I know I said the previous video blog was a "last look" at Death Valley, but there's still more. I went for a walk and we had to get out of the place!
Where next? One night at my parents' "home base". As I've mentioned several times, they're full-time RVers, but they maintain a semi-permanent site at a lovely RV park in Southern California. In this video, Mom takes us on a tour.
I'm on vacation in the USA! Back in my home country, surrounded by family, traveling in their RV. Here's some pics and a video from visiting Death Valley.
Your humble blogger
This is what they call an alluvial fan
'Merica!
Topographantastic!
19th century charcoal kilns, preserved very well in the extremely arid and remote hills above Death Valley
In the distance, the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Amongst them is My Whitney, the highest point in the continental USA, a stone's throw away from Death Valley, the lowest point in North America
While on holiday, it’s quite natural to refer back to being
at home, thinking to yourself, “I’ll do or get this or that when I’m home.” These
thoughts come even if it’s just a temporary home like staying with your parents
on holiday. When you live fulltime in an RV, as my parents do, there is no
getting back home after a holiday. You carry your home with you! A few times during
my time staying with my parents, I was confused by this basic fact.
That said, not every excursion requires driving your home
around.
You may have noticed in a previous video that my folks tow a jeep
behind their rig, and this comes in handy for getting around. Once
parked and settled there at Furnace Creek Campgrounds, we began exploring Death
Valley itself. My parents had been there several times. I’d only been once. It
was May 2007, and I just passed through the place at night on my way from
Yosemite to Las Vegas. Even at night, I remember the heat being terrible. The
oppressive atmosphere and haze seemed unwelcoming, and I understood why the place was called what it was. Well, that was in May. In December, the place is quite different. Pleasantly cool in the morning, nowhere near hot in the daytime, we'd definitely picked the best time of year to visit.
Come with us as we check out the sights by watching the video below.
It was an odd flight from Hangzhou to Los Angeles. I’d
never heard of the airline I was flying: Sichuan Air, and I didn’t know what to
expect. I suppose the first expectation anyone has have an airline is that it
gets you from point A to point B, and Sichuan Air did that. As for some of the
tangential stuff, it was a memorable flight.
First off, you couldn’t hear the English announcements
on the PA, which was fine, I suppose; they’re rarely of any consequence. Next,
the food was weird. After a strange combination of breads, fruits and Chinese
entrees I’ve never tasted before, the flight crew came down the aisle carrying
a big steaming bamboo basket of something. I thought for sure it would be
steaming hot towels for clean up. Instead, the flight attendant held out his
tongs which clamped a whitish-brown lump and asked, “potato?”. Now, I like
steamed potatoes as much as anyone, especially in a nice peanut sauce or the
like. Eating an un-seasoned tuber with my hands at the end of a meal like some
starchy dessert, I dunno. Maybe it’s a Sichuan thing.
Out of focus picture of the California coast - on fire!
I accepted, but didn’t
finish my potato. For the morning meal, the same ritual was repeated, but the
steamed vegetable was a carrot. Lastly, I was shocked as to how empty the
flight was. An Airbus 330 carries 277 passengers maximum. There were maybe 50
on our flight. That left many opportunities for bold passengers to claim entire
rows of the 4-across middle seats of this 2-aisle plane. I shoulda claimed one.
Whereas I did have a 2-seat section at the window all to my own, trying to
sleep on the plane achieved mixed results.
Getting through immigration at LAX was like no other
place I’ve arrived at. First step was an automated kiosk where it took your
picture and scanned your passport. Then, you went through a secondary
screening. During the interim, I’m assuming the computer system processed you
for various risk factors and so when you got to talk to an agent at secondary,
they already knew all about you. I’m assuming.
One thing I noticed during the selection process of
which secondary screening station you were sent to, there was definitely
profiling going on. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Coming towards the
point where an officer points you in one direction or another, every Chinese
passenger got pointed off to the tables to have their bags opened and
belongings inspected.
Every non-Chinese got pointed towards the counters where
they just asked you a few simple questions and you were on your way.
My parents were at the gate to meet me when I emerged
into the public areas, and we drove off to the Chino Hills, having an authentic
Mexican feast along the way, to an RV park which made a good way-station to the
next day’s travel to Death Valley.
Some of the differences I noticed between the USA and
SE Asia were expected. Yes, it’s a lot cleaner here. People drive more
predictably and also a lot faster (LA traffic excepted). Others were
unexpected. One of the things that struck me as noticeable on my immediate
return was being able to fully understand everything that people around me were
saying. What I mean is that it was kinda cool listening to the banter of the
clerks at the 7/11. They were joking around, not talking to me, and I
understood every bit of their communication. It’s not a thing that I thought of
as something I’ve missed, and as simple as it is, it’s an enjoyable difference.
Waking up the freezing cold dawn of the Chino Hills,
my
off-time internal clock got me out of bed before the sun was up. I think many
people consider the topography of Southern California boring. With its brown
hills, lack of greenery and desert appearance, some might call it barren. Me, I
like it and I enjoyed recording it on the way up to Death Valley.
The only
part of my holiday travel that was I was not looking forward to was the long
flight plan I had for the first day. There’s very little that’s fun about air
travel these days, particularly international travel which requires not only long
lines through security, but also immigration. Plane seats are comfortable
enough I suppose, but in economy class, they’re not that conducive to getting a
night’s sleep.
I always give my plane a good-luck pat before getting on.
Departing from Yangon on a
Monday morning, it was a short flight over to Bangkok’s Don Meuang Airport.
Then, however, I needed to get to the other airport in Bangkok, the newer one,
which is so far away I’m surprised there aren’t flights connecting. A free
shuttle made it a lot easier.
From Suvarnaboon (sp?)
Airport, after a 5 hour layover (just enough to make the transit and get
through all those lines), I flew via Air China to Hangchow, China’s fifth
largest city, but when I’d never heard of before this trip.
I was looking forward to
China. I’d never been there.
I was hoping that in my 4 and a half hour layover
there, I’d get a bit of a feel for the place, even though I thought I would be
stuck in the international terminal as I was only making a transit – I had a
ticket for a connecting flight out of the country.
I’ve noticed that when you
fly budget airlines as I do, it seems that more often than not, the plane doesn’t
pull up to the terminal. Instead, it parks on the tarmac, you walk down some
stairs and get on a bus to the terminal. It’s kinda annoying. Well, first think
I noticed when I stepped off the plane was the cold! I was wearing shorts and a
short-sleeved shirt, and here in semi-tropical Hangchow, it was the middle of
winter and the temperature was in the mid 40’s F! Brrr…
Shuffling through the airport’s
small international terminal (I was
Air China's air safety Panda admonishes you not to smoke
in the toilet.
unimpressed), I immediately found myself at
the lines for immigration. Wait a minute. Where’s the international transfer
desk? See, unlike every other place I’ve ever been to, China doesn’t allow
visas-on-arrival for Americans nor is there any exempt status. I get to the
desk and explain to the lady what was going on.
She asks, “You don’t have
a visa?”
No.
“And you want to enter
China?”
“No, not really, I just
want to catch my plane to LAX at midnight.”
“And you have no paperwork
showing you have a booking?”
“It’s on my phone” (I had
foolishly left my paper itinerary on the shuttle bus in Bangkok).
She makes a gesture and
another immigration officer comes and escorts me back to an office. It was
ominous feeling. Being taken into a back room by a burly man in uniform in a
notoriously oppressive communist country? I wasn’t THAT nervous, but still… He
invited me to sit and then we went through the process of connecting my phone
to the airport’s wifi. In the end I got my 72-hour transit stamp and left the
airport… only to have to step right back into it again to wait for the plane to
LA.
This time next week, I'll be roaming around the wildfires of SoCal, being back in my home country for the first time in nearly five years. It's going to be the 3rd time in my life wherein I've returned back home after a long time overseas. In 1986, I came back to America at the age of 17 having just spent about 5% of my entire life in Jakarta, Indonesia. It was weird. In my 11 months in Jakarta, my mind had gotten used to the pace, the sights and the manners of Southeast Asia's largest city. I felt weird being back in my home country. It took me a while to acculture myself to my own culture.
Ah, I was so young.
Next time I came back, I was 21 years old. Much more mature and having come off a year overseas where I had the most outrageous adventure of my life.. and I ended up selling shoes at Sears.
Now I'm coming back on holiday. When I was 17, I was amazed by the traffic patterns in the USA. American drivers drove in a discipline way. Lanes meant something.
One thing I've repeated over and over in my commentary on living overseas as an English teacher is that you have to maintain your sense of wonder. If you want to be happy, you'll need to recognize the novelty of every situation. OH WOW! A dead rat on the road! Cool! People without bathrooms bathing on the street! Someone selling something you never thought anyone would sell!
When I go back to Amerika, I think I'd be best served by maintaining a receptive mindset. While not as intense as it was when I was a returnee at the age of 17, there's gonna be things about my return that're going to be really weird.
