Thoughts after two weeks in the U.S. and a year of travel
24 March 2007
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA
12.27 am
Thoughts after two weeks in the U.S. and a year of travel
I have been to Jersey City, Florida, Upstate New York, and North Carolina in the two weeks and three days in the United States.
It has been crazy cold here. The lake in New York was frozen when I left two days ago. The weather was warming up but a couple of days before it was in the twenties and snowing and blowing.
My thoughts keep going back to Bangkok and Manila and the beaches of Thailand and the Philippines.
Two days ago I made the six hundred mile drive to North Carolina. I was struck by how spread out things are here. We covered six hundred miles in eleven hours, which is pretty amazing: how much ground can be covered on an expressway by car. But you have to spend some of the time driving, which requires alertness, unlike a bus or train. And we made a couple of wrong turns.
The past week in Upstate New York I have been getting my car running. In a space of a few days I have spent as much money on my car as I would travelling for a month in India. In my graduate school days I put myself through the debate about whether it was better not to have a car. But it really is difficult to get to places without a car in the U.S., and it can end up costing a bit of money.
For example, in the small town where I was staying there are no buses passing through to the neighboring towns. There is not one bus an hour, there is not one bus a day, there are no buses. Purportedly there would not be anyone to take the bus; people believe that they must have a car even if they are unemployed or don't earn much money.
I am also struck by the rows of stores selling me stuff. There are plazas full of huge stores: Target, Toys R Us, Lowe's, supermarkets.
On the one hand these things are great. You can find tons of different things. It feels like Christmas. On the other hand, can everyone here afford all this stuff?
There are many large houses, on large plots of land. They are furnished with new-looking furniture. Understand, the houses are bought with hefty mortgages. Perhaps the furniture is bought outright or on credit. No matter, they are impressive.
No wonder people I met in the countries I visited thought I was rich. But when I was there I didn't have any income, I didn't have any assets except a car in storage, a few years in a 401(k) retirement account, and the savings I was spending on the road. Was I rich? Did I have more freedom than they? Of course the answer in some way was yes to both questions.
In a drugstore in Cebu, Philippines I bought two bars of manufactured soap. Among a selection of tropical scents I chose green papaya. I really liked them. The second one was used up a few days ago. I have been keeping my eye out for something like it but I haven't seen anything. All this change in my surroundings and I am thinking of a bar of soap.
Thoughts after two weeks in the U.S. and a year of travel
