Jacqueline and I just passed a milestone--one of those rite-of-passage things vaguely like getting a drivers license or having your first legal beer. Yes, that’s right, we were deported for the first time, and it was also our first experience in bribing immigration officers. We feel very grown up now.
The short version is something like this: our Nepal visas expired. They made us leave. They walked us over the border to India. All our stuff was still in Nepal. We paid off a few people, on both the Indian side and Nepali side, to be able to cross back over into Nepal.
The longer version requires an explanation about Nepal visas. There are two types: a free "temporary" visa for those people staying three nights or less, and a $50 "extended" visa for those people staying longer. Upon our return to the Kathmandu airport from Tibet, we got the free visa. We were only staying three nights before leaving with our tour group for India. We met up with our people, and on the third day we started our trip down to the Nepal/India border. Abhi, our group organizer, informed us we would be staying overnight in Bharahiya, on the Nepal side, before crossing over the next morning. We were a little concerned--our understanding was that we’d be staying on the Indian side of the border that night. The extra night in Nepal meant overstaying our visas. No problem, he told us, it happens all the time. People decide to stay longer, and they just pay up for the extended visa. We can take care of it at Immigration when we get to Bharahiya. OK, great. But then, to our alarm, we looked closely at our passports and noticed too late that immigration in Kathmandu had written the wrong expiration dates on our visas--they had mistakenly given us two days instead of three. We had already overstayed our visas and didn’t even know it. We were a little nervous--we suddenly had two potential complications--but Abhi assured us again that it wouldn’t be a problem.
After checking in to our seedy border-town hotel in the afternoon, we went to Nepal immigration, a small compound right at the border. We explained our situation to an official; we showed her our passports, the date on our Lhasa/Kathmandu boarding passes; and inquired about extending/upgrading our visas. The conversation was circular, with many of the same exchanges repeated several times, but in essence it went like this:
“No, no. We can’t do that here, only in Kathmandu. This is expired, you have to leave right now.”
“Can’t you extend it!?”
“No extend. You have to leave now. You can’t stay. You go to India now.”
“uh…ok. We’ll walk over to India. We’ll get a stamp and come right back, yes?”
“No. You can’t come back the same day you leave. 24 hours minimum. Maybe you come back to Nepal tomorrow.”
“We can’t do that. We’re with a group of people. We leave with them tomorrow. All our stuff is in our hotel here. Why can’t we extend?”
“No you have to go now. You can’t stay here. You go now.”
Nepali guards escorted us to the large Indian flag twenty yards from the compound. Assorted pedestrians, rickshaws, trucks, and livestock inched their way along the dusty dirt road that connected the two countries. We tried to convince ourselves we could sort everything out on the other side. We walked past the Indian sentries into Sounali’s main street, a wide dirt road choked with trucks, carts, cows, feral dogs and taxis. Food stalls and endless rows of small shops lined either side; car horns, touts, beggars and rickshaw riders all competed for our attention. Indian immigration was hard to spot, hidden amidst the tightly packed buildings and all the miscellaneous storefront merchandise. Almost 100 yards down the road, a small sign pointed to the crumbling building and an open-air porch/overhang right at the road edge; a large wooden table sat under the eaves; three large middle-aged mustachioed men leaned back on rickety chairs.
We put on our cheerful faces and handed over our passports.
“Where’s your luggage?” they asked suspiciously.
“Oh...no luggage. Quick trip.”
Still suspicious. “How quick?”
We had to explain ourselves. We have to do this to renew our Nepal visas, we said. We’re going right back. But we’ll see you tomorrow morning when we return with our group.
"You can’t enter India and leave same day. You have to stay here; you go back tomorrow."
"Ah, yes, that’s our problem, we have to go back today..." We explained again, as simply and as cheerfully and as deferentially as we could. They offered us seats at their table. Again they told us we had to stay 24 hours. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, the men nodded and listened, still suspicious, still sizing us up, studying our visas. We were in a strange no-man’s land between borders; officially departed from Nepal but not admitted into India. We didn’t really exist. We pondered all our luggage locked up in our room across the border, the possibility of finding lodging in Sounali for the night, and wondered how we would get word to Abhi to let him know what was going on.
Several sandaled and dreadlocked euro-hippies passed by to get their passports stamped by the men during the course of our conversation. "Destination?" "Yeah, we go to Varanasi…." they replied in accents somewhere between German and Stoner.
As we were all sitting together at the table, one man leaned back and gave us the head-wobble. "Well, we would like to help you..."
"That’s great" Jacqueline said. "I’m sure there’s some sort of special processing fee to help speed up the paperwork?"
The processing fee was, unsurprisingly, on a "sliding scale." US Dollars preferred. The officials were happy to back-date our entry forms and stamp our exit forms. We shook hands, smiled, bowed, gave our namastes, and triumphantly walked back over into Nepal, where we paid another processing fee so as not to have our questionable documents scrutinized too closely.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Friday, December 28, 2007
Tibet rocks!
People my age might find Tibetan pop music especially interesting--there’s an odd retro eighties feel to a lot if it. Tibetans, like other Asians, have a love for sublimely bad synth-pop. However, there’s a traditional Tibetan instrument that finds its way into many contemporary songs: it’s a banjo-like instrument played in a strange galloping tempo and a twang that sounds uncannily like "Love Vigilantes"-era New Order. Combine this banjo with a synth and drum kit, add some quirky rhythms and quasi-Asian melodies, and you have songs that seem to variously conjure up New Order, The Fall, Gang of Four, Modern English... I swear I even heard a song that sounds like Dexy’s Midnite Runners.
I don’t know where to even begin tracking any of this stuff down (the language barrier makes it difficult to research), but if I ever come across any good examples, I’ll try to post them.
I don’t know where to even begin tracking any of this stuff down (the language barrier makes it difficult to research), but if I ever come across any good examples, I’ll try to post them.
Tashilunphu monastery
Shigatse, Tibet’s "second city", was large enough to have two things we desperately needed: a pharmacy, and a heated hotel. At the pharmacy we stocked up on supplies for Jacqueline--codeine cough syrup, Contact, ibuprofen and cough drops.
The hotel’s common areas were bone chilling (the lobby, restaurant, and hallways were separated by those clear plastic hanging "flaps" one usually finds in meat lockers) but our room had a powerful heater that we put right to work. Jacqueline took her medicine and slept away the afternoon, recuperating in heated bliss; I went alone with our guide to a nearby Buddhist monastery. In a large adobe courtyard, we queued up with a large group of pilgrims waiting for the temple to reopen (Temples are required by law to keep the same official government hours as banks or bureaucratic offices; from 1 to 3pm they are closed for lunch). Once again I found myself thinking of the American southwest. In this high-desert setting in an adobe courtyard, I was surrounded by raven-haired women with long braids and silver bracelets, wearing robes of black and turquoise, carrying babies on their backs. Men in fur-lined boots draped themselves in wool blankets with diamond shapes and swastika motifs. I don’t even know how much of it is strange anthropological coincidence, or how much of this culture was preserved in the long migration over the Bering Strait…yet another thing to look up on wikipedia at some point.
In that courtyard I became the center of attention. Most everyone in the crowd was staring at me; some people found it difficult to turn away. Children wandered up tentatively to get a closer look.
My guide leaned in and said to me quietly: “They’re pilgrims to this temple; these people are from the northeast of Tibet. Very remote. They are nomads, they look after cattle. Many of them have never seen a white person before.”
I might as well have been a circus clown the way I appeared to them, with my tangled wind-blown mop of graying brown hair, my glasses and bright white ski-jacket. As the world gets smaller, I wonder how infrequent these moments will become. I slowly shuffled through the temple shoulder to shoulder with this crowd, choking on the thick and pungent yak-butter candle fumes. I was in a time-capsule, staring in awe at the massive 3-story tall Buddha, hearing the chants. It was inspiring glimpse into an alien mindset. For most of human history people have lived like this, as herders, hunters or subsistence farmers whose sense of the supernatural was essential to their daily habits and rituals.
Afterwards I walked to another small temple nearby; a group of small children who were perhaps more familiar with foreigners surrounded me. “Hello! Bye-bye! Hello! Bye-bye!” they laughed and yelled as they hugged my legs and tugged my hands.
The hotel’s common areas were bone chilling (the lobby, restaurant, and hallways were separated by those clear plastic hanging "flaps" one usually finds in meat lockers) but our room had a powerful heater that we put right to work. Jacqueline took her medicine and slept away the afternoon, recuperating in heated bliss; I went alone with our guide to a nearby Buddhist monastery. In a large adobe courtyard, we queued up with a large group of pilgrims waiting for the temple to reopen (Temples are required by law to keep the same official government hours as banks or bureaucratic offices; from 1 to 3pm they are closed for lunch). Once again I found myself thinking of the American southwest. In this high-desert setting in an adobe courtyard, I was surrounded by raven-haired women with long braids and silver bracelets, wearing robes of black and turquoise, carrying babies on their backs. Men in fur-lined boots draped themselves in wool blankets with diamond shapes and swastika motifs. I don’t even know how much of it is strange anthropological coincidence, or how much of this culture was preserved in the long migration over the Bering Strait…yet another thing to look up on wikipedia at some point.
In that courtyard I became the center of attention. Most everyone in the crowd was staring at me; some people found it difficult to turn away. Children wandered up tentatively to get a closer look.
My guide leaned in and said to me quietly: “They’re pilgrims to this temple; these people are from the northeast of Tibet. Very remote. They are nomads, they look after cattle. Many of them have never seen a white person before.”
I might as well have been a circus clown the way I appeared to them, with my tangled wind-blown mop of graying brown hair, my glasses and bright white ski-jacket. As the world gets smaller, I wonder how infrequent these moments will become. I slowly shuffled through the temple shoulder to shoulder with this crowd, choking on the thick and pungent yak-butter candle fumes. I was in a time-capsule, staring in awe at the massive 3-story tall Buddha, hearing the chants. It was inspiring glimpse into an alien mindset. For most of human history people have lived like this, as herders, hunters or subsistence farmers whose sense of the supernatural was essential to their daily habits and rituals.
Afterwards I walked to another small temple nearby; a group of small children who were perhaps more familiar with foreigners surrounded me. “Hello! Bye-bye! Hello! Bye-bye!” they laughed and yelled as they hugged my legs and tugged my hands.
No credit
At dinner one night I was offered yak-butter tea, the Tibetan staple. To my dismay, it tasted as foul as it sounded. I felt it was important to be polite, so I took a big sip. My cup was topped off almost immediately. I took two more big gulps, and each time it was topped off. I was feeling queasy, and I was convinced I would throw up right there at the table if I took a fourth sip. I had choked down almost an entire cup just to please my host, and yet my cup looked untouched.
"Don’t you want to try the tea?" I was asked.
"Don’t you want to try the tea?" I was asked.
Tibetan food
The food we ate was generally a bland assortment of Chinese-, Indian- and Nepali-influenced dishes. Chicken gristle, bok choy, tofu, naan and curried vegetables... We didn’t have too much that was explicitly Tibetan. There’s a staple Tibetan soup that’s pretty good; it was very similar to matzo ball soup. Beyond that, it was pretty much yak meat, yak meat, and more yak meat. Sometimes curried, always tough and gamey. Mmmmm.
Accommodations (part 2?)
In the town of Lhatse, we had slightly better luck with a hotel. It, too, lacked heat and insulation (and they also kept their doors wide open all night) but they had hot water nightly from 9pm to midnight. Perpetually cold and unable to shake the chill of the past two days, Jacqueline seemed to be getting worse. Her cold and cough were as bad as they’d ever been, and we were getting worried. She remained under the covers, in her winter jacket and boots. At 9pm sharp I put on the shower to its hottest setting and let the steam billow out into our room. The shower stayed on for two hours. The room never technically got "warm", but by 11pm when I went to bed, the steam had helped cut the chill a bit.
In the morning when we woke up, everything--windows, walls, mirrors, ceiling, bathtub--was covered in a thin coating of ice crystals. The steam condensation had frozen overnight.
In the morning when we woke up, everything--windows, walls, mirrors, ceiling, bathtub--was covered in a thin coating of ice crystals. The steam condensation had frozen overnight.
Crossing the border
Depending on weather and road conditions, it takes anywhere from 3-5 hours to drive from Kathmandu to the border town of Kodali. Though the weather was great, much of the road was unpaved, and as our little Kia 4x4 bounced, rattled and lurched its way through twisting mountain roads, I began wondering if my back would give out again. We climbed our way out of the Kathmandu valley and watched the landscape slowly change from lush greenery to a more arid mountainous terrain.
The Nepali town of Kodali and the Tibetan town of Zhangmou cling to opposite cliff-sides of a steep river gorge, and are connected by the no-man’s land of the Friendship Bridge (yes, that’s really what they call it). Long lines of semis and tankers queue up on either side. The border is closed from 5pm to 9am, and truckers who find themselves still stuck in line at 5 have to spend the night in their cabs.
About a year ago, a small group of westerners had come into Tibet and unfurled a giant Tibetan flag on a mountainside somewhere--the Chinese government was of course upset, the westerners were deported, and since then all tourists are required to have a guide/escort/sponsor to enter the "Tibet Autonomous Region". We officially left Nepal as we walked over the bridge, and our guide was to hand us over to his Tibetan counterpart once we got to Zhangmou.
Jacqueline and I were scrutinized by the soldiers at Chinese immigration, and they looked skeptically at our passports and visas. The three of us started walking to the large arch at bridge’s end, but we were met with waving arms and angry bursts of Mandarin. There was some tense back-and-forth between the soldiers and our guide (and since our guide barely spoke any Mandarin, I don’t think the discussion was very constructive). Everything seemed to be settled, and we starting walking again. More pointing, more angry exchanges. Our guide looked as baffled as we were, but he assumed they were suspicious of his credentials/paperwork.
We waited on the bridge for about an hour, looking at the mountains, and the river way below us. We were conspicuous, the only two white people anywhere in the area, and we drew many curious stares. We watched the lines of pedestrian and oxcart traffic moving back and forth--round Tibetan faces with impossibly pink cherubic cheeks; small men and women carrying huge loads, with hair and clothing that looked eerily similar to that of the Anastasi or Navajo. Replace the Red Guard with US Cavalry, and we could have been in the American southwest circa 1900.
The Chinese soldiers were young and swaggering, looking bored and frustrated to be stuck in such a remote post. They often treated the locals with impatience and annoyance: barking orders, pointing, taking pleasure in making people nervous. The soldiers spoke only Mandarin, and were mostly from rural areas far away from Tibet. We were told that it was largely intentional. The Chinese often rotated soldiers in and out of this post frequently: If anyone stayed here long enough to learn Nepali or Tibetan, there was a concern they might acquire some local attachments or sympathies.
Eventually our guide was able to talk his way past the sentries, somehow… he returned with our Tibetan guide who walked us through the arch... We were finally in-!!
Past the crowds, we climbed into the waiting land cruiser and proceeded up the steep, partially-paved switchbacks into Zhangmou. More bouncing and lurching. Jacqueline and I marveled at the 100+ semi trucks precariously lined on the narrow cliffside roads, waiting hours or days to enter Nepal. The weather that day was cold and clear, but often the roads are muddy from rain or iced over. I asked our guide “Aren’t there a lot of accidents? Do many trucks fall into the ravine?”
“Yes.”
It’s a priority of the Chinese government to build a safe modern highway from Lhasa to the Nepal border. They’re about two-thirds finished, but the last stretch (which includes the precarious cliff trail) isn’t set to be paved until the spring thaw.
All of China is on Beijing time, so by crossing over into Tibet we instantly jumped ahead about four hours. We settled for the evening in a ramshackle hotel in Zhangmou. Peeling pergo floors; exposed wires and rebar; a decade’s worth of cigarette burns on the sheets and drapes. The bathroom was perfect abattoir chic: chipped tile with a strange filmy coating and blackened grout. There was no actual 'shower stall' to speak of; the shower was a faucet in the wall by the toilet, a plastic bucket and a drain in the center of the bathroom. There are very few travelers or tourists in December, and only 2 or 3 rooms besides ours were occupied. The hot water had been turned off for the winter(!) but the hotel proprietor offered to arrange for us the use of a public bath down the road. We politely declined. Curiously there was neither a heater nor any form of insulation in the room. In fact the whole hotel had paper-thin walls, and the hotel was in the habit of leaving their front lobby door wide open, day and night. We both slept in our boots, scarves and winter jackets underneath the bed covers… we went to bed cold, woke up even colder, and were unable to shake the chill.
About 4 or 5 days earlier, Jacqueline and I had been luxuriating at the W-Walkerhill hotel in Seoul, drinking mojitos at the painfully hip hotel bar, enjoying our environs as much as possible, knowing that our accommodations throughout Tibet, Nepal and India were likely going to be rough.
The Nepali town of Kodali and the Tibetan town of Zhangmou cling to opposite cliff-sides of a steep river gorge, and are connected by the no-man’s land of the Friendship Bridge (yes, that’s really what they call it). Long lines of semis and tankers queue up on either side. The border is closed from 5pm to 9am, and truckers who find themselves still stuck in line at 5 have to spend the night in their cabs.
About a year ago, a small group of westerners had come into Tibet and unfurled a giant Tibetan flag on a mountainside somewhere--the Chinese government was of course upset, the westerners were deported, and since then all tourists are required to have a guide/escort/sponsor to enter the "Tibet Autonomous Region". We officially left Nepal as we walked over the bridge, and our guide was to hand us over to his Tibetan counterpart once we got to Zhangmou.
Jacqueline and I were scrutinized by the soldiers at Chinese immigration, and they looked skeptically at our passports and visas. The three of us started walking to the large arch at bridge’s end, but we were met with waving arms and angry bursts of Mandarin. There was some tense back-and-forth between the soldiers and our guide (and since our guide barely spoke any Mandarin, I don’t think the discussion was very constructive). Everything seemed to be settled, and we starting walking again. More pointing, more angry exchanges. Our guide looked as baffled as we were, but he assumed they were suspicious of his credentials/paperwork.
We waited on the bridge for about an hour, looking at the mountains, and the river way below us. We were conspicuous, the only two white people anywhere in the area, and we drew many curious stares. We watched the lines of pedestrian and oxcart traffic moving back and forth--round Tibetan faces with impossibly pink cherubic cheeks; small men and women carrying huge loads, with hair and clothing that looked eerily similar to that of the Anastasi or Navajo. Replace the Red Guard with US Cavalry, and we could have been in the American southwest circa 1900.
The Chinese soldiers were young and swaggering, looking bored and frustrated to be stuck in such a remote post. They often treated the locals with impatience and annoyance: barking orders, pointing, taking pleasure in making people nervous. The soldiers spoke only Mandarin, and were mostly from rural areas far away from Tibet. We were told that it was largely intentional. The Chinese often rotated soldiers in and out of this post frequently: If anyone stayed here long enough to learn Nepali or Tibetan, there was a concern they might acquire some local attachments or sympathies.
Eventually our guide was able to talk his way past the sentries, somehow… he returned with our Tibetan guide who walked us through the arch... We were finally in-!!
Past the crowds, we climbed into the waiting land cruiser and proceeded up the steep, partially-paved switchbacks into Zhangmou. More bouncing and lurching. Jacqueline and I marveled at the 100+ semi trucks precariously lined on the narrow cliffside roads, waiting hours or days to enter Nepal. The weather that day was cold and clear, but often the roads are muddy from rain or iced over. I asked our guide “Aren’t there a lot of accidents? Do many trucks fall into the ravine?”
“Yes.”
It’s a priority of the Chinese government to build a safe modern highway from Lhasa to the Nepal border. They’re about two-thirds finished, but the last stretch (which includes the precarious cliff trail) isn’t set to be paved until the spring thaw.
All of China is on Beijing time, so by crossing over into Tibet we instantly jumped ahead about four hours. We settled for the evening in a ramshackle hotel in Zhangmou. Peeling pergo floors; exposed wires and rebar; a decade’s worth of cigarette burns on the sheets and drapes. The bathroom was perfect abattoir chic: chipped tile with a strange filmy coating and blackened grout. There was no actual 'shower stall' to speak of; the shower was a faucet in the wall by the toilet, a plastic bucket and a drain in the center of the bathroom. There are very few travelers or tourists in December, and only 2 or 3 rooms besides ours were occupied. The hot water had been turned off for the winter(!) but the hotel proprietor offered to arrange for us the use of a public bath down the road. We politely declined. Curiously there was neither a heater nor any form of insulation in the room. In fact the whole hotel had paper-thin walls, and the hotel was in the habit of leaving their front lobby door wide open, day and night. We both slept in our boots, scarves and winter jackets underneath the bed covers… we went to bed cold, woke up even colder, and were unable to shake the chill.
About 4 or 5 days earlier, Jacqueline and I had been luxuriating at the W-Walkerhill hotel in Seoul, drinking mojitos at the painfully hip hotel bar, enjoying our environs as much as possible, knowing that our accommodations throughout Tibet, Nepal and India were likely going to be rough.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Taking care of business
I could probably go on at length about the beauty and remoteness of the Tibetan plateau, the exoticism of Tibetan culture, or the politics of Chinese occupation.
Maybe next post. For now, I just have this:
Our first morning in Tibet, in the town of Tingri... at the time it seemed unpleasant, but in retrospect it turned out to have been one of the nicer toilets we used:-)
(Jacqueline has a few good anecdotes that are maybe better told in a less public forum...)
Maybe next post. For now, I just have this:
Our first morning in Tibet, in the town of Tingri... at the time it seemed unpleasant, but in retrospect it turned out to have been one of the nicer toilets we used:-)
(Jacqueline has a few good anecdotes that are maybe better told in a less public forum...)
Sunday, December 2, 2007
In Nepal
Kathmandu! At last, one of the Big Five.
The "Big Five" are what I humbly consider to be the most exotic-sounding places on earth: Kathmandu, Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro, Timbuktu, and, of course, Rangoon. (Though I have to give honorable mentions to Tangier, Istanbul and Patagonia.)
Anyways we've arrived in Kathmandu, it's incredible here, and our hotel has internet. Our hotel also put us in touch with a small tour company that goes into Tibet. We weren't sure whether we could make it happen, but it looks like we'll be going after all. Our Tibet visas came through more easily than we expected, and on a sunday no less; it turns out the tour company has good connections at the Chinese embassy;-)
Again, we're not entirely sure what our internet situation will be (we may be out of touch for a while), but here's a basic rundown of what the next month will look like for us--
Overland into Tibet Dec 3; we'll be back in Kathmandu on Dec 9 or 10. From Kathmandu, we'll be heading into India and embarking, more-or-less, on the fabled Golden Triangle (though we like to call it the Septic Circuit). We'll be traveling via land cruiser and (*gulp*) sleeper train with a few other people on a sort of shoestring travel-group-tour-suicide-pact thing.... going through Varanasi, Delhi, Agra, Pushkar... I think we'll be spending Christmas in either Jaisalmer or Jodhpur... we finish up where we started, in old Bombay (now Mumbai).
If I'm able to, I'll try to post some Hong Kong/Seoul blogs; they may be a little out of order...
The "Big Five" are what I humbly consider to be the most exotic-sounding places on earth: Kathmandu, Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro, Timbuktu, and, of course, Rangoon. (Though I have to give honorable mentions to Tangier, Istanbul and Patagonia.)
Anyways we've arrived in Kathmandu, it's incredible here, and our hotel has internet. Our hotel also put us in touch with a small tour company that goes into Tibet. We weren't sure whether we could make it happen, but it looks like we'll be going after all. Our Tibet visas came through more easily than we expected, and on a sunday no less; it turns out the tour company has good connections at the Chinese embassy;-)
Again, we're not entirely sure what our internet situation will be (we may be out of touch for a while), but here's a basic rundown of what the next month will look like for us--
Overland into Tibet Dec 3; we'll be back in Kathmandu on Dec 9 or 10. From Kathmandu, we'll be heading into India and embarking, more-or-less, on the fabled Golden Triangle (though we like to call it the Septic Circuit). We'll be traveling via land cruiser and (*gulp*) sleeper train with a few other people on a sort of shoestring travel-group-tour-suicide-pact thing.... going through Varanasi, Delhi, Agra, Pushkar... I think we'll be spending Christmas in either Jaisalmer or Jodhpur... we finish up where we started, in old Bombay (now Mumbai).
If I'm able to, I'll try to post some Hong Kong/Seoul blogs; they may be a little out of order...
Bride of Sidewinder
We arranged to visit the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) in Korea. Since we had such an early wake-up call (4:45 am), we had not planned to spend the previous night partying. We simply went downstairs to the famously hip "WooBar" at the W Seoul to have a few drinks. When Keith & I returned to our room, we discovered we still had unfettered internet access (no firewall=phone calls for free!) It was 4:15 am when we went to bed.
Even with a half-hour of sleep, the DMZ was too beguiling to blow off, so: on with our warm clothes, into a cab, and onward to the USO office in Seoul. Boarding the military bus in 40 degree weather was enough to keep us awake. We napped through part of the ride there and were rewarded with hours of faux danger as we peered into North Korean territory.
The North Korean soldiers were intimidating. We understood we were to be careful making any hand gestures-- pointing could be construed as "American tourists condemning North Korea", laughing or smiling meant "the American tourists support North Korea's honorable mission" etc. We were told stories of the North Korean government using candid photos of DMZ tourists for their propaganda machine. I wondered if having continuously adjusted my sunglasses on my nose constituted a North Korean "salute"; perhaps I'll see my photo on "Drudge Report" sometime soon.
The next morning, as I awoke, I had a horrible sore throat and plenty of congestion. It was my turn to fall ill. Loaded up on decongestants and cold medicine I trooped on, meeting up with two of our South Korean friends for lunch. The very next day we had 16 hours of transport time getting to Mumbai. Let's just say it was an unpleasant flight. (I ate chicken in Hong Kong, but I certainly didn't play with them!) I thought bird flu was a very unlikely diagnosis, and thankfully didn't get tagged by immigration.
The next day was spent in bed, feverish in Mumbai, watching CSI: NY re-runs and ordering room-service. Keith procured a much-needed bottle of codeine cough syrup (Indian pharmacies actually do deliveries-- and the bottle cost less than US $2). I didn't think Inida would kick my a** so early in the trip!
Even with a half-hour of sleep, the DMZ was too beguiling to blow off, so: on with our warm clothes, into a cab, and onward to the USO office in Seoul. Boarding the military bus in 40 degree weather was enough to keep us awake. We napped through part of the ride there and were rewarded with hours of faux danger as we peered into North Korean territory.
The North Korean soldiers were intimidating. We understood we were to be careful making any hand gestures-- pointing could be construed as "American tourists condemning North Korea", laughing or smiling meant "the American tourists support North Korea's honorable mission" etc. We were told stories of the North Korean government using candid photos of DMZ tourists for their propaganda machine. I wondered if having continuously adjusted my sunglasses on my nose constituted a North Korean "salute"; perhaps I'll see my photo on "Drudge Report" sometime soon.
The next morning, as I awoke, I had a horrible sore throat and plenty of congestion. It was my turn to fall ill. Loaded up on decongestants and cold medicine I trooped on, meeting up with two of our South Korean friends for lunch. The very next day we had 16 hours of transport time getting to Mumbai. Let's just say it was an unpleasant flight. (I ate chicken in Hong Kong, but I certainly didn't play with them!) I thought bird flu was a very unlikely diagnosis, and thankfully didn't get tagged by immigration.
The next day was spent in bed, feverish in Mumbai, watching CSI: NY re-runs and ordering room-service. Keith procured a much-needed bottle of codeine cough syrup (Indian pharmacies actually do deliveries-- and the bottle cost less than US $2). I didn't think Inida would kick my a** so early in the trip!
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Checking in
Hi folks, we're in Seoul right now, preparing for our flight to Mumbai. We'll be in India & Nepal for the next four weeks, and I'm not counting on having much in the way of internet access.... you may hear relatively little from us, but we'll see. Hopefully at some point I'll have a chance to put up some more posts related to South Africa, Hong Kong & Seoul.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
HK Names
Many people here have English names in addition to their Chinese ones, but what's great is how many names seem to have been inspired by old British civil servants, or are just taken from the Bible.
Here are some I pulled from the Sunday paper--
Enoch Yiu
Agnes Lam
Cameron Dueck
Minnie Chan
Ambrose Leung
Chester Yung
Josephine Ma
and my favorite: Fanny Fung
(And then there's my HK doctor-- Dr. Paco Lee. I never asked him where the "Paco" came from...)
Here are some I pulled from the Sunday paper--
Enoch Yiu
Agnes Lam
Cameron Dueck
Minnie Chan
Ambrose Leung
Chester Yung
Josephine Ma
and my favorite: Fanny Fung
(And then there's my HK doctor-- Dr. Paco Lee. I never asked him where the "Paco" came from...)
Return of the Sidewinder
So, I threw out my back on safari. I feel pretty old.
Hours and hours of bouncing around rough trails in the back of a land rover laid the groundwork... the ATVs didn’t help much either. I think it was finally triggered by a sustained gallop as we were riding horses in the bush; I suddenly discovered I couldn’t walk anymore.
It was otherwise one of the highlights of the week: zebra herds were generally indifferent to us when we were on horseback, and we could get close enough to feel like we were strolling among them. We got uncomfortably close to a Rhino too (ack).
I made Jacqueline go on the last couple game drives without me; I could barely even shuffle around the tent without help. At the campsite we all laughed at the jokes about the ranger having to put me down, or about the lions picking off the weakest and slowest of the herd, etc etc. Some fellow guests kindly offered me their spare voltaren (ahh...) which held me for a couple days out in the wilderness, until we could get to some stronger meds in Hong Kong.
Three days later, at the Johannesburg airport, Jacqueline had me placed in a wheelchair, and I got to experience the novelty of "special needs preboarding"-- I would have felt vaguely self-conscious, if not for the voltaren... I had people pushing me through special doors and gates, and cutting to the front of various lines...I've never gone through immigration & security so effortlessly.
I've been seasick in Cape Town and paralyzed on safari. We still laugh remembering the Johannesburg couple's remarks to us at the Italian laundromat: "Yeah, Africa's not for sissies-!"
Hours and hours of bouncing around rough trails in the back of a land rover laid the groundwork... the ATVs didn’t help much either. I think it was finally triggered by a sustained gallop as we were riding horses in the bush; I suddenly discovered I couldn’t walk anymore.
It was otherwise one of the highlights of the week: zebra herds were generally indifferent to us when we were on horseback, and we could get close enough to feel like we were strolling among them. We got uncomfortably close to a Rhino too (ack).
I made Jacqueline go on the last couple game drives without me; I could barely even shuffle around the tent without help. At the campsite we all laughed at the jokes about the ranger having to put me down, or about the lions picking off the weakest and slowest of the herd, etc etc. Some fellow guests kindly offered me their spare voltaren (ahh...) which held me for a couple days out in the wilderness, until we could get to some stronger meds in Hong Kong.
Three days later, at the Johannesburg airport, Jacqueline had me placed in a wheelchair, and I got to experience the novelty of "special needs preboarding"-- I would have felt vaguely self-conscious, if not for the voltaren... I had people pushing me through special doors and gates, and cutting to the front of various lines...I've never gone through immigration & security so effortlessly.
I've been seasick in Cape Town and paralyzed on safari. We still laugh remembering the Johannesburg couple's remarks to us at the Italian laundromat: "Yeah, Africa's not for sissies-!"
Benoni rocks!
We had booked two nights at a lodge in Johannesburg, one night on the way to our safari camp, and one night one the way back. It was just what we wanted-- a decent (and cheap) place right by the airport. Technically, though, it wasn't in Johannesburg, it was in a suburb called Benoni.
If it happened to come up in conversation that we were staying in Benoni (or were on our way there) we got some interesting responses. Sometimes we'd get a tactful "Benoni? Huh. Are you staying with family or friends or something?" More often we'd get a "What the hell are you doing there?" or a suppressed laugh.
Benoni looks a little like Phoenix: mostly wide boulevards, strip malls and ranch-style homes. It's widely regarded as being "Nowhere". In fact, paradoxically, its so "Nowhere" it actually has become "Somewhere": Benoni is in that category of places like Staten Island, or Hoboken, or San Fernando or Peoria.... bland places that people become strangely sentimental about simply because they're such easy targets. They're famous for being unknown. It cements your status as, say, a local San Franciscan if you can roll your eyes at mention of Oakland.
Campari had a South African ad campaign that relied on a classic double-take: "Where did you taste your first Campari cocktail... Sorrento... Milan... Monaco.... Benoni-!??"
Charlize Theron (who grew up in Benoni) recently made a toungue-in-cheek soundbite/station identifier for a local Johannesburg radio station-- "Hi this is Charlize Theron, you're listening to [K-whatever] and I just want to say BENONI ROCKS!!" The spot was a big hit.
If it happened to come up in conversation that we were staying in Benoni (or were on our way there) we got some interesting responses. Sometimes we'd get a tactful "Benoni? Huh. Are you staying with family or friends or something?" More often we'd get a "What the hell are you doing there?" or a suppressed laugh.
Benoni looks a little like Phoenix: mostly wide boulevards, strip malls and ranch-style homes. It's widely regarded as being "Nowhere". In fact, paradoxically, its so "Nowhere" it actually has become "Somewhere": Benoni is in that category of places like Staten Island, or Hoboken, or San Fernando or Peoria.... bland places that people become strangely sentimental about simply because they're such easy targets. They're famous for being unknown. It cements your status as, say, a local San Franciscan if you can roll your eyes at mention of Oakland.
Campari had a South African ad campaign that relied on a classic double-take: "Where did you taste your first Campari cocktail... Sorrento... Milan... Monaco.... Benoni-!??"
Charlize Theron (who grew up in Benoni) recently made a toungue-in-cheek soundbite/station identifier for a local Johannesburg radio station-- "Hi this is Charlize Theron, you're listening to [K-whatever] and I just want to say BENONI ROCKS!!" The spot was a big hit.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
How to clear a diving cage
It's a perfectly stupid idea: take a boat out into choppy waters with chilling antarctic currents (waters known as "shark alley"), climb into an underwater metal cage hanging off the side of the boat, throw some tuna heads & entrails into the water, and wait to see some sharks up close. It may be stupid, but shark diving is big business, and its something many, many tourists do when visiting South Africa.
A cold overcast morning in Gansbaai, about 2 hours southeast of Cape Town, Jacqueline and I got on one of those boats. There were about 15 of us total on board. The boat was rocking quite a bit: it took a good amount of coordination to put on our cold, damp, ill-fitting wetsuits, and a couple of the passengers succumbed to seasickness early on (Our captain advised us to please vomit off the starboard side, so as to not splash onto the divers in the cage). It was hard not to ponder things like: "is this really the stupidest thing I've ever done? Or just somewhere in the top ten?"
Almost right away, from the deck, we were witness to two different sharks thrashing as they chased the tuna parts. A large shark tail smacked the side of the boat, sending a wave of water over Jacqueline just as she finished with her wetsuit. We all began yelling and laughing; I'm not sure whether it was out of excitement or nervousness.
The cage fit 5 people at a time; we would all rotate in and out of the cage through the day. After some exciting early encounters, things calmed down a bit. Visibility in the water was poor, and by the time Jacqueline and I had our various turns in the cage, most of the cool Discovery-channel type action had diminished. I had been in the cage about 20 minutes, and I was still feeling vaguely nauseous from all the rocking. I swallowed a wave of salt water while trying to adjust my mask, and that sealed it for me. I barely managed a weak "uh, I think I should get out now..." before blowing chunks right in the cage. Somewhere in my temporary delirium I heard a woman's voice "ewww, that guy threw up...I'm getting out!!" I soon had the whole cage to myself. Ahhh, a little elbow room at last (the woman had been sitting in a stew of cloudy water, seal crap and rancid tuna guts... I find it funny that it was my puke that finally pushed her over the edge).
When I climbed back on board, it occurred to me how bad the rocking was-- people were leaning over the starboard rails, or curled up in corners... of the 15, nine of us had vomited at some point. Jacqueline was one of the lucky few who didn't. The 4-man boat crew did their best not to smirk at all of us.
Tasteless side note-- this is a strange observation, but as I was sitting back, watching and hearing the suffering (and trying not to do any more myself) it was odd seeing how differently the men and women reacted-- most of the men wretched continuously, over and over; they were almost incapacitated by their own never-ending convulsions. Most of the women, however, were like cats-- a quick *BARF* and then they were fine, normal until the next "episode"...
A cold overcast morning in Gansbaai, about 2 hours southeast of Cape Town, Jacqueline and I got on one of those boats. There were about 15 of us total on board. The boat was rocking quite a bit: it took a good amount of coordination to put on our cold, damp, ill-fitting wetsuits, and a couple of the passengers succumbed to seasickness early on (Our captain advised us to please vomit off the starboard side, so as to not splash onto the divers in the cage). It was hard not to ponder things like: "is this really the stupidest thing I've ever done? Or just somewhere in the top ten?"
Almost right away, from the deck, we were witness to two different sharks thrashing as they chased the tuna parts. A large shark tail smacked the side of the boat, sending a wave of water over Jacqueline just as she finished with her wetsuit. We all began yelling and laughing; I'm not sure whether it was out of excitement or nervousness.
The cage fit 5 people at a time; we would all rotate in and out of the cage through the day. After some exciting early encounters, things calmed down a bit. Visibility in the water was poor, and by the time Jacqueline and I had our various turns in the cage, most of the cool Discovery-channel type action had diminished. I had been in the cage about 20 minutes, and I was still feeling vaguely nauseous from all the rocking. I swallowed a wave of salt water while trying to adjust my mask, and that sealed it for me. I barely managed a weak "uh, I think I should get out now..." before blowing chunks right in the cage. Somewhere in my temporary delirium I heard a woman's voice "ewww, that guy threw up...I'm getting out!!" I soon had the whole cage to myself. Ahhh, a little elbow room at last (the woman had been sitting in a stew of cloudy water, seal crap and rancid tuna guts... I find it funny that it was my puke that finally pushed her over the edge).
When I climbed back on board, it occurred to me how bad the rocking was-- people were leaning over the starboard rails, or curled up in corners... of the 15, nine of us had vomited at some point. Jacqueline was one of the lucky few who didn't. The 4-man boat crew did their best not to smirk at all of us.
Tasteless side note-- this is a strange observation, but as I was sitting back, watching and hearing the suffering (and trying not to do any more myself) it was odd seeing how differently the men and women reacted-- most of the men wretched continuously, over and over; they were almost incapacitated by their own never-ending convulsions. Most of the women, however, were like cats-- a quick *BARF* and then they were fine, normal until the next "episode"...
Slideshow: on safari
Here are some photos from the Mabula game reserve and the Kwafubesi campsite (about 2-3 hours north of Johannesburg, up towards the Botswana border).
To see the slideshow larger, and with descriptive captions, click here.
To see the slideshow larger, and with descriptive captions, click here.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Cape Town
There's a directional marker at Cape Point, the kind that has about 20 arrow-shaped signs designating the distance & direction of various other cities. I noticed that almost every place--Buenos Aires, Sydney, New York, Paris, Shanghai, San Francisco etc--seemed equally remote... Cape Town is far away no matter where you are. We were chatting with a French businessman who laughed: "Yes, it really feels like the end of the road here!"
Geographically, this is as far away from home as we've ever been, and we're surprised that it feels so familiar. The city, the weather, the landscape, the harbor... it's very west coast: San Diego or San Francisco, with maybe a little Seattle thrown in for good measure. We've visited picturesque towns along the coast here that easily conjure up Half Moon Bay, Mendocino or Monterey. Vineyards and whale-watchers everywhere!
There are parts of Cape Town proper that somehow, strangely, remind me of Honolulu... maybe its the matronly black women strolling in their brightly-colored mumus... the quaint little churches framed by palm trees... the cinderblock schoolhouses... the neighborhoods that slope their way up the foothills of the mountains... the sudden rain showers that are quickly replaced by sunshine... the low clouds that obscure the top of Table Mountain... and of course there's the familiar presence of surf shops and sushi restaurants.
Jacqueline and I have been joking: "So... when does Africa start?"
It's achingly beautiful here, but I don't mean to paint some naive picture of the place-- We've seen the shanty towns, we know to be cautious, and we've been lucky enough to spend time with people and have long discussions about the local politics etc... but Capetonians will readily admit they're living in a first-world island.
Geographically, this is as far away from home as we've ever been, and we're surprised that it feels so familiar. The city, the weather, the landscape, the harbor... it's very west coast: San Diego or San Francisco, with maybe a little Seattle thrown in for good measure. We've visited picturesque towns along the coast here that easily conjure up Half Moon Bay, Mendocino or Monterey. Vineyards and whale-watchers everywhere!
There are parts of Cape Town proper that somehow, strangely, remind me of Honolulu... maybe its the matronly black women strolling in their brightly-colored mumus... the quaint little churches framed by palm trees... the cinderblock schoolhouses... the neighborhoods that slope their way up the foothills of the mountains... the sudden rain showers that are quickly replaced by sunshine... the low clouds that obscure the top of Table Mountain... and of course there's the familiar presence of surf shops and sushi restaurants.
Jacqueline and I have been joking: "So... when does Africa start?"
It's achingly beautiful here, but I don't mean to paint some naive picture of the place-- We've seen the shanty towns, we know to be cautious, and we've been lucky enough to spend time with people and have long discussions about the local politics etc... but Capetonians will readily admit they're living in a first-world island.
Food notes
Pleasant surprise:
1) Ostrich jerky (aka ostrich "biltong") is very good.
2) The sushi here is excellent. In fact, Cape Town has an incredible concentration of sushi restaurants-- it's pretty much the local cuisine. There's so much good food here I'm anticipating putting back the weight I lost in Egypt and Italy.
Disappointment:
Our first morning in Cape Town, sleep-deprived and jetlagged, I ordered a bloody mary and got a glass of steak sauce on the rocks. A few days later--at another establishment but still a little gun shy--I ordered one again. It was...better, I guess...but that's not saying much. I'm through with bloody marys for a while.
1) Ostrich jerky (aka ostrich "biltong") is very good.
2) The sushi here is excellent. In fact, Cape Town has an incredible concentration of sushi restaurants-- it's pretty much the local cuisine. There's so much good food here I'm anticipating putting back the weight I lost in Egypt and Italy.
Disappointment:
Our first morning in Cape Town, sleep-deprived and jetlagged, I ordered a bloody mary and got a glass of steak sauce on the rocks. A few days later--at another establishment but still a little gun shy--I ordered one again. It was...better, I guess...but that's not saying much. I'm through with bloody marys for a while.
When in Essaouira....
1) Pay attention to cactus. It hurts when you walk into one.
2) Careful where you put your hands. Seagull crap is pretty much invisible when it's on white stucco.
2) Careful where you put your hands. Seagull crap is pretty much invisible when it's on white stucco.
English lessons
1) A little kid started following us through the narrow streets one night as we were walking home to our riad. He was asking us for change, alternately in Arabic and French. He eventually became frustrated with my condescending smile and my repeated "No...no money, sorry..." and blurted out an emphatic "fuck you man!!" before running away. Jacqueline and I glanced at each other and laughed--there was something tentative about the way he said it, like he had just learned it and didn't really trust that it would work, or that he was even saying it right.
2) Another night, we were walking through the outdoor food stalls in the Djemaa el Fna; one of the young-ish menu-wielding vendors called out to us: "try our food it's finger licking good!!" We giggled but kept walking. Seeing our reaction he launched into every bit of English he could conjure: "Seeyoulateralligator!! Afterawhilecrocodile!! "Iscreamyouscreamweallscreamforicecream!! Dingoes ate my baby!!!" At that last one we completely cracked up, and had to ask him: "Where did you LEARN that!!??" He said he had an older sister who lived in Melbourne.
2) Another night, we were walking through the outdoor food stalls in the Djemaa el Fna; one of the young-ish menu-wielding vendors called out to us: "try our food it's finger licking good!!" We giggled but kept walking. Seeing our reaction he launched into every bit of English he could conjure: "Seeyoulateralligator!! Afterawhilecrocodile!! "Iscreamyouscreamweallscreamforicecream!! Dingoes ate my baby!!!" At that last one we completely cracked up, and had to ask him: "Where did you LEARN that!!??" He said he had an older sister who lived in Melbourne.
Friday, November 2, 2007
SA update
Hi everybody, we're in South Africa. We haven't posted lately; we had limited web access in Morocco, and spotty connections so far here in Cape Town. I'm hoping to add some more Morocco items (SA too) in the coming week...
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Inevitable complications
Our flight to Marrakech was canceled, sort of. Though the flight number remained, the departure time, the date and even the airport had changed at the last minute (Departing a day later from Milan Bergamo instead of Milan Malpensa). Oops.
This all happened the day before we were supposed to leave, and we were faced with a choice: 1) stay in Milan an extra day, try to find an available room somewhere, and eat the cost of the Marrakech riad we had booked. 2) Try to get a flight to Marrakech for the very next day, and eat the cost of our other plane ticket.
We calculated that we stood to loose pretty much the same amount of money whatever we ended up choosing. We had already booked a riad, and were going to be charged for it whether we stayed there or not. Also, there was the issue of finding a place to stay in Milan for an extra night—there were several big conferences going on in the city that week, and most places were booked. The afternoon was spent web surfing on internet connections that didn't work, making calls on phones with spotty connections, trying to get emails printed out on non-functioning printers, enlisting help from concierges that seemed as lost as we were, and contacting an airline that wouldn't accept our credit card-- but wouldn't take our cash either (I'm no financial whiz, but I think that's a poorly thought-out business model).
After what seemed like hours of comic mishaps, Jacqueline found what seemed like the last available room in the city, in a small hotel a few metro stops away. So ultimately we got an extra day in Milan, and were able to see parts of the city we weren't able to while we were busy scrambling...
This all happened the day before we were supposed to leave, and we were faced with a choice: 1) stay in Milan an extra day, try to find an available room somewhere, and eat the cost of the Marrakech riad we had booked. 2) Try to get a flight to Marrakech for the very next day, and eat the cost of our other plane ticket.
We calculated that we stood to loose pretty much the same amount of money whatever we ended up choosing. We had already booked a riad, and were going to be charged for it whether we stayed there or not. Also, there was the issue of finding a place to stay in Milan for an extra night—there were several big conferences going on in the city that week, and most places were booked. The afternoon was spent web surfing on internet connections that didn't work, making calls on phones with spotty connections, trying to get emails printed out on non-functioning printers, enlisting help from concierges that seemed as lost as we were, and contacting an airline that wouldn't accept our credit card-- but wouldn't take our cash either (I'm no financial whiz, but I think that's a poorly thought-out business model).
After what seemed like hours of comic mishaps, Jacqueline found what seemed like the last available room in the city, in a small hotel a few metro stops away. So ultimately we got an extra day in Milan, and were able to see parts of the city we weren't able to while we were busy scrambling...
Sunday, October 21, 2007
A late night in Palais el Badii
One night last summer Keith came home from work with the news: Puro Beach (the lounge/beach club we enjoyed in Mallorca a while back) was sponsoring an Arabian Nights-themed bash in Marrakech in October. A number of cool DJs and musicians were expected to perform outdoors in the ruins of Palais el Badii. "How about we time our arrival in Morocco with Puro?" Keith asked.
Medieval ruins under the stars, desert breezes, music, drink, food, Eurotrash, and of course, Bryan Ferry! How could we miss this?
We got to Morocco a day late because of an unusual flight change. Not only did our flight time change last minute, but so did the day, and even the actual airport. We lost most of a day in Milan trying to either get another flight (700 Euros!) or find lodging in Milan. We decided to just stay the extra day in Milan, resigning ourselves to eating the cost of our first riad in Marrakech.
Up at 3:45am to catch our flight, we waited in the cold morning air at the train station to get the airport shuttle. At the Milan Bergamo airport we started to get a flavor of Morocco: Robed women with tattooed faces (three vertical lines running from the bottom lip to the chins), hennaed hands & feet stood with us in line, along with their many small children. Men were wearing traditional hooded jellabas, looking very Darth Maul (sp?) from Star Wars.
We took a taxi to the medina, where we were to meet someone to walk us to our riad. A crippled luggage porter with a wheeled cart appeared. He brought our bags the rest of the way, and we hurried to keep pace with him, weaving through narrow muddy alleys, staying clear of the various bikes, motor scooters, feral cats, and hanging sides of lamb that were covered in flies(“Remind me not to have the lamb” I said).
They served us a delicious lunch at the riad, made from scratch. It took almost 2 hours to prepare; they took our order and then went out to buy all the ingredients. After this amazing meal (and two bottles of wine) we went to our room and crashed. Waking up cranky 3 hours later, the last thing I wanted to do was get ready to go to an all-night rave.
Around 9pm we wandered over to the Palais el Badii. Camels and Moroccan musicians lined the route into the castle. Lanterns and rugs were laid end to end along the path—-an Arabian red carpet. In the low lying areas of the ruins, fields of hurricane lanterns were lit, giving the grounds an exotic glow. Fire pits with aromatic woods and multiple “lounging areas” of pillows and torches were set up for the VIP crowd (unfortunately that wasn’t us—- we got the General Admission tickets).
It looked as if the venue could have accommodated two thousand, but less than half that number were in attendance. To make up for the anemic crowd, the organizers temporarily opened the front stage area to everyone. When Bryan Ferry eventually came on stage, it felt like we were at a small concert, right up near the stage, with no crowds, and no pushing our way through. Our target was in sight! I had a mission-- a Bryan Ferry autograph was my intended souvenir of the evening, even though it meant sneaking into the VIP area.
It took a little work, and there were a few setbacks, but after befriending a few of the Morroccan security guards, twisting our wristbands inside out (from cheapseats-purple to VIP-white) and using a little creative smalltalk, we were in. Keith and I triumphantly surveyed the scene, ready to enjoy all the free food and cocktails. We strolled by torchlight among the tall beautiful VIPs, pretending to belong. Bryan Ferry & entourage were lounging around as we suspected. We chatted up members of his band, and I even spoke with the charming Mr Ferry for a while. Mission accomplished:
…and on our Wallpaper book, no less. How perfect is that!?
(Heather if you’re reading this, we know you’re a big fan... we have something for you as well; keep an eye on your mailbox;-)
Medieval ruins under the stars, desert breezes, music, drink, food, Eurotrash, and of course, Bryan Ferry! How could we miss this?
We got to Morocco a day late because of an unusual flight change. Not only did our flight time change last minute, but so did the day, and even the actual airport. We lost most of a day in Milan trying to either get another flight (700 Euros!) or find lodging in Milan. We decided to just stay the extra day in Milan, resigning ourselves to eating the cost of our first riad in Marrakech.
Up at 3:45am to catch our flight, we waited in the cold morning air at the train station to get the airport shuttle. At the Milan Bergamo airport we started to get a flavor of Morocco: Robed women with tattooed faces (three vertical lines running from the bottom lip to the chins), hennaed hands & feet stood with us in line, along with their many small children. Men were wearing traditional hooded jellabas, looking very Darth Maul (sp?) from Star Wars.
We took a taxi to the medina, where we were to meet someone to walk us to our riad. A crippled luggage porter with a wheeled cart appeared. He brought our bags the rest of the way, and we hurried to keep pace with him, weaving through narrow muddy alleys, staying clear of the various bikes, motor scooters, feral cats, and hanging sides of lamb that were covered in flies(“Remind me not to have the lamb” I said).
They served us a delicious lunch at the riad, made from scratch. It took almost 2 hours to prepare; they took our order and then went out to buy all the ingredients. After this amazing meal (and two bottles of wine) we went to our room and crashed. Waking up cranky 3 hours later, the last thing I wanted to do was get ready to go to an all-night rave.
Around 9pm we wandered over to the Palais el Badii. Camels and Moroccan musicians lined the route into the castle. Lanterns and rugs were laid end to end along the path—-an Arabian red carpet. In the low lying areas of the ruins, fields of hurricane lanterns were lit, giving the grounds an exotic glow. Fire pits with aromatic woods and multiple “lounging areas” of pillows and torches were set up for the VIP crowd (unfortunately that wasn’t us—- we got the General Admission tickets).
It looked as if the venue could have accommodated two thousand, but less than half that number were in attendance. To make up for the anemic crowd, the organizers temporarily opened the front stage area to everyone. When Bryan Ferry eventually came on stage, it felt like we were at a small concert, right up near the stage, with no crowds, and no pushing our way through. Our target was in sight! I had a mission-- a Bryan Ferry autograph was my intended souvenir of the evening, even though it meant sneaking into the VIP area.
It took a little work, and there were a few setbacks, but after befriending a few of the Morroccan security guards, twisting our wristbands inside out (from cheapseats-purple to VIP-white) and using a little creative smalltalk, we were in. Keith and I triumphantly surveyed the scene, ready to enjoy all the free food and cocktails. We strolled by torchlight among the tall beautiful VIPs, pretending to belong. Bryan Ferry & entourage were lounging around as we suspected. We chatted up members of his band, and I even spoke with the charming Mr Ferry for a while. Mission accomplished:
…and on our Wallpaper book, no less. How perfect is that!?
(Heather if you’re reading this, we know you’re a big fan... we have something for you as well; keep an eye on your mailbox;-)
Laundry in Siena
One of the drawbacks to traveling light—-and having only a few changes of clothes—-is that we find ourselves doing laundry fairly frequently. Small things we’ll do in the hotel sink, but we need a real washer for the big stuff. In Siena one morning we dragged our bag onto the city bus and went to a Laundromat just off Il Campo. Even though it can be a nuisance, it’s become almost therapeutic to do laundry. It’s a bit of a break from travel stresses to spend time in a vaguely familiar environment, take care of some necessary chores, and enjoy a feeling of accomplishment and control... as long as you have clean socks and underwear, everything else seems a little more manageable.
I like the contrast of coming from narrow medieval streets into a modern Laundromat. Outside are cobblestones and Palio banners; inside I zone out as our clothes spin, and an Italian-dubbed "A-Team" rerun plays on a giant TV above the washers.*
While loading our machines we met a couple from Johannesburg who were traveling through Italy for several weeks, with their toddler in tow (the kid was in remarkably good spirits for being dragged to a boring laundromat). The time went quickly as we talked about (what else) travel... once they had spent six months in South America, and they had friends who had done RTW trips similar to ours. It's been helpful trading stories & advice-- it seems to happen often now; like we've gained entry into some unknown fraternity of world travelers (or masochists). We got some good advice about South Africa, and an open invitation for drinks when we reach Johannesburg next month.
Their best piece of information? A restaurant they happened upon the night before, just a block away. After finishing our laundry we went there for lunch. It was a tiny, family-run place with maybe only 6 tables. The burly old father rattled off the menu very quickly in Italian, so our choices were limited to what we could understand over the din of the room. It turned out to be easily the best meal we've had so far in Italy... we rolled out of there drowsy and stuffed full of ossobuco, hand-nade pasta and chianti....aahhh...
* (Other old shows the Italians love: MacGyver, and Magnum PI. Both great fun to watch dubbed in Italian. It's watching Magnum PI that reminds me how much I look like Higgins in all my stupid hi-tech fast-drying pseudo-safari REI travel clothes)
Slideshow: Assisi
Assisi is an impressive sight, with medieval walls and turrets spilling down a massive hillside. The taxi ride from the train station—-a steep uphill approach into the city--reinforces the drama of the city skyline. St Francis’ popularity is the town’s lifeblood, and Assisi is often filled with religious pilgrims. Stores are chock full of St Francis paintings, keychains, statuettes, rosary beads, clocks, lighters... pretty much any kind of souvenir you can think of, it’s there, and it has the name or image of St Francis on it.
The evening we arrived, a large group of about three dozen young Spanish teens had descended on the Piazza del Comune. They were part of some youth mission, dressed in matching clothes reminiscent of cub scout uniforms (yellow bandana around the neck, powder-blue shirt, navy shorts, black socks). They were strolling through the streets, sitting in doorways and on fountains. Some of the boys strummed guitars and sang Spanish campfire songs while the girls swayed and clapped and sang along. We saw two of the middle-aged scout leaders, wearing the same uniforms as the teens, lounging in a nearby café drinking espresso and chatting up the locals.
Thanks to the approaching storm clouds, sunset over the city was surreal. I felt like I was looking at an old renaissance painting of the city rather than the city itself. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve seen, and I found it difficult to look away. Afterwards, as it got dark, those same storm clouds hovered ominously for a couple hours before the rain and lightning started. I ended up taking photos mostly of the approaching storm. I don’t know if the pictures can really do justice to the beauty of the sky at dusk, but take a look for yourself...
See larger photos Here.
The evening we arrived, a large group of about three dozen young Spanish teens had descended on the Piazza del Comune. They were part of some youth mission, dressed in matching clothes reminiscent of cub scout uniforms (yellow bandana around the neck, powder-blue shirt, navy shorts, black socks). They were strolling through the streets, sitting in doorways and on fountains. Some of the boys strummed guitars and sang Spanish campfire songs while the girls swayed and clapped and sang along. We saw two of the middle-aged scout leaders, wearing the same uniforms as the teens, lounging in a nearby café drinking espresso and chatting up the locals.
Thanks to the approaching storm clouds, sunset over the city was surreal. I felt like I was looking at an old renaissance painting of the city rather than the city itself. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve seen, and I found it difficult to look away. Afterwards, as it got dark, those same storm clouds hovered ominously for a couple hours before the rain and lightning started. I ended up taking photos mostly of the approaching storm. I don’t know if the pictures can really do justice to the beauty of the sky at dusk, but take a look for yourself...
See larger photos Here.
Finding something familiar
In Milan, the streetcars are a distinctive orange and grey. Most of them were built prior to World War One, and are still in service. San Franciscans will recognize them right away, as there are several Milanese streetcars on the F Line Market St/Embarcadero. SF has restored many old cars from around the world and put them into circulation, including those donated by Milan.
It was strangely comforting to see them chugging along in their "native habitat"...
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Anisette hijinks
Strolling down the idyllic streets of Orvieto, we came upon the most beautiful of little shops selling Anise candies. Anxious for just one or two, we went inside and met the nicest girl whose family owned the shop. As we expressed our interest in some candy, she promptly brought out delicious homemade anise cookies for us to sample, plus samples of her father’s home-made Anisette which they sell to area restaurants. So impressed were we by the Anisette (not to mention the almond liqueur samples, the anise candy samples, the chocolate samples and the many shots of the various grappas her father makes in the bathtub or something), we were perfectly inclined to make a reckless decision: "Let's get a bottle of Anisette and ship it home!" We bought it along with a cube of marzipan, some amaretto cookies, and a pound of sugared anise cookies. We promptly brought it back to our hotel for shipment at the local Mailboxes Etc. in the morning... what could go wrong?
As we woke early to ship before catching our train to Assisi, we traipsed down to MBE to enquire about shipping. “Is it alcohol?” the clerk asked. “Yes it is Anisette.” we said excitedly. “I can only ship in quantities of 6, 12, 24, 48, etc.” “You can’t ship a single bottle?” “No. Your government won’t allow it. FDA.”
Unsure as to the logic of this particular practice, but more confused as to why someone would lie about such a silly rule ("is he joking?"), we were faced with a traumatic decision. We didn't have time to get a "second opinion" from the local post office. Because we’re traveling for so long, we have absolutely no space in our tiny tiny bags. We made a promise not to buy any souvenirs unless we were willing to ship them home. There were only two choices: carry the bottle onward (a major pain with three train transfers ahead of us that day), or leave it in Orvieto. A third option presented itself: pour most of our precious liquid in an empty water bottle (safer for transport) and leave the remainder as a gift to our hotel. We asked our hotel if we could use their kitchen sink and... viola!
It took less than two days for us to go through (almost) a bottle of anisette on the train. (Our CODE WORDS: “Can I have some more water please?”)
It may be twenty years before I can eat black licorice again.
As we woke early to ship before catching our train to Assisi, we traipsed down to MBE to enquire about shipping. “Is it alcohol?” the clerk asked. “Yes it is Anisette.” we said excitedly. “I can only ship in quantities of 6, 12, 24, 48, etc.” “You can’t ship a single bottle?” “No. Your government won’t allow it. FDA.”
Unsure as to the logic of this particular practice, but more confused as to why someone would lie about such a silly rule ("is he joking?"), we were faced with a traumatic decision. We didn't have time to get a "second opinion" from the local post office. Because we’re traveling for so long, we have absolutely no space in our tiny tiny bags. We made a promise not to buy any souvenirs unless we were willing to ship them home. There were only two choices: carry the bottle onward (a major pain with three train transfers ahead of us that day), or leave it in Orvieto. A third option presented itself: pour most of our precious liquid in an empty water bottle (safer for transport) and leave the remainder as a gift to our hotel. We asked our hotel if we could use their kitchen sink and... viola!
It took less than two days for us to go through (almost) a bottle of anisette on the train. (Our CODE WORDS: “Can I have some more water please?”)
It may be twenty years before I can eat black licorice again.
Italian food puzzles
Garlic: We've been in Italy for two weeks now; we've eaten a variety of meals in a variety of cities & towns north and south, and it recently occurred to us that we have yet to even smell garlic anywhere, let alone taste it. Is this unusual? Has there been some kind of moratorium placed on its use? Is garlic just an "immigrant" thing?
Gelato: I've had some gelato here too, of course, and I'm still not sure what supposedly makes it different than ice cream. Sure, the flavors are more clever (Pineapple, Nutella, Tiramisu etc), but it all seems to taste pretty much like...well...ice cream.
Gelato: I've had some gelato here too, of course, and I'm still not sure what supposedly makes it different than ice cream. Sure, the flavors are more clever (Pineapple, Nutella, Tiramisu etc), but it all seems to taste pretty much like...well...ice cream.
Teen fashion
Its understood that Italians are pretty fashion-conscious. Many teenagers here are painfully hip; it's the boys especially that are unusual to American observers, with their artfully teased & gelled hair, pierced ears, and clothing that would invite a severe ass-kicking in any American high school.
On the subway we watched a group of rowdy teens interacting; the tough alpha male of the group was wearing a Burberry-pattern baseball cap, a matching Burberry-pattern belt, hip-hugger jeans and a skin-tight pink t-shirt covered with rhinestones. (No, I didn't get a photo, sorry :-)
On the subway we watched a group of rowdy teens interacting; the tough alpha male of the group was wearing a Burberry-pattern baseball cap, a matching Burberry-pattern belt, hip-hugger jeans and a skin-tight pink t-shirt covered with rhinestones. (No, I didn't get a photo, sorry :-)
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Italian trains
The complete Italian train schedule looks like a miniature phone book, it's 500+ pages of detailed charts, maps and symbols and is available at most newsstands for 4.50 Euros. It was intimidating at first, but we quickly figured out how to decipher most of the various codes and icons. We've gotten pretty good at moving around by train. There are the usual idiosyncrasies (Among other things, we discovered i festivi (holidays) sometimes means "holidays" but sometimes it just arbitrarily means "weekends"). Beyond that, though, we're very impressed with how efficient the train system is here. It's an incredibly large and sophisticated network that has thousands of arrivals and departures planned down to the minute over hundreds of stations and hubs. And, many small-town stations only have one or two tracks, which I assume requires an additional amount of coordination to manage the flow.
Slideshow: Pompeii
From Sorrento, we've worked our way up through Orvieto, Assisi and Siena... right now we're in the Cinqueterre. Internet access has been infrequent but we have a couple posts coming soon... in the meantime, here are some of our photos from Pompeii:
See them full-size on flickr.
See them full-size on flickr.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Book recommendation
In Egypt, Samar recommended to us a novel-- The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al Aswany. Jacqueline was completely absorbed by it while we were in Egypt, and I'm just starting it now. It's a very popular, very controversial novel that paints contemporary Cairo in a bleak light. The movie version (recently released) will have to go on our Netflix queue when we get back.
Month-a-versary
We are officially at our four-week mark today. Happily, we don’t feel burnt out as we worried we might be. Most of the time when we travel, we pack every day with tons of activity, coming home exhausted. But given how long we will be gone, we have decided to approach our time with a different mindset: marathon vs. sprint. We have to pace ourselves, and intersperse ‘adventure’ days with rest days/chore days. For instance, today, instead of getting up at 5:30 to queue up for the packed tourist bus to drive down the Amalfi Coast and take the ferry back, we are hanging out in our very nice Sorrento hotel and swimming in the Mediterranean. I can’t get over the guilt, though—- the feeling that there are places that I have wanted to see for years (right down there!) and I am not going. Tomorrow, however, we have three trains and seven hours of travel time to Orvieto...so today we need to recharge. Italy is ITALY after all—we will definitely be back...
Sony CyberShot deathwatch
The island of Capri is supposedly becoming hip again. It's been a luxurious vacation spot since Roman times, but it's appeal waned somewhat in the seventies, with the rise in popularity of places like Mykonos and Ibiza. Though more downmarket than it was in the fifties and sixties, it still has cache, and the beautiful people are beginning to return.
One of Capri’s most famous locales is the Blue Grotto, a large cave accessible only by rowboat from the sea. At high tide we had to lie way back in the boat as if it were a recumbent bike, in order to squeeze through the small entrance. The cave has a limestone bottom, and the water glows a bright blue from the reflected sunlight below. The effect is similar to a lit swimming pool at night; it's quite beautiful. Here are some photos I found online, and here's the Wikipedia entry.
We don't have any photos of our own, because... well, the camera and I went underwater, sort of. Yeah I know, I know, I was probably being reckless, bringing the camera on the rowboat and all. But I had a Ziploc at the ready, and my, ah, "contact" with the water was a freak accident, coming at a time I fully expected to remain dry. Just outside the opening, our rowboat guide pulled on the chain to get us inside (wave rises... wait... wave subsides, pull!) and the wake of the previous boat completely covered me (and only me). I was entirely underwater for a moment. I spit out saltwater even as I protectively clutched the wet wet camera. Jacqueline was seated in front of me, facing forward, and she hadn't noticed the wave that hit the back half of the boat. Inside the luminous cave she was in awe, whispering to me "Wow! This is amazing!"...after a minute or so she turned around to ask why I wasn't taking any pictures. I was sitting in 3 inches of water, and she was completely dry. (In fact everyone who had entered the grotto that morning was completely dry. Lucky me.)
The camera was non-functional for about 45 minutes... eventually we got it to turn on again (it had dried, perhaps). At the moment, thankfully, it's working. We've put the camera on a death watch, to see if salt corrosion might kill it in the coming days or weeks.
Given the duration of our trip, we had worried our camera might need to be replaced at some point. The logistics of getting a good (and reasonably priced) camera is tricky; overnight shipping from Amazon doesn't seem feasible, what with all our moving around (oh yeah and it would be painfully expensive too). We're not keen on buying a new one in a tourist town and paying for it in Euros. We're hoping it will last a while longer, at least until we hit Hong Kong...
One of Capri’s most famous locales is the Blue Grotto, a large cave accessible only by rowboat from the sea. At high tide we had to lie way back in the boat as if it were a recumbent bike, in order to squeeze through the small entrance. The cave has a limestone bottom, and the water glows a bright blue from the reflected sunlight below. The effect is similar to a lit swimming pool at night; it's quite beautiful. Here are some photos I found online, and here's the Wikipedia entry.
We don't have any photos of our own, because... well, the camera and I went underwater, sort of. Yeah I know, I know, I was probably being reckless, bringing the camera on the rowboat and all. But I had a Ziploc at the ready, and my, ah, "contact" with the water was a freak accident, coming at a time I fully expected to remain dry. Just outside the opening, our rowboat guide pulled on the chain to get us inside (wave rises... wait... wave subsides, pull!) and the wake of the previous boat completely covered me (and only me). I was entirely underwater for a moment. I spit out saltwater even as I protectively clutched the wet wet camera. Jacqueline was seated in front of me, facing forward, and she hadn't noticed the wave that hit the back half of the boat. Inside the luminous cave she was in awe, whispering to me "Wow! This is amazing!"...after a minute or so she turned around to ask why I wasn't taking any pictures. I was sitting in 3 inches of water, and she was completely dry. (In fact everyone who had entered the grotto that morning was completely dry. Lucky me.)
The camera was non-functional for about 45 minutes... eventually we got it to turn on again (it had dried, perhaps). At the moment, thankfully, it's working. We've put the camera on a death watch, to see if salt corrosion might kill it in the coming days or weeks.
Given the duration of our trip, we had worried our camera might need to be replaced at some point. The logistics of getting a good (and reasonably priced) camera is tricky; overnight shipping from Amazon doesn't seem feasible, what with all our moving around (oh yeah and it would be painfully expensive too). We're not keen on buying a new one in a tourist town and paying for it in Euros. We're hoping it will last a while longer, at least until we hit Hong Kong...
Guillotine! and other amusements
Usually, when we're tired, stressed, punchy, or just wandering around somewhere strange, we’ll spontaneously compose some (add-libbed) songs to pass the time. Sometimes they're based on an existing melody, sometimes we invent our own; rarely are they longer than a verse or two. Here are some sample song titles from the trip so far:
“Ramadan, Rammmaaaadaaaan”
“It gets cold in the desert” (Sung w/ a Dwight Yoakam twang)
“That’s not a pinecone”
“In the Hashemite Kingdom...of Jordan!” (also sung w/ a country twang)
“Somebody woke up angry”
“Prego is a sauce”
“Cancer kitty”
“Su-su-subito” (sung to the tune of Phil Collins’ “Susuido”)
“You don’t care but I care” (sung to the tune of: “Do You Hear What I Hear?”)
“(Teenagers are annoying) All over the world”
“There’s a sign, there’s a sign (It will tell you where to go)”
We also invented some games to play when we're bored or exhausted-- usually in line or waiting for something. Our four mainstays are "Guillotine","Hammer","Scorpion" and "Squish". They only last long enough for one of us to get hurt.
“Ramadan, Rammmaaaadaaaan”
“It gets cold in the desert” (Sung w/ a Dwight Yoakam twang)
“That’s not a pinecone”
“In the Hashemite Kingdom...of Jordan!” (also sung w/ a country twang)
“Somebody woke up angry”
“Prego is a sauce”
“Cancer kitty”
“Su-su-subito” (sung to the tune of Phil Collins’ “Susuido”)
“You don’t care but I care” (sung to the tune of: “Do You Hear What I Hear?”)
“(Teenagers are annoying) All over the world”
“There’s a sign, there’s a sign (It will tell you where to go)”
We also invented some games to play when we're bored or exhausted-- usually in line or waiting for something. Our four mainstays are "Guillotine","Hammer","Scorpion" and "Squish". They only last long enough for one of us to get hurt.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Trevi
Jacqueline and I passed by Trevi Fountain during a long afternoon walk through the city. So, as expected of all tourists, we made our way into the crush of people and got out two coins to toss in. Back turned, Jacqueline made her wish and threw her euro over her shoulder, over several rows of tourists and *splash* into the fountain. My turn. I turned my back to the fountain. I hurled my coin, maybe with a little more force than I needed. Jacqueline grabbed my hand and started pulling me away-- "Let's get out of here. You just pegged someone in the head."
Friday, September 28, 2007
Props to Paolo, best concierge ever!
We cashed in some Starwood points to stay for cheap at the otherwise very expensive Sheraton Roma, a large business hotel in southern Rome near the airport. Our first morning, we had some questions for the concierge. We wanted to know where to get subway passes, where to get a train timetable, and where we might find a laundromat, etc.
Paolo at the concierge desk answered each of our questions with an indifferent "I don't know" and would start to turn away from us until we said "wait, sorry, we have another question..." this scene repeated itself a few times. Paolo's ignorance of pretty much everything was so strange, Jacqueline actually said "I'm sorry, I thought you were the concierge. Can we speak to the concierge?" Paolo replied blankly "I am the concierge."
After about 3 more questions and 3 more "I don't knows" we gave up and Paolo strted to turn away. I had 2 euros in my hand I reflexively started to slide across the counter to him, but I caught myself ("what the hell am I doing!?") and took the money back. The best part, Paolo saw me do it :-)
Paolo at the concierge desk answered each of our questions with an indifferent "I don't know" and would start to turn away from us until we said "wait, sorry, we have another question..." this scene repeated itself a few times. Paolo's ignorance of pretty much everything was so strange, Jacqueline actually said "I'm sorry, I thought you were the concierge. Can we speak to the concierge?" Paolo replied blankly "I am the concierge."
After about 3 more questions and 3 more "I don't knows" we gave up and Paolo strted to turn away. I had 2 euros in my hand I reflexively started to slide across the counter to him, but I caught myself ("what the hell am I doing!?") and took the money back. The best part, Paolo saw me do it :-)
Slideshow: Petra
Click here to see it full-size.
No surprise, Petra is absolutely stunning. When you complete your walk down the narrow, mile-long Siq (sheer rock cliffs that have been rent apart by tectonic forces), and get your first glimpse of the giant Treasury facade carved from the rose rock cliff face, it takes your breath away.
What was utterly surprising for us was the immense size of the park itself. I had always thought that Petra was simply the photogenic Treasury, but it was a bustling Nabatean city 2,000 years ago, a city that sprawled through the valley and into the surrounding cliffsides. Petra has many impressive tombs (some of the larger ones look similar to the Treasury), carved in a manner inspired by the Greco-Roman style. There are large boulevards lined with columns, a giant amphitheatre that used to sit 3,000, and a religious temple (the Monastery) located on a twisting narrow path consisting of rubble, boulders, and 800 switchback steps carved into the remaining rock. Many of the cliffside temples and buildings had been eroded from centuries of wind and rain, and had surreal Dali-esque facades that looked like they could have been partially-melted ice cream.
It was on our second day at Petra that we decided to climb the long steep path up to the Monastery. Somewhat fatigued from our previous day’s 5-hour walk in the 95 degree heat (most of the day consisted of repeated exclamations like “WOW” and “Keith, look at that!”), we had a good night’s sleep, lots of water and sunblock, and some provisions for the trail. We were continually harassed by the Bedouin donkey-riders who take tourists up and down the trail for about five Dinars. The walk was full of great vistas and photo ops, some good exercise, and repeated recitations of laa shukran (no thanks, we don’t want to ride the donkey). After a good hour’s worth of climbing, when we were almost to the top, there was a boy of about 3 years that greeted us with raspberries—not of the fruit kind, but rather the spitty kind. These, naturally were met with raspberries from me, and this one-upmanship went on for a few minutes, ending with the boy giggling madly. Keith and I reached the top soon after; we sat to admire the view, rehydrate, and dig into the fruit and cookies we brought. The boy and his slightly older brother had made it up to the top too, in order to sell trinkets to the tourists disembarking from their donkey-saddles.
I held out a cookie for the younger boy to come and eat. He ran over to us at full throttle. He had bare feet, filthy clothes, and flies over his face, looking like one of those “Would you spend 50 cents a day to feed this child?” ads—but he was so happy and full of life. He had some paper in his hand—some random computer page printout from a German tour itinerary. He held it like it was precious to him, but I thought it would be more so if Keith used some of his skills to draw on the back of the paper. Keith drew cats and dogs for him. Peals of laughter from the kid. His brother came over and we offered him cookies too. Keith asked "Ramadan? Is this OK? OK with mom?" as if kids would actually turn down a cookie in any circumstance (they happily ate our cookies without hesitation). As we started packing up to make our way back down the trail, the older boy asked us: "English?" Keith answered: "No, American". And as we started to walk away, he said "Americans...are nice" quietly, almost more to himself than to us, as if he was making a pronouncement in order to imprint it upon his memory.
Travel thrusts us into other people’s lives unexpectedly, and can leave lasting impressions. I hope the ones we leave are always as good.
No surprise, Petra is absolutely stunning. When you complete your walk down the narrow, mile-long Siq (sheer rock cliffs that have been rent apart by tectonic forces), and get your first glimpse of the giant Treasury facade carved from the rose rock cliff face, it takes your breath away.
What was utterly surprising for us was the immense size of the park itself. I had always thought that Petra was simply the photogenic Treasury, but it was a bustling Nabatean city 2,000 years ago, a city that sprawled through the valley and into the surrounding cliffsides. Petra has many impressive tombs (some of the larger ones look similar to the Treasury), carved in a manner inspired by the Greco-Roman style. There are large boulevards lined with columns, a giant amphitheatre that used to sit 3,000, and a religious temple (the Monastery) located on a twisting narrow path consisting of rubble, boulders, and 800 switchback steps carved into the remaining rock. Many of the cliffside temples and buildings had been eroded from centuries of wind and rain, and had surreal Dali-esque facades that looked like they could have been partially-melted ice cream.
It was on our second day at Petra that we decided to climb the long steep path up to the Monastery. Somewhat fatigued from our previous day’s 5-hour walk in the 95 degree heat (most of the day consisted of repeated exclamations like “WOW” and “Keith, look at that!”), we had a good night’s sleep, lots of water and sunblock, and some provisions for the trail. We were continually harassed by the Bedouin donkey-riders who take tourists up and down the trail for about five Dinars. The walk was full of great vistas and photo ops, some good exercise, and repeated recitations of laa shukran (no thanks, we don’t want to ride the donkey). After a good hour’s worth of climbing, when we were almost to the top, there was a boy of about 3 years that greeted us with raspberries—not of the fruit kind, but rather the spitty kind. These, naturally were met with raspberries from me, and this one-upmanship went on for a few minutes, ending with the boy giggling madly. Keith and I reached the top soon after; we sat to admire the view, rehydrate, and dig into the fruit and cookies we brought. The boy and his slightly older brother had made it up to the top too, in order to sell trinkets to the tourists disembarking from their donkey-saddles.
I held out a cookie for the younger boy to come and eat. He ran over to us at full throttle. He had bare feet, filthy clothes, and flies over his face, looking like one of those “Would you spend 50 cents a day to feed this child?” ads—but he was so happy and full of life. He had some paper in his hand—some random computer page printout from a German tour itinerary. He held it like it was precious to him, but I thought it would be more so if Keith used some of his skills to draw on the back of the paper. Keith drew cats and dogs for him. Peals of laughter from the kid. His brother came over and we offered him cookies too. Keith asked "Ramadan? Is this OK? OK with mom?" as if kids would actually turn down a cookie in any circumstance (they happily ate our cookies without hesitation). As we started packing up to make our way back down the trail, the older boy asked us: "English?" Keith answered: "No, American". And as we started to walk away, he said "Americans...are nice" quietly, almost more to himself than to us, as if he was making a pronouncement in order to imprint it upon his memory.
Travel thrusts us into other people’s lives unexpectedly, and can leave lasting impressions. I hope the ones we leave are always as good.
Crossing (into) Jordan
What a contrast to Egypt! Cleaner, with a better infrastructure and less-aggressive touts, and people here seem genuinely proud of their country and their (relative) stability, and are happy to have tourists come visit. It seems that Jordan had been a popular destination (and very busy for our taxi driver) throughout most of the 90s, but the past year or so they have suffered from tourism slowdown. Jordanians seem unsure about the reasons why (the Iraq war has already been going on for a while now, and the Middle East in general has been dicey since...well...a long time. There was a well coordinated terrorist attack on several hotels last year--some 60+ people were killed—-though several people we spoke to insisted things had slowed down prior to that). We assured our driver that with the naming of Petra as one of the "New Seven Wonders of the World", business was sure to pick up.
Jordan has been a whirlwind of car travel. With less than a week in the country, and lots of ground to cover in order to see the major sights, we have spent a lot of time in a taxi. The good news is that Jordan is a small county: it only takes about 6-7 hours or so to go from the northern border to the southern one. There's not much in the way of buses, but taxis are popular, affordable, and they travel nationwide. We got into Amman in the afternoon and took a taxi to the hotel (You can hire a taxi for the day, and cross the country for about 80 Dinars. The Jordanian Dinar is worth about 1.4 USD, similar to the Euro, so things weren’t necessarily cheap. Many people in the country are very poor.)
We’ve been madly accumulating Starwood points (from our Amex card) the past five months in anticipation of our trip. We have been trying to minimize our hotel expenses by cashing in our points, or by using a clever combination of cash and points (usually 2000-3000 points plus $45 USD for nice hotels). This scheme really delivered in Amman, where we scored a huge suite at Le Meridien for $45. Our first afternoon was spent napping, doing some minor laundry, cleaning up, checking email and bills online, and repacking (we planned to leave some luggage in Amman so we could travel light while camping in Wadi Rum). That first night in Amman we ate at Benihana—weird, yes, but after weeks of disappointing Egyptian food, we had a craving for something Asian. The meal was the best we’d had in a while. It was an interesting experience, eating at an American chain restaurant staffed entirely by Filipinos pretending to be Japanese for the sake of their Arab clientèle.
Jordan has been a whirlwind of car travel. With less than a week in the country, and lots of ground to cover in order to see the major sights, we have spent a lot of time in a taxi. The good news is that Jordan is a small county: it only takes about 6-7 hours or so to go from the northern border to the southern one. There's not much in the way of buses, but taxis are popular, affordable, and they travel nationwide. We got into Amman in the afternoon and took a taxi to the hotel (You can hire a taxi for the day, and cross the country for about 80 Dinars. The Jordanian Dinar is worth about 1.4 USD, similar to the Euro, so things weren’t necessarily cheap. Many people in the country are very poor.)
We’ve been madly accumulating Starwood points (from our Amex card) the past five months in anticipation of our trip. We have been trying to minimize our hotel expenses by cashing in our points, or by using a clever combination of cash and points (usually 2000-3000 points plus $45 USD for nice hotels). This scheme really delivered in Amman, where we scored a huge suite at Le Meridien for $45. Our first afternoon was spent napping, doing some minor laundry, cleaning up, checking email and bills online, and repacking (we planned to leave some luggage in Amman so we could travel light while camping in Wadi Rum). That first night in Amman we ate at Benihana—weird, yes, but after weeks of disappointing Egyptian food, we had a craving for something Asian. The meal was the best we’d had in a while. It was an interesting experience, eating at an American chain restaurant staffed entirely by Filipinos pretending to be Japanese for the sake of their Arab clientèle.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Wadi Rum
Even boarding the new, clean Royal Jordanian Airlines plane in Cairo, we started to notice a difference. We spoke briefly with a fellow passenger, a Jordanian woman relieved to be going home... "How long were you in Egypt?" Jacqueline asked... "Ten days....long enough to get homesick!" She added "Jordan is beautiful, you will LOVE it here!!"
After the unrelenting heat and dust of Egypt, Jordan's cooler climate was a relief... As far as climate & topography, Amman feels more like Southern California or New Mexico than it does your stereotypical Arab desert. Amman is a modern city with tree-lined boulevards, high-rises and large suburban neighborhoods reminiscent of Beverly Hills... the strong infrastucture and relative calm of this place is impressive considering the violence that surrounds it (I'll post more on that later, hopefully).
We spent two days exploring the ruins at Petra; that'll have to wait for a later post. For now though, at least I was able to upload some pictures to flickr. Here's a slideshow of our Bedouin campout in Wadi Rum:
You can see these pics larger and with captions on flickr.
Tomorrow we fly to Rome...
After the unrelenting heat and dust of Egypt, Jordan's cooler climate was a relief... As far as climate & topography, Amman feels more like Southern California or New Mexico than it does your stereotypical Arab desert. Amman is a modern city with tree-lined boulevards, high-rises and large suburban neighborhoods reminiscent of Beverly Hills... the strong infrastucture and relative calm of this place is impressive considering the violence that surrounds it (I'll post more on that later, hopefully).
We spent two days exploring the ruins at Petra; that'll have to wait for a later post. For now though, at least I was able to upload some pictures to flickr. Here's a slideshow of our Bedouin campout in Wadi Rum:
You can see these pics larger and with captions on flickr.
Tomorrow we fly to Rome...
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Why Egypt reminds me of the 70’s
No matter where we go in Egypt, I think of what it must have been like to happen upon these ruins 150 years ago. Riding camels in the desert to the pyramids, taking tea in the shade of the Sphinx—no touts, no plastic scarab beetles or fake papyrus scrolls—just you and your small group, your guide, and some cantankerous, cranky camels. You would have had more time then, time to explore; to burn the image of the temple in your mind, to ponder how many men have lived and died during the time these monuments have stood.
But there is another period of time that I keep thinking about here in Egypt. The seventies. What is it about the seventies? Well, the King Tut exhibit was traveling throughout the world—it was a big deal. Omar Sharif, one of the most famous Egyptians ever, was very dashing, and very seventies. What about the movie Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor? Sixties, I know, but there’s something very seventies about Liz. Remember that disco song, “Midnight at the Oasis”—disco is very seventies. Keith was just reminding me of the Steve Martin bit and the King Tut song (he’s got a few years on me). When was Steve Martin an SNL guest host all the time? I think it was the SEVENTIES. All of these Sound & Light shows have lasers. When were lasers really new? Why, the seventies of course!
And, we passed by this weird funky seventies structure while cruising the Nile; it would make a perfect hideout for some sleazy seventies Bond villain!
But there is another period of time that I keep thinking about here in Egypt. The seventies. What is it about the seventies? Well, the King Tut exhibit was traveling throughout the world—it was a big deal. Omar Sharif, one of the most famous Egyptians ever, was very dashing, and very seventies. What about the movie Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor? Sixties, I know, but there’s something very seventies about Liz. Remember that disco song, “Midnight at the Oasis”—disco is very seventies. Keith was just reminding me of the Steve Martin bit and the King Tut song (he’s got a few years on me). When was Steve Martin an SNL guest host all the time? I think it was the SEVENTIES. All of these Sound & Light shows have lasers. When were lasers really new? Why, the seventies of course!
And, we passed by this weird funky seventies structure while cruising the Nile; it would make a perfect hideout for some sleazy seventies Bond villain!
Egyptian snacks
Pleasant surprise: Chicken-flavored potato chips are really good.
Disappointment: Cumin-flavored pretzels taste just like regular pretzels.
Also I should note that every Egyptian wine-- red, rose, or white-- tastes like cooking sherry (and the beer is a little underwhelming here too. Not a big nation of drinkers).
Disappointment: Cumin-flavored pretzels taste just like regular pretzels.
Also I should note that every Egyptian wine-- red, rose, or white-- tastes like cooking sherry (and the beer is a little underwhelming here too. Not a big nation of drinkers).
Esna
One of the stranger moments on the trip so far: it’s our second day of three on our brilliantly tacky monster-sized Nile cruiser, and we have to queue up among six other tourist boats to use the lock on our way to Luxor. It’s Ramadan, it’s dusk, we’re temporarily tied up to the dock at Esna, and most of us are sitting around on the top deck, looking right over at the street scenes of Esna, watching goats, mule-carts, and scooters pass by, watching ourselves being watched from the streets and crumbling buildings. The call to prayer emanates from three different mosques that seem equidistant from us; they are each staggered by a few seconds, so the sound loudly reverberates over us, ghostly as the sun sets. In a brilliant Fellini-esque juxtaposition, three young Asian women (possibly Korean?) are loudly laughing, shrieking and splashing in the pool, oblivious in the special way Asian tourists can be, taking snapshots of each other, and noticing the call to prayer only long enough to laugh and mockingly imitate the muezzin’s intonations.
I would stare at the giggling water-nymphs, and look back at the crumbling buildings on the shore, imagining robed men on the rooftops, assembling rocket launchers to rain fire down upon all of us disrespectful infidels.
It *is* just a river in Egypt!
We are in the midst of the second of two cruise experiences in Egypt
Cruising on the
I have taken to quietly moo-ing in line while waiting for the unsatisfying feeding frenzy to commence. Keith and I actually skipped two meals in order to regain an appetite, just to have it satisfied by the weight of the food, and not the taste.
One can look past the Astroturf to see the banks of the
Perhaps this typical Egyptian-tourist experience would not have been so depressing if we had done the Nile before our 
We began in 
We passed two boats in four days. It was hot—really hot. Like when you have been cooking a chicken in the oven for an hour, and stick your face in to baste it--hot. But we had an air-conditioned room a foot away, and found it easy to hose off in the shower, run outside to the deck, and let the evaporation cool us. Days of cruising were interspersed with quick (1.5 to 2 hour) excursions to shore, where we clamored into the 30-seater motor boat that dangled from the stern, jumped off onto shore, and saw a large sampling of the various UNESCO salvaged (i.e. saved from the dam-generated flood waters) Nubian temples. We saw scorpions, poisonous snakes, and alligators—none in the wild, but kept in empty water bottles by the local Bedouin in order to extract some baksheesh (cash in the form of a tip) from the tourists, in exchange for a picture with the fear-inducing specimens.
On the third day, we approached
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
