Sweet Mango Muse

Summer of 2008

I haven't written for a while. I've had a summer full of travel...but not by choice. I've moved twice. Interestingly, when I reread my April entry, I see that I was seeking simplicity. The moving process has helped me find some. I've downsized into something furnished. Everything I own has been sold, given away or stored, except for the "necessities." (I continue to be amazed at how much I still see as necessary.)

I've also been doing some reflection on the meaning of "meaningful travel." Earlier this summer, I heard myself say, as I explained what Sweet Mango Tours does, "there's an awful lot of meaningless travel going on out there!" Everyone at my table agreed.

Meaningful travel, to me, encourages the traveler to suspend their beliefs and consider other truths. Humility and appreciative wonder contribute to a more peaceful, compassionate and more richly connected world. Can a travel company truly offer this?

Meaningful is mindful

I think a lot about mindfulness. I wonder how you can be productive and successful when you maintain a focus intense enough to be called "mindful." And then, I wonder if it’s possible to be truly productive or successful without this practice.

There's a good chance that any "productivity" or "success" that I've achieved over the years has been the result of occasional and random luck, emerging briefly from the chaos of my busy but less-than-mindful life. Sure, I've made a lot of things happen and achieved many goals. Still, I am aware of a slight panicky feeling commonly associated with my process. I'm tired. Panic (anxiety, worry, etc) is tiring. Mindfulness sounds so centered and calm. 

It is said that a frog will sit in water that is being heated until it boils, unaware of the change in temperature until it is too late. A frog that is dropped into hot water will jump out.

Having just returned from two months in Thailand, I am acutely aware of the intensifying heat of my (might I say, “mind-less”?) life in the States. In Thailand, I spent a majority of my time writing, thinking, wandering and writing some more: reflective, somewhat mindful activities that I find personally relevant and meaningful. Now home, it has been easy to fall into my old daily routine of simple, getting-by busy-work and the less-than-productive (and tired) feeling that brings.  However, I am committed to living more mindfully - simplifying my life and creating even more time for reflection and just being.

So, the two major differences that I see between “normal” life and travel life have to do with the numbers of responsibilities and things. Being more attached to my responsibilities than to my things, I’ll start with trying to reduce the latter first. I imagine it is difficult to achieve the simplified version of life that living out of a suitcase offers. I’ll use the image of a monk’s very few belongings to remind me that it is possible. They “own” no more than three robes, a mat for sitting, and a bowl for eating.

Simplifying will require mindfulness. It’s a little bit of a “Catch-22,” isn’t it?

Life's a Journey...

My son teases me because I always identify a destination or goal whenever I do anything. To-do lists rule my life. Sometimes it seems like getting something done has become why I exist. I think this may have something to do with my attraction to travel. My to-do lists are much shorter when I’m on the road: buy postcards, wash underwear, eat dinner, etc. As the list shrinks, there is more space and time between items to actually just be in the world.

My destination the other day was Wat Nong Pa Pong, a Buddhist temple about ten kilometers outside of Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand. The temple was founded by a formidable Buddhist monk, known as Phra Chah, in the ‘50s when the area was basically uninhabited jungle. He was interested in the west and also established Wat Phra Na Na Chat, a forest temple that is home to practitioners of Theravadan Buddhism from all over the world. Ajaan Chah is quite beloved in Thailand and over a quarter million people traveled to his deathbed in 1987 to pay their respects. That is how I was first introduced to him: kneeling by his bed with a roomful of mourners.  

The temple was not on my city map but I jumped on the #3 songtaew (truck taxi) which appeared to head in its direction. The driver pulled into a rest stop right at the Wat Nong Pa Pong sign. The temple was another 3 or 4 kilometers down a sun-drenched, side road and it was nearing 100 degrees. I walked the stretch of noodle shops and engine repair shops, with my mastered, smiling yet confused face. This typically invites the question “pay nay?” (Where are you going?), and it came from a group of songtaew drivers resting in the shade. One slapped the seat next to him and said “sit down.” My few words of Thai pleased him and within a few minutes he was driving me down the road to Wat Nong Pa Pong chattering away. He offered to arrange a time to pick me up but that would have meant adding to my to-do list, and I declined.

Leaving my shoes outside I entered the main building, bowed to Ajaan Chah’s remains and sat there for a while thinking. A family joined me and our conversation covered Buddhism, rugby and Niagara Falls; they knew the Abbott at What Phra Nana Chat, their son’s team had just won the national youth rugby championship this morning, and they were looking for a reliable tour company to take them to Niagara Falls. We exchanged cards and I promised to connect them to my friend who organizes tours to the northeastern US. 

Then, I meandered. While the heat was intense, the forest provided shade and there was a very, very slight breeze. A one-lane, ring road encompassed the main compound buildings, and there were cement walls here and there sectioning off the residents’ living quarters. It was calm and quiet except for the cicadas and occasional construction work. A young monk in rust-colored robes was up on a roof apparently cleaning the flue of the charcoal-maker.

There really was nothing to do except just be and explore, and I was entranced by this simple life. A truck pulled up next to me and the woman at the wheel, dressed all in white, invited me to the nuns’ residential area of the temple. She eagerly shared how she, at 62, spends every 7^th or 8^th day here – these are called “wun phra,” or “monk days”. She has a foot in two worlds – regular visits to monastic life arranged around her outer world of family and neighbors. We visited the home of an ordained nun. She had shaved her head fifteen years earlier and donned the whites permanently, shedding completely the outer world and committing to the development of her mind. (This, I imagine, is much more difficult than keeping up with the longest to-do list). She said there were 28 nuns currently living at Wat Nong Pa Pong. Her home, like all the others, was a dark wood structure up on stilts, about 10 feet by 10 feet, with a small porch. Her other set of white clothing was drying on a rack. We chatted about wun phra, the heat and my travel company, Sweet Mango Tours. 

Back on the temple road, seeking the way out, in no great rush, I noticed a moving swath of white and I paused. As I stood, a line of fifty or sixty men and women, all dressed in white, approached slowly and silently. They were circling the main chedi, practicing walking meditation. I was struck by the thought that everyone is seeking meaning and by the variety and intensity of the ways that that can be done.

I returned through the concrete gates to the outer world, and was immediately engaged by the woman holding up a plastic bag of sweet cold coconut milk. She and a half dozen other women, were selling sweet, dried coconut strips, fried pork skin, and thin, crisp, crepe-like cookies. I bought one of each, and took one seller’s offer of a motorcycle ride back to the main road where I boarded the #3 songtaew to go home. I wondered what to put on my to-do list for tomorrow.

Excited about the simple things

I will eventually get around to finishing "a day in the Isaan village life," but I've been thinking a lot about an energy shift I experienced recently. Not mine in this case, but that of two local Thai staff who work for Sweet Mango Tours. Netting (Isaan native, recent University grad, naturalist photographer, tour guide) and I were working on the annual farming and events calendar for Isaan, Northeast Thailand. (We bring people to Isaan to live in villages and help with farming among other things.) As Netting filled in the blanks about rice planting and harvesting, rainy season and dry, she invited Seenin (also Isaan native, our driver & right hand man) in to help with the celebrations calendar. The brainstorm became electric. One thought led to another; celebrations became difficult to separate; memories triggered more memories; eyes sparkled. What was happening? Isaan life is ruled by the farming calendar and celebrations are continuous. Netting and Seenin had lived it and the small things  about Isaan life became huge as they shared them with me. Netting laughed as she described, using hand motions, the process of pouring water into the cricket's hole to make it jump out so that it can be caught. Seenin explained that Buddhist Lent starts with the first moon of the rainy season and the monks do not travel for the next three months. The spirits are acknowledged at each full moon during that time. Netting shivered at her memories of making night time offerings to the spirits with her family. As we "worked" on this calendar, I noticed the passion these two felt for their local practices, traditions and wisdom. It was evident from the vibrant dynamism of the conversation. Isaan may not be a major attraction or highly recommended by guide books, but, when you ask a local you find that it is rich with tradition, history and life!

What's so great about staying in an Isaan village?

What is so great about staying in a rice-farming village in rural Northeast Thailand? Where do I begin!? How about a typical day in the life?

The roosters wake you early. It’s not really “cock-a-doodle-doo.” It’s more an “rrrr” sound, in that same five-syllable pattern, and loud, as the whole village community of roosters joins in. Once awake, you’ll notice the smell of cook-fire smoke and realize that most villagers rise even earlier than the roosters, taking advantage of the coolest part of the day. The deep, resonating sound of the wat's gong, struck repeatedly at shorter and shorter intervals announces the monks’ departure from the village temple to collect “alms.” Your host family will have prepared a plate of food for you to give and, after wrapping a sarong around your legs, you’ll kneel with them at the edge of the street and place your offering in the monk’s alms bowl. As you stand, the morning "rush hour" passes - cows heading for the fields. The sun warms everything and the noise level throughout the village rises quickly as people cook breakfast, children prepare for school, mothers attend to babies and the day begins.

Village life is very public. Thailand is hot all year and much of life is lived outdoors.  Most houses are built on 8-foot high posts because of the monsoon season’s rains, providing a shady place under the house to weave, gather and/or nap during the hot summer months. To get your blood moving you walk. Villagers are everywhere, watering their plants, preening in a mirror tacked to a tree, nursing their baby, working on an engine, chopping up meat, negotiating with the egg-seller, biking by in school uniform. There seems to be a constant drone of voices. With no walls between neighbors, there is an ever on-going conversation between homes and passers-by, including you.

You’re waved into a home as an invitation to join a family for breakfast. In a circle, you all sit on a bamboo platform around four or five shared plates of colorful, for the most part unidentifiable food. Isaan food is worth a separate entry, so just imagine the experience for now: take a small amount of sticky rice from the beautifully hand-woven, bamboo rice basket, roll it into a bite-size ball and dip it into one of these dishes while “conversing” with your grinning hosts using the few words you know and a lot of hand motions and body language.

As I write and reflect on the fact that I’ve barely begun a typical day in a rural Isaan village, I notice that just getting through breakfast has met my list of conditions for a meaningful travel experience: a stimulating, challenging, and entertaining activity met with inquiry, flexibility, open-mindedness and patience.

What is "meaningful travel?"

As the owner of a small travel company that offers meaningful travel opportunities, I really should know what meaningful travel is, right? In fact, I find the product definition incredibly elusive.

Defining "meaningful" is key here and, having been compelled along life's path seeking the answer to, "Why am I here?," I have yet to receive an answer, a diploma or even a certificate acknowledging my class participation. Apparently life is more a question than an answer; as they say, a journey rather than a destination. And, admittedly, everyone is on their own personal journey. So, instead of defining for everyone what "meaningful" is, I've decided to focus on defining the conditions that encourage individual insights into meaning.

I believe that meaning is accessed when one becomes more connected to oneself. (I thank Meg Wheatley, living-systems-thinker and author of Leadership and the New Science for that useful insight.) Another author, Anna Quindlen proposes that "finding out who you are is the whole point of the human experience." Oh, look at that. An answer to my question. Thank you Anna.

Upon reflection (and reflection is critical to the discovery of anything), the two areas of my life that have contributed most to my understanding of myself are parenting and traveling. For others, these might include religion or spirituality, extended family or career. It seems that it is whatever we truly value, care about deeply, and approach with attentiveness. I find that parenting and traveling up to my standards requires the use of humble qualities like inquiry, flexibility, open-mindedness and patience. Allow me to get off my moral soapbox now and note that these activities also provide endless stimulation, challenge and entertainment, alleviating my aversion to routine and boredom.

So, in regards to defining meaningful travel (meaningful parenting is another blog)...I think I'll instead launch a "conditions for meaningful travel" list with the qualities listed above: stimulating, challenging, and entertaining activities met with inquiry, flexibility, open-mindedness and patience. What do you think?

As owner of the small business, Sweet Mango Tours, offering meaningful travel and service opportunities in Southeast Asia, I can only promise to put my heart and soul into creating those conditions that encourage the traveler to find some greater understanding of oneself and one's role in this incredibly diverse and fragile world in which we live. I welcome your help with the development of this list.