Vietnam – days 1 and 2: Ho Chi Minh, and what happened besides the break-up

July 23 to 25

I take a bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh. I share the tuk-tuk to the bus station with a Dutch and an Australian. When he reaches the bus, the Australian has a sad realization: “You need to get your visa BEFORE you go to Vietnam? Oh man…” So we leave him behind.

It’s the first time I cross a border by land. When the agent sees my passport, he looks at me for a bit, looks down, looks at me. My hair is freshly shaved, he’s looking at the picture of a girl with a happy shock of hair shooting in every direction. He raises the passport to compare us and says

“No same same”

It takes all my will power not to laugh. I say “Yes, same same, yes, look”, and take off my glasses, try to imitate the old me. He lets me go. While we wait for the bus to pick us up on the Vietnam side, I swap passports with the Dutch guy. He’s appalled when he sees my birth date: “You could be my daughter.” I win at the “who has more stamps” game.

We’re in Ho Chi Minh. It’s full of lights, everything is moving. Two guys on motorcycles offer to take us to our hostels (my Dutch friend lives near me). My driver has gathered an enthusiastic expertise on nationalities and characters: “British people, they’re difficult, they’ll bargain for price for hours before getting on the bike, French people, they’re chill, I like French people. My sister lives in France, now, she’s married to a French guy. And the Australians, they’re nice, very nice. I see many people, you know, I love talking to everyone. Your friend, he doesn’t look Dutch…

– He’s half Dutch half Indonesian.

– Ah, yes, I was sure. Nice people, the Dutch, a bit stuck-up, though.”

He takes me to My My Art House Hostel, I put my stuff in the room – dark and windowless -, and I proceed to being nervous. I’m in the lobby, waiting. My partner, who I haven’t seen for more than 2 months, is going to walk in any minute now. I left him in the Canberra winter, we talked, wrote emails, Skyped, fought and made up. He is out of Australia for the first time in his life, for me.

He appears. We hold each other tight, and talk about how odd this is, really, to be here together. Too odd. We walk around Ho Chi Minh during the day. In the evening, we break up. I wrote about this already, and even though our ten days in Vietnam were mostly about our break-up – about crying and talking and healing together -, I’m going to try and tell the other side of the story. We saw beautiful things, it’d be too bad to let them be washed away by the tears.

We live in the backpackers area, Pham Ngu Lao street. From there, we walk to the market and have food – lots of food. We then take a long walk to the Jade Pagoda. It takes us about two hours, and ends up being a good way to see a lot of the city. We arrive when the pagoda is about to close. We just have time to see some monkeys, and to feel the soft, quiet atmosphere of the place. It feels like you’re hushed by the blue of the walls, the hum of the fountain full of huge beautiful fish and the calm of the statues. My camera has decided to opt out of this one, so I only have memories of it. We walk out in the night, and stop at Haagen Dazs: it’s a ridiculous amount of money for one ice cream, but they don’t have it in Australia, and, even though I can’t believe it, Michael has never tasted it. On the way back, everything is lit up.

The next day, after eating and walking around some more, we take a train to Hoi An, in the North. Our plan is to go up there with the night train (it’s a 16 hours trip if I remember correctly) and then go down by bus over several days, with stops in Da Nang and Mui Ne. We took the cheap option so we’re sitting and not lying down. It’s still really comfortable. The food is super cheap (250 Dongs), copious and delicious. People run in at each stop to offer snacks. It takes me a while to be fast enough to catch one of them. In my hurry to get something to eat – anything – I end up with a kilo of lychees. Because why not. Spoiler alert, I didn’t finish the lychees before they went bad. I would recommend the long train trip: it’s a great way to see the countryside, to hear city names, get help from people who see you’re scared you missed your stop, and it’s not as hard to sleep in as you’d think.

On being Jewish – a conversation with Silvia (En français après Pikajew)

For context, this conversation started in July, just before I left Silvia in Cambodia. We continued it when I saw her again in September, during a trip to Hamburg. We are now in October, I’m writing from my home in France.

It’s our last night after ten days of traveling together, an eternity in backpacker time. We’ve had a great time. We have the same travel philosophy: walk, talk, eat, see, repeat. We’ve talked a lot. Between us, the words flow, and we laugh. She makes me think and I love it. When we argue, it’s in an enthusiastic way, because it’s food for thought. We barely ever argue, anyway. We haven’t had any real disagreement. Yet.

“I just don’t understand why a religious group needs to have a country.” I don’t remember how we got to talk about it. Silvia is German, but for a long time, she preferred to say that she’s from the world. She doesn’t believe in the groups that separate people into “us” and “them”. And I get that. But…

“That’s the thing, though. Being Jewish is not just about religion. It’s a people as well.”

And then we talk. Mostly, I talk. I move my hands a lot, and I get frustrated. I tear up a bit. I had no idea it mattered to me that much. Somehow, it feels important, it feels like I have to make her understand, tonight. I have to be heard. On what?

I’m Jewish, but I’m not “very Jewish”. I don’t practice Judaism as a religion, not really. I don’t eat kosher (I wasn’t a vegetarian at the time), I don’t pray with these words, I don’t like the idea that there is a chosen people, and, you know, I’ve heard religion being used against queer people, women and open love so many times that it makes me flinch a bit. I used to be a lot angrier about it. I used to dismiss it all as an archaic and patriarchal tool of oppression. Now I have tenderness and affection towards it. I am there at the family holidays, I sing along, I clap my hands, I love listening to my dad when he explains, I want to know more; the philosophy and symbolism truly move me. 

Still, why does it matter so much? I wonder; as I try to explain to her, I explain it to myself. I am Jewish. My religious beliefs don’t enter that statement. I am Jewish in my blood, it’s part of who I am, it’s the environment in which I was raised. Even if I lost every bit of faith and if I stopped every little practice, I’d still be Jewish. Because Judaism is more than a religion. I said it already, and I’ll say it again: it’s a people. To many readers, this will be completely obvious, but to me, the laic girl with olive skin and a self-important nose, it wasn’t always. And clearly, it wasn’t for my friend either. 

She points out that I don’t have to be Jewish, I have a choice. You can be born in a catholic family and not be catholic.

– You clearly don’t get my point. Would you say that if I was Armenian? I know it’s hard to understand, but it’s the same. I am Jewish like I would be Armenian. You can say that I choose who I am, but I don’t, not completely, the same way you don’t choose to be German. I’m sorry to jump to the Godwin Point, but I’m also Jewish because I can give up religion all I want, if someone wants to murder Jews, they’ll find me, and they won’t give a shit what my identity of choice is. I am Jewish sometimes more than I am French. Because no matter how French I am, I will always be asked “where are you really from?”. People say that, sometimes, when I answer “France” to their “where are you from?”, because it doesn’t explain my face, and it doesn’t explain my name. And if I say I’m Jewish, I hear “that’s not your nationality”. But the fact is I have nothing else. I have no other answer. I’m French, that explains my accent, and why I’m such a food snob. I’m Jewish, that explains pretty much everything else you see. I will always be a foreigner, everywhere that is not Israel, that’s what judaism is, and that’s why we need a country. Everybody needs a sense of belonging. It doesn’t mean I want to move to Israel. I quite enjoy being part of a minority, actually – but it’s important that there is a place where I’m not.”

She looks ahead, she doesn’t answer much. I know her. I know that the same way I’m hurt to see my friend as one of “those people” who don’t accept “us”, she’s sad to see me as one of “them”, the guys who build boxes to neatly separate humans, instead of embracing the unity in everybody’s uniqueness. We drop the topic because it’s painful and it seems fruitless. “I feel like you’re not hearing me, and it hurts my feelings. Let’s talk about something else.” She says she’s trying to understand, she is, but it’s not easy, it’s very new for her. And I believe her. We laugh a lot that night, and we say goodbye with love.

We keep in touch while I’m in India and when I go back home. So when I plan a trip to Berlin in September, I ask her if and where we can meet up. “Let’s see each other in Hamburg!” That’s not where she lives, it’s a halfway point. I love it. It’s grey when my bus drops me at the station, I’m wearing a lot more clothes. Still, when I see her, we run into each other’s arms, and we start where we left off: walking and talking, and stopping for warm drinks. We do that until it’s night. When we’re lost, she tells me she’d been thinking about the Phnom Penh conversation. It had started something for her. And she thinks she got it.

It feels like finding a lost part of my heart. I listen.

She’d thought about her own identity, and how being German matters to her. She’d talked it through with various people. And she’d realized that the first step to the situation getting better in the Middle-East, before anything else, is that the other countries recognize Israel. That it’s not Israel or Palestine, it has to be both.

– YES!

We keep talking about small and big things as we walk in the night. Somehow as I write this I think of the book Reunion by Fred Uhlman, in which a Jewish guy realizes after the war that his German friend who rejected him when they were kids died protecting Jews from the nazis. Our separation wasn’t nearly as dramatic, but still, I felt reunited with my friend.

Back home, when I tell my dad about all this – it made me so happy I had to share the story -, he says “Go figure that a Jewish Moroccan French would explain judaism to a German in Cambodia”. 

EN FRANÇAIS

Pour le contexte, cette conversation a commencé en juillet, juste avant que je quitte Silvia, au Cambodge. Elle a continué en septembre, quand je l’ai revue à Hambourg. Nous sommes maintenant en octobre, j’écris depuis chez moi, en France.

C’est notre dernière nuit ensemble, après 10 jours de vadrouille, une éternité en temps de backpacker. On s’est éclatées. On a la même vision du voyage : marcher, parler, manger, voir, recommencer. On a beaucoup parlé. Entre nous, les mots coulent, et on se marre. Elle me fait réfléchir, j’adore ça. Quand on n’est pas du même avis, c’est avec enthousiasme, parce que c’est bon pour les méninges. On n’a pas eu de vrai désaccord. Pas encore.

“Je ne comprends pas pourquoi un groupe religieux devrait avoir son propre pays.” Je ne me rappelle pas comment on en est arrivées là. Silvia est allemande, mais pendant longtemps elle a préféré dire qu’elle était citoyenne du monde. Elle ne croit pas en les groupes qui séparent entre “nous” et “eux”. Et je comprends. Mais…

“C’est ça le truc, en fait. Être juif ce n’est pas seulement une question de religion. C’est aussi un peuple.”

Alors on parle. Surtout, je parle. Je bouge les mains dans tous les sens, je me frustre. J’ai même les larmes qui montent. Je n’avais pas idée que j’y tenais tant que ça. Il semble soudain que c’est de la plus grande importance, qu’il faut que je lui fasse comprendre. Qu’il faut que je sois entendue. Sur quoi ?

Je suis juive, mais pas “très juive”. Je ne pratique pas le judaïsme comme religion, pas vraiment. Je ne mange pas casher (je n’étais pas encore végétarienne), je ne prie pas avec ces mots-là, je n’aime pas qu’il y ait un peuple élu, et j’ai vu la religion être employée contre les queers, les femmes et l’amour libre tellement de fois que ça me titille, juste un peu. Avant, c’était pire, j’étais vraiment énervée. Je rejetais la religion entièrement, avec les autres outils d’oppression archaïques et patriarcaux. Maintenant, j’ai de la tendresse et de l’affection pour elle. Je vais aux réunions de famille, je chante, je tape des mains, j’adore écouter mon père expliquer, je veux en savoir plus. La philosophie et les symboles juifs m’émeuvent.

Mais tout de même, pourquoi c’est si important ? Je me demande; et pendant que je lui explique à elle, je me l’explique à moi-même. Je suis juive. Mes croyances religieuses n’entrent pas dans cette affirmation.  Je suis juive dans mon sang, ça fait partie de qui je suis, c’est le cadre dans lequel j’ai été élevée. Même si je me détachais de toute foi et de toute pratique, je serais toujours juive. Parce que le judaïsme c’est plus qu’une religion. Je l’ai dit et je le dis encore : c’est un peuple. Pour ceux qui lisent, ça paraîtra peut-être complètement évident, mais pour moi, la fille laïque avec la peau olive et le nez qui se sent important, ça ne l’a pas toujours été. Et de toute évidence, ça ne l’est pas pour mon amie.

Elle remarque que je ne suis pas obligée d’être juive. Tu choisis ta religion. Tu peux naître dans une famille catholique et ne pas être catholique.

– Tu ne saisis pas. Est-ce que tu dirais ça si j’étais arménienne ? Je sais que c’est dur à comprendre, mais c’est la même chose. Je suis juive comme je serais arménienne. Tu peux dire que je choisis qui je suis, mais ce n’est pas vrai, pas tout à fait, comme tu n’as pas choisi d’être allemande. Désolée d’atteindre le Point Godwin si vite, mais je suis juive aussi parce que si un nouveau débile décide d’assassiner du juif, il saura me trouver et il n’en aura rien à foutre de mon identité préférentielle. Je suis juive parfois plus que je suis française. Parce qu’on me demandera toujours “mais pour de vrai, tu viens d’où ?”. On me dit ça, parfois, quand à “Tu viens d’où ?” je dis “France”, parce que ça n’explique ni ma tête ni mon nom. Et si je dis “je suis juive”, j’entends “c’est pas une nationalité, ça”. Mais le fait est que je n’ai rien d’autre, aucune autre réponse. Je suis française, ça explique mon accent en anglais et pourquoi je suis une snob de la bouffe; je suis juive, ça explique à peu près tout ce que tu vois d’autre. Je serai toujours une métèque, partout ailleurs qu’en Israël. C’est ça être juif. Et c’est pour ça qu’il nous faut un pays. Tout le monde a besoin d’un sentiment d’appartenance. Ça ne veut pas dire que je veux emménager en Israël. Ça me plaît bien, en fait, d’être d’une minorité – mais ça reste important qu’au moins à un endroit, je ne le sois pas.”

Elle regarde droit devant, elle ne répond pas vraiment. Je la connais, je sais qu’autant je suis blessée de voir que mon amie fait partie de “ceux-là”, ceux qui ne “nous” acceptent pas, autant ça l’attriste de me voir comme l’un d’entre “eux”, ceux qui construisent des boîtes pour ranger les humains bien proprement, sans que ça se mélange. On laisse tomber le sujet parce qu’il fait mal et qu’il semble sans fruit. “J’ai l’impression que tu ne m’entends pas, et ça me blesse. Parlons d’autre chose.” Elle dit qu’elle essaye de comprendre, vraiment, mais que ce n’est pas facile, c’est très nouveau pour elle, ces idées. Et je la crois. On rit beaucoup cette nuit-là, et au matin on dit au revoir avec amour.

On reste en contact pendant mon séjour en Inde, et quand je rentre à la maison. Du coup, quand j’organise un voyage à Berlin en septembre, je lui demande si et où on pourrait se voir. “Retrouvons-nous à Hambourg” Elle n’y habite pas : c’est un point de mi chemin. Ça me fait plaisir. Il fait gris quand mon bus me dépose à la station, je porte bien plus de vêtements. Mais quand je la vois, on se coure dans les bras l’une de l’autre, et on reprend comme si c’était hier : on marche, on parle, on s’arrête pour des boissons chaudes. Jusqu’à la nuit. Quand on est bien perdues, elle me dit qu’elle a pensé à notre conversation de Phnom Penh. Que ça avait initié quelque chose en elle. Et qu’elle pense avoir compris.

C’est comme retrouver une partie de mon coeur oubliée. J’écoute.

Elle a pensé à sa propre identité, à comment être allemande l’affecte. Elle en a parlé autour d’elle. Elle s’est rendu compte que la première étape pour une amélioration de la situation au Moyen-Orient, avant toute chose, c’est que les autres pays reconnaissent Israël. Que ce n’est pas Israël ou la Palestine, que ça doit être les deux.

– OUI !

On parle de grandes et de petites choses en marchant dans la nuit. En écrivant ces mots, je pense à L’ami retrouvé de Fred Uhlman, où un Juif se apprend après la guerre que son ami allemand qui l’avait rejeté dans son enfance s’est fait tuer par les nazis pour avoir protégé des Juifs. Notre séparation était loin d’être aussi dramatique, mais quand même, je me suis sentie réunie avec mon amie.

Quand j’en parle avec mon père à mon retour – ça m’avait tant réjouit qu’il fallait que je dise –, il sort « Va imaginer qu’une juive française marocaine expliquerait le judaïsme à une Allemande au Cambodge. »

Cambodia, days 11 to 13: Phnom Penh and the Killing Field

I think not knowing how to write about the killing field is one of the reasons I stopped posting stories for a while. But now that I’m sitting at home in France and a few months and several attempts at talking about it have passed, I think I can try to put it in words.

July 21 to 23, 2015

On the way to Phnom Penh, we wondered if we were being transported by the mafia. The mini bus was full of weird products that were crammed under our feet, and that we stopped to deliver several times. When the bus stopped on the side of the road for a good 30 minutes, we waited to be abducted.

Unfortunately for the interest of this story, nothing happened, and we got to Phnom Penh intact, in the evening. We found a cheap room and had dinner in a delicious shop not far.

In the morning, we went for a walk in the markets.

Silvia and I have the same terrible orientation skills, so chatting instead of looking at the map, we got lost a bit, which was a good way to see the city. I enjoyed the vibe of Phnom Penh, it felt like a place I could live in.

After some food, we got a tuk-tuk to take us to Choeung Ek killing field, a bit outside of the city. (Caution, extreme non-cheerfulness ahead)

When we arrived, we agreed to meet at the end, so we could go at our own pace. We each took an audio guide, and started the visit. This is hard to write in a non robotic manner. Choeung Ek is one of the many killing fields in Cambodia, where thousands of people were brought to be executed and thrown into mass graves by the Khmer Rouges from 1975 to 1979. It is now a place to remember the genocide, and the scar it left on the country. The audio guide starts with “thank you for being here, and hearing our story”. It takes us to the place where people were massed in the dark without food, the one where they were killed, and several pits where their bodies were thrown. There’s a pit for babies. On the tree near it, traces of blood, brains and bones were found. They slammed the babies against the tree. Speakers played patriotic music to cover the screams. The audio guide takes us on a walk around the lake and gives us testimonies of survivors and perpetrators. It says “if you look on the floor, you might find fractions of clothes and bones”. It tells us that Pol Pot got to die of old age. In the end, it takes us to the memorial building, that carries statues of two mythological birds that are enemies but that, when brought together, symbolize peace. The building is full of bones, neatly organized behind glass. The skulls are arranged according to how they had been cracked.

Grass grows on the mass grave

Don’t walk on the bones

We went back to the city. It seemed like we were moving very slowly, and we both knew this had been an important experience. I was glad to be comfortable sitting in silence next to Silvia. And being sad. And moving on, as well.

We walked in the city and got lost. I had my sandals repaired by the shoe god for a few dollars, while we were reading the “Cambodian History” section of Silvia’s guide.

We walked until it was night, chatted, took pictures, and ate some of the best cakes of our existence. We thanked each other for the good time we had traveling together, and reflected on how we had learnt to know each other. We listed the reasons it worked out so well: “You enjoy food. It’s good to travel with someone who enjoys food.” We had a conversation about being Jewish, that I’ll write about in my next post. There were monkeys on the power lines.

It’s blurry because it’s so good

Back at the hostel, Silvia told me a story that I’m not allowed to repeat here, but I can tell you it’s called “WHY?” and it made her look like this:

I’m allowed to do this to her because she knows I love her a lot

After she went to sleep, I stayed up to write and go for a walk. It was my last walk as an alone backpacker: in the morning, I was heading to Ho Chi Minh, to meet up with my partner. I enjoyed the happy melancholia, as I said goodbye to that wonderful part of my life. Some people were fighting outside a bar, the walls were covered in colorful paintings, I was lit by lanterns hanging from the buildings. It felt like home.

In the morning, we had breakfast/lunch together in the shop we’d dined the day before. When we arrived they asked us “Same same?”, and it felt good to be recognized. We parted with laughter and hugs. Before I boarded the tuk-tuk that was taking me to my bus, she said “You inspire me”. Of course, I teared up a bit.

Cambodia, days 7 to 11: Sihanoukville and Koh Rong (or “The grannies stuck on a party island”) and phosphorescent plankton

July 17 to 21, 2015

I met a guy in Indonesia who told me a beautiful story about sleeping in hammocks on the beach on an island in Cambodia, and a part of me hoped I’d live the same thing if I just went there.

So Silvia and I booked a bus all the way down to Sihanoukville, and spent the day sitting together watching movies. Finding movies for Silvia was a challenge that I believe I mastered pretty damn well. She told me she didn’t like romance, comedy, drama, horror, and was not sure about TV shows. I showed her Love and death by Woody Allen, Stardust just so she knew why I did “arr” in a pirate way from time to time, Paprika because it’s about dreams and she’s studying to become a psychologist, Hancock because it’s fun, Bring it on because I hadn’t seen it before, and Doctor Who because it’s Doctor Who. The only thing she didn’t like so much was the first episode of 30 Rock, but nobody is perfect.

Sihanoukville had a weird vibe: westerners and locals didn’t really mix, which I found was a pity. We saw mostly drunk people or people enthusiastic about their future drunkenness. We walked around a bit, spent the night in a 30-people dorm that had only us in it (I piled most of the mattresses up for myself, just because I could), and took the ferry in the morning.

Sihanoukville

We were lucky: we’d paid for the cheap slow boat, and it was cancelled, so we got the fast boat for the same price (“Don’t tell the other passengers how much you paid”). When we arrived, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t the Perhentian Islands. It was more crowded, more expensive, more dirty, and we took a bit of time to find a fairly priced room – which wasn’t a bungalow on the beach. I was sick, and maybe a tad grumpy. We walked on the beach, and it was pretty; we had food because that’s what we do best, and I crashed in a hammock because my sore throat had got me exhausted. I slept really well.

We spent three days on Koh Rong, and I’m not entirely sure why. It was raining most of the time, I was indoor most of the time to avoid getting sicker. Silvia went out to explore, and I wrote stories and read books and enjoyed the hammock lifestyle.

On the first night, I discovered just how similar Silvia and I were, and it made me very happy: there was a party in our hostel. I’m not sure if some qualified it as a good party, but I know it was a loud party. They played commercial music so loud that, upstairs in our rooms, we had to shout to hear each other. We could have joined the fun… but instead we lurked from up the stairs, watched the crowd of young people, and cursed them. “Oh my god, why are they having fun? What kind of music do young people listen to these days? I want to sleeeep! I want quiet! Please, quiet! Whyyy?” We cried for our lost sleep and laughed at our common granny attitude. We could have changed hostel… but complaining is more fun. Plus, I had already made friends with the bedbugs.

Silvia on an island

On Koh Rong, I enjoyed watching the people. After a bit, I concluded that that place might actually be the Purgatory. A weird black substance kept appearing everywhere, in drinks and on my clothes, and I think it was particles of lost souls. I started noticing more and more the slow walk and vacant eyes of my fellow island dwellers. Most of them had some kind of wound on their body – a broken arm, a huge scar on the leg, a bandaged torso… I once asked a guy with a wrapped up foot what was up. He said that he was drunk and hit his foot against a boat, and added that most of the others had got here just after Vietnam, where they got into motorcycle accidents. The zombi-like attitude can be explained by the fact that most of them were on drugs most of the time. A barman once gave us a tour of the tattoos he didn’t remember getting, and the “toe-to-boat-explosion” guy got out of a fuzzy conversation with Silvia with a beautiful “I’m sorry, I’m on Ketamine”. Silvia explained later that that was some stuff used to tranquilize bulls. On our last night, we let charming people convince us to go to a beach party.

Florian (aka charming people) taught us the game Operation Peepdelapeep

We walked a while to the other side of the island, to end up in a bungalow near the beach (because why party on the warm beautiful sand under the stars when you could cram yourself into a tiny dark space instead), full of people moving around awkwardly and without smiling, to the same horrible music as before. We looked at each other after five minutes and decided to walk back to our now-quiet side of the island. That is how I’d paint the Purgatory.

We had one charming experience on Koh Rong: our last afternoon was sunny, and we ran into a guy advertising a boat trip to some waterfall, with a bit of snorkeling and a barbecue dinner. When we got onto the massive boat with 3 other guys, the organizer told us he wasn’t feeling great, so he’d let us go just with the two locals who were driving the boat. “It’s just you on the boat, do whatever you like” So we did.

The first stop was the waterfall, near the fishermen village.

We followed the guide into the mangrove, and wondered if the upcoming sight could possibly be worth it when our feet sunk deep into the warm slimy water. It was a fun walk, with us calling “mommy, come save me from the poop-filled mangrove” and listing the diseases that we were most probably collecting. It was worth it.

The walk ended at the foot of a waterfall. We undressed and started climbing it. And then, there was the rain. We were climbing on the wet stone, and water was pouring from everywhere, sky and earth alike, and it was beautiful. It was a moment made of silent smiles and the constant scream of the current.

After the walk back in the slimy water, we went snorkeling. It was Silvia’s first time, and I was happy to share her discovery of this world where you’re flying above a tiny (yet infinite) city bursting with a kind of life you don’t understand.

Back on the boat we waited. And waited. We waited for a long long while for the night to be dark enough. But, once again, it was well worth it. When we dived into the dark water, we screamed with joy and awe. With every movement, we made a thousand tiny stars appear in the water! The phosphorescent plankton was on my arms and legs and in Silvia’s hair. It stayed on our skin and moved with us. The more we beat the water, the more we could see them. We were laughing and giggling like idiots, lying in the water and diving into the sea stars. I’m not sure exactly when we started crying. Under the huge sky full of stars and inside the huge sea full of lights, we were giggling like excited children. We were excited children. The boat flashed that they were waiting. We swam back. After I got on board, I jumped one last time before climbing back up. We got on the high deck and lied down to watch the stars. We were wet and laughing at the beauty of everything. Then, we saw a shooting star. Because there’s no such thing as perfect enough. By then, we were both crying for sure, and holding hands. I love traveling with Silvia because we’re good at enjoying beauty together. Read the rest of the phosphorescent plankton story here.

On the boat, we met Paul, a French guy who was going back to the mainland in the morning, like us. Our boat was at 10, his at 11, but because breakfast happened, we missed it and went back with him. I had convinced Silvia to go to Phnom Penh with me. We ate with Paul in Sihanoukville and met the sweetest little girl.

She chatted with us in the universal language of willful children. A very white very drunk guy came along later and was an asshole to everyone while ordering his food. He gave the girl, who wanted to make another friend, a $10 bill saying “Take it, I know that’s what you want”, and she laughed and gave it back. Insisted on giving it back. Oh yeah.

We said goodbye to Paul and took the bus to Phnom Penh.

The Phosphorescent Plankton and the Shooting Star

July 20, 2015

Picture by Silvia

On the boat, we waited. And waited. We waited for a long long while for the night to be dark enough. It was well worth the wait. When we dived into the dark sea, we screamed with joy and awe. With every movement, we made a thousand tiny stars appear in the water! The phosphorescent plankton was on my arms and legs and in Silvia’s hair. It stayed on our skin and moved with us. The more we beat the water, the more we could see them. We were laughing and jiggling like idiots, lying in the water and diving into the sea stars. I’m not sure exactly when we started crying. Under the huge sky full of stars and inside the huge sea full of lights, we were giggling like excited children. We were excited children. The boat flashed that they were waiting. We swam back. After I got on board, I jumped one last time before climbing back up, a bit of light still caught in my eyebrows.

We got on the high deck and lied down to watch the stars. We were wet and laughing at the beauty of everything. Then, we saw a shooting star. Because there’s no such thing as perfect enough. By then, we were both crying for sure. I love traveling with Silvia because we’re good at enjoying beauty together. She was crying, I touched her arm, she held my hand. We stayed there sobbing and laughing some more. It’s hard to describe it all. In this tiny moment, life had meaning. It was that good. It wasn’t just a vague meaning either: it had meaning for me. All of the moments in my life were built to make this one happen, and I was stardust in between stars below and stars above, joint by the hand to a dear friend. The universe was kind and full of wit and wonders. It gave us – just us, no one else on the boat saw it – the shooting star.

Her: Oh my god, oh my god! Me: Nooo! Them: What, what is it? Us: There was a shooting star.

This was a moment of heart bloom in which my mind was going in a thousand different places. I thought of the happy times in the past that filled me with joy, and of the worries that didn’t seem to matter anymore. I thought of the Big Bang and the expansion of the universe, and how Freaking Awesome things are. I thought of the friends I’d made in my travels, of the beautiful landscapes and all the places left to discover. I thought of the anatomy of hand holding. Of how beautiful it was that when I held tighter, she answered. I wondered how our hands would untie, if they ever did, if that moment ever ended. All my attention was in my fingers, when we let go at the same time, it seemed, organically, as if the hands had been having their moment as well. It occurred to me that we were lying down in our bikinis having a travel through space and time, while the 5 other passengers of the boat were standing there, not being fussed.

Somehow, we found ourselves sitting and eating a barbecue dinner, on our way back to the island.

On s’en fout, de combien c’est vrai

9 octobre 2015

Ma grand-mère est une personne fantastique.

Elle a la peau douce – depuis que je suis enfant, c’est la première chose qui me vient en pensant à elle, sa peau douce. Elle est douce, en fait, tout elle est douceur. Elle sourit beaucoup et elle n’est jamais embêtée. Ma grand-mère surprend par sa bonté calme. Elle veut aider à faire la cuisine. Elle fait des gâteaux aux miels et nous les envoie par la poste depuis Marseille pour les fêtes. Elle raconte des histoires de temps passés, souvent on a déjà entendu ses histoires, mais ça ne fait rien, elle a une voix faite pour raconter. Elle a un rire sans malice, qui a toujours l’air un peu surpris. Elle a des plis plein la peau et ça lui va bien. Elle marche, elle ne ménage pas ses efforts. Elle a des grandes mains un peu plus tordues chaque année, mais qui font encore – et encore – et encore. Cette année, pour Soucot (la fête juive des cabanes), elle a laissé sur une façade de la cabane la marque de sa main en peinture bleue, et elle a écrit en dessous, en lettres capitales un peu tremblantes, “main protectrice”.

Ma grand-mère n’habite plus à Marseille. Et elle ne marche plus beaucoup. Elle est dans une maison de retraite à cinq minutes de chez nous, et mon père va la chercher de temps en temps dans la semaine, pour les fêtes et pour shabbat, et parfois, elle passe la nuit chez nous. Dans la tête de ma grand-mère, il y a un grand passé qui danse, et qui s’emmêle parfois, un peu. Il y a une grande vie qui se dit, se redit, se dédit et se réinvente.

Et ça ne fait rien. Ma grand-mère a toujours le même sourire et le même rire un peu surpris. Et chaque fois, ça met dans la pièce un peu de joie – une petite joie toute douce et presque dure à voir. Et ma grand-mère, elle raconte toujours. Elle raconte presque pareil.

Au début, ça me rendait triste, le presque dans “presque pareil”, mais maintenant, ça ne fait rien. Aujourd’hui, je me suis dit : on s’en fout, de combien c’est vrai. Qu’est-ce que ça fait, hein ?

Elle m’aidait à préparer le dîner de shabbat, et elle a commencé à dire. Elle avait des pauses, comme si elle cherchait, comme si elle vérifiait dans sa mémoire, pour être sûre. Et moi, avec mon nouveau petit bagage de cueilleuse de souvenirs, j’ai su voir, un peu, la danse des mondes qu’il y a sous ses cheveux-nuage.

“Ça existe encore, les auberges de jeunesse ? J’ai été dans beaucoup d’auberges de jeunesse, quand j’ai voyagé, en Inde et en Chine.

– Ah oui ? Et c’était comment ?

– On avait le téléphone, et on appelait pour réserver, et on avait une chambre. C’était bien, ces auberges de jeunesse.

– Oui, on rencontre des gens.

– Tout à fait.

– Tu dormais dans des dortoirs ? Moi le plus souvent, j’étais dans des dortoirs.

– Ah non. J’étais toujours seule. On ne sait pas avec qui on tombe. On peut se faire voler facilement. J’y étais avec mon sac à dos. C’était avant que je sois mariée, je devais avoir vingt ans. Quand j’arrivais dans un nouveau pays, je demandais “Où est-ce qu’on trouve le représentant de la France ?” – je parlais bien anglais à l’époque, et les Chinois, aussi, parlaient anglais – et on me donnait l’adresse, et j’allais signaler ma présence, et depuis le bureau du Consul, j’appelais mes parents… Je payais la communication, bien sûr. Il y a cette montagne… en Chine je crois… je suis montée jusqu’en haut. Comment elle s’appelait ? La plus grande montagne… J’ai voyagé bien… un an.

– Et quand tu es rentrée, tu as rencontré Grand-Père ?

– Ton père ?

– Non, Grand-Père.

– Ah, non, Moïse ne voyageait pas. J’ai revu mes parents… L’Himalaya. Elle s’appelle l’Himalaya, cette montagne. Je suis montée tout en haut.

– Toute seule ?

– Ah, oui. Je n’ai jamais voyagé avec personne. On ne sait pas sur qui on tombe… C’est la plus haute montagne du monde… Et quand on est en haut (ses yeux brillent), on n’a plus envie de redescendre. On a une vue… à des kilomètres.

– Tu es allée dans quels autres pays ?

– Je suis allée… au Canada. Tout enneigé, on aurait dit un conte de fées. Je suis allée voir un concert… comment il s’appelle, ce musicien, qui est né dans un pays lointain ? Je suis allée voir ce concert, et à côté de moi il y avait une femme d’une cinquantaine d’années, qui m’a dit (avant le début, parce que pendant le concert c’était silence complet), elle m’a dit qu’elle économisait depuis dix ans pour voir ce concert. Beethoven, c’était le nom du musicien. C’était un orchestre de Vienne. Ils aiment la musique, les Allemands. Et c’était Beethoven qui jouait.

– Il est mort il y a longtemps, Beethoven, Grand-Mère.

Elle a son rire du fond de la poitrine.

– Ah, oui, c’était il y a longtemps, oui. (Elle réfléchit) Non, ce n’était pas Beethoven qui jouait. C’était en haut d’une colline, la nuit. C’était féérique. Une fois, je suis arrivée dans une ville aux États-Unis, et je cherchais un endroit où dormir. Les gens qui avaient une chambre à louer postaient des annonces à l’extérieur, des annonces protégées. Et j’ai vu, sur une annonce, en anglais “nous n’acceptons ni les Juifs ni les chiens”. Oui, j’ai vu ça (elle rit). Une fois, j’ai vu un concert de Mozart. À côté de moi, il y avait une femme, qui m’a dit qu’elle avait économisé pendant dix ans pour aller à ce concert. Le jour d’après le concert, il y avait une visite de la maison de Mozart. C’était en haut d’une colline. Ah, c’est bien ces voyages organisés, c’est très bien.”

Et j’imagine ma grand-mère avec son sac à dos et un peu plus de cheveux, un peu moins de plis. J’imagine ma grand-mère à mon âge, avec des idées un peu comme les miennes et l’envie de voir le monde. Mon père me dit qu’elle n’a pas voyagé seule. Et qu’est-ce que ça fait ? Si elle a ses voyages dans les yeux et dans la tête, qu’est-ce que ça fait ? Moi j’aime qu’elle me raconte, ça me donne des mots et des images, et ça la fait sourire. Alors ?