Lose Yourself

Did you ever notice how travelling is an expansive process? How many times have you heard: “A whole world of possibilities, “Find yourself”, even, “Lose yourself”. Travel provides new experiences and new opportunities to do things you normally don’t, see things you normally don’t, eat things you normally don’t, maybe that’s why its called a “foreign” experience. All of this novelty leads to an evolving, expansive, creative, space; and all of that room feels very big and lets you grow, relax, find yourself, and lose yourself. This is the cycle; new to old and old to new that is mirrored in all things.

Consider this – I recently returned from a sojourn to East Kalimantan. I didn’t know why I was going except to try and visit some of the last “virgin” Rainforest left in Indonesia. Naturally I had a little planning to do since this was not an area I could just walk out of the airport and jump a taxi to arrive. This is the part of travel where the expansion begins. I had this kernel of an idea, a thought for a trip, and suddenly I am on the playing field of the imagination, because it is all new to me. The opportunities become endless once you begin to look. This can be overwhelming and stressful because you realize you can’t control all of the variables no matter how much you invest. You might miss the MAF missionary fight into the jungle because they only fly on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There might not even be a flight because they are out of fuel, or the plane may be grounded due to towering rainy season thunderheads. And these are just the things that cross your mind. What about all the other options that you don’t even think of because you are not even aware of them as possibilities. That is travel expanding. The relaxing part comes when you realize that you have no control, and you just start to go with the flow. That is also travel expanding, and the completion of the cycle, new to old to new again that your body and mind spin through on your trip. It feels like we already took a ten-hour bus ride and we haven’t even left the station. So, let’s GO!

I walk off the plane or boat, and it’s a totally “new” world, even if I have seen the video already. New sights, smells, sounds, and languages - just the pure physical reality id different than anything I have ever seen. Yes, cities are cities, and jungles are jungles, but only on the surface. Dive in, and the world expands exponentially. You can take a taxi, or and angkot, or walk. You can stay in a 5-star or a loseman. You can eat from a street cart or a warung. And you can go anywhere from there. By boat, plane, walk, bike, hike, to jungle, ocean, gunung, city, sunghai. And the people are all new - Dayak, Tarakanian, Paupauin, Indonesian, ex-pat Bule, every single one of them a new face in the sea of six billion plus that I never even dreamed of before. Travel obeys fractal laws where you enter an endless maze that only gets deeper and wider the more you explore. But on the surface, a Hyatt is a Hyatt, and a warung is a warung, and a becak driver is a becak driver. Its funny like that – it is all the same, but it’s all different, and that cycle just keeps spinning. Travel is an experience in this paradox, to be experienced, not figured out. Wet and dry, new and old, big and small, city and jungle, 5 star and stilt house, ferry and ces, the examples are everywhere, and travel transports us back and forth between the ends of the spectrum. Travel reveals its fractal nature right here – from one angle it feels like pure motion and movement, but from another its just running in place. Travel is both movement and stillness, so beautifully wrapped together that the perception changes only as the perspective changes – like viewing a prism or hologram. Step to the left, it looks like Indonesia, step right and it looks like someplace else, and no matter how many times we go back and forth, we always find ourselves, or lose ourselves, somewhere in the center.

Same Same but Different

“Same same, but different.” How many times have you heard it? How many times does it make us laugh? You are standing in the morning fog at the government bus stand in Manali at 4am. Its cold, and you haven’t found chai yet. All you want to know is if there is still a bus, is the pass snowed in? Is this bus going to Leh? “Yes” is the answer you get, maybe even a “no problem” suffixed. What you don’t learn that you need to make four changes, stay overnight at 5000m in a tent, and that there is no food available because the herder’s hut on the pass is already closed for the season. But alas, that was not the information that you asked for with your simple question. The ticket wallah is not clairvoyant, or is he? You do catch strange twinkle in his eye.

Can I rent a jeep in town? “No” is what you hear, but you really can if you get 3 forms signed by three different officials in three different buildings 3 kilometers apart as long as you don’t’ catch one of them on a tea break. Is the pass open? “Not possible”…..but surely only locals would want to use that dangerous snow covered pass. So your frustration grows as you try to decipher the riddle; is the answer “Yes”, or No? You are sure they mean different things, but somehow they seem to be the same.

“Same same, but different.” You see it on t-shirts in Banglamphu, you hear it on the train to Goa, and then you laugh about that silly phrase as you tell your friends of your travels back home. It’s the classic mix of language barrier, culture barrier, and information barrier that is so common to traveling, and it is translated universally as: “same same, but different.” Which curry is not spicy? Which is vegetarian? Is that parantha stuffed with potatoes or onions? You may hear the answer “same, same” to any of these, but surely they are different, unless you cannot even trust your senses anymore.

The more you travel, the more you begin to hear this phrase’s nuances. You may even begin to see that it actually is a koan, a nugget of philosophy so powerful, yet so simple, that it remains well disguised. And, since it is usually attributed to originating in India, what better place to provide a hidden guru.

“Same same, but different.” Are we all the same? Not really the same personality, not the same skin color, not the same job, not the same tastes or desires. But we do all share some commonality as humans, and as souls. Are we really that different? We all want a warm meal, a nice house, and someone to care about us. We are all wandering this world, in a common human plight, fighting our fears, and revealing our happiness. So no matter who you are, you are here, and you are human. That is same same, not so different different.

Does it really matter what you did on vacation, or at work, or in this lifetime – well, of course on one level it does – our actions have cause and effect, and we can hurt and love, and lie and be true. We can go to medical school, or live in a cave, or farm the land, or become a monk. And yes, these are very different lives on a certain level. But if we step back, and look at this through our time compression goggles, it all gets a little fuzzy, at the same time getting clearer. (Those are magic goggles) If we are all really the SAME, which ultimately most traditions agree on, then all theses differences are merely illusions, distracting us from our enlightenment. Karma is going on as we are all going on, like a yoyo, up and down and up and down, like breathing. If we look at it from duality, it all appears different – night and day, right and wrong, good and evil, you and me. If we look from unity, it all becomes the same.

Same same, but different – Different different, but same.

The Road To Hana

It is little wonder that the road to Hana is touted as a must “do” trip on the island of Maui. Fifty miles of single lane blacktop wind along the northeast coast, dipping in and out of valleys, skirting waterfalls, blue water vistas, and black sand beaches. The number of tourists, rented mustangs, and first worldness, decrease exponentially as you approach the tiny hamlet of Hana. You are wise to drive slowly on the twisting roads and let the local pick-ups rumble by. This part of Maui gets a lot of rain, and the most of the way the rainforest is dripping. There are plenty of diversions along the way: beaches, hikes, waterfalls, fruit stands, museums, and such. But as usual, the experience is in the journey. As you head east, the modern world fades behind you, and you enter the lost world of aloha, the rural island spirit that is both seductive and mysterious. Near Hana begins a world where people are people, living off the land, looking out for each other, waving hi with a smile, picking sweet liliko'i in the jungle. Its not the world you came from, its different there – and after a few days, if you are lucky enough to spend the time, you will notice the pulse of life slowing down so you can hear its beat. The air is rich with scents, orchids drip off the trees, tasty guava and coconuts abound, and rainbows touch the sea. In season, the whales even come to visit, and play in the azure waters just offshore. Luscious waterfalls pour off the mountains into beautiful jungle pools that trip down to the beaches. Sound like paradise – it’s a place that time forgot, no Wal-Mart, no McDonalds, No Starbucks, no malls, no cell phones – just the quiet spirit of land staring you in the face. Its quite a feeling, and not one that comes lightly, you need to slow down and spend some time here to tune into it. Pass through Hana, and the Hasegawa general store, your one stop shop for everything from spam musubi to plumbing supplies, and keep going past the celebrity mansions, well hidden off the road, and you enter the heart of the place. Open ranches roll to the sea, fresh breezes move the palms gently, and yes, the rainbows keep coming. Swim in the pools of Oheo Gulch, and hike up the river to the beautiful falls, while you hunt for yellow guavas. You can even camp for free at the coastal campground of Haleakala National Park, and watch sunrise over Mauna Kea. If you realize you want to go back to the hustle and bustle of life, pinch yourself a couple of times, and jump in the cool river, then start the journey back to civilization. As you travel back, and your senses are flooded with the over stimulation of our modern world, you will realize that you occupied a different time and space out there, and that it was indeed beautiful

Saipan - Island of Dreams

Imagine a place surrounded by ocean as far as the eye can see. Some days it is black and glassy, some days it is frothy and cobalt, sometimes gin clear, and others, some shade of crystalline turquoise. Then picture a 50 square mile rock draped in rich, tropical green, that you are looking out from. You cannot see any distant shores, only horizon. Mainland Asia lies over one thousand miles to the west. To the east, scattered pinpoints of northern Micronesia, and then open water until Hawaii. This is Saipan – island of dreams.



Floating way out in the western Pacific, the island has endured a tumultuous history. Coveted at times for its slaves and farmers, sugarcane and coffee, runways and radios, white sands and blue waters, the island survives. In 1972 it was voted to commonwealth status. A commonwealth may have a definition, but the reality is more nebulous. Saipan today is floating in a dream, hard to define, attracting a collection of drifters and dreamers, while the indigenous people work to reclaim their homeland and culture from the plunders of the past. The population is a melting pot, consisting in roughly descending order of Chamorro/Carolinian, Filipino, Japanese, Chinese American/Canadian, Korean, Russian, Bangladeshi, Nepali, and Thai.

It is an island culture full of bananas, papayas, and mangoes, big rats and wild dogs. There is sushi flown in from Japan, local tuna sushi, and SPAM sushi. There are deserted beaches and luxury golf courses. There is a big Hyatt hotel where people take refuge from typhoons, and there are tin roofed shacks that blow away. There are nightclubs and strip clubs, and my yard has pigs and chickens wandering through it. There is even one of the tastiest Thai restaurants in the world. You can function pretty well without shoes or even a shirt, and only get rare glimpses of neckties on the misplaced missionaries. There are betel nut stains, and a case of Budweiser cans cost 24USD, and at some point, Saipan drank the most of it per capita in the world. There is poverty with some people struggling to eat, and there are riches, mansions, welfare and corruption.

The island is a microcosm of the world at large, everything is happening, and nothing is. When you stare out at the lagoon after a long day, or watch another amazing sunset, all of the negatives seem to fade like a bad dream. And when you return from the outside world, after a long flight, like going to outer space and back through re-entry - you step out of the airport, the tropical humidity envelops you like a warm blanket, and the songs of the night insects are the loudest sounds you hear.

Suspended in a dream, the clouds float by on the trade winds, and the ocean sparkles. This is the island of dreams; full of people dreaming – living their dream, escaping their dream, realizing their dream, deferring their dream, lost in their dream, searching their dreams, dreaming big, dreaming small, or not even aware of their dreams at all. When you sail away, the island dwindles to a speck in the sea, and you wonder if it ever existed. There is a small sand and coconut palm islet in the lagoon, and when you stand on its fluffy, white sand beach, you can’t help but feel as if you are in a dream. When you wander into the jungle, and realize you are lost, an eerie dreamlike quality hangs in the still air. There are spirits everywhere in Saipan, all you need to do is take a walk in the moonlight and you will find them.

Like a dream, sometimes a lot of things happen, sometimes nothing does, and when you wake up, you never are quite sure what was real and what was dream –and still sometimes, you are not even sure if you are even stopped dreaming.

The Magic Island

If you are seeking true magic, you need not look further than the once and future popular Bali. Lying just below the equator, the Indonesian island of Bali assaults the senses with dazzling arrays of color, smells, foods, and spirits. Look once and it's a tourist hot spot, replete with sunburns, Bintangs, beach-front villas, and perfect waves. Look again, and you aredeep in the animist jungle, face to face with monster-like deities and mystical temples. Or were you looking at a colorful Hindu funeral procession, or waking to prayer call from the neighborhood mosque? That is the magic of Bali. The moon looks different here, there are ylang-ylang trees aromating the air, and fried shallots stimulate the appetite on every
corner. You can drive from the heavily touristed and populated Kuta beach, through the more upscale beaches and shopping at Seminyak, then suddenly you are in the hectic bustle of Denpasar, then suddenly surrounded by quiet and
vibrantly green rice paddies, then warming yourself by an outdoor wood fire on the rim of a volcano, then lost on the back jungle roads, among wooden homesteads with outdoor kitchens, coconut palms, and you realize that time
has suddenly stopped. In Bali, if you are not paying attention, you can find yourself in ten places at once, or lose yourself in one place ten times over.

Bali has so many layers that the deeper you look, the more mystery you uncover. Magic here is staring you in the face and is hiding behind every corner. You find it in the exotic, and in the ordinary. Riding in a Denpasar bemo, sarong clad passengers grin with betel stained teeth, as the wafts of durian entice you. Or you may find yourself at midnight, entranced by the sounds of gamelan, surrounded by the surreal community temple, and thousands of fruit offerings. The volatile mix of animism, hinduism, and islam, on a volcanic tropical island, flanked by crystal turquoise waves, the shoreline dotted with temples, the air fragrant with incense and flowers - this is the recipe for magic. Head out to a secluded beach, a mountain jungle, or community temple, and immerse yourself - it is very intoxicating.

The Daikiretto

Somewhere in the middle of Honshu, in Nagano prefecture, Japan, lies an amazing expanse of mountain wilderness. Thousands of acres of “wilderness” spread before you punctuated by countless granite peaks. In a country with the population density of Japan, this is indeed a blessing. I call it wilderness in quotes, because in Japanese style, it is dotted with elaborate mountain huts, cable cars, and has fixed protection bolted into the granite walls with the most daunting lines. Yet, standing atop Yarigatake at sunrise the day after a North Pacific low passed through, you feel as if you are at the doorstep of heaven. A sea of gray clouds spreads beneath you, barley touched with the pink of a new day. Black peaks, jutting through the cloudy blanket, mark the horizon and it is quiet, silent actually.

Jill and I hiked over these mountains, known collectively as the Japanese Alps, and into that mysterious and sacred world that hides in these islands. Just like the temple cedars that inspire silence, a walk into the Japanese backcountry transports you to a magical world. It is a world so peaceful and profound, that just sitting in it, you know truth. All questions are answered in that silence, and everything is beautiful. This is the world of Anime, of Shinto, and of Buddha.

Crossing these mountains is the ridgeline trail known as the Daikiretto. Depending on how you count, its 5 or 10 kilometers of ridge that crosses between Yarigatake and Hotakadake. Yet, this is no ordinary ridge. On either side there is wonderful exposure, valleys plummeting down thousands of feet, the bottoms often obscured by clouds. The trail, although bolted with ladders and chains to assist the unprepared over the hardest lines, is still mind numbing. Straight up and down incredible granite cliffs, it’s hard to pick the trail, even though it’s well marked with white maru’s. We were hiking with camping gear just to make it extra special. Every couple of hours or so, we encounter a mountain hut, usually rustic and wooden, but replete with chocolate, Asahi, and even camp style cafeterias. These huts were like apparitions, forgotten as soon as they were behind us. Sitting in camp, watching the alpenglow color the clouds orange and red, and the stars blinking on in sheet of purple, devouring a bowl of instant ramen, you knew it was good. In a warm sleeping bag I dreamed of the pine trees and the granite vistas and revisited the silence. The next day, we down climbed a large avalanche chute, slowly re-entering this world. There were birds singing, the sun was warming little granite outcroppings, and the river was collecting itself from the runoff channels. Flowers were bright blue and yellow, and a few maples were getting an early start into fall. Eventually we came out to the trailhead, suddenly stepping into a quaint little town. Already the memory of that place began to fade like a wonderful dream. If it weren’t for the smiling, moss covered Buddha statue offering a wooden drinking ladle, we would have wondered if it even really existed at all.

Blue Spring

9/30/2007

Blue Spring

The Grand Canyon - The Little Colorado River - The
Navajo Reservation - Scary drop offs - Turquoise Blue
Spring water - Anasazi ruins - soaring red canyon
walls....

Sound interesting - the trip to Blue Spring, on the
Little Colorado River is amazing, breathtaking,
nerve-wracking, and wow. My friend Dan and I set out from
Flagstaff, AZ in his Nissan pathfinder 4x4. We made
our way up through Cameron, AZ, and then crossed into
the Grand Canyon National Park at desert View. Just
after saying goodbye to the Navajo woman ranger, we
turned turned east for Cedar Mountain and Gold Hill,
two buttes that mark the way to Blue Springs trail
head, out across the stunning emptiness of the Navajo
Reservation. We passed old hogans, old cabins, stone
corrals, abandoned trucks, and even some seemingly
lost cattle. After 15miles of single track, we
managed to reach Gold Hill, the last guardian of the
plateau above Blue Spring. In all, the drive to the
trail head took about 2 hours from the pavement at
Desert View, and there we were, perched at the edge of
the Little Colorado River Gorge. From rolling green
sagebrush plains, the gorge cut like a red scar -
dropping thousands of vertical feet to the Little
Colorado River. Out here, the exposure is intense,
ravens ride the updrafts, and you struggle against
vertigo as you stare over the edge. It is a beautiful
canyon carved from red, white and yellow sandstones,
and somewhere down there is the elusive Blue springs.
We still had about 2 miles to go after passing Gold
Hill - and finding the trail head wasn't easy.
Everywhere you look likes like a suicide mission, the
edge dropping straight down through insane rock bands.
After some search, we managed to find a trail
scratched over the rim, through a small stone fence,
and basically straight down to the river. The only
thing was it wasn't really straight down. Following
stone cairns like mystical hoodoo guides, we picked
our way down rock slides, waterfalls, and one foot
wide ramps with thousand foot exposure. Some of the
trail required making climbing moves, and at these
crux spots, usually the exposure was at its
mind-numbing greatest. With sweaty palms, and racing
hearts we scrambled and worked our way through, until
we finally could see the river. Alas, we never
checked the river in Cameron from the bridge, and the
river was running muddy chocolate milk, it must have
rained in the white mountains. Dejected, we stumbled
on down to the river, and because of the high water,
had to search to find decent beach camping and even to
find the Blue Spring itself.

After dumping our packs, we found a nice beach,
replete with driftwood and tarantulas, right next to
the springs. The water seeps from limestone cliffs
along the river, and is supposed to form aquamarine
pools. Because it is a year round spring, the
temperature is supposed to be a constant 70 degrees
Fahrenheit. We got to swim in cold, chocolate milk,
with suspended sediment so fine it coated everything
like brown paint. Did I mention that drinking water
is very important when hiking the canyons of the
Southwest. The super low humidity, hot sun, and
relentless steeps, dehydrate a man pretty quickly. we
were counting on filtering water from pools in the
river, but the sediment rich runoff made this option
impossible. The blue spring water is barely
drinkable, even after filtering so we collected water
from pools of quicksand, where the sediment had
settled enough to let us drink. We also had to find
diluted areas of the spring, where it mixed with the
river in hydrodynamic eddy lines that you could watch
unroll for hours. I don't know the mineral content of
the water, but where it seeped, the ground and sand
were stained orange, green and blue. Evidence of this
occurred when we tried to mix up our powdered milk,
and it came out as a green slurry, that gagged on the
way down.

We spent a beautiful night on the beach next to a
driftwood campfire, watching falling stars until the
harvest moon rose and flooded the canyon with silver
light. I would wake periodically, warm in my sleeping
bag, and keep track of Orion as he marched across the
sky. After a morning wake-up swim, we saddled up, and
reversed the trail to climb back to the car. We knew
the way up would be better than down, but the cruxes
still loomed in our minds. On a large shoulder of
limestone, climbing the side of a big waterfall, we
had to squeeze up a crack and over a ledge all the
while staring into a thousand feet of empty space -
not for the faint of mind.

Back at the rim, at the sight of the truck and level
ground we rejoiced having survived the climb. We both
knew we would someday return to the magic of Blue
Springs, we had to see it in its full blue glory.

Trail Notes of Note

I forgot to mention a sketchy pack belay that we used
around an early crux move that proved too difficult
with a large pack. There is a rope in place, but you
need to belay from a small overhanging ledge, and
avoid knocking rocks down. There is also a 8-10 foot
crack that would be hard to navigate with a large
pack, and that would probably require a rope if
climbing alone.