2015 At Large

By Max Bonem

It all started with a hangover. Like so many January 1sts around the world, I started 2015 in a haze and with a slight headache. Someone not hurting nearly as much as me convinced me to get out of bed and have breakfast with them. We went to Bouldin Creek Cafe, our favorite breakfast place, and both ordered the same thing we always had. We overheard debaucherous tales from tables all around us, people detailing the mistakes they’d made the night before after their fifth flute of champagne or their seventh vodka soda. We laughed the way we used to and looked fondly on the past, a time we’d spent together in what almost seemed like a different life. We reminsiced, smiled, and embraced. And then went our separate ways. I knew then that I wouldn’t be spending my next New Year’s day in Austin. I knew that that I wouldn’t be spending my new New Year’s day in the US. I knew that it was time to go.

A lot can and will change over the course of a year. Homes, jobs, friends, partners, hobbies, interests, and focuses are just a few popular examples. Many of these things are subconscious, we don’t necessarily choose to change them, but others, others wouldn’t happen without a bold declaration or firm decision. For me, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere without finally articulating my plans to others. However, I was terrified.

Not just because of the reactions I was due to receive. From friends, who would be sad that I was leaving Austin. From my parents, who would be worried about me, both in terms of the comfortable life I was leaving behind and the distance I’d be putting between myself and them. No, it also had to do with how selfish I felt I was being. How I was putting myself above everything else, clearly and without a doubt, for the what really seemed like the first time ever. Except if you’re counting that time I moved to Austin in the first place, but let’s not get dragged down by technicalities. Happiness though, it takes commitment and adventures, well, they take sacrifice. Like many parts of life, it seems both of these things also require a bit of chance.

I visited eight countries in 2015. For those keeping track at home, before this trip I had previously visited eight total countries over the course of my life. However, when my departure to SE Asia was still just a well-pondered idea, a dream really, I’d made arrangements to first go on a trip to South America, to a wedding where I didn’t know either person getting married, in a country that I’d never really been interested in visiting. Sometimes though it’s the situations that seem to make the least sense that end up meaning the most to you once you’ve been through them. This trip was no different.

It took 42 hours to arrive in Cusco, Peru. I went from Austin to Houston to Jacksonville to Miami to Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo to Cusco in what can only be described as a never ending road to what seemed like nowhere. When we arrived in Cusco though, I remember driving through the early morning streets, sleep deprived and warn out, but the smell and breeze and sounds of this new world waking up, they sent a chill down my spine that signaled to me that I was heading down the right path. Or maybe it was just my body signaling that it was ready to shut down. Who really knows.

I’ve tried again and again to articulate what it’s like visiting Machu Pichu, but wonders aren’t meant to be described, they’re meant to be beheld. Tourists dragged their selfie-sticks up the rain-drenched hillside and travelers from every corner of the globe hired Peruvian tour guides to walk them back in time to a civilization whose intentions will never be fully grasped, when it comes to construction and utilization of Machu Pichu itself. We sat in the grass, watched spectators attempt to photograph the rogue llamas, and looked upon a scene that seemed more likely to be a deleted frame from Avatar rather than really existing on the same earth we’d called home since birth.

There were moments during my time in Peru that will stand as some of the toughest moments I’ve ever experienced traveling, when doubt sets in and you begin questioning why you’ve left home in the first place. However, as with all shitty moments we experience on any given day, whether you’re on vacation or not, soon after is when the best memories are formed, which is how I’ll always remember my time in Brazil.

There ain’t no party like a Brazilian wedding party ‘cus a Brazilian wedding party don’t stop. If you ever have the opportunity to attend one, I highly recommend it. And then after you party for a few days, then you can head off to Rio and do it all over again. I met some of the most important people of my entire year because I attended that wedding, a celebration between two people who were complete strangers to me. A wedding that I only ended up at because of a very strange set of circumstances. A wedding that will almost be impossible to ever top for any number of reasons.

Every now and then, when you visit a new country, a light goes on and illuminates a part of you that you never knew existed. It happens with music and certain foods and you can’t explain it. I’ve found this happens especially in countries where your family might descend from, however, even though I have no known familial ties to Brazil, something changed inside of me, somehow this completely foreign place made complete sense to me, and not a day goes by where I don’t wonder about my time spent there and what it meant to me in the bigger scheme of this year as a whole. If Peru sparked this quest, then Brazil was the gasoline I needed to go from subtle flame to inferno when it came to my interest in venturing further out into the world.

I returned to Austin knowing I left a part of myself in South America. I knew that I needed more and I seriously started considering relocating to São Paulo through my former employer. It was possible, it wasn’t that out of the question, but I knew there were more destinations beyond the horizon that I needed to see before I planted new roots anywhere. For now, Brazil would have to remain a possibility rather than the next reality. For now, it’s a dream on hold.

The next three months became a countdown until the big launch. I bought supplies, took inventory, and attempted to cut down on my quantity of cargo, but per usual for me, I had, have, and will always carry too much stuff when I travel. June spun into July and August soon after and the next thing I knew, I was sitting in New York’s JFK international airport with a one way ticket to Bangkok. For better or worse, as I stepped onto that first plane I knew that my life was about to change in ways that I’d never foreseen. There would be good, there would be less good, but this was why I wanted to go in the first place, for the moments where I knew I was walking into completely uncharted territory. I bid a fond farewell to what I knew to be true and hello to the unknown.

As I’ve spoken about before, Bangkok was a kick straight to the brain. It rattled me, for better or worse, and obliterated most of the assumptions I’d had about the city itself, SE Asia, and backpacking in general. In my first few days of my trip, I met people from Australia, England, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Mexico, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands, each of whom was a resident at my beloved Saphaipae Hostel, still one of the top two or three places I’ve stayed throughout this trip.

Bangkok spilled into Ayutthaya, where I wandered around the remnants of the shattered Thai empire. Buddhas decapitated, temples decimated by century-old battles with the Burmese. I was left mostly alone to wander endless ruins, accompanied only by stray guard dogs and the occasional summer shower.

I continued north and arrived in Chiang Mai, the first destination on my list that I was truly excited to visit. I was baptized by the bliss of khao soi, threatened by a gang of dogs unaccustomed to westerners attempting to view their jungle temple in the hills surrounding Thailand’s northern capital, and I jumped off cliffs into a once-quarry whose waters took on a hue of blue unseen in nature.

Next I ventured to Pai, which really turned out to be a state of mind just as much as a destination in of itself. I learned to ride a scooter, I not-so-gracefully fell into a waterfall, and I learned to tell the difference between the Australian and New Zealand accents. I soon realized, while watching the sun set over Pai’s horizon, that this trip wasn’t going to be what I expected it to. While I assumed I’d meet good people and make friends, I didn’t fully realize how pivotal new folks would be in the travel experience until that very moment. Of course, from there I left everyone I knew behind and ventured to Laos.

Two days on the Mekong River, one splitting headache, and endless conversations with Canadians later, I arrived in Luang Prabang. A friend of mine, someone I reluctantly respect and admire dutifully more than I would care to admit, described the sleepy, but mystical cultural epicenter of Laos as, “the place where I learned to love sticky rice and water buffalo.” If there are two facets of Lao society that take some getting used to, he was right on the money with the pair he chose.

My next destination, Vang Vieng, is one of the few stops on this whirlwind walkabout that I would skip in a heartbeat looking back. The one-time party capital of Laos, if such a thing even exists, Vang Vieng is a town that was turned into a heathen outpost for backpackers to buy lots of drugs and tube down the river. A lot of the drugs have been removed, but tubing is as popular as ever. Coming from central Texas, the tubing capital of the universe, I simply wasn’t that interested in the novelty of it, however, every other person I was with was ecstatic when tubing day came around. Some called me a curmudgeon, something I’m not unaccustomed to, but rather than argue, I did what I felt was most appropriate, I left.

Vientiane came and went without much to report and Pakse, which I arrived to after a strange 14-hour bus ride south of the capital city, acted as my departure point to Cambodia. Entering Cambodia though, the gravity of the country’s recent history was simply inescapable. Laos might be “50 years or so behind,” as a Thai guesthouse owner told me before I crossed the border, but Cambodia, a country that at one time rivaled Thailand in terms of development in the region, got knocked back to the stone age during one of the ugliest decades in modern history.

However, that wasn’t what really caught me off guard as we made our way to Siem Reap. No, it was when we stopped at a roadside stall for lunch and everything was priced in US dollars. That’s when things stopped making sense for me. From that point on, what ended up being a three week stay in Cambodia, I was a bit suspicious of anyone and everyone I spoke too, a recommendation countless folk made to me before I arrived to begin with.

Much like entering Machu Pichu earlier in the year, arriving in Angkor Wat can’t really be described in words. It’s too big, too sprawling, too mind-boggling to simply describe. Sure, you come back down to Earth throughout your visit when kids ask you for money so they can supposedly afford school books and shoes. Or when monkeys throw mangostene pits at you. Or when it’s humid enough that you’re unsure if you’re walking through air or mist at any point. What’s strange about Siem Reap though is how it counters the country’s national treasure located just north of civilization with a city full of western restaurants and backpacker bars. “Black out at Angkor What? Bar and then see the sun rise at Angkor Wat the next morning!” Somewhere that made sense to some entrepreneur, but I knew I wouldn’t be staying longer than I had to.

I passed through Battambang without much impact and found myself in Cambodia’s evolving capital, Phnom Penh. I visited the killing fields and the prison museum. I ate incredible chinese food and accidentally ended up in bars catering to a particular type of male tourist with young and eager British lads. I quickly abandoned ship. They didn’t come home until after sunrise. I had drinks with a german expat who argued with me over Hilary Clinton’s viability as a presidential candidate. We then argued over the merit of arguing simply for the sake of arguing.

Next I arrived in Kep, at a resort where I had my own bungalow with a view of the ocean. Two older french couples were my only fellow residents and I had the best khmer meal of my entire time in Cambodia one morning when the resort receptionist told me I looked like I could use a good meal and prepared a tower of kampot pepper chicken and pork for me to gorge on as the resort owner’s dogs eagerly surrounded me hoping for scraps.

I ventured a half hour west and arrived in Kampot. I explored former hillstop escapes of the French aristocracy, abandoned and taken over my time and nature. A prison, a church, and two casinos, living in near isolation at the very top of the peninsula. I watched a teenager thrash to The Clash as he prepared my bowl of hand-pulled noodles. He did the same the following day. And the next. And the next after that.

I arrived in Sihanoukville to find Cambodia’s version of Panama City Beach. It was filthy and loud and a girl had her finger cut off by a man on a motorbike aiming for her purse as she was walking into our hostel. I soon left for Koh Rong, an island off the coast, to attend a full moon party, the likes of which was shut down by the tourist police the day before it was supposed to occur. However, there I met a frenchman who spoke more languages than I could process and he shared with me the secrets to endless happiness. If only I could remember them.

Once back on the mainland, I took a 21 hour bus ride to Bangkok. Starting in Sihanoukville, we drove to Phnom Penh and the Siem Reap and then to the Thai border before finally heading to Thailand’s metrolpolis. There I retreated to my old stomping grounds at Saphaipae and, as luck would have it, ran into an old friend pounding much of the same pavement as yours truly.

We exchanged tales, his from Myanmar and mine from Cambodia and Laos, and sampled some of our favorite foods that we’d missed being away from Thailand. Then Halloween came and, after a night where I opted not to sleep, I made my way to Bangkok’s international airport on my way to Hanoi. My cab driver spoke almost no english, but we bonded to the sounds of Metallica’s Black Album at a volume level that can only be described as pulsing at an hour that can only be described as early. We hugged when I exited the cab and he both bowed with our hands pressed together. It’s a miracle I made it on time.

Of anywhere I’ve been so far, Vietnam was the country I was most anxiously awaiting. Ever since watching Anthony Bourdain drunkenly stumble through the Mekong delta and Saigon’s dizzying alleyways, I’d wanted to go. Was it as much to maybe understand a character I admire in a lot of ways as much as it was to experience Vietnam itself? Possibly, but I find that most travelers have obscure reasons for wanting to go to specific places, yet by the time they leave, those same reasons have been replaced by a new set for why they stayed for as little or as long of a time as they did.

Arriving in Hanoi also meant that my good friend and confidant Mr. Steven Zeisler would be joining me for what would be the first leg of my trip that would occur with someone I knew from home by my side. We’d both dreamt about going to Vietnam since we first met in college almost eight years ago and Steve was actually one of the major influences in my finally nutting up and buying a ticket in the first place. In fact, he had his ticket to Vietnam before I had purchased one for Thailand. His only accompanying message when he forwarded me his flight itinerary last Spring, “your ass better be there when I am.” Friendship.

As soon as we arrived, I knew I’d left the lawless chaos of Cambodia behind for a much more metropolitan culture and way of life. Hanoi is a great city, regardless of how you look at it. Incredible food, history at every corner, and endless corridors to explore, whether you mean to or not. What I didn’t realize during this first stint in Hanoi was how well I’d come to know the city by the time I left. In fact, I almost spent as much time in Hanoi as the rest of Vietnam combined, completely by accident.

From Hanoi, Steve and I ventured to Ha Long Bay and then Sapa, where I lost my cell phone, and then back to Hanoi before flying to Saigon. While in Vietnam’s one true megalopolis, I spilled an adult beverage on my computer and subsequently went into panic mode. It might seem silly to say, but, as I’ve documented before, losing one’s phone and computer while traveling can have an uneasy effect on one’s psyche.

Saigon’s endless options for incredible food and worlds within worlds within, well, more worlds, coupled with a few incredible expats who showed me sides of the city I never would have seen otherwise, left a strong imprint on my view of Vietnam as a whole. A country so often depicted as being utterly obliterated during the 1960s war is in fact living and breathing at a rate and frequency rarely seen in the western world. If you have the opportunity to go, I strongly recommend it. If you take that opportunity, I’ll tell you great places for bún thịt nướng and banh mi sandwiches.

I ventured north to Dalat, a small city north of Saigon perfect for beating the sweltering heat of the southern beast. I retrieved a new american cell phone my parents had sent me, I discovered the beauty of mi quang, and tried to slow down my level of electronics-induced anxiety that was quietly creeping into every corner of my day-to-day. Then back to Hanoi, where I took my computer in to a registered Apple repair shop. I had ten days to kill before I could get it back and, rather than wait around and eat my body weight in bun cha, I decided to head to the central region of the country for a good look around.

The ancient city and imperial capital of Hué was quiet, calm, and filled with foods imported to other parts of the country, but that originated in the shadow of the palace gates. Deep and mysterious bun bo hué, crispy banh khoai, savory banh loc tran, frehsly grilled nem lui, and com hen that tasted fresh from the nearby sea. I wandered markets, got stared at relentlessly, and was offered snacks of innumerable varieties after I requested hot chili for my breakfast at 8:00am. The butchers who sat beside me seemed to give their silent affirmation after recognizing my interest in a little heat first thing in the morning, or maybe they just found it entertaining to feed me bits and parts that I would never be able to identify.

A few hours southward I landed in Hoi An, the ancient lantern town and tourist haven, famous for tailors and a few really good local noodle dishes. Of course, there was more mi quang, but the real treat was cao lau, a sweet, savory, and spicy noodle dish with roast pork, lime, and bean sprouts. Many of my fellow hostel residents feasted on western food from neighboring cafés, getting their tastes of home in whenever they could. As for me, give me a bowl of cao lau and a jet fuel-esque ca phe da any damn day of the week and I’ll be a happy man.

After a brief stop in Danang, a vastly underrated food city in Vietnam’s pantheon of delicious destinations, I ventured back to Hanoi for one more stint before departing for Hong Kong, a city that landed on my list for two reasons and two reasons only: to see a dear friend and his beloved and to eat. Or maybe it was the other way around.

Hong Kong was a break from SE Asia in the sense that, well, it’s not Se Asia, it’s China. But it’s not really China either. It’s Hong Kong, through and through. Organized, bustling, and filled with obscenely good food at every turn. In terms of blanketing statemements about incredibly diverse and complex types of food, Chinese is not historically one of my favorites. Of course, I’m referring to americanized Chinese. Do I enjoy a bowl of wonton soup, followed by shrimp with brocolli or General Tso’s chicken? Yes, most certainly. Those dishes are undoubtedly delicious, but do I really consider them Chinese food? Well, that’s a whole different story.

I haven’t been to Szechuan province or Hunan or any part of China for that matter, but the foods that Hong Kong is famous for, dim sum and noodles and roasted animals of all varieties, no one can touch them. I ate at the cheapest michelin-starred restaurant in the world, all while sharing a table with a Hong Kong family of five. I ate roast meats of all varieties while sitting amongst businessmen in thousand dollar suits and dock workers still soaked from that morning’s catch. I also saw one of my closest friends changing before my very eyes, evolving from the lovable chap he’s always been to a focused and communicative partner with his lovely girlfriend. Progress at its most personal, all in real-time.

All of which brings us to Australia, a place I’ve still yet to write anything about. The truth of the matter is, I haven’t yet found much to say. As I told someone the other day when they brought this up to me, “Australia: yeah, it’s pretty nice.” It’s a lot like the US, with hints of British culture appearing often enough to remind you that you’re definitely elsewhere. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of what would happen if the English had colonized California and made it its own country.

Sydney is beautiful and so are the endless young, fit, and fashionable residents that call it home. The opera house and harbor, stupendous, however, I never felt at home there and it continuously gave me a deep-rooted sense of anxiety, not only because of my lack of identifying with the city, but also because of my lack of productivity while I was there. I didn’t really see that much, I didn’t work at all, and mostly I just vegged out, watched every movie that’s sure to be up for Best Picture at the 2016 Academy Awards, and tried to recoup from the previous three months.

I also made pit stops in Brisbane, a very nice, modern city with an exquisite koala sanctuary, and Gold Coast, which has been described to me as Australia’s Florida, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. Take that as you will. After all of that, I’ve made it to Melbourne, which is where I’m currently skimming over this mind-dump from.

Melbourne is the perfect example of the new Australia in my mind: incredibly diverse, constantly evolving, and attempting to figure out what it wants to be for the the next generation. I’ve eaten well here and walked the streets of Fitzroy, Carlton, Brunswick, and Parksville, seeing bits of my previous home-bases sprouting up in this land on the other side of our little planet. It’s comforting, but almost too much so. Soon, I’ll be ready to go back into the typhoon not too far west of where I’m currently situated. Asia is calling back and I’ll need to answer soon.

As with all things, this is subject to change but in the next six months I plan to see New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Some might be skipped, others most definitely won’t. Some will be beloved, while others will be overlooked. Regardless, 2016 will be started off on the right foot, the one that’s not 100% sure where it’s headed, but ready to cross whatever brand of terrain appears. Hopefully, there’ll be something delicious waiting for me when I get there.

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