My year of backpacking (1985)

Nineteen eighty-five was my year of backpacking with two friends through Southeast Asia. That past, of foreign countries, has itself become a foreign country: I did things differently there. All three of us did, and so we remember things differently. This leads to some interesting discussions and debates on the very rare occasions when the three of us get together to talk about that time in our lives. Here are some of my memory snippets.

Hong Kong

• The rickety fire trap we stayed in—something (but not Fawlty) Towers. Instead of using garbage cans, detritus got thrown out the window into a central “courtyard.” Presumably someone eventually hauled it away, as it hadn’t yet reached the level of the 14th floor. Lots of backpackers stayed at something (but not Fawlty) Towers, including a stereotypically statuesque, blond Danish woman who walked around most of the time wearing mostly nothing. 
• The stifling heat and humidity. The Danish woman was the only one who looked cool and collected.

China (I suspect traveling in China now is very different than what we experienced in 1985)

• “Mayo.” That’s the phonetic spelling of an oft-uttered word by seemingly everyone in the tourism industry in China at that time. It means “We don’t have,”, as in “No, we don’t have a room,” or “No, we don’t have any food,” or “No, we don’t have any running water,” or “No, we don’t have to help you,” etc. etc. It seemed like the country was actively trying to discourage tourism. We seldom had the opportunity to talk with a “regular” Chinese citizen, as in, someone who didn’t work in the discourage-tourism industry. I do remember one man we met, an English teacher. He was lovely. We invited him to dinner at our hotel, but “regular” Chinese people were barred from entering.
• Every backpacker carrying a copy of Lonely Planet’s China Off the Beaten Path.
• T telling J and me that we were pronouncing “Guangzhou” and “Yangshuo” incorrectly, even though we were saying it exactly like her. (T speaks Mandarin and Cantonese, and so was the ideal travelling companion for China—there were no English signs there at time, and hardly anyone spoke English.)
• Another stereotypically statuesque, blond Danish woman crying in a train station. She had been there for two days, trying to buy a train ticket. But because nobody spoke English and there was no English signage, she hadn’t been able to. For her, T was a Norse god.
• The dreamy memory-of-mountains landscape of the impossible-to-pronounce-correctly Yangshuo.
• The pile of dead rats at a market in the equally-impossible-to-pronounce-correctly Guangzhou. We initially thought they were being sold as food. It turned out they were actually a form on advertising by the vendor, who was selling rat poison.
• Strange looking animals in cages in front of restaurants. You know how people at seafood restaurants used to point to the lobster in the aquarium that they want to consume? (And do they still do this?) I later learned that the strange looking animals were pangolins.
• THE WORST TRAIN RIDE I HAVE EVER BEEN ON. I don’t even want to get started, because this post is already too wordy. Suffice it to say that once we had boarded we were stuck on THE WORST TRAIN RIDE EVER for 35 hours because all the stations between where we had boarded and where we were to disembark were closed to foreigners.
• After weeks of awful food, finding a cooking school in Chengdu that served a delicious egg and spinach dish (or maybe it was eggs and tomatoes). 
• THE WORST TOILETS EVER. In some places, the facilities consisted of a long line of holes one squatted over. That in itself wasn’t the issue. Rather, it was the fact that there were no barriers/privacy screens at all between the holes. And no toilet paper.
• Paying more for everything than T, who got the “overseas Chinese” price.

Tibet

• Stunning landscape (good).
• Stunning culture (good).
• Stunning smell of burning yak butter at all the temples (bad—is has a stunningly rancid odour).
• Feeling breathless. Not just because of the stunning landscape, culture, and overpowering smell of yak butter, but also because of the high altitude: Lhasa is situated at 11,975 feet (3650 metres) above sea level. 
• How much the Tibetans and the Chinese hated one other.
• Witnessing a sky burial. I am ashamed now when I think of how we tourists gawked at what should have been a private ceremony for grieving family and friends. Nobody took photos though. Before the proceedings got under way, the person performing the ceremony mimed someone taking a photo, and then made a gesture of drawing the knife he was holding across his throat.
• A stereotypically statuesque, blond Swedish couple who looked like they had been flown in for a Vogue shoot. They were actually backpacking like the rest of us.
• Hiring a driver to illegally chauffeur eight of us to the China-Nepal border. At the time, the only legally sanctioned mode of travel from Tibet to Nepal was by plane. But pretty much every backpacker did the same thing we did. The driver barely slept, and drove like a complete maniac. I lost count of the number of dogs he hit. One of the passengers lost it at some point and started screaming and hitting him. What should have been a four day trip was completed in two days.

Nepal

• Wonderful restaurants in Kathmandu, often run by Europeans who went to Nepal in the 1960s and 1970s and never left. I still remember the  apple strudel that was served in a cafe run by a German couple.
• The ancient temples. 
• The Himalayas.  
• Entering Chitwan National Park illegally with an illegal guide. We had to wade across a river, and I refused to roll my pant legs up because my legs hadn’t been waxed for several months. The illegal guide screaming at me, because the wet pant legs would alert the park rangers that we had entered the park illegally and there was a substantial fine for those who were caught (we weren’t).
• Climbing a tree to avoid being trampled by a mother and baby rhino in Chitwan National Park. The rhinos at the base of the tree, catching our scent. Me snapping photo after photo, with dreams of seeing them to National Geographic. Me discovering afterwards that I hadn’t loaded the film properly, and didn’t get any photos of the rhinos.
• A dog pulling itself along the side of a busy road with its front legs. Its hind ones were paralyzed, or broken. People on bikes swerving over to kick it. I doubt I will ever go to Asia again—the mind-boggling indifference to animal suffering overshadows my memories of the ancient temples, the Himalayas, and the rhinos.

Burma (since renamed Myanmar)

• Paying for our taxi from the airport into town with apples we had saved from the flight.
• Paying for most everything with some consumer good that the Burmese couldn’t buy because the country imported virtually nothing at that time. The items of choice were Johnny Walker (I can’t remember whether Red Label or Black Label was preferred, but one of them was), jeans, and lipstick. Travellers were required to exchange dollars to buy at least $25 worth of local currency. It was really, really difficult to spend even that paltry amount in seven days (the maximum time travellers were allowed to spend in the country), because nobody wanted to be paid in the local currency.
• Going back in time to what felt like 1950s/1960s America, mainly because of the vintage vehicles. 
• The mind-boggling temples of Pagan (since renamed Bagan). Mind-boggling in number, beauty and solemnity. 
• Delicious strawberry milkshakes in Rangoon (since renamed Yangon).

Thailand

• Staying at some hellhole in Bangkok, with the three of us having to sleep in a double bed because nothing else was available in our price range. Waking up one night screaming in a corner of the room because a rat had run across me. 
• Encountering some very scary people on a trek through Northern Thailand, which was a big centre of the Asian drug trade. 
• The two psychotic Americans on the trek, who spent most of their time looking for cobras. They wanted to kill one. They both carried large knives for this purpose. 
• The gorgeous beaches of Koh Samui. 
• Gorgeous raw silk.
• The frequent sight of older Caucasian men accompanied by very young looking Thai women. Some of them may even have been Thai girls.

Malaysia

• The warning sign at the border that Malaysia enforces the death penalty for anyone caught with drugs. At the time, several westerners were on death row there because of this.

Singapore

• The order and tidiness after the general chaos of the other countries we had visited.
• Afternoon tea at Raffles Hotel.
• Getting my legs waxed.

Indonesia

• In the middle of what someone referred to as “bum fuck nowhere,” Boney M’s Rasputin blasting all day long from the ferry that crossed the lake. 
• The orangutangs at the orangutang sanctuary. One of us keeping watch for crocodiles while the other two bathed in the river by the sanctuary (I guess wherever we were staying didn’t have a shower). 
• Eating THE BEST Nasi Goreng from a little roadside stand, served in a banana leaf. 
• Jakarta: very scary. The bus driver yelling at us to get off and run, because we were about to be robbed. 
• The beauty of Bali: the place, the people, the culture, the food. Except for Denpasar, the capital, where we were almost robbed. As it turns out, three women yelling can be a powerful deterrent to would-be thieves.

We flew from Indonesia to Northern Australia at the end of 1985. Australia, and New Zealand, are another post for another time. 

This is much longer than I intended: as I started writing, more and more memories surfaced.  And I know much of what I have written sounds negative, but these are only snippets and don’t represent the sum of what I suspect will have been the adventure of my lifetime. 

Please join me at 7:30 p.m. on [date TBD] for tapas at Tango Nuevo

I also had a difficult time choosing a restaurant. I love Sima Sushi, where I always order the same items: shiitake mushroom “pizza,” yam tempura, and avocado rolls. I also love Chez Piggy. The menu there changes frequently, but if I were to go there this week—which I cannot, because all the bars and restaurants are closed—I would order one of their delicious vegetarian entrees and try to remember to save room for one of their exquisite desserts, which I never manage to do because the chewy sourdough bread is too tempting. But I finally settled on Tango Nuevo, because they serve tapas--and what can top tapas for truly sharing a meal? I’ve reserved a table at 7:30 p.m. for the first night all international borders have reopened. The reservation is for eight people, and EVERYONE is expected to attend (Kim, Indigo, Bridgett, Mali, Maureen, Dona, and Susan, that includes you). You can peruse the restaurant’s menu here, so you’ll have plenty of time to choose one or two sharing plates.^a,b,c This will hopefully avoid any dithering during the ordering phase and allow us to quickly transition to the eat, drink and be merry phase. Looking forward to seeing you all!

^a Please keep in mind that one of us does not eat anything with a face :) Also, while I’m not sure whether shellfish have a face, I don’t eat them either. Nor am I overly fond of celery, although I know it definitely doesn’t have a face. But it does have a heart.

^b I’ve got dibs on the donghae poutine and the avocado tartare.

^c Be sure to save room for the Spanish churros for dessert.

Advance eulogy for my mother, who turned 89 on March 5

I recently read Beverley McLachlin’s autobiography. She was the first woman to serve as Chief Justice of Canada. In the book she talked about how her mother didn’t get to live the life she wanted because, to paraphrase Trudeau, it wasn’t 2015. 

My mother also didn’t get to live the life she wanted: to be a forest ranger. I’m sad she didn’t have the chance to live her dream—even if it might have turned into a nightmare, if the stories about mosquitoes exsanguinating a moose calf in 20 minutes are to be believed.

Although my mother’s sphere of influence may not have been as large as a Chief Justice’s, I hope she knows how many two-legged and four-legged lives she enriched. And even a three-legged one, after her cat Sydney got caught in a trap and had to have his leg amputated. How many Chief Justices can say they helped the three-legged denizens of this world? If the dozens of cats and dogs and one rabbit that my mother housed could have verbalized their feelings, I’m sure they would have said something similar to a friend’s response when I suggested we meet for lunch: Helen, are you bringing your mom I hope? I'm looking forward to seeing you of course but your mom is a really big draw. I love your mom.

Human relationships are often sprawling and complicated and it’s difficult to do justice to them without penning a sprawling and complicated novel. So I will have to make do with an anecdote that illustrates one quality I really appreciate about my mother: her stalwartness. This rather ugly-sounding word is the best one I could find that melds the wonderful and possibly under-appreciated traits of dependability, strength, and calmness. 

The incident in question took place on a road trip from Kingston to Thunder Bay in 2012. I was arranging our accommodation and asked my mother, who was 81 at the time, if she would be willing to camp the first night. My mother agreed, which I imagine not many 81 year olds would have, even if they happened to be Chief Justices. 

We arrived just before dusk. At the entrance to the campground there was a sign warning of bear activity in the area. I have a morbid fear of bears, but since it was getting dark, the campground was about 50 kilometers off the main highway, and there were no towns nearby, we had little choice but to continue with Plan A. 

It was dark by the time we had set up our tents and eaten dinner. I was getting ready to wash the dishes when my mother suggested we put them in the trunk of the car and deal with them in the morning. “If you think that’s OK,” I said. I was tired and eager to crawl into my sleeping bag.

At some point in the night I was wakened by loud noises. I unzipped the tent and peered out. One of the car doors was wide open and the noise was coming from inside the vehicle. Lots of noise. I screamed at my mother, “I told you we should have washed the dishes!” and scrambled out of the tent, yelling at my mother to get out of hers. “There’s a bear in the car!” I shouted by way of explanation. 

“What?” my mother said. “How did it get in there?” 

The noises from the car grew louder, together with my worry that the bear would soon have consumed all the food and might start looking for dessert in the surrounding area. I shouted at my mother again to get out of the tent. I remember reading about a bear that had dragged a couple out of their tent in Algonquin Park, and I thought we might have a better chance of surviving if we weren’t encased in a nylon coffin. 

“Keep your voice down, you’ll wake the neighbours,” my mother said. (This is another one of her good qualities: she is exceedingly considerate of others.)

“I want them to wake up!” I screamed hysterically. I wondered what was taking my mother so long. Was she combing her hair?

Finally, she emerged. She came over and stood by me and asked again, “How did it get into the car?” 

“I don’t know I don’t know what should we do what should we do?” I said, wringing my hands. My mother shone her flashlight—I had not thought to bring one—into the car. A raccoon, holding a cracker between its front paws, peered out at us. 

My mother and I looked at one other. Then we laughed. “How did it open the door?” she said. 

“I know, I mean, I know they have opposable thumbs [Brief aside: This is a myth. Unlike my mother, I have a tendency to spout fake facts] but, I mean, I’ve never heard of a raccoon breaking into a car,” I babbled in nervous relief. 

Only then did I remember that after I had gone to bed but before I had fallen asleep it had started to rain, and so I got up and went to the car to retrieve the tent’s fly. Because I inherited some of my mother’s consideration for others, I left the car door open; my hands were full and I didn’t want to kick the door shut, as I thought that would make a loud noise and wake her. So my plan was to return to the car and shut the door gently after the fly was on the tent. This would have been the perfect plan, except that it took me so long to put the fly on in the near blackout conditions that I forgot to go back and shut the car door. 

I confessed all this to my mother, who could have made me feel small and stupid for being such an idiot, but all she did was laugh again and say goodnight. (This is another quality of hers that I appreciate: she doesn’t belittle people, even when they’re ripe for belittlement.) 

As we started walking back to our tents, something growled in the bushes behind us. It was a big growl. A big, bear-sized growl. We turned and looked at one another, but this time we didn’t laugh. I dashed to the car, which the raccoon had considerately vacated by that point, scuttled in, and slammed the door. My mother walked calmly over to the passenger side, got in, and shut the door in a controlled manner. We stayed there for the rest of the night. In the morning we related the night’s happenings to the campers occupying the site next to ours. They had somehow managed to sleep through all the drama. 

“It was probably a raccoon you heard in those bushes,” they said. “They can sound pretty ferocious.” Maybe, but maybe it was a bear. Or a tiger. Or a lion. The point is that I panicked when I heard the wild beast and my mother did not. 

We resumed our drive to Thunder Bay, exhausted but exhilarated at having survived the ordeal. We laughed frequently that day. This is another quality I love about my mother: she has a good sense of humour that can withstand most anything, including sleep deprivation.

One of my great fears—other than encountering a lion or tiger or bear—is dying in a plane crash. If this were ever to happen, I would like my mother to be in the seat beside me. I know I would be able to depend on her to take my hand and to remain calm and strong, as she did for her sister when she was dying. And even if my mother isn’t physically in that seat beside me, and even if it’s not a plane crash, I hope that I can summon her calm and strong presence when I need it. And maybe share with her a final chuckle about that time the bear that wasn’t a bear broke into the car through an open door. 

My most useful* purchase ever

I suggested this topic because I wanted to tell you about my stupidest purchase ever: a pair of “weight loss” pantaloons. They attached to the vacuum cleaner and formed a waist-to-knee corset when the vacuum was turned on. (My second stupidest purchase ever, which I also ordered during the peak of my teenage body-hating years, was a Mark Eden bust developer. When it arrived, in a plain brown wrapper, my two best friends and I excitedly passed it amongst ourselves, taking turns to pump it vigorously. The device broke that first session, along with our dreams of Brigette Bardot-like bosoms.)

But I thought I would instead perform a public service and tell you about the most useful* purchase I have ever made: a GORE-TEX® face mask. It allows me to amble outside in -30 degree weather without falling prey to the frost-biting gods or feeling the need to hurl expletives at every other member of the wintry pantheon. At the same time it leaves my eyes exposed, which allows me to tender looks of sympathy at any passersby who lack my facial wardrobe smarts.

My GORE-TEX® face mask is not my most treasured possession, but it’s near the top of the list. In the event of some cataclysmic event that would require me to vacate my premises immediately, it would probably be the third thing I would grab, after Sampson-and-Guyot (because they’re sentient beings and would probably hunt me down and kill me if I didn’t save them) and my wallet (because I know how much time and money it requires to replace government-issued ID). 

[Brief aside: I “inherited” Sampson-and-Guyot from my uncle when he died. Some people are convinced I was duped by my cousins, who were surely aware of Sampson-and-Guyot’s habit of sweeping everything on every horizontal surface to the floor, their bulimic tendencies (OK, I don’t really think they’re throwing up on purpose, but sometimes I wonder), and their verbosity. Despite these character traits, I find them wildly endearing. So I may have been duped, but I’m a delighted dupe. I mean, look at them…]

* Applies only to residents of geographic regions that have a winter season, or to those who migrate in the opposite direction to the chickenshit of snowbirds that make their way south at the first cold snap.