Fiji…the land of the wagging tongue.

If you look at the pictures I took of my stay in Fiji it looks like the absolute paradise, which for me it was not. The pictures are all beautiful sandy beach, golden sunsets, palm trees and blue skies. The picture memory in my mind of Fiji is grey and blurry. I’m not sure if it was the residue of a ten hour flight (in business class, mind you), or overall travel fatigue, or even full moon blues, but my stay in Fiji was not the idyllic stopover I had looked forward to and imagined.

I had another Hong Kong taxi Chinese fire drill experience getting to the airport, not being aware that the green taxis in Sai Kung do not go to Kowloon Airport tram station. My advice is, if you go to Hong Kong, stay out of their taxis. Most of the drivers do not speak English, even if they say they do; and although they may eventually get you where you are going, you will probably need medication by the time you get there. I packed up my stuff and walked down to the taxi stand near the Habitat stop in Sai Kung. It was a bit rainy and cold and I stood there trying to flag down a cab for over twenty minutes. Finally a green cab stopped, and the circus began. with the driver trying to tell me he didn’t go to Kowloon, and me insisting that he drive me to get my luggage and take me somewhere to get a cab to Kowloon. Finally, he did drive me up the hill to get my bags, and then he drove me to the local college where I had to transfer to a red cab, which eventually drove me to the Kowloon station, and where I was able to transfer to the train, which efficiently takes you directly to the airport. 

I had booked business class from Hong Kong to Sidney, with a stopover in Fiji. I was talked into the stopover by Airtreks, but I found out later that I could have flown direct Hong Kong to Sidney in nine hours instead of taking the ten hour flight to Fiji with another four hours to Sidney after the stopover.  Fiji Air Business Class was not first class; but the seat was 1C right in front with both seats to myself and the food was good. I didn’t know anything about Fiji except it was a tropical island. I found out later that it was an island in a lot of political turmoil, so I can attribute some of the negative feelings I had there to the fact that some very bad things were happening to the people who lived there.

I had been looking forward to a nice stay in a plush hotel on the beach throughout my trip. The drive in from the airport was an early morning after little sleep, admittedly, but the buildings, streets, and people all seemed covered with a film of disinterest. I got to the hotel and did not feel welcomed. I may be spoiled, but I don’t think so. I’ve stayed at all levels of accommodations and been perfectly satisfied. I do have a problem with places that advertise and charge for service they don’t provide. I don’t like to go to Starbucks and be treated badly with my $8.00 cup of coffee. I was very irritated at the service provided by the Westin Fiji, to the point where I wrote them and Starwood (as a gold member) a letter. I have yet to receive a response.  I know from working almost twenty years in hotels on Maui; once someone has a bad experience at check in, or their expectations are not met from the beginning of their stay, they notice everything possible that might be wrong or off about the rest of their stay. That’s what happened for me. I noticed there were not enough towels at the pool, it took thirty minutes to get a waiter at the lounge, the internet didn’t work in my room, the crew at breakfast gave terrible service, and no one seemed the least concerned.

I have to concede that some of this was exacerbated by the fact that I was surrounded by honeymooners and young Australian families, I had just spent time with a friend who knew my husband and I when we first were together, and it was a full moon. I missed Kent and saw him sitting across from me at dinner one night, in the restaurant on the ocean where they actually had wonderful food and service, and where he and I would have had a romantic dinner together for a special occasion. There he was, as clear as day, in his Hawaiian shirt with his khaki pants, smiling and trying to be comfortable on a date with his wife. I could see his smile and those blueblue eyes. I had to hold in the tears when the lovely Fijian lady came to take my order.

There was a great entertainer in the lounge one night. He played guitar singing blues and classic rock. The place was empty, but I went in anyway just to listen to music. Even that ended up feeling weird, because I was almost the only person in the audience, and it made me feel self-conscious about my oneness.

So, I had my own stuff going on in Fiji. The other thing that was hard for me was that it was so much like home, but I wasn’t home. It wasn’t as nice as Maui and the people weren’t the people on Maui. It seemed to make me ache in some place that actually does miss Maui. I don’t want to miss Maui because I don’t want to stay there and be surrounded by these memories. But I do miss Maui, which has been the only place in my life that I have ever really felt at home; the only place where we made a home.

I think I also had some delayed jet lag reaction because it took me until I was in New Zealand to get my sleep clock back on track. While I was in Fiji, I was up until 3am and sleeping until after 10am. I had planned to do some stuff there, but the combination of the experience wiped me out. Also the attitude of the people didn’t make me feel like doing stuff with them. I decided to conserve my energy and just hang out. Fiji was just one of those times when I, the universe, and all the planets collided in some mass explosion of messy dissatisfaction, sadness, jet lag, and possible reactions to events I knew nothing about at the time. But I did get some great pictures, doncha know.

Hong Kong… It is all about the money, money, money, ka-ching…ka-ching.

The weather has been ghastly, foggy and cold with light rain. Generally what I think of as England weather where an umbrella is a must. I’m staying in a beautiful expat district called Sai Kung which is filled with lush greenery, and right above a picturesque little boat harbor. With the fog over the mountains it looks exactly like the covers of the Pearl Buck novels I read when I was a teen, misty Chinese mountains painted over harbors filled with tiny fishing boats. It’s an exotic pretty little place. The town nearby is about an hour on local transport (bus to subway and two changes to Central Hong Kong) to town. 

I got picked up at 2am at the hotel in Pattaya, then a long drive to Bangkok airport, with a bit of a sleep on a hard wooden bench in the airport and a nice chat with a lady who was sleeping next to me. She was on her way to Phuket to spend her 50^th with her daughter.  For the entire PR as a tourist friendly place, Bangkok has the worst airport facilities for real travelers; not enough seats anywhere, no wash up facilities, no free Internet in the lobbies, and the airport staff are not helpful. The AirAsia flight was easy to board and right on time so I arrived at Hong Kong Airport, which might be the most efficient airport in the world, and rolled my bags right onto the metro line into Kowloon Station, right next to a taxi station. 

That’s when the Chinese circus began. The taxi stand lady could not find a taxi that spoke English or understood where I was going. Then the driver I got said he spoke English, but when we got halfway through town I realized it was a different English from what I thought of as English. He was on the phone with his office about the location, and then I was on the phone with some lady who also spoke this not-English. Mind you, I had now been up all night and even though I’d had an easy trip and it’s only an hour time difference between Bangkok and Hong Kong, I was not in a state to be the best representative of my culture. I was tired, hungry, and lost in China. By this time we had driven out of Hong Kong into the hills, and the phone lady got another lady, and I had my computer on with my printed Google instructions and by some miracle of repeating the names of roads over and over, we managed to find one road and the driver was able to Google another road, and tata! We made it to my friend’s house. I felt like an acrobat in Cirque du Soleil.

I’m having a lovely visit. I’ve gone into Hong Kong several times. The first day I went in late and road the hop on hop off bus. It was so foggy and grey I didn’t ride on the harbor or take the sky train, hoping it would clear up later in the week. I do love Hong Kong. It has a very different energy from other cities that are all about commerce. It’s fast, but not frantic. Everything is very calm and measured and clearly done, like old money. Money that knows it will always be there, and there is no reason to panic. There is no sense of rushing or pushing, and everyone is very polite. It is also the most orderly city I’ve been to, and there are these incredible walkways above the streets that lead from building to building like catacombs in a bee hive as you wind you way from one hub to another. I think it would drive me mad if I lived here, but it’s fascinating. You can buy an Octopus card at the airport terminal that you can use for travel on trains and buses, and also can swipe at most stores and restaurants to pay.  The mix of cultures is strange with Chinese writing next to Starbucks and KFC. I went to a Chinese fast food place to have rice and fried pork, and it was this massively structured production line that put McD’s to shame. One lady took my money, one man set up the tray, one lady put on the rice, one man put on the pork, and you’re off. There are, I found, at least three people to do a job one person would do anywhere else. 

In Hong Kong, you cannot live here unless you are sponsored and that means you were hired by a big company for a specific expertise. Then you’re in like Flynn because, depending on your contract, they provide housing, car, and many additional perks. Needless to say, there are a ton of ex-pats here working just for the money, big money, and that’s pretty much all most people do here is work. There are also a lot of Thais, Koreans, and Filipino who are here to work for the workers. If you are young, or have worked your way up the ladder a bit, and are looking for a great opportunity to make money I’d say Hong Kong is the place you want to shoot for. I’m not sure how the job market is here right now, because it seems pretty saturated, but it would be worth checking out.

I did spend a night in SoHo eating the best steak ever at a very hip place called Wagyu Lounge. It’s a busy, boozy restaurant filled with crowds of people spilling out onto the sidewalk and a very high noise level. The streets in SoHo are filled with bars and crowds of people on the street doing what they do after working 10-12 hours days, and it’s a lively scene. There are a lot of men, mostly men, dressed in suits, with a spattering of business women. As in Thailand, most of the men here are only interested in young Asian women, so if you’re a young women looking to find a mate, this is not the place. Everyone dresses to the nines or twenty really, and showing your wealth by brand name is definitely the thing here.  Once again, I loved the energy and just all out fun of the place. To be honest, the sight of such over the top prosperity after months in Asia was a welcomed change. Putting aside all the political dancing about the state of world affairs and distribution of wealth issues, prosperity is not a bad place to live.

Spent a fantastic weekend going all over Repulse Bay, Discovery Bay, Stanley, and Sai Kung town.  Parts of Stanley reminded me a bit of Whaler’s Village near Kaanapali Beach, mainly because of the style of shops and restaurants. Loved the young, very British, couple maybe in love sitting next to us in the bakery shop, and we got to take pictures of a pink Morris Mini Cooper with the bride delicious in pink organza. She was almost in tears because the weather was foul and foggy; not good for her pictures. Her whole wedding party was dressed all in pink and black with edgy haircuts, balloons, and fluffy stuffed animals, very Anime. It was so Hong Kong. 

Spent most of a very very cold today cuddled up until noon, on Skype with family and friends. Took a short trip into Sai Kung for shopping, and don’t have any major plans for the rest of my stay. In Sai Kung I went back to the furniture and lacquer box shop which we went to on Sunday. This shop is filled with beautiful Chinese furniture with all those magic drawers and compartments, wizard furniture, and they are right there refurbishing old pieces in the middle of the store. It is packed with chests, stools, huge round containers, and a huge collection of lacquer boxes. Square, round, donut holed, big and small, some filled with ancient compasses, some filled with real abacuses, and some old Mahjong sets. I bought one for a friend. It was another easy day, just hanging out and visiting, seeing how the locals live, which is my favorite thing to do. Had a great dinner and watched the Oscars, which I thought I’d missed.

Unfortunately, woke up late and planned to go into town when I discovered that I had lost my camera yesterday. The one I just bought! And with all my Hong Kong pictures. Rode the bus back into Sai Kung and traced my footsteps to the fruit stand where I remembered taking pictures, the Watson’s Drug Store, the pizza place, the SuperFood store, and the furniture shop. No luck. Left phone number, and decided it was really sad but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, so I wouldn’t let it ruin my day. It’s a lost $300.00, but on a nine month trip if that’s the worst I lost, it’s not bad. At least that’s what I’m telling myself, but I’m really sad about losing the pictures I’ve taken the last week.

I decided to just go on with the day I planned anyway, so I rode the bus/tram into town and took the Peak Tram. Let me just say, that is the scariest tram ride I’ve ever been on and when I looked at the two very small cables that were actually pulling the car up the hill, I was amazed. You are in what seems to be a very Victorian tram going up this hill at a sheer 90 degree angle straight up, high over Hong Kong harbor. It’s very foggy and cold up here at the peak, but it cleared a little on the way up and I did get to see immense view of Hong Kong harbor. It is such a distinctive view with all the tall angular buildings hovering over the harbor,  like drooling monster transformers waiting to eat up the harbor, and all the boats are little sushi snacks floating, clueless, on the water. 

Unfortunately, no pictures, but it was a great experience and I’m glad I came. It did make me aware of how much we miss taking pictures of stuff instead of just experiencing what we are seeing ourselves. I bought some magnet pictures of Hong Kong just in case my camera doesn’t show up. 

There is such a relentless energy to Hong Kong. I doubt I’d last long here, although there’s a part of me that loves that gogogo, especially after twenty years of laid back in Hawaii. But there’s also a big part of me that just wants to go somewhere woodsy and filled with nature and kick out the rest of my days writing, reading, watching movies, eating, and surrounded by people I really like and love. Of course, that’s after I feed the travel bug until she’s satiated and completely done with roaming.

Pattaya, plah!

It was really hard for me to leave my little cottage in Karon Beach, and I would not have picked my stay in Pattaya to be my last stop in Thailand, but that’s how it worked out. I went there for a special event, and luckily it was only for a few days. The upside was I got to see a lot of old friends who came from Maui and all over; and I got to meet some new friends. The downside was the hotel. I can only quote the wife of W.C. Fields when they pull up to the orange grove he acquired in a drunken poker game, after a long dusty trip across the U.S. trip in an old jalopy. She puts her hands on her hips, gives him the you drunken fool look, and says, “it’s a dump!”  My husband loved W.C. and, whenever I complained about our house, he would put his hands on his hips and mimic that scene. It always made me laugh. Anyway, that’s what most of us were saying about the hotel, although everyone said I got the best room. I could have moved, but I was sick one day and only there for a few days. Plus, I’m pretty jaded now and a few nights in a bad hotel with hot water and a bathtub is not a big deal.

I was on the 16^th floor, and the first night I heard a horrible cat in the wall howling. I was by myself, and I swear I thought I had been transported into an Edgar Allen Poe story. It was the freakiest sound I’ve ever heard. I sat up in the bed while this cat moaned and howled behind with the sound echoing throughout the room and me trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. I went out on the balcony, sixteen floors up, looking for a stray cat. I went out in the hallway looking for someone to tell me if I had gone mad. I called the front desk several times, but no one understood me because they barely spoke English. Over the next few days the cat howled every night. I finally had one friend who verified that he heard it too, or I really would have been worried about sanity. I never did find out where or what it was. Once night, I didn’t hear anything and it was even creepier because I thought maybe it died in the wall and it would haunt me forever. The cat in the wall hotel was my impression of all of Pattaya. It was just another big, grimy city howling from the minds of all those men looking for sex. It didn’t help that the weather was completely overcast, and I got violently sick for about 24 hours. I only saw the beachfront the last night I was there when I went to dinner with friends. As I’ve said before, travel experience is completely personal, and one man or woman’s paradise can be another’s home across the road or hell across the road.

The only upside, besides seeing friends, was the walk down the street in front of our hotel which was filled with interesting shops and a great soup lady. There was a guitar shop, a Harley Davidson bike place with tons of old bike parts, and a great Chinese goods store where the lady sold everything from headache powder to beautiful leather bags. I also had a fun ride on the back of a scooter taxi to and from our last dinner together. I can’t believe how brave I am to ride around on the back of scooters in the middle of Asia traffic with some crazy young driver who doesn’t speak a word of English. Well, crazy or brave, take your pick. I also had some great visits with friends, and a funny weird goodbye dinner. 

Seeing long-time friends from Maui really reminded me of all my history in Hawaii, and it was the first time I felt homesick. I think home is not about where your house is, but where your friends are. I have friends on Maui and in Hawaii that have known me for over twenty years. And as much as I love my family, they just don’t know me or appreciate me in the same way my friends do. My family and I have spent a lot of time of apart, and although they know some of my life story, they have different versions and opinions. My friends are (mostly) people who I have similar experiences with, who not only know my story, but understand it. I love spending time with my family, but when I’m with them I’m mostly just this old (hippie) who can’t play Wii right, doesn’t know how to shop or fix herself up, and makes the wrong moves in backgammon. My friends, at least some of them, know what incredible things I’ve done and how much I have to share. They appreciate the miracle I am. And, with my friends I can really be myself, whoever that is in the moment. Nothing beats that. That is home, wherever you are. 

I had some moments, sick in the hotel, where I was thinking about ending my trip in Fiji. I told myself I could do New Zealand some other time. Then, once I felt better, I checked my flights and realized I only have another month or so and I’ll be home. I hate to crap out that close to the finish line, really! There were also some issues about what I wanted to do in Australia. My friend from Sydney and I had planned to go to Tasmania for a week, but I decided I really wanted to see the Barrier Reef this trip instead. I’d like to go to an exclusive resort or a cruise, but it would be cheaper just to go to Cairns or Brisbane. I’m checking it all out. Then I’ll spend a few weeks in New Zealand, see Hobbitland, and ride around looking at potential places to stay long term in the future.  I’ll spend the last week in Sydney, and then head home early April right on schedule. That’s the plan for now.

So it was goodbye, Thailand and hello Hong Kong, coming down the last stretch of the tour. It’s so hard to believe that all this time and all these places have passed by so quickly. In the beginning it seemed like such an enormous block of time and locations, and now it seems like I could go another year or two to fit in all the places I could have gone. It is a big wide world, and there is so much to see and do. As long as I am fit, I can’t see any reason to stay in one place for very long, except to spend time with friends and family. Home can be anywhere my heart is for a while.

Notes from the light side (notes from the dark side will not be posted)

Thinking about writing is not writing, but I’ve doing a lot of that lately; writing, and thinking about writing. About every two years, on the dot, I get into a writing frenzy and write and write and write. And then it stops, like a frozen pipe. Usually the more I write the more I want to write and sometimes you have to prime the pump. My last big really unfulfilled goal, dream, idea, place in my life that I have yet to visit is to be an actual published writer. I have put efforts into this before, several times but have always got distracted or given up, perhaps too soon before the miracle. Or perhaps there is no miracle. Or perhaps someone in my family will “discover” my journals fifty years from now. Or perhaps I will be one of those many writers who write and write, and are only read by a few friends and family. Despite all these maybes, I have enough material now for about three books, and all I need to decide is how much energy/time I want to put into putting them together. No decision on this yet.

Smiling…for a very long time I did not have a lot to make me smile, and I lost the use of my smile. In the past few years, I have had to relearn the art of smiling. I have, I have been told and I can see myself in the mirror, a wonderful smile. It transforms my entire face when I smile, and I become a nice old lady, someone you probably would even like to know or help out. I have practiced this smiling throughout my trip, and have seen what a difference a smile can make in the oddest, most difficult situations. Smiling at a very tired, very irritated immigration official, at a hotel clerk who doesn’t understand a word I am saying, at a harried taxi driver who doesn’t want to admit he is lost, at Thai hookers who are afraid to look at foreign women and see only judgment in their eyes, at the massage workers having a Christmas party when I asked to take a picture of all their laughing faces. A smile is a gold coin dropped in the toll booth on the bridge of life (oh god I can’t believe I wrote that—but I’ll keep it for now because it has a Tom Waits meets Nicholas Sparks ring to it). When I smile I feel all the smiles around me, which is not to say I’m always in a smiley-face state of being; the little duel-faced being that I am, I can frown as well as Robert DeNiro, but I like to believe I am slowly riding the bus that might take me there.

This is when you know you are in some kind of groove. I went to my Wifi place this morning after breakfast. A guy comes into the tour/motorcycle rental/laundry/computer place and asks about extending his visa for a few days. I could tell he was just trying to see if he could get these ladies to do it for him, so they acted like they didn’t know anything. When he left I followed him out and told him I had the same question as my visa expires the 15^th and I don’t fly out until the 20^th. I was told I could just pay a fine at airport on my way to Hong Kong, but he told me if you get a mean officer, they can make life miserable. He said I could go into Phuket to Immigration and get visa extended. My first thought was to put it off because it was already after noon, and I had no idea how long it would take and that is not what I had planned for the day, but I had some feeling that I should just go. So I went back to my cottage and dressed up a bit, real shoes and all. When I asked the ladies at the shop where Immigration Office was they told me any taxi could take me there. When I walked out on the street there was a guy I’d met at Casa Brazil who drove cab and he was willing to take me there and back (for a price of course). We had a lovely ride talking about music and Hawaii and his children and life in Phuket. I got to Immigration and the place was packed with people, but when I walked in a nice German lady in line told me to go to the Information Desk, where this nice older Australian man explained exactly what I needed to do. Fill out a form, go downstairs and take a picture, get copies of my passport, then come back and voila! A five day extension until my plane leaves. Of course, the lady told me I didn’t need copies of my passport when I did, so I had to make two trips up and down the offices and it took about 2 ½ hours because it was so crowded, but everyone in the office was really friendly and even laughing. How many civil service offices have you been to lately where the people were laughing? It cost 1900 baht (about $60.00), and the cab was another 1000 baht, which I knew was expensive but was worth it getting there and back so easily. Plus he said he’ll give me a deal on the ride to the airport. So, visa extended, and I don’t have to worry about it all the way to my flight on the 20^th while I in Pattaya. I’m sure there are better, more economical ways to do things here, but I am learning on my own and that’s how I like to roll.

Krabi, where angels fly

I took a boat trip yesterday to Karabi. I only bought a ticket for a one way van pickup and ferry, pickup at 7am. I was lucky to find somewhere open early enough to get a real cup of coffee. After a long ride to Phuket we got to the ferry station where masses of people were waiting to board the huge old tuggers to Phi Phi, Krabi, and points beyond. Boat boys were lugging luggage on their heads over these rickety plank boards you have to walk over from boat to boat, because all the boats are parked four deep against the pier. I was on the last boat, and walked across four boats over slippery planks to my boat. I had put on a ton of sunscreen, so I climbed up two narrow boat stairs to the top seating, which was all done in twos. I sat in my space feeling kind of weird because there was an empty unused seat next to me. Then this lady sat down who I didn’t realize until much later was my guardian angel, if you believe in such things. At this time in my life I am living the Lennon song, and don’t believe in nothing because to believe in anything means to surrender to the idea that my husband and I met and fell in love and then he died; and that there was some kind of purpose or reason or means to that end, and I can’t believe that in my heart or my head. So for now, I believe in nothing and explore everything.

The problem for me with angels is that often I don’t recognize them, or they don’t look or act the way I think they should; they are too big or too small or talk to loud or are too bossy or I’m looking the other way at something I think is more interesting. I also have a very bad habit of, when I meet an angel, trying to clip their wings. I don’t know where that comes from (the devil in me?), but it is a definite pattern that I meet an angel and behave badly with them.

The day was perfectly beautiful, blue sky, little wind, not blistering hot like it usually is here, and the ocean was, as the ocean always is for me, home. Let me get the travelogue part of this over. Krabi is another of those places I don’t want to tell anyone about. It is isolated about 25 miles off the coast of Phuket with long sandy beaches, and clear lagoons. There are some very exclusive places to stay, including one that was 30,000 baht per night ($1000.00). I think when-if I come back here I will book a place in Krabi for a week or two. It’s a whole different scene than Karon to Patong. There are tons of islands you can ride Chinese looking boat tuktuks back and forth to visit. I didn’t go into Krabi Town, because I decided to take the four island boat tour with my new friend, so I have somewhere to explore another time. We went to Krabi Beach, Chicken Island-which does look like a big chicken, and several other spots. The swimming was great, better than Karon Beach, because the sand was softer and there were big shallow lagoons to swim in with no shore break. We talked and swam and had a lovely luncheon buffet at a sweet little resort I might come back to someday. It was one of those perfect trips on a perfect day.

We had switched from the ferry to Krabi to a speedboat, and now were with a smaller crowd of French, English, Thai, Australian and other tourists. I had never really thought about the differences between a boat trip on Maui which I’ve taken plenty of, and out in the world. Americans may take a bit to warm up, but they are friendly, curious people as a whole, and if you are on a boat full of Americans, it will probably be noisy and interactive within a short time. That could be because of the common language, but I think it’s more than that. When you are on a tour with tourists out in the world, generally, the Germans have no interest in the French, the French have no interest in, well, and anyone not French, and the Russians are not friendly to anyone, even other Russians. These are, of course, vast generalizations and I can only write my trip and my experience. Iit is possible you may have a different trip and a different experience, but I can’t write about that. So on this small speedboat where people were not really interacting with each other,  a companion made it much nicer even though I did a bit of wing-clipping and over-reacted to what felt a bit like having an instant Jewish mother. “Don’t forget your towel, dear”, and “here’s a toothpick, because you’ll have rice stuck in your teeth” being a couple of examples.  The kind of mothering that brings out the worst bad little “fuck off” teenager in me.

But I am much older and wiser and know myself pretty well, so I was able to catch myself in the act, and go off on my own so I could put on my friendly face. The wonderfulness of this meeting is how easily we talked about music, and Europe, and traveling, and family, and adventures, and playing mag yong, and politics, and the silliness of religions. That was the wonder of it all, and I was able to not ruin that with my bad self.

We went out in the boat to a snorkeling spot in a really isolated cove. I had every intention of snorkeling on this trip and had my mask ready, but then when we stopped I became, as my granny would have said, “afeared”. I just couldn’t get in the water. We were out in a lonely bay  with a bunch of strangers, granted, but I had my guardian angel and I knew she wouldn’t have let anything happen to me, no way. The guide had mentioned sharks and sea urchins, but that stuff never stops me at home. My angel was urging me to go (although she was not going), but I just couldn’t make myself get in the water. Maybe for good reason, I’ll never know. Later, I explained to her that it was because the stairs on the back of the boat were very hard to climb up and down, slippery, and I had broken my foot climbing out of a pool on stairs like that, but that wasn’t really all of it. I just got afeared. I’ve had that happen with other things on this trip, like riding scooter in Goa, and usually once I recognize the fear, I’m ready to go on the second or third try. Now I’m riding scooter all over this place. So, I’m pretty sure the next boat I go out on, I will jump off the back and snorkel on my own. I also think it’s that thing of always feeling so safe in the water with my husband, because he could basically swim to Tahiti from Maui, and now not feeling so safe in the ocean without him. But as we all know, being afeared is never about just one thing. Sometimes those feelings are warnings at the time and place, and sometimes they are just yellow lights to go slow, and sometimes they are stop signs we’d do better to ignore.

The last island we went to was a perfect white sand lagoon of clear water and fish swimming in the bay where we swam in water the temperature of cool bath water, swimming under the wide sky surrounded by green green island rocks jutting up out of the ocean like the most scenic painting you’ve ever seen of the wild, wide exotic places of the world. And it was just another day in paradise with angels, and fish, and freedom, and me as always occasionally snapping at my tail.