sounds of the freeway below when BAM! Those soft-serve twist topiaries have never looked more tantalizing at twilight.

These little gems of American authenticity come courtesy of the City of Auburn, a suburb of Seattle, whose motto is More than you imagined.

Frankly, I don’t think the marketing team anticipated what kind of imagination people living in McMansions are forced to have.

For a city that used to be called 'Slaughter', I feel Auburn needs a qualifier.

You know, for people to really get what living in the USA is about.

‘More foreclosures than you imagined.’

‘More recreational monster trucks without mufflers than you imagined.’

‘More Sir Mix-A-Lot sightings than you imagined.’

(What up, Mix!)

For now, this is what my life is about, too.

Some days I embrace the preoccupation with pump action shotguns of my fellow Auburners.

Other times I retreat to the Pepto Room, wondering if the house painters knew suburban America causes an upset stomach for snarky travelers.

And cats.

Always a Bridesmaid

It only took a bottle and a half of Burmese Pinot noir, but by the time Kate and Wills were en route to Buckingham Palace, I had become engaged to a garlic farmer and The Brazilian had joined the dancing gong band really jamming on the village main street.

Given Myanmar used to be a part of the British empire, I figured these people will definitely be interested in the pauper princess - a real rags to riches story. Finally, someone who represents the interests of the impoverished! The struggle of the dirt farmer class!

Turns out little Katie is no Ronaldo, Michael Jackson or even Ido (Burma's Justin Beiber). Nobody had heard of her.

I guess when you farm 12 hours a day to earn a dollar, you don't care about CNN's riveting debate on whether Kate's dress is an understated yet elegant reflection of today's modern woman, or a simple but regal nod to princesses past (it was clearly the former, Anderson Cooper, you disappoint me).

It wasn't easy to find electricity, a TV, or a TV without Burmese-only state television. After some begging, the owner of Mr. Thumb - the only bar in 'town' - agreed to tap the satellite dish and turn off the soccer game, effectively boring every local to death, but making the North and South American princesses very giddy.

BP and I were the only foreigners at Mr. Thumb's. We were the only women. We were also the only ones who brought not one, but two bottles of our own wine for the occasion.

The young men who came to drown their worries in cheap Burmese whiskey didn't seem to mind. We looked - in theory - like the sexy western girls tugging off their tops on beer posters covering every wall, though we had just spent three days hiking in the humidity and hadn't touched a bar of soap or changed our clothes. Still, the farmer and his friends called us beautiful. That's love.

My new life partner proposed, blurry-eyed from whiskey and water, from the table behind us. Well, it's unofficial.

'Where's my ring?' I'd ask.

'My heart! You take!' He'd yell, moving his hands over his chest and pretending to throw.

'Dude, what the effy eff? I can't take you seriously without a ring!'

'My heart! Taking you, heart, princess!' More throwing charades.

And so it went.

Eventually I gave up and joined the gong band, too, leaving my future/former fiancee pouting. He wouldn't stop pointing to CNN's endless replay of Willy and Kate making out, then pointing to his cheek.

I shook my head gravely. I'm a heart breaker.

Even a ring of garlic would have done, but in the end it wasn't meant to be.

Hot for Crimson

Sunny, our affable hiking guide, told the Brazilian Princess and me we had two options: spend the first trek night in a local villager's home, or sleepover in a Buddhist monastery.

Immediately visions started popping into my head of spunky young novice monks waking us with gentle Burmese chanting in a bright, sunlit building domed with flowers and bells gently ringing in the breezy courtyard under frangipani trees.

Elders would meditate with us, peacefully emancipating our attached western minds and inviting us into an enlightened state of nirvana - all before breakfast!

And very fit 20-somethings, wavering on their faith to this monastic lifestyle and all the silly celibacy it requires, would sagely ask us for our worldly guidance, in the privacy of our sleeping quarters, obviously.

The Brazilian Princess is not actual royalty, but she has princess, er, tendencies. After a month of traveling through Southeast Asia together, I counted on her to demand only the best bungalows (with a discount, damnit) and send back imperfect Tom Kha Gai even from street vendors.

BP is something else, but we bonded over our common commitment to support local people as much as possible. And you know, hot monks need help, too.

Without even a sideways glance, we both shouted to Sunny, 'We'll take the monastery!'

We were on a three-day hike through the hilly farmlands of Myanmar, trekking from Inle Lake to a Kalaw in Shan State, one of the country’s few areas open to foreigners.

It’s not the easiest country to travel in. Fly Myanmar Airways, and you might as well give your stash of freshly printed US dollars directly to the rather unfriendly military regime. Buy a train ticket, and you hate Aung San Suu Kyi.

But travel by foot? Support local people!

Tourists don’t really come to Myanmar – about 300,000 did last year, and only four percent of those were American. “Am I the only Brazilian to ever travel here?” BP asked when we turned in our visa applications in Bangkok, spooked by her own trendsetting.

Mostly Thais, French and Chinese tourists come here, usually on organized tours that support government-run transportation, hotels and entertainment.

Locals hate tour groups. But supporting the government in some ways is unavoidable – even privately-owned hostels and eateries have to pay a 12 percent tax to Uncle Junta.

By coming independently, BP and I could spend our kyat the way we wanted. And that way was village by village, with the promise of a little interfaith fling with brown-eyed, bald men of the crimson cloth just over the muddy hills.

We climbed.

Six long, highly anticipated hours later, we arrived, sweaty but ready to mingle. One elderly monk, head hanging in the ennui of religious servitude, was there to soberly greet us. Sunny neglected to mention this monastery had been neglected and only three monks lived in residence. None of them were under age 75.

It was the darkest monastery ever on earth, ever, in every sense. Teak wood blackened by cooking smoke suffocated the lodge-y space, dotted with apathetic Buddhas and an endless wall of bald, cotton-swathed monks unsmiling and emaciated in Polaroids documenting what appeared to be the most depressing days of their lives. Even the candles kept dimming on their own accord, embarrassed they had to shed light on such gloom.

The Head of Monks was a silent blob of skin and bones morosely hanging out in the darkest corner of the monastery with a single, flickering candle moodlighting his grump. His black-rimmed spectacles were peeking from beneath a pile of plush polyester blankets that featured smiling orange kittens in a field of pink roses.

He only moved to pass gas - loudly and with the unapologetic flourish unique to old men. When we said hello, he farted and groaned in reply.

It was like spending the night in the palliative care unit of a haunted geriatric home, but less fun.

Clearly, this was not the hot monk orgy I'd had in mind.

In Myanmar, the big vice is chewing kun-ya, a cocktail of betel leaves, areca nuts, something dodgy called ‘slaked lime’, something even more questionable called ‘cutch’, and – don’t quote me on this – I swear I saw the kun-ya hawkers in Rangoon smear in Elmer’s glue.

Anyway, chewing this blob gives you this wildly charming bleeding-from-my-gums look that I normally associate with meth addicts.

Men chew it. Monks chew it. I chewed it and promptly spit it out, which is what you’re supposed to do. It was hard to tell if the red soil was enriched with iron, or leached with loogies.

Turns out the Head of Monks is a big kun-ya chewer. I don’t know if it’s related, but he started complaining to Sunny that he was being tortured by bad spirits on his left arm. I suspected living in one of the nine layers of hell might've had something to do with it, but I'm sure Dante is banned in Myanmar, so I kept my mouth shut.

The old man was in luck, though. Sunny happened to be moonlighting as a black magic exorcist that month. You know, when he's not hiking two princesses through Myanmar's lake district... He is a man of many hats!

Sunny performed a 30-minute exorcism that closely resembled a Swedish massage. Then bam! It worked. Almost like magic. The Head of Monks was this close to forming a wrinkly smile as he hobbled away, grumbling in Burmese and hawking up more holy red phlegm to be deposited by our flip-flops.

With monastic intrigue going way over our heads, BP and I voted to spend the next night in the village with garlic farmers. There was more betel spitting, but less flatulence.

The Ping Pong Show

There were just so many questions.

Like, if lungs are fundamentally necessary to smoke cigarettes, was the upside down naked lady technically 'smoking' that Marlboro Light with her reproductive organ?

Should she be worried about cervical cancer?

And how did she propel those glow-in-the dark ping pong balls so far across the room that one nearly hit my travel mate, a girl I call the Brazilian Princess, on the forehead before she absently batted it away?

'I need to go wash my hands now,' she said, leaving me alone to marvel at the skill required to shoot darts from the confines of one's vaginal cavity. What accuracy!

'The Pussy Show' is indeed disgusting and degrading. And it is also as ubiquitous in Bangkok as fried noodles and corrupt pink cab drivers, with more giggling.

We were in the Thai capitol for 9 days waiting on our visas to Burma to be approved. It was Thai New Year time – Happy 2554! Thais celebrate with a three-day water festival that involves squirt gun fights with local kids and everyone else on the streets, including the good-natured cops.

By the third day, we were looking for something a little less wholesome to do.

We found it.

The Brazilian and I covertly shopped around Patpong, the red light/fake watch district, looking for a show. It was around 8 p.m. when we started getting approached by greeters who presented laminated menus of that night’s special.

Most of the ‘specials’ were the same – darts, horn instruments, painting.

‘Maybe we should just have a look inside and see what looks, you know, the least disturbing,’ Princess suggested.

The Super Pussy had a nice neon sign, but the girls had that depressing 'I've-just-been-trafficked-in-from-Laos' vibe going on, so we left.

Queen's was empty, apart from an old white guy chatting up a chubby go-go dancer in the corner. What really killed it was AC/DC. 'Thunderstruck' is mood music for monster truck shows, not housing goldfish in your reproductive organs.

Finally, on our third try I was sold - the DJ was jamming some Snoop Dogg and the vaginal gymnasts were chirpy and smiling, not all strung out on heroin or oppressed by their station in life.

What a breath of fresh air!

We were the only patrons until a curious couple came in, followed by Creepy Indian Guy, who was alone and not nearly as enthusiastic about the novelty of it all as the rest of us. He didn't even applaud when she squirted a whole hot dog OR played taps on the kazoo. I guess there's no accounting for some people's taste...

We wondered if the girls would come up with something for the New Year festival, but I guess opening a bottle of soda water with your pelvis is anatomically easier than pulling the trigger on squirt gun. Go figure.

The fun ended when the mamasans realized we were giggling more than spending and called the Brazilian over for the bill.

'Three thousand baht each?'

The equivalent of $100, I'm not saying the performance wasn't worth that much - anyone who can write a love letter with a Sharpie in your privates deserves some serious cash - but we didn't have it.

So we went for the door, which was promptly blocked by three Thai mob bosses, all women, all built like linebackers, all effectively annoyed. The negotiations started and in less than 60 seconds, the price dropped to $7, a real bargain in my view. And like that, we'd been kicked out of Club NoPhoto.

Lots of Thais I met are pretty ashamed of this style of Bangkok entertainment, including our cab driver that night who offered to drive us straight to the temple to cleanse our sins.

But be encouraged, people of Thailand! A 4' picture of the king hung over the stage, just above the Vaseline-lined ping pong balls.

If that's not patriotism, I don't know what is.

South Beach (Bum) Diet

The Diplomat always told me I was a special person and have many talents in varying disciplines.

It's true. My skill set looks like this:

Fair: reading maps; identifying constellations; emptying the dishwasher

Good: shuffling cards; navigating airports; walking without purpose

Needs improvement: wanderlust

She recently asked me would that wanderlust ever be satiated and will I ever just settle down in one place, please?

Well, mom, I have good news.

It takes a special person willing to sit in the sunshine on a white Thai beach, watching the hours pass with virtually no thought running through the head besides, 'Where has that fire-dancing cabana boy gone with my caipirinha?'

Great: beach bum

Finally! A marketable skill!

Seriously guys, it's true. When you find something you love, you never work another day in your life.

Around the end of the second week in my new calling, I realized it was my life's work. And I loved my new job, I challenged myself to do nothing on the beach for 30 days, committing by way of new sun cream, new sunnies and a new book for the tough work days ahead. (I can hear some of you arguing that a book is technically 'doing' something, but I can assure you my second-hand Harper 'Modern Classic' is the antithesis of serious thought).

I was happily blobbing along in the azure tropics, when one day clouds rolled in and it didn't stop raining for six days. Maybe you heard about it? Hundreds rescued by the Thai navy, villagers swept away in mudslides, trains cancelled, airports closed...

It was at this exciting time that all the SPF went to my head and i came down with what I self-diagnosed as strep throat. It was just me, the mosquitoes and the amoxicilin in the bungalow watching it pour on paradise.

My hut mate, a fancy lady I will call The Brazilian Princess, would periodically walk in, survey my sickness, announce, 'I don't think it's fatal. But it's too damp in here, that's why you're sick. This isn't what we're paying for, Julie. I'll just let the owner know...'

The owner was not unhappy to see us leave after we changed bungalows three times, The Princess letting Paolo know the drainage inefficiencies of each waterlogged thatched roof. Also, could he do something about the banana leaves that kept falling into our outdoor bathroom? They're clogging the drain. Grazie.

When I met The BP, she was complaining. We were on the same boat in the Galapagos and she was going on to the captain that she'd been promised her own cabin. 'I can't sleep in a room with a snorer... That's not what I paid for,' and she'd look disparagingly at her bespectacled, chubby English roommate who did, in fact, breathe like a chainsaw. Even at breakfast.

It was my single cabin The Princess was after and there was no way I was giving it up to room with old snore-eyes.

A stare-off ensued and in the end I respected her gumption and she found in me a kindred princess, 'though you like to hide it by eating granola, but I know...'

It was easy to convince The BP to join me beachside. Being a lazy bum is a prerequisite to royalty the world over. As my new, esteemed colleague, I believed her reading-in-the-hammock skills were world class.

I don't know if it was the complete lack of exercise or the overdose on mango and sticky rice dishes that kept us going, but we were inspired enough to island hop in the non-flooded isles of Thailand's Andaman Sea for three solid weeks. But in the end I couldn't complete the 30-day beach diet because, well, I got bored.

That's another of my special talents.

Dar-Won Over

The first rule of thumb when traveling in a foreign country is to always book the first night´s hotel in advance so you have a purpose for being there - finding your room. The second rule is to read the chapter on said foreign country in the FootPrint Guide my Auntie Gayle gave me at Christmas. And the third rule is to always have enough money for instances when, for example, one might need $100 cash to pay for the entrance fee to the Galapagos Islands at an airport with no ATMs. But all of the above requires some degree of planning, something after only two months I´m tired of doing.

So I just bought a ticket from Quito to the Galapagos Islands and decided to wing it when I got there, finally reading the aforementioned chapter on the islands in the airport and boarding the plane last after reading that all-important chapter on ATMs and national park entrance fees. I knew things were going to be all right when, after I´d settled into my seat, the flight attendant paged me and the pilot, a friend of my Uncle George, came out to greet me and make sure I had enough ice in my Sprite. Oh, j´adore Ecuador!

Showing up here on these remote isolas off the Pacific Coast of Ecuador was really half the battle. A single lady with fab knees, traveling alone, looking for a snorkle cruise at the last minute? Discount! Finding a place to stay on the main island while waiting for first-class boat to arrive? Discount! Arriving on board and getting my own cabin when everyone else on board had to share?

My id is on fire, people.

For seven days I cruised with a boat full of 30-somethings, Dutch, German, Brazillian, English and one other American ´performance artist´ named Trek Thunder Kelly. Perhaps you may remember him if you paid attention to the 2003 California gubernatorial race, in which a man spent $20,000 changing his wardrobe to a shade of deep blue ran on a platform of legalizing prostitution. Anyway, we ate a lot of overcooked tuna together and talked about his latest project - he´s in the first of a 3-year journey to write a book about loneliness, and has sworn off drinking, sex and communication with the outside world. I know where he is, and his mom doesn´t. He will spend the next year living in the American Southwest desert, staring at a rock and meditating. In two more years, he promised to add everyone as Facebook friends.

While Trek Thunder Kelly was weird, at least he had some sparkle. Eight of the 16 on board were lawyers. I have tried to think of a joke about this, and alas it just wasn´t all that funny. Correction: they weren´t terribly funny. However, I am accepting jokes about lawyers on a blue-footed booby-watching cruise, and promise to post them on the blog.

I realized I am not particularly a boat person. It´s all that rocking back and forth. And water. Water, water everywhere. Geez, everytime we had to get off the boat, we had to go on a littler one, in the water. And when we came back from the island tours... it all became so obvious. Even when we walked off the boat, we all swayed around like we were drunk in unison - it´s no wonder the animals of the Galapagos aren´t scared of human beings. We were all happy drunks, snapping photos like the ridiculous tourists we were, giggling at the baby sea lions and creeping around the lizards in a Kodak stupor.

The animals, for the most part, obliged, patiently waiting for the flash to come on or the focus to zoom like the little National Geographic covergirls they are. Huge turtles, fat albatrosses, seals, sea lions, iguanas, snakes... you want to pose with a pre-historic, jumbo-sized reptile on the brink of extinction for this year´s Christmas card cover? No problem. Just tilt your head to the left a bit more, by that yellow dragon, please.

We snorkled every day, in freezing cold water, swimming with giant sea turtles lunching on algae in seabeds full of aquamascenery. I just made that word up. Oh yeah, I saw a shark! We had dolphins following our boat, and stalked a humpback whale and her baby en route to the equator line, which was supposed to be a big deal, but it turns out it was just a bunch of 0s on the captain´s computer screen and more vomit-inducing sway action on a windy night. I was hoping for more drama on the boat, besides who had the best seasickness pills. Nobody had to walk the plank, and there weren´t any pirates. There was no mutiny on the bounty. We didn´t get swallowed by a whale.

I had wanted all of those things, but when you´re on a blue-footed boobie boat tour full of lawyers... yeah, still got nothing.

I had such a fun time, I decided to extend my stay in the Galapagos by a week, staying in the only real town here, Puerto Ayora. I feel like I live here now. I know the DJ at Bongo, the only dance club. Javier and I talk about the virtues of Pitbull and all he´s done for Latin hip hop. I make the hike to Tortuga Bay in the afternoons if it´s sunny, being careful not to step on all the lizards and iguanas soaking up the sun. In short, it´s a rough life. But as our nature guide on the boat told us, these Galapagos creatures live so long because they know how to conserve energy, only hunting or moving around when absolutely necessary.

I have embraced this theory of energy conservation and I feel all Darwinian and stuff about my survival. Which is why I eat homemade ice cream and fresh ceviche every day. I recommend you do the same. It does great things for your id.