2001 - A Travel Odyssey

La Paz, Bolivia
December 28, 2001

Grabbing a hot spring dip at 12,000 feet in the 40 degree air of the Bolivian Altiplano.

It's been quite a year, this 2001. From the exhilaration of seeing man's technological triumph of a space shuttle launch; to the horror of man's cruelty in flying an airplane into a building.

Encapsulating this year for me will be difficult, but I am going to try briefly. I can't remember who said this, but: "forgive me, I do not have the time to be brief."

For me, 2001 really began to get interesting on 25 Jan, when both John Mack and I left Morgan Stanley on the 25th. I spent seven years working for the venerable firm and left friends, clients, and a large part of my identity - that of swashbuckling Wall Street dude and all the attendent caricatures - behind.

This hiatus gives me my first time away from an occupation of some type since 1988, when I finished college and went on active duty in the Marines.

Waking at 10am, 5 hours later than customary, I found New York to be a different place: people wandered all over the streets, Starbucks and Barnes & Noble were full of browsers...didn't these people have jobs to go to?! (Or maybe they are all former dot.commers!) I enjoyed meandering the city, delving back into my old hobby of black & white photography. I played computer games and surfed the net, I read books and the Times daily. I watched movies and just vegged around my flat. I went out and played a lot of golf! I think the life of luxury suits me.

Becoming a non-productive member of society took some getting used to. I shaved my head and grew a goatee, trying for some Bohemian look and lifestyle which Wall Street did not afford me. I stayed out past my work bedtime of 11pm, like a teenager breaking a curfew.

Rediscovering the depth of my non-work personality offered endless insights and humorous moments. I realized my anal-retentive nature (no doubt recognized by my work colleagues long ago), and penchant for (over)organizing things. It took a while before I felt less guilt lingering over a cinnamon roll and coffee and a book at a sidewalk cafe. My natural need to do or accomplish something kept whispering in my ear. Shaddup already!

In June, the road beckoned and I began a the mother of all roadtrips, across the continent. I traded in my Boxster for a more practical Pathfinder - which held my golf clubs and then some.

Armed with the Rand MacNally US road atlas, I proceeded to run up 15,000 miles and four months of road time - longer than the 6-8 weeks I anticipated. My opera and U2 CDs got the most playing time, though I grew to cherish silence, except for the wind and road noise. I pondered bits and pieces of my life, pictures and emotions plucked from the haze of memories long gone. Amazing how one can recall things in an enviroment of peace and quiet (and sheer boredom after 8 hours behind the wheel)!

My Pathfinder worked like a time machine, moving me back in time as I reunited with friends from long ago in my drive across the US. All those cities harboring folks from my past, which I never visited due to the ubiquitous "didn't have time" excuse which is the mantra of modern day life; became key destinations. I saw friends from high-school, the Marines, and Hong Kong in such far flung places as Nashville, Minneapolis, Charlottesville, and Jackson.

The chance encounters with fellow golfers as I played 30+ rounds across the nation provided some of the most interesting strange bedfellows. From Al, cigar chomping, swearing, former-Marine turned marshall on the RT Jones trail in Alabama to Dan, the senior circuit competitor at Dancing Rabbit, Missouri (also the strangest name for a course). The love of the game displayed by everyone I ended up playing with reflected my own deep fascination with golf as a metaphor for life.

Ultimately, as a friend likes to say, life's importance revolves around your personal relationships, friends and family. I could not agree more. Yet I have chosen to leave both behind in a search for...something. I tell people I travel to learn about myself, and this could not ring more true. As I slowly shrug off the compulsive, check-list focused travel, trying to see all the "must see sights," I find more time to just be.

Ranier Maria Rilke wrote: "What is necessary, after all, is only this: Solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no-one for hours - that is what you must be able to attain."

Overseas, I delighted in meeting and spending time with like minded travel folk. I don't fit the younger grunge backpacker set, those 20-somethings identified by dreadlocks, tattoos, tie-dye shirts and body piercings. Neither do I fit into the Yuppie Conde Nast group, on some Abercrombie and Fitch tour; though they probably are closer than I like to admit. Yet the thirst for adventure and hunger to explore the new and untried ties all of us together. The inimitable human spirit of growth.

Yet, I also relish my time alone, for reading, meditating and just pondering. Of course, sometimes I am soooo bored out of my skull that I search high and low for a hostal with cable TV, so I can get my fix of CNN, Seinfeld, and the Simpsons! One cannot keep one's head in the clouds all the time. Once in a while, I even succumb to my desperate need for the Big Mac #1 meal at Mickey D's...yes and SUPERSIZE that baby!

Just over seven months on the road thus far, three of those outside the US. My Central and South America legs raced by faster than I preferred, given some external time constraints, but I don't regret one moment. After all, you can't have everything...where would you put it?

I think that I visited about 40 countries thus far in my life, 9 in the last three months. I might cover about 70 when all is said and done...sometime in 2003...out of 180.

What have I learned? Hell, I don't know, and if I did, I don't know if I could quite put it into words. From moment to moment I may craft some interesting blurbs for these Travelogues, but the meaning of it all still eludes me. Yet, I continue to chase after something, that intangible Holy Grail, the meaning of life? How about I settle for just the meaning of MY life?!

I suppose my trip will end when I find it, or run out of money, or get bored and return home. Part of me knows that what I search for resides right here inside me, inside each one of us. You don't have to circle the globe, climb Everest, or meditate in a cave for ten years. I think life just implores us to be present, for every precious moment, as best we can. May you live in interesting times.

Best wishes for 2002 and I hope to see you somewhere out there.

All About My Mother

Machu Picchu, Peru
December 19, 2001

Mom and I stand in front of the Palace on Wheels after the "holi" festival of color in India.

Mom on the Palace on Wheels, where we train traveled through Rajastan, India in early 2003. Photo by Michael Seto.

"It's OK, Mike. I'll just sit here and rest a minute."

My mom patted the rock supporting her and smiled.

"Fine. I'll rest too. Just remember to take it slow, we're up pretty high." I stood to the side of the trail and drank some water from my bottle.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be just fine."

I worried anyway. After all, my legs burned and my lungs heaved trying to pull oxygen from the air at 7,000 foot. If I felt knackered, surely my 62-year old Mom MUST be tired! We sat about halfway up a steep hill set just behind Machu Picchu, which overlooked the entire site. A restored Incan building of some type clung to the hill another 600 vertical feet above us.

My mom flew in from the US earlier this week, always wanting to visit the mysterious Incan city of Machu Picchu. Now we stood here together, enjoying our second day at the city, tucked away on a hillside so remote it lay undiscovered until 1911.

She studied Spanish for the last nine months and her vocabulary well exceeded my "travel Spanglish." Incan and Mayan history fascinated her, so she spent time learning about their cultures, traditions and history; peppering our guide Claudio with amazing questions yesterday.

I enjoyed my mom's company, as nearly three months passed since I departed my childhood home in San Jose for Mexico.

She stood up and said, "OK, I'm ready." We worked carefully up the dirt and rock switchback trail, hewn into the nearly vertical hillside.

I stood balanced below my mom, positioned to catch her and arrest any fall. A foolish notion given my own tired state, but my chivalrous nature did not allow for any deterrence. This was my MOM for goodness sake.

Each time she caught me doing this my Mom would admonish me, "I'm fine Mike. If I can't make it, I'll just stop."

My mom loves to travel. Before I departed home, she covered our dining table with brochures, Conde Nast magazines, and guidebooks, comparing itineraries and destinations. Already an accomplished traveler with probably 45 countries under her belt, Mom relished the opportunity to go to Peru, just needing a travel companion.

My dad, he loves to watch TV. His favorite vacation is a nice long cruise with four buffets per day - preferably Chinese food. So Mom works hard to bridge the gap and design suitable vacations for both. She jumped at the chance to join me in Peru for Cuzco, the Amazon jungle and, of course, Machu Picchu. Dad was finishing up his last semester teaching engineering at San Jose State and said he'd stay home and take care of the cats.

For me, it offered a chance to spend a week with Mom, a family vacation. Something I had been absent from since my 1983 (I was 16) childhood trip to Hong Kong and Hawaii. Seventeen years without a true vacation with any one of my family. My rebellious college attitude combined with the Marine Corps ensured my exile.

So for a week I will get to stay in nice hotels (with hot water) and get transfers to the airport and a private guide to show us around. OK. I just hoped my independent "finding myself" nature could handle 170 hours (Ok, I forgot about sleep) with one of my parents. Having Mom show up to PTA meetings, award ceremonies, graduations and weddings was one thing; eating, sleeping, flying, and everything else together was another.

Being away from home from college onward, never allowed me to color my parents in-between the lines, to learn more about them as people. To see them as I now exlored myself, searching for a meaning to my life and the world around me. What did they discover? What did they dream about? Fear? What were their joys and disappointments? I never knew any of these things, as a child and even still as an adult.

This vacation allowed me to see my mom as a REAL person. Some friends of mine possess amazing relationships with their parents, treating them like best friends or soulmates. Me, brought up in the best Asian tradition, gave them loyalty, fealty, and respect (though no grandkids yet). For the longest time of my life, I only saw my Mom and Dad as my Mom and Dad; not real people with their own hopes, dreams, fears, insecurities and faults.

A child, for good reason, sees parents as omnipotent beings for many formative years; and this often carries over even through the rebelliousness of adolescence. College and the USMC took me away from home and for years I failed to enlarge the picture of my parents, my understanding of them, my empathy for them.

Prior to this, I only received glimpses from afar, like spotting an animal in the jungle. A rustle here, a phone call there, a letter or email. A jumbled mosaic, which I can try to interpolate. I could try and analyze my parents, try and figure out in neoclassical "lay-down-on-the-couch" psychology who they are and why I am who I am.

I could try to figure why I was an overachiever. What weakness did I hide through academic honors? What vulnerability hid behind the facade of the Marine officer? What insecurity bred behind the Wall Street material success? What drives me to seek something by travelling around the world?

But I don't do that. I don't feel any particular need to do that. Not right now. Perhaps I squander a chance that may not present itself again. Perhaps not.

I know deep in my heart that I love my parents (and my sisters)...unconditionally. They may feel different sometimes, but I know that they know this.

I love them just the way they are. For they are just like me.

"Ahhh, finally," Mom breathed a sigh of relief. Setting her pack to one side, she sat down and drank some water. Sitting on the edge of a cliff, we looked over the ruins of Machu Picchu 1,000 feet below us. The sun shone through the late morning clouds in golden rays, illuminating parts of the mountains surrounding the mysterious Incan city.

Now I saw Mom as an explorer; teaching and learning about the world, always helping others, compassionate, understanding, and deeply philosophical, though she may not describe herself that way.

I realized I am just like her.

She gazed at the sun striped valley below us, "Boy, isn't that just beautiful."

"It sure is, Mom. It sure is."

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Postscript

Don't think my Dad didn't travel either. He and I share noodles in a famous Hong Kong diner, Winter 2002. My Dad loves to spend time in Hong Kong, where he grew up.

Bulls and Ladrons

Quito, Ecuador
December 9, 2001

A bull's carcass get dragged out of the ring in Quito, Ecuador, where bullfighting still draws a big crowd. Photo by Michael Seto

Ssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh...the entire crowd in the stadium shushed and the hubbub dropped to an unreal silence given all the people watching. The crowd took in a collective breath and waited. The matador stood in front of the huge bull, sword in his right hand, held parallel to the ground, the deadly tip pointed between the horns. His crimson cape, hung limp in his left hand, half on the stirred up dirt of the ring.

I felt sorry for the bull, chased around the 80m diameter dirt ring by six or seven toreros (other matadors) who hid behind wood barriers when he charged. Only the lead matador stood his ground in the middle of the circular ground. Even the bull´s horns appeared to have been filed down to dull knobs.

Five minutes earlier, one of two picadors, or horsemen stabbed the bull between his shoulders with a long lance, drawing first blood. Then while the bull chased one matador, a Banderillo sneaked up upon him from behind it and triumphantly plunged two barbed staked into the neck and shoulder, close to the first wound. These flopped around as the bull continued to make futile charges at the other matadors.

Worn down by these charges, the bull, shoulder covered in dark red blood, dripping onto the dry dirt of the ring, his white coated tongue hung from his mouth. The animal stood ten feet from the matador, head bowed.

The matador lunged forward and sidestepped the bull´s raised horns and his hand shoved the blade into the flesh up to the handle. The bull ran in a few tight circles before its front legs collapse and his head plowed in the dirt. Eight hundred pounds of flesh and muscle froze momentarily before lumbering over onto one side, blood pouring from its mouth. The bull attempted to raise its head fruitlessly several times before one last gout of blood sprayed from its mouth. A torero stepped in close and deftly jammed a six inch knife into the top of the skull, a coup de grace I hoped.

The eight hundred pound carcass was unceremoniously dragged off by three horses and groundskeepers scrambled with brooms to cover the blood with dirt and prepare the ring for the next of what would be six bulls sacrificed today. The other deaths followed the exact same pattern and after two more hours, we left, feeling sorry for the bulls

The next morning, we arrived early at the airport for our 8am flight to the Galapagos. Waiting at Tropiburger (Ecuador's Wendy's) we worked at greasy ham, egg and cheese sandwiches while we commented on the Spanish language MTV blaring from the TV. The place filled with locals and other passengers.

I glanced down a moment later at my foot, where my backpack sat. Nothing. Hmmm, I thought I put that right here. I stood up.

F-CK! I've been robbed!

My mind sensed rather than saw a person just walking out the glass doors to the street. Three large steps took me to there and I exploded through the doors, eyes instantly scanning the sidewalk and parking lot, a shape, a man, I yelled, "HEY!"

There a man walked away with a black coat hanging from his arm. He turned as I shouted and dropped my backpack from inside the coat as I sprinted right at him. He turned and ran through a taxi rank as I grabbed my pack, seconds away from disappearing forever.

The doors behind me burst open again as my friend Dan crashed into the street a second behind me and saw me. I gave him the 'OK' signal as he asked what the hell was going on. Everyone stared at us as we walked back into the restaurant, "Nothing like a little excitement in the morning," I said. A couple cops walked by on the sidewalk a minute later and I explained briefly to them that some ladron, or thief, tried and smash and grab a minute earlier, but I was fine now. Like, where the hell were they when all this went down?

This was my first near disaster with thieves and reminded me how much I needed to be on guard. Having a friend from New York in town and having partied with another friend in Quito, I let my normal guard down, since everything seemed like my old life in New York, where I never feared something like this. Well, important lesson learned, fortunately at no cost.

Sometimes along the trip, I felt so paranoid about the locals that I became overly defensive and likely came across at best, standoffish, at worst, the typical arrogant foreigner. Its tough to tell the good from the bad sometimes, and with everyone out to make a buck (especially a US buck), it has been easier to shoot first and ask questions later. But this also has kept me from getting closer to some of the locals where I am traveling since I am worried about being conned or worse.

Gordon Rocks

Gordon Rocks, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
December 3, 2001


My dive buddy Dan (left) and I horse around for a photo - this one from the much warmer Red Sea - where he came out to scuba dive with me yet again.

Just don't puke.

Please don't puke, I told myself.

A wave tossed me two feet off the boat's side and clammy sweat broke out all over my body. My face felt flushed and I could not cool off.

Little wonder since 10mm of neoprene covered nearly my entire body. I wore a 5mm full suit and a 5mm shortie to add more insulation for the frigid waters, about 58F. My tank pulled the vest into my shoulders and I looked like an ICU patient with hoses sticking out all over my torso.

I sat perched on the transom of a 24-foot motor dive boat. The deck rose and fell 4-5 feet on every wave, tossing unpredictably on the rough waters of the Galapagos, where the cold Humboldt is just one of several currents that converge here.

Richard, the dive master, got my attention, giving me a thumbs up. I flashed a thumbs up back to him, shoving my regulator into my mouth and taking a couple test breaths. Fine. On three, I looked up, leaned back and a kaleidescope of grey skys flashed to a view of my fins as the 45 pounds of gear I wore pulled me over the side of the boat.

I hit the water and felt instant relief from the nausea that threatened to make me the "chum-master" a moment earlier. (Little did I know that everyone else on the boat succumbed and took Dramamine earlier - except me.) The boat carefully but promptly moved off, making sure none of us were near the props. Richard gave the thumbs down gesture, dive, so I released the air from my vest and descended slowly.

The first descent into the water never fails to exhilarate and I forced my concentration to my buoyancy. As I sank into the cold water, I took in several things at once: my ears popping, the cold water in my suit, the visibility of the water, the location of my dive partners, and the slow leak in my mask! I added some air to slow my descent.

Air compresses under the water pressure so more air is required as a diver goes deeper in order to maintain ideally neutral buoyancy, where one neither sinks nor rises. This is a delicate procedure and requires constant adjusting as one changes depth, adding on descent; and more importantly, releasing air on ascent, or the air expands rapidly in a chain reaction, pulling the diver towards the surface - possibly inducing the bends - where nitrogen turns to a gas in one's bloodstream. Not good.

Our group of four divers sank through 30 feet, headed to 60 feet. I saw Richard pointing calmly. Turning my head in that direction, I strained to see in the dark water (the overcast day cut visibility) and made out a dark shape which materialied into a hammerhead shark. Below us, three spotted eagle rays moved in a line, looking like three black spades with long tails.

Holy shit.

Dan, my dive partner, still floated a good 15 feet above us, apparently having bouyancy problems. As he regained control and reached our depth, I tried to catch his eye, pointing out a marine turtle swimming toward us. He (they always look like these wizened old men of the sea) came right at me, moving with surprising grace despite a microwave sized body and just four tiny fins. Circling Dan and I, the turtle accelerated and disappeared into the gloom.

Swimming along at 60 feet, the water took on a strange look, like the shimmering off the asphalt of a desert highway. The thermocline, where water of different temperatures and/or salinity formed a semipermeable barrier. We descended through the layer, emerging into clear and VERY cold water below. A shadow crossed my peripheral vision. Above us...there. A solid shadow moved across the sky 20 feet above us, wings beat slowly, a manta ray with 8 feet wingspan swam, straining plankton.

We kicked against the current, weaker and calmer down here, compared to the three to four foot chop on the surface. Around us, we spied more turtles, stingrays, powerful Galapagos and black tip sharks, and the majestic manta rays.

But we came here to this famous site for hammerheads, and we would not come away disappointed. With just 750 lbs of air left...the dive profile called for us to head up at 500 lbs...I saw Richard pointing animatedly ahead. We hovered between the two semicircles of coral that made up Gordon Rocks, a volcanic cone built up from the sea floor over the past 20,000 years.

There! Equally prehistoric, several dark shapes approached, about our depth, then more, the more. At least ten. The shapes became more defined, turning grey from black, fins and tails solidifying. The distinctive head draws the eyes and attention, as though viewing a deformity which captivates by its abnormal shape. Hammerheads. Where one expects a sleek bullet shape for cutting through the water instead one finds a thick wing, mounted just above the mouth, like the fins on a submarine. One either end, a black eye stares out at us.

We float, suspended in blue water, with no coral nearby for reference. I feel myself thrashing at the water, wanting to pull myself up onto something solid, but at 50 feet, there is nothing but water. I take a quick glance at my depth guage, holding steady. Without any visual clue, I have sank deeper into the ocean while my attention was focused on sea life...like these hammers.

The shapes undulate and move closer, heading right for us. I pull my legs up instinctively as they pass six feet below my fins. I slow my breathing and calmly watch the dozen or so hammerhead sharks slink by below me, each one 7-8 feet in length. Wow. It really does not get any better than this.

Ten minutes later, we stand around the deck, holding on to any stanchion to keep from falling as the boat heads back to Puerto Ayora, 90 minutes away.

As with any amazing dive, we are all smiles and shout about the incredible things seen on the dive.

Our seasickness is forgotten.