All love begins with the redolence of destiny,
and ends with malodorous reek of reality.

Ever since Jesus begged from the cross
“My god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me!”
The word “forsake” has never lost its edge.
We may say “sad” and mean a thousand things,
But “forsake” conjures across the millennium
All of those things lost and cast aside:
Possessions, people, places,
All a line on an imaginary map
Drawing us back to our first memory
of loss.

It could be that a handful, a hundred
Human lovers could forsake us,
But one moment without God’s touch,
And we are drowning in endless seas.

On that day when God left you, did
You not cry out, like a mother with a
Lifeless infant in her arms?
Arms raised in agony, and breast bruised
With pain and protestation, did you
Not pull up your roots, and blow out the
Flame of faith that could not endure that
Cold vacuum, with grief in its wake?

But,
if you followed,
if you held on to
That line of grief that plays out before you
Such that the pain of loss becomes sweet,
And seen such as it is:
That every pains draws you deeper into Love’s arm,
And that Compassion had opened its lips to
Drink the poison of your grief.
It is our loss that feeds our love,
And as long as you live this truth is promised you
Without anything expected in return.

What happened in those last few days in Iceland?  Well, the Sunday following Club NASA was spent in complete and total detox.  I don’t think we left our the apartment or changed out of pajamas the whole day.  We were beginning to get ready for the journey home, and I was actively yearning to be back home.

On Monday, we went for a horseback riding tour outside of Reykjavik.  I have not been on a horse in about 20 years, but it sounded like fun.  According to a program on YouTube, Icelandic horses have not been crossed-bred for over a thousand years, and therefore have developed a few unique characteristics.  They seem smaller than most horses, but have beautiful manes and a particular gait between their walk and trot known as a “tot.”  At least that’s what we found out when we began our riding.  Some poor Norwegian man and his daughter were on the tour, and his horse just would not cooperate.  The constant cries of “Nei, Nei!” as the horse stopped to eat grass and everything else in sight was comical.  And then it would gallop to catch up with us.  Thank goodness he was of good humor, because the existential despair of the whole situation would have defeated a less good-natured person.

In the days since returning, I have occasionally missed the energy of Iceland and its beauty.  The people, the alcohol, the landscapes, the alcohol, and the waters all reflect the ancient spirit that dwells in the place.  In combination with Iceland, it has awoken in me my desire to travel frequently and deeply, investigating the heart and spirit of places and how the reflect the space and presence within myself.  Takk fyrir for all those we met, all the things we saw, and the gifts–physical and spiritual–that continue to remain with me. 

Takk fyrir, too, for all the alcohol — I’ll send you the dialysis bill.

When  I awoke the morning of day three of Pride, Jeff was nowhere to be found.  This was only a little bit disconcerting, because Jeff had developed his own schedule.  I started to compose yesterday’s blog entry, a process that ended up taking most of the days.  Part of that is because it is written in fits and spurts, and other because it takes a fair amount of time to figure out how exactly to interpret the day’s events into a coherent narrative.  As I was writing, Patrick got up and started to check his Facebook.  At around noon, Jeff finally walked through the door.  His story is so fantastic that I feel compelled to write it down for posterity.

If you read the previous entry, you know that Jeff had already had an encounter with a character that we dubbed the Sith Lord.  Our narrative begins with that first contact.  The first night of Pride we went to Barbara following the Opening Ceremonies.  Jeff, of course, was continuing his UN sanctioned efforts to spread world peace (of ass).  During our walk to Barbara, I counseled Jeff to use the power of the Law of Attraction to visualize what he wanted.  This proved to be an unusually challenging task, as we swung from one fantasy visualization to another.  My powers of concentration were not vast enough to hold the number of different options that Jeff was looking for.  Let’s just say that what Jeff wanted to settle on was your standard Viking with blue eyes.  It was with this thought in mind that Jeff, Patrick, and I went into Barbara.

Barbara was, of course, starting to get full, and after a drink or so we headed to the dancefloor.  The music was that strange Icelandic blend of Michael Jackson, Top 40, and Pall Oskar that I had come to enjoy.  We were dancing near the DJ’s table, and we noticed that there was this dark haired man looking in our direction, and more specifically, at Jeff.  He did not look Icelandic, but more Slavic, and he did not have the blue eyes.  The law of attraction clearly did not speak English in Iceland.  Finally, Patrick went over to this dark-haired gentleman, and brought him over to speak with Jeff.  Patrick, his job as international pimp finished, and I left the bar shortly thereafter to come home.

Now you know how Patrick unwittingly introduced Jeff to the Dark Lord of the Sith.  The Dark Lord of the Sith took Jeff on not one, but two, adventures.  The first adventure occurred on the night of opening ceremonies, and the second occurred on the second night at Club London-Reykjavik.  Both involved strange magic and dark side powers that resulted in Jeff swearing off of alcohol and complaining that his body was going into shock.  It also involved us recognizing that one of his colognes that he brought clearly had Sith pheromone in it, and consequently, he would switch to a Sith repelling scent instead.  And now back to our main narrative.

With Jeff escaped from the Sith Lord and restored to the Light Side of the Force, we decided to head to Bonus to get groceries prior to Pride.  Pride started at 1400, and we wanted to watch it from the safety of our balcony.  We picked up some additional supplies and headed back to the apartment.  Steini let us know that he would be coming by with Brian and his girlfriend to watch Pride, and then we would be heading down to the concert.  I set up my camcorder to record the parade from one of our windows, and we settled in for the parade.  According to Kathy, our contact with Apartment K, pride in Iceland was fairly small in comparison with US Pride celebrations.

I don’t know what her definition of small is, but Reykjavik Pride was not small in my opinion.  The main street of Laugavegur was packed with people, and the parade involved several floats.  The dykes on bikes started off the parade, and from there, several different groups marched.  One of the most interesting thing was the number of gay supporters in the parade.  In the states you might have PFLAG, and perhaps some corporate floats that probably have straight people on them, but in Reykjavik, there was a number of groups that seemed to be in support of lesbians and gays, but not actually gay themselves.  The overwhelming presence of straight supporters was very heartening, and seemed to be a hallmark of the Iceland Pride experience.  Steini and Bryan had pointed out that one of the big part of Pride were all of the people out to support it.  In fact, I saw a large number of young children holding flags and waving them.  Later, as we were leaving the apartment, I noticed that even the Christian bookstore had Pride flags in the window.

The Pride Parade has passed by our apartment by around 1500, so we headed out to follow the parade down to the Pride Concert.  The place was packed with people — I think at one point I heard that there was something like 70,000 people there.  Viggo and Violetta were MCing the concert; we heard them over the A/V system as we walked down to the plaza where the concert was being held.  Steini guided us to the front of the concert where we could clearly see the stage.  The next couple of hours was filled with mostly awesome music from Icelandic artists, including a couple of performances from a German group called Robotron.  That performance almost destroyed my eardrums.  The music was described as disco punk, and it sounded like heavy metal thrashing, ear-splitting industrial sounds, and screaming all rolled into a package that made my ears bleed.

Pall Oskar also performed during the concert.  Throughout our stay in Iceland, we have continuously heard this one particular song called Ég Er Eins Og Ég Er, which translates into “I Am What I Am.”  Jeff made the connection that this song was one he had heard before, and I later discovered that it was a song from La Cage aux Folles.  Every time Pall Oskar performs everyone goes crazy, but this song seems to drive everyone wild.  Steini explained that this song is kind of the Gay Pride anthem in Iceland, but it also speaks to anyone who is feels like the don’t want hide who they are.  We rocked out to Pall Oskar’s performance and then headed back to the apartment to relax prior to the big party at Club NASA.

When we finally made it to Club NASA it was probably around 0030, right before our VIP passes stopped allowing us to line jump.  We got into the building and checked our coats, and headed inside the club.  Club NASA was well-named, because the heat in the room felt like I was underneath a space shuttle about to take off.  Pall Oskar was DJing, and he started off his first set by playing “Gay Classics.”  We were magically transported in Pall Oskar’s way back machine (with glittery pants and jacket) to the land of ABBA, the Village People, and the Weather Girls.  We danced until sweat started to pour down our necks, which was about 5 minutes in.  And then we kept on dancing.  I wasn’t drinking, so I was intent on just enjoying the music.  Surprisingly, the night also included a couple of live performances for Hera Bjork and Haffi Haff, both of which were very enjoyable (and in English).

Pall Oskar took the stage, now changed into a black suit (with sparkles!).  Naturally, we listened to the same songs that we had already heard, and I was getting good at faking the sounds by trying to focus on the vowel sounds and end of words.  Luckily, Pall Oskar tends to hold his notes for a while which allows me to feel like I’m singing along.  Patrick and Jeff were near the front of the stage, and they were reaching out their hands to Pall Oskar.  At one point, he actually touched them, and they looked very very excited by that.  I don’t think Patrick was planning on ever washing that hand again.  I joined them up front and got to see Pall Oskar up close.  I think at one point he made eye contact and I said to myself: “I am never going to wash my face again.”

Eventually, the party at Club NASA got down and dirty with Pall Oskar inviting people onto the stage and starting to spin some house music.  The crowd on the stage was shaking their groove thing and we all started getting down.  Patrick and Jeff had been appearing and disappearing all night to go cool off in the Front Lobby, and they reappeared at this point, and we started dancing to progressive house.  Shirts were coming off left and right, and the entire stage was full of people, all of whom, it turned out were straight.  The other thing is that Icelandic straight guys get pretty flirty, and so it’s really hard to tell what exactly is going on until the moment they draw the line.  It’s like the riddle of the Sphinx, except it’s the riddle of the Straights: “What goes to bed at 4:00 AM, walks on two legs in the afternoon, and teases you with its third leg at Club NASA?”

The other dark side of this evening is that I finally got to see what happens when Icelandic people get a little bit out of control at a club.  They get beat down faster than a fat girl on “America’s Next Top Model.”  I think I noticed someone with a bleeding nose, one overly enthusiastic young guy was getting thrown around like a rag doll (he just jumped up again, like a weeble wobble), and I got slammed from behind when two people got pushed from the stage.  One of the guys responded by jumping back onto the stage to beat down the person who pushed him.  This was the same guy that was taking drinks from everybody, including Steini, who was not pleased with losing the rest of his beer to this person and let him know it.

That pretty much is how the evening ended, with Patrick asking if I was ready to go.  I was a little bit bummed about leaving, but it was probably a good idea.  We — of course — stopped for pizza, and got back to apartment.  We had a good talk about the evening and the trip in general, and we feel asleep as the sun began to rise again on our second to last day in Iceland.

I awoke at 6:00 AM to the sound of someone entering, an unknown voice and Jeff’s voice.  At that point, I had only been asleep for 3 hours, but I was now wide awake.  As Jeff’s conversation with this mystery person continued, I noticed that there were not one but two voices.  Hmmm.  Now, Jeff can talk a good game, and probably deliver on it, but two people seemed a little bit more than he could handle.  Then I realized that, based on the conversation, these two men were straight.  Interesting.  Patrick started to stir, and he asked what was going on.  I gave a general overview of the situation.  Patrick had to urinate, so he went to do reconnaissance and relieve himself.  He came back with a brief report.  Eventually, the two straight Icelandic men departed, and then we got to pounce on Jeff to get the story out of him.  I will not elaborate on said story here, because the character henceforth known as the “Dark Lord of the Sith” shall come up in another entry.

Today’s adventure involved puffin watching.  When Patrick saw the pictures of puffins at the BSI Bus Station, his face did this very cute thing.  He kind of purses his lips and makes this very endearing growl like sound.  It’s the sound he makes when something is very cute or adorable.  It’s usually reserved for small animals, and puffins fit in that category.  Steini wanted to come with us so he came over around 1300 or so.  I learned from Patrick that he had a date planned for that evening, so it was no surprise that he was a little nervous when he came by.  We immediately began trying to pull information from him about this person, and Steini did not disappoint.  It was a great example of using the internet as a dating tool, one that I wholeheartedly recommend.

We headed out early for the tour because Patrick wanted to purchase a 66° North jacket.  We started our march to the Reykjavik Old Harbor, stopping at the store.  We found a wonderful jacket for him, one that was different from the one that I had or Jeff had.  It has this cool little hood, and actually has a part that covers his face.  He looks like a ninja when its fully zipped up.  So with his brand new and super-warm jacket, we headed down to the Harbor.  I paid for our tickets and shortly after we walked to our boat.  Jeff was a little bit afraid of getting seasick, and when we boarded he looked a little worried.  It settled down once we made our way out to the sea.  It was a short boat ride from the harbor to the main puffin island.  Once we got there, we were a little bit surprised that there weren’t a hundred puffins sitting on the beach drinking tea and waiting for us to arrive.  However, Patrick quickly spotted puffins flying in the sky, and we started to try and take pictures of them.  This is a quite difficult, actually, and we weren’t very successful.  Finally, we noticed that some puffins were floating out on the water and we were able to take snapshots of them on the water.  They were very cute.  We watched one of them try to take off from the water–he was unable to take flight.  As Patrick said, he looked like he was bodysurfing.

After about 45 minutes, we started to head back to the Harbor.  After we disembarked, Steini lead us to a hot dog stand that he had been going to since he was a kid.  Like I said, there’s nothing quite like an Icelandic pylsur.  Two were very satisfying.  We then made a quick stop at a WC and then headed back to the apartment.  Steini departed to get ready, and Jeff and Patrick laid down for a nap.  I decided to do the sun salutations and opening asanas from the Ashtanga first series, and then laid in a shavasana that was part active imagination, part nap.  I then curled up on the couch and slept for a little bit.

I woke up a little bit cranky–the usual outcome when I’ve had little sleep.  Steini was on his way over, and we were all in boxers or shorts and t-shirts.  When Steini arrived, we talked with him about his date, including trying to give first date advice.  All of this advice was entirely inappropriate and unhelpful, exactly the type of advice designed to be ignored.  Of course, you can’t do much when your friends are telling you when you can finger someone (am I right?).  We also had some semi-serious discussions about gay relationships and coming out.  I felt like I was missing all the good discussions, since all of my toilet and shower activities seem to overlap with particularly interesting topics.  Nevertheless, we had a good time and left pretty late for our next event: the Gay Cruise.

As I think I mentioned in a previous entry, I am not one for “doing Pride.”  Going to all these events for Reykjavik Pride has been very, very fun, though, and is making me rethink my aversion to Pride events back home.  Clearly, Reykjavik Pride puts a lot of thought into its events, and it is very much appreciated by its gay and straight residents.  Steini, Jeff, Patrick and I headed out.  Steini was accompanying us because we were on his way to his date (go Steini!).  We left him about halfway, and then headed down to the harbor.  We didn’t leave ourselves a lot of time, and Jeff was fretting that we weren’t going to make it.  With the equanimity generated by vodka and tonic, I told him that everything was going to work out.  We made it to the ticket office, and there were 5 tickets left (whew!).  We paid, and then headed on to the boat.  We launched shortly after we boarded, leaving me feeling both vindicated in my vodka-induced wisdom and the fact that we weren’t standing around waiting for the thing to start for an inordinate length of time.

Because I know that there are various visions of what a gay cruise could be, I will say that this is not one with a buffet (but they did serve beer).  The boat was pleasantly full.  We grabbed some drinks and headed up a deck, where we could enjoy the wind and the views.  People were in a festive mood, and we ended up meeting Daniel, who figured into Jeff’s first night out at Barbara.  We chatted with Daniel for a bit, and then hang around the ship, talking amongst ourselves and dancing to the relatively out-dated club music.  Other passengers were also providing entertainment, as two others guys put on fisherman’s gear and started performing near the bow of the ship.  Eventually, we started to circle back to the harbor, our one-hour tour coming to end.  I was sufficiently inebriated to still feel the gentle rocking of the ship while on land.

Now back in an area with a selection of bars, we headed to a bar with Christmas theme (go figure).  Christmas music playing over the speakers and elves working the bar put me in an appropriately festive mood.  We had connected with a guy who was the DJ at Barbara the first night we were there, and he was buying rounds.  I partook–minimally–of this generosity.  We then crawled over to another bar that was seemingly miles away (it was uphill and I was intoxicated).  This bar was tucked away in such a way that you would never know it was there without knowing it was there.  It was like the magical land of Narnia — just around the corner if you know which coatroom to walk through.  And given the fact that this was a leather bar, I might very well have seen an S&M Mr. Tumness, or at least a naughty little satyr.

There were no twisted woodland fawns, but there was a pornographic movie playing on a TV screen and a doorman dressed all in leather.  If C.S. Lewis had been a disciple of Tom of Finland, he would have written a book about this bar called the Leather, the Whip and the Porno.  We did run into Steini and his date, which seemed to be going quite well.  We dutifully interrupted their chat and introduced ourselves.  We also found Daniel and a person that I understood to be his ex-boyfriend.  His ex-boyfriend (Gunnar, I think) and I began an in-depth discussion regarding learning Icelandic, and I have to marvel at how overly philosophical I get when I’m tipsy.  (I also have a “maudlin” setting and collection of really great dance moves that is a train wreck waiting to happen)  After another drink, we headed back the way we came (how redundant) to arrive at Club London-Reykjavik, the site of the Boy’s Dance.

When we arrived, I ducked into the WC and Patrick handled the coat situation.  The coat room was not staffed, so Patrick worked the room like a pro.  We headed upstairs, to what seemed like a fairly sparsely attended party, given the number of gay people in Reykjavik.  We saddled up to the bar, me for my last drink of the night.  Once again, we ran into Steini, and although this was not surprising given the nature of the evening, it seemed like we were stalking him.  I waved hello and we headed towards the dancefloor area.  The DJ was slowly warming up, it seemed, for the big event.  The first few songs were pretty tame and little underwhelming.  But just like I would back at home, I rode the wave of good songs and not so good ones and stayed on the dancefloor for most of the evening.  We met up again with Daniel and Gunnar, and we danced along to European and American hit songs.

Eventually, I noticed that Jeff had disappeared, and that Patrick and I were ready to leave.  We grabbed our coats and headed out into the night air.  In typical fashion, we grabbed pizza, and I found, much to my dismay, that my credit card was declined.  I suppose that WAMU had decided that, even though they knew that I was in Iceland, the steady stream of credit card transactions were becoming suspicious.  I don’t blame them — a bunch of small charges at bars begins to look like a pattern of fraud (or alcoholism in the making).  Luckily Patrick had his card, so we paid, ate our once slice there, and took one a piece back to the apartment.  We talked about the night and, sans Jeff, turned in for the evening.

I will say that so far this experience in Iceland has been amazing.  Although I would not know what to do with myself if I moved here–all places and spaces have their good and bad points–I must say that seeing a different perspective on how to live life and live love has been a wonderful experience.  Plus, I’m starting to get the whole Icelandic perspective of how to not be personally insulted by words or actions.  And with that, the second day of Pride faded into the bliss of a good night’s sleep.

Jeff and I agreed that we would grab the VIP passes first.  Patrick and Jeff had guessed that the passes would be at Barbara, based on the fact that it was the “official” club of Pride.  A quick trip into the very quiet bar revealed that, no, it was not, but we were directed to the right place: the basement of Mikli.  In hindsight, this was the second most natural location at which it could be.  After all, it had a picture of Pall Oskar wearing a shirt saying “Dirty Queer.”  So we headed into the basement, and were attended to by a wonderfully cheerful Scottish woman who had immigrated to Iceland 9 years ago.  Once she had confirmed that our names were on the list, she proceeded to hand over our Pride goodie bags.  We were also able to select a t-shirt from a couple of different styles and colors.  I grabbed a white one for Patrick and a black one for myself.  The goodie bags contained a boa and a wrist rubber wrist bracelet (think: LIVE STRONG), as well as a Pride program.  It wasn’t exactly the most extravagant bag of stuff, but it was a nice gesture.

From the basement of Mikli, Jeff wanted to go to 66 North to buy a knit hat.  I think that he wanted to wear it on a glacier tour.  So we headed over to the store.  Once we were there, I felt vindicated when Jeff also considered buying a jacket.  He has called my new Askja Light Jacket a “sweatshirt” on more than one occasion.  So we selected for him a nice blue jacket along with an orange and grey knit hat.  We also discovered that you can buy 66 North t-shirts, so I picked up one for Patrick and Jeff got one for himself.  I wanted one, but they didn’t have my size.  I hoping that when we go back they will have one in my size (so that I too can have a t-shirt that reads “Surving at 66 North” or something similar).

After 66 North, we attempted to once again locate the equivalent of Sudafed.  Icelandic pharmacies are, apparently, a little bit different then ours.  While ours are filled with tools of self-help and healing (read: pills), these pharmacies seemed mostly concerned with carrying a wide range of beauty supplies and liquid soaps.  I have to note that one of the things that strikes me about Iceland is the paucity of bar soap.  Our wonderful hosts at Apartment K provided us with a body soap called “Neutral,” to which I have the reaction of “Mildly Dislike.”  The stuff is an insipid, scentless gel with little cleaning power.  Now, I’m not against shower gels or neutrally scented products.  I’ve taken showers with chickpea flower when I was studying basic Ayurvedic remedies.  But this stuff just simply doesn’t get you clean (it doesn’t make you more dirty, either, which might be it’s intended effect).  I guess I should also note that, since we don’t have a loofah or a supply of washclothes, shower gel doesn’t work that well.  Note for next overseas trip: pack bar soap or a loofah.  Probably a loofah, since it doesn’t add to the weight limit!

When we asked at the counter for a nasal decongestant, we were given the option of buying a spray or a chest application.  Neither were what Jeff or Patrick wanted (or would want), so we left.  We then stopped in the natural food store, where I picked up some Yogi Teas that were designed to alleviate the suffering associated with illness.  The interesting thing about the store was that it was pretty much like any other health food store I’ve ever been in.  It’s good to know that, even internationally, natural healing stores look exactly the same.  (And pretty much cost the same — a woman in the queue spent something like 10,000 ISK on a selection of items that fit into a small brown bag)

Since we had far more packages than we expected and we had not yet been to the store, we headed back to the apartment.  My poor darling was in bed, still sweating out his fever.  Fortunately, he was starting to feel better, so we decided to head out to shop together, and grab some lunch.  I was in charge of selection, so we stopped in a Scandinavian restaurant, figuring that this would be the first time we would actually eat in a vaguely Icelandic eatery.  I ended up having a delicious sherry mushroom soup and a chicken sandwich with french fries (very Icelandic).  Afterward, we ended over to my favorite cafe for hot chocolate, and then started to make our way back towards Bonus.  We stopped in Dogma, because I wanted to get a “Eg tala ekki islensku” (“I don’t speak Icelandic”) t-shirt.  They also had some pretty racy t-shirts, one of which was so over the top that, although I laughed, I could never wear in the United States.  Let’s just say it involves choosing a vowel to finish a word, and the correct answer is “Nagger.”

We finally made it to the supermarket, were we stocked up on provisions.  We now have no reason to eat out for the remainder of the trip.  Well, not really, but we do have quite a bit of food.  We picked up hot dogs, an Icelandic mainstay.  We also found crunchy friend onions, which are a common topping on hot dogs.  After finishing our shopping, we headed back to apartment.  I forget what time it was, but I think we were once again pushing 1600 or so.  It might have been later.  All I remember of the intervening period was doing some reading and editing while Jeff and Patrick disco napped.  Patrick was feeling very tired, so I am glad he got the time.  I woke them up at 1845, since we needed to be at Pride by 2000.  The only hurdle to overcome was getting a taxi, but thanks to Skype, that was quickly handled.  So at 1945 we were off to the party!

We arrived at the theater.  In the few Pride events that I’ve attended, I’ve only ever gone to the pre-party (San Francisco), the parade (again, San Francisco), or the community event afterwards (San Francisco and Sacramento).  But I’ve never gone to an “opening ceremony.”  We grabbed drinks at the bar and headed into the theater.  It was festively decorated with pride flags, and was clearly set up for musical performances.  Eventually, the lights dimmed, and a man with a guitar took the stage.  He started playing, and everyone immediately recognized “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”  A cheer rose from the crowd, as the man’s voiced floated over the applause.  He made his way through the song, slowly and beautifully, and the crowd erupted in applause.  (I realized later that this man was Bubbi Morthens, who is evidently an incredibly well-known and respected Icelandic artist)  He then began to speak in Icelandic, at which point I could only sit pack and enjoy the gentle cadence of the language, and the next two songs.

After Bubbi left the stage, a man and a woman took the stage.  They were the MCs, Viggo and Violetta.  Viggo was dressed in a white suit with flamboyant eye make-up, and Violetta was dressed in a cute white dress that looked positively “Sound of Music”-esque.  Viggo immediately launched into something in Icelandic, but Violetta quickly followed up with English (thank goodness!).  It was totally hammy and over the top.  After a brief introduction, they began a musical routine that was just INSANE!  It started off with something like, “You’ve all heard of Cinderella, who find her prince.  But that’s not my story.  I’m a FAG HAG…”  It just went off from there.  All I can say is that it included snippets from various musicals, involved Viggo taking off his clothes to reveal a leather outfit worthy of “Rocky Horror” and a double headed dildo wielded by Violetta to attempt to get Viggo to live with her “somewhere that’s green.”

After this rousing performance, the Director of Pride took the stage.  A distinguished, middle-aged man wrapped in a huge Pride boa, began in Icelandic, briefly switched to English, and then proceeded to make a speech in Icelandic.  I was almost brought to tears when he spoke in English.  Without remembering the exact wording, he began by pointing out that gay rights was a human rights issue, and that the essential question was the right of all people to dignity.  How different that is from our perspective in the United States.  In the US, gay rights is first and foremost a religious issue.  Any question of the rights of gay people to have the same rights as heterosexuals in inextricably tied to the fact that the Bible, Koran, Torah, etc. considers it a sin.  Although we propose a separation of church and state, the church as insinuated itself into the politics du jour.  In Europe–or Iceland at the very least–the issue of gay rights begins with the foundational concept that all people have a right to their dignity and part of dignity is the right to have intimate partnership in this life.

It was at this moment, listening to this man talk about gay rights as human rights, that I realized two things.  One, that I would gladly live in a place where this was true.  Second, for that very reason, I needed to be more diligent in acting in my own country for the human rights, including equality for gays and gay couples.

The show proceeded on, including a performance by the Creamgirls, a duo from Norway.  They came out in black face, and proceeded to lip synch their way through Donna Summers, Tina Turner, Grace Jones, and a hilarious skit with Whitney Houston and Macy Gray as a coked out mess.  They were, to quote Christian from Project Runway, hot tranny mess.  At the end of their performance, one of them said, “And I give up my pussy for free to all you lesbians.”  Hot.

After an intermission, we came back for Pall Oskar’s performance.  What to say about Pall Oskar?  First off, he is the cat’s meow in Iceland, a well known singer and DJ.  He had been in the business since 1993, I believe.  His music is all over the map in terms of style and genre.  And he’s very cute, in a boyishly Scandanavian way.  He was introduced by Viggo and Violetto with a great deal of hooting and hollering from the crowd.  Pall took the stage dressed in a sparkly rhinestone outfit that we later dubbed a mix between Liberace and Neil Diamond.  He immediately launched into music that was obviously well-known to the crowd.  As it was all in Icelandic, we could only, as they say, go with it.  And go with it we did.  We shouted, we clapped, we grooved in our seats and on our feet.  He performed several up tempo numbers before bringing the energy down a bit with a harpist, singing an English version of Charles Aznavour’s Comme Ils Disent (“What Makes a Man a Man?”).  The energy picked up for the end, and we danced in our seats to Eurodisco mania.

The rest of the night involved coming back to our apartment for two hot dogs a piece (with onions!), and heading back out to Barbara, the official club of Gay Pride.  Patrick and I bailed early, grabbing pizza and having some heart to heart time before crashing into bed at the earliest time yet for us (0100).  The abrupt awakening this morning will need to wait for another post.

I digress, however.  Today was the Blue Lagoon, in all its milky hot splendor.  Perhaps one of the most known tourist attraction in Iceland, it is located approximately 40 km outside of Reykjavik, and is best accessed, it seems, by bus.  We woke up late-ish.  We’ve been slowly peeling the time back to about 9:45 AM, which is respectable.  A little bit of researched revealed that the first departure that we would be interested in taking would be around 1 PM.  Thanks to the  magic of the Internet, we were able to book the tickets online with little hassle.  It also included hotel pick-up, which was very nice.  So with the adventure of the day solved, we turned our attention to checking email and catching up on the events of the previous day in America.

Promptly at 12:30 our intermediary bus arrived to take us to the bus station.  It was an easy enough thing, and when we got to the bus station, we provided our confirmation numbers and received our tickets.  After a short wait, we boarded the bus to the Blue Lagoon.  As we rolled along the highway, the countryside showed the vastness of landscape.  We drove by the beautiful ocean, and I was once again struck, as I was yesterday, about the deep soul of the place.  William Butler Yeats once said, in the poem “Lake Isle of Innisfree”:

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

My lack of familiarity with Icelandic poetry (save Beowulf)  means that I don’t know what the closest analog would, but I suspect the sentiment would be the same.  There is a deep connection between a people and their land.  Perhaps this explains the Icleandic thought process that Steini has talked about (see “The Tavern.”)  In a subsequent conversation, he asked us why Americans are so afraid of words.  I presumed he meant our fear of being honest and direct in our speech.  The land of Iceland is so rugged and windswept that it doesn’t brook long meandering speeches.  It demands a clarity and directness of speech equal to its terrain.  The softness of the moss is like the softness of its Þ and its ð, so subtle that they are barely distinguishable.  The rocks are like their double consonants, rougher and requiring more force.  The two floats effortlessly in this langugage.  In the book, Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner quotes Bill Holm, who wrote a poem regarding the Icelandic language.  In the poem, he wrote:

You must sit down to speak this language,
It is so heavy you can’t be polite or chatter in it.
For once you have begun a sentence, the whole course of your life is laid out before you.

I like these lines, and the make even more sense once you have seen the land out of which this ancient Viking-like tongue arises.

The question of a language and its connection to people will have to await, however, for we arrived at the Blue Lagoon.  After disembarking, we headed through the check-in procedure which involves the acquiring of a technologically advanced wristband.  Feeling like Aquaman, we glided through the turnstile and headed towards the Lagoon.  We encountered a group of German tourists who clearly did not understand how things worked.  Most of the men in the group attempted to head in the women’s locker rooms.  I will never understand the minds of most tourists in foreign countries.  In Cambodia they call foreigners barang, a word that suggests they need to seriously pick-up the clue phone.  I’ve found that in most situations–unless you are on fire or being chased–the best thing to do is to stop, look around, check signage, and move forward.  In the case of these tourists, a simple look at signage would have provided all the data needed.

Once we had separated the males and females, we trekked upstairs to the men’s locker rooms.  The locker system here is somewhat ingenious.  Once you choose a locker and place your possessions it, you scan your bracelet against a reader and it permits only you to open it.  How cool is that?  After a quick shower to rinse off any impurities, we headed outside with our towels.

There it was–the Blue Lagoon in all its milky goodness.  The day’s air was chilly, so we quickly walked into the water, which was slightly more comfortable than lukewarm.  The floor was somewhat sandy, with patches of slippery.  As we continued to walk into the lagoon, we found these patches of hot water.  We would find ourselves, over the course of the next hour or so, hovering around these hotspots like a crack whore looking for a score.  Eventually, we found the source of all the hot water goodness and played in that area.  The Blue Lagoon also provides a silica mud mask, which we liberally applied to ourselves.

In the milky goodness of the waters, I felt stress melt away.  The mask made my skin soft and supple, and the water soothed my entire body.  It was like Eden with a good facial.  The pool was filled with people from all over the world, and both Patrick and Jeff availed themselves of the male biodiversity.  I, other the hand, did not have my contacts and was denied this pleasure. (Patrick, bless his heart [and in saying that, I am emphatically not adding the typical unspoken judgments common in the American South] only packed one contact lens for me.)  Consequently, I had to settle on somewhat lurid and bombastic descriptions.  We all, however, took note of a same-sex couple who were strangely interested in photographing each other.  This could only mean one thing: gay men with decent bodies.  Oh god.

As a gay male, I suffer both from a healthy self-esteem and a strong desire for six pack abs.  The latter is in no way shape or  form reflected in my attendance at the local gym or ab blaster classes.  When I find examples of this dedication in the Gay Wild, I adopt a policy similar to the United States handling of the American Bison: shoot to kill.  And not even for consumption, but just to piss off the natives of the Gay Wild.  While I recognize that I am not exactly unattractive–I mean, hello!–I do recognize that I could be more if I just was willing to put in the dedication.  And the time in a tanning booth.

But the other thing that I know to be true is that, usually, those six pack abs and perfect asses–oh, be still my shaking hands and naughty mind–are nothing more than protein shakes and ab work.  In other words, drop them in the middle of the forest with an ax and some kindling and they’d probably attempt to perform a pedicure with them.  Compare this with the Teutonic wonder that I saw in the line at the Blue Lagoon Cafe later.  Ruggedly handsome in the Aryan way, he clearly could knock over a tree with his head, and would like be able to drag it back along with a good size 10-point buck.  See that’s truly attractive–functional good looks and ability.

But I digress.  After a substantial soak and two silica masks, we headed inside to grab some food at the cafe.  It was here that I finally had my first Icelandic hot dog.  And what a hot dog it was!  I generally believe the best hot dogs to be Wahoo Weiners, but this was a close second.  I decided to get it with everything, which included two types of onions, mustard, a special dressing, and something else.  But damn it was good!  I could have easily devoured about three of them, but I had also grabbed some soup and some skyr, which is Icelandic yogurt.  The food was very welcome and very tasty.  Although we had been told that we owed it to ourselves to try Lava, the restaurant at the Blue Lagoon, we decided to head back.  After eating, a second time in the waters just didn’t seem like a good idea.

I whiled away the time reading The Geography of Bliss and listening to music, while Jeff and Patrick played scrabble on the iPhone.  We barely made it on to the bus, due to overcrowding, and got back to the apartment.

Once we got back, Patrick and Jeff headed out to dinner.  I confessed to Patrick that I was struggling with the rhythm of the trip.  Jeff and I had some friction during the day, and its more a symptom of my internal struggles than him personally.  I really enjoy having a rhythm to my days, particularly when I’m abroad.  Although I am getting better at doing nothing, I do like a routine.  When I was in Cambodia, it was get up early, see temples, have breakfast, see more temples, get back, shower, bike to town, have dinner, go back to Hanumanalaya and blog.  When my dad and I visit the Southwest, it’s get up, balloon, breakfast, break at hotel, drive to various photography sites, and then dinner and bed.  Iceland, so far, had almost no routine, and it was wearing on me.  Plus the fact that I am, in a way, deeply introverted and really need time away from other homo sapiens to recharge.  Although I am incredibly theatrical when I have a crowd, I really enjoy my silence.  It was a blessing to have the place to myself while they went out.  I can feel the rebound internally almost immediately.

After they returned from dinner, Patrick and I ran out for some hot chocolate at my favorite cafe.  We also stopped into a record store to buy two things–50 Top Hits (Icelandic style) and a Páll Óskar “best of” collection.  Páll Óskar is a gay singer who is very popular in Iceland.  So, hot chocolates and CDs in tow, we headed back to the apartment.

Tomorrow brings the beginning of Iceland Gay Pride, and maybe some additional adventures.  I am thinking of doing horseback riding, and Patrick is excited about a Puffin Tour.  His face positively lit up at the idea.  Let’s see what tomorrow brings!

I have to admit, this Iceland vacation has been fun, but has been missing a key component: activity.  Going somewhere else to relax seems like a waste of time to me.  If I visit somewhere else, I want to be doing something.  With my trip to Cambodia, I woke up early every morning, biked to temples, and probably biked over 40 km a day.  So far, I’ve done a load of drinking and dancing and a lot of sleeping.  I’ve also been eating richly, including more junk food then I eat in a six month period.  Consequently, I feel sluggish, gross, and completely and totally useless.

Until today, that is: The Golden Circle Tour.  2009 Personal Friend Remix edition.

Our Icelandic friend Steini offered to show us some key Icelandic cultural sites, including the Geysers, Þingvellir, and Gullfoss.  Personally, I was thrilled that we were finally “doing” something.  We started off on our trek, heading out to the beach and the Pearl, which had a man-made geyser.  It also has an awesome observation deck, which allowed us a panoramic view of the city.  While Steini, Patrick, and Jeff headed to the left, I headed to the right, which provided a view of the ocean.  While viewing the grey vista of the sea, slightly misted through haze of rain, I felt a tug on my heart that I recognized.  I continued to stare at the vista, trying to listen to this feeling from my heart.  It remained elusive, and I could not go deeper into there.

From the Pearl, we headed off.  The Icelandic countryside is so vast and windswept.  Desolate is a word that comes to mind, but I think that sounds very negative.  Instead, it seems rich—deep and full of memory.  We drove through the countryside, and finally stopped near Nesjalaugar.  It was beautiful set of walking paths with faerie rocks all around.  The moss that covered the rocks was incredibly soft and spongey, and it felt like I was stepping on a trampoline.  It was very cool.  As I walked around, I found several amazing rock formations, and interesting patches of grass and flowers.  Like with many sites that we visited today, it would have been great to stay there a little bit longer.

From Nesjalaugar, we headed  to Þingvellir, the site of the original Viking Parliament.  When Patrick asked Steini where the building was, Steini drolly replied, “We’re Vikings; we met outside.”  We wandered around the park.  I found this cool rock formation that a had a cleft in it.  When I looked at the surrounding rocks, it looked like there was a face in the rocks.  I loved it.  Took a few pictures here, and read about the Viking Parliament.  There was also a tourist site, where we stopped in.  They had quote s from various Viking personages.  After a short stop inside, we headed onto the other side of Þingvellir, which had a beautiful view of a small stream and a waterfall.  We took some pictures, and were promised some additional views of waterfalls.

We piled into the car, and headed off to the geysers.  I have to admit, I was expecting this to be an amazing  and exquisite natural phenomenon.  While it was cool to see water come shooting out the ground, it was kind of a large burst of water, and then some silence.  I wanted to catch a picture of it.  Unfortunately, the timing of this was difficult, as it would just happen and subside.  I think it was either Patrick or I (or both) who compared it to sex.  A lot of foreplay and then a quick explosion which leaves everyone feeling less than satisfied.  Plus it burns when it gets in your eyes.  Lots of similarities!

From here, we headed to the waterfall.  This was EXQUISITE.  Totally awesome and amazing.  It was pure, pure roaring energy and force.  The pictures tell a much better  story than my words could.  We took quite a few pictures, and I had Patrick film me doing some awkwardly improvisational yoga poses.  I wish that I could shoot a whole yoga video there.

After the waterfall, we came back to Reykjavik.  Patrick immediately began making a dinner of butter chicken and Masaman curry.  It was delicious.  We had some naan bread as a side and a strongly tannic Merlot.  It was very tasty.  After dinner, we settled into uploading and reviewing our pictures.  I started to feel a little antsy, and decided to take a walk.

Unlike in Cambodia, I have had a lot of free time on this trip, and I’ve subsequently been able to check my email from work.  I know this is a bad idea, but it helps to pass the time.  Unfortunately, there’s quite a few things going on at work that have me a little less than thrilled.  During my walk, I had some time to think about it.  After listening to one of Pema Chodron’s CDs, I have really begun to notice the way that I spin narratives about situations, images of situations and possible outcomes.  For example, for one particular work issue, I visualized myself coming in all hell fire and brimstone, telling everybody to do their work (with various expletives), chewing out the students, and then being unceremoniously fired after confronting everyone.  It definitely smacked of the dramatic.

I played out quite a few other scenarios before realizing that I was engaging in some serious wheel spinning.  I had to laugh at myself.  How useless the mind is in actually solving problems!  At the same time, our wisdom can be right while our ego refuses to act.  I think I’m currently in the middle of that reality.  I need to act consciously from what is in front of me, not in the realities my mind is spinning to justify action or inaction.  Once again, the yoga teacher is incapable of implementing his own teaching.  However, I don’t think I’m in bad company—it once again just proves that I’m human.  That’s a good place to be.

After a short walk I headed back to the apartment to find Patrick and Jeff now up and about.  We left the apartment around 1600 and grabbed some lunch/early dinner, and then went back to the apartment.  I, frankly, enjoyed the downtime of just hanging out before another night of drinking.  Sunday is generally a low-key pub day, but today is a holiday, so more pub action was in order.  I watched the second season of Dexter while doing some more editing, and attempting to get the “Tavern” entry finished.  I think I set a personal record for commenting on the level of light outside — it was 2330 and not even dark.

We returned to Bar Bara (or Barbara, take your pick), and ended up chatting with a Canadian returning from the out games.  We were determined to not make it a late night.  So, instead of 0600, Patrick and I arrived home at 0300.  We crawled into bed and fell right asleep.

Patrick and I keep joking that we want to move here.  I don’t know what motivates that comment.  I think part of it is the newness of the place, the friendly attitude of the people, and the sheer blood-alcohol ratio that this place inspires.  It is a bit of an international gateway, but so, I think, is any foreign country.  Siem Reap in Cambodia swarmed with foreigners; Reykjavik seems to attract the European and Canadian set looking for a short getaway.  It’s like recycling, on an international level.  They come in, they drink, they leave.  I think that being abroad also allows us to feel more free in our choices about what we can or cannot do.  Siting in a fully furnished apartment, overlooking the city, and not having to go to work feels a lot better than what the reality would be.

At the same time, though, and as Act said, you have to grasp for your dreams.  What would my dream be?  I love what I do — Education — but I don’t always love how I have to do it.  That is, perhaps, what Icelanders might mean about honesty.  I think that we have so many barriers to communication in the US — afraid that we might get sued for defamation, harassment, etc.  There’s a need to be appropriate, yes, but perhaps if we were allowed to say what we feel without taking it personally we might all be saving a lot of money on anti-depressants and therapy.  As for myself, I think I would love to be able to do what I do while  feeling less personally invested in what I do — to be able to separate self-identity from work.

What would it be like, say, to move to Iceland, teach yoga, and work in education, and go out partying every weekend?  It would be no different than my life now (well, except for the partying).  The only difference is that I would be able to disconnect from all the perceptions and current issues that “I” face in California.  Those quotation marks are deliberate.  Wouldn’t it be easier to just simply stay in California, and pursue a course of honesty and hard work and hard play while still saying, “I will never be diminished by what others think?”  Does it truly require a move across oceans and countries to accomplish the simple task of being truly happy?

*Sigh.*

(The above paragraph was written upon coming back from the bar, and proves two things: one, alcohol makes anyone existential; second, mixing alcohol and Rumi or Hafiz quotes only proves that you’re a jackass.  The rest of this entry is written post-mortification, but hopefully captures some of the drunken splendor of the evening, mixed with post-Laundry ruminations.  Enjoy.)

We awoke this morning at 2 in the afternoon — a rather strange time, but not for those who have retired at near 4:30 AM after a long flight and a long thirty-hours or so. The morning began, at least for me, a little lazily. I lolled in bed as I listened to Patrick and Jeff begin their afternoon banter about getting packed up and getting ready. Our first apartment was really only temporary; we were always planning to move to one other apartment after the initial one. Little did we know, though, that the new tenant would be arriving as we were preparing to leave. So, without a shower, I dressed and assisted with the grand moving out.

Kathy, the proprietress of Apartment K, met us at our current apartment. She spoke English with such fluency, it was not a surprise that she was actually an American who had married an Icelandic guy, and emigrated here to Iceland. We chatted a bit before we packed our stuff in her vehicle and moved over to our permanent digs. Our new apartment was larger, with a nice little kitchen, a beautiful balcony, and a laundry room. It very much reminds me of my first apartment in Columbus. We dropped our stuff off, chatted a bit more with Kathy (who is wonderful by the way), and proceeded to do what we always do: unpack the computer equipment and get on the Internet. Luckily, Iceland is very wired, so we have apartment wi-fi, and enough adapters to keep all of our computers very happy. Thank god for almost all power supplies having the ability to stepdown a wide range of power inputs!

Eventually, we left the apartment and made our way on to the streets of Iceland. It was bustling along quite well at the mid-afternoon hour. There was a fair amount of tourists as well as Icelanders, differentiated mostly and sometimes only by word choice and accent. The buildings, as Patrick tells, are brightly painted for psychological effect. I can definitely say that it works — I felt exceedingly cheerful. Because of where we are staying, there are quite a few fashion shops and other high-end stores, making me feel like I was on an Icelandic edition of Project Runway.  As we walked, I mostly kept silent while Jeff and Patrick talked.  I like observing places and seeing how they tick, and then I interact once I’ve observed.  Patrick is quite the opposite, jumping into situations with the exuberance of a puppy.

The weather proved chillier than I would have suspected, so following lunch (at a Mexican restaurant) we ducked into 66 North.  It is the equivalent of North Face, with prices to match.  I purchased a nice Polartec fleece windbreaker, and instantly felt snuggly and warm.  Revived by my new and exceedingly soft outer layer, we continued our trek through Reykjavik.  On the way back to the apartment, we stopped for a hot chocolate at a local café.  It was extraordinarily tasty, deliciously rich, and very, very satisfying.  We returned to the apartment at what I would have sworn was early afternoon.  It was likely 1930.

We had already made plans to go out with Steini to experience a local gay bar, so Patrick and Jeff disco napped, and I took advantage of the downtown to do some blog writing.  I was also online, so Steini and I had a short chat via Facebook.  Steini and I established that he would be coming around 2115, and that he would be bringing his best friend.  At about 2030, Kathy showed up to settle the bill.  We paid her in cash (which makes me feel better, since there won’t be that surprise charge on the credit card), and talked a little bit more about her and her husband’s business (Apartment K).

Everything that happened up to this point pales in comparison with the night that was about to begin.  Steini and his friend Bryan arrived by taxi, which can only mean one thing: drinking had already begun.  When I was introduced to Bryan, it was made clear that his name was unpronounceable by non-Vikings. Evidently there is some inflection on the final N that requires you to nasalize it to such a degree that it’s like sneezing it out.  So we settled with Bryan, and began to do what all people do: discuss the exchange rate.  It’s like the weather—it’s the one thing we can all talk about.

Fortunately, we began to get buzzed.  Bryan and Steini were hilarious.  I think the Icelandic people are pretty blunt. Steini summarized the entire Icelandic outlook nicely when he gave us the following nugget of wisdom: “You see, I could go on a TV in Iceland and tell Bryan that he’s an asshole, and we’d still be great friend.”  Icelandic people have no problem calling it like they see it, and clearly don’t take it personally.  I can imagine an angry Icelandic conversation being like: “Fuck you!” “No, fuck you!” “How’s your mother?” “Good.”

After we had gotten slightly drunk, we headed off to Bar Barbara, a gay club in Reykjavik.  Evidently, this bar is not named after THE Barbara (you know, Streisand) but a play on the idea of Vikings as “barbarians.”  Whatever.  Barbara is described by the Grapevine as a lively bar for local gays and lesbians.  I would describe it as a house with a bar inside of it.  It was relatively uncrowded when we arrived sometime around 2330.  Bryan was three sheets to the wind, Steini was rapidly getting there, and Patrick, Jeff, and I were determined not to be left in the harbor.  So we began drinking.

How best to narrate the next 6 hours?  The amount of alcohol consumed, in retrospect, makes my kidneys want to put themselves on a transplant list to prevent future abuse.  But the drunkenness does not change the interesting conversations.  One of the things I noted in my Cambodian adventures is that meeting people from other countries can be a very revelatory experience.  In the case of this evening, the series of self-inquiries and evaluations began with Steini’s comment, “You American think you’re free – you’re not fucking free.  You don’t speak from your heart.”  I think I’ve heard a statement like that before, and it has always struck me as interesting.  What does it mean to not speak from your heart?  Does it mean that you always speak truth, no matter how uncomfortable?  Do you pursue your dreams, even if it means failing?  Is it a question of being too polite and restricted – required to say one thing to be acceptable?

I posed these questions to a Palestinian-Icelander (go figure) named Act (I think).  He told me about his interest in acting and how he had to struggle with his fear of failure, but he still needed to do something he was passionate about.  In the book Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner argues that Icelanders are very happy people partially because they do not fear failure.  They are willing to try things and see what happens and don’t see it as a reflection of their personal ability.  Perhaps that is what it means to “speak from your heart.”  Perhaps the heart and the ego are those things that are diametrically opposed?  The (my) fragile ego wants to be satiated and protected, which might mean that I speak too carefully, allow myself to get pushed around, but also that I hover between knowing what I truly want and doing what I think is expected of me.

Act’s conversation with me was very enlightening.  Alcohol at the very least lowers the defensive shield of the ego, and so I was at least receptive to the wisdom of this young man.  There was also Steina, whose name is the feminine form of Steini’s.  Her name also means “rock.”  She is going to be in the Gay Pride parade as Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City.  She wants to come to California to study in our university system, and come back to Iceland.  How great is that?  She gets to enjoy the benefit of our education and put it to work in her own country.  In a way that could be seen as selfish, but I think it’s brilliant.  Then there was a beautiful Icelandic woman with dreadlocks and her African-descended husband.  A young gay man and his best friends who loved and supported him; that was only weird because one of his friends professed to be straight but proceeded to give me a massage and seemed strangely flirtatious.  But perhaps he was just drunk.

Speaking of drunk, I eventually made my way to the second floor which is where the dancefloor was.  Feeling that there was no better way to both process the alcohol and enter into the realm of ecstatic emotion I decided to stay and dance.  The DJ was mixing a weird combination of 80s, 90s, and current music that contained a lot of Michael Jackson (go figure).  I had a great time.  I wasn’t there to be anything to anyone, so I got to enjoy the movement of my body.  My mind, for reasons unclear, was drawn to dedicating my dance to the divine.  So I tried to uplift my dancing, not for myself, but for the energy that is everywhere, complete and whole and without limitations.  At one point I noticed that the blond dreadlocked woman was looking distressed.  Patrick explained that she was upset because someone spilled a drink on her.  I gave her a huge hug – it seemed to be what was needed.  I think she appreciated it.

Later, I left the bar and took a walk down to the beach.  Halfway there, I burst into tears, and I have no idea why.  Overly emotional because of my intoxication; overly emotional because of my dancing?  I have no idea.  Rumi is fond of using the tavern as an image to show the religious insobriety that comes from being love drunk with God.  But the earthly tavern is not the same as the tavern of the heart.  To be drunk is not to be enlightened; it is merely to have the mind bent in a particular way.  But at the same time, there is a fine line where we can leap the barrier of our ego-bound personality into the vastness of the infinite.  Once there, we can learn how to appreciate the space of openness that can teach us how to live more authentically.  Perhaps these tears were the same as those at the statue of Vishnu in Angkor Wat, as unbidden and authentic.  Or perhaps I was just a sloppy drunk.

The beauty of the Icelandic landscape lit by the 0530 light was breathtaking, the water of the bay lapping softly on the rocks.  The rest of the day was short – pizza and water at a local place, and then to bed.  It’s like night never came and went as we walked back to the apartment in the growing daylight.  Crawling into bed at almost 0600, I turned over a fell into a sleep, but not before attempting to write this blog.  Did I have a spiritual experience or just a drunk experience?  In the end I don’t think it matters – what does matter is that maybe, just maybe, I might be able to speak more from my heart from having had the experience.

Australians have a well-deserved reputation for being some of the greatest people on the planet.  Warm, funny, devil may care, and usually very attractive.  John F. Kennedy Airport has a reputation of being one the worst airports on the planet, with percent on time arrival and departure numbers that rival the unemployment rates in California.  If Heaven or Hell had similar processing percentages, St. Peter and Satan would still be dealing with the queue of soul from 1350.  Occasionally, JFK can surprise you, but mostly it disappoints (just like the Sacramento Kings).

Patrick and I arrived at JFK after a relatively uneventful flight from SFO.  As anyone who knows me knows, I really don’t enjoy turbulence, so I used it as a spiritual opportunity.  I put my iPod on repeat and played “Baba Hanuman” by Benjy and Heather Weirthheimer.  Figuring that Hanuman was the son of the wind, I prayed continuously to him.  When we hit turbulence, I thanked Hanuman for remembering to be mindful of my spiritual practice.  There wasn’t a ton of turbulence, and I did sleep most of the way (fitfully, but slept), so the red eye passed by uneventfully.

When we arrived in New York, we started to head for the AirTrain before we realized that we were walking way from Starbucks.  Patrick and I detoured back and received our usual reinfusion.  I was very cranky on account of the early hour and the fact that, quite honestly, I’m very high maintenance.  I’m also highly independent, and traveling with someone, even the one I love invokes in me two responses.  The first is annoyance that I have to tend to the needs of someone else.  The second is annoyance that, through years of parental training, is I don’t know if I’m making someone happy, so I have to ask incessantly, “Are you okay?”  Chalk it up to several Nutcrackers gone wrong and one disasterous vacation to the Cayman Islands that you’ll have to read about in my memoires.

Starbucks in hand, we wove our way through the labyrinth of JFK’s Terminal 8 to find the AirTrain to go to Terminal 7.  Patrick’s friend who is travelling with us, Jeff, would be meeting us at the IcelandAir terminal.  So we rode the AirTrain around to all the other terminals and arrived finally at Terminal 7.  When we arrived at approximately 8:30 AM we discovered that the counter did not open until 11:30.  So, we camped out near the one power outlet.  I read After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, blogged, and aimlessly surfed the internet while listening to music.  Patrick as doing much the same.  Jeff arrived via bus from LGA, and we made our way to the IcelandAir counter.  While we would have liked to sit together, fate did not permit it.  Tickets in hands, we proceeded through security, where we did some more waiting (the flight did not leave until 2:20 PM).  We grabbed some food and hung out at the terminal.  Jeff is a chatterbox, and my head was quickly spinning at the rapid fire commentary gushing forth from him.  While I appreciate my craziness as much as the next gay man, I appreciate my silence too.

During the long wait I started to edit some writings by a good friend and listened to music.  I had decided that Jeff and I would swap seats so that he and Patrick would have a chance to connect (and I could have some silence).  So when we finally ended up boarding the aircraft, I took my seat near the back of the plane, seated next to two Aussies.  I opened up After the Ecstacy, the Laundry and thought I would be settling into a relatively low key plane flight.

Oh, no.

Where do I begin?  We backed out of the gate, and proceeded to sit for around two and a half hours on the tarmac.  Naturally, the caused extreme consternation on the plane.  Having routinely flown out of JFK after waiting at least 1 to 2 hours on delays, this didn’t phase me.  Being trapped on the plane does have some additional psychological drain, but I was just calmly reading my book and trying to maintain equanimity about everything.  It was right around this point, however, that might seatmate began a string of irrational actions that would persist for the whole flight.

The passengers directly across from me were feeling very ill-informed by the captain, and kept asking the flight attendant for information.  I explained to them that these delays were not uncommon from JFK, that it happens quite frequently, that the airport has planes leave the gate so that they can still say they departed on-time, etc.  As I turned back to my seat, my seatmate suddenly asked me, “What are you so afraid of?”  Cue adrenaline activation in response to bizarre question from a total stranger.  While I cannot recall the exact discussion we had, there seemed to be quite a few cognitive disconnects between what I felt I was saying and how my messages were being received.  My perceptions were reinforced by the fact that this person kept getting up, walking around, sighing in exasperation, and demanding water.  At one point he reached into his bag and took some medication, one of which I knew to be a fairly powerful pain killer.  This erratic behavior persisted during the two hour delay.

When we finally took off, I almost wanted to kill myself because of the incredibly moving amount of turbulence we experienced on take off.  It generated at least a few “Ohs!” of surprise from some passengers.  At this point in my epic journey to Iceland, I had switched to the middle seat because my addled Aussie was getting up every 15 seconds or so.  So, I’m sitting there quite desperate internally, alarmed and at little bit frightened at the behavior of my seatmate, who I’m basically trying to pacify.  Finally, the irony of the whole situation comes to my attention.  I’m reading a book about the spiritual path, and about facing the illusion of reality, and I’m totally stressed about by this situation.

So I decided to beat the living shit out of my seatmate with the book.  It felt good.

Just kidding.  Instead, I focused on the nature of my fear, and how my fear was creating a reality for me with which I was not entirely happy.  My seatmate was obviously intoxicated (by viritue of the rum and cokes that he drank down like he was going in front of a firing squad); in pain (by virtue of taking painkillers); and an absolute ass (by virtue of my judgment, which I permitted to still do as a spiritual being, but not without then saying, “but I still love your essential buddha nature”).  I retrieved my headphones that I had let him borrow (another pacifying action on my part), turned on my music, and finished my book (which was quite good).

By the end of the flight, I had restored some of my equanimity.  My seatmate even apologized for being a jackass, which I accepted.  He also proved that he still WAS a jackass by getting up while the plane was still heading to the gate after we had touched down.  We disembarked and headed through customs–a mere formality compared to some of my experiences.  We shopped at duty free, and popped out into the glimmering twilight of an Iceland summer.  The sun hovered on the horizon, providing some illumination, not quite set, not quite rising.  It was 3:00 AM.

When we arrived at our apartment, we found ourselves right in the heart of the Icelandic Friday night.  A racuous and high-energy crowd shouted, sang, and smashed beer bottles on the pavement.  It was as if it were Rush Night, Gay Pride, and 1999 all at the same time.  We were ushered into our apartment by one of the proprietors, and were all pleasantly surprised by the surrounding.  I showered, and Patrick and Jeff went out for mixers.  We ended up having a drink and crawling into bed at 4:30 in the morning.  I was marveling that the sun was once again rising, and the sound of revelers was still strong outside.  I feel into a deep and immediate sleep, glad to be on vacation, and glad to be off that plane.

Many people have asked us, “Why Iceland?”  The official story is that Patrick was watching a travel channel about great places to visit, and Iceland was one of the them.  Evidently, Iceland has some very cool retreat and vacation centers, so it was our intention to attend one.  However, we later discovered that no retreats were running at the time.  So, although we will not be able to enjoy the benefits of healing and pampering spa treatments and yoga classes, we will still be able to scope out the property.  In addition, the recent purchase of my extra fabulous camcorder means that I will be shooting baffoo yoga footage over there in the natural beauty of the northernmost European nation.

The more that I learn about this wonderful island nation, the more intrigued I become.  This will be my first European adventure, and also the first place that I will visit where, apparently, most of the population believes in, or knows someone who believes in, elves and gnomes.  That’s a whole other discussion, some of which you can watch here.  The other things is that they are inveterate drinkers and have pretty excellent attitude towards life overall (it seems).  Consequently, I have seriously joked about moving there to open up a yoga studio and rehab center.  It’s like the Betty Ford Clinic with Sun Salutes.  Picture that!

Expect plenty of beautiful pictures and video from this adventure.  Good-bye for now or, as they say in Iceland, bless!

Faith sparked into a flame,

And this flame grew into a statement,

“You and I are One.”

And though the darkness stayed,

Inside a corner of my soul

The promise that waits patiently

For my readiness to live in love

Remained.

The definition of education is “the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction” and an education is “giving moral, intellectual, or social instruction.”  Both derive from the Latin educare, which means “lead out.”  Regardless of the type of education we either receive or propose to provide to others, leadership is at the heart of the education.  How we lead determines whether or not the process inherent to education is successful for the ourselves and others.

In my burgeoning career as a member of the career college community, I have had the honor to serve both as a faculty member and as a leader (first at the program manager level and subsequently at the director level).   As a new faculty member, I had the good fortune to work under a very supportive director and campus president.  Both  felt very strongly  that the role of the faculty was (and is) to assist in the student in achieving career success, as well as personal maturation.  While it took me some time to appreciate this role, I can now concretely understand how important the “personal maturation” aspect of our role is.

There is, however, one challenge with this role: how can or should we accomplish it?  In my mind, it is a different onus altogether to assist our students in personal maturation.  For most of my instructors, as it was for me, the initial view is that the role of the faculty is to teach.  To teach, regardless of its formal definition, often means to deliver information that we then expect the student to learn.  To learn is to be able to utilize the information both within its received context and—within reason—in novel ones.  To teach someone to enter medical record information, take blood pressure, or to give a massage is a concrete skills that can be evaluated objectively.  Success in this aspect can be measured.  But how do we teach someone “to mature”?

The definition of maturing is growth in one or more dimensions of life: social, mental, spiritual, etc.  But the essence of maturation is transformation.  To mature, a tree must take the elements surrounding it—earth, water, sunlight, wind, and air—and change them, through its own processes, into usable tools for growth.  A tree is endowed at birth with the structures and tools to achieve this; otherwise, it quickly withers and dies.  Human beings are much the same, in that we must take what our environment gives us and transform it into something useful.  The challenge is that, unlike the tree, people required nourishment in dimensions below those of survival.  We require, according to Maslowe and others, elements such as beauty, purpose, and internal drive to strive for greater things.  Without these, we begin to wither as individuals and, over time, feel ourselves relegated to role of automaton within our own lives; or, perhaps worse, as a battery used to empower the lives of others.

While the career school or college literature suggests that our role is changing, we remain the choice of many people who view jobs as work rather than as a venue for engaging and evolving their best qualities and ideals.  Hence, they seek “job training,” and we may very well be—although we may not like to admit it—“just” giving them job training.  At our best though, we strive to give our students a perspective that allows them to see themselves in a new light.  But to do this, we must transform our students.  Which brings us back to our previous question: how do we teach someone to mature?  How do we teach some to transform?

Teaching transformation is a top-down process that must be a lived philosophy and reality for leadership, the faculty, and then the students.  Therefore, the only way to transform the lives of our students is to be engaged in the process ourselves at a leadership level.  The remainder of this article will look at the ways in which we can implement a model of transformational leadership within our own communities.

The “ground” for transformation is the five key dimensions in which we can experience change in our lives.  I show these five elements in Figure 1 below.  The physical dimension of wellness corresponds to our self of well-being and stability within our body.  This can mean freedom from disease, a sense of the body’s ability to perform in response to our demands, and self-esteem regarding our physical appearance.  The emotional dimension of wellness corresponds to a recognition of our emotional state by those around us.  The ability to express emotion and to have that expression recognized by others, without judgment or evaluation is a critical component of well-being, even more so than being “understood.”  The psychological dimension corresponds to the preponderance of satisfaction, stability, and consistency.  This same concept can be expressed, in the negative, as the absence of anger, fear, and doubt; however, it is more important that the positive expression of this exist since a leader can actively achieve this.  The intellectual dimension corresponds to the fulfillment of cognitive needs for development and expansion, as well as appropriate challenging of staid and outmoded models of thinking.  Intellectual growth demands appropriately delivered challenges to modes of thinking, particularly those that are motivated by the other aspects of the model.  Finally, the spiritual dimension involves the development of a sense of purpose and the unification of our moment-by-moment narrative with that purpose.  While seemingly the sole purview of religious or “spiritual” practice, tending to the spiritual is perhaps the most important function of the leader.

In each of these definitions, I emphasize particular elements.  These emphasized points correspond to the key elements of the transformational leader, which can be delivered as 5 descriptive statements. These five descriptive statements are:

The transformational leader…

1. 1. Tends to physical health through effective techniques to maintain or expand the scope of physical ability;
2. 2. Recognizes the emotional livelihood of herself as a prerequisite to acknowledging the emotional lives of others;
3. 3. Maintains an internal sense of satisfaction, stability, and consistency through timely recognition and integration of new information in light of these values;
4. 4. Embraces the unknown and uncomfortable as the ground for rapid and lasting growth; and,
5. 5. Persists in her role because it is synonymous with her internal vision of herself.

To these five statements we can add—once they are internally achieved—“and helps others do they same.”

The vehicle for embodying—not achieving—these statements is an active practice of self-reflection and self-examination in relation to them.  Therefore, the first action for the transformational leader is to engage this practice on a consistent basis.  Because self-reflection is most effective when the leader uses a structured process, the following grid can give shape and support to that effort.

<insert question grid here>

When performing self-reflection, particularly one in which we rank or measure ourselves, two missteps are fairly common. The first is that we forget that this is self­-reflection.  No one is evaluating our performance, and no one else will read this.  Forgetting that we are self-reflecting can lead us to view our processes as better than they are because we are afraid that we are being evaluated.  The second is that we become overly critical with ourselves and view our work poorly because we become mired in the mentality: “I could have done better.”  There is nothing wrong with the statement—in fact, that statement is critical to self-improvement.  However, it can also be used as a shield to allow us to exist in sustained mediocrity in relation to our potential.  This is not acceptable to the transformational leader.

Based on this, the first recommendation for creating a culture of transformational leadership is to commit, as a leader, to a sustainable process of self-reflection.  The transformational leader documents this process so that there is awareness of, and respect for, the personal growth and the changing nature of self-perception.  When a leader commits to self-reflection, he or she inherently grows all dimensions of the self.

Self-reflection, while valuable, must also lead to action.  Consequently, the next stage of transformational leadership must be concrete action within the five dimensions that we can actively change.  These concrete actions are highly variable, but any action should be linked to the specific aspects of the self-reflection.  Since most of us are familiar with the elements of physical wellness—even though we may avoid it!—we will take a look at actions within the emotional and psychological dimensions.

All human beings have an emotional core.  The emotional core consists of the range of internally expressible emotions that each of us can experience.  For example, most people have an internal emotional states that we label “anger,” “happiness,” or “joy.”  However, each of us can experience those internal emotions in different ways, to different degrees, and at different levels of visibility.  In response to the same situation or stimulation, a person may experience “compassion” with tearful eyes or a wide smile; in a way that makes them feel suffused with the sensation or localized to a specific place; and may have a very demonstrative display or a very subdued.

Regardless of how we express, it is important that our emotional state is fully and authentically expressed.   Importantly, the transformation leader does not deny or suppress the emotional core of his or her leadership.  Stoicism is not a virtue in transformational leadership.  Instead, an authenticity regarding emotional reaction is critical.  In his work developing non-violent communication, psychologist and communication expert Marshall Rosenberg places incredible importance on this point.  Being able to identify our own internal states is a critical first process in dialoguing with others in a way that takes into account emotion.  Identifying and positioning emotions, particularly in critical dialogues, can dramatically increase their effectiveness without becoming maudlin or mawkish.

Therefore, the first action in relationship to emotion is to develop an awareness of:

1. The way in which we express or suppress emotion;
2. The degrees to which situations invoke our emotional response; and,
3. That way in which we externally express or suppress our emotional state.

The “answers” to these areas can be in the following form:

1. I really try to suppress my feeling of anger.
2. I get angry when a person who I don’t feel knows something “fakes” an answer.
3. I suppress this emotion by crossing my arms and biting my lip.

While this exercise may feel difficult or hokey, the lack of emotional awareness can play a huge role in why we either resist situations or have difficulty in handling them.  Once we become aware of our own emotional core, we can then interact authentically with others.

In the area of psychological awareness, it is important to scope the area of inquiry.  This is neither “pop psychology” or “therapy.”  Rather, it is deeper mental questions and issues.  The idea brought up above was the “preponderance of satisfaction, stability, and consistency.”  Like the emotional area, this can be difficult to investigate.  There is an old Zen phrase regarding meditation: “The mind cannot polish the mind.”  It often challenging for us to ask questions about ourselves, particularly something that connects to our fundamental ability to experience a state of being.  Satisfaction, stability, and consistency are states of being. To assist in this process, we can look at the following brainstorming questions:

1. What does the term “stable” mean for you?
2. How do you feel in the situations that are the opposite of this term?
3. What does it mean for you to be satisfied?
4. How do you achieve satisfaction in your daily life? in your work life?
5. How would you define consistency?  What does it look like?
6. How do you experience consistency in your daily life?

What may come up in response is an amalgam of different types of words, cutting across multiple areas of life: physical, emotional, social, etc.  Importantly, do not censor these thoughts as they come up.  While avoiding any forcing, try to exhaust your thoughts on the subject.  Then, examine the list.  Is there anything that surprises you? seems inconsistent?  Again, don’t cross out the things that don’t seem to fit.  These are all valuable insights.

Based on your definition lists, begin to connect the things in your daily personal and professional life with this list.  How much parity or disparity is there between your list and your experience of everyday life?  What concrete decisions and actions could you take to make changes that would improve your sense of stability, satisfaction, and consistency?

Using these three dimensions as a starting point, the potential transformational leader can begin the process of self-reflection and self-examination.  From this self-reflection and self-examination we can begin to develop our own internal and external process of transformation.  From this seed,  we can begin to transform the organizations and people around us.

Last night, I came back to La Croisette for dinner.  I had firmly decided that I was done with the experience of living above a bar, so I decided to check email, and check online for additional booking options in the nearby area.  While I was sitting for dinner, a woman who I had seen in Siem Reap at Hanumanalaya (her name is Hannah) showed up at the restaurant.  Of course, I invited her over and we sat down and talked.  She is a Londoner who had done quite a bit of travel internationally, taught math for 4 months as volunteer work in Africa, and was an all round nice person.  So we chatted, and she taught me quite a bit about international travel.

Here were some of the lessons I learned:

1. Never get a place above a restaurant, it has vermin and smells (yes!).
2. Showers of the type I saw are not uncommon (good to know!).
3. Always look like you know where you are going when you first get off the boat.
4. Lonely Planet is written by and for backpackers, who consider a place up and coming if it’s a backwater bush village which once had one hut that counted as a guesthouse, but now has another guesthouse and a place to eat.

This, naturally, helped shape my thoughts about future experiences with travel, and how to decode the language of Lonely Planet.  Now Phnom Penh makes perfect sense!  We spent a very companionable meal discussing national issues of identity and culture, as well as the value of education.  Tomorrow she is heading off to Bangkok, and was debating seeing the killing fields.  Since I am going there tomorrow, I invited her to come along if she so wanted to.  We will be meeting at La Croisette today, if she wants to go—otherwise, it’s more postcards and reading I suspect.

We also met a New Zealand couple who were on vacation with their two children.  I swear that the two girls were a mirror of two squirrelly girls I know.  The youngest was climbing all over Hannah, sawing at our table with a butter knife, and generally expressing the fact that she was WAY overstimulated, tired, and ready for bed.  Her parents were teaching at an English school in Kuwait, which I think is good money and great perks, which probably also allowed them to travel on holiday for four weeks.

After dinner with Hannah, I booked a room at the incredibly swank Amanjaya.  In an interesting mathematical coincidence, my total cost of staying at Rory’s for 2 nights and at Amanjaya for 1 is exactly exactly equal to the total costs of what I would have spent on room and lodging had I stayed at Hanumanalaya.  Weird, huh?  (Om shrim maha lakshimiyei swaha—thank you, great Goddess, for the reminder about how abundance flows) So I headed back for my last night at Rory’s, and ended up having an interesting conversation with the two girls who worked the bar (and two beers).  They taught me some more Khmer, and they laughed at how fast I talked.  So I tried to talk very sloooowwwwwllllyyy, which made them laugh again.

At some point, a very drunk man comes into the bar.  I had to listen very closely to understand him, first because he had a great Irish brogue, and second because he seemed to be speaking in Khmer occasionally.  Turns out that it was Rory himself.  I toasted him with a “slainte” and an “erin go breagh” before going back to my beer.  He started talking to the two girls behind the counter, and he kept repeating, “I was bold tonight.”  I eventually piped up and started to get the story out of him.  It seems that, wherever he had been, a man had struck a woman, and he had intervened in some way.  This evidently cleared the bar, but I really didn’t get much more out of him.  He was, as they say, sloppy drunk, but lovable as he chatted up a couple of other patrons who came in for a drink.  I never did figure out exactly how he handled himself, but his wife came to collect him, and took him home.

There was also a Canadian gent in the bar, who had planned to spend his retirement traveling Asia or staying in Cambodia (I was unsure of which).  Turns out the economic situation in Canada (and globally) eradicated his pension and required him to return to Toronto.  One of Rory’s interactions was to tell him to save his money when he tried to buy a beer, and later Rory told the girls to give him his money back.  Both the Canadian and Rory seemed like decent fellows, the one down on his luck and the other compassionate to it.

After I finished my second beer, I headed up stairs to my room.  Supported by Hannah’s advice, I tried to not focus on any of the negatives, but the smell and my sense of sleeping on very unkept sheets gave me another bad night of sleep.  I consoled myself with the fact that I would be spending my last day in Cambodia in the relative luxury of Amanjaya, and eventually drifted off to sleep.

So I decided to follow the Walking Tour included in the Lonely Planet guide for Cambodia.  These walking tours, I assumed, were intended to take you through the most interest parts of the city, providing you with “the city in a nutshell” in essence.  So, I  made my way to Wat Phnom, and proceeded on the walking tour.

I guess I need to look at the walking tour of Sacramento to compare, but I felt like this walking tour was a little bit dodgy.  Either that, or there was nothing interesting to see, because for the most part, I got to experience busy streets with a lot of trash.  However, I did got into the city’s mall, which was hilarious.  The mall is set-up the same as a street market, so there are stores in the middle of the walking area.  Of course, I also noticed that a Lacoste shirt that probably would cost 90 dollars in the states was only 27 here.

After walking around for a bit, I decided to stop for lunch at the Black Apsara, which I passed on my tour and was also mentioned by Lonely Planet as a restaurant that gives back to the community.  So I stopped for a bite to eat.  I had a brief conversation with the young man who took my order, as he was trying to learn better English. So I helped him with some choice phrases regarding dates, times, and how people can ask for the bill.  After I was done, I grabbed my water bottle, and then continued my walk.  I decided to hit the National Museum, since it supposedly had many of the statues removed from Angkor Wat.  In my conversation with the Aussie couple at Linga, they didn’t know why I would want to see it, since I’ve already seen Angkor.

Turns out though, the National Museum is where many of the Hindu statues that were once at Angkor temples are stored.  I’m glad that I skipped the Angkor Museum in Siem Reap and instead went here.  (I had read on the Internet that the Angkor Museum was pretty much a waste anyway)  They had many examples of small statues, stelae, and large statues from the temples. I found images of Durga, Lakshmi, Shiva, Brahma, Ganesha, Vishnu, and many many more.  But believe it or not, they pull the same trick in the National Museum that they do at the temple.  I was offered a flower to give to a statue of Shiva and found a donation plate.  This Buddhism thing is quite a racket in this country.  I mean, foreigners are practically speaking the only ones who get charged entrance fees to either Angkor or the National Museum (or Wat Prohm, by the way).  And they ask us to donate again, using religion as a vehicle.  It’s really rather exploitive!

After I was done with the National Museum, I headed back to Rory’s.  My boring plan for the remainder of the evening is to go back to La Croisette to post this blog, catch up on email, and in general just relax.  Tomorrow I get to experience the very worst of the Khmer Rouge: Tuol Sleng Museum (the former S-21 detention and torture center) and the Killing Fields.  After this I will be done with my visit to Phnom Penh.  I spend Saturday night here, and then catch the noon bus back to Siem Reap to catch my flight home.

Again, I can’t believe what an adventure this is, and has been.  Now it doesn’t seem so outlandish to jaunt around the globe on an occasional wandering.

I spent my last morning at Hanumanalaya packing and getting myself organized for my little adventure.  Hanumanalaya refunded the difference in my hotel costs in cash, so that gave me a little bit more of a buffer.  After a small scare created by the fact that the bus that was supposed to pick me up was half-an-hour late, I got to the bus station, and boarded the double decker from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh.  I paid $8 dollars because they said the seat were wider and it was air conned.  Wider is up for debate-they were pretty narrow-but it was indeed air conned.  After everyone backed into their assignment seats, we were off.

The night before I had decided to go to Linga Bar, one of two local gay hangouts, and see what it was like.  I ended up chatting up an Aussie couple who had just come from Phnom Penh, and had done some previous Asia traveling.  We had a very pleasant conversation.  While we were talking, one of them (I think it was Peter) said that I should make sure I was opposite the driver side of the bus.  When I asked why, he proceed to explain the driving habits of bus drivers, which include occasionally trying to drive three abreast on a road (which is really designed for 2, sometimes 1 1/2 vehicles).  Should there be a head-on collision, I would be safest opposite the driver side.

I was on the driver side.  I hope that all those donations really did give me good luck.

The trip was relatively uneventful.  We stopped for about 20 minutes, which gave people time for a bathroom break, and some food.  I grabbed a spring roll, mango, and some bread at a booth.  This is a substantially cheaper way to eat in Cambodia, as it ended up costing me about $1.50, and it quelled my hunger quite well.  We hopped back on the bus, and continued our trip to Phnom Penh.  During the trip I listened to my iPod and read “The Spiritual Brain” by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary.  It had been on my shelf for awhile, I brought it on the trip to finish it.  It has been a fairly fast read, but very interesting.

We arrived in Phnom Penh shortly after 6:30 at the bus station.  We when disembarked, tuk tuk drivers were ready to assault us.  When one quoted me a ride of $2 to Rory’s I jumped at it.  We arrived after a short trip, and I agreed to have him take me to the Killing Fields and S-21 (the area where captives of the Khmer Rouge were held and tortured) for $12, which seemed like a reasonable price to be driven around.  So we arranged to meet on Saturday, and I turned my attention to Rory’s.

Remember what I said about Hanumanalaya?  About how I was depressed about spending $65 a night, and being ripped off, and all that?  I TAKE IT BACK, I TAKE IT BACK, I TAKE IT BACK!

So, Rory’s is like any Irish bar.  When I walked in, there were 5 men at the bar who could very well have been Irish, or at least fans of rugby.  I walked up to the bar, gave everyone a nod, and asked one of the Cambodians girls about my room.  I paid my 60 dollars for three nights, and headed up the stairs.  The girl who took my money met me and walked me up the stairs.  I began to get a sinking feeling as we climbed the stairs, and it was confirmed when we got to my room.  A pile of cleaning supplies and empty bags was at the end of the hallway.  As I turned towards my door, I heard a scampering sound and felt something hit my foot.  I looked down, and a six inch or so rat (12 with tail) had rebounded off my feet and scampered into the trash pile.  The girl with me looked surprised, but not apologetic.

When I opened the door, I found a one room area with a tiled floor and a queen bed in the corner with a fridge.  A television was perched on a stand, and I looked for the bathroom and shower.  I found both.  I guess an “ensuite” means a bathroom in the bedroom, but the shower is a hose attached to what I assume to be a little heating unit for water.  There toilet, the sink, and the shower are all in one room.

Oh my god-I’m in my version of hell.

After brief unpacking my clothes, I walked a little bit around the area.  My initial experience of Phnom Penh is the same as my experience at Rory’s-a step down from Siem Reap.  Admittedly, it is completely dark here, and I have no way to explore beyond a few blocks from the hotel while still feeling comfortable.  However, it seems a lot more squalid than Siem Reap, but perhaps that’s just because the zone of Siem Reap in which I journeyed was much more compact.

I decided to grab a quick bite to eat, and then head back to Rory’s to write this entry, and call it a night.  I have no idea when I’ll be able to post, since there’s no wi-fi, and it seems to be difficult to find in this city.  Lonely Planet doesn’t offer much help in that area, possibly because there’s not that much in the way of wi-fi.  So we’ll see what tomorrow brings.  One of the channels on the television is showing videos, and I’m enjoying the amusing subtitles that are amusingly mangling the dialogue (and in the case of Happy Feet, included an interestingly placed expletive).

Adventure indeed!

My last day of temple hopping hit a snag when I decided to go to Banteay Srei.  According to Lonely Planet, the quality of the temple carvings is amazing, and many of the buildings show details from the Ramayana, the tale of Rama, Sita, and Hanuman.  Based on this, I was very excited to go.  The day before, I had asked at the front desk how much a tuk-tuk ride to Banteay Srei might be, and I was told 15, 16 dollars.  Thinking that to be reasonable, and also thinking that I could spend an hour or so there meditating, I decided to pay it.

Big mistake.

I will say that it has been the only time that I have been outright furious during my stay in Cambodia.  The short version of the story is that it ended up costing me 20, and for all intents and purposes, the trip was a complete waste of time.  The main part of the temple was completely inaccessible and had been cordoned off.  I was LIVID.  Openly livid.  Two hours round trip for 10 minutes.  When I went back to the tuk-tuk driver, who worked for the hotel, he told me it would be another 20 dollars to see another sight that was relatively nearby.  This was AFTER we agreed on 20 for basically four hours.  I told him to forget and take me back to Hanumanalaya.  Etienne’s advice from yesterday resounded in my head and I decided then and there to leave Siem Reap and go on to Phnom Penh.  I was feeling like there was a deal between one of the front desk people and this guy that I was on the losing end of.

So when I got back to Hanumanalaya, I checked on the particulars of checking out early.  I then headed into town to check on bus tickets.  It was around 6 to 8 dollars to travel the 6 hours to Phnom Penh by bus.  I had received an email from Dad about a day ago encouraging me to wander, so I decided it was meant to be.  So I will be checking out of Hanumanalaya on Thursday and heading to the capital.  I located a guesthouse for $11 a night (!!) and will be staying there three nights.  I will likely follow the Lonely Planet itinerary for two days in Phnom Penh, and then I get back into Siem Reap at 6:00 or so to catch my flight to Seoul on Sunday.  All around, I think it will be an interesting experience.

That is not to say that my entire day was a loss.  I went back to photograph Vishnu and Lakshmi in better light at Prasat Kravan, and finished my day at Angkor Wat.  I had a very peaceful circumambulation of the bas-relief galleries as the sun set, and bade farewell to Vishnu and the Buddha.  All in all, the experience of being in that place and this country was amazing.

My faith in Cambodia was renewed when I had a long conversation with one of the people who works the front desk at Hanumanalaya.  The conversation was about Cambodia’s growth as a nation, its national psyche, and what would be needed for it to emerge as a economic presence in Asia.  It was very nice to have this connection.  Our conversation was cut short by another guest arriving, but I think he renewed my faith in bringing people to this country to experience it.  It is truly an undiscovered gem.  I hope anyone reading this blog has taken all my experiences in the spirit of personal growth and discovery, and I hope that those who come with me on tour next year experience the same!

My night ended up being spent with my Canadian and Aussie compatriots, along with an Italian and a Swede.  Again, it was so much fun to be in that mix of cultures and ways of life, particularly when the Italian gent (who was around my age) explained that he works for 9 months and Italy pays him to do nothing for 3, so he just goes on holiday.  F#!@ me!  What a great deal that is!  And Sweden evidently is even better.  I made an Ikea and ligonberry reference that went over well.  All the travelers I’ve met have been totally laid back and fun—just swapping stories over drinks and enjoying the time away from whatever we consider ordinary.

Today—Wednesday in Cambodia—has been about doing absolutely nothing, except buying bus tickets, having amok for lunch (Cambodia’s traditional dish), and catching up on this blog.  The sun is starting to set as a I write this, on what has been a sunny and cloudy day alternately.  It will be my last sunset in Siem Reap as a guest of Hanumanalaya.  The adventure continues tomorrow with a ride to Phnom Penh.  I’ve gathered quite a bit of good luck in this country—I hope—and maybe I can ride it for the rest of my trip here.  Although I made the decision to leave Siem Reap out of frustration, I’m hoping it turns into an informative adventure to another part of the country, and gives me the insights to travel out into the world.

So, yesterday I had shopped at a booth of Kwan and her family.  I had promised them on Sunday that I would come to visit, and following sunrise and prayers, I biked the mini-route to circle around to Banteay Kdei.  They were there and waiting for me.  While I was not expecting to spend much money while in Cambodia, I figured that I would at least get some random gifts for family and others while I was here.  So while I bantered back and forth with them, I ended up purchasing some scarves, t-shirts, and the like.  As part of my negotiations, I got a water and a young coconut for later.  I was introduced to coconut water by a colleague at work, and I absolutely love it.  In the States, I purchase it in the can, but in Cambodia, you drink it right from the coconut.  They hack away at the top, insert a straw, and voila.  It’s filled with water, and there’s also electrolytes in it, making it nature’s Gatorade.  When all the fluid is gone, they can hack it open, providing access to the tasty flesh inside.  Too much of it makes my stomach a little raw, but it’s a wonderful way to rehydrate.

After my bargaining, I hopped on my bike to speed back to Hanumanalaya for breakfast.  Since I arrived late, I was concerned that breakfast would be a no go, but they accommodated me graciously.  Normally Patrick and I would talk over breakfast, but he was at bowling, so ended my meal, and headed back to my room to prep for my day.

I had my itinerary of three or four temples to hit, so I headed off first to Phnom Bakheng, the supposed sunset hotspot for Angkor Wat.  I now understand why I kept missing it.  There is an old staircase leading up to the temple that I could see from the street.  However, it is roped off as being inaccessible, so I consistently just ignored it.  I stopped just past it, and locked up my bike.  I made my first stop in the Angkor Wat toilet system, which are pretty swank-a step above rest stop, and free to people with Angkor passes.  It also said that foreigners would need to pay 2000 riel ($.50) and nationals paid 500 riel.  The only reason that I noticed that is because I don’t know how you can even get into Angkor Wat if you are a foreigner without buying a pass.

I started to head towards a set of structures directly to my left.  Baksei Chomrong (as I would later discover they were called) are a set of small temples that were originally dedicated to Hindu gods, but, as always, were subsequently closed off in three of the four directions.  They were relatively undecorated and unremarkable, so I just enjoyed walking through them and feeling their inner space.  I noticed a path running along side the trees, near the left side of the area (close to Phnom Bakheng), so I began to follow it.  After a few meters, the trees parted and revealed a set of stairs leading up.  It didn’t looked roped off, so I proceeded to climb up the hill.  A few meters and some slightly heavier breathing, I came to roped off portion, but discovered a tourist path.  I hopped on the tourist path and started to wind my way up the hill, meeting some descending tourists along the way.

As I rounded one of the bends, the structure of Phnom Bakheng came into view.  I felt an immediate rush of happiness that I had discovered it, and now understood why I had missed it all those times.  So, with a lighter step I walked over to the southern stairs.  At the base of the stairs I found a statue of a bull.  Assuming that this was a Shiva temple, the bull would be Nandi, his friend and vehicle (all Hindu gods have an animal vehicle or companion).  There were some incense set-up near him, so I light some incense and offered it to him as a blessing.  Nearby, two buddhist monks were chatting with a young woman.  It seemed slightly incongruous, in that the prayer area to Nandi was poorly maintained (the incense placing areas was packed with sticks), and the monks were laughing and joking.  I reminded myself that in Buddhism, every man is required to become a monk for a short period of time.  Perhaps they were just biding their time until their monkhood was over?

I began to scale Phnom Bakheng.  Like all temples intended to represent the climb of the sacred Mount Meru, it was quite a hike.  As I climbed, I noted all of the filled in towers (Buddhism again!), and started to get annoyed.  This annoyance would permeate my day, and began a trend that would permeate my experience at the temples.  I continued my climb to the top, and found myself with a beautiful unobstructed vista of trees to the north of the temple.  The blazing sun was starting irritate me (along with dehydration, probably), and so I sought the solace of a shady seat on the northern steps of the top tower.  Structurally, the number of towers and other elements added up to 108, a sacred number in Hinduism.  So, at the top of the mala, I sat and listened to the sounds of nature and watched the still scene of the forest.  The moment of repose quieted my mind and heart.

I headed down the temple, and found the tourist path out.  The walk was uneventful, except for a surprise encounter with a snake in which I scared him more than he scared me.  I watched him scurry off the path and into a tree.  Excitement over for the moment, I continued my walk down the path.  Sun, sweat, and lack of fluids lead me to accept an offer for a pineapple, during which two girls hovered attempting to push more on me.  Feeling incredibly irritable, I was polite but short in my insistence that I did not need anything.  I took my pineapple chunks, and headed back to my bike to head off to my next stop.

In order to get to Preah Neak Pean, I had to take the grand circuit route, so I biked past Bayon, Baphuon, and the Terraces, and out into the jungle.  I had brought my iPod headphones, so I was able to listen to music while I biked.  While I would have thought this against the point earlier in my trip, the music helped to make the ride go by and keep me from feeling overly agitated or frustrated as I got hotter and hotter.  I reached Preah Neak Pean, waved my pass at the guard, and walked down a tree lined path to the structure.  Preah Neak Pean was a sacred ablutions pool that featured four pools and a central structure.

When I arrived at the area, I noticed that the four pools were functionally drained.  I wasn’t quite sure why this was initially.  The central area still had water in it, and therefore was inaccessible, which was disappointing.  A strange statue of a horse with human legs sat in the middle of the water (referring to a story of how a boddhisattva rescued followers by transforming into a horse).  I wandered around the structure, taking pictures of the areas next to the pools.  I noticed the smell of incense coming from the area within the pools, so I decided to check it out.  Turns out that the drainage/feeding systems for the small pools also contained carvings.  The various spouts were in the shape of a lion, a naga, a human, and an elephant.  I was pleasantly surprised by the carving detail here, and took photos of each of the heads.  Trying to capture some of the photos was difficult, as the iPhone doesn’t like certain sun positions, and consistently darkens the photo.  Reconnaissance complete at Preah Neak Pean, I headed off to Pre Rup and Eastern Mebon.

By the time I arrived at Pre Rup, saddle sore, hot and tired, I was beginning to resent the temples.  After a certain point, there just isn’t anything crazy new about them.  Combined with afternoon sun and irritation from sweat and sunscreen, I was pretty much ready to call it quits.  Both Pre Rup and Mebon are amazingly similar, although Pre Rup was supposedly a cremation center for the royalty and Mebon was a temple.  The highlight at Mebon was its perfectly carved elephants (Jai Ganesh!), most of which were still very much intact.  I took some pictures of the elephants, and decided to go to Prasat Kravan, a small temple which supposedly had images of Vishnu and Lakshmi.

Prasat Kravan is a small, unassuming temple.  It would be easy to bike by it-like I did, a few times!-simply because it is fairly inconspicuous.  I turned off at the temple, and walked over to the 5 squat towers.  In the middle tower were carvings of Vishnu in three of his forms.  I smiled with delight, as the energy in the room was palpable.  One carving showed the Cosmic Vishnu, one as the dwarf Vamana, and one riding Garuda, his sacred eagle vehicle.  They were fantastic.  I could have stayed there and meditated for a bit, but there was little room, and the tourists were crowding in.  I left that room and headed to another small room where I found three carvings of Lakshmi (Om Shrim Hrim!).  I was delighted at the images, which were very much traditional and recognizable.  Uplifted by this little find, asked for her blessing and left the temple.

I had to return to Banteay Kdei to claim my afternoon coconut, and meet Kwan again, so I headed back.  On my bike back, they passed me on a moto, and I smiled and waved.  When I made it to Banteay Kdei, another girl that I had seen the previous day came up to me.  We talked for a bit, and I gave her a dollar for bracelet, as I had promised I would.  She gave me two instead of one, and we walked to meet and sit with Kwan.  The details of the conversation were small, but the moment was very nice.  Kwan and the girl from whom I bought the bracelet taught me some Cambodian as Kwan made me another bracelet.  I drank my coconut water and enjoyed this connection between people from far flung parts of the world.  After she finished my bracelet, we walked out of the temple area, and I suddenly found myself surrounded by children.  Kwan stole my bike, and when it was returned, another girl sat down on it saying I had to take her with me.  It was all in good fun, and it lifted my spirits and made me feel very grateful for these moments of intimacy with the people of Cambodia.  I received two bracelets and an ornament from them as gifts, which I am now wearing.

I headed back to Hanumalaya in the dark, which was not very worrisome, except at one point I think the lights of a moto illuminated a snake in the middle of the road.  I think I was protected by the all good luck I received from the children!  At Hanumanalaya, I showered and changed, and then headed into the market for dinner.  I decided that I would do some cheap eats, so I found Behind Bars, a cute little restaurant making pho and Khmer food.  I sat down to a large bowl of soup and Evian Water for $3.50.  The food was cooked in a little stall by the street, so I kept smiling at the woman to show my approval.

As I was awaiting my change, a man (Etienne) and woman (Lisa) walked by checking out the menu.  I started a conversation with them.  The woman was from Vancouver, so I mentioned Luluemon.  That sealed the deal.  After grabbing my change, I walked with them, showing them the area.  They had just arrived from Bangkok and were sharing a guest room together.  We checked out some of the sights, and they settled at Kama Sutra, and I joined them for a chai.  Much conversation ensued on a variety of topics.  I learned just how much other people travel-the infamous “holiday.”  While I could record the conversations (which went from politics to the ribald), it just struck me that this is exactly how travel should be: constant connections.  I ended up hanging with them for the rest of the night.  We meant up with an Aussie couple at Dead Fish Tower, and then we went to the Angkor What? bar for drinks.

When we arrived Angkor What?, I noticed the sign at the bar that said, “This is not a Tourist Information Center – So Shut Up and Drink.”  Laughing, I considered a drink, and settled on Sol beer (which Etienne had ordered).  The bar was packed with ex-pats and the accents were a bewildering mix.  The place was the classic definition of raucous, and it was great.  We stood and sat and chatted.  Etienne was bewildered by my lack of interest in leaving Siem Reap, and said I should at least head to Phnom Penh.  I wasn’t so sure-I don’t lean towards the absolutely adventurous, unless others suggest or initiate it.  Eventually (around midnight!) we separated, and I biked back to Hanumanalaya.  I found the gate closed, but luckily, someone was there to let me in.  Tired, but happy, I ended up spending an hour talking to John and Loren back at home.  Assured that I had a job when I got back, I feel asleep at 1:30 AM for my last day of Angkor temples.

I am not very conversant with Buddhist philosophy on social issues like poverty.  However, it appears that one key component of Buddhism is giving to those less fortunate.  In almost all places where there is a Buddha there is also an offering bowl.  At the statue of Vishnu (not a Buddha!), there is a plexiglass box for people to place money into.  At one of the temples I visited where I was accosted (Preah Khan) at the end of the tour, the tour guide tried to tell me by paying him it would be “good luck for you.”

Hmmmm…

Unfortunately, my belief structure doesn’t really include this kind of thought process.  While I am increasingly-thanks to the beautiful and loving Patrick-attuned to service and to charity, even more so then before, I don’t get the idea that I get luckier by giving my money away.  Let me restate that-I don’t get luckier by being guilted into giving my money away.  In fact, it seems like spiritual ransoming when people do that.  Consequently, I bristle at the  concept when it’s presented to me.  And, up to this point, I have found my lack of putting money into said plexiglass box-I was planning on doing it on my last day at Angkor-has not caused any problems.

It appears, though, that the Buddha is desperate on Sundays.

I awoke this morning at my usual hour of 4:15, showered, dressed, and headed out on my bike to Angkor Wat to pray.  After 108 “Shri Rama”s, I moved over to a statue that I had not previously noticed.  I heard a tour guide say that it was Lakshmi, Vishnu’s consort, and my beloved Goddess.  Even if he was wrong, if the Buddhists could turn Vishnu into Buddha, then a Vedist could turn a Buddha into Lakshmi. (I think this is a little known aspect of the first law of thermodynamics: gods are neither created nor destroyed, they are only transformed.)  So I sat down to do 108 Lakshmi chants and the Astakam Stotram.  While I was doing this, I detected through my closed eyes that someone had lit a candle, and so I expected to find my gentle old man preparing the space around Vishnu.  Instead, when I opened my eyes, a young gentleman was there.  He proceeded to show me how to pray to the Buddha (IT’S NOT BUDDHA!!!), and then pointed out a ersatz donation plate.  He then said those dreaded words: “good luck for you.”

Rather than ruining my deep sense of calm by accessing my dislike of this phrase, I left two dollars and headed off to the Buddha.  I only spent a moment with the Buddha because I wanted to be off to Preah Khan.  I had seen it with an unwanted sidekick previously, so I wanted to be with the temple without personal interference.  So I quickly hopped on my bike and speed off to Preah Khan.  On the way out-and I am so sorry that I didn’t take a picture-I saw the biggest pig I have EVER seen.  It was literally the size of a cow.  I laughed and told myself that if I saw it on my way back I would take a picture (I didn’t).  Through Angkor Thom and out on the trail of the Great Circuit I went, passing under and out the northern gates of Angkor Thom, where the “churning the sea of milk” balustrade was much the worse for wear. (The asuras now outnumbered the devas, which would have very much changed the story).  An uneventful ride led me to the Preah Kahn, the Sacred Sword temple.

After showing my pass to the guards, I headed down the sandy path to the Western entrance.  From here, I proceeded into the main temple grounds.  In the rising morning sun, the temple was incredibly peaceful.  The only sound were the birds, insects, and my booted feet stepped over the stones.  Without my guide, I was free to explore as I would like.  In one of my jyotish readings, Katyayani Poole told me that part of my chart indicated a preference for “wandering the jungle chanting mantras.”  There’s a good deal of truth in that.  If no one had ever shown up there, I could have spent a very comfortable and pleasurable day exploring each and every stone and drawing of the temple.  In fact, as I was walking, I discovered a cast-off stone structure that looked like a statue of some divine figure that had once been set into a wall.  To give you a modern image-remember in Star Wars Episode 6 when Han Solo was frozen in carbonite?  He was mounted into a wall in Jabba’s palace.  That is what this piece looked like.  I thought it amazing for this piece of sacred art to just be sitting there, waiting for someone to catalogue it, rebuild it, something.

I took a fair amount of pictures at Preah Khan.  Eventually, my solitary reverie among forest and stone, by the arrival of the Buddhist caretakers, and a man in a police hat who started to tell me about the room in which we were in.  I politely cut him short, knowing if I let him continue, I would become agitated, and I didn’t want that to happen.  I walked away towards the north gate of the temple. At this gate, I circle around to the impressive East gate, to note how people were intended to see the temple.  From here, I walked back through the temple, and located an image of Vishnu reclining on Ananta, attended by Lakshmi.  After honoring them, I walked back to the front of the temple, and headed back to my bicycle.  It was close to 8:15, so I decided to head back to Hanumanalaya for breakfast.

On my way back, I stopped at the terraces to see if I could find the leper king statue, not yet knowing that I had found it (see previous post).  Bemused at where this standings statue might be, and with the morning sun starting to irritate my pitta nature, I biked back to Hanumanalaya.  When I arrived, I checked my laptop for messages, and found one from Patrick saying that everyone at Burning Lotus wanted to say hello.  I audio connected to him at Burning Lotus, and then we talked for a bit after I was done with breakfast and he was back at home.

Around 10:30 or so, I headed out again, determined to see the “Tomb Raider” temple, Ta Prohm.  On my way out, I stopped at two small temples, Chau Say Tevoda and Thommanon.  One of the few things that I find frustrating with the Buddhist retrofit of previously Hindu temples is that they seal in three of the four doors.  In Hindu temples, the statues of the Gods are put in rooms that are opened to all four directions.  In Buddhism, only the door leading to the Buddha is left open.  In the pictures from temples, you can see these fill in walls, usually with four blocks on them.  Because of my Vedic bent, I wish they had left them open.

While I was at Chau Say Tevoda, I was chased down by a woman carrying three sticks of incense.  Evidently, the Buddha was still hard up for American dollars, and had come to find me in the form of this slight woman.  She handed me the incense and led me to the Buddha.  I waved the incense as she asked, and to forestall any language barrier issues, I left some money on the donation plate.  After these two startling incidents of forceful karmic robbery, I decided to head to Ta Prohm, where I suspected that Buddha would find me again.

He did not but I was pestered by a young girl selling booking on Angkor Wat and Pol Pot while I drank fresh coconut water.  After my refreshment, I walked through Ta Prohm.  It was indeed the Tomb Raider temple, and Ta Prohm, unlike the other temples, was being consumed by the forest.  This fact gave it a kind of dreamlike quality. I would have loved to see it first thing in the morning, completely devoid of other people.  It is completely and totally ruinous, with large piles of rubble within the temple making it impossible to see certain rooms.  I scrambled with glee over the stones, tempting fate that I would be caught by some overly concerned representative of Apsara.  I wasn’t going to find some hidden treasure like Angelina Jolie, but it awoke my sense of adventure (and naughtiness).  I found the Tomb Raider tree, and braved remonstrance by crossing the rope and taking an up close picture (don’t tell!).

I continued to wander around Ta Prohm for a some time, and then decided to return to Banteay Kdei to see Kwan as I promised.  She saw me and smiled.  I bought a few items as gifts for family and friends back home, and then sat a had more coconut water and meat.  There were about 5 other Cambodians there, and I listened to them talk.  I think some things were said about me, which of course I did not understand.  The one thing this experience taught me was to not leave a person out of a conversation.  But, on the other hand, it was pleasant just to sit and listen to them banter while I ate my coconut.  After some time, I bade them farewell, promising to come back tomorrow (said without a smile).

I biked back to Hanumanalaya, and finished my blog of the events for yesterday.  I then showered, and headed into town for a nice dinner at the Blue Pumpkin, ending with an ice cream sundae (yum!).  Although I intended to walk around the market, I decided to head back to the hotel, and write this blog entry.  I started the many photos uploading to Facebook, and turned on Yungchen Lhamo’s album Ama to accompany me as I write.  I am not feeling as fatigued as I did yesterday, perhaps because I did not work as hard today as I did yesterday!

The plan for tomorrow is to tackle Phnom Bakheng, Prasat Kravan, Preah Neak Pean, and Eastern Mebon.  My Angkor pass expires on Tuesday, so I preparing to wind down my temple viewing.  What an amazing experience it has been!

I didn’t quite experience that type of temple fatigue today.  However, I did experience physical fatigue brought on my a whole lot of sweating and climbing.  Today’s adventures led to me to explore Bayon, Baphuon, and the surrounding areas.  I realized in my earlier posts that I had confused Bayon and Baphuon.  Bayon is the kingdom of many faces.  Baphuon is practically speaking unseeable, since it has been under restoration work for over 10 years.  Consequently, wherever I mention Baphuon, strike it and replace with Bayon.

The day began as usual — arising at 4:30 AM and heading to Angkor Wat for prayers at the statue of Vishnu and praise to the Buddha.  I learned later in the day that the statue of Vishnu to which I was directing my mantras once sat in the main chamber at the center of Angkor Wat.  Ancient pilgrims would have transversed space and time through the sacred geometry of Angkor to arrive at the great preserver of the universe.  After my prayers, during which time the caretakers of the areas just arrived, I headed out to the Buddha.  The sun was rising, but the full moon was still in the sky, inspiring a beautiful dichotomy of the Western moon and the Eastern Sun — a true moment of hatha yoga!  After a brief moment of silence at the Buddha, I headed off to Bayon.

I had visited Bayon the previous day, but I have discovered that it is almost essential to visit key spots before the tourist crush.  90% of people spend their temple hopping morning at Angkor Wat for the dramatic sunrise. (I’ve actually never watched the sunrise-I’ve been praying.  They’re temples, people!)  So I had Bayon to myself for a good deal of time, which was amazing.  Bayon’s layout feels so much more compact, compared to Angkor, with the second level feeling very much smashed in between the first and the third.  When you climb to the third, however, there is the spacious of the sky and faces everywhere.  According to Lonely Planet, they are the faces of the Boddhisattva Avalokiteshvara made to look very close to the face of the royal patron, Jayavarman VII.  When I saw them, I thought they were the faces of asuras and devas, which I suppose is somewhat close.

I wandered around the beautiful third level, tempted to climb out to the faces that were near the edge of the third floor.  However, both my fear of being caught and my respect for the structure prevented me.  As people began to arrive, I descended and walked the first floor, which was filled with long reliefs depicting scenes from the king’s life.  I simply love scrambling through these temples to get closer to the temple carvings and reliefs.  So I explored and took pictures of these amazing images.  I ended my second visit of Bayon by climbing to the top of the library, and walking around the edge of it.  The climb up was easier than the climb down, so I carefully made my way down the short, narrow flight of steps and then proceed over to Baphuon.

Baphuon looks impressive from a distance, but like some of the Angkor temples, it is completely inaccessible. Evidently, they have been working on it for some time, and my hope is that it is done before I die, because it looks incredible.  I circumambulated the building, but there was little to see.  An promised view of a Buddha failed to materialize, so I left the complex Buddha-less.  I will say that entry bridge is very scenic though.

I cut through the all of Baphuon and found myself in a small commerce area, which I quickly moved through to prevent the inevitable sales pitches.  This was Phimeanakas, the Celestial Palace.  Not so celestial anymore, but a wonderfully thrilling climb up a step set of stairs to reach the top.  I was immediately accosted by a young man who insisted on giving me a tour punctuated with anecdotes that I really didn’t need to pay for.  While I understand the intention behind it, and I am compassionate towards the general poverty, I am here to visit these temples because they are temples.  Since it is a spiritual pilgrimage for me, and I want to experience the temples in peace, the constant nagging for tours or being absconded by a somewhat informed local becomes aggravating.  I escaped by paying him a dollar, to which he commented that he knew I had another dollar.  Since throwing him off the top of the building would probably spark an international incident, I explained that the dollar was for water, and then left.  I descended Phimeanakas sans pictures and with a touch of annoyance.

From there, I headed to the terraces that are in the area.  These are the Terrace of Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King.  The terrace of the elephants was obvious (look for the terrace with all the elephant carvings), but the terrace of the leper king threw me for a loop.  I blame Lonely Planet which used the term “stands” in its description of the statue.  I in fact saw and photographed the leper king, which was a reproduction of the original (he looked way too fresh to be original).  There were several small temples in the area that I clambered around.  I didn’t check for any of their names, because they are mostly ruins, with little in the way of carvings or architectural notes.

I decided from here to follow the “Little Route,” which completed a smaller tour of the temples than the Grand Route.  The little route, including the distance already covered from Angkor Wat was around 17km.  I headed off on my journey, feeling a little bit of road fatigue from all the biking, but excited to see what the little route contained.

After a few kilometers of biking, I came to Ta Keo.  My only comments on this is that it is hell to climb, but you get to talk with God at the top.  It’s actually a fairly boring temple architecturally, but the climb is killer, and the view spectacular.  I was climbing up, I decided to do the Sri Rama mantra both to cleanse my karma and ensure a positive rebirth should I fall during the climb.  Stairs like these are marked with signs that say “Climb At Your Own Risk.”  They do mean it.  I was surprised that they hadn’t put in a stairway, but perhaps there was one at another part of the temple.

Having braved the climb to the summit of Ta Keo, I headed down and back on the road.  In a short while, I found myself at a place I recognized.  I was a little surprised, expecting the junction of the Grand Route and the Little Route to be farther along.  Nevertheless, I turned right and found myself passing by Bantey Kdei, an old Buddhist school/ashram.  I decided to dismount and head in.  I was assaulted by the usual group of young girls looking to sell me something.  I fended them off and headed into the structure.  The area felt surprisingly peaceful, as if the energy of the ancient school was still there.  I wandered amidst the stone, enjoying the peace and quiet.

As I exited, I was again attacked by the young girls.  For some reason, I decided to banter, and was rewarded by the quick wit of a young girl named Kwan.  I told her I would come back tomorrow, and she said that I was lying.  I asked her how she knew (I was), and she said then when I smiled and said it, it was a lie.  Impressed with this analysis, I repeated the fact that I would come back with a straight face.  She laughed.  By this time, we were joined by a girl selling books.  She joined in the fun.  We bantered back and forth for a bit, and I told them that I was going but I would come back.  The girl selling books asked me to pinkie promise.  I was entirely amused and surprised by this gesture, so I pinkie promised and left Bantey Kdei.

From Bantey Kdei, I decided to headed back to Angkor Wat to meditate at the statue of Vishnu.  As I entered the sanctuary, I decided to sit in the window sill, since hordes of tourists were wandering through.  From my time sitting there and watching, I can make the follow observations.  First of all, white people think of Vishnu as a photo op.  One gentleman in particular stood along side the statue as if Vishnu were some Cambodian worker they grabbed to provide proof that they were indeed in Cambodia.  The French-toujours les Français!-took pictures of Him as if he were Jerry Lewis.  On the other hand, many of the Asians showed him deep respect and reverence as if he were the Buddha.  This, of course, impressed me-it’s a temple, people!-but it also amused me because Vishnu is not Buddha, and vice versa.  Of course, some believe that the Buddha was the last incarnation of Vishnu, but I don’t think any of those people are actually Buddhist.  I watched their reverence with respect, noticing the different actions they took.

I took a few moments to meditate there in padmasana.  The old gentlemen who was there previously was there with me, and we both sat quietly.  I got up from my meditation, lit incense to Vishnu, and placed it in the offering bowl.  I then went and bowed before the old man to show my respect.  He grasped my hands and spoke to me in Cambodian, which I did not understand, but I hope that they were positive.  From here, I left Angkor Wat to return to Hanumanalaya.  Once again, I enjoyed a soothing dip in the pool, with the blessing of water flowing from Ganesha’s trunk.

I decided to shower and head into town for dinner at Soup Dragon.  On this trip I finally figured out how the streets worked, and avoided a useless circling of the main area.  Feeling pleased with myself, I settled into a meal of spring rolls and Khmer soup.  Way too much food with a  1.5L mineral water for $8.50.  Fabulous!  Stuffed, I wandered the streets for a moment, and located the main gay bar, Linga Bar, in the alley.  For those who don’t know, the linga are the phallic statues found in Hindu temples.  They symbolize fertility, and represent Shiva.  I appreciated their subtlety, since Hard Phallic Object Bar might have been a little over the top.  In passing by Linga Bar I also located the other two gays vacationing in Siem Reap.  Feeling that three of us together might have caused a spontaneous explosion of musical numbers, I decided to grab my bike and head back to Hanumanalaya.

Tired from my day, I crashed, failing to even get past the first page of “The Spiritual Brain,” my newest reading material.