Sixintheworld.com

Five months ago Anne and I talked about two non-travel posts that would be a little deeper and more introspective than our normal posts. The first went up when we got to China, so it is only appropriate I get the second one up in India. China and India have been the two biggest unknowns for us. They were the most intimidating and probably caused us to think the most about why we were taking this trip. There is nothing like a little fear to stir up some deep musings.

Top 6 lessons we want the family to learn on the trip and how we apply those lessons (and because I can’t make it through a January without doing some kind of performance review, I will also include a grade on how we are doing)

1. It’s a small world and we are all brothers and sisters
Application - Obtain a love of and sense of responsibility for all people in the world.

Status - I would grade us a A- on this one. During our time in Australia and New Zealand we didn’t make much progress on this goal, but traveling around China, Southeast Asia and now India we have given ourselves much more opportunity to learn this lesson. We have met people from all over the world, we have made friends with locals and travelers alike. We have had to be comfortable and supportive in situations where people think differently, where people look differently, and where people’s goals and opportunities are radically different from our own. We have also gained a much greater understanding of the day to day reality of people in multiple countries which are much less fortunate than our own. We have been surprised how small things can make a big difference. Small amounts of money can make huge differences in people’s lives. Small acts of friendship can go a long way. For example, it has been hard on Asher as her blond hair gets her noticed everywhere we go. In some countries she has been such a novelty that we’ve had to plan extra time just to get from point A to point B because so many people want to take their picture with her. As a family we decided to not get angry or dismissive, but rather to indulge people’s curiosity, smile, and allow them to pull Asher or the boys into their pictures. We learned how letting people practice their English on us helps prepare them for a better future. I have been proud of the kids’ reactions to situations where we have to think about others. We’ve discussed many of the world’s major problems, such as pollution, poverty, sickness, lack of employment and education, and health issues. We’ve exposed them to people and ideas that are trying to fix these problems. Hopefully our actions will back up our discussions and the seeds we are planting today will grow into action as our children continue to grow.

2. Family first - Grow together, play together, work together
Application - Create memories to share forever and look for ways to help one another

Status - This is a tricky one. I see all the good the trip has created, but I also see the tension and bickering which come from 24/7 companionship. I would give us another A- and ignore the bickering: what family doesn’t bicker? In New Zealand and Australia the kids had to come to grips with the fact that their only playmates for the next year happened to share the same DNA. They found innovative ways to play together and to bridge the age gaps between them. The relationships between the children are all much stronger than when we left and Dax is much more a part of Kieran and Asher’s lives. As the trip has progressed the number of shared experiences and things to joke and reminisce about has grown exponentionally. Some of these memories are the big ones you would expect–climbing the Great Wall, Zorbing in New Zealand, riding elephants in Thailand. Some come from being part of another culture such as visiting Richard’s house in Australia, crossing the street through a sea of motorbikes in Hanoi, or sharing dinner with new friends in Beijing. But even the smallest experiences are rich with inside jokes which will prove fodder for lifetime of family laughter. The kids’ camaraderie is enhanced by the added responsibility the big ones–Dax and McKane–have taken to look after the little ones–Kieran and Asher. McKane is especially attentive to the whereabouts and status of each family member. So the bottom line is although we still have our moments of frustration, the good is far outweighing the bad and the family is coming together as a result of the trip.

3 Perseverance
Application - When difficult things happen–such as injury, sickness, lost items, or money problems–we buckle down and get to the next good thing
Grade: B

I put this goal in to remind us to keep going if things ever became really tough. They haven’t been tough yet and hopefully they won’t be, so this goal may have to wait until after the trip. We haven’t had too many trials or concerns so far. Most of the problems have been small, like broken computer cords or lost iPods or silk sacks. There is still room for improvement sice these small things often cause us too much mental anguish. The power cord we left in a hotel in Coff’s Harbor, Australia is gone (the hotel went out of business); we will never see the bag we left in the taxi in Xi’an again. So just as with life at home, we still need to learn to put things in perspective and not sweat the small stuff.

4 Hard things are good things
Application - Get out of your comfort zone; gain a sense of accomplishment from conquering challenges
Grade: A

As I mentioned above, we haven’t had any big trials to date, but we’ve done a great job of throwing everyone out of their comfort zones. Whenever we’ve become comfortable in a culture, it is usually time to leave. When we were in Saigon, I hit a wall. After figuring out our rhythm, I was ready to set up camp. I didn’t care if we missed a couple other countries. I was tired and at that point Vietnam was becoming easy. Anne did not indulge me, and we pushed on up the Mekong to Cambodia. A similar thing happened in Thailand, and again thanks to the coercion of my wife, we pushed on to Laos. I am glad we did. Each of us has had hard things: Kieran the food, McKane the languages, Anne the pollution, Tom the smells, Dax the missing of friends, and Asher the constant grabbing and touching from foreigners, but nothing has slowed us down.

5 Gratitude
Application - Less focus on stuff and money and an increased spiritual focus that comes from being grateful
Grade: B+

In deciding to take this trip and spend a hefty chunk of our savings, Anne and I took great strides toward focusing more on experiences and less on material goods. Anne tried to simplify at home and minimize the “stuff” we left behind and I acknowledged that a pause in earning was an acceptable career move. Eleven months of living out of backpacks and buying only what we need to get by–cookies, pens, memory cards–seemed an enticing alternative to maintaining a house, a few cars, and busy schedules. We’ve found a great sense of liberation in our decreased consumerism and a heightened sense of gratitude for the opportunity to even be on this trip in the first place. (An added benefit is that is makes dealing with souvenir salespeople a no brainer. We simply say, “No thanks, it won’t fit in my backpack.”)

This one has been much harder for the kids and admittedly is a lot to ask from children. Dax has excelled, contenting himself with a new pair of iPod headphones and a few T-shirts over the past 5 months. The younger ones still want to buy toys and tchotchkes everywhere we go and struggle at sharing the few treasures they brought along. Our strategy has been to give them a small allowance, which they use on expendable items (which Asia in particular is full of). We’ve left many a 50 cent toy in a hotel room for the maids to take home, a reality they’ve accepted but which doesn’t prevent them from wanting something new at the next stop.

But we have nearly broken that cycle and are thinking less about what is the next big thing is we need to acquire, although a “pool table” does come up once in a while. We have become much more focused on experiences rather than stuff. And the family is also grateful daily for these experiences. Perhaps seeing God’s creations and spending so much time meeting His people everywhere just lends itself to gratitude much more than a new car, computer, or plaything. We have created a great foundation for gratitude but we still have a ways to go.

6 Gain a zeal for tackling all the world has to offer. (sights, sounds, people, smells, tastes, etc.)
Application: Purely loving the world and embracing all it has to offer

Grade: C

This is our stretch goal. If we only had the big boys, I think we could have done well on this one, but we have to be much more tempered in our adventure and zeal with a 4 and 6 (now 7) year old. I realize I am a hard grader on this one. We have made progress and accomplished much trying to cram a lifetime of travel into one year, but there is still much more we could do. After 5 months of traveling, we have days when one or more of us will sit on the bed and say, “I don’t want to go.” Most activities have one or two detractors who would rather be doing something else, like watching TV or playing computer games. We sometimes indulge those interests–Anne would say too often. We should make more progress on this goal over the second half of the trip as the country count goes up and we have fewer opportunities for such distractions.

For those who are new readers, we don’t digress like this often. We will be back to our normal travel postings in the next day or two. India is giving us plenty to write about.

Technorati Tags: Australia, China, Goals, New Zealand, Nonprofit, Rising Star Outreach, Rising Star Outreach, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

We love Laos and can’t wait to get back someday. Here are a few things we learned while we were there:

1. Just because there’s an “s” at the end of a country’s name doesn’t mean you pronounce it.

2. Never give your kids chocolate milk before taking an 8-hour van ride through the mountains.

3. Do give your kids dramamine before taking an 8-hour van ride through the mountains.

4. Taking a 4- and 6-year-old to the spa with you for a massage is anything but relaxing. Amusing, perhaps, since they view it as getting tickled for an hour, but relaxing, definitely not.

5. If you’re frazzled after your massage with the 4- and 6-year-old, floating in a tube down a lazy river is a perfect stress reliever.

6. This is a place time seems to have forgotten. If you want to capture a little slice of heaven, hurry, because it’s bound to change before too long.

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Laos, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

Laos is a quiet, beautiful country that could keep a traveler busy for many weeks. Too bad we only had one. Many people we met trekked on elephants, explored caves, and swam in pools beneath waterfalls. We managed to fit in a crowdpleasing tube trip down the Nam Song River at Vang Vieng, which ranked at the top of everyone’s list. Because it would be boring to have a top 6 list with only one thing in it, we’ve added a few others as well. So here are our favorite activities from our brief visit to lovely little Laos (pronounced without the the “s” by everybody but Americans):

1. Asher — Play with a little Lao girl on the slow boat from Huay Xi to Luang Prabang
2. Kieran — Float in a tube down the Nam Song River
3. McKane — Swing and fling off the rope swings along the Nam Song River
4. Dax — Swing and front/back flip off the rope swings along the Nam Song River
5. Anne — Soak up the spectacular scenery along the Mekong River on the slow boat from Huay Xi to Luang Prabang
6. Tom — Take pictures of ancient temples and pristine mountains, jungles, and rivers

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Laos, Luang Prabang, Mekong River, Rope Swings, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Tubing, Vang Vieng

In many ways, Cambodia is the wild west of Southeast Asia. No longer overrun by gunslingers, it still bears the hallmarks of a frontier nation, a new society, albeit with ancient roots, emerging from the utter destruction inflicted by the Khmer Rouge. Rules are made to be broken, politicians are all on the take, and the country is overrun by NGO workers seeking to bring order and predictability. This said, we LOVE Cambodia. Despite the inherent craziness, the people are fabulous–warm, happy, and humble–the landscape rich, and the history mindboggling. Here are the top 6 things we learned this time around:

1. Cambodia is a bargain for kids. Despite what your Vietnamese tour guide might tell you (and charge you), children’s visas are FREE as is their admission to the Angkor complexes. Score one for the family travelers!

2. Westerners lack creativity when it comes to motorized transport. The Cambodians have long been known for their ability to fit livestock, the entire contents of their homes, and nuclear families on motorbikes, but now it seems they’ve applied this riding innovation to cars and trucks as well. About an hour south of Phnom Penh we saw Cambodia’s vehicle of choice, the used Toyota Camry imported from Japan, carrying 15. Passengers sat 3 deep in back seats and even drivers carried a passenger or two on their laps. Can you imagine traveling an American highway with a couple kids on your lap?Trucks plied the dirt roads stacked high with cargo while a few dozen passengers enjoyed the fresh air and unique views afforded from the roof.

3. This is where all the Koreans have gone. It’s funny how different countries define their “it” vacation spots. Americans go to Western Europe or Cabo, Australians go to Bali, the Russians go to Turkey, and Koreans go to Cambodia. Korea is pumping a lot of money into the country–training tour guides, building infrastructure, and developing hotels–but some locals fear the splendid ruins of Angkor will soon resemble Disneyland, replete with water parks and cotton candy carts.

4. The human spirit is indomitable. The radiant smiles on the Cambodians’ faces make it easy to forget their troubled history. More than 1/3 of the population was killed at the hands of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979, yet those who survived the genocide radiate hope and joy today. It’s hard to fathom what they endured and even harder to believe they’ve not only carried on but thrived in the aftermath.

5. $12 can make all the difference. Next time you pick up a few Value Meals from McDonald’s or order a pizza from Domino’s, pause for a moment and think about Cambodia. The $12 you spend on a single meal could put a Cambodian child through school for a whole year. Don’t feel guilty and by all means be sure to enjoy your high-fat feast, just make sure when you get home you make an online donation to the Ponheary Ly Foundation. And tell them we sent you.

6. Corrupt governments make for interesting travel opportunities. It is commonly acknowledged in Cambodia that the reason there is no paved road from Siem Reap to the Thai border at Poipet is that Bangkok Airways doesn’t want ground transport to become a comfortable alternative to their daily flights. Most believe the company provides incentives for the Cambodian government to keep the road rough. Those in a hurry or accustomed to comfort fork over a few hundred dollars to make the quick flight, while those with more time and less money pay $10-15 for a bus to the border and a connecting bus from there to Bangkok. The 3-4 hour drive to Poipet is a bumpy, dusty adventure not to be missed. Be sure to send the Cambodian powers that be a thank you note when you get to Bangkok.

Technorati Tags: Cambodia, Family travel, Poipet, Angkor, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Siem Reap

The ruins at Angkor represent the apex of ancient Khmer civilization and form the heart of modern Cambodia. It is difficult for anything else in the country, much less all of Southeast Asia, to compare. That said, here are our top things to do in this wonderful land:

1. Asher — Play with Cambodian kids, especially Fifi (Ponheary Ly’s nephew)
2. Kieran — Look for bugs at the Angkor temples
3. McKane — Visit/take food to a rural school
4. Dax — Learn more about Angkor history
5. Anne — Explore the magnificent temples of Angkor
6. Tom — The same thing Anne said (He’s a copycat)

Technorati Tags: Angkor Wat, Cambodia, Family travel, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

While we’re sure Cambodia has good food somewhere within its boundaries, we didn’t find much during our brief stay. We had some tasty Indian food in Phnom Penh and discovered a yummy Cambodian restaurant in Siem Reap on our last night in the town. Other than that we had bad tourist food at charmless restaurants that cater to tour group busses. Here are the foods we liked best:

1. Tom — Pork Amok at Temple Club, Siem Reap
2. Anne — Cambodian noodle dish at Temple Club, Siem Reap
3. Dax — Indian food in Phnom Penh
4. McKane — Spaghetti Bolognese (there’s a surprise!)
5. Kieran — Nothing
6. Asher — Crackers

Technorati Tags: Cambodia, Family travel, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

Sixintheworld is not a political blog, nor do I want it to become one, so forgive the coming political musings. If you are here to read travel stories, don’t worry, there are many more to come.

Vietnam, or Nam to those who served there, is a loaded word in the American psyche. It conjures images not only of war but also the domestic unrest it created. Until our recent military engagement, the Vietnam war stood out as a crucible in American history. For thirty years, Americans have lamented losing a war that wasn’t their own and thought about how things could have gone differently. The war stands out as the pit of humility in the center of our usual American bravado. I assume most Americans who spend time in Vietnam end up thinking about the war. I certainly did and after a month of rumination came to the following realizations:

1. False assumptions helped create the Vietnam war. Though the recent actions of our leaders speak to the contrary, Americans are not imperialists. We might invade other countries with McDonald’s, Tom Cruise, and Starbucks, but we have little desire to use guns and tanks to extend our influence. If we were truly imperialist, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines, and Japan would be states and Canada would be nervous. As a citizenry we believe nations should be free to govern themselves, not coerced by dictators or repressive ideologies. Americans in the 1960’s thought they were fighting to free Vietnam from the snares of communism, but the Vietnamese saw the US as just another imperialist oppressor. The Vietnamese misread our intentions and we misunderstood theirs. They wanted to be free of outside powers and were no more eager to be puppets of Moscow or Beijing than Paris or Washington. We saw Ho Chi Minh as simply another face of Mao or Stalin and would not tolerate his rule.

2. Communism was a very bad thing, bad enough to fight against. Millions of northern Vietnamese suffered for 20 years under communism. After the fall of Saigon, the rest of the country suffered for 15 more. It took the Vietnamese three decades to realize Marxist-Leninsm was unsustainable. Communism sounds equitable to the liberal heart, but it fails to account for human nature. Removing people’s freedom is no way to liberate them. When there is no reward for work, people lose their incentive to perform. Productivity lags, quality suffers, and malaise sets in. After a decade of stagnation, near starvation and an inability to grow, the “communist” leaders in Vietnam have abandoned all but the name of communism. At its peak almost half the world was draped in an ideology that stifled people’s freedom. As heirs to the doctrine of unalienable rights, we necessarily must resist the spread of ideologies that squelch them.

3. The Vietnamese were never good communists, but they were and still are very good autocrats. I have not found a good Ho Chi Minh biography, but from what I can gather, this new Vietnam would please Uncle Ho. He may have been a communist, but he was not a philosopher idealist like Mao or Lenin. Today’s propaganda states that Ho saw the communist ideology as a path to delivering millions of Vietnamese from poverty. Yesterday’s argues he didn’t say much about communism because Mao had already said it all. Today Mao must be turning over in his glass sarcophagus at capitalist China, but Ho would probably be proud of capitalist Vietnam. His primary purpose in life was to establish a self-determined nation. Fighting the French and the Americans was the continuation of a struggle that had gone on for two millennia with opponents such as the Chinese, the Khmers, and the Chams. If only we could learn to separate those mired in an ideology from those who see it as a temporary tool, we might save ourselves a lot of grief. The legacy of Vietnam’s flirtation with communism is the one party system.

4. We lost the war but we won the peace. For the last 20 years I have heard that Vietnam was our big mistake. I studied the war in school and have read a number of books about both the war and its aftermath. Until this visit I was very much in the camp that deemed it a horrific error in judgment, which cost 58,000 American lives and saw millions of Vietnamese killed and displaced. I felt sorry for those who lost family members in an unpopular and fruitless struggle. After spending a month in Vietnam, however, I have been overcome by a wave of irony. We definitely lost the war. There are many reminders here to drive home that fact, but I have to feel in the words of an unpopular dead president that we “won the peace.” This place is an incubator of capitalism. Of course there is still rampant corruption and human rights abuses, but they are gradually improving. Once you pay off the army, the police, or the party, for the most part you can do what you want. Being in Vietnam for APEC was a nice coincidence. We had one friend here who described it as the country’s coming out party. Vietnam today is in many ways the kind of country we were trying to help create. It isn’t exactly the same as the democratic (and corrupt) government we were trying to sustain, but for the average Vietnamese, it creates economic opportunity and protects most of the essential freedoms. They still need to shed the one party system, but with only two million members in a land of 98 million that has to change over the next decade.I still feel the Vietnam war was an error in judgment, but I don’t think the fight to resist communism was wrong. The cause of those who died fighting was just as honorable as those who died resisting fascism.

5. Resisting oppressive ideologies does not always require a traditional war. Many Americans believe we won the Cold War based on the strength of our economy. It could bear the burden of massive military spending while the communist countries’ could not. Others believe it was internal forces that brought down the iron curtain. I think it was a little of both, but in either case, it was not a conventional war that ended communism. It was clear to both the leaders and the people that there was a better life. When enough of the people understood the oppression they were under, and the opportunities they were missing things, things had to change. Money invested in economic aid, economic pressure (not starving people but out-competing them), and mass education appear to be a much more effective means of changing ideologies than blowing people up.

6. Technology, trade and industry are the great liberators of our day. I have always been a believer that the free flow of information created by modern technology, especially the Internet, can liberate people from poverty and repressive regimes. Recently, I have been even more impressed with the impact business and industry have on the world. Before the trip, I was having a little first-world-middle-class guilt. Traveling around nations on the rise and talking with people in their new middle class has washed away a lot of that guilt. I no longer feel that because I have, others have not. Rather than feeling remorse that people work in factories to produce my electronics or in my company’s call center, I am proud to be part of the economy and business that create opportunities for people around the world. This transforming power hasn’t reached the whole world yet. We travelled around enough of China to see the poor countryside. We saw the poor of Vietnam as well. These people stand in stark contrast to the people who are now part of the world economy. Our inflow of capital creates not just factory workers, but a rising entrepreneurial class to serve these new working classes. These people will educate their children and create more economic opportunity for more people around the globe in a virtuous cycle. Their educated children will be more likely to question ideologues. People who have good lives will want to protect not destroy them. There are still plenty of places in the world (like Sudan) where people are so far behind that vision might seem impossible. But perhaps the people of Sudan will create the electronics for the next generation of Vietnamese. That may be utopian, but no more so than talking about the Vietnam of today to a North Vietnamese child growing up in the early 70’s, where the only radios allowed were the ones that tuned into government stations. It still would have sounded impossible to the child of Vietnam in the mid 80’s, when everyone ate meat twice a month, and the best you could aspire to was owning a bicycle.

As Dax and McKane and I were discussing our travels the other day, I asked them where they might go on a similar trip 30 years from now. We wondered whether Iraq might be a stop on their itinerary. It might seem improbable today, but no more so than Vietnam would have seemed when Anne and I were kids. The images of the Iraq war will dwell in their subconscious just as the images of Vietnam dwell in ours. If they are in a conflict-free Baghdad in 2036, will the world really have changed? Will the war have faded in most people’s memory? Will radical Islamic terrorism have gone the way of communism? If so, will the war have sped up or slowed down its demise? Will we have become effective at changing the world through economic growth rather than military might? Most importantly, will we have figured out how to avoid the Vietnams and Iraqs of the future? The optimist within me expects the best. I hope 30 years from now the world is at peace and brimming with opportunity, even in places that know only despair today. The realist in me understands this is a formidable dream and will require work and wisdom which so far have eluded us.

Now back to your regular scheduled travel news….

Technorati Tags: Communism, Ideology, International Trade, Political Musings, Technlogy, Vietnam, Vietnam War, Vietnamese Cuisine

Vietnam is the one country where we really took our time. Our visas were good for one month and that was just about the perfect amount of time to see the small country from top to bottom at a leisurely pace. Contrary to other travelers’ experience, we enjoyed the north more than the south and found Halong Bay and Hanoi to be the highlights. Here’s a list of our favorite things to do in this rapidly changing country.

1. Asher — Play with Vietnamese children
2. Kieran — Play on the beach on a remote island in Halong Bay
3. McKane — Jump off boats in Halong Bay
4. Dax — Take a cooking class in Hanoi
5. Anne — Wander the hectic streets of the Old Quarter in Hanoi
6. Tom — Wade through seas of motorbikes in the cities

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Vietnam