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Slaying Apophis: Travel Notes from the Asian Continent

by Lisa E.O. Mueller

203 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #01-0235; ISBN 1-55212-835-0; US$21.50, C$26.50, EUR17.30, £12.00

Slaying Apophis is a narrative account of a study semester spent exploring Asia. It describes a journey of self-discovery, cultural comparison, and adventure under the intense and intimate conditions of travel. Experiences define us. Memory catalogues those experiences. By choosing what we remember we have a hand in creating ourselves, and offer the world a window on who we are.

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book - from the author The experiences which form the basis of Slaying Apophis began in May of 1992 when I separated from my husband. I spent late winter through early spring 1994 traveling the Eurasian continent. Throughout the trip, sixteen students were under the guidance of three Eastern Michigan University professors and two tour managers. Under the rigorous conditions of travel, we got to know each other quite well. The journey became primarily one of self-discovery. I found myself searching for meaning and direction. In the process, I wrestled with, and at least wounded, several of my demons. My observations were written down as I experienced or remembered them. As I was preparing for publication what had begun as a private journal, I realized that some observations and class quotes were quasi-universals, philosophical road signs. I have highlighted these throughout the text as aphorisms, and compiled them all at the end of the book. Perhaps this composite picture of an adventure of discovery, and the wisdom gained, will serve others as well as myself. As the Chinese couplet on the cover proclaims, "may you be blessed with peace and safety wherever you are."

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About the Author Lisa Mueller currently works for a small biomedical company to pay the bills and finance her travels. Her written work has been published locally and nationally, and she has performed locally, nationally, and internationally. She spends her days courting adventure and her nights flirting with disaster. She lives in Ann Arbor with a cat, countless books and abundant plants.

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Excerpts

1-11-94 Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

I had a horrible dream last night. It was the 17th. I was late to meet the group. When I arrived, breathless, at the airport, to my dismay I had no money. Panicked, I scavenged around for a bank, finally finding one which sold only strange foreign coins, ducats or something. A little Monty Python peasant woman was biting all the money first to make sure it was gold. But I didn't have my passport, or my VISA, so she wouldn't sell me any. Then I looked around and realized that I didn't have my backpack or book bag or anything! Thankfully, I woke up with several more days to plan and pack and prepare.

1-17-94 Los Angeles, California, USA

Our group was immediately obvious, sitting on the floor in a scruffy circle. Young, eager faces, T-shirts and Tevas. A Pepsi commercial. I remember missing all the names, trying to read their characters from the faces, and failing that too. Anxious to discover an immediate friend, someone to cling to in these uncertain times. Instead, I just sat to the side and waited and watched.

1-18-94 Waikiki, Hawaii, USA

We visited the Bishop Museum with its wonderful indigenous jewelry, basketry, and textiles from pounded bark. Little wooden stakes topped with a totem figure, to be carried with you and placed in the ground wherever you are. Constant personal protection. God-on-a-stick.

1-21-94 Nagoya, Japan

The charter bus to our hotel had built in drink holders, a TV, surround sound, colored disco lights and beveled, mirrored decorations. Elvis would have felt at home.

The stewardesses on Thai Air wore long silk shantung gowns in chartreuse, champagne, and rose. Ballroom attire for narrow aisles.

1-23-94 Bangkok, Thailand

We took a bus from the YMCA so crowded I was afraid I'd end up sitting on some stranger's lap at a sudden stop. Then a ferry along a river of buildings. The sights. The sounds -- whistles, motors, chatter. And the smells -- diesel, garbage, fish, fruit, too many humans. It is incredible that despite the crush and the heat, the passengers still disembark looking starched and presentable. Teflon-coated, permanent press.

2-6-94 Kathmandu, Nepal

Early on the last morning in Varanasi, I went for a sunrise walk. Mostly men, children and animals. Women really remain among themselves. It makes me lonely. Air fresh, not yet dusty.

The airport in Varanasi is one in name only. Small and isolated. The plane was sketchy. When the overhead baggage compartment was open, you could see the insulation against the plane wall. It made the whole construction seem provisional.

Going over the Himalayas was awesome! The earth just kept reaching up, in green craggy folds like a napkin at a first rate restaurant.

2-17-94 Transit, train to Bombay, India

Gave a little beggar boy one rupee. Pantomimed with him a little. He was wearing one of those round knit "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" hats.

2-19-94 Bombay, India

We took an hour long ferry ride to Elephanta Island. First we had to wait as a girls' school field trip filled one boat. Beautiful young girls in pink and red uniforms with heavy dark hair and shining eyes. Then a boy scout troop filled another boat. Brown uniforms, brown and white checked shirts, rambunctiously filled. Stretching across the plaza as they waited on line. I got breeze in my hair, the sun shining in my eyes and on my face, glinting off the water. The green, soiled water with flotsam and jetsam. Out a ways from the shore, it looked fresher. Boat hulls loomed in the distance -- some skeletally, iron girder latticework; some forbiddingly, huge hulking military ships; some pleasurably, brightly painted ferries returning. Little lighthouse buoys. Then open water and the hilly wooded island ahead.

We arrived at low tide, a long stretch of slimy black mud separating us from the shore; the dock under a foot or two of water. We piled into a second, smaller skiff which brought us up the dock. It was "manned" by four middle-aged Indian women with strong bodies and their saris tied up like trousers, their muscles straining against the helpless cloth. They guided us out with an iron grip and didn't let go, hoping for a tip. I liked the Indian women's stance. Very erect yet sway-backed -- chest and bottom out. Very sensual and alluring. People who use their bodies and understand them.

We walked back to the hotel through the rich heavy night. The temperature was perfect. I wish the smells had been more so. But I had my jasmine garland and that helped. We passed so many funny signs. Accidental or deliberate misspellings. Hokey slogans. Yesterday we saw one that read, "Funeral directors, sculptors and embalmers. We'll ship your dead body anywhere. Anyhow!"

2-21-94 Transit, flight to Cairo, Egypt

I sat alone in the back of the bus on our way to the airport, feeling every rollercoaster, carnival ride response to the uneven street. Watching rats scurrying away, disturbed by the passing rumble and thunder of our bus. Smelling the succession of foul but familiar scents of a large Indian city. Feeling sorry to leave but excited about Egypt.

2-24-94 Cairo, Egypt

After lunch, the group piled into minivans and headed for Gizeh. The pyramids are more amazing than I'd imagined. It's not just the size or technical prowess they represent. It's their solidity, their presence. We went inside one, up a long flight of cattle ramp stairs. Up until the sweat breaks and you're breathing hard. Up 250 feet to the middle of the tomb. Into an open room, high ceiling, still air, faced simply with smooth, black granite. The climb was tortuous and cramped, then finally to arrive in this space felt wonderful.

Next we saw a 4500-year-old boat. Sealed in its own tomb, it was exceptionally well preserved. The boat was reassembled for display. Other than the modern rope used to fasten the pieces, it is just as it would have been. The form simple, but aesthetic with huge oars and a canopy. The wood was a deep brown that almost glistened. It moved me, this symbol of the journey we all make through life.

Finally, we visited the Sphinx. I always consider it a her, even though it's actually King Kafret. The temple ruins were peaceful. Simple uncarved pillars, open roof. The sight lines of wall to stone to sky make powerful geometric patterns in the mind.

All that would have been enough. A full day. But then we rode camels! The Gizeh pyramids look remote in photographs, even though they're right at the edge of a Cairo suburb. From the desert, the dunes rise up in such a way that civilization just disappears. Camels are bigger than I thought. sitting very high up, on bright tapestry saddle blankets, some with tassels. You mount a seated camel. As it stands, you have to lean as far back as possible so the powerful lurch doesn't topple you. Their walk is bouncier than a horse's trot, but with a rhythm you can grow accustomed to. As their feet hit the ground, they spread and thud, like sofa cushions being fluffed. When the camel broke into a jog, it was especially exhilarating -- a solo bumper car ride.

Around us the camel owners would gallop into the sand on spirited Arabian horses. Powerful bodies in motion, very sensual. It took my breath away! We stopped for a photo-shoot before returning. I fed my camel greens and gave him a neck massage to his great enjoyment. The hair on his neck lay upwards, not downward, so I stroked from back to head. It felt stiff and bristly. No camel hair coats from these camels, some of whom looked bald.

On the way back, Jeremy's camel started sprinting, then seizuring. Jeremy was dumped, but he landed well and was fine. It looked like the bass line of a jazz fusion improv, wild competing rhythms impossible to compensate for.

We were in the desert until the sun began to set. The sand turned golden. The pyramids stood out crisply, hyper three dimensional. And the sky turned purple.

2-25-94 Transit, bus to Nuweiba, Egypt

Dusty yellow desolation on all sides. Rusted carcasses of cars picked clean by the sun. A dangerous place for a flat tire! At first, everything was level and empty. Then the mountains started. Stern and unforgiving, only rock and sand, nothing green. High and jagged, tearing the sky.

The colors were like my dye project. Madder red, eucalyptus yellow, logwood gray and purple. Earth tones, Nature's palette. But instead of the fluffy piles of fleece I had worked with, she has colored hard, angular stone. A more difficult and challenging task, awesome in its effect. In a few places, the hue of the rock was so intense I thought it was painted. Maybe oil residue had stained the stone.

The farther we drove, the more remote things seemed. As though we'd drive off the face of the earth or into the Star Wars set. And then we were there. The mountains opened and before us stretched a white town and the sea. Most amazing were the red mountains of Saudi Arabia encircling the blue Gulf of Aqabah.

2-26-94 Nuweiba, Egypt

We left at 8:30 am for St. Catherine's monastery. It is old, of the same stone as the hills and nearly as rugged. Surprisingly appropriate. Supposedly built on the site of Moses' burning bush. There were early Byzantine icons, from the sixth century, encaustic, with gilt detailing, miraculously saved from the iconoclastic controversy. Some had very searching, eyes -- "the haunting, hunted kind."

After the monastery, we hiked up Mt. Sinai. Everyone, at Eric's urging, took the path, the switchbacks. Everyone except Eric, Jeremy, Greg, Kate and me. I'm so glad I tried the stairs! About 3500 of them. Big stone slabs. It was somewhat like bouldering. I was breathing pretty hard most of the way, but I was feeling my body work. I took off my shoes and felt the smooth cool stone on the soles of my feet. Poured water on my head. Rubbed snow into my hair once I'd gotten high enough to find some.

The view down into the valley was magnificent. For a while you could see the monastery getting smaller. Then nothing but rocky slopes with jagged tops sawing the extra-blue sky. In between the stones were little lichens, fuzzy, bushy pale green, mini dandelions, and a darker green spiky plant, also in miniature. As though the air were too thin to support any greater expenditure of effort. About halfway up I came upon a stone archway framing the sky, surrounded by mountain, spanning the path. Left by an ancient monk, a red cross painted on the inside of the door jamb. I felt properly reverent. There was another before the top, when I could no longer see the first. A second gift to the traveler. Shortly after this doorway, the path opened onto an oasis, a pond of green water, trees, and a small stand selling juice and biscuits. The last stretch of the climb was easy. Then we sunned ourselves on the boulders and ate a picnic lunch. Bread and cheese. Bread and tahini with dates and shredded coconut. An orange, some chocolate, and a couple cookies.

2-28-94 Transit, bus to Cairo, Egypt

Slept until 5:00 am. Now it's 6:00 and we're waiting for the bus to take us back to Cairo so we can fly to Athens. Away from Egypt where fundamentalists have warned that they cannot be responsible for what happens to foreigners who remain. Away from Israel where people are murdered in the name of a God whose first commandment is "thou shalt not kill." Away from the twisted politics of the Middle East.

At the Suez bus station, I got some coffee. The air vibrated with nerves. Dave was especially tense. A few weeks earlier he dreamt that he and Thomas were being shot at in an Egyptian bus station. The circumstances just a little too similar for comfort.

4-12-94 Transit, train to Beijing, China

At the railroad station, workmen were checking the wheels. The center and rim of each. Metal on metal. The tock ping of a healthy train.

"Check for your friends," our classic trip caution so no one gets left behind. A good metaphor for life.

No vendors selling chai in the middle of the night like on the Indian trains and I forgot my chai bags.

Kent said he'd detached his bladder. I wish I had a detachable one too!

I finally slept, two hours in a cabin so hot I was a raisin when I awoke.

4-13-94 Transit, train to Beijing

This time the train really is stopped at the Russian/Chinese border so that the wheels can be changed. Since the Sino-Soviet split of 1960-1963, the Chinese have used a smaller gauge track to hinder a Soviet invasion. Greg and I walked to the building where the process was underway. Train cars were jacked up. A crane slid across the ceiling picking up the new wheels and moving them into place. One car at a time. The whole process took about three hours. Behind the building was an old iron steam engine being welded back into shape. Beyond that lay Kansas, just a little hillier.

Cow nuzzling up to the waiting rail cars. Shades of India.

The train station windows are insulated with waste wool. Nothing discarded.

Outside the station, two men are polkaing. Broad Asian features, heavy winter garb and huge smiles. Wo ai ni means "I love you" in Chinese. Sounds like "what I need." Coincidence?

At the restaurant in this Chinese border town, a patron at another table spit loudly and productively onto the floor.

4-14-94 Transit, train to Beijing, China

The Chinese dining car is brighter and cleaner than the Russian equivalent. Even airy. The coffee is, as George said, "recognizable." The glass sits on a lovely blue and white ceramic saucer -- true China.

The Russian dining car had four calendars and three cheesy posters. One of Beverly Hills 90210, another over the door of a motorcycle heartthrob staring meaningfully, soulfully into my eyes while I ate. William Least Heat Moon would love the place.

4-15-94 Transit, train to Beijing, China

Bicyclists transporting themselves and everything else. Refrigerators, leather sofas, three loveseats at once.

A man bicycled past our bus stop dangling a fish, a fresh fish.

4-27-94 Luoyang, China

Sharon talked with a Chinese student who sang a folk song "about a boy and an olive tree meeting a girl." He and the tree strolling along, finding her rooted there.

jian quo is featherball, a combination of badminton and hacky sack. An amazing, acrobatic pastime.

In class today, Chloe said that I like three kinds of dates: with pits, with numbers and with dudes.

This morning, Sharon said she smelled like "moldy deodorant." It's so humid here, our clothes aren't drying.

We went to the Peony Carnival. The best was the haunted house, a cheesy, quirky setup until you got downstairs into the tunnels and black lights. We made "Portrait of Dorian Gray" faces and let our evil energy out. Up on the castle battlement roof the moon shone full and diffuse. One of the dioramas in the park was two imperial Chinese: a standing man and a floating woman. And a Terminator cow with glowing eyes. A Hindu reference, a Confucian reference, and the Ascension of Mary!

5-2-94 Guilin, China

We took a field trip to Yang Shuo, a village an hour away from Guilin. I rented a bike and just toured around. I went off road for a while and ended up in a barnyard surrounded by seven snarling dogs. I backed them down and managed to leave unscathed. Apologizing to one group. Saying I was lost, which way to Guang Xi, to a beautiful, toothless old woman who marveled that I was biking barefoot.

On the narrow, curving, rutted dirt roads I passed a man carrying a wooden plow slung over one shoulder, bicycling one-handed. A supreme act of balance.

Passed another Chinese Madonna and child. The next time I stopped, I got out the dictionary and learned how to say, "you are very beautiful." "Ni hen meilide."

Chickens herding their broods. Along muddy country roads, scared and scattered by my rattling and clanging.

Took another side road. From her front stoop, a woman waved me over, invited me into her house, called her sisters, set me in a chair by a fan and turned it on. The room was very empty, a table, two sofas and some posters on the wall. I tried my new phrase. Said I liked China. Two neighbors came over with their angelic children. I said they were beautiful, too. They disagreed. Pointed to the poster of a busty, swimsuited blonde with a Farah Fawcett hairdo and said that she was beautiful. Then I ran out of things I knew how to say, and communication broke down. I felt guilty that they were wasting electricity on me. So I thanked them and left.

I returned to and continued down the main road with mosaic white lane markers of shards of broken pottery embedded in the asphalt, some of the red and blue designs still visible.

Now I'm off road again, sitting on a rock, listening to an old man sing. Passed a woman carrying two heavy baskets of manure on a stick shoulder bar, watching me as I rode by. A small cluster of children sang out "Hello." I responded with "hello," then "ni hao." The woman enjoyed that. I heard her laugh. I don't think she expected it.

5-3-94 Guilin, China

We're leaving for Guangzhou today on a double decker sleeper bus. Chloe and I went out this afternoon to get supplies for the trip. We stopped first to buy a knife for her boyfriend. As we entered the store, the shopkeeper gave us each a fresh water chestnut. They're much sweeter fresh than from a can. We were obviously delighted and before we left, she gave us five more. Then we got Chinese liquor from the Guilin region. As a mixer, we bought a case of mango juice in a box picturing a Caucasian woman playing a grand piano. The saleswoman gave us some millet cracker snacks to go with it. Finally I was searching for a thermos. We found a small alcove restaurant and pointed to a deep red dragon one and asked if we could buy it. After some bargaining, the proprietor sold it to me. It will be wonderful for road trips at home, too. These Chinese thermoses hold heat for a long time. The whole process was an adventure. I love things imbued with a sense of history! Another perma-grin day!

Greg called our spirits and mixer, "mango and moonshine." We were talking about classic rock bands -- Black Sabbath, Led Zepplin, etc. Greg asked if I liked it, if I listened to classic rock stations. I said, "I lived classic rock." Sometimes they forget that I really am from another generation.

The bus is one-and-a-half decker with reclining seats. 70's lawn chair seats in yellow, red and black woven plastic. The guys all leaning back with no shirts, sweating, beers in hand. I felt like I'd entered a redneck sardine can.

The bus broke down before we even got out of Guilin. Once underway the driver may have gotten lost or the road may just have disappeared. We went four-wheeling off-road, lurching so dramatically I thought we'd surely topple. Shortly after that we drove through a puddle the size of a small lake. Dave said next the driver was going to do donuts!

5-4-94 Transit, bus to Guangzhou, China

We've hit several bumps so extreme that the bus became airborne. A rollercoaster ride that takes you someplace different from where you started out. Kind of like a relationship.

At one bathroom stop, the latrine was plugged and covered by a chicken eating its breakfast, the natural food cycle, nature's pattern of reuse. I chose to go in the field outside.

Kent was referring to the song "Detachable Penis" but said "collapsible penis" instead. Aren't they all?

5-7-94 Transit, train to Hong Kong

The train seats swivel. Not just 180 degrees front to back, but 90 degrees, so they can face out the window or into the aisle.

Many of our group seem to be reverting to their stateside personalities. How they were at the beginning of the trip. The comforts of home, the horse recognizing the road to the stable and quickening pace.

Today I throw away my towel, my gray pants and my white leotard. Lightening my load.

5-8-94 Kowloon, Hong Kong

I'm sitting on the hostel's dirty stoop. Watching and smelling the street wake up. Diesel, fermented apples, dirt. In Guangzhou I would have seen the sun rise by now. From here I can just stare up a vertical cement corridor. Listening to the people, the traffic. White noise behind my thoughts.

Cities have different smells for me. This one is sour, like old garbage.

People really live on top of each other here. Vertically in identical stacked boxes. They're cleaner and in better condition than those in Russia. Warehousing.

Several croaked roaches the size of silver dollars belly up on the sidewalk. Good thing I'm not barefoot.

Hong Kong -- where East meets West and I wish West would go away. Haziness softens the edges of the hard, tall, angular buildings. All that money from electronics.

Eric just read an entry in his China guidebook -- don't even consider a bus trip from Guilin to Canton (Guangzhou). Now he finds it!

5-9-94 Kowloon, Hong Kong

Chloe, Sharon, Janice, Kent, and I all went to an amusement park today. We passed "Shum Wan Temporary Industrial Area." As Kent said, "soon it will be a plantation."

The first amusement was a tour through Chinese history. Replicas of all the sites we'd seen in the original, looking much less impressive, the Reader's Digest version. It made me realize, again, what a wonderful, well thought out trip this has been.

Then we rode the "longest outdoor escalator" to the rides. If you close your eyes on the Spider, one that uses centripetal force to press you to your seat, your breath catches in your throat, your belly sinks to your thighs, your head whirls, and you get off feeling like you've just been laid! I rode it three times.

5-10-94 Kowloon, Hong Kong

I feel really soft and I smell like a store." Sharon after buying new clothes.

On the ferry boat over to meet the group, I watched the forest of stone and steel standing in front of the forest of green and ceased to hate this city. I could even grow to like it. I'm glad I'm leaving it like this. Some of the hulking edifices are actually lovely. And the boats as always are magical.

On the ferry to the floating restaurant, I sat alone on the prow watching the lights on the water undulating and glistening. Hearing soothing water sounds and the hum and chug of diesel machinery. Feeling very, very peaceful.

I love the feeling of being in love with the whole world. In love with love. In love with life. I think that's what they call potentiality, possibility, freedom. I don't need shooting stars. There are fireworks in my head.

Tonight has been a mondo cockroach night. And mangy black cats. And my last cigarette. Why is it so impossible for me to flick my ashes into an ashtray instead of past it? A metaphor for my emotional debris?

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Catalogue Information

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