The Thamel Fire, or "You're Good at Not Dying"

 A mainstay and place of refuge for over 40 years, gone. 

Last night I was less than 100 metres from a massive explosion in Thamel, the main tourist district in Kathmandu. It triggered a fire that raged all night, and I (barely) slept to the sounds of sirens singing in the streets.

Danger, like, real life actual danger, is a strange thing. It's a slow, confusing state during which your brain has to process all of the new information it is receiving, and then it has to figure out which of the appropriate steps it has to take to make you not die.

I had a conversation with my friend Loren yesterday. He is about to embark on a long traveling journey (and we are going to meet in Bangkok), and the advice I gave him was basically, "if you're not scared, you are doing something wrong. You need to be scared. It's how your lizard brain will make sure you won't die."

And when you boil it all down, that is all ANY of us are any good at: not dying. If you are here and reading this blog in your pajamas, eatin' cheetohs (or whatever snack you enjoy) thinking about rent and TV shows and the price of oil, well: good for you. You are EXCELLENT at the one thing you need to be good at doing: not dying. That can change at any minute, but right now you are doing a great job. Kudos.

Sometimes we pass our time not dying in a way that feels really calm and mundane. We live our lives and pay our bills and ride the bus and tuck our children into their beds and we think that we are safe. But really, we don't even realize that we are walking through a minefield of constant terror and chances for death.

Your heart can literally explode in your chest. Your  house can catch on fire and you can be burnt to death in the time that it takes for you to wake up and realize what is going on. A driver can have one too many Tom Collins and drive straight into you as you cross the street. You are never "safe," my friends. Never. Safe is not a thing.

I don't mean to sound all Fox News and make you worry about scary foreign men bursting into your apartment and raping your pets ("A New Terrier Terror Strikes the Nation!!!"), but come on. We lull ourselves into complacency that every single moment we are alive is not scary as shit. IT IS. And guess what - you are good at navigating the fear. You have to be.

People say, "Jess, aren't you scared to travel the world alone?" The answer is YES. Of course I fucking am. I'm not an idiot - bad stuff happens here in Nepal, but it can also happen to you while you are sitting on your couch in Edmonton or Topeka. Your ceiling could cave in or a swarm of bees could attack you or you have stroke - and we all know that but we just pretend otherwise. Like my mum always says, "You are going to die somewhere, so it might as well be somewhere fucking interesting."

 

On the left - messages from Ben, at the time (he thought I was at home). 

On the right, message from Matt today.

Last night I was sitting in a pub in Thamel with Matthew Rose and Dan Pritchard, participating in a quiz (like I do every week) when a huge explosion rocked the bar. At first we thought it was a bomb, and then someone said it was just a single tank of cooking propane bursting and so we nearly continued the quiz. It wasn't until the screams and shouts from the street alerted us that something a lot bigger had happened.

Twelve gas tanks (like these ones) exploded at Faces nightclub and the entire centre of Thamel was on fire, and the bar in which I was sitting was less than 100 metres away from where it started. But it was strange - it was like we didn't know exactly how to gauge the danger, like we didn't realize it was a huge problem. I continued texting the boy, even. Time slowed down, and it was only when we stepped outside to see a wall of flames approaching did we realize that it was indeed time to leave, and that is when our lizard brains kicked in and made us not die. We went the other direction.

That's all you have to do. Don't die. And when you do - because you will - and it is in an exotic locale, it's no more shocking than if you were in your bed, surrounded by fat grandchildren. It's death. It is always a possibility. Pretending that it isn't is unhealthy and dishonest. Pretending that it isn't means that you sleepwalk through life and never appreciate how wonderful and treacherous it really is. Pretending that it isn't means that when death does come - and it will - you'll be so unprepared that you'll try to ignore even the very experience of dying. It's one of the most important things that will ever happen to you, so what a spectacular waste.

Today Thamel is in ruins. There are only 7 firetrucks in the entire Kathmandu valley and they all responded, but the fire blazed through the night. One of the most iconic bookstores in Asia, Pilgrims, is gone. Countless people lost their livelihoods, thankfully it seems that no one lost their lives. But life is fleeting, and life is fragile. 

I'm going to finish this up with a direct quote from something I wrote to Loren yesterday:
"You made this choice to travel, this amazing choice that like, a eeeenth of the population makes and you know why they don't make it? BECAUSE IT IS TERRIFYING. And that is so, so fucking beautiful."

Take care. Don't die. You're already good at that.

xoxoVD/Jessica O'Neill

***Note - this blog was just republished at one of my FAVOURITE sites, The Order of the Good Death. Check it out there as well. :)

Galled in Galle

So beautiful. Makes me want to go crazy in my attic room, like a Jane Austen character.

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I am lying in my fan-cooled room in an historic mansion near the Southeast wall of the Galle Fort, sticky and slightly pink like a Barbie left in the sun. It’s hot here. The kind of dizzying, sickly heat that makes you sway on your feet when you least expect it. The kind of weather that necessitates that you stay indoors between 1 and 4 in the afternoon – not that I ever complain about that. A typical Violet Dear travel day looks like this:

7/8am – wake up and read in bed
9am – breakfast, yo

10am – some kind of rewarding cultural activity
1pm – lunchies (cheap and local or streetfood)

2pm – FUCK ALL (which includes internetting and writing)
4pm – meditation…. (or nap) 

6pm – beer and sunset

7pm – dinner

9pm – writing or reading and music in bed

11pm – sleep

Right now it is my favourite part of the day. The “fuck all” part – a part that I NEVER seem to action when I am at home in Vancouver. I am a serial do-er of things, and I simply don’t relax often enough unless I am schlepping my way through a tropical country. Backpacking is actually pretty hard work, and so I cut myself a lot of slack when I want to lie on my bed under a whirling fan (or on a hammock, or on a beach etc), listen to Amy Winehouse and write.

But I’m angsty. See, I set out today to write a glowing piece about how much I love Galle Fort – how the history and living culture blend to create a place quite unlike any I have ever been, (my impression helped in part by the tours and books by Juliet Coombe) but then I got scammed. A shitty opportunistic scam that I should have known better about – that I should have seen coming a mile away.

Beautiful local rice and curry - but the fish wasn't the only catch...

Not too badly, but just enough that my ego was wounded and my identity as a “good traveler” was called into question. In my desperation to escape high priced, bland tourist food I dragged Mum and Tim to a locals-only rice’n’curry joint pointed out on one of our walking tours, excited for authentic spicy food at a fraction of the price found along Leyn Baan or Pedlar Street.

We sat down in the divey local joint, much to the curiousity of the local men, and were served huge portions of delicious food. The owner (or owner’s helper, or friend?) spoke good English, he was charming, and brought us fancy lime infused hot water with which to wash our hands (you eat with your hands and no utensils in Sri Lanka) and an entire pineapple cut into big juicy chunks. 

Mumsy eating with her hands for the first time

My mum looked at me and earnestly thanked me. “Dear, I would never walk into a dirty little hole in the wall like this if it weren’t for you. Thank you – you really broaden my horizons.” My chest puffed out and I felt so experienced and intrepid as I replied, “oh, yeah, well you just have to do this sort of thing, otherwise you’re just a tourist and not a traveler.” I never once suspected anything was awry, and that is probably why my ego took such a blow when the cost was announced.

Juliet had told us that the meal would cost about 150LKR a head (1.25 US). Factoring in the Pepsis and pineapple, I assumed that the total cost would be 700LKR. When we prepared to pay, the diminutive fellow who had been serving us announced that the bill was 3000 LKR (26 US)– four times what I had estimated and nearly the cost of a posh European meal at a nearby boutique hotel.

Now, I know exactly what happened. This gentleman knew we could afford the price, and he was sick and tired of seeing fancy establishments selling Lavazza espresso rake in all the dough. We walked in, sat down and ordered rice and curry of the day – without asking the price. We weren’t served the big sloppy, quick’n’dirty plates that the local men were given, instead we were given more of a presentation on platters and with shared bowls.

I tried – in vain – to argue politely and tell him that we had been told a much different price. He just used his strange looping English to run in circles and insist that the meal should be 3000LKR. I finally gave up and handed over the currency, the delicious taste in my mouth sullied by disappointment and the weird shame one feels when they have been cheated and they know it and the cheater knows you know it. Like a little bitch or a squealing little piggy or worse – a mark.

The happiness and pride that I had felt about being able to show my mum something unique and off the beaten track was dashed, and I felt hot anger rising in my already sticky hot cheeks. Thankfully, according to my scheduled relaxation time, the last few hours have been designated for “Fuck All” so I have had a chance to cool down.

I realized that I spent nearly half the cost of my fraudulent lunch on a fancy coffee today – so it wasn’t the actual cost that made me have such a vehement reaction, it was the feeling of being made a patsy. Somehow the crazy price we were charged took away from my blissful feeling of “traveler-dom” – the little dirty local joint doesn’t seem so authentic in my memory. #firstworldproblems

And therein lies one of the ethical problems of traveling in the developing world. As travelers we’re all scrambling to have these “authentic” experiences, but we get irked if the person giving them to us is entrepreneurial enough to want to earn enough money to one day travel the world himself – or at the very least, buy his family the necessities they need to like, live and shit. Sigh. Ethics. Bah.

LESSON 1 – No matter how experienced of a traveler you are, you need to remember that you can still get scammed, and it will be humbling and your ego will not like it.

LESSON 2 – ALWAYS ASK HOW MUCH A THING IS BEFORE YOU CONSUME THAT THING.

That’s all I got today. I promise I will write much more lovely things about Galle tomorrow.

One Love, VD

The what, the real, the check (the wank).

Some days, like today, I want to take a deep breath and pause and have time stop for a few minutes. Or days. Or maybe a year.

I leave for Nepal in 2 weeks, and I am fully aware that my melodramatic panic is:
 a) a story I'm making up in my own head
 and
 b) an incredibly self indulgent wank
 but that doesn't stop me from laying in bed and listening to Joy Division, now does it?

Some of the panic is in earnest - I still do have a to-do list that is quite daunting (grad school applications, anyone?) but for the most part things are under control. I gave up my apartment last month, I have the required documents and shots and emergency malaria meds.... but something feels unhinged. And when I say something, I mean me.

In my rush to graduate and then secure the perfect position in Nepal and then deal with a series of dramas (ok, and real dramas too) I may have forgotten to do the most important part of travel - the reality check.

The reality check that in 2 weeks I leave Canada for the developing world.

The reality check that in 2 weeks I will once again see dying dogs on the side of the road.

The reality check that in 2 weeks I will once again see dying children on the side of the road.

The reality check that I'm doing this alone for the first time and I'm scared.

That said, I am fine. And I will be fine. It's just that it's all starting to sink in. These plans that I made in June - what was then a thinly veiled excuse to get away from a particularly toxic relationship - are becoming a reality. And realities are pricks. They need checks - those fuckers will run roughshod over you if left unfettered.

So I am trying to feel it, to imagine it and to let it sink in. 2 weeks. Breathe. 2 weeks. Breathe.

Now if only Ian Curtis could've taken that same advice....