wanderlust

The Unfortunate Consequences of Travel: Reverse Culture Shock & How to Deal With It

Posted on by Mathew Polowitz

Originally published on Elephant Journal. Find it here.

Culture shock: the mythical state of adjustment most travelers never want to admit they’re experiencing.

“It’s just jet lag,” we say. Or, “my stomach is still getting used to the food.” So easily written off. So frivolously downgraded.

And don’t even mention returning home, to a place we already know. There’s hardly a chance for contention.

At least, there wasn’t for me. After spending seven months abroad, I wasn’t ready for the rigid strangeness of it all. Streetlights telling me when to cross. Passer-bys rarely gifting me a glance, much less a smile. Everything seemed to be moving so fast, and yet it all felt so confined. And I felt confined inside of it.

Travel is a transformational process best characterized by opening ourselves up to staggering newness and then trying to flow with it as best we can.

We constantly meet so many personalities and encounter so many ways that are so completely and mind-bogglingly different than our own, that it’s natural to get swept into a paradigm of moment-seizing and transience. After all, this is the essence of travel.

And after living for so long in such perpetual flux, it’s not easy transitioning back to the comparatively stable life we lived before. It may look as it once did, but it just doesn’t feel the same. Something is different.

Remember, it’s not just a place that we’re transitioning back to, it’s a lifestyle. And we’ve changed.

Here are four of the most prominent things I confronted upon returning home after my time on the road, along with some humble suggestions on how to turn these obstacles into opportunities to integrate all that we’ve learned along the way. Read More

Thoughts on a Crashing Plane from a Plane That Is Hopefully Not Crashing

Posted on by Mathew Polowitz

It seems the more I fly, the more I fear the possibility of a death by plane crash. I see it ever more clearly. The booming groan of an engine failing mid-flight, a sudden jerk turned into weightlessness as our 80-ton death chamber plummets towards it’s fate below.

It is only a toy! A toy charged with holding the lives of too many, one that can at any point be plucked from it’s trajectory and sentenced to a fall through eternal nothingness down yonder.

And it is a game! We play at it ferociously, tinkering to find better ways, faster ways, ways that are sleeker and more clever than all of those dated, inferior ways of the past. Ways that reach the sky in their ingenuity and dance circles around those that never dared to dream big. But who is smarter now? Who more clever than the ones flailing gracelessly towards earth, returning to the place from which they leaped with so much irreverence? Read More

Cooking for Community: A Day with Harmoneat (Yangon, Myanmar)

Posted on by Mathew Polowitz

It’s a simple idea, a social initiative with the vision of building communities united by commonality rather than divided by difference. Their name is Harmoneat, and they operate under the pretense that food is as good a medium of change as anything else. They have only been operating for three months, and have aspirations of starting Myanmar’s first network of socially engaged food trucks. Just last week I got the chance to do food with them – Myanmar food – to see what this community building thing is all about.

It was a full course day, starting with a guided walk through the market, going on to feature some chopping, some frying, and why not, a few dashes of this or that, all culminating in an expansive feast of dishes from regions far and wide. But perhaps what stuck most is that all was complemented with plenty of stimulating conversation on the side. Food was made, bonds were formed, said food was eaten, and I sure felt better about my knowledge of ethnic Myanmar. Read More

Traveling Slow in Pai

Posted on by Mathew Polowitz

When it comes to traveling responsibly, slow travel often tops the list of suggestions. What is slow travel? Think opposite that checklist mentality so many take in venturing out to explore the world. It’s stopping to spend more than just a couple of days in each destination. It’s slowing down to really learn and appreciate each place you visit. It’s finding your own favorite spots removed from the tourist circuit. If you’re looking for a true cultural experience, this is the way to do it.

I know, I know. Not everyone has the liberty of taking months off to go see the world. Not everyone can plop down in a place they find homey and just decide to stay a while. For most, it takes planning. It also takes a degree of open-mindedness, and a somewhat open schedule. But all of these things are pretty easily attainable when you allow yourself the freedom. They can all be procured with a little bit of initiative, and a little bit of faith. Read More

City Guide: Pai, Thailand

Posted on by Mathew Polowitz

It’s not hard to slow down in Pai. With an endless stream of restaurants, waterfalls, live music, spiritual centers and more, this northern Thailand mountain city is the perfect place to kick back and take some time to relax. Without spoiling the fun of exploration, here are just a few of my favorite hangouts so far:

Eat:

The Link

Ling is an amazing chef who puts an emphasis on natural. She’s got a huge garden out back, and it’s not uncommon to see her poking around outside after you order in pursuit of the freshest ingredients that Pai has to offer. The prices are fair (around 80 Baht for a curry) and she offers the only laundry service I’ve found that uses natural homemade detergent.

My suggestion: The Bunny Plate with a tomato and mushroom dipping sauce, where you’ll be served up a large plate of herbs and leafy greens picked fresh from the garden with a plethora of fruits and veggies on the side. Seems like the offering is always changing based on what’s ready in the garden, which is what we like to see! Read More

Omeliah

Posted on by Mathew Polowitz

“Omeliah,” Papa said to us as we strolled up to the rice paddy kitchen, a leaf-covered bamboo pavilion that holds all the essential cooking supplies, a fire pit, and even a reserve of blankets and pillows for midday rests. These are the trademark home-away-from-homes for the Karen people, erected at any rice paddy a family owns – an arrival at which marks an end to one’s typical hike from town to work site.

Translated literally, ‘omeliah’ means ‘have you eaten rice?’ Translated loosely, the phrase becomes a more general ‘have you eaten anything?’ It is one of those common cultural nuances that makes sense among the many hill tribes of northern Thailand, wherein rice is the staple of sustenance. Among the Karen, this is also as close as I could get to discerning any type of greeting. From what I could tell, their live’s are all so fluently entwined that there is simply no use for the word hello. Read More

The Hills of Their Past

Posted on by Mathew Polowitz

The clouds hang low over the grinning mountain that tells us we are headed west. A hazy cityscape spreads herself before our eyes, drowning in the smog that turns thick into cloud as the gaze shifts up. At first the mountain looks weakened by this haze. But the mountain is fierce. The mountain is prominent. The mountain rises from the clouds and never ceases to smile in its navigational duty to the citizens and travelers below. We are headed down the throat of this mountain.

In Chiang Mai, it is not uncommon for temples or stupas to rise from thin air. They occupy venerated plots of land next to contemporary hotels and even louder tourist traps, their aged brick and intricate gold trim allowing curious juxtaposition to the unacquainted wanderer. With originations dating back centuries, the youngest more than double the United States in age, and infinitely in wisdom. Much of what they have seen has been lost to the depths of history, taken to the ground with conquerors and visitors long come and gone. So it is the hills that hold the truest stories of time. Read More