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Most of the time, life isn’t that serious. On this little adventure out in Asia I sometimes like to think of myself as a video game character adventuring around and meeting NPCs… sometimes they offer me a quest and I can just “PRESS X TO ACCEPT QUEST FROM LAOTIAN TUK-TUK DRIVER.”  Today was one of those experiences where I pressed X to accept quest from Laotian tuk-tuk driver. I’m walking along the Mekong River admiring the Bonsais lined on the bank, when one of the drivers hanging about in the town square approaches. His cigarette hangs haphazardly from the side of his mouth as he gestured about the Bonsai with a wry look. He pulls out google translate and shows me a rough translation: “show where find tree.” I press “X” and for a small fee of 100,000 kip, he whisks me off by rickety tuk-tuk into Thakhek. I feel a small sense of concern, but nothing too alarming. Just that heightened awareness and sensitivity of being way out of your element. Tuk-tuk drivers can be shifty characters, but it’s not like this is New Delhi. It’s sleepy Thakhek on the sunny bank of the Mekong. Besides, I couldn’t imagine being held up by a Laotian. They are simply too chill for that sort of nonsense. The tuk-tuk slows to a halt outside a small, modest shack with mud floors and thin plywood walls. Two young half-dressed girls peer out sheepishly from the dark interior of the shack.  The silver dome of an old woman’s head pokes out above a heap of watermelon. A rusty steel canister from an old American bomb is half buried in the dry caked dirt outside the home, like a trophy. The tuk-tuk driver gestures for me to sit and wait. So I wait. I don’t really expect anything to happen. After all, its pretty much already happening. The tuk-tuk driver lights another cigarette and offers me one from his pack. The dusty street is bathed in hot yellow sun; nobody is about. I wait. A woman on a motorbike pulls in front of the house and purchases a watermelon, loading it into the front basket of that 4-gear semi-automatic 125cc motorbike which powers the full scope of trade and commerce in the humble agricultural nation of Laos. I wait longer. Forty, fifty, sixty minutes standard. In Laotian time- this is fifteen minutes. Finally, a man comes screaming in on a motorbike! He’s in full camo army gear with a bright yellow Adidas flatbrim. With barely a word he gestures for me to get on back his motorbike.  With some sense of trepidation, I hop on the back and say farewell to my tuk-tuk driver. We race through the sunwashed streets of Thakhek to a neighborhood I hadn’t been before. The army man’s friends are all sitting around drinking beer in the courtyard of this big Lao-style home. They cheer when we walk into the courtyard, and emphatically poured me a short glass of Beerlao. In the Vietnamese style, we raise our glasses in cheers every thirty seconds, and everyone always drinks simultaneously. This way, the person who wants to drink the most determines the beer consumption of everybody.  The vibe is festive, they have been at it for a while! We can’t communicate, but I show them Chicago on google maps, and a few pictures of Natalie and I executing “death-defying” feats of climbing madness. They are amazed and happy to have me here. Its surprising how fast you can drink in the Vietnamese fashion! The cold Beerlao is going down easy, the sun is shining, and vibes are good.  But I can’t get too distracted! I am on actually on a quest. After forty minutes of drinking I tried to get everyone top focus on the task at hand- I wanted to see the Bonsai! I show them pictures of tree on my phone, and they respond by showing me the google translate screen- “wait a moment.” So we drink more and more until the Beerlao is finally empty. Ten minutes Laotian, thirty-five minutes standard. Okay- now we go! I hop on the back of the army man’s bike and we drive WAAAY out of town, into the karstland rice paddies outside Thakhek.  I’m a little nervous to be so far away from my bearings, but I’m in too deep to back out now. I’ve gotta see this bonsai tree. The road cuts through dry, dusty farmland where cows graze. It’s the dry season and the rice paddies are just yellow dirt flats. After a while, we turn down a dirt road and a flock of goats flee ahead of our motorbike. The army man’s home is a rickety looking green-painted wood structure on stilts above his farm. We walk beneath the home and WALLAH! The tree. My man is good and tuned up by now, and lots of his friends start to filter up the road, each carrying more beer. There’s an American here! So lets party! We sit in the shade beneath his house on stilts and revel in the tree for an hour or more- the spirit very festive although I cannot understand anything! The men are sitting cross-legged on a flat bamboo piece of furniture, smoking out of a bamboo pipe, chatting quickly and laughing easily. At some point this nonsense just goes on too long- I gotta get out of there!  So I abruptly stand up and gesture that I am leaving. They wail and complain and pour me another beer so I stay for one last beer and then, seriously this time, I gotta go! I literally run out of the house and down the street. I’m way out of town deep into the farmland surrounding Thakhek but my idea is that I can hitchhike into town. So I’m walking down the sunbaked dusty road, thumbing. Truck after car after motorbike all whizz by me with nothing but sheepish smiles from the drivers. Even when Lao people

We had some absolute characters come to visit Thailand recently- Conor and Sara. One of the things I love about Conor is that he dreams big! So I wasn’t surprised when he said that he’d be renting a 40-ft sailboat in Phuket and planned on sailing the archipelago of islands in the Andaman Sea for a week, and asked if Nat and I would like to join. Conor lived for a while on a small, old sailboat in the various marinas of San Francisco, where he learned to sail the hard unforgiving way (youtube?). While he didn’t quite go full salt monster in those crusty years, he certainly lived among the salt monsters. He’s got a lot of grit and experience from his time in the oft-treacherous bay waters of the Golden Gate, so I knew that we could trust him to pilot us safely within the twisting coral-rimmed coasts of western Thailand. Those two landed in Krabi around the twenty-first of November, and we met them at our little climber’s hostel in the jungle village of Tonsai. They were buzzing with energy at the amazing surroundings and somehow showed no signs of having just completed a twenty hour flight. The four of us got pad thai and beers on the beach and shot the shit as that smiling moon of Thailand rose. It felt so good to see an old friend, and I was really happy to meet Sara who i didn’t know too well at that time. Plus, Nat and I got to unleash our torrent of stories from Hindustan on them!  The next day we went climbing, and climbed up to this high cave on the rock wall near the beach. We spelunked our way on through to the beautiful bay on the opposite side. Then all four of us climbed a super epic 4-pitch climb (~375 ft) above Tonsai called Humanality. The “crux” of this climb is this bit directly 350 feet above the beach bar where the wall just becomes blank… you have to let your body drop backward into the abyss, and grab onto a hanging stalactite to continue climbing upwards. See a poem I wrote about this climb HERE. Anyway, then we went on to Phuket to pick up our sailboat. We started from Phuket Yacht Haven Marina and then turned north to navigate the archipelago of islands in Northwest Phang Nga bay. The weather the first day was dark and rainy and we could see the huge, looming shapes of each small coral island/karst ominous in the distance. We passed Ko Tapu, where they filmed some James Bond movie. There are thousands of islands of all sizes in Phang Nga.  We anchored the first night in a little protected cove near Ko Hong & Ko Phanak. That night, some Thai fisherman paddled over to us and we bought some prawns, which we promptly stir-fried in butter and garlic. The next day we continued sailing, heading towards the part of the bay near Krabi. At lunch we snagged a mooring ball near some deep water solo climbing and i tried my hand climbing some of the coral outcrops high over the blue water. I cut my hands and feet on the sharp rocks but we all had fun.  Unfortunately, our boat broke down there due to some mechanical failure in the gearbox. We were stranded for a day while the boating company sent guys out on a speedboat to meet us with the replacement part. It was pretty tough stranded out there on the water. Our boat had a great sound system, the water was warm and clear, and fisherman were out and about slinging snapper, squid, and prawns. We had a cooler full of beers and we dipped into our supplies quite a bit while waiting for the repairmen. We were on our way by midmorning the next day and unfortunately had to scratch our plan of climbing the karsts around the coast of Krabi. On a windless day under the power of our big diesel engine we sped southward towards the open ocean and Phi Phi island.  As we traveled southwards, away from the mouths of the many rivers pouring off of Thailand and towards the open sea, the water cleared up immensely. It turned this deep blue color through which you could see at least thirty feet. We moored in a place called Maya Bay on Phi Phi and commenced the coolest snorkeling and diving i have ever experienced. There were Alice & Wonderland coral formations, schools of 50 or more fish, lobsters, crabs, and so much more. We spent the day diving and I learned all sorts of stuff about how to equalize my sinuses effectively to dive deep. I loved diving within the schools of fish and trying to stay in the center of the school as they lazily wound between shimmering coral spires beneath the waves. In the evening, we anchored just a mile or so off of Phi Phi island, got all showered and dressed up, then took our inflatable motor-powered dinghy onto shore. It was pretty funny feeling dressed up like we were going to a bar, but first we just had to splutter a mile across the bay in our damp little dinghy. We tied the dinghy to a palm tree and went out on the town in Phi Phi! We found a string of bars on the beach (some bars literally in the ocean) that had tons of foreigners partying, eating, and generally being hedonistic. There were firedancers, a mechanical bull (tossed me off in around 35 seconds), beer for 80 baht, and people literally dancing at bars IN the ocean. This was a super commercialized and touristy spot, but it did feel good to dance our asses off after so many days on the boat. Anyway at the end of the night we found our way back to the dinghy and boarded our boat anchored out at sea. The next day

One arid afternoon in the alpine-desert city of Leh, Ladakh, Nat and I decided to go for a little jog. As always in this part of the world- the simple act of going for a jog can unknowingly lead to a kooky adventure which has one picking apricots and dancing with the most powerful government officials in the land. Leh is a high desert city in Ladakh, perched high within the Himalayas along the powerful Indus River. We jogged out of our little hotel and up winding yellow dusty streets interspersed by blank-faced cattle and friendly stray dogs. Soon we found ourselves jogging up a cold stream, jumping between the rocks and waving to the women washing clothes on the banks. We jogged up the stream for several miles until we came to a bridge at clearing. In the distance, at the highest part of Leh beneath the looming mountainside, Nat and I could see a great statue of the Buddha. His far-away silhouette was imposing against the yellow granite backdrop. “Aim for Buddha?”  “Sounds good to me.” In the distance across the river, we spied a beautiful old mansion nestled among a patch of fruit trees. It was in the Ladakhian architectural style- with imposing trapezoidal features and intricate wood carvings. We stood for a moment, catching our breaths in the cool alpine air and admiring the beauty of the estate in the distance. “Yo! do you see that guy waving?” A small speck between the trees came into focus. A man was animatedly waving in our direction! “Is that guy waving at us?” “I think so? I think he wants us to walk over there! Should we go?” “Press ‘X’  to accept quest?” “X!” We hiked across the river and hesitantly pushed our way through the wrought-iron gate into the lush garden of fruit trees surrounding the old manse. This guy literally popped out and with a grin and a bundle of apricots in his arms. He’s about five foot five, and he has the darkened olive skin of a Greek or Macedonian, with a thick black mustache between twin bushes of eyebrows. He is Wazir, he is the District Magistrate of Ladakh (he shows us government ID), and he is filled with the boisterous energy of an Indian playing host. The apricots were absolutely delicious. We gobbled them up with incredulous delight and Wazir immediately scampered off to get more apricots from the trees. He welcomed us into the home and we found the interior to look a bit like a home office meets a drab hotel- not nearly as majestic as the outside of the property. We walked down a hallway of cheap yellow wood with what look like numbered dorm rooms on each side and turned into a central meeting room with big windows looking down towards the Indus River at the center of the valley. White and green poplar trees formed gentle lines across the beautiful view. Nat and I sat down on cushions on the floor and waited. Nat suddenly felt very self conscious in her tight running clothes- a sports bra and skin-tight shorts are not quite the best attire for a group of Muslim government men. I’m in shorts and a tank top and suddenly the men start to file in.  I stand hurriedly and begin shaking hands with the government men of Ladakh. Minister of Transportation, Minister of Labor, Vice Magistrate, Indian ambassador to Ladakh, on and on.  Wazir, the District Magistrate, is the leader of central Indian government based in New Delhi, which administers the protectorate territory of Ladakh. It’s a tricky job, since Ladakh is extremely remote, culturally disparate from India, claimed by China, and populated with separatists.  Ladakh is essentially a territory subjugated and administered by the Indian government, and this is the office in which that bureaucracy is executed. We sat down with the group of men, who had all ceased work (its like Wednesday afternoon) and come out of their offices to meet with us. There were two Americans in the house and the machinations of bureaucracy could wait! A young boy swiftly delivered scrambled eggs and chai masala. As we awkwardly dug into the eggs, Wazir asked with a serious tone if we would like beer. He said it with a serious and scholarly look on his face, like he had read in a book somewhere that Americans like beer. We politely agreed to the beer and Wazir spoke a few words in Urdu to the boy. The kid literally ran out of the room and out of the house. A few moments later we saw through the window his gangly body loping down the street into town. We sat on the cushions for over an hour in animated conversation with the men. We discussed the friendship between our countries and the mutual threat of China. We talked about the Border Roads Organization and the monumental effort by the Indian government to build good roads through the mountains to connect Leh to India. We discussed about the relations between Ladakhi Buddhists, Hindu Indian nationalists, and the Muslims of Kashmir (these guys were all Muslims from Jammu, which I found interesting considering they were employees of Modi’s Hindu-favoring government). We talked about all sorts of crazy stuff with both intense yearning for understanding and the occasional blip of total cultural misalignment. They all spoke Urdu with each other, but most of them spoke English quite well. Like many Indians, they asked us our religions within a few moments of meeting. Not in any way that imposes judgment, but just as one of the fundamental “who are you?” questions of first meeting someone.  When we told them we were going trekking into the mountains the next week, they truly didn’t understand. I’m not certain they understood the idea of heading into the mountains to go on a long, multi-day walk for no real purpose. Wazir kept saying he was going to connect with us next week

The Indian Subcontinent is mind-bogglingly complex in its web of spirituality and religion. Hinduism is extraordinarily expansive with literally millions of gods, incorporating effortlessly so many smaller beliefs. Indian philosophy is Hindu philosophy, and so the spiritual teachings infuse every aspect of the culture. I’ve scratched the bare bare surface of this stuff in a few posts, including:

Trekking to Kyanjin Gompa Motorcycling to Pangong Climbing Kang Yatse I Trekking in Markha Valley Motorcycling to Malana Hitchhiking to Tibet Bicycling 160 Miles in the Himalayas Climbing Yala Peak Exploring Central Nepal

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Its not hard to make friends in India :)

One thing that I really really love about the culture of Himalayas is how the community treats animals/pets. In many cases, dogs are pretty much community-owned and could all be considered “strays” but in many cases they are taken care of by everybody. Friendly stray dogs roam the streets, dropping in their favorite restaurants for a bite to eat, always drinking out of the plentiful mountain streams. Kind stray dogs will even accompany you on hikes. Its impossible not to make tons of animal friends when exploring around anywhere in the Himalayas.