Travel Archives - Page 9 of 39 - Maggie InkMaggie Ink

My flips went flop

November 13, 2011

R.I.P. old, navy, Old Navy flip-flops.

I try to avoid getting too attached to objects, but losing this pair of shoes actually snags my heart a little. This $2 pair of flip-flops is what propelled me around the world.

You guys, if these shoes could talk … well, first they would say some pretty filthy stuff. But then then would tell you all about their extraordinary adventures.

These shoes have been up the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, on safari in South Africa, through rice fields in Uganda, around temples in Cambodia, inside pyramids in Giza. They took me down the beaches of Goa and to the top of Mt. Sinai. I inappropriately wore them to a nightclub in Argentina. One flop got washed away down a gutter in Chiang Mai during Songkran; I chased it down in the murky moat water.

They have stepped over fish heads, garbage and cow dung. They have been across insect-encrusted floors, inside countless nasty bathrooms and showers, over layers of filth I still refuse to acknowledge. There’s a good chance they are infected with typhoid.

When I befriended tigers in Thailand, I was warned to keep my shoes on, “in case you have to run for your life.” Not that I was ever going anywhere fast in my flip-flops.

My flip-flops have been called many names by new friends all over the globe. They are “thongs” to Aussies, “jandals” to Kiwis and “ship-ships” in Egypt — because that’s the sound you make as you walk through the sand. “Ship … ship … ship …”

These flip-flops were a part of me for so long, you can still see the imprint of my foot in them.

After I returned from my trip, The Husband begged me to throw them away.

“You can’t just wear flip-flops every day for the rest of your life. Also, they smell,” he said. “Let me buy you some new shoes.”

“These are all the shoes I need!” I snapped, and I continued to wear them.

Until one day I didn’t. I was lured out of the house without my trusty flip-flops, betraying them with a sultry pair of Nikes. And of course, that was the day my dog decided to get her chew on.

So it’s all my fault. I left my flip-flops alone and vulnerable, instead of on my feet where they belonged. Now I have to pay the price.

Just know how much I’ll miss you, Shoes. You were a trusty and loyal companion. You were sturdy and reliable. You flip-flopped my heart, and I’ll never be the same.

The last letter writer in Vietnam

October 20, 2011

Duong Van Ngo knows the power of words.

That’s because he is Vietnam’s last professional letter writer.

For decades Ngo has been writing and translating love letters between soldiers and their lovers, families and loved ones, parents and children.

Each day he arrives at the Saigon post office, an intimidating, peach- and green-colored colonial structure, at 8 a.m. sharp. He leans his bicycle underneath the sycamore trees.

Inside the building, Ngo situates himself at the end of a long wooden bench near a pastel portrait of Ho Chi Minh. Here the 81-year-old unloads books of postal codes, dictionaries, piles of files and stacks of papers. Finally, he pulls out a cardboard sign that reads “Information and Writing Assistance.”

It took me several laps around the expansive building to find him.

Translation is tricky business, according to Ngo, who is fluent in Vietnamese, French and English.

“Each word means something,” he says. “You must choose with care.”

Ngo is the last of his kind. There was another professional letter writer in Vietnam, also stationed at the Saigon post office, but that man died several years ago. After he passed, there was nobody to replace him.

“It’s a shame,” Ngo says. “Connecting people with words is so important.”

He knows what he’s talking about. Over the years, Ngo has negotiated business partnerships. He has reunited families. He has proposed marriage. He has used his words to bridge cultures, miles, time. He has wrapped up love in an envelope and sent it across oceans.

Though he says he never inserts his words into other people’s messages, Ngo is a master at massaging language. He has an instinct about what to say when and how. He knows when to use affection and when to remain aloof, when to gush and when to be restrained, when to be a professional and when to be poetic.

I hand over a postcard for Ngo to pen for my husband. I want it to be a love letter in Vietnamese, and I push him to help me write it.

Ngo’s blue pen swirls and swooshes with curls like delicate lace. He points to the first line, “This says, ‘My darling. Saigon is void of beauty without you here.'”

Every word is gold.

I ask if he ever uses a computer or sends e-mail. Has he ever felt pressure to adapt with the times and modernize his work?

“Never,” he says. “Machines are cold and have no soul. Letters have heart.”

When I try to slide some money his way for writing a couple of postcards, Ngo refuses.

“I love what I do,” he says. “It would be wrong for me to accept payment for something that is a pleasure.”

Mr. Postman

October 18, 2011

I had a stack of souvenirs and clothes, ready to ship back to the United States. Except the employee at the Mysore, India, post office wasn’t having any of it.

“No. Send.” he said, abruptly clipping each word.

“But why? Why no send?”

“No send,” he repeated.

“Please help me.”

“No send!”

After several frustrating minutes, that’s all he would say. It was infuriating.

Just then a boy tugged at my sleeve. “You want to send parcel?” he said.

“Yes, I want to send parcel,” I growled, hovering on the verge between screaming and crying. “I am here to send parcel.”

“Come with me.”

The boy held my hand as we weaved in between speeding rickshaws and honking motorcycles. He led me down into a basement, where he pulled up a plastic chair and motioned for me to sit.

A few seconds later, the boy’s father appeared. Syed was the 43-year-old owner of his own parcel packaging service. Or, as his hand-painted sign stated, “Parcle paking.”

It turns out that all packages mailed from India must be wrapped in cloth and sewn shut, with the seams covered in globs of sealing wax.

As we chatted, Syed pressed my stack of clothes in between two empty sari boxes, then tied them together with twine. He covered that with plastic and taped it together several times over. With a quick snip of some scissors and the whirr of a sewing machine, Syed fashioned a cream-colored cloth bag for the entire package. It fit as snugly as a pillowcase. He sewed the end shut by hand using mustard yellow thread.

Over a cup of tea and a hot samosa, Syed showed me the book where he keeps meticulous records of each and every package he has mailed — including gushing e-mails from thankful customers who receive their souvenirs at home, intact and on time.

He was interested in trying out my computer, so we flipped through photos together. He pointed to a shot of my sister.

“She is very beautiful,” he said.

I agreed.

“More beautiful than you,” he said.

“Yes, yes. My sister is much more beautiful than me. She always has been.”

“She is younger, yes?”

“Uh … actually, she’s 13 years older. But thanks.”

He pointed to another photo.

“Who is this?”

I told him it’s me.

“No, really? But this woman is beautiful!”

“Yeah, I can’t explain it. Maybe that picture was taken on a good day.”

“And this? This is you?” he pointed to another photo of me. Then he carefully eyed me up and down. “It is my thought that you have gained weight.”

“You are probably correct,” I said, then shrugged. “What can I say? I like samosas.”

On that note, I excused myself from Syed’s shop.

The package eventually arrived in Palm Springs with no problem, even though Syed addressed it to “CALIFORNIA GURL!” (I’m still shocked it didn’t end up on Katy Perry’s doorstep.)

And now it seems Syed has decided that I am something of a looker, after all. We’ve become friends on Facebook, and today he sent me this message: “Hello, dear maggie your all of photos most beautifuls. your face is the moon. best regurd.”

It was terribly sweet. If there’s one thing this California gurl loves more than samosas, it’s best regurds.

Street art in Asia

August 28, 2011

Sometimes I’m embarrassed I can’t see the world the way street artists do.

I don’t look at a metallic sliver of garage door and see a robot. I don’t know how a dark alleyway can transform into a dazzling display. I can’t find the rainbow of colors in concrete.

I don’t have that kind of vision — but thankfully, I can still get a peek.

In search of the world’s smelliest flower

August 27, 2011

I’m a sucker for The World’s Largest Tallest Widest anything.

World’s Largest Basket? Check. World’s Largest Cuckoo Clock? Been there, done that. World’s Tallest Thermometer? Of course.

So when I ended up in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, home of The World’s Largest AND Smelliest Flower, I was ready to hunt down this stinky bloom.

Unfortunately, that’s a little difficult to do without some help. The flower is rare and, thus, protected. It only blooms for 4 to 5 days at a time, and sometimes there aren’t any flowers for months. And since the endangered plant is on native land, only people of the Orang Aslis tribe — or guides educated by the tribe — know where to find it.

That means I had to pay for a tour, which I hate doing, instead of setting out on my own. And so some new friends and I booked a trip.

I knew I was in for a bumpy ride when I was picked up at the hostel in a Land Rover that looked like it had been dipped in caramel. Muddy caramel.

The tour guide was a Malaysian man with a slight build and bulbous, jaundiced eyes. He wore a silver marijuana leaf on a chain and had this laminated poem posted above the steering wheel:

Stoners live and stoners die

Fuck the world, let’s get high.

Pot’s a plant, it grows in the ground,

If God didn’t like it, it wouldn’t be around.

So drink 151 and smoke a bowl,

So party hard and rock and roll.

To all you preps who think you’re cool,

Fuck you bitches, stoners rule!

So my guide was a plant lover. That’s all I’m saying.

The drive to the nature preserve took about two hours on teeth-crushing, bone-jarring roads. At one point I hit the roof and bruised my eyeball. Then, at a remarkably unremarkable point in the road, our guide simply hit the brakes and turned off the ignition. He motioned for us to follow him into the jungle.

My friends and I slogged in ankle-deep mud through insect clouds, between prickly plants, across makeshift bridges for more than an hour.

Finally, our guide came to a halt. We had arrived! He held out his hand and gestured for us to gaze upon the majestic rafflesia bud.

It looked like a cabbage.

A little bit farther away, we finally saw a bloom.

The coolest thing about rafflesia is that it has no leaves, stems or true roots. It’s actually an endoparasite that grows within vines. The flower is the only part of the parasite that lives outside the host vine.

The petals are spongy, almost like a mushroom, with dots of fungus around the inside lip of the bloom.

And it is big. Here is my size 11 Nike for comparison.

Most of all, the rafflesia stinks, which is why it’s known as the corpse flower. Blow gently on this bloom, and you’ll be rewarded with the stench of rotting hamburger.

Now, I know when I say “corpse flower,” you’re probably thinking of this monstrosity.

Yes, this putrid plant is also called a corpse flower, and it’s hella huge. But while it is the largest unbranched inflorescence, the rafflesia has the largest single flower of any flowering plant. Got that? Good.

Afterward, my group met a tribe of Orang Asli, indigenous Malaysian people, who used to be headhunters. Now they eat monkeys.

This little guy was scheduled to be that night’s dinner, and he definitely knew it. He poked his hand through the wooden slats and clutched my finger for a long time, looking at me with these huge pleading eyes.

I think I’d rather eat a corpse flower.

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