Mail

Yesterday I came home to a very pleasant surprise in the mailbox. A friend whom I met in the recent trip to Cambodia/Angkor Wat sent me a postcard from Algeria! My my my, Ally is in Africa! A Taiwanese expatriate in Hong Kong, she has this formidable predilection for uncharted territories and places off the beaten path. No wonder she opts for hiking boots and binoculars, favors seismically-unstable monuments over Club Med retreats. It was not until the battery of her digital camera went dead at Bayon Temple (one of the highlights of the tour) did I get to talk to her and find out she was all by herself! She asked if I can take a picture of her at the smiling stone. She truly impressed me as someone who doesn't just glue to her camera and make sure she takes all the pictures. She desires a thorough understanding of what she sees, a deeper level of interests in history, religion, and architecture that tourists complacently dismiss. She would rummage through her guidebooks while we were shuttled between temples and sites. Anyway, I would not be surprised that Ally would tackle the Sahara alone. From her dog-eared postcard (it was date-stamped April 16 so it takes 12 days to arrive in San Francisco) I realize she was there to attend a wedding. Her 10-days journey saw the urban areas along the Mediterranean coast petering out and brought to the edge of the dunes. Fine sand and dust pervaded even small ridges of wrinkles on the face.

I write loads of postcards when I'm away. They verbalize the moment-to-moment feelings of a traveler, capture that dialogue inside the traveler's mind. I treasure every postcard I received: it's a token from somewhere far beyond reality.