An ancient hot tub experience

Laugh if you will, but this chronic insomniac slept a solid eight hours last night. Was it the mineral mud bath...or the ativan? I'm going with the mud.

For cynics who laughed (or were utterly revolted) by this picture of Rodney and I floating in a bucket of what appears to look like hot chocolate milk, you should know that the mineral mud bath is an ancient form of healing for everything from arthritis to rheumatism.

Even Cleopatra apparently used mud to help her maintain her eternal beauty. Clearly not applicable to yours truly...

Ancients were also known to use it to keep obesity at bay. The mud, so they say, can fight excess flab. The Russian tourists who swarmed the place and indeed are ubiquitous in Nha Trang, may require multiple treatments to achieve any results. (I'm trying to be kind. I'm no stranger to large-sized people coming from North America. I just don't normally see them wearing string bikinis).

The mud itself, not thick as I expected but watery, contains a veritable smorgasbord of healthy organic ingredients: sulfur, iron, magnesium, potassium, bromide, selenium, calcium and zinc. It was like soaking in one of my vitamin B stress tablets.

There are several mud tub spas to choose from, but we chose the newest one. Designed in a traditional Vietnamese style, it was relaxing once I acclimatized to the loud muzak and stopped wondering who last used the borrowed bathing suit I was wearing for the occasion.

Did we emerge cleaner, de-stressed,and balanced?

Certainly my good night's sleep could confirm the restorative powers of our hot mud tub. Or it might have just been the sweet dreams of a quirky cultural experience which concluded with the most delicious pineapple smoothie ever consumed.

I was so relaxed I didn't even wonder about the origin of the ice floating in my glass.

Ghosts of a colonial past

My fellow guests at the Dalat Palace Hotel in Vietnam (besides my photographer husband) are ghosts.

Given the sad history of the American War, as it's naturally referred to here, you would think we're feeling the presence of the casualties of that long and brutal conflict. But no, the ghosts are French.

We both so easily imagine the French colonials who opened this luxury hotel in 1922--originally known as the Langbian Palace Hotel--wandering the grounds, climbing the steps to the opulent entrance, or just relaxing in their reclining chairs on the front lawn. We can feel them around us in the dining room or on the verandah as we enjoy our leisurely breakfast, our lunch, even a spectacular afternoon high tea.

 

 
They wander down the hotel corridors, the high ceilings allowing them room to float above our imaginations. They are in our guest room too, opening and closing the shutters on the windows or adjusting the fan.

We can even imagine the very first meeting between officials of the French government and the Vietminh which was held here in 1946. Or, when the guests of Emporer Bao Dai, who was himself a resident of Dalat with three palaces built near the hotel, came to stay.

And we are here too. Happily, for two more nights.

Shopping on steroids

"You're not in Kansas anymore," I told the young man who stepped off the courtesy hotel shuttle and immediately globbed onto me (his first mistake) as if I would serve as his guide through the monster mall we stood facing.

As it happened, he actually was from Kansas. 

We were headed into the Mall of Asia, a tourist attraction of Manila that defies, truly, an simple description other than that it's HUGE. Posters on Trip Advisor compare it to Tivoli Gardens or The Smithsonian of consumerism. Mall from Hell works better for me. It claims to be the fourth biggest mall in the world. 

From IMAX to ice-skating, ferris wheel to fireworks, just don't go there looking for anything you really need and be prepared to walk for hours unless, like I did, you contemplate renting one of these:

I quickly lost my young friend in the crowd and started dropping bread crumbs to make sure I would find my way home again. It didn't take long for my hyperventilating to begin. Luckily, I found a safe harbour:

Manila is paradise...if you are a shopper and certainly one with serious stamina (and cash!) 

But never mind Gap et al, you can even buy a new body here too. Manila is a mecca for plastic surgery. A convention of plastic surgeons just happen to be meeting in my hotel if I was so inclined.

No surprise to those who know me, I didn't even last an hour at the Super Mall. 

Same aging body (never spotted any nip/tuck kiosks but I'm sure they are there, somewhere) but at least I bought a book. I would have hated to leave empty-handed.

What not to eat when you're jet-lagged....

Vegetarians may want to close their eyes.

Even though we lived here in Seoul many years ago, I had completely forgotten how utterly sublime and delicious an experience it can be to eat Korean barb-b-q known as kalbi or galbi. Truly. And that's despite it being served with side dishes that can look like grass clippings and kind of taste like them too. 

It can be an especially discombobulating culinary experience (and digestive nightmare), though, for the jet-lagged traveler just out of the clouds after being cooped up for more than eleven hours and with a travel companion who barely lets her take a breath before saying,"we're off to dinner!"

Dinner? Didn't we have, like, three meals today already? And why the heck am I so starved? And why, oh why, can't I stop myself from stuffing my face with this delicious meat which I know I'm going to regret later?

Bottom line, I don't recommend consuming this meal until your stomach knows what time it is and you've been on the ground long enough that the smell of the ubiquitous kimchi on the table doesn't make you feel faint. 

Learn how to make it in your own kitchen.

Enjoy!

Winning the travel sweepstakes

I have never cashed in big on a multi-million dollar lottery, but I do hold a winning trifecta in the global travel derby: health, resources, and time in a first-second-third finish.

I hold a fourth winning ticket too. And that would be having the world’s best travel companion, my husband Rodney, an international road warrior who for some reason of late actually wants me to travel with him on his frantic business journeys.  

Perhaps it’s my not having to get stinking drunk on airplanes which has made me a more desirable travel partner. Or it could be my ability to travel lightly with only a carry-on bag to hold a clean t-shirt, a toothbrush, and when required, his camera and his sunglasses.

Also helping my cause is that after two spectacular journeys last fall, I have mastered the art of distinguishing between his ‘working’ time (when he’s leaning over his iPad or fiddling with his phone), and his ‘thinking’ time, when devices are not being used but his brain apparently is not ready to engage in conversation with me. I have learned to take nothing personally.

Over thirty years and various careers (he went from government to the non-profit world and finally into the private sector now owning Maple Bear Global Schools) the percentage of time we calculate he has spent on the road always shifts depending on who is telling the story. There was a time, though, when he was gone so often that I identified myself as a single mother without dating privileges.

Like so many spouses of international road warriors, his business travel became the source of much tension when the children were young and needed two parents around. Murphy’s Law always dictated that the moment he headed for the airport, a child would fall sick, a car would break down, or he would phone from the road at ‘zero’ hour when my children and I would be running out the door to some activity. There were many irritants which would cause much resentment over the fact that he was away and could sidestep his guilt with:

“I’m in Dubai, working to pay our bills. What do you want me to do?”

Come home! I wanted to say but of course we long suffering partners of business travelers would never say that.

“Fine, dear. Everything is fine. Gotta go.” It was either that or send an EMAIL THAT LOOKED LIKE THIS!!!!

Of course, everything was not always fine. Take our bad water karma. On one of his trips, the dishwasher exploded; our water heater, meanwhile, burst and flooded our basement twice no less (a defective replacement caused that grief) and on two separate trips. What were the chances?

 

But all of that is forgiven and forgotten, especially now that I head for the airport with him.

Who wouldn’t forgive someone who would dress up like this to get in the spirit of a family event in one country on our way to another country for his work? 

Who is your favourite travel companion?

For smart fish out of water....

That well known analogy, with a clever tweak by my web designer at the time, became the tag line for an earlier version of my website for expatriates. It so perfectly captured the frustration, confusion, and culture shock many travelers feel when thrust, even willingly, outside of their comfort zone. 

The expat ‘fish’ can feel worse, especially a mother in the hunt for a box of Cheerios for her toddler after her family has moved overseas. Many of us learned the hard way and with much stress that a university degree doesn’t get you very far when trying to figure out which neatly stacked white bag is flour, salt, corn starch, or sugar when they are all in the same packaging and labelled in Chinese!

It also describes the woman I used to be: one completely unsuited for her role as a foreign service wife. With my big unedited mouth, being diplomatic was a constant battle. Likewise, my aversion to snobby cocktail parties was equal parts nightmare to me and unhelpful to my husband’s career. My failure was further sealed by an intense dislike of getting dressed up in ‘big girl clothes’ (that would mean a dress, panty hose and shoes with heels) and finally, by my embarrassing track record of an inability to learn any foreign language.

When we chose to leave government service for the private sector, I hoped my days of trying to fit into a life so desperately wrong for me were mercifully behind me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t bother to re-read my first two books about culture shock. Both of my early efforts, in their final chapters, addressed the biggest shock of all for someone away traveling for months even years or those who have been living abroad for an extended period time.

And what shock would that be? It’s the shock of repatriating to one’s own culture and being engulfed in the highs and lows of unexpected and usually unplanned for re-entry shock. My discomfort of returning ‘home’ to a country that didn’t quite feel familiar to me anymore was more discombobulating than seeing my first cow brazenly waltz down a street in New Delhi.

In India, the cows were not unexpected. In Vancouver, I didn’t anticipate that friendly Canadians would blow off my phone calls so often that I resorted to leaving this message on their voice mail: “I’m writing a story about people who don’t return calls. Can you give me a ring at ___?”

I had to write another full length book just on the subject of repatriation to lift me out of my depression and to get past feeling the interesting, challenging and stimulating part of my life was over.

But, time moves on and re-entry shock dissipates. Until, that is, another ‘r’ word rears its ugly head: retirement.

Frustration, distress, and confusion all take over. Again. What to do with the rest of your life, especially now that experts tell us we could live thirty years beyond the age we retire?

Luckily, as I noted in a previous post on retirement denial is the first stage. Eventually, and it may take a while to work through all the stages, one embraces the next natural stage of life.

Will this so-called fish out of water be smart enough to just tread water until the horizon comes clearly into view once again?

Anyone out there want to dive in with a comment?

Travel is often a leap of faith...gulp!

In my early days as a global lecturer, I was invited to Prague to speak to parents at one of the international schools. Since my hosts lived in a housing district near the school, about a twenty minute drive from my hotel, it was more convenient for me to simply grab a cab on my own than to have someone come and fetch me.

It was early evening when I set out, and the light was fading fast.  There had been no time for dinner, so the tantalizing smells wafting over from the street food stalls, including the busy Czech sausage wagon next to the taxi stand, made me hungry. As my taxi driver did not speak a word of English and looked at the map I gave him with skepticism, a stressful nausea quickly replaced the hunger pangs. Without a cell phone (not that I would know who to call anyway) I felt like I was heading out to sea without a paddle.

Within seconds, or so it seemed, the populated part of the city vanished along with the daylight. Viewed through my nervous eyes, the city’s ‘outskirts’, the kind of scenery I probably would have enjoyed immensely if I was rolling by it in a train, looked ominous. Heart racing, I became fixated on only one thought:

“I hope to hell he’s taking me to the school!”

I quietly began to chant my new travel mantra: it will all work out. I had become a fatalist. It was either become one, or never leave home again.

Barely a few years later, new mantra in my head, I decided to take my biggest and furthest leap of faith.

This time, my journey began in Paris. I had met two South African Human Resource specialists at an expat conference being held there. At around two in the morning, I found myself in our hotel bar with them, drinking, laughing, and smoking way too many cigarettes.

“You should come and speak in South Africa,” they both said once I had lost count of all my sins that night.

“Invite me,” I countered, almost belligerently.

“Considered yourself invited.”

Six months later, I was disembarking in Johannesburg’s Jan Smuts International airport off an overnight British Airways flight from London.

“I can’t remember what Pierre looks like!” My faith began ebbing from the moment we began our descent. Luckily, Pierre was the guy who jumped out and handed me flowers. Phew.

As we drove to his home, a small holding outside of Johannesburg where I would be staying with his family, he gushed about the private safari he had arranged for me in Klaserie, the nature park alongside the famous Kruger Park where many South Africans kept camp sites.

What exactly is a private safari? Obviously, it’s one that is not planned with military precision, walkie talkies or fancy facilities. For me, it meant riding into the beautiful South African sunset with my two hosts, the teenage son of one along with his pal. That meant our group was me and four guys. No guide but lots of rifles and enough booze to last us well beyond our three days in the bush.

Before we left Johannesburg, I confess: I freaked out and started calling everyone I know in the world to say goodbye. And this was before I ever knew that a poisonous green mamba snake would be trapped by one of the teenagers in the tree next to my mattress on the elevated sleeping shelter I was going to share with the men and any wild animal that wanted to wander underneath.

I stayed pretty cool throughout the safari: showered like the men did, fully dressed in my clothes and then stretched out in the afternoon heat to dry; I dutifully would ask one of my hosts if he could grab his rifle if I had to go to the bathroom (and had to be guarded); I didn’t jump entirely out of my skin when our Land Rover, driven by one of the teenage boys, broke down at 10 o’clock at night in the middle of nowhere as we returned from the bush pub and we silently stared out at eyes staring back, everyone holding a rifle but me and a cloud of testosterone hovering over our jeep.

“Did you even know those guys?” I heard constantly before and after that trip.

“No, but they seemed nice.” And they were. It was the trip of a lifetime.

I like to believe that serendipity does indeed exist, but only when someone is open to it and ready to trust, full stop. Travelers especially must be prepared to leap without looking...except, of course, if it’s at an elephant standing in front of you.