Wadi Rum, Jordan: Fire & Friendship (May 5th)

Ever so seldom, one crosses the path of a perfect stranger.

The gentleman asked for my afternoon’s company; a check of the clock, I had six hours to hand. I accepted his warm invitation.

His car arrived to a stop, purposefully, beckoning me away from wandering Arabian eyes. I stepped in and felt a sudden pang for road trips past, forgone; not this one, no.

Lunch was fresh seafood, tempting the taste buds with creamy, garlic-y salsa and chillies, peppered black. We nibbled on warmed and white pita bread, wrapped up in a thick, wet hummous. Conversation dallied between belief systems, the prophets, to — love — promises, empty and unkept. Fire and friendship burning, we sipped sweet, hot tea: I paid for nothing.

A brief pause at the Intercontinental to fuel my passion for hotels, we stumble upon palm trees and water pools — azure — into the kisses of friends old, friends new. Chatterings and gossips are in Arabic, but I feel at ease and at home. A look to the watch and back to the road, we go, unlocking volume and rock songs to let loose their heady full.

The Amman-Aqaba highway spirals. Architecture takes an aside: it is in waiting, to expose the desert mountains. Wadi Rum is valleys, canyons, corridors of eroded, dusty sandstone. Music is high and spirits are pumping as we cruise, cruise: 120, 130, 140 kilometres per hour. It is Lawrence of Arabia, Mars on Earth, yellow, red, God in nature.

We halt the car at the Seven Pillars of Wisdom to release and stretch, to touch, to feel. We play photo shooting in the desert, rolling in the dusty, cool soils of stone. We listen, we hear — escuchar, oír — the silence is deafening in the slap of the wind. My perfect stranger offers his hand, to steady me and I accept, willingly.

We make a final stop for tea, more sweet tea — in the desert’s middle? — yes. Time is running and so do we, as the magic hour rolls forth and beautiful is everything, for the set of the sun. My breath is caught up in ponderings of trust as he ruffles my hair, but lays not a finger. I see the world through his eyes: upon him I can depend.

The ship we reach as the whistle blows and see-you-laters are inevitable.

Say goodnight, not goodbye;
value holds the snapshot.

Danang, Vietnam (April 9th)

Dearest readers: having taken two months to get this first entry published, I owe you an explanation! I have worked for more than sixty days without rest; free time is limited and precious. I was anxious to get out entries in order of date and place, but now realise that such pedantic thought shall keep you waiting until my contract is over. So they shall be published as per sentiment, as per emotion, as per outlook. Freedom of expression, here we go:

—–

I step outside into the relief of the heat, after the relentless freeze of Beijing.

I spy my little eye, a pointed hat I see:
three dollars, two dollars, one dollar:
the price is good for me

Pointed hat on head, I sport a brightly coloured “good copy” Le Sport bag and perfectly faked D&G sunglasses (Shanghai rocks). Our bus pulls us through green, green, green. It is Costa Rica, Colombia, truly Vietnam; I miss weekend escapes.

The shuttle drops us at a hideaway resort: a restaurant, some guest rooms, cradling one idyllic beach. We nibble on garlic soaked prawns to lie to rest our hunger. Onto the sand, the beach stretches far and wide, curvaceously full. I run to the waves and let them chase me, beat me down. Salt stings the eye and I feel alive.

The sun dries out the beads of sea, beads of heat. I wander, camera in hand, seeking opportunity. One vivacious, older lady is seated on a wooden lounger; she broadcasts massage to the world, for the world. In the shade of an umbrella, a foot’s step from the ocean?–I’ll say yes, I am golden.

I bargain for the privilege, employing good sense, but not pushing too hard. A towel is laid down; my body eases atop. Two ladies seize upon me to knead out the hard worker’s tensions. There is an exchange of words, purposeful local lingo, and I long to understand.

They are versed in English so I bare open my heart, to welcome theirs:

“Boyfriend, Mam?”–no, I say.
“Bracelets, Mam?”–no, I say.
“Haha!”–they laugh–”No money, no honey!”

A heavy heart later, I return to the ship, sick for the land before I have even left. A funny world, this: snapshots of cities, a practised clock watcher one becomes.

I question: what value holds the snapshot?

a-sailing i shall go

O it’s I that am the captain of a tidy little ship,
Of a ship that goes a sailing on the pond;
And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about;
But when I’m a little older, I shall find the secret out
How to send my vessel sailing on beyond.

For I mean to grow a little as the dolly at the helm,
And the dolly I intend to come alive;
And with him beside to help me, it’s a-sailing I shall go,
It’s a-sailing on the water, when the jolly breezes blow
And the vessel goes a dive-dive-dive.

O it’s then you’ll see me sailing through the rushes and the reeds,
And you’ll hear the water singing at the prow;
For beside the dolly sailor, I’m to voyage and explore,
To land upon the island where no dolly was before,
And to fire the penny cannon in the bow.

Robert Louis Stevenson