OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: This week I’m going to bestow you with a controversial travel tip that will allow you to eat better while spending less, however it might also potentially kill you, maybe sort of a little.

Why would I encourage you, my beloved reader, to do something that might kill you? How could I be so horrendously negligent?

I don’t know, but if I were a levelheaded person with common sense, you probably wouldn’t find me very entertaining.

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After the sixteenth bowl of Japanese miso ramen soup, something snaps in the wiring of your brain and henceforth your behavior becomes erratic and unpredictable. For budget backpackers in Japan, this dreadful fate is as inalienable as it is inescapable; restaurants meals are prohibitively expensive and so there is practically nothing else to eat.

When the mama-san handed me my twentieth miso ramen of the week, I nearly shot up in my chair and let out a blood-curdling scream. I fantasized slamming my face into the searing broth, until I drowned in its mundaneness or the skin of my face boiled off, in which case I’d happily eat that for breakfast with soy sauce instead.

But then I recalled a travel tip I’d been told by a friend years ago, when I was but a wee backpacker.

At 27 years old, my friend Rachel had already explored most of the globe. Instead of flaunting wealth, she earned her mileage by becoming a shrewd and thrifty traveler, cultivating a repertoire of creative money-saving tricks. I remembered her telling me a strategy for expensive destinations like Japan or Europe, where a single lunch bill might set you back three or four days worth of budget in India. We’ll refer to this strategy as “The Tupperware Gamble.”

It’s a simple concept, requiring no more than a small Tupperware box stashed into your daypack.

How it works is that, instead of pondering suicide over cheap bowls of miso ramen, you’re able to order more expensive, substantial, and decadent meals, eat half of them for lunch, and then save the other half for dinner in the Tupperware. These two half-meals are supplemented by cheap and rampant snacking (fruit, street food, etc.). It works wonderfully; you spend less and feel like you’re eating better.

The only downside is that it could potentially kill you…

If you try to run a Google search for “how long can food be left unrefrigerated,” brace yourself for an Internet avalanche of fear. You’ll come across sensational terms like “The Danger Zone” (the range between 41-135°F wherein bacteria flourishes) or “The Four Hour Golden Rule,” which warns that at the stroke of the fourth hour, the pumpkin pie sitting on your counter will transform into a festering mound of rat poison and botulism.

It’s an undeniable fact that food left at room temperature is susceptible to dangerous bacteria (especially in warmer climates). Health bloggers love bringing up the story of “the kid in Japan who died after eating day-old rice.”

But this is clearly an isolated instance. How many people in Japan do you think ate day-old rice on that same day without issue? How many people have eaten day-old rice since? And why would they keep citing that same story if this isn’t an extremely rare occurrence?

Again, it’s true that eating unrefrigerated food from a tupperware carries risk, but it might also be true that we live in a big, paranoid, bed-wetting circle jerk of pussy-fisted wussies. The Four Hour FDA rule is a very conservative number by any stretch of the imagination, with an additional safety margin added for precaution. If you’ve ever enjoyed street food in Asia, a pre-packed lunch from the grocery store, or anything from a Subway franchise: congratulations! You’ve probably eaten food that’s been left out for 8+ hours and you’ve lived to tell the tale.

However, health bloggers and FDA officials are practically shitting their pants over the thought of cold pizza.  I suspect they’re being overly cautious, or perhaps every contributing writer to every single food and lifestyle website has hardcore AIDS or an autoimmune issue.

My personal threshold for the Tupperware Gamble is fifteen hours, though this is shortened for some foods (especially meat, fish, and dairy) and stretched for others. If I only learned one thing in college it’s that pizza never goes bad, ever. On the contrary, it’s like wine—it gets better and better the longer it’s been peeking at you from the counter. If you want to know if pizza has gone bad, you just hit it against the counter and see if it shatters into tiny pizza fractals. Otherwise, it’s fair breakfast. I don’t know what the microbial pathogens are doing to my body, but it sure is tasty.

But anywho. You probably won’t die from eating cold food out of a Tupperware.  Just use your best judgment. Or you can trust mine. I am a doctor.

For more indispensible advice, head on over to the Backpackology 101 page, or hit the Travel Advice tab in the menu above.

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For another solid budgeting tool, feast your eyes on my extra fancy “Budgetometer“

For a foodie’s guide to eating in India on the cheap, check out “Inhaling India (A Diarrhea Adventure): A Foodie’s Guide to India on a Budget“

To learn why traveling on a shoestring is often more rewarding and enriching than traveling with cushy budget, read “The Backpacker’s Manifesto“

The purpose of my self-destructive side trip to Chongqing was to eat at 夜富火锅, home of the spiciest hotpot on the planet (chunks of meat doused in a scalding broth of Sichuan chili and flower peppers, so spicy it’ll have you hallucinating). In my vast idiocy, I thought that I could handle it.

Chongqing is one of the three culinary centers of Sichuanese “Lava Cuisine,” the fieriest cooking style of the world kitchen. The chefs of Sichuan are famous for manipulating the bold flavors of chili, peanut, ginger, chili, sesame, chili, chili, chili, garlic, chili, and the Sichuan flower pepper—a relative of the chili that’s so mouth-numbing that it transcends the word ‘spicy,’ so that the Chinese had to invent a whole new word to describe the sensation: 麻辣, or mala. It is so aggressive that I started coughing upon stepping into the hotpot restaurant.

Yefu Huoguo (夜富火锅) was a no-nonsense joint, filled with sweaty, red-faced Sichuanese men hunkered over their hotpots, tears streaming down their faces and wincing at each bite, as if they were eating sadness itself.

I pulled up a seat and selected my hotpot.

Fifteen minutes later, I was stumbling back out the door, violently dizzy, hands numb and shaking, laughing hysterically to myself. The tables around me also had a wholesome chuckle.

I bought extra toilet paper on the way home, before trudging into the bathroom and staring down the toilet in fear. According to Sichuanese tradition this was a healthy and wonderful experience, as the chili-heat was keeping my insides dry from the nasty, humid climate. This would have been reassuring had I lived in make-believe world. But instead, it felt like the tiniest fart might singe off my ass hairs. To make matters worse, I’d been told by countless other travelers that extremely spicy food is bad for you—that it damages your stomach and tongue and robs you of your sense of taste.

I spent the night clutching the toilet seat like a life raft, and the next morning I set out on a mission to discern the fiction from the fact. So now, after nearly a month of modest research and experimentation, I’ve compiled my most interesting findings into this week’s tidbit of Backpackology—a list of the top four most common lies we’re told about spicy food.

Myth #4: Spicy Foods Are Bad For Your Stomach

Long, long ago, back in 1982, ye olde scientists believed that spicy foods caused peptic ulcers. Certain spices were known to trigger the excess production of stomach acid that eats away at your mucosal lining and causes ulcers—or so it was believed.

“LOL, fuck that,” scoffed Dr. Barry Marshall, blasting his habanero taco with pepper spray.

Marshall thought spicy foods might irritate ulcers, but he theorized (with little evidence whatsoever) that ulcers resulted from a relatively unknown bacterium named Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). He set out to prove his theory with a lengthy experiment involving pigs. It didn’t yield the results he wanted, and the good doctor was not a happy birthday boy.

I imagine there must be a rule in the Scientist Handbook that says that if you have no evidence to support an obscure claim regarding some dangerous bacteria, but there is evidence that suggests you’re wrong, you should probably call it a day and shift your focus to cancer research or something.

“Hey man,” said the other scientists, “You should seriously give it a rest.”

But Marshall wasn’t listening.

Did he start lobbying for more funding? Put together a fancy Powerpoint? Start testing on monkeys?

No, no.

He put an entire petri dish of H. pylori in his mouth, gave his lace-pantied associates the finger, mumbled, “Fuck the system,” and then swallowed the entire thing. Three days later his stomach exploded into a positive jamboree of peptic ulcers.

Marshall was overjoyed.

He was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, and thanks to him you can now drink a whole bottle of hot sauce without worrying about your fragile tummy. Unless you already have a peptic ulcer, in which case you will start vomiting blood.

Myth #3: Spicy Food Kills Taste Buds

This makes sense for two reasons; one, because ingesting spicy food feels like licking a Taser, and two, because the more spicy food you eat, the more spice you’ll require to achieve the same effect.

Why?

Because science, motherfucker. The chili plant depends on birds to eat its seeds and defecate them over a large area. But the chili is vulnerable to mammals that can chew and destroy the seeds, so it produces a chemical compound named capsaicin, which is an irritant for mammals.

I could go on to explain how it works with TRPV1 channels and trigeminal chemoreceptors, but my grasp of biochemistry hovers somewhere around Dora the Explorer level, so it would involve a shitload more research and I’d risk tumbling down a Wikipedia k-hole. So in basic terms: the capsaicin works by binding to heat-detecting neurotransmitters in your mouth and confusing them. These neurotransmitters then tell your brain that your tongue has been ripped out with a fire poker and bear-maced. In response, your horrified brain excretes a long, unpronounceable chemical (C₆₃H₉₈N₁₈O₁₃S) nicknamed ‘Substance P’. (The P stands for Pain and from my understanding it is not a fun).

With habitual exposure to capsaicin, your brain depletes its pre-synaptic Substance P, eventually resulting in a pain tolerance to capsaicin. When this happens, you can eat stuffed habaneros like gumdrops without breaking a sweat. But what carnage would that wreak upon your colon…

Myth #2: Spicy Food Causes Diarrhea

Despite all previous episodes involving my vindictive, mutinous colon, Dr. Ankush Basal asserts that this is a baseless myth. He explains that spicy foods are no more likely to make you weep acid tears out the backside than fried foods. It all depends on the individual’s diet, gut flora, and exocrine functions.

Interestingly, I have found several (admittedly un-academic) sources alleging that spicy foods can induce diarrhea. They claim that when the capsaicin irritates the mucosal lining of the stomach and intestines, the body inundates the digestive track with water to dilute and relieve the symptoms.  The irritant waste is then rushed out of the system, and because less water gets absorbed in transit, the end result is an Olympian sprint to the toilet followed by a hellish pudding cannon.

Not only does this theory hold water (I’ve got puns out the ass!), but the experiment I filmed below supports this claim. The stroke-inducing heat of the curry was all fun and games going down, but the next day it was nothing short of a rectal holocaust.

Myth #1: Water Cools The Palette

Trying to quell spiciness with water is like trying to stop a brush fire with a leaf-blower—it will only make your day worse. Capsaicin is an oil-like “hydrophobic hydrocarbon,” which is fancy city-folk talk for ‘it doesn’t mix with water.’ Drinking water will only spread the capsaicin around, punishing more neurotransmitters.

Milk is your true savior, as it contains casein, a fat-loving compound that binds to capsaicin and washes it away. After a fiery Bombay curry and cold, remedial glass of milk, it only makes sense for Indians to worship the cow.

It’s often rumored that yoghurt, cheese, lime, beer, tequila, rice, orange juice, and bread can also relieve spiciness. So to test this myth, I conducted an extra scientific experiment to see which foods would cool my mouth after eating a volcanically spicy vindaloo curry (one of the hottest Indian dishes).

“I want the vindaloo to be as spicy as possible without being completely inedible,” I asked the man at India Palace.

He furrowed his brow in concern. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

He cocked his head. “Really really?”

I nodded. FOR SCIENCE!

He stared at me hard for a moment, then suddenly his eyes lit up and he shook with delirious, ominous laughter.

I’ll let the video speak the disastrous rest.

Watch: The Vindaloo Experiment

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For an epic foodie adventure from India, check out “A Hyderabad Idea, Part One: A 500 Mile Foodie Pilgrimage By Train“

For another, more terrifying video taste test, head over to “The 1,000 Year Old Egg (& The Three Penis Wine)“

To see me eat a live octopus, check out “Off The Eaten Path: A Culinary Tour of Korea, Part One”

Before I try to rationalize for you my ill-conceived quest into the bamboo forests of Sichuan, I’d like to clarify that I harbor no secret vendetta against the Giant Panda.

I just simply couldn’t understand why the world fetishized an animal that spends its days languishing in the rainy woods, binge eating fistfuls of sticks on sixteen-hour lunch breaks, staring at nothing, farting, and pushing out turds the size of paint buckets with thirty-minute regularity. Somewhere in this busy routine lies the animal world’s most brilliant PR campaign.

So for this week’s special Photo Travelogue, I’m bringing you on an epic journey from Shanghai to the rugged heart of Sichuan, on the trail of the Giant Panda. But before we get to that, I need to take you back a couple thousand years or so, to the ancient age of the Middle Kingdom…

It may come as a surprise, but throughout the long, turbulent history of China, the Giant Panda has been staunchly ignored. The first reference of the creature wasn’t made until the Qin Dynasty, with the medical encyclopedia Er Ya—in which the author optimistically suggests that drinking panda urine might melt swallowed needles.

The author never explains how he came to this conclusion—nor why people were consuming needles—nor what inspired him to stalk down a panda and drink its urine—but his work remains a historical milestone. It is (shockingly) the only artistic or literary representation of a Giant Panda that pre-dates the 20^th century.

Our exuberant, international panda orgy is a new phenomenon.

The Shanghai of my imagination was a timeless place of slanted-roofed teahouses, stoic warrior monks, and dragon-shaped fireworks.

However, stepping off the Korean ferry and into the flashing metropolis, it was only a matter of minutes before these romantic notions met a murderous end—trampled pulpy underfoot by neon, litter, traffic, and prostitutes.

The People’s Republic boasts the world’s fastest growing economy and Shanghai is its throne. While China’s cities reflect this progress, the south remains mostly rural and underdeveloped, defiantly clinging to the past. That’s where I was heading—on a 2,561-mile quest through ancient trading routes, strange wildernesses, and tribal heartlands, to decide for myself whether all the sentimental panda fuss is warranted. But to do so, I would need to find a wild panda.

Fun Fact! The insidious panda is responsible for America and China’s economic co-dependency!

Sort of.

In the mid 1970s, the People’s Republic of China reached over the “Bamboo Curtain” for the first time when Chairman Mao loaned pandas to the United States and Japan. This act of ‘Panda Diplomacy’ was the first exchange between Communist China and the West. President Nixon became the first US President to visit China, when he flew to Beijing to personally thank Chairman Mao and discuss the possibility of future relations.

And the rest is history: Happy Meal toys, knock-off handbags, and $10 trillion of American debt.

Keen to further ravage America’s economy, the panda is the most unfathomably expensive animal to keep in a zoo—ten times more costly than the second most expensive, the elephant. A Giant Panda must be received on loan from the Chinese government, which extorts an annual fee of $1,000,000 per goddamn panda.

The environmentalist Chris Packham suggests that, “the panda is possibly one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half century.” He angrily accuses the breeding efforts of being “pointless,” claiming, “there is not enough habitat left to sustain them.”

The embittered curmudgeon concludes his tirade by personally volunteering to “eat the last panda if I could have all the money we have spent on panda conservation put back on the table for me to do more sensible things with.”

Embarking from Shanghai, I drift south along the Li River into the craggy expanse of Guanxi Province.

The jagged, “karst” peaks of Guanxi are caused by falling rainwater reacting with CO₂ in the atmosphere, creating corrosive carbonic acid. Thanks to China’s reckless zest for pollution, there’s plenty of carbonic acid in Guanxi—the air here is so choked with CO₂ that it would drive Captain Planet to suicide.

The carbonic acid forms cracks in the limestone, which erode and widen to form caves whose roofs eventually collapse, leaving only the precipitous walls: the karst peaks of Guanxi.

Guanxi’s sulfurous, industrial smog has a silver lining: the soil has higher carbonic acid levels than the rain, so the base of the peaks is eroding faster than the bulk. As a result the peaks appear to be growing taller, craggier, and even more breathtakingly gorgeous.

From the town of Yangshuo, my route cuts east, following the Ancient Tea Horse Trail—the historical trans-Himalayan trading route to Nepal.

The mountains ascend towards the Tibetan Plateau as the trail winds into Yunnan Province, a rich ethnic kaleidoscope of Tibetans, Yi, Qiang, and most beguiling of all—the Naxi.

Naxi Tribal culture is bewildering enough to give the most jaded anthropologist a monumental hard-on. For starters, they’re one of the last matriarchal societies on the planet; men are usually relegated to hunting and fishing, if little else. At the head of each household is the Ah Mi—the thick-wristed, dictatorial female elder who manages the money, jobs, and lives of each family member. The Ah Mi, from my observation, is a bull with lipstick, wielding absolute power and enforcing her supreme word on all decisions with a shrieking, iron fist. If you cross her she might just neuter you with a broken steamer basket and then casually send you out back to polish her bedpan. Diminutive bachelors be warned.

Even more intriguing is their custom of Walking Marriages…

The Mosuo-Naxi Tribe practices serial monogamy: males and females are allowed—nay, encouraged—to get balls-deep and buck-wild with as many partners as they wish, without any societal inkling of marriage or exclusivity. When I asked how many partners the average villager might have in their life, the auspiciously old Ah Mi of my guesthouse leaned forward conspiratorially. “Fifty,” she grinned, before adding, “I, fifty-sixty!” She then gave a proud, vigorous nod and did a weird sort of half-wink with her eyes that seemed to say, “Oh yeah, baby. Gimme daps.”

Even if a couple births children, the man and woman will never move in together, but remain with their extended matrilineal families. It is the woman’s job to raise the child, so for this reason Naxi fathers often give more care to their nieces and nephews than their own children.

Ironically, the Naxi language has no word for ‘jealousy.’

The Naxi language, called Dongba, is the last hieroglyphic language in the world that is actively maintained—though it’s future looks choppy. The one-thousand year old language was staunchly discouraged during the Communist Revolution, and in the late ‘80s the Chinese government phased it out of schools—perhaps they couldn’t translate Crime & Punishment into stick figures. Even if they could, no Naxi teenager would even be able to read it—it takes about fifteen years of study to grasp all 1,400 symbols. Consequently, there are only sixty people left in the world who can still read and speak Dongba, most of who are well into their seventies.

Last bit about the Naxi and then I promise to stop obsessing and move on—up until the 1950’s, the Naxi were fierce practitioners of shamanism, sorcery, and exorcism. Their religion, Dongba Jiao, preached that all things have spirits and that those spirits are eternal. While some Dongba Jiao shamans still reside in Yunnan, the Naxi have mostly turned to atheism or China’s mind-bending spiritual cocktail: Taoist-Buddhism.

The south of China is peppered with elegant pagodas, temples, and shrines. Some are for Buddhism, others for Taoism—two neatly separate religions. However, due to China’s strict, ancient tradition of complicating and confusing everything, most religious people in China somehow follow both faiths.

The philosophy of Buddhism originated in India and discusses the issue of human suffering—conveniently something of a ‘hot topic’ during China’s Warring States period. It preaches that everything is impermanent and that our suffering stems from our desire and attachment to these things. The purpose of meditation is to free yourself of all desire and suffering, thus achieve enlightenment.

Taoism is a philosophy indigenous to China. In its scripture, The Classic of the Way and Its Power, the great thinker Laotzu addresses dao, an unknowable, nebulous principle of the universe, or something, before he starts talking about how we should let things occur without interference, and then he talks about a lotus floating in a pond for like twenty pages.

I don’t understand any of it at all, sorry.

Perhaps this why 53% of China is non-religious.

In AD 713, a Buddhist monk named Hai Tong set out on a mission to make the deadly, dangerous currents of the Dadu River safe for boaters. His solution? Build a giant, expensive Buddha statue, of course! Through meticulous engineering and research, the monk figured that if they built the statue large enough and faced it towards the water, it would scare the water spirit into submission. And so the clever Hai Tong embarked on a 95 year building project, transforming a sheer cliff face over the Dadu River into what is now the world’s largest Buddha statue, featuring nipples the size of helicopters.

The deadly torrent of the Dadu River slowed to an agreeable amble and the boatmen were saved.

As it turns out, the builders had dumped so much chipped rock into the river that they had unwittingly dammed it,  altering its current.

A short bus ride from Leshan, and I reach my final destination, the misty, bamboo-clad mountains of Sichuan—the lair of the elusive Giant Panda.

Did you know bamboo is a grass? Bamboo is awesome.

Bamboo poses a number of mysteries for scientists—the most scintillating of which is that every 65-100 years, an entire sub-species of bamboo will flower and then die en masse.

What makes this so unbelievable is that regardless of each plant’s geographical location—be it in the forests of Sichuan, an arboretum in Amsterdam, or a hippy’s bathroom in Williamsburg—every single member of that species will flower and die at the exact same time, in perfect synchronicity, as if by hocus-pocus Jesus trickery.

Scientists are positively dumbfucked.

One theory suggests a sort of cellular alarm clock, but nobody knows for certain. All we can observe is that when there’s a big pile of dead bamboo, somewhere nearby there’s a big pile of dead pandas. The last mass-flowering occurred in the 1970s, decimating the panda population.

Environmentalist blame deforestation and poaching for the demise of the Giant Panda, but consider this alternative: the panda is a solitary creature that rarely reproduces. Even in captivity, breeders need to bribe them to mate (some have gone so far as to spiking their food with Viagra and forcing the bears to watch panda porn).  In the lucky occasion that the bears do mate, the clumsy female panda makes Kathleen Bagby look like Mother Of The Year. Baby pandas have a 50% mortality rate, partially due to disease, partially due to mama pandas accidentally rolling over and flattening the babies into a fur pelts. Additionally, the panda is evolutionarily designed to eat mice and lizards—its stomach isn’t suited for eating bamboo and only 20-30% of its nutrients are absorbed. Here’s a thought: maybe pandas wouldn’t be starving to death if they got off their asses and chased down a fucking lizard. It doesn’t matter that they’re practically blind; the only excuse for this is terrifying stupidity.

Some scientists have recently proposed a shocking new theory: that the Giant Panda might be a remnant species­—that maybe they’re going extinct naturally, on account of their own astounding ineptitude.

Honestly, it’s a miracle the species has made it this far. The Giant Panda is a living fossil, first diverging from the Ursidae genus over three-million years ago.

I quickly realized that tracking down a wild panda would involve lots of hiking, lots of sweating, hiring a private jeep to access remote backcountry, and paying for a guide with tracking skills. Even then, successfully finding a wild panda and getting to see it up close would be just shy of a Vatican-certified miracle.

I figured I’d have better luck with a panda reserve.

The Giant Panda has a modified sesamoid bone below its wrist that acts as an opposable pseudo-thumb, allowing the panda to pick up and hold objects. This gives them an eerie humanoid quality, so that they look less like cuddly stuffed animals and more like obese, sausage-fingered, grotesquely hairy midgets.

As I beheld my first panda, I felt an exciting satisfaction from its ungainliness. I realized that I was fully expecting to be disappointed. In fact, I was hoping to be. I had made this whole journey with the unspoken intention of finding some provocative truth, to blow the lid off Panda-gate, as if I were doing some eye-opening service to the public. “ATTENTION WORLD: PANDAS ARE MEDIOCRE,” I’d write in the sky with jet trails.

But as I stumbled upon more pandas, I found myself increasingly captivated. They’re surprising wily and nimble for their size.

I watched one panda oafishly scurry across a bowing branch upside down.

I watched one panda playfully toss another panda out of a tall tree.

I watched one panda repeatedly doing cartwheels—CARTWHEELS!—for no apparent reason other than its own, smug satisfaction…

And the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes that day.

Giant Panda’s are like sentient teddy bears with autism. Everything about them is pitifully comical: the way they shamelessly rest food on their fat, wobbling guts, the way they clumsily hop around as if struggling against gravity—even their appearance is wonderfully absurd, as if the bear had tried to apply Goth makeup with oven mitts.

In retrospect, I would have saved a good deal of time and money if I had just accepted the panda craze and not traveled all the way across southern China. But the journey was well worth it.

Perhaps conservationists like Chris Packham are right in calling pandas a drain on funds, but they’re just so endearingly hopeless people can’t resist wanting to help them. I don’t care about saving the Glorious Corn Owl. Nobody does, I’m pretty sure. Nor can I recall the last time I heard someone say, “Man, I could really use a couple thousand more rare spotted salamanders.” The Giant Panda deserves to be saved because it stirs and inspires people to care about the environment.

I have a challenge for Mr. Packham. I invite him to stare into the eyes of an adorably blundering panda, pick up a fork, and then actually try to eat it.

If he succeeds, well… that would be really entertaining—but wouldn’t make him any less of a delusional troll.

I guess he can get back to me when the Glorious Corn Owl learns to do cartwheels.

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For more tribal shenanigans, check out the Photo Travelogue from Pakistan, “The Joshi Festival.”

To hear tales from China’s Silk Road, head over to “Silk Road Ramblings: Lost Empires, Gobi Fugitives, and the Secret Meth Habit of Marco Polo.”

For a travel story about Burma’s Long-Necked Paduang Tribe, check out “The Human Zoo.”

Today I’m going to introduce you to one of the most fearless adventurers I have ever met, but first I need to give you an exciting post-Kickstarter update!

NOW THAT I’VE TAKEN EVERYONE’S MONEY, I HAVE FLOWN HOME TO AMERICA AND INTEND TO SIT ON MY COUCH WATCHING TV FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR. PHASE THREE OF MY MASTER PLAN IS COMPLETE!!!

I’m sorry I’ve been slow to resume posting. However, I’m happy to inform you that Backpackology is on the precipice of some potentially massive changes. I can’t go into further detail until later this summer, but I can tell you that I have temporarily returned to the good, ole’ U.S. of A and have been frantically working on a very exciting, new project. This project requires me to fly to Chicago next week, and then Tokyo the week after that, during which time I wont have time to write new stories. But I promise as soon as I return to Bangkok on May 2^nd, all of your prizes will be shipped, your dares will be filmed, and the blog will officially resume with more whimsical tales of self-endangerment.

In the meantime, while I’m toiling away on this mystery project, the incredibly adventurous Ms. Emily Chappell has taken time out of her busy schedule of speaking engagements and adventure-preparations to enrich you with a bit of her unconventional wisdom.

Emily’s story is similar to mine in that she is attempting an epic odyssey—except instead of Asia, she’s circumnavigating the entire globe, and instead of taking public transport, she is doing the entire thing on a fucking bicycle.

When I first met Emily, she had just pedaled across the Iranian border into Pakistan, joyriding through the Taliban stronghold of Balochistan surrounded by an armed police convoy. When she very casually told me that her next plan was to pedal over the Karakoram mountains and then attempt to illegally ascend into Tibet, I realized that Emily was not your typical traveler. To hear more about her wild cycling adventures, I recommend checking out her blog, That Emily Chappell, in which she regularly makes Lance Armstrong look like a delicate cupcake.

I’ve asked Emily to speak to you about an important issue. I occasionally receive e-mails from female readers who disagree with my stance on  solo travel, stating that it’s dangerous for women to wander into misogynistic developing nations. I typically don’t know how to respond, as I lack experience traveling as a solo woman, so I figured I’d ask Emily what difficulties she has faced while cycling through the chauvinist underbelly of Asia.

So without further prattling, allow me to present one of the most intrepid, insightful adventurers I know, that audacious Ms. Emily Chappell.

I’ll be back on May 7^th.

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Do you want to know the secret about travelling alone as a woman? It’s really not that hard. In fact, it’s easier, safer and more fun that you could ever possibly have imagined, unless you’ve done it yourself. I don’t know where we got the idea that it’s so dangerous.

Believe it or not, I’m an incorrigible pessimist. Before I set off to cycle round the world I invested a lot of energy in imagining all the difficult, traumatic and frightening things that were going to happen to me along the way, reasoning that this would at least remove the element of surprise when they inevitably occurred. Gloomily, but with a certain amount of relish, I pictured myself trembling with exhaustion and heatstroke in a broken-down tent, chronically weakened by diarrhoea, listening to the sound of a gun being cocked outside and longing helplessly for the comfort and security of the life I’d left behind. I knew that cycling round the world would be the most difficult thing I’d ever attempted, that I’d be constantly on my guard, and that (if I survived) I’d limp home, years hence, with a veritable treasure-trove of mental and physical scars.

Of course, I was completely wrong. The disasters that have befallen me have all been minor, self-inflicted and faintly comical (accidentally stabbing myself with my Leatherman; breaking my nose in Tokyo, whilst attempting to cycle through rush-hour traffic with a bike box strapped to my back) and the majority of my experience has been almost tediously heartwarming.

Day after day, I roll into a new town or village, and am instantly hailed, greeted, befriended, and dragged off to someone’s house to be introduced to their family, quizzed about mine over endless cups of tea, fed, put to bed, and reluctantly sent on my way the following morning. This has happened just as much in supposedly ‘reserved’ countries like Japan and Belgium as it has in famously hospitable Islamic countries like Iran and Pakistan, and I’m convinced that it has something to do with my being a women and travelling alone. Not only am I less of a threat – I’m also a curiosity, and I inspire people’s protective instincts.

The vulnerability of solo women is a fairly universal delusion, and one I constantly benefit from. Last winter in Turkey I spent a few days riding about 30km ahead of a pair of male Dutch cyclists. When they finally caught up with me we discovered that I’d spent every single night being taken in by concerned locals, while they had camped in sub-zero temperatures, and in one case even been moved on halfway through the night. If this is male privilege, they’re welcome to it.

But apart from this, cycling across continents is an almost identical experience for men and women. The major challenges (hills, headwinds, punctures, visa deadlines) don’t discriminate on the basis of gender. We all have arms and legs, which will grow muscles if we exercise regularly enough. We’re all capable of learning to build and fix a bike, even if some of us will always be slightly more patronized by male mechanics. We’re all irresistible to dogs and mosquitoes. True, women also have to deal with menstruation and sexual harassment, but let’s face it, we’d have to deal with them anyway, even if we stayed at home. We should be used to it by now.

In the grand scheme of things, my gender is actually a fairly minor handicap. I realized this when a reader of my blog contacted me, to ask if I thought it would be possible to travel through Western China with a gluten allergy. I had no idea, but was instantly dismayed by the thought of how annoying and inconvenient it would be, three times a day (and more often if you’re a cyclist), to have to seek out something you could safely eat, explain your condition to someone who didn’t speak your language, and then trust that they had understood you, and weren’t lying when they assured you that this particular dish was free of wheat, or nuts, or meat, or whatever else your health and principles forbade you from eating. When I’m on the road, whole days go by where I don’t have to consider my gender at all. Cycling, eating and sleeping are easily accomplished with or without a Y chromosome.

I spent three weeks this autumn cycling from Fukuoka to Tokyo with two female friends. It was fun travelling as a group – more convenient in some ways, more frustrating in others – but I didn’t feel more or less safe than I had before. Then I waved them goodbye and set out on my own again. And remembered that, wonderful and reassuring as other people’s company can occasionally be, it’s when you’re on your own that the magic happens. I slept soundly on the floors of people I’d only just met. One snowy night a man flagged me down and handed me a hamburger, for some mysterious reason that he was unable to explain and I was unable to understand. Another man stopped me and gave me enough money to keep me going for a week. I was amicably kidnapped by a pair of Japanese comedians, and bought lunch by an old lady who spotted me sitting outside a convenience store. (I’d already eaten one lunch, but I’ve learned never to turn down a free meal.)

And this time last year I was in Lahore, happily ensconced with a family who took me in eagerly and spontaneously, and kept me for almost a month. Every time I tried to leave, concerned that I was outstaying my welcome, they protested that there was a wedding that weekend, and I was invited, or that yet another cousin was dying to meet me. When I think of them, and of Pakistan, my heart swells with unashamed love and longing, and my cynicism fails me. I was never afraid there – I knew I’d always be welcome, and I was. I’m so glad I went, and I know I’ll be back one day. Travel alone, I entreat you, especially if you’re female. Throw yourself on the world’s mercy, and it will take care of you. And you’ll have a wonderful time.

******************

To hear more from Emily, head on over to her wonderful travel blog, That Emily Chappell.

To read my solo travel manifesto, plus an easy, three-step guide to ‘Finding Yourself,’ check out, “Life On The Lonely Road.”

For another enlightening guest post on female travel, check out “The Surrounded Lady Traveler”

Illustrations by, Jacquie Spadano and Ross Doran. 

************************

I had not seen sunlight in over four days, but I knew it was nighttime. I could tell because the Koreans were singing again; their harrowing karaoke tributes to “Gagnam Style” echoed through the corridors of the Jjimjilbang, interspersed with renditions of Rihanna and Beyonce in a make-believe language that resembled English. I rolled over on the heated floor, pressing my ears between the sleeves of my orange jumpsuit.

Day #4.

Gimbap flavor: Green wrapper; four-days-old, decaying vegetables and stale rice.

Today I discovered that at least one of the old Korean ladies from the Fire Room is still alive. I saw her near the cafeteria; her eyes wide with confusion and alarm, as she frailly attempted to rip a large mirror panel off the wall, apparently mistaking it as a door. This amusing episode lasted several minutes before a girl in a blue jumpsuit appeared, taking the old woman by the arm and gently guiding her away.

I wondered whether the old lady had been above ground since the Fire Room. Perhaps she hadn’t left the Jjimjlbang in weeks. Perhaps she had gone mad. Perhaps soon, I might too.

For a brief, shameful moment, I considered going above ground for the day. I imagined taking a stroll around Seoul, getting some much-needed fresh air and sunlight—maybe even a proper meal—before returning to the Jjimjilbang by evening.

I beat my head against my hard, square pillow. NO.

I wasn’t leaving until the security guards dragged me out of the department store by the ankles.

******************

When a homeless man has been sleeping in your kitchen for two weeks, and stepping over his filthy laundry on your way to work in the morning starts to lose its novelty, I imagine it might be an awkward chore asking him to leave. So for that, I give Johann and Songe a great deal of credit.

Songe placed the bowl of sweet persimmon slices on the table, snapping back her hand as Johann and I descended with our forks. She cleared her throat. “Steve. The landlady complained about the extra noise again this morning… She said that if you’re going to stay with us any longer, she’s going to raise our rent…”

I stopped shoveling fruit in my mouth and looked up to my hosts. I knew I had overstayed my welcome, but in this extreme situation I simply had nowhere else to go but the street. It had been four days since the robbery and I only had $85 left to last me another week, until my replacement bankcards arrived from America.

I considered begging my friends to let me stay a few more days, but I couldn’t bring myself to it.

“Don’t worry,” I nodded. “I’ll leave in the morning.” I still had a backup plan— which originated as a hypothetical joke and was fraught with discomfort and legal risk. I had previously described this plan to Johann as my Jjimjilbang theory…

Before I subject you to the withering absurdity of my theory, you need to understand a few things about Korean culture and Jjimjilbangs (which could vaguely be described as public bathhouses). The Jjimjilbang has two parts: a gender-segregated bathhouse portion, where people strip nude and mingle in hot tubs, saunas, and steam rooms, and a second portion that constitutes the Jjimjilbang proper, where everyone lounges around on an ondol heated floor and watches Korean soap operas at ear-shattering volume. The Jjimjilbang holds none of the seedy connotations of bathhouses of the West, and if a Korean employer were to ask his same-sex employee, “How about today after work, you and I go take a long, hot bath together and then afterwards watch some soap operas in our towels. You know, just as friends,” this would be considered totally casual and not gay at all.

A weekly visit to the Jjimjilbang is as pivotal to Korean culture as kimchi. It’s a place you go to spend time with family, catch up on gossip with friends, and bump into co-workers and have awkward small talk while you’re both completely balls naked.

For budget travelers, the Jjimjilbang also provides a form of cheap, unusual accommodation. The Jjimjilbangs stay open 24/7, and after paying the seven dollars entry fee, you’re allowed to sleep on the heated floor with a yoga mat. There’s no specified check out time and, in concept, you’re allowed to stay however long you want…

I theorized that if you kept a low profile and crammed enough water and gimbap (stuffed rice cakes) into a daypack, you might even be able to stay for days—possibly weeks.

“That’s absurd!” scoffed Songe. “It’s seven dollars. Why wouldn’t you just pay each day so you can leave and enjoy the city?”

“And what happens when you get caught?” grinned Johann.

I knew they were probably right, that this was a terrible idea, but considering my situation I didn’t see a better option.

By eight o’clock the next morning, I was plodding around 7-11, stuffing my daypack with crackers, bananas, and a mysterious assortment of gimbap.

******************

I failed to account for the fact that it’s difficult to keep a low profile in a Korean bathhouse when you’re giant and bumbling and white. It took less than sixty seconds for me to cause my first major scene; upon entering through the turnstile, I promptly began marching into the women’s sauna.

“NO! NO! NO!” screamed the horrified younger receptionist, redirecting me to the correct hallway and a cluster of tiny lockers—impossibly tiny, in fact; fitting anything more than jeans and a pair of sneakers inside would be a magic trick.

I glided my hands to my belt, took a deep breath, and swallowed my pride. I couldn’t believe how exposed the locker room was; I could still plainly see the two receptionists and half of the lobby.

The moment of truth.

I unclasped my belt and unzipped my pants.

“NO! NO! NO!” screamed the younger receptionist again, as the other crumpled over laughing. “NO! NO! NO!” she wailed, gesturing towards my feet. “Shoes! Shoe locker! Shoes only!!”

Day #1.

Gimbap flavor: Blue wrapper, tasty ham and tuna.

My body tingled as I eased into the steaming tub, tilting back my head with a contented sigh. When I slowly opened my eyes, I found the six Koreans opposite me staring intently through the waters at my special no-no place. I self-consciously crossed my legs and tried to avoid eye contact.

In the dim light, I could see a half dozen tubs ranging in size, clarity, and temperature, from volcanically hot to paralyzing cold. The idea of the Korean bath is to alternate between these extremes; the temperature shifts improve blood circulation and are extremely pleasurable. The largest and hottest tubs were enshrined beneath elegant gazeboes with sloping eaves (I had coughed up the extra cash to stay in one of Seoul’s more swish Jjimjilbangs, housed in the basement of an upmarket department store). Some of the tubs even varied in color, having been infused with a variety of plants and herbs.

One tub smelled of pine. Another, ginseng.

I couldn’t tell if one particular tub was filled with green tea, and for an unthinking moment I almost took a sip. I quickly stopped myself, remembering that I was sitting in a boiling cauldron of Korean nutsack stew.

After forty minutes of floating in tea, I showered off and a very portly, naked attendant directed me to a changing room. Here I received a bright orange jumpsuit and an emasculating towel head wrap that resembled Princess Leia. If any of this seemed at all strange, none of it prepared me for the acid tab of what came next.

After descending a staircase, I found myself in a cavernous, unground chamber housing what appeared to be a bucolic, 18^th century Korean village. Plastic trees and wooden footbridges framed a central “square,” where dozens upon dozens of Seoulites sprawled before a television in their orange jumpsuits, watching deafening Korean soap operas with Princess Leia towel hats. Behind the square sat a handful of traditional Hanok houses with beckoning, open doors. Inside these doors, curious visitors were rewarded with sterile, white rooms containing nothing but further televisions blaring Korean soap operas. It felt like Disney’s Epcot World Showcase, but bastardized by Stanley Kubrick.

Hanging above this whole Twilight Zone scene, a wooden sign explained: “Hanok Traditional Korean Culture Experience.”

It took ten minutes of wandering before I grasped the massive scale of the Jjimjilbang, which offered every amenity you would expect from an underground prison. There was a cafeteria, a massage parlor, a beauty salon, dry saunas, a game room, an internet café, a karaoke station, an indoor waterfall, more traditional Hanok gazebos, and a network of tranquil nooks and crannies fitted with even more blaring televisions.

I made camp a safe distance away from the soap operas, next to the most noisy and ferocious massage chairs the limited human imagination can fathom. I watched in horror at the insertion of each 1000 Won note, as the selected chair would grumble to life and a tiny, moaning Korean woman would start violently vibrating to point of whiplash like an electroshock patient.

The massage chairs afforded me a more practical function than entertainment: they provided the only accessible electrical outlets in the Jjimjilbang, allowing me to charge the iPad I had borrowed from my friends—my only tether to the outside world.

I wasn’t ready when the tether was cut.

“Anniyo!” came the cry.

I looked up to see a muscular, middle-aged attendant with a mushroom cut and black knee-socks galloping towards me down the hall.

“Anniyo!” he scolded.

I raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Anniyo!” he repeated, barking in Korean and making a nonsensical gesture.

I stared at his knee socks.

“Jeongi!” he continued.

In my four weeks in Seoul, I had found South Koreans to be extremely kind, respectful, and non-confrontational people.

But not this guy. Not Knee Socks. This guy had a chopstick up his ass and something to prove.

By the time he pointed at my charger and I finally understood my transgression, his voice had almost risen to a shout. I was about to unplug the cable and apologize, when I heard him spit the word, “Migug”—the Korean phrase for American. I couldn’t understand the rest of the words, but I understood from his tone that Migug—in this context—was being used in a very condescending, probably bigoted, manner. Heads poked up from their massage chairs to watch in rapt attention.

In retrospect, I should have reacted differently. I wasn’t taking a moral stance, as I could have easily saved face and let his narrow-mindedness go unpunished. But that would have involved forfeiting the iPad.

If somebody is going to make groundless assumptions about my intelligence based on where I was born, then I have absolutely no qualms in milking it to my benefit. I can play the Dumb Tourist Card like a symphony harp.

“Anniyo!” he pointed from the iPad to the outlet, then waved his finger.

I responded as if I were having a stroke: I slowly unplugged my iPad, pointed my finger at the outlet several times, and then carefully plugged it back in.

Knee Socks exploded into Korean. “Jeongi!” he snapped, furiously pointing to my iPad.

I lifted it up, checked underneath it, and shook my head. I sighed. “No jeongi.”

“Jeongi!!”

“No, no jeongi,” I apologized.

Knee Socks launched into an angry stream of expletives. The massage chairs ladies burst into giggles.

I giggled too. “I wish I understood what you were saying.”

“No! No!” he stammered.

I shook my head. “I don’t speak English.”

The massage chairs ladies began pointing helpfully at the iPad. “Jeongi, Jeongi!”

I lifted the iPad once more and checked underneath. “Nope.”

I couldn’t tell if Knee Socks was flexing or just restraining himself from hitting me. For a long moment, he just stood there boiling, then with an exasperated grunt he exclaimed something in Korean and turned to stalk away—leaving me to charge my iPad in peace.

It didn’t take long for me to realize the horrible mistake I had made.

Day #2.

Gimbap flavor: Yellow wrapper; chicken.

The physical and mental effects of living in a Jjimjilbang began to set in early on the second day, after the baths lost their novelty and I made the horrifying realization that the only other activity was to stare vacantly at Korean soap operas. When this lack of mental stimulation compounds with the absence of sunshine or the reference of a timepiece (I had ditched my wristwatch along with my clothes), the Jjimjilbang’s perpetual, fluorescent daylight plays bewildering tricks on the mind. As my biorhythms weakened, I began dozing to sleep and jolting awake throughout the day. It was comparable to jetlag, except I had no way of telling what time would be appropriate to sleep or not.

At one point, I startled awake in my massage chair to find Knee Socks looming at the far end of the corridor. He was watching me intently, not with anger, but with dark suspicion. I suddenly realized the error I made the day before. By defending my iPad, I had squandered my chances of skating under the radar—at least with Knee Socks. By winning the battle, I had screwed my odds of winning the war.

Before Knee Socks could take a step towards me and instigate another showdown, I hastily dashed away, raced upstairs, flung off my clothes, and retreated to the naked safety of the tub room.

I made the decision then not to use the iPad anymore. But it mattered little. The stage had already been set; Act One was about to begin.

I spent that night in the bath bobbing between shores of consciousness, dreaming stormy dreams of a sea of green tea, steeped with a dozen hairy teabags as ominous and loathsome as icebergs.

***********PART TWO***********

Part Two: “The Gateway to Hell is in The Basement of a Seoul Department Store”

In those five minutes, I learned two things.

One: That a menacing scowl transcends all language barriers.

Two: That I had underestimated Knee Socks, the night manager of the Jjimjilbang; that he was no plebeian, day-walking mortal, but a cantankerous, acid-spitting Olympian god of douchebaggery, an epic prick of lore—the type of callous Jabberwocky whose morning routine involves flicking off ambulances and throwing kittens at a wall.

Day #3

Gimbap rice cake flavor: Pink wrapper; expired rice and whitefish. I hate whitefish I hate whitefish I hate whitefish.

In the extended absence of sunlight, the human mind and body undergo several curious adaptations. The Jjimjilbang only exacerbates this process with its undulating, hourly extremes: cacophony or calm, heat or cold, darkness or light. As the days pass, the body confusedly tries to make sense of its surroundings, but with no point of reference or routine, it begins to suffer a sort of existential crisis. Biorhythms deteriorate. Night blurs into day. As the body loses its grip, this change manifests itself as a perpetual, subtle, implacable feeling of anxiety.

It also makes you very irritable, especially after you’ve been shaken awake in your massage chair by a growling, burly Korean man, urgently motioning for you to get up for no legitimate reason.

“I told you, no jeonji!” I cried.

Knee Socks snarled again. He pointed to the rest of the massage chairs, which were all occupied except one, then he pointed to a young girl sitting on the floor nearby doing her math homework, then he pointed to me.

I wasn’t using the chair’s painful massage function, but neither were the snoring Koreans sitting next to me. For good reason too—its massage felt as therapeutic as falling down a leather-padded staircase. We simply employed the chairs as an alternative to sleeping on the floor.

“Do you speak English?” I asked the girl. “Would you like to use this chair?”

The girl politely demurred, returning to her homework.

I smiled to Knee Socks. “If she wanted to sit, she would have already used that empty chair,” I gestured, before reclining my seat further.

Knee Socks wasn’t satisfied. “Juh gi yo!” he chuckled to the girl, chattering away as he pointed at me.

She shook her head again.

Knee Socks insisted, putting his hand on my arm and prompting me out of the chair.

The young girl patted her pockets. No money.

At this point, most Jjimjilbang employees would have probably walked away, leaving the young girl to continue her homework and me to resume my nap. But for an unfathomable dickface like Knee Socks, this was not an option.

He pulled a coin out of his pocket and held it out for the girl. I looked to her as her face went red. As in most Asian cultures, it is a loss of face to turn down somebody’s offer of hospitality. She stared uncomfortably at us for a moment, then slowly gathered her papers, bowed slightly to Knee Socks, and sat in the massage chair.

I watched as Knee Socks inserted the coin and the chair let out a low, menacing beep. A moment later, the small girl moaned and the earthquake simulator roared to life, battering her between its unforgiving arm rests like a ping pong ball.

I walked over to sit down on the other, empty chair.

“Anniyo!” cried Knee Socks, pointing to a scrap of paper taped over its motor box, scrawled with what I assume meant ‘Out of Order.’

“It’s okay,” I nodded, “I just want someplace to sit.”

I turned to the chair again, but he suddenly grabbed my arm, “Anniyo!”

“You’re being ridiculous,” I recoiled in surrender. “Fine!”

He snarled something else and then stared at me for a tense moment. He finally stomped off, after pointing at me and then crossing his arms in a big X—Korean body language for ‘No,’ or in this case ‘You are no good.’

As soon as he disappeared around the corner, the young girl exploded out of the massage chair, limped a few feet, and then plopped down onto the floor to finish her homework.

I didn’t reclaim my seat; I was already walking on eggshells. I knew that one more confrontation with Knee Socks would spell Game Over.

If I wanted to stay in the Jjimjilbang, it was time to become a ghost.

Day #4

Gimbap flavor: Grey wrapper; mystery meat (maybe pork) spoiled beyond recognition. I ate it anyway.

It was only safe to walk around the Jjimjilbang during the midday shift change. When the businessmen arrived, I knew that Knee Socks would hence appear for the night shift, so I would have to retreat to the safety of the tub room to quiver and hide like Anne Frank.

The clock in the changing room read 4AM when I finally tapped out of the tubs. I knew Knee Socks was still on patrol, but my soggy, pruned hands were starting to look like raw chicken and I had previously discovered one other place that Knee Socks would never dare to check.

Descending the stairs, I made a risky, frantic dash across the Traditional Stanley Kubrick Hanok Village. I skipped over snoring jumpsuits and scurried past the blaring TV that now flashed epileptic Korean music videos, to a row of pizza oven-shaped dry saunas. Creeping past their tiny doors and windows, they almost resembled stone hobbit houses, except every now and then one of the doors would burst open and a profusely sweating, tomato-faced Korean would stumble out. Some of the stone structures boasted titles, like the mysterious “Pieces of Salt Room,” or the unpopular “Igloo Room.” I browsed for a specific title, my new safe haven, a sauna so hot that it didn’t even qualify as a sauna…

It was simply titled, “The Fire Room.”

I opened the door and crawled into the darkness. It was so volcanically hot that I had to keep my mouth shut or it would turn bone dry within seconds and my tongue would prickle. Eventually my eyes adjusted to the dim, and I discovered to my surprise that I wasn’t alone. Sprawled on the floor across from me were three hyperbolically old, motionless Korean grannies.

“Annyeong haseyo,” I whispered, but there was no response. They just lied there still, so unnervingly still.

I watched them for at least ten minutes before it dawned on me—what on earth are these ninety year old grannies doing in a blistering sauna in the basement of a department store at four o’clock in the morning?

Perhaps they had died.

“Annyeong haseyo,” I whispered again.

Perhaps the heat had mummified them in place. I wanted to poke one of them, but instead I just sat there watching for what felt like an hour, waiting for one of them to stir or for their silver perms to burst into flames.

Can air boil? I abruptly thought.

And then, an epiphany: What on earth am I doing in a blistering sauna in the basement of a department store at four o’clock in the morning? Wait– I’m intently sitting over three old women and watching them sleep like Ted Bundy.

These ladies are probably fine—but I’m not.

I can feel myself starting to go completely, Cabin Fever insane.

For the first time, I contemplated leaving the Jjimjilbang and paying each day to come and go. I would get sunlight, fresh air, and fresh food. I wouldn’t have to keep playing cat and mouse with Knee Socks. I wouldn’t have to be paranoid and anxious.

NO! I had already committed to the Jjimjilbang theory; I wasn’t going to give up so quickly. I was going to stretch that fifteen dollars I’d spent for at least one week—if only to prove to myself that it could be done. This wasn’t just a matter of budgeting—it was a matter of ruinous, pigheaded pride.

Day #5

Gimbap flavor: Teal wrapper; rancid beef, food poisoning, and sadness; I threw it out and ventured into the cafeteria, hoping to find muffins or a banana. Instead, the cashier offered me squid chips and a piping hot, barbecued egg.

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, I suddenly woke up and found myself in one of the Hanok houses, lying on my back in one of the sterile, white rooms furnished with nothing but a flat screen blasting soap operas. What scared me wasn’t the fact that I had no recollection of how I got there, but the way in which I responded to the situation.

I rolled over, wondered if perhaps the Fire Room had given me heat stroke, and then, I proceed to watch Korean soap operas for four and a half hours straight. That’s nine episodes in row, with no break, not even to eat my gimbap ration. I was hypnotized; I didn’t understand a single word of what was happening, but I didn’t need to. The episodes were all the same—a series of abrupt zooms on the mother in law, ham-fisted flashback sequences, and extended sobbing scenes set to shitty Korean soft rock.

When I finally tore myself away, I wandered aimlessly to the ‘Pieces of Salt Room,’ which I discovered to be a barren sandbox of a room filled with rock salt. I stared at it for several moments.

I lied down in it and waited for something to happen. When nothing did, I decided to roll back and forth in it. And when that yielded no effect (other than feeling scratchy), I began picking up handfuls of salt and vigorously rubbing it on my skin.

This lasted for several minutes.

Eventually I looked up and noticed that, whilst I was off in my own little world, a skinny Korean man had entered and now watching me with wide-eyed bewilderment and concern.

It would have been awkward to stop what I was doing upon noticing him, so I gave him a casual nod and continued sluicing myself with fistfuls of salt.

When I eventually left the ‘Pieces of Salt Room,’ I came to a shocking revelation: not only had the businessmen arrived, but they were already drunkenly singing karaoke—I had somehow been sitting in the salt room for hours. I scanned the Hanok Village for any signs of Knee Socks, before making a freedom dash for the tub room.

The changing room clock displayed that it was nearly midnight—it was almost time for me to meet Jin Ho, and set into motion the final domino chain of my undoing.

Day #6

Gimbap flavor: ——–

He was sitting in the ginseng tub, following me with his eyes as I plodded towards the cold pool. Perhaps it was my paranoia, but I couldn’t help noticing that the old man had been following me from tub to tub for the last hour, trying to make intense eye-contact throughout.

I closed my eye and slid into the icy pool, as tingling waves shot up my spine. Just as I began to doze asleep, the water around me started to ripple.

“I like Americans very much.”

“Oh god!” I startled. I opened my eyes to find the man’s wrinkled, weathered face bobbing a foot away from mine.

“I am Jin Ho. I like Americans because they brought modern to Korea,” said the feeble, old man. He had a friendly smile and clean English. “What is your name?”

“Uh. I’m Steve.”

“My mother is Japanese,” he continued.

“Oh,” I nodded, and a heavy silence followed.

Jin Ho splashed some water between his hands. “My father—”

“Your father is Korean?”

“Yes,” he nodded.

“Cool,” I replied, then closed my eyes and pretended to fall asleep. I ignored him like this for several minutes until I thought I heard him getting out of the pool and walking away. I opened my eyes.

He was still there.

“I have no job, Steve,” he pouted.

“Oh, I, well– That’s– I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I am seventy years old!” he exclaimed.

I stared at him for a moment, struggling to discern if he was trying to do something illicit with me, or if he was simply retarded.

“That’s good for you,” I nodded, “You seem very active. Do you have the time?”

Jin Ho checked his watch. “It’s two-thirty in the morning. I am a Korean War veteran.”

He suddenly stood up out of the water, his horrible old man dick now inches from my face. “I was shot twice in my leg,” he declared, pointing to two nickel-sized scars on his inner thigh.

I whipped my head away. Jin Ho clearly wasn’t a sex predator, but a genuinely friendly old man who just wanted to strike up a conversation with a stranger, while completely naked, and also show him the bullet wounds around his nutsack.

I quickly excused myself and fled from the tub room.

I knew it was dangerous heading down into the Jjimjilbang at this hour, but in my fragile mental state, I no longer had the resolve to deal with Jin Ho’s awkward banter.

Even if that meant risking the wrath of Knee Socks.

“Anniyo!”

I snapped awake in my massage chair to find the beast lurking over me, growling nonsense and wagging his massive fist.

I knew this was it; le duel final. The outcome seemed inevitable, but I wasn’t about to be ejected onto the streets in the middle of the night—at least not without mulish resistance.

I smiled. “Raaaawwr,” I shook my fist playfully.

Knee Socks gnashed his teeth, pointing with his massive forearm towards the exit.

“I don’t speak Korean,” I grinned. “But how have you been?”

“No! No! No!” he barked, pointing down the hall again.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“No! No! No!”

I nodded in agreement. “Definitely, no, no, no.”

Knee Socks glared, emitting a low roar from his frothing jaws.

I knew my proselytizing wasn’t going to work this time, and I was ready to give up when I caught him throw the word ‘Migug’ (Korean for ‘American’). This was the second time that I heard him pull the race card—affirming that he deserved neither my compliance, nor respect.

If this bigoted, curmudgeonly toad wanted a dumb American, I would show him new horizons of stupidity.

“Chulbal!” his tirade continued, gesturing for me to stand up and pointing down the hallway.

Suddenly I nodded. “OOhhhhh!” I rose out of my chair.

Knee Socks pointed.

“Thank you,” I gushed. I waddled about halfway down the hallway, before I stopped beneath the glowing exit sign and stared confusedly at it for a minute. Then I sat on the floor.

Knee Socks clenched his fists, as angry, varicose veins snaked up his forearms. Suddenly he exploded into a stream of shouts. A few sleeping Koreans stirred, lifting their heads to watch.

He pointed in my face and grabbed my wrist.

I responded by dropping my jaw in sheer terror and catatonically staring at my lap.

I continued holding this face for another minute or so, until eventually he gave up shouting and stalked off down the hall.

This was a job for the security guards.

****************

I tore across the changing room and threw open my locker. I had been saving the iPad’s last sliver of battery for an emergency, and if the security guards appeared to throw me to the streets, I wanted to know where to find my next Jjimjilbang.

I had just opened Google Maps when the tablet vibrated; it was a new message from Johann.

“An envelope came for you today! If you escape the jjimjilbang, come on over and pick it up. And give me back my iPad.”

I flicked off the screen.

I had won. After facing hell and hot water I had persevered, surviving off of nothing more than sheer obstinacy and diaper-flavored gimbap. I had soaked and sweated and seen more shriveled, geriatric genitals than a Tommy Bahama fitting room in purgatory. I had beaten the Jjimjilbang, and with about sixty dollars of comfort cash to spare.

I tore off my jumpsuit and donned my clothes. I could already taste my victory feast; I could see the waitresses setting down platters of glorious, barbecued samgyeopsal and bulgogi, as I hunch over the table, shoveling handfuls of grilled beef into my fat, gluttonous maw. I could see sunlight pouring through the windows, and no fucking gimbap rice cakes for miles.

Before Knee Socks could return with the cavalry, I strolled into the lobby and opened my shoe locker.

My shoes were gone.

I stared for a long moment, and then turned my head towards the receptionist.

She smiled and bowed.

I wondered if I could make it back to my friend’s without sneakers.

I awkwardly moseyed towards the reception counter.

“Uhhhh… Hi… Can I have my shoes?”

The receptionist kept smiling, “Oh no, no.”

She then disappeared behind the counter, before I heard a grunting sound like a dwarf choking on a burning rag. She reemerged a moment later, holding my foul sneakers at arms length.

With her free hand she punched ₩60,000 on a calculator (the equivalent of sixty dollars), then pointed to the calendar and slid her finger along the week.

“Oh…” I said, staring at the calculator. “How about that…”

The receptionist grinned.

************

Instead of drinking in warm, golden sunlight, I stepped out of the department store to find Dongdaemun-Ro cold, dark, and abandoned. The sun wouldn’t rise for several more hours.

After paying for six days in Seoul’s most expensive Jjimjilbang, I had only enough change for a subway ticket home, or a small, un-victory meal. This would have been a difficult decision if the subway had been open.

Or any restaurants.

I would need to make the long, frigid trek home on foot, with nothing to keep me warm but my own burning shame.

I set off down the road, into the flickering neon of Dongdaemun. Eventually, I saw the familiar, green-and-orange glow of a 7-11. My stomach growled.

I bought the most expensive package. It was adorned with elaborate, gold leaf Hangeul letters. I could only afford two before I hadn’t another penny to my name.

Gimbap flavor: Black wrapper; whitefish and I-don’t-care. I fucking hate whitefish.

*******************************

For more illustrations and by the insanely talented Ross Doran, check out his hilarious cartoon blog,Doran Drawin’. He makes puns! It’s silly! You’ll love it! GO TO HIS SITE.

To hear about the robbery that lead to this story, check out “A Dream Deferred: The End of Backpackology?“

For another lengthy saga so epic I had to break it in two halves, check out my Indian foodie adventure “A Hyderabad Idea: A 500 Mile Foodie Pilgrimage By Train”

Thanks again to everyone who donated!! New stories coming next Tuesday, March 19.

To hold you over in the meantime, here’s a delicious panda bear; the first installment of a new, weekly postcard series.

I’ve put up some new stretch goals and rewards for those who still want to help my project. Check ‘em out at Backpackology’s Kickstarter Page.

For more pretty travel porn, check out the Photogasms link in the category menu at the top of the page.

I once read in the book of life that if you sleuce enough alcohol at a problem, it will go away. I’ve recently tested this theory with trials because I am a strong advocate of the scientific method, and also an alcoholic.

By midnight, walking down Itaewon’s main strip was already becoming a game of extreme puke hopscotch. This was Seoul’s pleasure district for foreigners, a hilly, nocturnal tangle of lanes that flashed and pulsed with neon, K-Pop, and sin. I ducked into a shop labeled ‘Foreign Exotic Foods’ and made my way past the shelves of peanut butter and Kraft Mac & Cheese to a rattling, old beer fridge.

Three days had passed since the robbery—three days of playing sad charades at the police station, threatening my insurance company with jihad, and staring vacantly at the floor. I needed a diversion. I knew if I spent one more night at home sulking in the fetal position, I would probably throw myself into the Han River, or see how many metal chopsticks I can jam into my eyes.

The mugger had stolen my debit card and my anorexic emergency funds weren’t conducive to hedonism. But still, I had $8—which is more than enough for a wild night out…

At least with the help of a few tradecraft tricks.

For this week’s tidbit of Backpackology, let it be known that when it comes to saving money and drinking heavily, you can have your rum cake and eat it too. With a few simple tips, even those on the tightest of budgets can find sweet, sweet respite in the sloppy embrace of booze.

Power to the Pre-game. The most crucial (and obvious) step to saving money on nightlife is to thoroughly pre-game. Before you set a foot out the door, you need to drink like Ernest Hemingway in a plunge tank of whiskey.

If you’re drinking with friends who don’t care to pre-game, fear not—simply stop at a liquor store en route to the bar and scope out something cheap and lethal.

In the beer fridge of ‘Foreign Exotic Foods,’ I spotted a bottle of soju calling my name—Korean rice wine, strong enough to gas a small car; a cheap escape from the sadness of the world. I also scooped up a liter of soda to soften its blow—plus the bottle will come in handy later.

If the country you’re in allows public drinking, then swig away as you walk to the bar. If there are laws prohibiting that, ask for a paper bag and then guzzle it down in a dark alleyway near to the bar. Don’t drink all of it though! When your soda gets to about half empty, top up the bottle with your cheap liquor. You’re now ready for…

The Designated Driver Tactic. When you’re irresponsibly wasted and walking begins to prove an issue, you’re finally ready to go out in public. Stumble past the venues with cover charges and avoid the main tourist drags (local bars are usually cheaper). While your friends order their drinks, put on your most convincing sober face. Wipe the drool off your chin, inform the bartender that you’re the designated driver tonight, and that you’d like a tall glass of ice water.

Do you really need to be the designated driver? No. This is just part of “The Designated Driver Tactic,” a tried and proven method of drinking for ‘free,’ while embarrassing yourself and everyone else associated with you.

First, take that tall glass of ice water and chug it. Now make your way to a bathroom stall. This is where your smuggled soda bottle comes in handy—you’re going to pour your mixed drink into the glass of ice, et voila! You now have an official looking cocktail and you’re ready to mingle.

Whenever you finish your glass, order another ice water, hit the bathroom again, lather, rinse, and repeat. Eventually you’ll finish your bottle. If you’re not already vomiting and still possess basic hand-eye coordination, it’s time to bite the bullet and move on to step three…

The Mysterious Art of Drinking Wounded Soldiers.  If you’re drunk enough at this point, try hunting around for wounded soldiers—unfinished drinks that have been left unattended. Nearly full drinks are optimal, but you’re in no position to be picky at this point, Shameface McStumblepants. If you’re worried about the health risk, let me assure you that oral herpes aren’t nearly as bad as people say. I am a scientist.

Have I mentioned that this website is for entertainment purposes only? Because it’s not. It’s a hard place of learning and I am your knowing sensei. If you’re still not convinced, maybe you need to…

Reassess your priorities. How important is dignity to you? Would you rather spend the night all alone at home? It’s cheaper to eat ice cream in bed. Crying is free. If that’s not your idea of good nightlife though, it’s time to take yourself down a few notches, Sir Galahad, until your self-worth is as depleted as your savings account. Try to think like a hobo. If that doesn’t work, maybe you should just…

Tell everyone that it’s your birthday. I once had a friend who wore a birthday hat to a bar. It wasn’t really his birthday—he just found the hat on a subway and thought it was funny. To our surprise, he was lavished with free drinks the whole night. He ended up getting over-served, passing out, and smacking his head against the bar on his way to the floor, but I think an important lesson was learned. When heavy drinking and birthdays collide, drunk homeboys turn into slurring philanthropists. Everybody wins.

If you find this morally challenging, then you can always resort to the classic method…

Hitting on the Bartender. Sure, he or she may be a little old for your taste and psoriasis might not be one of your turn-ons, but your blood alcohol content is only .19 at the moment and you’re looking to set a high score. It’s time to hit on the wise and noble Keepers-Of-The-Liquor. This only works if the bartender isn’t busy.

Make some small talk. Compliment her quirky lazy-eye. If you can lay on the charm thick enough, there might be a free shot in your future. Or perhaps a slap in the face.

For more useful tips and tricks on the shameless, denigrate pastime of budget travel, click on the “Backpackology 101” tab at the top of the page, or just look elsewhere, because clearly I have no idea what I’m talking about.

****************

I just want to take a minute to say that I have the best friends, followers, and family in the world. You guys are the best! I am so shocked, humbled, and moved by the amount of generosity and kindness everyone has showed that I am completely and utterly speechless. You guys helped me reach my Kickstarter goal in only two days–and the donations just keep coming. So I’m putting up some new stretch goals and rewards for those who still want to help my project. Find out more on Backpackology’s Kickstarter Page.

Once again, thank you all so, so much! I love you madly.

Now it’s time for me to work my ass off and make your contributions worth your while. Adventure ho.

**************

Sorry for not writing over the last two months. To hear my chaotic excuse, check out the story, “A Dream Deferred: The End of Backpackology?“

Or if you’re tired of my panhandling and just want to read some more silly shit, check out the budget travel series, “The Top 10 Free Vacations.”

When I finally penned my response to Men’s Journal (at three in the morning) (over one week late), I was sitting amongst cockroaches on my hotel room floor, stripped down to my underwear, high as a rocket ship on mysterious Chinese amphetamines.

I stared dumbly at the prompt.

QUESTION ONE: “How did you muster the courage to up and leave for such a long trip?”

After an hour of voracious pen tapping and teeth grinding, all I managed to doodle was a single thought in the margin. “Chairman Mao was the original hipster.”

I could feel my heart beating in my ears.

QUESTION ONE: “How did you muster the courage–”

Courage?

Two months ago, I would have happily waxed inspirational, but that was before the Dongdaemun incident changed everything. That was before fate put an end to my blogging and I was forced to abandon all of my hopes and aspirations for Backpackology. Since then, I hadn’t been feeling particularly inspirational.

My teeth chattered.

Courage…

I feel like a coward, a fraud.

I feel like an Alanis Morissette song.

I feel like unless Men’s Journal is taking their publication in a dramatically new direction, a mistake has been made.

I pictured their next issue; flipping past all the athletic workout tips, past the classy cologne ads in black-and-white, then, “Travel Tips from a Guy Strung Out on Amphetamines in a Chinese Hotel Room.”

I feel unhinged.

During the incident, the mugger unwittingly took a bag containing my crazy pills that keep me tethered to earth.

I feel myself unraveling.

QUESTION ONE…

I feel like I have so much to explain, to confess, but am utterly incapable of articulating a single word.

Where to begin…

************

I’ve recently spent a great deal of time indulging the notions of chance, fate, serendipity, and chaos—the possibility that the most profound, irrevocable events of our lives are set into motion by the tiniest, most seemingly insignificant actions. I can trace the chain of events leading up to the Dongdaemun incident all the way back to an Instagram photo of kimchi being posted to Facebook by a relative stranger. I’m convinced that photo changed my life.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” the caption read. The tray of kimchi jjigae in the photo belonged to a girl that I didn’t know at the time named Grace Dietrich, but whom, due to chance/fate/serendipity/chaos, I would soon become good friends with. At that time, Grace had added me on Facebook simply because she enjoyed following my blog.

“Kimchi!! Are you in Korea? I’m in Seoul!” I commented on the stranger’s photo.

It turned out that Grace was in Seoul. She was a teacher there and she already knew about my Korean food tour. After a brief exchange of messages, she invited to take me to a restaurant serving the notorious Jeju Black Pork.

If you’re unfamiliar with Jeju Black Pork, it is one of the rare food traditions that involve raising an animal on an extreme, peculiar diet—similar to how some Japanese cows are raised on nothing but beer and massages. Except these unfortunate Jeju ‘black’ pigs are fed nothing but human shit for their entire lives. In fact, traditional outhouses on Jeju Island used to be built on stilts over the pigpens, so that the pigs could lap up all the tasty feces as they fell. I’m not sure what inspired this custom, but I found it just enchanting.

Sadly, Jeju Black Pork is a dying practice in Korea, only practiced by a handful of twisted individuals in Seoul and Jeju Island. But Grace said she knew a place. I immediately cancelled all my plans to join her for dinner.

The Black Pork was fan-tastic.

Even more fantastic was the company of Grace and her boyfriend Diego, who were both charmingly accommodating, intelligent, and funny. We ended up getting lost in conversation over drinks for several hours.

Chance/fate/serendipity/chaos.

If I hadn’t seen that photo of kimchi, I wouldn’t have met Grace and Diego for dinner. If I hadn’t met Grace and Diego for dinner, I wouldn’t have drank rice wine for four hours. If I hadn’t drank rice wine, I wouldn’t have gotten lost heading back to my friend’s apartment. If I hadn’t gotten lost…

On the night of November 25^th, when I wandered into Dongdaemun at around 1:30AM, I should mention that my life was in a markedly different place than it is today.

In that moment, it seemed my time and effort invested in Backpackology was finally starting to pay off. Earlier that month, the site ranked in WordPress.com’s Top 10 Editor’s Picks. Traffic was climbing. I made the leap to self-hosting and Backpackology was being featured on travel sites, blogs, podcasts, and newspaper print. An Emmy Award-Winning production company based in L.A. even inquired about possibly developing a show. I was humbled, happy, hopeful, and terrified. Chasing my dreams to Asia seemed to be paying off.

And then, at 2AM, I was mugged of nearly every possession I owned.

The mugger took my wallet and my backpack. He took my camera. He took my laptop. He took my software and equipment. He took my medicine. He took my clothes. He took my hard-drives, my notebooks, and months upon months’ worth of photos, articles, and tireless, irrecoverable work.

The police report estimated the loss at $4,500, but the most valuable things that were lost could never have been given a price tag. What kills me is that the most valuable things probably mean nothing to whoever owns them now.

The proceeding days were spent filing police reports, cursing my useless insurance rep “*~*Meghan*~*~”, and eating ice cream between catatonic states of despair.

When I finished venting the story to my friend Amanda, she asked, “So does this mean you’re done writing?”

I fell silent. I didn’t have an answer.

Because I live on less than $20 per day, replacing just the basic equipment needed to run Backpackology would cost several months’ worth of budget.

A handful of readers suggested I apply for a fundraiser with Kickstarter (a program where artists can find financial backing for their projects), but I demurred, afraid that it might come across as tasteless begging as a means of extending a vacation.

From where I stood, the road ahead of me was split in two ways: I could replace the equipment, shave several months off my journey, and sacrifice my dream of traversing Asia. Or I could abandon my hopes for Backpackology and travel writing, thank my readers for being so supportive, and seize this last opportunity to explore the world.

“I need to think about it,” I told Amanda.

Mondays and Wednesdays were always strict writing days. But that Monday morning I went to the 7-11, bought a beer, and began walking west on Jong-ro Street. I didn’t know where the road would take me, but I just walked and walked for hours, past parks, temples, and acrid fish markets, until my feet ached and it was dark. It was almost 9PM when I finally caught a bus back to my friend’s apartment.

That was nearly two months ago.

I haven’t written since.

“Hey Steve. Men’s Journal would love to have a profile of you. Have time to chat in the next week?” stated the e-mail.

When my nervous giggling fit subsided, I wondered —Why now? What prompted this?

For the previous two months, Backpackology had been a dead site—I had been busy gallivanting south across China.

Although ‘gallivanting’ isn’t the appropriate word.

Liberated from the pressure to provide entertainment, my adventures took on a new theme, and I mostly just drank beer in a chair. The scenery and circumstances varied, but me sitting down in a chair with a pint of terrible Chinese beer remained constant for the most part.

One time I drank beer in a chair in an old Shanghai Tea House.  Another time it happened in a bamboo forest. Another time it was in a strange Chinese Midget Theme Park, where employees with dwarfism were paid to live in concrete mushroom houses and sing songs. Not once in sixty days did I ever have an article to finish, a mountain of photos to edit, or an adventure to research.

Frankly, it had been hell.

After months spent breathing my soul into Backpackology—after endless challenges, victories, near-death encounters, and all-nighters spent banging away at the keyboard in squalid hotel rooms—its sudden absence made the passage of weeks feel less meaningful; the days, unimportant. It felt like a breakup. Like the mugger had not only stolen my things, but my lifestyle, my career, and my very ambition. When Men’s Journal sent me the interview questionnaire, what excited me most was the chance to have a creative outlet once again.

This could be it. I couldn’t afford to screw this up. I told my interviewer that I would fill out the questions immediately.

“I’m sure you’ll do a great job,” he assured me, and I thanked him.

… And then I proceeded to procrastinate for an entire week, avoiding his e-mails and the questionnaire like it was an overdue prostate exam.

As if that wasn’t enough, I managed to make the situation infinitely worse yet…

I had convinced myself that I couldn’t write without replacing my stolen Adderall prescription—an illegal substance in most countries, but I figured this was China. Everything’s legal in China.

“Meiyo! Meiyo!” apologized the pharmacist, offering me a consolation bottle of Ritalin.

“No,” I shook my head.

The old man frowned. Then, “Ah-HAH!” He produced another bottle, announcing its name. It looked shady. It definitely was not Adderall.

I stared incomprehensibly.

The old pharmacist repeated the name, then began violently slapping his heart while bulging his eyes open. This charade lasted a few seconds, before he concluded with a big grin and thumbs-up.

I bought two blister packs.

It took several hours of fidgeting, sweating, and dazedly humming “Love You Like A Love Song” over and over again to myself before I could finally wrest control over the drugs (which were likely some form of speed or PMI).

I stood up, abruptly sat back down, scribbled “I want to punch Selena Gomez in the mouth. Right in the mouth,” before something in my head snapped and everything began flowing out of me—two months worth of pent up thoughts and ideas and crazy that could finally find expression. It was like purging. The scratching of the pen was therapy, soothing and liberating.

I don’t know how long I wrote and I only faintly remember stopping. By the time I finished my response, sunlight was starting to creep through the windows and I was in an alternate, cracked-out state of consciousness.

The journalist didn’t respond at first.

A day passed.

Then two days, as my paranoia mounted. I realized my drug-induced opus probably read like the ramblings of a meth addict. I was so satisfied when I finished that I sent it without giving a second thought.

I finally got my response on day three: just three crisp lines.

“I don’t think it needs to be shortened… Looks pretty good. I’m gonna talk to the editor and see what’s what.”

Today will define the next chapter of my life.

I’m on a small island in the Gulf of Thailand. My younger brother is here too; he calls it paradise. I, however, have never been particularly fond of beaches and my porcelain, Geisha skin is no match for the Southeast Asian sun. So while he’s off enjoying the sand and surf, I am drinking beer in a chair.

I’ve also been scribbling away in a notebook. It’s the first time I’ve written anything for my site in over two months. It’s way too long, it’s overdue, it isn’t perfect, but I needed to write it. I needed to write about everything. I just needed to write something.  

I feel invigorated, inspired.

I feel like I’ve fixed something important.

I feel like I’ve just had wall-banging make-up sex.

I don’t know how this story ends yet.

I don’t know if Backpackology will rise from the ashes; I’m still without my equipment and everything seems uncertain. But what I can tell you is that I’m going to try to start writing again. At least for a couple weeks, to see if I can make things work. This is will be my one, final stand.

I’ve just been approved for a fundraiser with Kickstarter, attempting to raise enough funds to replace the stolen equipment needed to resurrect the site and share my adventures with you once again. As an incentive (and to keep things fun and interesting), I am offering a range of prizes and “unique opportunities” to anyone who enjoys the site and would like to contribute, even if it’s only a few bucks.

I figured I have nothing left to lose.

At the end of the day if I don’t reach my goal, at least I’ll be satisfied in knowing that my dream didn’t go down without one last stubborn death rattle.

I feel humbled.

I don’t write as a means to travel.

I feel hopeful.

I travel as a means to write.

I feel like getting out of this chair and having an adventure.

I feel buoyant on the warm, South Pacific breeze. 

********************

Kickstarter has granted me thirty days to raise funds, so if you enjoy the site and would like to see it continue, any donations are greatly appreciated, even if it’s only a couple of bucks. The goal of this fundraiser is to replace the stolen equipment needed to resurrect and revamp the project, so that Backpackology can continue to bring readers like you to the most strange and wonderful corners of the globe. Help save Backpackology! Thanks for the support, and thank you for reading!! Check out Backpackology’s Kickstarter page here.

To hear the genesis of Backpackology, check out “Stepping Off The Edge.”

For tips on how to travel on $20 per day, check out the “Budgetometer.”

At 4:27PM, on the afternoon of October 29^th, I received an e-mail from an acquaintance in Almaty, informing me that Backpackology has been banned in Kazakhstan. When my initial laughter subsided, my amusement faded into confusion, then indignation—and then full-blown outrage.

I was not angry about being censored. On the contrary, when this site was banned in Burma and China, I was overjoyed. I understood what I had done to deserve being blacklisted, and I found it all quite hilarious.

This time, however, things were different. Other than a fleeting reference I made in an earlier post, I have never discussed the obscure nation.

So why would my site raise concern?

All I know is that if Kazakhstan is really going to censor my website from 16.6 million potential readers—I am fully prepared to earn that shit.

While I could easily earn this ban by making fun of Kazakhs for being the quirky weirdoes that they are—or by simply uploading nude photos of myself making-out with a goat in high heels—I’m not trying to be provocative simply for provocation’s sake.

Plus, those photos are private.

Instead, I’ll earn their enmity by shining my internet spotlight into their dark, agoraphobic, relatively-unknown recess of Central Asia, and show it for exactly what it is—one of the weirdest, most bewildering and enigmatic places on the globe.

Before you can understand Kazakh culture, you need to know who the Kazakhs are and how they came to inhabit such a desolate, unarable shithole.

The Kazakhs are a nomadic people of the Turkic ethnic group, and their name means, “Steppe-Roaming Free Warriors,” which is an optimistic way of saying, “Guys who get expelled out of countries a lot.” The Kazakhs originated in the steppes of Mongolia, from where they were first driven out by the early Hun tribes. They then fled to the Caspian Sea, before being repelled south into Uzbekistan. It wasn’t long before the Uzbek Khan, Abu’l Khayr, expelled them yet again, after decreeing that Kazakhs were “disagreeable.”

With nowhere else to go, the unpopular and disagreeable Kazakhs settled down in the arid plains of modern-day Kazakhstan, where they began to develop their odd, indigenous culture…

Like most countries of the Asian steppes, Kazakhstan contains large swathes of unarable grasslands, and so its people developed a nomadic lifestyle revolving around livestock. Instead of towns, families lived in isolated yurts (felt tents) and moved from place to place every few weeks in the pursuit of fresh pastures. The Kazakhs derived all they needed to survive from their camels, cattle, horses, goats, and sheep—fur, transportation, fuel (dung), milk, meat, and on cold, lonely nights when the mood was right and inhibitions were low, perhaps something more.

In traditional Kazakh culture, you’re expected to start conversations by first asking about the well-being of the other person’s livestock. The general salutation is “Mal bichij ogno uu?” Which means, “Are your sheep fattening up nicely?”

This traditional way of life came to an abrupt end in the 1920s, when the USSR appropriated Kazakhstan and Stalinism turned the nation upside down. Soviet prison camps sprung up across the steppes and the population swelled with exiled Russian convicts. Soon the Kazakhs were a minority in their own homeland.

Their nomadic culture was squashed out by forced Collectivization and industrialization. Shamanism, Islam, and Buddhism were outlawed and the ensuing Cultural Purges left hundreds of historical temples destroyed and thousands of religious Kazakhs shot and killed. Borderlines were drawn up, ending traditional migratory routes to summer pastures in western Mongolia and China, and the remaining Kazakh pasturelands were ripped up and redeveloped for grain production. By the time Nursultan Nazarbayev assumed dictatorship, most of the shepherds had been forced out of their yurts and relocated to depressing, concrete factory towns.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, many Kazakhs saw all of this as an improvement. Before long, their traditional way of life was abandoned forever.

Or so it was believed.

Unbeknownst to the soviets, one tribe got away.

On the eve of the communist invasion, a small faction of the Juz tribe decided to settle down in their summer pasturelands of Bayan-Olgii, just across the border in western Mongolia. Due to the region’s mind-bending isolation, the Juz tribe managed to slip under soviet radar, avoiding the Cultural Purges and Collectivization that devastated their relatives across the border. As Kazakh culture evaporated from Kazakhstan, it discreetly flourished in Bayan-Olgii, remaining undisturbed and detached from the world through most of the 20^th century. Today, it is the last bastion of the traditional Kazakh way of life.

For most culture buffs, visiting Bayan-Olgii is nothing short of amateur anthropologist porn—and incentive enough to make a long, arduous detour north from China.

I timed my visit to coincide with the nomads’ Burkit Eagle Hunting Festival, a spectacular two-day pageant of Kazakh culture, traditional food, equestrian sports, and giant eagles laying waste to bunnies, foxes, and one unlucky wolf.

For many inhabitants of the steppes, the eagle is held with a reverence that borders religion.

It is the tradition in Mongolia that when people die, a sky burial is conducted. It starts with the family dragging their deceased up a hilltop, exposing the corpse to the elements, and then waiting. Within an hour, eagles and vultures descend and everybody watches as the birds rip and tear the dearly departed limb from limb. For the Mongolians, this is a happy occasion. If the body is eaten by birds of prey, it means that the deceased lived a virtuous life and that their souls will be carried to heaven. If the deceased led a sinful life, foxes and wolves will arrive to the body first.

Eagle (burkit) hunting is a distinguishing characteristic of Kazakh culture. Often these birds are raised as hatchlings, however many discerning burkit trainers insist that captivity-raised birds lack natural killer instincts. These trainers prefer to capture their eagles after they’ve mature, by stealing them out of the nest. To the casual layperson such as me, stealing a full-grown, pissed-off eagle with “killer instincts” from its nest seems pretty inadvisable.

But in the vast emptiness of the steppes, there are no trees for perching, so the eagles build their nests on flat ground—making the challenge slightly less psychotic. 

Some people take even more astoundingly stupid risks to acquire their birds of prey.

In 1984, a Saudi man was stopped in Ulaan Baatar Airport after trying to pass through security with a suspiciously clumpy overcoat. When security had the man remove his jacket, they made a shocking discovery: The suspect was attempting to board the plane with a live Saker Falcon in his coat.

Eagle and falcon trafficking results in the disappearance of hundreds of endangered birds each year. To keep a lid on the crisis, the Mongolian government allows the capture of 300 birds annually, which are auctioned off, mostly to royalty from UAE and Kuwait, with an average price tag of twelve thousand dollars per bird.

Twelve thousand dollars. That’s an extra year of traveling added to my itinerary. I could go to Africa. Upon seeing the abundance of falcons in Bayan-Olgii and hearing how feasible it is to wrestle them out their nests, I started to contemplate how many birds I could stuff into my backpack.

Four birds.

Exactly four birds—individually wrapped in my laundry to impede resistance, with just enough air holes ripped into the side to ensure they survive the two-day bus ride to Beijing. I eventually reconsidered, however, realizing the environmental damage I would be causing and the heavy ethical toll it would take on my conscience. Falcons should be free, soaring the windy skies of the steppes—not stuffed in a backpack with a price tag.

On a completely unrelated note: if I have any Saudi readers interested in purchasing a slightly smooshed, slightly dead falcon, please reach me at backpackology@gmail.com

The eagle festival kicked off with a puzzling ceremony, involving haggard, thick-wristed nomads draped in animal skins sitting on their horse, striking stern poses for a frowning panel of judges. While I never received an explanation for this awkward nomad fashion show, the contestants seemed to be judged on how wistfully they stared into the distance, and how many woodland critters they could cobble into a hat.

Shakhyru was the first event, in which the eagle trainer drags a dead(?) fox behind his horse. His eagle is then released from a nearby hilltop and judged on how quickly it can descend upon the bouncing, deteriorating fox (it’s certainly dead at this point).

Here’s a second example of shakhyru that didn’t run quite as smoothly. I’m including it because it shows the wonderfully volatile nature of the eagles. Eagle hunters only use female eagles, which are larger and more aggressive than their male counterparts.

The first day ended with a traditional concert. Relying heavily on the dombra (lute) and kobyz (bowed instrument), Kazakh music is typical of Central Asia—cluttered, forgettable, and generally bizarre. The highlight of the concert was admiring the traditional dress, and beholding the ancient Kazakh custom of wearing awesome birthday hats.

Like Kazakh music, Kazakh dance is decidedly odd. The aim of the dance is to replicate the movements of all the great steppe animals (all four of them).

The second day was marked with sports demonstrating equestrian prowess. Tenge ilu is played by trying to snatch a red piece of cloth from the ground, while galloping past it at full speed.

The most exciting game was kokbar—similar to tug-of-war, except it’s played on horseback and the rope has been substituted for a dead goat.

A violent and exciting sport to witness, Kokbar was easily the most popular event at the festival and drew even larger crowds than the eagle hunting.

The festival ended with the distribution of awards to the winners. If you’ve already read “A Hitchhiker’s Tale from Outer Mongolia,” you’re probably expecting me to mention a certain Eagle vs. Wolf Death Match now…

The climax of the festival involved the top three eagles being unleashed on a wolf. The inconceivable awesomeness of this match-up might seem too good to be true—and that’s because it is. The “wolf” turned out to be a small, terrified, abused, and bloodied pup. The video that I recorded is cruel and disturbing, so I’ve chosen not to share it on this site.

Just as unsettling as the killing was the rage and hostility it provoked among the other foreign photographers—some of who rabbled for the cancellation of future events. What these well-intentioned photographers don’t grasp is the broader necessity and significance of this festival. In an era of cultural Darwinism, where indigenous traditions are rapidly vanishing on the wayside of western modernity, this festival protects one of the world’s most endangered cultural treasures. It reminds the nomads that they’re wonderful and unique for dancing around with giant birthday hats and wearing dead animals on their heads. Wrestling over a dead goat carcass on horseback is something worth celebrating. The festival and the competition helps preserve a dwindling culture that has since perished in its very homeland. 

While mingling with the eagle hunters was a spectacular experience, I’m still not sure if it was controversial or offensive enough to earn me my blacklisting… So just for posterity, here’s Kazakhstan’s Supreme Dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev eating Chick-Fil-A in a pink dress under a burning Kazakhstan flag, accompanied by a satanic depiction of the pope, a child Nazi, offensive profanities, a bloody pentagram, Sarah Jessica Parker’s face, and Nazarbayev’s girlfriend (a sheep in red high heels with lipstick).

Hurray!

I’m definitely banned in Kazakhstan now!

I’ve also ensured that if I ever try to visit Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev will personally use my visa application as toilet paper.

But I don’t care.

I have no desire to venture further into the Kazakh heartlands, as there’s no longer any appeal.

As far as I’m concerned, I’ve already seen Kazakhstan at its quirky, cultural best.

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Backpackology is movin’ on up in the world, to the glorious annals of self-hosting!

The good news: I’m now pimping a shiny, fancypants new homepage, complete with interactive menus, a featured-articles slider, and a gorgeous, convenient new navigation layout. (check it out!)

The bad news: During the move, I lost several hundred subscribers who once followed me via WordPress.com. If you’re one of them:

PLEASE DON’T LET SNEAKY WORDPRESS COME BETWEEN US! She’s so jealous. We’ve still got another year and a half to go and loads more adventures to share (panda hunting in China, lost ruins in Cambodia, cannibals in Papua), so if you’d like to continue following along, please re-subscribe in the sidebar to your right or in the footer below!!  Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks again for joining me!

At first, I thought it was dead.

At least in most corners of the globe, this is what you assume when something is placed before you on a platter and you are handed metal chopsticks.

But this was not ‘most corners of the globe;’ this was Korea—and when I went in for a bite, my dinner met me with resistance.

It was Saturday night in the neon backstreets of Seoul, and I was sitting in a cramped sannakji joint that reeked of kimchi and tide pools. Despite the stench, I was hungry and thrilled—this was the reason I had come to Seoul; this was the first stop on my culinary tour of Korea.

Often overshadowed by its neighbors China and Japan, Korea is home to one of Asia’s most fascinating, unique, and underrated cuisines—a tantalizing assault of explosive flavors, volcanic spices, bewildering cooking methods, and creative (often terrifying) ingredients. The biggest challenge of undertaking such a tour (aside from the gastrointestinal clobbering) is the high cost of living and traveling in Korea—prohibitively high for lingering to write stories. So for the next week or two, Backpackology is taking a semi-hiatus as I hurriedly conduct my binge-eating blitzkrieg, before I return to the economic respite of China and get you up to speed. I’ve still got loads of stories from Mongolia on the way, but in the meantime, let me hold you over with some culinary previews  from the land of puppies-for-breakfast.

The first item on my foodie checklist was perhaps one of the most fearsome and disconcerting.

“Don’t worry. Trying sannakji is an experience that everyone should try at least once,” grinned Lisa—confirming my suspicions that I was in deep shit.

Beneath the florescent glow of fish tanks, I sat sipping beer with a crew of American and Scottish expats. While most of the group had been teaching English in Korea for over a year, only Lisa and Siwaphon had ever dared to try sannakji, and it was Lisa who lead our foodie-expedition to this restaurant specializing in raw fish.

But sannakji wasn’t fish.

Sannakji was octopus.

Pffff, I scoffed. What’s the big deal about eating octopus?

As in Japan, sannakji is served hoe (raw), dipped lightly in soy sauce and wasabi. However, the Korean tradition of eating sannakji is only enjoyed in conjunction with the Korean tradition of getting belligerently wasted on soju rice wine. This is because you need to be properly shitfaced to think its a good idea to eat an animal while it’s still alive.

Siwaphon leaned towards me conspiratorially. “The trick with sannakji is that you need to swallow it head first. Otherwise it will stick its tentacles to your throat and you’ll choke to death.”

Typically the octopus is served whole, but perhaps the wait staff took pity on expressions of panic—our sannakji arrived diced into squirming, bit-sized portions…

VIDEO: Sannakji Taste test

Here’s a closer look and a second opinion from my expat host, Johnny.

VIDEO; Sannakji Tast test 2 (Close up)

I wasn’t prepared for the nightmare that arrived next.

My nose burned with the stench of rotting garbage as our server placed down a harrowing selection of banchan.

A defining characteristic of Korean cuisine is the proliferation of banchan (small side dishes) that accompany each main course. Like the chefs of India, Koreans believe that a good meal achieves a balance of flavors—salty, sweet, spicy, sour, vinegary, and tart. Each banchan is meant to intensely contrast the next, and with a good meal, you can expect as many as twelve banchan, including kimchi (spicy, fermented cabbage), caramelized pumpkin, glass noodles with meat, pickled seafood, vegetable pancakes, a soup or stew, spicy fermented radish, pickled garlic, and a million other curiosities that scream either ‘yummy,’ ‘Fear Factor,’ or ‘oh no, lava-fire.’

While sampling the different delicacies can be the highlight of a meal, the three banchan that followed our sannakji would make most children cry. Aside from the steaming pot of seaweed stew, our server presented us with a small plate of doenjang (several-years-old, rotted bean paste) and a tray of boendaegi—another item ranked on my to-do list: a heaping pile of foul, lukewarm silkworm larvae that reeks strongly of shit.

Bon appetit.

The doenjang bean paste was a fire-hose of potent, conflicting flavors, gloriously rancid and delicious. We wiped the plate clean.

As for the pile of boendaegi, I wish I could have said the same…

VIDEO: Boendaegi Taste test

More dismal than the boendaegi were the reactions I received from expats upon showing them my foodie hit-list. They all smiled and nodded at dakgalbi, bulgogi, bibimbap, and samgyetang, but upon reaching the more exotic numbers—hongeo, yukhoe, gagang jegang, mettugi—their faces would twist in horror.

“You’re fucking insane,” suggested one expat.

“Nothing could be worse than Chinese, chili-powdered seahorse,” I declared.

Oh, how naïve and unimaginative I was then. That was only day one, before I sampled gagang gejang in Dongdaemun and soju in Andong.

That was before I ate my way across the peninsula, tracking down the disgusting, the divine, and the deplorably weird.

That was before I learned that Korea’s culinary rabbit hole had nowhere to go but down…

VIDEO: Seahorse Taste test

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Backpackology is movin’ on up in the world, to the glorious annals of self-hosting! The good news is that fancy-cool design changes are soon to come. The bad news is that I’ve lost several hundred subscribers who once followed me via WordPress.com.

DON’T LET SNEAKY WORDPRESS COME BETWEEN US. She’s so jealous. We’ve still got another year and a half to go and loads more adventures to share (pandas in China, lost ruins in Cambodia, cannibals in Papua), so if you’d like to continue following along, please re-subscribe in the sidebar to your right!!  Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks again for joining me!