Travel and Verse

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Category: Series (Page 8 of 9)

Looking Glass Series, part 1

December 26, 2019 / / 2 Comments
I heard from a local freind that she is still making soup. But she is moving a little slower now, and in a wheelchair.

Of Blood and Barriers

Travel Journal, 43

A few moments in my life stand out like turning points. Not in any kind of big way, like major life trauma or distress. These points have simply made me think about life in a way in which I never had before. I call these moments “looking glass” moments. Alice discovered so much behind the looking glass. She stood staring into a mirror that reflected her own image. But she had the courage to step through and see a whole new universe of existence, full of new experiences. Imagine if Alice never stepped through the glass. Or if she never followed that white rabbit. I don’t know about you, but my childhood would have been incomplete without opium smoking caterpillars and clearly mentally unstable wearers of hats.

In the end, it was Alice’s decision to step through the mirror that gave her new experiences and introduced her to a new world.

One such moment happened on a January Thursday in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Myself and two friends arose early in search of coffee. To our delight, the prevalence of coffee bars in Thailand is only outmatched by the quality thereof. I sat on a small metal chair in the cool of a Thai morning, sipping a cappuccino.

The sun rose on our morning coffee and Buddhist monks appeared silently, collecting food offerings from store owners who bowed low in reverence. Attached to our little coffee bar was a noodle shop attended by a smiling, old woman. She placed a carton of soup on the ground and bowed. As the monks passed me by, my senses were overcome by the smell of morning noodles. With pointing and grunting, or perhaps hungry eyes, I communicated my lack of noodles. Soon the old woman placed a bowl in front of me. I gave it a quick stir with a large spoon and chopsticks.

I took a sip and the dark, savory broth filled every pore of my soul. I’m sure my eyes dilated and new neural pathways opened giving me access to more of my brain. I wielded the chopsticks like ancient swords, consuming noodles and soup with a cathartic passion. As I ate, I saw several pieces of meat which were foreign to me.

“What’s this?” I asked a friend. I lifted a piece of the meat with chopsticks. Some discussion took place between the old woman and those who spoke Thai.

Hesitant eyes looked my way.

“Blood,” they said.

I was floored. But not because I was repulsed. I was surprised because my first instinct was not to push the bowl away from me.

I was shocked.

“How can this be so good?” I gasped, out loud.

If a bowl of noodles with a meat made of blood in the north of Thailand can so easily open my senses and break down the walls of my comfort zone, what else have I been missing?

Perhaps much.

But to answer that question properly, we will need to go to Malaysia and meet a man named Pak Omar. He will have more answers for us. 

anthony forrest

 

*this series will publish each week through the end of January

Know Him this Christmas

December 23, 2019 / / 2 Comments
St Augustine Catholic Church In Montpelier, VT for Handel's Messiah, 2017

To know Him we must be like Him

 

Born humbly into a new life

Into an old animal shed

A clean, yet humble livestock barn

Perfect beginnings for a life Christ-led

 

From fleshly beds of discontent

To beds of straw we now lay

Simple beds of contentment and joy

As our Saviour laid on that first Christmas day

 

Trading old lives of confusion and strife

For new lives of simplicity

Turning from sin, and looking ahead

With goals of Christlike purity

 

‘Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?

‘And who may stand in His holy place?’*

Clean hands, pure hearts

Seek ye fully His holy face!

 

Wrapped in cloths of truth

Laid in a manger of grace

Quietly animals low

Born again into His perfect grace

 

To know Him we must be like Him

 

anthony forrest

 

*Psalm 24:3-4

Holy Night

December 19, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Travel Journal, 43

I slung my well-worn backpack over my shoulder and stepped onto the escalator that leads down to the baggage claim and public transportation area of the Minneapolis/St Paul Airport. The good news was that my flight had arrived early. The bad news was that my next flight wasn’t for another six hours. An early arrival was far from helpful today.

Last step of the escalator glided to the bottom floor of the airport. I walked off and into the direction of the light rail train stop. If I ever have a long layover at MSP, I’ll typically take the train to the Mall of America and Ikea. But let’s be honest. The only reason I go to the mall is because the train terminates there. I walk through it on my way to Ikea and those tasty little meatballs and stunning pre-fab furniture. It’s a great way to blow an afternoon before the final leg of a trip.

But as I strode past the luggage claim carrousels, a man pulling a roller-bag caught my eye. He wore a black overcoat and halted at a baby grand piano not far in front of me. Certain airports strive for interesting and fun ways to create atmosphere and culture. And MSP has several pianos. Sometimes a busker sits and plays, attempting to sell albums, and sometimes the pianos lie vacant. Such was not the case today.

I walked past him, not wanting to become the audience and, to be honest, not really caring too much about whether I heard him play. But I soon froze where I stood as he struck out the first notes of “O Holy Night.”

I turned and found a seat. He clearly knew what he was doing with the piano. He played and improvised on the old, old tune and extracted from it every ounce of Christmas. No sheet music sat in front of him. But off to his left side stood a phone, recording a video.

His music warmed the soul of this weary traveler. So when he finished, I clapped and walked over to introduce myself. He was an expat living in Quito, Ecuador. The medical work he did kept him busy in South America doing pro bono surgeries for children in need. This, the very embodiment of the post-haunting Scrooge, was on his way to Colorado for Christmas with his family. His adult daughter was on the other end of that video call, listening to her father play her favorite Christmas hymn.

Not every person celebrates Christmas. And not every person confesses Christianity. But for those of us that do both, Christmas gives us an opportunity to come together in common purpose: to live in kindness, love others, and spread a song of hope found in a Savior born to save. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn and each soul captured by the appearance of the Christ has felt its worth. That leaves us with nothing to do but to fall on our knees in awe of such a holy night.

Merry Christmas,

anthony forrest

Land of the Nativity

December 12, 2019 / / 2 Comments

Travel Journal, 42

We are greeted with clasping hands and a generous smile.

It is hard to know who said “shalom” first. But we all do at some point during introductions.

The man quickly catches a boy by the shoulder.

The little black-haired boy looks up at his father, who had stopped him in his play. The boy gazes up at his father, listening to the instructions. But in a couple of seconds, the boy runs off like a shot, out the door and down the alleyway.

Our host (also shop owner) eagerly leads the four of us to four tiny plastic chairs of differing colors. Color seems to be the theme running through Jerusalem. Brightly ornate scarves hang about us. Several languages color the air. And a dozen or more ethnic groups create a culture more colorful than any other on this earth.

And now I see the little Arab boy, running in his shorts and sandals, carrying something. He holds what looks like a platter suspended by three ropes tied at the top and held in his hand. On that platter are five small and clear glasses of green tea, whole leaves. The lad moves effortlessly through a nearby crowd. He enters the store and his father serves us.

It’s delicious and sweet—this tea, this place, this moment, everything. And all the uncomprehended Hebrew has me hypnotized. But I refocus and notice that our friends stand and begin moving into another room.

We are here with an objective.

We are here to find Christmas.

Presently, the shop owner and giver of delightful tea rummages through piles of olive wood carvings. First, he produces the hand-crafted manger; then Mary, now Joseph, baby Jesus, shepherds, wise men three, sheep, camels, ect.

It’s all here. He tells us, as is visible by the various models nearby, that he has crafted hundreds of Nativity scenes. He appears quite proud of his creation.

He should be proud.

His hands craft the very throne of the Majestic One. Olive wood is lowly enough to be hand-crafted and beautiful enough for a King; which, to me, seems just right.

Tis a King’s tale.

 

anthony forrest

Travel Journal, 39

November 21, 2019 / / 1 Comment

Is There a Doctor on Board? -part 2-

Read part 1 here

I looked at the scene before me. The flight purser was rushing around in a panic. A pale woman lay at his feet. Two other flight attendants hovered over her. And literally everybody else on the flight slept as if nothing was abnormal. And to make matters worse, there was a distinct possibility that we were going to have to divert the aircraft to Madrid, Spain to get this ill passenger to definitive medical care.

However, the everyday passenger may not know that a flight of this capacity and distance is more equipped to handle such an emergency than one might expect. The crew carries oxygen, a full medical bag (complete with medications and intravenous supplies), and a cardiac monitor and defibrillator. In essence they are loaded for bear.

But there’s a catch: nobody has a clue what to do. Sure, they are all trained in basic first aid and CPR, but their job is to be flight attendants, not medical professionals.

I leaned over and assessed the woman on the floor. She was clammy and complained of chest pain. Her heart rate was irregular and she was nauseous. However, her blood pressure was normal. We connected the electrocardiogram machine (because why wouldn’t a flight from South Africa to England have one of those?) and discovered that she was clearly experiencing a common heart problem called atrial fibrillation. In the simplest of terms, the top part of her heart was not cooperating.

Just then I realized that the purser had been breathing into my ear. I turned and saw his sweaty bald head uncomfortably close to my face.

“Do you want to talk to the doctor?” he asked.

“There’s a doctor here?” I was confused. I thought I was the only one helping.

“No,” he said, “but we can call him.”

The purser pulled me aside to the first-class cabin to the front of the aircraft. There sat a small desk. He picked up a phone and dialed a number.

“Hello?” A fellow American answered the phone. At this point, I was very impressed with everything that was happening. I explained to the physician all that had transpired. He hummed and thought and then asked me, “well, do you think that they should land the aircraft in Spain.”

This was not a decision I was expecting to make. I was hoping my responsibilities on this flight were going to be limited to whether or not I should watch Dances with Wolves again.

I swallowed hard and squeaked, “no.”

“Okay, well, keep an eye on her and if anything changes, call me back.”

Click.

The line went dead.

The purser was glad to hear we would continue on to London. “It costs the company over £200,000 to divert. Not to mention a scheduling nightmare for everybody. If she’s going to be okay, it’s better to just continue on!”

As I went back to our makeshift clinic, the purser asked if he could get me a drink.

“Coffee would be great, thank you”

I was shocked when he fired up an espresso machine and produced a porcelain cappuccino cup and platter. This scenario was getting ethereal.

When we finally landed, NHS London Ambulance Service pulled alongside the aircraft. I spoke to the British paramedic and they transferred the patient onto their ambulance, unceremoniously.

The crew was all smiles as my wife and I gathered our things. They thanked us over and over. This could have gone differently. We could have been getting off the plane in Madrid. But London was a welcomed sight.

anthony forrest

Travel Journal, 38

November 14, 2019 / / 1 Comment
Sedgefield, on the western Cape of South Africa

Is There a Doctor on Board? -part 1-

Through an unforeseen line of events, we now had to fly to London. Originally, we were scheduled to fly home from Johannesburg, South Africa on a direct flight to the US. That flight is nearly 17 hours long and spans from Atlanta to Johannesburg. And it is as long as it sounds. We were devastated that our already long trip home was now going to take even longer. We were able to reroute through London on Virgin Atlantic. There was a bit of good news, though. We’d have a small break between flying. Nobody wants to be on a plane for 17 hours.

I walked into the far aisle of our Boeing 767 aircraft and began glancing down at my ticket and up at the seat numbers. My seat was in the upper 30s. I must have looked like I was nodding—up and down, like a fool. My wife and I found our seats. And they were terrible. At some point in a large plane, the width of the aircraft shrinks. This means that a plane with seven seats across may dwindle down to five. And when it does, the seats in that row have rigid arm-rests in which tray tables are stored. If there is a way to make an airplane seat feel smaller, this is how.

Throughout the flight we dozed, watched movies, read, and I did a little writing. But even though this flight was shorter, it felt just as long as the one we were supposed to be on. Finally, with a pair of earplugs embedded in my scull, I fell asleep in an awkward position.

A faint donging noise sounded overhead. I pulled the eyeshade up and blinked. An announcement cracked but nobody moved. I pulled out an earplug just in time to hear, “…doctor on board?”

This piqued my interest, though I’m nobody’s surgeon. I am, however, a lowly ol’ paramedic who wanders the streets at night, lifting the sick-and-injured (and not-so-sick-and-injured) from the depths of the unhealthy darkness. I looked around at my fellow passengers. Nobody moved. In fact, everybody was asleep. My watch read 2 a.m. But I’m not sure which time zone. I took another glance around and made the decision to go to the front of the aircraft.

“I’m not a doctor, but I can help.” I said this to the small group of attendants huddled around a woman on the floor. She was laying in the middle of the floor in the bar area. And yes, this plane had a bar. “

I’m Terrence,” said a British man in a uniform, “the purser on this flight.”

I introduced myself and said that I was a paramedic. He looked scared and balked, “oh I’m glad you’re here. I think we may have to divert to Spain!”

anthony forrest

Part 2 to be published next Thursday, the 21st of November

Travel Journal, 37

November 7, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Companions

Sometimes it’s just the two of us traveling together. Travel is so much sweeter when somebody you love is there to share in the experiences and sights. I almost never travel alone. But there is a sweet spot when it comes to travel companions. A giant bus filled with tourists rumbling from one site to the next might appeal to some, but not to me. But I’ve also heard stories of two people that may be friends on a daily basis, but might tire of each other before the trip is over.

Some porridge is too cold, some too hot.

My wife and I often travel with the same group of four or five. And that group is just right. The fun experienced becomes heightened. Conversations richly deepen. And each person’s strength becomes the groups’ strength.

One of the friends we travel with is a bold gal. She has no misgivings about walking up to a stranger and asking for direction, even if she doesn’t speak the language. She’s also gifted at striking up random conversations with random people. She is the social needle that introduces us into the country or culture we are in at any given time.

We walked along and talked during a recent visit to Ireland. Though each of us may be able to go unnoticed alone, the four of us stood out like sore thumbs. A passerby asked us where we were from. Our social butterfly stepped in. She stuck up a pleasant conversation with a man who happened to be Ukrainian.

He spoke of his president and asked about ours. They talked on about the tensions between our respective nations. But they came to the conclusion that our lives were barely affected by the decisions of faraway people in faraway capitals. In the end, a comedian from Ukraine and a billionaire from America can’t change the color of the grass in County Claire, Ireland.

As I walked along with my friends and my new acquaintances from Ukraine, it struck me that I certainly would not have had this conversation without the binding agent of good travel companions.

 

anthony forrest

Travel Journal, 33

October 10, 2019 / / 1 Comment

Foreign Bathroom Series, Chapter 5: Dutch Hostel

Names have been modified to protect the innocent (also, embarrassed).

 

The restroom situation at a hostel is always a gamble. One friend of mine told me of a trip to Singapore involving a hostel with a mixed gender toilet and shower room. He was mortified. Then again, other countries and places offer great privacy and comfort. Think of it as toilet roulette.

I was traveling with a dear friend. Let’s call him JJ. We met up at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam to do a rapid-fire, two-day, whirlwind, nonstop, café to café, coffee tour of the area. In under 18 hours, we drank cappuccino after cappuccino in western Europe, covering 45 miles of the Netherlands. Our coffee excursion included the best cafes in the Netherlands, culminating in our seventh coffee bar in the hip college town of Utrecht. We drank and talked for hours, bouncing from hip spot to cobblestone street and onto the next slinger of the black juice of life. Until finally, our hearts could no longer handle anymore caffeine and our bladders howled with the strain of frequent emptying.

We had decided on a hostel for the night. And after some clumsy navigational errors, we stepped into a tight townhome with a classic youth hostel vibe. Guitars hung on the walls, collegiate hipsters lounged with oversized headphones, and the whole placed smelled of marijuana. We arranged to stay the night in one of the many bunk beds on the top floor. We climbed and climbed. With six (!) sets of spiral stairs now underneath us, I poked around and found our room. It was a sprawling empty area with no less than twenty bunks. Each bunk was the classic metal-frame bed with thin plastic mattresses, half of them permanently stained. It would have to do—although JJ was on the fence. With no bag lockers, we would have to take our bags with us to dinner—unless we wanted to graciously donate our belongings to a patchouli-smelling backpacker.

On our way out, we saw the bathroom. It was a single door labeled toilets and showers. Setting his bag on the floor, JJ said, “I’m just going to use the restroom quick.”

He pushed the door open.

“Oh,” he balked with a start, “I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay! No worries,” said a clearly female voice from within the bathroom.

JJ closed the door, turned his beet-red face to me and said, “there’s a girl in there. And she’s not dressed.”

Group restroom. Group toilets. Group shower. Zero privacy. This is not uncommon in Europe.

That was the proverbial straw on the proverbial camel’s back. We collected a refund on our night and took the train back to Amsterdam. Hotels have nicer bathrooms anyway.

anthony forrest

Travel Journal, 25

August 8, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Prologue to a Night Dive

Before I opened my eyes to see my surroundings, I could hear and feel and smell my whereabouts. My sleeping bag was wrapped tight around my neck and shoulders. The three-inch pad on which I slept the night before provided shocking amounts of comfort. And the gentle rocking back and forth had lulled me to sleep. When we boarded the Truth, my dad said that we needed to pick out bunks close to the front of the boat. Not only would the boat’s listing and swaying feel gentler, but the nearby engine compartment would give off a drone that would muffle all other sound.

And he was not wrong.

From above, smells of coffee and bacon floated down the hatch. I opened my eyes and saw the California sunshine peeking into the boat. The 80-foot Truth listed gently and the diesel engines continued to hum. We boarded last night and shortly thereafter, made our way to the Channel Islands where we would be diving the cold kelp forests of the California coastal islands.

I swung my legs off the upper bunk, trying not to kick my dad in the face. Each step on the wooden ladder creaked under my dirty bare feet. Topside, I was met with smiling faces of neo-hippy dive masters and deck hands. They live for this.

“Coffee?” asked a 20-something with blonde dreadlocks.

“My people,” I thought.

I wrote my name with a dry erase marker onto an aluminum mug. Taking a sip, I looked out at a nearby island. The sun was up and warm, but not hot. Smalls ocean swells promised lovely diving. And misting saltwater somehow made the black coffee taste even better. We would be diving for two days, all day. The crew of the Truth knew how to give their divers a good time.

Coffee anytime.

Tons of food.

Comfy bunks.

Hot showers.

Gear setup.

And bottomless tanks of all the air you could breathe.

This was going to be incredible. My dad had roused and breakfast was getting under way. This was the life. We love to dive together. We know how each other thinks and we are very comfortable as dive partners. We love the adventure.

In fact, I would be going on my first night-dive tonight. And with the two of us indestructible dudes diving together, what could go wrong?

anthony forrest

Read Night Dive, chapter 1 here
Read Night Dive, chapter 2 here

Travel Journal, 24

August 1, 2019 / / 0 Comments
Be sure to check out chapter 1 of this series by clicking here.

Night Dive, chapter 2

Underwater navigation is fairly straightforward. At least, it’s usually straightforward. Our goal for this night-dive was to descend along the anchor line and dive along a wall in one direction. When our tank pressure read the agreed upon psi, we would simply turn around and go back to the anchor line leading to the boat. The boat light suspended right above the water would also assist us in finding our way back.

But we ran into an unexpected current. We decided to end the dive early. The strong current fought us the entire way. So, as we turned around to head back, the same current we had been swimming against tossed us around like underwater windsocks. The flashlights in our hands flicked back and forth announcing our distress to nobody. We straightened up and got our bearings only to discover that we were moving at an incredible rate. Who knew how fast we were going, and how far? I caught my dad’s eye and made the “something’s wrong” hand motion. He agreed. And through further dive signs, we decided to surface. The good news was that the boat light from the Truth was right over head.

Perfect. It was looking like our navigation wasn’t wrong after all.

Each dive should be ended with a “safety stop.” When the diver surfaces, he or she stops the ascent at 15 feet and waits for a few minutes. It’s an extra measure of caution. And as we hovered at 15 feet, something seemed off. The boat light overhead shinned much brighter that I remember. And when my head cleared the black surface into the above-water night, I realized that the boat light was nowhere to be found.

I had seen a blazing full moon the whole time. My heart dropped into my fins. As my dad surfaced, both realized what had happened. The current had dragged out passed the Truth and we missed the anchor line. We looked around wildly for the boat and saw it far in the distance, more than a football field away. And with each passing moment, the current pulled us farther and farther out, into the open ocean.

Our only hope was a drift line that the boat crew threw out after they had apparently realized that there was an unexpected current. At the end of the line was a buoy, but it was still some distance from us.

We did the only thing we could do, swim.

And swim some more.

We finally reached the buoy, and had begun pulling our way back to the Truth. But it was taking forever. We would wear out long before we’d make it back. With my light, I signaled the boat crew that we were in distress. And they were ready. In fact, the crew had a zodiac boat in the water. We were not the only divers having trouble. Several minutes later, our relief arrived.

Back at the Truth, we offloaded our BCs and heaved them onto the deck. Flopping ourselves back onto the boat, we simply groaned. What was supposed to be a fun, adventurous, exciting, and new experience, turned out to be all of those things—with the exception of fun.

But adventure ofttimes comes at a cost. And it’s often only fun when you look back on it. A friend of mine calls that “type 2 fun.” And that night-dive certainly qualifies.

My dad and I sat, still in our wetsuits, dripping onto the deck.

I turned to my dad and said in an only semi-sarcastic tone, “well, it’s no fun unless somebody almost dies.” 

 

anthony forrest

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