Happy Birthday, Chesty

Caracas, Venezuela
November 10, 2001

The Marine Corp War Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery shows the flag raising on Iwo Jima on 23 Feb 1945, near the end of World War Two. Of the six servicemen pictured, three would later be killed and two wounded in the continuing battle. The photo won a Pulitzer Prize for photographer Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press.

The triumphant brass band notes blare from the speakers, sounding John Philip Souza's tribute to his Marine Corps, Semper Fidelis, the motto of the Corps, meaning, "always faithful."

United States Ambassador Donna Hrinak looks on as four Marines, resplendent in their dress blues, bring forward a huge cake with the USMC's emblem: the eagle, globe and anchor.

Around me sit some 100 persons, all embassy staff here in Caracas, Venezuela. We gather under a tent on the chancery grounds, eschewing the normal evening gala ball for a more low-key and secure venue. The world we live in changed since last year celebration. The anxiety hangs in the air like the Venezuelan humidity.

The Marine Corps turned 226 years old today; founded on 10 November 1775 in Philadelphia, PA. This marks thirteen times that I have celebrated this day as a Marine and now former Marine. The traditional birthday message from General John Lejeune, the 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps, emanates from the podium:

"...This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the Corps. With it we also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our Corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age."

Lejeune referred to the intangible spirit of our Corps: valor, honor, duty.

Since Vietnam, people snickered or rolled their eyes at such terms, as if the concepts themselves stood withered. At best, perhaps a quaint anachronism in the 21st century, in our modern world of global capitalism and the borderless internet.

Until September 11th, 2001.

In an instant, bravery, selflessness, sacrifice, and courage, became revered, not ridiculed. People of honor existed all around us, as firefighters, police and doctors, just waiting for the crucible of crisis to emerge. All of this televised for the world to see.

The stage of satellite TV and 24-hour news portrayed the anonymous, yet antagonist groups: those who serve and those who destroy.

We became a community again; and service to community once again became an honorable undertaking; instead of one left for those sad-sacks who did not become lawyers, consultants, investment bankers, or internet millionaires.

Traveling outside my country during this time gives me a strange new perspective as the vivid images of the September 11th atrocity fade. No fear of anthrax mail or a car bomb permeates my day. Instead, I worry about pickpockets and bus crashes and finding a clean hostel. Fellow travelers talk of other things. The war news comes in ephemeral bite-size morsels, never filling and quickly forgotten.

Sitting there at the embassy, itself sovereign US ground, listening to the words praising the battle history of the Marine Corps and the country of which it is but a microcosm; I realized the importance of a regular reminder of these intangible qualities. For I once counted myself among such men and women in service; believing in my heart in duty, honor, Corps, and country

I realized how cynical part of me had become over the past few years. How much I forgotten about the person I want to strive to be. But it is never too late to renew vows and rededicate oneself. A reminder is all it takes.

The words themselves are mere shadows of the true virtues they so inadequately describe. Virtues which still permeate our nation, our community, and our spirit; without which, human civilization is not possible. Our world needs these virtues, not the mere caricature of words, but the decisiveness of behavior and action, undertaken by each of us.

In describing the Marines fighting the battle of Iwo Jima in the closing stages of World War II, Admiral Nimitz, Commander of the Pacific Theater, said, "uncommon valor was a common virtue.

Perhaps we Americans, as the most influential nation on Earth, can revise that for the 21st century to read: "Uncommon compassion was a common virtue."

*"Chesty" is Lewis B. 'Chesty' Puller, a legendary Marine with five Navy Crosses for valor, USMC 1924-1955.

Also jump to "Letter to America" my travelogue from 6 March 2003.

Best Westernized

San Jose, Costa Rica
November 7, 2001


Familiar food, even if I cannot read the sign.

Days of sleeping in a nice bed at the Best Western, with clean towels, hot water, CNN, HBO, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, etc, reminds me too much of why I chose to take this trip in the first place: to get out of my comfort zone and discover myself while seeing the world.

I also envisioned a more mystical journey, filled with days of meditation on mountain tops and daily yoga in exotic jungle temples. Well, I manage to meditate about four times weekly and have done yoga like once. I foresaw a trip filled with learning and self-discovery.

I have learned that while not dependent on my creature comforts, I do enjoy them, more than I thought. But I could also do without them for stretches, which make them that much more enjoyable later.

I also figured out that, often, I don't possess any inkling of what I really want. When I travel alone, I search for other travelers; with fellow travelers, I long to be alone. I read and re-read the Lonely Planet guides, trying to come up with the optimal plan...ensuring my trip is on the efficiency frontier. Yuck, how anal is that!?

Well, just give yourself a break sometimes and don't be too hard or demanding. After all, no matter where you go - there you are.

One thing I do know is that I am ready to head out on the next leg of my journey. The good thing about sitting still in one place for four days is that the longing for travel takes hold again.

I missed a lot of the "key" tourist sites in Central America and let go of my planned schedule earlier in the trip than I thought. I'm glad too. The important thing is to be present as much as possible and not necessarily to check off every block on the list. After all, as I keep telling myself, it's the journey and not the destination.

Central America Observations:

- Guatemala is one of the most beautiful and interesting of the countries down here, with amazing indiginous people.

- Used US school buses rule the roads here and also provide the most interesting mode of transport...especially the local "chicken" buses filled with campesinos.

- The older, colonial cities with Spanish influence, like Antigua, Granada and Oaxaca attracted me more than the dirty, noisy, and dangerous capital cities.

If this particular Travelogue seems a bit stream-of-consciousness, well, it is. You can view this as a bit more of a "Captain's log" rather than a more theme oriented piece like my previous ones.

I have blazed through the first leg of my trip, keeping true to my intention of covering as much ground as possible on buses and ground transport and minimizing flying. In fact, my first flight is tomorrow to Caracas, Venezuela.

I have been on the road since 6 Oct and really spent a quick month in five countries. I think things will slow down a bit more in South America, where I plan to hit six countries in four months.

Lago Lightinng

Panajachel, Guatemala
Oct 26, 2001


Me overlooking the Mayan ruins at Palenque, Mexico.

The water turned warm then hot. I stepped into the steaming stream and sighed; the first hot shower in ten days. I stood and let the water warm my neck and back for ten minutes before stepping out into my private bathroom and drying off.

I rented an expensive ($20) room in a small house run by Pedro and his wife in Chichicastenango, a trading city in the Quiche (key-chay) highlands. The spacious room sported Mayan wood carvings and a bright patchwork quilt. A yellow wood jaguar with red spots held the lamp by the bed. My private balcony looked out on the mountains behind the city, where a famous market took place on Thursday (the next day).

The previous six days took me from Flores along the backroads of Guatemala, leaving the El Peten rainforest and climbing the spiny central highlands, the Cordillera de los Cuchumatanes. Beat up chicken buses, old US schoolbuses with the same broken window latches, plied up and down single dirt tracks cut into the steep mountains.

With no set schedule, we stood by the road and hailed buses going in our direction, crowded with campesinos going to and from the small villages that became namesakes in our country jaunt: Coban, Sayache, Uspantan, Sacapulus, Quiche, and Chichi.

At each stop, the Mayan descendent women clambered aboard in their fantastically colored hupiles, hawking all manner of food and drink. A chicken wing in a scoop of greasy rice wrapped in three flour tortillas stuffed in a plastic bag became the staple that sustained us for these multi-hour trips.

Road dust floated in as the buses stopped every ten years to pick up or drop off someone. What about some central bus stop for heaven's sake! The rutted roads and worn out springs made for a proctologist's nightmare ride. Horns sounded at every curve and every few minutes the bus slid to a stop, in a standoff with a truck or a pickup filled with people. After a moment, one car backed up off the road. I never figured out the pattern of yielding the right-of-way.

One bus leg finds three of us gringos on the roof of one of the ubiquitous chicken buses. The colorful rides get downright exhilarating on the top as we duck low hanging braches every few seconds to the cry of, "ramas," (which I deduced meant braches). The hue of "libre," brought our heads back up from behind baskets of fish, backpacks, roped firewood, and someone's shiny red new wheelbarrow. Two hours brought some rain as we ascended the Cordillera - note to self: bring warm cloths on bustops. My shorts and shirt did not cut it up there, but we were forced back inside finally by the driver as we approached a police checkpoint, ending our Ramas-ride.

After stuffing my backpack to the brim with cheap Mayan cloth and carvings at the Chichi market the next day, I made my way (after one more hot shower) to Lago Atitlan. The lake fills an old volcano caldera and sits at 5,500 feet in the mountains. Three other volcanos rise above the lake to over 9,000 feet, like Mount Fuji xeroxed. I settle into a room on the lake in Panajachel, a small tourist town.

I have hot water here also, and a TV. I surf the channels and find The Simpsons, in English. I spend the next 30 minutes laughing aloud and surely annoying my neighbors, two Aussie women doctors. Surfing more, I miss ABC World News, also in English, but catch the local news feed afterwards...from WKRN 2 in Nashville! So I don't know the situation in Afghanistan, but I do know it will be in the mid-30's at this weekend's University of Tennessee's Vol's game. Go figure.

Stepping outside into the evening, rising clouds blot out the sunset I hoped to see. Instead, brilliant flashes of lightning begin to illuminate the sky behind Volcan San Pedro, across the lake from me. Shades of gray clouds layer over the black volcanic cone. The clouds light up bright white and gray, rhythmically with the staccato flashes.

Answering the call, Volcan Atitlan and Toliman emerge as solid black shapes, backlit by stoboscopic flashes against the halo of clouds clinging to their summits. The volleys go back and forth, from my left to right and back again as the gods in the volcanoes build to a crescendo. I can almost hear Moussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain in the background. The night grows colder as a wind blows in off the lake, but still no thunder accompanies the lightning. I shiver and pull on my fleece for the first time this trip.

Standing alone on the shore, I lose myself in the light show before I realize that two people stand next to me. It's Rachel and Natasha, my two neighbors from Perth, and bathroom mates. They invite me for drinks and pizza next door. I tell them I will be along in a moment, after a few more minutes of the lightning on the lake.

Oaxaca Dreams

Antigua, Guatemala
October 12, 2001



A church in Antigua, Guatemala. Beautiful architecture like this also reigns in old colonial cities like Oaxaca, Mexico.

I spent the last two and a half days here in this old colonial city tucked in a valley in the state of Chiapas. You fall right in love with Oaxaca (wa-HA-ka) upon seeing the tree shaded zocalo (square). Brightly painted buildings in deep blues, pinks, yellows and greens line the streets, while polished wood doors beckon.

The people charm away any remnants of the seige mentality inhereted from any time spent in Mexico City, where one watches over one's shoulder for pickpockets like bin Laden looks for Delta Force. Many other travelers I spoke to left Mexico after a day or so and gravitated here.

My first stop, following two German backpackers took me to a hostel recommended by the Lonely Planet, costing just P70 ($8) per person. I wandered over and opened the door to the communal toilet and found the set from Trainspotting. Bidding my cheaper German friends farewell, I hustled down the street to a hotel for double the price, but newly renovated and clean - and a bano privado (private bath) - Hotel Aurora.

For a while I recalculated the cost of a P150 room ($17), doing my best mental F9 and projecting the cost over the next year. After some mental gyrations I figured that the bank would not be broken and I could "rough it" and save on food instead. Good choice.

Food for the adventurous comes cheap, hot and plentiful, amidst a colorful setting too. Taking a break from the 36-hour endurance ride from Tijuana to Mexico City, the driver beckoned us off the bus in a small town. I grabbed my passport and got ready to run for it, sure we were being handed over to gunmen.

Instead, I found myself wolfing down some tacos at a sidewalk vendor, literally sitting under a street light with the smoke from the skillet, mounted on some contraption with two bike wheels, wafting into my face. Six tacos and P30 later, I thanked the driver for pulling us to his favorite spot...I never found out the city.

Similar dining experiences awaited me in Oaxaca, where a doorway leads to a old woman deep frying quesadillas in a wok for P4 each. Filled with cheese, coriander and covered with frijoles negros and a green salsa, I delighted in the authentic Oaxaca cuisine.

Mexican beer and salted peanuts heralded the night, seated in one of the sidewalk cafes lining the four sides of the zocalo. The distinctive Zapato indian people resembled American Indians, with sharp features, jet black hair and brown eyes. Tourist mingled with locals and other Mexican vacationers circum-ambulating the square.

After a day trip to the nearby Monte Alban ruins, just 30 minutes away, I prepared to leave my newly adopted home in Mexico. Two other travelers from the UK shared drinks with me last night, passing thru Oaxaca for a second time, so strong was their infatuation with the city. I plan to return also...someday.

Chicken Bus

El Naranjo, Guatemala
October 18, 2001



Classic chicken bus; this one is leaving Antigua to Guatemala City, the capital of Guatemala. Photo by Michael Seto.

The dilapidated bus rumbled in early, squeaking and bouncing along the rutted tracks in the grass. A young man in jeans and a t-shirt stood in the door, "Flores! Flores!"

We grabbed our packs, yelling back, "Si, si!" and hustled over.

He strapped our packs to the roof and we climbed onto the bus. Every seat was filled with Guatemalan farmers, women, and children. I spotted a couple empty seats in the back and we hoisted our day packs and squeezed through the aisle, no-one made any effort to move aside as we passed.

I sat down and said, "buenos dias" to the man next to me, who smelled of several days sweat and wore clothes whose mud stains looked permanent. He did not respond. Sitting there, I heard a squeal and glanced behind me, to see this old woman with a chicken squirming around in a plastic bag, I thought this is going to be interesting.

Andrew and Fiona and I met at the bus station leaving Oaxaco to Palenque. They were English backpackers and we hung out together and decided to travel to Mexico over a less common route Tenosique to El Naranjo to Flores, our ultimate destination.

This involved a complex sequence of transportation, which serendipidouly arrived on time. We rode a small van to La Palma in Mexico and there negotiated for a speedboat to take us on a three hour journey up the Rio San Pedro to El Naranjo, in Guatemala.

William, our Mexican speedboat pilot glided the boat in sensuous curves up the river, hemmed in on both sides by reeds and trees. Birds started and flew off at the sound of our boat. Passing some rapids on our right, I leaned over to get a better look as the broader river continued forward.

Suddenly, William banked the boat and headed straight for an impassable gap. We gasped and I crouched down, grabbing the back of a seat and flexing my knees, waiting for the impact against the rocks defining a five foot gap thru which water surged toward us. In a instant we exploded into calm waters on the other side of the gap, passing with inches to spare. I glanced at William as I sat back down and he smiled.

The remainder of the speedboat journey was as calm as the morning water of the river and we arrived safely in the scrap wood and aluminum siding rag-tag village of El Naranjo a few hours later - and hopped the chicken bus.

I looked at my watch after dozens of stops, where people jumped on or off the bus. One hour. The young guy who collected our 25 Quetzals told us the ride would be four hours. The bus smelled like a stale locker room and all the passengers needed a deodorant bomb to go off in the bus, including us.

Three hours into the journey down pot-holed dirt road, a trio of girls boarded, yelling in Spanish, hawking soft drinks and some tortillas. After some debate, I looked at her wares, a yellow chicken wing, sitting on some rice, wrapped in three small flour tortillas. The rice was orange from the chicken grease. I forked over 5Q and dug in with my fingers into the hot food. it was delicious.

We arrived in Flores a while later and found a nice hotel. After a cold shower and a beer, I sat on the porch overlooking Lake Peten Itza, on which Flores island sits, and thought, what a great trip on my first chicken bus.

The Things I Carry

San Jose, California
September 30, 2001

A few days into my Nepal trek - don't carry too much or you too will have a sore back. I had about 50 pounds of stuff.

My new Eagle Creek World Explorer backpack refuses to accept one more thing. Not a roll of film. Not a waaaahfer thin mint. One-third of my clothing and equipment still lie on my bedroom floor, mocking my planning and packing skills. Doooooooh! Revelation: a 5,100 cubic inch car engine is big, a 5,100 cu in backpack is not.

My medical kit hogs the most space. Covering every possible medical contingency, from blisters to broken bones, the custom designed and meticulously arranged gear takes up the size of a large dictionary: Band-aids, gauze, Kerlix, EMT shears, cloth tape, tweezers, Hibiclens, Second Skin, moleskin, latex gloves, ace bandage, butterfly stitches, iodine, Ciproflaxin, Flagyll, Benadryl, Larium, Vicadin, Motrin, Immodium, and condoms. I could support a SEAL team in Afghanistan. I must be getting old.

Nothing in the pack feels familiar to me. I just bought everything new since ‘regular’ clothing does not ‘work’ when backpacking around the world. This endeavor requires more ‘specialized’ gear, made of new fabrics: polypropelene, capilene, bergelene; everything ends in –ene, except my Gore-tex. I flip over the label on my new clothes: 100% polyester. Wait a minute, this is what our astronauts wear!? High-priced polyester, which fashionistas lampooned in the Eighties?

Backpacking, as I discovered driving across America, is not cheap. No longer content with Army-Navy surplus, we carry $300 Eagle Creek packs, filled with $50 Columbia convertible pants (“Two zippers open makes you comfortable. Three makes you a pervert”) – I love that!

Columbia shirt with epaulets $45, Patagonia boxer shorts $30, North Face fleece $65, EMS thermals $60, North Face rain jacket $225, Merrell hiking boots $140, and my favorite Thor-lo hiking socks $14 (four pairs)…and a slipped-disc carrying all this…priceless.

Some guidebooks suggest three categories of gear: essential, nice-to-have, and luxury, when packing for a trip. After two weeks of staring at the array of stuff on my floor, arranged like a surgeon’s tray, I cannot tell the difference. Years of business trips spoiled me; I wore a suit, packed an extra shirt, tie, and toiletries, then hopped a cab to JFK. Packing for climates from tropical Amazon jungle, Antarctic wasteland, Saharan desert, and Himalayan highlands boggles the mind. I decide to cut my packing list in half, solving my dilemma. Setting aside supplementary gear ‘packages’ at home, one for mountains, one for tropics, one for Antarctica, I will rely upon Mom and FedEx to keep me properly equipped on my journey.

As I travel, I expect that new acquisitions of native garb, with resplendent colors, will replace worn ‘high-tech’ clothes as I meander. Local products might beckon, despite the Gillette, J&J and Duracell products lining shelves from India to Uruguay. My pack, meticulously filled with oh-so-familiar items from home, will give way to more new, exotic finds. After all, isn’t shedding the familiar and embracing the new what travel is all about?

New York, New York

New York City
September 17, 2001

I stepped out of the cab on Astor Place and Broadway, blocks from my old studio, in Union Square, where crowds gathered around candlelit memorials. It’s 9 pm Monday night, September 17th, the day after my 35th birthday, which I did not fell like celebrating.

The flight from SFO to JFK was full, despite my expectations of few travelers. The line at the airport missed expectations also, as I breezed through check-in and the security check in eight minutes, leaving me three hours to wait for the flight. My requested window seat gave no view of the devastation since the plane arrived at night.

I decided on my birthday that I needed to return to my home of the past three years and see for myself what happened to the city I consider to reflect myself most. United Airlines put me on a flight the next day, using 25k miles.

The next morning, I walked down Seventh Avenue to Houston, turning away at the West Side Highway to proceed down to Canal Street, then heading East. Along the way, my eyes sought out the two landmarks that normally dominated the skyline this far downtown. Nothing. Yet the lack of any debris in sight lent a surrealism to the view. No towers stood, but neither any evidence of their destruction.

The Mobil station on the West Side Highway at Canal sat behind tables of supplies and piles of clothes four feet high. Yellow plastic tape reading, “Do Not Cross,” stretched around the pumps and across the street like a strand of spider web. Police, camouflage clad Guardsmen, and NYPD Cadets stood behind the blue sawhorses, now ubiquitous throughout the downtown area, checking IDs.

I trudged East, each street heading South blocked by some combination of law enforcement, lines of people pulling hand luggage, wearing backpacks, and gesticulating with documents to the sentries.

Strolling past one group, I found myself behind the barricade, small knots of people wandering South, the streets bereft of any cars other than police cars, fire engines and black Suburbans with concealed sirens on some clandestine mission.

Making my way down Duane Street, my nose first caught the acrid scent of burning man-made material, talked about on TV ad nauseum. Stores and restaurants hid behind steel shutters, some windows bearing hasty flags or placards exhorting support. Dust piled in crevices and coated windows, papers of all sorts danced at street corners.

I emerged at Chambers and Greenwich Street, two blocks from ‘Ground Zero,’ where only three months earlier I took my friend from Beijing to the observation deck and rooftop of Tower Two for a sightseeing trip…my first time…and last time. I sat in the lobby of the WTC many times in May, waiting at TKTS for a chance to see Contact, or Fosse, or Chicago for half-price.

I stood and looked past a chain link fence at the wreckage. Behind me, a knot of hard-hat and fluorescent vest wearing workers stood at a makeshift McDonalds. The stand looked strange, sans cash registers. People in all manner of uniforms, BATF, Secret Service, FBI, DEA, NYPD, NYFD, moved past me as though I stood next to a moving walkway. After a while, I felt guilty just observing, like a rubbernecker at the crash of the century. Helpless. Useless. Maybe these people felt that way also.

Their eyes, glazed over, possessed the thousand-yard stare of war veterans. Dazed, only partially comprehending the input around them. Minds fighting to assimilate the enormity, seeing only bits and pieces at a time. Little grief showed, only shock. Later, in the mirrow, I saw the same in my eyes.

I kept busy the rest of the week, not allowing my mind to come to a rest, which meant trying to comprehend what was now incomprehensible. Around me, the city seemed to go through the motions, buying bagels, drinking beer, walking the dog. I spent morning coffee, lunch, afternoon coffee, pre-dinner drinks, dinner, and post-dinner drinks with all my friends I could contact. Relieved to do something that we did all the time, pre-WTC.

Conversations tended toward the subdued, like when one person is distracted or preoccupied. But now everyone was. Perfunctory greetings gave way to the hush question, “Is everyone you know OK?” Then we turned to the tales, each person remembering with perfect clarity…the moment. The moment they heard, saw, or were told breathlessly by another, that the World Trade Center had been blown up. A frozen instant.

The week evaporated in a moment, filled with a kaleidescope of scenes, visions, stories, but lacking emotions. I did not cry once. Why, I cannot tell you. But this experience was shared by most of my friends, each coping with the emotion like an unfolding flower, opening at its own pace.

I played golf Sunday with my old golfing chums, reliving the good ol’ days. Burgers on the Upper East Side afterwards capped off the day. The 4pm streets filled with cars, taxis, bikes, pedestrians, and dogs like any other Fall day in New York. My friends and I argued over golf rulings, as usual. For an instant, one could believe that none of this had happened.

My trip the next morning to JFK by cab seated me behind Singh Pandit, the driver. Of course we talked about the bombing and its aftermath. He talked of some discrimination and gestured toward the panel van ahead of us, its rear window filled with the turbaned mug of Bin Laden, “Dead or Alive” underneath. Speaking loudly through the plexiglass shielding him, we both lamented the WTC tragedy; but held onto the hope of a blossoming of greater compassion, understanding, and empathy among humankind.