globetrotterI / Carrie Marshall

Spend a day walking around Harajuku and you’ll get more than you ever need for a gaggle of sights. Harajuku is well-known for its boutiques and bistros; famous for its Harajuku Kids and Cos-play-zoku aka The Costume Play Gang, a day spent here is a day in voyeur’s paradise.

You can check out my Harajuku Photo Journal at My Several Worlds

We just spent three days in Halong Bay. It was a great trip although I’ve kept saying my golden rule to myself over and over again.

When traveling, always expect the unexpected.

Nothing says it better than this. Our overnight train ride took us from beautiful Nha Trang to Hanoi in twenty-four hours. We made our way to Vicky and Jason’s hotel at 5am, dead-tired and travel-stained. We were able to check in for a few hours to shower and switch packs and then jumped on a bus at 8am, which took us directly to Halong City.

As usual, traveling in Asia always means traveling on a loose time frame. We interspersed our boat trip with a lot of extra waiting around. I’ve found that a pack of cards has become essential when traveling in Asia. Fifteen minutes can easily turn into an hour or two on an Asian timeclock.

Halong Bay is spectacalar. We explored some caves and then spent an evening on Cat Ba Island. We spent a day sea-kayaking and then boarded an old-fashioned junk boat for the night.

This morning brought a surprise. We were unceremoniously dumped off on the island with assurances that our guide would be along shortly to escort us back to Halong City. As we watched the other boats leave, we all became a little uneasy when we realised we were the only ones on the pier with no one else in sight.

A few minutes later, we were approached by a Vietnamese fisherman who informed us there were no other boats coming. They had left us behind and we were out in the middle of nowhere. After some quick thinking and some helpful advice from some locals and the police, we jumped on motorcycles with all our gear and sped the 30km back into the village. We were pretty angry, but the tour group rectified everything right away. They served us a huge meal free of charge and booked us on a high speed boat back to the port in Halong City. From there, we were ushered onto a deluxe bus for the rest of the journey.

In all honesty, we traveled back better than we traveled there. We arrived an hour or two later than we had planned, but we’re here and that’s all that counts.

We found him on the dirty streets of Phnom Penh, just off of Sisowath Quay. He was dressed in rags and sucking on discarded satay sticks from the gutter. He crouched, like a small animal, mournful brown eyes gazing hungrily as we passed by. He raised his fingers to his mouth, never uttering a word. He stood up and silently fell in line behind us, a small, wraith-like figure in the folds of the dark sky.

As we entered a small convenience store, he pressed his nose up against the glass. His grubby fingers left streaky brown spots on the glass. The shop owners chased him back to the street with brooms. We stood inside the small shop and wondered what to do. Did he have a street boss? If so, we knew he wouldn’t receive a single penny we gave him, so we opted to buy him some apple juice, cheese and crackers. It was a pitiful dinner and we felt horrible as we lumbered outside and solemnly handed our purchases to him. A fleeting look of thanks crossed his face and then fear. His head darted around quickly, as though looking for someone and then he scampered off into the black night. We wondered where this small, innocent child would rest his head this evening.

The next morning, he was waiting for us when we stepped out of our hotel. He is such a smart little boy, to know instinctively that we are bleeding hearts. There are so few of us left. We couldn’t turn our eyes. We started trudging up the street and found a small, shaded restaurant. He sat down in the gutter and watched us closely. His heavy flannel shirt stuck to his skin in the heat of the morning. His tattered shorts hung from his thin frame. We could hardly bare it.

We invited him to join us. He crawled to our table on all fours, like a dog that has been beaten. We quickly stood and helped him stand. He clambered up onto the big chair and sat quietly. Scrambled eggs, bacon, fresh orange juice and bread were placed in front of him and he valiantly tried to use his fork and knife. He dabbed his napkin at his mouth and tried to clean his hands before eating his bread while I helped him cut his food. We struggled to eat our meals, all of us self-conciously aware of our health and robustness. In the end, each of us left food on our plates, which we packed into a bag for him for later. A quick thank-you and he slipped away into the morning crowds.

We saw him again later that evening. He was precariously clinging to the back of a tuk-tuk. His bare feet pounded the hot asphalt as he hitched a ride to God knows where. We thought we had seen the last of him, and each of us silently said a prayer for him. Nevertheless, we saved our food for him, just in case. Just as we were getting ready to enter our hotel, we saw him emerge from a dark alley with a friend. We bought some more apple juice and crackers for them. We hoped that somehow this might fortify him for another twenty-four hours, each of us wondering when he would get his next meal. He accepted it gratefully, and his lips pulled back slightly. It was the sorriest excuse for a smile I have ever seen, yet a smile nonetheless. As he walked off down the street, we waved good-bye as he looked back over his shoulder. A flash of teeth and the night swallowed him whole.

His name is Jack. He’s ten years old.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”Martin Luther King