I’ve been reflecting on some of the best parts of the trip so far, and one of the coolest things has been moments where a random stranger went out of their way to be kind to us. It’s happened in every country we’ve been to, and often in a moment when we most needed it because we were feeling beat down or taken advantage of or just tired and hungry (probably hangry).
It restores your love for fellow humans, your ability to trust others in a foreign place where you often can’t even communicate, but that daily requires at least some leve of blind trust in someone you don’t know. It’s just reminds me of how important those “little things” I can do for others – and how it may not be such a little thing to the recipient – I know they haven’t felt like little things to us when we are the recipients. I’m more determined than even to be vigilant to see when there is a kindness I can provide for someone else, and to stop of make people more of a priority than my plans or productivity. I am so grateful to these people for the help and kindness they have given us – it has made our trip!
So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, and so I have it written down and never forget, here are just a few of the kindnesses we are so grateful for:
Christophe & Sakura: invited us into their home to stay for a week (and a longer invitation if we could have). They welcomed us as part of the family. Not just a place to stay but genuine friends. We ate with them, they in fact treated us to many dinners, showing us the best places in Danang that we never would have found!! And even arranged for their Vietnamese tutor to take us all out for a true locals experience. They opened up their home and their lives to us and it was one of our favorite experiences on the trip!
Beer Guy Between Halong Bay and Danang: We had a couple hour stop over to change busses and decided to grab some street food and beer at one of the sidewalk “pop ups” (a food cart that they set up mini plastic stools and tables around). We had a couple Bahn Mi, then decided to get a couple of beers. We sat for a while and when it came time to pay we asked how much, knowing beers should be 5,000-10,000 dong (that’s $0.25-0.50). The vendors friends (seated near us, but that he had been chatting with) started telling him to charge us 55,000 per beer and telling us in broken English 55,000 per beer. The vendor shook his head at them and showed us with money from his wallet that it was 10,000 per beer. We had been overcharged a few times earlier that day, and were feeling pretty skeptical and taken advantage of… so this was just what we needed to restore our faith in people and bring us back to a positive mindset. Thanks beer guy for choosing the right thing to do, over your friends bad influence and making a few extra bucks!
Wolfpack Hostel Owner: If you’re ever in Dalat you absolutely have to stay at Wolfpack Hostel. Cheesy name? yes. Incredibly kind owner? YES! Can’t say enough great things about this guy, the hostel itself is great, comes with free breakfast, a clean great place, he arranges tours from you that are the BEST and no commission for him. But he goes way beyond that. A couple things that stood out, he booked a bus ticket for us and had them pick us up at the hostel (a challenge to get that)… and if they hadn’t been willing to, he was planning to take us to the bus stop on his moped, for free, because a taxi would have cost us – he insisted. Then that night we asked him where we might buy a bottle of Dalat wine and were planning to walk there… he said, oh no, you shouldn’t do that, I will go get one for you… and I’ll buy a couple more in case the other hostel guests want some too. We gave him $1 for our bottle (which is the cost for it, no extra for him) and he shared the other bottles with us and the guests. And then the next day Rick wanted to get a little money just before our bus got there, he started walking to where he though an ATM was, and our hostel guy sees him going down the rode, picks him up on his moped and takes him to the ATM to make sure he’s not late for the bus and doesn’t have to walk that far. Just awesome!
Friendly Street Informant: ”I’m not selling anything” man in India: Well India was challenging to say the least, the super aggressive culture wore on me… a lot… people in my face yelling at me, grabbing me, pulling me to their tuk-tuk or shop or wherever, touching me, more yelling, literally every step you took in some places. I may have had some times where I turned a bit cynical and put on my “Don’t mess with Texas” voice and mean girl face, I’m ashamed to say, but I’ll own up to it. I felt it was necessary because, in India, “no thanks” usually translates to “yes please tell me more about what you want to sell me, pull me into your tuk-tuk/shop, and follow me for the next 5 minutes yelling at me”. Saying “NO” as I would to Ruger when he’s bad (firm, authoritative, a little angry) and a hand up was much more effective – sometimes they yelled at me, but they were yelling anyway, so what’s the difference? Anyway, after a very long day of being yelled at, we were approached my a man saying “oh, you should look at this temple up the street, it was made by such-and-such king, and has a beautiful viewpoint and mugal architecture…” (this was a typical scam to get you into a shop), so I immediately launch into “no thanks, no, no, no, NO!” and the poor guy looks at me confused. Then he kind of laughs and says, in very good English, “oh, you must have had a LOT of people hassling you to sell stuff today. I’m not selling anything. I don’t have a shop. I just thought I would tell you about my town. Really, no shop, no tuk tuk” I felt quite bad, and apologized. He proceeded to give us some history of the temple and area, we talked about how long he had lived there, where we were from, then parted ways.
Monkey Protector: Little boy with a slingshot that watched over us and kept the monkeys away while we were at the river temple. Each time one would come near us, he would hold up his little slingshot and scare them away, then give us this huge smile.
Security Guard at Phi Yen Hotel: One night we shared a few of the Longan fruits we had bought with him. We got to our room and started eating them and they did not taste as good as we had remembered, but thought oh well. The next morning, he kindly asked us how much we paid and told us that we overpaid for them… and that they were bad fruit. He told us we should always insist on tasting before we buy and don’t pay more than 20,000 dong/kilo.
Drugs to the Rescue: After two nights of no sleep due to the altitude I was feeling a really loopy, and needed sleep. We ran into a couple of American guys in Manang and quickly got to chatting about our experience so far. I mentioned not feeling great because of the lack of sleep. They kindly offered to share their sleep aid with us, and it saved me! As I type I realize it sounds kinda sketchy, but really it wasn’t and it made all of the difference. Thank you friends!!
Meals and Directions on Trains in India: Trains in India are an experience, the biggest challenge is there is no notification of what stop it is or when your stop is, you just have to intrinsically know. Also there is no notification of how long the train will be at a stop or when it’s about to leave – which is important to know if you have a 20 hour train ride and want to hop off at a station to grab food. We had two different train rides where incredibly kind passengers in our berth even though they didn’t speak English at all helped us know when to get off. And when we couldn’t get food on the ride, they insisted that we share their homemade dinner and breakfast. And it was delicious!! They broke their bread into smaller pieces, found plates from fellow passengers, scooped out the curry for us and smiled proudly as we enjoyed. They would watched out the window for our stop and make sure we know when it was coming up. Without them I think we would have ended up in Sri Lanka, and starving!
Blog and Facebook Comments: It may not seem like much, but the comments people leave on our blog or facebook mean so much! This trip is amazing, but occasionally we feel rather isolated and disconnected and just a little comment from someone on the blog or facebook can make us feel so special and like people still know we’re alive and remember us. So THANK YOU so much for doing that. It means the world to us.
Finally, I’m so thankful for our families and friends who have been so supportive in helping us live out this dream. The encouragement and support, patience and understanding has allowed us to chase a dream and calling God had for us. We get to tell that story to other people as we travel – how great we had it with amazing jobs, co-workers we loved, irreplaceable amazing friends, dear families, and how hard it was to leave – and that’s not the story for most folks traveling long term. Many folks were running away from a life they didn’t love. I feel so incredibly blessed to have loved where I was, and to have that as a solid foundation to begin our travels from – not running away from something, but running to something. Thank you all.
We are a little sad today that we are missing Thanksgiving (doesn’t really feel like it in tropical Cambodia). We are missing you all, missing sharing love and laughter and gratitude over turkey and all the fixin’s. But excited to see our awesome friends Alvin and Jennifer Paulson TODAY in Bangkok!!!!!! What will Thanksgiving look like Thai-style?!? No idea, but I’m sure it will be a blast with the Paulsons and we will be thinking of everyone back home.
