9: From Don Mueang Airport, Bangkok, Thailand

Dear friends,

There is another kind of travel; the kind of travel that refuses any attempt at containment. It cannot be purchased and gawked at, like the exotic tourism of my last missive, nor understood and thus controlled, like the alternative I proposed. This kind of travel is predicated on complete and utter surrender. It invites us to remain open to the world as we watch it unfold and carry us along. It demands open minds and open hearts, and hopes for open hearths and open arms. It relinquishes plans and guidebooks, TripAdvisor and Google Maps, in favor of discovery and mystery. 

I suck at this kind of traveling.

Sure, I can do it for an afternoon, wandering around an unknown town and absorbing impressions. But for days? Or weeks? I like plans, and maps, and having wifi, and knowing where to go and what to eat and what to say. It gives me comfort to know I can easily get back to my hostel (booked online) using an Uber, or maybe Google translate, an address card, and a taxi. Overwhelmed with the sights and sounds of Bangkok or Germany, I gladly take a break to watch a Hollywood blockbuster in English and then go have the best cure for my culture shock: a veggie burger, fries, and a beer. I like safety nets and fallback strategies and control.

So, now that my family has returned to Brazil (my brother starts his 5th year of medical school on Monday, and the rest of the fam will go chill at a beach closer to home and more familiar than Thailand), I’m jumping off the grid, hoping a different kind of net will appear. Kind of. Maybe.

I’m heading to Myanmar, which was closed to tourists until a few years ago, where only 35% of the country has electricity (let alone LTE and wifi), where the military retains meaningful control of the democratic government (the first contested elections were held in 2015). Myanmar has over 100 ethic groups and a ghastly record of human rights violations. It also has a recently-opened economy (Coca-Cola opened a bottling plant there in 2014), a booming tourism industry (double-digit growth for several years), and the promise of becoming a great connector between India and China. As you can see, I’ve done some research and learned some facts and the names of the big tourist destinations (Yangon, Began, Mandalay, Inle Lake. For extra fun, consider Hsipaw, and the beaches in the Andaman Sea). But I’m hoping that Myanmar is a good place to lose myself. And, in doing so, to find something else. 

I’ve been told that what I’m looking for is within me, so I’ll start by looking there. Until approximately January 20th, I’ll be meditating in a Buddhist monastery. After that, all I know is that I have a ticket back to Thailand on February 15th, and a flight to Israel (via Moscow) on the 16th.

I’ll be in touch. In the meantime, an invitation from Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost:  “Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.”

With love,

Rafa