Someone asked me why I do it. I was returning with an East German tourist from a waterfall in a shared tuk-tuk (motorbike with tiny covered truckbed attached) and saw a cafe / tea house I had been taken to before in the bamboo Buddha abduction. It sees few tourists, and felt homey and friendly. I have photos of their kitchen that they gladly welcomed me into. There, we met a Japanese man –introduced because he spoke English, and had been taken in by these folks. He wondered why we travel, and the East German answered the question; then the conversation swung to something else, so I had time to think about it before making my answer two days later, when the question arose again after the coffee farm visit. Contained in my answer below is a clue as to why I write long run-on sentences shamelessly, so if you’re wondering, read on.

Why I do it, by way of anecdote: Yesterday I was in a big temple in Bagan called Ananda, taking pictures, drawing in the coolness of the brick temple, and listening to Sanskrit chants on my iPhone through earbuds. A formal procession flowed in led by a few really old monks, one supporting the other, followed by a line of old pilgrims dressed formally, in lace and silk shirts, traditional skirts (longyis) and garlands of jasmine flowers. I stood to the side to let it pass as well as to marvel at its display of devotion and ritual formality. But the (older) women were all drilling what I perceived as judgmental looks towards me. I’m sure they were: I was dressed in my leather hat, long sleeved back shirt, a scarf around my waist and loose black pants. I looked more like an apologetic aging belly dancer than a respectful tourist. I felt their anger, I handled it by wondering if they were Christians rather than Buddhists displaying so much judgment. I wondered about their Buddhist Practice if they couldn’t Let Go of their perception of this Other person, from whom they are Not Separate. I got out of the way altogether and stepped into the vast courtyard and walked around barefoot on the stones baking in the heat, listening to my Sanskrit chants, and reflected on just how many ways I had entered the conscience of the pilgrims who arrived by bus–no doubt from a long distance–to be temporarily bummed out by me, then to get to practice Letting Go (or bitch about it to other old birds on the return trip in the bus).

What kinds of stares of misunderstanding, hate, and assumption am I shooting daily at others like me who forget a detail, at locals with what I perceive to have too many children, people chewing betel, tourists talking too loud, New Zealanders butchering the English language(!) Twice, I laughed at western men in traditional longyi; one for hiking his up while walking through the market, looking absurd, another who wore his too short… How barbed is the sword of my own looks (looks as in both perception
& appearance?) Buddhism would show me that this is the way I treat myself. Then how does this touch my dealings daily at home? Deeply.

This is why I travel. Not necessarily to learn the culture and history of another country, though that certainly happens, not to get laid (though that used to happen), but to expand my horizons, both internally and externally. (And learn some fucking manners!)

To be illiterate in a place, not to understand its language nor even character-set, is to be a child again. Experiences are fresh and I am fresh against this backdrop: with this “beginner’s mind” fewer filters stand in the way of looking out and looking in. Acting on this ‘dreamscape,’ just like in an actual dream, I exercise my personality. Without the safety nets of people who know, me, nor the expectations to be who they think I am, I can try on other characters. Forced to be solely responsible for my safety and comfort, I exercise a “parent” inside and though that might sound silly, how many Americans do YOU know who were Parented? Truly?

I have traveled for thirty years now and have been to as many countries, taking a long trip of several months every few years. I dropped out of college every other semester to do it, questioning if travel wasn’t a better education for me than pushing a pencil in Rhetoric. It took 20 years to get my degree on this plan, and run-on sentence habits aside, I am thankful that I can continue to do it.

A hot wind is blowing on the tarmac and my half-hour flight to Bagan from Mandalay is about to board. If I had known what the events leading to these thirty minutes in the air were, I might have chosen the 12-hour boat ride or the 7-hour bus, and I might have arrived there a few times by now. Though no happier. This flight will take me over the ancient city that boasts over 2000 Buddhist temples.
This morning I booked a shared taxi from my guesthouse down the hill to the city of Mandalay and the airport. A shared taxi, like casual commuting in the Bay Area, is a car whose driver is paid — 5 or 6 bucks in my case–for a two-hour trip in a comfy passenger car with airconditioning–& it leaves for the trip as soon as the car is full. There are designated places to hail such a taxi, or you can call in advance. It was an uneventful ride, with one stop for some fruit, and otherwise not much chatting. Arriving in Mandalay, I was passed on to another cab because my destination was the airport and the shared taxi only does that trip at a great expense. I love how systems look mysterious because I’m illiterate here, so: we’re cruising the grungy streets of Mandalay, past teahouses, street vendors, moped and cellphone shops, a group of women showering behind a shoulder-high concrete wall, deathly traffic circles; and in some barrio the cab stops, the driver gets out, goes into a shop, comes out with another guy, then my passenger door is opened and I’m told to get out. This is my meeting spot with the other driver. I pay the first, we agree on a price for the second, and we’re off, on a long drive to the remote Mandalay Airport where I am to arrive early enough to pay for tickets I have reserved online.
In the –empty–Airport, a kid in an Izod shirt with an airport logo shuffles over in his flip-flops and asks where I am going and on what airline. I tell him and he directs me to no where, so I ask at an info desk, they ascertain that I have a domestic flight and that I need to pay for it. We all laugh. The first guy accompanies me through a set of doors to the Air Mandalay Office, a 1970’s run-down scene (pictured). I’m directed to sit down and a cold glass of water is brought. We joke that I am very early for my flight and that I will have to leave, eat lunch and return. The Manager, Moe Moe with whom I had exchanged email about this flight, presents a receipt for the two flights I booked, and we decide I will pay in US dollars. I pull out a stack, but he is not satisfied with the condition of the bills, but they are all I am carrying, so we will have to switch to kyats, the local currency. I pull out my cellphone for its calculator and in what feels like a back-room deal, determine the exchange rate (based on yesterday’s blackmarket rate) and I make my offer in kyats. We count for each other, recount for ourselves the stacks of velveteen -with-age, creased, faded bills, and the agent I first met puts his shoes back on and shuffles off to the money changer with my stack of cash. I pretend to answer a phonecall on my celly and snap the images here, unbeknownst to the agent, though I am sure he’d have been happy to pose for a photo. I also use the calculator to determine what the airport’s money changer would likely rather have. As I thought, when the agent comes back from his trip to the money changer, I owe a bit more and pay happily. I am sipping water, the agent is handling my acceptable 20’s, one of which has a red stamp that says, “Impeach Bush.” Moe Moe is writing up an airline ticket and its carbon copies, the way airline tickets used to be. Then he comes to sit beside me, puts his barefeet on the table rung and says, ‘your flight to Bagan was cancelled so we’ll put you on a KVB airlines flight 15 minutes earlier.’ No problem, same cost, slips his flipflops back on and sits back down at his desk.
Deal done, and after shaking hands with Moe Moe, I am escorted by the agent through a security gate in which there are no lights on, and the conveyor belt is not running. Someone is fetched to turn on the conveyor belt, but likely doesn’t bother with the ex-ray machine (if there is one), I place my pack on the belt, my cell phone and full water bottle in a separate tray, and walk through. A woman security guard appears, to pass a wand around me and pad my belly.
I am Good to Go with my pack on my arm and the agent points me to the Kipling Cafe, which once I get near to I can see is nothing but a few betel bespattered tables and chairs at random angles, a fan nearby, and three drink coolers with one or two cans of pop in each, all three lights-out and locked with chains. A glass cabinet that once served as a counter with an outrageously beautiful young girl in brightly colored traditional longyi (skirt), her jet black hair tied back in a modest bun, now stands dusty and alone in the dark. I move a roll of saliva-soaked betel leaf off a table with an abandoned piece of toilet paper and sit down at the open window, turn the fan on, and relax with some sunflowerseeds I stashed for this occasion. But soon I’m wondering about the scene at the bottom of the grand marble staircase where arrivals and ground transpo must be. Taking my celly and money along, but abandoning my pack, I venture down to find a bustling airport complete with the money changers, taxi-touts an ATM and a cafe brightly lit sporting three versions of the young woman who wasn’t upstairs. I move downstairs, and am shelling sunflower seeds and reading a novel when our two airlines agents appear at my table (I am so used to the servers standing beside my table and watching me eat that I ignore them). Excuse me, sir, one says, but we forgot to charge you the airport tax of 1000 kyats for each flight. We look together at the emailed confirmation in my phone, he handling the phone like a pro, and find the small print, and I whip out some more tattered weary bills, taking my right elbow in my left hand, as is customary when giving and receiving. They go. I read. Soon after, one appears again, this time to tell me it’s time to check in for my flight. He carries my pack and we walk upstairs, through the security gate, and we’re joined by another guy and they say goodbye and thank you to me for the last time.
Now only an hour to go before my flight, I saunter like an eccentric poet dressed in flouncy hippy pants with custom tailored dress and leather hat into the one open business near my gate, a cafe/bar. Six cute young guys in traditional skirts and blue cafe jerseys jump up from the couch they were all in a puppy pile on, watching videos on a cellphone, slip back into their shoes, and rush around me eager to serve. I order a shot of espresso and a shot of Hennessy, as much to amuse them with my style and abundance as it was what was called for.
By now, the end of my first day here in Bagan I have seen temples on foot, from horse drawn cart ( for the sunrise this morning) and by bicycle. The opportunity to see them from the air was a large part of my appreciation for them on the ground.

–Templed Out in Bagan, Myanmar Hot Season, 2014.

Today started like all days with meditation and kick-ass coffee I make in my room with a rig I bring everywhere with me. At 9 a pre-arranged motorbike rider picked me up to take me to a Bamboo Pagoda that a woman had invited me to yesterday. I had the name of the temple and her name written in Myanmar script to show the driver. I got there on time, the lady was fetched from the long stairway–remember, these temples are NUMEROUS and painted fancifully, so that if you hadn’t gotten used to them in India–& I haven’t– you feel like you’re on an acid trip. Here she comes down the stairs. Takes my ridiculous blue drybag and interlaces her fingers in mine and takes me to her shop half way up the many steps to the temple. Gives me gifts from her shop shows me the killer view and we proceed up to the top where we do some prostrations and sit before what I think is another gold-leaf Buddha. Then she points to a woven basket and points to Buddha. This ain’t mo ordinary gold-leaf Buddha, but a wicker basket Buddha painted gold. His long fingers, his draped robe, his prayer beads, his long-lobed ears, his half-lid, half-smile: Bamboo. There are in-progress photos of this and the lady talks about being involved and all the work and how it took about three months. Back out the door, holding my hand, carrying my stuff, she takes me back down to her shop and then down some backstairs to another temple complex, but this one in a flat valley and theres no one around. Another small temple and another wicker Buddha, but this one is not painted and much more beautiful because you can see the work of all those hands. More prostrations –during which I have my own serenity prayer routine I do–I photograph like a fiend until she is moving all the crap and bowls of fly-infested mango and rice candles and flotsam out of the way. Then into another temple on the grounds more beautiful than the last more prostrations more photos while she delivers this one fresh flowers, then we are walking past the biggest banyan tree I’ve ever seen and into a 110 year-old Chinese temple.
We get some lunch of Shan noodles, little salads and fried tofu with an awesome onion and garlic dip. I am shown the alphabet by our waitress, a hip, strong young woman with a short haircut and a grounded, fun confidence, who is learning English. the characters look like o’s and c’s and f’s in various arrangements so that signage all looks like it says ‘coffee’ to me.
My host pays, my American Capitalist swallows its suspicion and accepts the gifts. More visiting over red bull and milk with other Sellers in the Temple entrance then its off on a moped to a Real Shan home on a garden lot with a real Shan grandma napping on a grassmat on the floor. Visiting, pictures…Then it’s off to my hosts farmhouse, a more modern house with a small cornfield. She shows me the traditional makeup everyone -men and women- wear, which is also a sunscreen, and a medicine. Its an aromatic block of wood that they rub against a grinding stone til it’s powder, add water and paint on in expressive ways, each his own. I get a square on each cheek.

Then its downtown in the rain on mopeds (hence my drybag) to a tea house (see photo) where the friend with the grandma and the grass

house joins us. Tea means you get a thermos of weak green tea then you order tea or coffee, either thing comes with LOTS of sugar and condensed milk, and your table gets an assortment of deep fried treats rolled in sugar. I was really happy to see they dunk (not every culture does, you know).
Then its my guesthouse to take a nap, lest you think I’m unstoppable. Then for coffee at an American-owned cafe called Golden Triangle where I sketched with a kitten on my lap, then walking back chatted with a few moped-cabbies about my hat and their naming system, and got my Myanmar name as I was born on Friday: Than-Than Myint.
And off to the Night Market. The Indian seller of spices and rices wants to know my origins and can speak English so we chat, so does the next Indian. And he gives me a load of bananas and some instant coffee. Both tell me where to go for slippers. Another wants to know my destination and a bit more, so I slither away, give a beggar a pile of bananas and find the Buddhist monk supply shop for slippers and an umbrella. Returning back through the labyrinthine market in reverse, I hear an acoustic guitar and follow it to three young guys giving their hearts to some Myanmar Pop and stop to listen, take photos & videos, and you know the next part: I ask the kid at the egg stall for an empty wooden packing crate, and provide some percussion to the heartpouring crooners. We eat some bananas together chat smile and laugh a lot and I go away to chat with a Buddhist Monk down the road who says his teacher Ananda something is in San Francisco. We talk about travel and Myanmar. So do the Nepalese restaurant owner and I over tea after I finish some nan and curry at his family’s shop. No one has brought up politics. I was advised not to ask, but to let them bring it up who wants to. Not to pry, as there are lots of Chances to regret opening your mouth in the wrong company.

Now it’s pouring, and I am safely back in the guesthouse. Tomorrow there is a rocketstove workshop here…of course. Smiles and blessings from afar, y’all.