around the world

numbers

2008-08-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

$11,000 - total trip cost

$3800 - total airfare
$4400 - money spent during travels, excluding diving
$1500 - scuba diving
$800 - vaccinations, insurance, pills*
$500 - pre-trip shopping (camera mostly)

* - this is the most I've ever heard anyone pay for v, i, p. Unfortunately, Cambodia + India + Ghana = every single vaccination "strongly recommended."

$9,000 - vague amount budgeted for trip before serious planning
$10,700 - amount budgeted after research
$300 - amount over budget
2.8% - percent over budget
9 - how awesome that is (10-point scale)

30,800 - number of miles traveled
11 - countries visited (excluding America)
32 - cities/towns/whatever visited
6 - cities/towns/whatever where the temperature broke 100 degrees while I was there. Not 90, not 95. 100.

115 - nights of the trip
18 - nights spent in buses, trains, ferries, streets, airports, or stations
32 - hot showers (I'm shocked at how high this number is.)

$8.20 - average cost of a night's stay throughout the trip
$39 - most expensive bed: very last day of the trip, in Morocco
$2.80 - least expensive bed: Siwa oasis, in Egypt

24 hours - longest flight: Chicago > LA > Taipei > Kuala Lumpur
17 hours - longest train ride: Sungai Golok > Bangkok
4 hours - longest ferry ride: Nuweiba > Aqaba
31 hours - longest bus ride: Srinagar > Agra*

* - That's a 550-mile journey. It's like that joke, where a farmer boasts that he'd have to drive all day to reach the end of his farm, and the other guy says, "Yeah, I used to have a car like that, too."

60 - approximate number of posts mailed to the States
39 - passport stamps and stickers collected on the trip (most countries give a visa stamp/sticker, entry stamp, exit stamp)
12 - currencies dealt with
$20 - money "lost" due to botched conversions (beats the time I missed a zero in Japan, and Mom and I went to a conspicuously fancy $16 meal in Tokyo...)
$600 - cash hidden in my money belt or backpack at the start of the trip
$600 - if I could redo the trip, how much I would have brought in cash. It was perfect.
2 - number of days lost to illness (altitude sickness in Leh)
0 - number of times I was even remotely bothered by stomach/food/GI-issues
wow - yeah, wow to that last one!

Days required to readjust to life at home? I'll tell you once I find out.

home sweet home

2008-08-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

My dad always says: "You know, your grandma always said: 'It's good to want to go on vacation, and it's good to want to come home.' And she's right."

And he's right.

Groggy in Casablanca, barely catching the train to head to the airport to catch a plane to NYC to catch a Chicago-bound flight (thanks for rescheduling my flights, travel agent Kyle!)... well, it sounds like the start of a bad day. But I was just too excited to see my folks, to walk on American soil, to be home.

After circling above Cape Cod for 2 hours while waiting for clearance to land at JFK, the pilot just gives up and decides to land in Bangor, Maine. Being delayed several hours and missing a flight is tragedy, but landing in Bangor, Maine instead of New York City? That's comedy.

Imagine if someone had never seen New York City. His first time on an airplane, imagination running wild. Skyscrapers, the Statue of Liberty, Tiffany's, 5th Ave, Coney Island, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan; he's just so excited. New York City. He wakes up, after dreams of the Big Apple, of America, of New York City! Looks out the window, and there it is. Bangor, Maine.

Now, unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), the airport of Bangor, Maine is not exactly an international hub*. In fact, there are no international facilities. No visa service, no customs, no entry stamps. We're not allowed off the plane.

* - see this entry's comments RE these totally incorrect statement.

Just as we're getting hungrumpy, maybe an hour and a half, we lift off for a short hop to the real NYC. Land at 9pm. Next flight to Chicago is 8am, so after a failed attempt to catch some z's in a little corner of the arrival hall, a single-serving friend and I have wheelchair races all around the empty airport 'til the wee hours of the morn, when our vehicles are confiscated by a guard who looked like she'd never had an ounce of fun in her life, and was jealous. So then my newfound friend regales me with incredible stories of his 4-year tour of Iraq, and we get some muffins when Au Bon Pain finally opens at 5am. Sit around 'til 8am, and I'm off to Chicago.

Mom picked me up at O'Hare International. Due to Dad's work schedule and my extra day of transit, I won't get to see him 'til tomorrow morning, when he comes home from Loyola Medical. How sad! And my brother and sister? They're somewhere between Egypt and Jordan currently. I guess wanderlust runs in the family. We like to travel.

But man oh man, is it nice to come home, too! Freshly-shaved, showered, and fed. I'm putting my photos on the computer as I type, and as soon as Mom gets up from her nap, we're taking a walk. I like walking with Mom.

So.

So, I'm home! And you know what? American computers, American internet: I can put up photos and videos that I couldn't before. Let's do it! Here, some videos.

"leading" hephalumps to the river kwai to drink

tak bat in laos

leh, narrated in a 900-number voice (I was sick, remember...)

nageen lake, in kashmir, whose surface is smooth as glass

random rockshaw ride in agra

let's go diving. i'll just take this camel here.

tour group buses in egypt

magic box in ghana

stroll through medival fes

Ooooh, and here are some Ghana photos, too!

Start with the best photo of the trip:

That photo was from this school... once they noticed I had a camera.

Is that an abruni?! It IS!

Ice cream and cute little kids? Ghana is the best!

Even the flies are nice. Have you ever seen such a pretty fly?

The whole place is pretty. West African art is awesome. Remember those two statues I fell in love with? Are these great statues, or are these the best statues? Colonial art 4eva!

Here's the fishing town of Cape Coast.

Another Cape Coast scene.

Everybody balances stuff on their heads. Here the vendors are waiting for traffic to roll up.

Cape Coast has some former slave forts. This one's called Cape Coast Fort.

Here's a view from the e-walk in Kakum National forest. Good stuff.

Ghana, I like you.

And why not, here are a couple Morocco shots:

Alleyways with great tiled fountains scattered throughout.

Poke around a mosque, and head back to the market roads.

Oooh, I can't afford dinner at this riad, but tea sounds perfect.

Some of the other terrace-crashing travelers bid me a hero's goodbye.

Unfortunately, the plane got a little confused:

But you already heard that story. Actually, that brings you up to date entirely, right up to me sitting here, typing this sentence you just finished.

I'll put up another post in a few days or so with a few numbers and things, but there's one thing I want to mention right now:

I honestly, honestly, honestly didn't expect anyone to keep tabs on this little blog. My folks, and myself, and that's it, really. But the occasional email notes or blog comments, so totally unexpected, were just such a treat of this trip. That really, really made me smile.

Hmmm, that didn't come out as vitriolic* and impassioned as I was hoping, but you'll have to forgive me -- last time I slept was thirty-some hours ago in northern Africa -- but here's the point: thanks.

* - hmm, turns out that word does not mean what I thought it meant.

Thanks for keeping in touch, for checking in and following along and saying hello and all that good stuff. It was just so unexpected, and you all made my day time and time again.

So thanks for that.

Now I think I'm gonna snuggle up in my big fat comfy bed, under some big fat comfy blankets, in my clean air-conditioned room, and dream of more big adventures. Good night everybody, and sweet dreams.

goodbye ghana, hello morocco

2008-08-04T03:06:00.000-07:00

Damn you computers!

So the blog was doing well until Ghana, where computers just took too darn long. And I thought surely, SURELY in Morocco these machines would be lickety-split and we'd be back on track. And they ARE lickety-split, but they won't load my photos! Quelle domage! (But at least I can check on the Cubs now.)

The highlights of the last few days in Ghana?

1 - Sam and Carl coach rugby at a local school; let's join! 3 tro-tros later, we get off at Pig Farm (no joke), and... man I wish I had photos. It's tough to explain how excited Ghanaian kids get at seeing abruni. They just stampede right at you. Teachers came around with switches to keep the kids off me, and I still ended up with a trickle of blood running down my cheek from a zealous boy who needs to clip his nails. I bought some oranges and juggled for the group (I think Sophie got some photos of that), and threw the oranges one by one into the crowd afterwards. Sam was just staring at me in disbelief, like "what made you think that was a good idea?!" You'd think these oranges were winning lottery tickets. Little girls were being trampled underfoot; it was like a soccer riot. It was positively surreal.

2 - Colin Powell, the geography whiz from whom I bought some masks and stuff, stopped by Crystal Hostel and had a few beers with us. That's very Ghanaian. People are just instafriends. It's wonderful.

3 - Headed down to Labadi beach in Accra for Reggae night. Bonfires, live Ghanaian music and dancers (how good are African dancers?!) and wading in the dark African surf. It was a blast.

4 - The sink in Labadi beach's bathroom didn't work, so a worker was there ladling water from a bucket for you to wash your hands. The worker told me the bathroom was 50 cents -- it's common for public bathrooms to cost money; in Egypt some had admission tickets, like it was a train -- and I only had a $1 note. He said thank you, and I said no, I need change. So okay, let's go to the bar and get change. I start walking and he half-follows, then slinks back. This is very not Ghanaian. I say, aloud, "Hey, you owe me change." Suddenly one of the other workers gets angry with him, "If you owe him money, give him his money!" and a middle-aged woman starts hitting him over the head with a stick, furiously reprimanding, "Kofi, you know that bathroom is free! Give him his money back! It is not right to cheat people! Give him his money!" Wow.

5 - Folks told me a cab to the airport should cost about $7. In most poor countries, a cabbie would see that I'm white and going to the airport, and demand $20 and it'd be a 5-minute ordeal. In Ghana:

"To the airport, how much?"
"$6."

Honesty makes me so happy. I gave him seven. At the airport, my $2.50 snack became $2 when there was no correct change. Thanks Ghana. You get an A-.

Why the minus? Ghana's bugs are pretty unbelievable. The flies are irridescent yellow and green and blue. They're the most gorgeous flies I've ever seen. I took pictures of them. But wait, that's a plus, not a minus! No, the minus comes from the the deet-resistant biowarfare mosquitocopters. The bites are enormous; I looked like a smallpox victim. Even with anti-malarials, one person at the hostel got malaria. And the poor sap who didn't bother with anti-malaria medication? She made it about 3 days before the inevitable.

Despite that somewhat serious health hazard, I'd go back in a heartbeat. Never did I think I'd see such an amazing marriage of poverty and happiness. It's absolutely inspiring.

On to Morocco.

After a red-eye to Morocco, I found a hotel and spent the day in Casablanca. The weather in Ghana, Egypt, Dubai... actually, this whole trip!, well, comparatively, the breezy 82-degree Moroccan air was absolute heaven. But street-side cafes and friendly locals just weren't able to compensate for Casablanca's concrete aesthetic, so I took a very 1st-world train to Fez, which is where I am right now. I damn near cried when the train doors opened and I was blasted with 104-degree air -- why can't I escape this extreme heat?! -- but the old medina in Fez is AH-MAZE-ING. It's lauded as the largest car-free area in any city in the world. Why no cars? They simply don't fit. The old medina is 1200 years old, with cobbled streets and markets and the tiniest alleyways all winding tortuously around like exploring ants. It's gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. And while Hotel Cascades was sorta full, you can sleep on a mat on the roof terrace for 50 dirham ($7) a night, which is just too cool for words (though I'm not a fan of the "ALLAH AKBAAAAAAAAAAAR MUHAMMAD RESULU ALLAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" calls to prayer ringing out in the worst hours of the night). Last night I used a small melon as a pillow. I figure I'll spend the rest of my trip right here.

And they have vegetarian food!!! Oh how I miss you, rare variety!

Today is the 4th. Assuming my flight issue gets worked out (shifting flights have shortened my NYC layover from 3 hours to negative 1 hour), I get home on the 8th. Oh America, with your hot showers and potable tap water and sit-down toilets and bearable heat, how I miss you so! But I love love LOVE traveling, and I don't want this to end. I know I won't be home 3 days before I wish I were exploring again.

But wait, right now, I'm in the ancient walled medina of Fez, with alleyways pulsing with culture and history and a million lives, and I'm sitting here at a computer?! No no no, this is all wrong.

I gotta go explore.

shhh, on our left is the elusive African Internet. approach slowly.

2008-07-28T01:17:00.000-07:00

I found an internet!

This is the third internet cafe I've found in the last 4 days, but it's the first one that, you know, was connected to the internet.

Let's just jump into it: I really like Ghana. On the one hand, there's not a ton to do, but on the left hand, doing nothing has never been so fun! The main activities are crossing the street, catching a tro-tro, trying to find a market, hunting for a chop bar that has egg sandwiches. Life is so public here, it's a blast. Every morning the curtains open and smiling characters come flooding from stage left and right and center. Kids play with hoops and women carry baskets of fabric on their heads and men weave between tro-tros as the tro-tro mates give their bizarre, nasally calls. (Want to go to circle? Listen for the mate yelling "sec sec sec sec sec." Darkuman? "daku daku daku juuuuunc, daku juuuuunc.") You just walk outside and become part of the production. Every street's a theater.

Of course, a LOT of places I've been have had that "every street a theater" vibe -- poor places with high populations, like Egypt and India and Cambodia -- so why is Ghana holding a special place in my heart? It's the PEOPLE!!

It's a miracle of statistics. The small but omnipresent minority of hustlers and hasslers and cheats in any given country, they can really ruin it for the traveler. (And they probably irk their honest compatriots more than anyone.) In Ghana, though, I have YET TO MEET A GONIFF! It's truly a miracle of statistics. I've not ONCE been asked an ignorant-foreigner amount for a cab fare or a tchotchke souvenir or a chop bar meal! I've not ONCE had a hard sell or an overly-pushy come-to-my-shop! NOT A SINGLE ATTEMPTED COMMISSION at my expense! It's heaven. Ghanaians just have a culture of being wonderful, wonderful people.

How to pass as a Ghanaian:

1 - SMILE.
2 - Greet everyone (salutations are important here).
3 - Laugh at every sentence like it's a really funny joke (this one can be confusing at times).
4 - Confuse foreigners by not distinguishing between pre- and post-redenomination currency: does "twenty" mean 20,000 old cedis, which is TWO new cedis, or is it 20 new cedis?
5 - If an abruni looks remotely lost, drop everything to help them. (In the absence of a gender-neutral third person singular, I'm using the plural. Deal with it, Mom, Lois, and all you other grammar pedants.)
5 - When someone asks directions, never point. Walk them to the destination, no matter how far. One guy walked me over half a mile to a restaurant. One woman walked me over the footbridge and down a block to find the right tro-tro, the whole time casually balancing a basket of water packets on her head. (Thirsty? A would-be-rude-in-America hiss gets a water-toting woman speed-walking, basket on her head, straight for the open tro-tro window. You give her 5 cents, she reaches up and plucks a 500mL sachet of water from her head. You have to bite it open, and about 50mL spills all over your pants.)
6 - Call all white people "abruni." This literally means "white person" in Tchwee. It has no positive or negative connotation; it's just as if they're all named "abruni."
7 - Wear LOTS of colors. African skin looks good with lots of colors on it. Wrap yourself up in a Ghanaian flag (green, red, yellow) and you look like a million bucks.
8 - Be ready to dance at the drop of a beat.
9 - Be totally unable to guess distances. It's like a national disability.
"Hello sister (suppose she's about my age)."
"Hello abruni, how are you?"
"I am well. Do you know which way to Kumasi station?"
"Straight down this road."
"Thanks; do you know how far?"
"You can walk or take a taxi."
"Is it 1 kilometer?"
"Like that."
"5 kilometers?"
"Yes."
"10 kilometers?"
"Maybe."
It's a phenomenon every single abruni I've chatted with has found. It's bewildering.
10 - Love your country as much as the Thai love their king. That's a LOT of love.

I know there were two number 5's.

The vibe of friendliness totally extinguishes hesitancy. Walk around alone at night? No problem. Once Sophie and I got lost... well actually that's a little story.

Sophie, a volunteer from Milwaukee, and I wanted to find some shirts and pants and stuff, so we catch a tro-tro to Keneshie Market ("kah-nesh kah-nesh kah-nesh!"). If you're looking for cooked fish, live crabs, huge crawling snails (yum!), the biggest mangoes you've ever seen, bizarrely half-peeled oranges, or FanIce, this is the market for you. But for the life of us we can't find clothes. So, filled with FanIce and mangoes, we decide to head to Circle, which we know has a clothes market. We start making the Circle motion (places have both calls AND hand motions, your choice), and a tro-tro mate pulls Sophie into his van. I barely make it. After maybe 20 minutes, the mate asks us where we want off (to get correct fare, in the 20-40 cent range). Circle, we say. Not in this tro-tro we're not. Well, apparently we got on the wrong tro-tro, so we get off and we're very lost. Sophie searches for a cab while I make the circle hand signal and keep tro-tro watch. A random dude in a car sees my hand signal and waves me in. Sophie, let's go. So this good Samaritan, lord knows where he was planning to go, says he knows a place to get clothes. Awesome! 15 minutes later, and we're there. Thank you nice driver man! You're very welcome, enjoy Ghana! Sophie and I are dumbfounded to see that we're literally across the street from the Keneshie food market. We're still munching on the last pieces of mango we bought from the lady not 20 feet away. And that's how you cross the street in Ghana.

Now Sophie, Carl, and Sam all volunteer at schools. I wanna tag along, just 'cause why not. Carl and Sam, how far's your school? 20 minutes by tro-tro. Sophie, your school? 5 minute's walk*. So I went to school with Sophie.

* - is that possessive or plural? I think I'd say "one minute'S walk away," so it's possessive. That's it, I'm going back and adding an apostrophe.

Sophie could've maybe prepared me a little better than "this way to school." I get there, and am MOBBED by screaming 3-6 year-olds. I mean MOBBED! I am just manhandled. One poor tyke is balling his eyes out, just too terrified for words. Sophie then remembers, "oh yeah, you're probably the second or third white person a lot of them have seen. It took about a week for them to get used to me." They pet my hair, stroke my chin. They think my farmer's tan is up there with Legos and Playdoh for fun stuff, they trace the blue-ish veins on my arm. They're all talking in unison, trying to introduce themselves or name body parts or tell me their ages. Everybody wants to hold my hand, so each grab a few fingers. The best part was when they started dancing around me and chanting "pink and white! pink and white!" It was weird. Sophie got some photos of it.

School itself was a little what you'd expect, except there were more songs and praising Jesus, and the teacher would bust out her drum and they'd dance to the songs. They did some math. The 2-4 year-olds would come over to the 5-6 year-old side of the classroom to sneak a white-man arm-touch. They'd walk up to you in that clompy haven't-totally-figured-out-walking way, and they're just staring in a way only fascinated little kids can, and they'd touch your arm and then quickly retreat. They were adorable.

Kindergarten and 1st grade graduation photos were scheduled for the day I was there, so this guy comes with a camera from like 1975, and I got to pose as the guy handing out diplomas for some of the shots. So in India, on some family's wall, there's a photo of their trip to the Taj Mahal, or the Kailasa Temple or Srinigar, of the family and me. And soon, in a village on the outskirts of Accra, near Darkuman in Ghana, there'll be some kid's graduation photo, with him or her looking as cute as ever, and I'm handing out the "diploma." I like that idea.

Wanted to take some photos of the school, so I pulled out my camera. Woah.

I don't quite get it, because it's not like we were in some tribal village. Accra is the capital of Ghana, with 2 million people, and there are computers and cell phones and cameras and abruni, and we're not all that far from Accra proper. But an abruni, with a digital camera, with an LCD screen? It was like a ghostman with a magic box. The kids just flipped. I have some great videos of me sitting down, and kids just swarming and yelling "and me! and me! and me!" and half the video is just of hands and fingers on the camera, and I'm trying to spin it around because everyone wants to see the LCD screen, so they're all kinda racing out of the frame to get behind the camera. It was a lot of fun.

When I finally said goodbye to the kids, when school was over, they mass-hugged me. I'll be back. They were so cute.

While walking back through the village, a group of seamstresses wanted to say hello. I walked over and they all just started dancing. Can't explain it.

This is getting to be a bit long-winded, and for that I'm sorry. I'm a little excited to find working internet, and slow as it might be, for 60 cents an hour, I can afford the luxury.

In brief, I went from Accra to Cape Coast, where I got to see a pair of fortresses used to store and transport slaves during the Triangular Trade days (fascinating, but a bit too uncomfortable and depressing to "enjoy," so I didn't stay too long). The trip to Kakum National Park was pretty decent, with a crazy Ewok-style canopy walk compensating for the lack of exploration-inviting trails. The little park entrance slash mini-museum was really informative and well done. I appreciate that.

The park entrance was 2 cedi (almost exactly one-to-one with the US dollar), and I only had a ten. For some reason, in lots of countries, the ATMs dole out inconveniently large bills. Egypt was the worst: it's 100 pound notes (~$20) were accepted almost nowhere. It's like walking around the States with 500-notes; you're technically rich but you can't buy anything! Anyway, the guy didn't have change for a ten, so he just said I could pick up the change on my way out. Now, I wouldn't trust that anywhere else in the world, but in Ghana? Lo and behold, he had 8 cedis in a rubber band waiting for me on return. Honesty is just part of their culture. It's wonderful.

Now I'm writing from Kumasi, where I came on a bit of a lark. I have no idea what I'm doing here: just kinda exploring and meeting Ghanaians, which seems to be the thing to do. Tomorrow I'll pro'lly head back to Accra, go back to school, say hi to Colin Powell, and have some good times around Crystal Hostel's green table again. That sounds perfect. (Not as perfect as a hot shower, a clean bed, and a banana milkshake, but I bet I'm not home two weeks before I start wishing I were traveling again. The table's always greener...)

Sorry, by the way, that I have yet to find an open, working post office in Ghana. I admit I haven't really been looking, but, yeah, sorry. Tuzin Yowis, I actually have a postcard to you that still has an Egyptian stamp on it. Okay, that's it. Today I'm finding a post office. I have a mission.

Prediction: lots of folks stop to help me, a few kids yell "hello abruni!" from across the street, I end up getting a FanIce, everyone's happy to give directions, nobody knows how far. Chances of actually mailing stuff: 60%.

Goodbye, rare internet! Goodbye, small connection to home. I don't know when we'll meet again.

As a sort of post script:

I'm happy to see internet here, but I'm only half-joking. The net goes down all the time. It's really a luxury. You know that 3 days ago, Accra ran out of water? Yeah, all of Accra, 2 million people and the capital of Ghana!, it just ran out of water for about 12 hours. And I'm not talking hot- and cold-running purified potable 1st-world water. I mean just plain water.

I know America isn't perfect -- I really do -- but I really think it does a LOT of things right. And without hesitation, the more you travel, the more things, small and large, you appreciate about your home. This is so cheesy, but I just have to announce it: I really, really, really love America. It's my very favorite-ist country in the whole wide world.

welcome to ghana

2008-07-23T03:43:00.000-07:00

Right now I'm in an internet cafe, resolved to write at least some kind of entry, but being pretty distracted by the sing-along English version of Jacques Brel's Le Moribond. It's a morbid choice for a kid's sing-along. (Actually, to think of it, lots of kid's rhymes are eery: Rock a Bye Baby is straight scary.) But in Ghana, lots of choices make you double-take.

The shop names make every walk down the street a little comedy. Most are poorly-infused religious themes, like "Clap for Jesus Butik" [beautique] and "God Loves Calling Center," and a handful are just, just... I don't know. At the corner by my hostel is White Cock Catering. I'm writing from G-Spot Internet Cafe. Seriously. I don't think it's supposed to be sexual, but, I just don't know.

G-Spot is the only internet cafe around, and it's slow like turtles. Photos are totally out of the question. But, yikes!, to think of it, in 3 days here I've taken zero pictures! I gotta get my camera out!

So... what.

I left off heading to Luxor. I'm going to be brief.

My aircon room at El Gezira hotel ran me $12 a night. I was the hotel's only guest. Most folks visit Luxor on package Nile cruises, and I have a few nice photos of a site parking lot, with ~80 tour buses and a lone bicycle. It was dry, but 108 degrees is hot no matter how you slice it. Folks wave at you as you bike past: they don't see a lot of that in July.

Luxor is the heart of what most people associate with Ancient Egypt: it is the site of Thebes, an important city during the Middle Kingdom and Egypt's capital during the New Kingdom's 18th Dynasty (1400-ish BC), and remained paramount during the entire New Kingdom. The New Kingdom (18th-20th dynasties) is the quintessential Ramses, Nefertiti, King Tut time.

To note, I've been trying to load Wikipedia's Luxor page for the past 9 minutes. It's still not even close.

Anyway, Luxor is a who's-who of Egypt sites, with Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, the Ramesseum, Hatshupset's Temple, Tombs of the Nobles, the Colossi of Memnon, and all sorts of smaller and less-restored temples and tombs and structures. But, like I think I wrote before, it was just too much a production. Sound and light shows?! This is too tacky for words! Huge parking lots, tour buses rolling up like a rock concert, lines and flash photos and concession stands. I just couldn't get into Ancient Egypt mode. If I biked out early morning, the first site of the day would be wonderful, but around 10AM the tour buses would rumble on the road in the distance, and the day's magic fooosh, out like a match stomped underfoot.

I wish I could put up photos. Sorry. The Luxor page still hasn't loaded.

Without photos, let's move on to Ghana.

The Ghana visa issue was a bit of an experience. I was escorted to Room 2 on arrival, where I sit across from a uniformed sergeant at a big wooden desk in a poorly-lit carpet-free office with a dusty fan. The sergeant's assistant has his own, smaller desk, mashed up against the sergeant's. This room was clearly made for one, and it's a little, uh, cozy. Getting grilled by a guy that, to me, looks and dresses like an African general making a speech on BBC News (I'm seriously Africa ignorant), well, it would be a million times more intimidating if he hadn't already taken my hundred dollar visa fee. As soon as the other party has a load of your money in their pocket, that transaction is closing.

At the airport, there's a guy holding up a sheet of paper that says "Jacob Cooper." What a fantastic feeling! You know my dad's a regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune's "I Love / I Hate" column (he's kinda a big deal), and that was an I Love of his that made it to press. Oooh, and the last time he got an I Love in the Trib, it was particular terrific! I'd put a link here, but the Luxor page still isn't up; I'm not opening a new window. If you want, Google: Chicago Tribune I Love I Hate. My dad's pretty great.

The driver took me to Crystal Hostel, where I'm staying with a gaggle of international volunteers. It's a great vibe, and they're some really cool kids. Taught me how to catch a tro-tro (the decrepit vans that act as share-taxis slash buses), where to buy water, how much things should cost. One is a vegetarian, but her "you're going to have to eat a lot of plain white rice" wasn't too encouraging. 3 days in, and I'd kill for some deep dish pizza. 3 weeks to home!

Uncle, the hostel owner (every male older than you is "Uncle") has a voice like a BBC narrator for a nature documentary. I've never had such voice envy. Every time he says "good morning!" in his rumbling deep, smiling, African-accented timbre, I see gazelles nervously approaching a watering hole while a huge, hidden crocodile waits in the shallows. It's unbelievable. "How are you this morning, Jake?" I'm the best I've ever been, Uncle!

Ghanaians are friendly. There's so little hassle. Little kids will point to you and yell "Abruni! Abruni!" (white person), but it's just so giggly and friendly. Ghanaians have the biggest smiles.

Dara and Sam and I went out to the market, and sure, there's a lot of "come look in my shop," but it's not a hard sell. It's fine. One guy has a really wonderful looking shop. "Hello!" he says, with the biggest smile. We need to learn how to smile like Ghanaians. Where are you from? "Chicago, the Windy City! Chicago is in Illinois," he tells me, "but it's not the capital! The capital of Illinois is Springfield!" I wish we had punctuation for how Ghanaians speak when they're smiling. An exclamation point works. I'm impressed, how do you know about Illinois? He just loves geography, so I quiz him. "Alaska is the Frontier State, and it's capital is Juneau! Did you know, you cannot drive into Juneau? You must fly or take a ferry!" He knew EVERYTHING! And he had a pair of statues that I LOVE, and I'm going to buy them later. When I mention that I like the statues, he tells me all about them and, in a light-hearted, totally friendly manner, tells me he'll give me the Peoria price. What?! He laughs at my surprise: he knows Chicago is expensive, but he'll give me the Aurora price. This dude has his geography DOWN. Even if it were just a stellar sales technique, it works! And I don't think it is: he knew the capital of Mongolia, and I doubt that's a lucrative piece of knowledge here. But anyway, the statues are just too wonderful, and I'm very much not a shopper, but if you see something that you can afford (his starting price was $60 for the pair), and it's interesting and you like it immediately... all things should be such obvious buys.

In 4 days here I've done very little. I walk down the street and buy FanIce (ice cream in a packet, 30 cents) and... geez, what do I do? Yesterday we got out buckets and soap and did our laundry, and I'm telling you, I've never had such a good time doing laundry. We just do nothing and it's a blast.

You know where Ghanaians carry things? No backpacks, no handbags: all balanced on their heads. Wrap a towel into a ring, put it on your head like a peasant tiara, and put whatever perched atop. They just walk down the street like that. I'm self-conscious of how this comment sounds, but: it's just so, so African! I love it.

So I'm sorry I can't get any photos up (I need to take some!), and I know this isn't too fleshed-out, but I'm safe, I'm in Ghana, and I love this place. I already want to come back.

But that deep dish is calling...

update issues

2008-07-21T14:06:00.000-07:00

I'm just writing the world's shortest entry to note that I've been having some issues with loading this blog on these not-exactly-2008 computers, so hopefully I'll get an update soon (if not photos, at least something more than this).

Long story short is that Luxor had some top-notch Ancient Egypt sites, but they were such a production it was a bit anticlimactic; like how a Clapton concert is too much about the show and not enough about the music. The Siwan tombs were, somehow, better. For the 3 days I was there, Luxor's highs were 108, 108, and 109.

I'm writing from Ghana, where I had to drop a HUNDRED DOLLARS on an "emergency" visa on arrival. But I'm here, and so far (24 hours in), Ghana is awesome.

I'm gonna post this before Mr. Computer goes kaboom again.

the hashemite kingdom of jordan

2008-07-15T00:20:00.000-07:00

You know that's the official name of Jordan? That's what it says under the ubiquitous photos of the king: "His Majesty King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan." That's an awesome title.

(Of course, Bhutan's ruler still wins, hands down.)

But wait wait, I was still diving in Dahab last update. Diving is as addictive and more expensive than drugs, so one last goodbye to the loverly aluminum cyclinders, and let's go.

As soon as you turn around from the blue blue Red Sea waters, you're looking at Sinai's barren red red mountains. They look great. I wanna go see 'em closer up.

That's the view at sunrise from the top of Mt. Sinai. I waited and waited and waited for hours, but no commandment tablets from up high, so Reginald (another disappointedly un-chosen climber) and I made up our own. Free pizza Sundays, no pants Fridays... we hope they catch on.

Actually, if God had to make up a single commandment for everyone who climbed Mt. Sinai, He'd never have time to eat!

Here's a high-school-art-class photo I took.

Alright, I'm doing well on time, let's see Petra. I've heard good things.

--- LEAVING EGYPT (EXODUS?) ---

The problem is that Petra is in Jordan, and while I thought Egypt bordered Jordan, it turns out Israel slices down to the port of Eilat. I did not realize that.

So, to save precious real estate in my passport, I opted for the somewhat expensive (Nuweiba, Egypt) -> (Aqaba, Jordan) ferry. It was a disaster.

After being lied to in Dahab about how the ferry's not running today (the guy wanted me to stay another day at his hotel), by the time I figure out the truth (the ferry doesn't run tomorrow), I've missed the bus. So $30 taxi to the Nuweiba dock, and get there in plenty of time for the 2pm ferry. But where's the ticket guy? Out to pray, back around 2pm. But that's when the ferry is! "Don't worry," I'm reassured. I've heard that a lot on this trip. It's as much an alarm as "good price."

Serendipitously ran into Mini, whom I befriended in Siwa, so the time passes fast enough, but by 6pm she and the Japanese couple we met were taking naps. No word on the ferry. Nobody seems concerned or aggravated. Now in India, I expect this, but Egypt so far has been pretty decent.

Around 9pm, I'm getting hungry. The ferry isn't even in the dock yet (if there even is a ferry), so screw it, I'm leaving this sweaty-hot concrete-box port and getting some food. Here's where things get really sour. The soldiers won't let me leave the port, as officially I've exited Egypt. If I want to get food, I need a re-entry stamp. But it's past 3pm, and the immigration folks have all left. We get in an argument, which ends with an armed guard escorting a fuming me back to the port, hungry and stuck.

Beyond this gate is Egypt, where I'm not allowed.

By about 10pm, folks are getting aggravated, little bubbles beneath the surface, and 4 soldier/guards come over to play sheepdog. People start getting angry and shouting, and the soldiers are barking and make us all sit down crowded together outside. The very few women in the group, Mini and Japanese friends included, are taken on a bus somewhere. (I learned later they were taken to the ferry, which was somehow already pretty full, and left without the men). This whole scene, hundreds of hungry, tired, half-angry half-despondent people sitting cramped together as armed guards seperate the women and put them on buses, while the men wait huddled on dark concrete ground at night lit by a half dozen flood lights, it really makes you think of prison, or war, or something. There were maybe 300 of us cramped together, and I was really hungry and trapped and the whole scene was awful and surreal and I kinda snapped, and stood up and started yelling at the nearest guard.

This group of Egyptians, about my age, try to calm me down, and one of them speaks excellent English. He calmly talks to the guard I was yelling at, and then takes me aside. He tells me that (1) don't worry, he's going to take care of me, (2) the ferry has already left for Jordan, but will be returning for us, though the trip is 2 hours each way, so we have to wait 4-5 hours, and (3) I have to calm down or I'm going to be arrested.

This guy (his name is Mohammed, of course), became my guardian angel. He got me an apple. He found a curb that was more comfortable to sit on. When the ferry finally came, at 3am, everyone's pushing and shoving to get on, because not everyone is going to fit, and I'm one of the people who does NOT get on. Then, I swear to you, just like a guardian angel in a cheesy made-for-TV movie, Mohammed walks from the ferry (he's already on, somehow) directly to me, takes me by the hand, and I don't know what he's saying to these officials, but he's like the Great Gatsby meets the Artful Dodger. I follow him past everyone, through doors, past guards, and up stairs to the ferry's VIP lounge, where he takes my passport and when I wake up, still in my plush VIP seat, I have a Jordanian visa. I don't know what I would have done without Mohammed. I just don't even know.

I arrive in Jordan at 7am, after one of the worst nights of my trip.

You know what's a really viscerally uplifting sight? The rising sun. Seriously, night's over, and something about seeing the sun come up, it just lifts you.

As some sort of cosmic compensation, from 7am on, everything goes as well as it possibly could. There's a taxi driver who takes me the 2.5 hours to Petra for 15 Jordanian dinars, which is like $22, and is about a third the price everyone else was asking. He said he's going to Petra anyway to pick a group up. He got me tea and grapes just to be nice. Met some wonderful folks at the hotel (Cliopetra Hotel, hahaha!), and the avuncular hotel owner gave me a pair of apples and tea, and drove us himself to the entrance of Petra, no charge. I'm groggy and slow and have probably looked fresher, but I'm here. Let's see Petra.

--- PETRA ---

Petra is AWESOME.

This is just the entrance!

Lookit that entrance! And it's not like 50 feet long, or even a football field. No man, the Siq -- that crazy tall canyon thing -- is half a mile long! It just goes forever! And it's really huge. If you zoom on that photo, for scale, there's a tyke running there. He was running for his life. That little man was running with the terror of God in his heart. I half expected a dinosaur to come thundering through in a minute, or a ghost or a cold wind or something.

I kept thinking, even if you took away the great company I had (Pedro, Raquel, Garreth, and Malena were really ideal, fun travel mates), and even if you took away all the carvings, tombs, theatres -- the entire city of Petra: diyanu!

The geological beauty of the area rivals the Southwestern US. It's incredible. I didn't want the Siq to end, but wait, what's that I see peeking through?

There it is, the most famous site in Petra: the Treasury. Welcome.

What is this place, anyway?

According to the visitor's center booklet, "most people, when asked, will tell you that Petra is an ancient city carved into solid rock by the Nabataeans, whose capital it became." Ummm, you way overestimate how much "most people" know about Petra.

In short, the Nabataeans were the semi-nomadic Arabs who ruled the region's trade routes from roughly 500BC to 100AD. Petra was their capital, and since they were nomadic, it's about the only structure they left for posterity. Just about everything in Petra is a tomb. For years, archeaologists thought Petra was just a huge necropolis. The Romans took over the Nabataean empire around 100AD, and they kept using and "updating" and repaving the city for a few hundred years. I'm not sure when it was finally abandoned. The ancient city was lost to the West until the crew of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade stumbled upon the ruins. For this discovery, he's about the only character you'll see more than King Abdullah.

Indiana Jones would give you two false impressions of Petra, though.

First of all, the decadence and grandeur of the facades belie what lies inside. That enormous Treasury? Walk in, and this is the entirety of it:

But man, lookit that stone! Here's another tomb. Eat your heart out, Sisteen Chapel!

The other false impression Indy gives is the size of Petra.

Petra is huge! It's not just a couple carvings; it's a CITY. You can go on exploring forever. The booklet proclaims that only 8-10% of Petra has been found. (I assume they mean "excavated," as I have no idea how you'd quantify what you haven't yet found.) This main road goes on and on and on, with structures everywhere.

Near the entrance, especially in front of the Treasury, there are a million tourists. Good place for photos of people taking photos.

But you can explore your way to solitude if you like. And we liked.

Go up some ancient steps. (Ahh! I don't know why the computer rotated this photo a quarter turn clockwise; now it looks so Escher-esque and confusing.)

Vistas of sections of Petra.

Oooh, it's just like the Treasury, but a long hike means fewer tourists!

We went way off the beaten path, and found the world's most beautiful (and kinda dangerous) cliff vista, where we took lunch.

I'm tired, too, donkey!

But I could look at this rock forever! Is that the most beautiful natural rock you've ever seen, or is that the most beautiful natural rock you've ever seen?

We ended up exploring Petra for 16 hours over two days. It's like a national park in America's southwest, with an ancient capital carved in to boot. I liked that place. But my plane's in Luxor, and while Egypt left a very sour taste in my mouth that last day, I'm still excited to head back.

--- BACK TO EGYPT ---

Even though two other folks at the hostel used the ferry with no problems, I didn't want to support them. And Pedro and Raquel were going to Egypt overland anyway, so let's all go together through Israel, precious passport real estate notwithstanding.

A potent portent of times to come. There was this comedy of errors as Pedro, Raquel and I were bounced around in those no-man's-lands. But they were good company, and the emergency cabs to embassies and ATMs were split three ways. But I lost a day to this fiasco, and my poor passport: I exited Jordan, entered Egypt with two visas (one was subsequently canceled), and entered and exited Israel twice on the same day! What do you do if you run out of pages?

Once in Egypt, the shared minivan to Cairo gets held up at the very first checkpoint. Lots of forms, collect passports, etc. What's the problem? You have an American on board; you need a military escort. Apparently, I, personally, need an armed escort. Why? The guy writes down, on a sheet of paper: "you important." Good answer.

So after maybe 40 minutes, a suit with two guns and a radio gets in the front seat, CIA-style. He's coming with us to Cairo. His name is Mohammed.

The minivan was 6 Danish missionaries (Christian), a Palestinian peace activist slash preacher (Christian), Mohammed the CIA escort guy (take a guess), and Me the important American (secular Jew).

Warning about this next sentence: it involves a traffic accident. I don't want to be graphic, but we passed a horrific crash and there were several bodies still on the road. It was... I don't know how to describe it. Horrible. Everybody in the minivan except me starts praying, and the van is silent for a few minutes. Mohammed the CIA guy says something to the Palestinian, who speaks both Arabic and English, and the Palestinian turns to me, translating: "Mohammed wants to know why you didn't pray." Here goes.

"I'm an atheist."

I swear, I said it as politically as possible. It was purely informative, like "I'm eating this clown cone because I like ice cream, thank you for asking."

Translation pause.

"Mohammed says even a blind man can see God. He says your life is very, um... dark and empty."

What I should've said here is nothing, but instead we played escalatio for a bit until Mohammed called me a godless infidel and I called him a hypocrite with a belt of guns, and then this poor multilingual peace activist refused to translate further.

A few hours later, Mohammed and I apologized and we shared some snacks. The peace activist slash translator was mighty proud. And the endless stretching road-to-the-horizon background made it a very cheesy moment.

And now I'm in Cairo, wasting a day online (I don't like cities) before catching an overnight bus to Luxor.

It's July 15th already! Man, I'll be home in a blink (so excited, but that was fast!), and more important, it's Mommy's birthday in two days! She's turning 44 ;)

I'll try to call from Luxor, but in case I can't:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

under da sea

2008-07-07T12:14:00.000-07:00

I'm in Dahab, on the Sinai coast. Beachfront dinners are awesome, and isn't that the best-looking plate of grilled vegetables? It, with appetizer and dessert, was $10.

But let's get to business. Dahab is a diving spot. I'm a diver.

Is there any hobby as expensive as diving? Faberge egg collecting?

But the Red Sea is a diving mecca, and I am, er, was well under budget. So in the past week I've logged over 20 hours underwater... and spent well over a thousand dollars. Yikes. But,

I

LOVE

DIVING!!!!

Let's start with a live-aboard. This is an eat-sleep-dive kinda adventure, where you spend X number of days on a boat with a bunch of other dive-nuts (X = 3 in this case), and you dive before breakfast, after breakfast, after lunch, and a night dive after sunset and before dinner. It's intense. It's awesome.

First, head to diver central and find your boat.

Check-ins, all sorts of formalities, let's get to our first dive site already. Ooh, what an inviting shade of blue!

(Or sometimes an eery thick black, just after sunset, and then out with the flashlights and glowsticks for the always kinda creepy night dive. That's scary water:)

Pre-dive briefing.

Suit up.

An unflattering shot of your humble narrator, in decidedly heavy and awkward attire for land.

The last thing you see before splashdown. Hello fishies!!

Like everyone, when I was little I wanted to be an astronaut. But at some point I learned astronauts are glorified engineers, and while I'm hardly knocking it, it's not really what I meant. I wanted H.G. Wells-style planet discovery! I wanted to explore alien worlds, see life suited to different physics, different constraints and limitations, different wonders! I wanted to be an aquanaut!

Here's just a teeny, tiny sampling of the inhabitants of a totally different planet that share Earth with us.

Stonefish (must've been two dozen I passed for every one I spotted: it's even hard to find in the photo below! And they're kinda scary: can-be-fatal-ly poisonous dorsal spines and they don't move out of the way, so you can touch them).

Regal angels.

Blue-spotted boxfish (hahaha, you're so cute!).

Lionfish (pretty poisonous, but slow as rocks, and there was probably one for every one I saw; they're tough to miss).

The brilliantly-named Pajama nudie.

Garden eels (lawns of 'em).

Sea moths (cute little guys, very rarely seen).

Titan triggers (huge and territorial - appreciate from a distance).

Blue-spotted rays.

Lettuce corals (they look JUST like lettuce!).

I could go on and on and on. And, AND, they have the coolest behaviors. Schools of tiny anthias hang around a brambly coral head, and if you go near, they all disappear into the tiniest coral nooks and crannies. Hundreds of juvenile triggers hang in a puff like drops of vapor in a cloud. Sergeant majors display their fins as irridescent cleaner-wrasse give them a run-down. The tiniest little damselfish bonk into your mask, defending their territory from any intruder, regardless of size. Huge Napoleon fish lazily cruise by and curiously keep an eye on you. All this while you're 80 feet below the surface, flying weightless over the most magnificent palette of corals. There's nothing like being under water.

The Red Sea is home to a wild variety of biota, but it's also filled with shipwrecks. Every other page on the Sinai Red Sea dive guide booklet looked like this:

Most wrecks aren't actually that neat to see: the ship's wood has long deteriorated and the cargo of lentils or cotton or whatever is no longer there. Usually, though, the wreck is a bonus. These ships sunk because they struck the reef, so you dive the reef, and hey, whaddya know, there's a ship down here. Sometimes they're extra neat: the Yolanda itself has rolled into deep water, but its cargo still sits conspiciously among the corals.

But the shipwreck that deserves very special mention -- it was the main feature/destination of the liveaboard, and is consistently rated in the world's top 10 dive sites -- is the wreck of the Thistlegorm.

The Thistlegorm left England in 1941 with a cargo of military supplies bound for Egypt. The Mediterranean was controlled by Germany, so the vessel went all the way around Africa and up the Red Sea. While waiting for the go-ahead to enter the Suez Canal, the Thistlegorm was targetted by German planes, who unloaded their excess munitions on the ship while returning from a mission. On October 5th, 1941, a direct hit on hold four sunk the 419 foot Thistlegorm. Jacques Cousteau discovered the wreck in the fifties, but kept the location secret. In the 1990's, it was rediscovered, and has since become one of the world's most famous dive sites.

The Thistlegorm isn't the easiest dive -- you're penetrating an enormous wreck 80-feet deep, and the resident stonefish make me a little nervous -- but woah! It's like swimming around a WWII museum. Anti-aircraft guns, motorcycles with sidecars (how WWII are sidecars!), machine guns, tanks (yes, two entire tanks!), trucks, boots, airplane wings, and a million other military odds and ends, all coral-encrusted and guarded by schools of silent squirrelfish and patroling sergeant majors. But it's not just a dive, and it's not just a museum; it's very real. It's quiet, and it commands respect. It's a war memorial. People died.

Anatomy of the wreck:

Anatomy with some photos you can zoom in on:

It's really an amazing piece of history.

The diving was phenomenal. Unfortunately for the above-water part of the trip, the boat was 9 Danes and myself. I don't speak a lick of Danish; that made for some long meals. I spent a lot of time watching the stars (I slept on the deck all three nights), and inspecting the boat for all things interesting. What's wrong with this hours-of-sunlight graph?

The cab back to Dahab winds through some beautiful Sinai interior. At one point I saw a bush that looked just like a camel, but then I realized it was a camel. I don't know why I thought it was a bush.

More diving in Dahab. One trip was to a reef in Ras Abu Gallum, a park so protected, so out of the way, that it's inaccessible by car. But we had an idea...

Load your dive gear onto a camel, and let's play Moses and wander through the Sinai.

Wait, how far? Okay, let's load my dive gear and myself onto the camel.

(These photos are both of me just 'cause I was on the Formula One camel, so if I wanted a photo of the I-can't-believe-this-is-happening caravan, I had to shoot behind me.)

Before we even get to the site, I love this trip! Is that beautiful or is that beautiful?

And you just keep thinking: I can't believe I'm taking a camel to a dive site. I love my life. And that reef? SO PRISTINE! Corals like heaven, blues and greens and yellows and whites! It was like skittles and science class and The Little Mermaid and The Discovery Channel and a box of crayons. It was the best.

But, alas, today's my last day of diving -- it's a very expensive addiction and I need to cut myself off. I'm in Dahab, and the Blue Hole is a very famous... er, infamous site, so I thought I'd go see it. The blue circle is 300 feet deep. Just left in the photo, outside the reef, the ocean bottom is 1000' down.

While not at all intrinsically dangerous, Blue Hole is sometimes known as Diver's Cemetary*. The dive instructor at my place says the Blue Hole's claimed well over 100 lives. It's a morbid scene at the entrance:

-----
* - If you're curious why, basically, it's the temptation of trying The Arch. The Arch is an 80'-long tunnel though the reef, connecting the 300'-deep hole to the open ocean outside the hole. Here's the rub: The Arch is 200-feet deep. If you really want to go into why that depth is dangerous, look up nitrogen narcosis, oxygen toxification, and air consumption at depth -- but for reference, without advanced certifications, divers are allowed to go to 60'. A deep dive is 100', and 120' is very deep. As long as we're going tangential, freedivers (breath-hold diving) replace all the problems of breathing compressed gases by, well, holding their breath. You want to see an amazing video? (The divers filming are tec divers, with several cylinders filled with air, nitrox, trimix, hydreliox, or other exotic gases.) And you can see, as William descends, the ambient pressure compresses his body enough that he becomes negatively bouyant, and he just sinks the second hundred feet down to The Arch. Of course, then he has to swim back up!
-----

I thought about not writing this into the blog, because it's really bothersome, but I'm going to anyway. The dive was fine, but when we surfaced, there was a crowd gathered on the shore just feet from the water's edge, and in the middle, three men were performing CPR on an unresponsive diver. I don't know what happened, but it's really... I don't know, it just makes your stomach churn. They're pumping resolutely and have him hooked up to oxygen and people are ogling and some are crying, and the diver is just totally limp and his big belly's so lifeless, and sometimes water comes out of his mouth when they pump, and it's just awful. I don't know what happened.

So I'm really sorry to end on such an awful note. I'm sorry my dive vacation-within-a-trip ended like that, too. But it's a morbid reminder, perhaps, not to get too complacent underwater. Even if everything, everything goes right, it's still dangerous. And it always makes me a little nervous to see someone get a 2-day certification in Cancun or Ko Samui, and plunge in too headstrong to admit he's underwater and on life support. So I know this sounds really patronizing and campy, but I'm in a kinda blue mood after seeing that today: If you're a diver, please stay within your limits. Be safe.

cairo: population 20,000,000 and me

2008-06-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

This is 3 parts: Cairo, the Egyptian Museum, and pyramids.

--- CAIRO ---

I don't really like big foreign cities. To me, it's like being in Chicago, but I'm lost, I can't read the signs, and I don't know anybody. Guess you could say that about all travel, but I don't know... big cities just aren't my bag. So, yeah. Predictably wasn't exactly in love with Cairo. Two examples of things I don't like:

Taxis here don't use meters (same with India, and SE Asia, for that matter). You just ask a local how much the cab ride should be, flag down a cab, and as you're getting out, give the cabbie that amount. The problem is that Cairenes (that's somehow the term) think foreigners should pay more than Egyptians; just as deeply as we think everyone should pay the same price. Like India, this is institutionalized: sites have vastly different official prices for Egyptians vs. foreigners. I just pay the Egyptian cab fare and let the cabbie get angry. I'm not an ATM.

Lots of folks ask where I'm from, and are very keen on chatting with a real live American. They love my Obama pin; all foreigners seem to love Obama, but the Egyptians especially. A couple have confided that they actually hate Mubarak, but there's not much to do about it. Then always comes the whammy: a subject about which I'm very ambivalent ("ambivalent" does not mean "indifferent," by the way -- sorry, just a pet peeve of mine), but the majority of the Egyptians I've spoken with are neither ambivalent nor indifferent. Here's one conversation at a post office, as best as I can remember:

***
Hahaha, I don't like Mubarak either! Oh you're American -- and now Mohammed get all serious -- what do you think of Israel? Because I mean, America supports Israel, and it's not fair, and Israel takes all the...

Okay, okay, okay, Mohammed, listen (I've gone over this conversation several times by now). You're right: Israel isn't perfect. And you're right: the Palestinians have gotten the short end of the stick...

Yes, Israel steals from Palestinians and all Arabs, but America loves them.

Look, Mohammed, if you're talking about Gaza and the West Bank, I agree with...

Yes Giza and West Bank and Sinai and all of Israel! It is Palestine, and Israel comes...

(Lots of emphatic interrupting, though Mahmoud, who was in the conversation earlier, is quiet and, when he rarely speaks, agrees with me! Hooray!)

Wait, Mohammed. The Israelis did NOT form Israel. That was the UN.

No, Israelis always want land. Before WWOne.

Before WWOne there were no "Israelis."

Jews, yes. Jews before Israel.

Some did, but not all, Mohammed. And they wanted "a land without a people for a people without a land." It was an idea, but...

Yes. They always wanted land.

Mohammed, you know the second world war, yes? Before the war, there were 9 million Jews in Europe...

Oh no no, I do not like Hitler. I do not think that is right.

Nonono, I know nobody likes Hitler. I'm just saying, in 1945, the remaining Jews had no place to go, and this was...

They can stay in their homes.

No they can't, Mohammed! Their homes were destroyed, their families killed. And people thought Jews were dangerous. So in Germany, in France and Poland and all over Europe, they wanted the Jews out...

And you know why?
***

Here it goes. One of several antisemetic tirades I've heard here, though his was the most flamboyant. The long, impassioned answer to his rhetorical question started with "Because Jews are trouble." But still, it's not this fanatical screaming antisemetism that you can dismiss as peripheral; no, it's eery, calm, pseudo-logical Jew-hating. It really upsets me. I just deleted a rant on why it upset me so much because, uh, it got ranty. So I'll just repeat: it upsets me, on a lot of levels.

If you walk around Cairo at dusk, all the alleyways are straight out of Arabian Nights, with distant minarets silhoutted against the light blue sky, and thousand-year-old mosques around every corner.

And I love the ninja kittens that sneak into your room when you're in the shower. This one was very surprised that I found her under my bed:

She looked like she'd leave on her own, but wait, what's that...

...and she went back to inspect my shoes.

I love you, little kitten, but I need to sleep, so I must escort you out.

There are kittens everywhere here. That was one of five resident kittens at Hotel Dahab in downtown Cairo.

Alright, it's a new day, let's see the Egyptian Museum (come to think of it, pharaoh didn't like him some Jews, too...).

--- EGYPTIAN MUSEUM ---

Now, if you dive the ruins of Alexandria (I dived the ruins of Alexandria! How cool is that?!), you'd think sphinxisesies were all unengraved and headless. The thing is, if any Egyptological artifact is noteworthy, like a sphinx with engravings or, say, a head, it's off to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Okay, maybe some went elsewhere, but most everything that's anything heads straight for Cairo. In books on Ancient Egypt, the Egyptian Museum is built up to nearly mythical proportions. The Narmer Palatte, the royal mummies, King Tut's treasures: just a few of its hundreds of thousands of priceless holdings. Let's go!

Was I... disappointed!

Never have I seen a museum with such inaccessible wonders. You walk in, and it's like you just walked into the service entrance in the back, like you're in the storage section, behind-the-scenes. In a museum, things are displayed, like a piece of pink sashimi held aloft between two chopsticks, all delicate and deliberate and precise. The Egyptian Warehouse is more like slop at the army barracks, all glopped together in unbecoming piles. Everything's too close together, nothing attracts your eye; there is no presentation.

Okay, okay, I could get over poor presentation (no I couldn't...), but here's where the Egyptian I-Hope-You're-An-Expertium really crosses the Line Unforgiveable: NOTHING'S LABELED!!

Nothing is labeled!

You gotta be kidding me. So many wonders, and no information! My kingdom for a label!

I was just dumbfounded, flabbergasted. Here, here's some kind of door-looking-thing, made of some kind of dark stone. It must be 9' tall, 5' wide, and covered in inscriptions. There are a couple figures, maybe gods or something. Ummm, guys, I don't read hieroglyphs. What is this?

I wrote down some labels, verbatim.

"1091 - 1183, 1351 - 1578" for a wall with about 160 small statues.

For an entire display case: "Excavations of the Department of Antiquities at Qatar, North of Faqus."

They're almost all like that.

Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. I remember seeing the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum in London*, and thinking if I were the museum's curator (but in England, they call them "keepers," which is a way cooler title: "the keeper of the British Museum"), anyway, if I were the keeper, I'd return the rock to Egypt. It's the right thing to do, right? But now, after seeing the Egyptian Doesn't-Deserve-One-More-Artifactium, I'd tell 'em they can have it after they get a bigger space and put some LABELS ON THE STUFF! 'Til then, the stone goes nowhere.

* - Egyptology was basically born with Napoleon's conquest of Egypt in 1798. He shlepped over some scholars and stuff and they took records of everything. But in 18 oh something the British defeated the French in some battle, and lots of things Egyptological ended up in British hands.

For all this bashing, though, the collections are spectacular. Or maybe that's why all the bashing and disappointment. The potential of this collection is so in-your-face, so present, that you just keep thinking what a shame it is that it's not in a proper museum. The highlight of the massive collections, for me, was King Tut's stuff.

A little note on King Tutankhamun, because I think it's neat (not that you'd know ANY of this after visiting the "exhibit"). The son of the "rebel pharoah" Akhenaten, who pushed Egypt to near-monothiestic worship of the god Aten, Tut-ankh-amun's original name was Tut-ankh-aten. His reign was short and mostly devoted to improving the public confidence in the whole pharaoh thing; his pops really mucked things up. That's the reason... I'm not sure who did it, so I'll avoid the subject with passive tense. That's the reason Tut-ankh-aten's name was changed to Tut-ankh-amun: to distance himself from his crazy Aten-worshipping Dad; Amun was safe as a traditionally powerful and well-liked god. Tutankhamun died young in 1300BC-ish, and was buried in a magnificent royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

I'd bet dollars to donuts there are still sealed tombs under the sand somewhere, whose inhabitants are right now enjoying 3000+ years of obscurity, but Tutankhamun's is the only royal tomb to be substantially robbed by us. It survived 'til 1922 still sealed (that's 3200 years of good hiding!), when Howard Carter and his team plunked it open. So it's not King Tut that's so famous; it's his bountiful, glittering, untouched royal tomb.

But of course we opened it and took all his stuff and they charge you 50 pounds ($10) if you want to see it. I obviously have mixed feelings on this.

No matter how you slice it, though, Tutankhamun's solid gold funerary mask is badass. I know that's a kinda crass way to put it, but I'm telling you, that's the best word. It's awe-inspiring, like the Taj was, sure. And it's beautiful, but not like a rose. It's beautiful like a puma, or a volcano or something. I don't know; it's just kinda badass.

I thought it would be all dainty and paisy and delicate, but no man. It's big and heavy and gold -- ALL gold, this fat chunk of solid gold -- with these great, great blue stripes all shouting out, and he has a cobra and a vulture on his brow (to hack and spit fire at his enemies, apparently), and falcons on his shoulders. It's just awesome. I want one.

And his innermost coffin is made of solid gold. It's a sight.

So the Egyptian Museum was kinda disappointing (and sorry I couldn't take any photos), but seeing Tut's stuff was worth it. And it's almost just neat to see what happens when you take way too many precious artifacts and jam 'em into a hallway. It's a trainwreck, that's for sure.

--- PYRAMIDS ---

Now, next, obviously, I have to see the pyramids. I mean, every tourist in Egypt, every tourist bar none!, has to go see the pyramids.

And the Egyptians know it, so entrance fees add up really, really quickly. Some are just bizarre: one fee to enter the complex in general, and then seperate fees for each monument within. And then, a very Egyptian thing, there are all sorts of superfluous services rendered solely for the purpose of demanding baksheesh (a small sum of money, like a tip). For example, all tombs are locked, but there's a guy there with a key who opens it for anyone, and then you have to throw him a few pounds. Or these bizarre made-to-be-broken rules like you can only go in this monument every third minute or something, so you and everyone else has to bribe the guard to let you in. Anyway, by the end of the day, I'd dropped about $120, which is a TON for Egypt.

Then again, I didn't just settle for the most famous Giza set. No no, instead I hired my own driver for the day and went to Memphis, Saqqara, Dahshur, and Giza, saw all the great historic pyramids like the Step, Bent, Red, Great(s), and all these auxilliary monuments and statues and tombs and smaller pyramids, and, why not, I saw some of 'em on camelback. So...

The world's briefest history of pyramid-building:

2900BC -> mastaba -> Step -> Bent -> Red -> GREATS (2600BC) -> decline in pyramid-building, possibly reflecting decline in pharaonic power at this time.

The construction of the Step Pyramid is sometimes called the greatest architectural achievement of all time. Wow. The architect, Imhotep, was posthumously diefied, and is possibly more famous than the pharaoh for whom the pyramid was made (Djoser). But I don't know, the guy just stacked a few mastabas atop each other. It's a cool effect, but you can't help thinking, "I could've done that."

......................._______
mastaba:...../_______\
......................................__
................................._/__\_
step pyramid:..._/______\_
........................./__________\

Simple as it is, it's pretty cool-looking. To the right, you see what probably would've happened if I really did try to make a step pyramid.

The coolest part about seeing the Step Pyramid was actually that, despite being 6 miles away and really hazy out, you could see the unmistakeable profile of the Bent Pyramid off on the horizon, with what can only be the Red Pyramid beside it. Heckuva sight. (This view was much clearer than the photo suggests.)

In my head, I was gonna sit there and stare at each pyramid, and try to wrap my head around their antiquity: four thousand seven hundred years! But the shape of a pyramid ensures no shade (the Bent pyramid almost comically, tauntingly so), and the sun is beating, and it's hot. As much as I hate to say it, after 45 minutes, I wanted to get back in the car.

By the way, around the pyramids are some tombs and other neat old things. They're not as photogenic from the outside, but inside (where photos are not allowed), they're covered in 4700-year-old paintings with vibrant colors and all kinds of neatness.

They're still excavating in Saqqara. That's how much sand there is there. The tomb pictured above was found in 1964, and if it weren't for the hole created by grave-robbers, it'd still be tucked away under the sand.

And one last thing before Giza. Every big statue you see here, I swear, every one, is of Ramses the Great. That guy was vain!

Okay, get to Giza and I'm ready for disappointment. Folks warned me: they're not that amazing, they're in front of a Pizza Hut, there are a million trillion touts and tchotchke-hawkers, etc. Um, I don't know what they're all talking about, but mark me down as impressed.

Yup, I'm on a camel.

The sand is really hot and not so easy to trudge through, and what the heck. The 18-year-old guide on horseback next to me was a veritable fountain of false information! Good thing I boned up on my pyramids before coming, or I might have believed that:

The Sphinx's nose was shot off by Napoleon.
Only Khafre's pyramid was initially covered in limestone.
The limestone was taken by Napolean.
They are the oldest pyramids in the world.

None of those are true. The last was particularly good, since I just saw older pyramids (Step, Bent, and Red) earlier that day! Khafre's pyramid, being a generation younger and ten feet smaller than his father's*, isn't the Great Pyramid, but something about it made me like it more.

* - You know Khufu's pyramid was the tallest manmade structure in the world from 2700BC until England's Lincoln Cathedral in 1300AD? That's a loooooong reign!

Sphinxy Winxy was neither as large nor as pretty as I was hoping.

I tried to build my own pyramid, but the blocks at the bottom of the photo here are like, WAY heavier than you think. The big one was gonna be the base, but the medium one was like a million pounds. How did they build those big pyramids?!

One last thing. Tourist attractions attract tourists, some of whom are women who dress more revealingly than the covered women of Egypt, and they in turn attract Egyptian oglers, who sit around tourist hotspots with their camera phones ready, and not-so-slyly take voyeuristic snaps. You see it all the time. Like the guy on the left, ducking down, here.

Okay, ended up a day longer than I wanted in Cairo. There was a Ghana visa botch -- they were not issuing visas due to some "Africa conference" -- so I stayed an extra day for a lady to come back, but still, I have no visa. This could actually be a kinda serious problem, but whatever.

Let's spend a fortune and go diving, huh? To Dahab!

From the Great Sand Sea to the Red Sea, I love me some water. Here's a video from our land-boat, smashing down a big Saharan wave. I sound squealy and childish.

siwa

2008-06-27T02:20:00.000-07:00

Phew, sorry it's been a while, but in Siwa I heard a sound I hadn't heard in a long, long time: a modem dialing up. (Remember that? 9600 baud all the way to 56.6k...) So blog posts were pretty out of the question.

Maybe we should start with some quick photos of Alexandria:

Alex is a coastal city on the Mediterranean, and the beach is mighty popular in summer.

On the coast's obvious prominence, where the Lighthouse of Alexandria once stood, is now Qaitbey Fort, a 550-year-old structure made mostly out of blocks from the fallen lighthouse. Clearly the inspiration for Legos:

Here are some kittens I found in a nook in Qaitbey Fort. I don't think I've ever seen a not-cute kitten, but these get extra points: those sky-blue eyes!

Most non-Western countries have stray dogs. Egypt has stray cats. Stray cats are kinda cute. Leah would love it.

I love this fruit juice shop. That's a mango/peach creation, and it's way bigger than it looks in the photo. 5 pounds, which is about $1.

Alex is also famous for its ice cream, apparently. This masterpiece was the most expensive option on the menu. I had it for lunch.

They're still excavating these Greco-Roman ruins they found while digging for the foundation of some building. I'm telling you, Egypt is just bursting with history. And good stuff, too.

Okay, okay, enough photos of Alexandria. What I really wanna talk about here is Siwa.

Siwa is an oasis in Western Egypt, near Libya. Modern Siwa centers around the remains of Shali, an enormous mudbrick construction dating from around 1200 (the oasis has been settled since "at least the 10th millennium BC"). The Siwans lived in Shali for over 700 years, building upwards until some structures were five stories high. Then, a freak 3-day rain in 1926 forced the entire town to relocate.

You know how, if you don't live in an earthquake area, your buildings aren't made to withstand earthquakes? Here in the Western Desert, bordering the Great Sand Sea, buildings aren't made to withstand RAIN! The city just melted. It's unbelievable. It looks like it was made of sugar.

(Oases form when a topological depression dips into the aquafer; they are still part of the nearly precipitation-free dessert. The water comes from below, not above.)

It's worth stressing, maybe, that Siwa is smack in the middle of the desert. Coming here, the bus goes through hundreds of miles of rocky, barren nothingness. Then suddenly, so suddenly, there's an army of date palms flush with the greenest fronds. It's so sudden, and so out of place. It's like a fairy tale.

The sunset from atop Shali is everything you dreamed it would be.

And since you have this endless cloudless sky, as soon as the sun dips below the horizon, you can turn around and see the Earth shadow rising up, and it eventually takes over the whole sky and makes night (sorry this photo didn't turn out so well).

Ooh, in that Earth shadow photo, to the right of the rocky mesa, you can see how abruptly the oasis gives way to the sand. It's just palm, palm, palm, saaaaaaaaaand.

You know, it's not just the biota that's so seemingly out of place (or maybe that's just me, anyway); the whole culture here seems translocated from some foreign land five hundred years ago. Here's a Siwan taxi stand.

I KNOW!!!! A taxi is a donkey cart led by a ten-to-fifteen-year-old Siwan boy. Always male, by the way: Siwa is a very conservative place, and the rare times I see women, they're totally, totally covered. We can't decide how they know who's whom, or how the women see out.

Ummm... what else? Oooh, right, Mountain of the Dead!

So yeah, that's the Mountain of the Dead. You know how I got there? A Berber-navigated, donkey-powered single-axle wooden cart-taxi!! Those Bndpsaw cart-taxis are might slow, so you sit and think "I can't believe I'm here" for an extra long time. They're like a light jog pace. But we got there alright.

I kinda flipped out at this place. This is from an email I wrote my folks in my excitement:
--------------------
MY GOD!! I could not get over it. The hill is dotted with holes like an overgrown mole infestation, and each hole leads to a tiny, undorned tomb. They date from 300BC. Most were opened during WWII as Siwa's inhabitants took refuge from the bombing there. Views from the summit could go on the cover of any National Geographic.

A guy comes up to me and asks if I've seen the locked tombs yet. Let's go!

Egypt has a culture of baksheesh, or tipping. I have no idea what to give someone who unlocks a tomb for you. One Egyptian pound (20 cents)? I get it in my front pocket, ready.

We get to a tomb much bigger than any I've seen, and he unlocks the door. Photography is strictly forbidden, so even if I could get my photos onto the blog, you wouldn't see it, but WOWOWOWOWOW!! The 12' by 4' by 7' hallway is COVERED with the kind of paintings they show in books on Ancient Egypt!! I'm just floored! And the guy who let me in obviously likes my reaction. You see Anubis and Isis and Horus and the feather/heart scale and the crocodile/lion/dog devourer beast, and it's covered in hieroglyphs, and the guy starts telling me a bit about what the gods are and why they're here -- but it's basic Egyptology stuff I already know a little about (weigh the heart against the feather of truth, if it's too heavy the beast eats your heart... I've read books and took a pair of The Learning Company classes on Ancient Egypt). I see a panel with the four children of Horus each painted with a jar, and kinda blurt out "canopic jars!" The guy is a bit surprised, and says, "you know Egyptology?" Uh, not really, but a tiny bit? Turns out he's not just a guard, he's an archaeologist here. Suddenly, seeing that, albeit basic, I have a little background on this stuff, he starts going into EVERYTHING! IT'S AWESOME! Reading the hieroglyphs and translating for me, telling me about how they excavated the tomb, explaining why this particular guy is drawn totally sideways (instead of the typically Egyptian legs-sideways torso-facing pose), and all sorts of stuff. Then he takes me to another locked tomb, larger but less adorned than the first, and explains everything about it. Wild stuff! It's the mountain's very oldest tomb, from about 580BC!!! I can't get a handle on these dates (you know, when that tomb was being built, the pyramids were almost exactly 2000 years old?!??!?!)

After all this, when I'm leaving, I get five pounds from my pocket (one dollar, but a substantial baksheesh, I think) to tip him, and he flatly refuses. Enjoy Siwa, he says.
--------------------

Something about this, in a two thousand three hundred year-old tomb on the Mountain of the Dead... it just made me smile:

So that was incredible. The history here is just... I can't deal with it. Ooooh, oh, I forgot. This was just the sign beneath an headless, unadorned sphinx on display near the Greco-Roman theater in Alex:

That's the kind of history they have here. Built in eighteen hundred BC (some of the numerals on this keyboard don't work), reworked in twelve hundred BC by Ramses the Great, then chopped up and used as masonry. Too many sphinx here, I'm telling you.

This oasis is paradisaical, no doubt, but let's see some desert! So Lea and Richard and Patrick and I headed out with Muhammed and Muhammed for a two day one night safari.

Nearly everyone I met in Siwa was named Muhammed. They all wear the long white Arab Muslim getup, all have short dark curly hair, similar features. It's honestly hard to tell them apart. I guess the game Guess Who? never caught on here. Is it Muhammed?

First stop on the safari, just outside the oasis, are some prehistoric prints. I have no idea if it's the famous one, but either way, my foot's bigger (and has a better sandal tan):

After that, off to an outcropping just rife with fossils. The Sahara used to be underwater (really? I thought it was marshland, or something wetter, but not marine... but I guess I'm wrong), and as the wind sandblasts this limestone outcropping (I think it's limestone...) and makes more sand, the harder-than-limestone fossils are just extruded from the rock. With every step you're crunching little shells and sand-dollar-looking things undertoe. Everything here seems so out of place.

How's this cool, freshwater pool for out of place?

That was amazing.

The Great Sand Sea is really aptly named. These dunes are HUGE, and they ebb and flow, and like waves, some have rolling tops but some are sharply ridged.

I had plenty of time to take that photo, since when you think it's gonna be rolly-top, but it's sharp-ridge, the jeep gets waaay stuck.

That took a good twenty minutes of digging, and the sun is BLAZING, and the sand is like you could cook bread on it. Yikes.

As the sun sets, the sky glows this unbelievable palette of reds and purples and oranges and blues, and the temperature drops about thirty degrees (to seventy-five), and the sand becomes cool to the touch.

You know, I've always been a sandboarder at heart.

Seriously, sandboarding down the dunes was a TON OF FUN! Now I've never snowboarded or sandboarded before in my life, but it was pretty easy and so so SO FUN! One minor problem was that the soft sand of the dune gives way to compact, kinda hard sand at the bottom, and that's of course where you faceplant. The other minor problem was that there's no sandlift, you know? And walking up a two-hundred foot dune is effort, man! One step forward, slide nine-tenths of a step back. It took forever.

We set up camp at the base of the sandboarding dune, and wow. Just wow.

The night is just so quiet and peaceful and beautiful. Not a sound. I mean not a single whisper. Just silence, and a million stars. Mars was so bright. It really felt like being afloat in a great sand sea. That was the best night of my trip.

You know, on a clear night, it's not too hard to find satellites? They're like little stars that don't twinkle, and they move at an unbelievably constant pace through the darkness. We found lots of satellites that night.

Now I'm in Cairo. I'll write up about it later, but this rooftop view just made me think of those satellites, and the desert and Siwa.

I love Egypt.

I love every grain of sand, every braying donkey, every cloudless night and glass of tea (yes, glass) and glowing white robe and mudbrick home and pharoanic painting and excavated tomb and fairy-tale sunset and smiling Muhammed.

I

LOVE

EGYPT

I jut love it with every cell in my heart.

egypt rocks

2008-06-21T04:00:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, the one thing that does NOT rock in Egypt (er, specifically Alexandria) are the internet cafes. I can only find this one, and the computer is molasses slow, and the keyboard is molasses sticky. So hopefully I can fill this out later, but for now, just a skeleton post. It doesn't convey any sense of what it's like to be in Egypt (sorry), 'cause for that I need photos and a less sticky keyboard and some more time. But I'll try to get some excitement across.

EGYPT ROCKS!!

I've been excited about Egypt since this trip started -- like everyone on Earth, I'm an Ancient Egypt dilettante -- and I built it up to impossible expectations. So I prepare myself on the plane to lower those hopes; as Joshua always says, satisfaction is outcome over expectation. I get here, and...

1 - Traffic and honking are worse than the US, sure, but I was just in India. Coming from India, this is sleepy-time land. Alright!

2 - Folks are so nice! Part of this is, again, a comparison with India's flood of touts and liars (hey, tons of Indians were wonderful to me, but...). The other part is that, while I don't look particularly Egyptian, I don't look particularly NOT Egyptian, so the minority of crooks (every touristy place has 'em) don't flock to me and ruin my wandering. And when I was having this little daydream thinking I could actually live in Alexandria for a year, this random guy on the street gives me a high five! It was a walk-by high-fiving!

3 - Egypt is cheaper than I expected. My room is $6 a night. A great fruit shake overlooking the Mediterranean runs $1. I like this!

4 - Traveling within Egypt... lemme explain. I want to go from Alex to Siwa, and it's a $6, 8-hour overnight bus. HAHAHA! 8 hours, to go across half the country?! I could've kissed the ticket guy! Getting across a quarter of India was 31 hours with a transfer at Delhi, and this is an overnight 8-hour jog? Baby!

5 - The HISTORY!!!! I'm gonna mush this in with #6: the DIVING!! I dived Alexandria's harbor yesterday. Ummm...

- BLOCKS AND PIECES OF COLUMNS FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE OF ALEXANDRIA !!!!!!!!!
- SPHINXES, 4 OF THEM !!!!! I RODE A SPHINX UNDERWATER!!!!
- 5 OCTOPI!!!! ONE WAS EATING A CRAB!!!!
- A BRITISH WWII PLANE!!!!! FANTASTIC CONDITION, PILOT MASK STILL THERE, MACHINE GUN ON THE WING AND BULLETS ALL AROUND, BEST WRECK I'VE EVER SEEN !!!!!
- COLUMNS FROM CLEOPATRA'S TEMPLE, AND HER TABLE, YOU CAN FEEL THE GRANITE !!!!!!!
- 2000 YEAR OLD URNS, HALF BURIED IN THE SAND !!!!!!

UNBELIEVABLE DIVING!!!!!

Egypt has so much history it just piles on top of itself. From Narmer uniting the country to the first fall (I don't remember if this one or the next one is the "Intermediate Period") to the Middle Kingdom, then another fall with the Hyksos, then the New Kingdom, and then the Greek period with Alexander, then Ptolemy the umpteenth finally capitulates to Rome and the whole Cleopatra affair? That's three THOUSAND years of history, and we're still in BC! Then there's this big chunk I don't know about at all (and this computer doesn't allow multiple tabs/windows, so I can't look it up), but then there's the rise of Islam and then Muhammed Ali (the original... I think), and I'm hazy on English and French colonialism, then WWII with Rommel and the Afrika Corps, and the formation of Israel and a couple of wars there, and then I came to say hi. So much history in one little country it doesn't even fit. The second dive, amidst the ruins of 2000-year-old Cleopatra's Temple (I know!), in the shadow of 500-year-old Qaitbey Fort (I know!), is the best-preserved wreck I've ever seen: a British WWII plane (I know!). SO MUCH HISTORY. WHAT A STORY!! How can you not love Egypt?!

I LOVE this place. I LOVE THIS PLACE!

wow

wow

WOW

I'm going to Siwa tonight! Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy!!!!

dubai

2008-06-17T04:10:00.000-07:00

So after I get off the plane at Dubai International, and after immigration and customs (UAE's stamp is boring), a driver is waiting with my name on a clipboard. The spotless Lincoln Towncar takes me to Savoy Park Hotels, a place that would be fancy pantsy even if I weren't coming off a month of $6.11 a night rooms in India (yup, that's the actual average). As I'm signing in, a clerk rushes up with a glass of apple juice on a tray, sir. I'll show you to your room, sir. Right this way, sir.

That's my apple juice on the counter.

Waitaminute, waitaminute. Hold up. Drivers, fancy hotels, welcome drinks? What happened to the budget backpacker, stepping over homeless people to get to the rancid squat toilet down the hall?

Before that, I'd like to tell a kinda unnecessary but fascinating (I think) story, which, for the sake of brevity, I'm going to be skipping a bit and not checking my facts. (Having just read over this, I didn't write it well at all. Sorry. You'll just have to trust it was really engrossing when told to me over lunch.)

* * *

Britain used to control an enormous portion of the globe. Parts of modern America, Canada, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, huge swaths of Africa, Australia, New Zealand, parts of the Arabian Peninsula, all sorts of islands and outposts and kingdoms -- they all owed allegiance to the crown. Truly, the sun never set on the British Empire.

In the 19th century, needing workers to build infrastructure in British central Africa, Britain forcibly relocated tens of thousands of Indians to Uganda and Tanzania, Kenya and Sudan, where they toiled in horrific conditions to clear jungle and lay railroad. (Some Indians might call WWII's Death Railway a karmic atrocity.) Among those dislocated for forced labor were the Kotechas, a village family from Gujjarat.

Fast forward 80 years, and the Kotechas have established themselves as a middle class family. Indians living in Uganda, they have five children, all of whom go to school, eat well, and have a generally happy lot in life.

In 1971, just months before the seven emirates just northeast of Saudi Arabia join to form the UAE, a violent coup in Uganda put militant extremist Idi Amin in power. The dictator, whose self-proclaimed titles include "Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea," demands racial purity: all non-Africans will be purged. The Kotechas are given just days. Change is fast, and violent.

"There is nothing in this world like an African army. They killed men, raped women, mutilated children."

The Kotechas' eldest son, Ashok (ah SHUK), is shot in the leg by a soldier. The Kotechas are evacuated to an English refugee camp, but 17-year-old Ashok, being over 16, a fourth generation Ugandan, and without a British passport, slips through the UN's many sieves to evacuate those in peril. For weeks he tries to get the family savings out of the bank, to send possesions overseas. He is unsuccessful. Ashok is finally recognized by the UN as a refugee in danger, and is relocated to an Italian camp. He is alone in a refugee camp, without his family. Three times a day, he waits in an endless line for food. There is never enough. Nine months.

"When you are hungry, you think of nothing but food. You must keep yourself occupied, or you go mad."

Ashok applies, repeatedly, for permission to emmigrate to India. Eventually, he recieves an affirmative response, and is reunited with his family, who are waiting. Having lost everything -- money, possessions, home, country -- and not knowing what to do, Ashok takes out student loans to attend college. Saudi Arabian Glass Company, LTD, offers him a well-paying job in Dubai, which will soon be famous as UAE's most financially successful emirate. Ashok is good at what he does. He wears a suit, buys a house, and eats what and when he wants. He is not wanting.

* * *

When I was planning this trip, I learned a lot about geography. For example, if you fly from Mumbai to Alexandria, you pass right over Dubai. Hey, how about I stop there for a few days? I know, it's not exactly suited to the budget backpacker, but for 3 days, I'll splurge.

My parents have some wonderful friends, and when the Berlins heard of my itinerary, they said they had a friend slash business contact in Dubai; we should get in touch. Berlin Packaging is one of Saudi Glass's larger accounts.

This is how I found myself in Dubai, being taken to lunch by Mr. Ashok Kotecha, a Uganda-born former refugee, and story-book successful businessman.

Mr. Kotecha's good-humour and optimism belie the bullet still in his leg. He could have taken me to lunch. He could have been out of town, or too busy, or emailed me advice on Dubai. He could have done all sorts of things, but I never expected this.

Drivers at the airport, a luxury hotel with afternoon tea, lunches, dinners, tours, museums, desert safari and belly dancers. Mr. Kotecha's generosity exemplifies above and beyond. In an email he sent just before my arrival, he wrote "You have yet to have a taste of Indian hospitality." Backpacking, this ain't.

And it's a good thing, too: backpacking Dubai is near impossible. Even in off season, there simply are no budget options. And suppose you found a place for cheap, what would you do all day? Dubai may even beat Los Angeles for least-walkable city.

That photo is the most "Dubai" photo I have. It exemplifies being outside here. You are surrounding by huge towers under construction (they say the national bird is the crane), and decorated with ubiquitous "grand opening in 2009" signs. Or 2010, or 2011. On a clear day, even in a sea of 40-70 story buildings, I am told you can see the Burj Dubai from nearly everywhere. Still under construction, it is already inarguably the world's tallest building. It is now 400 feet taller than the 1,451 foot Sears Tower (ground to roof, excluding antennae), and is expected to grow another 500 feet before completion. It is unbelievable. It looks even taller because it's skinny. Or it looks skinny because it's so tall? I'm not sure. It looks like Babel.

The construction and summer heat make visibility awful, just awful. The sky is murky grey, and everything looks hazy, like it's underwater. The summer skyline is not among Dubai's strengths.

Everything in Dubai is air-conditioned. The bus stands are air-conditioned glass enclosures. While riding a jeep around the Arabian deserts yesterday (I know!), the car thermometer listed the outside temperature as 43C (109F). For this time of year, that's normal. In the next two months, it can reach 50C (122F). Malak, a constitutively chuckling man in charge of Saudi Glass's South African, Asia Pacific, and Australian accounts, tells me that legally, all sorts of things must close down if the temperature reaches 45C. So, for weeks every summer, no matter how hot, the official high will be 44C.

Dubai is not a democracy. The tribal chiefs of the 18th century have remained the rulers, even through British colonialism, independence, and the formation of the UAE. Dubai has very few limits on business practices -- it has a thriving money-laundering underground -- and there is no minimum wage. The construction workers I see everywhere, in their blue jumpers, make $200 a month. They live in company-provided labor camps. The wealth of the sheiks (pronounced "shakes") is difficult to overestimate. On the highway, you often pass huge walled compounds, and only near the gate can you catch a glimpse of a tower or spire coming over the trees.

What are those? Malak says this one's the summer palace of some sheik's neice, or something like that. It's tough to swallow. Compared to the sheiks of Saudi Arabia, Malak tells me, they are paupers.

Dubai's ruler and vice-president of the UAE, Sheik Muhammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, seems to be genuinely well-liked by the folks with whom I've spoken. But it can be hard to tell, because speaking ill of the ruler is crime.

On a bus tour Mr. Kotecha booked for me, the guide, Moustafa, apparently thought I was with the group of Ozzies, and started telling jokes making fun of Mr. Bush. I know they're just jokes, but the irony is not lost on me. Tell that joke about Sheik Muhammed and you'll be deported. I may have voted for the other guy, but I voted!

The more I travel, the prouder I am of my country. I know we're not perfect -- not at all -- but we got a LOT of things right.

Nijad's Land Cruiser has tinted windows. Dark, dark tinted windows. Even the windshield's top half is tinted. Nijad explains that it's a status thing: tinted windows are illegal, so having them means you know somebody. He doesn't get tickets. Even if an unmanned radar gun catches him, it's deleted from the computer, officially. How do you know people?

"I was born here," explains the 31-year-old. "You have to understand that Dubai was nothing when I was born. This place was camels. Sheik Mohammed's grandfather rode a camel, really! Then, in 1968... or '64, or something like that, oil was discovered in Abu Dhabi, and it was like 'Dad, get off the camel, the driver's coming around with the Rolls.' The sheiks [royal family members] all have an allotment of oil that they get for cost: like $18 a barrel. So if you have friends, sheiks, they'll sell you oil for under market rate, legally or illegally, maybe $100 a barrel. You can sell it for... what, today it's $133, and you make profit. And the sheiks are happy, even the brother's son's nephew's wife, because they make a lot of money. I mean, Burj Dubai and Burj al-Arab are owned by Sheik Muhammed. He owns half the buildings you see. But you should see the Saudi sheiks. What these guys make in a month, they make in a day."

I can't grasp the scale of these things.

On the bus tour, most attractions are simply not appreciable from anything but a plane. You'd never know it, from the bus-eye view, that we drove around one of the three man-made palm-shaped peninsulas. But whomever Sheik Muhammed put in charge of building the Dubai Museum deserves a cheers and a pat on the back. It was small but terrific!

Well-chosen artifacts not just in glass cases, but seamlessly integrated into informative, well-done diaramas that really gave a flavor of the way of Beduin life, and the fascinating, albeit short, history of Dubai. I know, diarama makes you think of 8th grade, but these were really professional. It was a treat.

The museum is spotless, just spotless, and admission is $1.

After the bus tour and the museum, Mr. Kotecha booked for me a desert safari (I know!). Dubai, you realize, can expand forever. The desert is endless.

We drove up and down and all around the dunes for an hour, and arrived at a campsite for dinner and a show.

(A small note to current and future belly dancers: Your art is amazing, so celebratory and exotic and erotic, but can we please, please stop it with the fake breasts?)

The shopping of Do-Buy is legendary, but nothing about the uninspiring stores are that fun unless you're a shopper.

Yes, everything you see there is gold. They have some of the ugliest watches I've ever laid eyes on.

In Dubai, a liter of gas is 1.5 dirham (40 cents), and a liter of water is 2 dirham.

At the hotel, I always double-take before finding the right button for the second floor. Who lays out buttons like this?

The zero-ith floor has a buffet breakfast and afternoon tea and internet, and the second floor is home to my beautiful, air-conditioned, sit-down toilet walk-in shower daily-delivered newspaper room. I'm full of buffet, and I think I'll relax a bit, afternoon tea downstairs, maybe watch some History Channel or National Geographic or something, and then the Kotecha's are taking me to a very fancy dinner.

This is really how to backpack!

(A special thank you to the Berlins, who let me into their network of fans all over the world. And obviously three cheers to Mr. Ashok Kotecha, who is one of the most fascinating people I've met all trip, and is spoiling me rotten.)

one last day in India

2008-06-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

Before I get to Dubai, my last day in India warrants a short post.

Mumbai is far and away the most Western city I saw in India. No cattle on the street (Mumbai is an island, so it's understandable), modern buildings, Westerners. The ubiquitous cabs were all out of some 50's movie, and they were beautiful.

But hey, it's still India. There were a LOT of people. The monument you see is the Gateway of India. The people you see are Indians.

While wandering around, I found this impossibly sky-blue building that I had to take a picture of.

Unbelievably, this is a synagogue. A Jewish synagogue, in Mumbai. I walk in, but the only guy in the place is asleep in the pews, so I figure I'll get a haircut and stop by later.

In Mumbai, if you want a haircut, you're never far from a Western-style salon, with photos of celebrities and stuff on the wall. But if I want a Western haircut, I can go to Chicago. So let's walk around the smaller streets and see what we find.

Aha, a roadside barbershop. There's no door, it's just kinda an open inlet with a fan and some chairs. The three chairs are full, and I'm the third person waiting, but it's only 10 minutes.

The chair is this comfy old thing with a great engraved-metal art deco swivel foot "pad" thing for your feet, which is unfortunately way too high for my long frame, so I just put my feet on the floor. I tell the guy I want my hair very short, and a shave. The haircut involves the usual combs and scissors, but also spritzes and powders and finger massages and toothpaste tubes and tickle brushes and warm water bowls and ice cubes. It's this crazy ceremony and you gotta watch your eyes: powder and water and brushes go everywhere. Uses a straight razor on my week-old stubble, and dude, straight razors shave smooth and fast. In case he missed a spot, back with the warm lather, another shave. The whole process, shave and a haircut (two bits...), took only maybe 15 minutes, and honestly? It's a terrible haircut! At home, I buzz my own head, so it's not the fashion I'm protesting, but he barely cut any hair! Just kinda cleaned up the back and called it a day. But for 50 rupees ($1.25), I didn't complain.

Looking like I still need a haircut, let's find that synagogue again.

The formerly-sleeping man is now awake and reading prayers, and I walk in quietly and wait while he finishes. He puts down the book and smiles at me, like he doesn't get many visitors. He's very approving to hear that I, too, am Jewish. There's something melancholy about the size and fading beauty of this shul. Sky-blue paint strips are peeling from the walls, and a solitary caretaker prays by his lonesome in the cavernous sanctuary.

Ben Zion tells me all about the synagogue, and how Mumbai once had a substantial Jewish community. But when British Raj ended, the same year Israel formed, most of Mumbai's 15,000 Jews emmigrated. Now, there are fewer than 50 families left. But he tells me, with unabashed pride, that on Fridays, with the help of a couple tourists, they usually have enough for minion. His smile, and the palpaple grandeur of this shul, make that statement sadder and sadder.

Next to the shul's dedication plaques and pleas for donations, Ben Zion grins and points to the one on the bottom right.

After I'd taken my share of photos and poked and prodded around the shul, Ben Zion pulls out a modest stack of postcards he's recieved from previous visitors. Glancing at the dates, I figure he gets 2-3 a year. Ben Zion is instantly likeable: so sweet, and he speaks gently. He reminds me of Sheldon Stearns.

When I leave, Ben Zion hopefully gives me a sticker with the shul's address. I'll certainly write a post. He tells me they have three torahs, but no Jews anymore. There hasn't been a bar mitzvah in fifteen years. It's a great loss.

It really is a great loss.

Goodbye Ben Zion.

Goodbye India.

around maharashtra in 80 hours

2008-06-14T06:23:00.000-07:00

India has turned me into a manic depressive. Sometimes I can't stand this country, with it's touts and crowds and crooks, and sometimes I just can't get over how wonderful it is, with everyone so curious and garrulous and smiley and a culture that's so so different. Happily, very happily, the past few days have been just fantastic.

Getting from Khajuraho to Mumbai in three days isn't really that hard, I guess, but if you don't want to fly and you try to hit up some sights on the way, it requires planning. So here's what I drew up:

6.11 - bus from Khajuraho to Satna (5 hours)
6.11/12 - overnight train from Satna to Jalgaon (12 hours)
6.12 - bus from Jalgaon to Ajanta Caves (2 hours), see Ajanta Caves, bus to Aurangabad (3 hours)
6.13 - from Aurangabad, see Daulatabad Fortress, continue to Ellora Caves, return to Aurangabad
6.13/14 - overnight train from Aurangabad to Mumbai (9 hours)
6.14 - arrive in Mumbai bright and early

Since my flight to Dubai is very early on the 16th, the plan allows a flex day point five, which in India is very required. The overnight train from Satna to Jalgaon was a bit of disaster and I lost a day there, but otherwise the plan went swimmingly, and I've just arrived in Mumbai, and it's the morning of the 15th. Awesome.

Let's start with the Ajanta Caves, which are a series of Buddhist cave/temples cut out of a huge horseshoe-shaped rock cliff. The earliest of the caves are from 200 BC (woah!), and the later group date from 600 AD (woah). Like the Taj, and like Daulatabad and Ellora later, the Ajanta Caves are a popular weekend trip for domestic tourists. I've decided that Indian tourists come to places like the Taj and Ajanta half to see the site, but half to see real live Westerners. So being one of very, very few Westerners at Ajanta, everyone wants to say hi. I'm like a celebrity. People want to introduce themselves, take a photo with me. It's great fun.

Anyway, the first cave was very cool. Flash photography was forbidden, and the caves are awfully dark, so I don't know how well this'll come out:

Huge columns, a flat square courtyard in the middle, and lots of cells off the main courtyard, like oversized telephone booths, that the monks would pray in. And the center cell, directly across from the cave opening, houses a big ol' Buddha statue. How they hollowed out mountains to make cave temples 1400 years ago, I don't know. It's impressive.

Now the second cave made me chuckle. Why? It's exactly like the first. Like, deja vu, where you have to check and make sure you didn't somehow just enter the same cave again. And the third? Identical! 100% perspiration, 0% inspiration, I guess. Usually the cliff was too steep to do anything with the outside of the cave temples, but this one had a cool carved entrance:

The older group of caves, from 200 BC, were a little different from the newer group, but they were also all pretty much copies of each other. So Ajanta didn't demand as much time as I had alloted. On to Aurangabad.

Arriving in Aurangabad, it's a polluted, unattractive, cementy town, and my hopes for a pleasant stay were not high. But the guy at the 4th guesthouse I looked at was so welcoming and affable, and immediately invited me for chai. I'll stay here, thank you! Can you imagine a backpacker hostel worker inviting you in for tea? And he doesn't even know your name yet! This happens in India, often. Just charming. Morning bus to Daulatabad.

Back in the 14th century, Muhammad bin Tughluq was sitting on his throne in Delhi, and decided, "That's it, enough Delhi, let's move this capital to Daulatabad." Then, in what I can only assume will be dismissed in a few years as a mistranslation, Mr. Tughluq supposedly posted signs or something that said "Dear Citizens of Delhi: Pack up your stuff, we're going to Daulatabad. Probably wanna keep your pack light, 'cause it's a long, hot 700 miles." I'm skeptical, but according to the signs and guidebooks, he forcibly marched the entire population of Delhi 700 miles.

Seriously, is that possible? I mean, what if Mayor Daley said "Dear Chicagoans, pack your stuff, we're going to East St. Louis. And we're walking." Um, you're out of your mind, Mayor Crazypants. How does one person have the power to do something like that? Don't the people simply refuse?

Anyway, the fortress was awesome.

I do not understand how anyone took a medieval fortress by anything but siege. There's a huge cliff up to the main tower, surrounded by an enormous moat, and the only way to cross the moat is by this narrow up-and-down steep-staired bridge. And there are half a dozen thick wooden doors that you'd have to break through, and cannons and stuff pointing right where you'd be stuck. It just looks totally, totally impenetrable. And there were monkeys. Probably descendants of the vicious attack monkeys that guarded the outer walls.

When I was climbing the fortress summit (it's built on a hill), one family I passed, after the usual "where from?" and stuff, invited me to join their picnic lunch. Just so welcoming, and so interesting, and so, so Indian. And the tomato chutney was phenomenal.

On the way back through the fortress with the picnic family, we have to walk through lots of pitch-black hallways, and you can hear bats. With a flash photo, you wouldn't know this hall was can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face dark, but when I showed the photo to the daughter, she flipped when she saw how many bats were over our heads.

Onto the Ellora Caves. Now, unfortunately for me, most of the Ellora Caves were the exact same friggin' thing as Ajanta!! I guess they're both Buddhist rock-cut temples from around the 7th century, but c'mon people! But, and this is a HUGE but, Cave #16 was way, WAAAAY different. Better known as the Kailasa Temple, it is wild!

(I tried to put up a video of it, but that did something bad and now some of the photos I wanted to put up won't go either. Whoops.)

Ooooh, and outside Kailasa, there were some very cheeky monkeys. This one's clearly planning something cheeky.

Okay, okay, sorry, this post is getting long (I already wrote this long mailing a package bit, but I moved it to the end). Took an overnight train to Mumbai, got here this morning, and walked around to find a guesthouse.

Just 'cause I was in a silly mood, I couldn't resist walking into Mumbai's fanciest and oldest hotel: The Taj...

Gross clothes I've slept in for the past 2 nights, just coming off an overnight train, backpack with rat-chewed holes (learned in Malaysia not to keep snacks in the outer pockets) and a dangling frisbee, and they're still all opening doors and "good afternoon, sir" and very sophisto. Unfortunately, even their most modest room, at $525 a night, was a wee bit out of my price range. I thanked the kind receptionist and he very politely hoped I would return.

Ahhh, this looks more like my kinda foyer:

That's where I'm staying tonight. It's actually not as bad as you'd think from the stairwell. And yeah, what you barely see at the base of the stairs is a homeless guy I had to step over.

Okay, sorry to add even more to this post, but I wrote this earlier in response to an email from Mom, and it gives you maybe a little flavor or the logistics of long-term travel? Or what I'm actually doing most of the day (when I'm not at a sight, or eating, or on a bus, or writing too-long blog entries, or finding a guesthouse...). But anyway, here it is:

SENDING A PACKAGE HOME FROM INDIA: the 13th trial

1st trip to the post office
The one coat I didn't give away, a couple tchotchkes I bought, and a book (I annotate, so I keep my books) are nicely packed in an addressed box; all I need is a stamp and we're off! Right? Wrong! Nothing's that easy here! Check this rule out: Every package mailed in India must be sealed in linen. Yup, that's a rule. The post office suggests I find a tailor. Terrific.

The tailor is accustomed to wrapping packages, and for 80 rupees ($2), does a fine job:

2nd trip to the post office
Word is there's a post office is near the bus stand, so I arrive at 1pm -- plenty of time before my 2pm bus. Proudly throw my package, in purdy white linen, on the counter. The seated, plaster-expressioned guy looks up at me and points to the clock: lunchtime. Ooookay, when's lunchtime over? 2:30, 2:45, he says noncomittally. My bus leaves at 2pm, so maybe if I buy your lunch, you could send this during lunchtime? He's totally uninterested. So the package is coming with me on the bus to Satna.

3rd trip to the post office
5 hours later, I'm at the Satna train station, and I have 5 hours before my 11:30pm overnight train to Jalgaon. Surely the post office is closed by now, but what's this, there's a special open-late post office in the train station?! That couldn't be more perfect! Turns out it's a "speed post" only kinda office, and that service isn't offered for parcels over 1kg. So my 2kg box, in no-longer-so-white linen, is coming with me to Jalgaon.

4th trip to the post office
The train is SUPPOSED to arrive at Jalgaon at 11am. Then again, it was SUPPOSED to be at Satna, where I was getting on, at 11:30pm. It showed to Satna at 3am, so we're already 3.5 hours late. (And, and, there are no computer screen thingies to show that your train's delayed, so from 11:30pm to 3am, I had to sit at the station and nervously watch every train that came in, and ask if it was number 2946, while every begger in all of India tugged on my sleeves and pushed at my legs. That's a looooong way to spend 3.5 hours.) By the time we arrive at Jalgaon, we're 6 hours late, so 11am becomes 5pm. Post office is closed.

5th trip to the post office
I'm getting angry at this stupid package. But by now it's become an issue of pride: I'm sending this damn thing. AND, I already lost a day on account of the train. So at 8:30am, I'm already showered and checked out of my pad and at the post office, stupid package in stupid hand. At the post office, there are people there, in the mail room area, but nobody's behind the counter. Someone who speaks English helpfully tells me that the counter won't open 'til 10am. Then, he says the most amazing thing...

Now, a small aside. The seat I got on the train was in the 3AC section, which is the cheapest section to have A/C. This ended up being a godsend NOT because of the A/C, but because if you're in a section that requires reservations, 3 seats means 3 people! Genius! Anyhow, in the 3AC section, one guy and I chatted quite a bit. He was really nice, got me chai (of course), and he thinks most Indians have more money than they realize, but they spread it over too many kids. See, he has one child, so he can afford 2 tickets in the 3AC section. It's less than 7 unreserved-section tickets! I liked him. At one point, I tell him that, in America, a train running 5 hours late would be just unacceptable. He very correctly points out that in America, where people are rich, their time is valuable. In India, money is limiting, and time is in excess. Nobody bats an eye at 5 hours; they don't feel something was "lost."

So, back to the post office. It's 8:30am, and the counter opens at 10am. You know what this guy tells me? It's the most amazing thing! He, get this, he points to a bench, and he says "please, sit."

Please sit?! PLEASE SIT?! You could've knocked me over with a feather! PLEASE SIT?!?! For an hour and half?! That would NEVER happen in the States. Oh, you won't be able to do whatever for an hour and a half? Just sit and wait! FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF!! He really expects me to just sit here with my thumb up my butt for NINETY MINUTES!

You know, I did, of course. I had to send my package, see.

The family that invited me to lunch with them at Daulatabad Fortress, we were chatting. They wanted to know all about my thoughts on India, and how it's different from the States. I told them that story, and they were bemused. Really? In the States, you have to be doing something all the time? Here, it's totally acceptable to do absolutely nothing. To just sit there.

I remember being in Joshua's car, and he was listening to Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About America, and the Indian-born author was describing his shock at coming to America: These stressballs are proactive even in how they'll spend their leisure time! Making appointments at tennis courts, setting alarms to squeeze in early swims! I guess it's just the way we roll.

These posts are getting pretty rambly. Sorry about that.

Tomorrow morning I fly to Dubai. Woah.

a day in the life - khajuraho boy!

2008-06-10T01:15:00.000-07:00

This update is gonna be two parts. First, just a day in the life of India, and then we'll get into Khajuraho.

(A note: having just finished this post, the "Day in the Life" section is really, really long. And rambly, and probably not that interesting if you're not me. So, unless you're really invested, maybe just check out the videos in the first section, and then jump to Khajuraho.)

A DAY IN THE LIFE

I've just been staring at this page blankly for a bit, wondering how on Earth I can start to describe a typical day of a Westerner traveling alone in India. To start, maybe a few numbers.

India has four times the population of the States, and one third the land mass. So, carry the one, we're talking about 10 times the population density. Now, imagine if every person in the US suddenly became 10 people. There's no longer such thing as a quiet little town. There's no such thing as an empty restaurant, or a car with just one person in it. There's no such thing as personal space. There are people everywhere. Everywhere.

Now wait a minute, wait a minute. Okay, for some little podunk town, I understand the visualization. But for a city, for the Mag Mile in Chicago, you just couldn't fit all those people! But ahhh, that's the magic of India! They DO fit all those people. It's madness! That's part of the culture shock that I wrote about when I first touched down in Delhi. Everyone's bumping your elbows. You're constantly being pushed and brushed and stepped on, and rickshaws and mopeds are actually hitting people. Not hard, but I mean actually hitting people. Your instinct, as a Westerner, is to think, when someone steps on your foot or bumps your shoulder hard, it's horribly rude. But it's not rude, it's just physically necessity. (And anyway, I'm in their culture: who am I to say what's rude in India?!) Anyway, yes, there are just that many people in India. It's that crowded.

Take a CTA bus, the Roosevelt #12 (in my head). Everybody turns into 10 people. Impossible, right? Well, yes! See the photo in my last entry? People, dozens and dozens of people, just spill out and climb on the back and roof. People are hanging out the door.

Internet here in Khajuraho is surprisingly fast (maybe 1/5 the speed in the States?), and at 75 cents an hour, and with it being stupid hot outside, I'm trying to [gasp] upload a video. If all goes well, a 5-second clip of the 5-hour "local" bus I took from Jhansi to Khajuraho will be right here:

Did that work? YES! Ooooh, we might have to put up a couple more videos! But later, later. Let's continue with a day in India.

As a Westerner in India, Indians are fascinated by you. You're bombarded with questions. As soon as someone starts talking to you, a crowd gathers (I'd say a small crowd, but who are we kidding, this is India; there's no such thing as a small crowd.) I'm asked so many questions that, just to keep myself occupied, I lie a lot. How's this, a choose-your-own adventure: Q&A in India! These are not made up.

Q1 - "Your qualification?"

A1.1 - "I don't understand." The person will repeat the question, verbatim, and obviously you're new to India. This most common question means "What's your occupation?"
A1.2 - "Scientist." You get mad respect for this one. In India, this means you're very well-educated (and therefore from a rich family), and smart, and paid well.
A1.3 - "Doctor." Nothing will get you more respect. Nothing. And I've said a lot of stuff. They're just too floored to even talk to you, and extra bewildered that you're on a local bus, or the unreserved section of the train, or just in India in the first place.
A1.4 - "Astronaut." They've never met an astronaut before, and might tell their families they met an astronaut. Guess he wasn't accepted to medical school...
A1.5 - "Governor of Illinois." More curious than impressed. Ask if you know George Bush, and then move on to Q2.
A1.6 - "Mahout." Directly to Q2.
A1.7 - "Je suis desole, je ne parle pas Anglais." Genius! Sometimes backfires ("ah, tu est francais?"), but usually, this is pure gold. You will, of course, still be stared at, but a moment of relative peace!

Q2 - "Where from?"

A2.1 - "America." Ooooh, they didn't see that coming. I'm from a superpower! They're impressed. USA? USA? George Bush! Obama, Clinton! (I swear, foreigners know more about our politics than most of us.) America is a very good answer. The crowd always leans in on that one.
A2.2 - "England." They knew it! I speak English, I'm from England, duh! They don't have much to say about England. They've met English before.
A2.3 - "South Africa." Big mistake, 'cause I don't know a damn thing about cricket, and they wonder if I've met all these players I've never heard of. They think they're about to talk to a Westerner about cricket -- how cool! -- and if you say you don't watch it, they're crestfallen.
A2.4 - "Goa." Ooooh, ace in the hole! Goa is a state in India with a lot of expats (and as a nice reversal, Rose Dias is our resident Chicago-area Goan!), and the Indians aren't as interested if you're from Goa. They're more interested in superpowers. That's why America is the best answer.

Q3 - "You are pay? Month?" (asking your salary)

A3.1 - "I am not answering." Bewilderment. Why would you withhold information? You crazy Westerners are so different.
A3.2 - "$2500 per month." Get this: they're surprised at how little it is. In India, most people think Westerners are like wildest-dreams rich (though, to them, we are kinda wildest-dreams rich...). So that leads to A3.3...
A3.3 - "Guess!" They have no idea and are usually unwilling to guess. The few that have ventured give huge ranges that always too high. Four lakhs per month, rupees? A lakh is 100,000 (for some reason in India, instead of thousand -> million -> billion, they do thousand -> lakh -> crore, which is 1000 -> 1,00,000 -> 1,00,00,000 and yes, that's how they do commas in big numbers), and a it's about 40 rupees to the dollar. So that's $10,000 a month; $120,000 a year. Not a terrible guess, but that's a heckuva salary! They think a cheap dinner in the States runs $100 a head.

Q4 - "You have wife?"

A4.1 - "No." They are so smitten with themselves! They knew it! Those crazy Westerners, wildest-dreams rich but they don't have wives! Hahahaha! Oh man, OH MAN! That is funny!
A4.2 - Actually, I always say no to that one. I love their reactions. Their jaws clench as they try to keep it civil, but they just wanna scream "YES! I KNEW IT! HA HAHAHA!" Oh man, they love that.

Indians find it bizarre that I do not live with my parents, that I travel at all. They're floored that I live(d) in place that has two bedrooms, a living room slash kitchen, a bathroom, and a hallway... with just one other person?! One man on the train boasted that sure, he lived with his 10-person family in a one-room house, but you should see the room! Very big! They guess my rent at maybe one lakh per month.

At monuments, families ask me to be in their photos. Some folks just ask me to take their pictures, on my camera. I don't know why. This man asked me today.

Just this morning I went to the ATM (Joshua, you're the best! It works!), and was followed by two men all the way there and back. Unfortunately, unless I'm on a bus or train with someone, the rule is that anyone who approaches you wants your money. This rule is correct approximately 100% of the time. Many Indians seem to think Westerners are walking volcanoes of money, ready to erupt at the slightest provocation. They ask questions -- anything to get your attention -- and they'll push the sale later. I just ignore them completely. They followed me the whole way, waited outside while I did my bank stuff, and walked with me back.

I also biked to the southern temples here, and two kids on a bike (yes, most bikes have 2 or 3 people on them) followed me the whole way. Should've ignored 'em, or pulled the French card, but I try to be human and, albeit curtly, answer some of their questions. When I get to the temples, they dismount and want to follow me around. Tour guides, see, that way I'll feel obliged to tip. I tell them I want to be alone. The security guard then also tries to be my tour guide, and even the French game doesn't shake him. He uses a good line to bring up the idea of tipping: "If you're happy with no tip, I'm happy with no tip." That makes us both happy then, don't it? The boys, who waited for me at the entrance the entire time, say they have coin collections. Do I have any dollars? How about some rupees? But we haven't eaten in four days!

Maybe here's a good place to break the bad news. The endless harassment of touts and beggars here cannot be exaggerated. I'm used to it by now, but if I'm outside, I cannot walk a block, not one block, without being accosted. It's tremendously draining, and I spend my time always feeling like a bit of a jerk. There's this nagging that maybe, just maybe, this person is honestly curious, or friendly. But they always end up demanding you visit their shop, or asking for money. When I went to say goodbye to the white-haired chapati man in Delhi? Et tu, Brahmin? It's really a tragedy of the commons. It's a breakdown of trust.

Now, I'm actually quite happy I came to India. That sounds a bit rationalistic, and maybe it is, but I'm not on an "vacation," spending lavishly and expecting opulence. No no, this is travel. Exploration, adventure. I left the States to see new things, experience new cultures. And while it's the most exhausting travel I've ever done, if India is anything, it's different! The history (so tortuous!), the culture (how diverse!), the food (a vegetarian's paradise!), the dress (nose rings, bangles, a bouquet of saris!); so much beauty here, such an experience! And that's why I came. But the touts and beggars and constant, constant harassment -- I just can't relax. But, BUT, and this is the real test: I will remember India when I'm 60. It's a heckuva trip.

The one place that actually isn't so bad is a guesthouse. The folks who work at guesthouses know that their patrons are not as rich or ignorant as most folks here believe. Well, for India, I am rich -- very! -- but I'm not a walking ATM, and I think giving to beggars only promotes begging. Anyway, the guesthouses I've been staying at here are usually in the $4-$8 a night range. The rooms themselves are always pretty spartan, so when choosing a place, it's the bathroom that counts. Huge range. Some are shared, down-the-hall style with squat toilets and bucket showers. Tonight, in Khajuraho's off season, I'm paying $5 a night for my very own attached bathroom.

This is one of the nicer bathrooms I've seen. The weird squat-or-sit, your choice toilet has plumbing, which is awesome, and the bucket shower you see is NOT the only shower. Like many bathrooms here, they've installed a nozzle shower which is just an unceremonious hole in the wall that sprays into the bathroom. This one sprays a LOT of water, everywhere, like a busted fire hydrant. Actually, it's really fun. After a day out my clothes are soaked or crusty with sweat, so I head into the bathroom with my clothes still on, shut the door, and turn the nozzle. FOOOOSH!!!! It damn near knocks you over! Suddenly you're in a submarine that's been hit, and it's really fun! RED ALERT! RED ALERT!!! WE'VE BEEN HIT! LOCK THE HOLDS, STARBOARD SIDE!!! Lots of fun in that bathroom.

So... uh, what else?

You know why this post is so ridiculously long? Partly just as a respite from the carnival of India. It's quiet here at the computer, nobody's interrogating me. No "Hello Mister!" "Where you from!" "You want shop?" "Postcards?" Being outside is unbelievable. It just doesn't stop. Oh, oh! Here, a video of Agra:

(NOOO!! I messed up! I wanted to shorten the video so it could upload, but I messed up and cut it waaaay too short! What a botch!)

Oy, someone who works at the hotel just pulled a chair up next to me. "Where you from?" I feel like a jerk, but I'm not talking. "Computer work good?" This is really happening right now. If I respond, he might just want to chat (I'm not outside, so there's a fighting chance), or he might ask me to come to his shop or travel agency. But please, just leave me alone.

Oooh, I can't believe a video worked! And in a somewhat manageable time! Here, some more!

The Brahmin in Delhi making chapatis with his son.

This hotel guy is just sitting a little behind me to my left, looking over my shoulder, as I type. I don't know if he reads English, but he's making me uncomfortable regardless. Yes, you, hotel guy!

Another video. This is really out of left field, but it's short and sweet. Feeding Mali the elephant in Thailand (tongue, trunk, whatever):

What the heck, another! Tak Bat, in Luang Prabang:

Okay, as if that weren't enough for one post, now...

KHAJURAHO!

I'll keep it short, partly 'cause this has been a long post, and partly 'cause there's not too much to say anyway.

Khajuraho is much, much quieter than Agra. And the number of touts and swindlers is down to small-town Indian levels, which is still outrageous, but it's manageable. But people don't come to Khajuraho for the small-town feel; they come for the temples.

These temples are all very old, from 900 to 1100 AD, but frankly, I didn't get too much into the history. I know, shame on me, but remember, I didn't think I was coming to Khajuraho until the Gujjar strike, so my unpreparedness has an explanation! Anyway, there's a lovely sign near the entrance to the first temple, and please read the paragraph starting "The temple has a lofty basement..."

...and miscellaneous scenes?!?!

The pamphlets and guide books calmly ask you to "refrain from letting the graphic nature of the friezes distract from the" blah blah blah, and the signs here only occasionally admit "erotic" content. Um, "erotic" is the curve of a woman's breast, the small of her back. I'm not sure what this is, but erotic?

Even one of the figures is shocked! (Or maybe, just maybe, she was all into it in her younger, wilder days. But now she's a thousand years old, chiseled in stone with these savages giving in to their baser instincts, and she's just so ashamed.)

Sometimes you have to admire the ingenuity of the artists (and the flexibility of the figures!):

The one in the top center? That's just plain clever! Zooming in:

Now most of the carvings are pretty mundane (or honestly erotic, in a sensual way), and they're only occasionally punctuated with seriously R-rated stuff:

And, while it's hard to notice anything but the sex, I do like nice stairs:

Isn't that a great ladder! A thousand years old, and don't you just want, need to climb it? It doesn't even go anywhere now -- just a fenced-off window -- but I'll be damned if I didn't climb it anyway!

Next up, train to the Ajanta Caves, and then continue to Mumbai. Mumbai to Dubai for a brief li'l visit, and then, on to EGYPT! (Oh boy oh boy oh boy!) But hey, one day at a time.

You know today is the 56th day of my trip? Two more days and we've made it halfway!

agra

2008-06-08T04:50:00.000-07:00

Scenic bus photo, from somewhere near Jammu:

What the photo doesn't show is that the ride was 27 hours, and then a transfer in Delhi to another bus, which was another 5 hours. Now this shorter jaunt was a regular, "local" bus. Local buses are crazy. India, everywhere in India, is just swarming with Indians. For about 2 minutes the bus is awesome and fun and a big carnival, but then you realize it's 5 hours.

Due to some sort of bewildered respect afforded you as a Westerner on a local bus, the Indians make sure you get a seat. It's not comfortable by any stretch, but still, thank you very much! So 33 hours after leaving Srinagar, I'm in Agra.

Alright, I'm gonna try to keep this mostly positive, but let's be honest: Agra sucks.

Now I might be being unfair, since there was this tragedy of errors that had nothing to do with Agra, per se. My ATM card inexplicably stopped working (and after hours of trying to reach my bank, they think the card might be physically damaged, which could be trouble), and my plans to go Agra -> Udaipur -> Mumbai have been thwarted by angry Gujjars, which could also be a hassle, since my flight is out of Mumbai on the 16th. And this kinda hell day fell right on my birthday! That puts my 25th right up there with my 7th, when I ended up in the hospital with a broken clavicle.

Oh, and, aaand, the wee chocolate birthday cake I brought all the way from Srinagar? They mixed things up and turns out it was a raisin cake! I hate raisins! Bummer city.

But really, I think Agra kinda sucks in its own right. I'm used to touts by now, but Agra is ridiculous. It's almost worth the great little video I made by simply turning my camera on and walking out of my hotel. Why is that a great video? Every two steps I'm assaulted by another tout. It's as unbelievable as it is predictable. Every single time.

Alright, alright, let's get to something positive before this becomes all Ranty Von Sourpants. (Agra stinks.) First, the Agra Fort.

It's a World Heritage Sight, very important, blah blah blah. Might've been neater if you weren't constantly accosted by "certified tour guides" who won't leave you alone. The price goes from 475 rupees down to 100 rupees before they finally, finally give up and the next tour guide predator comes beelining. The fort's really big.

There's a great bathtub used by whoever used it. It's like a teacup for a titan, carved from a single piece of stone.

There were some pretty, very stripy chipmunks around the fort.

And there was this killer little tiny dark staircase that nobody noticed. But I noticed!

I like tiny steep scary stone stairs.

And the staircase led you to a little platform with a nice view.

Everyone who passed underneath would look up at me bemused: how did he get there? And then some security came and yelled at me to get down. Don't I know I can't climb the fort?
But I just went up the staircase!
You're not allowed up that stairwell!
Well I didn't know that, there's no sign (jerk!).
You should know!
But it's the most inviting staircase I've seen all week!
That one guard was most unfriendly.

Enough Agra Fort.

Yeesh, even that didn't sound very fun, did it? I guess I just can't enjoy Agra. Everyone here, everyone here*, is out to screw you. You know that trick where the tablecloth is pulled from under the dining set, and foooop, it's like it was never there! I think that happened to the moral fiber of Agra. An example:

* - I'm just reading over this (typos, that kinda thing), and I feel kinda bad about this statement. Look, there are nearly two million people in Agra, and I'm sure the VAST majority of them are kind and just and wonderful. I'm just very bitter at the amount I've been jerked around by crooks and swindlers here. A small minority, certainly, but what a minority! Back to the promised examples:

How much is water? 15 rupees, the guy says. The water bottle says 10 right on the damn label. No, 10. 15. I walk away. A vendor at the next stall overheard. Okay, sir, friend, 12 rupees! Fine. I hand him a 20. He gives me 5 change. Where's the other 3? No, he says, 15 rupees. YOU SAID 12! He walks away.

The autorickshaw driver took me to two hotels before the one I requested, against my vocal wishes. Then he didn't have change for my bill, even though I asked him beforehand, until I threatened to leave without paying.

I could give you two dozen other examples. I hate this place.

Alright, let's see the Taj Mahal, and then let's get the hell outta Dodge.

Oh, oh, before I forget, one of the rickshaw cyclists (a rickshaw is bike-powered, while an autorickshaw is motorized) was this old grey-haired guy, and when we came to a low-grade but looooong uphill, he just got out and pushed. I told him to get in the rickshaw, and I peddled him for the next 5 minutes or so. Everyone passing just loved it.

Anyway, back to the Taj.

During the day, the tour groups come in droves, so word is the best Taj viewing is as early as possible to beat the crowds. And honestly, from noon to 4pm I try not to be outside anyway. You know how hot it is here? 2 days, and don't forget I'm having lassis and juices and water with every meal! These are each 1L.

So BEEEEP, BEEEEP, the alarm goes off at 5:20am. Taj opens at 6. Admission for Indians is 20 rupees. For tourists, 750. That's official (and common: Agra Fort was 20/300). The ticket guy shortchanges me 250 rupees (a HUGE amount here), and just flat denies it. There's absolutely nothing I can do. So even hating Agra as much as I've ever hated Agra -- and I hope there's a special place in hell for this city -- even so, I gotta admit, the Taj is positively heart-stopping.

It's really tremendous. There's just no way you can feel the Taj through photos (I won't even bother with any more photos), but being there? My god, it is beautiful. It is just moving. Nobody's there yet, the sun's waking up, and the Taj... the Taj just stands there, motionless. I wasn't even that excited about it, but when you're there, you feel like you've been waiting your whole life to see it. You feel like people felt that way 300 years ago, and in 300 years, the Taj will be there, motionless and beautiful, as people look up and are silenced. It is positively humbling.

The Indians take their Taj seriously. No vehicles are allowed within 500m of the premise (don't want pollution tarnishing the marble), you have to take off your shoes (again, the marble), and the security is insane.

That might not look crazy at first, but check his left hip! Yes, an AK-47 with a full clip of 32 bullets on his right side, and God forbid that's not enough, he has FOUR MORE MAGAZINES in his pouch. I just cannot imagine a situation where this guard is dropping his clip, action-movie-style, and cha-chinking in a second. Or fourth. Who's after the Taj, Rambo? I've seen this movie before; you're a terrible shot.

(By the way, this guard, like many folks, approached Lindsay -- the girl in the photo -- and I to chat, not the other way 'round. A lot of Indian families wanted to have their photos taken with us. In a few weeks, there'll be dozens of families in India with their photos on the wall: them, the Taj, Lindsay, and me.)

By 9am the Taj was super crowded.

If you anger some vengeful god or for any other reason find yourself in Agra, see the Taj at 6am, be humbled and inspired and totally silenced with serenity and awe, and then remove yourself from this wretched city.

So I really, really, really want to leave this den of touts and thieves, but stupid Gujjars and their stupid strike. Imagine being in Vancouver, and you hear on the news that there's a huge strike that's entirely shut down transportation in Washington State. So you check a map. Hmmm, your flight's in San Francisco, and Washington State is... oh dear. Oh man, that's exactly where you need to go! So you try a workaround and rationalize that Yellowstone is super uber cool, but the fact is it's way out of the way. That's basically what I'm doing, but instead of Yellowstone, Khajuraho. Should be great (anything but Agra...), but it's a train to another bus, and I'm going AWAY from Mumbai. But seriously, I would pay all the money I can't access in my account to get out of Agra. And thanks to my family (but especially my brother's selfless work on the phone with his bank!), I'll be able to get a few bones and blow this joint. Tomorrow morning, which is not soon enough, but tomorrow morning I'll be on my way to Khajuraho.

You know how memory works? In a year I'll remember how the Taj so unexpectedly and thoroughly moved me, and I'll kinda remember to not recommend Agra. That's how memory works: wonderfully!

I should note, for the sake of fairness, that while a brief internet search suggests most people share my view of Agra, two of my well-traveled friends suggested it -- one very strongly. (And I don't begrudge them a bit! Not one nanosmidgen!) Maybe they came in winter, and the temperature was nice and they met a fantastic family with whom they had a great time. Or maybe they came before the touts in this city got all rabid, and there wasn't such sprawl and noise, and you weren't constantly being jerked and screwed around by a million crooks and swindlers. Or maybe they're just confused and are right now going "Taj Mahal? In Agr... oh no, no! I didn't mean Agra! I meant LEH!" I think it's probably the latter. But I'm just saying, as with all travel, your mileage may and will vary.

And honestly, as weird as it sounds, the Taj was almost worth it. I found it as surprisingly wonderful as Agra is surprisingly obnoxious. And those are huge, HUGE surprises.

hello from kashmir!

2008-06-03T01:56:00.000-07:00

Now I'm gonna get one of those ALL CAPS LOCK notes from Mom...

Srinagar is swarming with military. They're stationed every ten yards along both sides of every street. It's like the clock struck midnight and the lampposts turned into soldiers.

What kind of place is this?! I think some history is in order. Obviously, history is important for all travel; I just think it's especially important for Kashmir. (Heck, as Joshua and Jeanne are sure to point out, history is required for appreciating anything. I mean, history is the story of everything that ever happened, right?) The point is, I'd like to present...

A brief and questionably accurate history of Kashmir.

(This is gonna be kinda long, since I think it's interesting and I didn't know any of it before. So, if you like, skip to "ENOUGH HISTORY")

Let's start in the 17th century, when European capitalists were making a king's ransom on subcontinental trade. I say "subcontinental" and not "Indian" because if I say "Indian," it implies some kind of monolithic entity. FAR from it! Modern-day India was, and still is, a wildly varied mosaic of cultures. Imagine if some empire conquered all of Europe and, a little while later, made it one country. Different languages, histories, foods, politics, religions, all sorts of variety. That's India.

Anyway, back to European capitalism. During the 18th century, Britain's East India Company was rolling in dough, and somehow bought their way to overwhelming political clout. By the mid-1800's, modern-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar were all one big British colony. Here's a 1909 map:

Fast forward to the early 20th century (see, brief history), when folks like Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi were pushing for subcontinental independence. Long story short, a little after WWII, the UK acquiesced to growing civil unrest and announced it would grant independence. So, do you make one state? Two? Three? How do you Balkanize the subcontinent?

The decision was made to partition the subcontinent along the main religious rift: Muslims on the left, Hindus on the right. Pakistan, India.

(Small aside: Actually, there was also a Muslim chunk in the east, so Pakistan had two sections: West Pakistan and East Pakistan. The smaller, East Pakistan, like many non-contiguous states, felt ignored and pushed for sovereignty. After a war in 1971, East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh, and West Pakistan dropped the "West." Also, judging by the map above, Burma-now-Myanmar must somehow play into this, but you gotta ask someone else.)

Enter Kashmir. Kashmir was one of the "princely states" that was allowed to choose, at the end of the British Raj, whether it wanted to join Pakistan or India. With a 94% Muslim majority, Pakistan was the obvious choice, but the Hindu Maharaja went with India (sorta). Big mistake.

British Raj officially ended on April 14/15, 1947. Within two months, Pakistan and India were at war over Kashmir. Ever since, India and Pakistan have gone through waves of fighting over the disputed valley, and it's become an issue of intense national pride.

Kashmiri tourism was doing spectacularly from '72 to the late '80s; rich Indian tourists would come to escape the plains' summer heat, and the English bourgeoisie would visit to relive the British Raj in decadence. But in 1989, something ignited the Kashmir conflict (again), and the '90s were real horrorshow. Lots of ultraviolence. In 1998, India flashed feathers by detonating nuclears in the desert of Rajastan, near the Paki border, and Pakistan responded in kind. By 2000, Clinton said Kashmir was the most dangerous place in the world.

Due to the region's current calm, tourists are slowly, very slowly, trickling back in. The military presence here in Srinagar is palpable -- some abandoned hotels are obviously makeshift army bases -- and when I tried to send a package home, I simply wasn't allowed. Despite all this, Indians swear Kashmir is safer than it's ever been, and as proof, Srinagar has a solid number of domestic tourists right now.

In the three days I've been wandering around Srinagar and surroundings, I've seen two other Westerners.

ENOUGH HISTORY

Alright, the road from Leh to Srinagar was pretty.

I'd have taken more photos, but I'm kinda done with taking photos from buses. Delhi to Manali was 18 hours, Manali to Leh was 20, Leh to Srinagar was 16, and my next ride back to Delhi will be a whopping 24. That's a lot of bus.

(Internet in Kashmir was too slow for photos, so I'm finishing this in Agra, where I've just arrived. The ride to Delhi was 27 hours, and of course, the air conditioning didn't work. Delhi to Agra was another 5, and again, no A/C. While I do have plenty of good things to say about India, it is most certainly a land of scams and false adjectives. New, Clean, Air-Conditioned, Next-Day? All lies.)

Maybe because I was in a bus lull, I let my guard down and made the super rookie mistake of telling one of my fellow passengers I wasn't sure where I was staying in Srinagar. Oy. See, this is a public bus -- there are no tourist buses around here -- so everyone has a houseboat or knows someone who has a houseboat. (In Srinagar, you don't stay in guesthouses, you stay in houseboats.) The entire rest of the ride, every time we'd have a bathroom stop, someone new jostled for the spot next to me. Oh, your brother has a nice boat? That's terrific.

When the bus was nearing Srinagar, it slowed, slowed!, and someone running alongside jumped on. He has a houseboat. Someone called ahead and let him know I was coming. Kashmir! Back off!

You know how if someone's too eager for a date, you wonder what's wrong and it's kinda irrationally unattractive? Srinagar is desperate for tourists.

Due to Kashmir's... uh, wanting reputation for safety, Western tourists are few and far between. You know when you look at someone, and they immediately look away, but it's obvious they were looking at you? Constant. Some don't even bother looking away. One guy asked to take my picture. I let him.

I'm the only not-Sunni-Muslim on any given bus. (Sunni is like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and part of Iraq. Shia is Iran style.) I won't lie about my nationality or religion, but I'm still a little nervous when someone asks me. Turns out they really like America here. About Jews, they don't say much.

So being a Martian is neat.

Anyway, a million no-thank-you's later, I wound up on the New Zeenith (sic), a "deluxe" class houseboat on Lake Nageen.

Dad would LOVE it. It's so, so interesting. Imagine taking a fancy British B&B, but letting it sit derelict for 20 years. That's what all these houseboats are. The insides are phantoms of days gone by, when British sophistos would summer here:

But now, all the sconces are leaning off the walls, the carpets all faded and stained, and the paint struggling to keep its hold on the desiccated wood. It's just fascinating. One entire side of the boat's leaning slightly aft.

I have the entire boat to myself. Mohammad and his son Javeed are happy to have me. The official government-set rate for a deluxe-class houseboat is 3000 rupees a night. I'm paying 1000. Now that's a splurge for me, but I'm currently well under-budget, and that price ($25 a night) includes breakfast, afternoon tea, and dinner.

Javeed sits there all dinner and makes sure "Everything is alright, Sir?" It's wonderfully awkward. "Would you like some more tea, Sir?" Thank you.

Dad would just love this. He'd love it more than anyone. (Except the scams and lies would bug him even more than me.)

You know, I kept thinking how much Dad would love the houseboat (if they redid the bathrooms...), so I wrote him a card and went off to find a post office. And I'm so happy I did! Lemme tell you: you've never sent a post 'til you've sent one from Kashmir!

See those guards? And the one manning the gun turret on the armored van? And the barbed wire wall behind them? That's the post office. What a trip. By the time I get in, I was stripped of my backpack, camera, jacket -- everything but my clothes and my two lonely postcards (also sent one to Shedd) -- and I got a thorough patting-down. Then I had to walk through one of those stupid snake-y line thingies, even though nobody's there, but instead of red velvet rope, it's more barbed wire. But the posts were sent. So maybe they'll get to Chicago, or maybe they'll be detonated somewhere near the Paki border :)

After the post office, let's wander around Srinagar. Now, part of the reason I came here is that Srinagar is the jewel of the Kashmir valley, and all this turmoil over a little valley, so much opulence here in the past; what jewel here is worth such investment and strife?

Um... I have no idea. Srinagar is an altogether unattractive place. Maybe it's the competitively-priced medical supplies?

Okay, okay, I kinda lied. As you might have deduced from the houseboat thing, the draw of Srinagar is water. Obviously, I'm an aquaphile, and I could spend hours rowing around Nageen Lake in this shikara. And I do.

(I know, blatant vanity shot. But damnit, I think that photo came out well! My left arm's apparently five feet long.)

What a surface!

Though you know how Srinagar is teeming with touts and folks desperate for tourists? Every now and then, even as you paddle, a vendor in a boat will race up to yours and, despite your protests, dock you like a damn pirate. I have to say, it's just so forward and obnoxious, it's fascinating. This man is showing me his paper mache boxes.

But even that doesn't dissuade me from taking the shikara out every day. I mean, have you ever wanted to just walk into a Monet and paddle around in a gondola? I did.

Adding to the romance of paddling around a quiet, reflective lake, this whole place is permeated with a sense of dying opulence, just fraught with ghosts of magnificence past. It's really fascinating.

The graveyard sense is juxtaposed, maybe accentuated, with all the waterbirds and jumping fish give hope and a sense of spring. Here's one of the long-necked long-beaked type.

I wish I could get a photo of the smaller birds -- blues and whites and blacks, and such fluttering wings! -- but I can't get close enough for a decent shot.

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken nature's social union
And justifies that ill-opinion
That makes thee startle at me...

(10 points for naming the poet!)

Also, splurged to rent a fancy shikara all day and be rowed around the old city.

Total disappointment, really: supposed to see 3 gardens and such, but instead saw one garden and then stopped, against my very vocal wishes, at commission-paying souvenir shops. Unfortunately, this is common here in India (only Leh seemed... honest), and there's no recourse to get your money back. BUT, the old city was like half-Venice, half-What Dreams May Come.

Those derelict boats and fancy buildings in disrepair? So interesting. Like much of India so far, neither fun nor comfortable, but damn interesting.

Though the lake sure was pretty.

So, so pretty.

And on a totally unrelated note: tomorrow's my BIRFDAY!

leh, ladakh

2008-05-31T20:21:00.000-07:00

Well I'm feeling much much better, and have been wandering around Leh (in Ladakh, in the Jammu & Kashmir province of India) for the past couple days. At 12000 feet, Leh is super dusty and you get sunburnt in no time at all, but it's absolutely beautiful. Reminds me a bit of Luang Prabang, in that each little alleyway is a work of art.

Ladakhi culture is very similar to Tibetan culture, and after China invaded Tibet in 1949, many Tibetans took refuge in Ladakh, so the cultures are now pretty mixed together. Just about every house and building has prayer flags over it, and the main street is just covered.

Overlooking the city is a old fort slash palace, so I went to check it out. The entry fee is 5 rupees for Indians, 100 for foreigners. It's obnoxious, but standard all across India; tourists pay more, even at official sites. Not very welcoming.

Anyway, the palace is totally derelict, it's great. The hallways are so tiny, little ladders and doors and dusty passages, it's a hide-and-seek paradise. It's like getting to play around in the Gerudo Fortress! (I know, not my proudest comparison, but, well, it looks just like it! I'm sorry, but I like Zelda and I have a pocket full of rupees, my brain's primed.) Seriously though, if you know what I'm talking about -- and it's probably best if you don't -- look at this and tell me what you think of.

The only room that was in some state of grandeur was the central temple, which a lama helpfully unlocked for me and showed me around.

Check out these masks!

All the artifacts in that room are from the 16th century.

For a full hour, I was the palace's only visitor, and every now and then you'd explore your way to a rooftop, where the view...

Wowza! The historic town of Leh, which you can see, looks much different than the newer structures. And it looks so pretty! I tried to explore the old town, but constantly got lost in the alleyways. Even so, it was kind of fun. Look at this garage I found.

Have you ever seen such an attractive garage in your life?!

And how'd you like this to be the door to your house?

What an unbelievable door!

The Tibetan Heritage Fund's Leh Old Town Initiative, which raises money to repair and restore Leh's historic district, runs guided tours of the old town. Done and done. So I head to the office at 3pm, when the tour should start. The office, like so many buildings in old town, is cramped and tiny, with steep stone staircases and old wooden ladders. (Unfortunately, it's so cramped I couldn't back up far enough to take decent photos of anything.) In a dusty little closet are 5 stones with religious carvings. What are those? Nobody's really sure, but they're probably from the such-and-such period, which puts them at around 1000 years old. Tea is served. The guy in charge of this tiny office is a local Ladakhi who speaks impeccable English, while the two other office people are a Swiss archeologist and a German volunteer. The three of them are leading the two of us foreigners on a tour. Three guides for two people! The other tourist is also a Cal alum. The scene in the office, sipping tea and talking history in a cozy, dusty, 400-year-old building, might be improved if they changed the boombox to something, anything, besides 50 Cent.

Here, a photo tour of old town Leh. The houses here date from the 17th century, and most have been abandoned. Due to extensive restoration, folks are starting to move back in.

Walking through some of the alleyways.

The doors are often sunk well below the road, a sure sign of homes built for roads long gone. Road repair raises the street level, and the houses just have to cope.

Now, I noticed also in the palace, the doors in historic Leh are inexplicably small. I'm talking 4 to 5 feet.

Why? Because rumor is demons can't bend - they just walk straight - so if you have to duck to get into the house... we'll outsmart those demons yet!

A real pleasure, a real, real pleasure of this walking tour was getting to pop into a restored, inhabited historic house. It was unbelievable. The stairs up to the main floor?

Once there, the ceiling is covered in a layer of soot from the huge wood-burning oven, and the floors are the most beautifully tiled old wood.

And from the balcony, the view!

Now this home was totally restored, but most are in complete disrepair. On the way back down to the office, we saw another building being restored. The laborers are both men and women: the women carry huge stones to the site, and the men put them into place. Lookit how the women carry these stones.

Doesn't that look so, so hard? What a job. What a life!

Back to the guesthouse. Goodbye, historic Leh. See you again tomorrow.

The guesthouse I'm staying at is actually on the fringe of old town, and is one of two guesthouses grandfathered in; new construction is not allowed in the historic district. New construction usually involves a corrugated tin roof, while the older buildings have roofs made of mud and clay that you can walk on. So not only do I get to be in old town, but getting to lie on the roof at night, up in the desert at 12000 feet, hundreds of miles from anything resembling a modern city...

I wish I could show you the stars. Just a million, bazillion stars. The milky way is milky. And the night sky is so black. It's really something else.

Besides walking around old town, I watch the local cricket matches. If you like baseball, cricket's a really approachable sport. And instead of people walking around hawking beer and dogs, it's chai and samosas. A veggie samosa is 5 rupees. I handed the guy a 20. For change, he gave me a 10 and another samosa.

The spice and fruit and bread vendors use these great old scales to weigh out your food. I'm getting all sorts of food I don't need. I got a half kilo of cookies. Do you know how many cookies that is? It's 23 cookies. A half kilo of cherries set me back 50 rupees, but what a shop!

You know who would really, really love this place? Dad.

Hi Dad!

the high road

2008-05-28T21:27:00.000-07:00

Before I start, the monk next to me is on Facebook.

Okay, I left off in Vashisht. Let's go to Leh. For reasons inexplicable, the minivan to Leh leaves the Manali area at 1:30am. So I have to wait with my stuff on the road in Vashisht, alone, hoping the van comes to pick me up. I get there around 1am, and park my butt on the road outside the travel agency.

Now, immediately I don't like this. I'm scared of dogs, and Vashisht at night is crawling with strays. Barking, growling strays that make me tense and uncomfortable. I don't like it one bit and start counting the minutes to 1:30am.

1:30 passes. 1:45 passes. By 2:15 I'm annoyed and don't think the van's coming. By 2:45 I'm sure of it.

I don't have a place to stay, no room for the night. And I'm so pissed and these goddamn dogs are making me so nervous I can't sleep. So I'm gonna sit here until the sun comes up and the dogs go away and when the travel agent guy comes back I'm gonna slam my ticket down on counter and yell at him and a crowd's going to form and I'll tell the agent Ganesh hates him and I won't be allowed in Vashisht anymore. I swear to you, that was going to happen, but at 3:15, a van came and picked me up.

Of the 11 of us in the minivan, 4 are tourists and 7 live in or near Leh. I'm the only one who hasn't been to Leh before. They tell me the drive there is amazing, how excited I should be. They were not lying. My camera couldn't really get photos of the early morning mountain passes, with the sky just glittering with stars, but this single photo came out a little:

Now, I'm going to put up what are, I think, gorgeous photos of an unbelievable ride. But here's the rub: altitude sickness. Bad altitude sickness. Vashisht is already at 8700 feet, which is pretty high, but this highway is out of control. The first mountain pass takes us up to 13,000 feet, then back down to about 9000. The next pass goes up to 16,000 feet. It's gorgeous.

The third pass is 16,600 feet, which looks a lot like the previous pass, but hey, I could keep looking.

Those are the Himalayas.

One really neat thing you get to see when going up and down so much, besides the obvious vistas, is river formation. I've always been kinda curious how rivers have so much water. Okay, I know that sounded kinda dumb, but seriously. They can flow pretty fast, and even small rivers have tremendous volumes; where's all that water come from? I mean, I "know" the answer from my geology classes, but it never viscerally took. But when you're up at the top of these passes, you see the snowcaps melting a bit under the sun, just a little wetness on the rock.

Then, descend some, and you'll find the little sprinkles gathering together, like peasants gathering to storm a castle, and they'll team up and cross the road.

Down more, these trickles coalesce into veritable streams.

And finally, these streams roll and fall down into the river in the valley, who takes them all in and flows on.

So that's where the water comes from! 'Twas neat to see.

Oh, and sometimes, down at 9000 or 10,000 feet, we'd hit a road block.

I really like that second photo.

The roads are kinda dangerous. They're rocky and bumpy and sometimes the sides are very steep. It'd be a looooong fall. (How bumpy and steep and tortuous? The 300 mile trip took 20 hours.) So anyway, the highway is dotted with signs, usually in terrible couplets, like: "Keep your eyes on the road or be taken to a heavenly abode." But one sign was just terrific, so curt and anachronistic. "Don't gossip. Let him drive." What a great sign!

Heading up to the final pass, we're getting near Leh. Now Leh is totally safe, but the whole Jammu/Kashmir region is under kinda heavy military surveillance, so we're constantly stopping by checkpoints to show our passports and whatnot. Sometimes the military caravans, in the dusty high-altitude desert, looked like Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Why they use forest camouflage thousands of feet above the treeline, I don't know.

Now, the last pass is an incredible 17,500 feet. Do you know how high 17,500 feet is?! (Technically, Taglang La is 17,470 feet, putting it in the top five highest "motorable passes" in the world. The other four are all nearby.) We get up to the top of the pass, and there's a huge line of trucks, not moving. The driver says sometimes a landslide or an avalanche will block the pass, and we'll have to wait for them to clear it.

An hour and a half. An hour and a half at 17,500 feet. Now, I was already feeling plenty ill. I didn't really harp on it in this post, but I'm definitely sick this whole time. Going from 9000 to 16,000 and down and up again, and the whole time the windows are open so the windshield doesn't fog up. So it's freezing and then warm, then freezing, and warm, and up and down, up down, and well, I'm way sick. But being stuck up at 17,500 feet?

My body just went bananas. Fever, wild shivering, intense headache, the worst sore throat, heavy heavy breathing (the air pressure at 17,500 feet is half that of sea level). I was just so sick, and so miserable. So, so miserable. But the view up there, wow.

Once the block cleared up, this photo was pretty neat, too.

So there's about 2 hours left in the ride to Leh, and I'm super super sick.

Heidi, the nice Dutch 40-something, noticed that I was shivering like crazy and my nose was bleeding, and she and Casper basically took care of me at Leh. They, being tourists who had been to Leh several times before, were familiar with altitude sickness and were kind enough to help me. But oh no! Heidi starts talking non-Western treatment, which I'm very not into, but I'm too sick and despondent to argue. But Casper, who reminds me a lot of Uncle Harold (and not just 'cause he's South African), dismisses Heidi's nonsense and hands me some pills. Some chalky little made in a lab by a chemist with safety goggles pills. Thank you Casper. Heidi, you're a sweetheart, you really are, but I'm sick, and I don't need my chi aligned with Saturn.

An aside. I'm not saying Western medicine is perfect: When Big Pharm tries to make money (understandably), there's an ethical twist. And basic science research has too many externalities to jibe well in a capitalist system; that's one of the reasons most countries socialize basic science. And I think plenty of Western countries could more highly prioritize preventative care and healthy lifestyles. But that's neither here nor there. All I'm saying is that my faith in the scientific method is unshakeable, and when I'm really, truly sick, I want something that works.

Anyway, we got into Leh at 11pm, and I was truly sick. Totally despondent, febrile and unable to take care of myself (I couldn't stand -- I'd pass out), so Heidi and Casper took me to the guesthouse they were staying at and got me into a room. I hadn't slept in 40 hours.

Woke up so, so sick. Leh is at 11,500 feet itself, so it's not like going back down to Chicago. I don't want to rant to much, but being sick and alone in India is awful. It's absolutely the worst thing that's happened this trip. You're sick and upset and little things become huge deals. I want a shower that's an actual shower and not a bucket under a faucet with a ladle floating in it. I want a sit-down toilet. I want to be on a couch, under blankets, with Iron & Wine on Cam's fancy speakers and, if I'm awake at all, Zelda on the Super Nintendo, or if I'm asleep, a comfy pillow and clean sheets. But I'm alone in India, and I'm so goddamn helpless, and so alone, and my head is pounding, hurts so much. Such a fever. At home you have people, Mom and Dad and Joshua, Jeanne and Cam and Leah, people who will call and go to the store and get you Ovaltine and vanilla soy milk. Who make sure you have advil and a roll of toilet paper to blow your nose. You know how important that is? Here, I'm just so alone and helpless, and I'm so so sick, and I can't do anything.

Okay, okay, I didn't want to rant, but obviously it happened a little. I'm sorry that wasn't more upbeat, but being sick at home is bad enough, and here... I guess it's honest though. Traveling isn't always good times. I usually don't write about the bad stuff, but it's there. And it helps, when times get rough, it really helps to think of Mom's favorite saying: This too shall pass.

But anyway, I still have a little headache and sore throat, but I'm a million times better than yesterday and the day before. So that's good. And the Cubs are tearing it up, so that's good too. And I'm in Leh, which is pretty neat. It's certainly pretty:

three cups of chai

2008-05-27T00:17:00.000-07:00

Oh boy, where did I leave off? Right, just got to Vashisht and was in love with the place. Okay, now, a little about the people. Let me introduce...

Neville.

Neville's the avuncular, 50-year-old guest house helper guy (not the owner, but he takes care of the guests) who has a comical way of answering questions really abruptly, loud and staccato, like a little kid who's fiercely proud to know the answer:
"Sorry, I'm Jake, and y..."
"NEVILLE!"
What a great, British name. He's genetically Indian, but grew up speaking (pidgin) English at home. Calls himself Anglo-Indian. Neville's lived in Vashisht for 5 years now. More on him later. Next character:

Mooldas.

Mooldas is either smoking or smiling, always. He's from Pushkar, in Rajastan, and moves up to Vashisht for the 4-month tourist season (mostly domestic tourists) to run a clothes shop. Vashisht is at about 8700 feet, and it gets chilly at night. I opted to get the coat Mooldas is holding up in the photo, custom-tailored for my measurements and everything. Ran about $13. Mooldas, surprise surprise, invites me in for chai. He's terribly friendly. And finally,

Little calf.

Lemme tell you about this calf. She liked to lick my pants.

Well, I think Neville and Mooldas are the only two you really need to know, though there are several other characters here. I think being a Westerner (instead of a domestic tourist), and being a single traveller, folks can tell I'm kinda walking around with my tentacles out, looking for people to chat with, eat with. And while it's a bit awkward, like walking into a bar alone on a Friday night, a little self-conscious, people usually pick up on it and respond warmly. So a lot of restaurant owners and sadhus* and bakers... we don't really know each other, but there's recognition and a smile. It's a very small town, everything's on the one road. So that's nice.

* - Okay, just one. But he's really nice, and while I didn't take a photo, his legs are lame, so he folds them up, pretzel-yoga style, and walks on his hands. If I had to guess, maybe polio? Dad, Anjeni, is that reasonable?

Anyway, at some point I'm eating, and Neville waves at me from the road. When in India... So I invite him in for chai. He's very chatty, talking in fits and bursts and waving his arms like a loony on a soapbox, but it's fun. He's about the first Indian I've met who isn't religious. Everything is said with such melodrama that it's hard to not laugh, but his philosophy really rings dear to my secular humanist heart: "We should be kind NOT BECAUSE OF RELIGION, but because WE'RE ALL WE HAVE! So live and let live, actually." He says "actually" a lot. The Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, were not written by "some fictitious... CLOUD MAN." Arms flailing! No, no, they came from some "clever Roman bullshitter." Okay, a little acerbic for me, but definitely entertaining.

The next morning, I'm hoping to go on a 5-6 hour day hike. I ask Neville, who's the appropriate guy to ask, and he says he'll take me! Gesturing wildly! Wonderful!

Actually, not that wonderful. You know how some things can be great for an hour, but for 6 hours it's way too much? Yeah. Neville's a bit too ranty for any real amount of time. And unfortunately, the hike was walking through a village, around a dyke, and up a road for 7 miles! Walking 7 miles on a road is not hiking, it's hitchhiking. Unsuccessful hitchhiking, at that. Here's me following Neville, catching him at a rare time when his arms are by his side, as he waxes pessimistic on the state of human affairs:

Neville doesn't like rock climbing. "So you did not fall off a rock, actually. WHAT SATISFACTION?!" Arms flailing emphatically. At one point I have to defend Salman Rushdie's intentions as an author: I don't think he's writing "bullshit he doesn't believe" just to make rupees and support his oh-so-opulent lifestyle. This negative outlook really wears on me. Neville, c'mon, there are so many wonderful things in life! Doesn't this view just make you smile?

When we finally get to the hike's destination, it's super anti-climactic. It's this bizarre domestic-tourist carnival playground kinda thing, where you can go mini-paragliding, or zorbing, which would be fun if it were more than a 50 yard bunny hill. But lookit those mountains in the background!

After the looooong walk back (Neville, ever-talking and waving his arms like a drunk conductor, is fifty years old and thinks of this as just a stroll!) I pass by Mooldas' shop, and...

Mooldas and I chat over chai while the tailor is sewing my coat on a foot-powered Singer. (Mooldas does the business end, and designs all the clothes, but his friend actually makes them.) An Indian tourist pops in and asks the price of a shirt, and Mooldas gives her a higher price than the inquiring British woman a few minutes before. He always quotes Westerners at a lower price. Why? "Because you came all the way here!" I love this man! More chai.

Mooldas is a Brahmin, so he's vegetarian. Me too? And I like Indian food? He insists I join "them" for dinner. I don't know who "them" is, but okay!

"Them" is Mooldas, the tailor, and their very quiet friend. Three grown men, in their mid-40's, with wives back in Rajastan, all live together in a one bed, one room rented hole in the village. They come here to make money during the tourist season, and, like the domestic tourists, to escape the heat of India's central plains. Work starts around 9am, and if today was any indication, goes 'til about 9pm.

The tailor leaves to fill a bucket with water. The "kitchen" is the corner opposite the bed, an outline delineated by the wet floor covered with old peas and flour smears, with a slab of rock, a pile of dishes, and a portable iron stove that Mooldas is pumping to pressurize the gas. One bucket is for "clean" water, and the other bucket is for used water. First thing's first: chai all around.

I know I should have photos of this, but I didn't want to bring my camera to dinner. Maybe it would've been fine -- in retrospect, I'm sure it would've been fine -- but at the time, I felt awkward.

The tailor is cleaning the dishes, while the quiet one cuts broccoli (17 cents a pound at the market), tomatoes, ginger, garlic, and all sorts of things with his pocket knife. He piles them up on some newspaper he laid down. Mooldas is tending to the stove, where rice is cooking. I ask if I can help. "You're my guest! Please, sit down." The three of them are all squatting while they work, old peas squeezing up between their toes, the cuffs of their pants sloppy wet. I sit on the bed. The bedding is 4 or 5 thin mats thrown together. You can feel the supporting wooden boards distinctly. The three of them, squatting and laboring on their food after a 12-hour workday, are chatting away in Hindi and constantly laughing.

Seeing this lifestyle is so... sooooo... I'm looking for a better word than "interesting," but I don't know, it's just damn interesting. Being there is awkward, too. Mooldas is the only one that speaks English, and while I'd love to be a fly on the wall while they work and cook and talk and laugh, I'm very... uh, corporeally present. I hear Mooldas speaking Hindi to the other two: "blah blah blah vegetarian [glance at me] blah blah scientist..." I'm very present.

There's only one tiny stove, so once the rice is done, it's time for the broccoli masala. 20 more minutes. After that, the chapatis. Cooking chapatis is a two-person job, apparently, because the tailor and Mooldas tag-team the exact same way the white-haired Brahmin and Mukul did. The quiet one lies on the bed near me and reads their only book: The Ramayana. The walls are totally bare. The whole place is lit by one neon tube-light, and there's no heat. We're all wearing jackets.

By the time the chapatis are done, it's probably 11pm, and I'm starving. The rice is cold, as is the broccoli masala, and only the most recent chapatis have a semblance of warmth. We all sit on the ground, cross-legged, and chow. They chat some in Hindi. The food is cold. I tell them it's fantastic.

I can't believe the three of them live like this. It's so, well, interesting.

At 12:30 or so, I need to head back to get some sleep, and they three walk me home. Very well-intentioned, certainly, but a bit intimidating. Since I don't speak Hindi and neither the tailor nor the quiet one speak English, there's no lingua franca, so nobody talks. It's night, and the few villagers awake stare at me, surrounded by three silent Indians, like I'm being removed by the mafia, like I'm Hannibal Lector. (I don't think they'd get it, if I yelled at them, "Have the lambs stopped screaming?!" But it crossed my mind.)

Anyway, I made it home, dead tired and full of broccoi and rice and the strangest thoughts.

Now I can't walk down the street without Neville, or Mooldas, or someone inviting me to stop for chai. It's so welcoming, but can be a bit much, even. Sometimes I want to be alone, you know? Solitude here is nice. So I'll sneak up onto a rooftop eatery, have a sweet lassi, and just look at the view.

These pictures are so unsatisfying when I put them up on a computer. They just don't hold a candle to being here. Seeing every individual leaf, watching the clouds roll down the mountainsides, around the trees like rocks in a brook. (Really, they do! Some treetops stand out above the fog and you can see eddies form!) Hearing water trickling past in the valley, and the chirp-birds and the maaaa-sheep and the moo-cows. It's rugged and bucolic and foreign and so so peaceful. I like to just sit up there, on the roof, above it all, and think I can't believe I'm in India!

This place is growing on me like a beard.

Tonight, I'm taking the crazy scary highway up to Leh. So I'm gonna sign off now, and go visit Mooldas one last time. I bet, as usual, he and the tailor will be smoking, chatting, and sipping chai.

vashisht

2008-05-25T04:28:00.000-07:00

This will be mostly a photo update, because all I do here is walk around staring slack-jawed like a little kid. I'm in Vashisht, a hill-station a few k's from Manali, at the base of the Himalayas. It's gorgeous, it's beautiful, it's awesome, it's magical.

Vashisht, and the neighboring Manali, are popular destinations for domestic tourists who are looking to escape the heat of India's central plains. So everything here is nicely set up for tourists, but I'm one of relatively few white people. So that's perfect. You know what else is perfect? The scenery here.

A 21-hour bus ride (!) took me from Delhi straight into an 8-year-old girl's imagination. Waterfalls and sheep, horses and cows and bunnies and the most colorful clothes. Every group walking down the street is a bouquet of fabric. Oh, down with words! Let the pictures speak for themselves:

The bus ride here was picturesque, if cramped and uncomfortable and long and worryingly steep:

You'd think 300 miles wouldn't take 21 hours, but you have to drive pretty slowly on these scary roads (I'm quite happy the driver took 21 hours!), and sometimes an impasse would take an hour and a half to negotiate:

How cute is that little old man?

Arrive in Manali, take a quick cab to the quieter village of Vashisht. I had to push-start the cab, and then we ran out of petrol, so he bought another liter and we push-started it again. Vashisht is right out of a fairy tale.

That's the view from my room! My 150 rupee a night room ($3.75). The room has a pretty drawing on the wall, and the world's thinnest pillows:

The name of the guesthouse is Ganga Guesthouse. Marijuana grows here like, well, a weed. It's everywhere. Took me 30 seconds to find this shot. You just walk outside and there it is.

Lookit this roof I found in the village! What a great roof!

It's just one big fairy tale here.

"Alright," said the Indian raft that slammed into the Eurasian plate and smashed up the Himalayan orogeny, "let's get a little river in the valley, and the first mountains you see? Make 'em green, covered with coniferous forest. But behind 'em, let's have the rocky Himalayas loom triumphant, barren, and always covered in rolling fog."
"Barren mountains covered in rolling fog, 'looming triumphant'? Sounds a little, you know... B-grade cheesy? What, you want waterfalls everywhere too?"
"Yeah! Yeah, great idea! Waterfalls everywhere! Do it."

That's one of like, 10 waterfalls. Here, this river just tumbles down from the fog:

Oh! Oh! Have you ever seen an Angora bunny?!

HAHAHAHAH!! HAHAHAH! I can't look at one without laughing! FLUFFY BALL! FLUFFY BALL! HAHAHAHA! It's like a mythical sheep-bunny! Fluffy sheep-bunny!

Everything here is fuzzy 'cause it gets a little nippy here at night. And I packed only for hot weather, so I gotta get a coat. There are worse places to need to buy a coat, though. The tailor at this little hole-in-the-wall, Mooldas, is particularly nice, so I got a hoody from him. Custom-made, took my measurements. I'd like this material, that color, like this, but I want the pocket a little different. It's fun. And for $9? You can't beat that. Not with a stick.

Mooldas saw me walking past later, and, of course, invited me in for chai.

I had lunch at this cafe in the middle of nowhere. It was delicious!

This Vashisht place is pretty nice. Maybe I'll go hiking tomorrow. Here, I'll sign off with one last photo of the valley. It's just so gorgeous here. So gorgeous.

a cup of chai

2008-05-23T00:51:00.000-07:00

So I know that last post was a little dramatic, but, well, arriving in India is dramatic. But I'm feeling much, much better now.

After posting that last entry, I decided, with tenuous resolve, to get a few photos of paharganj. So camera in hand, I walked out of the internet sanctuary, braved the street, and snapped a couple shots:

It's madness. It's just madness. (I just looked over this post, and what injustice! The photos capture nothing! The smells, the sounds, the heat and bustle and grime and splashing feet and wheels and cows! Well, you're just going to have to go yourself! It's alive!)

The tiny alleys off the main bizaar (the literal translation of "pahar ganj") split and branch like ivy. A twist and a turn and two cows later, and nothing's changed. Rickshaws squeezing by, honking motos, the smell of incense, chapati, urine. Push on. I found a little sit-down cafe, whose only customers are a western couple. Done and done.

I didn't even chat with them, but it's comforting just to see white people. It's nice to get off the street for a second. Aloo gobi, paneer paratha, rice, and a plain lassi, please. Tons of food. Thai portions, these ain't. Stuffed my belly for 90 rupees. $2.25. The food is delicious. I didn't realize how hungry I was! But next time, sweet lassi. Plain is kinda... needs sugar.

You know how excited I've been for Indian food? It's a vegetarian's paradise! Even the food on the plane! Bursting and dripping with flavor, like the whole market warmed and put on a spoon.

I could eat here forever. But I'm stuffed. Really stuffed.

Keep wandering the alleys, so tortuous! Cows and people, fruit carts and spices and walls. People look at me. Cattle in the marketplace. Maybe it's the third world, maybe it's his first time around. I keep thinking of that song.

On this ledge, next to the motorbike, there's an old man, white hair and beard, with an orange dot on his forehead. He's looking at me, and I smile as I pass. He smiles.

I pass two little kids playing cricket with a tennis ball and a board. A few minutes later, turning from alley to alley, two kids my age, cricket again, but with a real cricket bat. On my right, the same ledge, same white-haired old man. He says hello. I say hello. He sits up, and we start chatting. He invites me in for chai (tea, sorta).

His house is one room. He lives there with his two sons, my age. The ones playing cricket in the alley. Here, I'm sitting on the bed, against the corner.

He's 58, a Brahmin, ex-rickshaw driver. We have chai and talk. The orange dot is for Hanuman. He loves Hanuman the most, and has a little shrine where he prays every morning. Lived in the same one-room house since he was born. He tells me stories. Tells me why Indians always pray to Ganesh first, before the other gods. (That trickster!)

I don't know if this man wants money, or company, or both. I don't really care. It was such a treat to have tea with him, such an experience. He really made me like India, hard, immediately. Do I want to come back for tea tomorrow, or lunch? Absolutely! Whenever you like. 10 o'clock? 10, 10:30, 11, whenever you like.

I'm all smiles.

Back to my room. The guesthouse is funny. Dirty, broken bricks and tiles everywhere, and yet some stairs are made of marble. My room hasn't a modicum of cleanliness. The toilet doesn't have a seat, or a cover. The bed is laden with crumbs, stains. There's no phone, but there's a button for room service. Press the button, and a bell rings, and an Indian boy comes huffing and puffing up the stairs to take your order. Such a mix of cheap and fancy, disgusting and regal. I'll have some plain naan, a water, and chai, please.

There's the photo of me that Mom wanted. (When I'm outside, the camera does not leave my person. No way.) And for some reason in pictures places always look clean-ish. I promise you, it's not.

This morning I woke up, looking forward to chai with the Brahmin man. I bring some rupees, and some cookies I got in Thailand. It's not a good gift, but it's a gift. And really, all gifts are good gifts. Off to find the white-bearded man.

He's there, with one of his sons. What a treat. We all have chai, and they start making chapati. His son is studying English at university, and has really interesting things to say. We're chatting, while the father is squatting on the floor, patting out the chapati dough, which he then hands to his son, who fries them and toasts them on the fire. It's beautiful!

The son, Mukul, is on a scholarship at uni. His older brother works for Benetton, which is a very good job, because he 5000 rupees a month ($125). Mukul's so interesting, and full of smiles! He's just a bucket of smiles. A Brahmin, he thinks the caste system is outdated and silly. Very liberal. 10 years ago, women wouldn't go to school in India, but it's changing now and he's very happy about that. He was so impressed that Mom went to Harvard. So impressed. So Mom, Mukul, who lives in a one-room hole with his brother and father in Delhi, thinks you're a pioneer. And a genius. And he's right.

India gained independence from the British on August 15th, 1947. Mukul thinks it would've been earlier had the US not bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The British were stretched too thin, trying to keep India from the Japanese while holding off the Germans at home. If it weren't for America, the Japanese would've taken India from the British. Would that have been any better? He says the Japanese were very popular in the '40s. Dad agrees.

When the dad leaves to get some more ghee from the market, Mukul tells me quietly not to give money to Dad. He spends it on alcohol. Is that why he invited me in for tea? No, no, Mukul says, he's just friendly. But still, don't give him money. Okay.

When I ask to take Dad's picture, he wants to put on a nice shirt and pose outside with a cow. As you wish.

What a real, genuine treat. An Indian man invites me to his home for tea and chapati and conversation. How wonderful! How friendly and welcoming and different. And such good stories from Dad, such interesting thoughts from Mukul. A real highlight.

But Delhi's incredibly hot, even with the rain. And the size and bustle still overwhelms me. So tonight I'm heading up to Manali on an overnight bus, to the base of the Himalayas.

First though, I'll get something from the market. A little thank you for Mukul and Dad. One last cup of chai, a gift and a warm word. Then I'm off. To Manali.

How one person, one cup of chai, can change your whole perspective on a country! So shines a good deed in a weary world.

holy cows!

2008-05-22T03:42:00.000-07:00

First off, I'm sorry for the lack of photos in this update. Thing is, for most of the past 24 hours I've been scared stiff and feeling more like a foreigner than I've ever felt in my life. Popping out a camera... it just wasn't an option.

Culture shock.

Such culture shock, it's unbelievable. I'm just catching my breath now. From the moment you touch down at Indira Gandhi International Airport, India slams you.

I've been to thirty-some countries (forty?). I think of myself as a confident traveler, a veteran. Nothing could have prepared me for this.

India is home to 1,130,000,000 people. About 13 million of them live in Delhi. Apparently they were all at the airport.

My plane touches down at 9pm. What a terrible time for a flight to land. 3am, fine, just spoon your backpack and catch a few nods in the airport, and attack the city at dawn. 5pm, no problem, plenty of hours before the grues come to get you. But 9pm? Awful. You won't get out of the airport 'til 10:30pm, for sure. So I'm arriving in a foreign city at 10:30pm without a place to sleep.

The airport is packed. I don't know if I've ever seen such a crowd. It was like a soccer riot. What is everyone doing at the airport?

I once saw a panel of foreign journalists talking about their views on America. One of the panel questions: What bothers you most about America's (mis)understandings of your country? I don't know why exactly, but I remember the Indian journalist's response well: "You know, a bill in congress was just criticized because it would 'only' help 10% of India. 10% of India! Do you realize that 10% of India is 130 million people [sic]? American's just don't understand how many people are in my country."

Walking out of the airport, pre-paid cab fare ticket in my hand, I thought of that quote. The airport wasn't any more packed than anything here. Delhi is bustling. It's unreal. Shoulder to shoulder, bumper to bumper, horns and smells and yells and sights all piling on top of each other in a messy massive mound. It was like the first scene in some dark sci-fi movie.

The cabbie asks where I'm going.
"New Delhi train station."
"Have hotel?"
"A friend's meeting me there. I'm staying with him."
"I know good hotel."
"I'm staying with my friend."

You don't tell a cabbie you're going to a budget backpacker area. You don't tell a cabbie you don't have a room yet. You don't tell a cabbie anything. They're all looking for kickbacks, taking you to places that will charge you double and split the kick with them. According to my map, Paharganj is a 5 minute walk from the train station, and it's a backpacker area. Gotta play defense.

The first car ride was vertigo. Black cab, black cars, black night. Bright lights and horns everywhere. It's like some morbid trickster, the Joker, switched the brakes and the horns on all the cars. Gotham City. Every time I thought "I would be slamming on the brakes now," HOOOOOOONK! Nonstop. Honking in the distance. People everywhere. Sometimes it was downright fun, ignoring lanes and bumping bumpers like MarioKart, but then out of the darkness between the lights, you'd see a guy on a bike in the highway, or a cow, and you think you're going to hit them, kill them. HOOOOONK HONK HONK. Suddenly it's very macabre again. So many people, and horns, and lights. Cows and bikes and people.

I get out at the train station, start walking west. How do you cross a street here? Rules mean nothing. There are no signs. I find a group of people peering out, not blinking, waiting for their move. I join them. We make it across the street one lane at a time, Frogger style. But scary. A couple of them just dashed. Ran for their lives. There are people everywhere. Some stare at me, unapologetic. Beggars tug on my sleeves. Touts are beelining, "Hey boss!" "Hello mister!" "Sir! Sir!" Ignore them, keep walking. One follows me for blocks. Blocks. "I know good place, sir. Where you from? Hot water, clean room." Keep going. The smells are dizzying, piled up. Where are the hotels?! They must be in these tiny alleys, squeezing past honking motos, rickshaws, cows. I find one. Rooms are 350 rupees. I offer 250. 300, fine. It's disgusting. Fine.

India just flattened me. I fell asleep in my clothes.

When I wake up, it's like a bad hangover. You feel gross. Did last night... was that for real? But the sun's up, and everyone feels better when it's light. It's raining! Thank Vishnu it's raining! It's like streets are being flushed. The streets are being flushed. The temperature drops degrees. Fewer people outdoors.

Still too scared to walk around, really. I duck into an internet cafe for an hour. 15 rupees.

Rupees? Are we serious? Maybe you noticed that video games are on my mind - grues, Frogger, MarioKart - and I think that's why. Rupees? The green ones are worth one, blue's 5, red's 20. Every video game uses either credits (futuristic), gold (dungeons and dragons style), or rupees. How pathetic is this! How uncultured! Rupees are the currency used by more people than dollars, pounds, euros, yen. And here I am, giggling like an idiot every time I have to pay for anything. Like I'm going to get out my brown pouch and hand little gems to the shopkeep. Damn you, Zelda.

Actually, when I was paying the 15 rupees (40 cents) for the internet cafe, it kinda put me in a good mood. The rain had stopped, the sun was shining a bit, there were fewer people in the street, and I'm paying rupees. For the first time, I think, I appreciated the novelty. I'm standing in an alley in Delhi. Don't think I stopped being scared - not at all - but at least some appreciation, some wonder, joined the party. That page in my travel journal is filled with "this is okay," "this is good," "good!" Good.

I admit I'm still a little jittery, but I'm hungry, and I'm going to go explore a bit. Aloo gooooobi, where aaaaare you?

I've never been anywhere like Delhi. It's unbelievable. For better or worse, it's unbelievable.

Greater Bangkokland Area

2008-05-19T18:22:00.000-07:00

So, the last post left off with the decision to come back to Thailand. And wouldn't you know it, I'm writing from Thailand! So I made it!

SE Asia is a cinch to get around for the tourist. The tourism infrastructure is well-oiled, and catching a bus from A to B requires no planning, no hassles, and virtually no money. I don't think I've paid more than $15 US for a bus -- even 10 hour overnight rides. So why is the well-worn road from Siem Reap to the Thai border in such unbelievably bad shape?

It's legendary, apparently. Word on the streets is that one or several airlines are bribing to government to indefinitely delay the road's upgrade. My one unplanned flight from Luang Prabang to Siem Reap was enough to strain my SE Asia budget (set me back $200, if you're curious), and honestly, the road wasn't that bad. So I paid my $11 and, 12 hours later, arrived in Bangkok.

Guang, this super-quiet Chinese Dutch kid, just kinda followed me home from the bus, so we shared a double to defray costs. He also kinda followed me to dinner (what was I gonna say, no, I'm eating alone?), and it was like a horrible date.

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, Bangkok isn't my cup of tea. But with only 4 days before the plane leaves, where can I do a quick jaunt?

Ayuthaya, former capital of Thailand and Unesco world heritage site, is just two hours away by train. I seem to have a theme going.

Getting to the Bangkok train station at 7 in the morning, I leave the guesthouse and start walking to the road to catch a taxi.

"Hey mister, taxi!"
"Meter?"
"No meter, 200 baht" (He doesn't even know where I'm heading yet!)
Another guy, "Where you go?"
"Hualomphong Station, meter only"
"100 baht"
Some lady tries to sell me juice.
"No thank you."
She holds my hand, "Come to my room."
"No."
"Tuk tuk!"
"No."

I finally get a metered cab (58 baht), but what a hassle. Some folks think it's neat -- so much life! -- but I don't like being targeted for scams and hookers at 7 in the morning, thank you.

Ayuthaya is quiet. I like that. Kinda ironic to write that right now, since this cafe is filled with rat-a-tat-TAT-TAT BOOOOOM crunch crunch BANG as all these Thai kids play whatever game they're playing. But generally, Ayuthaya is quiet and filled with historic wats and the ruins of ancient palaces, and at dusk, the sites really turn majestic.

These are the ruins of Thailand's old capital city. 600 years old.

I can't think of a good segue here, so this will have to suffice.

Buddhism permeates everything here, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a shop without a small shrine to Buddha. They're always stocked with offerings, like incense, tiny plates of food, tea. I liked this one, larger than most, with the offering of Fanta, complete with a straw:

Back to Ayuthaya's ruins, though (now there's a segue!). The highlight, surprise surprise, was a tree I found.

Is that cool or is that cool? The Buddha is a complete sitting Buddha from the 14th century, but all you can see anymore is, well, you just saw!

While winding town my tour of historic Ayuthaya, I ran into this Brazilian drink of water named Mariana, and we found dinner at some little pad run by a guy named Tony. Tony's a character. He's half-Thai half-Chinese, and speaks both fluently. His English is excellent, and he responded to Mariana in Portuguese once. The next day, I decided to go back to Tony's for dinner. Tony's there, singing along to Manu Chao in Spanish, while I'm practicing my pathetic French with Sebastian, a Frenchman (of course). Tony joins our conversation, in French.

He speaks 10 languages (2 fluently, 2 well, and 6 passably). And you know what else he's into? Puzzles and games. Here's how it goes down.

Out of his pocket, he pulls a handful of bottlecaps, and lays 10 out in a row. A cap "moves" by jumping two adjacent caps and landing on the third. Once you have a double-up, you can't move that. Jumping a double-up is two jumps. You can't make a triple. The goal is to make 5 double-ups. Here's an example of a failed attempt:

- - - - - - - - - -
. - - = - - - - - -
. - - = = - - . - -

See, now the very left-most cap? It's marooned. It can't jump left (there's nothing there), and it can't jump right (one, two/three, but you have to jump exactly two). The second-to-left cap is also marooned.

So I got that one pretty quick, and Tony's on the ball with another puzzle. 9 caps, each with 1-9 written on it (one of each). Arrange them in a grid so that the 3 columns, the 3 rows, and the 2 diagonals all add up to 15.

No problem.

Tony's impressed, and from then on calls me MacGuyver (I don't really get it, either). Now, the last one he shows me is a game. He makes 3 piles of caps, one with 3 caps, one with 5, one with 7. Each turn, you take as many caps as you want from only one pile. Take the whole pile if you want. The person who takes the last cap loses. Tony suggests we put a beer on this one.

HA! Victim to one of the most classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: Never challenge a game theorist* to Nim when beer is on the line! I go first. He goes. I go. He goes.

* - What I'm studying in grad school? Evolutionary game theory.

I can't believe this. Everyone who said theoretical math wasn't vocational, wasn't practical? Eat your heart out! I've studied this game. I had lectures on it. I've solved the general case! And here it is, in the real world, winning me a beer!

I go. He goes. It's my turn, and I'm looking at three piles, each with one cap left. Wait, wait, what?! Imagine my horror! Tony's all smiles. How could this be? The nim sum is 1. If I take a single cap (my only option), that brings it back to zero. Zero is a winning position, but... but... What went wrong? Math, oh math, why have you forsaken me?!

I bought Tony the beer. He earned it, and I'm happy to pay. But losing Nim? How? This is killing me. What went wrong? I can't sleep like this. I'm in my bed, and I can't sleep. Scratch paper, pencil. Alright, winning positions on the left, losing positions on the right. What went wrong?

When I finally figured it out, I couldn't believe myself. What an idgit. What a stooge. What an ultra-maroon. I was playing Nim strategy. In Nim, the person who takes the last cap wins. I was playing Nim strategy, in a game of Nim misere! Now I know this might not strike you as so inexcusable, but I promise you, it's inexcusable. I friggin' studied game theory. It's one of my things! Totally inexcusable.

But at least I figured out what happened. With that monkey off my back, I could sleep.

Speaking of monkeys (slam dunk!), ever heard of Lopburi? It may have been the capital after Ayuthaya (and before Thonburi, which merged with Bangkok), but that's not why I went there. I took a day trip to Lopburi because...

That's right: MONKEYS! LOTS of monkeys! Like, people-walk-around-with-bamboo-poles-and-slingshots lots of monkey! Wikitravel's page on Lopburi divides the places to sleep into "places with lots of monkeys" and "places with few monkeys." The Lopburi City Hotel is enclosed in a cage so you can open your windows. Wow.

This wat in particular had lots of monkeys:

The inside of the ruins is caged, to keep the monkeys out. So you can take refuge in there and say hi to the monkeys from safety. They seem to like cameras.

This baby monkey and I became friends. Awwwwwwww...

More fun was being outside. Most monkeys leave you alone, but some are interested in your stuff. Sorry I couldn't take photos of the monkeys on me, but when a monkey jumps on your back and makes for your camera, it's kinda hard to get a photo. The woes of being your own photographer! Luckily, this little guy was more interested in my key, and I managed to snap a single shot before I had to get defensive about my camera again:

Okay, it actually gets kinda tiring to be defensive all the time, and I'm actually kinda worried a monkey's gonna make off my camera. But I love them so! But they're gonna get my camera. But... MONKEYS! So I stay another while, but then back to Ayuthaya. I gotta get to Bangkok tonight.

In Ayuthaya, I show Tony that I got his 3,5,7 game down (Nim misere, damnit!), and then teach him a new one: Chomp. Tony wasn't very good at Chomp initially, so I think he got a little frustrated. That's okay. I know his type, and he's probably looking at a rectangle of bottlecaps right now, trying to figure the game out. I like that thought. He's a really good guy. Bye bye Tony!

The train leaves for Bangkok in half an hour, and tomorrow, to India! One of my first posts was me worrying about the heat in Delhi when I get there. No kidding!

Alright, one last lemon shake, one last goodbye to Tony, and then I gotta make like a banana.

Much love from the quite bearable heat of SE Asia. As always.

the kingdom of cambodia

2008-05-16T05:06:00.000-07:00

Cambodia has awesome visa stickers. They're huge (take a full page of the passport) and say "KINGDOM OF CAMBODIA," which is ultra-cool.

Now I flew here from Luang Prabang, which was beautiful and the heat really wasn't so bad. What a world of difference. Siem Reap is hot and dusty and thoroughly unattractive. Here's the street my guesthouse is on, and this is considered a good location:

That's a good location because it's next to the downtown area, here:

Meh.

And yet, somehow, the guesthouse itself looks like a nice 1930's hotel, with 14 foot ceilings and dark stained wood.

Don't be fooled, of course. The rooms are certainly not up to international snuff: the bathroom door doesn't close, everything's peeling away from the walls, and anything that used to be white is now the color of an egg you'd find on the ground. But for $6 a night, I call it a steal.

As I'm sure you've figured out by now, I won't be staying here long. But hey, you don't come to Siem Reap for Siem Reap; you come for Angkor.

Angkor was the capital of the ancient Khmer empire, which was big in the 9th-13th centuries. Word is Thai invaders sacked Angkor in 1431 (after the empire had declined significantly), though I figure the Thais must've lost some later battles, since (1) Angkor is now in Cambodia, not Thailand, and (2) the name of the modern town from which I'm typing, Siem Reap, means "Thailand defeated."

How could you not be excited for Angkor? Like Luang Prabang, it's a former capital that's now endorsed by Unesco as a world heritage site. But in every way, it's more. Older. Bigger. I mean way older and way bigger. Back when London was a prepubescent town of 50,000, Angkor was the capital of one of the world's largest civilisations and home of 1,000,000 Khmers!

A cricket just landed on my keyboard. He's on F6 and F7. This is one of those outdoor internet cafes, see.

Anyway, I'm stoked for Angkor. Most folks rent a tuk-tuk for the day for $10-$12, but my room comes with a bicycle, and at 9am, I thought biking around Cambodia in the hot, dry season was a good idea. Well, I guess it was a good idea, but dude, this place is hot. And dusty. You actually see a fair number of locals wearing surgical masks.

On the bike, map in pocket, Angkor is just two turns, and then you go straight for about 4 miles. Easy peasy. It's a little scary to negotiate the roads here, since despite lots of traffic, there are no signs and very few traffic lights. Even then, a red light seems to be only a suggestion, which, of course, demotes green lights to suggestions. Very bad suggestions. Once you're going straight, though, it's not too POP! What was... oh, booooooooo tire! Given the state of the roads, I'm hardly surprised, but I could do without a flat tire.

Thankfully, one of the locals watching spoke enough English to point me to a place I could get it fixed, so I start walking the bike. I don't make it 100 meters before the guy is next to me on his motorbike. Thanks! So on the back I go, holding my busted bike out with my right hand so it rolls and hobbles and pops alongside. The repair shop is a guy with some "tools" in a wheelbarrow. Instead of tire levers, he uses broken rebar. Sandpaper? A branch. (These are standard things you use to patch a bike tire, which, except for the tools used, he did exactly the same way I would at home.) The repair ran me 2000 riels, which is 50 cents.

Okay, back on the road, to Angkor.

The moat around the Angkor Wat, the largest temple/area in the old city (kinda like the temple mount in Jerusalem), is impressively large. And yet, as the trees give way to the view, the temple seems comparatively so small!

Oh, wait, that's just the front gate...

Okay, here's the part of the blog I knew I'd come to and have been dreading a bit. I'm not really that into temples I don't know about. You're right, you're right, I should've done more than my day-before research. I know, shame on me. But whenever I started reading about Angkor, suddenly it was all Jayavarman this and bas relief that, and I fell asleep. C'mon though, be fair! To each his or her own, right? I'm into things, just not temples. Some people think you need at least 3 days to appreciate Angkor. I needed 5 hours, by bike.

So, what did I see in those 5 hours?

Ha! Yeah! You tell me what you were looking at? The glorious capital of a lost civilisation, or the MONKEYS! That's right! I saw MONKEYS!

Some other folks noticed them too, and there we were, staring at the monkeys who were staring at us who were staring at them. The tension mounted. Then the big leader monkey was all "whadder you lookin at?" and I was all, "you, monkey boy," and he was all "you wanna start something, you damned dirty ape!" and I was like "bring it!" and he went all hiy-ya! but I went hiy-ya too and we kung-fu'd all vicious-like for a while but it ended with him buying me ice cream and it was all water under the bridge.

Okay, so that was going on in my head when I took this picture:

I'd like you to notice the group on the left. Blow the photo up and check it out. What are they looking at? Also, that white dude is about my height.

But really, Angkor would've impressed even without monkeys. It had some great trees:

Haha! I'm so funny! (Seriously though, are those great trees or are those great trees?) This gate was awesome, and one of many:

I took a photo of that one in particular because the statues there still have their heads. Most of the stonies could've listened to the Red Queen a little better:

Sadly, these statues show* the once-rampant and still-existent black market for Khmer artifacts.

* - What word am I looking for here? They don't highlight it, they don't intimate it, exactly... ahh, this is killing me.

Ooh, a crab about the size of my hand (with fingers) just walked under my chair.

Back to Angkor. I don't know a bas-relief from a hole in the ground, but the sheer size of this thing was impressive:

And one of the real treats of getting around by bicycle was that...

Maybe I should explain first, the Angkor complex is quite big. The walls around Ankor Wat itself are about a half-mile a side, and all the other temples and sites are scattered haphazardly over miles and miles. (I biked the "little circuit," which is a 12 mile loop.) If I took a tuk-tuk, we would've zoom zoomed from site to site. But by bike, when you see something, anything, that you like, you can stop and investigate. So when I came across a little pond covered in the greenest moss, oh my! And guess who was swimming in the pond?

There was one temple that was ultra-cool, though. I mean, Angkor Wat was huge and all, but I just wasn't that into it. Ta Prohm is not nearly as complete or magnificent, and it doesn't have a moat. According to the info-sheet I picked up, that's why I loved it so much. Apparently the seeds of big trees can't cross moats (really? I'm super skeptical of this claim). But, for whatever reason...

WOW! The whole thing was just overrun by giant tree warlords. You wanna talk great trees? Let's talk great trees! Right out of Indiana Jones! What a treat!

So between monkeys and trees and temples (in that order...), Angkor was pretty fun.

A bug just tried to land on my face. Ew.

As I was saying, Angkor was pretty fun. But one day at Angkor and I don't feel I really need to go back and see all the temples. I promise I'm not so Reagan about everything - obviously one tree isn't enough for me! - but I'm kinda templed out. And Siem Reap certainly isn't bewitching on its own.

You know how I once said that the 7-11's in Thailand made me feel far from home?

Yikes. So I'm heading back to Thailand tomorrow morning, which means this is the only time I'll get to say it this trip:

Much love from KINGDOM OF CAMBODIA!

Much, much love. As always.

Luang Prabang

2008-05-13T18:36:00.000-07:00

Doesn't that photo belong in National Geographic? This whole town belongs in National Geographic.

I have a theory that former capitals are always gorgeous (you should see Kyoto!) and Luang Prabang is no exception. It's hard to say exactly when Luang Prabang was and wasn't the capital, since Laos has had such a particularly dynamic history. But when Laos was granted independence from the French in 1949, Sisavang Vong was "promoted" from King of Luang Prabang to King of Laos.

Okay, I'm obviously getting a little carried away with the history here (and learning as I switch between the Wikipedia page and the blog), but suffice it to say Luang Prabang has a former palace which is now a museum, and I visited. Photos are not allowed in the palace, but some highlights:

* The throne room isn't so large, and has painted red walls with inlaid semi-precious stone mosaics. It glittered.

* The throne itself is so small and understated! The chair you're sitting on right now? Probably "grander" than the throne of the King of Laos in 1960.

* They have kip notes from the seventies. One kip. Five kip. Etc. That doesn't sound too impressive, but it tells a sad economic history. Today, it's about 8000 kip to the dollar. My dinner last night was 27,000 kip. (It was delicious.)

* The king's bedroom is complete with gifts from dignitaries, portraits of former kings, a mosquito net.

* In the gifts-from-friendly-nations display, the US contribution cracked me up. From China, vases from the 8th century and gilt statues. From the States, a moon rock and a model of the Eagle lander. Hey Laos, how does Communism sound now, huh?

But you don't need to enter a museum to see the beauty and history of Luang Prabang. Not at all. I don't know how to put the town's aura into words, but the whole town is enchanted. Right out of a fairy tale. Look at this no-name street corner:

It's just beautiful! It seems like everything here agreed to be as beautiful as possible. Have you ever seen such a nice tree? They're everywhere. I must have 20 photos of great trees in my camera now:

The butterflies turn every stroll into a Disney film. Just bouquets of butterflies fluttering around every flower. And they're great butterflies. Distinct, bright, iridescent colors. Here's the one mediocre photo I have:

The whole place is enchanted.

So maybe that's why so many wats (temples) were built here. I mentioned earlier that you can't walk down the street without seeing a monk. Young monks, old monks, monks in groups, monks alone, monks on tuk-tuks... I even found a monk in a tree. Seriously. He was up in a tree with a bamboo pole knocking down fruits. (My camera was not with me, sorry.)

An aside: When I first landed in Australia, I was immensely jet-lagged. At 2am, I awoke and couldn't get back to sleep, so I wandered around. In a park, in the moonlight, I could barely make out some dog-sized animal munching on the grass. Couldn't believe my eyes. It moved a bit like a rabbit: not hopping quickly, but that awkward style of movement when your back feet are poles, and you have to luuump over them each time you take a wee step. Belly in the dewy grass, I scooted ever-closer to the bizarre animal, hiding in the shadows of the moonlight. To me, this was living out some Jules Verne adventure, or maybe the other-worldliness of Tolkein, foreign lands and mythical beasts.

Turns out the critter was a wallaby. If you've ever been to Australia, that's the equivalent of an Ozzie coming to America and silently stalking the rare and fantastical... squirrel. (And I'm not knocking wallabies -- you know how much I love squirrels!) Wallabies are everywhere in Australia. You honk to get them off the road.

That's kind of how Luang Prabang is with monks (minus the honking). At first, you think "woah, a monk! I can't believe this!" and you wish you had your camera. That thought goes away in about half an hour. It's not that you get bored of them, you just stop being so stunned. But they're still culturally and artistically wonderful. This photo is pretty nice, no?

At around 11pm, everything in Luang Prabang closes. It's a little surprising when you're sitting at a cafe having a beer with some fellow travelers, and, in mitten drinnen, everyone starts closing up shop. Why so early? Well, partly because Luang Prabang is just a sleepy little town, but partly because folks rise early for Tak Bat. What's Tak Bat? Well, I'm glad you asked...

Monks don't work in the same way you or I do (er, used to...). They aren't paid and they don't have money. So to eat, they walk around every morning around 6am, in huge lines, wearing bowls like purses. Buddhists line the streets, kneeling, and give alms of food (usually rice) to each passing monk. So all the monks and many of the townspeople are up at 5:30 to prepare for the alms-giving, known as Tak Bat.

Here are villagers awaiting the monks:

And well, see for yourself:

The line is endless, and it's morning and silent and beautiful. Really beautiful. I have tons more photos of it, but out of respect for the ritual, I kept a distance and turned off my flash. So, unfortunately, the photos are not so good. But hey, all the more reason to come and see it for yourself, no? And it's not just seeing Tak Bat, it's hearing Tak Bat. Silence. Just silence. Truly beautiful.

Wowza! I hate to do this, but I guess I lost track of the time, and I need to catch my flight to Siem Reap soon. I thought 5 weeks in SE Asia would be plenty, and now I'm running so low on time I have to fly across most of Laos and Cambodia to catch my flight in Bangkok on the 21st. And here I am, enjoying writing this and recounting the fun, and suddenly I find myself rushed! Such a microcosm. Very briefly:

I took a cooking class. It was alright, but generally unmemorable.

The waterfalls and national park about 40 minutes from Luang Prabang is worth a visit. This fella was doing some fun-to-watch dives.

The market is gorgeous and fun. Just to walk around and smell the smells and listen to the sounds of fish being weighed and people haggling. One guy parted the crowd, Moses-like, to lug a huge fish to his stall. The man was arching his back way back to heave the weight of the fish, hands wrist-deep in the its gills, his biceps straining, while the limp beast swung and smacked against his soaking wet apron and thighs and calves. The tail was touching the floor. The man's knees were bent outward, and he negotiated a strained waddle as each pendulum swing of the fish allowed him to lurch one awkward step forward. I really wish I had a video of the fish and the man and his zombie penguin gait, but I was one of three white people there, and I felt taking flash photos and video and the like would be obtrusive and ruin the scene, so I'll have to keep it in my head. But the cooked Mekong fishes were so good-looking I bought one (yes Dad, I ate fish! Aren't you happy?). So here's the one photo I have of the market:

The skin was delicious! And where the guts should be? Lemongrass!

While I was eating, a Japanese man pointed and me and said "White Obama!" and started laughing. Somehow, it's not the first time I've heard this.

The puppy and I are getting along swimmingly. I think he's adorable, and he likes nibbling on my sandals.

But most of the days I spend walking around the wats. They're just gorgeous. So here, to leave you on the right note:

Now I have to pack for Cambodia. My plane leaves in 3 hours. Sorry our romance was so short, dear Laos, but I'm young, and I'm not done traveling yet. Not by a long shot. A la prochaine, mon ami.

And bye bye to you, too. I love it here, but of course I miss my friends and family. You're all the best.

As always, much, much love.

bye bye Thailand. hello Laos!

2008-05-11T22:55:00.000-07:00

You know, when I planned this trip, I thought 5 weeks in SE Asia would be plenty. Actually, it seemed intimidatingly long. Now I feel rushed!

Chaing Mai was beautiful, cheap, and fun, and I met some cool travelers (Stephan, Jess, Karine, Gary, Emma, Matthieu, and James) and some cool locals (Pan, Bond, and Ton). So if a voice boomed from the Heavens and said, "Jake, you have to stay in Chaing Mai another week," I'd be happy as a clam. But 5 weeks is 5 weeks, so I'm gonna keep on keeping on.

You know, it's the same conundrum you have when you're diving. In the Perhentians, on a dive off Palau Redang, we found a turtle that just didn't care we were there. I mean like 2 feet away, and it'd just look at you and keep munching its grasses. How cool! You have one hour of air. How long do you stay looking at the turtle? When do you decide to continue exploring?

You know, it's the same conundrum you have all your life.

Of course, feeling like you want to spend more time in a place is the best way to feel, n'est-ce pas? So no complaints here.

I stayed in Chaing Mai for Pan's birthday (how old is she? 12? 24? 40? I can never tell with Thais), and then caught an overnight bus to Chaing Khong, a tiny crossing point on the Thai/Laos border. I took a bunch of photos of this gate. It's just super cool:

Through the gate, you cross the Mekong on a little skiff and voila, you're in Laos. The Laos border is guarded by a military guy sitting under a parasol armed with a whistle. The whistle was, I admit, a big, official-looking thing. I didn't try any funny stuff. (In England, I remember a copy of the Magna Carta that was guarded by an old lady with a whistle. Can whistles do something I don't know about?) From Huay Xai, the Lao version of Chaing Khong, there's a dock lined with long wooden beautiful boats:

The boats were so beautiful I opted to take a 2-day ride down the Mekong. You know what else is beautiful? Laos:

And this next photo is half to show you the boat, and half because the girl taking a photo here is unbelievably beautiful. I don't mean that in an obnoxious barstool way, I mean really beautiful. Jet black hair with sapphire blue eyes. Her boyfriend is stocky and wears a fanny pack. They're both really nice.

As you can likely tell, the boat carries mostly tourists. Some locals used it to get from village to village, and the boat must've been carrying a few dozen bags of rice in the hold, since we'd periodically stop and deliver rice to a village here or there. The rice bags were white and labeled WFP. When we'd stop, the villagers would come out to the sand and stare at us just like we were staring at them:

Outside of the villages, you just had uninterrupted views right out of National Geographic. Unbelievable green. Trees like you wouldn't believe. And every now and again, you'd see fishermen (or fisherkids) out on their longboats or casting their nets:

We get to Pak Beng where we'll stop for the night, and Pak Beng is, again, this sleepy little fishing village on the lushest mountainside. Here's the view of the Mekong from the veranda where I ate:

The next morning, back on the boat for another 7 hour steam. Destination: Luang Prabang.

If the seats weren't so darn wooden, I could've stayed on that boat forever. But after another 7 picturesque hours, we arrived at Luang Prabang. It's quiet here, and despite being a well-known attraction and a Unesco world heritage site, the whole place seems empty and sleepy. I felt like I went back in time as I was wandered around looking for a place to stay. I'll write more on Luang Prabang in the next entry -- I've only been here one day so far -- but let me just say it's unbelievable. Wat's everywhere, you can't turn your head without seeing monks, and the architecture is enough to make me, an architectural ignoramus, enchanted. Those Unesco people got this place right.

(Usually Unesco says something like "The Red Square, Moscow" or "The Pyramids of Giza, Cairo," but for here, it's simply "The Town of Luang Prabang." Every street corner is a treat. It really is.)

After that extended parenthetical, I oughta give you a one photo teaser, just to show a little of the anachronism that is Luang Prabang:

The guesthouse I'm staying at isn't that wildly different from most. The prices are pretty standard ($8 a night for shared bathroom), and the places are all sorta roughly the same. But this one had SUCH A CUTE PUPPY!

AWWwwww, I wuv you!

You know how I said there are monks everywhere here? One of three in this internet cafe right now:

Okay, I'm off to lunch! Bye bye from Laos!

chaing mai

2008-05-08T23:21:00.001-07:00

Okay, let's do it in this order: quotes, quotidian, quazy night.

QUOTES

I had NO IDEA how many people were reading this blog! Cool! It's like I'm traveling with friends from everywhere; I love it! I know that was a lot of exclamation points, but those were all exclamations! You guys rock!

So some folks emailed me (sorta in response to the note in my last entry), and there were just some killer quotes. Here:

- "..."
(from Olafur Halldorsson. Okay, not a quote per se, but what a name! He's Icelandic.)

- Reading [your blog] reminds me of my first experiences with the third world, in the late fifties [...] I was happy to hear that the fish in the Erawan National Park are still nibbling – 20 years after they nibbled on me!
(from Tilmann, a German super-traveler friend)

- Not to totally embarass you, but I've featured you in this week's diver email (in between the paragraphs about a lost Speedo, and the giant squid). Aren't you proud?
(from Betty Goldberg, head of volunteer services at Shedd, and all-around sweetie-pie. And to answer, YES!)

- as the "hill tribe guys" were walking in water buffalo poop, ignoring mosquitos the size of a buick and sleeping on rotting mats, did they say "you made the right choice, i couldn't stand to live in New Haven"
(from Dad, who will never stop teasing me about choosing U Washington...)

And of course, thanks to everyone who emailed me, commented, all that good good stuff. Okay, on to...

QUOTIDIAN

The past couple days I've just been walking around Chaing Mai and chatting with what appears to be all of France, because for reasons unknown I've met about 20 French people in the past 2 days (et je pue practique mon Francais... et je sais, mon eppelation est horrible). And of course going on a trek and staying with hill tribes is foreign, but so is going into a 7-11 or getting a haircut. The big things make the blog, but really it's the little things make each day here an experience. So I thought I'd share a couple little things.

Here's an intersection near my midget guesthouse in Chaing Mai:

Here's the post office:

I went to mail a package home, and it's really neat. You take a number and wait, and there's an area for packing things and an area for gluing things. Really. Thais don't lick things - licking is what animals do - so there's a little station with glue sticks for stamps and envelopes. After I bought a box for my stuff (20 baht) and had them wrap and seal the box (8 baht), I waited until my number was called. 3.3kg package, to America. The clerk speaks some English.
"Air mail. 2 days."
"How much?"
Given that my room is 150 baht a night, and this internet cafe is 10 baht an hour, I damn near fell over when he showed me the number on the screen. 2450?!
"!! Uh, cheaper way?"
"Economy. 3 week. 1600 baht."
"... cheaper?"
He smiles. "MOST cheap. Boat. 3 months. 970 baht."
Looks like my package is going to get its sea legs. I might beat it home.

The haircut I just got was pretty normal, but a few small differences. Before they start, the put talcum powder (or something like that) in your hair, shaving is done with a straight razor, and afterwards they wipe your head and face down with a moist, perfumed towel. Ooh la la! And now I look smashing:

Hint: Internet cafes with only white people are usually slow as molasses. Look for Thai kids gaming.

When you eat at a restaurant, servers do not come to you unless you somehow signal them over. At first you think the servers are terribly inattentive, but once you get used to it, it's really tops. You're never rushed. Take your time, subai subai. Done with your food but want to stay and chat or write or whatever? Nobody pesters you with a bill or pushes dessert. Tops.

Something about this bookshop made me want to take a photo. It smelled like paper from the sidewalk:

You can't go an hour without seeing a monk, and Fanta's really big here.

QUAZY NIGHT

After the post office, I was walking around Chaing Mai and looking at all the 500-700 year old wats (temples) when a 53-year-old tuk tuk driver stops to give me some dubious information on the wat I was looking at. It's starting to thunder, and I'm a 25-minute walk from Panda. The driver says he'll take me for free if I visit his sister's tailor shop. I know what's going on, but let's do it.

His "sister" is an Indian man, and it's kinda neat to see how these folks try to corral farang (Westerners) like me. How much is a suit? $300. An overcoat? $300. A vest? $200. So the "starting" prices are all the same for everything, basically. $300 is a king's ransom in Thailand, so obviously the price would come down a lot if I bargained, but I wasn't going to start and give them the wrong impression. So I stay for 10 minutes, the driver gets his commission, and then pleasantly takes me back to Panda. No charge. Easy peasy.

At Panda, Bond (trek guide) and Stephan (other 3-dayer) are drinking and chatting, and even though we've just spent 3 solid days together, they're both really cool. Let's go out!

Stephan and I get on the back of Bond's motorcycle (sorry Mom), and zoom zoom to a sidewalk "restaurant" that is cheap and delicious. Aloy mak mak khrap! Tell the truth, all the food here is good.

Anyway, after dinner we zoom zoom to a hippy Thai bar with black lights everywhere and cushions on the floor and a DJ. Take off your shoes before you enter, of course. At the table next to us is a Thai dude doing magic for three white girls. He wasn't great, but even so, it's still really distracting. Seriously, you can't help but watch. The bar has a killer view, though. It's on a rooftop right by the moat and overlooking the old city walls. Just gorgeous. I'm not sure if Stephan totally got the idea of "buying rounds," 'cause after I bought the first round, when I went up to get a second beer, he stalks behind me ninja-like and pays for me (50 baht / bottle of Chang). Very sweet, no doubt, but dude, you don't have to keep track like that. Anyway, want to go to a bar called Bananas? Um, yes.

Bananas is awesome. Sand floor, area for a live band (later in the night), and a free pool table. The cue ball was cratered like the moon, and the table was so bumped and grooved that the balls didn't roll so much as drunkenly stagger their way across the felt, but I guess that's appropriate for a bar. There are 8-year-old kids there hawking flower necklaces for 10 baht, and I bought a couple and gave 'em to the barkeep girls, and shot some pool with the flower-selling kids. One of the barkeeps starts giving me drinks, and I ran into a couple other white folks. Justin is a broad-shouldered 6'5" Canuck (in Thailand, either Canucks outnumber Americans like 20 to 1, or nobody admits to being American). I wish I had a photo of him waiting at the bar for a drink; just head and shoulders above all the Thais. Really nice guy. And Matthieu is a Frenchman (of course) who speaks perfect English has been living in Chaing Mai for 4 months now. Great time.

The band comes on and plays a solid selection, including "Zombie" by the Cranberries. Lots of Red Hot Chili Peppers, whom I like a lot, but they mangle all the words, which is hysterical. Drums may fly in the beast at least it's sayseh in a feely location...

Um, I don't think I can describe this next part any better than I did in my wee journal (and it happens to be exactly one page) so:

Stephan and Bond checked out a while ago, and at the end it's just Gary and I and one of the barkeeps. I'm not totally sure (read: no idea) how to get back to Panda, so I just start walking. It's 2am, and I'm a little drunk, very alone, and totally lost in Chaing Mai.

Some stranger on a motorcycle who speaks no English passes me, slows to a stop, and points at the back of his motorcycle. I show him my empty pocket, "no baht." He shrugs and points again, so on I go (sorry Mom). Maybe 5 minutes on this stranger's bike, and in one of those clouds parting and beams of light shining down on Excalibur moments, I suddenly see Panda guesthouse, this tiny little sign on the intersection of two tiny streets. "PANDA!" The guy slows to a stop and I get off. Kap khum khrap (thank you). He bows and vroom vroom!, disappears into the night.

Don't you love it when things just work out like that?

the thing about my camera is...

2008-05-07T05:05:00.000-07:00

Wait wait, before I even start, a little note. I started up this blog almost entirely for myself. It would be a way to relive some of these experiences after I got home: like a beefed-up version of the travel journal I keep. I knew my folks would follow along, but if your last name isn't Cooper and you're reading this right now, I'm honestly, genuinely flattered. The comments and emails fire me up, and while I'm having a good time, there are definitely times where you're bored or lonely or uncomfortable and maybe you walk into a 7-11 just to be a little more in your comfort zone*, and it's really nice to hear from my friends at home. So thanks for your comments and emails and generally keeping up with the travels. I really mean that. Thanks.

* - Big failure. Foreign baked goods next to individually packed 3"x5" floppy disks? I am very far away.

Aaaaannyway...

Last I checked in, I was in Kanchanaburi, no? Oh, right, elephant rescue. (No Mom, "hephalump" is not Thai for elephant. It's from Winnie-the-Pooh.) Well, from the elephant rescue I spent another day in Kan, and then booked an overnight bus up to Chaing Mai. You know how on buses you always hope you're next to cute chick? I was next to sleepy dude. Sleepy leany dude.

I should mention, until that bus trip, I was traveling like a Thai. Public buses, standard, 3rd class trains, etc. "A" for authenticity, but if you want to meet other tourists, it's not the way to go. You're right Jake, that little spiel was totally unnecessary to the story, so erasing it's the right thing to do. Confused, Dear Reader? That's 'cause you only get to see a snapshot of right now as you're reading, and you have to piece together the evolutionary history of this paragraph. And you can!, because of this bizarre vestige. Vestiges are the key to unraveling evolution histories! And now you know.

So, I'm weird and like evolution. But you knew that.

Okay, back to the real story. The Panda House guesthouse is 2 days old and I'm room 105's first tenant. For $5 a night, I was not expecting hot water! It's the first hot water shower I've had since I left the States. Okay, so maybe it's not the Drake, but there's certainly nothing to complain about...

IF YOU'RE A MIDGET!

But hot water makes up for the Willy-Wonka proportions. The lady who runs the place is so sweet and a couple of her brothers are trek guides, so let's book a trek through her. 3 days, 2 nights in the jungles north of Chaing Mai, so just a couple hours from the northern border. But that leaves tomorrow morning, and I have a day here.

Chaing Mai is beautiful and full of neat history. The Sunday market is fun to poke around (bought some pants for myself and my bro), and you eat street food while poking through random stuff for sale and listen to the elderly band playing very nice music and collecting money for the Chaing Mai Center for Old People (word for word) and you're sandwiched between the old city walls and the moat just outside the city walls. 700 years ago it kept Burmese invaders at bay.

I think I like this Chaing Mai place. Maybe I'll stay a bit after the trek. But now, the trek.

Since there are only two of us on the 3-day, we join up with some 2-dayers for the first day, and after the first night, we'll go our separate ways. The first day of hiking is tough, 25% because of the terrain, and 75% because Lee was told his 6-year-old son would be able to do this trip (real jerk of a travel agent, huh), so Stephan and Ammanuel (yes, with an A) and I took turns carrying the poor child. Bamboo forests are way more pretty than this photo makes it look:

Once you get a bit up in elevation, the temp drops maybe 5 degrees (thank Buddha!), and the views become terrific, which again, this photo doesn't convey well:

The first night, we split into 2 and 3-dayers. The 3-dayers, who will be getting up earlier and going a different route, are:

Me, your humble narrator. (10 points if you get the reference...)

Bond, the guide. Definitely a cool dude. Nickname is James Bond because we tourists can't pronounce his real name (though if you see him with his machete and camo pack chopping through the bamboo, he's clearly Rambo). He's from the Aka hill tribe, and lives as a trek guide now. He's 26, and has been speaking English since he was 25 (hey, his native tongue is a hill tribe language, so Thai was already an effort). Speaks English pretty well considering, but sometimes I have to just laugh like I understand.

Stephan, the Frenchman. Really cool guy. I mean really cool. I hope I'm in that kind of shape when I'm 35. After I post this entry, I'm gonna grab a bite and head to a bar with Stephan. Just got a cool, open view on life. He went on the same trek just a week ago, and liked it so much he's doing another. We were at a cave and he said last time he saw a monkey here. Cool! We saw a bunch of bats, but no monkey. That night, he was so happy to have seen the same monkey again.
"Wait, Stephan, you saw a monkey today?!"
"(heavy French accent) Did you not?"
"Dude, you gotta point that stuff out to me!"
"(accent) I am sorry, truly. You did not see him? He was sweeping."
"Oh. You mean monk."
"Ah, oui."

Here, on the left is Stephan, my guide is shirtless, and on the right is one of the Red Lahu hill tribe people.

Now, sorry to break it to you, but that's the last photo I have of the trek. See, my camera battery indicator has 3 bars. Here's what it should indicate:

3 bars - 60-100%
2 bars - 20-60%
1 bar - 5-20%
0 bars and flashing - 0-5%

But here's what it does indicate:

3 bars - 80-100%
2 bars - 2-80%
1 bar - you have about 5 photos left
0 bars and flashing - there is no 0 bars and flashing

So nightfall of the first day was my last photo. I shouldn't really blame the camera - I forgot my spare battery - but I wanted to rant about that stupid bar system. Man is it annoying.

Without photos, the story's not nearly as fun for you to read (and for me to write!), so, just two highlights.

The Waterfall.

This waterfall is two-tiered, one drop right after the other. The first drop is maybe 7 feet, and the second is 15-18'. Now, the first drop somehow has a damn-near perfect waterslide part. It's kinda fun in theory, but 7' is really short. If only there were something fun with the 15-18' drop... Bond says the base of the second drop, maybe 7 feet wide of river, is deep enough that you can jump. What? This isn't a very big river: no way, right? And to answer, Bond jumps. Oh wow. Oh wowza. I make the decision that I'm not leaving this waterfall without jumping. Now, Dear Reader, a little aside.

When I had to take swimming in camp, the lowest level was low 1, and up to high 4, then you went to diving (low and high 5). I never went past high 4. It's not that I wasn't a strong enough swimmer - not at all - but jumping head-first into water? No thank you. So I swore off diving. The point is, I don't have a lot of experience jumping into water. To this day I've never dived into water head-first.

Looking down from the rock edge was too intimidating; I'd never jump like that. So I decided if I started running towards the edge (not that intimidating), by the time I actually came to the edge, I'd have no choice. Bond outlines where it's safe to jump, and I take about 10 big steps back. Damnit, I really wish I had a photo! Stephan took a photo for me, and he'll email it to me eventually, but it really should go here. Not exactly Greg Louganis, and I'm probably making it out to be a bigger deal than it really was (I mean really, 18' max...), but for me, mark it as a Big Deal. (The 2nd and 3rd and 4th times were a lot easier).

And on to highlight number two...

The Opium Den.

You know, I suddenly realize I don't know how much of this I oughtta post online (though of course I didn't partake - I've never even had a cigarette), and I want to get a nosh anyway, but here's a nice line from my journal, verbatim:

"... in an opium den, and I'm the guy drinking tea. They're cleaning a pipe, I'm heating H2O. Hello college!"

Alright, I'm out. That thing I wrote in the beginning? Just wanted to mention that again. I mean it. Thanks.

mefaslumps! jebbarumps! HEPHALUMPS!

2008-05-02T00:15:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of a hephalump.

I should back up a bit. I LOVE YOU!

Tell the truth, hephalumps and friends was a medium-bad time, punctuated with really wonderful moments. When I got to the camp, first thing's first. It's BEAUTIFUL! Like, insane beautiful. Verdant mountains on the left

River Kwai on the right:

Couldn't be more picturesque. Note, I say PICTUREsque, not all-around-awesome-esque, because it was hot and sweaty like crazy, and there were bugs like you wouldn't believe. God forbid you had to use the bathroom at dusk:

Day 1, I arrive and meet the 5 other Westerners who also just got there. Immediately, we're off in the truck to grab mangoes and banana trees (not bananas... banana trees) for the hephalumps. Red ants bite (and how!) and banana trees stain (I don't know either), so I have to don pink fisherman pants and a stained button-down plaid shirt, and it's hot. But at least I'm looking good.

The mangoes we just grabbed from under a bunch of mango trees. Some fell while we were there, and they were delicious! So juicy! And since my bag was still in the car, I didn't have to break my rule of never eating mangoes without having floss handy. Not very outdoorsy, I know, but that stuff gets in your teeth hard.

Now, wonderful moment #1. We're foraging for mangoes in stagnant hot air, and so suddenly, a cold wind comes roaring like the Word of God, and everyone just stops and looks around. What on Earth is this? It felt biblical, I swear. Just roaring cold wind. And then, after the longest 20 seconds, pouring rain. (Somewhere, a bull was just roasted.)

Elephants love mangoes. And banana trees, too. But they go ga-ga for mangoes. They take them from you with their trunks so gently! I have a video, but stupid computers are way too slow for that. Ah well.

While hacking at the banana trees, Phot found 5 teeny tiny baby squirrels that are now homeless. Oh jeez. Makes you think about the whole "elephant rescue" idea, it really does. They were so little they hadn't even opened their eyes!

Wonderful moment #2. I took to caring for them and got them to drink milk. As of this morning, all five were still alive, and two had opened their eyes!

The day before I got there, Kate had found two baby birds, which she was trying to raise. They ate termites voraciously the first day, so things were looking good.

The second day was a bit of a disaster. The camp is run by Phot, who lives there with his mom, sister, 3-year-old daughter, 15-day-old neice, and a ~14-year-old boy whose relationship we couldn't figure out. We called him "lady-boy" because he was effeminate and wore pink nail polish. Only Phot spoke any English. Maybe I should've explained this at the beginning.

The camp is rustic like you wouldn't believe. No power, and the generator only has maybe a half-hour of fuel in it. There's no running water, of course. The only way to shower is to bathe in the Kwai, in a muddy section where the elephants shit. You can drink the water we shower in at home.

Well, two of the five Westerners left, and Phot went fishing with his friend in the river. Suddenly, his mom is screaming and everyone's flipping out, and Phot is unconscious. With him out, the Thai-English barrier is impenetrable, and suddenly the whole family loads into the truck and leaves. Dennis & Babette, a dutch couple, are as bewildered as I. It's maybe 11am. We're alone with 3 elephants in the forests of Thailand.

Here's what we learn happened. Phot fishes by connecting wires to the generator (which they turn on when they have petrol, which is a liter-to-liter kinda thing), and ZAP! Not the safest, but hey, that's par for the course here. As I'm sure you figured out two sentences ago, Phot fell in the water and zapped the hell out of himself. The family went to the hospital. Dennis, Babette, and I are marooned.

During the day, we lounge and chat and are generally okay, if hot and bored and uncertain. The chipmunks eat, but the birds look really weak. As soon as you see they no longer eat with the gusto they did last night, you know it's bad news. One no longer moves by mid-afternoon, and by nightfall, both birds have joined the choir invisible. They're so small. Alev hashalom.

No sign of the family. Feeling very alone. Babette is getting upset, and Dennis and I are kinda faking confidence to assuage her. We pull some warm beers from the "kitchen," and light about two dozen candles. I never travel without snacks, so we all had some candy bars. Long day. On the plus side, I found a frog.

Around 9pm, the family returns, and everything is sorta okay. Phot sleeps all night, and only wakes to groggily drive Dennis and Babette back to Kanchanaburi in the morning. I slept through this. When I wake, Phot is back asleep, and it's just Mom and lady-boy and myself. They don't speak English, and I don't speak Thai, so it's a lonely day.

Phot wakes enough to tell me the elephants need to drink, and that I should go with lady-boy and bring them to the river. He obviously tells lady-boy the same thing. So we moped up to the forest, and suddenly it's my job to help this 14-year-old Thai lady-boy lead three elephants to the river. I am the very model of confidence:

Lady-boy yells some command, and one of the elephants kneels. He points at me, so up I go. Imagine my reaction when lady-boy refuses to get on an elephant himself! What the heck am I doing? And now, the last straw that pushes the situation from dismay to comedy, lady-boy walks over to the moped, gets on the moped, and leaves.

Lead the elephants to water? I am about 1/150th the mass of these three animals, I am one person, I don't speak elephant, and I don't know where the river even is! What can I possibly do? Hope the elephants know where they're going, because I'm clearly on for the ride. This is terrific.

The hephalumps are evidently thirsty, 'cause they start on their own (in what I can only hope is the direction of the river). Suddenly I find this whole situation very funny, and my mood goes through the roof. I managed to snap a shot of this bizarre scene, though we'll have to photoshop my expression later, obviously:

Apparently the hephalumps do know where they're going, 'cause after 12-15 minutes or so, the river is in sight, and the elephants go into double-time. Lady-boy shows up at about the same time as we do, and thankfully my camera has survived the fall from the elephant: (camera on me + me on elephant + elephant going in river = I just threw the camera on the bank, from about 12 feet up.)

So, that success was wonderful moment #3.

Wonderful moment #4 was a bit different. When night fell the previous two nights, it was cloudy and hot and bugs like crazy. The third night, like cosmic compensation for the day's misadventures, was cool and calm, with only a few whispy clouds, and it was totally bugless. I slept out on the hammock, underneath a million stars. Stars like you wouldn't believe. It was really beautiful.

The fireflies here are green.

kanchanaburi my heart

2008-04-28T04:23:00.000-07:00

Oh, is that title a winner.

So Khoa San road in Bangkok was a perfect break from traveling. It's a bit like Navy Pier in Chicago: touristy, totally unauthentic, and relatively expensive. Like the street vendors' pad thai was $0.90. Highway robbery, right?

Khoa San is unquestionably convenient for a westerner, but it's not very Thai, you know? One day was plenty. Off to the train station: to Kanchanaburi! Why Kanchanaburi? Because I'm making my way to a hephalump rescue, and Kanchanaburi is the closest town. And I kinda like riding the rails. You really get to see a country from a train. Some beautiful sights:

A wat (wats are a dime a dozen in Thailand, like squirrels or something; I just happened to snap a decent shot of this one)

A public park

River life

So I get to Kanchanaburi, and have several options for guesthouses (read: hostels). One is called the Jolly Frog. Now, I'm the BULLFROG, and this is the Jolly Frog, so, I mean, obviously, it's got my name all over it. A single room is $2.50 a night. But, wait, what's that? Down the list at $5 a night was a "rafthouse." Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod. I love water THIIIIIIIIIIS much, and... [checks pocket]... I can afford $5 a night. Here's the view from my aquadigs:

WOWZER! My pad floats on the Kwai River in western Thailand. River Kwai? Like Bridge on the River Kwai? One and the same. The bridge, built by British POWs during WWII and made famous by the '57 film, is about a half mile upriver.

Kanchanaburi is dripping with WWII history, so I rented a bike ($1 per day) and pedaled to all the tiny memorials, museums, and sights. I got lots of stares and smiles and toots on the way; Thai adults aren't that tall in the first place, and this was a kids' bike. The POW cemetary is truly moving, it's simple, small, sincere, and kept immaculately clean. It's the cleanest place I've seen in Thailand.

And parts of the Death Railway are still in use. Here's a pass (that's the Kwai river on the right, obviously). The inner rails are the originals laid down by slave workers and POWs, at Japan's one meter gauge. The outer rails are the new ones. (The train only comes three times a day, so I wasn't in much danger).

After a long day of history, I think I earned myself a coconut shake (30 cents) and my first ever professional massage ($4 for an hour). Had such a good time that first day I decided to call Phot, who runs Hephalumps & Friends, and told him I'm going to spend another day and a half here.

Took a trip up to Erawan National Park, which was beautiful! (Until it rained for hours and then the water was all brown and muddy, but shhhhh...)

I don't know if the fish are hungry or territorial, but they like to nip.

Super secret lizard trick. At dusk, turn on an outside light, like the bathroom light (um, that's an outside light when you're paying $5 a night). Wait 20 minutes. See, little bugs are attracted to light, and lizards are attracted to little bugs. I got at least 6 lizards last night:

Um, what else?

Some of Kanchanaburi's WWII sights are on the tour bus trail. I don't really need to take pictures of the famous bridge on the River Kwai (wanna see it? the internet has more photos than I can take). But I do like taking pictures of people taking pictures.

Maybe one day I'll be at such a tourist attraction that I can take pictures of people taking pictures of people taking pictures. Or if someone were taking a picture of me taking pictures... that might get recursive.

Anyway, tonight I'm meeting this German couple for dinner, then I'll probably sneak in another massage and coconut shake. Tomorrow morning, Phot's picking me up and we'll be on our way to his hephalump rescue. They have no internet (or power, for that matter), so I'm signing off for a little while.

Much love, as always.