“ SARS away! “

---

The thing about international travel to and from a known ex-hot-zone area, is that you never really look at the place the same. Meaning, that if the location of your travels include unattractive aspects of local health hazards (intense burning diarreha, scalding humidity, anger bees-also known as normal bees, haphazard chickens with triple tumor hemmorages, et al), then by all natural instincts you shouldn’t frequent or even visit the place.

This I did not do; with SARS in it’s cautioned aftermath stage, I, along with a hefty crew of Thai travellers and HI-SO tourists alike went forward and went to China.. Shanghai to be more location-specific. And just to tell you up front, I ate street food, drank water from restaurant, went to an island getaway and sampled to cuisine(all vegetarian), and even stood in the acid rain just for fun.

The trip was the work-related camera job disquised as a tour5/vacation. I had a lot of fun though, don’t get me wrong. Planes, boats, busses. Taxis, personal valets….all of these things seem fun, and are to some extent, but are also nauseating, shifting, unclean, and moreover adventurous.

A rousing jaunty sojourn s what me and my compatriots had. It was a veritable festoon of visual delights; why I am describing the place as if I lived in the british victorian or renaissance era, I cann’t tell you why. But this I do know, I have no clue where that street squid came from, but it was sumptuous, lemme tell you what.

So a week goes by and I haul my three cameras and all of the equipment on my dainty yet strapping shoulders. Five days of lugging 20 lbs. of machinergadgetry up hills, down slopes with inclines of note, and aboard unsafe passenger vessels. And was it worth it? So so so worth it.

There is almost nothing like the pulsating energy of a mob of Chinese people screaming and pushing forward and trying to exit of a boat or elevator or crowded avenue or store of anything that requires the crossing of a doorway or threshold. It’s enigmatic and all inclusively lacking in the practices of self-restraint and the concept of the”personal bubble.”

Upon my return, i somehow feel refreshed and surprisingly more relaxed, even though my body went through hell, my mind was tuning itself to the languages and I tried to use more of my Thai and went places I wouldn’t go on my own or in a small group, and I did things, and took chances, and talked to strangers, and learned how not to cross a street in Shanghai so that you don’t get hit by a bike or bus or modified rickshaw or taxi. Upon my retun into Thailand, I recognized the sensation and feeling of happiness again, and it felt sort of like coming home.


Travel is fun, so call me up and lets do it to it!

---